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This is wine country. Adelaide was where Dionysus laid down to rest, they say, his warm genitals nestled amongst her verdant valleys. The god of wine spills abundance all over the land. A stranger would never thirst here nor be lack of good cheer, her people are friendly to the point of amusement. Neighbours tumble together to pass the early evenings away, wrapped up in each other’s rustic charms. Her city hasn’t much of a nightlife to offer, so why not simply frolic away at the farm?
She has been here almost six years. She came to study medicine. It’s a vocation, not just a career, she tells herself and anyone else who would listen. She doesn’t want to be a doctor, not just a doctor. She wants to help people. Still. It’s almost impossible to bear. Time decides to take the scenic route in Adelaide. Feels like sixty years, really. Almost unbearable.
This really is wine country, she thinks, looking down at her glass of Merlot. He would love it here, he knows everything there is to know about wine. More than she cares to figure out on her own anyway. Good wine, bad wine, how do you tell? There’s something pleasing about letting him choose the wine and have him ramble on about its age and bouquet and colour and all the other clever terms she deigns to appropriate into her memory. No, she’ll leave that to him. She guards her memory like a dragon hoarding rare treasure, filled to the brim with medical terminology and every single detail of him. Precious.
We’ve been together for longer than I’ve been here, here in this wide open country, yet just a big island, really. We’ve been together so long and yet I’m still infatuated. It’s ridiculous. Me on my big island and him on his small one.
My Singapore Boy, she whispers into the wine goblet, my beautiful Singapore Boy. She has seen someone blow the smoke from a cigarette into one once, filling its crystal curvatures with swirling silk. Wisps of something ethereal, something otherworldly. You could cross worlds, cross an entire sea. She wonders, if she attempts the same, would she see him, lost in the smoke and mirrors?
Instead, she takes another sip of the Merlot. It never tastes as good here, even in the middle of wine country, not without her Singapore Boy. It used to sour her palate so but she’s past that now. Now she simply smiles thinly and dreams of the day she stops being his Adelaide Girl. The day she becomes his Singapore Girl instead.
One day. Her smile widens and she finishes the Merlot. Good wine.
.
For Jun and her Singapore Boy.
50 Comments
Credits: Design by Kenny Mah. Doll face (”Blue“) by Penny Mathews. Label from bottle of plum wine unattributed.
I’m basking in the abundance of free time….enjoying the fact that I owed no employer any duty to put my mind and soul into work. And reading your blog, baking goodies, watching tv , hitting the gym and playing with my dog are part of “duty” to living a life, free from the working world.
I enjoyed it.
Shucks….Kenny, I can’t write like the way I talk…. :P,
Reading your entries makes me feel like I’m Alice (as in Alice in the Wonderland), lost in a world unknown and foreign to a “bean counter” . The above para….is written by the Alice….rambling in her dreams.
Anyway, this latest entry is really nice….particularly the part on letting “him” choose the wine and talk his talk on “its age and bouquet and colour and all the other clever terms “…..
You don’t write anything plain, do you? Deep!
» MH
Man, I wish I’m living YOUR life right now. Sadly, I do have an employer to account to, and have been neglecting the gym and giving far too much attention to consuming baked goodies rather than actually baking them (darn that Hokkaido Fair @ Isetan and their cheesecake-thingies-in-those-nifty-boxes!), though I’m sans cute little doggie, if that is any consolation.
But I’m enjoying my life too.
Strange that you mention Alice in Wonderland — I’m thinking of writing my own version of her… but you can’t beat Caroll’s level of weirdness, really, so why bother, eh? I’m glad you like Adelaide Girl though.
» Legolas
Plain enough ma… It’s about wine lor. LOL
(Just kiddin’.)
oh. wow… beautiful piece. beautiful story, beautiful city, beautiful wine.
(but, i remember adelaide’s full of flies. arrghh….)
» keropokman
Flies?? On account of what the cows produce, issit, from their rears rather than their front?
I like that design. You drew that girl or is that Barbie?
