Lie To Me

I hold on to the moments after. I hold on to a lot of things, sometimes too much, and for too long. My hands are full.

Incubus

Friday, 7th October 1968

Like a scene right out of a medieval story, everything had a special intricacy to it. Like how the cracks on the bridge carved out a pattern, or how the waters gave off little shimmers of gold under the setting sun. The girl that stood by the bridge, the girl: she completed the scene. Her every feature – from the slight crookedness of her nose bridge to her perfect porcelain skin – complimented her surroundings. Her hair moved with the wind, and sounded like the soft rustling of leaves. She was reading a book, but the title of it fails me. All I could remember was the way she whispered the words, the quiet way her fingers moved across the page, and how much she respected the book – afraid to crease its pages or stain its cover. She didn’t even look my way once, but it was at that precise moment in time that I fell in love with Ivy.

Ivy. Even her name sent chills down my spine. Poison Ivy, my mother called her. No good would come from that girl, she said. But like all children, and like all people trapped in the clutches of love, I failed to listen. Ivy was my sun, and she was my moon. Without her, I would know no night or day. She had the power to reflect each person’s soul in her eyes, and it was in them that I lost myself, as did many others…

Monday, 10th October 1968

It takes 232 steps to reach her doorstep. I counted them as I left my apartment to get her flowers. The florist wrapped the lilies and made small talk. “They’re for your girl, sir?”, she asked. I replied yes, and she told me Ivy was a lucky girl. Merely smiling, I paid and left with the lilies, which smelled like morning. Of course Ivy was a fortunate girl. I was a man who had so much to offer. I’m not talking about just money, or other material possessions (of which I am wholly capable of giving). Those things were just the tip of the iceberg. For Ivy, I could offer my life.

As I placed the lilies on her doorstep, I noticed boxes, dozens of them, sitting by the lift. Maybe she was spring cleaning? I didn’t mull over it. Why think about boxes when I could think of Ivy’s smile as she opened the door to those lilies? Her sweet smile, her soft whispering lips…ah, I could kill for those lips on mine. I swear.

Wednesday, 12th October 1968

I’m sitting at my desk in my office. Each day here unravels itself the same way it did yesterday. This place is filled with incompetent morons. Utterly weak and insane imbeciles. They patter around like they have passion and love for life and what they do, but I see through all of them like glass. Tim has a wife he claims he loves every chance he gets, but I’ve seen him at the entrances of strip clubs. Wendy loves her job, loves her boyfriend, and loves her life. She loves me too apparently, as she confessed to me once when she came in to the office reeking of alcohol. She tried to come on to me, and when I slapped her away she screamed before she passed out from the force I exerted. “Why don’t you love me?!”

Like I said, weak and insane morons, every single one of them.

The only thing that keeps me going in this cesspool is the knowledge that she will be waiting by her living room, waiting for me to peer through her window while she’s channel-surfing. I know she knows I’m there. I’ve seen her glance by the window once or twice, but I never reveal myself. I know she likes it when I play hard to get. I know she wants me…only me.

Thursday, 13th October 1968

She wasn’t home last night, awaiting my quiet arrival. Not seeing her ignites a hunger in me. I lust for her; her hair which looks like nectar when the sun shines upon it, her sultry eyes like tunnels leading to…nothingness, or bliss. After realising she wasn’t going to appear, I squeezed my eyes shut, clenched my teeth, my breaths came in ragged gasps. My hands felt like terrible claws, wicked with hunger. The feeling of not seeing her, it stings. This hunger for a glimpse of her…it’s insatiable. It eats me up inside. Do you know this, Ivy?

Ivy. My eyes are always ready for you. They wish to grapple you and lay you down on white sheets. I would take you in my arms, protect you from your nightmares, soar with you in your dreams. The seeds of love have taken hold…and we shall burn together.

Friday, 14th October 1968

I haven’t seen her in over a week. I was supposed to drop by today, with a note, another tepid warning of desires in my heart. But my mother landed in the hospital from a careless fall in the shower, and the flowers that were supposed to be for Ivy ended up by her bedside in the hospital instead. That stupid woman. Her carelessness had cost me. As I sat by her bedside pretending to care while she complained about the horrendous hospital food, my propensity to yank out her IV and watch her bleed all over the sheets was so intense that I had to leave the room. My hands shook, won’t stop shaking. My soul has been spray painted carelessly with an infection – an incurable ailment – and it leaves my mind peeling with flecks of disorder and disarray. I am heartsick.

Ivy, you must think I have forgotten about you. Let me assure you, I have not. My heart burns with every image of you I conjure in my mind, and it etches a mark in me as deep as my love for you. Do not fret, you will see me soon. Till then, take my imaginary hands and place them around yourself. Assuage your fears with them, and know that soon there will be no more fear at all…nothing but us.

Saturday, 15th October 1968

She has vanished. Her apartment was stripped bare, vacant and empty, as is my heart. Where has she gone? Why has she left me, her chosen man, her only man?

This is not happening. Is it? Real, unreal, truth, lies, lies! She is still here, she is playing with my mind, she couldn’t possibly have left me! Lies…my mind is playing tricks on me. Vacant apartment? Of course not, I must have looked in the wrong window. Oh Jack Pryke! The insensibility of it all! Of course I looked in the wrong window! Third from left, no, fourth from left, or…?

Has she really left me?

Tuesday, 18th October the time does not matter because time is boundless like how I wait for you Ivy dear Ivy like the time I spend under covers exploring seeking always seeking but never finding why have you left me? each moment I spend searching for you feels like a year a lifetime an eternity infinite moments lining up infinite time I thought it would be us for eternity? hurts hurts hurts it burns oh my heart how it burns for you poison ivy it burns for you the seeds of love have taken hold and if you won’t burn with me I’ll burn alone

Thursday 20th October 1968

She’s gone. Third window from the left. Vacant apartment, with none of the regular fixtures of dark mahogany wood and flowing white curtains she never drew. It’s empty. She’s gone. So am I. I look at my reflection in the mirror and touch its cold rigid surface with my fingers, point at my eyes and say, “Vanish,” but it is the reflection that will stay; I am the one who is vanishing.

