Look What You've Done

From here on out...

... it's all just empty.

I Think Very Much, Too

You may not see this, but for everything, I'm sorry. And I don't just mean it as an apology. Timing's never been my forte and now is no exception.

I wish there was more I knew how to say, but this silence speaks more volumes than could ever be fathomed in one person's mind.

Zoom In And Hold Tight

It's been nearly a month since Sydney, but sometimes, my mind still creeps there.

This trip, moments I remember come in the form of extreme close-ups in the midst of the tumult of the whole. Fleeting little pieces of movement and stillness etched in black and white inside my head. Through the throngs of World Youth Day people and the chaos on trains and of getting lost, my mind muted and numbed itself, accepting only tiny scraps like butterfly wings brushing up against the cortex.

The look in Sera's eyes when she saw my present to her.

Becky and I giggling quietly in bed with the clean, cold sheets pulled right up to our chins.
The slow sensation of rain drawling down my scalp, first cold then turning warm at the base of my neck.

Mint tea making my eyes prickle.

Tiny puffs of smoke, slowly curling out into wreaths as we breathed the cutting air.

My back muscles clenching taut like fists everytime I heard the first few rolling bars of Naked As We Came.

The smell of the grass and bark as the three of us sprawled on the dazzling silver picnic sheet in the freezing sunlight.

I took barely any pictures. Everything I want is with me all the time.

Advanced Warning

I beg of you, don't push me away. It may be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

Flat Out

National Day, past midnight, and I'm still working. This is the first year I've scrambled around in the crowds while not being one of them, trying to get close enough to the action without being jabbed in rib and eye. Interviewing people about each tiny nuance of the parade doth a crabby journalist make. Is the sun too hot? Are you scared it will rain? Do you like your seat? Now that it's actually raining, are you kicking yourself for not bringing an umbrella?

Since you have an umbrella, how long are you going to continue holding it up in everyone's face so that our already limited view of the Black Knights soaring around in the sky is further obstructed, hmm, you self-centered, over-prepared bastard?

Well, you know me, I say I hated being out there, but believe you me, when the aerial displays were roaring above our heads and the flag thundered past under the giant belly of a chinook in a glorious stream of colour, I was screaming myself hoarse with the rest of them. Work or play, I'll always have a soft spot for this country.

Xenu bless Singapore.

Working Girl

At a recent soci outing:

Shah: "So so, tell me, is your job as exciting and glamourous as on TV?"

Me: "Oh, totally. Like, I'll be sleeping in bed with my boyfriend, this gorgeous, completely ripped, underwear model, and then the phone will ring and he'll pick it up and say "honey, it's for you". And it'll be my boss calling me down to do some scandalous, breaking story. And my boyfriend's like, "honey, come back to bed, please", but being professional, I'm all like, "I have to go to work, but I'll see you later okay?" and rush off in the middle of the night."

Hahaha! No, but seriously, our deal is that if I come back and he's still in bed, I have to make it up to him.

And how.