i'm flying 24th august near midnight, $1400 approx + greyhound transport to annapolis. AT LEAST IT'S FINALLY DONE I AM SO GLAD STEP ONE

i have three unshelled durians sitting in the corner of my office room (thanks to wl). i love the smell! pn was all NO WONDER I SMELL DURIANS I SMELT THEM THE MOMENT I ENTERED FROM THE OTHER SIDE and wl's all OH MY GOD SOMEONE BOUGHT DURIANS WHO COULD BE SO IRRESPONSIBLE

Mary Karr | Animistic Anatomy
My student points out that we’re dark
in our bodies, which troubles me.
Somehow I always thought myself lit up
like the transparent model from biology
with brightly dyed guts folded neat, brown
liver, brain white as a slug. In physiology
I learned the twelve cranial nerves and how
the eye upside-downs everything,
the broad rivers of the heart. Now I know
my pupil admits for the whole world
just one pinprick of light, one recumbent picture
of pen and lined paper. No homunculus
heaves a lever to hoist this hand to my brow.
I only shine inside at death,
when the undertaker’s whirling saw at last
opens me to cold light. He’ll be ignorant
to the soul which will rise
in fiery mist. He will not heave it
with other organs on the scale, though the now
dark parts of me will grow luminous
in his gloved hands. How I long to be opened
and laid bare this way, weighed and measured,
illumined, my soul at last uncaged from ribs, rising.



Guilty | Jack Gilbert
The man certainly looked guilty.
Ugly, ragged, and not clean. Not to mention
their finding him there in the woods
with her body. Neighbors told how he was
always playing with dead squirrels,
mangled dogs, even snakes. He said
those were the only things that would
allow him to get close. "Look at me,"
the old man said with uncomplaining
simplicity, "I'm already one of the dead
among the dead. It's hard to watch things
humiliated the way death does it.
Possums smeared on the road, birds with ants
eating out their eyes. Even dying rats
want privacy for their disgrace.
It's true I washed the dirt from her face
and the blood off the body. Combed her hair.
I slept beside her, at her feet for two days,
the way my dog used to. I got the dress
on the best I could. She looked so neglected.
Like garbage thrown in the weeds.
Like nobody cared because he had done that
to her. I kept thinking about how long
she is going to be alone now. I knew
the police would take pictures and put them
in the papers naked and open so people
eating breakfast could look at her. I wanted
to give her spirit enough time to get ready."

i will do internet research later, now i am reading a book that has a girl with dyslexia (in her shoes - it is actually a really good book), and i am wondering:

1. dyslexia is a difference in the way of perceiving things, right? not an "illness". lee kuan yew had dyslexia; clearly people with his particular version of dyslexia have no problems understanding concepts and etc (this idea is echoed in the book), and it's only the actual reading that is the issue. okay, it can't be this straightforward, but if it is (:P), is it something in the english language in particular that makes it hard to read - the similarity of the shape of the letters or something? are dyslexic people able to understand pictures? what about braille, and audiobooks, if reading is the problem? what about more pictorial languages like chinese - are there chinese people who have dyslexia? if people learn other languages .. can they have as much access to books and etc that non-dyslexic people have?

the sum total of my research is this book and bouncing off my dad, okay. more later.



i love going to museums (hi edlyn i wish you were here today!) even by myself, going with people and going by myself is very different, if i go with people i want to go with people who want to go to the museum, you know? not just to spend time and hang together or etc. night festival was awesome (dinner with the tkd people was mmm mmm too - happy times) and i love fireworks, they are a colossal waste of money and a bad enough source of air pollution (though frankly it doesn't make a difference unless you do it on beijing olympics scale) but they sparkle. and i don't know if i am more open (yes) or if fireworks are beautiful and it is different watching them alone but i found myself shouting v nonsensical things like OH MY GOD THAT IS AWESOME over the explosion sounds. fireworks make me gleeful. and wandering around museums, talking to random people.. i could do that for a long time! if i were staying in singapore i would work in a museum. i would study in smu and i would work in museums, and i would get lifetime membership passes and etc.

omg this is crazy but i want to go to smu, i didn't realize that the museums and the national library were just next door????

okay i don't have time for anything substantial right now. i will make my way to the night fest tonight! no matter what!!!

