Sunday, September 30, 2007

single eyelid

Someday, when I'm awfully low


Help, the time has come for me to acquire a double eyelid. On my left eye. The one that stays open when I wink. Blame it on my half hearted single eyelid. My mother got double eyelids in her thirties, they just came with the wrinkling of her skin and decades of...sleep, i suppose. Why is it so early for me? I don't wanna get a double eyelid, help! I want to be a single eyelidded asian girl for the rest of my life! It usually comes after a long night of sleep, and disappears within a couple of hours, but today it has stayed all day, still there, and the feeling is less obvious now, almost as if my skin is moulding to it and getting used to it. No! I must resist!


I have a fantasy of working in an office. The clean, sterile toilets, neat cubicles, insanely obsessive sick cleanliness of the place, the smooth carpet with barely a piece of rubbish, sharpened pencils, clicking pens, printers making that churning sound, office workers huddled at their work, their secret selves hidden within them, seemingly boring, but with secret office romances and enemies. (I watched too many shows) But why is that in a way so attractive? Because it gives you many things to resist. And one has to resist things.


My mother baked a recipe I found at allrecipes.com (an amazing site)- banana blueberry quick bread, which turned out more like cake, and she didnt like it but it was wonderful. Bits of soft gooery banana and sour or sweet juicy blueberries with chunks of walnut. Anyhow, I suddenly got an idea! I told her, practise baking so that when I open a cafe someday, and you retire, you can bake for the cafe and your life won't be meaningless after retirement! Yay, be my slave baker and your life will be full of meaning! My sister added, "I want to go there and study".


In fu man ren jian today, zheng guo ping/xiao dong, a beatles-mad guy, one of the chef disciples of his father, lover of sixties dancing (scuba move and peace sign across the eyes, and hip-wobbling), most frivolous disciple of the four, mad laugher, wearer of black and white checkered pants, danced a lot, and went mad when he saw chen xiu li/margaret ma dancing in a record shop. It was wonderful. He pined after her in his room filled with beatles pictures. i profess his dancing was hilarious and fun to watch like nothing i've ever seen (though madonna in the 80s papa don't preach mtv, in a black leotard and short spiky blonde hair was sensational).


My cousin, my special friend, my ex-everyday-buddy and holiday pal, who would play the computer as I asked him whether my clothes matched, who would follow me around the house as he had nothing to do, who sat on my knees when he was 2 and I screamed as i put my finger in his ear and felt a huge ring of earwax surrounded by cobwebs of...earwax, who used to run around the room naked before bathing, with his cellulite butt and cute big tummy, who can explain scientific phenomenon better than i ever will be able to, who yesterday explained lots of first aid to me, who is also a cancerian and also nostalgic, who went around with his childhood blanket till he was 12, my neurotic isaac, is now officially taller than me.


Goodnight Sunday.

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

zhong qiu jie

I just went to upper seletar reservoir to join my grandmother and her gang of reservoir friends (friends who jog at the reservoir at every morning) for zhong qiu jie. They were seated in the dark, like the other groups of people there, on the stone benches lining the place, and chatting, all jolly, and there was a table of their combined supplies, like mooncakes, agar agar, red wine, pee-colored wine, chinese tea from a hu zi, and other things. One of the women wore one of those lights around her head and looked like an insane coal miner and the other women laughed at her for looking like she works at a rubber plantation. She looked mad indeed. They had to make comments about me (any grandchild would have been subject) and said, in hokkien, 'wah, so big ah!' and 'so pretty, like ah ma!' and 'now you look more like a girl'. I could sense my grandmother's pride. I'm glad she has such a group of friends. They go on holidays together, to places like helsinki, and china mostly. And I met that man, the man who films their holidays and then goes home and burns vcds for everyone. Yes, the man who filmed a building for a few minutes before it chooted with smoke. The man who films his old friends getting off the tour bus, and films them taking turns to take pictures at places. And who goes home enjoying his videos of people taking pictures and then burns it for his friends. And he was surprised that I, grandchild of one of the group, would know of the video-er. One day i shall go on one of their old folk holidays. On holidays my grandmother wakes up at 5am to scrub underwear in the toilet.

