thank you to those who wrote kind comments in the previous post or sent me such lovely emails :) i really appreciate the time you guys took to comfort me or to leave me a little bit of your stories. the primary purpose of that post was closure, and i believe i’ve finally found that now within myself, with Martian, and with all else. and having achieved that, i want to close this chapter of my life. i thank all of you for your kind comments, but i really am so done with all this baggage. right now i just want to chase that bit of happy. happy that is found in things like:

#1 cupcakes! these are my favorite red velvet cupcakes from the Hummingbird Bakery in London, and they truly are the best cupcakes in the world. you think Magnolia is good? nothing in New York compares to this. absolutely nothing. these came with much love all the way from across the Atlantic, on an almost-missed flight, and really brightened up my week. i finished them all the first night they got here, and now i regret not making them last :(

#2 emily coming from the UK to stay, though i dont have any pictures of us :( actually, i barely saw her while she was here cos i was so busy with deadlines. wtf. she went out shopping one day and then couldnt come back into my dorm room cos i’d crashed after finishing all my work and didnt pick up her calls… so she had to go and stay with her other friend. yes i am the worst host in the history of the universe. /ashamed

#3 SPRING IS HERE. I LOVE THE WARMTH AND THE SUN.

it’s even warm enough to sit out in the grass now. i spent a delicious afternoon yesterday catnapping in the sun and getting a bit of color back into my pallid post-winter skin. it’s so good to be able to wear shorts again.

#4 Friday Me-Days. last friday was the first friday in the semester that i actually didnt have anything to do, papers to finish or people to meet. of the nine fridays this semester, i’ve spent three of those out of town, and the remaining six agonizing over work that just never seems to diminish… so it was absolutely lovely to have a nice spring friday all to myself to poke around the city. i used to have such frequent Friday Me-Days during my first few months in NY, but ah, how times have changed :) i have, quite tragically, become one of those college students obsessed with obtaining a 4.0. nevertheless i had the best friday i’ve had in a long time, exploring Hell’s Kitchen and having a quiet brunch by myself with a good book <3

at Good Enough To Eat, my favorite breakfast place near college!

Good Enough To Eat is really into cow motifs. the cuteness!

an anti-doormat at a card boutique in Hell’s Kitch

#5 The Strand, a huge secondhand bookstore in Union Square, and one of my favorite places in New York. i can spend hours in there just reading. spent half a day there last week reading a volume of Virginia Woolf’s letters, random cookbooks and travel stories, perched on a ladder in a quiet corner of the bookstore. the smell of crusty paper remained in my hair hours after i’d left. bliss.

#6 prawn mee. even if it’s americanized. it’s STILL PRAWN MEE.

#7 awesome things in the mail :) truly AWESOME things. i know i’ve been neglecting my What I Got In The Mail category… but one day very soon, i will put up all the pictures of the beautiful cards and gifts that you guys have sent me over the 8 months that i’ve been here. y’all have no idea how much i appreciate these things and the thought that comes with them. miraculously, i always find something in the mail whenever pangs of homesickness and sadness hit me hardest. sigh. and then i am happy again because i am reminded what’s most important. some sneak peeks:

yes i really did get this in the mail… haha.

#8 Food Expo. omg yesterday we had this Food Expo in our dining hall where random food n beverage companies set up stalls to give out free stuff during brunch hours. i wanted to kick myself SO HARD for having eaten breakfast and thus couldnt really eat much more. BUT THEN… i got a free sample bottle of what is now my new favorite tea — this brand of fruity tea called Guayaki. the passionfruit flavor is yums.

#9 umbrellas. when i first arrived in the city and was constantly getting rained on, carol sent me the cutest stripey umbrella in the mail. last week i took it out during a rainy night and accidentally left it at a bar :( went back the next day to get it but it was no longer there. sigh. as commemoration, here are some pictures of me, the lovely carol, and our umbrellas, meant to be put up a long time ago, from a day that carol and i traipsed down to Chinatown in search of bak kwa and hokkien mee:

#10 one of those days where everything is just perfect. oh and canceled meetings on sleepy afternoons :)

i’ve been avoiding writing this post for a long time, mostly because i wanted to find all the right words to explain how i feel, but i’ve realized that the right words are never going to come, and i’ve put this off long enough. the short of it is that Martian and i have broken up. we broke up several months ago. we both knew it was coming because we were fighting so much all the time, and it became clearer and clearer with each forced reconciliation that what we had was becoming very unnatural. what happened? i guess i was weak. the distance and the growing antagonism had become so difficult and i couldn’t bear it. i was anxious, sensitive and emotionally spent, and while Martian did a remarkable job of dealing with me as i went through all these emotions while finding my footing in this new world of college away from home, i think i had become too much of a burden even for him. he still loved me so unconditionally, as he always has, but i was completely wrecked with guilt. i couldn’t deal with myself and him at the same time, and so this is what happened.

