razelibrary

We'd been planning to go to U.P. since we learned how make gimik together, but only consummated the desire yesterday.

It took Louie and Althea's birthday and sheer spontaneity (or as Althea mentioned, not planning) for it to happen.

We also celebrated Cherie's return from her Harry Potter gig from the U.S. We missed her for three weeks and thank god, Cherie came home safely, prettier and pinker than ever.

I felt so spent yesterday. Spent much money, time, energy, laughter, words and silence in exchange for genuine enjoyment.

By the way, the picture on the left was birthday girl, Althea's, idea. She wanted a Beatles on Abbey Road pose. Only we're walking towards the other direction and it was nighttime (so the sun won't come till about 8 hours later) and we're not on Abbey Road and we're definitely not the Beatles. It's my favorite picture, though, so far. I always thought that Beauty is a math movement.

You will eventually have to accept or reject the subject. But this is not about that. This is about this bunch of people who make my academic life stir in the many figures of play.

I don't want the year to end yet.
I can go to school forever.
But no.


* Northrop Frye

Phantom Limbs
Anne Michaels

'The face of the city changes more quickly, alas! than the mortal heart.'
—Charles Baudelaire
So much of the city
is our bodies. Places in us
old light still slants through to.
Places that no longer exist but are full of feeling,
like phantom limbs.
Even the city carries ruins in its heart.
Longs to be touched in places
only it remembers.

Through the yellow hooves
of the ginkgo, parchment light;
in that apartment where I first
touched your shoulders under your sweater,
that October afternoon you left keys
in the fridge, milk on the table.
The yard--our moonlight motel--
where we slept summer's hottest nights,
on grass so cold it felt wet.
Behind us, freight trains crossed the city,
a steel banner, a noisy wall.
Now the hollow diad!
floats behind glass
in office towers also haunted
by our voices.

Few buildings, few lives
are built so well
even their ruins are beautiful.
But we loved the abandoned distillery:
stone floors cracking under empty vat…

Rode a bus from Buendia to Ayala. A sound of something hard and heavy that fell. A couple grunts of dismay. Then silence. All was clear again--meaning back to normal. Then some talks.

A woman in shades, seated at the other side: "May nakuha ba sa inyo?"

A man, in shades, green polo shirt and jeans, standing up, groping through his pocket: "Nakuha yung 10,000 ko." He took from his left pocket a crumpled 1,000 peso bill, looked at it.

I looked at it.

The woman in shades: "Sundan niyo, naglalakad pa 'yan."

He went out.

The man sitting beside me felt his pocket.


¤


From Heidi via SMS:If today is the last day of the earth, what would you be doing?

I'm not asking for a reply, but for you to ponder if truly you're living the way you want to [be] right now, at this given moment.Sleeping. Last-lining everything in dream. My nows have been mostly pipe dream, and that's how I like it most of the time.

What mythological conditioning I've undergone.