Fix your gaze on such distant horizons, but do you stop to ask what it is you're trying to run from? And does it feel better to have no one to talk to? Without fear of hurting or being hurt. I'm sorry I am cruel. I wish I knew some other way. I wish I was better. But I've found that the world is not as straighforward as I'd once thought. And in finding I can no longer be the colours I once was. And so I walk here now, between the seams of what holds us all together. Aloof. Unresponsive. Unreactive. Though every pain drives so deep and every fear is overwhelming. I hold my peace. I yearn to flee. Because in my loss I know only how to hurt us.
Gomen.

I picture you in the sun wondering what went wrong
And falling down on your knees asking for sympathy
And being caught in between all you wish for and all you seen
And trying to find anything you can feel that you can believe in

May gods love be with you
Always
May gods love be with you

I know I would apologize if I could see your eyes
cause when you showed me myself I became someone else
But I was caught in between all you wish for and all you need
I picture you fast asleep
A nightmare comes
You cant keep awake

cause if I find
If I find my own way
How much will I find
If I find
If I find my own way
How much will I find
You

I dont know anymore
What its for
Im not even sure
If there is anyone who is in the sun
Will you help me to understand
cause I been caught in between all I wish for and all I need
Maybe youre not even sure what its for
Any more than me

May gods love be with you
Always
May gods love be with you

--Joseph Arthur: In the sun

Life.
Over and Over Again.
I am not Dana.
Sorry.

So far so good
Stumble through life
so complicated it's nearly Impossible
And i lost my way like i knew i would
and keep it together somehow anyway
And i remember you and me
Climbing over backyard fences diving naked in the Swimming pool
All those faces friends those memories fade so fast
Like every love song on the radio

Is it brilliant where you are
Where the lights are low
Is it brilliant where you are
Where the lights are

Through a million days through a million hazy nights
We sit amusing in our politics
Through wine and talk through sex and art we fill our time
And numb ourselves with what's to come
But i'm older now got a little girl of my own
And her fears are my fears now
I know that it's the end of days for moderates
But thinking people are thinking still

Is it brilliant where you are
Where the lights are low
Is it brilliant where you are
Where the lights are

So far so good
Stumble through life so complicated it's nearly Impossible
And we lost our way like i knew we would
And keep it together somehow anyway
Woke up from an impossible dream
And we talked and we spoke and we drank and we sang
And we danced and we live and we love and we give
Without question or faith then we fight till we hate
And we hope and we pray that this violence will fade
It's always the same it's the same life

-David Usher: Brilliant

My friggin gutt hurts from the disgust I have for myself, for suddenly missing a bastard who made the past year of my life a benign misery, all because of this damn hair I found.
The stoopid shiKt.

People who have too much time on their hands, and who use this time to send you stoopid things on stoopid face book and cram up your profile page with these stoopid, embarrassing things, PISS ME OFF! One of these days I'm gonna get rid of them or write something mean on their damn wall.

sigh

14th January, Year of the Nerd.

Elest is planning her escape, while trying to stay entertained by trivial things like oomphing up her flat with new Creature Speakers (they was cheap!) and orderring lots of books, then waiting for them to arrive every day.
Miyavi sounds good on the Creature. (I'm still gonna marry him by the way)
What else sounds good on the Creature is One Republic's soundtrack to the Year of the Nerd.

Life is a little dissapointing really. I feel like one of Murakami's protagonists most the time. Just going about my buisness, doing mundane things, indulgently, as though indulging solely in the act of doing them. Processing it all with an overtly animated and observant inner voice, that keeps yapping away at me like it was the narrator and I wanted to listen. All by my lonesome.
And while all this is going on, in the back of my mind is: Pixy, my girl, this world is bigger than you can ever imagine, even with your increadibly wild imagination. Remember always, that you are often seeing out of your little worm universe, from which things may often appear shit, or just simply not make sense. This time next year, you will not be here.

