Wednesday, December 31, 2008

mulling on 2008, survey-style

stole this from jaz.

1) BUDDY OF THE YEAR?
- penguin, beatlebum, waterfowl, osobear


2) LIFETIME SERVICE AWARD (longest friend)
- sappho, highschool bespren na nandito pa rin hanggang ngayon! knock on wood!


3) NEWCOMER AWARD - COOLEST NEWEST FRIEND?
- mean girl #1. i love you, kahit uber-dalang tayong nagkikita


3) HIGHEST POINT OF THE YEAR?
- march-april


4) LOWEST POINT OF THE YEAR?
- august-mid-october


5) BEST HOLIDAY?
- happy new year!


6) YOUR SONG FOR 2008?
- "stolen" by dashboard confessional; "all because of you" by ne-yo

7) Best movie FOR 2008?
- naku marami.ang hirap mag-isip ngayon.


8) WHO DID YOU SPEND VALENTINES WITH AND WHERE?
- with osobear, at TGIFriday's

9) WHAT WERE YOU FOR HALLOWEEN?
- same old tianak

10) RESTAURANT OF THE YEAR?
- erm...kfc! haha

11) KISS OF THE YEAR?
- osobear

12) BEST DECISION MADE THIS YEAR?
- wala kong maalala e. only the bad decisions stand out right now. haha nega. deciding to change a career direction, probably, though di ko pa alam kung magiging truly good decision sya in the long run. i am positive, though. i believe!

13) WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS FOR NEXT YEAR?
- save up. become a writer and get rich from it.

14) MOST STUPID IDEA WHEN DRUNK?
- ranting on what could never be undone


15) TV SHOW OF THE YEAR?
- wala.


16) MOST LOYAL FRIEND(s)?
- haha many-to-mention!


17) HEARTBREAKER OF THE YEAR?
- ahaha. heartbreak of the non-romantic kind.

18) BIGGEST CHANGE OF THE YEAR?
- changes in goals and priorities

19) NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION?
- STOP SMOKING, dangit!

Sunday, December 28, 2008

2009!

i'm excited about the coming new year. god-willing, everything will all fall harmoniously, beautifully into place.

happy surprises. wonderful luck. blessings, blessings. fulfilled wishes. answered prayers. continued good health, good relationships, and good intentions for everyone.

let's all have a wonderful new year! awu-awoo!

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

that voice can resurrect the dead

and that's dangerous, to a certain extent.

he shouldn't sing that well. he makes the girls (and boys) fall in love, and the girls (and boys) who used to be in love feel like falling for him again.

nung narinig ko sya uling kumanta through my earphones in that smooth boyishly sweet voice--yung kantang kinarir, na may matinong mic at amplifiers, with matching piano-playing pa--para kong hinigop uli ng panahong yon, three years ago, when hearing him sing on a cheap videoke microphone alone would be enough to turn me into mush; to make me implode, disintegrate, and resurrect all in a span of a moment--or at least until he finishes the song.

and then for a moment,i thought that something had somehow been resurrected. warm feelings, familiar, though not as powerful as before, not as cripplingly intense. the voice was the culprit. parang naging stimulus sya na na-pickup ng utak ko. he never sang this well in our videoke sessions. videoke never gives him any justice.

chanced upon him on ym. instinctively i wanted to tell him, parang may crush na ko uli sa yo--jokingly, of course, but i was afraid he'd think i'm serious and be off-ed. i told him instead, you should get a singing career started. in turn he said, yea, and then i will have to hide my sexuality when i become a star. that made me chuckle. it's funny, and de-romanticizes the whole thing as well.

not long after that remark i felt the newly revived "crush" fading. oh-so-soon! haha. his voice can resurrect the dead, but a dint of reality is all it would take for it to die again. i'm GREATLY relieved for that.

still, kahit ano pa man, may mga bagay na mamamatay pero may iiwan pa rin sa yo. fg will always be regarded with fondness. i will always consider him a friend, kahit pa siguro sa mga mata nya eh hindi naman kami ganon ka-close.

syempre, si osobear, tatawa lang pag kinwento ko sa kanya ang mga bagay nayto. haha!

Thursday, December 18, 2008

reality doesn't only bite.

it sucks. sometimes.
lately, often. some aspects of it.
still, i thank god for other aspects that neither suck nor bite in the figurative sense.

***

i really should imitate a friend.
i should live less in reality and daydream more. for all i know, it could save me from insomnia.

