Into the water

Perhaps it was almost prophetic that I had this story idea just a week or so before we broke up. I started writing it but didn't think the words justified what the story felt like in my head. Here's a short, raw attempt. I'm still not happy with it, but I might as well share it anyway.

She stuffed her hands into the pockets of her slacks, took a deep breath and heaved it out in a contented sigh. She then proceeded with her evening stroll down the path by the river. It was a quiet day and she didn't see anyone else on the same path.

Then she spotted the young man by the river. He stood so still that she had almost passed him by before noticing him. The unfamiliar young man's back was to her and he didn't seem to have noticed her either, so she paused for a moment, watching him curiously.

He stood very still, looking into the water. Propped on the railing in front of him was a knapsack which he hugged with both arms. Presently, he reached into the bag, sifting unhurriedly through its contents before pulling out a small object.

She stepped forward quietly and craned her neck to see what it was. The young man held up the small stuffed bear and regarded it for a few moments. Then, he let go and it fell into the river. She raised her eyebrows in surprise, but saw that he stood looking silently into the water where the bear fell.

He reached into his bag again and drew out a large T-shirt this time. He unfolded it and looked at the print on the shirt. The words were too small for her to make out from where she was. He dropped the T-shirt into the river as well, watching it fall.

He then drew out several small objects in succession, regarding each for just a second before dropping them into the water. She counted them. One, two, three, four. Five. Six. Pause. Seven.

Then he pulled out a small book, wrapped in black and red paper with a photograph stuck onto the front cover. She couldn't make out the small words written underneath, but she saw the two faces that smiled out of the photograph - one of a happy young man, another of a girl with her arms thrown around the young man's neck.

He held the book before him with both hands, looking at the photograph. She waited for him to throw the book into the river as well, but instead, he opened it. He looked at the first page, reading the small handwritten words. Slowly, he turned the page, where another photograph was attached, then the next page which more photographs shared with small pieces of coloured paper with more handwritten words on them.

She saw him tighten his grip on the book, his knuckles turning white. Lowering his head, he started to sob softly. A few minutes passed and still he stood crying over the scrapbook, his body trembling with each sob.

Then he raised his head, sniffed loudly and wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt. He paused for moment, then let go of the book.

He buckled his bag and slung it onto one shoulder. Then, with his left hand, he pulled a ring off the ring finger on his right. This he held on his palm, looking at it silently, before closing his fingers around it and holding it in his fist.

Extending his arm, he held his closed fist over the water. Then, opening his hand, he dropped the ring into the water.

She watched him as he stood silently looking into the river, hunched over the railing. Finally, he bowed his head, turned, and walked away. She watched as his slow, melancholy steps led him some distance down the path before he turned round a corner, away from the evening swish of the river.

How long

I'm exhausted today, to the point of dozing while standing up in church earlier.

But I'm up now, unable to sleep. Tried to go to sleep after starting to doze while reading, but my mind just wouldn't shut up.

I'm thinking of these months I spent, stupidly giving my love to someone who didn't love me back. I'm thinking of all those times I held him or held his cheek and told him I loved him. How many months did I do all these and not know that he didn't speak true when he told me the same? How long did I foolishly expose and devote my whole heart to someone who had ceased to love me and didn't want to tell me?

I don't think I even remember when he stopped saying "I love you" before putting down the phone at night. I just didn't want to make a big deal of it.

I don't remember when he stopped saying "I love you" on his own accord.

I don't remember when he stopped looking at me the same loving way. Why would I have noticed? I thought it was natural for a couple to get less starry-eyed as the relationship matured.

How long had this been going on? Each time I asked him he gave a different answer. How many months did I go about believing so strongly in something that was already dying?

How long had he been deceiving me?

How long has he been wanting her?

Adding on to "Translate men"

I've got one more addition for this post on translating men:

I DON'T KNOW
The true answer is what I know will upset you the most and I don't want to deal with it, so the best I can come up with is a non-commital remark that will hopefully make you give me the benefit of the doubt.

I've had a good dose of "I don't knows" very recently and I'm sick of hearing it when it is so revealing yet so frustrating. It's like those situations when if you say anything except "yes", the answer is very obvious. What makes guys think you don't know exactly what the true answer is just because they say "I don't know"? It only gives a person mixed information that is very, very frustrating and gives one dread AND false hope at the same time. Very unpleasant.

Guys, if you ever had anything unpleasant to say to your girlfriend/boyfriend, you jolly well say it plainly or risk appearing like an idiot who doesn't even know how to evade properly.

