April 29, 2002
Autumn remembers

I should write more, even when the voice is still and chooses to listen rather than to speak. I should write in order to remember.

It took me an entire day to recall a conversation I had with a woman - I didn't remember who, where, or how we came to talk about books. But I'd asked her if she read a lot, and what kinds of books she liked, and she said she read 'any old thing'. A little snatch of time that remained in my memory, void of any sense of colour or circumstance - I could not even recall her accent or her speech.

We seem to spend a lot of time in cafes, laying out thoughts and ideas over too-strong coffees (for me, at least), poking through histories and politics, writing on napkins, writing on walls of our minds and fine Japanese paper, stealing souls and light with our whirring cameras. We pace the streets, linger in bookstores and under branches of trees - I never know the names which he knows, but I know what they look like in spring.

Posted by sniffles at 04:29 PM | Comments (1)

April 20, 2002
Stumble

Fresh Antipasto: The musician.

I'm tired, and I'm wondering why I'm not yet in bed. The day has been strange, all woven and twisted and dyed different colours. My connecting train in the morning didn't connect - the train before that was stuck at the station with an engine fault. I wandered down to the second-last carriage and said a brief hello to the Chinese lady whom I knew would be there. I invited her to walk with me, but she preferred to wait even if she was late for work.

So I stumbled through the park alone, with dew and grass accumulating on my new shoes, lost in thoughts of days gone and hours yet to come.

Posted by sniffles at 12:49 AM | Comments (1)

April 17, 2002
Boxes (2)

J'�cris, mais je n'ai pas de mots.

Dan has a new project, which inevitably led to a curiosity about ink poisoning. There doesn't seem to be too much information online, apart from a couple of forum-type posts ("An odd request","Adverse effects of Tattoo Ink?"). [Thanks, Barnaby.]

I'm wondering if ink poisoning from drawing on one's skin is a modern myth based on a reality in the past, when the composition of ink would have probably been quite different from what it is now.

Fresh Antipasto: Boxes.

Posted by sniffles at 04:00 PM | Comments (23)

April 16, 2002
Bleeper

You know you have slept well and have been long overdue for a good night's sleep, when you are happy to hear the alarm clock rattle its bell off in the morning.

Looking up UI issues related to personalisation, I found a paper by Keith Instone (from a CHI 2000 workshop), thanks to Mersault*Thinking, which sadly doesn't seem to be updated anymore.

Posted by sniffles at 05:13 PM | Comments (0)

April 15, 2002
Boxes

I am exhausted out of my skin.

The trains are packed with sardine-people who have lost their colours to the dusty metal, dusty clanking tracks.

My blue glasses draw attention, everyone who walks past me looks at my face. I'm not used to this, but I have lost my beloved Ray Bans.

I slept surrounded by boxes. On Sunday night I slept perpendicular to the way I slept on Saturday night - the boxes shift, the hours shift and I tire of having no sound and words which hide behind piles of too many things, afraid and overwhelmed.

Trop de cartons, trop de choses.

Posted by sniffles at 08:24 PM | Comments (0)

April 11, 2002
J'écris avec des couleurs

Fresh Antipasto: Sweet cheeks don't say "babe".

Dappled shadows, dappled light. The trees blame shades of grey on each other, teasing the grass and the people who dared to walk beneath their branches. The light was golden, softened by haze. The sun hung low out towards west; it was uncomfortable to be unarmed with sunglasses, and I seemed to have lost mine.

Words come and go like speeding cars with impatient drivers, as soon as I get a glimpse of them they disappear loudly out of sight, but I am content - almost content. Words come and go like days.

Musim ni masih muda, daun-daunnya tidak lagi hijau, belum lagi emas.
J'aime l'automne; il alimente l'âme du poète.

Posted by sniffles at 11:36 PM | Comments (4)

Happiness

I thought about happiness. She's happy when she writes, she's happy to discuss. He's happy when he takes photographs, he's happy in the garden, he's happy with earphones on. He's happy about things I don't understand. To be happy is complex, being happy is simple.

I'm happy walking down the streets with him, wherever, whenever, under whatever weather. I'm happy when I write, I'm happy after I've written. I'm happy capturing what I see through the lenses of my digital cam, with good music anywhere, playing sounds which comes from the cloud of nowhere through my fingers, baking chocolate cake, bending wires into shapes until my hands hurt. I'm happy when I love, I'm happy being loved.

I'm happy with a book. I'm happy having coffee. I'm happy to wait and watch, to express the essence of what I am, or simply to feel.

Posted by sniffles at 02:13 PM | Comments (3)

April 10, 2002
Softness

I awoke to the sound of soft rain drumming the roof, a sound I will no longer hear in a few days ...

Yellow leaves stuck to the pavement like sticky reminders that winter is on the way. How is it that I hear rain fall and I find leaves on the ground?

The sun was generous, casting a golden shimmer across everyone, everything.

The Chinese lady on the train asked me, "Do you read Chinese?"

"Yes," said I, "but not very well. I can't read a newspaper, for example."

