On Promises

Promises seem to be beautiful things that put us in a dreamy state of looking at the future. It lures us to hang on, because of the belief that at the foot of the rainbow is a pot of gold.

The promise of staying together in romance, or the promise of being there in friendship, the promise to be good and do charitable things. The promise of a parent to take responsibility of a child. All of these creates in the mind a picture of a desirable yet-to-come. Like a scenario of a happy couple ending up in marriage, or a friendship lasting till all of them have gone gray, or making it to heaven after death, or a well-raised child.
A promise is an invitation to a beautiful scenario taking place soon.

It is not surprising how we try to make up for our blunders by devising promises. When we arrive late in an important affair, we promise to make it up. It doesn't matter to whom we promise it- to ourselves or to the professor or the boss or to a date. The point is we make promises as reparations for our faults. I admit to be a constant oblivious promise-maker whenever I disappoint someone. Sometimes an apology just doesn't make it until it's backed up by a promise. You may be forgiven for not making it to a friend's birthday party who really expected you to be there. But somewhere, somehow, you'd get the feeling you lost a bit of the person's trust and appreciation. You will be put in a position of awkward conscience- an urge to convince the friend you should not be reduced to the mistake you made. So you start promising to make it up to her. You make a promise to give her reason to hang on. To keep her trust and appreciation for you just the same. Why do we make promises? Simply because a promise is a "future" thing. Once uttered, it disposes itself into the future and becomes something to look forward to.

I look back at how my life have been ruled by tons of luring promises. How my decisions were shaped by the promises I made to myself, promises others made, and promises I just imagined were promised to me. Check your life and your decisions. It must be that way too.

Once upon a time, I promised my self a successful future. I promised my self a nice cozy house in a mini-forest, a sleek grass-green convertible, an inexhaustible vault cash, a pretty popular coffeeshop of my own brand, a band set in my bedroom, a jet-setter's life and a breezy creative living. But these things are not easy promises. They require a roadmap. I need concrete plans. And this is when they become difficult to keep. I have to make choices that could promise me better outcomes, but not necessarily make me happy at the moment. Like choosing what I think would be a more stable career path over enrolling for my hobbies and the things I enjoy.
 Simply put, setting aside my guitar and learning Adolf Hitler.

This is when promises become dangerous. They dress themselves in fancy pictures of what could be while smothering you to keep them. Making you forget what you really wanted to start with. The promise of faring successfully later on injects some analgesia to the throbbing thought of foregoing some of the things that matter to me. Instead of sketching my life day-by-day with my bare hands, I disposed it into a promise that is far in the future.

Apparently, it's like an analgesic. It makes you forget the pain of having to forego certain things, and get enticed with the vivid illusions of the promise- a colorful yet-to-come. Relationships work like this.
Relationships are built on promises. You make the other promises, and the other makes you promises as well. This is what starts a relationship, but what also ruins it. Unkept promises; They break the relationship altogether. But the funny thing is, we never see a promise as anything dangerous. It always gives us happy thoughts. It always gives us something to look forward to. When people makes us promises, we automatically hang on. In one way or another, we always believe in them. We get drowned in the enticing visions of a promise. It is capable of twisting our attitude toward something. A blunder. A proposal. A desire. Whatsoever. Make a promise, and things would seem to turn fine.

But in the long run, the pain control wears off and we wake up to an excruciating agony. That crucial moment when we get confronted with the issue of whether or not we have made the right choice, or that if we were right believing the promises of the choices we made. Maybe the moral of the story is to not make promises rule our lives. To not live our lives by the promises of the future. Maybe we just have to live it as it is now. Promises make a shaky ground. Maybe we just have to love without looking at the promise it brings, but just how it makes us happy and whole now. There is too much uncertainty in everything. Maybe it will prevent us from falling to hard and break into pieces if we entertain the idea that a promise is only a promise until it happens or it gets broken. We should take a choice by its ability to make us happy at the living moment, and not by the happiness it promises us on the future. After all, life never runs out choices. If we make a wrong choice, we can always override it by making another one.

The promise is only a promise until it happens now. We don't always have to get tied to them. At the foot of the rainbow might be a pot of gold, but the rainbow might be only in your head. 

And the pot of gold is just right in front of you.

Soon

I am here at a small chapel located at the edge of a village. This is a protestant chapel and there is no mass whatsoever tonight. The place is all mine.
Today is a Monday. I am here, alone and embraced by the quiet on an almost 7pm in the evening.

I wish to create.
***

Do you happen to know that feeling when you lie down to sleep on a 2 or 3am, and don't remember what kept you busy the whole day? Like hours seem to be wheeling off so fast, you hardly notice the day wrap up and shut down.

For the past few days, I seem busy doing what I can't even remember I was doing. Days seem to just pass me by like that. Moments are getting more and more unremarkable. Dry. Silent. Empty. Like scenes of a movie that really don't have anything to do with the plot. They just go away... not leaving any mark. They have become indifferent. Like robots.

Days fly so fast that it's become impossible to leave even the tiniest imprint. You know how that feels?
It feels like life is happening somewhere else.

