New Husband Store In N.Y.C

NEW HUSBAND STORE IN N.Y.C

A store that sells husbands has just opened in New York City, where a woman may go to choose a husband. Among the instructions at the entrance is a description of how the store operates.

You may visit the store ONLY ONCE! There are six floors and the attributes of the men increase as the shopper ascends the flights.

There is, however, a catch: you may choose any man from a particular floor, or you may choose to go up a floor, but you cannot go back down except to exit the building!

So, a woman goes to the Husband Store to find a husband.

On the first floor the sign on the door reads: Floor 1 - These men have jobs.

The second floor sign reads: Floor 2 - These men have jobs and love kids.

The third floor sign reads: Floor 3 - These men have jobs, love kids, and are extremely good looking.

"Wow," she thinks, but feels compelled to keep going.

She goes to the fourth floor and sign reads: Floor 4 - These men have jobs, love kids, are drop-dead good looking and help with the housework.


"Oh, mercy me!" she exclaims, "I can hardly stand it!"

Still, she goes to the fifth floor and sign reads: Floor 5 - These men have jobs, love kids, are drop-dead gorgeous, help with the housework, and have a strong romantic streak.

She is so tempted to stay, but she goes to the sixth floor and the sign reads: Floor 6 - You are visitor 31,456,012 to this floor. There are no men on this floor. This floor exists solely as proof that women are impossible to please.Thank you for shopping at the Husband Store.


ps. thanks to CityHunterGatherer for the quotes, sayings, poems, speeches, stories, articles, jokes, thoughts, insights, or song lyrics forwarded to me

If You Say My Eyes Are Beautiful

Among one of the most beautiful love songs that clearly defines "mutual admiration" between 2 people in love, is "If You Say My Eyes Are Beautiful".

If You Say My Eyes Are Beautiful

If you say my eyes are beautiful
It’s because they’re looking at you
And if you could only see yourself
You’d feel the same way too
You could say that I am a dreamer
Who’s had a dream come true
If you say my eyes are beautiful
It’s because they’re looking at you

If you wonder why I’m smiling
It’s because I’m happy with you
And the warm sensations touch my heart
And fill me through and through
I could hold you close forever
And never let you go
If you say my eyes are beautiful
It’s because I just love you so

Now, my heart is an open door
Won’t you come inside for more
You give love so sweetly now
Take my love take me completely now
If you say my eyes are beautiful
It’s because they’re looking at you
And my eyes are just the window
For my feelings to come through
And by far you are more beautiful
Than anything I ever knew
If you say my eyes are beautiful
If you say my eyes are beautiful
If you say my eyes my eyes are beautiful

It’s because, It’s because, they’re looking at you ….

Two people in love. What could be more beautiful and fulfilling than that?

cheers
matakecil


ps. thanks to CityHunterGatherer for the quotes, sayings, poems, speeches, stories, articles, jokes, thoughts, insights, or song lyrics forwarded to me

I'll Never Forget You

Here's a very touching story to share with you:

They were an ordinary pair caught in an ordinary world where convention means more than a meeting of souls

I'LL NEVER FORGET YOU
by Ray Bradbury
From Mar 1983 Reader's Digest (Pages 92-96)


When Ann Taylor came to teach at Green Town Central, it was the summer of her 24th birthday and it was the summer when Bob Spaulding would turn 14. She was that teacher for whom all the children wanted to bring huge oranges or pink flowers. She always seemed to be passing by on days when the shade was green under then tunnels of oaks and elms. She was the fine peaches of summer in the snow of winter, and she was cool milk for cereal on a hot early-June morning. And those rare few days in the year when the climate was balanced as fine as a leaf between winds that blew just right, those were the days like Ann Taylor, and should have been so named on the calendar.

As for Bob Spaulding he was the cousin who walked alone through town on any October evening with a pack of leaves after him like a horde of Halloween mice. Or you would see him, like a slow white fish in the tart waters of the Fox Hill Creek, baking brown - or hear his voice in those treetops where the wind entertained, dropping down hand by hand, and there would come Bob Spaulding to sit alone and look at the world.

