| I seemed to have passed a relatively significant two months or so. Of course i'm still stuck in a semi-cesspool, but somehow instead of struggling I'm starting to just chill out in the shit and take some time out to think. 2008 is coming to an end. You feel it when the horrendous christmas lights on orchard road start springing up, and when it starts to get rainy, and everything begins to take on a greyish tinge. Exams, recession, christmas.
So exams are in about ten days. These are potentially the last exams I will ever take in my life, which is a tantalising thought if they really are going to be the last exams I'll take. I always start studying for exams too late - we all do - and I spend the most part trying to get started. I spend hours and hours on the internet trying to find new ways to delay having to start working. Which yes, is not new to you or me. But for some reason this feeling has transported me back to other days of last minute cramming. I had exams in May, but maybe they weren't as important; or maybe they weren't as final. This.. finality evokes a terrible sense of dread in me, even panic. It's the very same way I felt those nights, those years ago, not alone, but kind of solitary. Where I'd stay wide awake through the night thinking about things that were completely unrelated to law, and be unable to get back to the books, and unable to sleep. My lack of mental discipline does sometimes appall even myself.
I know what it is. It's staying in one room the whole day, working on the floor as I do, sleeping on the floor, sprawling about straining my neck and eyes. It's the cold. It's the feeling of being in a house with people but keeping to yourself. It's just that now, apart from being solitary, I am in fact alone. It's a sharp, sobering realisation. It didn't occur to me all at once though. I sort of felt it creeping under my skin gradually, until the sensation filled and drained me like a long sigh. I sat myself on the toilet seat, remembering little things. Swinging double doors, the sour smell of stale beer by the basement lift doors, grape-flavoured Froot Shoot. I remembered the night I jumped out of Pete's window, and I still bear the scar of it. Fragments of sensations slip through me quickly - the hollow tap of a linoleum crease, a cold doorknob which came loose in my hand, the greasy smell of the oven. And the crisp smell of outside air on a stubbly cheek. Simple, even mundane fragments of everyday sensations which I go back to because they are still comfortable and familiar. And maybe because I am a sucker, or I have no choice, or both.
Then there is this recession, and people losing their jobs. I think that maybe I will lose mine too. No guarantees right? Besides, I never had that much luck with jobs. Again the matrix of possibilities. Maybe I didn't try hard enough, maybe I just wasn't good enough. Maybe, like Ed thought, I didn't want it enough. My thoughts go back to the last trip I took. There was camden, and walking through regent's park. My toenails were a deep purple. I don't even remember the interview that well, although I remember the night before the interview, when I didn't want to play mock interview - and the night of, when I wondered if playing mock interview would have helped. There was mexican food, and the joel argument, and tears. That was incidentally the last night. Ever. Another epiphany. Over the past half year or so I have also reconfirmed that it really is me who is hopeless at reassuring others/making others feel good about themselves. It's something I hope to change.
Soon it will be my birthday, only I don't feel a year older; maybe five. I hope changes are on their way, I hope I survive christmas, the Officially Most Depressing Holiday of the Year. OMDHY also brings back memories. Like my first white christmas at Mop End, and deer in the garden, and the oddness of having to wear socks in your own home because it's too cold, and the even-more-oddness of writing thank you cards to your own family. I finally found people who say 'happy christmas' instead of 'merry christmas'; I loved that, and I loved them.
Maybe not enough.
But enough is enough. There will be no more DUI, no driving with the brakes on, no driving at all. I need a break. I afterall hate driving. I had to get my licence to figure that out. A large part of the reason is that you never get to drive alone. Everyone talks at the same time, telling you when to brake, what route to take. As Pervy would say, if you don't know, plis to just deal. That's pretty tough when your family is in the car. Your family of racist elitist control freaks; I'm not even kidding. The one other thing I've learned this past half-year is that I can go ahead and delude myself all I like that backseat driving doesn't bother me. At the end of the day, it does. Bother. Me. Tough love, tough luck, and a lot of disappointment with myself and others. I'd like to just sit in a jeep, or van, and just kind of switch off. Except I've been advised that I should do things out of 'conscious desire, not unconscious feeling.' Not the most eloquent way of putting it across but ok point taken. No jeep, no van.
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Today I had lunch with Kristanto, which was both manic and relaxing as per normal. Manic because Kristanto is Manic Man, relaxing because we speak freely with each other; I suppose that's always been the case. He gets some fairly speedy shopping done with my expertise (haha) and over lunch I get a quick rundown of the latest political situation in the Singapore medical education scene. Actually it's not really a quick rundown but a thorough rant. You've got to love it when a doctor and lawyer make conversation. Probably the most jargonised boring shit ever. We discuss the ethics behind an oncologist who makes a million a month (true story) and lawyers charging clients 10 cents a page for photocopying. Conclusion: both not very ethical.
And then, oh and then, flood at city hall. When I dropped off I noticed there was a rugby tournament going on at the padang. I did sent a text but the reply came much later, and when already on the way home.
Then right across the road, flood. My life is just full of ridiculous juxtapositions. Anyway, I nicely bumped into Sherman who let me have his vip pass aka free pass. That came in handy seeing as I'd spent all my cash on kristanto's 3 shirts ('eh i forgot to bring my wallet out'). So I bumbled along trying to find Court 20. The last time I had gone to the city hall was in 2003, when it was still the supreme court. I went to file some document - I think the EFS machine broke or something - anyway I thought the building was magnificent and I still do. It's a very interesting place to incorporate exhibition space. Also there's an installation of some alien-looking characters on the top floor bannisters facing the courtyard (not sure if permanent) which is hilarious because when you stand facing it directly you see the new supreme court rising from behind it like a mother(huge)ship.
So.. Flood was pretty long. Lots of longcutstillshots (act arty is like that one). I thought everything worked well and I really liked how the stories came together as a whole. And funny! Never forget to look out for the humour. Again I found myself looking at myself from a third person perspective; again I was amazed at how removed I felt. I was merely watching. Perhaps sight is not my strongest sensory receptor. I just read today that Hegel separated senses into the lower subjective ones of taste, touch and smell, and the higher objective ones of sight and hearing (I would beg to differ that sight and hearing are all that objective, because interpretation has a big part to play in anything, but ok I accept the relative objectivity.) Anyway isn't that the point? Because sight and hearing are so... removed, sight especially, it doesn't evoke that much in me. I see it. Fine, I see everything anyway, even with my bad eyesight. I 'see' everything so much more vividly when I just relive it in my head. Woah trippppy.
After the film I let myself emo for a bit. Some emo is always necessary in such situations. Then I had a long chat with shermano and his random indian friend. I love the way sherman is so soft-spoken. It always makes me listen really attentively. It also gives me hope that he almost became a lawyer (haha). Said random friend says that he is a photographer and would like to take my portraits, and although I don't think he is dodgy, the proposition sounded dodgy. Anyway what would I take my portrait for? To look at when I'm old and fall into an abyss of yearning and regret??? Siao. No mo' emo for me yo. Yes it has been hard, no shit. It's hard being loved when you can't be all that you should be. I've learned that ambiguity is not ok at all in some situations. I don't know whether it's about waiting for you to grow the fuck up, or waiting for me to make up my mind. In any case to quote hui for the xth time, the right person at the wrong time is still the wrong person. And in the words of ivanovich, fuck the potentials. Not literally.
[ Ivanovich, a beacon of enduring wisdom that gained sudden prominence in my life. People help each other out in inexplicable ways. It appears that I am hope, or something-like. ]
This last month, two weddings of old friends, one a childhood friend. It's reality in surrealism man. ("Dude, she's married.") And at the same time, a marriage falling apart. Imho, the truth about cats and dogs is that the dog eventually has to back away and give space. And hope that cat will not stray too far away.
On a last note, a thank you to pervy ervy, a constant in my life, for this: A Thank You Note:
There is much I owe
to those I do not love.
The relief in accepting
they are closer to another.
Joy that I am not
the wolf to their sheep.
My peace be with them
for with them I am free,
and this, love can neither give,
nor know how to take.
I don't wait for them
from window to door.
Almost as patient
as a sun dial,
I understand
what love does not understand.
I forgive
what love would never have forgiven.
Between rendezvous and letter
no eternity passes,
only a few days or weeks.
My trips with them always turn out well.
Concerts are heard.
Cathedrals are toured.
Landscapes are distinct.
And when seven rivers and mountains
come between us,
they are rivers and mountains
well known from any map.
It is thanks to them
that I live in three dimensions,
in a non-lyrical and non-rhetorical space,
with a shifting, thus real, horizon.
They don't even know
how much they carry in their empty hands.
"I don't owe them anything",
love would have said
on this open topic.
-Wislawa Szymborska
Till next halloween. Maybe a less scary story to tell. Oh I am hurting. And missing my Bear Necessities. |