oil-wet water part 2

i had a weird day. i missed the dawn as it rose in front of me. i bid goodbye to a friend of five years never anticipating the farewell to hit me rock solid. i discovered skin peeling off my skin and was momentarily nonplussed but shrugged when i realised i was probably asking for it anyway.

it still hurts, though. just like most things that you don't expect to hurt at first, that in fact u had no idea could have the capacity to hurt. but i have come to realise that the human capacity for hurt is almost endless.

to continue my weird day. i slept like the dead until hunger woke me midday. after which i had a restless streak and started cleaning the house. halfway i lost interest then got startled when i saw my dad lying in bed fast asleep. he wasn't there in the morning and isn't he supposed to be at work? i shrugged. i read the malay newspapers and was awed and ashamed. awed by the richness of my native tongue, ashamed at how much i had let slide my grasp of it. i stared at a poem about the moon and resolved to improve my malay.

then i went back to bed with a children's book about a haunted farm. good, for all that it's for the younger literate. next, when my dad woke up and started bumbling around, i lay in bed very still hoping he would not notice me and come in. i planned to get out and i waited with bated breath for him to leave the house. yes, i was hiding and i didn't know why, really.

he left. so did i. i went to bedok. i was honest and i was rejected. dejected. i spent sixty dollars shopping in bedok. i had dinner reading. i am broke. but i got five pairs of nice new ahems so im happy.

i came home and watched the telly with my family. i have not done that in ages. i shared supper with my dad. i don't remember the last time i did that. about to go to bed, i decided to take my guitar and tune it. everyone has slept. i went back to my book. and i finished the story that was the title of this entry.

i have done and not done some things i meant to do and some things i never meant to do. i feel off tune and humming harmony at the same time. my ass is numb and im getting a headache.

and im no closer to solving the complex web of mysteries that are my thoughts.

do we ever?

oil-wet water

is a phrase from a short story

'the only meaning of oil-wet water'

is a short story from a novel

'how we are hungry'

is a novel by the writer

'dave eggers'

is the editor of the magazine

'McSweeney's'

is a magazine online featuring

'Letter's to McSweeney's'

features clever letters from anyone who cares to write

Letters

ways to open inroads into the maze that is a human.

freedom is but a momentary illusion,

a paper ticket out of the thicket.

i bought my ticket to japan. august. ten days. with one day in bangkok.

anticipating. but broke.

why am i not happier about this than i thought i would be...?

perhaps, this is the be all or end all. now i really will find out where this is all going, if anywhere.

at the price of a ticket, i guess it's cheap.

doesn't erase all the doubts and fears yet, though.

that'll have to wait for august 12 when i depart.

oh, and my bosses and family dunno yet.

ladida.