after the deluge

I have put this gripe off for too long to do justice to my state of mind when first overcome by the venom I felt rising inside me. But I am desperate for distraction from the previously mentioned relapsing affliction, and if I focused hard enough I could still recapture a fraction of the original angst, so I may as well give it a stab.

There is also this to say: he and Harold had nothing in common except youth. No spiritual bond could survive. They had never discussed theology or social reform, or any of the problems that were thronging Michael's brain, and consequently, though they had been intimate enough, there was nothing to remember. Harold melted the more one thought of him. Robbed of his body, he was so shadowy.

EM Forster, The Point Of It

I knew you were trouble even before we met. I'm almost never wrong about this sort of thing, and that time was no exception. Yet I welcomed you so recklessly, with the impatience of someone who had not another moment to waste on a past that could neither be continued nor erased.

I gave you my bed, my time, the food my housemates left for me, a little of myself too. You took it all, ungraciously, propounding a sense of entitlement I was too stunned (and stunted) to refute. I shrugged it all off, too preoccupied elsewhere to argue. What the heck, I told myself, my heart was not mine to give and if not that what have I to lose?

For you were there, of flesh, that I could see and hear and eat with and make laugh and... Everything that she was not. It didn't keep my mind from straying - I never pretended otherwise to you or myself - but nobody was getting hurt (or were they).

It took you less than a day to decide that you had to contact me everyday. It took me months to realise that I didn't want to know you anymore, not at all. Those were extremes even I'd never before known. How long will it take you to learn the true reason for my sudden disappearance?

Because of what I had tried (and failed) to exact from you, I cannot bring myself to say the words that will secure my release: Whichever way you spin it I did not exploit you the way you forsook me. And because of what I know about you, I am also afraid of the final insult - of your (recovered) ambivalence.

won't learn

So my shrink was right: the best antidote to any fixation, is another. She was right about something else too, and about that I shan't give her the satisfaction of knowing until absolutely necessary.

But wise as she, I fear, could not tell me why I always and only covet the Unattainable. My own theory - involving perpetual self-esteem crises, a defeatist mentality, and old school Freudian subconscious self-sabotage - I do not care to go into (and nor should you).

Here's how I know that I'm in trouble. For the last 18 months or so there's been one irregularly recurring event (IRE) that taxes my sanity every time it rears its ugly head. To say that I burn in this IRE (a phrase in a song that I for a long time mistook to be "burning desire") would be overstating the case - but not by much. Well the IRE is on again (into day 4 I believe), and I've barely had a chance to fidget about it... Cured! Rejoice!, you say? I say Nay. For in its place is nothing easier; and my affliction is all but receding.

I am conscious of the possibility (however slim) of one or both subjects of my successive fixations seeing this. But I am no novice at being thought ridiculous by those whom I fancy, or if the charge be indiscretion - I doubt that they'd have preferred some frightful private outpour. Besides, I am only scribbling here to numb my mischievous (not to mention inconsiderate) imagination, which every chance it gets throws me into elaborate tales of passion that unfold quite independently of reality or logic. So I'm doing us all a favour.

It must be all that Eddie F I've been reading clashing with choice lines like "You are what you say you are so think before you speak" picked up from this little-known movie or that. (Ironic really, given the proximity of these two guilty pleasures on the International Scale of Trashiness.) I feel nauseous.

29.3

I'd have long lost track of how many days I've been at Work, were it not for Pay Periods - 'tis the way of a true mercenary.

Having endured 2 days of an optional (What was I thinking?!) 3-day Commercial & Corporate Practice course offered as part of our pre-admission program, I am experiencing severe back-to-school daze. Seldom in all of my former academic life had interest so eluded me - certainly never, where foxy lady lecturers and useful topics were involved. Well the double whammy has lost its magical power, I discovered with horror this week. In 2 short (7hrs each excl. lunch) days there've been too many involuntary lapses in concentration, gaps of incognito during which my mind wandered, to be captivated by the physical beauty of the lecturers from whom youth has begun its departure, to ponder their self-appraisal of the way their lives have turned out, and that of my peers, who all seemed to be getting more out of listening than I was. What different creatures they are to me, these future pillars of community / forces to be reckoned with, hurling question after question at the lecturers, hypotheticals which revealed (unintentionally I presume) a penchant - more than that, a professional instinct - for Finding Loopholes. (I mean no scorn; merely envy.) Each thing that was said engaged me a little less than the thing before, until I gave up trying to decipher the broken bits of information scavenged between the daydreams.

