I edited most posts as friends-locked. I know, I know. Nobody's really reading me, but yeah. Lj for me is a more private place, and all my emotional vomit is here. My wordpress, where I write about work, design, fashion, music, film, travel, and the most random of things, is for everybody anyway, so there you should go. It gets 150-300 hits everyday, so that must mean something :)

Add me up here only if you think inside this boring HP template are read-worthy entries. And if you really are my friend. Cheers.

Tagged by paco
pacocams 

Seven things that scare you:
1. The Unknown (seriously)
2. My mother's rage
3. Poorly-lit streets and eskinitas in Manila
4. My diseases (gastroenteritis for life)
5. Ipis and other crawling creatures
6. -
7. - (wow, i'm not so scared! big girl na siya!)

Seven things you like the most:
1. Music
2. Exploration
3. Good company
4. Chocolate
5. Great reads (books, magazines)
6. Art and the people that go with it
7. Introspection

Seven important things in your room:
1. Technology (erm. laptop, ext hard drive, iPod, cds, slr)
2. Moleskine! (mine as well)
3. Books (amen)
4. My wardrobe
5. Pictures
6. Old journals
7. Stashie

Seven random facts about you:
1. I'm having my hypochondriac phase roit now
2. I clean my room when I get super depressed (hey, whaddaya know. my room's the cleanest it's ever been roit now)
3. I enjoy my daily Katipunan to Recto train rides, especially when I get to sit down and read a book while listening to music (yes, all these elements must be there)
4. I strike a deal with myself to not cut my hair until *something* happens
5. I suck at True Healthy Living despite being vegetarian and occasional running
6. I spend more than 12 hours at work most of the time
7. I got to be second runner up Little Miss Malimpuec (a small town in Pangasinan) when I was a kid. During talent portion, I sang "From A Distance", until mid-song I ran to my mom's seat and refused to go back to the kiddie pageant. Then my dad (to save my little ass) finished the song for me on stage, as the entire song (on minus one hahaha) did not stop playing. HAHA. Why I still got an award, that I have no idea.

Seven things you plan to do before you die:
1. Travelcore (See this entry)
2. Befriend Morrissey
3. Design my own house
4. Run my yoga/pilates place with a healthy diner downstairs
5. Remove vices in my life
6. Love
7. Be loved

Seven things you can do:
1. InDesign skillz yo
2. Listen to people
3. Forget the time
4. Work 48 hours straight (erm, see number 3)
5. Re-answer this survey TWICE as I have accidentally typed the keyboard shortcut for "back" on this web browser, thus eliminating my answers for the next 4 topics.
6. Feign interest (totally diff from number 2)
7. Drink Oktoberfest beer in my room

Seven things you can't do:
1. Quit vices yet
2. Become a looker
3. Maintain a long-term exercise plan
4. Exude confidence in public speeches/ reports/ whatever
5. Life/ figure drawings to save my sorry ass
6. Stop downloading music
7. Sing (ditto)

Seven things that attract you to the opposite sex:
1. Fashion sense (not v. particular about this, as long as there's an attempt at uniqueness)
2. Mad skillz (bass? art? writing? glass blowing? whatever)
3. Interesting taste in music
4. Love for literature and/or writing
5. Has his own share of Pinoy humor/ pop/ ka-bakyaan
6. Gentlemanliness
7. Passion for passion :o) Passion for life! For real :o)

Seven things you say the most:
1. Hey man
2. Watap
3. Tsk
4. Chos (lately)
5. Talaga? / For real?
6. Hello Mam/sir
7. Yessir

Seven celeb crushes (whether local or foreign)
1. Daniel Day-Lewis
2. Sean Connery (geriatric luv)
3. Johnny Depp (ok. I have the hots for those method actors)
4. Louie Talan
5. Jon Avila
6. Tom Morello
7. Giancarlo Giannini (hahahhaha!), Al Pacino (Godfather days)

Seven people you want to see to take this quiz:
1. turningthirteen 
2. chayenne 
3. coolyerjetsman 
4. deadcake 
5. smallfurryalien 
6. pasweet_lang 7. you

(btw. "norma" is such a sixties name. haha. do you know anybody named norma nowadays? as in someone you or someone you know hang out with? :op )

I'd like to say that there are so many cool people in this world. Groundbreaking thought, eh? Haha. It feels a-shitty now that I went home early (as in 11:30 pm-ish early, wujubilib?) but hardly feeling sleepy though I am a-tired already.

I'm on Wordpress and loving it!

It's frickin' two pee em in the office and i'm not in the mood to do anything. anyfuckingthing.
but i've heaps to accomplish. leche...
haay. good thing, tomorrow i'll begin my dance classes with kat. something to look forward to.
whoo.


i need a ladder. a ladder, please, quick.

i think i'm pretty much...

dare i say it?

:)


nah. baka maudlot. haha

yes. because the internet is such a great distraction, i will write the most eloquent journal entry titles.

It stings my tongue

like fine needles on a
patch of sandskin
Diluted, dissipated
A bit of pain lingers but it's a welcome hurt

I don't taste the bold comeuppance. It's all
just a dark liquid seething
searing through my throat.
Masochistic and elating
it seizes; it bolts--
a welcome hurt.

