Efforts to look good

Midnight at Bonifacio High Street, after a heavy downpour

The still water in the man-made pond reflected the image of the strip of boutique shops and the clarity was so captivating my friend and I had to pause from our walk.

I see that friend quarterly, roughly. Last night something was different about her. She was all dressed up. Normally she would just be in her jeans and t-shirt. But this time she donned a nice black-and-white printed blouse and white pants, and carried a black leather shoulder bag. It wasn't exactly a happy expression she was wearing, but she exuded a lighter air.

And neither was I happy. But it would be bad news to report that I didn't change for the better myself. I, too, have been dressing well, trying on new things.

You have to appreciate people for taking good care of themselves—which is the least selfish act, because that says they're hopeful about the world, and that they care about you. They want to be healthy for you, be able to brave the rain to meet you, treat you to a fancy dinner, listen to your worries attentively, make sense of your incoherences, give advice, share a laugh, engage in a midnight walk.

Birthday month thoughts

1.

'It takes a long time to grow young.' —Pablo Picasso

The quote is written in one of the birthday cards I received. A consolation, a challenge now that I'm 30?

2.

'We were never being boring.
We had too much time to find for ourselves...
We dressed up and fought then thought: Make amends.
We were never holding back, worried that time would come to an end.'

—Pet Shop Boys, Being boring

Glad to hear this song, which is a reminiscence, at this time when I still have a lot of chance to build things that will make for good memories, stories.

Don't talk to strangers

They might steal your heart.

Photos taken by my friend

Amelia was at the table in front. The cunning smile I practised for years, she flashed at me the instant our eyes met.

Her gracious parents allowed us to chat and play with my friend's camera.

As it was time to say good-bye, she suggested a kiss, which I was eager to give and receive. Too close, her tiny hands unknowingly took something that belonged to me.

Post-Valentine

You intimidate men.

No, I make them disinterested. There is no desire where there is no daring. If they don't find any motivation to approach me, that means they are not that attracted to me.

*

Nurse buddy

Singlehood only becomes difficult in two occasions: when you're horny and when you're sick. So aside from a booty call, there's hopefully an arrangement wherein someone would be there for you whenever you have a high fever and runny nose.

Poetry is a language

—just as with the doctor's and the computer programmer's—ineffective and not fully comprehensible to those who don't learn to speak it.

Why keep a diary

My 2012 diary

Maybe writing in a daybook is my praying. Talking to someone I don't know but believe in.

'Never abandon the wholesome practice of saying your own private prayers, night and morning. I have never abandoned it myself, and I know the comfort of it,' wrote Charles Dickens to his son.

Wholesome: promoting health or well-being of mind or spirit. A telling of the last twenty-four hours' events and thoughts soothes me.

It's more than putting memories, feelings and ideas in a vault for safe-keeping and posterity (I seldom re-read my journals anyway). It is a way of affirming the day. Today can only be complete if I re-call, re-assess, and re-construct it in words.

Wholesome: based on well-grounded fear. What is the consequence of missing a log? That what happened is not captured and made sense of, and is therefore meaningless and untrue.

Full

Chinese New Year's Eve at Mich's

Around 2005, I gained nine new friends. We met at that point in our lives when we thought we had more to learn within the walls of an academic institution, even if we already earned our bachelor's degree.

We understood two things very well: 1) Writing is a serious business; and 2) It's a mistake to take life too seriously.

Last night I shared a huge dinner table with (most of) them to welcome the New Year once more, and once more I felt happy being myself with a group of people I admire.

It's great to see friends regularly but at longer intervals, see how things have changed and remained. You surprise yourself, because, busy with living, you take for granted how you've been changing, too, or how you haven't.

In gatherings like this, all you remember the day after are the strong taste of sauce in your mouth, how someone looked so good in their dress, facial expressions, the rhythm of conversations, and a few floating phrases that your hungover mind manage to catch in a minute of wakefulness. 'Find someone who fills you up' was one such phrase. I wanted to delve deeper into that, but as with poetry, you savor the words first by their sound. Later when my mind is clearer, I'll make sense of it. There is the rest of the year to do so.

The loser

In tennis championships, my favorite part is the runner-up’s speech.

