Liv in a Life Well-Lived

I didn't know that grief can cause loss of words. It took a while for us... Breathe. Speak. Live. Smile. Function. Work. Think. Love. Pray. Hope. Wish. Hurt. Cry. Laugh. Remember. Believe. It still hurts, but we'll make it through. Somehow. Daddy would've wanted it that way.

We will always remember you when we look at the sun... we dearly miss you.

Walk by me... and call my name. Don't allow me to ignore you. Rock my boat, stand in front of me and don't leave until I look up from the book I'm reading. Introduce yourself. Comment about the sky, the color of the bench, the humidity, the title of my book, the patterns on my skirt. Talk. Get my attention. Turn my head. Or else, I'll miss you completely. And I'll miss out on living a whole life with you in it. I'm trying my best to pay attention to the little signals and the great epiphanies which might lead me to you. But I can't find you. The world is swirling about me, colors clash in my eyes. I might have just lost you to it. I tried to be the brave little girl searching for you. I went out there and tried to find you in the faces of the people with possibilities. I cannot find you. I might not be very good at this, I guess. Find me... please. And turn my head.

We were three girls in a coffee shop discussing a range of topics from falling in love with priests to how to unlearn the fear of love and finally to moving on after a messy cancelled wedding. Sitting there, the differences amongst us were glaring. One was self-admittedly stubborn, holding on to a hope that might damage her internally and threaten a vocation badly needed by the Church. One was fiercely determined to redeem her self-respect after being jilted a few months before their wedding. One was just plain scared to fall in love again, a process she calls disgustingly inane now, after having given 100% the first time and being fundamentally wrong about her assumptions. But we were pretty much three sides of a singular pyramid, going through what I can only call the muck that love is. One would never admit she's stuck in a moot point, her heart utterly lost in the recesses of the deep well of confusion of a struggling-to-be pious priest. One would never admit she still feels f...

Geez... I've been so psyched the whole week about today's Lantern Parade in UP. I even took a day-off to make it an official gimik day. Then I found out it's been cancelled due to threats which the administration believed would come from the rallyists against the UP tuition hike. A lot of my former classmates will kill me if they read this but... I'm not one of those who believe that everytime there's an issue to be fought you take it out to the streets. Rallies are becoming tired tools for protests. A lot of people don't take it seriously anymore, and even sneer at it. They scoff and say, " Sus, may rally na naman." Is this really what we want the people to think? You would say that holding rallies is a component of awareness-raising, a venue to lay out points of view not only for the authorities but also the masa. But whatever awareness raised by such angry actions (i.e. burning of effigies, etc.) and words (pabagsakin! itapon sa kangkungan!) cannot...

Congratulate me, I think I’ve just had my first marriage proposal. Of course, I imagined it a bit differently. I would’ve preferred to have been in a yacht, having dinner at the deck with a perfect view of the moonlit sea. That’s how I imagined it if I was lucky to find a well-to-do guy. There’s a simpler version though and it doesn’t mean it’ll make me less happier. Sagada lang, overlooking a great mountainscape and the guy I love holding my hand. I don’t care much for that bending-on-one-knee type of proposal, it doesn’t make much difference to me. Besides, I’ll have the trouble of deciding pa if I’ll kneel down with him or haul him up or whatever. Just look me eye to eye na lang and mean it. The ring is important though. I know some girls say it’s ok lang for the ring to follow; but for me, a ring being there would’ve shown forethought. There’s nothing bad about spur-of-the-moment proposals, but I’d feel better if I knew the guy really thought about it and is sure of what he’s askin...

Yeah, bring it on! Oh, btw, Liam, pwede boyfriend na lang kita? :p

This blog has its many uses for me. I get to practice my writing style. I get to discuss geeky things that I find interesting. And unfortunately for those who read it, I also use it as an outlet for the things that threatens to overwhelm me from the inside. This entry will fall under the last category. I was on my way home last Thursday when I fell asleep inside the FX. Midway through the trip, I woke up. I was jarred with the inexorable feeling that I have lost something too important. It was utter, complete and debilitating, but I couldn't place what exactly I was missing. I looked inside my bag to check if I still have my wallet or cellphone --- and I did. Superstitious notes sounded inside my head, and I got nervous thinking that something might have happened to my family. Having no cellphone load, the feeling intensified. It would have been the perfect time for an accident to happen. But... When I got home, my Dad and Mom was okay. I called my sister, she was okay. I didn'...

