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read between the lines
elated i've finally just finished reading david levithan's boy meets boy, and all i can say about the ending is awwwwww.like all good books (of my perception), i've been savouring every moment in the book slowly and putting off the end as long as i can, for about 5 months...but unfortunately and indeed, all good things must come to an end. i finally decided i was ready to face it, head on, two evenings ago. and in a short span of 4 hours, i re-read everything up until where i last left off two months back when it was becoming quite evident that the story was about to finish -- when there's not many pages left to grip in my right hand. i read the last page half an hour ago with a twinge of bittersweet resolution. i wanna see what happens to noah and paul after that. i wanna continue living in their near-perfect world. i wanna live vicariously through paul...but oh well. guess there's heaven to look forward to =p had a good evening earlier today watching the breakfast club (thanks to above novel for reminding me -- i was quite an avid emilio estevez movie-watcher in my tweenage years), with a half hour to spare on a few pushing daisies season 1 interviews (two words: lee pace =p ). i realise i always feel this high when i am aware that it's my last night for the week in sg (and i am not always aware, because half the time i can't even make up my mind until the last minute as to which day i should go home) -- it's like my brain suddenly unfreezes from 'numbness mode' and realises i better make my last night my best.
wishful thinking i was headbanging in time with the beat, slamming the black and whites on the korg while rpattz strummed enthusiastically with his les paul. skintz was subtlely sneaking in the bass lines from her fender, while dorian held it all together with intermittent strikes on the snare tempered with cymbal crashes where appropriate. the only thing missing was a singer.we left the jamming studio still riding from a melodic high, the creation of which we were part of. the bus dropped us off in time for dinner at the local youth hangout, "a concrete treehouse of a building," as dorian would say. dinner was the usual -- cheap local food -- but dessert was fun as we sampled skintz' favourite slabs of home-made ice-cream before settling on the following flavours: rum, butter pecan, vanilla bean, coffee. and then there we stood: the four of us in fading sunlight, observing the busy street, the tall skyscrapers, the screaming birds up in the trees, with rpattz cracking lame jokes again as usual. eventually skintz dragged us along to bowl where the bowling alley used to be, except that it wasn't there anymore. so we exited the building and headed back to the treehouse for several rounds of taboo and pictionary in the youth lounge at the rooftop. it was really hilarious, especially to see the look on skintz's face everytime we guessed something so totally far from what she was trying to describe. after that we went outside to the rooftop railings and rpattz tried blowing his keychain whistle to people on the street without being seen -- i laughed my ass off, watching the people below try to figure out the direction of the sound. after that it was just bumming around and catching up on each other's lives till we had to go our separate ways. wanna know what's the killer? none of the above really happened... the way i described it. the one big difference was that i did all these things alone. so it was really me berating myself for booking an entire jamming room to hear only my korg keys filling the room -- it kinda happened on impulse, because i stumbled across the studio during my lunch break today and i recalled how good it used to feel being able to make music with others. why is it that i always end up jamming with an invisible band nowadays when almost everyone i know is musically capable? (oh right, it's because they're not really my friends. i almost wish that statement was true so i wouldn't have to feel bad saying that.) i was the one who ate the cheap local food only to blow my budget on slabs of rum and butter pecan (the rest of the flavours was sampled), standing at the sidewalk of an intersection, watching people, buildings, birds and shadows around me. i was the one who happily thought i was going to bowl only to find that the darned alley was no longer in existence and i couldn't find another in sight. it was me who hit the rooftop (though the whistle thing really happened with my bro at his hostel room on another occasion, and it was really funny) and discovered that free lounge area with the plush cushions and board games but no darned people to play with (it's no fun playing charades when you know all the answers and you can't see yourself describing things). after that i got sick of it all though and headed straight for the bookstore. found quite a few old gems there and almost bought them -- but held back when i remembered how loosely i've been spending my money in a failing effort to pacify my bored soul. after that i got back and here i am. i had an epiphany yesterday about all this though -- i only feel this way when (a) someone points it out to me or (b) i'm comparing myself to somebody else. the more i thought about it, the more sense it made: whenever i'm not aware that i'm alone-without-friends-oh-my-gosh-ignorant-people-even-ask-me-why-i'm-out-alone-like-it's-a-sin-and-i-feel-like-dogshit-when-i-keep-hearing-or-seeing-your-fantastic-posse-of-friends-have-such-fun-times-together, those are the times i actually have a good time on my own and appreciate my uniquely-circumstanced life for what it is: a gift. a few good tunes have also cheered me up this week (the first step to making it more acceptable for me to sleep): -flagpole sitta by harvey danger -the way by fastball -the entire chet baker sings album, which i only heard today (prior to this, the only songs i knew were my funny valentine and time after time and they hooked me enough to finally spark curiosity) and a rediscovery of old boyband songs and videos that have stood the test of time (i.e. i can still stomach re-listening to them now that i'm no longer in my early eager teenage years): -all songs on ultra's eponymous album (the boyband with james hearn as the frontman, not the trance singer), most of which i finally found on youtube (i only ever bought the cassette for this back in the day and it sounded warbly after a few months of leaving it in the car due to heat exposure) and surprisingly still remember all the lyrics to, after all these years fave song: blind to the groove because of the piano man and the piano, man! -most songs by a1 (the boyband, not the school grade), especially the earlier tunes -- again, thanks to youtube although i wish they had it in my time as i've not seen some of the videos since i never had mtv on cable) fave song: be the first to believe because of the augmented chords in the pre-chorus connectors, those funny dance moves and the evident camaraderie (read: having fun chillin' with friends) in the video -keep on moving by 5ive (the boyband, not the children's show) because of the encouraging lyrics, although it's funny because i never paid attention to the lyrics back in the day probably because i wasn't really a 5ive fan (was more of a rich fan until he had that crew cut =p) bb mak's back here and the moffatts' misery and bang bang boom remain perennial favourites though i can't say the same for the songs' videos. however, it's worth noting that i can't stomach backstreet boys, gary barlow and westlife videos any more, even though i was a self-proclaimed nick carter fan in my early years. now, the music and videos just sound cheesy. the only exception would be backstreet's back because it's funny, haha!
