Sunday, April 29, 2007

And as you gently sip this drink


Peculiar farking summer, ladies and gents.

Yesterday, from my lola's in Paranaque (hello, hello, to my incredibly pregnant tita, Robyn), went to Cavite, where I reunited with the couch-meant-for-the-dumptruck and my laptop. And now, I'm back in Calatagan, Batangas, for my brothers' kumpil and the town fiesta. Yum yum lechon, estupado, menudo, maja de blanca and leche flan.

(Hello to Yaps, and all the other blockmates of mine, who could've been here with me in food heaven -- but alas, may pasok kayo. Buwahaha.)

Here I sit, using my other tita's laptop. You know, the one with the Windows 98 OS, no Microsoft Office programs and a toggle circle thing that's supposedly this machine's mouse.

Gah.

*

When I woke up this morning, I had a rather interesting abundance of happy hormones. Now, though, after miles and miles of noise, pollution, people and MILES, I am starting to get grumpy. Pota naman o.

And this is pointless but I might as well say it: IT'S SO BLEEPING HOT!!! (like, OhMyGod, WhatTheFuck, Barbeque!!!) IT BURNS, BABY. OOH, IT BURNS!!!

GahGahGAAAH.

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Saturday, April 28, 2007

Paranormal mates society


Someone here needs to seriously fix her weird sleeping habits.

I feel like a thief in my grandmother's house. A thief who takes a bath at 1:30 in the morning, munches on raisins and melted mocha ice cream, who internets all night long, laughing (gasping with mirth) with my imaginary friend plus newfound snarky bitch friends Candy and Sarah over ridiculous mantittes and overtly helpless-bored looks with the contrived illegal buttsecksings, half-scribbling the beginnings of a story, using my tita's laptop without her consent, and it's nearly five o'clock in the freaking morning and everybody is going to wake up any minute now and they'd find me crouched over my illegally-used laptop, on the dining table, exactly as they left me some odd hours ago, sans laptop, of course.

Got all that?

And in the background, somewhere, is the insistent beeping of my cellphone, which I haven't graced with mine eyes for more than a day now. Are y'all texting me, hunny bunnies, wondering if I've been farted off the face of this puh-lanet?

EEK! I hear squeaky floorboard sounds from the upstairs. Demmit!

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Friday, April 27, 2007

Laugh trip naman tayo


Amidst pseudo-debates with Dino and Yaps, I stumbled onto these literary gems (ta-daaah), care of Miss Snark, care of Miss Jenny Crusie.

Thrilling Chapter Endings You May Use in Your Next Novel and Grumpy Teenager Visits Atlantis and Situations In Which I Would Be Willing to Die A Premature Death.

And lots, lots more. :)

Anyhoo, found them at McSweeney's.net. GO!

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Look for me in the white forest


To random people. Just think about what you're in for, then read the appropriate parts. If I hurt anyone, lemme just say it's 3 AM and I am not feeling particularly bad about it. Tss. But I am telling the truth, so there's that.


*


1
(as YM-ed:) i have so many things to rant and whine about. i wish i was there, so we could drink dutch mill and beer, while you smoked (careful, like you always are, to not let the smoke billow my way), and then you'd say something only 30% related to my problem and i'd steer the conversation to your problem, which is easier for me to handle because, after all, it ain't my problem, and then the hours would tick by and soon we're both silent, and you'll be thinking about sol reyes, and i'll be wondering if i should start smoking again, and before we know it, the silence is over, and we'd be ranting and whining again. yun.




2
Hello, dickhead. I doubt you're Litiot eyes would ever get to read this in cyberspace, as a) you think the internet is a base system which has the devil as its CEO; and b) you won't read anything that isn't recommended by the NY Times Book Review, your as-snooty mother, and your "writer-reader friends." And yet I write, still. Because not only does this give me the intense satisfaction at having to malign your Ivy School-ed name, I am still ever so hopeful that you would step down from that pedestal you've hauled yourself up to (not without your share of stepping on some fingers, of course) and actually get to read this.

Anyway, I just wanted to inform you of my wish to the higher powers that you could be able to read more books, that you could waltz into a bookstore and just look around, with no purpose at all, no book in mind that was recommended, or something you saw in a four-star critique. Don't box yourself in. Marunong ka namang magbasa eh, so magbasa ka na talaga.





3
Just because I am not writing about the war in Kamalakhi-wooha, or trying to fictionalize my way into finding the cure for cancer, it does not mean that what I am doing is not worthwhile. So what I write doesn't solve the hunger crisis, it doesn't weed out the dirty politicians, it doesn't urge celebutantes to adopt orphans from Bacolod. That doesn't make me less of a person.

And by the way, I know a fucking metaphor when I see one, dearie, and that's just too bad for you, innit?





4
I really wish you'd leave me alone. How many times do I have to send out the Not Interested signals? I don't want to make it any clearer because that would mean I would have to throttle you and stamp NOT INTERESTED all over your body, which I am so not interested in. Clear?





5
I don't think cancer is a laughing matter. And for the record, I did not laugh at all, in any way. So my voice was light and breezy. Don't give me the prologue for a sermon. You have no idea how exhausting the relief is, after the weeks of worry, in which I couldn't tell anyone, except in highly cryptic messages. You have no idea how this affects my family, how this affects me. And don't even think of throwing what you've been through at my face, to prove me wrong, to say, "Well, Sasha, I actually do know."

She doesn't have it. And that means there's a bigger chance that I don't have it either.

And if I said it in such a light, breezy voice, with such light, breezy words, like, "She doesn't have cancer," a smile here, the beginnings of mindless laughter there -- then I am sorry if that moves you enough to say, "You shouldn't laugh at things like that."

And before you do (or not do) anything, I'd like to tell you that I understand you and that infuriates me more because I can't even be properly angry -- anger, being another thing you're depriving me off. Ugh.





