5x2 line poem

Can I write a poem,

and write it simply?

Not use any metaphors,

or flowery language,

or pretty imagery.

What do I write about, then?

What subject is suitably treated

without some technique?

What is a poem,

without aesthetic?

Yes, I am now a bionic woman.

After recently reconstructing a crucial ligament in my knee (my ACL - anterior cruciate ligament), I haven't had a very full calendar, so I've had more time to pursue other interests, such as The Big Bang Theory. Or Aimee Mullins.

They have this block of text that flashes by at the end of each episode, called a vanity card, which, as it turns out, has some pretty cool stuff on it.

Coming out of the closest

I was catching up with a friend the other night when the conversation turned to close friends and how we might define who we are 'closest' to.

As a rule, I generally don't give much thought towards quantifying my varying degrees of closeness to my friends, but for discussion's sake, it did make for an interesting topic: what does make a close friend close?

Is it the person with whom you spend the most time with? The person to whom you share the most with? The person you talk to the most? The person you have the most in common with? The person with whom you have been friends for the longest?

There are endless reasons to be close to someone, and indeed all the above reasons are reasons to be grateful for. For me, there are two reasons that I am close to the people I am close to.

The first is honesty. Among those I count as my closest friends are those who are willing to open up to me. They have shared things with me I know that one does not immediately readily share with the world, and their trust and vulnerability induces reciprocality in me. I have great difficulty in sharing and opening up to people, and as I have grown older I have only made more mistakes in whom I elect to share my vulnerabilities with. This negative feedback means that I tend only to open up to people I feel have opened up to me.

However, more than just sharing their personal lives, such friends are treasured for the fact that they are unafraid to share their personal opinions, even when said opinions may be less than savory. When someone is willing to insult or rebuke you in the interest of being completely honest, it is for me one of the signs of a true friend. Caveat: insults alone do not imply friendship though - quite often they imply rather the opposite.

The second is gratitude. As my dear blogstalkers are well aware of by now, I love a good cliche, especially when it is true. And my dears, a friend in need really is a friend indeed. This works both ways. Both those who have helped me when I am weak and those who have allowed me to see and aid them in their darkest moments, are friends who I treasure deeply.

Music: the polite audience

Warning: gush alert which shouldn't be surprising since I'm such a big fan of the artist in question.

Went for Lenka's Asia Tour at Zirca Mega Club (which is ironic, considering its unobtrustive location and tiny size). Was it The Show. As some fans said, "We don't want our money back." She's just that good.

The thing I love about live performances is the raw, unadulterated quality of the performance - you get to see whether the singer is really good or whether it's just smoke and mirrors. Lenka's even better live than she is on album, which is really quite rare in singers nowadays. Her slightly breathy, sexy vocals had remarkable breadth and range, which she exhibited quite fully in this performance. One of the things I particularly enjoyed was the emotion of it - there's no replacing a sensitive artist putting her soul into a song, and hearing and feeling it live. For one song, I was even moved to tears by her rendition. I also really enjoyed that she gave little snippets of insight into the songs she sang, and these added a depth to the songs which I already knew so well from her debut album. For instance, I found out that Dangerous and Sweet was a dance number written because of a fight with a girl friend in LA, and that We Will Not Grow Old was written for a best friend in high school who shared her sentiments of not wanting to grow up and become an adult. Although the meanings were quite implicit, it was nice when she spelled out that Don't Let Me Fall is about being afraid of getting hurt in relationships and wanting to trust again. In fact, her live renditions of Don't Let Me Fall and Like A Song were notable in their unique instrumentation. In Like A Song, fans got a blast from the past with radio waves from WWII.

The only disappointment was how, well in Lenka's words, polite the Singaporean audience was, laughing on cue, clapping and cheering on cue, and obediently doing everything on cue. There was no musicality in our response, nor was there an uninhibited sense of enjoyment (perhaps due to a lack of inebriation) that one might expect from adoring fans of at a live concert. Those in the mosh pit, most certainly didn't mosh. Instead, there was a sea of small LCD screens - yes, everybody there was so busy recording the concert that there was hardly anybody actually enjoying and experiencing it.

Nonetheless, it was an enjoyable evening with good props, better technicians, and wonderful musicians with a great sense of humour. Lenka even gets brownie points for attempting to play the trumpet! All in all, I was not disappointed, at least not with her and her artistry, and I can't wait to see more from her.

Some snippets of song lyrics from songs not in her album:

Maybe I Love You

by Lenka

Maybe I love you,
maybe I do
maybe this feelin'
inside me is true.
And if I love you,
and if I do,
then maybe, baby,
maybe you love me too.

I knew I liked you,
I knew I could.
And I knew a song
that was brewing in the air.
But I don't fall easily
too many betrayed me.

Pull Me Apart
by Lenka

You are the one
you are the only one
that can make me whole
yeah, you make whole.
There's only one problem
with this situation:
when you go,

I can't go on.
...

Cause you have a piece
a piece of my heart
that you take with you.

You pull me apart,
you break me in half.
Every time you leave
I'm a broken heart.
And I stay that way,

till I see you again

You put me all

back together again.

