Pre-trip Postage

In retrospect, not the best of weeks. But I haven’t tried to summon an Eldritch abomination to raze the world into ashes yet, so perhaps things hadn’t be bad enough. At any rate, I forgot the chant words (ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn?).

Friday found myself with a tyre that burst (literally; the whole thing resembled melted rubber when I finally managed to snail-manoeuvre it into the emergency lane), and when I had managed to remove it, the old spare tyre wouldn’t fit, thanks to the new brakes. I had to then deal with a road-mechanic trying to cheat me out of 60 bucks by doing practically nothing (all he did was remove and replace the same tyre) and the ungodly heat while waiting for the dad to fetch a new tyre.

The day after I took the car to service and the entire cost of repair ate up every cent of my ang pows. I nearly wept.

Those were the worst. Though when I thought it, there were nothing else remotely horrific. So I guess everything’s dandy. Except that the PS3 is now a dream and that I have to save up for a new set of rims.

Tomorrow I fly to Bangkok for the Nokia Showcase. It’s having me in nerves. Don’t ask why; I can’t tell you. I can’t even tell myself.

Now lets hope I don’t get embroiled with the political brew over there. Though, considering my luck these days, I might just will. You guys knew me well. Or didn’t. At any rate, someone come look for my body please.

****

It took me 13 years (or so), but I finally found the name of that cartoon. It was The Animals of Farthing Wood. And damned if you think it was a comedy. It wasn’t. This is why;

Remember those cartoons that air in TV1 and TV2 every evening, the ones that weren’t really popular because the awesome ones were usually reserved for the weekend mornings (Duck Tales and Rescue Rangers, for instance). No one watches them. Or, at least, some do. I did. In periodic days, when I was bored out of my wits waiting for the parents to pick me up from grandma’s place (that was before they started stashing Disney movies by the dozens. I never remembered whose movies were they).

I remembered a few, but damned that I couldn’t remember that one cartoon where I’ve only managed to catch a few episodes, just as few as one or two. But these one or two, boy, do I remember them. I’ve never know the title of that show, but by chance (and TVTropes.org, god bless ye), it was really The Animals of Farthing Wood.

I remember it because the very first episode I watched, two characters got killed off. For good. They were hedgehogs and they were killed by cars on the freeway. Damn.

And the next few episodes I caught, it was watching how those rats were terrified of that snake that seemed like it could very easily just broken the oath between them that is preventing her from feeding. And then there’s that leader Fox, and the Badger.

I wouldn’t do much justice trying to remember what the plot actually was about, but you could do yourself well by reading the wiki article here, if you’re interested. You can even find a few episodes on Youtube. But be warned though; like the animated adaptation of Watership Down, this isn’t your typical cartoon.

So here’s the opening. See if it brings back any memories.

Gnites peops.

Hypnagogia

Is, according to Louis Ferdinand Alfred Maury, The Transitional State between Wakefulness and Sleep.

Which, therefore, would make the term Hypnagogic applicable to describe something sleep inducing or pertaining to drowsiness.

I just realised I could’ve used this when describing certain lectures back in University. I could walk up to the lecturer (dear goodness, those that lull you into frothing boredom) and say, it’s Hypnagogic, miss/sir; splendidly so.

And if they thanked me I’ll be a really big jerk. Success!

Ah, but well, the real point to make here is that I discovered today that being alone can be very hypnagogic.

It’s not quite ‘sleep inducing’, but more The Transitional State between Wakefulness and Sleep. Only that the transition took either too long, or stuck in transitional limbo.

I thought that I had turned into a zombie.

Office was never this quiet.

But it’s that silence that permeates and hangs like a shoulder sore; uncomfortable and heavy. I could have the music up, blasting shamelessly, but it’s still there. This gnaws to the head. This trepanation.

I predict that I’ll succumb to cabin fever very easily. Spam “All work and no Play makes Jack a dull Boy” by day three, and go “It’s JOHNNY!” by day five. Did the door just open to a wave of blood crushing down the hallway?