I've been so restless. I feel the need to express. To sort things out. To find my way through all these unnecessary bustle. I need to write. But each time I attempt to write, I lose it. I lose the drive. Like a car engine that won't start. 

You twist the ignition, hear a loud "brrooom". And then what happens? The sound faints and vanishes just like that. It seems like the mere thought of writing is intimidating already. I cannot move inside my head. My thoughts are paralyzed.

What is going on with me?

I look at my old journal entries, read through them. And I get jealous of that kid, that effortless storyteller. Always in tune with her thoughts. Always in control of them, how to make them and convey them. Always has the means, the time and space, to express and create. I really miss that person.

Back in high school, I really wrote a lot and kept a compilation of my output. I had an active blog and a DevArt. Almost everyday, I wrote. I was so good at finding so many special things in just one day and then, I write about them right away. I kept a notepad with me whenever, where I put my poems, and proses, my couplets and undone stanzas.

I was really breathing back then. Now? I'm only learning to breathe.

Time is changing gears so fast, and I'm missing gears a lot. I'm a car engine that don't start. And my thoughts are on coma. Soon, someday soon, life will be happening not somewhere else, but inside of me. Soon, life will come back. Soon I know, are unempty days. And soon, are a boom of written stories. Soon,

I am coming home.

Tried Something Hard

Salamat, Dad.

Sunset and Dusk

I love sunsets and dusk. I think it's the time of the day when the sky gets most creative. The sun is so golden, and strong, and beautiful, like a god. And its delicate rays splatter hints of pink all over the dimming canvass. Looking at the sunset is like staring at Beauty in its very eye. Getting lost in the incomprehensible space of natural grandeur and untouched magnificence.

This sun is a god. The supreme artist. The very cradle of beauty. Reminding everything down below to honor the bright daylight's goodbye. Setting down, to make way for darkness to veil all over the place. And setting down to make sense in rising up again. When the morning comes, when rest and insight were won by the mind and body, it will rise again, to make you feel closer than you'll ever be to the most serene form of beauty, to set back again, and tell of the power that is vast, untouched and magnificent.

I am just a creature down below such a majestic heavenly body. I honor and appreciate such a power, this power that is unexplainable and inexpressible with spoken language. And at the same time, I humbly recognize this power as to be residing in me and so I feel that I am powerful as well as I appeal to its immense creativity.

This is the sunset I took just today before the night veiled off the whole place into complete darkness. I took the photo with my phone, while I was riding at the back of the car. This is a lucky shot I tell you that. And I believe this is destined to be here, as permitted by this god to reflect on this piece of art. Thank you, Sun.

Lazy and sitting all day

No drunk. Just Funk.

TorNOWdo

Right now munching this crispy potato tornado.

Life as a question

A little side story before I start rambling what is yet another personal theory.

It is a strange feeling how this blog is starting to intimidate me. After a moment of staring at it, something holds me back from writing. My thoughts tend to get shy and tongue-tied at the very sight of its cozy wood background and hints of brown melancholy. The feeling is pretty much the same as confronting a blank paper. When the writer, or an artist, is about to create something, she thinks first before giving it a stroke, afraid to start with wrong lines or imperfect curves. And in thinking too much sometimes comes the doubt of being able to create well and beautifully.

I do not like the feeling. I do not want to get intimidated, especially in creating.I want to be free from anything deterrent of self-expression, self-love and self-discovery. That is what I understand my life is for.

I think that if life composes itself to a question, the question would be "who am I?". I believe that life is all about finding and knowing the self- that infinite soul that is mysteriously encased in a limited body. To reach within the depths of that soul, is to reach out to a larger truth that is perfect and unfathomable.
The soul is what makes anybody real, and unique, and alive. It is the powerhouse within which all meaning reside. And life, as I understand it, is the search and mastery of this Self.

You see, the search for the Self underlies everything that we do. It is always our sense of self that direct us to our choices and drives us to be doing what we do. I write because I understand my self as to be having the passion to write. Not necessarily that I claim to be a writer, but that I see myself as a story, which I want to tell and share.

Our sense of self at present reflects how we see ourselves in the future. I think that every goal, and every dream and desire is a drive of our present sense of self. A person dreams to be a musician because in one way or another, he sees himself as a sound. A tone, that is essential in creating a more complicated web of sounds that is music.

Who am I? There is really some level of unexplained difficulty in the question. One that will make us think second thoughts. Though in the usual dealings of life, who we are is simply our name. But if we look at it more reflectively, isn't my name only a word with a picture of my body and physical appearance, with a hint of my personality, but devoid in meaning and depth? No spoken concept is sufficient to answer the question Who am I?. "I am a daughter" for example is a concept that speaks of me. But it is not enough to encapsulate who I really am as separate from anybody else. My sister is also a daughter, and so is my mother. It is not everything that I am. Even negations won't work. Try, "I am not you". But all other people are also not you. What makes me different from all of them who are not you? What makes me who I am that doesn't make you who you are and others who they are? All this questions are borne out from a larger question, Who am I?

