Yung & Easily Freudened

No, I have not abandoned indie or electronica. They’re just hiding, and I’m spiralling back in time, putting nostalgia cream on my face and shamelessly living in the raw and wildly unvarnished past. (I hate it when people make it obvious that they only selectively give a shite.) 

Today was a people day. Running around, keeping track of travel time and minimal public headbanging/ lipsyncing. There was office niceties with Tim – finally got my cheque! Sweet goodness. And I paid a visit to favourite concerned librarian Suzanne. She is my favourite white person, I think. Besides a few less obvious candidates. We Asians, we all need a vote on the other side. Made plans for a surreptitious lunch atop the 31st floor once I return my library books. I still haven’t caught up on the two classics – Hemingway’s The Fifth Column and Woolf’s To the Lighthouse. I really read Woolf better with at least two whiskies in me.

I met Charles too! In the midst of trying to grow his hair long. I miss that boy and his random bouts of genius. A class Charlie Charles Charleston Charlemagne. Russell & the rest & the bitchings that come with the fears of being mediocre. Topics of choice: sexual harassment, applications, tampines, engineering, pythons, deep purple (I”M GOING, THEY”RE COMING, HELLO SMOKES ON THE WATER), laughter at me joining the ocbc cycle marathon…

On pythons… These pictures somehow refuse to be edited, but here they are. I was cycling at bedokay reservoir last night. (12 clicks in exchange for one roti john special!) It’s about 1230am and I’m on the far side, biking along the flatland path that runs by the longkang and around the hilly area. There’s a hiccup about transiting from the rocky sand area to the slim pavement by the canal, and I almost cycle past a 2metre long moonbathing python. FCKING HELL. Doubletake, creep back to look and see if its alive. It’s breathing. I prop my bike and crouch downwind by the curbside, just watching it. Having an absolutely Steve Irwin discovery channel moment, looking at it wriggle itself comfortable by the edge of the canal. Could see these superb brown geometric checks on its back and tail, and made a mental note to lovingly name it Birkin Bag. It was brilliant. Then the wind changes. It kinda sorta notices me. Lifts its head, tongue starts tasting the air, moves forward slightly. And then it figures it out. Turns 180 degrees, moves maybe 0.5metres in my direction and looks POINTEDLY AT ME. My good indian girl upbringing (and maybe several panic buttons in my head going off) is like, okay, NAMASTE peace be with you, my invertebrate little friend, and I jump on the bike and pedal for my life, heart in mouth. SO FREAKING COOL.

Pictorial proofsss:

Sleep sweet tonight, Birken. <3.142

Collecting monies and off to little india with my grandma for a hindi movie (which was surprisingly, very intelligently made! despite the slapstick humour, etc etc. 3 idiots, go watch.) Walking along shophouses and dreaming of owning my own little backdoor spiral staircase where I can sit read kiss sing smoke and watch my cats sleep in the cooling afternoon sun. I will do research on this. The mint green one right behind Anandabhavan. Who wants to come?

Waffling wisdom over at simpang – someone accused me of eloquence. HA, I have been anything but these days. What we need to do is differentiate the connection we have with someone from the feelings we have of them. Eh? I was surprised too, but I’ve only recently come to terms with that. And mayhaps, we won’t meet on sunday. “your head is humming and it wont go”, sez robert plant. Or then, I’ll fall out of love with both the spot on your nose and your sad eyes, and we’ll go.

“In June once, in the evening,
returning from a long trip,
with memories of France’s blooming trees
still fresh in our minds,
its yellow fields, green plane trees
sprinting before the car,
we sat on the curb at the cathedral’s foot
and spoke softly about disasters,
about what lay ahead, the coming fear,
and someone said that this was the best we could do now–
to talk of darkness in that bright shadow.”

Adam Zagajewski, Eternal Enemies

Happy 2010 errehbadeh.

Which must include writing. Otherwise known as habits, default activities are the types of mooching ways of coping with life that we fall back on when bored. Some examples include walking around house, opening fridge door for 1000th time, googling random words and following their links on wikipedia (wow knowledge! which makes either a fruitful afternoon or the illusion of one!), clicking on youtube featured items, scrolling through livefeed on fezzbook, visiting bookmarks, channel surfing, playing absentmindedly with pet, thinking that looking at your ceiling/open window is poetic and makes for a pleasant day… you get the idea.

I’m planning to escherize my new sneakers, meaning paint them, but I’m trying to decide what escher picture to use.

in gold on dark blue. or silver. hmm

was reading this article, and yet again. not highly pertinent subject matter, but its style so absorbing! remind me to read again for the references.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/20/magazine/20Meyers-t.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5087&en=e8e0e8e1124faa71&ex=1276664400

“The best moments in reading are when you come across something – a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things – which you had thought special and particular to you. And now, here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out, and taken yours.”

