nautilus: a jaunt of dropping jade

eleven

2011-11-11T23:11:00.000+08:00

nuit

2011-10-25T00:00:00.000+08:00

argh!

2011-09-19T14:42:00.001+08:00

2011-08-08T22:14:00.001+08:00

idon'tlookdifferent.

Through a lens is not a way to live your life

2011-08-02T13:42:00.006+08:00

You can't be in the moment when you keep trying to get a picture of it. It doesn't stand still. It is a moment and like all moments it is here and then it's gone. If you are lucky enough to take a picture of it, then you have a picture. But you're not in it. You've missed it. It's not coming back or stopping for anyone, not even you. Sometimes, we don't need photographs. Let's leave our cameras at home, and get out of the house the way we did back when we were children. No artifice. No false anticipation of reward. Let's be wide-eyed instead of fish-eyed. Let's live through this beautiful mess of a place, rediscover it all over again. Let's go through experiencing lost keys, sunsets, broken teacups, the Eiffel Tower, the birth of a child, fireworks, kisses, cherry-popping, island-hopping, rule-breaking, making everything even (oh especially!) love without having the weight of anything but the lens in our eyes. It is all we really need. Eyes to see. Us to be. Life is for living, let's leave photography for professionals and let's be amateurs in life together, okay? No picture can make up for how this feels.

2011-06-10T21:49:00.004+08:00

there is a big difference between being generally well-liked and being genuinely liked. don't fault me for wanting to be the latter. you be the social butterfly, shoo!

2011-06-05T14:19:00.002+08:00

Abstain from hesitation, for in that devilish spell of fumbling, kingdoms are lost and lovers are stolen.

No Decent Title; Or I Used To Think Of Pretty Good Ones

2011-05-05T12:43:00.006+08:00

I am tired. I am weak. I am always so angry all the time. I envy little children their innocence and time and potential-- their lack of life-altering choice. This isn't what I imagined being a grown-up would be. This isn't where I expected to be at twenty-one.

Last week, as I was watching Glee (because I watch that show now), something a character said struck me hard. It was Emma, the trophy "damaged" character, although personally I think all of them are damaged. She has OCD, and in denial about it. It's quite frankly made her turn to a dead end, although it could very well be a cul de sac, you know Hollywood, but I digress. She asked when it was okay to look back on your life with nothing but regret; and was thirty-two too young?

I am turning twenty-two this year. I don't think that's too young. I think I have enough regret for a couple of thirtysomethings. Some days I am okay with this. Needless to say, today isn't one of those days. Maybe days is an understatement. I've been feeling like this on and off for the last couple of weeks, probably accumulative to a few months. Time doesn't really register when you're in denial, or delusional, or deluded. One of those, maybe all. I have a bizarre relationship with adjectives, and punctuation, and my mental thesaurus.

Looking back on my life is painful for me. I don't know if this is the same for everyone. I dwell too much on my missteps, mistakes and mishaps. You see, alliteration is a thing with me too. And digression. Is that even a word now?

I take too much time in memory, or daydreaming of a brighter, easier tomorrow. I am never really where and when I am. I'm allergic to reality, to the present, to biting the bullet and taking life by the horns and either buckle under it or triumph. I am not the person who takes everything on. Sometimes I do it, but I am only trying to prove that I am not who I am. Do you even understand that? I try fooling myself into believing I am strong. It doesn't really work in the end. My advice to you is not to try that road. It is not a cul de sac (I will not italicize, note that previously that was "italize", I make up words), it is a dead end.

Procrastination and avoidance is the name of my game. If hurt, it is retribution. I am not a good person, but I really do try. I don't pretend that way. But sometimes, I'm not sure because I pretend to smile and laugh sometimes too. I get carried away with my pretending, but I know when I'm pretending. Does that make sense? I never do fool myself in that way, and if I do not for long.

Let me tell you something: I don't know what I'm doing. If only I can go back to when I was seven, or eight, or even nine when life was an open book and all the answers were just inside my mouth.

2011-05-03T13:25:00.002+08:00

imagine all the beautiful stories

we could have read

had so many people

not given up

on chasing clouds.

2011-05-03T13:24:00.001+08:00

I don't like sushi. I don't like my fruit baked, like in pies. I don't like my coffee flavored, or foamy or unpronounceable. I don't like manicures. I don't like the color orange. I don't like sunglasses. I'm weird. I don't like a lot of things. But I like you and we're friends. I hope that's enough. :)

Metazoa: Chordata

2011-03-14T12:35:00.002+08:00

I've always thought I loved birds. They can fly, fly, fly to the sky so high and never fall. But they do. They fall. Owls, hummingbirds, seagulls, all of them. And I do like them sure, but I love fish. When I die, and if it was possible, I'd return as one. I love the sea, it makes me feel weightless. It hides me and comforts me. It used to lull me to sleep and it caught a lot of my tears. When I was younger, on our Sunday trips, I never wanted to leave even when I looked like soot. I'd pretend it was where I belonged. It was in the water that I first told my first story. It was where I lived my first story. And I have wanted to be a fish before, and have just now remembered. I've forgotten so much, and it makes me so sad. But when I do remember, it gives me a sense of hope that things really are okay, that the world isn't really that ambiguous, and life is still possible. This world isn't that small, but the ocean is huge. It swallows people whole, it has so many secrets. It holds many of mine. Fish belong in that ocean. They know it. They live in it. They are alive in that beautiful blue, and green, and clear. They show me that no matter how deep you go, it is still possible to rise above and feel the sun again. You can always go back.

T is You: HHBTY!!!

2011-03-10T00:01:00.002+08:00

"And one by one the nights between our separated cities are joined to the night that unites us."

-Pablo Neruda

-----

It's been a while since we last saw each other. More than a year. Many, many news cycles and in fact, that Mindanao thing is old news. And everything is forgotten. But not really. There is no forgetting, as old Pablo keeps saying in his green ink.

Many days I wonder how you are. More days I hope you are well, that you are better, that that heart of your is keeping herself well too. I hope that your dreams aren't just in one person, or two. I hope your dreams are the entire world and that you are steady, that you are heady, and you are ready for all of them to say yes.

And most of all, I hope you are happy, so happy that you can throw out that book with the force of your joy. That, even if you read (and write), your smile will linger even when people look away. I hope there is more light in the world you find yourself in, in the world you are everyday making. I hope life treats you well.

I wish you all good things, because these are all that you deserve. You should only have sunshine, and sweet-smelling flowers, and a swaying breeze to keep time to your song. But it is such great comfort that even if this isn't so-- even when there is rain, and skunks and thunder and lightning that you are where you are. That this world has you, and even if you are not here, you are somewhere. And the world is better. You are here.

And even if you are older, even if you cut your hair, or change your name, or have children and grandchildren, you are you. However life changes, or the increasing number of candles you blow, you are Tee, and you are you. And happy is how you make many people. People will make it up to you.

So, Tess Marie Pangilinan Tan of Pagsabungan, Mandaue, Cebu City 6000, prepare yourself. This year? It's going to be legendary. :)

2011-03-08T13:08:00.000+08:00

"Sometimes I have the feeling that we're in one room with two opposite doors and each of us holds the handle of one door, one of us flicks an eyelash and the other is already behind his door, and now the first one has but to utter a word and immediately the second one has closed his door behind him and can no longer be seen. He's sure to open the door again, for it's a room which perhaps one cannot leave. If only the first one were not precisely like the second, if he were calm, if he would only pretend not to look at the other, if he would slowly set the room in order as though it was a room like any other; but instead he does exactly the same as the other at his door, sometimes even both are behind the doors and the beautiful room is empty. "

- Franz Kafka

2011-03-04T06:18:00.003+08:00

there's so much hate in the world

and the maddening crowd is beside itself.

let's trump all of them.

let's love a love so grand

it explodes.

thoughts underground

2011-02-18T02:36:00.003+08:00

And then he woke up.

All the things that happened. The girl he just met, the woman she became, all of their children. How could all of this have happened in a night? It was impossible. But then, he woke up. And everything was the same as he left it, but wasn't. It wasn't the world he left. Rather, it wasn't the one he wanted to return to.

But the sun was out, and he was late for work. And he needed to do his laundry this month. So many things to do, so many debts to pay. No place for dreams. But maybe tonight.

----

made during a commute

in the metro red line.

2011-02-15T18:36:00.002+08:00

I still haven't gotten around to making those letters yet.

Nuovo Bene: To Keep, Again and Again and Again

2011-02-14T13:14:00.004+08:00

Because I am always late to everything, and the day I'd be early to anything would be the day of my wake, I am making this late. I know resolutions barely mean anything at all to anyone anymore, and I've never really had any before. So I guess I am making up for the lack of them this year. Not everything will be accomplished I know, and yet in the making of them I have found great joy and comfort.

I made these while waiting in a cafe for my ride earlier today. I find that I do like making lists. Naturally, this one is not short. But it makes me quite happy, to have all this out of me. The act of writing it down, all those numbers, the sound of pencil scratching paper, reminded me of everything I've missed these past few months of harried schedules, moving about, work and hiatuses. I do like it here after all.

So anyway, here:

Act your age.
Use your real voice.
Be yourself.
No more apologies.
Tell the truth. Especially when it is hard.
Give being healthy a try. A good one.
Be smart again.
Stop feigning ignorance.
Stop feigning knowledge.
Come to terms with age.
Walk places.
Forget the un-lived life. Live this one.
Don't bite off more than you can chew.
Take your time.
Stop going with the flow.
Learn Italian. Slowly.
Take necessary steps for emancipation.
Redeem yourself in your own eyes.
Learn how to make a real film.
Reconnect. Connect.
Stop avoiding complications, it's futile. They will always be there. Deal. Take.
Find your place. Expand it.
Stop saying "never". Stop saying "maybe".
Be deliberate.
Become the kind of person you admire.
Learn old ways. Sew. Knit. Jar your own preserves.
Work your butt off.
Don't sleep so much.
Stop being a mimic. Stop being a mirror.
Let go of the love you expect. Accept the love you deserve.
Start small. It's okay to start small.
Drive. Take a trip by yourself. Get lost again.
Paint.
Learn knots.
Start planning for your businesses. Be concrete.
Use your bank account. Deposit. Invest.
Write. Read. Elaborate in less words.
Be simple.
Cleaner. Always be cleaner.
Make your bed. Everyday.
Laundry. By hand.
Save for what you need. Invest in the best.
Accept nothing by coercion. Accept nothing by fear.
Stand up for yourself.
Tell it like it is.
Pick your battles.
Understand religion. Understand faith.
Learn like a grade-schooler. Go back to basics. Do maths. You are bigger than numbers.
Throw out all things unused.
Cultivate patience, overcome tribulation.
Educate yourself. Don't be afraid to know.
Eat more vegetables. Eat as much greens as grains.
Do something creative. "Waste" your time in something that makes you happy.
Stop trying to make people like you.
Sing. Don't hold back.
Do not embellish. No more make-ups. No more stories. No more excuses.
Do not sacrifice for other people's sacrifices. Let them do it.
It's okay to harden your heart when it's been too soft. Make it steady. Make it firm.
Accept help. Ask for help. You are not perfect. You cannot do everything.
Dip your lower half in culture. Your upper half in forethought.
Invest on the things you want.
Record your experience. Remember your days.
Learn more about your family. Ask the questions you never asked.
No more hiding. No more being in a rut.
Love people again.
Stop being so sun-shiny. Be shiny when you feel like being shiny. It's okay to just glimmer. You hate sparkles anyway.
It's okay not to finish your plate. Don't force-feed. It's better to waste, than in your waist.
Accept inconsistency but never hypocrisy. Stop making excuses for others.
Hyphenate your life. Be more, do more, than just one things.
Ask questions. Relevant ones.
Move things along.
Be more than just a girl. Be a girlfriend. When asked, say yes.
Write a roman a clef. Learn punctuation, French style.
Exercise your memory.
Swim. Learn a low-impact sport. Think of your knees.
Redecorate your life.
Write letters. Send postcards.
Find a secret keeper.
Try being ambidextrous.
Pay.
Get paid.
Learn gardening, it is complicated.
Help people. Visit prisoners or something. Stop thinking about what other people will think. Do this because it's good for the soul.
Stop all the catastrophic thinking. PLEASE.
Manage your time.
Know the human body, inside out. You used to love Anatomy.
Make peace with germs. Everything is dirty-- except a surgical wound.
Invite people in.
Understand yourself. Go on a date.
Go to Santa Monica Pier. Big Bear. Try the Goliath. The Orange Line. Take a picture with the Hollywood sign. Discover your city. Be touristy.
Try everything once.
Get a tattoo.
Buy something vintage. Something blue. With flowers. With a sun. A rose. A watch.
Learn how to press flowers.
Satisfy your curiosity.
Desire change.
Stop counting.
Cut your hair short. Even if it's unflattering. Get it out of your system. Learn to curl.
Accept your class. Be the first. Be the last. Be the in-between.
Run. Run to everything you fear.

2011-01-11T12:39:00.002+08:00

I am moving here after graduation.

Even with the cold, and all the snow.

Because I need a change.

A fresh start.

A real one this time.

Eleven To Forever

2011-01-11T08:34:00.003+08:00

I am so tired of grief. Please. Take care of yourselves this year. Please make sure that when 2012 comes and goes we will laugh at our silliness, at the idea that this world would ever end. Please let's be together when it does end. Let's make a pact. No one dies this year. Everyone, please stay alive. Yeah. Okay, cool. Thanks.

2011-01-11T07:56:00.004+08:00

bravery is when you know that loving someone means you will lose them eventually, and yet you love them anyway.

g/b

2011-01-09T15:48:00.003+08:00

i'm scared.

i know you are.

this could be very painful.

yes, it could be painful. you can hurt me but i am willing to get hurt.

do you say this to all the girls?

i may have. in another lifetime. but it was probably to you.

okay. yes.

Song At My Deathbed

2011-01-07T15:19:00.002+08:00

I was at a funeral the day I realized
I wanted to spend my life with you
Sitting down on the steps at the old post office
The flag was flying at half mast
And I was thinking 'bout how
Everyone is dying
And maybe it is time to live

I don't know where we're going
I don't know what we'll do

Walked in to the thrifty
Saw the man with the hollow eyes
Who didn't give me all my change
But it didn't bother me this time
'Cause I know I've only got
This moment
And it's good
I went to the gas station
Old woman honked her horn
Waiting for me to fix her car

I don't know where we're going
I don't know what we'll do

Laying in bed tonight I was thinking
And listening to all the dogs
And the sirens and the shots
And how a careful man tries
To dodge the bullets
While a happy man takes a walk

And maybe it is time to live

2011-01-06T03:59:00.000+08:00

That felt good.
It's nice to be back.

