Feel my bones on your bones

Taking a break from work:

1 – Taking a break from the paper I have to finish by early tonight – an analysis of the Magsaysay and Garcia administrations – I picked up the book Karyl lent me (and I want it, not-so-subtle nudge nudge, wink wink, haha). In my new cave at the dorm (yeah, moved a couple of rooms down the hall), I read, and, some odd hours later, finished reading Belle de Jour: Diary of an Unlikely Call Girl. Yeah, I know. It’s quite entertaining, funny, shamelessly honest, and overall an intelligent read, and I say this last bit with my Serious Face on. Whoever this Anonymous is (ah, that long-running joke about Anonymous being a prolific bastard, harhar), some girly applause to you. Yes, this might all be fictional, written by some middle-aged balding man with too much of a gut, smoking fat cigars, while his pet poodle rests against his pennyloafers . . . and this last bit just went on too long.

If only prostitution were as lucrative here in our sunny-muddy little country, as it is in England, particularly in London. (See, there is an elephant [or hippo, or whale, or rhino, or whatever ample creature there is around] growing in the room: the matter of my degree. Rich-and-powerful awesomeness with a Creative Writing/Literature diploma seems like a rather dim possibility. And so I’m keeping my options open.)

Also, it’s making me consider, more seriously, writing a purely fictional sex blog. Think of it as a literotic exercise of some sort. And schizophrenic too: why not detail the nonexistent existence of theoretical sex blog author? Why not? I’ll tell you why not: There is this hurdle to leap over: I cannot write a decent sex scene without giggling. Just typing in nipple could send me into paroxysms of seven-year-old laughter. Where’d the sexy-time juju go? My blockmates say it’s because I’m no longer repressed. Foucault says there is no such thing as repression, that society deludes itself with and within a repressive hypothesis. I say, there’s just too much information. Besides, although my imagination is giddy at the thought of writing one squeee-and-squick entry every day, there is such a thing as the creative juices drying up – what the hell is it with these innuendos?

2 – Because I had to finish yet another paper in History (oof, did I just sound like I was complaining? Did I, oh my?), wasn’t able to prepare my application for the Ateneo Nationals [read: didn’t get to actually finish writing any decent story]. Yes, I am vaguely pissed – only vaguely because everything exhausts me these days, from choosing what brand of tissue won’t scrape the skin of my bleep off, to being pissed. I cannot believe I actually prioritized school over my writing (insert ironic little laugh here). Well, the bright side is, I’ve got two-and-half new stories [with my usual WTF titles of “Marga,” “Understanding Fish,” and “The Children of Mira Bella” – I’ve always sucked at titles; methinks every CW curriculum must offer an elective dedicated solely to titling the shit you do] wanting of a couple of sentences to tie them up. And so, there’s always my thesis.

[3 – If you’re interested, I submitted my almost-two-year-old story, the hastily (and ineffectively) revised “These Dark Hours,” for that History class project. It’s got everything: action, romance, betrayal, patriotic bull, Japanese soldiers, water torture, women slipping notes into their camisoles (and I remember asking about five people the question: “Did women wear bras in the forties?”). The assignment, then, for Sir Krip’s fiction class was: develop a love story (about twenty pages) in the time of a great crisis – have one character be conscious of the fact that he may breathe his last in a couple of pages’ time, or bomb the country into itty bits and pieces, or Global Warming. Tempted to go for that last one, but seventeen-year-old me couldn’t think of anything sufficiently romantic about the Earth melting – although a scene pops into the mind: woman lying on her stomach, on a floating piece of ice, in the middle of a freezing ocean, holding on to the near-stranger loverboy submerged in aforementioned freezing ocean. But that one felt rather familiar. Meh. So yeah. Made the lay-out of the story sparkly-er, if only for creative plus points (because in some circles, fiction ain’t creative enough, gah).]

4 – In connection with numbers 1 and 2 above, I have decided to submit something smutty for my thesis workshop class next week – that is, if I finish the damned thing before the Thursday midnight deadline. It’s called "Bones" (get it? get it? ugh). To say that this piece was, erm, inspired by P. and his collection of bulalo/lechon bones would most probably just make you think nasty thoughts – for the record, I speak of the literal kind bones (as opposed to, what, the figurative kind of bones, gah?). Bones. Italicized, bold, underlined, font 25. And yes, being that I find myself the illegal spokesperson for the man’s cute widdle idiosyncrasies – and I know I’ll get in trouble because of that, haha – allow me to say it more clearly: P. collects bones. It’s a rather impressive collection, if decidedly morbid. Downside: the stench is just awful when they rot, or when he marinades them in a concoction of bleach, brake fluid, and whatever liquid there is lying around the house; restaurants probably we think we keep mutated gargantuan puppies as pets when we ask for a doggie bag of every bone that happens to be in the kitchen. But whatever makes the man happy, though objectively disgusting, is, erm, tolerable. Haha!

PS – Googling some do-it-yourself decomposition strategies for P., trying to remember what it was in Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" that's being triggered. Upon sight of some really icky sites of graphic walk-throughs of decomposition and skeletonization processes, I had it: It's not the arsenic, you idiot, it was the motherfucking lime! Lime, rarr.

PPS – If y’all would do me a favor, and not tell him that you know about his bones, and his blow torch, and god knows what else I’ve yakked about him, that would be really nice. Hehe. He.

