Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Clubs are weapons of war


Spread the love, people. These here are brainfarts of the day.

1
I've finished with packing. Now I can get evicted with dignity. Never mind the gigantic box of condoms I bought sans condoms from Rustan's. It contains a shitload of shit, and is labelled, "Will do the Earth a lot of good if this was incinerated in the atmosphere of another star in another galaxy." It contains my Theo book from sophomore year. 'Nuff said, yo.

2
More on packing, and blind items: Guess who gleefully stepped back from crazy-taping Box #05? Said person was grinning like an idiot at the time, feeling incredibly proud of her gangly self. And then she realized her roll of packaging had run out. And so said idiot reached towards her de-cluttered desk to get the other roll of tape (which she bought because her foresight is simply astounding)? And guess who freaking packed said other roll of tape into galvanized - with - packaging - tape Box #05? Who, huh, who?

Another idiot: when all was said and done and packed, who was itching to light a stick and found out that the lighter had probably magically teleported into one of the boxes? Who, damn it, who?!

3
Watched Malena during lunch, and I kept thinking, "Man, I'd be more screwed up than I am now if my mother was Monica Bellucci." And then my lunch said, "Tangina, feeling ha." And so I ate it. And then I listened to the Mulan soundtrack, and realized that my childhood crush of Captain Shang has never faded. Hearing him sing I'll Make a Man Out of You just makes my heart twitter a little madder.

4
What? April 29 na? Sure ka? Uy, are those burritos? What? Anong walang tulog? Natural 'tong nasa ilalim ng mata ko. Pinaglihi daw ako sa puyat sabi ng nanay ko. Tulog nga siya nung pinanganak ako eh, tapos -- what chu saying deadline? To rip off Captain Jack, I like to wave at them as they pass by. Ano kamo? Ha? Ako? I shall play the Am Lazy, Get Out of Pressing Literary Opportunities card. And -- ooh, is that a dry seal? Puwede pahipo? Cool. So, gusto mo ng kasama bukas? I can guard the car and listen to Mulan and Rent on loop while you go and rule the universe. Sure. What? Yeah, yeah, I can always change my mind. No day but today, sabi nga ng Rent cast. Are you going to eat that?

5
One of these days you're going to have a visitation. You're going to be walking down the street and across the street you're going to look and see God standing over there on the street corner motioning to you, saying, 'Come to me, come to me.' And you will know it's God, there will be no doubt in your mind — he has slitty little eyes like Buddha, and he's got a long nice beard and blood on his hands. He's got a big Charlton Heston jaw like Moses, he's stacked like Venus, and he has a great jeweled scimitar like Mohammed. And God will tell you to come to him and sing his praises. And he will promise that if you do, all of the muses that ever visited Shakespeare will fly in your ear and out of your mouth like golden pennies. It's the job of the writer in America* to say, "Fuck you God, fuck you and the Old Testament that you rode in on, fuck you." The job of the writer is to kiss no ass, no matter how big and holy and white and tempting and powerful.

- Ken Kesey "The Art of Fiction," interview by Robert Faggen, The Paris Review No. 130 (Spring 1994)

*Kahit saan naman siguro, no? Haha, sige, I'ma split. My laptop's waiting for me. I have Battle Realms! And damn it, shut up, Tomatoes, I'll get to you in due time!

Good luck, errybooty. Uh, well, not everybody. Hehe. :)

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Monday, April 28, 2008

The blur of fast-forward


I should really be working. One, because I'm getting evicted on the 30th and I am yet to buy goddamned packaging tape. Two, because a certain deadline is looming, along with all the other deadlines that enjoy making a sport of me. Three, because I need to get my flaneur mojo on because I've got yet another paper on T.S. Eliot and his madafakeen "The Wasteland." Four, because I dreamt of the girl next door and man, was that a doozy, and then a couple of REMs down the night, a dream about a poet/kainuman, and that was simply horrific. Five, because I am running out of money, hence blissful state of inebriation is currently out of reach, which means I can't not think of not working. Yeahba.

