unhinged.

I rolled the blinds up and scanned the cityscape from my usual vantage point. The edge of the city was in plain view, a sea of blue and grey, bathing in the afterglow of dusk. That soon gave way to darkness, but not completely; orange lights like polka dots illuminated the canvas. The city seemed quiet from where I was: comfortably encased in my room. I put David Crowder on, one song in particular and set it on repeat, a familiar and comforting tune. I heard a knock. It's 'em age-old unanswered questions at the door. Here we go again.

Take my heart, I lay it down at the feet of you who's crowned

Take my life, I'm letting go, I lift it up to You who's throned

I tensed up when I became conscious again of the different nameless tensions that I was supposed to hold in balance, knowing that I was merely a nerve tic away from letting something slip. A cloud of uncertainty hovered over me. A slight sense of anxiety took a seat on my left, I shifted uncomfortably. Then a tinge of sadness sat down on my right and took my hand; a reminder of the realities of life.. and that I was alive. I know that I'm privileged to afford these thoughts, but it is one luxury I could probably do without.

Take my fret, take my fear, all I have, I'm leaving here

Be all my hopes, be all my dreams, be all my delights, be my everything

I thought of the two TED Talks I watched last night: one of Elon Musk, scientist, inventor, explorer, dreamer extraordinaire, Tony Stark in the flesh, and I was awe-struck by his vision and articulation; and then I watched Hyeonseo Lee who struggled to explain in heavily-accented English (her third language after Korean and Chinese) how she escaped the horror that is North Korea and her subsequent effort in extracting her family. Two figures who couldn't be more different in every way, sharing on the same stage stories that inspire and ignite something in us. And I thought of the circumstances of their birth, their adolescence and adulthood, and asked God why.

Then I thought about the people I read in the news recently who had died senseless deaths. I thought about the people I read about elsewhere: Facebook, Quora, Wikipedia, Weibo, all of us who lead different lives that happened to converge on social media. I thought of the person whose psyche I've been trying to grasp, through his works and his words. I thought about a person who has been out of my mind a long time. I thought about my close friends who are halfway across the world. And the one who's in the same city. I thought about my parents and my siblings. I thought about my husband and about us. And I thought about me. And my mind took flight on a moon-bound rocket ship.

And it's just You and me here now, only You and me here now

You should see the view when it's only You

Open my eyes to see You in the bigger picture, to see You in our midst, to see that You know and care, to see how this is the way it's supposed to be, to see what it would be. Open my ears to listen to Your word when You speak, to listen to unspoken words, to listen to Your heart beat. Open my mind to grasp the all-encompassing knowledge of God, and to apply that in life, to love and kindness. Guide me in Your way everlasting, and let me understand what that means in practical terms.

just kids.

Am loving Switchfoot's new song and new sound, which certainly makes for a good concert anthem. Can hear myself singing along to this at their next gig here.. when oh when, guys?! :)

The lyrics are economical (this point really stands out as I'm fresh off from listening to Em's rap where the standard format for each song is three verses with tens of lines and hundred of words that are not repeated, plus a chorus/hook) but I think they are somewhat sufficient and more importantly, do not come off trite. Like I said, perfect sing-a-long song! :)

I'm so tempted to download this single now from iTunes, but I think I'll wait til the LP comes out and get the full album woot! What did I say about 2013 being a good year for this music fan! *cartwheels*

we were just kids

just limited, misfit, itinerant outcasts
singing 'bout the dissonance

we were just kids

wide open like a child

eyes open like a child

unbroken by the wheels gone by

switchfoot :: who we are

polarity.

As I laid on the floor of my living hall, feeling the coolness of the terrazzo on my back, bopping my head and tapping my feet to Em's latest single Berzerk, I chuckled as I thought about how my 35-year-old capricious self would even begin to explain this current craze to my 25-yo austere self. The latter would definitely freak out knowing that I could be so enamored by such a controversial and polarizing figure, or that I would subject myself to such profanity over and over. Oh the horror.