All My Bells Are Ringing

by Lenka

Take my heart this Christmas,
I'll wrap it in a ribbon and a bow,
yes, take my heart this Christmas,

take it where ever you go.

All my bells are ringing just for you.

Home on a high

Random cool song I heard on Gossip Girl, Season 3, Ep 6. The band looks really stoned, and the lead singer sounds a bit like he has a Messiah complex. But hey, if it's good music, I'm hardly one to judge a bit of insanity.

Demon in my veins

Oh caffeine, caffeine -

exalted guanine degenerate,

won't you please release your hold on me?

Without you I am but a daytime walking zombie -

brain-dead, I am poor company,

paying attention to naught but

your absence from my body.

Yet with you,

my nights are passed sleeplessly -

where I am only relieved of you

in the spewing of badly rhyming poetry.

Caffeine, caffeine,

held in your stimulating thrall,

I am powerless with or without you.

The Xinner's guide to blogstalking (or how to waste away your afternoon)

What made me really get into blogging way back in '03, was that I've always a bit of a people-watcher, and so really enjoyed reading my friends' blogs. Their thoughts and perspectives on things they were experiencing (that I often knew about firsthand) revealed a side to them that I didn't really get a chance to see in real life. What you write in your blog can sometimes be quite different from what you would talk about.

As I moved from high school to university, I found I still belonged to the blogosphere, albeit a slightly different one, when one of bible study mates remarked on the existence of my blog. I suddenly realised that here too, a blogging culture existed, one which I felt I should get better acquainted with.

So, here's my guide to getting to know your blogosphere, aka blogstalking.

1. Obviously, ask. One of the primary ways you can find someone's blog is by asking them if they have one. You aren't going to find a blog if it's not there. Makes an excellent opportunity for conversation too, as it begs questions like 'why blog?' and 'what do you think of blogging?'. If you, like me, take vicarious pleasure from the reading of blogs, you might want to play that down a bit by focusing on the other person in such a conversation, as well, we all know that stalking is weird and possibly even sociopathic.
2. Blog stalking is not about targeting specific people, but getting to know your network of bloggers and the blogosphere in which you belong. Once you have the address of one person's blog, you will often easily find other blogs through links on their sidebar. Let the click-fest begin!
3. Facebook is an excellent tool for discovering someone's blog. If you check under their profile information in the sidebar, or under the info tab, you may just strike gold.
4. For most part, there is no way that a blog is not linked from some other place on the web, whether it is another person's blog, or Google, or Facebook. Have faith, if you are sufficiently determined, you will be aptly rewarded for your efforts.

Oh dear, I fear I have just opened a can of worms with regards to blogging culture, privacy and why-I-am-not-a-sociopath.

Beatitudes

1. Sunlight shining on a white picket fence against a backdrop of green
2. A cool breeze on a sunny day
3. Running against the wind
4. Running with the wind
5. Realising you're not alone
6. Dancing cheek to cheek
7. The smell of freshly laundered linen
8. The smell of someone who's just had a bath
9. The feeling of Hazeline Snow on dry skin
10. The whoosh of air in a flying leap or in the angular momentum of turning
11. An anticipated meeting of old friends
12. Colours in the afternoon sun
13. Being a part of the music
14. Good group/team dynamics
15. Meaningful conversation
16. Getting something, really understanding it, for the first time
17. The salty smell of the sea
18. Holding a stuffed toy
19. Having your hair stroked
20. Being held
21. Making someone's day
22. Finding God in the small things

A minute of silence

Interesting thing happened in the library today. I was studying when it was suddenly announced,

"It is customary that at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month we observe a minute of silence for those who have died in the war..."

14:10

Only 50 minutes more,

to 3 pm - class dismissed.

I look around at these familiar unfamiliar faces

belying what they feel and think -

I smile and look away

knowing they cannot know me

any more than I know them.

Only a few more days till I return

to a swelteringly humid little island.

Only a few more days,

but it can't come sooner.

And only far too soon before I'll be back

in another giant flea-ridden furnace.

Who really knows another's hidden landscapes? For

Each heart knows its own bitterness -

Incapacitating fears and debilitating sorrows,

private tears we never cry and never let on,

lurking in the shadows, weighing down our souls.

The little, everyday tortures we'd never dream of sharing,

we're burning in our own private little infernos.

Different ghosts haunt different corners,

different trusts I know I've broken,

different hopes misplaced in me -

another set of haunts to avoid and run away from.

Another set of demons turn me cold.

Still I try in vain.

Beneath the sweetness of smiles and

the concerted effort to turn away

the tiredness and

tightness

in my chest -

老了， 累了-

the growing apathy to

this world's concerns,

I rest on the Word

alone.

But I confess, in a hell that is both hot and cold,

the warmth of such a comfort's hard to hold.

My spirit's distance only superseded

by the distance the spiritual can seem

from my earthly fallibility.

I'd rather something more tangible, but

all the world's a stranger.

For no thing can thaw this heart,

no one else can share its joy.