Throwing Demons Out To Dry

It's hell keeping it to myself really, so I might as well come right out and say it.

I've been sleeping around a lot recently.

Yeah. Since the year started, I've been sleeping around. I don't know what triggered it... but now it honestly, utterly, irrevocably feels like I'm leading several separate lives: the seemingly normal, almost sane, relatively grown-up me; and the... the... other me. And sometimes a third shows up, a middle ground... but that's not the point. There used to be no distinction.

This feels insanely, mentally, physically, emotionally unhealthy. I need to get myself back together. I have to stop sleeping around while I feel it's still early. While I still have distinction for the other versions of me. I may sometimes feel like I'm not leading a REAL life anyway, but this kind of escapist fantasy is too much to handle and I can't stick to it. (Realized people can be cruel, heck, even more cruel in an unreal world.) I need to get back to doing things I enjoy doing. Anime. Music. Writing. Reading. Sketching.

.....

Maybe I even need to start dating again. Heh. :*|

What Would Artists Feel?

Is it enough justification when I say artists feel things differently than other people?

It feels so odd, saying the word... "artists." It feels like a brand on my side, a scar I have to deal with. When people tell me, "artist ka pala," or "artist ka kasi," I immediately recoil and attempt to mutter a "no..." I feel like I don't deserve the title.

But still... it seems so appropriate. The things I do, how I think about things around me. It's unmistakable. I want to make beautiful things. I want to make the things around me pleasing to the senses. I want to be able to paint or write a song or a poem about a chair, and I want to make the people who hear it or read it or see it want to actually MAKE LOVE with the damn chair. I want to make art. I want to be an artist.

But it seems so obvious what I have to do, what I have to work with. It scares me to no end but come to think of it, I've been working with it for a long time already. And it's volatile, and fragile, and very, very human.

Emotion. Where all shit hits the proverbial fan.

So again. Is it enough justification when I say artists feel things differently than other people?

.....

OR. Artists just like to whine a lot.

Same Shit, Different Day

"I woke up and there it was."

I swear it sounded funny in my head when I woke up... and it sounded like a start to a really bad novel too. Not bad as in badly written, but bad as in Damn, That's Bad Shit, Good Thing It's Not Happening To Me.

So something like that to capitalize the day, I had to get up and get on with whatever it was that needed getting on with. I can't even say 'my life' because I don't even know if I had any more control of it as I do now. Funny even to think that I do at this point.

Same Shit, Different Day. That's what it was.

Sure it's amusing sometimes. And it's a life worth living. Great friends, tolerable relatives, no pets... But that's it. I know there are a lot of things I can do. Boy, there sure are a lot of things I CAN DO. But the point is Do I Want To Do Them?

What do I want to do? I've thought about this wild idea a lot of times. I want to fake my death, and then emerge somewhere in some remote place in Northern Europe, maybe the edge of a forest there and just live by myself. I don't need anything, or anyone else. I want a cozy place, with food in my backyard, get a little fire going and maybe some old books to read. It'd be a riot.

Now it seems like I'm stuck here, with everything ahead of me waaaaaaaay too blurry for me to be confident of how everything would turn out. Before I used to be content just by saying everything is going to be better. Most of the times I don't even have to say it cos everyone around me's saying it loud and clear anyway. I don't trust them, but I draw whatever comfort I can. They're just people after all.

"I woke up and there it was."

That was what my head said this morning when I woke up. It sounded funny. And it's the first non-automatic thing I've said in a long time. It's the first REAL THING I realized I said. There it was. And it's gone now.

Dance With The Devils

Oscar brought me along with him to Fahrenheit last night to cheer me up. It was my very first time to go there, and I'm not really sure what to feel about it. Sure it was a bit scary, and it did help keep my mind off the things I usually think about... but it didn't make me feel any better at all. If anything, it felt like the chatrooms, actually. Faceless, nameless guys, and all one is wont to do is notice if people have bigger tummies than chests... Heh.

