Drams of mulled thoughts

Kisses tell, beauty fades,
All dreams are but passionate charades.
Reason fails, Hope's wells run dry,
Evening's wishes are morning's lie.
Never mind - I love you still.

That dim and distant future

Well, the 7-weeks of torture have finally come to a crashing halt. A part of me survived - that die-hard never-say-never bit that shouldn't be left alone for too long.
Anyway - now this sounds awkward - I simply can't wait to get back to firms. Holidays a wonderful, splendid things and seem to be getting fewer and further between; getting to see one's family is a thing to be treasured. They arrived earlier in the evening, just as I was checking on the Mediterranean roast vegetables and Afghan lamb polo. A wonderfully almost-obsessively regimented round of banter didn't quite get to the question of WHERE to go for a short break. I usually return home for Christmas and I'm wonderfully chatty in the car on the way home from Changi airport; somehow that old, familiar element of leaving behind the term is lacking. Then again, the previously 'normal' eventual heartbreak of re-grafting oneself to a semi-independent state of near-self-reliance won't happen in the same way this time. I don't really know what I'm writing about - I'm just still so glad that the awful past is behind me and shan't catch up if I can do anything about it. It's time for mince pies and nothing is going to ruin that.
'The Constant Gardener' is a good film; certainly worth a watch. Don't be too harsh on the drug companies, though...anyway - can't wait for King Kong and Narnia.

Life's this game of inches

The inches we need are everywhere around us. They're in every break in the game, every minute, every second....
...We claw with our fingernails for that inch. Because we know when we add up all those inches that's going to make the fucking difference between winning and losing. Between livin' and dying. I'll tell you this in any fight it's the guy whose willing to die who's gonna win that inch , and I know that if I'm going to have any life anymore it's because I'm still willin to fight and die for that inch!

-Al Pacino, Any Given Sunday. Logan, J & Stone, O.

Nearly there

Give me strength - to finish.
To end. To finally bring this whole sorry episode to a close.
To go out with a bang. A big, big, big, big bang.

Dribble

It's time to stop when you begin watching Gordon Brown's pre-budget speech online. You should seek help when you find yourself listening to the Conservative rebuttals. However, it's too late when your mouse pointer hovers over the Lib Dem budget comments...

Innominate urge

Well, the longing has come rather early this year; I suppose it's because I shan't be returning until the summer. Just to place that order, "Satu kosong, satu telur" and slump into a plastic chair in my sandals watching the world go by as I wait. Like a turtle, returning to its home shores to lay a motherlode of eggs, year after year after year (what a beautiful analogy).
Life is just one long cover-up strategy, acting out a part you try your best to believe in, trying to remember the script before you mess up your lines. It might seem tired and rotten but, just remember the 'happy' things in those times of deep despair. Deep, deep down, somewhere past the hippocampus.
Find that pot of gold, be it full or simply just faintly fulfilling and hug it tightly, so in the moment of desolation when all around seems bleak and your path is blighted by fiery peril - you can set out firm, square up to it and summon that strength to pull yourself through.
Time to turn the corner, round the edge, cross the drawbridge and bring out the heavy artillery. It's them or me...and if I'm going down, at least I'll go out with a bang. A big one. Explosions always cause fireworks.