Neither here nor there, hard to convey and every tendency to just hold back.

I am trying to send two photos of a ridiculously titled CD about the story of toilets I found while doing front of house and also a photo of a racist headline about Princess and the Frog (“The fairest of them all is black”) from my phone to my Mac, but I am experiencing a Bluetooth fail. So you guys will just have to access this ridiculousness through the magic of Plain Jane words. I mean, that headline, amirite?!

I am currently playing Settlers of Catan, which I guess can be described as the non-Facebook Farmville? except I don’t know how Farmville works and I don’t want to. It’s this fun game that’s quite dorky, and you roll the dice for grain/ore/timber/brick/pasture cards and build settlements and cities and roads that are really matchsticks without the heads. I would upload a photo, but I am experiencing WordPress fail, which I think is more my friend M’s WiFi fail, but oh well.

At breakfast today, M’s mom brought up THE FUTURE, which, next to DO YOU HAVE A WHITE AUSTRALIAN BOYFRIEND? is everyone’s favourite topic of conversation when it comes to me. She was saying how I should think about applying for Australian PR, or at the very very least looking into the points and other necessary things I need to successfully get a PR. The most important thing she says is for me to get out of here (Malaysia) which I agree with. I gave her my stock line which was “I’m not sure if I want to live anywhere permanently at this point in my life”. I nurture this hopelessly romantic dream of moving around the world constantly, like the secret nomad that I am. (code for: living in a car[dboard box]) Then of course, in her mature adult way, she said “Maybe you could make Australia your base.” WHICH IS A VERY GOOD POINT, M’S MOM, EVEN THOUGH I HATE VERY MUCH HATE TO ADMIT IT.

And recently I’ve been kind of vaguely upsetting myself with the thought of my lack of accommodation next year, of which I am too lazy to fix and remedy and acquire and what not. So, you know, vague stress. The worst kind of stress. I can barely eat all these sandwiches and take all these naps and play all the videogames with all this vague flashes of reality that intrude on my loafing. These diamond shoes are too tight! Sorry. I am aware that my problems are trivial, and I have it pretty good. But you know, what else would I be scared of other than the future? It is my Voldemort*.

I have many unconfirmed plans to watch three movies in as many days, in the coming days (I have a strong suspicion this is not a correct sentence!) I’m half worried I will end up watching all these three movies alone, due to the fickle nature of my friends’ very much busier lives and schedules, filled with families and plans. There I go again, making myself sound like a little sad orphan. I’ve been thinking of something quite a bit recently, due to this quote I read from an issue of Five Dials, about a dad’s failed attempt to bring his 9-month-old to Obama’s inauguration:

I’ve come to realize that I’ve lived almost my entire life doing what I wanted to do pretty much when I wanted to do it. Yes, I went to school, I held jobs and I followed most of the rules, but when I was on my own, at leisure, I was, as former President Bush famously said, the decider. If I wanted to go out, to take a walk, well, that’s what I decided to do: I grabbed my coat and I left, right then. If I felt hungry, I ate. If I needed to go to the bathroom, I went. I mean, why ever delay? And yet I never, in all those years, thought of myself as intrinsically selfish. This is not like the selfishness of the uncharitable miser or the greed of the money-grubber. This is a kind of invisible, existential selfishness. I wrestle with this still, from time to time, and so I have no real wisdom to offer, except to say that there are many varieties of love, and one that I’m learning is this: love is when you feed yourself not when you feel hunger, but after everyone else has eaten.

This really resonated with me. Whenever I’m in Kindred’s house, I find myself embarrassingly unable to stop myself from eating first, from opening unopened food packages, generally giving way to her family like she does and I should respectfully do (I mostly try). I grew up in a house that encouraged me to eat whenever I felt hungry (not that there was much food, because I guess I came from a family of frugal bums?) (not that I didn’t eat as much as I could whenever I could, because my spirit animal is Garfield) and that basically left me to my own devices. I credit this upbringing for quite a few of my positive traits, like my independence and ability to care for myself, my imagination – because playing alone does that, but also for my loner qualities, my impatience and my “invisible, existential selfishness”. Sometimes I say and do things that seem perfectly normal and logical to me, but can sometimes offend or baffle my close friends. It’s this weird disparity of values – if you can call it that – that I’ve noticed more recently and that I am feeling more uncomfortable with? I mean, no one wants to be selfish right? And no one wants to be known for always being crotchety and a loner and sometimes kind of a bitch, especially not to your close friends who you actually like and love.

