Figment Of My Imagination

I think I know but I have no idea. This is what writers do. We make stuff up. It's all in our heads. Most of our conversations are imaginary. We don't know. So we imagine.

And because you are a figment of my imagination, I felt free to make stuff up.

But then, you read it and were offended, maybe hurt?

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. I was just trying to make sense of it to myself.

And in some alternate reality, where we are still friends, where you still talk to me, where you care about me, there I am, apologising to you.

Air

We talk with the outsides of words, skimming the surface. not saying what we really feel. At one time it was enough. It was enough to hear your voice, to listen to how you formed the words, to imagine the cadences underneath, the things unsaid.

Your smile was enough.

And now your smile has disappeared.

Your words have disappeared.

And when I have nothing, those empty words, those soufflé, meringue words, are not enough.

Wrestling Angels

I go for a walk today and do only half the required steps. Who requires it? I don't know. I listen to Bernard talk, then Neville, then Louis, then Rhoda, Susan and Jinny. I listen to each cadence and until my steps start to flag. And then I make for home because I am tired, because this walking in circles is pointless.

And whenever you interrupt their words, my thoughts, I walk faster, trying to work you out of my system. I try to walk through that slight ache that tugs at my chest. I know when I come home, having tired myself out, I will find no word from you, nothing.

This silence.

I think you will be here tomorrow, I am almost sure, but you were supposed to be there yesterday, and you weren't.

You called and cancelled. You said, no, next week instead.

Nothing compels you. You will not be compelled. You will come and go as you please. You find any sort of clinging distasteful.

And I have uninstalled Skype from my phone because I was tired of checking for a message that never came. I needed to stop.

And there is so much work now, so much. I have created it for myself because I need the distraction. I need to think of something else, someone else.

But there is no one.

I listen to Neville obsess about Percival and for the first time, I understand him. I understand how he loves Percival for leaving his letters scattered about unanswered, among his guns and dogs. I understand how he loves Percival for agreeing to meet him under a clock in London and then not showing up. For not understanding Catullus and yet understanding him, better than Louis who would understand the words perfectly.

You can love someone because they are perfect and remote and unattainable. Because they are ephemeral and disappear just as you are about to turn around. You can love them because you can only catch sight of them from the corner of your eye. You love them because they are fleeting and insubstantial, the substance of dreams and daydreams.

And even though love is too strong a word, too final, too finite, too all-encompassing, you attach that word to their face, their form, and it feels right.

Maybe tomorrow you will cease to remember, this obsession will pass.

But for today, you love them and you love them anyway.

Your Fragrance, Your Dust

Because I lost you I search for you in the oddest places; under rocks, behind doors, under sheets laid flat. I search for you longingly, desperately, and sometimes I forget what I'm searching for and the search takes over.

I look for any trace, ANY trace of you and when I find it, some dust you left behind, some salt you scattered in your wake, I pause and I breathe it in, I savour it, I run it through my fingers, so precious, so wonderful.

Your dust. Your salt.

I know that all this is strange and sad and crazy.

But to me, they are traces of joy.

My heart beats quicker and I feel my eyes blaze and shine forth.

You have withdrawn now and I can no longer see you. You have receded into the horizon and there is only the faint fragrance that you've left behind.

It lingers in the air.

I breathe it in, exhale and fall back, relax and sleep.

The Little Girl In A White Dress

She was a little girl, rather tall, quiet, well-behaved in a white dress. She had on socks and shoes, the kind I wore when I was small. Mum dressed her the way she dressed me.

Mum was looking after her. Mum had taken her to church and oh, such a church. Words were written in the sky rather than projected on a wall and the Mass, the Mass...it was always beginning and never quite begun.

And she sat there, this little girl, this nameless little girl, so sad, so quiet, so well-behaved, she sat there, making no sound. Contained in herself.

I knew she was loved.

That much I knew.

That's all I saw. 

And then I woke up and remembered that Mum was no more. 

And I wondered who the little girl was. In my dream it seemed obvious but when I woke up, less so.

Let Her Cry

The tears, they were a long time coming. But now they're here. It's OK. Just let her cry. She needs this. This release. This slow giving up. This acknowledgement that there's nothing there now. Maybe there was nothing there to begin with.

Just another illusion, delusion, that falls like delicate blown glass to the rough canteen floor and shatters there...ignored, to be swept up with the rest of the gunk later.

Just let her cry.

Empty and Sad

TimTam is blind in one eye and it breaks my heart. The person who was supposed to come to see him didn't call, didn't come. And I don't care about that. But I do wonder how to get these four cats, getting along with each other. They don't have to love each other. Just be amicable. They each find their own little niches in my tiny apartment and it is hard when one whole room has to be shut off to the other three and one of them has to be confined to a single room. I wish he didn't. I wish I could let all of them mingle. But he's full of rage and when he attacks, he hurts.

Is that what I'm like?

I don't think so. But I'm not sure.

This weekend I wrote five letters using a quill I had bought from Dove Cottage (think Wordsworth, Grasmere, the Lake District) and Indian ink that Wan Yee had given me last Christmas. The thing about Indian ink is that it dries to a goo-like substance.

(Oh dear, Tim Tam has pooped and there's  a pong in my room. I think I am going to have to pause this and go clean it up). Also, open a window and air out the room.

Done and done.

Life is a series of things on a to-do list. You move forward. You do one thing, You tick it off. You tick if off. And you tick it off again.

And time moves on. It just moves on.

And all you are at the end of the day is tired.

And sad.

And empty again.

The Fireworks Symphony

I am transcribing an interview that I should have transcribed weeks ago with the idea of working on the story tomorrow. It's the Hokkien New Year today I think - that from midnight onwards, the fireworks have been going off so continuously, they sound like rain on a tin roof. I pretend to myself that it is rain...I love the sound of rain when I am about to sleep.

But right now I am full of nervous energy that comes from transcribing an interview. I am hanging out with TimTam as I transcribe - so we get some face time. The poor boy has to be kept apart and I feel guilty when I am out there with the others (although I would like to be). I so wish he could get along with them and didn't always feel compelled to establish his dominance.

I haven't gone walking for days now, so I have not finished the last 54 minutes of The Waves. Maybe I will start again tomorrow.

I think I have plans for the weekend. I am not sure. I do know there will be work...because there is always work now.

I have gone for a slew of interviews - which need to be transcribed and written up. I keep cranking them out like gunshots. And maybe, at some point, I will be able to lie back, close my eyes, exhale gently and sleep.

Customary somnolence

I've elapsed into my customary somnolence.

It was nice to be out of it for a while.

But now I trudge on, each step heavier than the last, breathing in and out and just trying to get through today.

Clichés

I love my cats; I have four of them - how typical and old maidish - to give your love to cats and not to a man, not to children.

I take long walks on stone pavements and tarred roads and all I see are foreign workers taking walks - them for necessity, me for exercise because I have swollen to a monstrous size and I think, I can no longer ignore it. Even alone, I want to be acceptable to myself. I want to fit in clothes again. I can understand why this land slowly passes to them, the foreign workers. To know the land, you have to tread it, feel it beneath your feet, walk slowly enough to take it in. Travelling about in air-conditioned cars, we do not even let the air in. We swish past so quickly, noticing nothing except the car in front of us. We do not take in...anything.

Today I walked to a shopping centre that it would have taken me 10 minutes to get to by car. OK, maybe 15. It took me the best part of an hour. I really FELT the distance. I was looking for a photo shop because I wanted to take a picture for a visa. There were none along the way, so I walked further and further. I cut my hair to take an acceptable shot, but it was unacceptable anyway. I mean the hair was alright; the face was greasy with this thin film of sweat.

I listened to another two hours of The Waves. I honestly thought I would have finished it by now....but it is 9 hours long. Not 6. And I have about 54 minutes left. I think I am at Bernard's last soliloquy, but I may be wrong. Listening to it like this, the words make sense - the drum of words illustrating each character. The reader, Frances Jeeter, is very good. I like listening to her, her posh accent, her reading at the speed I think Virginia Woolf would have read it, but we cannot know, no we cannot.

Sheba decides to bully Pablo because he is cuddling and grooming Smeagol, his paw clasped lovingly around the kitten. I think Sheba is jealous. He strikes out, then strikes again - and now Pablo is hiding under the armchair. He is wise enough to know that is the best course when Sheba gets jealous.

There are 39 days more of Lent to go.

I downloaded a pedometer and then uninstalled it because it was not really recording my steps. I also uninstalled Skype from my phone because my habit of checking it 300 times a day was getting too cumbersome. Also, the disappointment when there were no messages for me.

I have finished reading In The Restaurant by Christoph Ribbat but I skimmed and it is a good book so it will bear re-reading.

I posted five letters and two presents off today. And bought a bunch of stamps. I am glad the presents have been despatched; the thought of them was weighing me down.

I have changed my hairstyle and it looks too hard for my moonface but what can you do.

Of such trifles are a life made up.

Thoughts before retiring

I wrestle a lot with feelings of rage. Something flashes into my mind and it's like a lightning bolt. I go from relatively indifferent to consumed. I think about this as I walk, as I spend my energy (I did it again today, though not as far, and I turned back - so as to get home without the need for a cab). I find walking useful, to absorb my misplaced passions, to quiet my mind, to listen to the beat of The Waves...

