The Wanderluste Journals

2002-06-20T23:38:00.000-07:00

She says, "AA is a sinking ship, don't we all know it."

And that's where I see they're at now. LJ and Xanga.
(Xanga of course is championed by the intrepid Lofty.)

Dear Readers,
This is possibly the last entry.
(Goodbyes are never final, didn't you know ?)
Thank you D_Man for taking me here, you've all been too good and too kind.
I'm moving to xanga.

2002-06-20T14:38:00.000-07:00

I decided, am deciding right now as I'm writing, I deserve a medal.

It dawned on me, as I kept telling everyone, how good it's been to be away, that I, the shopaholic, the woman, the kuniang from Singapore, had totally, totally managed to AVOID all the swanky department stores of New York.

I don’t have to name them. They’re the ones you read about in Vogue and Harpers and Elle. The ones somewhere in the cotton candy part of your mind, you have sailed through, wearing silhouette perfect black, kitten mules and mysterious sunshades a la Jackie O.

My other credit card wielding comrade however, wasn’t spared. Having got to New York a little earlier than me, and having been there for days, she returned with an exhaustive report of the sites of conflict where she had been engaged, challenged or just purely, tempted.

Forgive me my loan officer for I have sinned.

Alright. So I did spend an ENTIRE day at the Mall of America while in Minneapolis. But that wasn’t by choice really. It was more like a childcare center ,where Dee had left us when he and the Mrs had to go to work.. Even there, we still avoided all the swanky department stores, and again, out in the charming sun and music filled Nicolette Mall, we again swerved the shops, hiding instead in a bookshop.

So well yes…..while my performance for restraint had been less than satisfactory in Hong Kong, I had been remarkably well behaved while let loose on the streets of New York.

I deserve an effing medal.

2002-06-19T18:00:00.000-07:00

I'm approaching my first year on Blog.
It's been great fun while I had been here.
But thanks to T & T (that's Tim & Terry) I'm settling in well in the new neighbourhood.
Nice to see the new faces and the AAers who had moved.

Anytime now baby. You know where to reach me.

2002-06-19T17:56:00.000-07:00

So, what motivates me ?

Did the quiz on Emode today, and no surprises, the results came back as such –

"P, your Key Motivator, the thing that really drives you to success in life, is Curiosity.

Based on your answers about values, past behaviors, and internal priorities, we can tell you look for ways to be independent, to understand how things work, to have new and diverse experiences, or to explore sexuality. In addition, you may find that you're also motivated by aspects of prestige, stability, connection, and experience. People driven by Curiosity are fascinated by learning how things work and having new experiences. Because of this, they probably have an interest in numerous pursuits like learning more about art, history, and travel, having inventive relationships, and understanding mechanics or technology. Their insatiable desire for learning also drives them to be independent and individualistic at times, since they want to get to the bottom of their questions about the world around them."

So yeah…totally sounds like me. But tell me something, “inventive relationships” ? What’s that ? I’m curious.

2002-06-19T04:49:00.000-07:00

This one is for Lofty ....

In total, I must have clocked in somewhere between 36 - 40 hours of flight time.

The sectors between Singapore and Tokyo averaged 6 hours while the sectors between Tokyo and the American cities averaged 11 hours.

Let's say in total, I had something like 10 airline meals. Those neat little square grids he so loved. Surprise surprise, this time round, some of the square grids actually contained food that tastes like food you get to eat while seated on some chair while not in the air.

I couldn't help muffling a chuckle each time the de-sensitised stewardess handed me one of those trays.

So most people toast with alcohol. But I raise an oven heated square grid in salut to a friend.

2002-06-19T04:47:00.000-07:00

"So," he asks excitedly, "any more great stories ?"

I can just imagine that boyish grin stretching across his face as he asks me that.

Yes. Stories. Plenty of stories

But right now, they're all images - swirling, flashing, jumping frames of images, looking for words to describe them. They're images waiting to be given life in words.

In my mind's eyes, I see these frames clearly. Click by click. There is on one hand a frantic desire to remember these images because they were new, they were undiscovered and they gave me joy. Yet, somewhere deep inside, I continue to resist these images, to resist their swirling colours demanding to be given life.

Because I am not sure who painted them. Because I am not sure once they have a life of their own, would they be demon children out to hound me.

Yes. I have stories. There are memories. Now give me the words.

2002-06-19T04:46:00.000-07:00

On the day they first met, she wanted to give him a gift.

It was a quarter minted in 1974. The year he was born. She kept it in a separate pocket so that she wouldn’t use it, that it wouldn’t get lost with the rest of the quarters bulging out of her pockets by now.

It sat in the left pocket of her jeans the whole weekend. She can’t remember now why she never gave it to him. Perhaps the occasion did not ask for such sentimentality. Perhaps she changed her mind and wanted to give it to him as a parting gift, then changed her mind again because one can't put a dollar value to these things.

She is half a world away and she suddenly remembers the quarter. She rummages through the washing machine, digs out the pair of jeans stained with mud splatters from traipsing round the wet, puddle riddled streets of the city, on the night they met.

The pockets are empty. She can’t find that quarter. She thinks she has used it.

In her memory, there will always be a quarter dollar, minted in the year he was born that was her gift to him.

2002-06-18T17:06:00.000-07:00

On the day they first met, she wanted to give him a gift.

It was a quarter minted in 1974. The year he was born. She kept it in a separate pocket so that she wouldn’t use it, that it wouldn’t get lost with the rest of the quarters bulging out of her pockets by now.

It sat in the left pocket of her jeans the whole weekend. She can’t remember now why she never gave it to him. Perhaps the occasion did not ask for such sentimentality. Perhaps she changed her mind and wanted to give it to him as a parting gift.

She is half a world away and she suddenly remembers the quarter. She rummages through the washing machine, digs out the pair of jeans with the stained with mud splatters from traipsing round the wet, puddle riddled streets of the village.

The pockets are empty. She can’t find that quarter. She thinks she has used it.

In her memory, there will always be a quarter dollar, minted in the year he was born that was her gift to him.

2002-06-18T16:22:00.000-07:00

Back from le grande escape. (But already plotting your second you will say...)

Strange how New York was raining but there was no sign of Rain.
But of course. Since he's now in LA. Duh.

There was the orange moon, veiled behind lacy, misty grey clouds as the big bird swooped in.

Landing in Changi in the late of the night has always stirred me.

The way the oil rigs, the ship and the ferry terminals blink in the ink dark sea. The lights snaking round the expressways shine like entrancing baubles.

C'est moi, mon amour. I have returned to you in the cover of the night.

2002-06-18T16:20:00.000-07:00

Her name was Emelia. She was born and grew up in Lima, Peru before she moved to Texas.

She is several years older than me but I did not ask her age. She has a son who is 4 years old going on 5. I adore him. He probably thinks I’m a strange stoopid adult for asking him all those questions about Pinocchio.

The first evening I met her, she hugged me when we said goodbye. My frigid Chinese ass was taken aback by her encompassing warmness.

The second evening we met, we were both dressed up to the nines for the party we were at. I looked like Nerfertini with my dark hair, dark eyes and my handmade crystal collar. I sat, in a public unpublic corner, on my best behaviour holding a glass of something or other.

When she saw me, she headed right for me. Her eyes are of a lighter, bronzer shade than mine. Still, I could lose myself in them. It was in that instant, we both recognized each other.

Like how children clique together in a playground, like how children instinctively know who their friends are, she saw through me and I embraced her.

We were both outsiders looking in despite being dressed for the part.

So we started talking. She talked about her mother in Peru, and the last time she saw her. She talked about her 5 siblings and how they went from Lima to Texas. We talked about her son and how he would not speak Spanish. We talked about growing up in an all girls’ school.

Now and then, her husband would come by and take her away to introduce her to so and so. Other so and so-s would come by and introduce themselves to me letting me practice my best Nerfertini gaze and smile on them.

In the ensuing hullabaloo of goodbyes and the cold, we barely said goodbye before we were whisked off in different directions.

But she is the sort of woman that you’ll send Christmas cards to, and who will send them back to you.

One day, I’m going to go to Peru and I’ll send her a postcard from there.

2002-06-14T16:46:00.000-07:00

The cab driver was Somali.

He had lived in Quebec when his father was working at the Embassy. Then they returned to Somali when his stint was over.

He left Somali again in 1988 and played basketball for Spain. As a basketballer, he trooped round the world. Seoul, Malaysia, Europe....

Now he lives in Minnessota and is studying to be a mechanical engineer.

He is amazed I live in a country where it only takes an hour to drive from one end to the other. Surely you must have countryside in your country, he asked. We have parks and such, I replied.

Man ! He says. Man.

He shakes his head.

You know, I can't live in America, he says. It's a land of opportunities, but there's no social life. People go home after work, after school.

It was what I always thought it was. A land of opportunities, and he had said it.

But where does the line between opportunities and to belong merge and end ?

2002-06-11T16:32:00.000-07:00

There is no you here. I do not sense you, I do not feel you.

Here the cars are hungry, they gun down highways with an unfamiliar roar.
I look into cars, at passing cars, at people in the passing cars as I've always done. But the faces, the people, mean nothing to me.

The sun welcomes me. Touches me with its rays. They said it would storm when I got here.
But no, the sun welcomes me.
Here, the storm rumbles for ages before the rain falls.
And when the rain falls, it doesn't rattle.
All too soon it is over.

There is no you here.
I cannot sense you or feel you.
One night in my sleep, I remembered thinking.

This is what it feels like to be free.

2002-06-08T12:15:00.000-07:00

I have skirt which the girls have christened as the “Mating Skirt”. It earned its name not from some strategically placed, enticing slit. Or from the lack of a fabric, or from any structurally convincing way it holds the female form.

It’s quite an innocuous looking skirt really, that would fall under the “sweet” variety. It’s a splash of spring-summerish reds and pinks. It looks like the colours taken off a Renoir or a Monet.

The thing with it is that it has a sheen. It shines like silk and feels like satin. It’s the sort of fabric you want to stroke, run your hands over it because it invites you to in its quiet way. In so doing, you of course make contact with the skin beneath it, the warmth that’s emanating from the skin.

