ships are launching from my chest

i need to write again, i need to sing, i need my voice to fly into an open space and resonate with the cries of my heart! i need my keyboard, i need to be astounded by the flurry of notes swimming inside, waiting to break through the surface to show me the immensity of my spirit. i need to break free from your hold on me, i'm so far away and yet i'm not free. i will be. i will be. i....

my body, my wonderland

there is something therapeutic about physically grooming yourself. i imagine this akin to the benefits of gardening. the pruning is never complete, new weeds grow while you are plucking out old weeds, flowers fall to the ground as new seeds are being planted, a part of your white fence is browned and greyed by dust and rain as you touch up paint on some other parts.

i never really bothered about such things before, because i was vain about being vain perhaps? and also because i felt better use could be made of our limited time in this meagre existence. but as i grew older, as i am growing older,

as i grow older,

i start to take notice of my body more. what are these eyes that make up my vision? and look at these nails that cover the flesh on the tips of my fingers. oh, what is this blue black doing there? and the nail that fell off two months ago, it's growing, it's growing! and the little hairs on my skin, how they too grow (the weeds of my physical existence), i use my nifty lawnmover to eliminate them. and there they are, growing again. these lips, the softness and smoothness of them as they receive the conditioning they need from hydration. the cracked desert floors they resemble as they are abandoned to thirst. the war between fats and muscles and cellulite, the waist that expands or contracts depending on how much waste i welcome or expel.

my body is so alive, so strong and resilient, self-replenishing, self-regenerating. but yet, so fragile and sensitive to change. the pain in my left, second toe, did i injure a nerve while unknowingly kicking it into a...i wouldn't know, i was unknowing at the time. dark rings under my eyes, where the skin is so thin, because i spend hours staring at the computer or sleeping too little or dreaming with my eyes closed for too long. the tattoo on my right inner wrist that has become part of this body, how my body accommodates this change and the butterfly becomes a part of me.

i begin to enjoy this process of (rather tedious and never-ending) grooming, for now at least, for different reasons for sure. not so much because i desire to be desired, which i do of course (don't you?). but more so because, it allows me to take time to appreciate the details of my body, my gift. and the process of transforming, is somewhat liberating. as colour gets splashed on nails adding excitement to footsteps, as hair (weeds) get pulled off from their roots revealing the ebony of my skin, as hair (tendrils) gets combed or clipped into place, falling where they will, curling where they must, this body, my canvas, becomes my masterpiece, over and over again. what a strange and wonderful revelation.

i thank God for this body, his original masterpiece, and i make a little pact with Him to take better care of it simply because, it is His gift to me, and a very awesome one at that.

remembering and forgetting

i don't have to be sad, i don't have to be like you, to feel like i love you, to show you that i love you. there's too much love out there, too much beauty and life and fun, too much awesomeness all around and within me, to be sad for more than an hour or maybe even thirteen minutes. eye-bags aren't that cool anyway and you can't put loose change or breathmints in them even, they serve no purpose other than to remind you that you've spent far too much time ignoring and avoiding total...awesomeness.

there's so much to say, but right now i feel that these things won't really matter for much longer. i cried for maybe sixteen minutes. it was highly necessary, the tears dissolved into a glorious epiphany, that i was wasting all these tears and time crying over...this. then I cooked the best baked alfredo pasta i had ever eaten, cleared the wardrobe which would've swallowed my room up in time, played lots of online poker and had the most refreshing shower ever.

i get so busy healing myself of you that i always forget who loved me first. when i remember, it changes everything and i don't have to be that scared little girl anymore.

resplendent are we

well i can't really say whether my dilemma about mortality in the previous post has been solved but.

there are also these other days like today when i feel a little more courageous, a little more excited to, as they say with the fullness of latin gusto, seize the day. on days like these, i feel that this universe, this world, this life is my oyster or pizza base or whatever and nothing fabulous even has to happen to make me feel this hopeful. these moments surge through me like splendid little shooting stars in the deep and dark blue space of my spirit, little glimpses of eternity and heaven and perfection.

