With arduous journey's end comes Confucius' Lord of the Rings.

If Cary Tennis started giving sermons I would join his cult because every word he says makes me go AYEEE YESS OH THAT’S EXACTLY IT! GOSPEL OH THE GOSPEL!!

I've never seen a sight that didn't look better looking back.

i have some vague plans for 2010.




learn japanese. practise chinese more.

if i'm going to japan someday, i'd like some ammo. perhaps, one day, i can become good enough to do translations. =freelance opportunities, savvy?



fill notebooks.

scamps, sketches, stories, articles, lists, rants, business ideas, dumb ideas, journals, stickers - whatever. fill 'em up, make something of them.



travel.

maybe the whole month of january, spend it wandering thailand. i have a return ticket to bangkok, but who's to say i should come back right away? i can take a sleeper train to railay, show tik and non my hair progress, climb with tik for a week or so, then start backpacking around after getting my bearings.

i'm thinking of going it alone.

i liked my kaki langs in KYN and railay pretty okay. but. i want to test myself, throw myself out there. i guess my definition of throwing myself out there went from joining another cut-throat MNC agency to getting lost on dusty backroads of south east asia. sweet.

plus, i'd love to be able to just turn right at the next junction just because, and not squat for a 15 min discussion. i miss spontaneity.

a friend's headed to laos for january, maybe i'd join him later over there, maybe not.

don't get me wrong, my heart's going badda-bing badda-boom at the thought of going solo like that.

which reminds me, funny story about a cave in railay.

we were climbing through it, and i was scared. my 45L backpack was packed with a 50m rope, gear and runners too, i think. i wasn't used to the weight, my 35baht slippers had no grip on the dusty floor and hell, they don't even stay on my feet. it was dark, i kept slipping and catching myself before falling approximately to my death each time. i joked shakily to my friend raf, that he should climb behind me so i'd take him down with me when i fall.

we were about to abseil off a cave mouth down some 15 metres.

I remember two other girls being there with our group. tik asked who wanted to go first, and I said ‘me!’ very quickly because I was kinda scared I’d chicken out if I waited. it looked like a long way down! but it was also the only way down, so chickening out wasn’t an option.

So I quickly clipped myself in and swung out (!!!) into thin air with my scary-heavy bag pack. this photo was taken. then i heard one of those girls say, “ooooooh man, she’s so brave”, and I snorted so hard in disbelief, I nearly dropped the wrong hand on the rope. the one stopping me from going splat 15m down.

the point here:
i have to deal with life the only way i know works for sure.

i scare myself,
i manage not to crap my pants,
i dust pants off laughing,
i walk away alive and stronger.
wash, rinse, repeat so i don't degenerate into a shivering pile of nerves.

until i find a better way, can't seem to grow much. shaky hurrays.



rethink advertising.

i'm exhausted.

s.little asked me about my plans, after we talked about his great new opportunities. he saw me hesitate. be wary of the loud ones, some of them have mad instincts for people insights.

he said, you should stay in copywriting. see through the potential.

i think, are these hollow days worth this vague potential thing they keep baiting me along with? is it worth it, working toward a day when i can kick my rubbish bin across the office with my fancy Balanciaga boots, and shriek at a regional account director, "you're not here to BUY my work, you little miserable shit, you're here to SELL it!"?

s.little tells me starry tales of being a CD.

Branded bags every month, drinks on the company, expense accounts that go unquestioned and on forever, trips to morroco, japan, vietnam for a photoshoot, being treated like royalty on set, hushed whispers of legendary you, with grand prix, one show, clio, cannes lions and the virginity of a dozen junior account execs under your belt.

he's waiting for the ooooooh's and ahhhh's and whoaaaaa's, but i'm smiling and nodding politely, waiting for him to get to the part that matters. i'm watching his dark eye circles, G's trembling hands, Z's very, very discreet dalliances and thinking of Tik. And Chok, and Ee and Dut. and yes, even Non. thailand folks who probably earn in a year, less than what S.little here spends in a month or two. i know who's more content, centred and delighted with their day's work.

i'm thinking of first cold dinners, and then only the occasional dinners waiting for me at home now. i'm thinking of friends who've been let go of. i'm thinking of a dusty sewing machine and other DIY tools i haven't touched in a year. i'm thinking Spotlight vouchers, wasted on me. i'm thinking of how, i once forgot to switch off workmiho before meeting a friend. i'm thinking of choices i've made against the ballast of work. i'm thinking of how i'm the moon to the earth of my work, and how wide the universe is outside of me, work and the sunny places i'd rather be. i'm thinking of places, faces, traces i've missed while dashing by. i'm thinking of workplace dignity. i'm thinking of living with authenticity. i'm thinking of reclaiming the lucidity of my heart.

i'm thinking, well of course these Creative Directors are smug and sound positive about advertising, they're not fighting for grubs on the floor anymore. and then that where they're at doesn't sound so thrilling to my sensibilities either. i mean, given a choice i'd pick another night laying with head pillowed on that log on the far end of Railay East beach, shooting the breeze and counting shooting stars, than hobnobbing at any champagne party. or screaming at a pitiful account director at 11pm after we've both worked 13 hours straight on yet another fucked up, settled backstage pitch.

drawn but it doesn't ever fire.

sometimes i look at people older than me and how naive they are and i wonder cruel things about them and myself.

it's just another panic monday.

