The remains of the birthday.

"What can we ever gain in forever looking back and blaming ourselves if our lives have not turned out quite as we might have wished? The hard reality is, surely, that for the likes of you and I, there is little choice other than to leave our fate, ultimately, in the hands of those great gentlemen at the hub of this world who employ our services. What is the point in worrying oneself too much about what one could or could not have done to control the course one’s life took? Surely it is enough that the likes of you and I at least try to make our small contribution count for something true and worthy. And if some of us are prepared to sacrifice much in life in order to pursue such aspirations, surely that is in itself, whatever the outcome, cause for pride and contentment." ~ Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day

Rabbit-rabbit

That is, as they say, the croak of an American frog, whereas the Pinoy frog would say Kokak. Jeez, what a corny way to start the obligatory new year post. Napaka-echoserang palaka naman eh year of the rabbit nga. Which means, people will copulate more this year? A ballooning population from an already ballooning and burgeoning one? The RH pundits better get their acts together because the moral pundits would unleash their hidden powers and strengths and illogical and impractical wisdom. I should put quotation on wisdom. Bigla kong nasingit ang RH tuloy, and the way that this sentence is going you might say it's a cheapskate segue, because I'm going to say that the bottom half of the year has got me working with something related to RH. But no, that was just coincidental, or no, consequential? Or rather spontaneous. There I go again with spontaneity. It reminded me again of Jack Kerouac and his concept of spontaneous prose, which is like blogging actually. Mas enjoy kung bigla na lang dadaloy ang mga salita galing sa iyong brain transferred my neurons to your kinetic fingers and you find yourself typing more rigorously and faster than you can think of the next sentence. Perhaps what I'm really saying is that I should record my thoughts more. That's what you get from receiving tons of notebooks and planners and organizers. Which is not to say it's a bad thing. The notebooks are swell. There's this one notebuk cum planner which has the word PARIS Depuis 1968 in it and has this really cool stamp logo and really vintage look with a miniaturized Eiffel in one of the pages. The pages tell me to write. And maybe write more.

Screw this.

It's 7:52. Plans of going home=nil. The whirr of the aircon. Alone again in a two-room office. The hard rain that just died down. Noises from vehicles. The semi-bitter after taste of orange juice. Christmas lights from the department store up front visible from the slits of the window sills. Picture frames in front of me that should convey meaning, but don't. The music player that stopped playing my self-professed favorite person of the year. I want to shrink or implode and let the universe just forget about me. Dammit. Fuck this spontaneity. Fucking overrated.

No surprises

When I realized that I left my laptop charger on top of a table inside a municipal gym somewhere in Davao del Sur, it was already too late. Or maybe not really that late; the vehicle could turn back, amidst the drizzle, and allow myself to realize once more how disoriented I am. I should be alarmed. I know a charger costs that much enough for me to surrender one more time my desire to buy a new pair rubber shoes, a pair that has eluded me for more than a year now, hell, like forever. How destitute, yes. But I wasn’t alarmed. And I am even more alarmed that I wasn’t surprised I wasn’t alarmed at all, enough to just shrug it off and tell my companion if she can just check with the people there tomorrow if they’ve seen the stupid charger. I checked at a computer store and found out that a universal laptop charger costs 2,700. The Adidas shoes I’ve been eyeing since 1939 costs 2,995. So there, goodbye Adidas. Waking up the next day, my sister pointed out that the stupid charger is sitting comfortably atop the DVD player, one of the most reliable, cheap things I’ve bought. In my mind - Oh - and I wasn’t surprised at all. My usual self would have attributed it to some craptastic supernatural shit. But I took it and put it in the bag as if it was some lost pen I’ve stopped searching and caring for.

I didn’t event surprise myself smoking a joint, something I haven’t done in, what, like an eternity? I had three joints (not marijuana, as the am-slang would usually put it) for the past two weeks and don’t plan to go back at lighting one, but lately I saw what used to be my favorite brand and felt an inexplicable itch. It’s as if the joint and my lips are meant to make some forbidden kind of love. It’s obscene I know, but again, didn’t bother myself at all. Is this from reading too much Ellis? Obviously not because the characters in an Ellis book are either usually drugged out, boozed out of fucked up. I am not some Clay Easton or Victor Ward (Glamorama I am reading now; Less Than Zero I just finished), and don’t aspire to be, but the disaffection kind of transcends from the pages of the book to my own version of fucked-up reality. A few days back, or maybe a week ago, I caught myself staring blankly at the wooden stairs. Or maybe I didn’t really catch myself at all. The distance between the steps, the spaces between the cacophonies of neighborhood sounds, are solar systems, eternities away. You know, it’s really kind of dangerous. The plunge into those unknown eternities can pull you into oblivion that you need to have some kind of earthly force to pull you back. It’s like spacing out from too much dope only ten times scarier, I think, though I haven’t really spaced out because of dope, though, for the nth time, I think it wouldn’t even surprise me at all.

