One Of Those Nights

had a bad day again
she said i would not understand
slammed the door and said,
"i'm sorry i had a bad day again..."

(bad day, fuel)

sigh... well it started out fairly ok. i was supposed to pass my resume already to some companies, but again, my reluctance got the best of me and decided to put it off until monday. honestly, i'm really deathly afraid of making this leap. and jeezuz, this isn't even a leap, this is a yawning chasm before me i have to jump over. a leap compared to this is like, like... piko!

speaking of leap, i got an offline message from hono'o-chan, telling me the deadline for the leap website will be on the 20th of august. seems like still a long time from now, but... well... (closes eyes, takes a breath, then... exhales) i'll be working on it.

and again, speaking of leap, this afternoon i was thinking of how to leap from 3PM to 6PM until bug gets to makati. i went to the cinemas and saw ella enchanted was already showing. thought it wouldn't be shown for another week or so. oh well. so i watched. and it was ok. kids' stuff. nyet.

6PM hit and bug was still not in makati. decided to walk around greenbelt instead. on my way up to the food court, i bumped into kuya carl. he was on his way to sketchbooks, this art/comics store in greenbelt 3. i decided to tag along like a lost little ferret. because i feel like a ferret whenever i'm with him. heh. he's really amazing. altho i'd bet he already gets that a lot from people, and he's prolly tired from hearing it... i wish my presence cheered him up a bit tho. (shrug)

around 7 or so, bug txted, telling me he's already in the area. we met up and had dinner at kfc. and i never knew a simple friday evening dinner at kfc no less, my most favoritest fast food restaurant, would steam up the anger gears in my brain. kfc glorietta is hell waiting to freeze over. there were enough people to open a black hole. it was too damned hot and too damned noisy, and i accidentally put down my bag (which has lappie inside) on a tray with leftover food.

good thing i had my superhuman patience hat with me, i just expunged the negativity in an exhale. even when bug asked, "hindi mo alam na merong tray dun?" i didn't respond with a catty, "actually alam ko. i just tricked you into putting your bag beside mine so that your bag will be there on the tray too." i'm so proud of myself.

anyways, so i transferred my bag to the other vacant chair and we ate. mostly in silence since i was still swallowing some negative residues with the chicken i was eating. eventually i ran out of gravy and i thought it was perfect timing a gravy girl was passing by. she asked me if i wanted more gravy. i was halfway through my yes when bug said i didn't have to ask for more gravy since he had a lot anyways. in a split second, i thought to myself, but that's your gravy... and you love gravy. so i decided to get more from the gravy girl.

now, gravy girl was somewhat of a half table away from where we were, since it was crowded where we were sitting, so i had to reach my little container and she had to lean a bit to pour me some hot, brown, sticky sweet chicken bath. and Bag With Lappie Inside just happened to be right below our touching point. it was a scene begging to be screwed. so yeah, thanks to the all-knowing murphy's law, the scene was indeed screwed. gravy girl tipped the gravy container too far and some of that hot, brown, sticky sweet chicken bath slushed its merry way down on BWLI. wow. it was awesome. and i mean fucken' awesome, slow motion and all.

ah, it's ok. super patience hat remember? but uh-oh. what's this? i removed my super patience hat when we began eating. so what happened?

nothing.

"aww... poor BWLI." (napkin napkin. wipe wipe wipe.) there. all better. let's eat. and so we did.

now bug didn't have the luxury of having the magic of super patience hat. and after dinner, when he asked me where the 13 going on 30 cd was, and i told him i forgot it at home, and i suddenly remembered i'd promised to bring it because we'd watch it tonight, his expression suddenly went thru five different changes in two seconds showing the five stages of loss -- sadness, anger, denial, despair, and indifference.

of course i couldn't say anything. i was the bad guy. the One Who Forgot. He Who Must Not Be Named. the Person Who Had To Say Sorry. and i did. say sorry. just once tho, but it was said with utmost sincerity.

i understand it wasn't just me forgetting the cd. i know small cracks like that could ultimately be the cause of something more vile and unforgiving. so when i said sorry i really meant it. and i will definitely try to do my best the next time. especially in sticking to my promises, and not being such a wimp. i could only hope bug has a large fount of patience, not coming from a hat, but from his own heart, to put up with my... improperly childish outlook on things sometimes. sigh.

and now, at home, to try and bring my spirits up, i watched hayao miyazaki's spirited away. bad idea since it was sorta sad, at least for me, but yeah. i guess i'm feeling a bit ok now. sleeping in a while. nothing a few moments minus eternity spent dreaming won't cure...

