Bangkok can be a very big or small place, depending on how you view it.

Bangkok to me is not a city, not a town, but a carrousel — like the ones at the funfair — and its inhabitants little children riding on the same revolving disk, spinning, elevating, descending to the same rhythm, the same melody. And when you live in a place this small, you are bound to run into people you know sometime or another. There is no hiding from those you want to avoid, like your shrink or an unfaithful lover, and you don’t have to fear that someone from the past will be gone forever because they always show up, usually when you least expect them. A goodbye is never final in this town.

"Why does the rest of the world put up with the hypocrisy, the need to  put a happy face on sorrow, the need to keep on keeping on? Why is everyone so willing to be so cool when she unexpectedly crashes trays in the dining hall with a person who only the night before saw her naked and vuilnerable, who in the light of day is a stranger, a person who nods hello?"
--Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation

When I came across this passage almost four years ago, I just had to copy it down. It resonates what I was going through at the time so perfectly. I found it while glossing through an old journal last night and it struck me. Four years is not a very long time but so much has happened--many things changed, even my heart, but some never did. People part, and you think you'd never see them again, but by some cruel twist of fate life always has a way of bringing them back and snatching them away again just when you catch sight of them, just before you can smile and nod hello.

Four years. It was just a moment ago. And the stranger will always remain a stranger in the light of day.

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Edit: Farewell, annus mirabilis.

Spontaneity is definitely the way to go. You never know where your impulse may take you, and mine took me to people and places I never expected to be with on my first-ever New Year's Eve in Bangkok, which turned out to be quite amazing.

Movie, dinner and ice cream with Jun Han was fabulous, and the delightful, grown-up conversation added all the magic. (Jun: Thank you. I really needed that.)

Then the countdown at the World Trade Center with Immz was equally grand. We nearly drowned in the sea of people, took refuge in the parking lot and almost didn't make it outside in time. But we did, and the fireworks were mesmerizing.

A black guy grabbed my elbow, waved and said hi with a huge smile on my walk from Chidlom to Asoke. I was taken aback at first but figured it couldn't have been anything other than the New Year's spirit at work.

And I can't imagine a better way to start a new year than getting a call from my baby Cindy, all the way from Nottingham. :)

And that was how my annus mirabilis ended. My life as a "career woman", as Jun puts it, starts in a few days and I'm not at all excited.

It was like walking on clouds--all soft and sweet and mellow, almost celestial--but there's nothing but thin air beneath your feet, nothing to catch your fall so you land hard.

And so you break.

When it's all gone, you become nothing but shards on the floor. Brittle pieces of fallen realities. Scattered in all directions.

Fallen. Broken. Gone.


It's about time I grew up and migrated from Xanga to here. Of course I will still make picture posts on Xanga every now and then, but here is where selected entries from my real paper journal will be. (Yes, personal and soul-baring entries from real-life experiences. No more junior highish posts. And definitely no more inappropriate non-capitalization.)

It won't be pretty, but then there is nothing more beautiful and haunting than the truth itself in its raw form.

Merry Christmas and God speed, everyone. :)

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Edit:

Called dad to wish him a Merry Christmas and let him know that I will be in China for the week. We talked for a full thirty-six seconds. It just got awkward. But it was nice.

[Profile pic credit goes to P' Tum.]

is it sleeping or dead?