let the wild rumpus start

I mended my favourite red pants this morning. With instructions from the alteration lady who decided to give me advice because $8 per hole is too expensive. If I can mend my seemingly hopeless pants (hopeless according to gran who cannot even consider the thought that these pants are mendable- and I shall wear them to the airport tonight, with the bum above, and aggravate her, heehee!) I can do anything. Now it shall come to India, trusty ol' pants.

me in my lane, goodbye springleaf

see you in july.

The treatment of human head lice is a process that has been debated and studied for centuries.

Hunting lice by candlelight by Andries Both, ca 1630 (National Gallery, Budapest)

17th Century Boxwood Lice Comb

Combs

For a treatment with the louse comb alone, it is recommended to comb the hair for 3–10 minutes (depending the length and type of the hair) daily or every second day for 14 days. Wetting the hair with water and especially with water and shampoo or conditioner will facilitate the combing and the removal of lice, eggs and nits.

A special finetooth comb that can pick out lice is used. The space between the teeth of the comb should be no more than 0.3 millimetres (0.012 in). Plastic combs are effective for very short-term use, but the spacing between the teeth will quickly spread out after repeated usage. Metal combs, being less flexible, are more effective for multiple uses.

Shaving the head

Shaving the head or cutting the hair extremely short can be used to control lice infestation. Short hair, baldness, or a shaven scalp are generally seen as a preventative measure against lice infestation. However, it is not recommended that children be suddenly shorn due to the psychological effects the child might experience.

It is not recommended that children's heads be shaved or even be given a short haircut for prevention or control of lice due to the psychological effects children might experience. Infestation with lice is not a disease and the medical symptoms are normally minimal. In any case, health providers and parents should try not to create emotional problems for children during examination and treatment.[27] Shaving of the area above and behind the ears and the upper part of the neck while leaving the crown of the head with hair is commonly used a prevention of lice among tribes in Africa, Asia and America (in America - Mohawk style).

you don't know if i can draw at all, or what records i am into

i am in a little buzz from all the things i've been doing these busy days. my head is abuzz with spanish words and indian places, and the road outside my house yesterday was abuzz with dying bees that they poisoned again without warning anyone. just now i took my fifth injection on my left arm the warrior that is now tired. the resulting feeling from the fifth injection (taken after my dear ol' doctor paused because she said i took several different injections at different times and places and it may be bad for my body) into a bruised patch on my left arm was completely perverse- a sick, sore muscular feeling worse than pain, which gives me a wobbly feeling in the stomach and makes me think of the tight white muscular tendons of that frog we crucified and dissected in biology class in secondary 4- we shouldn't have. aye we even put our fingers through cow heart aortas and spliced open goat eyeballs.

i can't wait to leave everything and go to india, with all the dangers and adventures that await. i think it will be like a very real dream.

to a new life and forever adventures!

when you're alone and life is making you lonely

(us; thoroughly wonderful midwife)

hugging and kissing in public i wonder if you call it romance

we held hands tightly in the dark. romance was watching our baby being born. the baby wailed! mister woodstock thought we were lovers (an idea that almost killed us as we are on almost opposing ends of the heterosexual - homosexual spectrum). we drowned in indian ink and almonds and a coffeeshop squawk and microwaved lunches and turgid bladders and resurfaced with our baby and its kaleidoscope bits. to the liking of people, for which we feel very heartened (hearten: to give courage or confidence to; cheer) and quite surprised. now diamond-sky is in marvellously grey manteuffelstrasse and i'm going to the colourful hot desert and hopefully our baby will travel to new lands soon.

don't look back, don't look back, that's the word

Santiago Accordion-Amigos Hearts Club Band

DIEGO
Possibly a shortened form of SANTIAGO. In medieval records Diego was Latinized as Didacus, and it has been suggested that it in fact derives from Greek d?da?? (didache) "teaching".

SANTIAGO
Means "Saint James", derived from Spanish santo "saint" combined with Yago, an old Spanish form of JAMES, the patron saint of Spain. Cities in Chile and Spain bear this name.

JAMES
English form of the Late Latin name Iacomus which was derived from ?a??ß?? (Iakobos), the New Testament Greek form of the Hebrew name Ya'aqov (see JACOB). Related names: SEAMUS, JAMIE, JACK

SEAMUS
"one who supplants" or "substitute". In the United States, the name "Shamus" is sometimes used as a slang word for private detective.

