Winnie, The Breastfeeding Expert

Yup. That’s what I’ve been doing, hunched over in front of my PC in the office. Writing a guide on breastfeeding. Anyone who’s known me for even close to 7 seconds will respond with: “You? Write a guide? On breastfeeding?!!” I might as well have announced that I’ve been writing a book on gorilla-scalping.

“What do you know about breastfeeding?” they ask incredulously.

Well, the closest I’ve ever gotten to developing anything even remotely resembling maternal instincts is touching the dog-eared tip of an Anne Geddes photo (in the process of tossing it into the dustbin). I am not married, have no kids and I am physically incapable of making cooing noises or performing any of those infantile antics adults usually perform to entertain babies. So I guess the answer to that question is obvious: nothing.

But after a couple of months on the project, I’d like to share 7 things I have learned:

1. Breast milk is best for baby.

2. Contrary to popular belief, breastfeeding does not make your boobs sag. It’s them blasted childbirth and gravity that turn your boobs into hanging tubes of flesh (yes, and this is supposed to make women feel better how?). I’m not entirely convinced about this but my boss and/or some doctors on the editorial panel may be reading this, so this is purely self-preservation.

3. Breastfeeding’s like really fulfilling and makes you feel like super-mom and all that.

4. You’ve gotta breastfeed the baby a zillion times a day and another zillion times in the dead of the night.

5. You can’t yell at your husband or call him a good-for-nothing #@%@@#!! while you’re breastfeeding the baby because this will disrupt the bonding process. You should also not be watching anything disturbing like horror movies, porn or any Mariah Carey music video while breastfeeding.

6. If you breastfeed right, your baby’s poop should be mustard-yellow in colour with tiny little seed-like things in them. It may be watery and look like diarrhea but rest assured, it's not. Well, not unless he’s pooping 24/7 and stinking up the house, in which case you should bring him to your friendly neighbourhood paed.

7. You may or may not know this but babies bite. Hard.

Great Truths About Death & Money

1. I have all the money I need … if I die by 4 o’clock today. (Henry Youngman)

2. You can’t have everything. Where would you put it? (Steven Wright)

3. Money was invented so we’d know how much we owe. (Anon.)

4. I intend to live forever. So far, so good. (Steven Wright)

5. I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying. (Woody Allen)

6. Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons. (Woody Allen)

7. What’s the use of happiness? It can’t buy you money! (Henry Youngman)

8. To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering, one must not love. But then, one suffers from not loving. Therefore, to love is to suffer; to not love is to suffer. To be happy is to love. To be happy then, is to suffer, but suffering makes one unhappy. Therefore, to be happy, one must love or love to suffer or suffer from too much happiness. (Woody Allen)

Give Me Skinny or Give Me Death

I am a lousy conformist, that’s what I am. Despite my self-righteous diatribes about standing up for my principles and being the unwavering Rock of Gibraltar when it comes to staying put in the face of popular opinion, I confess that I’m secretly feeble-minded.

Exhibit A: I can rant for hours about how skinniness does not equate beauty but at the same time, I fret whenever I feel the waistband of my jeans cut into a lump of flesh that seemed to have developed overnight. A slight bulge is enough to send me into a wild tailspin. My mind is instantly deluged with desperate schemes to lose the excess flab – from eating a raisin a day to working the treadmill for two hours a day until I lose the weight or drop dead (whichever decides to come first).

I’m ashamed. I’m ashamed because I feel happy when people come up to me and say, “Oh my god. You’ve lost weight!” I nonchalantly reply, “No lah, it’s just that I look thinner in the dark with these strobe lights.”

I’m ashamed to admit that it thrills me to hear, “Aiya, where got fat? You’re so blardey skinny!” Of course, no one can accuse me of being a stick insect but this thrills me none the less.

Or the common, “Fine. You show me exactly where your flab is. Show me!”, after which I proceed to pinch about a bucket of lard from the folds of my stomach. They then go, “Aiya, that’s what you call flab? I’ll show you what real flab is!”

