searching for the elusive unicorn

Amsterdam Acoustics - Erlend Øye (Kings of Convenience) - Mrs. Cold / Ask (The Smiths) from Mokummercials on Vimeo.

I finally did it. no matter how small. even when murphy's law struck, i stuck to my guns.
even when this happened:

personally the night meant a lot to me. looking forward to 2010.

maybe if i whisper you'll hear me

foto-ject

Fleshing out dreamy landscapes
Watercoloured cliches of the land we are in
We ogle at the beautiful people
Who walk past our cobble-stoned street

My mornings are spent there
Watching shopkeepers welcome the world in
Corporates bike their way to work
Our favourite book-keeper
Humming a foreign tune

We spend the cool nights at that veranda
Peranakan inpsired mosaic
A reminder perharps
Admiring lantern street lights which
Illuminate just enough to cast
Silhouettes of lovers
For our voyueristic souls

We play guessing games on how long
They've been together
The philandering half
Their unspoken rules
The ambiguity of silences
The smell of grilled treats
From street side stalls below
Fills the backdrop of our bellies

A thousand miles away
We can stay like this

Beyond the Stasis
April 2009

taking the wrong train never gets old - uncanny song about me

I took the train going the wrong way again
Something’s happening inside my brain
I was thinking about something else again
I took the train going the wrong way again
I just dunno what is happening, I can see but I’m just not listening
I was thinking about something else again
I was thinking about me again
Maybe in a month, probably in a year or two
I’ll be back to normal, I swear that to you
She goes on and on and on, about me
There’s no one else but me honestly
Oh no she does an awful thing
I lost my wallet back home again
There’s something happening inside my brain
Threw my keys in the trashbin, then it was think about me again
Talking talking no one, listen listening

*Sweden, Norway!!What is in the water.....strawberries maybe...I wanna twee!*

tactile hostile

'why do people tell lies, half-truths, white lies, non-revelations'
'Maybe they're afraid to reveal them, cause it might change people's perception of them. Something they're embarrased about'

been a grappling point to the point i realise its not healthy and possibly affecting relationships with people around me. probably a skeleton in my closet, which i tot I had shipped out long ago. trying not to think much of it, but i need to be able to trust. in a way, the above behaviour is akin to cheating on a certain level no? but the assumption therein lies in the extent of expectations and nature of all the type of "ships" we have with people. if that is so, then i should cease to expect anything to save being on the receiving end of the above and potential bruise. yes,that should be it.

when i trust people, naturally you let them in, and by logic you will be vulnerable.
i m naive, i agree but thats cos i think the best of a person. so these days maybe im more fearful of opening up, of being vulnerable, of potential bruises. Cos i know that when i do trust, i will give it my all. An imbalanced tipping scale, which i don't want to be on. But some how I know deep down i still will. so this attitude has to change plus changing the goalposts of expectations.

disappointment is as long as its name. Yet there's still an end after T. i can choose to wait for the end or choose to refuse feeling crushed anymore.
setbacks only make you stronger, even if they repeat themselves. the latter it is.

the send off

Full circle it has come you say
Stay strong
Our prayers are with you

before sunrise

m always grumpy waking up at before sunrise for sahur.its like a mad scramble of pots and pans just before the time to not eat starts. and i have a penchant for getting into squabbles cos put it simply i m lazy of the hassle to get food served on the table. seriously just eat bread cannot ah. wa lau eh. anyway, random things on the first day of sahur/puasa.

#1) was damn dehydrated and thirsty on the first day, felt like a camel who was about to have my period-cos i get damn thristy before-the whole day was damn hot and all i wanted was to drink ribena. and of course i had to pass the ahballing stall and all i wanted was ahballing. and then while trying to find french loaf cos was tasked to cook roti john i saw tar sau piah and from then i wanted to eat tar sau piah...weakness...usually m so not this neh neh. must have been the first day of puasa and the blazing heat.

#2) so for sahur next day forced myself to drink a few glasses of water, while being sulky cos i had to clean up the pots and pans afterwards, and being in semi-dazed stoned state. i stared blankly at the wall gg thru the routine of drinking my water and my mind pandered - so this must how it felt, albeit sliver of a glimmer, of how the POWs during Jap Occupation were tortured by being forced to guzzle gallons of water while their stomaches were trampled on. Torture by water...fascinating.

