where were you?

dreams, clarity

last night in slumberland i dreamt of you and us teaching chemistry in some village school where pupils needed to use pipettes, which you forgot to give them because you missed me too much. or so you said in the dream. strangely, that only sought to increase my unease and i'd to think about ways to distance myself. all in naught, the past is past.

and the past was yesterday, where i re-opened dusty diaries of yesteryear and read through them, marvelling how much a person can change in the course of 6 or 7 years.
and the past of 6-7 years also came back in the form of 50 short messages that raised hell with my mobile phone, to the extent that i stopped shutting my clam shaped phone.

actually i think your life is simple and fine just the way it is. i was thinking about you and how you both work long and late hours and how you both make time to go for dinner after working late and how you'd always fetch her around. it's just a very simple life that people like me can only dream about. so therefore, there is no need to proposition an affair. or so i think.

along with the dream on the science lab, i also dreamt to rearing tiny terrapins, which disgusted me to no end for though i can say that i'm not afraid of creepy-crawlies i have this sudden strong aversion to terrapins and shelled creatures. i can recall putting the tiny minion in the water sink and watched as it expelled eggs and the entire terrapin separated into two parts. most discomforting to watch. and then someone filled the basin with water and fish and the fish began to eat up the eggs of the terrapin just like that. talk about dying without a cause.

the last part of my dream ended with a run after the buses, for without boarding the buses, it would be a long, long walk out to the main road. the streets there were reminiscent of side streets, lanes near beaches like marina, east coast, or the incredibly foresty areas near punggol where i used to pass by all the time 5 years ago when i still worked on an island and transport to that island was by speedboat to-and-fro in the morning and then evening.

so we were running after this long-uber-long TIBS bus service 190. yes, i know it goes to choa chu kang and there are no sandy beaches there, but it didn't stop for us. we got pissed at the prospects of waiting for another bus and perhaps even walking the entire way out, so we chased after the bus and banged loudly on the bus- yes, it was going THAT slow.
so i presume the bus-drivers (there were 2) got a huge shock of their lives cos the next thing we knew, they lost control of the bus and it plunged into the beach, the sea. the long bus broke into 2 parts and sank, the only 2 survivors being the drivers.

what a boulevard of dreams. restful sleep next time perhaps. and tonight, party time, drunk time, groove time.
i pray i race through time though lying prostrate, i hope the world spins merrily around me, i hope so many sntaches of everything comes back to fill me up for the next few months.

this christmas

has been a bit dull, a bit typical, a bit special, a bit too fast, a bit too disappointing, a bit like all x'mas-es.

***

the birthday came and went, and along with it, a whiff of nonchalance at turning 23 for there really isn't anything much to look forward to yet, to just keep going on despite everything because as they all claim, youth is still on our side.

***

loads of meals and chocolates later, there is a realisation that some people do still care, though not all. i guess that's more or less sufficient for me. nice gifts received, more thought put in this year i guess- calendars, towels, jewellery, clothing, watches, chocolates, toiletries - bah, the usual as usual can be. strangely i think that the excitement of unwrapping presents diminish with the passing of each year. might be coerced into buying presents, wrapping them and then sending smiles on the faces on the young ones instead - that is parcel of growing up i guess.

***

the new year ahead beckons, after the massive birthday party of the supposed Messiah that half the world does not believe in. i wonder how snow sprays and fake snow fights were relevant to christmas - it seems rather pathetic to be amusing ourselves with faux snow here in sunny singapore when the rest of the world tog themselves in fur coats and have snow fights and actually make snowmen - stuff out of fairytales for us i guess - with snow, and stone that make do for the eyes, nose, mouth, buttons.
so not quite new york this time in a posh lovely hotel with luxury carpeting, no sipping of the red wine and trying not to spill it on the leather couches, admiring the candles glitter in the dim light.
tokyo, someday. new york, someday.

***

the lights were lovely and now are etched on some parts of my screen now, depending where i click with my mouse.
taken on a whim, edited and now a memory.
faux snow, the lights, flicking off suds at a traffic light junction, a quiet space in a pub in the mess of orchard, quite a miracle.
i also learned that very same night, that someone else is having a ball of a time, sitting in classrooms, posing for that ocassional photo, with ladies with oh-such-painted-faces, oozing senseless charm and wit i suppose, shattering egos and the-like along the way. but you were so yesterday, so have yourself a good life and not drown somewhere along the indian or pacific ocean, crying for your life.

***

you read past diaries and you remember many things that you've probably never forgotten.

oh well. just another week more. to a supposedly new beginning although life will go on the same way as before.

Icarus all over again -
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

or by frost, somewhat.
"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned in life: It goes on."
-Robert Frost

nothing really changes. but nothing lasts forever either.

i wish you best, i wish you life, i wish you drink from the vial of the fevour of life. i wish you tears, i wish you pain, i wish you strength in growth. i wish you sadness in love, the pains of knives stabbed through the heart. i wish you a death full of lightness and release. i wish that one day you'd wake up though.
and i wish the same for me.

my christmas wish perhaps, a day too late.

on a night like this

i recall having done or been involved in the following in no particular order.
i've eaten a polar cookie monster cake with my name on icing on it, and i thought to myself that it was a perfectly adorable cake.
i've skipped gym so many times but have done snatches of exercise on the sly on my own, to my knowledge that they are too paltry for the festive season.
i've eaten set lunches at long beach seafood restaurant that consist of small lobsters, bamboo clams and their famous black pepper crabs.
i've written a whole chunk of new data on friendster just cos i was bored and needed something to do while waiting for my turn to use the toilet.
i've agreed to go with a bunch of friends to genting though that is yet unconfirmed.
i've rejected someone's offer of a date because i had something up and promptly accepted it when what i had on was cancelled.
i've been very angry with someone because he's giving me a christian book which i will not read and now i have to desperately search for someone "churchy" to give it to.
the psle postings were released on my birthday and i think many of my ex-5a girls made it to nanyang.
we might be going to the airport instead on saturday.
i bought 5 sets of lingerie from john little.
i've bought Paul Smith EDT and i think the scent is absolutely spicy.
i've been to breko's at bugis village and the chocolate cake there tastes more like stone hard rotten chocolate kept for a week in the freezer.
i've eaten at tung lok restaurant twice in my life.

take a trip

she drifts by, as transcient as the wind, feeling as flighty as air as she rides on.
at the junction where many cars pass, she pauses to give them the right of way, then swerves into the concrete pavement so as to prevent getting into their way. she underestimates when to swing the handlebars and ends up hitting the pavement hard, almost falling down. unperturbed, she adjusts herself and ignores the stares from the cab-drivers, the motorcyclists, those riders of the road, those.
she passes by the school where she used to teach last summer, and as far as she can see, there is a red nissan parked in the parking lot. she can't remember who it belongs to. the field, normallly full of screaming children languishes in weeds and yellowed droopy flowers, drips of snow hidden deep within the hardened nectar.
the once bumpy downhill slope that she always had to get off and walk her bike through had been concreticized. the bump that she always had to slow down at was no longer there, made flat, tunneled flat.

standing still

i bought a packet of meiji melty kisses the other day at watsons and was just walking aimlessly along the shelves, looking here and there and at nothing at all, thoughts wandering about the atrocious designs of christmas cards that are being sold when out of the corner of my eye i spy someone looking at me.
i turn and look at the person who seems to do a double take at me and find myself staring at some face from the past, more than 5 years ago right in front of me suddenly. some things come rushing to mind - burnt edges of letters, lined paper pasted on pages torn quickly from magazines.
lots of things.

***

and today, gnarled fingers working nimbly on dough, a beige mixture well whisked perhaps, spread over a hot pan, a pan so hot that the dough immediately hardens and takes the shape of the pan. resembling skin, aptly called "skin" with a twang of sacarsm perhaps, probably.
that in that hot home, time seems to stand still, as the man-made fountain continues to swish water downfall in a pull or a tug, to rejoin the large puddle where fishes are still thrashing about in their reverie, alive.
of time ticking by in the grandfather clock, of echoes of muted sounds enamating from the clock, as if mocking the notion that time would ever stand still, as though it could.

and then on the way back i spied a melty kiss hidden in the car, i tore open the wrapper and nothing was inside but liqid chocolate. i threw it upon the grass, an ode to ants, and i thought of that day when you wanted to give me some chocolate and the day we drove to macs.

as rei once said, e mango.

women at a sale are scary. the rabid glimmer in their eyes as they reach for a particular piece of fabric, possibly the last. one that their lives could possibly depend on. and there are the sale attires - a tight fitting top that any other top could be nicely slipped over. a short skirt that would not get in the way of tugging pants/capris/other skirts upwards and then flouncing the original short skirt upwards as they examine themselves critically in the mirror.

that mad glimmer.

***

in other news, bangkok was rather well, rather bangkok, in that sense, since i was only there this april. other than shopping, sniffing the awful and weird combination of scents that emerge when ditchwater flows into a choked drain, pigging out on cheap steamboats, cheaper ice cream (think swensons in thailand) and being enthralled by the range of good sold at roadsides on thin shreds of cloth, on pushcarts and the like, i also met a stranger in a blue polo tee on an overhead bridge connecting somewhere between the world trade centre and the big c shopping centre, while buying short gym shorts.
i was led to think of tokyo and long flights, hot coffee being served on trays, pushed by attendants, lying suppine on the aeroplane seats and having a blanket placed gently on me and i strap on my seat belt. i dream of plans that take place after the plane lands. i dream of a place and a time that exists in a different plane of time, literally.