I don’t think you want to know how the rest of the story goes (not unless you’re bulimic and wretching is something you enjoy). Besides, this is irrevelant to my point.

My point is, I’m weak. I cave into the opinion of the masses. I may proclaim that beauty lies within, that physical beauty fades but true beauty lasts forever and all that jazz, but I have left out the fine print: beauty lies within... for other people; physical beauty fades but true beauty lasts forever... for other people. Not for me.

Give me long, slim legs and silky long hair and flawless skin and a knockout figure. Give me a brilliant white smile, sparkling eyes and a 24-inch waist. Give me a swanlike neck, delicate ankles and a behind that can stop traffic.

Of course, charisma, intelligence and confidence are important. I’m not denying that. I want those things too. I work hard at those things. But losing a few points of my IQ will never be as enormous a catastrophe as, say, newly discovered orange peel on my butt.

So because I’m weak, I shall continue going to the gym in hopes that I will one day be the proud owner of a body that resembles Halle Berry’s. Because I’m not strong enough to tell the world to “Put a sock in it! A little pudge never hurt anyone!!”, I’ll continue to stand sideways in front of the mirror and spin into a panic at every little bit of protruding flesh. Because I’m weak, I will resist the mad urge to devour that last piece of chocolate mud pie. Because I don’t have the guts to go through life with excess weight and not give a rat’s arse what people think.

7 Reasons Why Workaholism Is Good For You

Being a workaholic has its advantages.

Always appearing to be busy, you are therefore seen as contributing greatly to something (even if it's contributing in some way to the aesthetic value of dog food packaging). You have the luxury of burying your soul, the very essence of your being, under loads and loads of ... that's right: work.

Reason #1: You have an instant, ready-made excuse for anything unpleasant that might crop up. "Congratulations on winning the first prize at the International Parakeet Talent Convention. I wish I could make it to the ceremony but I've got a mountain of paperwork to wade through, man." Now, this lame excuse would only work if you were known to be a workaholic. It would never work if your friend knew that you sped home at five sharp every evening to watch reruns of Mork and Mindy.

The same applies to concocting an alibi for a heinous crime like say, murder, for example. "I was in the office writing a contact report at precisely the same time Mrs Pang was being sliced into giant-sized cubes and turned into carrot soup." Again, this would only be plausible if you were known to be an obsessive, compulsive workaholic.

Reason #2: Workaholism gives you an identity. It allows you to identify with workaholics all over the world - it's not all that different from alcoholics, druggies, sexaholics and a whole other bunch of holics. When you have such an identity, it carves you your very own space in this mixed-up world. In a world where war, famine and misery are rife, you can push everything aside, stand up tall and proud and declare, "I work, goddammit!!!"

Reason #3: You will never be lost ... mostly because you're always in the office.

Reason #4: You will never wonder what your purpose in life is ... because it is to write insanely long emails and draft out boring quotations.

Reason #5: You will always know who the most important people in your life are ... aiya, they're the ones who dole out your paycheck la.

Reason #6: There will always be consistency. Whenever life spins out of control or goes out of its way to bite you in the ass, you can languish in the knowledge that no matter what happens, work will always suck. You can count on it to always suck. It will rarely get better or worse (hey, when you're scraping the bottom of the barrel, you know it's pretty much a done deal).

Reason #7: Workaholism doesn't discriminate! Anyone can be a workaholic. Unlike snooty country clubs, it doesn't matter how much money you make, how expensive your set of golf clubs is or how many BMWs you own. It doesn't matter what race, age or gender you are. Workaholism does not discriminate. All you need to earn your way in is the ability to stare at the computer for 12 straight hours without blinking and have an all-consuming (and therefore, unnatural) fervent passion for pie charts.

There. I have made my case for workaholism. Now all that's left for me to do is to actually become a workaholic. So far, I fear that success has eluded me - especially since I just spent the last fifteen minutes blubbering about the virtues of workaholism instead of doing any real ... you know ... work.