JAMIE
a name derived as a pet form of James

JACK
a male given name, although in very rare cases it can be used as a female given name, and sometimes as a surname. The name Jakke was so common in England that it came to be used
for addressing any male, originally especially one considered a social inferior, and was extended to designate any male person, male animals, and even a variety of inanimate objects, such as
the device named jack for lifting heavy loads.

According to the United States Census of 1990, "Jack" is an uncommon American given name, the given name for 0.315% of the male population and 0.001% of the female population.

In English it is the diminutive form of the name JOHN,though it is also often given as a proper name in its own right.

JOHN
Because the name Jonathan is sometimes abbreviated as Jon, John is sometimes falsely considered to be a short form of Jonathan, especially in the United States. John is a variation of the Hebrew name Yô?annan, whereas Jonathan derives from the Hebrew ???????? Yôna?an, which means "Gift from the Lord" and thus is a longer version of NATHAN.

Also a shortened version of the latin form JOHANNES.

JANE
the English form of the Old French name Jehanne, which was an old feminine form of the male name JOHANNES.

JOAN
an Old French feminine form of Johannes (see JOHN). This was the usual English feminine form of John in the Middle Ages, but it was surpassed in popularity by Jane in the 17th century.

seasons in the sun

I've always been fascinated by the life my parents had before I came along. How they met, their friends, in particular their life in NJC. I've never been of the hoorah-activities sort- it was just never a part of me, but for my parents this was what their junior college life was all about. And actually, it sounded glorious. It had a growing with the growing nation feeling. Some kind of innocence, golden old-new glow, fervence, joy, sincerity. My mother said that going to jc and making the decision to stop being shy changed her life; she joined council and met my father, who only asked her out for a date after A levels though she waited for him despite a fair amount of suitors. And my father was in at least council, soccer, malay dance, dragonboat, track and field, basketball. Since I can remember, their group of friends have been meeting every year at either christmas or chinese new year. I've gotten to know them and think of each them fondly over the years. Many of them married nj people too (slightly disturbing). I've always liked going for their gatherings, which are are a warm affirmative glow of friendship and that time. A few days ago, I went into our storeroom in the sweltering afternoon heat and dug out old albums. I found one I hadn't seen before. It had golden photos. That's the best way to describe these photos because they were (I think) taken at the period between the end of jc and the start of ns or university. That last burst of that hopeful, mad, carefree something. And it was amazing to see my father and his friends as...virile young men! From the photos they are evidently full of passion and energy and joy in living, and...I don't know what else to say. I just wanted to show them here.

papa is the one standing

papa is second from left. leftmost is the friend who used to organise christmas gatherings every christmas at his house, which had an old swing where the children would sit

this christmas tree leads me to the conclusion about when the photos were taken

Fabulous Four

papa is leftmost. i think the group met for badminton because uncle M (second from left) was leaving for france to study. uncle BH (third from left) is the one who organised years of christmas gatherings, a man who remembers birthdays, and uncle KS (right) is the mad joker of the group, no gathering can be dull with him. uncle M was one of papa's best friends (they came from humble beginnings- tanglin tech secondary school, and vowed to beat the acs boys in jc. at least, my father did) but completely unlike him in his decision to go to france.

Bjorn Beatle.

I gather this is sending uncle M off at the airport. Mummy is flanked by two beatles.

i love my rotten, ungrateful children

The above words were on my brash family doctor's fridge magnet.

Yesterday was a historic day; I took my first injection in ten years.

Pickering Padma

p

my dream dining set which is being rightfully dusty in a sungei kadut rattan warehouse

p

Upper Thomson's Neverland

forty light years away

If I'd been born in 1947 in another world, I would have watched stardust 50s in amazement and mary-janes. Adults dancing to Frank Sinatra, girls going mad over Elvis' pelvis, gleaming grammophones, nina simone. When the 60s hit, I would have been 13. The Beatles would have been a kaleidoscopic explosion in my pubescent life. I would have saved every penny to buy their records, discovered Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, cried for Simon and Garfunkel, admired Joni Mitchell and Joan Baez. I would have been 20 the year Sgt. Pepper was released, and 23 by the end of the decade. I'm not sure where I would have been. And if it was Singapore I was born in, I would have listened to my records from home in a kampong, tried to explain the english lyrics to my parents (if we shift back a couple of generations they may have spoken mainly hokkien and mandarin), cycled into town to buy records, and gone to sewing school, daydreaming with every
stitch. The songs of August 1965 would have been I've Just Seen A Face and Majulah Singapura. A camera would have been a piece of magic. In the Summer of Love, we may have had to leave our kampong for expressway-construction and move into queenstown, where we could go to Queenstown Cinema for late-night new movies, and a television to watch man's voyage to the moon.
p