5 – Reading Octavio Paz’ The Double Flame: Love and Eroticism. Blame it on the endless Foucault, and the recent re-call for submissions for the Coming Soon anthology. Long story: The last call for submissions, there I was, staring (giggling) in front of my laptop, hours before the deadline. Needless to say, I did not make it, because by the end of the night, I most probably just picked up a Theo reading to calm the hormones – among other, erm, handy things [I did not mean that to be suggestive, I swear].

Anyway, so there it was, the re-call for submissions (and mental hugs and congratulations to all the writers who got accepted on the first go, esp. almost – birthday girl Margie de Leon, and hunny-bunny Marie, whose poem "If I said I was drawn to the idea of the body," I just commented on a couple of nights ago, saying, Oh god, this is hot, I love it, I really like it) and there I was, thinking Yeah, why not? So I did a round at the library for research [research because the only erotica I’ve been exposed to is the online, typo-ridden smut, but yes, I admit you didn’t need to know that], booed it for not having any Anaïs Nin handy (although hello, Harold Robbins, subjective eww, haha), and found Paz. I don’t know how this will help me, because it’s booty-ful, and makes the probability of me giggling at my own work more, er, probable, but hey. Yeah, whatever.

6 – A quote of some sort is the usual closing for these entries, no? "All at once we were madly, clumsily, shamelessly, agonizingly in love with each other; hopelessly, I should add, because that frenzy of mutual possession might have been assuaged only by our actually imbibing and assimilating every particle of each other's soul and flesh..." This one's from Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, which I need to re-read, not because it's been quite relevant for sometime (ha-haaa, people), but because, well, I want to... Along with Gabriel Garcia Marquez' One Hundred Years of Solitude, because it turned my then-pubescent brain into moosh.

Now. Back to work.

Somewhere down the road

On School
1 - For Philosophy: Supplementary readings four inches thick? Bring it on. Sasha is (not) reading Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics and Plato's Cretan City (although she does giggle when she says, Cretan -- haha, Cretan). Sasha (did not) read The Use of Pleasure anyway, and (randomly highlighted parts of) the introductory volume of The History of Sexuality. Who's a good student, who?

2 - Compilation of works for thesis, deadline October four: How to complete a collection of stories for your fiction class when the crummy (Krame) laptop that contains everything you've ever written refuses to cooperate, to actually turn on when you poke the On button?

3 - History film: I wanted to do a John Torres, settled for Mangled Sasha Martinez and Homicidal Groupmates. The professor was pleased, perky-pleased. And I, to quote, "gave [her] goosebumps" with that paper I wrote on the American Occupation, and the English language (angas eh), and the analysis/slammage of Agoncillo. The groupmates who, less than two days ago, had me on top of their To-Strangle list, I hear, are, I hear, relieved that I actually did not fuck this one up. Meh.

4 -In Theo class, while discussing the book of Amos, on that passage that warns that if the people stop running around in gleeful sin, God will step on mountains, and the mountains will melt. And the teacher asked, "What does it imply, those mountains melting?" And I said, "Global Warming." And everybody laughed. Amen.

5 - Western Classical Lit: Sir Gawain's Green Knight is literally green. Because of some juju Morgan le Fay did, but what matters is that he's literally green. I forgot to ask if he glowed.


On Writing
1 - I need four stories by Monday, and then another by the eleventh. Yes? Yes.

2 - Sasha is happy. Tayo na sa Antipolo: Fellows for this year's Ateneo-Heights Writers Workshop announced, and I'm one of them. Wee, plus a bounce around the room.

3 - Writing? Yes. Uh. Right. "...I know that the words are collecting at the tips of my fingers and that if I don't shake them out over the keyboard they could go backwards and form word clots around my heart. Word clots are worse than blood clots -- because blood clots more or less kill you as soon as they reach a vital area in your body, but word clots just stay, occasionally giving you heartburn with all the things you could have said but didn't." From You Are Here by Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan. So, yeah. Bring on them word clots.

Dance to this beat

Drug, obsession, whatever. Toss in all those clichés this way, because, damn it, I cannot stay away from books. I've already taken over a bookshelf of my roommate. Some books are still in boxes, from my move some months ago. And some books found their way to Pancho's already overpopulated shelves, competing with shiny copies of Toot and Puddle, Winnie the Pooh, art books and art magazines galore, the occasional girlie magazine for space. I've gone hungry more times than I care to count, if only for something like that sparkly copy of Auster (which I unintentionally stole from Martin, hehe). Reviews for exams have been pointedly ignored, just so I could find out what happens to people like Astrid Magnussen (White Oleander, by Janet Fitch). And yeah, I've ditched many an inuman, and, erm, some poetry readings here and there (haha) because I cannot put Ann Bleeping Beattie down.

(Yeah, I'm a loser. A broke one, at that.)

After listing down a ridiculous tonnage of books a couple of days ago, National Bookstore decides to hold a SuperMegaUber Sale. The bastards. What's a girl to do?

It was a Thursday afternoon, and I was dragging my ass from the yearbook shoot (more on that, later). Was supposed to meet Pancho, so we could head on over to Trinoma to engage in a whole lotta "Awwww" for Wall-E. There I was, on (in?) the overpass, keying in a message to Pancho, and hello, red banner that is salvation/damnation. Whose wonderful idea was it to do this, now? Goddamned fucking sale, come 'ere, lemme hug you, then stab you as you leave for the door. Hay. And perhaps this is another indication that the universe is conspiring against me, because, well, coding si Herbert (as Sarj and I have christened Pancho's car), and my body hurt from what I did to myself sa yearbook shoot. The message I finally sent to Pancho was, "Crap. National Bookstore sale of cosmic proportions. Patayan na 'to." To which he replied, "Meet you in National in thirty minutes." Groan.

