seven floors between

last goodbye

2005-12-13T05:25:00.000+09:00

Boy, if only real-life change were as easy to observe and document as this: as easy to attempt as the change of blog a address, as easy to follow as a click on a link, as easy to believe as an updated profile.

Well, I still suffer from vertigo, and yes, this is still my way of coping. I'm just doing it in a different place now, and with different people. Although everything written here is true (or at the very least was true when it was writtten), I am not exactly the same person anymore. And this is no longer home.

But should you want to continue with me, I cannot help but invite: Come.

*****

I leave with two songs in my head:

Grace
Jeff Buckley

There’s the moon asking to stay
Long enough for the clouds to fly me away
Well it’s my time coming, I’m not afraid, afraid to die

My fading voice sings of love
But she cries to the clicking of time,
Wait in the fire...

And she weeps on my arm
Walking to the bright lights in sorrow
Oh drink a bit of wine we both might go tomorrow
Oh my love...

And the rain is falling and I believe my time has come
And it reminds me of the pain I might leave behind
Wait in the fire...

And I feel them drown my name
So easy to know and forget with this kiss
But I’m not afraid to go, baby it’s all because of you
But I’m not afraid to go, but it goes so slow, slow
Wait in the fire, wait in the fire
Wait in the fire...

...don’t you take it away from me

Anticipation
Carly Simon

We can never know about the days to come
But we think about them anyway
And I wonder if I'm really with you now
Or just chasing after some finer day

Anticipation, Anticipation
Is making me late
Is keeping me waiting

And I tell you how easy it is to be with you
And how right your arms feel around me.
But I rehearsed those words just late last night
When I was thinking about how right tonight might be

Anticipation, Anticipation
Is making me late
Is keeping me waiting

And tomorrow we might not be together
I'm no prophet and I don't know nature's way
But I'll try to see into your eyes right now
And stay right here
'Cause these are the good old days

*****

Enough said.

Why the hell not?

2005-12-10T03:50:00.000+09:00

It's not supposed to be sad, is it?

*****

Oh boy. It has been a long time. I could've filled this blog with surveys and other posts of similar purpose (consume my time and yours) so that I can say I update frequently. But that's a fucking cop-out.

Hey, I've done it before. You know, hidden behind the occasional excuse, blah blah blah. And boy am I sick of that. But then, so many people are so quick to judge too, and quicker to just write you off. Box you up into whatever category they're comfortable with because you weren't what they expected. I'm sick of that, too.

So. Here's a little tip: I pretty much know who I am. Some things, I'm definitely going to have to change, and that's my problem, not yours. I am who I am. I also know who I'm not, and I am definitely not you. You don't like it? Tough. Get over it. Move on. Better yet, move away. Very far away.

*****

That is not the purpose of this post. (Yes, I get easily sidetracked. Sue me.) I am here to say goodbye. I never really noticed, but I started this blog right before coming to Japan. Now I am back home, and since I consider that part of my life (geographically, at the very least) over, I feel it appropriate to close this chapter, too, and start over in a new place. Taking only those that I want with me; leaving behind those I don't, and those I cannot have.

I was thinking to close this blog with a bang. Here are some of my ideas as to how, and why I didn't:

Four really beautiful stories. Why not? They weren't mine to tell, and I realized they weren't for public consumption. I realized they had to be deserved.
A love letter. This one I wrote, but that, too, wasn't mine to give anymore, the instant I gave it to the other.
A couple of poems. But those poems had nothing to do with my leaving Japan or this blog. Besides, all of them were written after I left (except one).

Instead, I decided to complete the circle. I'm going to answer that question I had at the very beginning.

*****

This may seem awfully abrupt. (What, she's saying goodbye? Now?! Haha. Ehrm.) Really, I had as much warning as you did. But as some surprises are great and some are awful, some are not surprising at all (if you know what to look for). And frankly, this blog, with its second five-month hiatus, had goodbye written all over it, precisely because--haha--nothing had been written on it. (God, sometimes I kill myself.)

We all had it coming. Perhaps, the abrupt part is caused by the lack of explanations. But I have never been one for explaining my actions, really. (At least not those that go from Point A to B in a straight line.) As a scientist I had been trained to ask why and look for reasons. During my time in Japan, I learned to say "Why the hell not?" and jump into the river simply because it was there. And that's what I did. And that's what I wrote about.

As a matter of fact, this blog has so perfectly echoed my life in Japan, it is like that topmost sheet of paper on a notepad: Smudge a crayon over its surface and you'd see the indentations from the the previous sheet that's been torn off.

And you can say, that chapter of my life is finished; it's been torn off. And perhaps, by reflecting on it, by smudging some crayon over the marks, I might not have been able to find all the right reasons, all the right answers. But I sure made enough good memories to be satisfied.

And discovered some truly beautiful things to invite with me on a new page.

*****

Yes. If it meant anything at all, yes. Yes, it is.

Synchronicity: A series of events that occurred within a 24-hour period, mostly over drinks

2005-07-30T12:57:00.000+09:00

Sometimes, bizarre things happen almost at the same time or in a well-ordered manner that, when pieced together or looked at collectively, is more than just a matter of chance. Today, the cicadas are screaming--they are almost deafening.

*****

1. Empty Glass
Friday, July 29th, 12:57 PM

A friend shows me an empty shell of a cicada nymph. She tells me that cicadas spend the first half of their lives underground, feeding. Until a time comes for them to tunnel to the surface, break out of their old shell and fly away. To sing and to reproduce.

2. Milk
Friday, July 29th, 5:05 PM

A 24-year-old girl meets a 24-hour-old boy:

It's the first day of the rest of his life. It's roughly the 9,023rd day of mine. I have lived 216,528 hours more than him. He spent most of his 24 hours feeding and sleeping. I feel like I've done the same with my two-hundred-thousand-plus.

3. Coca-Cola
Friday, July 29th, 9:21 PM

I've known S. for about a year now. I won't say we are friends but we are always friendly. We've gone to the same parties, had lunch at the school cafeteria together, and asked each other for small favors.

I've always tagged him as somebody different from me. He didn't, couldn't, and would probably never understand me and my recent decisions. However, we talk at a dinner/sayonara party for a common friend, and I end up telling him about recent developments. Not ony does he respect my decision, he also understands it; and while explaining things to him, I begin to understand and value my decisions and their consequences better.

4. Whiskey
Saturday, July 30th, 2:32 AM

Two people are fresh out of a shower. The half naked man waves goodbye at me as he leads the woman to the bedroom. I smile, raise my glass in a toast, and light a cigarette. The paper crackles and the tip burns a bright, angry red as I take a long, deep drag.

Two hours later, on my way home on my bike, the hem of my much-too-long jeans is caught on the gears. I immediately back-pedal in order to free it, but this causes the hem of the other leg to be trapped. Unable to bring either of my feet down, I fall from my bike, landing on my left knee: causing an old, scabbed-over wound to bleed again.

I untangle myself--and my jeans--from the mess. As I get back on my bike, I see that two people--a man and a woman--had witnessed my fall.

5. Ice-cold Water
Saturday, July 30th, 5:34 AM

I am not sleepy, so I decide to watch a movie to pass the time.

The movie is about strange things--unbelievably strange things--that did (and do) happen. About synchronicity--when things occur seemingly in a certain order that is more than just a matter of chance.

The movie is about time--how it can seem linear at close range but can actually be curved when viewed from a fair distance. About how two different persons' times when seen in an imaginary chart could actually intersect at a single point-instant, or follow a whole series of moments, or be totally asymptotic to each other.

The movie is about signs--those that we cannot dismiss, and those that we miss. The movie is about choices--those we choose and those we choose not to choose.

The movie is about the middle--how we are often lost in the middle of nowhere: On the way to work, but making a detour; sitting alone somewhere and singing along to a song; listening to inane advertisements on an on-hold phonecall to someone one doesn't know; driving back from a failed date; hating and loving someone at the same time in equal measure--the list goes on and on and on...

6. Coffee, Tea or Orange Juice
Saturday, July 30th, 9:18 AM

So Now Then:

The cicadas are out and they are singing a rousing chorus that I cannot ignore. I am bombarded with ideas and images too fast for me to really capture and edit, and I know I have to write them down immediately but patiently. Because to postpone it is to lose the moment, and to do it haphazardly is to reduce its significance.

I sit down on a park bench, over looking a koi pond and suddenly everywhere around me is a conspiracy of signs: the lone pigeon sitting quietly facing of an empty bench; the pack of cigarettes and a lighter, lying on the same empty bench, that was left by someone I was just so sure I had met; the drop of water that fell on my arm out of nowhere; the blue-tailed lizard that sat next to me for a second before scampering away. I write and write and write as all these just cascade over me. All the while, the buzz of the cicadas in my head like a chant: Listen, listen, listen.

