} people watching

i have a bad habit of watching people.

it's one of the reasons why i get distracted so easily during mass. other reasons include: the church choir isnt that good, the priest talks too slowly (im serious, he drags every single syllable), the people reading the passages talk too softly (and the people around me make too much noise), and im the type of church-goer that never bothers to take the sunday missal book (and even if i do i wouldnt know what page to turn to) so i can hardly follow the readings. but the biggest distraction factor is the sheer number of people around me that i cant help but watch.

its not that im a super busybody or anything, i just think that people are interesting. mr eric tan used to say that he likes to listen to other people's conversations when he's eating in a restaurant, and i guess my habit is somewhat similar to that. i like looking at people's different haircuts, reading the words on their t-shirts, and, if there are no words at the back (because i can only see the people's backs obviously), wondering if there are any words on the front of their t-shirts.

for example, this morning i saw this at the back of somebody's shirt:

IT HAS TO START SOMEWHERE
IT HAS TO START SOMETIME
WHAT BETTER PLACE THAN HERE
WHAT BETTER PLACE THAN NOW
ALL HELL CAN'T STOP US NOW

it sounds like something you would wear if you were in a rebellion or something. quite cool in a kind of scary way. the person wearing the t-shirt was interesting too, cos he looked like how i would imagine Jesus to look like, because he had long curly hair and a beard, even though he looked quite young.

thats the other thing i tend to look out for.. people resembling other people that i know. there was a man sitting on the pew in front of me who somewhat resembled Bono (from U2) minus the leather jacket, because he had shades, rock-star black boots, and he was european. haha.

the man was also interesting in another way, cos he had this small boy with him, who was probably his son. they looked very cute together cos the man would often give the boy a cuddle and a squeeze and... its just adorable. haha.

beside them was another pair of father and son, but the son in this case was already grown up and the father was... old. haha. sorry for pointing out the obvious. they didnt look as adorable, of course, but i thought it was nice anyway cos the son was taking his father to church and all, unlike the lone old women and men i often see in church without their family. its also interesting to think about our reversal of roles, isnt it? we start out as dependent little babies, and soon we grow into (hopefully) independent adults, but in the end we become dependent on other people again. so for the greater part of our lives, we have to lean on the support of others.

and i can go on and on, about an elderly couple who looked familiar but i couldnt remember where i saw them before, and the man who wasnt wearing matching sandals (i wondered if someone stole one half of each of his pairs, or something), and so on and so on. by watching them, it felt like i almost knew them already, and if i saw them on the street my mind would probably suddenly think, 'HEY! you're the Bono look-alike that goes to st bernadette's church!' or something like that.

well anyway after church we went to the national museum to look at the swedish innovative design exhibition, which turned out to be pathetic. there were only a few interesting things, and nothing really worth going all the way there for. lesson of the day: if it's free, it's probably lousy.

2007-01-21, 2:22 p.m..
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