6
I am so damned happy the two of you finally got jiggy with the workings of the universe and got together! Yey!





7
One of the most idiotic and pitiful things you could do is hang on to something not worth hanging on to. I've told you this so many times I am quite sure it's become a mantra in your head, along with all the others spewed by the little Sasha in your psyche. I understand you, love, I really do. And a couple of months ago, I found myself testing myself, if I could actually stick to my principles, when faced with something I thought could actually make it despite all the bullshit I and my umfriend were injecting it with.

For a couple of days, I felt a bit horrified that I was actually contemplating trampling all over my so-called principles. But I realize now that it's part of the process, this doubt. It's all about gauging whether it's actually worth it or you're just fooling yourself and hurting yourself (and others too, as collateral damage) along the way.

So you have to decide. And after that, think about it. Really think. Is it worth it? Is she?

(If you're wondering, the umfriend and I are no more. But things don't always end up this way. Some things go on, some things you have to fight for, some things you have to let go. There are happy endings too, you know. Trust me on this one.)

Oh, and remember: lighten up.





8
I am NOT letting you ruin one of the best things that has ever happened in my life.

You are like a mango fiber that has doggedly burrowed itself in the space between my two front teeth, and I just can't get rid of you, even if I use a gnarled toothpick or the bruised tip of my tongue.

Your presence is a pox on my existence, and so I am taking the appropriate measures to make sure that there is as little of your presence as possible. You can't take over my life by being a turd, a tinga -- I won't let you.





9
My mother wants to invite you for dinner. No way am I even mentioning it to you.

Last night, I e-mailed her a detailed explanation of why no one of my clan should ever invite you in the course of your lifetime and three lifetimes after that.

This morning, she replied with, "You could have stopped with 'I don't like ___.'" So the invitation-that-never-was has now been taken back. And my life is starting to look a little brighter.





10
"I wanted the Third Person Experience."
Rest assured, this writer gave him a funny look.
But here's the edited version of last night's ramble.

Pen hovering, she realizes that he has never told her what he felt about love letters. She's certain he'll say that she never asked, and he'll say it with that smile of his, with his eyes cast down, then peeking up again, then laughing the entire thing -- smile, convoluted wordplay, questions -- off. She doesn't know why they still do it, the letters thing. Outdated, yes. Waste of paper, ha! But he's never complained. Once or twice, she remembers fondly, he bested her with a reply longer by a page or two.

Her brain whizzes from one psyche-station to another, as it has been these days, ever since she divorced herself from her laptop.

The other day, she started a conversation, their day, when she laughed at her emo-ness, her tendency to romanticize, her illogical affinity with "dreamy" things, her complete corniness (which she is quite sure is on full display right now). She never got to thank him for not laughing with her.

And by the way, (and she writes this down) she doesn't think he'll fit in her suitcase. And no,
no, she couldn't smuggle him in. And no, she wouldn't send him pictures of her in the beach. And yes, she might call when she'd be sufficiently drunk enough that he'll only feel amusement at whatever spews out of her mouth (aside from projectile vomit.) And yes, she'll try telling Mr. Poet that he thinks he "misplaced" a metaphor in the last one.

They're both mental, he, she, it, they.

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Thursday, April 26, 2007

Into the haze of this city


Things have been pretty serious around here lately and so I felt it was hightime I injected some more of my abundant shallowness back into cyberspace.

*

I dislike it immensely when guys try to hit on me when I'm spelunking for books. (No specific genre, just books, if you're wondering whether it's just about your irrational fear that I could be found holding one in my hands while someone, especially of the other sex, looks on.)

As I am often on my hands and knees, burrowing in the black holoes of musty old bookshelves of cheapass bookstores, I see it as a distinct disadvantage when some guy comes up to me and I am eye-level with his knees.

Anyway, this morning, after three hours of mindless joy, I threw Rachel Gibson to the floor (where it promptly went up in smoke, given this morning's -- or yesterday's -- temperature). There I was, bookless. Because Umberto Eco is too much Book to successfully launch me to the non-thinking state I've always wanted to acquire this summer. And Tracy Thompson reminds me too mcuh of my own depression. And I'm saving Neil Gaiman for an airport. And Elisabeth Robinson only reminds me of the cancer that, thankfully, never-was.

I needed books. No fucking way was I reading John Grisham, Tom Clancy or Danielle Steel, all of which were lying around in my lola's house. (I have standards -- *insert snooty sniff here*. HA.)

So I travelled to the edges of the Metro, to get my hands on some cheap-ass reads.

Which brings us back to the hitting-on-me thing while I'm doing the looking-for-books thing.

I think I was in a fairly decent pose, in fairly decent clothing. I was in travel wear: cotton shirt (with a cartoon cow), skinny jeans, orange flats. My hair was in its don't-talk-to-me messy bun, I had on my librarian glasses. I even had the rust purse thing going on. And it wasn't like I stuck my ass out there, where everyone could trip over it, or get the urge to tap it and ask if it wants to have coffee at the corner, the body attached to it, optional.

I am looking for something to read, you dolts. This is not my come-hither pose.

I think I succeeded in banishing them away with two books written by authors raved about by critics but have never actually seen the light of day on a bookstore bookshelf. Jane Heller for some "Hi, I'm an idiot!" reading (I hurled the book across the room by the time I crawled to the middle -- hey, it's thirty bucks) and Amanda Marquit (who?) for some hardbound-loving piece of angst, angst, angst.

And no, if you're curious, I didn't buy any of my trashy novels. Walang mura eh, haha.

Well, with all this ranting and raving about my precious little pleasures, at least alam niyo na kung ano yung ireregalo niyo sa'kin sa birthday ko. And you won't even worry about corrupting me -- not only because I am already corrupted, but that I am eighteen, and thus perfectly legal to practice the corruption on myself.

Yey.

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Wednesday, April 25, 2007

We only exist in this song


Stephen King "comments on violent writing and violent acts" in his EW article on Virgina Tech and that utterly unimaginative "real mean" dumbass mass murderer. Said article also gives a link to another article, this one from the New York Times, talking about how Mr. Cho raised red flags regarding his writing. "Anger of Killer was on Exhibit in his Writings," the over-long headline reads.

