Well when you go

Something to cheer everyone up:

Dearest, I feel certain I am going mad again. I feel we can't go through another of these terrible times. And I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and can't concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don't think two people could have been happier till this terrible disease came. I can't fight any longer, I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can't even write this properly. I can't read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that — everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can't go on spoiling your life any longer. I don't think two people could have been happier than we have been.

- Virginia Woolf's suicide note to her husband Leonard.

(If I ever write a suicide note, I would like to use the word shan't because it is so fucking quaint. No, keep your pants on, I won't kill myself. At eighteen, and with the way I've led my life, a suicide would be quite anti-climactic. And no, it's not that I won't kill myself, simply because I think suicide is for sissies. Actually, I think there's a peculiar kind of braveness to [insert preferred way of going here], and waiting for things to happen. I'm a girl who won't ever get a tattoo because 1, the buzzing needle will have me peeing my pants, and 2, I will most probably say, in the middle of the process, Ah, joke lang, joke lang, promise! I don't think I can do that with [insert preferred way of going here]. That's just me.

If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. If I had something to drunk, or were more of a zombie than I am now, I would say: Oh, it happened, and it was you. You know that, don't you? But since I've got most of the parts I need to function as someone posing as sane, my reaction to this particular line, is to quote Joan Silber, from her short story, "Ashes of Love," a quote give or take a few gender reference replacements: "In bed I would feel a terrible mellowness in my heart. Whenever her head was resting on my chest or we were lying flat under the covers, holding hands, I would drift off to sleep and hear myself think, thank you for this." Gets? Gets? Thank you.)

Love Me Sexy

1 - Love Me Sexy.
Come on, people, haven't you seen Semi-Pro? "That’s right girl, let me whisper in your ear / Baby wake up, we’re naked and we’re humpin’ sexy / For the last fifteen minutes baby, that’s what’s been happenin’ / Yeah, too late now, it’s on." Watch the movie, if only for the song. Although that Jive Turkey part was priceless. Hm. I think only two people know what I'm talking about.


2 - I'm benta when you're drunk
Apparently, I'm a fantastic comedienne when about 2.4 people in the vicinity are drunk. I'll take that. Oh, love. Waps says I have a blorvely manly-man voice. Blorvely. What a wonderful name for your theoretical child. Hello, these are my kids: That one's Anja, this is Lucas, and that one there, we don't talk about it much, it's name is Blorvely. Blorvely, c'mere boy, c'mere, that's a good kid, who's a good kid? Who's a good kid? Yes, you are, yes, you are! Yes. You. Are! Ah, shit, Blorve, not again! Oh, sorry, we've been trying to potty-train him for about six years now, but I think he takes comfort in bare walls. Hay, that was an awfully belabored point-proving right there. Quite mean, too. Eh.

Give me a bit of space to tell you people that I wasn't drunk. No, I wasn't. That I was swaying only because I was identifying with the motion of the Earth in the most infinitesimal level. That I quoted Neruda because it really felt like the heavens unfastened. That when I asked about seven people if they liked sex, I really meant to say, "A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved," from Sirens of Titan, by Kurt Vonnegut. That when I told everyone, "Dude, I love you. No, no, I don't think you get me -- I. Love. You. Cool, no?" That when I laughed, and laughed, and laughed some more, it was because I was trying to hide the pain (okay, that had me snorting, hahaha, tangina). That I sat on the McDo counter, and crossed my legs because the cashier asked me to. No, I wasn't drunk. Of course I wasn't. Three Vodka Mudshakes, 2 1/2 glasses of RumCoke more Rhum than Coke don't do that to you. Nope, wasn't drunk. No. Apir!

Hahaha, thanks everyone. Mass hug!


3 - In your head
Philo class, Foucault, approach the professor and say, "Father, I might collapse in your class. Can I sit at the back?" Listening to Rey Valera in the study hall, admitting you feel giddy when he sings Maging Sino Ka Man. Unable to explain why you're pissed as hell at girls who wear hair bands (head bands?) in the middle of their skulls, so half their faces are still hidden by their hair. Ooh, stylish.

Thesis class. A workshop piece three weeks - pending. Salamat sa mga nagbasa.

