I am on the bus home. Same number, but new bus. The seats are now some untearable synthetic red thing. The bus passes through a familiar route, one literally that captures much of my teenhood. The bus pulls into the stop where the ex-girlfiriend lives.
an observation
One observation, other than the one that you now have to wear seatbelts at the back of the bus. I do wonder how young couples make out at the back of buses these days. The observation: nearly everyone on the bus is engaged with an electronic device, including me, in trying to type this. The boy next to me is figuring out some love triangle over the phone.
The lights on the bus are so bright I feel naked. Just a few years back, dim buslights were conducive for falling asleep, creating alluring orange hues that guarantee you miss your stop.
where will it take me...
I wonder where this ride will take me. Hopefully to a place where there is good company, love, jazz, coffee, a pen and a paper...
Uncle T
19 Aug 2009
"i think you need a girl from outside the circle".
"kor kor nicky, i've just re-evaluated my values, and girls are not my priority now. cannot la..."
It is 0748h on a Wednesday morning. I am locked out of office, sitting at McDonald's working on powerpoint slides.
17 Aug 2009
As uncle limps downstairs 11:21 pm
Kow! It hurts.
I limp downstairs. My right leg is nearly useless after I uselessly got injured at floorball over the weekend. Yet I limp with enthusiasm, in anticipation. I limp towards the letterbox.
I am hoping to receive the postcards. Funny how my comfort comes in the form of pieces of cardboard, likely with hyper-contrasted and kitsch pictures on one side. Naturally, all the limping is for the other side of that cardboard; the words from a foreign land.
Yet all that greets me in the letterbox is indeed a cardboard, an over-sized one at that. Walao. In it, is a piece of paper. On the paper, there are many many many many many numbers. The numbers tell me squat. Yet apparently this piece of paper is of the utmost importance. I tuck it away without even fully taking this UK paper out of its envelope. Exam transcripts, so they call it.
I limp back upstairs, still waiting.
Uncle T
I limp downstairs. My right leg is nearly useless after I uselessly got injured at floorball over the weekend. Yet I limp with enthusiasm, in anticipation. I limp towards the letterbox.
I am hoping to receive the postcards. Funny how my comfort comes in the form of pieces of cardboard, likely with hyper-contrasted and kitsch pictures on one side. Naturally, all the limping is for the other side of that cardboard; the words from a foreign land.
Yet all that greets me in the letterbox is indeed a cardboard, an over-sized one at that. Walao. In it, is a piece of paper. On the paper, there are many many many many many numbers. The numbers tell me squat. Yet apparently this piece of paper is of the utmost importance. I tuck it away without even fully taking this UK paper out of its envelope. Exam transcripts, so they call it.
I limp back upstairs, still waiting.
Uncle T
Untitled Poem 11:08 pm
context of the poem: this was randomly written on the way home. not everything always has to make sense la :) this is one of them that might not; at least not to some.
Hideous sores that cruelly fester.
Their romantic affection, irksome.
Paper hearts and plastic stars
Seem like vintage memories of teenhood.
I can nearly touch the Catalan sun
Yet all I hear is silence. Cruel silence.
Comfort seems only to rest
In the crevices of life's randomness.
The amphibious orchestra now sing,
Yet all I hear is silence. But
why the silence?
I don't know. Do I want to know?
Uncle T
Hideous sores that cruelly fester.
Their romantic affection, irksome.
Paper hearts and plastic stars
Seem like vintage memories of teenhood.
I can nearly touch the Catalan sun
Yet all I hear is silence. Cruel silence.
Comfort seems only to rest
In the crevices of life's randomness.
The amphibious orchestra now sing,
Yet all I hear is silence. But
why the silence?
I don't know. Do I want to know?
Uncle T
Trains of Realities 11:07 pm
White tops, blue bottoms. White tops running. The familiar morning chatter of kids heading to school in the morning. I spot the few shirts tucked out, one of the crimes you can commit at this age to earn a place at detention.
I walk past the other shuffling bodies as the the orange morning rays find their way across the grey building; I was taking the morning train to work.
I have done this for so many years of my life,taking the trains at rush hour, to school and later to work though work then was temporary. Sure, now things are slightly different. Now, work is permenant, and it looks to be so for a long, long time. I have done this in New York, I have done this in London. So, by any measure, I should be used to this. Yet, this train journey to work felt foreign.
- a day at work transpires -
I am back on the train. Only this time in the opposite direction towards Jurong East.
A young teenage couple kiss. They smile at each other and kiss again. I smile at them. People on the train are surely more chatty than 12 hours ago.
I have taken the train back home from work before too, both in New York and in London. Yet, somehow it was far more exciting taking the train there. Maybe its because it was all an adventure, working in a foreign land, living on your Own. Your life then was yours to screw up, yours to do as you please. It was solely yours. Now, perhaps not so; try staying out past midnight on a weeknight and see if I will get a text message from mummy asking where I am. No, I'm not whining, but just stating a fact.
So perhaps that is the difference taking the train there and here. These are two different realities, and the reality now is that perhaps it is all less than an adventure, and I must accept this. And I will.
Only problem is, right now, I prefer that other reality more; going home to Brooklyn.
My thoughts get interrupted, 'next station, Yio Chu Kang...'
Uncle T
I walk past the other shuffling bodies as the the orange morning rays find their way across the grey building; I was taking the morning train to work.
I have done this for so many years of my life,taking the trains at rush hour, to school and later to work though work then was temporary. Sure, now things are slightly different. Now, work is permenant, and it looks to be so for a long, long time. I have done this in New York, I have done this in London. So, by any measure, I should be used to this. Yet, this train journey to work felt foreign.
- a day at work transpires -
I am back on the train. Only this time in the opposite direction towards Jurong East.
A young teenage couple kiss. They smile at each other and kiss again. I smile at them. People on the train are surely more chatty than 12 hours ago.
I have taken the train back home from work before too, both in New York and in London. Yet, somehow it was far more exciting taking the train there. Maybe its because it was all an adventure, working in a foreign land, living on your Own. Your life then was yours to screw up, yours to do as you please. It was solely yours. Now, perhaps not so; try staying out past midnight on a weeknight and see if I will get a text message from mummy asking where I am. No, I'm not whining, but just stating a fact.
So perhaps that is the difference taking the train there and here. These are two different realities, and the reality now is that perhaps it is all less than an adventure, and I must accept this. And I will.
Only problem is, right now, I prefer that other reality more; going home to Brooklyn.
My thoughts get interrupted, 'next station, Yio Chu Kang...'
Uncle T