The False Sense

After you cry there's always this odd sort of peace. You sill feel everything that made you sad in the first place, but you're too tired to go on tearing up and heaving and shaking, so you're just breathing. In and out you breathe, for that moment your body is forced into a false sense of calmness. Your mind is blank, and the only evidence of any emotion at all are your puffy eyes and stuffy nose. What now? What now? What now?

Boy From Ethics

I taste salt through ripped jeans
pink tongue over brown skin
I dream to create my reality
your day ends while mine begins
in mirrors I see your face in mine
where in poetry I see justice
my fears were sealed in a crystal jar
so I don't have to carry it with
so we still fall for gods
while we safeguard our distance
and I cherish the shadows
where I lurk in the darkness
with eyes shut I still see
lights - like desire
we set prayers on fire

Voice

I enjoy that every time you start a new book, it takes some time before you're accustomed to the author's voice. The first few pages always progresses the slowest, as if you've met someone foreign and is still in the process of figuring out their accent. The way they use breaths and phrasing, whether they enjoy short bursts of information or long, flowing descriptions. Sometimes they're warm and makes you feel like you're curled up in bed listening to a story by a kindly grandmother, sometimes they're cold and harsh and makes you feel dirty inside.

But after a while, when you're used to the author's voice, a wonderful thing happens. The words sort of disappear into the pages and instead a moving picture starts forming in your head. It's as thought your eyes aren't seeing the words any longer. Your eyes are still moving down the page but your mind is a step ahead of your eyes and its a movie you start seeing. You're allowed to cast anyone you want as the leads and supporting characters and the protagonists and the antagonists, but somehow they're always already cast in your mind before you start reading. I love that we bring our individual experiences to 'viewing' the book-movies, and that a hundred different people may read a book and walk away with a hundred different experiences, whereas a hundred people watching a film all see the same film. 

Such is the magic of words.

2012 Delights

Some delightful finds that tickled me jollies in the year 2012: 

Book  - Grace by Grace Coddington

Remember when you watched The September Issue and completely fell in love with the big-haired force-of-nature named Grace Coddington? The Creative Director of Vogue, also known as the only person who could stare Anna Wintour in the eyes and still maintain possession of her soul, released a memoir about her modelling and later editorial work in fashion. 

She begins by saying how little she wanted to be involved with the filming of The September Issue, and absolutely hated the intrusive nature of the camera crew. She was in fact horrified that she became the second most featured person in the documentary apart from Anna, but saw how the movie opened people's eyes to the creative process in shooting a spread. She had stories to tell, and boy are they fascinating. Her extraordinary life is like a who's who guide to designers, photographers, models and celebrities, and I loved the way she describes the inspiration for her beautiful photo-shoots. 

I found her writing is accessible and descriptive without becoming too alienating, and is often humorous, especially when talking about working with Anna. She presents a softer side to Anna that we don't hear about, or rather, wouldn't want to admit that she has, because we love nothing more than to villianize her. She isn't disillusioned about fashion being anything more than what it is, and wouldn't claim that fashion is anything as lofty as art, but appreciates it as a medium where designers convey their sense of beauty.  It was an engrossing read and her life of jet-setting to exotic locations for work was totally escapist for me. 

Vogue 2009 December Issue, Grace Coddington as creative director and Annie Leibovitz as Photographer

 Movie - Pitch Perfect

I adore movies about underdogs beating the smug popular kids, I'm obsessed with Rebel Wilson, I lactate with excitement for well-arranged acapella music, and I go balls-out crazy for absurd humor. It was as if all the planets had aligned for this movie, if planets were things that I liked and I was the Sun and all the planets did things just to please me and they made this movie to satisfy the needs of the Sun. (I enjoy metaphors with me in the center of everything.) 

The movie's about a fallen collegiate acapella girl-group fighting for the championships in acapella (which is apparently a thing), and they need the new surly girl who has all these great ideas about mixing songs but all she wants to do is be a DJ and wants nothing to do with your lame-ass harmonizing. Every line in this movie is laugh-out-loud funny, and when I say laugh-out-loud I really do mean you'll laugh, not just exhale more air out of your nose the way people do when they find something mildly funny. There's this really creative scene where all the acapella groups on campus come together and have a riff-off, where to win your group has to cut in with a song that begins with the last word of the song the previous group was singing.

The music's great, the movie's so adorable and I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'm in love with Rebel Wilson.

   

Album - Night Visions by Imagine Dragons

If I were to compile a list of my favourite albums released in 2012, naturally Celine Dion's Sans attendre would be right there at the top, but that's predictable and gushing about how perfect it is would be too simple. 

An album that surprised me was Night Visions. I don't usually listen to many alternative rock bands, but their melody is addictive and their songs are all consistently powerful. It's Time was the first song I heard by them, and I was just instantly hooked. Now I listen to their songs when I want to imagine myself walking through a post-apocalyptic wasteland and striding through the bones of my fallen enemies. It's my go-to album when playing stuff from my iPod for someone else, it's universally loved and makes them think I have good taste in music when in truth I just want to spazz out to some One Direction.

