Fourty

Do you Journal ever? she asked.

I do. 

I did. 

I recall doing.  

Though, how exactly I did, I do not.

I pour myself a drink. I put on a film. Another drink. 

I get lost. I'm a little annoyed at how dependent I am on a format. 

This is my last month as a 40-year-old, and next month I will be 41.

I am still in Advertising. I am 6 years married. I am a father of 2. I am in New York City. I am the owner of 2 homes. I am a Creative Director. I am a Board member of my co-op. I am an Asian American. I am a man with a drinking problem. I am a Dreamer. I am working in a basement with Pink Eyes. I am this  ego, this idea. 

I am a dreamer of the American dream. 

I am a constant American hangover. 

I am driver to a car to a cabin, to a life I never knew I could have had.  

I am watching the swans, the geese, the robins, the heron, the sunrise. It's powerful, it's magnificent. 

It's evern better with coffee. am I awake? Am I still asleep? Am I in Byram New Jersey? Is the world ending? Is it on its side lying by a lake?Is this the forrest by the sea? 

I love my boys. 

Their Childhood, a canvas. 

Not mine, not all mine. 

Publish.

The Happiest Hour

It was deep in winter.

Snow pours over the sidewalks.

She is hooded like a jedi in a cowl at the closed entrance to a douchey cocktail bar I'd picked to seem a little more ... colourful? I liked that it was a play on words: "the happiest hour" and I'm 10 minutes too late. It's closed for a private event and She's not happy.

I'll never forget her lifting the snow speckled cowl and staring into her giant, scorching eyes.

"You're late" She says, "I was just about to leave"

We walk. Slowly.

Her steps deliberately small in the snow, reigning in my clumsy gate. As I ramble and throw suggestions around.

She lets me lead us to another bar without too many objections. I appreciate this.

She pays.

I'd forgotten to bring any cash to this cash only bar we'd chanced our way into. But three cocktails in, we are giddy and have exhausted most polite conversation.

I don't recall most of the details of that first conversation. Except that her dad was a cartographer in the north Vietnamese army, and she would occasionally break her demure front to randomly cuss at something. I liked that.

While she's in the bathroom, I strike up a conversation with the couple across the bar from me

"It's our first date"

They giggle, tell me they think it's going well, then snog.

When we leave the little branch, we're closer. Having run out of things to say, I suggest pizza.

I remember putting an arm around her, and her sinking into it. Then, remembering the advice from a friend, lean in for a kiss. A mouth kiss.

She likes the kiss,

We like to kiss.

This is good, every thing is great. Even the snow and not being able to get a cab is great. We held hands. We met on ok Cupid. We're​ about to get married. And so it goes.

Now, the happiest hour isn't just the name of a douchey bar we never got into, but also a pretty title for this post.

This American Story

A lot of people will bitch about America to you. They may also pitch it to you, as I am half heartedly about to do.

At the heart of it all you will remember not those bitchers or charmers, but an impression.

Not just their impression, but yours.

You may feel for just a moment your own gravity as a part of their big story.

Then you will wonder, why 'My' life was never a story till I came here.

Sure I've had stories.

But not like these guys.

Not stories that I could embellish and turn into an applause, or a date or even a dollar.

These are the abilities of the Americans, the reasons I came here. The Hollywood, the Disney, the Old Spice man, the Brian Michael Bendis comics. This is why I joined Droga 5.

I loved the relish, the tale, the wafting smells, the neon signage, everything that isn't the burger.

Tonight I sat in a bar of electrified bar of patrons listening to a story telling session. A 'Jam'. They weren't jaded or  patronizing, or the creative been here before types.

They were like me sitting at the first Starwars episode in twenty years. They were holding out for the flame. They wanted magic, they wanted to be set on fire.

And boy did it burn.

I watched the pyres, the puffs, huffs, rise and fill the room.

"What is my story!" I yelled (internally) and lamented.

Why have I written a blog with such excruciating public details,

but cannot I remember a public thing?

What is this yolk I'm swimming in that I can't articulate?

Whats keeping me alive?

Why are the why's all rhetorical these days.

Stop.

Click 'Publish'.

Share.

It never entered my mind

Numb.

Numb is how you feel when you press and you bang and thump, scratch, and scratch and rub

then It's ripped it's dripping. and I realize it was a part of you all along.

It was me. then it was numb. and now that it's all fucked up it's mine again.

It's not my America, it's not my country.

But it's my morning here. It's my reality.

My new unfamiliarity.

My new fight to remain. to be less numb.

Ryan's head sinks into his other shoulder. I feel the weight of his sigh.

