Certificate of Pre-Mortem

Dear Future Self,

In the light of [life catastrophe (e.g., failure to realize dreams, loss of love, debilitating health concerns)], I would like to assure you that this incident has been duly grieved for in advance since [pre-mortem start date].

Over the course of the last [number of] years, any and all contributing factors, appropriate emotions, and feasible courses of action have been accounted for and analyzed to ensure your convenience at this difficult time. The full report is on file in your head, for your perusal during the subsequent sleepless nights.

Your feedback would be much appreciated. Let me know if I missed any pertinent details

...and we'll figure it out, I guess.

You can't say I didn't try. Or that I didn't tell you so.

Sincerely,
An Apprehensive But Slightly More Hopeful Version of You

Photosynthesis

When you were younger and (impossibly) more self-centered, you whined like the world owed it to you to listen. Eventually you learned that happiness should be shared, and negativity, in all its nasty forms, should be shelved. Nobody loves a loser.

Dark Reaction

So you keep the bitter, the sad, and the angry in specimen jars and examine each of them in your spare time, always having to be careful so as not to end up trapped in those jars yourself. 

While you wish you could share them with someone, you almost never do, because you almost never can. Some miseries are simply inexplicable and are thus easier borne by one than by two.

Light Reaction

So you keep on, and remind yourself to smile and laugh about the good things, of which there are quite a lot. In those small moments, the universe is wonderful and everything glows in the light of an idyllic summer sun.

And that light is enough to fuel you, for today at least--and for tomorrow, and the day after that--until one morning you wake up and there's more light than dark. 

And that's how you know you've made it through, and can make it through again.

Bibliophilia

I should really write more. It seems like I'm always holding it off, waiting for that next drift of inspiration. On days like this one though, I remind myself that this blog isn't in the running for a Pulitzer, nor a Palanca--it's my personal blog, so maybe sharing more of my (not overly) personal thoughts wouldn't hurt.

In line with that, I have a realization to share!

That's basically it, sorry for wasting your time. If you found that boring, you can move along now. 

See, I like girls who like books. Almost--if not all--l of the crushes I've had like to read. My girlfriend goes through audiobooks and actual books like they're popcorn. Even my very minor crushes are/were apparently bookworms.

At first I thought it was just because reading is kind of an "in" thing now (my inner hipster slightly resents this), but my crushes are legit bookdorks. They're Lit majors, Booksale hunters, or polygamous readers; the type who'd spend an entire week's budget on books with (almost) no hesitation nor regret.

Maybe this is also due to the fact that I could never imagine myself with someone who doesn't read. That's like half a relationship's worth of conversation we'd be missing out on. And apparently, even for minor crushes, I'm attracted to something other than looks.

On a related note, J and I were at National in Glorietta 5 last Friday night (because bookstore dates are the best). We were talking about the Harry Potter chest set, which I said I wanted for my future kids. She asked "what if you have a kid who doesn't like to read?" to which I objected, since their hypothetical fetus will probably be listening to stories at the first sign of a heartbeat. 

Okay, enough about my hypothetical future bookworm offspring. My point is, literature really plays a big part--not just in my general life, but in my love life too. After all, I was in love with reading long before I was thinking about things like crushes. Also, words are sexy, and girls who read are hot.

---

I haven't written such a light post in a while. It feels good to give this blog a break from all the angst!

Wistful

Where did they go, those sunrises two years ago, when everything was easy to write and my emotions weren't so complex and unreachable at the same time? Here I go again at a frightening crossroad, with so much uncertainty and pressure, and nearly not enough sleep (often because of the workload; at times of my own volition).

It's yet another rollercoaster year of fun, excitement, fear, self-doubt, sadness, and utter, inexplicable happiness and contentment. In other words, it's life, or a particularly heightened phase of it. But among the many emotions, in this moment--and in many others, when I happen to catch myself--I am wistful.

Contradictory as it is, I've found myself most wistful at the happiest, calmest times. I yearn for things as they happen to me, because every time I can't help but remind myself: in a minute, or an hour, or the blink of an eye--this moment, this experience, and this unexpected swell of emotions will pass and I will never be able to have it again.

Around seven years ago, I was fascinated with cherry blossoms, blooming and falling in a matter of days. Until now this fearful fascination with change and ephemerality has stayed with me. Everything ends; everything passes.

So, often I shy away from any form of trying to capture the moment. Unwritten posts, pictures not taken, words left unsaid. Best left that way, for fear of not being able to do it justice. Instead I opt to keep them in my head, much like series episodes to be replayed when I feel the need.