And then I wonder though, this time next year, where will I be? where do I want to be? what do I want for my life? and then it hits me: I'm not actually looking forward to anything any more.

We do not believe in falling in love; getting to know someone; trusting. We do not believe in surrounding ourselves; having children and a family. We observe couples on the tube or the queue at Sainsburys and think: Damn, are you in for a shiKKt time mate, and if you're not, then what are you and which human person's body have you snatched?
We no longer feel a need, or desire for such things. And if any such thing drops a hint on our horizon, we turn and run in the opposite direction, because, I'll be quite frank: we are scared to death.
And then, what's left? Fame? Fortune? Pshaw.
How lonely and futile is the lot of man.

And why should I not be ok?

10th January, Year of the Nerd

I've got a bad case of yellow fever. What's worse than not being able to get the thing out your system is that for some reason, it can't get you out of its. It appears that I’m irresistible to East Asians in general and Japanese in particular. Even half way across the world I get accosted; from random Chinese guys asking to take pictures to Hitori-sensei. Who?

December 25th 2007, Christmas at the Shajendra's had me locked in a never ending conversation with Hitori-sensei ('sensie' is what I called him. To everyone else, he was Hitori, the crazy conceptual artist, who'd subject you to pictures of his new sculpture on digicam if he got his hands on you. Indiscriminately.) It started off with where I was from, took a detour through "Your name means 'alone', right?" "Eh? Who told you!?" "No one, I can understand some Japanese." And then ended with The Historical Friendship of the Turks and Japanese. 'Aha.' -I must not have sounded convinced, so he rambled on for another 20 minutes about how the Turks know very well of the great episode when said friendship was forged, but the Japanese seem to have irreverently buried it in the past, along with the emperor of the time. I conclude, and his wife assures me afterwards, that Hitori-sensei loves Turkey.

Eventually, I did manage to get away, but along the course of the evening, the more he got pissed, the more he'd try to get me to come sit at his table with him. At 5am, when the party was still booming, I got tired of trying to tell him I was sleepy, and just went to bed.
End of Part One.

Part Two will commence when his daughter contacts me in a few weeks time upon her arrival from Tokyo. The arrangement is that I teach her Turkish and she helps me with my Japanese.

2008 – Year of the Nerd

Looking over the past years in blog, and throwing up a random comments to offer my contribution to the rapidly changing conversation going around me in the office: I've concluded this. Everything I wrote during my uni years and a little bit of what followed after were some good shiKt. Everything which followed was shiKt ShiKt. I am Jack’s literary pretention and disdain. I know why.

Elest said goodbye to 2007 bitching about mediocre fireworks on the London Skyline at Ally Pally, surrounded by Turks and Polacks. She made a few faces for the camera, to remember this auspicious Kodak moment of the end of possibly the shiKtest year of her life. She then said hello to 2008 falling asleep in the back of Shaheen's car. Basically, we celebrated in true style.

Being back? -I contemplate this as some volunteer makes sheep's eyes at me from in front of the HR department. Little does the kid know that I'm about 4 possibly 5 years older than him. Being back is a bit crap. It wasn't so bad at first because I was still on a high but I've realized one truth: As liberating and thrilling as it is to travel alone (the moments when I was completely by myself were best), it is the complete polar opposite on the feel good scale to be alone when back at home. This rat hole of a place was not made to be suffered without company or warmth.

We therefore have a predicament on our hands, which offers two alternatives. Find company or piss off out of here. But this is the year of the nerd; in which Elest remains asexual, grows androgynous, turns her nose up at fit guys and naively ignores the flirtatious advance of men around her. It is the year Elest concerns herself only with nerd things like books, manga, movies and all things to feed her imagination and creativity. This is the year Elest sees things through to the end and is stingy with her time because time is something, she's found, we, non of us, ever have enough of.

