day 4-5

This just in: an accident?


and Toro tried to drink my coffee again

day 3-4

to wake up to more news of the Israelies intent on bombing the life out of Hamas (and any tiny unlikely reservoirs of good-will the cease-fire created) and marshalling the rest of the Mid East (maybe not Egypt) against them. Can you say disproportionate retaliation? And of course, international condemnation means nothing to Israel since big brother is standing behind it.
Several things to think about:-
i. the obvious humanitarian crisis - access to already limited medical supplies and basic goods, thanks to the blockade in place prior to the most recent raids compounded by the bombing of the Gaza-Egypt tunnels
ii. more regional instability - not just Israel-Arab, but also Sunni-Shiite
iii. Hamas' status & future - not just as terrorist organization but also an arguably legitimate government
iv. WTH, Olmert and Barak? Is this a way to redirect internal politicking to an external enemy - Feb 2009 elections
v. UN Security Council and the UN as a whole - its actual capacity to broker peace and exert influence in the shadow of the US (again)

Ugh, I should stop monitoring the news.

-click-

If you haven't seen it yet, check out the NY Times slideshow of the year in pictures.
A picture paints a thousand words - go to the politics slideshow, bear with the slow loading time (gracias Streamyx), and compare the shots of Obama (a sliver of light falling on his smiling face in profile, American flag in the background), McCain (1. his back to the camera, talking to a small crowd and juxtaposed against a portrait of what might be an early parliamentary session or the founding fathers etc. 2. being interviewed, a dim yellow light on him and his wife, looking tired and slightly baffled as if he's thinking 'why would I want to lead this party?'), Clinton (1. in profile, framed bya white screen against the setting sun, 2. her feet, flanked by Chelsea on the left and Bill, looking rhapsodic on the left, 3. bending awkwardly, smiling forcedly), Palin and McCain (standing next to each other, looking in oppsite directions).

It's easy enough to understand the message each of the 160 pictures convey (I'm only up to no.39 now, again, thank you Streamyx). Obama as ray of hope, saviour. McCain as isolated maverick (hehehe.. Palin, Tina Fey.. hehehe) surrounded on all sides, Clinton clownish and pushed on by 42, Palin the joke, revitalising and polarising force. Brilliant and evocative (even if biased) photography from the Times photographers as always.
And however Obama handles the next four years to come, he cuts an elegant figure as president-elect.

disgruntlement

Ipoh was good. I didn't overload on food this time around. The new house is gorgeous.


I miss the still of the silence, as you breathe out I breathe in

Thoughts of S have been echoing in my head for the past few days now. I wake up aching and wishing that life wasn't over, impossible as it was.

come on get higher and loosen my lips

It doesn't help that he appears to have a sixth sense about when I'm thinking about him, about us even if there never really was an 'us'.

pull me down hard

I wonder - are you unsatisfied that I didn't show interest in seeing you before I left? You were lucky - given enough sleep, I woke up in a good mood and sleep addled enough to answer your call.

I miss the pull of your heart, I taste the sparks on your tongue

But somehow, maybe I have too much time on my hands, maybe this maybe that, memories of the two of us together keep playing in my head. In the car, in the middle of conversations and meals, in bed before sleep.

I see angels and devils and god when you come

Everything I can remember of the conversations we had in bed, in your car, over coffee. Secrets, problems, the past and the future but never the present. The little admissions you forced out of me.


So enough already dear head

if I could make you believe, make you forget

mumble mumble grumble

this is because little miss E is complaining about the lack of posts. so here's what's been going on the past few weeks. pre-caffeine at that, no less (see what I do for you!)

1. KL irritates the life out of me. It's like having a fat, painful blister between your toes, chipping nail polish, boy problems, split ends, and being in a constant state of hunger all at the same time. Times ten. The general lack of civility, intelligence, eye candy, etc gets to me.

2. I'm off to Ipoh today for an overnight eating trip with the usual suspects. Which is the only reason I'm awake this early.

3. When I'm not half-heartedly browsing the online job sites (really don't know what I want to do now. fuck.), I'm cooking stuff, eating stuff, going out, bumming, or day dreaming. Still haven't sent out a summary of my research findings, mainly because I've been too lazy to look it over and send it off.

