The Space Between My Ears

Achingly Relaxed

2006-08-31T13:54:00.000+08:00

As I've mentioned, my writing is in its Dark Ages. It has to do with repeatedly being forced to organize my thoughts. I guess concentrating on structure does have its downside. In any case, I’m still recovering from that beating I took from my previous job, which has caused my lingering inability to write something sensible and noteworthy without due demand from a superior or a client.

It is midweek and I still have yet to accomplish anything groundbreaking. My boss seems content to let me sit pretty, at the moment. What makes it short of unbearable is not the work – or lack of it thereof – but the general situation of employees in the company, save for me and a couple of other middle management people.

A researcher recently resigned from office after having worked for four years in the monitoring firm of the group of companies I’m now a part of. The reason for her resignation was, predictably, monetary in nature. After her first increase during her regularization in 2003, she has received no further raises, despite having developed a reputation of being one of the most hardworking people in the company. She’s in her mid-30’s, has three kids, and has been having a hard time making ends meet. The decision to resign came after her son recently enrolled for school. With three mouths to feed and school matriculation to pay for, her salary, even combined with that of her husband’s, just can’t accommodate their expenses. Thus, she sought other opportunities and received an offer from a Call Center. The odd hours of work would be a major challenge, but what the heck. The job offered better compensation than what she’s been receiving.

Needless to say, the managing director of the company, who’s also a good friend of mine, was devastated. This has been the second resignation in a month, among people who’ve been working in the firm for more or less four years. I watched it from the sidelines, and halfheartedly offered some subdued comments as my friend whined her complaints to me after receiving the news. In the process of beefing up manpower to augment the services of her company, she now faces the need to fill in gaps made by those who left.

A lot of companies nowadays still do not place adequate priority on Manpower. The Big Boss usually hires top people for middle management – assets, he calls them, but he usually doesn’t give a damn about entry-level positions, the ones who implement the tasks to render the company able to effectively deliver its services.

I’ve always believed that happy workers are productive workers. So it wouldn’t hurt to invest on them a little, would it?

And in the midst of it all, here I am with my ho-hum job, doing almost nothing at the moment and getting paid three times what the other employees are getting! If you ask me, my boss is doing a really bad job maximizing the generous salary he has afforded to give me, in exchange for my prompt services.

My personal issue on this matter is, I’d like to feel that whatever I’m getting out of this job is hard-earned money. I guess this opinion is not something many would share. I’m willing to bet that a lot of people reading this would scoff and tell me I should recognize a good thing when it's there and learn when to keep my mouth shut.

But more than the money I’m earning, It has been my firm belief that work is supposed to be an opportunity to become part of something bigger than yourself. It’s a duty you render to make a difference, no matter how small the scope. I’ve had the honor to lead in advocacy communications, but I have yet to accomplish anything to render me a full-fledged advocate, in anything.

Sure, I can watch movies, pay my credit card and phone bills, buy DVDs, designer make-up and fragrances, go to bars and enjoy fine dining. I can take my family out during weekends, get full body massages and enjoy wine/beer/vodka and oysters, go out of town with friends, etc… But I miss buying stuff and doing things and going places and feeling that it’s worth it to have a little fun out of life, after a busy, accomplished week. I’m hoping that it will only be a matter of time before this finally gets underway. I’m beginning to be a trifle impatient.

Two years worth of writer’s block

2006-08-25T12:29:00.000+08:00

Bring back the cells burnt
By alcohol and cigarettes
Let me be free again
To put words to my feelings.
Bring me back my freedom
I unknowingly curtailed
Loving life too much.
Satisfied my cravings
Hurt my soul
Lost my voice.
Lack of words
Is all I have left.
I’ve lost my friends
My solace
My secret haven of thoughts on paper
And uneasy fingers on the keyboard.
Bring it back!
I have quenched my thirst
I have assuaged my gluttony.
All I wanna be
Is be whole again.

Can my thoughts run across cyberspace, towards the next life?