And I decide thet whenever the cicadas are singing--no, screaming--at me, I promise to always listen.

*****

Sometimes, bizarre things happen almost at the same time or in a well-ordered manner that, when pieced together or looked at collectively, is more than just a matter of chance. As soon as I figure that one out, I notice that the cicadas have quieted down as if they never were. But it did happen.

To Have Without Holding

2005-07-20T12:11:00.000+09:00

Learning to love differently is hard,
love with the hands wide open, love
with the doors banging on their hinges,
the cupboard unlocked, the wind
roaring and whimpering in the rooms
rustling the sheets and snapping the blinds
that thwack like rubber bands
in an open palm.

It hurts to love wide open
stretching the muscles that feel
as if they are made of wet plaster,
then of blunt knives, then
of sharp knives.

It hurts to thwart the reflexes
of grab, of clutch; to love and let
go again and again. It pesters to remember
the lover who is not in the bed,
to hold back what is owed to the work
that gutters like a candle in a cave
without air, to love consciously,
conscientiously, concretely, constructively.

I can't do it, you say it's killing
me, but you thrive, you glow
on the street like a neon raspberry,
You float and sail, a helium balloon
bright bachelor's button blue and bobbing
on the cold and hot winds of our breath,
as we make and unmake in passionate
diastole and systole the rhythm
of our unbound bonding, to have
and not to hold, to love
with minimized malice, hunger
and anger moment by moment balanced.

-- To Have Without Holding, Marge Piercy

It's funny. The first time I read this poem, I was probably 17, green as an unfurled leaf, and never had a boyfriend. Much less sexual experience. But this poem just struck me and the first time I read it, I knew how to read it out loud, too. The rhythm, the matter-of-fact-ness, the pain, the cynicism, the forced amusement at cetain parts, and the exhaustion and acceptance at the end.

I remember Mikael once planned and organized this poetry reading night in school, and he invited me to read. I had a power meeting that day that lasted until about 9 PM, and I rushed to the SEC foyer clutching two poems--one mine, the other one was Without Holding. When I get there, the place was packed and maybe about 7 people have already read. Mikael walks up to me and says, "O ano Drey, ililista ko na ba pangalan mo dun sa manila paper? Magbabasa ka ba?"

My knees were shaking but I knew I wanted to do it, I say to myself, Okay Drey, bite the bullet. So I give Mikael this shaky little nod and he walks off. Finally, my turn came, and if I remember correctly, Mikael gives this embarrasing introduction about me being a writer and a published scientist at the same time. (As if. He was in the same course as me and he was a published poet, for crying out loud.)

I walk to the little impromptu stage, knees knocking together. I ramble a little bit, apologizing that it was my first time to read, and adding that, like all first times, this could be a little painful. (Shit, I still cringe thinking about that. There were professors there, for fuck's sake.) Anyway, I read my poem first (which was awful, come to think of it now), then Without Holding.

After I finish, I walk back to my seat (knees still shaking), and this girl stops me and says, "I really like the second poem." Now, I want to answer wryly but truthfully, "Yes, me too."

So there you have it. I have come to realize I am not and never will be a poet. But dammit, dammit. Almost 8 years later, I totally, totally get this poem.

i'm a(n oxy)moron

2005-07-19T02:24:00.000+09:00

it's weird. sometimes i can't understand if i'm a lone wolf or a social butterfly. (god, i hate phrases like these. as if a butterfly flits from one flower to the other because she had nothing better to do, or that a wolf wouldn't stick with the pack because it cramped her style.)

i've always been good at being alone. as long as i had a good book with me, or my ipod, or an odd piece of paper and a pen. i could spend time meditating too. especially if the atmosphere is good--like in ryoanji, near the pond when it's not too crowded; or at the college church in ateneo when it was empty except for the choir practicing in the background; or when i'm soaking my feet in the river on a burning hot summer day.

when i was home, i wouldn't mind not going out either. i could always talk to my dad about theories, or with my mom about the past or the future, and my sisters were always great company. if and when i wanted to be alone, i could bike to the beach and listen to the waves, or immerse myself in a book.

running is an excellent way to be alone, too. and let me tell you, when you're concentrating on your breathing or on your muscles not cramping, your rhythm and how many minutes you've got left in your routine--well, there's just no room for anything else in your head, much less other people.

the thing is, i haven't been wanting to be alone lately. i craved the monochrome personality of a crowd, the buzz of a party, and the forgetting of being drunk. i wanted to fade and not be recognized; i wanted general opinion and not well-thought arguments. i wanted my concerns drowned in alcohol, or at least postponed until the next morning. i sought automatic nods, shallow laughter, tenuous bonds. i really couldn't care less--it was easier that way.

i haven't been very good at being alone with people i love too. i would make up stories, instead of going into details; i would be quiet, or try to be funny all the time. i found myself screening things that i wanted to say, even things that sometimes had to be said. i hurt my parents for not being open with them with plans and problems; and i made my sister cry when she read the posts here--i think i scared her. i put my best friend in a tricky position with my family because she's my secret-keeper. and i have perfected being calm and cool and careless with my love, even if my heart felt like it was being squeezed. hell, i couldn't even be bothered to write for so long. it was all too much commitment--and i was safer this way.

now people think i've changed so much. my mom is so worried she asks me how i am (in a disguised manner, of course) almost everyday. my old friends hardly recognize me (and they hardly hear from me, too). my new friends, well (i think) sometimes they think i'm crazy and give me odd looks. acquaintances that i've fed too much bullshit are so full of (it) themselves, they think they know me. and (i wish) my lover is confused. maybe they're all disappointed with me for one reason or another (i sometimes am).

and sometimes, my being alone is being nowhere. being caught in fiction. being deafened by music. being drunk. being with stupid people who demand the minimum of me. being stupid, period.

being nothing.

sometimes, my being alone is by distraction from solitude and loneliness. and my silence and introspection is my defense against giving too much away to others, especially those that deserve it. i'm afraid of loneliness, yet i'm afraid to commit. i want to be comprehended, but i don't want to be apprehended and labeled. i'm scared of being, but i'm terrified of nothingness.

i don't know. it's weird. it's an oxymoron. no, it's a paradox.

i can't figure out if i'm being brave or being a coward. (now these, these are entirely in human terms.)

If you care enough...

2005-07-02T07:37:00.000+09:00

Recently I learned the word FUBAR. It isn't a word as much as an acronym. Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition. Fubar. Simple as that.

***

My secret fear is that I wake up one morning and find I am forty years old, five kids and a husband under one arm and a career under another, and realize that I had done nothing with my life. And being forty with responsibilities other than those just to myself, I have no choice but to stick to the path I had paved, and that the possibility of crossroads has been taken from me forever.

And for the past three years I have been at the crossroads: one fork leading to security and what everybody expects of me; the other, to possibilities. (Possibilities. This word is enough to give me goosebumps.) This week, I finally stopped lying to myself and took the leap towards the unknown, towards those possibilities.

Now, I'm half excited, half scared out of my wits, but I tell you, I've never been this alive and this at peace. I remember a Kundera novel I read a long time ago--Identity, I think--and there's this part where the guy's sitting under a tree and he looks at the branches stretching into the infinity of choices. He thinks to himself--If I'm going to end up sticking to one path all my life, why should I stop from exploring other branches, since I know I'm going to end up traveling that single road soon enough?

So, that's how I've been feeling for so long. Confused, lost, terrified. Confused about what I wanted to do with my life. Lost in the tug of war between secure boredom and true living. And so terrified of the mere existence of other possibilities for me, that I fucked up my life for a year, so much that I hardly recognized myself. Now, I'm just glad I finally faced that decision; now I feel I can actually start to get to know myself again without all the surrounding bullshit muddying up the waters. But hell, whatever I tell myself, it's still difficult to face the fact that, right now, I'm not being what people expect me to be. That a lot of people will think I'm being stupid, ungrateful, indecisive. Crazy, in a word.

However, if you care enough, you will worry about me, and worry some more, but admit to yourself that my eyes have not shone like this in a long time. That I haven't smiled so sincerely, laughed so exuberantly, or been this motivated in a long time.

If you care enough, you'll know that I'm taking time to explore, so that I can wake up that one day when I'm forty with responsibilites up to my neck, smiling and saying that I made the right choice of all the possibilities given me.

If you care enough, you'll stop working out reasons why you wouldn't even think about trying anything like it, but figure out why I had to do it.

If you care enough, you'll admit too, to yourself that life isn't short at all, rather it is much too long not to take the occasional detour--if only to find out where you really want to be. Because both sides of the coin hold the truth: Life is too short not to take chances, and life is too long to spend regretting them.

Even if you care enough, you probably won't understand; but then you'll know what I mean.