I’ve only worn it twice. In fact it was on the second occasion that it got christened the “Mating Skirt”. Unfortunately ( or fortunately as some of you may be obliged to disagree) the skirt has never been put to the test yet, i.e. worn on an occasion where a possible mate is on the horizon for it to do its job.

She sits on the ledge of my bed, kicking her legs back and forth. “So,”she asks “you bringing the mating skirt along ?”

“No, why would I ?”, I raised my eyebrows.

“Well, you know, you’re on holiday.…”she challenged.

“You must be joking honey. We’re talking Minneapolis here…with the boot camp commander”.

She had that infuriating smile.

I sighed. “Look, anyhow, it’s a skirt that doesn’t travel well. It gets creased. Give me a break!”

“You know, I’ve never seen you this happy talking about him. Seeing him again was good wasn’t it ?”

“Yes, Em. It was good and I didn’t need the mating skirt.”

She sighed.

“Well, since you’re all gonna be gone for two whole weeks, I’ll be left to my own devices…can I borrow the mating skirt ?”

2002-06-08T12:14:00.000-07:00

Leaving on a jet plane.
No pounding heart. No glazed eye gaze.
No moon to guide my way.

Who will remember, if I forget to come home?

2002-06-06T23:39:00.000-07:00

Thoughts on AA

It was by word of mouth that I landed on AA. In the year and a half or so, I've scored some points, got my
free AA shirt ( couldn't scalp them for the free coffee flask though, damn !), met some fascinating characters, encountered fellow wordsmiths. Joined the legions of caffeine strung groupies stalking Rain. (Yes, I still have that folder called "Stalking Rain" on my PC. Tell him when you see him that I'm gonna be in the city soon ;p )

Most of us by now, have begun to leave AA, preferring the network and support of (mostly) single professionals who do not type like 5 year olds.

Today, I got my 12,000 hit on AA. Possibly the only Singaporean to do so. Thank you for giving life to my writings.

It's given new life each time when one more person reads it.

2002-06-05T00:52:00.000-07:00

NICOLAS

His name was Nicolas and he had huge brown pools for eyes. He had eyelashes so long, they seemed like spiderweb glinting in sunlight. Nicolas hardly spoke much English, or if he did, I did not notice. It all sounded foreign to me anyway. He spoke four other languages I did not speak, beautifully. I, of course, did not understand those languages, but just to hear the words trilling, flowing off his tongue, kept me hypnotized.

Nicolas stepped out of the coffee shop, a rather quiet coffee shop I might add, and made his way to my table. A grande caffeine something in hand, clutching a black portfolio case, he smiled and queried in non-English English if he could sit with me. It was hard to tear my gaze away from those eyes, so I believe I might have said an English-English “yes” that was a non-English, “my god you’re beautiful”.

Good behaviour prevailing, I looked nonchalantly into the distance, at the way the slopes in this city snaked one hump after another, at the prettied up buildings and houses, in almost candy colours and beyond, the Pacific in multiple hues of blues. Glancing, curiously, shyly, slyly at each other above the rim of our cups, we suddenly both burst out laughing.

That was when we became known to each other. The names, our identities at birth, who we are today, at this moment, our identity, as we sat facing each other.

2002-06-05T00:50:00.000-07:00

...Nicolas

The English, as I had mentioned, seemed a problem. But then, maybe, we didn’t need much words. Nicolas told stories in pictures. Nicolas made pictures, created images. He whipped out a digi cam, which seemed like it had been on the market for two years now. Frame after frame, he showed me the cities he had been to. Inter-continental crossings. 36 cities in 18 months. Sometimes he was in the pictures alone, sometimes there were other people, sometimes it was just a corner of the city. Sometimes the people were complete, they had a face, a semblence of a body. Sometimes, they were glimpses – a pair of eyes there, a smile on a lip, feet, shoes….

I thought I noticed a pattern, but I wasn’t too sure. He affirmed it. In every city I go, I take only two or three pictures. Usually at my start of the journey, when I have just arrived and then as I am about to leave the city and move on. We looked at each other, and his wonderful mélange of languages filled the still afternoon. We were swirling now, on waves of words and sounds and two oceans of brown eyes, his and mine.

2002-06-04T23:24:00.000-07:00

...Nicolas

Then the language made sense to me, and a voice inside me became his voice in my words.

When you arrive in a city, you carry a new hope, a new sense of beauty. But you bring within you too, all the other cities you’ve known, the people you’ve touched, the sweetness of the waters and wine you had drunk. You bring the darkness of anger, of disappointment, burning blood spilled from a broken heart, tired eyes from deceptive truths. Each picture, is a record of the hopes you had and the pain you carry as you arrive, and as you leave.

I said it in my own words.

He looked at me. It was in that instant, the blues of the Pacific seemed to engulf the rest of the landscape, the sun seemed to make his eyes gold. Seemed to make my eyes gold as I saw them reflected in his eyes.

I touched his fingers. He grasped my hands.

If I kiss you now, I thought, I will be lost. You will cast me adrift from the journey I’ve already chosen.

He kissed me. Beautiful, rich cherub’s lips that I seemed to remember from somewhere.

You are lost anyway. He said in non-English English.

I laughed, heard myself laughing. Then I felt it. The tears that were already streaming down my cheeks.

There, right then, he took up his camera, and took a picture of me and my tears.

Do you want to see it ? He seemed to ask.

I shook my head and pushed the camera away.

Coming or going ? I asked.

I am leaving, tonight. He said.

No, Nicolas, I will not leave with you.

He didn’t say the magic words. He did not say to me, “Come with me and be my shore”.

I stood up to go, so that I could be the first to walk away.

I leaned down, against his cheek, and whispered into him.

You know, these cities, they’re in us all along, we don’t have to keep moving.

2002-06-02T20:09:00.000-07:00

Is it possible to be jealous of written words?
To resent nocturnal scribblings as though they
were the very flesh and blood of a sexual rival?
- Salman Rushdie
[stumbled on with gratitude from chynagurl's page]

And so excuse my sentimentality. But desire me just the same for the woman that I am. As I desire you, my secret place of hiding. Now we are complete.

2002-06-02T08:44:00.000-07:00

[Another piece from my Neruda canon - because, it is indeed how I feel - tonight I can write the saddest lines, but he's said it all.]

TONIGHT I CAN WRITE

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example, `The night is starry
and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is starry and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night, whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. As she was before my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.

(translated by W. S. Merwin)

2002-06-02T05:50:00.000-07:00

Clues.

In the bathroom, she will find strands of hair. Long black hair that is not hers.
She will think, does he too stroke her hair and tell her how soft her hair is ?

On the sink, her eyes catch sight of two tooth brush heads, and one electric toothbrush. A blue and a pink.
She will think, when was the last time she used it ?

In a corner on the bedside table, she finds a pack of cigarettes, a brand he doesn’t smoke.
She will think, did she leave them behind in her post coital haze, or will she be back to smoke them ?

As if needing to get into the identity of the ghost, she holds the cigarette box in her palm, weighs it, feels the corners. She opens it, pulls out a stick, and lights it.

She leaves wafting a trail of cigarette smoke in her wake. A silent smile unfurls and she wonders if the ghost will pick up her scent on his sheets.

2002-06-01T06:42:00.000-07:00

Valhalla was a fantasy. The warrior woman, the huntress. The woman who conversed with angels, and was ready to run any risk in order to surpass her limits. For her, Paulo was the man who wore the ring of the Tradition of the Moon, the Magus who knew about the occult mysteries. The adventurer, capable of leaving everything behind to go out in search of angels. Each would always be fascinated by the other-so long as each remained exactly what the other imagined.

That’s what infatuation is: the creation of an image of someone, without advising that someone as to what the image is.

But some day, when familiarity revealed the true identity of both, they would discover that behind the Magus and the Valkyrie there was a man and a woman. Each possessing powers, perhaps each with some precious knowledge, maybe, but-they couldn’t ignore the fact-each basically a man and a woman. Each with the agony and the ecstasy, the strength and the weakness of every other human being.

And when either of them demonstrated how they really were, the other would want to flee-because it would mean the end o f the world they had created.

From, "The Valkyries", Paulo Choelo

2002-05-31T23:30:00.000-07:00

Nic wrote asking if we noticed that its been a decade since we were freshman.

That day is at the back of my mind, like it was only a couple of years ago.

Me with my short curls then, in my boho dresses and adornments of ethnic jewellery. The quintessential art chick. Me with my folder, thrust with referal letters from the projects I had been on, hunting for the Lang & Lit department. AS7 ...or was it AS8 with the bright yellow doors and stair railings. That corner of campus that would eventually be our hang out for the next 4 years or so. Smoking Sampoernas on the ledge, tapping phone lines in our hons room, keeling over half writtren thesis.

Those planned casual moments of coinciding moving across campus times with his - so that I can catch a glimpse of his grey-brown-green bedroom eyes.

The PN section of the library where I discovered countless hours of pleasures in words while supposedly researching for a paper due next week.

And how we used to have a joke about how in your freshman year you are in the Red Spot section, being constantly checked out. Then you move onto the Open Shelves. And by the third year, if you're still not taken, you're in Closed Stacks". :)

---------------------------------
Have we reached that point ? That inescapable point of looking back and wondering where to move forward to ? It seems so, what with AK counting the 12 years and Nic counting the 10th and M trying to retrieve anchor.

12 years, 10 years, 3 years. I'd like to find out, how much has the longing ceased.

2002-05-31T23:18:00.000-07:00

Gordan Chang joins Ho Kwon Ping and Jose Cura on the pin up list !!
:p

2002-05-30T22:18:00.000-07:00

I

Who would be
A mermaid fair,
Singing alone,
Combing her hair
Under the sea,
In a golden curl
With a comb of pearl,
On a throne?

