Platonic.

I can’t do this.

Blind.

My friend set me up with a date on Monday, a blind date no less. He thinks I’m witty, even in 140 characters.

Being the shallow animal that I am, I had to ask:

“Is he cute?”

“His brain is cuter.”

Uh oh, oh no.
This could mean two things.
Either way, this should be pretty interesting.

For the sake of serendipity, I’m not going to google him!

I Cry Too.

It’s easier to say that I do not care than to tell you all the reasons why I do.

This week is the auditions round. I sit beside the panel of directors and writers. I’m not meant to be here. Yet I am here. I miss this, I thought. But maybe I don’t. There is a difference. Teeth no longer gnashing pens. Mouth no longer cupped around hands, hiding grimaces. The guys were decent. The girls were better. Frankly? I don’t have to care anymore.

When 1 + 1 doesn’t equal 2.

Remember my previous post about platonic friends?

Well, CASE CLOSED.  There, boy. You’re lower on the x axis and it’s mutual.  Now moving on to less bimbotic things…

The null set contains magical unicorns.

Always On The Wrong Ladder.

aaron
shes like i regret not giving u a chance..
and im here going
wha?
i duno weird f*
and i havnt talked to her for like a yr
hate women

me
hey
i am a woman
you do not hate me

aaron
u’re on my frens ladder

me
THAT DOESN’T MAKE ME A MAN.

This happens so often it does not surprise me anymore. heh.

but just in case you’re wondering, look up The Ladder Theory.

Who Knows You By Heart.

love after love – Derek Walcott

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

I miss your pretty ginger head.
Can’t wait to see your blonde locks.

Why I Am Single.

“You should count yourself lucky. Some parents want their kids to get married as soon as possible. They demand grandchildren from you. We won’t pressure you. If you get married that’s great. If you don’t, that’s okay.”

I’m committing this in writing just in case 10 years down the road you start setting me up with weird men you think will be good for me. I like kids a whole lot. I would not procreate without knowing that I have the mental capacity to feed and rear them well enough through their bratty childhood years, taking the best care not to psychologically damage them as adults. You’ve raised me well enough to be careful which means you’re going to have to wait

…. for a very long time.

Oh no, this isn’t a personal ad.
That is a personal ad.
This is a consolation.

You see, my parents unlike some parents believed that I should be dating as much as possible. Crazy huh? But on one condition: do not get into committed relationships too soon. While other parents worry about their children turning into slutty vixens, my parents never had that problem with me.

Let’s just say I’m a very late bloomer.

Still blooming in fact.

bloom bloom bloom

Cin(T)a

Dear gods of censorship at the Ministry of Indonesia,

Please let this movie pass. Allow us to have this discussion.

Love has got to be able to transcend these lines, right?

This is more than just love across racial lines. I need to know if love can transcend religions. There are love laws which compel and constrain whom we can and cannot love. It seems senseless when our alternative is to hate or to ignore.

But if kinship exists between citizens of different hue and of different faith, then does that not demand that love is possible and is permissible between two individuals who may call their God by different names?

Isn’t this what you’ve been trying to teach me all these years?
Isn’t this the core of what you preach?

Brotherhood.

.

I have to believe in this in order to believe in You.

Cin(T)a will be screened on 10 June 2009 in London.
Do catch it if you’re around.

or, let’s bring it here to Singaling! Are you in?

via Sutayasa

Terms of Endearment.

In the language of affection, we tend to call our significant others by other names. It’s part of baby talk I guess. The classics are:

“”baby” “babe” “honey” “sexy” “darling” “dear” “sweetheart” “cutie”

Tried and tested, they work. I used to be the kind to puke a little in my mouth but now I use it liberally for irony, affection and for a very useful function: I tend to forget the name of the person that I am talking to. A nickname hastily bestowed works just as well.

“babe, could you pass me that knife? I think he’s still breathing.”

Use it. People love it, girls and boys alike. They lap it up. You want to know my favourite?

Muffin.

It’s infectious. Though you may laugh at me, you secretly love it when i call you that.

It all started with Malin. Whenever I complain to him about Something, he’d shoot me an ironic “aww muffin” and I’d dissolve in a puddle.  So I’ve been using it for years now and it never fails to affect you. It’s catching on too. Try it. It’s more captivating than calling someone a cupcake, a donut, a biscuit or a cheesecake. I don’t know why.