You're right. I'll never forgive you.

I also know I'll never be told the whole truth, and that will always eat in my mind. If there is indeed someone else, I hope she'll one day shred you to pieces.

Something died

Something died today, and part of that something is hope. While this little demise makes things more definitive for me at least, it freshens the grief and deepens the hurt.

I'm so intensely disappointed in him. I'd always understood his faults and accepted that that was who he is. Even if I didn't like them, I could live with them and support him where I could. But I never imagined the impact of those faults would extend to our relationship, tearing it to shreds. And the worst thing is, it could have been so much worse if I hadn't caught it when I did.

And now, I'm alone with my grief and the pieces of my life. I will always have the dear friends who've been so wonderful in this terrible time, but the journey to healing is mine alone.

At least I'm strong and I'll get over this. It's good to know that I'm no longer likely to walk the destructive path of my earlier years. Betrayal and heartbreak will no longer send me down that spiral and I now know how to remain sensible and practical.

But fuck, it hurts. After all, a part of me has died.

Our last photo

This was the last photo we took together. Not even really together, with E & C inadvertently in between us. Our last photo together and we didn't even stand next to each other. And to think, at that moment, I had no inkling of what was going through his head at all.

P.S. I have to find new Sirens kaki too.

Wish List

Now that I don't have Kelvin to go with me to theatre shows and concerts anymore, I need kaki. Here's my current wish list up to May. Anyone wants to go with me to any of these shows? I'll probably be buying my tickets for the early March ones real soon. (*indicates those I'm most keen on.) Click on links for more info.

*Macbeth (LaSalle): 28 Feb - 3 Mar
*Titoudao (Toy Factory): 1 - 18 Mar
*Under the Dragon Moon (i Theatre): 3 - 16 Mar
A Coppelia Special (S'pore Dance Theatre): 6 Mar
Out of Order (Stage Club): 7 - 10 Mar
*Mosaic Music Festival: Live at Duke's Place (Duke Ellington Orchestra): 9 Mar
Mosaic Music Festival: Youn Sun Nah 5: 16 Mar
Mosaic Music Festival: Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra: 17 Mar
A Brief Affair with Infinity (Little Red Shop): 22 - 24 Mar
*No Regrets: A Tribute to Edith Piaf (Sing'Theatre): 27 Mar - 1 Apr
251 (Toy Factory): 5 - 15 Apr
*Blithe Spirit (W!ld Rice): 12 - 22 Apr
Because We Have Big Mouths (Substation): 19 - 20 Apr
*Exquisite Pain (Forced Entertainment, UK): 20 - 21 Apr
*Nothing (Cake): 26 - 28 Apr
A Midsummer Night's Dream (SRT): 3 - 13 May
Broadway Beng (Dream Academy): 3 - 6 May

Just in case you read this

I don't care whether you think you deserved it, I don't care whether you think you were worth it. You were my perfect love and even your selfish choice and my newfound hate for you don't change that.

I will miss you, imperfections, feet and all.

I want us back so badly. Hope is a dangerous thing, but I'm holding on to it tight as I can, for now. I will wait, but only for a while.

It's over

We've come apart, and I'm losing my mind. Actually, 'we' didn't come apart; he has pulled away. Four years, and it has come to a quick, unceremonious end.

It was 2am on 17 February 2007 when he left.

I've repeatedly entered many more words into this entry and erased them. I guess I have little left to say.

I'm broken.

I caved in and called him. I was going utterly batty sitting here, every single minute feeling like a tearing, torturing eternity. Only one more day till we meet but it feels so damn far away.

I called him, partly because of the paranoia that he might not be alone, but mostly for some semblence of normalcy. And, strangely enough, I just wanted to know how Total Defence Day went and whether it turned out as glitchy as predicted. (It did.) My heart literally heaved in relief when he said hello like any other time. It took a few minutes before getting really awkward.

And then I realised what was killing me about the phonecall. In part, it was the intense effort required for me to sound casual. But mostly, it was the fact that I couldn't talk with him as we'd always done. I couldn't do the verbal diarrhoea, couldn't download my entire thought pattern, couldn't put all the words down unfiltered and raw and honest.

I couldn't have him as the one person who truly understands me at the end of the day.

I couldn't do the one thing that I loved most about him. I couldn't talk to him. And that guts me. I could feel he didn't want to tell me things either. Sure, I knew how his day went, where he went for dinner, that he was going to bed soon. But I didn't know how he felt about anything. Only that he's "pretty much alright."

