Friday, May 23, 2008

don't stay and watch me pick up the pieces



between you and me
i don't think you can.

Sunday, April 20, 2008

stop - were i you

why do we do this to ourselves?
if i didn't love you, you would know
you leave me in such a vacuum
each time i say goodbye
how do you manage to string words
that leave you beyond me

each time

can you breakaway from that smile
you say i play these games ?
put me beyond your deceit, but not beyond you

i walk you home most clumsily
the ease with which you push me away

and you say "don't be afraid"
yet, you tell me,
you will turn around
and run
and never look back

you leave me in such void
i can not handle
you just smile
we are back to the start

I will stop asking these questions

When my heart reconciles itself to the fact that all lost was not in love. It will.

between me and you, I am awfully sad.

I perhaps read a page in time that was yet to be written

I am my own eulogy

Written, practiced and delivered several times.

My epithets carved in stone

Words unspoken, lives unlived, all withheld.

Such reticence, such quiet and calm I hope to be

That as I lay rest awake, people, and life

Are awed by the scale of tragedy

There is some hope

As the flame warms your eyes

I collapse behind those white walls

As I leave behind the safety offered through formality of life..

the formality....whisked in a wok of words

I will simply put it:

I love you.

And have missed you.

Even if it does make you cringe to believe in my words.

This is not a love song

Or a preface to a help-yourself, help-yourself handbook

This is me.

And, that which never will be: you.

what a lonely place

As I hold you in these arms

Your calm swallows me whole

And then, you fade away

Like melting glass cascading most beautifully

You turn, you walk away, run perhaps

And no call will ever bring you back

And that is which I fear with such vengeance

sleep haunts me

hours, for nights gone by

I lecture, I teach;

I answer, I reason;

I quiz, I endeavor;

I smile,I lie

I ask with abandon give me back my yesterday

Or a memory that might.

It was a slap in the face how quickly I was defined

A few five words put you beyond me

And with such aplomb, it amazes me.

But I do believe

With some perverse sense of deceit

in sincerity

Life does come full circle

Loving someone has come to mean

Letting some one Else

Love them more

There are questions of reason, of time

Are there any answers?

It is a curse. You tell me

This constant of inquisition.

I tell you.

And here, I try to play these foolish games

I, me, myself.

my sense of unchanging calm has been shattered.
reason and beyond
eleven syllables, five words.
your one sentence
has put you beyond me

you push me back to the start
stop
were i you


Tuesday, March 4, 2008

these games we play
you and i
my sense of unchanging calm has been shattered.
reason and beyond
eleven syllables, five words.
your one sentence
has put you beyond me

silence, please.

the prattle:
the polite query,
the garrulous reply,
these pretentious conversations.

Sunday, February 24, 2008

singapore speak

Grouch: i'm looking for sacred games by vikram chandra, please

Borders Sales Girl: tha wan must beeyo citeee

Grouch: I'm sorry, could you please repeat that?

Borders Sales Girl: beeyo citeee, tha wan must

(apres 2 min)

Agitated guy in the snake queue behind me "Dude, how tough is that, you must go to Vivo City to get that one?"

Some one knee me in the boys please.

Saturday, February 23, 2008

busting my chops

"Dude, you are the oldest twenty-three-year-old I've ever met"

Friday, February 22, 2008

i heart

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

she's my november girl.

Sunday, February 10, 2008

the diving bell and the butterfly.

it took me places i've never been before.

it took me home.

i wish i could hold on to that forever.

one day, we will all be together.

i promise myself that.

Thursday, February 7, 2008

Prayers, please.

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

It was a friend’s birthday.

1. Supposed to go for movie and dinner, but (I am given to understand that) the movie is just a ploy so as to pull together some semblance of a surprise. The movie story bought the "hosts" time to smuggle the cake into the restaurant. So some of the guests can make it only for the movie and not dinner and movie, which since there was no movie, messes up their evening! The drama, my point exactly!