At home I stroke my cats. I watch them play. Feed them, Clean out their kitty litter. Read "In the Restaurant" by Christoph Ribbat (I am on page 78), think about showering before I go to bed, think about rubbing my very expensive frankincense on my aching parts, thinking about writing the last letter that I was going to write...except that now I am tired and have run out of inspiration and flourish..

(Here is how Bernard writes a letter, I suspect that this is how VW wrote a letter):

Yes, all is propitious. I am now in the mood. I can write the letter straight off which I have begun ever so many times. I have just come in; I have flung down my hat and my stick; I am writing the first thing that comes into my head without troubling to put the paper straight. It is going to be a brilliant sketch which, she must think, was written without a pause, without an erasure. Look how unformed the letters are — there is a careless blot. All must be sacrificed to speed and carelessness. I will write a quick, running, small hand, exaggerating the down stroke of the “y” and crossing the “t” thus — with a dash. The date shall be only Tuesday, the 17th, and then a question mark. But also I must give her the impression that though he — for this is not myself — is writing in such an off-hand, such a slap-dash way, there is some subtle suggestion of intimacy and respect. I must allude to talks we have had together — bring back some remembered scene. But I must seem to her (this is very important) to be passing from thing to thing with the greatest ease in the world. I shall pass from the service for the man who was drowned (I have a phrase for that) to Mrs Moffat and her sayings (I have a note of them), and so to some reflections apparently casual but full of profundity (profound criticism is often written casually) about some book I have been reading, some out-of-the-way book. I want her to say as she brushes her hair or puts out the candle, “Where did I read that? Oh, in Bernard’s letter.” It is the speed, the hot, molten effect, the laval flow of sentence into sentence that I need. Who am I thinking of? Byron of course. I am, in some ways, like Byron. Perhaps a sip of Byron will help to put me in the vein. Let me read a page. No; this is dull; this is scrappy. This is rather too formal. Now I am getting the hang of it. Now I am getting his beat into my brain (the rhythm is the main thing in writing). Now, without pausing I will begin, on the very lilt of the stroke —.

That is how Bernard writes his letters. Dashing. That is how VW writes her letters - it is performance, it is art, it is artifice, it is highly polished.

But I am tired now. All my reflections sink under the the dark waves of slumber. I shall take a shower. I shall go cuddle TimTam who is in disgrace for escaping and attacking Sheba and who has been ignored for the rest of the day in consequence. I shall put my phone on the charger and set my alarm so that I may wake up and go walking early enough, this time to the Kiara Hills, so I may listen to The Waves without having it drowned out by the sounds of traffic. 

And so to bed.

Peregrinations

Today I stepped out of my house to post letters and maybe buy bread and I decided to take a walk, a walk that would last at least two hours, while listening to The Waves which I had downloaded on my phone. The words they spoke to me, and I understood them at a deep, deep level as I trudged through the rainswept streets, which wet my sneakers, then my socks, through.

I listened to Rhoda's lament:

There is some check in the flow of my being; a deep stream presses on some obstacle; it jerks; it tugs, some knot in the centre resists. Oh, this is pain, this is anguish! I faint, I fail. Now my body thaws; I am unsealed, I am incandescent. Now the stream pours in a deep tide fertilising, opening the shut, forcing the tight-folded, flooding free. To whom shall I give all that now flows through me, from my warm, my porous body? I will gather my flowers and present them -- Oh, to whom?

She, whom of all, I love the most, I identify with the most. I know now why. It was Standard One and I was confused and out of place and I watched others to see what was supposed to be done, what I should do...I was a cipher with no face, no voice, no volition. They took my money and beat me, and I handed over my money willingly, if only it would make them like me.

But I told Mum and she got mad and scolded them because they were not supposed to take my money, apparently. Who knew?

I walked and walked and felt my feet grow tired. The roads I have drive over thousands of times seemed strange, unfamiliar. I stepped over frogs, crushed some snails (I didn't mean to), and saw the city from another perspective. The cars, they shone their lights in my face, avoided me or came too near, sometimes flashed me, and still I walked.

I made it to Bangsar and stepped into Bangsar Shopping Centre to get a bottle of Evian water (because that's the kind of water you get at Bangsar Shopping Centre, it's that kind of place) and then sipping my water, I made it all the way down to Bangsar Baru, where I stopped to rest at a bus stop and tried to get a GrabCar because I was too tired to walk back. My Grab driver (when I eventually got one) was surprised that I had walked all the way from there to here. He said, wow, you must have covered 7km, and I said, I don't know, maybe. What I do know (from the place I stopped at The Waves) was that I had been walking for two and a half hours.

I walked through the pain of unrequited love and this longing inside me, unassuaged. I thought I could spend some of its fury in the movement of my feet on the mushy ground or hard pavement.

Solvitur ambulando.

I have wanted to walk for so long now, but not, as it turns out, to be healthier, but to walk through my pain, my perplexities. I want to listen to my books unencumbered with chatter, with others in my space, begging for, demanding attention. 

Let's see if I walk tomorrow. I want to walk tomorrow. I also want to do...

Oh, so many things on the to-do list. 

So many things.

Oxytocin Man

You throw words

against a canvas

this blank white wall

this empty space

whimsical smile playing

on your lips.

Not caring that some shafts

find a mark,

and the target

is vulnerable,

as you have previously

ascertained.

You watch, you wait,

you evaluate,

You can't help yourself,

it's what makes you you.

But you want infinite variety

always the spectacle

of something different

and eventually

variety turns into sameness,

and you're done.

Nothing touches 

your teflon heart

Oh oxytocin man

She knew what you were

But fell for you

anyway.

You were a rush

to a tired heart

that had stopped 

feeling.

that had almost 

stopped beating.

But day turns into night

the four hours are up

and you're weary.

So you smile,

and turn away

you're done for today.

Oh oxytocin man,

You're done.

Enough To Be On Your Way

I just listened to "Enough To Be On Your Own Way" by James Taylor. I had never heard it before and it is filled with unutterable sadness because it's about his brother who died of alcoholism on JT's birthday.

So the sun shines on this funeral, 
Just the same as on a birth
the way it shines on everything
that happens here on earth
It rolls into the Western sky
and back into the sea
and spends the day's last rays
upon this fucked-up family.

The song is up on YouTube and someone commented that they don't like his new songs because the songs are too happy and it doesn't capture his tortured soul. I was wondering then, whether the whole point of the artist is the pain, the torture. Maybe if you're happy, you can no longer write.

It's the unhappiness that beams out of your writing that people want to read, that they identify with.

And so if I clear this unhappiness from me, this heavy, heavy sadness that I have carried for so long...will my pen dry up? When my heart opens will I cap my fountain pen and put it away?

Maybe.

I'd still like to be happy though.

I'd still like to be happy.

Moving on

I see you've unfriended me. I didn't realise until I looked.

It's OK.

We both need to move on, after all.

Good luck with your life.

Hope it turns out some kind of wonderful.

Forgiveness

It's funny. But you're offended if I'm not hurt or broken enough. You've taken everything and that's not enough.

You still want more.

I used to hate you about it.

I didn't understand.

Now I do.

So you're welcome to whatever you've taken.

I don't hate you anymore.

Cold Turkey

You dole yourself out
in nano instalments
so little
not enough
to satisfy
this raging thirst.

You breeze in and out
Call, and then don't,
Disappear for acres
of bleak unremitting time.

You're there,
and then you're not,
You disappear.

This silence,
It breaks me,
It breaks me...
And then slowly
the fissures close up
And I become strong.

I no longer notice
If you're there
or not.

I don't know if you intended to
But you healed me
of you.

Cold turkey was painful.
Cold turkey was for the best.

The Calm Between Storms

It is after midnight and I am just so tired. I'm trying to clear stories because there are so many to clear by Monday when we close before Chinese New Year and I haven't even gotten started. My brain is not working.

And the volatile oscillations of my heart which hits me at the strangest times, does not help.

I just want to curl up in bed with Tim Tam and allow myself to drift.

I wish someone nice would adopt him. It's hard him not getting along with my cats...and I feel so sorry for him, alone all day, that when I come home, I try to spend time with him. They get jealous and it manifests in various ways. Like sand all over the kitchen floor. Sheba attacking Pablo viciously because he tried to cuddle her.

It seems like everyone is frayed at the edges now.

But I am so tired.

This is the calm between storms.

Coming Undone

My heart is oscillating violently.

I have no idea what to do.

I have no idea what to say.

I have no idea how to act.

I am coming undone.

Soft kitty, warm kitty

Lost is my new normal. Except that it feels old. I just didn't realise that it was normal. I didn't accept it. Until now.

So I gather other lost creatures around me. Hold them in my lap and sing to them:

Soft kitty, warm kitty,
little ball of fur
happy kitty, sleepy kitty
purr, purr, purr.

They go to sleep while I stay up and worry about the work I haven't finished. The work I have brought home for the weekend.

The work that means I need to live another day...to complete it.

Later...

I have cleared a story. It wasn't too bad. I am still way behind but, well, what can you do? The road goes on and on...

Bleeding all over the page

So I've decided that this kind of existence is not worth it. Work and more work. Caught up in the rush of busyness...while my soul weeps silently, unheeded.

I need to do something, something... I don't know what.

So for a start, I'll nick myself, open a tiny vein and bleed all over the page.

This page.

Stay tuned.

Can you feel the love tonight?

A Simple Transaction

It's a simple transaction, really
Those who care
Those who don't.

