Listening for rain

It is night and it is quiet. I'm listening.

And then the rain draws near. Gentle from a distance, thunder rolls lowly, slowly, but each is closer than the last. A faint rustle moves through the trees outside my window like a passing spectre. It passes away, leaving silence behind, but the silence is full, pregnant, waiting.

An angrier, louder roll of thunder. The rain is close now.

A few patters. Then more. Faster, and more. The pattering gathers into a collective, drawn-out sigh as a million silver drops find the earth. The large, paternal sound of their accompanying thunder booms overhead.

I wish I could open my window and smell the sultry scent of the rain. I could, but I don't. I don't know why, but I suppress the impulse.

I imagine each drop finding contact with leaves, roofs, cars, street lamps, asphalt, windows, soil. Sliding over and off them, leaving a mirror sheen on everything. I imagine touching a cold drop, turning my finger over, watching the the half sphere of transparency wobble on my skin.

But I don't open the window to look out or hold my hand out in the rain.

I listen instead, the soft, hypnotic sigh of rainfall.

Theatre can be painful

Four weeks into movement workshops with Jing Hong at TTP and I've attained a wide collection of bruises and one elbow scrape to show for it. Given it's the first real exposure I've had to movement-based theatre, it's been a very interesting experience...and at times a painful one. Jing Hong must be almost 10 years older than I am but physical fitness-wise, she puts us to shame.

Muscle aches aside, being a creature of little grace and litheness, I find my limbs in frequent collisions with the floor.

My knees after 5 July's session:

Today, after last night's session (during which I found myself repeatedly flipping over on the floor and landing on my knees and forehead):

I should invest in knee pads.

Beyond anal retentive

I chanced upon this blog http://servemeplease.blogspot.com, which has a single entry. But man, what an entry! Waiters should start arming themselves with tasers and zap the author Springs1 on sight.

When I started reading the first bit, I thought it was a parody of an ultra-fussy restaurant customer. As I read on, I realised I was sadly mistaken. It's a long, tedious, highly charged rant about shoddy service standards. Why, she even had to wait seven whole minutes to get her drink served! *Shock and horror*

If you click on her profile, you'll see several other of her blogs (all comprising only single entries, for some reason), and all save one are about bad service in restaurants.

Oh, and don't forget to check out the comments on her blogs, especially the one mentioned above. The comments left by other bloggers are normal on their own. It's her responses to them that are simply astounding. (See if you have the patience to read them all to the end. I owe you a drink if you can.) Even if you can't read through all of them, do a quick scan and savour the extent of this woman's obsessive insanity. And you won't miss her signature CAPS which are IRRITATINGLY interspersed to HIGHLIGHT her HEIGHTS of emotions, presumably.

She's a total gem. Not only did she blog about bad service in her own blogs, she's also posted and commented on goodness knows how many other related blogs and forums on this subject, each post/comment a mini essay on its own. How did I know this? Apparently other bloggers are so amused by her some of them seemed to have tracked her and are dishing out info about her through the grapevine and posting them.

I suspect she likes it. Infamy beats no attention, eh? And she's so hyper-defensive and has such incontinent verbal diarrhoea she makes a ridiculously easy target for ridicule and attack. Moreover, possessing no sense of humour and lacking finer perception, she often fails to perceive when a personal attack is literally meant or when it's just meant to get her blood boiling. And she'll retaliate with a vengeance. See below (vastly abbreviated) taken from http://naphthavalleyhigh.blogspot.com:

Pissed-off blogger to Springs1: "GO TAKE UP A HOBBY FOR FUCKS SAKE, YOU UGLY, POOR, TROLL HOUSEWIFE!"

Springs1: "I work 40 hrs a week IDIOT!"

Everyone, together: "Duh!"

Nothing I say here will take the thunder away from when you see her blog with your own eyes.

Another walk by the river

Took a walk by the river by myself on Tuesday evening, just because I felt like it. Was glad I did, because it felt great to be out on a balmy yet not muggy day like that. It was incredibly peaceful on my own, plugged into my iPod and taking in the view. No matter how many times I've walked down the promenade, the view is never the same. There's always something new and beautiful about it. I figure I've finally found something to love about my new home in River Valley after being torn away from my beloved Seletar - its proximity to this winding sanctuary.

I've always liked this bridge immensely (I think it's called Kim Seng Bridge). Probably because of its funky, curved body. The picture below is another view of it (had to lean over the railing to get this shot - very difficult to steady the hand to get a not-so-blurry capture).

It wasn't complete darkness yet by the time I started heading home, so managed to get a decent shot of the portion of the promenade around the Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel. The reflections look really pretty, so I'm glad to have taken a relatively clear shot of it that evening.

Another perspective of the Kim Seng Bridge (I think) taken some months earlier. It's a blurry photo in the absence of a tripod but nonetheless, this is my favourite view of it...squatting down low at the foot of the bridge, causing some curious joggers to stare as they pass by.

Riceball

Our first Young n W!ld showing! Sort of, anyway, since only half of us got to do it. Seven of us got to perform a Sondheim medley at Riceball, W!ld Rice's annual benefit gala at Shangri-la. Only three rehearsals to learn the songs (which had tricky melodies) and blocking, plus two short finale pieces ("There's noooooooo business like shooooooow business..." *bopping side to side*). It was intense but fun, though I felt it was a pity that not all of us got to perform together for our first showing.

White, lacy, racy outfits for the girls, white suits and gold sparkly accessories for the dudes. We looked like a bridal show gone wrong. The danish and tart makeup completed the trying-to-be-fresh-and-innocent-but-failing-miserably look. I got to wear pants, which is fortunate, considering I had to be crawling on the ground at one point going "uh uh uh!" - colour TV not welcome on stage.