I’ve never put much stock in being nice, but I feel like I’ve gone too far in the anti-nice direction, you know?** I don’t know. Maybe this is the end of 2009 working on me, and the holiday blues (even though I don’t even celebrate Christmas). I’m just feeling all around confused and kind of vaguely bummed. Wow, writing this has just made me feel worse! I’ll just quit while I’m ahead. Hope you’re all gearing up for your respective celebrations!

* Kindred’s little brother has taken to referring to me as Voldemort, which – not gonna lie – is kind of awesome.

** M’s mom remarked that I’ve started speaking in questions now, and M cut in saying “She’s always talked like that”. NOOOOO!

Lars Von Trier is working on a sci-fi!  Honestly, this sounds like a dream come true.  The film is titled Melancholia, and it will supposedly be a low budget psychological disaster movie taking place on a planet nearing its own distruction.  Filming starts next summer.  No cast members have been announced, and it will be filmed in the English language, for those who were curious.  It seems that Von Trier has officially left his Dogma 95 roots in the dust, which is A-OK.

I know that you have endured a great sadness. We all have, of course, and some of us hold up under the sadness better than others. Sometimes we move beyond the sadness; at other times we wear it like a shroud. Sometimes the sadness is all that we have left.

“The world breaks everyone,” Hemingway wrote, “and afterwards many are stronger at the broken places.” If he had ended there, one would be able to take encouragement and solace–and even strength–from his words. But no, he went further: “But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good, and the very gentle, and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too, but there will be no special hurry.”

Surprisingly, he wrote this in a letter at age twenty-six to his early literary mentor, Sherwood Anderson. Hemingway, it seems, was fatalistic from a very early age.

He would soon embarrass Anderson, of course, in the savage parody The Torrents Of Spring. The book is largely unreadable, but Hemingway wanted it that way: he and Anderson shared a publisher, whom he wanted to reject the novel so that he could sign with Charles Scribner and Sons. And that’s exactly what happened, although the experience says more about Hemingway’s tendency to “outgrow” and attack his mentors (including Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein) than it does about his literary ambitions.

But, somehow, I digress.

Sadness is a weight, of course, that most people never see. Sometimes we are able to move past it; sometimes it stays with us for an entire lifetime. Sometimes it even…defines us. But that, of course, is something we must try to avoid. It’s a fight, a daily struggle, and at times there is no clear winner. But if you are lucky, very, very, lucky, you just might become stronger at the places which are broken.

This year we got a new CS lecturer and he is fantastic. When he speaks you feel utterly compelled to listen, he is insightful, funny and more than knowledgeable.
Last week he did a lecture on the ‘Non-Place’ and melancholia towards technology and it got me thinking.

There used to be a Utopian idea of the future. This future would be one where we were at one with technology, we lived happily alongside many other species of humanoids, and doors make a ‘whoosh’ noise as they open.

Maybe we’d all know someone like Spock or Warf. Maybe you’d be the Captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise.

But this Utopian image has been tainted because of an uncertainty about the future.
Global crisis, images of wars, destructive technology such as the A-Bomb, things that even if eradicated cannot be forgotten, create a hazy future. One where there are no whooshy doors!

We now suffer a disenchantment with technology because of the way it has deconstructed our idea of the future. We feel like we’ve lost something, but we’re not entirely sure what – we don’t know how to get over falling out of love with technology – thus we all suffer from techno-melancholia.

The point of this is one of the very poignant examples this lecturer gave of a lack of a Utopian future. He explained that many games are marketed on the uncertainty of the future.

In Gears of War the main character, Marcus Fenix, is part of a ruined wasteland and he’s trying to find a meaning to his life. But he is not trying to fight for a better future. He has no beliefs, he knows he has no future.

The images of the Dystopian landscape are played out alongside a very melancholic soundtrack, emphasising the complete lack of faith and hope.