***

without dreams, like is reduced to a mere physical existence. a pseudoexistence.
which i thought my life had been, three years ago. man!
that was nuthin.
at least i knew what i wanted and didn't have to think much of anything else besides getting it.

less reality, more dreams. that's what i need.

***

i used to do some of that in high school. to escape from chemical formulas and sines/cosines/tangents. right there, in class, and the teachers would only probably see that blank look in my eyes. i was always criticized for being "lutang" then. parang wala sa sarili. siguro nga mas masarap talagang mawala sa sarili at malunod sa mga masasayang alternate scenarios. di pa ko marunong magyosi non kaya daydreaming na lang ang coping mechanism ko.

***

i really want to sleep now. di mo mababawi ang tulog mo sa gabi kahit matulog ka buong araw. it still shows in your skin and your eyes. hah, vain. i realized na wala akong ibang bagay na mawi-wish sa pasko kundi mga bagay na hindi ko magagawang hilingin sa ibang tao, at mga bagay na hindi maibabalot sa christmas wrapper para ibigay ng ibang tao sa kin.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

holidays are here again

i've been having not-so-happy holidays these past two years. except for the happy reality of the Oso, there hasn't been much to go ga-ga over. last year, this year. same difference.

last year i spent christmas rushing to prepare for a school project. had i known that that school project would eventually become the death of back-to-school me, i wouldn't have bothered. i would have quit right then and spared myself the trouble.

ok, that was a bluff. truth is, had i known, i would've taken extra precautionary measures for that fateful december 27 day. and then maybe things would be a whole lot different now. i'd still be in the program and wearing a my-future's-so-bright-gudda-wear-shades kinda smile.

owel, joyeux noel.

tomorrow - my college friend who just got off the ship. we're supposed to meet at the lantern parade in up.
thursday - friend/former classmate beatlebum's videoke birthday bash. lookin to see the frog princess again (sana di kasama yung boypren. hah joke)
friday - street party somewhere in south triangle

when i was 18 i wrote an essay about how boring christmas had been that year. i called it "christmas ho-hum". had i known back then that i ain't seen nothin yet where boring christmases are concerned, i would've reserved the not-so-witty title for the future.

i hope it gets better. i pray it gets better. after all, there are things to thank god for. that alone should be something to be happy about.

4:06 am. hay.
sumo-sonia na naman ako.
sana paggising ko mamaya, happy ako. :-)

Saturday, December 13, 2008

dreams of an insomniac

it's 5:25 am. just about to kiss the world goodnight.
hindi ko maramdaman ang pasko. pero alam ko, babawi sa kin ang enero.
ang buong 2009, for that matter.

* * *

awake, i dream of europe.
paris,
the seine,
the french countryside,
the anchor-milk black-on-white cows,
the brick-covered streets,
the sumptuous buffet breakfasts,
the kissing lovers on a pedestrian lane,
the filthy-rich filthy-lit filthy-glamorous champs elysees,
the postcard-perfect grebes on ponds,
the postcard-perfect flowerbeds,
the postcard-perfect spires and facades,
that famous paris museum--what's it called? the louvre!,
the freezing cold nights and freezing cold mornings,
the subway trains and their killer sliding doors,
the handsome beggars and their bagpipes,
the sacre couer the sex shops the dingy boarding-house-type hostels,
the eiffel tower from afar,
the first fine-dining resto i'd ever been to on that side of the world,
the indian national who'd taken me there,
the two cute turks in that cobblestone alley,
the musk-smelling theaters,
the lights, the language, the freaking good food, the feel of the foreign wind on my bare face, the snow that i never saw, the airport na nakalimutan ko na ang itsura, the first photo that i ever took on my first morning in gloomy january (brown spires and rooftops, skeletons of trees), and i can go on and on and on and FRIGGIN on.

strangely, 60% of the time, i had wanted to go home.

* * *

i could go anywhere, ANYWHERE in the world, if i choose to. but it would require me to board a ship and stay there for years. it would require me to take on a job and slave away and be away for a while. in exchange, i'd see the world. i'd post pics on facebook and friendster and here of this and that city and country, of tanned me wearing a bikini and a pearly-white grin. i'd call my parents and hear their happy voices, and know that they had just gotten what i'd sent them. i'd go home every now and then with hard-earned money and live like a queen til the next ship sails.

that's one way. and there's another way.
that other way, the way i had gotten that free european trip before. that's harder. at least, the way i see it now.

maybe not as hard as i think. surely. i believe. i know.
i will be back to that place. and i don't have to work on ship just to be able to do so.

soon. someday. within this lifetime.

