perdido street station

China Miéville is a genius. When Bossman told me enthusiastically how Perdido Street Station is his favourite book of all time, all I could picture mentally was the cover of the Tom Hanks DVD which sounds eerily similar to the title.

It's not an easy book to read at all. I almost gave up at the second chapter because of the complexity of characters, setting with no explanation or flashbacks whatsoever. Who is who, where is where, what is what... my sleepy morning one-hour tube rides and exhausted evening ones didn't take well to the story. But like a soldier that I am, I trudged slowly through; word by word, sentence by sentence. I began to doubt if I share the same taste as Bossman in books after all. Which, should be the case because I've enjoyed six of his recommended books tremendously.

Then something shifted and I got sucked into New Crobuzon, smelling the pollutant-rich air (ok ok it could be London's public transport), walking among khepris, garudas, Remades, vodyanois, cactus people and sharing their ripe dark fear of the slake moths and nightmares, plotting together and against each other to survive.

I subject myself to two delicious hours of new words, new beings and new dimensions of existence every day... and now that I'm at the final quarter of the book, every paragraph is painstakingly precious. I don't want it to end! But I'm also dying to know the final outcome. Ah, this is what a beautiful book does to you. An empty sense of loss (and longing) and few minutes of displacement when you disengage mind from story.

I challenge you to read Perdido Street Station and not fall in love with it.

brussels

Scold me. Cane me. Unfriend me on Facebook. I'm sorry for the absence. Thanks Gab for bombarding me to come back here from my affair with Facebook. Dammit the fluff-pet thing there is addictive. I'll friend anyone who pets my pet! Come pet come pet.

Back to blogging. I'm back from a weekend in Brussels! I'm recovering from my first cold contracted in cold-and-getting-colder London! I'm gonna continue watching Supernatural Season 2 to make space for the 5 seasons of Futurama that Peter downloaded! Be a good boy/girl and see my Brussels pictures and leave me to faster watch and faster delete my drama series ok?

awwww

I was craving for hot, steaming Chinese food at 9pm last night. Being her typical self, London hid all the Chinese eateries away from sight after 8pm. I ate the chilly bone-searing nightwind instead, trudging along the bustling Oxford Street. (well ended up eating at Garfunkel's but it's not the same!)

This morning I came into work and lo behold! A Chinese takeaway container on my table! My heart leapt and saliva oozed. Could it be for me or some evil colleague chose this very day to accidentally leave the food I crave accidentally on my table? I asked around and got happier and hopefuller as the number of head-shakers increased.

Bossmum looked at me blankly when I asked if she brought me Chinese. Bossman overheard (what's new, the man's omni! -present, -hearing, -tasking and whatever you care to name) and went "Oh! I totally forgot about that! Supposed to put it in the fridge this morning!"

...

I told him he really made me happy for half an hour for nothing.

"But I got it for you!"

...
*vision blurs*

How to not love a boss like that?
Having said that, a telepathic one is kinda scary.

back from bologna

Bologna was great right up to the point when we were at the Italian airport waiting for our flight back. Like your usual friendly low-cost carrier, Ryan Air was late. The airport was small with nothing to eat except weird sandwiches. Nevermind. Then Stansted's passport control had to have this ridiculously long queue at freakin' 12.30am. Having missed the last train back into civilisation, we had to bus it, then cab it separately, and the last member of the posse reached home at 4am.

To add on to my frustration, I stepped on a snail walking to my front door. Sickening crunch, snail squashed, I wiped my boots on the neighbour's patch of grass, crashed into bed fully clothed and woke up with mascara on my pillow and contact lense dried up northwards of eyeball, threatening to lodge itself into brains.

But enough of moaning. Let's rewind a little bit now.

We had a 2-hour little getaway break before heading towards the airport after our Cersaie stint, so Bossman generously shoved us into the main plaza of Bologna - the Piazza Maggiore, fronting the famous San Petronio church. He also tried to get us to eat at the nicest restaurant in town but they close from 3-7pm. Boo. Must give him credit for trying though.

I love Bossman. Even if we had to work in the train. Because he remembers I cannot sit facing the opposite direction. And I love juice. And food makes me happy. And we share a bizarre, warped sense of humour.

bologna

The Whirlwind Called Peter came and left during the weekend. So has Incubus, the main reason Peter flew over (of course there's me, as well) to see them in action and, being the general disorganised person (new busy career-woman is how I like to put it) I am, there were no more tickets when I tried to book some. So I compensated by bringing him to the British Museum and look at ancient, shriveled dead people.

The Wern Yi has moved south to London! Befriended her friends and brother as well. Cool, cool people. Now I know someone in Leeds to bunk with, if the desire to visit ever arises. Funny how people connect and become friends so much faster in a foreign country than our own.

And tomorrow I fly to Bologna for Cersaie.