My Love Affair With Monsieur Gym

In my oblong leather purse sits my gym membership card. It’s a symbol of my commitment. It represents determination, discipline, motivation, rebirth, a reincarnation of the mind, body, soul, spirit…

…Oh, stop waxing lyrical and let’s be Frank here (we can be Lucy tomorrow – hahaha!).

My gym card is just a piece of plastic that simply means that money is taken out of my bank account every month so that I can crawl through the jam at 6.30 every morning, pay two bucks for parking, sweat my butt off on a machine, stretch my body until my flesh split, shower in a locker room with a gaggle of middle-aged housewives exchanging siew pau recipes and fight with other wet-haired girls for the hairdryer.

Vanity, vanity… all is vanity.

This love affair of mine is not unique. It’s triggered by the shocking revelation that:

a) my metabolism has, for some bizarre reason unknown to man, plummeted to new depths. Depths that I never even knew existed. Depths lower than a snake’s belly.

b) which means that I can no longer stuff three bags of Chickadees down my throat and still fit into my skinny jeans

c) which means that if I ignore this situation, there’s a high chance I’d wind up looking like Gutsy Girl (before she sat on the thief and became the ambassador of a slimming centre)

d) which means that I have to peel myself off my swivel chair and participate in this activity most people call exercise

e) which means I have to join the gym because I find it impossible to warm up to the concept of running around in circles at the playground

So I joined the gym. I went in every single day. My gym card began to smoke because I swiped it so much. I worked my ass off on every one of them big machines. Then I fell sick, took a break and never went back. I lasted a grand total of three months.

After my glorious failure, I was eaten up by shame. I was such a disgrace. I couldn’t bring myself to go back. Going back would be tantamount to admitting that I was wrong and that I needed the gym. I was too proud. So I did what anybody would do after coming out of an intense love affair – I went on the rebound.

I bought a treadmill. I called one of those Smart Shop numbers on TV and ordered an Ab Trainer (it guaranteed rock-hard abs in just 30 seconds a day!). I bought several sets of dumb bells. I bought a whole lot of stuff, all of which I never used.

It was when I caught myself mulling over a slimming advert and wondering how many inches I could shave off my thighs that I realised how much I wanted him back.

I wanted my gym back. The track pants sticky with perspiration. The squishy water bottle. The locker key with the number tag. The fluffy face towel. I wanted them all back.

And most of all, I wanted the card back.

Now, when I look at my card, I’m reminded of my renewed commitment. This time, things will be different. This time, I won’t bail out. This time, it will last.

Forever.

Let's Get Married ... Not

I do not understand the concept and the hoopla surrounding marriage. Spoke to a friend who claimed that the only valid reason for marriage is kids. If you want kids, it helps for the government to know who made them - at least on paper. You know, to keep track of where these kids come from. What other conceivable reason can there be for the institution of marriage?

To a large extent, I feel that marriage is a concept imposed upon us by society. Because of social pressures and expectations, people are putting on their running shoes and making a mad dash for the altar. I suppose you can argue that they do it because they're in love. Well, that view is flawed because I would take that to mean that every single person who gets hitched does it because they have found The One, and we all know that is not true.

Truth be told, marriage holds little allure for me. If I were to jump onto the bandwagon, it would - to a considerable extent - be because of what society expects of me (society being mother, grandmother and relatives who like to say things like, "Wah, still don't want to get married ah?").

I have wondered if I am talking like this simply because I have not found The One. Perhaps once I find The One, I'd be singing a different tune. Perhaps once The One appears in my life, I'd be happily traipsing through every bridal store in town, checking out the gaudy selections of sequined evening gowns and haggling over the price of fruitcake takeaway for the guests. Perhaps when I find The One, my brain will be polluted with nothing but thoughts of screaming pink-faced babies, soiled diapers and the Teletubbies theme song. Perhaps when He comes into my life, I will miraculously rediscover new meaning to my life and find no greater fulfillment than handpicking lint off his clothing and watching him burp the theme of Star Trek. Perhaps.

