Have You Ever Been This Low

Well, that's the song I'm listening to. Have You Ever Been This Low by Suede. Last night, for the first time in I don't know how long, I wrote an email telling this person I'd known for 5 1/2 years why exactly we had ceased being friends. It wasn't difficult as I thought it would be, but it felt awkward and upsetting for sure. Today I feel pretty low. I picked up a literary journal from my bookshelf, tried to read some poems, felt like a dark veil was coming over my eyes and I just had to stop.

Nothing really happened. No messed up scenarios or arguments. Just a culmination of what did and did not transpire over the past years. In recent days, this said person had gone through a tragic loss in their life. I expressed my concern, kept my distance here and there as I knew them to be a private person who needed space, dropped a brief message or two, then checked in to see what was going on. No answer. All this time, the said person had marched forward to live a seemingly happier daily life: picnics, backyard parties, excursions to the countryside with fellow poet friends and a new partner who is also a writer. This said person lives in the States. I visited them early this year. And, amid all that buzz of spring and early summer, where was I? I was where I was, going through my own vaguely rocky life. And I was anywhere except in my old friend's mind. Me being me, I simply disappeared and deleted this person from my Facebook.

It's what I do when something is broken but doesn't warrant a talk (like in a break-up with a boyfriend)--I find a way to let the other person know that we're not in each other's worlds anymore. I don't contact them and shout, 'You've hurt/wronged/neglected me now tell me why!' or 'I'm upset at/I despise what you've done so I'm leaving.' If someone isn't worth shit, why would I talk to them again? If someone has indeed hurt my feelings, well, only I'm responsible for what happens in my life. I'll deal with it in my own time. Of course, it's a self-preservation tactic. I don't give people chances to change my mind once I have it made up. Something is fucked up, or someone doesn't care, then just fuck the right off. I'm not going to put myself on the line to 'have a talk' and to 'find out'. Most of the time, I just decide not to give another inch of myself to that other person when they don't fucking care.

In this case, I thought I'd disappeared and the old friend had accepted it, until they sent me an email earlier this month. Suddenly I was a real person they had thought about or even missed. Where did I end up moving to? How had this and that turned out? Did I manage to do...? How am I keeping up with...? Anything interesting happening in my life?

I put it aside for a while. Last night I finally wrote that email to say, the reason why I was writing back was that I wanted them to know I'd genuinely felt concern for and considered what had been happening to them, and I wished them better days to come. Otherwise, I would have just stayed silent. Years ago we were closer friends when we were lonely, struggling young writers; that changed as our lives changed. But in recent times, I had become a nobody to them. I don't complain when it happens with people, I just go. Today, I feel upset and just a little confused. How much energy do you spend on feeling upset over something to exorcise it, and how much energy you spend on blocking it out, to get your balance?

Departure

Look here.

Photo was taken by the river. On a completely separate/different occasion around my birthday.

Sigh.

Movies & Music & Me

I think most of you know that I don't follow pop music or Hollywood movies or whatever is popular in the mainstream pop culture. It's a matter of temperament. My taste in movie is quite particular. I refuse to watch: 1. chick flicks; 2. stupid movies like Jackass (a co-worker played the trailer in the office when I was still in my last job. That was enough to make me feel like I had wasted one precious minute of my life); 3. Hollywood movies with artistic pretensions, which translate into ridiculous plots, weak characterization and self-delusional dialogue and special effects (Think 'Black Swan' - a filmmaker friend played some parts of the movie for me, so that I'd see what he meant by 'There should be a limit to the number of hallucinations one can employ in a movie!') 4. Most mainstream films, really, bombastic with predictable plots and fake emotions...I don't know what else. The last 'Hollywood movie' I liked was The Assassination of Jessie James by the Coward Robert Ford, which was a fairly subtle film with solid acting and beautiful cinematography. Seeing a bad movie makes me go 'What a complete waste of time!' and I'd walk out of the cinema when a film is bad enough.

So, yes, I'm usually only into art house films, whatever that means. Independent cinema from Europe and Japan from the 60's to present. I'm partial to avant garde and surrealist cinema, esp. those flicks that were conceived as visual poetry or cinematic renditions of poetry. There're also some really nice films from the Middle East which we get to see at film festivals in Hong Kong. Hong Kong is a cool enough place for getting access to world cinema. Jewish film festival. Turkish film festival. German film festival. Fake copies of 60's Italian classics. Fake copies of out-of-print Bulgarian indie film...you name it and we've got it, now and then.

