On not having a child

1. I am not capable of unconditional love.
2. A child is a hindrance to the pleasures I currently and wish to continually enjoy.
3. Sure life has its moments of brilliance, ecstasy and meaningfulness. Against extensive mediocrity, struggle and misunderstandings. Is the bargain worth it? Would I be truly giving the gift of life to a child? If I were an alien and was given the opportunity to live life on earth as a human, I would likely say pass.
4. I may be capable of an enduring love. But I don't trust I could behave with such love with more than three persons. I worry too much and feel pain too much. I might not love wisely and sanely.

A literal weather

After dinner at Tokyo Tokyo, People Support, we crossed the street going to RCBC, 30 minutes early for Master Class, so we'd still have time to freshen up and look at the playbill and other stuff they sell.

Ava mentioned good thing it wasn't raining, we had no umbrella. I said I wasn't worried, I knew the weather. Trend is, at the start of the week, there's heavy rain, then by Wednesday it'll subside, be gone by Thursday then completely go away on Friday till the weekend. That's how it's been for the past couple of months.

She was amused by the knowledge, or that I bothered to observe. I have no choice, I have always been a commuter. I prepare more for the transportation than anything else in my daily routine: the intense heat or rain, the most comfortable pair of shoes to wear that matches the mediocrity that is my outfit, the reckless drivers, the lack of over and underpasses, and the memory of many near-traffic-accidents I've had.

Career fear

There is nothing more frustrating than a good concept gone bad. There is no worse failure than a rich idea half-realized.

A couple of officemates raved about 'Stranger than Fiction'. One of them was eager enough to lend me her DVD of the film.

I started to smile when Harold Crick started to hear the voice of Karen Eiffel. I was thrilled when, after getting no help from a psychologist, Harold sought the expertise of a Literature professor. I was ecstatic when Karen's phone rang as she typed that the phone would ring.

All the buildup was for nothing. The ride took me nowhere. In me was one big sayang.

(My) Friendship rules

1. Be punctual. Commitment is requisite. Once you've set an appointment with me, don't crush my heart by cancelling it at the last minute (or the last two hours) for another appointment set by your other friend.

When we are to watch a show—especially a play, never dare ask, 'Is it gonna start on time?' It is supposed to start on time. We may be in the Philippines, but you will not make things any better by tolerating that habit.

2. Linger. I spend five out of seven days a week and twelve out of twenty-four hours a day doing soulless difficult things to earn a living. I look forward to conversing with you and therefore you cannot leave at five thirty in the afternoon. Not in the afternoon. Not at five thirty.

Acts of intimacy

1. Playing a song for someone
2. Letting them read your earliest drafts of poetry
3. Sharing breakfast
4. Lending your book and not claiming it back

Sexy 2

Extreme selfishness for books.

Difficulties like friendship

It starts, because you two have something in common. Say a dish, or a philosophy on eating a dish. Maybe you both like girls. Or boys and girls. Or you both care about none of those love and sex stuff. A passion for syntax, torn between lauding and crucifying your boss. You like each other until. Until one gets out of the common ground. Say one found the right love and sex stuff. Shown improved skills in syntax. Became at peace with your boss, liked a dish you barely understood.

You remain friends, because some things remain: proximity to each other and there is fondness still.

Sexy 1

The kindness that wasn't expected of you.

Which is farthest from the fact

Sad certainties like this inevitable fact: That in the future, there will be several instances wherein my ego will be hurt.

You deal with a most horrendous tragedy and you think yourself immune from later bruises.

Lesson no. 63917 in life

Do not delete an acquaintance's number and if by any means it was removed from your phone book, retrieve immediately. This acquaintance might seek you in the future and need your company; while you, clueless of the name behind the number will ask: Who u? And the bond that might have been will remain a might-have-been and a might-have-been forever.

Friends,

Let us stay away from each other's works, literary or otherwise.

Let us shy away from intelligent discernment of one another's choices of lovers.

Do not and I will not comment on matters of family, yours and mine.

Let our conversations remain on the level of ideas and the ideals.

Let us always be sensitive of each others' insecurities.

Let us be the best of friends and give our best lies of each other when we need them the most.

Cheers to the new year! It may be just one more to the many or few years we have, but it is what we have now.

Do I believe in God?

Sometimes. Sometimes I fall in love and find it as real as the umbrella I'm holding against the rain. Sometimes all that for me is perfected chimera.

Somewhere in the other

Rooms
Charlotte Mew

I remember the rooms that have had their part
In the steady slowing down of the heart.
The room in Paris, the room at Geneva,
The little damp room with the seaweed smell,
And that ceaseless maddening sound of the tide—
Rooms where for good or ill—things died.
But there is the room where we two lie dead,
Though every morning we seem to wake and might just as well seem to sleep again
As we shall somewhere in the other quieter, dustier bed
Out there in the sun—in the rain.