Self expression is one way of knowing who we really are. Ironic it may sound, but the dynamics is like that of an athlete practicing a sport. The more he plays the sport, the more he understands it, until such time he gets to devise certain techniques to win. The more you express yourself, the more you understand who you are until you find effective avenues for self-discovery. Others find it in art. Others in music. Others in being with other people, in rearing families and children, in helping out the needy, in consoling friends, and advocating peaceful change. There are countless ways to discover the self, and people around us help in this ventures, both in small and big ways.

I have been writing as means to express. And I don't like how I'm getting intimidated to write in this blog now. Seems like I've run out of the right words to say, which really should not be the case. Self-expression is truth, and is not within the standards of right or wrong. Probably because I kind of forgot who I am.

And this is how I unravel again life as this question.

What does your dream house look like?

Yung deceiving ang facade. Mukhang baro-baro outside. Pero inside, "wonderland".

ASK for a good haircut (on Formspring!)

Wonderwalk

Life is a walk. And love is a marathon.

"Life is a walk." This is actually a little cliche, but it's true. Everyday is a walk, and we take different sorts of roads everytime. Wherever we are heading to, only we know. It's a personal call. But the thing is, we are always on a walk to somewhere. Even without using our feet.

And walking is learning and discovering. Along the way are sights and sounds that tell you stories, lessons and beautiful things. The best part about walking is not getting somewhere, but the walking itself. Every step you take is freedom to move. Freedom to be, or become. The rhythm of your steps energizes you, and fills you in with passion as your feet do the incredible job. Every ounce of air that you take in is an idea rushing through your brain, a potential strand of a beautiful story.

I actually love to walk. I love strolling around nice places, like beaches and parks, and I walk as if I'm in the movies. NO, just kidding. *wink.
I walk while introspecting, taking in all the good things and cherishing all the good sights. My friends would always tease me for being a slow walker. I remember during field trips and/or out-of-town seminars, I always get behind the pack. And teachers always hated me for that. One time, I was eight then, I got lost in SM because my mom and her office mate Jessel were walking so fast, and I lost sight of them. I was panicking and crying, until a stranger saw me and dropped me off the Information Area. My mom was paged. At least I was only eight that time. I didn't know yet that was embarrassing.

Up until today, I walk like every step is to cherish. And I appreciate every person I get to walk with, especially those slow, long walks with good conversations.

Life is a walk, and the road is full of surprises. Unexpectedly, along the humdrum routines and familiar things, something would just pop up your way all of a sudden, like a genie in a bottle and make all your fantasies come true. The road will turn into a bunch of fluffy clouds, and bright rainbows would hang overhead. You find yourself grasping for breath in thrill and excitement, and everything around is a blur. All you see is magic. This is when the marathon begins.

You hop right in without so much thinking, and find yourself moving on the fast lane. But you don't mind. 'Cause me, I didn't.
And when you start to not mind as if nothing else matters but what is here and now, and you start to think you found reason for life and everything, and you feel that the long hard walk is worth it, and that everything does make sense, you know you have bumped into love. The best discovery there is.

It's a phenomenon. It is life-changing. It turns you into huge strong planet, and makes you feel like you couldn't ask for anything more. It's the strongest feeling, the most mind boggling, the most beautiful. That is why countless stories go about love everyday.

Now here's the bad news. Love is a marathon. The arched rainbows would make you roll downhill so fast, until the show's over, and the fluffy clouds are gone. No more rainbows and butterflies. And you're on the cold hard ground, at the foot of a stranger, asking for love to come back. And that's the time you realize that it had all been on the fast lane, that it had been a marathon. It ended so fast.
You'd be asking for playbacks and slower versions of the happy scenes, and find that there's not a rewind button at all. And all you got is the "play" button, and the walk keeps on.

Life goes on. The marathon hits the finish line. And from a strong huge planet you've been to a million tiny grains of sand, you hit the open road again. What a wonderwalk.

Pippy

You black beanie has served me well for the past months. And you may take some time off, a gray beanie got qualified to substitute you for the season. I love you.
***

Hi! I am glad and thrilled to introduce you to a new character in the story of life.

Remember when I told you how I feel so human and safe with my tuque on? To me it's like a safety helmet that encloses my personal thoughts from outside interference, vanity and judgment. (Well, any hat for that matter. Plus, hair is most of the time scruffy- and I'm lazy- and a hat is just the fastest kind of remedy.)

Well guess what. Somebody just knows what I need, and cares about it. Hence the entry of this character in the story. So, everyone, living and non-living things, put on the cat's pyjamas and meet my new company, friend and helmet- Pippy.

Pippy is a gray beanie, gifted to me two days after my 20th birthday. Pippy is cool and cozy. And quite remarkable to people.
When I wore Pippy in Spanish class for the first time, La Maestra acknowledged me when I entered the room, and told me how she's noticed me always wearing this kind of hat. And then I told her, "Uhm this is a beanie, Ma'am.". And from that day on, I was formally "that one with a beanie" in class. 

She actually never acknowledged me on anything I wore or do in class, even if I almost always wore a tuque. I'm pretty sure it was Pippy who catalyzed the verbalization of her curiosity and/or interest over my hats- if there was any.

