Stone and balloon.

The moon today is a bright blot of brilliance, enclosed by a vapid glow, surrounded by a red lining. It looks like a pus-filled wound. Stone at the bottom of the well, and the (soon to be deflated by a tree branch) balloon are looking at the same sky, but only one is close enough to hear the moon whispering to it.

And it is not the balloon for it has impaled itself on a sharp object and bled rubber on the earth beneath.

Where there is gnashing of teeth

The last BHSO rehearsal, I dissolved chewing gum in my mouth by unconsciously gnashing my teeth in sheer sightreading frustration. I felt the need to write this because never, in 18 years and 6 months of my sorry life, have I made gum dissolve. Wrigley's Strawberry Flavoured Xylitol Gum, to be precise.

The ubiquitous music video for this year's National Day Song with little kids dressed in white cotton shirts and black peasant pants running across vast grassy fields reeks of Chinese communists' re-education schemes (where intellectuals are banished to the countryside to learn the earthy ways of peasants), and is another cause for teeth grinding. I see it on the billboards in town, in heartland shopping malls, the next place I'll spot it will probably be on TV Mobile. And then I'll probably go mad. GRR. Having your home in the country does not make the country your home does it? And what's with this thing about never being alone?

To quote Troy from 'Reality Bites', "everyone dies all by himself". And that's the truth.

Braddell Heights

Anything by Brahms is a killer to sightread. Much less the Violin Concerto, the Tragic Overture and the Symphony No 2 all at once. Especially the Symphony No 2's 2nd movement (with the cello solo bits in B major a.k.a.you'll keep missing the A# to your major embarrassment) and the last movement with the fast passages that passes your eyes in a blur.

The 'blur' is caused by two things. It's fast. Your eyes are tearing after not daring to blink for the last 2 hours. If there was anything called hernia of the eyes, it might just occur one of these days considering I have totally no time to practice with my cello exam drawing dangerously near, so every week from now till 29th August spells a sightreading challenge. (and a long and dusty walk to the Braddell Heights CC from Serangoon MRT.)

And all this because I agreed (in my folly) to play for the BH Symphony Orchestra. It was more like a reluctance to say no, considering Noella (my other cello teacher) has been nice enough to take Your Humble Narrator under her wing. (Mrs Ilano says it is an exercise in cellists' ethics, though I never knew such a thing existed) N's an amazing cellist. And amazing's really not the word. During a break in rehearsal today (where I could finally catch up on my blinking) she was practicing the Shostakovich Cello Concerto (read: grossly difficult) from memory, in preparation for some SSO Young Performers Series audition. I suppose you can say it's nothing surprising since she's supposed to be a concert cellist and all, but still?! I gaped in glassy eyed wonder.

Anyway back to today's rehearsal, it was better than last week's, when the uninitiated me was trying to juggle keeping time with bowing correctly and making sure my fingers didn't get stuck playing the fast passages, all the while listening to my japanese desk partner counting 'ichi ni san ichi ni san" under her breath. I think I wasted more energy trying not to laugh (the whole thing was inexplicably hilarious) than on the actual playing. Although it was just N and I in the cello section today it was better because she was easy to follow ie. she did breathe more than the jap cellist and she plays a lot louder too! I think a good desk partner makes a whole lot of difference! (So if you're floundering at the difficult passages you can rely on your partner to cover up, although that's not ethical at all...)

It's time I stopped gushing.

Self-Inflicted Pain

It is raining, and the sky is pink and grey. I stand by the road and try to catch the raindrops on my tongue, but this is not New York and it is not snowing, and so most of it gets into my eyes instead. Rain tastes like tears. The speed camera flashes four times in quick sucession, merging with the red lights of the ambulance that attempts to streak past the bus but ends up looking like it's trundling along. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.

It is raining, and I catch my heel against a metal edge and cut myself. By accident, of course. On first look, the result is visibly disappointing. I stare frustratedly at the gash, and watch as the thin red liquid rushes from the surrounding skin and drowns the wound. Now I don't feel so bad anymore.

It is raining again. This time, I am bored with action, preferring rather, to pile two dusty years' worth of "Time" and "The Economist" around me in a circle. (Think seance of information). When the problems of the world are written down and discussed, even if you're surrounded by them. it is reassuring to note that you can demolish the piles by removing one magazine from the top of each pile, in either a clockwise or anti-clockwise direction.