***

With music I have a higher 'tolerance' for random stuff because, well, I have a bigger heart for music and I can almost always gauge something for what it is. With most genres--even if it's dance pop or country music, both of which I usually do not like--I can appreciate that a certain infectious dance tune is a winner, or this certain singer writes sharp lyrics and pours his heart out into the acoustic guitar. I started listening to music at 3 or 4, since my parents were big music lovers and always had vinyls lying around the room. In those days I listened to a lot of Japanese music and, ahem, Culture Club (there was a Boy George poster on the wall--my mother was a fan). From there I grew up in 80's pop music, as I managed to stay up late to watch MTVs till midnight (Sting, The Cars which I particularly liked, Black, Michael Jackson...all pretty good stuff). By the time I was 10 I'd learned to sing Roy Orbison, Carpenters, Joan Baez, Roberta Flack, Bread...from this radio program I listened to on Saturday afternoon. My musical upbringing was purely accidental--nobody told me what to listen to. When I heard a song I liked, I remembered the name of the song or the singer, and looked it up in the library. With some recordings, it took me years to find out who the artists were, like this song by Paul Davis. 

How I turned into a rocker in my teens was history. The brief of it was that I saw a few rock bands on Star TV when I was 12 and my world was never the same again. Then I had a drummer boyfriend and I learned to play drums at the age of 15. The guy was quite the package: distant eyes, prominent cheek bones, thick lips, quick-witted and had a wicked sense of humor. We dated briefly and stayed friends for years. After that, a bit of singing and bumbling around with a red wig. Then it was alternative music, classical, soul, blues, jazz...industrial, post-rock, electronica and weed as I hit early 20's. These days I seem to listen to a lot of electronica--like I said last time, not the kiddy type blasting in some pub, it's the grown-up/sophisticated stuff. My taste leans towards the serious side. When I say jazz, I mean John Coltrane, not Pat Metheny.

***

The one kind of music I can't listen to--I'm sure there're others, but they're not as popular around town--is...is...I hate to say, R&B. Not the R&B from 50's to 70's, that stuff is great, but the R&B they make nowadays. At an inconspicuous corner at a sidewalk cafe, when I'm about to eat that spoonful of sorbet and feel all bubbly...Here comes Rihanna! (it used to be Beyonce a few years ago) The high-pitched voice and the beats come thumping across the sidewalk. My eyes are almost blinded by the sunlight shinning on the little metallic table, the beats and the singer's voice half-screaming: 'I'm the only girl in the world!' Okay, this music gives you a false adrenaline rush--you can throw yourself into that colorful world where everything is hyped up and you're fine, the world is  a fantasy fan spinning and you'll get through the day just fine because it's unreal. Now please, take this noise away from me. I only listen to music that registers.

For this reason--I think--I was surprisingly gutted when I read about Amy Winehouse's death. I've never been a fan--I don't have any of her albums--though I'd admit to the vaguely guilty pleasure of looking up her MTVs several times when I felt like listening to an 'easy-listening' soulful ballad. She was a true jazz singer, and her voice had more emotion/depth than just about any of her contemporaries. When so many of those pop divas strip down to dance like they're making love to the sand on the beach or the desert, their strained voices reaching over the fences to brace young kids, who go on Youtube to write: '...is so talented!'...when the diva wearing next to nothing launches into a pantomime of grins and dance moves against digitally created backdrops, earning millions of $$$ and fame along the way...Amy Winehouse, who was a talented musician and singer, is gone? It's a sick joke, isn't it?

Little Mysteries

Today I noticed someone had written my name, Nicolette Wong, on the white label on my mailbox downstairs. The handwriting is just a little girlish, but not decisively so. You can take a look at how the mailboxes look here. None of them is mine, though.

