christmas presents

I got presents for my favourite little human beings in the world today. Sent by parents, armed with cash, determined to get each and every one of them something special to them, and to put my parents' money to good, fine use. What I got:

Sai Sai constipated rabbit sister: blue gypsy sling bag with bead chain and little beads and sequins

Su su Isaac: dark grey t-shirt with blue wooden flying birds everywhere

Han Han Reuben: grey volcom wallet with astronauts holding a jewel and the words 'Houston, I think we have a volcom'

Nat: light satin blue butterfly-shaped jewellery or other things box with beads and sequins on the butterfly cover

Shann Shann Seth: Bean the movie (he'll get a bang out of it)

Baby Elysia (she's 4): fuchsia footless tights (for baby fairies)

I like to think that these presents will be special to them for a long time. Su Su got me something from the body shop and I guessed it immediately. The cranberry gift pack! Yummy. Darrel sent me a dvd in the mail and I won't open it till christmas but i've peeked and saw the letters ERIOD in the movie title, i think. Period? AsterOId? To be realistic and at the same time cosy, all i want to do this christmas is to watch loveactually with lots of food, and then snuggle up and continue reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. What will the 6 billion people in the world be doing on christmas day? What will my future husband be doing if he exists? What will bob dylan or paul be doing? What would holden be doing? One thing's for sure, the people watching over us (and everyone has some people watching over them, and the list increases as they grow older and more of their loved ones die or they start loving more dead people like john lennon) will be having a party up above.

die suckers

More rubies, more love

Last night i dreamt that claire died or was going to and it was horribly sad we went to the funeral before she even died at her huge mansion house that existed in my mind, and there was a band and big trees and park benches. Got bad dreams in hongkong, of things like not getting the rhythm of the drums right during a performance and my grandmother dying, which i haven't dreamt of in months.

Anyhow it's a few days to christmas and whatever really. Part of me is madly in love with christmas and the other part of me wants to puke. A few minutes ago i realised that i am completely sick of love songs. Why is that?

Nicest parts of hongkong:

Going to the busy lighted streets on the first night there with people dressed wildly and snugly
Taking the golden carousel in disneyland ("I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream...")

Finding old people playing mahjong in one of the few lighted windows as i looked out the hotel window at the really near hdbs outside one dark night

Annoying my sister with my brother

Eating dim sum in a super crowded place with lots of hongkong people having breakfast and shouting to hear each other

Taking the MTR

Crisp peppermint air

remembering that hongkong has LUSH when i saw it

Baddest parts of hongkong:

Realising that the lighted streets with that i liked so much on the first night was filled with shopping-obsessed crowds

Disneyland parade

When johnny fell on his face on the floor twice


Happy holidays, suckers.

going to hongkong

why don't you write me, i'm out in the jungle, i'm hungry to hear you

Nearly packed for hongkong with a tiny suitcase that is only half-filled. I absolutely love the satisfaction of all that empty space. This could be our last real family holiday with all of us going.

I always thought singtel was good until recently. We waited 10 minutes on the phone just to hear that we have to go down to activate overseas roam when you can do it through the phone for M1. We waited 2 hours at the singtel shop and of course my father was seething with rage and ranted in angry, breathy sentences to the young, dynamic looking people at the counter (as all local phone companies' staff look), who of course just replied with lots of 'sir's and PR smiles. The girl wore a singtel shirt that said 'season of surprises' and my father said 'yes. yes. season of surprises. give me this kind of surprise' or something like that muttered with force and anger. And when we walked away i turned back and the girl gossiped to the guy immediately, covering half her face with a paper. My father walked back to ask them something and she put on that tone again. Actually it might all have been better if the staff did not say sir or smiled obligingly as they did. Can't sales people just speak normally, why do they have to put on such a bloody pretence. Drives people nuts. It was terrible and we will be changing to M1 the moment the contract with singtel is over. In fact at that very outlet we went to today, some time ago, my brother (most impatient person ever) and father cancelled his singtel line on the spot when they were both seething with rage and walked over to M1. Can't stand the idea of insurance too. Had to talk to an insurance woman and the way she spoke was in that same way!! The whole sir-m'am-miss efficient and nice way. Help us all. I don't want to grow up and have the burden of facing the consequences of not filling in an insurance form properly or missing a line on a bill or contract.

