Hi again, it's me again.

I don't think it's fair for drama schools to pump people's heads full of personal bullshit then just dump them with a 4 month long Summer break to deal with. I'm a little over half way through the Summer, and so far I've been keeping my brain preoccupied with unimportant sub-interests. Trouble is, my brain is increasingly capable of absorbing useless information, and so no matter how many new sources I throw at it, it still manages to find room for idleness.

Had these pursuits been forms of output instead of endless input, the story might have been different. And here lies the real problem, the one I've been dodging for as long as I can remember: What do I actually have to say? What exactly do I want to put out into the world? I've written some hundreds of thousands of words here on this blog and what has it all really been about?

***

On Loneliness:

It take a special kind of state of mind to actively push people away and still feel lonely at the end of it. I'm always so ready to reject people, which is incongruous with this sickening greed for affection. The truth of it is, so rarely do I find someone who resonates with me that when I find the few that do, I grapple for them like it's a lifeline, squeezing everything else out, until I squeeze the life out of it. In the process I forget that the other person might not feel as I do, and so I feel rejected in return. Slowly, my fear of having nothing to offer starts to give off the stink of desperation. For someone who prides herself on needing no one, I am cripplingly dependant.

On Love:

In reality, I'm completely out of practice. Through simulation, I'm an open wound. At this stage, my insurance papers against heartbreak is pretty much iron clad, never daring to touch anything resembling real. There's no actual purpose to this, except to be able to tell it "You can't hurt me". If I was reading this in a play I would immediately assume that this self destructive behaviour comes from someone who has been hurt before, but I know better.

That, and the fact that, really, I just don't like a lot of people.

All my past tendencies have clearly indicated that I am unwilling to settle, even for someone who worships me; especially, for someone who worships me.

I'm not unhappy with where I am, I just needed to straighten things out in my own head. Actually, after that cathartic sentence I feel strengthened in my limbo. I'm still waiting to lose my breath, and hoping to be able to recognise it when I do.

On Career:

My panel review with my teachers at the end of the last semester left me in a bit of a head spin. Eventhough everything that was said about my acting was complimentary, there just wasn't a terrible lot that was said about my acting. It took a little while for the sting of that imaginary backhand to wear off, and for me to take what was actually said at face value.

I had been faking it, my enthusiasm for theatre. I've been competent enough to get away with it this entire time but a few weeks into this Summer, something was made abundantly clear to me.

Film. Of course it's film. It's always been film. (And it only took something like Tree of Life for me to admit to it.) No theatre, no matter how obviously great, has ever made me feel that way. Granted, not much else in any medium has either. There's a reason that Cinema Studies lured me away from all my other chosen majors in my arts degree. There's a reason all my dreams come complete with camera shots and editing choices too.

This doesn't make what I want to do any easier, but having a clearer idea of where I want to go is comforting.

***

Somehow, through stringing all these confused thoughts into sentences, my nerves have calmed down. I'm almost ready to go to bed, and before 2am! Fancy that. Maybe I should come back to this more often.

I know what I don't want to put out into the world. There's that too.

It was the only time I felt looked after.

He was the one who I can say, without hesitation, had truly loved me. Yet I had treated him so terribly, with such indifference. I broke his heart, the night before his birthday no less. I couldn't understand it then. I quite simply did not believe in heartbreak, or love, or any of the other things that made a person vulnerable to another. Yet he was the only person I allowed myself to be vulnerable in front of. Only once in my life have I ever reached out to another person for support, the full kind, the kind where you barely make it into their arms before you collapse in a heap into them. His was that pair of arms. I was only able to stand because of him, but I gave him none of the credit. Just his presence would be a source of comfort, I was drunk with his warmth.

He wanted me to be better, and in rebellion, I wasn't. All the things I took issue with him, all the fundamental ideological differences we had that seemed so monumental at the time are, in reality, nothing. But I was an idealist then, I would grow to be more tolerant, years later.

This is the relationship that is going to haunt every other one I will have in my lifetime. I was spoilt to the point of conceit. A part of me would perhaps always be searching for something to come close to that abundance of affection.