2006-07-28T15:42:00.000+08:00

You have, through life, become a person who has always been either at the foreground or periphery of my every single day. But being human and unaware of how fleeting a lifetime with you is, I have been too tired and too busy with life to even take a peek in your room as you slept peacefully at night. Oftentimes, I found your peculiar ways such a nuisance. Radios that played too loud. Bathrooms that stayed occupied for too long. Days after I lost you, I remember.

I remember when you used to take me places, all over Manila, to your churches and in Avenida, where the avenues were lit with various colors of light and the streets were all dusty and cacophonous and alive. You used to carry my things, because it was too heavy and I was all of 4 feet and 5 inches and scrawny. You must’ve thought I was glass. I remember we once chased after a bus where you accidentally left my school bag; we miraculously retrieved it. You used to always smell of rum and paper, and the house was filled with your pens and countless writings, which you hid jealously from us, curious grandchildren. I remember how I used to steal into your room and rummage into your stuff while you were out somewhere, envying your handwriting and not understanding a single word of the dialect you used in your texts.

I remember how your voice thundered at my mistakes when I was nine or ten. How you were the only father I ever lived with. Your prayers at the dining table that always seemed too long when I was way past hungry. How you always insisted on what you believed was right, when all I wanted to do was be young and make mistakes.

I remember how you became your wife’s life’s meaning, more and more as years passed. I remember how friends, relatives, your children, your children’s wives, and your children’s children looked to you with fear, respect, and sometimes, love. I remember how hard you stood by your principles, even if it meant ending relationships, or sowing bitterness in others. Good, for you, was absolute, like your God. I remember how I wanted to hate you longer, but couldn’t, because I have become you, in a way. I have aspired to emulate your courage unwittingly. I have become your child more than ever.

I remember a photo taken during my high school graduation, with your flowing script at the back, telling of your dreams of who you want me to someday be, which for you had already come true. In your secret world.

I remember how you loved life. You loved it! Down to your last years. You walked down the street each passing day, waiting, always waiting for something. Talking to an invisible companion. I’d rush off to work and give you a wave, and you’d always smile back. You had started being forgetful by then; but you never forgot me.

I remember how you never wanted to be weak, never wanted to show it, even in your pain and need. I remember how I carried you the way you carried me those years ago on your lap while I slept on the way from school. I remember how the tears stood in your eyes during your last minutes, but never fell. I remembered how, in your painful slumber, I whispered “I love you”, and knew it was true. Do you?

I feel like a part of me has died when you passed away. I miss you now that you’re gone, and it’s all futile. I am lost, somehow, and I didn’t even notice how much when you were with us. I am bereft, needing to be strong for the other’s you’ve left behind. I may seem stronger and more astute sometimes, but I am just as lost as all your children. I, like all the others, wish for things that might’ve been but weren’t, things I could’ve said but didn’t.

But a part of me, deep down, is glad. Like your secret dreams. Glad that I won’t only have to think about the damp dark and how the dead are orphans, when my time comes. When my time comes, at least I would have you to come home to. That, to me, is a blessing.

Rexona (first day high)

2006-07-03T12:25:00.000+08:00

The first day of my new job. Everyone seems either too young or too old to hang out with. No visible sign of fast food joint or the ever-dependable Jolijeep. No PC yet. And I have 9 days to go before my very first deadline. Talk about bummer.

Thank God for my 9-day break. The normal me would be gnashing teeth by now.

I guess I gave this firm the ultimate lip power. Because I hardly thought I’d be assigned to a position as great sounding as director. However, I’ve been around enough to know those titles amount to about as much as a wad of (used) toilet paper in this industry. I’d still be expected to do chores that virtually everyone in the company performs, except I will be blamed on more things more often, so I have to cover my ass twice as much, as there are actually more opportunities to fuck up.

Sounds totally depressing: so totally me. I can’t imagine that anyone would want to hang out with me at this rate. Ha-ha. I just miss the way everything seemed familiar at my old workplace. I guess you can’t have it all.

But come to think of it, I can’t think of any other place I’d rather be in at the moment, than here.

my emotionally-draining resignation

2006-06-23T09:59:00.000+08:00

This is my last day with my current company. You will not believe what I had to go through while filing my resignation. This week has been charged with emotion and angst, I get stressed out once I enter the office!

