i was feeling a little nostalgic today, so i started rummaging through some of my photos from travels past. then i realized that i’d actually marked some photos to blog about, but had eventually just forgotten about them altogether. so here are the last of some istanbul pictures. at some point, if my memory still serves me, hopefully i’ll get around to putting up photos from paris a year ago, and barcelona from two years back, along with some small stories found in those beautiful cities.

it’s funny but i haven’t been as shutter-happy as i once was, which explains the dearth of photos in this space over the past year or so. i’m not sure why that is. these days i’m content just drinking things in with the eyes, and don’t feel that same need to tell or show anyone what i saw. actually, these days i’m content not talking to anyone at all. which was why it was nice to sit down and stare into space with J the other day, as the chatter of uproarious brickfields moved thickly around us like curls of incense smoke. these are the best relationships — the ones with obligations that don’t feel like obligations, where so much is instinctively understood that not much needs to be said. at some point we asked each other if it was okay to just be quiet and be far away into our own thoughts. yeah it’s okay. the next time i toss a coin into a fountain, or make a wish on birthday candles, i will wish that everyone on earth gets to keep one such friendship with them, on them, always.

photos from istanbul:

(i wrote the above about two weeks ago, but got interrupted while i was resizing photos. in the time between then and now, timtam, who was with me in istanbul, uploaded his own photos to facebook. with his marvelous camera and exquisite eye for a good picture, i really no longer have to share mine, because his photos just outshine any and all that i have. so i’m going to put his up instead :) with his permission of course.

…. BUT!!! not without claiming some credit for most of the shots, cos timtam IS SUCH A PHOTO MOMENT STEALER >:( basically i’ll stop to take a photo of something or someone, and timtam will come up behind me to do the same… except he emerges with the distinctly better photo. life is unfair. everyone, buy an analog camera.)

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timtam, i support any endeavour of yours to start your own online photo gallery. can’t wait for island creamery bonding time in a week!

at some point i think i’ll say something but for now there’s just more to do than talking

for joe

there’s something quite despicable about built-in furniture and the permanence they impose onto our beings, that tie us to them like gnarled roots do to soil, or viscous soil do to roots. there is an eyesore of a wardrobe attached like a fetus to the corners of my bedroom, and protest as i might it is never going away, unless the edges of my fury can collapse this house and we can all, once again, start from the ground up and build things just the way we like it. this life has become something that i merely inhabit, and during the winters and the springs something in me is sleeping that can only be awakened from the choppy waters of a familiar accent or the promise of something small (… that thing with feathers). every day in my parallel universe, i am tired- and every day i am losing battles waged against myself until i win everything i want. then i find, that in fact, both these lives cannot be superimposed onto each other because they will not fit, and ultimately i am the ultimate loser, because i did succeed in creating two lives — which of course, is something very unfair to the rest of the world and should not be attempted without a proper plan. the million dollar question is: who, really, is expecting me to be someone i am not? the lot of us can kick and scream against ‘the system’ or ‘the pressure’ or ‘my own drive’, but i think the thing to be blamed is the meta-system that tells you there should only be one system, or one world, or one you, (and yes,) or 1Malaysia. i think it should be perfectly fine if i want there to be two of me living in one world. but no, society thinks this fickle, or fake, or spreading oneself too thin. someone once told me, “nobody in the real world will understand this”- and while i used to think that only the purely self-absorbed or the crazy would dare utter such words, i find that the more i grow older, the more i believe this is true.

what can i do to teach myself that it is okay for me to live one day before the other? what can i do to ask you to accept me for who i am? i miss this one person but he is far away. i think my country is going to the dogs. and lately i’ve been learning that the alternatives to the dogs isn’t everything i thought they were. i’ve also since discovered that many of my superheroes are actually just human, with quite human intentions. presented with such foundations, it’s no wonder people attach themselves to drugs, alcohol, sex, music, books until they blend into these things and can no longer tell one from the other apart. i am the book, the sex is me. that must feel a lot better than drifting like a ghost in and out of this world — at least in the altered state you are something. can i say all of this without rebuke?

in the deepest of crises i close my eyes and i think of you. when i hear something funny i wish to tell you so that we can laugh about it together. everything i see i want to see it with you. i dont think i know you all that well yet but this is simply how i feel.

at the end of the day, we must always choose freedom. it’s funny but sometimes i think i do everything else but.