"At what age is it best to crush a child’s dreams so that they have an easier time stepping in to the status quo?"

You fool. You do not do such things to children. A child is like a poison missile you aim at the Future. You encourage, fund and resource their dreams to the fullest extent of your capability, knowing that your reward will be the pain and misery of generations yet unborn.

WARREN ELLIS

what you do not know who WARREN ELLIS is? only the award-winning creator of graphic novels i haven't read yet. Hah. Underground classics too, apparently. Which library has the best collection of comics, any one have any ideaaaaaaas? I'm looking for FELL, MINISTRY OF SPACE, PLANETARY, and TRANSMETROPOLITAN, and CROOKED LITTLE VEIN. And the Sandman Vol 1.

Or i could put it on my christmas list for my colleague-comrades to buy for me. Wheee: 9 guaranteed Xmas presents. Oh crap: 9 Xmas presents to buy. Shoot me.



Funny stories galore from zoukout.

i should start writing them down before the smaller ones start falling through the cracks of my farty mind again, like with KYN and Railay.

Some notes: broken hammock, stealing cigs and saving girls, my HAIIRRRRRR :((((((, bouncing away from persistent boys, trying to set K and CGA up to dance awaaaaay from me, dong who? ooooh dong you, sleep-texting (i was NOT drunk.), using hot girlfriends to steal bathroom time, kop Heinekens, cut queues AND giggle through crowds. making partnership deals with CGA (it's ok Cee, you still my secret friend. NEXT YEAR WE WILL CONQUER ZO.), taking too long to figure out that it's Kelly, not Kali, new friends: not as wild or overwhelmingly girly as they appeared at first,

also also also, steering a staggering ruby-faced ang moh into another hammock, him almost aiming his almightly butt wrong, swinging him wildly and running away laughing like nymphs on crack. Free drinks all night, kicking off my slippers almost immediately, dancing in the sand, grrreat music by i-was-too-sleepy-to-care-who, swearing never to climb for 5 hours straight before an all-night dance fest, what was i thinking?

m: "CGA, OVER HEEREE!"
cga, squints at me: "err, i think you have the wrong guy."
m: "well, remember this?! (finger.)"
cga: "OOOOH, MIHO. what's with that hair... and DRESS!"

sleeping in CGA's car while they (allegedly) chatted. if they made out while i was snoring in the backseat, i will throw up a week's worth of meals, i swear. rock-climbing horror stories, "i got fat, and now i have a butt to fill this bikini", a succession of light sticks from guys kelly smiled at, "meet at the nokia balloooooon" times 42, guys flitting to aud's and sam's sequins like dummy moths, aud's moooooves, aud flashing her bikini whenever she got bored,

"what do you do?"
"i write"
"for who?"
"advertising"
"who?"
"not you."
"oh, ok."

dancing so hard I woke up with all the tension in my shoulders and neck and back goooone, bruises, scratches on my mobile and my specs from dropping it in the sand - boo, that's 51 bucks to fix, and exfoliated feet from prancing in the same sand with bare soles - yayy, save 46 bucks i'd never have forked out on pedicures. losing my slippers 2 zoukouts running, CGA going back to save my slippers this time. this boy is too nice. and the sun rising over a clear sky that looked a little like railay's for a goggy few minutes.

"MIHO, are you wearing a bikini under your dress tooo?!"
"er, i'm wearing shorts under here."
"..."



ok. better mood now. going back to face my monday. i'm dead meat, the senior writer took a week & a half off and i'm the only halfling-writer in the agency.

yeah, freaking out now.

moments so dear.

hi again.

it's been a while. some stuff has happened since we last chatted, you and i. nothing i couldn't handle without too much mess though, afterall, here i am, 56 war wounds not withstanding. (my buddy only counted 55 actually, that one night when we decided there was a ridiculous amount of bruises from the naturally harsh Railay walls, mosquito & other unidentifiable insect bites and scratches on my legs, and they needed to be counted. number 56 & more were incoming.)

i went to Railay, came back different. i talked to folks and changed. saw things so beautiful i teared from staring at them gape-mouthed. said wow more in 9 days than i've done in the whole, harsh year. and yes, my hair's changed. dreadlocks - who would have thought? my mom didn't even really blink, aside from the first outcry which hurt, a little. she's used to me. two weeks before i left for Koh Yao Noi & Railay, i'd had my colleagues draw on two full sleeves of neo-tribal tattoos and a back piece too, for halloween. it was striking & scary-looking, but she still didn't refuse to give me a hug. she's not telling me that she's upset i'd ruined my hair, which she loved. but that's okay, hair grows, and i'd be normal again before she knows it. and so she knows, like the ink that washed off eventually, this too shall pass.

