Fixing This Whole Thing Now
And it's not entirely a new place to visit where you are right now. The midnights and the memories and the highs and the lows are not as much capsulised, not as much filtered into one weird, long sigh such as this.
You've been through this nifty little hole once before, you continue to remind yourself. It's not funny. It's not nifty, not even little. It extends to more than two years of midnights and memories and amplified to almost infinitesimal amount of highs and lows that you could only ever imagine jotting down on a paper-thin of godknowswhere body of upstream river.
That was then.
But how about the uncertainties and the ambiguities of the next months or so — of the new work, the new place, the new people circling and looping many times around the very claustrophobic anxiety that you have been meticulously trying to mitigate into an everlasting, especially-guarded status quo?
And that is afterward.
At the end of it all, after you have done adding and subtracting and multiplying and dividing countless possibilities and probabilities — you damn wish it's just worth it, that she's worth it. That serendipity deserves another frickin' chance to be fortuitous. That dichotomy of the then and the afterward could never ever monopolise the chance to sacrifice and euthanise what is here, and what is now. That every agony, every miss, every sentimental verbal diarrhea of each and every decision is meant only for her... only her.
Otherwise, well otherwise, the river's just another of Inspector Javert's river. That without her, the world around you changes, the trees are bare and everywhere the streets are full of frickin' strangers.
Where the streets are full of frickin' strangers.
2 January 2010, Singapore | link
Sweet November
That which make this month sugar-coated.
1. Cool Kindle, of course. Now I have no excuse flipping those dusted books.
2. Yankees. Finally.
3. ER Conference, like it's never been done ever before.
4. Vegas poker. Hmmmmm.
5. Number five, for no apparent reason.
17 November 2009, Las Vegas | link
10 Degrees
10 Degrees. That's all he needs really. That's all he needs to thaw the frigid hiatus of scribbling; his icy fingers now gingerly putting up letters, then words, then phrases about the miscellany of a little bit of this and a little of that.
Multitasking with excitement — of curiosity of this airfield, of archive-viewing World Series Game 3 (heck, he's still at 33k feet above sealevel during the live cast), of (almost) smelling the tinge of the Vegas heat... now just few hours of ho-humming.
And before he could ever nap further, call for boarding — with destination to some dude named Mccarran...
2 November 2009, Vancouver | link
Why You Didn't Say Goodbye
Because it's not your style, it's not your belief that leaving has to be shortchanged with a knee-jerk thought-out reaction of needless sentimentality; it might baffle or chagrin some of the very nice persons that expect some words from you, but the very act of leaving is ridiculously paralysing enough that letting them know you're "actually going" might be paralysingly ridiculous. Paralysingly ridiculous especially to you.
Because it's better to move further without whispers of self-importance, to start the engine of your crossroads without honking the horns of your presence... or absence. That it'd be better for, ever much better to slip through the night and continue your so-far-so-glorious journey without waking up the very people who after two years, have become so darn close and special to you that it made it evermore difficult to close the door and leave your shadows behind.
Because nobody really is leaving, in the very undistorted sense of the word, that the word is overhyped in its meaning — since, for the sake of reality, perhaps you're not at all going away; you're actually hanging just around the proximity of everyone else who cares whether you're gone or not... probably you're merely meandering, that you're expecting everybody else to see you once in a while, rub shoulders occasionally.
Because, come to think clearly of it, you probably have let them felt that it's time to go — though you've never let those emotions escape to be articulated.
But all apologies to those who expected you to say it, there's a reason that the word was not even uttered. And so it is, "No goodbyes, only a promise that there'd be a forever to friendships and memories!"
And instead of that word, it'd be better to say... "thanks!"
21 August 2007, Atlanta | link
Just Another Day
Frickin' fine day!
Back to where you live, it's your birthday! — but here, right here where you try to rest your restless, wasted body... it's not yet, it's only your birthday's eve.
And darn, thanks for the wifi!
Twelve thousand economy miles later, you're still waiting for your connecting flight to you-know-where.
You just wish you-know-who would be waiting there...
14 August 2007, Washington DC | link
Passenger
乘客 by Faye Wong (cover)
高架桥过去了 The highway bridge had passed
路口还有好多个 There are many more blocks to go
这旅途不曲折 This was a smooth road
一转眼就到了 We arrived in no time
坐你开的车 Sitting in the car you drive
听你听的歌 Listening to the songs you listen to
我们好快乐 We are happy indeed
第一盏路灯开了 The first streetlight has lit
你在想什么 What are you thinking?
歌声好快乐 The tune is happy indeed
那歌手结婚了 That singer has married
坐你开的车 Sitting in the car you drive
听你听的歌 Listening to the songs you listen to
我不是不快乐 I am not unhappy
白云苍白色 The white clouds of a pale white
蓝天灰蓝色 The blue sky of a grayish blue
我家快到了 My home is almost there
我是这部车 I am this car's
第一个乘客 First passenger
我不是不快乐 I am not unhappy
天空血红色 The sky of a blood red
星星灰银色 The stars of a grayish silver
你的爱人呢 Where is your lover?
yes, i'm going home, i must hurry home
where your life goes on
21 November 2006, Singapore | link