it's louder once it's written.

Deviled Eggs

2011-10-25T10:45:00.002+08:00

A friend who's become an intern expat asked for this recipe. It's available everywhere online, but she liked mine:D

It's cheap, filling, easy to make & clean up after.
Takes 1 hour, max, and the only fresh ingredient you need is eggs, and even then, eggs up to one week old will work better here than fresh ones.

Even if you're in some backpacker inn, the kitchen would usually have all the ingredients. It's just eggs, mayo, salt and pepper. If you're invited to a potluck, it only takes a little more effort to make it fancy enough to share too.Too easy, man.

...wow, it's gonna be embarrassing to bring this to picnics with her next time.

Deviled Eggs Recipe

Ingredients:
Eggs (The older, the better)
Mayo (Kewpie preferable)
Spices (Optional)
Sneaky vegetable (Optional. Try diced onions, celery or carrots)

Use older eggs if possible, and take them out of the fridge half hour before cooking.

You only need 2-3cm of water in ur saucepan. Bring to boil.

At this point, the fast way: let it boil for 3 mins, then turn the heat waaaay down and simmer for 15 mins. the slow way, with better texture: after it boils, immediately turn the heat off, take the pot off the stove. Let it rest with the cover on for 30 mins, and the residual heat will slow cook them.

So the eggs are dead, hurray! Now, you dissect.

Put the whole pot under running water for a little while, until you can hold the eggs without grave insult to your fingers. Tap them lightly on the counter, turning the egg as you do, so that you've cracked it evenly all round, then peel. Try gently rolling them between your hands to loosen the shells from the eggs.

Don't waste time with a knife, use a bit of string to cut the eggs into half, lengthwise.

You wind the CLEAN string once around the egg, exactly where you want the cut to be. Overlap the strings a couple of cm, and then with one hand grasp the dead chicken embryo and one end of the string, and in the other hand pull gently, but firmly. No tugs. Viola, bisected egg! Once you get the hang of this, it's quicker than a knife and you toss the string after. Less washing up to do, instant fan here.

Now, scoop out all the fluffy yolk into a mixing bowl.

Put in a pinch of any spices you like here, the basic recipe calls for pepper & salt, and tumeric too if you like. Mash it up. I add raw diced onion at this stage too.

Now, for the only other major ingredient, mayo. Use the jap brand, kewpie, and your eggs will taste more atas/sinful. Rule of thumb, it's about 1 teaspoon of mayo per egg yolk, but slowly mix in mayo a little at a time until the texture is right. You're aiming for not fluffy-dry but not runny (should still stand in a mound easily).

Taste test! Yum, maybe a little strong? Perfect, the egg whites will set this off nicely.

Spoon this mixture into the egg white hollows. You should have enough that they brim over, it looks more decadent that way too, so don't worry.

Garnish if you're feeling fancy. refridgerate for 30 mins before makan if you can. It makes the taste stronger.

Other stuff you can add: apple cider vinegar, nutmeg, rosemary, paisley, sesame seeds or chopped nuts. basically, anything that tastes great with savory stuff! Have fun with it :)

in which the argument is voided by missing the Earthly Plane, TR 2154.

2011-05-07T11:45:00.004+08:00

argh my god, i was going mad.
and caring, that was new. adjusting to that is... progressing. sort of. not really. i know, shut up.

and now i'm nervous too.

i have 4.25 hours to finish a brief for work, pack for my trip, vote (for change!), run errands for my trip, get to the airport, and, erm, have one last turn at Green Dragon. hahhahhaa.

shit, what's the size limit for carry-on backpacks again?

there isn't much time left for anything else in between, and i shouldn't be here.

but.

i'm nervous enough not to be able to find a funny thing to compare this nervous energy to. oh my bullet-ridden rabbits in a row, i can't find a funny thing to say about this! it's jitters. it's nails held at a gentle angle, but still ever so frightfully sharp. it's payback for the time i spent AWOL from life, so turn up the intensity to 11 please, mister sandman.

hi, milky ways, 2nd-hand amulets, soft terry towels and andaman sea? it's me again.
can we strike some sort of bargain here?

i'm clever enough, when i've got my wits about me. i bitch and whine about shit i have to do, but my eyes are clear, i can see these things i have to do.

i'm not helpless here. my brainbox beats a dope tune, you know? the thumping thing in my chestbox, yeah it's a little rusty. okay, fine, a lot rusty. fine, fine, fine... certain chambers are practically fresh out of the factory. see? clear eyes. not naive, not helpless.

i'm morbid enough too, that i can be with strange times, borderline unacceptable folks and odd dimes. i can smell it, and embrace it, and just like with a cat i'm slightly allergic to, i know it for what it is. i don't confuse it with Things of the Earthly Plane. i know, this is somewhat unconventional, mighty quick, but there isn't any terrible mischief afoot here. to the best of my judgment, actually, it IS pretty conventional for Folks of the Earthly Plane, and it's only new to me, lady slowpoke.

i'm enough of a stone cold bitch as well that i can stop things moving forward better than a melodramatic heart attack. Korean TV dramas need more bitches, less cancer to move plots forward. just what the doctor ordered! sorry, back from the tangent. yes, stone cold bitch am i. and it's not just bravado, i've done it before.

what all this self-praise (snort) means is,
i'm rather defensively displaying my ability to handle this without you (how can a towel help here? useful when i need to sit on mud, but some critical reasoning skills seems lacking ah.) but i'd like to think the Universe, expressed around me right now as stardust made into ordinary objects, is listening. and will help me help myself.
i'm terrified, ok?

because i can't keep flinching back from this part of life. i'm no scaredy cat. show me my fears, and i try my best to face it. i try to always do the things that scare me. but man, this is more terrifying than the idea of deepwater soloing a 7a route!
(youtube: deepwater solo. is pretty epic non, mon petit?)

wait. not a fair metaphor there, i have a belay here.

maybe instead, i'd deep water solo a 5c this Sunday!
this is not a metaphor anymore, i'm really actually gonna climb a deep water solo in Krabi, and it's SCARY too!!!

postscribe,
me: "how'd you get so sure? i'm freaking out all over the place."
BN: "you smell right."

The Archers

2011-01-04T00:46:00.002+08:00

The Archers was a production company formed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger that made films such as The Red Shoes and Black Narcissus in the 1940s and 1950s. They sent a manifesto of their company to Deborah Kerr with five points explaining the pair's intentions.

The Archers' Manifesto:

We owe allegiance to nobody except the financial interests which provide our money; and, to them, the sole responsibility of ensuring them a profit, not a loss.
Every single foot in our films is our own responsibility and nobody else’s. We refuse to be guided or coerced by any influence but our own judgement.
When we start work on a new idea we must be a year ahead, not only of our competitors, but also of the times. A real film, from idea to universal release, takes a year. Or more.
No artist believes in escapism. And we secretly believe that no audience does. We have proved, at any rate, that they will pay to see the truth, for other reasons than her nakedness.
At any time, and particularly at the present, the self respect of all collaborators, from star to prop-man, is sustained, or diminished, by the theme and purpose of the film they are working on.

i figure, what's the harm right.

2010-10-19T22:22:00.002+08:00

woo-wooo-wooooo. woo-woo-woooooooooo.

2010-08-26T17:58:00.003+08:00

PFFT. some people will believe anything. I mean, obviously the CIA weren't imaginative enough to make up dinosaurs. Besides that, one major flaw with that argument, how would The Doctor exist without time travel?

QED lor.

i miss my blue sister, so wide and welcoming and mad.

2010-08-16T02:55:00.004+08:00

i miss the Andaman sea.

it's been an odd sort of year. a lot of it seems to have happened inside my mind. probably should have chronicled it better. ah well.

i've been sketching things lately. they kinda look like storyboards. or comics.

maybe that's where the words have been running off to.

i should care more, but it's a sunday night, and the mean reds are laying in wait for tomorrow.
good night, universe. keep doing that thing you do so well. especially the existing part, it's my favourite.

my ego just level'd up!

2010-08-03T22:29:00.005+08:00

look what i just discovered!
My favourite long jog-walk-curse route is 9.17KM! (That is super long for me, in case you're wondering how to react.)

Granted, I walk a fair bit in the middle to recover. Mapmyrun.com wins my whee because it's SO gratifying to finally realise that I shouldn't be cheesed off when I start flagging on the turn around Fort Canning. Look, it's already 2++KM in! Besides, if I pushed past that bit, I get a second wind around UE Square.

Strangely enough, I used to hit my groove at the 1.5km and 3km mark too, back when I was running up to 9 times a week. This favourite route I just mapped however, I probably only pound once a month, give or take a month. hehehe.

No, I didn't map my run so that I can procrastinate actually putting my shoes on until it gets too late to run at all, what do you think I am, a loser who flags around 2++KM?

SNORT. Now, about that yellow ribbon run...

Seriously,

2010-05-03T05:03:00.004+08:00

3 dates marked on the calendar.
I am terrified.

May I show you something personally embarrassing?

2010-04-28T16:59:00.003+08:00

Harlan Ellison -- Speculative Fiction writer who has more Nebulas, Hugos & Edgars Awards than you can build a table of useful height with.

Right where he starts flapping his arms, I felt my ears flush red and like I should apologise. A lot. Except he looks like he might make fun of my snivelling too. And oh, it will be funny.

Make of it what you will.

2010-04-28T16:37:00.001+08:00

To create this "Death self," the two performers devised a piece in which they connected their mouths and took in each other's exhaled breaths until they had used up all of the available oxygen. Seventeen minutes after the beginning of the performance they both fell to the floor unconscious, their lungs having filled with carbon dioxide. This personal piece explored the idea of an individual's ability to absorb the life of another person, exchanging and destroying it.

- Marina Abramović & Ulay
A description of one of the projects they did together in the 70s

And the world has no need of the songs that we sang.

2010-04-26T19:11:00.006+08:00

Essential reading for everyone.

And especially, I think, if you are in any way a creator or lover of art, although it is more specific to music. It's long, but Don't Panic. It's like Stephen King books, very painful dropped on your feet, but so compelling that it isn't hard to read it through at all.

Before you read this, go here and play this behind it. Free soundtrack to tears, and you don't even have to be American this time!

It will make sense (and be name-checked) about a third of the way in, I promise.

Why Music Matters
Karl Paulnack, Director, Music Division
The Boston Conservatory

Dr. Karl Paulnack’s Welcome Address to parents of incoming students, September 2004

“One of my parents’ deepest fears, I suspect, is that society would not properly value me as a musician… I had very good grades in high school, I was good in science and math, and they imagined that as a doctor or a research chemist or an engineer, I might be more appreciated… I still remember my mother’s remark when I announced my decision to apply to music school. She said, “You’re wasting your SAT scores!” On some level, I think, my parents were not sure themselves what the value of music was, what its purpose was. And they loved music: they listened to classical music all the time. They just weren’t really clear about its function. So let me talk about that a little bit, because we live in a society that puts music in the “arts and entertainment” section of the newspaper, and serious music, the kind your kids are about to engage in, has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with entertainment, in fact it’s the opposite… Let me talk a little bit about music, and how it works.

One of the first cultures to articulate how music really works were the ancient Greeks. And this is going to fascinate you: the Greeks said that music and astronomy were two sides of the same coin. Astronomy was seen as the study of relationships between observable, permanent, external objects, and music was seen as the study of relationships between invisible, internal, hidden objects. Music has a way of finding the big, invisible moving pieces inside our hearts and souls and helping us figure out the position of things inside us. Let me give you some examples of how this works.

One of the most profound musical compositions of all time is the Quartet for the End of Time written by French composer Olivier Messiaen in 1940. Messiaen was 31 years old when France entered the war against Nazi Germany. He was captured by the Germans in June of 1940 and imprisoned in a prisoner-of-war camp.

He was fortunate to find a sympathetic prison guard who gave him paper and a place to compose, and fortunate to have musician colleagues in the camp, a cellist, a violinist, and a clarinetist. Messiaen wrote his quartet with these specific players in mind. It was performed in January 1941 for four thousand prisoners and guards in the prison camp. Today it is one of the most famous masterworks in the repertoire.

Given what we have since learned about life in the Nazi camps, why would anyone in his right mind waste time and energy writing or playing music? There was barely enough energy on a good day to find food and water, to avoid a beating, to stay warm, to escape torture — why would anyone bother with music? And yet even from the concentration camps we have poetry, we have music, we have visual art; it wasn’t just this one fanatic Messiaen; many, many people created art. Why? Well, in a place where people are only focused on survival, on the bare necessities, the obvious conclusion is that art must be, somehow, essential for life. The camps were without money, without hope, without commerce, without recreation, without basic respect, but they were not without art. Art is part of survival; art is part of the human spirit, an unquenchable expression of who we are. Art is one of the ways in which we say, “I am alive, and my life has meaning.”

In September of 2001 I was a resident of Manhattan. On the morning of September 12, 2001 I reached a new understanding of my art and its relationship to the world. I sat down at the piano that morning at 10 AM to practice as was my daily routine; I did it by force of habit, without thinking about it. I lifted the cover on the keyboard, and opened my music, and put my hands on the keys and took my hands off the keys. And I sat there and thought, does this even matter? Isn’t this completely irrelevant? Playing the piano right now, given what happened in this city yesterday, seems silly, absurd, irreverent, pointless. Why am I here? What place has a musician in this moment in time? Who needs a piano player right now? I was completely lost.

And then I, along with the rest of New York, went through the journey of getting through that week. I did not play the piano that day, in fact I contemplated briefly whether I would ever want to play the piano again. And then I observed how we got through the day.

At least in my neighborhood, we didn’t shoot hoops or play Scrabble. We didn’t play cards to pass the time, we didn’t watch TV, we didn’t shop, we most certainly did not go to the mall. The first organized activity that I saw in New York, on the very evening of September 11th, was singing. People sang. People sang around fire houses, people sang “We Shall Overcome.” Lots of people sang “America the Beautiful.” The first organized public event that I remember was the Brahms Requiem, later that week, at Lincoln Center, with the New York Philharmonic. The first organized public expression of grief, our first communal response to that historic event, was a concert. That was the beginning of a sense that life might go on. The US Military secured the airspace, but recovery was led by the arts, and by music in particular, that very night.