Sunday, 23rd October 1968

I picture her in the depths of my imagination, and she is wearing a yellow sundress and sitting barefoot in the grass. I picture her placid form lying on white sheets, and she is looking at me with those grey piercing eyes, which speak to me in the language of the wind – silent yet intense. I picture us in a dozen scenarios, and every moment in which I relish in, I know a little bit of me is lost, the little bit of sanity left in me will slip away like sand through our fingers. But I don’t try to hold on. If having her is tragic, then give me tragedy. Because I wouldn’t give her back for the world.

Her leaving me…it isn’t the end. With this last page, I will a keep a promise to find her. So once again, she will know that I, Jack Pryke, am more than worthy for her love, and that I shall be the only man she will ever hold.

I will find her.

Hate,

“She doesn’t yet realize that love unreturned eventually transforms into a fierce tangled mess, nerves and entrails exposed like split animal innards. She doesn’t understand that sometimes the unrequited must demand reparations, that love can be a mean and spiteful process, that sometimes one loses patience with love. So, when the nerves and guts have seemingly been packed away, sewn in and cleaned up so as not to make all the innocent bystanders uncomfortable, the carrier of this love becomes heavy with a toxic lump that grows, slowly and steadily, into a fierce ball of scarred tissue.

Located two ribs below the heart, it is called hate.”

-Skinny, Ibi Kaslik

Time will never be a factor. This is how it’s going to be. Everything is starting to feel far away; a copy of a copy of a copy. The distance of everything, I can’t touch anything and nothing can touch me. Two ribs below my heart, the emotion festers and morphs, it tortures. But I don’t try to assuage it. I don’t have anything to lose anymore.

“A wise man once said you can have anything in life if you will sacrifice everything else for it. What he meant is nothing comes without a price. So before you go into battle, you better decide how much you’re willing to lose. Too often, going after what feels good means letting go of what you know is right, and letting someone in means abandoning the walls you’ve spent a lifetime building. Of course, the toughest sacrifices are the ones we don’t see coming, when we don’t have time to come up with a strategy to pick a side or to measure the potential loss. When that happens, when the battle chooses us and not the other way around, that’s when the sacrifice can turn out to be more than we can bear.”

Heartbreak

Heartbreak is a war that rages internally, with no end in sight. It’s like dropping a watermelon down a bridge-it will break into more pieces than it was ever made of, just like our hearts. It cannot be salvaged, nor glued back together, because the pieces are too hard to find, too minuscle to handle, even with the nimblest of fingers.

Like a dancer who has lost the use of her legs, heartbreak will cripple us in more ways than one. It will make a hole in us so dark and empty that we won’t even realise it’s there, right up to the moment when we get sucked in an we can’t get out, no matter how hard we try.

Or how much we want to.

Je suis
Tu es
Il est
Nous sommes
Vous êtes
Il sont
Je suis
Tu es
Il est
Nous.

Girl, Interrupted

Susanna: I’m ambivalent. In fact that’s my new favorite word.
Dr. Wick: Do you know what that means, ambivalence?
Susanna: I don’t care.
Dr. Wick: If it’s your favorite word, I would’ve thought you would…
Susanna: It means I don’t care. That’s what it means.
Dr. Wick: On the contrary, Susanna. Ambivalence suggests strong feelings… in opposition. The prefix, as in “ambidextrous,” means “both.” The rest of it, in Latin, means “vigor.” The word suggests that you are torn… between two opposing courses of action.
Susanna: Will I stay or will I go?
Dr. Wick: Am I sane… or, am I crazy?
Susanna: Those aren’t courses of action.
Dr. Wick: They can be, dear – for some.
Susanna: Well, then – it’s the wrong word.

Dr. Wick: No. I think it’s perfect.

I am a rock,
I am an island.

And a rock feels no pain
and an island never cries.

The Perilous Gard

“I’ve never thought of you like that,” said Christopher. “How could I? If you were any other woman, I could tell you I loved you, easily enough, but not you– because you’ve always seemed to me like a part of myself, and it would be like saying I loved my own eyes or my own mind.

But have you ever thought of what it would be to have to live without your mind or your eyes, Kate? To be mad? Or blind?”"

If You’re Afraid To Say, But You’d Like To Try

Lover forgive me, my guilt is my only crime
And I’ll carry it around till it breaks me down every time.

All it takes is the blink of an eye, the squeeze of a trigger, a sudden gust of wind. Wake up and your life is perched on a precipice; fall asleep, it swallows you whole.

I cannot take back what I have done, or what I might have said. Regret – it’s the saddest word in the world. The knowledge that I cannot do anything to fix it, or make it better in any way however big or small, is torturing me the most. I hate to look back like this, I hate saying things which I know I’ll hate myself for, and yet, I do it. Why is this so? Why am I being a totally different person from what I want to be?

I haven’t changed the slightest bit, haven’t become someone stronger or guarded. All that has changed in me is that I can no longer seem to project my emotions into something tangible. I cannot cry, nor bleed. All I can do is to sit here and replay everything in my head, and console myself with the notion that I am going to learn from this, and I’m never going back to what I was before. But the consoling isn’t working, the hurting isn’t easing up. I am left here unable to comprehend what has become of me. I am left here thinking about what has evolved from something potentially great to an utter tragedy.

I am left here knowing nothing except that this tragedy was caused by me.

I can’t forgive my naivety, nor my senseless hope and the pretentious way in which I’ve fooled myself. I guess the only way now is to accept that I am a fucking mess, that I am neither more mature nor strong.