burning questions i was sitting in service yesterday, closing my eyes to listen to the choir and i felt the subtle undercurrents of the holy spirit -- and then i remembered two months back during a very relevant altar call in which i stepped up (after seeing an opportunity when there was a lull in people coming up to be prayed for), merely said my name, and heard pastor kai (who knows nothing about me) prophesy over me, twice, as if for affirmation: "jessica, the lord says that he loves you; jessica, the lord says that he loves you."so i take back the part about not adult service not being relevant at all this year -- guess it's boring for some sermons and not so boring for others. questions that keep me up: am i a loser if i have an empty schedule almost every working night and spend a great deal of time renting videos to fill up my time, much like jim carrey's character before he became the yes man to everything? do i have a valid reason to feel i am wasting my nights doing nothing when i could be saving the world by helping starving kids or volunteering for some non-profit organisation like a good christian's supposed to do? is there a way to combat the feeling that i'm missing out on life because i don't have regular friends to hang out with (i mean i have hung out with people all this while, but it's usually by accident and not by routine, which makes me expect to hang out with people when nobody will and vice versa)? i realise that these questions only trouble me on a working weekday night in sg and not so much in jb. i mean i have felt the same way before in jb but thank god there are my furry four-legged friends to play with or parents to sleep in the same room with, if only to feel close to human presence and draw some form of comfort from that unspoken connection (and also to sleep in air-conditioned comfort in this recent spell of sweltering heat). feedback anyone?
restless mind it's been four weeks since the insomnia's started again. and if i do sleep, it's exactly like that book i picked up (but didn't buy) in the bookstore last week said: i have performance anxiety even over not sleeping not well or not long enough. tonight is no different.
the only thing that gets me through each day at work -- like how the annoying pseudo-younger brother who sits behind me who drinks red bull to get him through each day -- is a sermon, mostly joel osteen's or joseph prince's. i tried listening to the two sermons i got from my church and...man, one of them was so boring (read: i've heard it all before so it comes across as dry) i felt no different than before i was listening. that's the thing: not sure if it's just me, but i've found the sermons this year (ever since our senior pastor went on sabbatical) to be dry, boring and somewhat irrelevant in terms of only skimming the surface and not going deep enough beyond the rehashed sayings a christian knows by heart after attending church for years. i seem to have lost that fire, that stirring in the heart in the main sermon nowadays -- i distinctly recall feeling it at times during some of the youth services though, and that keeps me going (aside from the sermons and other deliberate actions in trying to shake off this dissatisfaction stemming from ennui in the evening). it's been real interesting, learning to be independent for the first time in a long while, not having anyone as a crutch other than jesus -- it feels like finding you can actually swim without an aid of a floatation device when you actually thought you were going to drown if you were left alone long enough (can't say the same literally though -- i still can't float or swim to save my life). i sense jesus' leadings -- the little signs along the way, the new mercies that get me to work (because obviously the morning is the hardest part after having stayed up a good part of the night), traces of this (superhu)man i am trying to follow -- but ever so often, the old thoughts resurface and i have to, as melody beattie says, hear them out and then assess what i am going to do with those thoughts (to judge and act rationally instead of to not think and react irrationally). lotsa good things, or at least things i wanted to happen but didn't expect to happen so soon, have happened these past few sleepless weeks, but there have been a lotta filling-the-space-while-waiting-for-the-next-event times where the old thoughts come in and try to unseat me from my restedness in christ, to paraphrase a sermon of pastor prince's. this verse featured prominently in my bible-browsing this week and gives reason for hope:
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