Possible. Through a computer sim. :)

Watching my Boy sitting against the wall, licking his own belly, paw on his tummy. :`D

Disgusted with self. Only 50 pushups yesterday before elbow gave way but compensated with 100 crunches. The day before almost as dismal: 70, and 50 crunches. Feel much stronger though. Buffy strong! Beer good. :p Will rest arms today and work on shoulders and tum.

Watched Fantastic Four last night. It was fantastic! :D A tight witty script, great acting, superb casting, amazing action, and simply fantastically tied together. A must-watch. As good as Batman Begins, and for me, slightly even better.

So far I have only managed 70 today... but I do feel way fitter, thanks to being inspired by Jennifer Garner as Elektra. Speaking of Jen, she tied the knot with Ben Affleck last weekend and are confirmed to be expecting their first child. Two thumbs up. :)

Managed to catch War of the Worlds (really bad ending - might as well watch ID4 again) and A Lot Like Love, which was a charming film about 2 people somehow missing the mark with each other but duh, getting together in the end, a la When Harry Met Sally. Not a bad DVD movie.

The surprise went perfectly according to plan, save an unexpected circumstance that had me scrambling for a solution. All in all, I think everyone was pretty well entertained. Much rest and recovery on Saturday and Sunday (I finished my Harry Potter collection!) and I confess to chomping up all the chocolates.

Ah! And the most joyous thing of the year (which happens only twice of), the Kino 20% sale. I acquired 6 coupons and bought, after much thought and consideration within the 1.5 hours I was allotted:

Creatures of the Night by Neil Gaiman
Space Odyssey by Tim Haines and Christopher Riley
Mind Hacks by Tom Stafford and Matt Webb
Surviving the Extremes by Kenneth Kamler (which I finished)
When Elephants Weep by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson and Susan McCarthy (which I just started)
Hyperspace by Michio Kaku (the acclaimed physicist my darling Kaku was named after)

Hark! Speaking of Kaku, I saw Dr Kaku on TV last night on the feature documentary I subscribed to cable to watch (well, I was thinking of cancelling it): Alien Planet. Brilliant, eye-opening, and revolutionary! :D My brother exclaimed in despair that he missed it, but was consoled that it would probably come out on DVD. :D

You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and you believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes. ~Morpheus, The Matrix

A lovely 2 days by all accounts. Okay, so I just woke up. But it is Saturday! :D I did, however, have a bad dream about going to Melbourne and getting lost, despite a semi-grid system there. Plus I did some home improvements on Wednesday and Thursday night and that's spilling over.

Yesterday I got my free iPaq! :D It's such a beautiful thing. For those with Starhub MaxOnline and whose contract has ended. Go renew your contract and get a free iPaq! Here's a very extensive and thorough review on it. It has a silver frame (can find it easily in my bag), built-in cam, bluetooth, and wireless connectivity, which means I can surf at Macs. All the more reason to buy their stock and patronise them...

I pretty much spent the whole day reviewing movies, which in principle sounds good, but not really. Nevertheless, a romantic dinner and movie made up for that. Others may hardly call Constantine a very romantic movie, but hey, it's the company that counts. ;)

It was an excellent movie, by the way. Aside from the fact that John Constantine is actually blonde and more buff than Keanu Reeves, he handled the part pretty well, and the overall treatment was pretty true to the comic.

Kaku seems to have taken Boy's spot in my study since Boy started to run with wolves. It's so sweet to see her up close for so long. She was beginning to attain the reputation only myths have, like the Yeti or Nessie. She did hide for the longest time when Jeff came over before his foray into Velvet. I placed a plate full of food in the study and shut the door. Half an hour later I opened the door and the plate was licked clean. :D Now she's napping. :D

Sam just got stuck on the roof again. He was howling so much even Kaku woke up and went to check it out. I climbed up and retrieved him although he behaved much like a cat stuck in a tree. He held on to me for dear life and brought him back to safety.

The Blower's Daughter has been playing in my mind almost a month now since I heard it again in Novena Square one day during lunch. It is immensely haunting.

If it seems familiar, it is the opening and closing song in the movie Closer when Natalie Portman is walking across the road. Watch the music video (embedded in their website). I don't think I've ever heard a more beautiful song.