Other times though, I think I ought to tell those stories--even just to myself--because the time will surely come when I will forget. Perhaps I'll start. While words and pictures may not suffice, they'll help, at least.

Perhaps, things aren't so easily lost after all.

Damien Rice - Cannonball

Vicarious

I'm tired of a life lived through your stories. I'm weary of the details of a good time or an annoying day where I'm always a spectator and never a character; the only reason they matter is because you matter.

You know I love you, but telling me all about a life spent with others shouldn't be all there is to spending your life with me.

The Limit Does Not Exist

We've traveled nearly everywhere, it seems--failing at hunting down PUVs and taking cabs instead. We've walked so many steps in the baking heat--I, in shoes too stylish for comfort (failing at vanity, as I often do)--always in danger of slipping on a foot bridge step. I've come so far to find myself parked on a mall bench for three hours, rereading a book which makes my head spin. I've come to be with you, yet I find myself alone (again, naturally--or so the song goes).

I've come so far, waited so long, and felt so alone--to look into your eyes as we talk; to have my hand held on a bus ride, and my face stroked affectionately as we walked along mall stores. All this to feel a happiness so small, yet so full. One that I haven't felt in months, and certainly not from anyone else.

Sometimes I'm afraid to discover just how much I can do for you.

Love is such a boundless thing.

Comforts

Sometimes you just have to step back, and step away from the details that are eating you up, to look at the big picture. That's when you see things clearly, and you get to think as the closest to being rational you could ever get (still not close enough though).

The thing is, often the big picture--and the decisions that need to made after seeing it--can be pretty painful to realize.

Still, it's your life, and it's your call. You choose your own happiness, and likewise choose the personal misery pit you will wallow in.

The only comfort is knowing that there's no rush to this decision.

And that you can always choose to curl up in the comfort of things you've gotten so used to, instead of facing the proverbially harsh winds of change.

(Often, being brazen is not being brave. Sometimes it takes a lot more courage to be what others see as a coward--if it means that at least one person is spared the damage.)

No one will ever need to know that you almost changed your mind.

Questionable Intentions

I never meant to write today, but there’s always something about you that compels me—to write, and do various other things I’d never thought I even wanted to.

I never meant to read, but there’s something about a sappy movie at five in the morning that compelled me to.

I never meant to know, but I now that I do, well I guess I don’t mean to know how I feel about it.

Because really, I never meant to feel anything about it. (It’s the movie, I suppose. I unfortunately am a hopeless romantic.)

And if there’s one intention that I at least got to keep, it’s that

I never meant to tell, and I never did.

A Valentine Post-mortem

VALENTINE'S DAY 2011--It's Monday, a fact which slides my mood from indifferent to ever so slightly dejected. Couples are walking past us hand in hand, the girls cradling bouquets of roses, and--in some cases--stuffed animals. I scoff at the latter--twenty-something couples who still regularly give each other stuffed animals are just odd. We're walking in the midday heat to the nearby Robinson's, where in a few minutes we will try, and subsequently fail, at trying to interview random students for a documentary on good government. That's as romantic as this day will get for me, apparently.

* * *

I sit through a class which I don't really want to be in, all the time willing my eyes to stay open (and even when I succeed, I think I still fall asleep while staring blankly at my socks). At the end of the class, a classmate gets the university actors' guild to surprise serenade his girlfriend. I troop out of class and end up singing Aegis songs and Zsa Zsa Padilla's Hiram with my friend Grace at the Oblation garden. We both crave for a karaoke night out, which unfortunately doesn't materialize at the moment.

* * *

I'm squeezed in on a jeepney that looks like a tetanus trap, between the sweaty, mean-looking kind of men who would make you pretty apprehensive of being held up. Thankfully, my judgmental sense is mistaken, and they turn out to be harmless. Five minutes in, I bring out my new and cherished copy of Miguel Syjuco's Ilustrado. My sister--a high school senior--bought it for me yesterday. I had accompanied her to Greenbelt to take pictures for her visual arts elective, and we dropped by the nearby Powerbooks. I was browsing the General Fiction aisle, when the stacked copies caught my eye. I'd been wanting to buy it for weeks, but lacked the money to do so. She insisted on buying me one. Today I gave her a pack of giant marshmallows (her favorite). It might seem unfair, but that's how we work--I give her time which I actually shouldn't have the leisure of spending; she gives me money for books which we both doubt she'll ever want to read. Sweetest thing anyone has done for me this week.