But my point remains: why get married? Doesn't the concept go against every natural human instinct? Forgive me but aren't we humans neophiliacs by nature? Don't we crave the new and exciting? Don't we live by the credo that variety is the spice of life? I mean, we get restless when sitting through a half-hour TV drama, relentlessly channel surfing just to see what else is on. We have about five hundred million different ice-cream flavours. We get sick and tired of the cute little outfit we bought just a week ago. We hop from job to job in scarily rapid succession. Is it just me or is it a tad ludicrous to expect a race this fickle to commit to one single person for the rest of their lives? In essence, what we're doing is swearing to commit ourselves to a lifetime of sameness, of non-variety. A pretty big step especially since most of us can't even stick to the same cellular phone for more than a year.

In this sense, isn't marriage (to put it crudely) similar to buying an electronic gadget? Isn't it a natural human instinct to exchange the current - and therefore, older and crummier - model for something better when the latter comes along? Of course, you can argue that it's utterly ridiculous to compare a spouse to say, a really fancy digital camera with enough features to make grown men salivate. But are the two really all that different? The same impulses kick in, don't they?

So isn't that what marriage really is? Simply a way to make sure we don't give in to what is, at the end of the day, our most basic, natural impulse? Because they know (I confess I have no idea who "they" is) that, left to our own devises, we'd be changing models faster than you can say "in sickness and in health". So, in order to thwart what we would, under very natural circumstances, be very likely to do, they (I confess I still have no idea who "they" is) trap us in this unnatural state where we suffer great bouts of guilt the second we entertain the merest idea of being - dare I say it - bored.

And to think we spend our entire lives attempting to claw our way into such a situation? Scheming and plotting to gain entry into this seemingly hallowed institution? To think that the perceived success or failure of your entire existence can be extricated from your answer to the million dollar question, "You getting married yet?" Is this all that really matters? That you have a rock on your finger and you have somebody to microwave that frozen pizza for?

"Sure she's traveled around the world on a makeshift boat three times and was part of the team that fashioned a sphinx out of chopsticks but does she have a husband to cook and clean for? No!"

The strange thing is, despite how some of us might feel about marriage, we inevitably play right into the whole fiasco. Marriage is like men - you can't live with it, can't live without it (at least you have the knowledge that your family will do everything short of rushing headlong into an elephant stampede to make sure the curse of non-marriage never befalls you). We still want it. For all sorts of reasons. Of course, there are the elite few who would find more fulfillment being chained to a cement mixer than joining the ranks of the ol' ball and chain contingent, but they're a different story all together.

Social conditioning runs deeper than anyone thinks. We've been so psyched into thinking that life is meaningless and purposeless unless we have someone to wake up next to that to be happy is to be married. Even when we may disagree with practically everything we've been brought up to think, we still find ourselves being swept up in the current of popular opinion. To still be single after a certain age is like having the word "loser" stamped across your forehead. The only upside to this predicament is that it saves you the trouble of having to explain why you're still unmarried (which is a good thing since people usually act as if you've just announced that you're planning to dissect a puppy).

Which brings up an interesting point: why in the world do we have to somehow defend ourselves for not being caught up in the ecstatic throes of matrimony? Why is the following question to "are you married?" always "but why?" I think a more fitting scenario would go something like this:

"Are you married?"

"Why yes, I am." Smug smile.

"But why?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Why are you married?"

Befuddled silence while trying to ascertain true intent of interrogator. Based on previous experience, an answer in the affirmative usually signified the end of the conversation and they would move on to other intellectually challenging topics such as why the tablecloths don't match the upholstery.

"Well, because I love him."

"Uh huh." A glaring lack of conviction can be heard.

"I really do. Besides, we've been dating for eight years and our families were bugging us and we weren't getting any younger and we had these coupons..."

"Uh huh."

