weeklong meals of harissa and cocktails

Not sure if depressed or just very thirsty

Noticed I haven't drunk water in ~8 hours

No one has written me an acrostic poem before, i think.

No one has written a poem about me, i think.

Inspired by the phrase "dead to self"

Life is grotesque.

Significant accomplishments in 2012: I have written a bunch of stuff

I have started calling 'university' 'college': dangerous expectations.

"The town was buoyant with suicides."

I was generally unimpressed with everything I experienced yesterday.

I am generally unimpressed with my current surroundings/situation/circumstances.

"If you have good thoughts they will always shine out of your face and you will always look lovely"

It's like Roald Dahl gave me the finger

Thanks for listening

Sleeping feels superfluous and inessential.

Blegh.

images

terror haiku

I am not ready

I am not in college yet

It is far away

my life is omnishambles (new poem)

my life is omnishambles
my life is omnishambles
my life is omnishambles
my life is omnishambles
my life is omnishambles
my life is omnishambles
my life is omnishambles
my life is omnishambles
my life is omnishambles

my life is omnishambles
my life is omnishambles
my life is omnishambles
my life is omnishambles
my life is omnishambles
my life is omnishambles
my life is omnishambles
my life is omnishambles
my life is omnishambles

my life is omnishambles
my life is omnishambles
my life is omnishambles
my life is omnishambles
my life is omnishambles
my life is omnishambles
my life is omnishambles
my life is omnishambles
my life is omnishambles

thoughtz

Don't know if depressed or just my body's way of screaming CAFFEEEEEIIIINE.

Just turned off a charity event's facebook notifications.

I ate a melona bar. It is 1 AM.

Cramps.

I don't have a uterus.

I have a phantom uterus.

Judith Butler.

I can't relate to anything/anyone without developing overdependence.

I read some Henry Miller on the train today.

I am learning hiragana because I like to practise writing without thinking, it is a deeply meditative act.

I also observed/stared at other people reading on the train today and I tried to feed the phrase "kindred spirit" into their heads but I think they didn't receive the memo.

Feel more emotionally involved in comedy than serious drama.

I haven't christened my new umbrella yet. Will probably name it Judith Butler.

I want to drink gazpacho for a week and pretend it's a fad diet, I'm just doing it ironically.

Feel like this is an echo chamber and it's just me talking to myself and some search engines silently caching my pages. It's a nice feeling, kinda like being in a jacuzzi.

If anyone reads reads this, say "Judith Butler," and I will gaze at you with a knowing expression.

opinions!! part ii

Sex tape scholar's conduct 'reprehensible & unbecoming': Heng Swee Keat — CNA, 12 Nov 2012

The nation has been scandalised by grotesquely depraved sex acts depicting moral impoverishment of the highest order! A sex blog has threatened to rip apart the very fabric that binds society at large, showing complete disregard for the sensibilities of the dignified gentlemen and gentlewomen of these good streets! May we ne'er comprehend the full consequences of having the minds of young innocents splayed out, exposed, to the sordid crimes of reproachful ignominy! O—O—O! May God have mercy on us all! — Town Crier, 12 Nov 2012

Isn't it such a postmodern predilection to say that the moral outrage generated by the discovery of explicit sexual content in the personal blog of a scholar of law was inordinate and uncalled for, the product of a conservative society at odds with shifting value systems? Or even the idea of value systems? Taking into consideration the extensive news coverage and the devotion which the general public, or the impression given by the media of the general public, has given to admonishing the behaviour of the two individuals, it's hard not to see that disgust has been overplayed, sensationalising the story into the dramatic playing-out of a few questions of recent pertinence: how should scholarships be awarded, and to whom — in particular, should citizenship be a prerequisite? How has the nature of scholarships changed over the years and over national borders, from financial aid to a symbol of prestige and eminence? 

opinions!! part i

I have 0 opinions left in my head-space, I've used all of them up.

I need to form some opinions today! Urgently!

I am going to the websites of quasi-reputable local news sources to form some opinions now.

There is a very small-town quality to the articles I am reading. I think it is charming.

Unfortunately, I cannot control my involuntary eye-rolling. I have tried, believe me.

#1 - Headline: Social pressure can help deal with littering habits 

Social pressure may help change littering habits, and only to the extent that the individuals responsible for the bulk of litter in public spaces can have their behaviour altered by top-down grassroots campaigns (this is an oxymoron valid in Singaporean social structures) for a sustained period of time. There are several assumptions the article, the most fundamental of which I will merely list for the sake of brevity: firstly, that there is a qualitative increase in litter—pointed out by our most perceptive PM; secondly, that the behaviour of litterbugs are amenable to "social pressure;" and thirdly, that the individuals who constitute the group of "litterbugs"are homogenous enough that their receptivity to social pressure be assumed. 

I question the efficacy of forming a "Clean and Green Taskforce" consisting of volunteers representing different grassroots organisations, if it is more likely that the taskforce end up duplicating the efforts of existing environmental awareness movements (e.g. 'Singapore, Litter-Free' Campaign.) However, because this is a movement focused within smaller communities or pockets of living spaces, greater attention may be paid to the specifics of each situation. 

This raises a larger question that I have always found to be dubious: what can the public even do to reduce littering, if this theoretical public is also partly constituted by these 'litterbugs'? Additionally, anti-littering laws were implemented during the period of soft authoritarianism when social behaviour was still amenable to legislative measures. Given the supposedly "blasé" attitude about environmental cleanliness that Singaporean have adopted over the subsequent decades, is a reevaluation of current anti-littering laws a reasonable course of action? And on a side note, the use of public humiliation—or Corrective Work Order—presupposes that the act of cleaning public areas is a source of humiliation; the sign of punishment (the bright yellow/orange vests) does not sufficiently signify the shame of the punishment. It is likely that with the stigma associated with cleaning up other people's trash, Singapore will find it hard to break into a culture of having a shared responsibility in maintaining environmental cleanliness and hygiene. 

In Memory of Alois Alzheimer

I

Before this page fades from memory,
spare a thought for Alois Alzheimer,
called to mind each time

someone becomes forgetful,
disintegration vindicating
his good name.

II

His is the last image assigned
to the ex-President who has slipped
from public view; soiled sheets
give credence to his thesis;

his territory is marked out
by the track of urine
dribbled along the corridor
of the day-care centre.

III

Lie close to me in the dry sheets
while I can still tell who you are.

Let me declare how much I love you
before our bed is sorely tested.

Love me with drooling toxins, with carbon monoxide,
with rope, with arrows through my heart.

—Dennis O’Driscoll

terms of endearment

A Milky Taste

Little boy I could eat you. Swallow you
whole, pick your nails from the gaps
in my teeth. I’d spit on you, let my hair
float, a woolen mop. Feel tears ooze
out of my skin. The water of my chest,
a set of rulers, will snap across your
knuckles, make them swell up blue.
I laugh at the hand of cards lying
on the wooden table. You lost, with
the cows, our green wedding rings, to
your brother in a barn. Your mouth,
a jagged key, cuts my cheek, I could
scream at the moon nailed in black.
Little boy, drink your milk and kiss me,
the coyotes howl tonight, I can hear
the chickens fuss from my window.

— Natalie Scenters-Zapico

other monitions

you can listen to this while riding at the back of a truck down a mountain after sunset, like I did, and turn the sound into light and the light into sound; the truck is sprinting past autumn like a floppy eared dog hunting wild hares in the dewy forest, and I am—you are—suddenly contiguous with the world