Monsoon Tiger and Other Stories

Good Monday, everyone, darling. How are you today? After a beautiful book launch on Saturday for Rain (of course I will include some pictures) I was very tired and not keen on posting. But I know that I have at least one deer who is waiting patiently for me to update and so I will update. And there will be something lovely on the 23rd, which is in 2 days. You can expect that. I promise.

Funny story about this is that when I was trying to answer the question my mind totally blanked. The question was about my character and what she was like (I was reading from Beneath the Bougainvilleas) and Laurel is this beautiful, beautiful creature who has fallen in love in an unfortunate way and it is about waiting, and loving within boundaries and crossing those boundaries anyways, and it is also about sisters and mothers and trees.

This is very easily my favorite photo now, and I am more than happy to say I finally have a photo with the ephemeral and ever lovely Rain.

Women are very beautiful, you know. And Tio Pakusadewo. From left to right, Tara, me, Rain, Dinda, Amanda, Fathia, Dian, and Om Tio. They were brilliant readers.

Stolen from the great author's Instagram. Look at that. Look at her beautiful, beautiful name. Eight short stories and they are all packed with beauty and evocative prose that I wanted to drown in, again and again. 

Also I suppose I will give a short (and a totally unbaised) review of the book. It is not available on Amazon but if you are very keen on reading it let me know because I can try to buy it here and send it overseas. 

REVIEW // Rain Chudori's debut book is a stunning read. Full of memorable characters, like the mother in "The Dollhouse" and Laurel from "Beneath the Bouganvilleas", it is a book meant for warm nights and it is a book which will leave your heart trembling. The novel's vision is precise and consistent, packed with tenderly-delivered light: "...I could see the miniscule figures of people through the pod-like windows, leaning their heads, reading newspapers, drinking tea from paper cups, sleeping, almost too luxuriously" (94).  Each story is rooted in the experience of woman, in the process of growing up, an initiation into the arts of losing, loving, and waiting. 

strengths:
01 // Heartbreaking dialogue.
02 // Towering images which linger far after they've been read.
03 // Brilliant characterization.

weaknesses:
01 // Occasionally, story structure becomes repetitive. But it is nuanced and well-crafted, so I am only speaking to some readers who may get bored easily.

—

The 19th was, coincidentally, my youngest brother's birthday. He is 3 now, and over 9,000 miles away, and I miss him very, very much. Happy birthday, Ansel, my dear, and I hope that next year I will be able to hold your chubby hands and hear you laugh again.

Other things I have been up to...let's see. I have been slaving on a short story. I am trying to get into the habit of writing short stories—I have only ever written one before this year, and it was for my submission to the Iowa Young Writers Studio. If you are in high school I highly recommend this program; it is esteemed as one of (if not the greatest) summer writing programs in the United States. They are opening submissions on February 1st, and I know other comparable summer programs are doing the same. And yes, if you are wondering, I was accepted. Unfortunately I was not able to attend because of extenuating circumstances, but if you want to take a look at my application just send me an e-mail and I will be glad to help you.

My dream was to go to IYWS and eventually to Iowa's MFA program and I was devastated that I couldn't attend. Also now I am having doubts about whether I will ever get there or if I will ever be a literary great but—we will see. I will be led, slowly, to my future. (I am trying to have confidence and conviction).

I am more in love with the English language than I have ever been love with a man and I think that is a good thing, a warm thing. Why worry about flesh when you can weep endlessly over the brutal power of words? Although I regret never learning Indonesian, because there is a wealth of Indonesian literature I cannot muddle through because of my inability to understand the language properly. This is why we should all be taught different languages when we are young: so that when we are alone by the fire there will be many friends to comfort us.

I suppose for Christmas there were a number of things I wanted: mainly books but also new pens, and books, and also books, and some coffee, and books, and new notebooks and time alone in cafes with good Internet, and a public library near my house, and books. I do not expect that I will get any of those things and it is rather disappointing. I miss my books. I miss the summers where I walked to the library and borrowed fifteen books and returned them all the next day to eat and eat and eat more words. 