does the hair on top of the head reflect the thoughts between the ears of it? i don't know that i've planned it, but there's a huge change churning in my headspace now, and i'm waiting to see what i'd see when the waves settle down.

my artboys tell me i've changed. hiao, was the word they used, but in a kinda flattering tone. one, veteran of 4 years, told me matter-of-factly, that he thinks now there's a chance i'd make it to CD level. a huge gush of pride and glee later, i'm not so sure that's what i want. but we'd deal with it when it becomes a real possibility lah. until then, frolicking with the artboys is a nice way to spend the time between the screaming fits from above and the workworkwork drone.



it may be awhile until i check in again, stay well and out of trouble, internet strangers.





---


(fictitious, but borrowed from life for realism.)

Jo White. Lighting Designer.
she's the girl who would paint her nails black when she's in a good mood.

she'd lift her alabaster-white hand to the light to squint critically at her work, split a banana-shaming smile, and paint on little flares wherever the light hits on the glossy finish of her dollar-store nail polish. in her spare time, she churns horror stories in her head for her friend who dare not laugh anymore for fear of cracking his healing, broken ribs. no more comedies for him. ah well, they have to find something to do while hanging out still. she dances in the changing rooms and have sworn off boys as more trouble than they are worth. she maintains though, that that's through no major fault of their own. they are just the allah-blessed lightning rods onto which girls and all their dramas hurl themselves toward. she's still more than willing to stand by the poor girl-worshiping fellows, blinking the glare away and chatting about the sunny weather, but they aren't allowed to rebound to her, ever.

on the topic of depression

Then there is this: in some way, the quiet terror of severe depression never entirely passes once you’ve experienced it. It hovers behind the scenes, placated temporarily by medication and renewed energy, waiting to slither back in, unnoticed by others. It sits in the space behind your eyes, making its presence felt even in those moments when other, lighter matters are at the forefront of your mind. It tugs at you, keeping you from ever being fully at ease. Worst of all, it honours no season and respects no calendar; it arrives precisely when it feels like it.

Daphne Merkin on her forty year battle with depression | Life and style | The Observer

record for posterity

a compliment means so much more when it comes from someone i believe is good.
all he said was,

i like her determination. good.

no hyperbole, no gushing, no agenda.


it becomes a mantra to pull out on grey days, and huddle over like a warm flame. it burns resolve into my body so that the centre of gravity finally rocks back and my chin lifts again.

even when shit hits the often-splattered fan; when i don't know how i'm going to pull it off; when i feel more twelve than twenty-one... well.

someone with a thoroughbred heart believes i'm a decent kid.
he thinks i can see things through to the end.

and so i have to. and somehow, i just can.

you're just another story i can't tell anymore.

i keep flirting with the idea of burning out again, tossing back the hours like they don't count up to 24 every time. and i don't want to write sense sometimes.

there must be more. if i drop too many bad habits, i become a clean void. but you and me both know that lasts as long as a man's morning shave. the attention span of a post-it in the breeze, me, and some times the cold heart the size of one, too.

but seriously folks, i'm hovering in the decide.

Exaketededly

Today I feel like an asshole, so I’m leaving work on the dot, buying a pack o’ Cs, visiting the post office and buying index cards. I’d run out to the library next to return overdue books, load up on more, bare my teeth at a librarian, and run out. Then I’m going to go somewhere overlooking water and write.

I’m going to walk the whole way because I need to work off some of this steam before I blow up. i really miss having music on the go. sometimes i wish i had an hour long daily commute to properly de-combust between home & work & play. get my game face on, yaknowwaddimean?

then i'm going home to throw out more trash. scour out my room; cleanse the soul. meditating is for lazy twats.



I hate being in an office because you get rotund assholes looking over your shoulder reading your screen for something to make chatter about while you feel like the above.


it could be much worse though.

I could be in an office where I didn’t just have this conversation with my desk bud,

S:
How old’s your lunch baby now?

M:
Grunt.

S:
Gimme some of your pregnancy prunes, I feel bloated.

M:
3 months old. I’m poisoning it one prune at a time.

S:
Got enough? I need also?

M:
Yeah, I’m going to shit the little twat out now.

Also cockstain is the best curse name ever.

fucking mondays.

projects for :)

ok.

one project at a time.

#1, soon.

Ctrl

Most people are other people.
Their thoughts someone else's opinion,
their lives a mimicry,
their passions a quotation.

Oscar Wilde

he's all sorts of awesome too!

I like reading things that punch me in the stomach.
His writing doesn’t do that to me, but it’s all sorts of technically correct.
I can learn from that.

