So about dancing. About projects. About body. About ...

I receive a lovely letter from Hofan in the mail today.
It was written earlier this month, in the midst, or probably nearing the end, of a three week long walking pilgrimage through France (my three pages have come from Cabrarets), apparently a fall activity shared by many. Oh Europe.

Hofan eats berries off bushes and fresh figs off trees during her daily average-five hour jaunts, nursing blistered feet and washing clothes for the next day come evening. Though immersed in an experiential pilgrimage and period of sort-of-solitude of an entirely different quality (I scavange newspapers from trash bins and pray for forgiveness for eating a leg of fried chicken that felt instantly to my teeth as GMO), I smile openly to myself that we share the same thoughts on our journeys, which I am grateful she has articulated so well:

"I do not know if I can claim to be happy or content but at least I can say I am not discontented or unhappy. I do find myself grateful for a myriad of small miracles: a peek of a rainbow, a juicy mulberry, a cobweb laced in dew. I laugh out lough when a funny thought occurs to me. It is good to have food when I am hungry, and a place to sleeeep when tired.

Yes I am grateful for this abundance."

Me too, Hofan. I, too, don't know if I am happy, but I am not unhappy. I don't know if I want to be -- if I could handle it. On the other hand, I do know that though I am not alone, I am lonely. Maybe I will always be lonely. I often consider it a sacrifice of my enjoyable solitude to follow or to lead dual or collective schedules, but I yearn beyond all else to be among kindreds.

My food anxiety of late is directly related to this, although thank God the flood gates opened, my anxious eggs wash upon plastic shores and I am relieved of all-consuming cravings. Apologies for the hideous poetry, although I find it kind of funny?!?! If you don't get what I'm talking about, please don't try!

My food anxiety of late is directly related to this. Is this sick, or is this normal, or is this normal for New York -- that when I want to treat myself, I do so not so much with food objects specifically, but with the social interaction it implicates. I treat myself to strong coffee and a pastry and a good read or write at a cafe. I treat myself to Chinese take-out and beer. I treat myself to crusty unsliced bread in spiced olive oil with red wine. I treat myself to a cigarette.

These are all "dates" with myself, and with the items of consumption that I would otherwise be enjoying with somebody else. The fact that I can accept this selfitude -- perhaps a better word than solitude, since I am not in actual fact isolated from human interaction -- not only as way of life, but as a preferred way of life (people are exhausting, as is the negotiation of 'fair trade' in energetic/social interaction) is worrisome to me ... but only a little. I trust that things will work out in the end.

****

So about dancing. About projects. About body.
My knees no longer suffer sporadic dull pains, whether sitting or walking or dancing.
My knees currently endure occassional sharp pains, sometimes sitting, sometimes walking, sometimes dancing. The good news is: the sharp is shorter, and easier to ignore. I'm serious!
They are stronger, though, and I do exercises to work to correct my alignment (my right knee is pronated quite severely inward) as well as to strengthen/lengthen my hamstrings and hip flexors to, as they say, "lift out of the knee", so I am surprised by the recent instances of new pain. Maybe it is transitional?

But I am also surprised about the development of my movement. I feel good about the progress of my technique. I am arriving at a comfortability about my body and the way I move. It is so much a work of mental concentration and calmness that its achievement is as satisfying in spirit as in physicality. Openness in the mind really does translate to openness in the joints and muscles, and hopefully, as Sally would advise in Yoga class, "openness between friends".

But I am no "born again," that is, I am still me -- I continue to yelp, sometimes swearing, when I get a little overwhelmed by a new move or by too much momentum. I'm still a little extreme, a touch out of control. I still put a lot of force into my movement, but I accept this as right for both who I am intrinsically -- my impatience combined with the force of my desire -- and for my age and level of experience in this form. I think it's a difficult thing to accept professionally -- that what "they" want may not be what one, as a performer, as a body, can give at a particular point in time, or the conundrum familiar to every industry: how can I get experience without experience? Here: how can I give them post-modern cool and quirky, when my body still wants large and lyrical? I think the comfort in this realization is in embracing and delivering one's desires of the present in the present. I think its true that you never know where you may be a week, if not a day, in the future, how you might change. This change, in the body, is always a surprise.

In terms of projects, it looks like I won't be doing Laura's kind of crazy Motown-singing kazoo-blowing piece about "Luh-ve" at Dixon Place in a couple weeks. Scheduling is hellish, and the other two dancing are her roommates, as well as, from my observation, her muses, who manage to read and translate her sometimes vague ideas like sugar translates cocoa. It's a match. It's a wavelength. It's a bit of relief, actually, on my part, although it would have been fun. We may still work together. Laura's still made of liquid steel, and we are still good friends.

Working with Keiko and with Jesse is great learning how to be in their way of thinking by trying to express their ways of moving. It's hard, sometimes, because the logic of individual expressive thinking is so specific -- why this syncopation? why this pause? how can i give them what they want, if what they want is for me to move like them? I mean, I have a lot more input into the process than that. But implicitly, I suppose in my role as eager performer, the pressure is there to perfect my rendering of them. In general, as an aid to my own improvisation and dancing, I really enjoy the specificity this tension encourages, the nuance, the detail. It's something I appreciate watching, so I am liking that I am learning to perform with such focus.

We're on break with Alice for a couple weeks, but I will still see her this weekend rolling around in peat moss and horse poo as I'm working tech crew on her performance in JoAnna Mendel Shaw's Equus Project (.org, if you're interested in details). It's taken me ten months here to get my name in a program, and it's under "Production". Still, seeing my name in print shocked me, and then I shocked me that it shocked me. It's just so ... brazen, so short, so up front: Melinda Lee. Don't get me wrong, I'm not disappointed. I like seeing my name like that, so succinct, so ambiguous, so undecorated. I just laugh at myself, because I think I entered this dance passion as a sort of dream of an ideal self that could be if I willed it strongly enough, someone elaborate, "deeeep", romantic ... someone coming from an identifiably ancient, sophisticated culture, of course: something dramatic. So seeing myself finally realized (that is, in the process of being realized) as a professional in this dream as, well, straight-up ME -- the Melinda Lee of credit card purchases and report cards and transcripts and half-hearted caffeine-soiled papers and internet sign-ups -- is somehow significant. If this makes it any clearer, I think I will feel the same way when I see my name printed in my sister's wedding program. Proud.

And lastly -- gosh, and it's already midnight -- there's the fledging though determined project trying to continue out of The Kitchen Summer Institute between myself, two dancers, and a Parsons Design student and his motion capture technology. I am getting crazy into dramaturging this, which I find highly enjoyable, and think it's good that the movement investigation is collaborative because otherwise I would take this bull by the horns so fast that I'd just as fast get swung off it and skulk off to the stands in a huff, abandoning the bull, the waiting audience, my otherwise promising future as a matadora. We're using the text and themes of Samuel Beckett's Not I, a monologue for a woman's mouth, and combined with my heavy personal investment in readings of phenomenology in the writings of Deleuze and Luce Irigaray, among others, I will admit to grand visions of playwrighting and directing and video work adding into this mix. We are applying for space grants and showing grants, etc. If I stick around long enough to make it happen, I actually think the premise and the talents are strong enough for this to be a successful experiemental piece. In the meantime, at least I have a driving force and outlet for my own mad creativity.

Nothing to say

Drinking cheap wine I get corked at the store because my corkscrews and switch-knives are always confiscated at airports, because what use are they in your check-in, what will you do when you need to slice a tomato for your impromptu sandwich whilst waiting out a lay-over in Zurich?

So much for packed lunch.

I think I might have spent 21 hours in the last two weeks cooking. That's a blatant lie -- that would be three hours a day. Um, every two days. I suppose it feels that significant because the hours I don't spend cooking I don't spend doing much else ... reportable. This is something I have to get used to in dance -- you cannot max out everyday. Your body will fail you. My usual average 5 hours in the studio daily is already pushing it.

So I've been cooking a lot. I bought a 3-cup rice cooker with steamer tray (cum vegetable strainer) for $21.95 (plus tax). I make brown rice to go in wraps, with lettuce and chick pea curry. I make brown rice to go with steamed vegetables and shiitake-ginger dressing. I make spaghetti al oglio to go with my cheap wine. Most ingredients come from farmer's market and Jack's 99 cent store. Did you know they have packaged ham and chicken breast and cottage cheese, not to mention olive oil and vinegared bell peppers? Granted, the chicken tastes like tuna (I'm convinced it is), but for 99c a pop, it's a steal.

Last week was healthy.
I discovered the irresitible bunches of basil for $1 at the market, and put it raw with everything: grilled chicken salad, mango-ham salad, sandwiches, curry. Fresh, red tomatoes with everything -- bliss.

This week was hormonal hell.
Unaccountable bouts of depression, cravings for fried foods, chocolate, dairy, and the equivalent of Tajikistan's annual requirement for carbohydrate.

[Tajikistan, Jumhurii Tojikiston: population 7,163,506. Borders China, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan. Slightly smaller than Wisconsin. Poorest in the region: GDP (@PPP) = $1,100 USD), although growing. Evidently, the geographic scope of my stomach. Incidentally, $1,100 is approximately what I spend in a month, if I don't go shopping or have to look nice for a wedding.]

Still, I've gone down a size, and wonder as I wander down the stairs past the mirrors lining the first floor hallway of my apartment building -- can this be it? Is this what I was looking for? Now, can I stop and be normal?

But that's also a lie. It's what I recognize as myself thinking, but it's not really what I'm thinking. I'm thinking it's a pleasant reward for the hard work I'm putting in to concretize my technique, one of the few things I ever really wanted ... for me. I still also want world peace. Hearing the troubles of returnees to Southern Sudan on the radio in the mornings doesn't help my confidence in post-modern/post-ideological dance-making assisting this desire.

So cooking -- again, an emotional outlet, which, once unsatisfactory (because the need became too strong, or because the coping became too weak a substitute), became a distraction and a crutch, which also equals a potential avenue for self-destruction. I've been very grouchy because of this inability to control my hungers this week. Sounds trite, but surely you can empathize. Who likes being willed against their better judgment?

