Endings

I mean, it’s odd – how you can buy a lap dance, phone sex, or a blowjob in a snap, but you can’t pay a person a dollar just to sit next to you on a park bench and simply hold your hand.

The Red Windmill

“The greatest thing you will ever learn, is just to love, and be loved in return.”

I who loves you so much, what am I going to do? You left me, you left me in a tango. My soul left me. Even my
shadow left me.
I don’t have a will to live because I can’t convince you to not sell yourself, Roxanne.

I never thought I would ever appreciate Moulin Rouge, but surprisingly, I did. Kaleidoscopic costumes and infinite details…what a brilliant movie it would be to star in. If one fine day ever found myself in Paris, Montmarte would be my first destination on the list, owing of course to Moulin Rouge and Amelie.

Another thing I never would have thought I was capable of: having a crush on Ewan Mcgregor.

How embarrassing. Blush. But he is delightful to the eyes…

My Midnight Express

“We split up on April Fool’s Day. So I decided to let the joke run for a month. Every day I buy a can of pineapple with a sell-by date of May 1. May loves pineapple, and May 1 is my birthday. If May hasn’t changed her mind by the time I’ve bought thirty cans, then our love will also expire.”

“If memories could be canned, would they also have expiry dates? If so, I hope they last for centuries.”

“I thought we’d stay together for the long haul, flying like a jumbo jet on a full tank. But we changed course.”

 Chungking Express is now officially my favourite movie.

So…

A big Happy Birthday to Harrypot! You’re one year closer to the big Legal, not that it might be any difference since your party was a real drunkfest. Nevertheless, always remember that alcohol can take you places and bring you new experiences, and they might not necessarily be good ones!

Cold

Some days her shape in the doorway
Will speak to me
A bird’s wing on the window
Sometimes I’ll hear her when she’s sleeping
Her fever dream
A language on her face

I want your flowers like babies want God’s love
Or maybe as sure as tomorrow will come

Some days, like rain on the doorstep
She’ll cover me
With grace in all she offers
Sometimes I’d like just to ask her
What honest words
She can’t afford to say, like

I want your flowers like babies want God’s love
Or maybe as sure as tomorrow will come

There are things that drift away like our endless, numbered days. Autumn blew the quilt right off the perfect bed she made. And she’s chosen to believe in the hymns her mother sings. Sunday pulls its children from their piles of fallen leaves.

Whispers and the faint sound of guitar plucking with the silence prevailing in the background, lights from the city and darkness from all around, chamomile tea and fresh sheets and the smell of paper, the touch of a feather and the lightness of the petals of a flower, freshly sheared grass and the smell and sound of rain pelting on the windows, – all the things I love and cherish. These moments are just like how Amelie loves putting her fingers in sacks of grain, and how she likes to crack creme brule with a teaspoon. I hope I’ll live a long full life, so I can always retreat to these comforts when my heart is aching and suffocated.

Our Endless Numbered Days

I’ve had a good time in Bangkok, with the endless shopping trips and precarious but entertaining rides on the tuk tuks. But as much as I was enjoying my time spent there, there was a longing ache to be back, right here in this comfortable place, a place I call home. The promise of familiar faces and familiar places is what I am always happy to have, because having a place to truly call home is something that stirs up a feeling I can’t ever explain – a feeling of…relief and possibly the extinguishing of a fear of not belonging, that never fails to propagate when circumstances are doubtful.

It was unbearable for me to see beggars on the street in Bangkok, mostly women with children in their arms who are asleep and peaceful in their dreams, unaware that when they woke they would have to subsist with the perpetual hunger and thirst that dogs them. There were many of them in the streets, but the one that most affected me was this man, who couldn’t have been more than 30 years in age, lying stomach-first on the dirt floor, pulling himself forwards with his hands, because he had nothing left of his legs except the stumps that were hidden beneath his filthy trousers. He was carrying a tin can in which a few coins lived, and the sight of him crawling on the ground just made me feel utterly helpless, completely and wholly ashamed of the way I was spending my money on cigarettes and other superfluous items. He not only served as a reminder that I was immensely lucky to have everything I ever needed, and most of what I wanted, but as a reminder that I should be gratitious and appreciative of what I have and shut my trap when it came to complaining, which is very often.

He was like a personification of all the fears that grip me when I said above that I was afraid of not belonging. And as much as I was sorry for him, now I think I understand why I recoiled when I saw him, as much as I wanted to pick him up and buy him a meal. It wasn’t that he was filthy and ridden with dirt, but it was the fact that I could possibly be the one on the ground in future, owning nothing but the tin can and the clothes on my back. Yes, I am fortunate and unbelievably lucky, having been blessed with all I could ever have. But there will always be this fear that I might end up having nothing to my name. And I am embarrassed and ashamed that I didn’t help him, much less buy him a meal, when I was completely capable of doing so. And coupled with this embarrassment is also this overwhelming regret that I didn’t do it, which seemed to come on full blow when I got back to my hotel room and laid on my bed.

The regret came from this part of me that wanted to be good, and the embarrassment came from not acting upon it, for reasons unknown. I have no idea why and it scares me. Maybe because it constantly dogs me that I am nothing but a mere preacher, and that’s the lowest of lows for me.

The Life Pursuit

I am at my wit’s end, with nothing to do and countless hours left before I start to feel sleepy. I’m a hopeless insomniac, and I think its time I went to the doctor’s to get this straightened out before I’m labeled a panda. So much for au revoir, here I am up late (early?) again trying to occupy myself, unsuccessfully of course.

