oh well

I feel like I've lost or skimmed over a day somewhere this week. Like I opened sleep-crusted eyes to afternoon light after falling asleep at 6 a.m., tried to slip back for another hour of rest, but only awoke 17 hours later the following morning to the dripping of a leaky air-con. I keep thinking it's only Wednesday and am confused every time I remember it is not. It is Thursday afternoon and soon I will have to get dressed for a night shift at work. I'll come home from that feeling heavy and lethargic, but I'll stay up until 4 a.m. watching movies or reading or whatever, with Interpol or Joy Division for company. I'll fall asleep in my jeans and contact lenses and unwashed face. Pens and notebooks and nonsense loose leaf lists on my mattress leave just enough space for me to spend the night curled up in fetal position in the one free corner of my bed. I'll probably wake up at 1 the next afternoon, feeling icky, hating myself for not washing my face and still holding the pen I was writing with last night.

I am tired of this routine.

On Tuesday I finally saw Syadza again and we went for prata and a bit of walking around at Arab Street before we took a bus to Bras Basah Complex because I was too tired to walk. We spent a long time stationery shopping, just like in secondary school, and then we scoured the second-hand bookstores for cheaper reads. I found six books for $40 and have finished two of them - Slowness by Milan Kundera and Lucky by Alice Sebold. I feel happier with all this reading I've been doing. It's an escape from real things. I also feel less stupid/lazy/like a snail is eating my brain.

I want school to start so that I can feel like I am working towards something. I honestly can't wait to be learning new things again. I don't like this limbo between the end of secondary and start of tertiary education that I've been stuck in for nearly seven months. It's stagnant and uncomfortable and I am growing very weary.

Sonne

I found this shirt again after more than half a year of its being dumped in the back of my closet because of pink stains from a colour run in the wash. My hair is long enough to be put in a bun now. I am flying through the pages of The Virgin Suicides. I kind of wish I didn't have all these images from the film already in my head, though. I loved the movie, but I also wish I could have created my own Lux Lisbon instead of seeing Kirsten Dunst's face every time. I'd really love to read the book as something more than just a beautifully written report on this series of events I've already witnessed too. Re-reading Nausea has been put on hold while I finish The Virgin Suicides as slowly as possible. I don't really know how I feel about Nausea. It's sort of like... I enjoy the unhappiness and discomfort I feel when I read it, but then that uneasiness decides to linger on and trickle into my real-life and my thinking. Feel like I've been drowning in angst ever since I picked this book up. Or maybe it is other events in my life too but I prefer to think it is the book.

Work has been fine. Sometimes during the one hour of cleaning up before opening, we blast rap music from 8 years ago and dance. Ray keeps accidentally eating peanuts and having scary allergic reactions. The youngest chef in the kitchen is cute and ever since my brain established that, I have become disgustingly shy around him. The weird butch got fired at last. On Tuesday, Shan, Didi and I went to town after our lunch shift. We went shopping for Didi's pants at H&M but he couldn't find anything so we went to Cineleisure, where we had pasta for lunch and Shan insisted on paying for me. My managers are lovely. Didi found his $100 jeans and we walked around a bit more, but then they had to go back to work again. I went window shopping for a bit. Tried on this pretty skirt at Topshop which was still $50 after sales discounts and that made me want to cry, so I went to Kinokuniya for books instead. I read bits of books and then bits of magazines and stole glances at this beautiful man who was browsing in the same magazine section as I. My ovaries could not take it so I moved to the bestsellers and holy mother of fuck, so did he. And then he caught me staring and I felt stupid so I ran to hide among taller bookshelves in the literature section and buried my nose in The Virgin Suicides, which I ended up buying.

Now I am going to make myself a dinner of couscous and spiced vegetables with vegan sausages because I am sad that I couldn't find anyone to go see Monster Cat with. Normally I would think "fuck the world" and go alone but today I suck and I'm thinking "fuck the world :'''( " and I just want to hide from it ok bye.

open

I like these goldfish-shaped cheese crackers because they let me pretend I am a cat eating cat food. The supermarket at Cluny Court stocks so much cute food ok I cannot resist!!!

Anyway, I am still drained. Work has been tiring and not very exciting but I am feeling myself grow fond of everyone there. We've also got two new part-timers: Hafiz, who is Soufi's brother, and his friend Zuhairi, and they hate weird girl too hahaha. After a really busy 10-6 shift at work last Sunday, Hafiz and I went to eat at some Japanese vegetarian restaurant near NAFA. We ate fake chicken and fake pork and our bill came up to $46. We were seriously considering the idea of sneaking off without paying, but in the end we felt sorry for the sad-looking staff. Monday, I met Syadza whose school is actually really near to my workplace, and we had ice cream at Island Creamery and talked. I think we'll be seeing quite a bit of each other now :-) No more work this week until Sunday. I am looking forward to the Tenderfist shows at Esplanade with my adventure girls (lul) this weekend. We haven't gone out together in so long and I miss them so much.

Drained

Five days of work this week. I got my Saturday off today and then tomorrow I work again. I guess Relish is needing me more, now that the uni grads are leaving for real work and the poly kids are getting busier with school. That means more routine and more days of coming home exhausted for me, but I guess it is also more cash that I should save up for school and all the things I'll have to fork out money for, like a macbook and art supplies. Think I'll still try to keep my job even when school's started. The direct bus from Lasalle to cluny court cannot be for nothing.

My pay came in a couple of days ago and I bought another book. I was done with Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being (did you scoff at that lol) I got last month and feeling very stranded and lost without something to read. Once again I found myself at Kinokuniya's Literature section during a three hour break between split shifts. I got myself Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre. I feel a bit depressed.

honey pie

The Beatles' White Album is good for making me feel better.

This labour day evening, I met Soufi who has been missing from my life for too long. 'O' level year is a very possessive boyfriend and I can't wait for her to be done with him. We went for the Arajua show and it was beautiful, as was the lone backpacker with scraggly hair who sat behind us at one point huhuhu. Then we took a walk to the Raffles Place train station, talking and stopping to sit by the river along the way, and it was all very reminiscent of the long walks and getting lost we used to do on our hippie adventures :-( I miss this girl so much already. We went home early because she's got school tomorrow and I have work and we came across sexy backpacker guy again on the MRT platform. Fate.