Guess what I did? Oh god, I couldn't help it. Apparently, Pancho couldn't either. (Wall-E, dearest, you're cute and all, but you know, things happen. It's not you, it's us. And... well, I've known books long before I knew about you. I'm sorry things didn't work out between the three of us. We could have been great together. But. You know. I'll try to catch you on DVD, okay?)

Pancho over there took some books of poetry, a uterus-cramping book of Romanesque art and architecture, lots more art books, and a book about turtles. And me? Well. Huwag na nating ilista. Basta marami. Marami talaga.

And that wasn't enough. Of course not. Because Friday afternoon, though running a fever, I stopped by the LS Bookstore. And squeals of squeals: I found a fantastically orange copy of Wilfrido Nolledo’s collection of short fiction, Cadena de Amor and Other Short Stories in the LS Bookstore. And then I squealed some more, because Nolledo, bless his soul, is absolute love. And then I realized that if I bought it, I’d starve the rest of the week. And then I bought the book anyway. (Plus two stretchy black hair bands for Pancho, who, if not wearing chopsticks filched from unsuspecting restaurants and wedding receptions, likes to steal my own hair thingamabobs. And an ID protector, whose purpose is to allow my ID, which has been sat on and slept on into three perfectly triangular pieces, to have some semblance of wholeness to last until March, after which it retires into a packet of my father’s wallet, joining all the other IDs that preceded it, along with my brothers’.)

Where was I?

Well. I can never have too much books. (That's what I keep telling myself.) I can't wait to be rich and powerful so I finally get to buy every goddamned book I ever wanted! Buwahahahahaha. And that yellow dress.

(If you're interested, I've been reading Sir Sawi, Sir Butch, Nolledo, Munro, Sebold, and some Snoopy, all at the same time, and I am going fucking crazy. What a wonderful way to go.)

*

Yearbook shoot last Thursday too. Karla, the hairdresser/make-up artist oh-so-magically transformed my snail-butt of a face to something rather Photoshopped, and I wasn't complaining. "Do you want me to straighten your hair?" he/she asked. I shook my head no, rather nervously. (Sasha is a pushover of the ages. Service crew at fast food chains know that they can get me to say Uh, yes, what, yes to anything they offer, provided they say it fast, plus cheery smile.) "You going as Dyesebel?" I shook my head no, thought why I didn't think of going as a mermaid. It would've been less painful.

See, for my creative shot, I "dressed up" as a bookwhore. Snort. (How literal, how contrived, how obvious.) Well. The original plan was that I look like a ton of books dropped out of the sky and landed smack dab in the middle of my torso, and I'd be lying on the floor with my glasses askew, and my tongue lolling out. But since Sasha is The Legendary Excitable Pushover, when the photographer said, "No, just stare into the camera, just like that. And put that tongue back in your mouth," I followed to the letter, resulting in a rather dazed expression on my face, which could be interpreted by my future grandchildren as either seduction or catatonia. Yeah. I have no idea how this happened. Idiot.

There I was, on the floor, books strewn all around me. Books I'd lugged from home, to the studio-of-sorts, hardcovers all of them (because Sasha is an occasional idiot as well). By the time I was finished, most of the people in the room had gathered around the moron on the floor, pointing and shit. I made a lot of friends that day.

The formal toga pose, plus the casual shot, went well enough. I was glowy. Mermaid-ic. I texted my mother, "Oh my god, I look damn good!" to which she replied, "Huh." First couple of shots, I had this crazed grin on my face, which led the terrorized photographer to say, "Uh, don't smile too big, okay?" Okay.

I like the pictures. Now I just have to figure out 50 people who'll want wallet-sized copies of them all. Any takers?

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!"

The pebbles forgive me

It's not everyday I walk around Katipunan with copies of Homer's The Iliad, Burton Raffel's translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish, and, er, The Sad Clown and Other Five-Minute Tales for Bedtime inside my bag.

Buti na lang. (That's thank goodness, for the konyo.)

(I text my mother: "Foucault is cool." And she replies, "You should check out my pendulum." I'm sure I'm not the only one with a compulsion to giggle at that statement, no?)

All this pretending-to-be-smart-and-well-read thing is a strain on my budget. And oh yeah, on my mind. And my eyes, as some idiot lost her glasses. Gahdammit, what kind of idiot loses her glasses while she's wearing them? Never mind the sudden rains last Wednesday, never mind the flash-lake around the overpass. Those glasses were on your head -- how could you have lost them?

Ahem.

Everything about me is either about to melt, or go poof! so I leave you with an excerpt of the latest short story I managed to squeeze out of wherever these things come from. It's called Park 9 Alley, and I have a feeling this will be one of those bitcheries of a story that would forever be in-progress, guh. Anyway:

Somewhere in this street, someone is kissing someone he is not supposed to kiss. I suspect it is Francisco Revelar, the architect [note to self: scratch that -- change it to "accountant."] who has not seen his wife in two years. It is understandable that he kiss someone else – I think he is kissing the girl Marta from the sari-sari store in front of his house for she often has that sad, faraway look on her pale, prematurely lined face and I’ve learned that it is those sad looks that make the men rise from their beds in the middle of the night and cup a young girl’s aging face. It is understandable that Francisco Revelar kiss Marta. After all, two years is a long time, a very long time. Dishes get stacked in the sink, the sinks are cleared, then get filled again. Drains record the remains of breakfasts, lunches and dinners, until they revolt by clogging up, and someone has to push his sleeves to his elbows sooner or later so water can make its proper descent into the sewage that spreads like misplaced roots underneath the gray concretes of this city. Windows turn muddy, then are wiped down one procrastinating afternoon months later. Doors squeak, complaining of the capricious comings and goings of men, these doors swell in their hinges after a thunderstorm, they crack in the heat of a summer, until they are oiled into silence, or replaced by something sturdier, not necessarily prettier. Oh, don’t let me get started on floors.