I hope I’d be able to get my hands on some film on my trip to Bangkok, both 35mm and 120mm. Film is always better than digital, I can’t say it any better than that. The grainyness, the contrast, the amazing vintage feel of everything, just ultimately something which you can’t achieve from digital. Sure, ten years from now digital might completely take over film, but the feeling will never be the same.

So now I’m still bored, and no one that I’d prefer to talk to is online. Abu and Adora, you guys probably staged a mutiny on me. Both of you deserve some self reflection. How could you do this to me?! You know I get up to crazy things when I’m bored and unoccupied! You. Guys. Call. Yourselves. Friends. BS to that.

PS. Pictures from Actor’s Club and Home on 8th Sept is up on my flickr.

 

Of Cigarettes and Lasting Breezes

Such a lovely picture, thankfully I had my camera on standby. Amazing crowd at Actors Club, maybe its time I went there a couple more times to catch more jazzy tunes. Its been an unfulfilling past few fridays, with the underage bug floating above my head, stinging me till my forehead probably spelled out UNDERAGE in blinking crimson. But never fear, 3 more weeks till I’m out of this cesspool! From October 7th onwards I will have an identity-card-flashing spree, woe and behold any bouncer who asks for my age.

So I’m having this desire to ink myself, but no plans as to what I want to have. Suggestions anyone? I’m going to Bangkok this Friday, hopefully I might be able to get one there if my dad would pay for it. I might get a french phrase inked on, but I’m not going to tell what’s it going to be. Secrets secrets.

Till next Monday, au revoir kids! Pray that I won’t get ripped off by Thais and end up in an accident on a tuk-tuk.

Hipolito

“Et de ratage en ratage, on s’habitue à ne jamais dépasser le stade du brouillon. La vie n’est que l’interminable répétition d’une représentation qui n’aura jamais lieu.”

And from failure to failure, we get used to never going beyond the stage of rough draft. Life is only the endless repetition of a performance that will never happen.  

- Le Fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain 

Give and Take

Its upsetting that I’ve managed to ruin so much of my life in just a few short months. And its also quite amazing how I’ve managed to keep it all from my parents. Its been a rollercoaster of a year, and as the days slowly drift by unsuspectingly, I’m becoming increasingly stricken by how much I am changing, and being overwrought because I am unsure of whether this change is for the better.  I hope it is, but then again, hope can only take me so far.

I am in perpetual worry, because right now, not having anything to do is making me fretful and tense. I just have this constant fear that there might be so much for me to complete, but yet again, I am after all having my holidays, and not having anything to do is just what I’m supposed to be feeling. Its comforting to know that I’m finally taking schoolwork seriously, but its making me overly anxious, and this is making me more upset than ever.

I’m annoyed by people who think I’m emo, and I’m annoyed by people who think that we should always be happy no matter what the circumstances are. Its ignorance that makes people think this way, and ignorance is not a good thing. I just wish people would not carry on with their lives not bothering about the more important things that are presented right in their face, and take notice. Its comforting to know that there are people out there who are like me, like Adora. I find it heartening to talk to her, and to wonder about the things people tend to overlook.

Right now I’m hardly in the right mind to blog about anything because I’ve had a drink, but then again, truthfulness always seems to present itself when we’ve had one to many drinks, and maybe its right that I’m typing this out now. Writing has always made me calm and put me in a state of being in control, and that’s why when I’ve run of out words to put into writing, I tend to worry and be afraid. Being able to put my thoughts into words that are tangible has always been my refuge, and once I realise that this refuge might be snatched away from me, I am timorous and upset.

 I bought a book today. “Veronika Decides To Die” by Paul Coelho. Its nice to snuggle in bed with chamomile tea and a good book, and it brings much more joy to me than Fridays at Beat. But then again, being with the crowd on Friday nights tend to bring me back to reality, and make me feel like I belong to a group. I guess there’s always a part of us that wants to feel like we belong, even if this part makes us feel immensely unsatisfied and wrong. I’m glad for company on Fridays, and I do wish that in the Fridays to come, I might just have one more person to ramble on about the complexities of our lives and the ignorance of our counterparts.

Of Paradoxes and Hypocrisies

“Umno continues to portray itself to Malays as the defender of thir privileges, yet tries to convince everyone else that it is the guarantor of racial harmony. One commentator has gently described this as a ‘paradox’. Hypocrisy would be a better word.”

- The Economist

Hahaha.

Brilliant

You need to love kittens like Pete does

 You need to have hair like him

and freckles like this

and smiles like hers

and perfect teeth like they do

and smoking poses like that

and lastly, best friends who will do this with you

and you’ll be all set to be well-photographed!

Photo credits Hedi Slimane

Will You Remember Me?

It seems I have lost my ability to write, to document my thoughts and emotions. The less empty I feel, the less I have to say. And that’s irony, right in your face. People who are empty are the ones who have nothing to say, they’re the ones who find it immensely useless to engage in conversation. But nowadays, I rarely feel empty. I feel happy, for once in a long time. Why am I strange in this way, is it because this is the way I was always meant to be?

Or maybe I’m still empty, and I’m still stuck here. But maybe this empty is the worst kind, the kind that fools you into thinking you’re alright, when you’re really not, and then this trickery causes one to spiral deeper down into that hole. So deep till its too late to want to get out. So deep till you are shrouded in darkness, and then the emptiness rears its ugly head and catches you when you least expect it.

I hope that whoever reads this will join me for a smoke on friday, then we can talk about this. I rarely find people who would ever want to talk about things like this, and it kind of makes me feel utterly lonely. But maybe loneliness is good, maybe solitary is just what I need.

Wicked

 

Photos are up here, knock yourselves out kids!