a beautiful book



'I saw Maggie, said good-by, we looked tearfully at each other and she with new woman eyes deeper than and showing through her own eyes amazing me and making me feel on some wheel of nature..'

'you dont understand the dirt - on the ground. Jacky. Lowell Jacky Duluoz, COme on home leave here.' - she saw aces of spades in my eyes; in hers I saw them glitter and shine.'because I'll never come back to this New York to live you'll have to take me home and as I yam...You'll get all lost around here, I can just see you - You shoulda never left home to come here I don't care about anybody says about success and careers - it won't do you no good - You can see it with your own eyes...'

'Spring in New York, the first smell of woodsmoke on Thrid Avenue on the first unfrozen night - parks, loves, walks with girls, styles, excitements - New York on the lyrical shelf of America in the Night, the Apple on the Rock...Frank Sinatra incredibly glamorous in loose hanging suit singing with Harry James on On a Little Street in Singpaore...Waking up one Sunday morning in David Knowles' Park Avenue apartment I open up the venetian blinds, see young husband in homburg and spats conducting beautiful dressed wife with baby in carriage through rippling golden suns, beautiful not sad - A creme de menthe at the Plaza, vichyssoise, pate, candlelight, gorgeous necks - Sunday afternoon in Carnegie Hall...'

+ + +

has anyone made a movie out of this book, because it is one of the most beautiful i have ever read and it is so sad at the end and some sayings of The City and its inherent sadness becomes deja vu in the words of alfred i remember when we were in that pub in new york late in the chilly heady night, and he said, it's difficult to find love in new york - everybody is always looking for the perfect one in such a city - he didn't say it in this way but something to this effect.

sunday photographs found on the internet


it's so hot. depressing. my nose got sunburnt after 2 days of standing in the burning sunlight at 815am on the mrt platform waiting for the train.

last night mingyao's dad celebrated his birthday at peach garden restaurant. the food was delicious - inventive ways of putting ingredients together but still tasted traditionally chinese.

running at 7 plus is great becuase the uk top 20 hits countdown makes for better running, but coming home earlier is always good. it's chill now. the sun's gone behind clouds so it's great running weather. radio don't let me down.

i flipped through the arts festival booklet this morning. i would say, i'd like to go for 2 or 3 shows. maybe this, this directed by tsd senior zizi, and probably this - an intepretation of romeo and juliet with radiohead's music, and it's a ballet! should be interesting.

the opening act looks majestic. free. and across my office.

tired.

weekend browsing






these are beautiful.

source

bits

every forthnight under the stretched shadows of highway lights i go pass the same telephone cable structures, the same empty unsold houses, the same high rise flats with metal sheets hide the them from us, the same toll booths (two or three?) - the same city centre lights sparkle into view after forty minutes, the same restaurants at the outskirts of town bordering the main road, the same glitzy glassy condominiums and hotel buildings towering over the streets. being at the airport is a familiar feeling which i quite like, that is going somewhere.

i am learning a lot and i am grateful.

it is a very nice feeling, to meet different people, different nice people and to appreciate and be appreciated. dont's stop seeing.

meanwhile in our shophouse we are going to have a secret garden amongst other things.

i have a new dress.

i am going to meet up with an old friend next week.

choose tiles. worry over grout sizing.

making myself think, but not be affected unnecessarily.

the new issue of monocle is out.. i really like uk elle decoration.

some good make up: benefit highbeam/chanel teint innocence/shu uemura UV under base mousse

we sing the same tune yo.

PART ONE:



above: jean strimpton in nyc.

PART TWO:
so we were in hong kong and there was this cool mtv that got me transfixed - have i talked about this before, i can't recall - and then i was doing a regular run where the radio was playing the british charts count down and number one was this super funky song with all the right grooves and i thought hard and i thought, eureka, that's the song with the mesmerising mtv back in hong kong and i mentioned to my boyfriend in the car one day soon after about this delicious song i heard and i mentioned 'american boy' and it was, eureka for him too because a few days ago whilst out on a regular date he was searching the cd shops for this song he heard on radio that was awesome groovy and he couldn't recall the title and when i mentioned it, it was spot on.

Estelle feat Kanye West - American Boy

very very nice song.


