Liv in a Life Well-Lived

On nights like this, dreams seem to be much farther than I can bear it. When darkness stays, the stars seem so much smaller than they were yesterday. At this dismal point, it is easier to drop the sword and let the demons run me through with their pointed horns and their killing claws. When hope is faint, echoes of music play from somewhere too distant for me to hear. On nights like this, everything fails. On nights like this, I am lost. I close my eyes and try to find the core of strength everyone said we have. At no great length, I give up with the Herculean effort to conjure the magic from the broken chords of my soul. I bend and search, but I cannot gather the shattered notes of my song. On nights like this, come you saints of heaven. Rush to me, angelic armies of the sky. Hold up my arms before they fall leaden to my side. Bring your blazing swords to disperse the darkness. Cut through the devils that grapple in my mind. O Saints of Heaven, Armies of the Sky, watch over those who ...

Is it just me or is The Da Vinci Code kind of boring? Or is that just my standard reaction to any movie that stars Tom Hanks in it? I am totally uninspired to write a geek's guider on it. I mean, what would it be for? People read the book, and now they've watched the movie. The only redeeming thing about the flick was my favorite actress' American film debut. Yes, I'm speaking of Audrey Tautou. She made the movie watch-able for me. Maybe it wasn't even worth defying the Catholic Bishop Conference's explicit forbiddance to not watch the movie. Hay, I'm not worried about how my soul could be corrupted by the film. I'm more worried I'll never get my money back which could've been better spent on X MEN III. Vapid reasoning, yes. Nevertheless, it's valid reasoning too. DO I MAKE YOU PROUD? Make no mistake, I'm happy Taylor won AI. I have mentioned this time and again. But it's just such a sorry thing we have to listen to his awful debut si...

Oh f**k, Oh f**k. My cousin who's just a couple of years older than I am held a rush wedding yesterday. Nope, girl not pregnant. But my cousin was promoted in his call center job and has to relocate to Dumaguete (now, that's some weird promotion, huh? Sounds more like excommunication to me) and he'd like to bring the girl with her. Mien (the girl) turned out to be a Gracean too, graduated three batches behind me and knew me as Ate Olivia. As the Wedding March commences so does the misery I would forever now feel in the presence of our relatives. "Oh, ikaw Ibiang... kelan ka kakasal?" asks an Aunt who before then still liked pinching my cheeks and calling me her little BIG niece. Need I explain the fumble for words I went through trying to explain to her that her niece's love life status hasn't changed for the last, let's see, 24 years. She seemed shocked to hear I never had a boyfriend, even if I clearly remember her saying six months ago that I was sm...

Live Update Insert: Not five minutes ago, Missy came back!! :) I am so totally right, she's not dead!! I'm sure I would know. I. Am. Sure. What does it say though that i can be so connected to a dog? Ah-eh... Don't care. I will trust my gut feel more than ever now. Now back to our regular programming. -------------- DING DONG! THE WITCH IS DEAD! Kat McPhee loses. Taylor Hicks wins American Idol Season 5. Well, I'm just glad a SPAM did not win. But wasn't just that the best season finale ever????? Of course, it's the only AI Finale I ever watched, but the magnitude of the feedbacks of other AI watchers seem to validate that this is the best show Fox TV has ever pulled for AI. What started out as a cheesy reality star search has reached its epic proportions when they now perform at the Kodak (my dream stage), and stars like Mary J. Blige and Dionne Warwick are wont to perform. Not bad. I'm almost impressed! I kind of enjoyed the fact that they tried to show th...

Literally had no weekend this week.... had to work... I know my other officemates do it all the time, but well, they're not me. They're probably not homebodies. I prefer to be in the house with my family on weekends because that's the time we're ALL at home. Makes it no fun to take day-offs during week days because that'll just leave me without anything to do for one whole day. I plan to make "bawi" this weekend. Walang labasan talaga! ROOTS Had been wondering about my ancestors recently. I find myself loving the idea that, watered down as the genial mix of my blood lines are, perhaps there used to be something exotic in it. I am starting to rethink that there may be some credence to Aunt's theory that Ella and I have a mixture of weird magics in our ancestry. I just found out that the "third sense" is an actual genetic heritage from my father's side. I have it, three of my cousing have it, all of my father's siblings have it. I think...

