stronger together

If you love foods, and I mean it way beyond the confines of cooking and eating, extending into the history, politics, incentives and metamorphosis of what, where, how and why people eat what they eat, then you should be utterly infatuated with this powerful and glorious mutant, in the best sense possible, that the Singaporean diet has become. A virtually utopian foodscape where each cuisines happily concedes their areas of shortcomings, thus, not just allowing, but welcoming the other parties to input, reinforce and further transforming its very own culinary identity and heritage, then to share it all under an open roof without bias. In any other parts of the world, that notion makes wars. But in Singapore, it makes unfathomably complex and delicious foods that would have been otherwise inconceivable by any party on its own. Stronger together. Sadly more a slogan than reality. But in Singapore, they eat it for breakfast. If that’s not worth copying, I don’t know what is. - Lady and Pups

never. the. less.

always.

cross posted from dayre.

fandom. 

⚠️ this is a very long, raw post about fandom.

You know, fandom is weird. I get that.

And it may seem a disproportionally large reaction to be so, viscerally, affected.


To feel like your heart is perpetually on the cusp of being ripped out of your chest. (To be fair, they make me feel like that a lot), but none more than these two days.

But here’s the thing: they don’t know us, that’s true.


But we know them. We feel like we do. We’ve spent many a day, night, year ‘together’, in a bond that is special to us. Irreplaceable, tbh.

It sounds crazy. And when I was younger, I wasn’t proud of this. However, in my adulthood, I have embraced it wholeheartedly, with no qualms, and a heart full of gratitude.


These are people that I truly, truly love. I care about them, I want what’s best for them, I look forward to leading my life with them, on parallel storylines.

 dec 21 2017. 

Today, I am not strong enough.

➖

Last night, I spent hours in a vortex, looking through old photos and posts and trying to ingest as much of him, of them, as I could. Not that different from a normal day, I suppose.

Last night, I laughed a lot, and wrote a bit about it.

Writing helps, it always does. Even when it’s gibberish about the extent of my adoration for 5 shiny boys

➖

Today, I am not strong enough.




Today, he officially crosses the marigold bridge, sent off by his family - both family by blood, and family by choice.

(Family that he gave these rather ugly pendants to. That I still find quite ugly. Jiong, sorry but really.)

•

I’ve rewritten this part so many times. And the gist is that I shouldn’t keep reiterating my sadness, or freaking out about the wellbeing of the 4 of them. Those are just emotions that I will have to learn to live with from here on, and that’s okay! That’s okay. 👌🏻

Since today is 🌼 the day 🌼, let me reminisce a bit, okay?

(Note: This is indeed fully self serving so really to everyone that’s reading this, it’s okay to not read, or care about this. #sayfirst. For realzies.)

 (a walk to re-tumblr) 

Went on a massive trip down tumblr memory lane, because I’m obviously a masochist.

I found tumblr at around the same time I found #shinee, so I really made full use of tumblr as the fandom enabler that it is. Oh, so very many frenzied reblogs and overly descriptive tags.

I’ve since moved my rambling to #wmmkpop here, and kept up to date on YouTube and twitter instead.

ANYWAY.

I backtracked a ton and found my first shinee post!

Walk with me 🚶🏻‍♀️🚶🏻‍♀️🚶🏻‍♀️



My first documented tumblr post on shinee. Hello, Juliette era babies. Hello, my sepia colored hipster buns. 👋🏻

All handsy and wonderful indeed. ✋🏻🖐🏻🤘🏻👍🏻👐🏻

Of course, though, this journey today was made for jjong.


So. My first dedicated jjong post.

HAHAHHA resistance was really futile ah. So very futile. The very definition of futile.

(I wrote this last night 👇🏻)

Grieving today was a little different, as I suspect every coming day will be. Today, I spent equal times crying, and laughing, and reminiscing.

Because I really do stan the biggest idiots, and nothing will ever change that. Not even you, jjong. I’m not going anywhere.

•


A couple of text posts hahaha because jjong really always says (not quite ready to switch to past tense yet, bear with me) the most insightful... and relatable things 😂

“I wanna end you first.” #truefacts

So don’t worry, my pup. We won’t tell you to find strength. We know what you want from us 💚

And his thoughts on tattoos, along with his thoughts on you know, everything - I love. No need for memorialization when we have immortality now, right?

 💥 feelingsplosion 💥 

One of my own favorite tags (ownself say ah) was one I affectionately called #feelingsplosion, coined by danisnotonfire. It’s where, well, my feelings exploded via excessive amounts of text flailing and keyboard smashes.

Most of them about shinee, of course.

Here’s an example:




Whoops. My penchant for word vomit clearly translates across social media platforms - but really, most apparent when fangirling, and especially for these five.

Today, I feel the exact same way. All those words still v accurately reflect how I feel, right this second. And how I’ve felt for the past 7 years, with increasing intensity.

Until the end, my boys. Until the end, my OT5.

They are idiots. But they are my idiots.



To conclude this post:

shinee,
i loved you yesterday
i love you today
and i will love you for all of my tomorrows.

trekking to thirty

thirty.

trembling, terrified, plenty of trepidation but -

thirty.

ready for this.

_______________________

psa: daily updates on dayre.

i think. i need. i must. i am.

i should just rename this place, notes to self but. this, is yet another note to myself.

"A few years ago, I was crying and whining at my mom and sister while I was really drunk. I asked my mom and my sister.. it wasn’t long after we’d moved. I asked them if they were happy. I got drunk and woke up my entire sleeping family, like some ahjussi. 

It had been my number one goal in life, you know, to make my mom and sister happy. They both woke up and told me they were happy. But I was so envious at the fact that they were able to reply that they were, indeed, happy. 

