blinding

a torrid dream today or perhaps from the night before, a movie on egyptian pyramids and the title was one of those "names" that i coined myself, nothing very different from intrasingence and there i saw it on the poster. come to think of it, i think it reminded me of the movie "the mummy" or perhaps "the mummy returns". and movies then conjure images of lost youth, of 6 years ago when i was in a cushy job albeit with low pay, with a (store)room of my own, attaching film slides to movie synopsis and then mailing them out to the media. the various organisations. the days when not doing anything meant that there was little to do and how many things could be gone without being done, unlike now when not doing anything actually means the inability to list things in order of priority, simply because everything just has to be bloody done.

but i'm losing my grasp for words perhaps in this sated, muted concious act of simply wanting to type.

i resent the scholars' choice that appear with the straits times today, simply because it reminds of of the world of possibilities out there and how the world has already stopped for me.

i ate chips at the pavillion he built before he left a thousand years ago. one by one with my slippers on the ground and my feet tucked under my body. i felt it ironical since the other time i was thinking about waddding into the pool and here i was, in a different time and place at a similar pool.

fish

and why are you out when you should be in the city of blinding lights, the city where no one sleeps, the city with restless hearts and loud music to drown out the words in your head? and why were you at the city of blinding lights that very day when she was probably miles, millions of miles away from you, sailing above the clouds with brightly manicured nails and a plastic smile in tow?

we take trips all the time, and i can't remember the last time i went to the airport though. nothing much has changed, not the bright blue contrast of the sky against the green leaves waving in the breeze, not the winding road that leads downwards and then upwards again, with the familiar landmark right in front of you, the throngs of people who all look the same despite your differences, simply because you've seen enough of the world.

***

when i got home i opened the tube of moisturiser and realised with a start that whatever i'd placed inside in a bid to forget its' existence, had tarnished, was now blackened with age, and i realised that by the simple act of just placing it there without thinking further was already the start of the end. i'll not forget that day when i rejected the ride and took a bus to the infamous sultan road and simply drank. i can't remember which floor i was on though, or perhaps that was simply the start of a few drinking sessions. either way it was the beginning of the end and a welcome end.

***

i went back to the church that i went to on a weekly basis ten years ago and it's fucking changed. however, i've realised that i'm able to sieve out changes and to simply remember places as they once were, not because change is bad, but simply because i've become resistant to changes in some ways. i can't figure out the reason. perhaps time has passed me by so fast and ignored my desires for it to still, for it to slow.
and i'm amazed that the bunch of us have known each other for seven years. it seems like only yesterday that we were in chaos over studying for the dreaded As, the day of my first A level paper when i went to mac donalds and chanced upon a suicide and a dead body in a mud pit on the way home, the hours of writing essays, and then the wait and dread for the papers to end and looking forward to prom-time when the papers finally ended. and the excitement of supposedly beginning a new life with uni life when you find out that nothing really changes, because by 18, you've almost seen enough of the world to get sick of it.
and it's seven years now.

***

i also remembered how i reared turtles in primary school and let them go in the pond one day, the same pond into which i dropped my specs one fine day in march perhaps, those lazy bright hazy days when i didn't want to go home and those days when an extra outing to church meant a brighter day. those days when i could still count my age by the fingers on my hands and that time when you wadded into the pond to reach into the water, fishes swimming around your ankles.

***

and sunday tomorrow.

incomprehensible entry

the radio is now blaring a song which suspiciously sounds pretty "chinese-ey", what with all the ai-ee-ai-ee-aii. but it's a welcome change from hearing it enamate from those dusty miserable computer speakers in school. so thursday is today and the week is soon going to be over. but not quite since there is official duty on bloody saturday. a bloody saturday i repeat. probably shall pop across the causeway sometime before this week draws its' final breath.

oh and i've ordered clay for my poor art class pupils, who have been so bored in my classes that they are still brushing off the mildweed and cobwebs. so clay it shall be to occupy them for two weeks and to shut their mouths for two weeks.

so v'day came and went and by the way i'm having nightmares at times. the last i dreamt was about this stupid guy and me and we went into this house of horrors. anyway the point was that there was this monster or some human who was like a monster and wanting to keep us there, we had to creep out of the house when he was sleeping, then run for our lives to the nearest bus-stop. and the damn place was somewhere in bukit batok with bus 315. i believe there IS a bus 315 really, actually.

oh and the reason why i dream of bukit batok is also partly because my mum met my cousin at the interchange last night and she was wasting time walking around the shelves of ntuc because she was waiting for her hubby to pick her up from yishun. not at the location my mum met her, she still has to take a train to yishun. in her pregnant state. oh and that is why i think marriage is a dead institution. not an institution of love, really. i think it suffices to marry another as long as you don't want to club each other on the head all the time, resulting in untimely deaths. because of love or lust, we get together. we part if we get sick of each other. if there are flowers and wine and nice dinners, we stay together as a testimony to the illusions of love that hinder us from looking upon love itself. and soon, due to the illusions of love, we get married and start to have children.
and that is when the shit often hits the fan.
women get bloated, ugly, whiny, oily, the insecurity fans and spreads. post-natal blues.
and you almost never looks as you do post-baby. and then the flowers disappear and love too fades.
how lame is marriage?

