Lame Shit

It was a Wednesday night in February. He had come over to smoke a  cigarette, late at night, for the fourth time in two weeks. After that they went upstairs to her bedroom to talk, him sitting on the floor again while she sat in bed. 

After 3am she asked him what was going on and he asked if he could have some soup. She got out of bed and made him a bowl of soup, but nothing happened and they both went for class the next morning and she waited for him outside on the sidewalk wearing a white furry sweater and a blue pencil skirt. 

At his place they lay on his bed, not touching and barely talking. He lay opaque on the other side and didn't look at her. She thought all right I'm going to leave. Nothing's going to happen like this. 

Derivatives

Most recently I have been thinking a lot about derivatives and applying the basic concept to ideas in my head about perception and reality. There is what is, and what is perceived which also is. The state of being belongs to an infinite of things. It is infinite and it is inifity. Zero doesn't exist. Nothing can be derived from zero except itself. I am tempted to think there is one thing which all things are derived from but that sounds religious, and I don't know what that could possibly be. It should be zero, but the relationship doesn't make sense. It is something related, but nothing can be directly related to nothing. 

I know derivatives to measure how one variable changes in relation to a change in another variable. The derivative of a constant number is zero because it doesn't change. If all things have to be derived from one thing, or is the one thing, then it means that matter and perceptions and people and thoughts are also derivatives and also only a measure of how one thing changes relative to another. I look at your arm and the experience is not relative to one thing, it is relative to time, light, space, and hundreds or thousands of variables at work. Even dimensions are infinite to discover as I look at your arm. But for common use it seems 3 and a few more are sufficient. Not all of them as obvious as what we know. 

Nothing exists absolutely. Even the most material or abstract things. Maybe only zero. 

Actually the only real use I find for this thought right now is that it's changed the way I imagine relationships and ideas visually in my head. It used to be a disconnected cloud but now I see points and derivative curves and a big big big round sphere of infinity. 

More importantly I guess if everything is derived from another then it becomes even clearer that nothing exists independently. Nothing can stand on it's own strength. And everything does and should matter to anything. 

"Do you feel like your life is one thing that's happening continuously or more like whatever flood of crap that flies in your face every day when you wake up?"

The idea of life being a united, singular and ongoing event isn't really working out for me. In the city I feel like things keep happening and taking me along with them, especially compulsions to escape what is my real life that are growing stronger and stronger. Even my legitimate responsibilities are also a kind of diversion, or evasion from something which would supposedly be more real. It creates a real confusion where I can't tell what is important and what isn't anymore. And it seems to be getting worse as the lines of reality blur in my experiences and I don't know what is and isn't, anyway. 

Shek O

We took a taxi from our hotel to the beach. We got out a bit seasick from the mountain roads. When we walked onto the sandy beach it was cloudless sunny and the sea glittered.We laid out a straw mat and lay on our tummies side by side.  The sun was bright and our jeans got hot. I looked at you and everything was great. 

I didn't say anything

Until the words came out of my mouth 

And now they are gone

Thought

I always need things to bounce off for practice so that when I find something I can really sink into I can only go higher than before 

My Fabulous Career in Finance

On Sunday morning I got out of bed and kissed his sleepy face goodbye and went for driving class. Parked a couple of times and my driving instructor told me that it wouldn't be bad marrying me, because I'm cute and earn a lot of money. After that I took a long train ride back to Bishan. My dad picked me up just as it started raining and along the way home I jumped out to buy flowers at the market. I picked two yellows and one bunch of white chrysanthemums. At home I took a shower and we waited for the rain to lighten up and then we went to the columbarium to visit my grandmother. For these few weeks while her soul is still hanging around with us, she's being taken care of in a special section of the compound with some of the other recently deceased where food is laid out and incense is lit daily.

We left the flowers in a vase next to her photograph and lit a joss stick each. My mom straightened them out and told me we have to do that otherwise the ashes will fall out of the sides of the pot and get on the table.  

Can't Get Over It

IT FEELS LIKE I ONLY GO BACKWARDS LATELY

EVERY PART OF ME SAYS GO AHEAD

I GOT MY HOPES UP AGAIN OH NO NOT AGAIN

FEELS LIKE WE ONLY GO BACKWARDS DARLING

Triptych

mmy

Last night my mother and I ate Thai food and she took out her iPhone and showed me a note that listed down all the important dates and events in her life, then she put it down and started recounting her life from the beginning to now. She talked a lot about her aunts and growing up and we talked a bit about the evolution of political ideology and Marx.. Heard it all before but it never feels that way.

