thinking back, i really missed those times when my mother would always be there to pick me up from school or have lunch with me in school while waiting for my younger sister to finish class. i was very proud of my mother then when kids dreaded having their parents around, and i still am immensely full of affection for her.

i met up with brenda at the coffee bean and tea leaf today. it rained pails like someone forgot to turn off the tap. people at the bus stop huddled in mutual agitation at the wetness and i'm sure, secretly at the marvellous gigantic sweep of all the water like a sheet of mist. it could be romantic but inconvenience erases all cinematic notions and just as i write i hear the rain starting up again outside the dark sky, which reminds me of a line i read from the book of neruda's love poetry that i gave her for her birthday that i flipped through in the cafe that caught my mind's eye. The night gallops on its shadowy mare/shedding blue tassels over the land [from 'leaning into the afternoons]'. i met mingyao in the train [ there's something romantic about meetings in trains/subways - they always seem dramatic in novels - transportation and love, hmm ] mingyao and i had a good time with yvette at liquid kitchen at siglap after a very good dinner at redstar. four hours of conversation with beer and conversation was a killer combination that seemed like just minutes despite an inappropriate coarse potpourri of music in the background. low light and tangerine chairs. i think the rain stopped for us to meet. we forgot to take photographs, so soaked in the cradle of the talk. yvette gave me a five-liner introduction to the beat poets/writers whom i've just started to get interested in. currently reading about hemingway's adventures in paris, and he speaks about meeting scott fitzgerald. strangers reading about the conversations of history spoken on random afternoons. cool.