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sober musings
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saw someone on the train taking a gulp of water, gargling for about two mins before swallowing it.

i was immediately overwhelmed by a wave of nausea.

i related it to james and trish and they were like "whats wrong with that?!"

yeah actually there is nothing wrong with it since you're actually swallowing what was already in your mouth but i just find it extremely disgusting. i had to tear myself away from watching that guy because my digested lunch was already reaching my throat.

i guess i am prone to be easily disgusted. every damn thing disgusts me and this is definitely working against me.

1) i am unable to eat without wiping my cutleries beforehand, which looks extremely rude. of course this only applies to food courts and hawker centres, and some cheap restaurents.

2) i force myself to drink as little as possible when i'm out, so that i can avoid visiting public loos.

3) when walking through narrow passageways, such as those in the void decks of my neighbourhood, i will develop a sudden superfast pace while holding my breath and maintaining a straight dead gaze ahead so that i wouldn't have to look at the grimey corners.

4) sometimes, i visit the homes of friends who urm, compromise on hygiene. you can tell when you realise your feet gets coated with dust after a few steps and there is a massive pile-up of forgotten debris behind their door. usually i'll douse myself in dettol when i take a shower afterwards.

5) i look at people's feet all the time despite knowing very well that i'll spot something gross like black stuff under the nails. men being the rather poorly cleansed creatures, i wonder how i would be able to find one clean man among the masses.

i have so many quirks that i irritate myself no end. sometimes, before spending my money on yet another dress/clutch/pumps/insert-item-here, i'd be suddenly gripped by guilt. what guilt? guilt which haunts your conscience when you know very well that the price of the very dress you are buying will be able to feed that old auntie collecting cardboards for a month.

singapore fashion week is around the corner, bringing another round of air-kissing and champagne flute clinking. i know the world works perfectly like that with the rich/poor divide balancing everything out like yin/yang. but spending $10000 on draping the runway with pure silk and rare flowers? frivolous. ludicrous even.

then i will start to wonder if should the world be a perfect communist community, how would it really be like? because the rich europeans would have to share their wealth, then africa and the starving nations would be equals. but do we really want that?

because then, nobody would feel the need to improve, to work anymore. why should they, when regardless of how much effort they put in, the returns would be the same as the man sitting at home doing nothing.

if communism had taken over a century ago, we definitely wouldn't be where we are now. we'll still be in samfoos and calico dresses, churning butter and writing by candlelight. everything would remain stagnant.

i am of course not saying that communism is bad because there is no perfect model. capitalism has even more cons. but i digress.

i feel bad that i am working in the fashion industry, witnessing all these self-indulgent acts which i have since absorbed (most unfortunate). they think nothing of blowing 10 grand for a couture dress, or for an 18 course degustation dinner. decadent offerings that the old woman staying in a dark bedbug-infested flat in bukit merah with her daily meals of porridge and vegetables would never have heard about.

and the beggar who kowtowed to me on the train in shanghai.

and the little girl in rags whose eyes gleamed when i handed her a 20 renminbi note, which was only about SGD$5. it will keep her happy for a fortnight at least.

sidetrack: i have mentioned it before and i will repeat myself again. i am ALL for euthanasia. having volunteered at renci hospital for 6 years running (though i admit the visits have become alarmingly sparse due to my schedule) and seeing the patients in the chronic wards, their life ebbing away, confined to a bed with nothing to do except watching the fans revolve and awaiting their death. i bet if they were mentally conscious enough to speak, they would get the doctor to administer them some lethal cocktail.

and it wouldn't hurt to put a fifty note into a frail elderly pulling cardboards. it'll only be one shoe less (and one heel of a jimmy choo). if i, someone earning peanuts can do that, so can you.

so yeah. woah what a bloody long post, considering i am bloody tired after spending the whole day out.