In the warmth of far away lands Pixy was heart broken to find that life is a cold, meaningless place. We grow up, grow old, and die alone. We lose the things we take for granted and realize their value. – Things like your testicles and your manhood. 'They took it all! They took my testicles! They took my manhood!' -raved the funny old, Norweigen man who no one knew at the Rajendra Christmas party. And though he was so light hearted about it, and everyone found it so funny, Elest smiled but only sadly. Apparently they picked him up at the bakery earlier that week when he'd collapsed. When they found out he was alone, they invited him to the party. When he asked later in the evening to take a picture with her and her friends, 'because I want to show that I was here' Pixy was even sadder.

And one more thing: To all those pretentious little white or would-be-white boys (this is not a colour, it's a cultural mindset) out there who fancy themselves artists, believe gender equality means making a woman pay for your drink, and don't know their own asses because constantly getting stoned, pissed and laid has not only left them with STDs and psychosis, but severe narcissism too: Grow up and get over your F***ing selves. Every such white boy needs to be dragged to some remote Kampong in the Far East, and made to use a squat toilet. Nothing to humble you like peeing in a hole in the ground, with malarial flies buzzing about your vulnerable behind, then having only stagnant, collected rain water to wash with afterwards.

-Sha, my love, this one's for you.

14-16.12.07

‘Thank you for your criticism’ –It says on a TukTuk.
The word TukTuk is from Thailand apparently because that’s where the little motor-carriers came here from, or are most common…I’m, not sure, exactly and who really cares any way?

This is just fine; Not understanding a word of what’s being said around her Getting lost in constant foreign chatter; Trying to eradicate herself…disappear among her company of locals who grow used to her silent presence and laugh at her random exclamations and attempts to mimic the lingo for their amusement (got to earn your keep after all). This is ideal.
Disappear.
Only it’s not entirely possible because Pixy sticks out like a sore thumb and every now and then someone disturbs her solitary state of mind with broken English: ‘He/She say you look very nice.’ Turning heads in Cambodia is an odd, odd thing. Surrounded by beautiful people Pixy’s own reflection has begun to look strange to her; bland, too severe. So it makes no logical sense. I guess to them I’m just an exotic novelty- she thinks.

She switches on the TV and prefers the Chinese channels to the few English ones on offer. Damn Yanks. On MTV Asia, Edison Chen is leading the conversation with the desperate looking host of Special VJ. Pixy doesn’t understand what they are saying so she substitutes her own English dub and finds she can keep herself thoroughly entertained like this in her lonely hotel room in Siem Reap.

‘Thank you for your criticism’ –what on earth did they actually want to say?
And then, just when Pixy masters the art of speaking in a way people here can understand better and learns to customize the food to her own palate; namely- drowning out the odd sweaty, sunbathed smell of fish and meat in Hoisin sauce, it’s time to sit in the outer isle seat next to a couple again, and conclude that the steward is quite fit.

Come away with a child’s wonder and Pixy has found peace.
Ookun-ah.

12. 12.07

Pixy had a single cheese burger today- somewhere in between an evil headache and the transit to Phnom Penh. What a glorious day to re-evaluate the value of principles and the luxury of them.

Note to self: must not take principles for granted.

She then filled out her immigration card at the departure lounge and thought: it is important to remember who you are. What you are doing here. Where you are going to and why. It is important to sit in a KL airport toilet and say to the red cubicle door; I am Pixy.
I try to be a good person, but often my shyness and inhibitions get in the way. I like most of the people I know, and those who I don’t, I try to. As for the people I love, I can count them on the fingers of my hand.

I am Pixy who survived a broken heart. Again. And who is trying to remember.
I am Pixy and I am only here when You are here. When You are not, Pixy is no more and in her place is an onslaught of confusion, a lack of identity, a loss of foundation, a frightened void.