Learning Things From A 13-Year Old

i don't know if it's just jennifer garner, but i absolutely loved 13 going on 30. i feel like hugging everyone i meet, just like that guy in the dave matthews band video, everyday. wow. giddy giddy. the last film which gave me similar levels of gid was love actually. mm. it was like like injecting lard into your bloodstream, and feeling it shoot up to your brain like little new year's eve rockets.

i particularly liked the scene where jennifer garner, as jenna rink, was already making her presentation for the redisigning of the magazine she was a co-editor of (i think). there were pictures of models behind her on three presentation boards, all spread out into a mosaic. she looked very nervous, but with the expression on her face of being sure of what she needed to say. she starts out with a clear voice.

"i know this is different, i mean, from anything we've ever done and i know you might hate it and think i'm completely crazy, but i won't care. even if i get fired, and i don't mean that disrespectfully, it's just that i've realized something..." and she looks at the pictures behind her. no, more exactly, she's trying to look through them.

"who are these women?" jenna asks, apparently confused, and probably more to herself. "does anyone know... i don't recognize any of 'em..."

then she smiled, like the smile before disclosing a secret, and began to take down the pictures of the models, revealing another group of pictures behind them. "... i wanna see... my best friend's big sister... and... the girls from the socccer team... my next door neighbor..." indeed she showed each image as she said it one by one. and her smile turned into one of victory. "real women who are smart and pretty and happy to be who they are -- these are the women to look up to..."

jenna brought up one more picture, larger than the ones before. this time, it was of a group of people, like a class picture. only everyone was all grown up, and it seemed like they were shouting, laughing loudly, hands thrown up in the air, balloons and confetti all over the place... "let's... let's put life back into the magazine... and fun... and laughter and silliness, and..." and she couldn't say any more because she looked into the eyes of each individual in the audience and she knew that they knew already.

"... i think we all... i think all of us wants to feel something that we've forgotten or turned our backs on... 'cause maybe we didn't realize how much we were leaving behind..." heartbeats.

"we need to remember what used to be good. if we don't, we won't recognize it even if it hits us between the eyes." because at that second, it hit them between the eyes. every one of them. and there was nothing else to do but applaud.

In The Presence Of Greatness

i can say such stupid things in the presence of someone with such stellar talents.

him: so, you speak japanese?
me: ... sometimes.

(blink blink) what the heff?

putanginaaaaaaa...

Good Deeds That Don't Count For Christmas

what happened to marge simpson's "strangers are just friends you've never met" line? i was being a nice and friendly stranger to middle-aged and defenseless (or at least umbrella-free) ladies, but still they chose not to trust me. huff.

like, for example, the other day i was at glorietta, and i overheard this lady ask a guard how she could get to goodwill bookstore. the guard didn't exactly give clear directions and the lady just settled for a disappointed, "ah..." so i approached her with the warmest of smiles and the most cheerful good afternoon that the sun would shrivel up in shame and told her i'd accompany her to goodwill instead. but what she did, she looked at me from head to foot, raised her eyebrow, and then walked away. man, was it cold in here or was it just you? i swore i could have heard the sun laughing from behind me. my poor deflated good deed balloon.

and then yesterday i took the mrt on my way home from ortigas. it was pretty crowded and it was a bit of a chore looking for a free and reachable steel handle to hold on to. but luckily, with my mutant power of having long limbs, i was able to grab a free railing near the door. unfortunately for this pink uniformed lady beside me, she doesn't have anything to grab a hold of. so when the train started moving, she got off-balanced and quickly reached for something random to keep her steady, that being the bag strap of the guy in front of her. in a knee-jerk reaction, i grabbed a hold of her hand to help her steady herself but then she pulled away right at once and looked away from me. she just contented steadying herself with the poor guy's bag strap.

i thought to myself, ok, i don't think i look like a pervert or anything. i guess these days, people just find good deeds more suspicious (and sometimes more shocking) than bad deeds. sigh. pity that.

