I often fancy a day in which television would be chucked forever out of my life and my future downtown apartment would be filled wall to wall with novels and smart books. I would waste no more valuable time transfixed in front of television set, instead the city skyline and the soft murmuring of radio will direct the attention of my senses. I will share the noise of the upstairs neighbor who will have taken up tap dancing at late hours of the evening; the couple next door whom are forever quarreling and hurling cruel insults to one another; and take in the endless, unsolicited advices from suburbanite that I have been cheated by paying for such small living space when a whole acre is up-for-sale out in the open. I will gladly include the aforementioned deficiencies as part of the package of living alone, nine stories up, from which my identity is represented by gilded name plate and two small square windows that looks over busy intersections.

Realistically, I am sitting in front of an 32 inch television, in a one story apartment unit, my facial contortions alternating from chuckling at TV shows to grimacing by sipping cheap, acidic wine. The big window to my right offered a nondescript, panoramic view of decrepit suburbia, where each single glance is a grim reminder of reality. Exhausted from work and school, pressed by the specter of tuition bill next semester, the Maugham novel, which was started engrossingly a few weeks ago, remain half way unattended. The newspaper was read in subject-heading fashion; the toil of journalists goes to waste day after day. The neighbor from two house down has a voracious appetite for ethnic music, macerating the whole block to his rhythmic gibberish every weekend. I have a long way to go.

Tags: Life, dream, reality, trifle