The whole day, dragging your ass around school, feverish though you may be, hugging mango shake and a pack of cigarettes to your chest because those are a few of the fewer things that make you go on, sleepless little missy. Those, and knowing that your frequent disappearances could make a saint give you the finger. (People tell you, You're sick all the time, and you manage to restrain yourself from retorting, Well it's not as all fluffy bunnies and butterflies as I make it look like. People care, me thinks.) Those, and knowing that after this day is done, you're free to crumple in any relatively horizontal space. Those, and knowing that at sundown, you can run and you run, while you grumble, Get out of my way, fuckers, I'm sleepy! Those, and, amazingly, a long-awaited hug and a kiss at the spot where your neck meets your shoulder (which is called trapezius, if I remember my high school bio lectures correctly).


4 - Hating rain together
Writing at the crack of dawn because you can't sleep. Going back to the three poems you wrote with friends, writing a new one, called, "And Lastly," because you're reminding yourself that you need to sleep, your eyeballs are melting in your head, and that's your only clean shirt, eyeball moosh is hard to wash off.



5 - Crush
I'm turning 19 on the second of September. I realize that's a long way off, but I've decided to be generous and give you enough time to hunt down a book for me, Crush, by Richard Siken. This one's from "You Are Jeff" -- "...and you feel your heart taking root in your body, like you’ve discovered something you didn’t even have a name for." And then this one's from "Straw House, Straw Dog" -- "I don't really blame you for being dead but you can't have your sweater back." Wala lang. I need me some man-man love poetry.

And since we're on that note, (the note about the second of September, not the man-man love), ihanap niyo na rin ako ng -- teka. Naaliw. Haha.


6 - ELE
To close, a quote from Semi-Pro: "Everyone Love Everyone!"

You can always go downtown

I've been sitting in front of this computer for more than an hour now, thinking of something to rant and ramble about. Nada. And the Korean love ballad (castrated man - voice) in the background ain't helping me a bit.

Today, thirty minutes after I woke up, someone called to say good morning.

Today, thirty minutes after I woke up, I found that I'd lost my voice sometime during the night, while I lay sleeping, curled up on my side, open journal by my cheek.

An ass in the crack of humanity

Blog title from the song "Ride Bikes with You" by The Moldy Peaches. Yeahba. Hello there. Hello. Intro, Mike, Tess, Mike, Tess? (As far as jokes go, that was high school freshman-lame.)

Hell of an introduction for a ramble of epic proportions. Not really epic, since it's about two in the morning, and I've got History class tomorrow (later), so no time for epics, no energy, no liquor in my bloodstream to keep me chugging along.

What am I here for? What is the meaning of life -- 41 or 42? I forget. Someone please remind me. I am not trying to be witty -- I simply do not remember that line from that movie.

Anyhoo. I spent the weekend reading the first fifty pages of Alice Hoffman's The River King -- which I picked up (200 pesos sa fourth floor ng NBS Cubao!) with the suspicion that I'd read it before -- only to realize that I actually have read it before. I looked at the fresh dump of my To Be Read pile, ignored them, and asked Pancho for his copy of Paul Auster's The Brooklyn Follies. I've never been known to give intellectual feedback about anything in particular (ugh, self-deprecation this early, damn it, haha), so I can't say anything beyond: Yeah, okay, so far only the second novel of Auster's I've read. Characters feel a little stiff sometimes, but that's just me. Nathan Glass is a pretty solid character, though, not so much stiff, as, well, solid. Human redemption and all that jazz. Touching at some points, but not gushy touching. Like, tangina-galing touching. Blah blah blah.

Do not take me seriously; I don't know what I'm talking about. I don't even know if I used that semi-colon correctly. What did Kurt Vonnegut, bless his soul, say? "If you really want to hurt your parents, and you don't have the nerve to be a homosexual, the least you can do is go into the arts. But do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites, standing for absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college." Wasak.

Blargh. This is one of the several quotes I copied to my journal: "Did I love her? Yes, I probably loved her. To the extent that I was capable of loving anyone, Joyce was the woman for me, the only candidate on my list. And even if it wasn't the full-blown, one hundred percent passion that supposedly defines the word love, it was something that fell just short of it -- but so close to the mark as to render the distinction meaningless." Look it up if you don't believe me: page 278.