Alvin, you were right. All I am is afraid. Now tell me what to do.

All the Spilt Milk Sex & Weight Will Fall Right Into Place

It’s harder to be friends than lovers
And you should never try to mix the two
‘Cause if you do it and you’re still unhappy
Then you know that the problem is you.

I am displaced. I have been hurled into perplexity, and nothing is registering in this discombobulated mind that I am ashamed to say is mine. I have gone nowhere in paving a path to get to you, and I am resenting the petulance that you’ve had to face from me all this time. Apology after apology, I churn them out but they alway return without even the slightest tear in the envelope. And with each next apology I send out, less of me is left behind, more of me is chipped and blown away, finally getting caught in the complex web which is us.

I cannot take back what I have done. I am aware that I am your girlfriend, and I am aware that I have failed mightily in behaving like one. I am sending out another apology, and this time I am sending you all of me.

Don’t send it back.

Faces

Have I said it before? I am learning to see. Yes, I am beginning. It’s still going badly. But I intend to make the most of my time.

For example, it never occured to me before how many faces there are. There are multitudes of people, but there are many more faces, because each person has several of them. There are people who wear the same face for years; naturally it wears out, gets dirty, splits at the seams, stretches like gloves worn during a long journey. They are thrifty, uncomplicated people; they never change it, never even have it cleaned. It’s good enough, they say, and who can convince them of the contrary? Of course, since they have several faces, you might wonder what they do with the other ones. They keep them in storage. Their children will wear them. But sometimes it also happens that their dogs go out wearing them. And why not? A face is a face.

Other people change faces incredibly fast, put on one after another, and wear them out. At first, they think they have an unlimited supply, but when they are barely forty years old they come to their last one. There is, to be sure, something tragic about this. They are not accustomed to taking care of faces; their last one is worn through in a week, has holes in it, is in many places as thin as paper, and then, little by little, the lining shows through, the non-face, and they walk around with that on.

But the woman, the woman: she had completely fallen into herself, forward into her hands. It was on the corner of rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs. I began to walk quietly as soon as I saw her. When poor people are thinking, they shouldn’t be disturbed. Perhaps their idea will still occur to them.

The street was too empty; its emptiness had gotten bored and pulled my steps out from under my feet and clattered around in them, all over the street, as if they were wooden clogs. The woman sat up, frightened, she pulled out of herself, too quickly, too violently, so that her face was left in her two hands. I could see it lying there: its hollow form. It cost me an indescribable effort to stay with those two hands, not to look at what had been torn out of them. I shuddered to see a face from the inside, but I was much more afraid of that bare flayed head waiting there, faceless.

- Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Stephen Mitchell

Right now, at this precise moment, I feel like Death. I can’t breathe, and my face hurts. I’ve never been this sick in my life, nor this desolate. It’s as though all the sickness and bad luck in my entire lifetime decided to befall me on this fateful day, and I’m utterly overwhelmed, to a point I’d say gladly that death would be liberation. Nothing but pure, blissful liberation.

ALVIN PHOON. WHERE THE FUCK DID YOU VANISH TO. I HAVE NEVER HATED AND CARED FOR SOMEONE AS MUCH AS I DO FOR YOU. STOP BEING A PUSSY AND TALK. TO. ME.

Sources of The Delaware

I love you he said but saying it took twenty years
so it was like listening to mountains grow.
I love you she says fifty times into a balloon
then releases the balloon into a room
whose volume she calculated to fit
the breath it would take to read
the complete works of Charlotte Bronte aloud.
Someone else pours green dust into the entryway
and puts rice paper on the floor. The door
is painted black. On the clothesline
shirttails snap above the berserk daffodils.
Hoagland says you’ve got to plunge the sword
into the charging bull. You’ve got
to sew yourself into a suit of light.
For the vacuum tube, it’s easy,
just heat the metal to incandescence
and all that dark energy becomes radiance.
A kind of hatching, syntactic and full of buzz.
No contraindications, no laws forbidding
buying gin on Sundays. No if you’re pregnant,
if you’re operating heavy machinery because
who isn’t towing the scuttled tonnage
of some self? Sometimes just rubbing
her feet is enough. Just putting out
a new cake of soap. Sure, the contents
are under pressure and everyone knows
that last step was never intended to bear
any weight but isn’t that why we’re standing there?
Ripples in her hair, I love you she hollers
over the propellers. Yellow scarf in mist.
When I planted all those daffodils,
I didn’t know I was planting them
in my own chest. Play irretrievably
with the lid closed, Satie wrote on the score.
But Hoagland says he’s sick of opening
the door each morning not on diamonds
but piles of coal, and he’s sick of being
responsible for the eons of pressure needed
and the sea is sick of being responsible
for the rain, and the river is sick of the sea.
So the people who need the river
to float waste to New Jersey
throw in antidepressants. So the river
is still sick but nervous now too,
its legs keep thrashing out involuntarily,
flooding going concerns, keeping the president
awake. So the people throw in beta-blockers
to make it sleep which it does, sort of,
dreaming it’s a snake again but this time
with fifty heads belching ammonia
which is nothing like the dreams it once had
of children splashing in the blue of its eyes.
So the president gets on the airways
with positive vectors and vows
to give every child a computer
but all this time, behind the podium,
his penis is shouting, Put me in, Coach,
I can be the river! So I love you say
the flashbulbs but then the captions
say something else. I love you says
the hammer to the nail. I love Tamescha
someone sprays across the For Sale sign.
So I tell Hoagland it’s a fucked-up ruined
world in such palatial detail, he’s stuck
for hours on the phone. Look at those crows,
they think they’re in on the joke and
they don’t love a thing. They think
they have to be that black to keep
all their radiance inside. I love you
the man says as his mother dies
so now nothing ties him to the earth,
not fistfuls of dirt, not the silly songs
he remembers singing as a child.
I love you I say meaning lend me twenty bucks.