Just sad to be leaving at a bad note with my former boss. It does help to know I have a purpose for doing what I have to do, even though it may be hard to understand from the employer's point of view.

I'm looking at it philosophically, so I won't have to mind too much when the office (at least the few people who've been acting so immaturely about it) seems colder than usual, and so I'd have other things to think about aside from the fact that I JUST WANT TO GET OUT OF HERE.

2006-06-16T13:14:00.000+08:00

Rina, ya got some 'splainin' to do...:P

Anyway, the tag says "Once you've been tagged, you have to write a blog with 8 facts/things/habits about yourself, saying who tagged you. In the end you need to choose the 6 people to be tagged and list their names. No tag backs."

It's a classic excuse for people to do what they love doing most: talk about themselves. But what the heck, i'm a blogger so i'm guilty of the ego trip.

So here goes:

1. I don’t know what the hell I really wanna do. I’ve tried everything: acted i`111`n plays, sang in a band/alone/in the choir, drew, wrote, sold an advocacy, done media production, organized gigs, hosted events… I’m not really sure what I’m cut out to do for the rest of my life. Maybe that’s what I’m supposed to do for the rest of my life. Brrr… Scary.

2. I can’t seem to stay angry at anyone for a long time. It’s just too tiresome.

3. The moment I respect someone, I tend to lose conviction on things I am supposed to believe in, if that person believes otherwise. It’s irritating. I tend to be too checked by my awe, until I go home and rehash the discussion in bed, and I think about all those things I could’ve said. Then I realize I could’ve said something. I spend hours blowing off steam for not thinking quickly enough. Shitty.

4. I used to sleep with the lights off, but now I can’t! Probably from watching too many senseless, scary Japanese/Korean flicks alone.

5. I’m comfortable with people if I could afford to read something while having lunch with them. It’s a weird habit I can’t seem to kick. Been doing it since I was nine.

6. I’m uncomfortable most of the time if I’m made to wear rubber shoes. Duh. Don’t ask.

7. Whenever I can help it, I indian-sit anywhere – including hotel lounges, government offices, etc. ONLY if I can help it.

8. Pineapples, eggplants and raisins make my tongue itch. Another duh. ‘Hate them!

There. It about reduces chances of mistaking me from other women to about... 0.10%.

2006-06-13T13:33:00.000+08:00

You scored as Emma Frost. Emma Frost is a former enemy of the X-Men but has joined them. She finds certain rules about not reading minds without permission to confining, and she still retains a bit of a bad-girl side. Some x-men are not certain of her alligence, and for good reason. Powers: Telepathy, Can turn her skin into Diamond, Psychic persuasion

Emma Frost

85%

Gambit

80%

Jean Grey

70%

Wolverine

70%

Rogue

70%

Iceman

70%

Storm

60%

Colossus

55%

Cyclops

45%

Nightcrawler

40%

Beast

35%

Most Comprehensive X-Men Personality Quiz 2.0
created with QuizFarm.com

I fucking hate weekend-work!!!

2006-06-03T16:13:00.000+08:00

It truly amazes me that some people could still look forward to working on a Saturday. It happened to me during the first six months of my stay in my current workplace, but I’ve woken up ever since. I guess it’s just that slaving over something for a long period of time is just not intrinsic in me. I’ve always tried to get out of situations that require me to work at keeping my eyes open. Call it short-term attention span. Am I a recipe for failure? I hope not. In any case, if success would mean not feeling irked for spending a whole Saturday behind your work desk… damn. I got my whole work cut out before me.

***

After taking a look at my tasks for the coming week, I just thought about the weird situation the country has in terms of policy initiators. It seems people from the government expect to be coddled and are eternally suspicious of the Public’s motivation for any initiative for change. On the private sector’s side, they just don’t trust government because all of them, at one time or another, have been molested, extorted, harassed, fooled around with and lied to by so and so from various government agencies. In the Philippines, people and sectors just don’t trust each other.