Bye Elliot! Dude, you do look like a Wolfman, but as Randy Jackson would say it, You're da bomb! Sob! :( I will miss you, man! I really don't have a lot of news for today. I find myself more interested to daydream about meeting Elliot someday. When he's not attached anymore. Annnnyyywayyy. I just finished writing my speech for that Toastmaster thing on Monday. I still have mixed feelings about that group. But I still am gonna give it my best go. I just hope I don't bore my officemates to pieces. Oh. i really need to start writing a story soon. My hands are itching that way again. And my brain is fizzled in that way when a good story is about to pop out but can't because I'm too busy thinking about other stuff (like today's Malabon activity and tomorrow's Little Olympics for another project). GOD! I really need You to help me find my niche here. I just am finding it absolutely impossibl to WRITE. You can't mean me to stay this half-distracted forev...

Book in Hand: ANANSI BOYS BY NEIL GAIMAN!!!! Song in Mind: Come Around I'm okay. No, really. I AM. Maybe it's the shock that did it, but I did the one thing I never thought I would ever do. The one thing I was prepared to forget; the thing I could've just let pass for the rest of my life and everything would have been fine except that I would forever know I was a coward for choosing not to let it out (okay, okay, tama na drama! WHAT IS IT?). :) I told my best friend that I used to be in love with him. It maybe that the truth is harmless now, because it had been years ago and well, some other factors that are beyond anyone's control. But I'm just sick and tired of avoiding the issue, and being with my friends who are also playing nicey trying to avoid the issue. It's not as if nobody knew, right? The whole freakin' world knew about it. And now that I know why nothing happened and why it couldn't have worked out, I have closure. As I've told him -- it...

Really.

Oh, of course. Why didn't I think there'll be a shocker upset this Season on American Idol? It happened to Bo Bice and Constantine. Why couldn't it happen to Chris Daughtry ? Becaus Daughtry was a god for a few episodes now. But last night failed to wow the audience and now, as Seacrest would say it, He's Out . I'm overjoyed Elliot got to stay. But I was really expecting Katherine to be booted out instead. She deserved it. Well, at least America got it right with Elliot. They just keep doing that and I'll hold my peace. :) Elliot looked fabulous wearing a pink shirt. It is my theory that all hobbits (and look-alikes) look hot in pink. Trust me. I'm just a little disconcerted that the rest of the world population has got the hots for Elliot now, when back then they kept calling him the "Amish Leprechaun." Two-faced ninnies, back off. I saw him first. :)

It's late and I should be really sleeping instead, but I just dropped by to issue a quick plea to any blessed soul in the US who CAN vote the next American Idol to please, please vote for Elliot Yamin. You've got two hours to do it so please dial those 8600 (not 1800) numbers and don't vote for spam. I was prepared to say goodbye to my AI bet tonight, because I know America has a tendency to vote for spam. But Elliot had been truly, superbly, amazingly fantastic in his performances tonight. He did come in as a sort of underdog in the competition, and I'm hoping that'll make him a bit more endearing to the masses. He's not Seacrest-pretty, or flauntingly sexy but talent is talent and entertainment is entertainment, diba? He deserves to be in the semi-finals. I mean, it would be heartbreaking if he didn't. All the judges agreed he came in fighting and he succeeded. Talent-wise, he sung better than Katherine McPhee -- whose last song was a bit strained and Rand...

