I finally found the (preliminary) words!

Boston reminds of cobblestone floors, quaint red-brick buildings beset with new, rising glass structures. Often, you don’t walk but rush from place to place, copying the invisible rhythm perpetuated by the inhabitants that was and will be. Boston, to me, is still filled with surprises. One hears a (never before heard) church bell toll one day, a marathon another. The air smells like dirty petrol, but I just never noticed this till yesterday. Most of all, Boston feels like the spontaneous smile you get, when you look up from that brisk, busy stride and see the light blue sky.

Fiction 1

A Gray Watch Underneath The Blue-Black Sky

There was a long blue bench surrounded by yellow ochre maple leaves on the still-green grass by the vine-covered stone. Red leaves climbed the chapel walls, but the sky was gray.

She sat erect on the edge of the long blue bench. The wind blew and rustled the maple on the ground then caressed her cheek and tugged at her long wavy hair. She shook her head and it settled back on her shoulders. Today is not a day for fun and games.

Gently nestled within her slim fingers was an old watch ticking, and she felt between the groves on the watch’s band, her fingers routinely roaming through the smooth metal surface. Her eyes were held onto a gaze too far away to see the approach of the young man she sat straight for. Yet, a gentle patter of footsteps brought about an immediate sense of his presence. The familiarity of his arrival, of welcoming woody notes from his favorite scent and faintly clinking jeans engulfs her. Smile, she told herself, and smile she did. But how could I smile when he’s looking at me like that?

He sat on the other side, not close enough to comfortably hold, not far enough that they couldn’t touch. She wore a sheer white blouse with puffy sleeves, white knee-length loose skirt and her long dark tresses flew with every whisper of the wind. A small feather necklace hung from her smooth neck, and two little studs for earrings. She smiled a smile he’d seen often that others far less intimate never knew, and took her for always possessing such cheer. The side of her lips painfully forced into a natural tilt upward, the only cursor to this unwilling act were her deep brown eyes that cascaded waves of sadness onto the intent beholder.

They sat thus, drowning into each other.

Because time was meaningless between their gaze, she didn’t know when she tore her eyes from him and hung her head down while she reached uncertainly out. He took her trembling fingers with an equally uncertain hand. Should I hold it firmly? Should I stroke her? Or do I just loosely support it? He held her tightly, lying through their hands that everything will be okay.

Now hunched so that he couldn’t see her face, she stretches out her other hand, in it a gray steel watch. The minute hand was crawling above the blue-black sky diagram within its gold rims, and when the watch came closer he felt like he would be sucked into the blue-black surface and be left suspended in its starless sky if he took it. But he, too, reached out his other hand and took the gray band from her.

The blue-black sky was the first picnic under the stars in his backyard; was the color of her hair for a few weeks on a whim after her short-lived obsession with vampire fiction; were the dark cherries she loved so much that he popped into her mouth; was the day they swam together in a cold creek and held each other, chilled and frozen, so tightly that they were one body. The blue-black sky was the backdrop to his bare back as he made love to her one star-filled night. Blue-black was also was the night he threw his hands up in disgust and stormed away; were the bruises left on his body after the fistfight with her brother. The blue-black sky was when he called her out and gave her his last bouquet of white azaleas and walked away before she could see the tears streaming from his eyes.

So he took the watch and wore it, his left wrist adjusting again to the once familiar heaviness. She was still looking down, her hair falling into a messy tumble before her face, like the day they lay in the cool dark meadow and she’d fallen asleep on his lap. He took her face in his hand and lifted it up to kiss her on her downturned lips, tasting his and her mingled tears and held her so that their faces and breasts and shoulders touched. In a moment she will be gone and nothing will be left of her except an old gray watch of his that she kept and the memories underneath a blue-black sky. Tomorrow morning she’ll wake up thinking and saying I want it back! I want you back whilst running with her pulse in her ears back to this long blue bench. He won’t be there anymore. His faint existence erased from the chair that bore witness to their encounter. The chair will be cold and hard and will hold no whiff or smell of him, who sat there with her for so, so long on a gray afternoon and pitch-black night. But before that time, before she comes back with regret and before he leaves his heart on the chair, there was nothing between them that could tear them apart.

It nears winter and I realise I don’t have a sweater

sums up my dilemma of the moment. The 8 Celcius weather made me drag out the ol’ trusty poofy polyester jacket, affectionately (or not) dubbed Michelin Man, as it does indeed resemble the outerwear of the automobile service mascot.

Or is it his body? I don’t really know!

Yet since it has only been 4 weeks since summer ended for me, I really can’t bring myself to put Michelin on yet. I wore him from January till March last semester. If I start now it’ll be a constant for the next six months. Way to commit a fashion faux pas. (I’ll start wearing it when it gets too cold to care about fashion)

Speaking of faux pas, I’m committing so many creative writing no-nos just writing this alone. The sin of committing “tell” instead of “show” is positively making me ooze blood right now. *foams blood* maybe my next update will just be my fiction class homework. how ’bout that, eh?