Entertainment

What I look forward to on Fridays is sleeping with total disregard for what time I should wake up. I would sleep till 2 in the Saturday afternoon. Not this Saturday—

—Had to catch the 2 pm screening of El Sueno de una noche de San Juan at Greenbelt. It was worth it. I would recommend it to friends, but the movie has no other screening schedule.

I had no intentions watching another film, but the Saturday's all mine and the 7 pm show seemed interesting.

I had Stong Ice and sisig for a very late lunch. I was hungry. But there wasn't enough space in my stomach for dessert. While my tummy's digesting many things, I went book shopping. I was quite amazed by how many poetry titles they had in the shelves—especially that of Carson's, Glück's and Bidart's. Somehow I felt like I knew each person who bought and would buy them.

Whenever I'm in Greenbelt, I make it a point to have coffee at Segafredo. It's from there that I learned of the Turkish belief, coffee should be as "black as hell, as strong as death and as sweet as love".  But to my surprise and dismay, Segafredo had closed.

When I like to be alone, I like to be alone. So imagine the collapse of my inner peace when I had been spotted by a perky high school mate in the restroom some 20 minutes before going into the movie theater—Had I only used the CR downstairs, Had I not come way too early—

The 7 pm show was interesting, so imagine everyone's frustration when it started to play like a 3rd-rate pirated DVD after 30 minutes. The sound was busted, the picture kept freezing.

First time ko maexperience 'to, sa G3 pa.

Those responsible took a different reel and played the movie from the start.

Ay, pare, napanood ko na 'to, ganito mangyayari diyan—

Menu, select scene—

30 minutes and 5 more passed by and passed by fine. Then the sound went choppy, the picture stopped completely.

Tara na, pare.

Alis na tayo?

It's pointless.

I wanted to stay and wait, and hope. But it was pointless.

At least may pang blog ako.

The theater was small and I'm quite a nice person. I said good-bye to the perky high school mate. I wish to see Ciudad en Celo sometime very soon.

Blistering at the head of September

I had a bad August. Which is my way of completely ignoring the delectable things I had, because they'd somehow fallen to the ease of habit.

The life thus went: late night meals at Sinangag Express with my brother, online chats with K, watching entire seasons of Heroes, The Office and Arrested Development, shopping, saving, keeping secrets and sharing them.

I began dancing again and did it almost every day, almost like I'm doing another routine at the gym.

The things listed above were things I was imagining years ago: a laid-back lifestyle that can be open to spontaneity—intimate friendships, big ambitions, complex puzzles, modest pleasures, intimate puzzles, complex friendships, modest ambitions.

I want to acknowledge this blog's existence for the past four years. This serves me: pleasure, puzzle and friend.

"We can never find ten people in one person." Makes sense as we can never be our many selves to only one person.

This is at least one place where I can squeeze as many mes as I can, like my public closet.

You give me the pleasure of having an audience, Part 4

I love you. I told you many variations of that statement to convince you of its reality. Each variant was to impress you. Because I wanted to get you.

And then my fear of words. I love you, I said, hence I had to love you, and did.

You give me the pleasure of having an audience, Part 3

My need to talk about you; my pedestrian desire to say what I cannot tell you.

You give me the pleasure of having an audience, Part 2

Am I ready to tell your story? Am I ready to tell my story that revolves around you?

I try to understand you. I try to understand this moment and the moments revolving around it and I end up telling a story.

You give me the pleasure of having an audience, Part 1

July eighteen, the week is brilliant and imperfect.

It started as K stopped writing me—no, she didn't stop, only she wasn't responding promptly.

This time I'm not waiting—as well as for Friday, among other things, to come.

Each day has been long, but not without a good rest. Right to say each day is complete.

I've reached that point where one completely loses trust in the universe. Every day I wake with the affirmation that I am liable. The world buys from me joys and sufferings.

Now how to deal with this knowledge? That once words get out of its human cage, it will die or live with other persons. Your words might find their own fullness after you. I can never get mad when my words are used innocently and maliciously and against me; all I can be is responsible.

July twenty-nine and K replied with an apology for lateness. As if we need measure punctuality in these meetings, as if replying is her obligation.

It's not our time yet to save the world

G: Iyak ako nang iyak kagabi. Nagsisink-in kasi na parang walang patutunguhan yung buhay ko.

Me: Bata pa tayo, G. Wala pa talaga dapat patunguhan buhay natin.