* * *

i dream of a car, too. a car of which the driver is me. cruising along paved pretty roads on a sunday afternoon, with happy ne-yo crooning on the car stereo.
and me, looking spiffy in corporate dress. looking rich. being rich.

an HD tv.
fine dining. anywhere, anytime, like how i would go kfc-ing now.
properties, everywhere.
a new laptop.
my own house.
everything that i want that i don't have now.
moolah, for life.
and the occasional trip to anywhere in the world.

* * *

back to reality.
i hate having to back out of a commitment. telling them is the hardest part. pano ko sasabihin. pano kung magalit. may rason silang magalit, if ever. or madala. for the very fact na um-oo na ko, tapos biglang ayoko na.

baka low eq lang to.
pero hindi ako excited, at malamang kakain sya ng oras ko.
ang tamad tamad ko na ngayon.

* * *

i can't get enough of seeing her.
she's one of the loveliest things about being home.
siguro ganito ang pakiramdam pag may anak ka. makita mo lang, natutuwa ka na.

natutuwa ako sa kulay nya.
she reminds me of ice cream.
she's part chocolate, part mocha, part vanilla.

i really want to find a perfect mate for her.
a persian, or a siamese, or kahit tabby na rin pwede na.
basta WAG-LANG-PUSAKAL.
no offense. i'm planning to sell my grandchildren.

haha!

* * *

6 am. sunrise?
really kissing the world goodnight now.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

crazy-beautiful

when you feel like you've got nothing to lose, you're more predisposed towards doing something "crazy".

"crazy", meaning something that you're not likely to do on your "normal" mode. like going on an unplanned adventure with only P100 on you. or trying out a different shade of eyeshadow for all the world to see. or randomly emailing your resume for a corporate job.

and when you've done such things, things that are new, things that are Not In The So-Called Plan, you find yourself being shaken out of your stupor. you feel good. a liberating kind of good.

now i have memories of surviving marikina riverbanks on P100. and realized that brown eyeshadow doesn't look too bad on my eyes. and suddenly, i have a job interview on monday.

see, all these are not in the plan. but doing them just for the sake of doing them--right there, right then, for no other primary goal besides SHAKING myself out of this gawddang stupor--somehow injected a dint of life into me again.

i feel wonderful, crazy-beautiful.

Monday, December 08, 2008

marikina night

sometimes i get inspired to write about something, but before i get around to finishing it, the inspiration is gone. sad, cause i would've wanted to write about these things:

* my uncle's wake and funeral
* alternate lives
* the funny incidence of keanna's waterbath and sunbath

but, since the inspiration has left me, i'm going to write about something else now.
this happened last night, so while the memory is still fresh, might as well.

osobear and i had a marikina trek. went to sm marikina for dinner and the movies. saw quarantine (surprisingly, it wasn't the B-movie horro-thriller that i had thought it would be. go watch it). and since the night was young, we went to the city's (in)famous riverbanks for a little pre-christmas come-what-may adventure.

i have always loved any kind of natural body of water, no matter how murky, so long as the DENR still classifies it as "alive"--which the marikina river is, unlike its pasig counterpart. i love natural bodies of water, especially at night--freud, have a blast reading into this--and that's one of the reasons why i thought going to the riverbanks would be fun.

there were tiangges everywhere, of course. pasko na kasi.
there was an old-style perya. osobear is a sucker for thrill rides, so kahit caterpillar, sinakyan namin. kahit nga horror ride, pinatulan namin. haha. that was a scream fest for typical-girl me (haha). he wanted to ferris wheel but i absolutely did not trust the bolts and nuts holding the damn thing together, and after a while he, too, decided that we'd better not.

so we trooped to the bumper car booth and that was fun, driving my own "car"--but not when osobear keeps bumping his car into mine (kahit na laruan lang yung kotse, hello, masakit pa rin kaya yung impact). syempre di naman ako makaangal dahil may point naman sya when he said, "kaya nga tinawag na 'bump car', dahil yun ang fun part--makipagbanggaan". hah. boys.

after the bump car i really really wanted to ride the little pedal boats that they're renting along the river. something that, i sensed, osobear didn't seem all that excited with. he's scared of the river. he doesn't trust it, just as i don't trust the bolts and nuts on the ferris wheel. and that's one of the very few things that he's scared of, and i jumped at the chance to rib him about it. ha-ha, takot!

