Happy Holidays!

December gave me a present. I feel great. So great that I can go make out with a stranger. Or not.

The Charlie Brown Philosophy

To my ever good friend Charlie Brown,

I stumbled upon a thing or two you said back in your heyday. It struck me as truthful and funny and profound all at the same time. And I quote, "I've developed a new philosophy... only dread one day at a time."  

I cannot thank you enough for having the wisdom to develop this for me. In confusing times such as the ones I'm living, this has been the turn of the tides. I'd like to confess that I am a big fan of dread, self-loathing, anger, and all the negative things you can name from the top of your head. It is too easy to just break yourself into pieces and never allow anyone (or yourself for that matter) to put you back together. 

Most of the time I dread the thought of waking up because it seems that mornings are all infinite. But I will imbibe your philosophy and think of dreading today and this day only.

Thank you.

                 

You and your almost indefatigable smile. xoxo

... and then?

i am going to take your "like" of me

and i will mold it into a sphere.
palms facing up, i will hold it.
i will tell you to look at it and marvel.


and then i will crush it with my fingers.
slowly, excruciatingly
without excuse, without reason
i will break it.


do you still like me now?

I'm so sad I could die who?

...hello?

twenty-three

i fall yet again. falling and falling. again. and again. it's the sense of loss. the sense of life... draining away.


***


twenty-three is young. Younger than what? Why do I feel old? Why do I meet people and feel that I've met them before? Why do I shed tears of longing, sadness, and the lightness of being me?


***


today, i felt like screaming. i felt that i wanted to die. i felt that i wanted to rip my wrists open and bleed.
and i had to press my palms to my jaw to supress the word "twenty-three".


i am but i am not. i think of the sand and the sea. i think of the smell of brine and sun. but i also think of emptiness and drabness. i think of anger and hypocrisy. i am but i am not.


***


But they say, this ,too, shall pass.

Of Coffee and Friends

As I was buying another cup of brew, my epiphanies jolted me. How come I've never noticed how much coffee I've been taking lately when these days I only alternate between a caffeine-filled state or a decaffeinated one and nothing in between? Sometimes I worry about calories and all that superficial stuff. Other times, I simply gape at how much liquid I can take in and gulp it all down anyway. How did coffee-drinking become routine instead of ritual?
In my own little godless world, Coffee along with the Unknown are worshiped. Supposedly. Apparently, not anymore. The desecration of my little gods worry me. I have been an ant living on phone conversations, text messages, and Facebook updates from friends. I know I'm going to get screwed coming here but I never knew I'll be screwed this bad to the point of losing joy over that coffee cup.

I need my coffee back. My cigarettes. My conversations. Conversations without excuse, without explanation. Conversations so raw and fragmented I know I am understood. I miss my coffee and the conversations that make it holy.

5 Things

1. EOP- You do not translate your thoughts from the vernacular and supply the English words for it. That's just mean. And for Chrissakes, don't pronounce all your consonants.


2. San Mig Light - Contrary to what you believe in, three bottles of San Mig Light does not get anyone drunk. Snap out of it. You're conjuring your own hangover.


3. Videoke- Not everyone who came from or who has stepped on Cebu knows how to sing.


4.Traffic - Of course, there's traffic everywhere. I know you're complaining but get it right. Say, the traffic is heavy or moderate or light.


5.Puta*- and all its derivatives are sweet. Nothing beats cussing in more than one language. You've made it worthwhile. I wish to meet you and your friends.

..you have just a vague, fat, blind inertia... -- Ayn Rand

My room just like what's inside my head is a strange amalgam of used and clean clothes, books, lollipop wrappers, scribbled paper, cigarette foil, and the occasional pore strip. At the corner is the most unsightly stuff of all --- that huge suitcase.

The last seven days I have attempted (and failed miserably) to spin counterclockwise for angular momentum. (Thanks but no thanks, xkcd, that really didn't work.) I now have less than 48 hours to pack and fill that suitcase and sort things out. As always, I hate packing. As always, I feel like I don't want to go anywhere.

It is incredible that I have considered this place home. If I had been told that 3 years ago, I would have laughed outright. But it is home now. This place with its paradoxically pink walls ---aaaargh---- has seen the best and worst of me and I just hate to leave. Sure, I'll come back and when I get there I wouldn't probably miss this place much but this place's inertia just holds me back. Just these past seven days, I have always suppressed that hard lump in my throat which will eventually lead to tears because of the thought of leaving.

What a little heartbreak this is.

from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

For I have known them all already, known them all:—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?


--T.S. Eliot