All this and more, over and over for seven hundred and thirty days, more or less – am I the only one who wonders what I should do with the quarter-day that helps define a year? What exactly is “365 ¼ days a year”?

Anyway. A lot happens, two years is a long time. Imagine all that waiting, all those mornings with no one to listen to you say, “Five minutes more.” All those noontime show summaries not recorded. All those six o’clock bell tolls without some floury, sun-kissed arms thrown around your neck. All those nights lying in a bed that grows larger and wider with every passing night.

Two years is a long time. Francisco Revelar knows – he has waited that long.

The classic story: Ida Revelar goes out one night after making dinner, she tells her husband of twenty-two years she needs more vinegar. Her husband, the architect, looks up from his newspaper for the barest of moments just to nod – trifle acknowledgment in a marriage that has lasted that long. It used to be enough, that little nod, a swift kiss on the shoulder before he went off to work, a distracted squeeze of the bridge between thumb and forefinger in social gatherings.

Francisco Revelar gives his wife a nod, returns to his newspaper.

He has read through the Obituaries, notes that someone with his first name died yesterday, and he looks at the front door, expecting Ida to come bustling in, her hair escaping the loose bun arranged at her nape, apologizing for taking so long, the neighbors wanted to chat about the president’s daughter, dinner will be ready in a bit, god she hopes she didn’t burn anything while she was away gossiping.
But she does not come in, she won’t. Although Francisco stays in his chair, at first puzzled, then worried, then a dismal bewilderment – Ida does not come in.

And he thinks then: What will I eat for dinner?

She’s dead, she’s surely dead, he thinks three months later.

What is wrong with that sink? he thinks two months after that.

I can’t change the locks, he thinks five months after that.

Where did the brown of the linoleum go? he thinks four months after that.

Another Francisco Something is dead, he thinks a month after that.

What now? he thinks, finally, eighteen months into that nightly ritual in his chair.

Every night, in that chair, he wonders. He cannot help it. There is so little one can do when one is waiting. He has tried, many times. He has busied himself with a company that used to bear his surname, he has started a garden (he has discovered a fondness for ferns), he has even decided (with the help of a self-help book) that it is his calling to be a poet. The distractions worked, to a point, although the last one did not work very well. But Francisco Revelar has learned that no matter how many ways he busies himself, he ends up, every night, on his chair, with the day’s newspaper in his hand, reading it from cover to cover, saving the Obituaries for last.

Until tonight, apparently. Because he is kissing Marta from the sari-sari store in front of his house. He is still waiting, of course, he must, he always is – any minute now Ida will shuffle into the living room with a bottle of vinegar and an unplanned basket of vegetables. He should be in the house now, he should be waiting. What if she comes home? What if she can’t see through the grime of the windows? What if another Francisco has died, and he can’t pour some Scotch in honor of the unfortunate soul?
But there he is now, kissing a sad young girl in the middle of the night. He has cupped her face in his hands. Her cheeks are so pale beneath his callused fingertips. Two years ago, his wife went to get some vinegar. He does not even remember Ida’s face when she told him so. He remembers that someone named Francisco died, and that he shall be remembered through life by a wife and two daughters. Not Ida’s face, though.

He is kissing Marta. He is kissing her with his eyes open, so he can watch how her eyelashes flutter to rest on her cheeks. Marta is young. Two years is a long time.

All right? All right. Off I go now.

Pahabol, a wave to Pancho, who's probably running in a field of strawberries with A.G. right now. Brokeback Plateau. Okay, fine, corny.

Toodles.

I came to this strange world

Nothing to see here, folks.

1 - Just a girl who's not sleeping very well, aggravated by the fact that I was conned into watching The Matrix Trilogy plus Animatrix for the entire bleeping night last night. (But hey, all is good -- at least I get what it all means now. Sort of. Watch out, nerds.) School starts this Tuesday and I'm still only just starting to sleep around 11 in the morning. This is not good, no? No, no, I don't think so, especially with eight more episodes of the fourth season of Lost. Gah, I'll just wing it.

2 - I've officially enrolled, and learned I'm taking a slew of teachers who either terrify me to bits and pieces, or those of whom I know nothing about. And I've got class everyday -- yeah, I'm mortal now -- which means this kind of fucks up work, not to mention hangover-indulging. Anyhoo, I guess this is as good a time as any to get into Serious Student mode. Watch out, Arneow, I'm going to work my effin' ass off.

3 - I'm writing again, after a month of nothing but revisions and Hellgate and sad, sorry attempts at poetry. It's Fiction, folks. There's this girl. And then there's this other girl. And in another one, there's that girl, with that mom and that dad. And in another one, there's this mother, and that hot mathematician's daughter. And then looking out at them all, there's Sasha, who remembers that the first short story she ever wrote (er, completed) was written in a ten-peso notebook whose cover may or may not have been Judy Ann Santos.

4 - I wish I have something to say that's actually worth those few, endless moments of inanity I put you through, but there's nothing. Nothing, really.

