on the lane where i live, there is a grand tree that sheds pink flowers once in a long while

Did elves and fairies come out to play when no one was looking?

a magic forest walk

On the way to finding a shady spot for Kali outdoor training at Fort Canning Park, taken with a cheap old family film camera we got about ten years ago

Old friends, old friends. Sat on their park bench like bookends.

(Art Garfunkel recorded old people in various locations in New York and Los Angeles over a period of several months. These voices were taken from those tapes.)

Voices of Old People, from the album Bookends.

Man 1: I got little in this world. I give honesty without regret. One hundred dollars for that picture. I remember taking a picture with...

Woman 1: Ooh! Let me show you. Let me show you our picture. This was me and my husband when we were first married.

Woman 2: I always slept on one side, left room for my husband.

Woman 1: And that's me when we were sixteen.

Woman 2: But this, this, this, this is not the case. I still do it. I still lay on the half of the bed. (pause) We used to sneak in...

Man 2: Still haven't seen the doctor I was seein'; there's been blood for the last, eh, forty-eight hours, and I can't get up the mucus for the last, eh, two, three months... oh yes, and I maintain, I maintain strongly, to this minute, I don't think it's an ordinary cold.

Woman 3: God forgive me, but an old person without money is pathetic.

Woman 4: Children, and mothers, that's the way we have it. A mother-- they are--

Woman 5: 'Cause mothers do too much.

Woman 4: That is mother's life, to live for your child. (pause) Yes, my dear.

Man 3: I couldn't get younger. I have to be an old man. That's all. Well...

Woman 6: Are you happy here, honey? Are you happy living with us?

Man 3: So anytime I walk with Lou and... that's all.

Woman 6: Mr. Singer? Are you happy living with us here?

Woman 7: But we don't do that, dear.

Woman 6: But are you happy?

Woman 7: If you mean, if, if you could say, yes, and I thought, and I was so happy, and everybody, "What is this? What is it?"

Woman 8: It just is, beautiful. Like, just a room. Your own room, in your own home.



Can you imagine us years from today,
sharing a park bench quietly?
How terribly strange to be seventy.

'Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.'

-The White Queen, Alice Through the Looking-Glass

You know how you listen to your favourite music and singers for so long and it becomes less special than it once was, and then one day you find yourself rediscovering them again? I can't count how many times i've rediscovered the beatles. The Anthology is one big heavy book in my bedside drawer, for sleepless nights, just in case, and they will be there. But mostly to read before sleeping. Beatles dreams. Tee hee.

Today I was supposed to meet Elfie for dinner, and was walking to meet him, and dreaming of fish and chips for dinner, and before that I had told him that we might have to cancel if news crops up at the last moment and I have to go take photos- and happen it did. I went to a convention hall where people and followers of an Indian woman were seated and listening to her. It was the closest thing to a hippie convention that I've been to. I spoke to an Irish woman who is following the Indian woman around on her travels. She (the irish woman with silvery and gray hair and specs that magnified her blue eyes) wore a soft white sari and her breath smelt of the sweetest herbs. Or was it her hair which was close to her breath?

I'm off tomorrow and looking forward to the morning sunshine, slow breakfast, repairing my watch, collecting photos developed from film (a few which might've been exposed and ruined because I opened the compartment), my sister's birthday, Kali class. There's nothing like the shen2 mi4 gan3 (as the shop auntie says) of using film to take photos and waiting for it to be developed, especially after I take hundreds of shots a day at work. Nothing beats taking one precious shot and waiting to see the photograph on a summer afternoon.

13 hearts autumn

Life at the New Job has been challenging. And everyday I find myself somewhere absurd, like outside a factory in an industrial estate as it is raining, or all alone at some part of the turf club, or at a super ulu country club literally at the end of Singapore, or with someone I've seen on television growing up, calling me ke ai because I asked him to do kicks for the photoshoot. I LIKE THIS ABSURDITY. My heavy backpack sometimes cuts off circulation to my arms, now I know what NS boys feel like on long marches.

p

Little things that make me happy:

My father helping me carry my bag from the car to the house

My uncle doing the same <:-)

My grandmother steaming broccoli for me. Smells like farts but has pure natural sweetness.

Having dinner with my family at the end of the work day

Snuggling in bed to read a bedtime story

p

They (cousins, sister, grandmother, auntie) went for Disney on Ice today. I called Little Gingercat up about it, and she said the little mermaid segment wasn't much though my sister said they did tell the story of Ariel and sing songs. But here's what Gingercat said: "they just...ski about and make some noise and then happily ever after."

sea blanket

Have a magical Friday the 13th <*:-)

Alone Again, Naturally

Ever heard the song? I love this song. My father has liked it since he was in jc (three decades ago) but that day I asked him the lyrics and he had no idea, he liked the tune. When I first heard it I thought it was John Lennon singing, but it was Gilbert O'Sullivan. Alone Again, Naturally album covers:

Dark Friday

Drying Records

Records can actually be washed in the sink or tub with soap and scrubbed gently in the direction of the grooves, then towel-dried (though this bit sounds dangerous, what if the little soft worms of the towel cause scratches?) and perhaps hung to dry, if anyone finds a way to.

to friday the 13th, a fizzy day

Empty Park,

for Christy the Salem witch.

a red fire-lantern carrying a wish floats up into the cloudy night sky!

