2023 Weeks 1 to 3: An Exceedingly Dry Account

One's blog should correlate to one's life, and I hope that my life isn't the moldy snoozefest it seems here: post after post on Penguin Modern Classics and my lack of comprehension-slash-enjoyment in them.

I think I should write a little about my real life. The problem is that events happen so rapidly and time rushes by so quickly that I hardly have time and space to think about life. Besides, we live in an era of endless busywork: who has the desire to look back and ruminate anyway?

Yesterday I was actually bored for the first time in weeks, perhaps months. And my thoughts began to drift uncharacteristically backwards. I found myself taking stock of the past few weeks...

Week 1

Mel died, and everything changed. The last few visits (the pallor of death, her skull-like face) should have prepared me for this eventuality. And we did, you know, coolly discuss her upcoming death over cigarettes in her room, back when she could still sit upright and didn't need to breathe with a machine. She said she had refused to die a few times already; she was holding out for the euphoric death that she wanted. In the end, I believe she got what she wanted, and I am glad.

For her death was the end; for me it was only the beginning. I am struggling the finitude of life. Once I was in the bathroom listening to a few girls talk about their outfits, and I realised that I had lost the one person in the world I could stand in front of a bathroom mirror and talk about clothes with. When was the last time we did that? Probably 8 years ago. I didn't even pay attention to it. This extraordinary privilege of friendship, I treated like air, like a basic human right.

I have been going through life with the idea that one can always return to a former state. We can make up  and go back to normal after our fights; we may be estranged but we'll travel together again one day; I can move back to my parents' home and be pampered once again; I'll go back to my libraries and movie theatres like I did as an undergrad. Reality: I can't. But how do I deal with that?

Week 2

I could barely walk straight because of my disturbed state of mind and lack of sleep, but what I remember from this week was luxuriating in company. I met up with Mrigaa and Geraldine from my days working at the magazine. It was like no time had passed. I was over the moon. And yet I continue to neglect friendships on the flimsiest of pretenses. "Oh she's probably still upset at me" or "we won't have anything to talk about".

I went to the pub quiz with Jon and his friends. The presence of friendship, even if not "my own", was like the sun or a wood fire, made me feel warm and safe.

Week 3

I still felt disturbed and unsteady and I started to wonder if I might be able to adjust the things within my control. Something that badly needed changing, I felt, was my working hours and (consequently) my attitude towards work.

I've been working nights at the bookstore, as you might know. The chief advantage of working at night is that it doesn't make me feel defined by the job. "I still have my days free," I reasoned to myself, and told myself I was still voluntarily unemployed. If I could still gad about on weekday afternoons, I was still an idler.

But there comes a time, after too many 11pm dinners and sleeping at 2am, when you feel the physical trade-offs of working at night. So, a dilemma. Do I switch to daytime working hours and join the ranks of the respectably employed? Or do I quit because I, once again, can't commit? Do I settle or do I flake out?

The Chinese philosopher Lin Yutang wrote: "Happiness for me is largely a matter of digestion." Maybe it's not such a bad thing, to work a few hours in the afternoon, in order to dine and sleep well.

Anyway, here are some pictures.

Eeyore has learnt to jump on the sofa for food.

I spent a delightful morning here. Just as I began to rhapsodise about the restorative powers of nature, Splat! A bird pooped on my hand.

Meow Meow is 17 years old.

CNY Day 2 visit to Madras New Woodlands.