Dream Diary, rated PG(13)

I fall asleep to Indie Arie, and seven hours later these bizarre events occur:

An outdoor barbeque in Hong Kong -- memories from my adolescence.
This leads somehow to an immense music talent audition held in a raked concert hall, like Lang*, only the organ is in the center. There is a director and a haughty Chinese woman with a boring mid-length straight hairstyle who plays piano and doubts that anyone talented enough will walk through the door.
Enter Tommy*, bearing a guitar and I think probably a homemade burrito wrapped in foil. He is optimistic, almost naive in this setting. Three other equally country-ish boys join him and they play a simple but happy folk song. Somehow the youngest of the group (I suppose now they are brothers?) is asked about his specific talent -- suddenly there is a large audience. He is asked to play piano. He's never learnt piano. But he will give it a shot, despite the odds. Everyone waits, chattering. The casual chatter amongst the crowd starts to turn cacophonous, when there erupts from the piano "DUN-DUN-DUN-DUHHHH ... DUN-DUN-DUN-DUHHHH ...." I've known this since the beginning of the scene, but this is a warped version of the discovery of Amadeus Mozart.
Now we are being treated to a concert by the discovered genius in cosy outdoor amphitheatre. Everyone is clamoured around the kingly/teacher/authority figure, an old blond woman. We have an argument about immigration, the difference between foreign nationals and expatriate Americans coming from Hong Kong to the States. This, disrupting the concert. I am angry.
Again, four boys, friends. A Steve Weintraub-y* figure is in trouble with his girlfriend because he has attempted to hawk off videos of the two of them having sex in 69 different positions. Somehow the colors here are dark turquoise, blue, green. The girl is blond. She is upset, but misses him greatly.
Cut to scene of angry parents of said girl: pillow-talk. Big, Oafy, Bearded father--frankly, looking a little like Bernie Saffran*, bless his soul--is livid about the treatment of his daughter. Elegant brunette wife seems to be trying to calm him down -- "don't take it down, take it up" -- when, in a sick twist, it is evident that she is encouraging his lust for revenge -- "Take it up to the cupboard, where you can use the extension cord." (implication: for strangulation)
Cut back to turquoisey bluey dormy room. Big, Oafy, Bearded father has snuck in to lay in wait for Steve Weintraub-y figure, and decides to hide in the closet. Somehow, miraculously, he fits.
"Steve" is repentant only in as much as he misses the girl desperately. There is an odd joviality and pride in his manner -- it is understood that he sought to share their intimacy as a testament to their great, genuine, love, not as exploitation. They are both unabashedly proud of their sexual feats. (maybe this is coming from the plot of Salman Rushdie's Shalimar The Clown, which I just read?)
Cut to flashback scene of their first time. This is pretty hot. Somehow, I have more of the viewpoint of the man.
Cut back to dorm room. There is a list, and people are lining up, signing up. Turns out, "Steve" is actually signing people up by number to purchase each of the 69 positions he and blond girl achieved, but he is doing this as a declaration of his continued love for her. B.O.B.Dad is still in closet, somehow softening. This ends happily.
Now we are in a large theatre watching a Broadway show. I am seated with my immediate family -- Mom, Dad, Sue. We are in the first few rows. It is a show I suppose based on the previous, um, love story, since everyone's singing about sex. I am busy critiquing the theatrical elements in my head. There is a Nutcracker-winter-like scene where everyone enters in white, and a revolving white-polka-dot gobo is swirling. Next scene is the big musical number. Lead is blond girl, and her name, stage or real I don't know, is "Kelly Rorque". Chorus of teenagers/children. Everyone still in white. That girl from Oliver Steele's class who has a sweet face, and sandy hair in two Chinagirl buns is in the chorus, as is an unfamiliar, but specific-looking young Chinese boy. They are all singing Kylie Minogue's Locomotion, except that the lyrics of the verse are all rhymes about sex. It's a little disturbing, kind of like the diarhhea-song, but more so.

I wake up.

Notes:
*Lang Concert Hall, award-winning performance venue situated in Swarthmore College.
*Tommy: Caucasian Vassar-graduate who is dancing in the piece with Alice. Works for a hedge fund. Short buzzed hair, prominent nose with a sharp angle at the top but bulbous nostrils. Nice guy.
*Steve Weintraub: NYU kid I went out with a couple times. Graduate student in Art History, straight out of Oberlin undergrad. Snooze. Jewish, brunette, here: a goatee, petite features, bright blue eyes. Slender. My age, looks alternatingly intelligent & sexy or Twelve.
*Professor Bernie Saffran: Swarthmore's much beloved and be-missed Economics guru, who passed away earlier this year.

***

Much like my deeply-lined palms, which contain many a unexposed revelation, anyone out there was to decipher my crazy dream?

The interesting thing about writing out a dream is that your judgments about the characters and their motivations is entirely inside-out, and are as critical to the shaping of the narrative as the sequence of events that occur. Meaning, as the author of your dream, you are simulataneously 'inside' each of the players even though you don't feel like you control what they do or what happens to them. Like when the reconciliation between "Steve" and the Blond Girl I know is happening only by the dissipating anger of the hidden Father. You have eyes in all places.

The deja-vu in dreams is such an interesting feeling: "I've been here before, yet it's not quite the same." The locales are all distorted memories of places I've actually experienced, and of such variety. Like my wardrobe, on the occasion that I actually take inventory. Something from everywhere around the globe.

PERFORMANCE REVIEW: Gerard Mosterd

Angin & Kamu/Jij
@ Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Center,
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
September 3rd, 2005, 8:30pm
Featuring Wendel Spier, Thao Nguyen, Loes Ruizeveld, Ederson Rodriguez Xavier, Ming Wei Poon
Choreography by Gerard Mosterd
____________________________________________________

A double header, this evening's presentation of Dutch-Indonesian choreographer Gerard Mosterd's identity crisis deals entirely with dualities and the indeterminacy of being in between.

First a solo, then a group work for "five dancers, five mosquito nets and a video beamer," both Angin and Kamu/Jij are dexterous demonstrations of how appropriate contemporary choreography can be to express and present ambiguities, grappling in the body, through space and symbol, the questions of what cannot yet be defined.

Yet this discovery is not in itself innovative. Mosterd's choreography on the whole carries an ambition that perhaps blinds itself to the nuances, thus the true sophistication, of the complex realities it is based upon.

Angin, performed by Singaporean, Amsterdam-based Ming Wei Poon, is described as "an autobiographical research on being blown in between two cultural backgrounds." It was the result of a collaboration between Mosterd and Japanese dancer Shintaro O-Ue, evidenced by the Butoh influence upon the opening scene.

Poon breathes heavily, shivers, and spasms as he falls into the window of light before him on an otherwise dark stage. Stepping back into the dark to regain control, this sequence repeats over and over, forward and across the space. In a somewhat facile representation of two worlds, the stage is divided by light into right and left halves which Poon oscillates between. Concluding his passage back and forth--being "blown in between"--the stage is lit more fully as a whole for another repetitive section of athletic, Graham-based modern sequencing which proves to be Poon's sole modus operandi.

Although satisfying in his technique, Poon lacks the emotional inspiration to express anything deeper about his situation or his character's cultural duality aside from the fact that it exists. The choreography furthermore fails to offer the dancer anything other than abstract movement that travels back and forth through the space, thereby rendering the piece nothing more than a thematic trope. What about being blown between? What about control? What about exclusion? What about isolation? The piece lacks specificity in its direction, and contrarily too little abandon in its movement.

Though with a similar formalism, a more discrete narrative emerges from Kamu/Jij. After a projected video-loop of a sensuous heterosexual partnering, the stage activity begins in indecision. Tilting silently in unison right and left, back and forth, the dancers act as a collective pendulum, counting down, it seems, until they break away and apart. Enigmatic vignettes ensue, cinematically 'cut' by black-outs between, depicting sex and romantic pursuit in a series of somewhat painfully pantomimed pas de deux. A trio of women become more frenetic as they weave through each other, in a complex spatial patterning that is one of the highlights of the piece. The five come together again, marking time. Two men enter as on a conveyor belt, improvising with snake-like body-rolls and spinal twists. The devastatingly entrancing Wendel Spier eats a rose. Finally, in an unclear development, all five dancers end up confined separately in hanging columns of mosquito net and, just as unclearly, fight their way out of the nets and flail, kicking and falling, to their spasmic end. Oh these 'post-modern' fashionistas, with their spiked hair and fuscia-painted eyelids -- they struggle to free themselves only to end in chaos!

Again, there is nothing new about Mosterd's concept. Then again, there is nothing new about an East-West cultural conflict. His book-ending revisit to the video-loop after the collapse of the staged world -- this time, with confusing added images of Javanese text -- further irritates in its adherence to rulebook choreography and its conflation of cultural specificities to iconic mores. West is abstract, (post-)modern, fabricated. East is ancient, tribal, authentic. Get a grip -- Clifford Geertz we are not.

Yet somewhere along this hour-long journey I felt something, and in this lies Mosterd's strengths: his patient use of time and periodicity, and his success in establishing place through consistency over time.

The world of Kamu/Jij is one of suspense, if not suspended animation. The disconnectedness of the scenes, and the disconnectedness of the movement vocabulary itself -- for the most part a staccato, stop-start gestural sequencing -- are well-suited to the theme of duality.

It results in the dancers appearing as programmed automatons -- I hesitate to say, 'dolls' -- which degrade or 'short-circuit' as they are wrenched between two worlds, two moralities, by indecision or conflict; they appear as to suffer an electromagnetic malfunction between like poles. Not only is the rapid point-to-point sequencing fascinating to watch, but as its awkwardness develops over time from otherworldly to lingua franca, we too sense that we have been trapped within the theatre in the confines of this limbo of in between. We feel a similar, and familiar wrenching -- that of confusion and unknowing.

Thus Kamu/Jij feels very much a continuation of the concept behind Angin, whereby the "subject of double moral" it seeks to deal with through the lens of public intimacy plays out rather as an inevitability of cross-cultural dualism.

Perhaps Mosterd would benefit from a further developed sound score to carry, rather than mire, the dancers through to a true climax, or find a way to intersperse the Javanese text -- in sound or in image -- throughout the piece so as to make that element relevant and meaningful. With movers so talented, and a structure so promising, the choreography needs only to battle through its own indecision in order to arrive as raw, as elegant, as truly contradictory as it wants to be.

Peptalk and politicking

Don't let anyone -- especially yourself -- ever tell you that your so-called passion may just be a colossal waste of time.
If they said it anyway --
Don't listen.
No matter what the statistics are -- and the incidence of failure is rated high in this field -- you are never a statistic to yourself and to the people that love you. And sometimes it's not even a case of needing to look around you to see who's at the front of the queue, or to feel better about yourself by glancing at those behind, and then calculate your odds. Sometimes, probably more often than conventionally thought, you just have to wait your turn. Pay attention, move forward with the line, cut if the opportunity avails. Most importantly -- check yourself before you even leave home. Don't get turned away after waiting because you forgot something crucial, like your passport for a flight, or your sense of play for a creative project.