II

I would be a mermaid fair;
I would sing to myself the whole of the day;
With a comb of pearl I would comb my hair;
And still as I comb'd I would sing and say,
'Who is it loves me? who loves not me?'
I would comb my hair till my ringlets would fall
Low adown, low adown,
From under my starry sea-bud crown
Low adown and around,
And I should look like a fountain of gold
Springing alone
With a shrill inner sound
Over the throne
In the midst of the hall;
Till that great sea-snake under the sea
From his coiled sleeps in the central deeps
Would slowly trail himself sevenfold
Round the hall where I sate, and look in at the gate
With his large calm eyes for the love of me.
And all the mermen under the sea
Would feel their immortality
Die in their hearts for the love of me.

III

But at night I would wander away, away,
I would fling on each side my low-flowing locks,
And lightly vault from the throne and play
With the mermen in and out of the rocks;
We would run to and fro, and hide and seek,
On the broad sea-wolds in the crimson shells,
Whose silvery spikes are nighest the sea.
But if any came near I would call and shriek,
And adown the steep like a wave I would leap
From the diamond-ledges that jut from the dells;
For I would not be kiss'd by all who would list
Of the bold merry mermen under the sea.
They would sue me, and woo me, and flatter me,
In the purple twilights under the sea;
But the king of them all would carry me,
Woo me, and win me, and marry me,
In the branching jaspers under the sea.
Then all the dry-pied things that be
In the hueless mosses under the sea
Would curl round my silver feet silently,
All looking up for the love of me.
And if I should carol aloud, from aloft
All things that are forked, and horned, and soft
Would lean out from the hollow sphere of the sea,
All looking down for the love of me.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Tennyson, Alfred Lord.

Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) was an English poet who is often
regarded as the poetic model of the Victorian Age. Tennyson's
interest in writing began at an early age, collaborating with his
brothers on the book Poems by Two Brothers in 1826. Tennyson
attended Trinity College in 1827, where he befriended Arthur
Hallam, the son of the historian Henry Hallam.

Tennyson's reputation increased slowly, finally gaining moderate
acclaim with the publication of the book Poems, Chiefly Lyrical
in 1830. His father died in 1831, and Tennyson was forced to
leave school prior to graduation. In 1832, he published a second
book of poems.

However, it was the death of his closest friend, Arthur Hallam,
in 1833 that would transform Tennyson and his poetry, culminating
in what would later be regarded as his masterpiece -- a volume of
works called Memoriam. He was appointed poet laureate by Queen
Victoria in 1850, a position he confirmed with publication of his
famous poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade" in 1855 in the book
Maud and Other Poems.

Tennyson turned to drama for a decade, returning to poetry with
the publication of a book in 1886, which contained the poem
"Locksley Hall Sixty Years Later." This book rejected his
earlier works' optimistic belief in human progress.

2002-05-30T09:06:00.000-07:00

E says she picked that date so that I can get sloshed, pack last minute, drag myself to the airport and sleep for the next 12 hours.

I'm thinking, I hope I don't miss the damn flight because I'm still packing at 4am having been put out by 4 vodka jellies.

In any case, I'm pretty sure there won't be any awkward situation involving intricate hide and seek games with the BIG BIG boss at this one, since BIG BIG isn't dating so and so any more.

Unbelievable how the weekend has swung round again. Was it just a week ago - the gluttony and skidding credit cards ?

2002-05-29T10:22:00.000-07:00

The man says to her, "The way you write, you sound like a woman who has been hurt once too often"

She meets his gaze squarely and agrees, "Yes I have been."

"You write like one who is building a shell, but that's alright, we all grow a shell around our hearts to protect ourselves".

She snorts a spew dismissive laughter. "Me ? I don't grow a shell. Look, here, my heart." It was not a pretty sight. Bloodied, mangled, deflated, a dark purple.

"No, I'm just careless and reckless with my heart".

------------------------------

La Femme Fatale sits, in the darkest corner of the room. Dressed in skin. You can barely see her but for the red glow of the cigarrette she held in her long fingers.

The man thinks, you can't see her, but you can sense her. Sense her skin, whiff her scent, floating near you like a ghost.

The man peers out the blinds to the street outside. The street was beggining to fall silent as the hawkers packed up their stalls for the night, calling out their goodbyes to each other.

Her coming into his life tonight had opened the doors to a world full of fleeting ghosts. They both could sense the ghosts of longing, time, fear, anger, betrayal, deception and still more ghosts they could not name swirling around them. They were silent and mournful.
Then cutting through the chill of the ghostly visitors, her voice. clear, strong, smooth and soothing at once.

"Do you want me to stay ? Or do you want me to go ?"

They stare at each other in the dark, sensing the swirling ghosts. Wading through the dense, thickness of the smoggy ghosts, he reaches her.

"Stay. I want you to stay."
(And many times that night, he would repeat the sentences, without words, but with his hands. Large heavy hands reaching out to her, holding onto the memory of her skin, her softness.)

He finds her in the dark. Finds the cradle between her neck and her shoulders and tucks his head there. Her fingers finds his head, and stroke the baby soft hair.

A child, she thought. A child afraid of the dark. Afraid of monsters that's in his mind.

2002-05-29T09:43:00.000-07:00

Eye, Wanderluste. Voyeur, 16.

There’s something about her eyes when you gaze at them. It appears as if a ring of light or flame is encircling a deep secret – a black pearl of darkness. You can never tell how deep the dark is. You can never tell if she’s looking back at you or looking through you, behind you, in a world where you do not exist.

Tonight, the flames are alight, aglow, positively dancing around her dark secret. There’s a smile on her face, a wide happy smile. With laughter in her eyes, and faked annoyance on her lips, she turns up and looks at him.

Those eyes were as she remembered. That water colour blue, the grey blue of the skies before they rained. Except they almost seemed glazed by a layer of ice. And she was concerned.

“Do you even know what is happening ?” she asked. For added emphasis, she stops in her tracks and pulls his elbow and turns him towards her. “Do you know who I am ?”

He laughs.

“Of course I know who you are”. He smiles, so wide it competes with the brightness of the moon.

“I’m just over the moon at seeing you !” She snorts her disapproval at the bad pun.

“You’re drunk.” She insists.

“No, just tipsy baby.”

At 3am, the streets are a comfortable whooshing of cabs and wayward laughter from the nearby bars. Buildings, huge and imposing in the day, begin to take on a friendly and conspiratory form, promising shelter from the passing traffic.

In a moment, the fire in her eyes began to compete with the light of the moon. She looked at him and the dark of her eyes seemed poised to devour his. To devour his lips, his skin.

They stood for ages, with fire in their eyes, smiles on their faces in the shadows of those buildings.

Then the moment passed. They laughed and began to walk again, arms, elbows, fingers brushing. Excitedly, she grabbed his hand and laughed. They walked holding hands, swinging it as high as it would go as they went uphill back to the lights and the sounds of people who’ve had too much to drink. Like school children on the way to the fairgrounds, she thought.

On a quiet corner, a lone cab seemed to have sought respite.

“I guess I can take this cab” she said

“Of course you can do anything you want” his eyes glinted “do you know what to say to the cabby ?”

“Of course !”

She got into the cab while he held the door for her. In a smattering of accented Cantonese, he told the cabby where to take her.

“I could have told him that !”

He hung on to the cab door. His lanky frame made larger by the dim light, cast shadows on her face. He had no intention of shutting the door. They laughed.

Half clambering, half leaning out of the cab, she reached up to kiss him.

“It’s so good to see you again.”

“You need all the rest you can get, you’re fading.”

“I am ?”

“Yes. I’ll see you soon.” He attempted to wink.

They burst into laughter. He stood watching as her cab took off.

She felt a congenial silence fall between the cab driver and herself. The city felt a little different. She had never liked this city. But in the early morning, it had a quiet hum that was comforting.

She remembered the eyes. But not the kiss.

I suppose if you had looked into her eyes then, you’d have seen the dark pearl glint darker. To another time, on a moonlit night like this, in a cab almost like this, in another city almost like this. But the kiss she remembered, was one of a desire so stunning, it left them breathless, gasping for sensibility. It left them without words while they had stared at each other with great amazement and shock as they pulled apart.

It was that sort of moment, of fear and joy at once; like a child who had found a toy that didn’t belong to her and was afraid it would be taken away from her.

She remembered hearing herself say as she clambered out of the cab that night, “I’ll come to you.”

2002-05-27T23:50:00.000-07:00

Today at 3.00pm.
Being so bad, I can't even begin to shudder at the thought of being found out.

2002-05-27T21:20:00.000-07:00

The last time I cried on a plane was when I was crossing the Pacific. Because even while no words were spoken, we both knew that was the last we will see of each other. The envisioned future was not what it was in reality.
Coming back this time it seemed more like the massive weight of the past released the dam. The end of a tale as I had written it.

Coming back, I thought I wanted you to reach me. Coming back, I wondered again how it would feel to be wrapped in your skin, entwined in your limbs again, to jump off the train that hurtles me to unsavory adventures.

Waking up, I know the desire for rest continues to elude me just as we continue to elude each other mon amour.

2002-05-27T11:46:00.000-07:00

Approaching home, it was the sight of the moon that greeted me. How uncomplicated our skies, which allow the moon to reign on nights she visits.

It was perhaps my first moonlit landing as far as I can remember in my memory.

The cool white light, reflecting on the industrial grey wings of the 747; the mechanical bird has come alive.

The bird swoops down the tarmac, leaving the moon where she belongs up there.

Brings me home to closure, put to bed the unrelentless longing and buries all questions never asked or left unanswered.
Returns me home from a place where my imagination has been been arrested for the last two years.

2002-05-27T11:35:00.000-07:00

It is the sort of city where you cannot hear your heart break; the sort of city that possibly will not acknoweldge your heart ache.
It is the sort of city where if your heart is aching, you laugh out louder for fear of crying; smile wider, party harder.
It is the sort of city where if you find your heart aching, there's only a tiny room with four walls to contain the spill.
Still they can't hear you, because the lights are crowding out your signals, the traffic is way to noisy.
Its the sort of city where the massive herds on the street, in the subway, on the buses, trams trundles you along, and you are not allowed to pause to catch your falling heart.
It is the sort of city where shops beguile you with a variety of goods you desire, so as to distract you from the dying yearning in your heart.