4. I'm trying to shrug off the attentions of not one but two of my idiot male friends (one of whom is the one you helped by giving out the Syd address) gently but firmly. Not easy. I might have to outright ignore them for a month or so. I don't know. Give me coffee.

5. The dogs are as psychotic, clever, dufus-ish, and adorable. Didi acts like a human and has the intelligence of at least a 5 year old child - she knows how the gates and doors open/ latch.

6. I'm hungry now. Time for a caffeine shot. More when I get back. Happy? Twit, I blog more than you do.

8600km

It's both funny and terrible that even as my memories of him fade and blur, memories of you remain - persistent and complex.

home

I'm Sydney-sick.

zzz.. ZZT

For two or three nights in a row now I've been having the strangest, most perverse dreams. Now I'm not going to bore you by giving a blow by blow account of the different dreams so I'll just say that they're very Sade (the Marquis, not the popular singer) and Bataille-esque. Really disruptive and disturbing. Although I don't put much weight in dreams (my explanation is that they are your brain's way of making sense of random neurons firing. see what I do with a bit of PSYC1001? shoo Freud) these are bugging the life out of me because for one, I almost never remember my dreams - all this year dreams have evaded me, making for very good sleep, even during the most turbulent periods - and for two, these bizzaro scenarios keep waking me up with a jolt in the middle of the night, making it difficult for me to get back to sleep. And when I do manage to drift off again, it's only to have another disturbing dream. Which shocks me back into the waking, middle of the night world.

I'm not loving this. And I'm not going to narrate the dreams either. The last thing I want to do is to delve into my subconscious mind or even my brain's chosen method of decoding random neuron movement. thbbpt

sometime in July/ August

I got on to the first bus to Central passing through Surry Hills. It was packed with a mish mash of commuters. Slightly dozey after my meal, I allow my thoughts to drift along unfocused, observing the people around me, the PDAs of the young couple a few feet down amusing me. A minute or so in, a man sitting opposite me catches my eye. He seems to be sharing my thoughts and smiles quietly at me. Caught off guard, the corners of my mouth curve upwards ever so slightly. I look away, slightly embarrassed, only glance back seconds later and find him still smiling at me. This continues for several minutes, each time our smiles widen until we’re almost laughing together 4 feet apart. All this without saying a word. I like the fact that he doesn’t appear to be undressing me mentally and it’s a pure expression of friendliness. A shared if silent joke. The passengers around us are eyeing the two of us curiously and the old man next to him looks at us as if we are crazy. The bus reaches its final stop and I rush off first. There are too many things going on in my life as it is. It’s time to slip back into city mode and I walk quickly. Armour up.

whirligig

KL makes my head whirl. wheeee.....

day 4

It's funny being back here. It's like I've slipped into a time warp or into an alternate universe where people still act a particular way. Slightly awkward conversations that skim around the subject, people hinting at emotions I really don't want them to have. Ugh. Must we do this again? It feels unfamiliar. Unsubtle hints instead of head on admissions. How do you head these things off, I forget.
Asian sensibilities will be the death of me. snark.

thursday morning

I haven’t been able to stop sneezing since I woke up. Preemptive allergy kicking in. Hatchoo!


It’s a strange feeling, looking around this room – walls bare, table cleared, shelves empty. It occurred to me last night as I wiped the walls of the room that it was partially symbolic as well as a physical act; rubbing away the borders that form around posters and papers stuck on a surface but also erasing all traces of myself from these four walls, removing a life. It’s all gone now; packed up into suitcases, in boxes crossing the ocean, thrown out as trash.

“Come back to KL, your life is here”

True, my life is there. But I have had many lives, one of which has been here.

These four walls have borne witness to this life. Here I have laughed, cried, fallen in love, fallen out of love, raged, mourned, celebrated, fucked, fought. It is possible that I have lived more fully here than anywhere else, fraught as this life has been with demons, sometimes of my own design. This past year particularly has been rich in experiences and challenges. Compared to 2008, 2005 through to 2007 was a breeze. Smooth sailing indeed. You know how they say you grow in spurts and not in continuous smooth motion? This year has seemed like a spurt to me. Maybe it has been and maybe my judgement is currently clouded by the proximity of it. I wouldn’t be able to put my finger on any changes if I tried. We will see.