It's been said, and with reason: one should pay more heed to one's own advice.

I hadn't been in a rehearsal for such a long time, until Monday. That's not an excuse, that's just self-exposition. It's also a directive. Rehearsal is not class. I have to learn to create without constant self-judgement and without guidance. No matter how fun the improvisation is, no matter if you haven't really found what you're looking for yet, by the time the choreographer says "set it" you've got to deliver the goods!

I like Alice. And again, for the second time, when I typed her name I mistakenly wrote "Alive". A flattering mistake to make, I reckon. Alice alive! She is my choreographer.

She lives up to the nickname. She has bright hazel eyes and a fauxhawk of wavy black that reveals some gray roots, salt-n-pepper. This chick is older than I remember. Then again, I only met her once in January where she took down my info after liking the way I warmed up for an audition. Does she notice that I've gotten a wee bit better, technically? Can she forgive that I'm a nutcase the instant I feel pressure to "set" a combination? Or is this just the three weeks off on family-duty, Peranakan food, and post-travel exhaustion? Why is it that I always get choreo-block trying to make phrases of my own (leading to mild frustration, the quiet, but intrusive question of What am I doing?!, and the pep talk above)?

The process has been fun and challenging, though thankfully not over my head. THe other dancers appear young, like me, but well-seasoned, and good. Alice's style of movement is totally compelling -- she has an acute awareness of the follow-through from initiation point to the rest of the body, resulting in awkward (I refrain from the too-often employed "idiosyncratic") but logical ripples, spirals, risky weight transfers. The jazzarina in her enjoys the occasional high leg, the hip hop in her gives her the stop-start "lock" control mechanism that adds subtle detail, thus, fullness to her phrasing. It is very satisfying movement. We have another three days this week of this workshop, then we'll meet weekly until the January production.


Because this is a blog, because the rise of the blogosphere is so lauded as the new media for democracy, because it's by nature discursive, I feel obliged to halt the "soft" stuff and get into a good session of Katrina politicking.
(a) who's not angry ... GET angry!
(b) my primary issue is with general incompetence, over racial prejudice -- I really feel the current administration is more clueless and arrestingly bureaucratic than it is vindictive. J'accuse: negligence and shameful idiocy, Your Honor. Bad leader! Bad puppy!
(c) for populist fun, visit http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2678975 to hear Kanye West use a live aid-appeal for his own agenda, or follow the link there to see the eager masses 'welcome' Dick Cheney to New Orleans. Think: Eddie Murphy being greeted on a dark street in Coming to America. Their responses are not too dissimilar.
(d) let's make it clear what policy responses we should hope for in response to Katrina, the hurricane itself:
(1) Save the marshlands of the Southern Gulf that act as buffer to the inland cities (and as an ecological treasure);
(2) Reduce carbon emissions to reduce global warming = reinstate Kyoto, quit pandering to the automobile industry, hell, revamp your entire energy policy;
Adding in Katrina, the emergency relief disaster:
(3) Fix FEMA!
(4) Get out of Iraq.

.....
A friend of mine here, a dancer, lost her step-grandfather to Katrina. She is five foot two and a powerhouse -- moves like her joints are made of jelly and her legs are made of steel and her heart is full of love and fire. He, her step-grandfather, was in the hospital at the time, on check-up for his Alzheimer's. Apparently when the hurricane hit New Orleans, the hospital lost electricity, had little food, and had to ration their water to three ounces per patient per day. For six days.

Six.
.....
Return to point (a), please.

A season for dying

September 6, 2005, 8:59am: SINGAPORE

Mum and Dad have just left this morning for London, where they will rent a car and drive down to Hove, near Brighton, joining my father’s four remaining siblings to bid farewell to the eldest of the flock. Lee Soo Bee, at age 71, has passed from earthly mezzo-soprano glory to godly glory, and as they mourn I celebrate a life so fully and adamantly lived.

It is the season for dying.

Or isn’t it always?

149 perish in an airplane crash in Medan. Thousands to tragic completion in the Southern Gulf. My grandfather, at last, at age 102.

This is what I see in the eyes of the grieving: the strain of self-control, redness, soreness, weeping capillaries which shed blood in order to not shed tears—-the internal negotiation of memory, guilt, propriety, and presence. Let the first to convulse be the nearest to the deceased, and the rest shall follow.

I hug Daddy in the swimming pool where we are trying to get him on a regimen to lose 30 pounds in three months. His cardiologist says he is on the borderline of having artery blockage. We’ve only completed six laps when Mum comes over with the news about Soo Bee, 13 years my father’s senior. My father is not an emotional man, but I see again the reddening corneal struggle that signals a growing and multilayered realization of loss, history, and of one’s own mortality. The struggle too is in placing the tenderness of the first above the fear of the last. Perhaps it is the middle, then, that mediates, the calmness of remembrance that is the still eye of the storm.

I was asked by my cousins to speak on behalf of the grandchildren at the second night of O-pa’s wake. The podium was not opened as it was on the previous night to unplanned eulogies, however, and we had to be satisfied with the ritual and characteristic restraint of a Methodist service. I was maddened by the impersonality of this farewell. Yet I was also overwhelmed by the intensity of our collective emotion as a family, and so maybe it was a good thing that I wasn’t called to the occasion. I think O-pa himself would probably have preferred it this way, as he was a man of staunch discipline and rigid, though loving, religion.


Here is what I might have said:

I am the seventh of my O-pa’s nine grandchildren. The first of his great-grand-children will be born in the next sixth months. He was 79 years old when I was born.

For us to know him so late in his life meant that we knew him as both legend and living. We knew that he was a teacher, principal, and father that commanded great respect. He was authoritative not only by his liberal use of the cane, but by demonstration of his own life that was led by disciplined commitment to God and family. He used to run a mile a day. He wouldn’t allow anyone to miss the nightly family meal. He would literally call every church in Singapore, searching, if one of the grandchildren in his custody didn’t come home right after Sunday service (sorry, O-pa!).

Yet to me, the greatest legacy he leaves is of his love. He was always a man of moderation, which made his excesses all the more meaningful. The unrelenting persistence of his courtship of my grandmother, for example, resulting in a 64-year-marriage. His sending away of his pregnant wife to the safety of Indonesia at the onset of the Second World War. The extravagant purchase of bridal jewelry for the wedding of his only daughter, my mother. The purchasing of his first family home under my grandmother’s name – a fact she did not know until she had to sign to sell it years later.

I relish all these stories as relics of a past that I, being born in modern Singapore, cannot touch. But there are more recent examples of his colonial mannerisms and humor that gave me a sense of him as a historical figure in real time. I recall the time he once described to me an upset of the stomach as, “a revolution in my tummy,” or how he would sometimes pronounce the end of his meal by clinking his spoon rapidly against his glass—-a schoolmaster even in the home. And he still had his standards of appropriate behaviour in his later years, for the raucousness of the family’s post-meal banter would often cause him to throw up his hands in displeasure, shaking his head declaring, “Enough! Enough!”

This was the O-pa I loved—-a living monument to history, integrity, and devotion. Yes, O-pa was ...monumental (at just over five feet). I thank him for living so long, for enduring the suffering of old age and the indignity of infirmity, because in doing so he grounded us in a sense of identity tied to ourselves as family and to our country that no government program, no textbook can give. For his life of faith I am always grateful.

O-ma turns 87 today. Usually jocular and casual, O-ma looks genuinely touched as my mother surprises her last night to wish her a happy birthday. She has, as my mother later notes, “begun to feel it.” She took little time to move her bed back into the master bedroom, where O-pa and his nurse used to stay, and to hire painters to redo the apartment. But now, in the dim desk lamp glow of the 13th evening after his passing, O-ma looks needy. I wish I could stay longer. I’ve always wished I could stay longer, while I continued to stay away. She still keeps a landscape photograph I sent her in 1998 on her dresser. She is staring at it meditatively when we walk into her room. It’s way past dinner – she’s already taken out her teeth. A sarong is wrapped tightly around her waist and loose button down shirt. I will visit her today for lunch, which I know makes her happy because I like listening to her talk, and I always finish my plate. She will complain about the misery of her diet, as her kidneys can’t sustain the intake of oils and fats of regular Singapore fare, and her diabetes won’t allow her much more than a few pieces of fruit for dessert. But her eyes will squint mischievously when she will steal something from my serving, and we will laugh and argue over her philosophies about love and other maladies.

I can’t wait to come home. Can she?

A post on dancing! Finally!

I showed Isaiah and Chaina how to do a headstand today. It was the longest and most graceful I've held a headstand yet -- I have quite a recent comfortability with being upside down, thanks to all the Pilates and core-strengthening I do. Looks like my technique is going somewhere. Looks like all I need is an audience to really execute. That, or the fact that I danced seven hours today. Takes a while to really get in your body, eh?

I realized today in class that I love Oliver. I'm not in love with Oliver, but I love the man's spirit in movement, I love that he exists and exists as a live human being who demonstrates that it is possible to reach the ecstatic in dance. That there is little way to decipher what erupts out of his body as technique at all, despite the high rond-de-jambes* and ballet vocabulary. I love that he's goofy and sensitive to his daughter's emotional rollercoasters, which, at age three (?), are frequent and sometimes inexplicable. I don't necessarily love that he gets turned on (kinetically - who knows how else) only, it seems, by 80s and early 90s hits. He's so Euro. But I think it's fun. It's satisfying to be in his class. And either I've become a super-groupie, or it's true what seems apparent to me that he is getting more "choreographic" in his final combinations.

* Non-dancey folk: rond-de-jambe is the rotation of one leg at the hip in a half-circle. It can be along the floor, or a fast circular kick in the air; torso straight or dipped in opposition the height of the foot. It is a ballet term, and classic ballet alignment would demand strict even balance in its execution, whereas in contemporary choreography the aim might be for the acting leg to pull the body off-balance, which would create momentum towards another movement. In musical theatre or more prescribed modern techniques such as Graham and Horton, there is the "fan kick". Think poofy skirts, bloomers, and cheers.

What do I mean by "choreographic" -- I mean that the combinations at the end are less intended to demonstrate the technique than to communicate an emotional or expressive meaning. I don't know if Oliver realizes he is doing this. I don't want to sound presumptuous, but with all the frustration he's had to deal with with his knee injury and his surgery next week, and whatever else is making life a little tougher these days, he's making more interesting art. He's making art. He's not just making sequences.