» Kookymonsta
That’s an actual doll photographed by Ms. Mathews (refer credits above), then later Photoshopped by me. Not sure if the doll is a Barbie though…
omg kenny!! i dunno wat to say!! “his warm genitals nestled amongst her verdant valleys”? *bwahahahaha… * u got me crackin’ up thr!
okok, this should read as a wistful post, but for some reason, i was laughing. not so much at u, tho, but just at the way u bring the subtle wit into the post. “Feels like sixty years”? hell, yeah!
but reli, seriously, this is sooo sweet!! so sweet can get diabetes ok! -__- then i’d have to self-medicate and it’ll be all ur fault ;p
nonetheless, thank u, kenny! shit altho i try hard not to be mesmerised by ur eyes, ur way with words simply take my breath away… *hugs*
oh, and just so u know, i love my moet more than my merlot
KM’s into dedications these days…
» Jun
My eyes? Mesmerised by my eyes? These are my eyes we’re talking about, eh? You must have drunk way more Merlot, er, Moet than I had imagined.
But your reaction is a perfect one. Why not humour? I was just telling my musician pal Yuri the other day the best of part of blogging is seeing all these different ways people will read my writing. This is hilarious! LOL
*hugs*
» A Lil Fat Monkey
What can I say? People inspire me…
Adelaide n Singapore. Sounds just passionately correct . But how long is it gonna take before Melbourne bekons? Afterall ,
time n seasons change many things knowing even Suzie Kwan was japped when he wasn’t looking
» backStreetGluttons
No Melbourne, no Kuala Lumpur. No Munich, no Jakarta. Just Adelaide and Singapore, a lovesong across the sea…
aww… this is a really sweet piece!
and that doll photo is amazing! me likey the eyes…
» lingzie
Heh, I like the eyes too, but certain parties have informed me over brunch today that they find them creeeepppyyyy…
LOL
so while she sips her wine.. somewhere, across the seas, he chugs his singapore sling and leaves the party .. and says to himself.. man what a good boy am i.. !
» cumi&ciki
LOL!!! Hehe, well Singapore Boy best behave while Adelaide Girl’s all a-sippin’, wine or no wine…
I’m a Melbourne girl.
» Jemima
I’m a Malacca boy. Melbourne meets Malacca?
kenny, are u going to be their wedding planner?
A Barbie Gal doctor!
» zewt
Haha, that’s a question better left to the merry couple…
» Paul
Doctor yes. Barbie gal, uhm, maybe not…
Adelaide not very far from Melbourne right? Haha
» gina
True, that, also.
yes..the abundance of wine..pity the 1st wine that i loved to appreciate, the pinot noir..is damn hard to get around adelaide, blame the weather..
» lotsofcravings
There’s something rather wistful and nostalgic about your statement, Joe. Our first love is almost always the best, ain’t it? At least within the alcoholic vapours of a blissfully drenched memory…
Don’t blame the weather, blame time and time again. Sighs…
I hope the doctor I see will view his/her profession as a vocation and not just a career!
*slips her glass of wine*
» daphne
Hehe, I have to admit most of the doctors I have encountered do see it as a vocation in addition to it being their career. It is truly one of the noble professions.
P.S. Was that a typo (”sips”) or are you trying to slip the good doctor a glass of wine? May not be a great idea prior to the examination, ahem.
So deep but very romantic…
I got my sexy love too.. 
» equilibrium2008
Let’s we all get that, all of us…
Yeah, I think when you’re in love you can write very well. Like I can write a story of someone which is just a product of my imagination.
But I think I write well if I am down. But i don’t want to feel lonely again. 
U can really spin anything into a story. For me it would be ‘he likes it, I still think it’s vinegar. The end.’
i think my previous comment kena cut or something…technical error…
niways, as i was saying: is it the literature-declined me or does “warm genitals” in adelaid really mean the grapes ar? *blushing*
jun, very easy to become a singapore girl. just get the form from SIA.
seriously though, kenny, very beautiful dedication there. insightful, as usual. and you’ve beautified my perception of adelaide. definitely.
