“…. and i have no resolutions
for self-assigned penance
for problems with easy solutions…”

“there’d be no distance that can hold us back.”

actually, funnily enough, my so-called ‘resolutions’ in 2010 still stand… and i *think* i’m doing all right on all counts so far, although i seriously need to add that ‘go to bed earlier’ bit. :p

(and hey, the new year also brings death cab for cutie to fort canning in march, yeah…)

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boy: “mummy, i want to tell you something. i like to hang out with you.”
me: “reaaally? why??”
boy: “ya lah, get to jalan-jalan, have fun…”
me: “even when i scold you so much?”
boy: “it’s ok, i don’t mind.”
me: !! “good. then i can scold you even more.”
boy: “some times i don’t mind…”

i’m not sure what brought about this line of conversation. we were walking around vivocity, me holding his hand tightly so he wouldn’t run off into the crowd. it’d been quite a day:

i’d brought them to the office in the morning. (they’ve been asking to come to work with me again ever since.)

i’d brought them on board a docked ship in the afternoon.

i’d bought them books from the floating book fair. (but no, NOT any more of those princess ones she’s holding, please!) then, more books from the lovely Page One bookstore. (which now I hear is GOING TO CLOSE DOWN WTH?!)

i’d brought them to watch the latest ‘Alvin & The Chipmunks’ movie, even though their high-pitched singing GRATED ON MY NERVES OMG.

i’d brought them to the playground and a dinner of disgusting fried fast food.

i guess, i like hanging out with them too.

(until the end of the day when THEY grate on my nerves and i’ve had enough of scolding them. )

===================================

i’m not sure if that conversation earlier had anything to do with me telling him the story of ‘Room’ (by emma.donoghue). his interest was piqued when he read the title on the cover and asked me what it was about. so i’d been telling him the story in bits and pieces as i progressed through the pages. i’d finally reached the conclusion of the book the night before, and he was in rapt attention as i told it to him in the car on the way to the office that day.

i could see how compelling the storyline would be to him: it’s written in the voice of a 5-year-old boy, who has never been outside of the room (or rather, the windowless garden shed) where he was born. his mother was abducted 7 years ago, and had been kept captive in the 11ft-by-11ft room by her kidnapper ever since. she was repeatedly raped, impregnated, then gave birth to the boy and raised him all by herself as best as she could under the dire circumstances. she never allowed her captor to touch, or even look at the boy, all his life.

you might think that being locked in a room your entire life, never knowing the outside world (or even believing or understanding that there is one), would be a truly horrific thing. but to the boy, the room was his world, and it was enough, because he had his mother. like a protective womb, the room for him was safe and secure, even as he lies in the wardrobe at night while the kidnapper makes his mother’s bed creak. she was everything to him – his playmate, his teacher, his friend, his nurturer (he’s still breastfed at 5, and there’s a brief touching part near the end when they’re out in the world and he bids goodbye to his mother’s breasts, a symbolic ‘weaning’ off his dependency on her). she invents games to keep him active, tells him stories, teaches him to read, uses recycled materials for crafts, establishes a routine and good habits.

i imagined living in a closed room with an active, curious child, with limited resources to keep him engaged all day, every day – i would DEFINITELY go mad in less than a week.

but then i read this – the real case of elisabeth.fritzl, locked and abused in the basement of her house by her own father FOR 24 YEARS, and gave birth to 7 children in that span of time. the eldest child was 19 by the time they were released. it’s a miracle she did not go mad.

the human will to survive is an amazing thing.

for the boy, perhaps the story of Room drove home the point to be thankful for his life, his possessions, his freedom, and opportunities.

and hopefully, for his mummy, who tries to provide him all those things, and more.

===================================

i am my mother’s only one,
it’s enough

only love is all maroon
gluey feathers on a flume
sky is womb, and she’s the moon

- bon iver, ‘flume’

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“…and at once i knew
i was not
magnificent”
<3
#currentobsession

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ahk-toong bay-bi!, originally uploaded by izadd.