That first morning when Miss Ann Taylor entered and wrote her name on the board, the schoolroom seemed suddenly flooded with illumination, as if the roof had moved back. Bob Spaulding sat with a spitball hidden in his hand, but let it drop. After class, he brought in a bucket of water and began to wash the boards. "What's this?" She turned to him from her desk, where she had been correcting spelling papers.
"The boards are kind of dirty. I suppose I should have asked permission," he said, halting uneasily.
"I think we can pretend you did," she replied, smiling, and at this smile he finished the boards in a burst of speed and pounded the erasers so furiously that the air was full of snow, it seemed.

The next morning he happened by the place where she took board and room just as she was coming out to walk to school.
"Well, here I am," he said.
"And do you know," she said, "I'm not surprised."
"May I carry your books?" he asked.
"Why, thank you, Bob."

They walked for a few minutes and he said nothing. She glanced over and slightly down at him and saw how at ease he was, how happy he seemed. When they reached the edge of the school ground, he said, "I better leave you here. The other kids wouldn't understand."
"I'm not sure I do, either," said Miss Taylor.
"Why, we're friends," said Bob with a natural honesty.
'Bob--" she started to say. "Never mind." She walked away.

And there he was in class and there he was after school for the next two weeks, never speaking, quietly washing the boards while she worked, and there was the silence of the sun going down in the slow sky, and the rustle of papers and the scratch of a pen. Sometimes the silence would go on until almost five, when Miss Taylor would find Bob in the last seat, waiting.
"Well, it's time to go home," Miss Taylor would say. And he would run and fetch her hat and coat. Then they would walk across the empty yard and talk all sorts of things.
"What are you going to be, Bob, when you grow up?"
"A writer," he said.
"Oh, that's big ambition."
"I know, but I'm going to try," he told her. "I've read a lot."
He thought for a while and said, "Do me a favor, Miss Taylor?"
"It all depends."
"I walk every Saturday along the creek to Lake Michigan. There're a lof of butterflies and crayfish. Maybe you'd like to walk too."
"I'm afraid not. I'm going to be busy."
He started to ask doing what, but stopped. "I take along sandwiches and pop. I wish you'd come."
"Thanks, Bob, perhaps some other time."
"I shouldn't have asked you, should I?" he said.
"You have every right to ask anything you want to," she said.

A few days later she gave him a copy of Great Expectations. He stayed up all night reading it, and they talked about it.

Each day Bob met Miss Taylor and many days she would start to tell him not to come anymore, but she never could.

He talked with her about Dickens and Kipling and Poe, coming and going to school. But she found it impossible to call on him to recite in class. She would hesitate, then call someone else. Nor would she look at him while they were walking. But on several late afternoons as he moved his arm high on the blackboard, sponging away the arithmetic symbols, she found herself glancing over at him for seconds at a time.

Then one Saturday morning he was standing in the creek with his overalls rolled up to his knees, bending to catch crayfish, when he looked up and saw her.
"Well, here I am," she said, laughing.
"And do you know," he said, "I'm not surprised."
"Show me the crayfish and the butterflies," she said.

They walked down to the lake and sat on the sand with a warm wind blowing softly about them, fluttering her hair and the ruffle on her blouse, and he sat a few yards back from her and they ate the ham-and-pickle sandwiches and drank the orange pop solemnly.
"I didn't think I would ever come on a picnic like this," she said.
"With some kid," he said.
They said little else during the afternoon.

"This is all wrong," Bob said later. "And I can't figure why. Just walking along and catching butterflies and crayfish and eating sandwiches. But Mom and Dad'd rib me if they knew, and the kids would too. And the other teachers would laugh at you, wouldn't they?"
"I'm afraid so. I don't exactly understand how I came here at all," she said.

That was about all there was to the meeting of Miss Ann Taylor and Bob Spaulding: two or three monarch butterflies, a copy of Dickens, a dozen crayfish, four sandwiches and two afternoon, she left early with a headache.

