When I look back to my favorite photos, most of them are single point perspective shots. What is it? Lack of creativity? Habit? Tunnel vision?
I’m thinking it’s obsession.
fire ants
We were sitting by the fire the other day, watching an army of ants frantically scramble out of a log that we had just thrown in as fuel. They were scrambling in panic over a small surface, back and forth between the end of the log and the flames. We asked each other if we should pull the log out but we ended up telling ourselves that they’d be fine and they would find a way to crawl down. But there was hesitation. I realized that we hesitated a few seconds too long when they started falling off the log. It almost looked like they were synchronized, jumping off one-by-one. (Do ants jump?) Not sure if they were dropping because they were trying to get away or if they were getting confused and losing consciousness from the smoke. Also not sure if they were falling into the flames.
I’ve been thinking about these ants for the last couple of days. I feel oddly sentimental and guilty. These feelings are a little strange considering that I didn’t feel much remorse about a dragonfly that I caught which I then fed to a spider. Don’t know how I can come to terms with my actions in one situation but not my non-action in the other.
dried grapes
Been spending the last few days on a whirlwind of non-stop adventure. The friends I’m with are just super adventurous in general. I used to think I was adventurous until I met these guys. I’m definitely not. Or at least a different type of adventurous. I’ve just been trying my hardest to keep up with all the climbing and caving.
Can’t say outdoor climbing’s very easy for me. Everything hurts. My hands, my feet, my body getting scratched up in general. We’ve been climbing on jagged limestone so my hands can barely handle the pain even with them all taped up. Also, I was dumb enough not to pack anything but shorts so my legs look like a bloody mess. The climbs were a little frustrating since I’m a little rusty but a cool experience all-in-all. I really liked having so many holds at my disposal (as opposed to the limited options of indoor climbing). With the rocks, I kind of narrowed down my choices by seeing what’s within reach and what didn’t hurt my palms too much. Only did a couple of climbs before my hands gave out though.
I’m currently warming up by a camp fire and drinking some Beerlao somewhere in a small remote village called Nong Ping in Laos. We’re spending a couple of nights here. No wifi. No service. It’s a village in development so we don’t even have hot water or flushing toilets. We’re just spending time around our only heat source, enjoying each other’s company. We went kayaking through a big-ass cave today. 14km big-ass. Xe Bang Fai Cave. Been in the dark with just a headlamp, rowing pretty hard for about 8 hours so my shoulders and back are definitely going to be sore tomorrow. I definitely wasn’t used to being being cold, wet and dirty for so long but as always, I did my best to tough it out, especially when the we were deploying such amazing teamwork. I hope the cut on my foot isn’t infected as it’s been in contact with guano water all day… There were a lot of cool rock formations and bats to see but the best sight was seeing all the stars in the backdrop, bordered by the mouth of the cave as we were coming back out. I have to say that I did one of the weirdest things I’ve ever done in my life during this excursion: Asian-squatting and eating fried rice in pitch black somewhere in the middle of a cave.
Speaking of which, I think I’m putting on a bit of weight despite all these activities. I’ve been doing a lot of stress-eating and my body is definitely not used to this amount of carb intake. Really missing my Western diet right now. ?
On the positive side, I’ve been able to sleep these past few nights even through crazy village-wedding music playing all night long.
//
The ride out of the city and back were 3 hours+ each way and the driver only had about eight songs or something so we had to listen to those over and over again for a while. This was one of the catchy and memorable ones:
lucky rabbit’s foot
Sliced my little toe open. Cursed right foot, yet again but a perfect bandage job.
Back in SG, same foot, I had my toe stepped on a millions times trying to carry a drunk 300-pound Chinese man. Had to run my race with a toenail half falling off.
Lucky rabbit’s foot.
prequel to nostrum
I screwed up badly yet still, he strokes my hair in the morning.
he offered her a nostrum [inpsalmnia no.12]
I’m all kinds of sick. Homesick, love sick, and maybe a little sick in the head. No cure-all for my aches but this sleeping boy laying next to me might be the perfect placebo.
starry-eyed side gig
Just landed in Bangkok. I’m on double-dose on melatonin tonight so I’m here while these tabs dissolve. I got pressured into having a few sips of green tea because it was bought for me. I don’t seem to learn from my mistakes.
“Liz, you ever consider that you are a side gig?”
