Sunday, August 26, 2007

sunday night






























If I can't have you, I'll throw my love into the deep blue sea

The good olde fresh rainy days are gone. But now that they are I can see clouds blooming from my window.

When I read about postmodernism and structuralism and all the things i thought i'd never care about, i realised it was just like the things that have been bothering me like a nagging stormcloud. And after endless rambles it all means, how do you live your life? Do you eat meat even if you can't kill a chicken? Do you shop at Gap? Do you really need to use a computer? Why did you think you had to go to university? And why the hell did you need a feature wall in your garden that consists of rectangular stones? And what does it all mean? Oh shut up.

If I am penny, I made friends with a lucy who cut my hair and orchid incense was burning in the toilet while olde chinese songs played, that seemed to come out of a moldy old grammophone, sung by women with black curly neat hair, red pins and tight cheongsams.

I tested my phone card and called Ibrahim in new york, he was still working in the park. It was a pitter pattery friday. 'Ello, it is Ibrahim' which made me squeal and jump. 'OH- XJ! How arr yoo!' And then after a while he passed the phone to Sakir. 'XJ? Where arr yoo! Where arr yoo! Where arr yoo! OH- Singaporr!' and then after a while he passed the phone back to Ibrahim. 'Where. Is. Desire? Thank you forr calling. I vill call yoo soon. Okay. Take care.' Then I called Nelson. Desire wasn't there but when i called her right after to tell her about it she knew how exciting it all was. It made my day.

When I swam with elysia last night she (wearing a body float) alternated between ordering me to let go ("I count 1 2 3 you swim away okay?!") and then clinging onto me like a baby duck ("Euh I scared!") and ended up clinging since her brother kept scaring her and when we neared this thing that shoots water out in a gentle arc of a stream into the pool, which I told her once was urine to get her into the big pool (though i don't understand the connection anymore) i said 'Eh let's go touch the shi shi!' 'I don't want!!!!!' 'Wait. Do you really think it's shi shi?' -looks around like a lost duckling, not answering- 'Do you really think they will put shi shi in the pool?' '....No.' 'Then do you think it's shi shi?' '....Yes.' When she finally touched it she smiled and said, 'Like shi shi leh.'

Here's the mail it never fails
It makes me wanna wag my tail
When it comes I wanna wail....
MAILLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

:-)

Sunday, August 19, 2007

881


sticking yellow chrysanthemums and white flowers in my grandfather's gravestone grass on national day, his death anniversary. Elysia (wearing the magic pants i got her) never saw him or knew him. She is holding her storybook/sticker book.

I took my father and grandmother to watch 881 today (i say that because i was taking my grandmother and my father came along at my persuasion) and it was great. Not just because it was local (which already kind of makes it awesome). Anyway, we watched it at GV Yishun, and it was buzzing. The cinema was filled with families, ah pehs, ah sohs, people who brought their very old parents. It was nice that they came specially! (except bad GV played english ads and my grandmother who doesn't understand started yawning) And this will never be witnessed anywhere else in the world: (as we were finding our seats. read carefully and imagine hor) an ah-peh holding, like a kid, a packet of popcorn in the semi-dark, digging his nose with his pinky, then looking at me with a blank look as he realised i saw him at it. Tsk tsk tsk...ah-peh......li jia mi kia ah si ai aw pi sai ah?....AND THEN HOR, at one of the most climatic parts, this man's handphone rang and he answered it and started speaking loudly in hokkien and lydat not enough, he must still turn to his wife and ask her somethings in hokkien and den finish talking on his phone leh. People on the screen dying still want to talk. Make me want to shout, 'diam lah!!!!!!!!!!'

:-)

Sometimes it's the most grotesque and crudest parts of singapore that make me love it here.

Friday, August 17, 2007

nelson and rain











I LOVE LUCY


Me and Nelson, at my friday the 13th surprise birthday party, that desiree did, at the yellow umbrellas behind martha's ice cream, with twenty tiny red fluttering hearts and twenty candles on a peanut butter ice cream cake that was in danger of melting because when she told me to 'go buy ice cream' with her i told her i needed to pee. I really thought we were going to fry plain omelettes for dinner that night. I love lucy! I blew all the candles out in one breath after taking some time to make a wish. Nelson came though he wasn't feeling too good. He was extremely proud of the card he picked out, of an ape picking her nose, and on the inside it said 'XJ, I picked out something really nice for your birthday. Love and peace, Nelson.' And he gave me The White Album (!) which he knew i always wanted. Anyway, I miss him. He was one of the best friends we made there. Though when we 3 go out for dinner we sometimes don't know what to say, and he is tired and grumpy sometimes, but when it was nice it was wonderful, seeing him in the park after a tired day at work, and he shouts at us across the summer air 'Hello ladies!' or 'Hello beautifuls!' and always wears mad ties with his food safety thermometer in his front pocket. He's an olde hippy (well not that old). The only time we took booth photos with anyone else we took 2 with him, squeezing into the booth and had to do it twice because the first time you couldn't see us. And he took us to the drive-in and read my palm. And he told us about Edy's strawberry frozen fruit bar. So anyway, even though he hasn't replied my email I will find him the taschikis i promised and if the snail mail gets to him he will send us dreamcatchers made from natural materials he picked up, and read desiree's palm when she sends him a paint impression of her left palm. Some people are meant to meet, and Nellie, we miss ye. You have to believe in some things in this crazy world, and as nelson edward always thought, friendship is something to believe in.