And from that, we can say that Pippy is special, apart from the fact that Pippy is called by a special name- Pippy. Pippy was by the way, derived from an endearment that gets a lot of variation everytime. Pippy simply was named after the person who gave it to me. And Pippy reminds me and would always remind me of a birthday I planned to just let slip away, but people around me really pushed to make that day special. So Pippy is a lot of people, memories and things to me. Pippy is really special.

So there. Pippy. Cool isn't Pippy? :) The black beanie (as in the topmost photo) I used to wear a lot, and the other gray tuque, are now on a great vacay somewhere. Pippy is taking over the scene for the mean time. And I'm wearing Pippy now. Say Hello.

Thanks, Pia.

To prepare for war, Friday night, Room 22

The Secret

Do you know the secret? Yes, the secret. Yea uh, that secret.

Okay. The universe does conspire with what you want and what you need because you are a moment of that universe unfolding itself. To say it simply you are one with the universe. And that you have the power to create, or at the very least appeal to the rich creative power that it holds.

You want a simple and clear-cut example?

Here you go. Tonight, I mean just a while ago, really just minutes ago, the wi-fi went off while I was typing something to post. I tried to reconnect but the connection failed. I tried again. It failed once more. I tried and tried and tried and still weren't able to reconnect to the wifi. The "connection attempt failed" prompt kept appearing on my screen every time.

What I did was talk to the universe. Or "talked to myself" to make it a little more layman. I said, "Please let the wifi return and as soon as this thing gets posted, I'll go log off and get out of this haven to study for my American History exam tomorrow".

I inhaled a gush of night air.

After I felt the air on my nostrils and into my lungs, I tried to connect to the wifi signal once more. In just a few seconds, I found my lappy reconnected to the wifi signal.

The moral of the story is the universe works for the good. Sometimes it chops off the signal to what you are currently doing to remind you of the more important things. And I'm logging of now because I had a deal with the Universe.

This is the secret.

Breaking News: Intruders on Bandit's Haven

I'm like holy crap of the heavenly bodies what the damned hell is going on? My haven- that heavenly spot of mine under a spiral staircase in the dorm's lobby, is now being intruded and lodged illegally by faggy laptop users who are availing my spot's strong and uninterrupted wi-fi. Plus, their using my haven's electric connection and plugging in their goddamn adaptors on my socket. Sucks man. Sucks.

Before, mosquitoes are the only ones sharing my bandit haven. And didn't consider it much like a problem. Now these fags are squeezing themselves in. And I am trespassed and my property rights are infringed. Sucks man. Sucks. This has been happening for several nights now and I gotta find ways how to drive these rascals out.

So basically that's the news.  These monkeys should go get a life and find their own space. The world is way too huge for them to go squeezing into my tiny haven.

Mind you

Hunger reminds me of something, that I am not complete, and that I'm in need for some providence (care) everytime. When my tummy shouts "food, food!", my spirit in some ways whispers "God, God". I eat, and Providence is confirmed to have worked its ways on me. 

(Sept 29, 2011 Written because I'm hungry.)

How I'm A Soul With Not A Body At Night

I just blogged some pre-birthday confessions a while ago and I must say I was quite drenched in the feeling.

Now I am loosening up and savoring what's left of my canned mocha. This entry is written because 1) I want to make the most of the boost that is coming to me at this very moment and 2) because I'm still not sleepy. Possibly due to the mocha, and the "upper" that results from having accomplished a chronicle such as the previous blog.

By the way, I am in my usual bandit haven that is under a spiral staircase in my dormitory's lobby. At this time, mosquitoes share my haven. But the nocturnal insects are less of a nuisance than outsiders swarming this area during daytime, practicing for some PE dance show.

Going back, I could have been more productive tonight. I know, okay. Don't judge. I could have picked up one of my American history readers and read my way through boosting up my midterm's 78. My lowest grade, and the only far-out thing in the queue. I don't know if History class and everything about it is just my waterloo or if I'm just plain unlucky with this subject. But shove those bad vibes away. This class is simply way too pakipot with granting me its approval, even after weeks and weeks of painstakingly chewing its narratives. Believe me, I studied for midterm exam and wrote the essays with ample confidence. I really thought I would skyrocket for midterms, but guess what, I got even lower than my prelim. And with anything as pakipot as that, I leave it to regret that it let slip away a hip lover as me.

So no American History tonight and all its tetchie-fying torments. No thesis brain racking. No school suckabaggadicks in my midst at this point. 

I actually have noticed how I function these days. I have been actually rediscovering my dynamics, more than ever, and getting used to my current person. Here's the newest factoid about my body-clock: At daytime, I'm like a dog who poops everywhere. And at night, I'm a cat digging pits where to put my poop. 

This means that during the day, I work and think about work and worry about work like a dog, wherever. Be it in the school cafeteria or at the hallways or at the library. And I don't want any distractions from pooping (just like how we all want a private space to concentrate whenever we defecate). So I work like a dog during the day to put it in simple terms. However, when nighttime comes, I dig holes where to bury these daytime worries, (just like how a cat digs for itself a pit where to expel her waste). I bury my work issues and just forget the shit about them. That is when I become a soul with not a body at night.

