Dream.

You came to visit, you said you "just had to". Then we ran away, on a journey, and I realized that I loved you.

Dream.

Rabbits and lollipops

The last thing one should ever do after making a monumental decision about their life is to celebrate it. Because that means you’re thinking about it.

Just last week, I’d made the decision to grow up. To accept that I can create the life that I’d been dreaming of, and was so sure could only be found elsewhere, here - a place I’ve sneered at and despised since I learnt how to twitch my cute little button nose. It was momentous. There were days and days of Practical Self V. Escapist Self arguing if this house should be built here instead of in a dingy apartment above a street where bar brawls and roach-trips provide nightly entertainment, where there are four seasons that aren’t “shopping”, “hot”, “monsoon” and “flu”. It is also there, apparently, where I will find a true love who does not still live with his mother.

Then there was the issue of why I was staying. Can I really be happy here? The opportunities sound really great – chart your own future, do things the way you want to because you think it’s the right way. But are they for real? What’s to say that I’m not being swindled by a big conspiracy that has already been set in motion to destroy the very thing I’m giving up my dream life for? I’m not enough of an egoist to think that I’m some sort of saviour but here’s hoping that I can make things less bad at least. If I did get screwed over, it would surely be an epic betrayal like Italy allowing New Zealand to hold them to a draw at the World Cup Finals.

There were a few days of ding-ing and dong-ing on my head that was further encouraged by a red tide of rampaging hormones but I knew I had to wait for all that noise to stop, lest it colour my decision. So I did. I stopped thinking about it completely and emptied the vessel of my mind. There was nothing I could do about the other, so I simply waited it out until it was all clear, and I was convinced that I was thinking straight again because the sun was in the blue, blue sky, there was a brilliant rainbow that perfectly framed that lush green tree and the rabbits are out having fun in the fields.

And I decided based on what felt right. I had never felt more at peace and satisfied and invigorated and ready for a New Life so I decide to celebrate by picking some beautiful wild flowers from the field that the rabbits were cutely nibbling on and to my utter delight, they turned into lollipops!

A week later, some lollipops had been eaten and the others that were gripped in my greedy little hands were melting into a gloomy shade of black-eye purple. There was a slight churning in my gut. Some people were congratulating me while many others rolled their eyes and muttered to themselves “again?”

Another week later, things had gone back to normal. I was perpetually sweating like a pig, there was no money to go shopping with, the damn thunderstorms were flooding the path to the office, I need to stay in bed (it’s the flu, you see, that comes every Monday) and what I wouldn’t give to be living in a little apartment where it is winter and I can wear a pretty coat to work and to go grocery shopping for the romantic dinner I will cook for my man that evening when I got home at 6pm. Oh, how I wish…

So, it really is to just blindly follow the instructions you have given yourself because it really does make you feel better. After all, you’ve already done all that thinking to come to such a major decision, isn’t it time to take a break?

In spite of my love for technology, I have often thought that many things should left to develop organically, especially when it pertains to anything human. While it is nice to be able to change so many things about the way we live, eat, look and communicate, I sometimes wonder what our lives would be like if we did not intervene with the natural processes of Life like disease, food production and death. Left alone, could we have evolved and become much stronger than we are now, relying on so many artificial crutches to prop up this flailing existence of homosapiens?

I don't want to hear you, think of you, want you or need you.

Get the fuck out of my head and leave me alone.

Get. The Fuck. Lost.

3 days out - 17hrs.

I read an article in British Vogue this past week about the perfect poop. While there were descriptions of what the flawless fecal matter should be passed - which would require no more than 1 swipe of paper to clean up - the writer was rather more focussed on how ladies find it difficult to "go" and obsessed about taking a delicate dump in public or baking a brownie with one's other half in the same toilet.

The lengths some women go to, like only going when they're at home and having a separate wardrobe for when they have to go out before they put out just to hide the bulge, is really fascinating. But do we really need to go to such extremes? For sure we should be considerate while we defecate but one does not need the ability to take a scintillating shit to be able to do it in public when inspiration hits. Just let yourself go.

Instant messaging gives you the illusion that you're not dependent on others because it allows you to be comfortable with not having to physically be in contact with friends for days and days on end.

Then you lose that connection with particular people and you really feel it.

Lost, even though you're still connected to the world. You are not as alright as you think you are.

A back to front day

Was asleep most of yesterday and didn't get out of bed til 9pm. First meal was a dinner of mushroom porridge with har gow then in the 15 mins before the live cast of the Apple event was a quick dash to McDonalds for a box of 9pc nuggets and iced tea. I might scramble eggs for breakfast then head to bed.

Must say I wish I could've been at the event for the announcement of the iPad. i probably would've sniggered too loudly. I wonder what they had to compromise on to decide to go with this name. So "Whisper bar". Still, it is a wonderful concept with so much potential and I can't wait for the 2nd gen to get to Singapore, hopefully with a camera.

Random thought - this could really revolutionize the way people watch porn and play online sex games...

Man, I am so not ready for this.

Blessed Christmas

If you've read the previous post, no, I have not started taking medication. It seems that making my Christmas wish early in December is just about right for the magic to happen by the twenty-fifth. This year, I asked for an epiphany. It's about time I've moved further along the path to finding the meaning of Life, and while the beer goggles helped, letting Life pass you by in a blur is only so much fun.

