Monday, May 24, 2021

CREDIT KARMA

I recently began watching In Treatment. I remember Adam having told me about it, that must have been three years ago. I didn’t pay much attention to what he said, but it somehow got back on my radar, so I started last week. It’s a drama series about a therapist and features different sessions with different clients. I’m not sure if it’s reenactments based on real therapy sessions, it sure feels like it. I thought the series was interesting, based on the first four episodes of the first season that I’ve watched. When I picture therapy, I obviously visualise my own experience because I’ve gone for therapy and I’m open and chatty and willing to work on myself. These clients though, they really opened my eyes to how difficult therapy must sometimes be for the therapist, these clients are in deep denial and are so conditioned to believe and behave in ways that display toxic masculinity, etc. They are defensive and uncooperative it made me wonder why they are even at therapy if they’re not even willing to open up. It provided me with so much perspective, and I’ve only seen four episodes. I look forward to more.

In tandem with In Treatment, I’ve also been rewatching The Good Place. I think The Good Place is my favorite series, ever. If you haven’t seen it, I think you should. It’s based on the afterlife, and what happens in the afterlife, and I love so many things about it. I like how it depicts the fact that humans are really capable of change, and there’s no such thing as a good or bad person. I like how it brings up moral philosophers and moral philosophies and condenses them down to a nugget so that viewers can be introduced to such big arguments that they can then explore if they want to. I love that it’s a romantic comedy, somewhat, and the characters are all hilarious, and I love Jason Mendoza. Jason Mendoza is not a bad person so much as his head is terribly empty, he is seriously too stupid to even comprehend what good and bad are, which is a real pity. I am a romantic person, obviously as you know, and the lead characters, Eleanor and Chidi, they are both morally..... complicated people, but every time they are near each other (hmmm very hard to explain without giving everything away), they help each other become better people, and it just tugs at my heartstrings. It’s just the basic premise of love, caring for someone so much that you want to do better and be better, for them. Eleanor seeks out Chidi because he gives a talk on What We Owe To Each Other. He then teaches her ethics and morals so that she begins to care about other people and becomes less selfish. The entire series just lifts my spirits when I’m down. It’s 20 minutes per episode, it’s lighthearted entertainment and there are manageable seasons. (I know because I started rewatching last week and I’m already on season three of the four seasons.) What do we owe to each other? I would like to know. If being together means we are both trying to be and do better for humanity, I think we owe ourselves at least that.

Wednesday, May 19, 2021

SUPERMOON

I think I must have woken up on the extreme right side of the bed, because I'm on a bit of a cloud. I had a very pleasant dream too, I was racing on a bicycle beside someone, I don't know whom. Cycling is one of the activities that make me feel slightly free, it probably has to do with wind in your hair, yadda yadda yadda. Mine are definitely cycling and swimming. Several of the men I've dated, cycled on a regular basis, whether it was on either stateside coast, or even here in Singapore. The man I dated a couple of weeks ago also cycled his bike everywhere, and we'd have to coordinate between my taking the train and his cycling route. I don't cycle much in Singapore because the infrastructure here isn't as well-built for it, but I may cycle more in Nanaimo, a couple of months into moving there, if I can afford getting a bike. It's a slow-paced (anything would be slow-paced compared to Singapore) island so it should be safer than it is here. I also sat down yesterday and thought about my most recent relationship, I was with Lucas for one and a half years, from May 2019 to December 2020. Some people say it takes about half the duration of a relationship to get over its breakup (I don't know what pseudo bullshit studies made it up but I'm gonna go with it), which means it would take nine months, which also means by the time I'm in BC, Canada for my semester in September, I should be right about at that stage. There are men in a couple of places who are shooting their shots, but I don't think it would work out with them. Here are the things I know I like: starting with the shallow, I like a man with longish hair or at least something that is not cropped short, someone who cares about the environment and environmental justice - and by caring I mean actually puts in effort to improve the state of things, definitely someone who's gone to therapy and worked on himself - because we've all fucked up and what defines us is how much work we put in to change, and now we go back to the shallow, I really like someone who doesn't make spelling or grammatical mistakes - I know it's a terrible thing to judge someone for, and there are millions of people who aren't bothered by it, but my brain works very, very systematically, so please, allow me to date someone whose brain functions similarly to mine. 