* * *

Second ride on the way home. I'm squinting in the corner of a red-lit jeep, still stubbornly reading my book. It takes a while to read this one--I'm not a huge fan of vocabulary words learned past the sixth grade--but I like it a lot. Across me, a woman carefully holds two long-stemmed roses slightly wedged in her shoulder bag. The perpetual traffic jam drags the evening on. 

Ilustrado makes me think of how much I actually love Manila, despite the traffic, the trash, and the trash talking we Pinoys often describe it with. Earlier during the afternoon heat wave, I commented: "If I would ever leave the Philippines, it probably wouldn't be because of the political situation, or the economy--it would be because of the weather." While reading though, I think I still I wouldn't leave. Or if I would have to, I'd miss it terribly.

From time to time, I get completely lost in my book, only to look up and remember where I actually am; it's hard not to be reminded with the rumble of a dozen jeepney and tricycle engines, and the pungent smell of fish wafting from the Pasay City Market. I look down again, my eyes straining to make out the relatively tiny text; my mind straining to be distracted from the thirty minutes that still remain on my ride (should've been just ten minutes, but that's Metro Manila for you). Distraction has always been my cure for disappointment.

* * *

Valentine's Day has always been a curious day for me. I see it as a day of expectations--as Grace said, guys are expected to spend for girls, and girls are expected to appreciate whatever their boyfriends give (and that translates to all relationships). This is the one day--even more than Christmas, or their birthdays--that people all over the world feel entitled to some form of affection.

My relationship with the universe has been pretty similar these few days. I've been a having a good yet very stressful time. I do (school)work I enjoy; I'm getting along okay with my parents; and my love life is good too. But somehow I'm not as contented as I am some days. There's a tinge of disappointment at the back of my throat. I feel entitled to something else--something more; something grand. 

I don't know why, but these days I feel like the universe forgot to give me flowers on Valentine's Day, like an otherwise loving significant other who let me down this one tiny time. But I'm pretty sure we'll patch things up soon. After all, it's been so good to me.

*Photo credit

***

Also, you guys should sign this petition! Spread the love to the LGBT community by supporting the Anti-Discrimination Act of 2010 (House Bill 1483) Click and sign! 

Skinny Bitch: On The Narrower End of Weight Issues

Ever since the age of ten, when I discovered the amount of time and money that one could save from not eating proper meals, I started growing thin. I grew thinner and thinner until I earned (along with unbearable amounts of ulcer-ish pain) the envy of my diet-crazy friends, and the concern of nurses and doctors whenever they reminded me of my woefully below average body mass index. I started eating properly again, but I just couldn't gain the weight anymore. Well, not until recently. I'm glad to report that my BMI just (barely) made it to normal levels, and all I need to do is maintain the weight.

Still, that's work for me. Yes, I am an effortlessly skinny bitch. To most, it may seem like a blessing. That's probably because you haven't experienced being underweight. It only ever comes in handy when:

• You're involved in those team-building activities where group members need to carry or lift their team mates. I usually get passed around like half a sack of potatoes.
• You're a trained ballet dancer. I was forced into ballet by my high school PE program, and it was one of the most awkward and embarrassing moments of my young life. Needless to say, I am not—and will never be—a trained ballet dancer.
• Your carpool gets very crowded and sitting on each others' laps becomes a necessity. This is rather unfortunate for the person you have to sit on—in my case, my sister who's four years younger. Ha ha.
• You're in the running towards becoming America's Next Top Model. Sadly, not only did I use to have the weight of half a potato sack, I also happen to share its level of fashion knowledge.

On the other hand, here are some challenges I've encountered as a skinny bitch:

• There's a reason it's called underweight. Just like being overweight and being obese, being underweight is medically not normal. 
• You can't donate blood. The last time I tried, I came up short by half a kilo, I think. And it's something I've always wanted to do, too.
• You're something of a weakling. Especially since my arms seem to gain no fat nor muscle, I could never lift things. Those carry-your-team-over-the-web activities? I proved pretty useless once I got to the other side because I couldn't lift my other team mates.
• You get trapped outside with a signal #4 storm. Seriously, I've tried. I happened to be walking on a slanted surface during a really windy storm. I could feel my balance being affected. I imagine it would have made for a really bad Mary Poppins knock-off.
• You're not even tall and you get mistaken for a kid. Which always, always happens to me. Either that or people mistake me for a prepubescent boy, which isn't comforting either. Damn it people! Do I have to wear my birth certificate on a chain around my neck?

But really, this is all for fun. To normal-weighing people who go crazy about dieting (especially by unhealthy means), please don't stone me to death. And please, stop trying to be those starved skeletons you see on the Internet.