Funny that it's taken eight months of this blog to actually start writing about my dancing. This is why I started this blog in the first place (I think): dancer in New York, my new, though long-awaited skin. I scribble notes after every class, but usually it's a mix of text, stick-figure diagrams (w/ one triangle for the chest and one for the pelvis), and poetic inspiration. In other words, it's a horrible read. Thanks for bearing with me on this one. Detailing movement into words is quite taxing. Try it. Try describing everything that's going on in your body and everything your body is doing when you get up to brush your teeth. There -- you've just had your first composition class.

What's in a name?

I remember doing this exercise at age 14, at which point I promptly discovered the world of (many dead) porn stars and the ubiquitous usage of "Lee" as an often-Southern pseudonym. Thanks to Blog-Idol Joko (I'll still call you that, why not), here it is again as part time-waste, part soul-search activity: the Google "(name) is" hunt for self-definition:

MELINDA IS …

Melinda is worth watching if you like Woody Allen
Melinda is the wild one in an old college threesome
Melinda is perhaps an even bigger mess
Melinda is spreading her own sense of self-worth and value to these kids
MELINDA is a haunting tale of a young girl living alone in a world of rot and decay
MELINDA is now in-stock and is ready to ship upon your order
Melinda's is also known for scarves, hats, and handbags
Melinda is a neurotic, chain-smoking warning
Melinda is cute, flighty, and ready for love

MELINDA LEE IS …

Melinda Lee is a very popular radio host in California
Melinda Lee is an attractive enough woman, word on the street is that she is wrapped tighter than Martha Stewart receiving a bouquet of carnations
Melinda Lee is Vice President of Geosam Investments Limited, a private investment company based in Halifax, Nova Scotia
Melinda Lee is up early on a Wednesday morning to prepare egg rolls for frying.
Melinda Lee is a 20-year student of a variety of yoga and personal growth disciplines.
MELINDA LEE - IS HER GOOSE COOKED?
Melinda Lee is a dentist and a dancer of many disapplines.
"Melinda Lee is a warm, compassionate person who offers her clients knowledgeable techniques and is a spiritual light with her overall healing."
Melinda Lee is a delicious recipe that you can cook quickly and easily.
Melinda Lee is one of thousands in the Recipes-to-go Ethnic Cookbook.
Melinda Lee is the most dedicated and committed person we have ever worked with
Melinda Lee is on VHS or DVD, or possibly Pay-per-view.

MEL LEE IS …

Mel, Lee is at it again
Mel Lee is talking crap

Another sense of home

This is quick. I just want to get this off my chest.

I come home tonight -- somehow, everyone's excited. At 42nd St in my train change-over there is a dark, dirty man (darker from dirt, probably) sitting with a hat for change and three disgustingly dirty and wet kittens. How recently were they born? Does their mother there not care when Dark Man grabs the wettest of the kittens to polish with his shirt, with as much vigor as one might do tarnished silverware? So there is this 'event', as precursor to the show that's actually drawing crowds ten feet away. It's a crew of breakers I have not before seen, at the usual spot where the Christian Scientists yell at you to take their free stress tests. If you ever need to get stressed -- see them. They will yell at you. Ok, but there's a bigmungous crowd around these breakers, firstly because they have enlisted a plastic-bucket drummer -- you've seen him, he's usually busking on the other side of the station -- as their beatbox, and secondly, primarily, they are all shirtless and beautifully RIPPED. I indulged in a free ogle, before they could enlist me to stand still with three sweaty tourists while one of them would vault over our heads and then yell at us for money to have experienced this in 90 degree heat. All respect to these boys who do this to make ends meet (and who have eight-packs). But I'm not hanging around for this one.



OK, so finally home to 136th and broadway, and still, everyone's excited. There's an extraordinary wait at my late-night deli of choice because, for whatever reason, some woman with painted eyebrows is buying ALL her groceries ... at 11:30pm ... probably for her entire family. The counter that is usually graced by no more than ten items a customer is LOADED. Some adolescent brown boy with the body shape of that pink-blob character in Sponge Bob cuts in front of me to buy a lottery scratch card. Ok. So I get out finally with juice to freeze for tomorrow's insta-sweat that is morning class with Oliver (quel j'adore!), and bread, and pineapple (mmm!) and plaintain chips to go with the guacomole that I am going to make. 8 dollars. Yipes. And you know I'll blast through the juice in two days flat.

Shit! So my point! I get home, Tito's hanging on the doorstep with some ladies I don't recognize but who probably live here. He lets me pass, but leaps past me on the stairwell like a child who just got candy -- I make fun of his talking up the ladies, and he's only half talking to me (the other half in his head -- both of them) when he sputters out: "only the middle one! I've been in love wid'her since I was eight ... no, six ..." Tito leaves the door open for me as I, not so much in love after being brushed off by aforementioned boy over the phone yesterday, trudge heavily one step at a time to apartment 15.

Rosario (why is she not Rosaria?) is sweeping -- I love when she calls out to me, "Meh-leenda, Meh-leenda!", this time to express how tired she is (in Spanish). I'm tired too, too tired to attempt a "yo tambien." I reply in English. It's chill.

Excited. Everyone's excited. Plenty o'kids around, I know them, they're related, or live in the building, they are as free here as they are in their own family homes. I am about to pour juice to freeze in my Nalgene and make guacomole and slice a tomato when I see Little Guy waddle towards me. Little Guy is Howie (they say: "ow-ee", so that's what I'm pretending his name is written down). Howie turned two a couple months ago, he's the two-year-old I tell people is a ghetto superstar when I explain what it's like living here. He's young enough to not be afraid to enter my room, and previously we had bonded over his trying on of my shoes. This is a beautiful child. More so to me, tonight, because he recognizes me -- he lives here intermittently -- exclaims recognition, and waddles up to hold my hand. We play our shoe game again -- I give him my sandles to wear, which he does competently (the middle thread sitting snugly between his Little Big Toe and his Little Second Toe), he looks up at me with a confused expression on his face -- too much English? -- but nods when I ask him questions.

Howie's innocent affection frees up all the other kids to interact with me more. And this is the point I am finally getting to. Isaiah tells me about his girlfriend at school. Chaina is excitedly running into the other room to explain in Spanish how Howie is holding my hand. The other little girl, the sweetheart, smiles coyly and just goes with the flow. Howie wants some guacomole. I think it's more that he wants whatever object seems to have drawn my left hand's attention away from his right. He's possessive that way. I like these kids. I like kids. I haven't spent enough time with any to get exhausted to the point of anger -- maybe this is why I don't force time with them. But I enjoy kids.

And I wish I could have hugged these kids ten minutes after our guacomole episode and told them that they did nothing wrong by being boisterous kids, even though Mummy screamed at them, restrained them with her harpee-shriek, and then with her beating hand. She is the one who just gave birth again. She's not had it easy. It's not easy living so tightly together. I get a feeling she never really wanted kids, but it pleases her mother and its what she's supposed to do. But she's become more vicious lately, especially with Isaiah, who loves her dearly, and what I had to get off my chest tonight, before washing the garlic smell truly off my fingertips or bathing my sweaty self, is the feeling I had gurgling inside me while washing my dishes with my back to the sounds of her abuse. This was not discipline, when at other times, her harshness and occasional violence is. I don't pretend to sit on some pedastal of humanitarian concern when it comes to how someone must discipline their kids. But tonight was arbitrary, and somehow I am involved. I'm that kid from next door who got all the kids here in trouble. I'm the one who got them to overstep their bounds, because tonight, everyone in the city was excited. I was inappropriately friendly, and we were having a good time, and somehow that was against the harpee's house rules.

This is only mild tension. So far. And I obey, as did they. I stop talking to the kids, who have all been relegated to their room anyway, the door closed behind them. Howie is left, but follows Tito who distracts him away from crying about my tomato that he can't reach. And I wash a little apple for a pre-bed snack. And I walk into my room, and shut the door. Lifting the screen of my laptop, I wake up a portal to another world and live within my four white walls and this cyberworld alone. The apartment is silent.

I don't know what it is that I represent to her -- God, I don't even know her name, so maybe it's that, and every other similar indication that I don't, won't, can't belong -- but sometimes I think she hates me. No, that's a lot of emotion. She doesn't care about me that much. But I do think she thinks I'm not someone she wants influencing her kids. And I close my door.

This is where I live.
It's starting to feel a little more like a home, in all the senses of that word.

For my fellow 40-yr-foodies: Thoughts on Singapore from her vagrant offspring

In a pure coincidence of timing, I believe, rather than national pride, Tiger Beer sponsored it's Second Annual Tiger Beer Singapore Chilli Crab Festival in DUMBO, Brooklyn, on Sunday, August 7th, and Singapore itself celebrated its 40th birthday today, Tuesday August 9th. In another remarkable coincidence, I, a Singaporean, was born on a Tuesday.

In March.

Not so much hung over as exhausted and day-dreaming a la fluffy-clouds-with-a-little-bit-of-naughty about a cute boy from the night before, I nevertheless trekked via three differently colored train lines to fulfill the "false consciousness" of my national identity. Nothing would stop me from eating Chilli Crab in New York. Not Anna's last days in town. Not the M.I.A. concert in Central Park. Not Meredith Tsumba, who happily came along instead of going home to Philly to rockclimb. Thank God for Meredith.
We arrive via a stinky cobblestone street to jugglers, an inflatable jungle gym, and an elevated boxing ring. Meredith and I both have raised eyebrows questioning the "authenticity" of this "Singaporean" fair, but then I am quick to relate to Meredith that if the tinny music from the live band at the other end of the street sounds like cheesy import, this event is very much of my country. Welcome home. What time was that M.I.A. concert again?

But a Singaporean cannot deny her stomach. Or her own forceful boxing match with death, which is what the Chilli Crab experience is, occuring in your mouth which can only occasion the odd inhaling "tssss" and exhaling "ahhhh" at extreme moments of pleasurable pain. Here, I was reminded of my childhood memory of wondering if my father would survive another East Coast evening, bowl and bread in one hand, assuaging handkerchief to forehead in the other. I am also made soon aware of the fact that I am happy they did not give us larger bowls despite the $4 price tag. "Death by Chilli Crab," along with "Love in Ice Kacang," are part of the larger poetry of Singapore's deep existential and sensual affinity with its dishes.

