This Insurance Plan Isn’t For Those Who Believe in Fate.

“CompleteCover excludes theft, loss, and damage due to fire, intentional damage, acts of God or natural disasters, animals, pets or pests.”

Flat Tyre.

Rich People are Weird.

Wrong neighbourhood, sir.

We live around the corner from them. Our house is a modest two-storey terrace. This is our strange neighbour. I don’t know what he was thinking. This house doesn’t belong in this side of town. But they’ve inspired a few here and there to build balustrades and grecian columns that has absolutely no purpose to be there as a structural support.

It's been more than a year. Nobody wants you.

There’s always something dark and delicious about Jakarta: gilded opulence and depraved decadence you can’t even begin to imagine. Trust me.

It’s Never The Whole Truth.

I write what I want you to believe.

It’s not dishonest. Just an architecture of carefully curated facts.

Her Infinite Variety.

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety: other women cloy
The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry
Where most she satisfies

- Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra

Today is the perfect day for a Perfect Day.

I had a superfreakingfantastic hair day. It’s been surprisingly consistent this week. Could it be? Oh no it can’t be. But yes it must. There’s no other explanation left. In Zakster’s infamous words:

I’M TOTALLY FREAKING HOT.

At least my hair is.

I owe it all to Pantene Total Care, that Rp100,000 hair cut in Jakarta and a dollop of borrowed DMS Rizcreation Hairseries II Damaged Hair Rebuilder: Herbs Vegetarian Repair Complex from The Mother. The more words written on a bottle of conditioner, the more effective it is. To understand why hair is such a big deal, read this. You know you love it when you bask in my narcissism.

Instead of spending the day at the Kite Festival at West Coast, la mia famiglia hiked up to Chatsworth Hill and listened to a host of academics and politicians waffle on and on about state/nation building. I wasn’t impressed by the Democrat Party representative who were blatantly conflating his own ego, his party’s ego and the incumbent/president elect’s ego. Campaign season is over, sir. The academics after him were rather fiery. It was odd, honestly. It felt like being in a political rally and walking away I didn’t really learn anything new. This feels completely unnecessary.

Before I had the chance to step up and ask a question, the adzan sounded. I had my question scripted nicely in my notebook too. After prayers, I did manage to land myself at the table with the speakers at dinner. I must have made quite an impression when I boldly said I voted for JK.. and proceeded to tell him why. We swapped name cards. He’s the executive director of a political consultancy body in Inna. SCORE! See, i knew it was strategic to major in political science and marketing. That’s where the money is, provided we stay a democratic country.

And I swear, as I move about the room I felt a pair of eyes watching me. This isn’t paranoia. I know what it feels like being overlooked.

I guess it’s the hair. It’s totally freaking hot.

Speaking of hair and politics, your hairstyle could be a sensitive sociopolitical statement too.

Bai internets.

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.

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

Threads.

This is the delicate part.
They’d never tell you this.

Really, it’s all pretty simple.

it just vacillates between two strange halves

.

.

Hey, I can’t stop my feet,
Ebony and ivory and dancing in the street.
It’s true, the world is in a crazy, hazy hue.
I’m the moment between the striking and the fire.
-Emiliana Torrini, Me and Armini

.

and

I tell my love to wreck it all
My, my, my, my, my, my, my, my
Right in the moment this order’s tall
Pour a little salt we were never here
-Bon Iver, For Emma Forever Ago

.

.

.

I just wish you’d do something
before I get bored, and take up laundry as an actual hobby.

I wish I was kidding.

AWARE Saga Comes To A Close.

The AWARE Extraordinary General Meeting had the internets all a-twitter. Literally.

The event happened yesterday evening at Suntec Convention Centre drawing over 1800 people. I didn’t go since I couldn’t be arsed to find a willing partner.

“What’s Aware?”

“yeah we don’t need women’s rights. I mean hello, it’s Singapore”

actual quotes from girls I know. le sigh.

The primary reason for me to come would be to check out the cat fight, really. The parentals are out of town, if not we’d probably be there to support Braema. Overall it’s been a pretty unique little saga. I have a theory that the Media amplified the issue as a strategic distraction from the issue of Swine Flu. Nonetheless, it’s great that they’ve received such a scale of attention.

Instead Zaki and I followed the EOGM on twitter like the supermodern twerps that we are. #awaresg instantly became the hottest hashtag overnight. Sure you get 6-11 comments saying the exact same thing “zomg where did the new exco go” “did they leave the building?” It was particularly tense in the last few moments when the new exco disappear and did not resurface after the 15 minutes allocated at the end as they convened after facing a 1414-761 defeat. I was on the edge of my seat as I refreshed the screen. Finally, the old guard declared re-election. “Dana Lam is the new president” “Chew I-Jin is elected as the new VP”, tweeted the twits.

