Medium Delirium

1. When did dust become the devil? This is a question for me more than anyone else because I am quite the germ freak and a stickler for cleanliness. The baby’s sensitive skin has sent my already frenzied nerves into overdrive, generating a latent anxiety which manifests as a constant need to keep things as clean and dust-free as possible. Perhaps that is all well and good and necessary. Today though, while I was making my rounds across the house dusting all horizontal surfaces, I happened to recall reading Mary Douglas’ ‘Purity and Danger’ at uni, in which she famously posits that ‘dirt is matter out of place’. It’s one of those concepts that are so simple, yet powerful. Soil in a garden is a-ok. Soil that clings to your shoes as you leave the garden and subsequently dislodges itself onto the kitchen floor is not-ok. It is dirt. It must be removed so that a state of cleanliness can be restored. You didn’t mind it in the garden. You didn’t mind it on your shoe. But you very much mind it on the kitchen floor. I remember finding the idea very profound, and still did today as it floated back up from the depths of my memory, but it didn’t change the fact that I continued to fervently hunt down every last speck of dust in my house anyway.
2. Why does acquisition feel so good? Pondered in context of eyeing a pretty little Sezane handbag but wrestling as usual with the thought of parting with a slightly painful amount of cash. Just the thought of owning something new and coveted is enough to stimulate feelings of joy – why so? Not just with things, either. Acquiring time. Clout. Relationships (people). Experiences. We are all so greedy for more of everything, but in a way that feels perfectly human. Is this because capitalistic tendencies flow through our veins? Or is the drive to acquire stuff simply primordial instinct? It’s worth noting here that midway through the pedicure I went on Shopee and bought 3 pairs of lace socks that I absolutely do not need.

Been spending a few afternoons in the CBD area going to and from barre classes. I usually have just enough time to grab a quick lunch and a coffee before or after class, which coincides with the whole world’s lunch hour. The CBD is such a strange place. It’s crowded, and what a homogenous crowd it is. As I sweep my gaze around Amoy Food Centre, every young office chap in a collared shirt and black pants with spectacles and a lanyard draped around his neck blends into the next. The women are mostly well-dressed, but all in the same way, in polyester Love Bonito dresses and with long brown hair flowing down their backs. Every other person’s face illuminated by the mobile screen they’re staring into. The crowd moving in pulses to navigate a traffic junction, each person’s speed mitigated by the person ahead of them, shuffling along in a manner that suggests that nothing about this is new or novel, that they’ve been heading to lunch in this way everyday since time immemorial.

As a teacher, I used to envy friends who worked in the CBD – envied them their air-conditioned offices (which meant you could actually dress nice and put make up on without either being ruined by a deluge of sweat) and fancy lunch meetings and plethora of food options. Unless you step out or order something in, lunch options on a school day can be dismal, to say the least. However, after a few days of eating extremely mediocre (and expensive) hawker food at Amoy, I think I can confidently say that I would much rather eat the yong tau foo from the school canteen everyday than this.

The coffee options are far better in the CBD, of course. And I’ve discovered – much to the detriment of my barre efforts – that Fat Kid bakery and their delicious donuts are just round the corner. What is work without sweet reward? I hide in shame from my weighing scale. Goodnight!