I painted tonight after a long time. I changed some colours of my Tuxie painting - it looks more surreal yet realistic now. Less severe, more earthy. As I look at it from a distance, I think I like it. I doubt I'd ever be a famous painter but at least I'd have made something for my wall that is personal and belongs to me.

I just noticed paws on the door, near the top next to Boy's photo. Really very near the top leading down. It looks like Buffy (larger paws) somehow climbed up to the top of the door and scurried down.

There is a time when you interact with someone else and you are either better for it or worse. When it is the latter, it is a terrible feeling to live with. I have learnt to live with it and lose myself in other things.

My hands are now full of paint. I was never meant to have pretty manicured fingers anyway.

I truly doubt I will be sleeping again tonight.

As usual, it is another sleepless night. This time it is not something incomplete, but a feeling of restlessness and dissatisfaction despite a rather productive day.

It began perhaps when I asked my Dad casually over dinner whose personality I was most like: my Dad, my Mom, or my grandmother. He signalled there with his head, which most strong silent-type fathers do, indicating my grandmother. I asked, Mama? He nodded.

My grandmother, Mama as we call her, is now 95 or at least that's what it says on her IC: born 1910. Rumours have it that she is actually older, born in 1906 or 1908. Regardless, it is a grand old age despite being slightly demented and sporadically incontinent. And she has had one heck of a life.

Personality-wise, the term dragon lady must have been originally coined for her. I told my Mom what Dad said when we went to pick her up later, and she said, yeah. I was most like my grandmother, with her quick temper and occasional irrational outbursts, particularly during my teens (poor Mom). Thankfully, she quickly added, I learned to control my temper and have hence mellowed (and may I add, am no longer prone to irrational outbursts - ahem).

Everyone feared my grandma when she was younger. Apparently by the time I was born she'd mellowed a lot. My brother told tales of how Mama was a lot worse before. Very fierce. I remember her chastising me about wearing torn jeans as a teen and me trying to explain to her that it was the fashion then. She was fiercely independent, passionate, and very loyal. Every year we visited my grandfather's grave. He died at 54 in 1975. She was 65 (according to her IC). From the story of their life together my Dad told, he adored her till the day he died.

Every decade she mellowed more. Memories of Chinese New Years spent at her house munching bak kwa, Sunday mornings drinking tea and watching English football. She lived on her own till she was 90, and this year moved in with my family. She is an insomniac like me and wanders the house at night, restless. We've hired someone to care for her and it helps to have someone keep her company during her nighttime forays. Her mind is 30 years ago, sometimes 50. But she remembers me and smiles when I sit with her. She thinks my brother and I are still petulant teenagers.

My Dad told me about her business acumen. How she made contacts and started businesses for his father. When my grandfather died, she took over the business. No one knows where she came from or who her family was. She doesn't remember, not even when I asked her 10 years ago. My Dad never knew nor asked. I guess children during that era didn't. My Dad's most distinct memory of her was when he was little, she'd tell him to sit outside the bathroom while she washed their clothes by hand and how she would let him go out and play football in the evenings with their Jewish neighbour's kids.

I wish I knew more about her, more about her life, where she came from, because that too, is where I come from. I am her, living in a different era, with different rules, and different people. And in 60 years, I wonder if I will be like her, often difficult, in a world of my own, wandering my home in silence in the dark of night. Will the life I lead share similar trials, similar joys? Will I handle them as she did, with the same fire my Mom says we share?

When I see her now, it feels like the fire is gone. She is placid and smiling. Until my Mom complains of how she suddenly stubbornly insists on doing something her way. Perhaps it isn't gone, just subdued by Alzheimer's. But not the restlessness. She, like me, is constantly restless, much worse at night.

As I write this, I wish she could talk to me, about her life, our afflictions, teach me to temper my fire, soothe my restlessness. But as with some things in life, we have to learn them on our own.

I make a record of all this, so that one day, should I have children, and in the distant future, should they have children of their own, they will know who they are, where they come from, and what history they carry in their genes. Perhaps then I will teach them how to harness their fire and quell their restlessness.