Frivolous post with contemplative rant at the end

Organ Transplant

I drank,
my arteries filled with fat;
the ventricle went lax,
and a clot stopped my heart.

Now I sit
in St. Petersburg sunshine
No whiskey;
wearing a girl's heart.

My blood has adopted a child
who shuffles through my chest
carrying a doll.

- J.D. Reed, The New Yorker, Sep 26, 1970

Morbid yet pretty.

• Bought some clothes from Uniqlo. Yay, new threads. Awesome thing about living in the city is that I can buy a ton of clothes from the store, take a short walk back home, try it on, and return everything for a refund if I feel like it. No fitting room queues to deal with! I bought $166 worth of clothing; I think $100 is going back to the store. =x I had an obsessive need to fold everything back neatly in the store; I felt so bad about creating a mess because I know how it feels. For all the ex-colleagues, no, they don't repeat the bloody five standard phrases we were forced to; yes, they probably are evaluated by how often they offer baskets, or rather, bags in the SoHo flagship store; the sizing runs quite weird - I have to wear an XS in everything and it fits just right on me - smaller girls would have a big problem; the store is practically always grade D condition.
• Baked some carrot cake cupcakes. Wanna see?
  
  
  Not very pretty, but oh-so-good.
  
• An empty and dark cinema.
  
  I was one of two people in there during the entire movie. Eerie.
  
• Thought: If I don't get married in the next five or six years, I will am quite certain I will be classified as the kind of woman who thinks she is all independent and modern but is really thought of as eccentric and hard to please. If I don't have children within the next decade, people will think I am selfish and/or infertile. When concerns like these crop up I know my age is catching up on me. I was thinking about how not being in my teens means I can't really wear ridiculous clothes anymore, and how it means I am obligated to have an opinion when adults make conversation, and I can't just shy into the background anymore. This quote I picked up from a chick magazine really stuck with me: you can't eat something on-the-go without looking like a glutton unless you're under 19 or a size 2. I will be 19 soon and I am not a size 2.
  
• 
  
  I find it incredible that letter-writing still figures in this list.
• I was prompted to take up painting again, and while I haven't actually went out to buy the incredibly cheap and abundant art supplies available here, thinking about what I wanted to paint was sufficient to keep me entertained. It was an excellent suggestion, painting is.
• I had some Emack & Bolio's ice cream today at their SoHo store.
  
  It's a very homey sort of ice cream parlour, and the people were really friendly. People don't get pissed off when they have ice cream. It reminded me of the good times when I worked at the ice cream place. I think my first wave of homesickness sort of truly hit me only when I was in this store. It reminded me of the past few months where I was working in the service sector, and the whole slew of associations work had for me. I've been here/away from home about three weeks now. Prior to this I had waves of vague feelings of deprivation, like a proper bed, peace and quiet (there is no peace and quiet here unless it's the dead of the night, like now, yet there's still traffic - I was spoilt by living far far away from the main road in Singapore), home cooked food, the convenience of having a maid to pick up after me - nothing I felt couldn't be solved with some money and brattiness.

Do I miss Singapore? When I ask myself that, I think, what is Singapore to me? Does Singapore mean good food, family, friends, comfort and familiarity? If it does, then I will have to retort that New York City has really good food - it might not be the type I'm used to but I love trying new foods; I might not have all my family with me but well, I feel quite at home here with my sister around; I will make new friends here; and with time I will settle down and know the city like the back of my hand. So what is there to miss about Singapore, really? Do I miss Singapore as a symbol of everything I had? Well, New York City is a symbol for everything I might have. Whatever I miss has a variant here.

Missing Singapore is such a new and novel concept I haven't quite properly grasped it yet. Maybe the question is, do I miss Singapore enough to want to go back? I could miss Singapore, but still extricate myself from the emotional attachment because I know there's something bigger and better for me out there. I just had a revelation - the most important questions should always be tagged on with the word "enough". "Are you happy?" or "do you like me?" or "does life have meaning?" doesn't cut it anymore; the questions should be "are you happy enough", "do you like me enough", or "does life have enough meaning". Like how "he's just not that into you".

Subtleties, subtleties! Guess being mature also means coming to terms with subtleties like these. Someone once asked how to be a grown-up, and being the smart ass that I am, I came up with this answer: Finding that elusive balance between being headstrong and a complete doormat. Still relevant, but being grown-up has so much more to it. I will figure it out some day, I guess.

Something funny and entirely irrelevant: one of the few ways I stay connected is to check out Facebook, and when I see group photos of my peers during their university orientation or whatever, it strikes me that I hardly see Asians gathering in such numbers over here. Weird, discomfiting feeling. It's kinda like, "omgwtfbbq there are so many azns in singapore!!"