***

it has been a week since i sat alone and watched the words absolut and the lights gyrating on their own, coloured spirals fill the air, sail gently through the air and finally land on the walls, casting their lovely shades against the walls for a while before they dissipate into separate colours, ceasing to exist once more for that moment, in that form.

***

he is away for 2 weeks and will return on christmas eve, how apt?
he just got back from abroad and is now back here to stay, telling me so at 4am in the morning. i wonder if you've changed over the year.
he gave me dark chocolates with a cherry centre containing brandy. not likely to get me drunk though.
he never calls again, presumbly miffed by the brush off.

***

popiah tomorrow. how nice.

finally finished.

the earlier post extracted from the wild sheep chase, which i finally managed to finish after almost three months. but you can't blame me, it has been a long three months after all. the time i started was the trip back home from the local library with two books from the known author, the other of which i never managed to begin on and thus, never managed to complete. it will have to wait.
and the begining of the book coincided with a few days of school holidays, three days in which we were subject to work as robots around a set of nine tables, relagated to menial factory work, the same repetitive movements over and over again.

***

the segment i stole from the wild sheep chase seemed ridiculously similar to the situations that we found ourselves in on the first day.

***

the day i passed you on the bridge, i knew.

there were so many legless people in the city of angles. one looked like he had his eye gouged out, i shudder to think of what might have been done to him.
others set up shop consisting of a flat mat and some wares, clothing and the like.
you were in blue.

***

the next day, an old man with a stump for a leg, holding out an empty plastic bowl, sitting in the corner of a ditch.

walking the hot streets, i saw us in tokyo, the plane landing, me alone in the departure lounge, watching the array of scattered individuals waiting for the plane, listless, pale faces, with no one attempting to talk to anyone else.

***

our dolphin hotel

When we tired of walking, we went into the first restaurant we saw, drank draft beer, and ordered some salmon and potatoes. We'd walked in willy-nilly off the street and gotten lucky. The beer really hit the spot, and the food was actually good.

***

"Well then," I said after coffee, "what say we settle on a place to stay?"
"I've already got an image of a place," she said.
"Like what?"
"Never mind. Get a list of hotels and read off the names in order."
I asked a waiter to bring over the yellow pages and started reading the names listed in the "hotels, Inns" section. After forty names, she stopped me.
"That's the one."
"Which one?"
"The last one you read."
"Dolphin Hotel," I said.
"That's where we're staying."
"Never heard of it."
"But I can't see us staying at any other hotel."
I returned the phone book, then called the Dolphin Hotel. A man with an indistinct voice answered, indicating they had double and single rooms available. And did they have other types of rooms besides doubles and singles? No. Doubles and singles were all. Confused, I reserved a double. The price: forty percent less than what I'd expected.

***

The Dolphin Hotel was located three blocks west and one block south of the movie theater we'd gone to. A small place, totally undistinguished. Its undistinguishedness was metaphysical. No neon sign, no large signboard, not even a real entryway. The glass front door, which resembled an employees' kitchen entrance, had next to it only a copper plate engraved with DOLPHIN HOTEL. Not even a picture of a dolphin.
The building was five stories tall, but it might as well have been a giant matchbox stood on end. It wasn't particularly old; still it was strikingly run down. Most likely it was run-down when it was buit.

This was our Dolphin Hotel.

***

goodbye, world.

for a tiny while.

gone but not forgotten

i wish i could say something more romantic like, "gone to find myself" or something like that along those lines, but, no :)

streams of sunlight and rays of sunlight streak in through the glass panes, bouncing off the ceramic tiles and illuminting the dust piles in my room. dots of tiny dust float up into the light, swirls in the wind.

and so i'll be gone for 4 days, to soak up the sun or floods, as reported in the papers, though i'd be crossing my fingers.

gone but not forgotten.

falling star at dusk in the forest

teeth chattering, you spoke.
those long ago days
of time travelling through the telephone line.
bringing to me,
on a hot, sweaty and sultry night,
the magic of a place with snow.
snow ridden, snow pelted,
covering each tiny detail
with a tiny smattering of white dust.

fluffy doe eyed dreams,
the work of magic dust.

wet, wet concrete,
a wisp of smoke.
smell of burn,
assaulting my nostrils.

you asked.
to be laughed at in other circumstances,
but not as yet that day, not quite.
the TV that blared,
the denim top and red bell bottoms.
goodness, whoever wears that anymore!
relegated to some
obscure corner of the musky cupboard,
not those zipped up kinds.
just like you
in my memory.

when are you coming back from the land of ice?
to dine with me once more
and to talk god.

yesteryear songs.
the magical fountain,
an array of lights.
quite so now.

snatches of coffee,
coffee stains and spills.
drudgery.
heels clicking on tiles.
the return to the cubicle.

of red pens and mastery.

the plane that flew and brought things away.
the plane that flew and brought respite.
the other land of smiles.
concrete and dust, so cover your nose.
a touch a lingering memory.
the tendency to romanticize, to ruin
with expectancy.

friday came too quick.

her wedding

***

weddings now invariably remind me of funerals, the order, the structure, how some things necessarily have to be done in a certain manner, at a certain time. the void that fills the room once the girl is married off, furniture stripped of character, of a room no longer imbumed with the scent of someone living in it. dust that fills the room a month after it has been void.

***



***

in other news, i have been having torrid dreams. a dog and a chequered human keep haunting my dreams. it was in a dark bar, not unlike the one in the city of blinding lights and i was seated opposite the pair of them, next to a female who was part of them, trying to attribute what was said to a particular motive, and they were all against my perception. what does that tell you?

***

i dreamt of someone else today. drinks at a hawker centre, choosing to go to a second stall further away instead for some palatable reason i've forgotten. the person i was having drinks with was as usual thinking that i was having some impediment of some kind, for choosing to go to a stall further away instead. making sounds with her lips to bring attention to my apparent impediment as i walk towards the second stall, as if saying, you no longer matter to me. your opinions no longer count, i am my own person.

***

i also dreamt of lieutenant mamiya's story, ala in a singaporean context? or rather, my dream context, but the eyes frozen in shock were still the same, the body white of flesh, as every piece of skin is tenderly peeled off, strange though that no red flesh could be seen. burnt till white, perhaps? i'm not sure. the car crashed through glass windows, and burned.

***

and i woke up thinking of the girl who burned to death in her car, screaming while people looked on helplessly.

***

oh. i suddenly know why i dreamt that dream.
because i was watching police story, and some guy burned in the car, while anthony something wailed around the car, fire extinguisher in hand.

an anti-climax.

but the sky will always darken

and people will leave one by one. let me walk with you once more.

how ironic that on the last day of school - today to be exact, this song is being played at 9:30am in the morning. i don't find this song to be particularly beautiful, just that the lyrics seem particularly pertinent and poignant for the moments that i always find myself in whenever i listen to it.

i'm contemplating whether to buy macdonalds for my entire class as a mini celebration and as a reward for them being such darlings - most of the time, anyway. this class will really be special to me, because unlike the amount of time that most teachers spent with the class, i spent more time with them, and i daresay that i know them all fairly well. two months with them from feb-april, and a long break in between when i left, mid april- end may when i returned. things that i did during the hiatus included going to bangkok (which i'll be going to again in early december) and the induction programme that saw us going back to boon lay for talks that for the life of me i can't remember, simply because whatever time we had, we spent on stoning, planning where to go and sms-ing. ah, and who could forget that lovely week (in June though) when i went to Genting, Colmar, KL and came back to singapore and promptly flew to taipei impromptu? but the lovely june holiday slid quietly away after that and i was soon buried knee high in work. by september you could say that i was dying to keep my nostrils above sea level. but anyway. it's all going to be over today. glorious.

i really will miss this class, for the times that they have seen me through. happy times in march and april, marking their tables and graphs worksheets on the MRT while half drunk and trying to keep my mind straight and sane, quiet days when i simply worked, taught, marked and went home. the dreaded thursday when i slept at 2am, woke at 8 for an art workshop (the other half of which i will attend this coming wednesday)and had the math HOD walk into my class halfway. i smiled ironically at the whiteboard while giving mental sums and everything went ok. they were so quiet and responsive at the right times that i loved them so much then. muahahaha.

so today's the last day of school for my darling p4s, and the prize presentations for the 1st, 2nd, 3rd in class, pupils with best conduct and best progress. my class has the most number of prize winners since 3 pupils tied at 3rd position, also 11 parents are coming, so maybe i have to mingle. or maybe not.
today will pass quickly, but hopefully not too fast. prize presentation starts at 4 plus and looks set to stretch towards the end of school.
tomorrow will be the prize presenations for p5s and p6s and the outstanding pupil award for the p6 pupils, one male, the other female.

friday is a short day and will end by 11. my plans for the day include going for a hair cut and shopping for that white dress that i need for the cousin's wedding. yes, the same cousin that i spoke about. and i feel like curling my hair, but i don't think so. maybe just thin it out so that it looks wavy.
maybe.

next week is filled up with work again, but it looks set to be easy going ahead. meetings on monday and tuesday, monday for the heavy academic stuff and tuesday for the non-exam stuff. wednesday- communications and craft workshop, and thursday is my volleyball training for 8 hours. will stay and tidy up my cubicle. ironically also the release of the psle results so i'll stay and do some k-po-ing, asking my 6a girls how they did.
and after that, goodbye school for a month. i swear i'm not going back unless i'm coerced to.