So the epiphany has been happening in fits and starts. Oprah would have called it a series of a - ah - ah- ha! moments. From pulling off amazing events, to realizing what my calling is, to celebrating beautiful friendships forged over the year and, finally, being able to feed my family some decent grub myself, I am ready to end the year satisfied. In spite of the few low points which isn't unexpected, I am quite proud to say that I've lived and loved through 2009 in a way I have never done before. The sheer intensity and gamut of experiences still baffles me sometimes and the only thing I can ask for now, is that next year will be at least the same. There are already some doors which I've got my hand on I hope I will be spending 2010 pushing thru them with more veracity, tenacity, vivacity and zeal than ever before.

Here's to everyone who's made my 2009 and whom I will make 2010 with. "Bravo, Brava!"

Come on.. does X'mas always have to be about love? I mean, do you really need the happy family reunions, discovering true love and finding santa crap to truly appreciate X'mas? No. Because then you'd have to have endured a broken family, been tormented by unrequited love and suffered the trauma that comes with having to abandon Santa coz you had to "grow up" prior in the year. That's bollocks! What fool will wish that on themselves?

Please, people. We need to learn to be content with what we realistically can have. There are loads of gifts and turkeys and lot's of pie and that should be enough. Yearning for the "true spirit of Christmas" is just setting oneself up for disappointment. Do you really need to meet Santa , or can you just be happy with the presents under the tree?

It's the time of the month again, for ranting at whatever's caught my fancy. I've done the whole end-of-the-world thing and decided that as a species, and an individual, we (I) are too ball-less to attempt all the "if the world would end tomorrow" wishes until the world is actually at an end or is very close to, by which time, there won't be any bank tellers who will hand over all your savings nor will there be pilots to fly us all to Rio/Paris for that one last party/croissant.

So bring on 2012, we will always live like there is a tomorrow, in case there IS a tomorrow. We totally need to grow a pair.

I've also just been browsing the profiles of TED members who have indicated that they reside in Singapore and realized that, what feels like 80% of the members, don't have profile pictures. I wonder if this is just a case of them all looking warty, have extremely low self-esteem, are simply too lazy to find a decent picture/image that represents themselves or they're afraid to be identified. Granted, most used their (or what we assume is theirs, honestly) names rather than pseudonyms, I do believe it's the last one that's got them all scared. But why should they be afraid? The powers that be only clamp down on unfavourable opinions. You don't even have one so you've really got nothing to fear.

Then there's the whole hanging of this Malaysian drug offender. Does anyone care? Of course! Do enough care? Not nearly. Does it change anything? Duh - of course not. We have a vast, silent majority - as has been proven repeatedly - so how does anyone expect anything to change?

Unless of course, it is something major, like the Reunification of Orchard. Are there only two people who are repulsed at there is now a theme for the entire Orchard Shopping Belt not only during CNY and Christmas but for the ENTIRE DECADE? Only 2 things could have happened - the powers that be decided that homogeneity is the new black, or in times of economic depression, ALL the developments in the OSB have pooled together their resources to hire the same architect to design their brand spanking new buildings.

I wonder how much each of them now have to spend on PR/AD agencies to create a brand personality to distinguish them from their competitors down the road because they have the exact same imported boutiques/restaurants/services. Geniuses.

When everything goes down the proverbial drain pipe, can we preserve Ngee Ann City, Tangs Plaza and Wisma as National Retail Monuments please? The other steel and glass replicas of each other, with their convoluted escalators/lifts that never go to the floor that you need to reach and mall directories that you have to queue up to use can be replaced by proper shops that aren't the third appearance of a chain within a kilometer. What happened to "pleasant shopping experience"? How did we become these retail anorexics who binge on skinny jeans and a diet of only Zar*, Un!qlo and Co**on-freaking-on?

Do we, as a society, actually like this? Are we, as a society, like this?

The Sound of Settling

I've got a hunger
Twisting my stomach into knots.
That my tongue has tied off.

My brain's repeating
"If you've got an impulse let it out"
But they never make it past my mouth.

Bop ba, this is the sound of settling
Bop ba, Bop ba


Our youth is fleeting,
Old age is just around the bend.
And I can't wait to go gray.

And I'll sit and wonder
Of every love that could've been.
If I'd only thought of something charming to say.

Bop ba, this is the sound of settling
Bop ba, Bop ba.

so what if i am and so what if i'm not. it doesn't change that something is missing and until its found, there is only emptiness. what good will it do me to declare one way or another?

Easy weekends are fun, comforting, relaxing and make you appreciate your companions that much more.

Thanks guys :)

It's been a John kinda day.

Easy and laid back, mostly, with a little mischief, cool, and a sweet end :)

It's been a John kinda day.

i needs hug. *burrows into pillows*

It's not the end of the year yet but here's my thanks for something I will remember for the rest of the year. A most illuminating breakfast I had that took place in a little hotel out of town.

It's roughly 630am on a work day and I'm whinging about Life and it being too late to dream.

So he said "BULLSHIT. Come to America and do it."

Thanks, John. Needed it : )

I think I need to go and be by myself for a while.. Then maybe I'll learn to be ok with it.

An olfactory seduction at midnight.

Just started my first batch of cold brewed coffee. I've most likely used the wrong type of coffee since it is quite finely ground but maaan.. that moment when the seal of that vacuum-packed coffee was breached - the hiss of air rushing in and the heady aroma of that coffee hits you - unbelievable. Inhaling that rich, intoxicating scent will send a shiver of anticipation down your spine like the thrill of the first brush of warm, dry fingers against the small of your back at a party.

I cannot wait.