So "tssss" and "ahhhh" I did, sucking and slobbering and getting crab shell stuck inbetween my teeth. Of course, too, I am sweating, and of course, with oily, chilli-bloodied fingers, I use the backs of my hands if not my wrists to wipe the droplets away. Now THIS is what I call "Singaporean." My also $4 Tiger Beer served in a plastic cup, my friends, is NOT. But what can you do: glass in the customer's hands is fine, I suppose, in a country where a fistfight cum bottle-brawl is about as likely as a cold front 3 degrees north of the equator. Were I telling you this live, now is when I would shrug my shoulders -- fingers face-up, of course, to avoid any sauce-drippage from my Chilli Crabbed hands.

On the occasion of "our" 40th year of independence, what does it mean to be Singaporean? Evidenced from this event, to be Singaporean is to be:

(1) painfully but necessarily bureaucratic. My $10 meal required -- OF COURSE -- me to wait in FOUR separate lines: one, to buy the food and beverage tickets that would enable me to purchase food, and one for each food or beverage item. (dessert was pulut serikaya, which they called something else, which is a two-layer "cake" of sweet sticky rice and steamed pandan-flavored coconut milk -- almost like flan)

(2) shamelessly syncretic. This event was not the "Singaporean street market" I was promised. Or was it? Hamburgers, corn on the cob, and Vietnamese summer rolls were about the only other food offerings to those who dared not the slobberingness of the admittedly authentically spiced Chilli Crab (I've venerated it so much, I seem unable to pronounce its name without capitalizing it). Oh, and there was roti prata with thin curry. OK. But where was my satay man? Where was my Indian mee goreng? Where was my whatever-it's-called, those little pyramid-shaped steamed desserty things wrapped in banana leaf? Teary-eyed (haha), I am getting nostalgic now for my "real" Singapore hawker centres and street markets, like Clarke Quay, like Lau Pa Sat ... ... ... which are all constructions of the Tourism Board in the first place. None is so manicured as Singapore. None is so artfully and intentionally designed. The absence of hamburger or corn on the cob in a real Singapore food-venue would actually represent a failure in product diversification. There's always money to be made on novelty, not to mention from the visiting tourists who "tah boleh tahan" (cannot withstand) our insane penchant for killer spice. Then again ... could someone from Tiger Beer please explain to me why there was a mini-faux-WWF match going on in the boxing ring? According to Meredith: "I like that they're shirtless." Still, what is that, for the double-nipple-pierced "Red Dragon" to be nothing more than a body-slamming Caucasian in YellowFace?

(3) it is finally, and fundamentally Singaporean, to be absent.
I was outnumbered in my own street fair. Yes, it was interesting for once to have the faces behind the Asian ladles white. Yes, we are, all fantasies aside, in Brooklyn. Yes, it is difficult for a combined population of 4 million to have any sort of critical mass at any diaspora event. But where are the Singaporeans in this patchwork event? And will someone please get them to turn the 60s music down a notch?

***

Why don't we ask a "real" Singaporean while I sob away my disappointment and cultural isolation into a bowl of ...

Why don't we ask my mother. Hi Mum -- did you expect to be quoted here?

My mother sends me a lovely email with pertinent -- Biblical, as well as non-Biblical -- pick-me-ups to have me appreciate our 40 years, and who I am on that spectrum.

She writes:

We're really a nation of immigrants, and still receiving new immigrants each day into our ranks. Your heritage is from that stock. Opa's grandfather came from China to Malacca; his father moved to Singapore. Oma found Opa's marriage proposal very attractive as it would mean, among other reasons, she could leave Indonesia, the adopted land of her parents. Kong-kong's parents came from China, while Ma-ma had a longer run as a descendant of immigrants! Of your parents' generation, 50% of Dad's siblings made a life elsewhere (A. Soo Bee, A. Kim, A. Julie)!!! I've recently met several people our age, and their grown-up children are mostly settled or working in other countries!!!

Methinks our "affinity" with America and many things American comes from the same immigrant-stock mentality and heritage. It's the spirit of venturing out to make a new and better life, a "can-do" attitude and spirit, seeking new opportunites, carving out/pioneering niches, etc. And see what they've become in a short span of 200 plus years!! We've just finished 40!!!

Dad used to quote me pithily "Home is where your heart is" whenever I baulked during our early married life overseas in Bangkok, however even now, I think I can still venture elsewhere if there's a purpose for it...!

Firstly: I love you Mummy!
Secondly: "pithily" -- now there's a word that is somewhat awkward to use in daily speech. My mum is quite a good writer, only she doesn't really have the patience for it. But "pithily" and "baulked" -- which, for all you Yanks, has a 'u' in its British variant -- in one sentence do much to explain how it is my mother has won every - single - family - Scrabble - match in living memory. Even when I got a seven-letter 50-pt bonus for something beginning with 'V' that I can't remember. Seems impossible, but true!
Thirdly: So what does it mean to be Singaporean.
How can I continue to be one if I stay longer and longer away.
Does being one require being recognized as such by other Singaporeans -- which I already am not. I can "act" Singaporean," much in the same way that I "act" American, only -- not as successfully. If these countries were people, I could say that I have learned their senses of humor -- which I think, on the level of personality, is an instant indicator and therefore, point of access.
Somehow, Evita runs through my head: "Don't cry for me (insert) SINGAPURA ...!!! THE TRUTH IS I NEEEEH-VER LEFT YOU ... all through my wild days ... my mad existence ... I kept my promise .... donch kipp yaw distansss ..."

It's 12:07 now, August 10th. Singapore's 40th birthday, well-over on that little island, is now officially over for one of her furthest children: me. I'm going to let go the tragicomedy that is my identity crisis and suck my fingers to sleep in memory of a saucy, spicy, moment of "home".
.......................
.... or of a similarly saucy, not quite so spicy boy who still hasn't called me now three days later.
.... isn't there something else they say about Singaporeans? That we're sexually repre---
*THIS BLOGPOST HAS BEEN TERMINATED BY THE SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT UNIT CENSORY BOARD. WE APOLOGIZE FOR ANY INCONVINIENCE CAUSED, AND HOPE THAT YOU WILL ENGAGE YOUR SEXUALITIES AS MUCH AS IS NECESSARY TO GET MARRIED AND HAVE 2.7 CHILDREN -- THAT IS, IF YOU ARE CHINESE AND HAVE A TERTIARY EDUCATION, BECAUSE YOU ARE LAGGING BEHIND.*

*THANK YOU. TERIMAH KASIH. XIE XIE. (~~~?~~tamil?~~~~)*


*P.S. LAST TO ROBERTSON'S ANNUAL SALE IS A DURIAN-HEAD!*

Or ... maybe not ...

... yet.

I've just been offered three shows in two days, shows with people I like and respect as artists, projects I actually want to do. Projects in New York. Projects well into the beginning of 2006. I will even get money for them. THis is like resolving to leave your boyfriend and having him come weeping at your threshold, cajoling you to take him back, just one more time ...
And you want to.
You want to throw yourself at him, rip his clothes off with your teeth, and forget every humiliation you made yourself ever go through because of him. Because, perhaps, of what you saw yourself to be while with him -- but is that really your fault?
And you're happy. You're happy with the idea that you could have not one but three excuses to linger on, living this half-life, dreaming of discovery, and failing which, at least a six-pack with which to nab a rich husband and deliver his babies if it all came to that.
And this is the most irrational of loves or fantasies. There's not even enough money to go around in the dance industry to imagine 'making it' and being rich. Sandra Bullock worked at an ice cream palour for two years, eating ice cream day in and day out because she couldn't afford to buy outside food. Now, she makes $20 mil a movie. (Thanks, Tami Chiu and US Weekly for this information) This cannot exist in the dance world. Here, you dream of dancing your guts out, of taking a literal beating to your body for a living (honestly, this is what my quads feel like today), so you can find a choreographer who would do this to you even more. Maybe I shouldn't be so surprised I attempted playing rugby in my freshman year -- both activities draw blood.
Let me do myself some justice, though, with revealing what is the real dream -- the real dream is to work with a visionary and to be involved in the production of a cultural artefact that is ... interesting, enlivening, fucking revolutionary. It's to be involved in something that changes how people see their world. Yes: visionary is the dream.
I no longer feel reactionarily defensive about my country v. American behemoth. Obviously, some dreams, like Singapore qualifying for the World Cup by 2012, or New York hosting the summer Olympics, cannot be fulfilled under certain circumstances. Can Melinda grow, *as a dancer*, amongst 4 million people, with no significant contemporary choreographers to speak of? OR DO I JUST NOT KNOW? AND I WILL NEVER KNOW, JUST LIKE I NEVER KNEW ABOUT NEW YORK, UNTIL I FIND OUT FOR MYSELF.

So ... is it time?





Oh, and I was wrong -- in our language of signage, I mistook the fact that the baby was born at 2 am for my impression that there were born two babies. There is, in fact, only one. And she and Mother are back in the home -- let's hope I might get some sleep amidst the crucifying heat and the noise.

Beginning the repatriation

"Meh-leenda, Meh-leenda!"
"Si?" I reply, pitifully ignorant of anything else Spanish.

My host mom/landlady's eldest daughter delivered twins today -- her third and fourth children. I have until now thought that she is cow-like in many respects, that she is vulgar and harsh, and yes -- she is rather bitchy. But she just gave birth to twins! Last night I had another few moments of bonding with Tito, the eldest son, and I laugh with her own rambunctious giggle when Rosario (landlady) reveals to me that she has a sty in her eye -- as do many of her friends who all live in this building. It seems like just when I am getting ready to leave, I am beginning to feel much more at home. And if only I spoke Spanish ... I suppose I dream that I could have been more meaningful to this family, and they to me.

But it seems that the world is conspiring to send me home -- if a China Airlines one-way ticket in September only costs $571, including taxes and fees, then I believe God has spoken. God ... how he becomes such a daunting figure in my conception of what life will be like at home ... were I to suddenly face an American judiciary in the attempt to receive asylum, I would claim religious persecution in the form of traditional, hierarchical religious familial social structures that make my love life impossible and my own spiritual quests faddish. Oh yes -- doubt not the invasiveness of the Methodist public eye.

I jest -- I obviously released it and myself from our awkward relationship, although in light of my current career path it will somehow be made known that my directorial debut was for a Christmas outreach musical at the Drama Center on Fort Canning Road in December of 1999. Various house plants from my home served as setting, alongside a few risers (for the angel choir, of course) and some fancy scrim hanging from the flys for some heavenly effect. It seems fabric on the stage was my motif at the time -- note massive white cloths stretched across the UWC stage, black-clad (what else -- my piece was modern dance after all) younglings crawling beneath. Oh yes -- these are the memories I face in trying to return to Singapore as an artist. These are the tales of ambition without true knowledge or guidance, that I have nursed yet tried to forget while I've been away de/reconstructing myself. These are demons I face, alongside my fear of not being any thinner than when I left.

