lucy.in.d.sky

i do remember, u said

2008-02-24T13:54:00.006+09:00

i hope u read this in the morning after u wake up from ur much needed sleep. i hope u read this in the comfort of home and familiar things and people. i am in a dreamy state, i write these down as i am missing u with my mind, my heart and my body. i am not sad. u can even call me contented, at this moment. between those time kyoto-okinawa-ur letter-bangkok, i learnt a few important things. realize this, at this moment, i am happy tht we met and tht i love u. whatever happens in the future, remember this moment.

accidental babies

2008-02-24T13:34:00.006+09:00

well i held you like a lover. happy hands and your elbow in the appropriate place. and we ignored our others happy plans for that delicate look upon your face. our bodies moved and hardened. hurting parts of your garden. with no room for a pardon in a place where no one knows what we have done. do you come together ever with him. and is it dark enough enough to see your light. and do you brush your teeth before you kiss. do you miss my smell. and is he bold enough to take you on. do you feel like you belong and does he drive you wild or just mildly free. well you held me like a lover. sweaty hands and my foot in the appropriate place. and we use cushions to cover happy glands in the mild issue of our disgrace. our minds pressed and guarded. while our flesh disregarded the lack of space for the light-hearted in the boom that beats our drum. well i know i make you cry. and i know sometimes you wanna die. but do you really feel alive without me. if so, be free. if not, leave him for me before one of us has accidental babies. for we are in love. do you come together ever with him.is it dark enough enough to see your light. do you brush your teeth before you kiss. do you miss my smell. and is he bold enough to take you on. do you feel like you belong. and does he drive you wild or just mildly free. what about me. what about me.

i live my life in songs these days.

a case of you

2008-02-19T01:43:00.002+09:00

how do people write like this??
i can drink a case of you and still be on my feet...

anyway, here's the great joni mitchell -

just before our love got lost you said
i am as constant as a northern star
and i said, constant in the darkness
where's that at?
if you want me i'll be in the bar

on the back of a cartoon coaster
in the blue tv screen light
i drew a map of canada
oh canada
and your face sketched on it twice

oh you are in my blood like holy wine
oh and you taste so bitter but you taste so sweet
oh i could drink a case of you
i could drink a case of you darling
and i would still be on my feet
oh i'd still be on my feet

oh i am a lonely painter
i live in a box of paints
i'm frightened by the devil
and i'm drawn to those ones that ain't afraid
i remember that time that you told me, you said
love is touching souls
surely you touched mine
cause part of you pours out of me
in these lines from time to time

oh you are in my blood like holy wine
and you taste so bitter but you taste so sweet
oh i could drink a case of you
i could drink a case of you darling
still i'd be on my feet
and still be on my feet

i met a woman
she had a mouth like yours
she knew your life
she knew your devils and your deeds
and she said
color go to him, stay with him if you can
oh but be prepared to bleed

oh but you are in my blood you're my holy wine
oh and you taste so bitter, bitter and so sweet
oh i could drink a case of you darling
still i'd be on my feet
i'd still be on my feet

the price of a heartache

2008-02-19T00:10:00.005+09:00

a heartache or heartbreak is costly, especially to a woman. yesterday it caused me rm 79.90 - the price of a pair of sexy, blue denim high heels! not that i'm complaining much, coz it really is gorgeous and makes me feel ultra feminine. retail therapy - that's what they call it...haha! i do love it, but i doubt 10 more of the kind would get my heart any near fixed. but at least i'm doing something about it.

p.s: the pair doesnt look much here, but believe me, they feel really good to wear...blame it on the photographer!

fifteen days

2008-02-11T00:35:00.000+09:00

15 glorious days in the sun, in the rain. 15 days of getting to know my country with you. odd pair, fair and dark, asian and caucasian, your t-shirts of many colors and my brown khaki ones. just us and the country. traversing busy cities, calm villages and the countryside, beautiful beaches and waterfalls, weeping rain forests, sleepy old towns with histories older than both our ages combined. good rides, bad rides, cold and cheap domestic plane rides, a river cruise over polluted waters. driving in circles and losing our way through small one way streets. hotels, old ones, cheap ones, clean ones, surprising ones, colorful ones, dirty dusty ones, rundown ones. showers of hot water, cold water and not so cold water. quarrels, raised voices, tender words, making up. the next time we meet, would we still be the same two?

black and white dream

2007-08-22T22:20:00.001+09:00

in my black and white dream a friendly, naughty grin and hair that badly needs trimming bent down over my pillow dented from the weight of you.