And I love looking at the face of the loser right after the game. Or moments before it ends and yet the player already knows his fate. That blank, faraway gaze. There’s no hope there in the eyes, only acceptance of defeat. And holding his composure, there’s courage in there too.

Secret Santa

Got a package

All right, coming clean, coming out. Deep inside my steely exterior is a screaming fangirl.

See, there's this little thing called Cabin Pressure. It's as little as an airdot (as compared to an airline). And this little thing makes me happy — not just cheery, but truly happy. Apparently, a lot of others are being made truly happy by it, too.

Long story short, I joined in the fandom's Secret Santa thingy last Christmas. Now, as you all know, the holidays just passed and it's almost February. So I thought that's it, my Secret Santa either was sick, got the wrong address, or left me for another girl.

But then the universe was only testing my patience (because it likes to do that to people). Last night I received a notice from the post office. It required going to the customs.

To cut to the highlight of the story, my Secret Santa hasn't forsaken me.

Inside the package

"...I think it's an utterly stupid idea for two reasons: one of which is obvious and the other of which is that Arthur is 29 years old." Yeah, this might be something only 15-year-olds engage in, but deep inside me is a 15-year-old beaming girl.

First of 2013

Last night you told me:
                                   tomorrow
we shall have to think up signs,
sketch a landscape, fabricate a plan
on the double page
of day and paper.

—Excerpt from January First by Elizabeth Bishop

Bishop wrote about inventing, 'once more, the reality of this world' come first of January. And that's how we are, really, swayed by the promise of a new year. We're creatures of hope. And we are creatures of invention.

*

Mid-afternoon I had the singular pleasure of reading and drinking coffee. It all came together perfectly: the cool weather, the thrilling book, the hot brew, the silence. This was what everyone talks about when they talk about being away from it all, it all being the problems and worries one has to bear each day.

From my humble, unkempt room, I sincerely wish everyone I learned to love and be fond of, everyone that ever intrigued me, and everyone that helped alter my life in the littlest but entirely positive way, that they constantly retreat to that place where they can feel light and be away from it all.

Life may be a matter of perspective, but life can be blatantly ugly. In these instances, that we have the strength to endure until everything is better again.

*

If I may give a few tips (for what, I don't know— Maybe we could consider these as things I would've told my younger self):

1. If you see something good in someone, tell them at once.
2. Be yourself. No kidding. If you want that cliché rephrased: Accept you're awesome and the world just have to deal with it.
3. It's harder to be kind. Bad girls aren't cool.
4. You're only as smart as you're willing to learn.
5. It's okay to be weak. Ask for help.

*

Happy New Year!

I need space

to make room for more companions.

Closet-turned-book case

One solution is to resort to digital space. Here's an excerpt from a piece in defence of the e-book:

In practical terms it is all too easy to defend the e-book. We can buy a text instantly wherever we are in the world. We pay less. We use no paper, occupy no space. Kindle’s wireless system keeps our page, even when we open the book on a different reader than the one we left off. We can change the type size according to the light and our eyesight. We can change the font according to our taste. Cooped up in the press of the metro, we turn the pages by applying a light pressure of the thumb. Lying in bed, we don’t have that problem of having to use two hands to keep a fat paperback open.

I appreciate both the e-book and the, well, book book. Personally—and superficially—a point must be awarded to the former for allowing me to read titles I wouldn't want to be seen reading in public.

Money

De La Salle centennial
commemorative banknotes

A few things I learned:

1. An easy way to look good is to wear clothes that fit. It's difficult to find pants for my body type. But that's because I look in the wrong places, searching for what suits my budget and not my frame. See, my hips and thighs don't like to wear cheap garments.

2. A consolation for buying a really expensive pair of jeans is receiving three commemorative De La Salle centennial 100-peso bills for my change.

3. The downside to doing work I care about is earning less than I used to. Yet by some strange mathematics miracle, my luxuries remain. I don't value money as much as I value time and energy.

4. To be clear: Money is, has been, and will always be very important to me.

Workaday

1. Write article draft. Check.
2. Open up to someone about my personal life. Check.
3. Handle work problem with poise. Check.
4. Receive compliment on my new haircut. Check.
5. Open up to someone about my professional life. X.
6. Flirt. Check.
7. Patiently wait for my ride. Not cry. Check.
8. Cheat on my diet. Check.
9. Do something too naughty to blog. X.
10. Sleep early. X.

