Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Fluffy Sticky Cotton Candy

He seemed perpetually trapped in an endless loop of the verse of this catchy hit, and with the accompanying percussion effects of his hands on the steering wheel, I couldn’t stop giggling. As we drove past Niko Niko’s, I thought it resembled that Greek song that was spinning there last night, but he said Mexican music is different, and so was he. We didn’t seem to be in a hurry to find food, nevertheless the queer-choked emissions emanating from Cafe Adobe on a Monday night was like a far-reaching searchlight on a darkened winter night, impossible to miss, and so we joined in the cacophony of clanking wine glasses in the middle of sisterhood gatherings, beauty and fashion parade and raunchy talk shows with generous compliments of glittering evening wear, gym show-offs and mobile phone conversations. I saw the same spot where I had sat at on my first visit here. Strangely, it didn’t seem so hard to let go now.

Our conversations would run on and on post dinner to a teahouse where I taught him how to play Big 2 (and got beaten at every round except the first) till we returned to my room, of which the highlight would only arrived, better late than never, during the farewell hug at 1am that went into overtime and took on a life of its own. He caught the lingering base note of my perfume, and using the pretext of wanting to identify the brand, continued to hold on to me to extend his investigation.

He wasn’t even trying anymore before long. The anticipation of an impending farewell had just the opposite effect, so we continued to stay very still, both standing in a dozy embrace, solidified at the brink of a bidding kiss, just behind the hotel door.

I thought that was bliss.

When our lips finally met, I was skimming the thin line of consciousness at 3am, found myself under the sheets, looking at him sweating silly struggling to pull down my shorts that were already half way down my butt. I reached for his fluffy hair and closed my eyes again, all the while thinking that I had never been happier since I arrived three weeks ago.

I am happy. I am.

BRAVEHEART [98]

Saturday, March 25, 2006

Ramblings No.97


Eyes shut tight, Dorothy, fretful and all, clapped the heels of her shoes together three times and said,

There is no place like home.

There is no place like home.

There is no place like home.


And then she opened her eyes.

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Butterflies And March Skies



Sub 15 chilly wind
Warm sunlight that tickles my skin

Blue cloudless sky
Strangers who greet you in the eye

Drizzling morning
I dream of Magee Mee Goreng

Broken CD tracks
Dandy flowers from pavement cracks

Deserted streets
Frozen overnight pizza from the fridge


Muted sigh
Stumbling and shivering down my spine

Sexy cowboys
Gleaming Rolls Royce

Collossal guts
Second to none except gigantic butts

Mindless comedies on TV
Restless mind searching for the exit key

Threesome in my room
Loneliness subsided but came back too soon

Two weeks down

Eight more to complete the round

Monday, March 20, 2006

Broken-Hearted Mountain

Ennis Del Mar lifted Jack's shirt. It seemed heavy until he saw there was another shirt inside it, the sleeves carefully worked down inside the outer sleeves. It was his own plaid shirt, lost, he'd thought, long ago in some damn laundry, his dirty shirt, the pocket ripped, buttons missing, stolen by Jack and hidden here inside Jack's own shirt, the pair like two skins, one inside the other, two in one. He pressed his face into the fabric and breathed in slowly through his mouth and nose, hoping for the faintest smoke and mountain sage and salty sweet stink of Jack but there was no real scent, only the memory of it, the imagined power of Brokeback Mountain of which nothing was left but what he held in his hands.

Saturday, March 18, 2006

asuddengustofwind



asuddengustofcoldwindcameupandcaughtmebeforeImanaged
topullmyloosejacketclosertomybody/ibitmylipssohardithought
itastedblood/feltgoosebumpsraisedandrubbedagainstthethinm
aterialofmylongsleeveshirtasthinastheexcitementofthistriphas
worn/mummessagedtoremindmethatihavenotphonedhomefort
hreedays/strangelyiseemtohavegottenusedtothedailyroutineo
fwakinguptoahotelroomthatfeltasfamiliarasthefacesofstranger
swhowouldgreetmegoodmorningintheelevatorslateronandthen
thecabridestotheofficewhereiwouldwatchstreetscenesflippast
inafrenziedblurwithanoccasionalbuildingortwowherepleasantm
emoriesofthenotsodistantpastwerestaged/andthenformealsve
nturedaroundtownarmedwithacompanyexpensecardofaseemin
glybottomlesscreditlimitandthentheaccompanyingstarkrealizat
ionofhowcruellyblandthetastereallyiswhentheheartisnotsettos
avouritsvariousculinarywonders/andthenasenselessmonologue
ofquietexistencebackinthehotelroomdottedwithcountlessdesp
erateattemptstoconnectwithanythinghomethesuddengustofc
oldwindleftmeasswiftlyasithadappearedidonotknowwhenitwillc
omemywayagainbutihopeillbereadywhenitdoes

Monday, March 13, 2006

Once Upon A Time In Sugarland



Walking down Westheimer holding two bags of groceries in my hand, my eyes strained to brave the blinding mid afternoon sun. It seemed I would be the only one crazy enough to actually not commute in a car, which may explain why the pedestrian traffic light stayed green long enough only to jolt me from my pithy reverie at the junction, causing me to break into a jog crossing to the other side of the road while the waiting vehicles got ready to be on their way.

