Epiphany! Or, Why Ex-Ballerinas Make Bad Singers

So.

I started singing lessons two weeks ago, after convincing myself it was worth the Friday evening traffic jam and hyperventilating over sounding like a fool in front of the teacher.

It didn't go quite that badly of course, but she did have to teach me how to breathe properly - this being one of the main reasons I decided to take lessons in the first place. The first twenty minutes were a whole new dimension of head - clue - please meet. The concept is actually absurdly simple - relaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaax, and take a breath.

Someone's said also that the easiest concepts are usually the ones that you don't catch till you're at the end of a long, hopefully fruitful life.

My teacher tried everything she knew to get me to relax and not stiffen up and stand like a military guardsman because that makes for -wrong- breathing. Finally, she gave up and had me go home to practice this at the end of lesson.

Last week started off a little better. Just to check if I was actually getting enough air intake into my lungs, my teacher put her hands on my ribcage and said, Loosen up! Relax! Let it all hang out!

To which my immediate reaction was to look at her in horror and go, ...BUT I'LL LOOK FAT SIDEWAYS IF I DO THAT!

DUH. Ex-ballerina here - back straight, butt in, stomach in. It's an ingrained, worse-than-military instinct which dictates that on NO occasion shall you allow your stomach to hang out like a trucker's beer gut. Straight! Straight! Posture! Plie! Tendu! ...Ahem.

After that little mallet of realization, breathing was -not- a problem any more.

I'm looking forward to lessons tomorrow, really I am. And learning to sing my first Italian song.

***

On another note --Constance! This drawing is specially for, and dedicated, to you because you are a feisty, spunky, completely wonderful lady just like those Qin women so long ago, and I give you many, many hugs (you know what I'm talking about).



This is (quite obviously) markers, ink pens of varying sizes, and watercolour. I have no idea what possessed me to play with pink shadows, except I had a loaded brush full of pale red paint and I remembered that in the olden days, they used to paint the corners of eyes red for beauty. Then it all suddenly went WUMPF, and...so you have pink shadows on a pale face like a mask. It's an experiment that I think came out pretty well for once!

And now back to trying to sing Debussy's 'Yver' from Trois Chansons d'Orleans for Sunday's chamber choir --oh. Right. Yes. I made auditions for our performance choir's chamber choir two weeks ago! And of course, the FIRST thing we have to learn to sing is...something in French...erm. See my tongue KNOT.

Thank HEAVENS for recordings of Canto Armonico singing the entire thing (and DO check them out if you like fantastic choral singing. Hungarian. Oooooooooooooooooooooh does not begin to -describe- it.)

Real Daleks Unite!

My brother, bless him, dug through an old hard drive in disrepair and sent me this:



That's Nikki, taken in 2004. His favourite pose - flattening out like a little roast suckling pig, because the concrete was cooler than the weather. He used to get so dirty if the ground was damp, it drove my aunt (his rightful owners were my aunt and uncle next door) crazy.

I miss him. I think I will for a while. 13 years of having him to come home to won't go away that easily.

***

Today at the Japanese restaurant, I'm quite sure I discovered the real life inspiration for Daleks - this large clamshell:



It really -did- make me go, "EX-TER-MI-NATE!" when I first saw it! So of course, I had to draw it, though that's becoming such a familiar refrain these days most people I know can complete it before I even have it halfway out of my mouth...

Rainbows and Human Rainbow-Pluses

To everyone who sent their condolences on Nikki's passing, it helped more than you could ever imagine, all the thoughts and the kindness. Thank you so much.

I don't know whether anyone else in my area saw it, but Monday evening, I saw a full rainbow in the sky out the taxi window - and it stayed either alongside or up ahead in the big dark expanse of rainclouds the entire way to my choir rehearsals. It was like driving into a gate, a new dimension, and it made me smile. Despite the rather heavy drizzle. Despite the fact that I waited for the bus till kingdom come and got liberally bespattered with rain. The taxi driver was probably wondering -why- I was craning my head all around like a drunk owl - I was trying to FIND where the rainbow would appear around the next bend, mostly, but I'm sure I looked like a demented drowned rat...

I was reminded of this because a human rainbow appeared on the street and ambled down the sidewalk today when I was waiting for the bus and made me stare. So of course I had to sketch him even if all I managed to catch was his departing, jaunty back:



Trust me, the blue was more electric than that. And yes he DID dye his hair pink just at the edges of his sides like that. Hey, Marcelo and the Sketch Clubbers - this guy could've been one of your 'marks' of the day, honestly! My retinas are -still- burning with the weight of all that clashing colour...