yet, with insufficient sleep and tired eyes, even smiling upon shooting stars can turn into such a chore! the time is near and now, i place my dreams in your hands and take off to sleep. goodnight. :)

these sounds will never leave you, will be there to receive you

some days, every thing in my life seems to be slipping through my fingers like sand and it hurts to hold on to anything and anyone at all. i wrap myself in layers of solitude (so that i won't have to think about how much i love everyone and the eventual end that awaits us all and how someone will have to go through all my or your excessive amount of photos and clothes and that wooden box containing the shell of a soul i cherished and adored making its lonely sojourn into the merciless flames, oh it is all so final) and everything becomes two-dimensional and so, so unreal. i become merely a shell long before it is supposed to happen.  i shiver in my bones from the fear of losing everything.

so, i dive deeper into everything, i give everything, i have numbed my mind, i don't feel loss. i don't feel love too.

and all i really want right now is to be madly in love and fearless, you know?

do you like taylor swift?

do you ever find yourself getting bored by the sound of your own voice and then quickly trying to finish up what you're trying to say because you don't even know what is the point in what you're saying anymore and if you've lost it, what more the listener/s? i think i just lost you there and yet, proved my point.

so....

martin says: (AM 01:19:53)
do u like taylor swift

Shireen says: (AM 01:20:02)hmmm
Shireen says: (AM 01:20:05)ok la
Shireen says: (AM 01:20:12)i mean, neutral (trying to be polite, just in case martin likes her)

martin says: (AM 01:20:16)have u heard of this guy called victor wooten
Shireen says: (AM 01:20:27)no but he has a cool surname
Shireen says: (AM 01:20:37)who's that?

WHO'S THAT??? well, someone less boring than i am! just watch this!


and all done on a bass guitar, mind you.

and then, i found all these! (where have i been???)

one guy, TWO guitars. faint.




two guys, ONE guitar.



as for this next guy, in the words of a youtube user:
"Flagged for making all other youtube videos look like shit."





i apologise in advance if the above videos (and related ones) have reduced your productivity for the day due to you sitting in a shell-shocked state infront of your computer screen, wondering whether those fingers are really fingers and whether you should quit playing the guitar, or even bother learning, if you haven't started yet. :|

p.s.

Shireen says: (AM 01:54:45)and why the hell u ask me abt taylor swift
Shireen says: (AM 01:54:49)then ask me abt wooten???

martin says: (AM 01:55:02)learn pop songs is to bluff girls one

Shireen says: (AM 01:55:14)lol!

martin says: (AM 01:55:16)i wanna see can bluff u or not hahaha

i am the most confusing person you'll ever meet 

if you ever took a walk around my mind, you'd find me there right smack in the middle of the most monumental tug-of-war you'd ever see. maybe then you'd understand how anyone could be so...so quick to hate, then, so much in a hurry to love. so easily angered and moved to tears, then, so impatient to forgive. so hasty to drop everything, then, so eager to pick them up all over again. so, and so. 

but that doesn't matter because you only need to know one thing:

the only side that ever wins is the good one and i never really give up, even when i break down.

my technicolour streaks of lightning amidst a vortex of swirling grey clouds. :)

yes, i actually did it! took the photo above with my e71 and bad room lighting since 2 bulbs have blown and i'm ever the procrastinator! ok shireen, you cannot be blaming the lousy camera or the bad lighting for your shoddy painting skills!
(look, i did say that i'm no picasso, so you were duly warned! and are only allowed to say nice things.)

goodnight!

falling in love with the most unlikely subject

all said and done, i would still choose to be me if i had to live my life all over again. the flipside of those woeful emotions that befall me is an amazing richness and depth in the way i experience beauty, love, joy, faith, magic, peace, passion, life....and i wouldn't trade that for anything (well, hopefully with a little more self-control on the angry-sad-hate side). it's really a package deal, take it or leave it. but just so you know, i love myself, i love being me, and,

i actually don't think there's anything wrong with that.

hey, what's going on?

my mind seems to have taken a vacation this week, alternating between thoughts of running and whether it is a form of laxative and the word "endure" in as many languages as i can think of, aeroplanes and trains, romance, and/or the lack of it, ugly betty, plans to paint technicolour streaks of lightning amidst a vortex of swirling grey clouds, fantasies about goodbyes and heartbreaks at the thought of them, reno, my little cottage in the future with trees and swings strewn all over (please don't ever use the words "hdb flat" in your sentence when you are asking for my hand in marriage, nothing against hdb flats, everything against practicality when it comes to eternal love), mental disorders, etc, etc. you know, normal stuff.

i guess we are all moving on with our lives and being all adult about it now.