102, highmill house, saginuma

2007-05-05T23:55:00.000+09:00

it was home. last 25th march 2007 i left it, i guess never to go back there again. i lived there for two years. it was a small house with ample spaces for 2. 2LDK they called it - 2 rooms, living room, dining room and kitchen. the most serious crisis was when the pigeon made a nest in our smoke shaft and god, it stank! my room overlooked the smallest garden ever and in spring, roses bloomed. the kitchen housed more spices than we could ever cooked.

the rezoko/refrigerator at most times held more food than could be consumed by two people. 2 girls who had never cooked triumphed there - chinese chicken soup, kurma, beriyani, soto, curry noodles, etc. in summer, locusts sang and there would be occasional visits from roaches (maybe from house 203!).

that was the place where love blossomed and was nurtured, hearts got broken and nursed. that was where i last saw you.

on reading orlando

2006-09-21T14:36:00.000+09:00

the thing that has always hindered me from attempting any of virginia woolf's work is the idea of reading a whole book written in the 'stream of consciousness'. i always imagine myself overwhelmed reading one line after another with minimal punctuation marks, all the while trying to figure out what the sentences actually mean as they glide back and forth between the past and the present, lost between the external and internal.

but, on a dare, i am now reading orlando. while many applauds austen's elizabeth bennet as the best character ever written, a friend claims that orlando is the best character ever written. i'm still reading it. at this point orlando has changed into a woman-orlando and is fascinated at the power of the mere view of woman's feet that can and i love how woolf breaks down the gender barriers and addresses love that transcends gender.

woolf did not employ the 'stream of consciousness' here though. i guess it is a good idea to read orlando first as a kind of introduction of her works to me. appreciating her genius before i venture further to the light house.

envy

2006-09-08T00:40:00.000+09:00

north of your birth land in unhurried solitary walks whilst locking heavens in tiny photographs waves breaking in the background and smell of the sea salt drying on skin breathing in the essence of your people an african dreaming in paradise of green and blue building memories of those met in lone journeys with wishes of ‘salaam’ heard in every actions and deeds stories heard and told over a hot cup of brewed tea i am envious of your clear skies looking down upon where stars and sun is different from mine...

prelude to banned books

2006-09-05T22:50:00.000+09:00

stumbled upon this book at tower records last week, during one of my solitary outings. one who adores bram stoker's 'dracula' (i considered it a very scary book then and even now) you can see why the title "the letters of mina harker" piqued my curiosity. written in the form of letters from mina harker (who supposedly possesses the body of the author dodie bellamy) addressed to good friends (i think) . a stream of mina's consciousness which makes it kind of a difficult read as we know thoughts are never linear and everything goes in and out stories all jumbled together talking about one person and jumping into another related or unrelated event altogether depending on what's the topic you are thinking and talking about and your state of mind at the moment...haha...i'm gonna stop now.

anyway, in THOSE days, this would have probably been a banned book, considering every page is laced with THE three or four-letter words and related stark descriptions of these words in full swing action, which would definitely distress a decent reader. that said, would that kind of make me an indecent reader? hmm..

here's a page that's not so indecent, kinda poetic i would say:

dear sam,
quincey is absent, absent as you. he's been in barcelona for twelve days with his wife. hieroglyphs litter my computer screen, i look back over my shoulder: a messy bed, a bed devoid of quincey, of me, of both our bodies. i swivel in my office chair to better study these vanished others those two naked forms on the bed rolling about from pillow to pillow, silent and in slow motion like some corny movie, gauze filter over the lens, shiny moments glinting in little star bursts. twelve days is an eternity. our last night together i wrote my love all over him: purple bruises with a flourish of red filaments, how's he going to hide that from his wife when he takes off his pants in barcelona?

writing has always been more sexual than sex, the sustained arousal of never quite getting it right.

i imagine quincey flying all the way to spain to try to forget me in the meditteranean sunset - it's so marguerite duras. i underline a passage from blue eyes, black hair: "she looks at him. it's inevitable. he's alone and attractive and worn out with being alone. as alone and attractive as anyone on the point of death."