My favourites from the album includes Radioactive and Demons.

Song - Read All About It (Part III) by Emeli Sandé

To explain my love for this song, I have to first explain what an OTP is. In the thrilling and scary world of internet fandoms, you ship characters (fictional or otherwise) that you believe would make a good couple, and the one you believe in the most is your One True Pairing (OTP), and if your shipped characters or celebrities do get together, it becomes canon. 

So my OTP is Louis Tomlinson and Harry Styles of One Direction, and they are collectively known as Larry Stylinson. I know that both of them currently have 'girlfriends', but just remember that Ricky Martin used to be a womanizer and Lance Bass had 'girlfriends' till he was 22. There are many things I can't do but spotting the gays is something of a specialty of mine. The way those two give each other lingering eye-fuckings in interviews is just begging to be noticed. While I respect their decision to keep things on the down-low as their career is built, after all, on making girls think they'd be able to get hard enough for penetration, it's quite sad that their managing company seems hell bent on suppressing this beautiful love. 

Which brings us to the song, which seems just perfect for their situation. Reportedly Louis cried watching her perform this at the closing ceremony for the London Olympics, and just imagining him singing this to Harry makes me want to tear up. (I really should get a hobby.)

 

  

Real Conversations

It's New Year's Eve, and I'm sitting in the backseat of a friend's car. His dad is driving, with his brother riding shotgun. The dad asks where the brother is going after this, and he replies, "To Haley's, believe it or not." They make some joke about how unbelievable it is that he would rush off to his girlfriend's at first chance. 

I observe this exchange with a sense of wonderment. I have never, nor do I think I will ever, had a relaxed conversation with my parents about my dating life. My dad wouldn't go, "hey where are you going to tonight?" and joke with me about how often I'm at a boyfriend's place. The very idea of being open with dating in-front of one's parents feels alien and bizarre to me. All my life I've been conditioned to be evasive and flippant about who I'm seeing, or become defensive. I envy the authenticity of their exchange, and I value it.

Grandpa Leaves

It was the night after Thanksgiving when I received the news. I had been checking my phone for new messages and emails every few minutes, because for whatever reason I just had the strongest feeling that I was going to hear about my grandpa soon. It's the second Thanksgiving I've spent with the Piehlers, family of two of my PiLam brothers who adopt me every November, and sure enough, in the middle of a movie about Christian Bale fighting dragons, I saw an email from Dad. The words were simple and to the point: Grandpa passed away at home this afternoon: 25^th November 2012, 13:14.

"My grandpa just died." I said in a somewhat monotonous voice. "I'll go give my dad a call." 

I excused myself and closed the door of the study behind me, while dialing my dad's cell. Our conversation was short and strangely was in English. Perhaps using grandpa's native tongue would feel too close to home, so we both avoided Chinese. "Call mom," he says, and for the first time I hear his voice crack. I'm extremely susceptible to being influenced into crying if I hear someone else cry, and it set me off. By the time I dial the number for mom, who was in CQ at the moment with my grandpa, the sobs were coming on full force. 

I sat on the pull-out bed, white-knuckling the phone, trying to make coherent phrases but failing. At that moment I feel more distanced from my family than I ever have, feeling like I couldn't do anything for the people I love, feeling alone and isolated. Grandma was crying as she tells me to take care of myself, to not worry. I texted Damian for that was always who I went to first, and his words were calming. 

For the most part I felt a sense of relief. I had been dreading this moment ever since Grandpa's diagnosis of lung cancer. Mom flew over to help take care of him with Grandma, and since then I haven't been able to regularly skype with my parents since my Dad stayed in Singapore to teach his classes. I remember one time where I just felt overwhelmed by everything I had to do at school and needed to hear a familiar voice, so I gave mom a call. She started crying the moment she heard my voice, which of course set me off as well. Both of us were bawling before either of us even said anything. As she regained composure, she said that grandpa was getting worse and he couldn't even speak anymore. Grandma holds the phone up to his ear and I was calling out to him, and faintly I heard him say my name in a raspy whisper.

I'm relieved that he isn't suffering anymore from the pain and humiliation cancer puts one through. I'm relieved that my mother can finally return home again after she has performed above and beyond her duties for the in-laws who have never treated her fairly. The uncles from my father's side, with their good-for-nothing attitudes, have always claimed that the only thing our family ever contributed to my grandparents' well-being was money, that they're the ones being filial and taking care of the elders. In my mother's entire stay with Grandpa, the rest of them showed up for a total of maybe three times. They've since then gotten off their high horse and shut up about who's put in the most effort. It's just sad to me how fake or shameless they are, lying through their teeth about issues that don't merit argument. 

I'm not religious and I don't believe in heaven or hell. I don't think Grandpa's now floating in the clouds sipping on his favourite baijiu. But I do believe in the power of transcendent relationships, and I know that as long as one of us is still alive, then the love that existed between us is still thriving. I believe in taking a well deserved rest after the toil that is life, and I hope that he has finally found peace.