- Dean Young

With The Quick Fire Of Refusal

“I guess that ultimately, what I’m trying to say is:

I don’t believe in lasting relationships, I don’t believe in Cloud Nine, I don’t believe in Valentine’s, and I certainly don’t believe in love.
But the one thing I do believe in is that you can prove me wrong.”

I’m Still Here

And perhaps it’s common fears,

or uncommon hearts

That makes us insincere

And torn apart.

“Love without a dream will not survive.”

“It’s now or never,” I told you. But like I said, I tend to say things without thinking them through first (yeah blonde I know). So this is just to let you know, it would still be a yes even if I didn’t make a decision that night. It would still be a yes, because all I’ve wanted to do was stall for time, to make things complicated when in truth, it was just this easy. Always has been, and always will be, when it comes to you.

And for someone else, this is for you. You don’t always have to be right, even if you think that it’s the only thing you’re good at and can be proud of. Because we’re proud enough of you as it is, we’re goddamn proud of the person you are, just you. Nobody can compare to what you are because even without trying, or knowing, you are special. To the world, you may be no one. But to someone, you might be world. That goes without saying for me.

Superbad!

“They literally made me stop eating foods shaped like dicks…hotdogs, popsicles…You know how many foods are shaped like dicks? The best kinds!”

Best movie quote of the year!

HAHAHAHHA

fo:cus says:
serious
fo:cus says:
you want rich guys?
fo:cus says:
go gambling boat
fo:cus says:
you can see
Germsie! says:
hahaha
Germsie! says:
but must be good looking la
fo:cus says:
www.gv.com.sg
fo:cus says:
you can find alot there
Germsie! says:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAA

HERO

Alvin says:

on the other, i have you. someone who probably knows more about me than anyone else and someone i probably treasure more than anyone else. and i don’t want to see you step down a road i know you weren’t meant to walk.

If there was a god, he’d better send you to heaven. But since there isn’t (or I don’t think there is), I hope you’ll settle for like…ice cream sundae or something. With chocolate rice and everything nice.

The Complete Meme Of Your Life

Dear Cassandra

I don’t really know how to tell you this, but you’re a pervert. I think I realized it when I quoted Santa at the mental hospital and I saw you carve your initials into my best friend. I’m sure you’re man enough to understand that Santa doesn’t exist. I’m returning your ring to you, but I’ll keep my virginity as a memory. You should also know that I told in my confession today about Oprah Winfrey imitations.

In pain,
Germaine

 

HERO.

HERO.

But This Is All That I Have

It’s been a long time since I’ve felt that I had anything to say. I don’t have anything interesting to document, all I’ve been up to is trying to keep myself sane – not because everything else is chaos but because everyday has become so much of a routine that I’m desperate for something different. Each new day unravels itself in the same way as it did yesterday, and every hour passed only serves to make me a torpid, pathetic person. The only thing keeping me lucid is the fact that I have weekends to look forward to, and the constant repitition of ‘I am not a boring person’ that loops in my mind, to remind myself that maybe, this is just a phase, a plateau that will reveal more in time.
Maybe its a dream, and if I scream, it will burst into seams and this whole place will fall to pieces.

When The Sand Runs Out

Its been a long time and I’ve been everything but introspective, and I guess its time to address some things that people find hard to justify even though it seems only natural for me. Maybe I shouldn’t be writing this at all, because having to justify myself for my actions seems to only contradict my belief that if it feels right, I shouldn’t be hitting the walls with the frustration that some people Just Don’t Get It. But nevertheless, I suppose its time that I put this out and hope for the best that it would serve well for mutual understanding.

Its hard for me to comprehend why I should be put down for being happy, for being contented, just because a few months ago, I was far from it. Granted, I don’t have the basic reason to be happy because after all, the situation with G isn’t what I should content myself with because I deserve better than that, but I just find it useless to fight for something better when I’m satisfied with what it is now. Basically, an argument for argument’s sake. Is it just so hard to accept that I am someone who is easily satisfied? I could very well be walking into a bottomless pit but right now, its just not something I want to worry about because well, the scenery is to damn nice for me to worry about anything.

Just because I seem to be offering myself completely doesn’t mean I haven’t built my walls. I know its hard to trust that I have because I’ve been fallen one too many times, but its precisely because of that that I’ve built my walls high and thick this time round, and just because you don’t see it doesn’t mean it isn’t there. You say you’re watching out for me, and I appreciate you for that with all my of heart, but maybe that isn’t what I need. Maybe what I need is that support that everyone seems to have forgotten to give, maybe what I need is you not telling me that he isn’t worth it, but that some things just need the patience that you’re sure I have in me.

Saying that you hoped what I had for him was just a phase pissed me off because frankly, that’s what I’ve been hearing from some of the closest people to me, and to hear it from you – someone who I held my faith in to support me in this because you’re the one who understand me most – it was simply the last straw. I don’t know what I expect the result to be when this is all over, but what I know I want from you and everyone else out there is not to say “I told you so” if it screws up. ‘I told you so’ doesn’t serve to make anyone feel better. In fact, it doesn’t serve any purpose other than to boost an ego, something which I find uncalled for especially when consoling someone else.

I bear no grudges for you or anyone else, because you are all my friends who I love and cherish most, and I hope you will take this in and accept my actions toward this, even if it isn’t what you agree with.

Smoke Your Cigarettes, Make Your Love

It’s not about geography, or happenstance
You need to fly, and take a chance
You don’t need to soar to emptiness
Float on high and forever dance alone

You’re scared, scared, scared
’cause i feel like home.