26th is the wedding, after which i am free to go to KL. and early december sees me in Bangkok, as said previously and after that, who knows? maybe phuket?

we'll see as we explore the vibrant possibilites of life. :)
today, life is good.

any given saturday

me and the wild sheep chase - we are finally going somwhere. i finally got to the part when they actually meet the Sheep Professor, someone who lives at the top of a building all alone and has meals placed outside his door daily, meals that he finishes in half an hour and then he leaves the soiled cutlery outside.
i realise how rare it is that i begin hammering on the keyboard from 8 to 9 but today is special, most probably because i had a smashing headache in the morning that reduced me to sleeping again, an hour before i woke for the day. i lay down and switched on the air conditioning once again and under the splitteringly hot sun, it began to pour and that's perhaps why my headache began. i watch the raindrops fall from the open sky and think to myself that when it rains while the sun is out, the raindrops seem to move more slowly through the air as if in slow motion. or perhaps it is simply because the morning light makes us all see things more clearly and with more perspective and then we are able to better actually see the raindrops fall. as usual, we always see but never really see. really how sad.
anyway i reached school late today and horror of horrors, a stack of result slips awaited me. i had to spend the next few hours signing on them and then slotting them in, one by one, along with their PFT results and their CIP records. and there's more to do, but as usual, i've not brought work home to do.
i'm glad that the last day of school is thursday and that it's prize giving day. the rest i don't really care. next week's monday and tuesday will be for overall reviews, wednesday is for workshops and then i'm free.
i swear to go to KL and then in early december, there's the trip to Bangkok. soon. soon.
and soon christmas will be upon us again.
i just saw the new beer ad on tv, the one with a santa falling down the chimmney and then snitching a glass of beer from this surprised guy. and i was thinking, what would i do if it were not christmas? yes, christmas, come quickly, but not too quick or that would herald the end of december. i think a slow pace from now on would be just right.
so we went to orchard the other day and was at borders at 10pm and it was as if it was the sky was still light, given the number of people milling around. then again, it was a saturday night.

the sparkles of lights all around failed to make my eyes hurt as my eyes drank in the festivity.

must get out

must get out, had to get out, and get out i did. must get out soon again, for a meeting has been called at 11am and i need to get there early. to complete forms, to complete the process of selling myself (so to speak).

i got out. the queue was initially long, so i took a jaunt along the lazy bars and empty alleys, like some damn cat on the prowl. and on the pavement opposite, i noticed that the granite tiles were uneven and really impossible to walk elegantly on.

i walk up the pink stairways again with the thin steel metal bars- not conducive for drunkards to hold on to, possibly, i wonder about how many have fallen down these stairs and i am reminded of a woman whom i saw earlier on in the day who chooses to palm the wall to steady herself, rather than to hold on to staircase railings. which brings me to conclude that most of us never use the railings, we skip down the stairs as kids, walk properly down when we reach adulthood and only realise the presence of those dusty bars when we are close to incontinence.

but away with those thoughts, for we are young, "what do we here, in this land of unbelief and fear? The Land of Dreams is better far, Above the light of the morning star." by W. Blake.

i dreamt of an essay yesterday, a literature essay which was graded and i thought about how lost things and lost words can never be recovered.

i went up to cityspace too yesterday. the lift was a shade of (i dont know what-ish) a myraid of silver tones and the lift sped up easily as before.i sat near the bar counter as many times before and recalled that i had not been there for 4 months and counting. the crowd this time a little different, expatriates and a more mature crowd. so i watched the city sleep again, playing the identify the buildings game and looked at patches of black and wondering what they were like in the day.

and in the end, ten minutes after passing me the menu, the waiter remembered me and came to ask what i wanted. a shirley temple, i said, and waited a while for the drink. when it took more than a while to come, i took my bag and slipped off into the night.

amusement and sardonism

i amused myself yesterday by digging up archives of the past and reading about my dreams. they seem so clear, yet in all clarity, they have been forgotten. this seems to echo some parts of my life. we mostly live in the present, think of mashes of the past, of history, of some things that linger more than others in the mind for spots of time and then silently slip away, to be erased, to be forgotten. how sad, and at the end of it all, when life makes monkeys of us all, what have we left in the end but transcient memories, scraps, scratches and snatches of what we used to have and in this thread memory becomes a curse, of a rememberance of things that we once used to have, that we no longer have, mocking at our current state of holding on to nothing, after all, we are born with nothing and leave the world with nothing.

the stupid ASOS dress did not arrive in the mail and so i have to begin scouting around for another dress to wear as an accompaniment to my cousin, the bride, on her big day. i shall be slightly more than a wallflower since there are several other bridesmaids and i shall content to just fade into the background and wane with simple, mundane tasks. "oh you look so pretty!", "congratulations", "you can't get into the house unless you give us a red packet".

i wanted to get out of the house yesterday. how sad that we should already feel blue on monday, the taxing 4 days before the weekend still hang there, like a dreary and gloomy pall that we have to go through before the end of time. i wanted to get out of the house, but there was a cover charge at the bar, how sad. having a quick drink does not equate in monetary terms to paying such a hefty cover charge so i rotted at home. am still brushing off the maggots now, okay, my bad. it was a lame attempt at humour.

in more than a sardonic mood now. i dream of school yesterday and the computer lab. it was funny but in the dream i couldn't recall for the hell of me why the school suddenly morphed into another school altogether. it was only upon waking up that i realised the school i dream of was one that i had not entered since i left in 1998. that's 7 years for you. i feel old already.

so, when will the bell ring and end our misery?

that heady feeling

the place is literally deserted and there are few people around. the few people engage in muted conversations and i sit behind my screen here, thinking.
it's going to be the last time i ever come back on a saturday for this year and that is sure cause for celebration.
that heady feeling is beginning to return, the feeling of looking up into the sky and not knowing where the blue begins or ends, and not even caring.
life is going to get better now that the busy lull has ended and what remains is the heavy paperwork, but surely, that can be done quickly and there's nothing really to think about.
i foresee more hot afternoons when i can actually breathe and look around and see the world empty, others cramped in airconditioned buildings.
i foresee freedom and the smell of what september should smell like.
i forsee more cities in the blinding darkness and spotlights.
i foresee so many things, myriads of unending possibilities and life is good at this point.
i am who i am and no one else comes close to being me.

in the house downstairs

There's been a Death, in the Opposite House,
As lately as Today-
I know it, by the numb look
Such Houses have - alway-

The neighbours rustle in and out-
The Doctor - drives away-
A window opens like a Pod -
Abrupt - mechanically -

Somebody flings a Mattress out -
The Children hurry by -
They wonder if it died - on that -
I used to - when a Boy -

-Emily Dickinson-

two drinks

the bar seems quiet on a thursday night, usually the case. huddles of people sit together on couches, on tiny red couches, some on high, uncomfortable stools which always make you wonder where your legs should be- to let them swing free or to perch them onto the steel rings fixed to the bottom of the tiny round tables.
smoke wafts, a bored bartender gazes at the crowd, then reads the labels of a few bottles. vodka, jack daniels, chivas.
bottles line the shelves, some full, some half empty. damn, or half full? are you sure?
the huddles of people consist of twenty-somethings, men with their ties undone. you catch the ocassional "fuck" and "asshole" and the slapping of backs, followed by boisterous laughter marking male speech, male talk.
girls saunter by, girlish giggles pierce through the air and you notice the acrid smell of stale cigarette, along with their swaying hips.
chunky earrrings, a funky beaded necklace, big eyes, pouty lips, blusher. slightly plunging necklines and jeans to complete the equation. in the toilets stained with puke on weekends they watch themselves, tranfixed by their own nature in the mirrors as they preen. they adjusts strands of hair, widen their eyes and inspect their pores. they saunter back to their places.
they could be nameless with empty faces, objects existing for the purpose of existence.
red liquid with a slice of lemon. an exceptionally thin black straw. a small shot of vodka, a squeeze of the bottle with red and soda gets pumped into the drink.
the black cushioned high stools are indented by the many who have passed through the gates. a bar table near the glass doors was left unoccupied.

***

two drinks, watching wrestling without seeing, and a wall of bottles.

stupidity

you are nothing.

perhaps circumstances might have conspired to make you the way that you are, but never forget your roots, what you were born as, what you were born with, and look at you now. by keeping silent it does not mean that i do condone your deeds. arrogance is nothing to be proud of and you really do not have anything to be proud of. look at what made you the way you are? are they not the same things that you perceive as weaknessess now?
you are such a farcical person, you live in farce. shrouded with the self-belief that you are everything, you fail to see that people are begining to despise that conceit, that infinite sense of self-worth.
you are really nothing, parade off and stop making a mockery of yourself.
i feel for you.

because

because i have many things on my mind. because i have to be up at 6 or 7am tomorrow morning, being an oral examiner to kids whom i have never seen before and having part of their exam grades resting on my shoulders does not appear to be a welcoming prospect to me. because i do not know the breakdown of the marks as yet and have to panick tomorrow morning. because my colleague got scolded for the same reason and i should just wait to be reprimanded. because i failed 3 people from my class and penalised another hundred (ok this is exaggeration) for not reading the question carefully and not looking carefully enough at the picture. because my class is ill-prepared and it is my fault. because some lamer called "canailou" added me on MSN and is trying to chat with me. because i have an insipid mind.
because i am quite fucked.

