THE CLOUD PEOPLE ARE COMING

best thing that happened to me today:

"o how everything is far off and long dreamed. I think now that the star whose beam reached me has been dead for a thousand years"

then winnie goh came along and upped it over sea salt caramel and hong kong junk food.

this city is emptying out, and it feels strange to be left behind for once.

spent tonight barefoot with the man of my dreams (who most probably has a man of his dreams) under christmas lights, a bird cage, and wet streets. watched people spin fire pois safely with dizzy lights. it was sort of magical, only i don't believe in magic anymore.

also learned a new word today: holographic. arden called me a holographic pen pal, which i promptly googled. i think it is the biggest compliment i have ever received

always attracted to independence and instability

time for a triangle change

"What are the effects of total censorship? Obviously, the absence of information and the presence of lies...But the worst, most insidious effect of censorship is that, in the end, it can deaden the imagination of the people. Where there is no debate, it is hard to go on remembering, every day, that there is a suppressed side to every argument. It becomes almost impossible to conceive of what the suppressed things might be. It becomes easy to think that what has been suppressed was valueless, anyway, or so dangerous that it needed to be suppressed. And then the victory of the censor is total."

today: craving dusty sunlight and a hand to hold.

things i will never eat: red and green peppers, celery

biking out at transition hour, almost familiar--but i can't do without hands here, it is always essential to carry my bananas in a separate hanging pouch

never thought i'd say this but i'm tired of reading about new places. tired of planning for thailand. i'm really sick of badly designed websites, anagram thai names and travelfish at this point. i don't remember traveling ever being this much work. and its only thailand! why is it harder to travel in thailand than in india? i want to arrive and know nothing, let streets surprise me. always the same issue: book accommodation for security and go, or go without anything and be pleasantly surprised/horrified? right now i miss the latter. plane rides are for worrying about where to sleep tonight. realized that the more money and budget i have, the more planning is involved because when i am a dirty backpacker i can't stoop any lower and thus there is no fear of opportunity cost--there is bound to be some ubiquitous hole in the wall/shithole i can stay in. with money i want to get the best i can for what i am paying, and there are deadlines and competitions for that. i really need to be studying or writing resumes or researching or figuring out elusive thesis topic. all i can think about right now are anxious thoughts about whether i'll ever find anyone i can travel well with again. i guess if i can't i can do it myself, but there is so much beauty that is meant to be shared

but can't it be shared without all this planning grief

--
the river tonight was shiny. i need to stop spending my weekday nights hanging out there like a creeper

oh and arden changed his name again. and gender. i wish i could morph as easily, hit bingo as fast. i want to be an amoeba too.

that time on the rooftop at the beginning of the semester after burning boxes of sparklers when we lay on the ground noses to the sky talking about the last time we were happy

the weather took a turn for the better, but i've been feeling rained-in and skulky- a cross between a perpetual dread of time passing and an impatience for the days to wear itself thin. so i sit here and write lousy poetry instead of studying for a geography exam i don't care about, and sometimes i stand to dance. not the most productive of postures.

tired of dreaming about the bike path i'll never rattle down again-- need to do something new with this life. stop talking and thinking in circles. create new memories strong like black tea i never learned how to drink

some days i cruelly want the new year to arrive along with uncertainty so i can properly start anew, forget with new aplomb. i think i'll be good at it.

in case anyone is interested:



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stolen from isk, us watching qurban:



i have a week before my next paper and it feels like school is out! the past few days have been masala magic fast. little india little india (need to start taking new buses), colin's cooking, seng kang, my cooking today.

we went to watch goats/sheep being slaughtered in the mosques today for hari raya. it was bloody. there was sheep juice underfoot, and mutton in the air. i don't know what i was expecting, maybe a life changing experience? i'm still waiting for that, the way books talk about it. i felt relief mostly, that i didn't feel repulsed by the slaughter or the grime. it felt matter-of-fact, blade-on-throat. i guess this officially legitimizes my carnivorous non-vegetarian status; i was talking to des (newly vegetarian and shining with health) and she said she stopped eating meat because she couldn't/wouldn't kill an animal herself. me, i could see myself in the hanging carcass.