i think we were both stunned, as were my best friends when i told them only weeks later that we’d broken up. i only told my parents very recently, and even that was because my mom still kept referring to him as her son in law, and one day i just couldnt listen to her say that anymore. i think everyone expected us to get married. we were so in love. it was all very confusing for a while — the finality of it all, the course of events, the silence, the gaping hole — and to an extent, it’s still confusing to this day. i said once that i dont usually surprise myself, but in doing this, i definitely did. some days i dont recognize who i’ve become.

many people, mostly strangers, have emailed me over the course of the past several months, asking about Martian and me or just to tell me how much they admire our relationship. i gave gracious thanks but told them that Martian and i had already broken up. i’m sorry to all the people who come here to follow the lives of two people who are still holding on fast to love despite the tribulations of long distance, but are instead met with this ending. the truth is that long distance is not impossible; i’m just weak. i crave too much the ability to pick up the phone and say to my boyfriend, hey let’s go to Food Republic for dinner tonight. i cannot put into words how crushed i feel when i wake up in the mornings and murmur, baby hold me, only to be met with silence, nothingness and my own wide eyes. and during moments of fear and panic, there is no greater loneliness than the sound of a ringing dial tone that never ends. the worst parts are the fights and how the making up is spartan, drained and kissless. once upon a time, or in another place and epoch, Martian and i could have made it… but so much has changed, and we’ve both evolved at such different paces. i wish i could have been stronger for Martian all those months ago, but we have lost something. it’s become so hard to talk to each other without one of us getting angry over little matters, perhaps because we’re so expectant and so starved. is that it? did we starve each other out?

i met up with Martian briefly over coffee when i was back in KL over spring break. just briefly. despite many interruptions, it’s been such a long time since we could talk fluidly like that. he asked me what i would do if on my wedding day he burst into the church to stop the wedding. haha he’s still so cutely crazy. and i still have so much love for him, this Martian of mine with the permanent grimace and the stubble. at the end of it all i gave him a big hug and said sorry. for what, he asked. for everything, i suppose.

you know those paper flowers that we used to fold as kids? where the four petals are shaded in different colors and each petal has a different fate written underneath it, and we would open and close the flower with our fingers and chant to our friends, what color do you want? i feel like i’ve folded my life into such a flower. i feel like all those metaphors from Saint Exupery’s The Little Prince are all coming to life now and consuming me in a thorny garden of many faceless, mediocre roses. that Coffee Bean in Mont Kiara… is it even still there or is Somo going to eventually devour it? shavings of my heart are still in that carpet in Vantage Park, Hong Kong, where we used to sit and watch Little Britain and eat takeout dinners.

the swollen heat of the summer of 2006 is still on my cheeks. i remember walking in the streets of Central with Martian, too shy to hold hands, but tenderly loving him from afar. the new me could have learned a lot from the old me. but here we are, almost the summer of 2009; how fast time flies and tides ebb. we are both so much happier and so free. Martian, did we do the right thing? we must have. this is our happy. you’re doing everything that you’ve always wanted to do, and i’m growing up now and learning so much. i’m becoming the better, stronger woman that you’ve always wanted to see me become. and you will always be my baby.

here again. novice playing piano. cafe east is still charging a small price for some happiness. i admired felicia today for giving money to the bum who regularly stalks the path between JJ and hamilton. 4.59pm is such a crucial time. i’ve also taken to carrying a bottle of advil in my bag everywhere i go; that’s definitely a bad thing, but i’d rather that than deal with the physical and emotional torment of headaches and the two-hour long ennui of 212 Pupin. but yesterday i leaned over to scribble on harrison’s book – ‘why are there socks on ur cap’, to which he chuckled and wrote back in underscore, ‘Boston Red Sox!!!’, and i accidentally laughed away my headache. oh, boys. boys. boys boys boys. every day that i am here, i am reminded of how much i need so many things. i need so many kinds of new york. i suppose this here is my Straus Park.

it’s been an abundant time of epiphanies. i’m usually quite convinced that i will never take myself by surprise, but certain vantage points allow me to see beyond my own faculties, and i am startled by the panorama of unexpected things, swirling into each other like mercury, not caring who’s watching. in these moments, i know that i am older. better. stronger. slightly more mature.

today i am aware that i no longer dislike someone. it’s a she. one day ago, i immensely hated her propensity to use other people’s stories and lives as social capital. i used to feel extremely victimized whenever she did that to me, which is often, mainly because it’s been done to me before in a huge blowup of events not too long ago and she was there to see it happen, yet she took over the reins and went on to employ this tasteless tactic. i spent many a day agonizing about this and often wondered if i should continue being friends with this person. i eventually settled on preserving the friendship, but putting myself on guard and never telling her anything substantial about my life. but now i’ve realized, so what if people know shit about my life? it’s not like anything in there is headline-worthy. at worst, i am giving up a small slice of privacy; at best, i am helping someone make friends. that’s not so bad, right? today, i learned to be unselfish with what i have, including my privacy and confidence. today, i am unfixing conditions.

