...

There are monotone rabbits jumping, pacing around inside my head. Three, four, maybe hundreds, I do not know. I do not count. I try to catch each of them, beg them to keep still… My body lay on the bed resembling a forlorn petal whisked by the harsh wind. There is turmoil, increasing in size, between my temples. It clouds my vision, exhausts my eyelids. I want to surrender to this lethargy in complete awareness, and abandon. Send all of my senses to sleep, sink into oblivion. Forget to wake. But the rabbits keep me conscious—alert, triggering the throbbing sensation I’ve been denying.

The bleak white light put shadows into hiding—behind mirrored objects. The faint smell of cigar penetrates my nostrils. There is a sound coming from vehicles below the street orchestrating a medley of roaring engines and things passing. The sound. The sound. The sound confirms that time is still running. The world continues to orbit—as I remain static. Except for the rabbits prancing and bouncing. I attempt to wrap them in darkness, imagine them dispersing, vanishing….

I spiral down in a trance.

...

 “The problem with your generation is thinking in fragments.”

–        Ms. Christina Hidalgo, while butchering the piece I submitted for her class

***

I read a story on yahoo about this guy who cut ties with all forms of communication technology—social media, emails, and cellphone.

I have been living without facebook and twitter for quite some time now. I have to say, it is liberating. Think of all the time you got in your hands. The amount of mental space you can save. The quiet, almost zen-like feeling of not knowing what everyone is up to. 

Ask yourself, do you actually care that someone from your vast network, broke a nail and ten people liked it? 

Facebook can be useful in times of disaster when people are called to mobilize and send help but 95% of the time, it’s nothing but a portal of virtual nuisances. 

It’s about time we relive the simplicity of face-to-face conversations and small laughter. Hang out without needing to inform everybody. 

What makes us think that everybody gives a damn anyway?

Also, if a friend needs to tell you something very important, he or she will find you no matter what.

...

wanderer, the road is your

footsteps, nothing else;

wanderer, there is no path,

you lay down a path in walking

-Antonio Machado

nostalgic epiphany

I sat on the backseat of a car filled with small laughter from your friends. I felt uncomfortable with being a few inches from you when the truth was,  I had left a long time ago and nowhere to be seen. I  blamed the fault of tagging along to your little party to the several years I was automatically wired to think that I was part of your plans. I should have easily dismissed going out and stayed at home to reread Kundera or J.Neil Garcia.

But—

Habits are hard to break. It’s even more difficult to admit that a relationship is built on routines, preemptive assurance, solid friendship. We nailed the latter more than any couple I knew but it always fell short to keep what we had alive.

If love is friendship on fire, our flame burnt out. The gray ashes wisped into nothingness, left no trace, left both of us oblivious (in denial) for such a long time.

I stared at your face and it was no longer familiar. Gone is the desire to memorize each laugh line, each fold of wrinkle in your eyes and that sparkle which follows, so lovingly whilst being grateful to every minute of our light conversations bringing inexplicable delight of togetherness.

I don’t know where it went. It ran away. Long before.

Long before kisses were reduced to pecks on the cheek, hands refused to be held, embraces became a pat on the shoulder, and I would rather sleep on the other side of the bed with a huge barricade of pillows between us during a beach trip. I said it was difficult for me to sleep with another person’s arms flung on my body, which is half-true and half-excuse to avoid any sort of intimacy.

It’s lonely to think

Feelings disappeared years ago, and it was only recently did we acknowledged what kind of fools we made ourselves and we both had to go.

...

The world is so beautiful. Why would anyone want to destroy it?

**

When I'm done with grad school, I'll go back to El Nido and work as bartender (half serious)

***

I wish I can just

Swim all day and feel the sun’s heat penetrating my burnt skin

The same way I would’ve just spend my day

Drinking from the richness of a poem and bathing on all thoughts, ideas – deriving pleasure from being inquisitive enough

To stay glued on theoretical books as

Useful as jeggings to a mermaid— reading just because, for aha!

In the world of adults, productive idleness is most expensive.

4 year itch.

I thought I was Sabina (Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera). I chose lightness and would’ve wanted my ashes thrown amongst the wind. Like all things, lightness is relative, what’s deemed as something liberating can constrain you all the same.

Ultimate freedom meant being in possession of yourself, regardless of your relationships. I was Thomas all along.