So what have I been doing? Paper-taping for one, because that's what good sleepless friends of good sleepless artists do. And then I'm knee-deep in vampire / giants with tails / blue aliens and buttsecksing and all that jazz, not because I've grown mad with boredom, but because I have to -- yes ladies and gents, I have to read about anatomically impossible men and women bursting like ripe melons within each other, and I have to write a semblance of a sane review for them. And so, if anyone is up for a discussion for the hidden tribes of New Norway and Trek M'Qian, give me a call. Bring booze, as we shall need it. The girl next door, optional. What else? Oh yeah, new detachable showerhead. Which reminds me of a conversation I had with someone a few months ago:

"So, what made you happiest sa Dumaguete?"

"Fuck it, hands down -- yung detachable showerhead sa Bethel's!"

Get yer minds out of the gutter, there was hot water. (Ooh, that rhymes.)

Let's go to the beach, kids, and burn our noses off. Will entertain you with the sight of the expanse of my sternum underneath the stringiest piece of neon green bikinis. Oh, the horror, the horror.

And boo, I missed the dolphins to Subic (because doing so required me to get up at 4 AM).

*

And now, some quotes. About Luuurve. From the books Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres, which has been gathering dust underneath a gigantic bed at our house at Calatagan, because after reading the part about the doctor and his goat, I found I couldn't read anymore. Maybe because I'd been at the apex of my Cute Guy at the Billiard Hall phase, which, thankfully, has long since passed.

"Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because that is what love is."

"Love is not breathless; it is not excitement; it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being ‘in love ‘which any of us can convince ourselves we are."

"Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossoms had fallen from our branches were found that we were one tree and not two."

What up, people?

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Thursday, April 24, 2008

You want thingamabobs?


Oh, the perils of public transportation.

I limped over to MetroPoint at Taft, increasingly aware by the minute that my foot felt like it just lost a baby toe and was just valiantly trying to regrow the spare it keeps during these dire moments. After meeting my beloved mother who was late and wearing my knit jacket, and nibbling on Pesto Plato Wraps, I watched as she banged her head on the corner of shelf in National Bookstore as we both looked for packaging tape. My mother saw stars. We left the store without tape (this is the fourth store I've been to in the past ten days or so that didn't have packaging tape -- what? some packing crisis I don't know about?). My mother rubbed her head and asked if I wanted to go back for some duct tape. I told her I wasn't that kinky. Yarn usually does the trick. And it's cheaper.

I spent thirty minutes in the MRT Station, eyeing women in veils with large tote bags that could literally knock me off my feet if the need ever arose (and it probably would have), girls with tight buns (hair buns, mind you) and nurse's caps of the industrialized variety, and this chick with fish nets and incredibly thick turtleneck. Mukhang talo ako pag sapakan na. So I stepped back. Some people would credit me for being instupid, ya know.

The trains were slow to arrive, they lingered and didn't set off for quite some time, and there wasn't any air-conditioning anywhere. The cars where so overpopulated, I kept grabbing someone's ass as some three hands grabbed mine back. The sheer density was mutating people. We defied the laws of physics for a good one hour. It was, sob, beautiful.

On my way out, I just barely managed to avoid trampling on a little boy, and in the process, kicked the shins of a man in a wheelchair, before almost falling on his lap. I offered to push him to the elevators. He smiled, the kind of smile that tells you tall, skinny women have made it an unspoken habit to give him a harried lap dance every other train ride or so. (I only hope I made him a happier man.) And then he said no. Poor man was probably afraid all this gangliness would hurl him to the train tracks. I'm really sorry, sir, my extremities are so very far from central command that messages tend to get delayed. You should see me dance, bub.

Anyway, I saw Kael and Sigh sa LRT, looking like normal non-ass-grabbing people. Oh, hello sweet Jesus. I mentioned the wheelchair incident, though I don't think I looked a bit repentant, given that my shirt was plastered to wear my chest should have been if only God up there was paying attention eighteen years ago, random handprints were on the ass of my jeans, and my hair looked like it had just been turned into a permanent residence by those creepy little fuckers that turn evil when they get wet. Those troll-like thingies with beaks and LSD eyes. Yun. And then at Katipunan, I saw Joel, who, damn it, looked like he just had a bath. He offered some mutual work-bashing. I politely declined, thinking both of the blood pooling between my sweet new flats, and the fact that my back was ready to give out.