So don't walk around
feeling bruised
No one is OBLIGED
to care for you
No one.

Remember that.

And get on with your life.

This Side of Despair

I have questions, naturally.

Or rather, I had questions.

Now I have peace.

Flawed human beings

Today, somewhat inexplicably, I stalked the Facebook page of someone I considered an enemy and the epitome of evil: beautiful, ruthless, mendacious. And I found two grammatical and spelling errors in what she said.

And suddenly, my animosity dissolved, not knowing where to go. Her mistakes made her fallible, with English that was not very good...OK they could have been typos. But two? For an editor? And suddenly she was just a vulnerable human being who had made mistakes. A human being I had liked before she turned hostile, but not one that was dangerous or evil or anything.

She was just a child clutching at happiness, because, let's face it, she was always on the outside looking in.

She had hurt someone to get what she wanted. But that's what we do. We hurt other people. We don't think about what we are doing. We don't consider.

Maybe this is a minor miracle.

Who would have thought that finding two errors would lighten a load I had been carrying for all this time.

I hated her because she hated me. I hated her, because she pointed out my flaws.

Now I find that she has flaws.

And, everything is all right again.

Lord if you marked our transgressions, who would stand? Thanks to your grace we are cleansed by the blood of the Lamb...

Peace, out!

Today I read Father Parker's sermon (he had written his address behind it so he gave me the paper) about actively looking for Christ in everyone and trying to reach out to them.

It was a good sermon. He gave us a few funny anecdotes where he tried to help someone and got told to go to (he didn't mention where except that it was pretty hot) and he added: "I won't tell you what he said about my parentage."

We all laughed.

But he said, reaching out, you have to be prepared to be rejected. You have to be OK with rejection.

And then, I came in to work and got immediately irritated. With the one who irritates everybody by posturing, posing and ranting.

And I arrested my knee jerk reaction (OK, I arrested it after I put on headphones to block out her voice) and thought about it.

Maybe some people behave the way they do as a cry for help. What if she's lonely? What if she's lost?

It doesn't seem likely.

But thinking like this, I felt more kindly disposed towards her.

And from my corner at least, the deathly vibes of irritation ceased to project towards her.

Which is a victory of sorts, no?

Deep breath.

Peace.

For whom the bell tolls

Ebony has been playing on my mind more than usual. I wonder who says you ever heal from the deaths of those you love. You don't. Your heart is riven and it stays riven. It heals but it heals riven, misshapen, always identified by the loss.

I don't know why. I have no idea. I am diminished and diminished and every death diminishes me further. The people who are actual around me become phantom, shadows, not quite real, not quite there and I want to be with myself and my cats, my babies, hugging them to me, being with them, and with my thoughts, and with my pain.

It's like hugging shards of broken glass, these painful feelings that don't quite go away, so you are ever-conscious of the sting, and your eyes fill up at faint suggestions of the things you once had, which you have now lost for good.

This is the end of my holiday and I'm not sad about that because I can't wait to see my cats again. But my flight was unaccountably delayed for so long that I had to spend the night in Singapore, and instead of going to the hotel they had assigned me to, I remained at the airport, the in-between place and watched various versions of A Christmas Carol and wept at each of them.

I am the Scrooge of the hard heart. Isn't it easy to let your heart ice over? Isn't it easy to fall into hate? Into evil feelings, a lack of love?

Isn't it easy to lie down and stop breathing....but no, the cats, the Christmas tree that is now up, the words I have yet to write, the people depending on me.

I wish I didn't feel so alone.

I have no idea why I feel this way.

I wish I could stop crying.

Salvation

I guess I always knew that you would save me. I took you in to save your life and now, you're saving mine.

And now, you brush up against the sole of my foot, your tail soft like a caress. I catch you up and hold you close and kiss your little face and tell you I love you.

And then I let you go.

And when you feel like it, when I'm not looking, you jump up on the bed, and press up against me.

And in my sleep I breathe easier because I feel companioned.

I saved you from dying of starvation or being chucked in a village already overflowing with strays. I saved you and fed you and cleaned your litter and stroked you when you let me.

I saved you.

And now you save me.

A Graceful Gesture of Futility

When we meet in the great Hereafter,
will you say hello?
Will you recognise me?
Will you turn to go?

I miss you
I miss you
I miss you
I miss you

And I don't believe
we'll ever meet again

I keep looking for you
in this labyrinth
but you're elusive
you disappear
just around the corner

I run. I scream your name.

But you leave
You don't turn back
You leave me
like you left me
All over again.

Alone.
Alone.
Alone.
Alone.

Alone.

Immaturity

Well what do you know? I went to the gym for the second time in a row. I walked 2.6km. Burned 268 calories. 30 minutes. It's not bad if you compare it to nothing for the longest time. It's a start at least.

I'm wondering though if all this walking gives me energy. I didn't get to sleep until 6 this morning.

Ho hum.

Let's see how that goes.

In the meantime I am subject to epiphany after epiphany.

The character trait I was sent back to battle is immaturity.

I would like to expand on it but I won't. I will simply watch as everything progresses.

Still looking for a good MP3 player to download audiobooks. I want to listen to The Golden House by Salman Rushdie as I work that windmill.

And after that, I want to listen to The Windfall by Diksha Basu.

Oh brother, I just caught sight of myself in the mirror. It reminded me of why I don't look at mirrors. I  have a baby bump with no baby.

The next few weeks should be....interesting.

A milestone

It's an historic day. After sleeping until way past noon (closer to evening, in fact, to evening), I woke up and was productive in a manner of speaking. I wrote a letter and then posted off the whole lot (all six of them) and did some shopping (cat food, pork neck steak, one potato, one bottle of water, one loaf of bread) and then came back and got dinner going. While I was waiting for the potato to bake and the rice to cook, I went to our apartment gym for the first time.

I walked on the treadmill for 30 minutes, burned about 248 calories, walked some 2.4 km....it was a start at least. I had intended to go every day in this three-day weekend and somehow never got around to it.

I have decided to record an audiobook on my cheap MP3 player, to listen the next time I go. That will help pass the time and stop me from looking at the clock and counting the seconds. I will work my way up (slowly) to an hour.

Any exercise is an improvement over the nothing I am doing now. When I put on my clothes I can't get away from the ample curves everywhere and truth be told, it's probably why I am so lethargic and apathetic.

I wil try for improvements. I will record them here.

After all, what are blogs for?

All Bets Are Off

It's late and I'm trying to do at least a shitty first draft of one story. I am nearly done reading the Moby memoir which is some kind of wonderful (although I stopped reading it halfway because I wrongly assumed that he had made it and his life would be on an even and therefore boring keel from then on). But now I've picked it up and it's riveting and funny. A sort of ironic, wry and dark humour.

I have been offline for a bit and only turned on my phone today because Rose came and she needs to call me to come down and get her. There were some messages and one missed call - so all in all, not too bad.

Nothing hysterical and vitriol-inducing - I hate condescending messages that purport to be concern but isn't. Rather it's thinly veiled ridicule from a person who is so much more ridiculous than I, who goes on being ridiculous, who has everyone shaking their heads and bracing themselves for the crash, when it comes.

I wrote five letters today. I wanted to write six. Maybe tomorrow, when I finally wake up, I'll take a stroll and post said letters. Maybe.

Everything is up in the air.

All bets are off.

Things need to cohere a whole lot more than they are doing now.

That Ship Has Sailed

I'm feeling sick and dopey at the moment. Have switched off my phone because it bothers me, and am just hanging out with my cats (one in front of me and one directly to my left, where he can lie and watch me without me watching him), surfing the net, reading my books, and maybe writing letters.

More and more I'm beginning to see that the mistakes I made decades ago, those that I thought I could get over easily, those that I haven't thought off for years, were fundamental wrong turns in my life. I kept rubbing up against failure because I had chosen wrongly. I was afraid of the powerful feelings invoked and so I deliberately turned away and drowned myself in another, that I didn't love, not really, because I thought of it as a way to avoid greater pain.

All the mistakes of my life come home to roost.

Right now, I lie in bed until evening, sick and unable to move, dreaming strange dreams, waking up only to feed the cats and then go back to sleep.

And when I'm awake, I'm distracted, unfocussed, wanting to do so many things at once - wrap presents, write letters, play with the cats - and not doing anything at all. At least, not anything productive.

It's nice to have my phone off. No outside noise.

Nothing to distract me from my loneliness.

If you choose wrongly, if you deliberately choose wrongly, one day you will sit alone, surrounded by cats (who are loving creatures and who try to assuage the pain, but cannot entirely) and feel deep regret.

You will Google the one you turned away from because you were afraid and find that they have gone on to live wildly successful, happy, fulfilled lives, without you.

That ship has sailed.

And you will wonder, what meaning there is in your own, and how you are to draw out your days, in a world full of strangers who become stranger (or maybe it is you who is strange and about to be stranger) as time ticks on.

Cat Tails

I'm less than halfway through Moby's memoir, Porcelain, which is fantastic (I'm at the part where he first performs at Top of the Pops and comes off stage seeing Phil Collins looking at him with a mixture of annoyance and confusion - who understood electronic music anyway?) and maybe I'm on UK time because I slept till 1pm - well I woke up a little earlier to feed the cats because they yowled so plaintively at my door - but funny thing, Sheba has taken to avoiding me after Bob. It's like he's nursing a grudge for me putting him and Pablo (but mostly him) at risk, and petting and loving the outsider more.