#3)while moodily washing up all the grease and plates,etc. again my mind pandered how would the feminist of her time, coco would react. wat acerbic retort wud she have spewed. and i could see audrey tatou starring at me with her cynical world- weary face as in the movie.

#4) while gg back under the covers, in the dark i dozily caught sight of my lil sis holding something in her hands on the bed. It was luminous bright red, and glowing in her hands. My first thought, and i seriously believed it for a moment was - eh how come she got a glowing kueh ah pam (sp?) So cool red coloured kueh ah pam, glowing, so clever hide for herself one isit. reminded me of the ah pam cake the chinese sometimes offer to their Gods, placed alongside joss-sticks at the altars and sometimes by the pavements. I oso want to eat!!! even tho i dun really fancy kueh ah pam.
.
.
.
only after a while did i realise she was holding the alarm clock.

your pretty wings

after 8 years, a trilogy nonetheless. the man is sex in a voice.
probably the true heir to marvin gaye, with the signature neo soul twist.
Oh Ms Hill, where have u been hiding..?

lennon or barnes

• First Of The Gang To Die by Zee Avi

Bila

perkataan dan diagnosis
menguris hatiku dengan ketepatannya
seperti segumpal darah yang beku, tersemat di jiwaku
tanpa nama, yang telahku coba megupas ertinya

awoke from non-sleep, drenched in sweat
vommitting out yesterday's excesses
asthma's byproduct, with a cocktail of phlegm
playing partners with my working mind
had i been sleeping through it all

words hit home and i realise the name
i realise what it really is, it's partly true yet
only an identified chip from the whole
i've been going about my business, feeling numb
i've been doing things i enjoy, feeling numb
admit i was attempting to recreate hapiness
moments which have been "happy moments" to me
this is not to say that i'm wholly in a negative state
it is not boredom then
it is about being joyful, or rather the lack thereof
hapiness is an elusive state, it is not an entity in itself
being joyful comes from within, it doesn't ask for more
it comes from acceptance and hope in the distance
it doesn't need external manisfestation or physical affirmation
yet all the components you choose to constitute your life
are sources of its derivation and fuel
its about being joyful that you have a chance at living; at making change;
at adding value to the world; to your world; to others; to second, third, nth chances, believing in the things you do
would it then be the composition and recomposition of these components
that brings renewal, that is something to figure out
i've seen the change
how she's grown and learnt
and i see it
it was always just the company
that's all that was enough

the dilemma of the essential human condition - reconciling our oscillating ends

Beaming
Creative Chatter
Meditative Ease

Comfortable worn-in silences
Minuscule footsteps
Encapsulated in tiny voices

Little projects around the house
Chaotically endearing
We call them our inspirons

Who cast shadows
On our past selves
A future never envisaged

You
Got me
In a saddle stitch
I won't let go

Alien.Nation.

for the unexpected bursts of breakdowns in midst of work
for when faced with bad days
for when all you need is someone to talk to but naught
for when all you can do is turn inward
maybe this will bring some cheer

this has got to be the cutest and fun thing to do :)

Gravity's a possessive bed

an objective subjectivity

~The most interesting faces generally oscillate between charm and crookedness. There is a tyranny about perfection, a certain tedium even, something that asserts itself with all the dogmatism of a scientific formula. The more tempting kind of beauty has only a few angles from which it may be seen, and then not in all lights and at all times. It flirts dangerously with ugliness, it takes risks with itself, it does not side comfortably with mathematical rules of proportion, it draws its appeal from precisely those details that also lend themselves to ugliness.~

i'll take understated over accessibility, it lingers unexpectedly

hold your own//know your name

at times when in doubt

dig deep 

to the defining essence of who you are

to the things you know and nothing else

to the things you hold true

to these special things that God has lent you

and it will be fine 

it will be

"Are your thoughts result of static cling"

of whimsies

Tucked in a corner on Fitzroy
Off the beaten track
Where our scarlet shophouse resides
Nestled amongst the creative hub of
Eclectic eateries
Bustling boutiques
Avant-garde artisans
Humble themselves in
Our little red dot
A centrepiece
In this colourful Kildanian tapestry

Hand stictched books
Adorn the off-white walls
In house murals of friends
Stand six feet tall
The scent of fresh java permeates this abode
An ode - to the love in living poured each day
Endless indie streaming on open mic nights

Our red emblem
Oh, how we love the irony

no excuses timeout

I'm sorry.
For my actions, behaviour, and words.
There is no excuse.
If i did hurt you.
All the many times.
I accept and retreat with humble pie.
I'm sorry.

the crispy fried pepper

watched Cats the musical yesterday and i admit was a tad apprehensive about seeing a musical *actually the Cats look scary in pictures*, plus was feeling nauseous prior. But it was good! Totally entertaining, music sets back to back, funky costumes and great seats. Throughout the show the actors propped themselves on the foyer stalls' barricade right smack in front of our face. talk about interactive. i was actually smiling and laughing throughout. At one point I actually felt like owning a cat!

