walk away now, you’re gonna start a war

You will get your full measure.
But, as when asking fairies for favors,
there is a trick: it comes in a block.
And of course one block is not
like another. Some respond to water,
giving everything wet a little flavor.
Some succumb to heat like butter.
Others give to steady pressure.
Others shatter at a tap. But
some resist; nothing in nature softens up
their bulk and no personal attack works.
People whose gift will not break
live by it all their lives; it shadows
every empty act they undertake.

Full Measure, Kay Ryan

 

Relevant in so many ways, as I’m here frustrated yet calm at the same time. I imagine this is the moment to be airborne– the queue behind you jostles for their turn; ahead, the air is impotent, you have no idea how it will bear your weight.

 

I wanted to throw open the doors and slam to your chest old stories of jealousy– the jealousy of seeing those August photos, one! Two! Three! Same expression the camera would have seized if it had been with me. Your smile in half flight, reckless flurry of a shirt tail. How I kid myself! If it were me, your eyes would have been veiled, arms not quite daring, though outside the permanence of the picture frame you would have pulled me a little closer as if to say, “Let’s stop this, we only have now.” Only you wouldn’t have said that, instead you said quietly, “You’re gonna go?”, or in parantheses, “You’re [still] gonna go? [I put myself on the line but now you're blowing your chances, leaving this bar when I've just made amends.]“

 

We only had then. I blew my chances because I was erratic and flighty and too pushy when I should have been chill, and oh I was fond of you but I could never take out the best of me to spend with you. The best, in the end, was the exhausting, humid morning when you stroked my vertebrae and spoke of delicious naps on grandma’s floor. Or perhaps, much earlier on, when you were far across the other end of the tarnished candlelit table, and we were getting to be just friends.

the sound of settling

“But I’m leaving in like a month.”

“I can manage my feelings.”

“I don’t think you should get so serious about me.”

 

So much for that. I really miss your company, actually. Your terrible dry jokes about Seoul’s awesomely clean streets and Lee Hyori at some water theme park and how you never get fined for throwing cigarette butts. 

 

Come online dammit.

 

That makes two people I’m waiting for to log onto MSN Messenger.

 

Enough cryptic emo posts. The next one will be worth your while.

It gets me in the middle of the night

When I was still in Korea, Chris K and I had a little chat about how debilitating it is to get hung up over someone– they break your heart, your normal life breaks down. So for the sake of his business and my academic and personal plans, we both mused aloud that it’d be better not to pursue anyone. 

 

Of course he’s blasted the no-dating plan to smithereens and started seeing somebody. Not that I didn’t see it coming. I couldn’t say I knew him well enough, but he had a spot beside him that was asking to be filled. I have no doubt he’s a wonderful date and all the gladder having a girl to fancy. I make my mind up fast and he was an exemplary person, one month of friendship or otherwise.

 

The DFS that was closed, the Han River we circumvented because of the intrusive heat, the songs I couldn’t find on YouTube, the buffets we didn’t savour, the phonecall whose line I cut abruptly. When I go back, let’s do it right, my friend.

 

I’m fighting the urge to dial my affection to the boy who’s only going to hold me by the edges. The phone remains on its hook; good. The past sits in its display case, inanimate, benign. Stay that way. I don’t need old glories tonight.

 

I don’t want to use anybody, I don’t want to impose. I don’t want to engineer anything, unless I look at you and clarity dashes open my senses. Chance, circumstance, gravity. I’ve got a craving but this apple’s gonna fall, I’m not going to pluck it.

Bells and whistles

Elise Y wrote:

“this morning kind of sucks because I didn’t wake up in time for breakfast and I had to wake up to this crazy alarm and I can’t walk around naked.

I just got a new phone Monday. I haven’t yet figured out how to change the alarm tone and this thing is seriously the worst thing I’ve ever heard there is like this whole “a capella” theme on my phone sounds and the alarm wow I can’t even describe it.

basically think of a thing that would make you want to kill yourself. it’s like “bambambmabmabma GOOD MORNING GOOD MORNING GOOD MORNING” and I can’t really remember because I’m not fully conscious when I hear it but seriously this is all in that singsongey choirey voice that makes me want to kill myself.

it’s been three days of this phone and I might break it. this is even worse than the porn music my last phone played as an alarm song.”

Her entry makes me want to flounce about class screaming, YES! THAT IS EXACTLY THE BLASTED RINGTONE sneaking into your dreams with doom-doom-doom… GOOD MORNING before exploding into the radioactive shock of BADADADABADABADABA! GOOD MORNING ad infitinum plus random aggravating BAOs and BOMs conjuring toxic visions of clinically insane bald men in clown outfits. Way to start the day.

 

Here in Sporeville my alarm clock has the catastrophic vigour of a fire alarm, but I swear nothing is as rude and intrusive as this damn Korean ringtone. 

 

I know you love The Sartorialist as much as I do, but the feline-inclined might take doubly to THE CATORIALIST.

flotsam

I’ve got an urge to boil things. In my mind I’m filling a pot, chopping the seafood and ginger like I did for tom yam soup one night, lamenting a lack of lemongrass and eager for the smell to wallop my friends in the doorway. Outside the sky is emptying its ingredients. Rain rain rain. Beautiful night to be a duckling.