Weight is just a number. Whether you have a little too much, or too less of it, should not run nor ruin your life. If you're really trying to gain or lose some pounds, you should do it for yourself, and not for those critical significant others, relatives, neighbors, or friends. 

And if you happen to be a self-imposed weight critic, please do the world a favor and STFU. You know what everyone hates more than a skinny bitch? A nosy one, I'm sure.

Chiaroscuro

Let me tell you about my clothing choices. Oh, no, I'm not going to pretend to be fashion-savvy. Trust me, I couldn't put a fashionable outfit together, even if my life depended on it.

It's just that the other day, I was wearing black, which I almost never do. As of my last tally, my closet contains exactly one black and two dark blue shirts, and about one shirt for each other color. The rest of my tops are white. I don't know when this started, but after four years in college, the white shirts have slowly piled up.

I really prefer white shirts, mostly because the weather is baking like an oven most of the time, and I, unfortunately, tend to sweat profusely and easily.So white clothes keep me cool and comfortable, while also keeping me from perpetually looking like I just came from a jog.

Click for source.

However, I've been thinking about how there's a lot more to my clothing choice than just comfort. I realized that I actually suit my shirt colors to my mood—and based on that, I'm pretty bipolar, I guess.

Most of the time I'm white; I'm bright. I catch the light, reflecting it, reaching out. This is me in my happiest, most hyper moods. I go out on impromptu drinking sessions, I dance around, and act like a kid with ADHD. This is me in my most sociable, most engaged moments. I laugh at anything and try everything, just for the heck of it. I breathe the air and sunshine in, like a silly sunflower in bloom (and mind you, the concept of me as a sunflower is silly in itself).

But other times, I'm black; I'm dark. I absorb the light, curling up, cowering in corners, shutting out. I refuse to talk to people, spending whole days shut up in my room, watching movies and reading.This is me in my most detached, apathetic moments. I watch anything—to distract me, because I think about everything—especially the unnecessary stressors. The air feels trapped and I feel too tired, too heavy to move. 

Lately I've been alternating between dark and light shirt colors; dark and light perspectives. Too many things going on, and I'm losing focus. As colors signify moods and emotions, I'm pretty much overloading on the whole spectrum every day.

Most days I come home tired and drained, and fall asleep feeling defeated. I wake up the next day hoping for the best; for the nearest I can get to a clean slate. Then the day comes at me again and before I notice, I'm stuck in the cycle.

But it's fine, I guess. I'll find a way around it, I always do.

We are all are light and dark, in our own ways. We all have the potential for goodness and positivity, yet we are at the same time inevitably flawed.

The thing about black and white is that they both are overloaded with the whole spectrum. One simply chooses to reflect it, seeing it as an opportunity to exude brightness, while the other keeps everything in, trapping the light.

Having choices is freaking difficult. And as we've all heard at some point, our life depends on what we choose make of our circumstances. No wonder life is such a pain in the ass. We'll just have to deal with it, then. If we make enough good choices, maybe we'll even turn into prisms and achieve states of rainbow-shitting happiness (very similar to Maslow's concept of self-actualization, except this has hints of substance abuse).

[Okay, I think I just pushed the analogy off the cliff. Don't mind that last bit. Just stay happy, folks.]

Underwrite

Okay, so I haven't blogged the whole summer. Needless to say, it was uneventful. Painfully uneventful, actually, that at one point I was almost convinced that learning to eat fire—with the matching inevitable hospitalization—would be a good way of spicing my summer up. But not really, I didn't plan to do that. Owing partly to the paranoia I inherited from my mother, and partly to my incredible laziness, I never learned to eat anything more daring than weird vegetables and moderate amounts of spicy canned food.

I never went anywhere, nor went swimming. I didn't learn how to drive, or even to cook a decent meal. Heck, I didn't even go out with friends. Probably the most adventurous thing I did was trying out for a summer call center job for ePLDT Ventus—I met a couple of funny people—but they never called me back. Thus ensued another summer of astounding levels of nothingness. 

That's changed now. To my huge relief, classes have resumed. My schedule still is prefect for bumming out—free Tuesdays and Fridays—which I kind of dislike, since I've had enough of my small house and my pink room to last me a couple of stressful weeks. I've been doing nothing for so long that the thought of spending nights sleepless and poring over readings seems almost appealing.

Writing is pretty. [Click the photo for credits.]

So what's there to learn from all of this? I have no idea. I just wanted to share, because today I came home from the first real, whole class session I've had in the semester, and tomorrow we're leaving for an overnight stay in Fontana with my parents' friends. 