Stupid!

At least Andy has left, stranded himself back in Seven Oaks in order to booze with his now married friends and write and attempt to publish his first novel. It's really his third. My name, my Chinese name, was used in his first one, which he says was of course shit and will let no one read it. Should I have found it inappropriate for my high school drama teacher, who I of course was semi-in-love with (except that he talked rudely to most anyone brown, which I will not forget), took the name that I had never really come to associate with myself for his first, shitty novel? Should I be madder still that he never let me read the second one?

I suppose I can wait until this third, or the fourth, or never and he will relent on his death bed. Then again, this is the man who stood before an assortment of 200-odd 12th graders to proclaim, "If there is a God, let him strike me dead." I don't think I was alone in thinking at the time that Andy was only saved by the fact that he did not end with "now."

So Andy, the teacher that carved out my passions during my four years in Singapore as an adolescent, is no longer there, which is good because I will have to stand for myself, and not so good, because I would like to have a beer and banter with the man. The older I got, the less I took his bullshit, but the back and forth is always fun, and he will always win because he simply has more facts. Obscure facts. British facts. I really do wonder what Andy was like at a young age. I would like to be able to picture his interactions with his first girlfriend, and his first boyfriend. I expect he is very much in the gay camp now, but I recall him never denying that he has liked girls. Oh, then there was that cast party at his place when Amanda Mitchell gave him a genuine, sincere hug, and somehow that was scandalous. Other scandalous things were going on then. Angela was in love with him. Scandalous things were the lifeblood of UWC seniors reason for existence. And I will admit, I was almost proud of the fact that I managed to weasle my way into the club, even if it was only justifiable to them and to me under the acting umbrella. Don't adolescents take themselves too seriously ...

I am praying silently to myself that Andy and Amanda never read this blog, although Christina-now-married might, so I hope she will laugh. THe rest of you -- my American friends -- will just know more of how bizarre, or rather, tabloid-like growing up in an international school on a tropical island can be. And you doubted I was superficial ...

All that said, I am excited to meet up with Russel Britton for dinner tomorrow night. He was an excellent, fucking hilarious comedy actor in our time at school, and also reliable and trustworthy as a colleague and friend. I believe he was editor something-or-other when I headed the yearbook. He's Australian. Has a sister. His mum was the master school bus lady, and liked to wear large floral print, particulary with colors that augmented her crest of permed silver-grey hair. Russell is one of the few from UWC who came to the States rather than to Australia or England, and ended up in hotel management. That's what he's doing now. He came out in college -- see what the Americans do to you? JOKE -- though I don't know what's up with this girl he's visiting here in New York is about.

And so all this stream of consciousness to say that I am closer than ever to actually leaving in a month, and I'm scared. I'm frightened most of all of having any sort of responsibility, which is funny, considering who all the people I mentioned above have always conceived me to be. Smart. Ambitious. Reliant on responsibility to keep her sane and unalone. Quoting Shouri, another "lost-and-found" friend: "You, of all people, could have been anything you wanted to be." Weren't we all, when the future was nothing but possibility and hope?

And now ...?

July 5th, 2005

It's my dad's birthday today! Yay Daddy!

Tomorrow, I will attempt to review my resume - again - and conduct a job search that will not rupture my newly casted self-esteem.

It's not that I'm at the point where I even think that "I don't know what I'm doing with my life." This, currently, is my life. I am living it. I am trying to instill in myself the traits of adherence to discipline, patience (=long-range perspective), and self-organization, the lack of which have previously made me a nutcase. However, I am at the place where I cannot yet say that I do know what I am working towards. I am not yet justifiable.

[What in, you ask? Hell, I don't even know which country. Communications? Development? Oh yeah, the arts, I mean, yes, that was the intention. Shit. Tonight's agenda was simply recuperating my blistered feet!]

My friend Joko has a blog that uses many fewer undigestible multisyllabic words, such as is my unavoidable domain. Joko had a traumatic weekend. Sorry, Jo. Like I said -- Morenos at $0.85 a can, or more Summer Ale in Tribeca, whatever it takes, K?

Macy's fireworks for 4th of July were ill-choreographed to my mind's eye. Still, I got a coupla nice pictures.

I'm only on the first chapter of Bobos in Paradise, but already I think it should be required reading for internationals entering the American tertiary education circuit. If I'd done it, I may have realized much sooner, and with greater clarity, how to negotiate my role and the game at hand within a more meritocratic system than that of my elite private international school background previously. I might not have ranted at the elitism of my college if I'd realized what revolutionary changes had occurred in the last half century. It can be said that I've taken much for granted in my exposure to the world. I might also have benefited from simply reading American history, if I hadn't thought that to do so would have been to subscribe to the imperialism/hegemony of American culture. One wonders, then, why I came in the first place. And isn't this my issue now, as always, that I am procrastinating, rather, stalling from starting a mature life in the States because I somehow didn't want to in the first place? What's wrong with me?

On beauty

The subway tonight from 18th to 136th was more interesting than usual -- it's Gay Pride day, so the multicolor bedecked and beaded added unexpected verve to the otherwise long and bleak ride home. Not tired enough to sleep, not eager enough to read (more about string theory -- I've run out of fiction), I was left to unashamed people watching. Widening my eyes in the attempt to make myself look more childlike and therefore, innocent or even endearing, rather than intrusive, I was graced with the thorough range of returnees from summer Sunday soiree adventurers of Chelsea, midtown, and beyond. And intelligent looking interracial couple -- spectacled brown Chinese, perhaps, and his Indian wife -- with sleeping children, still angelic though long limbed and much older than babes. I am unsure if I am seeing a romantic vision of what I want to believe in, or what I am genuinely intuiting from the moment, but given that these children were stunning, aesthetically, and their parents more along the lines of indescript, I begin hypothesizing on the quality and strength of the parent's relationship, reflected in the faces of the fruits of that union. Of that "unit".

["Unit" -- Duleesha this weekend dropped quickly in conversation the struggle of others to learn to live "as a unit" when in a relationship. Partnership. For all my image of a tough exterior, I know why that choice of word sticks with me as no man or friend has. It is the idea of unification, or union, fusion, that is my dream and motivation for existence. Am I talking about soulmate? I am talking about something less grand, more real than that. Am I talking about companionship? I am talking about something more lofty, that is, elevated, than that. I am talking in my new framework shaped by recently (ravenously) finishing Atlas Shrugged -- I am talking about reaching the height of personal egotistical achievement, and of finding your match in that height, at that height. The day I surrender to union into unit will be a happy one, because I know I will not fear losing, or selling out on, myself.]

The subway tonight is filled with beautiful people. This is not because of the sparkle and brightness of Made in China beads. It was because many in that train car were going home from having enjoyed themselves, as combined units, whether the brown family across from me or the black dual-dread-locked lesbian post-parade nappers to my side. It was evident from the quietness of the car that people had exhausted themselves, drunk on joy, alcohol, Pride, each other, and summer sun. There was peace in this car.

There was also random beauty, ever shifting glimpses of human design or crafting with the rearrangement of bodies at every stop. In particular I was blessed with the vision of a man's startling hands, large, muscular, veiny, unscarred. His knuckles ever 10 inches from my face, fist clenched around the pole at my side, yes I found these hands sexual, but more so they were sculptural, they were artful. They were beautiful.

I was drawn to recall the time I found myself chilly in a bra and designer jeans (and chopsticks in my hair) in the attic of a ceramics store in Poland. It was a photo shoot, I was a dancing cultural oddity, but more importantly this was where figurines of Mother Maria and Christ were casted en masse for churches and homes. In the yard downstairs one was faced with rows of pious faces and bodies, even to lifesize, companions to the terracotta warriors (praying on the sideslines of battle?). I was drawn to remember this awesome experience because it was up there in the attic that one found broken hands in supplication or prayer, parts of angel's wings and chipped angel bottoms; it was where they kept the damaged products. I remember being made to feel ... devotional, for the scattered beauty, because every part then had a uniqueness, and you had to be active in finding it and defining its beauty and courage. I want to be clear -- I was not awed by "brokenness". Maybe I appreciated the broken all the more because I became relevant to it's beauty when beauty was not self-evident. How could I relate to absolute perfectness, except for by worship and supplication? ... that is, if I have not reached perfectness ...?

So in the number 1 train I am searching, I am becoming an active participant in the acknowledgement of humanity's beauty. I am not only noting human body parts (I am getting conscious of the hand-man being conscious of me lusting over his gorgeous fists), but also of material encasements, shoes in particular. Maybe because of the image of the mountains of shoes at Auschwitz -- this is what's going through my head, not in a sentimental, but a factual way, because upon staring at angel-boy-child's sandals I think about what his toothbrush looks like. Odd-looking tall old white man at the conductor's door is wearing white sneakers, from which emerge lanky white calves with a literal topography of veins bursting from beneath the skin. Some girl over to my right I don't even look to see her face because I am so drawn to her lime green leather butterfly-adorned fashion sandals. I think they're a little much. I am wearing black pseudo-suede Marie Claire cloggy-booty things, bought from Bata near Raffles City (Singapore) in 2003. How is it that I can remember such insignificant details?

[Note: Raffles City is not a city in Singapore. Singapore is a city. One big city. Raffles City is the name of a mall, near Raffles Hotel, which you (non-Singaporean) may have heard of because Winston Churchill had a drink there called the Singapore Sling. I drank a Singapore Sling with Norwegian scholar friends after our high school graduation. Not a great drink -- sweet, with tropical fruits is all. You know, orange wedge and miniature umbrella and all that. My new favorite drink, as of yesterday night, is the Mad for Mex Big Azz Margarita, which wallops five shots of tequila and two shots of triple sec in a 24 oz glass for $6. $6! I was near falling over myself with just one! Just another one of the many fantastic things that my blog-idol JOKO has introduced me to! Hi Jo! Look, here you are again! SUE, I'll put you in, too! DON'T ATTEMPT THIS DRINK! You'd be asleep on the bar counter faster than the desperate guy next to you can fall over and catch his glass face-up!]

It's past midnight. I have to go to sleep. I will fall asleep to the sounds of a very active neighbourhood nightlife, my ritual lullabye (the orchestra of car sirens), and the deceivingly natural sound of running water -- um, it's the fire hydrant spewing I'd guess a gallon a second 15 feet across the street, ten feet from my front door. Yes, and the gentle tinkle of my vertical blinds as they react to the nudge of my whirring friend Pelonis, who will keep me ... warm, as opposed to fucking night sweat.