Oh yes, my father just came back from his work trip to korea and japan, and got me The Most Expensive Umbrella You Ever Did See, and high socks. One pink and white striped, one ahma canal-water colored with black and maroon lines, one rainbow striped. Sigh.

We went to nokia today to collect my phone and i told them not to upgrade the software so my things wouldn't be deleted but as i secretly guessed they did and everything was gone, almost 200 numbers and 500 messages. My father was mad, or acted mad, and spoke to the manager and demanded a letter of apology, which i will frame. It was hilarious and i wish i could've filmed it. Damn technology!

Remember?

I'm sitting here in a boring room
It's just another rainy Sunday afternoon
I'm hanging around, I'm waiting for you,
but nothing ever happens,
and I wonder

Happy zhong qiu jie, the childhood festival of glowing lanterns and playing with fire, wherever you are.

Monday, September 24, 2007

ginger snaps

I watch and wait

On Saturday we (me and the old friends) went to booksactually and to a japanese teahouse, then chinatown. Chinatown is fun then, all sun and silly tourists, silly middle aged caucasians with sunglasses, fanning themselves, fascinated by cheongsams and name chops. teenage girl tourists, in huge vintage sunglasses and thick cotton vintage dresses. what fun to watch, them sweating like flushed pink pigs searching for the oriental items that are most exotic to buy.

On Saturday night we (me and some of the family) participated in a silly lantern procession and it struck me, what were all these adults doing, walking absurdly around, holding lanterns with little children? What was the whole damn point of everything? To make the children happy, to give them the experience of ti-deng-long! Gently glowing paper balls, gentle pink, red, orange, yellow. This glowing, dangerous, beautiful thing they have to hold outstretched, with their tiny arms and it represented something, though they don't know what, but it just seems like something to be proud of, innit. Then we, 6 of us, played noodnight (what elysia calls midnight catching, catching in the dark) and she giggled all the time and got caught because she kept holding her rustling beloved stickers that i got her, 180 different tiny squares of anythings (mad turtles, crazy eggs, apples). the kind of thing that really fascinates a kid. it kills me. and that han read pride and prejudice at 13, and shann gobbled up the 3 chocolate bars i got him the way i knew he would.

On Sunday afternoon we (me and my mother and the whining work-fearing one with the halo of curly hair) baked ginger snaps. they had lots of cinnamon in them and were rolled around and coated with raw sugar, magical little golden crystals that give them a chrismassy glow. the kind of biscuits i always wanted to make since i was a silly naive girl believing in chrismassy cookies.

Tonight we baked more ginger snaps! My sister said, "next time, when you open your cafe, you can do it in my room!" what super silliness. the girl next door played Noel beautifully on her violin and her mother caned her younger brother. she works from till 11pm nearly everyday, is wanted by her mother to get 100 marks, practices the piano and violin a lot, hardly plays and is almost forbidden from watching tv. she told her maid that she wishes her mother would die earlier, so she could play, or something. how can an 8 or 9 year old girl think that? maybe some ginger snaps, spongebob and harry potter would help her. i hope she gets piercings and tattoos and becomes an insanely intelligent delinquent who does something madly extraordinary someday. go little girl. (who is obsessed with tinkerbell and disney princesses, she showed me her room once, excitedly) i'd like to think that if i start a plan and invite her over to do work and we become friends i can be the one to slowly liberate her, her neighbour jiejie.

I have been having mad dreams every night and does it say something, the kind of thoughts you are swathed in, or people you think about, waking up, or rather, half-awake, under the safety of the plush blanket, like floating in a dream, or rather wisps of floaty thoughts. These days sometimes my thoughts at this time are about the park, especially the morning routine and walking to the park in the morning, jaywalking across the road in the hot sun, with a view of country inn and suits across the road, our wallets and sweets or whatever in our pockets, in the electric blue shirts, walking along the rather foresty road to work, and twice or thrice john was on the top of the tower, or climbing down, against the clouds.

I don't mean to sound rambly or measured because the holidays have not been like that, they have been kind of awesome.

Oh yes, one day, a woman and her two young children alighted from a bus, and she just stood there at the busstop while they ran away to a nearby grass area. I thought she was letting them play while waiting for the next bus but guess what, the children, a boy and a girl, pulled down their pants/panties, next to each other, right there next to many cars passing by, and peed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cha cham bo!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Friday, September 21, 2007














from FOUND











my grandfather's tombstone











funny happy picture that i woke up to one day in a dingy charming room in vermont











my father, mister earnest, mister righteous, mister once ns man of the year, with japanese people presumably in japan. see how they are adorably suited and seated with tiny meals. mad asian men!!!!!