Why is rain so nice? Yesterday I had a strangely fulfilling lesson learning how to use, in a basic way, an intermediately advanced videocamera. It felt like once you know how to use it, everything else depends on your imagination and how you turn the knobs or press the buttons. Isn't it funny that all your favourite movies, be it the royal tenenbaums or amelie or anything, in a way go down to delicate turns of knobs and buttons? So a moviemaker has to love his/her camera. I was glad I learnt it for I just remembered that magical movie ending that came to me long ago. Today I drove to school at 40 km/h in super heavy rain and real slow traffic listening to Sondre Lerche (You Knocked Me Off My Feet). O why can't it rain more. Today after a lecture of which we hardly paid attention, vivi, ling and i went to eat hot waffles at canteen 2 when it was raining out. Then we drove to newton listening to some strange lush cd with french songs in it. They got off and I registered for french at alliance whoopee. And it rained nearly all day! And my cousin bathes at least 4 times a day! And he changes his clothes every time, causing a problem with hanging clothes at his house! And his father told him to bathe for one minute each time or don't bathe! And his mother said 'you put too much soap is it?! Why you take so long?! Next time don't put so much soap!!!!' And once he tickled his brother when his brother needed to shit but was drinking milk from the milk bottle and then he shat in his pants and cried saying 'ko ko make me da bian'.

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

home









my magic cave when I just came back


When I run dry, I stop awhile and think of you

Sitting here sweating like a pig on a cool evening (why is singapore so bloody hot?), I just remembered that one of the nicest parts about working at the park was when it's around evening, and all the guests (yes, they call the customers guests. 'guest service!!!!!') are slowly leaving the park with their gigantic soft toys (giant red lizards two people have to carry, giant spidermen, crazy fur hats, neon turtles, bright pink unicorns) and there's hardly anyone around. It's peaceful then, with golden clouds. And with little/no violent and reckless people at go-karts we get to sit and chat, fantasize about what we're going to cook for dinner (the best dinners were the fried rice desiree and i made), drive the go-karts around madly violating all the rules we repeat vehemently to the violent creatures, and if we're at the rockwall/trampoline, talk to the people passing by who are usually too busy in the day to stop for a chat, like Ibrahim (turkish guy, our good friend whom we took to the movies at the mall) and Kyle (Napoleon Dynamite). Life seemed simpler then, being at Queensbury during summer, which is an exciting time for people there, it seems like summertime is the special happy-time of the year, places are buzzing, things are happening. So we work almost everyday, at gokarts or at the rockwall and giant trampoline, make friends with romanians, turkish, old guys at the park, everyone, buy our groceries at wonderful wal-mart, go for a movie at night, go somewhere for internet or chop veggies and make fried rice or pasta, do laundry, watch stupid shows like the biggest loser and clean house, wait for our off-days, hop on the fire-engine-red summer trolley and for a dollar stop anywhere in the area. And think about life. Oh boy.
And now it is thursday and it is raining outside and it is a peaceful day. The strangest thing I've done since coming back is visit castle green though I now stay at springleaf. Driving into the carpark was so familiar, and then the sound of the lift, the smell of the house, the smallness of it compared to this monstrosity we're now living in, my peach curtains in my small room. And i felt sad thinking it was probably the last time I would ever be in the house.
There was a really special and beautiful obituary in the papers 2 days ago. The header was My Love, followed by a nice picture of a happy woman, and sub-headings 'The way you are, My Special Girl Friday, when will you return....' And then a strange little paragraph going 'The girl I love to be marooned on a deserted island 14/08/06, You left without saying goodbye, I cannot let go. You walk in front, I totter behind. Tail-end Robert' and Robert listed himself as 'Husband: Robert Teo Architect'
I hope that when university is over I won't feel as if I have awoken from a dream I wish I never had. Is it strange, to feel so far removed from what they are talking about in class? Actually i dont care (and never will) about the history of communication studies, or postmodernism or anything like that, dang it all the way to bukit timah shit. Do you, dear reader?! Oh my I'm not even halfway to finishing! Someone sweep me away to turkey or mauritius and let's get married there!!!!!
p.s. comments finally work here!