Rembulan Kesiangan

Yesterday during breakfast, a guy walked into the restaurant. He was mumbling to himself. Looked unkempt and dirty. He went straight to a table on our right. Two men were reading newspapers. He started pointing pointing to the newspaper and gave comments. Something to do with politics. And he offered his hand for a handshake. They shook hands.

Then he came to my table and offered a handshake to a guy sitting next to me. And he told us all, ‘I am like this because the moon is full. I will take my medication and will be better soon.’ And we nodded our heads.
‘Go for it dude, take your medications!’

I looked at Yamtuan and smiled. The guy is pretty harmless, I mouthed. But I would not want to shake hands with him.
‘it is going to be full moon soon, that is why lah’ Yamtuan said.
‘yeah, like that has any relevance..’ pish posh!
‘it is true you know, you don’t know ah?’

And so I said I would do my own research on the moon subject. For phases of the moon, hana kirana has it on her spot. Why, dunno also.

Today on the way to work, I was in the bus and the bus was taking a bend when suddenly in front of us, standing right smack in the middle of our lane was this guy. Bent at the waist, he was flashing his glorious butt at us. Despite being a passenger and never driven a car, least of all a bus, I was busy braking braking as well. The bus almost hit him and the cars behind almost hit us. Phew! We stopped maybe a millimeter or two shy from his butt. My face was maybe less than a foot away from that butt. And he kept on with his pose.

Not a flinch (i was close enough to testify to this). Didnt give a fart!

What is it about the moon?

The werewolves howl the loudest when the moon is full. The pontianaks hop trees and give you their famous heeeheehee with full moon as background. When us girls ‘datang bulan’ we can sometimes be as savage as werewolves AND pontianaks combined!

We romanticise about the silvery moon. And we are in awe of its pale yellow light. Someone told me that she would never look at the moon whenever she was away from home because it would only make her more homesick. Because she explained, wherever you are on this world, when you look up and rest your gaze at the moon, you know that your loved ones are under the same moon. The geography underneath your feet may be different, but the moon, the sky remains to look just like home!

And you have songs about the moon. You equate beauty with the moon and then doomed love affair too. And you want to live on the moon because over there, nobody is going to say that you have a weight problem. The moon, nobody diets up there! My idea of heaven!

Some folklore said that there was this concubine who sacrificed herself for the people in China and so was taken up to the moon by the gods so she could continue watching her beloved people.

And there are stories too about an evil man on the moon weaving a rope. The rope would scorch earth if it touches ground. But rejoice, there is this rat up there who nimbles at the rope so it would never be long enough to do any damage.

BTW do you know that the Blue Moon actually means the second full moon in a calendar month? It is something which is bound to happen once in a while, because the average length of the lunar month is slightly shorter than the length of most calendar months. And, at full moon the earth is between the moon and the sun; at new moon the moon is between the sun and the earth. Always the perfect line-up.

Some creatures synchronise their breeding with the cycles of the moon. One example is sea turtles, which come ashore to lay their eggs at a particular phase of the moon. This is in relevance to the tide. When tide is higher, baby turtles will not have to travel so far after hatching, to reach the shore. Some girls I know also just so happened to be talking about breeding at this time of the moon. Why she wants a high tide I also don’t want to know. Dont make me blush Anedra (this linking trick i just curi the kungfu from uja), really.

Moon causes the tide. Low tide, high tide, are all due to the moon (and sun really). Is it possible that the liquid in our body, (our blood and God-knows what other juice), all experience low tide high tide as well? The human body is after all comprised of 80% water.

And then I found websites discussing this and how actual scientific researches have been carried out and the conclusion they made? There is NO NEVER NADA such thing as human tidal effect.

And so when I ‘datang bulan’ and my blood reaches its highest tide and I snap at your head and go after your throat like a sundal malam, it is NOT the moon, it is just you.