Jonathan Franzen wrote that when he revisited his hometown, he was invited by the current owners of his old family house to go in for a look. He refused politely but firmly. He made himself a promise that he would never step in cos then he would never have to leave it again. Strange but I guess I knew what he meant.

The first lesson reading teaches is how to be alone.
- Jonathan Franzen, How to be Alone

Somehow this weekend was screwed up cos of miscommunication between us. Our reluctance to phone and reliance on sms messages that were too cryptic or didn't get through wreaked havoc. Damn it. I don't have so much time to waste.

Slept less than 4 hours. Can't sleep anymore but feel so exhausted. Just want to sleep.

Today I drank quite a few mugs of beer though recently I haven't been drinking. I guess I needed to feel high. I didn't reach the high-enough-to-sing stage but bypassed that to the sleepy stage. Still it wasn't enough. My brain understood something my heart couldn't, or didn't want to understand yet. But like they say, this too soon shall pass.

Didn't sleep well. Woke up early blearry-eyed to read through work to be done. Then I procrastinated and logged onto internet instead. The sad thing is I know I'm disciplined enough to stop surfing, return to reading my work material and then visit the gym and my office, in that order.

This weekend really rains for me.

Today has been a trying day.

[Baking analogy mode on]
First, I had an important meeting and I went to the wrong location cos no one bothered to tell me properly. I ended up 10 minutes late.

Then, a 3 hour meeting blew into 4.5 hours on a Friday night. The meeting was held by the oven folks for the customers who haven't decided on what cake they want to eat. In fact, they haven't even decided if it's cake they want, so the oven folks were in overdrive to convince the customers that they want cake only from their oven. Me? I'm the baker sitting in observing customers getting antsy and sms'ing one another across the conference room table, while the oven folks started losing their temper as the customers lost their attention span.
[Baking analogy mode off]

As I dashed out of the meeting, I had to return calls left and right, and realised I'd probably have to work this weekend too. Then when I finally made it to the Observatory gig at 8pm, there was no time for dinner and da mouse and I went hungry till the gig ended at 10pm (sorry sorry sorry!). Leslie sang a few old songs I love (I never thought I'd hear him sing Circling Square live again), but he also sang some new songs I didn't care too much for. Of the new songs, the one I liked best was called Ask, and I remember your favourite Smiths song was also called that.

Then I came home after the gig and got stood up by you, and that pretty much completed my fucked up day.

I'm going to bathe and go sleep now, cos I'm too upset to blog anymore.
I'm just too tired to care.

Ticking away inside the carapace of ordinary life and its sketchy agreements was anarchy.
- Paula Fox, Desperate Characters

What a good line to be described in!

"I see," said the blind man to his deaf brother.

The best line I've read today.

Ran 10 km (precisely 9.92km, 5th time) to Wisdom of Harry's Caesar Boot on auto-repeat. Watched with amazement when the guy on the next treadmill leaped off without stopping or even slowing down his machine, dashed to drink water, and then leaped back onto the treadmill at the same speed again. He didn't last long though. I always drink enough before I start running. Hmm.

Strangest comment today. A new acquaintance told me he liked the way I pronounce my R's. lol.

All of a sudden it seemed as if the friends of mine who used to read no longer even apologized for having stopped. A young acquaintance who had been an English major, when I asked her what she was reading, replied: "You mean linear reading? Like when you read a book from start to finish?"
- extract from Jonathan Franzen's essay Why Bother?

Lazy weekend.
Seafood dinner (tried white pepper crab for the first time).
Drinks (had my first pint of beer in ages and couldn't finish it; realised with amusement that I could be turning teetotaller).
Gym (ran 8km).
Poetry slam (too much bad poetry all at once but fun fun fun).
Library (now reading Jonathan Franzen's book of essays entitled How to be Alone. He's the infamous author who rejected Oprah Winfrey's book club recommendations).
Dinner at Spizza with my UK travelmate (They have 26 pizzas, each named alphabetically and without any relation to their contents. I was tempted to try Olivia - which is filled with salami and chilli - but was vetoed by my UK travelmate. Friends are not for consumption).

Contented.

This page has moved to California to find itself.
Actually, we couldn't find the page you requested. Please check the URL.

An error message from Angelfire.com with a sense of humour. In fact, they have so many error messages that I kept reloading the wrong URL just to read. lol.

