I dreamt of being infested with my dog's ticks. In my dream, the ticks had evolved, and were no longer single red bulging dots with six legs; they were with three jointed parts, like ants, and had ferocious teeth - ferocious as in it looked like it'd hurt a lot if I were bitten - and looked blood thirsty.
I woke up being a little afraid.
The next day, I kept feeling ticklings on different parts of my body especially on my armpits, my private part, and the part of my back I can't reach enough to scratch properly.
Now, the paranoia has died off, and I don't quite still feel the tickles. I don't rule out the possibility, however, that a couple of ticks are living on me - there're quite a few places to hide - especially if they stay still so that I won't even detect their crawling motion. I mean, like afterall, I don't remember the last time I took a good look at my back.
When I do consider it, the idea of having a couple of ticks on my back is actually surprisingly alright. It's kinda freaky, but really, I should have enough blood going around to afford such "pets".
Maybe if I stay still enough they would breed and breed and one day, there would be ticks all over me. I'd be like I'm covered in red scales - except that they're actually ticks. It's kinda gross, but if I stop thinking that ticks are dirty and disgusting (which they're not inherently), it can be kinda cool. If I were all covered in ticks I'd probably get into guiness books of records in a new catagory and appear on reuters or something.
Sunday, 27 December 2009
Saturday, 12 December 2009
Ah Hoi on the Train
Ah Hoi held on to the train handle tightly and stared out of the window. If he concentrated hard enough, he could see the walls of the tunnel and tell the cables apart. He should find it interesting, but it was just difficult... he couldn't help noticing that people were standing too far apart from him like there was a radius - an invisible shield or force-field - that was repelling people from him.
He looked at his own reflection and reminded himself that he did not care.
He did not care that people would not want to be close to a man with tangled long hair and a mangled beard. He was a man whose clothes from Kek Sng Kio bore a smell that could not be removed with repeated washing, and did not fit well enough such that he had to tighten his khaki cargo pants with a raffia-string-belt... His rugged Jansport purple and turqoise backpack that had been with him since his sailing days, that he had carried with him for the past twenty over years from port to port, smelt like rotten fish in the air-conditioning of the train and that other people would avoid rotten fish smelling things... To him, these people were just shallow.
And it was because of their shallowness that they would never know him and they would not get to know the secrets he keeps - secrets about the great sea - stories he picked up during his sailing days.
Once, his ship sailed past a small waterspout that was just beginning to form. He was close enough to stick his arm into it, and to feel the tug of the air that made all of his hair stand up. It was foolish and not to be recommended, so he didn't mention it to anyone. Sometimes, when they were sorting out the trawler catch, Ah Hoi would steal a starfish and put it into his pocket to bring back to his room to tickle the underside and be amused by himself. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, he would go to the deck by himself to lie down and find the moon so bright it was glaring to look at...
He should feel that his life was everything meaningful and beyond the materialistic pursuits of the average person. One day, he should meet a nice girl who would look pass the appearances and appreciate him for who he is - He is romantic, responsible, and wise. A girl whom he would not have to pay after sleeping with her.
Until then, there, on his way to Cathay Picturehouse to use the free internet point to play "Farmville" on Facebook, Ah Hoi felt lonely.
He looked at his own reflection and reminded himself that he did not care.
He did not care that people would not want to be close to a man with tangled long hair and a mangled beard. He was a man whose clothes from Kek Sng Kio bore a smell that could not be removed with repeated washing, and did not fit well enough such that he had to tighten his khaki cargo pants with a raffia-string-belt... His rugged Jansport purple and turqoise backpack that had been with him since his sailing days, that he had carried with him for the past twenty over years from port to port, smelt like rotten fish in the air-conditioning of the train and that other people would avoid rotten fish smelling things... To him, these people were just shallow.
And it was because of their shallowness that they would never know him and they would not get to know the secrets he keeps - secrets about the great sea - stories he picked up during his sailing days.
Once, his ship sailed past a small waterspout that was just beginning to form. He was close enough to stick his arm into it, and to feel the tug of the air that made all of his hair stand up. It was foolish and not to be recommended, so he didn't mention it to anyone. Sometimes, when they were sorting out the trawler catch, Ah Hoi would steal a starfish and put it into his pocket to bring back to his room to tickle the underside and be amused by himself. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, he would go to the deck by himself to lie down and find the moon so bright it was glaring to look at...
He should feel that his life was everything meaningful and beyond the materialistic pursuits of the average person. One day, he should meet a nice girl who would look pass the appearances and appreciate him for who he is - He is romantic, responsible, and wise. A girl whom he would not have to pay after sleeping with her.
Until then, there, on his way to Cathay Picturehouse to use the free internet point to play "Farmville" on Facebook, Ah Hoi felt lonely.
