In the Northeast

as i ascended the stairs hurriedly, late as always, i heard the sound of laughter leaping forth from the open doors. it was a brief symphony that rose and ricocheted into the hallway, swirling up into the ceiling, striking my heart suddenly. oh my, i turned around and smiled. doesn’t that sound so adult? we’re all adults now… in that suspended moment there on the stairs, i felt like Mrs. Darling, hand in hand with Mr. Darling, leaving behind Wendy, John and Michael to tend to some party that was unwritten about because it was so adult and had no place amongst mermaids and red indians. this is that party; this is that grown-upness that for so long i had only looked at the knees of. only my parents and their friends used to laugh like that. what happened to the interstice? this feels like a second adolescence, and we’re all on this uncomfortable, taut brink of madness that we don’t quite know how to manipulate yet.

**

and then there was: silicon valley! tube top! boris yeltsin! cheesecake! very famous actress! we tumbled over each other like dominoes as we raced against time. did you know i wished you were there? we would have giggled together at how cute the techy boys were (the key above control!), and shared occasional secret nods. nevertheless, it was one of those milky, sleepy nights. curling up in bed with andrew was nice for however long it lasted, and infinitely a better way to spend an hour than taking drunken pictures of ourselves in lingerie out in the hallway. our dreams are made out of real things, like a shoebox of photographs with sepia-toned loving / love is the answer. dancing to barbie girl with queen suet was, of course, a big naive bubble of layan diri laughs, as was singing off-key to jiwang songs. i keep thinking we’re all 18, but we’re not, and we’re quite old, our lives all sewn in with respective traumas, unfulfilled goals, unrequited love, struggles, archenemies, unfinished papers and indecision. these things orbit our heads like weary moons still, but it’s nice to know that collectively we can dust these things away. it’s a good kind of peer pressure.

**

imperceptibly, one of the organizers winced as the sound system died again and that dull clicking sound in the audio resurfaced in 10 second intervals, and she quietly looked to the side of the room for help. i can never refrain myself from studying an event’s organization; i always have to look at the hardware they use, the size of the canopies, the catering company and florists, the corporate sponsors, the division of labor, the type of cloth, the type of paper, the fonts, the crowd management — vestiges of being in love with event management during high school and college days, i suppose — but most of all, i like to look at the organizers. so as we all sat there with that 10-second clicking sound hitting the thick air over and over again, i marveled at how calm the organizers were. they were so held together. if this tech disaster had happened to me, i would have been angry and flustered, at nothing or anything at all, and i would have been the last thing from calm, and it would have shown. where do people find calm? is there an oasis that you will hit if you tunnel deep enough into yourself, or do you have to be born with it?

**

it was quick and rough. the lobster fried rice was delicious.

**

okay lahhhh some pictures of the weekend at Yale before you folks accuse me of not blogging ‘properly’ :P most photos are from Carol:

#1 a disheveled me and emoyoon with hummingbird cupcakes!!! which, btw, i’ve actually grown quite sick of :|

#2 me and queen suet! i’m trying to think of a funny thing that she said that weekend (cos she said many funny things) but i dont remember any now…

#3 jeremy -_-

#4 nick -_-

#5 a more handsome nick!! mwaks.

#6 chern han looking hamsap

#7 we sang random malay songs like setia, kau ilhamku and belaian jiwa!! so nostalgic…

#8 joe doing his thing on the guitar

#9 with joe. so this guy writes poetry, sings, plays guitar, is studying philosophy… i mean srsly!

#10 DOM <3

#11 hahaha i just had to put up this pic of andrew. he’s not actually sneezing… he’s making his stupid malaysian food orgasm face -_-

#12 the crowd during a panel session. wish you were here, chen chow!!

#13 we made jeremy turn to the side and take a picture with us cos his profile looks so much like wai kin! except not really la in this picture.

#14 hahaha damn stoopid this two. this is their attempt at imitating the Twilight poster shot

#15 i love you <3

51 comments April 29th, 2009

What Should Have Been #24

so this was supposed to be a very special post about museums, chance encounters, an endless cycle of winning and then losing, and birthdays. it was going to be about birthdays. but then i didn’t write it because i didn’t have time, and i was exhausted and nervous. do you know how nervous i was? i was positively shaking as i walked down the twisting and turning hall, juggling a balancing act of walking slowly but quickly enough, keeping the fear out of my face and removing the quiver from the forced conversation i was having. then i heard the bellow, and i thought, yup, i made the wrong choice. but trundling on, right, because what’s done is done? anyway the point is, i was tired and really scared. so i didn’t write it. i thought i would write it now, upon coming home, because i would have time, and i’d be feeling so much better after a nap. but no, now i’ve decided that i won’t write it at all, because it is likely to end up lame, bitchy, stupid, and above all, moronic. at the Tate four months ago, i met someone judgmental. i met someone more puerile than anyone i have ever known. i met someone who can’t look beyond his own superficiality and can only see the world in black and white. so as i sit here now, i am exhausted and scared. the past four months have drained the life out of me. i find it so strange that i can no longer look happy in photographs and that i have to force the smile into my eyes now. what have i done? truly, what have i done? constantly, i tell myself that i should never judge books by their covers, but increasingly, i find that my visceral reactions are always the most accurate. i can’t be someone i’m not. i can’t be so pretentious. i can’t say stupid things like, “i like thunderstorms because they have character.” i can’t apologize for having said, “… and shit like that.” i just cannot. what do i now? i feel like a hypocrite. i want to swallow everything. all the time traveling… i want to swallow it all.

40 comments April 26th, 2009

BRB

I WILL BE BACK SOON
WORK IS SWALLOWING ME
I’M HAVING AN EXISTENTIAL CRISIS BTW
AND A MAJOR CRISIS, AS IN ACADEMICALLY, NOT PROPORTIONALLY
you know the idea about going to read law in the UK?
increasingly beginning to sound like a good idea.

59 comments April 22nd, 2009

It Was This: It Was This:–

He turned and saw her. Ah! She was lovely, lovelier now than ever he thought. But he could not speak to her. He could not interrupt her. He wanted urgently to speak to her now that James was gone and she was alone at last. But he resolved, no; he would not interrupt her. She was aloof from him now in her beauty, in her sadness. He would let her be, and he passed her without a word, though it hurt him that she should look so distant, and he could not reach her, he could do nothing to help her. And again he would have passed her without a word had she not, at that very moment, given him of her own free will what she knew he would never ask, and called to him and taken the green shawl off the picture frame, and gone to him. For he wished, she knew, to protect her.

Excerpt from To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf.

35 comments April 15th, 2009

Tian Mi Mi

did you catch that scene on broadway, in soho, when they walked past each other on opposite sides of the street? a lifetime ago, i was there too, on broadway, in soho, in the cold, freezing. but hypothermia is the last thing on your mind when you’re in love. fortunately, we were on the same side of the street then; for two hours, we were on the same side. but he left so quickly without saying a proper goodbye. into the taxi he rushed, flanked by two gorgeous ladies — way more gorgeous than me. that’s how he left me, with my expectations pooling all over the sidewalk, without so much as a heavy hearted goodbye. do i remember how i felt? indignant, annoyed, wistful, sad, and like my heart had been yanked out hard from my throat. there are two new yorks that i know — one is that one, and the other is the one that i have been occupying every day since then. but tomorrow, in less than 24 hours, i will have my first new york again, even if just briefly. and this time, he’d better he fussed about the weird stuff.

23 comments April 9th, 2009