His English teacher describes his works as "angry" and passed them on to university police. His writing "contained violent images and profane language."

Okay, so the guy's behavior deserved all the red flags that have sprung up. He was uncommunicative, kept to himself, described as "the kinda weird quiet kid who never talks." He stalked women, lots of them, and got held for psychiatric evaluation. When he introduced himself at the first day of class, he said his name was Question Mark.

And his writing was alarming, they said. Previous professors of his are guilt-ridden, wondering if they could have done something to prevent the shooting. After all, they said, the plays were monstrous in their violence, their anger and the, I could guess, undeniable desire to realize the scenes.

Bullshit.

Cho's professor in playwrighting last semester, Edward Falco, wrote an e-mail to his colleagues, trying to put their guilty minds at ease: “There was violence in Cho’s writing — but there is a huge difference between writing about violence and behaving violently,” he wrote. “We could not have known what he would do.”

Tama nga naman, di ba.

I'm not defending Cho. What he did was not only uncreatively horrid and ugly, it smacked of evil brought on by utter boredom, madness and his pagkakulang-sa-pansin. I'm not even defending his writing, though I certainly feel for that. Don't romanticize this idiot. I'm not, and I'm the promotor of romanticizing a range of everything, including one construction worker for an in-class essay, which got the comment, "I'm sure the guy sounds hotter than he actually is."

I'm sure he has redeeming qualities, that there are reasons behind his Unspeakables. But I don't want to delve on that, although it is something I often do, in fiction or not. I don't want to understand him, because right now, he still pisses me off greatly for many, many reasons, the more obvious one is that HE FUCKING KILLED A LOT OF INNOCENT PEOPLE.

So far, I've written about an abortion, a suicide, a depression, a haunting, some memorable tales of incest, a murder, a rape, domestic abuse, incessant menstrual bleeding, adultery, whoring and lots more other things that could brand me as mentally unstable.

Although I do admit to having some shreds of mental and emotional instability, I can still distinguish reality from SashaLand, more often than not. And another thing: I do not write these things to make a point about my madness, to sensationalize violence. I don't write about all the gore and the darker side of humanity just to show you that I can. I'm not even making a statement. I'm not screaming, "Oh, look at poor, unstable, little me!"

I write these things because they happen, they need to happen. Often, I do not have control over my story -- I just write it.

In one way or another, fiction is biographical and autobiographical. But I do not believe that it's enough to be a gauge or even prophecy for someone's homicidal tendencies.

Matakot kayo sa'kin -- I can shoot the un-sissy-fied bow and arrow, and (as I've bragged many a semi-drunken night) I hold my high school's record for dismantling, reassembling, then shooting a rifle and a standard-issue cop gun. And I'm mentally unsound and emotionally wonky. And I've written about ooh blood.

I don't think Alvin Yapan ever gave birth to a bangus that called his name over and over, or wished to. Or that Edgar Allan Poe ever locked someone in a catacomb, or wished to. Or that Anne Rice ever sucked someone's blood in a rather erotic way, or wished to. Or that A.A. Milne had actual stand-ins for Christopher Robin, Winnie the Pooh and his bare ass, and that curious honeypot he is so obsessed about, or wished to.

(You never know, though. Basta. It's all convoluted that way.)

"On the whole," King concludes, "I don't think you can pick these guys out based on their work, unless you look for violence unenlivened by any real talent."

Gah. I've been thinking too much. It's not healthy at all.

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Like slow-spinning redemption


Reader, I married him.

Jane Eyre almost always comes to mind when I get to The Scene. I think because I'm reminded that Charlotte Bronte got away with that simple yet heartfelt declaration. They're a whammy, those four words.

But you can't do that nowadays. At least, not in the type of books I'm reading. You know, the kind I have to hide behind a copy of the Herald Tribune lest everyone around me gets the urge to throw some rocks my way.

Anyway, a statement of four evocative words simply can't carry you from a flurry of The Looks to The Great Understanding. There's The Non-Accidental Grazing, then The Flaring Eyes, then The Slow Burn and finally, The Mad, Hot and Heavy -- all of which comprise The Scene. Occasionally, there's The You're-A-Virgin spiel then The Precarious Hold on Self-Control but that’s about it.

Scoff at my horrendous tastelessness. I know it's not surprising to those who know me well. I am, after all, the girl who wails to Aerosmith's gasgas love anthem whenever I entered the FA Room last year. I listen to My Chemical Romance and think One Tree Hill is a blessed cornucopia of dramatic hotness. I wear yellow Daisy Duck shoes with a skull-and-bones ID holder, for shit's sake. My taste is not one of the things anybody would praise.

Tanggap ko na.

Wait. I've digressed. Damn it.

Ahem.

So I neared The Scene. Mousy Jane's voice floats into my head, along with an image of Rochester beside the fireplace. And I got philosophical. Then I put my book down and trotted off.

...

Martin asked me if I've ever read a book with Fabio on the cover.

"Of course," I replied, indignant.

And then the boy laughed.

I plunged into a dissertation of Fabio's nicer attributes, thinking it prudent not to mention his more obvious ones (read: man-boobs, and the long, flowing blond hair). But then I was faltering, gesturing more than speaking, and after a few more spurts, I finally fell quiet. And talked about a gate instead.

(For the record, book covers of the romance genre almost have nothing whatsoever to do with the story inside. It's not just the Filipino 35-peso “novels” with Justin freaking Timberlake and Jessica Biel on the cover. I'm talking about scantily-clad wenches with big blond pirates doing some acrobatic feats atop some jagged rocks beside a roaring, frothy sea. Most of them people, in fact, do it up against the wall. Or the escritoire. Or the nearest haystack -- you get the picture.)

There I was, being philosophical yet again, knee-deep in mindless small talk about the abundance of shiny tiles in airport terminals. Thinking. Going through the motions. Thinking. And then Mousy Jane pops into my head, along with page 86 of Jennifer Crusie's book, all reminding me why I was reading the farking book in the first place --

I don't need aliens or dwarves with bad feet or seventeen-year-old wizards with lisps to escape. The things I read in these "filthy" books offer an escape that is unparalleled by any other genre or distraction or literary credential-ed opus because it all seems reachable, The Looks and The Heavy Breathings, all of it.