THANK YOU, min @Conversation16 for taking the trouble to mail a copy of this issue with free cd all the way from the UK! you are too kind. how many quids do we owe you??

(the issue sold here in SG doesn’t come with the cd, how rubbish is that?)

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my birthday gift came 3 weeks early…

a beautiful, totally indulgent (i admit!), limited edition 20th anniversary boxset. comes with the ‘live in sydney’ concert in DVD, which i used to watch on laser disc repeatedly during one period in my life (dreaming some day i’d see them live myself) and then couldn’t because who the heck owns a laser disc player anymore?

listening back to achtung baby now, i realise how, to borrow a phrase from meredith grey, “dark and twisty” the songs really are, and how you can probably play it on radio now and the music would still sound current even though it’s 20 friggin’ years old.

thank you husband, for indulging this (sometimes) dark and twisty wife of yours, who (always) moves in mysterious ways (especially when called to the kitchen).

meanwhile… 3 MORE WEEKS TO 34?!

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they were supposed to come in March this year, but cancelled due to the tsunami in japan. but as they say, everything has a silver lining, and for me, this came in the form of front row seats at the esplanade when they made good their word and announced they were coming down in November.

“i wish that i believed in fate, i wish i didn’t sleep so late…”

FRONT ROW! they were practically VIP, guest-of-honour-type seats! and right from the beginning (they started promptly at 8.10pm, bless them serious musicians) through to the end, I had this look on my face –> 8-D. ecstatic did not even begin to describe it.

being my first time at the esplanade concert hall (and my first time with front row tickets!), i was naïve enough to believe we would be sitting demurely at our designated seats, tapping our toes politely, for two hours.

needless to say, i was wrong. the moment the lights dimmed, the entire row (and everyone else behind us) surged forth towards the stage, a fellow fan beside us excitedly beckoning to join her, and wow, WHAT AN EXPERIENCE. 8-D

we were practically under matt’s beard! bits of his saliva flew over our heads a few times. did we care? HELL TO THE NO. a few times i restrained from molesting aaron/bryce while they wielded their guitars merely a few cm away. did i outrage their modesty? of course not, i am after all a person of culture. HA HA.

“i was afraid, i’d eat your brains…”

(these taped-down setlists became a hot commodity at the end of the show)

“showered and blue-blazered, fill yourself with quarters…”

things went fever pitch when, in the midst of Terrible Love, matt decided to jump down from the stage, SQUASHING MY TOES in the process (yes he was THAT close, i almost wouldn’t let go of his coat), and started wading through the crowd, climbing over seats, the audience parting like the Red Sea, helping him and his mike wire manoeuvre their way to the back of the hall, all the while singing in that beautiful baritone of his. (a little drunk, no doubt, but still.)

8-D 8-D 8-DDDD

“it’s a terrible love that i’m walking with spiders…”

as further evidence that we were right in front of the stage (you believe me by now, right?!), let’s play ‘where’s izadnhana?’. heh. (AND, in true front-row tradition, we got to shake hands with a band member. yes, that scruffy-bearded man in the suit who sings depressing songs. i <3.) #jakunTTM

(photo courtesy of Kristina Cortez on Flickr)

“all the very best of us, string ourselves up for love…”

THANK YOU, The National, for truly making my year.

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i’d first discovered Shel Silverstein’s books many years ago and have been buying them as gifts, but never owned any myself because i always thought the kids weren’t ready for them yet. so when heriati gave auni The Giving Tree as a belated birthday gift recently, it was the catalyst for me to finally start collecting his books. (i have a thing for collecting books by authors i like, e.g. mo willems – but more on that next time.)

the story is basically about a tree who finds happiness in giving away parts of itself (its leaves, its apples, its branches, its trunk, and finally when it has nothing left, it offers its stump) to a boy whom it loves unconditionally, and we see the boy in different stages of his life (from childhood, to teenagehood, to adulthood, and finally old age), finding joy, demanding help and seeking solace from the tree at each point.