***

Now that I know, I just don't want to look back at my life and think, Fubar. Simple as that.

shiny, happy people

2005-06-29T10:37:00.000+09:00

So, K.-the-amazing-photographer has come up with another set of really cool pictures, meaning pictures where I look good. Oops, you too, Edouard. "C'mon, it's a Saturday! I need to..."

Dave just looks so cool here. Total badass. Thing is, he almost always looks like this only when he's taking a drag and really thinking about something you just said, or something he wants to say which he wants to come out right. Weird is one of the least surprising descriptions about Dave. Good times.

Oh, to be this happy again. Well, to quote Rob in High Fidelity (movie version), "For the first time I can sort of see how that is done." Cue in "I Believe" by Stevie Wonder, as I lean back on my chair and try to live my life as honestly as possible.

P.S. Cool pictures courtesy of K. (see link to this post), but of course it wouldn't have been possible without any of the cool people in the picture! Haha, kudos to K., though. Really.

smokin' mama

2005-06-23T15:30:00.000+09:00

like they say, a smoke is worth a thousand words.

Reading List

2005-06-22T03:25:00.000+09:00

I remember all the books I've read to look cool, or hip, or intellectual, and I'm sad because now I want to read them again and I could have but chose not to. I felt that it'd be wasting time, because, hell, there's so much more other stuff to read.

But wouldn't it be better to read just one book and totally understand it (or admit that even after two or three readings you still don't get it), than to have read a hundred and not learned anything? That would be a fucking waste of time.

So. Here's a list of books I want to read (and understand) again:

1. The Great Gatsby -- I've totally forgotten what this book was about. It's as if I never read it. But I know I enjoyed it and I want to do so again.

2. Sense and Sensibility -- I just want to enjoy this one again. Probably the only Austen I haven't reread.

3. The Color Purple -- But this would make me sad. Again.

4. A Tale of Two Cities -- I hate Charles Dickens and his never-ending sentences, but I read the abridged version for a book report and got an A for it, which makes me feel guilty as hell.

5. Nine Stories -- especially the bananafish and Esme stories.

6. The Brothers Karamazov -- This was such a great book. Period.

7... I'm sure there's at least one I'm forgetting...

* * *

I remember too, having this really awful English teacher in college. (He replaced a terrific one midsemester, when the other had to go on leave to get married). He was this I'm-an-intellectual-and-I'll-have-you-know-it type and assigned us eight (8!) books to read in three months or so. The list is bellow if you're interested:

1. One hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

2. Animal Farm by George Orwell

3. Pere Goriot by Honore de Balzac

4. Social Contract and Discourse on Inequality by some French guy Rousseau

5. Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift

6. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (Hmm. This goes to #7 in the list above.)

7 and 8... I can't quite remember. Must've been really awful that I've blocked them out.

To survive the grueling pace of that class, I would barely skim through these books, just praying that their meaning would jump out at me like a really bad surprise, so that I could write a passable paper. Then on to the next book... and on and on... (I thought then that One Hundred Years was aptly titled: I thought it'd take me a century to finish it...)

And if that isn't bad, that teacher hated my guts. Once he gave us this 30-something-page of poems and songs related in one way or another to Nabokov's Lolita (which we were reading at that time), and he told us to chose anything (ANYthing!) and discuss. One of those poem/songs was The Police's Don't Stand So Close to Me, so I raised my hand and offered to talk about it.

He then gives me this really evil smirk, and drawled, "Oh, anything but that." So I gave him a dirty look and shut up for the rest of the semester.

But my best revenge was when I had to write my end-of-term paper. I chose to discuss Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, knowing that he hates books like these. (But anybody who'd choose Rousseau's Social whatever over Mockingbird is a pretentious asshole in my book.)

Anyway. I had a really old Mac Powerbook then (I now have a happy-shiny-new Smell* Inspiron 2200 named Charlie) with an illegally installed MS Word 6 with no spell check. And all over the paper, I spelled T-R-A-D-G-E-D-Y this way. (What a tragedy!) So he gave me a C-minus for the paper, and a C for the whole course (6 units, mind you), and he lived a very smug life thereafter, thinking what a stupid, spellcheck-deprived moron I was.

How is this the best revenge, you ask? I lead the rest of my life thinking he was a moron, too. And whereas he's wrong, I know I'm right. Haha. And I don't have to feel guilty about it.

By the way, his name was Ralph and I wish I had seen the movie (The Adventures of) Priscilla, Queen of the Dessert then. I'd have loved to call him Bernadette to his face and laugh like a loon.

Note *Smell Computers--for Tech Support, call somewhere in India or the Philippines. For further clarification, see Squirrelly Wrath link.

Break

2005-06-19T00:20:00.000+09:00

Even if I have never experienced snow, I know it exists. But I cannot say that I recognize it. Not how it falls--Is it like rain? Or slower? Nor how it feels--Wet? Dry? Cold? How cold? And how does the air smell before and after snow? Is it fresh or heavy? Is there an electric scent of ozone, like just before a thunderstorm? And does it fall silently? Or in a hushed pattern like rain?

But I've known other things--rain and sun and cloud and wind. Such that when I feel the heat of the sun prickling my skin and making me sweat I can say, "No, this is not snow." When I feel a fine misty rain settle over my hair, or a driving rain pelting my umbrella like stones, I can say, "This is not snow." Or when clouds pass lazily overhead and the same breeze brushes my cheeks and ruffles the leaves; more so when heat rises almost visibly over concrete roads--"No, this isn't snow."

Then I realized that one could be aware of something but understand it not--and that one couldn't fathom how it really is, yet know definitely what it isn't.

But you, you were different. You gleefully took an axe to the bell jar of my preconceptions. And I realize that I've hidden from life behind opposites and antonyms--that I have defined my world by what isn't and my life by things I haven't experienced. And as I watched my carefully built walls shatter and pieces fall in slow motion, the fragments magically turned into snow, I stood bared--naked and quivering--cold, but very much alive.

For Dave. Thank you.

cigarette break # 2

2005-06-09T12:28:00.000+09:00

I was putting a cigarette back into the pack. (Those things'll kill ya!) K.'s obsession with hands is the reason for this photo. But the real cigarette break (not a break from cigarettes) is on her blog. Click on the link to this post, darling, you'll see what I mean.

Anticipation #2

2005-06-08T04:19:00.000+09:00

I sidestep sleep with the help
of coffee and cigarettes.

The latter rationed to last
until exhaustion overtakes caffeine--
or snow falls
come the wee hours of the morning.

The sky is an uninterrupted grey
of dense clouds--a convex, bulging
surface of unimaginable weight
which I pray it will release soon.

The night is silent--
Pregnant.
Expecting.

And I, ever impatient, look to
the window periodically, continually--
wiping mist-turned-droplets off the glass pane,

hoping to see
a sprinkle of white flakes--
not quite solid, not quite liquid--
or a mountain-head mantled in white.

Though all I see is darkness and stillness,
a quiet like a cat crouching--
muscles tensed and hackles raised;

though the smattering of fluorescent lights
through my window mock me
with snowflake patterns as streetlights
expand in the mist:

I pray that it comes.
In stingy spurts that won’t settle
or a heavy blanket that will stifle everything
except the morning sun.

And with it, pray
you remember me.

when in doubt, waste time.

2005-05-16T19:01:00.000+09:00

1)Name the Things You Have Bought Today
A liter of coffee, a package of napoleones-like italian dessert, bento lunch, a pack of cigarettes and gum.

2)Name Four Drinks You Regularly Drink
Coffee, bourbon, coke, tequila. In that order.

3)Last Time You Cried ?
2nd or 3rd of January when I finally realized I was in love and there was no way out. Mind you, it wasn't exactly tears of joy.

4)What's In Your CD Player ?
Aimee Mann's Lost in Space. Been there for about a week now.

5)What's Under Your Bed ?
Two pull-out drawers where I store my winter clothes. And mutant dust-bunnies, I think.

6)Time You Wake Up Today?
I didn't. Never went to bed, so I'm walking about school with no sleep. Or is it I'm sleepwalking? Huh?

7)Current hair:
Long and layered. Just had it straightened because I finally gave in to vanity. Future plans: cornrows.

8)Current Clothes?
An olive green tee with a cool red dragon in front (which I got as a 'present' from... nevermind), jeans, my really cool blue suede sneakers with three red stripes, and my favorite orange corduroy jacket.

9)Current Desktop Picture?
A row of sailboats (huh?) along the beach in Boracay. I miss the beach.

10)Current Worry?
On the surface? That it might rain later today. Inside, reports I haven't done, experiments I've to study for, and this guy that I want to see.

11)Current Hate?
so-fuckin-eager-to-please, self-righteous and ass-kissing labmates.

12)Favorite Places To Be?
Kamogawa when the water's not too cold and I can soak my feet; the "philospher's stone" at Starbucks Sanjo-Ohashi on a clear sunny Saturday.