How do I explain being able to overlook all the vulgarities, the irreverence, the pugnacity, all the things that I was (am) against and could not stand, to say that I actually get a kick out of this? How do I explain that I perceive something more... substantial, perhaps more meaningful, than what the surface suggests when I can't even conceptualize it? How do I explain that this is okay and no one needs to worry when I'm not sure? How do I justify this turnabout? Did I lose my way, or did I find myself? How does this fit in with my faith and where is God in this? Am I ignorantly or willingly defying some social or religious precepts? What kind of limits am I testing? Why is it that I'm not able to brush away the guilty feeling from breathing down my neck, and yet have the confidence that I'll be vindicated? Foolish pride or defiant hope?

If anything, I owe myself an explanation. And I'm working on it. My internal system has been slogging and chugging away like an over-wound steampunk engine the past two weeks, collecting and compiling every relevant bit of data, scrambling to run them by my values and belief; aggressively debating, attacking and defending all sides. I'm left feeling so consumed, so drained, and yet so thrilled and so gratified, but ultimately, still without an answer. I must say that I'm quite adept at driving myself up the walls.

Well, there must be an explanation. I don't know who or what or where you are, I will track you and I will find you and I will look you in the eyes and you'll tell me why. Or... I'll just wait till this blows over and something else takes his place and promptly forget about this. 

stop, look, go!

I got a "traffic light" on my Gtalk chat windows tee hee! sometimes it's the littlest things that makes me smile.. :)

btw for my own reference to better understand the people around me (I'm adding to the list as I discover more):

• J and D and A are ISFJ
• S is INFJ
• L is INFP
• and I am ISFP  
• oh, the husband is INTJ
• sister is ISFP like me
• Dz is also ISFP
• M is ESTJ

wabi sabi.

unforeseen autumn

wabi sabi, flawed beauty

lose myself.. in bliss

'Tis my first attempt at haiku, dedicated to my unlikeliest of muses.
I'll heave a sigh of relief when this season ends, only because...

weave for me.

I am taking a quick breather from the intense week-long musical journey into hip hop that had me reading like tomes of lines and lyrics and wiki entries and feature articles and interviews... sampai mata dan telingaku berbunga dan berdarah (nonsensical Malay words). I've got so much new info gleaned and compressed and crammed into my brain that I'm sure I'm going to implode soon if I don't find a cathartic outlet. For real. Anyone got an ear to lend?

And oh oh OH, in the moments just before I fell asleep last night, I suddenly remembered what the what was i.e. the trigger to this googling compulsion: it was this video. The narrator was showing how formidable Eminem's rhyming skill is based on the Oscar-winning song Lose Yourself (from his 8 Mile movie), and what I saw just blew me away. Because you know how much I love wordplay and Em is certainly in a class of his own. He's hailed a genius lyricist by his peers and critics alike (mighty impressive for a 9th grade dropout). How could I not be intrigued? Yes, I have a soft spot for wordsmiths.. *sighs*

But, enough of Em for now, give me a moment to compose myself for the sake of my sanity. In the meantime, I'll just bring Jon Foreman into the picture, since we are on the topic of amazing lyricists. Jon weaves some of the most beautiful tapestries of words, and you just want to lose yourself in them for hours on end.

Ah, to enjoy and be moved by well selected words set to melody, I'm so grateful I'm alive!

Life is a gift like fresh cut roses

Cut from the branch and brought inside

It’s a slow contradiction that’s beauty in a vase

When the cords are cut that’s when we start to die

Lately death and life get so confusing

I can’t tell the difference here tonight

Lately every breath feels like I’m kissing death

And when time is dead I cease to be alive

If you hide yourself deep inside, deep inside

In time you’ve got nothing left to hide

There’s nothing left inside

Tonight, honey I am gonna break your heart

Mine was broken from the start, broken from the start

Choice is the only thing we’re given

For one will live, another dies

One road says hello the other says goodbye

And the roads that you don’t choose begin to die

They won’t pay a cent to hear you laughing

They might pay a little to hear you cry

If you do it long enough they might even pay attention

But they still won’t pay respect until you die

Jon Foreman - Broken From The Start

happy four-oh, hubby dearie!