About ten months ago, somebody asked me if I knew where to get moleskine notebooks. And I went, "Mole-what?" As it turns out, moleskines are to notebooks as Ford and Audi are to cars. Supreme excellence captured on paper or that's what they claim. It helps that the makers can brag that Van Gogh to Picasso, from Ernest Hemingway to Bruce Chatwin and other well-known artists and writers used it during their time. Now this notebook is available in Manila. Visit www.moleskine.ph and order from there. I have intense lust for one, but UNFORTUNATELY, a small notebook costs P 900 and a large one costs P1,250. I faint. Sigh. This sucks. I'm not going to shell out that much money for notebooks. It has got a seductive hold on me though and I believe I won't be able to sleep tonight. Sooner or later, to console my frustrated subliminal hunger, I will probably go to Papermart in Grace Park, Caloocan and find my favorite notebooks made by the Queen Mother's own paper maker...

Here goes my favorite night prayer written by St. Augustine of Hippo: Watch them, dear Lord, those who wake, or watch, or weep tonight, and give Thine angels charge over those who sleep. Tend Thy sick ones, O Lord Christ. Rest Thy weary ones. Bless Thy dying ones. Soothe Thy suffering ones. Pity Thine afflicted ones. Shield Thy joyous ones. And all, for Thy love's sake. Amen. Good night. Ssshh, sleep now. Christmas is so near I can taste it. :P

"Harry Potter, kiss my a**!" How very... verbose. The above phrase was mentioned in the early part of the movie and it seems an apt warning for those who chose to say in thir seat and wasn't scared away by the Led Zeppelin-esque music during the starting credits. I have got to say that their premise is undoubtedly interesting. Ipswich in Massachussets was thought to be where the whole witchfinding mania started and there was something breathtaking in the whole "Sons of Ipswich" context. Unfortunately, the movie was badly acted, badly directed, and well, badly written. One good thing about it? Eye-candy galore, baby! What the freak are Abercrombie & Fitch underwear models (sporting developed six, nay, 8-packs) doing pretending to be high school students? Oh, I don't care. Me like. :p What are thir names? Darn if I know. Not one of these guys are gonna make it anytime soon because they can't act to save their lives. But well, who needs to act, right? I...

The world seems to be full of odd stories the past 2 days. Weird and strange in either amusing or horrifying ways, it seems. Want to see the list I've made? 1. Somewhere in the Phils., a cat gave birth to a puppy (or at least, a kitten that looks like a puppy) 2. Somewhere in the US, a mother killed her baby by putting him in the microwave oven 3. Typhoon Durian (Reming) devastated Bicol; Metro Manila people scratched their heads because Signal No 2 was raised with nary winds nor water felt. 4. Poor dolphins are up for display at SM Mall of Asia. 5. Children in Congo are being driven to the streets by their own family, half of them accused of witchcraft Can you imagine how many more eccentric things are taking place on the face of the planet as we speak? Interesting world we live in, really. Makes one think one life isn't enough for you to live through its many possibilities. Post Note: I am deliriously happy today because I found a secondhand copy of Terry Pratchett's Equa...

Humanity's new frontier might as well be in a new corner of the universe. Stephen Hawking, the author of the popular and challenging book entitled "A Brief History of Time", encourages humanity to explore the possibility of space conquests. "Sooner or later disasters such as an asteroid collision or a nuclear war could wipe us all out," said Professor Hawking, who was crippled by a muscle disease at the age of 21 and who speaks through a computerized voice synthesizer. "But once we spread out into space and establish independent colonies, our future should be safe," said Hawking, who was due to receive the world's oldest award for scientific achievement, the Copley medal, from Britain's Royal Society on Thursday. Previous winners include Albert Einstein and Charles Darwin. In order to survive, humanity would have to venture off to other hospitable planets orbiting another star, but conventional chemical fuel rockets that took man to the moon on...

I don't know what. But something's wrong in this picture and I can't place it. I'm serious. Something doesn't feel right. Can you help me figure out what it is?