I attended a forum a couple of days ago organized by the RE coalition on Energy Privatization. It was attended by pertinent government sectors (starring DOE), semi-government-owned power companies and lot of industry players (ployers). To make the long story short, people ended up putting the responsibility of Energy policy implementation to the only agency which was not present during the meeting.

Piece of advice: never ever be absent during a multi-sector forum, especially if you’re a main player. Or else, people will end up talking about you. Always true in the big and small scale. Shucks. I’m wondering what the turn-out would have been had a representative of that agency been present. Would there have been debates galore with officials and representatives from so-and-so sector walking out and raising their hands in frustration (I’d have loved to see that one!)? Or would there have been poker faces, passing on the buck to whatever department might’ve been most conveniently blamed, perhaps the budget dept., or lower house.

Comments on the Fils - Read on!

2006-05-30T10:39:00.000+08:00

Here's an interesting entry about an outsider's view of the Philippines as compared to Thailand. A guy named Danny who travels the world has this account of his visit to the two countries. I found it objective and mostly accurate.

MJS

2006-05-19T16:16:00.000+08:00

A friend from two years ago sent me an email that left me feeling sad. It was a short one about being sorry for not taking chances. It was sad because I had to hear about how he’d been feeling such a long time after we last met or even talked, but all the same, it made me feel relieved, in a way. Relieved because it turns out I’m not as tired as he is of just jumping head-first into a cliff despite experiences of hitting my head on the pavement. It’s too bad that such a great person who could do great things could believe in so little.

We once talked about messing up other people’s lives because of how we felt. He said, “Fuck it, everyone gets hurt. You will invariably hurt other people anyway, and you are bound to feel pain once in a while. So forgive yourself.” And I believed him! It gave me an excuse to think I could still be a great person despite all the pain I’ve caused, and all those I’ve suffered. In the end, he couldn’t walk his talk. I don’t really blame him. I’m just so sorry.

I wish him all the peace he’d traveled the world for. And that someday, he could afford to take that giant leap into instant suicide, or perhaps happiness.

More...

2006-05-19T14:52:00.000+08:00

For this, i'd even go to church!

2006-05-19T14:51:00.000+08:00

Chocolate Hills. ;) get it???

I know i'm bound to be disappointed...consider it as delayed gratification (i hope at least!!!)

2006-05-19T14:48:00.000+08:00

Beach front!! I can taste the water... (Hold it... isn't it man-made?)

2006-05-19T14:33:00.000+08:00

I’d like a mind-boggling weekend at the beach before summer finally dwindles into the rainy season. Rainy season for a commuter who travels for almost two hours twice daily, with all the hellish traffic of Makati is just… well, hellish. So I’d like to end my not-so-boring summer with a final blast with the waves and the salt and the party and the…well, booze.

It was fucked up how we got cancelled because of Caloy. It would’ve been fun having a party at the White Beach of Gallera (notwithstanding the DOMale foreigners with their exotic Pinay chicks decking the bars as surely as the sea washes out to shore). Now folks here at the office are making ears perk up coz of a possible trip to --- tada! Bohol! Damn, I hope it’s true. I’m just not ready to store my bikinis at the far side of the closet. Nope, not just yet.

from two-Saturday-Early-Evening's ago

2006-05-08T17:31:00.000+08:00

Why do I always need to make up all these stories? I need to always envelop myself into a series of issues and worries that may or may not exist, but that in any case, becomes real enough to destroy relationships. It’s mental. There’s this mode I get into that grips me and drives me around and about like a twister, destroying anything on my path. And all the while, there’s this part of me that’s detached, aware of the mistakes I’m making, but unable to stop the rest of me. It watches while the rest of me turns everything over, in search of an answer, that I’m being fooled, that I could take a strange sort of satisfaction from knowing I was right from the beginning.

I’m sounding like those psycho characters from Stephen King’s novels. Perhaps the reason I like King is because those psycho characters in his stories are almost always the protagonists. I have a feeling he’d understand me better than anyone else. Too bad he’s married.

