Going solo

In a week's time, I'll be in Seoul, with only a couple of sightseeing items left on my Lonely Planet to-do list. In two weeks' time, I'll be trying to stuff all my things into my backpack for the flight home.

The thing about long trips like this that aren't vacations per se, is that at the start they feel as if they're gonna go on forever, in both good and bad senses of the word. I flew into Seoul in late April and skidded into May, which passed in a blur of hiking, cave visits, bus rides and banchan (the side dishes served with a Korean meal). Now I'm in June and I don't know where the time has gone. If next year someone asks me, what were you doing in May 2009, all I'll be able to muster is, "I was in ... Korea?"

This is also the first time I've travelled solo for such a long stretch, which is remarkable because I've never been very good at doing anything solo. BoKo once remarked that he was surprised I'd decided to become a freelancer because I'd always struck him as the kind of person who liked being around other people. I think that's still true, but since I split up with Terz, I've also had to learn to be more comfortable with being by myself.

And I mean that in a very deliberate way, like choosing to go watch a movie by myself, without asking anyone else along, or having dinner on my own at a Thai Express outlet. These are not extraordinary things, but as someone whose first impulse is always to call friends and see who's free to hang out, it takes a little pep-talking to myself, to stop worrying about what other people will think, to get myself out there.

So in a way, this whole trip has been about getting myself out there, even though it was a professional decision to come to Korea, not a personal one. I guess I was ready for the personal challenge, though, because even though I'd established early on that unlike Vietnam, probably no one would be travelling with me this time, I was surprisingly not freaked out by it. Yes, surprisingly, because I've found in the last two years that far less demanding situations can be disproportionately upsetting.

And now I finally get why Adri was always so thrilled about packing a bag and just going, solo, wherever, whenever. Sure, I've got a job to do here, I can't ditch a town just because it's boring (Chungju, I'm looking at you), but there's still some room for day-to-day whim and fancy. I've even gotten used to the stares and questions. Solo travellers are a rarity in Korea, where the culture is very group-oriented, especially when it comes to eating. I think there's the added mystery of the fact that I'm a solo traveller and Asian and (if I get to the point of mentioning these details) 35 years old and not married.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I've taken this trip in my stride better than I thought I would, despite some bumps and hiccups along the way, and in no small part it's due to family and friends who have been my personal cheering squad along the way (not just for this trip, either). I don't think I could have made this journey at any earlier point in my life, but for now, everything seems to be in place.

A meme-like blog post

Because I'm feeling a little under the weather and I can steal the questions from Tricia instead of having to think up entirely original material. And yes, even though I didn't bother with the "25 Random Things About Me" Facebook meme.

1. Do you like blue cheese?
I don't mind the odd daub of it.

2. Have you ever smoked?
Once. If I ever picked up the habit, my mom would kill me.

3. Do you own a gun?
No. I live in Singapore.

4. What flavor Kool-Aid was your favorite?
Clearly whoever came up with this list of questions is American. I must've tried Kool-Aid at some point during my university years, but I can't remember a single instance.

5. Do you get nervous before doctor appointments?
No. I just get impatient.

6. What do you think of hot dogs?
Yums! But only if they come with the trimmings.

7. Favourite Christmas movie?
Love Actually. I stole Packrat and Ondine's copy last Christmas and, er, haven't returned it yet.

8. What do you prefer to drink in the morning?
Black coffee.

9. Can you do push-ups?
Kind of. Been practicing somewhat during Pilates class.

10. What's your favorite piece of jewellery?
A curvy silver bracelet I bought at a jewellery stand in the basement of Norris University Center, some time in the mid-1990s.

11. Favourite hobby?
Every time I see the word "hobby", I immediately think of "stamp collecting", even though I was an indifferent collector at best. I think hobbies are so 1980s.

12. Do you have A.D.D.?
We didn't have that in my generation at school.

13. What's one trait you dislike about yourself?
I don't have a very good memory.

14. Middle names?
Not telling! Some things are best kept private (or forgotten).

15. Name 3 thoughts at this exact moment.
What am I thinking?
Damn, I type fast.
My wrist is itchy.

16. Name 3 drinks you regularly drink.
Black coffee, ice-cold water and green tea (out of a bottle or a can).

17. Current worry?
I'll never write that novel.

18. Current hate right now?
When I was a kid, my mother told me not to say that I hated anything because "hate" is a very intense word and not be bandied about lightly (I don't think she used "bandied" though). So, uh, yeah, not really hating anything specific right now.

19. Favourite place to be?
I've been thinking a lot about Hoi An today, partly because a friend there has been Facebooking about eating at Casa Verde, and I'm trying to pitch a related food article. But I think my answer from before still stands: I don't really have a favourite place, though there are many places that I've liked dearly and would be happy to revisit.

Also, my apartment's still a good place to be, though it's not the same apartment that I wrote about the last time.

20. How did you bring in the new year?
Do you mean "ring in" Anyway, it was at a friend's apartment, with the clink of champagne and the riotous chorus of local TV station MediaCorp's New Year countdown event.

21. Where would you like to go?
Paris (again)! Iceland (was just watching a Bizarre Foods episode of this)! Also (in no particular order): Melbourne, Laos, China and Taiwan.

22. Name three people who will complete this.
Um. No.

23. Do you own slippers?
I'm going to steal Tricia's response because she said it best: "This is Singapore. We were born wearing slippers."

24 What shirt are you wearing?
A grey pajama top.

25. Do you like sleeping on satin sheets?
Dunno.

26. Can you whistle?
Yes, passably.

27. Favourite colour?
Red and its attendant hues.

28. Would you be a pirate?
Yes, if I can look as hot as Keira Knightley and get my pirate swag from 826 Valencia.

29. What songs do you sing in the shower?
None. I'm an execrable singer.

30. Favourite girl's name?
This changes regularly, but one perennial favourite is: Min.

31. Favorite boy's name?
Can't think of one right now.

32. What's in your pocket right now?
Nothing. After all, I'm going to bed.

Heartsick

I have never been at once so happy, and so jealous. Tonight I got a Facebook-mail from an old friend, telling me she's secured a publishing deal in New York. It doesn't matter what book, it doesn't matter which publisher --- the only thing I could think of was that someone I know, someone who's had similar advantages I've had, is going to have her name on a book published and distributed by a real New York publisher.

While I ...

This news comes right after I've been wrestling with old ghosts, writing about the scholarship bond I left behind almost four years ago. It's been two, three weeks of sporadically picking at old scabs, as Pin put it, and revisiting the what-ifs. And now, this.

I'm so happy for my friend, really. She's worked hard and worked smart to get to where she is. But as I told ampulets tonight, I've always compared myself to this friend because we had similar advantages and trod a similar path up to a point. Then our paths diverged because I had a scholarship bond to come home to, and she didn't. I didn't really know what I wanted to do with my life; she not only knew what she wanted, she went right out and got it.

I'm not saying I could've done what she's done. But I have never felt the taunting of a path not taken as strongly as I do tonight.

Turning 35

So it seems like there are two things you can do when you hit a milestone age like 35: throw a huge party and invite everyone you want to see, or hide away under a rock and hope that no one notices. I decided to just go with the flow, and ended up with a weekend of birthday festivities without really planning for it.

On Friday there was the family dinner at Spruce, a new restaurant I'd only learned about the night before on Chubby Hubby. On Saturday my dear old friend kk was in town --- which never happens --- so we hung out for the first time since September 2007 and had a lovely four-hour lunch at Oriole. Then I went shopping with another dear friend, who offered impeccable fashion advice in the form of a) helping me to spend my birthday money on, yes, another pair of shoes, and b) giving me pretty much exactly the kind of watch I had in mind when he asked me what I wanted for my birthday and I said, "A watch."

On Sunday there was Azhang, because it's closing on 26 April. Dammit.


I also got some incredible birthday loot this year. I don't usually set much store by birthday gifts because I don't need more stuff, and it's the birthday and family and friends that matter, not the stuff. But I think this year's stuff tells its own story: a travel pouch for secreting cash and other important things, a lovely modern fountain pen, chocolates galore, a T-shirt, an external hard drive and the abovementioned watch. The traveller, the writer, the geek and the ditz --- I'm all covered.

I'm not sure when I embraced the idea of turning 35, but I know that at some point in the past few weeks, I moved from making jokes about it to just acknowledging it rather matter-of-factly. Don't think so much lah.


I wish my birthday was always on a Saturday.

It just goes to show you

On Sunday, the friend I met for brunch was someone I hadn't seen in over two years, so in the middle of catching up, I mentioned that I'd split up with my ex, to which he said, "Yes, I know. It's not exactly a secret." We have some mutual friends so his statement wasn't exactly a surprise either, but I still said, "Well, I'm not going to take for granted that everyone knows."

Today, I had dinner with another old friend whom I also hadn't really talked to properly in over two years. But I'd invited her over to my flat during the Chinese New Year, so I knew that she knew that I was single. Then towards the end of dinner she tells me that before the Chinese New Year visit, she'd mentioned it to a mutual friend whom I chat with more often, and she'd gushed, "I wonder what's new with her? Do you think she's had a kid?"

To which our mutual friend had said, "Er ... you know she's separated from her husband, right?"

[Insert your own kua kua kua sound effect here.]

I told her tonight that I really thought she'd heard the news from someone before this year. But I guess our informational paths don't cross that often.

As my 35th birthday inches up on me, I find myself thinking about when I was 25 (the year I got married), and that when you're 25 you don't really know what you'll be doing at 35, and that everything around me now --- writing, cats, singlehood, Marine Parade view --- is so remotely not anything I could have imagined when I was 25.

None of it's bad. It's just ... different.

A new month

After a long, long week, at 5 p.m. today I submitted the work that was due to the client ---

--- and then I took myself offline and spent a little quality time with the Buffy cast reunion in March last year at the Paley Center for Media. After all the Buffy episodes I've watched and rewatched, listening to the creator, producers and cast again almost felt hanging out with old friends whom you don't have to say anything to, you can just be the fly on the wall.

Then I went out and took myself off, to see an actual friend in the flesh. We had prosecco (my idea) and I finally had the pizza bianca I've been vaguely hankering for for the past few days (remember, I've been busy writing about restaurants), and we talked and talked and talked and talked, like all the words I'd been storing up all week were now tumbling out helter-skelter. I speak fast as it is, but several times tonight I know my tongue, or is that the brain?, was deliberately skipping over words because the ideas wouldn't wait for the words to get there.

I don't know where the first two months of 2009 went, but I have a pretty good idea for the rest of the year. It's time.

Not yet, but ...

Last night, I dreamed that I was surrounded by family? friends? former work colleagues? --- a lively scene, and then it turned out that I had clean forgotten it was my birthday but they were all there to celebrate it. There might even have been a cake.

Later, I said to someone, "I should have made a speech. I mean, I'm 35. I should have made a speech."

It never rains but it pours

After several days of whining venting to friends about my creative ennui and other things, I finally made a Plan --- or rather, diverted my whinging into Step 1 of a Plan --- which was to kick off tomorrow for a personal creative project.

All the repining must've also helped with the camera-constipation, because after I decided to walk home from Parkway Parade via the beach/East Coast Park today, I "saw" a picture as soon as I entered the underpass leading to the park and was instinctively pulling the camera out of my bag before the thought (or image) had cohered in my brain.


And then I just knew that I would be taking more pictures on the walk home.




But alas for my newborn creative impulse. When I got home, I was diverted by work --- specifically, several emails and phone calls requiring immediate attention or work done in the next few days, which means that Step 1 of the Plan is being postponed to next week. Even uploading these pictures and writing this post had to wait till I was done with work for the day.

It never fails, does it? One moment I was working at 50% capacity and cavilling about having no creative focus; the next moment, as soon as I'd formed a plan to use the other 50% of my time more productively (other than taking long lunches and catching up with friends as I've been doing), Real Work shows up knocking peremptorily on my door like an Internal Security agent, demanding that I get back in line.

But I am taking pictures again.

Maundering

Still ennui-fied, as I put it to a friend a couple of days ago, but there are things to be grateful for:

• Story published in Hemispheres.
• Recipe attempted successfully.
• Studio 60 watched in its entirety at last (only two years late).
  