From these two experiences, I have come to understand that music is not part of “arts and entertainment” as the newspaper section would have us believe. It’s not a luxury, a lavish thing that we fund from leftovers of our budgets, not a plaything or an amusement or a pastime. Music is a basic need of human survival. Music is one of the ways we make sense of our lives, one of the ways in which we express feelings when we have no words, a way for us to understand things with our hearts when we can’t with our minds.

Some of you may know Samuel Barber’s heart wrenchingly beautiful piece “Adagio for Strings.” If you don’t know it by that name, then some of you may know it as the background music which accompanied the Oliver Stone movie “Platoon,” a film about the Vietnam War. If you know that piece of music either way, you know it has the ability to crack your heart open like a walnut; it can make you cry over sadness you didn’t know you had. Music can slip beneath our conscious reality to get at what’s really going on inside us the way a good therapist does.

Very few of you have ever been to a wedding where there was absolutely no music. There might have been only a little music, there might have been some really bad music, but with few exceptions there is some music. And something very predictable happens at weddings-people get all pent up with all kinds of emotions, and then there’s some musical moment where the action of the wedding stops and someone sings or plays the flute or something. And even if the music is lame, even if the quality isn’t good, predictably 30 or 40 percent of the people who are going to cry at a wedding cry a couple of moments after the music starts. Why? The Greeks. Music allows us to move around those big invisible pieces of ourselves and rearrange our insides so that we can express what we feel even when we can’t talk about it. Can you imagine watching Indiana Jones or Superman or Star Wars with the dialogue but no music? What is it about the music swelling up at just the right moment in ET so that all the softies in the audience start crying at exactly the same moment? I guarantee you if you showed the movie with the music stripped out, it wouldn’t happen that way. The Greeks. Music is the understanding of the relationship between invisible internal objects.

I’ll give you one more example. The most important concert of my entire life took place in a nursing home in a small Mid-western town a few years ago.

I was playing with a very dear friend of mine who is a violinist. We began, as we often do, with Aaron Copland’s Sonata, which was written during World War II and dedicated to a young friend of Copland’s, a young pilot who was shot down during the war. Now we often talk to our audiences about the pieces we are going to play rather than providing them with written program notes. But in this case, because we began the concert with this piece, we decided to talk about the piece later in the program and to just come out and play the music without explanation.

Midway through the piece, an elderly man seated in a wheelchair near the front of the concert hall began to weep. This man, whom I later met, was clearly a soldier. Even in his 70’s it was clear from his buzz-cut hair, square jaw and general demeanor that he had spent a good deal of his life in the military. I thought it a little bit odd that someone would be moved to tears by that particular movement of that particular piece, but it wasn’t the first time I’ve heard crying in a concert and we went on with the concert and finished the piece.

When we came out to play the next piece on the program, we decided to talk about both the first and second pieces, and we described the circumstances in which the Copland was written and mentioned its dedication to a downed pilot. The man in the front of the audience became so disturbed that he had to leave the auditorium. I honestly figured that we would not see him again, but he did come backstage afterwards, tears and all, to explain himself.

What he told us was this: “During World War II I was a pilot, and I was in an aerial combat situation where one of my team’s planes was hit. I watched my friend bail out, and watched his parachute open, but the Japanese planes which had engaged us returned and machine gunned across the parachute cords so as to separate the parachute from the pilot, and I watched my friend drop away into the ocean, realizing that he was lost. I have not thought about this for many years, but during that first piece of music you played, this memory returned to me so vividly that it was as though I was reliving it. I didn’t understand why this was happening, why now, but then when you came out to explain that this piece of music was written to commemorate a lost pilot, it was a little more than I could handle. How does the music do that? How did it find those feelings and those memories in me?”

Remember the Greeks: music is the study of invisible relationships between internal objects. The concert in the nursing home was the most important work I have ever done. For me to play for this old soldier and help him connect, somehow, with Aaron Copland, and to connect their memories of their lost friends, to help him remember and mourn his friend, this is my work. This is why music matters.

The responsibility I will charge your sons and daughters with is this: “If we were a medical school, and you were here as a med student practicing appendectomies, you’d take your work very seriously because you would imagine that some night at 2 AM someone is going to waltz into your emergency room and you’re going to have to save their life. Well, my friends, someday at 8 PM someone is going to walk into your concert hall and bring you a mind that is confused, a heart that is overwhelmed, a soul that is weary. Whether they go out whole again will depend partly on how well you do your craft.

“You’re not here to become an entertainer, and you don’t have to sell yourself. The truth is you don’t have anything to sell; being a musician isn’t about dispensing a product, like selling used cars. I’m not an entertainer; I’m a lot closer to a paramedic, a firefighter, a rescue worker. You’re here to become a sort of therapist for the human soul, a spiritual version of a chiropractor, physical therapist, someone who works with our insides to see if they get things to line up, to see if we can come into harmony with ourselves and be healthy and happy and well.

“Frankly, ladies and gentlemen, I expect you not only to master music, I expect you to save the planet. If there is a future wave of wellness on this planet, of harmony, of peace, of an end to war, of mutual understanding, of equality, of fairness, I don’t expect it will come from a government, a military force or a corporation. I no longer even expect it to come from the religions of the world, which together seem to have brought us as much war as they have peace. If there is a future of peace for humankind, if there is to be an understanding of how these invisible, internal things should fit together, I expect it will come from the artists, because that’s what we do. As in the concentration camp and the evening of 9/11, the artists are the ones who might be able to help us with our internal, invisible lives.”

Buttons.

2010-04-25T04:38:00.001+08:00

This creepy man makes me puppy-dog eager to skip the bullshit experiments and just get on with being 49 and like this.

Brat bound to the coasts & swimming pools.

2010-04-23T14:50:00.002+08:00

Some days i hate my own guts.

Hate the body I was born in, the choices I have made, the constant procrastination, the paralysing ambivalence, the dude that my mother wishes was a daughter.

There's a sweet spot of balancing sugar and spice and everything nice I can't hit because I don't fucking want to. I can dial back 9 months and decide I hate the cute colleague who always made sure I remembered I was sitting down in a skirt, not pants. It's like handing back my baby to the stock and plonking down a crocodile in the crib.

I'm pissed off I didn't inherit enough money to buy out NASA, so now I can't have the moons and the stars by stomping my foot. I resent having to commit a full hand before seeing a pay-off in 2-5 years, if I'm lucky. I resent the small freedom I have to choose what to do, when spectrums of options are closed to me. I don't want to see anyone at all, or explain how uneasy I am or have another wikipedia-trained psychoanalyst try to sort me out, and I especially just want to rot in peace alone, so stop fucking calling me all the time, nice friends! I'm sick of standing around feeling like an idiot, and I don't want witnesses, thank you very much, wankers.

Then, on enough of those some days, I can shake it off.

Whoa, wow, what the hell, M? Fuck - that's enough - obviously Erica Jong and Ben and Jerry are an unholy threesome. Fucking middle-class, feminine angst you never knew you had until you unearth it when digging for that sugary vein of fudge brownie. Wah lau, total respectable nineteenth century Viennese woman, you know?

dog days are over.

2010-03-22T22:12:00.004+08:00

Florence and the Machine "DOG DAYS ARE OVER" Music Video from LEGS MEDIA on Vimeo.

lately, i only want to listen to songs with this urgent quality in them.

Something salaah somewhere.

2010-03-15T23:56:00.008+08:00

I went to the private home of a pastor recently, to witness the baptism of a friend.

It was an earnest, cosy affair in that middle class way, a gathering of singalongs, serene faces and tearful testimonials. There was an amp in the corner for the microphones and acoustic guitar, a costly little buffet on the dining.

I was only uncomfortable enough to make very few, very private infidel jokes to ease the outsider's itch for my fellow non-christian buddy and I. Sure, being surrounded by religion was not the favourite way we sorry free-thinkers would choose to spend a Sunday afternoon. But we are good friends, and Singaporean enough to have thick skins about trespassing religious ceremonies when invited to. What raised our eyebrows was the luxurious, large home of a man whose vocation demands modesty and sets examples.

See, the guests belonged to a small church without the facilities for the baptism, so the pastor hosted them in his home.

It begun to drizzle as we arrived, hurrying over a wide water feature to enter the bungalow. The living room had sliding glass doors for walls. They displayed the backyard, and the water feature that had followed us from the front door. Its passage surrounds much of the building; it was a modern-day, partial moot.

We teased that the water feature was where the baptisms will happen, since, aside from the largeness of the feature, the witnesses could be seated comfortably while the girls were dipped for the ceremony right on the edge of the marbled living room floor.

At one point during the preliminary prayers, the guests, following some unseen cue, closed their eyes and tilted their faces to the ceiling. Some raised their arms, as if to embrace it. I watched as an elderly lady with a shock of bone-white hair and a surprisingly crease-less face swayed lovingly, no worrylines on her brow and slack-jawed. A pair of little ones next to her stared in their solemn child's way at the pastor's hand resting on my friend's lowered head.

A lady standing next to me turned to my curious gaze, and her mismatched eyes twinkled engagingly at mine. She didn't smile, but turned back to the ceremony and raised her arm, palm outwards to face my friend. She looked just like Yoko Ono. The rain clouds got serious about their work. The pastor used the symbolism offered so freely.

The baptism itself was uneventful. They stood chest-deep in the pastor's swimming pool, he asks my friend one last question, has her hold her nose in one hand and fold the other across her chest, and dips her backwards quickly. She emerged, with a smile and splutter for the cameras and applauding crowd.

Leaving, we found that our little remark before had been unoriginal, repeated by many other guests upon entering that vast space. The pastor himself laughed off these needling comments graciously.

"He used to be a stockbroker before finding his place with the Lord," someone said.

He stood waving us off in his foyer, dressed in shorts and a Giordano T-shirt, both in the muted, dark serviceable colours of a working class man. Only the ironed crease down the front of his shorts did not contradict his home.

sunnah somewhere.

2010-02-16T03:33:00.003+08:00

in some cultures it must be considered polite to inform people when you have fantasised about them. probably anonymously. won't you want to know? hello, thank you for the version of you that you have left dancing in my head, it's been good times. will you take cash or kind?

chinese new year isn't part of any such culture. it is also way too intense. i have subwoofs for relatives, from ages 5 to 73.

"when will you treat me to drinks?!", screeched 2nd grandaunt (er jiu mu, if i'm not wrong), meaning, "when are you getting married?!"

"tell me again, tell me again, TELL ME AGAAAAAIN", screeched one of twins, having gotten twice as loud with each of his 5 birthdays. okay okay, i say. you are too cute. the monster won't eat cute.

"DON'T TOUCH THAT REMOTE! AND DON'T EAT IT!!", screeched 'uncle' at his kid. fatherhood doesn't seem to be equally kind, sometimes it taps some of the dudes into their motherly sides instead.

In those enlightened cultures, i bet there'd less anorexia and impotency and tummy control underwear and red lights on and fat asses and fights, because i bet knowing you're attractive would soothe most women problems and appease all manly egos.

like brothers on a hotel bed.

2010-02-12T03:02:00.007+08:00

I baked Apple Galette for a picnick! It was burnt, looked like a pizza, laughed at buuuuut yummy enough. NEXT: Pear Galette. (Galette/: french for "pie dish? we no so fancy, here, save yourself the trouble like so", "ooooh sodesneh.")

Say hi to my black coral bracelet too. it's that wild-looking cutie up there - my mom squirmed and called it a black slug. My dreadlocks? "Worms on your head!" The next time i come home from somewhere you just know i have a quest, to complete the trio.

I'm going to try to make this (minus sleeves) out of black satin! also, plus zipper and proper waistband.

multi-pitch, ao nang tower.

& these will be my feet in a likewise photo taken with a kickass camera i will own one day! (I'm looking at you, Ricoh GR2. or Lumix LX3, insists timmatits.) (goal: within the next 3-5 years) (if this photo did not make you shudder violently you have no soul) (or fear. power to you, but you're still a bloody tragedy.)

I just like this Frida painting a whole bunch.

Caught up with some people recently. I'd lost track of how much i genuinely like my friends. I'm looking at you, Cat and Kamiliah, Fay and Pam. Conversations go on for hours and i'm exhausted from laughing. I have friends with blazing smarts and electric hearts, you should be so jealous, of them and my asskicking galettes.

railay is a rejection of their reality.

2010-02-10T00:40:00.008+08:00

the inbetweens, the lazy dream state and the dipping, weaving through the air ripe with musky couples. hopping from one slippy, damned scary barnacle to the next, only vaguely knowing where next to go, besides not down. t-shirts warm with the sun and worn down with salt. at sunset, red tracks open to the beach on the other side of the world, Fiji. exploring a cave because Tik had no idea where it ends. storms at sea that whips inland and kills the mosquitoes' buzz for once. climbing up anything. trusty directions: walk straight up the path, past the walls lovingly adorned in broken glass on your right, past the lecherous man at the officious-looking cave who'd snatch a kiss you're that naive, past another low wall lovingly adorned in barbed wires and mocking monkeys, and find the beach you swear upsidedown exists uphill, go on then. watch thai boys watching the lady bottoms go by and eat breakfast with them. sand fine enough to snort. sharing a mat with the king of the railay climbing circle. tapping the anchor ring and then gaping at the horizon ending in mists both eastward and westward. evening gossip over masala tea, suddenly the pretty ladies make venomous, pragmatic sense. working my butt off happily for 20 bahts. the shaving comedy. don't piss now, there's a naked lady canoeing over! 2am from tonsai to railay west, the engine of the long tail being cut, drifting silently into the shore past the silhouettes of anchored long tails, wading towards the lights, turning to wave good night to the boatman and the always-lit limestone walls. errands taking longer with every passing day... and every new acquaintance. porch philosophy & waxing windowseat lyrical, is just what we do. taking coffee with chaow's wisdoms, his 'why not' & 'hot and cool' theories. chasing Orion with our eyes. chasing bangtet all over town. chatting easily while walking uphill. showering in the dark. the requisite break to cool down for anyone walking in from anywhere being the best source of information on the isl - wait, no - peninsula, sometimes.

i can't offer you full sentences for how much Railay welcomed me with this time, just selfish snippets. (Yeeeess, Ma,) i know i don't quite belong there, not by a long shot. but having been there i'm wiggling to see the rest of the world in spurts now & end each travel with a Chang in hand, watching the sun set behind the boys playing soccer on Railay West.

just as soon as i work up the cash.