On another note, the operation theatre was way cold this afternoon. Which resulted in yet another of my random 'Let's stop my fingers from dropping OFF with frozen' sketches:



Patient on the table, though I was mostly looking at the lovely folds and shadows. One day I'll master the art of drawing anaesthetic tubes. One day!

R. I. P.

R. I. P.

Nikki
1994 - March 5th, 2007

Golden labrador retriever, companion, family, and friend

You'll be missed, Dawg.
You were so much part of the family, I can't imagine it without you now.
No more pain though. I miss you already.
Wish I had taken time to draw you for real, because the memory sketch doesn't do justice to just how special you were to us all.

Six Strange Things and Other Matters

And she resurfaces, like a whale...

Yes, oops, a month went by and I haven't posted anything, mostly due to life happening and just a general malaise that's been hard to shake. Chinese New Year just went by, and it was good and vacation filled, and...I think I've calmed sufficiently to be able to write with impunity once more.

So! I was tagged, about a month ago, by the lovely Constance as follows (Constance, SO many apologies. I kept trying to think of what to put down, and it just draaaaaaaaagged and the above happened...) This ought to make somewhat odd reading, I imagine!

RULES: People who get tagged need to write a blog post of 6 weird things about them as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose 6 people to be tagged and list their names. Don't forget to leave a comment that says "you are tagged" in their comments and tell them to read your blog.

1) Whenever I am stressed, I do extensive, in-depth research. I've no idea why, other than perhaps channelling all that extra 'grrr' and energy into something useful is productive. This has included: lion dancing, Kwan Tak Hing (the first actor to portray Chinese legend Wong Fei Hung), the Russian language, Chinese opera, Kabbala and its permutations, quantum theory, historical recipes from the 1700s, and the proper layout of medieval herb gardens. I know. I'm messed up. But it's relaxing for me.

2) I am a film graduate who doesn't like films. That requires a bit of explanation. I prefer working -behind- the scenes of a film, developing the look and putting it together, but viewing the finished cuts was never really a priority. I've always been picky about what movies I watch, and I'm even worse now. When I was still in film school, it was a chore getting me to -watch- certain films because I didn't like them and didn't want to. It's -still- a miracle when I tell my friends I'm going to go see a movie. But tell me you want me to work ON the movie...well that's another story!

3) On a related note to the above, I don't like comedies. If given a chance, I'd rather watch CSI than Friends. Same goes for films and most books, though I do give much more leeway when it comes to books. I'll read Gerald Durrell, whose writing has a lot of comedic gold moments in it, and Roald Dahl, for example. I -won't- read 'The Devil Wears Prada', though I could be persuaded into it with great, great difficulty.

4) I love nattou - that being Japanese fermented soy beans which have the texture of snail slime and a distinctly strong taste. I'll even eat it plain. I have it on good authority that even some Japanese are going to look at me in horror for that. But it tastes great on rice...

5) I am a walking food dictionary. I have an inexhaustible backlog of cooking information, historical and contemporary, residing in some database in my brain. I've no idea how this database got there, because I never really started cooking until I had my own apartment in graduate school overseas. Nevertheless, it only takes a trivial comment to set off a whole chain of connection - for example, a friend of mine mentioned in conversation that he wasn't sure if my combining rice with green peas would taste good. Upon which I promptly cited the example of mame gohan (Japanese rice boiled together with green peas, a little salt, some mirin or sweet wine, and wakame seaweed for taste), Venetian risi e bisi which has, I think, turmeric to be fully historically accurate, Italian green pea risotto, and wound up with rice and peas Southern style (which is really rice and red beans, mostly), as well as a variation called Red Rice that is distinctly Caribbean/Jamaican and can be found in Edna Lewis' classic Southern cookbook, In Pursuit of Flavour -- or was it The Taste of Country Cooking? It's been a while...but you get my point.

6) I cannot integrate, in calculus. Not to save my LIFE. I can differentiate excellently but I can't reverse the process (which is what integration is.) My teachers in secondary school attempted for an entire year to get me to be able to do this, afterwhich they just gave up and asked if I'd like to not take calculus as a national exam. I agreed and thus, I still can't integrate.

***

On the art front, well - I was horrifically lazy over Chinese New Year, and didn't sketch nearly as much as I would have liked to make myself!

