Nights of Formication

The air was cool next to the sea. It carried well the nervous laughter of people who had met for the first time. Long periods of uncomfortable silence. Their eyes flitted about the darkening coast, resting not on each other's face for fear of awkwardness. Their minds raced though, in want of saying something sharp-witted to break the uncomfortable silence. Well, it wasn't really a true silence, it was scattered with the sounds of a little boy slapping at his legs, muttering 'damn bugs'.

Of course, as the night wore on, they grew more accustomed to each other, and words flowed more freely. There still was the sense of mindfulness about what they said, but that only goes away between good friends. There was more talk and laughter, but beneath all that there still continued the slap and smack and 'damn bugs'.

Fortunately I have reinforcements

Again, mentor chytah comes to save the day with his innumerable wiseness.

Imagine I want some dough. I have people under me who pay me money for god-knows-what reasons, but it isn't enough. So I get these people, who are giving me their money, to work and toil and labour.

Let's say that I put them in a sweatshop, making origami paper cranes. They aren't paid, in fact they pay me, so my little workers are more than a little disgruntled. QC is non-existent, the average paper crane looks more like something out of a pretentious little art student's trashcan-of-failed-dreams-that-so-could-have-made-it-big.

Anyway, what I do is I sell the paper cranes back to the people who made them. They have no choice but to buy and give me more money. It's of course, for a noble cause, the weenie worker welfare watch.

The money just rolls in and I have more big cool stuff built in my name.

Queen quote #41123

I got no feel, I got no rhythm.
I just keep losing my beat.

But I'm okay, I'm alright.
Ain't gonna face no defeat.

Just gotta get out of this prison cell.
Someday, I'm gonna be free.

I'd gone running at an ungodly hour in search of the girl in the dream.

Didn't see her, din't expect to at all (hope springs eternal notwithstanding).

But fate throws you the strangest cards sometimes. Instead I met the girl from forever (really forever) long ago.


She even pronounces my name correct after the decade.

on maturity

I initially wrote 'on growing up' as the title, but it brought to mind some channel 5 drama from years past. Never watched the show, but every commercial, without fail, had some crying woman pulling at the shirt of a man wearing a pink polo-t and striding determinedly out of a redecorated phua chu kang house. I remember that as being very tacky, so I changed the title.

Growing up means learning things that one would rather never learn. Like the fact that movies and comics are fictional, so ugly guys don't end up with pretty girls, and you can't really dodge bullets or become super-strong if you irradiate yourself.

One also discovers that there is a mystical link between the buying of food and the consumption of food. It's called cooking and it requires years of training. The money plant that you have believed in all your youth also happens to be a myth. Tough.

I read in some book in Borders that you can tell the age of people by their position in a double-deckered bus.

If you sit on the top deck, in the front, you haven't grown up yet.
Top deck, at the back, you've grown a little, you're a teenager.
Top deck, in the middle, you're a young adult.

Bottom deck, at the back, you've grown up, you're an old fogey.
Bottom deck, in the front, you're ancient and when you go to the museum people think you're an escaped exhibit.

Bottom deck, in the front right, you've probably grown up to become a bus driver.

More adventures in the concrete jungle

They did have one thing in common:

They had to prove themselves to themselves.

One, that he has it,
The other, that he still has it.

One returns triumphant and content,
The other is a little confused, in not a much better state than the one in which he came in.

The good part was that the scent still lingered despite the physical distance. It instiled an energy and vivace much like a shot of adrenaline. As well as some dopamine, when the good memories associated with the smell were recalled.

Club Med is awesome.

On responsibility

Now this is being written long after the initial flames which were my inspiration died out. Now I'm merely trying to stoke the dying embers. With each second that passes, the will to pen something down fades, just like with so many other entries that failed to publish.

Maybe the object of my life is to shrug off as much responsibility as I can. I'd love to go running in the middle of the night, to see what the city looks like then. I'd love to stay out late without fear of danger or intemperance or immorality.

I could continue writing, but I hardly feel like anymore.

All dressed up... and?

Heart of summer, I still smell the grass. I still hear the lines of the dream in the night.

It distracts too much.

sad fat and bald

I sit here in the eye of the storm, surrounded by all these overachieving people. To my left is my best friend, just returned from some international competition which he won hands-down. He's in the school rugby team. He scores inhumanly high grades for every subject he takes, and most embarassingly, for some that he doesn't take anymore. Most embarassingly because I take them myself, spend hours every week poring over them, yet still don't do as well. Women pine for him. He plays 3 different musical instruments. I just sit in the huge dark shadow.

To my right is a similar person. Scholar. Artist. Overachiever. Everywhere I look, it's success story after success story. How do I compare? I shan't even try to mention.

I realise that sitting here complaining ain't helping. Even if you're on the right track, you'll still get run over if you just sit there. Will Rogers.

But is it wrong to be envious when you're the scrawny black sheep among all the golden-fleeced?