I suspect that I will not fail *touches wood* the assignment+exam at the end of the course - no longer optional once I'd signed on to the packaged deal. Still I fret: what torture awaits at the other optional 3-dayer in October, or the month-long compulsory no-pass-no-certificate core course in February! *faints*

But it takes not much to forget my woes. Like an unexpected slap-on-the-back from an intimidatingly competent junior superior who always seems less than impressed with my work; or having somebody help me with the photocopying while I was away; or analysing inconsequential office goss with the girls in the lift down. Tut how my world has narrowed!

newbies

One

One night last month whilst on filial duty + community service, I met a girl who could easily have been me - born twelve years later. Mum had met her parents at church (yes, still going!), and was having the family over for an Aussie dinner (= pizza).

Sure I might have been less athletic, and spoken Chinese with a different accent, but we had more in common. We arrived in Oz at the same age; were star pupils in Chn (which entailed having the trifecta of brains + work ethic + street cred, at least one of which, and which one/s depending on the school, is not a pre-requisite to popularity over here); found the new schoolwork understimulating; behaved toward our parents with deference, reserve, plus a sparing amount of cheek; and when called upon always had the grace that comes with maturity of entertaining the considerably younger child/ren of the household playing host at the time, for an entire evening, whilst appearing to have enjoyed ourselves.

For these parallels alone I wanted to mark the beginning of yet another inter-generational friendship. Some will think it odd, if not downright patronising, that I should have chosen to bequeath my newly retrenched bike; I beg fervently to differ. It is practical: she wants to learn to ride, doesn't have a bike, and none is forthcoming from elsewhere in the short term. It is symbolic: the passing on of a much loved inanimate friend between two new friends. It is sentimental: better to let the old boy live out its days on the road than in the shed. It is personal: I would have spun with joy if someone had given me a bike, used or not, at that age (I had to wait another 3 years before saving up enough $ for one).

Two

Shortly after the above encounter, mum introduced me to another family of newbies she'd met at church (!!), this time with ulterior motive. I've yet to meet any member of this family, and so have no vibes to comment on.

Anyway, the story as related to me by mum... The parents vented during cell (!!!) that in her second week at the local high school their teenage daughter had been kicked in the knee from behind during Phys Ed, with the result that she'd had to miss out on a week of school - and counting, because not being permanent residents they had no medical insurance without which they didn't think they could afford to take her to a doctor. I can't decide which pissed me off more: that almost everyone on hearing this had leapt to the conclusion that the "assault" was rooted in racism, or the parents' lame rationalising of not getting the girl to a hospital right away / at all.

So since: I went to that school, and am the lawyer; the parents speak barely a word of English, the girl not much more; and everyone else who does and wants to help apparently had absolutely no time to spare (yeah, unlike me) - mum's cellmates (hahaha) unanimously appointed me to liaise with the school - to what end they could not articulate beyond some sketchy notion of justice. With only natural resistance I heeded the command, not least because for once mum and I seemed to have seen eye-to-eye on the pertinent issues.

Needless to say my involvement achieved nothing, if not less, as expected by mum and me. The school wouldn't (and couldn't) cover the girl's medical expenses, nor investigate the alleged attack without so much as a name or description of the "suspect/s". The parents, the girl too, couldn't (or wouldn't) understand how a school, the foundation of civil society, can possibly let such blatant (presumed) racially fuelled violence slide. Much as I tried to explain to the girl over the phone that kids being kids anyone who's different is at risk of being bullied no matter different how, and count on no one except yourself for vindication and never ever give in to self-pity and excellence is the best weapon etc. - the usual mantras that got me through school (and still come in handy now and again), I fear that my pleas might have dissipated like indistinct echoes against the wall of all that the girl already has to grapple with. After all, and it is not only my conceit talking here, not every 13yo is as tough cynical stubborn as I was.

I worry also, about being dismissed by the family, and families like this one, as a Defector when, more than they know, more even than they deserve, I will always be on their side.

heartstrings

1. For more than a decade now I have drifted in and out of a non-committal but mostly rewarding relationship with, the guitar. Ours has been a love affair in continuous purgatory (if you'll humour me such tautology or contradiction in terms). In the beginning there was my parents' policy of zero investment in musical education, and my own of putting studies first. Later on financial independence came, but my way of putting other things first persisted. So I never got those lessons, nor a semi-decent instrument, nor sought out people who shared my happy little distraction. Alas, at last, I have some time (moreover, the prospect of a reliable future supply of same), in which nothing else need be prioritised, and I am casting flirtatious glances in the direction of my long-suffering lover.
2. One evening a few weeks ago I found my Yamaha CG101 inside its bag, decapitated, my 7-year companion come to an abrupt end seemingly without earthly intervention. Perhaps as proof of the amazing human capacity to heal, alternatively of my incapacity to form attachments to anything, by the afternoon of the following Saturday I had brought home a replacement, having forked out more than budgeted but not nearly enough for the one I really coveted.
3. Living in a sharehouse of overwhelming musical ability (x 50%) might be tough on the ego at times, yet in precisely the same way has done me good. Nowhere else would I have so readily gotten off my lazy butt and tried to resuscitate my wilting entanglement, if for nothing else than to be able to contribute at our sporadic family jam sessions.