So in the spirit of it still being (relatively) Chinese New Year since the 15th day of it hasn't come around, have a really bad photograph of a Lion Dance head suspended on the ceiling of a cafe I was at for dinner one day (I didn't have a scanner so had to use the digital cam):



Oh, and the three teenagers I was with at the time goaded me into drawing a guy with funny pants, so I capitulated for them, in good humour. The guy's friends kept looking at me weird so I had to pretend I was looking anywhere else but at them:



***

Man it's good to be back!

Vignette a'la Abstract

My friend Marcos posted these wonderful pieces and the black-and-white abstract apparently has a story to it. I looked at it again today, and this little short vignette floated to mind.

So Marcos? This is for your abstract piece, inspired by the lovely lines!

Once Upon a Springtime

It wasn't that he liked being the Grim Reaper. Times changed, even fashions changed and if his current attire looked like he'd stepped out of a gritty, film noir underworld, it wasn't really his fault. Even Death had taste, and trenchcoats suited his style. Black fedoras, while cliche'd, at least hid his hollow features and as for his small ebony-handled gun - well, scythes were so outdated. One had to keep up with the times after all, even if one didn't like them.

And springtime, despite Death's very considerable poker-faced abilities, was the worst. It made him morose. All this talk of buds, birds and bounty got on his nerves and reminded him that he was possibly the only one who had never enjoyed any of the benefits the season was supposed to bring. Cats have kittens, dogs have puppies, bats have bittens, so carolled poet Ogden Nash, but Death didn't have any of these, and on this particular balmy day he felt suddenly very lonely.

Loneliness begets action. So Death went for a walk in the park, and the first thing he noticed was how very blue the sky seemed to be. Some child had let a red balloon drift into the air, and it hovered, like a bright crimson eye, just over the pale leafy tops of some very tall trees. There was a scent of flowers and freshness in the air, stimulating like a nerve tonic and chasing away the cobwebs in winter-fogged brains. Why, Death said to himself, I never noticed how nice it smells out here, like earth and green, growing things.

A few children ran by, laughing, candy floss in hand. A robin, engrossed in its acquisition of a worm, paid no attention to the trench-coated presence passing by. It was an odd, disturbing feeling, and Death noted it with a measure of surprise. It was a novelty, to be ignored thus. He wasn't entirely sure how he felt about it.

Even before he saw her, he heard her. She was singing a little tra-lala-lira-lay, sitting on the back of a large winged stone leopard by the fountain - a bright splash of colour in her white flamenco dress with red stripes. Oh, she said with a bright smile when she saw Death, could you please help me? - this poor leopard, his wings are frozen into stone. He would lift off like a feather if only he could break them loose.

The girl smelled of mornings and new hopes, her glossy hair the sheen of purple-black grapes ripe in the sun. In the distant recesses of his mind, a faint memory uncoiled and formed itself into nebulous rememberance. When I was still young, he said to himself, surprised. Why, I still remember after all these years.

He touched the leopard's sun-warmed wings. On the grey stone, a vein of cracks bloomed, widening until suddenly, like an eggshell cracking open, pinions blue as the sky spread and broke free. The girl turned to Death. Thank you, she said quietly. He's been waiting for years to be able to fly again.

Death looked at the girl for a very long time. I don't know how to fly, he said gravely. Will you teach me? The girl looked back at him solemnly and he noticed how her eyes seemed to contain every shade of sunset and sunrise, every missing second and every lost dream he'd ever come across in his travels. Of course I will, she said, it's easy, and she took Death's cold, gloved hand.

A little gust of wind blew away the clouds. The red balloon watched with its bright eye as a stone leopard soared towards the welcoming sun, wings fading into the sky, carrying on its back Death and the Maiden hand-in-hand that Spring morning, once upon a long long time ago.

Happy Birthday of the Dissonances

It's past midnight, I've just gotten back from the most wonderful performance by the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra and the Australian group The Song Company, and I consider it still the 20th, since I'd intended to put this up yesterday and not managed to. Artistic liberties and such, you know?

Today is the second anniversary of my grandmother's passing.

It's also my birthday.

It was a long ride home in the taxi the night of the 19th. Bumpy, half-lulling darkness, punctuated by rain. My father had told me to come straight home after work; the doctors didn't hold out much hope for her any more. She could go any minute, they said. So I went, on sheer blind faith that she would wait, that somehow, she'd hear me praying again and again, God please don't let her die before I come home, I have to see her, I have to tell her I love her one more time.

A week ago in the hospital I'd stood by her bed and looked into her tired, dull eyes. I told her that I was going back to the city because I had to work. And I told her that I would come home.