Two Months.

Sometimes we feel the need to take note the absence, the loss. It comes all so sudden, the urgency to fill the gaps, as if it bridges the then and now by the inconsequential details that we pile up feverishly like stones and sand in the shore we know would crumble into unimportance amidst the roiling waves. But we do it anyway. We recall what has been, how it has been, but then realize again that there is nothing but loss – we lost all of it to time. But then, it also reveals ourselves, and we’d like to think we’ve triumphed somehow. But we know there will still be waves to brave, lapses to fill. And time, how pockets are sewn not to accommodate you like coins.

the art of ineptness

Over the usual bland Chinese food we always can’t seem to get rid of, a colleague and I were deriding certain people worth deriding. I said to him that it is not really my habit to badmouth people, being the Confucian that I am, adhering to that principle of the good-natured-ness of man with utmost fervor. What I can lay claim to though in the past couple of years as a working, toiling individual is the certainty of the said people’s existence and the apparent reasons why they are worth picking on. It’s not even just picking on, because that connotes bully-ism which I am definitely not. And picking on also connotes that the said people are innocent with no muck in the eye. Because they certainly have a lot of it. I did not imagine that I’d be breathing with the said people until about two or more years ago. Lousy motherfuckers. Such idiocy. Such retardation that shames the actual retards. Such callousness. Such corruption of moral fiber. Unbelievable ridiculousness and self-righteousness. Organized ineptness and absurdity. Gosh, why not summon such descriptions and fake the discomfiture? In the midst of all this mediocrity though, I’ve learned a lot. I’ve learned that I am able to feel jitters when I come to think of the day I’ll imbibe such systemic idiocy.

that Coen moment.

When I think about it now, I'm scared to think of it as ominous --- me staring at the blank switched-off screen of our puny TV set. I can see myself reflected in the tube but I can't see my face. It's like that scene from the Coen brothers' No Country for Old Men. After taking a gulp of a cold milk bottle, the character of Tommy Lee Jones, a sheriff out on a tricky pursuit of a deranged killer, sits down in the sofa and stares at a blank TV screen. It plays out perfectly now in my mind. It evokes dread. There it is. Dread is more like it. I feel dreadful today. I turned off the TV long enough after an AI rerun on a local channel, but I just sat there in a monobloc chair that could be falling off any minute nonplussed at the many minutes that passed. I was kind of in a blank state. Before AI, Glee was on a rampage. I put it on the cheap bootlegged DVD player hoping to bring a jovial spirit to an already ruined day. I had a fight with father, perhaps one of the nastiest fight, because I spewed forth English words that would make our neighbors squirm with disgust, in case they heard it. Oh it wasn’t at all expletives, but they were sure to hurt. Well I was hurt. So it would make sense that the words that would come out of my mouth would be hurtful. It’s inappropriate not just because the familial norm requires that no parent gets a verbal lashing from his offspring, but also because it’s inappropriate for me to speak in a different language when our socio-economic status does not require us to do so. It’s just not right. Even if I went to college, graduated and have work which gave me a language advantage and that I find myself able to express my disgust and hurt in words I deemed fit, it’s not right. It would put people off. Cutting the drift off that may probably lead to morbid thoughts of pulling out an Anton Chigurh magnum and blowing my brains off, I looked up and saw a cross-stitched image of Jesus. Below it was a prayer frame that like me, like our fragmented familial relationships, withstood the many movings-on and stayed; it managed to stay, like a reminder. I knew it was the wisdom prayer, in which you ask God to grant you wisdom, discernment and serenity upon things you cannot change or control. I should know; I always seem to catch myself muttering the prayer nowadays. I knew that prayer frame, though I can’t see the words as clearly as when I had 20/20 vision. But no amount or delusional fits of musical fantasy from a gayish TV show I find to be wholesomely and amusingly escapist would abate the feeling of dread. I regretted it of course; and everything has been said. But I’m a good son. And they just don’t find it in their hearts to know it.