Connecting People In A Way Nokia Couldn't Imagine

i learned a couple of nice things the past two days.

first, friday night. spent with bug and a friend i haven't seen in a long time. we ate at chef d'angelo in galleria, and even tho i promised myself i won't spend too much on food because i had to save money, i trashed that idea in a heartbeat the moment i stepped in the yellow-walled, italian-themed, and chicken a la pestoed (wtf) sanctuary. my only regret was not ordering for another serving.

my pesto-induced high slowly made its descent after dinner at starbucks podium when i started to draft my resumé. i never knew it would be that difficult and that depressing. i had bug, my friend, and lappie helping me out, but it took us close to two hours just thinking of my objective. i didn't write any achievements since i don't think conduct awards from elementary counted. i replaced work experience with volunteer work, and having the words 'unenrolled' and 'undergraduate' in the education section didn't at all look very appealing. and i don't even know what i should write in the cover letter. sigh.

after around two hours of ass torture being seated, we decided to just be content with the three fourths of a page resumé we managed to squeeze out from my poor little bwain, and just walk around podium before it closes. we dropped by national bookstore and checked out this nifty creative photography book, X. it featured different models and celebrities like judy ann santos, mylene dizon, angel aquino, donita rose, and many other beautiful people in very ethereal and dreamy settings. i'm seriously thinking of getting a copy.

around 10PM, we decided to go homeward bound, but the rain (loved as it was) still wouldn't let up. good thing it was falling light enough for us to get to crossing without being too soaked, so we decided to trudge it.

we were about halfway already when my feet started screaming for bloody release. and i was hugging my backpack with lappie inside for dear life. i could already feel the impending sniffles rising to my nostrils, but still we trudged on.

a blurry 45 minutes after and i found myself at home in my room, literally falling on the messy bed like the proverbial tree, not caring if there was a stalagmite growth in there somewhere ready to impale my rain-shimmered body. apparently there wasn't because i woke up an hour after to the sound of my mobile phone bleep-bleeping. it was bug telling me he just got home, and it was murder getting there. i replied with a promise of hugs, kisses, and a call in the morning, and i drifted back to sweet, wet, and my blissfully sore oblivion...

--

saturday morning i was feeling better. woke up around 11 to the smell of sinigang na baboy. i got up, took a bath, ate my lunch, and texted a friend about the comics seminar we were attending at 1 o'clock in megamall.

we were a half hour late but it was ok i guess. the writers presented really nice (fuck adjectives, my nose is running like heff) lectures, especially mr. vin simbulan and mr. jamie bautista. altho i was a bit disappointed kuya carl wasn't there. oh well.

the thing that stuck to my mind the most from the lecture was what mr. simbulan said: that writing, either for yourself or for an audience, creates a connection. and i realized it does. especially now that i've been blogging a lot. and even tho i write mostly for myself, i still want to establish that connection. everyday i try to do something different, something significant, or at least something out of the routine with my life so i can write about it at the end of the day -- not so much as i want to feel self-important or egocentric, but more of a motivation for me. to live life, and to live life my way. to live life differently. to make sure i'm always following my heart, come what may. for good or bad, it's my decision to make, it's my life to live.

and the good thing about having my thoughts on cyberspace is that maybe, MAYBE in a very slim, somewhat remote way, it makes some sort of a difference to a little flicker of life somewhere in the vastness of cyberspace. just as some of the blogs i've encountered touched me and made a difference in me, one way or another.

the sense of victory that gives... just makes me want to wake up the next day, even if sometimes i'm feeling all beaten up and badly bruised.

.....

but goddamnit all to hell, right now i want to tear my friggin' nose off. i HATE having a cold.