Borgy Manotoc guested in yesterday's Forbidden Questions Game during Good Times in 899 Magic. As per usual, celebrity trivia ran like wild paper airplanes all over the place. One of the questions that created a big bang (hehe, pun on the bun) was who were three of the more famous women he'd slept with in the past. He answered: 1) Lana Asanin - I can only catch fleeting memories of this bombshell who was quite popular back in the early 90s. Can't get a lock down on her face though. 2) Victoria London - Another "almost-remember-her" girl. and 3) Vina Morales Now, here's where the controversy starts. In today's Phil. Star, there's an article there that says Vina is denying she ever had any kind of relations with Borgy. She's asking Borgy to clear up her name and she's acting the part of the hurt damsel-in-distress. I don't get it. Who's lying here? Here are my theories: 1) Borgy might be shtoopid enough to think Vina would never know he sa...

I wonder what's wrong with me. I keep waking up early this week. Oh yeah, I remember now. I was forced to wake up early two days in a row last week. First, for the site visit in Pampanga, and Second, the Saturday exposure. The house is still quiet. Yet again. I think everybody's finding it hard to wake up early because it's so cold in the mornings now. Sarap nga naman matulog. Pero ito, ang mga weirdong tulad ko, tsaka naman nagigising ng maaga. Buti na lang, maaga ang Good Times with Mo. I keep laughing out loud. I'm afraid my Dad'll wake up hearing me laughing to myself. Can't help it. They're so gosh darn it funny. Thank God for small blessings, no matter how irreverent. :) Mojo Jojo, Mohan and Andy9 (pic from shale) Shux, Mojo kinda deserves his own cute boy alert... :)

(fooled a bit with the format, this is not a poem) I saw a book with the same title sometime ago, and it's the most apt title I've got to describe what I'm doing right now. I am eating mangoes very early in the morning wearing nothing but a towel. Technically, I'm not naked. I just got out from the shower and nobody in the house is awake yet. The house has this kind of stillness that's a bit magical because it seems to be promising many wonderful things for the next 24 hours. Somebody saintly bought fresh ripe mangoes yesterday and they were as sweet as heaven. I had a craving for it first thing this morning. While taking a bath, I knew I just had to have it immediately --- ergo, my present state. I just opened a window and a shock of green greeted me as I surveyed the fields surrounding our house. Now, the mango's skin is so flawlessly yellow. My towel is so garishly red. My human skin is pink in places I scrubbed too hard on. Oh my, I'm going to have a col...

How many days til Christmas? The months just plain swooshed by us, didn't it? It hardly registered that today is the second to the last month of the year. And today is the 27th out of 30 days in that month. Cum Friday, we will hit the good old merry season of December. I can't afford gifts this year. I've tried to make my budget fit, but I'm simply out of it. I gave most of my bonus for the house. With just me working, most of my income this month would have to be directed to mundane things such as electric bills and telephone bills and heckling freaking lots of kinds of other bills. It's going to be a challenge to spend Christmas as poor as a mouse, but statistics say people survive. So I probably will too. I don't know if this is the primary reason why I don't want it to be December yet. November isn't a bad month, y'know? We celebrate Samhain this month. We celebrate Saints this month. And more than anything else, we spend our lives waiting within...

Book in Hand: World Mythology Minipedia Song in Mind: Return to Innocence HEART IN THE SONG There's a theory that we are only attracted to things that reflect our current state of mind or emotions. I believe that's how people find their favorite art object, book or song. So when I say my favorite book of all time is still Lois Lowry's The Giver, I wonder what that says? When my favorite artist remains to be Monet, I wonder what that says? And when the tune to Return to Innocence keeps playing in my head the past few days, what does that make me? Two weks ago, I bought myself an MP3 player and went crazy downloading music. The advent of Limewire has finally reached th far-away shores of my consciousness. I know it's barely legal, but I don't have the resources to buy all the CDs I like. The moment I understood the concept of file sharing, I downloaded my old mantra-esque songs. Ergo, I'm downloading Snow on the Sahara by Anggun as we speak. The deliciousness of ...

I watch my mother sometimes, and she doesn't know that I do. My mother hobbles gently when she walks, having lost confidence in the solidity of ground. Her left eye is blinded and she cannot distinguish depth anymore. She describes it as seeing the world as a flat dimension where shapes have lost their definition. So when she walks, she sends her feet as sentinels to feel out her next step. She wears dark eyeglasss to hide her whited-out left iris, and that adds to her difficulty in seeing with her remaining good eye. My mother, she hunches when seated. The effort of drawing her body straight is too exhausting for her. During vain moments, she would tuck in her stomach and sqaure her shoulders up. But that doesn't last for very long. Her bravado diminishes as aches attack her abdomen. The pain shoots and licks at her body, whipping her back to her soft, hunched figure and if available, both elbows resting heavily on the table top. My mother, she's missing one breast. After ...