***

i dreamt that i cut my hair today, a short crop with an equally short fringe that mortified me but strangely, did not bring me to tears as i remember how i looked astonished at myself in the mirror, images of me in short hair bringing back to mind how i looked fugly in those teenage years. and then i murdered someone and had to run away but was discovered and i dreamt of the cousin with an impending shotgun marriage.
because she is pregnant, because her to-be-husband tried to ask for my number after he sent me back once. because i can't really tell anyone and am typing this out on the world wide web now- ironical isn't it?

***

i have been thinking about typing about the girl that i am but it just sounds narcisstic and will welcome comments about me, myself and i. and i realise that everything i do will be judged, commented and that truly sucks because freedom is shit.

***

i dread mondays, look forward to weekends and the cycle goes on. i alternate between loving and hating my job and my life, hating everything most of the time and then despising myself because i seem pointless.
but of course i am sounding sad.
holiday by green day reminds me of heady times, times when we had nothing to fear, nothing to look forward to, life like a clear blue sky, and looking up at it, you never knew where the blue began or ended.
now i see a tree in front of me perhaps and i simply stare at it. some days i notice the bark, other days i notice the leaves. sometimes i see the worm eaten leaves and before i know it, a gradual change has occured and the tree is dried and barely alive.

***

you had me. i need to get out. somedays i am grateful that it's gone, that it happened, but other days i rue everything i can think of. when everything's gone, nothing's left and there's nothing to look forward to.
i used to think that it was impossible to have two sides to a person and barely recognising one side when the other existed. now it seems too pretty easy to me that it's scary. i used to think that once this equilibrium was reached, everything would be simple because there is no longer anything for any holding back, or any emotions. now i see that perhaps it is not the way i want to live.
to search for the way i want to live- to find it, a far way off since it will be a difficult search.

***

jolt me.

the bright spots in the night sky

bright spots in the night sky to pierce our eyes, tandem to the black sky, a bountiful accomplice. we sit and stare at the bright spots, imagining them to be figments of movement that we are accustomed to, fitting their movements to scenarios we play out endlessly in our minds, the mind a powerful tool.
there are no clouds now and the sun has been taken down. all so often a powerful loud hum fills the sky, encompassing the space within our ears, reveberating within us until the plane has completed an arc of the sky and wafts into a cloud.
the chairs are a rusted steel, scraping on the brick coloured ground as we take our places. i worry about the white of my shirt as i lean back against the rust. my palms are filled with a coppery substance, the colour of rusted, dried blood.
saltiness fills my nostrils, the by-product of a wonderful sea breeze.
under this magical night sky do i believe that we can truly cease to live and begin to exist.

the lost sheep

we can, if we choose, wander aimlesly over the continent of the arbitrary. Rootless as some winged seed blown about on a serendiptous spring breeze.
Nonetheless, we can in the same breath deny that there is any such thing as coincidence. What's done is done, what's yet to be is clearly yet to be, and so on. in other words,sanwiched as we are between the "everything" that is behind us and the "zero" beyond us, ours is an ephemeral exitence in which there is neither coincidence nor posibility.
In actual practice, however, distinctions between the two interpretations amount to precious little. A state of affairs (as with most face-offs between interpretations) not unlike calling the same food by two different names.

- a wild sheep chase

Icarus falling from the sky

In Brueghal's 'Icarus', for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the plowman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

W.H. Auden

the double well

But enough, enough. All that disgusting mess is due to the inertia, pigheadedness, prejudice of humans, failing to recognise me in the corpse of my flawless double. I accept, with a feeling of bitterness and contempt, the bare fact of unrecognition but I keep on firmly believing in my double's perfection.

Vladimir Nabokov

***

i was stark deep the four days past. rethinking the meaning of my life and what it all meant to me and when it all started.
the catalyst- a screen-shot in a dark room, whispering to me things that i had lost, things that i never had, taunting me with empty promises that could never exist.
the dark room and closed eyes that could not open.

Toru in the dark well in the backyard of the house with the sculpture of the wind-up bird with wings outstretched and awaiting flight.

i could not think. the music spun around me, surrounding me and sending pierces that were unusually loud or soft into my ear. the floor spun. i think of a ship. i repeated words in my head, unable to think of what came after them when they were already ingrained deep into me. unable to think of right or wrong. my bag. is it still there? what to do next? to go with the flow.

Toru was in a dream and in his dream he was in the hotel. It always brought him to the same hotel room with the waiter pushing around a new bottle of Cutty Sark. The waiter whistled merrily. The hotel was unlike any other hotel. The rooms were in a maze and you could get lost in the maze. he enters the room with the waiter.

i think of nails and tissue hidden under nails. sinew, limbs. i wore the pants for graduation. the shoes i still wear at times, pointy mules.
i like to give. lines and squares. scissors to cut paper.

He received calls from a strange woman. The woman keeps silent and speaks at times. She does not identify herself. Malta comes along and tries to help Toru look for his missing cat, Noburu Wataya.

Because it just happened, not for any particular reason. but because of this, there is a catalyst. To represent that which is missing in me, and that which i will never possess. To raise discontent in me and the willingness to search for what i should be getting in life.

Toru visits May Kasahara in the wig factory where she makes wigs all day. May Kasahara has written many letters to him that have never reached him. He leaves her and falls into a deep sleep on the train back.

Perhaps I should go work in a wig factory.

painful flashes

i get flashes of deja-vu that innuduate my insipid brain, programmed to think of work: piles in terms of urgency and brings a sharp, brain-splitting, brain-numbing pain to my head as i try to recall what exactly it was that i knew before i experienced it.
i can't spell well now because words and alphabets are appearing in front of me like mist in a fog and i am unable to see the outline of them clearly- exactly what distinguishes one word or alphabet from another i do not know.
all of a sudden it is clear that our fate is written on the stars and that somehow we already know how our lives are going to turn out.

and the phone line.

There are silences, and many unsaid words expand and fill up the silence along the telephone lines, signifying how much there is to say till there is no way to begin, and in this way, time snowballs and elapses.

the things

the things i've thought of until this point have deserted me and i am like a dry stone, without any running thoughts left.
it's amazing how the attempt to write itself can be the be-all and then end-all of all writing or inspiration.
i'd be the worst person in the world to be a writer because i lack a vivid imagination. paint the sky a multitude of colours and i can spell how the sky was painted. insert a philosophical verse of crap or two, even, but hand me the paintbrush and i'll be dumbfounded.

***

reading about two halves of the self has made me go bonkers over someone having two selves. two detachable selves of oneself so that you can either exist in one self or another and forget totally about the other self. or perhaps not. we're but human, but human and being human, we're all fucking flawed to our annoyance.

***

looking back on this, i feel so uninspired and demoralized. we can never change others until we change ourselves. and there is always something to be changed about ourselves. and we cannot change ourselves until we really know ourselves. and how many of us really know ourselves? i don't.

***

i also know that every experience comes along with its' set of similarities and differences that differentiate it from another set of experiences for example and it's too much of a pity to lose out on anything that life has to offer. that doesn't mean that i want to be so richly indulgent in experiencing so much that i lose myself in the process.

***

she walks away unhurt because she forgets to unbuckle her seatbelt before the crash - i mean, how dumb is that? so remind me to unbuckle it.
but of course i'm not going to do that. i've not done enough crazy things in this lifetime to end it with a bang in some suicide biggie. if i die, actually i'd like it to be in some air crash. then i'd be on the list of missing passengers first and everyone will be sad. then they'll find scraps of my DNA somewhere around the wreckage of the plane some weeks after the crash. hope still hangs, a tiny almost invisible thread to my few friends and family. but then scraps of me are found and then i'm on the list of "the dead".
a celebrated life and people wil be asked about how i was. a small report on my life would satisfy me. No one speaks ill of "the dead", so in the papers, i'll be celebrated.

***

the end.

Malta & Creta

a true magical work of art, all 607 pages of it in font size 7.
i need to read it but i've no time.
i admire people who make magic out of words.
and i'm only at Page 89.

porcelain

are we all like that inside? the depths? are we stuck in moments of trying to be who we are?

so i go to the toilet and feel unstable. one basin is filled with puke. the toilets are sparse and filthy. the ground is damp and black shoe prints are all over. strips of toilet paper litter the floor. marks on the toilet bowl remind me that many people smoke and only remember to stub out their cigarettes after pulling down their pants.

a child, a child

to paint a beautiful picture that reflects a song. is it ever possible to paint in words, emotions?
really, not.

highslowsighslowlyingoingintonighthetherealonerangerage.

do you see what i see?
Do you hear what I hear?
A child, a child, cries upon the night
with light as bright as the sun.

cogulation

it flies through the air, something floating midway between the sky and the ground and as if by impact, moves clockwise upwards in a gentle curve and sails downwards suddenly as if it has gained significant weight where it swiftly divides the scene of a coconut tree lined beach into two parts.
skin breaks and red foam cogulates on the lined concrete floor, red seeps through and moves through the lines in the concrete ground and it looks like a white plastic bag hurled from top in a child's tiny palm, crashing down to earth, the impact causing the contents to splatter out.
the red lined ground dries, the white covering flies away in the wind, to be washed up onshore of some obscure island and sand billows in crumbles on the red patch.

today.

the last link to the past 4 years arrived in the mail today.

blasting "boulevard of broken dreams" as we walk out from the air conditioned room out to the hot asphalt. taking a look around from a bird's eye aerial view and feeling that heady rush of joy of being alive and being able to share in that moment.

desolation

a lone cat plays along the road, near the curb where buses and cars whizz past.
a rotund indian man in a blue and white batik shirt shouts obscenities at the bus driver as he rushes on the bus, only to have the door close on him. he marches up and down the bus, muttering curses before he finds a seat near the back portion of the bus. he sneezes twice as he gets off the bus.

facets of desolation. all around.

ruins on a cloud

and an old style chendol cafe in the sleepy town.



sometimes, i don't know why we have to talk. talk is empty.

mutilation

fuck. my cousins are asking me to go drinking and i so bloody want to because it will be a bloody fantastic way to begin the holidays by getting drunk and puking out along the street. but i can't, as always since i have to be up by 5 tomorrow to catch the coach to malacca.
stupid clashes, as always.