I can't think of a better song to celebrate our love. :D Every couple has a story, and this is pretty close to who we are.

Dear God, thank you for the life and love that is my husband's. On this special day, I pray your blessings over the life of my hubby, and that you would use him mightily in the ministry, to share knowledge and truth of your word, and to impart his life saved by grace. Grant him the desires of his heart, and make it grow bigger for you. Fill it with love and joy and hope and peace found only in You. May his faith in you continues to strengthen as he entrusts his life into your hand. I also pray for safety on the road as he travels daily on his bike, and also wherever he jets off too. Thank you for everything you have blessed us with, and we are eternally grateful. In Jesus' name I pray -- amen! :)

perplexed.

My day didn't end too well yesterday. Something I have been hoping and praying for didn't happen, and I was pretty disappointed. And now I'm stuck with a decision that I had hoped I didn't have to consider: to stay or to go. Deep down I kinda know what I want to do, I just don't know if I'm willing to pay the price (lit. and fig.) or if it's going to be worthwhile. I am much perplexed. :(

Sorry, please don't mind me. Let's talk about something else that's been preoccupying me: I can't convincingly articulate my current obsession with Em(inem), and I'm still apprehensive to declare that I'm a fan (I realise that I'm doing it here, but this is my safe space).

I find myself all at once repulsed by and drawn to his persona, it's confusing, it's driving me up the wall. (Interestingly, I actually know someone whom I care for who kinda makes me feel like this, so while it's not an alien feeling, it still pretty much begs insight.)

What is it? How did that happen? What was the trigger? A passing comment? A random image? Repressed curiosity? I really don't remember what, but I kinda remember when, and the ensuing Googling frenzy. It's Leehomania all over again, no kidding, although it's to a lesser degree, only because I found his younger self to be callous and immature and I really don't like that so I don't really go around poking at his earlier years.  

And speaking of Leehom, I don't know how I ended up with another celeb crush (ergh did I just say that??)(I like the alliterative quality tho' =) who's at the other end of the spectrum: LH is spotless to a fault, and Em is as flawed as they come. Maybe it's a yin-yang *cough* thing.

Anyway, I think the years have done him some good (and frankly added nothing to his face -- this 40yo could pass off a decade younger!), especially when he decided to clean up, so I'm just going to stick around to see what he has next.

So what do I like about Em? I'm going to do a cop-out explanation here because Elton John (who performed with Em on the brilliantly written Stan at the 2001 Grammys) said it here better than I could:

He tells stories in such a powerful and distinctive way. As a lyricist, he's one of the best ever. Eminem does for his audience what Dylan did for his: He writes how he feels. His anger, vulnerability and humor come out. That's why we look forward to listening to Eminem's lyrics and finding out where the hell he's headed next.

Eminem lives, sleeps and breathes music — he's a bit like me in that respect. He's pretty much a recluse. I think he's enthralled with what he's doing; he's intimately involved with his art. There's a mystique about him.

Word.

Do I find the coarse language disturbing? Yeah, every F-bomb (even the bleeped out ones) still assaults and hits me with the same impact as the one before. I haven't decided what to make of that or how to manage it better. Can I justify his past behaviours, the things he's said, be they said under the influence or the effect of his upbringing or everything else thrown at him? I can't, so I kept doing this and it's eating at me, I'm tired:

...the ISFP [is] constantly gathering specific information and shifting it through their value systems, in search for clarification and underlying meaning.

For now I'm still cherry picking his songs (srsly, I don't think my heart could handle all his songs).. and there are a few that I kept going back to the past few days, this being one of it.

