Today, got call from GD1 to ask if she could see me about the "book" which AK is very keen should be published. She assured me that the editing has been done but my role is to help her find ways to present the work so that it will not appear like hagiography.

Assured her that I'd do my best to find a solution but hey, what's wrong with some self-promotion anyway, I added, since it's all the rage and if you can afford to finance it, why not? Even MM can't prevent tongues wagging when good stuff is written or said about him; how can lesser mortals, not that I'm suggesting AK is a lesser mortal. Still will try to look for ways to reduce the cringe factor, because I think that's what's troubling GD1.

The other day, D2 made a rather strange remark which set me thinking. We were at the same lunch which included a grunt from AK's office. Hey, how's the investment meeting, I blabbered. D2 cocked an eyebrow in quizzical fashion. I hastened to explain though in retrospect don't know why I needed to explain/expand about anything. Jeez!

I haven't been going into the office since January, I volunteered.

By choice? D2 asked.

Yes, of course by choice, I answered, rather defensively, though again in retrospect I don't know why the hell I bothered to be defensive or whatever. Yes it was indeed by choice, in so far that it was I who asked to be excused from going in.

But did I really "choose"? Or was I manouevred into taking that path by the constant low intensity jet of coldness that was directed at me over three, four years? (Perhaps D2 knew something or she's simply prescient. Or perhaps I'm ultra sensitive?)

Hello, how was I to function if I was assigned stuff I hated and all the things I wanted to do or participate in were rationed out to me at the royal family's pleasure/displeasure? If anything I did learn from the experience was that if you have the moolah big time, you can make even normally proud people swallow their pride...at least temporarily.....

D2 has left for her overseas home. Dead cert she hates me as she now and again snubs me. Either doesn't "see" me when she comes out of AK's room and then says "oh you're here?", fake surprise et al. Does she think I'm Scotch mist? Again, like after lunch this time and we were all saying goodbye, she wished everybody fond and touchy-feely farewells except me.

Good riddance to a fat (she's rather thin, actually) lot of rubbish! That's my sentiments exactly,OK?

Don't know if it was pure co-incidence or something to do with the fact that I had just visited AM in KL. As soon I stepped into the flat, then who should send me an SMS but the Bali-B! After almost 18 months. As if nothing had happened and suggesting that we meet for dinner when Olive Oil gets back from her myriad jet-setting.

Thought of ignoring the SMS but in the end decided to tell it as it IS: she f-up my holiday for no rhyme or reason and I don't see why I should play nice and resume our friendship as if nothing had happened.

So I said I don't see much point in getting together, as she had treated me like dirt when I stayed with her. I had wanted to say "treated me like shit", but decided dirt was more lady-like, altho shit would have been the more appropriate word.

Then would you believe it, cool as ice she replied thus:" I try 2 make my guests' stay in bali as comfy as possible. But if they hv their own agenda, go by it & then say they r treated like dirt, i must have failed as a good hostess, sorry."

I gave it to her straight and boy did it feel good to tell all. My return SMS said it clearly n simply:"It's the way u answered me everytime i opened my mouth. If tt's how u spk 2 all yr frens who r staying wth u, then i got nthng to 2 say. Gdbye."

"Gdbye" was to pre-empt a long series of exchanges. I've no wish to point score with this bitch but just to let her know she can't get away with behaving however she likes, whenever she likes. Well, not with me anyway.

I have burnt my bridges with her for sure but then with someone like that who behaves atrociously when I'm not down and out or otherwise in trouble, I can bet you one hundred carats of diamond that she won't be at all supportive should I be in trouble and needing a friend. So why continue to cultivate or humour her at the expense of my own self-esteem?.....

Shared with AM this little SMS exchange, n trust AM to think that Bali-B stands for Bali-bomb! Well, could be that too, but bitch is more apt methinks.

AM also made the foll. observation: "The only reservation I have of course is whether Bali-B has the courage of introspection or the will to change her behaviour. Comes a time in all of us when I guess we're all too ingrained in our ways to see the other point of view."

Touche! I suppose she intends this to cover me as well?

I notice Olive Oil has been decidedly cool since her return from the US. Perhaps she's decided to take sides. After all Bali-B and she have more common frens than she and me. And it was Ibu E who started to tell tales about me in S'pore even be4 I had a chance to give my side of the story.

I might as well give my side of the story right here, as hell knows how many distorted versions have been whispered around already.

Back in 2002 when Bali-B's home was completed, she made a general offer, nothing specific, to come and visit. I didn't intend to, because I know anyone who heads that way will be treated like a camel, to carry stuff.

Well, good for Ibu E, Olive Oil and others if they don't mind being treated like couriers. But I do, having carried for her twice on two separate visits. Once, two litre bottles of cider vinegar from a health food store, not for her but her boss' mother. The bottles had to be hand carried, for gawks sake!

Then when she moved to one of Agung's houses, I was invited to visit and told to carry for her a small suit-case. She didn't lock it and when I unpacked it to make sure there wasn't anything that might get me into trouble, I found snacks, packet soups, scourers, a lamp and whatever junk she wanted from her S'pore home for her new place.

I didn't demur as I felt that was the least I could do as a fren to help her begin again. If stuff from here help her settle in, why not, though I swear I'm sure she could have got most of the things from Matahari, including the scourers.

But I decided after that trip, no more. First because I hate checking in luggage, preferring to hand carry whatever I need. So I travel really lean and mean, a policy I've adopted from Papaerbag who have few qualities I admire but that of travelling light.

Second, I am always worried when asked to carry things. Sure, Bali-B may not be into drugs or anything but how the hell do I know her staff or frens aren't? How can I be sure those who pack her bag for me to deliver don't add a little something? Even Olive Oil is alert to this fact and has said so to me but she continues to humour BB. That's her look-out.

In view of what has happened to Schapelle Corby, I hope Olive Oil's got the cow-sense to stop being a mule for BB, even if the stuff she's asked to carry isn't anything more sinister than a stack of kitchen sink scourers!

Anyway, back to how I ended up visiting Bali-B at her Bali home in November 2003 when I had already made up my mind not to?

It's again all about trying to accommodate other people or so-called frens and then ended up suffering like hell with no one appreciating it at all.

AM was very keen to visit Bali-B and wanted to go with her fren from way back in school who had been all over the world (because ex was an MAS big-shot) but apparently never to Bali. So AM wanted to "show" her Bali and I was given the task to liaise with Bali-B about the trip, tentatively set in April 03.

Then SARS struck and said fren who's supposed to be diabetic etc didn't want to brave whatever she thought might be lurking in Indonesia during those crisis days, never mind if Bali is a lot more international then this person's neck of the wood in KL.

Well, finished GD1's assignment at last. Forced myself to, because if I should put it down, I won't have the strength to go back to it.

Talk of appalling work. Even a rookie who uses English as his 2nd language couldn't have done a worse job. I've seen better writing by an NEA officer, my fren Ku, for crying out loud. And it's my karma to have to go thru it ad nausem. The only thing to do with the damn stuff is to spike it.... arggg...

Just now, my mind suddenly went back to 1975, I think, when I owned a yellow Mazda 121. How time has flown.

But back to GD1 and the draft. She thanked me but not a lot more. Apologised for imposing on me. No imposition, I declared, returning insincerity for insincerity(?) or perhaps just uttering polite nothingness expected of each other. I suppose I've been equally insincere when the best and only advice I could and should have given was: kill the damned thing. But WTF, the "family" won't have been able to take it and would have been mortally offended. Certainly AK would have been. So why create enemies who unlike the Bali-B aren't blatantly asking for a mega snub?