Otherwise, to the unknown few who still checks my blog every new moon or so, remarkably nothing much ever changes with me. Except this semester i’m even more of a nerd than the last! and i eat a lot more microwaved foods on the weekend because the dining hall times are just ridiculous. it closes at 7pm. who eats before 7?!

The part about nothing changing includes a miserable component as well, since the same suitemates from last semester still litter up the suite like everyone else is their maids. Again and again my mind refuses to wrap itself around the logic presented by her when all evidence screams otherwise. Those are your boxes = you throw them out. Do you expect that it will magically disappear when you put it in the corridor? the thing is i know her intrinsic answer. I want you to throw it out for me. I know you’ll do it sooner or later. Don’t kid me by saying yes, I’m going to throw them out because obviously you’re a lazy fuck who couldn’t give a damn about what a pigsty you’re living in and you leave your used cottons and q-tips and straws and unwashed alcohol-stained cups scattered around the counters and floors because it’s convenient and you’re never in the suite so it wouldn’t bother you.

Oh wait, I’m sorry. Even if you lived in the suite it wouldn’t bother you. We know how you can just bathe and wade in your own grime without feeling a smidgeon of discomfort. We know you don’t use body soap when you shower. dirty bitch

so i guess things did change around here.

you’re a little box i’ve locked up and put away

joel tells me i’m a vengeful person. “you aquariuses never forgive”. a statement that i am loathe to admit, though admittance to this slight really does me no harm whatsoever hmm, but concede that it is true. Whatever traits other aquarians may possess, I personally harbor.. tics, should i say? The little tiffs, menial acts, the big insults – only those that I disagree on of course.

which explains why joel is on the receiving end of Mean Xiao ahaha. we are physical embodiments of disagreement period

I can’t change how I’m wired. unfortunately, i’m wired to keep my own secrets in little boxes within myself. i store because that’s what i’ve always done and it’s very comfortable to keep doing. at least so far, right?

She wears a long white wig of rolled hair

It’s funny when you think about it, ’cause who’s there to judge? But I imagine people pointing fingers and laughing at me. Scoffs, derision, mocking if I were to think, to participate… again – who is there to judge?

I know it shouldn’t matter. But I still wince, or feel shifty as I click the ’send’ buttons to free-prize-giving contests. I don’t tell about the pictures I had to take for a contest, but left it in my Downloads folder as it’s easy enough to stumble across. I roll my eyes at modeling contests.

There’s no one there to judge. i think. and it shouldn’t matter regardless

you hit a block and look at the ticking clock

Creativity is so suffocating. I kept clipping mismatching colours and patterns together trying and trying and mismatching. Sometimes when I’m at this verge of giving up I tell myself I have no patience for these things. These little hit-or-miss bits of paper that I produce. 1 out of 5 turns out good enough for my satisfaction, so is that one worth the other four frustrations?

I feel unrest seeing half-baked creations but at times like these it sits there and it’ll never fully materialise into something wonderful because i’m at wit’s end. wit’s end! I sit there as I packed up my (severely meager) tools and cursed a little. Why am I doing this anyway? I don’t even know those people. And since it came out less than satisfactory (to me), I gain absolutely no joy from making it at all. the entire process became a favour.

the wit’s end, the creative block has been something I’ve ran away from all the time. but even if i kept hurling myself headlong towards it what would I have gotten?

Judging by the amount of time I’ve spent at home since coming back from australia

I left home and came home again just to realize that I missed home.

Perhaps

I think I will blog again. Or at least try. It became harder and harder (and remains so) because one day I began to feel that what I think is nothing; so unextraordinarily mundane that sharing it is a waste of time. That was how much the value of my self-esteem has fallen aha anyway

It hasn’t changed much. but i’m a little more optimistic now. counts for something eh?

In-tray now, make-up box next

In a sudden spurt of restlessness, I’m beginning to make boxes (leave the worrying about luggage till later!). This wednesday I plan to make a bag – and accompanying pencil case – for class. Let’s hope my books won’t be too big! will post pictures when done

after twitter-facebook-lookbook-twitter-

When I think about the things that I will need (want) to get when I get back to Boston, I will be pulled up short by the glum pile of bills that will need attending – that I keep forgetting when I start to dream about new winter jackets. sans michelin man padding. My AT&T bill. wince. The $18 I owe my school because of wire charges. The $350++ that constitutes my semester’s texts. wince wince. And little things like paying for laundry, hotel charges, taxi charges… did i mention I wanted to get a fridge and haul a rice cooker from back home? <- this doesn’t seem possible anymore.

Regardless of my plans in 3, or 2 and a half weeks, let me share with you my achievement of the day. I am somewhat proud of it. even though i feel like a turtle for bending my back for the whole day. I’ll make something else when I get more cloth!

Now the question is how to bring it over there???