Three hours later, taxi paid off, wet from the drizzle outside, I stood by her bed again and I told her, "Grandma, I'm home now. It's ok. You can go if you want to. I'm back. I promised and I'm here." She was already in a coma then. Had been, for several days. My aunts from the US were all home; I was the last one to arrive.

I wanted to believe that she heard me, that she knew for the very last time that I'd kept my word and she could go easy.

That morning of the 20th, 2.15am, she slipped away. No fuss, no drama. Her tired, cancer-ridden body just quietly shut itself down, and let her fall asleep for good.

She gave me the most precious gift - that of knowing she loved me, she heard me, and she waited. With all my heart, I believe she hung on because she was waiting for me.

Two birthdays later, I'm just home from the most wonderful Song Company concert, having been enveloped in music for an entire evening. Just home from having been 'happy birthday'd' by the girls of my choir and my choir director outside the Philharmonic Hall - complete with dissonant harmonies and theatrical showgirl finale, no less. Just home from one of the most special evenings I've had in a long time. I managed to almost trip going downstairs, but caught myself in a twirl on the bannisters; the Song Company tenor who was going down at the time almost caught me. Almost! Part of me wishes I'd let myself fall, so he would have!

And of course, I couldn't leave without having sketched some of the proceedings. That Moleskine is a treasure; there's something about it which makes me want to take it everywhere and record everything of interest, like a life journal in pictures. Alia, thank you -ever- so much for giving it to me. It's like a new dimension, added to my marker exercises.





Last birthday I was singing with the choir, and sick as a dog the entire way.

This year, I got to sit down and -see- a fantastic symphony and a choir. I got serenaded three times by various friends - church, online, and choir - and have had a weekend (I work Saturdays. Any full weekend is a treat.) Not only that I get to go home to visit my parents for an entire -week-!

In three years of birthdays now I'm back in Malaysia? This is definitely the best of them all.

And to everyone who's innundated me with birthday wishes? Thank you. SO. MUCH. You've made this day wonderful.

Moleskines and Pen Heaven!

A couple of days' absence from the sketchbook and pens generally make me entirely too bad-tempered for words. So even though I've been tired, I've been forcing myself to sit down and concentrate on some drawing. And I had a lovely time with Damascene here, which did wonders for my lousy mood:



But that's not the best thing that happened over the last few abysmally horrid days though...

Two days ago, a wonderful, wonderful package dating from December 2006 finally found its way to me. It was from an even more wonderful artist friend who not only gifted me with TWO! TWO! Moleskine journals, she also packed me a batch of new sepia pens of various brands to try out.

Of course I couldn't let that opportunity pass up, right? Only yesterday happened to be Wednesday, and I was supposed to be in operating theatre taking down clinical notes for my boss...

The Moleskine, incidentally, is small enough to slip into my pocket.

Presenting, tongue-in-cheek, what happens in between operations when a certain shivering artist is too cold to stand around on one foot any more, and has nice new drawing pens to try out:


There were a lot of fascinating wires on the anaesthetic machine, that's what those tubes are part of at the far right bottom. I just couldn't draw the stupid machine, there were too MANY wires and things.


She's wearing a lead apron - we were doing a case that involved some small amount of radiation with x-rays.


Our instrument table. There was a lot more on it, but I only had time to get that much before I had to scribble clinicals.

I had a LOT of fun but I've decided that at least for now, I like calligraphic chisel-tipped markers a lot better for getting texture. Still, those sepia pens are -lovely-. They made a beautiful henna pattern on the page I scribbled up today.

It's good to be drawing again. The last few days were -really- depressing, and when I'm depressed, I don't draw - but if I make the effort to, I do feel a lot better.

I really need some whelks!

Dragonfly Afternoon

My back is much better now, and I'm officially off painkillers unless there's more pain on movement. I'm also off the heating pads and I'm able to walk around and bend so that means I'm well on the way to recovery. Which is GREAT. You never quite realize just how much the back is used in everything till you can't -use- it.

I was walking upstairs to the apartment today when I saw a really colourful dragonfly settled on one of the steps. When I bent down and touched it gingerly, it flew up rather drunkenly and landed on the concrete wall near the bannisters. I really need to learn to gauge distance better when I do closeups (yeah, I had to cheat a bit and use a sharpen filter).



Just couldn't resist the interplay of those gorgeous colours. Who would have thought something so small could be so bright and bonny? No wonder the children talk of Faerieland.

The dragonfly was, for some reason known only to itself, trying to do a headstand. I spent about ten minutes taking a few other (really bad) photos of it. When I left, it was already gently fluttering its wings, long slender body straight up to the sky and all the weight of air supported on its bulbous head and huge eyes.