Where has he gone and why has he gone away? We were on the same path up to very, very recently. Why the sudden departure? I thought we wanted the same things. I guess either I was wrong or he was misleading me. There are other possibilities, but they are ugly; when I think of them, fear cuts me sharp and hard.

"Don't you love farce?
My fault, I fear.
I thought that you'd want what I want.
Sorry, my dear."

~Send in the Clowns, Stephen Sondheim~

Tonight I asked him how he's doing. He said he's alright. I sounded as casual as I possibly could. To my credit, throughout the whole conversation, I sounded pretty damn casual, which completely defied what I was feeling.

"I'm pretty much alright."

I casually replied, "Oh, that's good."

But I felt like screaming at him, "WHY ARE YOU ALRIGHT??"

I'm writing this here because I know he never reads this anymore.

Did you know that if you cry hard and long enough, your face will ache?

It's odd that we should part at almost the same time that we had come together.

My nose had failed me earlier but now I can smell the scent of him lingering on my arms, like it always does. What do I do? Put off taking a shower so I can smell him a few hours longer? Or scrub off all traces at once?

The picture above my desk is gone. The clothes and toiletries are gone. The bottle of wine is gone.

But there's still the denim cushion that he hugged and put both hands into the pockets. There's this chair I'm in that he was sitting in just two days ago. There's the table we made out on even before I moved in. There's the bed he shared with me. There's the bathroom he used. The living room. The dining room. The television. The kitchen. The elevator. The door. The car. The porch. The road. The path. The river.

The life.

There's no way to scrub off the traces.

I'll stay unwashed a while more. Just to smell him a little longer.

In a sentimental mood

Make that a VERY sentimental mood. Been this way all of these two weeks, goodness knows why. In a strange, reflective, romantic, erotic, at times neurotic state of mind, which rarely happens at all. Been having fantasies and images in my head all week, some of which are weird since they don't reflect real desires at all. I guess what was more important are the sentiments they evoke.

Ew. I feel like a sap.

It makes me want to write. Story after story after story. But when I tried one night after a wonderful image sprang up in my head, I found that I didn't have half the words I needed to write it the way I wanted it. Lacking the right words makes me feel so impotent. What I've done is written done a few images in my notebook (longhand, hardcopy), hopefully I'll get to writing about them sometime soon. One of them has the potential to become a book - let's see if my inertia will step aside to allow that someday.

I wonder if it's because I want something more. I'm happy with my life, but perhaps it needs to move and change. Every time my life (or some part of it) stagnates, I keep wanting more even though I'm a creature of habit who thrives on the familiar. Was watching "Shall We Dance" on DVD yesterday, and, cheesy as it sounds, it struck a chord. The protagonist tells his wife that he hid his desire to dance from her because he felt guilty for wanting to be happier. Perhaps that's what I feel right now. Something has stagnated. I want it to keep evolving and changing. If it stays where it is because this is as good as it gets, the only logical way for it to go from here is down. We need to do something about it.

Meanwhile, I'll take advantage of this mood to write. Writing in sentimental moods and times of dissatisfaction is what drives the best of prose.

And why am I perpetually so hungry today?

Young 'N' Kawaii

Well...maybe Kawaii 'N' W!ld. Even without the aid of any significant amount of booze (relatively), we always manage to be silly and profane. Friday night at my place proved it.

The unlikely sight of both Eleanor and QC revealing their inner Japanese schoolgirls.

So infectious were they that Candice could hardly contain her joy.

Ghaz boogies so hard that the camera can't keep up with him.

Audrey finds love.

Audrey mesmerised by her new love.

And speaking of Audrey and love...

It sure felt weird (and ticklish) to have Auds caress my ass while proclaiming her desire.

If you thought Y&W was filled with kantang, you weren't wrong.

(The exact words uttered were: "Oowoop! Oowoop! I am a baked potato! Heeeee!!")

What? You mean you can't spell Young 'N' W!ld with your butt while singing Mary Had a Little Lamb either?

(Sorry for the sideways view, but me too poor to pay for software to correct it.)

Terence shows us that CB radios can be a metaphor for anything, including foreplay.


The fibreglass dog in my living room proved too sexy for El to resist.

(Sorry again for the sideways view.)

The last video is too big for me to upload. If you want to watch QC show us why men with poor coordination shouldn't pole dance, I take requests for private viewings.

After that marathon (yes, it is a bloody marathon if it ends at past seven in the morning), I'm so ready to sleeeeeeeeeeep in tomorrow.