If I knew that you were going to be ok, I would not be hurting as much.
I almost wish you had betrayed me...that you had someone else, because then I could just feel angry and move on.
Then I could bear my own pain, lick my own wounds, and heal.
But you haven't.
You have walked away from this for reasons I do not know what to make of but to blame myself.
Why is it I'm hurting for you?
Why is it that though I have lost everything my universe revolved arround in the bredth of an hour, I'm sitting here numb -like a man who's just lost a limb- and all I can think is that I wish I could hold you now and tell you it's going to be ok?
Why is it my heart is breaking that you are alone tonight.

Just got back from watching Darjeeling Limited. Wes Anderson films are funny in the way real life is. You come out of one almost seeing the world in the way you did the film, and half expecting someone in the background to hobble past with a ridiculous hat, or for your ordinary comments to be followed by the silence that only off-beat/dark humour is followed by. Also, they leave me feeling a bit solemn though accepting of life in all it's shiKt-ness.

Adrian Brody is fit.
Miyavi is too hot.
And I realised today that I don't like Haido as much, not because he's getting old, no. But because he reminds me of Ryo. This is not to say Ryo is remotely as good looking. It's just the way his jaw is set sometimes, and his lips. And most importantly that increadibly self concious lack of confidence that used to creep up on Ryo often.

On a different note, I've noticed that I have been wishing more and more recently that I was a guy. Free to do guy things, to hang out with the guys without people sniggerring behind their hands, to take off my top without being oggled...you know. Boys are so much more fun then girls :( But also, their more dumb. (shruggs shoulders)
In any case if I was a guy, I reckon I'd be well fit. I know this because of two reasons.
Reason 1: Because I'm already kinda androgenous and if I was a guy I would be too, and the androgenous types are always the enigmatic hot ones.
Reason 2: I said this to Faaria, and she said 'Yeah, you would be.' ...I also told Faaria that if she was a guy, I'd fancy her, coz she's oriental looking.

Cheap thrill of the week:
Raz thought I was 21. This makes me real happy, and tells me the universe is working in my favour. When I told him the truth though I think he was a bit shaken to find out I'm actually a year older than him. Calls me 'grandma' now...stupid foo'!

Sarahmon: a nokturnal pokemon. Drawn to sugar and shiny things. Weaknesses include fear of the colour yellow.
Elestimon: also nocturnal. drawn to the dark and pierced, Japanese, spastic musicians. Weaknesses include shitake mushrooms.
Misbemon: the most sensible of the three.

-courtesy of Sarah bunny :)

Office Drama
Waiting for a print out infront of Saif uncle's office, Syed (also known as 'comsi comsa' or 'the Italian') makes the mistake of addressing Saif uncle at random as he passes by.
Syed: You alright?
Saif uncle: What?
Syed (a bit nervously): Is everything ok?
Saif uncle (suspicious): What do you want?
Syed: Nothing, I'm just asking if you're ok.
Sif uncle (eyes him): Where are you from?
Syed (who is Bengali): Milan.
Saif uncle: Good. don't let any Bengali's in here.

I couldn't decide between the following 3 titles for this blog entry...

Sufi is fat

a state of affairs, by Elest Ali

or

Does Sufi eat more than me?

A reflection on things, by Elest Ali

or

My laptop is pissing me off!

A thorough bitching, by Elest Ali

Yesterday, Pixy got to see Tutankhamun's pectoral up close and personal. 'Is it called a pectoral coz it sits on your pecs?' --she asked Shaheen, whisperringly. 'Tis a mystery now why the blond lady standing next to them in front of the exhibit, smiled at her naivety. Becasue that is indeed what a pectoral is. An amulet or jewlery that rests on a mans pecs. -says sheikh google.
Hah! to you, blond lady!

Asside from Tutankhamun's pectoral, Pixy met in person, all the people she spent her freaky adolescent years staring at pictures of in Egyptology books. Conclusion: Those ancient egyptians were so beautiful they had issues! Issues like elongated skulls and severe vanity.
Pixy came out wonderring: Is it perhaps that line between a masculine woman and a feminine man...that look which merges the sexes, which is the height of human beauty?