 

I take a detour to the evenings of liquid and light, wine for 25000won, soju and beer married in a hollowed watermelon, suspiciously glowing green tea bath. Fishes nibbling yelps and giggles from our feet as they dart through phosphorence. His impeccable body in the shower, waiting for the water to warm. Swimming instructor, how many girls drowned themselves over you?

 

On the radio Donald Fagen sings, 

Here at home we’ll play in the city
Powered by the sun
Perfect weather for a streamlined world
There’ll be spandex jackets one for everyone

The bus I took home cut from a moist night to a shrieking downpour that stung my back, making me regret the decision to sit in front of the gaping exit. Beside me was a dashing exchange student with hints of Elad around the eyes and mouth, though no charm or quirky humour. His hands ran from slingbag to Human Resource Management notes to itching eyebrow to pulsating nose (I didn’t want to confirm if he was scratching or… excavating it). All the way home I peered wide-eyed at streets dissolving into trees and furry blurs of red, green, orange. Men who stomped to lighten the discomfort of wet leather, girls stretching long legs to match long umbrellas. I wondered if any of these people would talk, to complement each other on the flush they’d gotten running in the rain. 

 

I’d like to be married in a drizzle, a sort of baptism, no need for further confetti. A bright, hot and drizzly day for rainbows to dazzle in raised glasses. My groom will dunk me in the swimming pool or sea because he’ll fancy the weather is goading him. And I won’t care because my gown won’t be a thing of decorum and delicacy, I’ll make it myself, to suit a dash on the beach and jig on the grand piano.

 

But tonight I’m not thinking of faceless, astonishing boys who’ll clasp my paws and kiss me goodnight (though one did share his dinner, letting me steal the beef slices and belachan eggplant; did let me too, morbidly scrutinize his leg hairs; did rub out the knots in my back till I smiled catlike and grateful; and did too smell so sweetly of shampoo it pinched me to think he wasn’t mine). 

 

An amazing girl whose fancies coursed like a network of canals. I’m thinking of our jittery first meeting where she stripped off her orange hoodie and graceful jeans, and we bobbed awkwardly in the bubbling hot water diverting our eyes from the multitude of breasts and belly strolling nonchalantly. Afterwards we’d sat on the sofa in the lobby of the bathhouse, all Ziggy Stardust and ebbing childhoods, and this flowed into Breakfast at Tiffany’s, unidentifiable salty smells in her dorm room, furtive intimacies in bars where we were hopelessly, hesitantly, beautifully young together. He played you the guitar in the rain. And I’m thinking of thirst, and us tipping, with the perfect fit of water, into that strange and depthless world again.

 

It’s an odd year. So much flotsam, all the beautiful baubles and broken glass the tide brings in.

It Will Messup Your Back

In Seoul I would periodically run into sprawling, crazy cheap vinyl record sales. I might be out with Marijn to get his camera fixed or to Sinchon to eat carcenogens and there they’d be– Korean pompadours from the 70s, Teresa Teng, the Beach Boys, Morrissey and even records to revive Dutch grandfathers. Musty and a tad folorn but sorted with OCD, they were surprisingly pristine. They nearly made me part with the money I’d carefully stowed away for pantyhose and other female nonsense. I was stopped only by the impossible task of getting them home unsullied (my luggage, I had to stomp on it for it to close).

 

Still for days I pondered. The extra pocket money I might have gleaned from the eclectic loot! The joy in my household! The excuses to visit Seoul! I pictured spreading a polka dot mat in a flea market or couching the records in a car boot sale, not to mention the hipster boys (um, hipster uncles maybe) who’d stop by, be stupefied and bury me in their money.

 

[I realise that money features too prominently in this blog. Perhaps if I were a business major this would be not a problem. But I am not. I fear my future children will catch pneumonia in their paper clothes. Potato chip bag shoes. In relation to the present, I wonder if they sell hotdogs in halves for people like me who spend lunch money on Holgas. I bought a Holga 120N.]

 

But I didn’t picture other, utterly sinister possibilities from a burgeoning habit in vinyl collection. My good fortune to have tripped over the genius of Stefan Glerum on crate digging. I am relieved and gasping with gratitude for I never knew what a drop it could have been. And I adore the fluidity of his pencil work!

 

Why am I writing on a silly flake of not-real-space? Why am I making presentation slides? Draw draw draw like there’s no tomorrow! Or at least make clothes. Menswear. Make men swear.

telephones and telegrams

These phonecalls were a nightly business, 10pm or 2am depending on my mood. What’s changed: I don’t crave to dial a voice every night, don’t crave questions that rise sweetly to suggest your care for me. What’s been kept the same: every ring tone till you pick up is a moment slow and scrutinized. I shift from one foot to another, sometimes I sit on the table, periodically I turn on the bed so my cheek presses on hair. While waiting for “Hello?” I loosen my buttons, so that I shed the trappings of a tiring day. So we are one layer closer to the real me, the me that walks with you.

