Room With No Walls

There was this old forgotten story, which sort of went like:

There was a boy who lived in a room with no walls, built on top of a pillar that rose above a sea of clouds. In the morning, the boy will tend to his garden crop. In the afternoon he would rappel down the side of his pillar, where he was building stairs that spiral down into the clouds. He was doing so because, one night, he saw a pulse of light from beneath the clouds. No ship had been able to sail below the clouds and return, but the boy was compelled in his certainty that the stairs will take him down. And he built and built, and...

And the rest never happened, because I’ve never written past that.

The story is still lodged somewhere at the back of my head, and maybe one day I’ll finish it. Knowing me, however, that day might never come. But it’s there, and sometimes it tells itself to me as I sleep. I just need to tell myself to write it.

Anyway, my room now has no wall.

If I am to sleep in it, people passing every morning will me my leg stuck at an odd angle and my pillow soaked in drool. I’d also be covered in dust and debris, which – aside from being a tad uncomfortable as a state to live in – is also very unhealthy. I’ve now relocated to the brother’s room, and every night is a revisited battle; I’ve spent a better part of my life sleeping with him that it’s back to the old nightly endeavour of fending off his blanket-stealing attempts, and his dangerous swinging legs.

I’m glad October went past. The days where he sat on the chair, the weather had been chaotic. And people went ballistic and started having events every damn day, which was hectic to attend. And somewhere I managed to demolish an old cabinet by trying to use it as a height boost, hurting my hand in the process. And yesterday I did every single Don’ts in a guide to break a fight between two dogs, and got my hand bitten for my troubles (nothing antiseptics couldn’t help, though). And I owe DiGi a lot of cash I didn’t spend. And I’m at the eve of NaNoWriMo with no plot, no story, no characters, no nothing...

(But I’m cheating this year. Sort of. There’s nothing on the FAQ that said I can’t collaborate with someone and actually just write the half of it...)

(I think I’ll burn in NaNoWriMo hell).

The bright side of things, however, is that it’s November, and when she takes the chair I normally get a very good 30 days. She has been kind to me.

50 more minutes now, and October will leave.

It’ll be time to write.

A more rational me would’ve gone to sleep, but this other part wanted to relish in past photographs, so I sit here uploading old photos into Flickr, and taking time to go through products of a more enthusiastic period of youth.

(This reinvigoration of an interest is stemmed by the Bra-man, who already has a Flickr account of his own, accessed here, which is in turn sparked off by his acquisition of a DLSR. Resurrecting my Flickr page is both in his request and my interest to pick up a DSLR myself. I’ve also starting to feel rather competitive. Not that I’m ever in the league, but I can’t help it.)

Anyway, my Flickr page is here, and if it stays active I’ll probably pin it to the link bar for good.

I like photography. I don’t love it. I used to, but time has a good way to dash enthusiasm and confidence into shards, and whatever’s left is only enough to keep me snapping during vacations or memorable trips. Otherwise, I barely utilise the compact cameras. They’re here, in the drawer. I haven’t turned them on for a long time.

I don’t take good pictures, but there’s a sense of achievement in trying to get one. For me the fun is in the process, and the photograph is the trophy. It didn’t have to look nice, but a nice trophy is fantastic anyways, and it keeps me going for that. Going through these old pictures, I realised that I miss it a lot.

This Nikon D3100 I’m getting, might just put me back in the love. As for now, I’m having a crush all over again.

I must confess; I like photography.

I really do.

I figured I was smart. I figured; there’s no better way to force yourself into writing unless it’s a life threatening situation. So here I am, strapped to a chair, which is being slowly lowered into a pool of genetically mutated Piranhasharks and will keep doing so unless I continuously type down something. It sucks that I sort of have writers’ block, so I’m pretty close to the waters now, and there’s this itch on my toe that I have just have to get and oh god it waters just touched my ankles I have to type gotta keep typing one word two word three word four word oh crap oh crap oh crap oh

Oh, now I have some leeway. Right. I just need to type myself to safety. Just keep typing, typing…

*****

So, I had this week staked out. I studied the calendar, I noted down the important stuff and I had myself a schedule, complete with red-marker circlets. Then I cracked my fingers and got on with it. By Tuesday I’ve forgotten my days and I thought I was in the year 1901.

In my defence, I kept my end of the bargain until everything simply collapsed into craziness. When that happens, the best one could do is simply fall along and hope that there’s coffee at the end of it. So don’t blame me for thinking time went back to 1901 and I stood watching Annie Taylor going down the Niagara Falls in a barrel and freaking survived.

Anyway, I wonder why every person out there thinks October is a good time to have media events. By the damn throngs of it.

Things happened, one after another. And I couldn’t remember most of it already, or rather I’m too lazy to. One had me going on a flying fox, though. It was real. It was a long day.

And it’s not dying down. The storm’s still going on. We’re barely through.