Declarations in the rain, swathed in dampening silk, this guy with a leather jacket/tight breeches with a rough Scottish brogue kneeling at your feet -- these don't happen. Especially not together, in one lifetime. Or in three days. And not in so many overused adjectives like "sensuous" and "fiery" and "delicate".

But the books could almost make you believe they could.

Come on, children. Thaw those hearts a little.

Sigh. -- or in horribly written literature, "her mouth let out an audible sigh." Whatever. I just wish I had someone -- other than my roommate Mabs -- to talk to about the inevitable giggle-fest regarding "throbbing manhood" and "secret, molten honeypot" and "scalding hot seed" and "I looked into his eyes and knew that he was cheated on by his last three girlfriends, his father left the company to his evil twin brother, his mother was never there, he got a D in Calculus and he had a goldfish named Andy. I just knew." And yet another kind of giggle-fest about the lords and ladies, the FBI agents and the psychics, the CEOs and the schoolmarms, the rock stars and the writers, the 2,500-year-old vampire and the 18-year-old magician who's actually the daughter of the King and Queen of "their kind" and all the stupid misunderstandings that could have been avoided if the heroine wasn't Too Stupid To Live, or the hero wasn't some pa-Byronic hero who insisted holding on to his idiotic stoicism regarding the fluffy kind of love.

Sigh.

Just prickly. I am, after all, down to my last tangible "bad" book. Meron bang malapit na Booksale sa Paranaque, ladies and gentlemen?

I needs to gets me some life! (-_-)

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Tuesday, April 24, 2007

In cups of coffee


The good news: I'ma be spending junior year in good ol' Arneow, with all you guys. Nearly peed my pants when I got my grade. Hello, itty-bitty letters that hold my fragile future in your hands. Hello, very very surprising B in Economics and howdy-doo, yummy yummy B+ in French.

After Bel, I went to the OAA to pass my scholarship form, the woman asked me how much the yearly tuition is in our grossly expensive school.

"You should know how much we're giving you," she said, through gritted teeth and curling lips, "or else we take it all away."

"Uh..." Can I phone a friend?

Shiyeht, sana "approx. 110,000" yun, please.

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Monday, April 23, 2007

Fabio is the dreamboat


You gotta love all the love.

I am obsessing once again. This time, it's that bleeping airplane ride. I've already planned to commission Martin to stop me from jumping out of said plane. But the aircraft's not my only worry, as I can always pretend I'm not 1,674,890 miles above ground, hovering above inevitable death, by singing show tunes, thinking about Hugh Jackman growling or any other boytoy locked up in my mind. Or I could always end my misery by flushing myself down the toilet.

The other worry of Sasha the Worrywart is the freaking airport. I instinctively know I'm going to hate it, the way I just plain knew as a kid that there's no way the adobo fat and I were going to be the best of friends.

I don't like waiting. Most of all, I don't like waiting in a gigantic room brimming with people.

So I shall read. Nothing deep-depressing, of course, not like the thing I'm reading now which is about, lo and behold! -- depression. Not those kind of books that'll have me wailing because of some bone-deep throbbing pain. No thinking books either, which means no Anthony Burgess that has been sitting on my desk, untouched, for a couple of weeks now. (Why'd I bought it nga pala?) And nothing flighty and surreal like Tom Robbins. Nothing too... Stephen King or Anne Rice. Alice Hoffman won't cut it either because she has beautiful prose. No Lakambini Sitoy's because she'd remind me of what'll happen for the next three weeks.

Isa lang ang solusyon.

I need me some trashy novels. The cardboard plot, over-the-top scenes, incredibly clever/dim-witted dialogue, TSTL (Too Stupid To Live) women and all the strapping lads in various stages of undress that'll all have my smart brain cells and girlie hormones (yey, feminism) go aflutter. Bodice-rippers, hidden in a Reader's Digest or something, from discerning snooty eyes of people with more common sense and literary intellect than I apparently have.

I shall survive blasted airport, after all. And maybe bits of the plane ride.

And once I land (provided we don't die in a pond or an empty lot in Merville) in summery Dgte (shortened lest you think I shall go out of my mind raving once more) I shall immediately BURN the horrendous book.

Oh, who am I kidding?

*

In an hour or so (well, dapat NOW), I'm off to the school across the street, to check, even amidst all this hullaballoo, if I am still an Atenean. Which means talking to Xander the Overlord, the registrar on the edge of mainland Arneow, the scholarship people, and Miss Abi for my bleeping NSTP snags. Keep yer fingers crossed, e'rybooty! I wanna spend my junior year in school.

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Sunday, April 22, 2007

Suffer the little children


This afternoon, I woke up to CSI, to something like, "..you look into their open mouths, riddling with lies, like maggots waiting to grow wings."

"Wow," I croaked.

*

I can't be the only one who thinks Ami James from Discovery's Travel and Living Channel is the hotness.


*

Ladies and gents, that was this day's serving of Sasha Brainfart. Thank you.

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Friday, April 20, 2007

Stupid macho cock (er, chicken)


Have been back in Cavite since Tuesday morning. Which means I shall no longer sleep on cold floor tiles reminiscent of morgues, or on a bed whose agenda includes eating me bit by bloody bit. Which means no more blankets of Indian mangos in different stages of rot on the dusty ground. No more waking up to Marikit the Dog chasing random chick (as in manok) through the living room.

Astig.

Now it's back to coagulating on the couch. (Yes, I sleep on the couch. A feel-the-springs-against-your-ass couch. My family doesn't think it's necessary for me to have a bed. I don't, after all, live in the place. Sus.) Back to wading through the archeological dig that is the surface of our house to get from one place to another. Back to mindless cable (hell-oooo, Seeley Booth and House and Lucas Scott, Triple H and MadTV). Back to cooking for myself (which means, I'm going hungry. Ayos.)

