Don't talk to strangers

They might steal your heart.

Photos taken by my friend

Amelia was at the table in front. The cunning smile I practised for years, she flashed at me the instant our eyes met.

Her gracious parents allowed us to chat and play with my friend's camera.

As it was time to say good-bye, she suggested a kiss, which I was eager to give and receive. Too close, her tiny hands unknowingly took something that belonged to me.

Post-Valentine

You intimidate men.

No, I make them disinterested. There is no desire where there is no daring. If they don't find any motivation to approach me, that means they are not that attracted to me.

*

Nurse buddy

Singlehood only becomes difficult in two occasions: when you're horny and when you're sick. So aside from a booty call, there's hopefully an arrangement wherein someone would be there for you whenever you have a high fever and runny nose.

Poetry is a language

—just as with the doctor's and the computer programmer's—ineffective and not fully comprehensible to those who don't learn to speak it.

Why keep a diary

My 2012 diary

Maybe writing in a daybook is my praying. Talking to someone I don't know but believe in.

'Never abandon the wholesome practice of saying your own private prayers, night and morning. I have never abandoned it myself, and I know the comfort of it,' wrote Charles Dickens to his son.

Wholesome: promoting health or well-being of mind or spirit. A telling of the last twenty-four hours' events and thoughts soothes me.

It's more than putting memories, feelings and ideas in a vault for safe-keeping and posterity (I seldom re-read my journals anyway). It is a way of affirming the day. Today can only be complete if I re-call, re-assess, and re-construct it in words.

Wholesome: based on well-grounded fear. What is the consequence of missing a log? That what happened is not captured and made sense of, and is therefore meaningless and untrue.

Full

Chinese New Year's Eve at Mich's

Around 2005, I gained nine new friends. We met at that point in our lives when we thought we had more to learn within the walls of an academic institution, even if we already earned our bachelor's degree.

We understood two things very well: 1) Writing is a serious business; and 2) It's a mistake to take life too seriously.

Last night I shared a huge dinner table with (most of) them to welcome the New Year once more, and once more I felt happy being myself with a group of people I admire.

It's great to see friends regularly but at longer intervals, see how things have changed and remained. You surprise yourself, because, busy with living, you take for granted how you've been changing, too, or how you haven't.

In gatherings like this, all you remember the day after are the strong taste of sauce in your mouth, how someone looked so good in their dress, facial expressions, the rhythm of conversations, and a few floating phrases that your hungover mind manage to catch in a minute of wakefulness. 'Find someone who fills you up' was one such phrase. I wanted to delve deeper into that, but as with poetry, you savor the words first by their sound. Later when my mind is clearer, I'll make sense of it. There is the rest of the year to do so.