***

i think that self-mutilation is a phrase. and the meaning of phrase is crucial here.

***

the 7th month is here again and there are lit joss sticks inserted upon the ground, stuck in crumbs of soil, burning brightly through the night, fading as the night wears on and then turning into bright glares later on at night. the air has once more taken on a smoky pallor and each whiff of the night's air that used to be crisp on hot nights now brings ash to mind. burnt monetary offerings, the symbol of faithfulness and respect for ancestory sail through the air at regular intervals.

the car stops at a traffic light at the bottom of a hill and i see many people burning money offerrings at the top of the hill in big bins that mysteriously appear around the periods of august to september each year. the wind blows strong, but i am sheltered in the metallic frame of the car, only feeling the puff of the airconditioner. it is a strange feeling to be so cut off from the world that i cannot feel the wind against my skin, while everything else billows in the wind. like being in a house with the heater on in winter.
the ashes from the burnt money offerrings billow in the wind, flicker and glow in a shade of reddish-orange as the wind plays with the ashes. and i think about how similar we are to ashes in this aspect.

counting down the days

i dreamt of a shopping mall.

***

i just realised that i now wake by 8 as if on clockwork.

the countdown to the wonderful, glorious long weekend BEGINS.

krom

i stared at words yesterday without reading them.
it is possible, you know.

sleep solves problems.

of fluff in a pink brain

tired with things to do.

it's weird how people sometimes fail to realise that we are indeed living on borrowed time, and that the decisions we make each time shape how we are going to live our lives. a movie on average takes 2 hours. we give up that 2 hours of our lives for the movie. it is akin to an exchange.
rules are made by people, and rules can be bent.
rigidity equates to brainlessness.
and i still don't like sneaky people, probably will not.
i don't have to look around and smile all the time, for sometimes i simply don't want to.
and i refuse to perpetuate the notion that one has to be a stupid smiley faced doll who keeps saying "thank you" sucks up and wheedles his/her/your way through everyone.
bona fide, people, truth. genuine-nity, people, genuine-nity. please check the root word if you're not sure.

fat

what 2 buffets in 2 days has done to me:



just add more hair.

skydiving

tired. and already, the week ahead looks set to stretch. beyond nothingness. eaten up in a flurry of doing things. i'm tired.
and my dreams are back. dreamt that today we had to skydive throught the white puffy clouds under the watchful eyes of an instructor. the thing with dreams are that you wake up halfway, wanting to continue with them, yet it's time to wake up. because unfinished dreams are after all, unfinished, and then you wake up feeling shortchanged because you'd never know the ending of that dream.
apart from skydiving i dreamt of kc too where this girl was scrubbing the toilet because she misbehaved.
hmm.

***

green spotted floors. scratching of pen against paper. latecomers. spaced out looks. it's strange how life goes on elsewhere when ours ceases to exist in a spectrum anymore.
the grass is always "greener" on the other side.

***

tired.

vernon god little, and art

sounds morbidly fascinating and slated to be my next read.
touted to be "fit to rank with Catcher in the Rye", being "the outstanding literary debut of 2003". i know 2003 was eons ago. i even thought of getting Y this as a birthday gift back in 2003 until the entire gang decided to give him a stupid game set bought from some god forsaken country which made it clear that he wasn't that good a friend to us. bad us.

i also borrowed tangerine by colin cheong, about this guy travelling around in Vietnam. perhaps it will be hanoi next then.

art class today. with the primary one kids. alot of things went wrong. leaf printing. the plan was 1. colour the drawing block first with a light colour. 2. crumple paper up and dip in paint, blot and then stamp on the drawing paper to create a messy stamped effect 3. everyone to take a leaf and paint it and have leaf prints! lovely! planned.

reality rules: 1. only 2 pupils out of 30 7 year olds brought paint. 2. i had only one tiny cup where they could dip paper and leaves. 3. the leaves were bloody waxy and paint was splattered in droplets on the leaf. 4. which adds up to the fact that 30 kids came running to the teachers' table with their blocks, excited and shouting "i want the leaf!" 5. i had no paintbrush.

end result: everyone colours first. anyhow mix blue paint haphazardly. (side note: the blue paint are remains from own primary school days ten years ago. not dried up yet. god is good. borrow paintbrush from one pupil. the pupil that i made cry a week ago. vow to be nicer to him. crumple a4 paper, dip, pass to pupil. let those who really make alot of noise do the leaf print. leaf print turns out awful! but they can't tell. i don't say anything either.

at the end of the period: teacher's table is in a blue mess. scramble and yells, "my paint shop is closed!". children echo the same words. pack up, dammit. only 5-10 mins left! "hand up your work! make sure it's dry! blot with paper if not dry!".
clear up blue mess faster than expected. damage is minimal. my waterbottle turns blue. paint has seeped through my nails and hardens in the crevice between my nail and my skin. i look like i have hypothermia.

the end: clearing up is surprisingly fast. have some minutes to spare. sits on chair in front of classroom. big smile and relief. "shall we have a look at one another's work?" holds up 30 pairs of artwork one at a time and watch individual pupils beam and raise their hands proudly as their work is held up.
the final question: did you enjoy the art lesson today? the resounding yes makes me think that thinking on your feet is important? no, perhaps not. making the best out of a crap situation perhaps. maybe.

and their work was nice! like abstract art!

so, potato printing next time. please bring paint and potatos.

passion, cushion, action

passion according to alvin pang.



cushion according to me.



the days see me alot in refurbished places, old schools of long ago. like the teachers' network. like the old braddell primary school for election training. like the old PE college for today. the doctor-mountain climber came to speak today. familiar faces all round. the food sucked. on beaming powerpoint slides showed the faces of those familiar to me 4 years ago on a tiny island. david, nam jin, i thought of lynn, valerie. edwin. sap. leng-er, edvan. so many. siva.
thoughts and thoughts.

crumbled paper

In a Classroom

Talking of poetry, hauling the books
arm-full to the table where the heads
bend or gaze upward, listening, reading aloud,
talking of consonants, elision,
caught in the how, oblivious of why:
I look in your face, Jude,
neither frowning nor nodding,
opaque in the slant of dust-motes over the table:
a presence like a stone, if a stone were thinking
What I cannot say, is me. For that I came.

struggling out of imperfection.
the days reach as long as shadows at dusk.

motion sickness

literally and figuratively.
from quick movements, waif-like, turning, bending, moving, things spinning from a quick movement. sitting on the bus seats and having the bus start off after having stopped at the traffic lights and then stop at another one- jerking to a stop and throwing the passengers forward before coming to a complete halt. The head spins and you are unable to think of anything in a maze of concentration.
motion sickness when life moves too fast and you are lost in the middle.
and the tokyo earthquake.

frog could not stop worm.
i remember reading about frog as 157 cruised along jurong east, passing by parc oasis and smiling about the absurdity of the story. yes, Ingerrnt, there was perhaps something illuminatingly attractive about reading some light hearted materials. during the light hearted days when we were still free.
literally and figuratively

about saving

dreams, part infinitus

i can't even sleep well at night. today i dreamt that i gave my p1 class the wrong artwork to do and the form teacher who told me what to do in art class today came in during the lesson and found out that her class was not doing what she wanted them to do, which was to essentially design stuff for the noticeboard competition, so the noticebaord was left empty for the competition.
opening of the South Zone Centre of Excellence here today. have to dress smart and i lose a few periods. am glad i'm losing library period though.

scraps

i wonder if memory fades to some obscure place in our minds, staying there as it is while we try to find it, hunting, and then failing. hunting and then, failing.
scraps.
i was reading a long letter, not unlike the 7 page letter that i read about earlier yesterday. or perhaps i was influenced by that. we shall never know.
my writing sucks but still i want to type.
oh. i was staring at my lap top in the same way then. except that my keys were not on the keyboard and typing furiously like now. i was staring at a corner of my screen, eerily.
the letter.
bits of words, alphabets put together to form a semblence of meaning that we all agree groups of words are blessed with.
basically, i knew that i still had a friend.

fireflies

I closed my eyes and steeped myself in that long-ago darkness. I heard the wind with unusual clarity. Far from strong, the wind swept past me, leaving strangely brilliant trails in the darkness. I opened my eyes to find the darkness of the summer night a few degrees deeper than it had been.
I twisted open the lid of the jar and took the firefly out, setting it on the two-inch lid of the water tank. It seemed not to grasp its new surroundings. It hobbled around the head of a steel bolt, catching its' legs on curling scales of paint. it moved to the right until it found its way blocked, then circled back to the left. Finally, with some effort, it mounted the head of the bolt and crouched there for a while, unmoving, as if it had taken its last breath.
Still leaning against the handrail, I studied the firefly. Neither I nor it made a move for a very long time. The wind continued sweeping past the two of us while the numberles leaves of the zelkova tree rustled in the darkness.
I waited forever.
only much later did the firefly take to the air. As if some thought had suddenly come to it, the firefly spread its wings, and in a moment it had flown past the handrail to float in the pale darkness. It traced a swift arc by the side of the water tank as if trying to bring back a lost interval in time. And then, after hovering there for a few seconds as if to watch its curved line of light blend into the wind, it finally flew off to the east.
Long after the firefly had disappeared, the trail of its light remained inside me, its pale, faint glow hovering on and on in the thick darkness behind my eyelids like a lost soul.
More than once I tried stretching my hand out in that darkness. My fingers touched nothing. The faint glow remained, just beyond their grasp.
(taken from)

***

beautiful prose, written by another, perks the tired me up. or rather, I have not much of a basis to claim to be tired since all I have been doing was to load my kids with work and take off to a semi-haunted school, refurbished with a new airconditioning system and listen to balding old men with a warped sense of humour who makes tired civil servants laugh, watch heads nod off in front of me, beside me, around me, and later playing the roles of blind people, wheelchair bound people, the illiterate. simulacra. reminding me of white noise, which I hated.