i think a lot of people who read this will feel a sort of ambivalence towards the boy for his self-centredness and lack of reciprocity in affection; and also to some extent, towards the tree for its almost martyr-like selflessness if you read it as a quasi relationship between an indulgent parent and a spoilt child. i’m more inclined to think of it as an allegory of man’s exploitation of nature and the environment – well, in any case, it’s easier to explain to the kids. (i certainly wouldn’t want to draw a parallel between myself as a parent and the tree; i’m not THAT giving!)

we then naturally progressed to The Missing Piece, which attracted the kids for some reason. maybe the simple drawing of lines and shapes has a sort of primitive appeal to it, or the sparse text on the pages. the story follows ‘it’, a pacman-looking shape who feels incomplete because it was missing a wedge, and It goes around in search of its perfect fit. like i said, i was hesitant to introduce the books to the kids so early on because, as simple as the books appear, there are deeper, more complex themes that adults would better understand and appreciate. (another e.g. would be Anthony Browne’s books, which i really like – but more on that next time.)

as an adult, you’d know it’s a parable for that stage in life where you’re single and lonely, looking for love, experiencing pitfalls and hitting against walls along the way (like meeting the wrong fits, or the ones that do fit but don’t want to be in a relationship, or meeting the right ones but didn’t hold on tight enough, or held on too tightly – we’re all familiar with these situations, aren’t we!), at the same time having adventures and enjoying what life has to offer in between (because, being incomplete and unable to roll very fast, ‘it’ stops to talk to worms, smell the flowers, let butterflies perch on it).

then finally, it meets The One, and they roll with it, so to speak – and well, we’d all like this to be the fairytale ending (“and they lived happily ever after”)… but wait. ‘it’ finds that it could no longer do what it liked doing and was no longer itself, and… it lets go of the piece, and moved on. (i’m suddenly reminded of The Cure’s “Letter to Elise” at this point: “I thought you were the girl I always dreamed about / But I let the dream go / And the promises broke and make-believe ran out….” SOBS! ok sorry, i just always get emo with this song.)

sooo, anyway, yeah. why did it let go of the missing piece when it was the perfect fit? for freedom? for the thrill of the search? for the damned butterflies? in any case, readers could feel a sort of ambivalence towards ‘it’ here too. is he selfish for thinking only of himself? what about the piece whom he left? did he even consult with the piece before letting it go? Y U NO WANT PIECE?!

ok, before you get as aggro as me at this point, let’s move on to the accompanying book, The Missing Piece Meets The Big O.

now, THIS i like best. i suppose it starts off where The Missing Piece left it. the story now focuses on the piece, waiting for love to come by. i suppose if you have to assign genders, The Missing Piece would be a female. which explains why here it’s not as “actively” looking for an incomplete circle for it to fit into, and being a triangular sort of wedge, it didn’t have the ability to move (or so it believes). it tries to make itself attractive by wearing a flower, it tries to be flashy, it tries to hide from “hungry” ones, some put it on a pedestal, and i’m quite sure some were gay… and then it meets The One. but the piece grew (as do most women in relationships – in, ahem, maturity – yes?)… and got dumped.

then it met Big O. and something happened.

oh, why don’t you just read the story over here.

it’s pretty obvious why i like this one: for its values – empowerment, independence, changing your mindset, being proactive and choosing your destiny instead of waiting for it to happen.

it’s all very Beyonce, you know?

and so, to end this post, i’d like to dedicate this song/video to ‘it’ in The Missing Piece. (bet it sucks to be you right now HA HA.)

(ps: Beyonce is so many levels of awesome, isn’t she?)