I asked you for the details of the dream which made you fearful cos I knew you must have remembered. You skirted around the issue and replied that some things should be left untold. And then you said you look forward to going back and I acted normal pretty well. I knew this all along and it is what you have to do, but it doesn't mean it hurt less. And then I wondered what I did in your dream.

If I lose the light of the sun, I will write by candlelight, moonlight, no light
If I lose paper and ink, I will write in blood on forgotten walls
I will write always
I will capture nights all over the world and bring them to you.
- Dino Corvino

I said this is lovely and you replied the last line needs a "from". Hmm.

The charm, one might say the genius of memory, is that it is choosy, chancy and temperamental; it rejects the edifying cathedral and indelibly photographs the small boy outside, chewing a hunk of melon in the dust.
- Elizabeth Bowen

Latest acquisitions from HMV: Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator VCD and the Wisdom of Harry's album House of Binary.
Happy.

You sms'd that you dreamt of me yesterday. Though you couldn't remember the details, you woke up fearful. My first instinct was that you woke up fearful of me, than for me. I sms'd back that you were scaring me, and you replied that you were fearful of losing me. And that was the nicest sms I've gotten today, and for quite a while actually.

Just ran an hour (9.93km; 4th time) listening to Jazzamor's Childhood Dreams on auto-repeat. I figured I only started running beyond 6km after I've met you. First it was 8km and now it's 10. Though there's no relation, somehow you and my 10km runs have become retrohesive events. I told you I've watched the movie Homerun and there's lots of running in it, but somehow the way the children run makes me sad. They run out of sheer desperation cos they need to get to somewhere else on time or they'll be punished. They don't enjoy running.

What keeps me running. When I want to stop before I hit my goal, I'll tell myself that I've been looking forward to this moment all day. To be here running my heart out on this treadmill. What then is another 15 minutes of my time? And it's true.

The easiest kind of relationship for me is with ten thousand people. The hardest is with one.
- Joan Baez

No, no, you're not thinking, you're just being logical.
- Niels Bohr, physicist

Eh, should I worry?

You said I'm the winter of reason, calm beside the fireplace.
But I'm not the winter of reason.
I'm the winter of discontent.

Though I just had dinner, I snacked on yours (mixed salad, fettucine carbonara and chocolate cake, the last which you ordered just for my sake) and sipped your camomile tea, and told you a story from the latest book I'm reading. It's Haruki Murakami's After the Quake, and in it there's a story about a man who build bonfires. I didn't notice I kept gesticulating as I went into my usual detailed accounts till you smiled and I made you explain why. I tried to stop and you said I wouldn't last 5 minutes. And I didn't even last 5 seconds. Anyway, I liked this particular line in the story which goes:

"I've never once thought about how I was going to die," she said. "I can't think about it. I don't even know how I'm going to live."

I said that's my problem too. But I didn't tell you that this problem was suspended during that bit of time I spent with you.

Micro-Fiction or less than 250 words to kickstart my reading habit again.

The Poet's Husband, Molly Giles
He sits in the front row, large, a large man with large hands and large ears, dry lips, fresh-cut hair, pink skin, clear eyes that don't blink, a nice man, calm, that's the impression he gives, a quiet man who knows how to listen; he is listening now as she sways on the stage in a short black dress and reads one poem about the time she slit her wrists and another poem about a man she still sees and a third poem about a cruel thing he himself said to her six years ago that she never forgot and never understood, and he knows that when she is finished everyone will clap and a few, mostly women, will come up and kiss her, and she will drink far too much wine, far too quickly, and all the way home she will ask, "What did you think, what did you really think?" and he will say, "I think it went very well" - which is, in fact, what he does think - but later that night, when she is asleep, he will lie in their bed and stare at the moon through a spot on the glass that she missed.

I just realised that I may have an overdose of endorphin from all that running. Bugger.

For those parties interested in stalking leslie, he's now in eh, FTW. That's Fort Worth Texas to you! Go hunt him down and say I sent you! Muahahaha!

One of the best things that happened today? I won a bet with my UK travelmate for the prize of 2 siew mai. :)

Today b12 noticed me on the bus to work but I didn't see him cos I was busy reading 8 Days. It's only a few stops before alighting that I saw his sms, but he was standing too far away so I just sms'd back. And thus it happened that this morning, within 2 metres on board a bus, were 2 people busy sms'ing each other. lol.