It is the sort of city where you can't see the full moon freely when you look up into the night sky. The sort of a city where the full moon seems to be hiding behind buildings that defy gravity, having planted themselves on what used to be hills and mountains side.
The sort of city where the night sky is always lit because there's neon and beautifully designed buildings with light reflecting their mirror-like facades for miles around.

It is a city with a hidden self. A city that compels you look at her multi facets. Somewhere in this city, there are lush green hills and mountains and a sea that promises the joy of a voyage in the sun.

It is the sort of a city where one escapes to because one doesn't want to hear the empty hallow of lost desire.
It is the sort of city that has tales to tell.

It is the sort of city which harboured my escape and left me with a tale to tell.

2002-05-24T13:45:00.000-07:00

I'm leaving on a jet plane.

Saw the moon earlier. A silver ball of light surrounded by rainbow beams.

And tonight, which moon ?

2002-05-22T18:48:00.000-07:00

It's storming outside. It's supposed to be May, moving into June. The weather here is supposed to be dry and hot hot hot.

Outside though, its storming, and up on the 26th floor, the sound of thunder and the pelting of undesired rain seems closer. My plans for the day lay awashed as the rain continues its assault. I am stuck in this building.

Time to brew the coffee and bring on the cosiness. I always loved the smell of coffee on a rainy day.

2002-05-21T10:40:00.000-07:00

In the mirror, the girl's skin took on the colour of wet sand with sunlight falling on it.

To the mirror, she asked, "What do you wear to meet your destiny ? "

La Femme Fatale answered, her lips curling languidly over each word , "Why, skin and your best face of course."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

2002-05-21T10:31:00.000-07:00

My last known memory of you is sitting in my green jeep by the roadside smoking and watching a Chinese roadside opera. How's that for weird?

Hardly, at all. I remember that night too. Balmy like most nights in Singapore. Carpenter Street with an indigo sky lit by the colours of the opera stage. It was one of those nights where I felt at home and my wanderlust self at once. I remember walking round the back of the stage and framing shots in the imaginary camera in my mind. I remember thinking, I belong in a place where creative energies and age old rituals merge, thinking, I will carry this energy in my wanderlust self. From Singapore to the continents, across seas. I will bring the energy of this city, of my self.

In the air the smell of cigarette smoke and incense. Burning joss paper fluttering across the black granite road. The odd tourist wandering around. Front row seats dotted by old men and old ladies, enraptured by the story told over and over again from this stage and the stages before.

I think I was wearing a lilac tank top with cream colored drawstring pants. Yes, I seem to remember that night. I'm not surprised that that night stayed in your memory. Something filled the air that night, an expectant melancholia ?

As always, I was already lost to my dreams before you could reach me.

2002-05-20T01:57:00.001-07:00

A little bit of music. New on playlist

Moby, 18
“In This World” and “In My Heart” has that crescendo-ing gospel thing going that makes me want to get up, wave my hands and twirl around in the dark and sing. Sing sing sing in a voice so loud, so far away I forget its mine. Then I think, no, it's not mine, it’s the voice of longing and living as it exists in the world. Some day a sad story, some day a song of joy and thanksgiving. And of course there’s the unmistakable Sinead O’Connor on “Harbour” who reminds me that a voice can at once be an angry wail, a howl of despair and the quiet of dreams.

Maria Mckee, Life Is Sweet
An old album which I never bought. Some music and voices are timeless and phaseless. For instance the success of Alanis Morrisette in her groundbreaking first album, may make her an icon of the angry prozac rock chick, but it dates her (precisely because she’s become an icon of sorts).
Mckee, like most folk-rock types have a voice that’s about anger, isolation, longing and dreams that can possibly transcend a time frame, the irony of course was that she never found that mega-stardom that critics were pretty sure she could garner when “Show Me Heaven” first became a hit. This woman deserves to be more than a one hit wonder. So I’m glad I got my hands on Life Is Sweet. “This Perfect Dress” and the title track sticks loudest in my mind.

A little bit of the world. New read.
While trawling the book shop for a perfect wedding card for S the other day. Stumbled onto Stanley Stewart’s “In the Empire of Genghis Khan – A Journey Amongst Nomads”. How could I resist a tale by an Irish man about the vast Gobi and its nomadic inhabitants.
Especially since I’ve recently discovered I’m not the only one who has that same vision and fascination for the Gobi ;)

2002-05-20T01:57:00.000-07:00

A little bit of culture. New Site.
Since we found ourselves on a side of town we’d normally never be on a Sunday afternoon, we decided to troop over to 41 Robertson Walk to check out the Steve Tyler Print Workshop. There was a Frank Stella show on in the gallery. My materialist, acquisitory nature kicked in and I immediately sat my sights on a set of USD550 limited edition plates. After holding a conversation with my sensible self, I abandoned all plans to acquire table art.

Frank Stella usually baffles me conceptually or intellectually. But his colours and textures always delight and leave me quite often, breathless. We got to watch a video on his collaboration with master printmaker Kenneth Tyler. I don’t know, but these artist types seem to spend long hours seeing lines and colours that aren’t there, and then spend longer hours putting these lines and colours into the piece of work. Maybe that’s the crux of the genius, seeing visions that the common eye don’t see.

2002-05-20T01:55:00.000-07:00

AND A LOT OF FOOD ….

Let’s say if I defined this weekend by the food that were indulged in;

Saturday’s lunch at S’s wedding was one of the best wedding luncheon’s I’d been to. In keeping with her Peranakan heritage, lunch was Peranakan. Having had only coffee and nothing else since 9 am that morning, I was stuffing meatrolls and tamarind chicken with rice and otah without caring how unglam I may appear. The meal even came with real lime juice – none of that fake tasting cordial crap – but real squeezed calamansi juice where you can still see the pulp floating in the drink !

Dinner, like most Chinese wedding dinner fare, was quite standard. Except that we had that little power trip during the suckling pig course. It was really quite hilarious when we started to whip out our mobile phones to scan the unlucky little porcine we were digging into. It was only during the power trip that I was very thankful that S decided to have tea lights on her table ! Very romantic if you ask me…I mean how many couples can fondly look back anniversary after anniversary and say – oh yes, and remember that dinner in darkness darling ??

Sunday, I got saddled with two lunches. Had to do the dutiful daughter bit and crawl out of bed to make it to mom’s birthday lunch. Stuffed my face with tim sum and tea and made small talk while wanting to kick my bro under the table for some snide comment he passed. Having polished off half the food, mom, announced that I could leave the table since I had to go to the post wedding lunch.

Lunch two was a loud noisy affair filled with seat hopping ( mingle mingle mingle !) and plate swapping ( that looks yummy; try some, have some of this…why aren’t you eating !?). Good desserts and great coffee.

Yeah. It’s been a good week. ( But I just can't, can't, wait for more tim sum this weekend at Zen's and Maxim's ...in HK ! Woohoo ! )

2002-05-17T12:18:00.000-07:00

I remember a kiss. Something in the warm cloying air the past couple of days, keeps pushing the image to fore.

The kiss of stillness. A kiss so still, we began to taste each other when we became one breath. And from his lips I seemed to be filled with a wine, as red as blood, as sweet as my name on his lips. A kiss so still, I have never felt anything like it before. A kiss so still, I began to wonder if I had reached the shore.

I never knew a kiss could be so still.

2002-05-17T11:59:00.000-07:00

We talked of the anchor. You and I. For so many years we knew each other, I never knew we had that same image in our head.

In your search, your anchor bound you to a place, a city, a town, a country. Yet, each place you moved, you found yourself without anchor, without culture. How this old city makes you feel more isolated than before. How different you felt, amongst other people who did not call that city home too, speaking in a tongue that you were not born into.

In my search, my anchor is amour. He is my wickedness and my partner in crime. But the anchor is too heavy a weight for most - don't you think that it's an awful lot of responsibility to rest your happiness on one person ? And I am adrift, even while staying in the same place, without leaving as you have.

Perhaps mon ami, that anchor is in us all along.

2002-05-17T09:46:00.000-07:00

On my playlist now - Angkor Wat Theme Finale from ITFML soundtrack.

For when you are awaiting the sun to rise over Angkor Wat.
For the warm irridiscent pierce of the sun's ray you promised me.
The new day on an old old memory.

S walks down the aisle in less than 12 hours. The soundtrack too reminds me of her. Afterall, it was she who dragged me off to watch that movie when it was screening. It was another one of those Friday evenings, with the lack of a life since the X was zipping somewhere across the world, I went along for the movie with her. For about 2 hours I was entranced by the colours and the restrained eloquence of a WKW movie. Of course too, the very yummy Maggie Cheung in her countless cheong sam changes.

I remembered leaving the cinema that night, gushing about the colours in that movie. How far all that seems now.

Congratulations and all best wishes, my lovely :-)

---------------------------------------------------------------------

It was one of those blast from the past days.

So I finally get to meet another one of the Spoon crew. Between coffee, shit shooting about people in the business it came to pass that about two years ago, the Boss and I were at the same party - the one now known as "The Rooftop Party" in my canon of misadventures. I don't remember seeing anyone who vaguely looked like him at all. I don't think he too knew I was there that night.
Yet, two years later, under very much different circumstances and somewhat a cat and mouse introduction, we are now known to each other.

It makes me wonder, how many times have I, and how many times more, will I end up in the same room with people who in that moment is a stranger but someday will be known to me.

In this same meeting, I also found out that now I am introduced to yet another SP guy. I thought I'd left all my ties with the SP boys back in college when JN and I parted ways. But they just won't go away, like retro music and revived 80's fashion. I've met two this year, a decade after leaving school.

Sometimes, you never get away from your growing up days.

2002-05-15T02:31:00.000-07:00

Someone is now officially an "Uncle" !

Congrats D_Man!! ;p

2002-05-14T09:46:00.000-07:00

It was morning when I eventually hung up the phone and hid under the covers.

On one side of the world, love’s saturating the air as wedding bells prepare to peal. Halfway round the world, 15 hours behind, it’s the lone wail of a rusty sax, and a keyboard playing a sorry tune with a kinked string.

And silence. An echoing silence that my attempt at laughter cannot cover.

Love rescue me, come forth and speak to me.
Lift me up and don’t let me down

I hid deeper under the covers, seeking warm comforting skin.