The combination of the above I took to be an incontestable cosmic sign that I must do something, anything, besides continuing to bemoan a love lost. So last night, my shiny new appendage in tow, I made my way to the outer-city town hall where a group of fellow enthusiasts meet fortnightly to make pleasant noises - and took a seat in their midst.

The commitment-phobe and mountain of lethargy that I am, it was no mean feat to just have gotten myself there. But pardon the dramatique: 'twas the most transcendal thing I've done in a long time.

It has been years since I was last a member of a musical ensemble, not counting the occasional stint at Hubby's behest. In contrast to my former dalliances, in which more often than not I ended up fumbling with a part or an instrument which nobody (myself included) could play - this time I am in my element. I didn't even mind which position I was asked to play (I was able to sight-read all parts), perfectly content to mingle with the talented young man at the front whom I recently saw perform solo, and the teenage beginners at the back.

Next weekend the ensemble will partake in a classical guitar festival (who would've thunk the thing was this rampant locally!). The conductor invited me to wing it and I gave him no chance to revoke the offer. Like, when am I ever not down for playing with (uh-hum...) people less than half or more than double my age; not so much those in between though.

The idea of many serene sanitary grog-free G-rated Friday evenings and Sunday afternoons is more alluring to me than perhaps it should be to someone of my demographic.

on the origin of specious

This pun occurred to me some time ago as the title for a post which never materialised and the gist of which I no longer recall. More recently I saw the same phrase in a novel by one of my favourite writers. What can I say - great minds think alike.

Tonight mum and dad checked out my pad for the first time since I moved out of their house. This is newsworthy because I had no idea when It would happen, if at all; in retrospect I am surprised that I hadn't given It more thought, being someone with (seemingly) such family-focused priorities.

At least I made it happen, at last. Put out the invite two weeks ago, planned a three-course meal well in advance, tidied up the house a bit this afternoon, even got changed out of my usual homewear (allegedly plus-size kiddie pyjamas). Oh the labour of love that went into that meal! I don't think I've ever gone to half the trouble to impress a "love interest". (Should I be worried about this?)

Of course all that I did for me. There may have been an element of a filial tendency to reassure and pamper, but mostly, I just wanted mum and dad to see that my world hasn't crumbled without their pillars of strength nor is showing any sign of doing so in the foreseeable future.

To me the expression "mum and dad" somehow connotes a needy affectionate symbiosis which simply has never characterised the way I relate to them, as a unit. Give or take the intervening years of uncertainty it would seem that they shall be a unit in the end, at least to most intents and purposes of a daughter. These two people I have known for longer than I've known anybody else in my life, whom I know better than any child could hope/want to know about a parent, more even than a parent ought to allow a child to know. Toward them I feel a profound sense of responsibility, of belonging, not at all borne out of guilt gratitude or indebtedness (or am I committing tautologies here?) - feelings perfectly inexplicable to me because of how little they know me.

I don't mean to discount the bond between N and I, but I know that part of it, in particular a part of those parts over which I have any control, is traceable to a need to hold on, to remain involved in this little family of ours. N is my gateway to the rest of them. If she hadn't come into the world I am certain I'd be feeling more estranged than I do now on a bad day.

Maurice

Thanks to
- more disposable income than ever before,
- the occasional quiet patch at Work, and
- some but not a lot of nudging by a fellow connoisseur of all things cheaper and/or pre-loved,
I too have bowed (more than once, and counting) to the power of Buying Things I Don't Need From People Who Don't Want Them In The Comfort Convenience and Semi-Privacy of My Office.

Fortunately my only vice, thus far, in terms of the ghastly human tendency to hoard, has been books.

The latest addition to my small, eclectic collection, is Eddie F's posthumously published "masterly and touching novel of homosexual love". Highlight to reveal the missing chunk inside the quotation marks: it corresponds with the portion of the backcover blurb that had been black texta-ed out then liquid-papered. Add to this the knowledge that the book's previous owner resides in a remote(?) corner of our State's northwest (I am guessing the bit about "remote", having never been there nor any immediate plans to visit, but heck anywhere to the northwest's gotta be bumpkin/redneck territory right), and I cannot help but speculate on the state of its previous owner's being.