5 - From Gabriel Garcia Marquez' Love in the Time of Cholera:

"Contrary to what the Captain and Zenaida supposed, they no longer felt like newlyweds, and even less like belated lovers. It was as if they had leapt over the arduous calvary of conjugal life and gone straight to the heart of love. They were together in silence like an old married couple wary of life, beyond the pitfalls of passion, beyond the brutal mockery of hope and the phantoms of disillusion : beyond love. For they had lived together long enough to know that love was always love, anytime and anyplace, but it was more solid, the closer it came to death."

6 - Yeahba. I am made of love.

Paper paper obsolete

1
Am I here to gripe about AISIS? About how I left a reading/inuman at Green Papaya to hole myself up in an internet shop until 2 in the freakin' morning just to fix my schedule? And how I couldn't sleep last night, so I finally collapsed on the bed (after many futile attempts to nudge my makeshift stuffed toy to awaken?) at 630 in the morning? And how, at 930, I had to wait for so long, grit my teeth at the incredibly slow-ass pace of the pages to load? And that I have no available Theo and Philo classes? And that I have to loadrev eventually because puro itlog sa free-for-all (the available slots, not the remaining teachers) and the ones that are available are in conflict with the classes I've already enlisted in, or are held Tuesdays and Thursdays -- no-go because I have, er, work to do? And how much I spent in total -- all the cigarettes, the iced teas, the internetting, the gahdamned coffee?! Am I here to gripe about AISIS, ladies and gentlemen? No, of course not. Wouldn't dream of it.

2
To quote the piggy from Sinfest, "I am made of looooove!"

3
Downloaded Caesar III during enlistment woes. Haha, wala nang tulugan 'to. Yeah, hello, Freshman Nights Geekdom, remember me?

4
Sasha needs to write (see Number 7). Which means she has to stop reading Virginia Henley and Jaid Black, titles like The Glass Stripper.

5
Pol Doble -- you made me smile a coupla entries back. You are special, you charming old goat. Here's a smiley stamp for your hand. :')

6
Currently taking a survey on whether or not I should cut my mermaid hair. (Yeah, same sentiment as last year, and the year before that.) I could get Audrey Hepburn's Roman Holiday hair, but kulot, buwahaha. [He said: if you cut your hair, I'll tie the curls together with a ribbon, and go to sleep stroking it, whispering, It's okay, it's okay.] So. Goodbye, mermaid hair, hello, Bob Dylan hair? Or stick with it until I look like Lady Godiva, sans nekkid horse-riding?

7
From "feeling a little good tonight," a poem by Charles Bukowski:

Thou shalt not fail as a writer
because the very act of writing is the best protection
from the madness of the
world.

Watching an in-flight movie

I am so exhausted, any minute now I'll be keeling over with foam bubbling out of my mouth. My big toes hurt -- it wasn't a good idea to wear 3-inch wedges for a 3-hour commute, no matter how many times you tell yourself that this would be more convenient than bringing another bag for your shoes. People look at you when you tower over everyone else in the train cars, and too bad for you, you look like hell. You smell like a public payphone. You need a bath, you need to go soak those toes. What are you wearing tonight? How many times do I have to tell you that not everything in embarrass is doubled? I need teachers for this semester. Do I just pick afternoon classes, or do I conscientiously research the profs? Exie Abola's my thesis class teacher, and I just missed Martin. Hala, Martin, WTF? Hahaha. Haa. I'm going to have to call you Professor now, am I? Hassle. By the way, my toes hurt so goddamned much. What am I going to wear? My eyebrows look like happy squirrels cavorting on my face. I need teachers for this semester -- why are there eight freaking subjects listed to my name? There is so much to do, and I have to be somewhere else in thirty minutes -- happy birthday, ZoeDee. But I need another bath. I need to put a flamethrower to these eyebrows, and have I shaved my legs yet? Oh. Fine, I'll wear pants. They go well with my hobo-in-wedges look. Add an expensive stick of cancer. Rommel Adducul has nasopharyngeal cancer -- and I managed to spell that correctly on the first go. Smoking while trying not to be seen/smelled only aggravates the wonky heart conditions. You're pathetically quiet, and you sharpen your cha-cha moves with the wind and the smoke. This morning, my youngest brother and I giggled over the nilagang baka, his hairstyle, and having to turn the TV off for a snoring father. And a big congratulations to newly-sixteen Gabriel Joshua who's officially in college. Scared, I asked. No, he said. Ah, I replied, I was fucking terrified. Scheds, I have to fix my scheds. God, my fucking toes. God damn it, licorice-flavored toothpaste does not taste good.

Things happened while I was gone.

*

From Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin:

"Why is it we want so badly to memorialize ourselves? Even while we're still alive. We wish to assert our existence, likes dogs peeing on fire hydrants. We put on display our framed photographs, our parchment diplomas, our silver-plated cups; we monogram our linen, we carve our names on trees, we scrawl them on washroom walls. It's all the same impulse. What do we hope from it? Applause, envy, respect? Or simply attention, of any kind we can get?

At the very least we want a witness. We can't stand the idea of our own voices silent finally, like a radio running down."

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.

Like I never needed love before

Yawning, stretching, grasping my nth mug of coffee. Pressing Ctrl + S, then Alt + F4, grinning hugely. “Damn, I sound so smart,” I say out loud, to no one in particular. “It must be inherent.”

The man off to my side grunts.

