Life notes—from one me to another—for youth passes like a dream ☾ ﾟ｡⋆
We got a new washing machine. Our old one was not letting in water unless we kicked it in the side, and we weren’t sure how long more it could last since it was already hitting the nine-year mark. Plus we’d already fixed a faulty door lock somewhat recently with what turned out to be a rather shady repair service. So we measured our old machine, went down on a weekend to a large furniture and…
As the older man on stage plucked his guitar and sang in his clear voice a song unfamiliar, my eyes grew misty when those words I heard for the first time touched me and meant something to me that Sunday morning. Talkin’ to myself and feelin’ old Sometimes I’d like to quit Nothin’ ever seems to fit Hangin’ around Nothin’ to do but frown Rainy days and Mondays always get me down What I’ve got they…
I still remember that conversation. I was twenty, young and free, gushing excitedly about an upcoming camp, about how much I loved camps, when I was confounded by the less-than-enthusiastic response of my friend ten years older. In my naivety, I had genuinely wondered how anyone could not like camps when they were, in my eyes, clearly so much fun. Now here I am past that age, understanding her…
It’s the night before Chinese New Year. After the reunion dinner, we bike home in the dark and cool, but this time, my mind is elsewhere. I feel unsettled. I can’t shake the images I saw on the TV screen from my mind—the scores of robots dancing/doing martial arts moves in unison, the AI-generated video graphics that puzzled me for a moment as I tried to discern if what I saw was actually real, or…
It’s my last day at a men’s haircutting course, and I’m unexpectedly bummed about it. The course was only four days long, and yet it was four days long enough for me to know what I’ll lose and miss now that this fleeting journey has come to a close. I will miss setting up my workspace in the mornings: gathering my materials together, attaching my mannequin head atop a tripod, awaiting eagerly our…
I am on Blogspot, and it is the year 2010, clearly, from the default template that greets me, complete with 38x38px floral background tile on repeat. My curiosity, piqued from a line in a recent news article, has sent me to this far-flung corner of the internet—for how can I not be curious when it has to do with a blog? The spike in the pageview counter in the left column reveals that I am not…
I've been feeling it again lately, the tightness in my chest, the restlessness in my mind that keeps me up at night and idle in the day. It's a familiar feeling, coming in waves and following a cycle, reminiscent of my days in W. Though the reasons and challenges differ this time, the struggle in my head and the questions on my mind remain the same. Can I do this? Am I going to be okay? The sense…
I remember the first time I saw snow. I remember watching snowflakes as they danced daintily, as they waltzed through my window. I remember the light in my eyes—my wide-eyed wonder. I remember snowflakes falling softly and melting in my hand. I remember the first time I saw snow—the same time my son first saw snow—when he was only three, and I, past thirty. I grew up with sun and rain, with hot,…
The post that I really wanted to write, which I started a month ago, is still stuck in the dungeon. I've got the title—it's a good one—and the content, but I can't find the right words. To relieve the bloated draft and hopefully move it one step closer to seeing the light of day, I am posting what I wrote today separately instead. Pardon the uninspired title and the abrupt nature of this entry,…
Last September, in my home far from home, 1 it poured outside our window. We had never seen it rain like that the entire time since we moved to W, a whole year and a half before. As we watched, stuck indoors on a weekend, videos of familiar places submerged in floodwaters and read the news of the devastation in neighbouring states and countries, it turned out that rain of this sort was not a usual…