Looking back at the nineteen year old me, I wish I could grapple her to the ground for the sheer ingratitude. Not to ask for a different outcome, but only that she could have been more kind. But some of you might remember nineteen year old me, there was a whole other bag of problems there that I'd rather not delve into just yet.

This post is about J, and the apology he deserved, but never received. If this blog is all about a public confessional, then let this be the first of my major confessions. Forgive me father, for I have broken a heart.

This is all so many years ago, and we have both moved well and truly on. We have spoken since, and even met up once, the night before I moved to New York. We are, by facebook standards at least, "friends".

At the end of the dream, he walked away from me, and I grieved, in a way that I never did back then.

But all of us are now so used to the constant state of the temporary, that trivial little things like where you lay down to rest every night becomes just the collection of what you can put up with. Here, is never where we will end up, and we will get everything that we want, There, right?

Perhaps it's just my age, and the fact that the rest of my life is all in flux, but it worries me that I'll never actually get There.

All this is to say, I don't like where I live. Try as I might to fill this space with stamps of me, to find the holding place for all my belongings, there are certain deal breakers that I'm afraid this little nook of mine does not fulfil.

A neighbourhood, sunlight, elements that would invigorate rather than the fatiguing wakings and sleepings that need to be determined by electronics.

I don't sleep anymore, I rest for stretches of no more than 4 hours at a time. I can't say if this is because of my restless mind, or the magnetic fields of all the electronics in the one studio room, but I like to think that the lack of sunlight is the culprit.

The best part of sleeping in on a Sunday was always the warmth on your face trickling inside you telling you that there's nothing you have to get up for, not today. Now there's just the hollows of my room, filled with lists upon lists.

When there's nothing else wrong with my life, I would still find something to complain about. And today, I just miss the sun's intrusion in a place that's mine.

I'm going to break my silence.

I can't believe how much traction that little rant from almost 3 years ago has, and is still getting. Interesting fact, the most searched for terms that would land you there is "is Kylie Kwong gay?" seconded by "Kylie Kwong husband". Clearly there is a general interest in the public regarding her marital status, that's a market that her people should really look into.

All the comments have entertained me to no end. From those who agree with me, to those who think that I "obviously hate myself" (I'll be honest, I couldn't really follow the logic on that one). To even a drinking game created by a fellow hater. The happy news is that over 95% of the comments join me in this rally that I unwittingly championed, and even the ones who don't share my wrath seem to see my point and have stated their case as such. But I still feel like I need to clarify a few things. By way of organising my thoughts, I am going to address my latest comment, which is an example of a very lucid and gentle criticism of my outpouring of bile.

LOL. I had fun reading the blog and comments. But I must say it's so typical of the Chinese to be so defensive of what's authentically chinky. Personally I find it rather stupid to be arguing about KK being less than Chinese and how that gets in the way of her "representing" her so-called heritage. It just hints of some deep insecurity about one's own Chineseness... it's like a game of how Chinky are you? Frankly when I'm confronted by something like that, I just give up. The only place you can get authentic Chinese food is presumably China... and yet it's also in China you can find the biggest McDonald's in the world. And really who gives a jizz about whether it's authentic or not--just as long as it tastes good, I'm down with it.

The way I look at it: we all grow up with our own version of what's Chinese... every family has its own spin on dishes--and in my family cause we're Malaysian chinks, we love our spices and we would add them liberally. In a way it's Creolised--the foundation is Chinese but the treatment has changed. We eat everything with bird's eye chilli. Numbs the tongue but it's fucking yum. And I can see that with KK's cooking too cause she's 5th gen--although I have to admit that sometimes she goes a bit too far. Fried duck eggs? Culturally, that's just silly. But from a culinary point of view, it sounds intriguing. So I don't think KK's all that bad. She's a more interesting TV chef than Martin Yan... LOL... that guy just cracks me up with his lame jokes and chink accent but how's that for a stereotype? He simply drowns everything in "wonderful powder"!