Went with my father to the meeting about the house and they were finalising all the toilet tiles to me it just seemed like the same colours, oat and grey but there were so many variants and it was so fudging boring. The funny thing was they were putting in effort into matching those fudging boring colours. Different shades of grey, different shades of oat. Whats the difference? They're not lime or orange or blue or anything vaguely ALIVE and therefore they have no merit whatsoever. What's the house going to look like? A classy prison of marble. But I couldn't possibly tell them this when they asked for my opinion. Now after reading this whole post I know I'm sounding like a complaining moron, but it's just that acerbic kind of mood. The sourness in my heart needs some ranting. Things are too complicated (hate this word, sounds like gurgled intestines) when everything should just be simple.

And that is why I can't wait to take the plane in the morning. On planes, sitting there flying through the night sky, everything just seems simple and magical and it seems as if everything will not only be alright, but wonderful.

'Hey Mr. Tambourine man, play a song for me. I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to....'

red dwarf theme

Red dwarf theme song

It's cold outside
There's no kind of atmosphere
I'm all alone
More or less
Let me fly, far away from here
Fun, fun, fun in the sun, sun, sun
I want to lie
Shipwrecked and comatose
Drinking fresh
Mango juice
Goldfish shoals, nibbling at my toes
Fun, fun, fun in the sun, sun, sun
Fun, fun, fun in the sun, sun, sun
I'll pack my bags
And head into hyperspace
Velocity at time-warp speed
Spend my days in ultraviolet rays
Fun, fun, fun in the sun, sun, sun
We're locked on course
Straight through the universe
You and me
And the galaxy
Reached this stage, this hyperpathic age
Fun, fun, fun in the sun, sun, sun
Fun, fun, fun in the sun, sun, sun

The most glorious tv series theme song. This is a really old comedy on BBC entertainment about 4 beings in space on board a spaceship called red dwarf. Lister is a spunky unhygienic guy with dreadlocks who was frozen for 3 million years during a radiation leak that killed everyone else at the start of the series. Cat is a genetically modified vain human-cat. Rimmer is a fussy ass deranged nerd hologram guy who was ressurected to prevent Lister from going mad. And Kryten is the humble, upbeat mechanoid who serves them. This and My Family and The Office are the best things on BBC prime. Hurray for tv that never fails.

Oh and I went to update my passport photo today, standing in line for one hour to take a bloody booth photo whereby the women operating it magnify the photo to smoothen blemishes and CHEEKBONES (?!) A boy in line begged his mother so hard for a sweet. A tough-looking chinese man in construction clothes and boots pacified his 2 toddler daughters while his wife queued up. Even little babies take photos with their mothers standing by the side holding up their fat sticky necks. The job of sitting there clicking and taking the photos would be nice. Some people look so honest in their passport photos, like this badass looking indian man who looked ever so handsome and kind in his photo. On the train a man (tourist?) put his special glasses to his eyes to have a better look at the pictures on the train till he realised he was looking at a condom ad of the most popular condom in japan. Then he looked around, saw me looking at him till I looked away pretending not to have noticed. And a little girl shouted in chinese that the statues of the wise men waiting to be set up along the wisma stretch were ugly. My family is slightly amazed that I cooked maggi mee for my brother late last night when he was hungry, and even had the sense to add eggs. WOW! Darn them.