• Good, good late-night conversations (post-nap, post-Korean food, post-research trip to bookstore).
• Good, good friends.
  

Listless

(Pun on the previous post about "25 Things" not intended.)

I've been feeling somewhat off-kilter since I moved house. I know why: I love the apartment, but work-wise I have nothing major lined up at the moment, so I'm filling my time with kucing kurap (literally 'diseased cat', metaphorically 'unimportant') assignments that pay the bills but leave me feeling blah at the end of the day. I don't have stories to tell when people ask me how I'm doing, but I still do the kucing kurap work because everyone's murmuring about the recession and how the money's drying up.

All of which leaves me feeling like an ant toiling away in the fading summer (not that I know any grasshoppers).

I also haven't taken any photographs that I really like since I got back from Vietnam, and that really bugs me. I have my camera with me almost all the time, but I never see anything I want to take a picture of. It's like that particular creative muscle is settling into entropy and I can't think of what would jolt it out of its flaccidness.

At the same time, I've been yearning to play the piano again because I want to do something creative that doesn't involve the internet or writing. The main obstacle to this plan is the cost of not only a piano (even a secondhand one), but also the cost of moving it into the flat where I've living and any future moves. A friend tells me it costs $50 per floor to move a piano around and I live on a very high floor; I'm definitely not making enough money to cover that.

Yes, yes, I should quit whining and get on with doing something creative for myself. I should sit down and work on those novel/short story/film ideas I've been dawdling over for years and always say I have no time for. If nothing else, I should write up the overdue recounting of last year in books (as I've done since 2003) --- but the truth is I'm embarrassed at how few books I read in 2008.

I know eventually I'll emerge from this stasis, but for now I can't say I feel thrilled about it.

Gee, thanks

China has chosen 28 March as Serfs' Emancipation Day for Tibet, to commemorate the day when it "freed" Tibetans from serfdom and slavery.

That also happens to be my birthday.

Wonderful.

What I did when I wasn't writing

On Christmas Eve, I walked through a light spray of rain, not enough to be a drizzle, palpable enough to feel like a dusting of snow, the kind that leaves your hair damp but not wet. At the first party, courtesy of ampulets' family, we politely raided her mother's wine collection after dinner and clinked glasses to the fact that we've been friends for 18 years (my bad, I said 16 that night). At the second party, courtesy of beeker's family, the conversation turned inexplicably to ghost stories some time after 1 am, which is a little weird for Christmas Eve.

On Christmas, the food from The Garden Slug was a big hit, as was my uncle's homemade roast beef. Packrat and Ondine got my grandfather a digital photo frame, which is so cool I want one. I did, however, get some very cool Breadou (thanks, Darren & Mel).

Today, I resumed work. Well, technically, I did, but really the writing muscle was so torpid from yesterday's tryptophan exposure, I felt like it was moving at the rate of one word forward, two words backspaced. So now I find myself two days behind schedule, with my final deadline exactly two weeks away.

Tomorrow better be more productive.

Toi khong hieu

So apparently, I look Vietnamese.

Despite my short hair.

And sunglasses (when it isn't raining).

And camouflage-pattern daypack.

And Tevas.

I don't get it.

I am as old as ...

The cable car service that runs between Singapore and Sentosa.

Okay, I'm actually a month or so younger than the cable car service. But it's a pretty random local landmark to be "as old as".

Ah, the things you learn while doing research ... Now I wonder what other Singapore landmarks I'm "as old as".

Rainy nights are good for ...

A cup of hot tea in front of the TV and the internet. Two cups, actually --- first camomile, then peppermint. For a change I'm trying not to snack after dinner, although watching POTUS and Senator Vinick spoon ice cream out of giant tubs in the Presidential kitchen (just to be clear, this is The West Wing universe we're talking about) made the unopened pint of Ben & Jerry's in my freezer look pretty damn tempting.

Okay, I really need to write in shorter sentences.

I created a new photo set on Flickr tonight, when I realised that I've taken heaps of pictures while looking up at ceilings. I don't know where the impulse came from, other than boredom at shooting whatever was visible at eye level. Talking to Wesley about it via IM tonight, he thinks the pictures show "a sense of freedom" or "seeking freedom". To which my glib response ran along the lines of: "So I keep looking up, but I'm trapped by the ceiling".

One wonders, huh.

A little off my game

So last week was a bust.

Monday was frightfully productive. Tuesday was a day of meetings and errands, but fortunately was topped off with good news. Thereafter the entire week kinda went outta whack: between meetings and mood swings and my usual procrastinatory impulses, I just didn't get enough work done. Add in the lassitude induced by the stifling hot weather, and you have a recipe for a major deadline disaster.

Which hasn't happened, um, yet.

Yesterday I was at the old flat for what is probably the last time. It looked very, well, empty. Not forlorn, necessarily, but most definitely vacant, vacated. The whole experience, including travelling there and back, was quite surreal. I don't think I've completely processed it yet.

Today has been absolutely productive --- except that given the amount of backlog from last week, it's still not enough.

PS: Key to being productive? Like all the lifehacking sites tell you: stay off instant messaging.

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It's my birthday and I'll brush my teeth if I want to

Even if the cat won't let me.


Actually, he got out of the sink after a couple of minutes, so I could perform my morning ablutions after all.

My birthday has been hot (where's the unseasonal rain when you need it?), somewhat work-filled but generally not too bad considering how much dawdling I did. This I document to reassure my brother, whose SMS to me this morning consisted of birthday greeings followed by "Hope the whole day isn't spent doing work."

My dad's SMS included a line to say, "Make the world a better place to live in" --- both sweet and guilt-inducing at the same time. I need to dust off certain ideas and get cracking on them.

My mother's SMS asked me what my plans were. To wit:

• I planned to back up my hard drive --- done.
• I planned to do a spot of work --- done.
• I planned to mix various leftovers into a chicken salad for lunch --- done.
• I didn't plan to finish the Leonidas chocolates oiseauxbleu gave me for Xmas, but there were only two left and I did.

Tonight's plans consist of dinner and maybe ice cream or something sweet after. I almost called Awfully Chocolate just now to get myself a whole 6" chocolate cake, but decided I would rather hold out for a real Lana cake when I have time to engineer an order for it.

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Technorati Tags: birthday, cat, Ink the cat

A monologue on mushrooms

Said to me, over lunch, on Sunday, about my week-old haircut:

You look a little bit like a mushroom --- but a nice mushroom. ... What's a good mushroom ah? Not button ... I dunno, fungi. You look a little bit like one of the mushrooms that's gonna sprout out of your umbrella.

My hairdresser would be so pleased.

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Technorati Tags: haircut, mushroom

Someone said ...

So apparently, I am very well-preserved for my age.

Huh.

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Sing-along time in church

The wedding I attended today was the first in a long while where I knew all the songs in the service. Many wedding services tend to be full of these trendy "Praise & Worship"-type tunes, and even though I grew up with enough of those that some still occasionally spring, unbidden, to mind, it's the hymns that I have a soft spot for. Maybe it's the Methodist side of me (i.e. my mother's side) coming out.

Today's hymns were: "How Great Thou Art", "O Perfect Love" and "Blessed Assurance". "How Great Thou Art" is my favouritest hymn ever, chiefly because my friend's dad led the most rousing rendition of it I've ever heard. It's still his voice I hear, when I think about that hymn, and no one else seems to give it the thumping resonance it deserves.

"O Perfect Love" is alright --- dignified, with some unexpected turns in the tune. I didn't realise until today that it's quite specifically a wedding song. I guess I never paid attention before to lyrics like "That theirs may be the love which knows no ending / Whom Thou forevermore dost join in one."

"Blessed Assurance" is another old favourite, but I don't have much to say about it, other than that same friend's dad used to do a kick-ass version of it too.

It was also only today that I noticed that all these hymns were composed in the 19th century. What does that say about my musical taste now, huh?

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Technorati Tags: hymns, wedding

A cool trick I learned last night

When things just all get a bit too much:

Close your eyes.
For one or two minutes, tune in to a background sound.
And just concentrate on that.

Thanks, domch!

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One year

What a year.

Sometimes, no other words are needed.

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Just call me Little Miss Crankypants

I wish it wasn't such an uneven week.

I wish "emily" would stop "inviting" me to MySpace.

I wish I'd remembered to blog the line "If the kempeitai asked me to make a corporate video ..." earlier, because it's too much trouble to explain now.

I wish I didn't have a sludgy headache after spending a perfectly decent day with the best friend and the smallboy, looking for stuff for the new place.

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Technorati Tags: crankypants

Selling, selling ... sold

I don't remember the day Terz and I bought the flat. I remember that we had seen several in the neighbourhood, but they were all done up in various styles that provoked either cringing, despair or, in one case, utter revulsion (a spooky goat-headed altar was involved). Then we found this one through a newspaper ad, and it was as bare-bones as we wanted it to be, so that we could get it fixed up our way, without having to spend a whole lotta money on ripping out the existing finishings.

It didn't come dirt-cheap but it was within our budget (though I seem to recall my mother having thought that we paid too much for it). I have no recollection of the negotiation process, just that at some point must have been a phone call, I think, to tell us it was ours, and then we came to the flat to sign the paperwork with the existing owner. I remember subsequently going to HDB offices at Bukit Merah and the housing agent navigating us through the bureaucracy's byzantine requirements. At the end of it, he opened the boot of his car and gave us a watermelon.

Yesterday, I got word that we had sold the flat. We had been involved in a little back-and-forth with the potential buyers for the past couple of weeks, but our agent (not the watermelon guy) finally got us the price we wanted.

The news came via SMS, as all news does these days, and I didn't know how to react. There was glee that we'd made a fair (though not obscene) profit on it; there was relief that I wouldn't have to show the place to strangers anymore; there was shock that this really had happened, we'd sold a flat, the flat --- and then there was that moment they tell you about in books, when sadness wells up and hits you because this really is goodbye.

Despite everything that happened here, it was a good home. It was the first place I ever owned --- I remember signing on the dotted line for a loan amount bigger than my mind could comprehend --- and it was the place we owned together. I wish it hadn't stopped being a home for the reason that it did, but ...

I have very few photographs of the place. I wonder if I should take any.

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Downright local and doing good

It was a windy welcome to the new year, which I know only because I was far from the madding crowd --- first at a delightful house party, then having supper at the neighbourhood prata place. It was windy enough that I started to feel cold by the end of supper, despite wearing a sleeved top and ordering a teh halia to warm myself up. And this morning afternoon, as I brushed my teeth after showering, the five-storey-tall trees downstairs were swishing noisily with the fresh energy that comes with a cool-but-not-rainy day.

I would be a liar if I didn't admit to having felt a little holiday ennui this year, despite the family festivities and meals with friends whom I hadn't seen in a while. More accurately, it was great to see family and friends --- I just wish it didn't have to be dressed up as "the holidays" to happen.

The first thing I did in the new year (Singapore time) was to clink glasses, sip champagne and knock over my friend's beer. I'm not sure what that portends for 2008, but hopefully nothing too dramatic.

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Technorati Tags: Singapore, New Year's

Next stop wonderland

It's a little surreal to contemplate, but in about a month I will be living somewhere else.

After a surprisingly effortless search, graced by a great deal of serendipity (my mother would say God's will), I've landed myself a nice little apartment in the very heart of the neighbourhood I was eyeing. And it only took buying two copies of The Straits Times (to peruse the classifieds; the news sections went straight into the recycling heap) and viewing exactly one apartment.

Yes, you read that right: one apartment.

But the real kicker is that the apartment turned out to be owned by someone I know professionally --- not someone I'm especially close to (wouldn't that be awkward), but someone I've worked and occasionally socialised with enough that I didn't have any qualms about saying yes to the asking rental price. Sure, I wish it were cheaper, but given how manic the local real estate market is at the moment, I'm thankful for what I have, rather than griping about the unlikely.

I don't have a fixed move-out-by date, but I figure before the Chinese New Year is a good target. Which means that most of January will be spent planning, measuring, sorting and pa(ni)cking. And working, of course.

In the meantime, I'm madly surfing Apartment Therapy and websites of its ilk, and I've ordered the very first piece of friends' artwork that will grace the apartment's walls.