When people are interrogated on why they are unmarried, it implies that being unmarried is an unnatural state and being married is whereas we have already pointed out that it very clearly isn't. So what gives? Perhaps it's a numbers game - two are more intimidating than one. It goes without saying that when a married couple (therefore, two people - unless it's one of those bizarre, unorthodox-type marriages) is pitted against a poor, defenseless singleton (one), the duo usually wins. Or perhaps the married couple is floundering in the paralytic state of ennui so badly that anything - even (or especially) the merciless ribbing of an unarmed unmarried individual - can be touted as amusement.

"Are you married?"

"No."

"Why in the world not?"

"Well, I haven't met anyone whom I'd want to touch with a ten-foot pole much less take an oath to spend eternity with."

"REALLY????" There's so much incredulity that you might as well have told her you were planning to surgically remove your uterus.

"Yes. Really."

Got Baby Fever?

I’ve always wondered... what do people see in children and babies? Women who do not have children yearn for these little bundles of joy, while those who do often wish the little tykes would just disappear and not reappear till they’re old enough to bring home a steady paycheck.

What’s the deal with baby fever? I’m talking about intelligent women with a full-functioning heads on their shoulders who are actually eager to go through childbirth - one of the most horrific things to which you can subject your body. Nine months of walking around looking like someone just planted 15 pounds of explosives in your tummy, getting morning sickness and wearing atrocious maternity clothes from Mommy Fashions?

Despite all the pregnancy facts published in books, women the world over continue to ache for this torture. In my mind, this sort of treatment should only be inflicted when the woman is evil, has killed somebody, or burnt an animal activist’s house. It shouldn’t be inflicted on innocent women simply because they seem to want it so badly.

So women get their wish and get pregnant. And what do they have to show for nine months of pain? A tiny, fist-clenching, leg-kicking version of George Burns. One look at that little newborn and all at once, you understand the saying ‘only a mother could love something like that’. If nothing else, your faith in unconditional love is restored.

The woman is now satisfied that she’s given birth and Baby takes his time growing up. It’s an incredibly long process because it’s only after five or six months that he even begins to vaguely resemble a human being. This is when Baby enters a stage when he hates everybody, sulks continuously and takes up the sport of clapping.

Then he says his first word, has his first tooth, and if you’ve had the misfortune of being blessed with a bald baby, his first strand of hair. Everything is documented and everybody in the family becomes a historian. Entries are made into leather-bound journals bearing the name ‘BABY’: "15th March 2001, Baby has lunch. Baby burps twice; Baby is en route to becoming a real man!"

Then along comes the Terrible Twos. This is when Baby becomes the terror of the neighbourhood. He takes to biting people and pulling your hair. And for reasons unknown to man, every family member seems to find this absolutely adorable.

Soon, Baby goes to preschool, convinced he’s going to become somebody great once he grows up.

"What do you want to be, son?"

"A rocket scientist! I want to be a rocket scientist!"

"My, what an ambitious little man you are!"

"Or an astronaut! And fly to the moon! I want to fly a spaceship!"

Adolescence sets in and his ambitions begin to change. Baby is now old enough to now realize just how much work it will take to become a rocket scientist. This is also the point when he realizes that he hates studying and decides to bank on a career that doesn’t require dressing up in suits, speaking in full sentences or counting past 10. His choices are now narrowed down to rock star, harmonica extraordinaire and WWF referee.

Adolescence flies by and soon, you are faced with Baby’s graduation and his very first job as an accountant. (It’s important to note that all ambitious talk basically amount to nothing. Extensive research has shown that 95% of all male babies grow up to become accountants while the remaining 5% wind up as used car salesmen).

Time zooms past and one day, you feast your eyes on Baby’s first paycheck. You also feast your eyes on your cut: a whopping RM15. Your joy is finally complete.

Three months down the road, Baby is confirmed in his new job. He gets a pay raisemarries a woman who’s just like you. and your cut climbs up to RM20. He also takes you out to dinner in a fancy shop near his office. Life doesn’t get any better than this. It almost makes up for all the suffering you’ve gone through. Almost but not quite. That will come only when he