a married man who drinks by himself and sleeps on the couch. i tell myself i'm better off outside his life, his tortured take on the mundane.

from "the letters of mina harker" page 73

in my weakest moment

2006-08-22T21:25:00.001+09:00

in my weakest moment
i am a colony of moss
on a humid brick wall
waiting for the sunray
to scrap me away
into lifeless flakes

yet, i am always soothed
by a little shower of rain
dripping perpetual wetness
upon my tiny roots
just as the extended dryness
begins to choke me
of ware

and i, in gratitude, dedicate
the tip of the morning dew
to the minors from the sky
that befell upon me in
my weakest moments

2.42 am
09031994

lucy says: i wish i can say that this beautiful piece is mine...but it is not, it belongs to bobdanial. thanks bob, i hope u dont mind me borrowing your words ya...

song for the moment

2006-08-22T15:14:00.000+09:00

i watched richard linklater's before sunrise and before sunset today. both movies featured ethan hawke and julie delpy. the first was released in 1996 and the latter, some sort of a sequel, in 2004. i'm not even attempting to review the movies. critical analysis has never been my strong point, as confirmed by my literature papers' grades...haha!

but i have to say before sunrise is one of those movies that one will not forget easily. you have to watch it yourself to know what i mean. i can't say the same thing for before sunset, though. i thought celine talked a tad too much and was most of the time, too opinionated. probably the effect of growing up?

anyway, in before sunrise, there is one very lovely ballad called "come here" by kath bloom. in a glance, the song is simple, the lyrics is less poetic than most songs. but, somehow, it has a kind of raw passion in it, a wonderful ensemble of acoustic guitar, violin, simple lyrics and sad, mournful voice of kath bloom's.

i am one who lives her life vicariously.

i have fallen in love with this song and this is my song for the moment.

come here

there's a wind that blows in from the north

and it says that loving takes this course

come here. come here.

no, i'm not impossible to touch

i have never wanted you so much

come here. come here.

have i never laid down by your side

baby, let's forget about this pride

come here. come here.

well i'm in no hurry

don't have to run away this time

i know you're timid but it's gonna be all right this time

hates and loves

2006-08-19T12:29:00.000+09:00

i feel like i'm living in an oven. if you ask me what i hate the most right now, i shall answer you without the slightest hesitation - i hate summer and all its overwhelming heat. i hate the headaches i get practically every morning when i get up. i hate walking up to the train station in all the humidity, with sweat trickling down my face and body like i have taken my second shower, walking.

yes, i hate summer here...haha! but (this is gonna sound awfully like a cliche) a good friend once told me (after listening to my constant complaints) to always try find the little beauty in things. a novelty, like a house with a red roof that you have never noticed before even when you've walked through the same street for years.

so, today, lucy.in.d.sky decides to think very seriously about her 10 summer loves. here's lucy listing her list!

water parades where everyone has a gala time throwing/spraying water at each other
iced cafe mocha sessions at dotour, with french music playing in the background
eating water melons with c in our kitchen/dining room
locusts' songs outside my window
shaved ice 'kakigori' - all flavor but green tea
typhoons no ...7, 8, 9, 10 etc.
wind chimes making melodies with the soft breeze
little kids running around in their yukatas
anklets, open-toed sandals and khaki skirts
your white cotton shirt softly moving with the wind

temple of the floating lotus

2006-08-18T18:58:00.000+09:00

the steps leading to my house are old and mossy. but on rainy days, it always reminds me of steps leading up to a temple. on such days, whenever i go up those steps, i'd expect to see a small pond with floating lotus. hmm, in reality, there's always a big water puddle there when it rains. nevermind, the steps still look like temple steps though...haha!

