midnight run

Earlier this evening we watched inglorious basterds and for some reason it left me feeling very hungry.

So i dragged canadianboy out onto lindabeilu, the streets dark and empty, bits of trash stumbling gently down the road in the cold wind.

There’s nothing better than roadside hotpot on a winter’s night. Mushrooms, sausages, fishcakes, beefballs, bits of mystery meats all on sticks —unbelievably spicy, slightly dirty, doused in sesame sauce and mouth-numbing szechuan peppers, I love them all.

And it occurred to me that it is very good to have someone to walk out with companionably, in the dark and cold, in search of roadside hotpot suppers.

But then a thin little stray dog followed us home, looking yearningly at our lamb skewers and it damn near broke my heart.

I wish that every single living thing on this earth on this night was well-fed and warm.

oh the cuteness

his expression at roughly 37 seconds is priceless

its a blessing to want what you have

“Dear Leonard.

To look life in the face. Always to look life in the face and to know it for what it is.

At last to know it. To love it for what it is, and then, to put it away.

Leonard. Always the years between us. Always the years. Always the love.

Always the hours.”
— Michael Cunningham (The Hours)

this post was written some time ago

It snowed again today, a flurry of white noise outside the windows. I walked to the tiny vegetable stand across the apartment and stopped to look. Beyond the circular confines of my umbrella, the world had turned white. It was everywhere, gilding everything in a purity the world does not possess. It looked utterly cold and utterly beautiful.

Later, I chopped tomatoes and mushrooms, potatoes and bell peppers for minestrone soup. It’s a ritual I haven’t performed in months. It occurred to me that the last time I chopped these exact vegetables for minestrone soup, I was standing in my bright, clean kitchen in Apartment 140, College Square on Swanston. Except this time, the mushrooms were chinese instead of portobello, and I had to stew my own tomatoes because I couldn’t find any canned ones.

Sometimes I think of SATC and the part where Carrie Bradshaw says wistfully: If I met me, I wouldn’t know me. And I think of the night we went to watch the movie and Loris and I sat outside my building after, talking about friendship and forgiveness and whether or not bonds can last.

And I think about the ways in which my life has changed and the things I no longer do. I think about how I cannot stop thinking and worrying about the future.

But most of all, I think about how I cannot shake off this feeling of failure, that far worse than disappointing anyone else in my life, I have failed myself somehow.

Because if I met me, I wouldn’t know me.

tak bisakah kau menungguku, hingga nanti tetap menunggu

So it’s december and once again I’m left wondering where the year has gone. It’s such a familiar feeling, a mixture of loss and regret and lately, more than a little of panic.

Where is my life going? Now what? What do I want?

I came to beijing to look for answers and I can’t say that I have found them. Maybe I’ve been asking questions to which there are no answers, but I’m beginning to think that they aren’t even questions in the first place.

Anyway, the only observable outcome of this year has been my pathetic writing output. It was a mixture of starting a new relationship and going through new experiences which at the time I had not the distance to process. A lot of it was also due to the great firewall of china which made blogging (and virtually everything else on the internet) inaccessible.

But I’m back now. My thoughts and my voice and my one-finger typing — they’re all back now. They came back slowly and crept into my dreams as I slept and said it’s time to start writing again.

So I hope you’re still out there somewhere, the eyes to my words.

avoid bright lights

There is a tiny window of blogging opportunity where my proxy server seems to be functioning but I’m afraid it will close any moment.

So, this blog is pretty much dead, thanks to the great fucking firewall of china. I can access it once in a blue moon but I’m trying to decide whether to keep it alive in a half-dead state or shut it down altogether and wait until I get out of china to start blogging again.

Btw, how ridiculous is it that china blocks the wikipedia page that lists all the sites banned in this paranoid country?

if i am lost for a day try to find me

am having a blah day.

In a way, it’s actually worse than having a bad day because at least with a bad day there is anger, drama, tears, possible throwing of heavy objects. A blah day is just…well…blah. A bad day can be rescued by a pint of ice cream — or my preferred alternative: a shot of tequila. On the other hand a blah day doesn’t warrant the unneccesary intake of calories nor does it seem to justify having your head in the toilet bowl puking alcohol.

I think it’s time for a nap.

note: this post was written some time ago.

you are the reason that i still believe

The thing is there is never a time when you will be more honest, when your convictions will be stronger, or your motives will be more pure than they are right now. Which means you should chase whatever excites you. Be confident, and take risks, and paint over my words so you can start writing your own. My story may have inspired you, but I’m certain your story will inspire the next girl to live in our room. I want you to know you don’t need somebody to write about you in order for your life to mean something. You can write about yourself… make your own destiny. Then years from now the next girl will keep what you write on that door long enough to remind you how inspired your life is. And you can tell that girl to paint over the door because you realize the words you wrote, the friends you had, the urgency you felt will always be there under the paint. The love you professed will always be there, the spark of something undeniable, a seed of hope, the truth for better or for worse burning fiercely just below the surface.

- oth, s4.

right now he’s probably buying her some fruity li’l drink cos she can’t shoot whisky

Passiveaggressivenotes.com

Perfect for when you wake up cranky and need release.

And what might make one cranky, you might ask? Noticing that in September 2009, one wrote a total of TWO, count ‘em, TWO blog posts.

What the hell is wrong with me.

the ephemera of every day

A complete deprivation of good coffee and cigarettes has robbed me of my life energy. My limbs melt away into folds of softness, all the air seems to be sucked out of the room and I am left grasping weakly for inspiration that just won’t come.

As usual, the closer it gets to december, the more anxious I become. Every time I write the date I feel a jolt of surprise and then, an inexplicable sense of depression, of time passing irretrievably by. Chasing time, yet again.

“We may all have stopped smoking, but we continue to burn”
Luc Sante