Here's what my cousin told me. Her father was lecturing her, her younger brother and sister on their bad mandarin and telling them to speak more mandarin because that is our culture. She says his metaphors confuse them terribly.

Father: 我们华人像狗，洋人像猫。我们不应该像猫meow meow.
Younger brother: Then 鸟 leh?
Father: 我们是雨，不应该学鸟飞。
Younger sister: 可是雨不可以飞。

Younger sister doing homework: Papa, 怎么说 ‘Eraser to the rescue’?
Father: Mmm…橡皮英雄来了。。。可是你说，‘我有橡皮’就可以了。

a time of innocence, a time of confidences

"Silly Billy, Lemon Squeezey"

But I'll see you in the sky above, and the tall grass, and the ones I love

I just counted my hongbao money and wondered in how many years I might possibly be giving hongbaos to my cousins? Far-flung as the thought is. And then proceed to play with them like I wasn't grown up, and not make any small talk with the adults who visit. The best chinese new year goodies this year are the cashew nuts my grandmother fried and sunned and salted slightly, very useful for times of boredom and to provide some little entertainment to relatives (who are bored anyway) by practising throw and catch-in-mouth, but only in my own house.

p

Oh yes, my friend and I are leaving our internship jobs; no more hot long sleepy-geylang 15-minute walk to work, which was incidentally my favourite part. And I shall miss the flowery musky smell of the pink toilet at the end of the enclosed small corridor, my five-minute refuge. Hurray to new chances and jobs whatever they might be!!!!

p

Is it unhealthy that I've been listening to largely the same music for the past four to six years? Like many people I listen to music while doing daily-life things- lying on my bed, drawing, on the train, painting, writing letters, sewing, emailing, in other words live on it somewhat. And all this music makes up a big part of anyone's inside world, which means my 'inside world' (l'intérieur monde) has been influenced by the same musical landscape for some time, and what if it stays that way till I am an armchaired granny?! The music is mostly old songs, and I can usually tell if I am in a Beatles or Bob Dylan mood, but it is very puzzling not to know what mood you are in. I haven't been in a The-Who mood for more than a year. Isn't it funny, measuring your mood by what you feel like listening to?? Do you guys do that sometimes? If you do, let's play a game, and tell me now exactly what mood you are in and what are the first lyrics you think of when you close your eyes, and last night's dream if you had any :-)

In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer

'Au milieu de l'hiver, j'ai decouvert en moi un invincible été'

-Albert Camus

Comment ca va, mes amies? Un jour, si j'avais un maison, vous devez aller chez moi et je cuisinerai un tres delicieux repas pour vous. Surtout des champignons et des courgettes.

he's been so sad, since you said his accent was bad

TGIF

(a poem written in the depths of The Pain Of Waiting For Friday Lunchtime)

Thin tortoise in a leotard
And light rose-pink stockings
Prancing and twirling
Breathing and farting
I mean, whizzpopping
Pardon my manners
I haven’t got them
And the distilled water
Is it better than mineral water
Because I like milk
But not more than Napoleon Dynamite
My friend got uggs
Bet they’re goody snugs
She is across the peppermint sea
Darjeeling tea
Me staring at the screen
Thinking of sad circus
Pierrot and a tear
Blossoming lights
and cinnamon kisses
Lego parts face me
Office no faze me
Thank God It's Friday
Kites are flying, my day

days of wine and roses

Fall is here, hear the yell, back to school, ring the bell. Brand new shoes, walkin blues, climb the fence, books and pens, I can tell that we are gonna be friends, I can tell that we are gonna be friends.

part 3, pemberton

it and its friends had a tuft of shimmery blue-green-purple feathers tucked under the brown ones, which shine when it flies, which is seldom, as this is a lazy duck who paddles here and there nearly always

Elvis' house guest

(Since my baby left me, I've found a new place to dwell, it's on the end of lonely street, Heartbreak Hotel)

firewood collector

they live in the Hidden Valley there


Darcy, the goodest dog I ever did see, who is now across the seas. We stayed on an estate in Pemberton with Darcy's owners.

<*:-)

part 2, wildflowers

my nature days part 1

From our balcony in the fremantle apartment. There were boats with names like meerkat, cloudy bay, sundancer, bronzewing.

From the living room of our house in Margaret River, a purple house among a few others in colourful Australian bush. It makes you feel like you could go trekking for hours starting from your backyard.

Fishing in the Indian Ocean

Lonely Seagull No. 1

Our laundry hanging out under the stars, which were MARVELLOUSLY BRIGHT

danny

My father put a match to the wick of the lamp hanging from the ceiling and the little yellow flame sprang up and filled the inside of the caravan with pale light. "How about a hot drink?" he said.

"Yes, please."

He lit the praffin burner and put the kettle on to boil.

"I have decided something," he said. "I am going to let you in on the deepest darkest secret of my whole life."

-Danny the Champion of the World, Roald Dahl