Through the crowd I was crying out and
in your place there were a thousand other faces
I was disappearing in plain sight
I was disappearing in plain sight
I was disappearing in plain sight


- No Light, No Light, Florence + The Machine

"What I was thinking was that Charlotte Lucas might be gay.


'Are you saying that Austen meant her to be gay?' Sylvia asked. 'Or that she's gay and Austen doesn't know it?'


Sylvia preferred the latter. There was something appealing in thinking of a character with a secret life that her author knew nothing about. Slipping off while the author's back was turned, to find love in her own way. Showing up just in time to deliver the next bit of dialogue with an innocent face.


If Sylvia were a character in a book, that's the kind of character she'd want to be."

- The Jane Austen Book Club, Karen Joy Fowler

"For just one moment our hands meet. In the tight, desperate clench of our fingers are all the words we will never be able to say."

- Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins

sigh

captured by Nick. i just can't remember this boy's name all of a sudden, but beauty can just be nameless as well.

lambent

Jak and Jil

Shala Monroque's Prada (?) hat. a crystalline tweak on the traditional fishermen's headgear! yay. she's fun in a way Anna Dello Russo could never be. speaking of which, someone needs to drown that obnoxious cow. she's not even funny anymore. they're either losing their mojo or i'm just becoming quite disinterested.


seeing Jamie for the first time in yonks the other night led to a conversation. she's completing her Art History (?) degree and while i really want to do Literature, both of us agreed that our erstwhile obsession with fashion has faded off somewhat. it's a positive change i think, too much of fashion never did anyone good. i'll just continue to observe, by the side.

the adored and the adorer

this week has been lovely.

a tuesday dinner with Rei, wednesday's purchase of The Hours by Michael Cunningham, friday's train ride with my army sergeants, last night at Play and Canton Wok, this tangy, old-school Cantonese restaurant my family used to frequent when we were still kids. 

it's been at Eastpoint for as long as i remember, and it turns out that Rei and Alvin used to be regulars too; who knows, perhaps we might have all dined there on the same occasion, each with our respective families. 

it was so nostalgic yet disorientating - we've only ever known the restaurant through the indulgent prodding of our parents', so to be stepping into Canton Wok again, after all these years of absence, these years of growing up, with such a different group of individuals.. ah. it really hits you there. it was the same dishes, the same century egg spinach, the pork ribs, the cold soya bean, even right down to the cups. i hope it never changes. 

and today, could today have been any more perfect?

Vanessa brought Karen and I to Kranji Reservoir. Karen shot a few scenes for the film she wants to make. i'm just waiting to see how they turn out because the process was such fun. i want my future partner to be bringing me to these hidden corners of Singapore, they remind me that as small as the place is, there's so much more to discover. i used to blindly write off singapore but these days i'm pausing. i'm slowing down.

the best bit of the day came when an Indian family kindly stopped to pick us up when we tried our hand at hitch-hiking for the first time. hitch-hiking in singapore of all places! we had to endure half an hour of complete staring by car after car before this Indian family stopped for us.

the husband made pleasant small talk of his army days, which brought to mind of my taxi driver during the trip i took on wednesday. the elderly taxi driver spoke to me of his son, who is apparently based at Changi Air Base. he drives his son to and fro from camp every day.

the son will be studying architecture in Tasmania after he completes his national service while his daughter is a doctor who graduated from the university of Queensland. he eagerly proffered photos of his daughter's graduation ceremony and asked me about my plans for the future.

upon hearing it he got excited and started naming the books he used to read for literature class. we started talking about favourite authors and naturally, it strayed to George Orwell. this taxi driver, who is plenty old enough to be my father, started talking about Animal Farm and still remembers Snowball! Snowball the pig in Animal Farm! most extraordinary. and most embarrassing, for i only recalled with a slow start about Snowball, yet this elderly gentleman must have read the book years and years ago in his youth.

this is my favourite activity - an unexpected meander into the unseen lanes of someone else's life. especially when his countenance is completely at odds with his aspirations, his work, his choices, his desires. x

always, the hours

Tell me a story. Tell me a story from your day.... Oh, fresh, was it? Like a... like a morning on the beach? Like that? Like that morning... when you walked out of that old house; you were eighteen, maybe I was nineteen.

I was nineteen years old... and I'd never seen anything so beautiful: you, coming out of the glass door in the early morning, still sleepy. 


Isn't it strange? 


The most ordinary morning in anybody's life.


*

I'm afraid I can't make it to the party, Clarissa. You've been so good to me, Mrs Dalloway. I love you.

I don't think two people could have been happier than we've been.


- The Hours

I was looking at several men’s fashion magazines and I thought so many of them were so boring. They pushed sex so much it became vulgar. The boys were naked just to be naked. For me, that is not modern ...  But I do not like it when male models start to look like sex toys. For me, that’s when they lose their beauty.


- Carine Roitfeld