What irks me the most are people who give themselves too much importance. Today, I met a really annoying guy. He comes into the office announcing himself to be Mark Ignacio and that he's got a meeting with my supervisor. I guess his entrance and manner of speaking can still be attributed to a lesser irritating factor --- stupidity, which I could still have withstood. I was asked to sit in the meeting since this guy's from the media. He's from RJTV --- the echoes of which barely reverberates in anybody's mind. All I can remember is a kooky old-looking fella talking about music and his love affair with various guitars. He then introduces himself as the owner of a production suit named Epitome Productions (again, silent echoes in the room announces that it does not register to anyone at all) and he flashes out his cheap calling card (too many pink fonts there for a normal person's taste). He goes on to say that they are conceptualizing a program they plan to call Pinoy...

When I was eleven, I hated the fact that I was a girl. Oh, I've had my crushes even then. But I quite detested that I could never run as fast or climb a tree or be allowed to buy "suka" from the corner store without an escort. I wasn't allowed to stay out in the backyard after 6 p.m., and I was given silly little dolls to play with. No wonder I resorted to books --- you could only change Barbie's dresses so many times until you want to puke at the very thought of handling another taffeta-infested mini skirt. I hated the color pink. I went through a phase that I adored wearing baseball caps. I wanted to change my name to Elizabeth --- So I can call myself Liz. I thought the name Olivia was too girly-girly. And Liv sounds positively and undesirably feminine. I preen whenever I'm scolded by my Mommy for being tomboyish. It was positive praise, at least in my dictionary. It means I'm not one of those giggling, lace-laden, floral-headbands-stricken girls who ar...

Thank effing jupiter! The Festival of Trees is concluded. Last night wasn't so bad... actually, I'd go to say it went okay. We didn't sell the items at high prices in the silent auction but-- people seemed to have enjoyed themselves. Half the people there I knew because I have read about them in the magazines. Tessa Prieto-Valdes was so pretty! Yeah, she still dresses up kind of wacky but she carries it well. Then there were a lot of good-looking guys with smiles that blinds the stars themselves... but heck if I'd ever get close to them. Yung crush kong artist is so doubtfully gay in my eyes now kaya I transferred my affections to somebody else --- another artist who looks like a giant studded with piercings. Also, Sam Concepcion performed, along with Agot Isidro and Pilita Corrales. So that was additional pa-wow effect. Not bad, I guess. Hay. I'm just happy it's over. And happy I can go home soon now. Just a couple of hours more. :)

No, I will never be completely free from depression. This I understand now. It comes and it goes and it never lets go. I haven't got it as bad as I did before... not yet. It's like a whole new cycle re-starting. I think it's time for me to reconsider finding a therapist.

Book in Hand: Breath in Suspension Song in Mind: Complicated - Avril Lavigne And I'm not talking about happiness, alright? I don't know why I keep falling for all the wrong guys --- in the sense that they usually turn out to be gay. I do understand that I like clean looking, neat shaven, pleasant looking men. But effing s... my gaydar is darn broken. You think I'm exaggerating, huh? Can you handle a secret? Here's some of the people I actually had a crush on growing up and most of them turned out to be as gay as a Christmas Parade. Neil Patrick Harris (as Doogie Howser, M.D.) Yeah, he's not much of a looker nowadays. But back when I was eight years old, he was an effing genius. Or at least, he plays one. Just recently he came out and gosh, darn, what took him so long to own up? But was I surprised? Heck yeah! Keempee de Leon (god, why am I admitting this?) I was probably around nine when I had this fixation on Keempee de Leon. Back then he was still a singer, and i...

The Believers of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monsters . Oh yes. Click on the name to see what they say they believe in. :)

So far, here are the little things which helped me feel a bit better today --- even if it is Monday: 1. I'm wearing a new blouse which feels really comfortable. 2. I'm also wearing my new shoes. 3. Mojo Jojo of Good Times with Mo read my text message on air today --- although I forgot to include my name (oooops-doh!) 4. Mo said thanks. (But he didn't know my name. triple doh!) 5. An officemate is absent so I get to use her computer and do actual work. 6. I'm having fun doing the Auction Booklet describing the things for auction in the Festival of Trees. 7. I ate Jollibee burger steak for lunch --- yum yum! 8. AND --- there's a new Liam the Yahoo guy animation and I gigled with glee. Check it out: Whattalife. You gotta love the small things to distract yourself from all the bad things looming ahead. Sigh.