And we looked out at the sun and the haze and the sun and the people and the sun and the roofs of buildings rumbling by.

"Another new day begins," she said.

It sounded infinitely more beautiful in her near-dialect Mandarin.

Saya sedang menghadapi sesuatu masalah: adik saya telah memberitahu saya mengenai beberapa petukaran "undang-undang bahasa" (nahu?) dalam bahasa baku sejak tiga atau empat tahun yang lalu; iaitu, bahasa yang saya pelajari di sekolah mungkin tidak lagi betul - alamak! Tolong tunjukkan, ya?

Posted by sniffles at 08:47 AM | Comments (0)

April 09, 2002
Love and confused languages

Today seems to be a day for languages. Across the office, a couple of guys were discussing English, Indonesian and Mandarin Chinese in the morning. Later on in the afternoon, one was teaching another a few fairly complicated Chinese phrases, completely jumbling my brain which was already struggling with English.

I've discovered a couple of weeks ago that in learning French, I'm actually remembering Malay. I would think "Comment ça va?" followed by "Khabar baik!" ("Things are good!") in response, much to my own confusion. While I would dearly like to be able to write well in French, it's perhaps not a bad thing that I rekindle my knowledge in Malay.

I dug up a list of ISO 639 language codes and a nifty little Malay/English/Chinese dictionary.

Setiap kali saya tulis di sini, saya akan cuba memasukkan satu perenggan dalam bahasa Melayu. Sudahlah hampir sepuluh tahun sejak saya menulis atau membaca dalam bahasa ini - 'dah lupa semuanya! :/

Je suis très fatiguée ... but there is still much packing to do.

Script speaks of interior spaces, where love is the candlelight one writes by.

Posted by sniffles at 04:02 PM | Comments (3)

April 08, 2002
Yearning

I wanted to be near water. Perhaps it was due to a little offshoot in a conversation, about living in a little house on untamed land near the sea, surrounded by psychedelic sculptures electronically fitted with motion sensors which make rude noises when people come near.

I could have trammed up to the river or down to the beach, but both seemed a little too far away today, so I wandered aimlessly in semi-suburbia, poking my nose into odd shops and leaving without buying anything.

Posted by sniffles at 02:53 PM | Comments (0)

April 07, 2002
The balancing act

Shy little rays of morning sun crept secretly into my room through the door to the verandah, thinking that I would not notice. They stayed for a little while, checking the contents of a couple of small, meaningless jars on an otherwise empty bookshelf, they peeked into my half-packed boxes of books, and shook their heads at the mess all over my floor before vanishing with silent tinkling laughter.

I shall need their help with drying some sheets outside in a little while, and I hope they come back.

A cup of coffee and bland American bread, with thoughts of friends, the writer's fear, the ability to love oneself, and the mental inventory of all the things yet to be packed.

I think that those who live to create need to exist in a kind of flux. If everything remains still, stable and peaceful, we would be lost in the patterns of the world and the wheels of time - we would be stale, just like the bread I had for breakfast.

Another cup of coffee, perhaps. I think I'll skip the bread. The sun rays have not been back, but no matter, I have a house to pack in a finite number of boxes.

Posted by sniffles at 10:50 AM | Comments (0)

April 05, 2002
Where is Missing Link?

I am incredibly tired, having the perpetual feeling that my body is stealthily trying to shut down on me without me noticing it until it's too late. I'm not sick, I don't think. No, no more antibiotics.

We've found ourselves a place to live, finally. I have to somehow condense all my junk into a two bedroom flat - in a week.

Posted by sniffles at 09:59 PM | Comments (0)

April 02, 2002
Interrupted harmonies

An interrupted kind of day - everything was interrupting everything else, hours which seem to wind themselves into consecutive Chinese crown knots.

There was a man singing country tunes with a guitar on the train. It was a pleasant surprise to walk into a carriage and be softened by sweet six-string strums and a mellow voice. But it was strange; everyone else appeared to be ignoring him, or pretended that he did not exist. Perhaps they were embarrassed?

He began a new song, introducing it to a perhaps-unwilling audience. It was simple, with a predictable chorus, so by the time he came around to the refrain a second time, I picked the harmony out of the air that was simply begging to be sung. And again, it was strange, only one woman turned around to look at me, having suddenly noticed that there was a second voice, singing a second part.

And so that was my outrageous deed for the day - singing in harmony to a song I don't know along to a man with a guitar in a train-carriage at peak evening hour.

I'm glad you guys liked the earrings - thanks for all the compliments :)

Posted by sniffles at 10:32 PM | Comments (1)

April 01, 2002
Morning dance

I'd finished the earrings; it seemed as if I spent my entire weekend jewellery-making but it was a lot of fun (and frustration).

A lovely day spent near the beach, until it got a bit too hot. I took a bundle of photos, but as usual, I'm way behind with processing ... I'll have them done some time, I really will. Really.

Fresh Antipasto: Morning dance.

Posted by sniffles at 10:54 PM | Comments (5)