I've become attuned to his breathing. In these unfamiliar mornings, it's one of the few constants I have. my eyes drift to his monitor,  some illegible activity in a chat box.

I ask if now is a good time. Another sigh.

Is it too early? Was that a sigh to push things? It turns out to be a yeah maybe.

Maybe* sighs. Maybe it is.

Hello day after the Day.

Hey there new president elect Trump.

Hot Scary Summer

I got my dream job in an interview I barely prepped for

I cycled 430 miles around the Adirondack mountains with a tent

I think I figured out the mess that is online dating

the tango is a sad thought to be danced.

So... I say

I've been thinking a lot about you, us 

I say this, interrupting the stream of lively trivia and excitement we always manage to work ourselves into. There Is a glimmer or recognition in her eyes. Is this what she knew all along ? The cafe shrinks. All of the week's melancholy boiled down to a sentence.

This isn't a breakup. It's a relationship rezoning - What a terrible term to have just imagined. 

But she leaps into place. Catching her falling dance partner in a soft familiar embrace I'd only recently discovered. 

She knew. Knows. She says she's ok, it's been on her mind. 

I'm sorry, I don't feel for you the way I want myself to feel about love.

I surprise myself with these words. Am I in love with an idea of love that's so different from what's really going on? Can it be helped? Isn't this the most terrible thing to say in this fickle age? 

Can we be friends?

Is what we're about to do possible? 

The lights narrow to a spot, we bow and exit stage right.

Tender

Jeremy's eyes and lips are clenched as he whistles into the microphone.

The crowd is transfixed by his whistling as a single parched guitar harmonizes to his whistling in the background.

His new wife lies sleeping on a straw mat somewhere beyond him, blissfully drunk on spirits and emotion.

Fairy lights streak the night sky.

This must be love, the portrait we came to see.

The after wedding after party where softer less articulate speeches and vows are exchanged on a dusty plaster rooftop in little india.

The night swells.

Lewis drops Old Cape Cod and love breaks out a wonky waltz between two very old friends.

I was scared of dentists and the dark

It feels like a life time ago since I was bored.

Not exhausted, not sad or contemplative or lonely or what's nexting.

Just plain stare at the ceiling fan, listen to the rain bored.

I'm lying in my childhood bed room in Singapore. The sky outside is gray and swollen with humidity.

This is the other part of the tropical island life I'd forgotten about. The slow inhibiting threat of rainy days in the monsoon months. The construction site cross from my bedroom has become metronomic background drone as different tools pitch in and out.

There are things I should be doing. Like checking my email or installing the new Far Cry on my PS4 or calling up friends and ex colleagues but there's no energy for that right this moment.

There's just the heaviness of my heavy face, eyelids and this mattress that seems to be rising in temperature with every minute. I feel the weight of the past year sitting on me.

I feel the absence of New York City.

The year has been a pretty violent romance with the city everybody loves.

My brain aches trying to explain get the details of the affair in perspective. When friends ask how life there has been I always start by saying 'great' and then add a word like 'frantic' or 'intense' a few seconds after.

This year has been frantic, fraught, turbulent, acute, arresting - all those dramatic words people use to describe a the moments before a cliffhanger.

But here I am - a little moist from the humidity and calmed by the idea of being boring for a little longer as the world spins slower and the year winds down for it's mid-season finale.

Send in the clowns

It was a soft conversation.

There were long pauses. Broken analogies.

Attempts to be romantic or funny just made me realize that they were the problem. Had I been joking and coddling so long that I couldn't tell life apart from the dream?

A couple can't share a bed with two separate dreams - these are the sage words of my parents.

In one dream we were brave adventurers in the new world. We seemed braver and more adventurous than when we were lying on the couch unable to decide on the next netflix movie.

I had a dream, we were in a pet store the other night.

I'd forgotten we'd broken up and in this other place we were in a pet store looking at the animals when you mischievously reach for a dog biscuit and began to eat it. In the dream we sampled all sorts of pet foods secretly. It was pretty romantic and I felt so edgy and happy following you. We sat there in the corner with little plastic cups full of pellets and mashes and pastes comparing them like a mixed bag of jelly belly beans.

When I woke up had to delete all the photos of us. It was so hard. I couldn't justify deleting most of them and chose instead to start with the random screen shots I'd taken of you on face time that you never knew I'd taken. you'd probably be happy they are gone. They were probably my favorite.

Its hard relating the break up to other people.

I can't remember the reasons I had for breaking up just the ones that make me sad.

And here I am

Tonight I'm writing from my new home in New York - a place I never ever thought I'd find myself when I started this blog - which updating seems to have become a biannual occasion.

