Monday, August 22, 2011

space invader

sanctus real's the face of love happened to be the next album out of a set i pulled out of my collection to re-listen to and it's spot on for how i'm feeling at the moment, especially in the first four tracks. 

not to sound selfish, but i haven't slept nor eaten well ever since my paternal grandmother came over to stay with us last week. the vessel above my eye even started hurting over a particularly stressful incident (internally, though on the outside it just looked like a minimal squabble that died down quickly when i stopped contributing to it) between trying to explain to my parents about a botched dinner order while grandma tried to vie for my attention by making some comment that was probably intended to sound sympathetic. 

i now understand why sometimes old people and children are lumped together. it's not like i'm heartless about who she is now, it's just: her arrival felt like an ambush to me and i didn't have time to prepare for the lack of personal space i was supposed to suffer from, and the stress of having my personal space dismantled and rearranged (by my parents, in typical eleventh-hour fashion, in time for her visit). 

at the risk of sounding conceited, personal space is very important to me and having it violated unexpectedly is like someone "destroying the peace" (couldn't resist, we're trying started playing when i was trying to think of something here =p). i was under the assumption that i would be able to spend the last fortnight of my break in the safety of my own little sanctuary of a corner (i'd already planned some personal goals to accomplish before the holidays ended), but up to two days before ambush i am told that my temporary corner will be permanently dismantled and that i'd have to sleep in a different place than i'd assumed i would be sleeping in when grandma arrived. 

add that to the fact that 6 years later, this house's renovation is still half-done, thereby leaving me no personal space to get my own things done without grandma kaypohing (asking continuous questions about whatever it is i'm doing and then inserting irrelevant tales from times long gone or rehashing the same racist jokes she's been cracking ever since her arrival) -- you see what i mean by her acting like a child would? 

and so i have to do a lot of child-minding to accommodate her and am only able to complete some of my personal goals when she's asleep (those that don't require eye-straining and don't make any audible sounds since she's sleeping within earshot), which obviously messes up my sleeping pattern and totally ruins my previous attempt to gradually sleep earlier and then wake up earlier in preparation for the end of holidays and return to (school)working life. 

i should be thankful that there aren't any catfights this year (the last time she stayed with us, i was going through puberty and she took this as an opportunity to call my pimply complexion polka dotted), but there's something she did to me in the past that i might have forgiven but not forgotten, and as a result of that it just makes me feel awkward whenever she's in the room (even more awkward when she casually touches me, like when she physically moved my hips aside because i was inadvertently blocking her path...*shudder*). 

speaking of the need for personal space, tonight i found a term that seems to best describe my marital status: quirkyalone. i don't know how i missed it all these years, but there you have it...a more accurate description than just being 'single'. 

and one of the accidental joys this quirkyalone was just starting to discover was playing her new keyboard (of the musical kind) in the moonlight to the tune of whatever was in her earbuds before her personal space got invaded. it was only in that semi-darkness that i realised how useful the contrast of ebony against ivory keys was...maybe whoever created the piano played it till beyond dusk and was too lazy to light a candle =p