400: baby go crazy (break the rules)

the litany:

377: people are like electrons

373: i’d rather dance with you

You’re so unkind, he sings. And he replies, well, you’re out of your mind.

It’s easy to forget that you’d ever left. Yet everything seems somehow different, somewhat changed in the meantime — things have moved, been torn down and rebuilt, or reshaped into different things, people have come and gone and drifted further away, and we’ve all descended into a strange pool of awkwardness we don’t quite know how to get out of.

365: when i look at you i watch the sun rise

I’m not counting. 

363: 等下一个天亮

As I get older I realise I am less and less prone to subterfuge. It may be a good thing or it may not, but somehow I can’t find the energy to hide behind words anymore. There used to be a time when I took great pleasure in making everyone guess what I was talking about (strange how people put up with me, sometimes) but nowadays I’m tired of mind games and second guessing all the time.

350: all i have is your letter read

“But—but it seems so weak,” said Josephine, breaking down.

“But why not be weak for once, Jug?” argued Constantia, whispering quite fiercely. “If it is weak.” And her pale stare flew from the locked writing table — so safe — to the huge glittering wardrobe, and she began to breathe in a queer, panting way. “Why shouldn’t we be weak for once in our lives, Jug? It’s quite excusable. Let’s be weak — be weak, Jug. It’s much nicer to be weak than to be strong.”  

One of the things I will remember most about my school life is the short story. At certain points in my life random quotes from books will pop out at me at jarringly relevant intervals to remind me just how tellingly accurate literature sometimes is when it comes to observing real life. Sometimes I feel like I should stop living in quotes and books and lyrics of songs and using them to describe how I feel, but yet such words continually touch the human heart and spirit, and it is amazing how literature continues to influence my life.

I remember most all the quotes from that book. The only story I didn’t truly like was The Secret Sharer; every other short story has left an indelible impact on me. And then — that time when I filled in the worksheets, three blanks to fill in the correct words from a quote  — so primary school, but it worked — weak, weak, weak, strong, and it always, always springs to mind whenever I wonder if there is any point in borrowing strength from an invisible source.

But there is. There always is.

330: one night in beijing

Things begin, things end, things begin anew. The logic is the same and it is always the same cycle, and everything appears to be a game. You play, you win, you play, you lose, you play. You win again, or you lose. There are never grey areas; everything is one or the other. Still you play. Everything defines itself by something else, and when there are only two alternatives there is always something that has to give. Rarely are we faced with more, and like most life-changing decisions, there is really only one way to properly go about it, which is to say, not at all. Nobody thinks. Nobody cares. We remember the times that we sat together by the riverside, thinking about our lives, wondering where we would go. We eventually came to the conclusion that there was nothing we could do; this is the way it is, this is the flow. If we make a mistake, so be it. It is our life to live. We win, we play, we lose. Everything is a risk and we pursue the exciting rather than the familiar, because we are free, because we are young, because we can. It is the reason why nobody turns back, why nobody wants to be faced with regrets, why everyone looks forward and keeps going, because the past is painful and hard to bear. There are only two alternatives. And yet everything in the present must also have a past, in the same way that it must also have a future. It may not be better, it may not be worse,  just — different. And then how much remains the same is the scariest question, because it is possible to come full circle and realise one has never moved from the same spot. It may be the same as watching someone sit quietly by your side, not saying anything, but understanding. It may be that someone’s back is turned away from you, someone who doesn’t look at you anymore, who doesn’t say anything and will never say anything anymore. It may be the case that having someone is like not having anyone at all; or that we are faced with the ghosts from our past all the time, pretending all the while that someone is there when they are not. 

280: just like a graham greene novel

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

 

 

243: this is longer than sorrow

Honestly? Okay, really honestly? This is the best ever movie poster. Ever. I would give a lot to see that hanging on my wall, just because it’s my favourite book and the poster is beautiful. Though they should have used a camellia.

(But the 2046 poster SJ got me for my 18th birthday is still in its “you better freaking have an orgasm when  you get this” case. Though that’s because I haven’t a frame big enough for it yet.)

And. Javier Bardem. Ahhh.