Why I Am Not Asleep

Results are out and I know its hardly any cause for celebration, but THANK GOD I’m still in school and not getting my ass kicked out. GPA wasn’t half as bad as I expected it to be, but truth to be told, after I got past the “oh yeaaah I’m not expelled!” stage, it kind of reeled me back to the reality that yes, I am stuck in a rut. For one, my total number of CUs don’t even come close to what the others in my course are boasting about, and I am a hair’s breadth from becoming worst in the level. Actually, I think I am probably the last in my cohort, no prizes for that. But fuck, I am still in school. I never thought I’d be happy to say that. No more resting on my laurels now, its time to unleash my hidden hardworking-ness. Kinda late, but shut up.

And now for updates on how mundane my life has become. My house is becoming a bakery, for I have discovered the wonders of a convection oven and chocolate. Never underestimate what chocolate can do for a 19 year-old like me who isn’t drawing income at the mo, because I can tell you, all that stands between me and an extra few bucks from the parentals for the weekend is a fudge-filled brownie. My brownies aren’t perfect, but to my parents who have been urging me to put an apron on for years, it isn’t too bad. I still can’t cook with a stove, but anything that doesn’t involve fire, I’m a-ok with! Bake parties anyone?

Other than filling tupperwares with cookies and brownies, I spend the rest of my days sleeping, watching Las Vegas and eating the damned cookies and brownies I baked. Because if I didn’t, my house would soon become one of those little candy houses that you see in theme parks,complete with the gingerbread man at the porch waving (which would be my dad, of course). In fact, I think I put on some weight. But funny thing is, all of it seemed to just accumulate on my face. Why has nature decided that the best place for fats to accumulate on me is my face and not my boobs?! I swear, if I took all the fats from my face and surgically enhanced my breasts with it, I would be…a B by now. DAMMIT. Screw you, Mother Nature! *flips the bird at the trees* Say goodbye to Earth Hour! (I’m just kidding, play your part and turn off your damned lights, dude.)

And so I end this entry with a reminder to all my friends out there having their internships: GERMAINE IS STILL ALIVE, and she is oh-so-very sympathetic to your OTs, 1-hour lunchtimes and limited smoke breaks. Muchos love everybody, see you on Saturday for pondok reunion. Be there or be square!

Batman And Superman: Merger

If this was me, I’d be kinda stoked because of the dual superhero names, but then the excitement will be killed the moment I realise having their names doesn’t equate to having flying skills, and that I should have chosen a shorter building to experiment my skills on. Dammit!

/edit/ WHY is everyone going to Taiwan except me?!?! I want to shop till my wallet’s a big empty hole, I want to eat good cheap food and I want to bloody meet Jay Chou on the streets and let him serenade me (HAHA I KID, I KID).  I WANT TO GO TAIWAN DAMMIT. I AM BORED OUT OF MY MIND AT HOME BOOHOO. SIP IS DISGUSTING STEALING ALL MY FRIENDS OMG ACCCKKKK COME BACK AND KEEP ME COMPANY! Okay fuck, I need to go Taiwan. I need to go get a life.

Audi A4 Cabriolet

This is gonna be mine.

In like…156482 years. Maybe not that long, if I can convince my dad that Audi is the way to go. Screw the Ford, dad! 200 horsepower! And it looks way sweet especially in red with black leather and inlays. Its too heavy to play but driving this on the road with the top down would make up for all of it. Even if the wind in my hair is polluted.

 I’ve been spending the past 2 days dreaming of this Audi and checking out other cars, and I haven’t even taken my BTT yet! Talk about counting your eggs before they hatch. But no worries, finally having something to study is making me pore over the BTT book like a studious mugger (minus the glasses, I’m a new age geek). I never thought this would come out of my mouth, but I miss studying so much. There’s something nice about being able to memorise when your headlights are supposed to be switched on and the differences between all the damned continuous and broken lines.

Dad says if I can start working and earn some money to contribute to the family income, he’ll get this car. HAH. Tricky little old man he is. But yes, I’m looking for a job since its the holidays. Lobangs, please let me know!

Brownies Aren’t Frownies

Hah! I’m not a total failure in the kitchen after all. Check these out!

Yeah they don’t look like perfect fudge brownies but its my first time and I think I did pretty good. At least…nothing caught fire! Brilliant. I didn’t burn my hands or any other part of my body, and nothing in the kitchen is broken or burnt. Achievement of the year! Now…just need to find someone to try them. Anybody?

Sentosuh Mentosuh

I will never in my life step foot in the kitchen again, ever. I was inspired by watching Jamie’s Chef, and since it made me hungry to watch, I tried to to cook ham and eggs for late night supper. But while frying the ham somehow it starting to smell like it was burning, and I kept looking at the ham and it looked perfectly fine, but next thing I knew, the newspaper I was using to cover the pan was on FUCKING FIRE. I was like WHADAFARK ZOMGX I’M GONNA DIE $*@)%#*! ARRRfuckGHH!!! And the worst thing is? Instead of dumping the newspaper in the basin I started waving it around like a maniac, thinking it would douse the flame. Like wtf what I thinking?!?! I swear if it wasn’t for my brother who told me to just leave the paper on the floor and extinguished it with water I would have already been burnt alive. (I know I know, it wasn’t a big enough fire to practically burn me alive, but it was enough to like, cause facial scarring y’know?)

I’m swearing off cooking for now. Damn, just when I was so totally into wanting to bake cupcakes and cookies for someone. Ugh. And my ham and eggs ended up looking like charcoal and…some brown-black carcinogen. I am so gonna get cancer from all the burnt food. Oh wait, I’m already going to get cancer from smoking, DAMN. Oh well, live fast die young! Life is short! Carpe diem!