--

oscar: personally lang... when i was new to the bath house scene siempre googly wide eyed innocence
oscar: pero siempre, i'm old na and di na nga ako dapat go there
oscar: the magic was gone... yun lang .... for me
me: hmm
me: googly wide eyed innocence
oscar: sa iyo siempre may magic pa
me: was i like that last night?
oscar: you?
oscar: i dont know
oscar: di kita pinapansin eh
oscar: i wanted you to have your own assimilation of events na wala akong input
oscar: so i tried not to take notice of what you were feeling
me: oh
me: well
me: honestly i was hoping the place would cheer me up
me: or at least bring me up a notch
oscar: it didn't... no problem
oscar: well
oscar: it's life
oscar: i wouldnt expect the place to cheer you up
oscar: sa akin lang naman yun


(Y!M 10:33AM; 22.01.2005)

--

All in all, it was pretty surreal and a little bit more unexpectedly stressful. The experience was nice, and the best part was the driver of the cab I rode home was kind enough to listen to my redundant, run-on rants. I rediscovered the joys of complaining in Tagalog, tangina.




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AFTERTHOUGHT: It was a pretty nifty steam room though.

A Brief Aftermath

It was awfully quiet in the household, Sunday afternoon.

I woke up late yet again, around 12:30 PM. I wasn't able to sleep at all last night, absently browsing sites till the wee hours of the morning. When I woke up in the afternoon, the only people at home were my two aunts, minding the store, and my mother, doing the laundry.

The absence was pretty obvious. Apart from Ate Fe, Josh wasn't there anymore as well. Kuya Joseph, Ate Fe's husband, took Josh with him back to the province. It's probably going to be permanent.

Kuya Joseph didn't really get along well with Ate Fe's mother and sister -- Tyang Fely and Ate Teres. Kuya Joseph grew up in the province all his life, and the way he does things doesn't really jive well with the way the two women were used to doing around the house. Not only that, the way they think don't match either. So one could just imagine the strain existing between all of them.

Obviously, Ate Fe's presence pacified anything viciously solid from breaking out. But now that she's gone... well, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what's going to happen.

So this morning while I was asleep, Tyang Fely and Kuya Joseph's long kept animosity towards each other was inevitably freed (as my aunt told me). And before I woke up, Kuya Joseph and Josh were gone, and the whole household was quiet. The kind of quiet similar to that after, say, a stampede of one or two herds of bulls.

Suffice it to say no one wanted to speak for the rest of the day. It's going to be really quiet in this neck of the world for a long time, I can tell...

Into The Night

Alright. I don't exactly know what happened. OK, I do. My cousin died. And it feels like it should be that simple. Like when one decides not to talk for the rest of eternity, it's that simple. Naturally it's not.

Everyone in the neighborhood knew my cousin. She was one of the few who got to finish college in our neighborhood, and one of the few who got to teach, and who got to teach English in a private school.

She has a son, two years old, Josh, who was being his usual hypermakulit self when I got home yesterday at noon. Everyone was bustling about, calling up people over the phone, and cleaning up the place. They wouldn't let Josh go upstairs even if he persistently shouted, "Mama! Mama!" to their faces.

My aunts' movements were mechanical. Like they were preprogrammed to know what to do at a situation like this. My cousin's mother was talking to visitors, evidently after a good cry; my cousin's sister was packing things, greeted me hi and languidly motioned for me to go upstairs.

I didn't want to, but I did because well... that was what I was programmed to do at that time. So I did go up, and I went to my cousin's room. There were a few people around my cousin's bed -- co-teachers and some of our neighbors. One was crying while talking to another one.

No one noticed me standing near the door. I didn't want to be seen anyway. I was afraid if they did they would talk with me, ask me things, tell me things I didn't need to hear. I saw my cousin's balding head, and I could see her blanket moving. I thought hey she was still breathing. But apparently it was just the fan.

A few moments minus eternity I decided to go down. I couldn't think of anything coherent anyway. She was my cousin, and we were quite close. But no matter how much I tried to remember about her, I can't mix it up into something solid I could base the intense sadness I was (and still am) feeling. It seemed like she took my memories with her. I couldn't stand it.

Josh was still running around, probably wondering why people aren't paying any attention to him. He didn't know people around him were doing what they were programmed to do, and no one was tasked to take care of him. I went to him, told him to come with me outside. Because that was what I was programmed to do at a time like this.