The World Is A Darwinian Playground

having been an otaku since i discovered sucking my thumb as a veritable pastime, i figger it was only a matter of time before my otaku-ness lead me to Battle Royale. yeah, being sent to a remote island somewhere in the pacific with thirty nine other students, having the main objective of killing each other off was something i thought of as an inevitability. survival of the fittest to the extreme. HAH. how's THAT for reality tv.

but yeah, i just finished reading the first ten chapters of Battle Royale english translation. good thing i watched Kill Bill a few days ago, otherwise i would have been hugging a pillow and sweating coldly at a corner in my room while having my overactive brain visualize each nerve-wracking paragraph. so right now i'm just hugging a pillow. heh.

anyways, aside from looking for the actual book, am thinking of hunting (omg i'm using killing words now) for a dvd copy of the movie version. also, one of the lead guys, shinji mimura (played by takashi tsukamoto) is godawfully cute, in an "i could kick your ass and you know that but i couldn't care less about you so i won't" way.

reeeeaaaa-hea-heally sexy. :P

--

and here's an excerpt from the novel, taken from the tenth chapter. it's about a love letter written by a mysterious girl who crushed on the lead character, shuya nanahara. uneasily brings back thoughts of highschool love. what was it aunt hilda said? "at sixteen, it's always true love."

--

Shuya looked straight at Noriko’s face. She looked half-asleep. "Do you understand?"

"Yeah. I do." She cut her words off a little, but then went on. "I’ve always been watching you."

It was the kind of thing that normally might have been spoken more nervously. And if possible, in a slightly, but not to ask too much, just slightly more romantic setting. Then Shuya thought of a love letter that had been thrown onto his desk one day in April. It had been unsigned and composed on light blue writing paper. It hadn’t been the first love letter for the former Little League genius short stop, or as he now called himself (and occasionally was called by others), the rock’n’roll star of Shiroiwa, but naturally that one had left an impression and he treasured it. He thought that was probably because he had liked the message, which read like a poem.

"I don’t mind if it’s just a lie, or just a dream / just turn back to look at me," it started.

"It’s not just a dream, it’s not just a lie / the smile you’ll show me someday / but it may just be my lie / but it may just be my dream / the day you turn to look at me / won’t be a lie, won’t be a dream / the day you call my name."

And then, "It isn’t a lie, it isn’t a dream. I really love you."

Could that letter have been from Noriko? The writing resembled hers, and that poem-like phrasing... was it hers?

--

sigh... atatakai da ne...

Some Things Don't Just Happen

oh dear. i was merrily bloghopping the past few hours and i was supposed to go to a friend's blog, but instead of typing in his username in the url, i absent-mindedly typed in his blog title -- which lead me to the journal of someone who died october of last year.

to say i'm creeped out right now, one in the morning, alone in my eerily silent little room would completely, utterly, and irrevocably be the understatement of many nights to come.

still... it's surreal reading the last days of the life of someone young... (shudders)

--

but after a while, it made me affirm something i already knew, but still forget at times: that it's really humbling more than anything, being human. and what counts in the end is the kindness we impart to other people, regardless of who they are. arrogance, attitude... it all fizzles up to worthlessness in the end.

if i die a stupid, weak person because i did the right thing, the kind thing, then let people call me stupid and weak, because i know in myself i did something right, something good. and i know it made a world of difference, even if it's just to one tiny little candlelight of a life in this vast, mostly unworthy collective of human sea.

those people who carry around an attitude and wear it on their heads like precious diamonds, in the long run, have higher, steeper, and deadlier cliffs to fall from. and the fall isn't even worth it. i feel sorry... and pity... and sadness for them now.

but i also realize as there are people who are kind and good, there are also people who are arrogant and insensitive, to realize the worth of kindness and goodness. and i should accept the existence of both.

sigh. it's easy thinking about it and putting it down in words. i just hope i have enough strength in me to deal with it in real life... and not think about killing someone -- or myself -- when i come face to face with it.

all the best for humanity.

There Is Nothing Lonelier Than Cold Sinigang

my mother finally knocked. she said my food was downstairs in a brown paper bag beside the electric fan. i didn't want to eat anymore, but still. i had to, y'know? so i went down again and checked what i had to deal with. i felt like one of the clean up crew the morning after a war. disposing of the cold, lifeless bodies who sacrificed themselves so i could breathe another minute or two of my sorry little life. i knew my brain was exaggerating again, but i couldn't help being sad still.

i had this aunt. and she cooked the bestest of meals ever. it was by her art that i grew up and was nourished in. she was so good, that i would just tell her what i would like to eat (say, pork), and she would ask me how i would want it to taste like (say, spicy), and the next day i would be smelling it as real as the previous day's dream. she reminds me of nacha, from the book like water for chocolate.

