And it’s been nearly two months. Clap clap pat pat, and I once again feel like writing, so I shall. This shall suppress the wanderlust that I can’t yet afford, and here is where I shall starting counting down to the day when I can. It’s been a while, and things have changed, people have gone, moved on, and we’re now beginning again new ambitions and naive optimism. How things have not changed.

Along, along. Having met four deadlines last month, April so far has been pretty slack for me. I sit around watching a-season-old Japanese dramas, play too much Words with Friends, and wonder if silly people get all the luck. Of course, I hope I’m wrong and that hard work comes into play here, but malice sits very well with me when people knock into me and step on my shoes.

Have not read anything this year, which is pretty disappointing. I have at least a dozen books on my backlog, and half-hearted bookmarks in perhaps four of them; yesterday, the mind drew a blank when attempting to remember the last book I read (looking at the book list, it could very well be The Book Thief, which was done four months ago in Japan).

So as always, as each day continues to renew itself, the future looms and adds days to a life which has not yet decided its eventual direction. I hope what may happen happens, and what exists currently in the realm of impossible decides to switch camps. Because if silly people do get the luck, the very least optimistic fools should get is hope (and yes, that would be a vicious cycle).

There are ramblers, and there are grumblers; and if there should be a Venn diagram, I should fit right in in the overlapping area. This is, indeed, assuming that the two circles are not mutually exclusive, and that in this world, there exist people who sometimes ramble and at other times grumble, and therefore are absolved of the core responsibilities that come with each respective group.

In grumbles, all the airconditioning in my world has been rather unsatisfactory.

In rambles, do do do re re re mi mi mi.

Okay, decisions ripe for the plucking.

Or anything similar to the effect. Yesterday, I decided that I would give up something, in order to focus on another. Today, the mind remains still, and this time, I really hope it would stick.

For the time being, let’s state the obvious. Today is the first day of February. Next week brings Chinese New Year. The week after next will nearly welcome March. In March, we will sit down with a clear head and mail some photos, cross our fingers and hope for the best.

故事的开始走失了方向。角色突变，场景变了季节，
导演换了理想，
改了理所当然。

打了灯，却停了电。
天气放晴，却
敌不了已 退色的夜。

故事的开始走失了方向，
但结局依然，
虽明白了无奈，
却一直在闭了眼的想像，等着。

You should know better than to start a story with its title.

But, writing comes in spurts like these, and sometimes these spurts begin with a string of words that would belong nowhere else. These words are stubborn, set in their ways, and you would argue, sometimes amicably and rarely antagonisingly, but always to no avail, that they should instead maybe open a paragraph. “No,” they would insist, eyebrows raised, “we are the title. That’s all we will be.”

“How about a chapter title? A chapter is sometimes like a new story.” You try again.

“Not in your case. You never go beyond two pages.”

Their insistence would persist, and your will is but a half-hearted wuss. A naggy annoyance, an excuse for an intellect. You let them be, then you end the story.

I want to walk in a city whose streets are endless and meandering, a place where I don’t or need to know where I am going, or where the next street is, only that it connects to the next and the next. Walk along train tracks until we pass into the next city, the next town, where more streets await. Me and my streets. I will keep walking them, and watch them multiply. Watch them expand into territories yet uncharted, into large green fields where the sunset will dim the entire village, then into quiet towns where a street becomes a main road becomes an alleyway becomes a path becomes a street again. It is my next travel mission statement. To just walk. Walk walk walk. Make faces at stray animals. Eat whenever I feel like it. Sit down whenever I need to. Drink whatever I want. Sometimes I think getting drunk is a good thing. At least, then thinking is optional. Erase, rewind. Rewind, record, play.

Next. I want to sit in old trains and watch scenery pass. To not think about anything, not because I’m choosing to, but because the scenery is overwhelming, is magnificent and spectacular in every aspect, and the light from the sun hits the right angles all day, and the mountains we pass brood with an oh-so-attractive gloom, and the fields we speed past go on forever in our eyes, with the green spreading and spanning and enveloping everything else we try to see.

I need a simple word. One that would restart an ambition, a dream, a secret mission without its spies, and then one that would be recycled and regurgitated before ever being articulated, and then one that dies a little whenever thought about. A simple word that fits easily in those categories. With that in tow, we alight our perfect train and continue walking down into foreign streets with foreign people speaking in foreign languages, drinking foreign beverages, smoking foreign fags, worrying about foreign troubles, fighting with foreign nemeses (we would pause here for a bit, wondering if we should retreat), wearing foreign fashion, and dreaming foreign nightmares. With our word in tow, right where we need it, we brave foreign weather with our local bodies, see foreign flowers with our local eyes, and sing foreign songs with our local voices. This and other streets. We keep on walking them; they keep on multiplying, dividing themselves in branches, into tributaries, into split ends no one thought to repair. We keep our word handy, eager to spit it out but wary of our would-be short-lived vindication. What a tease. No.