I haven't unpacked.

2010-02-04T03:42:00.005+08:00

In Suk11, a Backpackers Hostel along Sukhumvit Rd.
Maneuvering around Sex Tourists and their willing prey was eye-opening and more humourous than you'd expect.

I'm back. My backpack is itching for more - dusty backlanes, salty breezes, curiously tame stray cats who walk into your bamboo bungalow and straight into the backpack's recesses to investigate, the sweat of climbing a cursed-tall hill - more of it all. But my wallet is not just empty, it owes people money. Oh miho no, you have to plan much better next time. Dream little Gobi, wait a little longer for money to be made. Before the year is out, i'd be out of here to somewhere: me, my 45L backpack with stressed-out seams and this time, my own camera to document everything with. I'm eying the same model Raf has, i've never taken such beautiful photos in my life.

In the meantime, money. Forget a career for now, it's not like I honestly ever cared. I've been irresponsible to my friends too, I'm going to fix that.

too intense.

2010-01-01T12:35:00.000+08:00

eh what the hell miho, get excited already.

hello, you'd think you aren't leaving your jailhouse, or that you haven't got an exciting trip wandering (or just climbing) thailand planned. scary siah you, so listless. jellyfishes have more form than you.

it's not quite listless exactly, because i'm humming on nerves. stress. fight or flight instincts are freaking out all the time, even now when i'm just sitting at home and telling my mom, sorry, no lunch, i'm going to see my lauban on new year's day to discuss the release of my salary.

never mind that work has not ended with the last day, never mind mummy's nervous breakdowns going back to work (woman, pull yourself together, it's only been 3 weeks. at a bank. with regular hours. with lunch hours. my sympathy starting to become a bit bedeh le. i mean you whine about colleagues stealing your highlighter, hello?), never mind that my pay is on hold and i'm hyperventilating because i'm living paycheque to paycheque, and going on a month long trip was a rather financially painful / fully-rationalised but actually desperation-driven thing to do.

fuck, kammi's right, i'm a tomboy with insane rollercoaster girl emotions. nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo PMS all year round. okay, don't misqoute, kammi actually said i'm very in touch with my emotions, even if in many other aspects i'm tomboyish. same same but different, right?

new expenses keep coming up. fuuuuuck, my climbing shoes has holes. ok, spend phone bill money on it, i'm not using my mobile in thailand anyway. fuuuuuuck, christmas presents for the whole office?! okay, try to keep it under $150 total, even though that's almost a quarter of my salary, and about 10 days living expenses in railay. fuuuuuck, mom wants money again. ok, this week only eat packed lunches. fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck, travel insurance is gonna cost 92 bucks?! okay, be sane, miho, this one DIE DIE must get. if i die in railay, at least my mom (& one other companion), can fly over to collect my remains for free. then with my dying breath, i'd fulfil my promise to mommy that i'd bring her to see the world one day.

right, anyway, i'm stressed out trying to escape to a simpler life. o the irony.

i haven't paid my phone bill in 5 months and since deciding that i won't buy anything i won't use travelling in thailand, i haven't touched the sales but once yesterday for an awesome tanktop that i will kick rock ass in. i stopped my cab habit too, cold turkey, and it's pretty amazing how little food (or conversely, how much food you can eat for free if you planned packed lunches and timed for snack raids on the pantry when certain colleagues usually buy communal snacks. freeloaderss, ftw!), that was a long segway, again, it's pretty amazing how little food you need to buy. the supermarket is definitely your friend. it's definitely possible to cramp your intern salary real tight, give drinking and a bunch of movies a miss, and still climb and travel. if you don't mind having your phone line cut off, and if your boss pays on schedule. other tips, only eat out / drink coffee out when you absolutely have been peer pressured into it! haahahahhahahahhaaaaaaaahhhi'mstressedout.

honestly, i'm worn really thin right now. i'm getting wrinkles from new facial expressions. apparently, it's somewhere between prune-face and cramps. i smile with cramps, i frown with cramps, i look like a grumpy toad all the time. i can't laugh easily anymore, even though i laugh like gunshots at a riot at the smallest things jane does because it's such a relief to laugh. i climb in frustration, and so my techniques go to shit and raf scolds me for forgetting the silliest things, like letting the bone take my weight, not chicken-winging; trying to climb cleanly so i don't spoil my climbing shoes; flipping the sloper when i manage to murk around pass it.

i'm worried about money, about surviving the trip, about my family getting dinners and arguements and chores settled without me around, about finding work in february, about my favourite colleagues surviving without me in the trenches with them. i'm not cursed with false modesty, it does sound arrogant and i must shrug that off uncomfortably, but i know i have been "vital to the creative process" when people say, okay, let's wait to work on this when miho is in and we can discuss with her.

i worry that i will regress professionally while i'm gone, even though i know to my bones that i would have failed a copy test this past 3 months because so much of creativity relies on emotional health and finding the flow, not churning along blindly. in the last 5 mins, i've been laughing, tearing, arguing with my mom, cursing out my cat, chasing it down to sayang it because he may hate me for one whole january and get too used to life without me, reassuring my mom about her work, trying to outthink a headache, jittering nervously, trying to throw stuff blindly into my backpack for the trip, analysing my default expression. i think it's a middle-aged pout.

okay okay enough venting, miho, buck up, ban zai, jia you.

this will pass.

you'd come back from the trip vibrating with happy vibes, totally un-amoeba'ed out. you'd have enough savings left to tide you over while you find a new job. if not, no sweat, you can part-time data-entry for a quick spell while you wait for replies. you'd have a kickass portfolio. you'd take up a job for a good high pay and decent management, and forget about creative-driven agencies for another year while you polish the skills and tools you were crafting this last 5 months. at this job, you'd negotiate more harshly this time, after which you will settle down for 6 months of good solid working. keep saving and build up a bit of a nest. we'd talk plans again when you have done all that, when you have the bulk of 6 months of full salary built up and you're a neat clean rainbow. let's see how your dreadlocks look by then!

you chose this path ok. so you can manage this. you wanted a career to fight for, so fight brave. you decided, you can live large on very little, so live wisely. you decided to take your internal storm elsewhere, so set sail. you've managed pretty great, this is something you can win if you see it through. this can be done!

With arduous journey's end comes Confucius' Lord of the Rings.

2009-12-22T15:53:00.002+08:00

If Cary Tennis started giving sermons I would join his cult because every word he says makes me go AYEEE YESS OH THAT’S EXACTLY IT! GOSPEL OH THE GOSPEL!!

I've never seen a sight that didn't look better looking back.

2009-12-19T15:39:00.005+08:00

i have some vague plans for 2010.

learn japanese. practise chinese more.

if i'm going to japan someday, i'd like some ammo. perhaps, one day, i can become good enough to do translations. =freelance opportunities, savvy?

fill notebooks.

scamps, sketches, stories, articles, lists, rants, business ideas, dumb ideas, journals, stickers - whatever. fill 'em up, make something of them.

travel.

maybe the whole month of january, spend it wandering thailand. i have a return ticket to bangkok, but who's to say i should come back right away? i can take a sleeper train to railay, show tik and non my hair progress, climb with tik for a week or so, then start backpacking around after getting my bearings.

i'm thinking of going it alone.

i liked my kaki langs in KYN and railay pretty okay. but. i want to test myself, throw myself out there. i guess my definition of throwing myself out there went from joining another cut-throat MNC agency to getting lost on dusty backroads of south east asia. sweet.

plus, i'd love to be able to just turn right at the next junction just because, and not squat for a 15 min discussion. i miss spontaneity.

a friend's headed to laos for january, maybe i'd join him later over there, maybe not.

don't get me wrong, my heart's going badda-bing badda-boom at the thought of going solo like that.

which reminds me, funny story about a cave in railay.

we were climbing through it, and i was scared. my 45L backpack was packed with a 50m rope, gear and runners too, i think. i wasn't used to the weight, my 35baht slippers had no grip on the dusty floor and hell, they don't even stay on my feet. it was dark, i kept slipping and catching myself before falling approximately to my death each time. i joked shakily to my friend raf, that he should climb behind me so i'd take him down with me when i fall.

we were about to abseil off a cave mouth down some 15 metres.

I remember two other girls being there with our group. tik asked who wanted to go first, and I said ‘me!’ very quickly because I was kinda scared I’d chicken out if I waited. it looked like a long way down! but it was also the only way down, so chickening out wasn’t an option.

So I quickly clipped myself in and swung out (!!!) into thin air with my scary-heavy bag pack. this photo was taken. then i heard one of those girls say, “ooooooh man, she’s so brave”, and I snorted so hard in disbelief, I nearly dropped the wrong hand on the rope. the one stopping me from going splat 15m down.

the point here:
i have to deal with life the only way i know works for sure.

i scare myself,
i manage not to crap my pants,
i dust pants off laughing,
i walk away alive and stronger.
wash, rinse, repeat so i don't degenerate into a shivering pile of nerves.

until i find a better way, can't seem to grow much. shaky hurrays.

rethink advertising.

i'm exhausted.

s.little asked me about my plans, after we talked about his great new opportunities. he saw me hesitate. be wary of the loud ones, some of them have mad instincts for people insights.

he said, you should stay in copywriting. see through the potential.

i think, are these hollow days worth this vague potential thing they keep baiting me along with? is it worth it, working toward a day when i can kick my rubbish bin across the office with my fancy Balanciaga boots, and shriek at a regional account director, "you're not here to BUY my work, you little miserable shit, you're here to SELL it!"?

s.little tells me starry tales of being a CD.

Branded bags every month, drinks on the company, expense accounts that go unquestioned and on forever, trips to morroco, japan, vietnam for a photoshoot, being treated like royalty on set, hushed whispers of legendary you, with grand prix, one show, clio, cannes lions and the virginity of a dozen junior account execs under your belt.

he's waiting for the ooooooh's and ahhhh's and whoaaaaa's, but i'm smiling and nodding politely, waiting for him to get to the part that matters. i'm watching his dark eye circles, G's trembling hands, Z's very, very discreet dalliances and thinking of Tik. And Chok, and Ee and Dut. and yes, even Non. thailand folks who probably earn in a year, less than what S.little here spends in a month or two. i know who's more content, centred and delighted with their day's work.

i'm thinking of first cold dinners, and then only the occasional dinners waiting for me at home now. i'm thinking of friends who've been let go of. i'm thinking of a dusty sewing machine and other DIY tools i haven't touched in a year. i'm thinking Spotlight vouchers, wasted on me. i'm thinking of how, i once forgot to switch off workmiho before meeting a friend. i'm thinking of choices i've made against the ballast of work. i'm thinking of how i'm the moon to the earth of my work, and how wide the universe is outside of me, work and the sunny places i'd rather be. i'm thinking of places, faces, traces i've missed while dashing by. i'm thinking of workplace dignity. i'm thinking of living with authenticity. i'm thinking of reclaiming the lucidity of my heart.

i'm thinking, well of course these Creative Directors are smug and sound positive about advertising, they're not fighting for grubs on the floor anymore. and then that where they're at doesn't sound so thrilling to my sensibilities either. i mean, given a choice i'd pick another night laying with head pillowed on that log on the far end of Railay East beach, shooting the breeze and counting shooting stars, than hobnobbing at any champagne party. or screaming at a pitiful account director at 11pm after we've both worked 13 hours straight on yet another fucked up, settled backstage pitch.

drawn but it doesn't ever fire.

2009-12-15T03:02:00.001+08:00

sometimes i look at people older than me and how naive they are and i wonder cruel things about them and myself.

it's just another panic monday.

2009-12-14T09:32:00.004+08:00

"At what age is it best to crush a child’s dreams so that they have an easier time stepping in to the status quo?"

You fool. You do not do such things to children. A child is like a poison missile you aim at the Future. You encourage, fund and resource their dreams to the fullest extent of your capability, knowing that your reward will be the pain and misery of generations yet unborn.

WARREN ELLIS

what you do not know who WARREN ELLIS is? only the award-winning creator of graphic novels i haven't read yet. Hah. Underground classics too, apparently. Which library has the best collection of comics, any one have any ideaaaaaaas? I'm looking for FELL, MINISTRY OF SPACE, PLANETARY, and TRANSMETROPOLITAN, and CROOKED LITTLE VEIN. And the Sandman Vol 1.

Or i could put it on my christmas list for my colleague-comrades to buy for me. Wheee: 9 guaranteed Xmas presents. Oh crap: 9 Xmas presents to buy. Shoot me.

Funny stories galore from zoukout.

i should start writing them down before the smaller ones start falling through the cracks of my farty mind again, like with KYN and Railay.