Dusk of another (b)day.

This plane should have taken you to Paris, dimwit. Or Amsterdam, or Munich, or Vienna. No, make it Bruges. Instead, as usual, this took you to hell and back. Where's the beer, loser?

::: A day before my birthday, I was still in polluted Manila but on the way to the airport going back to Davao. As usual, I can’t wait to go home, though when I learned of this official trip a week and some days ago, I contemplated on staying there for the birthday and probably watch The Killers’ concert. The Killers, gosh! Even if I was able to save up, nobody would really accompany me. Besides it’s just plain weird, and stupid to go alone. Imagine a stampede; nobody would really give a shit about my sorry ass.

Finishing the inevitable airport niceties, which I absolutely loathe, I scoured a not-so-comfy seat, picked out Netherland, and read away, occasionally pausing, and looking around. It’s funny how we hate the airport; its clinical methodology and bland faces of strangers, but then the lulls provide enough impetus to drift us into reveries and introspection (I always have this funny story to tell though). It’s probably just me, I don’t know. Some people don’t really give a shit about these sissy things. They go about the perfunctory procedure; they sit, probably buy a food or reading material, and wait for the booming voice announcing the boarding. They enter the tube and sleep, lucid dreams filling up idle time, towards their destinations.

It doesn’t matter if I travel with my colleagues or traveling alone, being at airports give me the same feeling of inexplicable wretchedness, detachment and sometimes, foreboding—which is associated with this paranoia of being up in the air. (During my first flight ever, I clung to the seat like hell, heart pounding, as the plane took off, and silently freaked out whenever the plane shook.) I know my judgment is somewhat unqualified given that I’ve only gone to five or so airports, and perhaps a more comprehensive assessment is that coming from someone whose business requires a great amount of flying (which immediate calls to mind Ryan Bingham, the protagonist of Walter Kirn’s Up in the Air, now adapted by Jason Reitman). On second thought, I don’t really absolutely loathe airports, just the feeling in being one. The architecture can be a thing to marvel, but perhaps only until I see these pieces of architectural prowess.

Going through the first baggage check, I noticed someone familiar who was ahead of me. His balding head, which turned a little bit sideway, confirmed his identity. I knew he took notice of me first while I was towing my trolley on the side. I intend to call him out after the check but I realized he was with a bunch of people, one I recognized. They got their boarding passes in one lane, and mine one lane apart. I held back and try to justify what may appear my reluctant snootiness. I saw him again lugging out in Davao already. While finding my seat at the far back, I noticed a professor of accounting whom I knew when I was working as a student assistant in college. I immediately recalled the name; I realized the last time I met him was also at the airport. Throughout the flight, his named escaped me surprisingly, only to surface again after he politely asked if he can borrow the newspaper. I’m not sure if he remembered my name, but I’m sure I looked familiar to him. I managed a quick glance, but regained my reluctance again. I didn’t see him at the claim area.

This “detachment” perhaps is more related to the “procedures”, the obligatory feel to it renders us like products being manufactured and determined fit for “sending out”. It sucks the life out of us. It sends us into this mechanical state of indifference.

and so it begins.

When does a decade really end? I was just wondering since everybody seems to be doing a decades-end list or it's in the media saying what a decade it was and all that crap. Supposing we start counting on 1 then the end of the decade would really be the end of 2010. But whatever right? It probably means everybody is hurrying up to finish the years. Hello, 2012 paranoia? But you have to agree with me that was quite a year. Summing it up, it was really tragic. Tragedy and death seems to have overshadowed triumph. But of course the networks would want us to move on or at least sell the idea of moving on. It's sort of corny to do that you know. You have these yearend news reports telling you that babangon ang Pilipino and all that crap. Because in the end, what else is there to really do but move on? I should say, wake up. Because we have been in this perennial stupor for quite some time now. Tsk, even hope is being sold out nowadays. We have to actually buy in to that idea of hope rather than us getting our asses of our beds, thinking humans that we are or to say the least, breathing living things that we are.