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SEE U2 – CHECK!

so the day FINALLY arrived, with nary a glitch. i almost couldn’t believe everything fell into place according to plan. it was TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE.

yes, it was my birthday. the kids were settled (they were whisked away from the house), the weather was great (no rain!), traffic was smooth, and we even found (relatively) cheap carpark available near the stadium in good time. everything was, to say the least, miraculous.

the stadium was MASSIVE. our seat was like… fourth from the front, and in broad daylight, we could see the stage pretty well.

–> countdown to the start of the show

but as you can see, when the skies dimmed and the lights came out, and the free-standing zone filled up, we were as good as sitting a thousand seats away. lol. i guess i could’ve secured the free-standing zone, but the thought of being elbowed and crushed to an asian pulp by the big-sized ozzies was a little off-putting.

so anyway, jay-z came on and tried to inject some hip-hop vibe into the mostly.. white crowd. lol.

oh hey here’s a crowd-pleaser, though!

and then….

heh. they broke into ‘beautiful day’, which set the mood and the crowd going in an instant.

–> bono did his concert trademark of picking a lucky girl from the front to serenade and fondle. DAYMMMNN. i mean, he had his head ON HER LAP while she sat swooning on stage, and then proceeded to slowdance on the bridge with her for a good entire song. what a cad!

–> the 360 degrees rotating screen at the top unfurled itself downwards halfway through the show, to create a MONSTROSITY of a stage. seriously, it looked like alien royalty had docked its excessively-blinged spaceship right there….

with such a large catalogue of songs to pick from plus their new material, they were spoilt for choice. but they did a pretty awesome job at mixing in their classic crowd-pleasers with their less commercial songs. the date also marked the death anniversary of john lennon, so there were a few beatles’ snippets thrown in as tribute, which bono, the veteran that he is, gelled effortlessly into the setlist. i was especially delighted with tracks from achtung baby (which i’ve decided is my favourite U2 album, evuh), in particular Ultraviolet… which, like in their ZooTV tour, went hand-in-hand with this song.

come on, SING IT!!

they played for 2hrs 15mins with 2 encores, and even though there were tens of thousands in the audience, bono had this ability to make an intimate connection with them through some of the songs, somehow. I DON’T KNOW HOW. maybe he’s magical.

the only downside to the whole evening was – i got a wad of pink strawberry gum stuck on the back of my shirt. like, why do people even stick gum on chairs, right?! which got me telling the man behind who pointed out the stuck gum to me, “this is why we ban gum in singapore!” and gawd, am i glad we did, coz it really sucks trying to get gum out of your shirt. seriously.

the kids were soundly tucked in by the time we got back. i even got a card and a note from the babysitters. how heart, right?!

all in all, it was a totally A-grade awesome birthday. and a perfect end to the trip.

setlist:
Beautiful Day
I Will Follow
Get On Your Boots
Magnificent
Mysterious Ways
Elevation
Until The End Of The World
I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For
North Star (John Lennon Tribute)
Pride (In The Name Of Love)
In A Little While
Miss Sarajevo
City Of Blinding Lights
Vertigo
I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight
Sunday Bloody Sunday
Scarlet
Walk On
Encore:
One
Where The Streets Have No Name
Encore 2:
Ultraviolet (Light My Way)
With Or Without You
Moment of Surrender

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in a fit of nostalgia, i’d raided mum’s photo albums this evening, which made up mostly of badly-taken photos of our family travels throughout the years. every time i look through them, i’d lament at how awful the photos were, and worse, how awful i looked in ALL of them. (which is why i’m thankful mum keeps them in a cupboard, out of sight from visitors. :p)

i wonder if some day in the future, my kids will look at the gazillion photos we took of them and think the same. i can imagine the conversation now.

adult daughter: “mummy, WHY did you make me wear those awful crocs when i was small? what’s with those awful dresses and tights? how could you let me keep that awful hairstyle? why wasn’t i wearing make up?? HOW AWFUL.”
aged me: -____-’

so my first plane trip happened when i was about two years old, visiting a relative in Perth. of course i don’t remember anything of it, if not for the photos. but i think the camera must’ve hated toddler-me, or vice-versa, because i couldn’t find a full picture of my face anywhere.