What's that? Tell you the story of a cock up in our tickets? Well...there aint really one. Only that the manager happened to be this tall, fit Korean/Chinese guy. Shaheen (who sneek peeked his name tag) says his name was Baldwin Ho. When you're done laughing at his first name. And then your done laughing at his surname. And then you're done laughing at them both put together...I'd just like to say that Dayyyym, that guy was sooooo hot, I wudn't mind being stuck with a shiKKt surname like Ho if it meant I could wake up to that face every morning.

And then what happened? Ho looked at the tickets for a bit and went: 'You know what, don't worry about it, just go on through.'
I tell you it was the chemisty and all those baby lightning sparks going off arround us.

Epilogue: When Pixy runs out of steam there are no words, no thoughts, no feelings...just a deep bottomless well silence.

Searching for SoHigh lead Pixy down the seedy, back streets of Soho, frequented by perverts and Japanese. At one point she was on the verge of turning into a narrow side street, made narrower by jutting shop signs from either side, advertising with neon lights, those things that the multiple 'x's were supposed leave to your titilated imagination. At the sigt of it and a scary man who was slinking in her direction, she turned into the other street. When things eventually started looking more familiar and less preverse, she realised she'd made the right choice and breathed a sigh of reliefe.
She decided she would have to take someone with her next time, because there was still a Marjuana mag to be bought.

Meanwhile, Pixy has a black wine glass. This is more practical than a champagne flute or a cocktale glass, and it's useful to make ailien-sound music with, when you want to be spooky.
Sufi, on the other hand, is obsessed with the dish sponge. She keeps nicking it from beside the sink and running off with it all sliping-arround-like in the trail of water it leaves behind. Pixy tried hiding it in the vase near the kitchen window. But Sufi managed even to get it out of that. So now it sits in the cupboard under the sink, where it is dark.

It's sad how everything is so alone. The sponge. Sufi. Pixy. It's sad how everything is so sad and God damned hard to heal. Pixy's friends and Pixy's guest and Pixy's heart. It's sadest though, how everything loses meaning, like some thief came and took it all away. And Pixy wonders what is good, what is right, what is wrong. Pixy wonders why and how someone can love a person who is so selfish, and cruel and quite frankly stupid. And if this is possible, then how can that person be selfish and cruel and quite frankly stupid? That person must be kind, and caring and appreciative. Is something wrong with Pixy? Or is something wrong with the order of things in the world?

Kara kolda Ayna var...ayna var
Kiz kolunda damga var...damga var
Gozlerinden bellidir Cevriyem
Sende kara sevda var

Denizlerin kumuyum...kumuyum
Baliklarin puluyum...puluyum
Ac koynunu ben geldim Cevriyem
Bende Allah kuluyum

Translation:

There is a mirror on the jail house wall
There is a stamp on your arm, girl
Your eyes say it all, my Jevriye
You're love sick

I'm the sand of the seas
I'm the scales of the fish
Open your arms, I've come my Jevriye
I too am another servant of God

The above Turkish song is about a prostitue. Charming.

Today is the beginning of a new, more professional in the workplace, Elest. Complete with a taste for tea. Yep thats right, ordinary, black tea. Albiet, one watered down by lots of milk.
It's all about multiple personalities. I need to go shoe shopping too. Now one side of me whispers: Red Patent Grinders!!! Yes Yes Yes! ...and the other more sensible side says, without whispering: Get something sensible for work you fool. We'll know by Monday who wins.

Meanwhile: I am tired of having my mind messed with.

I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy.I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy. I'm Happy.

Today I was telling Faaria I was having an identity crisis, and she told me I’d always been having one. Perhaps she’s right. Perhaps I have always been restless and searching- a condition I could only interpret as unhappiness due to my apparent lack of emotional intelligence.

