When Ghosts Fall Silent

sleeping has never really been a problem for me. i'd be contented even if i get only four to five hours of sleep, never mind the time of day. but recently it's been getting insane, my sleeping patterns. it's beginning to shape up like how i wash my hair -- two days conditioning then the next day shampooing, except with sleeping, it's been more like two days awake through the night and almost half a day of sleep after. like last night, i slept at 9PM and woke up today almost 11AM.

i used to not mind it. after all, i get work done. but right now i'm feeling all sad and cosmic about it. it's weird. feeling sad because of not getting sleep. maybe it's because an hour or so after waking up, i prefer not talking. i just want to move around and do my things in my ugly out-of-bed self first, until the gloom of waking up dissipates silently to the air and the thick cake of sleep is gone from my eyes. then maybe i can be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for another twelve or so hours being awake.

but those hours of keeping silent are slowly stretching throughout the day. i want to keep quiet and just plug my ears to music while going about the whole day. the brightest my eyes can reach is when i make the effort to smile, and that's a lot. give or take half a twinkle. (i miss my dimples.)

right now it's almost four and i haven't uttered a peep. not even txt anyone. i might be going home around 6, then wait until dinner. go online for a while, talk with people, play neverwinter nights for maybe an hour, and then sleep.

ok i sound like i'm complaining again. i'm not, i guess. i've been doing things that i like -- getting some writing done, practicing layouts, drawing a lot, talking with people i like...

sigh. i guess it's just human nature to want something more. that life can be better. i want to do a lot of things, reach out to a lot of people. love like a trainwreck.

O'Tanjoubi Omedetou!

Happy birthday bug! :) (I forgot Sumomo's ribbon!) Har har...

There's A Kind Of Hush

i know it's all over when one uses a carpenters song as a title, BUT WHO CARES? it's friday night! :) the whole week has been, in three cruel syllables, merciless. me and lappie have been working nonstop (and without enough, never enough compensation i might add) in conceptualizing, designing, and coding website layouts. my eyes are beginning to twitch at the sight of CSS or HTML and my fingers are raw from typing and clicking. now i understand why the matrix people wear shades. sheesh.

and last night was the crux, the proverbial thorned crown. i spent all night CSS-ing and HTML-ing the new progay website. i've decided to publish it in blogger instead of the usual geocities since with blogger, the progay president, mr. oscar atadero, would be able to update the website himself by just posting articles. no fuss. i told him if he needed to rehaul an entire section or something then that would be the time to call on me, instead of having me go all the way to laloma, qc every week and spend the night in a different environment where i wouldn't be able to have the pleasure of working in the nude. heh.

but despite of being tired and feeling all beaten up, i feel rather... useful. productive. more than ever in my whole sordid life. sure there have been bonks on the head (and the heart) for me this week too, but somehow i can't think about it as much (even tho there's this little voice in my head telling me i should). the feeling of doing something for the community is more overwhelming. damn, this is nice to say the least.

plus, bug and i watched the stepford wives at greenbelt 1. nicole kidman always had the ability to make my heart skip several randomly distributed beats whenever she appears on the screen, and matthew broderick does not grow old. and as for the movie, it's been a long time since i've watched a dark comedy, and this one hit the spot right there. it wasn't really spectacular like that, but what counted was the feeling of gid i had after stepping out of the theater. mm... delish.

and to top it all off, my brother is in cavite for his overnight retreat and my sister is spending the night at a groupmate's house doing i couldn't care less. i have the house all to myself until tomorrow afternoon. the world is at peace. w00t.

PS: meanwhile, nickelback's playing on the background, singing, "somethin's gotta go wrong cos i'm feeling way too damn good..."

lol screw that.

Panic Panic

ok, so i tried publishing my blog to an ftp server. and then it didn't work. and then i switched back to blogspot. and now it's not publishing. not correctly anyway. but it looks ok in my browser. oh god oh god let's hope nothing went wrong...

ok, publishing again...

UPDATE UPDATE: thank goodness i managed to fix everything. whew. the place looks clean and pristine. 'cept for the banner tho, but it's ok. it's the first time i'm using a pentel-pen based drawing anyways. heh.

wow. anyway, so my new URL is http://www.juantamad.com/whiteroom/blog -- which is a lot longer than the blogspot address, slower in publishing, and nothing really spectacularly different. but hey. i'm not complaining.

in other news, it's 3AM and i'm hungry as heck from all that brainwork all night. (yawn...)

gotta split...

