let lemons be angry

cos you make me talk
and you make me feel
and you make me show
what i'm trying to conceal

I'm imagining watching Mamma Mia a second time, sitting beside you in your glory finer than mine, the polished product of an hour of bathroom preparation and hundreds of dollars spent, and me in my plain black dress. It would be strange, no doubt. Dinner would lose its flavour with me darting glances at people who stare with that upward lilt of the lip: "the young ones." (I hate the stares of women. I hate staring women. The one raised eyebrow, the tiniest trace of a smirk, the unabashed top-to-toe flick of the eye. "how short a skirt." "she thinks she's gorgeous." "how tragically cute." "aw, they're playing grownup." A thousand things are said in that female once-over. I know. I'm guilty of it too.) There'd be too many things to think about for a Show Night. Show Nights are meant to be free from the tangles of homework, quarrels, rushing about, anything that doesn't belong in a theatre hall. My mind would be split into tiny fragments, and i wouldn't be able to laugh at Chiquitita or enjoy the magic energy that is ABBA. Or maybe i'd be laughing too loud, trying to prove myself a fun companion. So it's best that it remains in my imagination, and doesn't lead to more upward slants on the graph that make me scream in my head behind the placid smile, "WHAT'S the name of the game? Does it mean anything to you?" ABBA has songs for every stage of human emotion.

ABBA used to be my nightly thing. I'd put it on and jump on the bed and perform every single song for my amused parents. I knew every line. It's not from my generation, but it might as well have been. It all started with the ABBA competition on Rolling Good Times. Douglas O and Lauretta Alabons, and a blinking jukebox. ABBA got me hooked more than the Carpenters month and the other themed months did. And i'm not the only one. Thanks to a now-defunct local talent show, Singapore has cultivated a mixed-age generation of ABBA lovers who claim this band as part of their childhood when it would not have been theirs to claim at all.

Poor ET's in a bonnet, casting me miserable looks and emitting guilt-tripping whimpers. Josie saw her in the bathroom, a tiny cat with a huge bonnet weighing her head down, and said, "Oh what happened to you?"