Couple of tots entered my mind:

the actors were soooo in character, as nimble and agile as the feline species themselves. every single gesture, the way they glided, nua-ed and lazed around on stage, on people *haha* totally mirrored real cats. Which got me thinking, were these actors cat-loving owners as well? How long they must have spent pouring over every single detail, gestures and mannerisms of cats? Wah how ah method acting like that? What species of cat they had to study diligently to mimic their characteristics? Whether the actors were really cat lovers?

the amazing vocal prowess and range of the thespians!! was shaking my head when the high notes were reached and the perfectly harmonised singing of everyone! how tough is that, singing in tune yourself already susah, wah lau eh more than 20 ppl is like wow.
Which again led my mind to think, no wonder the dolphin-octaved Adam Lambert from American Idol is mind-blowingly talented as he is! He's kinda hot *haha in a gay/andro way*, entertaining, engaging and not to mention his ball-busting vocal range that would put Tina Turner to shame. Liddat not fair mah.

and no i'm not thinking too much *i hope*. these imagined conversations pop into my head.

• We're From Barcelona - I'm From Barcelona

• more missing tracks on ffffoundtape

Gunhild - I'm From Barcelona

if i let you out is it alright

its only water in your eyes

its only words out of my mouth

its only you i want to find

who says organising is cathartic

Rummaging through my drawers filled with crap, paper, bills, paper, notebooks, notes, memorabilia, paper, photos, negatives, CDs and stuff I realize:

1. There are a lot of things and moments that I miss

2. I am morphing into a scrap paper whore rather than a notebook whore. Thing is more pieces of paper are accumulating. Shit. Yellow lined paper rocks as do office supplies!

3. My organizer drawers are way beyond “organized” that I can’t find stuff. Heck I forget where I even put the keys to my wardrobe drawer which contains my passport and other important stuff. Which reminds me I need to renew my passport or I can say sayonara to flying anywhere. *first thing, find the keys*

4. If I have my own room it would probably be worse than a junkyard.

5. I really have no idea where some of my stuff are

6. I’m actually living in organized chaos despite the facade of a clean room, more of a knee-jerk reaction to stop the wailing siren of the domestic matriarch. My mind actually works in organized chaos in keeping things

Which got me thinking could Singapore ever exist in an organised chaos? The systems, mechanism of doing things are structured. At a work visit, a passionate youth worker mentioned that ‘organised chaos doesn’t exist in the Singapore’s dictionary’, in comparing how a flexible, non-formal and non-overly structured US system can produce such effective programs based on simple ideas and organic mechanisms. Just dance, just paint and generate natural interest rather than mandated, contrived ideas, programs and implementation mechanisms. Of course this is based on the principle of a civic-minded community. Can we.

Now where is that damn book that started this whole exercise!

p.s. messy is good, don't let anyone say otherwise to you :)
________________________________

Changes they come in numbers,
Yet the only constant thing is my inherent bouts of calamity.

ms calamity scene 1

Rushing to get to a wedding, I got out of the shower to get something from my room. In a hurry, I slipped and fell like nangka busuk. And I tell u it hurt like hell. But no it wasn’t the wailing that awoke d snoozing sister but my loud thud. Sprawled on the floor, my sis woke up with squinting eyes, looked at me, smacked her forehead and went back to sleep. Thanks ah.