Affix the word to masculine things:
studmuffin, gangster muffin, military muffin, criminal muffin.

And it works just as well
and you’re under my spell.

As a rule of thumb, anything smaller than a toaster can be used as a term of endearment.

Think cookie, not baguette.

Think buttercup or daisy, not rafflesia.

Think hummingbird, ladybug, wren or robin not stegosaurus or anteater or ostrich.

Generally tiny woodland animals, fruits and dessert work to great effect. Refrain from using amphibians and I recommend marsupials. Try to avoid names of electrical appliances. Calling someone a tool is hardly romantic no matter how accurate that metaphor might be. Mushroom and cabbage are hardly sexy, unless you say it in french (mon champignon! mon chou!). I’ll come up with more guidelines later.

Got it?

Good.

Wake Up And Smell That Nata De Coco

On Monday I woke up with this fantastic sense of power.

And I don’t want to forget it.

There are 19 things under the cut.

Laughing Out Loud.

Documenting a life is neither truthful nor deceitful.
We pick details for vultures, keeping the best parts hidden.
Life is worth the laughter though I often forget.
This is how I remember:

Life | Love | Music | Musings | Craft | You |
Jakarta

Growing Old With You

Two stories.

——————

They got married at 18. It was a marriage based on love. But he outlives her to his seventies. She was due to get her hearing aid on May 8th to ease the ringing in her ears. Since each machine is uniquely designed, it takes some time to make. In the quietest hour of the night, she could not take the ringing much longer. She slips out of bed, leaving  her husband to find her hung by the neck from the rafters in the morning. She’s cold at seventy and a little too soon.

…… for the second story, click >>

Strangers.

You know what’s the greatest thing about dating? By dating I mean an activity where you meet someone who has not known you for too long and too much to be considered incestuous. This isn’t friends-turned-to-lovers. The Greeks used to word Storge for that, a love that arises out of similarity and familiarity. This is different.

You’re meeting strangers: that’s the best part. The less they know about your past and your little biosphere, the better. It simplifies things. The weight of history can be condensed into bite-sized pieces – cleaned of the messy entrails – if requested. No real mutual friends to speak of. Nothing. as if you’re given a clean slate to start over.

It’s also like improvisation in theatre because it happens in real time. You construct your own persona with the bits that you have on hand and the image they want to see. Do it convincingly enough and you stop knowing when they’re real or putting up a show: thus, suspending disbelief. We all want to put on our best dress. We all want to be liked. We like to be liked.

Heist Rhymes with Tryst

It settles into the threads of my left purple shoulder,  lingers in my hair and the aftertaste in my mouth.

image by Laura Burlton

Does evidence cease to exist once cleansed with a little water and soap? Rainfall will wash away the coloured chalk dust etched on the pavements. A little scrub will loosen the dirt, now percolating through the pipes. Stains and scents swirling in silvery water…as though nothing out of the ordinary happened, no crime committed, nothing stolen.

Congratulations, baby.

At a young age of 14, I began my first pseudo-relationship with a boy.

He asked me out.

zomg! Guess who guess who!

No, wait.. scratch that, his friends asked me out and begged me not to break his heart while he ran around the yard with a ball because he was too embarassed and too awkward to do it himself. I knew it was coming of course because middle school rules tells you that an invite to ‘A Date’ will come at least a week in advance. His friend – a boy with blond hair whose name i forgot – made sure that his taunts and teases prepped me for the impending proposal.

Dessertstory

1. Their mango shaved ice in styrofoam cups tastes like sweet frozen mangoes: forgettable and predictable. The company however…

2. Brown hoodies are apparently not in season.

3. That CD Shop is pretty awesome.

4. The Girl in the Pink Container (who meets the Boy in the Big Blue Box) is going to be the next bestseller. I guarantee it.

Fooling Around.

April 1st.

AR says he broke his arm in the car park.  “April Fools!” he says.

So, inspired by his lameness I decided to ask him out as my Imaginary Boyfriend on Facebook with the permission that he gets to write cheesy love poetry on my wall. Our mission: to convince as many people as possible that we were in love. The result was pretty funny.