“What? Aren’t you glad? I can talk about Francis Ponge and the duality of poetry, about literatures of the Non-Western World, about Estrella Alfon, about Nolledo and his Maria Alma. Quiz me on Dobyns and the crisis of language and the poetry of the city, and I can prattle on, sleep-deprived, wanting of a bath and a proper meal, surviving on sheer stubbornness, caffeine and nicotine. Aren’t you glad?”

Another grunt.

“Well, I’m a magnificent conversationalist.” My voice has taken on an English accent, culled from years of reading Victorian romances out loud. “I happen to know a lot about mandrakes, sweetness. Yes, mandrakes, and not the Hogwarts version. Mandrakes, mandrakes. What eighteen-year-old in a five-mile radius can claim to know about that?”

“You need sleep.”

My laugh sounds shrill, even to my delusional ears.

*

Weeks ago, I watched as she stood on her tiptoes to kiss the boy who had ignored her for three years. Wow, I thought, we’re in for it now.

“That’s for ignoring me freshman year,” she told him, sure to keep her voice more impassioned, certainly louder, than a whisper.

I walked beside her then as she sashayed away, an unmistakable new sway to her hips, a smile of pure, gloating satisfaction playing on her face.

“I can see everything through your skirt,” I told her.

“I bet he could too,” she said.

*

One more time, he told her, impatient for the slap of her moans against his neck, of the near-desperate clasp of her hands against his back. You can have me one more time, he told his Maria, this new mythos found on yet another port – who, in time he was sure, would succumb to the gray that wrought all his memories of whores in places far-flung, humid and too-bright with sunlight. But for now she was still real, the color apricots from home, the scent of the moon when he was traveling – pale, timid, keeping an unrealized power that ensnared many a sailor to walk to the edge of the ship and simply walk farther, hands held high in hopes for a touch of the cool surface. But, oh, his Maria: the heat, the openness, the unabashed wanting making them both moist with a glance, near-erupting with an accidental grazing of sun-kissed skin. One more, he repeated, already hardening where he still nestled inside her, willing her eyes to open, her grip on him to tighten. One more time, Maria my darling, he implored. I leave on the rooster’s first crow.

*

Last night, I dreamt I shared a hopia with F. Sionil Jose.

Strawberry dreams

1
I'm practically done with junior year. Imagine that. (I reiterate practically because, well, technically, I haven't exactly finished with requirements. There is still the matter of submitting the essays on Stephen Dobyns and Federico Licsi Espina. And then that blasted paper on Francis Ponge. And then another essay about oppression, freedom, and the notion of beauty in the literatures of the Non-Western World. [No, no name-dropping here. No, oh look at me, I'm so smart, reading up on such smart-sounding people, and all those relevant subjects! Pfft. I'm swamped, damn it, in over my head and I know it.])

2
I finished that story I told you was brewing in my head the other day. It's called "Quick, the Tomatoes" and I'm quite pleased with myself, thank you very much. :) Maybe it's the influx of domesticity in the literature I encounter lately -- in academe, in leisure --but "Tomatoes" could very well be a variation on the theme tackled by "Digressions" and "The Twenty-first Month." But then, almost none of you have any idea what I'm talking about now, do you? Oh well.

3
For the life of me, I can't find the page in But for the Lovers that says, "Garlanded thus, the world was tolerable." (Beats me why this is a matter of such significance that I gleefully tossed my first draft of the Ponge paper to scour to Nolledo's novel.) And I don't even know if "tolerable" is the correct word. So, PLE classmates, a little help here?

4
This is for all the bitter old people who (to paraphrase My Chemical Romance) have the shit scared out of 'em by us adolescents:

"When adults say, 'Teenagers think they are invincible' with that sly, stupid smile on their faces, they don't know how right they are. We need never be hopeless, becuase we can never be irreparably broken. We think that we are invincible becuase we are. We cannot be born, and we cannot die. Like all energy, we can only change shapes and sizes and manifestations. They forget that when they get old. They get scared of losing and failing. But that part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot end, and so it cannot fail."
- from Looking for Alaska by John Green

HAHAHA, peace and love, people. :)

They keep each other amused

Have any of you seen my life scurry past? Last seen with A Disgustingly Thorough History of French Literature stuck in its scraggly hair.

Excuse the salad stains

Written on my desk, Phil. Lit. in English -- The past is only the future with the lights turned on. Turned on daw. Makes sense, I think to myself, taking the teensiest of breaks from multi-tasking: half-listening to a discussion of a poem by Alejandrino G. Hufana (damn my irreverence) and reading more of Wilfrido Nolledo's But for the Lovers on the sly.

"She is passionately shredding the coconut," says my profesor. Immediately (because my my mind works fast in things like these:) I imagine a woman in her prime, straddling a coconut-shredder, her floral skirt hiked up to mid-thigh, legs damp and glistening, every lithe surface separated from everything else, undulating, with each hard motion, each intense press and pull of niyog to the spiked circle.

In Nolledo, a few pages ago, Hidalgo de Anuncio, aged Spanish nobleman, tragic clown by profession, remembers the consummation of his marriage to one Mariya -- she with her self-mutilated vajayjay, gash traversing the planes and curves of her young body that she appears to be one giant gaping wound. He stabbed through her bandages and blisters, eliciting from that blessed pyre what could not have been ecstasy but exultation, not sex but sainthood, for she was joining not him but a gringo God . . . brutal, beatific. A beata from a brute . . . . says page 209 to 210.

So bury me in memory / his smile's your rope / so wrap it around your throat demands my desk.

You're just a sad song / with nothing to say pines Gerard Way in another deep cavern in my head.