Thing is the next day I realized I had a blue-black blood clot on my arm the size of two eggs. And I didn’t even hit that part of my arm. It’s still on my arm after 2 weeks, which I hope would go away. The responses range from, “What did you do? I don’t wanna know what you do in ur spare time”, “wah, you kinky hor”, “let me rub it, if not the oceh will run and spread to your face *nice try*” to “you mean u were naked when you fell?!? (Which elicited a familiar sounding response in my head à “You mean Chinese eat cow’s tongues?!?”)
Of course, I didn’t do anything and let the bugger disappear from my arm. Of all my years of breaking things, falling down and such, this has left an imprint, literally.

ms calamity scene 2
Went to a wedding, more like forced to. Someone from the great matriach’s posse left a foldable wooden fan on my table. Was waiting for the inane conversations and social niceties/updates to end when I started twiddling with the abandoned fan cos it was soooo bloddy hot (like 34degrees!) and the fan looked like it came from the traditional art institutes of Bali (like as if I know rite, but that’s the visual that popped in me head man). Right upon opening the fan, I broke one of the folds of it. Great.

Next thing I knew, while twiddling with the decapitated member, it fell into my-oh-so-bloody-sweet-teh which I really do believe had 0.1% of tea and 99.9% of condensed milk *bleurgh*. Never abandon your things around me. Hohoho.

Best thing was convincing the bro to drink the contaminated the cause it was oh so delicious. Nice.

Yes, if anything that hasn’t changed, it has to be this.

Blood

I really hope that I did the right thing. Somehow there's still a paranoid suspicion lingering on, that I dun believe in the truth of the whole situation. That I may be getting only snippets of the truth. I just hope that the trust and faith I have placed will not be betrayed, the track record has consistently shown otherwise. And I didn't think I was that nice too, but I guess its in me to look out for people, especially those I care for, even if the returns are naught. We'll see when the time comes to stick to those words.


I believe that my life's gonna see
The love I give return to me

brush it off my shoulder

To shit of a week indeed.
I just wanna dance:

dancing through night, dancing through the days~

Those Dancing Days - Those Dancing Days

hitten - Those Dancing Days

happy thoughts

am sick and all i can think about is inch-thick pancakes with raspberries and blueberries, drizzled with copious amounts of maple syrup served on a big white plate with a tall glass of orange juice, for Sunday brunch?!?!

and there wasn't any mix at home nor can i be bothered to make anything from scratch, or for that matter can anyone be bothered to make anything for me...so i proceeded to make kaya toast instead..close as it can get i suppose and plonk myself in front of the food channel.

see i believe than when the food you have sucks, have a craving for good food or when home food isn't all that tasty to say the least, take your mish-mash and watch the food channel. And i tell you it tastes much better, just imagine your eating what's on TV. Essentially its food porn. this trick has gotten me through a few gastronomically unpleasant days.

Why can't there be IHOP in spore :(
*pancakes...pancakes..* *Double Blueberry! Butterscotch Rocks!*

*sniffles*

popcorn anyone?

the reader and benjamin buttn got me thinking about a few things. one thing that tugged at them strings was the concept of enduring love or enduring pain? whichever side of the fence that you wish to plonk urself on. how is it that some people are that you meet at a certain point of time, albeit briefly, leave such an indelible impression for that moment that you carry them throughout life's journey. the tears wellled up in ralph fiennes' eyes when asked by the holocast survivor regarding his relation to winslet's character needed no explanation at all. And for that brief moment you could see all the pain of the past joy (in a brief summer) encapsulated in that silence.

how we fall and let ourselves fall knowing the self-destructible outcomes is the risk of leaping on faith's pitch. so we learn and break, produce a generation of cynics, who wedge distance between selves, fail to believe in happy endings, who remain guarded.

some say that its not enduring love but being in love with the person/situation in past memory, not the present or the possible future; or another view is holding on to the pain, an addiction to pain that you indulge yourself in; or maybe its just a soft spot moulded in a context of that time. whatever it is, it is amazing how an indelible impression formed through unrivalled chemistry is cast upon heartsleeves, will never be replicated but instead used as benchmarks that automatically fails those subsequently. we know we should'nt but we do it don't we?

the stories reflect how people reassume their past roles, their past selves in relation to each other. and at the points of revisiting these selves, we catch on from what was left behind, cut off, fumbled through, hastily forgotten and never realised.

we can go round in circles, looking for answers, favourable outcomes, plausible explanations but some things we have no control over, some things we can't force, yet it is all these things that matter. so we resume our journeys trying to catch ourselves every now and again when we falter or know that we can't trust ourselves from refraining.

it may be a cliche that life is neither white or black but shades of grey, which is exactly why we treck the troughs of the headaches, heartaches and injustices. for there will be peaks, however brief they may be, we can only be glad/grateful to have had those moments and that those special people shared a good part of themselves with us.