I’m not really into video games, because I am generally rubbish at them, but I absolutely loved the theory behind this, and really wanted to share it with you all!

i returned from the provinces leaving behind my good health, some seven pounds or more of body fat (that part i don’t feel sorry about at all), and a favorite piece of reading material that i was not yet finished with – a november issue of harper’s magazine that i had picked up in philly and is now resting on the side of the sink in one of the roof of bamyan guesthouse’s bathrooms, a bit crumpled on account of evaporation and condensation of water, the way good reading material are in bathrooms all over the world.
*
silly part of it is, i was in the middle of reading this really good piece on design fetishism – seductively titled ‘ways of not seeing’ by someone kingwell. a very thought provoking essay that i highly recommend if you can locate it on the net. the better kept secret around these parts is that i love harper’s magazine. i have loved it ever since i picked up my first issue years ago as an angst-filled and news-weary young man unable to take any more of time and newsweek, and actively seeking refuge in art reviews, literary magazines, and yes, daedalus – that rare quarterly subscription of contemporary poetry that made me count down weeks.
*
no complaints, however. the trip itself was a success by all accounts, and were it not for the risqué behavior of staying up the last night around a bonfire while my legs felt like roasting at the same time as the wind bore into my back, i would have even come back in full health. my colleague accused me of going to these lengths because i had not had the opportunity to do all this as a teenager – i.e. campfire and the works. i wondered if he was right, and whether my feelings should be hurt. but i forgot this soon because it was very cold.
*
i saw the sky starrier in bamyan than i had seen it in a full decade or more. i stared into it for hours one night until the realization of the insignificance of ‘all this’ became so perfectly apparent that i felt manifold lighter, more open, more free, and also a tiny bit depressed. i saw the milky way again after so many years –long and deep and magnificent and luminous against a pitch black sky with absolutely no light pollution. i located the big dipper and the other formations –which took me back years to when as a child i used to count these off to my dad using an astronomy book he had brought me from abroad as the two of us stood on the roof of our home in watan.
*
i could use this one paragraph to tell you about bamyan and its people and the progress of the work and attitudes towards development and government and peppermint and assorted other ments. but i won’t. i made a promise long ago to myself to not machine-wash colors and whites (trust me on this one, otherwise your whites, usually your undies, come out colored pink and purple and other bizarre colors), and to reserve this space for ‘all other stuff’ – and though there are slips from time to time, i generally have come to see the utility of this place as a graffiti space, and nothing self-serious. plus, you may have heard that جهان دیده بسیار گوید دروغ so why should you believe my essentializing statements about bamyan or anywhere. you, like everyone else, are entitled to your right to go out there and form your own generalizing statements about people and places that you can then impose on other unsuspecting listeners/readers.
*
bbc’s hardtalk with stephen zucker (or at least usually with stephen zucker) comes on at a very strange hour here, but the few times i have been struggling with sleep i have turned on the tv and been glad for it. this one time zucker was speaking to slavoj zizek who as a man of ideas is leaps and bounds ahead of our time and in that sense is as scary and endearing and prophetic as he is eccentric and interesting. another time the show was hosting the israeli academic shlomo sand who discussed this most debated conflict of all time from an altogether novel angle that left me a bit breathless and far too excited for 3 o’clock in the morning. afterwards, i scribbled this down somewhere: ’25 minutes of compact, stimulating, intelligent debate that makes you forget even the most fundamental human urge to channel-surf.’
*
dave barry is alleged to have said once upon a time that “the world is full of strange phenomena that cannot be explained by the laws of logic or science. dennis rodman is only one example.” in the past couple of days since i have returned to kabul, i have repeated this sentence to myself many times over, variously replacing dennis rodman’s name with different names i am sure you have in your own mind too.
*
archeologists are not in agreement over whether it is a lament or a boast, but almost every one of them find it intriguing. it is a one line graffiti on a wall in pompeii, most certainly written before the ashes of mount vesuvius covered it all up: “atimetus got me pregnant.”
*
then there are the two up and coming actors amy adams and emily blunt. there is something about this duo. as far as i know, they have acted together in only one film –sunshine cleaning. but i have always seen them as somewhat kindred, and always a pleasure to watch. they are not scarlett johanssen drop dead gorgeous, or penelope cruz seductive. they are even a little bland, and altogether ordinary and next-door. but there is something about them. the forthrightness and honesty of their roles, i guess, and its unpretentiousness.

*
the man in the know (the one who scavenges through the garbage on odd days of the week) was overheard murmuring something to himself about monday being the day the new cabinet is formed. the weatherman also predicted it to be cloudy with a chance of sleazeballs.

There are still times when I am perfectly content to stay inside all day, ensconced in an enforced solitude that is as much withdrawn as it is literary. I’m sure it’s very difficult for most “normal” people to understand, but there are days when the mere act of venturing into the world is more than a little…frightening. I know at these times that I’m becoming withdrawn; I know it and yet there are times when I can do very little about it.