I am closer to the metropolis but that does not mean I am any closer to civilization.

Yesterday, under threat of mortal melt-age, I fed my father's chickens. These are not sissy chickens, mind you. These are tough'uns -- they tear out your throat, peck by peck, until you beg for mercy, kissing their scaly little feet (claws? talons?). Gah.

There was this one particular chicken. Strong one. Muscular, big, fierce. Pretty one. Glossy red feathers on its impressive breast, green-black feathers on its back, black-black feathers stuck to its ass. And that weird fleshy red thing on the top of its head that reminds me, frightfully, of a tissue-mass found on a female human body. Or a droopy old man's body.

But I digress.

I hate that chicken. There I was, melting, leaving puddles of me on the grass, carrying a bucket of feed with me. And I went to him, tiptoed, gave him the respect his stature demanded. I nearly kowtowed. But then Mr. Tough Guy decided to farking attack me, a flurry of feathers and tight, compact muscles and that screeching.

I got away, but only barely. I threw his food pellet things at him and sneered. (A sure sign of my maturity.)

"Adobo," I growled.

He stared at me. Malevolently. Kulang na lang, background music and a clap of thunder.

I stepped back. He had that "Ima get you now, bitch" pose going on.

Walk away, Sasha. Walk away.

Stupid macho cock (er, chicken)!

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it was a mighty battle.

And he sure as hell won.

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Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Her tongue is her mind


Why I Don't Like Politicians #231
When you're in the middle of a traffic jam and said traffic jam is caused by a political parade spewing songs that would curdle your blood -- never mind what the posters do to your nervous system -- and you just need to go to the bathroom to do a blazing number two at that very instant, IT'S NOT A GOOD THING.

Why I Don't Like Politicians #563
I am a seventeen-year-old lass currently on her summer vacation. Which means I sleep until two o'clock in the afternoon. So it is just NOT WISE to storm inside my pointedly closed bedroom door at eight o'clock in the morning to shake my non-voting hand. Or to look at my nubile personage (HALA) as I lie sprawled on my bed.


*


Robin Thicke. The guy who caterwauls Lost Without You in a voice that somehow gives the impression that his balls are perched on a slab of marble, a heavy rolling pin frolicking over em puppies. Him. He looks nice when you first look at him, and then the second look -- you get the impression that he's the type of guy who feels up little girl's dressed during intermissions. Even his name makes me snigger-shudder.

Basta, him.

Wala lang. Haha. Sinasayang ko na naman oras niyo.

Ahem. I made a list of figuratively cold-but-you-wish-they-were-hot summer nights songs. Did this, of course, as I lay in bed, one literally hot summer night that I just farking wished was cold.

And Lost Without You is there because it's decidedly smarmy enough.

Urbandub's Quiet Poetic is so steamy I leaped out of bed at 2:30 in the morning to douse myself with cold water from a freaking pump ten meters away from the bathroom.

And then there's Rob Thomas' Lonely No More, the slow, agonizingly sweet, acoustic-version.

Oh, weep, raging hormones, WEEEEEP.


PS
I told you I wanted some smut.
Kahit anong medium pala, puwede na. :)

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Get Norwegian Wood with me


Sunday evening, Martin Villanueva sends me this cryptic message. Not the best kind of message to receive when one is hip-deep in two books -- one a pseudo-Scottish tale of interfering faes, the other Corelli's Mandolin (which is just a big, beautiful Greek pain in the ass.) But there it was, "good writerly news," glaring at me from the itty-bitty screen of my cellphone.

Heart rate jumps up. I tell Martin he's daydreaming. Am hopeful but ever-so-slightly cautious. But I insist Martin is daydreaming.

At 5:18:37 AM of Monday, I get another text message, this time from High Lord Krip Yuson. It wasn't enough that he actually sent me a message -- that alone is a signal that the cosmos is shifting on its bum. But a message, so-called "good writerly news" as prophesied / daydreamed into being by Martin.

"Hey, u got into d Dumaguete workshop. Congrats. [insert smiley face here]"

I could've fainted. I don't know. Since I received the message fifteen minutes after I finally fell to sleep (all hail Summer Insomnia), I just went back to drooling on my pillow.

So for hours, a day or two, I was in limbo. Tunay ba? O pinaglalaruan lang ako ng tadhana? (Sorry, channel 2 lang ang kuha ng TV sa Calatagan -- puro ako telenovela.)

I needed proof. My heart (thud thud), my sanity (wang wang) was on the line.

Five minutes latter, I opened my Friendster account.

And found salvation.

I am now, officially, a Dumaguete National Writers Workshop Friendster Friend.


*
INTERMISSION START
You can leave now, for a moment or two. This is my space for personal, solitary, cherished madness:

IAMAFELLOWFORDUMA-freaking-GUETE.
IAMAFELLOWFORDUMA-freaking-GUETE.
IAMAFELLOWFORDUMA-freaking-GUETE.
IAMAFELLOWFORDUMA-freaking-GUETE.

*squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeel*
*mad, uncontrollable laughter*
*ricocheting off the walls*

INTERMISSION END
*


TREPIDATION.
Thanks, Zoedee, for releasing the muck created by sniffling my nose raw over results.

THEY'RE NOT READY FOR YOUR GENIUS, RIOTGIRL!

Love, love, love.
And thankyousoomuch for making me feel better.


*

Yun. Aforementioned daydreamer Martin Villanueva is in for Nonfiction, Super-senior and blockmate Catherine Alpay is a fellow for Fiction.

Gawd, I'm a fellow. Now I'm trying to remember what the fuck I wrote in my stories.

Anyhoo.

Ima cork the happiness back in now. I know y'all wanna slap me with the nearest blunt object.

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Sunday, April 15, 2007

Let you kill this chorus


Things like to bite me. Pests, all of them. What the hell is in my bloodstream? My ankles, my calves, the backs of my knees, my hips, my ribs, my wrists, my arms, my collarbone, my neck, my ear, and a few PG-13 parts are covered with mini-hickeys and nasty, itchy, red-pink-purple blooms. UGH.

