Sunday 29 Nov: Time Out

45 minutes for a cappuccino, to catch some breath, before heading back to the deep abyss.

Let the week pass soon, send me into a deep slumber. That's all I crave - for now, at least.

dreamers

"They say I am of fancies woven and dream too many dreams,
The world prefers the doers, or so often it seems.
For doers make the world go round and that of course is true,
But oh for songs and fantasies the world needs dreamers too!”

- Leah’s Song

Space & Solitude #2: Under the canopy

Yearning

So when does one draw the line between a sense of deprivation and a sense of yearning? Or is it deprivation that drives the yearning for something that quite possibly eludes your grasp? When I allow myself to slip into the 'think about the good times' mode, I don't feel so much of an emptiness as a strong yearning for what I miss so dearly: pounding miles of granite road and sweating a good sweat and feeding on an overdose of endorphins much later; walking and exploring places on weekends aimlessly; devouring a good novel and becoming intoxicated with words; gliding through water laps after laps under the flood of sunshine; dumbing your brains watching TV (an unproductive but wholly satisfying activity); and perhaps a lot, a lot more. Most importantly, it's the sense of peace and equanimity that is so important in life that is proving harder to maintain as one gets older and burdened with more responsibilities.

Sweet Treats

One of the lovelier things on Sunday


And I simply adore this notice

Black Knight

This looks good - for photo-taking only


Lemony


The Chinese title is a lot sexier and cool

雨中的卡布其诺

The middle-aged Caucasian couple at the table beside me are engaging in a conversation. They could be speaking Italian or Spanish, I'm not too sure. But they are speaking fast and non-stop.

In front of me are three single tables, occupied by a man each. They all have their laptops with them and are, unsurprisingly, looking intently at their laptop screen. One of them has a MacBook Pro; the other two have less exciting laptop brands, and one of them is probably working, for his is a Dell laptop which has those white stickers on the exterior that indicates a serial number. I can't see what the other guy is doing as he's seated furthest away. But he's been around the longest and is completely absorbed in whatever he's working on.

Across at the other table, a family spanning three generations, pram in tow, just settled not long ago as I was beginning to type this. They probably just had lunch somewhere or came after Sunday service.

Unconsciously, more than an hour has passed since I sauntered into one of my favorite cafes in town. The sky was fast darkening then, and it wasn't long before the mighty raindrops fell. With a cuppacino and the Chinese GQ magazine (from the cafe) on the table, I was experiencing a moment that I think of often enough: chilling at a cafe, raindrops falling outside the window, coffee and magazine at hand, and soft pleasing music playing in the background.

I took out my iPhone and updated my status thus: 下雨了。星期天下的雨感觉更加的凉爽，愉快。

Time to trudge back to office.

Return of Joy

As a sign of how awful times have been, I clicked my 'Photo 2010' folder in my hard disk only to realise that there is a discontinuity in my sub-folder series: there were no September and October folders. The reason? Why, of course it's because I haven't been taking any photos in the past two months! Sacrilegious, I know.

Sadly, photographs have been such a sparse output of my life in twenty-ten. And to think pictures and images are the sort of things that give joy and inspiration. So there you have it, I've been living an insipid and uninspired life for the past few months.

A little joy and inspiration did find its way back and shake off some of my sustained misery over the last weekend though. I find it incredible that I met JW for lunch on Friday, dinner with SP at Holland V the same day, drinks with Adr & Shyuan after that, and a happy trip to Kel's new abode late at night. None of these meetings were planned before that day; they were all spontaneous. The first two happened because the Missus were unavailable, so how nice it was that my buddies thought of me. I know, we all have our places in life, and mine isn't exactly at the top. :)

Drinks with Adr happened because I wanted to get wasted, though this simple goal requires not just willingness but also good timing. I had only a pint of kilkenny, which was not quite sufficient to drift me into wastedness.

The night ended with an impromptu visit to Kelvin, who just got his apartment and moved in one month ago. With just a month shy of his big day, we ended up looking at his wedding shots and talking about what Adr and I would NOT do to help him win his bride. You know, things like eating weird stuff, dancing silly dances and other ridiculous things that are a ploy by the fairer sex to rob us males of our dignity. At twenty-something years old, our dignity is more fragile and too valuable to be trodden on (we aren't the ones getting a wife!) So we told Kel pointedly that his blood brother Kenneth could take all this.

The good stuff continued into Saturday, though I was increasingly aware and unsettled by the work that I've put aside. When I went to meet up with another group of friends, I facebooked all the way from home to our meeting place. Instead of emailing or sms-ing, we now reply to FB messages on Facebook mobile. My life seems a lot better if i consider how SX worked till 5am on the first day of her new work. But considering that I earn a fraction of what she does, that's no comfort at all. The limelight was on J, who had a whirlwind tour to Hotel Singapore before flying back to her adopted home for the past few years, only to leave it permanently in the next few days to settle in glitzy Shanghai. Meanwhile, I can only be a spectator of the glitz.

Friends and photographs aside, I emptied my wallet and bought three new books and a magazine, which helped to raise the happiness index a few notches higher. Here's to more awesome weekends ahead.


I just love this. Order HERE!


A lamp shines on glorious children's books


Automatic Bookmaker


Oozes chic and elegance


New Property awaits a fresh wrap


Lusciousness redefined


I love the off-colours and the colour similarities


Words to shoot by at a cafe on a lazy Sunday afternoon