This pottery thing was driving me to madness. It had been dancing around in my head during what Dennis calls "life between having to work". It's fine when I am at work. I don't think about anything other than work and food at work (and work related social life lah huh). But when I come home it drives me crazy. Pottery? Dance? Flute? Singing? Music? Art? Watercolour? Dennis tells me to pick one. I've tried them all and decided I'm not that flash at any of them.

Today I took my first full sick day at work. I'm not too happy about it because I would rather be at work, actually. I hate missing out in case I get allocated some kid I don't know about or forget to get told something. It's never happened, of course, but that's because I've never been crook this year yet. And now I have some weird gastro bug.

So i ended up doing what I do when I feel like barfing.. I read XX's blog because all the pimped up gossip makes me want to barf even more and I sort of feel like I am in Singapore again (which kinda counteracts the barfing feeling). And that's when it happened. XX posted a link to Kaykay and Paul's short video clip where they try their hand at throwing!!! And I was so hopping mad because they even showed the link to the studio on their clip and here i am in Perth trying to dredge up some lousy class that doesn't really cater to anything. So I called up the fremantle arts centre and it turns out that they offer fairly flexible classes starting late in July and finishing the week my contract ends. Oh, how time will fly once I start the class~~!

Yesterday, Dennis encouraged me to join a class, any class, even if it was expensive. I guess it proved that I was being a hypocrite about saying that one should live life now, but not being willing to try out something I knew I wanted. I don't know why, but it made me really emotional to be able to do something I really wanted on the side. I haven't felt this relieved/alive in a long time and it's scary. I think I nearly cried when I signed up today. Before this, it was just this dogged feeling of, we can't spend money on trivial things like this when we have to worry about rent and weddings and things. I think something had to break...

The weather reports have been ominous since last week and to me, this has been our coldest winter in Perth yet. In the past 6 years, (2 of which were spent without insulation- i don't know how we survived that) there has generally been very little extreme weather, and these days, I am finding that that is less and less true. The water thrown up onto the first lane of the freeway was last year's novelty, and this year's winter seems to favor huge storms with gusts of wind travelling at over 100 kmph. We stayed inside today. I wish winter were over. We are 1/3 way through and I tell myself that every day is one day less of winter.

i bought myself a women's weekly entertaining cookbook. Two other girls on my team have got one as well- it was on offer at the book sale at reception. I did want it from the beginning and had trouble resisting.. when Denise got one it was pretty much the last straw and I just had to go and put in my money for it! It is coming on the 7th of July, which is not too far away and I am livid with anticipation. Denise and I have decided that to make ourselves feel better about such a large book full of yummy things, we must make something from the book and invite everyone for a dinner in August! Anyhow, the book has become to me something more than an instructional on ingredients. It's one of those books you find in a hearty greek kitchen with a happy fat housewife and lots of rowdy, well fed guests. And I think it held for me the promise of my own life, house, and bunch of friends to cook for. One day, Dennis and I will have a place to own, not rent. One day, we will get there and when that day happens, I want to enjoy it and remember where I came from. Oh, and when we get our house, we will do that jigsaw and get it framed!!!

What do I look forward to next? I guess, to Ziig's visit in July, to PECS training, to starting a new job, to taking 2 days off when Ger comes, to Sept 28 which is the next public holiday (like.. after 3 months and another 3 months till Christmas.. duuuh) and then to Dennis' PR.. to booking flights back to SG.. to CNY! To a cozy Christmas, to marriage next year.

What then, after that? I don't know!! I don't want to just wind down.. maybe I will make holidays and look forward to them! I would so love that.

He is everywhere, in everything. He is life. It doesn't make sense unless I share the entire concept, but I feel Him and He overwhelms me so much that if Heaven is just a lot of Him, I am sure I will have no lack.

I am grateful.

But, these are the fringes.

I can't wait to find out more.

He is so big, he made me large, and then suddenly my sins were small. They were despised but small, and I stepped on them under my foot. He raised me high and I moved above the thin layers of living, to being alive.

