August 27, 2009 • 3:20 pm
It was a foggy day-night, I no longer remember. All that stood out was the fog. We were fishing but we couldn’t even see the water. I remember being afraid of falling over. The fog and the water and the boat were all blurred into one misty-white landscape. In the end, the fishing rod jiggled and we whoa-ed and wowed and pulled a pomfret out of the fog.
In other news, I rescued (picked up, more like) a kitten early this week. I was putting on shoes outside the door when I heard faint meows from the lift. When the door beeped open, there it was, a bewildered tabby tentatively stepping out. Ellie’s always hungry, super manja and rather naughty.
Starkey – one of the few dogs I know who loves cats – was super happy with the addition to the family. Brekkie was less pleased (perhaps even jealous). So I’m trying to get Ellie (who is likely to be a boy) adopted out soon.
Here’s Ellie:
Today I also realised how much depression has wrecked my hopes of normal life – I can’t even get insurance without having to go back to that institute for a report that will certify my sanity. Sometimes, I think, I have had enough of this life…except there is Starkey and Brekkie and more cats to rescue.
Filed under: belljar, dreams, meow
Couldn’t sleep after three-quarters of a tall latte at ten. A few nights ago – those panicky feelings came back, at about three-twenty-five in the morning, after a ridiculous dream. It was then I missed those little pills of mine. Since I got well (how can just two words sum up that tedious journey back to health?), my red pillbox has been overflowing with Prozac, neglected. Every now and then I’d reach in for Nurofen instead, more powerful than paracetamol. When I went back to the doctor’s and I mentioned, tentatively, Ativan please, he scoffed and said ‘How old school!” I hadn’t realised how 1970s our mental institution had been.
Anyhow, that wasn’t what I set out to write about at all. I had been okay for a long time now. Even the dreams are elusive, are fuzzier. But I missed those dreams. I vaguely remember one about flying, to escape some rogues at a spa, high high up, seeing sandcastles on a beach, a decision to power up and fly higher, went up too high past the clouds and had difficulty breathing. Then another, where my teeth dropped out. Common dreams – nothing a dream dictionary couldn’t solve and that disappointed me.
Filed under: belljar, dreams
September 30, 2008 • 4:09 pm
GQ is fabulous fabulous, in a way many women’s mags are not. I am listening to Nick Drake and thinking how to negotiate my way to an oil rig in Alaska, to Oooguruk, the US$500 million dollar man-made island on ice, where the cold is just cold. Perhaps that might be a place to run to, a way to be workable, somehow. Since I couldn’t write a single decent word on a certain Mediacorp actress today, I am telling myself I must write more. I decided that while I was listening to Let It Die by Feist – over, over and over again. Perhaps I can write about Alaska, in Alaska. Here, in the safe security of home, the dog has gotten the cat to swat a half-eaten pack of catnip drops off the dining table and am, at this present moment, finishing off whatever his tongue can get out of that little pack. Tomorrow is a public holiday – I can dream tonight.
Filed under: belljar
September 24, 2008 • 2:40 pm
Before I sleep I’d ruffle Starkey’s fur and smell his paw and feel very grateful he’s just right there next to me, even if the rest of the flat is dark and devoid of – pretty much everything. Yesterday night I buried my face into his fur and told him you had a brother you had a brother! And I was thinking of Moggy and his sweet face and his mini coughs. And the memories are getting vaguer – I had re-watch videos to remember how he used to run, how he used to sleep, how he used to cough even. I later dreamt of a giant mall where each level was stamped with multi-coloured footprints and I didn’t leave mine because I was floating slightly above the shiny floors. That’s all I remember for now. This afternoon I spilled coffee all over my khaki-coloured dress – I had shut my tired eyes just when I was negotiating a corner – and almost cried at the loss of pretty much everything except for my shreds of sanity, and of course Starkey, who is at this moment satisfied with the daisy he chewed as dessert.
Filed under: belljar, dreams, woof!