u, whose hands r sleeping together

2006-08-17T17:40:00.000+09:00

i'm kinda in a dreamy state today. it's probably the doing of this dazzling blue summer skies. makes me feel like a dose of joni mitchell's 'both sides now' ~

rows and flows of angel hair
and ice cream castles in the air
and feather canyons everywhere
i've looked at clouds that way

but now they only block the sun
they rain and snow on everyone
so many things i would have done
but clouds got in my way

i've looked at clouds from both sides now
from up and down, and still somehow
its cloud illusions I recall
i really don't know clouds at all

moons and junes and ferris wheels
the dizzy dancing way you feel
as every fairy tale comes real
i've looked at love that way

but now its just another show
you leave them laughing when you go
and if you care, don't let them know
don't give yourself away

i've looked at love from both sides now
from give and take, and still somehow
its loves illusions i recall
i really don't know love at all

tears and fears and feeling proud
to say i love you right out loud
dreams and schemes and circus crowds
i've looked at life that way

but now old friends are acting strange
they shake their heads, they say i've changed
well somethings lost, but somethings gained
in living every day

i've looked at life from both sides now
from win and lose and still somehow
its life's illusions i recall
i really don't know life at all

i've looked at life from both sides now
from up and down, and still somehow
its life's illusions i recall
i really don't know life at all

of banned & challenged books

2006-08-17T16:31:00.000+09:00

i started out wanting to write about these 100 books (wow!!can't blame a girl for trying) that have in some ways made me into the person i am today. then, i sorta surfed around and came across this A.L.A website featuring a list of 100 most frequently challenged books of 1990-2000.

what an embarrassment it is to call myself - a common reader - when all i've read are these safest of the challenged / banned books!!

the adventures of huckleberry finn (doesn't count coz it was a text book)

the harry potter series (why? there's nothing worth banning here...)

the catcher in the rye (this is a classic, so okay)

the color purple (liked this book very much)

to kill a mockingbird (at 15 - my first lesson in racial discrimination)

the outsiders (cool!)

the adventures of tom sawyer (read it in elementary school, probably abridged)

animal farm (doesn't count coz it was a text book)

the diary of anne frank (doesn't count, didn't finish this)

the da vinci code (haha!)

gone with the wind (still a safe read, nothing worth banning)

the grapes of wrath (doesn't count coz it was a text book)

the heart of darkness (doesn't count coz it was a text book)

jude the obscure (yes! read it! even watched the movie!)

lady chatterly's lover (classic version of dirty books...urrgh...lame...hate d.h lawrence)

peter pan (i donno why they banned this one?)

peyton place (at 11 - first ever book with explicit sex content...yeah baby!)

the scarlet letter (elementary school - really censored version)

dr. zhivago (doesn't count - never finished it)

sons & lovers (doesn't count coz it was a text book. hate d.h lawrence anyway)

the canterbury tales (doesn't count, coz my friend read it out loud to me...haha!)

i haven't even read cujo! let alone mein kampf or das kapital!

so, in celebration of Banned Books Week 2006, this september 23-30, i lucy.in.d.sky, solemnly promise that i shall choose one of these challenged books, hunt it down, and read it.

densha no otoko

2006-08-16T19:16:00.000+09:00

this is almost my third year in japan. in all the hundreds train rides i've taken, today, for the first time, i saw a young man giving up his seat to an old woman. he stood up the moment he saw her, without hesitation. you can see that the action was not an after thought. i find this somewhat amazing.

all this while i've only seen thirty-something women or foreigners doing that, never a young man. once, i saw a hunk of man once accidentally pushed a woman into a newspaper kiosk. i remembered admiring his looks and physique on the train. we got out, he bumped into a woman, she fell on her back into a stack of newspapers, he turned, look at her without any expression whatsoever, and walked on. i have had my knees and elbows banged dozens of times with those steel briefcases salarymen love to carry, and they continued to walk on without any apologies. i'm making a sweeping judgement here, some of you will say, but it is how it is.

borrowed words again

2006-08-16T12:10:00.000+09:00

there is a whirlwind in southern morocco, the aajej against which the fellahin defended themselves with knives. there is the africo, which has at times reached into the city of rome. the alm, a fall wind out of yugoslavia, the arifi, also christened aref or rifi, which scorches with numerous tongues. these are permanent winds that live in the present tense. there are other, less constant winds that change direction, that can knock down horse and rider and realign themselves anticlockwise. the bist roz leaps into afghanistan for 170 days - burying villages. there is the hot, dry ghibli from tunis, which rolls and rolls and produces a nervous condition. the haboob - a sudan dust storm that dresses in bright yellow walls a thousand metres high and is followed by rain. the harmattan, which blows and eventually drowns itself into the atlantic. imbat, a sea breeze in north africa. some winds that just sigh into the sky. night dust storms that come with the cold. the khamsin, a dust in egypt from march to may, named after the arabic word for 'fifty', blooming for fifty days - the ninth plague of egypt. the datoo out of gibraltar, which carries fragrance. there is also the ---------, the secret wind of the desert, whose name was erased by a king after his son died within it. and the nafhat - a blast out of arabia.