Open

2011-01-05T13:17:00.004+08:00

It feels like I've abandoned this place. And I have. I left it, and I do visit but I come hesitantly. With extreme caution. Like a child would, when she goes to her mother's room to steal the key to a room where children aren't allowed. Like a girl caught kissing her best friend's brother.

I got caught.

It feels like it anyways. I've always gone about pouring my darkest thoughts and deepest held musings here in the premise, in the well-heeled knowledge, of it being just me. It being kept. It being between me and the people I've shared this place to. It being as secret and insular as a walled garden being brought back to life. Of never being discovered.

Suffice it to say, it didn't turn out that way. I got caught. Why on earth would anyone in my family Google me for crying out loud? I am not the kind of person you use a search engine for. It's freaky and people need to get a life and learn game theory or something! Not rob me of my most holy place.

I am ranting. It's good to get that off my chest.

It was not done intentionally. I am positive about that. But the quoting was. And the questions. And the exclamations of great surprise. There are no disclaimers here, and not everyone would understand. Especially the people from the many different lives I keep from each other.

I am quite private-- about what I really think, how I really feel. I can be secretive, and I keep a lot of other people's secrets. I am a keeper. I hoard stories, I keep everything close. I watch, and listen. I observe. I let life pass me by. I tell stories, but I don't want to be a part of them. I don't want to be told, I tell.

So imagine my distress. I was horrified. I tried to do damage control. I stopped. I felt betrayed. No, that's not the word. I felt exposed. No. Disappointed. Embarrassed. Stumped. Yes, but no. I felt violated. That's it. Violated and stupid.

I always believed that there was a paradox in the glass house that was the internet. Sure, it is open to most everyone. Sure nothing can be deleted from it, or retrieved in any tangible way. Nothing is really private, and everything is out in the air. Everyone is able. And yet, it's hard to find something when you don't know where it is. Harder yet if you don't know it exists. And there lied my hubris. Nobody knew hence nobody would know.

I was wrong of course. I guess it's different in Europe. I abhor Linux now. Sort of. Not really.

Now, I'm trying to recuperate. Convalesce. It is sounding more and more like a hypocrisy, all my reasons in my head. They looked for me, they found me, so the fucking what? You got more than you bargained for? Not my fault. You learned something more about me. Isn't that what you wanted? We're not dead, no harm done. Let's be philosophical about it. At the very least I'm giving you the finger, forget you.

I am free. I am me. I am a bitch. I am kind. I am whatever I want to be. And I can very well damn write about it. Hello 2011, ain't this nice? Let's get gritty. Open up and swallow me whole.

How To Be Alone

2011-01-05T13:05:00.006+08:00

I feel like this, and I am glad I'm not the only one.

To be like this.

To feel like this.

To be okay with this.

To see that this can, and is, beautiful.

And the things you discover,

And the person you become,

And the places you wouldn't have gone to

If not for being by yourself, wouldn't be.

I am so happy.

I am so glad.

Being alone will never be lonely.

Ever.

hey, soul sister

2010-12-29T13:35:00.005+08:00

i am hugging you right now... across and over this irrelevant world. ♥

2010-12-19T16:59:00.001+08:00

You people are all crazy, and I love you.

The Curse

2010-11-02T12:59:00.005+08:00

There is no way I can live through this again.

Life sometimes throws us unexpected punches and so we get a little banged up. But sometimes you know the iron fist is heading for your unadorned head and yet you fail to grasp the timeliness of the situation, the vulnerability of your consequence, and KA to the POW... BAM!!! Off with your head. You got banged up because you're stupid. But not too stupid to have used "your" ey?

I am going to school again. And going through this again. While working. And getting on with my life. Why does anyone need a degree anyway? I don't. It doesn't measure the entirety of who I am, and how many ccs my brain is. I want to defy convention. But I am succumbing to it. AGAIN.

I want to stop this for a while you know? I want to languish. I want to have a year of sloth. Which is funny in some sense because it would come after a year of void.

Honestly, I just want to be left alone.

September 19, Sunday

2010-09-25T13:01:00.004+08:00

I thought I left most of my darkness when I left. I thought that all I would have were grey days and a little rain. I thought I left my darkness when I left. These past few months of reprieve were so beautiful. The freedom was exhilarating, and the world was new again. The weightlessness was something I have never had, the light in everything was something I have never experienced.

But it never really turns out this good. This world hasn't cured me of my naivete yet, and it was just biding its time. I can never really escape can I? Because wherever I go, I am always bringing with me myself. I am always with me. I can never be free.

Now I know what I have never known in my deepest despair during those terrifying months this time last year. And it's amazing how it really was this time last year, I don't know what's the matter with September. I thought I had vanquished this part of myself. I thought I would never have to be afraid of my own thoughts. I thought that I could be trusted. I thought I could trust myself.

But I was wrong. It seems I am always wrong.

It seems I didn't know darkness at all. Then it was just dense fog. This is darkness. I should have been afraid of this. I should have made myself ready for this. But I didn't and I'm not. And everything is rushing back, it's like I'm back where I was before, in my bathroom, typing like mad to distract myself from the plethora I have assembled just within my grasp. And they are all here; pills, sharps, insulin. More than enough. I was strong enough then and I am strong enough now. I am strong enough now. I am strong enough now. I am. I am. I am stronger than myself.

How did they find me here? How did I get back to this depth like I never left? How do I always play the same role in the same story with the same people? Why do these things keep on happening to me? Am I not a good enough person? Don't I try hard enough? Why do I keep disappointing myself and other people? Why do I even try? Why do I always fail? Why can't everything just be perfect anyway? Why do I fuck things up so bad? This bad? Why can't I stop myself from being so terrible? Why can't I stop doing things wrong? Why am I being punished? Why can't I be happy and steady and free? It's is not much to ask for this is it? Why can't I jut stop hoping for things to ever change?

I am so tired of fighting, all the time. I really was kidding myself when I believed that I was ever free of this fervid, dank night. I knew I was keeping it at bay didn't I? I knew it in my gut. I was such a good actress, I even fooled myself for a while back there. But the facade has cracked.

I thought that being this far away, and being in such a place, would equal to a new start. I thought this would be my tabula rasa. I thought I could build myself up again from here. I thought the inter-connectedness of everything here would save me, but all of this? The independence, the faith, the people, the consequence, the protocols, have only come to stifle me. I am burned out, I have been consumed from my bones out. There is nothing left but the image. There is nothing left but the pretend.

I pretend to go about my day. I pretend to smile. I pretend to eat, and drink, and be merry. I pretend to enjoy the sun to the point of burns because in this way I know I am still alive. I know I am alive because there is still pain.

And I don't know if pain is really worth it anymore. I risk so much in everything, I wonder whatever made me stop being so closed off. I wonder why I stopped going by my own rules. And I am so tired of wondering. I am just so fucking tired of being pulled by my strings, of going through these motions again and again, of playing over the scenes and the lines. I am tired of being me to be honest.

I am tired of living with myself. I am lying a little because I know who is the only one reading this. I am lying because I am talking too much, and I am scaring you. But I am praying that this darkness, this large all-consuming darkness that I am having has yours in it too. I am praying that yours is with mine, so you won't anything left. I want this to be your darkness too, I want to take your all darkness away so it would just be me. I want to take all your darkness with me. Because you are the hope of my soul. You will live. Because I did lie. I am not tired of living with myself.

I am tired of living.

Josh & Donna

2010-09-22T13:48:00.004+08:00

"If you were in an accident, I wouldn't stop for red lights."

---

God, I miss this show.

2010-09-22T05:14:00.002+08:00

There are forks in every road, and spoons where there shouldn't be. I wonder what would happen if there really was such a thing like happiness.

2010-09-21T00:01:00.003+08:00

I have survived one of my darkest nights.

I am still here.

Pray for me.

It Hurts Because It's True

2010-09-20T00:56:00.002+08:00

2010-09-18T00:13:00.003+08:00

I have nothing more to say.

Nothing more substantial to reveal.

So now go run far away,

so please just let my wounds heal.

Baby, You Are In SO Much Trouble

2010-09-17T11:46:00.003+08:00

It seems I am swallowing my own words.

Because I am in SO much trouble.

Ho boy, heart.

2010-09-15T00:43:00.002+08:00

You Are Brown

Like the majority of Brown's students, you are happy and well adjusted.
You are confident and self assured. You wouldn't need to go to one of the bigger named Ivies to feel good about yourself.

You aren't the biggest fan of authority, and you like being able to carve your own path.
You are attractive, accomplished, and independent. Like Brown students, you thrive when you're able to do your own thing.

What Ivy League School Are You?

Blogthings: We'll Tell You The Truth... Someone Has To!

You Are Laid Back and Low Key

You are most comfortable when you are doing something that's totally foreign to you. You love new things.

You believe in transparency and honesty. The truth hurts, but you'd like to know it.

You seek a bit more depth in your life, but you are slowly changing. You don't like to rush anything.

You believe that if you look closely enough at people, they all have their own unique beauty.

The Ocean Test

Work is Hard. Time for Blogthings!

You Are Astronomy

This world is not enough for you... literally. You can't help but wonder about what else is out there.
You're the type of person who believes that anything is possible, and you'd like to prove it.

You are also quite philosophical. You spend a lot of time wondering about our place in the world, how the universe was started, and what the future holds.
You may not ever get all the answers you seek, and that's fine with you. Questioning is part of the journey.

What Field of Science Are You?

Blogthings: If Quizzes Are Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Take Quizzes

You Are Innovative

You're the type of person who is always putting a new spin on things. You are very creative.
You sometimes feel like you are a square peg trying to fit into a round hole, but that's okay! You'll build your own square hole.

You are cutting edge to the point of being avant-garde. You are extremely inventive.
You can't help but be original. You love to experiment and try new things.

The Sandwich Test

Work is Hard. Time for Blogthings!

You are a Dreamer

You tend to have your head in the clouds. You love to be drawn in to a whole other world.

You are a rational person. You like to think through ideas, and you like the thoughts that books spark.

You are a person with a few deep interests. If you're drawn to something, you learn everything about it.

You are a person who values your possessions. You tend to have fewer things but of higher quality.

The Book Test

Blogthings: We Have a Quiz for Almost Everything

You Should Learn French

C'est super! You appreciate the finer things in life... wine, art, cheese, love affairs.
You are definitely a Parisian at heart. You just need your tongue to catch up...

What Language Should You Learn?

Blogthings: Our Quizzes Weren't Written By Bored 12 Year Olds

You Are a Mango Cheesecake

You are alluring and exotic... there's something mysterious about you.
You are also adventurous and well traveled. New things bring you exhilaration.

You get along with many types of people. You are definitely open minded and cosmopolitan.
You appreciate the laid back, slower pace of life. You could definitely imagine living on an island.

The Cheesecake Test

Work is Hard. Time for Blogthings!

You Should Live in a Small City

You are definitely an urban person, but not any old city will do.
You want a city that matches you well. For you, big cities lack individuality.
You prefer a smaller city with lots of personality, local culture, and history.

Where Should You Live?

Blogthings: Discover the Parts of Your Personality that Have Been Hiding

The True You is Romantic

You want your girlfriend or boyfriend to be together with you always, no matter when or where.

With respect to money, you are a bit stingy.

You think good luck depends on maintaining good relationships with others.

The hidden side of your personality tends to be satisfied to care for things with a minimal amount of effort.

You are the type of person who assumes that the world revolves around yourself.

When it comes to finding a romantic partner, you base your search on information from your friends.

Who's The True You?

Blogthings: We're Not Shrinks, But We Play Them On the Internet

Your Personality Cluster is Introverted Thinking

You are:

You are objective, honest, and credible.
Intellectually curious, you have many diverse interests.
You are more inclined toward ideas than people.
Fiercely independent, you are unapologetically unconventional.

What's Your Personality Cluster?

Blogthings: Learn Something Surprising About Yourself

2010-09-09T10:10:00.002+08:00

in the fringes and edges

the corners of cliffs

the hangers and hangers-on

in clippers and ships

the sight of the moon

the sigh of our mouths

that turning, returning,

round and about

the queer and the gay

the happy, the sad

be they crooked or clement

they all live without

it's mad and it's crazy

to think of such things

when stilts are wingless

and havoc's no winds, oh

no jumping jack strings

the rivers around us

grow wilder still

until there is only these

things we remember

and all that we see

and all we do not

will always be with us

even when we forgot

to love, to ask

to win, to lose

when all of us

are forever misused

together we will be

on top of this hill

where fringes and edges

will bend to our will

Okay

2010-09-09T00:59:00.005+08:00

Are you avoiding me?

Not really.

So a little bit huh?

Maybe.

We're friends now right?

Uh, sure.

Okay, so we're friends now.

We're friends now.

---

I am enamored by the feelings I imagine you have for me. By the chance of one day being called by your name. It is impossible that everything will fall just perfectly into place, and I do not believe that we will ever be together. But just for these few days, these few weeks, when I leave some of my doubts and worries behind, I will allow us to be friends. It's nice to know that I have someone who can be the strong one for once. Here's to the endless possibilities, and the ones that have been proven to be possible.

---

It seems so silly to be chronicling this here, but I'm glad to have irrevocable evidence that I am not entirely terrified of your species. :)

2010-09-06T11:25:00.003+08:00

I never believed I would ever hear my name called this way again.

---

shit

2010-09-03T13:20:00.003+08:00

Do you really think that I care?

Because that would really suck.

For you.

Because I really don't.

Pak.

Not Yet

2010-08-29T11:46:00.006+08:00

Please God, stop testing my hard-earned rules for my heart. I've made a deal with myself a long time ago that I will not do this again. I was hoping on never again, but after all the changes that has happened to me lately I've allowed the possibility of some day. But it's too soon now, much too soon. And I am not at all ready. And it doesn't feel right, and it goes against the grain of the things I've happened to think is proper for these situations. But mostly it's the it's-too-soon, and I'm-not-yet-ready part.

It is too soon. Don't let this happen.

I've decided long ago that that one would be older, taller and better than me. Older because I've seen what younger men do to older women (and what society thinks of them... and sure I don't care what "society" really thinks but I also have enough hang-ups already so...) and I'd rather have someone who has more experiences than me, and I guess because the idea has always felt right. Taller because shorter just doesn't feel right and maybe I am shallow that way. Better, simply because I need and want someone who I can look up to.

I've found someone who fit these things entirely before, and you of all people know that it didn't exactly end happily. And now, you're testing me. You are testing me real good.

I'm not that older but I am older. He's taller sure, and maybe a little better but I don't know Lord. It doesn't really feel right but he makes me a little glowy. Ugh!!! He makes me all sorts of things that I haven't had for years now... probably haven't had ever. I've never felt like a teenage girl but I sure am making up for it. Is it because of the drought that this kind of deluge has so suddenly come? Is it because of the delay that everything is going so fucking forward? Because it just doesn't seem fair. I can't be feeling this way. I can't, can't, can't but I am. Now, what do I do?

