396: we are always running for the thrill of it

You don’t know about the little things that we do without, when that whole mad season comes around.

366: and you exploded in my heart

 

The weather needs to get a grip on itself. It keeps alternating raining and not raining, the sun shining and not shining, the sky being cloudy and then not. It needs to stop sending me on rollercoasters because I don’t like being taken for rides.

347: maybe that something’s gonna happen today

I feel like today has been a peaceful day. After the hubbub of last night, where I remember having dangerous conversations, great chili from Mitch, way too much wine and unnecessary beer, and once again, the frenzy of dancing in a crowd of bodies that have absolutely nothing to do with each other, smudged eyeliner. Strange because I didn’t recognise most people there and was too lazy to make new friends, for the most part. Increasingly I feel rather anti-social and reclusive and all I want to do is hide back in my (now) familiar, cosy room and not come out, especially since the weather this week has been completely uncooperative. Yesterday on my way to school I encountered at least four different weather phenomena in the space of twenty minutes, which sounds impressive but is terrible to get through. It is hard to explain how horrible it feels to have it rain ice when you are trying to cycle your fastest to get to school on time with the howling wind blowing ice right at your face the entire time. My cheeks are still itchy from the cuts. You never really know how much the weather affects your day, mostly because it never really changes in Singapore. In any case, everything is insulated against the weather, and nobody really cares. In view of my upcoming trip to Austria I finally downloaded The Sound of Music, which is possibly my favourite movie of all time and one that I really needed to have watched about three months ago. 

303: japan: dancing in tokyo

So – here is the last part. We spent three nights in Tokyo, but it was effectively two and half days left because we flew off in the morning. Less words before the cut now because there is just so much more to see in pictures.

302: ten thousand years

Remember what you have is right in front of you, is the thing they always tell you when they want you to be content with everything you’ve got, even the things you don’t have. Everybody is after all only given so much, and we make the best use of it as we can. Over the past week things haven’t been turbulent as much as they have been eerily quiet; brief spurts of aborted activity in the day slowly give way to the plodding routine of the night. This week things have been different and yet the same.

293: japan: osaka city riots

18- 21 May.

So, finally, here is Osaka. Most of what they say about Osaka is totally true. It’s a merchant town, and it’s filled with people who love food, love being happy, love being loud and funny and living life. It’s kind of like being Hokkien on crack. Being Japanese, they’re naturally polite, and really really willing to help. They’re the sort of people that, when you are standing alone on the train platform surrounded by your luggage, an elderly lady will totter over to you asking, 大丈夫か？ (Are you all right?). At this point most of what you can say merely consists of ああ、はい (Ah, yes) which is really rude now that I think about it. Yet the same elderly lady, when getting onto the train, will fight you tooth and nail to get in and give you a not-so-friendly push if you dawdle too long at the entrance. Osaka people are always hurrying everywhere; not in the same way as Tokyo or the big cities, where everyone needs to look like they have something very important to do. Here it is pure unadulterated rush. 

We spent four days in Osaka, and they were a good four days. We visited temples and parks, castles, got lost, did lots of shopping, checked out Kennedy’s wildly expensive t-shirts, gawked at more wildly expensive merchandise, ate and walked, and ate, and ate non-stop. 

280: just like a graham greene novel

All this hate and love; it’s soft, it’s hooey.
There’s only things, Blackie.

 

 

269: お誕生日おめでとう！

It takes a special kind of person to stop coming home drunk after a party. It takes a special kind of person to ignore the flashing lights, the booming music, and the leering eyes. A sea of white shirts wherever you go, squeezing through bodies to get to the toilet. Resisting glass after glass and bottle after bottle of whisky. You think maybe you’d be better off with a beer, or two, or none. A Coke, maybe. Then you think about how there is still work to do tomorrow, Equity and Public Law waiting for you, their siren songs turning to unpleasant wails in your head. Still, it’s a road that must be taken. And still you smell of smoke.  It takes a special kind of person to forget about all this, to let go, and just be happy. As if there is nothing on tomorrow, as if nothing is the way it was yesterday.

We got lost on the way home. It was raining and I couldn’t see anything and I knocked down a cone outside Zouk and the security guard screamed at me. It was mildly unpleasant but somehow it was funny, when everything was a haze. I probably shouldn’t have been driving. 

To the special person tonight who abandoned tomorrow and lived for today, here is your very happy 21st birthday. I know you will remember it forever and ever, even if you can’t really remember anything tomorrow. We are always here to remind you. Hur hur. :)

So the sky turns from black to purple to orange, and still the clock ticks on. When it turns blue we will wake up and life will start again.

233: here to stay is the new bird

Sometimes I think, someday I’d like to live in a world where nothing changes. Where everything stays the same, stagnant and unmoving, like a puddle on the floor. I’d sit in my pool of water, and look up at the sky. A frog in a well.  

But puddles grow bigger and bigger as the rain gets heavier and heavier, and eventually spill over into the drain.  

232: gone away is the bluebird

Went to the toy museum at Seah Street today. 

224: distance has no way of making love understandable

Today I sat alone in Borders reading a trashy romance novel for 3 hours. Then I went to Starbucks, walking through the puddles with an umbrella being blown against the wind. It was a very strong wind.

Looking outside, it actually feels as if winter is approaching. Or is already here. The bells are ringing, from a place I cannot see.

It is the headlights; the lights of the oncoming cars hurling themselves the glass door, as fragile as the snowflakes painted on them, if they were real. The outside gets dark quickly, even though it is not yet 7pm. All these things and more, remind you that in times of good cheer and tidings, there is usually the most loneliness to be found.

130: the little things that we do without

the rain beats down without me knowing on my classroom windows, while i’m holed up inside discussing privity of contract for two hours, and when i come out into the air again, all i see is a grey sheet of rain and the dismay that wells up when i realise i have to get wet in order to get to the car. j then gallantly offers to bring an umbrella for me and i disappoint him greatly when i brave the rain across two metres of pavement just so he can walk less. after we rush to town for my appointment, he waits on the slopes for me to be done before he ventures out again and we drive around, not knowing what to do. eventually we decide, and after we park the car our slippers get wet in the puddles of rain that pool on the ground, and we plod into the building with wet feet and vaguely grumpy dispositions. we slide into dinner slightly damp, and are slightly happy when the food comes. we cool our heels in the cinema: i’m freezing from the rain and shiver involuntarily throughout, and after we finish paris, je t’aime we’re amazed at the bizarre french humour, and sit down outside the sidewalk with the rain pattering just a bit further out to come off from a high that leaves us both bent over with laughter. over warm coffee we huddle together and talk, about things other than school, about our friends, about the people that walk by, about our past, about us, in the quiet, rainy night that seems so magical in the middle of a busy week.