Liv in a Life Well-Lived

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...