“I wished I were there with someone who could bring peace to my heart someone with whom I could spend a little time without being afraid that I would lose him the next day. With that reassurance, the time would pass more slowly. We could be silent for a while because we'd know we had the rest of our lives together for conversation.” – By the river piedra, I sat down and wept –I remember reading this passage when I was 16. It sounded so beautiful…. I kept the words in my head, like a little prayer, a reminder of what kind of love I wanted. 

WANT. Want is a two-edged sword. Passionate but capricious. Strong but wavering.

To make a ‘right’ decision, I always go for what I wanted more, or never tried before. 

Man is in love and loves what vanishes.—W.B. YEATS 

Love’s not about security, I know.

Love is… a perpetual question with infinite answers.

Maybe love is not about finding your ideal person,

Someone who quotes Lord Byron,

Read more books than you did,

Crazy. Eccentric. Intoxicating.

Love’s about warmth that gently melts your wandering heart.

It pushes you over the edge, but catches you still.

It never asks ‘When?’ but says, ‘Take your time’

No matter how fearless and restless you are, it makes you want to curl up beside the person, and have your most peaceful sleep.  The kind where you don’t remember your dream but you wake up feeling considerably better.

I don’t promise forever. Eternity is a pretentious word when used by mortals.

I can’t say that things would be better this time (again and again), cos I change my mind a lot. But if love is a decision I have to make everyday, I’m giving you all I have left, every hour, every minute, every moment that I choose to be yours and yours alone.

I feel like a child coming home.

It's a New Year, no doubt.

I’m not keen on making a big fuss over occasions. I prefer ordinary days with something extra than full blown holidays when everyone’s all cheery and fat. I don’t hate Christmas, I just don’t like it when everyone’s so busy and rushing from one thing to another--wrapping up deadlines at work, shopping for gifts and groceries, attending parties… Well the last one ain’t bad but when traffic’s super horrible and I can feel the hectic craze of the season, I'd like to close my eyes, take a deep breath and imagine all the negative energy caused by the holiday stress coming out of my body, vanishing into thin air like smoke.

This Christmas had been different though. I thought I’d be lonely but I found myself saying, “Hey, this isn’t so bad after all”. When you surround yourself with people and accept all forms of love to fill the newly deserted spaces in your heart, you can be whole again.

2010 was a major turning point. I made a lot of decisions that can alter the rest of my tomorrows. I found a job I’m passionate about, I made my way back to God and I lost love… yeah, cheesy love. There comes a time when you have to risk cutting yourself just so you can feel alive. 

It’s all good. When something’s out of your control, you can always change how you look at it.

Everything that transpired and yet to come is a blessing.

house arrest

Do you know that viral infections have no cure? Be it influenza, conjunctivitis… I’m thinking about it now cos I’m sick, and I hate every second of it. Hello early vacation!

Doc said you can’t treat a virus, you just have to let it run its course (referring to mild infections ok, Cancer and HIV are different stories). Prescriptions are given to relieve symptoms but that doesn’t mean you’re getting better. It’s kind of similar to being in denial.

I like that thought, “… let it run its course…” life’s like that sometimes.

Not everything requires the right action, or good decision. There are circumstances when no matter what you do, you’re bound to screw up. So you have to let it be. Endure everything that comes with it. Suck it up until it’s over.

If people can accept that, wouldn’t it make their lives easier? Admitting that something is totally out of your control, that the only choice available out there is to surrender and get a grip of every emotion—pain, fright, embarrassment, whatever… let it consume each strand of your being until it heals by itself.

During exams, my favorite rule is “no erasures”. It saves me time from doubting my choices and first instincts. I don’t need to recheck my answers cos it would be pointless.

When you know there’s nothing else that can be done, you learn to deal with it. 

Acknowledge the experience, recover.

I was talking about my health of cours...

drunk blogging

Milan Kundera sounds like a girl but he's a boy

a czeck writer? forgot

he said compassionate love is not real love but more of like pity

and that flirting is promising sex but no guarantee

i like his book, unberable lightness of being

i want to read laughable loves and laughing and forgetting? something  like that

my male friend said i'm dominating

maybe i am

if its dominating to voice out your opinion and point out what's wrong 

then fine im dominating

if boys  don;t like that what a pussy

who started patriarchial society? adam?

freud is bullshit don't think theres such a thing as penis envy

you have to look into context

frued was during the sexual revilution, so he was all about sex sex

come to think of it,

when reading a book

you have to know where the writer is coming from

to have a btter idea of what he wrote about

cos its true, your environment shapes your thought

i miss david

i'm not used to driving when i had one few bottles

and i want pistachio ice cream now

i miss my old car

3 am is witches' hour

life goes on

when you want to ignore the world

turn it loud

EDIT: As much as I wanted to correct all my grammatical (and spelling) errors, I want to keep this post's authenticity. Tsk tsk... I'm weird. Who thinks of dead writers, rants about sexist stereotypes, when they're drunk? Turn it loud is wrong, should be turn it UP