Hence tonight, my petty cares for tomorrow are buried in the burst of written thoughts, shrouded in precious mud of coffee, thin clouds of smoke and inanimate shadows.

So the cool moon sits pretty overhead. Mocha is blissfully trickling to emptiness. I write and write words and phrases and statements. I feel so alive, I'm starting to forget about the ticktocks. Worries fly away as smoke evaporates in thin air. I feel like a soul without a body tonight, uncommitted to anything like tomorrow.




-Written on a midnight that is hours ago.

Twenty in Four

I hate to sound like I'm 53 but I'm really not excited about my birthday. I was not keeping track of the calendar. I was not thinking about what to do on my birthday.

I was not even thinking about the birthday.

But since my mom have cut off my ignorance and amputated my bliss of not knowing last Sunday, I got reconnected to the program that is unstoppably coming real soon. Now what to do- she posed to me. And I've never gotten so anxious about any of my birthdays since the last 19 years.

I actually tried to be honest with her and told her I would not do anything on my birthday. 

To make it a little less shocking for her old-fashioned mind frame, I used the word "reflect" on my birthday. But she laughed at what she thought was a joke, and my Dad kidded about how I was becoming much like a philosopher.

Seriously, I'm not up for it. My life is not just on the upbeat lately, and my mind is into a lot of chaos. And turning a year older with a preoccupation that concerns my life as whole only adds to the chaos that's already here. I'm twenty years old in four days, and then? Would my life go back to zero and flip out a squeaky clean blank page for me to start again? It only means I'm running out of time. I'm getting older, and it's getting impossible to create some heavenly bastion of freedom from here.

The truth is I’m uneasy. I have to live up to a lot of pressure. And I don’t even know if I’d be able to tailor this life into what has been a fine dream for me. The authorities are tailoring it the way they want it, and I’m having the time of my life translating it a miserable plot. Everything seems bulldozing me, I can't even keep a birthday the way I want it.

And I’m catching a deadline. Soon, real soon, the authorities would be looking at me condescendingly- how I got dumped out of my course, worked my ass to get back, and still extended for a year more in college, just when virtually anyone who knows me saw me as a promise. But check out the forecast, now a broken promise I am. And it breaks my heart like that. It crushes me how I disappointed the people who matter to me by being the disappointment myself. And I have four days to launch the grand reality. Expecting that their acceptance would be the birthday gift.

But if there's something I'd like to do on the day, just to give it a thought, it is to but get away from everything. To cut off the reception for just one day- out, literally out, of anybody's access. I want to disappear from everything that is. Just for once. I'd like to be given the freedom to not think of anything, not even my birthday. The liberty to sleep on what is dubbed a ceremonious rite, to not take a bath, or mind any physical self care, to walk around like a nomadic creature who owns the world, and get disconnected from the program that has brought to being demons of pressure and anxiety. For once, God- Destiny, Controller, Transcendent, Universe, Cosmos- take me away into some solemn couch of private peace. And you'd be giving me the best birthday present ever in the history of my history.

Yea I know I don't have the means to get on a jet and fly through another zip code, and plunge into some "Eat, Pray, Love" journey like that. But I really don't think I want to get myself something overstated. I doubt if I would even like to tip out a penny for a tiny cake and a teeny candle. Maybe I just want to fly a metaphorical balloon on that day. A balloon that is the 24th of September this year, flying away into blue skies and then out of sight. Just like that. And forget I’m twenty in four.

 -Written last night but the wifi went of without notice. Hence the delayed publishing.

How an Angel Appeared in the Store's Fridge

What I'm going to write now has little to do with an angel appearing to me as I opened the convenience store's fridge. That is just to emphasize how I wish an angel would take me away now into the fancy and free world I get to be in each time I get drenched in the effect of coffee. Not as if it takes you to an overly altered state of consciousness as alcohol, but I like how the ideas zoom in after a couple of heavenly sip.

Tonight, I went to the store on my pyjamas and slippers, and felt so comfy and free as if the whole city was my house and the convenience store was just my kitchen- well an extension of my little house's kitchen. I had to buy mocha because I haven't had my caffeine fix today. My head was twinging a bit this morning, and I was so sleepy at the pastor's sermon in church. When I went home for lunch, the twinge started to amplify that I only fed on soup and dozed off to sleep immediately. When I woke, I was in no different world; my head was still throbbing, I woke up in a bad mood. Pissed. Bummed at how I'm not going back to Davao today. This would lead us to the main point of my being bummed.

I actually don't like how I'm not allowed to take a leisurely stroll in my own hometown. I can't go out anytime I want. In Davao, I always get some night air everyday. I walk around. I discover somewhere nice to sit and see. I sense my feet. I humanize myself in finding my own space of introspection and creativity. Here, I had to hibernate more than needed just because my parents' are visualizing horrors of me getting mugged in the streets. Gad that's so not cool. 

So when I told them I had to buy mocha, Dad drove me to the convenience store. I didn't enjoy much of the night air I want, and the blissful "freedom walk" to sense my feet, but it wasn't really that bad though because Dad paid for my cans. At least.

Chain Mail and Helmet of the Era

Introducing the chain mail and helmet of the era.