Don’t wake me, cause I was dreamin’
And I might just stay inside
I don’t go out much these days
Sometimes I stay inside all day*

The odd fact is that I can be incredibly productive on such days; office work seems to take very little time at all, and my literary work sometimes assumes a new music and poetry. Somehow it seems easier to concentrate, to focus, to think, to write, to create, to produce. Which doesn’t mean that I don’t become…lonely…on such days. I do, sometimes very much. Sometimes I reach out to someone, usually with only mixed success. But there are days, though (still), when all I want to do is sleep. There are still days when all I want to be is dead to the world.

You wouldn’t think it would require such great effort to accomplish one of the simplest things in life, that of venturing out into the world. But sometimes it does, and all I can do is force myself to keep going. I don’t always succeed, but I do try. And yet there are still times when I must say: “I don’t go out much these days…”

*Counting Crows, “Miller’s Angels” (from the album Recovering the Satellites, 1996)

I can’t sleep.  Freezing and melancholic, I can’t stop listening to Lisa Gerrard’s “The Sea Whisperer”. Her voice and music is so beautiful, sad and at the same time comforting. I know that in my current psychological condition I should not be listening to her music.  But.  But my previous attempts of forcing myself to enjoy more cheerful or energetic  musical pieces just fell through. I heard the sounds but at the same time I was deaf to them.

If I could add a visual presentation of this particular piece and my longing of a peace of mind… it would be Arnold Bocklin’s “Villa by the Sea” or “The Island of the Dead”.

Villa by the Sea by Arnold Bocklin

The Island of the Dead by Arnold Bocklin

These places appear in my dreams often…

Gods, I should take some rest. There’s a comfort in sleep which I had not known before. When You fall asleep, your mind switch off. There’s some consolation in that, yes..

He said the sound of popping wouldn’t stop. He said it reminded him of pistols going off, constantly, in his ears. He said all this before he left the room. He said it made him shudder.

What she said, but failed to tell him, was that that same popping had been happening inside her head for years. But she equated it with the light going on and off, the gentle clap-clap of the shudders on the frame of her house, the fireworks which made their bombastic appearance every three or so months.  They were all the same as the sound of a heart exploding launching its red debris onto the sidewalks, tables, and people that stood in the vicinity. This excited her and sometimes aroused her feminine mystique.

Briefly they stood together in the white room. It was cold and they could see their breaths like a gentle puff-puff, like two breathing tea pots placed side by side. She looked at the painting absently, with a meandering diligence and meloncholy. He looked twice as hard as he needed to and never saw the full picture.

He left the room frustrated, stomping his heels in time with the sound in his head.

She left the room first.

I can’t believe it’s already December! At first I felt very resistant to the year coming to such an abrupt close– but here we are, at the finale… And suddenly I’m beginning to feel in the mood for all the celebrating and festivities. After all, there is nothing that inspires a warmer, more lovely feeling than walking along a snowy avenue as star-like flakes float down, clinging to lights-filled branches; sipping hot chocolate; and being with the people you care about– or thinking about them, if being with them isn’t possible.。。。

For some reason there is nothing I like better at the holidays than that blend of melancholy + hopeful that few people can nail just right. Today, as it were, we have business with one of these. You guessed it, of course, the all-time Jpop king GACKT. It’s true, he’s been busier than a beehive in honey-season, but despite all the excitement of new singles, books, and DVDs, perhaps the last month of the year, a time of retrospective and contemplation, is a fitting time to look back on the classic gold of GACKT’s past prizes…

I believe that if you buy his “１２月のLove Song”, you should be sent a packet of tissues with the GACKT crest on them. Even the hardest heart cannot resist the paradoxical snowy warmth of this perfect single; and male, female, young, old… if you’re not sobbing into your eggnog by the time the track ends…I just….you need help.

This single, which has to be one of the most translated and performed-in-multiple-languages songs on earth, has captured with incredible clarity and ease the gentleness, sweetness, and dash of sadness that always seems to be imbued into romantics during the last few months of the year.
A time of change, hope, and positive intention are all deeply set into the tenderness of the lyrics, melody, and effects of GACKT’s seasonal masterpiece.