I welcome this hurt.
Sip more, until this routine
of needle- diluting- disillusion-delusion

a
flash.

Brewing of desensitized senses.
Travail to stoicism.

***

Naks naman. Naisulat ko yang walang kwentang tula noong September, nung sabay-sabay yung iba kong raket pati ang day job. (Haha, hanggang ngayon pa rin naman, dear.) Nasa Seattle's Best Katip ako as usual, uminom ng Extra-Large Cafe Americano na sobrang tapang, walang creamer at sobrang laki na hindi ako pinatulog buong gabi. Ayan tuloy, napatula(la) ako.

Wala lang, just wanted to share. Kasi hindi ko talaga kayang magtrabaho ng tuloy-tuloy pag online ako. Isang malaking distraction sa pagtapos ng raket ang hi-speed internet connection. Dapat sa akin dial-up lang na 52kbps. HA.

sarado daw ang mt. pulag ngayon dahil sa mga nagkalat na bandido sa benguet area. fuck!

excited pa naman ako umakyat. tuloy mapipilitan akong magpunta ng party sa absinthe at makipag-lunch sa kung saang lugar.

hayy. gusto ko lang talaga umakyat.

it's always just a matter of carpe diem, everyday. i wonder if its meaning still holds true when without excitement. seize the day without excitement.

haha, that sounds odd. and stupid.

"it's patient waiting that's good for the heart and food for the soul."

while waiting for my materials to be finally downloaded so i can begin making "ratrat (hahaha)"  with my layouts, here i am. i can't think of any profound thing to say.

ha, just like the ol' lj days. blogging without meaning. everything doesn't have to mean something. sometimes, things should have no meaning. or probably have a shallow one, but that means it still has a meaning, though  shallow.

bleeh. bubwak.

i'm looking forward to my trips next weekend and during the christmas vacation. it's going to be my first christmas vacation without mi familia. and first time i'll be celebrating my new year's day at some remote place with my friends.

the process of d e t   a c  h me n   t                 


let's see.

oh, and by the way...

someone wants a fucking leica.



hah, if it weren't too expensive.

Siouxsie, The Gothmother and splatterpunk woman is still amazingly aplomb at 50! Radar magazine interviews her after leaving a party in NY filled with ""too many little blondies."

Excerpt:

Radar: Your old guitarist, Cure frontman Robert Smith, is set to do a duet with Ashlee Simpson. Do you think he should be killed for treason?
Siouxsie: Who is Ashlee Simpson?

i will try to write a longish entry as a result of paco's attempt to make me feel depressed. hurrah, i ain't! i ain't the slightest depressed of a lass! for me now, being nostalgic doesn't equate to being sad.

funny how i managed to become stoic because i chose to be stoic. the mind is such a powerful tool. (haha, i spelled powerful as "powerfool" while writing mwahaha. ya foo'!) with the process of constant reinforcement: a self-brainwashing exercise that i "feel okay" and "am better where i am now" does have its merits. for one, i don't feel as incompetent and as inadequate unlike before when i always had to size up to other people. doing my shit well and having nary a care in the world are a potent anesthesia.

(okay, paco, here comes the nostalgia part. if you can call it that!)

after grad, i had my worst times. it was the worst: crawling away from the double-jeopardy of past, days and nights laced with the greatest vices, and generally feeling sad, lonely, doomed. twisting morrissey's words, the lights always went out. i was always sick and crying. i was jumping from one company to the next, not knowing what to achieve. i had no idea what i wanted to do. i was always at war with my thoughts. i was always plagued with regrets and with what i couldn't get. i was always desiring for something unreal. (unreal isn't the same as dreams.)

but it was also, yes dickens, the best of times. though those were my most vulnerable, i unwittingly but steadily developed my support system. friends over beer, over coffee, over chai tea lattes, over tokwa, over ym, over time helped me crawl away from that emotional shithole i was in.

i still get sad from time to time, but not as often and as intense like i used to be. teenage angst is real, and i guess i'm past deadline.

probably because work is like alcohol. you get intoxicated and drunk. before you know it, you're already asleep, then you wake up sober the next day. sometimes you get a hangover. so even if you've been meaning to engage in a thirty-minute introspection on how the day was or your boss treated you, you just end up dozing off to lalaland. and then another day comes and passes. and passes. and passes. stet.

that's probably why there's a term called "workaholic." and that's probably where i'm headed to becoming. yep, i'm going through the new-age evolution of (wo)man. i'm filling the proverbial mold. did i just say proverbial? yuck.

i'm not in a high state of bliss, but i feel at peace. let's just make a kamustahan again after, let's say, five months. you know how i like the word "change".

paco, you're trying to tell me i don't realize how sad this cycle has become. honestly? i am feeling better now. i am okay now.

but ended up buying an armani exchange leather satchel. ha ha! suckered into the materialistic shitniz [sic]. oh god, hope i don't end up being a matronix chenes chuvanes.

what the fuck?

this is not jobelle writing.
goodbye.