2. Conversation during dinner:

Guest 1: I have lost weight. All I eat is soup and salad, twice a day. Now repeat that sentence 20 times over and is all what she spoke about during dinner

Guest 2: Don't order so much food, don't order, are you sure you can eat that much? Two very awkward jokes followed with even more awkward silence at the table. One, I think was a dig at the firm, Frost and Sullivan.

Guest 3: Did not say a word. Cross my heart. Not a word

Guest 4: Didn't show up. See memo on movie/dinner mix up.

Guest 5: Nice guy, I talk to him, interesting.

Birthday boy: uncomfortably smiling, observing everybody, few sentences spoken.

OMG the pain!

3. Dinner gets over, photographs are taken, Guest 4 shows up.

4. I am exhausted, want to head home. More photographs are taken, I smile, I mutter a few choice words.

5. They want to buy beer and sit by the harbor and drink. Beer is bought, we head to the harbor and it’s a total love fest. Crap. I don't do that. Because. I don't drink beer. And, I don't want to intrude on nervous couples trying to have a moment. I hang out with them for ten minutes or so and then politely leave.

Oh during the 90 minutes that was dinner, I was called "pervert, drunk, old, snob..."

Woe is me. Again.
i want to text, call, speak with.
HATING the wait.

Monday, February 4, 2008

The hills and vales of life this week:

1. after two years since the girl and I ended a six-year thing i finally met someone that i really really like.

2. got a free ticket to fly away to Phnom Penh only to realize that they had misspelled my name, and screwed up the dates -- which being a free ticket, meant there was nothing I could do save fork over $350 to change the name/date. Which is SO not worth it for a two-day trip to Cambodia.

3. Heading to Nias for the last week in Feb. Part of a team that evaluates foreign aid effectiveness in Tsunami affected areas. Haven't been to Indonesia - so I really am looking forward to this.

4. Chinese New Year is happening this weekend. Everything is closed in Singapore for three days. But I got called in for a last-minute paper; and will be working dog-hours till this Sunday. CRAP.

5. Negotiating a book deal on health policy with Routledge! More later.

Friday, February 1, 2008

happy birthday, my dear,
with love, perhaps unparalleled

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Tutorial sessions with the Frosh have gone by OK so far. They are eager to learn and even more so to impress. Luckily, I don't lecture this class. I just assist in teaching i.e. conduct tutorials, hold office hours and work with students who many need extra coaching.

I am done with my academic coursework and other formalities of the graduate program in economics. I still do not have a question that I can letter out explicitly for my thesis.

My sister (currently in Goa, India) and I (Singapore) are road-tripping across Canada this summer. Who knows, it might just come to me driving on the interstate. Well, whatever.

fuck buckets

Ignorant git of a friend managed to finagle a $17 K bonus with her crotch-rot intellect after working 5 months at 'Hores and Co: Partners at Law'. Why oh Why am I still in academia?

Economic Speak

On a given day, I am usually indifferent between drinking Coke and its zero-calorie-equivalent, Coke Light. I put in a $1 coin into the vending machine, and due to some technical glitch, my one dollar could buy either a Coke ($1) or Coke Light ($1.10).


I of course, took full advantage of my $.10 consumer surplus!

Sunday, January 27, 2008

1. After many margaritas, daiquiris and gimlets, and table-top dancing this past weekend: the Grouch is giving up alcohol this season. It will be one long Spring.

2. Hindsight, somehow, will manage to knee you in the boys. GAH!

3. I got my teaching evaluation for last semester's principle of economics course. It was pretty good. Best student comment: "I pink-puffy-heart the Grouch".

4. I may have met someone. I really really like.

5. Books read this week: Elizabeth I and Mary Stuart and The Economic Naturalist

Saturday, January 19, 2008

hawt exchange student leaves for Lithuania.

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

my best friend is getting engaged soon.
i wish i could be happy for her.
i really do.