I usually have my nose in a book while I’m on the bus, but today on the number 12 I looked up in absolute boredom from Garden State (you know how some authors channel all their great writing into their first book and their following books are never as good? Well, Rick Moody isn’t one of those authors) somewhere just past Kallang MRT and noticed a classy establishment named “BJ Massage”.
“Ah, Natalie Portman. She was sexy. And then she grew up.”
– My boyfriend
Experiences from the weekend:
I was briefly distracted from my ongoing affair with Graham Greene by other books, but I’m firmly back in the arms of my lover now with The Quiet American.
I always feel somewhat unworthy of commenting on Graham Greene’s books, because it is so blindingly obvious that he knows more than me, thinks more deeply than me and writes with an elegance and economy of words which no commentary of mine could ever have.
So all I will give you is a resounding recommendation, and three very short excerpts which don’t do justice to the book at all, but which can at least be quoted here out of context and still understood. They’re all observations by Fowler, the English journalist. He’s the detached world-weary cynic, and Pyle (referred to in the first excerpt) is the idealistic self-absorbed “quiet American” dipshit who fully deserves to have started off the book by being dead.
* * *
“Dear Thomas,” he wrote, “I can’t begin to tell you how swell you were the other night. I can tell you my heart was in my mouth when I walked into that room to find you.” (Where had it been on the long boat-ride down the river?) “There are not many men who would have taken the whole thing so calmly. You were great, and I don’t feel half as mean as I did, now that I’ve told you.” (Was he the only one that mattered? I wondered angrily, and yet I knew that he didn’t intend it that way. To him the whole affair would be happier as soon as he didn’t feel mean – I would be happier, Phuong would be happier, the whole world would be happier, even the Economic Attaché and the Minister. Spring had come to Indo-China now that Pyle was mean no longer.)
* * *
“It takes a long time before we cease to feel proud of being wanted. Though God knows why we should feel it, when we look around and see who is wanted too.”
* * *
“Who’s Joe?”
“You know him. The Economic Attaché.”
“Oh, of course, Joe.”
He was a man one always forgot. To this day I cannot describe him, except his fatness and his powdered clean-shaven cheeks and his big laugh; all his identity escapes me – except that he was called Joe. There are some men whose names are always shortened.
I got my eyebrows threaded for the first time today, and I think I’ll never go back to plucking. For $5, I no longer have to squint into my bathroom mirror with tears of pain running down my face as I brandish small sharp tweezers dangerously near the windows to my soul.
Instead, I get to lie prone pulling my eyebrow skin taut with my fingers as a beautician rips entire lines of my eyebrow hairs out at a go. Then she mops my tears of pain up with tissue.
It’s a total upgrade.
Selected quotes from a great thread at I Love Music: “Honestly criticize your favourite bands/artists”
[My contribution: “Kim Gordon sounds like when a homeless person comes onto public transport rambling to herself, and everyone else averts their eyes and hopes she doesn’t sit down next to them.” And then I put Sonic Nurse on and within the first 10 seconds of Pattern Recognition (track 1) I was sorry for what I’d said.]
[I have been meaning to get off my lazy music-writing arse and GO WILD about Sonic Nurse here for a very long time now, but every time I put the album on and try to write about it as I listen, its awesomeness takes over and qij;onvau su/ojcfaeuo aow93nksn;ru…]
As usual, I woke up late, threw on some clothes, grabbed my bag and headed out for my morning lectures. Later, I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror and was slightly horrified at my indie conformity – black Sonic Youth T-shirt, black plastic specs, bedhead hair, copy of Garden State in my hand. If I were a jock, I’d beat me up.
So tomorrow I’m wearing an orange halter-neck top and skanky hoop earrings. Better ho than hipster.
London is the meanest ex ever.
I’ve spent the past year trying to get over our breakup, trying to convince myself that I’m happy with Singapore. Sure, this new relationship may not be as passionate or exciting or bloody-fucking-gorgeous as London was, and yeah there are still awkward silences on most of our dates even a year after we started going out, and yes it’s true that I spend most of my time and energy trying to avoid its hot sweaty hands, but at least Singapore is safe and reliable and it’s trying its best.
Who needs passion once you’re past a certain age anyway? You don’t need fire in your loins, you just need to be able to share a five room HDB flat¹ without killing each other. I can exist in Singapore. Who needs to live?
If I repeat this to myself several times a day I even begin to believe that I believe it. And then I find out that Battleship Potemkin will be shown on a huge screen tomorrow in Trafalgar Square, with a new soundtrack performed live by the Pet Shop Boys. For free.
I know London’s moved on and is having a great time without me, but this is really rubbing it in.
¹ Public housing
In two weeks, Casey the kitten (full name Casey Underfoot) has managed to worm his way into everyone’s affections, to the extent that even my usually taciturn father has been sighted jiggling around singing “Look, Caseykins, nice juicy slippers!” (The cat is obsessed with his house slippers and stalks them incessantly. The rest of us theorize that they must need a wash.) Meanwhile, my mother, whose nine cats of her youth never knew vets, worming tablets, or flea powder, has borrowed three cat books out of the library and we’re taking him to the vet for his first checkup this week.
At dinner today, Yuping informed me that she wanted more kitten photos, and I’m only too happy to oblige.
To anyone getting sickened by all this cuteness, I can’t promise you less kitten pictures, but I will at least point you in the direction of Clay Kitten Shooting, where my current high score is 76. Beat that, mofos.
Two snippets of Singapore from today.
#1: I Donno Where Is This Democracy
Me, getting into taxi: Hello, Parliament House please.
Taxi driver: Where?
Me: Parliament. Parliament House.
Taxi driver: Near where?
Me, perturbed: City Hall.
Taxi driver: Oh, so take ECP¹ then Rochor Road?
Me: Yes.
Taxi driver: After that you direct me hor. I donno where is this Parliament House.
* * *
#2: Racism 20% Off
Young friendly male sales assistant in a earring shop in Bugis Village: This one you like or not?
Me: Mmmm, not sure. Maybe something a bit longer.
Sales assistant: You dare to wear like ke ling kia or not?
Me: What?
Sales assistant, waving a long dangly earring: This one, like ke ling wear one.
Me, finally understanding what he was saying²: No, it’s okay. Thanks.
¹ An acronym for one of our expressways
² Ke ling is a derogatory word for Indian