Twenty - five years and my life is still
Trying to get up that great big hill of hope
For a destination



aunty just reminded me that she was married with three kids and working in singapore by my age (yes, i'm 25!). i'm a failure.

sleepless beauty

luckily for me, i tend to like, get bored of stuff like, really easily, and like, need to try new stuff, like, after a while.

so all this sadness and being like a lost puppy whimpering in wait for a lucky break like some doggy treats or unconditional love is starting to lose its allure for me and i'm thinking of doing some new...things, today. and hey, it does feel like friday because i was on night shift last night and i'm usually on night shift on thursdays which gets me most of fridays off and i get the rest of today off pretty soon. so what the heck. TGIF!

lets see, i'm thinking of going for a run later and i'm hoping to break the 10km barrier today. i'm also thinking of getting a dress? well, that can be considered. oh! oh! i should paint! i mean, hell i'm no picasso but i bet picasso was also going, "hell, i'm no picasso, but heck, lets do this!" and look at him now! ok, i mean, god rest his soul he's dead but, you know what i mean. how about some spring-cleaning? i confess that my room has been in make-over mode for the past two or three years shame on me but, but, if there's a bustle in your hedgerow don't be alarmed now it's just a spring-clean for the may queen, and as led zeppelin put it so eloquently, spring-cleaning should only be done in may. i rest my case. i need to rest on my pillow case. i apologise for the travesty of a blog post this "thing" has become, it's the heavily disrupted, disintegrated, insufficient sleep talking. shireen has been kidnapped and tied up in a corner by the ants in her head, you can leave her a message after the beep.

oh and ugly betty will definitely get some air time today, as she has been getting the past few days, for successfully nursing my heart back to the colour of ridiculous hope and calm.

come on, look at that crazily optimistic smiling rainbow!

the end.

those girls

there are these girls. the ones the whole world loves to love. they wear the right clothes, everything fits perfectly. they look great in every photo, without even trying. their make-up is just right, their shoes are perfect, they never seem to wear the same thing twice. they seem to float along, everyday, just floating, wondering which club to party at for TGIF, where to meet their girlfriends for lunch this tuesday, which clothes to sell at their garage sales to tame their exploding wardrobes full of glitter and glamour. their boyfriends (and their moms) think the world of them, showering them with gifts, shiny things, flowers, heart-felt compliments, like little boys seeing beauty for the first time. these girls never have to worry about those games boys play, they are too beautiful, too precious to risk losing. their facebook statuses are always about bitchy colleagues at work, a great weekend trying the best food with the best company, some awesome new acquisitions from recent shops-capades. they are not much acquainted with melancholy (it never lasts for more than two days) and sleep well at night. they are beautiful even when they sleep. they never need to try to be happy, it's just how they are at their rest state or equilibrium state or whatever.

then, there's me.

to be happy is like going for a swim in a stormy sea. i have to fight doubly, triply hard, much harder than others, just to be happy, and then, stay happy. the moment i lose focus, the moment i slack on my strokes or my arms or legs grow weary or water enters my goggles and i try to recover, i start to be pulled away by all these angry, vicious, vengeful currents. and before i know it, before i can even try to salvage the situation, i'm helpless. the waves are crashing repeatedly over my head and it's not even about swimming anymore. now, it's just about breathing, fighting for my life, fighting to stay alive. the temptation to give up is so intense, my panicked screams and cries are being replaced by desperate gasps for air. "you brought this upon yourself," chide the ones i call out to for help, and then they go on with their lives. i can't argue with their point though, can i? but why must it be so hard? it's not like i don't try. i try where others don't even need to try. why can't being happy just be as normal to me as breathing is? i don't blame you for wanting to stay away. i would stay away from me, it's like being with death.




i guess there's some beauty in walking on even when your heart is breaking...

into a million little pieces.

"If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe."

i know i might get shot for this, especially by all of you who are having nervous breakdowns about exams, deadlines, etc now, but....i'm so ready to study again! to enclose myself in the safety of a library, buried in books, poring over papers, searching for clues and lego pieces to give form, shape, substance to ideas and thoughts, to test and explore, to expand and renew, bombarding and being bombarded with questions to open doors to even bigger questions...aaargh, i can't wait!!

so where do i apply?