Gladiators are gone, with their heavy chain mails, bronze helmets and sharp swords.
But the fight goes on.

Tuque is the new helmet, to cover your thoughts from outside interference and infiltration. To avoid the humdrum routine from influencing your core. To keep the thoughts enclosed and the essence safe. The brain.

The hoodie is the new chain mail. An apparatus to keep you warm in the cold. The battlefield is a cold cold place, peopled by indifference and distance. For always, people's hearts are impassable. The more you try to knock down the barrier, the more you are hit hard. And that is why a body armor is essential.

Where is the sword? The pen. The pen to keep the story on track.
To be able to make sense of the fight.
***

More helmets in my shelf. You probably didn't know I have this thing for hats.

They'd surely make a good birthday present in a few days. Haha

If (Wooden) Walls Could Speak

Fine wood makes up a fine house, that brings together thinkers and writers, artists and poets, where a biting brown coffee made from from the finest coffee beans is relished. And if the wooden walls could speak, they would tell a lot of great stories. Of nostalgia, melancholy, euphoria and great madness.

Wooden walls brings pictures of lazy afternoons by the beach, or a quickie in a cabin. It reminds you of coffee breaks by the sunset, jazzy love songs on a cold rainy evening, and a camp fire on the shore. It tells of blueberry nights in solitude, either paper and pen under a lamp shade on a sturdy wooden desk, or under the yellow light by a quiet street. Wooden walls paint memories of drunken, lonely nights in a living room, and an old tiresome TV show. They would recount romantic breakfast in bed on a 6AM, or a hangover from last night's good time. They would embrace you in the comfort of solace, and make the cigarettes taste more minty.

And if wooden walls could speak, they'd tell me they'd be good for a Blogspot Background. I thought the old one was not as cozy as it should be. My blog should always keep that feel. Cozy. Home-like. Plainly whatever's up. Hallmarks of Creamy-ness. Hence, the makeover of this blog.

Right Now

I don't eat as much anymore. Yesterday I got a feedback from Jam that I got thin. And I think I already saw that coming. I catch myself getting hungry constantly. But not knowing what I want to eat ends up in not eating anything.

Most of the time, I just get myself something fast like Space Burger cheeseburger and take a few bites just so my I'd be eligible to grab coffee. (Drinking coffee when hungry causes stomach ache.)

The irony of things is, I thinned but I feel so much heavier than my body.
***

Meanwhile, as shown in the photo above, munching a cheeseburger which I can't finish anymore, drinking mocha and updating my blog. My blog's got a makeover! Changed the background and tuned up the fonts and colors. My next post will discuss the new background.

Jack Johnson is doing the thing on my ears right now, and I'm having multiple eargasms.

Nada

I dislike how my days have dragged on lately without inspiration. I know I was quite a burnout for the past weeks, but at least I was still able to write. Now, nothing comes out.

I stare at my old journal entries in Picket Drive and some of the earliest posts of this blog, feeling so jealous of that old me. I wonder where that kid is.

My days seem so boneless now. No framework. Nothing to write about.

El Dibujo de La Profesora

Drawn September 13, 2011 during Spanish Class

Taco

Today, I had lunch at 2 pm because I dozed off for a power nap after my 11am to 12 noon class, American Literature. I woke up at quarter to two, quite hungry. But I didn't eat just yet because my thesis group was waiting for me. And my tummy gratification had to get postponed for more or less 30 minutes.

It was quite un-nice that I spent those thirty minutes getting awkward with myself. It seemed that I was just called to show up, but not really to do some help. So I was there sitting next to my thesis mates with only Ethel doing the work, and the rest of the block laughing heartily at their jokes, while I was getting quite bummed at how I could not relate to their conversation. Plus the thought of having to keep my hungry stomach waiting just for nothing.

By the end of the 30-minute awkward battle with my mind, I found the right tick to tell Ethel I had to go grab my lunch for the meantime that I was not doing anything. So I grabbed my bag, left and headed for the school cafeteria.

I honestly didn't know what to eat, so I approached my usual thing lately- Breakfast Club. It has become my first stop in school these days since I fell in love with their Nescafe mocha. (Click previous post for photo). The funny thing about this cafe mocha is that, even if it is mechanically prepared, meaning that you just go push some buttons on a coffee machine, the taste is not consistent. Sometimes it's too black, sometimes so creamy (this is what I like), and sometimes too sweet. Nevertheless, I fell in love with it. And that's what I don't understand. Maybe I like how I order it without knowing what to expect.

Since it was past breakfast and lunch, Breakfast Club unfortunately got no more food but sunny side-up eggs which didn't really click with my stomach's brain. So I went straight to Pansitan and bought Palabok instead. It didn't taste as good as I was still in first year. (This is my fourth year in Ateneo by the way.) Nonetheless, due to hunger, I devoured all of it.

It was not a comforting lunch really. How I had to feel out of place in the midst of old friends, how Breakfast Club didn't leave me any pork tocino or bacon floddies, how the palabok didn't taste as good as I wanted, and how I had to eat alone with all of these things going on.