@@@

One of the hardest things I need to accept is that there will always be someone who’s better than I am who would get a better slice of the pie, so to speak. The bitch of it is that I may not be a good as that other person, but I’m just not dumb enough to not get it when someone either gets frustrated at me or lets me off the hook easier than they would that better person. It feels shitty, like being part of a pack that gets the bones, always gets them, just not the best part, because you weren’t the best performer. Those times, It’d be a lot easier to just be completely stupid and clueless. But of course, for the sake of the viewing public and the die-hard fans (not that there are a lot of them, you understand), I just have to keep working at it.

Sometimes it feels like Life is a series of work-outs. The moment you stop is the day you die. Even a boyfriend would be another spectator in the audience who I should watch out for, lest he realizes he can have – acquire? – a better mutt.

I’m wondering what ever happened to all the good things I could expect from myself those years back. This same hand wrote those words of hope in sniffy, lovey letters I wrote my ex-boyfriend/ex-best friend/soul brother. I wonder where it all went. I guess it died the day I stopped loving him, stopped believing the impossibility of being disappointed and getting your heart broken. It seems like that time was a lifetime ago. Now I realize I’m the same person who can get hurt, only there’s less of me to hope. Fuck. Whatever happened to me? What the hell went wrong somewhere between St. Joseph Town Homes and Quezon City Subdivision (translation: the past ten years of my life)?
There’s one thing that remains the same though; my strange sense of humor.

@@@

People who I think understood me more than most:

1) Monj
2) Edward
3) Eric B. (in a weird way)
4) Eric C.
5) Ana
6) Nico
7) Carl

Not a long list, considering my job where I meet a lot of people. The industry I’m currently in just buffets its practitioners into evenings with CEO’s and country managers and “big” people who, thankfully, act like they know you and that you belong in their world, by virtue of your Publicity for their event. Oh. Under it all, I guess, is the assurance that regardless of how much your wardrobe costs and its consequence (in the event you get included in their photo releases), you are, in fact, helping them keep making a lot of money, by some obscure quantitative derivative for brand recognition. Hell.

Anyway, back to my list. These are the people that do not know me much, but they know me more than most others because they realized some things about me that I didn’t even know then. These people are the ones that have helped ease the long, frightful journey of “knowing thyself”. I have a lot of acquaintances. Perhaps a number of enemies. But these people can tell most of my best and worst, and have lived to survive it. Haha.

@@@

Oh God, too much coffee is giving me palpitations. I need a beer to even out my heartbeats.

The Tipping Point (no, it's not PR talk)

2006-05-08T17:09:00.000+08:00

Why do people do things they end up feeling sorry for when it’s too late and things have happened? It sucks when you really, really make a mess out of things when in fact, you thought you were trying to make them ok. Then you’d wish you could still do something, but you discover that things are no longer in your control, and all you can do is look. It’s like Tipping Point. A certain moment comes when you just sit back and let all hell break loose.

All I know is that things have to be ok soon. Maybe not at this point, but I’m hoping for the light at the end of the tunnel. There’s gotta be no way but up, in this regard.

On account of this being my corner of the virtual world, I just need to make an announcement: I’ve done it all wrong again. I’ve promised myself that it never would happen, that once was enough. But I guess I’m just a very, very slow learner. I’ve fucked up again, one way or another.

On Pasts, and my issues (as usual)

2006-03-20T17:42:00.000+08:00

The hardest thing you could ever do in a relationship is to accept that person’s past. I should be the last person to complain about this because my previous lives are cluttered up and stuffed with numerous skeletons, and the least I could do for a person is to be thankful that whoever he is has learned to accept me, despite all the mistakes that have marked me for life. But hell! I can’t stand pasts!

Allow me to be selfish.

I can’t say the same for everyone – I wouldn’t know. It will definitely sound cheeky and stupid but for my own peace of mind, I’d like to think that I am the best thing that’s ever happened to a person’s life, specifically if that person has become a significant part of me. (Haha. Laugh all you want.) And the thing is, upon learning that there have been equally significant things – and people – that have come along in the not-so-distant past – BEFORE I HAPPENED, well. It just spoils my day.