13)Least Favorite Place?
Laboratory at 3am, all alone and wanting to cry and cannot call any of my friends. Wait, is this a situation? Hehe.

14)If You Could Play An Instrument, what would it be?
Classical guitar. I had one in high school and was taking lessons, but no, I wanted to be a rockstar instead. So I quit the lessons, played a little folk guitar and promptly forgot everything. Until I heard the Gypsy Kings.

15)Favorite Color(s)?
Red. But it seems people notice I have a lot of orange and purple stuff.

16)How Tall Are You?
5'3.5" but I think that's too complicated, so let's leave it at 5'4" okay? Okay?!

17)Current Favorite Word/s?
"No fucking way!" "Sou desu neh..."

18)One wish that came true:
That I get into Kyodai.

19)Favorite Day?
Weekend.

20)Where Would You Like To Go Right Now?
Home and sleeeeeeeeeeep. zzzzzzz. Or have a drink somewhere...

21)Where Do you want to live when you get married?
Even if I'm not married, I'd love to stay somewhere a stone's throw from the beach.

22)Favorite foods?
Now, Thai and Japanese curry.

23)Color of most clothes you own:
red, purple/lilac, black

24)Number of pillows you sleep w/?
Two. But I really just use one.

25)What do you wear when you go to sleep?
tank tops and shorts or pyjama bottoms.

26)What were you doing 12 midnight last night?
I was leaving a friend's house.

27)How old will you be in 10 years?
34. And hopefully, wiser and better, too.

28)What do you think you'll be doing in 10 years?
Travelling still?

29)Do you have braces?
Used to. One year in college where my dentist hid from me everytime I had an appointment (usually it's the other way around right?), so I ended up removing them by myself. Using pliers.

30)Are you paranoid?!
Over-analytical and overly cautious. Is that a yes?

31)Do you burn or tan?
I roast. I turn a nice reddish brown, exactly the color of extra-crispy lechon.

32)What is the brand of your wallet?
I have no idea.

33)Your alarm clock?
Some generic shit from the combini.

34)Your phone?
Toshiba

35)Your bag?
Book bag, no brand, tartan print. Weekend bag, Gap with a cigarette burn. All around backpack, Jansport.

36)TV?
Second-hand Aiwa.

37)First real memory of something?
Stealing my little brother's baby bottle and making him cry.

38)First screen name?
As herself.

39)First piercing/tattoo?
First piercing, ears. Then ears again. And recently, navel! Yey! Tattoo over my left shoulder. And I've just finished drawing another possibility for my second...

40)First enemy?
The neighborhood bully who had asthma and was rumored to eat live lizards.

41)Last library book checked out?
Wuthering Heights and Northanger Abbey. Both of which are overdue already! Haha.

42)Last person you yelled at?
An irritating and meddling not-so-friend a month ago.

43)Last crush?
This 11- or 12-year old kid I saw last week. Beautiful cafe au lait skin, dreadlocks down midback, and the most amazing hazel eyes.

44)Last CD/song played?
Don't go down, Elliot Smith

45)Last food you ate?
Caramel roll with some kind of flan/pudding in the middle. Yum!

46)Last annoyance?
Had to attend this seminar on radioisotopes for 4 straight hours and in the end, I had to give blood! X-files, anyone?

47)Last disappointment?
That I don't have more money? But this is kind of my constant disappointment...

48)Last thing written by hand?
Notes for my zemi earlier today.

49)Last words spoken?
Oishikatta! Gochisosama desu.

50)Last ice cream eaten?
Apple pie at Haagendazs when they still had that promo--se7en (se7en!!!) scoops for 500yen.

i'm a collage

2005-05-09T03:40:00.000+09:00

so. the past few months, i've been in love, terrified, confused, lazy, busy, heart-broken, etc. i owe the people who check my blog once in a while a humongous apology for the long and unexplained absence. i'm sorry guys. so a quick rundown of what happened to me since, just to bridge the gap between then and now.

september. failed my entrance exams to the master's course. got really depressed. got drunk. met this guy that i'd later fall in love with. all this happened in one day.

october. pretty much stopped going to school. fell in love. got burned. took revenge in the worst way possible. turned 24 and pretty much into an alcoholic.

november. took a risk which paid off very well, answered all my questions, and cleared my heart and head. for a while anyway.

december. began taking my responsibilities seriously again. studied for my second-chance entrance exams. spent christmas and new year with the one i love. my first snowfall. lovely, lovely, lovely.

january. studied like hell for exams. got broke because of exam fees to two universities. studied. studied. crammed. survived on coffee, cigarettes and alcohol.

february. took two exams to two universities, one of which during valentine's day. passed both. amazingly happy but really, really, really tired.

march. went into hiding from friends, university, scholarship and lover. burnt out, i guess. got into really big trouble with almost everybody except my closest friends and family. two good friends in japan went back home. felt lonely, shitty, selfish, depressed, defiant. got a talking to and almost lost everything, enough to slap me awake.

april. got my shit together. finally. went to school everyday, studied, did my experiments. was happy because i had a purpose, a goal and was working towards it. love went away.

may. still working towards the goal, which is basically to do my best to get this degree and have the most fun i can. so at least some things are clear in my head. for now.

today. a little bit sad and confused. i dont know why. but i feel good about paying attention to this blog again. the whole time between then and now, i was writing, writing, writing. but i felt they were too personal, too painful to be published. i dunno. i rarely wear my heart on my sleeve, and during that period my heart (and my writing) was in fragments. i'll sift through them, and we'll see.

"Say you were split, you were split in fragments
And none of the pieces would talk to you
Wouldn't you want to be who you had been?
Well baby I want that too"

-- Aimee Mann, Humpty Dumpty

A small intro to the post below...

2005-05-09T03:36:00.000+09:00

I've been away so long, I've almost forgotten my username and password (but weirdly enough, remembered the one to an old, forgotten and almost-unrecoverable blog). But anyway, that last one is a product of one of the most confusing times of my life, thus the long absence. I wrote it (as the date says) October 14th of last year, but just published it today.

God, its been so long, but the song stays the same...

Fini

2004-10-14T16:04:00.000+09:00

The final test, the final show, and the final act won't be until tonight, but I've had quite a few rehearsals since that surreal Sunday afternoon--when I first became aware of the spotlight on my face, its blinding light and its sweltering heat, and of the audience I've been unknowingly entertaining for the past three weeks.

And looking back, I'm thinking I played my part quite well, in this weird play. In the first few acts, even as I was unaware there even was a play, I can say I handled it well. But it's these last few scenes that I'm determined to perfect. As I should, given that I've been writing, rewriting and memorizing lines, playing out scenarios, anticipating scene-change difficulties.

So what else could I do tonight, but pull it off? Pull it off, and pull it off magnificently? I know my lines, I know my place among the cast, I've been to two dress rehearsals, and I've been staying in character for the past four days. I've been laughing, giggling, gesturing excitedly whenever I talk to friends. I've immersed myself in the places significant to the plot.

But suddenly, I'm not so sure. Despite the hours and money spent on alcohol, analyses, phonecalls and emails, despite the endless pep talks and support-group meetings, I am unsure. Because my head is still reeling, and my heart... well, my heart is just pitching and rolling in the ocean of unshed tears inside my chest.

Letter to a John (or Jane)

2004-10-08T15:45:00.000+09:00

The body is made up of parts; parts that are supposed to work together and complement each other. And half of what's mine is defective.

When I was 8, I got the mumps. Unlike most ears which share the burden of the pain and swelling, my right ear heroically (and later, I would think, foolishly) assumed the brunt of the load. I recovered from it unscathed, or so I thought, until I found myself listening to music with an earphone only in my right ear and not hearing a thing. Cranking up the volume didn't help, all I heard (and felt) was the muffled thump of bass vibrating against my ear.

When I was around 11 or so, I had to have my eyes corrected for myopia and astigmatism. I wore (thick, soda-bottle-like) glasses until mid-high school, until I was able to convince my parents to get me contact lenses. Then in college, I got an infection in my eye from the contacts. It was so bad, I had to undergo operation to clean up the mess and to remove my chewed-up lens. After that, my eye pretty much useless; and this time, it was the left one.

My whole life, I have been left-handed, in writing, baseball, chopsticks, bowling, table tennis, and pretty much everything else. My left hand is pretty much five times more dexterous than my right. And although I strongly suspect being left-footed, too (soccer, dancing, kickball and kick-butt), my right foot seems to be just a tad bigger than my left.

This gives you an impression that I look quite horrible, maybe something out of a Picasso portrait. Not true. I actually look pretty normal. If normal means two sets of ears, eyes, nostrils (all the same size), complete set of teeth, limbs, digits, and internal organs working as they should, then yes, I am normal.

Actually, there is nothing wrong with me that you can see.