We’re selling toilet paper here, not great truths.
But there’s a fuck you in that sentence somewhere.

si mii dai, monsieur?

last night i dreamt about work
& it was so realistic that i came (cabbed) to work this morning
& followed the brief until i realised there was no sub-brief yet
&&&&& i need a life to dream about.




also,
when there's a cap on words you can write in one headline,
sentences outside of work tend to last forever & ever & ever,
just like when an opera singer is having a last hoorah-
because it ain't over until the fat lady sings,
comprehendez?

cross your heart & wish you gave a shit.

erm hello.

i'm a lot more manipulative than i realised.

Nom de Dieu de putain de bordel de merde de saloperies de connards d'enculé de ta mère

What asshole needs to be hoaxed, browbeaten, wheedled, arm-twisted, presented with 23 different options (bit like a Certain Client) before finally resigning herself to being fussed over for her 21st birthday?

Catherine Ann Francis, that’s who.

Next time someone offers, yes – I’d take the blowtorch & have you an accident!


Happy Birthday, BFB. Since I’m stuck with you, I guess I do love you.

*the early part of this post was exaggerated. But only slightly.
The later is played down a whole lot. :)

good night

but tonight i stopped wondering why so many people i bump into at bars are so obnoxious.

at 8.13pm, a flash of insight! behooooold,

screen-printed from hungrygowhere.com

if you're the impatient or hard of seeing sort, here's just the funny bit,

ooooh baby, you so cheap & you so quick to say i'm only an arm-warmer. you light my fire, you do, you do.
lucky for you baby, i am not internet-savvy like 98% of the Singapore population!

& here's how he writes his bio.

oh
my
buddha...


i swear, if i am ever 27 & male & an insurance underwriter,


please let me not sound like a 14 year old pubescent.

who spends most of his time watching Korean soap operas.

with his mother.

& his right hand.




& i didn't even have to leave my home's shadow to find out. how productive, M!

***

still. good night, murderer's mothers with no shame & daughters of absent fathers who care all the same, good night!

still idealistic.

these are the days of my life when i cling onto the mental picture of poor kids from africa who have to walk ten thousand miles for clean water and walk to school in shoes they share with 7 siblings so that i don't sound like a whiny little brat who has 7 pairs of shoes and a pantry (that i as office manager stocked.)

no, wait- what's wrong with that picture?

where's the anger? where's the dissatisfaction, where's the questions, where's the fight?

where's our youth movement? do we not have wants and desires anymore?

i'm not saying we should be goths or punks or hippies. but we should have a voice, an opinion of our futures, a rallying cry. just because we aren't 5 years old anymore doesn't mean we forget altogether the favourite word of 5 year olds everywhere. ask it! why, why, why can't we do better?

without an inquisitive, challenging voice, we haven't got a say in this. we haven't got a chance.

why are we trying to be more mature than we should be? we're not full adults yet, we shouldn't be the ones sighing & accepting our fates, saying bo pian, such is life, just grin & bear it!

have you seen a true adult's eyes? they are deadened & dull, stoned by the everyday sameness of their existence. they had to forget dreaming or they'd go MAD trying to wade through the same bullshit everyday!
they put these words in our mouths because they believe themselves. why are we so eager to repeat their failures & not make our own?

where's our graffiti, where's our public disturbances, where do we go to be exhilarated at our raw potential to change this horseshit into our own universe? where do we gather to poster the streets with our arrogance, our energy & our visions?

we're drifting around.

awkwardly trying to make friends, make meaning out of our lives, make a living & yes, make love. we be all gangly overgrown arms & feet & hearts we need to grow into yet. vaguely uncomfortable in our father's world, & we don't quite know why. at least we're educated enough to sound as if we know what we're doing now.


won't you be the one to speak out?


i say we share our art.
i say we share ideas that sound dumb, that sound too childish, that seem to have no meaning to it beyond being seen & heard & vaguely understood by some other kid who'd only smile crookedly.
i say we try to make some sense in this land by not trying too hard to blueprint it.
i say we give in to wilder impulses more.
i say reach out to folks sillier than you.
i say drag the serious ones to the playground & push them hard enough on the swings to loop the loop, gasp with laughter.
i say we dirty our hands digging for gold, wear holes in our jeans, get glitter in our hair & spit in our eyes arguing about the best way.
i say we're not scared of blood if it comes with grit.


i say we try to figure out things our way before we sigh our father's sigh.
i say we be loud about it.
i say we document our impertinence.
i say we start trying to make it our time.

staysoft: wlergh newsflash

i'm finding it very hard to give a flying fuck.

if i were still a melodramatic teenager i would call it ennui, world-weariness, or something far beyond my comprehensible years.
since i am not (supposed to be one), this morning i said something much more moderated then,

"here are your newspapers... & letters... & morning tea. i ironed them with your silks.
i couldn't help but notice a letter offering butler services amongst your mail.
perhaps you could start finding my replacement there."