And I have two Penoys (yeah, like, yeah) in my bag. (It's always a trial to stop giggling whenever I say, Manong, dalawa pong penoy, yung basa.) I got my poison. When I recuperate, I'll let you know.

I'm heading home in a couple of minutes, so if any stalkers out there are reading this in real time, you can probably kidnap me in ten to fifteen minutes by KFC. I'll lend you some yarn, duct tape is expensive. Share tayo sa penoy. Sarap nun pag basa.

Will keep you updated on the state of my foot. Central command most probably fucked up again and I now have six stubby widdle toes. Damn.

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Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Drop the phone


I don't know why I bother, but I guess I'm bored. So, here's the brainfart of the day, all of which point to me, because I'm an A-level narcissist that way. Woohoo. You won't be hearing anything about the goddamned ridiculous high-freakin'-prices of rice from me, nossirree, goddamned 40 bucks per goddamned kilo.

Brainfart:
I am still lazy, which scares me because I feel as if the summer's going to end before I know it, and I won't have time to be lazy anymore. And quite a bit disorientated -- I just love all the pretentious extra syllables in that word, don't you? I don't know what day it is really, and I have to look at the timestamp on this page repeatedly. I've got things to do, and yet I've gleefully chosen to lock myself in the nearest fall-out shelter to binge on trashy novels and McDonald's McNuggets McYeah. I've got stories to write, papers to submit, stuff to pack for my inevitable eviction but I've spent the past few weeks stewing with the heat, on my effin' ass. My dad's wondering what cliff his eldest daughter jumped off from, and my mother simply wants to make sure I'm not rotting away out of sheer unproductivity. My brothers are with that billiard table in Calatagan, and my dad's chickens are probably limping, because the weather's wonky. I've got more than my fair share of Jaid Black and I'm starting to ache with the surfeit of blue aliens making love on stone tablets. Stories of Divorce is just depressing me, so I often put it down and hunt for a hug. Sometimes, I think I need to read Nabokov again, because the last time I did, I couldn't finish it because the guy I was dating then was a self-confessed asshole. Haha, you know who you are. I'm wasting my time in front of this computer, and I haven't had breakfast. Been awake since three in the morning. I need to get a life. I have a lot of keys in my bag and they're making a lot of noise. John Torres is the shit. I can't seem to find my USB. I'm meeting my mother by the Plato Wraps at Taft. Miriam girls, I am picking my nose as I write this. I need to get a dress and some bronze sandals. I've got two hundred bucks in my pocket. Where the fuck are those McNuggets?

*

"Metaphors are dangerous. Love begins with a metaphor. Which is to say, love begins at the point when a woman enters her first word into our poetic memory. "
- from Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

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Thursday, April 10, 2008

Hello man sitting in the park


So, Sasha got this Life On Happy Hold thing going on quite nicely. She's settling in, but not for want of some distractions. Last night was a flurry of mosquitoes and Jennifer Crusie and Kelly Link and back issues of Heavy Metal. It was fun. Oh, yes, she rediscovered The Fifth Element and squealed like mad at Bruce Willis in his bright orange muscle shirt.

This morning she tried to get away though her eyes were clouding over with sleep and she had on a thin lavender shirt that didn't quite reach her midsection. But she stayed, partly because of exhaustion, partly because moving away would be a mere affectation and she'd only be miserable eventually. And so she spent an hour holding up dragons and horses and tigers to the light, and watched as a pencil marked their silhouettes.

Today, she got new books -- The Man who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks and Fault Lines: Stories of Divorce, an anthology which includes writers like Ann Beattie, Lorrie Moore, and Raymond Carver. She thinks the books will make her seem smart. She read Welcome to Temptation last night, before switching to Magic for Beginners. No one was looking anyway. Well, someone was but he never objected. Damn well wouldn't, shouldn't, if he knows what's good for him, haha. Ha. (No one gets this joke, ever.)

