Stapled Sleep

It has been a whirly weekend and it took today to sleep in, recover and lose a day of what could be the beginning of revisions.

And it is over this very weekend that I clumsily pieced together what looks to be my first chapbook of written works and some part-time illustrations. I wasn't particularly inspired with a dazzling or snazzy title to bestow upon it so it's simply called work in progress.

My eyes got all squinty penning and penciling in the drawings, but listening to Travis and Death Cab for Cutie helped. And inspired.


And inspire it did.

For those of you who got yourselves a copy of it, thank you. Hope it was good for you as it was for me. For those of you who haven't, I still have them in abundance sitting in the corner of my room (thanks to cheap photostating shops that make you order in bulk). You can get them off me as and when I see you (roomy Crumplers allow for extra storage) or at the KL Alternative Bookfest (table 18/19) this weekend, or you can email me at nowhitespace[at]gmail[dot]com and we can arrange an exchange at a dark dodgy alleyway behind the Pasar Seni LRT station.

The profits go to supporting my involvement in an arts exchange (and perhaps that odd latte or two)




Sewing machine vs a chapter on New Criticism tonight. We'll see which one wins.

Stuff

Contents of a roomy, overused Crumpler:

1. Planner (from Muji) for a sense of efficiency
2. Free British Council notebook
3. Eaten Twix wrapper
4. Recycled fiber insulating sleeve from a Starbucks latte
5. Film canister
6. Campus student tag
7. Lens cloth/makeshift lengs cover/cleaner
8. Sharpie
9. My best friend
10. I use this to draw
11. Renegade dollar notes that escaped from the command centre
12. Mobile phone
13. Camera!
14. Bottle of water
15. Purse/command centre
16. Shiny black capo
17. Ticket stub from last Saturday's outing
18. Invisible rabbits

Actually, I made it all up. There are things that I've left out of the list, namely because they:
a) make me look geeky
b) are too big to be crammed onto a scanner bed


There's going to be some serious corn-popping to do this Friday.

I wish I knew how.

Wash Day

I think I'll skip out on using strange languages for this one.

School's finally out, with only silly administrative matters to contend with. Bureaucracy, you can go stuff yourself.

Tonight we performed for our acting class's final assessment. And I got to go home with sticky white makeup paste on my hair (a result of over-ambitious attempts to transform me into the shadow of a world-weary old woman) which has ungraciously left behind residue, even after three intensive washes. Besides looking like a wet rat, I've to wait for it to dry before any sleep.



Esok menunggu. Dan aku masih memikir - betapa lama lagi perlu aku simpan engkau dalam genggamanku sebelumku berupaya untuk lepas and lupa.

Re:

Mindaku makin melayang. Tidak ada lagi cebisan sepi dalam ruang fikiranku. Mungkin masanya untuk mula melepaskan apa yang kurang, apa yang tidak pasti. Seperti lampu di dalam bilikku yang mula samar-samar dan berkelipan tanpa arah. Atau keretaku yang belum dihantar untuk servis. Atau cara hidupku (secara amnya) yang seperti rambut yang kusut-masai.

Dahlah sudah lewat malam, kerja pula berlambak macam gunung dan belum disentuh lagi.

Mesin jahit sudah sampai ke pangkuan aku. Rasanya best gile. Hari-hari yang menyusul akan dipenuhi dengan harapan dan janji-janji yang indah.

4.

The father and youngest uncle show us common folk how to wing the wardrobe in their day. I like the check and mesh combo.

repeat/release

When sleep will not come your mind begins to run at amazing speeds thinking about the things you have to do when you wake up.

Suffice to say I dreamt about t-shirts. If only they had gnashing teeth and menacing razor-sharp hems.

And as the weekend's activities will prove, I am quite adept at being a stalker.

Kick-drumming and Gulfstreams

We had an interesting gig last Sunday night. Besides someone's off-colour attempt at blood-letting, everything else went like a brightly lit ferris wheel. Which is a good thing. Very. We sold books, art and passed a shoebox to net some ringgit for our exchange project (now under the moniker Project Connect) and collected a neat sum at the end of the day. That night was a reminder of why we do what we do and why we carry on, despite continual empty pockets with only earnestness to run on.

Feeling much better today. Maybe it's the thought of having tomorrow all to myself. Or perhaps it's because I'm listening to Kings of Convenience now while waiting for dinner.

Been working on this: a storeroom of sorts, inspired by Miranda July.

Simply cannot wait for the semester to be over. Am (still) not graduating, but it will mark the end of them dreadful acting classes I took on a whim. And for that, I wait in anticipation for some kind of celebration.

With a blueberry cheese tart and a reaffirmed resolution to stick to theory-based subjects.