You are trying to wake up my heart, and like the rest of me it gets frumpy and grumpy when it's woken up before its time. It won't be able to think straight and it's likely to do something very stupid, and embarrassing, and quite horrible. Like get inevitably broken again and it will probably end up in a permanent coma. Would you like that? Maybe, it's not like you need more people in the world. No, no, I'm not thinking about that. Look what you did!

And now you're giving me this freaky sign now aren't you. My shuffled playlist is playing Hey Jude and it does feel like a cartoony anvil to the head. How can I make it better? This can't be him, it can't.

Just please take away the giddiness. Take away the flushing, blushing, bustling. Take away the smiling, and glowing, and perplexing behavior. Make me stop. I do want someone but not yet. I'm not prepared, and I am not willing.

Not yet. Please.

Of Returning

2010-08-16T12:56:00.004+08:00

I must first admit to one truth. I am an Austen habitué, and it may sound pompous to you but I am just not comfortable with the word "fan". I first heard about her in a show that has somewhat helped me discover my affinity for books. I'm sure you've seen it and I hope that if you haven't you won't ridicule me... too much. It's about this dog, also with an affinity for books, who talks in his head and acts out things it reads. Basically, me. If you've guessed already we are truly GMTA, if not then here it is: Wishbone. In Hallmark Channel. Care to say double whammy? But I'm waxing un-poetic here.

I am talking about Pride and Prejudice.

It is the first book by Jane Austen that I've read, and it remains to this day my favorite although the details have been vague, to say the least, for me for a long time. I got it when I was in first year high school, on my birthday when I was given two thousand pesos and all I bought were three Penguin Classics books. Pride and Prejudice. Jane Eyre. Sherlock Holmes. My mother thought I was abnormal, and I probably was. Like you didn't know.

Out of those three books, only one remains in my possession. Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre were lost via lending. Sherlock Holmes is still mine but not with me. It's in Cebu gathering extra dust mites. But that's not why I felt compelled to tell this round-about story. If only to remind me how I am completely incomprehensible at times.

I am now re-reading Pride and Prejudice, for the first time. I am enchanted, completely fully enchanted. I realize now that I never really understood this book when I first read it, although I read it faster. And sure there was that movie with Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen (or if you're oldie Colin Firth and some British broad), but reading the book is far better. Nothing ever beats the movie inside your head. I say this all the time, but it doesn't make it any less true.

Now, that I'm reading this book as a quasi-adult I am seeing and vicariously feeling and truly understanding the merits, and nuances, and consequence of all the lives within its pages. There are times when it sounds dandy, there are times when it sounds far too perfect, and yet there are these wonderful bursts of real life, and real love, and real chutzpah, however kitschy that last word sounds.

And it's so beautiful going down this road again after so many years of life. I actually see the starkness of the earth beneath my feet, the depth of the green on the leaves, the heat of the sun on my cheek, and the wind wafting through the tendrils of all my hair. This experience has knocked wind and senses out of me, like I am peeking through life twice. It's like going back in time. And it's kind of startling how I feel whispers at the back of my head-- of someone, probably me, a little far off tomorrow, feeling these same things, reading these same words, hearing these same thoughts of a memory forever shared between different people who are the same person.

It is a testament to time. And change, and the power of the imagination. It is a testament to the truth that no matter how much we change beyond recognition, there is always a glimmer of something past to tether us to who we were, are and forever will be. Ourselves. Let's celebrate that.

blarb

2010-08-16T12:46:00.005+08:00

I found this in one of my friend's blogs a couple of weeks ago and found it utterly charming and potentially liberating. I've already asked her if it's okay if I do it too and she has yet to reply. But I'm posting this in case she says yes and so I won't forget. Anyways, the idea just makes me smile.

So the deal is to write a letter everyday, for a month, to someone you know, or knew. And since there's been a constant drought in this personal outlet for a while, I guess this thing wouldn't be so bad. Here's the roll-call.

day 1 — your best friend

day 2 — your crush

day 3 — your parents

day 4 —your sibling (or closest relative)

day 5 — your dreams

day 6 — a stranger

day 7 — your ex-boyfriend/girlfriend/love/crush

day 8 — your favorite internet friend

day 9 — someone you wish you could meet

day 10 — someone you don’t talk to as much as you’d like to

day 11 — a deceased person you wish you could talk to

day 12 — the person you hate most/caused you a lot of pain

day 13 — someone you wish could forgive you

day 14 — someone you’ve drifted away from

day 15 — the person you miss the most

day 16 — someone that’s not in your state/country

day 17 — someone from your childhood

day 18 — the person that you wish you could be

day 19 — someone that pesters your mind—good or bad

day 20 — the one that broke your heart the hardest

day 21 — someone you judged by their first impression

day 22 — someone you want to give a second chance to

day 23 — the last person you kissed

day 24 — the person that gave you your favorite memory

day 25 — the person you know that is going through the worst of times

day 26 — the last person you made a pinky promise to

day 27 — the friendliest person you knew for only one day

day 28 — someone that changed your life

day 29 — the person that you want tell everything to, but too afraid to

day 30 — your reflection in the mirror

Whoever you are reading this right now, if you want to see the originator of this craziness, here's her blog. Thanks Raph! :)

N

2010-08-12T14:44:00.006+08:00

I don't think I'm processing this right. I'm probably not even processing it at all. I don't know how to deal with this at all, being so far away. Not that proximity has ever really helped me in these situations. Maybe the distance is what's saving me. Because I cannot imagine losing another person in my life. He hasn't been part of my life directly for years now, but when I look back and try to remember things from my past, he is a one of the constants.

When we were in kindergarten, he was so cool and I was so shy and we were connected by our fathers being friends. While trying to reach across a table for a crayon, he was the one who said in a loud voice that my panties were showing. And that's when I started having a thing for him, I think. A little thing, like wanting to smack him in the face but at the same time looking at the face. It was complicated.

During elementary years, we chased each other around and he was the first one to discover that I had a temper. He made me cry and I punched him a lot. One time I kicked him in the leg. Another, we were playing tag in the plaza when I slipped in a puddle of mud and he teased me until the game was over that it looked like I shit myself. Then there was the time we were playing with the animal sculptures and I was riding in the giant turtle's back and he was sitting on the head and he asked me if I liked my name.

He was cute and I was crushed by this. For many years, it was like craziness. It wasn't love really, just a fluttering in the stomach, the looking out at the corners of eyes, the flushing and blushing and tingling of fingertips. It was practice, it was an experiment, it was the first time.

When I passed by his house on the way to my bestfriend's I would always turn my head, looking at it, waving at him if he happened to be outside. During his games I would be goading him, cheering the other player. We would always argue, we would fight and there were times we didn't speak for a few days. But we weren't close friends, at least I think so. He had his group and I had mine, until I moved to another one. I was an independent party, the loose cannon, the one that never fit in. And he was the hearthrob, the athlete, the charming one, the tall-dark-handsome type, and he fit in so well.

When I left our class for another at third year, I shut down all communications and we drifted apart. I drifted apart from everyone. So when we heard the news of his osteosarcoma around the third midterms we were all shocked. I was afraid, and yet I wasn't that worried. I was so sure he would survive unscathed, despite personal evidences to the contrary. He did survive, but he lost his left leg, knee down. He didn't go to school for a while and I never visited him. He had proven to me, for real, that everyone I knew was a target. Forget my father and grandfather, I knew them sure but not for my entire life. I never grew up with them, their deaths were painful but they were a vague memory. This was different. This was present, not past, and it proved another thing to me... that I was shallow.

I knew him whole. And healthy. And so beautiful. I was afraid I would hurt him more. I was putting too much value into how my opinion would matter to him, but I was just afraid. Afraid to have my image of him shattered. Afraid I wouldn't know how to act or have the right words or be of any comfort. I was afraid I would break down and lose it. So I didn't go visit him. I didn't text. I didn't send my regards. Nothing.

And everything was fine. Because I knew he survived. I knew he was alive and well and would go through life as well as he can, the same way he went through everything-- with gusto, and exuberance, and clear-sightedness. Despite the change of plans, I knew he would reach whatever it was he wanted.

Of course, it got different too. The girl I knew he loved drifted away from him too. He didn't graduate with us because of all the work he'd missed because of the cancer. And he couldn't play badminton anymore. In 2006, almost everyone he knew moved out of town to study and he was left to start again. It was the time of Friendster then, and I checked up on him and discovered he was fine. He discovered what I discovered three years later, that kids a year younger than you weren't really that different, except you have a year ahead of them in terms of experiences. In his case he was a lifetime ahead of them in experiences, but I digress.

So I didn't worry. He was fine. He was living his life somewhere. He was safe, he was alive. He beat it. He fell in love again and he discovered new passions... And I know it's weird how I know all this so let me admit a few things to you. First is that I keep tabs on almost everyone. You may not know it but I know things about you. I know how you are. I know if you are going through something. I know when you're going on vacation. There was even this one time I figured out a classmate was pregnant because she was the only one eating her dinuguan with chicharon and wasn't drinking any beer. Second, I worry.

In the years that followed, major upheavals in my life happened. I grew more selfish and self-centered and closed then ever towards the past that now brought me too much pain to remember, because I was essentially in exile and I was too proud to admit that this hurt me more than anything. The rootlessness of it all, the fact that there was nowhere to come home to anymore.

In the end, I stopped keeping tabs as much as I used to. I didn't chat with anyone or send messages and since most of my phones got stolen, all numbers were made null. And it happened that I moved out of the country and there were too many things to settle and deal with and I forgot to remember anyone anymore. I was thinking everyone was okay, everyone was healthy, everyone was safe and alive and well.

I was wrong. Because for the last year or two, he was fighting the Big Fight again. He was sick again. And at this time when I was no longer afraid, that I was better at words and comfort, I didn't know. I could have rebuilt the bridges, I could have said something, I could have told him how much he meant to me as a friend and constant bickerer. I don't know, maybe I just wanted to know before the fact so that I wouldn't feel so bad. Because now, there will never be a chance to change. He's gone. My long-time friend, my gradeschool "crush", the "fountain of all ego-boosts" is gone.

And I don't know why I feel nothing. I don't know why I can't cry for him when I cry for complete strangers in the news. I don't know why I can't process that he is not somewhere else, not here but still here. I can't imagine this but it's real. It has already happened and this Saturday everyone will go and pay their last respects. If I was still in the Philippines I wouldn't go. And I think that's why my being here will save me. I will go to Vesper and go to a dark, quiet corner and just think. Maybe I can grieve then, this person that I lost so long ago that is lost to everyone now.

It would be poetic and wonderful and noble to declare that from now on I will be living like him. That I have been inspired to live life to the fullest because I knew him. But I can't say those words yet. I don't know if I will ever say those words. I don't even know why I'm doing this. I confuse myself.

I don't know but it feels like there's something about to burst inside me and I'm afraid that everyone is going to end this way. That I would lose touch and learn later, after a few months or years or decades that they are gone. And all this regret and shame and fear would come down on me like a cloud, again and again and again. I don't want to love anyone anymore. I can't keep losing everyone anymore. I don't have the heart for this.

I don't have the heart for this. Please, just stop.

Sing Me A Song, Love

2010-07-31T15:13:00.001+08:00

Because You Asked

2010-07-24T07:44:00.005+08:00

I still don't know how to explain how I came to be here. How I came to be so far from home. It has never been easy for me to explain things, I find myself at a loss of words or using words that alienate people. I admit that I am very socially awkward. I need a long time to organize my thoughts and as such sound more lucid on paper. I don't know how to explain things to other people, and sometimes even to myself.

And let me tell you something, once and for all I never wanted to be here. I never wanted to be in a place where I am disconnected to almost everybody, and where everyday goings-on still have the power to shock me. Like how the other day there were these kids outside your normal run-of-the-mill market doing things to themselves in broad daylight, in public, I never would have imagined someone would do in their own private sanctum. Granted I did saw a barker get shot in the head not two meters away from me in Cebu but that's not nearly the same. You see that here everyday, even in the suburbs.

I don't want to make too much of a big deal about being in America, especially since it's not that great as compared to the Philippines. But people back home don't think so. They think it's so great, it's so rich, it's so mind-blowingly blessed. It's not. It isn't so great. It's definitely not rich. It's not mind-blowingly blessed. It's just blessed.

Then there are some who are mad at me for leaving. They see it as a betrayal. My copping out. It's not. I am here not because they actually know how to drive. Not because they are paid in dollars. Not because of the snow (I hate the cold, you know). I am here because if I had stayed I would have died. I was in a very dark place those last few months. I was on the brink, ever dancing on the edge. So you were right about something. I was saving myself. Just not in the way you think.

And I am here, in this land of so-called plenty, where there is supposedly no corruption, poor people, or rice. Colonial mentality has deluded our collective minds too much I daresay. It is a bit lonely here, although there are many things to entertain yourself with. People are too busy, and everything has its rules. But there is also so much here. Here queer is unconventional, and gay is happy. Most of the time. Here you can get lost.

I don't know why I'm here, but I am. I am hoping saving myself is worth it.