I was actually incredibly glad when the Sales Manager turned up for lunch. I was almost thinking of grabbing the car keys and drive down Jalan Duta in crazy speeds.

I’ll make sure I get a digital cat tomorrow. Just in case.

****
(You’d probably notice that I’ve been writing nothing but crap for the past few posts. This is the direct symptoms of the mental withdrawal caused by the in-repair GPU, which won’t be fixed for another 3 weeks, by heaven’s grace. Nevertheless, it has given me plenty of reason to write, even if whatever written is crap. I probably need to put a safety disclaimer somewhere, but I think I already did it once a long time ago. No need to repeat myself.)

(Crap of the day achieved. Now I shall return to Battle Studies.)

And it finally rained, even if I hadn’t noticed it, being stuck voluntarily at the office while the writer’s block stood inexorably like a wall that asks riddles. Headed home in a daze of sugar rush (M&Ms; a recurring addiction), and under the darkened skies of impending but unthreatening clouds, it felt like a picture fortune telling. An old man would say, look ahead but not too far. Endure, and vivify. In the end you’ll find your pineapple tart. It’ll be sweet and it melts in your mouth.


I was just that high.

Got through the first two days of Chinese New Year with, thankfully, as little incidents as possible. We just cleaned as hard as we could, visited as much as our proximity allowed and cooked to the extent of our own health. In the end, it wasn’t as bad as it was. Or might’ve been. In fact, it was somewhat enjoyable.

And yesterday I counted off the ang pows and stashed it away at the bank. It will go to the PS3, coming by March, if all goes well.

****

“So I have this Idea. Not just any idea, but an Idea – the real deal here, ladies and gentlemen – and now I’m wondering if I can just pull it off.”

“You won’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because that’s the problem with Ideas. Because so much emphasis is placed on that Idea, successfully topping it at the pinnacle of ideas that stack in your head, the chances are that you’ll be too afraid for it to fail to actually pull it off.”

“So-“

“You won’t pull it off. You won’t do anything. You’ll just keep telling yourself that you have this great Idea, the motherlode you hit that’ll raise you from utter failure to a runaway success, and you’ll smile and sneer and cry and carry on with your life knowing that you have it but not daring to do anything about it.”

“Ah...”

“You're welcome.”

“Fuck you, man.”

“Cat”

I came back thinking I have something to write about, but when I wrote this sentence I had completely forgotten what I actually had in mind. The train of thought that stopped, the passengers disembarked, the engines left to rust and the railroad discontinued, swallowed by foliage. All I have is the empty station, suggestive and nostalgic, but deserted.

But I came back and turned on this Vaio (the computer is still put out of commission, and I hadn’t sent the GPU back for repairs), and the first thing I wrote was Cat.

And then I wrote nothing else. For a full hour. I went and locked the doors, let the poodle into the room, listened to Battle Studies and chatted with Teh Ais, and when I returned to the word document, Cat sat at the top of it, with nothing else below.

So I wrote this, knowing that it’ll come back to me if I did.

It didn’t, so now I know I wasn’t knowing.

Now I figure it isn’t going anywhere. And I suppose that I should stop.

But Cat. Cat’s still there.

Cat sits in a picture where the overexposed light from the window ate away a corner of the world, and the underexposed shadows clung to her face and body and chair, leaving only a silhouette.

Cat probably didn’t know that her picture was taken. But now that it is, she took it, and kept it.

We don’t know who the photographer is. Or whether the effect was intentional or otherwise. At the very least, probably unbeknownst to him/her, that picture was the truest picture ever taken.

Maybe that’s why Cat kept it. Because it was a true picture of her. That the light of the world will only darken her shadow, so that we can only make her out in shapes, but never really her.

Cat had probably relished in this. Or maybe she grieved. Or maybe it was such a perfect reflection that she kept it as a reminder, of things good and bad.