Last week, I was feeling a little heavy and overwhelmed, because one of my family members has recently come out of prison. He's only a year older than I am, and we essentially grew up together when we were young because my grandma would take care of a whole bunch of us. He has two kids now, and this was not his first stint, and I was simultaneously happy to see him out and on Instagram, and also worried. I have several family members who have been caught up in the carceral system, and it makes me very angry at the Singaporean government. If you haven't realised, I come from a community that's treated in similar ways to how dark-skinned and black people are treated in the US. The policies here are unforgiving, and the government refuses to acknowledge how much of a vicious cycle jails and prisons are. I don't believe in prison, I am all for prison abolishment, because prisons really don't treat the root causes of "crime", as in poverty and discrimination, it simply aggravates and perpetuates the symptoms. I wish we could do better for them. I understand them because I am human, I have desires and I know what it's like to be curious, I have taken more drugs than probably a lot of my family members combined, I just do so in countries that are not Singapore and that have slightly more progressive attitudes. I want to tell my family members, we all care about them, when they are inside, we worry everyday and all the time, even if I'm not close to these people, and I don't know how to convey the message, without sounding like a patronising cunt. I want to tell them that I know it might be difficult to the point of being impossible, but they've only got this one life (or at least that's my belief), and they shouldn't let this overbearing government win by taking away what little freedom we each already have. I think in these terms of it being a game and my freedom being a win, and it works for me because I may be intrinsically highly motivated by competition. Even though I am part of the same racial community, I know I am privileged enough (I know I'm a privileged piece of shit because in this same post, I just said I like people who don't make spelling mistakes) to have kept myself fairly out of legal troubles. I received my fair bit of education and am working to get myself out of this damn country, but I also know that I am not free until we are all free. I want to see a world where we dismantle all systems and forms of oppression.

Monday, May 17, 2021

YUCCA VALLEY

Some days, I meditate and it helps. Other days, my subconscious wreaks havoc and all my thoughts run wild. It looks and sounds something like this. Breathe, sweat, grow, love. Shut the fuck up, all these mantras trying to placate me so I don’t join a community and organise to overthrow the government. What is the point of meditating? Thirty minutes later, I will be back to facing climate anxiety. Why am I so anxious about the climate? It is too late and it is happening and will happen. Why do I want to save the world? The icebergs are melting, sea levels are rising, and in a couple of decades there will be wars for freshwater resources. It is too late. What is so important about humanity that it has to be saved? We’ve lived through our prime, we’ve moved from caves and rubbing rocks together to make fire, to launching rockets to outerspace, and staying in outerspace. Maybe all the men on Tinder are right, we’re here for a good time, not a long time. Maybe one day when this planet has gone through its wars and natural disasters and cooled down after hundreds of years and productivity is written off as a sin, humans will repopulate themselves and rebuild civilisation. What is so important about human beings that we have to be saved? We’ve caused the extinction of thousands of species in our lifetime, why should we be any different from those species of wildlife? How narcissistic to think we are any special. What does Joey think of this? What the fuck does it matter what Joey thinks of this? How is Ben facing this, is he still smoking lots of weed? What the fuck does it matter how Ben is dealing with this? What does Lucas think of this, what would he feel about the fact that I grow ever more radicalised, every single day since I’ve seen him? Would he be proud of me? What the fuck does it matter what Lucas feels about me? What the fuck does anything matter? We are all going to die. Some days, my Calm meditation sessions give me energy to face an increasingly despondent world, and some days I want to punch the app (yes that’s right I want to punch the damn icon on my phone) for lying to me because as a singular human being, no amount of calming my thoughts is going to contribute to the betterment of society. What if, instead of monetary currency, we change currency to the offset of carbon credits? Every time you make a move that’s good for the environment or has as little carbon impact as you can, you get credit for... whatever, rent, perhaps? The less you work, the less impact you have on the environment, and the more credit you get to spend on your livelihood. You get a roof over your head, seeds to plant and food to eat. How’s that? I read somewhere, or someone told me, that cryptocurrency is terrible for the environment. All bankers would incur an immediate debt, just for being bankers. Let’s flip the world on its goddamn head. So much for not caring, I’m still thinking about how to bring about change. What we need is a complete overturn of values. Singapore is experiencing a rise in cases and there is speculation of another impending lockdown. I will be able to earn and save less in case that happens, so you can find me under my bed, crying and trying not to die. I don’t seem to be here for a good time nor a long time. 

Monday, May 10, 2021

SAFE HAVEN SURRENDER

The phone number of the man in the latest post ends in 5169, the same as the man who works at SpaceX. The man who lives in Seattle switched from cigarettes to a vape, the same as the man who cooked for me in Brooklyn. The two Bens from New York, they’re both of Jewish heritage, and every time I read news of Israeli settler violence against Palestine, I think of them, not that I think they’re Zionist at all. The man I loved for two years, we got together on my birthday, and today would have been our second anniversary. The funny thing is we didn’t even spend our first together, because Singapore was on lockdown, he was in his apartment and I was in my family’s. I sang Taylor Swift’s Mean on New Year’s Eve in Los Angeles the first time I was there, about fifty-two full moons ago, and I have changed, grown, become a whole other person since then. I have loved different people, I have loved differently, I am a new person now. And yet, every single one of those past versions of me still lives within me. Not a single one of those people I have loved could be replaced by any other. I know which trait belongs to which person, I know who’s been to therapy, and who wants to but hasn’t. I started out my day wanting to have a good day, but it weighs heavy on me, I am feeling so many things in so many places, I do not even know where to begin untangling them. There are things I probably still haven’t uncovered. You drew stars around my scars, but now I’m bleeding.

Thursday, May 6, 2021

FIDELITY

Imagine being in a haze. Not physically, but in your mind. You go on a date and play truth or dare, drinking shots of soju when you refuse. This takes place in a private karaoke room, where you sing Taylor Swift, off-key (it’s always off-key for me, I’m tone deaf) and he tries to sing My Chemical Romance’s The Black Parade, but it is too high for him. You both get steadily more drunk, you talk about your exes and he talks about his. Truth: Which ex would you get back together with? It’s a toss up, East Coast or West? Never thinking about the recent one, the one who loved you, because you have to deny what hurts, right? You’re in a daze, anyway, it doesn’t matter. He is smart, smarter than you are, and this is not too common and you know it. You’d have to be smart to advise college kids on what paths to take, it will affect the rest of their lives. You carry yourself like the woman you know you are, you are intelligent and kind and good-looking and you could command anyone’s attention if you wanted to. One of the shoots you recently modeled for has just churned out a social media ad that your friend screenshots and sends you, it’s a telehealth app and you look so happy and bright and you’re holding a pack of birth control pills like they’re the best things you’ve seen, which is ironic because you argued about STI testing, you don’t remember the last time you got tested because it never used to matter when you’re in a relationship and you only have one partner. But smart men, they are your weakness. They will always be. He carries himself with the assuredness of being anatomically well-endowed or that he at least knows how to pleasure a woman. It turns out to pleasantly be both, until you have the STI argument. How many men have never used a vibrator during sex, and how many women have seen social media posts, agreeing that penetrative sex, together with a vibrator is the best combination? Such wildly different lives we lead, all due to our sexual organs. When you arrive, though, you are disappointed, because his room is messy. Why are men’s rooms always messy? There are sheaves of paper on his bed, there are piles of clothes, there is a photo frame of him and his goddamn ex (oh mon dieu!) on the dresser. He promptly sees it and faces it down, but too late, we both know we are not over our exes. You tell him, Jesus, I’m going to write a book about all the men I’ve dated, and the common thread will be how goddamn messy their rooms are, how do women raise men like these. He says, “you should see women’s rooms, they’re just as messy” — again, it’s never #notallmen, but #somewomenaretoo! You walk the five blocks back from your workplace to his apartment, and it’s the first time you’re seeing Singapore’s buildings lit up from near, it feels a little like New York City with its grids and forever-lit-up towers. You hate the idea of these corporations and you hate Singapore, but the two of you walk together and you think, what a pretty, pretty haze, you could stand to be here a little longer. You’re both so messy and you don’t know what you want, and where you’re going, but some days, it’s nice to be in a daze together, than apart.