Juunigatsu no Love Song ~ December Love Song

いつの間にか街の中二十二月の慌ただしさがあふれ
小さな手を振りながら大切な人の名前を
呼ぶ

Itsuno ma ni ka machi no naka ni juuni-gatsu no
awatadashisa ga afure
chiisana te o furinagara taisetsu na hito no namae o
yobu

恋人たちの優しさに包まれてこの街にも少し早い冬が訪れる

Koibito-tachi no yasashisa ni tsutsumarete kono
machi ni mo sukoshi hayai fuyu ga otozureru

大切な人だからずっと変わらないで笑っていて
大好きな人だからずっと君だけを抱きしめて。。。

Taisetsu na hito dakara zutto kawaranai de
waratteite
daisuki na hito dakara zutto kimi dake o
dakishimete…

Show-windowを見つめながら方を寄せ合う二人が通り過ぎる
君の事を待ちながら白い吐息に重いを乗せる

Show-window o mitsumenagara kata o yoseau
futari ga toorisugiru
kimi no koto o machinagara shiroi toiki ni omoi o
noseru

見上げた空に粉雪が舞い降りていたずらに二人
の距離をそっと地被ける

Miageta sora ni konayuki ga maioriteitazura ni futari
no kyori o sotto chikazukeru

静かな夜に耳元でささやいた
あの言葉をもう一度そっとつぶやいた

Shizuka na yoru ni mimimoto de sasayaita
ano kotoba o mou ichido sotto tsubuyaita

大切な人だからずっと変わらないで笑っていて
大好きな人だからずっと君だけを抱きしめて。。。

Taisetsu na hito dakara zutto kawaranai de
waratteite
daisuki na hito dakara zutto kimi dake o
dakishimete…

いつまでも抱きしめて。。。
Itsumade mo dakishimete…

君だけを抱きしめて。。。
Kimi dake o dakishimete…

GACKT really gives his all in composition of “12Gatsu no Love Song”, including major orchestration, acoustics, violin, subtle chorus accompaniment, and impressive, magical theatrics in the performance. However, despite being a major production, the simplicity and tenderness of the song cannot be matched, and a bottle of whiskey couldn’t make you feel this warm on a cold night.

The single is the perfect soundtrack to walking down a snowy, well-lit street in December with someone you care about. And whether you’re Japanese, Korean, American/English, or Chinese, you can enjoy this touching piece in your own language. Whichever suits your fancy~ consider it GACKT’s Christmas gift to you. x

“Is that the best you can do?” she said.

It was.

I’m not sure what, if anything, we talked about after that. There was, after all, nothing left to say. I had told her everything in my heart for the last ten months, and now with only seven caustic words, I could only wonder if any of it had meant anything at all.

There is no memory of taking her home that night in June, only memories of what came after: sitting alone for hours in my car because I couldn’t face anyone, crying for days, seeing no one, missing her voice and her perfume and her touch. I spent the next four years waiting for a letter that never came, trying to understand and survive in a life without her: a life I never wanted. A life I am still adjusting to now.

“It’s not right anymore,” she once said as I was driving her home just after dark. “It’s supposed to be…perfect.”

“I think perfection is more of an ideal,” I said. “We have to work at this like we would at anything else.”

I mentioned other couples we knew then; told her it probably wasn’t perfect for them, either. I knew they weren’t giving up; I know now that some of them never have.

I’d sooner forget but I remember those nights
Yeah, life was just a bet on a race between the lights
You had your head on my shoulder you had your hand in my hair
Now you act a little colder like you don’t seem to care*

She placed her hand in my hair one night; I’m not sure I’ve ever felt so good, or so loved. One of those small intimacies we all take for granted; one that I’ve known not nearly enough. But most of all I remember the cool, but not cold, September night when I first visited her, the way she walked me back to my car after the visit, the way the moon hung low in the southern sky, the way we kissed, the way I fell in love even before that first kiss. I remember and I must always live with it; I remember because now, after all this time, the memory is all that remains.

*Dire Straits, “Telegraph Road” (from the album Love Over Gold, 1982)

Everyone disappears. Everyone runs. Nothing lasts forever. Sometimes things end before they’ve even begun. And only the few, the very, very few, even bother to say goodbye.

I understand that everyone goes disappearing,
into the greatest grey
that covers over everyday,
and hovers in the distance and the distance and the distance…*

Maybe goodbye is the cruelest word of all. I’m not sure; I just know that there have been many times when I needed to hear it. Without a goodbye you can remain for years–even decades–in the moment of parting, the hurt so fresh it feels that it will never go away.