I find sleep. But there’s no one there.

2002-05-14T09:35:00.000-07:00

too young, too curious & too self-assured... guess that's fatal for a girl

Her words attracted me, called out to me. I’ve heard it too many times – the young are foolhardy. Or that youth gives one that invincible swagger of adventure.

These characteristics, would it be more fatal in a girl than in a guy ?

It’s hard to say. But I understand it. I understand it because often times, I’ve been told that’s exactly how I am. Foolhardy. I think though that while I might be foolhardy, I was never foolish in my foolhardy acts. I seemed to have always calculated the price, cause and effect before I made my choices. Those foolhardy choices.

Why ? Because I’m an adventurer of another realm. There are men and women, who scale mountains, challenge the cold, weather storms, push the limits of their bodies on inhospitable terrain. It occurred to me, I’m the explorer of a different terrain. The one inside and beneath skin, bones, blood. I push the limits of my heart, my mind, my emotions. Both ways, the external or the internal explorations, pushes boundaries.

Yes, I’m the sort of girl that pushes boundaries. Maybe precisely because I’m young and curious.

Why do I do it ? I’m not too sure. Because there’s no other way ? Because its in my blood ? Because I want to go beyond my threshold for pain ?

Of course its silly and foolhardy. What do I hope to achieve ? To go where no (wo)man has gone before ? Then again, I’d already made an entry some weeks back that no thought is ever new or independent in this world.

It doesn’t’ go away. This feeling. This unknown primitive drive to push boundaries and test limits. It’s addictive. I don’t abuse substances. I generate my own drug. I am my own worst danger.

Yes, in the dark dank hole, it looks like substance abuse of sorts. In the light though, this foolhardy sheen of youth, is worn like a luminescent dress, and wonder, like moths, flock to this light An exquisite creature.

This dress. It’s fatal. I don’t doubt it. To the moths, and to the girl wearing it.

2002-05-13T08:48:00.000-07:00

Someone asked me today what disappointed me over the weekend.

It made me think. It was, an almost brilliant question. I mean how many times have we come in to work on a Monday morning, trailing the weekend’s excesses behind us, while bleary eyed, we nodded and mumbled our discontent at the short weekend to our colleagues without thinking ? Or perhaps on that rare occasion, we enthused to their envious chagrin about that activity filled weekend in that getaway island one had escaped to.

None of that for me today. Instead I pondered the question – what had disappointed me this weekend.

Simply, myself.

Mom should have had a better Mother’s Day than my dour, escapist mood. No, I couldn’t deal with 2 Mother’s Day do in a weekend. On Saturday, we had one at Gran’s, where mom and aunty network clustered in the corner and whispered with sidelong glances at me. I thought that was that, but no, than there was my family’s Mother’s Day do. I ran away to hide. I was her disappointment. As I always was, the moment I turned 25 and was unable to produce a boyfriend and subsequent husband and grand kids.

Myself. I’ve been talking too much about myself. I’ve been thinking too much about my minute universe. Me me me. Love me love me love me. I don’t think I’d like myself very much if I was a stranger that just met her today.

It’s a new week. I’m seeing the I-yas the whole of this week. They will squeal their sympathies and offer me indignant comfort over *The Incident*

I will smile and say, “Thank you my lovlies. I’m good now. It was only a small distraction. I had fun. More coffee ?"

2002-05-13T00:02:00.000-07:00

The soft curve from your spine to your thigh will get you a long way.
But you need to know what you want.
- I'm a Good Person

2002-05-11T22:49:00.000-07:00

The past few days were spent trying to keep myself from falling back into the black hole.

I think it has something to do with the ankle. I'm worried it isn't healing as fast and as properly as it should. It's almost two weeks now. What if it never regains the strength and balance it had before ? To further add to the anxiety quotient, I tried some of the yoga moves that I'd not been practicing for the past week. The right foot is fine, but when I try and repeat the sequence on my left foot, I suck. Suck big time. Shite.

I kept thinking back to the last time I was entrenched in the black hole. That must have been from November right up to early late December last year. Was it a call for help or was it a stunt for attention ? I remember telling the X that I was having a sleeping disorder, that I would have to cry till I was exhausted before I could fall asleep every night. It got a lot of people worried. I got to know which of my friends really cared. I was just glad that alcohol never drenched me in that black hole.

I might be addicted to caffeine and be a caffeine abuser, hell yes, there's even the nicotine dependency in the darkest pit of that black hole. But never touched a drop of drink. Drink and my blood does not merge well.

I think I got out of the last black hole when I returned to the gym and made a concerted effort to fall back on a path of what I wanted. I forgot if I harboured a hope, a hope of a vision of a future. I remember perhaps, looking forward to being in New York in June.

June's coming in soon. I seemed to have lost my enthusiasm for New York. It's a break I'm looking forward to, but it no longer holds that sheen of adventure as if in one crazy moment, anything can happen. Then again, it is New York, and I'm getting on a jet plane. Enough said.

Or perhpas its because once again, my soul stirred for brief moment, and door larger than the gateway of New York, a vision brighter than any sheen of an adventure had revealed itself to me in that fleeting second. Perhaps because I remembered what it felt like to desire again. The muse of desire taunts me ever so scathingly yet I could never spit in her face and walk away.

No, because as I stood on the brink of the black hole, the words found itself and stumbled out of my mouth - I haven't lived enough. I've declared before, that I've had a good life and fulfilled in many desires; they might not have always appeared in the form I wanted them to. But I had lived and if I had to die this moment, I wouldn't panic and I wouldn't be wrecked with regrets. That still is true.

But it came to me, the words, "I have not lived enough" - there's some place I have to be at, and perhaps, I'm once again making wary, apprehensive steps there.

2002-05-11T01:12:00.000-07:00

Frou : You are too kind :)

Anyway .... brain freeze. I need new inspiration.

2002-05-11T01:05:00.000-07:00

YES ! YES ! YES !
I adore her !

You are Angelina
Jolie!

You acted in cool movies like:

Tomb Raider, Gone in Sixty Seconds, Girl Interrupted

and Hackers.

Take the "Which Hollywood Princess are you?"
quiz @ planetag.de

2002-05-11T00:54:00.000-07:00

"You are Ryo-oki!">
Take the

2002-05-09T02:39:00.000-07:00

There's a letter I should reply. It's been in my box for several days now. I've looked at it, and so many times in the past few days have I started to hit the reply button and type "hello" and then my mind goes blank.

No, its not a letter from an ex lover or equivalent. It's actually a very friendly and routine, how are you type letter. That's why it baffles me indeed, why I can't type "hello" and move on to the niceties.

But my brain is tired. My soul is worn out. There's a feeling I miss. The feeling he took when he walked out the door.

I want that feeling back. I want that rush. I want to fall in love, laugh, and say it to amour's face.

"I am in love with you".

2002-05-06T22:08:00.000-07:00

It's been a week exactly since *The Incident*.

I set myself a 3 day moping deadline, kept to it and am none the worse for wear.

Then yesterday, on the eve of this 7-day landmark - I suddenly said it. The words came without inhibition.
I missed him. I missed the buzz I had when I had him in my life. My yearning for him created a buzz which took me through a mundane day. The uncertainty of knowing when I will see him and the eventual fulfilment of that desire sent me buzzing.

Then I realised that while the words came without inhibition, it also came without emotions. Without yearning. The words came as description to a memory. I've reached the rationalisation stage. The anger and shock have ceased to move me.

I want the love I deserve, dammit!

= = = = = = = = = = = = =

Halfway and 12 hours across the world, my friend Tim is in love.

that for six years we'd been communicating though we hadn't spoken a word

I am happy for him, and ever that little envious. But hey, I've had my time, I've had my moment.

I am happy for him. People in love write the most amazing letters.

People in love exude a certain magic. You want to be near them, to share in this wispy thread of happiness. People in love give me hope. Someday the circle comes round and you think, "it's going to be me".

2002-05-06T00:12:00.000-07:00

All together now , we say :

"I want the love I deserve, dammit !"

Thanks D_Man ! ;p

2002-05-04T11:05:00.000-07:00

It's been a sweet sweet day.

Sometimes we can pretend we have the life we want. For instance, in that life, there's a man who dotes on you and is happy when he's made you happy. As only strangers would know when they decide to comfort each other, we let each other play the game today.

I'd been bitchin about my bad leg and how I had to give up my appointment at the spa, and how badly I needed a massage. In a sudden flash, I got a message saying I'd been booked in for a session at one of the spas in the hotels downtown. I protested. I was in no mood or shape to walk around swanky hotels in town with my bad leg. He wouldn't hear anything of it. He insisted he was getting a car to send me to the spa.

What he really meant was that he was getting a limo cab to deliver me from my place, to the spa and back again.

Once again I protested when I realised that I wasn't going to see him at all. That this was the grand gesture on his part. It was all too oddly extravagant for me. I did not expect it of him and I didn't want to be emotionally indebted, being the modest Chinese person that I was.

But I gave in. I'm shallow. I'm a hedonist who can't say no to luxury. Because I realised it would make him happy for a chance to make a woman happy. Maybe we're all doing it out of the kindness of our hearts, for ourselves. Maybe because we needed that illusion, that we had some semblence of a life we wanted.

So for the time I was at the spa and had the therapists and receptionist cooing over me, I was the woman who had a sweet boy friend who pampered her. For the afternoon, he became the man who was such a sweet boy friend that any woman would be lucky to have him.

===========================

During dinner, I got a call from M who's living in Nice now. Except that she was having lunch in Spain when she called me.
I split my sides with laughter when she wanted to know if *the man* had left me for another man.
"Because your email was so confusing and I had to speed read through it !" she wailed.
"No he didn't. He decided that he wanted to withdraw his application and get out of my life."
Mundane stuff really. Nothing as exciting as a cross gender menage a trois .

But how sweet a day, to know M is thinking of me while having lunch in Spain.
============================

Dinner was soon followed by drinks with L.

