Casa De Shao

Tag: Birthday

  • Thirty

    Thirty

    A cousin’s wedding – May ’25. Friends of the couple, dancing to Dancing Queen. Capella Ballroom.

    I’d imagined my thirtieth to be some kind of grand affair; after listening to weeks upon weeks of Harmontown, I thought that at some point I’d have the chutzpah to host a faux talk show.

    I’d invite my friends on stage and do bits where I tease them, celebrate me, celebrate them and clap them offstage.

    We’d do it in that Fort Canning event space, and I’d hire a sound team? And I could spend like 6,000 dollars for the food and location and the equipment, and that would be a fancy night, and I would group up my friends in their cliques and everyone would be beaming at me, tux and shit, onstage. 

    My friends would do lighting effects using flashlights, and I would make the multimedia, and at some point we could rehearse and sync up my theatrical shit with the onscreen shit and it would wow everyone. 

    Everyone would clap my back as they left, in gowns and tuxes, and people would say “haha, wasn’t that such a wonderful evening, Shao’s birthday?” “Yeah, what a great guy” 

    Perhaps I would gain some kind of renown, enough to be an NCMP, enough to be a marriage officiant guy, and people would recommend me to other couples, saying “I recommend this guy, Shao, he made us cry during our ROM, and the aunties love him”. 

    Maybe I’d show up at all the arts events, and whisper the same thing to every artist to not give up on their dreams. 

    And perhaps at my funeral, all the people I’ve crushed on would circle up around my coffin, like the seven dwarves, and they would share about their favourite parts about me and their regrets and how foolish they were to not date/continue dating me, and how that since I’m going to die, the world would be a worse place, and they’d do a North Korean wail and the audience would wail and-

    Pause.

    I would open one mischievous, twinklin’ eye at my actual wife (which I eloped with at 31) and wink, and she would hit a lever, and the coffin would stand up and fall apart and I’d have a hat and cane and look a lot like the monopoly-man and do a surprise jig, and the In Remembrance banner behind me would fall apart and say

    “I Remember-DANCE cum Celebrating an Orgasmic 130th”

    and I’d rehash my 30th with modern references, like how everyone tried to modernise “We Didn’t Start The Fire”.

    We can’t modernise “We Didn’t Start The Fire”, though, because there’s not enough content since that song to make a new one, we can’t retread what Billy Joel already sang about and anything else would just feel satirical and pointless.

    You can’t just repeat the line with the pope, that’s just derivative.

    30 was the deadline for me to start being a mature adult. Like the talk show idea, it was a blurry, ill-defined image of what should be to make my life better from then on.

    I thought I’d have my shit together naturally, as an effect of time and maturity. You know. Get a relationship without needing to try. They say relationships should happen naturally. 

    Han Cheng and I hung out once at some Soka event he invited me to. This was fresh off of uni. Five years later, I went to his wedding and knew only Ray Yan and Weibo, and sat at a table of HCI people.

    Han Cheng was still Han Cheng, and I watched him on-stage making cutesy corny jokes with his new wife, through green-tinted stained glass (metaphorically) from the table furthest from the front (geographically). That’s the same guy, I thought, and he’s wedded now, so logically, there must be something wrong with me. 

    I guess I haven’t really been trying as hard as I think I have, and some aspects of being in a relationship scare me enough into self sabotage.

    I haven’t especially been trying to connect with people on dating apps, I haven’t been trying to take better care of myself, I haven’t been trying very much in that regard at all.

    It’s funny that in spite of everything in the past year, this relationship shit is the thing that’s making me write a post at last. I guess it’s also the fact that this flight home from Yogyakarta follows the 4D3N trip I was on with Yunus.

    The 4D3N trip followed after the girl saying “I don’t want to waste your time on not being available for you, you know?” 

    I don’t know. Went out with this girl, thrice. Polar opposites. 

    Her? Cute, studious, clumsy. Methodical, family-oriented, serious. Experience-chasing. Interested. Incredible. She started the conversations.

    Somehow we had an astounding amount of differences. She didn’t like being asked about her days. She didn’t like people telling her to take a break. I liked both of those things.

    We had one misunderstanding a day. She loves canto pop and R&B, I don’t. She’s not a coward. She has a sparse desk, mine is filled with cat reporter figurines.

    The one day on her work trip she didn’t reply, it tore me to pieces. 

    We met when she got back. After suggesting that we had a picnic, she didn’t reply till the morning of (not a great texter, I reassured myself),

    She apologised for not preparing anything (I washed and brought grapes and hummus and crackers and made cucumber mint lime water, because she said she ate healthy). 

    After a game of Splendor (she won by one point), we looked that the lame Botanic Gardens pond, and I asked if she wanted to continue. She seemed conflicted and apologised and said that right now, she couldn’t work through us because she only had space in her life for her incoming tea-based startup. 

    “Nothing you did wrong or could’ve done different,” She reassured. 

    I don’t know. I felt a real good future between us between our taunts between rounds of purchasing properties using gems. 

    I asked if, in a few months, when her startup had settled, we could give it a shot again, and she said yes, but in that tone. 

    (Yunus called bullshit. He says that she’s just making an excuse because she doesn’t like me enough. 

    It annoys me. I tell him that I believe her. Because, if he was right, then I could’ve done something different, and that would kill me.)

    Then Yunus and I went to Jakarta the next day, and I put Capricorn on loop. 

    Who was I supposed to send my hotel room tour to now? How much should I have cared? Did I care too much about something that barely began? Am I the only person doing this? Who can I care about now?

    This feels empty, my envelopes have no addresses any more. 

    We had a six hour train ride this trip. The weather was disgusting, the views weren’t exceptional, but six hours without being expected to do fuck about shit? 

    I think that’s what I need. To shut off any expectations. I didn’t contact my family, I barely texted my friends, and I could finish Alita: Battle Angel. 

    I don’t know. At some point, I felt myself unfold, the crease lines disappearing. None of these problems mean anything when you are hurtling towards East Java at 113kph.

    Farmers in the field at 113kph, rice paddies at 113kph,

    I don’t know. I have a fuckload of notifications on my phone and I can’t care less about 

    – if Blastoise is ready to have a good night’s sleep

    – if bdr invited me to a mushroom rally

    – anything on the Straits Times, really

    – what tasks I have to do for improv

    – story notifications on IG

    – Facebook birthdays

    – shopee/laz sales

    Maybe it’s my Eat Pray Love era. 

    We’re landing soon. Indonesia this whole time was me coming to terms with our drivers hurtling on the wrong side of the road towards tens of motorcyclists. If a rogue airplane wing sliced through my neck, I hope I can say something cool before it got to my vocal chords.

    p.s. I mean, I got over most of this, it’s like 3 weeks old, 4 weeks old.

    P. S. S. 6/7 weeks.

    But I still gotta post it. I guess. I don’t really give myself time to write this much any more. But it’s like outdated. I hope this other date is gonna work out.

    I’m doing better. Maybe drinking a bit much. Apprenticeship’s gonna end soon. I’ve gotten a recommendation to the fifth floor. Things get better.

    Apprenticeship ended. I’m down with COVID. There’s a new girl I’m talking to. I’ve got a good feeling about it. As usual. But this is different. As usual!

  • But In My Prime (Twenty-Nine .866)

    But In My Prime (Twenty-Nine .866)

    Blk 639, one of the dusks

    It’s 2339. I’ve stepped out of my room, faux-silk pajamas and fresh underwear in arms, shirtless, sweaty, sticky, long-pantsed, unbelted, hunched, squinting, tired.

    I’d turned the aircon on, so I bent over slightly to grasp the door handle, preparing to close it. My back stung numbly and stiffly from a strain that seems to have lasted too long, and the first whisps of cold air breezed out of the room, deflected off my pant legs.

    I pull the door closed, and it doesn’t clunk this time. So I pull again, harder, putting my sore back into it, and it feels like a bit too much resistance. It goes clunk.

    Pause. I straighten my back. I adjust the PJs so they are nestled under one arm. I twist the key.

    Stuck. A creeping dread. Another twist. Stuck. This is new.

    I am brought back to the same door, decades ago. I’m in Primary school, or older. I’m on the inside. The door and lock and latch are old – as old as the HDB it’s in. The HDB was one of the first few ones built in Singapore. I’m crying, wailing. I don’t know how to open the door and I’m stuck. Mom is on the other side, guiding me through how to open the tough, small knob. I twist, and it opens – I run forth into my mom’s arms and cry.

    Present night. I hear sounds from my brother’s room; he’s still awake.

    “Kor. My door is fucked.” I speak into his room, at his silhouette.

    I hear him sigh. I feel myself creating some mental defences as to why this happened. I think about how strange it is to be defensive about this.

    He gets out and tries to twist the stuck key, while I chat with ChatGPT about what lock this even is.

    When I’m back, the key can turn, but it’s damaged! It’s loose. I can’t pull it from the keyhole.

    I want to be annoyed at him, but I know it was bound to happen in our troubleshooting attempts.

    ChatGPT tells me to fiddle with the keyhole which I disregard. ChatGPT tells me to call an emergency locksmith. What? How expensive are those?

    Googling it, top5brandssingapore says $250-350 for lock fixing. Fuck.

    Brusquely, Kor says to sleep in his room.

    I say I’ll decompress outside first before joining him. I slouch on the sofa, elbows resting on my belly, scrolling and scrolling on my phone. I think about the week, about my mind and about how I’m not sure what or who I am any more.

    I saw this coming. The closer I was to 30, the more my crisis would foam over the pot.

    I’ve been pushing myself to use dating apps again. I know one day this problem will be a distant one, but it’s depressing as hell.

    I matched with a girl and we had a great conversation – we chatted for a few days, on and off, she got a bit too personal with some of the things she’d found out of me, and I got spooked. I unconsciously tried to slowly distance myself (funnily enough, something ChatGPT recommends) and she’d get upset, maybe anxious about it, and I’d get spooked and distance myself, and she’d get upset, and I’d apologise and maintain my distance, and she’d get upset.

    I went for a “pitch your friend as a date” thing with Yuheng the other day, and we killed it. I got someone’s number (Pitch girl) and had a very awkward and stilted talk with her at the event. She never returned my texts, and everyone says it’s on her, but they’re wrong, right?

    There must’ve been something I could’ve done to change things, there must’ve been right lines of dialogue, like in Baldur’s Gate, and maybe her friends who loved me during the pitch might be telling her that “oh, I thought he was funny when he talked about how wacky his job was”.

    Or maybe Pitch girl’s friends are saying “you know what? He was kind of a nerd. And a narcissist. Good vibes, girl!”

    I called the locksmith this morning and went for breakfast with my aunt. I thought about all of it, all of the dating things, about being a shithead at dating, about how it wasn’t on me that things went South and about how it was on me to own up to it, about how if I’m not present with my aunt, I’m gonna regret it one day, about how the fucking door wouldn’t open, about how the fucking door was a metaphor.

    That’s it! The door, it represents my small mindedness, my refusal to admit that things are on me, my need to stand by myself, my “broken” social skills, my nonpresence, the door that won’t open and the woodenness of the metaphor.

    The door is a message from the dark night of the soul – you don’t actually need the change of clothes in your room, you have everything you need outside already. You just want to be perceived a certain way, when in fact if you can let go, you will be all the freer for it.

    Maybe I should tell myself that the Hinge girl is never going to see me as a good person. Maybe I shouldn’t text the Pitch girl to have a good life ahead, because she is going to have a good life ahead and she isn’t interested in your ability to predict so. Maybe it’s neither your loss nor the Pitch girl’s.

    Maybe I can go another day, swiping and texting with faux enthusiasm, learning about my tendency to withdraw, and learning about how better adjusted people manage dating.

    The locksmith came in and declared the lock as a fucking old one – he wore a headlamp, slotted a piece of plastic, that seemed specifically sourced and yet randomly found, through the gap between the door and the frame, crammed it at the latch and jiggled it.

    Crack!

    The cold air invisibly cascaded out onto us, together with the relief of having normal electricity bills, together with the feeling of one problem solved, one big cold fucking reprieve from a psychological miasma.

    Now I can have my clothes. Now I can go for improv. Now I can go for DnD. Now I can go back to Pasir Ris.

    Now I can continue worrying about the same things I’ve been worrying about…

    You can’t see this, but I’m tightening a bandana over my forehead, and gritting my teeth and screaming “let’s do this” at a door that can’t close any more.

    Also, it’s 80 bucks. What a steal.

    This is the eighth time I’m trying to write something for my 29th birthday post.

    I’m doing it over my Le Nu dinner, I’m Pasir Ris Mall. Pasir Ris fucking Mall! It’s new, it’s spanking new, and there’s stuff like a second luckin coffee, the sixth McDonald’s in Pasir Ris…

    I’m leaving Jude Studios. It’s been five years. I got into AI Singapore. Mom got stem cell injections. My room has no more latch. There are two more contacts in my telegram app as of Thursday that will never talk to me ever again.

    Christ, I’ve been here for an hour and a half. Finally. This post’s done. It’s a shitty, temporal post that likely will not have lasting themes that will resonate with me a few months for now, but who gives a shit? Better better than perfect!

  • I’m Back, I’m Back, I’m Back (Twenty-Eight)

    I’m Back, I’m Back, I’m Back (Twenty-Eight)

    Written 23rd Sept 2022

    This is kind of alarming, because there have been multiple times when I told myself that I would write something on this here blog, and suddenly it’s a year since my last birthday post.

    If you’re a fan of thematic repetition, I’m currently transferring files to my hard drive. (I was zipping files last year. You can literally just click the previous post button. I can’t be bothered.)

    28 feels like a fuck closer to 30. Like those giant buckets at a water park that fill up so slowly.

    Once these buckets of age tip over, BLAM! You’re youngish again at 30.

    I’m slated to be part of this event called [REDACTED because it’s quite a unique name that is easily searchable] , held on the VRChat platform.

    Basically, 10 Singaporean and 10 Korean artists were given 6 months to create world-based art / art-based worlds on the platform, and us at JUDE Studios are like the technological advisors or something?

    Earlier in Jan, I even led a workshop for them to learn how to make worlds in VRChat, as well as how to use Unity.

    Naturally, they all waited till this week to finish their projects, because they’re artists. And-

    What? Oh.

    Yes. I haven’t quit yet.

    During ICT in Feb, everyone asked me the same thing.

    “Eh I thought you were gonna quit last year?”

    😡

    I kept saying that I would, but…

    30 minutes left. What a way to start 28.

    1st Oct

    It’s

    21st Oct, Tiong Bahru MRT towards Clementi

    It’s? What the fuck did I even want to write on the 1st?

    I had gastric twice, once on Sept 22nd and once two weeks after.

    I thought it was a stomach cramp, like a muscle spasm found its way into my daily routine.

    This is a legit remedy: Potato Juice.

    If you feel like someone decked you in the stomach, but the world froze at the decking part and the concave bean part of your stomach was wrapped around this flaming fist of pain, Potato Juice.

    Not potato soup. Juice.

    It works like this.

    Potato Juice (1 pax)

    Get at least 4 small potatoes or 2 large ones.

    If in extreme pain, don’t worry about peeling them. Wash them and scrub them a little at least.

    Now, dice them into manageable chunks, or strips, about a quarter thick of a chunky fry.

    Throw these into a blender and blend them till you get a mush. That’s right. Raw Potato Juice.

    Now, pour the slush into a sieve and strain this into a bowl or plate. Keep doing this, and pressing the slush into the sieve for more Juice, until the slush becomes dryish.

    Here’s the hard part. Wait till the Juice settles. The level of cloudiness is up to you, but I don’t know what. The hard part is waiting while your stomach tries to contort itself into a fleshknot. Listen to my mother and don’t call the ambulance.

    Done? Good. Now drink the clearer bit of the Potato Juice. You could drink the starch at the bottom if you want, but I don’t know what that does to or for you.

    If everything is good, you should be at ease enough to stop leaking snot and tears into your family sofa, and be able to fetal position yourself to sleep in cold sweat.

    Repeat the next day, first thing in the morning. Avoid sour or spicy food and coffee.

    Anyway, the [REDACTED] event went well.

    I was pretty annoyed when they anxiously came up to me, virtually, to do last minute (like literally, 15 mins before the event) changes.

    I realised my mom’s own anxieties have inculcated this feeling of “I don’t want to be bothered by YOUR emotions” from me, because it’s become my main source of annoyance in other people.

    28th of October, walking along National Gallery

    One of the first few Fridays which I didn’t need to go for an event so I’m taking a walk in the city.

    In hopes that I’ll finish this by today I have elected to use text to speech, wait no comma speech to text. There are issues of course, like having to correct myself in the middle of speaking to texting, but all in all it’s a lot more ellipsis… stream of consciousness?

    I recently installed MyFitnessPal, which I saw up and down to not use because I told my mom that it was obsessive. However it turns out is easier to use and if I’m going to track my expenses I might as well track how much shit I’m putting in my body? Right?

    Now this is going to sound a little, desperate, but hear me out. A lot of this desperation, comes from the idealism, of having a partner to be the one who has a bareback dress while you’re walking along the city streets. And by you I mean i.Then the question is, why am I trying to walk along the street to create situations where I get to walk into – – – – -? And framing the question like that really opens a whole can of worms because you know the answer is that you want an opportunity to tell her that you would like to go on a date with her.

    The other answer is because the more you walk the more stupid shit you can put in your body . That’s what MyFitnessPal tells you anyway. You were so close to a deficit every single day and all it takes is to eat less shit. Who’d a thunk it?

    30 Oct

    Reading Either/Or by Elif Batuman.

    Decided that if I wanted to write something interesting, I’d have to put this ancient draft down.

    My opportunity to tell “her” that I want to go on a date is coming up. The idea is to not let it fall onto your lap, but to climb there in the first place.

    See you guys in my next post!

    P. S. I had gastric again yesterday; the solution is to buy Blackmores Stomach Settlers (1 pack of 15 for 15 dollars, but 2 packs for 20 at 7-11 now) and drink Teh Halia. Saved.