Woo! Well done, you!

All across the island, aunties run off to buy 4D tickets with the magical number: 1414.

Hypochondriac.

I’ve been waking up with really strange pains on my chest, as if it’s been beating too hard all night. There’s several instances when this usually occur:

a. I drank coffee
b. while writing a 5000 word  essay
c. that is due in the morning at 8:30am
d. which is 3 hours from now.

According to this, I’m dying.

Yeah, now I am pretty sure of it. I’m gonna die.

May First.

We do not make a lot of sense together.

“You have a jaw fetish? I’m sorry i can’t be friends with you anymore.”

“But that’s the thing baby, your lack of angles is what keeps our relationship platonic.”

“It’s 6:10″
“What time are we meeting them? 6:45?”
“6:15″
“Okay so do you wanna take a bus or walk to Cathay?”
“Walk”
we were a good 20-30 minutes walk away

“There’s something in the McFlurry tonight.”
“Yeah but there’s nothing in her cake. You’re just being yourself.”

“You guys are in love.”
“Always and forever”
“Well that’s it then, one of you have to switch gender“
“You do it, I’m too pretty”
“Okay“
“But you better make it dinner, not a snack“
“Why not just go for the whole buffet”
“All you can eat”
“Where is Jeremy at a time like this?”

“She’s a chubby chaser.”
“He’s pear shaped.”
“She likes big butts and she cannot lie.”

“When was the last time you saw each other?“
“Like Forever.”
“your Forever is a month?“
“Yes..“
“Then that makes summer three Forevers… Forever Forever Forever…. or forever cubed.“
“No, that’s Eternity”
“What’s anything longer than that?“
“Doom.”

“They’re like cherries.”
“No they’re apples”
“Cherries! Or cherry blossoms, you know”
“You’ve never seen a cherry blossom have you?”

“Shake it, shake it, shake it like a polaroid picture…. wouldn’t you be shaking your hands?”
“I think they meant you’d shake your butt.”
“So is the butt the polaroid in this case? Wouldn’t you need a hand to be shaking the butt then?”
“I think it’s the act of shaking the butt”
“So the butt is shaked… shook”
“shaken”
“not stirred”

“They should make Unemployeds: A reality tv series”
“They have sitcoms for that”

“Do you like him?”
“uh..How would you operationalize like?”
“in litres… 10 litres?
“or twenty?”
“out of what? What’s the maximum threshold?”
“Lake Michigan.”
“Why lake? Why not sea?
“That would be Infinite.
“Like Doom”

What I know for sure is that my love expands across 5/4 of Lake Michigan for you, Birthday Girl. Think Caspian Sea except much much much much less.

Ann wants bovine meat seared medium. So Crunch, Miss Blue Rosarch Tigress, The Original Miss Muffin, Bulbasaur, Paullimzhiway and myself convened together before each of us flies off or gets a job. We had a pretty nice dinner too.

Then off we strolled to Esplanade for the heck of it. In the end we caught half of Kagura & Taiko performance by the waterfront. It’s a Japanese dance and music performance by the Tenko Kagura & Taiko group, presenting stories from kojiki, The Records of Ancient Matters. Plump cheeks blushing red with sake, the emperor’s gold threads gleaming. Muscular sinews and ripples of vertebrae glistened in the amber light. The flautist was absolutely superb! He outshone them all. I think it must have been a family troupe. The youngest drummer was this tiny 10-year old little boy whose drum sticks are half the size of his tiny body.

We scavenged for dessert, filling up ourselves with giggly glucose.

Then scampered off to bed.

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

Overheard In Smoo: The Invention of Poseur Nets.

On staging The Eagle and The Cat:

“So the Eagle is hiting this net right and this net is going to be invisible lah so I tink we going to have a pretentious net”

“The net is going to have a personality?”

“No no the net is going to be invisible”

I think he meant that we’re going to have pretend nets.

Idiocracy

“Which continent is also a country?”

“Okay well there’s north america, south america, europe, asia, australia, africa…”

“And your answer?”

“Oh i don’t know.. because… hmm.. I mean.. north america is also a country.”

“It’s a first grade geography question”

“But sometimes it’s the hardest! I’ll take a pass.”

“What would your answer be?”

“I don’t know. Oh all of them!”

taken from an infamous American quiz show Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?

.

The correct answer is Australia.

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.

Focus.

i haz it.