SCHOOL'S OUT

I am wriggling with excitement. Saw people parachuting down from the glorious sky blooming with big white clouds. Some things i must surely do: put facepainting flyers around my neighbourhood, bake, sew, read, cycle, find tsachikis. Lying on a couch with desiree watching movies and eating potato chips the way we used to would be SPLENDID too. Swimming under the hot sun too. Even waking up would be grand. I love the holidays.

Wednesday, September 12, 2007











"wow, canary yellow, the perfect colour for me wizarding robes!"










the magic 8 eye original doc marten punk boots of my friend Sunflower (that which is her pirate name) with magic yellow stitching and black jeans for that look. ah.....

Speaking of pirate names, here is the list so far (we really should call each other by this):

me- Mary-Jane Sea Ruby
vivienne- Violet Phoenix Tide
yinren- Edward Black Bones
ling- Rose Coral Bertrucio
claire- Lady Kathleen Shale
desiree- Polly Sue (we aint sure yet)
yeehan- Sunflower, or Helianthus Kylin Kore


All else, please use comments box to give yerseelves a real gritty tough olde magical pirate name. it vill be written in the emerald seas!

ARRRR

(suggestions: use the name of a precious stone, or a sea element, or a fish species, like turquoise, or wave, or kingfisher. put this with a name that will make the sea rumble, like LAURA or ALBERT, and add a dash of something else like Sue or Seed. Make sure every word means something to you. and there ye have it mate, yer pirate name. be proud of it.)

Sunday, September 09, 2007










This is me and michael, my kindergarten friend. One of the few things i remember of kindergarten was him and that we liked each other. This picture was taken at my 6th birthday party, where the adults forced us to take a picture and I was feeling incredibly hand-clutching-dress shy (hideous frock), and worse when the photo was developed because my white underwear was showing. I always wanted to find my old tiny friends, and i found him! Ol paddington bear. Do you remember the neon yellow snake poison they put around the bungalows?

Dear reader, don't you miss being a tiny being, with all the adults looking so big and tall? And wondering what you'll be when you grow up, thinking you can be anything you wanted? And running around naked, eating peanuts sweatily and washing the car (playing with water) was such a treat. Clap if you believe in fairies or tinkerbell will die!

I bought All Things Must Pass, george's first cd after the beatles split. It's rare and the sky on the cover is done with watercolours, you can see the gentle water spots. George is a gentle india-man with gentle words like 'because you're sweet and lovely girl i love you, because you're sweet and lovely girl it's true. you looked at me that's all you had to do' and 'here comes the sun'. he would never pose naked like john did with yoko. he would never be wacky as ringo, or sing like paul at last year's grammy's. When he died i remember there was a book and it was sold in secondary school at a book sale at the family lounge, but i didnt know him then.

My heart has wings, and it can fly
I'll touch every star in the sky

We used to sit around the tv in grimy pajamas (mine polkadotted, his with ninjas or something) and with toasted peanut butter bread with sugar, and milo, and watch cinderella. The mice trying to crawl up the stairs to give her the key was the scariest part. And richie rich, dumb and dumber, honey we shrunk ourselves, the little mermaid, sister act 2, home alone 2. We used to rewatch all that like crazy. Which one shall we rewatch today?!

Fu man ren jian is showing again on channel 8 and it's great. Living in 60s singapore must have been awesome. Kampongs, good oily singaporean food, cotton pajamas, tin buckets, a-go-go dancing, rock and roll, playing marbles, hopscotch, big spectacles, tight dresses, innocence and madness, life is a blast.

Life is a dream!

Sunday, September 02, 2007

shooz






















Tu es l'envie et moi le geste
Toi le citron et moi le zeste

On friday i painted that dirty old ikea kids table evil pink and did delicate restoration work on the dollhouse. Then all of yesterday afternoon was spent painting those white canvas high-tops. I never felt quite so alive recently as when I was done with painting and ran around showing them to everyone at home, which tells me about Things I Should Be Doing With Me Life ;-)