September 20, 2008 • 9:12 am
September 17, 2008 • 1:18 pm
It has been over a week since I discovered the mould on the inside of my waterbottle. So it must have been over a week since I stopped popping Prozac. Thing is, I don’t exactly understand why I’m doing this. Perhaps because I have exactly 3 Ativans left in my little red pill box that’s why. I have wasted them over weekends, when the going is hard and the heart is pained. Then suddenly I realised that I am finishing up my supply, and so stopped. And stopped the Prozac too. Which means life is strangely a culmination of days into the next big breakdown and I am worried. I tell myself every morning to pop one into my mouth, how hard is it? But I don’t know. I miss Moggy – it will be his death anniversary next Tuesday. Oh dark thoughts. I tell Starkey he had an elder brother he never knew, but he just smiled and walked away.
Several nights ago I plunged down a dry canal in pursuit of a story – a woman, a family of three…at least three children in rags, huddling in the lit underbelly of the city. A marathon, 10km far. Him running. I don’t exactly understand so yesterday night I climbed into bed, closed my eyes (and shut out the mess of my room . cat . dog . clothes strewn all over) and attempted to go back to that scene. It’s been cold lately which is good. Some evenings I come home and stare at the gogglebox all night. No one to talk to, to ask if i’ve eaten, to laugh with. Only the dog and his cat. So I talk to them. Throw toys for a round of fetch. Chase them around the house. One day I tell you I’ll go mad.
Filed under: belljar, dreams
September 9, 2008 • 7:51 am
Plath’s obsession with loving Hughes seems to be something I’m living out from my bed – groaning. moaning. Remembering when they first met, how they loved, how she loved – fiery and stubborn, like me. An abandonment of self – why, for whom, deserving, no, yes? The Ativans soothe me oh so so much. I hadn’t realised how much I missed my little white pills. The wooziness, toppling against walls, groaning, groggy. Three days gone – just like that. What happened to all those months of trying? I forgot, couldn’t care less. It’s one pill two pills snooze two pills snooze another pill. Just no life-saving Prozac – I don’t know what to save my life for when ultimately I am all alone. I remember Plath in her last days – why do I remember it? Surely some karmic residue? Her pottering around the chilly flat. Looking dreadful. The kids sleeping. Preparing the milk. Sealing the doors. Turning on the gas. A terrible way to go. Why do I remember? A suicide does have far-reaching impact. At the rate I’m going, I may, like Plath, have just six more years to live. Or, it may all end tomorrow.
Filed under: belljar, dreams
In all vividness:
I was walking towards a Starbucks – nowhere in the city, in an unknown single-storey shopping centre. Just as I approached the counter, my fingers dipping into my fat wallet for coins, something rammed into ceiling violently and shook the laze out of the shoppers. I crouched down in terror. Collective cries abound. Debris started to fall like cement rain. I peered out of the full-length glass windows and saw, a fat plane, with red splashes on the body, skidding onto the field opposite, skidded and stopped. I hear shocked gasps all around. “Oh no no no no please,” I muttered. The red, fat plane burst into flames. Cut. We ran out. Cut. “Oh no oh no oh no.” Moans, blood, people dying everywhere. I wanted to help. But too many were dying, or dead. I ran up and down the columns of casualties in fright, dabbing away blood. It was mayhem. It was, like what a Buddhist monk once told me, collective karma resulting in hell on earth.
Swirl.
In the hospital room. I was the invisible observer, floating slightly above the floor. Looking down on two hospital cots – in one a child, almost a child, reaching out for his twin brother, refusing to go without him. His brother, sleeping and shrivelled, was a terrifying sight. Their weeping parents were distraught – the mother tugging at the father.
Swirl.