As always, I am sending my love to you.
Ebi

Living In The City With You

a one second slow motion leading to a solidly whorled thumbrpint

a red journal behind bars drinking all the numbers in the world

a waiting for the back seat to be freed up and to sleep up
-

I printed my first cloud on a sheet of tide,
on the shore I wrote a book
on the shore I ate a cloud

the garage full of br ken hardware // it all doesn't work
   just as well as the Congress trying to eat a g  ood country // talk in other circles died
       down while I wanted to feed the cat some feverish winters, so I wear the selfish cape // but you
don't.

-

a veranda where the grass grows, swaying

a radio heart breaking on the airwaves

a derelict apartment full of bad weather

-

in my dream, you see the water is                                      rising until it
        eats the bad birds // my parents in the kitc    hen holding each
other    with feroc ty like bur   gundy curtains and singing the whole elegy of
broken a r conditioners // a still habitat, f       ull of h         eat

It's normal when you're in love, even more a bout of flu, I
think I am falling for the laws that govern you
and with you
with you
and with you

-

an autonomous software that stamps mistakes onto 3D mountains

a dandelion salad and sugar sprinkled through one lifetime

a confessional 'I know him' in the wooden box, 'of him'

-

I'll make a deal with you I won't eat the peaches,
they are so chilly in the fridge.
You kiss me. You kiss me. We
plant flowers and then you kiss me. We
plant flowers and then you go in.

        We looked      // the other   way and said, hey the                      coast looks a little
muddy now do you think it is safe to                       cross? No let's use the brid ge instead.
              The le afy chair is a             good pla e to sit // on thro g    h    the day     if th re is
ho m r  k to    do. Th  ga  rd  n is lined with cr y st ls and other
thi gs, like w lt d   smiles. we had n  o other place to p t them. we had no other way
                                       to help them.
-

a clever child

a leaking faucet

one good and desperate dream

-

a n : you

As We Near The End

I will not sugarcoat anything: today was shit. Not for any singular reason but rather because everything piled up and became difficult to handle and at the end of it I am here, exhausted. I cried today, but only for a minute because mostly I am too self-conscious to do it and I feel silly and selfish. Anyhow here are some things that have been breaking my heart.

1 // German UAS

I will be honest and say that this was difficult and admit that it was my fault. When German class starts at 7 every Tuesday it's not likely a lazybum like me will come to class. I continually overslept and missed that class and since the textbook itself was entirely in German (how am I supposed to learn German with a fully-German textbook? I'm no German schoolkid, I'm a GTL [German Third Language] student) I was essentially lost in an abyss of kartoffeln. Not literally. But I felt that way.

2 // Closure

There was someone that was causing a lot of trouble in my life and sending me very mixed messages.  We will call him Charles. I will be bitter and say that Charles is selfish and irresponsible. I suppose I will also be honest and say that a part of me was in love with Charles, because he made time for me and listened to me and was very good at flirting and he had a good heart and he was very reliable. The thing is there were two sets of extenuating circumstances that made our friendship very difficult to maintain.

 Anyhow I am a very stubborn person and was willing to fight to keep him in my life, despite the trouble he was causing me. He was not willing to do the same for me. It was a very messy situation because we have family ties (that is one of the set of extenuating circumstances) and drama ensued, he disappeared for a week, and I essentially had to beg for him to at least give me closure. Another fact: I am very good at "getting over" things as long as I am given that. He denied me that for a week and I floundered.

I got closure today. Granted, I did not want to hear the words he had for me, but I heard them, and generally I am doing better now. But because a part of me was in love with him and he chose safety over me and because he saw everything that happened as a big problem: my heart, today, is weeping.

The most painful part of this is that I have rationalized his behavior and I understand it. He was honest and I respect that very, very much. I just do not want the story to end this way.

3 // Rewriting Chapter 1

As some of you may know I am working on a novel. Recently I lost my USB drive which means I have to rewrite everything, almost from scratch. Additionally the plotline and the fictional world my story is set in both had to be restructured.

I have a bad habit of editing while I write and I wrote and then edited Chapter 1 again and again and again, yesterday and today. The scenes I wrote were very painful and dramatic and angry and I think this was all very draining and I am now mostly finished with the first chapter of the novel but my heart is sick now.

4 // Forgiveness

This is tightly linked and cannot be extricated from the second item on this list. I firmly believe that had someone not opened their mouth about my burgeoning friendship with Charles the second item on this list would be nonexistent. I know Moz will insist that regardless of whether or not someone interceded I should have stopped talking to Charles long before today but I digress. Let's call this interceder Maria. Anyways I think that Maria played an undeniable role in causing drama for and between Charles and I. Perhaps it was because she did not want me to lose face or she did not want, by being associated to me, to lose face. But she still played a role and with her faulty and hasty assumptions turned what was already a difficult battle into an impossible one.