***

back to school tomorrow with compositions sitting on my table, remediation worksheets, the need to plan, and the prospects of a long contact time, and 4 periods with me dashing off to 4 different class. in full swing. midweek.

***

today in school

i sit outside the mobile toilets which remind me of the stinky poo-filled mobile toilets at the NDP rehearsal and look at the math TB, in preparation for the 4 periods ahead.
3 primary one girls skip by, singing, "wo ai ni, ai zhe ni" and giggle.
the contractor consigned to do some works in the school sings behind them, "jiu xiang lao shu ai da mi".
we all catch one another's eyes and laugh.

Chuo Line

I straightened up and looked out of the plane window at the dark clouds hanging over the North sky, thinking of what I had lost in the course of my life: times gone forever, friends who had died or disappeared, feelings I would never know again.

Eighteen years have gone by, and still I can bring back every detail of that day in the meadow. Washed clean of summer's dust by days of gentle rain, the mountains wore a deep, briliant green. The October breeze set white fronds of head-tail grasses swaying. One long streak of cloud hung pasted across a dome of frozen blue. It almost hurt to look at that far-off sky. A puff of wind swept across the meadow and through her hair before it slipped into the woods to rustle branches and send back snatches of distant barking- a hazy sound that seemed to reach us from the doorway to another world. We heard no other sounds. We met no ohter people. We saw only two bright, red birds leap startled from the centre of the meadow and dart into the woods.

Even so, my memory has grown increasingly distant, and I have already forgotten any number of things. Writing from memory like this, I often feel a pang of dread. What if I've forgotten the most important thing? What if somewhere inside me there is a dark limbo where all the truly important memories are heaped and slowly turning into mud?

Naoko and I saw each other exactly once after Kizuki's funeral. Two weeks after the event, we met at a coffee house to take care of some minor mattter, and when that was finished we had nothing more to say. I tried raising several different topics, but none of them led anywhere. And when Naoko did talk, there was a certain edge to her voice. She seemed angry with me, but I had no idea why. We never saw each other again until that day we happened to meet on the Chuo Line in Tokyo a year later.

*** (Disclaimer: not self-written, copied, taken from somewhere)

I am unexpectedly reminded of the Moonriver cafe on a Wednesday afternoon when I sit alone at the table in the cafe next to the see through window and an old man comes an sits next to me and asks if the homestyle fish is nice and i tell him that it is. he is a regular at the cafe for the staff knows him and he, them, and they are surprised that he does not go for the curry that day.

the Sf 65

i think this phone is in.



Siemens today unveiled the SF65 clamshell style mobile phone with a 1.3 megapixel camera, flash and four times zoom. The swivel style top end has a 16-bit internal colour display with a resolution of 128 x 160 pixels, and on the flip side the camera lens.

The SF65 will support any dual-band GSM 900/1800MHz network, GPRS Class 10 and IRDA. SMS, EMS, MMS and POP3 are all feasible. Some advanced picture editing features are included, around 18 MB of images can be stored on the internal drive.



See press release below

Siemens SF65: The new clamshell phone with swivel action screen and 1.3 mega pixel digital camera
SF65

Copenhagen -- Today at the Danish Design Centre, Copenhagen , the mobile communication group at Siemens, Siemens mobile, launches the SF65 – a quality clamshell handset and the latest addition to Siemens portfolio of high-end mobile phones. Taking picture messaging to a new level, the SF65 has a state-of-the art SXGA 1.3 mega pixel camera with integrated LED flash, 4x continuous digital zoom and a 65,000 color TFT display. Coupled with the latest mobile features, this innovative handset brings together the best of the photographic and mobile world in a striking and compact package.

Aiding the metamorphosis from phone to camera, the SF65 uses a simple swivel action to transform from an elegant mobile phone to a digital still camera. Its integrated LED flash and 4x continuous zoom allows the digital camera to be used day or night and capture images with increased detail and clarity. The SF65 has been designed with dedicated cam era and zoom keys at the top and bottom of the display to provide a shortcut to the camera function and make it instinctive and easy to use. Images captured with the SXGA 1.3 mega pixel camera are displayed on TFT 128x160 screen in 65,000 vibrant colors so that memories stay as sharp as the moment. With an extended range of camera features and photo editing tools, the SF65 combines the quality and flexibility of a professional digital still camera with the convenience and spontaneity of a mobile phone.
Designed to look and feel like both a digital camera as well as a mobile phone, this compact clamshell has a contemporary and paired-down design that has a high quality finish in ‘Polar White’.

Thorsten Heins, President of the Mobile Phones division within Siemens mobile, explained: “With the SF65, we’ve brought together the best of the mobile communication and photographic world to produce a handset which looks, acts and feels just like a digital camera. Its launch also means we add a premium clamshell handset to our portfolio and further extend our range of high-end devices, all of which now have the signature design and finesse consumers associate with Siemens mobile.”

Weighing just 97g, with a volume of 85cm³ and dimensions of 91 x 44 x 23mm, the SF65 is small, light and practical. The 64-chord polyphonic ringer melodies with wave table modulation ensure quality sound performance. Supported by 18 MB of free user memory and with photo editor functionality, images can be saved in an album and enhanced to create perfect individual photographs. Flexibility is key with varying image storage options, from 55 images in SXVGA quality (320 Kb), to 300 images in VGA format (60 Kb) and 900 as Wallpaper (20 Kb). With a talk time of four hours and 400 hours standby time on the battery, SF65 users can stay snap-happy. Java based games and applications complete the package.
The SF65 is available with a range of Siemens Original Accessories for extra convenience : a variety of headsets including the elaborately designed Headset Purestyle with increased wearing comfort, a range of chargers, a spare battery, a data cable and a flexible Car Kit Portable. A practical Tour Case completes the product portfolio.

a month ago

a month ago i trimmed my hair at kimage, marina square, dropped by price breakers and bought a copy of elle magazine, which i haven't touched since i came back. back from?
snatches of the day i remember are wearing a blue top and thinking that i don't look very much different. 3/4 pants because i couldn't be bothered and because i thought my shoes alone would help me look less sloppy.
fast forward akin to using the tape recorder and watching the television images of your favourite show going in fast motion, lines blurring the images and people moving in unnaturally quick waves, mouths gaping open and closing as if they were goldfish and not humans and then we cease.
fast forward and we have all graduated as if we had just entered yesterday. no tears of joy, no nostalgic reminscences as if we wish yesterday was here once more, for routine blurs the beauty of an exceptional journey out. the last journey out.
and i'm never going back in a long time, no more rushing around, the combinations to the lockers may be forgotten, shelved in some forgotten corner of the mind unless implicature reminds me of a touch, a far-away touch and then memory reaches out to another memory as the leaves of different trees planted nearby one another interlock, touch, sway together in the wind on a bright blue day.
snatches.
i came back and packed, one bag inside another, too tired to sleep, mind moving too quickly it was impossible to think of sleep.
are you back from japan? and do you still read this?
the macdonalds with the lacquered floor that almost made me trip. the cheap cheeseburger that i finished quickly and the book entitled "my lover's lover". sitting alone in the lounge and seeing people alone like myself watch me warily and wonder along the very same line- why are we all alone?
an old man with little hair who falls asleep as the plane speeds along the runway. the empty seat between us that we both piled our newspapers and magazines in a strange mutual consent that was never verbal. reading the papers cover to cover. children behind.
along this meandering path of meaningless words, i find it hard to believe whether it has been a month or whether it has been only a month.

i dreamt a dream

about the past.
walking around and deciding what to eat, perhaps an invasion of my p4 IPW which will be headache today and has me thinking about salads from cartel, swensens and blah. i couldn't hear what you said and since you've repeated it twice i walk around endlessly until the queue at the counter snakes out of the cafe and i have to join it at the back and i still have no idea what to eat. i return to the table hoping for a clue and you are not there, your chicken half eaten and messy on a huge plate, so huge that it tells me that everything is but a dream. i think of buying ribs and i ask A where you have gone. no idea. i want to buy ribs.
the scene changes and i see lots of freckles on you. huge brown freckles litter your back and your face. you have grown old, the skin not as soft and elastic as before, inching towards a leathery profile and the hair, once radiant and light is now heavy and flecked slightly in grey. your dressing has changed, you now are in some drab top. the pores on the face enlarged, the face drained of youth.
everything was the same.

dumdum

some people disgust me.
like, totally.
those who are uncooperative, uncivilised and are simply empty vessels with no brains.

robots

"She peered into the mirror. Tonight she would wear long earrings of pink Lucite. She would put her lenses back in and use a lipstick that didn't clash with the Lucite, and that would be that. Seen from a certain angle, she might simply disappear"

Speaking about love, Linda says, "I believe it to be the central drama of our lives. For most of us, that is.... It's something extraordinary that happens to ordinary people."