At the risk of being labeled a hypocrite, I will confess this: The City of Manila depresses the hell out of me. At its very best, it's a colorful and historic place. At it's worst though, it's a human stink hole where the desolate and the half-dead live. Everyday as I go to work, I have to walk through its streets where the unwashed bodies of men and women sleeping on the streets permeate the air. It smells of sweat and urine. The children are just as filthy, and they play in the middle of the streets where excrement, both human and animal, are redolent. But if you sniff really carefully (something which is not for the faint of heart), you'd smell the salty and musky odor of the nearby polluted river. Its reek covers the city like a shroud. On extremely breezy days, you can even smell the not so far-off bay which is not exactly crystalline pure either. Manila used to excite me --- I saw it as a city of extremes. The ornate churches with their stone-paved plazas exudes a...

Summer absolutely sucks. It sucks if you're not in the beach or somewhere near a big body of water. The heat can absolutely fray nerves --- downside of living in a tropical country in a world afflicted with global warming. So humid and I'm so pissed off; I have definitely been on Assassin mode the whole day: Except that I don't look this hot . What I would've wanted to be was this : Although I'd be sure to check if that adorable polar bear is vegetarian (which is impossible) or sticks to fish as good polar bears ought to. I spent my whole mornings downloading American Idol 5 songs on this amaaaazing blog / site rickey.com . He's Pinoy-American ( so need I discuss where he gets his ingenuity), and he gets away with posting mp3s of the performances of the contestants. Took me four hours to do it, but I have every single one of my favorite songs as sung by Daughtry, Yamin and one of my eliminated favorites -- David Radford. I was kind of surprised to find that t...

Strange. A night after I have posted my "wish" to my bookish fairy, I was basically asked again to describe the man I want to meet. Except this time, without my mighty pen, I was absolutely without words. Basta, I know I can still wait. :) Weird night to get tipsy too. Can you believe that even if I only drank one bottle of San Mig Light, the mysteries of the accursed HANG OVER was revealed to me? I haven't even slept yet and my head feels like it's being drilled everytime I laugh. What more if I drank 3 or 5 beers? I'd probably feel like my head's splitting everytime I have to draw in a breath. Sorry na, hindi talaga kasi ako manginginom. Tonight, I was just feeling game for anything. So game in fact, that I even popped half a ciggie -- making it the third time I've ever smoked in my life. I guess I just needed reminding that it really does absolutely nothing for me so why bother poisoning myself? Lately kasi, I've been eyeing cigarettes as stress-rel...

Tonight, while browsing through Booksale (yet again), I found myself quite shocked to find I was holding a copy of Aldous Huxley's award-winning novel "Brave New World." Wasn't it just a month ago when I silently remarked to myself that I must find a copy of this right along with "A Clockwork Orange" by Anthony Burgess? When I turned over the book to check the price, of course it was nowhere near the $25 benchmark I knew it costs if I ordered it on-line and had it delivered to me (since it seems unavailable in most bookstores in the country). It only cost me Php 50, and that's what, equivalent to $ 1? Huh. That's when I hazarded a theory that a fairy godmother must be looking out for me and my literary greed. A bookish fairy, yes, and instead of wearing gossamer dresses, she probably dons sensible plaid skirts and grey blouses. Her wand must be a pencil with which she notes down my book whims and I can almost see her arranging matters so that I will ...

Slow news night, folks. But I am super hyped up with the American Idol 5 show I just finished watching not more than five minutes ago. Is it just me or is Taylor Hicks actually getting better? He's the kinda guy that actually grows on you. His performance tonight was actually entertaining. Yeah, he still sounds like a drunken wedding singer, but weird enough, in a warm and (eeek!) cute way. Meanwhile, my heart is torn between cheering for Elliot Yamin or Chris Daughtry . Chris totally bowled me over last week when he did that amazing cover of When You Love a Woman . But Elliot I love because he sings the kind of songs I like and he looks like a hobbit. When Paula Abdul said once that he was beautiful, I totally got what she meant. I mean, he's a funny looking chap but there's something pure about him and his voice. Hmm... sounds like i'm on overkill, but I'm not. I'm a little concerned that Elliot might be getting the boot tomorrow though. It's either hi...