BURNT: Summer Lovin'... Music To My Ears

2010-07-07T03:08:00.004+08:00

Kapanahunan na naman
Ng paglalambingan
At kasama kitang mamasyal
Sa kung saan
Kabilugan ng buwan
At ang hangin ay may kalamigan
Aakapin kita mahal ko
Sa buong magdamag

Pagmamahalan lang naman
Ang mararanasan
Sa sariling mundo tayo lang
Ang may alam
Kabilugan ng buwan
At ang hangin ay may kalamigan
Aakapin kita mahal ko
Sa buong magdamag

Halina't pakinggan
Ang awit na dala ng pag-ibig
Masaya ang mundo pag kapiling
Kitang ganito
Huwag kang hihiwalay at ang
Puso ko ay maligaya
Lapit na, oh lapit pa

Pagmamahalan lang naman
Ang mararanasan
Sa sariling mundo tayo lang
Ang may alam
Kabilugan ng buwan
At ang hangin ay may kalamigan
Aakapin kita mahal ko
Sa buong magdamag

Halina't pakinggan
Ang awit na dala ng pag-ibig
Masaya ang mundo pag kapiling
Kitang ganito
Huwag kang hihiwalay at ang
Puso ko ay maligaya
Lapit na, oh lapit pa

Kapanahunan na naman
Ng paglalambingan
At kasama kitang mamasyal
Sa kung saan
Kabilugan ng buwan
At ang hangin ay may kalamigan
Aakapin kita mahal ko
Sa buong magdamag

Aakapin kita mahal ko
Sa buong magdamag
Sa buong magdamag
Sa buong magdamag

Ikot ng mundo, tila ay bumabagal
Ngunit alam kong ‘di na rin magtatagal
Ang aking hinihintay ay makakamit
Pagkat bughaw na ang kulay ng ating langit

Pilitin man ay ‘di mo na mapipigil
Ang kanyang pag-ahon, ang kanyang paggising

Ikaw lamang ang nais kong kapiling kung darating ang tag-araw
Lagi na lamang aking nasasa-isip ang pagsapit ng tag-araw

Sana ang init mo’y aking maramdaman
Araw na nagdaan ay ‘di ko na mabilang
Sa ‘king paghihintay, ako’y nasasabik
Pinapanalangin na ang ‘yong pagbabalik

Huwag mo na sana sa aki’y ipagkait
Ang tanging hangarin na ika’y makapiling

Ikaw lamang ang nais kong kapiling kung darating ang tag-araw
Lagi na lamang aking nasasa-isip ang pagsapit ng tag-araw

Hanggang kailan kaya ako maghihintay
Upang ang tag-araw sa akin ay kusa nang ibigay

Ikaw lamang ang nais kong kapiling kung darating ang tag-araw
Lagi na lamang aking nasasa-isip ang pagsapit ng tag-araw

The water’s too cold
And my skin’s too thin
But I just wanna dive in
And go for a swim
And go for a, and go for a swim
And go for a

The Sun’s just hiding
Right behind that cloud
My shoulders are just waitin’
For her to come out
For her to come out
For her to come out
For her to come out

The water’s too cold
And my skin’s too thin
But I just wanna dive in
And go for a swim
And go for a, and go for a swim
And go for a, and go for a swim

Come on and kiss my nose
So I can dip my toes
Come on and kiss my nose
So I can dip my toes
In the water

In the water
In the water
In the water
In the water

You turn my head
But instead I feel so lonely
I feel for you, I've got to say
You put a spell on me
I opened my eyes, softly and wide
Lovely flower you're my sunshine
I opened my eyes, softly and wide
Lovely flower you�re my sunshine

Light is filtering
Your eyes are glimmering
Let me hold you
Let me hold you
I think that it�s a sign
You've opened up the inner creases of your mind
Let me kiss you
Let me kiss you

Hope is signalling
Happiness is beckoning
Let me love you
Let me love you

I think that it's a sing
No more walls to keep me by your side
Let me touch you
Let me touch you

Oh, a lovely day has brought for a series of endearing moments
Like a Rosalie I’m keeping track of mysteries
My devotion for this madness
Reflects the beauty of this side
Particularly when you’re requiting tenderly

Wake up to the sight of love
Wake up to the sight of love
Wake up to the sight of love

Wake up to the sight of love
Wake up to the sight of love
Wake up to the sight of love

Hey, I dreamt of neon skies
While mignonettes and butterflies
How I find the nest
And go about your little hive
My devotion for this sadness
Defeats the errors in my judgment
Particularly when you’re requiting tenderly

Wake up to the sight of love
Wake up to the sight of love
Wake up to the sight of love

Wake up to the sight of love
Wake up to the sight of love
Wake up to the sight of love

Wake up to the sight of love
Wake up to the sight of love
Wake up to the sight of love

Wake up to the sight of love
Wake up to the sight of love
Wake up to the sights and sounds of love, love, love

Masarap NGA!!!

And the exception to the (OPM) rule, my new love VV Brown. The official video is amazing, but I couldn't post it. So I think this Black Cab session one is enough. Summer's here, and it's so hot! ;p

(Oh oh)
Sometimes I get my head in a dilly
Feeling so lost, ticking you off
Now boy, you know me well
Said, I’m that kinda feelling
That kind of soft, that kind of silly
But when I’m in doubt, I open my mouth
And words come out, words come out like
baby, there’s a shark in the water
There’s something underneath my bed
Oh, please believe I said
baby, there’s a shark in the water
I caught them barking at the moon
Better be soon
High in the sky, the song that I’m singing
A sweet little lie, I cry wolf, cry
Rabbit out the hat, so that’s why I’m bringing
Some tricks up my sleeve, for noticing me
I wouldn’t cause you any harm, I just want you in my arms
I can’t help, I can’t help myself
baby, there’s a shark in the water
There’s something underneath my bed
Oh, please believe I said
Baby, there’s a shark in the water
I caught them barking at the moon
Better be soon
(Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do ,do)
(Better be soon)
(Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do x2)
Right is right
Rules are rules
This is more like April fool
I’m just winding you up, oh
Jack be nimble, Jack be quick
Please don’t make too much of it
It ain’t that serious, oh oh oh, oh oh oh
Baby, there’s a shark in the water
There’s something underneath my bed
Oh, please believe I said
Baby, there’s a shark in the water
I caught them barking at the moon
You better get here soon
Baby, there’s a shark in the water
Baby, there’s a shark in the water
Baby, there’s a shark in the water
I caught them barking at the moon
Better be soon

Something New: Lay-Out

2010-06-11T11:55:00.003+08:00

I'm surprised how everything turned out. Spent about ten minutes on this and it didn't turn out like crap. I'm a little happy. I like it. :)

Blue

2010-06-09T13:04:00.003+08:00

I've been reading here. I've been trying to write here. I've tried being happy here. I thought it would be different. But they didn't lie when they said you can't run away, you cannot go too far, because you will always bring yourself with you. The told the truth. But now, I've also left a part of myself back home. All those roots. I've left them all. Every four years I have left them, grown them back and ruined it all again. You want to know what I left? I left beauty and the possibility of joy. That unerring freedom, those moments of peace where I knew I would be completely alone and nobody would disturb me. All the places where I used to hide. I've left the people I loved who would never love me, in place of the people I love who aren't good for me. I've left my ability to see beyond today and tomorrow. I've lost my hope for change and my dreams, more than ever.

Before I could lose my breath over the sight of light going through the trees, that beautiful green. The blue of the sky behind the clouds. I could close my eyes and almost taste it. But now, I see an ever cloudless sky and feel the tinge of sun on skin and yet nothing. I've lost beauty, not my own for I've never had that, but my ability to see it. In every thing and every one, that possibility of good, that possibility of overcoming. Of rising above.

And everywhere I look all I see is life going on its motions, going through the endless vicious cycles because it has to, because it's Absolutely no living. Maybe it's just a bad day. Too much quarreling or too much complications. But I know what it is. There is no love here. For me. And slowly I cannot even muster a little fondness, a little affection, for myself.

I regret so many things today. And yet on some days I am thankful for so many things. I wonder on which day I am just pretending.

2010-06-09T11:37:00.003+08:00

Understand. The first word I have ever heard out of any of you was that word, understand. There'll be time enough to understand when I'm old, if I ever am old. Oh, but not now.

- Christina Crawford, Mommie Dearest

Not anymore.

-Me

There Is No Greener Side

2010-06-09T10:43:00.002+08:00

People of the Philippines go around the world looking for greener pastures and never find it because the place they have left is the greenest in the world for them.

2010-06-09T10:39:00.002+08:00

It was a mistake coming here. There was a reason I wanted two oceans and a couple of continents between the two of us. I came here because if I didn't I would have died. I'm going home because I realize I have left the lesser, by far, evil. I am compromising myself here more than I have ever done anywhere else. I am trodden down and I take it because I feel it is my penance. But no more. It has become far too much.

I am coming home. Soon. Lest I kill myself. That's all.

2010-05-05T13:11:00.003+08:00

Admit something: Everyone you see, you say to them, "Love me."

Of course you do not do this out loud, otherwise someone would call the cops.

Still though, think about this, this great pull in us to connect. Why not become the one who lives with a full moon in each eye that is always saying, with that sweet moon language, What every other eye in this world is dying to hear?

Hafiz, With That Moon Language

Keep Him Well, Sea

2010-04-30T01:56:00.010+08:00

You drowned in the same ocean I am looking at now but on the other side of the world. I think about you still, and it's true that you have taken some part of me with you. And yes, my heart will never be the same. I think we both know that, wherever you are I know you do. But for so long I refused to accept this, to know that you were gone. I kept thinking it was just some other trip, gone indefinite, that you went to. That somehow you will come back for me. I wonder now if you knew for how long I have waited for you. Because I think you were the one.

I can't open myself to this again, and one thing I know without a doubt is that you will haunt me forever. I think this is for the best. Because this is my what-if. I am crushed by the possibility of it all but I am of the opinion that I would never have survived the reality of it. I still miss you but I've found myself going days and weeks and months without thinking about everything, or anything.

I found a picture of you and me today, and that's why I'm doing this. It has been far too long that I've kept holding on to the memory of you, to the world we both imagined and everything we could have had. But that world only has me now, and it has lived only half a life for many years. It is time to lay it down and cover it with earth. It's time to give it a rest, and you-- you need to sleep most of all. You need to be laid down to earth the most. I need to let go of you and all those beautiful dreams.

Please know that from now on, and forever, I am going out to another world, all my own, on my own. There will never be another you. I am breathing for the both of us.

And the words we need not say,

The Dandy Girl & Lion

2010-04-21T00:02:00.004+08:00

Not all wishes come true, so let's at least have fun

making them. :)

But You Got Me: Constant Replay

2010-04-14T02:31:00.001+08:00

I've been waiting for you all of my life.

By Sam Levenson (a favorite of A. Hepburn)

2010-04-07T15:09:00.002+08:00

Time Tested Beauty Tips

For attractive lips,
speak words of kindness.

For lovely eyes,
seek out the good in people.

For a slim figure,
share your food with the hungry.

For beautiful hair,
let a child run his fingers through it once a day.

For poise,
walk with the knowledge you'll never walk alone...

People, even more than things,
have to be restored, renewed, revived,
reclaimed and redeemed and redeemed ...

Never throw out anybody. Remember, if you ever need a
helping hand, you'll find one at the end of your arm.

As you grow older you will discover that you have two hands.
One for helping yourself, the other for helping others".

2010-04-07T14:47:00.001+08:00

I don't get hurt looking at your pictures anymore.

I don't know if I should be glad about this...

Or consider it as just another loss.

Cliche: A Picture IS Worth 1,000 Words

2010-03-23T04:28:00.004+08:00

I am not that great a writer, there are a lot of people out there who are much more of a writer than I will ever be. But I am stubborn, and a bit proud, which is a bit embarrassing when there is a lack thereof before "talent". And being not a writer, in the truest sense because actually we are all writers when we know how to write-- or in these times, type, I cannot begin to attribute to writer's block. So, TH? Haha. Anyway, while out and about yesterday, I saw a wonderful book on the stands. This.

It's sort of a writing exercise, the title says it all actually. It is more than a hundred photographs that act as story prompts. To help with your creative juices flowing a-plenty again. I think I'm going to share some of them (and what I wrote, because that's just how I roll) here. And you can do them too, in the privacy of your easy chair. It's fun. Cheerio all! :)

Loveliest Song

2010-03-22T14:07:00.000+08:00

Art Meets Harry

2010-03-14T15:16:00.005+08:00

I have long since wanted to share this with everyone. I chanced upon this around May of last year, and just kept on forgetting about it, you know how it is. I swear this just took my breath away. Even if you're not an HP fan, this is some wonderful story-telling, some wonderful art, and some wonderful brain confabulator (really!). Here IT is folks, The Death of Narcissa Black: A Potion. Boy is it canonesque.

When Gone, This

2010-03-14T14:53:00.002+08:00

This is the place. Stand still, my steed,

Let me review the scene,

And summon from the shadowy Past

The forms that once have been.

The Past and Present here unite

Beneath Time's flowing tide,

Like footprints hidden by a brook,

But seen on either side.

Here runs the highway to the town;

There the green lane descends,

Through which I walked to church with thee,

O gentlest of my friends!

The shadow of the linden-trees

Lay moving on the grass;

Between them and the moving boughs,

A shadow, thou didst pass.

Thy dress was like the lilies,

And thy heart as pure as they:

One of God's holy messengers

Did walk with me that day.

I saw the branches of the trees

Bend down thy touch to meet,

The clover-blossoms in the grass

Rise up to kiss thy feet,

"Sleep, sleep to-day, tormenting cares,

Of earth and folly born!"

Solemnly sang the village choir

On that sweet Sabbath morn.

Through the closed blinds the golden sun

Poured in a dusty beam,

Like the celestial ladder seen

By Jacob in his dream.

And ever and anon, the wind,

Sweet-scented with the hay,

Turned o'er the hymn-book's fluttering leaves

That on the window lay.

Long was the good man's sermon,

Yet it seemed not so to me;

For he spake of Ruth the beautiful,

And still I thought of thee.

Long was the prayer he uttered,

Yet it seemed not so to me;

For in my heart I prayed with him,

And still I thought of thee.

But now, alas! the place seems changed;

Thou art no longer here:

Part of the sunshine of the scene

With thee did disappear.

Though thoughts, deep-rooted in my heart,

Like pine-trees dark and high,

Subdue the light of noon, and breathe

A low and ceaseless sigh;

This memory brightens o'er the past,

As when the sun, concealed

Behind some cloud that near us hangs

Shines on a distant field.

- A Gleam of Sunshine, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

THE Great American Book (For Me)

2010-03-14T14:41:00.001+08:00

Asa Where

2010-03-11T11:03:00.004+08:00

I've been asked this question many times, where am I, where have I been, when the fuck am I coming home, in all its different guises, in all its different words. And I've always told them that I am here. I have always told you I am here. And then you ask me where exactly. And I give you my endless round-about. I have always done this to people, even back when I wore dresses and tights and believed that pink was an actual color and not an abomination. I guess life does come in circles because I've come to wear dresses again, and tights, and have come to love strawberry ice cream in the closet.

It is difficult, but it must be done. So truthfully, I am here.

I am taking a break from normalcy right now. Everything that is supposed to be done when I get to be this age, everything that should have been accomplished. I have ruptured from the bubble and I am grasping for air, but I am alive. I am alive. I am rethinking the path my life has taken, the path I have taken my life. Some may say I've suffered a breakdown but no, I haven't. No. I am building myself up again. I wasn't suicidal, I wasn't depressed, like I thought I was. I am the opposite of that. I've been dead for so long, and I want so much to live. I want so, so much to live. But okay, I may have been a little depressed.

I'm visiting my family in California, but I have not abandoned the Philippines, whom I love above all others. I remember how I promised I would never live here, how I will never be those people. But I'm not. I'm not those people. I am not living here, merely visiting. This is not merely semantics.

I may not have changed that much but a lot of things have. I am doing two jobs, looking for something to do with my time, getting in touch with my earth and my sound, behind all the terrifying loudness and berth of my tomorrows. I am trying to be happy. To be content. Everything I haven't been in a long time, everything I have never been.

