Month: September 2014

Work has been frisking me up at its greediest. September spells out Busy Times, with few moments to ruminate with enough reminders that I myself signed up, fully aware, to be part of a career with erratic demands. It’s true that I came seeking for succinct views on the gloss (and dullness) of other industries and people. I fancied myself too delicate and not quite quick enough for reality, unintentionally soft-spoken even in the face of discomfort. And so I wanted to be roughened up, to be resilient and uncomfortable enough to be cornered into growth. There is a fear of succumbing into all the bad in being another Gen-Y caricature – self-entitled, weak-willed in the face of difficulties, finicky. But resiliency itself is an interesting concept; aside from knocking endurance into a person, you begin to wonder what sense there is in toughness after you’ve smarted from the skinned knees, still buzzing from the adrenaline. Humor me this – is resiliency even practical anymore in the 21st century? What am I looking to survive? Society’s expectations, routine, getting older, the aches of living, your attention span, social incapacities, delicately diverting self from bae? Yet I am proud when I do well in a role that was never designed with somebody like me in mind. I am just doing my job, after all, and there is a certain pride in being able to honor that role.

This is the part where I acquiesce my mortal fears. Admittedly, the fear of underachieving greets me frequently and sometimes overwhelmingly so. I’ve been having trouble in my skin again and thinking almost wildly about writing because, intuitively, this is what makes the most sense to me, this need to reconcile concepts and thoughts. There is a living, breathing affair with words that I can’t pinpoint aside from that I want to do it all the time, that I think about it actively and ardently, and that I do it in the hope that something good will come of it, without the expectancy of great recognition but reward in inspiring some modicum of meaning. In an ideal world there would be a day dedicated to dreaming and it wouldn’t be idle and pointless dreaming because it would do society a whole great deal of good.

It’s getting late and I should be getting to bed. This entry is a little bit of a wild card, the rare occasion where I am taking the time to express the messy state of rumpled, tired thinking. In the morning things will dwindle down and make more sense again and perhaps this too will be forgotten.

Good night, good night, go to sleep.

The change in address, the unattractive rubbery squeal of flip flops sloshing through puddles in the rain, men and women running about with folders and bags used as makeshift umbrellas, a colorful circus of women in tudung encompassing a wide spectrum of colors, the very real, cool, fat droplets of rain against the shadowy peek of her ear, hair sticking on napes of necks, scrape of scrapes as the exhaust pipes from passing cabs filled the air with puffs of smoke, condensation on glasses, so cold, she thought, as she reprimanded herself for forgetting her earphones once again, so cold. The air reduced to gradations of grey, the displeasing clamminess of soil and water running through toes as her thoughts seeped deeper and deeper into her mind, like twenty bleeding ungrounded defeats, distracted and distracting as she crossed the streets with purpose.

She had inevitably offended somebody at work again today. It had been unintentional; she had raised the tone of her voice in annoyance because the gossip at work seemed uncalled for, the mocking laughter of her co-workers over another colleague had upset her, she couldn’t accept that they were calling someone a ‘fat excuse of a faggot’. She could not stifle her emotions in time to be sensible, she should not have paused to give a stern glare and a sharp passing remark to shut them up but she could not deny her natural knack for verbal vitriol. She knew upon its release that the timbre of her voice had been strained, that she had caused the halt in the traffic of laughter and conversations as empty faces focused on her and she blinked back, mouth defiantly tight, some faces surprised that she had spoken up so strongly and suddenly on the matter, the girl at work who rarely looked up from her computer.

No, no, no. She hated coming off as rigid and righteous but was well-versed in the practice of denting others. It was a small matter, really. The stares made her feel cornered. Not worth making a hoopla over. But ‘principles’.

She shook it off, tried to placate her displeasure by thinking of what was for dinner, by thinking of warm feet under the covers, of the simple pleasure in her cat’s usual lazy greeting in strolling over to the front gate as she parked (thank god cats don’t have the sensitivity of a fucking eunuch, she thought), a mountain of books to read, surmising the simple pleasures of chopping vegetables for dinner in the privacy of the kitchen, of watching back-to-back episodes on her aging computer which froze every time her habit of opening 20 tabs and 4 windows at one go caught up with her.

The rain continued to patter down her crowded thoughts as she stood, still and morose, safe yet startlingly isolated for the moment underneath the privacy of her umbrella.