Rehaul To White Padded Walls

because i don't feel so red and angry and enraged anymore. besides, the cute 38-pixeled height of the blogger navbar should shine in all its glory. heh. plus, i feel kinda good having to use one of my drawings as a layout image. finally, i didn't need to bastardize whatever picture i could get my dirty little hands on in my hard drive.

the girl, by the way, is another one of my renditions of Death. and that's the main theme for this layout. the little verse is from an anonymous author i got somewhere off the net. it says:

remember friend as you pass by
as you are now so once was i
as i am now you soon shall be
so prepare for death and follow me

morbid as it may sound, Neil Gaiman's Death is actually very cheerful, very optimistic, and if that's not enough to describe her, she often likes saying, "peachy keen."

We Are Not Second Class

ok, forget about sleeping early. i was bloghopping through my dailies and read an update on dalai banana's blog about australia banning gay marriages. i thought more people should know about this so, i'll be posting one of the banners dalai made in protest of anything australian.

except kylie minogue. :)

Fresh Blogger Goodness

the blogger navbar is a cool replacement to the boring and ugly google ads, but it screwed up my layout somewhat. i've been doing some tweaking with the codes and this is the best solution i can come up with.

i guess i should take this as a sign to cook up a new layout. i've a couple of ideas percolating anyways. hmm.

UPDATE: great! i managed to cover the navbar up temporarily. but i want it to show. so i will definitely have to work on a new layout. tomorrow. right now i need to sleep. (yawn...)

From Delight To Delirium

i personally don't like it. but i feel like i have to use one of my own sketches now, instead of always regurgitating other anime pictures. still. i feel like there's something wrong with it.

sigh. this is more difficult than i thought...

but anyways, i'd like to thank jasper for hosting my site. wow. many happy dances of joy to you sir. hehe...

in other news, a friend taught me how to color in photoshop last night. so i spent most of the afternoon and some parts of the evening trying to color my drawing of Delirium. another one of Neil Gaiman's Endless. i like the retro look. altho the background color looks like the new yahoo messenger. oh well. must keep practicing...

--

"Delirium is the youngest of the Endless. She smells of sweat, sour wines, late nights, old leather. Her realm is close, and can be visited; however, human minds were not made to comprehend her domain, and those few who have made the journey have been incapable of reporting back more than the tiniest fragments. The poet Coleridge claimed to have known her intimately, but the man was an inveterate liar, and in this, as in so much, we must doubt his word.

"Her appearance is the most variable of all the Endless, who, at best, are ideas cloaked in the semblance of flesh. Her shadow's shape and outline has no relationship to that of any body she wears, and it is tangible, like old velvet.

"Some say the tragedy of Delirium is her knowledge that, despite being older than suns, older than gods, she is forever the youngest of the Endless, who do not measure time as we measure time, or see the worlds through mortal eyes. Others deny this, and say that Delirium has no tragedy, but here they speak without reflection. For Delirium was once Delight. And although that was long ago now, even today her eyes are badly matched: one eye is a vivid emerald green, spattered with silver flecks that move; her other eye is vein blue. Who knows what Delirium sees, through her mismatched eyes?" (From The Sandman, Season of Mists)

I Have Seen God

and he is the most cutie patootie thing EVER.

i am delirious. seriously.



[photo copyright MJS; e-mail: thelittleprince@philwebinc.com]

Death & Desire: Inchoate

it's been quite a while since i sat down with a pen and doodled something. and because it rained tonight and i was out with bug stuck at starbucks 6750, i was able to draw a couple of Endless fanarts -- Desire and Death. they may not look much, but still. i actually almost fell in love with Death. lol.

i have to admit... i'm a bit proud of them. considering i've been focusing on writing lately, i thought i won't be able to pull it off. but my hands just kept on creating the lines one by one, stroke by stroke. like it MISSED drawing something. the feeling was surreal. i wish i could polish it off some more tho. oh well. will try to work on that.

--

"When the first living thing existed, I was there, waiting. When the last living thing dies, my job is finished. I'll put the chairs on tables, turn out the lights and lock the universe behind me when I leave." (Death, Sandman #20)

--

"Desire is of medium height. It is unlikely that any portrait will ever do Desire justice, since to see her (or him) is to love him (or her), -- passionately, painfully, to the exclusion of all else. Desire smells almost subliminally of summer peaches, and casts two shadows: one black and sharp-edged, the other translucent and forever wavering, like heat haze. Desire smiles in brief flashes, like sunlight glinting from a knife-edge. And there is much else that is knife-like about Desire. Never a possession, always the possessor, with skin as pale as smoke, and eyes tawny and sharp as yellow wine: Desire is everything you have ever wanted. Whoever you are. Whatever you are. Everything."