It's been two months since I moved in and I couldn't bother to put my name there--I didn't want everybody to see it--or change the mailing address for some of my mails. The postman couldn't have done this prank since none of the mails I've got so far has 'Nicolette' on it. My landlord doesn't know I'm Nicolette either. A handful of my friends have been to my place, but those guys, with one exception, wouldn't remember the address. The one who would remember, well, I doubt they would have taken the time and interest to pull this little trick on me.

I don't think I'd find out who did it. Hopefully it doesn't matter. Years ago when I lived in public housing, someone who called themselves 'Mike' left me notes asking me to call them. Creepy notes written in slightly ungrammatical English, obviously by a very young girl. Yes, that's my story 'The Voyeur', which some of you have read.

***

I have a flash story, 'The Warrior', up at Apocrypha and Abstractions. This one must make me look a bit like a gothic underground lover, and I wrote it in a rather peculiar state of mind. For a year or so I had this image of this dead man lying in a dark space, and he would come back to life if someone managed to breathe life into him by sucking out the blood that had clogged his throat, or something. 

The night I sat down to write it, I was listening to some electronica on Youtube--not the kiddy type you'd hear blasting in some car or club down the street, but the alternative type. Still, the playlist wasn't great and soon it was getting on my nerves. To shield myself from that discomfort, I focused extra hard on imagining the story, down to the glow of that straw. Now I can't re-read this story without finding it a little 'painful', even though I don't think others would feel the same.

New York City - Statue

Reposted from Le Bleu du Ciel for Language > Place blog carnival edition #8

inspired by Janelle Stone's 'Reflecting'

she wades cactus-shaped reflections in the mirrored glass.
the pedestrians are living souls in her fargo & she is
a statue haunting a foreign city. the road signs say
'Go' to where the snowflakes fall like paw prints,
away from light, from the station clock ticking
to traffic. she would never shed the granite
to taste her flesh which nobody sees.

Some Things You May Or May Not Want To Know

1. I have a serious dread of writing about anything that happens in my real life on this blog. Sometimes I write long entries about my friends, my thoughts and feelings surrounding an idea, an event that's a bit of an ordeal in my everyday life, which should be revealing, no? No, anyone can tell how those entries are very 'composed'. Which isn't to say what I write here isn't true stories or I lie about what I feel about stuff. Just that most of these anecdotes are so deliberately vague that you get a persona, rather than any sense of this Nicolette Wong as a real person at all.

2. I didn't and still don't mean to do that, not really. Okay, I did start this blog as some kind of 'professional persona' to share my writing and to connect with other writers. The writing on this blog was always going to be a bit of a 'performance', and I have a knack for writing quite honestly about personal stuff and shielding myself at the same time. But there were definitely times in the past when I was much more direct or open. Like two years ago when I left the Commie Castle (the newspaper), or last year when I was lovesick, or even last summer when I heard about the suicide of a writer/art critic friend which sent me running out of the office and crying down the street in broad daylight.

3. I don't mind people knowing who I am at all, if they do. It's just something I don't think much about--sometimes I'm oblivious to why or how people may pay attention to what I'm doing, like a story or a status update or a photo I post, whatever it is. In my mind, people are busy doing their own thing, paying attention to those who're closer or more familiar to them, and I'm a bit off their radar, or I simply don't imagine anyone looking at or reading up on me. Some people do and I know that they do, and I appreciate it. Otherwise, I am surprised when someone--esp. those I admire for their talent--drop by and say, 'Hi, so you've been doing this and that and I think it's good/bad!'

4. It's for practical reasons that I've developed that terrible dread of actually telling you about what I'm doing, or painting any pictures that will give you a clearer sense of who this Nicolette Wong is, at this moment in time. In the past years, for some rather unfortunate reasons, I have 'collected' a few troubled characters in my social life who will not let go of the past. People who go on to, in their mind, wrestle with those who betrayed or left them out of disloyalty. Or simply alcoholics who cling onto past friends and lovers out of self-pity. They still read and contact me and in one case, make feeble attempts to attack me. I never respond to them, but it makes me a bit hesitant about saying too much on this blog.