They single me out. People around me don't get bitten by a menagerie. Ako lang. WHAT IS IN MY BLOODSTREAM?

*

Sticky farking HEAT. But you all knew that.

I traipse around Calatagan in a dalagang-bukid skirt and a loose goth-girl shirt. Maraming talahib. Rape scene na lang kulang.

*

Oh, joy. I'm bruised, bitten, sticky and (almost) half-naked, running through sugarcanes with a soundtrack in the background. You'd think this was my most perfect-est-est summer.

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And run forever


Don' take it back, don't don't don't.

On the other hand, if you don't take it back, then I'm in deep shit since I'll be doing the one thing I very much don't like to do right now, kahit na I will have to do it with a thing I would die for just to be able to do it.

I lost myself.

Anyway. Basta. Magulo ang buhay ko. Parang gusto kong maging masaya pero hindi kaya kasi kinikilabutan ako, kasi may mangyayaring masama (sure na sure ako) kasabay ng magandang pangyayaring ito.

I lost myself again.

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Friday, April 13, 2007

Make me stay


Have they released the grades for us non-summer-class-taking slaves of Ateneo? If yes, then I completely missed it. HALA.

So does that mean I've been traipsing around dusty ol' Calatagan, doing absolutely NOTHING, when an opportunity for melodrama that is the release of my grades completely passed by before I could even twitch?

Ma-farker. (Ibig-sabihin ba nito, hindi ko rin makukuha yung regform ko?)

ATENISTA PA RIN BA AKO? Sagutin niyo ko, I'm completely loooooooooost.

*

Another thing: What the hell is with this heat?! I am melting here people. When I wake up at noon (as I sleep at around four AM, haha), I am sticking to the sheets, and not with what could've been a welcome kind of sticky-substance. As the day drags on, I am spread-eagled above, below, beside the ineffective electric fan.

The heat's just completely ruthless, it grabs you BAM, wraps its spindly arms 'round you and slithers the words, "SAY UNCLE!" in your ear over and over again. GAAAH.

Putehk, I am melting, ladies and gentlemen. A puddle.

Blub blub ... bluuuurb.

*

I am running out of trashy novels. Gimme some bodice-rippers, gimme some smut! The more implausible the plot, the more incredibly stereotypical the characters, the better! Go on, send 'em to me!

*

Did you guys see the hand on that crocodile (or alligator, whatever) sa news last night? Ain't it the prettiest hand you ever did see, softly clenched like that, as if it were holding some glitter on its palm? Tapos yung black-red muscle na nakalaylay sa dulo. HAHA, MORBID. But, please, the hand was sooo pretty. Just two shades from absolute death. Lovely.


Love-vel-lee! :)

*

Hunny bunny, let me think about this -- BIG FAT NO. Tulad nga ng sinabi ko, "If you do not inspire in me the archaic female urge to decorously swoon into your oh-so-able arms, then there's nada, nil, zilch, zip. Wala." Now leave me alone, trot off atop your brilliant steed before you finally succeed in creeping me out because I WILL scream, mister, and I scream LOUD.

Hai. Seriously, stop. Stop this fucking drama. Ayoko na. You just make me want to cower in a corner, holding a broom to swat you with.

*

Beach tomorrow. Ew, sand in asscrack. Okay, wait, happy thoughts. Like, uh, food. (FATASS, STOP EATING!) Ahem. Sand, the color of the sea, the sea breeze, the coral crumbling under your sole therefore infecting it, the tiny crab snipping at your little toe. Yes, the beach. The glorious beach.

(-_-)

*

KURT VONNEGUT IS DEAD.
*bawling*

"I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different."
and
"Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt." from Slaughterhouse Five

The best. Will miss you, mister Lord sir.

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Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Staring at the phone


My vagina is about to fall off. And it's not falling off without a fight. Which probably accounts to why I woke up scowling at the ceiling and will probably go to bed snarling at my pillow. I am glaring at everything and everyone. No one is safe.

This morning, while I grumbled sa bathroom:
John Vincent: Ate, bakit yung mga senators --
Me: *growl* Can you please not interview me while I'm in the bathroom? Thank you.

Lunchtime.
Gabriel Joshua : Electric fan, buksan mo.
Me: Ayoko.
Gabriel Joshua: Mas malapit ka.
Me: *screams* Mas mukha kang tagabukas ng electric fan kaysa sa'kin, kaya IKAW magbukas.

Afternoon.
Gabriel Joshua: Saan ko 'to ilalagay?
Me: *tiny, keening scream* Sa dulo ng mundo. Sama mo na rin sarili mo, puwede?

Kanina lang.
Me: Okay, family, I'm a Martinez. And I'm on my period. Which means all hell will break loose any time now. Galit ako sa mundo. (To the boys) At kung hindi pa tayo aalis ngayon, mangangagat ako! I am NOT kidding, people. Move, move, MOVE.

And then I find out that the boys have been snooping around my stuff. JesusChristOnWheels, ano ba. I guess this is the consequence of sharing a room with three of the species, one of them a precocious little kid who likes to tell me to kiss his ass; the other, a looming bugger who thinks he's now got an authority on me just because he's suddenly taller than me; the other-other, the perpetually-eighteen uncle. (May kabilang bahay naman eh, dun na kayo. Grr.)

Which means they've regressed to reading my diary, pasting my girly things on the walls, and using my coloring pens to draw mindless tagging stuff whatevers on cabinet doors (GROW UP, PEOPLE). And that they've found my cigarettes which have ALL gone stale (gah) because I haven't smoked since school let out and my perpetually-eighteen uncle said, "Lagot ka sa daddy mo," while lighting one not-so-stale-pala cigarette with my purple lighter.

And I can't unleash my fury. Because someone else's looms. Because frankly, although my father hasn't raised his voice in me in sooo sooo long, he is still my father. An easily-hurt, easily-disappointed, guilt-tripping, the-wrath-of-three-nations father.

