Pickles n' Tickles by JJ

Happy New Year 2025!  It's February but I feel like my year is just starting out. December and January went by in a blur of events, people and travels. Whilst I'm not complaining, it's nice to know the sparkles from the pop have finally settled down and I'm falling into a dull yet much needed routine in my life right now.  Last year was a great year. Every person I love has made it safely into 2025. No major dramas or health issues. I was in a flight ( it's the destination, not the journey ) every two weeks all of last year. Paid more attention to my spirituality. Made things with my hands which brought me tremendous joy. Even managed to lower my body fat percentage despite the struggles of perimenopause. Finally, Christmas sleighed on without drama - my brother even accepted my gift.  Now I don't know how 2024 will compare to any year moving forward but one can hope!  I'm thinking of doing some writing this year. Creatively. That side of my brain has been ...

Writing my first post (and hopefully not the last) for the year with the announcement of an injury I’ve sustained on my right foot. Those who’ve been on this platform with me from the beginning would probably know (but why would you?) that I’ve had some pretty serious foot issues that may or may not have influenced the choices I’ve made in life.  Last week, I braved myself and made that appointment with a podiatrist. I could tell he was a little pleased to have found himself a special case to deal with, away from his daily doses of ingrown nails and shin splints. My feet are undoubtedly far more exciting than those. A perfect case study. So perfect he asked if he could have a couple of podiatry students in the room to discuss my situation. But no. I wasn’t in the right headspace for that.  Turns out that the band between the second and third toes are inflamed, impinging on some nerve in that area, causing a variety of localised pain. It also feels like I’m constantly walking o...

In the midst of job applications, and I thought I'd detour since the laptop is already on my lap. It's just me procrastinating on the grownup things I should  be doing like looking for jobs, making lunch, cleaning the balcony, combing my hair and decluttering the common shelf - yes, the dreaded hidden clutter and it's not even a year yet since we walked into this house with just three luggages.  Do you know that I had applied for 155 jobs on LinkedIn alone  in the past 6 years ? Yet the two roles I held during the period were not from those applications. A whopping 155 applications and none materialised. Most employers don't even send rejection email - I don't know if that's kind or cruel but it sure is nice to get some form of feedback for the effort put into the tedious applications. Section  after section of information to fill in AFTER a resume upload along with a cover letter which already contains all of those info. Some applications even come with t...

Apart from my politically correct IG captions - it those count - and utterly grey SEO-compliant content at work, I haven't written anything much for my inner child in a millennia. Don't know what I've been busy with but since my last post I've lost people, lived through a pandemic, ran a bake shop, worked with my hands, dabbled in B2B writing, and moved to another continent. In between these, I might have lost that perky voice I thought I had on here. The inner kid has retracted deep into her Cancerian shell, and now will you help me smoke coax her out?  Lately, specifically in the last 4 years, I've been feeling detached from that side of me that writes. Sure, I've been distracted by life, but writing for myself has been an escapade ever since I could read. It began with a diary. Her name was Amanda.  She was a pretty hardcover  in pink and pistachio with a golden lock on her. When unlocked with a matching golden key, her A5 pages came lined in pink. I'd ...

Can we go back in time and stay at Christmas, please?  I did not step into 2020 thinking that I'd be returning to a financially troubled workplace after that long holiday, only to be offered a new position at a competitor's within the same month. I would then take that offer, watch all that drama unfold in the office while I serve my notice, hear about the emergence of the Wuhan virus, write about the first identified case in Malaysia, experience more shocking office drama; secretly relieved that I had a new workplace April onwards. Just for the record, there are a total of 5,532 confirmed cases in Malaysia as of today, with a total of 93 deaths.  By mid March, the Malaysian government announced the Movement Control Order (MCO) - basically a lockdown, a law was  drawn up and enforced to make sure that we stay at home, and flatten the Covid-19 curve, because by then, our numbers were driving up. A month from that, my new employer would cancel the legally-binding emplo...

I noticed that I'm only propelled to write when I'm unhappy, sad or desolate - basically whenever my heart is burdened by some of what life has thrown at me. That's one of the main reasons why I haven't been writing on here often in the recent years. I want to be remembered as this fresh-spirited, witty and uncomplicated narrator. But it's so hard to write about the jolly things in life when my mind is tangled up so much in a web of worries.  I don't want sappy tales of my life floating about in the world wide web long after I'm gone. And yet, I find myself most comfortable indulging in unhappiness. Or rather it's easier to relate to conflicts, physical pain and loss than to all the other things that I should be happy about. Does that make any sense to you?  Or is this mid-life crisis?  Turned a year older about a month ago, and got a visit from this old friend.