Facing the same pc on the same internet cafe when I wrote my yearend blog seems kinda weird. And now I'm writing a sort of opener to 2010. Not that it's actually necessary but I'm bored as hell and nursing this fantastic toothache that has been pissing me off for weeks, on and off. It's a different tooth now and while I was contemplating a removal this January, it would seem that I would lose a whole bunch of them. Jeez, I don't want that, but I swear I would have one of them removed at least this month. That seems to be a resolution of sorts. Well, count me as one of those who find it really corny as hell. I mean, who are we kidding, really? New year resolutions gave a whole new meaning to targets as goals that will end up unaccomplished in the end. Instead of promising to the high heavens you'll be good as a saint, which you probably won't, why not target something so practical like saving 1 peso a day. That seems corny as hell but not remotely possible, you would agree. Oh, I have tons of things I would promise myself too to do this year, like read more, slowly finish watching the DVDs I've bought that have been stored for ages, and yes, save. And one more thing, I will try to gamble a little, not the Las Vegas-type of course because obviously that would make me more destitute that what I am now and given that I don't really have the knack for it, but I would try my luck in certain legitimate means like playing the lotto and its relatives, which I realized are more than one chances of winning. Always prompt me into daydreaming, you know. Which I immediately cut off because as they say, it's bad to count the chicks before the eggs are hatched, or something like that. Oh, well.

and so it ends.

Ohmygod I'm dreading to do this but here I am in front of a pc in a half-filled internet cafe that's usually full and usually noisy. If the two deaf people in front of me were actually making sounds out of there words instead of sign languages, there would be some semblance of noise but so far the whirr of the aircon and the occasional shrieking of the welcome door is by far the closest thing. I've tried to stray my mind on Facebook and doing all kinds of stuff like reading Quark Henares's top 50 musical LPs of the decade, which is kind of fun and informative in a way or the usual checking of awardsdaily.com, which I give a lot of shit about, but like diarrhea I have to let this crap all out. Like fucking get rid of it fast or it would stink or I'd shit in my pants. Remember that shitty feeling or mood or whatever it is I always find myself entrenched in during these times of the year I mentioned in the previous blog? Well it's still up and it's been a while. It's been taking up a lot of time. I wish it would go away because I previously said that I like New Years because it's something new, which garnered a sarcastic remark from my friend who said that it was supposed to be "new" that's why it's called new year. Well, I don't really mean it that way you know. It's like when Jakesully and Neytiri say "I see you" but then it's more than literal sense of the phrase. Silly me, I thought the second viewing of Avatar would make me all giddy-up and prepped up like a schoolboy for the new year but alas, it's just a piece of entertainment I'd escaped to for more than a couple of hours. It was cool by the way, the other day when I watched it with my colleague in this steaming new theatre which costs more than double of the usual and it was a treat so I wouldn't really mind. There's this reclining chairs, less crappy people, which I really like, good sound, but that's just really it. No 3D whatsoever. We here have really been deprived of a lot of stuff only found and experienced in Manila. Not that I give a a lot of shit about it though. It was just fun to be in that theatre for a coupla hours. I was supposed to go to an afternoon-and-night-long party with my batchmates in college but then there was that cold feet and all. I decided I should really finish this crappy evaluation of ours in the office which should take my mind off it for a while. Not that the evaluation was some kind of big deal or something, it's crappy I say. Then people started texting on where the fuck I was and some were inquiring on the details, which finally got me thinking that I shouldn't anymore hint of some kind of a get-together next year unless they do it first. The previous night few of my classmates showed up and we had dinner and all that stuff and we had coffee and a few laughs but when a suggestion of a follow-up came, I felt like it was too tiring already. I had a little chat with one of my classmates saying how much fun they had and I thought they wouldn't really care if I wasn't there or that I didn't show up in any of the venues they went to. I made up a stomachace reason but the real problem was that I'm fucking broke. Remember I told you I find myself in utter destitution? I'm not some hotshot like them who only spend for themselves or who have amassed huge sums of money and Christmas bonuses from their hotshot careers or from working abroad. I'm just a fucking slave working my ass off. I'm cool with that by the way. In fact I miss them to bits but I wouldn't be caught dead anyway if I just walked home and deprived myself of the fun. I had a perfectly reasonable excuse anyway, it's just that I lied. Anyway, while doing the crappy evaluation I told you about, I counted three quakes that really knocked my brains out. I don't like quakes but that time I had three, in less than 15 minutes while sitting and doing my stuff on the computer. I was alone in the fucking office because my colleague left a bit early and so it was me and the guard. It was scary as hell and I could've died alone in the dark cold night should that have been a really destructive quake. I remember this 30 Rock episode where you have Tina Fey choking alone in her apartment. I couldn't imagine myself dying in the office for chrissakes and so I headed home, quickly finishing the whole thing off. In short, I still end with this shitty feeling I always refuse to label as some kind of a crisis or whatever becuase I really, really don't like that 3-word phrase they use to label to people who've reached 25. I dunno; maybe I'm Jakesully who will really find himself happy in the extremest things possible, or that only the cinema, or James Cameron's wild imagination, could've concocted. Or perhaps because I'm re-reading Salinger's classic for a couple days now. Well not really re-reading it in the complete sense because I left a few chapters and bailed out on it few years ago because I can't stand reading it as e-book. You think that's a bad idea, me reading the book on such a joyous time of the year? It's like me watching episodes of Six Feet Under last year or the year before that prior to the New Year. Someone told me not watch it on these times but then I picked up Salinger on my colleague's shelf. Maybe that hinted all the bullshitness you've just taken in from me, or the language. I hate it to throw something like this to you but like I said I needed to take my crap out. It's something like a New Year-ish thing for me to do. I've been warned not to be jaded and all and that all I need was a really good shag but jeez I can't fucking help it. What should I really be doing is be optimistic about things. Oh I am, I truly am. But then I'm some kind of a bipolar on this like cynical-optimistic or whatever. I said to one classmate of mine that I think something grand will happen to me this year, like it's a milestone or something. So see, I'm not really a major pain in the ass. Unlike Holden, I find the word grand to be just okay especially if I have to look at and expect good things. I always expect grand things; in fact you can even see that in the blog description. But I guess this time or this year, I should really work my butt off so that I can move on. Jeez, I hope I haven't cornied it up for you. I wish I could be that writer of 500 Days of Summer who's so adept at not cornying things up when you expect it to be really corny. It's just painfully true. Perhaps that's what this is all is. A painful truth I have to at least deal with. And work on. So I'm just gonna quit yakking now because my fingers hurt already from the stinking hard keys and that my time is up. Jeez, I have to actually pay fucking 20 pesos so that I can neutralize my insanity or a quick glance at depression? Jeez. At least I'm not gonna be checking into rehab soon and be injected with all this shitty medicine that supposed to psychologically balance you out like the rich slobs who actually think its cool. Adios people, I think I'm gonna watch Julie and Julia instead. And, okay, Prospero Año Nuevo.