I seemed to have done such a great job convincing myself I will never return to this city that the entire episode of experiencing the same settings again had such a surreal quality to it that I sometimes found myself short of air in disbelief. I wanted to reject this reality, yet I knew right from the first day I had arrived, that things didn’t seem like they were the first time around at all.

There were no rushing off for dinners after work, no coffee in Montrose, no kisses in the car, no holding hands in the cinema, no rushing to get ice-cream past midnight, no waking up to Kata, no Sugarland. No hurricanes. No nothing.

Was this still the same city that I had looked down, from the window of the departing plane, with such painful longing for all the things that went right?

The blinding sun kept pounding as I continued my walk back to the hotel, I thought I would never figure out the answer.



讓快樂 為我展開

和你共敘 原是可愛
為我盡力鍍上光彩
無奈惡運難以因你改

逝去舊夢 願你拋開
懷愐舊事 徒令感慨
求求你 讓我躲開
明知跟我沒將來

當飛花要片片飛別離時刻真的不會改
盼艷陽常為你照就如挽回全部愛
多少淚 多少歡樂 化做無盡愛
默默回味過去情意
一一收起關進心坎內

今天美景不能再
不要為我添愁哀
似夕陽在散餘暉
將消失在可見未來

梅艳芳 〈赤的疑惑〉




Thursday, March 09, 2006

小人物大人国



洛杉矶机场有种难以形容的味道。帅气的移民警察再次地把我引去做额外登陆手续时,嗅多几次后才突然察觉真的又回来了。应付了一大堆问题,差点连阴茎长短也要检查,终于都还是有点不甘愿地盖了几个印让我离去。

酒店厨房送来的Pizza太多了一口气吃不完,又要分两餐为公司省钱了。用比在云顶户外颤抖得还要厉害的手拉上厚厚的被,对着酒店里的三面墙配上一面六点半就黑漆漆的天空,有种被自己的期待所欺骗的感觉。

前几天好像才在Midvalley乱逛,一觉醒来连身边最熟悉的床都不见了。从前做对的、做错的、多做的、少做的似乎失去价值。生命在这之前真的存在过?

小人物到大人国漫游,谁得空在乎他在想什么。

Monday, March 06, 2006

The Alzheimer's Patient

I watched a play yesterday.

The play itself was not particularly heart wrenching, though the teary-eyed sister in front of me would let out the loudest sniff again to remind me that we all have very different emotional thresholds. Yet somehow, the various implications of the story cast me into another bout of helpless reminiscent.

Sitting in the passenger seat watching a drenched KL street scene passed by in a blur, it was like witnessing my own play being staged right on the windscreen, yet again, like the long shadows of a sunset that stubbornly clings on to you no matter where you turn, except that perhaps a sunset does not last as long. I blinked helplessly wishing that I would snap out of it, yet how do you escape the sun.

The play told of a young man suffering from Alzheimer’s who would forget his way home every time it rained. During a similar episode one afternoon, a passer-by came to his rescue with an umbrella and they fell in love. The story ended tragically with the rescuer killed in a horrid accident, and the Alzheimer’s patient would go on with his life unable to recall even his name. Memories, it seemed, were mere waves on a vast ocean that would sink without a trace as quickly as they had risen. It didn’t matter if it had reached a record-breaking height, or if it rose in a peculiar way no other waves had risen before it. It was just destined to follow the law of the gravity and return to where it belongs.

In a cruel analogy in the play, the Alzheimer’s patient’s painstaking effort to document his memories in a laptop became fruitless when a malfunction wiped out all data. And he could only watch and wait helplessly as the disease ripped him slowly, piece by piece, of all his most precious moments in life. They may be heart-warming recounts, painful recollections, or life changing and defining instances, yet they deserved only the shortest of existence.

We all too, I realised in the end, suffer from Alzheimer’s. Just like the lead character in the play who would go on to forget the most profound love in his life, we shut down our mental facilities selectively and decide to forget many things, like the guy whom we have confessed our love to, or the one we have promised not to forget, or the one whose life we had gone all way out to destroy. Perhaps you forgot how much it meant at that point in time, but the disease has no cure, and you are just a helpless wave destined to return to the ocean.

I remember I have loved a man.

I remember I have loved..

I remember I have..

I remember..

I..

..