I just feel like I have my life back. And apparently, me with no life means me with no blog either. I just realized how much of myself I really put into this blog—it's not that I didn't have any thoughts at all in the last two months, it's just that I was in a mood so lethargic that I couldn't seem to put them into writing. 

I'm reminded that writing is really a lot more than just a hobby for me—not just a way to release excess thoughts, or bitch about how the universe loves to bully me. It's not just a venue for my pseudo-profundity, or a grammatical exercise. Writing is really my life.

Back when I was fresh from high school, I decided not to pursue a Creative Writing degree because I was quite sure that with my moodiness and meager creativity, I wouldn't be able to make a decent living. And then the whole course-choosing-then-shifting thing happened. Through that and everything else I think I've proven that writing is my passion—something I'm sure I'll be doing for as long as I can, regardless of whatever career path I land on.

It's a good feeling to have something you can own. It's about time I claimed it, don't you think?

Something's Mi si g

You can ignore this post, doesn't make any real sense, well maybe except for me.

So I've been perpetually hungry and restless and all that. I have about 5 movies waiting to be watched, 7 and a half of the Demonata books to read, and some Chuck Palahniuk ebooks to try out too. I have several games on this laptop, from Plants Vs. Zombies to The Sims 3. I have cable TV. I have a guitar, and several gigabytes of downloaded songs in my hard drive. We have a refrigerator, which my mom has wisely stocked with an assortment of snacks. I have my Facebook account, my Plurk page, and I have enough cell phone credits to last me for the week. I have one or two friends nearby whom I can call to invite out, or crash with. To say that I've laid out some boredom-prevention methods is quite an understatement.

And yet, I'm fidgety. I can't sit still long enough to get anything done. Whether I'm reading or playing or watching TV, I can't seem to stop myself from getting up every ten minutes, heading downstairs to the refrigerator. I open it, stare at its contents, craving for something I just can't define. I grab one snack or another, and then halfway through finishing my food I decide it's not really what I wanted.

I can't believe it took days and a Facebook post to figure it out.

Maybe it's because this has been going on for a while, that I'd somehow assumed I was used to it. But now it's getting to me once again. Maybe it's because of the break, a time when I don't have school to worry about, or  idyllic tambay hours to fill my day. Maybe it's that Christmas is just around the proverbial corner, and everyone talks about being with the people they love, the people they care about—the people that matter.

Maybe it's because I've had to say goodbye in different ways to a couple of people just recently. And probably because there's someone I've been wanting to be with for so long now.

I might have a lot here, it's a good life. But something's missing—aside from cash of course. Haha. Seriously though, sappy as it is—I'm missing you, and you, and you, and most of all, YOU.

Raiding the fridge is my way of showing you how much I really care.

Photo shamelessly stolen from Definitely Filipino.

 To all the people I miss (whether you're halfway around the world, or just 30 minutes away from my house), and to all who share this feeling of missing, let's still keep Christmas merry okay?

All right, I'm going back to reading now. No wait, lemme check the fridge first.

Beautiful, But A Mess Nonetheless

From now on Jason Mraz's A Beautiful Mess will always remind me of last night, and of nights similar to it. Nights out with good friends and strangers; the taste of new beer and the undiscarded memories of an old life. Not that the lyrics fit the situation, it's just that this was on my playlist before I left home and Drew decided to feed my last song syndrome by putting the song on loop in the car all the way from Makati to Kuya Fred's near Katipunan--and he was all for playing it on the ride back too, had I not seriously threatened to throw his phone out the window.

Last night was fun. Some post-Christmas, pre-New Year get together with almost total strangers for me--I'm just the kid that pseudo-big brother dragged along. I say almost because there were some people from the old crowd I met last sem break. Their work-related conversations bored the hell out of me, but the evening wasn't without its comic moments. Funniest was me "getting hit on" (Drew's term) by a straight and apparently very drunk girl. I didn't know if she was trying to humor me, insult me, or if she was just in over her head with alcohol. It was a mixture of being creeped out and amused at the same time. Luckily her friends distracted her with more interesting matters. I do hope we don't run into each other any time soon. Haha.

But I--oh yes I am--in a beautiful mess. Early on a Sunday morning, with the beginnings of a headache, is perhaps not the best time for reflections about one's life. And well, I don't really know what I'm doing with my life right now. Just cutting myself some slack, hanging back, and not trying to solve any problems for once. Not sleeping, but not nearly thinking as much as I used to do. I'm doing fine. I'm great. Or maybe not, but I don't care anyway.


We tore our dresses and stained our shirts, but it's nice today...
yes, the wait will be worth it.