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I understand sugar and spice, but 'nice'?
I just see no value in 'nice'. It either denotes pleasantness (which is so exceedingly wishy-washy that one really needn't bother; saying that something pleasant was 'nice' tends to be construed as damning it with faint praise), exactness (in a fussy way, which seems to connote fussiness and petty OCD-aspie behaviour than actual valuable accuracy ( Read more... ) -
On Reading the Poetry of Others
When I was young and my friends callow still
I regarded the works of others as nothing
Before my puerile genius, so expertly milled
In the shape of youth-beloved storybook kings.
When high adventure and clumsy romance held sway
I could strut down ivory-white plaster halls
But the elegant triumphs that once lined my way
Now seem less like arches, and more ( Read more... ) -
What being Catholic means to me
It means never having things simple, or easy. It means an extrabiblical pile of canonical dogma and debate that could fill warehouses upon warehouses forms a highly intricate and occasionally contradictory commentary on conventional morality, ethics, and behavioural guidance. It means having to rationalise inspiration and implementation. It means ( Read more... ) -
On breasts
Specifically, I'm always surprised by how they feel. They're so heavily fetishised as part of our aesthetic -- well, maybe my aesthetic -- that they've achieved an existence quite independent of their actual owners. I've observed people identifying adult entertainers by their attributes with more veracity than their faces. I'm reminded of a moment ( Read more... ) -
Trying to put my finger on what's wrong with what we do
Especially re: creativity. It's The Buzzword when it comes to education and work (although I'm currently seeing it being tied with Resilience since the economic crisis hit), and our government and education system have been harping on about it for ages. They've tried everything. In my day it was the SATs and project work and entrepreneurship clubs ( Read more... ) -
paranoid when it comes to travel
because part of me is intensely suspicious of any kind of glass box. How do we know that planes fly? that the metro runs on rails? It's all a conspiracy: we get in their little boxes and are hurled through arcane folds in space, shuffled between dimensional interstices. Why do you think they don't let you use your phones on planes? Interference ( Read more... ) -
I want my deeds to outlive my ambitions
when even speaking is an act, but not the end of an act: speaking is the ignition of intent following which action must follow. I want to do, to have. I want my appetite to be endless. -
How Nicole and I saved Christmas
Dad and I happened to suffer from coinciding gout attacks, although mine was markedly less severe. This put a noticeable dampener on our Christmas plans: we couldn't go to church as a family, we had to call off the lavish dinner my father had planned on cooking, and my parents were understandably running on frayed nerves for the last couple of days ( Read more... ) -
(Untitled)
I'd write extensively about the year and my reflections on it, but you know what? This has been a year of deeds excelling words, perhaps for the first time ever, and I'm going to keep that going. I'm proud of what I've done, of finally putting my money where my mouth is and being vindicated. I'm happy, and never has so much seemed so close at hand. -
Watch
I collect timepieces. Not really in the way you'd assume. I certainly don't spend money on them. I have a few nice pieces, expensive ones, gifts mostly, but the rest aren't of any comparable pedigree. They're mongrels dredged from flea-market stalls and bartered from back-alley Bangkok bargain-stores. My main Old Reliant is one of those ( Read more... )