Today I ran 10km (or precisely 9.91km) for the third time while listening to Mansun's Goodbye on auto-repeat. I guess I'm keeping track of all the songs I ran 10km to cos I don't expect to do this often.

Afterwards I wandered over to my favourite music store, where I was recommended 2 albums which I bought. One is a chill-out lounge music album by Lenny Mac Dowell, and I only got this cos there's a cover of Summertime on it. Yes, I've got a fetish for covers of Summertime and have lost count of the various covers I own. There's Janis Joplin's odd wailing version; the jazz versions of Ella, Nina and company; dance versions; instrumental big band renditions and what not's. I can't really explain why.

When your credit card is stolen, you phone Visa and have a new card issued. When your bioprint is stolen, do you call God and ask for a new set of fingerprints or eyes?
- Malcolm MacTaggart, president and CEO, CryptoCard

Today has been a day of upheavals.

Today you found my blog and have read the entries since we've met. I guess I'm stunned cos I didn't really expect it, and I felt somewhat vulnerable. So I asked if you'd stop reading and you replied you'd if I wanted you to. I said yes, even though I might not be able to do it if our positions were swapped; even though I'm not sure you could comply. And now I'm not certain I could write about you anymore, but I'm just too tired to shift my blog. As my jc girlfriend pointed out bluntly, if it's a blog then it's meant to be read; otherwise it'd have been a personal diary right? Anyway I don't feel as upset as I thought I would, or maybe it's cos I trust you?

Today I had an awful day at work which doesn't bear repeating. So I won't. I ate a handful of biscuits for dinner and gave up writing documentation to come home. My Polish ex-colleague asked if I were ever tempted to insert witty lines in those documentation which no one would probably bother to read. I wish.

Today I found out an acquaintance has committed suicide. A girl I've only met twice: enthusiastic about film, earnest and too damn young. The last time I met her was after a screening, and a bunch of us were going for supper. We asked her along and she demurred, and I didn't think to make her stay. I didn't know her much at all. I only knew she liked Enya. Fuck.

Today better not be Groundhog Day.

Ladies and gentlemen, hotsync via infra-red between an old Palm V and the latest Thinkpad T40 is now possible (after downloading an IR driver as well as upgrading the Hotsync Desktop Manager). This also means that it is no longer necessary to lust after the latest Palm models. Meow.

We call them dumb animals, and so they are, for they cannot tell us how they feel, but they do not suffer less because they have no words.
- Anna Sewell

Small random memory that stuck in my mind. You were swigging down green tea while something I said (I forgot what) made you smile. Your lips curved up into a generous U and you couldn't drink properly unless you stopped smiling. But you couldn't, so you just tipped the drink awkwardly to your mouth as you smiled on. And then you said it's been a while since you last tried to smile and drink at the same time, and I was glad it was cos of me.

As to how things are with us.. I'm enjoying the time we're spending together. I'm not really bothered by rules defining friendship and relationship. So we're not really friends and I'm not thinking ahead, but it doesn't really matter now.

I would rather have this with you than anything with anybody else.
You.

In the early hours of National Day, I went ghost hunting with you and your friends. Among the 4 of us, you were the only one who hasn't encountered any ghosts before and most keen to see one. You were the one who doubts. My one ghost sighting was dad just after he passed away, and nothing malevolent like the rest. We trudged through the cemetery with huge sprawling trees and it was peaceful when we weren't bitten alive by mosquitoes. It was only at the ghost house that your friends felt cold shivers while the 2 of us were unaware and warm in the tropical night heat. I guess if I'm already oblivious when it comes to people, I'm not going to fare better with the supernatural.

I just discovered that leslie memorised 1 lb = 16oz = 454g. He thought it was on par with e = mc^2. Eh, I don't think so. :)

My Polish ex-colleague just finished reading the latest Harry Potter which she borrowed from the library. When she returned it, the librarian told her there's a waiting queue of 28 people for that book. Madness!

I'm not ok cos today I ran 10km (or 9.93km to be precise, while listening to Shirley Bassey belt out History Repeating again and again). The gym attendant told me I looked like I was out for revenge.

Work was unrewarding (so bad it made me want to run till my heart'd burst), but I wondered if I should still go to the gym after work cos that would be quite late and I was deadbeat. I debated about asking someone to go have dinner instead, but da mouse couldn't make it. He encouraged me to go run, and I said I was afraid I would start crying while running. Then he thought I better not go in that case, and I replied maybe other people would think I had muscle spasms if I cried. We pondered over that for a wee while and well, I went to the gym anyway.