weeweechu

Can I just pause and actually believe it? It's freakin' Christmas. The only indication of its coming-atcha mood only came a few days ago while waiting for a taxi that would lead me to the inevitable office Christmas party, which obviously plenty of us go laboriously through. Not even the office party would make me go giddy-up with joy and anticipation. For a moment, I thought all the taxi drivers in the world went to North Pole to offer themselves as reindeers to Santa. Or that by some random universal mechanical mishap all their automobiles went kaput. For 30 minutes or so I stood transfixed and fuming at the same time. From where usually hail taxis or ride jeeps, it's already unusual. And so it's Christmas na pala. And people suddenly troop to wherever to constitute the busy-ness of the season. But I'm still working my ass off like right now, which is actually okay anyway, rather than I endure the compulsory tasks propelled by the commercialism of the season. Lining up in counters, picking your brains on gift ideas, and just about every pronounced pleasantry the holidays would require one's self. This year, I find myself in utter destitution. Unlike last year, I haven't bought anything for my inaanaks. Guess I have to go through the TNT stage at least once in my godfather life. And boy do these children multiply every year! I am avoiding get-togethers and I find them to be such a cop-out sometimes. I haven't contributed anything to the noche buena table to which I cannot really call a noche buena because it ceased to be buena a long time ago. I haven't bought a single decent gift for myself except probably food, not that it would actually appease my usual helpless, lackadaisical mood during these supposedly joyous times. Kate Bosher said: "Isn't it funny that at Christmas something in you gets so lonely for - I don't know what exactly, but it's something that you don't mind so much not having at other times". My colleague said I'm slowly becoming a grinch. There's always a Christmas rant. Perhaps I should really count my blessings noh? Oh how I wish I could be little drummer boy and just be nonchalant about everything. Well, whatever. I can't help it. We live in such perilous miserable times. And so I end this with something from George Bernard Shaw, and hope next year I would have something that would best fit describe whatever remnants of joy this season supposedly give out: "Christmas is forced upon a reluctant and disgusted nation by the shopkeepers and the press; on its own merits it would wither and shrivel in the fiery breath of universal hatred."

