I

DAGUERROTYPE SKIES

Taken from JL's blog.

...It was a lovely night, for a lovely stroll as I made my way to run a trivial errand.

And it happened to have finished raining. It had poured for the whole afternoon surprisingly, giving the air a light, refined feel and taste which purified everything and lifted everything. There was that light, cool ambience that swirled around me in invisible waves and took over my imagination and feelings.

So there I was alone, walking by myself enjoying the air and the... sky.

Now the sky, that was what struck me most. It was pale, fused with the darkness night always brings along and it was empty. Yet there were a few clouds just staying for a while in that lovely spread of sky and the shade it radiated from above was soothing, like nothing could go wrong at all. Basking in whatever dark goodness there was, was so exhilarating. Feeling excitement, sadness, majesty and the feeling of nothing ever being the same again. It's feeling those moments swelling up inside of you with every emotion you have at the same time that you just have to put them down in some form because you know this night doesn't last forever though you want it to and you need to, want to keep a snapshot of it back with you so you'll be reminded, just so you remember...

In these lovely moments I was reminded of you.
I remember it was when it was raining as well on a particular afternoon and you had thought of me.

The first thing we talked about was the rain. haha. I remember you telling me it was a sort of daguerrotype pale sky, a romantic sky that induced lovely atmosphere. I remember such similar moments when one of us would just send a small signal letting each other know we were thinking of each other even though we were from different worlds. We hardly met but we talked, communicated as much as usual and we talked about almost anything. haha. Despite our ages, despite how different we both are and how far away we might appear to be there is something about us that lasts and perserveres, leading us on and it's really something.

With that in mind, I looked up at the sky and it was beautiful.

I guess one would say it always is, but how beautiful was it? It was lovely really because of how much it meant to me. The sky had been washed. The drops filtering it, channelling everything away, rinsing it, cleansing it. You know how they say after a storm everything seems pale, and it gets lighter. Everything seems new, fresh, so imperfectly perfect. The sky was just like that after such an essential process. It was pale. It might not have seemed lovely to you, but it was to me.

It seemed numb though it retained an element of beauty around it.

The storms I've been through, all the major tornados I've had to face in my life..
The blood, the tears, the wars, the "refining processes" and I'm still going through them everyday. It's never been easy at all. haha. It's never easy life, it really isn't. For everyone it can be such a clown that seems to be messing with your life and yet it brings you the joy, the laughter, the memories you never expect at times. The tricks, the bad jokes that go wrong sometimes you wonder and you wonder and you think I must have been a big mistake because I don't know what I'm doing with my life. Why is it others have so much and they don't treasure it while I have nothing at all and my despair weakens me each day. Even the abilities that might be what separate me from the rest can easily be looked down upon because there's always someone out there who is always better. And the raving thoughtcrime, the endless questions. The demons that don't just constitue what your past was but what you have and what you've become plus the endless ones that plague your mind with doubts, struggles, contradictions and worries about what is, what was and what is to come.

They probably left me numb, sometimes we all go that way.
haha. Not feeling anything at all is it good?

Hmm. Sometimes, I just don't know. All I can hope for is that whatever this is, it will last me long enough before I go through another monumental storm or deaths that will change me once again. It goes hand in hand with running away and it's so easy to not face everything sometimes. The worse part is when you actually do face it after a pile of rotten photographs have surfaced and it's too late, impossible to run away from the stench of your life. You face the degradation of what life was like and the wretched responsibility you took in possibly preserving every inch of your sanity.

And after everything, you might question who you are and what are you to the world.

The sky was pale yet it seemed lovely.
and so I ask is it the same with me, my soul? Was it always present? No matter what, will it always be there redefining whatever change has passed and whatever I've done? What happens to it and what will become of it... I might have changed, might have changed drastically, my soul probably paler than what it was before, but is that element of truth and imperfect beauty still present, something that holds second to none and something that is unique in its own self?

And the celestial regions sing of falling stars and beauty
held in the hands of a saviour.

was destruction this lovely?

You find pale skies at the heart of your own

I want to take her under my wing, make sure she gets the best exposure and the right literary influences. She is barely 15 and she already writes frighteningly well. With the right pushes and nudges, she will turn out to be a prolific writer. The kind that engages souls rather than mere eyes or minds. The kind that haunts you minutes, hours, days after you close the final chapter in her writings and shut the cover on the reading experience. I feel I must, it is something as important as my own endeavour to write the book I want to write myself. The world continues to spin nonetheless on its own cruel axis but holes must be dug, etches must be made, envelopes must be pushed. I want to push mine but I must push others too. Creation, liberation, destruction. These are processes that must be done at the right times and at the right places. The times are approaching, the places are arriving. Mine, and hers, too.

JL, are you listening?

Dry your tears, and get up.

II

QUESTIONS

Taken from Huihan's blog.

1: Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 18, find line 4. Write down what it says.
"Everything Is Illuminated", by Jonathan Safran Foer: "Excuse me, Rabbi, but just what word is it exactly?"

2: Stretch your left arm out as far as you can. What do you touch first?
A Workers' Party flag that I purchased for $2 last May, during one of their awesome rallies. I went with Jonathan, and we had a great time.

3: What is the last thing you watched on TV?
Can't remember. I don't watch TV.

4: WITHOUT LOOKING, guess what the time is:
1.30 am.

5: Now look at the clock, what is the actual time?:
1.25 am. Not bad.

6: With the exception of the computer, what can you hear?:
The strong whirling of the ceiling fan... and the incessant beating of my heart.

7: When did you last step outside? What were you doing?:
I last stepped outside at around 12.45 am to do my laundry.

8: Before you came to this website, what did you look at?:
My queen's blog.

9: What are you wearing?:
Garb that I would never wear outside my hostel - it's a white shirt left over from my church-going days, and a Nike bermudas that Hiew handed down to me last year. Pure sleeping attire, very comfortable, extremely informal by my slutty standards.

10: Did you dream last night?:
No. I was too tired and stressed.

11: When did you last laugh?:
A couple of hours ago at school. I was recounting to my project group mates how one of our group members wrote the following as his MSN nick: "To wank or to study for test? Oh, the tough choices we make in life." I was so tickled by that memory I laughed myself.

12: What is on the walls of the room you are in?:
Regrets, sadness, repression, depression, tears, anger, hate, hate, hate, madness, nihilistic tendencies, hate, hate.

14(a): What book are you currently reading?:
If it's a book not related to school, then there's two: Milan Kundera's "Laughable Loves", and Friedrich Nietszche's "Thus Spoke Zarathustra".

14(b): What is the last book you finished?:
I just finished "Marat / Sade", by Peter Weiss. But that's my compulsory text for European Literature.

15: What is the last film you saw?:
Royston Tan's "15", at school. It was a subversive screening session by my subversive classmate in political science class. It was vulgar, shocking, violent and grotesque. Exactly my cup of tea.

16: If you became a multi-millionaire overnight, what would you buy first?
A MacBook with red plastic casing for my queen.

17: Tell me something about you that I don’t know:
There's too much about me you don't know.

18: If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt or politics, what would you do?:
Take the smartest 20 percent of the world's population and kill the rest.

19: Do you like to dance?:
Yes, only if there's a hot babe dancing with me.

20: What is the last thing you ate or drank?
Two egg prata and one kosong prata at Fong Seng, with a kopi to wash it all down. That was at 6 pm, so I'm starving now.

21(a): Imagine your first child is a girl, what do you call her?:
Aurora.

21(b): Imagine your first child is a boy, what do you call him?:
Milan.

22: Would you ever consider living abroad?:
Already planning to do just that.

III

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER