it's a long long road

it's a big big world

we are wise wise women

we are giggling girls

we carry a smileto show when we're pleased

we carry a switchblade in our sleeves

My singapore will be its own chapter, isolated from the time zone where i live. A world where i chose pillows from a menu of 17 (natural buckwheat, porcelain pillow, silk shade...), never opened my own door, spent three hours being scrubbed, polished, hydro-bathed

Where i was safe walking at 10 pm on a mission to photograph the Merlion for my sister and drink a martini on the porch, under a wooden fan, at the Fullerton.

The heat is wet, sweat perpetual; but the breeze never stops, it never drips. The English business traveler next to me on the plane scoffed when he called it "Asia for Dummies." I'm dumb. It's lush and green and palm-treed. Pagoda roofs on stone smooth pillared builidings; it's Gatsby inChinatown. An island of 25 miles and I walked much of it, mostly feeling that dreaming-while-awake thing.

First a woman on the ground, stirring chestnuts over a fire and rice and prawns in a giant metal bowl, hawking them to toursits on the riverwalk. Then Petra, bowing and handing me a robe, speaking only to tell me "i start treatment now," "turn over now, and "is it good?"

Then the too-beautiful slick-black hair locals with suited expats sipping $35 martinis. the business travelers projecting loud important voices to home: "It's oppressive, this heat. I thought i was going to die on the golf course."

All of them here with a purpose, none of them floating like me: somewhere between long days of communicating through translators and taking furious notes in Sao Paulo and Beijing; somewhere beteween married and not.