this is the horseshit end of the rainbow, my friend

i'm siiiiick.

this may be swine flu because people keep repeating over and over that it's more common than the common flu like it's a magic tagline and you won't catch the swine flu if you repeat it over and over like a kid saying

TWIST!TwistTwistTwistTwi-hey that's not fair i said TWIST!

you need to know before you continue reading that i self-medicated and did not use a measuring spoon but swigged from the bottle and i cannot even have a hookah to myself because i get the giggles and wanna-pukes. now you know and may continue reading.

someone once said that if a black man became the president of USA, pigs would fly. sure enough, 100 days later, swine fluuuuu.

i think i think i think maybe perhaps oh so surely swinging in and out of normal like this for 6 months is NOT NORMAL. not even my normal you have to admit my normal is prettttty fluid.

NORM.
MAL.

i am obssessed with these things nownownow:

1. going on a holiday. (somedays i is thinking, go alone, go faraway, go couch-surfing! other days imma thinking a kosekitohon is dumb reason not to be able to set stinky feet off this island and whhhhhy can't i go for cheap massages in batam. other days, 'hmm does going to sentosa count?' deep thoughts, DEEEEEP.)
2. getting my shit together
3. i would like to wear colourful clothes again but noooo my clothes must befit my moooooooood.
4. but i would like to keep making colourful clothings. when did i stop?
5. writing, just whacking away at the keyboard, chicken-scratchings in my notebook.
6. toodoolists. SO-MUCH-ANAL-RETENTIVE-FUN! SO EXCITING! so much to do... but SO MUCH FINALLY GETS DONE! (see point no. 2 above.)
7. i would like to have one of my scumbag friends back again so that i can stop pretending i'm not a scumbag and we can go on sick adventures together that can only be told in hushed tones or in between screeching laughters.
8. i would like to put up a wordpress so that i may begin to password protect my baser stuff and when that happens you will be privy to even grosser details of my life like pinching a loaf & forgetting to fl- ohmygod gross no, let's not do that.

i have mood-swung since the begining of this post. my dear chuppachubs, the rainbow ends on top of your chinnychinchin, obviously you are the pot of gold.

i am maaaaaad. maaaaaaad.
no i am s.t.a.u.n.c.h.

yesterday yesterday or maybe it was the day before that freelancer copywriter said she does voiceovers on the side and i asked her about it and now-is-freelancer art director joked that she shouldn't be selling me any new career ideas because i might flip flop again but hello morons, i don't care about a career fools it's all about having many entertaining ways to live happily.

your 9 to 6
/7
/8
/9
/or up to 12am in the morning

is not my happiness because if you looked at it from the god's eye view,

it's moronic judgement calls
/poor leadership
/expectation not managed
/over-promising
/lousy communications

usually by the Up Theres, always, always, always that creates those situations where the poor sods at the end of the corporate rainbow will crunch through the witching hours with a cold mug of tea.

idiota.

i don't ever want to be part of that daisy chain of doom.

copy-writing is one dream only. i have a toodoolist (<3) longer than your arm and other dreams are on it.

nice speech, miho. now let's see something happen.

eyeballs are rolling in their graves

that was a rather unclever moment.

sci-fi = <3 + C3PO

i read asimov's forward the foundation again.

you know what strikes me? he's fiercely intelligent, but so bare in his writing. clear and simple, first and always. hardly any grandiore; and we're talking ga-lax-ies and rebuilding the entire universe by calculating the future's history (read that again, friend, take your time to sort it out.) i don't know when else it's more justified to go big with words.

but he doesn't! that's the beauty of it. there's precious little in the way of personality stamped into his writing - you could conversely say that his writing style is the lack of personality. in fact, it feels like his books are made mostly of mind-blowingly, fascinatingly complex thesises written in story form for laymen like you and me to grasp. A Big Idea, made into idiot-proof bites to make idiots feel extremely clever.

doesn't that sound a lot like how a copy-writer should write? cut out the self-indulgent personal house style, edit brutally for brevity, make clarity the priority, no punz and no sneaky insider lolz. in a layman's nutshell, as anti-fanfiction-like as possible?

goosebump advice.

“
It’s not about working hard. It’s about feeling sick and waiting for the idea and not knowing what to do but making sure you have the skills so that when you do get the idea, you can do it without relying on other people.

”

-Alber Elbaz

better than mine!

yawnzepuah

i swear whatever business i own in future will be called poetic justice.
only think how self-righteous an ah long san company would sound like that.
awesome.

too pretty.

first day of my life
- Bright Eyes

horny boy lunches.

found this thing i doodled last month, while cleaning my work table today.

+++

there was a collective office eye-roll today.
i'm going to miss these guys fiercely, not only because i'm so delighted we suddenly shared a pet peevette.

bikers.

or other some such unwashed heroes waiting to happen.

BANKSY ON ADVERTISING

People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you’re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it.

They are The Advertisers and they are laughing at you. You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity. Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head. You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don’t owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don’t even start asking for theirs

The Escapist - KA POW!!

you should read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Micheal Chabon, it's vulgar, geeky and epic! It also happens to be Pulitzer-winning & was on the New York Times Best-Sellers List, if you're into that sort of bling.

it strings you along as these artists muddle around trying to figure out the art of comic books, tumbles you into the rabbit hole with its dirty rags-to-riches business schemes, described here almost like an unpoliced fountain of liquid gold! then micheal tugs in citizen kane and salvador dali as a splash of debonoir inspiration and shoots the breeze on obsessive escapism while making rollies from crushed cigarette butts.

fighting war with art, the struggle between religion against sexuality, art giveths; art takeths away, dip-sticking the shadowy depths of brotherhood, the initial censorship battle... oh my god, is it natural to fit all that and more into one novel and make it seem as casual as flicking the ashes off a cigarette?

what fascinates me still (i'm writing from memory, it's been months since i read it) is how escapism is examined... well, graciously, and from odd angles.

superheroes here are like neighbourhood gods, as if the comic artists under the cloud of WWII just needed to see someone up there doing something about it and drew that. and these neighbourhood gods are man-made, & therefore flawed, & therefore disappoint. just like religion. there's an implication that religion is also a form of escapism.

yet!

they become gods of their creations, this kavalier & clay, and the creation reflects their lives. they fall in love; a mysterious female superhero appears. they are anti-fascist; their hero, The Escapist, whips Nazis into submission in every issue. one experiments with his sexuality; sidekicks appear.

you end up convinced that this is the true history of comics, never mind that neither the Escapist, Kavalier nor Clay existed. You mourn a little -how can something so real... not be real? you're left with a posy of flowers in hand and no grave to go pay pilgrim to.

READ IT!

i'd kick myself chirpy.

the key is to choose to do what you would at 11am, not at 7.49am.

there's no snooze button on the lifemachine!




sounding so coying and chirpy isn't working. i'm still freaking out.

spring-loaded, too late!

i'm not making a mistake.
not making a mistake!
making a mistake?
a mistake.
NO.

on hold.

i watched avenue Q in feb. i think now it was too early, and i would have related to it much better now.

my muses.

things i shall do.

• tattoo. i have an awesomer idea now!
• learn how to ride. as in Class 2B liscence.
• make it a point to rekindle friendship with long lost folks. (hello, drop me a note please. you are literally long lost, because i've lost my hp twice in the last couple of months. and it's taken me this long to say it.)
• be fit again. this segues into another one, slim down. but paiseh make a separate point. SNORT!
• take level one climbing cert because no one trusts me to belay them. hello, i know how to ok. so singaporean; no paper, no go is it! haahhahha. plus, it's beyond dumb to go for a climbing trip with no qualifications. which leads me to...
• climb trip, november.
• for which i need to buy climb shoes while i still can! (to save money for this, no cabs for the next 2 weeks. oei, laugh what?)
• need to get a harness soon too.
• JB trip with my gess mates.
• melb trip, december (in the unlikely chance that i'd have money to. but you never know)
• go somewhere in august, to somewhere! with someone(s)!
• APPLY for school. then see how.
• polish some skills. brush up on writing mainly. and PS, illustrator. maybe dreamweaver & flash too. forgot a lot of those by now. S was right, designers always have some freelance cashflow on the side, so they never go hungry. bet it's the same for some writers. so i can...
• explore different sorts of work. hate being bound down with all my monkeys in one nest, so i have to work on this, finding gigs.
• see how long i can tahan my hair being long. longest since forever right now! (this one point is to make sure i have something very doable on the list. whew, ambitious or what?)

my perspective is changing really swiftly nowadays, and i'm waking up from the past months.
it's a nice feeling.
i know i was hiding under a blanket of lethargy-apathy-pious devotion to my job before. wearing blinders. not anymore! GLEE, i'm so excited now!! all this changes will transform me into an autobot. SRSLY.

they should hire a muse.

i touched down in the office today swearing upside down not to fart away my hours skiving.
even if it is sunday.
and i resent working on other people's holy day. gotta respect other gods.

but come on, it's me. tsk! fine, but the rock-wall's waiting, hurry up!!





so here's the thing.

life's too short to waste on whining about short straws, scheming about ancient history.
man up - there's one lesson learnt.

in the advertising world, it sucks like a gaylang whore to be mediocre.

really, there are long exhaustive nights, bitchfits tucked behind every cubicle wall looking for a face to throw itself at, straws lining up in bales to break every camel's back. there're supplier entanglements, production problems to sort through...*

(for example: why won't the video fade away evenly?

and to print colour on black, you have to print white on black first or the colour won't show, then the red over it, then a gloss to protect the red. but wait, in the end the red won't show up well. oh shits in the pits.

well, m, you should've figured that out with your god-awesome intuition or something. lord knows, you're bearing the consequences.)

