film crew

Today a documentary production crew came to the office to film a short meeting between a comic artist and me.

Before I left the house Mummy told me that it's not important to talk so much about what kind of comic books sell, it's more important to tell artists to tell their story sincerely and to encourage them to work hard at their craft.
It feels like I talked a lot but even now there's still thoughts racing through my mind - all the intelligent things I should have said.

Ah well.

hoover dam

we don't talk anymore but some of the dopest shit i've ever seen was with you

Late Nights

When we lived in London I spent a lot of time staying up late alone in my room, on my laptop or occasionally opening the window to smoke a cigarette. I could spend those hours working quietly or wasting away time online shopping or reading articles or whatever I wanted. 2AM wasn't late at all then, and there were days I literally didn't go out or see any sunlight.

Later on I had much earlier hours to keep but the more I dreaded going back to the office the next morning, the later I stayed up. This made me more tired and feel worse the next day. It's been going on for years and I care less and less what people think of me nowadays but I still wonder what it really means to live and work from this space I inhabit, this human form, that is more like a cave on certain days.

There are so few things to believe in you just end up spending all your time obsessed with them and ignoring everything else...

Marx

It's been a while. I keep feeling the urge to write, to record what is happening and to make clear my thoughts. I'm not really happy about doing it here, but this will do for now.

This weekend a lot of things happened, we did a presentation as FRIENDS at the Substation which felt like a very unusual situation, both in expected and unexpected ways. Before, during, and after that afternoon I had very different, though consistently complicated thoughts about the competition. They have not been manifested adequately so far, and I will need to do more work on it.

For now I want to note that I think that it is a good experience where one's mind is changed, and it seems this evolution is still unfolding. Also, I was unsatisfied with our work but still glad we made the attempt. There wasn't enough time and work done... For what? ... By what standards?

Mummy came down and listened to our presentation and stayed for most of the public jury. We left together at the end.

Today Mummy and I talked in the car, bought groceries, and walked around hand in hand. I also read a manuscript, visited a comic fair, talked to some artists, bought some comic books, and read one in the evening. Going to sleep, I thought about Marx, about labour as a form of human expression. There are some ideas that are the very core of my person but haven't been unpacked sufficiently to guide my career, which is an ongoing frustration. But I'm very sure that in the last few months we have somehow moved forward.

东风破

你们还是小孩子，你们不知道什么是悲。

Fever

I like to write when I am sick
I like to write when my hands are weak
It is one of the things I might do well
Something people can keep when I go to hell

Dreams

I was handing in my things and getting ready to leave the office but somehow there was something I had forgotten. So I was going down the lift and up again and walking in and walking out, over and over again. Was it raining? It felt humid, dark and a little cold. Why would any of this be happening at night, anyway? I woke up thinking about being in the 24-hour mini-mart. In the harsh white florescent light H turned around to me and said that my cheeks were red. When I looked at my reflection in the glass door I had an odd feeling. Little black eyes, pink cheeks, then red, green, orange stripes. A girl, hot and wrung out in a blue wrap dress, covered in insect bites and sweat. I opened the door and waited outside, standing away from the street. Earlier when we were crossing the two lanes C grabbed me around the shoulders, nearly dragging me across to the other side. I had blanked out right in the middle while staring at the headlights that were coming from both directions. When we were standing on the other end he looked at me and apologised for his forcefulness. He didn't actually finish a proper sentence. I knew he was concerned for my safety so I was grateful. At that point my mind hadn't come back to me completely. I actually never react well to force, my first instinct is always to recoil. The reason why C had to drag me was because I had nearly pulled away from him in the middle of the road when he tried to hold my arm. We walked into the mini-mart and C pulled a few bottles of mineral water from a shelf in the corner of the store. It was a familiar feeling, I thought. An odd comfort. In our years of knowing each other we have really been all over the place with each other, so many crappy 24-hour places with this sort of lighting. At the cashier counter H was asking the shopkeeper in broken Bahasa if they had any fresh eggs.

Fiction

I was a guest of the groom, who was nowhere to be found. The wedding was beautiful and mostly over. There was still music playing and one cheerful bartender still manning his station alone. He told me that he had only woke up at five in the afternoon, and that after the wedding he was heading for a party at a fairly remote but trendy warehouse club. He was good-natured enough to invite me to join, seeing that I had come for the wedding alone. "No pressure at all, man! Think about it and let me know anytime if you wanna join, I'll be here!" To be polite, I said that I would consider. While doing so I walked back to my seat and was stopped midway by the bride herself, all white and lace. She looked a little emotional. A few locks of hair had fallen out of her elaborate hairdo and grazed her chin lightly.