Ode to my twenty year old lancer

I cannot emphasize how you’ve served me good. For your age, you’re amazingly dependable. You never left me hanging at inconvenient times, say coastal road at 2am. Though your inability to blow cool air is often one of our major rifts, let me tell you that I wanted the windows down anyway. I can smoke and my reflexes are higher. On intersections, gentlemen who see that I’m a lesser kind of driver because I’m biologically female, opt the courtesy of "ladies first". Assholes on the other hand, intentionally cut me off just to exhibit alpha maleness, feed their dying egos.

Do you remember when during a school project, we went to kamuning and it’s my first time to drive alone in EDSA? Then I wrecked the lower part of your bumper when I hit a gutter on my attempt to make a u-turn in a semi – eskinita.

What about during a drunken girls night, I got lost at Fort and your wheel got stuck on a man hole? My friend theng offered to make tulak while I reverse, it took three attempts before I got you out. Unfortunately, my friend replaced you inside the manhole when she fell.

You’re the perfect partner in crime when it’s late at night and I have to pick up my guy friends for a spontaneous inuman. They don’t mind your rugged appeal.

I drove you to Tagaytay countless of times, especially when I’m bored and I only have enough money for gas and one frappe.

I learned how to drive well because of your quirks… manual, pawis steering, moody headlights and all. Still, no car can ever make me feel the same when I hold your steering wheel. You lack tachometer so I have to listen to your heartbeat (engine) when shifting gears. It's two become one.

When pop's talking with a buyer, I can’t watch. It’s too painful. I secretly wish no one will buy you until I’m emotionally ready to let go.

I’m too sappy I know, and you’re probably thinking, “Dude! I’m just an old car, get over it. Don’t forget to replace my left shock” but I want you to know that, we had good times and bad times (i.e. aircon broke down in bacoor traffic at noon, summer time) but my heart will always be yours. I know you love me too cos you always start when it’s me turning the keys. Friends joked I have electricity on my fingertips.

I will miss you.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

On a rainy night, I read you a poem over the phone.

***

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example,'The night is shattered

and the blue stars shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms

I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me sometimes, and I loved her too.

How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.

And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.

The night is shattered and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.

My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight searches for her as though to go to her.

My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.

We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.

My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. Like my kisses before.

Her voice. Her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.

Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms

my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer

and these the last verses that I write for her.

-Pablo Neruda

:)

YAY! Made me my day! :D

While talking about recycling minerals to decrease the need for mining, an 8 year old kid asked:

"What about chrome? Chrome cannot be recycled." First thought, chrome? what chrome? google chrome?

I answered, "Anything can be recycled because matter cannot be destroyed, it can only transform"

"Chrome cannot be recycled."

"Well... since matter cannot be destroyed... (I don't really remember the rest of my answer, I'm getting nervous, I'm supposed to be a speaker sharing expertise! Wah.)

"Not chrome! I saw it on national geographic!" 

Teacher intervened to save my face. 

It was fun though, I just didn't expect to meet Jimmy Neutron. 

I love doing trainings with kids! When they pull a chair for you, introduce you, ask questions, I go "awww....". Plus I love how they almost always answer in sing songy chorus,

"If a stranger comes to your house, puts you in a cage and take you to zoo for other kids to watch, how will you feel?"
In Chorus: "Baaadddddd....."
"It's the same with animals!"


HAHA. :p

And everything changes. And nothing is truly lost. -N.Gaiman

D: Okay, that means you can't ask for favors like pick me up, drive me somewhere, pay for dinner, do this do that

A: Yea! and you can't text me, "what are you doing?", "did you have lunch?", "bahay ka na ba?" those annoying little questions!

D: Fine

A: and... you can't tell me where I can and can't go

D: I never do that

A: ....erm, you can't ask for hugs and kisses!

D: Okay

A: But you're still my bestfriend so we can still see each other...

D: *nods*

And thus, it was.

lets take it....20 kph

people ought to have longer weekends.

as we get older, time shrinks.

cyberslacking

lazy afternoons

staring into space

writing just because

consider it a luxury cos you live in the moment, every movement on the hands of a clock tangos with the beat of your heart. in an era when a time a well spent meant you got something done, a pause often fall between the cracks.

life's short--but rushing in only makes us miss it more.