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Technorati Tags: Singapore, moving house

A cousin collision

I saw my cousin today for the first time in what might be fourteen years. And if I hadn't had gone shopping for Abigael and Ming's birthday gifts, I wouldn't've bumped into him at all.

Impressively, he recognised me after I hailed him in the Parkway Parade post-Xmas crowds --- not bad considering that I now wear contact lenses, keep my hair short (though it's a little raggedy around the edges at the moment) and am almost half a lifetime older. He looks pretty much the same, just older and more built. Someone's got a gym membership, I bet.

Sadly, though we wanted to catch up, a quick glance at my watch confirmed that I needed to get home stat or I'd be late for my 3 pm meeting, and he leaves Singapore tomorrow. Let's hope it isn't another fourteen years before we run into each other again.

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This never happens

When my eyes blinked open this morning, everything was still cast in evocative grey-blue tones that could mean only one thing --- it was barely dawn. I checked my alarm (aka my cell phone) and I had an hour to go before my 7:30 a.m. alarm time. So I went back to sleep.

Or rather, I wanted to and I tried to, but the brain was already awhirr with adrenaline, beyond what I knew was the point of no return. Funnily enough, I didn't feel like I needed more sleep either --- whereas I'm usually bleary-eyed and reluctant to wake up even after a solid eight hours' sleep, which is what I'd planned for last night. But this morning the mind was all up-and-at-'em, racing away with with all sorts of work-related foo.

So I got up. At 6:20 a.m. I reiterate, without the alarm clock going off or any extrinsic circumstance motivating my getting out of bed.

Or to use a pithy Singaporeanism: faster go and buy 4D now.

When I fired up the laptop, no less than three IMs popped up almost immediately, marvelling at the fact that I was up. Ondine was up because she has four-month-old twins, kk was up because she's in Tokyo and they work hard over there, and the third friend friend was up to help with the Cat Welfare Society's mass spay-neuter day. My excuse: "I went to bed at 11:30 p.m. last night."

Well, clearly, I need to not do that again.

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Writing style

I write in Helvetica 11 point with 125% zoom on Microsoft Word. How 'bout you?

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A birthday party, senior citizen-style

My grandfather rang in his 90th birthday last night with a chocolate cake from an HDB bakery, a short speech and toast by his eldest great-grandchild, and the flashbulbs of a dozen digital cameras of varying vintage. There was also the requisite nine-course Chinese dinner, and the presence of almost every family member who isn't living overseas, as well as his closest church mates.

This was the first Chinese dinner I attended that involved, technically, three servings of dessert. First, the Portuguese egg tarts (ho-hum). Then the ah bo ling (yum-yum). Then the birthday cake.

The most surreal moment: when Gong Gong's sitting behind his birthday cake with one great-grandchild perched on his lap and another ten or so huddled around him for the picture --- and in my mind's eye, I'm seeing a yellowed photograph from the late 1970s, when he was similarly surrounded by my cousins and me, with Packrat (now a daddy himself) in Gong Gong's arms. The quintessential composition of the picture hasn't changed, nor have the expressions of the children, nor has the aesthetic of the cake. It's just my grandfather who's somewhat older and more distinguished-looking.

Though I suppose the kids are also dressed a lot more hip than we used to be.

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Related post: A little birthday fuss

Technorati Tags: Singapore, birthday, grandfather

Did you know ...

... that the first CD ever produced was The Visitors by Abba? So says BBC News, as the "Compact disc hits 25th birthday".

I've never been a real musichead so I don't think I started buying CDs till the early 1990s. When I graduated from university in 1997, CDs were still something you bought in a music store ("CD store", though they didn't sell blank ones), while data storage to the average person meant 3.5" floppy disks or Iomega zip disks with a whopping 100 MB capacity.

I don't remember the first CD I bought (though I remember that the first cassette tape was a 1983 compilation of Grammy Award-winning songs). I do know that I did a double-take after seeing Discmans for sale in Ho Chi Minh City last week (alongside pirated music CDs, no less) and I almost wished I hadn't given my mother permission to sell mine some years ago, otherwise I could add it to my growing Collection of Obsolete Technology.

When I cleaned house a couple of months ago, I accumulated at least 100 used CDs for recycling. My mother now hangs some of them outside her windows to scare the birds away. How far we've come.

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Technorati Tags: CD

Out of sorts

I think my Super Hero cape was on backwards this weekend, because everything conspired to make me feel at the very bottom of my game. Okay, not everything, because the weekend began promisingly enough with a work-related event Saturday morning, at which I shook enough hands and traded enough introductions with folks to make me feel like Work. Got. Done.

But maybe having to do a work thing on the weekend threw me off my game, and watching two tortured love stories on DVD on Saturday afternoon wasn't the best complement to that. Then there was the 满月(first-month birthday) celebration for the twins today, at which many members of the extended family were in attendance.

On the bright side, at least I know I'm not PMSing.

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Crabby when hungry

Now that's a warning label I should come with.

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Officially a workaholic

You wouldn't know it from the (in)frequency of blog postings here, but I'm actually faffing about on a lighter work schedule right now. After the breakneck pace of the last few months, I decided, annual business targets be damned, I needed to cut myself a little slack before I completely lost my mind.

And so I've been coasting along working what approximates normal hours, i.e. an average of 8-10 hours a day, 5 days a week (rather than 10-12 hours a day everyday). Now I remember what the concept of "free time" is about.

Which also makes it the perfect time to consider this timeless question from Workaholics Anonymous: Twenty Questions: How Do I Know If I'm A Workaholic?

(Via Cowboy Caleb. Of course.)

Workaholics Anonymous prefaces the list of questions with: If you answer "yes" to three or more of these questions you may be a workaholic. Something tells me three "yes" answers are going to be something of an understatement in my case.

1. Do you get more excited about your work than about family or anything else?

No, but I get pretty damn excited about my work in general.

2. Are there times when you can charge through your work and other times when you can't?

Yep. Times when I can: when non-negotiable deadlines are coming right up, particularly if the money is good. Times when I can't: when I'm feeling burned out or creatively spent, or on the weekends when everyone is out having fun and I'm alone at home in front of the laptop.

3. Do you take work with you to bed? On weekends? On vacation?

To bed: yes. But only when I know it doesn't matter if I'm also simultaneously catching up on friends' blogs or chatting online.

On weekends: Yes. Hence the chronicling of the "Day of rest" series.

On vacation: Okay, that's an absolute no-no. I try not to even have my cell phone on when I'm on vacation. Except that I've got a two-week vacation coming up in September and I'm thinking of bringing my laptop just so that I can check in on stuff ... and already I can hear the chorus of friends screaming "NOOO!!!!!" down at me.

4. Is work the activity you like to do best and talk about most?

See, this is where it gets tricky. My work involves writing and editing, which I love doing, and part of me really wants this to be the last job I'll ever have. That means even when I'm not writing for work, I'm writing for fun which also feeds back --- sometimes indirectly, sometimes directly --- into work. And writing is certainly one of the things I live to do best.

On the other hand, do I talk most about work? Heavens, no. In fact, I get tired of giving the same answers when people ask me what I'm working on at the moment.

5. Do you work more than 40 hours a week?

Yes. I'm almost unapologetic about it.

6. Do you turn your hobbies into money-making ventures?

Well, I've always like to write and now I write for a living. I've occasionally been paid to blog, but I wouldn't say those experiences merited the term "money-making ventures".

7. Do you take complete responsibility for the outcome of your work efforts?

Absolutely.

8. Have your family or friends given up expecting you on time?

I hope not! Although I'm late more often than I'd like because "I was just finishing up something."

9. Do you take on extra work because you are concerned that it won't otherwise get done?

Sometimes --- but usually only if my reputation and/or the quality of the overall project is at stake.

10. Do you underestimate how long a project will take and then rush to complete it?

Sheesh, just about all the time. Mostly, I think, because I typically work at home and then I get distracted by bits and bobs of things around the apartment. I'm much more productive working in a cafe or office environment; I'm most productive if there isn't an Internet connection available.

11. Do you believe that it is okay to work long hours if you love what you are doing?

Yes.
(Kill me now.)

12. Do you get impatient with people who have other priorities besides work?

No way! People get to make their own choices.

But if someone commits to completing a certain join within a certain timeframe, and then fails to do so because they felt like going shopping, and then the entire project is thrown into jeopardy --- well, let's just say I'll be more than impatient in such a situation.

13. Are you afraid that if you don't work hard you will lose your job or be a failure?

Yes. *meep*

14. Is the future a constant worry for you even when things are going very well?

Yes. *double-meep*

15. Do you do things energetically and competitively including play?

I most certainly do not play competitively. In fact, I slack on most things that aren't "work"; hence I'm fairly domestically challenged, never really did well (or made money) from any of my hobbies, and never saw the point of conversations about who found the best bargain/has the swankiest apartment or car/had the coolest vacation/has the latest designer outfit/etc.

16. Do you get irritated when people ask you to stop doing your work in order to do something else?

Sigh. Sometimes. I need to let go, I know.

17. Have your long hours hurt your family or other relationships?

I think so. I believe this merits a *triple-meep*

18. Do you think about your work while driving, falling asleep or when others are talking?

I don't drive at the moment, but when I used to, I used to be mostly swearing at other drivers.

I've sometimes made the mistake of thinking about work as I was trying to fall asleep --- only to be up another half hour because that my mind spun up into high gear and wouldn't let me rest. Now I think about the colour black ("colour" is a misnomer, I know).

When others are talking? Sometimes. But only if a) I'm stressed about work, b) they're being at that moment truly, 110%, I've-given-them-as-many-chances-as-our-relationship-will-allow boring.

19. Do you work or read during meals?

Yes. But not all the time. (Reading during meals was a bad habit I picked up as a kid, despite my mother's best efforts.)

20. Do you believe that more money will solve the other problems in your life?

Of course not!

THE END

On that note, I'm off to enjoy the rest of my non-working Sunday.

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Technorati Tags: workaholic

Things I meant to blog in the week that passed

Tuesday

Some days all I do is plot to leave this country.

Other days, I've got my goreng pisang (fresh from the wok) in one hand, a cup of sugar cane juice in the other, as I'm traipsing from Telok Ayer across a corner of Chinatown to Peck Seah Street --- and it feels just like home.

Wednesday

On MSN with James:

James: So how has it been so far?
ME: moving the shelves into the living room
ME: then reorganising all the books again
James: So butch!
James: I think you were a lesbian in your past life

Thursday

At Raffles City, I literally almost ran into a friend I hadn't spoken to in several months. But all I had time for was, "Sorry, sorry, I'm late, I'm late!" and keep on running.

Not five steps later, I ran into another friend, and yammered the same staccato response while still in motion.

Dammit, I need to stop being late for everything.

Including updating this blog.

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What do you call it

For the first time ever, someone in conversation this week said "ex-husband", by which they meant mine. For a moment I felt like I had been unplugged from what was going on around me, then the feeling passed and the conversation maundered on.

I have not said "ex-husband" much myself. Mostly I use his name, as most of the people I talk to recognise it. Otherwise, the default term is still "husband", out of habit. "Ex" sounds too trivial --- one in a string thereof, no different from how one would refer to an adolescent sweetypoohbear or a boyfriend who lasted all of one month. Not that one's age or the duration of a relationship alone mark the seriousness of a relationship, but I think being married to someone for seven-plus years quite clearly falls into a separate category of intimacy and dependency.

Then there's the "we/I", "our/my" conundrums that trip up one's speech. We used to have a car, but I don't have one now. It's our flat but my clothes that are in the cupboard. "The" becomes remarkably handy, filling in for any possessive pronoun that would otherwise draw too much attention.

What it boils down to, ultimately, is that I never thought "ex-husband" was a word that would be admitted to my personal lexicon --- but there it is.

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Technorati Tags: ex-husband

And then there were two ...

I'd never carried a newborn before. Usually I don't even visit babies when they're at the newborn stage; on the previous two occasions that I have, I peered appreciatively at the child and even babysat one briefly while his mom went to the bathroom (alas, he gave himself up to bawling within seconds), but always declined to actually carry the child lest I drop it on its head. Newborns are so, well, small. They fit within the crook of even my arm and while I love how soft their skin is, that also always reminds me of how fragile they are.