***

and i envy the younger generation. a wave of jealousy at what i deem i've been cheated of during the period that is supposed to be one of the best in my life. where were the handphones, the neo-print machines (okay we had them but the or-beet ones), the laugter, the friends, the MONEY?
as usual i think money often makes the world go round, but that doesn't mean i'm a materialistic bitch. it's just the way things are.

forgive this incomprehensible entry anyway. next better one.

a song

trails of music, tinkles of notes, a shred of a voice singing about a big concept called "if". and i was dreaming about the last time i heard this song, not too long ago, but not too recent either, i can't remember exactly when, but it must have been one of those times in the black freezing room with my feet on the cushions, my arms hugging my legs to my chest in a futile attempt to keep warm. perhaps it was that time when i stared opposite and noticed a girl, a normal prebuscent girl, i've no idea what made me take special notice of her that one day, she, walking down orchard road, and later seeing her in the room opposite, gave me a start.


***

oh i dread weekends now, for their inability to stretch beyond, into nothingness, into promises of pampering, lazy afternoons, of lazy jaunts, of smoke and gyrates, of shopping with sunglasses, of royal copenhagen tea lounging.
and instead, each weekend rushes past me, drowning me in a swirl of marking on saturdays till the afternoon, depriving me of a long nap in the evening when i've to wake up for church, depriving me of partying and booze most of the time, plunking me into a grease-filled place with grimy tables and stools when i indulge in oily food (no, that isn't so bad after all actually) and making me go round in circles of worry at the coming week ahead - am i on task? what do i need to do for the coming week ahead? on sunday.

but it's just another start on a monday, not exactly blue but not exactly a day when i jumped out of bed thinking of joy and an inability to wait and see how the day turns out. pah.

and so my days will be over-run with deadlines to meet and things to accomplish. but whose aren't?
oh, and exactly a year back, life "began" for me. one of the beginings.

211

as usual i was staring idly out of the windows, the orange light on my i-pod shuffle flickering periodically and the tracks jumping as a result of a lack in battery power and me thinking, fuck. i'd thought i just plugged it into the damned laptop the other day.

the other day? which day? the days are flickering by, remnants of a life perhaps not lived. the morning is the same everyday - when i make it to the door, trudging wearily there, i'd think, how did i make it this far? referring to the distance between my bed and the door, actually.

most days i'm up long enough to see the hands of the clock merrily join together as one at 12. and most days i'd feel i've not slept enough since reality flickers with dreams and they come together as one to haunt my sleep. my lucid sleep.

i don't brim with excitement at the start of a new day. yet i'm past being angsty, jaded, cynical, squealing. i watch with an air of detachment. i recognise how certain things never change and i sardonically laugh at myself at times.

the bus sailed through routes familiar to me for the past 4 years and i was left thinking about how it was like travelling for 3 hours to-and-fro to a place commonly described as a god-forsaken place in the west for four long years.
and obviously now nothing's left of those 4 years but certain friends, memories that aren't tangible enough to remember vividly. like dredges in the mud. like sand weaving past your fingers when you pick it up.

my plant died the other day because my mother dropped the entire pot of it on the floor and i threw the pot away. at first there were three beautiful plants and then 2 died during december, suitably, i deem they died suitable deaths for reasons that only i shall know.
without a thought.
once i took them full of hope and ironically, i lost a friend on the same day that they were given to me. not even a year has gone by, but it was time to die anyway.

and i sailed past the first floor of what was thought of as a "shophouse" and the backdoor was left open, so the door-grilles served as a suitable frame for which i could peer through. but the moment was gone and i could see nothing.
and then i began to think of black.
black huge frames framing her face, blocking her eyes, the windows to the world, what i perceive the world with, leaving only pores, a tiny rosebud of a mouth, a nose dusted with freckles. hair flying past in the wind, a tribute to air molecules and the certainty that wind has a life of its own, without a doubt.
a black skirt that flies up in the wind, and perhaps that mango top that she regretted buying when it wasn't on sale yet. (it's all your fault)
end the piece with a pair of silver heels and she gets out of the car and walks in a non-descript manner. she puffs and lets the cigarette fall to the ground and steps on it with her silver heels and moves her shoes from side to side, with her sole still on the ground and the sharp end of a heel still in the air.
then a man enters the picture.

i no longer posses angst as a license to be silly, stupid or to indulge in vices. i posses a languid air that allows me to flit however, in my own thoughts.
i need a fix.

and for those who've asked why i've stopped writing, it's because i've not seen the need to. :)