Riverman under cliff: Whoooo Hoooo!!!!!

It’s Pay Day! Glory be and Hallelujah!

From henceforth the riverman~~~ will be in the black.

It has been a good 6 months since that happened, and the smell of money never seemed so appealing! Around a month or so ago, I was sitting outside my apartment and contemplating my bank account with debits around

three pages long. It’s remarkable how much an unemployed person can spend! Bumming was expensive, but do I regret my furtive foray into song writing; my Lola-showgirl-acts; the weekly crawling around boisterous gin joints; the barrels of alcohol my liver had to process; and not to forget the jabber-jaw gabbing and yacking on the whole-Theory-Of-Everything-shebang at insane hours ?? Naw-way!!

Somewhere in Singapore, the riverman’s~~~ parents are thanking the good Lord above that their eldest child is pretty much back on track as far as their conception of the “Meaning of Life” goes. In fact, their rapture at my venture into “adulthood” extends so far as to sending me a set of six framed family photographs via DHL to deck my walls with! It’s like as if I have been welcomed back into my family! HURRAH!

In fact,

they probably

believe that it will plausibly be just a hop, a skip and a jump from steady employment to the end of my “damnable, depraved, base and unrighteous alternative lifestyle” in the truest sense of the phrase! Well, dream on Mummy… or at least pray on! Maybe a few more donations into the church coffers will expedite my file to the top of the Divine-In-Tray! What’s killing is that after half a year of naggy-nit-picking and poutish-petulance, my Mother imagines that I would fancy her supervising my life from each wall of my apartment!!! I mean - HELLO!!!???...

… but oh well… such are parents!! I do still love them despite all the madness and absurdity they throw at me. Despite all the blackmail, all the pharisaism and all the frustration between us for the past 6 months, they were the last people I saw when I left Changi Airport, the first people I called when I disembarked at Heathrow and the only people I go to sleep really

worrying about.

I worry about the things that any eldest child would worry about - What happens if they fall ill? Who can they go to if they need urgent help? Do they have enough put away for themselves? Will they let me know if they are really in trouble?

What’s really funny is that all the time I spend thinking of my parents is only in relation to worry…and all that worry just stays under my skin and clogs

up my arteries faster than my rate of smoking can. I can’t remember the last time I told my parents I miss them or (god forbid!!) that I love them. Hell, I don’t even remember the last time I sent my mother a Mother’s Day card. One time, owing to a friend’s dare, I sent out an “I love you” text message to my mother. Well, she must have thought it came from a stranger because she never returned the text and has never mentioned it to me. So we go on from day to day... and so I merrily clog up my arteries and my parents dutifully pray… Pretty unhealthy ey?!

So this week, I promised myself to get healthy! A fresh month and a fresh start! I am reminded of Vanilla Sky and the saying - "every moment is another chance to turn it all around...

I started gym classes again yesterday (after two months of delinquence), and today I bought a card for my mother and father… not a very mushy one (I do want them to know it came from me!!)… and I will send a little thank-you message to the two people I can’t stop worrying about! For all the spilt milk on the ground, there is still quite a bit left in the jug! Let's just hope it hasn't gone sour with all my procrastination so far!

I'm still left with the question of what to do with those six framed family photographs though!

Well, maybe... just maybe later on tonight I will hang one of those framed family photographs on my living room wall and stare at it for a long while...