We went to her office after that and she took out an enormous Chinese painting titled "The Universe Painting 1/10". We rolled it out on the carpet and it was really magnificent, but she wants to sell it because the business isn't doing well. It's been sitting in a corner of the office for years and years.

On the ride home she got into a discussion about Buddhism with the taxi uncle but I was too spaced out to stay in the conversation. He started by explaining a bit of his view on life and telling us that the teachings of his faith were something really profound. At the end of the 15 minute ride the uncle was laughing and thanked my mother for teaching him something. I handed over the cash and went upstairs.

In our living room I stuck a candle in a cupcake and sang "Happy Birthday" with my sister on FaceTime. She blew out the candle and we talked a bit more before I went to sleep.

81

He came back. Sleep has fallen out of favour as the primary love of my life. I don't make plans to see him but i take twice as long to get dressed in the mornings. I sit at my desk and save files in the wrong folders. Time passes more quickly but I fidget and watch the clock. Everything looks like I have tunnel vision and the most immediate thing to me now is his face screwed up in a laugh while forcing handfuls of Haribo gummy snakes into my mouth. I would have been laughing as well but I couldn't or I would have choked. Have you had to eat a full mouthful of gummy snakes at once? It's so sweet.

8 x 8

the ENFP just wanted somebody she could sit with on a curb and watch the world burn

8

Determinism works both ways. Why precedes the proposition and how follows. Everything in the past may have led up to this point but it is not known that they did until now. You were walking out of the door but that could not be said until your shoulders had made it past the door frame. The door shuts behind you. Before this moment it was true you were walking towards the door but you had not walked out. 

You turn around to see see that you are truly and really no longer in the house. The night is cold and dark and the only light you can feel is burning somewhere you're no longer welcome. The darkness stretches on in its infinity and you walk and walk and walk. You feel like you're being swallowed, but not digested. The pace picks up into a run but there's no out running darkness, stupid inky hole that traps the sensible. Everything is lost. Nothing is all around you and inside of you. It never ends.

Excerpt from The Power of Money

Assume man to be man and his relationship to the world to be a human one: then you can exchange love only for love, trust for trust, etc. If you want to enjoy art, you must be an artistically cultivated person; if you want to exercise influence over other people, you must be a person with a stimulating and encouraging effect on other people. Every one of your relations to man and to nature must be a specific expression, corresponding to the object of your will, of your real individual life. If you love without evoking love in return – that is, if your loving as loving does not produce reciprocal love; if through a living expression of yourself as a loving person you do not make yourself a beloved one, then your love is impotent – a misfortune.|XLIII||

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/power.htm

LAST WEEKEND

WHY DO YOU CRY SO MUCH
CAN'T YOU SIT QUIETLY AND WAIT FOR ME TO COME BACK

SO YING DID YOU TAKE A SHOWER LAST NIGHT?
WHY ARE YOU STILL WEARING THE SAME DRESS
AH I SEE YOU CHANGED OUTFITS TODAY

COULD YOU PLEASE
MANY THANKS
MUCH APPRECIATED

HELP HELP
COULD I GIVE YOU A CALL BACK?
IS (THIS)== WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR?
THANKS, I'M DONE

HI HI
THIS HAND SHAKING IS GOING TO GET DIFFICULT
IT'S A SMALL WORLD

MISS WHICH EXIT DO YOU WANT TO TAKE?
TGIF THANK GOD IT'S FRIDAY
ARE YOU GOING TO WORK TOMORROW?
THE HAZE IS BAD
LEFT OR RIGHT MISS?
GOOD NIGHT

DO PEOPLE CALL YOU.. COWGIRL??
YOU ARE VERY CARTOON
LOOK NO YOU DIDN'T LOOK
YOU LIKE TO ACT HERO AH YOU

HYLLIS
NICE TATTOO FOLLOW ME MISS

I'M BUSY RIGHT NOW
I'LL CALL YOU BACK LATER

Easter Weekend

When I turn away from my book I can see my boyfriend's knees and the back of his laptop while he writes some law crap. Reminder to self I had the happiest day yesterday doing nothing except waking up, cooking three square meals for my perennially malnourished partner, and reading in the sun(indoors, with my head and book poking out of the duvet). It was 5 degrees Celsius outside. Springtime weather in London this year is pretty much a joke or a total nightmare, depending on your attitudes in life.