This is You're Never Over, written for his best friend Proof who was needlessly shot dead in a pub brawl seven years ago. To say that Em was devastated could be an understatement. It drove him further into the black hole of depression and pill addiction, before he managed to pull himself together and clean up, and he spent four whole years to find the right words and sound and beat to convey how he really felt about the loss. I think he did a superb job, because listening to this song has been such a visceral experience; I'm deeply moved every single time. What can I say, I'm a sucker for bromance.. :')

Update 26/9/13: I just want to add Em's thought about this song, transcribed from this interview.

Well, for me this is the most important song off the record, on the CD, because for the simple fact that everything that happened, it's a dedication to Proof. It's one of those records that I tried I had several attempts at making, it was like every attempt just wasn't good enough, you know it's one of those things.. I tried a bunch of records and it was just didn't work, it was like, this is not good enough, the rhyme's not crazy enough, the beat's not crazy enough, it was one of those things that when I finally got it, I felt like, thank you, thank you God for giving me the strength to be able to write this record, and make it feel like it doesn't.. you know, it's me singing in the chorus, and I'm certainly not a singer, but I think that as long as the emotions are there.. nah ** that, i'm a singer, i'm a ** singer.. It's one of those moments on the record when I feel like I finally did Proof some kinda justice by being able to put that together and just dump my heart on the record, and it was one of those things when it got to the end of the record I really didn't even care about making the rhyme crazy, I just wanted to say it.

stranger things have happened.

Sometimes we find ourselves gravitating towards something, someone that at a glance seems to be totally out of character for us. Upon closer scrutiny however, we might recognize a pattern; how we always find ourselves attracted to the same object in different forms, drawn to the same person with different names, prone to the same mistake with different excuses, and we realize that this is who we are. And to that, we'll have to decide if we are comforted or disordered to find ourselves in the same place again.

(But you'd have to walk a thousand miles) in my shoes, 

just to see what it's like, to be me, 

I'll be you, let's trade shoes, 

just to see what it'd be like to feel your pain, 

you feel mine, go inside each other's minds, 

just to see what we find, 

look at s*** through each other's eyes.

what up, September!

Time flies. Time flies. Time fliesssssssss.

I've a whole slew of things that made me mad and sad and annoyed and riled up, from the religious teachers of this country, to the discriminatory education system, to the price hike in petrol which is signalling more inflation to come, to the ever dropping Ringgit value, with the Syrian issue hanging at the back of my head the whole time. Also, I haven't bumped into Leehoom the entire time he is here! It's been a long week that way.

BUT, I don't want to end it such note. So here's something that never fail to light up my face and make me smile... SUPER MARIO BROS!



Ahhh... this instantly brought me back to 1992, when my dad came back with the Atari console, and this game (among others) came to life. The burst of colours! The excitement! And those tunes!! They stuck with me for the past 20+ years.. I still random hum to the tune when nostalgia strikes. it's a 2D kinda LOVE! :) *sighs contently* I would so love to get my hands on these games again.

TGIF guys. xoxo.



NB. oh I should add that the theme song to Leehom's upcoming movie with Zhang Ziyi, 非常幸運 My Lucky Star, was released today. It's called 愛一點 Love A Little which is actually a cover song by another relatively unknown Chinese singer called Mo Yanlin. The verdict? I.... am sorry but I'm not too fond of it. Sorry, Leehom. I really wanted to like it but my first impression was that it was too generic and forgettable, it sounds like another cookie-cutter love song. I was disappointed. I wish they had commissioned you to write the theme song instead.

But urm, what I did like about it was listening to his voice. I really miss that (ya ya, I listen to him everyday in my car, but this is different, if you know what I mean). It's been a while since we last heard a new song from him (the last being 12 Zodiacs and that was a good nine months ago!

Really looking forward to your new album, Leehom! And oh, I suppose it's already your last day here in Malaysia. I hope you've had a good two plus weeks here. I regret that I never went stalking you. Please don't revoke my fangirl licence! Safe journey to wherever you're going next, and come back soon!

Watch the song here.

Edit 9.9.13: I can't believe I got hooked onto the song. Okay, I'm taking back "forgettable" but I'm still sticking with "generic" and "cookie-cutter".. but I'm adding "light-hearted" into the mix.