If there's one thing I agree with all the haters on this thread, it's that KK tries too hard to pass off as some kind of Chinese/Asian whatever... she should relax the power lesbian attitude a bit and just go with the flow. Get drunk or get laid or something... LOL.

And also that we should all just admit that the thing that makes Chinese food taste so damn good is MSG.

-JK Feb 3, 2011

The main point that JK (for whom I am going to use the masculine pronouns, for simplicity's sake) makes is my own identity crisis. A Chinese Authenticity Complex of sorts. You'd be right, as a first generation immigrant who moved to Australia at the age of 8 from mainland China, and visits the place every 3 years or so, my "Chineseness" is something that I think about a lot. Clearly my diaspora is no longer that of native Chinese, drop me in the middle of where I was born today, and I wouldn't really know what to do with myself. I understand the nature cultivating cultural identification and the varying degrees and ways people come to terms with theirs. I am not even going to take offence with your use of the word "chinky", because that is your prerogative, but I would gently remind you that just because you have reclaimed that derogative term does not mean others would be so comfortable. Mainly I just think it's an inelegant word for something that I hope denotes an elegant part of my identity.

Of course I don't object to the infinitely wide range of Asian identities. I am completely behind taking what is yours, making it your own, and forging your own sense of self. In fact my objection is that her identity is not specific enough. Even in the original post I made the point that China is a huge country with I-don't-even-know how many regions, all with their own customs and cuisine. That is not even including the different cultures outside of mainland China, such as Indo-, Thai-, and of course Malay-Chinese like yourself. My issue with Kylie and her show, is that she presents a generalised sweep of one China that only cooks with Shaoxing wine, sesame oil, and Japanese light soy. Even from a culinary point of view, her dishes are bland and uninteresting, which makes the whole Chinese Authenticity stamp she puts on them all the more insulting. Co-incidentally, I have had fried duck eggs in China, they weren't very tasty nor exciting.

How many times has a non Chinese friend of yours, or anyone who has not experience Chinese food outside of take-out, made a comment pertaining to how much they don't like Chinese Food? I encounter this almost on a daily basis, and I've given up on trying to explain to them how that is not even Chinese food, let alone inclusive of the vast smorgasbord of culinary delights yet to be tasted from that side of the world. What I deplore so much in Kylie is the perpetuating of this myth. That all Chinese food is supposed to be aiming to achieve the mediocrity that is served in take-out joints catering to Western palettes, and that they all taste the same. Its seen as greasy and strong and what is unfathomable to me, unhealthy, when most of the Chinese food I have been exposed to down the south eastern provinces is light, delicate, and nuanced. The landscape of food in China itself is changing constantly and new fads and innovations come in and out of fashion, including a lot of modernised, Westernised, fusion cooking. I accept the whole shebang, I would happily taste test my way through all of it, but dammit just make it good.

I am not going to retract a single thing from my original post, because as ranty as it was (It was rushed out in 10 mintes as my laptop battery dwindled and therefore unorganised and somewhat rash), I still stand by my every point. Lastly, darling JK, I almost agree with you on the point about MSG, but I haven't cooked with MSG for over 6 years now (as long as I've been cooking), and my food is delicious.

Each time I do this you'd think it gets easier, it really doesn't.

Because every time I come back, I'm made more acutely aware of that huge gap that's missing all around me. I'm reminded exactly how much I want you guys all there with me. I might not be one to get homesick, but I am people sick, all the time.

I don't often put on too much of a display of sentimentality, instead I give you scenes of awkward hugs and an even more awkward slow walk away from you. The truth of it is, every time someone has asked me how excited I was to go to New York over the last two years, I've always had to muster up some kind of forced enthusiasm for them just because I hate leaving so damn much.

So tonight is the night I sit here and cry about not wanting to go until I fall asleep. Tomorrow I'm going to wake up and run all those errands I need to run, to fill my head with a to-do list, and the day after that, I'll get on that plane, and you would never know about how terrible that feels. Well, know it.