a wednesday

Dammit i suck at Monopoly now even my twelve year old cousin beats me everytime. At least sai sai didn't cry today when she owed money. Things can get ugly during monopoly. The start of the game is always exciting when you choose the token (though we're only left with the ship, car, dog and boot) and hear it clinking merrily. Then it gets more exciting when it's time to plot what to buy. But this is where it confuses me. I get obsessed with the thought of owning park lane and mayfair and guffawing madly whenever they land there, till I'm never satisfied till I get those but it's so hard when everyone wants it and then tries to strike deals without even hearing each other out ("No way." "Give me eternal immunity") ARGH and though we go mad laughing throughout the game it ends in a tiring mess of crumpled waddles of colourful notes and splendid rows of colour coordinated cards and most sadly big red hotels that symbolize death when you're near. That is why things will get crazy-happier when iz buys SPONGEBOB MONOPOLY because the cover is big and yellow and the tokens are spongebob, patrick, mr krabs, SQUIDWARD (yes!! the scrooge can be squidward) and sandy ("sandy's a GIRL?!?!?!!!" spongebob said when she took off her astronaut suit to reveal a bikini) and a few random members (thick-lipped fish?) and when you play it i think it'll just feel like you're in spongebob world!!!! And everyone will go mad, and no children will feel the need to win because in spongebob world failure is funny and there will be no deliberation of actions just mad impulse. It is ever so tiring a game, where is my pictionary?!?!!!!

Anyhow i posted the invites today so check yer mailboxes tomorrow for some granny mail (darn forgot to scent it with intoxicating flower perfume). Don't forget your pearls and checkered socks and chunky shoes for the party. Try to match underwear too. You wouldn't feel too real going to the toilet in a granny skirt and cardigan only to see a thong when you pull down your heavy garments to pee. Oh yes, that's why gretchen suggested the diapers. Ah.....bless 'er. Won't even have to move that way, just do it in secret while playing chess or something. Help I'm getting carried away. But somebody save gretchen, she's getting carried away with that park person it's Harold and Maude all over again. Somebody appear in front of her someday who might set her heart blooming and face glowing so that the clouds will pause in their swirling for one millisecond before the soundtrack to her life plays "at last! my love has come along". And then wedding! and then babies! (more delirium) and then being sixty-four and meeting as real old grannies. it probably sounds stupid putting this into words but it must be incredible seeing your friends get married. Incredible in a help me i'm going to cry and laugh like a mad cow way. Imagining everyone's weddings is just so sweetly uplifting and heavenly. It's a girl's daydream. But everyone, dream away! Because all this is going to happen someday to some of us, and when it does, if we're watching from the aisles, we'll clutch each other with hankies and flowers and girly screams waiting to jump out from our throats. "Oh!!! She's getting married!!!!!"

........

Someone save me from all this insane daydreaming.

how does the moon shine

How does the moon shine
How does the wind howl

amelie

the days

Someone came to me in a dream

So when I wrote 'la mer' in the sand labyrinth that we obsessively dugand ruby got mad with iz for being obsessed with building defences so the rising tide wouldn't wash out our mountain and knee deep hole (with inner walls, no less), when the both of us were already done with our determination, he looked at 'la mer' and said 'lamer' and laughed at iz, called him an asshole. The lamer clenched a ball of wet sand, his body vibrating, his eyes shut tight and his lips pinched, and turned around and threw the sand at ruby. It splattered a little on me like diarrhoea so I didn't really see how ruby pushed iz after saying the f word. After the whole thing they were tired and sullen. Boys.

The night is scary and thrilling. More and more I wake up every night to some sort of a deep orange world where the glow of a lamp is not light and luminous but heavy and dreadful. It is easy to be filled, like dark blue water in a sea with steady currents, by thoughts that are engulfing, dramatic, exotic, exaggerated, frightening, lush. It's easy to lie there passively allowing the thoughts to come and yet actively thinking them up with yourself being the ceaseless master endlessly and manically throwing things into a potent mixture. And it's tiring going through it but even though it can be sadness and loneliness and fear in the middle of the night, in your own safe haven, I'm guess I'm glad for me active brain. So when I wake up to a plain paper-bland morning, the ol' brain still swirls with the haunts of the night.

beautiful bodies in the night

these curtains were billowing gloriously in the wind like from some roman stone castle

trees and cycling

obsessive digging

discoveries

Monday's discoveries:

I thought simon was garfunkel and vice-versa and how could i. It's just that the lovely curly hair seemed like a simon thing and the short limp hair seemed like a garfunkel thing with the bizarre name Art to go with it. Anyway Art turns out to be short for Arthur and Garfunkel was in Catch-22 which was on hbo today and at the end yossarian rowed away on a tiny bright yellow inflatable boat. Yossarian Lives.