/edit/ I just realised I don’t have an oven to bake with. Beyond brilliant. I shan’t ask anyone to lend me their kitchen because after this post, I guess no one would dare to offer for fear of their apartment being burned down. But if anyone would take the risk (and keep a fire extinguisher on hand) please let me know because I am in desperate need to bake cupcakes for someone’s burstday! Dank choo belly much and lub choo lawng tyme.

What the FUCK?!

你说把爱渐渐 放下会走更远

或许命运的签 只让我们遇见

只让我们相恋 这一季的秋天

飘落後才发现 这幸福的碎片

要我怎麼捡…

Mars Bars Are Full Of Sars

I anagrammed “germs kinda lame” out of boredom and severe insomniac syndrome, and I came up with these!

Managers Milked
Mamas Drink Glee
Karma Dingles Me
Karma Singled Me
Karma Singled Em
Madame Leg Rinks
Madman Glee Risk

I personally like Mamas Drink Glee the best, though Karma Singled Me comes close. Amazing things an internet anagram server can do for curing boredom, eh? Also, I am hell bent on getting a polaroid from the Spectra series, because they can do multiple exposures! How fucking cool is that?! But film costs a bomb, since it doesn’t utilise normal 600 films, and even if they do, prices for 600 film are skyrocketing because of Polaroid ceasing to manufacture any more film. Let’s just hope some other camera company takes up Polaroid’s offer of selling their technology. It would be too sad to say goodbye to such a unique photographic experience.

Sidenote: I’m starting to love Jay Chou. Yeah yeah I know, I used to be one of them watchamacallits who dissed chinese songs, but Jay Chou is good. People change. I guess its never too late for me to want to brush up on my Mandarin. China is gonna take over the world yo?! Don’t say I didn’t warn ya.

And we know our hearts are just made out of strings to be pulled.

OMG

I am dying from nicotine withdrawal. Fuck it, I’m going to the nearby 7-11 and getting a pint of B&J’s. Say goodbye to cigarettes, and hello to cookie dough!

The Change-Your-Life Time Of The Year

I am stuck here at 4am in the morning trying to figure out what qualitative research is, and how to go about carrying it out. Absolutely redundant, it is. I could just chuck it out the window like I did for most things in my life, but it’s time for change. Everything is starting to feel like an overplayed pop song on the fm, so I guess this is God’s way of bringing new “light” to my stagnant lifestyle. He sure does have a brilliant tack for things like this, don’t you think?

Another change to mention: I am quitting smoking as of Tuesday. Like, no-hidden-cigarettes-in-the-wallet, no-lighter-in-sight, no-bumping-ciggs-off-of-friends kind of quitting. It’s going to be one hell of a week, but the guy in Supersize Me said that if you get past the three day hump, you’re gonna be fine. Which I will, of course. How hard could it be?

Okay, who am I kidding, I can’t even get past 2 hours without a smoke, its going to be the worst three days of my life. But let’s not despair, this cranky-personified Germaine is going to be a healthier person by the end of the week! Though not necessarily less grumpy, but a whole lot healthier without the whole cigarette smoke aura around her. Keep your fingers crossed and don’t ask me for a light, I’ll scream and find a huge-ass one to light your hair with. No kidding.

The Bird, The Cow, And The Cat

A little bird was flying south for the winter. It was so cold the bird froze and fell to the ground in a large field. While it was lying there, a cow came by and dropped some dung on it. As the frozen bird lay there miserably in the pile of cow dung, it began to realize how warm it was.

The dung was actually thawing him out! He lay there all warm and happy, and soon began to sing for joy. A passing cat heard the bird singing and came to investigate. Following the sound, the cat discovered the bird under the pile of cow dung, and promptly dug him out and ate him.

Moral of the story:

Not everyone who shits on you is your enemy.
Not everyone who gets you out of shit is your friend.
And when you’re in deep shit, it’s best to keep your mouth shut.

Tell Me Something I Don’t Know

Fantastic book, and I’m not even halfway done. Sidenote, Athlete is greatest band ever formed next to Spoon.

The Art Of Enticing The Dog

Too often, the thing you want most is the one thing you can’t have. Desire leaves us heartbroken, it wears us out. Desire can wreck your life. But as tough as wanting something can be. The people who suffer the most, are those who don’t know what they want.

I can’t bring myself to just pretend this is going somewhere, when clearly things are so restrained and ambiguous between us. I don’t know where we stand, and what we might stand for in the future, and I can’t continue acting like it doesn’t cause me serious doubt. Its like we’re on either side of a fogged up window. I can’t see much of you, and all I want to do is wipe it clean and if I could, do away with the window all together. Why does it feel like I have a restraining order against me?

I want more, more attention, more affection, more time, but yet I am afraid to ask. I’ve grown accustomed to not having you around, but that doesn’t mean I feel any lesser for you. It just means that…maybe you could try to want me a little more, give me a little more than I need. More is something I’ve never been able to refuse. I don’t say ‘when’. And I don’t doubt its the same for everyone else. More love, more sweets, more anything. There’s always something about the possibility of more.

I can’t keep playing games anymore, and I can’t pretend I don’t need you when I really do. I’m done with hiding, with covering up and pretending. Its time I took this great leap of faith. Yes, I know in the end, I might be the one to get hurt, and I might be the one who ends up on the curb, broken and ruined. But the best things in life, they don’t come free.

Overqualified

In light of the internships coming up and everyone scrambling to get their portfolios up to standard, I’m posting this cover letter by Joey Comeau, the best writer alive. His “Overqualified” series can be found here.

To: Microsoft
Re: Programmer

Dear Microsoft.

Thank you for taking the time to review my resume. I am excited for the opportunity to work for the company that saved my marriage, and you can rest assured that I will give my all. As my resume indicates, I’ve been a computer programmer for sixteen years. Wanda and I were married for eight of those.

