0328 hours
I wish I could love you in a cave. I wish that I could love you when men were still young. We would be still, in our cave while the ugly ancestors of tigers, turtles; irrecognisable, extinct animals (that are now black and unessential to the universe)... amphibious...hungry... scales and claws erect omnivours pad the outsides of our home. Where darkness is our door and space is our impenetrable lock to keep a frenzy out. I'd rather starve ourselves than be their bone pudding for tonight. I have better uses for him.
1215 hours
I scream, "Oh no, what shall we do!" In the days before feminism, I could get away with being so frail in front of him. It's my excuse to jump into his blanket of earth-smelling arms, salted and soiled from his bed. Kiss those lips, his lips that reach like vines that climb like ivy up my stalks. Only this giant can take me down. He makes my corpuscles shiver. Move in delight. In one lucid kiss and embrace, this man is a satellite transmitter to the stars and back!
0618 hours
The monsters, they go on knocking outside. Asking to come in. Stomping their feet and flaring their crusted nostrils while inside we lay, locked then were torn. They broke down our doors but I still feel him inside.
A friend brought it up the other day, that his ex's biggest fear about relationships was getting hurt. So instead of letting herself get hurt when she saw it coming, she would sabotage the relationship. It's such a curious thing and it made me wonder what people fear the most about romantic relationships. It's such an interesting question. For me, I figured that my biggest fear in a relationship is getting domesticated.
What's yours?
The exciting life of Nadira and her coincidences. This picture was taken at Long Beach, New York when I went on a field trip with some friends. One of them, being Nadirah Zakariya from Kuala Lumpur but currently based in New York. Beautiful person, talented photographer.
Anyway, we were walking back to the trains when I saw this written in cement. Nadirah's older than me but her mom also owns a cookie factory and we're both Tauruses. We both handle cameras and share a mutual very close friend, through whom we met.
Selfishly enough, I start to get the feeling that now, whatever coincidences happen to me, happen more for me than the other person which I experience it with. Sometimes. I don't know about DizzyLi. Only because it happens to me so often and I don't hear much about my other coincidence partners having many coincidences after.
It's just strange because Nadira is an Arabic name meaning precious, unique. It's not the most common name too. To find that in the cement in any landmark in America, what are the chances? It's crazy.
I wonder what Kian looks like.
Things have taken a turn for the better. A lot of people here still remember me and have made me feel very welcome. I've been smoking more lately but I think I've found a new share house so I can start behaving. I love love love the friends I'm living with now but in the line of work I'm in, it's passion on the weekdays and love on the weekends. Party Nadira is gonna take a breather when uni starts. And you wouldn't believe it but I've had to struggle to readjust my accent and I'm still getting the hang of it. If I sounded Canadian then (my Aussie friends' description of my TV-Australian accent from my pre-student exchange days), I sound more American now. It's the strangest thing that I get blocks when I speak. Maybe I've been smoking too much but I'm starting to stall when I speak almost as though I have difficulty with the language. In fact, I've found myself thinking about how to pronounce things before I say them when my English is perfectly fine. It's really confusing, I feel as though between speaking English in Australia, Malaysia and America, they're three separate languages altogether and it may as well be. One time I was inebriated and I couldn't be bothered having to toss up between which words in a sentence I'd pronounce in American, Australian or whatever else, I ended up giving up and cracking a British accent which is a bloody tangent right there. I'm so confused. I feel like that American lady who got a stroke and suddenly developed a strong Scottish accent. Great. Maybe it's not that I'm traveled, maybe it's just thrombosis.
I also got another invitation to have a couple of my pieces screened for this installation at a prestigious contemporary arts center about the feminine identity. It's great, it really is although I'm really just here to become a filmmaker not a female filmmaker but that's what you get for putting a 3D pulsating vagina on a woman's back. I'd do it all over again, I would. I met my actress for it yesterday who's still as beautiful as ever and poor thing's remembered as the girl with the vagina on her back. She's going to go so far, she's such a good sport. What a doll. But in any case, people love my work! Excellent. I'm not worthless after all.
Woke up today feeling a lot of love. It's a wonderful thing. Great friends, final semester, working on films... whatever Brisbane lacks in a pulse, the people here are so lovely and they throw the best parties. Oh well. Maybe it's love, maybe it's the dopamine. As for now, I'll leave you with another favourite:
Back to square one. There's no culture shock like the culture shock of coming back from whence you came. Going back to Kota Kinabalu is always welcome but being back in Brisbane, I remember why I left. There really isn't too much to do here and the anticipation of graduating is making me nervous. I just need to hold my breath for at least another five months. A few more after because I'm shooting my independent project in December. That's 8 in total.