Good night, Philadelphia. Good night, New York. Hello Monday.

Today's truth

Hey -- this is starting to look suspiciously like a BLOG. It's my fourth entry this week!
And this one will be true ramblings. Though it's hard for me to truthfully state that I am not predicating anything before I write it -- because it writes itself in my head long before finger hits the keyboard -- but this is as spontaneous and random as it might get.
And with all that prefacing -- I've forgotten the many things I was going to say!

My most consistent teacher -- in that I really respect his teaching above his work which I have not seen, and I choose to go to his class three-four times a week -- has just recently torn his left meniscus (clue: at the knee). This will heal partially on its own, but will eventually require surgery. He is still so amazingly articulate in his torso, so I continue to learn a lot through his choreography and advice, but the misfortune is the lost image of him dancing himself: long-limbed, long-torsoed, shaggy haired and with a visage that in movement changes as quickly from the comic to an ecstasy of being, of being possessed by and possessing the dance. Quoting Laurel Kean, who also takes this class: "watching him dance just makes you wanna cry."

Laurel tonight before heading off to Basement Banghra with a load of other exuberant Swatties from both Philly and NYC asks me suddenly "what I am doing," by which, she means, am I staying in the country. Why don't we talk through my plans, since it has been brought to my attention that I have more than one reader, and that more than one of these are invested in keeping me here. =)

Right now, I'm finally getting "training," the kind I've wanted since returning from Poland in 2002. I take two to three classes a day (last week clocked ten; this week probably 13), which amounts to 20-25 hours a week of various techniques. 6 hours a week I deal with the laundry of this dance studio, a work/study duty which is enabling me to take all these classes for $4 a pop, which is a terrific deal down from the usual $12.50. Soon though, in July, I will be doing an intensive course at a multimedia performance venue in NYC called The Kitchen, for dual purposes of (a)workshopping some cool, intriguing if not critical themes, expanding my range of technological proficiency and collaborating with a diverse group of emerging artists, (b) praying to God that meeting with Ong Keng Seng every day will open up doors for me to make important art at home. Ong Keng Seng is perhaps the most-internationally renowned director from Singapore, and not without reason -- he does fascinating work. His last piece was a trilogy influenced by Japanese anime and dealing with the war crimes tribunals at The Hague. Can anyone say, "Please: involve me?"

But I told myself I would stay in New York as long as it took to dance on a stage here, and perhaps to get some certification to teach -- art, modern dance, fine, cool, but I want to get more proficient at something more scientific, anatomical, useful for the non-dancer: Pilates, Gyrokinesis, etc. This last aim might take longer than the three months I will have as a tourist from mid-September to mid-December, but we will see. I'm in rehearsals for a fall show now, and am trying to organize making and showing some of my own work in the fall as well. Evidently as a tourist one should not work or study, but no one said anything about "volunteer"! Or "under the table"!

Once home, I'd like to prove my dedication to the motherland enough so that I could in good faith apply for a government grant to go to a contemporary dance school in Brussels, which only accepts new students in two year cycles, so I have to wait for the 2006 intake anyway. If I was still making out OK at this point I'd like to dance for a company in Europe for a bit, delaying my bond just a little, then I'd have to come home, finally ready to maybe really teach and to produce provocative shit. Yes, I think I'd be ready then. O-ma, will you forgive me just a little longer away? Maybe I should ask if I would be able to forgive myself, with the losses either way?

So what happened to non-profit management and international development studies, you ask? Hmm, good question. My heart is in that too ... but not my joy. Note, not "my happiness" ... but my joy. I hold back from saying "passion," because I am told that of this I have ample, if not excessive reserves. Also because the word connotes a recklessness or impulsiveness that I don't want to dominate over the clarity and truth that there is in "joy." But they are related.

I think I should still study for my GREs, and take them in October. Good for five years, cover my bases. Try to once again handle a quadratic equation. Now that I miss studying, I'm not so spiteful of the prospect.

You see, the truth of it is -- or is right now -- is that I only really want to work in the arts, but feel equally a need to impress you and live up to expectation by attaining a professional degree of some sort -- also because yes, I would make more money, have more security, and definitely have more power in the world. I have quite a strong desire for power. Affecting social change is partly an excuse for wielding defensible power. I like, and possibly believe in, the certainty of progress. But it's also said that an Aries is a know-it-all, and will do much in their capacity to prove as such. Match that to a considerable lack of discipline, as well as early above-average attainments of success in my personal history and one sees why I have for these past few years had such difficulty with devoting myself to a "joy" that promises no power of influence, only of self. But let's remember our past musing on "calling" .... Was I called to the arts? Undeniably yes, yes, and yes again ... though I would deny, restrain, avoid, or procrastinate ... or particularly destructively, judge myself negatively for. Issue-mongering, in my case, otherwise known as social activism, was constantly a means through which I was trying to pay the debt of my birth. I wonder, sometimes, non-judgmentally, how different I may have been had I not inherited a Christian legacy. The same could be asked about whether I had been born with skinny genes, or if I had been sooner socially accepted by my peers, which is in some way to ask what I may have been without sources of my fears and neuroses. Are unwelcome traits "weaknesses" if they came from circumstances that were not in your control?

Who is John Galt?

If anything can be labelled God's gift to mankind, it is the 16" spinhead electric fan, particularly that which is made in China and available for purchase for a mere $12.84 USD from Wholesale Distributors on Broadway and Bleecker. God's emissary in this endeavour was Schulyer Wheeler, who in 1886 produced the prototype for the beast I have created -- um, assembled -- of my own two hands and which now proudly stands in my room in defiance of this unbearable city heat. I have for over a week been simulating scenes of not just my menopause, but those of scores of others added to mine, with each night a torture of one, long, enduring, unassuagable heat flash. I grabbed pictures off the wall nearest to my head and tried to fan myself to sleep, hoping not to smack my arm into my face if I succeeded. Instead, my feet would jerk or twitch when it became apparent that I was falling asleep and I would be again awake to sweat through another hour, or two, fully, desperately conscious, before then simulating death in order to lower my body temperature. But now, now I listen with glee to the lulling whir of my all-knowing friend and comfort, shaking his head amiably at my plight -- my new friend, Pelonis.

My old, and human friends are not to be forgotten. My friends are also good ideas, excellent inventions, technology of the most necessary and sophisticated sort. God's gifts. If anything can be labelled God ....this is where Microsoft Word -- some would say with the same authority, or at least, range of effect on humanity, as the divine -- cuts off my opening sentence in order to make a file name.

Take, for example, my friend Elaina. Elaina has giant curly Chicana hair, worn well beneath a jogging headband or Texan gallon hat alike. Elaina has unashamedly jogged on the spot in my room playing 80s hits as it stormed outside, and continued on to aerobics upstairs, making my ceiling reverberate and chips fall from the giant hole which is where the ceiling fan -- the miraculous divine fan! -- was supposed to be. Elaina is my "wife," even though she now has a boyfriend, who I suspect was the reason I received the loveliest of voicemails as I sat sweaty mid-dance-day. I love my friends who throw me ethical conundrums in the middle of a weekday afternoon.

"Hey Mel, it's Elaina. First of all, it's so nice to hear your voice, like on the voice recording. Ah ... I miss your voice. Um, how you doing my dear. I hope you're well. I hope life, and all the people you encounter in your day life are treating you well. Giving you smiles and, yeah.
Um ... I have a question for you. Do you think it's possible -- well, I feel like it is, but I guess I want to hear your affirmation -- do you think it's possible for a person to be light-hearted and carefree but also really be dedicated to the world, like, to really wanting to help the world? And like ...
you know, you hear about things that are bad and happening and like ... people ... or even in our own society ... and really like be aware and really want to do something to combat them or contribute to improving something, or whatever, but still be a carefree, joyful person?
Not too serious of a person? Tell me what you think, I'd love to hear, if you have any thoughts. I love you very much -- I hope you're well. Bye."

Sent June 14th at 3:04pm. 1 minute 40 seconds.

I'm not going to answer her here. I'm going to call her back, and wax lyrical about the notion of "calling." Because I have deliberated this question for myself a lot, much along the lines of "is 'it' (action X, Y, Z; desire A, B, C; one contra the other) OK?" as noted in my first entries. Elaina and I have together spoken of this many times, but never quite so succinctly as to say: we were not all given crosses to bear.

I went to a movie alone last night. It was a screening at BAM of four shorts and one feature length documentary by Amir Muhammed, entitled "The Big Durian." I thought it was terrific -- but good luck to the uninitiated.

"About Me"

I've been inspired by Joko's blog, which is much more user-friendly, less-pretentious (but I can't help it!! I just write like that!), more frequent (obviously -- hers is an actual blog), and looksee looksee: she actually has other friends that read it. So here's what I wanted to put in the "about me" section of my profile, so that, while avoiding the possibility of identity theft, I might seem more approachable. So here is all 1,500-odd characters of "About me", 300 hundred-odd above the profile limit, because I'm not interested right now in selling you partial-view seats.

ABOUT ME:

It's the sixth month anniversary of my starting this blog, and I am realizing that NO ONE SAVE MY MOTHER IS READING IT. So about me? To make you read me? It's evident from the writing: I am reflective and observant, accustomed as I am to outsidership, which I've both lauded myself for as intelligence and a heightened state of consciousness, as well as berated myself for as an unwillingness to take action, to participate in mainstream society and therefore, in what I perceive as the "normal" condition of happiness in the mundane. Whew. Have you had a breath yet? I've been told by a reader that one needs to take a big inhale before plunging into the Mel-deep. And I'm really not trying to impress you, at least not this way. I'd rather be cool. But this is me.

I speak too fast for most people. Some might say I'm convoluted -- I'd prefer: complex. I really enjoy all fruits, tropical in particular, so I could never be a full subscriber to the ideal macrobiotic diet. I do, however, like brown rice, and in food, most things likewise dark and textural. Lindt, 70%. Espresso. Black pepper fuckin' crab, Singapore's gracious gift to the universe and a pox on my lifelong desire to have the body of Uma Thurman.

My favorite body parts (on me) are my deltoids and my feet. And my larger left breast, but I suppose only in comparison to the little guy. My feet: they are swollen from this dirty New York heat, veiny, bruised, and bloody from dancing. They are too wide for most fashionable high-heeled shoes, and they been this way since I was twelve. I love them. They are also a little differently sized.