after a brief round in the tiangges we finally made it to the pedal boat station, only to see it already closed. damn. it's osobear's fault. he had stalled us on purpose! so, instead of going pedal-boating, we decided to ride the river ferry instead.

which was one of the nicest points of our marikina trek.
i don't get to ride a banca everyday, kaya excited din ako. the ferry is supposed to take us from the riverbanks to the riverpark, the other part of the river near the marikina bridge (marami ding tiangges and bars don). the trip only cost us P10 per person, and the trip was a balm for the senses. the breeze was so cold and the lights along the riverbank were just dang gorgeous. and the trip was a full 15 minutes, too. sulit na sulit ang P10.

we arrived at the riverpark to see lines and lines of food stalls and peryahan stalls (there was even a "Frog Boy" stall for only P20 per head to ogle and marvel at. the frog boy, the karatula claims, could sing and dance for you as well). we decided to have none of any and trooped to the first establishment selling beer for a couple of san mig lites.

unluckily for us, the first establishment we chanced upon was dingy as dingy could bearably be. a videoke bar, musty, and the clientele mostly consisted of tatay-type blue-collar men (either with friends or their, um, girlfriends), pero we figured, might as well pagtiyagaan na rin. i was glad to have osobear with me dahil feeling ko maraming pwedeng mambastos sa mga ganitong lugar. at the next table there was an old dude who had passed out in drunken stupor. funny thing was, no one cared, not the waitresses (in pekpek shorts! haha) nor the other customers (na malamang habitues na sa bar na yon).

i wasn't off-ed by the whole thing, i was amused. so long as kasama ko naman si oso. we ordered four beers and a tuna sisig. when the tuna sisig was served, we quipped, "malamang century tuna lang to na ginawang sisig". but surprisingly, the sisig was very good. so good, in fact, that i had wanted to order a 2nd (but decided
against it, kasi P150 din ang isang order). galing. good food sometimes comes from the least expected places.

i remember a couple of marikina treks that i'd had, with other people. like with friends penguin, beatle, and choclit luver back in 2007. same type of dingy videoke bar, but lotsa fun. i remember my "date" with a guy friend at the pedal boats. the pedal boats were lotsa fun, even if the company wasn't spectacular (kaya naisip ko, baka mas enjoyable kung si osobear ang kasama ko).

hay. wala lang. gusto ko lang ikwento, dahil hindi araw-araw nakakapagadventure ako ng ganito. walang underlying theme ang entry na to, walang maiko-connect sa current state of life. minsan lang kasi, masarap mabuhay nang walang care, walang iniisip. pag kasama ko si osobear, iniiwan ko na lang ang lahat ng worries ko sa bahay para ma-maintain ko ang pagiging masayahin. being with oso is a respite from everything else that makes me unhappy.

pero sigurado ako, pag pumunta naman kami ng enchanted o star city, pipilitin na naman nya kong sumakay sa mga halukay-bituka rides--something that i LOATHE to the highest level. hay. yun lang ang hindi masaya don, when you're compelled to do something that SCARES you. you suddenly become the puny girl in distress. i HATE being the puny girl in distress!

Monday, December 01, 2008

chicken

want out. no like. forget. turn away.
self-preservation. survival mechanism. cowardice.
sometimes it's easier to think the grapes are sour. it's easier to just DROP it. so much easier than facing ugly things and tackling them.

bad habit. i know.
but fuck it, so what. matigas ang ulo ko e.

* * *

there are days that you want to forget and memories that you want to just turn away from. careers that you don't want to pursue anymore, and people you don't want to see anymore for the rest of your present life. there are days when you just want to sleep your life away and wonder if you will ever be in so-called "fighting form" again. you wish you had the fire of the 19-year-old back then. you wish you weren't feeling so gawdang old.

too tired, too tired. it's your favorite expression. but "tired" is probably not what it's really called. you just lost it, period. you've become a wallflower. a mediocre simpleton who's content on settling in her little corner of the universe. a non-entity who's just passing through.

too tired to fight. too tired to be positive. too tired to face ugly things and turn them into "pointers" for the future.

maybe this is just a bad day. so i'm gonna sleep on it.
but i just realized that i'm that way when it comes to stuff like that. i bail. in that sense, i'm a big fat CHICKEN. big time.