They come to me when they need food but that's it. Well Pablo comes to me a lot more than that; he curls up at my feet and rubs himself against me but Sheba is aloof and unbending. Think I would like to adopt another cat specifically for cuddles.

We are making our way through Duck & Pheasant Carnilove which both cats hate, but which they soldier on through as there is nothing else on offer. Because of Veronica, they now get wet food twice a day, and try to hold off eating the unpalatable biscuits...but sometimes, they're too hungry and can't help themselves. Especially Pablo. How is he to maintain his increasingly bloated figure on just wet food twice a day?

The cat next door stares plaintively into the kitchen window. She is kept out of the apartment by her owners - in fact, she is never allowed in and except for the brief times when she is fed or her kitty litter changed, she is alone - no human or cat touch. I feel so sorry for her. I want to ask the lady next door if I can adopt her. If she were here, I would finally buy the expensive cat castle so all three cats could have something to play. The balls I bought for Bob are a huge hit with the two other cats.

Tomorrow is a public holiday. I bought enough food to hole up for the duration without having to go out. I don't want to go out. I want to stay in and hang with the cats and write letters and transcribe interviews (so I don't feel too guilty about my sloth) and read books and watch movies.

The works.

Weeping wounds

So I sat through the interview becoming increasingly aware that I should not have showed up with my wounds exposed. I have ripped off the dressing the night before, or maybe it was the night before that, hoping that it would help the wounds dry faster.

But now, the boss of one of the largest digital marketing companies, stared in horrified fascination, as liquid leaked out from some of the holes gouged on my upper arm and threatened to flow on his table.

I was embarrassed. Halfway through I decided to address the elephant in the room, and told him how I had got the gouge wounds.

I got in the middle of a cat fight. Like, literally.

Bob, the stray, who had started off as someone's cat, then got chucked in the parking lot as the family moved out, taking the other cat but not him, the loving boy who could not find food for himself and would have starved to death if the cleaners had not found him and brought him to our condo, one of of the few with a stray cat feeder, who had learned to fight viciously to defend his territory and his females, had fought with Sheba, my own little cat who had fallen from the roof in Taman Tun. Well, perhaps not fallen like Ebony. More like placed by his mother in between my door and gate, in between two dogs, so I could take him him in and feed him.

Although Bob was a fighter, he had respected Sheba and kept his distance, not initiating any fights and running away the two times Sheba, emboldened by his lack of response, attacked and scratched him. I know Sheba scratched him because I fought the fresh scratch marks on his face and behind his ears.

Bob has FIV. Any scratches take a long time to heal.

Anyway, I tried to let the three of them wander around together (Bob was sleeping on the trunk at the end of my bed when Sheba came in growling). Bob growled back. But probably would not have attacked if I had not, on hearing the start of the fight, grabbed Sheba and held him in my arms.

Then, torrents of fury unleashed and in a split second he had scratched and gouged me, trying to get to Sheba. I felt the pain and saw the skin hanging on my arm and the blood start to flow. I screamed and chased the two into the dining room (Sheba had leapt out of my arms, finally seeing what he was messing with) and caught up a broom to separate them. At that, the two ran away to their separate rooms. I locked Bob in his and went and found Sheba in the other.

I dabbed at my wounds, cleaning them with water and alcohol. But it was of no use. Later, while out having my lunch, I suddenly smelled the metallic, somewhat fishy tang of blood and noticed that my kurta sleeve was soaked through.

I all but ran home, and lay in bed, feeling miserable, my arm wrapped in a towel, because it refused to stop leaking blood.

Later, I texted a photo of my arm all scratched up to Sue-Ann and she dropped what she was doing and came over to take me to a clinic to have a shot and my wounds dressed.

Veronica, the stray feeder, who had helped me pick up Bob from the carpark, was horrified. She came over with wine (which I could not partake in, because I was on heavy antibiotics) and changed my dressing for me.

Anyway, Sue-Ann offered to take Bob and as an only cat, he is the most loving thing on earth. I sort of figured out why he couldn't have another cat in the house. It's probably a matter of survival. After all, he grew up with another cat and that cat was picked by his dumb, dumb family and he was left to fend for himself. So he probably figures that competition is bad news.

Anyway, by the time I was at the interview I had ripped off the dressing but it didn't have the impact I had hoped. Instead of healing faster, my arm became swollen and the wounds infected. In fact they had formed an abscess as I learned later, going from the interview to a good doctor who squeezed out the abscess and re-dressed the wound and gave me a fresh lot of antibiotics and asked me to come every day to change the dressing.

I fell sick after that. I'm not sure if it was the wound or the bad air in my office (two of my colleagues that I deal with closely are sick) but I've spent the last two days sleeping in long sweet swatches of time.

I alternate between watching Hallmark Christmas movies on YouTube and sleeping.

Maybe today, I'll get some work done so I don't feel so crummy.

I made chocolate cake from a box (something I swore I would never do, but I wanted to use up the eggs in my fridge) and it didn't turn out all that great.

But never mind. I've stocked up so I don't have to go out for the next few days. I can just stay home and heal by myself.

If I need anything, I have friends who will drop everything and come to the rescue.

I've learned that with my weeping wounds.

Can you opt out?

There was one episode of Happy Days, a Christmas episode, where Richie and his family open the door and peep in and Fonzie is there, celebrating Christmas alone. Until I saw that episode, I didn't even realise that something like that could happen. It seemed like the saddest thing to me in the world.

Which is why it's strange for me now. I make such a big deal about Christmas...start buying presents in July, planning what to buy, getting the cards together, ordering more and more books on Kino. 

And on the day itself, on the day, I'm alone. With my cats (there is no dog anymore, she is in permanent boarding until I figure something else out) and my Christmas tree and the twinkling lights, opening the few presents I haven't already opened.

Can you opt out of a family? 

I guess you can.

Hallmark movies lie to you, they tell you love is forever.

I'm sure it is, but I guess, you're supposed to find that love that is forever. It's not the default that you ended up with, especially if the default has become noxious to you and you, to them.

I have a picture of my mother hanging on my altar, the only family member I have left, the only one that mattered, the only one that matters.

As for the rest, I guess I'll be seeing them around.

Or not.

Probably not.

I have opted out.

The Elements of a Life

What makes up a life? It's all the little things. Funny thing is, in my mind, I keep going back to that uniform shop in Komtar. I've forgotten the name. I am remembering Girl Guide uniforms. I am remembering all these little elements that made up my life, that meant something - the uniforms, the flag raising on Mondays (duty calls), the ikrar we recited.

In hindsight it seems so pointless, so unimportant, all these things that made up my life, all these things that seemed so important, all swept up, all swept away, the elements that you saved, every skirt and blouse and t-shirt and shirt. All those things you cherished as we slipped away.

How do you feel now everything has been swept away, thrown out like they didn't matter, like they were all unimportant?

As your body disintegrates in your fancy coffin underground, how do you feel, Mum, all these memories, all my memories, all your memories swept away as if they didn't exist? In fires, in dumpsters, all swept away.

I miss you and somehow my mind keeps going back to the sky blue Girl Guide's uniform that you bought for me, that you had made. All those clothes you tailored. All the things that made up a life. Our lives.

We were far from rich. I didn't realise that people thought us poor. We always had enough. You made sure of that. When I say I had one parent, one parent, you were the one, you were the only one...and he, only existed in the fringes of our lives, not wanting to be more.

I miss you. I miss those nights after Komtar, doing my homework, dictating yet another edition of The Brief Chronicle. I miss what I took for granted, what I thought would last forever because how could it not?

You held the threads together, they were all in your hands.

And now, do you look down and weep?

Or have you moved on to whatever is next?

I really hope you have moved on. Because what you left behind has unravelled beyond anything you may have thought. It's not good or bad. It's people who are people wanting to be together or not wanting to be together based on who they are and what they want.

We were all so different. You knew we were different. You thought you could make us love each other, regardless.

But. It didn't work.

We revolve in our own circles, further and further apart. Nothing to connect us. Not any more.

Let's Not Pretend

Let's not pretend we care when we don't. I know we're supposed to, it's decreed by some sacred law that you are supposed to care about me, and me, I'm supposed to care about you.

But somewhere along the way it all unravelled and I feel guilty that the thought of you conjures up such reluctance in my belly that I think I would prefer anything but contact.

And you will die, because you have to...it's what we all do...we die slowly. Or fast.

It doesn't matter.

If you don't care about me and I don't care about you...will I even hear when you do?

Or will you hear when they find my body...maybe three years later, maybe sooner...because my cats, you know they will cry and maybe alert people that I'm dead, maybe they will eat me...a corpse is just meat after all, who cares?

We were once something to each other. I thought we were much. I thought we were all.

But years and lies and misunderstandings erode what is between us and now...there is just this great empty feeling.

It's like a plug was unstoppered and the water flowed down, down, down the drain...until there were only the dregs, drops of water.

The water has dried.

There is no feeling left.

Only weariness.

Only this great weariness wondering how I am going to fill this life, these years I have left to me, this body which keeps breaking, this hollow heart.

Once I loved you.

Now I don't.

Misunderstandings, real or imagined

I could blame it on the fact that I was tired, nay, exhausted, but then, it wouldn't be the whole story. The truth is, you have become a burden and I am looking for a way to offload you. I find today that no, you didn't lie to me, that you did in fact have chest pains when you said you did and that I simply jumped to conclusions without checking.