Sometimes I go out for an errand and forget my phone, and foolishly think I’ll have missed a call by the time I get home. So I pick it up from the table or kitchen counter, power it on, and stare a second in disappointment at the blank screen. It’s funny, I think. Maybe if I stare at it long enough a call will suddenly materialize; maybe the phone will even ring while I hold it in my hand. But it never does. Of course, it never does.

You would think I would go slightly…daft…after a while. Start talking to myself or something. But no: I read, write, listen to music, play guitar, and when I have the nerve and feel like it, even go to the pub. But I’m not going to the pub much these days…

Who knows? Perhaps tomorrow will be different somehow. Perhaps I’ll feel better; I might even feel like going to the pub. But I’ll carry with me memories of all the disappeared. They’re not here, of course, but they’ve never really gone away.

*Counting Crows, “Up All Night” (from the album Hard Candy, 2003)

For one summer–one lovely, all too brief summer–I truly loved her. She was eighteen then, and I…I was only a few years older. For those few months she was the woman I thought she could be, while I was the person I was and am still becoming.

There was nothing but joy then when she called, or visited, or we hung out, or when we made love. There was a creek we swam in that summer; I remember holding her in the part where the water began to run deep, her bathing suit off, her body wrapped around mine. I remember the kiss of sunlight on my face; I remember her lips on mine. It was the kind of summer Fitzgerald might have written about, the one with “blonde Northern girls and the tall young men from the farms lying out beside the wheat, under the moon.”*

And then there was the day she told me she was pregnant. I was, to be that young, ecstatic. I had never thought much about becoming a father, but none of that mattered now. If she could have stayed that young and happy forever, and I was going to have all that and be a father also, then that was all right with me. The rest of my college would take care of itself; it was almost over, anyway. I wanted her. I wanted the baby. I wanted to be married.

But she, who so often talked of marriage and of becoming a mother, became truculent and withdrawn. I quickly realized what she planned to do, even before she told me, and the day after it was over the feeling just died.

we went straight into darkness
out over the line
straight into darkness
straight into night**

Every January or thereabouts I wonder about the child who never was. Some years–though by no means all–I’ve also cried. And I can’t help but wonder if things would have different between us, if in the realm of alternate possibilities I would love her still today. Impossible questions, impossible to answer. But I still grieve for our child; I still grieve over what might have been.

I’ve never written of this before, not even in a journal. I’ve never even talked about it, to anyone. Anyone at all. We all live with our silent grief, one way or another. I can’t say with certainty that this is what led to all to the vehemence and hatred later. But one day she told me that I never treated her better than during that summer when she was first pregnant. I hope, someday, that’s the way she’ll remember me. And I will leave the darkness for good.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, “Absolution”
Tom Petty, “Straight Into Darkness (copyright 1982, Gone Gator Music)

I want to feel the essence of everything

I don’t want to stop expecting anything from myself

I don’t want my life to end when my children are grown

I want to break from tradition and not wait for death

I want to live large

I want to take a huge bite out of life…’Eat life with a big spoon if you will’

I want to run, and breathe, to explore worlds yet undiscovered by my eager eyes

I want to feel the damp mist in the hot humid Amazon rain forest,

I want to feel the sweat run down my back, cause my shirt to sticky and my hands clammy,

And then I want to dive into the cool pristine waters of the corral reef and look at the world upside down

I want to wade in the rice paddocks of the Orient, to wriggle my toes in the mud and listen to the breeze on my face with my eyes shut

I want to watch the sun shine around the clock at the North Pole

And then I want to watch it again at the South Pole because its so unbelievably amazing!

I want to be passionate about my beliefs, I want to believe strongly in a cause for which am willing to die; but my passion will drive me to fight tenaciously to want to live for my cause!

I want to shower in the droplets of joy

I want to dance in the rain, I want to see the golden pot at the end of the rainbow

I want to hold the pearls of my children’s laughter

I want to come home to tenderness and warmth, I want to grow old with the love of my life;

I want to experience the miracle of rebirth, I want to be awed by creation

I want to experience divinity;I want to build monuments for my creator in the hearts of generations, I want to be victorious but humble

I want to marvel at the fragility of life; I want to be astounded over and over again at the rythm of my heart

I want so much from life. I want to walk in the panoramic landscape of my imagination. I want to experience the essence of everything.