PART THREE:

shall we go for dinner today, my boyfriend asked this morning and i said the answer is, yes. and so i looked foward to six thirty and my lovely boyfriend texted me that he was waiting downstairs and i washed my tea cup switched off my computer said byebye to lovely friends and scrambled down five stories in an archaic vertical corridor of concrete steps out of the door and into the car door and my sweet boyfriend hands me some korean candy - korean colleague brought this back from korea and i knew you'd like it - and i have one candy and it is indeed lovely and we drove to town - where do you wanna eat, anything but north indian food cos -, cos he had that for lunch and we decided to chill at border's bistro where we had regular food - by that i mean food that wasn't disgusting but food that wasn't praiseworthy either - and the nice thing was chilling under the tree with bent branches outside a big bookshop watching things happen - are you chill, i ask him and he said ya. and it was not too warm. and we sauntered and looked at things around town and we made our way back to the car park and he delivered me to my door step and in the car we listened to the rest of the estelle album.

gorgeous







goodnight weekend.

tonight was fun. mingyao's collegue organised a wine tasting dinner at sage, the restaurant at robertson walk. it was really nice finally meeting his collegues and the food was wonderful - kinda fusion but very tenderly done and since this was my first official wine lesson i got to taste rose for the first time and yeah, a lot of wine basically. sage's a really intimate restaurant but it's probably in this context that made me appreciate the food better than if i had just come in and any-old-how ordered something. anyways there seemed to be alot of attractive japanese restaurants in that area which we should explore should they not be so costly; and i hope they're not.

it's not even near my birthday. i will be twenty seven this year. wa.

so old.

i am just starting to feel 18.

source

a bit more hk

i love a lazy sunday afternoon



i love this cd. going to check out all the other albums.



we watched this yesterday afternoon at lido cinema on a whim. if you want to have a fun afternoon watching something laugh-out-loud funny and total nonsense, i think this is something appropriate.

today we bought japanese ice cream from the lido supermarket and walked to wisma via the tunnel. when i eat an ice cream cone in public i always think that people look on jealously. some kids do. too bad.

good taiwanese chicken chop noodles again. regular stuff. why are we even looking at the menu, mingyao says in good humour.

mingyao! mingyao! mingyao! mingyao! mingyao! mingyao! mingyao! mingyao! mingyao!

priorities



the remnants of my family back home went on a weekend trip to bintan last week. the most beautiful thing was the sunset on the way home. it was so rushed we didn't step on the beach in the day; but it was essential family time; i don't know why i am so critical and defensive. i do that alot and i suppose a lot of people do to - it's like, we're so familiar with family so what's the big deal. but it really is a big deal cos the negativity is very contagious, as with good vibes. i'm so extreme really and i don't think that is very nice. when i'm good i've very good - zero negativity and a whole load of laughter and generosity; when i'm bad i've very bad - mean words and unnecessary tones. i guess everybody has something to work on and improve and this is one of mine.

that said, the past weeks have been a blur - i've been a lethargic old sod all sluggish and panda-eyed. there really are a lot of things i can put away more and vice versa. today i finally went for a long run that started off being a tad difficult because i hadn't been running for two weeks plus and i felt heavy, mentally. but i made myself do a long one and i did emerge a lot fresher. and i was thinking, i really need this, on a many-times-a-week basis. and so i was thinking about the stuff i should purge and the stuff i should really focus on.

so hence a list. everybody needs a list sometimes. lists are good. i need to get organised.

things that make my day awesome where people go 'you look so radiant today' and i feel that i've had a million important things accomplished:

1_exercise
2_water - lots of it
3_fruits - i need my vitamins
4_quiet time - let's start with five minutes in the morning and five at night
5_sleep - bedtime on weekdays are officially 11pm latest
6_spending more time with my parents

(more immediate stuff are to do siew's place/take mom out for tea and shopping and have breakfast with dad at least once a month)

things take up my precious time and i can do without on weekdays so i will not feel soddy and icky:

1_surfing frivilous websites; by that i mean stuff i can do on weekends, like vogue.com or other stuff like that
2_spending money on things which mesmerise me but make me feel guilty after because i'm not a millionaire afterall and i still haven't started on my timber strip flooring fund and saving money for travel and all that

and so these are stuff i have to make sure i do/avoid respectively on precious weekdays. mingyao says, trying is for wimps. so hence, let's do it. ya.