paat paat.

Oddspot #3. I am ungooglable.

(I googled as many of my friends as possible as well…. oh my god guys. Your google identities are sooo-)

Im discovering my sis has great potential for toilet humor. She was making fun of baby talk, our mother’s references for all things big and small in the toilet in particular and all those other endearing terms that faciliatated our childish imaginations. How grateful are we. Laughter is good. Remember to make it a daily affair guys!

Filed under: daily grind

CoLOSSal Reality

Yesterday, a close friend gave me one of the strangest propositions I will ever consider in my life.
“Perhaps we should stop being friends.”

We just went out for dinner, and we were in the midst of a chat. We weren’t pulling each other’s hair off, or rolling our eyes in disdain. We weren’t frustrated. No we weren’t hostile to each other, at all. In fact, such a curious proposition will only be made by a friend such as C. When you meet a problem in a friendship, the natural thing to do would be to try to suggest ways to fix it, no? Instead of proposing to kill it, like C did.

Between C and I – there is a power struggle of sorts, which makes us get really upset with each other sometimes. They never last overnight though, and is never something that cannot be resolve; but it does anger, irritate and stir. We are both people with strong opinions and backing down doesn’t happen naturally. On top of that there are ocassional communication problems and the cultural gap. C is generally pessimistic and it tires me to engage with her sometimes.

But without C, I would lose a person whom I can spew my inner-most thoughts to. We argue passionately, swing in the same mood temperaments, and she is the nearest listening ear to my biggest and smallest woes. You can pick C out from the crowd easily because she is not-your-average girl. She has eccentricities and pecularities, funny gestures and a colored worldview. Such an individual is who I will lose if I said Yes.

We ended our discussion by agreeing that we’ve both got to try and change, and above that accept each other for who we are.

But I am disturbed that I am actually contemplating the proposition seriously though. A contemplation of loss of this scale- and whether I will be able to withstand it. It will be weird in a way that is like applying white-liquid-paper onto a part of your life and then working out whether the scale will still balance. It won’t be like Clementine in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, where she loses her memories of her lover and he is completely erased form her life. NO, I will still retain history of C being my friend- but then I will choose to erase her out of the future.

How will that be like? The things I’ve been telling her, will I just find aother person to tell? Or will I just not tell anyone at all? Will letting C go be the point of welcoming another new friend into my life? If I bottle my feelings up, will I become depressed here, or will I become truly independent? Will it be impossible to reverse the situation and go back to being friends, once we decide to stop being friends with a gusto?

To stop being friends, is a huge thing. No phone conversations, no meeting for a coffee once in a blue moon, no companion, no emotional dependence and security, no alternative consciousness to inhabit unknowingly. no person to care for, no that person to fall back on. Thats the gap of a friend, beyond C- the gap of any friend you call close.

The sadism in me to effect this loss is disturbing.

Perhaps its the stain of my dream from two nights ago. The horrific reality of the dream was so penetrative because it not only echoed my fears, but played opposites to my imagination. I’ve always like to wonder about my absence. My death, how my family and friends will react and cope. Everyone wonders about that, sure.

But in my dream, someone close had left me, so horrifying that was because of the finality of it. I was running down a boulevard of trees which symbolised time but I couldn’t find the crack of my loss. The moment in which the loss was effected. In my dream, i was filled with regret, remorse and deep sense of sadness that my eyes were puffy and my nose was runny from all the crying in my dream.

The moment in which the crack of loss is effected. I suppose I am considering C’s proposition because I will I will be able to ready myself for the loss. An experiment, warped at all costs, to determine whether I’m prepared to lose.

Filed under: musings

Ooh Generator @ the Royal Melb Show

Never has a job been as physically, emotionally and motor-skills challenging as my present stint at the Royal Melbourne Show as a face-painter.

Physically challenging is bending up and down like clockwork, hoisting kids up a bar stool and then bending over for the next eight minutes again, trying to tease an animal out of their faces.

Emotionally challenging is heaping the praises (SOoooo Coooool! Awesome! You look greaaaat! Awwww! What a cute fairy are you!… etc). So is engineering docile behavior by threatening to turn them into monsters (literally) but generally being a happy, cheerful, Boost juice type of a person to reassure the kid you won’t bite, in any case – you beautify. In cases of painting devils, vampires, skulls, Hulks, yes you need to assure them you will give them some bite in their fangs (again, literally).

Motor skills challenging is grabbing squiggling kids’ faces (also include legs, arms, FRINGES) and then working on your 45 degrees brush stroke on the cherubic cheek, so they end up with a skilfully outlined unicorn, not chinese calligraphic wordplay. Ive been improving, but I’d say its 50/50, the way things can turn out. Depending on circumstances.

And some very interesting things have happened so far:

On Saturday, a really kick-ass-hooligan-leather-jacket-totting six year old boy sat on my chair and spoke in the most serious and proper voice, “I’d like to be Spiderman, please.” I was just blown away by how serious this little potential brat looked. And he was a joy to paint because he sat so still. As we discussed the superiority of Spiderman over Batman- he asked me seriously, do you want to hear the Spiderman song- cos I know it by heart? I said Sure. And the cutie started to recite (as opposed to sing) the theme song for me- “Spiderman, spiderman….” I was so tickled. He went about three quarters of the way and then apologised, “Im sorry, I cant remember it all now. I used to be able to.” And I must say, he was the cutest blond spiderman I’ve seen.