And then, I didn't call to check up on you or visit you.

And then, I ignored your calls when you did, in fact, call me.

I am sorry.

I will try to make amends.

I Thought I Dreamed Of You Last Night

You breeze into my dreams but when I wake I can't remember. Was it really you I saw? Were you crying? Did I feel your sadness? Did it fill the world?

You know how grief can be.

It gets quieter...I promise you that. But, no, you never stop feeling the loss. Sometimes the pang wrenches you. Sometimes, it is as soft as a sigh.

You will always remember because you loved. Isn't it wonderful to know that you loved? That in this case it was not half truths or prevarication? That the one true thing in your life was your love for the one now gone?

I thought I dreamed of you. But I only remember as I am about to fall asleep again.

And then a feeling steals over me. In this quietness. In this hush.

In this silence.

I remember you.

For death to be real, it has to seep into your bones. Otherwise you wake up feeling light, before you remember. Otherwise you wake up thinking everything is OK, as it was. Otherwise, you forget.

For death to be real, it must become a part of you.

This loss.

This absence.

That goes on forever. As you search in the dark for what is no longer there.

The ones who see things that you cannot tell you, don't worry, he is still here. They speak to him, they dream of him.

But for you there is emptiness and silence. You hold on so tightly. And then you let go.

You let go.

You let go......

Once Again, This Time With Feeling

I have to relinquish the blame game. I'm just so tired of trying to figure out when and how I was lied to. And it doesn't really matter. I guess, if you could lie, well, I mustn't really mean that much to you. And so I have to take that in, and move on. And relinquish part of my identity and the things that used to go with it.

It's funny how when you believe a liar and you find out about it, you realise that everyone was looking at you with contempt. It's not the liar who is at fault, but you, for believing them. Surely, they say, you should have known better. You should have noted the inconsistencies...where are your supposedly finely honed instincts?

The problem is, you shut these off for some people. Looking at them through this lens is so hard, so painful. But then, once you know they're liars, you cannot look at them through any other lens. Everything they say sounds suspect, insincere. Everything they do, there's a motive behind it. Not one honest bone in their bodies.

No, there is no nuance, no inflection, no middle ground.

You're either all or nothing.

And you my dear, have proved to be nothing.

And now, I have to divorce myself from you, to not answer the phone when you call with your stupid urgent summons, imperious as if you had a right to be.

My life needs a spring cleaning.

And the first thing I need to get rid of, is you.

I Just Want You To Know Who I Am

Here's what they don't know. They don't know that I went down, to where you died, to gather your spirit and bring it back. They don't know that you were in my apartment until your one week was up and it was time for you to transition. Or that I cried so hard every day, willing myself to let you go, but making bargains with God.

I just couldn't love you back.

Everything becomes unstuck when I have a glass of old wine, stuck in my fridge for weeks and weeks as I waited to take that third glass. But I wanted to drink and I didn't. And then I read her book, or at least I started to, that heady mix of everything...that feeling of coming unglued...and then, your name and I knew she was talking about you, only you.

And then I realised that while you were simply intrigued, because she seemed so different, so extreme, so whirling in different colours - basins of blood, cerulean blue, quivering green (a cold sweat covers me, trembling seizes my body and I am greener than grass...) but she, well, she fell headlong into your body, your arms (encircling her in this friendly way, it meant nothing, not really, you were intrigued is all)....and so she wrote about you undisguised...part of the book is wish fulfilment...it is ostensibly about something important but really, really, there you are...her happily ever after, her dream come true, her port in the storm.

Did you know?

Did you suspect?

Did she tell you?

How does it feel to fall, regardless, to know that in falling, there was no net and she could not hope to be caught? How does it feel that she fell, knowing you would not catch her, that you would step away neatly, the way you do...undisturbed by the torrents of emotion, unmoved?

Everything's made to be broken.

It's been a strange day of hitting the streets early, before the jam, to get to my assignment a half hour early, when I expected to be late....and that strange half light that plays on my windscreen, and the blisters on the backs of my feet and a meeting where I spoke but didn't take in anything because my mind, my mind, was awhirl with rainbow and otters and nothing in particular because I couldn't get anything to coalesce.

Why does he sing with his face, stiff, expressionless? Does he know that untouched and untouchable is desirable, despairing?

I am not sure.

I wish you knew who I was.

Stormy, Uncertain Days

Life has become tenuous and death ever hovers at the edges. One phone call to say, "I feel better" could be followed with another that says, "Jenny, I don't feel well, I'm going to emergency."

When I can't find any of the cats, I go crazy combing the house for them. Problem is, when you call cats, no matter how urgently, they don't emerge from their hiding places. And it scares me. It takes but a moment for them to fall into oblivion.

I receive a phone call to say, good work, I'm happy with how this project is progressing. And another two hours later from the same person, panicking because things are not moving fast enough. I can't exhale, relax because they keep me on my toes, uncertain, not knowing how they will swing from one minute to the next. Isn't that an ancient form of torture? Enforced uncertainty?

It's been a while now with everything up in the air, like rice swirling in a bowl of water, a bowl of water with a whirlpool that keeps the grains a-swirl....never resting, never finding the ground.

That's what's going on inside me now.

And this is why I switch off my phone and shut out the world from time to time. If there is bad news, I don't want to hear it, I don't want to know. For tonight at least, let me rest easy without the torturous uncertainties you seem to think are so crucial.

This state of upheaval.

This holding of the breath.

This churning in my stomach.

This restless sleep.

The tossing and turning.

The storm, the calm, the storm, the calm, the storm.

And then death.

An interlude

This is what's weird. It's like the grief has separated from Ebony and missing him and longing for him, and become an entity in itself. Sort of like, I'm devastated because I'm devastated. And then I feel asleep on a sofa and woke up feeling better. And I took Stella for a walk. And she felt better too.

Later that night...

The apartment seems empty. The cats, my warm, soft, fuzzy presences who hover around me while I'm at the computer or eating, rubbing against me, jumping on my lap, mewing to attract attention, well, they're in a cage at Tanti's. I will be going off to Penang tomorrow and I sent them off to be cat-sat.

Rose did it once, no twice...but after Pablo, she'd rather do anything else but. He climbed on the roof and refused to get down for two days. It was a nightmare for her, although she had so enjoyed the Taman Tun house, the location, the graciousness (despite the leaky roof and mouldy walls), the quietness at night. Heck, she even liked the neighbours.

But I'm truly alone now. Alone. And I don't have my comfort kittens to go cuddle...

So there we are, nothing and I
we have each other
There we are, nothing and I
we fall asleep.

Ebony

What I say over and over again is I'm sorry, I'm sorry...and at first I'm talking to you my darling boy because I wish I could unmake one month ago, I wish I hadn't gone out, I wish I hadn't thrown that tantrum, I wish I had talked...and found out, he was not starving Stella and he was not torturing her so I wish, I wish...I  hadn't behaved so...

And leaving you at home, never suspecting when I came back with the flowers and you ran into the balcony and Pablo chasing you (you hated him), that it would be the last time I would see you, the last time I could have held you (you hated it when I took you up and squashed you in my arms, your fur was so soft and it felt so good to hold you, my elusive boy, my baby).

I didn't even realise when I got home that you weren't there.

It's been a month Ebony and suddenly the feelings rise up, the ones I thought I had choked down, the ones I thought were under control and I'm sitting in that same chair and the feelings pour out of my eyes, my nose, my mouth....I love you, I'm sorry, I love you, I'm sorry....

Come back, come back, come back.

I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to get along without you. You were not even two.

And I know I'll never see you again. And I know you're gone. Gone. Just gone. And you'll never come back....and I miss you, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you...oh baby, I miss you.

Hope Springs Eternal

I have given myself a shake...I am not going to be the victim of circumstances. And neither is my dog. She is young and healthy and loving and naughty. I didn't train her well...an oversight I can amend with the next owner. I have put up an ad for her on PetFinder and in that ad, I stated that I would pay for her to be trained with new owner.

Stella wanted to go see Sylvie, but the guy who adopted Sylvie (and Bruno) says he will not be free until July. Right now he's busy at work and after that, he's travelling. So poor Stella will not get to see Sylvie, not unless she remains with my father in that time. And I'm not sure how willing he is to take her.

She misbehaved yesterday and I did what I should have done long ago. Tied her up and proceeded to ignore her for the rest of the day, rather than give her any attention at all, either positive or negative. It seems to have worked. Today, she is tiptoeing around me. Of course, today, she has also been taken on three walks.

She looks like she is part Dalmatian, part Jack Russell. A beautiful, really smart dog that I have not treated properly.

I tried to buy a folding ladder during the weekend (I needed to change my hall light) but I ended up crushing my fingers in the folds (didn't lock it properly). My big finger on my right hand still hurts.

This has been a strange weekend - and it's OK, it's over now and I have survived it.

The ATM debacle. Li Ming turning up in the nick of time to save me. Getting locked out of my bank accounts because I forgot my PIN number. Inexplicably. Deciding that I had once and for all, better start moving. (mainly because I have run out of time). Reading two Hanah Hunard books and reassessing my life. Miracles from Heaven.

That sort of thing.

Killing Stella

The sensible people in my life tell me there's no choice; that she's just too much trouble. That she's had her chance and now I'm moving to an apartment and I cannot take her and stress over her bad behaviour may just kill my father who's agreed to babysit her until I can get her sorted...her behaviour, her adoption.

