Are normal human beings supposed to be this sleepy? Ironically it is just as crunch time hits that my brain starts stuttering into distraction – the other day I spent half an hour curled up on the couch chuckling at F.R.I.E.N.D.S. jokes online. Me! The number one protestor against using your phone in your free time because it never yields anything productive! At the start of this year I set a self-imposed rule of not using my phone on public transport and as a result I read more books than ever – a record 31 books in five months. But of late I find myself reaching for – not the phone – but some peeling edge of my mind, perhaps? And holding on to it, zoning out, and then drifting into a vegetative state on the train. Is this old age? Is it obnoxious for me to say so yet?
It is now thursday, and I’m sitting in the office after teaching two morning classes at the university and having lunch with an old friend. Sent my boyfriend off to his operation in the hospital – a soccer related injury, the most cliche of cliches, as if there could be any other kind – and then got my nails did a politically correct neutrally anti-aggressive pink for tomorrow’s shoot. A breather, the wild and hopeless search for a dark quiet corner to take a nap in. But public naps in shared spaces are frowned upon, even in a place you dole out rent for monthly. So be it. Later: Vivienne Westwood’s FW16 show, and then to bed! Tomorrow: All day on set for Sephora. Beauty look upon beauty look, the main one being: how not to look like shit when you’re running on three cups of starbucks cold brew and five hours of sleep. Side note: I have begun actually strategising my best routes to work and school around starbucks stops, the quick fixes that seem indulgent but are in reality more necessary than I’d care to admit. And then packing, packing, and Saturday morning – emceeing a friend’s wedding, happiness, joy, and try not to cry, because right after that it’s a half-day shoot for a new client in the studios (but little joys – on set with my clicknetwork team, and that’s the best crew i could ever ask for). Dinner with the crew, or is that pushing my luck? And then it’s the airport, an ambien, and a red-eye flight to Seoul where I’ll be shooting for Laneige and representing Laneige SG for three days at their Global Beauty Camp and marking academic scripts by night. The funny thing is that I’m not even a beauty blogger, just a girl who likes make up. The vanity! My academic persona is always struggling to rationalise the balance in this. Perhaps the answer is simple: different things empower different people, and my empowerment (some of it?) comes in the form of shimmer and glitter and pots of paste you can smear on your lids. It is what it is. And then another red-eye flight, hopefully some wine, and bam. 5am Singapore on Wednesday, 930am lecture in the university. And so the days go on and on.
Don’t think i dont know it sounds crazy. I know. I know. But we are all mad here. The new realisation that comes with being almost 24 is that sometimes being mad should come with a side of sleep. Just a dab, maybe.
Till next time. x
x
♥jem