"I don't know you," she stammered, slightly out of breath, "or do I?" She was holding me by the shoulder and had not let go by then. I noticed that without her shoes on she was quite a few inches shorter than me in height. She did not know me and in fact, we had never met before. I was a guest from out of town, an old friend of John's and we had not seen enough other in a decade.

She looked perturbed for a moment but her expression changed again. I realised then that we were the only two people standing on the makeshift dancefloor. "Do you want to dance?" she said, looking right at me. Before I said anything she put her arms around me and started singing softly with the music, "Loony moon loves Moony Loon, Moony Loon loves Loony moon." 

Placing my hand on the back of her head, I whispered into her ear, "Are you ok?" and the Moon Princess pushed her face into the bend of my neck and her muffled voice said, "Yes, everything is great, isn't it?" "Yes, it has been a beautiful night, and you are very beautiful. Everything is great." We continued our slow dance, barely moving and not speaking for a while. Then she started singing again at the exact same moment that the music stopped. "Loony moon loves Moony Loon, but at noon there'll be no moon." 

Joshua Tree

The Lautner

Filbert Street

One way to manage my mental health (aside from pathetic attempts at self-medication) is flying into wherever in the world X is and then hiding myself away, alone, knowing that if anything bad happens she is close by. We can go everywhere together and do anything together. I feel more like myself with her than when I'm alone. People who don't have a twin might not understand that we weren't born alone into the world. As far as individual consciousness goes we are as alone as anybody else but in all external experiences we had each other, for most of our lives. 

In the past few years separation has been necessary and beneficial to the both of us. She is still the one person I talk to about everything and anything. We are very dependent on each other that way. Flying to the US twice a year is no issue thankfully as air travel keeps getting more affordable and I deeply enjoy the long haul flights where I can stare out of the window watching hours go by. 

There are places in my head that I visit less and less but they are still there waiting patiently for me. I keep a safe distance away most of the time but once I'm too close that's it... I know that a few days later I will come out the other side okay but when the monsters feed it really takes a lot out of me.

Tempered Glass

Came back from Hong Kong last week. Good to be home. It's a public holiday today and all the markets are closed. Didn't have time to plan much so just took things as they came along and spent time with Papa in the morning and Yi in the afternoon. Talked with Mummy when I got home and that was it, a whole day spent, and I will go to sleep.

Floatation Tank

The idea that there's something wrong with you suggests that there could be a way to be right. But you're just the way you are and nobody cares whether you're fine with it or not. 

You love him very much so everything is okay and everything is good. The rain is falling. The chair I am sitting on has created imprints on the back of my thighs. Some hot tea would be nice, but those cups have gone cold in the last hour. 

Beng Mealea

Some notes: 

Beng Mealea was built in the 12th century and is one of the few ancient Khmer temples where no restoration work has been carried out. Close to the base of Mount Kulen and far away from the ancient city of Angkor, the temple was used as a fort during periods of conflict in Cambodia. Most recently, members of the Khmer Rouge had used this temple as a hideaway, laying mines in the surrounding forest. The area has only been recently cleared of mines. In its semi-abandoned state, moss and lichen grow freely on piles of collapsed sandstone. Trees, some taller than buildings, have appeared inside and around the structure, roots tightly hugging the remains of the temple. The structure that once took tens of thousands of men to build and carve is now largely destroyed and dangerous to explore on foot. 

We could only navigate around and above it on a creaky wooden boardwalk. The towering trees and monolithic piles of heavy stone sitting amid an ocean of grass and flowering weeds possess a sublime quality, a magnificent and mysterious beauty that tells an epic history of empires that possessed the greatest power to create and destroy. For all of this, what is most breathtaking of all is nature's persistence, an unending love which makes this place and all things beautiful. Visiting Angkor Wat and the other ancient Khmer temples has been intense. I have been continually overwhelmed with wonder and awe, most of all here at Beng Mealea. It was like stepping into another world, entering a portal into mythological pasts. I do not think I will ever see any place or any thing like it again. I will certainly never forget it.