Yesterday, I carried a newborn for the first time. Two newborns, actually. First there was Jordan, who frowned and gave a small yawp when she was moved from the new dad Packrat's arms to mine, but quickly settled down and snoozed on. I whispered, "Be vewy, vewy quiet. Hello, Ah Hui."

("Hui" really is a part of her Chinese name, but since "Ah Hui" is a homophone for "ah huey" which is a none-too-complimentary Singlish reference to a woman with dubious fashion sense, I'm pretty sure new mom Ondine doesn't want me calling her that too often.)

Then there was Evan, who seemed a little more sanguine about being handed around. He has very "boy" features with a certain Zen-like cast. I didn't whisper anything to him besides his name because nothing clever came to mind.

I'm still surprised that they a) fit within the crook of my arm (yes, it bears repeating) and b) are lighter than my cat.

I'll leave it to the parents to tell you the story of how Jordan and Evan got here, but meanwhile there are (Family-only) photos on Flickr and, of course, the inevitable quote from The West Wing --- not just because it's about babies but because it's about twins and there was talk about using a "Huck and Molly" codename at one point:

Toby: I didn't realise babies come with hats. You guys crack me up. You don't have jobs. You can't walk or speak the language. You don't have a dollar in your pockets, but you got yourselves a hat. So, everything's fine. I don't wanna alarm you or anything but I'm dad. And for you, son, for you, this'll be the last time I pass the buck, but I think it should be clear from the get-go that it was Mom who named you Huckleberry. I guess she was feeling like life doesn't present enough challenges to overcome on its own. And, honey, you've got a name now too. Your mom and I named you after an incredibly brave, uh, an incredibly brave woman, really not all that much older than you. Your name is Molly. Huck and Molly. So, what do I do? Well, you're gonna need food and clothes and doctors and dentists, and there's that. And, should you have any questions along the way, I'm gonna be doin' stuff like this (grabs a tissue and wipes Huck's mouth), Huck, because you're leaking a little bit out of your mouth there. You're holding my finger, son? Hey, Molly. Your brother's holding my hand. Do you wanna hold my hand?

--- "25", The West Wing

Plenty of time for hand-holding as we go along.

Edited to add (Thu, 12:48 am): Packrat's posted snapshots of the twins on their first day of, well, life.

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Technorati Tags: babies, twins

Things I wanted to Twitter yesterday

... but didn't have the time or internet connection to.

$83.94 for a new remote control for the airconditioner??

Despite all the construction and new traffic, pockets of Portsdown Road are still very pretty.

Nothing like almost choking to breathlessness on a miscplaced gulp of water to add a little perspective to one's day.

People who screw up one's dinner (namely Suzie's) should offer at least a free dessert to atone. (Sun With Moon Cafe, if anyone wants to know. Good food and service, except for the part where they screwed up).

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Still in bed

Things that are impossible to do when one is beset by a cold and fatigue:

• Copyedit text.
  
• Proofread emails to see if anyone's been left out of the list.
• Make sense of emails in general.
• Tick off people who cut in front of me in the cab line or ATM queue.
  
• Chase the cat down from the top of the blinds where he's taken to hanging out (and scraping plaster off the ceiling).
• Eat.
  

For the record, I am eating. It's just that everything seems to have lost its flavour.

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To bed, to bed

Ondine says that the last few blog entries make me sound like an alcoholic, so I should qualify them by enumerating what I had to drink today:

• Warm honey in water
• Warm water
• Vitagen (peach flavour)
• Honey dew juice (I wanted a green apple juice, but the stallholder heard me wrong)
• Warm water
• Beer (oops)
• Warm water
  

The beer was not precisely my idea, but I figured it would help me sleep. And I need to sleep because my throat hurts and my body is slowing down and I can barely concentrate on the work that needs to be delivered by tomorrow. Not having a fever yet, but I'm sure it's just waiting in the wings to assault me once my scratchy throat succumbs to the inevitable cough.

Wah, so much verbal diarrhoea. I need to go to bed.

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Moving day

1 hour.
10 boxes.
2 friends and a hired mover.
A bow, a bicycle, a motorcycle helmet, a bedroll.

More than 8 years together.

Goodbye.

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I've got jeans!

Which is an achievement worth blogging because while I have at least three pairs of jeans that are still in serviceable condition, my recent (inadvertent) weight loss means that what was once snug now is hanging-off-my-butt. And the current crazy work schedule didn't exactly put me in the right frame of mind to go shopping after work, even though I am in town pretty much everyday.

So today: a deliberate trip to Far East Plaza, where the clothing shop in the basement immediately to the right of the descending escalator opposite Gelare is now officially my favourite place to get jeans in Singapore, because the retail assistant (whom I suspect is also a co-owner or the owner's wife) not only immediately offers genuine assistance when you walk in, but is extremely astute at picking out jean styles and sizes to suit your person as well.

It was pretty much a verbatim repeat of my last visit there:

Woman in the shop: Can I help you? Looking for jeans?
ME: Yes.
Woman (immediately pulls something off the rack): This is our latest. The cutting is very nice. Want to try?
ME (looks it over briefly): Can I get my size?
Woman (sizing me up, literally): I think this one can fit you. Go and try.

So I do, and the jeans fit perfectly, and five minutes later I walk out of the shop, a happy customer.

The only difference being that I bought two pairs of jeans today, because the woman was so prompt and helpful.

The rest of Far East Plaza was a bust. Where has Womb gone?

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Technorati Tags: Singapore, shopping,

Two degrees of separation (or not even)

In which I whine about how Singapore is Too. Damn. Small.
Among my current clients, I count:

• The best friend's ex-boyfriend from way way back.
• Someone who went to school with Wahj way way back.
• The old government department I used to work for, including people who used to be my bosslets and colleagues a few years ago.
  

Only the last instance was a case of me knowingly taking up a job with people I already knew. The first two were pure and somewhat serendipitous surprises.

Familiarity is fine and dandy (which is partly why I took the job with my former department), but I would also like to meet some new people, please!

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Technorati Tags: Singapore

Monday morning to-do

I need two character referees who have known me for two or more years, who must be Singapore citizens and not related to me.

And, obviously, who don't mind being thusly named in a government form.

It's not as easy as it looks.

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Oops

I forgot to blog.

More accurately, I have been trying to spend a little less time on my laptop, so when I'm not having to do work, I try not to be at the computer, which kinda makes it hard to blog.

As for how I am doing generally, leave it to the inimitable Suzie to put her very finger on it, even over MSN:

ME: i think i am more "two steps fwd, one step back"?
Suzie: it's more of, two steps forward, maybe one step back, oh maybe not, wait, wait, er, how about another one back, oh whoops, back and forth, aiya, just sit down lah.

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Prophetic much?

Who said this in 1970?

Life is not just eating, drinking, television and cinema. ... The human mind must be creative, must be self-generating: it cannot depend on just gadgets to amuse itself."

Well, obviously, I'm screwed.

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The day when everything went wrong

We used to get assigned to write school compositions with that title and whip up impossible feats of coincidence to satisfy its demands. Who knew that real life could be just as churlish?

I dreamed that I stabbed Ink accidentally and had to rush him to the vet's emergency room. (The dream was this morning, around dawn, so it counts as part of "today"'s calamities.)

I woke up to my cell phone alarm and the cell phone was fine --- but after charging it for an hour or so (which I do everyday), the screen went on the fritz. I think I'm going to have to get a new one, but that means paying more than I'd like for the Nokia N95 because I can't sit around and wait for the price to go down. I just hope I can still trade this one in for something.

Putting on my contact lenses just now, I managed to flip the case into the sink --- and the lens I hadn't put in yet vanished into thin air. I peered all over the sink and absolutely could not find it. On the bright side, I had one last pair of lenses I could switch to, but that means I need to order more lenses stat, too.

If all this had happened yesterday, I'd be a sobbing (and sodding) heap. Good thing it all waited till today. But still: poo.

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Written off, sold out

I am writing a piece on the first Cabinet of Singapore.

And enjoying it more than when I was writing a profile of Madrid's Hotel Urban yesterday.

Kill me now.

No, really. Kill me.

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Technorati Tags: writing

Welcome back

Ah, swollen lymph node, how I've missed you.

Not.

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A Chindian lunch

I don't normally use the phrase "Chindian" (i.e. a mixture of Chinese and Indian) and indeed, I'd never heard of it till a few years ago. But it seems appropriate to describe today's made-at-home lunch (not to be confused with a homecooked lunch), which consists of:

• basmati rice
• mushroom achari out of an instant pack (thank you, Mustafa)
  
• a fried egg
  

If I wanted to be really Chinese about it, the fried egg would be sunny-side up (instead of over-easy, which is how I like it) and sprinkled with soya sauce.

Speaking of Chindian meals, has anyone tried the several-months-old Indian Wok at Siglap? It claims to be some blend of Chinese and Indian cuisine, though from the outside the decor looks more heavily Indian than anything. Part of me wants to give it a shot, another part of me shies away from what seems to be yet another variety of "fusion cusine" ...

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Technorati Tags: Chindian, lunch

Confession

Warning: extremely uncharacteristically angsty emo post ahead.

I had enough blog post ideas to cover every day this past week, but finding the time to write them proved to be more challenging than I imagined. So there will be no posts about turning down a copywriting job because of ethical issues, ordering the Buffy Season 8 comic (never mind that it's a second-print), enjoying The Devil Wears Prada more than I expected (maybe the Lana cake helped), attempting (very badly) to dance at Movida after a day of mild aggravations, cheering Shirlyn's Newfound Jealousy album launch or long conversations about where all this is going.

Suffice to say the following:

I am not as well as I appear to be. Contrary to conventional wisdom, it gets harder everyday. I've had too many good days --- or what felt like good days, anyway --- and now it's like all the bad days are showing up to claim their due. The crying is ridiculous, at this point. Just call me Chemical-Dependent Emo Girl and be done with it (the chemicals being alcohol and caffeine, not anything that requires a prescription or psychiatric examination).

I don't usually write about less-than-thrilling personal affairs on this blog because, well, because that's just the sort of blog I keep. But I realise that as a result of that editorial policy, this blog of late has painted a perhaps too-pretty picture of life post-separation/-breakup. Not that I was deliberately glossing over the less photogenic moments, but it was more important at the time to just get back to writing about something, even if it was as inconsequential as what I had for dinner or Urban Dictionary's word of the day.

Now ...

I'm not about to start letting all kinds of emotional foofaraw rip on this blog, but now I know why leaving the country seems like a good idea. A cheaper alternative is just to start screening calls. Not that anyone's become persona non grata overnight, but it's positively exhausting to talk about it all the time, yet to not talk about it seems to be a pathetic attempt to ignore the elephant in the room.

A friend commented earlier this week that maybe all the crying is because of the emotions that have been bottled up for some time, because I'm not the kind of person that lets on that I'm upset, and now it's time when I just have to let it all out. Maybe so, but can it all just be over, please?

PS: I'm leaving the comments open, because that's my editorial policy, but seriously, this is not a desperate cry for help or plea for internet-conveyed sympathies and pats-on-the-head. I'm writing because I need to write, and also need to have this on my blog. At the same time, I've consulted those nearest and dearest for advice, Kleenex and comfort food. So don't panic that I'm moping in front of my laptop or anything.

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I, the neo-nomad

I recently came across the BBC's "In search of the neo-nomad", which picks up a San Francisco Chronicle definition of neo-nomads as:

... people who turn a laptop, a wireless connection and a cafe into an office and work wherever they happen to be ... distinguishe[d] from traditional freelancers because of their close engagement with technology and use of the latest generation of web-based tools in their working lives.

Laptop --- check.
Wireless connection --- check (thank you, Wireless@SG).
Cafe --- check. Coffee tastes best at Starbucks or tcc (German blend). Less satisfying is The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf's, and overpriced is Coffee Club's. Epicurious and Toast also have yummy coffees (and unbeatable iced teas). Not that there's anything wrong with indigenous kopitiam coffee, but sometimes in the afternoon it's too hot to sit in a non-airconditioned environment.

Close engagement with technology --- I think so. Did I mention what's in my bag? Nowadays, the list includes a laptop (usually with charger), although I only have one cell phone now and no more security pass.
Latest generation of web-based tools --- check. Gmail to manage 5 work-related email accounts, Flickr, Adium for MSN/Yahoo/GTalk/AIM, blogging software (Blogger/Movable Type/Wordpress) all. Plus I recently got sucked into LinkedIn.