Hopefully, I'll go back soon. But we never know do we. I wish you all the best and I am so happy that everyone is doing so well. I am so happy that life, your lives, are still possible. The sheer idea of it makes me soar. I hope that you know that wherever I am, and wherever you are, you are loved.

I miss you all so much. Please take care of yourselves. I am.

We Do

2010-03-03T14:15:00.003+08:00

I've been wondering lately if people ever think about how it is possible that when they say goodbye to someone at the door when they leave in the morning it could be for the last time. I wonder if they ever consciously think about the clothes that person was wearing, a red coat perhaps, a charm bracelet, their favorite white shirt, do they remember the exact words or how cold the world felt so early in the morning. I wonder if it is possible not to remember, or perhaps not to make up memories, when something, some thing, happens. The world is crazy out there, it is mad and not just because it is March. I've been wondering how many things I take for granted, and the many things I fail to keep track of.

Today, I wore brown slacks, a blue sweater in the morning, a green and black one in the afternoon, my old Skechers sneakers that my mom picked, her Fitch sweater for warmth, no socks, no bra, as I rode the commute, as I ran my errands. My sister wore grey pants given by a friend, hopefully not a boy (but if a boy, definitely gay), a white cami under a pink Ruehl oversized tee, her grey sweater turning dark. Brown Chucks. I think. She borrowed my plaid bag, my favorite, the one from the Philippines. Okay, maybe my favorite is the hobo bag with gold inlay, or the blue backpack I used for CHN (not China), Dora.

I wonder if I'm the only one keeping track, or if I can keep on doing this keeping track. I am forgetful, and ningas cogon, I burn so brightly at impetus but die after a blink. I am not to be trusted with such things. I wonder if anyone can be trusted.

We live in a "crazy planets", the unequivocal, unrelenting, ever-present mad mad mad world. It's difficult, it is easy, we want, we need, we refuse and reject, we deny, oh we deny, we die and come back again without even turning around to exhale. It is amazing. It blows the mind, among other things, and we scream our abandon. Sometimes, we scream outside our heads. But usually we are content with the loudness within, to drown out the aching quiet, the uninterested so-called noise of the outside.

I for one have been thinking. And I have been thinking a lot. I've written in places other than here, I haven't read a single book since I've left my soil, my earth, the blood of my trees. The drafts left unpublished, unfinished, unashamed and recoiled with shame, lie testament to this, waiting in my dashboard as I try to tell you what has happened.

I've been drowning my eyes with all the colors, the textures, the faces, everything, so that if, when, I don't know, I might lose it? no or yes, neither or what? I will remember. I am filling my gullet to the brim with tastes that I might forget, I've lost my disgust of carrots and eggplants, of cottage cheese and celery, of tofu and green bell peppers, though I still refuse to lay a tongue on okra (and ampalaya, blood stew, century eggs and such). I touch the warm, moist, alive earth, I get my hands dirty, feel the trunks of centuries old trees, boulders with so much history, the land itself arises beyond any edifice and suddenly the world is upside-down, the plates have shifted and the equator is the north pole.

Do you wonder these things? Do you think of the last time? Because I think about it a lot. I think about it because every day could be the last time, the very last. I came here, where the time changes because there is still sun in nine in the evening on some months, the moon in the sky just after the three o'clock prayer, I am here because I know that the last time will come soon. I haven't told anybody but I know. I am not stupid, I know for whom the bell tolls.

Please know, that I remember and will remember the last time I saw you. I am okay, as always. We survive don't we?

Hart

2010-02-09T02:54:00.001+08:00

Happy Valentine's Love!

Post-It: Green Is The Color

2010-02-08T07:39:00.003+08:00

I wake up and hear the rain on the roof, the tap tap tapping, and yet I have no doubt of where I am. I have no lingering confusion of where this bed on which I lie is. I know exactly where I am, and even if the rain on the roof sounds exactly the same as there, in the land of my heart, I know it is different. I know I am here.

But I can't go back yet. I... can't ever go back anyway. One can never go home.

Bubble Wrap POP!

2010-01-26T01:33:00.003+08:00

Happy 50th Birthday Bub!

En Garde Bitches, The Queen Bee Is BACK!

2009-12-13T15:40:00.004+08:00

Maybe I’m just being over reactive. Maybe it shouldn’t come down to the little things but fuck it, everything’s too much. I’ve been thinking of all the little things really and they do add up. You could chalk it up to the frustration I feel about everything from moving, and packing, and throwing things away (or giving them away to vultures, really), and stuff but god damn it all to the ninth circle of hell everything is just pissing me off. The universe is shitting on my good day, the few that I’ve had and the few that still remain of me here in the land of my birth. Maybe I’m PMSing after what, five or six months of amenorrhea. Shut up, that’s not nursing talk. I knew about that since I was ten and started skipping my supposedly monthly visit. Hey, I survived nursing school for like, three going four years on minimal attention span on classes/ discussion and stored knowledge. I think that counts for something, but then again most people study. I’m the dumb one. I’m the college dropout, rub it in why don’t you.

Yes. I guess it doesn’t matter. Losing trust on people really doesn’t matter on little things. To regular people I guess, but I am irregular after all. The perennial oddball. The quirky girl. Outcast. On the fringe. So I don’t really care what you think, I haven’t cared in a while. Yours are not nearly the kind of opinions that would affect me. The little things matter to me, because really let’s not kid ourselves, the little things make up the bigger picture. The little things make up my skewed, fucked universe. And I’m just disappointed really. With myself and the people I’ve chosen as friends. Well, so-called friends.

These little things have proven to me once and for all that I have always been a pushover. I get used. I am always the one who gets the smaller straw, I get left in the meteor to be blown up so that everyone would be saved and the bad thing is, everyone is laughing their arses off about it. Well, that’s what I feel. I am the dumb one who gets used to footing bills, doling up cash for supposedly needful friends, I eat up all the sob stories and I end up the one with the empty hand.

It’s my fault. It has always been my fault because I never learn. This is always what happens. Since the beginning, from like elementary. I try to change, try not to show my cards, but they keep slipping and everyone ends up knowing that I have a flush, or that the king of aces is with me or something. It becomes useless. And the endless script of my life continues. No matter what I do, I always end up being the puppet, the producer and the pauper.

I was actually almost happy today. Okay, I was happy intermittently. And that’s what happiness is, a couple of second outbursts. It’s sadness or blankness that’s constant. There were a lot of firsts. I used the word “torjak”. I rode a “ferryboat” from Pier Tres to Lapu-Lapu with Tess. We gorged on food and made fun of epol/apple. We made plans about courier services and teased-up strippers. That was okay I guess except that we have a total of zero impulse control.

Then karaoke, I had fun. It was a total Knurd’s Night (get it? knurd is the opposite of drunk). There were no drinks because we went “cowboy” because I miscalculated and had a lack of funds. Thankfully, I got an extra hundred bucks from Stefan, which I will pay back if it kills me. I don’t like borrowing money. And I apologized endlessly, then changed to thanked which stemmed from the chip-in which turned into a borrow which felt humiliating. I guess I’m too proud. It’s the familial chip on the shoulder. I swear, the reason I don’t like borrowing is because being in debt to another person never sat well with me. I don’t like all this utang-na-loob nonsense. It brought many their doom. I already have enough doom thank you. I know I’m ranting, and I know you know, so if you don’t like it close the fucking tab and leave. Get out of this hole-in-the-wall blog already, written by a girl with raging hormones. Scoot! And good riddance.

Then (yes, I will continue, I don’t care if your BP’s up, mine is), I tried contacting everyone who borrowed my books, USB, bag, money and such and they had all these endless excuses (either it was “I’m not yet finished, you’re leaving in a week pa bitaw” to “We’re like, broke because of something”, to “Huhuhu, I’m sorry I left it in Maasin”, to “Pwede later na lang ko mubayad”, to not being contacted at all because the bitch is in hiding). I don’t care anymore because you obviously don’t care about me. You give me these vague, round-about excuses which says nothing more than the fact that you think so little of me that you think this is going to go over the wall so well that it’s not going to hit anything. Not my ego, not my common sense and especially not my disposition. Well, you’re fucking wrong.

I’ve found some good friends but most are like total coattail riders, free loaders and such. Maybe I’ll think differently in the morning and be ashamed of my language and behavior but fuck it, this makes me feel better. And we all know I’m selfish. So all you vultures beware, I’m wide-awake and all my knives are properly sharp. I’m gonna cut you all up not even the worms will touch you. I’m coming down on all of you. Hard. Let’s see who’s the bigger bitch. I’ve never been this worked up and I’m so mad I could just bite your heads off. If you want a fuckfest that can be quite easily arranged. See you in hell.

UPDATE: written on my last drunken night in the Philippines.

Good Advice That You Just Didn't Take

2009-11-29T20:06:00.002+08:00

There will come a day

when you'll feel like shit

and you'll want to give up

on this life and everything else.

When that day arrives,

save yourself some trouble

and don't do a thing.

Just take a nap.

2009-11-21T20:27:00.004+08:00

Who was it that said "Love is nothing more than the resignation to getting hurt"?

I don't trust people, but I let them in anyway.

That's love I think.

2009-11-19T00:28:00.001+08:00

Before I leave, I want to go to church. I want to see the dark pews, shining from all the years of people sitting on them.

Omnia mea mecum porto

2009-11-14T19:17:00.007+08:00

There is something about moving that rehashes terrible memories. Maybe it's the act of leaving everything behind. Maybe it's the thought of the things left undone, the things that will never be done, and yet there are still things yet to do. And maybe, it is the fact that the leaving is known. The exact date and time is planned, hence you have to prepare yourself. Some departures are spontaneous, like death. All that suddenness protects you from all the nostalgia, the melancholy, the sheer desperation of leaving and preparing to leave. Of all the constant goodbyes, all the doubt, all the realizations that you are in fact leaving nothing and yet everything all at the same time.

My life has been a series of goodbyes. I've always seen it that way and before that was the beauty of it. The fact that I allowed people in despite knowing, for sure, that leaving was always there with us. In the midst of us. But things happened, and by the time I was sixteen I've lived enough to become a pessimist. I applaud cynicism. Either I'm wrong and pleasantly surprised, or I'm right. Win-win. People leave and the vindictive side of me kept thinking that I'd be better off doing the leaving. But I was wrong, because I know how it is to be left. I haven't lived long enough, by far, to stop myself from feeling this pain.

For the two to three months of when I was sure that this is what I had to do, what I needed to do, if I was to even survive the year, I was faced with the daunting task of preparing. There were papers to sign, interviews to do, things to close or withdraw or deposit. Things to let go of, things to keep, things to talk over, things to keep quiet about. Things to pack. All things. I bring with me all my things but people are worse. I am everyone I have ever known.

And lately I feel like I'm dispensable. Like I've been used, for the things I convey, the things I stand for, the things that people want and get from me. That I was born a girl, and as such should therefore be an appendage of family name and will. That I was born into the family, and as such should stand up to the bar. That I have resources, that can be used and depleted. That I can be gullible. That I believe too much on the ability of people to be good and overcome and rise above themselves. That I revel in pessimism and yet have this constant belief. I keep letting people in in spite myself, against better judgment, only to find that I was right. And I never learn. It's always circles with me.

I'm never assured of any love and I want to be. This is my fatal flaw. I know this will be the death of me, as I know that my blood and my bones are of my body.

There are people in my life that I've chosen to love, people who I'd be better off not loving but do. There are those who I just can't help myself from giving that place. I'm so tired. These past few days I've seen people use the fact of my leaving to benefit themselves, or go on the proverbial high horse on me and it's maddening to be proven right.

There is still a place in me that believes, but on days like these it becomes smaller and smaller and I'm afraid that one day all of it will be gone. And there'd be nothing left but the wind and the howling.

The tickets are ready, one suitcase is all done, and yet there is still so much to do. What's put me in a foul mood is my books. I cannot bring them all. I'm not even sure if I can bring any. But there are just some I cannot let go of. Even if I need to carry them in my arms, to hell with excess baggage, I will not leave without them. If only because I know, beyond doubt and questions, that these books are real. I am one of the people who are saved by stories. There are some I want to sell, some I want to give away, some I want to forget. And it strikes me now that my books are my people. Few people have ever been my people. I don't know if it's my fault. Sometimes I think it's me.

I don't know anymore. I have never known. But life never stops, no matter what you do you always find that a new day has come even if you were in yesterday's clothes and smelled like shit. So you go on. And you see, and hope, that things will get better. Sometimes, you find that it was all just a dream, and you are happy again. Let's drink to that.

2009-11-10T21:23:00.002+08:00

I've already made peace with the fact that it's best not to get too happy.

The Green Fairy Is My Friend, But Not Vodka

2009-11-08T23:38:00.002+08:00

I should tell you how I am when I'm drunk. This is to warn you, because I don't get drunk often. Only twice has it happened, and both times I have splotches in my memory. Things I don't remember and things I don't want to remember, things I'm not even sure really happened and things I hoped never happened. Okay, I may have lied. I could have been drunk three times. Maybe four.

The first time, it was with lovely Long Island Iced Tea which I has been proven to be my Achilles heel. I didn't know it was alcoholic because well, it was sweet and I copped off the biting to the cold. It wasn't the cold. The second and the third time, you don't really need to know. Frankly, I don't know myself. I just know, I had every interesting morning afters.

It is the fourth time I need to tell you about. Because it happened quite recently. And I think it was karma because I was trying to show friends the beauty of getting drunk in the company of friends who will take care of you and make sure that you will not make a fool of yourself. I'm afraid I made a fool of myself. I've been told I had a break down. I may have had one, it was a stressful day. And I had most of the two liters of alcohol to myself because the people I was with were virtual teetotalers. Next time, I really should go with drinkers. Heh.

Well, the thing I do when I get drunk is I tell stories. I'm sure they are very inappropriate. They are the ones I would never tell sober. They are my secrets, and other people's secrets. They are my stories and other people's stories. I have no threshold, everything just spews out. But I tell it like they are all my stories. And sometimes, I tell lies too. No, I always tell lies. It's what I do when drunk, and sometimes when not. But mostly when drunk.

I think I ear-raped a friend of mine with very, very colorful details about my former life. Maybe even those of my friends. But I'm afraid he thinks it's all me. My other friend tells me he was freaked out. I would've loved to have seen that. But again, I don't remember.

What I do remember is refusing my coffee and asking for some whipped cream. Then after that is all blank until the taxi ride home. I had a very interesting conversation with the taxi driver. In English. From what I can recall, we both complimented each other on our accents. I used my Mid-Western one, his was a garbled New Yorker's. It was fun.