Lex is short for Alexander. Lex sounds like a punk with tattoos and piercings, but maybe that's only cause Lex Van de burg from survivor africa was like that. Anyhow, such a name.

Isaac means 'laughing man' and actually he is.

Elysia (the baby's name) means blissful and she is bliss.

Another silly discovery:

Dr. Evil is actually a parody of a James Bond villian with a white siamese cat and who also looks like a psycho.

And can you ever get enough of these lines from the song Dr. Evil:

When your name is Evil that is good or so you think, but you're so very wrong, it's evil, but being wrong is right so then you're good again, which is the evilest thing of all.

Oh, what sense......!

(And p.s. fran drescher over oprah anytime!!!!!!!)

sunday

SUNDAY AFTERNOONS ARE ROMANTIC

For so long and since I was young, they remind me of: garage sales, families at thomson plaza, grocery shopping, pumping petrol, visiting old houses, couples in shabby clothes and spectacles driving their cars and holding hands. And in recent years: staying home lazing around, the smell of desiree's old house, pink and blue flowers in garden vases, john lennon, watching gilmore girls in the dark, the ballad of john and yoko.

Yesterday the baby miraculously went into the big pool, a big achievement in her 4 years of life. And she was like a mad turtle, very scared, and everyone (all the other cousins and sister) wanted to claim possession of it and carry her. Everyone kept going 'Yaaaaaay' and 'Baby so pro!' 'Baby so pro right?!' and crowding around her. Later she clung to my neck with me floating backwards and her legs kicking and she laughed and gurgled like mad and went delirious when we went near what i told her was the stream of urine (water feature). Seth was like stitch/crazy frog with crooked teeth, big ears and blue goggles. I love Saturday nights.

Happy Holidays
Get hung up something

it all ends well

Cosmological principles

Ah, but it all ends well. We visited ruby (reuben) and it was all merry as my parents drank hot coffee talking about which school ruby would apply to. I told baby about grinding crunchy cockroaches and pretending its cornflakes and giving it to her for breakfast (makes babies spellbound) and that people eat insects and she said 'got people like that meh????' I asked Ruby to call The Other pretending he didn't know his results.

Ruby: Eh what did you get? 255?
Iz: Lower
R: 254? 253? 252?
Iz: You got it.
R: WOWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Iz: .........252 sucks. What did you get?
R: 237.
Iz: Oh..., that's good.
R: So are you happy with your results?
Iz: I'm happy but also not happy.
R: Why, you wanted 10 marks more?
Iz: How did you know?!
R: Ah I anyhow guess one...so are you ok?
Iz: I'm ok. I got 3 A stars, how many A stars you got?
R: zero.
Iz: oh..

So in the end it takes one noble friend to make the other feel better about something :-)

Astronomy tomorrow and my head is cramped with astronomical facts and phrases that are ever so....cosmic. The Great Red Spot on Jupiter, starburst galaxies, gamma ray bursts, hypernovas, supermassive black holes....and though my head feels like it couldn't really take much more teeny facts like cheese threads squeezed into the tiny spaces left and they will just melt together like messy sticky cheese clumps when I try to extract it tomorrow I am loving it like the magic dust tails of comets.

tiny tragedies

Tiny tragedies

The day of PSLE results. Me, my auntie and grandmother went with iz to get his. All the boys were walking around the hall, chatting and running about for a long time before the principal came. A whole wall of parents stood behind the boys. After the whole hall ceremony we went to the classrooms and it was hot and sticky and awful there as all the parents from 2 classes squeezed in one corridor peeking in through tiny windows into the classroom making gestures to their sons. It was FUNNY. Trying to show numbers. It was also ridiculous. My auntie stood at the window watching him not wanting to look at her while my uncle came later and pressed his body against the door watching his son covering his reddening disappointed face with his paper. He didn't get 262 as he wanted, and was upset and angry and fiercely disappointed. Said his results were very lousy and warned us not to tell anyone. It was sad seeing him caring to an unreasonable crazy extent. And the other cousin was sighing over the phone, disappointed with what he got, asking me to guess. Lovely children bearing so much upon their hearts on this terrible day.