 

Who’s the ‘you’ I address? Everyone I ever call for something lovelier than work. Tonight it was Andrew. Big surprise there.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m sad.”

“You’re not the only one.”

“He’s seeing someone. It’s not that I didn’t see this coming, honestly I didn’t know what to ask for. Didn’t ask anything.”

“Is that the real reason you’re crying?”

“It’s hard to talk about this. But yes, because even if I didn’t have anything I hoped for it anyway. How are you?”

“I’m an idiot. I’m an idiot because she’s staying at his place tonight and I keep thinking about it.”

“Don’t. Don’t think about her.”

“Are you sure you want to talk to me when you’re crying?”

“Why not? Option 1, I cry on my own. Option 2, I’ll cry here, but tell me about your day and I’ll stop eventually.”

 

So the tears faded to six thick crisscrossing streaks on my face, like I’d been slapped with moisture and smudges. I gulped my green tea and enjoyed the sensation of washing my face. He browsed an online phone catalog instead of glowering through the dim lens of a bitter imagination. I don’t think either of us were jealous as much as lonely. It is lonely to fall in love at the wrong time.

 

[I say time, not person, but that is because I do not believe in doubting the subject of desire. This though only applies to my choices. How many times have I thought someone else's love misplaced?]

 

Irvin thinks it is ridiculous we don’t just get back together (‘get back together’, a term to use on stray sheep). He remarked this in a setting of love: before me oozed the ardent juice of a freshly-seared steak while Irvin cut love handles from a monstrous chicken cutlet. Behind him a girl in green simpered for her tidy date. To the left someone whinied her boyfriend into settling the bill. I wasn’t feeling it, this paper cutout picture. I could only taste the steak, a flavour to savour without guilt, intimidation, no long, hollow fear of nothing ever pulling through. I liked the laughter of the friend before me, a man I couldn’t lose, someone I could voice affection for without breaching invisible parallels.

 

Southern Singapore. Andrew drowses and I leave him be.

South Korea. Someone’s dreaming and making plans for the weekend. I’m too late but still I want to say, in morse code across the inefficient airways, good night, thank you, be happy, be safe.

 

‘Midnight train going anywhere’

My dear Marijn, maybe I never made it clear to you but even when the bedbugs struck, I was thankful for the bed in which we shared a blanket. What a harmonious arrangement it was, no questions, no worries, just warmth and a sizzling pan of bacon and mushrooms in the morning or middle of the night. We would creep down to that Resident Evil-like basement, deposit the laundry, and pick at the lazy hours of the day.

 

The morning after Club Mass, I shut my purse, dropped the room key at the deserted counter, spilled into an alien street. I was utterly incongruous: flimsy cream dress versus a stern road of hardware shops and pragmatically-dressed citizens. Eyes bugged at me. I wanted clean hair and to tear my lenses out. It was one and a half hours of squinted eyes, long standing waits and counting off subway stops before I fell through our doorstep, completely beat. There you were, passed out, still hidden from the hangover that would sell us another slow and restful day. At that moment I felt home.

 

I would have been lonely without our happy household those last weeks. Marijn trawling Youtube for MIA’s Paper Planes, Ruth efficiently conquering dirty dishes, Papa Leo’s written naggings to us careless, sleepy children. Jason charging through the door at 4am and claiming his (disproportionate) share of sleeping space. Did Boa ever get her iron? Do the girlfriends of losing Starcraft players still cry? Marijn held my umbrella and Leo kicked up loads of puddles in his green hi-tops.

 

It’s hard to imagine all of us, you, me, Ruth, Leo, the Jasons, Hanna, the Chrises, Julie and Julienne, Jin, Elad, Terry, Rachel– separate lives in our separate cities. Ordering pizza, snoozing in class, early morning metro. Here I am with Seoul burning up moisture in my retinas while at the back of my mind I remember I should be studying 6 chapters for International Econs.

 

“Don’t Stop Believing”– I listen to Journey and remember Julie cajoling me to get my kisses from Chris Bowen (it was hard, not for lack of attraction but because I am gutless). Afterwards we stopped on the 5am maroon route to the ihouse, where J&J constantly renewed their stash of Eclipse gum. He leaned closer and I always thought thereafter about the brownness of his hair, uncertainty in his eyes and reassuring height. I thought also about kisses for the sake of love, kisses for nothing, and kisses given for the moment or the simple uncluttered appreciation of a person.

 

A person, persons. There’s that one I didn’t do anything to, with, and that was that till I see him again if I ever see him again, God willing, but it’s wiser this way, I need to grow up in the mean time anyway.

 

Don’t think too much. Though I do it all the time.

 

It’s so humid here in Singapore. Some of my best clothes I reject because they aren’t from the Clan of Cotton. And still, I’m the coldest I’ve been this year, alone in this bed no hands to grab, no neon nights of hunting for faces. Soju and pineapple, depthless orange shimmer on a summer Han River.

 

*Photos by Leo Drescher. Actually Woo Jin Kim must have taken the first shot since Leo’s in the picture.