I've lived here now for a bit over 6 months and have also turned 30 which means that this blog is around 8 years old - 6 if you consider the accidental reboot in 2005.

________________

"Experience everything."

This is what they tell you with a big grin when you come here.

Just do it. Carpediem. Carpe PM. Do it you pussy. Sack up, man up, hold your shit. Suck it up. Feel better. YOLO. Amazing a celebrity spot. It's divine, it's only the most awesome. fuck yeah, fuck this, too fucking that, best ever this. Check the huge tits, the nice ass. Where do you live? What do you do? How do you like New york?

New York has been wonderful but also very hard in many ways.

A bit like starting up the rusty washing machine my ex room mate bought second hand for 200 bucks from the last tenant. I can feel my whole being grumble and groan as it drudges old sentiments and emotions out of the basement.

Jealousy, love, aggression, inferiority, desire, spite, humiliation, machoism, hero worship, melancholy, vulnerability, loneliness, futility, the familiar sea of being lost in fleeting daydreams. It's all here, everyday, howling and rattling inside my passive aggressive frame that feels too feeble to interface with America.

What are the pounds, dimes, miles, gallons inspiration and arguments worth?

Feeling alive. Would be my short answer.

It's as shitty as high-school sometimes, but what a feeling it is to feel these things again.

The only constant I have is my work, love and craft. My long distance girlfriend, Facebook Family, Keynote, Photoshop, Illustrator and Copywriter furnish my iLife. They are all I have to hide behind, my reason for being. My Visa to stay.

Otherwise It's all new to me, every morning, every mouthful, every strange hour I'm up floundering, fighting for meaning in the sea of dreams, deadlines and agendas.

I am new here. This is me. I'm sorry, I'm just excitable, I should go find something else to do.

Bill & Eddie & the sea

My grandfather stood handphone in ear outside a small redbricked one-story unit, he stopped pacing as the call connected and though his jumbled salutations and disjointed nervous spurts of laughter, I could tell he was more excited than he'd been in a while...

'Um hi uncle Bill!', 'Hello..?'  "...Bill! yeah! we were just in Geelong and um, we're outside your house! Haha yes! actually the front door. ha!ha! no it was open! um yeah I called your name but nobody. Oh. Ah, Happy new year. yes, oh. Sorry, I didn't know you'd still be asleep. Yes we thought we'd surprise you. Oh heh ok.'

He's sheepish when he hangs up the phone and paces back over to us, where we'd been standing for the last 10 minutes waiting for him to reach the illusive Uncle Bill, a man who had served on several ships with my grandfather since the early 60s, and was now living in a small 4 unit retirement village in Geelong, a 1+ish hour drive from central Melbourne.

Uncle Bill, as it turns out is not one for surprises and was a little startled/ frustrated by the 11am wake up call from his old friend, family + grandson.

No Matter, he invites us in and my granddad begins a very slow but cordial unravelling of their collective histories. I sit on the corner of a tattered and slightly over crowded living room covered in hardcover books reading "NATURE! AT ITS WORST!", and stacks of technical magazine's like the local electrical engineer's digest.

Uncle Bill tosses me a silicone chip board covered in multicolored knobs and solder he'd been working on with one of those magnifying headsets people at electronic assembly lines wear. He tells me its form his radio that he's fixing.

3 hours on, we're driving out of Geelong and towards Cliffton Hill where uncle bill's son Shawn works. We pull up outside a industrial sized garage with all sorts of vehicles pulled up outside, including a Jetski, Speed boat, a corvette and a huge minivan with 'Shawn's Autorepairs' stencilled on the side of it in a flaming hot-rod type font.

Shawn is a pretty heavy set eurasian guy wearing khaki racer overalls and has a steel harley davidson ring on his ring finger. He'd been working on fashioning a shaft for a speedboat engine, and has to wipe the grease off his fingers several times before giving us handshakes and a quick demo of his machine shop - where he fabricates all manner of metal parts for engine and body repairs to any kind of vehicle.

He complains about how it's a damn shame how kids these days are so into computers they forget the importance of a basic knowledge of industrial and electrical engineering. I nod as I run my hand against the steel frame of a new wheel base he'd just welded together which will form the chassis for a new race truck he'd built from scratch.

As we leave Shawn pats my granddad on the back. 'You know Eddie (my granddad's name), a lot of my mates working the ships still talk about how hard you were on them.' My granddad grins for a bit and then gets bashful. It turns out he'd trained a lot of the electrical engineers and apparently had a reputation for being the strictest and harshest of the lot. Uncle Bill smiled a little and continued to pace around and admire he's son's latest engine block.

It was a long, slow and quiet drive back to Melbourne as it dawned on me how little I actually knew about my grandparents and how small my size felt. 

