Cons+Piracy: Liberte! Liberte!

I will readily admit, albeit after having downed (though not all together) at least three glasses of Traminer Reisling, that I am not an idiot savant when it comes to dates.

In fact, were it not for the timely intervention of one Shakti Kaur a.k.a. Shaks, the indelible reminder by whom thundered out of my phone at me one ~~drunken~~ tipsy night while I was squinting in vain to read Making Money in the hotel balcony's half-light:

"DOESN'T THE 26TH OF AUGUST RING ONE VERY LOUD BELL IN YOUR BLURNESS-STUFFED
EAR??"

As usual, such astute rhetoric from a former drama associate turned fellow book fanatic who, being a girl, is particularly intuitive in memorizing important dates and recognising my lack in ability thereof.

Audible sigh, so I set down to writing a (now belated, holy crap) birthday post for Mmi, forum associate turned MSN associate turned partner in crime, sounding board, encouraging critic, theological rant buddy, late-night companion, and all round mushroom goddess.

It may either be an unfortunate or fortuitous fact that the one person on this earth who rides the same wavelength as you can be more easily found on the net than in real life. It sounds sad, yet it's probably a blessing in disguise; most people never really know what they're like until they meet themselves.

And it's true that we're almost too similar for our respective sanities, Mmi & I; with the lame jokes, quirky asides and inadvertent slang-dropping, it's a wonder we haven't annoyed each other to merciful non-existence yet.
And for some reason -no matter where we start off with- our conversations always end up on the philosophical, edging on existential side. Yet this is where Mmina shines: For here is where she displays a remarkable amount of insight into some of Life's most depressing Conundrums.

For all our concordant trains of thought, however, for either of our open/neorotic mindsets, there exists an intrinsic difference between us: Where I am selfish, so is she selfless. Where I am cold, so is she warm. Our respective capacities for compassion lie at opposite ends of the spectrum.

If there was a prize for Person Most Like Me Without The Egotistic Bits, she'd win it hands down.

As this birthday post comes to a close, I want to say that I truly remembered, that I took the time to burn three simple yet deviously elusive numbers into my cranium, I really do; but while exaggaration is a tool of the trade, dishonesty is not: So let me apologise for the lateness, as well as probably not being around when you needed me too; I did agonise a bit over the present, since I can hardly get you anything tangible, short of sending an ugly mug over by snail mail, which would probably be broken pottery by the time it gets there, so-

Here's a sunset from start to finish, taken from last week's jaunt to Bukit Tinggi; hope you like: