Year In The Rearview Mirror

I really shouldn't be doing a retrospective on the year since I want to get out of it as soon as possible. But here we are.

Good things:

• The trips (Boracay twice, Italy in September, one out of two offsites weren't half bad)
  
• The team growing, and growing up
• Maybe a couple of weekends. Three, tops.

Bad things:

• Everything else? Not really. But let's not get into detail and just look ahead.
  

I was supposed to put here how the good and bad years seems to have alternated since high school but I checked the 2006 year-in-review and it wasn't so hot either. So there goes that theory. And all you people who have read The Secret and believe the freaking laws of attraction, before you even get a word in, shut up.

Interlude Too-Hoo

More moments like this and I will fucking go nuts.

There's no one I can scream at/with and no one I can talk to and probably more importantly no one I will listen to.

I am tired and cranky and fed up and bringing up memories of '03. They tell me to stop living in the past but the present and future's no good to me.

I am tired of fighting and I am tired of being a pawn.

I am not a survivor. Despite my claims on the contrary.

And the worst part is: This is all I have.

Rome If You Want Too-Hoo

rome 07
Originally uploaded by ray-gun

Yes, it's been a while (again) and work is the culprit (again).

I'm not really in the mood to talk about the trip because it will depress me too much. I don't really know why, but here's a clue: I traveled around Italy by myself last September but this will still be known as the year that sucked.

Anyway.

That's the Colosseo, which I also saw the last time I was here but what the hell, when in Rome. This shot was taken while walking away from it to the Forum and a building they call the Typewriter, which if I had been paying attention the last time I was here I would know what its significance is.

I remember taking this picture hurriedly because it was getting dark and also I was trying to fit the lamppost in the frame. Turned out pretty well I think. I won't over-analyze it too much.

***

Fast forward to last Thursday's "coup attempt". You can't help but laugh because it was hardly a coup; I don't even consider it an attempt. You call that a coup? People my age know what a coup is. That is not a coup.

Some thoughts, though:

• Arresting members of the media seemed like a tactical error to me.
• Curfew? Really? I think people just played along to add some spice to a somewhat dreary protest rally.
• I heard someone died during the coup...except that it was a municipality away and probably totally unrelated.
• I am so glad I stopped being a journalist.

***

Saw the play version of Jessica Hagedorn's Dogeaters yesterday without even really knowing what the book was about. Going to plays and musicals and stuff is great because even if it sucks you have to appreciate the effort that goes into it, and it rarely sucks anyway. Not that it sucked of course. I have to soak up all the culture in the city before the Metro Manila Film Festival kicks in, because it will suck and make everything around it suck.

***

Tally -Suck: 6, Coup: 6

Interlude

God I'm tired, and my head fucking hurts. It takes so much of time and effort to just be decent and I hate it. I hate it a thousand times over.

I hate excuses just as much, yet I'm so full of them.

I'm not like you.

Rome Around The World

rome 06
Originally uploaded by ray-gun

Let's walk some more.

This is taken at the Piazza del Popolo, which I guess means "People's Place", or "Popular Place". I found it by accident looking for the Spanish Steps, which means uh, Spanish Steps. Maps are for sissies. Sissies whose feet will live past the age of fifty.

The twin churches in view are, according to Wikipedia, Santa Maria dei Miracoli and Santa Maria in Montesanto. Between them is the Via del Corso, which is significant because that's where all the shopping in Rome is concentrated. It's a long stretch of road where many an hour of my very valuable free time was spent looking for the smallest Prada bag ever created, thinking "smallest" meant "least expensive".

Fast forward to today, baranggay election day, where I saved myself a lot of trouble by actually voting and keeping the streak alive. This is significant because apparently, if I miss two elections in a row, I'm tagged by the government as an absentee voter or some such and I'll need to register again. The words "register" and "government" in the same sentence together is rarely a good thing in this country. So hurray for me.

Oh, and it's also democracy in action.

I tried to say something funny but it came out anti-democratic. And more importantly to me, anti-funny.

Next: Rome If You Want Too-Hoo.

Rome If You Want To

rome 27
Originally uploaded by ray-gun

How long has it been? Too long? Yeah.

Anyway, continuing with the Italy set, here's a shot of home away from home away from home: the Roma Termini station. Why so? Because it houses 2 McDonald's outlets.

Actually, it served as home base because it's at the center of both Metro lines and is the terminal for the inter-city trains. This is a shot from the 2nd floor balcony of Ciao! while waiting for the train. You probably can't see it from here, but the display of the arrival and departure schedule is in analog, which makes it that much cooler. You'll see.

Beneath it is a small mall and beneath that are the Linea A and B stations, where I spent like half the day each day. Half of that walking around deciding where to eat while still ending up at McDonald's each time. You can take the Pinoy out of the islands, but not the pickles out of the Big Mac, whatever that means. They have something called a Crispy McBacon, which in another life might have been called a Western Bacon Cheese. Ordering that was my version of trying out Italian cuisine.

Fast forward to this weekend and I'm annoyed at not being able to go out until Sunday because among other things, work emergencies. Yes, I will probably grow old alone, but I wasn't expecting that to happen, like, today.

Next: Rome Around The World

Go Ahead And Rome

rome 19
Originally uploaded by ray-gun

Guess who's back. Tell your friends.

I've been to four Italian cities in six days and for some reason I don't know where to start with this post. Maybe it's because I waited so long to start writing this down. Anyway.

First stop of course, was Rome, where I had to work for a week and a half with my clients to keep them happy. On the first day I got lost looking for the office because a) I didn't look it up on Google Maps before I flew in and b) I'm a cheapskate who won't pay thousands (Peso-converted) for a cab ride. So instead I paid for a map that will double someday as a souvenir for anyone I forgot to include in my pasalubong list.

They don't call Rome the Eternal City for nothing. They have structures that predate the actual calendar we use to predate things. Unfortunately, I didn't have a tour guide to take me around the city and explain things to me, so I just kept snapping pictures at whatever looked interesting and looked them up on Wikipedia when I got home. Tip: when touring in Europe without a tour guide, just follow big groups of Asians.

That's St. Peter's Square (but not really a square, duh) in the picture, where I've actually already been to once trying to get blessed. But it was the easiest place to find because even the Metro (subway) tells you where it is. According to Wikipedia, that thing in the center is an obelisk, and doubles as a giant sundial. People fill up the square everyday, and the line to get into the Basilica was ridiculous so I decided to stay outside and take pictures of postcards.

Oh, and I think the Vatican souvenir shop cheated me out of 20 Euros. But I was too inarticulate to complain.

Next: Rome If You Want To

Marking It Down To Learning

Before anything else, some pop culture learnings:

• Counting Crows play live in such a way that no one anywhere at any time can ever sing along.

• I realize that Kris and Lolit Solis are not hosts of their respective showbiz news shows, but perennial guests.

And now the headlines:

After a lot of near misses, I'll be leaving for Rome on Wednesday and I'll be back in two-plus weeks. You know what this means? Me and that damn fountain that promised me true love will get to talk.

It also means that I'll be 4.5 hours away from Monza during the Italian Grand Prix this weekend, adding yet another entry to my "So close yet so far away" list.

It also means I can put my camera to its intended use of stalking Europeans.

And by special request I'll have the last part of that trip off so I can visit Paris again. Not to retrace the Da Vinci Code, like what everyone else wanted me to do the last time. Just to take the city all in. Not all places are this awesome. I hope things turn out awesome. For a change.

I'll see everyone when I get back. People are so freaking busy. Forza Azzurri!

Grab Your Sunblock, We're Going To Hell

Now that I've been pressured into writing something my mind's a complete blank.

Okay, maybe not a complete blank. I've been watching reruns of Entourage for two days and whenever I close my eyes I just hear cursing in my head. Well, more than usual.

(And phrases like 'hook me up', 'let's hook up' and 'off the hook'. What's with all the hooking?)

...

It's been raining like crazy this past week, which kept me home Friday (though technically the term should be 'kept me from the office' because I did manage to get out of the house that night). And since tomorrow is officially a holiday, that will be four straight days I did not go to SMPC. Woohoo.

Saturday ended up enjoying music. It's gotten very hard to get people to just go out and enjoy live music. Like it always has to be someone they know before they can commit to a night out. I say: But you don't know anybody!

And we agree, with beer and the music, you get to trim the fat from your conversations. You can go straight to the point for those couple of minutes while the next band sets up. And that is how my friend now knows my sob story. So the cycle is complete, I think. I hope. Next(!)

Any takers? You in the hoodie?

When You Left I Was Last To Know

It was 1995. (Most of my stories start out with that sentence, I've come to realize.) September 11 or 18, I'm not so sure anymore. Pretty sure it was a Monday at least, because Mondays are notorious for these things. That was the day I saw you holding his hand.

To be fair, it wasn't like it was side-by-side-walking-in-the-park; he had his behind his back and you were holding them behind him, as if he was taking you somewhere. Somewhere fun. Would things have been different if it had stopped there? Probably not. But.

Days later, perhaps it was that Thursday, or the next: there's a narrow set of stairs at the corner of the foyer that maintenance people use to get to the air conditioning boxes outside the second floor. I've never seen anyone actually go up there.

Anyway, it's a pretty secluded hiding spot, except maybe if you took the shortcut from the campus' main artery to the foyer, or turned that corner coming from the library. And that's exactly what I did when I found you (plural) there.

Maybe I was coming from class, or just walking around aimlessly because that's what I do when I'm angry or depressed. No, I'm lying: I was looking for you, and I guess it worked. I muttered something under my breath while I walked past and picked up the pace, something along the lines of "Fuck".

Now I didn't think there would be another 5-day stretch that would hurt like that did. I was wrong.

These Roads Go On Forever

One day I vow to quit it with Dashboard Confessional snippets. That won't be today though.

It's been a busy couple of weeks (years?) and all I've got to show for it is an increasingly bad mental state. So much so that I had to take a day off in the middle of the week to keep from, well, you know. So how did I spend this temporal oasis?

First, spent a good chunk of the day spending good money on good books at the new Fully Booked. Fables 3: Storybook Love and The History of Love. Sense a pattern here? Then got a legal copy of Heavier Things because I get guilty like that. And topped it off with the Bianca King Manifesto mag. Just because.

Next, finished half of Storybook Love while having coffee inside said bookstore. While eavesdropping on some college kids working on some project. Okay, ogling.

Then, caught the end of this season's first Ateneo-La Salle game. How apt, I thought. Then Ateneo won (w00t), and the analogy stopped there.

Then had dinner at that place again. with friends. Pork with some cheese in it. Love. And of course, cake. And then promises of doing all this again sometime this century.

Then hooked up with tickets for The Simpsons Movie and had Springfield-sized fun. And I didn't have to watch it alone, unlike last time.

And through all this thoughts were swimming in my head. Not very good ones. I will share just one:

You're right. I expect too much out of life.

...

Okay I wanted to say something more. How empty this all feels.

This Is As Social As I Get Now

Today hurt like fucking hell. More than yesterday.

Just Hear This And Then I'll Go

Our family buried Lolo last Sunday. And it didn't really hit me until the last couple of hours I was there.

It pains me how I have nothing to write about it. Anything that will come out here will sound fake, rehearsed, premeditated.

I used to kid that the reason I never go to the province is because they ask me the same effin questions: what year am I in and why don't I eat vegetables. And maybe that's why I remember very little, and that's one thing I know I'm good at. (Maybe I'm just good at it for the useless stuff.) Because I spent all my time there wishing I wasn't.

I remember he used to work at the air base, and picked up a few words, habits, culture while he was there. And he didn't talk much. Which was probably the only thing I could relate to. I remember the warm dark nights getting eaten alive by mosquitoes, wishing I was back in Manila.

I remember in the old house, before ash floods claimed it, that in one of the rooms there was a sketch of him done by my dad. It was pretty good, too, I have to admit. I try to imagine my dad sketching his dad. Making portraits isn't easy; it's not like taking a picture or tracing a magazine cover. You actually have to know the person you're trying to capture. Pay attention to all the details with all your senses.

I should start paying attention.

Fevered Brain

Fever-induced post, which is new for me. Usually they're alcohol-induced.

...

Fever, stomach pain and the inability to speak or swallow kept me under house arrest for three days. But I think the stomach pain was just a reaction to not having McNuggets for dinner.

I realize that being sick and being me has its similarities. The powerlessness, the idea/truth that there's very little one can do to make things better except let them run their course. And while it's overly dramatic (and wrong) when I say that it hurts more than the sickness itself, it sure doesn't make things any easier.

Another thing that sucks about being sick is that it doesn't even distract me from that.
...

Two things I wish I had more time to do:


One is draw. I have probably stopped developing this around the time I started working. Sometimes I think that that has something to do with everything that is wrong with me. As in everything. I just can't put my finger on it. (Or maybe I can, a little bit too easily, and of course to me the simplest solution has to be wrong. A riddle for another day.)

The other is to play around with my Echo Park, set here to Pride setting. That's easy enough to remedy. Thank God.

...

I actually have an officemate that I met previously on a beach trip me and my friends made in 2003. And I didn't remember until I saw the pictures again. I rationalize that I was so fucked up on that trip so I probably don't remember anything. There's a big chance that I was there getting over someone, which is like, 90% of the time.

Oh, to live forever in that other 10 %.

Further Notice

I'm back.

I need to write; I think I know that now. Even if it's the same story over and over again. Even if all it does it make things worse inside, and reveals weaknesses. Even if there's no one who answers. I'm reminded of Rilke:

"Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer."

I know quoting Letters to a Young Poet in a blog is like a band covering, uh, Black, but that's one more habit I need to get rid of: caring about what other people think.

...

I also need to post pictures. Especially when words fail, as they are beginning to.



It's father's day today (but the picture is a couple of weeks old). I don't talk about my family much, maybe because I don't think it's/we're interesting enough. The picture is pretty neat, though, because we all looked stuffed. And tired. Except for my brother who always looks like that.

...

Today I went to a high school classmate's daughter's first birthday. An expensive affair I'd imagine, as the setup included a giant inflatable slide in the shape of the Titanic. (Writing that just now made me think now that would make a better blog photo than my family in Baguio.) The party was rounded out by a magician, and suddenly but predictably I became sad again. Or sadder, if you know me.

...

There are going to be some changes around here. There has to.

Let's Get Out Of Here

Suspended until further notice.

Labor Day (Again)

OKAY.

It's been a while since I've last written here, and there are a number of reasons for this.

One, I've been incredibly busy. Not just with work, but also with work-tangent things. When I do find some free time I usually just want to sleep/dream.

Two, I have nothing to say, really. Despite the fact that I've been doing tons of stuff that I know I could probably make sound half-interesting.

Three, I do have something to say. But that I've said it before, in another time in another place.

Four, I do have something to say but no one wants to hear it. I don't mean that you don't care what I have to say, maybe you do. I mean the words that come out of my mouth may be something you may not want to hear.

That said,

I remember one Labor Day when I got dragged to this hat party (don't ask) and much like it is today, I had to deal with fighting another losing battle. So I ended up playing Stockton and Malone on NBA Jam in the Megamall arcade just so I could drown out the hurt.

The mall has changed, and so has the games. And no one throws hat parties anymore. But that's about it.

Maybe I said this before some other time some other place.

Remember To Breathe

An entire 5-day weekend went by without an update. And really, I should have, if anything, to get that angst-ridden post out from the main screen. How 90's.

In fact, there should be a lot of things I can put in here; small improvements since the end of March.

But I'm too sleepy and out of words. Perhaps this is the trade-off?

Anyway, when I do get a decent post in, you'll be the first to know.

The Only Way I Know How

Wow is all I can say. About the third worst day I've had in as many months.

This is a drunken post; everything is fleeting.

Thank you for guiding me home safe, by the way. This will probably mark the first time I've referenced God. Yay for Lent. Duh.

It's 4 fucking AM why am I awake and feeling sorry for myself? Oh right, it's because:

Who I am up until this point is obviously not enough. For anyone. For the record, I have no idea why this is, or what the FUCK is wrong with me and consequently, I do not know how the FUCK I can make it right.

Who I am will NEVER be enough.

I do not think I am ANGRY. Just HURT.

Disappointment is something I've had to live with all my life, and yet I'm never used to it.

You are right, I am NOT HAPPY. But I do not know what that is, whether that exists anymore. Maybe it's just a myth people spread around to make them forget that it doesn't really hold weight. It has been too long and too little and it's always tainted and it's NOT a state of mind I don't care what the book says.

I want to feel complete.

Maybe Plan A never existed. Maybe this is all I get. Like stillborn children. That's it. You don't really get a choice.

I have no idea how to REACT. What do you want from me? How do you want me to take this?

People always end with questioning my HEART. I'm sorry it's under FUCKING repair. And maybe even if it wasn't, there's just not FUCKING enough of it to live the life THAT I WANT.

You know that I want this, right? That I would do anything to make this work?

This is in NO WAY making me feel better.

Some Dance To Remember

Does it, in fact, get better?

...

Today I should be in Rome, but I'm not thanks to a faulty travel agency and my genuine cluelessness of how to get from point A to point B. It would have been nice to be back there even for just a couple of days, even if it's for work. Besides, me and the Trevi fountain need to talk. We had a deal, yo.

...

Thursday through Sunday was tiring, but it was a good kind of tiring. The kind of weekend I wanted to have since I had weekends. I want to take one moment from that weekend, and stretch it infinitely in time in both directions.

...

Team Rillo are ABL champions for their division this year, two years after I "retired". They obviously did not miss my 0.000001 point average (1 lousy free throw in three seasons). How sweet it is!

...

Congratulations to the not-so-newlyweds. Thanks for telling us after three months. Uh, how sweet it is!

...