Or that is what I think of Cat. Cat obviously does not think of any of this. Cat will most likely think the proper way of thinking; that it is a picture of her, and that she likes it.

It just so happen that this picture of Cat was on my mind, for no apparent reason aside from the fact that I was reminded of it as I took overexposed pictures of a minister, in a feast I have no reason to be a part of, only forced to, by an act of filial piety.

And it just got me in a pointless, completely incoherent train of thought that stopped and emptied out and faded away along with the railroads when the people forgot about it...

Ah, it came back.

Now, to write it down...

Ah Bummer

(This is the part where I tell you that I’m really supposed to be posting up about Bali, along with its pictures and very uninteresting musings, but the Nvidia 9800GT card just fell into a comatose state, running but not functioning, so all that I’m left is the Vaio I took from work and a 60 day trial of Microsoft Word).

I don’t believe in feng shui. I don’t believe that fortune, luck, prosperity, love and everything abstract is governed by a natural flow of things as dictated by symbolism of levels both interesting and preposterous. I don’t think having a fish pond in the front of my house will redirect this natural flow - as man-made drainage do to creeks - into bringing all the good things into the living room, deluging us in its abstract glory. I do, however, think that the fish pond is the greatest hindrance to any weekend bliss, should I be forced to clean it under the sun.


I do, actually, believe in Lady Luck, and that she can be a bitch sometimes, working things in spiting everything unlucky enough to incur her wrath, but most of the time she’s just like a one-woman corporate department show; too many crap, one measly personnel. The next time you start blaming on the good lady, remember that she’s doing it alone. And that she can get tired and lonely on a Friday night. Offer her a drink.


Which is why, right now, I would like to place myself in this optimisitic ante-theatre (as a desperate attempt at self-gratification, because it’s easier to blame fantasy than accept reality), which is a 360 projection that tells me that I just happen to be out of the Good Lady’s service rotation, meaning I’m in that phase of flopping helpnessness until the Good Lady’s returns to my file.


Putting that into perspective, I suppose I’m just part of the natural order of things, in the service of otherworldly forces that govern my life as though I’ve signed up for a lifetime of services, and that things right now are pretty tied up, and they’ll just have to put me in the waiting list, and that they’ll get back to me next week and they’ll be having everything right back to working order, yes sir, thank you for your patience.


Or I could really rant and throw a tantrum and start kicking at flowerpots. Then have security throw me out. And then I get suspended, possibly refused of any further services with a refund. And then then live a life with no living, whatever the prospects make it seem.


Truth is, I’m ranting right now. Or at least I think I am.


****
Truth is, I don’t know what I’m doing.


Suddenly the idea of having so much time without the computer for me to waste it on seems so... I don’t know. Liberated? Not quite. Empty might be the better expression, if a bit poignant. Did I just write poignant? I meant that I seriously need a life.


The final truth is; I don’t know what to do.


Should I watch TV? Should I finally start on Chronicles of Narnia? Should I take out the old, slowly fraying art pads and start sketching mindlessly? Do I walk outside into the garden and the warm, still air, and look at the stars that are – thanks to the broken streetlights – surely visible under the stretch of devouring darkness?


What do I do? What do I do? Omg omg omg omg omg omg.


This is a revelation. This is the epiphany in one of its many true forms; the loss and the realisation. Of reliance. Of utter devotion. Of obsession. Of what’s lost in between.
Yes. Yes, I see it now. It’s all as clear as crystal.










I seriously need to get the computer fixed.

****

(12 hours without the computer. I’m starting to hallucinate. I see the things beyond the things you see; for instance, the fake plant on the dining table is not in fact a fake plant, but a network of microscopic watermelons lined up to form the data of a single bit, in fact part of a larger collection of bits that form bytes and kilobytes and megabytes, amalgamated into a single entity that is the world, in fact the bowling ball of Cthulhu. It’s really trippy).