But on Tuesday after school they were both in the silent room again - he sponging the board contentedly, and she working on her papers in peace, when suddenly the courthouse clock struck five. Its great bronze boom shuddered one's body, making you seem older by the minute. Miss Taylor put down her pen.
"Bob," she said, "come here."
"Yes'm." He put down the sponge.
She looked at him intently for a moment until he looked away. "Bob," I wonder if you know what I'm going to talk to you about."
"Yes," he said at last. "About us."
"How old are you, Bob?"
"Going on fourteen."
"Do you know how old I am?"
"Yes'm, I heard. Twenty-four. I'll be twenty four in ten years, almost," he said. "And sometimes I feel twenty-four."
"Yes, and sometimes you almost act it."
"Do I, really?!!"
"Now sit still. It's very important that we understand what is happening. First, let's admit we are the greatest friends in the world. I have never had a student like you, nor have I had as much affection for any boy I've ever known." He flushed at this. She went on. "And let me speak for you - you've found me to be the nicest teacher of any you've ever known."
"Oh, more than that," he said.
"Perhaps more than that, but there are facts to be faced - a town and its people, and you and me. I've thought this over, Bob. Don't think I've been unaware of my feelings. Under some circumstances our friendship would be odd. But you are no ordinary boy. And I know I'm not sick, mentally or physically, and that whatever has evolved here has been a true regard for your character and goodness. But those are not the things we consider in this world, unless they occur in a man of a certain age. I don't know if I'm
saying this right."
"If I was ten years older and about fifteen inches taller it'd make all the difference," he said.
"I know it seems foolish," she said. "When you feel very grown-up and right and have nothing to be ashamed of. Maybe someday they will judge a person's mind so accurately that they can say, 'This is a man, though his body is only thirteen, with a man's responsibility.' But until then, we have to go by ages and heights in an ordinary world."
"I don't like that," he said.
"Perhaps I don't either, but there really is no way to do anything about us."
"Yes, I know."
"We must decide what to do," she said. "I can secure a transfer from this school ..."
"You don't have to do that," he said. "We're moving. My folks and I, we're going to live in Madison."
"It has nothing to do with all this, has it?"
"No, no, my father has a new job there. It's only fifty miles away. I can see you, can't I?"
"Would that be a good idea?"
"No, I guess not," he said.
They sat awhile in the silent schoolroom.
"When did all this happen?" he said, helplessly.
"I don't know," she said. "Nobody ever knows. They haven't known for thousand of years. Sometimes two people like each other who shouldn't. I can't explain it."
"There's one thing I want you to remember," she said finally. "There are compensations in life. You don't feel well now; neither do I. But something will happen to fix that. Do you believe that?"
"I'd like to. If only you'd wait for me," he blurted.
"Ten years?"
"I'd be twenty-four then."
"But I'd be thirty-four and another person entirely, perhaps. No, I don't think it can be done."

He sat there for a long time. "I'll never forget you," he said.
"You'll forget."
"I'll find a way of never forgetting you," he said.
She went to erase the boards.
"I'll help you," he said.
"No, no," she said hastily. "You go home."

He left the school. Looking back, he saw Miss Taylor through the window, at the board, slowly washing out the chalked words.


HE moved away the next week and was gone for 16 years. Though he was only 50 miles away, he never got to Green Town again until he was almost 30 and married. Then one spring they were driving through on their way to Chicago and stopped off for a day.

Bob left his wife at the hotel and walked around town and finally asked about Miss Ann Taylor.
"Oh, yes, the pretty teacher. She died in 1936, not long after you left."
Had she ever married?
"No, come to think of it, she never had."

He walked out to the cemetery and found her stone, which said, "Ann Taylor, born 1910, died 1936." And he thought, Twenty-six years old. Why, I'm almost four years older than you are now, Miss Taylor."

Later in the day the people in the town saw Bob Spaulding's wife strolling to meet him under the elms and the oak trees. She was the fine peaches of summer in the snow winter, and she was cool milk for cereal on a hot early-summer morning. And this was one of those rare few days in time when the climate was balanced like a leaf between winds that blow just right, one of those days that should have been named, everyone agreed, after Robert Spaulding's wife."

- Condensed from "A Story of Love", a short story by Ray Bradbury.