215: true voyage is return

there is corn soup in the fridge. we say this all the time, but always there are things that come along and make you feel glad to be alive, even if you’ve spent your day holed up in some corner of starbucks with a multi-pin plug and property law trying to make sense of mortgages. and getting nowhere in the end.

these few weeks, in a series of bizarre and morbid coincidences, there has been a lot of trouble in the family. first, two grandpeople died in the space of one week (i considered trying to explain this to my company tutor, that i had to miss class because both funerals were on the same day of the week (tuesday) since they both died on the same day of the week – but i thought she wouldn’t believe – i mean, who would? but truth is stranger than fiction), and then random assorted extended family members start fighting, over trivial and inconsequential things (as always). this sounds suspiciously like a soap opera. and my mum is in bangkok right now celebrating her birthday, i.e. trying not to kill my dad.

that leaves me here, alone with my grandmother and her soup, half a bottle of white wine from raffles hotel and a property textbook. it’s quite a weird combination. let’s be thankful for the small things.

213: funeral blues

stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
silence the pianos and with muffled drum
bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead,
scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

he was my North, my South, my East and West,
my working week and my Sunday rest,
my noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
i thought that love would last for ever: i was wrong.

the stars are not wanted now: put out every one,
pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
pour away the oceans and sweep up the wood,
for nothing now can ever come to any good.

– W H Auden

lovely poem. but also very sad.

205: franny, meet zooey

i got a new ipod on thursday. her name is zooey, from the jd salinger book, just as the last one was. i like how they are the opposite of each other – which is why i did not buy the black.

my macbook is called franny.
and my phone appears as dagny (from atlas shrugged) on any bluetooth things.
and that is a jack kerouac quote on top, tattooed on someone (very brave)’s arm.

i am a freak for such things, which is why some day i am going to get my hands on these:

160: one is the loneliest number

it has been a long time since i’ve written anything, and if this is anything to go by, there’s a long way more to go before it nears anything it used to be. nevertheless, after jo told me about her recently-found copy of eye on the world, i’ve discovered that oranges and emerald hill in 24 hours actually got published despite not completing an entire barrage of paperwork (never trust MOE threats). jo said she liked the orange one but didn’t get the emerald hill one – i found that strange because i never really liked the oranges one much, and it was more an experiment in style than anything, but maybe that’s because emerald hill holds more meaning personally (on a sidenote, i haven’t ventured past alleybar in the past few years, and suddenly i’m spending lots more time in the front of emerald hill rather than in it). yet those two things might have been the last two poems i’ve written in the past few years (geylang maybe – which i liked quite a bit).

so, here goes nothing.

147: i’m not crazy, i’m just a little unwell

there are times when i get so sick of the taste of medication that i feel like throwing up everytime it goes halfway down my throat and leaves its bitter, chemical taste there. and i don’t know why — normally i don’t have such an aversion to paracetamol, but lately it’s been tasting horrible. twice out of six times i’ve swallowed a pill and ended up throwing up everything i’ve eaten before that, only to have to down another dose so that my fever will go down. yesterday it reached unprecedented heights at night (38.5deg), despite trying to reassure the bf that i was alright (and foolhardy enough to want to go to school in the afternoon), but when i got up after a nap to take a cold shower because my body was so warm, i nearly fainted in the shower stall and stumbled out blindly and promptly collapsed on the bed. seeing as my mother is out of town visiting my dad i don’t know what i’d do without him. eugh. i hate feeling helpless, especially when i have a mountain of legal theory to study by tuesday in order that i don’t fail or something. sigh.

We are the clumsy passersby,
we push past each other with elbows,
with feet, with trousers, with suitcases,
we get off the train, the jet plane, the ship, we step down
in our wrinkled suits and sinister hats.
We are all guilty, we are all sinners,
we come from dead-end hotels or industrial peace,
this might be our last clean shirt,
we have misplaced our tie,
yet even so, on the edge of panic, pompous,
sons of bitches who move in the highest circles
or quiet types who don’t owe anything to anybody,
we are one and the same, the same in time’s eyes,
or in solitude’s: we are the poor devils
who earn a living and a death working
bureautragically or in the usual ways,
sitting down or packed together in subway stations,
boats, mines, research centers, jails,
universities, breweries,
(under our clothes the same thirsty skin),
(the hair, the same hair, only in different colors).

- Pablo Neruda