tonight's the nite...

Almost every day, right about the time after I knock off work, sometimes later, like on my ride home or just after dinner, I’d think, today will be the day where after my pre-planned activities, I’ll go to my room and do something like write a whole chapter of my book or journal or scrap a whole layout or compose an epic blog post or make some very belated birthday cards. I’d think to myself that even if I start at 12am, I’m young, I have energy, I can do my stuff and still wake up fresh for work tomorrow..rightt

box

i came home. a box waiting for me. it was not the usual parcel. at once i knew who it was from. sarah trots into my room eager to see the contents. But even I’m afraid to know. I subtly shoo her out. Out pops giant funshine. Of care bear fame. What a bundle of sentiments. What a way to churn the wrong sorts of sentiments. Other oddities follow. Amongst my long lost possessions a book from him, “notes to myself, how I struggled to become a person”. Without a note, this is potentially a malicious message and I take offense.

for want of a shoe

i once watched this ridiculous episode of sex and the city. You’ve probably watched it too. If you haven’t, good on you. I was forced to, it was part of the course syllabus for a film and tv module. In the episode, sarah jessica parker’s manolos go missing at a friend’s party. She demands compensation, in fact a new pair of the same shoe. Her logic goes something along the lines of how since she’s single, has no kids, she deserves getting shoes back from this friend of hers, who has along the way gotten wedding gifts and kids’ gifts. go figure.

auntie i-mei

perhaps i will become those ah ee types. Okay let me rephrase that, “domestic goddess”? you know those aunties and grandmas that seem to know how to make nyonya kuih from scratch, “pak” bak chang those yummy seasonal pork dumplings, and bake and whip up all sorts of delicacies. Today I cooked some tomato-ey pork dish that I tried to reproduce from the memory of tasting it, boiled some barley and fried some (pre-made by grandma) curry puffs. Oodles of fun. when I have my own home I intend to try new things to cook,bake and prepare all the time…

what it takes

cry me a river
fly me to the moon
when that is said and done
it'll be all too soon
walk a mile in my new shoes
pointing me ahead
I’ve got the purples I’ve got the blues
On my head they tread
Soul is heavy jazzed up life
Is spinning me around
Twirl till I pick my spot
All I have is me I found
Me myself my plucky I
Me you think I’m sucky
Why I’ll have you know I’ll spring right up
I’m more than just a yappy pup
somewhere I know I’ve got what it takes

just next to the blues

'Have you got any soul?’ a woman asks the next afternoon. That depends, I feel like saying; some days yes, some days no. A few days ago I was right out; now I’ve got loads, too much, more than I can handle. I wish I could spread it a bit more evenly, I want to tell her, get a little balance, but I can’t seem to get it sorted. I can see she wouldn’t be interested in my internal stock control problems though, so I simply point to where I keep the soul I have, right by the exit, just next to the blues.

this excerpt is from nick hornby's high fidelity. it is greatly amusing, poignant, and genius all at once. The narrator here owns a record shop and is in the middle of woman initiated emotional turmoil, the kind men choose to shrug off and accept nonchalantly, or at least pretend too. Hence the remarkable ambiguity and duality of reference to soul. But I’m overstating. The thing about a paragraph like this is it speaks to you in your own mother tongue, it takes its own significance according to your baggage, your internal set-up, your history,or simply your fascination with words …

blah

Once you’ve gone of the path of the straight and narrow it is difficult to get back, in my case after being disheartened about writing,and not keeping up with my daily blogging, it gets increasingly difficult to pick up where I left off. So here I am, 10 days after my last post. No one has asked me why I didn’t blog, no one has asked me to blog. Along the way, things cropped up, and I lacked the much needed encouragement to blog again, if even in the form of “when are you gonna update?”no following. Yet I persist.