Daysleeping

I like that so much of being human is the tension between knowing ourselves to be biological entities and feeling ourselves to be something more--so many of our arguments and pursuits boil down to a debate over the extent to which we are meat machines versus star dust or force spirits or light from a larger light, to borrow the terminology of others.  Wait, don't go!  I know, it's too early for this much thinkiness.  Have a coffee and stay for some pictures of neat stuff, and skip my rambling if you must. Today was Thaipusam--the celebration of the full moon during the month of Thai in the Tamil calendar.   It's my understanding that Thaipusam isn't really celebrated in India anymore, but until not too long ago it was public holiday in Singapore, and it's still a big deal here and in Malaysia.  On the holiday, devotees celebrate the festival by making offerings of milk in thanksgiving, and to truly show their gratitude, they offer themselves as well, sa...

I have a confession; my first exposure to the culture of Japan was the book Shogun, by James Clavell.  I honestly love his work, great literature or no--he writes books that are close to or more than a thousand pages long, and there are few things that make me as happy as a giant book.  And I do think that he does a reasonably good job of being culturally sensitive and as historically accurate as you can be in a sweeping epic/romance novel, but it remains that I read Shogun for the first time sometime in my early teens, and the extent of my cultural knowledge of Japan for a long time included ritual suicide and taking really hot baths.  I've expanded my knowledge since then, but when we visited Japan for the first time recently, my inner thirteen-year-old demanded that I experience at least one of those. You are in luck, friends, as I'm a walking mishap, and this is the beginning of a moderately entertaining story that involves me making all the mistakes.  It's als...

I was walking to the MRT station on my way home from getting my hair cut last week, and I smelled the most delicious smell.  I just about dove into traffic to follow my nose to get to the source, and you guys will not believe what it was:  Durian!  Either my new-things bucket is at a manageable level or aliens have taken over my brain, because I smelled a giant pile of the king of stinky fruits and thought that rather than smelling like dead things or an open sewer, they smelled like a lush promise of eye-crossing delight.  I haven't tried them yet, but I'm kind of looking forward to having a chance to.  I'll let you know how it goes.  No, I'm not going to grab a spiky ball as big as my head and attempt to slice into it on my own for many reasons, not the least of which is that durians are expressly forbidden on public transportation.  Because they smell. You can, however, carry as many mangoes as you can fit on your lap. My willingness to try d...

I started this entry in mid-December, and though I keep coming back to it and being unsatisfied, I’m just going to finish it, wonky or not.  It begins like this:  I moved to Singapore six months ago. We’ve been here six months, almost seven now, and I keep thinking about that milestone. It’s been half a year, and I’ve always thought I can handle any situation, for at least a year.  So far, living in Singapore hasn’t been a situation to be endured, at all.  I have a sweet life, here—it’s a good place with lots to explore and kind people.  I’ve been so, so lucky to find lots to look forward to each day.  And there are lots of crabs for me to eat and really excellent spicy stuff to put on everything and the fruit occasionally makes me a little delirious with absolute bliss. A few weeks ago when we were returning from Vietnam, as the plane broke through the clouds, I saw a sprinkling of lovely, fat cargo ships in the Singapore Strait and my heart gave ...