evidence below.

partially hidden by giant panda (can you see the auni resemblance?):

partially hidden by ferry bench (my late dad in his corporate tee or whuuuut, heh):

partially hidden by hand (check out the cool stroller-thingy circa ‘79, looks more like a lawn-mower):

skip a few years ahead, and we find ourselves on our first visit to brisbane and gold coast. why did i surface these? well, it’s 22 years later now and whaddaya know, we’re flying off tomorrow to the same destination… but more on that later.

so, gladly, these photos were taken from afar. i’d entered the awkward tween years. urgh.

we headed there again in ‘91 to visit an aunt who’d started staying there. by then, i’d entered the awkward teen years, coupled with myopia. double urgh. but i did find this sweet photo of my parents in a very rare display of ACTUAL PHYSICAL CONTACT. ha ha.

in ‘93, the said aunt gave birth to, back then, the most gorgeously grumpy but adorable half-matsaleh baby i’d ever seen, so we went to visit, this time with my grandparents. trivia 1: my grandma and i each have a mole above the right upper lip, and my mum has one on her left upper lip. i’d hoped auni would inherit a mole like her grandma, just to, ya know, form an awesome genetic pattern or something, but unfortunately it’s not meant to be. (… unless moles appear later in life?) trivia 2: this tub of chub (the baby! not me) is now a 17-year-old babe. i’ll be seeing her on this coming trip, and she’ll be babysitting MY babies this time.

as i’d mentioned in an earlier post, i’d bought tickets to watch U2 live in concert on my birthday (!! – yes, still not believing it), so i simply had to dig these up, from circa ‘96 and ‘98 (NEVER MIND HOW AWFUL I LOOKED)…

(notice how bono had ‘moved’ further away from touching distance the second time i visited him, tsk.)

okaaayyy, so it was his wax figure that i was ogling/fondling at london’s madame tussauds lah, whatever, that ‘bulu’ on his arm felt Even Better Than The Real Thing heh heh.

anyway, our bags are packed, we’ll be BNE-bound at 3.15pm, and how apt is it to end this post with this video?

see you guys in two weeks…

“you’ve been all over… and it’s been all over you”

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in about 3 months time, this will be where i’ll be spending my 33rd birthday.

OMG I’M SO EXCITED.

no, i will not be watching football or rugby or whatever that sports stadiums are originally intended for.

a group of us had planned a trip to brisbane for the end of the year and bought the flight tickets at a good price a few months back, not knowing that something of extreme interest to me was brewing in the horizons down under and would take place during our period of vacation there.

and so, when news broke that a particular irish rock band i’d idolised for, like, forever, will be touring in australia in december and performing in brisbane THE DAY AFTER our scheduled flight back, there was no thinking about it – extend my stay!

i mean, they’re not likely to ever come to singapore, we’d already be THERE in that state/city, my aunt has offered to babysit the kids for the night, it’d be a fan dream come true, and a rare experience for an enthusiastic concert-goer – AND IT’LL BE MY BIRTHDAY.

serendipity, yes?

and so the tickets have been bought (imagine us, a tiny dot on the right side of the stadium stands there), everything is almost set, save a few tweaks in our itinerary.

i hope that nothing gets screwed up and the universe will be on my side till the day comes…

but in the meantime, COME ON, BE EXCITED WITH (OR WITHOUT) MEEEE!!

(ps: i have to admit that my fandom had an arrested development after the disastrous affair of their Pop album and almost revived with All You Can Leave Behind which thankfully churned out Beautiful Day, but interest sort of petered out with subsequent albums. everything up to the Zooropa album was the zeitgeist of my youth (!!), and in my mind, i’ll always have the romanticised versions of bono in shoulder-length hair (not yet balding or greying as it has since), smouldering and brooding in his leather pants circa Joshua Tree, or ironic and campy in his pitch-black sunshades circa The Fly.)

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