Today has been terribly melancholic. I miss being me, I miss being single, I miss all the time I had to spend with friends and on my own. I miss when life was slower and showed more promise.

Guess I'm better off alone.

I made chocolate chip cookies. There are over a hundred of them. I think my heart will just fall apart now. Sleep may glue me some.

Finally, today, it came back to me. Alone and unafraid, I reached out, the first in months/years. It's not been lost. Like a child, overwhelmed and unregulated, I pulled it all out from the gutter. And the sparkle was like a clear spring day.

We danced, the first in months/years. No, you haven't left me. No, all is not lost from me. The ennui melted from my soul. I rejoiced, overflowed, shattered and reformed. I watched the golden sky in my rearview mirror and the greying close of the day from my windscreen. Crazy times, good times, life-times. How can I trade this? The content of my soul- to be writ by one hand, overseen by only one gentle eye, and loved solely by the whole-entirety of his huge unknowable spirit.

Believe, it's about believing. Can I truly accept that the father of the prodigal son wanted him back? If I can, I know how it ended. I can, I want to. What do I believe for myself, what can I, what do I want to believe? So many things now. So tender, so hopeful, so full of small mercies. Day to day graces, small perceptions, I am blind, in love with the world.

Then I was sad when I came home and read the things I did. The dark anger I pushed away. Am i to be torn between two, able to choose one but not both? How come you cannot be happy with my peace? I cannot deny which I will choose, for my own selfish reasons, but also for reasons pertaining to morality and integrity. It is the right choice. But that brings no comfort when another is suffering, angry, corrupted by my own sin. I wanted to be sorry, but I couldn't apologize for loving and being loved. It's apples and oranges. What do you want? perhaps they sold you something with false advertising. Perhaps you are finding out the faulty mechanisms in the cogs but only after you paid the extended warranty. I'll give you back the money for it if you really want that. You seem angry enough for that.

Weren't you told

Just why you were sold

The transaction was more than money

The redemption is blood.

I just want to revel in you-

I polled many people today. My strange and painful ennui culminated in 5 full blown discussions running all at once. But the only answer I was really satisfied with was Divinia's. For whatever human value we place on life, passion, happiness, we can only rely on God's fuel to fill the needy void of purpose.

Why have i been running from it? Don't I believe it works?

What do you want in life?

Answers from a garden variety of friends.

I'm gonna cut his hair again. I've watched about 10 videos (all a minute or so plus) and I'm ready to go all out with the progressive, semi-mod look. Will it be even? Will it even be? We shall see. I wonder if my modern punk dream will come true.

It's hard to think of reasons to be. It's hard to think even of how to be, or why. I'm still struggling with the idea of enjoying life. Calvin and Hobbes' bittersweet enunciations are increasingly ideas I can relate to. 

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What do you really want to be? What do you want to do in life, aspire to, will sacrifice for? My answer is nothing much. Passivity is my snare. I find little joys- my sewing, music making, painting, my sweet loving, my being saintly loved. They are all to some small degree refreshing. But nothing empassions me. I am not shocked, hungered, engorged, inflammed. I am inspired, comment-ful, the watcher-onlooker of life. I live it some, much of it passes me by.

What would it be like to be constantly enamoured by some aspect of life? What does God think about enjoying life, about getting married, about living the little mundane bits? I don't want KPIs for these things. I want to know what He really thinks.

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I am drinking the last of the lambrusco. It is a sweet with a dry edge, and it reminds me of the more simple, senseless conversations I have had over wine. Choya and DOM undo me altogether and I become sleepy very quickly. I much prefer these (and fortified shiraz) to the pretentious Merlots.

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Some days it looks better. For the most part, they follow the same rise and fall of petrol prices, but at a staggered timing. Friday evenings are marked by serotonin highs, followed by lucious Saturdays and slightly sordid sundays (reserved for pooing about monday). Mondays the blues peak, followed by stoic acceptance lasting throughout the week (fine and steady, a-haul) till Sunday.

I try not to fear. Rarr.

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