all received messages are reproduced verbatim, anon & sic; sporadically updated in no particular order.
14 april 2016 Oh Amanda! I thought suffering strange diseases in exotic lands is something that only white poets did. Take care. Yes it was my plan to die in Singapore (if such a thing can be planned). Its close enough for me to pop back if I feel the cold hand of death upon my head. See you soonish I hope.
11 april 2016 you appeared traipsing in front of me. i said to you, hey, isn't the midnight sun only in finland? we traipsed together, floating like two slightly deranged, sad girls, through streets that felt like bugis backalleys, and ended up in a park where huge tarps had been laid on the grass and a few artists were painting over the tarps, or pouring paint over. somehow we knew we were 'supposed' to just dance and run across the tarps, we would be helping them. i remember dark army green plus light baby pink next to each other. wide very shallow puddles of paint. felt like east coast. i decided to give up momentarily on finding my car, since everything was so terrible anyway. i had a little fun. after this, somehow my brother passed me the other family car and i was driving around looking for the carpark entrance of somerset plaza. i couldn't find it and there were so many people and i felt so lonely and then i realised that i couldn't drive both family cars home and it was something like 2am and that's when i really wanted to cry, and i probably started, as i drove alongside heeren on the pavement for people to walk on. that's all i remember.
4 september 2013 She's 28. And I realised that something about her reminds me of River Phoenix, whom I think might be the only guy I could ever fall for.
2 november 2017 Hey! In September I finished reading Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymous Bosch by the unfashionable Henry Miller and it concludes with a description of his mailbag, the nonstop demands of replying to letters, the different kinds of correspondence he receives (fans, peers, beggars, etc), the different moods he has in relation to them, the panic as the day slips away. I ended up thinking: you had it lucky, your postman only showed up three times a week, and you died before email was invented. But he does talk about those coincidences involving thinking about a person and hearing from them within an hour, and it made me decide the time had come to reply to the below.
11 may 2017 impressed by your impulse purchase of a long-haul flight, the kind of off-the-cuff romantic gesture I regularly entertain but typically suppress by means of a long walk through Hampstead Heath while listening to a BBC radio programme called 'In Our Time' in which academics discuss neglected historical figures.
6 may 2017 when escaping to other lands, in listening to the soundtrack of the itinerant, I think I've binded Elliott smith forever to you.
8 april 2017 I dreamt that we were in a race and had to climb a Rocky Mountain or something like that and take an oral test. I started first so ended first. My oral passage was an excerpt from a book set in xinjiang. I loved it and knew you would too. I was hanging out with a bunch of friends in the middle of a desert like landscape except more lush in Colour more caramel than stale khaki. U finished your race and came and you were glowing. You loved the passage and it gave you an idea. You were going to start an artist residency. I wanted to say that's something I wanna do too. Then we are both Teachers in a school and the geog teacher (asian male) has a thing for you. I finally find out what your novel is about and the three settings. We are in a kind of black studio for working on theatre pieces. Side storyline to do with an opera singer. I am working on my piece which has a feathery installation. You are enamoured with your idea and humour the tall Frankenstein like security guard (feels Moroccan) who wants to see your installation. You slide in on your installation- you're lying belly down on a Long wooden platform w wheels. You're in a mermaid kind of costume. A multi coloured (in not a cheesy technicolor way but a soft midsummer night's dream way) magical leotard. You wheel it in an arc , an oval and as you wheel it while lying on it the huge installation unfolds itself to be a white wavy thing. It keeps losing pearlescent beads , leaving a trail on the ground. we keep exclaiming for the beads are not supposed to lose themselves but in the end it is terribly beautiful. The beads scattered as a trail on the ground and the white waves in one loop. Next to my installation and they both "look like they are friends" is what I said. The security guard stands in the midst and looks at you with awe he is obviously in love with you. Then fast forward to us being in another situation. I am still sick and have seen a doctor and have to apply a special oil in my hair to be well. Tyra Banks sits behind me in this place , and she has black dots under her eyes that she painted on and looks mystical. She is enraptured by you, she's in love with you. I feel like the person who has to hold that knowledge knowing that it won't happen between you and her.
5 november 2016 One guy who is obviously socially awkward shared that once he got out of prison and he was so so so happy he was running down the streets and then he just lay on the floor and convulsed. And then at some point he felt sad again, and longed for a moment in high school. And he was like, why is life like that? why can't we do everything?
3 june 2016 but my translation is not yours so if softly means more to you than gently then I'll dig yours out if you can remember the edition.
25 april 2016 At the moment I'm reading Dark Pool Party by Hannah Black. I highly recommend it. What I remember most about the first time you wrote to me is your talking about my line "Meanwhile, I am dying of loneliness." I'm thinking so much about loneliness these days, wondering what I mean by it and if there's anything to be done. Most of the people I know don't seem to struggle with it in the same way, or maybe they do and just don't talk about it. I thought of all this again when I read you Thailand sentence: "when i spend too much time alone i become so prepared to be moved by nothing and everything and i am no longer sure what feelings mean or what you're meant to do with them."
26 may 2013 it cured love. i pressed it and my lover exploded.
3 jan 2012 i dunno if shah rukh khan loved me or not but i surely did not love him! i wasnt even in a bride's outfit lol. i was just wearing what i wld normally be in. it's so absurd. & i knew i was supposed to help/save ppl from the explosion so i went back in & saw ppl who were damaged by e effects & then e dream ended there. yea you disappeared at the stairs.
23 august 2011 Though I love Titian I cannot abide his take on the same subject. She looks too 'invertebrate'.
11 january 2011 i dunno why but the winona article with those pictures made me kinda sad. but it also made me wanna have a noni movies marathon night soon. i think the lead singer of horowitz must've had a huge huge crush on her. their band name is after her real surname, they have a song called feed 'em noni flicks ('til they die), & another one simply named winona. today at tampines mrt station i saw a guy with a marilyn monroe tattoo on his calf. i wonder if he really loves marilyn or if it's just a fashion statement. im hoping it's the former. the tattoo is rather well-done.