Best play ever, Man

We sit in a semi circle on Wil's double bed and facing Thom - the music nazi, perched infront of his laptop, staring at an indesign layout of name cards he'd missed out for the seating arrangement.

"TLC?" "Yes." "Neil Diamond" "No". "Neutral Milk?" "Ok..." "which song?" "Sure" "but maybe, but No." "We already have Pavement and a Beach boy's track." "Yes, but it's the medley".

"Sadly no."

We've been here.

7 years ago, it's the night before opening night of our Musical - Bugsy Malone. I'm perched over the lighting rails back stage in a black suit I'd purchased at Savers for $7.00. In my had is a hand puppet, soggy from nights of rehearsals. One of the splurge guns has malfunctioned. Thom is standing on stage in a green teeshirt and cap. He's moving animatedly, showing the actor their cues.

By 9.30 the execution is in order. Speeches are out of the way. Liberal amounts of alcohol are consumed. The meticulous planning has gone to plan with every song.

Hello again

Hello tiny room in my grandparent's house where I spent half of my teenage days feeling sorry for myself and my acne. Still with the colorful Scandinavian designed 80s duna cover, still on a 2 stack super single mattress where my great grandmother passed. Still with the world map sealed into the single drawer desk with the giant pink USSR still very much intact.

It's been a while.

In 1997 in the dim light of a CTR screen and to the constant 'uh oh's' of ICQ popups where the first boy-girl relationships were established. I'd sit here and sample my Grandad's liquor cabinet, playing Quake drunk while listening to Disco 2000 wondering what it'd be like 20 years from now.

Before Thom was about to marry Sally, before my grandma's cancer, before comics or playstation, or art, or advertising, or PLC girls, or anything. There was just this me in this room and a whole lof of hope and anger.

I put on Tripple J and then pull out a block of Super Sculpey.

At 3 pm I'm running through the sunny back streets of Camberwell, and as the warm scents of pine and eucalyptus grace my nose I feel the familiar hay fever sensations return.

By 4 I'm standing standing in my favorite part of the bathroom - infront of the frosted mirror and using my figer to make a picture around my face.

At 6, I sink into the lazy boy I used to have speed-reclining competitions with Wongo in.

The evenings slip away. But by 11 I'm back here in my bunk of a bed, sipping down stolen liquor from a honey jar, dreaming about where I'll be 5 years from now. It's almost as mysterious as when I was 14. and if I squint and squeeze my eyes together tight enough, I can just about see myself back as a tiny little zero, back to a tightened knot of hope and fury and kind confusion.

It feels warm and dreamy and for the first time in a long time, I sleep a deep sound sleep.

Reservations

When people stop to ask me why I look so tired, I generally respond saying "September and October were pretty long months". Trying to recount why feels a little like trying to recount the events leading up to a hang over. I'm sure they were good, fun even, but I feel horrible.

It began in the most unlikely of places, a club night I hadn't planned on attending where I'd meet a girl I'd spend most of those next months with, she was pretty and reserved and had a strange spontaneity to her that reminded me of a Travis song. There was always a familiar smell I really liked about her that I couldn't place while we were dating, but deduced weeks later was the smell of hair spray.

The next week was a blur of trying to finish up a piece for an art show and building up my guts to ask her out, 5am mornings and 3am nights were pretty regular as I worked myself into a trance of baking sculpey, and hours on youtube learning to carve miniatures. I'd go to Vietnam that weekend with my sister on what I describe as a 'business networking convention'. It was a strange weekend and we mainly partied with the other young folks and then tried to amble along slightly hung over through the day's jam packed programs.

I'd take comfort in texting sweet nothings and making very elaborate notes in a molskine diary that was given to me for Christmas, somehow it made the days pass with a little more purpose.

The week after was beautiful and I ate lots of rich foods as my new companion was a foodie, I fell asleep during many shows as she was also insomniac, and I started also started reading again because she was also an avid reader of fiction written from the point of view of children which was something that I never realized I was also a fan of.

Work was great, we'd cracked a way to do halloween for one of my key ad accounts and it was a lot of hard work trying to stitch it all up before Bhutan but it all got done and before I knew it I was with my mum, on a trip to a place I had no concept of. Dawns came early and the days whizzed by and for the first time in my life I truly enjoyed hiking and being a son.

There were 3 days between Bhutan and Bangkok, during which I convinced the her to come with me to a television commercial we were shooting there. What would have been a caper turns into a long drawn out ordeal, and instead of heading out to the promise of a wrap party, we're standing in the dusty midst of a set being demolished around us while supervising a water splash product sequence at 3am.