Some notes: broken hammock, stealing cigs and saving girls, my HAIIRRRRRR :((((((, bouncing away from persistent boys, trying to set K and CGA up to dance awaaaaay from me, dong who? ooooh dong you, sleep-texting (i was NOT drunk.), using hot girlfriends to steal bathroom time, kop Heinekens, cut queues AND giggle through crowds. making partnership deals with CGA (it's ok Cee, you still my secret friend. NEXT YEAR WE WILL CONQUER ZO.), taking too long to figure out that it's Kelly, not Kali, new friends: not as wild or overwhelmingly girly as they appeared at first,

also also also, steering a staggering ruby-faced ang moh into another hammock, him almost aiming his almightly butt wrong, swinging him wildly and running away laughing like nymphs on crack. Free drinks all night, kicking off my slippers almost immediately, dancing in the sand, grrreat music by i-was-too-sleepy-to-care-who, swearing never to climb for 5 hours straight before an all-night dance fest, what was i thinking?

m: "CGA, OVER HEEREE!"
cga, squints at me: "err, i think you have the wrong guy."
m: "well, remember this?! (finger.)"
cga: "OOOOH, MIHO. what's with that hair... and DRESS!"

sleeping in CGA's car while they (allegedly) chatted. if they made out while i was snoring in the backseat, i will throw up a week's worth of meals, i swear. rock-climbing horror stories, "i got fat, and now i have a butt to fill this bikini", a succession of light sticks from guys kelly smiled at, "meet at the nokia balloooooon" times 42, guys flitting to aud's and sam's sequins like dummy moths, aud's moooooves, aud flashing her bikini whenever she got bored,

"what do you do?"
"i write"
"for who?"
"advertising"
"who?"
"not you."
"oh, ok."

dancing so hard I woke up with all the tension in my shoulders and neck and back goooone, bruises, scratches on my mobile and my specs from dropping it in the sand - boo, that's 51 bucks to fix, and exfoliated feet from prancing in the same sand with bare soles - yayy, save 46 bucks i'd never have forked out on pedicures. losing my slippers 2 zoukouts running, CGA going back to save my slippers this time. this boy is too nice. and the sun rising over a clear sky that looked a little like railay's for a goggy few minutes.

"MIHO, are you wearing a bikini under your dress tooo?!"
"er, i'm wearing shorts under here."
"..."

ok. better mood now. going back to face my monday. i'm dead meat, the senior writer took a week & a half off and i'm the only halfling-writer in the agency.

yeah, freaking out now.

moments so dear.

2009-11-29T15:54:00.002+08:00

hi again.

it's been a while. some stuff has happened since we last chatted, you and i. nothing i couldn't handle without too much mess though, afterall, here i am, 56 war wounds not withstanding. (my buddy only counted 55 actually, that one night when we decided there was a ridiculous amount of bruises from the naturally harsh Railay walls, mosquito & other unidentifiable insect bites and scratches on my legs, and they needed to be counted. number 56 & more were incoming.)

i went to Railay, came back different. i talked to folks and changed. saw things so beautiful i teared from staring at them gape-mouthed. said wow more in 9 days than i've done in the whole, harsh year. and yes, my hair's changed. dreadlocks - who would have thought? my mom didn't even really blink, aside from the first outcry which hurt, a little. she's used to me. two weeks before i left for Koh Yao Noi & Railay, i'd had my colleagues draw on two full sleeves of neo-tribal tattoos and a back piece too, for halloween. it was striking & scary-looking, but she still didn't refuse to give me a hug. she's not telling me that she's upset i'd ruined my hair, which she loved. but that's okay, hair grows, and i'd be normal again before she knows it. and so she knows, like the ink that washed off eventually, this too shall pass.

does the hair on top of the head reflect the thoughts between the ears of it? i don't know that i've planned it, but there's a huge change churning in my headspace now, and i'm waiting to see what i'd see when the waves settle down.

my artboys tell me i've changed. hiao, was the word they used, but in a kinda flattering tone. one, veteran of 4 years, told me matter-of-factly, that he thinks now there's a chance i'd make it to CD level. a huge gush of pride and glee later, i'm not so sure that's what i want. but we'd deal with it when it becomes a real possibility lah. until then, frolicking with the artboys is a nice way to spend the time between the screaming fits from above and the workworkwork drone.

it may be awhile until i check in again, stay well and out of trouble, internet strangers.

---

(fictitious, but borrowed from life for realism.)

Jo White. Lighting Designer.
she's the girl who would paint her nails black when she's in a good mood.

she'd lift her alabaster-white hand to the light to squint critically at her work, split a banana-shaming smile, and paint on little flares wherever the light hits on the glossy finish of her dollar-store nail polish. in her spare time, she churns horror stories in her head for her friend who dare not laugh anymore for fear of cracking his healing, broken ribs. no more comedies for him. ah well, they have to find something to do while hanging out still. she dances in the changing rooms and have sworn off boys as more trouble than they are worth. she maintains though, that that's through no major fault of their own. they are just the allah-blessed lightning rods onto which girls and all their dramas hurl themselves toward. she's still more than willing to stand by the poor girl-worshiping fellows, blinking the glare away and chatting about the sunny weather, but they aren't allowed to rebound to her, ever.

on the topic of depression

2009-10-13T01:20:00.001+08:00

Then there is this: in some way, the quiet terror of severe depression never entirely passes once you’ve experienced it. It hovers behind the scenes, placated temporarily by medication and renewed energy, waiting to slither back in, unnoticed by others. It sits in the space behind your eyes, making its presence felt even in those moments when other, lighter matters are at the forefront of your mind. It tugs at you, keeping you from ever being fully at ease. Worst of all, it honours no season and respects no calendar; it arrives precisely when it feels like it.

Daphne Merkin on her forty year battle with depression | Life and style | The Observer

record for posterity

2009-10-13T00:47:00.005+08:00

a compliment means so much more when it comes from someone i believe is good.
all he said was,

i like her determination. good.

no hyperbole, no gushing, no agenda.

it becomes a mantra to pull out on grey days, and huddle over like a warm flame. it burns resolve into my body so that the centre of gravity finally rocks back and my chin lifts again.

even when shit hits the often-splattered fan; when i don't know how i'm going to pull it off; when i feel more twelve than twenty-one... well.

someone with a thoroughbred heart believes i'm a decent kid.
he thinks i can see things through to the end.

and so i have to. and somehow, i just can.

you're just another story i can't tell anymore.

2009-10-13T00:44:00.000+08:00

i keep flirting with the idea of burning out again, tossing back the hours like they don't count up to 24 every time. and i don't want to write sense sometimes.

there must be more. if i drop too many bad habits, i become a clean void. but you and me both know that lasts as long as a man's morning shave. the attention span of a post-it in the breeze, me, and some times the cold heart the size of one, too.

but seriously folks, i'm hovering in the decide.

Exaketededly

2009-09-14T15:58:00.003+08:00

Today I feel like an asshole, so I’m leaving work on the dot, buying a pack o’ Cs, visiting the post office and buying index cards. I’d run out to the library next to return overdue books, load up on more, bare my teeth at a librarian, and run out. Then I’m going to go somewhere overlooking water and write.

I’m going to walk the whole way because I need to work off some of this steam before I blow up. i really miss having music on the go. sometimes i wish i had an hour long daily commute to properly de-combust between home & work & play. get my game face on, yaknowwaddimean?

then i'm going home to throw out more trash. scour out my room; cleanse the soul. meditating is for lazy twats.

I hate being in an office because you get rotund assholes looking over your shoulder reading your screen for something to make chatter about while you feel like the above.

it could be much worse though.

I could be in an office where I didn’t just have this conversation with my desk bud,

S:
How old’s your lunch baby now?

M:
Grunt.

S:
Gimme some of your pregnancy prunes, I feel bloated.

M:
3 months old. I’m poisoning it one prune at a time.

S:
Got enough? I need also?

M:
Yeah, I’m going to shit the little twat out now.

Also cockstain is the best curse name ever.

fucking mondays.

projects for :)

2009-09-07T02:08:00.001+08:00

ok.

one project at a time.

#1, soon.

Ctrl

2009-09-07T02:01:00.007+08:00

Most people are other people.
Their thoughts someone else's opinion,
their lives a mimicry,
their passions a quotation.

Oscar Wilde

he's all sorts of awesome too!

2009-09-03T11:28:00.001+08:00

I like reading things that punch me in the stomach.
His writing doesn’t do that to me, but it’s all sorts of technically correct.
I can learn from that.

We’re selling toilet paper here, not great truths.
But there’s a fuck you in that sentence somewhere.

si mii dai, monsieur?

2009-09-02T15:29:00.003+08:00

last night i dreamt about work
& it was so realistic that i came (cabbed) to work this morning
& followed the brief until i realised there was no sub-brief yet
&&&&& i need a life to dream about.

also,
when there's a cap on words you can write in one headline,
sentences outside of work tend to last forever & ever & ever,
just like when an opera singer is having a last hoorah-
because it ain't over until the fat lady sings,
comprehendez?

cross your heart & wish you gave a shit.

2009-08-12T19:28:00.001+08:00

erm hello.

i'm a lot more manipulative than i realised.

Nom de Dieu de putain de bordel de merde de saloperies de connards d'enculé de ta mère

2009-08-12T19:09:00.002+08:00

What asshole needs to be hoaxed, browbeaten, wheedled, arm-twisted, presented with 23 different options (bit like a Certain Client) before finally resigning herself to being fussed over for her 21st birthday?

Catherine Ann Francis, that’s who.

Next time someone offers, yes – I’d take the blowtorch & have you an accident!

Happy Birthday, BFB. Since I’m stuck with you, I guess I do love you.

*the early part of this post was exaggerated. But only slightly.
The later is played down a whole lot. :)

good night

2009-08-10T20:15:00.013+08:00

but tonight i stopped wondering why so many people i bump into at bars are so obnoxious.

at 8.13pm, a flash of insight! behooooold,

screen-printed from hungrygowhere.com

if you're the impatient or hard of seeing sort, here's just the funny bit,

ooooh baby, you so cheap & you so quick to say i'm only an arm-warmer. you light my fire, you do, you do.
lucky for you baby, i am not internet-savvy like 98% of the Singapore population!

& here's how he writes his bio.

oh
my
buddha...

i swear, if i am ever 27 & male & an insurance underwriter,

please let me not sound like a 14 year old pubescent.

who spends most of his time watching Korean soap operas.

with his mother.

& his right hand.

& i didn't even have to leave my home's shadow to find out. how productive, M!

***

still. good night, murderer's mothers with no shame & daughters of absent fathers who care all the same, good night!

still idealistic.

2009-08-03T16:53:00.001+08:00

these are the days of my life when i cling onto the mental picture of poor kids from africa who have to walk ten thousand miles for clean water and walk to school in shoes they share with 7 siblings so that i don't sound like a whiny little brat who has 7 pairs of shoes and a pantry (that i as office manager stocked.)

no, wait- what's wrong with that picture?

where's the anger? where's the dissatisfaction, where's the questions, where's the fight?

where's our youth movement? do we not have wants and desires anymore?

i'm not saying we should be goths or punks or hippies. but we should have a voice, an opinion of our futures, a rallying cry. just because we aren't 5 years old anymore doesn't mean we forget altogether the favourite word of 5 year olds everywhere. ask it! why, why, why can't we do better?

without an inquisitive, challenging voice, we haven't got a say in this. we haven't got a chance.

why are we trying to be more mature than we should be? we're not full adults yet, we shouldn't be the ones sighing & accepting our fates, saying bo pian, such is life, just grin & bear it!

have you seen a true adult's eyes? they are deadened & dull, stoned by the everyday sameness of their existence. they had to forget dreaming or they'd go MAD trying to wade through the same bullshit everyday!
they put these words in our mouths because they believe themselves. why are we so eager to repeat their failures & not make our own?

where's our graffiti, where's our public disturbances, where do we go to be exhilarated at our raw potential to change this horseshit into our own universe? where do we gather to poster the streets with our arrogance, our energy & our visions?

we're drifting around.

awkwardly trying to make friends, make meaning out of our lives, make a living & yes, make love. we be all gangly overgrown arms & feet & hearts we need to grow into yet. vaguely uncomfortable in our father's world, & we don't quite know why. at least we're educated enough to sound as if we know what we're doing now.

won't you be the one to speak out?

i say we share our art.
i say we share ideas that sound dumb, that sound too childish, that seem to have no meaning to it beyond being seen & heard & vaguely understood by some other kid who'd only smile crookedly.
i say we try to make some sense in this land by not trying too hard to blueprint it.
i say we give in to wilder impulses more.
i say reach out to folks sillier than you.
i say drag the serious ones to the playground & push them hard enough on the swings to loop the loop, gasp with laughter.
i say we dirty our hands digging for gold, wear holes in our jeans, get glitter in our hair & spit in our eyes arguing about the best way.
i say we're not scared of blood if it comes with grit.

i say we try to figure out things our way before we sigh our father's sigh.
i say we be loud about it.
i say we document our impertinence.
i say we start trying to make it our time.

staysoft: wlergh newsflash

2009-08-03T09:27:00.008+08:00

i'm finding it very hard to give a flying fuck.

if i were still a melodramatic teenager i would call it ennui, world-weariness, or something far beyond my comprehensible years.
since i am not (supposed to be one), this morning i said something much more moderated then,

"here are your newspapers... & letters... & morning tea. i ironed them with your silks.
i couldn't help but notice a letter offering butler services amongst your mail.
perhaps you could start finding my replacement there."

this is the horseshit end of the rainbow, my friend

2009-07-31T17:12:00.006+08:00

i'm siiiiick.

this may be swine flu because people keep repeating over and over that it's more common than the common flu like it's a magic tagline and you won't catch the swine flu if you repeat it over and over like a kid saying

TWIST!TwistTwistTwistTwi-hey that's not fair i said TWIST!

you need to know before you continue reading that i self-medicated and did not use a measuring spoon but swigged from the bottle and i cannot even have a hookah to myself because i get the giggles and wanna-pukes. now you know and may continue reading.

someone once said that if a black man became the president of USA, pigs would fly. sure enough, 100 days later, swine fluuuuu.

i think i think i think maybe perhaps oh so surely swinging in and out of normal like this for 6 months is NOT NORMAL. not even my normal you have to admit my normal is prettttty fluid.