Punyetang malagkeeeeht.

*

Although my body was acting up again -- back, mini-migraine, mangoes-in-tummy, sleeplessness -- not to mention my hairtrigger modd swings nowadays, I trudged off to the ordered chaos that is the town's general merchandise store thing.

I spelunked for any semblance of civilization. I looked for BreadPan (yung green). Wala. I looked for Hello (yung blue). Wala. I looked for Sola. Wala. Putehk, nakakapansin na ko ha.

I looked for DutchMill (yung strawberry-flavored). Then, slow horror. WALA.

Pauwiin niyo na ko, sige na. I might just possibly go crazy. I want to burrow into a corner and hide. I miss my family, love them to tears, but you can only take on so much madness, unrelated to your craft. Dang, I'm such a mess of emotions right now, I want to cry and throw things and eat a fucking mango.

This too shall pass. Calm yourself, Sasha dear, ride this out.

Yun.

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Every time I do


Look, mister, kung galit ka sa'kin, mas galit ako sa'yo.

Let's face it, sweetie: If you do not inspire in me the archaic female urge to decorously swoon into your oh-so-able arms, then there's nada, nil, zilch, zip. Wala.

(Yes, I am reading waaay too many trashy novels -- the kind you raise your far-too-often-raised brows at. Fuck this, if Patricia Evangelista can 'fess up to this genre addiction, then I can too.

But I digress.)

Ganito yun eh. I have no idea what's actually wrong, though I am quite sure that I have something to do with it. And though I confuse myself because I have no idea whether to give you the big gesture or to run away as far from you as possible (this one, I highly prefer) what I am sure of is that it's one gigantic pain in the be-freaking-hind.

I'M SORRY, OKAY? AND THOUGH THE CAPS LOCK MAY SEEM LIKE I DON'T MEAN IT, I ACTUALLY REALLY TRULY DO.

And if you can't accept that apology, I'll have someone shove it up your --

No, really, I'm sorry. So get off that pedestal before I sic my sweet gigantic licky-toes Labrador on you.

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Monday, April 09, 2007

Too bad I fell for it


After the Car Ride From Hell v.226, with (predictably) a Martinez male behind the wheel, I stumble into Calatagan, land of rascal Spaniards and their beleaguered wives (of which demographies my paternal grandparents belong to, go figure), and I discover one of the sweetest things ever to grace my seventeen years:

There is decent freaking INTERNET in Calatagan, Batangas. Gahd, the heavens have unfastened and little nekkid cherubs are frolicking about, doing the boogie to the rythm of my heart. (Okay, horrible metaphor overload.)

Putehk, FINALLY.

Sure, I have to squeeze myself between girls in tube tops YM-ing their boyfriends in Lithuania or something, and the kanto boys screaming at the MU universe, whilst they hold plastic bags of rugby. But it's a small price to pay. Mom let the bomb drop that my brothers and I would be staying here for a month and I expect cyberspace to become an IV drip to keep me alive.

This and unlimited food fresh from the seas and the trees.

Which reminds me that I have to gripe: people around me are in a frenzy to effing feed me. The food is fantastic, which makes it so hard to refuse it. Libre pa. ^_^ But please. At this rate, I'll be a blimp by the end of the summer. I already look like an overstuffed longganisa in my jeans as it is. Yip-de-doo.

*

Soon-to-be senior boy Martin got invites to the Free Press Awards, which are tomorrow night, and he wants me to come with. I want to go, not because I harbor any delusions about actually getting something -- I'm not invited, DI BA? -- but because it's such a kick-ass literary event with swarming writers. And I wanna say hello to Sarge Lacuesta. See how writers interact -- pen and paper? yosi and liquor? hand signals? telepathy?

And there's free booze daw. Winner.

But I'm here. With YM-ers, their hearts Lithuania-bound, and hollow-eyed boys with rugby in plastic bags.

So, Martin dear, good luck, get drunk and nasty, tell me what happens (leaving out the drunk and nasty parts) and please please don't tell Plans B, C and D that they're plans B, C and D. (-_-)

*

(It feels more like a cold war, rather than an actual fight. On one hand, we can blame it on not having seen each other for quite some time now but on the other, well... Well. Either way, I miss you.)

*

When I get back to civilization, can we ALL get together and get knocked shitless with drunkenness and nicotine?

*

RANDOM:
1 Yaps, kamukha mo yung buong bandang Callalily. XD
2 Hindi Perpetual Heartbreak si PH Chua, Powdered Heart na lang. :p
3 When ang start ng summer classes niyo?
4 I STILL MISS Y'ALL. :)
5 Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeach!

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Sunday, April 08, 2007

Wanna wait for silence


I'm off to Calatagan, Batangas in a couple of days, where the entire Internet network consists of one desktop, OS Windows 98, going at 15.5 Kbps. The decent Interenet cafes are at least a town away, in Balayan, where a Jollibee stands grinning beside a lost-looking Rizal.

So this means I'll be in hibernation from the bloggie blogosphere for some days (weeks) or so.

Until then, I'll be in my sunny hometown, whose roads are littered with cow dung and flattened froggies; where there is a rather curious shortage of condoms (leading to the sharp rise in pregnancies); where Brian and I sit on top of my father's 1975 Mistubishi's midnight-blue/mold-green hood, being feasted upon by rabid mosquitoes; whose Mentos supply I've completely horded and sucked on.

And since my darling Nami (my laptop) got zapped by lightning a year ago, I can't connect dial-up from home. And I don't have Wi-Fi. Which means I'll trudge to the Internet shops my brothers haunt just to deliver my inane randomizations in my bloggies.

All this is a rather rambling and Sasha-esque way of saying: I may not be updating as often as I usually do because I'll be in exile. Yeyness.


*


EMO MODE 1 ON
ZoeDee lectures me on the power of positive thinking, the laws of attraction. Think and ye shall get it. So here I am, thinking about the Dumaguetes, hoping hopin hoping. Beaches -- blue and green frolicking with waves and winking sun, Jimmy Abad, dappled sunlight on sand beneath coconut fronds and random foliage, fried iced cream, Edith Tiempo, a table, possibly radioactive water, and Edith Tiempo. Hope.