over the past week, i didnt. didnt what? didnt something. and it felt so good. amputation never felt so good. i am so done with all the politics, all the fretting, all the bias and capitalism. someone once said that one day i will stop caring; clearly that day has come. all that remain are the bleak splinters of bastardized loyalty. how grotesque that word looks now, mangled and alien. when i was young, i learned the theory behind the shapelessness of water and how it takes on the shape of its container. i guess that theory pertains to human nature as well — we go with the flow. we bend and yield. we are spineless. it’s a worrying thing, but i reckon that if i come to think of humans as water — renewable, non-living, an impersonal cluster of molecules that have no choice but to be shapeless — i will be carefree.

oh, i also became keenly aware of exactly how many teaspoons of dried chili to use. precisely 3/4 of a teaspoon. but i always forget the lime. it’s just not the same without the lime!!! why do i always forget and rob myself of this simple pleasure!

here are the last of the pictures from my nostos. there are more but i’ve become lazy; i think my indolence is something that will never change despite the most acute of epiphanies. i did not encounter any harpies, but there were definitely many Scylla and Charybdis moments.

#1 did you know that fingerprints fade as you approach your winter years?

#2 he sings along to Hoi Fut Tin Hong

#3 tambah tambah tambah super kebanyakan

#4 fear not the wolf(x)!

#5 :)

#6 absolutely nothing has changed. the bathroom door still needs a swift kick

#7 yolkless. you know how sometimes we say our favorite foods = love? this really is love.

#8 the new road law annoys me. yes i know it’s safer, but still.

#9 kangsane with Mr Emo

#10 STILL EATING SLOW

#11 so nice <3

#12 very pokey

#13 remember, MUST put lime

#14 is it just me or did they shrink? they totally shrunk, right? dont even taste as good anymore. how i bemoan the stark reality of change of standard.

#15 aiyak

#16 flour buns! yours?

#17 haih so nice that bow tie! excellent taste

#18 >_< if you eat cold things will it slide out?

#19 guess what!!

#20 NOTHING like this here in NYC. N-O-T-H-I-N-G.

#21 mai hum mai hum wtf

#22 the time traveler’s…

#23 do you remember when we were 14 and we came here? we took so many pictures. played so much rock fever, para para and DDR. remember the guys behind the counter who always flirted with us and gave us free tokens? everything is obsolete now. everything. my only comfort was that there was never karaoke to begin with.

how do you do it? do you sit around saying, okay dudes, let’s go out and mug someone today. let’s go out and terrorize. let’s bring along some bricks to shatter windscreens, and this knife from the kitchen table should we need to push a little farther. what is it? greed, cruelty, desperation, poverty, defiance, idleness? ineffective enforcement, poor regulation, corrupt police, weightless punishments, arrogant fearlessness? when you’re splitting someone’s head open or dragging them by their bag’s straps on a hard tar road, how many words do you use in your head and heart to justify what you’re doing?

so i was walking to the train station. in that ramp leading up to the turnstiles, i was swarmed by a bunch of kids no older than my Short Brother who’s 16 this year. they were selling some prepaid phone cards, all dyed hair and ratty jeans with dirty toenails, so loud and so enthusiastic. miss ah miss, want prepaid card anot, i give you very good deal laaa! miss, just one minute of your time only… their peers nearby were haggling good-naturedly with other passersby. i politely declined their persistence, but stopped nearby to watch them do their thing. many of them made sales in the fifteen minutes i stopped to finish my bubble tea, and they would pump their fists excitedly in the air. i admired their freshness and their energy. they were like little windmills in the sky.

pictures:

#1 reassurance is always good

#2 perfection

#3 genetics

#4 long lost

#5 progress

#6 blueberry analogy man

#7

#8

#9 for the recession

#10 a special something i got from home, grabbed quickly from the hands of Kimo on 5th Avenue right before i left for JFK in a yellow cab. it’s kind of funny how things work out. but anyway this is a pink LG Ice Cream cellphone kindly ferried all the way to New York and back, for my delight and titillation. i am excited! i will be spending the next couple of weeks exploring every nook and cranny of this yummy phone. great timing because i left my phone in a foreign country last month and am currently phoneless. i’ve also never had a flip phone in my life, so i guess i better start practicing that head toss and phone-snap that so many ladies execute with such finesse.

#11 the toucan’s fish

#12 the salivary glands liketh

#13 it’s always christmas at number 45

#14 heirloom

#15

#16

#17

#18

#19 i learned the word ’serendipity’ from book number 89