I called Stella in after a long, long conversation on the phone. And I started to cry. I couldn't help it. I had to put Arnold to sleep. There I had no choice. He was old and suffering so much. I had to help put Elliott to sleep. Again, he was at the end, the dregs of his life. I had to put that kitten to sleep. He had sporo and there was no coming back from that. And every death wrenched something from me. I wept as I held them and the vets injected. It hurt so much.

But Stella? That's a whole other level of pain. She's still a pup. Not even two. She has so much life in her. Yes, she's destructive and she has no boundaries. Because I never gave her any boundaries. I never found out the right way to train her.

And now this sweet little dog is going to pay the price of my neglect. And I don't know what to do.

She was adopted and returned.

I don't have the energy to give her all the exercise that she needs. And I've been ill. She stays outside...somehow she doesn't want to come in. She looked at me anxiously as I was weeping and then left. Walked out.

I don't know what to do.

Please tell me what to do.

I wish someone out there could help me. I don't want to kill Stella. I don't want to see her die.

How Stella Didn't Get Her Groove Back

Well, among other things, Stella is back. I received a text from the woman who adopted her telling me they couldn't keep her as she was too destructive. She asked if they could return her to me. Otherwise, they would have to give her away.

What could I say?

Of course I agreed to take her back.

I went to see an animal communicator who told me that Stella isn't bad. She's just a high energy dog and her two walks a day have done little to make even the slightest dent in her energy. That's why she suddenly tears around the place like a mad dog and when she gets these energy surges, she destroys everything in her path. She doesn't mean to be bad. It's just play.

Also because I didn't train her or set any boundaries, she just acts out. So now, while I'm moving, I have to find a way to train her and set boundaries and use up some of that excess energy.

For the past two days, I took her to the dog park near the house (I should have gone a lot sooner) and let her play with other dogs.  I let her run free for about an hour but apparently this was not enough. This morning I woke up to find that she had destroyed the second gate. She had destroyed the first part about a week ago. Which means she needs to be tied up at all times, even if I exercise her. She told the animal communicator that destroying the gate was one way of getting my attention. It doesn't matter if it's negative attention.

Attention is attention.

I should have listened.

Ebony, Sheba and Pablo are in the house. Pablo sticks close to me but I don't know where the other two are. Ebony is in a mood. He seems to always be in mood these days. Sheba comes and rubs himself against me, endures my strokes and then pulls away to go elsewhere. Pablo lets me stroke him occasionally.

Because we couldn't go to the dog park, I took Stella for a run today. We ran and ran and ran - did the usual circuit three times. I think by the third circuit she was actually tired. But am not sure. Because I wasn't. And I think she has more energy than me.

Work is busy. Over the weekend, when it rained heavily, I fell into a drugged sleep from which I could barely stir. I think I'm tired.

In fact, I know I'm tired.

When I'm tired, I switch off the phone or ignore it. I sleep and sleep and rise to the surface only to read some more of my book.

At the moment, it's Alice Bliss by Laura Harrington, a book I picked up at least five years ago when I was on another desk, a desk which came with books to review - although this was a book of fiction and not suitable for review on that desk. I am now towards the end - it is a heartbreaking book and so beautifully written. Can't believe it took me so long to get around to it.

I am thirsty. Think I'll get a drink of water.

Killer Cat on the Loose

I am actually feeling terrified. My loan has just disbursed. I cannot hide out here much longer. This means that I have to start moving to the new place.

Stella has already been given up for adoption. I think she is happy. In the one video and update that I got from her new mistress, she seemed happy. I have to ask for another update.

There is a killer cat in the neighbourhood. One of my neighbours told me that it single-handedly killed at least five of his cats. He didn't believe it. The cat in question looks so sweet that if you didn't see him attack (he goes straight for the jugular) you wouldn't believe it.

I didn't see him attack. I just heard about it from the neighbour who has lost his cats. He saw the cat attack one of his own in front of him....it all seems a little bizarre. The attacks started after another neighbour found kittens in one of her rooms, and proceeded to go amok. She put the tiny kittens in a plastic bag, swinging the bag all over the place (the kittens were terrified and screaming so loudly) and threatened to throw them near the river or some place far far away so their mother would not be able to find them.

I took the kittens from her and they kept me up with their crying for the next three nights (I fed them and ran a wet cloth over their nethers to encourage them to poop and pee and cuddled them but it was not enough; they wanted their mama). On the third night, their mother (who must have heard them because they all have good lungs) came to the back door to retrieve them. Glory be!

But on the night of my neighbour going amok, the killing sprees began. The guy opposite her lost two of his adult cats. He found the body of one but not the other. He thought it was the amok woman who had done it.

Then he lost his favourite white kitten. And then his favourite female grey - also barely out of kitten hood. He saw the demonic cat attack his grey. He watched it and realised...this is the culprit. Not that woman he had harboured so much animosity against. So he came over to my window to let me know.

These are strange times indeed.

Anyway, I have become even more paranoid about my cats. Having said that, Pablo is now outside, Ebony is wandering around the garden and only Sheba is inside, lying down and looking at me, like a  cat model. (the killer cat is a ginger tabby with a collar and a bell).

Forgiveness and Strange Times

So I listened to the daily reading today (Catholic Online: Deacon Keith Fournier) and it was all about forgiveness. And I thought about the forgiveness I have withheld in my heart to so many and have decided that today, I am going to make an effort to forgive these people. Even though they have hurt me (and continue to), even though most times they were clearly in the wrong (does that sound very forgiving to you?), even though I'm not a forgiver by nature. More of a Guinness Book of Records grudge holder, a title I seem to guard so jealously.

So phew! Forgiveness. How does one go about that? Are there online resources to help me? I remember seeing a CD called Radical Forgiveness which was being sold at Violet Flame way back when. Now Violet Flame has moved and I don't think they sell CDs anymore. Maybe I can find it online. Maybe I can download it over iTunes.

I saw an old lady under a bridge on Jalan Universiti. Her possessions were scattered around her in different plastic bags. She looked like a decent old lady (reminded me a bit of my Mummy) and it was raining and she was clearly, homeless. It sent such a pang through me. I wanted to stop and help her.

But I couldn't. For so many reasons, including the fact that my father was in the car and we were heading to hospital because he had had such a sharp pain in his chest it had debilitated him for some hours. I wanted to go to the specialist centre but it was closed on Sundays. So we waited at the Emergency (the name must be ironic) while they treated Dadda like there was no urgency about it at all.

So I have to make an appointment with him at the UMSC and ask for Prof Imran to attend to him because that's who Vas has recommended.

Last night I went looking for the old lady. The thought of her sleeping under that bridge in the rain just tore into me. But I couldn't find her. I cried all the way home.

These are strange times. But I figure if I can rescue kittens and puppies, why not an old lady who reminds me of my mother?

Christmas delights, bumpers and naughty kittens

It's close to Christmas and my tree is up and my fruitcakes all made (half of them distributed) I can't remember to whom because only one person gave me any feedback about it and that person asked me if I could make it all year round instead of just at Christmas and I said, hell no, it's so fiddly and troublesome to do...

As for the rest, I haven't heard a word.

There are seven more cakes reposing on my kitchen shelf. One large one is for the office, my desk. The others are for various people. It's so late into December already and guess what? I haven't even posted all the cards I wanted to post. Maybe I won't then. I did post a whole heap already.

But but but...

Ebony and Stella are sleeping under the tree...close to each other. They have developed more of a relationship. Armanoush is lying on the threshold. Stella gives her a wide berth because she tends to hiss angrily when Stella tries to get anywhere close. I spanked her today for bullying Sheba. At least, I thought she was bullying but looks like Sheba was only playing. And funny thing happens when I'm disciplining Armanoush. The other two cats (whom she tortures and bites) show up looking concerned.

I have an overview to write. Some letters to post. An Advent calendar letter to write for the latest present. Two more letters to write to other folk so I can go to the post office and post them off. I have neglected so many people because Christmas (and the our bumper issue) tends to be overwhelming.

I fell sick again. I fell sick on my birthday. Was waking up with a painful throat, spitting out green, infected phlegm in the morning and feeling really, really tired. Well, the celebrations kicked off and by the next morning I was truly ill.

I spent a week at home after that. A sort of present from the universe. I couldn't go into the office because on top of the cough and cold, I had conjunctivitis. Tried going into work on Thursday but got sent home. Conjunctivitis, after all, being highly contagious. I tried to wear a mask and dark glasses but apparently not good enough.

Anyway, I slept for the first three days straight through, waking up to try and read trash (my brain was tired and couldn't handle anything non-trashy or serious) and eating take-out pizza. I watched endless episodes of Petticoat Junction and the Andy Griffith Show, wishing I lived a simple life in a simple country town where people passed the time of day with each other and life is not at breakneck speed.

I am still tired. I am still sick. I felt gnarly yesterday and woke up to my cats jumping all over me in an attempt to wake me up (they were starving). I have decided not to feed them if they haven't finished their food from the previous meal. Times are hard and I will not have spoilt cats wasting their food willy nilly.

Actually, it's one overview and one editor's note to go.

And then there's the January issue that we want to close before Christmas.

It's Only My Body You're Breaking

I feel your fist smash into my face and it doesn't hurt. Not really.

I feel the telephone receiver you break on my head. And it doesn't hurt. Not really.