I don't recall how I got to my room, and when I woke up in the morning I had vertigo but no headaches or regurgitations of meals past. I know how to hold my liquor, but sometimes my head just leaves my body and goes to other places. I'm warning you because I might get drunk again. I'm telling you not to believe anything I say. I'm crazy and drunk, I tell stories, I tell lies. Just record one of my stories or tell me outright the days after, so I can tell you myself. I'll be honest. I'll tell you if it's true, even if it's about someone sleeping with an airline pilot.

Coffee To Our Sadness

2009-11-06T16:58:00.003+08:00

I find that music keeps great company. Since I've been up in a jumble lately, listening to these songs helps keep me here on earth. As of now, I can only remember two: Vienna Teng's Recessional and A Lack of Color by the perenially-loved Death Cab For Cutie. Recessional doesn't talk about the recession mind you, but of a girl saying goodbye to a lover. I feel like it is somewhat appropriate. A Lack of Color is about a man being left. It is only now in explanation that I've realized these two songs who have been my constant bedfellows are talking to each other. It's a little bit funny, they speak to me.

"It's so beautiful here", she says, "this moment now."

And this moment, now.

And I never thought I would find her here: flannel and satin, my four walls transformed.

But she's looking at me, straight to center. No room at all for any other thought.

And I know I don't want this.

Oh, I swear I don't want this.

There's a reason not to want this but I forgot...

In the terminal she sleeps on my shoulder, hair falling forward, mouth all askew.

Fluorescent announcements beat their wings overhead: passengers missing, we're looking for you.

And she dreams through the noise, her weight against me, face pressed into the corduroy grooves.

Maybe it means nothing...

maybe it means nothing...

maybe it means nothing, but I'm afraid to move.

And the words, they're everything and nothing.

I want to search for her in the offhand remarks.

Who are you, taking coffee, no sugar?

Who are you, echoing street signs?

Who are you, the stranger in the shell of a lover, dark curtains drawn by the passage of time?

oh words, like rain, how sweet the sound...

"Well anyway," she says, "I'll see you around..."

And when I see you

I really see you upside down

But my brain knows better

It picks you up and turns you around

Turns you around, turns you around

If you feel discouraged

That there's a lack of color here

Please don't worry lover

It's really bursting at the seams

For absorbing everything

The spectrum's A to Z

This is fact not fiction

For the first time in years

All the girls in every girlie magazine

Can't make me feel any less alone

I'm reaching for the phone

To call at 7:03 (and) on your machine I slur a plea for you to come home

But i know it's too late

I should have given you a reason to stay

Given you a reason to stay

Lourd's Lament

2009-11-06T16:07:00.002+08:00

“This tower, patched unevenly with black ivy, arose like a mutilated finger from among the fists of knuckled masonry and pointed blasphemously at heaven.” This is off the opening page of Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake, considered the third great English fantasy novelist of the century along with Tolkien and T.H. White. I wrote this passage down before tossing the book into the black garbage bag where it joins the company of other books that I had deemed beyond repair: impossibly warped, soaked, ripped, shredded pages, cracked spines, books with covers hopelessly stuck to each other like a teenager’s secret copy of Penthouse. There were others that looked perfectly salvageable except for the supremely vile odor. And there are those that you couldn’t even touch anymore because they’re covered in all sorts of weird gooey stuff. The bad part: I had only been four pages into Titus Groan.

Two days after the flood, on the wall of my house where the floodwater level left its ugly mark I wrote, “September 26, 2009.” Partly to remind myself of the futility of material accumulation. But there are sights that could make grown nerds cry.

There’s a saying that a man only needs nine books in his life. I am not that man. I am not one of those people who can commit to a monogamous relationship with their books.

Italo Calvino, in If On A Winter’s Night a Traveler (my copy I stole from my ex-boss Teddy Boy Locsin), famously categorized books as, to name a few: the Books You’ve Been Planning to Read for Ages, the Books That If You Had More Than One Life You Would Certainly Also Read Unfortunately Your Days Are Numbered, Books That’s Everybody’s Read So It’s As If You Had Read Them, Too, Books You Could Put Aside Maybe To Read This Summer.

After the long, grueling days of cleaning up after September 26, I came up with my own: Books That Are Too Important To Throw Away So You Hold On To Them Even If They Smell Like Shit, Books That You Never Even Thought You Owned, Books You Hail As Masterpieces But Can’t Even Remember A Single Passage, Books That Have Water Lilies Between Pages How The Hell Did They Get There?, Books So Unbelievably Moldy They Should Be Donated To A Bio Lab, and Books So Filthy You Get Sick Just By Looking At Them.

Oscar Wilde once said that if one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all. I do not claim to have read each and every book on my shelf, nor do I lay claim to total comprehension. My modest collection isn’t exactly Shakespeare and Co. Understand: it’s a collection built throughout the years by invoking the gods of serendipity and pilfer. These are little purchases made from innumerable garage sales and, of course, the almighty Booksale. Some books I stole from the library of my good friend, Homer Novicio. Most of them are cheap—dirt-cheap—paperbacks. But it’s not really the price but the element of fate and memory attached that makes them significant. Gone: Martian Chronicles, R is for Rocket, The Illustrated Man, and those Ray Bradburies that kept me through bad nights during high school. All the Vonnegut paperbacks—gone. Denis de Rougemount’s Love in the Western World that made me daydream about tragic adulterous trysts. That copy of Necronomicon and a collection of stories by H.P Lovecraft I picked up from a creepy Kamuning antique shop. Those Woody Allens and Donald Barthelmes that make more sense when read under psychotropic influence. A ten-peso copy of James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake that I promised to myself I’d read and try to understand before I reach senility. And what about Clifton Fadiman’s Lifetime Reading Plan that I fantasized following? Gone. Like countless others.

There are books that affirm the beauty of the world. At the same time there are also books that celebrate the idea of destruction. Books may screw with your brain, but they’ll be the only true friends you’ll have. Books don’t borrow your books and CDs and forget to return them. Books don’t talk shit about you behind your back. Books don’t borrow money from you, nor do they drink all your beer and puke all over your couch and steal your girlfriend and your blotter acid. My friend, the Cebuano writer Januar Yap, provided one of the best descriptions of a great book: you can’t help but hurl it across the room in a burst of pure joy. I know what he means. On my shelf used to dwell dog-eared titles with injured spines and creased covers—casualties of effervescent displays of appreciation.

Weeks after Ondoy, I deliberately postponed grief for all the stuff I had lost. After all, these were things that you could replace by just a quick trip to the mall. Well, at least most of them. Only recently did the realization of permanent loss sink in. For a while I thought it was the world’s way of punishing me for the things I wrote about Kris Aquino. Or maybe it was God’s way of saying we’ve got too many books.

“The most effective weapon of any man is to have reduced his share of histrionics to a minimum,” says Andre Malraux, who knew, according to the great critic and book reviewer Michael Dirda, that “our natural tendency is to exaggerate our sorrows, anger, and desires. But deep within we know that we are overreacting, indeed overreacting. We get caught up in the situation, carried by our own pleasure in personal melodrama.” In this the Zen masters certainly knew the power of mental clarity, stillness, and detachment.

Maybe we’re just being hyperbolic about the demands of our so-called minds. Maybe we should all reach that stage where we’ve reduced our collection to a single shelf. I remember my visit to Hanoi many years ago, and was dumbstruck to find out that Ho Chi Minh had spent the last few years of his life in an absurdly small room, with a tiny bedside shelf containing only less than a handful, mainly tomes on poetry and engineering. That’s how I want to be in my old age: a collection reduced to six, nine, ten titles. Books you know by heart, which you have studied with Talmudic devotion. But how does one reach that stage except through a process of elimination that entails the reading of thousands of books?

The Roman philosopher-emperor Marcus Aurelius spoke of an “interior citadel.” The mind later shifts to contemplation as you stare helplessly at the overturned cabinets, the wrecked piano, and boxes upon boxes of wet vinyl records. You will ruminate on the senselessness of worldly possessions, until you see all the damaged manuscripts. Your thoughts turn to the vast indifference of the cosmos. Then you step on a clump of dog shit. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger—but might give you athlete’s foot and moldy books.

-Lourd De Veyra: The October Country, Lourd Ernest De Veyra

read in his column This Is A Crazy Planets at Spot.ph

Christian and Satine: On Replay

2009-11-06T08:13:00.002+08:00

Never knew I could feel like this

Like I've never seen the sky before

I want to vanish inside your kiss

Every day I love you more and more

Listen to my heart, can you hear it sings

Telling me to give you everything

Seasons may change, winter to spring

But I love you until the end of time

Come what may

I will love you until my dying day

Suddenly the world seems such a perfect place

Suddenly it moves with such a perfect grace

Suddenly my life doesn't seem such a waste

It all revolves around you

And there's no mountain too high

No river too wide

Sing out this song and I'll be there by your side

Storm clouds may gather

And stars may collide

But I love you until the end of time

Come what may

I will love you until my dying day

Oh, come what may, come what may

I will love you, I will love you

Suddenly the world seems such a perfect place

Come what may

I will love you until my dying day

Revelations

2009-10-24T15:00:00.004+08:00

I wonder sometimes if I've revealed myself to much. Here, in this blog, and everywhere else in life. I know I am secretive, I keep people at arm's length. I hide things, I keep secrets (a lot of which aren't mine). I am a different person to different people. I'm not plastic, I'm not fake, I just adapt I guess. To some people I am calm and rational, to some I can be cruel and vindictive, to other I am forthcoming, to most I can answer in monosyllables. But I've noticed that I am different here. Cyberspace offers some farfatchedness (I know it's not a real word, but I also know you understand) to the things I reveal here, a certain sort of anonymity, a facelessness. And it's probably why I am so different here. People who know me in person know I am not like this in everyday conversation. I am more quiet, not so dramatic and angsty, I keep the darkness firmly at bay. But I unleash it here don't I? Do I make it sound so bad?

I must say the reason I've been as open as I have been is that I'm not really thinking about this as public domain. Not everything in the internet is free-for-all, especially if you don't know where to look and what you are looking for. I've only told a handful of people about this place, and I'm sure most have forgotten it already. I wouldn't know for sure really, everyone is so quiet. I'm not sure if anyone is out there but what I am sure of is that the people who do come here, come here because they know me. They know where I am right now, because they've been here before-- they know where I've been, they might even be there still. There is something to be said about kindred spirits, or at least like minds. Like hearts for sure.

I haven't been writing so much lately because I don't really know what to say. My life is not so stable right now and everything is in flux. Everything is a whirl, I almost feel like I'm in the swirls in the night sky of Van Gogh's painting. I've knocked down the doors, rammed it so hard all that was left was tatters and I am shocked at what I have done. I've never been sure I had it in me. For the first time ever, I've defied conventions. All of it is so frightening you have no idea. The door is open, there is nothing stopping me, the world is in front of me and I feel suddenly paralyzed by the realization that all that will happen to me from now on is in my hands. It is so different now. The difference between those who are slaves and those who are free are where the shackles are attached. The slaves are attached to walls, the free to themselves. It's something to write these same lines years ago and actually living them now. Years ago, I never knew how true those words were. Are.

How do you go about life from here? I'm not sure I can survive all these novelty but you know I'll try. I'm going to weather the storm, ride out the waves, all those cliches. I'm going to make the dash worth it. I may not know where I'm going to be next year, but then again I've never known the years before. It's just now, there is the question of which country, which state. Life is going to be quite interesting for a while. Wish me luck, whoever you are.

---

Row, row, row your boat

gently down the stream.

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily!

Life is but a dream.

Bagyo

2009-10-01T08:17:00.003+08:00

There is something in the air today. I just woke up to the sound of my uncle irately banging on my door, sonorously saying my mother was on the phone, but I don't think it is that. It's cool, even with only the electric fan on. It could be rain. It could be a gathering storm. There's one on the way isn't there? We're in the Ps now aren't we? Pepeng/Peping, how do you give names to such things? To think of it, how do you give names to everything? If myth is to be believed, apple sounds too innocent for the fruit, Jude and Kristine too pious. You shouldn't believe names.

Also, as utterly cliche as it sounds, it could also be your plain old change. You know, the one that's in the air today.

For one, I've gotten a new-fangled appreciation for storms, tempests, tropical depressions and low-pressure areas. By appreciation I mean a sort of desperate, low-lying terror, not the kind that you need to scream out loud (or the one where you just can't help yourself). It's a small apprehension that resides in my gut, around my navel. It's pulsing there, giving jolts at small pieces of information, perking ears to the mere mention of the calm before.

I guess, being in the Pacific, storms are not strangers to any of us. We have them about twenty or thirty times a year, big ones, small ones, all ones. But this is the first time that I can say that it's gotten me this way. Looking at Ketsana/0916/Ondoy, it's easy to be afraid. A whole city under water, thousands afflicted, hundreds dead. It's like someone is laughing at us. Saying how silly we are, look! How easy to decimate everything. Look, how terribly uncomplicated to break everything down. Look how easy it is to reduce people to bare necessities, to the clothes on their back.

I've always liked storms, because by default I love the rain. You curl up with a cup and a book and some blankets. The wind howling, the pitter-patter on your tin roof, it's really cosy. I still like storms, it just has this nag now. Sure, curl up, relax, but make sure you have canned goods in stock. Make sure your rice is enough. Turn off the plank, have safe drinking water, prepare candles and matches. Stay away from windows, cut off tree branches.

This could be one of the last vestiges of youth going away too. Maybe my not being afraid of storms before was a result of youth, that sense of invincibility. The "or lack thereof" attached to the "what I know". Whatever it is, it's something. I'm just waiting to see what it is.

There's No Forgetting (Sonata)

2009-09-30T20:48:00.002+08:00

Ask me where have I been

and I'll tell you: "Things keep on happening."

I must talk of the rubble that darkens the stones;

of the river's duration, destroying itself; I know only the things that the birds have abandoned,

or the ocean behind me, or my sorrowing sister.

Why the distinctions of place? Why should day

follow day? Why must the blackness

of nighttime collect in our mouths? Why the dead?

If you question me: where have you come from, I must talk

with things falling away,

artifacts tart to the taste,

great, cankering beasts, as often as not,

and my inconsolable heart.

Those who cross over with us, are no keepsakes,

nor the yellowing pidgeon that sleeps in forgetfulness:

only the face with its tears,

the hands at our throats,

whatever the leafage dissevers:

the dark of an obsolete day,

a day that has tasted the grief of our blood.

Here are violets, swallows--

all the things that delight us, the delicate tallies

that show in the lengthening train

through which pleasure and transciency pass.

Here let us halt, in the teeth of a barrier:

useless to gnaw on the husks that the silence assembles.

For I come without answers:

see: the dying are legion,

legion, the breakwaters breached by the red of the sun,

the headpieces knocking the ship's side,

the hands closing over their kisses,

and legion the things I would give to oblivion.

