Getting an inkling.

No, not dead. Just terribly busy. And been very...distracted. Mind's all over the place, lingering lambent where it has no business being.

Yes, distracted.

Did I mention distracted?

Well, then.


So, yes. Impulse is a powerful thing. You've lost half your money at BlackJack and...oh FUCK IT. Bet the other half.

Reallyshouldn'thaveanotherdrinkreallyshouldn'thaveanotherdrink. "Uh, share a jug? Sure!" Cue rest of night with head in toilet.

Boy meets girl. There is attraction. They are alone. One innocently whips around to find the other quite a bit closer than expected. Conscious thought fights tooth and claw with primal instinct. Fight? Flight? ...Fuck?

I got my only ear-piercing that way. No, not kissing someone. Those would be really weird teeth. Was waiting for In.Significant, walking about and poke-prodding shops. Ah, piercing shop. Ok PIERCE EAR PIERCE EAR NOW.

...pok.

Was surprised at the lack of feeling. The earring hasn't served me at all badly, though I must say it's tough when infection sets in and you walk about the place with your earlobe the size of a ping-pong ball.

Fitting then, that I get my first tattoo the same way. And while everyone and his pet cat has had their ears pierced, getting a 'tatt (hwah insider lingo) is relatively rare. So hear ye, hear ye, this story of...

Well, not very much actually. Getting a tattoo done is about pain. That's it. The flavours differ, but the theme runs throughout. It'd always been one of those vague crazy notions, getting a tattoo. But I preempt myself. There I was with half a day to kill and on my own, something that's been happening distressingly often these days. Poke. Prod. Tattoo Shop. HMMM.

The place was fairly big, occupying two units on the ground level of a row of shophouses in Geylang. Located, strangely, right next to a tire shop. Possibly, rent is cheap at such places, because I've seen all sorts of weird things next to tire shops. Hair salons, prata shops and cafe/bars. The smell of freshly minted rubber must go hella well with food.

It was the only two-unit shop there, too. Very rare. The district being the prostitution zone of our island that we try to pretend does not exist, most shophouses there that weren't going to have a red lantern on at night were in complete disrepair. Can't blame them I suppose. Can't do straight business in there.


"Mr Richards! It's great to see you. How was your flight? Great, great. Now, do you want to hear our proposal for that international -"

"SERRRR! FUCKY SUCKY? LOVE YOU LOONG TIME!"

"-multi-million dollar contract that we suppose we'll never get now."


But, yes. There I was at inKorporated - a stylish font, with the K brushstroked. Positive vibes, there were. It made an interesting contrast to "Hock Leng Tyre and Rubber Trading" next to it. And beats "Johnny Two-Thumbs" as a name. Sure, Johnny's is famous and seems to be the place to go. But I've never trusted anything too hyped. And why would anyone in the right frame of mind want to be tattooed by a person with an extra thumb?

The outside was all one-way mirrored glass upon which the name was stenciled, terminating in a wooden door at the end. I stroll up to find a surprising lack of the usual badly-photographed samples of lions and lagons. Instead, one of those OPEN-type plastic signs behind the small glass panel of the door said, "You think it. We ink it." How about that, eh?

Was about to walk off. Didn't. Went in. Yeah, the impulse thing.

You go into places with a certain mental picture in mind. At a fancy restaurant, you expect posh-posh lighting, with posh-posh furniture. At Hooters, heck, half the bill is for the cleavage. I went into inK', as I later learn is their abbreviation, expecting...I don't know. Never been in one before. Vague ideas of seedy and smokey. Heavyweight bikers lifting weights. Monkey inna tux dancing in the corner. Really, no idea.

So the sheer...pleasantness of the room I walked into threw me. A fuck-off huge sofa-bed thing against one wall, the only other furniture a largish wooden desk with a computer in the far right corner. Lighting was uh, upward-pointing lamps sheathed with blue glass, against navy-blue walls and the floor was carpeted an even darker blue.

Three framed pictures of tattooed bodies - one on each wall - were the only indication of what the place was about. An artsy monochrome dragon, a technicolour phoenix and above the desk, the Red Dragon tattoo, from the movie:



...which I thought was a really nice touch. No one else was in the room, though. No noises coming from the one other doorway set in the left wall. It led into the one-way mirrored space, which had to be the business area.

"One moment, please. Sorry!" a cheerful male voice chimes from inside the doorway. Yes, that was what he said. You must understand, after countless similar situations of "WAIT AH" and its variations, this stood out.

Water gushes somewhere and a figure emerges, towelling off his hands. In a loose, plain white singlet and jeans, he was lean, muscled and impishly good-looking. Looking a little over my own twenty-four years, he had that unique aura of matured youth. And that casual, out-of-bed look that takes bloody hours to get right, with short, black, tousled hair to match. But you could somehow tell he was one of those bastards that really get out of bed like that.

I considered walking out on general principles. No one should be able to look that good without trying.

Grinning sheepishly, he apologizes. He had to run the place alone this week and was just mixing inks when I came in. Firm handshake. He was Charles, and I was...? Great! One moment.

He quickly strides to the door and flips the plastic sign over. I just had time to make out the other side - a fountain pen within a red circle, a diagonal line across. Like, no smoking sign. No inking!

Bemused, I ask if he was closing up. Not at all, he says, with an easy, done-this-and-had-to-explain-it-before half-smile. He usually ran the place with his girlfriend, Dianne. But she was in Japan for the week, for a tattooists' convention. Inside the doorway, he points, there were only two tattoo studios. They had room for expansion if they needed it, but for now they were quite happy with the space they had to work with. Everything they would need for a session was in each of the two studios, so there was no need to run all over the place for equipment, inks and such.