What are we doing in 2010?

frequent flyer miles

Watching an old movie is like visiting an old friend and discovering how you've changed. I remember so well how I felt about my favourite movies; the feelings are felt in embedded images and heart-squeezes that cannot be articulated. So when watching those movies again after sometime, you are watching not just the movie, but also yourself and re-feeling, as if an intimate observer, your intense feelings and associations to those movies. Do you feel that too? Is it strange? Punch-drunk love was, to me, dark frosty nights being the only one awake, red and blue, magic shifting landscapes, intrigue and strength. It is much the same.

making up for lost time

¿dondé es tu chubasquero verde?

Cuando tenia siete años, querré ser actriz, escritora o ilustradora. Pues, ¿no me he caedo demasiado lejos, no? Padma y mi iremos a Indio dentro de un mes. Quizas me encontraré mi primero profesor de japonesa allí. Dijo a la clase un día: ¨Siempre he querido ir a Indio a pie.¨ Irá a hacerlo eso verano, pero por fin, su amigo no pudo y pienso que Sensei no lo hizo. Despues, volví a Japon. Era un hombre maravillo que tenía sueños. Espero verlo otra vez. Me pregunto, ¿quien interesante vamos a conocer en Indio, y qué haremos padma y mi? Me siento que este viaje va a cambiar todo.

Almonds Anonymous

'I'm a bumblebee!'

me/my brother

real false lennon

p

Mr Miller came home after travelling the world, plonked into his old armchair, and said, 'I think I'd like some fish and chips wrapped in newspaper, please.'

i wanna tell her that i love her a lot, but i gotta get a belly full of wine

A gerbera my tubby doctor-neighbour tried growing in his garden, that he likes to tend to shirtless and showing his adorable humpty-dumpty tummy. He drives a light blue car and waves at me as if in slow motion (with neighbourly nod) when he sees me. One day I was cycling and saw him halfway reversed, just staring at his patch of gerberas. So I asked him about them, and he said he's been trying to grow them, feeding them with leftover vegetable skins (the dedication!) and giving them special treatment, but they seem to have developed a disease. He pulled some out; I took one. Today I looked where the plot was and it was all green, no more yellow gerberas.

wistful simon and garfunkel

time it was o what a time it was
a time of innocence, a time of confidences
long ago it must be
i have a photograph, preserve your memories
they're all that's left you

me/my brother

my inheritance

p

please may i take a train with you

i promise to stick to you like glue

i won't get lost in the dining car

we can take turns to read al lado del mar

we'll pass through strange cloudy fields

have cake after all our meals

see all sorts of stormy sunny weather

pick up pennies and feathers

watch a busker, his accordion and drum

nap like cats in the afternoon hum

please lets take this trip someday

any,

any,

any

which

way.

my father's hair does cartwheels

像冬夜里没有光明

We are in the throes of hard work and inspiration, which is a marvellous real way to be. I haven't truly felt this way since Let's lick lennon's lemons, which I just found out at dinner just now (after all these years) horrified my parents, my father especially.

But here is his admission:

"I must admit ah, actually ah, that tsd really give you very good training you know."

Yes Papa.

(It really must be horrifying for a man to see his 18 year old daughter in not-much, just big fake daisies covering the essential parts.)

*

The routine these days is, try to wake at 645, actually wake at 7, leave house by 745, listen and sing to Francoise Hardy in the car, reach at 830, put packed lunch in fridge, go to editing room, edit while being addicted to almonds, pee, microwave lunch, eat lunch, back to editing, eat more almonds and granola bars and cucumber with almond butter, pee more, microwave dinner or buy dinner, eat dinner, fill water, edit till computers shut down, backup, go home, bathe, sleep, inadvertently dream of Fantastic Yellow Pee, wake.

