Balloon and Star

I pranced up the stairs holding a helium balloon. It was red, and at the bottom of the ribbon attached to it, was another little balloon in the shape of a star. And that little star was silver, containing atmospheric air presumably, since it refused to float on its own.

Retrieved from the decorations of an annual dinner-and-dance event, the balloon and its accompanying star took a car ride and then arrived safely in both my pudgy hands. I was delighted, not different from a wide-eyed child receiving a pretty balloon to hold, to look up at, to squidge the little silver star a little since it looked more hardy anyway, to be careful with since it might prick itself on a sharp edge, to make sure it wasn't caught in the door when I entered the house.

Just before I fell asleep that night, I watched the silhouette of the balloon bob, exploring the ceiling of my room, before settling in a corner right behind my bed. Good night.

Next morning, I opened my eyes and found it lying lightly on the other pillow. When asked, "So where's your balloon now?", I answered, "It's resting." The helium had seeped out the pores of the balloon and now it was no longer floaty. When tossed lightly into the air, it descended to the floor, slowly, but surely. I then tied the two to the window.

After a few days now, the red balloon has deflated to the size of a pear. And the silver star remains full and rather fat, really. But I reckon it's a good thing the two are attached by the ribbon.

Wanting

Not knowing why we want something can be very different from going ahead with getting something we are unsure of wanting. But I suspect we all transit from a certain kind of want to another. The lines aren't lines sometimes.

I want...to be in the string of threaded, half-baked and repetitive images that my mind conjures when a Frou Frou piece plays...right now.

Which kind of want is that?

Whim

Hello everyone, it's been a while. I have just removed the Flooble Chatterbox because it always becomes defunct after a period of inactivity. That's also because I know you all care enough to set up a Xanga account and to sign in every time you want to make a comment and also at the same time, inadvertently award two cookies to every blog entry I toss out so irregularly. Hee  

Anyway,  things have been quiet on the blog front, both here and on the Hualahuala. With moving to a new blog address (because of the switch from Blogger to Google), I admit there's been some inertia on my part to getting used to posting on the gang blog. I still read the stuff though!  Let's hope this Xanga post induces some good Blogspot posting. Haha. 

So you say, "What have you been up to?" Well, where shall I start? 

Ok guys! Will be back soon! See you then!

Wahaha! Haha no la no la, just kidding. But it's true. I don't know where to start.

I feel rather dis-equipped with my erratic camera (even though it's new) which reads the memory card as locked when it isn't. It's apparent to me that too many thoughts and whims fuse in my mind which (I loathe to say,  eventually, because I live in the hope that I will revisit them in time to come) go unrecorded. And of course this extends to the barrage of images into which I daydream between fact and fiction - my poor camera. I have to get you fixed. *Patpat*

Also, JenFetty has just turned 21 on Monday. Happy Birthday again! I doubt you'll need to read this because I've been bombarding such greetings on you in every possible way now. Haha. What else? Well, now that everyone in the house has had a turn at birthdays for this academic year, again, the next one shall be mine. Turning 22 is actually, quite, I don't know what to think...I like the number 2. One thing I do know, is that birthdays are a wonderful excuse for friends and family to get together and to celebrate one's being. I get a little homesick though. I miss my mum more than ever with each birthday away from home. Because, I mean, what did I do to get people to celebrate my birth? Since a long while ago, I've come to the conclusion that my birthday is shared more, if not, no less, by my mum because she gave birth to me.

Anyway, now that term is drawing to an end, my crunch starts now. I miss you all la, you know who you are.

In the midst of unpacking my stash from the last academic year, I have torn out some pages of an exercise book left behind by Ergorgor. It is not his, I presume, because it isn't his handwriting. And so I don't know whose it is, because it doesn't seem like his, and there's no name on the book. After all, the things he left for me were partially a mish-mesh of things probably lost and found by his friends and himself. In between not being bothered to ask my brother about some book he probably had no idea even existed, and just feeling that the book got to me and so it's meant to be my call, the origins of this scrapbook remains undisturbed. 

On those pages were some scribbles of unfinished poems with random imagery tossed about a few telephone numbers. And every time I packed or came across this somewhat tattered exercise book - a few times in First Year, twice in the following, and now the most recent for the start of Third Year - I looked to the almost indecipherable handwriting and read on with some inquisition, as a chronic and convenient digression from the mini-chaos around me. Some of the writing talk about departure and separation. I wonder if these lines were copied off a song, or if they were scribbled on the aeroplane, or if the author penned them while sprawling on the Portland Hill. I even wondered if the author was ever in search of these writings. And in the face of these idle musings, I have kept this exercise book amongst the document trays and university material that I've received back in 2004. Of course, this was easy to justify on this premise: there were empty pages following the first few i.e. this could still be used and should not be thrown away or recycled yet. Keep la keep.

Now that I'm in my final year, however, my attitude towards this exercise book has morphed a little. I feel that I will have to make sure all items under my charge go somewhere before long. They either take a long ship ride home next year, or they're resold, or recycled, etc. With this book, I read those scribblings again and felt as if the book has found a longer residence and more readings in my drawers than it or its previous owner could have expected. 

I'm not attached to what's been written, really. But I am aware of how it could have been, for a few minutes perhaps, the canvas to some idly penned thoughts. It probably does not mean anything to anyone anymore. And least of all, to me, it shouldn't. Perhaps it never did, and that's why it ended up as scrap paper for my perusal. It only feels like a song fading away to quietness, or a library book that I see lying on the floor and that I have no wish to borrow. I merely scan through the blurb and return it to one of the shelves.

So those pages are going to be put in the brown recycling push-bins out in the porch, alongside assorted unwanted flyers and pamphlets. It's not goodbye, nor is it "I had a good time", but just time to go, I guess.