Ring Out, Wild Bells, The Year Is OUCH

As if the New Year didn't have enough in store already, I ended up having to get an injection for my back yesterday so I could move without creaking into tiny pieces onto the floor. Though it was rather educational to see the look that poor doctor gave me after I explained that no, the muscle relaxant I'd tried and the two tablets of prescribed painkillers did zippo, nada, zilch for the pain. When I actually had to stop and think whether or not this was pain that could be classified as 'severe' - I have a very high pain threshold, if it's not debilitating, I don't consider it severe, usually - I could almost see the thoughts in his head: 'I've just found a masochist in my clinic for New Year. Just. My. Luck.'

To put it in perspective, one tablet of abovementioned painkiller takes away my migraines just fine.

And I did go to work today.

I suppose that's why I sketched this girl - because I felt as blue and as in shadow as she did in that photograph.



But as Marcos reminded me though, it's two double-oh seven. That's kind of nice to contemplate, as much as I love Casino Royale.

Tomorrow's going to be better. At least, I keep telling myself it will be. After all, there's always sketching.

And whelks.

Last Post 2006 and Happy New Year!

I did have a post ready. A thought-provoking, wise, canny post even. Then I coughed and promptly pulled a back muscle, which makes sitting up easier than lying down, really painful on standing, and agony getting up after lying down.

Maybe I wasn't meant to make that post eh?

So I'll just leave all of you with this, and my best wishes for a wonderful, blessed 2007 to everyone.



Thanks for reading, for being friends, for everything.

Sketchcrawl Enroute Year's End...

Finally, finally, after fighting with a lot of pride and embarrassment issues, I've gotten off my ample rump and scanned up all the sketches I did from the SketchCrawl on 9th December. Three weeks late! Yes, part of the mitigating circumstances were that the computer was down and the scanner wasn't working with the laptop, but still, I'm late and that merits a big, big apology to those who've posted and did take part (Sandra, Zeke and Hadibi namely!)

So here they are - I'm taking your advice, Marcelo! They're not that good, I admit; I've still got a long way to go. But it's a personal milestone in that a few months ago even, I'd never have been able to even attempt something like it. As puerile as they are...I'm proud of having made the attempt. The complete image is behind the thumbnail; I decided to spare everyone's eyeballs and put them behind a cut to be kind (they're largish images):


A lady with an interesting hairstyle at a caricature booth - it was at the Digi Street Party, I believe, or something so inclined. Cornrows! Haven't seen those in ages!


This little Muslim girl eyed me suspiciously the entire time around I was trying to unobtrusively sketch her. Her mother too, and I only managed her head.


The girl with the striped shirt was getting a temporary tattoo from the lady with the bag. The chap with the cap is from the International Busker's Festival in KL, I forget his name. Oops. But man, his shirt was fascinating!


The fanstastically entertaining New Zealanders, the Motley Two, from where I was sitting, watching the two Canadian performers doing their thing. Check out that SPIKY HAIR. How could I resist that?


A very attentive, fascinated little boy watching in the front row of people.


Carnie the Contortionist. A very BAD profile. Boy can he contort. And his act with the bear traps? Just makes my hair stand on end. It's fantastic, but SCARY! More of him later...


David Ladderman of the Motley Two on his trademark ladder, holding a juggling club. It was bright green. LOVELY colour.



More Ladderman, his partner Mullet Man, and juggling and ladders!


Now these are -post- SketchCrawl, done from videos Sandra shot and photographs, so they don't particularly count, but I still tried to keep to time limits anyways:


These Canadian guys were breathtaking. I kept catching my breath and hoping nothing bad would happen and everyone collapse in a heap...


The Motley Two on unicycle and ladder, juggling between each other.


One from the Sketchie, Carnie! He saw me with my honkin' huge sketchbook (how could anyone miss that) and made a pose. I was red in the face and laughing too much to actually -catch- him in it at the time, but Sandra snapped a photo and -here- is the pose!

We were collectively known as 'The Sketchies' that day, I think. Not that we minded, it just felt odd to be so...notorious? Never been quite so publicly identified as a Sketcher before, at least for myself!

This has been a really mixed-up year, like a cocktail drink - shaken, stirred, occasionally turned upside down and hammered on the counter - but I think that without it I wouldn't have grown, wouldn't have met some of the people I treasure most in my life right now.

Last post of the year tomorrow, and New Year greeting besides! Have a good one, y'all...