Bangkok is fun though - a little surreal with a slight tinge of pre-apocalyptic fear, but I'm starting to really get her sense of humor and odd fascinations.

I get back just in time for halloween, it's a manic saturday night and I'm ferrying 6 interns around in my car at we attempt to drop off candy and scare everybody in singapore. It's late by the time I'm reunited with her, and she's dressed in a giant plume of color. She says people mistake her costume for a feather duster, or a carwash spindle. She's actually a colorful witch, I laugh and call her carwash, before I head back home and drop her off.

October ends following Monday when she comes round unexpectedly. I'd been caught by surprise and still have my PS3 bluetooth ear piece in when she comes in. I tell the my friends playing Battlefield 3 to give me a moment as I receive her and open a small note she's got for me.

The fatigue I'd held off for two months falls upon me. And for a while, I'm spasming involuntary. And then I can't bring myself to wake up or get out of bed. And then it's like September and October never happened, and there's laundry to be done, gym class and sculpey to be baked and another campaign to stitch up intime for another holiday.

But there's also a book on my bedside table, the curious incident of the dog in the night time. It's a murder mystery about a dog written from the point of view of a slightly autistic kid.
I'm really enjoying it so far.

I also get this feeling that these two months will be how I look back on 2011.

Mr. Brightside

Once more I ran into the rain, this time with a waterproof arm band to keep a different iPhone dry.

It beats the plastic bag I'd brought along with me to run last time and I sorely needed the music to go on.

How far will Richard Hawley carry me today?

Damn far I decided - so now I'm doing the rather inconsiderate sprinting-through-puddles, splashing the slow moving lunch time pedestrians with each splish and splosh. fuckem' I decide because tonight the streets are ours.

I couldn't have been sprinting too fast though, because I feel a series of blunt jabs in the shoulder, and turning around I watch almost in slow motion a very tall and white haired middle aged caucasian man is chasing after me and prodding me with his umbrella.

I'm struck with fear as it crosses my mind that he must take revenge pretty seriously to hunt me down in the pouring rain.

But instead he slumps over huffing and puffing with a relieved smile, extending his arm to pass me the key's I'd dropped in my haste.

"I think you dropped these".

"Uh, thanks"  I blurt out, hesitating to retract my bad thoughts.

Hey, Thanks.

Journey to the happiest place on earth

It comes in flushes.

Like on Wednesday when I'm drenched. sweat is dribbling off my brow and dropping into my a disappearing greenlantern subway meal. It's not going so well.

This is a saying that's become more and more frequent in my life

It's not going so well, but it's going alright, and it's Okay.

It's just slightly less than what I'd hoped for and it's not great, but it's all rolling along.

Its eating me.

A few weeks ago, I was in the gym and when Marvin, one of the regular gym guys came up to me, and asked if I was on a mission. It kind of took me by surprise, but then I realized he'd meant seeing me in there everyday for the last 2 weeks. Did I have a goal? some kind of target maybe?

The truth was no, not really. I just wanted to feel something other than insecurity. So there I was in the gym for the 5th time this week struggling to do my 6th chin up, then swinging by subway to dribble sweat into a meal I'd picked out to feel the least guilty about.

It's a vast ocean.

I've amassed a stack of Greenlantern subway meal luckydraw coupons which come free with my Subway meal each day. one of them could turn out to be a trip to the New York comic convention. But I just keep them tucked in my wallet and can't be bothered registering them on facebook. A trip to the comic con would be nice though. Something to look forward to. something in the distance that I can't make out yet but is good. So I hold on to the coupons. They remind me of an unforeseeable, but yet untapped future hopelessly close, but statistically, quite far away. 

I'm sure it all has something to do with a failed relationship, a time ago. 

And for a long time now, I've been gluing together a makeshift life raft made from gym membersips, subway coupons,  rent bills, scamps, receipts for gadgets, a ticket to Bhutan and the random 'productivity' app from the apple store. All in an effort to try and cross this ocean before it washes over me. It's cost me, money, time, friends, and emotions too much damn emotion. 

So here I am about to push it out, frantically worrying if it will float. 

If it will sail, if it will be great

And if it doesn't - if I can still swim like I used to. 

The Virgin Suicides

At 5pm on Tuesday I'm at Pestbusters, finally meeting Peggy who is the singaporean equivalent of Janine from the Ghostbuster movies. She'd insisted I'd come round with the specimens (in spite of me sending pictures) and introduces me to her 'ops guy' Afendi - who would be played by Lawrence Fishburne if there ever were a Pestbusters movie.

Afendi and his colleagues sit around in their overalls put their pencils down and chuckle at the jam jar and it's inhabitants. I can't tell if they're laughing at me or them. Finally he walks over to where I'm seated beneath a giant fiber glass mosquito, and smiles gently.

