Liv in a Life Well-Lived

Feels like I'm saying goodbye to a lot of things nowadays. Just a general feeling, mind you. I don't like feeling so tired anymore so I just let go. I don't care, I don't care. Just goodbye. Sana lang I know how to render a truly magnificent, ethereal song as swans do before they go. Maybe it can take another form though. Baka lang. Life takes a dip sometimes In the inky wells of fortune Wings get soaked most times As deluge ravage the peace A swan wades most her life Webbed feet paddling undercurrent Going nowhere anyone can see. But when she lifts her wings At the verge of flight You can almost believe she'd always known She was meant to fly With the south at sight In places warm and solitary.

While on a ten-hour land trip to Cagayan, it suddenly dawned on me that a lot of Filipino houses are bungalow-type, if not completely a one room affair. Of course, this excludes the happy rich who can have as much as three or seventeen floors in their homes. Majority are low houses, and this strikes me as odd because I have lived my life in a strictly two-floor house awareness. There’s a commercial on TV which shows a kid marveling at a house and saying. “Ay, up and down.” I have no idea if that was supposed to be flattering or an incredulous remark. Thing is, I don’t think I would be ale to live in a house without stairs. Stairs are vehicles, you see, to two utterly different places occupying the same ground area. In our house, the upstairs rooms are all very private. It serves as our sanctuary. I cannot count how many times I have hidden from visitors upstairs. And some times, when I really am curious about our guests but would not like to be seen, I would sit at the topmost step and

Book in Hand: The Curious Incident of the Dog at Nightime by Mark Haddon Song in Mind: Clockwatching by Jason Mraz We have been effectively off the internet for the last two weeks. And I'm slowly realizing I can't live long enough without it. Where shall I rant then, if not in my blog? Where shall I spend so many idle time when I should be working? This can't stay this way. I have to buy a new freaking modem if that CD installer still won't turn up this weekend. Argh. Oh well, anyway, another unbelievable book found its way to me again. This time, it's Peter Beagle's The Last Unicorn. It's a 1970 edition in a 75% good condition, and cost me 25 bucks only. Am genius. Am cheap book whore. Oh, and I still wish i was an amoeba (though hanne seems to have chosen a more interesting creature - - sponge). One that could read please, if not able to talk, fart or eat. Thank you.

You Are 22% Evil A bit of evil lurks in your heart, but you hide it well.In some ways, you are the most dangerous kind of evil. How Evil Are You? Jessica Zafra Talks about How Evil a Bibliophile can Be... from http://twistedbyjessicazafra.blogspot.com/ Biblioholics Support Group You have a problem. Not a real problem—very pleasant as problems go, but still a sort of problem. You can't stop yourself from buying books, even if there's a stack of at least ten books on your bedside table that you haven't started reading and another stack you haven't finished reading, and you know full well that this new book you're itching to buy is going to end up on those stacks. You have an entire catalogue of rationalizations to justify buying another book that you don't have time to read. "I'm saving it for my retirement" (Tolstoy or Proust). "If I don't buy it now, it might not be here when I come back." "This is the last one, I swear. I won&#

I think I just have enough time to ask questions today and none of the answers are forthcoming... Is this how life's supposed to really go? As if troubles never end? You mean, there's still about 30 more years of this? Is my confusion just part of a statistic? Part of this newly named quarter life crisis? I want to let go of everything I have... leave everything behind. None of it is making sense at the moment. Geez, I envy microbes. They just are. They just exist. And amoebas, maybe they're the only ones who could really say, life's a chill. Of course, they can't speak, think, eat or whatever. So that's probably too fantastic a hope for them. Goodness... to wish I was an amoeba. that ain't right, at all. :(

Am annoyed To pieces About my life Makes no sense Have no point Just like this Verse. Annoying Irritating Poem

Book in Hand: Little Black Book of Short Stories by AS Byatt Song in Mind: Kung Wala Ka by Hale Absurd Story # 1 Location: Philippines A woman sued a hospital for leaving used gauze inside her "puerta" after giving caesarian birth. Said woman gave birth three weeks ago, and had been conscious of foul odor coming from her nether regions. Being her first time birthing, she thought it was just part of the post-pregnancy adjustments she has to make. She said it truly smells like a dead rat and she was given to changing her underwear a lot and copious vaginal washings just so not to puke. (Eww...) Yesterday though, she found the tail end of a gauze used to stopper blood during her caesarian operation dangling from her delicate parts. She pulled at it, some couple dozen inches long, and it was horribly decomposed. Unfortunately, there is no Malpractice Act in the Philippines, so she has to make do with filing class act suit for gross negligence. Absurd Story #2 Location: Japan Ever

I bought Michael Cunningham's The Hours last Monday. Due to my illness, I had the chance to read it in one lying-down session yesterday. It is unbelievably beautiful. There was this quiet, luminous clarity to it; there was this resonance that connects with me. Wonderful reading; it did Virginia Woolf justice and more. Read it, read it, read it if you can. Meanwhile, I am curently reading AS Byatt's Little Black Book of Stories full of fairy tales meant for adults. Nothing airy-fairy here, it's a bit disturbing, with a beauty that does not scare you... only makes you think. Dark but brilliant. Here's the rest of the books I have lined up for this month. A bit ambitious quantity here.... A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens "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

by PAUL RUDNICK Issue of 2005-09-26 Posted 2005-09-19 Day No. 1: And the Lord God said, “Let there be light,” and lo, there was light. But then the Lord God said, “Wait, what if I make it a sort of rosy, sunset-at-the-beach, filtered half-light, so that everything else I design will look younger?” “I’m loving that,” said Buddha. “It’s new.” “You should design a restaurant,” added Allah. Day No. 2: “Today,” the Lord God said, “let’s do land.” And lo, there was land. “Well, it’s really not just land,” noted Vishnu. “You’ve got mountains and valleys and—is that lava?” “It’s not a single statement,” said the Lord God. “I want it to say, ‘Yes, this is land, but it’s not afraid to ooze.’ ” “It’s really a backdrop, a sort of blank canvas,” put in Apollo. “It’s, like, minimalism, only with scale.” “But—brown?” Buddha asked. “Brown with infinite variations,” said the Lord God. “Taupe, ochre, burnt umber—they’re called earth tones.” “I wasn’t criticizing,” said Buddha. “I was just noticing.” Day