No Hay Olvido: Sonata

Pablo Neruda

The Red Book

2009-09-30T20:30:00.003+08:00

We should never have been read fairy tales. Disney is an abomination, all that nonsense about dreams coming true. Wishes granted by a fairy godmother or some candles blown on the eve of your birth. We are such fools. We never learn. If we have to read fairy tales, let's read Grimm. They never lied. Forget Andersen and Lang. Perrault even. The Grimms knew what they were talking about. They knew wishes were dangerous. They feed on you. They ruin you. And the wishes that are granted? They're the most dangerous. The things you do get? You can never return. You get too much. You can never be too careful. So swallow the words, keep them down, shut your mouth. Be safe.

But we never do learn. We think we do when things go awry, but we can't help ourselves. We always go back. We can never suspend our belief. And everything comes back to you. Echoes louder than your own voice, shadows far larger than your own form. It pours down and smothers you.

You think about it. You hold in in your hands, you keep it in your heart, you don't say a thing but it's there. You want so many things. You wish for so many things. But when you get everything you've ever wanted what else remains? What else is there to strive for? To live for? When people try their best to be good to you-- they forgive you for your transgressions, enfold you with sympathy, pity, understanding... do everything you've ever wished they'd done long ago. Why is it that you feel so shabby? So bad? Why does it hurt you more? You are never satisfied. Getting your heart's desire doesn't make you happy. Getting everything you've ever wanted? It ruins you.

And where do you go from here? You have no energy, no desire, to want or have or do other things. To meet other people, to go to other places. But you should be. There is supposed to be something in the ever after for you, but there's nothing. When you look at the road behind you, the things passed and past, you see everything you have ever done, everything you have never done, some things you have forgotten and will never remember. When you turn around, face forward, you see there is something of a road but with all this billowy fog. It's hard to breathe, you're smothered, and you don't see where you are going.

How does this story end? Happy endings are make believe just like perfect little first kisses from your one true love. Where do you go from here?

What I Did Today

2009-09-29T22:43:00.006+08:00

Tried to wake up early but ended up sleeping in. Late. Woke up around ten. Checked my e-mail. Read the news. Didn't get off my butt, in front of the computer, until half past twelve. Ate some seriously late brunch at one. Took a bath, rinsed twice. Brushed and flossed. Chapstick. Used some baby oil (scent reminded me of Lola, felt comfort somewhat). Finally left house at quarter to three. Refused to wear a watch. No idea what the date is but knows its Tuesday. Walked to school from San Carlos. Met first Normalite, Cat something, the responsible one with the funny voice, sorry. Awkward hug, shit she came from commu, haha. Walked to school, felt weird until reaching the overpass. Saw Manong Janitor (the one people think is scary, y'know the one with the eye...), greeted him. He tried giving me some banana cue, thanked him, said I wasn't hungry. Felt sort of happy looking at the Values Boulevard (which did I see? I don't remember. Temperance maybe?) and the school, my school. I think I'm really going to miss it now. Sort of happy to be there. It was funny pulling out my I.D. in the bright pink sling. Greeted the guard (someone new I didn't recognize). walked about five steps until I got to the bulletin board and Patrick saw me. He waved, and so did Sockie and Aia and Kriski and Andrea. Pat ran to me with his banana and dubious libation from the street. We hugged. Went to the others and talked about our plans (I didn't have coherent ones). Walked towards CN, saw Danee-O perched at the second floor fire escape. Went to 327. Mharnne. Erich. Madz. Lord. Glecie. "Rihanna". Paolo. Phoebe. Tipsy. The lot of them. Went out, saw Hannah and tried to stealthily run towards her, quickly (!!!), to cover her eyes and do the guessing game. I slid. Fell down, on my back, literally on their feet (their because she was with her group for research on something-- Genlee, two girls I didn't know and that guitar guy Arlegui? Raffy? Who is that guy?) and I was laughing as I looked straight at the ceiling but was oddly unembarrassed. Odd too because for the first few seconds I didn't feel the need to get up from the floor. Eventually had to because Pat was trying to help me up, what the heck. Why say no to a helping hand? Went to the room next to storage (I keep forgetting what it is... 324?) Saw an adorable Dora balloon. Peeked at Tess. Laughed because (naturally) the balloon was hers. Waved hi to Errol, asked her to get Tess' attention. Went back to 327, got to talking about how to frickin' drop out. How the "powers" that be will make it hard for me. Went to the dean's office got informed she's out (great!), will try again tomorrow. Saw Tess at 327, hugged, she started to cry and I didn't want all those people around that she didn't know and didn't know her seeing her this way so we went to the CR. We talked about plans again. About the future and the leaving and the last time we cried together. I wondered if she ever saw me cry again after that. These people are the reason I didn't leave CNU sooner. Later, had a little chat with Sir Jomy. He said I had papers to sign in the faculty, will handle them tomorrow. Talked to Matt and Martin. "Bullied" them. Grossed them out. Disturbia! (a game I have yet to polish out) Left school, felt a bit nostalgic. The lights were coming on for the night. Went to Mister Donuts with Dore (on the way we talked about Camz, the whisteblower, the consequences, the drama). Went to SM, went overboard with the talking on the jeepney ride-- I entertained the people, they were laughing, damn. I've written this down on a notebook and I can see some hesitation with the word "with", for its shorthand I find myself trying hard not to use the C bar (/c) instead of the ordinary W (w/). I wonder when all traces of nursing will be gone or if they will ever fade. Ate some banofee pie with D at Leona's, some meat tarts too (it was pork). Re-affirmed I cannot be trusted with capitalist shopping, lusting after coat and boots in Promod. Away with you! Saw Dore's mom (already, I've forgotten her face). Ate alone at Old Spaghetti House. Their house wine sucked (at 85 a glass at that, they filled the glass way too much, the wine too young). Blew money at Artwork. Bought a quirky tank and some peach shoes (will wear tomorrow for comfort). Feels bad about the credit, but happy (?) about life in general. Went to National Bookstore, spent over an hour looking at books. Read some Pablo. Bought a pen (couldn't stop thinking: "personality of a pen"). Been looking for this one for ages. Jeepney ride home was fun, the driver was conscientious, the passengers helpful with the fare. I liked the padded ceiling, not too low. The handbars though had little space between them for my fat fingers, but you can't have everything. Sat across two middle-aged political-minded men who pawed about how this guy died saving a baby in Manila (after saving some others). How it doesn't matter if it's GMA or ABS-CBN you give relief goods to. How it's sad that it needs a tragedy to unite us. How said unity goes away very quickly. Rode at the back of a trike. There were three of us, excluding the driver, and with my bum it was a pretty tight fit. Couldn't open the gate with the orange key, opened it with the silver one after a little cussing. The neighbor's cat came over, started mewling. When I finally got it open, it looked up at me (cute... I blame estrogen). Opened the front door at #2 without a problem, got home around ten, nine? Watched Dahil May Isang Ikaw (I am not ashamed) and got in just as Ella was talking about how great Jaime Alferos was, and how he never made her feel she was adopted. If you don't watch DMII, sorry for making you feel OP. Wrote it down. Opened Country Story, harvested chicken wheat etc. For the first time in months, didn't choose invisible in chat. Chatted with people. Blogged. Taking the latest I Wrote This For You post as a sign. Feeling a bit apprehensive about tomorrow because today went so well. There is a balance to the universe. It doesn't mean it has to be equal parts of a pair, it just means a pair has to exist. There will always be two sides. Hoping it doesn't get too bad. HA!

Post-It:

The funny thing is, I don't remember what date today is.

Let's find out! Date stamp you date stamp you.

Let's Take It As A Sign Shall We? (You and Me)

2009-09-29T22:37:00.002+08:00

"If our arms aren't strong enough, we'll rip the roof off with our hearts. If the road is dark, our dreams will light the way. If there isn't space in the back, we'll make space in our hopes. Pack a bag with everything you want to keep and leave the rest behind. Because I'm coming to pick you up."

- The Road Trip (I Wrote This For You)

P.S.

But let's wait until you graduate.

Or, at least, after your finals.

Dragonfy

2009-09-29T00:12:00.006+08:00

It would be so easy letting go of me wouldn't it? Being half a world away, it is so easy to forget about me. How easy would it be to let go? I've done nothing for you. In fact, I've taken away many things from you. Money. Time. Attention. Things better spent elsewhere. Dreams-- for a better life, for a child, street cred. It would be so easy.

What time is it there? Subtract three hours from local time, turn night to day. It's nine there isn't it? Or maybe it's eight, a quarter to nine. Sunday. Maybe you're out. Visiting friends or family. Going to church. Maybe, you're staying in. Resting. Tired from Saturday. Getting ready for Monday. You're busy. You are busy, out, living your life. Living your lives. While I'm here wasting, ruining, mine beyond repair.

I don't know what I'm doing. I do not know what I want to get out of this-- or if I want anything for that matter. I am adamant. I am resolute in not knowing, in not wanting, in not living. I do not know what I want but I don't want this. And I'm tired of not knowing. Of just going along. Of trying to catch up. Of being left behind, again and again and again. I'm tired of not finding, of not having, a reason to try harder, to do my best, to reach for the high shelves. To fight. I'm tired of not having a peak in mind when climbing barefoot, uphill, stepping on sharp rocks the jagged rocks already mired with the blood of others who have come before me. Or maybe the blood is mine, I keep on climbing the same hill like Sisyphus except I'm the boulder.

I want to know what is so different with other people. I want to know why I'm not like them, why I'm not like you. They look like they know what they're doing. I want to know how they can keep on doing what they're doing. What keeps them on the road. I know it's a matter of knowing where you'll end up beforehand. I know it's a matter of motivating yourself. I'm not deaf. I'm not blind. I'm not dumb. We've been told this for years. But how do you go about this?The only problem is that I've never had any of that. No peak. No direction. I've just gone on with my life doing what I'm told. Or not doing what I'm told. Or doing what everyone is doing, or doing something else. The common denominator is that it revolves around other people.

Is that the answer? Is that the secret of the universe? Does it have to revolve around me? But that's what I've been doing all along you say! Am I not the selfish one? The rebel without a cause? The prodigal child? The rot? How do you do it? How do you find the will to go on? To go day in and day out? To plod through all of that ordinariness, how?

Or is everyone just pretending? Is everyone just like me? Are we all pathetic really? Am I the only one? It is a mad world.

2009-09-29T00:09:00.001+08:00

Mabuti nang hindi mo maalala kaysa hindi mo makalimutan.

GA: Round Six

2009-09-28T01:18:00.003+08:00

Mad God! I just caught up with the first two episodes of Grey's and it was horrible. George really is dead. Denial is a river I just can't cross. Ever. And then the second one is like fast forward to forty days after the funeral. WTF?! I am kvetching here because this is horrible! It's truly hasn't been my favorite show for ages but it had some good times. I don't have any closure with George, I still hasn't forgiven him for the drunken sex with Izzie. And this whole thing made me cry, which is probably good considering, but what's going on? And all that merging! The only thing that makes me feel better about all this is Bailey and Meredith mourning George. Izzie was just the typical flyball with all that laughing. I don't know show, you'd better make up for killing Malley-O. I swear.

Food Poisoning?

2009-09-27T23:13:00.003+08:00

What are the chances? I didn't actually eat much today. Just a sandwich and tea for brunch and then around 9.00 I had hunger pangs. I didn't feel like cooking so I changed into sweats and went out for some take-out. Man, I chose some funky pizza. But I was reallyreallyreally hungry. Not that I would've noticed right off mind you, but I wasn't really on my guard. In retrospect, the dough was quite sweet but not unpleasant. I think it was either the cheese they used (which was quite milky), or the sauce (which was the sloshy, watery kind), or maybe the mushrooms (which were oddly tart), or God forbid it was the onions (which was shredded, queer). Or all of them. Or none of them. This could just be all in my head. Maybe I inhaled it too quickly, hoovered more like. Maybe it was because I hardly ate anything, my stomach got shocked. Or maybe, maybe (!!!), I really am going down south this Christmas. Ach! Eitherway, I am blaming the pizza. My middle feels hard, especially the lower epigastric region. All three of them. Oh well, Deo volente.

Tess

2009-09-27T12:34:00.003+08:00

We've all been there. Well. I've been there, I don't know about other people. We, both, have been there. We are there. The only difference is that I lock my door. And my mom? Mad at me. Also, far far away. Which makes me feel sort of better because she can't see me. Even when she screams at me from the phone, makes snide comments, threatens me with excommunication, it is okay. When I mumble that I'll work on it, that I'm okay, that I'm eating fruits and vegetables, it is okay because she doesn't know better. And she will never know. Does that sound martir to you?

I don't know if you'll read this anytime soon but I've just read you e-mail. I don't check my Yahoo! often, sorry. I don't know what to do because there's an intervention going on here, on me at that, and I think it's going to take a while for me to get back. The moment I do though, I am dragging someone by the hair if I have to to your house, or wherever you are, because let's not kid ourselves, I get lost at Colon.

There's something about a blank wall. I've got to tell you I've ruined my bedroom wall. It has all sort of words on it, some I've made up, splatters of oil paints that won't come off sans gas, postcards, cut-outs from magazines, my hair. The floor can't be seen, can't walk without slippers, health hazard. We are a hazard to ourselves aren't we? Reading Thirteen Reasons Why sure didn't help me. I'm almost thinking about making my own tapes too. Except I'm only sending them to you. Because I know you will know what to do with them. Except now, we are both on the ledge. People will think we made a pact or something. Something creepy. We are not creepy. Just a bit starved. You know what I'm talking about.

Just know that I am on my way. I don't know what else to say really but that I'm on my way. Please, don't do anything. Breathe for a while. Sleep. Eat some green peas, some soup, tea. I'll be there before you know it.

Be safe. You and everyone.

An Earful Of Cotton Twigs Picked From Underfoot

2009-09-25T22:40:00.006+08:00

I'm pretty messed-up right now but listening to these songs is balm to my soul and salt to open wounds, at the same time. Let's belt them out together now, we don't need these lungs!

This first one is my favorite from this now too hyped-up band that I still sort of love but will never admit to again in public because they've sold themselves short as of late. But hey, why would a dead girl lie? I love you, still! Come back!

I've been roaming around, I was looking down at all I see
Painted faces fill the places I can't reach
You know that I could use somebody
You know that I could use somebody

Someone like you and all you know and how you speak
Countless lovers under cover of the street
You know that I could use somebody
You know that I could use somebody
Someone like you

Off in the night while you live it up I'm off to sleep
Waging wars to shake the poet and the beat
I hope it's gonna make you notice
I hope it's gonna make you notice

Someone like me, someone like me
Someone like me, somebody

I'm ready now, I'm ready now
I'm ready now, I'm ready now
I'm ready now, I'm ready now
I'm ready now

Someone like you, somebody
Someone like you, somebody
Someone like you, somebody

I've been roaming around, I was looking down at all I see

Next up is this wonderfully crazy song that's one part love song, one part eulogy, another a quirky portmanteau of Chasing Amy and American Psycho and a little bit of Poliphili too. Don't just believe me, have a listen. I love this too. That's why it's here. Let's bust out all the stops, who's going to find out? Who's going to tell?