When etching and especially when inking, you don't want to stop for anything. If you get interrupted, you lose the focus. Not so important for small, simple patterns, but if you were doing something like the pictures on the wall, you work as long as you can without a break, to ensure the colour and definition are all consistent.

So if Charles and Dianne were both occupied, they would close the shop till one of them was free. With just him around, it was done for every customer. That was some dedication, I remark. With a laudable effort at hiding his pleasure, he replies that it was just the way they worked, there.

Cue moment of awkward silence: two young men in singlets standing around, realizing they just hit it off really well with someone they'd just met. Of the same gender. For the longest, most homosexual five seconds of my life, we stood there looking at each other. We were both at a loss and both unused to it.



Don't you just hate cliffhangers like this?

Fancy Nancy.

All these interesting England-English terms.

Over a working lunch, we learn that to over-describe something with hyperbole, adjectives, verbs and other such grammaticulars is a Nancy. Something one of my...elders then said I was good at.

Too much credit, though I do have a penchant for verbosity. Not an advantage on this island. It's all about how short and how fast. Kind of like Chinese men.

Yes, good writing is concise writing. But who can resist the occasional flights of fancy? So yes, we try. The distressing habit of falling arse over tit for the nearest female makes this one fairly easy:

She captivates, with her little eccentricities. The way she moves with a grace; a dancing lightness beyond description. A flower fades, a song grows stale - she is timeless as the wind and sea, as irrefutable a force. In a painful, epiphanic understanding of what the word was created to describe; she is beautiful, beautiful.

Not Nancy enough. I suspect that would involve phrases like "hair the glossed ebony of the raven's wing" and "breasts like jewelled melons". But then where got class, hor? Still, they beat, "WAH THAT ONE SIBEI CHIO LEH."

I swear to various assorted gods, I read those phrases in a children's book of Arabian Tales or something. When I was aged eight or so. Once in a while, I still try to imagine what sort of breast that would look like.

And no, no one in particular. ...I think.


Food's a bit more difficult. It's all been said before and there's only so far you can go before the description starts sounding as phony as a...telephone or something. I'm quite persuadable, with my food. If it's meat and FOR CHRISSAKES DON'T OVERCOOK IT, I'm generally happy.

But I do like my salmon!

There can be no argument: salmon was designed as food of the highest order. By itself, it is rich, smooth and almost creamy - a taste one begs to linger. Though far risen above the petty needs of other meats to be cooked, salmon lends itself with ease to any preparation. From vivid orange streaked with white, it then becomes a pleasant pink, still a delight to both behold and savour.

Poor things. Every bit of them tastes so good, you just can't help but think Nature really had it in for them. Then again, looking at what they have to do to have a sex life, she prolly does.



...you know, I've never liked the name, Nancy.

Enter the Lagon.

Lagon, lagon.

There's American-style bar brawls and ye olde Englishe fisticuffs. All charming in their way. But for sheer style, it's hard to beat Chinese martial arts.

Whether it's Shaolin kung fu or ErMei Shan's uh, Stance of the Wounded Badger or something, there's just this grace and fluidity that runs through the lot. We're talking about the actual stuff here, mind. Not the throw-fireball-from-hands, Street Fighter hadoken fancifuls.

Jackie Chan is good at it. The nose just throws him as a suave character though. Jet Li also quite pro, lah. Somemore got nice stylo name. But who doesn't know the legend that has endured time - the one who brought magic to the screen in an era when computer effects were so many green characters on a black screen - Bruce Lee.

Being of that particular sort of build, it's unlikely I'll ever get impressive bodybuilt mass without enough steroids to make my testicles look like those peanuts they serve with beer. The best bet, as a friend has said, is to go for the Bruce Lee option - thin, hardwired strength, lean and corded.

That one also not likely, lah. He ran a martial arts school, taught fighting and did it for a living. I'm an impoverished copywriter with delusions of grandeur. Fat, to boot.

But one can always admire and aspire. So once again, long introduction-prelude to small shitty Photoshop by your favourite goat. Been a lack of visual stimuli here lately, anyhow.



Yes, I make one. Click for wallpaper in full 1280x1024 glory.

...or don't. See if I care. - does trademark Bruce Lee thumb-against-nose-rub -

Oops, I...

Stealing a moment, here. The office pace has once again stepped up. Does not bode well, no. Though yes, as has been professionally advised by both of the two lovely ladies, the work is the thing keeping the cheques signed. Complain what, lah.

Mr Ancob himself is back. I can tell, you see, by the great heaps of paper that suddenly appear all over the place. Having been taken ill during his vacation, he is rapidly and most distressingly getting healthier.

Bad news. Healthy boss makes for work-long-hours boss. I wouldn't wish a hair off his head, mind. But I think his coming in early to put paper all over the place and then packing it up in the late 'noon to rest works quite nicely. The surreptitious (one of the words I have a great fondness for, yes) coughing and sneezing on him on my part is still holding up. But not for too much longer, I fear.

Then again of course, there's the problem of his staff stealing time off proper work to write nasty things about him on the internet. Terrible people, they are.



...ok, steal a bit more.



Much like the family, the sense of humour is apparently also semi-dysfunctional. Very hit and miss. Added to scoreboard is third attempt that came out flatter than steamrolled squirrel. I suspect I'm setting myself up for a lawsuit proper, next.

Not that it would necessarily be a bad thing, mind. Those seem to do for the selling of written work what Viagra does for the...otherwise indisposed. Comes with a cement truck-load of bad associations and generally frowned upon. Occasionally kills you. But hey - works.

So, yes. Prolly not a good idea to ditch what's paying the bills for a career in stand-up. I'd have the drummer at the back in charge of the da-DUNK chings going, "Uh, tell you wot mate, we'll do hand signals for when I'm supposed to go at it, right?" .

Ah, to have a little bit more Izzard in the blood.