I went to New York a complete person, whatever discoveries I was making was just pepper, but I knew exactly who I was. You were the ones who built me, limb by limb. That's why I feel fine to collapse around you, because I know you can put me back together. You are the opinions I voice, the swagger in my steps.

So many times last year, I needed to grab on to you, but you were here and I was there and there was this whole ocean between us. There were moments when I was completely shattered, then slowly and begrudgingly, I was forced to stand back up again. With splintered bones and torn flesh, I walked through the last half of 2010 as something much less.

I feel completed, again. But this time, it's going to take all of the 400,000 pounds of airborne steel to pry me away. All the promises to visit, I am holding you to it. Because I just can't deal with this waiting a whole year bullshit.

And now you know it. 

With all of my love, A.

1. To cover with large amounts of water; to flood.

   The Dutch would sometimes inundate the land to hinder the Spanish army.

2. To overwhelm.

   The agency was inundated with phone calls.

(Source: Wikitionary.)

It's probably the first time I've heard the word used in its primary context, and repeated so often in such a short space of time. I don't think I like it.

News of the Queensland flooding is coming in as hard and as fast as the water. As the death toll slowly inches up (12 fatalities and many many still unaccounted for at the moment), it's heartening to see the country pulling together. Twitter was all abuzz with love and care and a healthy dose of humour around the subject. So this is how the year starts, well, so be it.

For a light hearted yet touching up to date account of the events, follow Frankie writer @Rowena Grant-Frost

I wrote some vague washes of resolutions on twitter, but I think it's about time I actually made more specific goals for myself so that I actually have something to shoot for. Rather than been a bit too cool for it, I think shying away from making solid resolutions might actually just be my inert laziness playing its part. So here goes.

~

11 for '11

1. Drink more water. As in, making a conscious effort to drink more water. I go through periods where I do and periods where I don't and I definitely feel better when I do

2. Be on top of interpersonal connections; emails, phone calls, texts. Don't be a shit and let things slide for too long.

3. Reading a book a month. Giving myself a deadline means that I would have to plan and put aside time dedicated to this, each weekend.

4. Watching more solid films and writing about them. Much like my reasons for starting Netflix Sundays, I want to start making a dent in all the films I know I should watch but keep putting off. I would also like to develop a more decisive and eloquent way of talking about films, and refine my palette for cinema so I know exactly what I like and don't like.

5. Writing for a purpose. Outside of this blog, I hardly ever have to string two sentences together, or even speak words that hasn't been highlighted and put in front of me to memorise. It's like a muscle that I fear I've let go and now it's gotten flabby just because I don't need it in my day to day life. Let's change that. Specifically:

6. Screenplay by the end of 2011. Outline by Summer, first draft by the end of Summer.

7. Cook more regularly. Instead of getting bored of food, which is a crying shame. Since I hate my electric stove top so much, learn to do amazing things with the oven.

8. Be more diligent about cleaning. This is more to facilitate the above.

9. Waste less time. Less facebook, less marathons of tv shows I can recite line by line

10. More yoga. Less excuses.

11. Let people in.

~

Let me be sincere for a second, a lot of shit happened in 2010, it was a hard year to get through for myself, and a lot of people that I know. Let's not let it drag us down in 2011. Letting go doesn't mean forgetting, it's just a way for us to soldier on. If we just wallowed in whatever ditch we fell into, we will never get anywhere. The new year is a good time to shake it all off, and build that bridge.

Happy new year everyone.

The end of the semester was welcomed with a comforting exhale and a whole hearted release. I've been cruising by, hiding behind the veil of competence for some months now. In the last few weeks of turbulence, somehow the veil slipped off without me noticing, and that still tender and pink wound had to throb in the cold harsh air unprotected. It stung a bit, but it was mostly a good thing.

I have 5 weeks to let it stew, in the warmer Australia temperament; where there's space, and I'll have mobility, and the people around me would have seen my entire trajectory and understand exactly how I got here. Or perhaps not, perhaps the moshpit of clashing emotions we have concocted up in the rooms of 27th Street is more likely to draw real blood, mark my presence and stake my claim to a piece of something that can be mine. Regardless, for the next 5 weeks, I'll be comfortable.

