How many islands...?

There is something inherently difficult for me to commit to one place, one thing. I think it's all about having options and as many as possible. The thought of shutting the door on anything at all seems ludicrous. As I result I may have adopted a bit of a short term mentality when it comes to life. The same way I would choose my classes in college never to commence before 10:30 am no matter how brilliant the subject matter, I also make sure nothing I commit to now ties me down for more than a year. Fancy is portable so that part luckily works out.

This strategy has worked out fine and dandy until now, but I am starting to feel that this attachment phobia is making me miss out. Some things seem to demand giving up the "off I go at the drop of a hat" mentality but they also promise something more than transient happiness.

I like where I am at in life in terms of achievements and my career but not too much. And that is the point. Liking it too much would have meant a lot of investment and thus maybe, God forbid, a reluctance to up and leave. If our past trip has taught me one thing it is that man do I love sitting on the beach, but if it has taught me two things, then the second one is that shit, these things always end, invariably washing you onto shore somewhere. You are a bit more broke, a bit more tan and in dire need to take a liking to your daily life because else there is not all that much to look forward to other than the next trip.

Most options that offer the possibility of maybe liking life in one single place involve either more school or some serious entrepreneurial effort that might have to stretch over more than one year and sure as hell will ruin some perfectly good vacation opportunities. It frightens me but I think it might be time to consider those options. At the moment the idea of housing a cat is cramping my style because what if I want to go to KL for a week to work from there, just because, and then to Brunei for a weekend, I mean holy crap, my life would be positively bogged down if I did not have the knowledge that I can do those things. Now imagine giving a shit about the work I do and I might and up sitting somewhere holed up with my cat too busy and possibly too involved with something to think about how many Indonesian islands one could hit on one season.

La Casa

Picture fancy peeking out behind IKEA boxes somewhere on the 7th floor around a bay window, while I am perched on our 4th floor friend's doorstep stealing the wireless.

So far working from home has been made interesting by construction workers flooding, then fixing, then breaking, then re-fixing our apartment. All day I am busy giving home-making kinds of orders to men in dirty overalls. It's exciting. So is the discovery of a Starbucks next door and our Belgium neighbor who boasts both wireless and a seeming endless supply of bubbly water along with an intense hatred of the Dutch to which he makes only one exception. ECONOMISTA has been incorporated and now all I need is a frilly art school or the courage to carry my impressively heavy Porsche camera around in this heat in order to get my fix of feeling creative.

I didn't want to....

...but I could not keep it in any longer.

Most everybody has already voiced their shock/horror/exhileration at the appointment of Ms Palin as vice presidential candidate, read: presidential candiate. Let me share with you why I am horrified, and actually, finally, really worried about the future of the good old US of A.

I don't agree with most everything McCain seems to have chosen to represent for the upcoming election, starting from his proposed immigration policy and ending with his sanctitiy of life/pro life views. However, I do not think McCain is completely unqualified for the job. I don't want him to get the job, but I don't equate McCain with the end of the America as we know it.

Palin as president makes me quiver. A redneck, backwoods lady with extensive PTA experience and a slight knack for abusing her power even on a small level packaged in a charming mother of four (with a fabulous hairdo?), a grandmother to be who believes it a good idea to re-institute prayer in schools, an avid abstinance teacher (see the part on being a grandmother) and a creationist. The kind of creationist nevertheless who likes to shove her views down other peoples throats.

My very personal and very subjectibve view is that she is a person who I judge to be unable due to her own tightly held world views to understand anybody else's point of view. A person who completely lacks any, call it cosmopolitan, ability to relate to the rest of the world on how they view the mess we have created. She IS America and she stands and defends the mess we have created. I think America needs now more than ever somebody who has both the experience to confront and play hardball with leaders of some countries (you know who you are) whose hardassed leader will not be impressed by her PTA credentials, extensive foreign policy experience and the ability to also employ some diplomacy when needed. No bulldog. Not even with lipstick. What we need is somebody with some experience, now that I think about it, sort of like Joe Biden, realistically probably the most qualified person to be president. Too bad that as soon as he entered the picture Obama stopped grabbing the headlines and now it's Palin, Palin, Palin. And I am doing it too.

America is already loosing ground on the rights that were won forty years ago. Do we really want to go back to the good old days of coat hangers and butcher knieves. Does it really seem like a good time and place to mix state and religion? Yikes, I am starting to think Obama HAS to win. Or else.

I'd be moving to Canada....

Lets talk about Cindy

Biggest liability? His wife

Best demonstration of his lack of judgement? His wife

Avoiding responsibility/not doing "the right thing"/family values in the gutter/bad Christian? Leaving his ex wife

Why are the demos playing fair all of a sudden? Cindy McCain has enormous potential. 

...and I am back

53/365 transport for London
Originally uploaded by Christiane B

London transport is still shit and people still call 16C weather summer but I am gorging myself on non-curry foods and cheap wine. Best of all is the feeling of fitting in completely. Nobody is looking at me, I don't have the feeling that I am representing anything other than myself. Even in Singapore I am something, either a tourist or an expat, but here I am nothing. I am just like the other free metro-grabbing, Costa-coffee chugging girls rushing around town.

In Quadruples

Death it appears does not come alone. 

A few weeks ago my grandfather passed away after a short but painful bout with cancer. Next a friend's father, then a friend and colleague of the newly acquired husband and now, probably most shocking, the sister of another friend. I feel like I am standing on the sidelines helpless as some of the people I love the most struggle to come to terms with what they know is best in some cases and what they know is not in others. Those are the moments when I wish I was not so far away.

Condo Heaven Condo Hell

Arriving at the fancy Changi airport, making my way down the fancy escalator to the fancy immigration desk where the pretty regular, non-fancy sweets await the eager visitor I did feel a strange sense of deja-vu. Fifteen years is a long time though and somehow the past few days were spent quite differently from last time. 

No moping around huge marble floor condo with giant swimming pool and maid bringing a parade of moon cakes home to make friends with the bratty daughter of her employer. Nope. It's me condo shopping (after a none-moping swim in the pool and stealing moon cakes from the lobby of our current residence) and I am about to throw all caution to the wind and sign up for a tiny place that is nothing special, does not even have the otherwise customary 50m lap pool or a gym, simply because it has the biggest roof terrace in history. Else I blow our yet to be earned income on an ugly as hell condo park that resembles a glorified Harlem block except for the price tag. Brand new it is with a view of all of Singapore from the 22nd floor and best of all, the whole thing is pretty much a water park. If you can overlook the industrial feel, you are spoilt for tropical, lounging and exercise pool choices and as the real estate lady assured me, I will be the envy of all my friends. Super. Does she know who she is talking to? Oh and the whole thing is built around the old US ambassador's mansion which is now the function room. Ha, functions?

I am sorry, this is boring and I am indecisive. Why can't I have the roof garden with the water park and then maybe a more central location close to the cute and uncharacteristically atmospheric Kampung Glam area where there are Jazz cafes and Turkish eateries in old Chinese houses with the pretty Chinese lanterns I so adore?