Because it wasn’t like that for me. I told them while sobbing: "I want to be happy too." 

Then I felt like I’d done my mom and sister wrong. But from then on, I started contemplating about happiness. For about six months, I pondered specifically over what I would need to do in order to become happy. I think that time of transformation has come. I think I need to become happy, now. I must become happy. I am going to be happy." 

- jonghyun, esquire korea, may 2017

THANKS, CAVE.

“When life gives you lemons, don’t make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back! Get mad! I don’t want your damn lemons, what the hell am I supposed to do with these? Demand to see life’s manager! Make life rue the day it thought it could give Cave Johnson lemons! Do you know who I am? I’m the man who’s gonna burn your house down! With the lemons! I’m gonna get my engineers to invent a combustible lemon that burns your house down!”

how

 

이런 내가 너무나 미워 

너와 떨어져 있을 때 

편하게 느껴지는 내가

i'm 

so 

tired.

i want to be bigger
better
braver

to put up a front
to have my armor up

as i have to
as i need to

or what else will prop me up?
and keep me whole?

PMHOY

deuces and dancing. 

artwright

oh my god it IS tuesday this explains the onslaught of unwanted emotions attacking me

all i can say is. it's probably a bad (very. bad.) idea to reminisce on things/ people/ words/ feelings from 10 years ago when emotionally you're in a place where every thing/ person/ word/ feeling is magnified a hundredfold.

i want to be where you are.

wait for it

this. jarring. hypocrisy. 

how do all of you fall asleep at night? do your demons not knock on your door and say 'hey there, old friend. you've made good use of us today, haven't you?' how do they not keep you up with your atrocities and lies and remind you of your skilled use of every sharp object you've used to stab into the backs of unsuspecting others? 

how am i still surprised? 

so very many questions that need answers. but i don't want them. i don't want the brutal honesty nor the reality check. i don't even want to entertain the thought that karma is just a made-up ideal so we can all better deal with the injustices that come along with the landmine-filled territory marked 'growing up'. 

that's life, they say.

well then. 

life.

can.

suck it.

how vast

thoughts from right now:

sitting in an eatery in taipei with a bowl of zucchini noodles and lemon red tea, wishing i could bottle the way i feel right this moment - to look to when i have days that are far, far less than this. 

i feel it coming

the tortured artist is not just an overused character trope. feelings are more felt, better conveyed, in a much more pressing way when said feelings are the kind that stab you in the chest and threaten to swallow you whole, wouldn't you say?

my internal game of charades is coming to a crashing halt and i am powerless to stop it.

i am just
so
.

miss list

i miss writing. i miss writing to myself, for myself.

i used to write every night. after dinner, i'd sprawl, starfish style on my bed, elbows propping me up with my diary resting wide open on my blanket and my trusty mechanical pencil at the ready. and then i'd write, and write, and write some more about the (often very, very dull) goings on of my day. of my insecurities, my fear and loathing, my resolutions, my liquefied heart and everything else in between.

why did i stop? god knows the insecurities have never stopped and the fear and loathing, well, they've never left either. as i got older, even i found my thoughts mundane, i suppose. and then the internet took over, and penning down memories sans pictures just felt so lacking. so incomplete. so pointless. so that's probably why i stopped.

no one was reading then, and no one is reading now. and maybe that's part of why i stopped writing at all because again, what was the point? who cared? who cares? but now i'm starting to see this as a point of comfort. that this is a safe place in this big, decidedly unsafe world wide web. this is my safe place, with its virtual ratty comforter and fluffy socks. this is my safe place.

i want to come home to my safe place.

not without a fight

a perpetual state of mind.

but nothing a fist full of chocolate, impeccably synchronized korean boys and mindless shopping can't fix. momentarily. and those moments, i live for those moments.

답답해.

how about that

  "the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

#ourboojoschoo

i would like to bottle the way i feel right now and look to it whenever i need a boost or a hug. today, we are all olympians. thank you, joschoo.

note to self note to self note to self

“The only time you look in your neighbor's bowl is to make sure that they have enough. You don't look in your neighbor's bowl to see if you have as much as them.” - Louis C.K 

raise your hands to the sky/ if you feel alive

missing this missing this always.
i can't quit you, and that's okay.

hazy and beyond (say wat)

another hazy evening (why is there haze in march why is there haze ever), another introspective evening.

see the thing is i think i know myself quite well, what with me knowing me for, the better part of my life. the good, the bad, the ugly - i'm familiar with it all. i know my limitations and i realize very clearly that there are just some (many) things that i'm not cut out to do.

yeah i know i know. 'you can do whatever you put your mind to'. except, my mind is weak and it does not do particularly well with being put in places it does not enjoy.

daz me.

i wish i wouldn't choke up so easily - literally and figuratively. i wish i could just know what to do, instead of turning to SOS signals when i get the chance. i want to tell myself that that in and of itself is growth. knowing when to ask for help and applying difficult advice to very real situations - that's growth. but is that weakness? can it be both?

part of me knows it's immature to form attachments to things that don't matter in the grand scheme of things. but another part of me thinks it's not so bad if these very things lead me to want to make change, to do better, to effect a difference. which one is right? can they coexist?

well, of course they can. the world is made up of dualities and complexities and a zillion sides to every matter. everything exists in this intangible, elusive grey area. everything is up for debate.

there is no point to this rant. no one has all the answers, and i have none of the answers. when people look to me for them, do they see that? should i pretend to have them, pretend to have it together, pretend that i know? is that growth? is that the 'fake it till you make it' mentality that reddit keeps telling me to adopt to, well, make it?

i could use a long, hard, drag of fresh air right now.