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AFTERTHOUGHT: These are interesting times we live in. Sad, but interesting. A lot of souls are being claimed and moreso these days. But I recall one line from a poem by Dylan Thomas I think, which I firmly believe. "Do not go gently into the night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

I Know Him By Heart

oOo

Hoping Against Hope

It's always so difficult holding on to happiness, ne? It's so delicate, so fragile that it seems like just a soft sigh would carry it away. But no matter how short a time you may have had it, once it goes away, it feels like nothing is the same again. It feels like it's been such a long time since you've felt this lonely -- and you can't help but feeling a much more intense aspect of loneliness.

But why would you complain then? You know better already. SHOULD know better already. Every second is a learning experience after all.

So you stand up, brush the dust from off yourself and walk on. Lonelier, sadder, more alone than ever, getting yourself through the bleak, wide, and seemingly empty but constantly dangerous valley spread before you... until the next time you're happy.




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AFTERTHOUGHT: If anything, there's always hope after all.

A Whole Other Video Game

Let it be established that I will never, for the life of me, understand Customer Service emails. I hate explaining marketing promotions and billing issues and I hate listening to them.

Give me Technical issues ANY DAY. I will work tirelessly on your computer until I could get you connected, surfing smoothly on the waves of cyberspace. You will download software updates like a pro, and you will send and receive emails like a Very Important Person. You will block pop-up windows like the Great Wall Of China and you're going to kill spyware like a trained ninja elf. Viruses, trojans, and hackers will have a very difficult time getting through the impenetrable fortress that is your computer. You will rule the world!

But Customer Service... that's a whole other video game.




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AFTERTHOUGHT: I should start considering other work options.

The Iceman Cometh

It was one of those sad and silent Sunday nights. I was out with a friend, driving around Mandaluyong and Makati, quiet most of the times except for the occasional quip on a random moving object outside the car. It wasn't at all uncomfortable. I liked the silence, but it seems that at that time, I wanted to step out from the wall of ice I tend to cover myself with when I'm with... Possibility.

Irritating because usually I could be warm and comfortable. But once I feel someone's will and psyche are equal to mine, I retract and ice cold defenses automatically rise (among other things, that is).

Well. Fact is, I was cold; and I was distant. It's been like that with Possibilities from the past. We live, we learn right? But apparently, it's taking some time for me to learn.

OST - Podi 2005

It's not because I just finished watching four episodes of Wolf's Rain, but the opening theme will always have a profoundly lonely effect on me whenever I listen to it. Yoko Kanno is a brilliant artist.

"Stray...
No regrets 'cos I've got nothing to lose.
Always stray...
So I'm gonna live my life as I choose,
until I fall.
Stray, stray..."

oOo

With that, the soundtrack of 2005:

Opening Credits:
Steve Conte - Stray

Waking-Up Scene:
Domino - Alas Quatro

Average-Day Scene:
Marie Frank - Symptom Of My Time

Best-Friend Scene:
Card Captor Sakura - Thank You

First-Date Scene:
Bap Kennedy - Moonlight Kiss

Falling-In-Love Scene:
Jewel - What's Simple Is True

Love Scene:
Lamb - Gorecki

Fight-With-Friend Scene:
Saliva - Bleed For Me

Break-Up Scene:
K's Choice - 20,000 Seconds

Get-Back-Together Scene:
Lifehouse - Everything

'Life's Okay' Scene:
Ayashi No Ceres - Against The Light (Instrumentals)

Heartbreak Scene:
Hungry Young Poets - Rebirth

Mental-Breakdown Scene:
Tori Amos - 1000 Oceans

Save The Day/Fight The Bad Guys/Revenge Scene:
Fuel - Won't Back Down

Driving Scene:
The Vines - Get Free

Lesson-Learning Scene:
Paula Cole - Me

Party Scene:
All Saints - If You Wanna Party

Happy Dance Scene:
Natalie Cole - This Will Be An Everlasting Love

Wedding Theme (Dance Of Bride And Groom):
Oliver James - Greatest Story Ever Told

Regret Scene:
Aimee Mann - Wise Up

Long-Night-Alone Scene:
kd lang - My Old Addiction

Death Scene:
Steve Conte - Heaven's Not Enough

Closing Credits:
Maaya Sakamoto - Gravity

oOo

"The trouble with life is that it has no background music." (Signature from some user in some message board.)

Here's to having a more sane and music-filled year!