~

Airports bring out the worst of my cynicism. We all know that I enjoy people, I like many and love a few, but people, as in the general population, I have a distinct distain for. People seem to hate airports, I don't quite get it. Beyond the security check points, no one look like they want to be there. They seem to think that because they "have a plane to catch", it gives them the right to push, snap, and a myriad of other repulsive things which normally wouldn't bother me but somehow at such close quartered communal spaces it grinds me the wrong way. I have news for you darling, we're all catching that same plane, calm the fuck down, smile a little, and we'll all be on our merry way.

When you think about it, airports are pretty great. It's climatized, always well lit, and it's kind of timeless in the way casinos are, but also in the way that all the time zones kind of get swallowed up and gets spit back out in brackets; this many hours til you have to be here, this many hours til you will be there. You enter one time frame, and leave at a different segment altogether. If it wasn't for the t-shirts at souvenir stores, you'd have no idea where you are. Maybe it's because I'm always alone at airports, I've always associated it with a place where I can legitimately hide out. The tantalizing temptation of catching any other flight and ending up some other place and no one would ever know. That would be why I'm always eating bad food there as well, and watching terrible movies I'd be too ashamed to admit to ever seeing. It gives you time to catch up on your reading, reevaluate your life, god damn, maybe that's why I've been such a mess, I just needed to travel more.

~

The search for a new scent continues. I stupidly had a minor freakout at the tiny duty free store at this particular terminal of LAX when I realised I didn't want to buy any of these, and I did not bring a bottle of perfume with me. Then I remembered the 10 or so bottles I left at home when I moved to New York. Although, if they weren't even good enough to move with my life, I can't imagine myself wanting to associate this particular summer with any of them. First world issues.

I bought Nick Hornby's new novel Juliet, Naked at the Hudson News here. He's back to writing about people his age, in and out of love and involving music, all very good signs. I bought that and also caved and got one of those tacky neck pillows. You know what? Scoff all you want, but be forced to sleep on a plane for some 20 hours and then get back to me, mmmk? I'm going to get started on this reading business.

I'm finding my most loose fitting dress, and preparing myself for the gorging that's going to happen over the next 48 hours (Thanksgiving lasts 48 hours, right? I'm not American, I can use it as my excuse for as long as the food lasts, times like this I fully concede to the carnivore in me). This mini break is going to serve as a personal reboot, a last ditch effort to get my shit together before I pack up and escape this winter.

It's not friday, but I haven't been here for almost a month. So...

5 Things I'm Looking Forward To in Melbourne (apart from, you know, the people)

- MY CAR.

- Seeing all the things the good folks have achieved in my absence, including marriages (what?!)

- Time enough to lie around and slow things down, away from my tv/roku, maybe even finish reading a book.

- My piano, with Miles and Charlie curled up by my feet.

- Various food/beverages; Nikku's lamb roast, dainty nights, yum cha, breakfasts, COFFEE, preshafruit.

Solitary living can sometimes feel a bit like drowning. It's only when I step back from the lists, the minutes, the personal and the manageable, and look at the life that I'm carving out like a spinning top marking lines in the dirt, I feel swallowed up by something bigger. I'm not even sure if I mean that to be a bad thing. I'm easily overwhelmed.

I've been solitary all my life. Relationships, even the more serious ones, were merely blips on my timeline. I've never been the kind to call someone up the moment something goes wrong, I'm far more likely to retreat further into myself, internalise the issue, and try to dissipate it within me. You would think I'd be good at this by now.

I've lamented at length the desire to fall backwards, into a pair of arms, even if momentarily. So I can catch my breath and pretend that someone else is picking up the slacks for a while. "You and me baby, against the world." Something that is equal, something that is higher. A mutual dependency held on so tightly that it can break through anything and come out no worse for wear.

This, is not that either.

I'm tired of listening, I'm tired of talking, can't we all just float around for a bit while the world rages on? We'll be back to battle soon, but for now, just take my hand, and we'll just float.

Why yes, I am in a modest mouse frame of mind.