NORM.
MAL.

i am obssessed with these things nownownow:

going on a holiday. (somedays i is thinking, go alone, go faraway, go couch-surfing! other days imma thinking a kosekitohon is dumb reason not to be able to set stinky feet off this island and whhhhhy can't i go for cheap massages in batam. other days, 'hmm does going to sentosa count?' deep thoughts, DEEEEEP.)
getting my shit together
i would like to wear colourful clothes again but noooo my clothes must befit my moooooooood.
but i would like to keep making colourful clothings. when did i stop?
writing, just whacking away at the keyboard, chicken-scratchings in my notebook.
toodoolists. SO-MUCH-ANAL-RETENTIVE-FUN! SO EXCITING! so much to do... but SO MUCH FINALLY GETS DONE! (see point no. 2 above.)
i would like to have one of my scumbag friends back again so that i can stop pretending i'm not a scumbag and we can go on sick adventures together that can only be told in hushed tones or in between screeching laughters.
i would like to put up a wordpress so that i may begin to password protect my baser stuff and when that happens you will be privy to even grosser details of my life like pinching a loaf & forgetting to fl- ohmygod gross no, let's not do that.

i have mood-swung since the begining of this post. my dear chuppachubs, the rainbow ends on top of your chinnychinchin, obviously you are the pot of gold.

i am maaaaaad. maaaaaaad.
no i am s.t.a.u.n.c.h.

yesterday yesterday or maybe it was the day before that freelancer copywriter said she does voiceovers on the side and i asked her about it and now-is-freelancer art director joked that she shouldn't be selling me any new career ideas because i might flip flop again but hello morons, i don't care about a career fools it's all about having many entertaining ways to live happily.

your 9 to 6
/7
/8
/9
/or up to 12am in the morning

is not my happiness because if you looked at it from the god's eye view,

it's moronic judgement calls
/poor leadership
/expectation not managed
/over-promising
/lousy communications

usually by the Up Theres, always, always, always that creates those situations where the poor sods at the end of the corporate rainbow will crunch through the witching hours with a cold mug of tea.

idiota.

i don't ever want to be part of that daisy chain of doom.

copy-writing is one dream only. i have a toodoolist (<3) longer than your arm and other dreams are on it.

nice speech, miho. now let's see something happen.

eyeballs are rolling in their graves

2009-07-30T17:40:00.001+08:00

that was a rather unclever moment.

sci-fi = <3 + C3PO

2009-07-28T15:29:00.007+08:00

i read asimov's forward the foundation again.

you know what strikes me? he's fiercely intelligent, but so bare in his writing. clear and simple, first and always. hardly any grandiore; and we're talking ga-lax-ies and rebuilding the entire universe by calculating the future's history (read that again, friend, take your time to sort it out.) i don't know when else it's more justified to go big with words.

but he doesn't! that's the beauty of it. there's precious little in the way of personality stamped into his writing - you could conversely say that his writing style is the lack of personality. in fact, it feels like his books are made mostly of mind-blowingly, fascinatingly complex thesises written in story form for laymen like you and me to grasp. A Big Idea, made into idiot-proof bites to make idiots feel extremely clever.

doesn't that sound a lot like how a copy-writer should write? cut out the self-indulgent personal house style, edit brutally for brevity, make clarity the priority, no punz and no sneaky insider lolz. in a layman's nutshell, as anti-fanfiction-like as possible?

goosebump advice.

2009-07-15T20:09:00.005+08:00

“
It’s not about working hard. It’s about feeling sick and waiting for the idea and not knowing what to do but making sure you have the skills so that when you do get the idea, you can do it without relying on other people.

”

-Alber Elbaz

better than mine!

2009-07-11T17:03:00.001+08:00

yawnzepuah

2009-07-11T15:46:00.001+08:00

i swear whatever business i own in future will be called poetic justice.
only think how self-righteous an ah long san company would sound like that.
awesome.

too pretty.

2009-07-11T12:59:00.000+08:00

first day of my life
- Bright Eyes

horny boy lunches.

2009-07-10T15:41:00.002+08:00

found this thing i doodled last month, while cleaning my work table today.

+++

there was a collective office eye-roll today.
i'm going to miss these guys fiercely, not only because i'm so delighted we suddenly shared a pet peevette.

bikers.

2009-07-08T11:49:00.001+08:00

or other some such unwashed heroes waiting to happen.

2009-07-06T19:55:00.003+08:00

BANKSY ON ADVERTISING

People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you’re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it.

They are The Advertisers and they are laughing at you. You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity. Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head. You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don’t owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don’t even start asking for theirs

The Escapist - KA POW!!

2009-07-02T15:58:00.008+08:00

you should read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Micheal Chabon, it's vulgar, geeky and epic! It also happens to be Pulitzer-winning & was on the New York Times Best-Sellers List, if you're into that sort of bling.

it strings you along as these artists muddle around trying to figure out the art of comic books, tumbles you into the rabbit hole with its dirty rags-to-riches business schemes, described here almost like an unpoliced fountain of liquid gold! then micheal tugs in citizen kane and salvador dali as a splash of debonoir inspiration and shoots the breeze on obsessive escapism while making rollies from crushed cigarette butts.

fighting war with art, the struggle between religion against sexuality, art giveths; art takeths away, dip-sticking the shadowy depths of brotherhood, the initial censorship battle... oh my god, is it natural to fit all that and more into one novel and make it seem as casual as flicking the ashes off a cigarette?

what fascinates me still (i'm writing from memory, it's been months since i read it) is how escapism is examined... well, graciously, and from odd angles.

superheroes here are like neighbourhood gods, as if the comic artists under the cloud of WWII just needed to see someone up there doing something about it and drew that. and these neighbourhood gods are man-made, & therefore flawed, & therefore disappoint. just like religion. there's an implication that religion is also a form of escapism.

yet!

they become gods of their creations, this kavalier & clay, and the creation reflects their lives. they fall in love; a mysterious female superhero appears. they are anti-fascist; their hero, The Escapist, whips Nazis into submission in every issue. one experiments with his sexuality; sidekicks appear.

you end up convinced that this is the true history of comics, never mind that neither the Escapist, Kavalier nor Clay existed. You mourn a little -how can something so real... not be real? you're left with a posy of flowers in hand and no grave to go pay pilgrim to.

READ IT!

i'd kick myself chirpy.

2009-06-30T19:11:00.003+08:00

the key is to choose to do what you would at 11am, not at 7.49am.

there's no snooze button on the lifemachine!

sounding so coying and chirpy isn't working. i'm still freaking out.

spring-loaded, too late!

2009-06-30T16:16:00.003+08:00

i'm not making a mistake.
not making a mistake!
making a mistake?
a mistake.
NO.

on hold.

2009-06-29T19:18:00.003+08:00

i watched avenue Q in feb. i think now it was too early, and i would have related to it much better now.

my muses.

2009-06-28T12:09:00.005+08:00

things i shall do.

tattoo. i have an awesomer idea now!
learn how to ride. as in Class 2B liscence.
make it a point to rekindle friendship with long lost folks. (hello, drop me a note please. you are literally long lost, because i've lost my hp twice in the last couple of months. and it's taken me this long to say it.)
be fit again. this segues into another one, slim down. but paiseh make a separate point. SNORT!
take level one climbing cert because no one trusts me to belay them. hello, i know how to ok. so singaporean; no paper, no go is it! haahhahha. plus, it's beyond dumb to go for a climbing trip with no qualifications. which leads me to...
climb trip, november.
for which i need to buy climb shoes while i still can! (to save money for this, no cabs for the next 2 weeks. oei, laugh what?)
need to get a harness soon too.
JB trip with my gess mates.
melb trip, december (in the unlikely chance that i'd have money to. but you never know)
go somewhere in august, to somewhere! with someone(s)!
APPLY for school. then see how.
polish some skills. brush up on writing mainly. and PS, illustrator. maybe dreamweaver & flash too. forgot a lot of those by now. S was right, designers always have some freelance cashflow on the side, so they never go hungry. bet it's the same for some writers. so i can...
explore different sorts of work. hate being bound down with all my monkeys in one nest, so i have to work on this, finding gigs.
see how long i can tahan my hair being long. longest since forever right now! (this one point is to make sure i have something very doable on the list. whew, ambitious or what?)

my perspective is changing really swiftly nowadays, and i'm waking up from the past months.
it's a nice feeling.
i know i was hiding under a blanket of lethargy-apathy-pious devotion to my job before. wearing blinders. not anymore! GLEE, i'm so excited now!! all this changes will transform me into an autobot. SRSLY.

they should hire a muse.

2009-06-28T11:29:00.006+08:00

i touched down in the office today swearing upside down not to fart away my hours skiving.
even if it is sunday.
and i resent working on other people's holy day. gotta respect other gods.

but come on, it's me. tsk! fine, but the rock-wall's waiting, hurry up!!

so here's the thing.

life's too short to waste on whining about short straws, scheming about ancient history.
man up - there's one lesson learnt.

in the advertising world, it sucks like a gaylang whore to be mediocre.

really, there are long exhaustive nights, bitchfits tucked behind every cubicle wall looking for a face to throw itself at, straws lining up in bales to break every camel's back. there're supplier entanglements, production problems to sort through...*

(for example: why won't the video fade away evenly?

and to print colour on black, you have to print white on black first or the colour won't show, then the red over it, then a gloss to protect the red. but wait, in the end the red won't show up well. oh shits in the pits.

well, m, you should've figured that out with your god-awesome intuition or something. lord knows, you're bearing the consequences.)

colour-separation issues, high turn-over rates that scatter all the working files, quotes, notes, vector logos, illustration styles everywhere. and everywhere can be hard copies in some 2nd cupboard on your right, and straight on til morning, or soft copies in one of 5 thumbdrives or hhds, on the broken server, in the laptop that died, the laptop passed on to the creatives, or in a long-dead email account not accessible unless you annoy you niang niang with 5 requests for 5 admin keys.*or other yawnable dramas like that.

and at the end of this long, long, long day, that one last hill you didn't quite surmount may break your lau ban's back and launch his bitch fit in your face. this one last hill could be a dog-ear on a internal document that got circulated one too many times, or him not having his newspapers waiting for him. ok, not everywhere's like this, ok? chill, young padawans.

so we've established that there are many omg-so-petty low moments right? see, this is why it sucks to be mediocre. the only high everyone in the agency is likely to get is the light bulb moment when you sight an inspired concept coming home on the horizon, and you start bouncing one kickass idea after another off each other. it is the best thing ever, better than jesus, red nails, sugar coated babies, roman holidays or getting As in school. and that is why scores and scores of ad-folks offer these up in penience to the Ad Gods. well, that and the booze. sorry, not always free in le petite agencies.

so if we have no thunderstruck moments, all the lows we ride through seem like A Very Dumb Idea.

you need massive amounts of drive to pull yourself out of this rut of saying "well, guess this much is enough". so no matter how weird/lazy/potty/scatter-brained/lewd/demanding/ego-centric your creatives seem sometimes, if they supply you with these awesome moments, cut them some slack. not all creatives are actually that creative, you know. i know.

the lesson learnt here is to always avoid mediocrity in yourself. and to haul myself out of average land, it pays to find some giants to learn from. standing on the shoulders of giants, is the favourite way of saying it in corporate marketing! reverse osmosis, you know!

i'd be newater yet.

(*skip whining in tiny font. it's just some yawnable drama. now look, i told you so right!)

Hemi-demi-semiquaver

2009-06-17T19:47:00.000+08:00

i'm not so buoyant after the client wanted magic on a tight timeline and blasted me when i protested politely, even less so after creative blasted me for letting the client outblast me into taking down art direction notes from her. I get saggy when creative makes silly mistakes because she's pissed off, lower still when i missed spotting the mistake because it's fucking depressing to be the scratching post for bitchy itches so many times in one hour.

well, being upset can be distracting.

I catch up with some sad sod paperwork and my boss comes back from his meeting to blast me with sarcastic sighs for not seeing the obvious. That lecture takes too long, when i get back to my desk there're 2 phone messages, urgent emails and a courier waiting because no one else figured out that all couriers want is someone to scrawl something & stamp on their pad and take whatever they're holding. simple. think, folks, think.

Hemi-demi-semiquaver of a sigh, and try to get back to work.

i get back to cleaning my 40 mounting boards with ronsonol because some idiot used the wrong, permanent spray mount. i work on binary code like admatrix, slowly booking something like 75 ads in a roll. that computer is on dial-up, it's fucking slow. i rip through 9 daily papers. that's 45 in a week, 180 in a month.

hello, forget it, can't finish this because the door bell is ringing off it's hook and i'm the door bitch.

BAM. off to a flying start!

2009-06-16T19:21:00.000+08:00

Capitalism & Provincism

2009-06-16T17:52:00.001+08:00

SAE WHAT?

2009-06-15T17:08:00.001+08:00

#4 was to keep the engine running.

2009-06-11T16:16:00.003+08:00

i've forgotten all my big, hairy, audacious goals.
alamak.
how?

skive teh awesomoeleventyone!

2009-06-09T17:39:00.003+08:00

fooling with MS paint, while the tearsheets wilt neglected.

3 mins to daydream, quick now go.

2009-05-28T22:01:00.002+08:00

take a horse and give it no names, charge through greener pastures til nine days has passed. set it free. it kicks up a sand cloud as it leaves, and that'll lead to the golden pot at the end of the rainbow. walk instead with left cheek against the sand cloud, to find what you most fear. choose to be content or be bold, but be sure and be true, or all is as much dust as the sand cloud leaving now.

GO.

Remember, this is why.

