One thing I like about being home: I have my own music again, & I’m not at the mercy of Singapore soundtracking my days & nights.

Not that they did a bad job at all. Bjork on the bus. Trains humming pretending to sound dangerous when they’re not. And at Baybeats there was so much music it was sweating out of my pores (& rocket’s palms of course).

But at home I have control over what I listen to, which I need cause I soak up music & literally run on it. It made me really nervous sometimes cause I’d be jittery at 2am when by all human norms I should’ve be asleep. All because the last band on the setlist was the kind to jump to. 7-11 would play hip-hop and I did a silent boogie while waiting for my friends at the cashier. I don’t know why my bones power up to the noise but it does, against my will even.

Running on someone else’s music makes me nervous because I have no idea what I’ll feel next. Whether I’ll feel tired when I should feel tired, or whether I’ll be too jumpy-perky for my own good (I annoyed myself sometimes). It adds yet another variable to the myriad that comes with being in a strange country for the first time. I came back home and put on songs I knew & loved, packed in a playlist of 2 hours of moods to expect, movements thoughts ideas & suggestions that I could at least see coming, and curled into bed happy.

My clean laundry stopped smelling of the hotel room already. I miss it.