Dead Cats and Rubbish

No, that doesn't refer to me actually having personally found any dead cats in my bed, or rubbish pouring down the pipes again (no Marcos! It has not happened thank GOD!) - it just happens to be the only things strong enough that I can smell at the moment when I walked back from lunch today.

Eating gyuniku udon (udon noodles with beef in soup) is really a lot less fun when you can't taste a ruddy thing.

As Erma Bombeck wrote once, 'It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. I've got the flu.' Or something like that, anyway, but yes. I have the flu. No doubt brought on by sleep deprivation from making costumes like mad over the past week or two, and stress from work, but STILL. Christmas with the Flu. And the Christmas play in two days. It should be an institution.

However! I had the perfect remedy for the blues when I got home - Catalina! I've been asked for pictures of her, so as a courtesy to the Kitsune Fox whom I absolutely adore, and my brother, who thought it was really neat, here's the lady herself!


Sleeeeeeeeeeeeeek as a pirate's cutter, oh yeah, ain't she?


Before the Makeover. Those wires don't exist, nope, nope...there is no wire, there is merely the puuuuuuuuuuuter...(ok so that's my room, where I live, so everything has to fit in it. Still!)


And after the Makeover! Does something look rather familiar there...

On another (stranger) note, I think I'm beginning to be known around my area as That Girl Who Draws Everywhere. I mean, I do nowadays, I've got markers and sketchpad with me even if I'm in the bathroom most days. It's brought quite a few stares and some comments, and a lot of opinion. This was brought home to me forcibly when I went to lunch this afternoon at my favourite Japanese restaurant, and the owner-lady said, "You know, the picture you drew for us last year's been up for a while, draw something else and we'll put it up!" Short explanation: this is the same Japanese place which feeds me tons of extra food every time I go, and last year to say thank you, I did a quick kimono girl pencil drawing over lunch, folded a paper crane, and left it with the bill after I paid - after making sure no one could see me leave since I was shy and didn't know if they'd like it.

Apparently? They did! One of the waitresses even asked for a Santa drawing she could colour for her little girl - both requests which I'm going to try my best to get done along with a few other things (and the Christmas play.)

Looking at Marcos' paella must have gotten me in the mood to draw seafood because I managed some of these prawns in the freezer case:



I'm the Girl Wot Draws to all these lovely people. Wow. That's...really something.

She's HERE!

There's a sexy, sleek new permanent resident in my room right now. All in classic black, no less, and sitting coyly on the floor.

I'm in love, oh yes I'm in love.

She's my new computer! And she's absolutely gorgeous, with the most beautiful silver trim, and she runs like a DREAM. All the software installed right. She's got XP Pro. My scanner works. I've got Photoshop again and a 17" monitor (I used to have a 15 year old 15").

I'm so, so happy, I don't even feel tired any more even though I only had 4 hours' sleep.

And because she's my very first new computer since college that I bought all on my own and didn't inherit from previous users, I had to give her a name - and that was easy.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present Catalina de Los Angeles, after El Pacifico's feisty Pirate Girl (the colour scheme on the display unit matches her outfit. I am not kidding. Blue, red, black and some white, very tastefully done.) Because my 'cyberlady' just looks that spunky and sassy, and because she's mine so she has to be.

And now for dinner because I err...kind of forgot to eat after I set her up...

Anyways in the meantime, have a picture from the archives from when I really couldn't draw architecture (and still can't but am trying to practice. That cathedral was good considering I'd never drawn a building before but looking at it now makes me just cringe in agony.

Redefining Gothic In Style

Christmas approaches. Costumes are ambushing by the minute.

So in the spirit of 'let's not get drowned by a few pieces of fabric and thread', I dug something out of the archives that has -something- to do with fashion and design.

Well, and sheer insanity too, but by now everyone reading this ought to know I'm truly loco.



Presenting the New Goth Girl.

Or rather OLD Goth Girl...never mind, I'm not about to argue semantics tonight, not when I'm still trying to remember how to spell my own name. I had to stop and think for a moment.

There's got to be a way of growing old more gracefully than trying to explain, 'It's on the tip of my tongue, what's it called' and realizing you wanted to say 'saliva'. (If only that were my line; it's Bill Condon's, punnish genius that he is.)

Random Thoughts from the Glog Barrel and Draw Something Sweet Challenge

Today my sewing machine worked. And there was much rejoicing.