» equilibrium2008
No one truly wants to feel lonely. That is perhaps why, whether we are in love or not, whether we are currently partnered or not, we want to communicate our feelings to others, to connect somehow.
Writing is one way, simply talking is another.
So let’s all talk to someone today. Really talk and open up.
» Tummythoz
LOL! Well, we don’t all have to like what our partners like… Goodness knows, if we had to, it would be the end of the human race as we know it. The Horrors!
» Nic (KHKL)
Are the warm genitals “grapes”? Most people usually find the metaphor the other way round. You truly have food on your mind, bro, if you can see food in everything, even in giant testicles!
As for applying to be an SIA Singapore Girl, I think I prefer Jun as she as… just one of her, more unique ma. Not to mention there’s some minimum height requirement or so I hear…
hahaha..given time then i would have bought more pinot noirs and drink merrily for many years to come isnt?
OMG! this is sos o fun, & fun to read too . . . I basically knoew it was Jun, yes Jun the Doc in making, wow! just love it muahahahahaha!
By the way, is that Jun…..lololololol ……….. where you got this photo so cute lar!
» lotsofcravings
We, my friend with so many cravings, should drink together one day, merrily pondering the good years to come, in lands near or far… Heh.
» Big Boys Oven
Does the pic really look like Jun? Hmm, then I guess I picked the right picture then.
Been a while since I was last here! Beautiful words, beautiful images
» Mag
Welcome back!
Were those words projected on Barbie’s face or what? For a while, I thought it was Shanghai…then rub my eyes again and said “CANOPEEEEE”…….it was Adelaide throughout the post. Then I realized my eyes were too tired! :O
» tigerfish
Hehe, let’s just say I “projected” it on her face — to show the transition from Adelaide (the angmoh doll) to Singapore (the Asian characters). Poor tired eyes of yours… *hugs*
wrt ur reply to nic: eh, flying docs need no min height requirement, hor? *grin* i suppose i could still apply to SIA then ;p
wrt ur reply to bbo: eh i reli look so scary meh? T___T
wrt ur reply to tigerfish: i hope u din imply that i was “ang moh” too ;p the bf once said that i was a VIP– very imporTED person wtf -__-
anyhow kenny, i think u’ve got a funny bone in u these days– ur dedications are tickling me pink ;p keep them coming! i need a healthy dose of laughter in winter
» Jun
Aiyo… you also very the farnie lah… instead of replying to the reader’s comment, you’re replying to my comments to their comments? Wah, that’s like 2-3 degrees of separation oredi…
Anyhoo, let’s see how long this funny bone lasts before I return to my Throne of Emo.
y do ur posts always maketh me think… me no like thinking… but i really like the way you weave ur words that keeps me guessing and scratching my brains out trying 2 figure out wat the heck u’re trying to say (don’t laugh.. try reading ur posts while picking up tickets… a real nightmare ok… ) but i wouldn’t hv it any other way…
wen wanna meet up yamcha again??? it’s been a while since we first met…
» asstha
Reading my posts while picking up tickets? You mean you read my blog on your mobile? How very cool!
And if it’s any consolation, I don’t intentionally go round writing stuff so folks would crack their brains figuring them out. It ain’t that complicated lah…
Yamcha sounds good but not in the near future. New job and my friend’s wedding to plan and trips down south… Too much on the agenda di…
no la… i’m reading ur blog @ work via google reader as told by u… so no time to think so much between work n reading n thinking… mind can only focus on one area at a time…
awww shucks… don’t stay away for too long then… hope 2 see u soon… but dun wait til nxt year k???
» asstha
Hahaha, the last time I promised someone I wouldn’t take till next year, a good six months passed! Ah, it’s not easy managing my schedule by myself. I need a personal assistant, I do!
*sigh*… n i hv someone else waiting for me to get an appointment with u so that person could meet d both of us… *shucks*… i ain’t telling u who that person is…
» asstha
Wah, so mysterious leh… who is this person? The suspense is killing me!
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