I'm going to put down "neo-nomad" the next time I fill out a job that asks me for my "occupation".

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Technorati Tags: neo-nomad

Catching up

Over lunch today with an old, old friend of what would be about twenty years, except that I hadn't seen him in the last ten:

"So, you and your husband not planning to have any kids?"
"Uh ... actually, we split up a few months ago."
"Oh. I thought so. I had a feeling. Happened to me too."
"You got married? When?"
"2002."
"And just split up?"
"Yah, recently."

Weirdest conversation over lunch, ever.

And yet, not.

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Day of rest II

Nature rambles are well and good, but sometimes in Singapore you gotta settle for the urban variety.

If anyone knows where I can get a copy of Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 8 Issue #1, let me know? I've left my name and number at the Comics Mart at Raffles City, but they didn't seem too sure if they were getting that second batch in.

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Related post: Day of rest I

The birthday that was

It was my birthday earlier this week, and it was a rather strange one.

For starters, I was PMSing, which meant that there was far more meaningless and uncontrollable crying than I'd care to admit to. All those scenes you've seen in movies where a female character burst into tears for no good reason whatsoever? It's just as frustrating in real life if you're the cryer, to say nothing of how truly baffling it must seem to any cryee(s) present. Thank goodness it lasted only two days.

Then there was the fact that something was definitely wrong with Ink. He kept getting into his kitty litter, scrabbling around and assuming the position to pee --- only to have very little or nothing come out. Rinse, repeat, rapidly within a matter of minutes. Poor boy. I took him to the vet on my birthday (I'd given myself the day off, which made it the only free day I had this week) and she diagnosed him, predictably enough, with a urinary tract infection. The antibiotics seem to have taken effect since, so fingers crossed he doesn't have a relapse or I might be blogging next about how to get a urine sample from a frisky cat.

Finally there was the weirdness that ensues when it seems like everyone's forgotten your birthday. Which, in my PMSing state, I didn't mind at all (and still don't, for the record), but it's just sort of weird anyway. I mean, even my mother --- who called me first thing in the morning to ask about something else entirely --- forgot to wish me happy birthday, as she faithfully does first thing every morning on my birthday (she later SMSed a contrite message of atonement).

Of course, not everyone forgot and it's not like I sat around all day wondering why nobody loved me. Nor am I still wondering about it today. It's just that today I downloaded the above picture of a gargantuan slice of pie (served up at Marché at Vivocity, in case anyone was wondering), which was one of the many decent eats I had on my birthday, which made me think I should blog about the birthday, else this time next year I'll be cracking my head to try to remember what happened.

Anyway, when in doubt on how to end a blog post, I always say look for a Buffy quote. In this case:

Joyce (Buffy's mom): So what'd you do for your birthday? Did you have fun?
Buffy: I got older.
Joyce: You look the same to me. Happy Birthday. I don't have to sing, do I?
Buffy: No.
Joyce: Well, go on, make a wish.
Buffy: I'll just let it burn.

--- "Innocence", Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Note: This is not some kind of poorly disguised passive-aggressive plea for belated birthday messages, nor an attempt to guilt-trip anyone who forgot. Say whatever you like in the comments, but for goodness' sake, don't say "happy (belated) birthday". Thank you!

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Technorati Tags: birthday, InkTheCat

Budget airline, budget website?

After months of whinging about it, I have finally booked that damn vacation.

Of course, it's in August, but still.

On Adri's sound advice ("Terminal 1!", "assigned seating!", "20 kg baggage allowance!", "no aunties with plastic bags!"), I went with Jetstar instead of Tiger Airways --- also because a Jetstar ticket wound up being about $30 cheaper overall. Despite being a seasoned internet veteran, this also marks the first time I've ever booked an air ticket online. Which leads me to two interesting observations (read: gripes) about the Jetstar website.

When you make a ticket booking, you have to indicate a contact person and assorted details. Strangely, while there are no character limits on the fields where you key in the travellers' names, there is a 14-character limit on the last name of the contact person. I have a 15-character double-barrelled last name, which I whittled down to 14 characters by dropping the hyphen in the middle. But what about all the lovely people who have less truncatable last names (particularly Asian ones)?

So I thought I would do what everyone does in the internet age: click on the link for "contact us", which would no doubt lead me to some kind of online form that I could fill up with the above observation and click on its merry way to the Jetstar feedback department.

Jetstar's "Contact Us" page states:

If you have any feedback relating to our customer services or web site please forward them in writing to the applicable address. [emphasis mine]

Snailmail? They want feedback on their website to be conveyed through snailmail? My mind, it's still boggling.

Jetstar gets an A for having cheap tickets and all the other perks that Adri mentioned. But I'm not sure how many points I'll dock for the level of customer-unfriendliness at the end of the day.

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Technorati Tags: vacation, Jetstar, budget airlines

Who's calling, please?

All the calls I've received on my cell phone today have been from people I know calling me from phone numbers I don't know. Mostly, it's people calling me on their office line when I only have their cell phone numbers punched into my contacts list. Which means that the opening of the conversation generally goes like this:

Me: Hello?
Friend: Hey, Tym.
Me: Yes?
Friend: Eh, it's me.
Me: Er, okay ... (while I try to figure out who it is)

Except that nobody calls me "Tym" in real life. Of course.

Time was you never knew who was calling you till you at least heard the voice at the other end of the line. And my parents never had caller ID even when it became available, so it wasn't till I acquired my first cell phone that I got used to the idea of knowing who was calling before I even decided to answered the call.

In the almost ten years that have passed since then, I've come to regard with mild suspicion any phone call from an unidentified number. In fact, I used to summarily not return missed calls from unidentified numbers, but that changed when I started freelance work --- you never know when it's a potential new client calling. So now if it's an unidentified number, I pause, mull over who it could possibly be, sometimes ponder which part of Singapore they might be calling from (if it's a land line), then answer.

Maybe I should just go back to my pre-cell phone habit of just answering the damn phone already.

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Technorati Tags: phone, cell phone

How to pwn a runny nose

It worked before and it's worked again: after blogging about a bad nose, it's decided to retreat into submission and has ceased to torment me. Looks like I didn't need that second box of Febs tablets after all.

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Technorati Tags: cold, sick

My nose runneth over

Seriously, having to blow my nose every 5 minutes? Not funny. Interspersed with very animated sneezing of about the same intensity as a Pacific Rim volcano? Really tiring.

This isn't the first time I've blogged about having a cold. But I still hate having them. Give me a good debilitating fever any day.

The downside to being a freelancer? No such thing as "taking MC" or pleading for medical leave. Work proceeds apace.

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Technorati Tags: cold, sick

Day of rest I

I took the day off.




Note to self: spend more time at East Coast Park.

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Thirsty

I know I drink more than my share of 2 litres of water a day, but sometimes I just want to be hooked up into an IV drip of iced green tea, stat.

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Bah

How can I be so tired even after 8 hours of solid sleep?

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Procrastination, Chinese New Year-style

And so it was, that on the eve of Chinese New Year, I finally got my shit sorted out.

First thing this morning (meaning some time after 10 am), I bought the very last box of oranges available at the neighbourhood fruit vendor. He had a few other boxes on display, but said that they'd been reserved by other customers. 21 Chaozhou oranges for $8.50 --- not too exorbitant for an absolute last-minute buy.

Then I called my mother to tell her how many new dollar bills I need in each particular denomination for this year's ang pows. I usually rely on my mother for the new bills because banks only dole them out in huge amounts of like $200 worth of two-dollar bills, whereas I never need more than $80 worth (particularly once I factor in the leftover new two-dollar bills from the previous year's ang pow situation). However, I also usually sort this out well before the eve of the New Year.

Small-denomination bills settled, I had to go get some fifty-dollar bills from the neighbourhood ATM. Banks don't typically dole out fifty-dollar bills; they tell customers to go to the ATMs for those. But it seems (according to the reliable source that is my mother) that there's a shortage of fifties this year, so all I got at the ATM were used bills.

In feeble defence of my apparent procrastination, I should mention that I actually went to the ATM to get the fifties yesterday. However, this fails to factor in the fact that after eight years of giving out the same number of large-value ang pows (to grandparents, parents and siblings), I got the math wrong. Which necessitated today's ATM trip.

Nevertheless, the best thing about doing things at the last minute, is scoring the wickedest ang pows that one could give to kids. And they were free, too.


Funkiest. Ang pows. Ever.

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Related Posts: Why I should not procrastinate, The afternoon: a chronology, *poof*, They won't throw me in jail for my birthday, I procrastinate, therefore I am

Technorati Tags: Singapore, Chinese New Year, Lunar New Year, procrastinate, procrastination

To resume

Friends who've known me since my pre-blogging days and who perhaps don't spend quite as much time immersed in the world of blogging as I do --- they've asked me before, how is it that I can put up my life on such public display on my blog, to have its minute details read by people I've never met and whom I may never meet.

My answer is simple: it's not my entire life that's on display here, it's just the bits and pieces that I choose to put on record, things that I can live with people knowing, that don't infringe on my own privacy or security in any way. The blog version of me is hardly the whole me there is to know.

Of the many things I don't write about, one of them is my relationship with Terz. It's an unwritten rule that I came up with on my own, to maintain my sense of equilibrium between public and private, between real and virtual.

And then sometimes things spill over into the public domain.

All of which is a long preamble to my saying that if you didn't know already from reading Terz's blog (also the most beautiful blog entry ever --- I'm not insensitive to that), here's the Cliffs Notes' version:

Terz and I are splitting up I am splitting up with Terz because from my point of view, we'd drifted so far apart I didn't know why I was with him any longer. Yes, this is what I really want. Yes, this is the right decision for me.

That's all I'm prepared to say here --- at least, at this juncture. Maybe someday I'll say more, maybe this is all there'll ever be on this blog about this.

Meanwhile, life, as they say, goes on.

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A whimper or a bang

Perhaps someday this will make a good story, but at the moment it's impossible to see how.

Taking some personal time. Thank you for all the SMSes/IMs/emails and a few old-fashioned phone calls. So this is how one weathers an emotional crisis in the age of the internet.

I will be back. I just don't know when.

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Random thought

And then, some days, the dilemma is: what do I wear that's apropos for meeting a potential new client this afternoon and going to the open-air Muse concert at Fort Canning tonight?

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Not bored, just ...

Last Tuesday, I found out that someone we'd worked quite closely with for a recent project had unexpectedly --- it seemed, inexplicably --- passed away. Add the fact that I got the information through SMS and that adds a whole other layer of surrealism to the occasion.

Last Thursday, I slipped in the rain, fell down and scraped my knees open. My mother would despair of me. The knees are healing slowly --- yes, I must be getting older because the same wounds used to clot and scab within days when I was a kid --- but still look ugly, unsexy and highly tak glam. Well, at least I'm not limping anymore.

Last Sunday, my stomach decided that it would tease me with all the discomfort of diarrhoea, without any of the actual diarrhoea. Ditto today. I don't know whether to be grateful or disgruntled.

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Bored now

Terz was away at a shoot all day today, so it was just me and the cat, hanging out at home. First there was the requisite whining about how bored I was, but Ink didn't seem too impressed by that. Then there were the desperate attempts to lure friends out for coffee or something, but everyone already had plans and couldn't entertain me.

(Wahj, however, deserves a special mention for regaling me for 4 minutes with the story of how Sun Bin, the grandson of Sun Zi, gave his patron good advice at the horse races. I totally thought he was making up the story on the fly, but no, it's a bona fide tale from the Chinese classics.)

So I had no choice but to do the work that I'd been procrastinating on, but not before I attempted to procrastinate further by doing some household chores. I'm no fan of vacuuming or wiping down cupboards, but on a long, empty Sunday afternoon, even that's preferable to tapping at the laptop.

As evening inched upon us, I tried one more round of "Free for dinner?" instant messages, but again, the Force was not strong with me. So the only person that I spoke to and interacted with in person, between noon and bedtime, was the neighbourhood hawker who sold me my mutton murtabak for dinner.