"So, I'm pretty sure these are dry wood termites" thats not good "quite unlike their cousins the subterranean termite" he points at a giant fibre glass model of a fierce looking white termite mounted above his desk. Ok. "See this door here?" He kicks a heavy wooden door, "subterranean termites could eat through this in ... a week? Maybe days?" mmhmm "These guys?" he shakes my jar and cocks his head to one side "I'd say... 2 years." he hands them back to me in a hey! presto! moment "so don't worry you've got time!" he says returning to a smile.

I'm contemplating burning just my wooden bed and study table. My whole place is made of wood. Fuck. 

They'd just appeared one night. I finished work late and returned to find my room crawling with 100s of these long abdomened bugs crawling across the floor of my room. I thought they were ants at first but then they seemed too weak to even pull themselves up the walls. There was no distinct trail but I found a pile of little beige pallets under the study table, so I crammed all the pallets and about 20 of them into a jam jar and hadn't stopped googling or squishing termites.

Afendi's now a little puzzled. He strokes his chin for a significant amount of time before he comes up with a hypothesis:

Female termites leave their nests every season in huge swarms to find mates and become queens, a heavy storm must have blown them into my room. They must have tried their best to get by (the study table), but after several days of not finding any mates, got severely distressed and disorientated, and without the colony to fend and forage for them, they wilted, losing their energy and appetites, and thus not being able to even climb up a wall.

I was skeptical. But when I returned that evening I couldn't find anything resembling a termite. No pallets, no holes, nothing slowly struggling to get up a wall.

Just some wings, a few dried up husks and an acute sense of loneliness.

Now that I'm in your shadow

At night the mosquito net comes down and tucks into two corners of my bed.

In the morning, the blank white walls are stripped yellow by the slatted sunlight. Several alarm clocks are ringing in the distance as I cradle my head still slightly fragile from the night before.

There was no need for air con, so there's no need to switch it off.

After a coffee I walk down 6 fights of 6 steps and am welcomed by the fumes of old baby smells from the former owners of my car. Unlike other cars I've driven before, it's silent when I press the ignition button, and even though its ready to go it makes no enthusiastic roar or even a purr. Just the sound of fans and lights.

The 3G GPS is slow to register, as I pull off portsdown and towards the streams of cars east boud on the Ayer Rajah express way.

Work is a red and white office, cheerily lit and like the bridge of a starship in a scifi Role playing game (Wingcommander 4/ Masseffect) is bustling with activity not very consequential to the course of my narrative.

In the afternoon, I'm in a studio working on several polystyrene trees. there's a lot of really bad radio, followed by a news broadcast, followed by a lot of googling japan + tsunami.

There are many images, but the one that sticks with me is an imagine of a man who owns a porcelain shop and is picking up the pieces.

We don't discuss it in much depth, it makes for pretty unusual banter for a while before we exhale and get on with it.

Back in the office, I'm going through my birthday email. One's from a Japanese colleague of mine, time stamped only hours before the quake. Thankfully, not currently in Japan. I reply with a thanks/condolences letter. And she remarks about the inappropriateness of the email subject line.

Its only then that I realize my strange birth day-after relationship with this disaster.

I find it hard not to confuse parallels now. Trying not imagine waking up hung over and walking out to find myself standing in the shadow of a tidal wave.

My quiet car, floating in a sea of grey.

Bits and pieces of cake covered novelty gifts.

An inbox full of wall posts and e-cards that wouldn't be accessed for a while.

That surely it was someone else's birthday in Japan on March the 11th.

We didn't turn around

My Grandmother on my Father's side died yesterday afternoon.

And just like a well rehearsed nation wide defense drill, people scrambled like fighter planes, contorting their way out of tight corners and mobilizing before my aunties house where she lay, a little more quietly than she had before. I could hear Chopin's Nocturne in G minor play out.

The next morning Kristin, a colleague of mine told us about her brush with death when her villa in Bali had exploded due to faulty Gas main. I sat transfixed by the proximity of death, as I watched her hands move excitedly mimicking the spray of glass. The story was funny and it was told in a charming manner, but I couldn't hep but think back to the afternoon before.

Before I'd understood why I was holding my grandmother's mouth shut - because riga-mortis would set in soon, and we wouldn't want her jaw to be hanging open when she was put in the casket.

The flesh under her jaw was warm to touch, probably warmed by the heat of my auntie's hand which had been holding the jaw shut before me.

There was a moment I was about to cry.

But I didn't.

I was afraid to ruin the intricate performance.

The awkward but stoic last performance, the grandest final scene.

