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The city does not call for exclusivity. You move in it and you have to keep going. It doesn't care a bit for you--doesn't even know you exist--no matter how much you need it.

"I want you to grow," Rose told me as we went to an ad agency. "I told you, you should always have a resume with you. Why don't you email it to me and then I'll be the one to send it to them." Just eight days in my new job and Rose was encouraging me to submit resumes to different companies.

The truth of her trust is nurturing and energizing. Her kindness, which I first thought to be unsought for, is what I've been needing after all. A workmate to look behind my back. A friend.

I desire to stick with my job. I am not sticking it out. The company I am working for is still in the stage of conception; it hasn't had its real birth yet. I want to be part of its growth, as I grow. I have dreams for this company as much as I have dreams for my self. I remember …

I've been mistaken for so many things. My English professor in college kept asking me if I were Chinese when I told him time and again, no sir, I'm not. People are shocked whenever I tell them I don't have a boyfriend nor am I dating. When I was 16, I was thought of being older--an FX driver even commented once, "Ma'am, mukhang pagod tayo sa trabaho, ah." Now that I'm 21, they still wouldn't let me in an R-18 movie. When I was a college freshman, another freshman sought my help in finding her way around the campus, since she thought I was already in my junior year. When I was feeling wild, I was labeled conservative and low-profile. When I was feeling polite, I was found deviant, intrusive or aloof. Last week, I came from the main office of Equitable PCI Bank. I rode an FX on the way home and the driver told me, Kumusta bisita natin sa embassy? I said I didn't go there, my business was different. Maybe I don't look like the type who…

Formal Logic class. That was where I first saw her. That was almost two years ago. She'd always come in on time and I'd find her dressed down. Her short hair, cinnamon skin and well-toned body still come clear to my memory. She must be into sports, I thought, as she'd walk in most of the time with her duffel bag, wearing shorts, a shirt and rubber shoes. There was a softness in her that contrasts her athletic bearing, giving her a mystifying air. More than that, she was a smart one. Formal logic was no joke, but it almost seemed elementary to her. She was quiet and she perpetually sat in the first row, near the door. To me, she was perfect. I loved her body. I loved the character that might be in it.

February, another day at work. I was walking around the country club to take some pictures when a familiar figure climbed up the stairs I was climbing. Her hair grew and she tied it in a pony tail. She was in shorts and a baby tee. It was just like another week…

How do you love first times? It was my first time to step foot and drink coffee at Starbucks a while go. That is, Starbucks 6750. I hadn't really been to many places, but that, so far had been the best Starbucks I went into. Why was I there, away from home?

I met someone to discuss my new job. Of course in every new endeavor comes excitement and anxiousness, and of course the hunger for learning. In all truth, I am amazed at how doors suddenly open for me without me even having to knock. I left my previous job by impulse (I now admit my impishness) without a clear path ahead, and then the signs present themselves, all directing me to where I am now. Sometimes I am convinced that if I willed to become an astronaut, or a rocket scientist, I would become one.

I may be repeating myself when I say my fear of failure is actually a fear of being big, a fear of being a maverick. As much as we love kudos and attention, I'm not good at handling too much of both.

The avenue was pos…

I have an anthology of poetry that I didn't touch for long, until these past few days. One reason I haven't been reading it is as I browsed through the pages, the first time I bought it, some of the poems did not immediately fit my taste. Frederick Nims is right in explaining "when we say we 'love' poetry, it doesn't mean we love the same poetry." I gave it another read and came across little gems of lines.

I was never a fan of Robert Frost. I only respected him for what he had achieved and given to the literate world. My favorite from him was Fire and Ice. Until I read this:
DUST OF SNOW

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of the day I rued.There was a quote preceding the poem in the anthology, from one reader which said, "I think this is a love poem. I feel it is the true story of love." I think I fell in love with Frost after reading this. I could clearly…

I never thought I'd speak of daybreak as how it had been spoken of for so many times. I woke up at 3:00 in the morning and had a three-hour reading. A quarter before six a.m., the Maya birds started to make sounds. They were not singing, or at least what they were making were short of a melody. I didn't know what those sounds meant, what they were all about, all I knew was I always hear those during dawn, in the afternoon and before twilight; and that I was thankful there was a tree adjacent my bedroom. I turned off the lights as I could see the sun's rising from my window. My room's situated at the corner of the house's second floor and I've built a habit of locking my door. I was much amazed and amused at how the scent of food finds its way up to my room from the kitchen. I knew it. Fried rice. And then, that smell of salt distinctly from my favorite victual--fish. Danggit, in particular. Before the aroma faded, I was quick to fantasize taking a b…

It's March and where are we heading? The little joys our lives are made of. The gravity of... the gravity of antagonism here and there, everywhere. The election is just a few days away. For the kids, graduation time is coming--will they march, or not? Many awaits the summer, the sun, the vacation. Others may be looking forward to something else, while others are looking backwards for revaluation.

Me, I got to enjoy what I failed to do for a couple of months now--watch a basketball game. I was even surprised to find out that the PBA already started the season with a "transition" conference. Heartbreaks and spurts of brilliance came back to me again as I watched.

The different teams oozed with so much promise and everyone had the eagerness and "itch" (as the cool cat said) to play again.

A while ago, I caught Purefood's game against Ginebra. Purefoods trailed by a big deficit, although all was not lost for The Captain, Alvin Patrimonio. He just sco…