Though, now I’ve got a poncho and an umbrella. And yellow boots.

Interesting what a barber can say to you and leave you troubled for the day. But you’re only troubled by it because it’s true, and that you’re already troubled by it anyway, only that it takes someone to word it out, even unintentionally, for it to latch on and spread out like blight. At the end of the day, it’s a disease.

A mental structure is like a bricolage, built with salvaged scraps and scattered bits of separate thoughts, and it unless these thoughts are of strong material, it doesn’t take much for it to crumble. A breeze, a prod can bring it down. Sometimes, the words of a barber.

The rest is kind of what you do with it. Face the truth, and walk away with a briefcase and ready to make a move, or pick up the pieces and start rebuilding the next whimsical structure?

But you know, the road ahead is tough. Sometimes it’s easier to rebuild, and stay holed again.

Oddly empty highways, lighted amber and dark, can be a joy to drive through. Windows down, head abuzz with 10 sips of wine, Yoko Kanno’s Space Lion playing on the radio makes it melancholic, and it was like I was driving towards someplace unreachable. In some ways, it was like dreaming. The kind of dreams that were wishful, unattainable things.

And the magic ended at the toll, when barred gates and money put a stop to dreaming. I paid, drove by, and it was just that; a drive home.

The radio played That’s Life, and Frank Sinatra sung me to the next traffic light.

****

It might be too early to count these eggs, but it seems like I’ll be going to Japan next month.

For work, of course. But the free time in between meant that I’ll be making the most out of Tokyo, to appease this semi-otaku tendencies.

(And, if my itinerary is to be believed, I get a chance to visit the Ghibli Museum. That’s one tick on my Bucket List).

It’s gonna be expensive, even if food and accommodation will be taken care of. So starting today, I’ll be tying up my stomach and only drink milk for 6 weeks.

*********

This very possible trip to Japan also meant that it’s time I get my DSLR. I’m pretty much set to purchase the Nikon D3100, but I still can’t decide if I want to pay it through instalments or save up more for a smoother transaction. But a new camera and Japan’s sights would be awesometastic.

I think I’ll leave these thoughts in the air as I retreat to bed.

Lucifugous

"Come back later?"

I like staying in the dark these days. The shadows are cool and comforting, and the darkness can blanket the mind with blissful ignorance, which is always welcoming.

You still need the sun, though. Warmth, light and Vitamin D is needed to keep going. And it’s always better to travel in light; you don’t have to worry about stumbling into potholes and chasms.

These days, I travel under the stars, convincing myself that moonlight would suffice. So far, I had walked into poles and construction digs, and maybe a monsoon drain or two. Once, I stepped into a minefield and sparked off a chain reaction that lit up in spectacular fountains of dirt and limbs.

You’d think that I’d learnt soon enough.

But I’m just stubborn that way.

*******

Three weeks can give a lot of things that just happened to be ponderous subjects, and by ponderous it meant I get less sleep as they mull and debated and insulted each other’s mothers in my head. Most of them are the important things, and they’re there because they just happened. Some of them are those things you just had to stupidly think about, even if they had nothing to do with you at all. It’s like volunteering for more work and without pay. It kinda makes you a sucker.

(I mean, I think it does. Doesn’t it?)

But well, like someone said to me once; “It’s better to think than not to.”

No, no, that doesn’t make sense. But I’m not in the mood to make it otherwise.

Anyway, three weeks of lesser sleep and brain atrophy has contributed to writing skills that has marvellously regressed. And in a job that prints ‘Writer’ on my name card, that’s not good. Not good at all.

Let’s… let’s start working out.

**************

I used to do this, a long time ago, as a means to etch words into my abysmal vocabulary. It doesn’t work, mostly because my goldfish memory couldn’t ensure that it’s stays etched; it fades out in three days at most, but it does work itself as some sort of writing exercise.

It goes like this; you take a word, which in my case is Dictionary.com’s Word of the Day, and you write something about it. Today’s word was Lucifugous, but since I've already used that as an irrelevant title, let’s use another day’s.

That’ll be Nympholepsy. Which means:

1.

A frenzy of emotion, as for something unattainable.

2.

An ecstasy supposed by the ancients to be inspired by nymphs.

Which also means: a tumultuous mass of feelings caused by very attractive women. So yeah; think Epilepsy, but the psychological type, and caused by hot chicks. And yes; it’s a pandemic.

The next step is to simply write something with the word in it. Like:

The roasted ribs gleamed at him, dripping oil catching the light, steam wafting gently and coiling into imageries of taste, rising up into some kind of mounting nympholepsy. His mind snapped, and the glass panel did little to hold him back. The ribs were already between his teeth, and he gnashed and tasted… plastic? No. No. No no no no...

Yeah… well, I guess I needed more workouts.

Let’s see if I can keep this up tomorrow.