Saturday, 5 December 2009
22 Nov 09 - Mostly Cloudy with NW Winds at 14.something kph
When I was young, they would say, that Singapore had only two kinds of weather - it was always either sunny or rainy. "It's boring," they would say, and I would echo, "to only have Spring and Summer." So what if the birds would migrate to Sungei Buloh to hide from the cold? And our equatorial climate supported growth of the spices - precious commodities that the Ang Mors had to come here to trade for. I wished that I lived somewhere that had the four seasons - four seasons like what I saw on the TV, in movies, in books. If you also grew up reading Archie comics, I'm sure you'd empathise with how I felt left out reading about the snow sculpture competitions (Jughead would almost always be making a sculpture of a hamburger and Betty of Archie) and how Lil' Jinx might be making snow angels...
Having two kinds of weather was boring, because it meant that I didn't have the chance to put on more clothing or see the trees change colour or have a childhood with snow angels. If you also grew up reading Archie comics, I'm sure you'd empathise with how left out I felt - to be growing up in Singapore.
In Singapore, it might have been possible to lie down in the sand pit on the playground to make sand angels - but it's not quite tempting. The occasional beer bottle cap poking out of the sand was usually enough to set our imaginations on the defensive mode - that the sand is clean enough to run about barefooted and not to think about what else could be living in the sand. Besides, having grazed my knees on the sand deterred the idea of lying down and rubbing my limbs around on the ground... (Now, snow angels must seem even more remote because playgrounds are tiled with those sissy spongey cushions.)
Another common reason to wish for the four seasons was the imagined entitlement to a wider variety of clothes. Autumn and Winter clothing in fashion magazines always look great. They promise to hide body flaws and make everyone look more pensive and melancholic. With autumn, anyone could have the rights to sensibly own three dozen scarves and a blue coat just like Paddington Bear's. One could have twenty-seven cool sensible hats and seventy-two sensible sweaters in a variety of styles. One would even have a pair of sensible ice-skates...
Yet, today, I'm not sure if you noticed anything... but today, the weather was a little bit strange. It might have started last night, but in the morning, the winds were already blowing hard. It seemed, that the winds were from different directions - sometimes from the East and sometimes from the North or West. The trees, if you had the chance to look at them properly, were swirling. It's really interesting, you know! Swirling trees.
Sure, other countries might have swirling trees too, but would they have swirling bougainvilleas from overhead bridges next to swirling iron tree hedges next to swirling pong pong trees? Would they have trembling orchid plants and jasmine plants outside your neighbour's home in the common corridor?
It was all quite cute to take note.
And I realised that having only two seasons doesn't make any place any more boring than a place with one million seasons.
Then again, perhaps a million seasons are quite hard to beat... but what I mean is, happiness lies in the details, and we all just need to know what works for us so we know where to look.
Honestly, do I wish for Singapore to have autumn and winter? So that I could match a colourful South American woollen poncho with a black turtle neck top and my new Uniqlo jeans? No, and why not? Because I know how expensive it would be to maintain a wardrobe for four seasons and how much more wardrobe space I would need. What a hassle it would be to manage all that?
I'd much rather be spending my afternoons watching the wind.
Having two kinds of weather was boring, because it meant that I didn't have the chance to put on more clothing or see the trees change colour or have a childhood with snow angels. If you also grew up reading Archie comics, I'm sure you'd empathise with how left out I felt - to be growing up in Singapore.
In Singapore, it might have been possible to lie down in the sand pit on the playground to make sand angels - but it's not quite tempting. The occasional beer bottle cap poking out of the sand was usually enough to set our imaginations on the defensive mode - that the sand is clean enough to run about barefooted and not to think about what else could be living in the sand. Besides, having grazed my knees on the sand deterred the idea of lying down and rubbing my limbs around on the ground... (Now, snow angels must seem even more remote because playgrounds are tiled with those sissy spongey cushions.)
Another common reason to wish for the four seasons was the imagined entitlement to a wider variety of clothes. Autumn and Winter clothing in fashion magazines always look great. They promise to hide body flaws and make everyone look more pensive and melancholic. With autumn, anyone could have the rights to sensibly own three dozen scarves and a blue coat just like Paddington Bear's. One could have twenty-seven cool sensible hats and seventy-two sensible sweaters in a variety of styles. One would even have a pair of sensible ice-skates...
Yet, today, I'm not sure if you noticed anything... but today, the weather was a little bit strange. It might have started last night, but in the morning, the winds were already blowing hard. It seemed, that the winds were from different directions - sometimes from the East and sometimes from the North or West. The trees, if you had the chance to look at them properly, were swirling. It's really interesting, you know! Swirling trees.
Sure, other countries might have swirling trees too, but would they have swirling bougainvilleas from overhead bridges next to swirling iron tree hedges next to swirling pong pong trees? Would they have trembling orchid plants and jasmine plants outside your neighbour's home in the common corridor?
It was all quite cute to take note.
And I realised that having only two seasons doesn't make any place any more boring than a place with one million seasons.
Then again, perhaps a million seasons are quite hard to beat... but what I mean is, happiness lies in the details, and we all just need to know what works for us so we know where to look.
Honestly, do I wish for Singapore to have autumn and winter? So that I could match a colourful South American woollen poncho with a black turtle neck top and my new Uniqlo jeans? No, and why not? Because I know how expensive it would be to maintain a wardrobe for four seasons and how much more wardrobe space I would need. What a hassle it would be to manage all that?
I'd much rather be spending my afternoons watching the wind.
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