Sunday, December 18, 2011

Gather Up Your Tears, Keep Em In Your Pocket

Dear Cousin, 

This time last year you left us so suddenly, and now it has been a whole year, and you are still forever missed. Every time something reminds me of you, there is that constriction in my throat and the burning sting of tears. I'm sure you are in a better place, a heaven, if you will. How could you not be?? You remain one of the kindest, most generous and patient person I have ever known, always armed with a dimpled grin that was surely always infectious. If anything I wish we were closer, but you were always a big brother to me. You were the one who brought me and my girlfriends into members at Zouk when it was my first time clubbing there, and you bought us drinks but shooed us home when we got too tipsy. You encouraged me reading graphic novels, giving me great ones such as Persepolis to read. You let us girl cousins come over and win you at Wii and Raving Rabbids, you never got angry with us, despite the constant teasing we showered upon you at every Chinese New Year Dinner. You were a great cousin, a great brother, a great uncle, a great friend and most importantly a great son to your parents. You were a great man. Even when I was a kid and you were a teenager a whole 10 years older than me, I'll never forget how you always had time to answer my incessant questions, and gave me your Archie comics in the stacks. You have a special place in my heart, always and always, cousin. 

10 July 1979 - 18 December 2010
In Loving Memory

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

In the Shadow Of The Earth

It's been a long time since I've had anything interesting going on in my life. How easily it is that work consumes an individual, especially since I'm working in an internet company I no longer relish the mindless surfing through tumblr/fb/blogs. So over the weekend I ignored my computer and instead spent my days sleeping and wandering through Singapore. One of my most favouritest people in the whole wide world is back in my city, and Saturday saw us meandering through the hipster-cool Ann Siang, where we visited the newly opened Lomo Gallery Store (which, by the way is quite the place to go and just inspect all the various Lomos, though I'd suggest getting them online and therefore cheaper), walked around and around, ended up having tea at the newly opened Antoinette cafe (of which I blogged about the Penhas Road location here), before making jokes about checking in on facebook everywhere we go and then proceeding to check in at the nearby Buddha Tooth Relic Temple. Which, of course we eventually wound up going to, since you know, it was already facebook official! 

Braved the crowds and hopped on the MRT but not before getting lost in Chinatown and having to ask the Indian Money Changer Uncle where was the MRT station (shame), and headed to Marina Bay Sands. After lusting over the beautiful yellow Chanel bags and the new Boy Chanel, we had dinner at Daniel Boulud in MBS, me the duck confit, she the Frenchie Burger, both of which were slightly above average but nothing spectacular (my duck confit was not crisp on the outside as it should be, though it was extremely flavoursome, plus the onion rings it was served with was delish). Post dinner and suffering from food coma, we ended up outside the Art and Science Museum on the benches and watched the lunar eclipse. An hour or more of the moon moving into the shadow of the earth-- easily one of the more spectacular things I've ever seen.

So that was my Saturday and now it is 50 minutes into Tuesday, and I'm already counting the minutes to the next Saturday xx

Friday, December 2, 2011

The Universe Game


"Let’s play the Universe game.
I’ll be a star cloud because that’s what your presence reduces me to. A mass of luminosity and in those moments, I’m impossible to measure mathematically. Not with the naked eye, anyway. It’s simpler than that: you say my name and I’ll glow.
You can be the North Star, burning bright and hot. You’re Polaris because you stand out, because you’re a fixture in my sky. Because when I’m lost, I can find you and be okay. You’re my point of reference.
Speaking of Polaris, we can be the Big Dipper and Little Dipper, the Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, the Big Bear and Little Bear – whichever name you prefer as long as we’re partnered together in perpetuity. Our bond will know no lingual or cultural or geographic limits. No matter where two people stand on this Earth, they’ll look up and see us and know that we belong together.
We can be whichever constellations you like, at least in the beginning. In the beginning we’ll be all starburst and Andromeda and other striking sights that’ll inspire envy; but it won’t stay that way.
This is when the game loses its sheen.
Maybe we’ll stop communicating. I’ll grow distant; I’ll grow colder like Mars. And you’ll grow angrier, volatile like Jupiter. A mess of rock and metal and discarded things will separate us, an Asteroid Belt of our grievances. But I’ll overlook it; I’ll still sit by your side and will your storms to quit brewing. Anything to make them stop brewing.
Or maybe you’ll grow distant first. Perhaps you’ll become the Sun and I, the Earth — turning in on myself to revolve around you because you are the light and what keeps me warm. Me rotating around you. Your selfishness so belittling that one day, I’ll become too small to be the Earth. So you’ll take my place, and I’ll become your moon. This is a better fit because some days I’ll appear to be whole but others? I’ll look like I’m half, or a quarter, or just a tiny sliver of who I was. On rare occasions, we’ll still align. I will pass through your shadow and bask in your sunlight; my face awash in gold and red and I’ll remember the way things were. But lunar eclipses, they’re few and far between and they’re not enough to save us.
Perhaps one moon won’t be enough for you, eventually. Eventually you’ll want what the others have, you’ll want eight moons or sixteen moons or more, so you’ll become Saturn. You’ll have more rings, more moons than you’ll know what to do with. And I will have no choice but to take the hint. I’ll be Pluto: downgraded and disregarded and cast aside. “You’re not even a planet anymore,” you’ll say, and I’ll know we’ll never be the same again. I’ll feel really, really small.
Finally it’ll become too much, the heartache. So I’ll be a supernova, one who was once a star but is now explosive, exploding, exploded. And it will be spectacular, you’ll be impressed by the amount of light I had inside of me. You had no idea just how much.
But it’s of no consequence. Because you are all of the planets, and all of the moons, and all of the matter; you’re all that matters. You are the sun; and you’ll just keep spinning and spinning and spinning."

Haven't had much time to myself recently, because I've started work for an awesome online shopping website called jipaban and I didn't have the time I used to have to do the things worth blogging about (aka no longer a lady of leisure). But I just wanted to share this amazing piece from the Thought Catalog. I don't usually read the Thought Catalog because mostly it feels like pretentious bullshit to me, but this piece was beautifully written I feel like I have to share it. Of course, putting some of my favourite photos I see on tumblr. I apologize for the lack of credits, tumblr isn't the best place for copyright works. Happy weekend xx