On Sunday, gail forces were predicted and our tent was nearly swept off at about 11.30 pm. It was crazy drama because we had customers holding secure the tent for us while we evacuated the customers and our gear. And then the crazy winds were joined by pelting rain and all over the showgrounds, people ran for cover. We were nearly refused entry at the Grand Pavilion (a large exhibition hall) opposite our tent, but luckily the security relented and we were able to shift our tables and fold up chairs in. Watching from the glass doors in the Grand Pavilion, as the wind howled and beat unceasinly at the doors, and security gathered, it was almost too much drama that afternoon- I think it would be the closest I will come to a cyclone in my life. (haha)

On the downside, nearly all the face-painters in the tent are down with a flu. As we dab globs of paint, and paint shiny butterflies, reaching into an imaginary bucket of shared praises (im starting to plagiarise my co-workers british accent so badly in my tiredness and she is starting to borrow my pseudo-aussie endearments), listening to parents gasp and children gabble, the tent is starting to sound tiringly repetitive.

And by the time I reach home after a thirty minute nauseous tram ride, my back aches, my feet hurts from standing eight hours straight, and my quotient for sacharrine sweet girls and cute precocious kids (even the funniest-video type of dozing babies) so maxed out that if I see another cute thing in the night, I swear I will I puke.

Working at the a carnival fair like this- it somehow loses its magic. The first day I was there, I wowed at the beautiful Ferris wheel, swooned at the large stuffed animals from amusement park games, loved the whole audacity of forever youth. But there are sides to the fair you grow to notice when you work there, the tiny booth where the ticketing girl with a bored and expressionless face sits behind the ferris wheel, the out of proportioned Carebear and Kermit toy, crass in its stitched on smile. And the showbag hall- I absolutely suffocated inside with all SpongebobBarbieWonkaWriggler paraphenalia.

That said, Im not completely disliking my job yet. Its nice having kids sit on your stool and by the time you’re finished, they become animals. The cat-eyes you’ve painted gives them a purr, the butterfly makes them wave their hands in a flutter. That’s carnival magic, I won’t deny.

Filed under: daily grind

Illogical: soppy bam bam

I have zero wordpress inspiration these days. Other than getting my fill of good dramas, going for face-painting training sessions (yes I will be a face painter at the royal melbourne show!) and worrying about my school work, my face is in a book (Love Without Resistance by Gilles Rozier) and this world can be changing by the second, I dont care. Its fluffy Mcworld.

Still hunting for a typewriter. I think I won’t start on my script assignment unless I get my typewriter. I want a olivette 22 , if not an olivette 44. But if I can find a Remington 1930s, I wouldn’t mind that too. Actually, the ultimate dream would be a yolk yellow or siren red Valentine one. They’re gorgeous. And they cost a hundred pounds. Yea I know typewriters are so yesterday, but that’s the point. I belong to yesterday’s world. When can I get one? I will be working every single day of the show. And then Bam Bam. Holidays are over. Bam. Assignments are due. BAM. I can see myself right there at my bus stop next to my void deck in Choa Chu Kang. Cursing the heat and recoiling from change. Bam.

Im so bad with change.

On the good side, Im getting sick. As usual, I love getting sick. Mildly sick that is. The weak vulnerable feeling, the exusable self, the craploads of tissue. I dont have to think about anything at all. I just sleep. Wake up and have pharmacy medicine. Feel invincible for not seeing the doctor. Return to sleep. Now who doesn’t enjoy spoiling herself like that, tell me? Except I’ll be working Thursday. So I can only be sick tomorrow. Thursday I have to get well.

Im reading about a out-of-the-worldly french lady working as a German translator for the Gestapo. Her wanton sister gets screwed by an SS soldier nightly but she smuggles a Jew back into her cellar. She lives for her books and the Jew reads his way into her life as he starts to share her books in the basement. Im right in the middle of the novel. She’s just smuggled him in at the moment, and feeling proud of her act of resistance. I wish I had a cellar with someone reading his way into my life too. (Roll eyes everyone)

Thank you. Now I need your thinking caps. I have this absolute bang-bang idea for my script (at least in my lousy opinion) but the idea seems completely illogical at the moment. A girl who is actually alive but believes herself to be dead meets a man who is actually dead but thinks of himself alive. They exchange conversation. In my ideal world that is. Now i have a problem. why would anyone who believes herself to be dead (delusional death from acute pessimism) want to talk to someone who nags about life?

So I came out with this crap idea that this girl was actually seeking suicide at the traffic lights and a passing car came and swerved- she passed out in fright while the driver died. He coaxes her back to her life, while she celebrates death- Oh man. Tell me what a sop of a mess this is.

Bother. I shall go to bed with my book now. Because of this flu a girl from the primary school child-care gave me. I gave her a respectable leopard face and she gave me the sniffles instead. Great. My flu is making me soppy. Goodnightes.

Filed under: daily grind

I should be a chambermaid.

Oddspot #2. I made my bed twice today.

Filed under: daily grind