My close friends know that when I insist on walking with them at my left, it's not because "I feel more comfortable that way" (something I might tell a stranger), it's necessary so I can hold a conversation without having them repeat every word at 5-minute intervals.

For a time after my eye operation, I would pour water and have it spill down about two inches away from the mouth of the glass. This used to irritate my dad, and baffle the hell out of me, until we realized it was caused by my unbalanced vision, which, good thing, I was able to correct with practice.

Being left handed is nothing problematic, except when I came to Japan and noticed that nobody held their chopsticks with their left hand. I worried that this may seem rude, until I met a Japanese guy who was also left handed and held his chopsticks the same way.

So you see, I found my rhythm. Which is not to say I didn't have problems with it. For my college yearbook, I had to put in something weird about myself. First thing that came to mind of course, was my deaf right ear and my near-blind right eye. I was sure nobody could top that one. But I do have some vanity, and instead, I put in some shit about being more afraid of ferris wheels than rollercoasters. This was true enough, though far from, you know, being the weirdest thing about me.

Still I learned to come to terms with it and its consequences. I will probably never get to be a pilot, much less fly an F-16, but then I could try hangliding, or bungee jumping. I will always wear both earphones when listening to music, because wearing just one gives people an impression I have an ear out for conversation. I will never be the best candidate for archery or shooting, but then again these are not my best sports. I will forever play pingpong left-handed, but I do have a mean backhand.

But I will always cringe at having to undergo full medical examination, physical inspection, or just having to explain all these over again, whether to a nosy acquaintance, a potential friend, a new boss, or a kindly professor.

So please, stop telling me I have beautiful eyes. That's flattering, but in a way, false. It seems to me having them sitting pretty on my face, when only one is truly functional, is like a trick I pull on you. I am roughly three-quarters Filipino, one-quarter Spanish, but this makes you think I look Indian, Iranian, or Turkish. Another misdirection I don't intend. You see me wearing skinny tanktops, dangling earrings, slippers and a tattoo, and you seem to think I am not serious about my life and the things I do. And just because I have a nice appearance, a body I'm happy with, and a healthy attitude towards sex, do you think I'm easy?

And my getting worked up about all these is unreasonable, given that most of the time, you don't know me beyond what I want you to see and learn. Now that's unfair, because in this case, I fully intend it to be so.

I sometimes wonder if it would be better if I had a glass eyeball (a possible consequence of that eye infection), or if I go through with that threat to cut off my ear (you know which one), should it stop my vertigo. Or if my left arm was twice as big as the right, and my head larger than my breasts and ass put together. Then, maybe, you'll look at me and see me as I am. No tricks, no wool over your eyes. Then, maybe, I wouldn't feel as if I were fooling you into something I'm not. Or worse, giving off vibes that I'm less than I really am.

Not to mention I'd have one less thing to be angsty about.

And now, shit, I'm being a hypocrite. Of course I'm happy to have both eyes and ears on my face, pretty or not. Of course I'm grateful that my arms and legs are (more or less) of the same size. I don't want to think about how my neck would suffer if my head grew to the size of a watermelon. And I can't even imagine what would happen if my breasts were to become smaller than they already are. (Though I honestly wouldn't mind if my ass shrank a little bit.)

So where am I going with all these? I'm not sure. I suppose what I would really like to do is to issue a warning. A disclaimer of sorts, I guess you could call it. And I'm taking the initiative, making the fine print a little easier to read.

Slide

2004-09-15T22:56:00.000+09:00

I had a party to get to.

A yakiniku tabehodai (eat-all-you-can Korean-style grilled meat) dinner and a night of drinking and dancing with friends who wanted to drown their troubles with alcohol and bury their self-doubts with loud music.

I had a party to get to. But it seems the rain had other ideas for me that night. Just as I was about to leave my laboratory, it released this great flood of water. It poured down in great white sheets, enough to make gutters tremble and enough to delay dinner for an hour and a half.

Finally, the pour slowed down to a trickle: a slow and very light rain one wouldn't mind getting caught in. A fine mist like perfume which made the streetlamps glow and created halos over un-umbrellaed people walking down the street. I put on my jacket and got on my bike.

In the middle of the ride, the rain got stronger, pelting me and my bicycle in a driving rhythm which to my ears sounded like mocking laughter. I trusted my all-weather breaker to do its job and see me through, so I shifted to high gear and pedaled on.

Out of nowhere, another biker came out of an intersection. I hit the brakes for the rear tire, but the roads were so wet, my bike skidded and fishtailed before I could fully control it. Nobody (and nobody's bike) got hurt, and we both apologized for whoever's fault it was. (My brakes'? The rains'? His? Mine?)

I got back on my bike. I had a party to get to.

Out of nowhere, a song plays in my head: "The pouring rain is no place for a bicycle ride, try to hit the brakes and you slide. And you slide, and you slide, and you slide..."

It's quiet here except for...

2004-09-07T15:49:00.000+09:00

Boy. Talk about old news. I haven't had the time lately to update this blog, much less my life. But this page is beginning to look boring... So.

I had written a little something, but I'm still undecided whether to put it here. I was rereading it a few nights ago and not only was it poorly written, it sounded self-righteous, too. Grrr. Blame it on lack of sleep, too much coffee and too-loud-neighbors-fighting-over-breakfast-and-waking-me-up.

Today is the first of my two-day graduate school entrance exam, known as of today as the do-I-really-know-what-the-fuck-I'm-doing? day. Tomorrow will probably be thank-god-it's-over-I-can't-care-less-about-the-result-slash-time-to-paaaaaarrrrtttteeeyyyy! day.

(A friend of mine noticed before that whenever I hyphenate a lot, it means I'm having a lot of fun making fun of myself or other people, or I'm tearing my hear out in anger/frustration. Guess which is it today.)

Anyway, I hate it that I have left this blog to rot over the past month. And on such a low, so-much-drama, note. So. Here's a little something by that girl who is where/who/what/why I want to be: Ani D.

The title is Loom. Not quite my favorite, but the lyrics fit, and it goes out to "that poet who can never be mine." Go figure.

LOOM

you've always got those dark sunglasses
covering half your face
but if you promise to take them off
i promise i won't squander your gaze
i will be picturesque
i will be nice
i won't do anything you can't tell your wife
i will think before i act
i will think twice
just let me see your eyes

each time we've spoken, we've put in a token and ridden the tilt-a-whirl
i was giggling and dizzy
flirting like a 12 year old girl
the carnival of you and me is coming to town
watch how we spin and spin and then fall down
now we just say hello and head for firmer ground

you are the one-way glass
that watches me
standing in line at the bank
i always looked into your glasses
like a cat looks into a fish tank
but all i could ever see
was the specter of me reflected
i want a monument of friendship
that we never had erected
i want it to take up lots of room
i want it to loom

you always got those dark sunglasses
between us when we talk
after the party is over
if you wanna take a walk
we could just look around
not do nothing wrong
just try to be at least as brave as our songs
i will bring my heart
i will bring my face
you just name the time and place

Mornings After

2004-06-23T15:54:00.000+09:00

I wake up around dawn, and I have the same feeling I had the other night: that I've got no ballast, nothing to weigh me down, and if I don't hang on I'll just float away. I like Marie a lot, she's funny and smart and pretty and talented, but who the hell is she? I don't mean that philosophically. I just mean I don't know her from Eve, so what am I doing in her bed? Surely there's a better, safer, more friendly place for me than this? But I know there isn't, not at the moment, and that scares me rigid.

You said to me that night: "No, don't change. Don't change anything about yourself."

But you know nothing about me: You don't know that I suffer from vertigo and shouldn't have too much chocolate, cheese, strawberries, and beer. You don't know that I smoke roughly a pack a day and perhaps need to quit. You don't know that I'm thinking of growing my hair long, so I can have cornrows or dreadlocks, or both. You don't know that I'm thinking of getting another tattoo, this time at the small of my back.

You don't know--as I know nothing about you.

You, who took my hand and lead me into a slow dance. You, who drank orange juice with me from one bottle. You, who fed me honey off the blunt edge of a knife. You: who smoked your last cigarette with me, shared your towel, your soap, your toothbrush. You, who ran your hands up and down my back as I lay on my stomach, my head against your shoulder. You, who pulled me into a spoon while you slept, and I couldn't for trying to match my breathing with yours.

We know nothing about each other. Nothing to warrant your odd request. Not our last names, birthdays, the kind of peope we don't like. We don't know how the other feels about pop music, wasabi, baseball, or karaoke. Or how we feel about being away from our homes, our families. About how the other can be lonely, and what we do to cope.

All we know is that when morning came, I had to leave, dressed in yesterday's clothes--with no regrests, but perhaps a bit of sadness. And shame.