L was the first of the girl friends, in fact the first girl friend I'd met since the incident. In large part due to my immobility in the past few days. Yes, I went through that day's event with her. As I told the story, and re enacted it in my mind, I realised the story hadn't ended.
The story no longer was about having had my ego crushed and my whole life changed in 24 hours because of a man who was hiding behind his perceived baggage.

It became a story of how one man walked out of my life leaving the door wide open for something that I really wanted to happen to me.

"You look good", L said. "You look normal. This thing doesn't look like its burnt you at all."

Easy come easy go. It's a sweet sweet day.

2002-05-03T04:57:00.000-07:00

I'll have to say that for a girl who craves newness everyday, I've had a hell of time in the last weeks, the last couple of months.

Got dumped over SMS (a first) by a man who's way older than me ( A first too although you'd think he'd have more decorum than a 15 year old). Manifested that ego busting move by missing a step and busting my ankle. Resulting in my first visit to the accupuncturist.
See there was a point to this story.

Let's just say that I'm very glad I'd read about Hipstomp's visit to the accupuncturist before I made my trip. At least, I had some idea of what to expect. So yeah, I had the needles stuck into me, pin prick I hear you say ? Yes, indeed. Then the physician put the voltage on. Pins and needles, I hear you say. Indeed. She comes back in ten minutes time and says "Ok, I'm going to turn the voltage up now". I winced.

In the end, lying on the bed taking deep breaths, deep breaths, deep breaths, my mind just turned on to the throbbing ankle. It doesn't hurt, but you feel the treated area heating up. Kinda like you've been stung by an insect and the stung part gets warmer and warmer and there's some pain, but not excruciating. The excruciating part is when she starts the massage. Let's bear in mind, this is not a relaxing massage but more like chirocpractic treatment massage; right on my ligament. In between, wincing, biting my fingers to keep silent, and thrashing about on her treatment bed, I think I asked her if having a child would hurt this much.

-----------------

I've always known at some point in my life, I'd make a visit to the accupunturist. (Not just because I'm Chinese.) See. Life is such. It takes a whole chain of firsts, to take you to something you've always known would happen.

Just like how I'd always known he and I would never be together. I just didn't know it would come to that swift end over a mobile phone. But hey, it can't be as bad as the man who was dumped on a scrap of Post-It right ? And that's, another story altogether.

Bonnuit !

2002-05-02T03:12:00.000-07:00

Somewhere in the past 48 hours, I've just had one of those days, those moments, where your life takes on a new direction in a sudden, abrupt moment.

In just one flash. In 20 words.

Like a car accident. Except that there isn't a piece of mangled equipment to remind you that you had been in one.
Yet, you keep running the events over and over and over in your head. Could you have avoided it ? Could you have swerved. Did you see it coming ?

And then you start looking for injuries and bruises on you. Any cuts ? Any bruises ? Punctured lungs ? Punctured hearts ?
Blood ?

Everything seems intact. And then the floodgates open. You bleed inside. You cry in your mouth.

Goodbye my lonesome cat. Easy come easy go.

------------------------------

The demise of a modern relationship.

Sometimes, when you're physically in each other's life, you remove traces of that presence. A note here, a picture there. Magazines, CDs. An isolated piece of garment. Gifts.

And then you move on to your gadgets.

Mobile phone. Every single SMS amour had ever sent, which you had kept, held on to as an affirmation of affection. You empty your Inbox. You empty your Saved Messages. You delete amour from speedial, from the phone book. In some cases, that works, because having used speed dial and phonebook the whole time amour was in your life, you never really remembered those numbers that made the magical connection to amour. Sometimes, even removing the offending numbers from your gadget won't help. It's too late, the numbers are ingrained in your minds, on your fingertips. And you know you'll have to fight yourself, the temptation to reach out and dial those sorry numbers when night falls and you're in bed alone and wondering how your life had wandered into this sorry state.

PDA. Once again. Every contact detail of amour; delete. Every date you'd marked when you'd gone out with amour so that you would remember those moments. You delete. Every date that was marked but have not seen the day of realisation is a sting to your pride. Delete. Birthday. Delete. Anniversary date. Delete.

PC/Mac. At home or work. Labourious task. Every single email saved. Delete. Every picture of amour - that maddening sexy smile, the eyes. Delete. Every picture of you and amour in happier times, emailed by friends who thought you guys sizzled, now mock every pore of your pride. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete.

Delete. Delete. Delete.
Shutdown.

2002-05-02T02:43:00.000-07:00

Did I know you?
Did I know even then?
Before the clocks kept time
Before the world was made

From the cruel sun
You were shelter
You were my shelter and my shade...
Wild Honey, All That You Can't Leave Behind, U2

2002-04-28T19:56:00.000-07:00

10.30am - In reply to a question as to why I'm not married yet.

"actually you're beginning to sound like my mom - i too have no idea why i'm not married. could be due to the fact that after seven years with the man i was planning to marry, he decided that I met 80% of what he wanted in a woman ( yes, I was reduced to a percentage) and decided that i wasn't the right woman for him, after which time, i spent time flippantly jetting round the world pusuing liasons with men that were totally wrong for me. so it possibly boils down to that - i spent my life pursuing liasons with men who feed the desire for adventure in me but are totally bad for the heart.

the auntie network kicked in and took it upon themselves to introduce men of suitable criterias to me - civil servants, trainers, doctors, traders yadda yadda. its difficult trying to live down THEIR expectations of getting me happily married. whilst i dutifully met most of them, i observed a lack of chemistry...and the fact that the family connection is very dicey. i have to always be on my best behaviour and i am not a well behaved girl.

no, i've never really met a man who could let me be myself ; who was not afraid of who or what i am. i've never really met the man who says to me, i've no fookin idea what's on the other side but let's jump anyway.

so i've spent my soon to be running out prized years engaged in somewhat amusing if not tedious liasons with men my mother and aunties warned me about. there is a vague dream that the memoirs of the mistress W will be published some day. but as all marketing geniuses know, i will first need to have a liason with a very famous and very powerful man, possibly one with a penchant for cigars, before any publisher will deem it worthy to engage in showing the world my one true passion - telling stories."

2002-04-27T11:34:00.000-07:00

I seem to be losing my files on the computers these days.

A sign of the state of my mind ?

There were words, captured. Images, crystalised. Sentences waiting to be uttered. But now, they all lie silent.

---------------------------------------------------------

Was at Fort Canning for the Class 95FM screening of ET. It was a pleasant evening, despite the earlier downpour, thankfully the grounds weren't too wet. The moon was out, bright, clear and full. If I had a digicam (which I don't at the moment) there would have been a certain point during the screening which would have made a fantastic image.

I'm seeing this image : At the part where Elliot and ET flies across the sky with the full moon in the background on the screen, is in backgrounded by tonight's full moon, rising above the Raffles City towers, streaming light on the world below.

----------------------------------------------------------------

When I saw the moon, I began to wish he was here with me. It was a beautiful sight and it was something I wanted to share with him. As I felt his absence next to me but felt his presence in my head, it struck me again, how this was the exact same way I felt several Saturday nights back. In the dark, silently cruising down the mangrove, with all the beauty of the stars in the ink blue tropical sky above, I wanted to hold his hand in that starry, watery peace.

Every relationship has a life span of its own. Our mortal efforts at prolonging or terminating it is of little consequence. Perhaps, it follows the moon, the stars, the rise and fall of the tide. I, mere mortal, cannot hope to understand the "whys" of it now. I can only hope that it will at least be revealed to me when it is over.

I,mere mortal, can only hope to fall under its spell, for whichever moment of happiness it chooses to bestow. Live that one happy moment.

2002-04-25T10:27:00.000-07:00

The past couple of nights, I've been dogged by an idea, to write a story about a kiss. About kisses.
About how each couple has a kiss that defines who they are. About kisses as a retrospective gauge of where one is in life.
I can see the threads swirling in my heads. Feel myself stirring up forgotten memories of kisses and how they made me feel.

The first kiss between amours is of great importance. I somehow think that in the first kiss, the roles of the man and the woman in the relationship are already subliminally communicated. (Or to be politically correct and gender indefinte, between the lovers) Shall now endeavour to stave off sleep and find the voice to write on this.

Adieu !

2002-04-25T10:13:00.000-07:00

The moon is arising. Taking her stalwart position in the balmy ink blue sky.

And for once, I write of the moon for myself, not as an ode to my wickedness.

Perhaps, I really am in a new place now. Perhaps I've really left it behind, trailing somewhere in the vast ocean of memories. I don't feel the incessant longing anymore. Perhaps, the god of men have been displaced, after 3 years.

I'm going to make that journey in about 3 weeks time. Laying the past to rest...or will the past rise from the flames of the present debacle?

And the present ? The present is a changing playing field and evolving rules. Too good to be true. Fantasy come through. Too much of a good thing. The change in the past few days was just too apparent. I'm dealing with it cautiously. But not cautious enough.

There's trouble. I can taste it on the tip of my tongue, feel it about to course down as tear drops.

Watch over me.

2002-04-24T02:37:00.000-07:00

Take the What
animal best portrays your sexual appetite?? Quiz

2002-04-23T19:31:00.000-07:00

The croissant today was flat, soggy, greasy and cold. I'm not a happy camper. At all.

Was thinking on my way in to the office that my friend Tim writes good shit. He amuses himself I suppose, by creating a series of themes to write about - there was that series about street corners, there were those entries about college reminiscence. (Yes, just like I attempted to work on a series where my memories of places and people are linked to food, and specifically noodles...not sure if its working out very well.)

Not only that. Tim is a single, straight, intelligent actor-director still untainted by commercialism struggling in New York. Maybe the coffee hasn't kicked in yet, or maybe I'm in an extremely good mood, but I'm still struggling to justify why I'm making such a shameless plug for him. Go read his stuff. If I were more technologically proficient, I'd stick a link here, but I'm not this morning. So please cut and paste, world.

http://xanga.com/keyglow

2002-04-23T11:49:00.000-07:00

"You are a fantasy come true.
Stop staring into my eyes so dreamily because its not good for your health"

Today I wrote my confession. Sent a copy each to Angel and T. Confessed my addiction, justified my habit.
Asked to be watched over. As long as I don't fall over the brink and OD. When I hit that hell, please tell me, wake me up and pull me out, I had said.