She's got this craving for ice cream. Or scoops of ice cream resting regally on a tall glass of halo-halo. She's not picky at this point. Just bring in the ice to bring in the summer.

And damn, but she likes to refer to herself in the third person because it's all the rage and all the Gwen Stefani girls like to do it like this.

*

Because writers remember everything, Paul. Especially the hurts. Strip a writer to the buff, point to the scars, and he'll tell you the story of each small one. From the big ones, you get novels, not amnesia. A little talent is a nice thing to have if you want to be a writer, but the only real requirement is that ability to remember the story of every scar.

- From Misery by Stephen King

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Wednesday, April 09, 2008

April 9th is and will continue to be one of the busiest, most tragic days of my life


Oh yes it is, yes it will be, you heard it here folks.
Now excuse me, I'll just climb into someone's car and cry.

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Sunday, April 06, 2008

You're the best deal in town


When I woke up today (at 4:30 PM!) after a rather disconcerting dream of canyons and weird sculptures hewn from mountains and a lost pagan / Quaker tribe in the probably-not-there mountain ranges of Batangas-Bicol (dreams are like that, ya know), I realized that a.) I've got to pee really badly, and b.) I have not seen another member of the human race since Thursday night. Yes, my interactions with The Others have been restricted to instant messaging and random comments on my LJ communities, plus the guy from Happy Homes whom I ask every twelve hours or so, Kuya, menu please. And yes, that fall-on-my-face love-letter I told you about. And a phone call and a half from my mother in which we talked about The Shawshank Redemption and the tribespeople of Hmong (which are, I joked, from Hmongolia). Ooh, throw an egg on the hermit when she gets out.

So, I guess this is the part where I offer an intellectual discourse on solitude and the intrinsic value of being in the physical presence of your fellow man but I need my Happy Homes now. Later.

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Saturday, April 05, 2008

If you ain't got no money


Oh goodness, I've grown bored with procrastinating. It's gotten so bad, I'm writing three-page love letters disguised as your run-of-the-mill Howyadoin? e-mails to people I'll likely see the next day. I've nothing left to do, really [note to self:] but do laundry by the bucketload (because I'm tired of washing the same two shirts over and over again), get boxes in which to dump my Clothes, Clothes Not Worn In Six Months, Shoes, Things Not Used So Much (like, three years worth of college shiznit), Books Read Once And Will Never Reread Again (hello, Virginia Henley), and Books Me Likey (like my six-year-old Eight Stories by Sir Krip and lovely lovely Barthes and, hehe, Susan Elizabeth Philips-es). Oh yeah, and go back to revising "The Twenty-first Month" like mad, because my ever-dependable no-bullshit critic was foaming at the mouth when he read it. And Holy Pickled Tuna, Batman! I have to start writing new stories, if I have any self-respect left in me! [/note to self].

So. Ahem. In other news: Early this morning (around midnight, oh dear), thanks to the shame-a-turtle slowness of Aisis, I learned I did not go into epic failure, thus retaining my Atenean status. Yeahba. Good thing to know, because I've already signed up for a summer of writing so I'm less hassled with thesis next year (gasp, I know, the foresight is astounding). So expect me to roam the hallways of our dear old university with my mermaid hair flung behind me and hitting some choice people. That's one worry over and done with.

I'd like say more things that will prove I'm a sane person who spews sense (I dare you to say that three times fast!), but my ass is numb from sitting in front of the computer all day doing absolutely nothing, and I have to go take a bath and I have to think about saving them orphans in Malawi and the black-footed ferrets in South Dakota. (Gasp, will no one think of the ferrets?)

Okay, that's it. Toodles.

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Friday, April 04, 2008

What do you take me for?


I’m thinking of getting a Lomo just to piss Pancho off. Haha, I kid. (Not so much, actually, no.)