That's me, feeding my finger to little drummer boy himself. Photo taken the other week at Plaza Pershing in Zamboanga City. The lights there are OA but fun. It's as if all the Christmas lights were harbored by the city government and plastered it in their city halls and parks.

existentially beleaguered

They call it microblogging but for whatever purpose it may serve to other Facebook users but the ubiquitous box wherein you place your thoughts is for me the most easiest I can get to a rant, or an outlet. So thanks, Mr. Zuckerberg, whom I just read in GQ’s men of year as, what else, 2008’s “Boy Genius”. (Jon Hamm who’s terrific as Don Draper is on the cover.)

But back to the FB thought-box. So I was posting that I was kind of “existentially beleaguered”. Besieged was the first word, but mukhang OA. That mood kind of pervaded for around 2 weeks, which is actually kind of long already (sometimes a different thought would appear the next day, or even within a day as sometimes I post good quotes from books, novels, personalities and from wherever I get these pretentiously sensible crap. The thought posting is actually kind of fun, eliciting a plethora of reactions and what-have-yous from friends.

A colleague asked why was I “existentially beleaguered”. I can’t provide the answer, to my surprise, and I had been placing it for around 2 weeks. When I heard the first bout of Christmas songs wafting in the commercialized air of the yuletide, that’s when it hit me. I always get this mood, which is actually a shitty kind of mood to feel given that everybody’s all giddy-up for the season. I felt this last year, and just like the universe’s many inexplicable mysteries, I dunno why I give a shit. Or maybe I don’t really. I still like the Christmas songs though. But maybe I lost something, or what? Christmas is not for me, its for the corporate slugs and people who have fat pockets after the season because of humongous bonuses that seem to pile up their already humongous paychecks. I need to have some fun, right? I’m just fucking thinking too much probably.

Death and his friends.

I don't want a battle from beginning to end
I don't want a cycle of recycled revenge
I don't wanna follow death all of his friends.
-Coldplay, Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends, 2008

It's Easter and I'm talking about death. Christ resurrected today so I really should be talking about life or renewal, or anything like it but I'm not really capable of such. And I think I've run out of things to say about life for the moment, especially since I always equate it with suffering and perpetual struggle. Before I fell asleep last night, which was Black Saturday, this Coldplay song was the last one I heard on the mp3 player. It can be pretty vague, the meaning. But that last line may as well be fear, I dunno. Death, after all is as inescapable as life, or so the phenomenology stuff we've managed to get ourselves into in our collegiate philosophical discourses would make us believe. The first cry of the then unborn signifies the inevitability of its final breath. Death is like life's partner easily put. This month, about 5 immediate family members of my colleagues died, mostly because of some illness. Last Monday, an aunt of a friend whom I briefly met in Manila died of a chopper crash. That's too much death in a month I would say. The office ought to be blessed or exorcised with whatever demons or curse it has, again I say. Because this silly idea of a death pattern perpetrated by the Final Destination series has again to me occurred. FD was kind of influential because after seeing the first installment, morbid thoughts on ways one dies occur to me regularly. While in transit, I'll imagine a monstrous vehicular accident and bloodbath. Walking on streets, I get a feeling of worn-out sharp debris like GI sheets or metal tubes bludgeoning the unmindful passersby. And blood, blood like geysers out of decapitated limbs courtesy of The Bride. Then came the sometimes funny and insignificant ways people die at the start of every Six Feet Under episode made me feel like shit sometimes. The fascination over death turns into it being a normalcy, a kind of everyday happening, deduced into a newspaper headline or an exclusive TV report. A statistic that becomes significant over time decorated with all kinds of analyses. But how do we discount the loss, the pain, the anguish, the years? Who am I really kidding with a veneer of bravery?

Moo-year

Feck yeah. Who would've thought, of all people, I'd outlast the tambays and tricycle drivers in our area for what will seem to be an annual new year boozefest and shameless videoke numbers. Gosh, I feel like I'm slowly becoming a voracious social drinker, if there ever is such a term. I mean some people drink daily -- a bottle of beer or two -- which is healthy I guess, and some drink perhaps every week when they go parties or bars and be tipsy and all that, but I drink only on occasion and gulp down a fucking barrel of various liquor. Is there some kind of a social alcoholism disorder shit? It makes me think of the "I have a drinking problem?" scene of the great John Malkovich in Burn After Reading. But what the hell, it was a great welcome. People went out and trooped to the streets, made noises, tricycle drivers, bicyclists, and drunkards dragging pieces of torn GI sheets, kids running amok while coins are being thrown in every direction. I am actually sensing a great vibe but much of it is uncertainty and anxiety, again, which is I think pretty normal. Shit, I really should start enjoying my friggin life, I need to plan some major changes, like really. Whatever the fuck that is.