I feel the broom on my foot again. I can't walk now. But still, it doesn't hurt. No, it doesn't.

And the belt on my skin, tearing me open. But it doesn't hurt. Not really.

It's only my body you're breaking. And my body is not me.

You don't love me but it doesn't matter. I don't love me either.

And it's only my body you're breaking. Maybe some of this will heal. And maybe some of it won't.

It doesn't matter. I don't care. Don't let it worry you. Don't carry it into tomorrow.

It's only my body you've broken. And my body matters about as much as I do.

So leave it for now.

Leave it forever.

It doesn't matter.

Not really.

A Storm Raging Through My Frozen Heart Tonight

It all seems so unreal now. The way we started. The way we ended. It was all make believe. I pretended you were perfect though I knew you were not.

I was hiding from my own pain and I didn't want to face being alone. She left and she took with her the colours of the sky, the rainbow in my eye, my heart's ease, my heart's delight.

She left and I stepped out of my cocoon and found the world cold and blaring and full of jagged little edges that surprised me, that cut me, that hurt.

I shouldn't have stepped out of my cocoon but how could I help it when she was the body that surrounded me, enveloped me, protected me from the world. In her arms, I was always safe. In her eyes, I was a real person, not a shadow.

I mattered.

And then I didn't. Her eyes grew cold. Her arms didn't encircle so much as push me away.

I tried to grab hold but further and further I went. There was no stopping this downward spiral. I was desperate. I tried everything. But the more I did, the further she seemed.

And one day she turned to me, sadness in her eyes, regret.

And I knew it was over.

We waited in the spaces between breaths. No one wanted to say it first. Words can be so final. We leave them unspoken hoping we'll never have to speak them. Hoping things will change. Hoping we'll wake up tomorrow and everything will be all right.

But in that space between breaths, I felt something tearing. I heard someone weeping. Maybe it was me. I felt myself falling, scrambling for a handhold on the sheer rock face but there was none.

And so I fell. I fell. I kept falling.

Help me, I screamed. Somebody save me, I screamed.

There was only silence. When the only one who loves you ceases to love you, there is only silence. And it is deafening.

I wanted to wrap my arms around her. I wanted to weep on her skin. But I knew she was freezing. I knew she would look through me, with that look in her eyes. I felt her contempt sear my eyelids and then... I felt my heart ice over.

It was the only way to arrest the free fall. It was the only way not to smash on the rocks. It was the only way to survive.

Sometimes I wish I had just allowed myself to keep falling. However long it took; a year or two or maybe 10. I could have dealt with it. One hour at a time, breathed through the pain, allowed it to wash over, allowed myself to cry, though not in public, allowed myself to completely unravel.

And then, when I was done falling apart, I could sort through the debris, the detritus of me, and slowly, excruciatingly, put myself together again.

Pain would be better than this nothing I feel now. Pain would be better than frozen.

April may be the cruelest month but I'm not going to thaw anytime soon.

Lost

It was a long time before they found my body. I stood there, waiting. Not that I felt compelled to stay but I was curious. How long would it take? I remembered that woman they only found a few years later. What was it? Three? And I wondered at the time, how someone could disappear from the face of this earth like that, in an apartment, no less, and no one know.

But then, here I was waiting...for someone to find me and bury me. Or at least cremate me.

I left my body to roam. I went in search of people I knew, or thought I knew. I couldn't really remember. It all seemed so long since anyone was really close to me.

Close to me.

Can a spirit weep?

Can it feel sadness?

Can it feel regret?

Because that was all that boiled up in me at this moment.

Regret. Searching for something I had lost.

Searching but not finding.

The faces of the people I thought I knew, receding.

I didn't know where to look for them. And it was a long time since they had cared about me. Or I had cared about them. A long time since we had cared about each other.

This disposable life. Where every relationship eventually becomes teflon.

I remember watching movies and when two people who cared about each other hugged (not lovers; lovers didn't hug, they kissed) I always teared up because I thought, ah, that feeling, I want that feeling, why is it I can't have that feeling?

The faces receded further. A faint memory.

Fainter.

Who was I again?

Where was my body?

I forgot.

I can't find it.

Who was I looking for? Urgency in my centre. Sadness. Regret. And loss.

A growing sense of loss.

Who was I again?

Had I always been wandering these streets searching for something?

Someone?

I can't remember.

I can't remember.

I'm lost.

I'll just keep wandering.

Should have, could have, would have

What I should be doing is writing a speech. What I am doing instead is surfing the net, feeling blatantly uninspired. Writing speeches is only bearable when you have some Anne Sexton on hand to read. A dip into Sexton, some inspiration, some loosening of this brainlock and then I write. Nonsense at first, braindump, and then I arrange the nonsense and sometimes it actually makes sense. And if it doesn't, that's what second drafts are for.

How do you keep doing what you are supposed to do, when you pretty much don't feel like doing anything at all? When your eyelids are drooping and you're thinking, ah, a nap at the desk would be nice.

This morning I had an interview in a bungalow near a kindergarten and I left my name cards there. The person I interviewed called me as I was on the way to BSC for an official lunch and I had no time to turn back. So, there I am, lost without my cards. But not really.

I just found out that I am going to interview someone whose books I really love.

Unexpected things do happen to wake you up!

I Want You To Burn

I am sipping a glass of Prosecco and staring at the screen through my new glasses. It's late but I can't go home yet. Thinking of all the animals hungry and wishing I could. Oh well. Comes with the territory. And I hope they're not really starving. Kicked Ebony out today because the devil has gotten into him and he was behaving like a mad cat.

Last night I locked him in the bathroom after he broke a glass. Today, obviously still enraged, he started zipping around madly and torturing Sheba. I gathered him up by his hind legs and tossed him out of the house. When I was leaving for work, I didn't see him. Obviously he has taken to the hills. Oh well, he'll come back when he is hungry. If no one else decides to adopt him first. He's obviously decided that he has had enough of this house. 

I would say "ungrateful" but really, is he? Cats are cats. They have their own code. 

It's late and I was thinking maybe I can come in late tomorrow. But then I remembered; early assignment. (that's a heavy sigh you cannot hear)

Elaine found her dog. It's been a month and poor Moksha is emaciated and injured and a bone is exposed in her paw - her foot must have been caught in a trap. I don't know what the full story is and how she eventually came to Elaine but poor doggie. It looks like it was not a moment too soon. She has been warded for three days. After which she should be, if not as good as new, at least, as good as can be expected. It will be a slow healing process for all of them.

I'm listening to Tina Arena's "Burn". I think I'll do my "morning pages" now. 

Trippin'

I'm writing this from the office. Have just finished transcribing a loooong interview that I thought I transcribed at home, but somehow, it sort of got lost in the transfer. I decided not to scream soundlessly into my computer screen but just get on with it. To tell you the truth, I don't really have time to scream. I have missed the deadline set for me so now I'm scrambling to catch up.

It is a familiar territory full of blood and entrails and the sound of children weeping and dogs howling and cats mewing piteously.

Also I'm waiting for a phone call which I should have made a couple of weeks ago because I want to feature this particular do-gooder...and I needed to talk to the boss but the boss was overseas and the person I interviewed just ended up talking about politics and spirituality and bullying and and and...well, nothing I could use.

Naturally, my mind has taken a break and drifted off somewhere during this time. Of course it would. It always does this when I have a shitload of stories to deliver, stories that are expected to mean something...be something.

I'm even afraid to read the notes.

I'm afraid of being overwhelmed by all those words, words, words, words, words - hours upon hours of interviews neatly transcribed, laid-out, ready for me to figure out some sort of structure, arrange the words into proper sentences...make it work, for God's sakes.

Setting boundaries

There seems to be a theme over my last few blogposts. This incessant feeling of exhaustion. I need to do an audit to see how much of that is from actual work and how much of it is emotion - living up or at least, attempting to live up to other people's expectations, not wanting to offend people, not wanting to be thought a bad friend.

There were times this year when I should have said an emphatic 'no' basically because I was too tired or I had other work to do, important work to do. Instead I agreed, albeit reluctantly, and then felt exhausted and then fell terribly sick. There is a pattern here...it is not selfish to not meet expectations. I have to define for myself what selfish is or isn't.

If meeting your expectations means that I languish ill in bed for the next few days or work through the fever and the sneezing and the incessant coughing...then really, I shouldn't be meeting your expectations. And if you choose to take offence about that, then really, we shouldn't be friends, should we?

And cutting you out of my life would seem like a lightening, a removal of toxicity.

Switching off my phone this weekend was one of the best things I ever did.

Saying no to going to the BRC was another.

Later for you.

Reclaiming My Life

I keep talking about claiming, or rather reclaiming my life, but most days I don't do a very good job of it. A friend, a deeply intuitive friend, told me that nearly all my actions are driven by guilt. She said guilt was my primary emotion.

I rejected it at first. Of course I felt a little guilt; who didn't? But surely it was not the primary motivating factor of my life.

I notice lately that I have become irritable. Actually, not just lately. It has been a long time now. I resent ordinary things; like being asked to join people for dinner. My immediate reaction is? What, you think I have nothing better to do?

Actually, I don't really have anything better to do.

But I want to go home, hang out with the pets, read my books, write some letters.

I want time to myself.

But instead of carving out that time for myself, I usually just go along with plans I never intended to make. Spontaneous plans that arise all of a sudden. Even if I'm tired. Even if I don't want to. Even if there is someplace else I'd rather be.