5. I'm as strong-willed as anyone can be--I don't ever doubt who I am, my worth as a person, my talent as a writer, my value as a friend or a lover because of conventional standards, others' expectations, lack of understanding or pure malice. There're occasional moments of agony, and when I get pressured enough, I walk off in tears. Some people who don't get it think I'm being a crybaby. The truth is I fucking can't stand it when a person or a situation demands that I bend, just to appease or pacify somebody. People who get furious and judgmental when someone isn't living up to their standards of behavior, their assumptions and hopes about the state of things. Such self-absorption or possessiveness--to think that one can lay claims on others, on life--I will never understand.

6. I'm as strong-willed as I am because I grew up very much alone. I started practically living on my own at 13, in a not-very-nice flat in public housing. My mother was out of my life by then and my father was--eh, this is the only accurate way of putting it--a loser. Think debts; nightly (esp. midnight) harassment from strangers; no money for food after the weekend; no certainty of where I was going to live the next day; packing a backpack to run away from threats. Someone always helped out, but I lived through all of that quite by myself, in that not-so-nice studio flat or in a relative's home, for several years. I read some textbooks through high school, studied some fiction and poetry in the university. It wasn't too bad.

7. Since April my life has been bogged down by practical issues: job, money, flat, job, money. I've been laying low at home a lot, though I do hang out with friends I want to see and/or those who really want to see me. Some people around me get married, get promoted at work, go dancing, take holidays. I read, listen to music, take photos, dream and write, amid the struggle of trying to sort out my practical affairs. Things are moving slowly at the mundane level, and it looks like it'll stay that way for a while. But it'll work out sooner or later, and sooner isn't necessarily better, so I hope it happens at the okay time.

8. I have my moments of anxiety, but for the most part, I feel like I'm floating on the top of all these issues. It even looks like I'm floating to a happier place than I've ever been. I write everyday, my focus is to work on myself as a writer, while I try to make money here and there to sustain my everyday life. It doesn't bother me that others are living more comfortable lives, doing more fun things, or 'getting ahead in life', so to speak. From a very young age I've been doing what I'm doing, because it's what I do. It means writing, and it has nothing to do with anyone or anything else at all.

Tennis Headache. Blog Carnivals & Craving

Seriously, it gives me a bad headache to see Rafael Nadal lose his Wimbledon final. Alright, I half expected it--Djokovic has ascended to the top and he reigns over everybody else, even a hardcore Rafa fan like me has to agree with that. It just happens that I've always rather disliked him, the way some tennis fans can't stand Nadal. It's a personal thing. It'd give me less grief if it was Federer or del Potro or even Murray who beat Rafa to win a Grand Slam. That would make me go: "Hey! That guy got his chance." I mean, if Fed Ex comes soaring above the tennis court again, or Delpo recovers to strike like he did at 2009 US Open, or Murray wins his first major, wouldn't you think it's a nice surprise?

Now that Djoker is winning almost everything--I know, it's kind of a disrespectful thing to say--I'll stop watching tennis for a while. Until Rafa makes a miracle comeback or Delpo the giant takes over the US Open, well, one can always hope.

***

Edition #7 of Language > Place blog carnival, hosted by Julia Davies, is up at her blog practice makes perfect. Wonderful layout and line-up of writers. Thanks Julia for all the thought and effort! My post 'Retreat' is included in this edition. You'll find out what the retreat was about if you check out the blog carnival page. 

My last post, 'To The Trees', is a part of the fifth anniversary edition of The Festival of the Trees hosted by Dave Bonta. The short short--or prose poem, I think--was born out of a 5.30am walk I took in the park in my last neighborhood. I sat down to write about it on another gloomy Saturday night, and I didn't have a story. A Facebook friend--who's gotta be one of the biggest music lovers in my town--posted this version of the NIN song, 'Hurt'. 

What happens when all that's left of a story is an empire of dirt? What do you do with it? That was how I dreamed up 'To The Trees'. 

My flash story 'Focus' is published in MiCrow. Check out the e-book. I was a little uncertain about this piece when I'd just written it, but now I think it's pretty good.

The July edition of Negative Suck is out here!

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I don't have a lot of personal news to share except what you guys have already read about on my Facebook. Caught up in feeling sick over a wisdom tooth (now gone), a project grant proposal, and being disoriented as always. 

I guess the truth is I've been withering a bit because of all the anti-biotics, disrupted sleep and working in front of the computer screen. I need to go to the countryside, or the beach, and I'm dying to eat some sashimi. Hmm...