Filed under: belljar, dreams
In The Noonday Demon, one woman said it is impossible to have dreams and be creative when on pills. How true. I vaguely recall the last dream I had. A mongrel sat on the top of my head. Other than that, nothing. When there are no dreams I feel numb. When there are nightmares I feel frightened. But numbness is a good thing to feel. At least it offers stability, which is more than what I can ask for in these days. On my wrist the scars are fading, slowly. I look at them and wonder just how I could have done it – and I maintain, I didn’t do it. It wasn’t me at all. It was caused by my hand, but that’s it. It happened to me – I didn’t do it. I have three pills left – a dangerous situation. In my mind I manoeuvred – god it took me five minutes just to type that fucking word i must be dyslexic or depressed did i spell it correctly? – schedules to permit an opening so I could run off to the hospital for more. Surely you can pick them up? I hear the doctor saying, gently. Or get someone to pick them up for you? I think she has never been depressed. Did she think I’d submit my mother to this, this perversion? Besides in my sobbing and spiralling that night I couldn’t even remember where I placed my prescription – my precious half a prescription of pills! I searched the sleeves of my wallet but it wasn’t there. And for the life of god I cannot remember. Certain faculties are so lost to me it is a miracle I function the way I function, that is, amazingly organised, at work. In bed I hold on to The Noonday Demon, which calms me at night. Solomon is wise, compassionate and lyrical in his writing – every word he writes is truth. Of the pills, he wrote: It is humiliating to be reliant on them. It is inconvenient to have to keep track of them and to stock up on prescriptions. And it is toxic to know that without these perpetual interventions you are not yourself as you have understood yourself. I could not have phrased how I felt so poignantly, so beautifully, so accurately.
Filed under: belljar, dreams, humdrum
Dark clouds are looming. I sense it. From the frequency of the dreams. It’s not that bad because I have to try to remember them. What I cannot remember is safely out of mind. Except that they’re still there, somewhere in the deep, dark abysses or right above my head full of headaches. I think I cannot escape it. Somehow, it will catch up someday. And the writing is bad. It is getting harder and harder, and all those words, sentences, paragraphs – just a job. And in the end, after all the lunch-ins, all the meetings, all that staring at the screen, I don’t know what I’m writing about, who I’m writing for and if it does any good at all. Happiness, for me, in this life, will always be contrived. It is impossible. And nobody will ever, ever want to live with someone so flawed, so unhappy, so incapable of enjoying life. I think, I am thinking, that it might be better to just snooze and not wake up.
Filed under: belljar, dreams
February 10, 2008 • 3:09 pm
Well then. Hello back. This time, masked under girlish giggles, a little volcano on the side of my head, bubbling pus. The camera closes in, like the first scene of Un Chien Andalou, before focusing on the little volcano, rupturing my scalp. I was examining it at the bathroom mirror, nitpicking at the crater yellowed with pus, fascinated, feeling faint.
Filed under: belljar, dreams
November 14, 2007 • 1:58 pm
Joanna Newsom
For inexplicable reasons I’ve been feeling dreadfully tired lately. Maybe it’s the hovering in between of nowhere – neither moving forward, nor falling backward. My mind is, thankfully, filled with thoughts of writing possibilities, should the plum position fall into my lap. Other than that nothing. I walk, I shop, I write badly, I wait for news. Starkey’s such a tremendous source of joy it actually breaks my heart to have to leave him every morning to sit in my father’s car, fending off questions, remembering how I went mad, why I left home. Then I snap and scream. In the car, and cry, until I grab my morning latte from the bistro. That reassuring warmth of normalcy.
Filed under: all things frivolous, belljar
November 11, 2007 • 2:37 pm
Forget Flickr for a bit. A friend directed me to this nifty, pretty photo-sharing site that’s completely done in Flash. Go check it out on Fotologue. It goes well with Joanna Newsom in the background and a dash of sadness.
Filed under: all things frivolous, belljar
November 3, 2007 • 1:17 pm
When the Pirate and I dated, we spent a fair amount of time at Booksactually: scanning bookspines, flipping pages of Moleskines, chatting with the ever-friendly Kenny and Karen over cups of tea, sat cross-legged and watched dramatised readings of this and that…I have such fond memories of the little bookshop that I find it difficult to imagine that it won’t be at Telok Ayer by the middle of next year. 
So I guess some long overdue shopping is in order. And simply because it is my birth month (oh the gloomiest, monsoon-liest month of the year!), I don’t need a reason to tell Kenny that yes, reserve a blue LEGO thumbdrive for me, please!
Lego Brick Memory Sticks, S$95, email booksellers@booksactually.com
And since I’m at it, I’m grabbing Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook (S$23.90) too! And also one of those perfect pencils with writers’ names on them; I want Sylvia Plath (S$2.50)! Maybe some proper writing might flow out of that.
Filed under: all things frivolous, art matters, belljar
