17. Apparently, my brother and I are attempting a weird kind of record – it’s the fifth straight year we haven’t been able to celebrate his birthday on the actual date. Oh, let our streak remain unbroken next year!

23. In five days, she’ll be leaving for six months. Please return her in one piece, Bangalore.

1. Were you named after anyone?
   Not to my knowledge.
2. When was the last time you cried?
   Three days ago.
3. Do you like your handwriting?
   No. I write fugly.
4. What is your favourite lunch meat?
   Chicken (luncheon meat, be damned).
5. Do you have kids?
   No.
6. If you were another person, would you be friends with yourself?
   Yes.
7. Do you use sarcasm?
   Yes, but often with disastrous results that involve crickets chirping overhead.
8. Do you still have your tonsils?
   Yes.
9. Would you bungee jump?
   It ranks high on my ‘bucket list’.
10. What is your favourite cereal?
    I don’t know.
11. Do you untie your shoes when you take them off?
    No.
12. What is your favourite ice cream?
    Again, I don’t know.
13. What is the first thing you notice about people?
    Their clothes – in first or last encounters, what they were wearing is all I remember.
14. Red or pink?
    Red.
15. What is your least favourite thing about yourself?
    Stammering and speaking too fast when I’m excited or nervous; my arrogance is a close second.
16. Whom do you miss most?
    No one? That’s not the right answer, is it?
17. Do you want everyone to complete this meme?
    Why not?
18. What are you listening to now?
    The whirring of my fan.
19. What are your favourite smells?
    Coffee, hotel lobbies, Estée Lauder’s White Linen, alcohol on a person’s breath, cigarette smoke on my clothes.
20. Who was the last person you talked to on the phone?
    My mother.
21. Do you like the person who sent this to you?
    It’s more of a ‘copy and paste’ initiative, but I do like her.
22. What are your favourite sports to watch?
    Tennis, soccer, American football, baseball, volleyball, cricket (I’m determined to figure it out), extreme winter sports – if you can’t do, watch.
23. What is your hair colour?
    Dark brown.
24. What is your eye colour?
    Black?
25. Do you wear contact lenses?
    No. I had LASIK in 2008.
26. What is your favourite food?
    I don’t have one.
27. Scary movies or happy endings?
    Happily ever after, please and thank you.
28. What is the last movie you watched?
    The Hurt Locker.
29. What colour is the shirt you’re wearing now?
    Army green (with a red star – it’s a Communist China T-shirt).
30. Summer or winter?
    Winter.
31. Hugs or kisses?
    XOXO.
32. Who is most likely to respond?
    Kay-Lene, because her blog needs a break from the melancholy!
33. Who is least likely to respond?
    Too many to count.
34. What book are you reading now?
    I’m struggling to complete three books – Like the Flowing River, My Life in France and Train Man.
35. What is on your mousepad?
    A shark (or a UFO with teeth, apparently).
36. What did you watch on TV last night?
    SportsCenter Asia on ESPN.
37. The Rolling Stones or The Beatles?
    John, Paul, George and Ringo.
38. What is the furthest you have been from home?
    Either Las Vegas, or the Grand Canyon.
39. Do you have a special talent?
    Yes.
40. Where were you born?
    Singapore.

It is my God-given talent that I make any queue in which I am move the slowest. The shortest, the express aisle, the most efficient-looking service person – educated guesses notwithstanding, I ultimately pick the one that takes the longest time. The take-home message, folks: do not, in the name of patience, stand behind me when I’m waiting in line.

By the way, some people do have superpowers, lame or otherwise.

1. Misplaced expectations.
2. Pants on fire.
3. No tennis on TV!
4. Insomnia.
5. The process of starting over.

A writer has a duty and an obligation never to be understood by his own generation; convinced, as he is, that he has been born into an age of mediocrity, he believes that being understood would mean losing his chance of ever being considered a genius. A writer revises and rewrites each sentence many times. The vocabulary of the average man is made up of 3,000 words; a real writer never uses any of these, because there are another 189,000 in the dictionary, and he is not the average man.

Paulo Coelho, of these qualities, you do not have.

It took two years of experimenting, but I have, at long last, contrived a winning formula of fan behaviour, which allows for positive karma to find its way to the court (indulge my nonsense, please):

• No guests outside of family, because blood is proportionate to my level of tolerance.
• No food.
• No access to Twitter.
• No writing of notes for a post-match blog post.
• Talking is only permitted between points and sets.
• Vanessa is the representative psycho for finals – shouting, floundering, spewing of Mandarin phrases I didn’t think she knew, burying of the head in one’s hands, running out of the room when the score gets too close, etc.
• Relegated to nail-biting, Christopher contains the nervous energy.
• Grand Slams have become meditative – I maintain yogi-like concentration and composure (seriously, breathing exercises and the whole shebang).

In other words, we comprise a fun bunch with whom to watch tennis.

Like the Black Eyed Peas foresaw – it was a good, good night. Indeed my most feeble lead-in to a Grand Slam experience, but when a song is being replayed consistently in your head, you cannot merely disregard it and hope another will eventually take its place.

The same can be said about Roger Federer. When he repeatedly produces performances of great éclat, they must be acknowledged; when he shows no signs of diminishing, the cynics should be silent. He is the upbeat in the melody, who, upon appearance, signals a good, good day. 22 Grand Slam finals, 16 titles – they are the echoes that buttress the rock star.

The final was far from “easy come, easy go”. Physical strength and mental conviction in abundance, Andy Murray was an intimidating foe. Unfortunately, when push comes to shove, he only brought out the best in Federer and was unceremoniously outclassed and swept aside. The tempo may have soured with age, but the Maestro is still a litany of tennis beauty and prowess.

It seems wrong – and downright greedy – to demand a Calendar Slam from a player who has already achieved so much, but my fervent belief and optimism say that it is well within his reach. There’s no harm in dreaming bigger, right? “Go out and smash it”!

INVICTUS
William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me
Black as the pit from pole to pole
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced, nor cried aloud
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me unafraid

It matters not how strait the gate
How charged with punishments the scroll
I am the master of my fate
I am the captain of my soul