On the bright side, I did get some work done and it's fun having season 1 of Veronica Mars run for white noise while I'm poking around at household chores. I think Ink got tired of me harassing him, though, because he flopped down to sleep a good bit earlier than usual and didn't even stir when I nudged his head.

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Cranky

A little hungover.

A little irritated by the cat's antics persistence in doing everything he's not supposed to be doing.

A little unproductive.
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Happy New Year!

I ate so much at X-man's party last night that I failed to take any pictures of all our party-poppers going off at midnight. Blame it on the bountiful salads and yummy couscous cooked up by the guest cook, not to mention X-man's shepherd's pie, which tasted much better than its low-fat ingredients would have one believe.

You know we're getting old(er) 'cause we had the good sense to cover our drinks with tissue paper a few minutes before midnight, to make sure that they wouldn't get tainted by any errant party-popper streamers. Also, I suspect everyone actually ate more than they drank.

And so, abruptly, here we are in 2007.

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Technorati Tags: Singapore, New Year's

Looking for the right umbrella

We're having one of the fiercest monsoon seasons ever this year, which means that one doesn't leave home without a sturdy umbrella, unless one has made handsome libations to the rain deity or enjoys flipping a coin between the options of being trapped in a building by an unexpected rainstorm or taking an outdoor shower of the extremely unsexy kind.

My collapsible umbrella's served me well for a couple of years, but one of its metal arms snapped out of position a while back and another one was threatening to do the same this week. So I thought: perfect, now I can go shopping for that perfect collapsible yet stout umbrella that I've always wanted. I know such a species exists because I had one of its kind for four years in the States and it was to my eternal chagrin that I didn't make space to ship it back in one of my boxes. Foolish me, thinking that it would have been easy to find an umbrella of equal durability in the little cosmopolitan and technologically-savvy crossroads of Asia that I was going home to.

Who knew that almost ten years on, it's still tough to find a strong collapsible umbrella in these parts? Robinson's and Marks & Spencer, for all the other fine household items they sell, do not seem to carry umbrellas, or at least I couldn't find them, at their Raffles City outlets. I was forced to consider the feeble options at the basement Cold Storage supermarket instead, where just under $4 bought me a not-too-auntie-despite-the-floral-print umbrella --- that lasted exactly two uses before one of its rods parted ways with the umbrella fabric.

Humph.

In the end, it was back to my old faithful neighbourhood provision shop, which for $5 has given me a chequered print umbrella that snaps stoutly into place (despite being a collapsible model) and has a reassuring heft to it even as it's being extended to full length. It still doesn't feel as solid as the one I had in the US, or perhaps I'm just idealising that memory, but I think it'll do me all right in the current situation. If nothing else, I quite like the somewhat retro chequered print.

Now if only I had a place to dry my umbrella without worrying that the cat would get at it ...

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Technorati Tags: Singapore, umbrella, rain, monsoon

Bah humbug

This Xmas, I have been feeling a bit of a sourpuss. I suspect it's the guilt that comes from yielding to laziness and deciding that I really wasn't sending any Xmas cards or buying any Xmas presents --- wanting to soak up the festive joy without putting in the work, so to speak. I actually made a face over the phone last night when my mother called to remind me to bring gifts for the gift exchange at my aunt's place today.

Fittingly, the last episode of Veronica Mars that I watched last night before going out to an Xmas party was the season 2 holiday episode:

Veronica (voice-over): New Year's Eve. Someone just needs to change the name to Same Old Year's Eve, because that "New," implying all that hope and promise, it's not fooling anyone.

--- "One Angry Veronica"

Last night's party sure felt like a warm-up to New Year's Eve. For one thing, there was an actual countdown to Xmas, which arrival was then heralded with plenty of silly string and fake snow being aerosol'ed all over people. Fortunately, none of it got on my new shirt.


I think it's time for a nap.

Merry Xmas, everyone!

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Technorati Tags: Xmas, Christmas

Just in time for the holidays

Nothing like a boring meeting on Wednesday to make me pick up the threads of something I let slide for months: reading blogs. And nothing like catching up on blogs (which is sorta like catching up with a whole bunch of old friends, all at the same time) to make me realise that I'm way, way, way tardy on a meme that dio tagged me for over a month ago.

For the record, yes, this took me four days to complete. The letter 'H' is harder than it looks.

10 Things I love that begin with ... the letter 'H'

1. Home --- namely, the apartment where Terz and I have been nesting for the past seven and some months. It's not posh, it's not huge, it's not tidy --- but it's got everything where we want it to be (more or less), a great view of the neighbourhood, is in a lovely neighbourhood itself, and it's ours.

2. Hawai'i, where in 1997 I spent a few very touristy days with the family, then spent a few very drunk days with the friends --- wherein I discovered that snorkelling was not that hard to pick up, tourist divers give local divers the evil stink-eye when the latter spear fish (legally!) and the local variety of ice kachang is shave ice.

3. Hollinghurst comma Alan --- wickedly good British writer. I read his books, then despair of ever being able to write.

4. "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" and other carols of its ilk. Blame it on when I used to attend church, which entailed going carolling every Xmas because that's what all the kids were doing. Call 'em schmaltzy if you must, but I like a good rousing "O Holy Night" or "Joy To The World".

5. Har gow, siew mai, lor mai gai (sticky rice with chicken) --- that's what I singsong when people ask if I speak Cantonese. It's actually a line first uttered by ampulets, from some random conversation when I was supposed to "teach" her a smattering of Cantonese or somesuch. (Hey, we've been friends 15 years --- I can't remember all the conversations we've had.)

6. Hugh Grant. But only because I just watched Love Actually again on Friday, and I'm feeling all Xmas-y and googly-eyed.

7. Halley's comet --- well, maybe not so much Halley's in particular, but I was a bit of an astronomy nut as a kid. The interest was only brought up short by the cold hard brick wall of reality when I realised how much actual physics I would need to have in my back pocket if I was going to pursue astronomy seriously.

But I still remember being thrilled to my little toes in 1986 to be outside the Science Centre one late night in March, I think it was, to see the blur spot that was Halley's comet through a telescope. Not only was the comet in our neck of the woods (so to speak), it was even more mind-boggling to think that it wouldn't swing around again till 2061, when I would be, well, much, much older.

On hindsight, coming on the heels of the Challenger explosion, maybe seeing the comet for myself (disappointing faint inkblot though it turned out to be) was important too.

Speaking of astronomy, has anyone else been watching the 2001 BBC documentary Space (with Sam Neill) on our local Discovery channel? Good stuff.

8. Haroun and the Sea of Stories, which I only read after I finished university. Yeah, I was late to the party again. Such a beautiful book, metaphorically and literally, if you happen to own the illustrated version, which, I discovered with great jealousy on Friday night, EH does.

9. Hubby! Which is a term I hardly ever use, actually, but it was the first thing Terz said when I told him that I was struggling with this H-list. Oops.

10. Hershey's and many other brands of chocolate. 'Nuff said.


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Technorati Tags: meme

Day in, day out

Now that I'm gainfully unemployed (or it certainly feels that way, as I'm tying up loose ends on various freelance projects), I have plenty of time for errands.

Like going to the bank in an attempt to put some money into a fixed deposit account, only to find out after much back-and-forth sitcom-esque wrangling with a no doubt well-meaning but ineffectual bank officer that they didn't have one that met my specifications.

The conversation went something like this:

ME (waving a flyer that we got in the mail): Hi, do you still have these fixed deposit rates?
Well-meaning but ineffectual bank officer (WIBO): Oh, no more. That one expired 16 December.
ME: Okay, so what are your fixed deposit rates now?
WIBO: How much are you planning to deposit?
ME: [names a small sum of money]
WIBO (placing a rate card before me): Oh, if you put it in for one year, you get this Rather Impressive Amount of Interest.
ME: So I only have to put it in for one year?
WIBO: Yes, but it's a savers account, so you must also pay a monthly premium of $180. It's to help you to save.
ME: So I have to put the lump sum in for one year, and pay the monthly $180 premium to get this Rather Impressive Amount of Interest?
WIBO: Yes.
ME (pointing to a different column on the rate card): What about these other Even More Impressive Interest Rates, for less than one year?
WIBO: [convoluted reply that I can't follow. Never mind.]
ME (going back to the 1-year interest rate): So I put in the money for one year, that's all, and I can take it out after one year.
WIBO: With the monthly $180 premium. It's to help you to save ...
ME: Yes, with the $180 premium.
WIBO: ... which you have to pay for 10 years.
ME: 10 years?
WIBO: You have to pay the premium for 10 years. It's our special savers account.
ME: And the lump sum is also stuck for 10 years??
WIBO: No, you can take out the lump sum after 1 year.
ME: But I have to pay the $180 premium for 10 years.
WIBO: Yes.
ME: So it's an account with a 10-year commitment.
WIBO: But you can take out the lump sum after 1 year.
ME: But I have to pay the $180 premium for 10 years.
WIBO: Yes.
ME: That's not what I'm looking for. I don't even know what I'll be doing in 5 years, don't even say 10 years.
WIBO: [smiles ineffectually]
ME: That's all you have?
WIBO: Yes.
ME: Bye.

How does one not mention a 10-year commitment right off the bat?

Yesterday's errand was much more enjoyable. I went to pick up the Xmas cakes we'd ordered from Baked Ideas aka my friend Karen's new operation. I know it's too late for Xmas, but everyone should seriously go order her Xmas fruitcakes right now. I couldn't resist and had an Xmas cupcake for tea yesterday afternoon, and it was amazing: soft, moist cake chock-full of fruit, yet not so frightfully sweet as to immediately kill the rest of your appetite.

Now this fruitcake I could eat all the way through the Xmas season and then some --- unlike say the extremely passé log cakes that I keep trying to avoid at Xmas parties.

Today's errand will be grocery shopping and writing Xmas-greeting emails to everyone I've failed to contact in the last few months ...

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Technorati Tags: errands, Xmas, Christmas, Baked Ideas

An unlikely nightmare

Last night I dreamed that I was leaving on a vacation with Terz and some friends, but even though I had three huge bags with me as I met them after work, I hadn't actually had the time to pack properly (who knows what was in those bags) and hadn't packed any toiletries.

So then there was the dashing off to some kind of convenience store/pharmacy to pick up random toiletry items, but when I got back to my bags and my friends, it was time to go and I didn't have a toiletry pouch to put the items in. Why this should seem like a gargantuan crisis, I have no idea, but I was panicked enough in the dream that I woke up in real life --- and then wondered why the hell I would be panicking over not having toiletries when, hello, vacation? Even an imaginary one.

Potential vacation spots for January have been narrowed down to Myanmar and Laos (Adri's current adventures there helped to swing my vote that way). But I haven't sealed the deal by booking air tickets or accommodation yet...

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Technorati Tags: dream, vacation

Rainy days (don't) get me down

Rainy days are good for:

• Snuggling under the covers
• Taking a hot shower to make the body really wakes up after the alarm's gone off
• Hot coffee
• Watching the cat watch the rain out the windows
• Hot Milo over lunch
• Ordering delivery for dinner 'cause we're tired of the food at the coffeeshop and it was too wet to go out
• Vegging out over DVDs after dinner: last night it was Veronica Mars, tonight it was that plus Babel, which was not as slow as Terz warned me it would be, though I'm not sure how he could possibly describe its ending as "uplifting".
  

It's been raining nonstop since Sunday. Ay carumba!

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Related posts: The rain, it raineth every day, What the rain did, Without fail

Technorati Tags: Singapore, rain, monsoon

Babies galore

This weekend, I had the good fortune to make the acquaintance of two delightful babies, both of whom have been out of the womb for less than a month. It's quite charming to see how small they are --- and then to witness what fierce lungs they have.

Since my best friend had her baby last year, it seems like 2006 has passed in a flurry of new baby arrivals and accompanying anecdotes about how much (and how) they poop, eat and learn to do fun stuff like grin, sing and wriggle. In sum, the following people I know have had kids this year (in chronological order):

• Cousin DavidTheTan and his wife (he practically ceased to blog thereafter)
• The "boss" and his wife
• Ondine's best friend
• Ondine's sister-in-law, whom I occasionally do work for
• The ex-boss from earlier this year, whom I also occasionally do work for
  
• G-man and wife, whose Alexandra I met yesterday
  
• Maye-E and her husband, whose Nate I met this evening
  

I suppose this means that in a few years' time, there'll be all the obligatory friends' kids' birthday parties to attend and birthday gifts to buy to corrupt them more than their parents would like.