Geez, there were a lot of things I wanted to blog about but I rarely had time to type it in. Tonight, let me fill it in though. Maybe I could start with this: SCARY TEEVEE I don't care much for watching television nowadays. Gone were the days when I had to be home from school before 5 p.m. so I could watch the cartoons and all the sop that follow afterwards. I'm one of those kids whose past is characterized by the fact that I've been an avid follower of Manok ni San Pedro, Buddy en Sol, and Young Love, Sweet Love. Now, that's scary teevee for you. Recently though, I've been in a hurry to gt home by 9:00 p.m. on Fridays. There's this show on Studio 23 --- it's called Ghost Whisperer, and I love it! It stars Jennifer Love Hewitt (hmmmm, not my favorite actress but she'll do) and surprisingly, it isn't that full of drivel at all. The stories are always engaging, and doesn't reduce itself to cheap tricks for scary effects. There were times...

Driving through Caloocan City traffic yesterday, I saw this hilarious advert for a local motel: Try the New X-Men Room... Unleash the Power Within! This goes with a picture of a bed with a circular metallic headboard inscribed with a huge X. No wonder their logo is shown shushing people up. They're probably rolling on the floor and laughing and screaming their lungs out. Ooooh, I can just see manong driver bringing in his wife, or the cheapskate executive with his bombshell secretary... vrooom, vrooom. Unleash the power within! Gawds sake.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way... Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens I was just reminded by a friend that this quote exists. That sometime in the past, a man was inspired enough to dwell on the irony of life, its inconsistencies, its challenges, and thus, its beauty. How apt it is for who we are and where we are right now. My friends and I are stuck in this age where we feel like we're being pulled in two directions --- the call of our childhood with its comfortable memories and an unknown future which could be bright, tragic or both. It's easy to feel everything, easier to feel nothing, hoping t...

NanoWriMo's just a couple of days away and I still don't have a freakin' idea what to write about this year. Which reminds me of something --- a lot of my friends keep asking me why I gave up writing love stories. I don't really have a concrete answer for that. I think I may have found it sappy somewhere along the way. Once, I also thought that I do not have the needed gravitas to pull of a real good romantic story. What do I know about it, right? Another popular theory is that I haven't just given up on love stories, I gave up on love altogether. :) Dunno. Could be. Could be not. I have my doubts now, marred as my, aherm, innocence is. (or is that naivete?) But how much have I truly lost? If I just can convince myself I have gained far much more maybe I really haven't lost anything at all. Argh. What the effing heck. Di ko ma-take ang drama. Sorry, I just have stopped liking it. That's it. That's the end all and be all of it. So, I should really get alo...

Book in Hand: Unlocking the Air by Ursula le Guin Song in Mind: Chasing Cars FRIENDSTER UPDATE Just so I can say I still keep my friendster updated, I loaded a couple of pics and answered a few messages. It sucks though how my last testimonial was written, like, in 2004 pa. Aherm, aherm, pakisulatan naman o, nakakaawa na kasi ako. :) Anyway, I just heard that Friendster refused Google's offer to buy the outfit for 30 million dollars back in 2003. I understand that maybe he didn't want to give in to the "Man." Oh, but man.... what mucho dinero you've passed up. You could've doubled your worth. Shux, I hope you don't regret this, Abrams. But if the business commentaries in the NY Times are any good, you already do. MO TWISTED Bakit ba inaaway nyo si Mo? Pakialam nyo ba kung sa may sarili siyang opinyon eh. Sure, I admit, he's fresh, caustic, tactless, impatient with dumb people, and well, basically rude. But tell me he's wrong; tell me that people st...

The brain, if taken out of context from the person, is a thing. Not living without a heart. So in effect, it's a machine. Once plugged into a life source, it makes everything operate and sometimes can be mistaken as a life source itself. But it isn't. Sometimes, this tiny but amazing machine backfires. Yes, there are mental illnesses. But to a lesser degree, there is this uncontrolled random musings better known as Memory and Thinking. No, nothing has to be logical. Things just pops up once in a while and if you are armed with a word processor you have every means to type it down. NEED MACHINE, LIKE YESTERDAY I am frustrated at my new job. I had the idea that it was this wonderful change of pacing and a step nearer to my dream of being a writer. So far, my output had been a couple of media advisories and meeting with gnarly old ladies about an event that propagates the tradition of cutting down trees for decorations. I keep saying myself, to write I must need tools. I don't...