Post-mortem

2004-06-23T15:11:00.000+09:00

In a corny self-discovery essay, I read that to write effectively, one must write about what one knows. But what do I know? I know that I do not know. I even know what I do not know:

1. I do not comprehend the ways of mornings-after.

2. I am not familiar with another meaning of casual where rules are set beforehand; and reiterated (numerically) after-fact.

3. I do not know what I did wrong, or if I did anything wrong in the first place. (And "I don't mean that philosophically.")

4. I am unsure what to feel about the whole thing, how I should feel about it.

5. I do not know his last name.

Writing all that, I realize, these are what I know:

1. That I felt awkward, at the very least, the next day. And the reasons for it are light years away from the obvious ones.

2. That I worried my friends unnecessarily.

3. That sitting here now, writing (instead of being in a boring class), is running away, whatever excuses I come up with.

4. That somewhere inside me, lies a part of mself I have largely ignored in the last year, who shares this depression with me, though perhaps more profoundly.

5. That I will most probably do it again.

So in an attempt at a half-assed analysis, I am now sitting near the river, drinking coffee and trying to write. However, the atmosphere is much too light and friendly: The tourists in their shorts and tanks and slippers, moms with their strollers, and old couples leaning on their canes--or each other. No dark clouds threaten to hurry me home. The river runs along smoothly, almost... cheerfully. And on the bank are pigeons, and ducks and cranes. There are no crows in sight.

And I am wearing black today--head to foot and inside-out. I am mourning something, yet I cannot seem to apprehend it, much less comprehend its emptiness. Or perhaps this nothingness is all that I can understand of that loss--a presence now-acknowledged, now-recognized for its absence.

Across the river, a little boy is crouched, stretching his arms wide, and going low, ready to pounce. He takes three tentative steps, before breaking into a run, his arms flying like windmills. Suddenly, from behind the weeds, a flock of crows burst out---the sound of wings flapping and low-throated cries echo in the air long after they are gone.

Top five things about today

2004-06-16T20:10:00.000+09:00

1. "It's brilliant, being depressed; you can behave as badly as you like." --Rob Gordon

2. I stayed up half the night making lists of Things-to-Dos. I did 2 out of 7 of today's list, but I feel pretty good about it.

3. I was bored in Japanese class, not because I couldn't understand anything, but because I could, and others couldn't and the teacher spent 45 minutes on the same topic.

4. I saved a turtle's life today.

5. The day isn't over yet: I'm going dancing tonight.

Bike Chronicles Part I: The (Mis-)Adventures of Dr. Dread, Japan series

2004-06-15T16:23:00.000+09:00

My first serious biking accident (in Japan, anyway) was at a time I as going home to Misasagi, around a month or so ago. It was around 3:00 in the afternoon, and I hadn't had any sleep since the day before. (Hey, I'm setting the scene here).

My old and awfully inconvenient route went something like this: From Kyodai, I take Higashioji-dori (Higashioji Street) straight up to Sanjo-dori, then turn left and follow Sanjo all the way up(hill) to Misasagi. Nearing the Sanjo intersection, Higashioji-dori's sidewalks begin to narrow. Narrow sidewalks in Japan, by the way, mean that two bikers and a lamppost are a tight squeeze. Anyway, since the aforementioned lack of sleep led me to doubt the speed of my reaction time, I decided to take my bike out into the much wider street. (Another stupid-thing-to-do-in-retrospect.)

After three blocks (and three million cars zipping by), and spotting a clear (albeit still narrow) sidewalk, I decide to take my bike back into the pavement. Now, Japan sidewalks are usually biker-friendly, meaning there are no humps to make you bounce on your bike like a rodeo star bent on reaching the 8-second buzzer. In true fashion, I had to choose the one exception... And as my front wheel hit the hump, and my bike jerked in reaction, my brain lost no time in shutting down and my hands immediately assumed no responsibility by letting go of the handlebars, while my eyes widened in quicksilver-stages and 3 million uh-ohs rang in my head.

I landed hard, and so did my bike. Luckily, save for scraped palms, torn jeans and a bruised ego, I was okay. I heaved my bike up and got on it, bent on biking all the way home. (Bruised ego cursing and Eye of the Tiger playing in the background.) I put my foot on the pedal, ready to go... But nothing happened! The chain had come off the grears!!! (Note to self: Buy Cycling for Dummies.) Like any independent 90s woman, I try to fix the problem by myself while surreptitiously looking out for a cute guy to offer help.

Alas, scraped palms, grimy hands and a broken fingernail later, and still thrown hopelessly out of gear, I give up. I walk my bike back to the university, to the shop where I bought it. The only place I knew I could get help.

I walk for thirty minutes (all the while shamefully hiding my grimy hands, curling the greasy fingernails into my palms), back up the street I (and three million cars) had just zipped by, suffering what-the-fuck looks from other bikers. (If you see my very "kakkoii," very "nice" badass-bike, you'll understand.) I finally reach the shop, and with a grave "Tasukete kudasai," asked the owner to fix my bike. He was very kind nice about it, and even gave me a stern lecture on safety. (Actually, the only words of the lecture I understood was "dangerous" and "cars"; stern was deduced from his expression, but nevermind that.) Anyway, after all this, I took a deep breath, gave thanks that I was not seriously injured, and got myself ready to... Park my bike at school and take the bus and subway home. And that's exactly what I did.

Note to reader:

All of the above was actually meant as an introduction to my second though not-so-serious accident, which happened yesterday, and was somewhat similar to the first. Somewhat similar because the second one also happened as I was on my way home, suffering from lack of sleep, and the chain had also come off the gears. However, this time, I did not get thrown off (I jumped off gracefully, there's a difference), and suffered no scraped palm or what not (although ego was slightly bruised).

Anyway, since the introduction became the entire story, let me get to my point quickly and painlessly: I fixed the chain-had-come-off problem all by myself!!!!!! And save for grimy and greasy hands, which are totally unavoidable, really, I was no worse for wear!

And so, this time around, with my grimy hands like a proud banner, I get on my bike, grip the handlebars with new-found confidence, and position my foot onto the pedal: I was ready. I was ready to take on anything, set to finish the course. And with head held high, I went home.

(In the background, playing: Chariots of Fire, ego humming along.)

riddle you ragged

2004-06-14T15:03:00.000+09:00

if the ear holds the key to one's sense of balance, will cutting your ear off at moments of unbearable dizziness restore your balance or will it make you dizzy for the rest of your life?

ps. vertiginous, defined as "affected by vertigo, dizzy, or causing vertigo" by Dictionary.com is the adjective for vertigo. Not "vertiguous" as I had previously thought, and unknowingly invented. haha. i stand corrected mr. webster.

excuse me, i'm dizzy

2004-06-13T18:48:00.000+09:00

for some odd reason, i don't like my camel lights today.

camels, here in japan, are a treat for me. they cost 30yen more than
mild sevens, (and though thirty yen isn't much) i like to pretend they're
my "special days" brand. like when i'm doing laundry and looking forward
to wearing those detergent-fresh, static-clingy clothes.

but today, they taste bitter, and the paper doesnt make that crackling
sound when i take a drag.

as i ponder possible reasons, i latch onto one i really like: have i
gotten used to my ordinary-days, nothing-special-about-it mild seven
extra lights with 3mg of tar and 0.3mg of nicotine?

in a land i love, but have yet to fit in (where cigarettes are "tabako,"
fish fillets have wasabi sauce, a socket is called a "consent," and PC
keyboards confuse the hell out of me) finding something to call my own
is most comforting.

the fear of falling

2004-06-12T23:03:00.000+09:00

so i'm spending a rainy friday afternoon in bed, when i should be in my laboratory. i'm fighting off (or falling into, i don't know which yet) a nasty dizziness caused by vertigo because i just had to have a ham-and-cheese omelette.

good thing im not allergic to eggs, or i'd probably be dead now.

then again, the way i feel, dead probably wouldn't be so bad.

so i do the next best thing:

i close my eyes. imagine i'm in an open field somewhere, lying naked on the wet grass, all alone for miles and miles. letting the rain wash away all the traces of toxins in my body, the mascarra and dark circles around my eyes, the smell of sweat and cigarette smoke from my hair, the tattoo on my back and other people's marks on my skin.

and just before my own fingerprints dissolve into nothingness, into the oblivion which my body has for so long sought, my soul rises up like a white flag from among the green, conspicuous in its surrender.

i need a good sountrack

2004-06-10T23:17:00.000+09:00

(this is an old one, but hey, this is my blog isnt it?)

i spent a nice friday night at home alone, sleeping or eating or smoking, drinking tea i don't like... you get the drift.

and it really was a nice night too: pre summer when there's a slight breeze but not too cool and not too hot, like you can wear a tank top and shorts and not worry about freezing your ass off or sweating like a pig.

i read a book i've read a thousand times since coming to japan, one of the better ones off my shamefully small, entertainment-in-english-and-i-don't-mean-easy-living-in-kyoto
collection. the rest are japanese language textbooks...