My day has been spoilt today, ask no questions. No matter how I’m going to deal with this tomorrow (in the most mature manner I could muster), let me just express my deepest disgust at myself for feeling this way. I’d like to see it as immature, selfish and unfair, but waking those memories that weren’t mine to begin with makes me sorry that I ever did. I wish I hadn’t known. Damage done, no turning back, sure, yeah. And there’s really no one to blame but myself. I can’t really blame anyone for experiencing the best times of their lives without me, right? So why do I feel so insecure?

I'm tired

2006-03-03T18:09:00.000+08:00

Sometimes literature gets soggy without the angst.
I guess you could say that after i've gone past my high school years, i've lost the fire to scream my pain madly at the world, perhaps because i realized that it doesn't listen. I have to wonder sometimes at those who continue to live a profane existence of mulling their fears out loud, and ask myself, "Will they ever grow up?". The other, scarier question would be, "What have i become, in growing up?".
Sure, there is pain still. I am fortunate (?) enough to feel it, and to recognize it for what it is. What is missing is the urge to fight it and strike it down. I've grown, over the years, to be comfortable with it, and calmly accept the fact that i belong to it, just as the rest of humanity is owned by it until it dies. Even in death, there is pain.
There is Synchronicity to Pain. There is rhyme and reason. There is rationality.

Excyooouzz Meeh, Suuhh...

2006-02-24T15:06:00.000+08:00

While I write this down, thousands of people are being mobilized along EDSA to begin yet another round of cries for Freedom and Democracy. As I stare at my monitor, people are screaming at PGMA out of rage due to poverty, the ever-present scum that eats at the Filipino people. It is a far cry from what took place more than twenty years ago as nuns and men in arms held hands and prayed for the country’s deliverance; yet, it is the same scene. A different crowd, crying out a similar fate. A different culprit being charged – whether justly or unjustly – for a similar crime of lambasting the life of a people and a nation.

I wonder at those people who could be feeling exactly as I feel at the moment. I wonder at the amount of dejection they must hide. I am tired of EDSA. No matter how many times we try to relive this moment of a Nation’s uprising, we will always find our un-united selves on different sides of the fence, at varying times depending on our beliefs, biases and own austere opinions. The biggest loss is for the people in the streets, many of whom are too uneducated, and who could have very well been used as spawns by those with bigger interests, and who find too much to lose to march their angst on the streets.

I feel saddened at the state of my country whose people could find it in themselves to trample each other, including the weak and the elderly, to win a chance at lottery game shows. I am deeply disturbed by a society that has lost its faith in the government, regardless of who owns the seat of power. I am worried that no matter how many times history is repeated, people may never learn, regardless of the indications that I thought pointed the other way. But more than anything, I am enraged at constantly warring sides of the elite few, and the personal vendetta of people in power to turn the state of the nation this way and that to achieve their means, at the cost of lives of millions of Filipinos who work hard for a living and pay their taxes, regardless of insurgencies and price hikes imposed by faceless sectors.

Sounding fascist yet?

2006-02-17T13:14:00.000+08:00

A head in the cloud

2006-02-06T18:21:00.000+08:00

Artful, languid and long
She flicks
And neither poverty, nor fear
Could touch her at that moment

Arid smoke curls almost to her brows that are
Perfect half moons
Tome of composure and inactivity
Perfect picture of reserved energy.

Unaware, that pose says
Unaware of whether stares are given in distaste or reverence
For that provocative, uncaring figure.

Eyes burning at the lapel of that uncomfortable young yuppie
Through and beyond his straight, aching back,
Through the wall behind him, beyond which an old man hurriedly stir fries his vegetable side-dish for the fiftieth customer
Through the dirty, grimy kitchen’s backdoor
Beyond the unmanned, unused night road
Into the darkness

dreaming her wealthy dreams.