Independence and loneliness

from the point of view of a fictional college student:

...what am I supposed to do with independence? You know what 'independence' is? 'Independence' is staring at the ceiling in the middle of the night with your fingernails digging into the palms of your hand. 'Independence' is realising that the only person you've spoken to all day is the man in the off-licence. 'Independence' is a value meal in the basement of Burger King on a Saturday afternoon. When Alice talks about 'independence' she means something completely different. 'Independence' is a luxury of all those people who are too confident, and busy, and popular, and attractive to be just plain old 'lonely'.

And make no mistake, lonely is absolutely the worst thing to be. Tell someone that you've got a drink problem, or an eating disorder, or your dad died when you were a kid even, and you can almost see their eyes light up with the sheer fascinating drama and pathos of it all, because you've got an issue, something for them to get involved in, to talk about and analyse and discuss and maybe even cure. But tell someone you're lonely and of course they'll seem sympathetic, but look very carefully and you'll see one hand snaking behind their back, groping for the door handle, ready to make a run for it, as if loneliness itself were contagious. Because being lonely is just so banal, so shaming, so plain and dull and ugly.

That is Brian Jackson speaking and he wishes nothing more than to have a romantic relationship with Alice Harbinson, who says she hasn't got the time for that, that she values her independence too much.

The funny thing about these two fictional characters in David Nicholls's Starter for Ten is how I can relate to both of them, however different from each other they may be.

Sunday is two days

Difficult as it already is to face Monday, the challenge doubles when at the closure of a long weekend.

A Sunday affair

Sunday brunch (late riser here) is my favorite part of the week. Either I cook or visit a deli nearby (has to be cheap, for, by now, I've pretty much ran out of money as a result of Friday's and Saturday's indulgences). Everywhere is quiet, at home as well as outside with very few people having the energy and interest (and cash?) to step outside their home. It is the only time when I can pore over a book for hours. The entire affair—eating, reading, and contemplating (which is a given)—extends until late in the afternoon, when the sun fades and it's cool enough for me to retire to my room.

Sunday night is second to the worst part of the week. Between 8 to 12 o'clock, you cram all the other little but pleasurable things you wish to do: surf the net, blog, watch TV, listen to music, be nostalgic over text messages and snapshots on your camera phone... repeatedly interrupted by thoughts of an impending Monday.

Oh how true are numbers one and two

Alice Munro's subject matter is ordinariness--disappointment, the passage of time--but she doesn't bring to her stories what, say, John Updike or Tillie Olsen do: extraordinary language, a mind in love with the everyday but able to exalt it so that we feel the magic in what is usual.

—Frederick Busch, Review: 'Something I've Been Meaning to Tell You'

Which is exactly what I appreciate about her prose. The straightforwardness, the non-exaltation of the ordinary.

Dear Hugh and Margaret,

I have been by myself a good deal these past weeks and have been able to think about us all and have reached several interesting though not perhaps original conclusions:

1) Monogamy is not a natural condition for men and women.

2) The reason that we feel jealous is that we feel abandoned. This is absurd, because I am a grown-up person capable of looking after myself. I cannot, literally, be abandoned. Also we feel jealous—I feel jealous—because I reason that if Hugh loves Margaret he is taking something away from me and giving it to her. Not so. Either he is giving her extra love—in addition to the love he feels for me—or he does not feel love for me but does for her. Even if the latter is true it does not mean that I am unlovable. If I can feel strong and happy in myself then Hugh's love is not necessary for myself-esteem. And if Hugh loves Margaret I should be glad, shouldn't I, that he has this happiness in his life? Nor can I make any demands on him—

—Alice Munro, The Spanish Lady (from 'Something I've Been Meaning to Tell You')

Funny how hard it is

It's dangerous to liken lyric poetry to an extended aphorism, but that's how I would describe most of the lyric verse I've read and loved. They speak the (my) truth — generally and specifically. To try putting it in another way— It's rare that I find poetry wherein I could say, 'I can relate to that,' 'That is what's happening to me right now,' 'It touches me.'

That rarity is Philip Larkin.

While other poems have but an absolute voice, Larkin's have a face and a world that I, too, inhabit.