(oh god, where did my floor-to-almost-ceiling books go? packed hurriedly in a box at my sisters apartment in makati, gathering dust. will the words still be there when i return? or will the pages dissolve at a touch?)

so yeah it's safe to say im depressed. and to make matters worse, i chose to stop rereading that book at its most depressing part when, having read it over and
over i could have chosen to edit those out and jump to the funny parts or rewind to the profound ones or hell, even skip to the very satisfying i've-just-started-a-new-phase-in-my-life-and-its-starting-to-make-sense-again-and-none-of-that-corny-self-righteous-cliches-thank-you-very-much ending. but i don't. so what does that say about me?

hell. somebody get a thesaurus and give me the common every-day word for masochist. loser seems too mundane and covers a lot of ground. depressed is... well, over-used. while what just happened and this entry is too long, painful and fucking draining.

Loneliness redefined

2004-06-10T22:13:00.000+09:00

Wednesdays, I have Japanese class until 6:00pm. Usually, by 5:00, I would be so bored I would spend time cursing my wristwatch for being 5 minutes advanced. I would shuffle my feet under the desk, itching to check my phone for messages or missed phone calls since it usually vibrates anywhere from 2 to 5 times during that three-hour class. Invitations from friends for dinner, or a movie, or just to ask me to tell the teacher why they'd be missing class.

This Wednesday was different. No phone calls. Not a single message. Not even a stupid phone company ad. To make matters worse, I had forgotten to put it on silent mode, which, by virtue of Murphy's Law, should have had increased the chances of it ringing at inappropriate times (e.g., class time) by 500%.

After class, I eagerly check my phone, hoping I had somehow missed something. Nope. So I initiate contact and email my two closest friends inviting them to dinner. No response. I call one of them. He shuts it off mid-ring.

I go to dinner in the cafeteria, hoping to spot somebody I know. No one. I sit along side two Japanese guys, and I cannot even eavesdrop to their conversation. Two minutes pass and they leave the table. I find myself sitting alone in one of the longest table in a canteen that's packed.

I go home. The streets are dark, and my bike light is losing power. I meet no one on the road, not even a rock that would make me take spill on my bicycle, hurt myself and remind me I'm there. I reach my dorm, climb four flights of stairs (I met no one, by the way) to my room. I take off my clothes, lie on the bed, chug on lousy orange juice and take one of the best escape routes known to me: I sleep for 15 straight hours.

Journal entry # 3739

2004-06-10T22:06:00.000+09:00

I miss my old journal. And my En 21 essays. And my Mcdonalds table napkin scribblings. Those proofs of a time long gone when I can write and not just pretend to know how.

I went home today by bicycle, and it tired me out (That's my excuse. What's yours?). Was lying in bed reading The Best American Essays of 2003, and now I'm tired and envious. Not a good feeling. So, in a spur-of-the-moment decision, I decided to go down to the PC room and churn out whatever I can. This is my excuse. Go figure.

Lost Memories

2004-04-25T20:51:00.001+09:00

I have forgotten to write about how I lost my phone to an imagined in-dire-straits pickpocket a little less than a month before coming here.

I suppose my initial irritation was due to the thought of those forever-lost phone numbers, full-of-sentiment-and-never-to-be-read-over-and-over-again messages, the practical my-bank-account-information-was-stored-there! anxiety.

I suppose I failed to make the loss important, as after a while, I recovered some of those numbers. I forgot all about those once-all-too-important messages. I was excited over the prospect of going to Japan and buying a new phone--and I did get to buy a new, more-savvy keitai denwa here in the Land of Technology.

But tonight I came across a poem by Constantine Cavafy called Morning Sea, and I remembered why I should've mourned the loss of that little thing.

I remember going home from work, speeding down cliff-side roads in 150-percent-capacity jeepneys and seeing how many different faces an ocean can assume, depending on time of day, weather, and yes, even moods.

I remember an opaque sea, almost like a dance floor, where an imagined partner would guide me into a slow slow dance, ending up with me missing a step and being swallowed by cold, thick saltwater, inch by inch, while he calmly looks on, as if I deserved it for stepping on his immaculately-shined shoes.

I remember a furious sea in San Joaquin, battering anybody insolent enough to try and invade his territory--spewling wave after wave of water-wall, that my stupid attempts at a dawn swim ended with me sprawled, defeated on the shore.

I remember a slumbering beach, slowly waking to the rising sun and cheerfully reflecting the sky's mild oranges and romantic lilacs and gleefully echoing wind-song.

I remember smoking along evening shores, keeping lonely driftwood company and watching late-day joggers, stray dogs, and lovers kissing in the shadows.

I have forgotten all that when I lost that phone, that little piece of convenience--or cause of irritation. I have forgotten all these memories, these memories hurriedly input on message-outbox, as more often than not I would find myself in the mood to write, but weaponless. Armed only with that phone.

And in those time, that phone became more than just a convenience, or an irritation. More than just a way for people both loved, liked and hated to search me out of my dark-hole and bother me. It became my best friend, the keeper of my darkest thoughts, privy to my inner-pain, my untold joy, my celebrated or cursed aloneness.

After Morning Sea, I now remember why I should've mourned that handy sometimes-journal, that ready-for-any-mood confidante, that old and comfortable friend.

So, once again, memory has left me with nothing but sadness, and a half-hearted attempt at rationalizing another loss in my life. And I fervently hope, that my imagined dire-straits pickpocket truly needed my friend for food on the table, or made his daughter happy on her birthday, or even made his own life a little more convenient. For any other reason I lost those memories, and the only friend who shared them with me is unbearable. It would be like losing them all over again.

unravel me

2004-04-21T13:13:00.000+09:00

(copied and maybe edited a little from my journal,
a few minutes before the 21st of April
in my room in Misasagi, Yamashina, Kyoto City)

I don't know how to write anymore. I mean I can still write and I want to write, but I don't know how to put it down on paper. I mean literally put pen on paper and produce paragraphs. (See, I can't even tell you coherently what I want anymore--literally and figuratively.)

I guess I've lost my patience. I've lost it all over again---the patience to sort out thoughts, to look for and choose the right words, to construct sentences and know when to insert significant pauses, and yes, even the patience to skip a line and create a space between paragraphs. I've lost it all. (If you could only see how awful my handwriting is.)

Is this all really true, you wonder? How can somebody who claim not to know how to write, write three consecutive entries in her blog? You don't get it. Sure, I can type it all up in a keyboard, bang on {Enter} and clack up {Tab} and {Backspace} and choose letters from {Aa} to {Zz}, choose the #!.,@="&)* punctuations. I even have the patience for your old {ctrl-alt-delete} routine, should something go awry.

But I've lost my patience for that magical time it takes to form that secret, silent thought to the chosen, hushed, uttered word, and finally to that again-silent, unerasable, written testimony. (If you could see me sweating it out now, only to complete this routine.)

Where did all that go? Did I lose my muse, as Lyra did? Am I less lonely here? (Yeah, could've fooled me. I would jump and stop all this nonsense right now if the phone rang, but that's another story.)

Before this entry, and I guess even after it, my second journal lies blank except for lists of things to do, people's phone numbers back home, tattoo designs and other crap. Am I losing my memories to other people? The things I've written recently are reports, quizzes, emails, text messages and my shitty blog publications.

Am I losing my memories to other people? Are my moments lost to the confusion and vulnerability and virtuality of cyberspace? Will you even remember this entry, this blog, how you felt when you read it after you visit this site, or long after I stop writing here, or forget my password, or when all the ads pull out and this blog has to shut down? Will you? Will I?

I will perhaps one day, fill all these blank journal pages, even throw it away or burn it, but I believe that once written, words can never be taken back. You can admit something by saying it, but you can never, and I mean never deny something you have written. Your handwriting will stare back at you and force you to acknowledge it as your own. Even the slightest memories will rush up and squeeze your throat, reminding you when and what you were feeling when you wrote that piece. Pen and paper will be ready to answer a subpoena to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth about what you wrote, god help them.

It could be that all this shit is laughable and untrue and just plain bullshit by next week, two years from now, tomorrow, or even in the next minute, but you and I will know that the minute I finish all this (the minute a click on {Publish your Post}), that this is how I felt, how I was thinking that very moment I was sweating it out to write this. And perhaps I won't remember as clearly how I struggled, or how difficult this was, but I will never be able to deny this experience again. Ever.

There's this song by Jonny Lang that talks about this girl, writing on her journal, pouring out all her secret ambitions and deepest thoughts, when suddenly the piece of paper flies out the window. She feels bad about this ("A part of your heart/All alone in the night" he sings), but suddenly imagines what if, what if, somebody finds it and reads it and it makes him/her smile, or laugh, or cry or even just nod his/her head in agreement. And suddenly she doesn't mind it being lost at all, because she knows it's not, having written it and confirmed it, and knowing somebody will find it and read it and somehow confirm her, too.