I am not big on Overt Public Displays of Affection so it was funny to hear someone call me baby in public. Embarassing, actually. I think my face was stuck in a permanent cringe. By 9pm the most reaction that I got was from D who knew about it and a family friend of ours. I have strange people on facebook. So let’s have a full relationship on crack from blossoms to bust so that we’ll break up by midnight. Twice the fun but half the agony… okay maybe half the fun since none of this is real. It was lame. This is what transpired:

A Giant Called Alabaster.

You still take my breath away. Soda lights etching crisp lines on your face. Greys softening the stark white of your skin. And the cellophane blue rising from your crown. Your spine nestling into the hills. Those shutters are nailed shut, save for a few spread open. I can see the hollow inside, dark but it hides no surprise. It’s as if there’s nothing there. Pretty as an eggshell.

What was the colour of your walls before they bleached it white? What stories lies in your marrow, now granite and glass?  Did someone leave their human stain on your floor? Are there bones buried in your hills? Is there a tiny grey girl floating on the tips of her toes at night? Do the bright lights scare her away? Where is the echo of a hundred thousand whispers hidden in your shadow dust? Have they swept that away with your memories? What happened to your history?

It’s silly to ask a giant to talk but I wonder what you’d say if you could speak. Your quiet majestic pride looms over unperturbed. All I’ m thankful for is this city’s penchant for large windows, wide enough for me to ignore the bricks slung over my shoulder, swaying to the rumbling of the bus engine.

You still take my breath away.

image courtesy of imChaudry

The Details I Keep.

Photo courtesy of Triskell

The part that I like the most is coming in at noon on the first day into the theatre. We call that a “bump-in”. The place is still and foreign. Walls bedecked in velvet red or austere black feels new despite the years etched unto its surface. Although I’m usually thirty minutes late than the appointed time, I’m always the first few. It’s still quiet and untouched. The stage is set and the lights people are fiddling with the levels and the colours. The air is cold, so cold that you almost mistake the smoke machine for your breath. The sharp edges of the room are still hidden in the dark. There’s always that unfamiliar fragrance, unique to each stage, that over the days to come will smell like home.

There, can you feel it? You can almost feel the electricity running through the air.

This is where the magic begins.

Said the Scriptwriter.

People have been asking me “what is this story about?”

This picture explains it all: this play is emo.

I wrote the script but I am not the storyteller. At least, I am not the only storyteller. A play is a collaboration of many and I merely supply the words. What you will see on stage may be something different than what I had written.

What is this story about to me?

This story is about faith. At this point, you’re backing away from the page or scrunching up your face in skepticism or puking your dinner…. simultaneously… because that’s what I would do.

“The Beautiful Journey”
I balk whenever I see it.

“The true story of Maria Monique”
It is fiction, not even factually accurate.

The characters are true insofar that they exist and live inside my head. I make no pretense that this story is anything beautiful or truthful. You decide that.

This story is about faith. It’s the verb not the noun: “to believe” not “a belief”

To me, faith is a function reserved for mortals: a capacity to believe that there is ‘tomorrow’. We would not have invented calendars & schedules without it. The concept of time would not exist if we didn’t believe that we’d still be alive tomorrow. Yet, no one has provided guarantees that tomorrow morning a bus will not smash our brain unto the tarmac. No one knows if you’ll be here tomorrow but we believe in it… or else well the economy won’t run!

Belief doesn’t have to lie in a god (if you’re monotheistic), three gods (if you’re more exotic) or none at all (if you’re a skeptic). All of these beliefs deserve the same respect because.. well… no one knows for sure if there is a higher power.. or rather.. we don’t really know which one of us is right, do we?

It’s the action not the object.

Belief exist in other places too: in ourselves. A belief that I am a decent writer worthy enough of an audience compels me to write this piece so that maybe you’ll be there with me.

Belief is also necessary in love. Ask someone who has ever been accused of not loving their significant other enough and is assigned the herculean task of proving it. Stuffed toys and roses is not sufficient – you just have to believe it’s there.

This story is really about uncertainty: the odds and unknowns. Isn’t that what life is made of? Faith is then a function for us to believe in love, in gravity, in ourselves, in our abilities, in a higher power or in medicine… whatever pleases you. This is because the only certainty we have is death.

So belief lies even in a small thing as inconspicuous as a heartbeat.

In A Heartbeat: this is what this story is about to me.