Vers de Société
Philip Larkin

My wife and I have asked a crowd of craps
To come and waste their time and ours: perhaps
You’d care to join us? In a pig’s arse, friend.
Day comes to an end.
The gas fire breathes, the trees are darkly swayed.
And so Dear Warlock-Williams: I’m afraid—

Funny how hard it is to be alone.
I could spend half my evenings, if I wanted,
Holding a glass of washing sherry, canted
Over to catch the drivel of some bitch
Who’s read nothing but Which;
Just think of all the spare time that has flown

Straight into nothingness by being filled
With forks and faces, rather than repaid
Under a lamp, hearing the noise of wind,
And looking out to see the moon thinned
To an air-sharpened blade.
A life, and yet how sternly it’s instilled

All solitude is selfish. No one now
Believes the hermit with his gown and dish
Talking to God (who’s gone too); the big wish
Is to have people nice to you, which means
Doing it back somehow.
Virtue is social. Are, then, these routines

Playing at goodness, like going to church?
Something that bores us, something we don’t do well
(Asking that ass about his fool research)
But try to feel, because, however crudely,
It shows us what should be?
Too subtle, that. Too decent, too. Oh hell,

Only the young can be alone freely.
The time is shorter now for company,
And sitting by a lamp more often brings
Not peace, but other things.
Beyond the light stand failure and remorse
Whispering Dear Warlock-Williams: Why, of course—

So maybe a confession. The year's calendar is filled with projects, meetings, and parties — things to do and things to do with other people, because the alternative is loneliness. I revel in being alone freely, yet I also desire good company, which is getting more and more difficult to come by.

9 years later

I started this blog in August 2003 with so much urgency. I was less conscious of the idea that things don't last, hence every design detail, every post, I crafted with regard to eternity. That a wandering man will someday find his way to this digital island, therefore it must be found clean and dainty; that decades from now I will have a lot to enjoy re-reading (and instantly delete).

Years later technology (however lovely and useful) and life (however riveting) prove that nothing lasts. Gadgets, software, the internet are faulty. Relationships, desires, beauty fade. But then all the more do I do things deliberately and with caution; all the more do I believe that one act, one word, is subject to perpetual responsibility.

Talking about going for a totally different look,
which eventually happened.

9 years ago I dreamed of becoming a writer. 2 years ago I became a professional one: I write; I get paid. Since then I have loved this blog more than I ever did. Because (cheesy as it sounds) this is me.

Here I don't follow another's guidelines and say something nice when I don't intend to. Here there are no strings of words that are not mine.

Selfish, self-important, yes, but that's fine. I blog not because I want the world to know what's on my mind; I blog because I want to tell an imagined audience what's on my mind.

Before, I was aching to get published and I knew that getting published would feel amazing. It does. It did. It does when it matters. Now, having your work and your thoughts printed and disseminated seems to be the easiest occupation. So my dream has changed, or it has at least reverted to my principal dream, and that is to write well.

Book sale break

Left: at Black Soup Cafe + Artspace; right: at Van Gogh is Bipolar

Despite the interesting titles and low prices, I refrained from buying any. First, there's little space left at home; second, I haven't really been taking good care of the ones in my possession.

Soon I'll provide my self and my books (present and future) a home.

Beats of an adult song

September is my favorite month.

1. I was published in a national magazine for the first time. Most would cringe at the sight of their early works, but not me. I reckon I did a pretty good job back then.

A part of the poem went:

Meanwhile I hear the catalpa pulsating
in beats of an adult song:

fingers that faltered
before stroking my belly
unfetter the butterflies into the air—
spiraling in space, spelling
the valediction of a gay season.

Look at that little voice talking about the grand loneliness of adulthood.

2. A lot of the people I love were born: friends and those whom I admire; and if I were lucky, those whom I admire and became my friends.

3. The beginning of the best quarter. The countdown to Christmas starts and in between are exciting holidays like Oktoberfest and Halloween.

The end of the year is always more hopeful. There is relief in leaving unpleasant things behind. —This is not exactly true; things stay with you for as long as you live, or at least have a healthy memory; but the illusion of turning the bad news into last year's bad news is comforting. News is now fact at your disposal.

And these celebrations and reflections are all done as we transition into the new year, when it's January 1 and nothing happens.