and she knows a lot of important things too like what i prefer to eat, what i don't like near my tongue or my nose, and what i like at a particular day. she knows i like the meanest pork sinigang steeped in lots of sampaloc (or sometimes calamansi), and she knows i prefer eating it at lunchtime on weekends. she knows i like lots of sauce on my piniñahang manok/baboy and i like it very, very sweet. she knows i hate menudo and sarciadong baboy. she knows i don't like eating seafood. and she knows that i don't, for the life of me, get why people like eating bulalo or putting bones instead of meat on my sinigang. she knows a lot of things.

sometimes during breakfast, when i pull an all-nighter because of a project or i'm reviewing for finals, she would make me instant pancit canton. and sometimes when i'd like to take a break, i'd help her around the kitchen to whip up breakfast. we'd work quietly because she knows i don't like speaking in the mornings. she knows that much.

we had a lot in common too. we're both the eldest, we're both tall, we both have unpredictable tempers, and we both have the most expressive of laughs in the family.

i guess i don't have to point out that i miss her a lot. ever since she passed away around two years ago, we've been eating nothing but carinderia food or fast food. sometimes one of our aunts would cook, or sometimes my father would, but it doesn't taste the same. i would always end up thinking this food wasn't meant for me. like a shirt given to me but was actually for someone else. it doesn't fit at all.

i'm sure the other people here at home miss my aunt too. but i don't know. there's nothing lonelier than a cold sinigang sa buto-buto leftover.

This Ghost, Tonight Stays Silent

omg... i swear my body clock is outta whack. i just woke up from a three hour nappie. i'd prolly be awake again the whole night blog-hopping. not that it's such a bad thing... but anyway, i'm feeling less and less of a normal human being every minute. (then again, i never was a normal human being. not such a comforting thought tho.)

take for example, i went out of my room for a while to check on dinner. it was so surreal, what i saw. and the fluorescent light made the feeling i had murkier and thicker. everyone was watching tv intently. as if their vision depended on it. eyes glued to the little black hypno-box like vultures on an impending carcass. i asked, "ano ulam," and i didn't even get a peep from any of them. i could understand if my brother or my sister won't answer. those two don't care a thing about blood relations. but my mother and my aunt were there and they didn't even bat an eyelash.

i walked back in my room to check if i was having another one of those astral projection thingies, because the feeling was the same -- my head was reeling, temperature was above normal, i had a bad aftertaste in my mouth, and it seemed like no one can see me. i was a perplexed, "oh," when i didn't see myself lying down on the bed. well i was sure as bloody hell awake.

so i went out again, corporeal form and all. i asked this time, "mahina ba boses ko?"

again, the same silence. i guess that answered my question. jeesus h. christ. is it so hard to notice my 5'11" frame a few inches beside the forkin' tv? huff.

i gave up and went down. i thought fine, i'll pretend they weren't here too. so i foraged for food on my own. and the best i came up with were cookies and a mug'a coffee. some dinner. i turned on the radio and the moment i heard jimi hendrix, i thought, ooooo~k. so it's going to be one of those nights.

i finished my simple fare in silence, and went back up in my room as quietly as seemingly possible, hoping the night isn't too young to have a license to wreck the rest of my vespertine consciousness.

Reflections At Cinema 5

interesting to note i sat at the same seat and watched in the same cinema both mean girls as well as kill bill vol. 2. quentin tarantino's an inspiration (aside from the fact he dropped outta school), really. and i've liked uma thurman since... er... the truth about cats and dogs. wow. i'm moldy old.

seriously tho. it was a fun movie to watch. even if i had one eye covered all the fekkin' time. heh. wimpish all the way. i'm proud to say i was able to watch the scene where ms. thurman shlorped the eyes off ms. hannah without flinching. wow. it happened in splits of seconds that it really didn't look painful at all. in the future, whenever i get the urge to hurt someone (most specifically someone i have to be nice to, like, say, a boss), i'll look back on that particular scene and try to remember the warmth i felt. (aww... isn't that nice. your eye came off easy... don't worry, i'll quietly slip out of the room, wiping my hanzo sword while you thrash and scream about in blind agony til it don't hurt no' mo', bitch.)

sigh. evil evil evil evil...