Dissatisfied, I bought a soft taco and large Coke. I was really boggled about how to properly eat the taco. You know, how to eat it without messing on my shirt and face. I was never really master of taco-eating and whenever I'm the one holding it, the shit hits the fan. Many times, I would go home to the dorm and change skirt just because it got taco sauce all over it.

So I stared at it for a while. And then, I started compressing the part I was going to bite, just so the bits would go compact and easier to chomp. I did it all the way down- compress and bite- and it worked. The taco didn't go crap on my shirt and face. Thanks Heavens.

But taco wasn't really quite the same as usual. I usually go buy another after taking one down. But this time, I only consumed half of it and I just did not enjoy it that much. It didn't taste like it was happy. And I felt like the bits inside it were fighting. The contents did not go well together. And something about it wasn't really comforting. So I didn't finish it. I just unrolled it and ate all the beef out.

And I was there at the cafeteria like a drop sun in the big sea. The only thing I know is the chaos in my mind.

This is the only nice thing I had today.

Everything else crapped out.

Thanks for getting me through the day. I wish to drink you for something better tomorrow. 

Good night.

Butterflies.

I miss the butterflies.

I miss that thing when you wake up in the morning feeling jumpy to get out of bed. The day just started. The skies just cracked for some sun rays to leak out. You haven't brushed your teeth or washed your face. And yet, you are happy. Like there's always something to look forward to.

The butterflies come around with some "automatic happiness". That thing where you don't have to go nuts figuring out what would make you happy. Just like being a kid. You want ice cream, then there's no boggling the mind out. You go run to momma and ask for icecream.

It is the time when happiness becomes a given. It takes form. It becomes visible. It becomes tangible. Hence, becomes easier to generate. Being able to identify a desired outcome comes with a stack of means to achieve it. It's like wanting to go somewhere and instantaneously knowing the route how to get there.

It is the time when happiness is simplified. Just one smile, one look, one touch, and you feel like zooming out like a wild jet plane. You feel like you're in the movies headed towards some more sappy scenes and a happy ending. Or maybe you don't feel like you're headed towards any end at all. You feel so alive, like there's no kind of death, or any idea of an end lurking around. It feels so safe. It makes you feel so secured, as if you've got all that you need.

But sometimes, you just get snapped out of that fairytale. You become burnt out. Like you just wanna slack off on the bed all day. Or walk by the sidewalk alone at night, and drown in anonymity. Sometimes, the butterflies just go away and you find yourself always sleepy. And demands, expectations, and all them shit standards you have to live up to start to get irritating that you just wanna shut yourself out from all of the world. And you find yourself so tired, like you're floating away in a mindless state of irregularity. You don't know what you want to eat. Where you wanna go. How to be happy. You feel so bummed you can't entertain anybody who walks in to be entertained. All you want is a way out from all the bustle.

And thats how I feel now. I've been oversleeping these days. Eating just whenever I remember I got stomach to feed. Taking in toxins of different kinds. Finding a bunch of people to go out with, whom I could just be not that entertaining. You know, comfortable people whom you think can handle your silence and all that floating-away kinda thing. Unfortunately, they are scarce. So most of the time, I'm conversing with the white screen like this, or strumming and plucking strings.

I miss the butterflies. I miss being in love.

New Nido Print Ad not for Kids

I went to NCCC Express this afternoon, and this print ad caught my attention.
"Protect him so he can explore."

Seriously? Hahaha

Midnight Owl

I just wanna stay up. Think. Fly. Look around. Write. And just be a bum. I could use the whole night, and stay up like a midnight owl. Thank you Awesome for inventing night time, for programming the human bodies inside this dormitory to sleep during this time, for caffeine to cheat such program, for cold breeze, for fine solitude, for this occasion and place to be swept away by thoughts. Truly pleasure.

So here’s a little story-telling for a kick-start. What I did today. Well, today, I woke up at 10, had a great (ooops, Error: this part is not for public display. Haha), worked some ass for the dance tomorrow, spent time with my family, chained five sticks down my throat, had an interesting talk with a new friend Trisha, ignored my roommates, watched Friends with Benefits again, hmm what else.. Guess that’s pretty much it.

Moving on, this post was kind of written for Blogger until I began feeling like writing crude banditry on this one. Because all you can read from the start of this post are just hints. Like riddles that get boring over time. It’s so roundabout. So draggy.

So at this very point I’m on a crisis of whether keeping this post for Blogger or relocate this to my bandanna-tied Wordpress and utter my favorite words like Sex, Cigarettes, Shit, Fucking and so on. It’s like choosing between being a bandit kicking kittens off the way or becoming that kitten being kicked away by the bandit. So plain awful.

Anyway, since this was initially written for Blogger, then so be it. Let it stay here on Blogger. Why pull out a sprouting plant when it has already found a place for itself down the ground? If you find some ridick-culous things down here, then you find them, alright. And that’s fine. No, scratch that.  That’s Great. That means you’ve read my blog.Haha Well, guess it’s time you meet the person behind this blog, the one who’s taking you for a ride with the ever-changing seasons.