//
A friend told me something a week ago that I can’t get off mind. I was telling him about some things that are going on and he was laughing at me… a lot. Not because of what I was saying was comical or ridiculous, but because, as he says, I’m at a point in life where everything still has so much meaning and that I’m over-thinking the things that people do and say. He told me that not everything has as much substance as I currently think and it’ll wear with age. That sounds frightning, actually.
“Why are you laughing?”
He told me that it was a nice thing to see, kind of seeing himself in my shoes kind of thing and that he missed those kind of days where everything around had so much meaning and purpose. He said that now he was 30+, him and anyone around his age knows exactly what they want while I’m in my mid-twenties, still figuring things out as if everything’s a puzzle. I think he might be right. I was pretty sure of what I’ve wanted in life until having some wholesome chats with these 30-something-year-olds. I guess I must have stars in my eyes or something.
Mr. Maslow [inpsalmnia no. 2]
a wolf looks down at his mess
he wonders to himself
what shall I do with all this red fabric?
Opera Second-Synopses: Die Zauberflote
Finally have a day to myself. I’ve been sitting around eating Pocky, uploading old pics and listening to my opera. Reminds me of the time I did my “opera second-synopses” which I still find ridiculously funny. Especially been listening to The Magic Flute so I’ll leave one for that here:
One guy gets a magic flute. Another guy gets magic bells. They both get chicks.
suppression-depression
I hate my dad’s side of the family. I’m spending almost all my time with them during my stay in Johor Bahru out of obligation. They’re too conservative, too strict, and way too narrow-minded. I grew up in Canada. It’s pretty obvious I’m an unconservative girl. I have tats. I show a lot of skin sometimes. I say what I mean and feel. But when I’m with them, I have to hide and suppress everything to avoid being labeled the bad kid. Because if I’m the bad kid, not only do I get the rap, but my mother will get the blame. They bully her. “She didn’t teach her kids better”. It’s messed up.
I’ve been meeting up with extended family today and people keep telling me what to do.
“Put food on your grandma’s dish.”
I had an auntie tell me this multiple times when my grandma clearly said she didn’t want anymore food. People don’t mean what they say in this family. “No” means “yes” and it’s very fucking frustrating and confusing. My uncle once told me a story about the time he went to London for his law studies. He told me how he was offered tea and when he refused it he was very shocked that he didn’t get any. Tough shit.
“Thank your auntie.”
I fucking thanked her at the beginning of the meal for covering it. How many times do I have to bend over for everyone? What am I, a kid? I’m in my mid-twenties for god sake. I know what I’m fucking doing. Why is everyone treating me like I’m six? I fucking hate people telling what to do. I feel like there is no consideration and respect for me as a being. Fuck. On a side note, sometimes I hate people paying for my meals because if I don’t show the right visible emotional responses, people assume I don’t appreciate the gesture because “thanks” is not enough. People expect too much out of me.
Speaking of which, expectations of me are really fucking stupid. I’ve discussed this with a few Asian friends and it doesn’t seem like a thing within their families, but for mine, at least on my dad’s side, if you’re the youngest person at the table, you’re expected to pour tea for everyone, running around like a fucking dog during the meal and refilling anything that isn’t full. I realized this silent expectation the year before the last. I don’t even drink Chinese tea, okay? But when the second youngest (he’s in his late forties) realized I wasn’t doing my job, he took on the tea bitch role. It was a sad sight. It’s degrading and pitiful. I refuse to be anyone’s tea-pouring slave no matter how much shit they talk about me behind my back. At a later dinner, someone mentioned how times have changed, being a stupid melodramatic fuck complaining about a time when young people would pour tea. FUUCK YOU.
Another thing that bothers me is that people make too many assumptions of me.
Can you imagine how much criticism I get when I tell people I don’t eat rice? “Ho mia, ah”. They all call me spoil. Either that or they just assumed and tell each other that I’m just scared of gaining weight, right in front of me. That’s something else I hate about the family. At meals, I’m basically sitting there, listening to people talk about me to each other. Not with me. It’s messed. I’m like a child and simply there, along for the ride. No one seems interested in getting to know who I am. They just want to hear about how I haven’t failed in life as a member of the family.
“Oh, you don’t have a boyfriend? It’s because you’re too skinny. You have to eat more rice to look healthy. ”
FUCK.
Day’s still going on. Maybe I’ll have a couple more things to add in a bit. But fuck, I had to get this down and out.