Non the less, recent events in my life have left me feeling empty and distrustful of too many things. When you’re younger, everything seems so clear cut. The world is black and white and you think you know exactly who you are, where you stand, how you’ll end up.
But as you grow older, the boundaries between things start blurring into each other. What was once pretty straight forward no longer proves to do exactly what it says on the tin. Names are divorced from their meanings and the once truths of life show their illusive faces.

The tings which have weighed most heavily upon me have been those associated with ideals and faith. When you are no longer sure of how you see things, you are no longer sure of who you are. After all, are we not defined by how we interpret the world around us?

This evening at the V&A museum, I got to catch the end of a lecture on Andalusian Spain and the Abrahamic faiths which lived in harmony within that unique culture. The Lecturer closed her speech with a poem from Ibn Al-Arabi that dawned over me like a consolation.

All these names, all these forms, these objects which we feel the need to sort through, understand and interpret to define ourselves…they only serve to complicate things. They become barriers, which we adopt out of convenience. When man’s mind comes upon a brick wall, that brick wall becomes his security and closure. He can now justify his lack of initiative to go beyond, to keep up the search until some great end. How are our modern day metaphysical barriers any different from the idols of Quraysh? Have we not turned our faiths into ritual, and name, and form and appearance? And what dark matter is really behind all those things?

I am too complicated, too intricate to trust myself with a name or persona, out of fear that I may turn that into something which will one day hold me back. And in that light, what have we left to ourselves but to be good?

Love is a funny thing. It seems that after a single disappointment, man will recoil and lose his faith in all things. And yet, even with our hearts breaking, we can still believe in love.
I leave you with the poem which inspired this.

A white-blazed gazelle
Is an amazing sight,
Red-dye signaling,
eyelids hinting,
Pasture between breastbones
And innards.
Marvel,
A garden among the flames!
My heart can take on
Any form:
Gazelles in a meadow,
A cloister for monks,
For the idols, sacred ground,
Kaaba for the circling pilgrim,
The tables of a Torah,
The scrolls of the Qur'an.
I profess the religion of love;
Wherever its caravan turns
Along the way, that is the belief,
The faith I keep.

Ibn Al-Arabi - Translation by Iberian Medievalist, María Rosa Menocal:2004

Oh I know that evening’s empire has returned into sand,
vanished from my hand, left me blindly here to stand…but still not sleeping.
My weariness amazes me I’m branded on my feet,
I have no one to meet and my ancient empty street too dead for dreaming.
Hey Mr. Tambourine man, play a song for me,
I’m not sleepy and there is no place I’m going to.
Hey Mr. Tambourine man, play a song for me,
in the jingle jangle morning I’ll come following you.

~Dylan

Keep the darkness at bay with off-beat humour and the randomly absurd, we feel like Wes Anderson films and giving the Sultan of Brunei’s family a fashion make over, amidst pensively hatching MMM.
MMM is the Marry Miyavi Master plan: Because Miyavi is the hottest weirdo alive.

All of this is very healthy by comparison, and after all, exercising one’s imagination is vital if one is to benefit fully from a creative writing course.

So every day:
Pixy works hard
Pixy laughs hard
Pixy sings hard on her way home
Pixy prepares food for Sufi, who she feeds and dotes on with the kind of love that’s maternal, because Sufi (four in kitty years) is eerily like her when she was four and bare foot in a blue robe: shy, often aloof, but desperate to be loved.
Pixy writes
Pixy doesn’t think or remember
Pixy misses her family
Pixy fills her days
Pixy moves on

But somewhere in between getting rid of everything that might remind her and beginning brand new things, Pixy secretly keeps the picture of a little boy child.

But somewhere in between losing control of her breathing in the bath and burying her face in her hands after prayer, Pixy has to hold herself and remember to keep going even though she doesn’t know why and can’t feel anything anymore.

Pixy will never be the same again