Guilt stops me from getting out of chat groups on whatsapp. Instead, I mute these groups or switch off my mobile data for the weekend.

I have thought of turning off my phone for the weekend because innocent invitations can drive me crazy.

I finally acknowledge, something is not right here. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

I missed something today because I have decided that I want my Sundays to myself, doing whatever the hell I feel like doing. Even if it is nothing. I do not want my Sundays circumscribed by prescribed activities.

(Here a gentle voice butts in to tell me that I was never circumscribed, that I chose to go on my own volition and that I'm free to leave ditto, no questions asked. Any guilt I choose to feel, I choose to feel on my own).

I want to reclaim my life.

I just don't know how.

My Nubian Princess Who is Actually A Male Cat

Ebony and Sheba spend the night outside. I go out twice in my jammies to try and cajole them back. No cigar. They are content to cavort in the field next to my house or hide under cars. This is despite the fact that neither has had their dinner. There it is laid out in splendid profusion, barely touched.

Oh well. I give up and crawl onto my newly cleaned bed (Rose is coming on Saturdays instead of Sundays from now on), try to read a few pages of "13 things that mentally strong people don't do", and fall fast fast asleep. Oh, the bliss of it.

In the morning there is an incessant mewing at my door. Sheba must have jumped in through the window wide open at my study table. Although there is food laid out for him (the untouched food from the night before) he wants to crawl into bed and suck on my earlobe (it's a cat that was abandoned by his mother too early thing; they find a spot on your body to nurse). I am too tired to swat him off but eventually I have to wake up. 

Ebony is outside. He has come in (despite Stella) and is waiting by the door. I let him in as well. 

He noses around his bowl, maybe has a few mouthfuls and then goes off to sleep. Sheba, on the other hand, who is asleep in the bathroom and realises that I am up to suspicious activity (bathing is classified as suspicious because once you bathe, you go out) came out sleepily and proceeded to make a nuisance of himself. He had to jump on my lap. He had to displace the book (Flaubert: A Life) I was reading. He had to weave himself around my feet and mew loudly at Esther when she came in with the ramen she was lunching on.

He saw me settle down with the computer and decided that it was a false alarm and has gone off to sleep again. Ebony has not stirred except to display different bits of his belly to the sun. He is sleeping on the cage in the air well.

Last night I had dinner with Chubs and his family. It was nice. Francis is a big boy now, talking. He likes monster trucks (there, birthday present and potentially Christmas present sorted).

On Friday, out of the blue, a colleague treated me to a really expensive facial. Not only that, I escaped the sales spiel at the end. She had to endure it but as she is comfortable saying no over and over, it didn't really bother her. And then we went for dinner and it was good all around.

I would write more but I want to go off to Tropicana City Mall and write some letters and watch a movie.

Creating my own sanctuary

I ask my body, why is it that you are so tired? Why is it that the thought of doing something, anything fills you with such irritation that you want to shut out the world, the incessant whine of other people and their demands (even their legitimate demands) and hide away for a while or a little longer than a while?

The world is too much with me day and night and somehow it seems like I can't escape...

I haven't sat down to write a letter in weeks. Weeks! Me, who writes letters every week and does so cheerfully.

I've decided that my weekends are going to be my own again. I will eschew every activity (except for Mass) from it because I resent all other activities.

As for exercise, I will decide on what I want to do and how I will go about it. My shoes are still dirty with mud from the plantations. I need to wash them.

I will go off for the day, go for a movie (which I haven't been able to do for the longest time because there is just no time and when there is, I'm too tired), hang out at a cafe, write, read...switch off my phone, not worry about anything or anyone else.

Yeah, that's what I am going to do.

Later that day:

OK it's less than an hour later but still later. I wonder what's missing. I re-read old blog posts and see the same weariness, the same difficulty in putting one foot in front of another, the same forcing myself to keep on when I don't really feel like it anymore.

Even later...

I am reading Flaubert: A Life. I have just gotten to his affair with Louise Colet. I could understand and relate to Colet's frustration...the affair started off all blood and fire and poetry and explosions and then he cooled down and got sober and forbade her to come visit him in Croisset and would rather spend time with his friend and...just became detached is all. And she, with her husband and her protector on the side, wanted all of him and didn't understand what he was on about in his letters, his dissertations on art. He wanted to talk about art. She wanted to talk about love. She wanted to know that he loved her, above all else.

He didn't.

Ironic. After the (final) ending, they became pen pals.

And so it goes, and so it goes.

A Holiday That Wasn't

So I took the day off because I was tired. I had spent most of Saturday walking through plantations trying to find my friend Elaine's lost dog. She spotted her dog on Saturday but Moksha seems to have reverted to her wild, terrified state. She saw Elaine, she followed her from a safe distance and then she skittered away and hid. The next day (Sunday) she went back with only her husband. And the day after that (today) she went back alone. The food she had left had been eaten. But there are plenty of stray dogs there at the Orang Asli village. So it could have been eaten by any one of them.

Elaine sounds sad, defeated an exhausted in her whatsapp messages. People offer eager support. But I think she just wants to be left alone.

I didn't get much rest yesterday because Sunday is invariably a day of activity. One of us has to go to the LRT station to pick Rose, the cleaner up. And then, well, you have to wait for Rose to get through your room. I fell asleep only to be awakened by the phone and I answered it and couldn't get off because there was a lonely old man at the other end and I stupidly invited him for lunch (he didn't want to come but Esther was cooking up a feast) and then I was late for the Mass I had intended to go for...and ended up at a late Mass at a church I don't normally go to.

So everything was late. I was late getting home, which meant rushing to walk Stella and there was the activity at night...but I was too tired to rush anymore so I arrived horribly late and left rather early because there were three stories I still had to clear, not to mention a foreword to write. I cleared all of one.

So woke up this morning, took the day off, cleared two stories, wrote a foreword, went to sleep and then found out that I needed to do more stories because, well, empty pages. So I have in effect spent the whole of my day off, working. Sigh.

Now I need to take Stella for a walk and give her her evening meal. But I should feed the cats before I leave. Or should I? Maybe I can feed them all one shot.

Decisions, decisions.

Some days you should not get out of bed

If you leave me now, you'll take away the biggest part of me, uuuuuuuoh baby please don't go....if you leave me now, you'll take away the very heart of me...uuuuuuu oh baby please don't go..

Maybe I'm just too tired. I keep messing up. I keep not figuring out what I'm supposed to be doing. I go to a bank to get money from a Western Union transfer and I put in the wrong number. I have to amend it. And sign the amendment. I transfer the money directly into a banker's cheque. I put in the wrong amount.

I have been waiting for this talk/meeting at SFX for a few weeks. Day comes, I leave early in the rain and get there in good time. But the second floor is closed off. And there doesn't seem to be any activity taking place on the first floor. In fact, people are leaving. I check my phone to see if I missed something and there is a message saying that the meeting will now be held at St Ignatius. Without calling anyone to check or asking anyone, I immediately assume it's St Ignatius the church. Which will take me hours to get to (well an hour at least) in this rain and this jam. I set off anyway and arrive there and find people streaming into church because it's Thursday and there's the hour of adoration.

I walk around looking for the meeting...and then, only then decide to call Pat, the organiser. She asks me why I would think the meeting would be at another church when it's an SFX thing. I sigh. It's too late to get back. And besides, I spent so long in traffic (I have been driving nearly two hours now) that I just can't face making the same journey the other way. Not in this rain. Not in this jam. Not when I'm so tired and hungry and just so out of sorts.

So I get home and feed the animals and then faff about, knowing at the back of my mind that I should be taking Stella for a walk. I temporise and watch a really awful Malay movie because someone had shared a part of it on FB and I found that part so funny that I really needed to know what happened before and after. And then I bite the bullet and walk Stella... she trots beside me happy, tongue hanging out, knowing that I am not going to shortchange her. There are some things she expects. It's the routine of it. Dogs like routine.

When we get back, Sheba has run away and Ebony sits waiting - so I force him into the house and he keeps me company as I watch a silly Thai ad about the impossibility of women. Yeah, yeah.

Ebony sits on my lap, jumps off, goes to the room (he has decided it's time for bed), comes out again to check on me (because I haven't decided the same thing), nibbles on some of the food he and Sheba left over from dinner, and moves off to where I can't see him. He may be drinking water now. He may have jumped on one of the dining chairs. He likes to perch on them and swing his tail ominously from side to side. Except that he's not really an ominous kitten. He's a cute fat black furball.

Laters.

Running on a treadmill gets you nowhere

Mind's messed up. I wish I could focus. But I can't. I'm spinning my wheels in mud, running in circles, trying to figure out why I can't seem to figure anything out.

So I listen to Bonnie Raitt on YouTube and watch Pretty Ugly People and read Ryan Reynold's tweets and wonder where Ebony has got to and wish I could take in the mother cat because she's lonely and affectionate and she just wants to be loved and safe and I've been feeding her for months now. Considering the situation, the song is appropriate, don't you think?

I'm wondering what is up. Is all this waste matter that is dissipating all the negativity naturally? Does it only have to be uncomfortable for a while?

Here in the dark
in these final hours
I will lay down my heart
and I'll feel the power
but you won't
no you won't....

Ebony is with me now. He's lying next to me and watching me type. He's a warm soft presence close by. And soon I will put away the laptop, stop listening to Raitt on loop and cuddle him and sleep.

Good night.