Daily Digest

People aren’t either wicked or noble. They’re like chef’s salads, with good things and bad things chopped and mixed together in a vinaigrette of confusion and conflict.

— Lemony Snicket

We are sun and moon, dear friend; we are sea and land. It is not our purpose to become each other; it is to recognize each other, to learn to see the other and honor him for what he is: each the other’s opposite and complement.

— Hermann Hesse

My life just seemed too complete, and maybe we have to break everything to make something better out of ourselves.

— Chuck Palahniuk

Life

What will it be like, truly, to live in the mountains or forest one day?

I dearly wish to embark on this adventure with my whole heart.

A game of nothing

How do you play a game of nothing?

Today I played a game of something.

I woke up, got dressed, had my breakfast.

I did my work, had lunch, met people.

I had dinner, showered, back to work.

How do you play a game of nothing?

See, that baby, she plays a game of nothing.

She squiggles and kicks,

and looks out at the world,

expecting nothing,

wanting nothing,

licking everything.


Sometimes, my love knows how

to play this game of nothing.

But you have to know

what the game is, else

you cannot tolerate him,

you cannot love him.

But when you do know

what nothing and its game is

then he is very wise,

and you want to be like him,

thinking, walking, moving,

floating in a big calm cloud,

having every nothing,

not needing anything,

breathing everything,

at a game of nothing.

Chronicles: Wisdom Teeth Extraction

I had five teeth extracted two days ago. This is a typical menu I have developed for the speedway to recovery, considering the magical nutritional properties each of these foods offer. I couldn't have done it without some help from my grandmother, but if you have a simple slow cooker and a blender you should be able to make most of these.

JUICE
Any combination of the following:
Fruits- bananas, avocado, papayas, oranges, blueberries, strawberries
Vegetables- cai xin, spinach, carrots, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, any green leafy vegetables
Mixed with- rice milk, raw honey, ginger, black sesame powder

PORRIDGE
Fish porridge with ginger
Brown rice porridge with fish and mashed sweet potato

SIDE (if any)
Tofu with soy sauce
2 half-boiled eggs with raw garlic, olive oil and soy sauce. Garlic has high anti-bacterial properties.

BETWEEN-MEAL SNACKS / OTHERS
Warm cardamom cacao rice-milk drink
Warm lemon-honey drink
Vitamin C supplement

NATURAL MOUTHWASHES
(supplementing chemical mouthwash provided by dentist)
Sea salt and water
Turmeric, sea salt and water
Olive oil

Innovation goes on.

Cooks
Grandma Ng #1 (72 years old)
Grandma Ng #2 (25 years old)

Though swollen and feverish, I have been oddly energetic and unable to take deep naps or sleep well in the night. This, I think, is owing to the food, especially the juice that immediately energizes the body by being quickly absorbed by the stomach, before being rewarded with a lovely bowl of grandma's warm porridge (to be taken in small amounts, spooned to back of throat).

My lower lip and chin regained full sensation in the first night- hurrah, no paralysis despite the odds of prolonged numbness! The swelling began on the second day and got worse on the third day (today). I speak by pushing the words out using my vocal cords and barely moving my lips. Being somewhat speech-impaired has made me appreciate what it might feel like to be unable to speak, and understand silence and patience as companions.

On the second day, I made a necklace of my three intact teeth. To prepare them, I soaked them in olive oil and apple cider vinegar, boiled them, flossed them and scrubbed them with colgate about five times in between. The remaining flesh and gum had to be dugged out with my fingernails. My little talismans.

If you badly need to remove your wisdom teeth are but afraid to do so, it's worth investing in a good dental surgeon if you can afford it, and go for general anaesthesia if the injections, slicing of gum, drilling, pulling, splotches of blood and stitching will traumatize you too much in the chair. It's a good price to pay for the reduction of mental trauma (different from a perhaps worthier mental trauma such as the spirituality of giving birth).

As the anaesthetic flowed through my veins in a gentle gush, making me feel like I was in Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere or had a superpower, I told the anaesthetist (a gentle man with side-parted silver hair) in all seriousness that going under was like going to outer space, and asked him about whether his patients had dreams. He didn't really reply, probably thought I was almost under, and looked out the window with a cynical bemused face.