(If this blog entry gets any more I, I, I, then the next sentence would probably read: This comes close to hitting the mark about what I feel for someone.) This comes close to hitting the mark about what I feel for someone. Someone. Funny little euphemism, this word. Someone. Anyway, I say that aforementioned quote comes close to hitting aforementioned mark, if only in yet another self-deprecating dimension of the whole What is Love, Really? claptrap discourses (did I just say claptrap?) -- like, Section II.A, subheading C: How you love -- this love you supposedly carry with you for this Someone, this love you [expletive deleted] feel for that Someone -- and the definition of love (if there is a definition, at all) is, in many ways, asymptotic (woo, math!). The whole closer-and-closer thing but never-meeting thing. But does that nullify this love, whatever it is? Of course not. See Auster quote. So, no, of course not. Whatever love may be, whatever this love may be -- who the fuck cares about defining even this? Do we hold nothing sacred anymore? Oh, Love. Love. Love. Ah, Love. Fucking love. -- fuck it, love na nga eh. So close to the mark as to render the distinction meaningless -- there, it's been said, why do I even have to lose myself in the system and goddamn explain it?

I just lost myself.

Someone got a dose of happy pills this morning. Ain't it sweet?

Just caught in the undertow

I had a weird dream. You were in it, and then someone else was, and yes, the world too.

Weird dream, it begins: I am on my toes, looking out a window to the apocalyptic world -- there it is, gray skies, gray buildings, gray mountains in the distance. And then there's a rumble in the air, something a writer has aptly described as thunder without sound, and you stand behind me, and I think, This is an important man, he will save the world. And then you brush my (alarmingly short) hair from my nape, and I think, You need me to save the world. And then there's a heavy thudding within my chest, and I cast my gaze to the gray clouds, and there they are -- I say, Igloos, the goddamned Igloos: gigantic, gleaming white balls of segmented metal, sort of like Marvin's (from the movie Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) bubble head, without the cuteness, and the Igloos are hurtling from the skies, and everything is turning grayer. I tell you, Fuck, the Igloos are here, and you stand closer to me that my body has no choice but to feel your warmth, and suddenly, beyond us, out that window, one of the Igloos has hit a skyscraper and everything shatters, and I am scared, yes, but I only feel this overwhelming sense of inevitability that tells me all those prophecies are really real, why didn't they believe you and I? We were out to save the world, and no one listened, and now the Igloos are here, and that only means one thing. Only one goddamned thing, and before I start to do something that could ruin the fate of what remains of mankind, you keep me still by saying, I would like for you to be still.

The dream goes on: That other person? As we stare out at the end of mankind, she slinks towards us, and I can feel her -- see her, fuck dreams are weird -- as she presses against you, that you press against me, and I think: Tangina, lousy timing for a goddamned threesome, puwede ba?! Outside, the Igloos are razing our city.

The dream goes on: You say, Don't worry, we still have you and the Corps. And I lean towards you, and then I realize that other person is still attached to your back like a leech, and so I make my voice gruff say, We don't have much time.

The dream goes on and I think: Who the fuck is that woman?

The dream goes on: We are sort-of underground. A classroom -- I can see the cut-out alphabet framing the blackboard -- filled with about forty people, the only survivors from the Igloo Attack. And everyone knows we're all here, because we're all simply waiting for the next batch of Igloos from the sky. There is a man in dress greens at the front of the class, talking to all the survivors. I am at back of the room, near the door, pacing. You and that woman (who the fuck are you, woman?) are off to the side, talking in hushed tones. I go to the door, and the moment I touch the knob, everything blurs, and it's like I am having a daydream within a nightmare: a vision -- floating above the city, disk-like segmented white thingies, like flattened Igloos, and then hatches are being opened from below them, and I should be scared, but I am only thankful. I blink my way out of the vision, and then you are beside me, holding my hand. You say, Did you have another one? I ignore you and open the door an inch, and everybody in the room goes silent, and I look up at the clouded, gray sky, empty of Igloos, flattened or no. I close the door, and look at you. I tell you, everyone: Ten minutes. The Corps is here. And presumably, ten minutes later, on the dot, the man in dress greens marches out of the room, and goes out to hold his hands high towards the flattened Igloos -- the Corps. The Corps is here, and everyone knows war is at hand, and I look at you, and you look at me, and we both know we have a job to do, preferably together, but alone if we must.