In the last 48 hours I have read half of Cloud Atlas which is admittedly a good novel but I just cannot say I love it. When did I stop falling in love with every single book I read? When I turned 18 I read the Great Gatsby and spent the next nine months reading nothing but Fitzgerald. There were other books in between but I didn't bring them with me on flights or in bathtubs. I suppose I had a change of heart when I started reading philosophy and gave myself away to Aristotle and Marx.

Piles(literally, piles!!!) of novels sit on my bedside floor slowly becoming furniture. Book recommendations from my friends have pooled in an unending iPhone memo I am ashamed to revisit. But if I do not love books how can I be my mothers daughter?? This year I will swallow novels until I learn to feel again.

Dayang

With girls you never really know, but when I first hung out with her I already kind of knew in my heart it was something pretty special. Nothing magical happened while we ate fried chicken, but it was a moment of comfort knowing that it was still possible to find a girlfriend out here by myself, while my dearest were not so near i.e. overseas where it still feels like pieces of me are stranded (if you read this and know I'm talking about you, i miss you a lot) while I have stupidly washed up on the shore alone a little bit too soon.

So I have been trying to help with a broken heart and it's been a bit weird, our 4 language conversations go in all directions and sometimes it's hard to know if I even really understand what we are saying to each other. But at the end of the day, when it comes to boys, all the girls I love are pretty much the same as me: a little crazy, too impatient, prone to crying, more feelings than body mass to hold it all in........... I am going to be sad this July when she goes

S

I took my turtle out of the tank to change its water and felt guilty for not spending time with it but it's so hard spending time with a turtle.

When I picked it up it drew its little arms and head into its shell. When I held it up in front of my face it just sucked its face in even further. I get it, it's not really a comfortable situation for it. But there's no way I can see it on its own familiar terms because it is in my house and lives in a tank I've been cleaning weekly for the last 8 months or something. I just hope that it knows that I love it, not that I really love it in a big way but I want to take care of it, feed its little body and give it a home.

Honestly I didn't really like turtles ever. My sisters and I had turtles when we were younger and my dad brought us to a reservoir to release it when it looked like we had gotten bored of it. I don't remember being particularly upset about it.

So when I ended up with this turtle I didn't ask for I didn't really know what to do. When my dad saw it he remarked that I should just set it free but well, I couldn't do that so I put it in the tank and kind of stared at it for a while and tried to figure out what it would like to.

I put a bunch of rocks in the tank for it to climb around on, so that it can move around and climb and swim and basically keep an active lifestyle. After a couple of days I threw in a couple of colourful glass pieces so that it had a little bit of sparkly fun stuff to look at. Then a few days went by and I threw in a ball of amethyst which was pretty indulgent and also was a gift from my mother but I didn't mind because turtle seemed to like pushing it around. It made a lot of noise but it was good knowing things were moving around in the tank, and when I took the ball out for a while it was my mother who said the turtle seems to miss playing with its purple crystal ball.

Any way what I do when I clean the tank is I let the turtle run around the shower area and it always does the same thing, it runs into the corner nearest to the window and keeps running up against the tiled walls making scratching sounds with its amphibian legs. It looks stupid, but it makes me feel quite sad.

I really don't know what to do with the turtle, sometimes I wonder what's the point of keeping it in the tank and I wonder if it would be happier swimming in the reservoir. I don't really think it's safe, and I think it would miss the food and the amethyst ball, but everybody should have a chance to experience it for themselves, isn't it? Even if I wanted to keep it here that wouldn't make it right. But at the same time it's not my place or my responsibility to throw it back into "the wild". The turtle landed on my doorstep when I didn't ask for it and I can't ask for it to leave either. That's what happened and this is what is happening and that's why I know what is going to happen. Turtle and me, we're only going to be apart when one of us is dead.

The days are long but the weeks are short, and the months pass in a blink. It's almost as though I've spent all my time trying not to think.

I like this poem

a is for apple
b is for bear
c is for children who hardly care