I want to have my cake and eat it too -every last crumb of it. I want to LIVE.

Still she’s sleeping coldly. Don’t you know she’s bold boys? Don’t you know she’s Bold? She had some of those best dreams that money can buy. Dreams, she says, your money can buy. And all the while she’s takin’ it on. And all the while she’s taken car. Off, then she goes again. Off, and then she goes. But these Garlands, these Garlands remind me of things we never knew or Places where we’ve never been. Taking the sun out. Taking these garlands apart. Taking this day (it’s grey) and its gold. Taking these Garlands. Taking these garlands apart.

She’ll say she bought the most beautiful fabric. She’ll say the sky needs sew’n. She’ll say she bought the most beautiful dreams . She’ll say they’re the best dreams that money can buy. Dreams, she says, your money can buy. And all the while she’s takin’ it on. And All the while she’s taken the car. Off, then she goes again. Off, and then she goes.

Off, and then she goes.

I’m infected…
Melancholy flows in my veins…
And there’s no reason.
I’m infected

“Of Melancholy Burning”

Dark Tranquillity

Jackal, aches for pain beyond me
Bestiality beckons – The anger set free
For there is no pain greater than thine
For there is no gain but the fury inside

Desolated since derived
Torn screaming from the gaping wound

Always be cherished
The grandeur of melancholy
Outward reprisal
Swear by your throne

Fallen words shall grieve thee
The grandeur of melancholy

Frailty, thy name is weakness
Vengeance, thy name is pain
Storm through the still glowing night
Ember eyes beyond reason shall see

Flee from the safety of the sheltering sky
See all but logic, so vengeance shall be
The grandeur of melancholy burning… oh burning

Charge into uncertainty’s promised land

Always and never
Your are the nail

Cursed, cursed
Oh essence of the night guide me
Cursed, cursed
Oh sweet revenge heal me
Frailty, thy name is weakness
Vengeance, thy name is pain
The nail

Jackal, aches for pain beyond me
The storm that now grabs me
Is the storm of my soul
For there is no pain greater than mine
For there is no gain but the fury inside

Once so bereaved
And ever so suppressed
Charge and split up the anger
Wake up the jackal
Let out his wrath

Always and never
He spoke of his pain
Always and never
You are the nail

Always be cherished
The grandeur of melancholy
Always and never
You are the nail

With 5 days left until my flight home, some blues have set in. Earlier today I was feeling a little overwhelmed at everything I felt I needed to do before I left. I was freaking out about packing (still, and yes it’s my own fault for starting so early), freaking out about still not getting around to dropping off my unwanted books at the second hand bookstore, freaking out about not calling the Apple store to find out if their HQ is shipping my copy of Snow Leopard, if at all, and if they are is it going to end up here in this place I am moving out of and oh man, what if that discount ran out already?, freaking out about moving my shit tomorrow Saturday (I keep thinking tomorrow is Saturday which is also freaking me out) and checking out because I like worrying about things that don’t actually need worrying, worrying about the things I need to finish up at my job, worrying about cleaning out my pantry and wasting food and keeping things and cleaning things, ETC.

I mean, ideally, I want my life here to be this neat Tetris-packed box that I can seal with packing tape and put away to return to, as is. It’s taken me a while to nut up and accept that my life isn’t Han Solo. I can’t keep it in suspended animation. There will obviously be loose ends. I might accidentally leave a bottle of lemon juice in the fridge, instead of leaving behind nothing for the cleaning people to pick up after. I might have to come back next year and go to the Chisholm post office and pick up months-old mail. And with the Moat Festival all the way in March of next year, there’s no way I’m going to have things like the brochure ready and proof-read by next Tuesday because there’s still tons of time and things aren’t yet confirmed or settled. I have issues with letting go of things like this, and not striving for total control for everything (oh sweet power).

I guess another thing that’s kind of adding to my blues about leaving is the thought of home, which all of a sudden is also freaking me out. For the past few weeks, home has buoyed me. I have been so excited to go back. That’s what I’ve been telling everyone and saying. “So excited to go back!” “Can’t wait to go back!” I’ve been so glib with that phrase “go back”. Not to get weird and super depressing, because this doesn’t mean what some people might think it means, but what am I going back to? It’s hard living two lives. It feels like I have a life here in Australia, and one back in Malaysia. It’s of course easier to keep track of the one you live a majority of the time, which is my Australian life. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to have my Malaysian life. Sometimes I wish harder than anything that I could have the other life because I miss home so much, and I miss the people I don’t have with me always, and I miss the way things used to be, and the one that really hurts – I miss out. Nothing waits. Nothing and no one is Han Solo. Everything moves so fast and I’m scared that when I go back I can’t re-enter my old life.

