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.