and then it was chinese new year, and so it was true that you never know how much you missed something until you've lost it. everything feels so different these days and i think everything will change when i do return, because i have always been the constant but this time i won't be able to because i am not. so to some extent, i don't really want to return to singapore find a past life i had once loved gone, faded, immolated with the passing of time.

chinese new year was always about sleeping over in grandma's house, watching jackie chan shows on channel 8, waking up at 10 am frantically getting dressed in anticipation of my cousins' arrival, playing host to them, getting them to eat pineapple tarts, chicken curry, abalone (which we would only buy once a year, and that's only if grandma doesn't get them as gifts) with bamboo shoots, ngow hiam, cabbage soup and chinese love letters. it was happifying, lovely, nuclearated and homely.

chinese new year this day was spent with aglio olio, garlic buttered mushrooms, and a chicken karage recipe i pilfered from my japanese chef, with whom i had two pints of beer and a turkish durham the night before; i walked to the nearest telephone booth at 4am, and called home, and heard my grandma and mom clearly over the phone, and somehow in the wintry blitzing cold sunday morning, i felt a certain sense of warmth. there was a box of matches in my left jacket's pocket; i felt like the matchstick boy. except he didn't die in the cold.

or maybe he did.

happy chinese new year everyone, i don't know if i will ever get to celebrate it again.