''A pink mouth, neither smiling nor frowning (though the head was tilted warily or fetchingly -- it was hard to tell).''

''She admired a negligee and remembered nights with other negligees, and still the sadness, that cloud, was not swept away.''

***

Back to the real world, back to the real world
Back to the ground

***

after graduation, that is. remnants of graduation are my kids waving goodbye to me during their recess period as i rush out of school, going for a late lunch first and then arriving at NTU. dressing yourself out, white shirt, check hair, check appearance. check that the pink slip that you wear over the gown isn't out of place. pin it down. take some photographs. take more photographs. get chased into the auditorium by some guy. fidget. look for seat. realise that not many people are in yet and wonder where the others are. walk around in order not to be the only blip in a sea of red seats. get seated when people gush in. watch a boring video where many strangely similar looking people get interviewed over and over again, waving mechanically at the video camera as if they've been cued to do so- obviously. watch girls with cute smiles make the victory sign against their faces and try not to puke especially if the one girl is sitting next to you. wait and re-look at the white slip of paper that has your name printed on it. listen to funfare music and watch professors and doctors with gowns of all colours and hats of all sizes enter. listen to speeches. doze off. wake up to the sound of clapping. names resonate and none make sense. people look like mechanical robots programmed to go on stage at each call of any name. mechanical clapping fills the air. wonders who is the one who does all the clapping or it is canned clapping, akin to canned laughter? muses. stand, rise walk. the aim is the X on the stage. reach, wait. name called out. oh dannggit, it seems quite a distance. adjust speed of walking. shakes hands. thank you. -smiles- walk down. sit again. twiddle thumbs. and the list goes on. the food was horrible, like the work my p4 class gave me today. horrible.
so graduation is not quite like what it's cracked out to be, really.
but now, the final visit to NTU is over and we all wonder what is next. just work i suppose, and nothing much.

out of my head

i hate the way that perfect 10 always plays the song "out of my head" by fastball halfway before the news or some stupid commercial as if it's some insignificant song to be slotted in to take up some exact frame of time before the allocated time for commercials or news.
today was a good day, it rained and i slept facing the wall, hearing thunder and lightning seep through the walls to the cosy cocoon that i was in.
school starts tomorrow again as usual and this time it's a five day week, full steam ahead till the next holiday in august- national day.
i'm going to upload more photos of the parachutists.
early to school again for marking. notes to self: 1. mental sums 2. science worksheet 3. grammar 4. sort out things to return 5. young scientist cards.
and things to do now: weekly plan (social studies, library, art) prepare for tomorrow - create questions for quiz.
-__-

the ne show

the single thing that i felt during the show was something close to horror as i watched a red lion (commando) fall hard against the ground, the body bent at an unnatural angle, crashing, tumbling, hard.

they first appeared as dots, white and tiny in the sky, billowing puffs of white smoke that turned slightly red as they came nearer to the ground.



and then they came closer to us.



a lone parachutist drifts to the ground.



this is the injured parachutist, IIRC. he was already not on course and appeared to be coming down almost horizontal to the ground.

black afterspots

the feel of the soft pillow against skin as "losing my religion" plays in the background, gregorian chant style. black spots appear, the result of having the eyes closed for too long, thinking angry thoughts, looking back at the past, feeling all the walls crumble.
and suddenly, it feels as though i were in secondary school once more and, ironically, like an onion, trying to have all the folds and layers of protection over the centre. so the folds build up in time, but today, for a certain time and space, it feels as though all the layers are stripped bare, the onion's centre revealed, the rest ready for cooking. or maybe not.
close your eyes. you will feel disoriented. sight helps us to see, to gain a perspective on ourselves, on space and time.
stand on one leg. put the other against your inner thigh of the leg you are balancing on. make sure you balance, then close your eyes. you will probably fall.
why?
for the same reason. eyes are important and give us a perspective to life.
so my eyes today, closed against bright flourescent light, were new to light when they reopened again at the end of a song. it was a long lost feeling, mostly associated with childhood, with lying in bed and not sleeping, with the lights on when i was too afraid of the dark.
but i don't understand why i'm digressing.

8 . a. m

8am and i'm up again. i brought work back yesterday. dang. have to mark the science practical tests today before the standardisation of the answer key and the vetting and all that, which means- i get to go to school early again!
it is amazing how a bunch of bright 10 year olds can come up with a variety of ways to answer posed questions, even ignoring the important words like draw an arrow and label the picture-minus one mark, giving me all sorts of correct differences between specimen a and b when they're asked to provide one based on OBSERVATIONS, so minus away all the marks. sigh.
NE show tomorrow :( at least i get to see fireworks. i think.
this is so work/school related so while i'm at it: books to mark - journals, dictation, social studies, grammar worksheets?
bah.

from the fight club

Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war...our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact.

food for thought.

***

remedial tomorrow, which means it's a total of 3 days already from 9-7 in school. pretty long day and i'm rather drained today. throat is sore, presumbly from all the junk food that has piled kilos around my rapidly expanding waist which has made it slightly impossible to fit into my pin striped pants today. maybe tomorrow then, since i only had an egg muffin for the entire day today before dinner.

people are mostly nice to me and today before the end of the day it was nice to talk to someone who seemed vaguely famliar in so many ways, yet different in so many ways, the smell of a dream that you've forgotten the smell of until you smell it again and know that it never really left you.

words reverberate in my head at times, repeating themselves endlessly and i imagine the words entering my ears as sound travelling in waves in air and passing as time passes, slipping across air molecules and hitting my eardrums deep inside as the words begin to register and first my brain recognises them as sound before recognising them as words, the sound that they make, every syllable echoing emptily in my head as pure sound alone before the brain takes over and begins to decipher the sounds as words and works out to find out the meaning behind sound.
as if sound ever had any meaning.

books in hotels

hmm. i didn't know the skin was such a dead giveaway, but anyway. *waves*

***

i've decided today that i bring no more work home. i'm in the afternoon session, so what i'll do from now on is leave school promoptly by 6:45pm and get home, bathe, watch the 7pm show that's halfway on and then do some planning/resouces (seldom) for the next day's class. and then watch the next 9pm show. and slack. and read. i want to read ishiguro's latest book.
and go back to school at 9am the next morning and enter the quiet airconditioned staff room once again and smell the smell of books and walk to my cubicle again and watch the familiar piles of books that have not changed overnight and realise that nothing has changed and the work still needs to be marked. and mark hysterically till 12.

now that the holidays are over, good books are piling up in the national library after having toured half the world in a stuffed and smelly suitcase, brought out in hotel rooms for the ocassional read and then being tossed around the clean, neat, white sheets as interest in the book gives way to the blaring tv and the appreciation of being halfway round the world in a hotel with all the ample, bare, usual necessitities like the jug with coffee cups in the tray in front of the mirror, returning two perfect images of the same jug and cups inside the mirror. and there you sit, in the white sheets, staring right back at yourself and smelling carpet in your nose.

the tony parsons book has been to genting, KL, taipei and malacca. and the travelling has taken its' toll on the new book.

so i have volleyball tomorrow morning and have to be in school by 9 and yes, it will be a long day once more. walk to the sports hall and sign the attendance list, bring social studies books to mark and spelling books and journals and it seems like my whole world rotates on its' own axis upon the returning of books, corrections, taking them back again and then the cycle goes on endlessly.

the life is busy and seems filled with things to do and in this way it never seems as though i'm missing out on anything. or am i? no time to ponder, no time to think. lookstraightandjustwalkonbecausethereareothersbehind.

ride with me

the break's been good, but it's over all too soon, as usual and now it's back to slog for 4 days before the next weekend and even then i'll only have 1 day off since saturday will be burnt for NE show.
watched snatches of TV today and have to be at school bright and early tomorrow.
the snatches of tv made a bit of sense in saying that we all too often have everything but really own nothing. and that seems to be something worth remembering in this mad, mad world.

saturday night.

a long but slow weekend and i hope it stays that way.