other, private winds.

traveling along the ground like a flood. blasting off paint, throwing down telephone poles, transporting stones and statue heads. the harmattan blows across the sahara filled with red dust, dust as fire, as flour, entering and coagulating in the locks of rifles. mariners called this red wind the "sea of darkness". red sand fogs out of the sahara were deposited as far north as cornwall and devon, producing showers of mud so great this was also mistaken for blood. herodotus records the death of various armies engulfed in the simoom who were never seen again. one nation was so "enraged by this evil wind that they declared war on it and marched out in full battle array, only to be rapidly and completely interrred.

dust storms in three shapes. the whirl. the colum. the sheet. in the first the horizon is lost. in the second you are surrounded by 'waltzing ginns". the third, the sheet, is 'copper-tinted. nature seems to be on fire.'

michael ondaatje's the english patient pages 16-17

simple verses

2006-08-15T23:57:00.000+09:00

here's a little something. it spells you somewhere in it...

i am a sincere man
from where the palm trees grow
and before i die
i want to cast these verses from my soul
my verse is a clear green
of a fiery crimson
my verse is a wounded deer
who seeks refuge in the woods

i am a worried man
from where the mountains meet
and before i die
i want to speak on behalf of nature
my verse is about a sea that before was blue and clear
now is contaminated and sick
my verse is a wounded world
that no one wants to help

i love
the land
i close my eyes
i listen to the sounds
the world is speaking to me

jose marti - versos sencillos - maybe you've heard it in spanish.

orange flower

2006-08-15T21:46:00.000+09:00

are you still there playing the strange music? today is a very peculiar day. you can only understand it if you have felt it before. it cannot be imagined or conjured up in the mind, this sweetest pain or the painful sweet. today, it was the ultimate, that point of time where it has to begin. she felt it, the void that just eats up her skin, flesh, bones and she lets it has its way with her. she felt the sorrow that accompanies it and still welcome it all. she tasted it too. it tasted like blood and she still lets it in. that’s how it is, how things work. she curses its darkness, and yet the unseen colors enchant her. where are you at this point of time? marking places in your blue skies? why are you there, do you know? running away, she sought it further, breathing in the air that was not meant for her, imagining in her mind the cold and warmth of skin wet by fear, the indication of you. lives separated but running at parallel, things unspoken yet understood in looks exchanged and unsaid whispers. to whom do they belong to? only to those it was meant for. she looks up and sees what she needed to see. she took in every single detail and slowly, imprinted them on herself, only she knows where they are. not anyone else. you think you know, but do you? she sees you in the skies. she sensed it all in the fleeting wind that she stores in a glass jar. it’s time. in the rain, she sits and closes her eyes. she lets it see only what it wants to see. she felt it all, new and awkward like the first time it happens. but tender. it marked her, an orange flower.

the first gig - coldplay

2006-08-10T20:48:00.000+09:00

i'm sitting down at my laptop, listening to coldplay in the background....yellow, exactly. and to be honest, i've never appreciated their songs better. well, the appreciation sprung after going to their concert, my first ever concert in japan...haha! the concert kinda put their songs in a different light for me, i guess. all the while, their songs kinda sounded pretty similar to me. but these days, i'm listening and actually paying attention to the lyrics & i have to say, the lyrics are really poetic sometimes. my most favorite song thus far is yellow. i still don't know what exactly yellow is though, light? skin? bones? but who cares...

speaking of the concert, coming from a place where it is against social decorum to sit during such concerts, it was a surprise to see how the crowd was at the nihon budokan. luckily our seats were those folded up kind that wouldn't have gotten in the way. but from where i was standing, those people sitting in the arena were sure unlucky. it was real funny to see chris martins safely & freely running in a circle of the arena without any fans trying to touch or hug him. not that they were unenthusiastic about coldplay, it was just a cultural thing, i guess. that's how people are here.

after the last song, i was waiting for someone to say one more or we want more but i was not surprised that none came and everyone very quietly left the hall. and finally, it was just us, three gaijins that were politely ushered out coz they needed to clean the place up...