sensational things

Everyone's rooting for you

Driving in the rain in the night is sensational. Today I saw a curtain of 2 huge golden and white cloths billowing magnificently in the wind out of one of the huge windows in the condo opposite. It felt like some royal curtains was blowing out of the stone walls of a roman castle or something. It was that kind of golden. Last night I had a dream that was, the only word to describe it, awe-inspiring. It's going to sound stupid because this awe-inspiring thing involved harry potter and THE FIGHT BETWEEN GOOD AND EVIL that usually ends every harry potter book. At the end of the dream a group of people (my family and close friends) gathered and held hands very tightly (i was between my father and arika's thin hand) in a circle around the bad guys (only a few people, but very evil) in this combined strong clear magical effort against them. It felt somewhat peaceful and at the same time insanely uplifting. We wore black wizarding robes and had these powers and were supposed to take turns to fight the bad guys and everyone was watching out for everyone else and held hands so tightly. Wow. When I woke up I realised that fantasy and dreams are so powerful.

La mer....

sixpence

Bring bring, bring your flowered hat
We'll take the trail marked on your father's map

We went to see my da jie jie's newborn baby in her house yesterday and as the adults sat outside on the porch in wooden chairs admiring the house I crept inside to look at the baby, lying near the wooden stairs, sleeping beautifully. He was breathing like this: 'hmh. hmh. hmh. hmh.' but it sounded peaceful. You could see the veins on his soft head, where a soft layer of lovely hair was spreading. Such a lovely little baby. And somehow when his silly irritating grandmother carried him he didn't hug her but when his mother carried him he sort of put his hand on her chest. I can't wait for me and all my friends to have babies someday.

When the exams are over the sewing machine will arrive and I can really get down to sewing, and driving around everywhere!!!!!!!!

coincidences

She looked good, she looked fine, and I nearly lost my mind

The exams start tomorrow. Thank goodness. I couldn't wait any longer for it to end. Some cosmic force out there in the universe is doing things to my life these days. Last night I woke up just on time to turn my head and see the lizard that has been tormenting me nearly every night with its mating cries that echo around the glowing emptiness of my room, crawl out from behind the bookcase and look at me look at him on the wall. Dear little lizard-child. Stop trying to have sex in my room!!!!!!!!!!!

Coincidences always scare and fascinate me more than I admit. It shows that some cosmic force out there is trying to push things your way or spark some magic realization or something spiffy of the sort. It is trying to brew some potent mixture of your life, sometimes throwing in someone else's life. And even though cosmic magic signals cannot be ignored, probably only a few times in everyone's lifetime will the brew fizz into anything meaningful and as crazy as you thought the coincidence was at first.

les filles de ma vie

Les filles de ma vie

ballet girl

springleaf

Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup

my cavern

the clouds are blanketing us with peaceful blessings

L-O-V-E

Two in love can make it, take my heart and please don't break it

For the first time in a very long time, my family had a wedding dinner to attend (but it was very different from all those we used to go to years ago when everyone went and all us children went mad, though, almost as always, none of us really know very well the person getting married). The first real wedding dinner for me after growing up more. The bride was my grandmother's dead adopted brother's daughter. Hey i just realised it's her neice! Didn't think much on that day. No wonder she got to sit at the 'special table' (not that special after all, since the bride wasn't there, leaving all her favourite people to face each other with a sense of delirium and odd emptiness, at least that is what i imagine it might feel). The only children who went were me, sai sai, nat and baby, all the girls. Baby (elysia) wanted to run here and there so we went to the stage and she saw the 5-levelled cake and the champagne-glass pyramid and the red carpet and she kept dancing on stage alone to my grandmother's exclamations of 'xia lai! bu yao zuang dao dong xi! xia lai!' and she was enthralled by the bride and groom walking in and in the end all of us ran around the lovely empty carpetted hall outside. There were just so many ROSES! The Every table had a rose arrangement in the middle initially, with rose petals littered all around the circular chinese-table-rolley-thing. The tables and chairs were black so the colour scheme was very...modern rather than white and pearl and lovely and rich. They had an animation video of how the bride and groom met, and halfway through the dinner the groom sang L-O-V-E to the bride (nat covered her ears and grimaced while papa closed his eyes and nodded his head. think he was drunk) as it was their song. What really got me was how, when we just arrived and i first saw the bride, she was so HAPPY and just glowing and when she saw that one of her close relatives had come after all she embraced her and jumped a little and exclaimed- she was just so happy that this person came, and so wonderfully happy that she was getting married. Despite how it was in many ways a traditional and somewhat restrictive chinese wedding, that was enough to make it a special one. And it isn't just her, but at weddings girls dream and married women remember. Weddings do put ladies in such a state of mind.

do you believe in magic

Do you believe in magic?