Alan Bennett, from Le Historie Boys

Absolutely, Alan Bennett. Once, Samy was reading Kureishi to me after a very long ago poetry workshop (KATTYSUTRA) at Emily Hill, and we were walking past the homogenous frying smells of Long John Silvers…

She whips out a pristine library book and starts reading in a conspiratorial voice. The words are blurred, and the plot is lost, but one startling image comes to mind. There is a schoolgirl, in a dark blue pinafore, whose slender arms are a raceless shade. Bare-faced and lecherous she is standing in front of a bench and across from an onlooking man. The onlooker is unimportant for it is his eyes that we see through, but the girl… The bench is low, uniform brown wood laid across uniform brown wood. There is a saucer of milk laid out to cool in the open air. The girl, she is looking the onlooker straight in the eye, and without batting a lash she lifts up her skirt. She is bare. And then, as casual as day, she sits in it, in the saucer of milk, soaking.

…OH MY GOD KUREISHI. Scandal scandal scandal.

Moving to Simei soon. Gonna miss Bedokay. 8(

part i.

"Tough."
A breath
that catches on the throat
choking the whiskey sour
that was kept warm in his pocket;

there is little sympathy that spills
from his eyes —
more pills from his fists
for the pigeons in the park.

While the adhans call people in for mosque,
his Sabbath mornings are spent at the cemeteries,
lurking paganly.
Both prophets
were pessimistic about his future.

There is a quiet purple stalk bending over a grave.
Hearing him pass she turns upwards,
and he nods slightly,
chewing
on the greening edges of her hope.

"Maybe I should take a wife,"
he considers,
loose singlet shifting
in the whisper of leftover prayer.

A list of possibilities form
but all that runs through
his cagey heart is:
"Tidak mau, tidak mau, tidak mau."

Every bird is a migrant bird,
and the old man counts his years
in new walking sticks,
and hangovers.

1. adhans – Muslim call to prayer
2. tidak mau – bahasa melayu for do not want

Deer,

do wander past the animals drinking

dappled at the watering hole,

join them in their tethered dance

of instinct upon instinct,

watch the world around flash

with stars at the back of your eyes

when you look up at the sun,

taking my hand in your teeth.

I have this deep suspicion that my stepmother is very stupid. Very stupid and very evil.

These past couple of weeks post-Korea & its city quaintness have been spent mellowing out at home, with only the recently christened Bryce Balaselvan aka my coin-operated boy for company (Balaselvan, and sometimes Siew Fang Pi, due to his Chennai- Chinese roots.) I colour my afternoons with Julia Nunes and Judas Priest, and my nights with fits of night cycling & fighting with my folks, and my mornings with tuition and existential crises & swims. Never ever have I ever had no reason to be happy, but am anyway.

I know what I need to do to solve this growing rift between my parents—mediate. Again. But more clevererly this time, using simple familiar words and promises, being honest.

My poor brother, being incredibly tanned from all the soccer in the sun, has fallen for the same marketing spiel they plaster everywhere—WHITENING LOTIONS, FAIR & LOVELY & even more radiant than the last cream you tried! HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAH. He’s claimed my Nivea moisturizers as his own and is desperately trying to rub them in every night… Gullible’s Island ahoy!

I’ve watched: Trainspotting Classic 8D Ewan McGregor diving into the toilet bowl for his opium suppositories made my day.

American Psycho Regardless of being terribly adapted, it was just a bad movie! Ugh these over-ambitious 90s directors.

Scarface C**ks**king M*****f*****rs! *takes break to snort some coke*

Requiem For A Dream Power soundtrack la, srsly, power. And I never thought I’d start using that adjective, but this requires it.

Wilde Finally, Stephen Fry in snarky Oscar glory.

The Science of Sleep Adorable. Gondry & his mis en scene, seeding the genre of introverts’ love stories—anything held private can be beautiful.

Black Books Season 2 O, Bill Bailey!

The Proposal the usual cheese…

countless Nevermind the Buzzcocks eps

several Curb Your Enthusiasm eps :D hilarious. Thanks, Wash.

Do what nao, I’m going to ask. Hope.

I leave for a while, a little scared. Sparkling Korea calls, and I pick up the phone and hear breathing noises.

But other than that! Updates. On having found funny little friends who baby me & take care of me, who are so fulla life and culture and ridiculous craptalk that you cannot help but love them slowly, one by one. Cloves & laughter & neverending nights. To the Godfather 8D

Also, the closure of The Fever. THANK THE LORD ALMIGHTY, it was so tiring to struggle through a script noone understood, to watch crap rehearsal after crap rehearsal and try to restructure them as tactfully as possible. I learnt A LOT espesh from noorlina, who is …brilliance in the disguise of shrill chinese lady.

Library stint is also over, so now I have means & I have time 8D

Am very tempted to relief teach. Sick of tuition. Eyeing the secondary school at the other end of my carpark. Mmm. Now might be a good time, considering most relief teachers will be back in school, and I only start in late August.

FAREWELL FOR NAO! (wish me luccckkkk, if you know what i mean )