a small window on the lower right of the screen gives me the treasured opportunity to peer into his world, to see strange cushions of hot vapour billowing out into the snowy air, as he bangs and clangs around the kitchen, always narrowly missing the coffee pot. from so far away, it is magical to behold that vapour — it looks like smoke from a chimney, sauntering upwards into the morning air pompously, and almost seems to me to puff forth from the pages of a fairytale script. but more magical than anything is the truth that if i speak, he can hear me. sometimes that is all i need. somewhere i have read, and in life have been shown firsthand, that this sort of thing can be dangerous. it is so dangerous that i don’t even want to define it, lest i realize it is exactly what my affliction is. but then there is trust. and nothing makes sense henceforth.

some pictures from a jaunt into williamsburg, brooklyn earlier yesterday:

hello hellooo, this is kafka. quaintly is away saving the world so i get to sit in this chair and tell my stories :) i spent last christmas break exactly the way i wanted – lounging in the pleasantly warm winter of my surrogate hood in the upper west side with her. we went to the movies, shopped for presents and caught up with old friends. we even got a small, spriggy christmas tree, a charlie brown kind which i dubbed ‘the little tree that could’. o tannenbaum, did we put the nicest ornaments on you: toy soldiers, shining star and all! but the cold did get to us eventually and so a few weeks ago, we decided to exchange a temperamental heater for a short trip down south to sunny New Orleans. quaintly likes to call it N’awlins, twanging the Cajun accent considerably better than i can whenever we talk to the locals. and they were some of the nicest, friendliest people we’ve met, serving us sweet moonshine whiskey and sharing their favourite food haunts so generously. which is how we found ourselves ooh-ing and aah-ing to the best soul-soothing gumbo, shrimp and grits, and batter fried alligator the city had to offer. quaintly will probably beat me with a stick for doing so little justice to the gorgeous food we had, so i’ll leave it to her to say more next time (plus, she has all our pictures!). but in between shopping for antiques and stumbling into labyrinthine cemeteries, it was a much deserved holiday with my number one travel person.

like almost everyone, i like to travel. i know it’s probably an accessible truism in this modern age of budget airlines and online travel forums, but it’s always a pleasure to chuck my stuff into a bag and just pour out into the world. some of my fonder memories have been in places like the sleepy seaside town of Montauk and the mountaintop Incan ruins of Machu Picchu. i have a soft spot for sunrises (as i do for lazy picnics and urban parks), and watching the sun rise over the great Atlantic or the lost city of the Incas, i’m reminded of what i cherish most about my travels: having the luxury of time to muse. there’s just something about being transplanted to a new place amongst new people. without much coaxing, my mind turns to conjuring up all manner of speculations from the banal to the fantastic. why does a city allow garbage to pile up in the piazzas? why does fish cost so much when we’re surrounded by the Mediterranean? and mainly for quaintly’s benefit, i sometimes frame my musings in catchy jingle and rhyme. while she never fails to give me her sweetest layan face, her probing questions such as the one on the existential lament of my turnip song tell me that she secretly enjoys it. and i secretly quite enjoy her ripostes to my endless hypotheticals too. ultimately, it doesn’t matter what we do or where we go; boarding a plane with quaintly is a special kind of adventure that i hold close to my heart for the discoveries, inane jokes and moments that sneak up from behind me and change my life. when she gets back from saving the world, i’ll have to remember to tell her how easy she’s made all this for me. and then maybe we’ll go looking for more gumbo.

as i was sitting in seminar the other day, the sun was setting and slicing through the blinds, throwing onto the ground right at my feet a slender blade of golden evening sunlight. it was a simple and small sight that took my breath away, and it is such moments that hold before me, in a quick flash, all the things i enjoy doing and all the things i want to be. i was reminded then of how long it has been since i have written anything, let alone anything that i was proud of. but these days i feel no urge to write. moments like the one in class do sometimes tug at me, and then i feel a spark deep inside me to plunge once again into my quiet writing space, but this flicker quickly dissipates. i remember how i used to think that worlds besides our own were best looked at through the lens of prose and the written word… but it has been the longest time since i have made that argument to any willing listener.

why, then? it’s a little bit like the case of Sumire from Haruki Murakami’s book Sputnik Sweetheart, and how she felt that she couldn’t write anymore after she had met Miu, the subject of her love and affections. since meeting Miu and spending time with her, it was as if Sumire had stopped thinking and started living, expanding the boundaries of her world no longer through writing and reading but simply by sharing experiences with Miu. that is how i feel now. i feel as if i have found the one best friend whom i have been searching for for so long, and now that i have him i don’t need to put anything down in writing in order to understand it better. all i have to do is talk to him. when something excites me he is the first and many times the only person i want to tell. when i am scared or anxious he takes it all away just with one phone call. it sounds silly and dangerous but so often i feel that my deepest and truest self feeds on existing in the same world as his.

ah. dont i sound like a silly 14 year old girl :) when i was 14 i was rather emotionally vulnerable. by the time i had met kafka i was a wreck – an angry wreck who couldn’t trust perfectly anymore and had little faith in things and people. but then i met him, and could not believe how lucky i had gotten. i think i am slowly but surely getting the hang of this trusting and loving thing… i feel better and stronger. i am still vulnerable but i know that i am in good hands.

p/s okay okay.. very cheesy, i know :) but i’m not usually like this…

has it already been two months? two months since waking up in hong kong and realizing i was going to be late to the party, and after a flurry of champagne flutes, stumbling drunk out of the club onto hollywood road to find myself face to face with a shade of myself, still lingering shyly there from the past. it’s strange but it’s like meeting a pale old friend whom you know you’ve simply missed your chance with. there is this pang, and all you want to do is stay and ask how are you? over and over again in as many ways possible. but while so many things about hong kong remain the same, and palpably so, the city is different to me now. it is bitter, impatient, and almost hostile even as i gingerly try to navigate those old narrow streets and the expanse of dripping air conditioners across which the entire island is strung upon. i’m just a normal person in a strange place now.

i’m leaving hong kong soon after a summer’s worth of work — next week to be exact. i’m looking forward to going back to KL for many reasons, but most of all to be with kafka again. i’ve always very much appreciated having space (perhaps explaining why this is my 6th year in a long distance relationship) but i have just learned how sharply and painfully difficult it is to come home to a dark, dusty and empty apartment alone at night, and knowing that the same thing is going to happen tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that. it doesn’t matter how loud or filled with people the preceding hours of the day were, or even if i’m brimming with happiness as i step through the door — it is an acute and exhausting acknowledgment when i brush my teeth and get ready for bed that tonight it’s going to be just me. get ready for bed… such a sad and pathetic phrase. can it be true that i haven’t lived alone before? yes it is. how funny. here i am, always thinking of myself as this independent, strong thing who enjoys competing with her boyfriend (and subsequently winning) at everything… but really, i’d lost the battle the day i agreed to meet him for a second time.

(though true to my perpetually disgruntled competitive spirit against him, i must remind everyone for the billionth time how he was a huge jerk to me when we first met. not to mention he was posing at the street corner with this cup of coffee like he’s some connoisseur when in fact he doesn’t even like coffee…… who ya think ya kidding, boi? unfortunately, me.)

was tagged as this image on facebook, so i guess it’s about time i said something here: