As an official masochist, yours truly has a tendency to jump off the cliff every once in a while. Not literally, unfortunately. My kind of jumping off the cliff includes taking formal piano lessons in a music school and thus juggling Spartan piano practices and dreadful piano exams and work; taking a part-time job when I am already buried from the neck down with the workload of my main job, for the sake of ‘doing something outside the routines’; or throwing sarcastic remarks to a senior colleague for everybody to hear, and sarcastic means as sarcastic as to make my other colleagues stop talking and immediately pretend contemplating their nails. Oh wait. That last one doesn’t have anything to do with my being a masochist. That’s just mean. That’s just me.
Anyway.
In one masochism bout, I decided that I wanted to go back to studying classical piano formally. The tuition fee isn’t cheap, and in one delirious moment, I had this precarious idea that I should earn extra money by giving private piano lessons. I toyed with this idea for months; and a few weeks ago, probably not quite recuperated from a brain damage due to the rubella, I put an ad in a monthly community magazine that I’d give private piano lessons for children and/or beginners. Thinking that the ad would be published in January, I quickly forgot about it. Well, not completely. In the back of my mind I still worry about my insufficient skill, and the fact that I haven’t been practising enough lately. Hell, how am I supposed to teach a person how to read musical notes? But still, January is a long way from here. I can still afford to procrastinate.
Last Monday, though, barely sober after a full day in front of the computer deciphering what seemed like ancient Greek, I got a phone call from a lady inquiring about the tuition fee.
Of the piano lessons.
That I would give.
THE PIANO LESSONS THAT I WOULD GIVE???
The bloody ad was apparently published last week, instead of in January. While talking with the lady about fees and the lesson’s duration and whether five is too young an age to start studying the piano, I looked down to my hands and saw ten horrid telltale signs that I hadn't been practising enough; that I was indeed getting my masochist self into trouble once again.
No piano players in their right minds ever, ever keep their fingernails long.
Saturday, December 24, 2005
Friday, December 23, 2005
SINCE WHEN DOES IT MATTER, ANYWAY?
I stumbled in the night
Never really knew what it would’ve been like
You’re no longer there to break my fall*
No no I am not gonna cry. Something has been ringing in my ears since early this month, that nothing ever matters in the end.
Ever notice how brains act like a magnifying glass? That sometimes our brains multiply the goodness, or the badness of something, out of proportion? I believe something is never as bad as it seems, and sadly, never as good either. Even if you lose a leg (God forbid), in the end you’ll make peace with yourself, in the end it won’t matter anymore. Nothing matters.
I remember seeking for a place to hide, and cried my eyes out when I was 11. That was because I got 50 for a maths test. At that time it was a disaster. As soon as I saw that big, fat, 50 score scribbled on my test, I whispered to myself, “God, I’ve been so ungrateful…I’ve never thanked You every time I get a good score” (funny how an 11-year-old brain works, isn’t it?) then I hurried to my hiding place and cried.
Nope, don’t remember when test scores stopped to matter.
Ever since then many disasters came my way, all seemed huge and important at first, then faded away and lost their impacts. In the end nothing matters.
Oh, I’m not so foolish, so arrogant as not to admit that I once fell for you. I admit all that. I also admit these: sometimes I cried when you asked me out for a date then cancelled it. Sometimes I thought of you all day. Sometimes I missed you. There was a time when I thought your feelings for me were real. There was a time when I truly believed, Dear, when you held me close, gosh I don’t want to sound sappy here, but there was a time when I truly believed that you loved me. Sorry if I sound like a love-struck 16 year-old, but there was really a time when we had our moments. Hell, too many moments to list down, yet too few to leave a deep impact on me.
I admit all those.
And I’ll admit that they slowly, and steadily, fade away. Every once in a while I’ll think of you. Like every once in a while you’ll think of me. Then after some time has passed, I’ll be able to say that as much as I never matter to you, you never matter to me either.
When a lonely heart breaks, it’s the one that forsake
It’s the dream that we stole
And I’m missing you now.
And the fire that will roar :
there's a hole in my soul.
*Lyrics from ‘For Whom The Bell Tolls”, Bee Gees.Might not be accurate. Written here without the permission of copyright holder. All rights reserved by copyright holder.
Never really knew what it would’ve been like
You’re no longer there to break my fall*
No no I am not gonna cry. Something has been ringing in my ears since early this month, that nothing ever matters in the end.
Ever notice how brains act like a magnifying glass? That sometimes our brains multiply the goodness, or the badness of something, out of proportion? I believe something is never as bad as it seems, and sadly, never as good either. Even if you lose a leg (God forbid), in the end you’ll make peace with yourself, in the end it won’t matter anymore. Nothing matters.
I remember seeking for a place to hide, and cried my eyes out when I was 11. That was because I got 50 for a maths test. At that time it was a disaster. As soon as I saw that big, fat, 50 score scribbled on my test, I whispered to myself, “God, I’ve been so ungrateful…I’ve never thanked You every time I get a good score” (funny how an 11-year-old brain works, isn’t it?) then I hurried to my hiding place and cried.
Nope, don’t remember when test scores stopped to matter.
Ever since then many disasters came my way, all seemed huge and important at first, then faded away and lost their impacts. In the end nothing matters.
Oh, I’m not so foolish, so arrogant as not to admit that I once fell for you. I admit all that. I also admit these: sometimes I cried when you asked me out for a date then cancelled it. Sometimes I thought of you all day. Sometimes I missed you. There was a time when I thought your feelings for me were real. There was a time when I truly believed, Dear, when you held me close, gosh I don’t want to sound sappy here, but there was a time when I truly believed that you loved me. Sorry if I sound like a love-struck 16 year-old, but there was really a time when we had our moments. Hell, too many moments to list down, yet too few to leave a deep impact on me.
I admit all those.
And I’ll admit that they slowly, and steadily, fade away. Every once in a while I’ll think of you. Like every once in a while you’ll think of me. Then after some time has passed, I’ll be able to say that as much as I never matter to you, you never matter to me either.
When a lonely heart breaks, it’s the one that forsake
It’s the dream that we stole
And I’m missing you now.
And the fire that will roar :
there's a hole in my soul.
*Lyrics from ‘For Whom The Bell Tolls”, Bee Gees.Might not be accurate. Written here without the permission of copyright holder. All rights reserved by copyright holder.
Sunday, December 04, 2005
A NOVELIST? NO, NOT I
Where did I ever get the idea that I could actually write a book? Blogging religiously for three years does not mean I am able to spin a tale worth reading. Writing one half-finished short story a year does not make me a writer. Reading endless how-to-write books I can get my hands on does nothing to help me weave plots and create characters.
What is it that makes me do this stupid thing called one month noveling, while fully realising that I am not capable to invent even one name for my characters? Madness, sheer madness. I was mad: I thought I could concoct a whole new world with my computer, one I could run to whenever the world I lived in turned upside down. I thought doing what I loved would help me through life’s most boring days. And I thought I would be happier at the end of the month because I had another 50000 words inside my computer’s guts. Madness: I have surely turned mad.
Where did I ever get the idea that I could actually write a book?
Whenever I tried to sit down and draw a plot of my story, immediately I felt so insufficient and began gasping wildly for air. The plot that I finally churned out was so weak that I winced at the sight of it. I am sure that if a person in her right mind were unfortunate enough to come across this novel one day, she would hunt me down and do everything in her power to get a legal decree to banish me from nearing a computer again.
Plot? Did I say a plot? But my, there isn’t even one. I hid behind the excuse of making a sort of short-stories compilation, to conceal the painful fact that I cannot make a plot that stretches from the beginning to the end of the novel. I miserably tried to weave a line between those short stories, attempting to connect them and give them a better-defined significance. But the simple truth remains: if a thing is insignificant in the first place, then no matter how hard you try to blow it up, make it up, cover it up, it will stay insignificant.
And, and: I may crowd this blog with insignificant posts to my heart’s content, but a novel needs something more than that. It needs a plot, a significant reason of being. It needs characters who open their mouths and talk to the readers. It needs a story to tell: something to laugh at, or cry with, or get turned on by, or be scared of. The last thing it needs is a fussy author who tends to repeat herself every couple of sentences. Like everything else in life, it needs a beginning, a middle, and an end. The last thing it needs is a fussy author who tends to repeat herself every couple of sentences.
Where did I ever get the idea that I could actually write a book? What has possessed me all these years, making me think that the voices I hear inside my head whenever I am alone (while washing the car/contemplating my toes/fantasising about making love to D) belong to a novel worth writing? What has pushed me into actually sitting in front of the computer, crafting a dense 50,000-word nonsense out of thin air? How can you tell when you have gone preposterously mad?
Sitting at the computer now, inches away from that wretched compilation I will dare not call a novel even in the maddest day nearing the end of my life, I try to sort out my dreams like a woman with a good head on her shoulder. Just like the dreams of joining the research facility of the Indonesian Air Force has to go, it seems, the dream of becoming a novelist will have to hurl itself to Timbuctoo. I have too clear a logic, and too sceptical a mind, to allow myself such extravagant dreams.
But I won’t lie to you: once in awhile I still picture myself in that blue uniform. And be a woman with good head on her shoulder I might not: for here I am right now with my cup of coffee, typing away happily, concocting a new world I could run into when life gets mean, spinning insignificant sentences out of thin air, feeling exuberant and perfectly at home – pretending that I am writing a novel worth reading.
What is it that makes me do this stupid thing called one month noveling, while fully realising that I am not capable to invent even one name for my characters? Madness, sheer madness. I was mad: I thought I could concoct a whole new world with my computer, one I could run to whenever the world I lived in turned upside down. I thought doing what I loved would help me through life’s most boring days. And I thought I would be happier at the end of the month because I had another 50000 words inside my computer’s guts. Madness: I have surely turned mad.
Where did I ever get the idea that I could actually write a book?
Whenever I tried to sit down and draw a plot of my story, immediately I felt so insufficient and began gasping wildly for air. The plot that I finally churned out was so weak that I winced at the sight of it. I am sure that if a person in her right mind were unfortunate enough to come across this novel one day, she would hunt me down and do everything in her power to get a legal decree to banish me from nearing a computer again.
Plot? Did I say a plot? But my, there isn’t even one. I hid behind the excuse of making a sort of short-stories compilation, to conceal the painful fact that I cannot make a plot that stretches from the beginning to the end of the novel. I miserably tried to weave a line between those short stories, attempting to connect them and give them a better-defined significance. But the simple truth remains: if a thing is insignificant in the first place, then no matter how hard you try to blow it up, make it up, cover it up, it will stay insignificant.
And, and: I may crowd this blog with insignificant posts to my heart’s content, but a novel needs something more than that. It needs a plot, a significant reason of being. It needs characters who open their mouths and talk to the readers. It needs a story to tell: something to laugh at, or cry with, or get turned on by, or be scared of. The last thing it needs is a fussy author who tends to repeat herself every couple of sentences. Like everything else in life, it needs a beginning, a middle, and an end. The last thing it needs is a fussy author who tends to repeat herself every couple of sentences.
Where did I ever get the idea that I could actually write a book? What has possessed me all these years, making me think that the voices I hear inside my head whenever I am alone (while washing the car/contemplating my toes/fantasising about making love to D) belong to a novel worth writing? What has pushed me into actually sitting in front of the computer, crafting a dense 50,000-word nonsense out of thin air? How can you tell when you have gone preposterously mad?
Sitting at the computer now, inches away from that wretched compilation I will dare not call a novel even in the maddest day nearing the end of my life, I try to sort out my dreams like a woman with a good head on her shoulder. Just like the dreams of joining the research facility of the Indonesian Air Force has to go, it seems, the dream of becoming a novelist will have to hurl itself to Timbuctoo. I have too clear a logic, and too sceptical a mind, to allow myself such extravagant dreams.
But I won’t lie to you: once in awhile I still picture myself in that blue uniform. And be a woman with good head on her shoulder I might not: for here I am right now with my cup of coffee, typing away happily, concocting a new world I could run into when life gets mean, spinning insignificant sentences out of thin air, feeling exuberant and perfectly at home – pretending that I am writing a novel worth reading.
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