To know why something as simple as this causes leaping and dancing upon the high hills, you have to understand that nothing about sewing machines comes easily to me. Nothing. I'm a self-taught seamstress, and everything I know about a sewing machine and its innards come from two days of lessons from a dear, dear friend in Florida whom I've lost touch with (drat it, Joy, I miss you, wherever you are). That, and an entire week better left nameless during Easter this year, when I was holed up with the machine infernal (where it jammed, stuck, tangled, broke needles, and otherwise turned my week of costume-sewing into a nightmare which rivals Fuseli in creepy eldritch horror. Or is that Cthulhu?)

So to have it work without a hitch, even sewing a straight seam, gladdens my heart and makes me smile. Especially when I used it to hem my first ever satin fabric. Satin fabric! That slippery evil I've dreaded working with for years! And it's tamed!

Yes, happy-making here, folks.

***

Saturday 9th December was International Sketch Crawl day. In a fit of rash foolhardiness, yours truly took the plunge and went barrelling off into the wilds of Kuala Lumpur city to shoot a drawing. I mean, SKETCH. These sketches, properly harnessed and muzzled, will be put up sometime soon after my scanner comes back, because my digital camera ain't going to take a nice enough picture of them, that's for sure. In the meantime, enjoy this wonderful artist's posts and photos of said event, because man, she ROCKED (and sketches both fast and well, believe me. I was there...uh, if there's photographic evidence ignore! ignore!):

http://sandorasan.blogspot.com/2006/12/sketchcrawl-12.html

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Some days, being professional, calm, collected and quietly cheerful at work is exhausting, and leads to an abstracted fit of the blues and almost-crying-but-not-quite. I have a legendary bad temper; the effort of smiling politely when I want to brain a nincompoop who's yelling at me over the phone takes a lot out of me and usually leaves me brain-dead.

This would be today in a nutshell.

So, a 45 minute walk home, a looooong phonecall to my mother and an equally long venting rant later, I go for dinner at the mall to try and cheer myself up. Which suffered a rather small setback when I ordered iced tea and got Pepsi instead. I did ask for a change of drink since I can't stand the latter, but I did remember to ask nicely instead of taking someone's head off (it was a temptation but I was just too tired, and I'm sure those poor waitresses were overworked anyways because it was late.)

Some people are of the opinion that iced lemon tea is for drinking. I'm sure somewhere along the line I agreed with that in a nebulous fashion once. This time, I not only didn't drink more than a quarter of it, I left the rest in the glass so I could draw the pretty, pretty light-and-dark contrasts between the ice and the tea. And since it was sweet iced tea, I figured it qualified for the EDM group's 'Draw Something Sweet' challenge, since I...haven't really done any of those in donkey's YEARS. Centuries. Yeah, it's been a while.

Hot fudge brownies are meant for eating too, but I totally ignored it in favour of getting this down. Apologies for the lousy picture, digital cameras at night don't make for the best shots:



Vaguely out of the corner of my eye I noticed one of the waiter/waitresses standing there watching me while I was sketching, but I didn't pay attention, not until I went to pay for my food and my waitress said brightly, "You're an artist? I like watching you sketch!" Turns out she was a graphic artist in college and she loves seeing people draw; when I left she and the girl who got my order wrong waved happily and called, "So nice to meet you!"

It was a sheer waste of a hot fudge brownie, which had turned to lukewarm and amazingly jaw-sticking by the time I got around to it.

But it was worth it all, just to see those two girls smile.

Casino Royale Dreams and Overworked Brains

AFTER CASINO ROYALE
© SYL, 2006

Been a while hasn't it --
since a gun sat in my palm
snug as a Russian nesting doll
giving up secrets, layer by layer:

a gun of spun smoke and stilted words.

I look down the barrel of my days
Beyond the known yonder
Infinity spans its necklace of hours.

I'm fixing my sights
Baby I'm aiming straight -
Shards of me, that secret hollow
tiny splinters of fractured time
and a bullet of echoes backlit
by pieces of unseasoned dreams
cordite traces of a smile
that should have been yours
but faded, like invisible ink
drifting away.

Suckerfish Training School Part-the-Something

I had whelks for lunch today.

Those of you who've read this will know exactly what that means.

Today however, things were just a touch different. Because all the whelks went on strike.

I knew I was in trouble the minute I picked up the first one, and it not only didn't come out of the shell when I slurped on it, it made me drool because it was a bit -too- large to bite on comfortably, -and- required the skills of an elite vacuum cleaner just to keep up with the sucking action.

No wonder babies go to sleep after taking their bottle of milk. Oww. My -lips- are still sore.