(Right here, about right this time, you'll begin to think, Whew finally, she'll stop all this angst, all this unproductive anger. She's found that crutch, that part of the story, where you can breath easy and be ready to hear the moral. Well, fuck, you're in for a disappointment. Let me tell you now, in case you want to stop reading this, I am not finished, I will perhaps never be finished with angst.)

But needless to say, all of the above was a fucking song, and what are the chances that somebody who finds what I've written will really care about what I wrote, or will even read what I wrote, or even recognize the stuff between the lines (will they even know that there are stuff between the lines?). What are the chances somebody will even find that blown away piece of paper? You know that in real life it'll probably get stepped, trampled, spit on and end up wet and dirty and crumpled and unreadable in some corner, waiting for the rain or the wind to take it somewhere where it can die with dignity. If your piece of paper's lucky, this is what will probably happen. Or someone could find it and use it to pick up their dog's shit in the park.

I know that life doesn't offer guarantees. Hell, the six-year-old understands that right after you tell her there's no Santa. And I know that that's one of the more beautiful and brilliant things about it sometimes. But tonight it's fucking cold and I've got the cough and I can't finish one cigarette for the burning in my throat.

Yeah, life takes your money and sometimes screws you over. Like that doctor telling me I'm fine and don't need medicine.

I could use some sleep inducers tonight.

Kaze wo hiita

2004-04-20T16:47:00.000+09:00

so i get to be sick in another country.

took my bike home monday last week. three quarters of the way was a fuckin uphill climb that got steeper and steeper. just when my legs couldn't take anymore punishment, it sloped down to one hell of a rollercoaster drop. sure enough the wind slapped at my face, dried my lips, nearly peeled the contact lenses from　my　eyes, and froze my lungs.

so now i have the cold. or kaze, as the japanese call it. i spend my days coughing and sneezing and generally just feeling miserable. i think there's nothing worse than being sick where there's no one to really care if you get well soon or not. nobody to visit you if you stay home to recover. nobody to offer to make you soup or hot tea. no mommy to check for fever. it's sad.

but it's interesting too. i went to the doctor today, daring the language barrier and millions of japanese lining up for their annual medical checkup. i fill up a form, write my name in katakana, indicate that i'm a "firipinjin." the nurse shows me the way to the doctor's office with a polite "douzo," and before i could even start on my "nihongo ga sukoshi wakarimasu" routine, the doctor asks "can you speak english?"

whew. all my troubles over. he checks me up, tells me all i have is a swollen and irritated throat. my lungs sound good, so there's no pneumonia. double whew. in the end he sends me home (no need for medicine) and doesn't even make me pay a single yen. i told you it was interesting.

so, mom, don't worry about a thing. your precious daughter is surviving her first month in japan. i just wish i had somebody to ask me how i am and really want to know the answer.

Kyoto Confusion

2004-04-19T13:27:00.000+09:00

So I was supposed to go to a friend's apartment last week. Thing is, I took the wrong train over. So I'm walking, walking, walking, walking.... and nothing looks familiar at all!!! I've been to his place maybe two times, but I'm so awful with directions, so.

I thought of taking a cab, but what would I tell the driver? `My friend's apartment, please?` Sheesh. I decide to go to Kyoto University instead and call my friend from a payphone there. He lives nearby and we were really supposed to go there anyway... Then at least when I ask for directions, people will know where I want to go...

Okay. Time to paractice my Japanese. I go around stopping friendly-looking, not-too-much-in-a-hurry Japanese. `Um... Sumimasen, Kyodai wa doko desu ka?` They smile, say, `Massugu (straight ahead)` then `migi ni magatte (turn right).` Right. Massugu then migi, massugu then migi, massugu then migi. Sounds simple enough. Right.

Right. Right. Right. Yeah, right. Where to turn right? I tried to ask how many blocks (or stoplights, as Japaanese tend to use shingou as landmarks) before I turn, but the old man started speaking very fast, I couldn`t understand anything! So I just bowed my head as if I understood, `sumimasened` him for his trouble, and walked on, waiting for something to look familiar and tell me I was near Kyodai.

After about 20 minutes, I give up. I ask a nice Japanese lady who can speak a little English. She asks, `Are you just walking to get there? ` That should've been my clue! I was so far away people were wondering how I could just walk it to Kyodai! (And believe me, the Japanese like to walk!

It's time to face facts: I am hopelessly lost. In true xx chromosome fashion, I don't hesitate to ask for directions. I enter a shop and ask to see a map. The proprietor tells me I have to take a bus and get off at Hyakumanben. All this was a jumble to me, and all I heard was bus and hyaku man en (one million yen). I thought the bus fare cost hyaku man en! No way can I afford a bus! I mean, I know prices here are ridiculously high compared to the Philippines, but, c'mon! A million for a bus ride? Do I get to sit on Hiroyuki Sanada's lap or something?

Finally I give up and take a cab. (Which upon later examination, is increadibly stupid, given the assumption that buses cost one million yen). Fifteen minutes and around 1,200 yen later, I got to Kyodai safely and sanely, met my friend, and lived on to survive two weeks in Japan.

And yeah, I've taken the bus to school once or twice. They cost 220 yen. And nope, no Hiroyuki Sanada.

Anti-cipation

2004-03-26T13:45:00.000+09:00

It's not supposed to be sad, is it?

I asked a friend this question last night, and he confidently answered, "No, it isn't. You should be happy." Thing is, I am, I am. Those very same words could've come right off my mouth. It was the right answer. Hell, it was my answer.

But suddenly, in the middle of everything last night, I lost my purpose again. Or I lost my sense of purpose. Again.

You see in (one, two, three...) four days, I leave for Japan, to study. I have known it for a year, maybe more. Perhaps in my gut I'd always felt I was moving in that direction, heading there. And I spent the better part of that year wringing my fingers, just wishing the months would fly by, and cursing the old anticipation-is-better bullshit. And now, now that it's just days away, I find myself wringing my hands once again. And for different reasons.

You see, even if the knowledge of going was just below the surface this whole time, and (that dreaded word) anticipation like an echo of the heartbeat, it was easy to ignore and forget about it. Or forget about the consequences of it. Like the loneliness (Hey, it'd be just like one big party!). The totally different culture (It's one hell of an adventure, drey!). The frightening thought of having nobody to turn to who's family (Oh, I soooo envy you! Good luck!). The suffocating idea of leaving every thing you know and love behind (When you leave and I don't cry, would that hurt you?).

It's funny really. I feel like I am a poster child for the developmental stages, but instead of going through phases, I go through emotions. And it seems inevitable, and impossible to skip one. Like a barnhouse roof swept by a twister, I have no choice but to swirl and whirl and scramble through each and every emotion this ride takes me. Happiness. Appreciation. Anticipation. Boredom. Depression. Regret. Fatigue. Relief. Appreciation. Excitement. Happiness. Fatigue. Loneliness. Anger. Pain. Grief... Fatigue.

Yes, now I am simply tired. I just want it over with. I want that leaving/ grieving/ planning/ packing/ considering/ rejecting/ fake-friends-suddenly-all-over-you stage over and done with. I want to be in Japan, where nobody knows who I am, what I believe in, what food I like, what baseball team I root for, what I think of Sanada Hiroyuki or Ichiro. Where I don't owe anybody any explanations about the answers or non-answers to all these questions, and the ones I can't verbalize but resonate in side my head.

Now, I'd like to apologize. I lied. I find the reasons I'm wringing my fingers now is the same as they've always been: I want time to fly. I want time to fly me to my departure date. Fly me to Japan and to my studies and to my life there. Fly me to my graduation day, or even to life after that, through it all, whereever it may be. Fly me to that time when everything is over, and I am on my deathbed, where it all would flash before my eyes all over again... Because I find that anticipation often causes disappointment and grief and pain. And I feel I don't have the strength to go through all that twisted emotional spinner anymore.

So yeah, tell me the plot of that movie I haven't seen. Sure, reveal the twist in the end of that book. Okay, order for me in my favorite restaurant, and while you're at it, pick any CD and play it--I don't care what it is. Go ahead, read my palm, my tea leaves, the dregs in my coffee cup. Tell me all and spare me the first-hand experience. Do it quickly, I might change my mind soon, and all will be lost again.

It's not supposed to be sad, is it?

2004-03-11T17:04:00.000+09:00

sometimes the mind is just in so much turmoil that ideas and questions just refuse to be put together and coagulate into words and phrases. so we brush aside, ignore, escape, until we finally forget. then you come across something, or read something, then wham! the questions come slamming back and there's no breakwater to protect you.