The dream goes on: I am in the passenger seat of your car. The Igloos have come again. Everything around us is being blown up, but you and I both believe that if we stay in this car, we will be safe. When I run my hand through my (abominably short) hair, I see how you have turned in your seat to tease the woman sitting at the backseat, and I think, You are not just doing that, and I open the door, and run out the street, ignoring your shouts of my name, ignoring you and everything else when you say, You fucking idiot, get back in this car, now! And I am running now, the Igloos are everywhere, and I can hardly believe I ran off in an almost paranormal fit of jealousy. I run, weaving through the broken road, like a child skipping across a lawn to avoid raindrops, and I tell myself, Damn idiot woman stalking off in the middle of a fucking Igloo attack!

The dream goes on: I reach a workshop of sorts, and the walls are painted white, and I cannot believe there is so much sunlight in this room, that I am immediately scared. I think, I am crucial to this cause, nothing will happen to me. And I see a man in a white shirt hunched over a wooden table, with a knife in his hand. He is stocky, his face looking like someone banged an iron pan to his face, and rubbed hard for good measure. Damn, he's ugly. On the table is a severed arm, deathly pale. (Duh. It's severed. The arm must be dead, then.) The man looks at me me with yellowing eyes that bug out, before he raises his knife, and starts to slice through the flesh and the muscle of the forearm. He spreads the meat as one would a book, and I can see how the meat is all-white, until, suddenly, it grows red, as though stained, and everything is bloody now. The door, he tells me, and he proceeds to make thin slices out of the flesh. I have to stay, I need that meat. But everything is starting to make me sick, and I run out of that room, into an underground sewage system, and everything is damp and dank, and I lose a couple of fingernails when I scrape them along the algae-d walls, and I think, Damn the cause, I can't do this, we're all going to fucking die anyway.

And the dream goes on: I reach a hotel lobby. You are standing by the door, and you are alone. Thank What Is Left of God that you are alone. Your face is stern, but the way your body has started to move towards me, upon seeing me, tells me that damn it, you fucking missed me, just admit it. But you tell me, Go back there, you know we need them, and I know you are right, and I also know that, like all apocalyptic worlds, the heroes and heroines, all the chosen ones, they all need that one scorching kiss, so they'd have something to remember when the people hurtling the Igloos to raze our city finally show themselves, when everyone has died, and the cause has almost failed -- everyone needs that kiss, because damn it, the world is ending, pucker up, you Messianic asshole, give me this kiss, then let's go save the fucking world.

And the dream ended there. I woke up with the right side of my head throbbing, and Bed of Roses stuck in my head, and I thought, I need to write all this down, because no one is with me, and I don't have anyone to tell my dream to, as I usually do.

Yes, I dreamed that, I shit you not.


*

The Painting
John Balaban

The stream runs clear to its stones;
the fish swim in sharp outline.
Girl, turn your face for me to draw.
Tomorrow, if we should drift apart,
I shall find you by this picture.

A city wall and a trampoline

Sasha is...

... writing a story that begins, The average person spends about 20, 160 minutes kissing in his lifetime, or something like that. Everything is difficult, and she couldn't be happier. Ngitian lang natin 'yan, oks na. And did you know that there are neurons in the brain that allows people to locate another's lips in the dark? Di niya alam kung totoo yan, kaya nagtatanong ngayon.

... drooling over the red suede ankle boots she bought with her mother, among other things.

... wondering if she's strong enough to make tuna sandwiches for what she feels will be a happy night.

... inviting everyone to the Happy Mondays Poetry Night in Mag:Net, tomorrow, at 7:31-ish. Gawin nating field trip. Buddy system, don't forget your IDs.

... referring to herself in the third person, yet again, which means she will be wearing black tomorrow. Gah, the pabaon.