Cold, Clammy, Cathartic

wow. ok. that's seven hours straight of switching between photoshop, dreamweaver, firefox, and internet explorer. i decided to pour out all my negativity and evil energies in the new layout i worked on the whole night. personally tho, i feel it's not negative nor evil enough. :P but oh well. my powers of image manipulation and layout design are very limited. must remedy that soon.

first i would need money. lots of it. mmmm... money... how much more evil can you get? >:)

Obsession Is The Mother Of All Madness

AAAARRRGH!!! i'm seeing it everywhere! everywhere, i say!

I, Villain

ohhhh.... anger is so much easier to feel. no complications at all. it's just one straight bullet line ahead. fast, efficient, and just as deadly as the complications of true love.

i will make this world pay. i will win this fight.

"they'll be there in hell right alongside me. and they'll burn harder. deader. longer."

The Only Way, Way Out Is To Go So Far In

i admit, i am SELFISH. i've been one for as long as my tongue existed. only, i thought i was being smart about it so no one really noticed the little something which lurked behind my eyes. something secretly evil. subtly vile. silently conniving. delicately calculating. innocently deceiving. i justify everything i do in perfect accuracy so that even the COSMOS would think i was being such a prudent little boy. and i thought the cosmos was pretty easy to deceive.

but no. ohhhhh... no. i have been eating a very expensive dish, taking in more than i can chew. and the dish is named GREED. it was hot, scalding my tongue. it burns, but i didn't mind. i wanted it all to myself, wash it all down with sensuous, lustful, intoxicating red wine until i am sated. (and i am not...)

it's only now i'm sensing the aftertaste. the bitter, black, battery acid aftertaste of selfishness. lining my throat it does; filling my gut; poisoning my veins. and i deserve every fucking molecule of it. every fucking cell. every goddamned nucleus, eating away my innards and leaving sweet, INSANE, dark purple spots on my soul. i deserve all of it. (i want it all...)

i am frenzied by its universality. causality. the cosmic lunacy of it all. all my twenty two years, everything is just CRASHING down on me now. all of its maddening weight only now. i am drugged and seduced. i want to be eaten away. purged. i swear i will swallow. and i will even swallow more if you feed me yourself. (if you feed me more...)

oh god. goddess. demon. whore. i don't understand everything in this comically, cosmically unbalanced world, and i don't presume to, but i ask of you, i PLEAD of you: please, if you want to dig a hole in my chest, i implore you to do it correctly. kill me if you must, i am CONFIDENT you will only resurrect me again. because i know you would not be able to RESIST. no. death would be shameless. pointless. easy. an utter waste. for if you do kill me, your playing field that is my soul, my mind, my heart will be no more if you extinguish all that i am. all that i was. all i will be. (all. all. everything.)

oh god. goddess. ancient water vapors in the sky. cleanse me. wash me. bless me. i need your sweet BENEDICTION on my lips. my hair. my skin. on skin. on skin. save me from vanity, from sanity. from everything that is everything, that is eating away all that is nothing, that is me.

sweet blasphemy. sweet heresy. this is the gospel truth. and this is me. and i am SELFISH as selfish can be.

amen.

Mandy Moore's Gas Problem

this made my day. jeezuz h. christ.

Profoundly Pop-Tart

i love that feeling, that high you get walking out from a cinema after watching a movie you liked. the story didn't have to be anything stellar, nor spectacular with any other technical aspect; what counted was the way the movie moved you.

you walk out from the theater, inhaling the fresh popcorn in the little climate-controlled world of glorietta, hearing the closing theme of the movie fade behind, and you have this sense of closure, this... victory rising from your stomach. and as far as learning experiences go, watching that particular movie tsunami-ed your brain with experience points, levelling you up ten times over. (yeah, it was that vicarious for me. heh.)

mean girls.

yup. lindsay lohan, i will gladly turn straight for you.