But the magic takes place in between all that (and ironically on big scary computers), despite it being in a cold and frigid lab. It takes place between lucy and I giving birth to a something from the bottom of our hearts. And now five days before the deadline, looking at the screenshots, I can't believe all the things we did; it all came from a feeling we wanted, and now it is Something.


KOPITIAM GOI GOUI JEWELS ABALONE IRON NR NRR ELDERLY WAVES FROM ITALY ANTICIPATION OF TOUCH ONE THOUSAND PEAKS AWAY THOSE IN LOVE FLACCID THING INDECENT SEXAGENARIAN GOT ONE WILDFLOWER KALEIDOSCOPE.

goodbye mister salinger

'You never saw anybody nod as much in your life as old Spencer did.'

salty thunder knows no sweetness

I do this

so that I won't become like this

though I'll miss them the day they are gone.

The current configuration of stars now known as the constellation of Orion roughly formed about 1.5 million years ago, as stars move relatively slowly from the perspective of Earth. Orion will remain recognisable in the night sky for the next 1 to 2 million years, making it one of the longest observable constellations, parallel to the rise of human civilization.

"What kind of nose?"

On the morrow Wat and the Dog Boy were the firmest of friends. Their common experiences of being stoned by a mob and then sacrificed by cannibals served as a bond and a topic of reminiscence, as they lay among the dogs at night, for the rest of their lives; and, by the morning, they had both pulled of the noses which Merlyn had so kindly given them. They explained that they had got used to having no noses, now, and anyway they preferred to live with the dogs.

p

The Sword in the Stone, T.H. White

My Grandmother

She kept an antique shop - or it kept her.
Among Apostle spoons and Bristol glass,
The faded silks, the heavy furniture,
She watched her own reflection in the brass
Salvers and silver bowls, as if to prove
Polish was all, there was no need of love.

And I remember how I once refused
To go out with her, since I was afraid.
It was perhaps a wish not to be used
Like antique objects. Though she never said
That she was hurt, I still could feel the guilt
Of that refusal, guessing how she felt.

Later, too frail to keep a shop, she put
All her best things in one narrow room.
The place smelt old, of things too long kept shut,
The smell of absences where shadows come
That can't be polished. There was nothing then
To give her own reflection back again.

And when she died I felt no grief at all,
Only the guilt of what I once refused.
I walked into her room among the tall
Sideboards and cupboards - things she never used
But needed; and no finger marks were there,
Only the new dust falling through the air.

Elizabeth Jennings

Pea-Trapping Moustaches

This time as the obsessive clingfilm feeling comes over me, I think of myself as an archaeologist. Very, very slowly unearthing treasures and making progress bit by bit. Using the brush to dust fossils gently. Taking days to restore an underground artefact. It helps in packing my whole room, and not get all dizzy and ganchiong. I even slow down my movements, and remember to breathe deeply (not at dusty areas though). Things I saw today- lynn's note from the end of secondary four on how she will miss her lamb, sushilla's comments for a lit essay, madame butterfly shoved into a box wrongly labelled XJ's Movies, my special pens! (one of them has a radar you can use to eavesdrop on conversations, the other has balls and a hoop for playing miniature basketball), endless paintings the kiddos did on saturday nights, sparkly old jewelly purse i never used, giam3 cai3 fading paper of Starlight that Harris did in class. I was feeling hopeless and wondering why I was keeping everything when I realised why. It's because when I grow old and am a granny I will go back to my childhood and my past and take out all the artefacts and things and put them all around the house, and examine them and look at them everyday. I will be surrounded by all my young things when I get old. Diary pages could line the toilet walls, old purses used, toys displayed, nonsensical paintings that now have no space to be anywhere hung. It would be marvellous, not sad. It wouldn't be to hopelessly nostalgically indulge in old memories, but to...live in another way. Anything can feel different if you change the way you think about it. And now on, I think I can deal with my sentimental habits in a healthy way.

But something my mother said scared me a little. She said that when I get to her age, even a room will not be enough to hold everything that I keep. And that is possibly true. But I think that is ok. I will have a room, all organised, for everything. The walls could all be painted funny colours, and with different areas of the room for different times of my life. It would be like walking into memories. The Room of Memories!