This is in my astronomy textbook.

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time

T.S. Eliot

Do you ever get that feeling where you feel like screaming or whooping or cursing?! Like after reading something or realizing something. What do people do when that moment comes?! If it is a crazy frustration (e.g. my brother accidentally taped stupid channel 8 drama instead of project runway) I usually jump up and down and go mad. If it is a strange pulsating fairy lights feeling (somewhat like....in harry potter, the cool feeling harry got of someone cracking an egg on his head) I find myself somewhat frozen, remaining in a sitting position, somewhat smiling and letting that feeling pass through for a few seconds till it pulsates off my fingertips. It's all very instinctive of course. What do you, dear reader, whoever you might be in the galaxy, do when that inevitable moment comes? Maybe some people, not knowing what to do at the fairy lights moment, scratch their armpits with a strange twitch. I'm just imagining. Oh it's 1am and this sounds..what's that phrase...off the rocker, absolutely wonkers. 'Life's a piece of shit, when you look at it, but...always look on the bright side of death, just before you draw your terminal breath!'

Jungle

I started reading Jungle yesterday afternoon and almost could not put it down till I finished it tonight. It is about 4 men and their adventure into the wild jungle of the Amazon and how they split 2-2, and the narrator ended up alone in the jungle for nearly 3 weeks, and he made it. Again I find myself groping for the right words to use. I can't remember if I've ever been to a real rainforest other than those in the zoo's fragile forest section (which was their nicest feature ever) but I've always loved the idea of rainforests. Lush jungle and green trees glistening, strange flowers blooming, monkeys, soft mud and everything so alive. And after finishing the book, reading all Yossi said and remembering that I bought the book from Corrie who interviewed him (that's how I got the book, getting her review copy) and she asked him about how accurate the book can be since it happened decades ago or something like that, and as I flitted through the remarks printed on the first 2 pages of the book, made by The Sunday Mail and all those newspapers and magazines and read all their zesty satisfying phrases I realised that the signature (With love, ....2006) on the title page of the book, that I'd always flipped past with a sense of strange irritation, was really the signature of Yossi Ghinsberg. Not that I never knew, it just never registered, and it suddenly took on a different meaning. It suddenly meant a lot that his signature was there, he whose crazy and mysterious story is in the book. I hate signatures, and this is the first time any signature has meant anything to me.

Isn't it funny that the relationships and people in books and movies can sometimes be so much more real than anything in real life......

how do i write poems?

Sister: I have to write a poem about insects for my young entomologist card. Mummy, teach me how to write a poem about insects leh.
Mummy: Aiyah that one you should ask jiejie. Okay, how about 'Insects insects everywhere'.
Sister: That is so lame.
(went ahead anyway. Poem ended with 'they are so hardworking, they work hard for their living')
Father: When you write a poh-em you must reflect on the meaning first and what you want to say.

Father: Don't go to the zoo on weekdays, so few people like so pud-ted-tic like that.

Walking lightly as a fairy, Though her shoes were number nine

Walking lightly as a fairy, Though her shoes were number nine

And this how she died:

Drove she ducklings to the water
E'vry morning just at nine,
Hit her foot against a splinter,
Fell into the foaming brine.

Ruby lips above the water,
Blowing bubbles soft and fine,
But alas, I was no swimmer,
Neither was my Clementine.

Guitars and ukuleles are curious instruments. A voice with chords in the background, strummed to a rhythm, is strange to me. But I believe in my jumping flea (ukulele).