Life’s Dream

2006-02-06T18:17:00.000+08:00

What we want is a niche where we could be the best in what we do. Where there is no such thing as failure, only retribution. What we want is an ovation for our acts, the admission that we have been born for something, For Something. We want this to be the truth, not the fact borne out of commitment or subjection to friendship, love or loyalty. We want the wonder stamped on every audience’s face when we have achieved the impossible and have crossed boundaries into Unreality. We want the sepulchral understanding for our uniqueness and tragedy. We want the impossible, improbable empathy from friends and strangers alike, as impartial and as exact as a mathematical equation. We want freedom from love, humanity and subjectivity. We want Brilliance. We want Superlative. We want Perfection.

2005-12-05T16:05:00.000+08:00

In our minds, love and lust are really separated. It's hard to find someone that can be kind and you can trust enough to leave your kids with, and isn't afraid to throw her man up against the wall and lick him from head to toe.

-Tori Amos

Building a mystery (Sarah McLachlan)

2005-11-18T19:36:00.000+08:00

You come out at night
That’s when the energy comes
And the dark side’s light
And the vampires roam
You strut your rasta wear
And your suicide poem
And a cross from a faith
That died before jesus came

You’re building a mystery

You live in a church
Where you sleep with voodoo dolls
And you won’t give up the search
For the ghosts in the halls
You wear sandals in the snow
And a smile that won’t wash away
Can you look out the window
Without your shadow getting in the way
Oh you’re so beautiful
With an edge and a charm
But so careful
When I’m in your arms

Cause you’re working
Building a mystery
Holding on and holding it in
Yeah you’re working
Building a mystery
And choosing so carefully

You woke up screaming aloud
A prayer from your secret god
You feed off our fears
And hold back your tears
Give us a tantrum
And a know it all grin
Just when we need one
When the evening’s thin
Oh you’re a beautiful
A beautiful fucked up man
You’re setting up your
Razor wire shrine

The new run (reprise????)

2005-11-15T19:37:00.000+08:00

The new run begins. the new run begins with what people would call the re-birth. but secretly, she believes it's not really new. just a rehash of the past issues, the past crimes and past falls from glory. perhaps the exact words won't come, probably not in time to make one sound eloquent. what is eloquence, but the judicious willingness of time and space that enables the ability to form the right picture, the right thought, at the right time. What is time but the concept of yesterday, the Now and the future? what is the future but what we perceive it to be, as intangible as ultimate joy or despair?

I, however, for one, care about that fact, no matter how i try to cast it out of the inequities of day-to-day living. Sojourn with the trivialities. it's the best New Age drug. Ask the kids with ticking timebombs for blood pressures, trapped in the world of their virtual games. ask the professionals who become permanent fixtures of their boss's wonderful modern torture chambers we all call our offices. Ask the 50-year old woman who blames everyone but herself for her impending doom of dying all alone while the world loses consciousness of her existence.

Triviality is a good excuse. But it's poor therapy. And like someone i know once said, when you acquire sanity by stud, the father always looks like the son, and they have a very high suicide rate.

I Refuse

2005-08-10T20:34:00.000+08:00

One is probably the most defensive person on earth.

Or at least in one's plane of existence. One's biggest challenge is to act without worrying about anyone challenging one's intellect. One has heard the line that goes 'there will always be somebody better that yourself, whom you will meet along the way...' a few times already, but accepting that idea is something one has yet to accomplish.

Of course, this does not speak for everything that one does (there one goes again, in defense). One just lived long enough in this world to realize that one can be anything one wants to be, if one sets one's mind to it. Whatever or whoever one is not at the moment is entirely one's doing.

Andrea Bocelli sang; she would have had chosen to explore the wonders of nicotine. Former President Corazon Aquino claimed the executive seat when she could have chosen to stay as the silent housewife of deposed Senator Ninoy.

Whatever decision is made, leads to the next chapter of the story.

Perhaps, for once, one could write something subject to the world's scrutiny, and not mind too much. Or perhaps one could mind, but not entirely lose face should one fail to please everyone who scans one's page.

It's funny how one made a mark in college by displaying utter disregard for other people's opinions, when in fact, one does mind. One probably just mastered the art of keeping some things to one's self.

It's even funnier how some people think one has substance, when all one really has is the ability to play with words.