Shackles

I'm off to Baguio tonight with the "team". We haven't even left and I'm already tired.

It feels like the more I try to fly away from home, the tighter the emotional chains my family wraps around me. I'm annoyed, and I hate the fact that I'm annoyed, because I should feel blessed. Blessed, annoyed and self-loathing. Wow.

God, I want my life to start ASAP.

How can you tell if you're simply going through growing pains, adjusting to changes, or in a downward spiral? In my experience they all feel the same. How does one know before it's too late?

A post without a pop culture reference. I must really be losing it. See you Sunday.

Will The Room Please Stop Spinning?

I now realize what the point is behind a stag party. It's for people to realize how tired and old getting drunk off your ass and smoke-filled cheap-perfume-smelling small rooms are, and that most of the time there's nothing better than being sober and coming home to you.

So that was the story of how I went to a party, got piss-drunk and woke up the next day next to a guy in a strange bed. Someday, somebody else will look back on this and laugh.

I Keep My Visions To Myself

Looking at the previous post's comments, I realize that I've had more than my share of "Don't be so hard on yourself." Is that just something people say, or does it really, really apply to me? Gawd, I should be committed.

Speaking of going crazy, I don't know why this is, but my family's flaws (which I recognize all families have,) are somehow magnified to such a degree this week that it makes my head hurt. Sometimes I actually groan with no immediate (or immediately visible) catalyst.

I need prescription drugs.

And speaking of going crazy (again), I had a weird dream (or two) before starting work. Part of the dream was me backpacking across Manila with the band Counting Crows. I know it was Counting Crows because Adam Duritz was there, and they were talking about releasing another best-of to hide the fact they haven't done anything in two years. The other part of my dream is that I rented a passenger bus for no apparent reason. And that's not even the weirdest part. The bus seemed to be seven stories high, because the people on the sidewalk looked like ants. Also, when it was on handbrake it swaying in the wind.

I guess I overdid the prescription drugs.

Speaking of work, the company issued me a laptop! None of those four-year old bricks that kept changing hands over at ****** a few years back; I practically had to open the box it came in. Now I can pretend to work at home!

I Can't Believe...

...it's this hot
...they killed off Meg on Veronica Mars
...I was totally unprepared for the Holy Week, despite being warned 40 days earlier
...I'm starting to know WWE subplots
...I've been playing electric guitar all this time with the bridge on backwards!
...I don't regularly watch Cowboy Bebop
...I start at a new job tomorrow

The adventure begins. Wish me luck!

Moving Day

Because I can't help looking behind me:

The first picture is the view from the nearest window. If you look real close you can see Greenbelt 'Everything is Beautiful Here' 3. I don't think my new office has a view, sadly.
The other picture is a snapshot of my desk just before I left it. It's semi-clean because I threw almost everything out on the last day. Shown here are: my gross recycled drinking bottle, my Pizza Hut calendar, the ubiquitous red ballpen and the signature Scarlett Johansson wallpaper. Not shown is the orange crepe paper I've turned into a Street Fighter fireball, my tons of scratch paper and my four Emmys. I hate to say it, but I'm going to miss these three walls. I mean, it just looks bleak, but really, I like the privacy I have there. For example, under that locked computer screen is a half-finished game of Freecell, where I had a sub-par 76% winning percentage. I remember losing 122 games. Do the math.

Moving on to other stuff, I just realized how neat it is to be on leave.

Taking pleasure in the details:
First, Mushroom Burger on West Ave. Mushroom burger and Kowloon siopao on the same street? Amazing. Second, having one's guitar(s) fixed by a street-credible guitar technician. How street-credible? My guitar is in his shop right now next to Barbie's and Buddy Zabala's and Paolo Santos'. Incredible. Third, just going around town in the daytime. Yes, it's hot. Yes, it's still a bit traffic for Holy Week. But there's something about going around QC when the sun is still out that feels...right.

There's something about ellipses in online diaries that remind me of Doogie Howser. Ewww. Or, Lee Falk's The Phantom. Ewww.

And All These Emotions Of Mine Keep Holding Me From Giving My Life To A Rainbow Like You

I've made a mess of things.

It's been a crazy past-few-weeks. And so the story went:

I got accepted into a certain Fortune 500 company during a lull in my workload at the company I work for. But by the time they told me I was in, I'd already made certain commitments to a new project and attained a new role. So politely declined. I thought that was the last I heard of it but then they called again, saying things like 'just take a look at the offer'. So I did, and while it was a great offer it was more than the money which made me want to say yes. It was the fact that I realized I wanted to work for a company like that. People I know who work at, say, Microsoft never seem to want to leave. I wanted to know what that was like. So I said yes.

When I told the company I work for they sat on it for like a week to make me a counter-offer. And it turned out to be higher than the previous 'great' offer, and by a lot, too. But in that week things in my head started festering, and I was already sold at working at the new place. So I politely declined the counter.

A week later they made another counter-offer. Obviously it was even bigger. As in I could probably move out of the house (hmmm, not really). Suddenly my dream workplace had a price tag.

Unfortunately for them (and maybe for me, I don't know) I'm certifiably insane. And the heart wants what it wants. So I'm turning down money for a chance to feel what it's like to not want to be anyplace else. I guess time will tell if I made the right choice or not.

So I will be starting a new life in Ortigas. What does this mean? That I will be part of the HP Way, and that I will never be able to step inside an Ink For Less ever again.

But to turn down that kind of money, good gawd..!

And that's not even the most half-assed thing I did this month.

In trying to keep from hurting someone very close to me, I, well, hurt someone very close to me. If turning down money makes me insane, turning down love makes me stupid. Sometimes I wonder if there's a real human being inside here somewhere and not some weird amalgamation of movie quotes and rock lyric references. Someone please just put a hole in me and check.

And so next time (if God will even give me a next time, and if He's as wise as He says He is, He won't) I will let it play out in reality instead of in my head. Stop thinking in numbers and percentages and what-ifs and alternate courses. I blame fantasy basketball. And my stupid, stupid, heart.