I am Alicia

And I think I've reclaimed my Kaleidospot

the end of the first moon

And on this end of the first month are thoughts of starting a new radio show and a concert I'm going to on Saturday and the envelope I need to buy for a friend's wedding and the calligraphy I'm about to do this afternoon all the while it appears through the distant distant window covered by office blinds that the outside is of a sunny sort and so a walk may be a dandy idea on a day in the office when work isn't so heavy on the shoulders and I have the awareness of blogging before the month's done. With thoughts and a sit-down session soon to come, I shall produce pieces more worthy of being read, rather than thinking out loud as I'm doing here like laundry that spin and spin and up and down the way soaked clothes splat.

city lights and the year end

城市在昏迷中被霎時喚醒
街上堆滿喜慶人群
串串燈影 段段廣告
逆流是那麼惹人妒忌
正當我浮游在冷暖之間
是誰暗裡向我挑戰
叫我上演一場短跑
在擠擁的行人天橋上
從一端閃到另一端並不算什麼
夜暮裡的維多利亞
只有你，明白我的心願

swine

They regurgitate what they’ve read from the newspapers about the race car driver’s death. They’ve absorbed all the reports on his accident, and have taken keen interest over the details of his insurance coverage and the government’s arrangements for transporting his body back to Hong Kong. They’re especially amused by the detail about a roasted pig being dropped to the floor before it was offered to the spirits…

The day before, race car driver Philip Yau of the Chevrolet team succumbed to his injuries after his car slammed into the wall during the touring cars qualifying race at the Macau Grand Prix. The day before yesterday, motorcyclist Luis Carreira lost his life in a race on the same circuit. (In the world of news, stories older than a day are dropped, no matter the gravity.)

I was in a dim-sum restaurant inside a casino-hotel in Macao. An extended family occupied the two big round tables next to me. There were aunties and subdued uncles and teenage-to-twenty-something cousins and a grandfather in the corner next to the Philipino helper. They looked to be on vacation from Hong Kong.

“I was so shocked I dropped my pork chop,” the woman was saying how the revving engines scared her at last year’s races. The cousins laughed and spoofed the act of a car zooming by and dropping a piece of pork. I looked across the extended family and saw they all had round pudgy faces. Then the headline of the day’s news became the topic of bantering. The women were quick to show their knowledge.

“No sane person would drive two hundred miles into a bend.”

“You just need to put on the breaks.”

“He modified his car. That’s why.”

“He modified his car too much.”

“They said he’s not that great a driver to begin with.”

“He was always just lucky.”

Their comments shot with food in their mouths. Faint giggles followed the ends of their utterances and the room was beginning to smell.

“He was over-confident.”

“He finished last the previous time and now he thought he could win.”

“Well, these people all have insurance.”

“Who would take him on?” This comment came from a young man amongst the clan.

“They’re all insured,” a woman was quick to provide, “by the company and they’ve signed all the waivers and everything…”

“Not true,” another auntie intercepted. “The Far East Daily said his insurance only covered some parts like his funeral.”

She cited the newspaper to strengthen her argument.

I never expect more than the basic from those eager to play expert based on information from newspapers. They are of a different world and will stay there. I was, instead, thinking about the moment he first wanted to be a race car driver or if he was somehow forced into the situation. I wondered if he had any distinct moments of joy from being victorious, and if he had to swallow cold words in times of not winning. I wondered if he had fear. I wanted to know how he met his wife and what they said to each other the last time they dined. I thought about the minutes from the collision to the hospital and if amidst the intensity of the physical pain, he saw his childhood replayed and was able to say he had been true to himself and that would be enough.

They were finishing their dishes.

I tried to think of constructive things that a herd of relatives can do on a vacation together and how apples ripen and drop from such a family tree, and whether they can roll away from the raunchy shades that engage them in nasal-heavy gossips.

Who would take him on?

Who would take him on?

Who would take him on?

To be able to open their mouths and eat what was good and make utterances of general interest that bounce back from relatives who also make sounds while putting food into their mouths is perhaps, to them, what it means to be truly alive, and it made no sense whatsoever that anyone should do anything outside of this and get himself into such a shame as death. And then there are those who truly live and live on.

that dusty dancing feeling at the streetcorner

She had one hand holding out a leaflet, the other hand carrying the rest of the pile. She stood against the wall, right at the street corner where people waited to cross. She didn't move. Her eyes were level with the cigarette ash atop the rubbish bin. It was getting dark.

"Take it. I don't care much for this restaurant and I don't care if you try it or not or toss it on the ground, and I don't know if the food's any good cos I've never tried, and it's not like you'd ask cos you're just as bored as I am just as the rest of them, but you see, I'm supposed to hand them out, so my hand is out, like this. Take it or leave it. I don't care. Whoever you are. I don't care. If I keep frozen I can completely disappear. If I keep my attention on one spot and one spot only, time will pass more quickly."

But it doesn't. And her leaflets don't get any lighter, and I don't know if people become more cheerful when given a discount at a restaurant, but they do walk faster when the green light blinks, and the longer you take, the faster it blinks.

We are conditioned to walk around those who give us paper on the street and , likewise, to stop when the light's red, and we become one of many waiting to cross the road. Then something crispy about the air gives someone like me this autumnish vibe as day turns to night, but dust is dust no matter the season or time of day, and there'll always be buses that stamp your toes and cigarette smoke that blows your way and construction destruction construction that make you shield your face and turn around and there she is, standing against the wall. She doesn't see me and she doesn't move.

Then she does this amazing thing where she's got one hand holding out a leaflet and the other clutching the rest of the pile while reaching into her pocket to take out her phone, and she starts sliding her thumb along that little frosty glare.

And there's that fluttering piece of paper between her fingertips. You don't walk around it the first time and stop and think and turn around, and certainly not at the intersection when the light is green, and all eyes and feet are set on getting to the other side.

outside the wall, egg

Earlier this year I gave a book to a friend cos her name is the same as a character in the novel. I doubt she read it but I wanted her to have it as a momento, and I had too many books on my shelf, but this one was special cos the back cover had a corner bitten off.

A few months ago I found the cover of the book printed on a tee shirt. I was browsing the wardrobe of the music shop when the shopkeeper said they didn't have a medium.

A few weeks ago I met my friend for dinner and though the book wasn't on my mind she said something that made me look to the table next to ours where a girl was working her slice of pizza with fork and knife, and her earlobe was a glossy stone of bright turquoise, and behind her were tables where people looked like cut-outs from magazines, decked out on patio chairs, bodies left out to dry, chests pointing the sky, and on each table was what they called a beer tower that reminded me of a lava lamp.

"Why not?" my friend said, and snapped my train of thoughts.

A few days ago I bought a tiny handmade book packaged in a plastic egg. Handwritten words on thin strips of paper held together by a thread and dare I say my favourite phrase, "encased in its own bubble."

A few hours ago I was thinking how the fighting in Syria and the presidential election should factor into my writing habits.

out of bounds

Sometimes you think you're in the driver's seat but you're not. It's like, you're driving, but you don't know what's driving you.

Sometimes you think you're changing the world by clicking around but others may be clicking you as they try to change their worlds which you'd like to think are the same worlds as yours. And are you changing anything or are things changing you.

Sometimes people think you're working but you're really playing in a way that looks like you're working cos you look so serious when you play and so casual when you work.

Sometimes you're telling a story but you're really only stringing sounds to make meaning or the people the moments the streetcorners the parks and sunsets and songs and strangers who fall asleep next to you are making meanings out of you who strive so hard to make this and that and words that fly off the page as though you aren't spectacular enough.