Do not try this at home unless you feel like biting someone/are a history/political science student/masochist/ and are fully prepared to have one or all of the following:
1. Gargantuan headache,
2. Teary eyes/ leaky nose (from the tragedy or from the dust or from the eyestrain or from all of the above)
3.Claustrophobia
4. Genjutsu a.k.a illusions (even when you're looking at a blank wall, it's swimming with words. Even when you think you're sleeping, your mind's eye is scanning through words and more words)
5. Semi-illiteracy (which comes from being bombarded by too many words and you end up being unable to read the word 'unable' and you think it's 'u-nable'. It happens.)
6. Dry drowning (in words. To the uninitiated, it's all of the above plus the physical sensation of choking if you read another word be it from a roadsign/cereal box/instant noodle wrapper/ photostated advertisment stuck to wall at lift lobby/bus stop)

Then again, some people get these when they study for exams. Same difference.

Nick Hornby in 'How to be Good'

Nick Hornby in "How to be Good" says

'To dislike one husband may be regarded as unfortunate, but to dislike both looks like carelessness.'

'We are the the ideal nuclear family. We eat together, we play improving board games instead of watching television, we smile a lot. I fear that at any moment I may kill somebody.'

So much for the Government with all their pro-marriage, pro-childbirth propaganda. The last I heard, NUS is organising a seminar/conference on "Why People are not getting Married" on the 27th of August.

My take on marriage? I refuse to comment. But I agree with Thomas Hardy when he says that the marriage ceremony is 'only a sordid contract, based on material convenience in householding, rating and taxing , and the inheritance of land and money by children, making it necessary that the male parent should be known.' '..love is usual tragedy in civilised life...a tragedy artificially manufactured for people who in a natural state would find relief in parting.'

Depressing isn't it? Feel free to disagree. This is a democratic society.

Yellow Fingers

People look alike in death.The same powdered flesh covering the tint of grey, the pursed blue lips painted red, the liver spots/wrinkles/crow's feet, the nails perfectly manicured, fingers stacked upon each other like mahjong tiles.(which is the main preoccupation of elderly fingers at one point or another). Cancer patients tend to look jaundiced. But maybe it's the light.

'The thing about cancer is that it can always exceed your worst expectations. There is something pornographic about cancer's ability to confound your imagination. Whatever new obscenity cancer comes up with to torment and torture you, it can always do worse tomorrow.' - Tony Parsons, 'man and boy'

Maybe I shouldn't be talking about the dead so flippantly, They might come to haunt me.

Sunday -- a day at once so pagan and so divine. (as read from the da vinci code), almost as incongruous as another female in church staring hard into your eyes, for a long time.

In the bus, two male twins in identical blue and white uniforms are sitting in front of me. One has red Mickey shoes, the other has yellow ( I forget the brand) shoes. One is blabbing away in a squeaky voice, the other has his arms folded, staring morosely at the rest of the busload of people. One grins mischieviously and prods my cello case with his foot, the other looks at me with liquid quizzical eyes. And now, the silent one reaches over and tries to insert his fingers into his brother's ears, who in turn tries to stick his fingers into his brother's nostrils.

The Shostakovich cello sonata in D minor Op 40 is repeating itself like a working record in my head, and I feel sick already.

"Anger is but a cowardly extension of sadness", says Alanis Morissette, but when does sadness stop and anger begin?

Tonight I will have another engagement with death, playing for another one of those wakes. "Singapore Casket, Jade Room, 8 pm" goes the email notification. Jade Room, Ruby Room, Emerald Room.. Strange isn't it, with all these brightly coloured stones, we wear black and spoil the mood. It is cruel to attempt to force cheer on an obviously grievous occasion. Then again, people would rather contend with false joviality then face the bleakness of a person's absence, given that most of us are anti-realists, are we not?

Beginnings are never easy. (something like this comes out and already it sounds trite, cliched, and cheesy).

Or maybe it's just me being painfully self-conscious about shamelessly putting up details of my life. (but the narcissisitic side of me screams 'liar')

Anyhow I've decided to start this all over again, and hope this time it works out, and doesn't stagnate with just 2 posts sitting here for over a year. Which is what happened the last time. Why the sudden commitment to what may just turn out to be another lost cause? I don't know.

The blog will write itself, this time.