Very beautiful story isn't it? Yes, sometimes we do come across a kind of frustrating situation like this in our every day life. It would have been beautiful and nice if not ... !!! Anyway, life always have its way to make something right and complete ... regardless of what we feel or think. Everything's gonna be alright ... justnice :)

regards,
matakecil


ps. thanks to CityHunterGatherer for the quotes, sayings, poems, speeches, stories, articles, jokes, thoughts, insights, or song lyrics forwarded to me

Requiem For A Marriage

Here's a very touching story to share with you:

REQUIEM FOR A MARRIAGE
by Pat Conroy
From Jan 1988 Reader's Digest (Pages 109-112)

EACH DIVORCE is the death of a small civilization. Two people declare war on each other, and their screams and tears infect their entire world with the bacilli of their pain. The greatest fury comes from the wound where love once issued forth.

I find it hard to believe how many people now get divorced, how many submit to such extraordinary pain. For there are no clean divorces. Divorces should be conducted in abattoirs or surgical wards. In my own case, I think it would have been easier if Barbara had died. I would have been gallant at her funeral and shed real tears -- far easier than staring across a table, telling each other it was over.

It was a killing thing to look at the mother of my children and know that we would not be together for the rest of our lives. It was terrifying to say good-by, to reject a part of my own history.

How does it happen that two people who once loved each other, who felt incomplete in the absence of the other, are brought to that moment of grisly illumination when they decied it has gone irretrievably wrong? How can love change its garments and come disguised as indifference, anger, even loathing?

Divorce should be declared a form of insanity, or a communication disease (how often married couples seem to feel threatened around their divorced friends). I have seen no one walk out of a divorce unmarked; it makes you a different person. You can enter the sinister cocoon as a butterfly and stagger out later as a caterpillar doomed to walk under the eye of the spider. Or you can reverse the process. There are no laws of nature that apply-only laws of suffering, different for each individual.

When I went through my divorce I saw it as a country, and it was treeless, airless; there were no furloughs and no holidays. I entered without passport, without directions and absolutely alone. Insanity and hopelessness grew in that land like vast orchards of malignant fruit. I do not know the precise day that I arrived in that country. Nor am I certain that you can ever renounce your citizenship there.

One thing is certain: a divorce does not begin when one person looks at another and says, "I want to put an end to this." It starts long before, when the hurt begins, when you come to the astonishing realization that you are lonely even though you are married. Divorce is the process of institutionalizing that loneliness, of building a grotesque structure out of nightmare and anger and guilt.

As my marriage broke up, everything broke up in a process of psychological deterioration. I still hate the silhouette of a local hotel simply because it was being built as I was falling apart. For an entire year I did nothing but talk about the divorce and seek out other people who had made the promenade through the volcano. The nights were filled with our tales of extraordinary destruction and anger. One woman had taken her wedding pictures and cut them into fragments. We were all survivors of the worst times
of our lives.

Each divorce has its own metaphors that grow out of the dying marriage. One man was inordinately proud of his aquarium. He left his wife two weeks after the birth of their son. What visitors noticed next was that she was not taking care of the aquarium. The fish began dying. The two endings became linking in my mind.

For a long time I could not discover my own metaphor of loss - until the death of our dog, Beau, became the irrefutable message that Barbara and I were finished.

Beau was a feisty, crotchety dachshund Barbara had owned when we married. It took a year of pained toleration for us to form our alliance. But Beau had one of those illuminating inner lives that only lovers of dogs can understand. He has a genius for companionship. To be licked by Beau when you awoke in the morning was a fine thing.

On one of the first days of our separation, when I went to the house to get some clothes, my youngest daughter, Megan, ran out to tell me that Beau had been hit by a car and taken to the animal clinic. I raced there and found Ruth Tyree, Beau's veterinarian. She carried Beau in to see me and laid him on the examining table.

I had not cried during the terrible breaking away from Barbara. I had told her I was angry at my inability to cry. Now I came apart completely. It was not weeping, it was screaming, it was despair.

The car had crushed Beau's spine, the X-ray showing irreparable damage. Beau looked up at me while Dr. Tyree handed me a piece of paper, saying that she needed my signature to put Beau to sleep.