2009-05-24T19:48:00.057+08:00

this is a very long picture post. the theme is happy things.
i want to be one too.

the streets lit up for the F1 races.
On camera it just looks like a chunk is breaking off to return to the plant from whence it came.
As seen from the meeting room of the old big D office.

building features that are blatant cracks me up.
Near the notblacknotwhite office, when i worked there last year.

beautifully creepy pictures from the Binalle, last year.

cat and i hitting zoukout last year. this before the drunkies swarmed us.

kami and xmas decorations, last year. i didn't feed this end of the reindeer.

heli! looks small, must be last year.

the last thing i made was for fay's birthday in Jan. 5 months ago. this unnerves me a little.

adam and his slimy friends at the binalle. karine was there too. last year.

nifty pic of pam i took. her bday love hotel last year.

cat on the wall. it was her nightmare route at that time!

tired, but happy. equals silly.

feb at mustafa, planning someone's birthday.

i had fight once.

paintball cat. he had a motorbike run over his tail.

ubiquitous cards.

om nom nom nom.

RAWR. see? fight.

witch shoes.

we ride the tree. jan.

favourite footwear.

botanic garden evenings.

happy kamiliah.

like we just don't care.

coming!

mine.

ghost-buster

unruffled!

time to take it all in.

SHASHA FIERCE.

happy girls all in a roll.

coil!

SHASHA! makes his entrance.

this not happy. next!

contagious SHASHA.

weddings aren't so terrible la, honestly. especially when groomsmen take off their shirts. yum!

making a happy scene at timbre.

thrashing people with paintball, round 1.

limited edition book that found me.

BIRTHDAY BOOBS.

Thrashing the ambiguous red monster when he won't burn is awesome.
He was shaf's and my birthday pinata.
we ripped out his innards and ate 'em and they were sweet.

Home-baked fudge and cookie birthday cakes in my favourite indian colours are awesomer.
there was a bbq with fairy lights! and fana and MJ and Din, Bugs and Fay too.

this from the very first time i was at singah selalu in JB, January. i was happy too, because the sports-biker i rode with was too recklessly fast. i laughed like a riot every time he sped up and i felt infinite. the lights were pretty and i didn't care who our supper partners were. I had potent shisha, an adrenaline-pumping ride home guaranteed to whip my head off and i didn't know yet how it was all gonna go down.

i turned 21. it was a kickass day too. at midnight i was at nasrins with tim, abbas and isk. the minute i was 21, they blew shisha in my face all at once and sang happy birthday in ringing - no, shouting - tones that carried all the way down baghdad road. i couldn't see since my eyes were glued shut, but i think the other patrons joined in. it was loud. i wanted to die, but needed to strangle the boys first. i knew it carried far out, because freaking kampong glam cafe started cheering too.

after work that same day, i was chivvied from my office with a dozen irritable text messages (CAT) and calls (CAT: "MOVE. NOW. WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU?!"), brought to a rooftop by a meandering biker, greeted by a solitary boy i didn't know and a stack of Spizzas.

"are you her? hi uh, your friends got tired of waiting for you. they uh, paid me $20 to wait here."

and they sprung out; fiq with the cake, cat with the laughing and song, tim, abbas and clare shouting something merry. and we ate. we went to shisha at nasrins, 2 nights in a row. we stole beer from big D. there was a guitar. it was awesome. there was a card with funny messages, and a work-survival kit. it came with a list of things in it. Good foresight, since i consumed everything pretty damn fast.
(this story is for me to remind myself by :)

Another birthday story before i forget. Fay bake me a cake, heard out my story and was a solid friend. Any loyalty, sweetness & generosity left in me at all, was bred by her to begin with. This part is only brief because it has to be.

Climbing trees. Last year.

Clare (far left) turned happily 20.33333 years old at Bedok Sempang.

Singga Selalu's ABC Gilar Ice Kachang is endorphinlicious.

Cat and me. We couldn't afford to drink, so we played cards badly instead.

The paintball line up.

Happy!

or not. she sucks at bridge la.

Cat, Me, Isk. HAPPY.

us busy being happy. Paintball in April.

Absolute Glee.

The Point:
Most of these happy pictures were taken before my current situation.
The little rest, before it got this bad.
& I'm not happy now.

I'd leave a more private Note to Self somewhere less gutsy.

Once upon a not-so-long time ago,
I pulled myself out of a Bad Situation.
Me knowing me,
I left evidence around where i'd stumble upon them.

I knew I'd question my decision, doubt my reasoning.Discount my hard-earned conviction, whatever else you want to call the etcs...
and go,
"No la, must be over-thinking."
"I'm tougher than this, I haven't hit my limit yet"
"I can handle it!"
"I can live with this."
"It's not so bad."
"Why not?"

& the worst of them,
"I'm just not a quitter."

I labeled that reminder,
"In case you forget, this is why," and addressed it to me.

it worked.
I forgot the why; came across it one night.
Saw the picture. Gagged. Remembered & resolved anew.

the universe will provide? it is hammering at me with reminders right now.

One of my past coaches died, Saturday.
Only 35. One of the good guys. Probably was the one time he was careless in the water.

the live of a good niang niang (here, at least) sucks balls.

people who don't know me that well are saying i'm off.

and that's just the internet-safe parts that happened in the last 3 days!

i just plain haven't the time/energy/head space/luxury to function apart from attempting to survive the situation, let alone put effort into being happy. They're trying to mold me into something. I see that it's very plausible that i'm capable of it.

Really.

But that person would have to be...
well.
unmiho-like, for want of a better, yet still internet-safe word.

hold on guys, a wee bit longer. i'd be back before you know it.
loud & stirring shit again.
listening when you talk to me.
finefinefine, even if old me means being bubbly.
(vulgar bubbles ok. VULGARO.)
nattering away miles of words a minute.
have energy to be righteously pissy when shit happens to you too.
no more perpetual look of defeat.
awake. alive. & me.

title's decided.

2009-05-17T03:24:00.002+08:00

it's time to make my words mean things again.

only one way i'd stay.

Enter The Strawman

2009-05-14T20:49:00.001+08:00

i cannot lose all the people i love over a brochure.

preempted.

2009-05-11T11:42:00.001+08:00

Oh my god.

exhaustion gives a certain dignity.

2009-05-11T01:38:00.001+08:00

i ignored the blipping on the radar for too long and now the fuzzy static has spawned a singularity.

i know what needs to be done. this door needs to be slammed shut. never mind where the new doors are for now.

i read somewhere that in marketing, amateurs sit around and discuss strategy, while the experts look at logistics.

that's a clear direction. you can flap your bejeweled tongue all you want about the multi-million, multi-media, multi-hyphenated campaign you've got planned that will make your brand equity so solidified your mascot will come to life and demand a salary as well. but if you only have quarter-a-million to begin with, you won't establish the reach and frequency necessary to train your ~~monkeys~~ customers anyway. and while you're talking brilliant strategy, time's a-ticking and media space's being bought out everywhere. oops, there goes your media cut, don't think i didn't see what you wanted with that hyphen.

so. first tier strategy says stay. 2nd and 3rd says go. 4th says stay, just in case. you can't be serious, it's only been 3 months. 5th says go while i'm still able. 6th sense and the story i just told you are telling me i'm overthinking, and need to simplify my thought-process. either i remove the thousand and eleven what-ifs, replace it with statistical likelihoods and have a cool think about it. Or i make an informed gut decision, after considering my external and internal resources. Take stock first.

My stocks are shockingly low. I've dwindled. I've grown weeds in my head and learnt more wor- arounds than anything else.

If necessary, I'm more resilient than this. But knowing me, i need to set a clear course with a cool head before i knuckle down and hear no reason/ bulldoze my way through/ put the blinders on. And cool heads do not feel like black holes.

one of those days.

2009-05-06T17:58:00.002+08:00

when a part of me split off in the morning to dress like a crazy lady and run out of the house to do anything that flickers through my head.

make a fringe ring, cycle to marina bay, learn to blow smoke rings. Swap my flat shoes for 4-inches just to practice guitar while busking, swap back to bike down to botanic gardens and read trash from the 18th century. Climb rock walls, wash my banana pratas down with teh peng, go dancing in the evening sand, flirt with strangers. Be mean, leave them keen. Write about the whole damn thing and sell it for $80 bucks to some magazine at the end of the day.

yeah. look, ambitious.

Would that I could dare to be a lover fickle & untrue.

2009-05-03T05:56:00.003+08:00

I'm tired of dreaming and never being. I should solve this.

man.. what a night.

i only blog at work.

2009-04-29T23:53:00.002+08:00

some days, i think i can manage, just barely. then i remember, well of course i think so, i'm light-headed from skipping lunch again and whoa it's 7.30pm, and dinner was a banana and a guilt-trip express currypuff. also, skipping lunch and dinner gave me 2 whole hours to catch up with a quarter of my work... just before i die from new-work-influx at the next internal.

yeah, i should go eat dinner now.

things but for which i would have jumped from my 3rd storey shophouse office window today.

2009-04-24T15:16:00.000+08:00

i remembered to buy my mom the gawd awesome french-japanese strawberry shortcake near work and sneaked it to her between errands this morning. automatically, i've won today already. yeah, the shit is hitting the fan already at work, but my mom? she's happy. i SOO win. this would be disgustingly like yoga-stretching so i can pat myself on the back, but i've been telling her about it since the 2nd week i was working at The Balloon-Shape Place. so it's more like, for once i didn't suck at daughterhood. baby yoga only! also if my mom and i were competing at being sweet, today i win EVEN over her, because she LEFT ME PASSED OUT FROM EXHAUSTION ON THE KITCHEN FLOOR LAST NIGHT! GRRR.

i passed an ah pek lounging on the grey boxes where all the geegaws for traffic lights are kept. He was puffing his smoke calmly over the heads of the puzzled office folks waiting for the green light to cross. they pretended not to be staring. he smirked when i grinned at him. he looked like tua pe kong in janitor wear.

Fayfairy mommied me to death last night, cramming all the food in her bag down my throat because it was 10.40pm and i hadn't had time to eat dinner. Strawberries, some weird rabbit food biscuits. i hadn't seen her for weeks and then when i finally meet her it's only to follow me around for 20 mins while i was pelting off the walls desperately running work errands at ikea before they closed. Abu gave me mark-out tuna sandwiches from his workplace ten mins later. Abu had to lie. Timmatits wolfed down half my sandwich in one swallow but he sent me home when i started snoring at nasrins at 11.30! This even though i ruined the night for them because i crashed out so early. Cat-in-demand shores my defences up everyday with her sage poodle of experience advice and by gasping shrilly with outrage at every single thing i tell her about work. Always whine to a drama queen, folks. Otherwise, tak shiok.

how did i score such sweet friends? i will eat them too so they will be with me forever and ever and ever.

almost the best of all. my blood aunt came to visit today, and now i can blame all the fucked up things this week on her.

awesome.

ah fuck, lunch's over, back to workblerghdie!

the dam broke.

2009-04-21T20:38:00.002+08:00

i never come home for dinner anymore.

i'm skipping meals but putting on weight. when i'm not at work all i really want to do is coil in bed. there's a heavy sack of ache sitting on my shoulders, all the time. i have to ask for permission to leave work early. early is 7.45pm. i've disappeared from my friends' lives. i haven't watched an episode of anime or himym online since end of february. season one of house is sitting on my desk unwatched since i don't recall when. i haven't done much without wondering if it'll affect my work performance. i'm not rested from weekends. i have drama i need to settle, but i'm afraid it'll make me unable to work if it gets ugly. my friends annoy me, because it feels like slow baby talk when they're not telling me concisely and clearly what they want from me or yelling at me to finish something by yesterday, miho, what's wrong with you.

everything feels like my fault. i will apologise if you drop your hat in front of me, sorrysorrysorry, i didn't know, i won't do it again. sorry. logistically speaking, i know it's incredibly self-centred to think i could single-handedly made the world go wrong. i'm appalled at myself too. sorry sorry, i didn't mean to screw up again, sorry.

it feels reasonable that one hour is too long to lunch. i can't look at myself in the mirror for long now, because my eyes look odd, flat. i struggle to quail all the weird shit i like to do. i like my things to look like i actually use them, well-worn with love, but now they all look fresh, new and stiff because it affects my professional demeanor and my boss hates it. i used to wear flat shoes everyday because i like to walk for hours and hours to nowhere, but its heels everyday i can manage now because my clothes are not corporate enough without them. and it hardly matters, because i don't have 2 hours to rub against each other for luck nowadays anyway. i wanted to grow my hair long enough that i can sit on it and dye that shit violet, but i had to duck into a hair salon at 9pm one day because my superior pointedly told me my hair was inappropriate for work. my boss loved it the next day and called it trendy.

i'm struggling to understand information i care very little about. in fact, i hate cars with a passion. i will never own one.

i think i am going for days without an original thought in my head, without anything knocking around in there that i can call my own. i'm scared. every spare thought is occupied by workworkworkwork.

i can't arrange anything to happen before 9pm on weekdays, and chances are, i'd be late or have to cancel anyway. i have missed 2 birthday parties i really really really wanted to shout surprise at because i was held up at work last minute. they were 21st birthdays and special. i was nearly 2 hours late to my own birthday party because i was held up at work. i see the sun for about one hour a day now. the 25 minutes i dash to work in, and the 35 minutes i spend at lunch most days. i haven't visited the sea in almost 2 months. once, i couldn't imagine going for a week without hanging out with either of them. i don't seem to have any tact left in me after a workday and tear into people for the slightest bullshit. or i would, but i'm so tired it just happens in my head.

i'm impatient with my friends' troubles when they confide in me, and that's scaring me because i used to be the Born Listening Ear, and people looked up me enough that i was starting to resent having to care so much. i watched a rude bitch next to me scold a barrister at a cafe the other day and i was too dazed to tell her to piss off like i usually would. going to a meeting feels like going to war with a quarter tank of leaking courage. i go to war 8 times a day, sometimes more, and there's no time to do real work. sometimes we war over lunch. i don't have time to pee. or to check on the progress of the orion's belt of pimples that sprung up from the stress. there are days when i walk around with a tangle of tears just stuck in traffic and waiting to pour out, but i won't let it out because it'll be a waste of time i could have spent working. and if i cry and waste this much time, i would be even further behind. i shower and drop into bed 20 mins after i'm in through the door, try to sleep enough to keep up the next day. with 8 hours of sleep you can take on the world. by 12pm i'm fighting exhaustion again. i'm as cheerful as a doomsday prophet. i don't have time or the headspace to act anymore, only react to things.

for fuck's sake, my mom sayang'd my head the other day because i looked beaten up and i teared up so madly that you could almost say i cried. i can't remember the last time she sayang'd me. and i really miss eating my mom's cooking fresh off the stove.

i'm scared. i can't write worth shit anymore.