I know I am supposed to have a big heart but I cannot, right now. To you, Maria, this is what I will say:

You knew nothing about the relationship between Charles and I and only chose to believe that I was bothering him or being a nuisance. You did not spend any moment looking for conclusive evidence and instead told stories to your mother about Charles and I. You were a third person, and we did not include you. I choose to believe that he made time for me in his life because he wanted me there and not because he felt pity for me and next time I hope that you will remain outside of problems that do not directly involve you. Perhaps you are the one who told him to stop talking to me. I resent you for it. You are a busybody. I did not invite you into the problem and neither did he. 

I must forgive both Charles and Maria and it is hurting me to do so but I know I have to let it go quickly. First I must forgive Charles because he is not brave and because he prefers safety to adventure and because he did not choose me, and then I must forgive Maria for either hastening or inducing our demise. I did not want it to end. He spoke to me sweetly, with great care, and I am presently very bitter because maybe if circumstances had been different he and I would not be here across a divide which I must eventually accept and walk away from.

5 // The First Anniversary

I have thought a lot about that this month. About 31 December 2014. About those pills. I can still recite them: how many of each brand. And I don't know how to feel about it. Occasionally I will catch myself thinking about how I am in the negative, as in: on 31 December 2015 I will be -365 days alive.

I am trying to be optimistic but I cannot shake the feeling that I am often not happy. Everyone who hears this will tell me that I am pessimistic and that I need to be grateful for what I have and then that gets me in a loop:

• feel unhappy
• feel guilty for being ungrateful
• regret living

I really loathe it, you know. Being called ungrateful. Being told that I need to be content with what I have. I am selfish and I want more. Am I an evil person because I desire freedom?

* // Epilogue

This week will end soon. On Saturday I am reading for Rain's book launch and I will wear something pretty. When this week ends my winter holidays will begin and I will not have classes again until February 23rd. That is something to rejoice over. I have overdependency on my friends but I am thankful for Rain and for Moz and Madina and Anisa and the others because I will get through this week as I have every other. And I am still relieved because my life is still full of wondrous happiness and destructive pain, and it is a testament that I am still (still!) gloriously alive.

I Don't Wanna Be Your Cigarette

The intentionally blurry view outside of a little window.

I was walking back to the living room earlier this afternoon with a glass cup in my hand and in my daze I ran right into the wall. A shard of the cup (which, now ruined, had become a hasty weapon) dug into the little space between my thumb and pointer finger and it started bleeding. But I was too exhausted to care, so I wrapped a sock around my hand, cleaned up the mess, and retreated into my bedroom to sleep.

Now I am typing this with one fully-functioning right hand, one aching left hand, and one trilling heart. I haven't listened to music for the past two days because I've been so overly emotional, and whenever I listen to music it inevitably exacerbates whatever I am feeling at the moment. I'm not sure about your take on the situation but I am very loath to experience any acute feeling of apprehension, anxiety, or disappointment. (Now that my emotions have settled somewhat I will share some songs with you today).

My emotional hypersensitivity, by the way is also why I almost never watch movies on my own. Often at the end of a very good movie (think Fight Club, or V for Vendetta, or Dead Poets Society) I inexplicably feel like bawling. Cheeky! The world is so very cheeky. But we shan't dwell on that. Instead, let's listen to some songs!

01 / LONER by Kali Uchis: The dream is always the same / like a printed narrative / I know what's going to happen next / but I keep going through the motions.

Darling Rain introduced me to Kali Uchis, a Colombian pop artist who is, by every definition of the word, flawless. The one word to describe this song and this music video is: dreamy. Very vintage, very aesthetic, very neon. I love her dancing, her outfits, her look. Kali Uchis' voice is very easy to identify; you'll see in the coming songs that I am a sucker for female vocalists with unique voices. This is a ballad for all the introverts (yay to us) out there who are apprehensive or afraid of falling in love (again).

02 / THE LESS I KNOW THE BETTER by Tame Impala: Oh my love, can't you see that you're on my mind / Don't suppose we could convince your lover to change his mind.