Leaves
Mikael de Lara Co

Sometimes the wind hates the city and begins to speak
in a language that only the leaves understand. I've learned
not to mind anymore. Sometimes the wind says something,
and sometimes it says nothing, and I can't distinguish when.
I've learned not to say anything about things I can't understand,
like how the moon seems sadder, larger, when sidewalks
keep absolutely still, or how, when car engines drone
in the distance, one is reminded of dragonflies, the way their wings
love movement, so much that one begins to think of a steady fire,
or a river seen from afar, or sometimes, nothing at all. But then
morning comes and the streetlamps are left on and I am left struggling
with the concept of change. Or the concept (how are they different?)
of suffering, the blank calligraphy of dawn that reminds one
of a leave-taking, the way the city silences the wind so fully,
so ruthlessly, that when light remembers to hold itself up to you,
the shadows begin to look like the ghosts of fallen leaves.


x x x

haay. ang galing mo talaga.

so i'm being haunted by noonies in the office. my shoelaces, which i always tie to a double knot, unraveled twice. my work entails me sitting down in front of the pc; nothing more. the next day, two unknown 'entities' sent me a message through YM. the first one's username is "solacnud" and the message was, "But for now, it's all good". the second didn't have a username, and the message was "null".

what the ?! our ea, rochelle, told me that how will a 'person' send me a message through YM without logging into/ with a username?

absurdo to the maximum level!

if only i could be stoic about these things much like i am with the daily grind. but if this continues to be my fate for the next n years i'm in MB then, goooooodluck. i do hope that prayer will be a potent amulet.

demn. fo shiznit.

toothpastefordinner.com


x x x


why do i always play the go-between?!!?
i'm such a pacifier pisces.
medyo nahihirapan din ako, friends.

follows is a story written by my friend, mark ponce. pero tawag lang namin sa kanya, ompong. at mahusay pala siyang magsulat. thought you, my friends, would appreciate this too.



that’s what they were.

Jerome and Emma decided to swim together during a random Friday night dinner (neither of them were booked for dates or parties then), after noticing they had gained considerable weight since they last met three months ago. Both of them attribute their flab to their work: community development required Jerome to travel frequently, which made him lonely, consequently causing him to eat a lot. Emma handled accounts for a medium-sized ad agency, which paid okay, gave her good exposure, and was otherwise hell. Stress made her eat a lot.

They agreed to block off two hours of their Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays to swim together at the pool in their old university. Then, over coffee, they talked a little, speaking generally and leaving out details they would normally share with close friends. Such was their friendship: they only met in convenience, and spoke the safe, noncommittal talk of acquaintances.

Over the next few weeks, she found out that she swam thrice the laps he did, that he was restricted to freestyle and breaststroke. Emma, a varsity swimmer in grade school, won silver twice at consecutive regional meets. She did not remember why she stopped competing. He, on the other hand, did not learn how to swim until five years ago, which he blames on the childhood memory of cruel uncles and slimy starfish during a family vacation in Matabungkay. When he turned eighteen, Jerome committed to spend the rest of his adult life perfecting his swim style and breathing.

After every swim, she would critique his form and give him tips (the inefficiency of his freestyle unnerved her), and learned he did not quite have the aptitude towards learning the tumble-turn—the semi-dive-turn-and-kick from the tiles at the end of the lane.

Their swim schedule would be only be interrupted by Jerome’s short trips once or twice a month, otherwise they would swim regularly, M-W-Fs.

Emma did not swim whenever Jerome was away. She never swam alone. The sterile world of blue tiles and bubbles she saw through her goggles, for some reason, was the perfect setting for a festering hand to reach out and grab her leg. Jerome’s fear was of the typical sort: sharks. His theory, however, was that sharks attacked only those who feared the water, and believed that once he achieved the confidence of a champion swimmer, they would never touch him.

They always ate out and smoked after a swim. Later on, she began telling him about issues at home, at work, and of certain life choices she’d rather not make at this point. He described to her beautiful, quiet places he chanced upon while traveling (which made her feel lonely). They supplied refreshingly objective advice to each other, the kind strangers prescribe to fellow strangers. Once, they held hands, good medication against loneliness and stress. They never kissed. Emma had a boyfriend, and besides, she and Jerome were too immersed in their own lives to see each other beyond swim buddies.

They were into their sixth month of swimming when he disappeared. Police found a pair of his slippers pointed towards the horizon, in a secluded Dumaguete beach. A year after, Jerome’s family, having gone through the terrible ordeal of searching and finding nothing, decided to find closure for themselves by holding his wake. Emma did not cry. Instead, she ended up consoling Jerome’s close friends (whom she knew from college) who sobbed loudly during the funeral. Most of them hoped he was still alive. In her heart, however, she knew exactly what happened to him, absently wondering how far he had gone before he realized he was afraid, after all. She told her boyfriend about this, and no one else.

To this day, she swims, M-W-Fs. Her boyfriend and her friends swim with her sometimes, but they fall in and out of her tight swimming schedule, busy with their own lives.

Emma has been swimming alone for more than a year now.

She had developed a trim, evenly-toned figure, and the compliments never cease. She wonders when she would get tired of swimming, and when she would finally feel his cold and clammy touch on her leg.