memories

With the new year come desires for old memories. I still half want to remember the accident. The past six weeks and all my injuries and trials resulted from an event that, as far as I'm concerned, never happened. Perhaps I went into shock immediately after the car struck and broke my femur. But people spoke to me in English when I woke up. Since I had no identification on me, I must have been conscious and babbling in my native language at some point.

How can I stand living in this condition thanks to a moment that my mind has sliced out of the timeline of my memory?

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
[T.S. Eliot]

Fun fact: I am five hours past my cripple bedtime and can hardly force myself to go to bed. For the first time in a while, there are many reasons to be happy; I won't bother to try to compartmentalize them.

a long december

It's done. And now I can greet the new year with a little less baggage. But some burdens won't be leaving my shoulders anytime soon.

nightmares

Raggedy bands of skaters launching coordinated rebellions, some led by women, while families huddle in their splintered, roofless wooden hovels, listening to salvaged radios and special-issue CDs from indie pseudo-political labels. A Yale graduation lost in labyrinths of vendors selling worthless "art" for such high prices that all a robed graduate can do is deface them drunkenly while others shell out for paper cutouts of Branford. An aerial journey from pier and river mouth following liquid and concrete veins of civilization into an anticlimactic suburban California downtown whitewashed by dead sunshine. A scatological-mechanical gift. And in the penthouse of a hospital, a stalagmite- and stalactite-filled crypt for cosmetic treatment in which disaster, perhaps due to terrorist intervention, befalls a client as I watch horrified, less than a fly on the wall.

Why do you haunt me, nightmares? The hospital narcotics are long gone, the flashbacks have faded to oblivion, the stitch scars have ossified, the wounds are healing. The phone has never beeped at night. Leave me to the labyrinths of my conscious conscience... take pity and leave me alone.

[Sign in the deserted neighborhood and amusement park at Pleasure Beach, a stone's throw from the industrial shell of Bridgeport, by T. Ng]

consuelo

Many people have asked me about the origin on my online name, consuehlo. To be honest, I once read a Richard Peck novel with a secondary character named Consuelo and decided that I liked the name. I'm sure the fact that she was long-haired, sophisticated, and gorgeous had no bearing on my decision. Friends unaware of this origan have come up with all sorts of ideas, as well as questions about why I chose a predominatly male name. I began to wonder if there were in fact no women named Consuelo, and Peck had just gotten it wrong... to my advantage, as opposing gender typfication is another activity I enjoy.

Well, tonight I came across a famous lady by the name of Consuelo Vanderbilt. According to a Wikipedia article, "Consuelo Vanderbilt (March 2, 1877 - December 6, 1964) was a member of the United States Vanderbilt family seen as the penultimate marital prize of the Victorian age and an international emblem for socially advantageous marriages." Wow, what a namesake. So much for my little battle.

riot

Last night I dreamt of a torn family on the beach and of a schoolyard that turned into a war zone. In a moment of sheer terror, I woke to the cold 6 AM morning and lay shivering until I lapsed into another dream by the beach... wandering through an almost-abandoned school.

Halfhearted apologies for the barrage of lyrics, but as I don't expect people to actually read this blog, I shall continue to post them shamelessly:

For the life of me I cannot remember
What made us think that we were wise and
We’d never comprimise
For the life of me cannot believe
We’d ever die for these sins
We were merely freshman

We’ve tried to wash our hands of all of this
We never talk of our lacking relationships
And how we’re guilt stricken sobbing with our
Heads on the floor
We fell through the ice when we tried not to
Slip, we’d say

I can't be held responsible
'Cause she was touching her face
And I won't be held responsible
She fell in love in the first place

[verve pipe]

it's coming down

I am angry. I am so very angry. I am hopping mad. I could kick something, if I was capable of doing it. And that is so very much better than waiting around pining away.

"It's Coming Down" [Cake]

Sure, I have some merciful feelings too.

wrong

I can see that you've been crying
You can't hide it with a lie
What's the use in you denying
That what you have is wrong?
I heard him promise you forever
But forever's come and gone
Baby, he would say whatever
It takes to keep you blind
To the truth between the lines

Baby, you deserve much better
What's the use in holding on?

Who would ever have imagined that wisdom would lie in sappy old Backstreet Boys lyrics?

matthaus-passion, iemand?

I think I must be the first person in history to burst into tears thinking I was missing a Herreweghe performance of Bach's St. Matthew's Passion. But in fact, it was the Weihnachts Oratorio! Bah humbug!

paying rent

Is there no pain anymore that is worthwhile as the price of happiness?

If that's what I truly believe, I am doomed to be forever alone.

an endless cycle

Back to square one: pain, solitude, helplessness, hopelessness. The struggle to regain the spirit and faith to rebuild. You'd think it'd be so much easier, to have endured so much before. What is this pain in comparison? But you'd also think I'd have learned to stop making the same mistakes. Damn the accident, damn my immobility, damn damn damn damn damn damn damn... so many reasons to believe that the future is bright, so many reasons to dread the next few godforsaken weeks. How will I endure?

utter folly

I can't believe that I still haven't learned. All this time and I still haven't learned. Why am I such a fool? Why do others have to be so foolish? Why can't we all just be cynical enough to prevent disaster? I need to stop needing people. Need to stop needing them altogether. Why can't I anymore? It used to be so easy. But this goddamn broken bone just makes everything worse.