This music video, which was only released about two weeks ago, is marvelous. Warning: probably not safe for work. "The Less I Know The Better" is from Tame Impala's latest album, Currents. These lyrics are imbibed with the all-too-familiar bitterness of unrequited love and, when paired an absolutely groovy (I'm justified in using that adjective because the music video is also very groovy) bass line, we are sucked into a very compelling trip. I feel like Tame Impala is great music to get high to. Not that I'm recommending it.

03/ AWOO by Lim Kim: The scorching glares of the wolves / they all lose their minds watching me / they must like what they see.

Lim Kim is a new favorite of mine. Her voice is so unique in a world saturated with tinny-sweet Korean voices (not that they're awful, but it gets stale after some time) and she always looks so wonderful in her music videos. The song's introduction and the video's cinematography are surreal.

This song is from her third mini-album and it's about the theory of love as a game, of flirtatious ups and downs (also possibly about something else but I'll leave that for you to figure out, hee). It bursts with vivacity, and its vibrant beats and synths + Lim Kim's cheeky and teasing voice turn this into an absolutely perfect song.

04 / STUCK ON THE PUZZLE by Alex Turner. Fingers dimming the lights / like you're used to being told that you're trouble.

"Stuck On The Puzzle" is from the film Submarine, and Alex Turner is from Arctic Monkeys. This song sounds a little bit like Tame Impalas, so if you like Arctic Monkeys you will probably like Tame Impalas and vice-versa. The music video is horrifically endearing and sweet and I remember gushing to Mozzarella yesterday (or the day before) about how lovely it was ("THAT! THAT'S HOW LIFE SHOULD BE! IT'S SO AWFUL AND ROMANTIC!"). Underneath all my blustery chill I suppose I am still, after all, the hopeless romantic I was eight years ago.

05 / OH NO! by Marina and the Diamonds: I know exactly why I walk and talk like a machine / I'm now becoming my own self-fulfilled prophecy.

Interestingly enough there is also a Bring Me The Horizon song titled "Oh No". Marina's song is obviously in a different genre, and far more lively and colorful. It's the fourth single from her debut album, The Family Jewels, which came out in 2010. While I continue to hold that Electra Heart is Marina's best and most cohesive album, The Family Jewels spawned some amazing singles. This song is about the artificiality of success and the emptiness that often accompanies achievement (it's ironic because we are always taught that reaching our goals will give us happiness). Marina looks like she's having so much fun in this MV and every time I watch it, it reminds me how much I adore her.

06 / FOLLOW YOU by Bring Me The Horizon: So you can drag me through Hell / if it meant I could hold your hand.

This is a fan video by a Youtube account that makes music videos for Bring Me The Horizon songs. I listen to it, and the album it came from (That's The Spirit, 2015), often enough that I've memorized the order of the songs. Lyrically it's in no way profound, and actually rather cheesy (Oli Sykes, how do you do it?) but I listen to it because someone dear to me introduced me to BMTH and because it is my favorite song from the album (I also recommend Throne). It's essentially a song from one person to another person that echoes the timeless sentiment of: I will love you until I die, and ever after.

07 / MODERN NATURE by Sondre Lerche: Oh, what a world this life would be / Forget all your technicolour dreams / Forget modern nature / This is how it's meant to be.

I am an absolute sucker for songs that are limited to vocals + guitar. Sondre is a Norwegian artist and composed most of the soundtrack for the movie Dan In Real Life, which is where this song comes from. Lillian Samdal also sings in this song, and it's really just a sweet song about the joys of falling (or perhaps having fallen) in love. I think this is a very muted and soft way to close this list of songs which is why I have saved it for last. It is like a little cake pop after a lovely dinner. 

—

My final exam (Business Mathematics) today was very difficult and I know I won't get a fantastic grade on it, but I suppose it's alright because out of all my classes, my best grade is in this one. I can afford to do poorly. Well—not really, but you know what I mean, don't you, darling?

I hope that you enjoy at least one of the songs on this list, and that you are having a blessed and calm week full of joy. As we near the close of the year I am a little anxious and worried (for no particular reason). I earnestly hope that 2015 will end with a kind and tender kiss for me and for all of you. Let's all make 2016 a year of joy and beauty.

I am sending all my love to you through a paper aeroplane.

Ebi

Any songs you want to recommend? You can tweet at me or leave a comment here :)