Alternatively, I could just become the "boring" auntie who always gives them books because books are actually good for them...

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Technorati Tags: baby, babies, kids, children

Xmas is coming

I know Xmas is coming because I've attended 2 Xmas parties since Thursday, been gobsmacked at the prettiness of Xmas trees everywhere I go (it seems that there's been a resurgence of good taste this year, as evidenced in no small part by Raffles City's classic Xmas tree) and been regaled by friends' and associates' triumphant tales of completing their Xmas shopping well before Xmas proper.

Nevertheless, and much as I love the season, I haven't had the energy or zest to dig out our Xmas decorations or low-maintenance Muji Xmas tree, or to buy pressies. Mostly, I can't believe the year is almost over --- where the hell did 2006 go when I wasn't looking? --- and in some small way, maybe putting off the Xmas routine helps me to put off 2007 for just that bit longer, until it becomes irrevocably true and/or I can accept that the year is, in point of fact, over.

Meanwhile, it's a swirl of Xmas parties. I have seen some of the same people three nights in a row (with likely a fourth sighting tomorrow at a one-month celebration for our friends' baby), which ain't a bad thing because it means a good chance to catch up thoroughly after the months of social life that I lost to work. For instance, I finally got a first-person account of a certain car catching fire while on the road.


For the record, the miniature Volkswagen Beetle is a stand-in for the actual Beetle that caught fire, the brown pouch for the car driven by the friend who put out the fire, and the yellow cue ball for the Shell petrol station where the Beetle on fire pulled up --- which turned out to be a pivotal decision that probably saved the Beetle from going up entirely in flames since it meant that fire extinguishers were immediately on hand. (Although, on hindsight, it seems equally possible that the flaming car could've set the petrol station on fire ... )

The nice thing about Singapore is that even after attending a slew of Xmas parties, I have not had any eggnog, roast turkey, mince pies or any such predictable Xmas fare. Instead there's been excellent popiah at the Objectifs do on Thursday and a welcome overdose of mee siam at last night's Caffeine/Addicted shindig. I'm hoping to make it all the way to Xmas itself before any roast turkey or honey-baked ham touches these lips.

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Technorati Tags: Xmas

I don't usually ...

... get all gussied up at 5:30 pm on a Thursday. But I was told to show up for the party by 6 pm and it was gonna be one of those parties, that sent me scrambling to the back of my cupboard in the middle of the afternoon to rustle up an old (but good) dress that I'd completely forgotten I had.

... pay attention to speeches at an event. But this time I wanted to hear my colleagues' and collaborators' names read out for the applause they more than well deserved.

... eat that many profiteroles at a buffet reception. But I was in the mood for chocolate.

... invite an ex-student to crash a party. But panaphobic got lucky.

... dance in public. But the problem with declining to dance by advertising one's disinclination to dance in public, is that all one's well-liquored up colleagues (or even those who were relatively sober) immediately take that as a challenge. So when I let my guard down towards the end of the night, an evil colleague from Montreal whirled me out onto the dance floor before I could take cover.

... do the air-kiss-kiss thing. But when everyone's from Montreal, that's what you end up doing to say goodnight.

... mix white wine with champagne with vodka. No wonder I threw up on the way home.

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I've forgotten how to blog

So now I have a little bit of breathing space between work, but I've forgotten how to blog. I sit here, I stare at the blank Blogger screen, and I wonder what it is that one writes about when one blogs. I think about the day that's passed, or is passing, and I can't think of anything that's worth committing to words, as such.

I mean, of course, there's stuff. There was Terz's birthday last Friday, which involved a considerably amount of alcohol, semi-public humiliation and silliness for him, and not very much of any of that for me (because I had to put him to bed eventually, see).

There was the Museum's soft launch on Sunday, which involved showing people around the place so that they'd know exactly where the help they'd given us had gone. If anyone wants a personal walk-through, I'm available for one-on-one tours till December 13, all for the low, low price of a good meal and a glass of wine.

And then there was the usual whining about how much I need a vacation. At last recitation (last night), I have the following places on my to-visit list (in no particular order): central Vietnam (currently in the path of the most creatively named Typhoon Durian), Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, Bali and Beijing (which I've been talking about visiting since June). I have booked not a single air ticket. I have no travelling companion (Terz is otherwise occupied). My window of travel is in January only. At the rate this is going, I will still be talking about the proverbial well-earned vacation come next December.

I do believe I now remember what blogging is all about after all.

For the record, I am still in the office, drinking cold Tiger beer out of a white Ikea coffee mug, while we try to complete everything in time for a certain midnight deadline.

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Technorati Tags: blogging

Interlude

It's not a good sign when I bump into a friend on the street outside where I work, and her hello segues immediately into, "So I hear you're really busy and not getting any sleep!"

For the record, I am getting sleep. Just not enough.

But nevertheless, I stole an hour out of my day today to finally get my hair cut. As melch will tell you, I have only been talking about getting my hair cut since June.


In times like these, little victories are important.

Now back to work.

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Working on the weekend

Like that lah.

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Well, obviously, Xmas is coming

And lo, it came to pass, that on the 25th of November, I received our very first Xmas card of the year.

I think this might be something of a record.

The card's from First Aunt and her husband, which is also noteworthy because they are probably the least Christian of the relatives from that generation of that side of the family. Of course, when you get to my generation, it's a toss-up between her son and daughter-in-law, and Terz and I, as to who's more areligious and irreverent.

I think I'm going to send mostly e-cards again this year, so only folks who don't have email addresses (or whose email addresses I don't have) will get snailmail cards. And like everything that doesn't fall into the "work" category in my life right now, this will all be taken care of only after December 7.

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Technorati Tags: Xmas, Christmas, Christmas card

The mirror doesn't lie

I have white hairs!!!

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Don't ask, don't tell

I have a secret and it's a very, very good one. It's the kind that makes you want to scream your elation from the rooftops, grin like a kid with a fistful of candy, wiggle and dance to an unstoppable rhythm. It's the kind you want immediately to tell, because it's almost too good to be true after all the wondering and wandering and wistful thinking. You want to tell even though with every telling, it'll lose a little of its special lustre --- but never mind, because this is just The. Best. Thing.

This is the secret that feels like everything after this point changes, but only because we're somewhat predisposed to think of our lives as a deliberate drama, plotted out with all these foreordained turning points. Things won't change, not really, and a year, two, from now, it'll be a mundane footnote in the passage of life.

But, you see, now, here, everything is possible.

Intuitively, I'm not actually very good at keeping secrets. I don't have a conniving mind and my extremely strict mother so fervently drilled into me the habit of being honest that my first impulse is always to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Even if I have to lie (e.g. to protect a secret), there's more than enough of a reaction time, galvanic skin response or blip of the eyes to give me away. Just skip the lie detector and go straight to the cold, hard stare. That'll do it for me every time.

Fortunately, I don't think I'll have to sit on the lid of this secret for too long. Time'll pass, the statute of limitations will expire and I can permanently erase the mental note not to broach this topic slash feign ignorance ("act blur" in local parlance) if I'm asked point-blank about it.

Which just as well, because, seriously, guys?

I've never had a secret this good before.

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Technorati Tags: secret

Walkabout in a bookstore

I took off my shoes while I was in Borders tonight --- partly because my feet were a little uncomfortable after traipsing around on wedges all day, but more because I was in a browsy sort of mood and there is something about padding around on the carpet that makes a bookstore the size of Borders feel that much more, well, browsy.

I didn't leave my shoes totally unattended, just in case some overzealous employee whisked them off to lost'n'found or something. But it was very nice to flex my bare feet and squish carpet between my toes as I considered my options in the Fiction R-S and W-Z sections. Yes, I know there's germs and dirt and probably other crap on that carpet, particularly since I was at the store at the end of the day, but it felt nice, okay?

James had a voucher for buy-4-or-more-books-at-40%-off, so despite my avowal in the car to save my money for that great Little Black Dress at Project Shop Blood Bros (especially since I have a heap of unread books at home), I ended up with Salman Rushdie's Shalimar the Clown (finally out in paperback), Todd Gitlin's Media Unlimited (which has been on my to-read list for about two years) and Steven Johnson's Everything Bad Is Good For You.

Note to self: get cousin in Paris something good to read in English off her Amazon wishlist for her birthday later this week, or else risk being blamed for causing her fit of apoplexy upon reading blog entries like this.

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Technorati Tags: Singapore, books, Borders, Borders bookstore

Checking in

I worked till 5 am last night. It's quite something to be looking for a cab just when the cab drivers are getting ready to wash up their cars in preparation for the end of their night shift.

I haven't read blogs in over a week (which is a long time, for me). When my alarm goes in the morning, my brain immediately kicks into gear (even if the rest of me takes a little longer), humming with all the things I need to get done before I leave the house, before lunch, before sunset, before the next bedtime. When I'm away from my computer, I check my email compulsively (thank goodness for Gmail, through which I route four email accounts, and the Mobile Gmail app for Symbian cell phones).

I keep talking about wanting to take a vacation, but the talk is starting to take on this mythical quality. (kk, we need to get you-know-who to confirm her vacation plans so that I can book air tickets now.)

But enough with the weird workaholic wanking-off. The really big news today is that after three months, during which I'd given up hope, I found out that I got this freelance writing position that I was really, really keen on. Hurrah! Let the merry dancing begin!

Okay, I need to go fold the laundry now.

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Technorati Tags: work

All I wanted was a Coke

I couldn't believe my eyes. I was standing in a well-stocked 24-hour supermarket, and they didn't have a single-serving-sized Coke. They had Vanilla Coke in a can, Coke Lime and Coke Light in small bottles, but no plain ol'-fashioned no-modifier Coke unless I wanted to cough up for a 2-litre bottle or a 6-pack.

I just wanted one Coke.

I settled for Vanilla Coke --- and then I remembered after about a quarter of the can why I actually prefer Vanilla Coke Light to Vanilla Coke.

To console myself, I picked up a packet of Van Houten (very plebian, I know) chocolate-covered raisins to go with the Vanilla Coke. But by the time I got home, panaphobic called and then work beckoned and then I forgot about my chocolates.

I did finish the vile Vanilla Coke, though. Pah!

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Technorati Tags: Coke, Vanilla Coke

My mom was right

It's too hot in Singapore to wear this shirt, even in the semi-airconditioned environment of a Halloween party.

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Technorati Tags: Singapore, Halloween, Halloween2006, Virtual Insanity

Eureka!

At 5 pm, with the party scheduled to its doors at 7 pm, I literally reached into the back of my wardrobe and found the perfect thing.


The shirt is, in fact, my mother's. I stole it from her wardrobe some time in the early '90s, I think. She got in the US in the '70s and always said it was too hot to wear in Singapore.

The bolo tie is mine --- some tacky souvenir I picked up on a school trip to the US (specifically, Arizona) in 1991. I don't believe I've worn it with the shirt before, but I think a cowgirl costume sort of calls for it.

Now I just need jeans (check), boots (check, although they have heels which no self-respecting woman rancher would wear) and maybe something that looks like a lasso.

Alas, I have no cowboy hat and no time to either run to Peninsula Plaza to get one or to borrow wahj's, which I hear was a big hit at the office party last night. But hey, as long as I'm not costumeless or slutting it up this Halloween ...

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Technorati Tags: Singapore, Halloween, Halloween2006, Virtual Insanity

Getting the guys together

Put three guys together for the first time and what do you get? A conversation that runs the gamut from National Service to comic book superheroes to comic books-turned-into-movies to chien bien jokes (i.e. really bad jokes that earn the joke-teller a merciless pummelling). If you know the answer to why Superman's underwear is really tight, you'll know the kind of jokes they were telling last night.

Terz pointed out that we now know a Daniel-and-Shereen and also a Daniel-and-Serene. This, in addition, to the six or so Christines/Kristine/Christinas in his cell phone, the four or five Cheryls in mine and a handful of Nicks that he talks to regularly. We're starting to use nicknames in conversation and on our cell phone entries to keep everyone sorted.

