God save us from Pharisees like the letter writer in ST's forum today about how we should persecute gay people (by refusing to validate them) as aberrations of nature. He dared quote Jesus Christ hating such breakers of God's law. Jesus, who ate with prostitutes and loan sharks. Christ doesn't need such a champion, in my opinion.

I wish the righteous would not look on homosexuals as aberrations or anomalies, positive or negative examples which cause variation in statistics. Why do we speak of them in statistical or genetic terms? Doing so distances people, and they are PEOPLE. In all likelihood individuals who have struggled with who they are (who would choose to be a social aberration or anomaly after all?) and come to terms with themselves. They want the same thing as anyone else, like love and family and a normal life. They ARE NORMAL. Not something to be feared.

JD and I had another short night, having gone to bed the night before at 1.30. He took the girls to school but I couldn't drag myself out to go for a run. In slow mo today.

One of the downsides of going from a hectic daily deadline to a weekly, is that it goes to bed with you. I dream about work and if I don't, I wake up thinking about it, anyway.

There was a story in ST today on a survey of countries and how they ranked on material and life satisfaction. I can't remember the exact details but Singapore ranked very highly on material satisfaction but not on life satisfaction. The survey authors (a think tank??) said the problem was a lack of leisure time to enjoy those material trappings.

Isn't that ever so true? I enjoy my job but I wish 1) I didn't have to do it every day 2) I didn't always have to go to the office. There is not enough flexibility. Sometimes one wants to goof off and take the kids swimming, but it's impossible to abandon the job and do so. Come to think of it, kids don't have much leisure time either. So while it is fulfilling to have kids, time with them is fraught by worries and pressures regarding schoolwork. Half the time I'm telling them to study or practise a musical instrument.

I fantasise often about moving to a place where life is slower and yet fulfilling and materially rewarding! Isn't that a wish to have it all? How do you have a big home, nice things, be able to eat out and have holidays every year? Doesn't that mean you have to bust your ass to have those things, unless you were Paris Hilton? Does material satisfaction have to be at odds with life satisfaction? Do you always have to scale back your expectations if you want to slow down?

I wish I knew! In the meantime, I can't sleep without help.

Theresa and I stuffed our faces at Pu Tien tonight. We had far too much food! (Now, see, you can over order and not worry about the expense if you have a wellpaying job...) The fried eggplant with pork floss was awesome. Everything was good as usual, actually. I will miss this food when we move next year!

Getting a cab back was not so easy, but one has come to expect this in Singapore, where taxis are plentiful but hard to come by, for some weird reason!

Went to a wake tonight for May San's sister, Jennifer. She was 60, and had terminal colon cancer. There were no symptoms, May San says. The disease was discovered during a routine health screening which she herself conducted six months ago.

The pastor who gave the homily at the Lady of Lourdes Parlour of Repose told us that one in five people would die of colon cancer. Isn't that frightening, she asked? I wanted to tell her that one in one person would die, fullstop. Isn't that frightening?

As she droned on about the wonderful knowledge they all that death was not the end, I couldn't help wondering why funeral sermons skirt around the horror and tragedy of death. A woman finds out she is ill in January and she can't even make it to Christmas. In the lives of her husband and children, there is now a hole, a huge void that will never be filled. They won't hear her voice again, be able to tell her about their day, or make plans for holidays together. Never. She is gone forever.

It is comfort to think that this is not the end, that there is another life beyond. Perhaps. But the homily skipped past the gut wrenching pain so glibly that I wondered where the grieving could find some solace.

I'm sure everyone went home picturing their own demise. I surely did. Death must be the worst thing anyone ever has to face so the only way to go on living is to pretend it isn't looming.

Mo and I had dinner afterwards at Straits Kitchen, where I had a decent glass of sauvignon blanc before heading home. The funeral wake in our void deck was still there. Isabel slept in our bed tonight. The thought of having a dead body just below our flat creeped her out, she said.

Today was one of those frustrating Sundays where you allow yourself to hope for a day packed with activities and satisfaction (a day off well spent!) which inevitably results in disappointment.

But then it's my own fault for harbouring false expectations when I know that it's not in the nature of our household to be active or pro-active about packing a schedule.

My particular problem is that I tend to sulk, which then makes the day bitter for everyone else.

I had hoped to leave the house by 10 in the morning, thanks to a monotonous but persistent fantasy of having a leisurely brunch somewhere with a book or the papers, kids included. Reality: We didn't get up till 10, me and JD, and it wasn't till 1.15 that we were ready to leave the house, at which point I had already lost the will to live. It occurred to me then that I have difficulty motivating those in my charge to do anything. This includes getting writers to produce work prolifically and in a timely fashion.

With that gloomy thought in my head, I allowed myself to be turfed out of the house in search of food.

As the day turned out, it wasn't bad, though we made some bad decisions, namely to brave Vivo City (after we had narrowly escaped it by having lunch at Spizza in Harbourfront), and Sentosa. It is not my idea of time well spent to dive straight into crowds -- on the sky train, on the beach, in the public showers. I resorted to filling a Snapple bottle under the tap and rinsing my poor shivering children that way, to avoid waiting for a shower and missing our movie at Vivo City.

That was the highlight of the day -- watching Fantastic Four 2 at GV. 1) The airconditioning was a blessing 2) We had Superdog for dinner, snuck into the cinema, JOY. 3) We didn't have to elbow anyone while in our seats.

And there goes another weekend. Note to self: Don't expect this lot to be overachievers for funfilled weekends. And don't sulk. It ruins the hair to have a bad face go with it.