My resume indicates my professional experience, which is a good rundown of my skill-set, but I’d like to talk about my personal projects, which I believe show my ability to think outside the box. You see, in the months before I lost Wanda in a car accident, I started teaching her to program.

Those few programs that she left behind were simple, and very often flawed, and they are all I have left of my Wanda, besides her journal entries. She programmed on your operating system, and with a little internet research I was able to make a list of what appliances were running Windows.

It was short work to program each of those appliances with the remains of my lost wife, fragments of her journal, snippets of her programming. I was suddenly living in a William Burroughs romance novel. Cups and plates rattled when I passed, and spoke in their Microsoft-approved synthesized voice “July thirty first. Joey is still spending more time with the computer than with me. I am worried that the romance is gone for good this time. My mother suggests that I pretend to share his interest, so that we can…”

The vacuum drives around in circles in the living room, saying “We must have left the condom wrapper in the living room, but I can’t find it for the life of me. If Joey finds it, how will I explain? Jack says not to worry. He’ll be there to…”

Sometimes, my doorknobs won’t let me inside at night. “September sixteenth. He’s forgotten the anniversary again.” But it’s a success, Microsoft. Not a single day goes by where I don’t get a glimpse of my wife. Not a day goes by where I don’t hear her voice, simulated and authentic at once.

I would be an asset to your company. I look forward to hearing back from you about this position.

Yours,

Joey Comeau

A Softer World

Rain Beyond The Window

Hasn’t been the greatest of weeks, but that’s nothing new anymore is it? The weather has been a bitch, and nothing gets my moods in a turmoil more than lousy weather. Met new people this week, and I can frankly say, year ones aren’t such a bunch of morons after all. At least, Larry, Edison and Joey aren’t. Went for Selegie beancurd, Night and Day, and finally settled at Home, even though it hurt to even think of going there. Shan’t go into it though. But we had a bunch of fun playing truth or dare, eating leaves, finding out each other’s sexual escapades (that one good what!) and doing stupid dares (pinch the bouncer’s sausage!). I guess it was a good thing that I threw my stereotypes out the window.

I’ve been coping surprisingly well, though there are still so many questions unanswered and so many doubts still rippling the surface. I’ve come to think that maybe I don’t need those answers, and I don’t need the explanations for something that was a lost cause from the start. Of course, you’ll always be the one who makes me feel more like myself than anyone else, and nothing comes close. That, I can’t deny. But at the same time, we have spiralled so out of control that I don’t know how to save it anymore, and I’m exhausted from trying. I want more than this, more than what we have now (I want more than just ok) but yet I can’t bring myself to ask, or bring myself to even question why you wouldn’t give something so simple and easy to me. All this back and forth is eating into me, so much so that I just can’t continue being normal. I don’t even know what normal is anymore.

“Communication. It’s the first thing we really learn in life. Funny thing is, once we grow up, learn our words and really start talking, the harder it becomes to know what to say. Or how to ask for what we really need.”

Happy Valentine’s! (assholes.)

The Tale Of The Piles

So I was watching a drama serial just now on the cube and one of the characters had piles, and he did a good job acting like it hurt. A lot. So I turned to my mom and said, “Yeaah like piles could do that to you.” And she decided to turn into Mrs. Piles Encyclopedia, and told me how they hurt like a bitch and when they were tying it back up she almost fainted. She described every single gruesome gory detail and it went through my head like a taser shock. I was BEYOND grossed out. The image of someone’s rectum disintegrating and the doctor “fixing” it just kept replaying in my head till I was almost sick all over the carpet. And then my mom had to break the news to me: “Childbirth causes piles, you know.” I almost died.

Then Dad said, “Nah, just use an epidural and you wouldn’t have to push, the baby just pops out! Mommy wanted to have a natural birth, that’s why she has piles. Hah!” I was thinking, noooo an epidural doesn’t do that, does it? I thought it just numbed the pain? But I knew my dad was smart (so wrong) so I kept quiet. My mom then replied, “That’s rubbish, the epidural numbs the pain but you still have to push y’know? So either ways my dear, you’re bound to get piles at some point in your life. Don’t listen to Daddy, he’s a man. Men don’t give birth.” She proceeded to give my dad the evil eye while he laughed and stuck out his tongue. Yes, my parents are that childish.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. At that point I was still mulling over the sentence, “You’re bound to get piles at some point in your life.” I couldn’t ever imagine having to go through pain in my arsehole and having a doctor peer into it and fix it, however a doctor fixes piles (YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW. SWEAR.) I am traumatised beyond words. I couldn’t stop thinking about it up till now, and I googled ‘piles’ and after seeing one picture I decided I didn’t want to know anything but precautionary steps.

So now, I won’t read while taking a dump, and I will eat my greens. Faithfully and conscientiously. Promise. Swear to God.

Blew half of my earnings from CNY on cocktails and margaritas at Harry’s. And cigarettes.

Need. To. Stop. Smoking.

Peter Panic

Haven’t you heard I’m stuck on a verse
I’m stuck on a boy who fills me joy
I knew I was wrong to jump straight on into this picture so pretty
but he is so pretty to me.

It hasn’t been the greatest of times recently. I experienced my first panic attack on Friday, and all I can say is, the thought of it makes me worry so much I might have another one. Nothing comes close to that feeling, and the thought that nothing you do can make it better, makes it worse. Everything was on the verge of exploding, but it just couldn’t ignite and all I wanted was to be over and done with the goddamn exploding because as crazy as it sounds, the build-up was just too much, much more than the exploding would’ve been. I wanted it to stop, but it wouldn’t. It was wicked as ever, because before it I was a bundle of nerves, laughing even though I didn’t want to, but it was all I could do. I wanted to be sick right on the floor, all over the food, all over the damn cigarettes, but all I could do was to grin. Is this how a clown feels? Is this how he feels when he sees children around him crouching behind their parents because mommy, that painted face scares me. Is this how he feels when he thinks, why the hell am I doing this when I’m scaring the children away?