I have this fear almost every time I return somewhere, and every time I leave somewhere else. And it’s always keenest closer to date of departure. There’s every chance I’ll have forgotten I felt this a week from now, ensconced again in my Malaysian life. But of course, in my mind, there’s equal chance I’ll find myself in a strange place, paying for my sin of leaving.

Every year, come year’s end, I’ll be on my toes, looking out for the opportunity for rebirth, reinvention, “a clean slate”. Every year I tell myself I’m being ridiculous. Every year I tell myself to stop being so fixated on the future and pay more attention to what’s happening now. I guess I’m not a very good listener. So now I’m looking at the 2 and a half months ahead. What’s going to happen (as if I know). What’s going to happen in Malaysia, what I want to happen, what I should make happen, what horrible things may happen. Then there’s what’s going to happen over here in Australia, roles reversed, what I’ll miss and what’s going to change and what’s going to move ahead.

It’s like I can’t win.

I’ve tried to push all the grey fog in my head by getting the packing to about 98% completion, doing laundry and promising myself a Coke from the vending machine. And of course, venting here. It’s working a bit. I’m just going to sigh it out with a few dozen sighs, drink some tea after the Coke (caffeine central!) finish watching Fanboys (which is probably the cause for my Han Solo analogy), roll around in bed for good measure and hopefully sleep all this away.

* I may also have a cry.

Ukradłam. Kiedy patrzę na ten słoneczny obrazek moje oczy stają się dziwnie szkliste. Fala ciepła wzbierająca w sercu, i tak dalej, i tak dalej.

Mimo to wiem, doskonale: nie powinnam korzystać z cudzej… własności.

Zaśmiecony francuski autobus czy może tramwaj. Tak, raczej tramwaj. On siedzący z psem wtulonym czule w jego kolana. Pies czuje się bezpiecznie, wie że jest kochany. Jeremy wgapia się w ostatnie promienie jesiennego słońca, pewnie mruży oczy i wystawia twarz żeby się ogrzać. Ma śmiesznie przykrótkie spodnie i równie śmieszne buty.  I plecak na plecach. Wygląda jak dzieciak powracający ze szkoły. Kochający, zmierzający do mieszkania gdzie czeka na niego spokój i miłość. I ona. Ukryta gdzieś w kącie po drugiej stronie obiektywu, robi mu zdjęcie, z którego będą śmiać się wieczorem. Bo wygląda tak ckliwie. Dałabym głowę, że ma go ochotę teraz przytulić, musnąć jego policzek. Co w tym takiego dziwnego? Przecież go kocha. A ja… czuję się gorzej niż ten pies u jego nóg. Nie mogę liczyć na tyle uczucia i zainteresowania, nie mogę liczyć nawet na kopniaka. Nie równam się z nim. Jestem gorsza od psa.

Wszechogarniająca miłość panująca w tramwaju w połączeniu ze słońcem bijącym przez okna, dającym nadzieję na ostatnie ciepłe dni, może na coś jeszcze.

Nadzieję… Ja nie mam nadziei. Na nic i nigdy.

I still try holding onto silly things

I’ll never learn…

Czuję się chora na tle psychicznym. Nie jest to miłe uczucie.

I słaba. Tak bardzo słaba…

Wow! What an awsome venue and gathering that was!

Here a few selections from Naaman’s part of the night:

SKY SONGS:

(These instructions will be issued in zine form sometime early in 2010.)

Sky Rising

 Tired of feeling like we need more ladders in life? Are you? Climb a ladder to be sure.

Sky to Drink (but not feel drunk)

 Water-violence: the myth that we are not the same, you and I. Today, think good thoughts about the rain.

Sky to Solve a Problem with

 When the sky clears, remember to breathe in again. If the clouds seem too heavy, it’s your brain needs exercise.

Sky to Think of Mother  

 Place two parallel lines on the floor. Stand in between them. Look up.

Sky to Deliver the Mail

 Count the number of letter carriers you see in a week. Collect that number of sky-pieces and send them to your friends.