Then I cleared out some old folders on my mail folder. And found a letter dated 3 Feb 2001 that I had wrote to T.

And I had to laugh. Laugh laugh and laugh. And I was kinda relieved.

I realised that the letter, from slightly over a year ago, seemed to outline the same themes. The same asking to be watched over, pull me back from the brink appeal. I'm in good hands. I went through the events described in that letter intact - bruised, but intact. And the snow ball gathers on. One year on, I'm in a slightly new place, or maybe I haven't moved at all.

The concerns are the same. Only the actors are different.

--------------------------------------------------------------

I left. Once, twice. And it won't be any different.
I'll leave again, when I've had enough. When i've got all the stories, all the words I need.
Use me. Abuse me. Don't underestimate me.

A man said to me the other day. When a woman leaves, she leaves for good. She will just pack her things and leave. In her bags, her feelings, her emotions, her professions of undying love. The man will only realise too late she's gone. Women can be so cold, he had said.
-------------------------------------------------------

How can it be that a simple man will have his fantasy come true ? When the fantasy is a complex interweave of conflicting desires, complex, heavy, brilliant, and wanting all at once ? How can a simple man aspire to an exquisite creature ?

We keep cats don't we ?

2002-04-22T02:06:00.000-07:00

"Turn to stone
Lose my faith
I'll be gone
before it happens"
Gone, Madonna, "Music".

2002-04-21T10:38:00.000-07:00

Hell week over.
The event-that-causes-much-sleepless-nights- over. Can't say it was a success, but was it a huge failure ? Oh god, I'm not sure if I'm over.

Then. There's him. Maybe, just maybe, he's over.

Brain dead. Over and out.

2002-04-19T14:19:00.000-07:00

Sometimes in my life, I am truly blessed to meet kindred spirits who with an isolated word to two, stirs my soul. Release words and images in me which I see for the first time. The writer's birthing process.

For Tim. For the day when you move from New York to LA.

Sunrise
“I'll love you till sunrise”
you had said.

Comes then
I’ll walk the street
as it wakes to life
merging with the traffic
speeding up
clogging the city's surface
people spilling out
from the city’s belly

I'll walk
lose myself in the city
somewhere under my clothes
there are marks still
of you
and they're warm
as warm as the coffee I cradle in my palms
And I'll watch the world
in shades
to hide the dark circles of desolation on my face
eyes that are too dry to cry
And I'll say
he loved me till sunrise
and now the day is here

I'll crawl into bed
in my skin
with your warm marks
I'll fall into sleep
a sleep I shouldn't
because the sun is here and the world is at its most industrious
But I sleep
through coffee, through nicotine
And then my hunger will stir
as the sun loses its heat
and I'll think
I'm hungry
the sun will rise in the next 12 hours
And I'll say
he'll love me till sunrise

I'll put on red lipstick
my signature scent
run
to your door

You won’t be there
I’ll sit on the stairs
smoke cigarette after cigarette
4 hours will have passed
And I’ll think : 8 hours more to sunrise
I hear you say
I'll love you till sunrise.

2002-04-18T23:40:00.000-07:00

"It's amazing what a boy can do
I cannot stop myself
Wish I didn't want you like I do
want you and no one else"
Amazing, Madonna, "Music".

I'm at a new place. Between a hardened and dying heart, and one that's full of hope and joy. Truly, I am.

Truly perhaps, I'm learning to live the moment. Live this moment. Today I am happy because the other remembers me, because I hear the other's voice. Because I get to touch the other's skin, feel the other's warmth.

Today I am happy, because I am myself. I will live one brilliant moment, and perhaps pay for it with the rest of my lifetime.
I will live that moment, and when the end is near, I will not think why had I done it, but instead I will think, it is done.

2002-04-18T02:17:00.000-07:00

Notes to a Cat 5

You have such a cunning way with words.
You laugh when I call you a "horrible person".

You will say we are not playing games, and I will agree with you.

But in the end, we pull out words, and load them like bullets. A friendly round or two we might call them.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

Someone will get a hit. The heart, I hear the bystanders whisper in flurry.

I check for wounds. Already blood is dripping down my fingers, fresh, warm, sweet and metallic. But I'm swaddled in black silk. The medics notice a spreading wet stain, but on black, no one can see the red of my blood.

2002-04-17T21:00:00.000-07:00

Hell Week ! Hell Week !
But I am still the great procrastinator. Sigh. I kill myself. All the time.

2002-04-16T01:18:00.000-07:00

Now I'm swinging wildly again.

Met ILEE for lunch. It was a good and enlightening 1.5 hours. Listened to the voice of reason, feel like there's some light somewhere.

Now we're going to say this : I'm very very single. Chronically. Have my head on, and foxes and wolves are not going to mess with me.

Crank me up some faith.

2002-04-15T03:39:00.000-07:00

It's scary how sometimes nothing makes me happy and every little thing sends me to the depths of depression.

Scarier still how little the other needs to do to bring on the smiles. Just the acknowledgement of my existence and a few kind words. That's all it takes.

Women are such fools.

2002-04-15T01:02:00.000-07:00

Pissy effing busy day at work. For the rest of the week.

But have enough going to make me smile for a little while.

Received a most beautiful note today. You know what it's about.

A little on the dramatic side. But then I'm a thespian and so was the person who wrote me the note.
Sometimes only the thespians will understand each other on the self loathing, the insecurity, the thrill and the joy of love lost and found. Like how, the doctors seem to understand each other, and are inevitably entwined.

2002-04-14T02:51:00.000-07:00

Keyglow and Lofty have already relocated from AA and blog to Xanga.
While we're all still straddling sites, I feel that these days, to leave them comments is increasingly becoming tedious if I'm on blog. I hardly use AA much too. My sole purpose of logging onto AA these days is more to update myself on everyone's journals since I had not saved their sites on my "Favourites" list.

Tim, my relocation has not quite started yet :) But eventually I guess, we're all gonna be neighbours yet again ;p

2002-04-14T02:43:00.000-07:00

This weekend was one of the most fun I've had in a while.

Left for Bintan with some girls from the placed I used to work at.

Went body boarding and have a huge ugly bruise to show for it, sailed down the mangrove in the dark of the night to hunt fireflies, and hit a bull's eye this morning. Not bad for a girl with no life I say.

Since P works for the resort management now, we had a tour of the various properties. That's when I realised that of all the times I'd been to this island, I've always only gone with the X.

. We've stayed in almost every resort there. Some, like Mayang Sari is already undergoing more than just cosmetic changes. New facilities, new coat of paint. And I figure, its kind of like me too. I've had to undergo more than just cosmetic changes in the last 3 years. There's been some major overhaul I feel.

I'm certainly at a different stage in my life now from the last time I was there with him back in 2000. I don't think its a place I can go back too anymore. I wonder if its been the same for him.

As a facile proof of the changes that's happened since - everything I did on this trip, I've never done before when I was with him. And I had so much FUN !!! The power of girl bonding cannot be over-rated :)

2002-04-12T12:17:00.000-07:00

I've been doing some research on the net last week. I've been discovering the poetry of Anna Akhmatova, Rilke, Neruda, Hugh Langstone, David Lehman and a few others.

I now have a stack poems which I would like to share with someone one day. The surest way to seduce me, is to read to me in bed.
I didn't tell you that ?

The words begin first by seducing my mind, stirring my imagination. The words, grasped from the air, from the minds and desolation of people who lived in another time, another world. Words, re-strung, re-read, now taken on a life of its own.

Everything I wanted to say to you.

Ahhh. To long for the day, when a man do not fear the words of love of a poet.

2002-04-11T00:24:00.000-07:00

Notes to a Cat 3

In the poem in the email, there were these lines :

"you might as well be chasing after
the Holy Spirit
because that's what being
a writer is like
kid
you'll never find the Spirit
when
you're looking
and you'll never find writing_

writing
finds
you... "

Just like love isn't it ? We can look, we can prowl, we can hunt, yet in the end, it finds you. It is not to be commanded. Or as in that Rumi poem, the beloved is in us all along...? I think back to happy days - nights, that evening in the car, where my tears hung on the verge, what did I tell you ?

What a happy smile, I said. Like sunshine. Although you were not known to me then, I felt as if I had been expecting you.

And so it is with my writing. It finds me. It finds me again, now, because it knows that you've become known to me. I made a secret wish earlier this year. I wanted an experience I never had, and you were that.

My writing is the petulant mistress that gets between lovers. My writing hovers on the edge of my mind, in the salt pearls of my tears, waiting for the demise of our affections so that she can feed on the fat that's grown.

So it is isn't it, as you would say, easy come easy go. The only way my lonesome cat, to pull myself out alive.

2002-04-10T12:10:00.000-07:00

It's funny how what you long for, or ask for, is never the way you imagine it would turn out. That's life asserting its power I suppose.
To show you a greater power, a larger world outside of youself.

So I asked for honesty. I got honesty. I feel the loss of the fading remnants of innoccence.

My positive self would say - this is good. Learn to deal with this, because its a new experience. It's part of growing up - how you deal with the other's honesty and its impact on your reality.

It is the only way.

2002-04-09T09:55:00.000-07:00

The goddess me. Is half of this....

See which Greek Goddess you are.

.... and half of this. Smooch !

See which Greek Goddess you are.

2002-04-09T09:49:00.000-07:00

YELLOW

You are very perceptive and smart. You are clear and to the point and have a great sense of humor. You are always learning and searching for understanding.

Find out your color at Stvlive.com!

2002-04-09T09:27:00.000-07:00

I thought it was only me.

The unbearable isolation. The way I have no control over the sort of life I wanted because everything was circumstantial.

I used the image of exile. I am a emotional exile. I do not know who had sentenced me and for what. That was the worst thing about loneliness. Being made an emotional exile and not knowing which of your crimes you were paying for.

To prove the point that no thought in this world is new. No thought new to me, is ever really new in the universe, I came across this poem today. So there, its been said before. In some ways, I am glad I am not alone. Yet the irony is, for those of us who have ever felt our lives verge on exile, it is indeed a solitary and desolate affair indeed.