I am a lucky, lucky girl. The Press Conference for the Festival of Trees was held today and no major mishaps occured. To think it was my very first (!) event in my new job, it actually went pretty okay. Of course there were things we forgot: like pipe-in music while the guests are milling around, to double and triple check the menu to make sure there would be at least softdrinks available to guests(!!), and stuff similar to these. But all in all, it wasn't bad. I say I'm lucky because I had extreme help from all corners of our little universe. Press invites were handled by a PR firm who worked with us for free and 24 media people came (!!!). It seems this is something good becuase we usually get around 2 or 3 in our other events. The Makati Garden Club ladies did a lot of fiddling and fixing so there was real shared responsibility between them and the foundation. I don't know how it would've went if it was just left up to me. I woud've gone insane. Hope the FOT kick...

Floundering about what to talk about today. I just couldn’t allow another day to pass by without my fingers doing a bit of typing. Writers write, don’t they say? And one must write everyday to get the juices flowing. What they don’t say is how there are days that you just couldn’t manage to dot an i . Not that I don’t feel inspired. I may have a couple of good ideas in my head, and now that I’m pining over love still unrequited, this may be the opportune time for me to mold it into words that sting. But when I stare into the monitor, I just couldn’t muster enough energy. I was mulling over this the other day and I told myself that instead of writing, I’ll just go and make some beaded jewelries. Then I said, No, I’ll just do a bit of water color art. Better yet, I should just practice my lessons in Spanish and conjugate some verbs. Although, I really ought to go and build myself a new book case for my overflowing books. I ended up cataloguing my books for disposal instead. Argh! Where’s...

NOT A GOOD TIME TO BE SHY I wish I spoke. Here was this really cute guy who reminds me of someone I recently met. It could've been simple to just ask if he's related to the person I know. Who knows where the conversation may have led? Why didn't I just ask? Darn insecurities keep me at bay. He was really cute. He seemed interesting. Good English diction, witty and all. Dar it, darn it, darn it. I wish I spoke. Why didn't I? Why didn't? Why didn't I? Idiot savant extraordinaire. That I am. NOT A GOOD TIME TO BE OBSESSED Why can't I stop thinking of that boy? NOT A GOOD TIME TO BE WED Especially if the guy broke up with you. I feel so much for my friend who had to cancel a planned wedding. The guy just called it quits with no reasonable explanation at all. Now all of us in the high school barkada are single. The curse of the High School Virgin holds true. NOT A GOOD TIME TO GO TO BED I drank two large glasses of iced coffee today. Maybe that's why my hear...

With Friday the 13the just around the corner, I know of 2 people who wouldn’t be feeling invincible. Just witnessed an actual accident on my way to work this morning. This speeding bus bumped a motorcycle with 2 passengers. To make it worse, the bus did not stop running until his rear wheels went over the motorcycle. I think the man on the motorcycle would be having broken bones in his right foot. Meanwhile, the woman (his wife, I assume) behind him banged her head hard on the pavement. Good thing they were both wearing helmets. I do believe I screamed and covered my eyes. I didn’t know I could shriek like that. The bus driver ran away. As in, he scampered off the bus and sped away on foot to God knows where. The passengers went down and just stared. Good thing the guy driving the car in front of us went down and started directing people how to act. I wish I went down to help as well. Why didn’t I ?

How’s this for a freak accident? The Manila Skyway is the favorite fly-over shortcut of most of the upper-crust-living people from Manila to southern Metro Manila. Yesterday, amidst the heavy rains, a Fortuner was speeding through the skyway, braked hard and spun 360 degrees. It hit an Isuzu Trooper that swerved so extremely that it flew of the fly-over and landed on its back ---- atop a passenger jeepney. The driver of the Trooper was alive. I didn’t catch the news about the driver of the Fortuner, but I assume he/she’s alive. The passengers of the jeepney weren’t so lucky. A few of them were severely injured, but most of them were dead. I wonder how it felt for the Trooper driver to see himself flying off the skyway? How did it look like going down? Worse, I wonder about the surprise the passengers felt when the vehicle landed on them. Was there even time to feel surprised? Did they even manage to have last loving thoughts about their family, their work, the things they love? Weird, ...

