Hee hee

Wedding dress for sale.

Sweating the swotting

Just when I begin to think fondly about grad school, I read Dylan's description of Wesleyan's Comps, and then I think I'm better off being uneducated.

As it is, rereading the Iliad for the opening of Troy in two weeks sounds positively daunting right now. Er ... I'd better get started.

Bringing up baby

Not that we have one, or that we're going to in the foreseeable future, but here's some words of wisdom from George Carlin:

When my little girl was growing up, we cursed around our house and she heard me curse. She was 9 years old when the "Seven Dirty Words," so-called, case hit. We told her, "Listen, Kelly, we don't mind you using that kind of language among people who don't mind you using that kind of language. But you go to someone else's house and you're not sure how that mother or father feels, and most of them won't like it, that's not where you say it. You don't go there and insult other people and violate their own rules that they have. You're at school or in a setting where that language isn't called for or accepted, you honor what's going on there. But there's nothing wrong with the words. They're fine. They will not hurt and neither will the things they represent, which you'll find out more about later."

If you'd like, read the full interview (Salon subscription required).

Saturday afternoon shopping

I should read advertisements more carefully, so that I don't organise a mid-Saturday expedition to Kinokuniya, only to find out that it's 20% off sale applies only to its 20th-anniversary-celebrating Liang Court outlet. The staff at the main Ngee Ann City outlet didn't look too pleased with me when I told them I wasn't buying anything then, but them's the breaks.

Books I wanted to buy, but only if they were 20% off:
(+) Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
(+) Misconceptions, Naomi Wolf
(+) How To Be Alone, Jonathan Franzen
(+) Birthday Letters, Ted Hughes

Meanwhile, over at Watson's and HMV, the sales signs were for real, so EH and I stocked up on toiletries and DVDs. My latter acquisitions were purely chick flicks: Roman Holiday, which was a chick flick before they invented the term, and Bend It Like Beckham, whose cast has more chemistry than all of Sandra Bullock's films put together.

In other news, the heavens remembered how to rain, and the denizens of earth danced and rejoiced.

Not so bad, is it?

For someone who's about to leave work at 6 pm, came in at 9.30 am, skived at least half an hour in between that, and also spent time travelling to and from an external meeting (for work) --- I'm not doing so bad.

So let the record show that while I've blogged from my work desktop many a time after the sun's gone down, there are also a scant few days when I can slip outside, inhale the peak-hour-pollution-clogged air, and jostle my way eastwards with the other nine-to-fivers.

Alas, poor Nicoll --- we knew thee well

Nicoll Highway has collapsed --- as told by my mother, ChannelNews Asia and the Straits Times. (I'm not linking to the websites because their servers are currently overloaded and unable to load any relevant pages. Er ... also, my mother has no website.)

So here's my version of the news, as transmitted via SMS between a friend and I:

ME: Fyi, in case you're travelling east, Nicoll Highway's collapsed, road's closed. ... I hear they're evacuating buildings in case they collapse.
HIM: Oh my god! It's the end of the world! Loot! Pillage! Every man for himself! Women and children first - to clear the landmines!
ME: You are clearly in a skiving mood again.

I hope things aren't as bad as speculation makes them sound --- though I also admit that I'm more sentimental about the bridge at the moment. Perhaps, as a child of the TV generation, things will only sink in when I see the footage on the news tonight.

Out of sync

It's Saturday, it's 5 pm, it's fucking hot --- and miracle of miracles, I'm not taking a nap.

This is a real rarity. Most Saturday afternoons, particularly if I worked in the morning, I come home, spend an hour or so watching TV to slow my mind down to a slumbersome pace, then migrate to bed and aircon till sundown.

Not today. Today, I'm here to witness the full ferocity (I know I've used that word a lot lately, but it's been that kind of weather, you know?) of the afternoon sun in all its spirit-withering glory. I've just turned on the airconditioning to make it a little more tolerable.

Now to catch up on all the websites I don't usually have time to read during the week ...

Me and my Milo

The thing about having relentless hot weather first thing in the morning is that it coincides too neatly with likewise first-thing-in-the-morning hunger pangs, and then the only thing that can appease both hunger and heat is sitting on a refrigerated shelf in the provision shop next door: a slender green can of Ice Milo that sparkles with condensation once it's extracted from its chill habitat.

There's 240 ml of the stuff, just enough to take me about half the short walk from the shop to the train station, not too much that I'd have to hastily gulp the last mouthfuls in order to toss the can before entering the station proper (no eating or drinking on the train: Fine $500). Its convenience is seductive, its chocolate milkiness trickles nostalgia with every sip (It's marvellous what Milo can do! for! you!).

And then you hear it's got palm oil in it. It smacks of urban legend at first, like the mouse in the Coke bottle, but there's only one way to find out: slowly rotate the empty slim can on its side, ignore the nutrition information table that screams 5.1g of fat, and proceed directly to the list of ingredients.

And there, nestled among already alarming delinquents like skimmed milk powder and milk fat, lies the recalcitrant, irredeemable palm olein.

Ay, me.

So farewell, green can of chocolatey goodness. Mornings will certainly be drearier and oomphless without you, but that's all part of growing up, I guess.

This morning

Weather update: Hot and still, as though the air is waiting for something to happen. I have a sneaky suspicion that 'something' is the end-of-year monsoon, which means we're in it for the long haul.

Ditzy chick update: Sprite and I plan to watch The Prince and Me later. Needless to say, the boys will not be coming. This one looks like it's a Chick Flick To the Extreme, so we're going to spare them the untold agony. Any girl pals who want to join our Julia Stiles club, SMS one of us before 2 pm today.

Homework on the weekend update: A stack of stuff to proofread before lunch. I'll go get started on that now.

What you missed

While I wasn't blogging, I was:

|+| Hitting the legendary three-oh. I now feel even more unaccomplished than I did when I was in my late twenties.

|+| Enjoying W's colourful pornographic Shakespeare movie titles, puzzling over why Pericles had been left out of the stage backdrop, and equal parts giggly and aggrieved by the fact that we four were the only ones at that particular Reduced Shakespeare Company performance that had seen The Princess Bride.

|+| Playing groupie to T's photo exhibition.

|+| Getting into the habit of eating breakfast again. My mother would be so proud. (Okay, she is proud. I told her yesterday.) It started with a craving for strawberry jam. So as not to waste the jam, I bought more bread. So as not to get bored with the bread, I bought kaya. The next thing I knew, I had Nutella lined up next to the jam and the kaya, and there's still space on the fridge shelf for more breakfast spreads. I might get crazy and enlist some peanut butter next.

|+| Updating my resume so as to plot my way towards 2005. I was way out of practice with that.

|+| Planning a trip to the Pacific Northwest. Mmmm ... mountains ...

It's a curse

I log on to blog --- and then have to stay at work till 8.30 pm in order to get my affairs in order.

Bah.

The thing about not blogging in, like, two weeks, is that you kinda forget what blogging's about and the great white screen before you looks about as blank as your mind and then ---

Well, then work interrupts and the blogging moment is gone (again).