I held her face tight, as I struggled with my face to contain the tears I'd already started making since I'd flagged that taxi to get there.

HEEERE'S JOHNNY!

Mixed papers, foamcore and Acryllic.

Done for "R3DRUM" - an art exhibit inspired by Stanley Kubrick's 'THE SHINING'
Organized by Steve Lawler

And... HEEEERE'S KENNY! (my Dad)

Footsol's latest blemish

The team crest for the Singaportly Pirates, captained by Marc Wei and Cristened by Oliver Eden Green.

We sat down, wrote emails and made birds.

    Clay, canvas, paper, feathers, felt & acrylic

    Outfits by Lin Ong. 

Rain

The rain made things wet, and the wetness in turn woke up new sensations.

A squishiness in my socks, the spray from a moving bus. It brought about a sense of urgency and reduced us to animals, hunters, a massive flock dispersed and fanning out for shelter and warmth.

We ended up in an art gallery, a new bike shop, a spotlight, a seven eleven. We chained out bikes to a tree when the guard told us we couldn't use the carpark. We skid through a hail of traffic, and finally I did what I never thought I'd ever do, and sat in the driveway scrubbing down my bike with Jiff, grazing my knuckles on the gear box. It didn't matter, I felt alive, furiously scrubbing grease off metal, not being able to distinguish the sweat from the rain. The hot shower that followed was the best shower ever, so was the icy cup of Ribena.

Later that night, we couldn't get into our local club-house restaurant, there was a 10 meter queue of people - presumably this had something to do with the rain as well. so we ended up at trying some new dishes across the road. I had braised duck noodles. We all ate heartily, and didn't think too much about calories or dieting. It was a nice change.

New thing

Its 2010 and things are different.

We sat down last night to try and plan our trip in May, changing calendars, waiting for websites to load, I walked the block with Doug looking at gyms, and counted the things I ate in a day: Two cups black coffee, three cans of soda water, a chicken sandwich with thin mayo and whole meal bread, 4 jellybeans in red delicious, butter pop corn, tropical bubble gum and cherry flavors, Soy joy bar, and a bowl of noodles.

As far as the 'official records' are concerned, I'm still off cigarettes (10 months and counting) and off beer for at least until I reach a satisfactory weight and can fit into my skinny pants again without fear of overhang.

The things I've set out to do this year are small. One thing in particular, is listen to the news instead of my iPod. This was triggered out of a moment of panic when I realized that I didn't recognize Time magazine's Man of the year 2009 (Ben Bernanke). The other ambition sounds slightly stupid, but it's to participate in more public social networking discourse. I've found myself becoming more and more socially withdrawn, both virtually and in reality. So I'm going to try and attempt to comment on your facebook pictures and read my digests instead of flicking straight to messages and events. I guess that means trying to remember my twitter login.

So this suddenly doesn't sounds like such an exciting year anymore. but trust me, deep inside me is a frigid little cyber person who's just too afraid to join in, and he's trembling with fear and renewed post-Social-networking re-enthusiasm.

And if I haven't said it to you yet in an effort to make conversation : Happy new year !

Hips and Hoorays

"And we have sign off!"

Says our TV Producer bouncing over towards us at 4pm today.

Christmas eve was spent in the Singapore tourism board office presenting the final print ad ideas to the client for their 2010 launch. It's about 12PM, all went well and we're doling out highfives and 'merry christmas for tomorrow!' hugs.

Hey Mr. Tough

I went to Dr. Fish today with Doug and had my feet and fingers eaten by hundreds of little black fish for 10 minutes. It was quite electrifying. And if I hadn't had know about having to pay for this, I would have had my feet out of there within seconds.

Quantum sex

I don't listen.

I'm very guilty of not listening I say to Lin. (after switching off the television.)

I worry that I'm getting caught out for not knowing other people know this, and they'd think I was more of a prick for it. But the truth is I do tune out. I do have many 'Saving Private Ryan' moments when I lose audio and just see a mouth moving in very slow motion while my mind runs off chasing the last words that had just spouted from my mouth and then when it's caught them, begins interrogating them.

If you were that person, I apologize. I'm Sorry.

I tune back in when Lin says something about quantum science. Well it was the word 'quantum' that caught me. What? I ask to which she says that she could well have been explaining quantum science to me while I'd been tuning out all this time. Um. Ok I guess I mutter but then you never really hear the word 'quantum' being paired with science do you? She smiles, I call bluff, saying that not only do I not believe that she's been droning about quantum science, but I bet she doesn't even know what the word means. 'Quantum?' or 'quantum science/ physics?' I don't know, 'Quantum' I guess. I dont really know either.