colour-separation issues, high turn-over rates that scatter all the working files, quotes, notes, vector logos, illustration styles everywhere. and everywhere can be hard copies in some 2nd cupboard on your right, and straight on til morning, or soft copies in one of 5 thumbdrives or hhds, on the broken server, in the laptop that died, the laptop passed on to the creatives, or in a long-dead email account not accessible unless you annoy you niang niang with 5 requests for 5 admin keys.*or other yawnable dramas like that.

and at the end of this long, long, long day, that one last hill you didn't quite surmount may break your lau ban's back and launch his bitch fit in your face. this one last hill could be a dog-ear on a internal document that got circulated one too many times, or him not having his newspapers waiting for him. ok, not everywhere's like this, ok? chill, young padawans.

so we've established that there are many omg-so-petty low moments right? see, this is why it sucks to be mediocre. the only high everyone in the agency is likely to get is the light bulb moment when you sight an inspired concept coming home on the horizon, and you start bouncing one kickass idea after another off each other. it is the best thing ever, better than jesus, red nails, sugar coated babies, roman holidays or getting As in school. and that is why scores and scores of ad-folks offer these up in penience to the Ad Gods. well, that and the booze. sorry, not always free in le petite agencies.

so if we have no thunderstruck moments, all the lows we ride through seem like A Very Dumb Idea.

you need massive amounts of drive to pull yourself out of this rut of saying "well, guess this much is enough". so no matter how weird/lazy/potty/scatter-brained/lewd/demanding/ego-centric your creatives seem sometimes, if they supply you with these awesome moments, cut them some slack. not all creatives are actually that creative, you know. i know.

the lesson learnt here is to always avoid mediocrity in yourself. and to haul myself out of average land, it pays to find some giants to learn from. standing on the shoulders of giants, is the favourite way of saying it in corporate marketing! reverse osmosis, you know!

i'd be newater yet.

(*skip whining in tiny font. it's just some yawnable drama. now look, i told you so right!)

Hemi-demi-semiquaver

i'm not so buoyant after the client wanted magic on a tight timeline and blasted me when i protested politely, even less so after creative blasted me for letting the client outblast me into taking down art direction notes from her. I get saggy when creative makes silly mistakes because she's pissed off, lower still when i missed spotting the mistake because it's fucking depressing to be the scratching post for bitchy itches so many times in one hour.

well, being upset can be distracting.

I catch up with some sad sod paperwork and my boss comes back from his meeting to blast me with sarcastic sighs for not seeing the obvious. That lecture takes too long, when i get back to my desk there're 2 phone messages, urgent emails and a courier waiting because no one else figured out that all couriers want is someone to scrawl something & stamp on their pad and take whatever they're holding. simple. think, folks, think.

Hemi-demi-semiquaver of a sigh, and try to get back to work.

i get back to cleaning my 40 mounting boards with ronsonol because some idiot used the wrong, permanent spray mount. i work on binary code like admatrix, slowly booking something like 75 ads in a roll. that computer is on dial-up, it's fucking slow. i rip through 9 daily papers. that's 45 in a week, 180 in a month.

hello, forget it, can't finish this because the door bell is ringing off it's hook and i'm the door bitch.

BAM. off to a flying start!

Capitalism & Provincism

SAE WHAT?

#4 was to keep the engine running.

i've forgotten all my big, hairy, audacious goals.
alamak.
how?

skive teh awesomoeleventyone!

fooling with MS paint, while the tearsheets wilt neglected.

3 mins to daydream, quick now go.

take a horse and give it no names, charge through greener pastures til nine days has passed. set it free. it kicks up a sand cloud as it leaves, and that'll lead to the golden pot at the end of the rainbow. walk instead with left cheek against the sand cloud, to find what you most fear. choose to be content or be bold, but be sure and be true, or all is as much dust as the sand cloud leaving now.

GO.

Remember, this is why.

this is a very long picture post. the theme is happy things.
i want to be one too.



the streets lit up for the F1 races.
On camera it just looks like a chunk is breaking off to return to the plant from whence it came.
As seen from the meeting room of the old big D office.

building features that are blatant cracks me up.
Near the notblacknotwhite office, when i worked there last year.

beautifully creepy pictures from the Binalle, last year.

cat and i hitting zoukout last year. this before the drunkies swarmed us.

kami and xmas decorations, last year. i didn't feed this end of the reindeer.

heli! looks small, must be last year.

the last thing i made was for fay's birthday in Jan. 5 months ago. this unnerves me a little.

adam and his slimy friends at the binalle. karine was there too. last year.

nifty pic of pam i took. her bday love hotel last year.

cat on the wall. it was her nightmare route at that time!

tired, but happy. equals silly.

feb at mustafa, planning someone's birthday.

i had fight once.

paintball cat. he had a motorbike run over his tail.

ubiquitous cards.

om nom nom nom.