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Technorati Tags: Singapore, names

That time of life

I always open snail mail from my alma mater university with a little trepidation. If it's the quarterly alumni magazine, there's always the feature stories of current and former university students overachieving their way through life, not to mention the "Class Pages", which I scrutinise for alumni from my years with the same glee that some people read the obituary pages --- except with the reverse outcome because finding out what everyone else has been up to inevitably makes me like I haven't been doing very much myself.

And if it's not the magazine, then it's usually a plea for money. Which is what I got today, but with a twist.

You see, my tenth class reunion is upon us next year.

I sort of knew it was creeping up upon me because I finished that bloody eight-year bond last year , which means I've been "back" for eight years, which is something some people still ask me: "How long have you been in Singapore now?" Also, because I'm now freelancing and I look younger than my age (yes, I'll stop smirking now), from time to time I also get the question, "How long have you been working?"

Too long, my friends, and without enough to show for it. But this isn't a pity party blog entry.

No, upon perusing the latest attempt to hit me up from money, I noticed that the Class of 1997 Reunion Committee was handily listed in a sidebar and that two people I actually used to hang out with in university are on the committee. Since they're also people who held fairly high-profile positions in campus organisations, part of me isn't really surprised at that.

Naturally, after I read out their names to Terz (they're both female), he immediately asked, "Are they cute? Are we going for your reunion?"

The thing is, I can't remember the last time I saw the both of them. One was pretty good friends with my ex-flatmate, at one stage, which might or might not also have been the stage when one of our guy friends was trying to go out with her. I say trying because I'm fairly certain it never took off.

The other girl I was closer friends with and the last thing I remember us doing together was heading down to a Lincoln Park street festival of some kind just before graduation. Did I even see her at graduation?

It's amazing the things you forget after ten years.

Anyway, they were both what, in Singapore parlance, one would call "high fliers" --- overachievers, extremely intelligent, extremely motivated and extremely able to get things done. I'm sure they have high-profile careers to match.

I just wish the alumni mailer had included their email addresses so that I could contact them and find out.

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Technorati Tags: alma mater, Northwestern University

*panic*

The Cowboy Bar Halloween party (aka Virtual Insanity) is in five three (shit, I can't count either) days' time.

I have no costume.

I thought of going as Inara, but it's harder than it sounds plus my hair's not long enough.

I thought of dressing up as a parking auntie pontianak, but Terz said it might get me beaten up by aggrieved drivers.

I do not wish to spend $80 renting a costume from any of the shops.

How?

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Technorati Tags: Singapore, Halloween, Halloween2006, Virtual Insanity

A meeting of minds

It's very thrilling to unexpectedly meet someone who not only appreciates Beautiful Girls as much I do, but once we get started on it, both of us immediately quote the same line: "Romeo and Juliet, the dyslexic version."

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The best of today

Best news headline:
"Probe peers into Venusian secrets" (from the BBC, no less).

Best excuse for not answering my cell phone:
"I'm at a military camp all day and they won't let me bring my cameraphone in."

Best health warning:
"Don't drink Coke. I tell you, it'll kill you." (preamble to a 20-minute lecture on the evils of Coke.)

Best voicemail signoff:
" ... so call me on my handphone. This is Kevin, from _____ [company] and from _____ [church]." (He mentioned the church name because that's where I know him from. I guess if one's name is Kevin, where there a dime a dozen of them in Singapore, he was wise to identify himself so thoroughly. His colleague was cackling in the background, though.)

But the best line of the day came from my father, which I sadly cannot repeat here in case I get hauled up for threatening national security. No, really --- I can't. And damn, it was a great line.

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Too soon for comfort

Sometimes I see the preview trailer for World Trade Center on TV and I think, no, I'm not ready to watch that yet. No, not even the trailer.

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Technorati Tags: 9/11, September 11, World Trade Center

Saturdays are for ...

... brunch at Killiney Kopitiam ("Which Killiney Kopitiam are we going to?" "Er ... the one at Killiney Road ... ") with the gang of old friends. The boys egged me on to order mee siam mai hum ("We'll back you up with a loud chorus," Packrat promised) while the girls belatedly realised that we were all wearing pink (unintentional, we swear). wahj enlightened us that the Pollution Standards Index reading at 11 am today was 128 (anything above 100 is Bad For One's Health), which explains why the air smells execrable and the sunlight's all washed out. Kay was impressed that everyone knew about their new refrigerator. Ondine showed off her new bag to grand admiration all round. And G-man gave us a ride home in his new(ish) car, which made me wish I had a small car of my own to zip around in so that I wouldn't have to be at the mercy of our world-class transport system.

I am declaring a moratorium on kaya toast for at least a month.

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Technorati Tags: Singapore, breakfast, brunch

Not done growing yet

Let's see how I measure up against 25 Signs That, Sadly, You've Grown Up (via By The Way).

1. Your house plants are alive, and you can't smoke any of them.

The only house plant we've ever had is dead. In fact, any house plants ever given to me by some well-meaning friend has died. So perhaps this criterion doesn't really apply to me anyway.

2. Having sex in a twin bed is out of the question.

I'd say sleeping in one for more than one night is out of the question.

3. You keep more food than beer in the fridge.

True --- but only because beer isn't exactly dirt cheap in Singapore (I don't like the canned varieties).

4. 6:00 AM is when you get up, not when you go to bed.

Not any more! I usually wake up at about 8 am these days. Never been to bed at 6 am more than a dozen times in my life, though.

5. You hear your favorite song on an elevator.

Okay, I've never heard my favourite song on an elevator (or any number that count as favourites at any given time), but I have heard the muzak version of music that I liked ten, twenty years ago in an elevator, and I remember cringing at the fact --- both at the dishonour done to the song and the fact that I was old enough to remember when it first came out.

Actually, at my age, popping by Zouk's Mambo Night is a surefire way to induce the latter reaction.

6. You watch the Weather Channel.

Don't have it in Singapore! On occasion, we find ourselves watching some Shakespearean or period drama on the Hallmark Channel, though. Does that count?

7. Your friends marry and divorce instead of hook up and break up.

Fortunately, most of my friends either seem to be comfortably ensconced in the marriage boat or are still at the hook-up/break-up stage, skipping the messy business of divorce (though not always the messy business of how-do-we-stay-friends-and-hang-out-with-that-cool-person-now-that-they're-broken-up-with-our-friend?).

8. You go from 130 days of vacation time to 14.

Technically, I get zero vacation time this year. If I don't work, I don't make any money. Ah, the glory of freelancing ...

9. Jeans and a sweater no longer qualify as "dressed up."

Definitely not a sweater, in Singapore, but I'm going to assume a T-shirt passes for the tropical equivalent. Yeah, a T-shirt with jeans (or anything, really) doesn't quite qualify as "dressed up" in my book anymore, but I can still get away with it on days when I don't have to meet Anyone Important.

On the other hand, "dressed up" for my line of work can still mean nice jeans (i.e. without embarrassing holes or an unflattering silhouette), just paired instead with a dressy-ish top and non-sneaker shoes.

Note to self: learn more from Tofu Nation.

10. You're the one calling the police because those damn kids next door won't turn down the stereo.

Fortunately, there are no damn kids next door old enough to blast the stereo (though one of our neighbour's is about to have a baby, which I suppose could trigger a whole different kind of stereo noise). However, I did almost call the police once when a Seventh Moon/Hungry Ghost Festival auction at a neighbouring block went on for far too long, far too late on a Sunday night.

11. Older relatives feel comfortable telling sex jokes around you.

Damn, with my mother's side, this has been happening since I was a teenager. It's just that half of the jokes are in Cantonese, which I don't altogether follow.

My father's former colleagues still don't want to swear around me, though.

12. You don't know what time Taco Bell closes anymore.

I never liked Taco Bell. I do, however, know where to get food after midnight in Singapore, and thanks to an IM conversation with Sarah, I now know that the pseudo-pretentiously-named TCC (The Coffee Connoisseur) outlet at Clarke Quay is open till 2 am on weekends for those late-night coffee-and-dessert cravings.

13. Your car insurance goes down and your payments go up.

No car = no car insurance! Hooray! Though we still miss our Buttercup on occasion.

14. You feed your dog Science Diet instead of McDonalds leftovers.

We have a cat and feed it Felidae. Fortunately for us, he seems completely uninterested in human food, so we don't have to fend him off every time one of us sits down with a snack (McDonald's leftovers or otherwise).

15. Sleeping on the couch makes your back hurt.

Obviously, you haven't met my couch. It's the perfect couch for sleeping in! The only time either of us get a backache is if the aforementioned cat insists on having space of his own, which then squishes us into a funny sleeping position.

16. You no longer take naps from noon to 6 PM.

Does the occasional weekend 3-7 pm nap count?

17. Dinner and a movie is the whole date instead of the beginning of one.

Actually, dinner is the whole date. Terz doesn't like going to the movies here --- too much asshattery going on.

18. Eating a basket of chicken wings at 3 AM would severely upset, rather than settle your stomach.

Probably, yes. Especially if they're Popeye's.

19. You go to the drug store for ibuprofen and antacid, not condoms and pregnancy tests.

I think I have fewer headaches and stomach upsets now than I used to when I was in college.

20. A $4.00 bottle of wine is no longer "pretty good stuff".

I live in Singapore. No such thing as a $4 bottle of wine.

I admit that I try not to buy any bottle that retails for less than $20 here though.

21. You actually eat breakfast food at breakfast time.

I suppose this means not having refrigerator-cold leftover pizza for breakfast, which I've never liked. I've always liked breakfast food, though for quite a few years in university and the years thereafter, I didn't eat breakfast at all. Now I down coffee at such a rate that I feel like I'm back in my early twenties again.

22. "I just can't drink the way I used to," replaces, "I'm never going to drink that much again."

Tell me about it!

23. 90% of the time you spend in front of a computer is for real work.

Aw man.

24. You drink at home to save money before going to a bar.

No, but that's also because I usually go straight to the bar from work.

25. You read this entire list looking desperately for one sign that doesn't apply to you and can't find one to save your sorry old ass.

Hey, I found plenty!

This was not designed to be a meme, but there's nothing stopping you from turning it into one if you're in need of blog fodder.

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Family connections

It's a funny sort of thing to be introduced as _____'s daughter to a group of retired military men slash my dad's former colleagues slash our former neighbours, when half of them remember me as the awkward ten-year-old riding an old red BMX bicycle around the neighbourhood, and now we're sitting around in a karaoke-esque lounge having a beer. Plus I'm the only woman in a roomful of ten men and I can't help wondering if they would be telling us these same stories with more colourful language if I wasn't there.

Fortunately, no one besides me seemed to care and the closest we got to memory lane was a quick highlights tour with one elderly gent (it's weird to think of people in my parents' generation as bona fide senior citizens) who used to live in the same block of apartments as we did. Then there was the spry-looking former number one commando, who also happened to be the father of one of my closest friends during my early 'teens --- except that I didn't know about his commando pedigree back then, he was just one of the many "uncle"s in the neighbourhood. I doubt he realised that I was the same quiet bespectacled kid who occasionally slept over in his daughter's room.

So that was the Dad side of things. Then there was the book launch party where I was unexpectedly introduced as _____'s niece to some people who work slash used to work with slash know of my aunt. Which is not a bad thing in itself, but not a terribly useful point of reference when it comes to who I am. My aunt's great and we get along alright and she's always doling out helpful advice --- but she's not been the pivotal influence in my life or anything.

I think I just like being me. It doesn't matter who I'm related to or who I happen to know. I'm just me, y'know?



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Help wanted

You know it's a bad sign when you meet friends for lunch and the first thing they say is, "Wow, you look tired, man."

In no particular order, I need:

• A WorkSpace.
• A less hyperactive cat.
  
• An electrician --- or rather, someone who can figure out how to detach our ceiling light covers so that we can replace the lightbulbs. We have been living with only one working light (instead of the two needed to illuminate the whole space) in our bedroom for more than three years, and now the lightbulb in our attached (ensuite) bathroom has given up the ghost too. Anyone know a good handyman who can fix anything?
  
• A vacation.
• A drink.
  

Tankyu.

This blog post has been brought to you by the vices of workoholism and coffee addiction, and the sublime delight of a champagne truffle mooncake.

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