By the time the fourth whelk had defeated all attempts to eat it, I was pretty convinced it was One Of Those Days. The discreet slurping sounds that usually accompany this enterprise had sort of long since materialized into a swampish gurgle that often accompanies quicksand victims trying to get out and failing. Either that or a truck stuck in an oozing, squelching shlrrrrrrrrrrrrrrp of mud.

If half the restaurant was looking at me by this time I didn't notice; I was busy looking the other way and studying the wall with great interest. You can perfect the Innocent Animaniacs look doing that, I assure you. It's great practice contriving to make it seem like those ghastly sewer noises are not emanting from your place despite you going through the -motions- of making them, but are really helium balloons under your chair being deflated. Method actors have -nothing- on me at this point, behbe.

This is one time I'm very thankful I'm nowhere near a resident franchise of Sketchclub. The spectacle of a short, wild-eyed woman attempting to contort her mouth into shapes only seahorses, blowfish, guppies and chimpanzees should be allowed to practice would just have been too much to resist for any self-respecting artist.

Oh what the heck who am I fooling. If I'd been looking at ME I'd have grabbed the sketchbook and started plugging away at it.

I had to commemorate the moment, even if I only had 5-10 minutes to do it. Behold the Whelk of Doom:



I managed to get out of there with my self-respect intact. I think. Despite having to resort to stabbing at the whelks with a fork to fish it out, and in the process, cracking the shell accidentally and taking a whole lot of unexpected calcium into my diet. Crunchy calcium, no less.

Man. My mouth will never be the same again.

(Believe me, I'm glad I'm no one famous because THAT line taken out of context would, like the ever famous Lucy, require a great deal of 'splainin' to do.)

Introspection Intraspection

ANY GIVEN SUNDAY
© SYL, 2006

Any given Sunday the garlic stakes twist
Around your heart
Your vampire heart – your life sucked dry
By its feeding.
And dreams, like leeches
Drift through thoughts
White, dead
Bloated hope.

Your cracked voice swells.

There is nothing but a husk of shell
No sound but these withered bones.

Sittin' On the Dock of the Sushi Bar

You know you've been going to a restaurant long enough to be considered 'family' when the waitresses try to steal your sketch book to get a peek inside.

There's a wonderful little Japanese restaurant opposite the hospital where I have lunch once a week. The ambience is wonderful; I did and still do a lot of my sketching there because it always inspires me to do something artistic over lunch. I've been going there for over a year or more now; the staff there know me so well they feed me -extra- food sometimes. Considering their portions are already huge, this often provides me with dinner from the leftovers.

The sushi chefs and the waitresses there have always found it amusing to watch me plug away at the sketch book while waiting for food to be served. But since the sushi chefs are often kind of shy about being sketched, I have to be sneaky about it. The waitresses just find it the biggest joke ever. Today two of them caught me at it, and demanded to see what I was drawing --me being shy, I declined. One of them tried to distract me, and the other tried to steal the sketch pad off my place, and we had a splendid friendly sibling-like scuffle (which bemused a lot of the patrons.)

But I -did- manage to steal a really crooked sketch of the chap preparing a Japanese salad. It was difficult, because every few seconds I had to sort of look somewhere else and pretend I wasn't drawing at all, since he kept turning around. And every time I looked back up someone had moved something on the counter so I couldn't get a good sketch of anything, even the pots! Still...I tried.



On a different note, I'd have to say that even if I'm not famous (except maybe for a phenomenal bad temper), my life is definitely not -dull-. Tonight it rained and I tried to hail a cab to take me around the corner to my apartment, since I didn't want to get thoroughly drenched with water and rival an ark. Normally, the cab fare would run to about 3RM since base fare starts at 2RM. Mr. Taxi Driver Sir wanted to charge me TEN. TEN! For that amount, just to put things in perspective, I could get to the monorail station 15-20 minutes away!

Fortunately it was raining hard enough or else the people at the bus stop nearby would have heard 'Ah moi(standard term for 'girl' here), go there need 10RM ahhh...' and 'WHAT??? DROP DEAD!' *door slam as Ah Moi with umbrella stalks off*.

Not -all- Ah Moi's loaded with umbrellas, bulky bags and who look a little like stout, short barrels melt in the rain. This Ah Moi regularly walks the 45 minutes back home when the bus doesn't come, thank you very much.

I really wasn't very accomodating to that poor man, come to think of it.

Anyway, that being said, Happy Thanksgiving to everyone who celebrates it! Here in my culture we don't, so I don't have any turkey pictures to put up but err....will a sushi chef chopping salad do?