PIZZAGATE

Last week was yet another long week, as they all seem to be. I posted my first month’s One Second A Day string of videos on Instagram. Tina had turned me on to the app (honestly what do I know of the outside world if not for her??) so I started using it. I’ve really enjoyed it so far, it reminds me that even on my worst and draggiest days, when I had food poisoning, or when I cried over Lucas and whatever, there was at least one second of the day I could experience a highlight or something good. For someone prone to bouts of depression or blues, it helped me break up those days and weeks and in a year, I will have at least 365 seconds I enjoy. I’ve spent the last three days putting the store back together for our store opening on Wednesday. The store is so spanking new, it actually has had a positive effect on me, the lights are bright, white LED, and it’s so much more spacious now, there’s actually enough room for us to comply with the emergency walkway requirements of Singapore, lol we’d always failed the criteria until now. I really like it, there are cushioned panels and lit up mirrors in the fitting rooms, the fixtures and floors are sleek and sophisticated, and we look completely transported. I didn’t realize how old our previous store’s look was until we got the new one. It’s been mad tiring, much more tiring to put things back together than it was to tear it apart, building something from scratch is truly an experience that will likely help you grow. About a month ago, I’d helped out at Ion for the first time, and I’d been so surprised by the amount of space they had in their back of house, you could literally do yoga or dance in the pantry, if you were not right in the head and wanted to do so instead of eating. I remember asking for that much space for our store, and a month later, here we are, having received it. So I suppose that’s how it works right? If you ask for it, it will happen, right? Okay, I’m ready for a hundred thousand USD to drop into my bank account, please. Thanks, pixies. 

Anyhow, I’m very glad to have the group of friends I’ve gotten close to from lululemon. I remember taking the longest time to open up because I felt like an impostor (I still do) because they’re all fitspo models. They train other people and pole-dance/gym/spin/yoga all day every damn day, and I’m fortunate if my brain lets me have enough energy to stretch once a day. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned the spoon theory before, but if everyone else has an average of ten spoons to spend in a day, I usually average seven to eight. The fact that I wake up, turn up at work, and eat three meals in a day, means I’ll have maxed out my spoons and anything else means I’d likely be eating into the next day’s spoons. What I mean to say is, last night, after work, I went to Jaysen’s place again, with Xuan, Sarah and Putri and it replenished the energy that had depleted over the course of the week. I cooked butter chicken (it is the easiest recipe and Lucas used to love it) and they all loved it, which is fucking ace, and Jaysen made wet-rub chicken thigh – I forgot the spices he used, and it was so great. It reminded me of the previous time we’d gone to his place, and Xuan said, it felt like a field trip out of the country and we were sharing anecdotes over S’mores around a campfire. We haven’t been allowed to leave this tiny-ass 650 square-kilometre island nation for one entire year, three hundred and sixty-five days, so anything that feels like a trip is a welcome relief. We played Taboo last night, and Taboo is the most fun when you have deepened connections ‘cos you can draw from and make reference to your hundreds of shared experiences that you don’t have to use much vocabulary for, and it might be why it’s one of my favorite games (the other reason is ‘cos it’s a word game and of course, words are one of my few strengths). We laughed so much at Jaysen, I think we drank some special smoky whiskey, I forgot its name ‘cos I don’t care much for spirits, and honestly, Jaysen is the funniest man. He is so full of nonsense and he keeps selling/talking up everyone and everything (“if he can find his way out of a jungle, he can find his way into your heart” — Putri and I have heard this anecdote about his friend more than once, his friend was left behind in the jungle with a scorpion sting, during an army experience, and he made his way out, and we now all have heart eyes for his friend, without having laid eyes on him).

We played a game of chess, because I’d wanted to try playing an actual game, and of course I lost, but I learned from Jaysen, several important guidelines for chess. You want to move as few of your pawns forward, so that your more important pieces aren’t left open and vulnerable to attack, and you want to dominate the center of the chess board. With your knight in the center of the board, it has room to move in many more combinations for attack, as opposed to if the knight is on the side and has fewer squares to move and navigate to. Jaysen is super knowledgeable in about a hundred different things, and I like just leeching off him. I think I’m a leech, but one that also shares everything I know. Take from the wealthy, and redistribute it to the lacking. Robins are very pretty birds. We are reopening the store in two days, and I’m looking forward to it, and also to the end of this week, when perhaps life will become more of a regular routine and my back is not breaking from literal back-breaking work. Politics class tonight, nap time now!