BOOYAH. I am back! And on a roll, baby! Woohoooo!

photo courtesy of Laura Burlton Photography

Another Good Frozen Dairy by Pukka Ice Cream

Last night we went for a prata supper at Niqqi’s – just a good old prata purveyor at Kent Ridge Park. It’s situated downhill from NUS’s Faculty of Arts And Social Science. It’s been a long while. Their banana prata is sweet and good but we can’t help but notice that the prata skins are thinner. This makes their prata really soft and delicious but i felt like I just inhaled it all in one bite. Sweet and good but not very satisfying. Maybe it’s the economy. But for $3.00 a plate? It’s a little overpriced.

Dellicious image courtesy of arteurbana

Anyhow, this worked to our advantage since we had more than enough room for ice cream. Pukka was beckoning us with its bright pink kawaiiness. It’s a tiny ice cream parlour, barely a month old. The cutest thing is that it opens from 12noon to 2am. How on earth did they figure out that there are strange little children who might be wandering the streets at 1am looking for some frozen dairy?

Pukka is one of those ice cream stalls that allows you to design your own confection. You pick your ice cream and you pick your mix in and they chop it all up to make a delicious creamy concoction. Think Cold Stone Creamery. Cold Rock or Marvelous Creams (oh oh oh I should tell you about Marvelous Creams some day too).

A small cup is $2.50 and a large one is $4.00. The mix-ins cost 50 cents each. A small cup was enough to satisfy my curiosity but on any other day a large one is probably necessary. I picked cheesecake ice cream with an oreo. Mom thinks the flavours are a tad bit confusing. I liked it. The cheesecake ice cream was softly sweet, milky with a slight tang. The oreo provides a nice crunch. It tastes exactly like oreo cheesecake. My sister picked berry yummy ice cream with gummi bears mixed in. The guy behind the counter remarked how easy it was to remember our orders. Hers has strawberry bubble gum flavoured ice cream which tasted very bubblegummy. I’m not a big fan of gummi bears mixed in ice cream. They harden to this chewy ball in the cold which is too much of a contrast in the mouth.

Oh! They had Ribena ice cream too! And i thought how Nise would love itt…

It took a little while for them to serve our ice cream. It’s run by this pretty young lady and a sturdy young man called Ryan. I think it’s him. His namecard says he’s the “Guy-In-Charge”. We talked to him as we wait for our turn. There were four kids in front of us and they kept changing their orders. I wouldn’t be surprised though. They had so many different mix ins. I wouldn’t know what to choose!

A good mix would be something like:

• Cheesecake with pistachio and honey
• Ribena with this multicoloured cereal.
• Vanilla with strawberries and waffle chips.
• Chocolate with reese’s peanut butter cup

Like I said, they’re a month old so why not check them out and help them on their feet. I liked their ice cream and their parlour looked so cheerful. It’s been sooo long since my ice cream eating compadre and I ate anything. *coughcough* Kendrick where the hell are you?

OH right, directions!

Pukka Ice Cream
6 Clementi Road
#01-05
Singapore 129741

A Bird Called Feenix.

After months of hibernation, mother decides to brave the Orchard road crowd and make her way across town. From the inside of the bus, she glances at the row of buildings bedecked in Christmas candy canes and surveys the steel skeletons of unfinished shopping centers.

“Is that where the punik used to be?”

“The what?”

“Poo-nick.”

“Poo-nik? What’s poo-nick?”

“Don’t you remember? Oom Iif stayed in that hotel.”

Phoenix hotel! It’s feeeeeee-nix mom, a mythical bird with a habit of setting itself on fire. When its plumage and bones turns to ashes, it is reborn again in a little Feenix egg. I don’t know why it does what it does. Some say it makes them immortal. But pre and post combustion are they the same bird?

A city can change so much in a year. But everything’s the same.

Tick Tick Tick Boom.

I’m spending New Year’s Eve slicing up some leaves for dinner, sweeping the floor and doing laundry. I’m uncool, haven’t you figured that out? Though my night could rival that of Cinderella’s wildest night in, I’d rather have it like this than to wrestle some poor stranger at midnight for a precious taxi home to get away from some sweaty crowded place. The midnight hour doesn’t mean anything to me. So I’ll spend it the way I spend my nights: writing.

You see, my year is demarcated by the end and the beginning of summer holidays. It starts in May and ends in April, not December. The academic calendar is all that I know and soon enough it will cease to be important. Time is continuous and we pretend there are discrete marks that separates 365 days by means of temporary amnesia. We divide time by arbitrary increments to the millionth of a second.

image courtesy of Sherman Thomas

Does that mean anything to you?