In an hour I’ll go to uni for the last time to hand over my keys and to return some books. C is coming over at 1 to send me to the airport. This is really it, the last day here.

I don’t expect this to be easy with KL being what it is and me being who I am. That place has always stifled me and having been away these four years has made it seem ever more oppressive with each holiday back. This time it won’t be a holiday, it will be the return to that life, or the start of a different one. Whichever it is, it will be different from this.

tug

I'm spending the day packing up the last many bits lying around my room. The people from the shipping company are coming in another hour or two to pick up the two boxes of books and miscellaneous items. Everything else which can't fit into my luggage is going to be left behind until April.

I'm already compiling a list of places to visit in April. La Perouse for the fish and chips I had yesterday, easily the best I've had in memory (which might not be saying much considering my memory storage but it was good), bills, mundo gelato, ichi ban boshi (maybe).

I feel like yanking out every last blonde/ copper hair on my head. They are bugging me today. Who messed with my follicles?

should i buy this dress?

Brunch at bills turned into lunch at Pancakes. Undercaffeinated, I forgot that the 372 didn't pass through Foveaux and we had to walk up Crown. And when we got there the wait for a table turned out to be 20 minutes. Hungry people don't like to wait. Even if it's for creamy scrambled eggs. And I still hadn't had coffee so it seemed like taking the bus to Circ Quay would take less time. So Pancakes it was, for eggs benedict with a buttemilk pancake instead of toast. (Btw, I decided that if, IF forced to choose a single cuisine to eat from, I would choose all day breakfasts. Yes, I know it's not a cuisine per se, rather a subsection of one but it's perfect! Eggs any way, pastries, pancakes, bacon, sausages, toast, tomatoes, mushrooms, coffee, juice, and table loads of other stuff - all good. My cousin would go Japanese, which would be my second choice.)

Erm. Where was I?

At the Rocks market:
squeek! cold!
"Can you imagine if I hadn't been standing in front and you went 'eee! cold!' to a stranger?"
I wandered off to stand in a patch of sunlight. Freak weather, it's usually sweltering at this time of the year.

The man wearing a cape and crown holding a scepter of stuffed toys waved at the cars stopped at the junction as he crossed the road. While I skittered through the shade and waited in the sunny spots until we hit Pitt. hehehe. hit pitt.




Myer was less packed than usual, maybe cause it was a Sunday. Which made for easy shopping. Buying lingerie always makes me happy. And there was a discount on pleasure state. And you get much nicer things here than in KL. Excuses, excuses.



Unfortunately the dress I tried out fit perfectly. Unfortunately it costs 250. Unfortunately, I'm obsessing over it. It's black, silk satin, above the knee, fitted at the waist, scoop/round neck. Nothing flashy or unusual but it is classic. What think you? The photo quality is crap but you get the picture.

I'm going to see if I can get approval from the Powers That Be to get it as a birthday/ thesis present >p

sulk

Go directly to Jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.


This blows.

a quickie

have you read the news? fantastic, tell me I won't even be able to trip around Bangkok and Chiang Mai now


30 seconds after getting into the car:
"You asked your parents if I could speak English"
(burst of laughter from me. I miss being a kid)
30 minutes later:
"Sadist"
(all I did was to play with the meat on the barbeque and mutter 'sizzle'. I swear.)
1.5 hours later:
"You used to bathe in the big basin in TR"
(up until I was ten maybe. the things people remember)


I found a recipe for almond croissants. It sounds promising, like the ones I had in QV. It involves sugar, butter, almonds, egg, and rum. Yo ho ho and a bottle full of rum! Oh and croissant of course. Tomorrow tomorrow..