'Sweet dreams', once you get over how overused it was when you were a silly secondary school teenager, is actually a lovely thing to say, though it's so rare to come by. The only sweet dream I can really remember ever having is one where me and 2 people were in a magical forest with fairy lights, and one of them (both were males) suggesting that we take off all our clothes and dance in a circle, and we did, with flowers and lush leaves and magic lights around, and it was crazy, but not in that dangerous maenad way, but with a glowing, cosy, ecstatic peace.

I just signed up for a 'dressmaking' class at a cc!!!! It says dressmaking but it's clothes making. It starts next week and soon I'll know how to use a sewing machine and can make clothes for the rest of my life! I can buy flower prints or paisley prints and make simple dresses and blouses for the rest of my life, and make clothes for my grandmother, mother, sister, cousins, desiree, everyone. I'll take their bust measurements and make them flower blouses that reveal their flat bellies and belly hair if any (well not for the plump adults, this idea). My grandmother is going to buy a sewing machine this weekend! Not the new electronic kind but the old kind where the soles of your feet rest on a panel that moves back and forth. She said she used to take apart old clothes to look at how the pieces began and made new clothes by tracing the cloth part configurations of the old ones. And they sewed school uniforms then, and -hold your breath- BRAS. Imagine the mothers taking the measurements of their daughters breasts and all. Ick.

Tomorrow we are going to choose the tiles for my old-new house. So far it seems like my mother only wants us to choose the following colours: white, grey, beige. I really hope the house which was our cosy beloved corner on earth does not turn into a $800, 000 modern monstrosity, one of those that look like asylums from the outside, with the inside I imagine being all modern-looking and clean and sleek or whatever it's described as, with huge rectangular plasma tvs and the floor with super clean marbled tiles and everything being displayed with purpose and order. Save us from this twisted unfeeling modern idea of a home. Well whatever it is for us my mother will decide since it's her big project, and my room will be my own haven that will have all the reds and oranges and blues and greens that the rest of the house will be thirsty for.

Hey Mr. Tambourine man, play a song for me. I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to......

Nowhere man

Something that has changed my life recently: driving. Ever since I got my license last friday (and didn't jump and scream after getting it, was trying to control myself after the woman who passed behaved like a rabbit on heroin in a corridor full of people waiting to take their theory test and who were staring at walls overhearing her mad gasping exclamations) I can't stop thinking of driving and I'm addicted to it, and real addiction is something I seldom experience. Being an addict is...feeling down when you're not doing the thing you want to do (withdrawal symptoms), always thinking about the thing, not being able to concentrate well unless being very distracted by other things equally or more exciting. If not for my father being daring and suggesting that we go on the expressway on saturday morning, and using my mother's bigger car later, and driving to town a few times back and forth during the peak hours...! He made me horn at docile-looking pedestrians and helped me horn at a bad taxi. Boy do I love that horn. I just can't press it on time. Sitting in my room now but I feel like going for a night drive blasting music. Childish as it sounds compared to the fact that getting a license somewhat indicates more growing up, the nicest and funniest part so far is impressing my da gu and er gu (my aunties), my uncles, cousins, sister and brother. Yahoo! This morning my brother was actually afraid I'd get us into an accident. And when my cousins came for a ride this afternoon, they went 'I can't believe she's driving!' The baby (4 years old) said 'You drive ah? You so smart! Next time i grow up i can also be like you. You....primary 6 ah?' and kept wanting to hold my hand after that. It's funny and sweet how driving to kids is something they look up to, that makes people seem grown up like parents. And that's what they want to be.

True and False (David Mamet) is a life-changing book.

'Act first to desire your own good opinion.'

It's not just about acting. Reading it is like suddenly having sharp sunlight in your brain and fresh air in your nose and mouth. Make no compromises about living your dreams (an overused but so true phrase) and doing what you really want humbly but truly and with dignity. I hope this doesn't sound all pretentious and whatnot, because the book is anything but that. Maybe it sounds too simple, and cutting and crazy and wonderful all at the same time, but that's because it sounds awfully and madly like the truth, that I've been stupidly waiting to hear or read even though my heart knew it all along. But of course there are some nights where everything feels like shit, then just go read catcher in the rye and think of holden and cry at all the sad parts.