In the meantime, the obvious cure is to think positive and do what I have to do. Even if my heart is not here, my hands are here and I become a machine. Very mature. Very pathetic. I can't take it so I turn to vices. I think people worry too much when people say things like that but I can handle it. This isn't a cry for help, this is candid emotion. I don't need to measure whether or not I should say these things because I am privileged to be here, possibly undeserving of what I have but believe me when I say, I try. You try. You try and try and try then do it all over again because it's called living. It's hard, then it gets harder.
I haven't slept easy in a while. Constantly worrying or shaking about not being able to give my all while I'm in Australia and having people notice. Trying my best to put my heart in this place, not wanting to give my crew members, classmates, friends any less than that. Not wanting to give my work any less than my full dedication. But the thing is, the reason is that Australia isn't Malaysia or New York. The difference between me and the kids who would rather stay overseas to live is that I like my life complicated. I love messy, I love chaos and in places where things are too clean, I don't know how to cope. Brisbane's so placid. I don't know how to feel inspired, I don't know love. It's not a bad place, it's just not the place for me to be anymore. But soon, for the first time in my life, I'll really be able to choose where I want to be. It will never be easy especially since I want a career that travels anyway but it does get in the way of a different kind of love. But that's not something I should worry about now.
The screening went well albeit having a Q&A session in Malaysia once again proved nearly redundant. However, I got to size up the allies and competition - got my head straight and figured out more about how I'd go about surviving in the Malaysian industry. Can survive lah.
Had a bit of a scare today. I'm not really ready yet to throw myself out there yet. Not till I graduate, not till I'm actually producing more work which I feel is more representative of me. Someone said today that my short was gonna be shown at GSC at One Utama and I freaked out. It turned out to be a mistake but it made me think about publicity. I've always wanted to become well known for my achievements but I don't think I've ever weighed what that would truly entail. I've become more private as I've grown older and if I wanted to market myself, I'd know how to but now that this 'goal' is beginning to manifest, it's intimidating. It's intimidating but considering the field I'm in, it would defeat the purpose to make films as well as lay low. I mean I have the confidence, but not the ego to keep up with this kind of thing but I'm going to have to throw myself in someday. We're talking about me, the kid who at 3, kept throwing herself into the deep end of the pool to learn how to swim and would've died if the lifeguard didn't fish me out thrice. Fuck Scorsese. Fuck Tarantino. Fuck celebrity. A colossal ego must be soft to sleep on every night.
I'm glad I'm back in Malaysia now though. I'll be leaving again soon but it's always a challenge, as you grow older, unexpected things happen. For example, the growing familiarity of things. Maybe I'm too used to being where no one really knows me, that the growing familiarity of things turns into a suffocation of all things that represent you through your own culture and private history. Especially in the form of "do you remember that time in high school?" *shudder* It makes me too much for me to take.
I learn to say less nowadays. Blogging feels adolescent but only now are Malaysians going crazy over it and I'll be damned if we ever have anything interesting to say. As long as it doesn't condone talk without action (yeah right). After 7 years of blogging I've taken my brainwashing to the streets. Hell, I couldn't be bothered reading my own posts, can you? Now get out of here and go do something more interesting.
Okay, I'm not really sure what's going on with this weekend. There was a slight miscommunication but I'm getting screened for Filmmakers Anonymous 7 which is on the 27th of this month. Details are on the blog.
I actually find Feist really annoying but I like the photography (not necessarily the cinematography) in the video. As far as I know, she's had three music videos that have been taken in one long shot and really, the woman's no Judy Garland. I wish they wouldn't. Either mac or the mainstream indie scene just tries too hard. I really hate The Shins.
I just wanted to show this. Because mirror effects remind me of vaginas. When you're younger you tend to see faces in everything then you grow older and everything either looks phallic or resembles pussy. It's like a really gross mushroom trip (mushaboom).
My short film 'The Reader', shot in New Jersey, is going to be screened at Annexe Theatre, Central Market, Kuala Lumpur this 27th of June:
It's a bit of a dinky film only because it's been adapted from a novel by Bernhard Schlink of the same title (The Reader), which was an assignment. I'm happy with it, just that, as a writer I would have preferred to do an original story. Nonetheless, my actors were and are, amazing and I regret nothing. It's not great but it's an admirable piece nonetheless. The plot may not be original but the concept and delivery, is. It's my first out-of-school, public screening and I would appreciate the support and by all means, spread the word. I'm not sure what to expect but we can say that I'm finally going places with my work, which is always a good sign. Tell your friends. Come support!
Recent Comments
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starranise said:
Thank you! I'm glad we appreciate the same sentiments. ]=) read more
on Phone calls from the waking world -
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jimlucky said:
by the way, rage against the machine adopted this picture for their classic debut album read more
on Thích Quảng Đức -
Congratulations, then! read more
on Rabbit Bones in Urbanscapes