I could not write my name because I could not see the paper. I leaned against the examining table and cried as I had never cried in my life, crying not just for Beau but for Barbara, the children, myself, for the death of marriage, for inconsolable loss. Dr. Tyree touched me gently, and I heard her crying above me. And Beau, in the last grand gesture of his life, dragged himself to the length of the table on his two good legs and began licking the tears as they ran down my face.

I had lost my dog and found my metaphor. In the X-ray of my dog's crushed spine, I was looking at a portrait of my broken marriage.

But there are no metaphors powerful enough to describe the moment when you tell the children about the divorce. Divorces without children are minor-league divorces. To look into the eyes of your children and to tell them you are mutilating their family and changing all their tomorrows is an act of desperate courage that I never want to repeat. It is also their parent's last act of solidarity and the absolute sign that the marriage is over. It felt as though I had doused my entire family with gasoline and struck
a match.

The three girls entered the room and would not look at me or Barbara. Their faces, all dark wings and grief and human hurt, told me that they already knew. My betrayal of these young, sweet girls filled the room.

They wrote me notes of farewell, since it was I who was moving out. When I read them, I did not see how I could ever survive such excruciating pain. The notes said, "I love you, Daddy. I will visit you." For months I would dream of visiting my three daughters locked in a mental hospital. The fear of damaged children was my most crippling obsession.

For a year I walked around feeling as if I had undergone a lobotomy. There were records I could not listen to because of their association with Barbara, poems I could not read from books I could not pick up. There is a restaurant I will never return to because it was the scene of an angry argument between us. It was a year when memory was an acid.

I began to develop the odd habits of the very lonely. I turned the stereo on as soon as I entered my apartment. I drank to the point of not caring. I cooked elaborate meals for myself, then could not eat them.

I worried about the men Barbara would date. I knew I had no right to worry and worried even more. I was afraid she would date men who would be cruel to her, who would be unworthy of her, who would ignore the kids. I had left Barbara, and I still had a primitive need to possess her. I wanted her to forget me; I wanted her to miss me.

I had entered into the dark country of divorce, and for a year I was one of its ruined citizens. I suffered. I survived. I studied myself on the edge, and introduced myself to the stranger who lived within. It was at once most painful and valuable year I had ever spent. This is the one gift of the dark country.

I found I had been locked in the dilemma of many American males, raised not to give or receive affection, not to weep when I was hurting, not to love women in ways that made them feel secure and desirable and needed. I felt inexpressible reserves of love within me, and I searched for women who understood about the inarticulate lover screaming from within.

Barbara and I had one success in our divorce, and it is an extraordinary rare one. As the residue of anger and hurt subsided with time, we remained friends. We saw each other for drinks or lunch occasionally, and I met her boyfriend, Tom.

Once, when I was leaving a party, I looked back and saw Barbara and Tom holding hands. They looked very happy together, and it was painful to recognize it. I wanted to go back and say something to Tom, but I mostly wanted to say it to Barbara. I wanted to say that I admired Tom's taste in women.


- Condensed from ATLANTA MAGAZINE

Very very moving isn't it? It is a very beautiful but tragic story. That's life as real as it can be. Yep, life can sometime be very frustrating indeed. But regardless of what happens ... all of us learn our lessons and become better and stronger. We have still have to continue on the journey of life .....

regards,
matakecil

ps. I am very impressed with Pat Conroy's ability to describe his emotion so poignantly. He is indeed a gifted writer with great power with words. Among Pat Conroy's most well-known books are: The Great Santini, The Lords of Discipline, My Losing Season, The Prince of Tides, The Water Is Wide, The Boo, etc.


ps. thanks to CityHunterGatherer for the quotes, sayings, poems, speeches, stories, articles, jokes, thoughts, insights, or song lyrics forwarded to me

I Say Real Men Don't Cry!!!

Yep, ORDINARY real men don't cry!!! But GREAT real men do!!!

Yahlah, of course man can and do cry. How can we deprieve ourself of one of the greatest joy and satisfaction of life? Ever had a good cry? Very "uuummmpppphhh!" eh?