I throw my mind back to Quantum learning. Something to do with ESP and brain waves and subconscious learning techniques. It was a book my mum had given me after I'd finished Supercamp (a quantum-learning summer program).

So how could you use quantum in a different prefix... like Quantum ...Sex? 'We could have quantum sex?' No, "I doubt it" I say. I think Quantum sex could (more likely) involve me sitting on the opposite side of this room and maybe thinking about masturbating and then when I somehow think myself into a climax you'd maybe concentrate on and (hold that thought) and feel a tingling. In the best case scenario we might simultaneously think about (or think we're having) an orgasm.

Er. Ok. She replies, now slightly disturbed.

Hmm, lets settle this. I say pulling out the iphone to google it.

We lie in bed for a while waiting for the application to boot up.

'Thats... a pretty bad definition' I say after reading it.

'I... should get home' she replies getting out of bed.

I try wikipedia.

Hmm, maybe this is more like quantum (sex).

Rise Above

I bought a (piano) keyboard the other day.

I just walked into the apple shop on my way to meeting lin at the taxi stand, stared at it, enquired, and then proceeded to purchase it. It was for my dad I rationalized to Lin as we lugged it down the escalator. I set it up that night and played chopsticks after everyone had fallen asleep.

I just didn't realize just how hard it'd be to train my hands.

It took me 74 tries before I managed to record somehting that bore any resemblance to the tune I head in mind.

I 'ran' 21km last sunday. I'd put together a playlist that ran out a quarter way through and then when the music stopped, I'd broken down for a short while. There were some spectacular moments about running in an organised half marathon at 5am. My fondest was running across a highway 50 meters in the air. And when the sun came up as we were runnign out of town, I felt like one of the marines at the end of Black Hawk Down, or maybe the camera guy in City of God (only I wasn't really running). I was listening to the dirty projectors when I finished my last K. They stopped playing just 20 meters before the finish line.

I remember thinking for that split second as I pulled out my earphones and listened to Eminem on the lout speakers (singing that 8-mile song) that I could do anything. I could walk into that Muaythai gym that just opened below the office and go 50 lessons and become a contender, that I could fall into the ocean and uncover a japanese zero wrecked on the ocean floor. That I could walk into the client meeting and wow. That this could all be a part of my great new life. That I could buy a 200 dollar keyboard I didnt know how to use and then play it.

I stop and listen to my recording of chopsticks.

and I might be wrong.

ReviewOtron

Today I unleash

REVIEW-O-TRON...

It's oh so QUIET

I reach into my pocket for a dirty piece of crumpled tissue paper I'd been recycling over and over till it was drenched and limp. I think I'm slightly allergic to these couches.

We're lying belly down on opposite sides of two parallel couches in a rather small but sunny meeting room trying to think of a new way to shoot an old commercial.

My nose feels a bit numb.

I draw my bright yellow Nerf gun and squint through one eye, down the plastic sights, at the small black sheep laminated on the glass door. There's a sharp sound of the bullet's suction cap sticking to the door. Doug takes a shot and we slowly get through about 60 rounds of nerf ammunition.

At 6pm I'm out the door on my red hybrid bicycle. It rattles across a grassy field towards the river where a couple of soccer players have just started warming up.

I coast down past Zouk (a popular night club) where the staff have just started setting up.

I watch the sun setting at a traffic junction and free wheel down the slope that leads to my house, where I'll take a shower and try and figure out what to do with the rest of my night.

the next day I'm having a highclass ramen (that only serves the facial parts of the pig) in a shopping center staring out at the river watching tour boats pass. I'm chatting on MSN and then shadow box in a small meeting room before handing in a small pile of scripts I'd done earlier in the day.

At 4pm I'm looking up scuba lessons. then later that evening, I'm having a nightmare about my ex-boss not forgiving me for leaving my old work place. Then I'm waking up at 9 to cycle to the office to shower and wait for my toast to toast. 'The coolest thing...' as I'd told my creative director here 'was that I had this giant bag of coins that I used to save up for the vending machine at Ogilvy to buy diet cola. I'd brought it here only to realize that Diet cola and Breakfast are free .' - that was probably not the best thing though I did feel that it'd be better to try and mention one of the more surprising 'best things'.

The other 'best thing' of course was having a life. And as my bike bumped along the grassy field yet again towards a cold pint of beer in a watherfront Japanese inspired sports bar, I wondered just how much more of this I'd have to bear with before I'd finally accepted that this is how things will be from now on. till it fades and 7pm comes and life in general feels like a chore.

I crumple up another sheet of random ideas and drawings and scrape a pile of eraser dust into the bin and think about the part of me that misses the war.