I'm just a lonely ghost / burning down songs -- it comes back to me: yours truly making emo at a balcony in some hotel somewhere, listening to the disembodied vocalist of From Autumn to Ashes: glaring right back at the sea, watching mismatched (but who am I to say, really?) lovers canoodling under a tree, smiling at the sight of a passing bicycle (lolo is steering, lola is daintily perched between his arms, his legs).

"Go to sleep, Cinderella," said Hidalgo wryly. "For tomorrow we die."

DAMN! NAKA-LACE THONG!!! gushes my desk one last time, a large white arrow pointing to an absent, unsuspecting stranger once sitting in front of it.

I could leave my own mark, immortalize my own schmaltz in the form of shamelessly horrid pseudo-poetry (until the next repainting) on the wooden surface, or I could just rather make people think, swoon, perhaps, saya aww -- I could quote Billy Collins: "Excuse the salad stains, but I'm in love."

Dance to this beat

Am unwinding in an internet shop because I suddenly found myself for a hankering for technology. Stepped off the LRT-MRT combo one odd hour ago, as I met with my mother dearest in Taft. Doing my daughterly duty of mooching for moolah.

I told her about needing to read seven books for Phil. Lit. And then I told her I need copies of them, since I can't continually horde the books from the libe and I can't actually see myself buying those books because well, I can't afford it. And then I told her that I could have them photocopied and then hardbound (so they could look like legitimate books) in UP. And then I told her I'll go to all the living writers, say, Sir Krip, to ask him to sign a pirated copy of his work.

My mother stared at me in horror.

"Buy the books," she shrieked. "They're books!"

Silly me. We are a mother-daughter team who could go spelunking for books in secondhand shops even if means not having to eat dinner that night. Or all nights two weeks afterwards. Not to mention the eye-rolling we got from the boys at home. Haha.

So I'm going to get seven new books. Nine, if the universe is conspiring. A hundred million thousand when the universe conspires enough to make me rich and powerful. Buwahahahaha. Ha. Haaa.


*


Random updates on Sasha's life:

> Went to school, even though I had no classes for the day. The world is turning on its axis as we speak.

> I made Martin say the word gloop.

> ZoeDee gave me two technically useless but utterly adorable paper clips shaped like a pig and a zebra. Oh, love.

> Nikay is so sex-hay.

> I'm staying in this Phil. Lit class I'm currently taking, although Sir Jimmy Abad every Tuesday and Thursday is certainly tempting. I crush you, Sir Jimmy!

> My back hurts from all that photocopying.


*


It seems only yesterday I used to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me I could shine.
- On Turning Ten by Billy Collins

Let us go then, you and I

I realized that I shouldn't be doing all this ew, work on the first day of class. There's still roughly an inch of highfalutin readings over there I have to go through and I've just taken the time off (translation: I peeled my nose from between the illegally photocopied pages of an introduction by Sir Jimmy Abad) to well, er, procrastinate. Blog, I mean.

[How My Day Went]
Anyway. I stumbled into Philo class, ten minutes late. Because that's just who I am. Then I had my Phil Lit in Eng class (I should come up with a better name for that). Classmates kami ni Cat Quevenco and Marie La Vina, plus all my other Math blockmates from two years ago. Anyway. Came out of that classroom with the doom and gloom of someone who has been told she'd have to read seven novels (seven!) before the semester ends, on top of every other thing in the class and other classes as well. Okay. And then I went to Third World Bel for some Third World Lit, where I'm classmates with Trish Elamparo. Oh, yeah, I saw Andrea Teran sa Bel Cafe thingie. Wasak. And then after class I saw Martin and I tagged along with whatever he was up to, then I saw Sarj and we did our thing sa smockets. And then off we went to Modern Poetry, where I heard the word decrepitude used for the first time in the history of human monologues. And then Sarj and I met up with Lia Albano and Gab Murillo to go to the Fiction workshop, and then after forty-five minutes of waiting, waiting, waiting, we left. I think the prof forgot about us. Oh, well. So now I'm here in the libe, doing my goodie goodie schoolgirl thing.
[/How My Day Went]

Oh yeah, and I'm minoring in Lit. Haha. Figured since I'm taking all the required subjects, I might as well call them something. Kahit pampahaba lang ng degree title, hehe. BFA Creative Writing, Minor in Literature. Shiyeht.

Oh yeah, and I'm going to have to really read 'The Wastelands'. Yes, that 'Wastelands'.


*


oh god it's wonderful
to get out of bed
and drink too much coffee
and smoke too many cigarettes
and love you so much
- Steps by Frank O'Hara

This is how we should begin

The days leading up to school used to be a flurry of red National Bookstore plastic bags and pressed uniforms. Everything would smell of unraveled plastic cover and Kiwi shoe shine. I would be stocking up on pens and highlighters and intermediate pads. I'd buy earrings. I'd get new underwear. I'd doodle on my notebook covers. I'd stick a photograph of my parents (the one where my dad was carrying my mother and my mom has her arms around my father and they are in a swimming pool) in my planner.

Now, I'm just looking for booze.

Last Friday, after I got tossed and tumbled by the RegCom, I met up with Sarj and ZoeDee in (like, you know) Starbucks. Cuz we Atenistas, haha. Ahem. Catched up on things, which roughly translates to me jumping Zoe because I hadn't seen her in months, me attacking the Dunhills waiting to be attacked on the table, me getting free coffee. We talked about the usual stuff: neon green dildoes, writing styles, threesomes, this girl's boobs, Victor's grand gesture, a washing machine, a diamond ring, more threesomes and shouting matches. And then Xander came and joined us, which means April got fried big time.