I need time, that’s all anyone ever says. I need time to heal the wounds, I need time for memories to fade into distant etchings on the barks of trees, I need time to pass into that bottomless hourglass. I need time. Of course I do. It passes, slow and painful as each step you take when you’ve just fallen down. It passes, with each tick of the second hand an aching reminder of that bruise you have to tend alone. But, pass it does, I know it, I’m just hurting too much to want to stay here any longer.

Rachel, I miss you a truckload. Your texts from nowhere are the best things that keep me going. We grow up much too fast, but part of me wants to because I know we’ll one day be sitting at some kickass hotel having high tea and talking trash about our lives. Can’t wait for that day.

A couple of hundred years ago, Benjamin Franklin shared with the world the secret of his success. Never leave that till tomorrow, he said, which you can do today. This is the man who discovered electricity. You think more people would listen to what he had to say. I don’t know why we put things off, but if I had to guess, I’d have to say it has a lot to do with fear. Fear of failure, fear of rejection, sometimes the fear is just of making a decision, because what if you’re wrong? What if you’re making a mistake you can’t undo? The early bird catches the worm. A stitch in time saves nine. He who hesitates is lost. We can’t pretend we hadn’t been told. We’ve all heard the proverbs, heard the philosophers, heard our grandparents warning us about wasted time, heard the damn poets urging us to seize the day. Still sometimes we have to see for ourselves. We have to make our own mistakes. We have to learn our own lessons. We have to sweep today’s possibility under tomorrow’s rug until we can’t anymore. Until we finally understand for ourselves what Benjamin Franklin really meant. That knowing is better than wondering, that waking is better than sleeping, and even the biggest failure, even the worst, beat the hell out of never trying.

An Interesting Detachment

Trust is not about how much you trust one person or another to do right or wrong. How much you trust another person is a function of how much you trust yourself to be strong enough to deal with their imperfections.

This Takes Effort

Remember how when you were a kid, and you believed in fairy tales, the fantasy of what your life would become. That white dress, the knight in shining armour, who would carry you away to a castle up on a hill. You’d lie in bed all night and close your eyes, and you had complete and utter faith. Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, Prince Charming – they were so close you could taste them, but eventually you grow up, and reality kicks in. You open your eyes and the fairy tales disappear. Most people turn to the things and the people that they can trust. But the thing is, its hard to let go of that fairy tale entirely, because almost everyone has that smallest bit of hope, of faith, that one day they will open their eyes and it will come true.

Life wasn’t exactly a bed of roses before you came along, but I was happy. Even though I was only happy-right-now, I was still happy. But when you arrived and stepped all over my turf, and claimed me as yours, I was poisoned with the belief that I could be happy-ever-after. And for awhile, it seemed like it, like that kind of fortunate happiness could happen to me. When things went wrong and you had to make that choice, everything fell to pieces, and what we had broke into more pieces than it was ever made of. So much so that I couldn’t pick them up, couldn’t find all the pieces to glue back together. With each and every time I promised myself to pretend you never existed, you had to call or send me a text and reaffirm that what you really needed was me. Me. And each and every time, I’d present my heart to you, relentless of how many times you’ve hurt it before.

Do you know when to walk away? Do you know when not to take less than you deserve? The problem is, I don’t, and I don’t know how the hell to go about doing it. 

Guilelessly

Friday was a day of quality times spent with quality people. All the pondering, the musings, the neverending cogitations on issues that float on the surface and bury deep down our skin – all worthy because it was the best friday I’ve spent in my life. No intoxication, just giddy highs caused by laughter of the best kind, the kind shared among people who mean the world to you. Everything had a meaning , and its like I’m seeing everything for what it is now, and I’ve uncovered what kind of a person I truly am.

I am neither delighted nor smug to know I’m someone who is a sucker for neutrality in every situation, even though I should be, and I guess the right word to describe it is “afraid”. Being an accepting person doesn’t make me a better friend, it just means that when I break down, I go into a realm so deep that it might be impossible for anyone to bring me back up. It is this understanding that’s making me fret, but at the same time, I’m taking it as it comes. Though I’ve never been a big believer of “I’ll cross the bridge when I come to it”, I guess I need some time to take all this in and decide what to do.

I am thankful for so many things this week. I am thankful for Alvin, Rodney and Eileen, because our day of substantiated conversations have given me so much more than a good time. We’ve never started out as the best of friends, and I wouldn’t say that’s what we are now because I don’t want to be embarrassed if that’s not what you guys think, but I am eternally grateful all the same. Good times to come, I’m sure.

I am thankful for you, because you have brought me back into the light, and you’re keeping me here where the only dark shapes I see is my own shadow. You are what you are, and what you are is beautiful. FTIB, and please keep safe, wherever you are right now.

“Today, I am thankful…”

I am afraid of not knowing who I am. I am afraid of losing who I am. I am afraid…of sadness. Most of all, I am afraid of being the disappointment, being the tragedy that my parents unknowingly brought into the world. I am afraid of all these, and all at once, they seem to be coming true, like my worst nightmare that replays till I am sucked into it. Reality is becoming something that is so undefined and ambiguous, like vapour, which eventually fades into…nothing.

Thank you for having faith, and putting it all in me, even though I might just be the one who wastes it all. Thank you for clearing up the fogged windows…and believing that the shape behind them is the one you want to be with. Thank you…for your little gentle pushes, which never turn to shoves no matter how hard I resist. Thank you for looking out for me, even if I couldn’t look out for you. I’ll try harder, I promise. Cross my heart and hope to die.

Hey Child things are lookin down
That’s ok you don’t need to win anyways
Don’t be afraid
Just eat up all the grey and it will fade all away
Don’t let yourself fall down.