2009-04-21T19:59:00.003+08:00

in 3 days, i've churned out research, comparison charts x 2 that are so long i printed out 2 x A3 papers to tape together, competitive analysis, SWOT, compiled surveys, summarised the results in charts. none of them i am proud of or will show anyone. hell, i don't even want to talk about them.

these are on top of requests peppering in every half hour, things like, hey miho, i need you to find XXX ad from YYY brand, it came out 2 months ago. or maybe 4 months ago, i can't remember. don't know which publication leh. what's it for? oh just show the creatives for reference. 1 hour later i've huff and puff and blowed into submission a haystack of newspapers as high as my chest and march the measly, ugly ad triumphantly to the meeting. and it's flashed before their eye for 2 seconds before they glaze over and fall to arguing over creative executions.

i've also been scolded twice, yelled at once for ten mins. tsk-ed at countless times, stayed up til the am doing work twice. i volunteered to do something outside of my duties last friday, and that one got me one of the scoldings. a headache has been raging for the past 6 hours.

it's only tuesday.

THE 1001 CURSES OF THE BRIDESMAID DRESS!

2009-04-13T19:48:00.004+08:00

abbasbacha says:
miho

abbasbacha says:
i wanna change my fb status ah
wanna change with me
but i was thinking, im damn bored with being single
and its complicated is passe
you broke up with kammi already right?
and you look good la!!
kamiliah was right le
it was as girlie as i thought it was. wasnt as girlie as you made it out to be
very nice and elegant

me says:
wait.

abbasbacha says:
haha
and you wore your bracelet!! rebellious..

me says:
u saw me in a dress and thought i looked girlie now and so you wanna be my fb boyf.
dude we are breaking up now before we even start la!!!

abbasbacha says:
no la!!!!
wtf
so miho
would you be my fb gf?
i give you sweet superpokes and quizzes to play everyday!!!

me says:
grunt.

abbasbacha says:
ok

me says:
it so WAS girly!! girliest thing i wore ever!!

abbasbacha says:
i can be your fb gf
you be the bf?
want?

me says:
oh cool, ok.
HAHAHAHAHA

abbasbacha says:
it wasnt THAT girly miho!!
oh kay!!
i go do it up now
oo
exciting

me says:
BUT IF IT DOESNT SAY THAT IM THE MAN IN THIS RELATIONSHIP, WE'RE THROUGH!

abbasbacha says:
what
...
oo..
okay.....
i still love you though
=(
*i hear a heart break
piang!
yeah@!!!!!
can already
okay la i put as its complicated

me says:
imma go date alman now. HAHAHAHHAHAHAHA.

...in Love & War. And when stealing that last banana from The Pantry.

2009-04-07T17:09:00.007+08:00

Seeing my name show up on personalised stationary, museum signs, graffiti or just on another Miho's facebook is strangely stirring.

Miho isn't a common name outside of Japan, so unlike the blase Qin Huis, Marys, Sitis of the world, I twitch hugely whenever someone yells my name. So there isn't many Mihos on this island. I'm guessing it's under 25 of us. Probably only one M.Iwaki, maybe two if we're feeling particularly hopeful. Therefore, the chances of your Miho being me is around 6/7 on a busy Friday at the interchange. This is after employing complicated math beyond either of us. It is awfully possible that I just liked the number 7 too.

If you are here on this blog, it's only me la, this place isn't thaaaat easy to find. I know because i googled, for secrecy's sake.

But not so on the internet, the great equaliser of cultural idiocracies, mass distributer of Wide Wide Weirdness. The internet sez; zillions of Mihos storm the big bad cities, prancing placidly amongst the greener grass of That Other Side.

They're having an awesome time of it too. There's a Miho H. working at YSL, she sends handwritten notes to her customers. There's a MihoAoki who's the co-founder of United Bamboo, and designs slightly twisted, indie-loved clothes. There's a Mihothepornstar. There's a Miho Museum in Japan, no bull, and museums naturally win over people and other menial, little things. We can ignore the truckload of mihomusicians, it's better for my ego if i didn't let my voice be anywhere near theirs.

My point here is, i don't know what my point is. No, read that again, i accidentally made sense with that line. Not to be so existentialist, but what's my point here? Other Mihos are making better use of their names, they are carving it in 72-point font Awesome. It's sans-serifs too, beat that!

And me, I'm just the bookworm who's still so branded by King Arthur and Robin Hood and god only remembers what other bible-like books i read as a young impressionable & scrappy kid that i'm astounded today by what seems like almost everyone else who really honestly feels that all's fair in love & war.

I'm also the AE who isn't particularly good at her job, but is pretty awesome at rationalising creatives/bullshitting. Some chick you see a lot at Nasrins not being very nice to her friends. Known as Gremlin at work, Grumpfuck amongst friends, Should-keep-her-hair-long with idiot guys and will-punch-you with other guys. A scatterbrain who shrugs at euro cars, VIP party invites, branded sunglasses or your latest gadgetry that shows you will become a good provider to your future wife and kids. Irritable, sarcastic, foul-mouthed & snarky. Loses interest easily, have fluctuating priorities, overthink things, impatient. But at least she cleans up nicely sometimes.

Someone who's not going to make it home in time for dinner because her colleagues want to go drinking, again. And the wandering girl who's not making the Clan of Miho proud.

Hopefully, just not yet.

toil and trouble.

2009-04-02T10:42:00.002+08:00

i am having trouble giving a shit.

this isn't unfamiliar to me, it's a naturally occurring phenomenon across the world student population. happens around 5 - 7 weeks into each semester.

Every new semester heralds a burst of enthusiasm for novel new projects, notebooks white as piano keys, empty mind eager enough for challenges to bite off so much of project pies that all the cursing in week 3-4 is muffled and gross to behold.

And then week 7 comes on, and the shit? it does not care as much anymore. it just trudges.

problem: am not a student anymore. Work doesn't end in another 10 weeks. It's evermore from now on. forever and ever, amen. 'til death do us part. handcuffed and throw away the key.

i may have dug myself a hole here. Oops.

leave this mortal coil!!

2009-04-02T10:40:00.000+08:00

my shoulder is twitching. i must list the things that i've had to do today that made it twitch. sometimes when i'm trying to type, it turnsoehr like this. because of the twitching. goodbye overpaid intern, hello ultimate pa. I have a list of things to do as long as my arm. i kid you not.

I CANNOT KEEP UP!!!!!

cock-blocked.

2009-03-28T02:16:00.002+08:00

You want to write something wry here.

For when you're past all this and think, oh - surviving that wasn't so bad, go you, what a good little cockroach you are. & d'ya think maybe you dramatised it out of proportion? Like when you were retelling the story of Dorian Grey to your colleague, and got so into it you had him crumpling, screaming into dust that blew away with the wind upon seeing his sin-stained portrait. And you only woke up when copywriter laughed and then you'd cheerfully admitted you'd filled in the blanks you forgot rather too liberally.

You'd happen upon this entry months later, and see through your sarcasms and rhetorics and meanderings and gatekeepers to a hard time you were having in the distant past when you couldn't bear to say in plain english how passionatelybadlyabsurdly you wanted to throw down your trump cards and say fuck it.

You think every time you swallow back a fuck-it, you are one yellow brick closer to the wizard of oz.

But it's too soon for wry. Raw plain words are all you'd care to tap out, and there's a swelling growth on your fingertips too sore for you to click internet publish for such bare-naked honesty. You think the name's pride.

rotten to the core.

2009-03-14T11:42:00.000+08:00

the plan this weekend is to corner-coil at home and stay the fuckoutoftrouble. is good plan, let's ae it.

XXX 7 Step Program, Total Hardcore XXX

2009-03-14T01:15:00.007+08:00

'

1. Join a gym, do the classes. Get so I can run on like an autobot
again.
2. Throw self wholesale into un-fulfilling work.
3. Go dancing, alot. Drink.
4. No facebook anymore. Paint nails red like a warning instead.
5. Don't think.
6. Select reading materials with more foresight.
7. Bodycourier off the colleague blasting vintage love songs to be
incinerated. I'd miss her though, she's been real sweet.

Seriously though. Distracting myself from turning into a rotten person is like serenading a nose hair when Rapunzel's twirling her pigtails at me. My stomach's churning furiously, and it isn't the shisha.

: (

.

fuck you, elm street.

2009-03-11T12:30:00.003+08:00

I can't sleep early anymore, it's bad for my health. There are no nightmares if you don't sleep enough, because your brain'd be so exhausted & grateful for rest that it won't even imagine being cheeky. You see, my dreams are PMSing. Vivid like hellfire and charging like an art director rushing out 7 layouts in time for happy hour. Hypothetically & untruthfully speaking.

Last night, niangsquared fired me for being late one too many times. My mom got sick. Some not-so-random friends got into trouble climbing the wall. Some dude left. & as you know it true, like the long-winded nightmare that it was, it went on & on & on.

It was a hollow, never-ending echo down the pit of my churning stomach.

And it really won't end, until this happened in it.

My words were coming out in print but the ad was rejected by SPH copyvetters because I got too impertinent with it.

"Oh.. oh no. wait. That last one is true!!", I panicked. And then my cat nibbled savagely on my toes sticking out from under my comforter & flung me into sour morning.

are you wickwhacky-woo?

2009-03-07T14:05:00.002+08:00

i feel like going dancing right now!
but i'm going to WORKBLERGH. ultimate loser, okay.

selfish bitch.

2009-03-07T11:43:00.003+08:00

how's your stomach? how's your head?
how's your heart, can it take what i said?

QAF my hair. like so!

2009-03-01T21:08:00.006+08:00

you can't top the Ultimate Weekend. not that i'd tried.
fierce paintballing that makes me bloody-thirsty, jon chan performing live, best flea market finds ever, super potent JB shisha, friends who drop in on your coffee seasons fully liquered up & delightfully happy, sizzling chemistry with the minah monroe & foreign skies less teal with pollution.

you can't prod Potential Too Cliche Teenage Dramas into happenstance. not that i'd try.
no no, it's never me. miho's the sensible prude. see exhibit A: Mistakened Demure Identity. don't tell me it hasn't been blasted all over nasrins by now.

okay, but actually the most important thing on my mind right now is that My Brilliant Idea still hasn't been thought of yet & it's 2 hours to Monday, o no nonononononoo!!!

yeah, but the timon & pumba duo just called me, we's the goin' jalan-jalanin'. yo-yoz.

they'd do the talk shop/NS/nikon/"can't wait to be corporate monkeys so we can beat the system from inside" routine, while i blithely lose track of the conversation, stick my head out the car window & wait for My Brilliant Idea to be blown into my head fully scripted for delivery at the meeting tomorrow. horrible friend. i did warn them.

wah stress. my english is in the pittsbourgh now.

insight: food. product: poop.

2009-02-14T06:45:00.003+08:00

how do you handle big social circles? it irritates me to look around & not be fascinated. can't it be like buying budget yong tau foo, pick only six delicious ones at a time that you would most like to devour alive?

oh hey.
happy valentine's day, i start work monday.

clever, miho, very very cleber. finally enter real corporate slutdom, and then decide to picket my new territory SECONDARY to my old stomping ground.

my Client, starting monday, has my Ex-Client in the Bua Song List.
aka, "wah lao, don't fight with me la" List.
or "excuse me, you are in my parking space" List.
& most obviously, in the Competitive Analysis.
o shit, drama! enemy numero dua. climatic bass SFX kicks in!

whoa, i'm tri-lingual now. mexican-malaysian too. whatever. anyway,

a tall, tall barrier of Conflict Of Interest & Client Confidentiality is thrown down to mess with the bitchy moments of "OMG, you won't believe this!" with Pebbles, who would understand before 4 minutes, 17 sentences of back stories & jargon-explaining, & one hoarse throat for anyone else who cares to listen to work-is-blergh, old grandmother stories. re-introduction to self-censorship. gatekeeper pulled from retirement as goalkeeper to resume his old position.

but then every 2 weeks can semi-release in a torrent of angst & amusement.
toilet-training in the tolerance of suspense!
and this torrent. it'll be radio-active green, same as when you hold your pee in for that long.

Right-click to download: Flush.exe

repellent.

2009-02-09T01:43:00.004+08:00

must recultivate a killer glare.

the 2 feet space of no-go zone forcefield, "touch me, you die" vibe has gone into deep space hibernation.
we must take off in pursuit, for the sanity of planet moxy & it's serene loners. or buy repellent sprays. fuel prices, too unpredictable afterall in the long haul.

don't kid yourself.

2009-01-22T17:35:00.005+08:00

if you used to commandere the living room to build forts out of blankets & chairs & "keep out" signs.
look out windows for far too long after you know what's out there.
if you cheered the jolly thieves as they escaped from the fuzz by a secret trap door in the floor of the barnhouse.
and the vulgar finger signals between the two drivers in front of you in traffic kinda makes you smile.
if reading some somber thesis of how obama's popularity can be a double-edged knife can't sour your relief.
if you wear bruises like relics of an adventure to be retold more dramatically each time.

wee little pink fluffy tiaras might not do it for you, but
you're a romantic is what you are.

epic word crush.

2009-01-20T18:31:00.002+08:00

"You will never meet the Lestrygonians, Cyclops, and the fierce Poseidon, if you do not carry them in your soul, if your soul does not raise them up before you."

--excerpts from Ithaca by C.P. Cavafy

also,

"I LIKE a look of agony, because I know it's true;
Men do not shame convulsion, nor stimulate a throe."

--Emily Dickinson

eh minah, panjat ding ding?