The next thing was a black hole, and then I awoke with an abhorrently swollen mouth, soaking up gauze after gauze with thick blood, drooling red saliva on the floor, missing someone so much I cried on the way home.

Singaporean Curiosities #0.5

toilet door at Bollywood Veggies- presumably painted by Ivy Singh-Lim's husband

meditative popsicle toilet at Cairnhill Arts Centre

Indian-Muslim kopitiam at Upper Thomson

View from OnePeople.Sg building at Braddell

behind a whiteboard used by unknown people

10-year-old's artwork

grandfather playing jackpot on his iPad as grandmother watches taiwan drama on a Sunday night 

Hari Raya style

underpass at Peninsula Shopping Centre

August

How is it that the people who invented the word August or the latin word that became August made it a word of sadness? It sounds like a bursting bloom of bright yellow leaves, crackling and dying after, but in a way that does not invite tears. Same for September; it sounds like a single newly sharpened pencil in Autumn, lying plainly on a school desk. October's a bit better; it feels like a sturdy fire and a fat bowl of soup. I still like July, the time of daisies.

Multi-tasking: when I have to remember and coordinate at least 10 things at once (which I often have to do these days), my brain feels like it is being sliced into many neat and equally sizable pieces, all working hard like hands on a wooden washing board. The feeling still disturbs me, and I think it should. It pushes me towards the mountains and the seas.

Today at a voice workshop my partner (a shy lady probably in her 40s who does yoga and had a glimmering healthy bronze body) had to cup her hands around my ribcage as I breathed. Her hands were like firm bird wings, restraining when I inhaled so I had to breathe and expand slowly against her force, and squeezing when I exhaled, so I had to let as much air out as possible, reducing to a tiny bag. It felt primal, comforting, like I was in a cave. I told the teacher I enjoyed it, because breathing can get quite lonely.

Last night I had a strange and gross dream. I was journeying by myself to a convention, going through overgrown fields with big sad-grand old-modern buildings in them, all alone, somewhat blue, yet strong, till I got to a construction site of sorts, and took the clanging lift, which had metal netting as the floor, and I felt like I had to poop and could not control it and let it out, and it kept coming and coming and then I looked down and there was a sticky big mountain of poop between my feet (this is the first time I have had such a dream). This morning I realized the dream was a premonition when my brother scolded me for leaving chocolate stains in the car.

This evening my little cousin said, 'You know why I ask you so many questions about your future? And what you want to do? Because there are so many possibilities. There's....everything! And it's very exciting.'

Earlier she also said, 'Hmmmmm, I seriously recommend you to become a youtube star.'

the raw spookiness of a flame in the mountains

what is worth having? in a time where we have so much- rose-print lace stockings; frayed good morning towel; spanish marmalade harvested from a family farm; writing pads, old stock; lemongrass-mint soap with exfoliating salts; glow-in-the-dark stars and planets; warm woven mirrored indian rug; teh halia.

Can the comfort of a big old floral printed armchair enveloping you on a musky Sunday afternoon form a ballooning happiness strung together by objects of gravity? Maybe if the armchair was part of the memory of a person.

In the past you could pack a suitcase of your life and go away to a new land.

Now even a room cannot contain me and my belongings. A home cannot contain me and my heart. The world wouldn't be big enough either. You would need to open a thirteenth dimension.

What about being a cloud?
History-less, free-form
No past or future
Simply presently
blooming
and
shifting

So what.


You don't need to talk about inner peace. You fight but you don't need to win. You can drink rainwater when you are thirsty; eat flowers when you are hungry. Every morning you wake up and measure your life with a wooden ruler. Tea bags are soaked in water before being used to soothe the bruises from your parents as they sit in the next room reading the perennial newspapers. Tissue is no longer for crying, but for making soft flowers to be hung from ceiling lamps in colorful rooms. A book told me that kisses help you develop immunity against more germs.

If I carve out my intangible dream on a piece of soap and burn it over a flame in the mountains, will the cats come out to smell the wisps?

I don't know lah. I just trust in Singlish, in the simple gravity of Clair de Lune, in a banana for breakfast. Look at the sky in the mornings. Then walk down the road and don't look back.