Audrey and Judy were shedding all the way. We could tell wherever they had been by the trail of feathery bits from their costumes.

I experienced the longest two seconds of my life when I forgot a line that I'd never forgotten before in rehearsals. Thank goodness that it's a song and it goes on, forgotten line be damned. Fortunately, there was a feedback whoop just before my blank line, so some of the audience may have been fooled into thinking it was a mic problem. *Phew*

A very strange moment occurred in the middle of performing our number. Throughout rehearsals, we knew that Jon would rip off his shirt during a line. We'd just never rehearsed it because the costumes weren't done yet. Then, when the time came during the actual performance, with a flourish and the sharp ripping sound of velcro, the shirt came off in two pieces (image on left: the back of the velcro-rigged shirt). Suddenly, the other six of us strangely froze as we found ourselves gaping at bare skin, completely stunned - five of us completely forgot our next line. Issy had to rescue the rest of us by belting out that line on her own before we remembered to continue.

Jon Lim became Mamasan Jon that evening, donning boobs that outsized those of the four of us girls put together. Too bad he was de-wigged by the time this picture was taken.

The audience response to our performance was rather lukewarm, but someone attributed it to the fact that the piece was not the most well-suited for the circumstance, especially given the thigh-slapping-big-guffaw act that went on just before ours. It was said that we got a big applause, though, so that is some comfort. The piece had a lot of subtle, tongue-in-cheek humour, so audience concentration was a must - hard to get when we're contending with the food on their tables and Hossan Leong in an Elvis outfit.

I got to shake hands with President Nathan...and found out only later who he was. Yes I've seen his photo in post offices, yes I've seen him on TV. But how was I to know how...well...what his stature is in person? It was a whirl of shaking hands with a variety of people anyway. I had some idea that they were VIPs, but had no idea who they actually were. Exchanged air kisses with a very warm Caucasian guest...but don't ask me who he was.

All in all, I think we did alright, in spite of a couple of technical glitches and one fubbed line. Gives me a good feeling as a sign to how performing with this group is going to be in the future. I can't wait for our next showing.

Several notable quotes overheard during tech run/performance day:

"I'm just so star-struck." --> A hungry and cranky Leslie while rehearsing the mass finale item, with enough sarcasm to slice through the Arctic ice sheet. Gotta love that guy.

"They're not very young!" --> Overheard from someone upstage right upon seeing Young n W!ld for the first time.

"...and we UH UH UH!" --> My favourite line from our Sondheim medley.

"Thank you for coming." --> A strange line, considering it was uttered to me by one of the invited guests when I shook his hand after the show. Shouldn't we have been saying it to him instead?

I'm alone with my baby at a quarter to five in the morning, hearing him hum softly and seeing his little green light wink cheekily each time I open a new programme.

Tonight I feel alone, and very briefly lonely...but only briefly. I sit in a pocket of stillness and become aware of the space around me and my present state.

It's very quiet now, but not quiet enough. The clock on my wall has a loud tick which I manage to ignore most of the time, but in times like the present, I become annoyingly aware of the tick-tick-tick. A softer tick from my small alarm clock can sometimes pair up with the former to drive me nuts on bad days, but tonight my nerves are in better shape.

The chilly, air-conditioned air lightly brushes against my skin and occasionally displaces a strand across my forehead. The plastic feel of the keyboard under my fingers is comforting, each curved key a cradle to my fingertips. I sit in my usual posture, which is an unhealthy slouch, my feet propped up on top of my baby's CPU under the desk.

I realise I still smell of Kelvin, which I like. A soft blend of his cologne and natural musk rest on my shoulders and upper arms and, for some reason, the outside of my left wrist. My hands smell of his face, and I remember the feel of his skin on my palms.

It's late. I should go to bed.

Once inspired

I was once inspired. Inspired as only one with so much youth can be.

Inspired by wistful words of lost dreams and unfulfilled yearning, by a language that seemed so filled with his soul that I even believed that it contained his heart. My own heart was moved long before I set eyes on the man, moved as was once only possible by music. Leafing through the pages of his books stirred longings unfamiliar in a heart so young and made me struggle to understand them.

When I finally met the man, I found him slowly nudging my thoughts and perceptions to places I'd never sought on my own. He guided me, as was his job at the time, and it was through the guise of guidance that I felt warmth seep through from him, though we never touched. His gaze and his words to me often rang in my ears by virtue of the hidden intention I read in them. I asked myself if a young woman should react to a man who expanded her mind and showed her the farther reaches of her peripheral vision.

Tension kept us apart yet together through the years. The thin, tight connection that bound us in a layered friendship even brought us to one close call amist the undertones and unspoken desire. But my eyes were closed and I didn't feel him tugging until too much time had passed.

And then one day, I fell in love with the one who inspired me, as love can be the only fitting result of inspiration.

Inspired by soft words of adoration and comfort, by a language that reached right into my own heart, piercing straight through the fortress I had built for myself. The man who had helped me believe many things years ago now made me believe in my ability to love again. One kiss on a quiet evening brought my defences to rubble, and few more words crumbled them to dust.

And then, as suddenly as it came, it was over.

Believing and loving the words of a writer is a dangerous thing. Words are such small, tenuous things, but when wielded with the chosen hand, they bear a force relentless as the tide. Writers can take your thoughts and wrap them around their little finger. They can make you believe anything you want to believe, simply because they know how to tell it to you.

Tonight, my gaze fell upon one of his books as I glanced through my bookshelf. I thought about the story that first made me see the writer in a different light, that first stirred the tempest in the teacup. For what we shared amounted to little more than a teacup. Then I opened the book and read the story again. And I remember.

I was once inspired. But never again will it find its way into my heart.