2009-01-07T13:45:00.004+08:00

I try not to hold too much with the fated road and all that jazz, because jeez louis, you don't ever want to give me an excuse to be lazy, i may just snatch it up with my greedy little fists and nuzzle it to death.

so even though i lean towards that sort of thinking more than i'd care to admit, i make darn sure my grip on that pragmatic handhold is sound, ya know? None of the midgety flat fingernail-scrappers, but the nice solid route 5C handholds you rest full weight on.

Which may be why there've been loud nudges towards a certain direction. Blatant shoves, really, as if something's sick of being ignored.

You know what it's like to be following this climb route that's more than you can chew?

Already half way up, buggered tired but buggered if you'd give up now. So you hang there for too long, panting, resting, trembling & almost given up. You had the cocky arrogance to hook your toe into the first few handholds, but now you're out of your dingding depth. shit. can just let me down? time to makan anyway la.

And your belayer, he's sick to his balls of hitching you up discreetly every time you shift, so he's yelling, that one, right of your chest, yeah, tiptop left and haul your right foot up there. Down? Down your head ah! Go.

Yeah. It feels like that, if the said belayer was fate's dirty minions (cat, not you okay, chill). "Dude, go that way already, you haven't got all lifetime."

So i wonder, if i push my luck, is there a chance for awesome on the horizon?

.
..
...
ooooh hey look, awesome on the horizon would make a GREAT song title! just like yay you.

astrological-apologetic autopsies 2008.

2009-01-06T07:54:00.004+08:00

really i just wanted to kick 2008 into the back of my closet as a failed mutant baby we'd ignore, & toss in leftover suppers to & make inventive excuses to the neighbours for all the creepy bashing & moaning sounds for. except for some bits that were too shiny.

like finding faded old glowsticks in most of my bags from night-fishing excursions halfway across the island & prancing indie disco nights & thrash-snake dancing to music that was dark, throbbing, glitchy, deep, intense.
like awesome new, very genuinely-liked friends.
& clinking flutes of sparkling grape juice to a grinning circle of familiar-extreme, grossly adorable, lavishly-loved & cosy-old-gold-boldly-scolding friends. (these adjectives applied to those outside of that circle i heart and all. you know you.)
like kickass insightful conversations i wish i taped down, they were so mindbone-exhausting to be had.

like my eyes getting wider & more starry, the more i see the world. goddamnit, it's too EXCITING!
like boys, secretive adventures & interesting work, ya know?

(Big D was awesome, even its done for now. a tear didn't try to fight it's way out when i was writing my farewell letter, nononononono sirree. & i grew up a little & became more confident, assertive, snake-minded & you know, all that silly CV & Ms Universe crap that's too corny to admit is The Truth.)

like being slapped with an overwhelming consciousness of my moronic noises that i CANNOT SWITCH OFF NOW. thanks ever so much, muhd bedek & !kung bushwoman.

...i'm allowed to go past my usual cheesy threshold today, ok. Tuesdays are half-priced waffles day & "cheapest movie tixs everywhere" day, "no school for 2 semesters running" day & " wheee, blast music & slack because everyone's out at The Clients for meetings" day & my last day of work day & so it's kinda lucky.

most of all,
it's like the solid feeling of having special, awesome persons who kicked my daydreaming ass with a hearty tongue-lashing & cleverly (, exasperatedly) shoved me in all the right directions. essentially, the direction out of the limbo i was digging myself into for much of the year.

they shut me out of the fort so i'd deal with the dragons. they refused to belay me down when i only made a half-arsed attempt on the wall. they cared.

they had my back.

it's all so new to me, & i don't see how i deserved it... but okay loh, free-gift-with-purchase, what idiot would argue? no, really.

2008 would have been just another gross end of a listless kitten without you guys.
thank you pebbles, chillipadilingling, karma princess, bugs, kaelle, jaetty, banana, din. some of you shot my faltering ego dizzyhigh, some of you slapped good sense into me, others calmly weathered psychotic fits without ever asking why, but you guys were a team and you never knew it. most of you don't read this though, so er..
PSYCH! :D

2008, your ass so divine, but your face is bashed in.
defooonitely better seein' ya goin' nuh comin'!
2009, hey? BRING IT ON BITCH!!

anything you can do.

2009-01-06T05:02:00.000+08:00

count the number of people you've kissed.

ladies;
a ) is it a horrorpride moment? (hint: the first time you suspected you may have a shoe addiction. you tallied them up; gasped & decided, oh dear, hahahahahahaha, maybe you need an intervention.)
b ) " ohh. phew!/chehhhh!"
c ) "holy fuckerina... i need an intervention with my family there."

fellows;
you don't need to count (/inflate score), you already know.
*big, fat, lusty wink"

to sleep & perchance to dream of unsketchy plans for the future oh yes, yes, baby, yeeesss.

2008-12-29T01:57:00.004+08:00

i was trying to tell my friend earlier tonight that i had a déjà vu of a dream. like with many conversations, we were swept along on one of a dozen tangents and i got home tonight, too restless to sleep & with the tale of it still on my mind to tell.

this is how it went.

i suddenly remembered, through a perchance similar flick of a wrist that my brother used, just as a perchance body lumbered into my peripheral vision, which was just like a scene in that dream.

eerily familiar, like being haunted with a time & mind.

stay with me, folks, that's just one of the ridiculously contrived-feeling parts, just one!

so.
that happenstance jolted my memory, & flung out a misshaped drawer, in a squat chest of drawers, in a haphazard room, in the helter-skelter corner of my mind. as if i were reliving the dream, i remembered it. & it's a silly little dream not hardly worth mentioning, apart from it being so unintentionally (ridiculously) contrived-feeling. and me actually remembering it.

and so. my old classmates, the ones i'm was never close to, from ye ol' secondary school & i were in the dream. and in this dream, we were collecting donations in the tin cans with coins clanging around in them; only they weren't clanging, and to us it felt impertinent that they must clang.
appeals for donations were being ignored, whether we tried to clown around for attention, pleaded with heartfelt cries, slicked our humidity-mussed hair into near-resemblance of matured adults, or cajoled with good-natured prods.

we were as good as invisible & so the problem, it was decided, was that our tin cans did not clang with previous generosities. if passerbys had passed earlier impervious to charity, so could these fresh strollers yet pass us by, just because they know from the non-clanging that they will be no worse than their peers. that they are no better, of course, bothered them not. it hardly ever bothers anyone, yes?

so that was the plot; encourage through subtle peer pressure; by rattling in their faces noisily the new standards by which these stone-hearted folks will be judged.

but we were reluctant. we were donating efforts in kind already & asking each other to throw in cash too when we've spent hours in this heat & humidity so solid you almost leaned on them with every gasp seemed a bit much to ask.

so we tossed in a tiny little bit of spare change.

it worked a little; a couple of older men stopped, kindly popped in dollars, refused the sticky badge of honor we offered & left, whistling.

then nothing for another 20 minutes. frustrated, we dropped in more change; the response was warmer. encouraged, we sought out a convenience store to break a note; the makchik in there saw us plonking them as she handed them to us, and pulled out a ten from her own pocket. bemused she was, when we confided in her our noisome intent, & emptied a fresh roll of change from the cashier into our tins with a hearty wink. our luck was as awesome as lottery after that.

one of my friends, a guy i had barely exchanged two real conversations with in real life, & i were charting a rough graph of peer-pressure kindness from our afternoon's inprompto findings & we were talking excitedly about making it our thesis for university, thrashing out what would construe the differentiation between honest kindness & obliged kindness & i forget from there on what transpired. but it's the only dream that's mostly realistic that i remember, so i decided that i must tell it to you, silent reader.

i don't know why i must belabour the point that these classmates & i had not ever been close, but it feels as impertinent as our eventual real need to have some meaty donations. huh, right.

the one other dream i remember? it's got very disturbing themes according to dream interpreters leh, don't ask lah i shy.

if i dreamt it, it must be true.

2008-12-19T13:36:00.002+08:00

i'm getting a peacocktopus tattoo. it's a peacock, & an octopus. Both, but not.

it's not an excuse to rainbow my skin (it is, actually), but damn, if they charge by colours, i will die. DEAD. death by shrieking.
because what if it's like one spot colour ad vs. full colour ad, do you know what the insane price difference is like?

but let my excitment flutter down first. remember when i was just as convinced it was going to be a humongous black tree silhouette, and it'll be like a charm bracelet, i'd add things to the branches as big life things happen to me? a pair of wings sprouting from my shoulders? qoutes? i'm sure there was a unicorn & blossoms moment too. And russian mosiac. Don't forget the rainbow-sewing skull.

whatever it is, it's bound to be so colourful it'll be vulgar to look at. AWESOME.

if someone uses any of my ideas first, i will stab you. it's an angry week & i'm an angry girl.

Sociology packs the crazy in your eyes into neat little squares.

2008-12-15T11:45:00.000+08:00

Status Anxiety (ISBN 0-375-42083-5) is a nonfiction book by Alain de Botton. It was first published in 2004 by Hamish Hamilton; subsequent publications have been by Penguin Books.

Central Thesis:

Status Anxiety discusses the desire of people in many modern societies to "climb the social ladder" and the anxieties that result from a focus on how one is perceived by others. De Botton claims that chronic anxiety about status is an inevitable side effect of any democratic, ostensibly egalitarian society. De Botton lays out the causes of and solutions to status anxiety as follows:

Causes:

Lovelessness
Expectation
Meritocracy
Snobbery
Dependence

Solutions:

Philosophy
Art
Politics
Religion
Bohemianism

(source: wikipedia, retrieved 12 December 2008)

The canon ate my brief, niang niang!

2008-12-12T11:38:00.001+08:00

"addictive"

2008-12-11T14:27:00.001+08:00

that's a whole can of worms you opened there. can you kiss every each one of them too?

slimey, drooly hell. POUT SIAH!

2008-12-03T14:52:00.004+08:00

i'm going to die.
i'm going to die slowly, drowning in my own nasal droolings. my god-forsaken nose, land of the the bountiful sinuses shall kill me. (although one could argue that most of me is god-forsaken, seeing as i'm not a believer, and therefore will rot in poxy hell. says the god-yessakens. where was i? oh.)

i'm going to dieeeeee. mommmyyyyyy-glugglugglug!!!!

Ninja for a living'd probably make filling forms awkward.

2008-11-26T11:08:00.003+08:00

The Obvious: personality tests tell me what i want, and that's not necessarily the best course of action. so if every dratted test i take online to procrastinate an potentially life-changing decision tells me i'm a flowing, free-spirited, flowers in my hair & ants on my toes, pee in the bushes, dance to the blooms of a thousand tulips, hug the chicken don't hurt it's feelings and eat it, Lady Healer of the World's sodding babies, o-so-Piscean, budding writer/artist, that doesn't mean it's meant to be.

After all, those inherently flawed quackery crackery things also go on to gush that religious education & counselling are marvellous career paths for persons of my deposition, and o hello, your roll on the floor laughter of the day is proudly sponsored by letter M, the number 9, and these long-sentences.

fine, the real reason i'm annoyed is it's 10.52am and you know i'd much rather be told i'd be the Warrior of the Warped Universe, Terror of Mondays, Doom-bringer of Ninjas, Ravisher of Shoes, Attacker of Art Friend, Berserk Queen of all Flea Markets, Wanderer of the Whispered Isles, Lady Knight of the distant shores made of pure gold.
You know, awesome, fearsome things. Am i doomed to never be fearsome? GRR!

and me want cookie. OM NOMNOMNOMNOMNOM.

escapist.

2008-11-20T14:52:00.003+08:00

i'm desperately sad. not upset, just.. unhappy. the difference is there, tucked in the niche under the 2nd vowel. i don't know quite exactly why, and it's sending my insides into a mad panic trying to figure it out.

i feel like writing a long email about an imaginery day in the lonely life of lady ninjastorm to an address i'd pluck from midair, like john.notso.doe@gmail.com, just because.

or maybe borrow a camera and grab a theatric friend who won't understand or ask why, and go scout out that abandoned mansion in town to make a horribly tragic & gory photo story in.

or just reading, readreadread like its breathing, and ditch my life for 3 days.

i'm restless for something and the signs of this coming were there for a while and i ignored them. pms-y signs, like cursing less like a sailor, more like a pirate.
like jaywalking with traffic that reckless bit closer. like ignoring smses. like loathing beatles music all of a sudden. like a post-it tearing under a too fiercely-held pen.
like being more wary, less glad when someone resurfaces from the past.
like inadviceable things and leaping & not looking when i shouldn't & looking not leaping when i should.

that sounded angry. am i that too? do you even get what the fuck i'm saying? i don't.

hey, look at me, i'm a mess looking for somewhere to puke.

YEE-HAWWW!!

2008-11-11T03:31:00.002+08:00

The Adventures of Helicat & Penguin Rat,
coming to a blog near you.
er. Hint, is it?
Nearest to you now. yes, right now. or... maybe a little to the right. yeah there. no, yes - nono, you've overshot now.

a good day is.

2008-11-10T15:33:00.004+08:00

.

heavy pooping that makes me feel lighter, sprightlier and cleaner, like the housewife olympics 2008 was held in my tummy, and the Scandinavians won. minimalism, ya know.

my insides are juggling around, adjusting to having more space. heck, i bet my CG is being re-centred, and my shooting finger needs to be recalibrated.
the crawly sensation in my head is my brain scrambling to hold on to ze skull, scooting itself up every couple of seconds, 'cause the pile of entrails it's sitting on keeps wiggling like it's trying to grow into a new pair o' shoes.
i think i jump a foot higher now. and i bet if lungs called out to kidney, eh minah, jiah peng liao, kidney will scream back, ah lian, don't cha holla at me, frickin' echoing down here. be gone dead weight, swooosh.
yeah, it feels real nice.

oh yeah. crap.

oh. LOLZ PUNZZZZZOREXOMETERZ!!!
no, really. gomen nasai?

.