( happiness is not relative )



Okay, please shoot me. I was trying to get to the: "if everyone was luckier, the world would be a happier place" concept, but everyone thinks that I make no sense. E.g. if on average there was 0.1 probability of parents dying in a car crash, vs there being 0.01 probability of parents dying in a car crash, wouldn't there be less sadness in the world with the latter? Of course I equate less sadness to more happiness, I think that is mostly accepted, please don't argue over that. If less people feel pain over people dying, wouldn't such a world be happier than one that has more people feel pain? Even though they wouldn't know that they were happier (since they're unable to compare), they would be happier. .. Why don't people agree?

it's been ages since i've been able to say that i like people! i like people.

i also like sprawling on bus seats. like, i used to be all nice and demure and sit on the inside of a two-empty-seat thing, and place my bag on my lap and inch in as much as possible so i don't, you know, take up too much public space. but lately i've just been ambling into buses (when my typical habit is to creep in furtively and aim straight for the nearest seat), sprawling into seats and occupying one-half, with my bag occupying the other half, slouching languid and ho ho ho hum mmm people stare at me, haha.

i also like sitting at bus stops, at the lower metal bench, with my feet drawn up so that i can face the incoming traffic and read my book while watching for the bus. nowadays i like it when people stare at me! i would call myself names but i actually kinda like this, if they look at me i can look back and CONNECTION BA BA BOOM maybe, sometimes i smile at them

TODAY

MA ANYI
HO SIHUI
GUO YIRAN
DAVINA HUANG LIN
AND PANG SI YING

ARE GOING TO BE AT DOUBLE O OR ARENA I DON'T KNOW WHICH

TO DANCE AND DRINK

WE WILL BE WEARING MASKS (H1N1, NOT MASQUERADE)

SEE YOU THERE?????

OH MY GOD AMANDA PALMER IS DATING NEIL GAIMAN!!!! i read both their blogs, follow their works, was insane amounts of happy that they started collaboration and now HAPPY BABIES

"it was also kind of an out-of-the-closet gig for us. we’ve been dating for a while, and while not actually keeping it a shut-up-shut-up secret, we’ve been not advertising it because….errrr, why do that? but it’s at the point where it’s just dumb so: yes. i’m dating neil gaiman. and moreover, he’s dating me. (very handy).
and more than that, i truly love him. i do.
the man makes me so, so, so, so happy. finding someone who understands me…really, really understands me…is a miracle. it’s never been this easy. we don’t need to change each other at all. it may sound absurd but he’s the only man i’ve ever met who’s willing to love me unedited, to take me as i am, completely, utterly. it’s been a bitch of a life, this one, running around and touring and working and trying trying to figure out this job and also trying to find real love that works. it’s near impossible. neil gets it. he gets what i do, he gets who i am, he gets how i work, inside and out, and as my friend anthony would say: he loves me despite knowing me. and i get him. i love every inch of his self. and so that’s that. i think i should keep him around, eh? he can also write, cook, sing, drive stickshift, beekeep and give great neckrubs. 
but the man cannot play a tambourine in rhythm to save his LIFE. 
can’t have it all."
http://blog.amandapalmer.net/post/120145112/nyc-neil-nin-nap-naan


from one of her blog entries long long ago, one of her first meetings with neil, i saved this:

"neil and me and zoe and tora and kat went to a trout farm and watched them kill the fish. it hurt. i might go vegan again.

then we ate them. neil wrapped them in newspaper to cook them. and he sort of fucked them up. and got upset. seeing neil gaiman upset about ruining his fish wrapped in newspaper was the most adorable thing i think i’ve ever seen. we all went for walks. we cooked. we played with the cats and the dog. life, for a moment, felt more lifelike."


i very secretly hoped! but i didn't really expect it but i am so happy :D brian's okay too, according to wiki he's been doing his own things with other bands for a long while now. i love happy endings!

"Penelope has been waiting for her husband Odysseus to return from Troy for many years. Little does she know that his path back to her has been blocked by astonishing and terrifying trials. Will he overcome the hideous monsters, beautiful witches and treacherous seas that confront him? And what new tests await him if he ever finally reaches his home shore?"

This makes the Odyssey sound like a trashy soap hahaha

Fleeting moments

(Hanging on for someone is quite addictive
When you gaze through high-rise windows
At the lights beyond the rainbow and the social club
One girl’s perfection is another’s expectation
And the pureness of a moment always overstays its welcome
If I linger too long

I’m romantic by design
I see joy within the syntax of a shop sign
Or a bus stop conversation in a west country town
I feel overwhelmed sometimes by all the rational types
Who just dismiss coincidence and instinct and perception
As a trick of the mind

It’s always fleeting, like snapshots or flashbacks and
Unwritten endings and the promises wrapped up inside
And I’m all potential, and potential is the spark behind my eyes
Behind my eyes

I’m forensic by design
I’m the sort who sees a magic trick
Then kills himself to find out how it’s done
And then I’m always let down
I’m just details and facts
How can I live when there’s comparisons and speculation,
Talking heads, deliberations haunting me

Fleeting moments are insomnia for the curious and
Untied endings are the curse of inquisitive minds
And well, what’s potential,
When potential might be all you ever know?
I don’t know

Oh the summer, it drags its heels
And then for every fleeting moment
There’s a fortnight left to wonder if it happened at all…)