Exile

My hands have not touched pleasure since your hands, --
No, -- nor my lips freed laughter since 'farewell',
And with the day, distance again expands
Voiceless between us, as an uncoiled shell.

Yet, love endures, though starving and alone.
A dove's wings clung about my heart each night
With surging gentleness, and the blue stone
Set in the tryst-ring has but worn more bright.

------------------------------------------------------------
Crane, Hart (c. 1922)

2002-04-08T12:22:00.000-07:00

The devout have their holy books. The Bible, the Koran, the Torah, the scriptures…The devout and religious in fervour, have their shores to which they turn, when their sea is in upheaval and their faith threatened.

Alas, I am the child of an erring faith and willful affections. They have their holy books. I turn to poetry. In this time of melancholia and uncertain peace of the mind, I turn to the poetry of Neruda. It has come to this, I read the words of a long dead poet, who was a lover of women to seek answers to the mysteries in my life.

Random surfing throws up this poem, which I’ve encountered for the first time. In it, I wonder if there are words crafting out a lesson I must learn, I must take heart from in these times.

Perhaps my lonesome cat, perhaps.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

XLIV
Pablo Neruda (trans. Stephen Tapscott)

You must know that I do not love andthat I love you,
because everything alive has two sides;
a word is one wing of the silence,
fire has its cold half.

I love you in order to begin to love you,
to start infinity again
and never to stop loving you:
that's why I do not love you yet.

I love you, and I do not love you, as if I held
keys in my hand: to a future of joy--
a wretched, muddled fate--

My love has two lives, in order to love you:
that's why I love you when I do not love you,
and also why I love you when I do.

2002-04-07T19:16:00.000-07:00

Fighting demons the whole weekend.

If I were a supernatural action hero, I'd be a really busy one. But no. I'm just a girl with too much afffection, too fertile an imagination and too uncertain a future. Which makes me really a pain in my own butt then....and a very noisy head.
Oh. I've never told you about those voices in my head I speak to all the time ? I'm sure I must have....

I've studied the site based on first person archival records. Crash site. Site of conflict. Accident site. Ground zero. Whatever you want to call it. I can read the legends well enough, and I've actually formulated a plan which sounds perfectly sane, normal, and grown up to navigate the site. It's going to take time. To sift through the debris, putting aside what can be rebuilt and reused. Rescuing functioning senses and emotions. Removing structures and impediments that are not going to be useful to the cause. Always, the possibility is there, one can keep trawling, keep digging, and then wake up one day, stand in the middle of the desolation and think, what the fuck have I been doing all this time ? This is not my site. I don't have to be here. I want out of here.

Or we could keep going. And find the signs of life, the beating heart, somewhere in it all.

I'm not playing the martyr. I no longer desire to be one. So what will all this be for then ?

We come back once again to that same place we started. It's all about faith. Isn't it ?

2002-04-06T02:11:00.000-08:00

Notes to a Cat 2

I read somewhere today that love is something of a leap of faith.

Meanwhile, the world knows that I am without faith. I have no faith.

So how can it be that I am in love ?

No, not until I find that faith. And its a journey I take on my own.

2002-04-04T10:46:00.000-08:00

Notes to a Cat 1.

Don't you know ? It is already too late.
In a moment's lapse, when I was beguiled by his eyes, the gates to my heart creaked open.
The phantom wolf slid in, sniffed the air, sniffed the snow and began to probe the moist earth beneath.
To prepare for the full moon rising, where having had his luscious meal, he will howl his delight.

And when fed, he will spit out my bones.

Your warning my sweet, has come too late.

2002-04-04T10:19:00.000-08:00

I seem to have nothing interesting to say anymore.

Maybe its just because work has started to pick up. It's probably not because I'm in love. Nah. I'm not in love. How could I be? It is disallowed.
------------

A sudden flutter of wanderlust burst through the window today. Then as sudden as it had happened, it ceased to be. The Corporation ( to steal from Hipstomp) have spoken. I am staying put. It doesn't really matter. My purpose is not to be a road warrior.

My purpose is to fulfill my destiny. Ride my steed that never tires, flying my flag stained with ink, across the seas of wanderlust.
My footsteps.

2002-04-03T01:54:00.000-08:00

Been down with stomach flu in the last two days.

One of the most unglamourous ailments to be afflicted by. Other than a barrage of bodily discharges, one also has to put up with guts that are being pulled apart by gastrict and at the same time, being bloated to the point of being a drowned pig by gas.

Not forgeting a temperature that rise and fall with the day, sending my head into a spin.

Decidedly most unsexy and unglamorous.

2002-03-31T20:50:00.000-08:00

Lunch appointment.
All of a sudden, I'm rendered silent. Nervous.

Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

2002-03-31T08:41:00.000-08:00

Sexism
David Lehman

The happiest moment in a woman's life
Is when she hears the turn of her lover's key
In the lock, and pretends to be asleep
When he enters the room, trying to be
Quiet but clumsy, bumping into things,
And she can smell the liquor on his breath
But forgives him because she has him back
And doesn't have to sleep alone.

The happiest moment is a man's life
Is when he climbs out of bed
With a woman, after an hour's sleep,
After making love, and pulls on
His trousers, and walks outside,
And pees in the bushes, and sees
The high August sky full of stars
And gets in his car and drives home.

From Valentine Place, published by Scribner. Copyright © 1996 by David Lehman. All rights reserved.

2002-03-30T05:14:00.000-08:00

It's this way:
being captured is beside the point,
the point is not to surrender.
"It's This Way", Nazim Hikmet

Been busy fighting my demons, no entries- let them not capture me

BTW, the right toe nail's gone. Momma didn't do it, she wasn't in when I took hold of the clipper and started hacking away at it.
Not a very pretty sight, but at least that's done. So much cover up to do now.

At least I don't have to worry about pulling the toe nail off now when I'm yanking off the running shoes at gym.

2002-03-28T09:06:00.000-08:00

Ok. The right toe nail is going to have to come off at some point this weekend.
Only about 30% of it is attached to the base still.
Mom's probably going to do the honours.

Oh my god. I hope the nail will grow back someday.

Can you imagine, I've to perform corrective surgery on a toe nail so that I wear all my flirty mules and sandals again !

2002-03-27T23:38:00.000-08:00

I said once, perhaps I’d see my wicked self much sooner than any of us expected.

It didn’t happen in February.

Perhaps in 10 weeks time, I’ll get to call his bluff again.

That’s how it has been these past two years. Hide and seek, me calling his bluff. Desire burning on an excruciatingly short wick. An eternal flame as much a virtue as it is an irritant.

I’ll walk the musty aerobridge once again, hop on a jet plane outta here.

2002-03-27T01:07:00.000-08:00

Eh Noods, whaddya know.... ??? I AM from the Lion City after all....

See what Care Bear you are.

2002-03-25T20:34:00.000-08:00

All together now :
"Patience is virtue!!"

2002-03-25T08:51:00.000-08:00

patience is a virtue. i have to practice patience. i have to swallow. my pride, get your head out of the gutter. oh well. that too.
this should be on my playlist. patience is a virtue. remember patience. remember, the Other has thoughts too that keeps you.
these are the questions. why ? why? why?

why.

what's the fear ? what's the hurry ? why him ? why me ? why you ? what's the fear ? why the anxiety ?

patience is a virtue. it ought to be on my playlist. sung in 2 million ways and 500 languages. don't mumble. faith. scrimp some here and there. there, have some faith. chronically insecure yet overwhelmingly confident. can it be ? did you catch the ball ? no, the ball..was in my court five minutes ago. you threw it back. i guess so. keep it in your court next time girl. hang on. i don't want to play games. no i don't. really. oh..well...yes. that too. that's a different game. he can be anything he wants to be. you can. can't you ?

this is me. i am here. breathe now. say it. say it, patience is virtue. tomorrow, when the sun is up. smile and say, he is in my heart, as i am in his. faith my sweet. you gotta have faith.

2002-03-24T22:00:00.000-08:00

Spent the weekend eagerly anticipating the telecast of "The Afghan Girl" on National Geographic Channel.
Can't say I was disappointed. Actually, I was moved. But I'm in my inarticulate, non-inspired state now working on a wonky PC, so no lyrical phrases of inspiration and human destinies come to mind.

Yes. Am in scaling down the drama, self denial mood now.

= = = = = = = = = =
"You taste as sweet as the sunset, as light as breeze."

Was an oddly sleepless night. Bits of my senses were awake the whole of the night. Little surprise then I woke without much of a struggle with the alarm when it went off this morning. With maniacal clarity, I lurched out of bed and ran to the freezer. Ripped open the tub of Haagen Daz "Brandied Cherry" that's been sitting nonchalantly in the freezer since Saturday night.

Stuck a spoon into the icy softness and gorged away.

2002-03-20T22:06:00.000-08:00

Happiness is fragile thing.

It's no longer about what I want, but what I can get.

Goodbye world.

2002-03-20T10:16:00.000-08:00

"I am reckless and maniacal."

"Hardly; you could have fooled me."

"Indeed. Then you hardly know me do you ? Just as you insist how I barely know you ?"

I tell you thoughts of you assault my mind in its waking state. You tell me that it shouldn't be the case; that I shouldn't let it happen. Watching my shoe getting wetter in the rain, I wonder then, if I'm allowed to miss you ?

When this is over, I don't know how I will have the strength to go back out in the world to face the gaggle of fools who think they could ever reach beyond my eyes into my soul.

Here's another thing I've never told you. My heart is cheap but my faith is not. I have a whore for a heart but I have no faith.

2002-03-19T08:35:00.000-08:00

"posessions invite comfort, and in their security a man falls asleep; i love life enough to try to live wide awake, and so, even among all my treasures, i cherish a sense of the precarious, by which i provoke or at least arouse my life. i can`t say i love danger, but i love a life of risk, i want life to demand of me, at every moment, all my courage, all my happiness, and all my health"

-from "the immoralist" by andre gide

Saw above on a fellow AAer's page and have "lifted". What a thought - I want life to demand of me. It has. My life has. That's why I believe I would have been pretty happy to depart and say good bye even before the ripe old age of 30.