***

its best to de-stress and pause with bffs

and shabu shabu is lonely to eat by yourself.

☺

grow old with you

I’m a boring person. I’m starting to think I am.

Awhile ago, david and I are eating dairy queen in gateway. We’re silent for a few minutes, separately savoring softserves before the realization of routine sinks in.

You see, we’ve been doing this for four weeks straight already. Every Friday after dinner we get the same dessert. But this entry is not about couples being stuck in a rut, it’s about me as an unexciting gf.

I acted cheery and told him some stories about work. He listened patiently while I babbled about rainforestation and planting native tree species.

On our way home, he asked about my opinion on the recent hostage drama, my answer irked him. We’ve always had opposing views. I sometimes accuse him of being a devil’s advocate.

My current read is Ben Yagoda’s The Sound on The Page, it’s very insightful and informative I have to share bits of it to someone. Ofcourse, I turned to david and told him Erickson’s observation that a lot of writers have speech impediment like Winston Churchill, Jorge Luis Borges, Lewis Caroll, which made Erickson believed that “a stutter becomes a writer”. It may sound dead boring and utterly trivial but I can relate.

At home, I continued reading my book while david sat beside me, staring at something only he can see.

I blurted something about writing fiction. He said I already did. Oh yeah, he remembered my short stint as a ghostwriter for adult fiction during my freelancing months. He was so amused about it. He thought I was writing porn. It’s only 5k words. Obviously, it’s not counted. I’m thinking more like, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, with all the meticulous and elaborate descriptions.

I bored him more by telling the connection between music and writing, how good writers produce rhythmical sentences.

From what I can tell on his facial expression, he was being polite and probably wandering why penguins can’t fly.

"None but ourselves can free our minds"

start of summer

It’s been a month. That girl who writes at home, sits on the floor, converts the living room to her workstation, drafts paragraphs for persons whose identity is reduced to usernames and time zones, spends her money on excessive beach trips, going out for drinks, bikinis, banana boats, green tea flavored gins, meeting friends, coffee catch-ups… knowing she doesn’t have a regular job, lives life along the lines of bumming and freelancing, had made its way to my hippocampus before settling to a nostalgic memory of coconut scented sunblock, all nighters, breakfasts in the afternoon, tan lines and the feeling of quiet liberation from everything that tied her down before—immobility, confinement, creative exhaustion.

Chinese proverb: Empty your cup
Chuck Palahniuk: It's only after you've lost everything, that you're free to do anything
Paolo Coelho: Now that she had nothing to lose, she was free

I paused my life for a while, took a breather, reconnected with the people that matters to me the most, family, friends… Him. Stopped worrying and planning my life like it’s as simple as mapping out the way from Cavite to Dapitan, because it doesn’t really work like that way. I realized that I did learn something from my first year of employment. It’s how a drastic act of resigning on impulse can change your whole view of the future.

People put off on doing too many things, then wondering why they wasted so much time thinking about it when their hearts’ will persist at the end.

The serenity of seashores will forever remind of me that season when I chose to retreat from my own expectations and just let myself be.

Changing,
Spontaneous,
Carefree.

jellyfishing

I know I've said that this is the best summer of my life-- I met new friends in a new community, I went to the beach with my bestfriends (twice!) and I burned all my life savings to a five day vacation in an overdeveloped island with David (hey, live for today!). But, here's the but, hear the thunders and stare at the gray sky.... summer's over.

I told myself that I'm going to take a career break and figure out what I really wanted to do with my life. What is one thing that I would do even if I wouldn't get paid for it? (Ooh... tough question, I need the money) Lemme rephrase that, What is one thing that I would do and wouldn't mind getting paid for it? Read again, there's a difference. Long story short, and for this blog's gist and purpose, I'm getting bored with my bumshell life. There, I said it!

i feel like a dead jelly fish....

cause of death: sudden low tide

you're lifeless, you can't move, there's nowhere to go but you're happy. (lame anthropomorphism? haha) Because you might me be stuck, but you're stranded in a familiar place with everything that ever matters to you. Just like the jellyfish and the cold white sand.

P.S.

To console myself of unemployment, I remember the trying moments when I have to rack my brain and depress myself to death when I have to think of taglines for our pharmaceutical clients. I have to differentiate ARB from CCB blocker, learn what causes macular edema, and think of various "powerful" & "effective" concepts for these several pain killers with different brand names.

Ow gawd, I'd choose jellyfish all the time. and seeweeds algae too.

not dead, just nagkalat