One stupid question though, can the ox be considered a variation of a cow? And I guess yeah, Happy New Year to you, too.

Death viewed on a precipice.

I'm going to have a major headache, or flu, or I'm just gonna be bogged down by stupor now, I think, because of the extremest of temperatures I subjected myself into today coming from the highlands of about 15 or so degrees and going off the private bus with a searing Christmas heat of the friggin city. And I’m so sweating right now, vintage James Dean on my shirt is practically licking the sweat falling off my man-boobs.

There was some major joint party that the office has to attend to in those highlands and thank God the scenery made up for it, which was kind of what I expected in a way or I really wouldn't be going. One time I was standing on a precipice -- but there was some kind of wooden fence on it -- and I really feel so one with nature looking at the mountain range, I feel like jumping. I feel like those fancy pieces of colored silk cloths attached on the poles all over the place looking so dandy, fluttering in the cold wind that could chuck an anemometer.

But of course I’m not gonna jump or else I’m gonna ruin the merriment of 100 fucking people because some jerk decided to end his life. And it’s not like I’m gonna die or something when I jump off -- maybe a broken limb or or some ribs, maybe a cracked cranium, I guess -- which is gonna piss them off anyway. My being jaded with life is not so much as death hovering above me like imaginary vultures or so ominous its familiar like the Fishers of Six Feet Under operating a funeral service business in their own house.

Nor does it anything to do, really, with Six Feet Under, which I’m watching again coz it’s the Christmas break (season 2 now) and I dunno if this is going to be an annual thing or something and SFU is not really the type of viewing for the season, but what can I do, I really get a kick out of this show, especially if you learn not to really take it so seriously. Like scenes where children, 30-something children at least, slap the hell out of their loudmouth pathetic mothers and just walk out, snap, like that.

Plus, like me, you could really learn a thing or two, or replenish elementary general information you thought you once knew like Hemingway writes while standing, or that aubergines are edible or weird things you never thought existed like death from autoerotic asphyxiation, which is really kind of funny, but then it’s really lethal, if you know anything about it. Really, that’s all, I just find the show fucking funny and no, it didn’t even occur to me to try that autoerotic asphyxiation shit.

Earth-check, loser.

What I’m going to say is remotely significant to what is happening in my life right now but I’m going to say it anyway because I want to and I’m tired of saying shitty things that don’t work themselves out and I don’t have anything life-changing or awe-inspiring up in my sleeves right now, it will probably take more than that.

Well at least I have a new zipper to the slacks I wear regularly which is good news for somebody who has been parading himself in the public without a zipper for more or less 3 weeks. I finally mustered the time to have it repaired. It’s kind of gross but I really couldn’t care less because I don’t usually tuck in my polos and I stopped wearing icky long sleeves which force me to tuck it in. I also realized that I don’t look good anymore when I tuck myself in because I’ve been a slob for months now which explains my protruding gut. But what do you care anyway.

So by some major force of nature, I realized that I have been blogging for two years now. 199 entries, and perhaps a bazillion more to go. This is not an obligatory entry really. I haven’t written an anniversary blog last year as if it is some kind of an annual thing. It’s so happen that I was browsing past entries and I stumbled upon that very first entry two years ago. I realized I’ve been a humongous blabbermouth with all that shitty crap I spew forth in this blog. It’s a wonder that some of those entries that I find meaningful, given that they bring some sort of meaning, are those short, amusing and don’t-give-a-shit entries and sometimes sort of recapitulatory, if a word ever exists. Like this one or this one.

Maybe if there’s anything that’s celebratory, it would have to be that this blog (and I guess you reader) kept a semblance of sanity in an otherwise crazy world and an even crazier, unbelievably shitty life. Maybe if there’s anything that’s worth amounting to, is the fact that I still give a great deal about this life and struggling through it rather than pathetically cutting it short, about straightening things out, and actually calling it a life. I’m still thinking, for crying out not-so-loud. I still believe that there’s something that’s amazingly big and wondrous out there for me. And really, I can’t wait.