best music tonight in a long time. amberhaze is discovery of the month. wmin and i sat in a room full of strangers, and there was poetry told through music, and visuals-- an invisible train, lost at sea, lights from everywhere. nothing i say will make sense, it was like lust and joy and intensity all rolled into one. the other times i have felt like this: koc, whole earth festival, today. like finding a favourite book.

this neighbourhood is a mess of colours tonight. nothing matches; i want to light it up in flames, striking these sandpapered malls. it is a thursday night, my first paper was a cringe, and the only thing i want to do is walk to borders and read poetry. so i do that. my nose following words, eyes seeking new beauty. rediscovered margaret atwood- i've only ever read her prose. there is one poem that i feel instantly saddened by, and i commit the title to memory-- it starts with g, i don't remember anymore. tried to google it, but margaret atwood g poem isn't much of a lead. geographically, geologically, gemini?

on my march home i think about earl grey cookies.

"exhaustion again; when the strength for fiction fails the writer, what remains is autobiography."

"I hope the exit is joyful - and I hope never to return."

bad quality version of my morning song today:


i'm learning to make friends with the morning. i go through alternate weeks of not needing much sleep, and requiring massive amounts of it. this week my body needs minimal attention. i bed at three and wake up at nine to fruit tea and honey, burn lavender and mandarin ginger as words crawl out of me slowly. i biked out yesterday morning to greet my city waiting with impatient cars

greet my city impatient with waiting cars
greet my impatient city waiting with cars
impatient cars waiting to greet my city
cars impatient with my city
my city

this semester everyone seems to have two birthdays. yesterday was manu's real and second. we camped out away from the rain within whitewashed walls and lunch on indian time. everyone talked about indian advertisements and commercial jobs in banking and PR and events management, words i fall through the cracks of. later i am at a nepalese restaurant with people like me and we dip our rotis in paneer makhani and stories of khumbh mela, chutney spread on our (my) potential joblessness. on my way out i realize i have forgotten to wash my hands again

1) food-dream experiment: mcwings and garlic chili gave me dreams of a rocking boat and death, one gun shared amongst five people.

2) internship hunting off to a bad start. race has never mattered more to me. am now beginning to freak out (only very slightly) about graduation and the big hole after.

3) this whole weekend has been amazing. choon, lings, derns, glads, jame, sue, nette and matt-- my best friends dotting continents, i had all of you in one weekend, bits and pieces and pixels. i am greedy and satisfied. no reading no school for 73 hours, only our voices and food. now ready to begin work.

4) epic: today i am understood and loved and absolved. i'm going to memorize this moment, then start researching on thailand.

listened to a choir sing today for the first time this year. in a note i heard cliffs of new zealand, grass patch of youth. turning twelve with Westlife and the sulphur of Rotorua in a discman.

today i am dizzy from burning tea tree oil.

last night we inhabited concrete spaces of my neighbourhood illegally, our food wind coated, our bodies aligned against the slowing traffic

two day self declared holiday:

wine and rain, eggs and coffee. my friends are blossoming like unnamed flowers. i find so much beauty in their speech and eyes and bones

i want to marry the rain, to merge with the sounds of falling. Gravity, pull me nosedived and free, there is only one way to go.

i will save this moment. thin water lines rolling down painted walls, thunder competing with the drilling above. the twenty second scent of wet grass the only warning before the sky lights up. i will save it for a day when it is raining where you are-- then i'll open this box and we can watch the storm together.

that time we lay below a reflective roof and watched raindrops fall in slow motion we should have stuck out our tongues and tasted it, consumed it whole.

time for sleep and leisure reading, arundhati roy and satyajit ray and dalit poetry. i'm declaring a two day holiday before studying begins. no more falling asleep writing essays in bed!

just completed my last essay of the year. i don't know why i treat this space like an academic progress report. all i want to do is sleep, undisturbed. last night i was kept awake with thoughts of kings of convenience coming back to singapore (just a rumour...) and with strange dreams of fear, familiarity, cinemas i used to frequent. running across grass patches away from fearsome mothers and old lovers. i hate dreams, they either unsettle you, or leave you overly happy coming slowly down to reality. my mother says dreams occur when you eat within the hour you fall asleep. food and sleep, i wish you got along better under these sheets

i find i do not like tagore's poetry: it reads too much like the bible to me.