Raining Men and Sentimental Unwanteds

Is it wrong for me to assume that a man is gay when I find out one of his favourite songs is called "It's Raining Men"? Somehow, I imagine that same man having shower karaoke, drawing his hands down his body with his chin up, the hot water splashing against his face while he sings "It's raining men, Hallelujah!"

It's raining outside as I write, but the Sun still shines. No man in sight.

With the lack of transitional phrases, I'll just plainly announce that the next paragraph will have nothing whatsoever to do with a supposedly gay man praying in the shower for the skies to rain men. It will be about me and my ridiculous habit of assigning sentimental value to just about everything I see:

Being a hoarder naturally means that I refuse to clear out even the dust that triggers my allergies because they too have sentiments attached. It's not good for me to live among the dust and must that come with the passing of time, I know that very well, but maybe, I  like to look under the bed and address the dust bunnies as I would old friends. My eyes start to water, but even the hoover cannot suck them into oblivion for their bond to this world is neither tied to the floor nor the corner of the ceiling. In the middle of chasing unwanted guests out of my abode, I tell them to stay, weak as my resolution is to voluntarily let go of what has come into my possession. To have a connection to the past makes the present authentic and the future reasonable, all because that connection serves as brutal reminder of loss. Loss is feared, fear sets up boundaries, and boundaries satisfy the needs of the superego. In other words, fear is the key to self-realization. One should not underestimate the powers of horror.

Ask me how's life. I still don't have the answer. All I can manage is a truth rooted in reality that is mirrored by the reflection of an internal bluff.

More Tea

Someone once asked me what is the difference between white tea, green tea, and black tea. Aren't they all just leaves? You soak them in hot water and the colour of the earth starts to break, dying a second time, the tea leaves.

White tea is not only sensitive, but also too pricey to comprehend. Drinking tea at a tea lounge is a ridiculously bourgeois activity that triumphs over the act of drinking a RM12 cup of coffee at a hipster café. Mainly because making a cup of coffee requires, to a certain degree, essential skills so that it doesn't taste like a smoker's spit mixed with yesterday's hot water re-boiled. Meanwhile a pot of tea is leaves thrown together and soaked in hot water, which the drinker then removes according to the drinker's own preference. There isn't a waiter in a suit waiting by the the table with his silver pocket watch either. I suppose they understand better than anybody that people who drink tea at specialised tea outlets are the embittered petty of society.

My dinner cost less than my pot of tea here. I had at Sushi Zanmai a bowl of curry ramen and 2 plates of sushi from the conveyor belt. Imagine that~ the senseless act of drinking Mother Nature's piss at a high price.

Indulging unnecessarily in the material world due to woe internal and the need to remind myself that there exists a reality outside of myself is truly consuming, in all sense of the word. Behind me is an emptiness that feeds on itself with no connections to latch onto, like a spider's web that is only dust, I am given my place by alienation.

As the days pass by, the body of this river appears increasingly shallow. Even if I want to drown myself and float in the stream of an endless memory, there is barely enough to sink the tip of my nose in. For fear of the water evaporating completely, this fool kneels by the bank and weep tears of a thousand nights in one. The salty tears of course, do not make a river whole. 

Pour cup after cup after cup of tea in the river? I suppose that'll do. 

Vulnerability in Life's Game

Ryuuk, why do you stare at me so from your place atop the table? このゲームは面白いですか。私の人生のゲーム。

It is as if you would answer me if I stared at you too. But of course, the answers I seek never seem to be spoken, not even once. Perhaps there are no answers to the questions I'm asking, questions that I haven't given voice to, only shape. Breathe and I let out a long sigh, as heavy as the howl of a dog who has never known disloyalty.

Now we are caught again in the middle of the week, a time where it's too early to retire but too late to lament upon. Mittwoch, あの不思議の日。

How come you never made use of it and now you want to?

I don't. I only have a quest I need to complete. 

During a time where bonds were sustained by the energy emitted by hope, a mental fortification ensured the indestructibility of that bond. Such security and confidence led to its fine demise, for when the light of hope got overshadowed by the reality of how we live, that bond wasted away in the dark, having lost its life force. Anduin's Lightwell no longer shined upon it as in his eyes, it was no longer just.

