crystalised

pausing my revision for this, i'm fresh from my own bed after a two hour sleep. a precious deep sleep, without any dream, no fuss, just one plain proper sleep, sound and undisturbed. my eyes were open and the first thing that came to mind was, "write". i do not want to forget.

last night i went to borders, looking for a kino no tabi novel there, my effort was futile. (i watched the anime when i was 13, best anime ever) it was almost eleven, shops were closing down, but borders was still open so i gave it one last wander, frog-hopping from one author to another one while listing my favourite authors and authors on my to-read list verbally to boy. he listened patiently, closely, sometimes picking one book or two which he was interested in at a time, and then i realised we both had not read some books which we should have read. (eg lolita) he said his instant favourite books are those whose characters deal with adaptation in foreign countries, like fresh chinese living in america. (reckoned that he has a vast desire to live in someplace else) i borrowed sung j woo's everything asian last month and returned it without going past the fifth page. not that it was bad, but library deadline was tight at that time. i would love to re-borrow it.

i read another book with a similar theme, that time a japanese girl who finds no interest in asian guys. she flees from her hometown all the way to america to marry her american fiance, who turns out to double-cross her in the face and leaves her alone in that vast land of america. she then tries to adjust to the society, works at a semi-prostitution bar and meets a japanese guy who finds no interest in japanese girls. in the end these two fine japanese lad and lass unite and make love on the dining table in the man's apartment. a slight chick-flick but had a dash of wits contained between the pages. (i can't recall the title, this is terrible)

yesterday i said to boy that i usually buy books if they are unavailable/always reserved/on loan in the library. library has a precise deadline set for each book you are reading so i feel like, it's a more effective method that works for me. i had three books stacked on the lowest shelf of my wardrobe cabinet, untouched because i always prioritise my borrowed books. but sometimes if i do really like a book i will buy it and go back and inhale the fresh scent of the solid pages. it's like trying to store as many lovely passages as possible in your lung.

after that we walked all the way down to a curious teepee, onnie and kelinton were providing some tunes. we fetched afifah in front of triple one somerset and brought her back to the cafe. boy had a glass of a curious concoction which indeed tasted curiously weird, very tropical and fresh yet heavy and dense and left a note of overwhelming cotton-candy sweetness between the walls of my throat. even weirder, we all seemed to like it.

after a brief session of light chitchat we hailed a cab which shot straight to the home club. at first the night looked promising, as afifah muttered how ironic it was for her to hum friendly fires' paris all the time while she was in fact travelling in singapore. seconds later, when we were having bag check the song blasted off from the room upstairs, so we got all ignited. went to the front, they played the xx's crystalised and franz ferdinand's take me out and we felt very ecstatic, the night was still young and there we were, dancing and chilling to a very nice set. however another guy took place and began to spin all the 80s britrock tunes, at first they were fine tunes but afterwards he served some really old tunes that would be featured in a stale secondhand record store you won't want to visit. none of our requests were entertained, so we left at around 0330 and had a very dinner (early breakfast?) at mcdonald's. we exchanged our views on a very spectacular, nicely executed japanese movie called confessions. afifah, like most other fellow indonesians, lamented the very unfortunate circumstance which prevents them from watching more foreign & hollywood movies in cinemas back there.

there was no more bus heading to my area so i had to either get a cab or wait for the very first train. and then afifah provided a better solution, we went to her hotel, watched an unappetising cooking show and awkward talk show which made us wonder who else were doomed enough to still be up and watch these poor shows besides us.

we tried to catch some sleep and succeeded. armed with an hour of sleep, i woke up and said to afifah that i had to be back home. the morning air was nice, but not as nice as the light night air. my hair smelled like ashes and french fries and smoke from too much air-conditioning. i just remembered that i did not wear my glasses at all at that night/day, and this made me aware of what this might mean. if someone like milan kundera were to narrate my life, he probably would've said something like this,

"and every time she does not bother to rummage through the small room of the slouchy structure hanging on her back, she feels like there was a transparent, plasticised cocoon surrounding her mental entity. her world shrinks into a hermetic state of being, for she does not wish to see anyone else but those who are close enough to her, those who truly matter."