And then I see a motherfucking typo. ARGH.
*stabs eye with pen*

There are times that I am deathly afraid of hoping because I know that the rejection might crush me harder. When I get the news, I'll be in Calatagan, between sugarcanes, being chased by a snake; or in Cavite, melting under the gleeful, macho sun and avoiding dishwashing duty; or with Yaps, drinking and trying not to pseudo-smoke.
EMO MODE 1 OFF


*


EMO MODE 2 ON
Dear Lover-I-Don't-Have-to-Love,

I am wanting an abstract You because He just won't cut it. All of them won't.

Yours,
The Abstract-er Me
EMO MODE 2 OFF


*


Hello to happy tree friends, PerpetualHeartbreak Chua, Dino, Gia, Yaps, Sarj, Jevvie, Nikita, Gabie, Helen, ZoeDee and our brothers and sisters in EasterLand. :)

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Saturday, April 07, 2007

Made us crazy


This is late in coming but I don't think 300 is a date movie, especially if your date belongs to another species (read: the opposite sex) and/or either of you have plans to have mindless small talk afterwards. 'Sides, you shall drool at the eight-packs for two completely different reasons.

Neither should it be used for mother-daughter bonding things, especially if your mother is my mother. A narration of breasts in underwater, slow-motion shall abound, not to mention the voiced anticipation of the sex scene -- chatter in attempt to dispel my embarrassment at having to watch said thing with her. You want me to go outside? she asked me. Yes, please, I said.

*

"You're funny," he tells her, complete with a smile that assures her of the unfortunately confirmed belief/urban legend/his Pride and Glory, that he can down a better part of the female population with a twitch of his lips.

Wicked glaring. "I'm not trying to be funny," she retorts, which is quite a hard thing to do eloquently, as she is currently using her tongue in attempt to get a piece of popcorn-grit wedged between her teeth.

He laughs and does a little thing, that fingers on her knuckles thing. "Yep, you're funny."

Eyes roll. The word
potential is a fly perched on the curlicues of her brain but so far, she's not swatting it away. So far.

*

I still want a haircut. No matter how many times people tell me that they like the Beached Mermaid / Lost Celtic Ghost look, I am running out of shampoo. And I am melting underneath my curls. My brothers, on the other hand, can't figure out why I need all the hair.

*

I MISS YOU BLOCKMATES AND RANDOM FRIENDS! XD
Ingat kayo, ha.
Lalo ka na, Enrique! :/
Hello to Jevvie and Nikita. :p

*

PS
It says that this is my 501st post. Imagine that. Word vomit rules.

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It's a big enough umbrella




Pretty.
:)
from ljsecret.

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Wednesday, April 04, 2007

If you give a damn


Change. It's what happens while you are a region away, amidst disguised muggers and Havaiana-shod friends and frenemies, while you juggle two packs of cigarettes, your fucked up academics and your as-fucked-up emotional maelstroms / personal relationships. Surprise, surprise, the world doesn't revolve around ye.

The walls of my house are now in a color whose name I'd only plucked out from my well of arcane knowledge after a couple of days of mindless staring. There are two ways to describe it. One is that dark orange hue when the Cheez Whiz dries on your pan de sal after a day or so. But I like the second better: our walls are the color of kare-kare. Kulang na lang, sitaw at bagoong. Oh, gnaw at the walls now, g-naw.

My brother John, 11 going on 12, has just graduated from grade school. He's in high school, my mother told me, the room in general, herself, out of nowhere. My other brother Joshua, 14 going on 15, is taller than me. And he has boyman-muscles. And a rather deep voice that I often mistake for my father's. My father has a new haircut again and, like always, he keeps asking us whether it looks good on him or not. My mother has taken all my clothes so I am wearing my brothers' and my father's. I am butch, baby.

At least two people I know are pregnant or popped out a baby. My ex-umfriend Dahrell got his girlfriend, Ms. Steelbrush, with child. This boy is the only son of my former principal who once called me to her office to tell me not to let myself get pregnant by my first boyfriend Warren. Interestingly, Warren ditched me for a girl named Catherine, who then became Dahrell's girlfriend before Ms. Steelbrush. Still with me?

The other person with a bun in the oven is Ms. Queenie Rodriguez, my former Physics teacher / palm-reader. Homegirl got pregnant by a student of hers, who is, I think, a classmate of my younger brother. Ms. Queenie's husband joined the cult known as My Former Principal's Religion.

One is pregnant, pending. She's not sure but she's told two people, who, in turn, have told li'l ol' me. Said girl was a former frenemy, as I fell in love with a boy who was part of our Best Friends Forever trio. Oops.

Brian and I, after we contemplated whether his girlfriend was a virgin or not, reached a conclusion why all this fertility is happening: there are no condoms in our gigantic multi-cluster subdivision. Brian went to at least five drugstores in the area and there were no contraceptives of any kind. Sa labas mo na lang ibuhos, iho. Okay, kiddos: trot on over to the newly-built Mercury Drug or the ever-present 7-11 in the corner and buy yourselves a boxful.

Wait, Brian has a new baby sister, Daphne. Daphne's mother asked Brian's mother's laundrywoman to hold the baby for a moment but then she never came back. So the laundrywoman, short of funds, gave the heartbreaking li'l cutie to Brian's mother.

Oh, and the twins are in amusing fixes. Eunice broke up with her boyfriend of four years, the one I hated with a passion but then eventually warmed up to, but only after his entire batch (including Warren) gave me bitch-fits for my not-so-concealed disapproval. Esther has a boyfriend, who courted her for four years and now we all learn that the more reserved half of the twin set is actually a rather jealous and physically abusive girlfriend.

The dama de noches are in full bloom. Wistful and cloying when you sit atop your father's car's hood, swatting mosquitoes away. They want to make you want to write stories but you say, Oh fuck it all, nothing's of interest in the world.

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