Fallen from grace, one can no longer expect to live as carelessly as the Gods. Nor can one expect sacrificial banquets to be burnt in one's name. Humility has been cast, and so has Equality-- from feared Legends reduced to mere parasites that die with the flick of a finger. Either annihilation finds its way to you next, or you build yourself up again, never reaching the skies, but never too weak to fail.

How come you never made use of it and now you want to?

Because my divine shield has been silenced, though the will to emerge victorious still burns.

Still

Like grains of coloured sand strewn upon a glass canvas, a blur landscape of my days has begun to form, its beauty determined by the strokes that come flowing from the fated hands of time. Must all seasons die away without ceremony? The gradual change we fail to acknowledge day to day eventually baffles us when we open our eyes. We come to realise that the season has abandoned us, overnight. But of course, the way the grasses bow by the sidewalk has been shifting everyday.

After a tiring day when one is finally deserving of some sleep, one falls back into bed contented, paying no attention to the quality of what cushions the defeat. No time to enjoy the pleasant details of refinement. Only the escape to a numbing sleep is desired. That is what it means to live a life one simply gets used to. It's not hurtful, there's no void-- it just can't be put into words.

I suppose that's why this post has a film of uncertainty plastered over it. There is this listless breath of the ordinary that breathes through, because other than feeling worn out, torn, and motionless, there really exists no other abstraction. My lack of talent is as apparent as the lack of meaning in my life.

What I want to express is the stagnation of being satisfied. A shrug of the shoulders and I can leave the whole world behind.

Sigh.

So I have gone back to wondering how big of a sigh would kill me, and how much sighing is needed for one to run out of breath. Such is the thoughts that run through my brain when I let out a sigh.

I'm not unhappy. The glass will always just be half full.

Today I Had Too Much Tea

My weekends have never been so well spent, the same as how my allowance has never been so mercilessly spent. Well, in a capitalist society, one cannot expect to be a part of what is social without commodifying oneself. If the world sees individuals as mere commodities, then why not indulge in the mechanics of this exploitative cycle by flaunting meaningless pieces of paper in the faces of those whose lives are determined by quantitative value? By no fault of their own are their lives numerical.

I wandered from café to café this Saturday, meeting friends, sharing Bingsu, indulging in Murakami, and consuming way too much caffeine. By caffeine, I do not refer strictly to coffee, but to green tea as well. Not a cup or two, but a potful at a tea specialist-- this was after I had indulged in two pots of fruit tea washed away by a glass of iced Long Black at the previous two stops. This intake of caffeine does not simply cast Bloodlust on my body, instead, it's a Power Overwhelming that will destroy me at the end of its effective period. As a sort of consolation, I tell myself that the tea was infused with Lavender that calms the nerves.

Why are we infatuated with European culture? Google recommendations for tea houses around PJ and you'll see reviews of elaborate high tea with disgusting pastel-coloured macaroons, Victorian sponge cakes, and scones baked out of shape. It's infuriating, at least to a person who cannot fathom the obsession normal humans have with sweets, in all forms, whether spongy or crunchy. All the frills associated with tea time, I would like to cut them all off with a pair of scissors that were made in China. I suppose this is cultural imperialism at its finest, to have others worship your culture without having to beat them into conformity. I for one like my tea plain, like my life, instead of adding milk and sugar into it, as if placing an elaborately decorated cup on a saucer isn't pretentious enough.

There is much to criticize. But of course, I look at myself as well and ponder upon the fascination I have towards certain cultures and their people. Why is it that I show interest? Do I want to be LIKE them, to BECOME them? Or is it simply because I am an evil motherfucker who wishes to walk on all paths of life just so I can learn the vulnerabilities that can be used to break them? Who knows? Maybe I simply want to belong, so badly, that I am willing to become one whose identity is as fluid as the seawater that laps against all shores.

As much as I would like to belong, some core principles will just never change:

Rice shall always reign superior. 

Bread is what I cannot accept, and dairy products are the bane of my existence. 

Let us slurp our noodles til the end of time.