­­amid meandering thoughts of working abroad, giving objective quizzes to make checking papers less of a pain, taking a picture of a cat crossing a busy street (and giving it the caption "bakit nga ba ang pusa, tumatawid kahit bawal ang jaywalking" by the mongols), and plans of sending a former officemate an email, a sudden wave of inspiration breezed upon me. it was promptly followed by that desperate feeling of wanting so much to freeze that state of mind, so it won't just fleet away again leaving me frozen in oblivion.

*******

one thing I like about getting older is the tendency to become less and less concerned about trends and more thirsty of those which that last.

saying goodbye to one of my favorite things...

...is always heartbreaking.

Good bye NU.

Thank you for the beautiful music, for being a repository of both valuable and useless info :D, for being there when things get boring, for keeping me company in my dark times, for quark, dylan, "let's fun", zach, gang, rock-ed radio, for the free gigs, for Rocking my life. It's been one hell of a ride.

Silence

when I get so sick of my brothers' and their friends' frequent long extended drinking marathons at our space-challenged apartment, I wish I could just lash out at them with this poem--

Silence

by Marianne Moore

My father used to say,
"Superior people never make long visits,
have to be shown Longfellow's grave
or the glass flowers at Harvard.
Self-reliant like the cat -
that takes its prey to privacy,
the mouse's limp tail hanging like a shoelace from its mouth-
they sometimes enjoy solitude,
and can be robbed of speech
by speech which has delighted them.
The deepest feeling always shows itself in silence;
not in silence, but restraint."
Nor was he insincere in saying, "Make my house your inn."
Inns are not residences.

--and pull a dramatic exit before they can say a thing.

:D

conversation with an octogenarian one lazy afternoon

Ako: Lola*, ano pong trabaho ninyo nung dalaga pa kayo?
lola: A, ayaw mo? Hehehe. (ang tinutukoy niya ay ang paggagantsilyo, dahil kanina lamang ay tinanong ko siya tungkol dito.)
Ako: Hindi gusto ko po. Ano pong trabaho ninyo nung dalaga pa kayo?
lola: A, bakit hindi ka ba dalaga? Wala naman sa itsura mong may asawa ka na.
Ako: Dalaga pa po ako 'la. Mukhang hindi po tayo nagkakaintindihan. Hehe. Ang sabi ko po, ano pong trabaho ninyo noong dalaga pa kayo.
lola: Ahh. Wala. Wala akong trabaho noon. Ayaw kasi ng kuya ko. Nag-aral lang ako sa Philippine Normal University. Gusto kong maging konduktora noon ngunit ayaw akong payagan ng kuya ko.

Mga ilang minuto bago ito:

Lola: Ang daming langgam. Hindi mo ba nakikita? Ayan o, pulang pula.
Ako: Saan po? Wala naman po, 'la.
Lola: Ayan o, (sabay turo sa sahig) ayun pa o (turo sa hangin)...
Ako: Wala naman 'la e.
lola: ...o ako lang ang nakakakita? Baka nga ang mata ko lang 'to. Hindi na kasi ako nakakainom ng gamot ko e. 300 yung isa. Pag nagbayad na ang mga boarders bili ako ulit. Naku ayan na naman sila.
Ako: Wag niyo nalang po pansinin lola.
Lola: A, dumadami ba kapag pinapansin?
 
*******
Nakalimutan ko ang pangalan ni lola. Basta siya ang may-ari ng boarding house kung saan nakatira ang ate ko habang nagrereview siya para sa Bar exam. Nag-enjoy akong kakwentuhan si lola noong huling sabado. Tuturuan niya akong maggantsilyo sa susunod na pagbisita ko.

summer in the city...

is made more bearable with Regina Spektor in my mp3 player.
I've been listening to her again and the existentialism in her music somehow saves me from all the numbness...god this woman is a genius.

summer in the city means cleavage cleavage cleavage
and I start to miss you, baby, sometimes
I’ve been staying up and drinking in a late night establishment
telling strangers personal things

summer in the city, I’m lonely lonely lonely
I went to a protest just to rub up against strangers
and I did feel like coming but I also felt like crying and it
doesn’t seem so worth it right now

and the castrated ones stand in the corner smoking
they want to feel the bulges in their pants start to rise
at the site of a beautiful woman they feel nothing but
anger, her skin makes them sick in the night…nauseaous…

summer in the city, I’m so lonely lonely lonely
I’ve been hallucinating you, babe, at the backs of other women
and I tap them on the shoulder and they turn around smiling
but there’s no recognition in their eyes

summer in the city means cleavage cleavage cleavage
and don’t get me wrong, dear, in general I’m doing quite fine
it’s just when it’s summer in the city, and you’re so long gone from the city
I start to miss you, baby, sometimes

when it’s summer in the city, and you’re so long gone from the city
I start to miss you, baby, sometimes…

fighting the truth is the hardest. even your best effort would snap as soon as you get cornered by the revealing power of solitude. against your better judgment, you gave in to that nagging compulsion to tell him that the last time you were happy was

when

     you

           were

               with

                     him.

amidst the bits and pieces of rationalized realizations, the ones that hurt,
this truth sticks out.