♥ i rather like this new blogskin.
credits really go to feine of CC. thanks :)

i was tinkering around with it and layering it in-between doing my weekly plan which is always a drag. i aim to finish everything by tonight.

the dream

now that i happened to see some photos, well, that reminded me of my dream last night. i've been dreaming many funny dreams lately. and when i used to be able to sleep well, i toss and turn with the brimming excitement of a new day. not that i'm really enthusiastically looking forward to it, but the mind doesn't want to dim.
someone suddenly had a heart problem in my class today and i almost died.
eyes rolling back, shaking, trembling and leaning onto her classmate. scary shyte.
i dreamt many dreams.
i dreamt of my long dead hamster scurrying around and i was looking for it and i didn't manage to find it in the end but it didn't matter since what we are looking for all the time - we find that in the course of looking for it, we lose the need to possess it. and hardly, because nothing can really be possessed bu anyone.
my dream last night was not about my hamster, which i dreamt about the pst few days, but rather, it was about the woman whom i assume has an agenda.
in the dream i had a brother, an elder brother and while i'm the only child in real life, it felt plausible that i knew how it felt to have a sibling at that moment.
so the woman with an agenda wanted to go to erm, some country with my supposed brother. and i was telling him that once you go, you're bound to have sex with her and doesn't anyone think otherwise? because once you share a hotel room, chances are that you might have sex. so i couldn't let him do this to himself, particularly not with the woman with an agenda who really always has an agenda all the time.
so i grab him and i do not let him leave and we end up in a bundle of tears and it suddenly gets very hot.
urgh.
this is an anti-climax and you're wondering why you read till here, but i'm going to end and yes i did have this dream and i'm going to mark worksheets now.

a knife, but errr.







































you missed.

so.

let's get it started.

another start

for the third time,tomorrow is another start.
uncertainty at how things might turn out, yet detachment at whatever happens is the order of the day.

the parents and i ate 2 set meal breakfasts @ burger king and 5 boxes of star potatoes.
lunch was a bunch of durians and my head's spinning, reeling with all that junk food.

i still have slides to do and a newsletter to finalize and a plan to finish. shyte.

tardybelly

3. i feel bloated.
4. i put on weight.
5. i feel FAT.
6. i feel UGLY.

8.
9.
10.
11. fucktard offers to pay if i can't pay (I MEAN WTF?! i'm not poor darling?)
12.
13. fucktard pretends to be chummy at everyone.

biatch

i'm not so sure who i'm scolding. but byatch anyway.
i dont get highly personal in this quiet blog of mine but i'm extremely pissed right now, so have to get it off my chest.

i think it is very rude to give handphone numbers of your friends to your other friend who has just graduated from NTU accountancy and is now working like a dog in some filips securities or whatever crap. and it must be out of pity because your friend speaks like she is reading from a script and cannot even sound natural.

like hello? we are only secondary school friends and we HAVE NOT EVEN MET IN RECENT YEARS AND THE ONLY TIME I HEAR YOUR NAME IS WHEN IT IS MENTIONED IN THE COURSE OF HER SPEECH:

"your frien J.C has found our advice to be extremely useful and would like to share this plan with you"

or something like that it went.

so i go

"i'm not interested."
yah lor, straight to the point isn't it? come 'on, don't waste your time and mine, but i was still too polite to SAY THIS OUT LOUD.

and in her blur voice, spastic and trying to sound like she is reading from a script again.

"oh. but i haven't actually told you what i've called for so how come you can tell me that you're not interested?"

(What the fark! it's obviously the INSURANCE THING OR SOME FINANCIAL PLAN THING)
I HAVE BRAINS EVEN IF YOU DO NOT.

so she goes on. and on and on lah. about the stupid plan or advice or whatever shit i don't know because i was cutting up my mango sale plastic bags to admire my loot ad i was trying to make noise so she could tell that i was doing something else and wasn't interested.
WTF!

so i go "umm' and "ah" and at the end, she suggests a meet up.
so the 2 words come up again,

"not interested".

so she goes

"oh, (blah blah shit) so could we continue to keep in touch with you?"

NO ! I SAY

"oh why not? J (my stupid friend's name) has some friends also interested in this (I DOUBT SO LOR!)

"NOT INTERESTED"

" OH THEN WHY not you seek a time to meet up with J and talk to her about this plan?"

"i have in fact asked her why she has given my number to a stranger and she has not replied."

"oh, (and here is the clincher) i GUESS J IS VERY BUSY SINCE SHE IS WORKING AT ERNST AND YOUNG".

wah lao eh, is that any of my farking biz? why the ^%$# should i care even if she is working at a top end company? is that meant to make me think that since such a highly talented individual as J is taking up your stinking plan, that i should do so as well?

so later she goes on to introduce the stages of the plan and I HANG UP ON HER HALFWAY! SHIOK LOR. PEACE AND QUIET.

i guess i've lived in the shadows enough to really emerge from the shadows a stronger person than J ever was or whoever the crap in my secondary school who pretended to fit in have ever done.

and to J: the former school belle who evicted laughter from a guy friend upon hearing this. take that.

*disclaimer: no name mentioned, so don't come crying.
i need to let off steam, what goes around comes around.
filips people better not call me anymore. or they;ll get it.

童话

忘了有多久 再没听到
你对我说你最爱的故事
我想了很久 我开始慌了
是不是我又做错了什么

你哭着对我说 童话里都是骗人的
我不可能是你的王子
也许你不会懂 从你说爱我以后
我的天空 星星都亮了

我愿变成童话里 你爱的那个天使
张开双手变成翅膀守护你
你要相信 相信我们会像童话故事里
幸福和快乐是结局

你哭着对我说 童话里都是骗人的
我不可能是你的王子
也许你不会懂 从你说爱我以后
我的天空 星星都亮了

我愿变成童话里 你爱的那个天使
张开双手变成翅膀守护你
你要相信 相信我们会像童话故事里
幸福和快乐是结局

我要变成童话里 你爱的那个天使
张开双手变成翅膀守护你
你要相信 相信我们会像童话故事里
幸福和快乐是结局

我会变成童话里 你爱的那个天使
张开双手变成翅膀守护你
你要相信 相信我们会像童话故事里
幸福和快乐是结局

bang bang

I was five and he was six...We rode on horses made of sticks. He wore black and I wore white. He would always win the fight.

Bang bang, he shot me down...
Bang bang, I hit the ground...
Bang bang, that awful sound...
Bang bang, my baby shot me down...

Seasons came and changed the time. When I grew
up, I called him mine. He would always laugh and
say "Remember when we used to play?"

Bang bang, I shot you down...
Bang bang, you hit the ground...
Bang bang, that awful sound...
Bang bang, I used to shoot you down...

you know?

you know? really, i somehow believe that deep in the world, perhaps in some other spectre of time, we still exist, as we were at any point of time in our lives.

as a child, i am tracing the mosiac tiles in the kitchen. my tiny fingers poised accurately to trace the grey patterns in the white tiles.
the bright orange kitchen cabinets have not been torn down, and exist as bright as the day they were made, untouched by sunlight which reduces their brightness and turns them a pale orangey-yellow.
i trudge up the dingy stairs leading to my apartment as the sun shines across my back and paints a moving picture of myself, a replica of myself walking up the stairs, which appears as a block of grey shadow. and my shadow grows as i ascend.
in another time and in another place, i am still in the dingy motel with the tiny pillow and listening to the drips and draps of water leaking from the toilet pipe, tossing and turning on the hard bed, pulling at the thin white covers and feeling the rough blanket that comes with the covers for warmth.
in another time and another place, i was alone.

a night

return inevitably evokes a sense of familiarity and reminds one of the life detached from in the days that one goes by routine, the compact spaces one is reduced to, the ability to make do.
the ears are blocked and are functioning well only when i turn my head down and see everything behind me as upside down.
standing at historical monuments remind me of how wide the world is.
a solitary life beckons, but not yet.
it's boring because of silence.
silence is golden.
i hate being pigeonholed.
everyone is childish.

if life could be a night flight.

everyone is stupid.

wafts of cigarette smoke
a dingy computer terminal
nondescript faces.

hard plastic armchairs.

and a dream.

Wake Me Up

Summer has come and passed
The innocent can never last
Wake me up when september ends.
Wake me up when we land.

:)

Colmar

back from Colmar.
ran into an ex Econs JC lecturer all the way up high in the mountains, which reminds me firstly that the world is small no matter how big it seems and that it's been 5 years since JC- another attempt at a reminder that i am ageing and cannot live forever.

the city sleeps

the city sleeps.

symmetry

Miss H was right and it's only fate alone that gave me the yellow slip of paper that i would think of in so many instances in my life.
the ink was not waterproof and because of that there was a watermark but it hardly matters because what's in it has stood through time and proved to be both comfortable and comforting in the way i've fallen against it.

.

sigh.

Mother's cake

the mother's day cake that my mother will be sharing along with her sister and later my cousins and i are going to share it.

sunday

sunday morning
rain is falling
clouds are shrouding the sky in grey.
i twisted to fit the covers.
but no one stole them from me.

a nightmare.

dead bodies lying on mats below my window.

because

the wait.

and then?

the ceaseless traffic,
whizzes of vehicles.

a touch a memory.

nothing tangible to hold on to.
the sweep that turns the head.

invincibilty among the masses.
alone in talk.
a reach out to another
to find some semblence of normality.

the crux, the structure, the order.
the mad semblence of craving for something.
of knowing and being in control.

look for yourself in the crowd.

of puffs galore

it's puffs galore because the king is back.

and it's raining slippers.

stripes and dots are in so watch all spaces.

take a minute

we're back here aren't we?
and i'm typing this again.

to change someone's life
to be part of someone's life.

to walk down a street once again.
to leave a place for a while and to remember that nothing much has changed, except.
perhaps in your memory.
to see how time makes monkeys of us all
and to see how we turn out at the end of life.

the beauty of a night lies in its' simplicity.
pure black with spots of light.
add a tree or two to add leaves that rustle.
sand near the sea.
a salty tongue.

beggars along the street that you-oh-so ignore.
dusty streets and dusky streets.
the glimmer of dust
as sun shimmers down on dirt.

petrol fumes and cover your mouth.

sunlight on my window to add sparkles.

lovely but in vain.