Thought I saw you in the battleship
But it was only a look a like
She was nothing but a vision trick
Under the warning light
She was close, close enough to be your ghost
But my chances turned to toast
When I asked her if I could call her your name

I thought I saw you in the rusty hook
Huddled up in wicker chair
I wandered up for a closer look
And kissed who ever was sitting there

She was close, and she held me very tightly
Till I asked awfully politely, please
Can I call you her name

And I elongated my lift home,
Yeah I let him go the long way round
I smelt your scent on the seatbelt
And kept my shortcuts to myself

I thought I saw you in the parrots beak
Messing with the smoke alarm
It was too loud for me to hear her speak
And she had a broken arm

It was close, so close that the walls were wet
And she wrote it out in letraset
No you can't call me her name

Tell me where's your hiding place
I'm worried I'll forget your face
And I've asked everyone
And I'm beginning to think I imagined you all along

I elongated my lift home
Yeah I let him go the long way round
I smelt your scent on the seatbelt
And kept my shortcuts to myself

I saw your sister in the cornerstone
On the phone to the middle man
When I saw that she was on her own
I thought she might understand
She was close, well you couldn't get much closer
She said I'm really not supposed to but yes,
You can call me anything you want

And this one, oh God this one, has some history. I find myself humming this tune, singing this chorus and this last line, to myself from time to time, especially when I'm this whacked up. It's amazing what you do give away noh? Scream it out now. Yeah. Wasn't this our band? Yes yes yes.

We were standing in an empty room.
The moonlight was falling.
You were holding my hand when the car
Pulled up for you.
And I could have spent a life with you,
But those days were over.
You were calling my name when
Your face faded from view.

And wasn't it you who told me
The sun would always chase the day?
Wasn't it you who told me?

Angels fly in the air tonight.
Saying, Wasn't it just like swimming
Out on the lake?
Stars collide, and the air's alive.
Or was it just like those promises that you made
On our last night?

I remember waking up with you.
The days doing nothing,
You meant more to me then
Than I think you ever knew.
But you were going to be a doctor,
A movie star, a poet at a Nobel seminar,
I hope the world never tore that out of you.

And wasn't it you who told me
The sun would always chase the day?
Wasn't it you who told me?

Angels fly in the air tonight.
Saying, Wasn't it just like swimming
Out on the lake?
Stars collide, and the air's alive.
Or was it just like those promises that you made?

And whatever happened to the things you loved, the songs we played,
On the Indian days?
Whatever happened to the things you gave away,
Like 'Harold and Maude' and singing?

I was waving as you drove away.
The sunlight was falling.
You were writing backwards
In a dusty windowpane.

Angels fly in the air tonight.
Saying, Wasn't it just like swimming
Out on the lake?
Stars collide, and the air's alive.
Or was it just like those promises that you made
On our last night?

Is this the fourth one? How many are there Kristine? Ah yes, you know me as Jude. I remember. I don't know if it's worth it anymore.

Far away
This ship is taking me far away
Far away from my memories
Of the people who care if I live or die

The starlight
I will be chasing your starlight
Until the end of my life
I don't know if it's worth it anymore

Hold you in my arms
I just wanted to hold you in my arms

My life
You electrify my life
Let's conspire to re-ignite
All the souls that would die just to feel alive

I'll never let you go
If you promise not to fade away, never fade away

Our hopes and expectations
Black holes & revelations
And our hopes and expectations
Black holes & revelations

Hold you in my arms
I just wanted to hold you in my arms

Far away
This ship is taking me far away
Far away from the memories
Of the people who care if I live or die

I'll never let you go
If you promise not to fade away, never fade away

And our hopes and expectations
Black holes & revelations, yeah
Our hopes and expectations
Black holes & revelations

Hold you in my arms
I just wanted to hold you in my arms
I just wanted to hold

This last one is pretty fucked up. But it's from the band after my own heart and yes, that tells you all you really need to know about me. They hit me hard with Your Ex-Lover Is Dead, and 14 Forever even (imagine? I'd personally like to be 16 forever, from June to November). But this one, this one guts you. Enjoy lovers.

Try as he might he's unable to speak
He grabs her by the hair, he strokes her on the cheek
The bed is unmade like everything is
Dark little heaven at the top of the stairs
Take me like that, ruin it all
Then build it again by the light in the hall
He drops to his knees says please my love, please
I'll kill who you hate, take off that dress, you won't freeze

One more night, that was a good one
One more night, i dreamed it was a good one
One more, one more night, that was a good one
One more night, the end should be a good one
A good one

He starts with her back cause that's what he sees
When she's breaking his heart she still fucks like a tease
Release to the sky, look him straight in the eye
And tell him that now, that you wish he would die
You'll never touch him again so get what you can
Leaving him empty just because he's a man
So good when it ends, they'll never be friends
One more night, that's all they can spend

One more night, that was a good one
One more night, i dreamed it was a good one
One more, one more night, that was a good one
One more night, the end should be a good one
A good one

All this talk of darkness and evening, carpe noctem! Seize the night indeed dear ones because damn it all that's all there is. I love sleeping at daybreak because all that light? That brightness? It's a lie. We're all liars and nobody really knows us because heck we lie to ourselves. We don't stop, we just get better at it is all. After a few years of childhood, nobody catches us. Don't you see? It's why we hate Mondays and traffic. It grabs us, doesn't let loose its hold, makes us think. But then again, we can't think too much. After all, we are slaves to our alarm clocks aren't we? Slaves to the small swathes of leather we shackle to our wrists. What am I talking about? Funny the times logorrhea strikes you. If Savonarola were still alive he'd burn me to chairoscuro and leave me to dry on nights like this one, starkly. I have a headache. I wonder if meds with some screwdriver would do the trick. Do you think they make slingshots my size? La-la-la-laughter.

laughlaughlaugh

2009-09-25T17:42:00.005+08:00

I've just realized what's happening exactly one month from now. And it doesn't bring anything but a feeling of foreboding, of things left undone, of things that one isn't prepared for. I'm getting old. Isn't it funny that I've been old all my life?

Friday, September 25

2009-09-25T17:24:00.003+08:00

My stepdad has given a moratorium on Facebook, except it's more of the permanent kind. And I don't know, I haven't exactly used it to the best of its ability but it has become one of the few extensions I've kept going, the lines of communication I've kept somewhat open. And I've already let go of Multiply, Friendster needs no saying, and if the settings are to be believed, 'deactivating' is always an option. I'm just going to tread on lightly here and keep it up as long as possible, I'm the mistress of excuses after all. But I guess the line I use (There will always be Facebook) is up in the air 'til then. Whatever. I like being there in person anyway, and I'm on my way to doing that, but I'm not there yet. There is something about seeing people in person. Because then I don't have the excuse of Globe restorations and funky connections to warrant the far from frequent updates. Then I have to explain myself. Answer the how-are-yous for well, a lot. I'd have to choose my words carefully because I know they just might be the last words I tell these people. I have to hug them knowing this just might be for the last time. Because really, I don't know where I'm going or what I'm doing. I've severed all ties to reason and frankly there is just no going back. I don't know for how long I can keep this up because it's been so hard. Their classes are ending soon and I need to clear out my records at the school. If only I don't have to see or talk to certain people of the institution I would have done this thing long ago but I've foreseen that it's going to difficult and cumbersome and they are going to make me come out of those things pretty low. I have to fortify myself. It's not working. So I'd better do it now because I'm tired of putting it off. Then I'm going to go talk to the people I've missed, and will probably miss for however long life rambles on. Is it wrong that I can't see myself in five years? All I see ahead of me is a deep fog, the road is insubstantial, like there is nothing left to be known, or felt, or had. Like I've reached my limit, I've known all I can know. I feel like that. But until this, until I've done all that I can do, I'm going to wake up. I'm here after all, there is no other way but up.

N.S.W.E.

2009-09-25T17:14:00.000+08:00

Where are you going really? I sure don't know.

Spring Awakening: Those You've Known

2009-09-24T22:41:00.004+08:00

Those you've known and lost still walk behind you. All alone, they linger till they find you. Without them, the world grows dark around you. And nothing is the same until you know that they have found you. Those you've pained may carry that still with them. All they same they whisper: "All forgiven." Still your heart says the shadows bring the starlight, and everything you've ever been is still there in the dark night. When the northern wind blows the sorrow your heart holds-- there are those who still know; they're still home. We're still home.

Thought you know. You've left them far behind. You walk on by yourself, and not with them. Still you know, they will fill your heart and mind when they say there's a way through this. Those you've known and lost still walk behind you. All alone, their song still seems to find you. They call you as if you knew their longing. They whistle through the lonely wind, the long blue shadows fading. All alone and still I hear their yearning. Through the dark, the moon, alone there, burning. The stars too, they tell of spring returning-- and summer with another wind that no one yet has known. They call me through all things. Night's falling but somehow I go on. You watch me, just watch me, I'm calling from longing.

When the northern wind blows, the sorrows your heart's known-- I believe...

Still, you know there's so much more to find. Another dream, another love you'll hold. Still, you know to trust your own true mind. On your way, you are not alone. There are those who still know. Now they'll walk on my arm through the distant night, and I won't let them stray from my heart. Through the wind, through the dark, through the winter light. I will read all their dreams to the stars. I'll walk with them now. I'll call on their names. I'll see their thoughts are known. Not gone, not gone, they walk with my heart. I'll never let them go.

I'll never let them go. I'll never let them go. You watch me, just watch me. I'm calling. I'm calling. I'm calling.

And one day all will know.

----

Moritz.

Wendla.

Melchior.

Oh

2009-09-24T21:32:00.003+08:00

Living. It's just a one letter difference isn't it?

How can it be so easy? It can't be this easy.

Whoever said it had to be hard?

Life is hard. Living is hard.

We don't need to make it hard.

He made it so easy.

You not letting me walk with you. Watching you walk away, it was hard. It... hurt.

You're not doing this because of what they said are you?

Why are they doing this?

They see something. In us.

Can you live without him now? Can you walk away?

Look at her! There's something wrong.

There could be something right.

Listen to me man, can you leave now? Can you walk away?

I'm talkative aren't I?

Please don't do this to yourself.

I am telling you right now that I am the one.

This is a declaration of intent.

I am the one.

People Forget

2009-09-14T16:56:00.004+08:00

People forget and the world goes on turning. Nothing ever changes under the sun. It wouldn't really be different. What is one person in the grand scheme of things? It is miniscule against the universe.

You can tell them to forget the money owed, the books unreturned, the bags, the clothes, everything. Keep them. They are yours. I don't need them anymore.

Only know this. It is not anyone's fault but my own. This is my choice. I am just too tired. I feel like I am getting sucked into another stifling world again. It seems I can never escape, or move far enough away. And I'm tired. I can't see myself feeling any different tomorrow.

I can't imagine myself being sixty, or thirty. I cannot even imagine myself next year. And now, there is no need to. I've often said that I will never do this to myself. But I lie. Everybody lies, even to themselves.

But I have always known, but I was also always afraid. It wasn't so much denial as shame. But I couldn't care less now. I have made peace with myself. I've finally accepted that this has never been for me. I can say this now. I am just getting things in order, finding the easiest way out. I am going away softly. I wish you all the best.

I'm sorry. No. Not really. Have a good life.

UPDATED: January 6, 2011

I am still alive.

To: Anyone

2009-09-09T07:21:00.003+08:00

Twenty-four hours ago, my mother called me. I told her everything, how I wasn't going to school and how I have no idea what I want to do with my life. She said the normal things: wasting time, money, frustrated hopes, exhaustion due to disappointment and earning a living in a foreign country. But then there was a difference. I think she got tired too. I think she's finally cutting her losses. She said that it's okay for me to do whatever I want now. And a little of the weight is gone.

Yesterday, after many weeks in isolation, I took my first jeepney ride and went out to the world. It's amazing how cramped it is after the width of an entire room all to yourself. The abrupt stops, the sitting on the edge of your seat, the constant bouts of inertia was something I needed to get used to again. But I love jeepney rides. I went to the bank to close my credit. Then I went on a date with myself in the city.

I walked around the metro, and I rode past my school. It's really quite different when you look at it from the outside. There are these students walking towards it so resolutely, you can't help but think of them as people who know what they are doing. Dressed in white, with sharp black shoes, and bags as big as China. They look like someone with a bright future. I'm going to miss being one of them. But I am happy because even if the future is murky for me, it is mine.

I then went for a bite to eat and deliberated between a simple lasagna for 155 and a combo of chicken drumstick with gravy, spaghetti carbonara with fresh-baked bread, caesar salad with an upgrade iced tea for an additional ten pesos (they call it Birdy and Spaghetti) for 99. And since I'm cheap I chose some literal BS. I've learned this lesson before with the combo at Pizza Hut but I guess you can't teach an old dog new tricks because I fell for it again. The breading was horrendous, it tasted like watered down crepe. The gravy was all flour. The carbonara didn't even have black pepper. There was no cheese in the salad. They used powdered milk for the pasta AND the caesar. But I wolfed it down nonetheless because I was hungry. Heh. Don't even get me started on the banana split.

So anyway, I'm going to school this week to clear my records. I think I'm taking off for a year or two, catch some wind and fly away for awhile. Truth be told, by the time I come back y'all just might have forgotten all about me. But then again, there's Facebook. I've been dead there for a while now.

I need to tell you something, the reason I don't reply to your txts is not because of previous reasons I have cited before but because my phone got zonked on one jeepney ride home wherein I fell asleep. Thankfully, they didn't take anything else. There were a couple of bills hidden in the book I carried around. Nice hiding place, gotta tell you. So there. No cellphone, but you can always e-mail me like Dore. :)

I'll be here for another month or two and I hope to see you again in that time. We can do karaoke and eat our fill of unhealthy food together. There's an exhibit in Turtle's Nest I'd like to go with you all, and of course the Aurore book shop opening. To think about it, I think it's already open. Let's go.

I am taking time rediscovering the city I haven't really known these past four years. My, four years, with nothing to show for it. But then again, I have experiences I will never trade with anything. And people, I have people. Today, I'm off hunting for some Goong manhwa and an English breakfast. I think I'll visit the Fort again. Do you think I can get back from Boljoon in two days. I have an old house I have to visit, the one with the beautiful walls.

Don't be a stranger now, keep in touch. I will only let go when you do. Love.