unspoken sensibility

maybe your right, i have been unwittingly pushing people away
they've done nothing to deserve any hostility or my suspicions
unknowingly, trust is a haunting abyss i never filled
is it so hard to open a heart

amazing ponggol II

so finally after days of planning, cancellation and scheduling we did have our annual end year gathering. somehow fanna and my idea for a picnic held sway and despite the sticky scheduling and place we did end up somewhere quite nice and off the beaten track.

so plans for changi turned to pasir ris and otw while i was abt to pick the rest up and in the midst of frantic smses to change plans.....it had to rain at p.ris and changi..im amazed that i didnt crash into someone (judging by my astigmatised filtered driving these days) while multitasking-ly flipping thru the street directory cos all i kno of changi is the chagi village-nasi lemak-tranny area, smsing the change of plans to those who were coming later and those coming later than later, answering phonecalls while chugging redbull cos i had 3 hrs of sleep the nite before. pandai.

well at least there's no theme or wateva color code (fanna i refuse to admit that im color blind, say wat u want :P). So wen i did pick up the peeps at tanah merah im gld that there were helpers to do the calls and credit to isha's great idea ponggol it is. Luckily a Ponggolian was in the midst after the previous harrowing experience in twilight zone ponggol. On the way there tho i had to pee soo badly and i only had 1 redbull (wassup w the bladder these days).

*I'm thinking its either here (stopped by ponggol plaza) or the bushes in ponggol swampland*

so we stopped by the side of the road (yellow zig zag line) and i go:

Me: i gotta pee
Isha the rest: huh? really. where
Me: eerm ya...im not gonna pee in the sea. this shopping centre sure got rite

Farin: *pointing out to the event tentage* how bout those portable toilets there. *everyone chimes in and agrees* (yes Farin i kno u deal w a lot of events and a prolly c no diff btw a real toilet and a portable one....wait are they even called portable toilets?? dis sounds funny...)

Me: im not gonna pee there (i tot they were joking). u guys wait in the car anything call me.

So there were 4 girls in the car, parked illegally by the side of the road while i went scurrying to find a toilet in this barren place. I literally ran from the car to the toilet and back. I felt like Marion Jones making the 100m dash while high on d*pe and red bull. Once back in the car i spotted a red ant on my thigh and swatted it away. Farin spotted another one a while later and they were beginning to think where the hell did i pee (since it was quite fast). Yes i peed in the bushes thinking it was a toilet bowl and stepped on an anthill otw.

quote worthy:

isha: yeah thats singapore over there. can see the fireworks.

razif n saddiq: no thats johor

isha: huh im sure its singapore. i tot i saw fireworks the other time
razif n saddiq: no its johor la.. seriously

isha: really ah

(Note to Fanna n Farin: Now this is where i shud say "Seberang Tambak" w/o being mistaken for Sabah. Accurate point of reference)

*actually ah if the ponggol jetty is just beside us...then isnt that pulau Ubin?!? i remember taking the ferry to OBS from here*

thanks for the food and all and d cute cameo of lil rayyan. wokaay whose doing the next..i pass. ho ho ho.

whipped

after gg thru a first kinda fotoshoot, i realise how much i suck. my goodness, not only do u have to contend with the unpredictable elements like mozzies, the hide and seek sun, rolling around in dirt, mud, grass etc and others like the mood of the model, lenses, light, composition, etc.

yes only 2 persons is never enuf, now we kno y ther's the creative director, assistants, and photographer. and i definitely suck at the creative tot process. so much for androgynous pasty zomb look due to my lack of directive skills(nonexistant), it came out cosplay-meets-bai ling meets-"hanoi bride love you long time time". yes..research is the key to everything be it the look, props, location (that's y there are experts in each field), visual refernces, storyboard.

being unprepared n uncertain is a no no. i kno much to //ilng's chargrin partly due to the mozzies haha, she was waiting for directives, this is esp impt for ppl who are not used to modelling. be that a lesson for me. i wonder how she even got thru w/o ripping my head off. i bet a million curses were muttered under her breath.

actually the better cute shots were candid goofball ones when we decied to just give up trying to hard and just let loose. im amazed that the lass cud even pose some haute couture-ish poses since she hated them so. not bad for a siao char bor ah lian. full marks for the effort, game-ness to tahan my tak leh make it shoot.

at least we tried it out ourselves b4 putting other ppl thru it. Many lessons learnt from this tho tiring but fun nonetheless.

"only when we're young"