I was classified quite rightly by my freshman year college boyfriend as a "cultural sponge." I am actually rather squeezable. And indeed, I soak up and let go of diverse interests, languages, ways of being, for as long and as fast as my curiosity and opportunities allow. I have not a failed but rather forgotten command of French, Mandarin, and Polish - this latter is still my instinctive second tongue. But don't worry. I evidently speak English. LOTS of it.

Hey, who are you? What are you about?

ADDENDUM: CHARACTERIZATION IN MOVEMENT TERMS

Explosive
Edgy
Rhythm over melody, but melodrama above all else
Expansive in space
Trying a little too hard, too much, too soon -- a little desperate like that, a little raw, but very sincere
With developing, but not yet fully cognizant physical understanding of her body

A secret toast for Mr. and Mrs. Christina Richard Corrigan Suchenski

I find it difficult to admit to the meaningfulness of Christina's wedding today, even to the day's worth and week's income of shopping in preparation, and to the excitedness that prevented me from falling asleep last night until 4:30 as testament to such meaningfulness.

I find it difficult, because I feel like I don't have the right, necessarily, to consider it meaningfully. Though we've never been distant, we've never been close ... we were not really given the chance -- as is the fate of many "third culture" kinships -- and so I find it awkward to even acknowledge within myself that I love the girl and only wished I could have loved her more, if we'd had the occasion past the age of 16.

[A tearful Christina, decadent and delicate and strong and the perfect picture of poise and elegance -- shit, do I need to go on?! -- finally emboldens herself to make her appreciation speech after dining and "the first dance" (= superlatively cute giggling shuffle). I likewise shuffle shyly to the end of the hugging line -- again, I feel almost embarrassed, like a secret admirer, a vintage Buggy, a non-ideal memory. I cry too, but this time I surprise myself, for the emotions are not fully of admiration or tenderness as they had been earlier in the day during ceremonies and pretty pictures, but also in part of lostness and the sore acknowledgement of mortal happinesses. I am glad to be overwhelmed like this, because it means I can still feel -- I'm just a little embarrassed, because I don't want to seem inappropriately affectionate. I want to be at an inconspicuous temperature -- warm enough, not cold, not hot. She's not God -- she'll swallow me lukewarm. Isn't lukewarm the path to peace, anyhow? Surely the Bible gets a little extreme?

I am not alone, obviously, in these sentiments. Wedding ceremonies, particularly one that is as graceful and pure as this one was -- quoting Richard's grandmother: "I can't think of two people more deserving of happiness" -- can be a tortuous experiment in self-control of self-contemplation/lamentation. I'm not speaking of jealousy, although this is what it may initially feel like. I am speaking of ... a challenge of faith. Does this really exist? Will it exist for me? Has it, and I missed it? I am not speaking directly of loneliness, that entirely self-centric exercise, but I am speaking from the vantage point of being exhausted by self-rule and lack of companionship. Of needing to love, of needing someone to talk to and to massage the metatarsals of. Maybe I am speaking of aging -- a tear or two felled on my cheek was surely of Peter Pan weeping for the fact that we must, indeed, grow up/away/apart.]

We signified something important for each other, even in distance. My mistake was that I avoided the hurt of that distance, and therefore of that very importance, by busying myself away from it. Hers was that she never told me that she needed me, though based on my own uprooting, I should have known. But we were young.

We didn't grow apart, for as I said, we weren't "close" -- we were equals. We were of equal intensity. Maybe if we'd had more time, we would have gotten more fed up with each other and actually had a fight, and I would have told her how I didn't understand why she worked so hard until she was alone, and she would have bitingly asked me back why I worked so hard at pleasing other people. This would have been a fun battle.

We didn't grow apart, but into our autonomous selves, which were already a generation more autonomous than most when we met in the first place. You were the closest thing to a real friendship I had in those years. You were the closest thing I had to a best friend. We were partners through our mutual passion, and friends in our non-adherence to superficialities. (OK, so there was Harry's -- but even then, we were trying to be deep.) Perhaps we don't really know each other, as you say, Christina, but we know ourselves. I'm never performing when I'm around you. I've always held you in reverence for the simple fact that someone like you existed so strongly that it made me want to fight harder for the strength of my own existence. Today, I've gotten a much fuller glimpse of what you have meant to the family you have just joined to your own, and there too it's by the sheer force of your integrity.

Oh? That's right, this is my secret toast to both bride and groom.
Richard, I am playing Carla Bruni on my computer now, since I heard it on your reception playlist, and laugh hearing the lyrics:
"L'amour ... um um ... pas pour moi / L'amour, ca pour rien." I laugh, because I have to presume that this is Christina's selection! I laugh, because I'm glad you evidently have a sense of humor, a proven resilience to her resistance, and an intellect the size of a small planet to keep the relationship growing. I laugh because I am so happy for the security you have found in each other that uplifts my life and gives me hope that we all meet our match in the end.

To: Christina and Richard!

Little blurp

Transcribed from my book (non-elec-tron-ic) journal:

Jet-lag I used to enjoy, because I've always liked the selective company, misty visions, and distant sounds of early mornings.
Now at 2:58am, this sucks, because I actually have a busy day ahead.
But I am not unhappy at the fact that I am kept up equally by creative anxiety and the writing impulse. Little segues here -- beginning and follow-up unexplored --, an opening title there, projects, projects, fantasies, dreams in my world of one as it happens to be right now.

I have an active imagination.
I would like to think that I have the imagination, but not the illustrative skill, of an animator, which to me also means having the heart of a child and a willingness for laughter and magic.
I imagine it would be terrific to be able to call oneself an animator by trade, rather than simply character. To wear that label. To be worn by it. To have that on your namecard.
It does sound ... dominating, in the heroic sense.
"I ... am ... an ANIMATOR" (stress: "-TOR"), much like "GLADIA-TOR", or even: "THOR".
What excites me most about this is that behind every name is its verb, and in being an "animator" one animates, how terrific is that?, as opposed to analyzes, or markets, or "academes". That one brings images, stories, characters to life by giving them shape, movement, and surrounding.

3:18am. I am hungry! But I want to be able to go back to sleep! Or keep writing -- that's also OK.

I love writing. I love reading. I adore even the idea of having an idea. Even now, this almost felty touch of nib to paper, it's scritchy-scratch and the fertile white plain of paper soaking ink ... it's beautiful. A finished page of hand-writing -- it's beautiful.

Fucking hell, honking below at 3:20 in the morning.
Again! Hell!

[The writer has gone to the refridgerator. REFRIDGERA-TOR.]

Return of M.E.L.

To whom it may concern:

Those of you who are my regular readers (hello, Mummy) may be wondering what has happened to me after my bout of depression, somewhat depressingly and suprisingly thoroughly well-expressed on this blo--I refuse to call it that ... on this on-line journal. Those of you confused, exasperated, or worser still: bored, with my unnecessarily specifying usage of adverbs may wonderingly wonder why I have continued these acts of tree-felling in an empty forest. Hello? Hello? ... Hello...lo...lo...lo...?

Well I'm back. I'm back from travelling to the cusp of my navel (staring into the dark void) and back. I'm quite unable to articulate exactly what has happened, only that my outlook has changed. I'm determined to be successful. I no longer desire to be invisible -- only selectively so. It's hard to explain this -- people who have observed my attachment to performance over the years may think that I have only ever desired to be highly visible. But understand, acting and dancing were only ever avenues through which I could transcend visibility, to levitate above it or to dig beneath. The studio was a place to immolate the self.

Self-critically, I could say that I've always taken it way too seriously, too cosmically, too spiritually. Not that that's a terrible thing. I fancy it was quite brave of me to do so. And quite necessary. To my death, I believe I will locate and create my soul in the theatre because it can represent so much of what I fear and love. It's where I told God He could find me on terms hospitable to us both. I'm sure he may not have entirely appreciated that I was seeking all sorts of different desires through these avenues concurrently, but I'm sure he understood.

Well, I don't want to sound like a born-again. I'm doing stuff. I'm invested in applying for grad school (stating program specifics here would ruin the prose). I'm writing stuff. I'm lucky to have continued chances.

So hopefully I'll soon have labels to help you (regular person) define me on your (society's) terms apart from "nut job", "aimless", or to quote TIME magazine's latest, a "twixter": those "betwixt and between," who live off and often with their parents after college, going from one temp job to the next. NOTE THAT WHILE I WAS AIMLESS I WAS NOT LIVING OFF MY PARENTS ... NOR WAS I WORKING FOR ANYTHING AS CREDIBLE AS A TEMP AGENCY. I WORKED AT A CAFE, DAMMMMMIT. AND I ATE MY FILL OF ORGANIC CHICKEN JUST LIKE THAT ARMANI-CLAD WAIF ACROSS THE COUNTER. Now that I have a little more ambition, I am happily returned to dependency, a la etudiante. This is part of the ridiculous logic of mine that were my parents dissuasive of my love for dance, I would have taken ALL their money, but since they were superbly supportive, I ripped up cheques. Such is the logic of MEL.

MEL.

M ...E ...L. Celebrate MEL!

To commemorate the launch of the newest upgrade of myself to a Superhero in the making, a convert to normalcy, subscriber to causes greater than the self, I am launching a new Superhero Name in the acronym of M.E.L.. I refuse to go the way of Christo. There is little uniqueness in the monikered abbreviation of LEE. Swarthmoreans of all ages already know, courtesy of my Student Council platform, that there are at least 95 million others in the world that could lay the same claim. Not to mention a brand of jeans.

Rather, we have M.E.L., providing all sorts of possibilites:

Multitudinous Expulsion of Language ("she talks -- a LOT").
Mellifluous Ebullience of Living. (I like this one)
Magnificent, Extraordinary, and alLuring. (cheating, but useful)
Mountainous. Menacing. Energistic. Erudite.
... Lacking.
Lazy?
... Manifest Example of Lostness.
My Expatriate Life.
Masculine Ejaculation of Lust. WHAT?!?!

Well. YOU can vote for your favorite by commenting on this post on this blo--um, journal, or alternatively submit your own acronymic conceptualization for a winning prize of $1000 (from the royalties, later, of course). I recommend the humble dictionary: playing upon my childhood pasttime of researching and memorizing all interesting words beginning with "mel-", there are already plenty of spookily appropriate selections:

From the Greek for honey, we have mellifluous: having a smooth, rich flow; from the French, melange: a mixture of incongruous elements;
also melee: a confused struggle.

Don't forget: melodramatic!

I excitedly await your opinion.

Magnanimously, as Ever, Longingly yours:

M.E.L.