Dear Ma

I’m sorry for coming here alone, with this simple bouquet and a single stubby candle to light. They will be bringing in the rest of the candles later and an even bigger, if you can call it that, arrangement of flowers. They will have the cleaning materials too so I didn’t hire the insistent boy who keeps tugging me for cleaning services.

The bouquet, with its pink anthuriums and white chrysanthemums look simple enough but I think you will like it. I picked it up while on the way passing by the church. I feel bad today so I came early and I’m sorry for feeling bad. I know, you don’t need to visit me in my dreams to remind me to stretch my patience. I think you know I’ve stretched it too much. And I’m sorry if I snapped, sometimes at Papa, which I don’t mean to. I know you know that I still respect and love him as a father. But things are different now, it won’t always be the same when you were here. All attempts at being and living normal are futile. I always return to that unbalanced, confused state. But I get by. Times are getting really tougher, which you might see in the conditions we are living now. But I think we’ll get through this, or else, you wouldn’t have left us in peace.

Funny, the guard at the office made me teary-eyed. Before going here, I dropped by the office to iron out some things. We talked about things and came to the topic of your death. Funny how they all are inquisitive, these people. But they are the most worthy of serious conversations. He said I never looked like those people who have got the world on their backs. Now, that’s a good sign, don’t you think?

I am looking around and seeing less people than before. While walking the street, there was less traffic. People are busy perhaps, there are no holidays. Some graves are left unattended lucky to have a single candle lighting it, or a handful of cheaply arranged daisies and chrysanthemums to color their drab outline. People look glum too. I saw the same old woman again one grave next to us but she didn’t manage a smile.

I think I’ll be going now - a drop of rain fell into the book I’m reading. I think they will be here soon. Bye, my prayer and longing remain the same.

Your son.

QPG

I’m being haunted by Nick, Brian, Howie, Kevin and AJ.

Yesterday, I refreshed with the new watermelon float (where’s the green apple float!) of McDo and a large fries over lunch because I needed to get out of the office lest my head explode. Then, while in the middle of nibbling the cream, the boys started singing I want it that way, admittedly my favorite Backstreet song, or any boy band song for that matter. Two more songs played, Drowning and Quit Playing Games.

C’mon, the boy bands really had it their way when it was their time. I remember buying the first BSB album on cassette when I was Grade 6, the one with Get Down in it, which we eventually danced during Christmas parties those times.

After a mañanita for our Chairman the other day, a forgotten Filipino tradition which I only knew about this week where a bunch of birthday wishers greet (pester) the celebrator at the break of dawn with bygone songs, the assigned group arrived at around 6 am in the office with time to kill. So I grabbed a pillow and immediately looked for a BSB song on the net and dozed off in my desk. I dunno why the hell a BSB song popped into mind and so today I am haunted. Maybe it's hounding me to really consider that botched career? Jeez, heavens forbid.

***

Speaking of botches, my Tawi-Tawi trip is one. Goodbye Sheik Makhdum, islands, seaweeds, and lantsas see you next time, promise. So much for finally being at the southernmost tip of the Philippines. Photos courtesy of Ate Sarah.

Caco-phonies

The whole nation is crumbling to bits, millions of pesos can now slither its way to Moscow courtesy of perennial schmucks, plus the much-awaited confrontation with a fertilizer scam pig, err, king, and Anabelle Rama wants fucking yacht for crissakes. Come hell or high water and the miracle of Sto. Niño, give her the goddamn yacht! Jeez, whatever the fuck is happening, I too am miserly stuck in a quagmire.

Gimme spaghetti

Spaghetti is one of the best things invented by the Italians aside from fashion. Thinking about it now, I seem to forget the last palatable taste I had of it. It must have been ages. Aside from tortang talong and instant noodles, I would never grow tired of it. If I want to, I can eat spaghetti only even in a party full of just about everything you can grasp. I would first look for spaghetti in a table full of the humongous lechon, caldereta, barbeques or hotdogs with mallows pierced in watermelons. I love the spaghetti with tuna and tomatoes and I’m looking forward with the one with Spanish sardines on it. I need to eat spaghetti now.

Haruki Murakami must love spaghetti too. He equates it with melancholy in his short story, The Year of Spaghetti, in his collection, Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman. In the last portion, he writes:

Durum semolina, golden wheat wafting in the Italian fields. Can you imagine
how astonished the Italians would be if they knew that what they were exporting
in 1971 was really loneliness?