RAWR. see? fight.

witch shoes.

we ride the tree. jan.

favourite footwear.

botanic garden evenings.

happy kamiliah.

like we just don't care.

coming!

mine.

ghost-buster

unruffled!

time to take it all in.

SHASHA FIERCE.

happy girls all in a roll.

coil!

SHASHA! makes his entrance.

this not happy. next!

contagious SHASHA.

weddings aren't so terrible la, honestly. especially when groomsmen take off their shirts. yum!

making a happy scene at timbre.

thrashing people with paintball, round 1.

limited edition book that found me.

BIRTHDAY BOOBS.

Thrashing the ambiguous red monster when he won't burn is awesome.
He was shaf's and my birthday pinata.
we ripped out his innards and ate 'em and they were sweet.

Home-baked fudge and cookie birthday cakes in my favourite indian colours are awesomer.
there was a bbq with fairy lights! and fana and MJ and Din, Bugs and Fay too.

this from the very first time i was at singah selalu in JB, January. i was happy too, because the sports-biker i rode with was too recklessly fast. i laughed like a riot every time he sped up and i felt infinite. the lights were pretty and i didn't care who our supper partners were. I had potent shisha, an adrenaline-pumping ride home guaranteed to whip my head off and i didn't know yet how it was all gonna go down.


i turned 21. it was a kickass day too. at midnight i was at nasrins with tim, abbas and isk. the minute i was 21, they blew shisha in my face all at once and sang happy birthday in ringing - no, shouting - tones that carried all the way down baghdad road. i couldn't see since my eyes were glued shut, but i think the other patrons joined in. it was loud. i wanted to die, but needed to strangle the boys first. i knew it carried far out, because freaking kampong glam cafe started cheering too.

after work that same day, i was chivvied from my office with a dozen irritable text messages (CAT) and calls (CAT: "MOVE. NOW. WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU?!"), brought to a rooftop by a meandering biker, greeted by a solitary boy i didn't know and a stack of Spizzas.

"are you her? hi uh, your friends got tired of waiting for you. they uh, paid me $20 to wait here."

and they sprung out; fiq with the cake, cat with the laughing and song, tim, abbas and clare shouting something merry. and we ate. we went to shisha at nasrins, 2 nights in a row. we stole beer from big D. there was a guitar. it was awesome. there was a card with funny messages, and a work-survival kit. it came with a list of things in it. Good foresight, since i consumed everything pretty damn fast.
(this story is for me to remind myself by :)

Another birthday story before i forget. Fay bake me a cake, heard out my story and was a solid friend. Any loyalty, sweetness & generosity left in me at all, was bred by her to begin with. This part is only brief because it has to be.

Climbing trees. Last year.

Clare (far left) turned happily 20.33333 years old at Bedok Sempang.

Singga Selalu's ABC Gilar Ice Kachang is endorphinlicious.

Cat and me. We couldn't afford to drink, so we played cards badly instead.

The paintball line up.

Happy!

or not. she sucks at bridge la.

Cat, Me, Isk. HAPPY.

us busy being happy. Paintball in April.


Absolute Glee.



The Point:
Most of these happy pictures were taken before my current situation.
The little rest, before it got this bad.
& I'm not happy now.

I'd leave a more private Note to Self somewhere less gutsy.

Once upon a not-so-long time ago,
I pulled myself out of a Bad Situation.
Me knowing me,
I left evidence around where i'd stumble upon them.

I knew I'd question my decision, doubt my reasoning.Discount my hard-earned conviction, whatever else you want to call the etcs...
and go,
"No la, must be over-thinking."
"I'm tougher than this, I haven't hit my limit yet"
"I can handle it!"
"I can live with this."
"It's not so bad."
"Why not?"

& the worst of them,
"I'm just not a quitter."


I labeled that reminder,
"In case you forget, this is why," and addressed it to me.

it worked.
I forgot the why; came across it one night.
Saw the picture. Gagged. Remembered & resolved anew.


the universe will provide? it is hammering at me with reminders right now.

One of my past coaches died, Saturday.
Only 35. One of the good guys. Probably was the one time he was careless in the water.

the live of a good niang niang (here, at least) sucks balls.

people who don't know me that well are saying i'm off.

and that's just the internet-safe parts that happened in the last 3 days!


i just plain haven't the time/energy/head space/luxury to function apart from attempting to survive the situation, let alone put effort into being happy. They're trying to mold me into something. I see that it's very plausible that i'm capable of it.

Really.

But that person would have to be...
well.
unmiho-like, for want of a better, yet still internet-safe word.




hold on guys, a wee bit longer. i'd be back before you know it.
loud & stirring shit again.
listening when you talk to me.
finefinefine, even if old me means being bubbly.
(vulgar bubbles ok. VULGARO.)
nattering away miles of words a minute.
have energy to be righteously pissy when shit happens to you too.
no more perpetual look of defeat.
awake. alive. & me.