my home is in empty spaces.

You knew.

How is it that you knew exactly what to do, what to say?

*slow smiles*

I have no words. I have no more words, they have trickled away into the dimness, tasteless scentless lightless sun-washed ordinariness of living yet another day. Have I yet said how much I fear the dark?

This bloody fatigue is killing me, yeouch.

So after a week or so of delays and shuffling of schedules, I finally met up with C for dinner tonight at Ichiban Boshi in Wisma.

And drank coffee at 11pm. And watched someone play some weird computer game with sinister background music. And read Albert Camus' The Outsider (it's a short book). And realised someone has far more good books than I'd ever had the pleasure of encountering.

Curled up in a blanket with a good book and nearly fell asleep. And it was all so simple, made more wonderful by the complexity that was only a breath away.

I'm not talking to you, because you rip my heart apart by simply existing.

I can't talk to you; we stopped speaking the last time because you pushed me away when I only wanted to be there for you when you were tearing yourself up.

And you're torn up more now..... I can't be with you and not want to try to bring light into your life; I can't help killing myself in fruitless endeavour that way.


So don't say that you enjoy talking to me and you'd like me to be there, because you won't protect me by not killing me. You don't care; you even said so.

And so I have to protect myself by not seeing you as often as you would like, to my greatest sorrow. I'm sure your sadness will pass - you don't love me at all, and I have had enough of cruel men who use me.

Don't waste my time, I won't talk to you.

Most of the time I know who reads my blog, and it's unlikely they would be particularly active in the blogosphere, so here goes:

MrBrown wrote his usual weekly humour column last Friday, this one. As is his practice, he also cross-posted it to his blog, where I read his writings from.

On Monday of this week, TODAY published a hardcopy Forum letter in reply from the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts. It was signed off by the Press Secretary to the Minister of MICA, Ms K Bhavani. Apparently this is a senior civil service appointment according to the Singapore Government Directory.

On Thursday (today), MrBrown then posts on his blog a short informative note that he has been suspended from writing his column at TODAY.

Consider all this.

Read the column, then read the letter. What do you think?

I have been neutral in describing the situation thus far, but this is where I give my stand.
I hope I am not being "partisan" (the coalition of coffee drinkers, anyone?) and wish to state that this is my subjective personal opinion and interpretation of MICA's response to MrBrown's article, and is neither intended to be, nor should be construed as assertions of fact. As such, this blog entry constitutes my fair comment on a matter of public interest and I fully agree that others are entitled to and may have different opinions or interpretations. (with apologies to Mr Wang for adapting without permission his disclaimer found here. One hopes that this disclaimer drafted by a practising lawyer and former DPP is enough to cover my ass.)

Now.
Why not get the Minister to sign it? Or the Perm Sec? Why get a "senior civil servant" whose designation in MICA is far less recognised than the Minister or Perm Sec to fire the volleys? I hope she is well-compensated for her trouble. Please, this is the Ministry for Information, Communications and the Arts. Don't tell me her bosses there (remarkably few of them too, since she is a senior civil servant) didn't know about this letter, or didn't approve of it. Even if that should be the case, as a matter of fact, any of her bosses would find that it's easy enough in their official capacity to get a Forum letter published that disclaims all responsibility for Ms Bhavani's letter, should they be inclined to do so. If indeed they did not know of and do not condone her letter, written in her own official capacity no less. There is no reason for her bosses to wait to disclaim responsibility.

Good shots.

More comments by wiser people.

What we can do about it (with some added commentary by XenoBoy here)

Singapore Angle: Can Singapore support basic & social sciences? Check this out.

The Long Tail, or, how something small can become something big apparently out of nowhere.

[The long rant that was here has been deleted. I neither hate nor even severely dislike the subject of the rant and do not wish to be misunderstood as such. Hope that is clear.]

I have to dig up papers on my mum's chemotherapy drugs; there's something very strange about the way her oncologist presented the options to her yesterday. That will take about four full days of digging, which I don't have, because I have to take my parents around for their medical appointments. So that would mean eight or nine part-time days. Hmm, that's enough time before she has to see her surgeon for his detailed report on her excised tumour. Her surgeon is a nice guy. :)

I have an interview this afternoon.

JK's extremely inconsiderate timing also made me very tired last weekend. Not that he bothered about that, of course.

For lack of something more eloquent to say: I am tired. But happily so. Yet sadly so. Precisely in the manner that one is tired after spending a goodly amount of time catching up with an old friend about the very eventful past 2 weeks we've had, and knowing that our problems cannot be solved with a wave of the other's wand, but yet knowing deep in the bones that talking about them tonight truly helped to ... lighten the darkness.

I will do what I have promised to do.

Gabriel, why are you travelling just when i need to talk to you??!!????????