When toddlers start pinching you while riding the FX and when they appear hurtling towards you from out of nowhere only to use you as a human trampoline, you just have to ask why. I know I love kids. They seem to like me too. Have no idea if that's enough to make them congregate around me though. It's a pleasure to spend a whole day playing with them; I swear that nothing beats the sparkle in their eyes when they're having a really good time. But I just have to ask : What do they see? A walking and talking giant stuffed toy? Jollibee? Hetty Spaghetti? In church, even babies would inadvertently focus their eyes on me. Then they'd start making those cute little eye batting movements and start extending their little chubby hands and I'm a goner. I would've thought my being huge is a detrimental factor to dealing with kids --- i read that somewhere. Adults seem to be too tall and this intimidates them too much. Well, I'm larger than most adults (lengthwise, widt...

Site of the Day Alert! I found the MyHeritage website through another blog. And it proved to be really fun. You register for free and you could upload a photo for yourself. They have face recognition technology and meta-data (whatever) which allows them to sift through countless photos of celebrities around the world and compare your face with. So far, this is who they say I look like: Try it out... :)

Book in Hand: To Weave a Web of Magic A friend (let's call her N) came up to me the other day and said she's now into speed dating. No consequence then that she believes attraction is instantaneous-- its either you do or you don't. She believes its a glimmer of pure shine which you catch a sight of for just a single second then it's up to you to grab it or to let it fade away. Huh. Wow. Love just like instant noodles --- Lucky Me! Walk me through it, I said. How's it done? With all the colors of the rainbow in her eyes, she gave me the lowdown. In her Minnie Mouse voice she said: N: First, you find a speed dating venue. A lot of hip cool new places do this. Often, it'll be connected to a bar you frequent or a radio station promoting new stuff O: Like I visit bars (she did not see me cringe -- she barely heard me). N: Then you register, get numbers or code names, all girls go sit and the men do the round-about (or vice-versa). I like it when the girls just sit...

Not quite finished yet. After Speed Dating, N and I began to talk about Drinking. Not water, mind you. Wine, beer, all those alcoholic stuff. When I told her I haven't come across speed dating because I haven't been exactly making rounds of the bars in Metro Manila, her eyes completely bugged out. N: Well, where do you and your drinking buddies go? O: Which drinking buddies? N: Anyone you go have " inuman sessions " with. (She may actually believe I am dumb enough not to know -- not for a moment realizing that I may be being sarcastic) ((or, she may not have "sarcastic" in her vocabulary, I now realize). O: I don't drink alcohol, eh. N: OMG (expletive), are you a teetotaler? (ah, but she knows this! her range of motion reveals itself) O: Would that be so bad? N: That is like, so stuck up, you know. Only control freaks don't drink. O: What you've just said is quite similar to what brought gay and lesbians to such angry stupor over rights. They are...

Yesterday, my dad asked me to buy medicine from a nearby drustore. Sobrang daming tao! It struck me that so many people are getting sick and have come to depend on chemicals to survive. Not feeling so well myself, I just had to analyze how much the human biological make-up has evolved within the short span of a couple of centuries. Our ancestors definitely did not have the moxyfloxacin I was supposed to buy. All these science-y (but althogether silly) sounding drugs were still in their virgin chemical state back then and yet somehow people lived. In the Bible, it states that people used to live for hundreds of years. But then again, as the Black Death and numerous terrible diseases spread, lives became shorter. For centuries, people used folk healing and a tremuluous faith-based curing system. Today though, modern medicine have saved lives. But why is it that now that we can live healthier, we also get sick more often? I have reached this critical point in my mental processing when I...

I refuse to believe it. After whining over the banality of the recently shown hollwood films, I was taken in -- hook, line and sinker --- by a dime a dozen Pinoy romantic movie. Maybe it's because I don't watch a lot of Pinoy films--- kaya siguro I found it-- hay, sige na nga: engaging. Pero the movie You Are The One wasn't really bad. The last pinoy romance movie I watched was that Rico Yan - Claudine Barretto team up so many years ago. And that wasn't bad either. Maybe I should discount that not all romance movies are corny ---- some are actually light and fluffy and charming. Maybe it's because you start not expecting too much from the movie so that you end up being surprised that you didn't cringe and roll your eyes throughout the whole thing. Maybe Sam Milby who, measured by any device, cannot truly act but can still charm my boots off should be shot because he's definitely ruining my reputation. And Toni was such an all-around typical Pinoy girl that y...