19th October 2000

Drunks sitting on the steps of a Church of England, chatting with their 2 litre bottle of cider. Alsations strolling by, tongues lolling. Brilliant sunshine and warmth all around as the leaves fall gently from the trees. People drifting past, heavy jackets and coats hanging open in the warmth, making happy noises to each other.

Cumulus clouds in the sky - is that how you spell it? Tumultous thoughts in this mind. Nothing coherent today, nothing concrete. Things yearning to be confessed that I simply can't, don't want to, and it's too late to anyhow. Things you don't need to know, else already do. Things that are too tired to be retold. Skeletons in closets this Halloween quite comfortable where they are. Am I being melodramatic, or am I for real? I've wondered that for the longest time now.

It's so warm here in London today, unseasonably so; the warmest it's been in a fortnight. I tell myself it's a coincidence. What's it like elsewhere in the world today. I hope it's as warm as this, and as bright.

Bumped unexpectedly into two ex-acquaintences just now in the Royal National Ear Nose and Throat hospital, typical Singaporean girls - no spark, no magic in their eyes. Casual oh hi!s and then I react to the blatent disinterest in their eyes, and I excuse myself and leave - there's too much on my mind for me to give a damn about two people who don't really want to know who I am anymore, and never did anyway. I suppose my disinterest in their disinterest shows, it's all very mutual. Their apathy brings out the Singaporean in me, and I react in kind.

I was in theatre all of this morning, the nineteenth, watching a revision stapedectomy, a thyroidectomy and removal of nasal polyps - and I was interested. Not my kind of stuff, too niggly, too basic, too gorey - but I liked it. Not because I was telling myself I liked it, or trying to immerse myself in it to forget anything in particular; I just like watching surgery. If I were more motivated, like D, I would try to get them to let me do it; but I'm not. I'm not motivated at all, just very tired.

We were taught yesterday by a Chinese doctor bearing the name Alburqueque. She was animated, funny, and looked suspiciously like T., startlingly so. But something about the way she used her eyes, moved her face and her head made her so much more human. So much more Spark. So much more alive. Is it where we're born that deadens our hearts, souls and minds, and faces and eyes? Is it the culture we're brought up in? Don't get me wrong - I found her vaguely attractive but not extremely so. Just more so than T., even if she's her doppleganger. I suppose the cold cool aloof gently disinterested exterior that typifies our people turns me completely off; I suppose apathy just doesn't work for me.

Plane tracking across the sky out my window now; a clear white line superimposed on a clear blue canvas. Linearity, logicality so completely out of place amongst the chaos of the clouds drifting by.

Wherever in the world you are, I hope you had a wonderful day today, and that God keeps you warm and well through the year ahead. That friends, and whoever he is, kept you content and surrounded by warmth and cheeriness today. You won't know this but I tried to call, just the once. The voice on the answering machine was just enough to make me question myself, just enough to remind me that you're real, just enough to make me hang up before the beep; just enough to realise that I didn't know what to say.

Happy twenty-fourth.