Oh, the cleverness of me! I found Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees in Booksale for just 60 bucks ! This book had been out of print for decades now, and had just been recently reprinted in the U.S. I saw an ad for it in one of my Realms of Fantasy magazines, and I saw a blurb there by Neil Gaiman ( all hail the chief! ) giving the book the most unbelievable praise. I would just simply die with happiness if in the future, Neil ( all hail the chief!) would be uttering similar sentences about something I have written. He said that Lud-in-the-Mist is: "The single most beautiful, solid, unearthly, and unjustifiably forgotten novel of the twentieth century." Just reading his recommendations makes me want to tear up by the promised enchantment of it. And I believe Gaiman ( all hail the chief! ) because he also recommended Sunshine by Robin McKinley and I loved it. Suffice to say, I can't wait to read the book! Mr. Gaiman ( all hail the chief! - - ok, ok, I'll quit it

Yeah, yeah, I know. I advertised that I would be publishing my commentary on Pinoy Big Brother . Just that, I really don't care anymore. The bane of a writer's existence is the waning of the flame to write about something. No matter how trivial or nonsensical that something is. All I really wanted to say about the show is that its being used as a Media Lab, and the people inside are nothing more than just Lab Rats . Probably wanted to see the Pinoy Masa Reaction to Gay Liberation (nothing wrong with that except that they made it a publicity stunt). What should have been a personal journey became a worldwide broadcasting ng "paglaladlad." Well, matanda na si Rustom, and he probably knows what he's doing. That is a non-issue now. What gets to me is the blatant use of advertising for drinking products, for soap, for Jamine Trias' album.... Lahat na. But that's not really my problem anymore. Since I don't like it, I just turn the TV off. Period. Ever since

Reality shows really reign supreme nowadays, huh? They stand there at the top alongside telenovelas. But like any good idea, you could only have it once. Personally, I like singing contests where the contestants get taken out one by one. I love seeing the people transform themselves every week, just so to be the "hot" one for the day. I used to like watching Star in a Million, the batch where Eric Santos won. It was fantastic, wasn't it? You could actually see the stars being born. Unfortunately, the winners of the following seasons weren't really that amazing or memorable anymore. And the singers in the GMA 7 contest ( what's the title of that show again?) are sadly lacking in talent or are trying too hard ( oh, i remember now ) to be the next Pinoy Pop Superstar. So nowadays, I just content myself watching the ASAP Champions when I could. On the other hand, I watched the first few episodes of the American Idol last season and it totally sucked. It never fails t

Hehe, my mentioning Beerkada yesterday made me kinda miss them. So I decided to post a funny strip for today. Kudos to Lyndon Gregorio! He chose to continue the Beerkada story as his characters enter the world after college >>or as I personally call it : HELL<< href="http://photobucket.com" target="_blank"> I'm not sure how to link back the strip to Lyndon's site, but this is where you can find more funny strips by the artist: http://www.beerkada.tk On another note, I really, really, really, really want this graphic novel: The Mythology Class by Arnold Arre (Astigin talaga!) Kaya lang... waah! Expensive! :( I have to have it... pero pano ba yan, ang layo pa ng PASKO!!!! These are the times I am sorely tempted to be an immature brat and rant about my financial, aherm, incapacity (more like, inefficiency). Grrrr...

Book in Hand: Lempriere's Dictionary by Lawrence Norfolk The First (Famous) Female Fantasy Writer in the Philippines (F4 Writer for short) Yesterday, I was idly browsing at our local bookstore when two Filipino publications got my attention. The first was a comic book compilation of fantasy stories called " Fantasya " and the second was a series of books by author Dave Hontiveros with very interesting titles: " Takod ", " Craving " and " Parman ". You can only imagine how happy I felt to see that publishers in the country are now slowly realizing that there is a healthy market for Filipino-crafted fantasy-inspired tale-weaving. I glanced through the comic and was a little disappointed. The stories I sped-read through were kind of elementary and predictable. I placed it back on the shelves with a sigh. Girls talking coñotic Taglish, Beerkada-type comic characters (which I love but seemed to take the fantastic from the extraordinary), ten-cents

Book in Hand: Le Divorce by Diane Johnson Song in Mind: When I'm Thinking About You by The Sundays Feel like a little girl seeing the world for the first time. Don't worry, when I've entitled my entry today as gone postal, I don't mean to reiterate that I simply have gone insane the past few days. What I meant is that, I have LITERALLY, gone postal. Took a trip to the Central Post Office today, in between field work areas. I posted the letters I have been writing to Andrea for the last three days. I just found the idea - - sentimental. I wrote the letters because that's definitely cheaper than seeing a shrink and it allowed me to put on paper all these trivial things swirling inside my head. So I told it to my best friend who I am confident will read it, understand it and put the same value to it as I would. Sending it out through the post, as old-fashioned people would, gave it a bit more spark for me. And stamped envelopes are so pretty, besides. I did some quick