Counting Signs Before Blessings

the universe is throwing me a hella lotta signs. i should work. in a call center. at first the signs were faint. barely noticeable amidst the normalcy of its everyday appearance in my life. almost all my friends are working in a call center after all. but recently, the signs have been growing into alarmingly loud proportions.

point one. i met up with a friend yesterday because he said he wanted some mp3's from me. over coffee at starbucks 6750, while waiting for the cd to bake inside lappie, we talked about trivial stuff. of course work would always be present in such conversations. he said he still had a lotta time to kill since his shift starts at around 9 in the evening, and it was only around 6:30. i asked him if he's ok with that set-up. he said he doesn't have a problem. the work is easy, he's getting paid, and the mp3's he's getting from me will be able to keep him company for the night.

"so how long have you been with the company?" i asked, while absent mindedly minimizing and maximizing my iTunes.

"almost a year now," he, who is a licensed architect, said matter-of-factly while gnawing the straw. "and it was the most amazing thing too. the first three months, the company had us sent to the US for training. and they took care of almost everything. it was like, we just had to be there. daily allowances, transportation, lodging... the works." he stopped his teeth acrobatics for a while to check if my jaw has dropped yet before continuing. (it has.) "my only regret was i splurged the daily allowance they gave us on food. i should have brought at least one gadget like a digicam or something."

"wow," was the only word i could manage with my mouth not set to its proper position yet.

"and the work," he said, "isn't even that hard too. after the training, when we were already making calls, it only took around two and a half months and i was promoted already. i only took calls for around three months." straw forgotten completely, he looked me in the eye and accentuated every syllable. "Give Me Your Resumé."

and there was nothing after that. it felt like the count in sesame street after mentioning each number. lightning strikes at the same time with his vampiric violet-skinned laugh. (a-a-a-a-aaaaa...) "but... but... but..."

"you'd do ok, you know. you just need to make that first step."

"... of writing my resumé..." i breathed. because i was afraid. i haven't written a resumé before. and i don't even know if i want the damned job. sure i'd make a lot of money, and sure the job could possibly be easy for me, but... but... but... i'd be placing myself under a system again. something which i didn't like during college, that's why i kept on shutting myself out of it. how could this one be any different?

ok. i'm being unfair. at least i should try it out. things are different in work and in school after all. i'm just one big wimp afraid of jumping into another firepit.

anyway, point two. tonight before going home, i dropped by a friend's house who needed help installing a software in his pc. it didn't take long at all, and it didn't really require much effort but my friend really was very appreciative. i didn't know what made him blurt this out, but he said, "alam mo, i can feel you're going to be very successful."

my initial reaction would be just to smile and say, "pshaw, it's nothing really," but he said it with such... substance and solidity that it was difficult to ignore. (and there goes the count again. "two! two obviously obvious signs! a-a-a-a-aaa...")

"honestly," he said, while browsing thru the program i've installed. "you could at least try working for the meantime, like, in a call center. people say there's not really any growth in that kind of job, but actually, there is. especially with someone new like you. and besides, you're not doing anything anyway. it's a good opportunity to learn new things about the working class. plus you'd earn a pretty big amount of money to boot."

a sigh was all i could manage. i wanted to argue with a person, not with a whole universe. and the universe is throwing me a lotta signs. all kinds of signs too. the humongous kinds and the little annoying ones as well.

i guess with one look it's pretty obvious what the universe is telling me. but still. i'd like to read between the lines...

Tonight I Surrendered

i raised my white flag. i admitted defeat. i came out. I AM A CLOSET ROMANTIC.

yes, chocolates are the ultimate aphrodisiac, i admit that. and i like walking at a full moon night not because i like swimming in the slow-moving sea of sadness, but because i think about walking with someone beside me. and i write love poems better than i do poems on angst. and i like putting ü after my txt messages. and i like roses. and red things. and heart-shaped holes.

and most of all, tonight i surrendered because a picture is worth about 20 blog posts. here's to the wonderful evening which capped the wonderful first month with bug...

that park in salcedo will always be special. with the white flowers, the trees with christmas lights all year round, the evening joggers, the japanese kids playing badminton all over the place, and bug beside me, that little island within the metro will always be dreams' country within my mind.

and of course, who could forget the word, the gospel truth, the being that made everything in my life all linked up, and all insanely sensible...



lappie. :)

--

and bug gifted me with something even more special than multiple orgasms:



it's not goodbye after all. :)