It’s actually to get all artsy-fartsy emo on all you people, taking pictures of girls leaning against brick walls with their hair floating in all sorts of directions. I could take a picture of a little boy pulling weeds from the ground, or a mother laughing to herself while washing dishes in the kitchen. And I’m sure I’ll be taking pictures of myself. Oh you just wait. Bony shoulders, and arches of feet, the point where my shorts get cut off, the plumpest part of my mouth. Oh just you wait.

A part of me thinks this is simply borne out of my natural inclination to detest high-res, especially if lenses are turned towards me. I don’t do no photoshop, you’ll all see the other side of the world through my pores.

I look better when it’s dark. When I’m standing underneath a lamppost at 2:30 in the morning. When I’m riding shotgun at the break of dawn, illuminated only by the smattering of light from open girlie bars. When I stumble into the bathroom with my eyes closed. When it’s time for bed and looking up at the ceiling already feels like you’ve fallen asleep.

Or I look better when it’s hazy. I think people are beautiful when they’re hazy. I have not worn my glasses for six weeks.

I think I’ll be prettier if everyone was myopic and I wore summer dresses all the damn time.

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Thursday, April 03, 2008

The monkey on your back


Hello, welcome to Brainfartlandia.

1
Should I be interning now or something? Ah, reality rears its ugly head. I wonder, I wonder. This is my last summer in college, as next year shall be senior days galore. Should I be knocking on certain corporate doors, begging to photocopy their files and make them coffee? Should I have done this months ago? Does it even matter anyway, when I've already planned to erect a fall-out shelter in a creekside bakanteng lote somewhere in Loyola Heights after I (eep!) graduate?

I don't even know why I'm thinking about this now. Most probably because this is an example of the kind of things you think about when you've spent the last few days blissfully melting your eyes with e-book radiation / Allende-overload. But then, certain peoplez have rockin' internships, whereas my plans for this summer, hazy at best, include semi-nudity and Off! lotion, hammocks and green mangoes, a moody laptop and certain publications, oh yeah -- happy time and sweetness.

2
Out of sheer boredom, and in trying to distract myself from sheer boredom, in the midst of my frantic packing (oh, who am I kidding?), I unearthed the journals I kept last summer, while in Dumaguete, and those written the weeks after. All I can say is -- damn. Haha. :) Spent an hour or so giggling in post-humiliation / kilig / bangs - head - on - nearest - wall. As in pota, the drama.

(Oo nga pala, deadline for submission of manuscripts for this summer's workshop is April 5. Come on, kids. It shall be holy batman, what just happened?! experience. :p)

And a big wave to Sir Sawi. :)

3
I'll be leaving this bleep-bleep of a place before the month ends. Yes, I realize, I still have no place to live in. Teka. (Oi, Kash Martinez Avena, long-lost-sister / faux girlie lover, where are you? You shall be shelter, hehe.)

4
Oh and acourse: HAPPY BIRTHDAY SARJ! To (your) future world domination, my dear anal ex-editress and partner in smocket-crime. :)

5
And a late birthday greeting to Kael Co. :) Happy birthday po, sir. Inom pa.

6
Any minute now, Ima start working on my fiction fosho. For sure. Whatever.

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Wednesday, April 02, 2008

If I had eyes


1
Things have been ho-hum lately. Basking in the nothingness that is the beginning of summer. (Crap, may hold orders pa pala ako.) Spent a weekend with the family back in Cavite for Gabriel Joshua's graduation -- where I a.) met the ghosts of boyfriends past, b.) was made to promise to graduate with honors by well-meaning former teachers, c.) was told by my former principal that I was "always worthy in the eyes of God." Right.

2
More on nothingness: sleeping the entire day, only getting up for the bathroom, frantic messages from family and friends, and Isabel Allende.

3
Speaking of Isabel Allende:

"I no longer had the strength to grab a sturdy peasant girl by the waist and swing her up onto my saddle, much less rip her clothes off and enter her against her will. I was of an age when you need help and tenderness if you're going to make love. I was old, damn it."
- from The House of the Spirits

Happy summer everybooty.

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