Thursday, October 06, 2005
Colours On Canvas
It's not about looks.
The joke at work today was still about the hot chocolate and Ramadhan and it hasn’t simmered much..
‘Hot chocolate for you Naj?’
‘Have you got spare change for hot chocolate Naj?’
‘Trying again today Naj, did the mosque contact you?’
Wink.
Well what’s life without a midget at work to pick on kan.
Amazing how the greeting from that fresh air in the morning could reset the whole energystat (like thermostat) of anybody. The temperature, the humidity, the aridity and any tinge of crispiness. It’s foggy and bloody chilly this morning. The traffic was slow and the ladder of brake lights in the horizon made me scratch my head so much and bit my lips so often it cracked and bled a bit.
I still managed to keep up the Miss Punctual status despite all that, couple of people noticed it too. Now how bad was I before? Pretty tardy I’d say. Oh well diddums.
In theatre, I was watching the blood bellowed into little glistening crimson balls before drip drapped into another chamber, one by one on the blood transfusion giving set. Very hypnotising, blood. I must have also ventured out pretty far from reality.
Thought about what I could be doing if I am not doing what I am doing now. I have always been somebody who likes to make things rather than fixing things. Hands on they say. Somebody who likes to have an end result to something they work on. I am never good at providing services. Will make a very bad hooker.
I remember those days at school, because I was good with lines and colours and actually enjoyed doing it without getting paid, I made cards, designed book covers, school magazines and what I enjoyed most was those English dramas we had.
I would go to this study room in block F, where all the furniture would have been removed and pieces of brown papers I would join to make a big canvas. Those brown papers were like magic carpets. One brown paper was enough to wrap a baby without the limbs sticking out. That's how big and how strong the brown paper was.
It was orgasmic to see such a stretch of virginity awaiting me pencilling, sketching, dancing, twirling having a siesta of colours, injecting life into just a carpet of dullness. Ignoring the tic tocs and prep bells, sometimes even dinner bells from the dinning hall.
I would actually sneak into that room just before I went to bed just to make sure those Roman pillars still had lights shining from the right angle, Cleopatra’s throne still stood there majestically embossing out of the canvas, and the clouds had the right amount of dark blue, light blue and just that blue straight out of the colour pots which had Chinese writing all over. If the pot wasn’t transparent I wouldn’t have known it’s blue.
I would have some crazy chics, as crazy as I was helping with the colouring. Miss YY, Ubistela, Emelda, Yus and others like Rita, Reiy, Nani and Yants who wanted to be part of that backdrop.
When we won the prize for best prop and beat those seniors for best overall performance, didn’t our asses glow in the dark? Didn’t we all feel proud, and didn’t we all cry a little if not a lot in each other’s arms? Those were the days.
I’ve stopped painting and drawing altogether now. There’s just no time. On the other hand I never really liked writing but it kind of grew on me a fair bit. One thing I realize, you don’t need big words and shout the loudest to be heard. I guess there is something in my blood that makes me want to put a signature on things. 'I did this' so to say.
So it surfaced in that chilly theatre room today that sticking needles doesn’t give me that much pleasure anymore, blood pressure of 60/40 doesn’t excite me anymore, the chemically induced transient death doesn’t seem complicated anymore, the smell of burning flesh from cauterization doesn’t satiate me anymore, I want to put colours on a canvas.
The joke at work today was still about the hot chocolate and Ramadhan and it hasn’t simmered much..
‘Hot chocolate for you Naj?’
‘Have you got spare change for hot chocolate Naj?’
‘Trying again today Naj, did the mosque contact you?’
Wink.
Well what’s life without a midget at work to pick on kan.
Amazing how the greeting from that fresh air in the morning could reset the whole energystat (like thermostat) of anybody. The temperature, the humidity, the aridity and any tinge of crispiness. It’s foggy and bloody chilly this morning. The traffic was slow and the ladder of brake lights in the horizon made me scratch my head so much and bit my lips so often it cracked and bled a bit.
I still managed to keep up the Miss Punctual status despite all that, couple of people noticed it too. Now how bad was I before? Pretty tardy I’d say. Oh well diddums.
In theatre, I was watching the blood bellowed into little glistening crimson balls before drip drapped into another chamber, one by one on the blood transfusion giving set. Very hypnotising, blood. I must have also ventured out pretty far from reality.
Thought about what I could be doing if I am not doing what I am doing now. I have always been somebody who likes to make things rather than fixing things. Hands on they say. Somebody who likes to have an end result to something they work on. I am never good at providing services. Will make a very bad hooker.
I remember those days at school, because I was good with lines and colours and actually enjoyed doing it without getting paid, I made cards, designed book covers, school magazines and what I enjoyed most was those English dramas we had.
I would go to this study room in block F, where all the furniture would have been removed and pieces of brown papers I would join to make a big canvas. Those brown papers were like magic carpets. One brown paper was enough to wrap a baby without the limbs sticking out. That's how big and how strong the brown paper was.
It was orgasmic to see such a stretch of virginity awaiting me pencilling, sketching, dancing, twirling having a siesta of colours, injecting life into just a carpet of dullness. Ignoring the tic tocs and prep bells, sometimes even dinner bells from the dinning hall.
I would actually sneak into that room just before I went to bed just to make sure those Roman pillars still had lights shining from the right angle, Cleopatra’s throne still stood there majestically embossing out of the canvas, and the clouds had the right amount of dark blue, light blue and just that blue straight out of the colour pots which had Chinese writing all over. If the pot wasn’t transparent I wouldn’t have known it’s blue.
I would have some crazy chics, as crazy as I was helping with the colouring. Miss YY, Ubistela, Emelda, Yus and others like Rita, Reiy, Nani and Yants who wanted to be part of that backdrop.
When we won the prize for best prop and beat those seniors for best overall performance, didn’t our asses glow in the dark? Didn’t we all feel proud, and didn’t we all cry a little if not a lot in each other’s arms? Those were the days.
I’ve stopped painting and drawing altogether now. There’s just no time. On the other hand I never really liked writing but it kind of grew on me a fair bit. One thing I realize, you don’t need big words and shout the loudest to be heard. I guess there is something in my blood that makes me want to put a signature on things. 'I did this' so to say.
So it surfaced in that chilly theatre room today that sticking needles doesn’t give me that much pleasure anymore, blood pressure of 60/40 doesn’t excite me anymore, the chemically induced transient death doesn’t seem complicated anymore, the smell of burning flesh from cauterization doesn’t satiate me anymore, I want to put colours on a canvas.