Why the fuck is it this cold in late November? A bit of heat, please? thanksloveyoubye


I hate packing up a life. Grumpy. I'm starting to feel KL mode creeping into me. I can't write that way and I certainly can't find the center in that mode. The fatwas don't help either. Screech. I want ink. Or something else with three letters. Let's run through the list: pot, sex,
my brain stops there. Dammit. I need an electric choker that zaps me everytime I think dirty thoughts. Then again, I might get used to that. Oh behave! Rambling.
bye!

bang bang

Sometime between sleep and waking this morning I had this brief illusion that my heart had been replaced with a block of pale wood and that an unseen hand was pounding it with an invisible hammer.

ish

I'm kicking myself for this. I think, I almost know that I'm changing my mind about going dirty backpacker in December. I just don't want to admit it yet.

A month ago I was certain about doing this; go travel, rough it out without the usual luxuries, go at it alone, see new places, have new experiences. But now that I've booked my flight and have gotten down to the little details - transport, budget, accomodation, things to do - I'm chickening out. I don't really want to rough it out. Been there, done that. I've gone without hot water for a month, collected a layer of dirt on my skin so thick that I could rub it off in the shower, stayed in places that were so filthy the bathroom soap had pubic hair encrusted on it, had my bones shaken and bum bruised by 7 hour long bus rides on dirt roads. With no air conditioning. In the hot and dry Indochina season.

It was fun, I liked playing that role. And I've been wanting to do it again for the past few months (not so much the filthy guesthouse thing though). But do I want to do it now? I don't think so. I am not relishing the thought of going dirty backpacker now and not very enthusiastic about doing it alone. I like my creature comforts and I don't want to be alone with only myself for company. No Internet, no cellphone, no communication with the 'normal' world. And I hate to admit it but lying to my mom about having a travelling companion is killing me. It is safe to go alone, I know that from everyone I've talked to who's been there and who lives there but there is no way she would let me go alone. Which is why I have to lie to put her mind at ease. Knowing that doesn't help with the guilt though, and each time I speak to her about the trip it gets harder and harder.

So I'm re-examining my reasons for wanting to go.

i. final fling (kind of) before having to work and be responsible. Throw off the shackles of everyday life and just wander.
- I don't feel the same urge to do it anymore. I'm content. I'm not quite ready to go back to KL yet but taking a side trip doesn't hold the same appeal it did before. I've done it before so it's not a novelty. And I don't want to abandon civilization any more. The shackles of everyday life are actually very comfortable.

ii. see places, eat things
- I do still want to do this, but the list of places I want to go to now is considerably shorter. Bangkok is obviously still on the list, Chiang Mai is a probably, I would still like to check out Luang Prabang. But Phonsavan, Vientiane, Si Pan Don etc. not so much. I want a lazy chilled out holiday. Rushing from one place to the next isn't lazy, it is stressful.

iii. an interim between KL and Sydney to heal and be alone
- I don't need this anymore. Melbourne did me good and I think being alone with myself for three weeks might actually undo that.

Sigh. I am truly a fickle little twit. I'll probably rebook my ticket to shorten the trip. A week or two maybe. Bangkok is a must, Chiang Mai and Luang Prabang maybe.

Mecca cosmetica is evil

I walked around the city with my nose stuck in the crook of my elbow today. Saffron, coriander, pepper, amber, and musk smells much better than cheap tobacco and the stink of the masses. It was a warm day.

And I did buy it at the end of the day. It looks like a giant gold nugget sitting on my dresser. And a rosy saint, and a gipsy. Rubberized casing gets me. Major wallet burn. I feel all warm and fuzzy inside, like my heart of stone has been wrapped in a fur. PETA begone.


We had pastries and coffee, chased with roasted pistachio gelato. And there's pate and sourdough sitting on the counter waiting for me. Purrr

overheard

"fe le lo ro shay"

guess what was being referred to. we then spent the next ten minutes mocking these little (Singaporean/ Malaysian) Chinese boys up and down the aisles.


I'm going to hell, I know. (psst. I don't believe in it so that's okay)

was going to pose a twisty conundrum here but when i started writing it i forgot what the point was. and it wasn't that tricky to begin with. brains scrambled from results. oof. shoo you, unless you're going to metaphysically celebrate with me. kidding.
i am content for now