Wee. (Sasha is giddy. I can't help it.)

And then more things happened that night, which included an imaginary (um)friend, a bucket of beer, a gigantic burrito, dirty dancing to Enrique Iglesias and an aluminum cowboy/stripper.

School starts tomorrow. I got the classes that I wanted, which means I won't be able to sustain a normal conversation without throwing in something from my predicted mile-high Lit readings. Philippine Literature, Third World Literature and Modern Poetry, plus a lot of Philosophy thrown in. Oh yeah, and Sir Krip's fiction workshop. Oh, gah. What did I get myself into?

School starts tomorrow and random stranger beside me is telling the random stranger beside him that, to quote, "Alcohol is the best way to get girls."

School starts tomorrow and I am yet to figure out if I'd actually be able to wake up for it, as I, of course, am still in sem break mode, which means I woke up at 4 PM kanina.

Oh, well.

I'll see you kids tomorrow. :)


*


Public Service Announcement: Who wants to shack up in my former dorm? I've been staying with Helen and the others (former roommates) in curfew-free Prince David, but I can't legitimately leave my dorm yet if no one takes my slot. So. So. Help. :)

Lobotomizing enlistments

I'm on vacation, which means I've gone cold turkey for a while, which means this could get snarky, or could fail at snarkiness and bitchery -- it pendulums here and there -- but all I really want to say is: AISIS, you are the current bane of my existence.

Yes, yes, I realize how pathetic it is to gripe at a freaking program, however ineffective and useless (bakit may manual reg pa, taena!) it is, and I will most probably be just sputtering like mad. I could begin with the fact that I had to wake up at an ungodly hour during a freaking holiday just so I could enlist in classes I was basically coerced to enlist in. I could go on and on and on and I will most possibly cease to make sense after the first tangina, AISIS, so I'll just ask you to scoot on over to Martin's site since, of course, he makes much more sense than I could ever wish to have.

Whew.

Basta. The thing is, I prefer to study Philippine Literature under Max Pulan, Modern Poetry under Vince Serrano and I don't know why but I want to study Theories and Practices of Writing, even if its a three-hour Friday night class.

Hay. I might enjoy Shakespeare and Graphic Novel-ing and Poetry Tutorial (gasp). Shakespeare's interesting inuman conversation -- just ask Marie La Vina. 'Sides, I still wanna know what happened to Ophelia, and what the hell one of King Lear's daughters' name is. Cordelia yata. And Graphic Novel-ing. Sarj is there, which means, well, we can create a force field around ourselves to ward off Narutards. And I was there at Gino Bagsit's Heights Talk and he's a purdy nice guy, even though he basically ignored my Hermionic attempts to answer his questions. And Poetry Tutorial with DM Reyes. Okay, sana eh, pero we're forgetting one thing -- I don't fucking write poetry! God knows I wish I do, but I don't.

I could like the classes I'm stuck in, but basically, there would always be the feeling that I just got stuck there. Every time I'm having a hard time, I'll say, tanginang AISIS yan. Every time I have to wake up, drunk on the way to hungover, every first and third Tuesday morning, I'll say, tanginang AISIS yan. Every time I hate the classes, I'll say, god damn you, AISIS, while shaking my fist at the high heavens, a margarita in the other hand.

Anyway, Sarj and I came up with a master plan to rock AISIS out of its smarmy techie pants. I'm feeling much better because of it. (Then, if that won't work, either I go perform lobotomies on random people with a pair of rusty pliers, or I sulk Monday to Friday, this coming sem.)

Ah! Before I forget, eto pa isa kong reklamo ko -- araw-araw ako may klase! Kalokohan! Gah.

Enlistment Woes, Part 2

Well. Until I work this thing out (translation: whine to Xander), I'm taking Sir Krip's Fiction Workshop, Poetry Tutorial with Sir DM Reyes, Graphic Novel thingie with Gino Bagsit, Shakespeare (eep!) with Glenn Mas and good ol' Philo 102 with Sir Lagliva.

And it seems I'm a somewhat normal undergrad now, as I've got classes every freaking day. Oh, well.

(Enlisting for the TTh Philo class, I thought: But I'll be drunk after Happy Mondays. Jeesh. Gawin na kasing Happy Fridays, Joel.)

Anyhoos. That's it. Am off to Calatagan in a couple of hours.

Toodles. My imaginary (um)friend is acting up. Oh, well.

Enlistment Woes, Part 1

Ha? Bakit FA Elective lang nandito? I wanna take Phil. Lit. in English! And Modern Poetry! And Theories and Practices and Writing! Bakit ganito? Sabi puwede Humanities subjects! Wah. Wah. Wah!

Hyperventilation starts now.

Let me know what spring is like

I woke up at 1:30 PM, and spent my token 5-turned-15 more minutes in bed, mentally mapping out my day. And then I hopped over to my laptop to do some blogging, thereby ruining the carefully conceived plan made under my covers.

And thunder is rolling outside, which means I can't traipse and frolic in the city of neon and chrome.

Methinks I have to take a bath now. And call the registrar so I can enlist as SOH 879 3/892. And head on over to La-La Land, dragging Moosebert by his orange antlers.

...

Obviously, this whole entry is just an exercise of stalling.

No, Ma'am Typhoon, ma'am. Not yet. Not yet! I have a meeting with destiny!!!

(-_-)

Maliligo na.