I need to get myself out. But I'm not strong enough to get myself out anymore. And that's the greatest tragedy of all. When I gave up my independence, I also gave up the strength to get it back.

The day couldn't have turned out better, could it? World, could you make me hate you even more? If this is all that twenty-three brings, I want to go back to being foolish and innocent and twenty-two, wheeling directly from one disaster towards another while denying it altogether. When you bike into the path of a speeding car, you don't stop until it's too late because you can't see the car. When you run full speed into a dead end, you're the only one at fault when you hit the wall because you saw it the whole time. And of course, of all things I could be crying about--tonight I must cry alone. Perhaps I will always cry alone.

i hate the world #2

So yesterday was great, but today the world said, "Happy birthday, fuck you." I woke up at 6 am because my room was freezing, couldn't fall asleep again, was in pain until noon because it's that time of the month, went to the post office where everyone got in my way and nobody offered to help no matter how difficult things got, was told at the bank that the Christmas check from my relatives would take up to 2 months to be processed, and then crutched home ready to fall over from exhaustion only to discover that a note had just been left this morning informing us that there will be no water drainage for 30 hours starting tomorrow at 9 am. So typically Belgian, and this time I mean it as an insult. This is all very well for someone who can freakin leave the house, but I'm kind of fucking stuck here. Oh, and an ex just called to leave me the most inadvertently infuriating belated birthday message. Yes world, thanks for the warm welcome into year twenty-three.

no masturbation in Yale showers, please!

Good to see the Yale prankstering spirit going strong.

youyesyou.net

"the desert is no place for a lonely codependent hemophiliac robot"

hands

And not to worry 'cause worry is wasteful
And useless in times like these
I won't be made useless
I won't be idle with despair
I will gather myself around my faith
For light does the darkness most fear
My hands are small, I know
But they're not yours, they are my own
But they're not yours, they are my own
And I am never broken
[jewel, hands]


Today I nearly fell apart. Today I picked myself back up. Today I begin anew.

information war!

From Military's Information War Is Vast and Often Secretive in The New York Times:

"The [secret committee formed to wage the new information war in the Muslim world] even examined the president's words. Concerned about alienating Muslims overseas, panel members said, they tried unsuccessfully to stop Mr. Bush from ending speeches with the refrain 'God bless America.'" It's funny, the ways in which Mr. Bush is unwilling to compromise his 'integrity' for the sake of the war on terrorism.

Another interesting line: "It is something of a mystery how [the] Lincoln [Group] came to land more than $25 million in Pentagon contracts in a war zone....In its rejected plan, the company looked to American popular culture for ways to influence new audiences. Lincoln proposed variations of the satirical paper 'The Onion,' and an underground paper to be called 'The Voice,' documents show. And it planned comedies modeled after 'Cheers' and the Three Stooges, with the trio as bumbling wannabe terrorists." Good god.

"The United States Army publishes a sister paper in Afghanistan, also called Peace. An examination of issues from last spring found no bad news." News is almost always bad... positive events are rarely ever newsworthy. Nobody in their right minds would believe a single word from a newspaper that published NO BAD NEWS. HELLO, America... you idiots.

"Another recipient of [the United States Agency for International Development] grants, Voice for Humanity...supplied tens of thousands of audio devices in Iraq and Afghanistan with messages intended to encourage people to vote....It is not clear how effective the messages were or what recipients did with the iPod-like devices, pink for women and silver for men, which could not be altered to play music or other recordings." Thanks for putting our taxpayer money to good, long-term use.

and dread the day when dreaming ends

I follow the night,
Can't stand the light.
When will I begin
To live again?

One day I'll fly away,
Leave all this to yesterday.
What more could your love do for me?
When will love be through with me?

Why live life from dream to dream
And dread the day when dreaming ends?

One day I'll fly away,
Leave all this to yesterday.
Why live life from dream to dream
And dread the day when dreaming ends?

One day I'll fly away,
Fly, fly away.

creepy news

Text-messaging driver accused of hitting cyclist
Victim died 2 days after accident; 17-year-old charged with misdemeanor

my disaster on google!

After getting a sweet post from Michel saying she'd found my blog on google, I searched on "tiffany ng carillon" and found this on the second page of results:

belgische chocolade
An American student studying the carillon in Belgium had been hit by a car! ...
My Photo: Name:Tiffany Ng: Location:Mechelen, 2800, Belgium. I'm 5' 1/4". ...
carillonista.blogspot.com/ - 50k - 3 Dec 2005 - Cached - Similar pages

How is it possible that the crawler would have picked up that particular sentence in the middle of a random entry?

dreams

I dreamed a dream in time gone by
When hope was high
And life worth living
I dreamed that love would never die
I dreamed that God would be forgiving
Then I was young and unafraid
And dreams were made and used and wasted
There was no ransom to be paid
No song unsung, no wine untasted

But the tigers come at night
With their voices soft as thunder
As they tear your hope apart
And they turn your dream to shame

He slept a summer by my side
He filled my days with endless wonder
He took my childhood in his stride
But he was gone when autumn came

[Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg, Les Misérables]

I had finally devised the perfect life in a strange land, shielded from pain: a teddy bear to hold and kiss at night, a bicycle that shared all my most profound and exhilarating moments as my other half and soulmate. They are but things; they will never gain the power hurt me. What is to become of me now?