Juven, Salvaje y Libre

Creamy Clavero, turning twenty in a couple of weeks and not so excited about it. I am quite a burnout, and I'll elaborate on that sometime soon.
I'm usually on freeform, a learner, always at the beginning, never stopping beginning. If there’s one thing I’d like to do for the rest of my life, it’s to create. I want to be in control. I don’t like anything controlling me. I don’t talk to everyone. And that keeps me sane. I have a guitar that plays a good company. I have five Ferrari model cars, one of them I gave away to a special friend. I like the quiet. I love cozy places, nice comfy chairs, coke, coffee, cars, and the color brown. On my free time, I like being free or just teleporting to my reveries. My wish is to be happy with pursuing the impossibility of perfect happiness. The importance, they say, lies in the process rather than in the outcome. More so if the outcome doesn’t exist at all, like total happiness.

Once in my Spanish class we were tasked to write something about ourselves. And so, the caption in the photo is my opening. "Soy juven, salvaje y libre." It means I'm young, wild and free. And that's how I think I'll forever be.

But here’s the thing: I can’t give you all of me in just one post. No matter how long this post would be. I can’t even give myself all of who I am despite my whole life. We are always on a road to discovering ourselves, and as we forward, we keep recreating ourselves as well. There is no fixed me. There is no fixed you. No fixed anything. We plainly dissolve into the seasons and reborn into something else, that the point of vanity seems to have no point at all. The person writing this now might no longer be the same person tomorrow.  And as to who runs this blog and how she is, most of the time, that just wouldn’t matter.

 It’s 3:40am on my watch. The midnight owl disappears. And perhaps, so does the one who wrote this.

Note: owl photo via Google Search

To kick things off 'round here

Just wools for you, baby.
--Blogger wrote this one. Not me. Is this how it works here? Blogger writes for you? Like when you click "New Post", you don't get a blank page? That's pretty weird huh. But at least they do pretty well with mind-reading. ;-)

Anyway, (This is already me writing..) this would really be just wool for you, baby. You know, casual blabbering and all that. A little vanity. A little story. A little melodrama. A little nonsense. I think that's what this thing's made for. A little of everything that goes with the season.. and of that does not. Let's make this as loosy coosy as possible. No rules. Zero gravity. Plainly whatever's up.

I have this tingling feeling on my neck telling me to make this post a little special. You know, the tradition of making the FIRST a big deal. Doing it ceremoniously. This is my first post by the way. So an imp is tickling my nape right now bugging me to make this a little special as my first ever Blogspot entry. I slap the imp and make this post special by not making it special. Let's just go with the season. It feels truer, more home-like, more forever-sounding that way.

So without further ado, tweepies, welcome to my freshly resurrected Blogspot, now they call Blogger, from the grave of six years ago. It's pretty awesome I found it, and reactivated it with my Yahoomail. Haha You are nice Google! Welcome welcome welcome. Maybe you'll find all them bizarre creatures here but just don't break anything. Plus when you come around, don't bring outside food. Empty your cups and you're gonna get what the words have made of themselves.

I am not a blogger. I swear. But I do write what the words make of themselves, how they jump into the sentence, and find a special place. I just sit down and post it for heck's sake.

Aright, a little background for this whole thing. Just recently, hmm June this year, life puts me to a new sea of people again. I have been spending the past year adjusting to new different people. And now, another batch to adjust and try to fit in again. I actually appreciate how my life's been so dynamic for me these months. You know.. making me learn how to get around with different kinds of people. It's actually not easy thing though. You meet a lot of weeds that wouldn't really matter in the long run. Sometimes, you just want to pull them out of your pot because either a) they hamper the growth of the flowers or b) they take up so much of your water, vacuuming all your energy. Ugh, such douches. And hey, there's gonna be bitches who think so shallow you wanna slap their asses with a grilled shovel. :))

But the beautiful in the ugly are the people you find interesting. And let's just leave it at that. Sometimes the pleasure of ignorance just gets overwhelming that you don't wanna proceed to knowing more. Simply because the thrill is different when things remain a mystery. And I enjoy the mystery that life is. And the mystery people are. And the mystery of keeping them. Well, adjust.  But don't kill the thrill-giving spill.

So there, I have been trying to relate with different people more than ever this time. And I have been discovering a lot things. And I'm having the time of my life learning, and the growing pains that go with it. I am  blessed with emotions, the chance of feeling them. So this is how it is huh. This sure feels so human. This looks much more like life.

I am grateful for the push of writing to me. That rush that comes with hearing every written word. That fulfillment of being able to create a story.

So maybe, this blog is nothing but pieces of stories, unravelled from a bigger, more complicated story... My life. Now that sounds so bloggish! Haha

Anyway, before I float away like a pixie in mid-air, I want to thank a newly-met friend and blogger, the astonishing, catwalk virtuoso, Arianne for convincing me to take a spot for myself in the blogworld by taking a more visible form of self. I have been writing a lot in cyberspace since highschool, but my blogs aren't really bloggish as every renowned blogger in history. I keep a blog at Wordpress I just opened this year, but it sounds so detached from the daily dealings of my life. That blog was so bandit I don't even tell everybody about it. So maybe this is time is a vanity blog so to speak.Haha I'm afraid.

See you around!