All those bullshit like, "Nan2 Zi3 Han4 Da4 Zhang4 Fu, Liu2 Xue3 Bu4 Liu2 Lei4" (real men bleed, they don't wept) or "Nan2 Er2 You3 Lei4 Bu4 Qing Tan2" (man don't simply cry) .... have caused millions of men worldwide to die earlier than women!!! Why? Too much pent up frustrations and feelings mah. Since cannot cry, must "express" either externally or internally. Externally, conflicts with other men (or women). Internally, high blood pressure, heart problem, etc. See? Now you know how women can live longer .... because they cried!!!

(Only mediocre men who donno how to express their emotions in a proper way, say real men don't cry. They had to resort to killing one another instead).

And for someone who donate blood every 100 days to save million of lives, I don't simply waste my blood. Other ordinary men want to bleed, let them bleed. I would rather cry when I want to ... and keep my precious (O+) blood for saving lives. Yep, GREAT real men save lives with their bodily fluid ... and not just creating em.

Let me tell you what is a GREAT real man! A true real man is "Gan3 Ai4, Gan3 Hen4!" (dare to love, dare to hate). Yep, they dare to feel the way they do and they dare to express their real emotion!!! They want to laugh, they laugh. They wan to cry, they cry. They don't give a damn what other people think. They "shiok" ok already!!!

Yep, GREAT real men don't need to hide behind their motorbikes, latest electronic gadgets, or branded things. A GREAT real man need only be himself and he can still shine like a police floodlight in a highrise building hostage situation.

Enough said :)

macholy,
MataKecil

ps. oh, btw, read this too: "who say men cannot cry?"
ps. i am really a regular blood donor lah. aiyah, here's the proof:

see? all full! and this is only one page of the blood donor book! :)
and yes, i have also pledged my organs. and also my bone marrow and sperm. hehe :)

Right Partner

Here's a converstion between a friend and I:

Susan: Eh MC, very difficult to find a right boyfriend lah!
MataKecil: Huh? Why?
Susan: Always not up to my standard leh. And when I finally come across someone who is almost good enough one, he already have girlfriend/s lah!!!
MataKecil: Huh?!!!
Susan: Yahlah!!! *sigh* Finding a right partner is really so difficult!!! *sigh*
MataKecil: Susan, susan. You know what?
Susan: What?
MataKecil: Actually, finding a right partner is NOT difficult!!!
Susan: Huh?!!!
MataKecil: It is having the right attitude that is difficult!!!
Susan: WTF?!!!

Hehe ... no lah, Susan is only my hug buddy. We can never come together as one :)
We are not compatible lah. She is only as beautiful as the Malaysian version of Angelina Jolie. And she is only educated up to an MBA only. And there is no chemistry between us. And our date and time of birth not "ngam" lah :)

ps. and for those of you who wonder why she called me "MC" instead of "MK", well, she always called me "mata comel" (cute eyes) instead of "mata kecil" (small eyes) ... hehe :)

No Wonder I Have Tough Luck With Women!!!

*sigh* No wonder I have been having tough luck with women ... I have been working at the wrong thing!!!

Yep, all these years I have been working so hard at building a great personality and a stable career. Alas, there is something which I have neglected altogether: my smell!!!

According to this report, "Ovulating women favour dominant men's smell", the experts found out that:

... Czech researchers, which found that the smell of a socially dominant male is most exciting to women in stable relationships, especially on days when they are ovulating ...

See? Women found the smell of man exciting when they are ovulating!!!

Perhaps the most controversial part of the study is the claim that women find the smell of sweaty cotton pads enticing. "Some raters found particular body odours sexy; others simply found them 'not repellent'," Havlícek admits. "But laboratory conditions are rather unnatural, and the smells would be judged more positively in more relevant, that is, intimate, conditions.

Regardless of the fact the the research is still not conclusive ... nevertheless we are getting on to something here. We are definitely smelling something in the air :)

yours soul-searchingly, matakecil :)

ps. i first came across a post about this research through howsy's blog at: http://howsy.blogspot.com/2005/07/science-update-you-fking-sleazy-slt.html. thanks :)