Running is great cos my mind really takes time-off then. I think mundane thoughts like calculating the next time interval when the song will end and loop back; waiting for the current 5 minute block to be over; and speculating which guy will drop off the treadmill next.

Maybe I need to run 10km more often.

All this longkang talk has reminded me that I have fallen into a longkang before, while serving an attachment during Uni. I fell on my knees, tore both knees of my pants and scraped my right knee raw. (Hmm.. it doesn't sound good to repeat a word 3 times in a sentence, but I can't seem to find a replacement for knee. Oh well.) Till now I still have a barely perceptible coin-size scar there.

The thing is I'm not the sort to drag others down as well. I'm the sensible self-reliant sort who'd wait a bit to assess if I'm ok to move, and then look for a way to climb out. So what I'm doing now is just carrying on with my life as normal. I met friends for dinner. I fixed the file transfer problem of my latest icq version. I'll go running. I'll test out infra-red hotsync between my Palm V and my new thinkpad; and if that fails, I'll go get myself another new PDA toy. I'll try to sleep more, and attempt to kickstart my reading habit again. Or maybe I'll go join the Esplanade library and borrow DVDs to watch.

I'm just too tired to do more.

I'm sorry if I've alarmed friends with my last entry. I'm fine. Or at least I'm coping.

If there's anything I've learnt about love, it's that I don't want to be clingy or needy. So I won't.

You know I blog but have never asked me for the URL. Cos you know I'd have offered it to you if I had wanted you to read. I like the fact that you could overcome your curiosity cos no doubt you knew I'd write about you. Or maybe you had already found my blog and are reading it all this time while keeping it a secret from me. I won't be surprised either. But since I don't know if you know, I'll just carry on writing anyway.

I can pinpoint the moment of realisation that we can't FUBAR anymore to the moment you lost me at Mustafa. I suggested going there for late night shopping, and had you keep my wallet and handphone cos your clothes had more pockets. You bumped into an acquaintance there and the 2 of you had a long conversation, and I wandered away out of sight. Occasionally I'd glance back in your direction but you'd still be chatting, so I found a foldable canvas fishing chair in the basketball section and sat down. A couple was there picking a soccer ball, and the guy demonstrated how he could flick the ball onto his foot and balance it there. Another 2 guys came along and asked for a basketball that glows. Or maybe I misheard them.

When I stood up again, I found you were no longer at your original spot. I retraced my steps to look for you but you weren't around. It was then that I heard you call my name. I turned and you looked so anxious cos you thought you've lost me, and you were nearly going to report me lost at the counter (and if you did, you'd claim I was your little daughter to hasten the staff to broadcast a message for me).

And strange as it may sound, we knew then that we can't deal with losing each other. That the best way we can have each other for keeps is as friends, and there's too much at risk if we FUBAR.

I want to have you for keeps.

Last night we watched a movie, a romantic sob flick where a girl's in love with a boy who's in love with her sister who's in love with his brother who also loves the sister. It sounds more melodramatic than it is, but it's a good show. Halfway through I just kept crying and wiping the tears from my face before sliding my hand back in yours. After the screening, I emerged with red-tinged eyes and you teased me about holding my wet hand. I've never cried so much in front of you.

At a customer's meeting, sitting with my back facing full-length windows and the sun pouring in over my shoulder like warm butterscotch. Holding documents in my hands which I couldn't really read, cos the sun was so bright it was casting shadows on the sheets in sharp relief. Someone was talking, but what I was interested in were the shifting patterns of tree leaves relocating on the paper. The shadow leaves seemed to be toying with my shadow hair. A colleague leaned over and asked if I wanted to swap seats so I could read better, but I shook my head with a smile and wondered what you were doing at that moment.

It's only when I'm installing a new laptop from scratch that I realise I have so many peripherals: Palm V, digicam, camcorder, firewire, ipod, broadband modem. And the Palm V cradle is expecting a 9 pin connection when now I have too many pins. Need to get a converter soon or I won't be able to hotsync my data.

The funny thing is I'm getting more and more self-reliant in setting up a system. I'll just install and download drivers and patches along the way when previously there've often been people to help. Feels good to DIY.