I don't want to be head-barely-above-water guy. Or weak-link guy. Or no-filter-in-my-head guy. Or even guitar guy. Who I am here at this point is not who I want to be. I want an identity. I just don't know what that is yet.

...

I know I am going to get an earful tomorrow/later. I will be strong for/because-of you.

...

Does it, in fact, get better?

Deep Will Only Bring You Down

I want need to know, at the core, what is wrong with me. Why do I believe in the things I do.

...

I am brought back, unsurprisingly, to the fall of '95. Coming to school and having to face you day after day after day and prove/pretend that I was strong enough to take it all in. For a minute I find solace that then it was way worse, and not because I'm older/wiser/stronger now; pound for pound, it was a much harder battle to fight.

And then I remember that it almost killed me.

...

I find myself having fits of melancholy, if there were such a thing. It doesn't matter if it's when I wake up, driving on the way to work, at work, on a break, having dinner, laid out on the beach, on a plane, alone, with friends, at a party, out at sea, writing documents, jamming, crossing the street, on the phone, watching television, blogging, going to sleep, asleep. It just hits, hard.

...

I'm back from the islands and I will take it for what it is. Three days of sun and sand and sea and shakes. What it is not: that magical place people describe on other blogs. I've lost the capacity for that.

What I will take with me from that trip:

Playing frisbee on the second day. Just throwing and catching in the sea in the late afternoon, next to the topless European.

Sitting next to my sleeping friends while sipping shakes.

The stars, of course. When the night clouds finally gave way.

Explaining what the symbol on Heroes looks like to the henna tattoo artist.

Hearing New Deep just before leaving for Manila. The soundtrack to our lives.

The Rest Of Me Is Dead

I will try to talk/think of something else.

Our new guitarist should realize that his fuzz effects has an off button. Another good reason to go minimalist in terms of distortion. I suddenly so appreciate my Super Overdrive. And two words: bridge pickup! Pleeeeease!

I don't mean to sound like Jack Black, but I think I need to teach a course on rock history. Names that will not come up: Creed, Lifehouse.

Saturday was a ridiculously trafficky day. Somehow ended up on Katipunan for a late late lunch. I know there are plenty of haters, but win or lose...

Slight drizzle on Saturday night triggered a change of plans and ended up eating ay Cyma. Yes, I will invite you to go out and be totally silent all night and it will be normal.

There are bite size special Nestle Crunch bars that have peanut butter, caramel or melted chocolate in them. Mom bought some home from Subic. It's really effing good. Is this sold anywhere else?

Went to production last week and was not without issues. But all things considered and given our/my luck, it was pretty uneventful (a good thing). I am so relieved. But...

I find that for someone obsessed with the idea of cause and effect (actual or potential), I can't connect the dots on how we got here.

It's weird, but its beginning to feel like my favorite time of the work week is Wednesday afternoon at three. That's when for at least thirty minutes I get to take the mask off.

I'm off to the beach in T-minus three days. "I'll ride the wave/Where it takes me/I'll hold the pain/

Release me.

Still Building And Burning Down Love

It's U2 for 24 hours today, so sue me.

...

Tomorrow (actually, in a few hours), our baby goes to production. Except that I'm not so sure if it's still my baby, or maybe it is, except that it hates its parents like all babies eventually do.

Don't get me wrong, I'm relieved that we're here. But at what cost? And relief is to happiness is like, well, settling is to living your dreams.

There was a moment last night that I realized I had very little to do with the decision to move forward. And that didn't feel nice. And there were other moments when I wish I'd just disappear.

...

My right side still hurts. The drugs have worn off.
You gave up on me after fifteen minutes. Split-screen sadness.
I came home at 2 AM without accomplishing anything.
Some days it feels like I'm walking around with one lung. Or that my heart would beat right out of my chest.
I know exactly where I wanted to be and spent an hour and a half trying to ignore it.

I dare you to find a sadder boy.

In Places No One Will Find

The title has nothing to do with anything. I jut wanted to get that out of the way.

This is a drunken post, so pay no mind.

Today I want to wake up as somebody else. Ok, I've watched too many movies to know that's a half-truth. I want to wake up as a smarter, taller, emotionally stable version of me.

Somebody told me something tonight that made me realize, I don't want to be like everybody else. Maybe somewhere else I said otherwise, I don't know. I don't get it either.

I have a special power. Every thing I touch turns to crap.

No one should ever drive home with a broken heart. No one.

I need my best friend. As in, right now.

On the way home I stopped by for another drink. I don't know what made me do it. Maybe it was the beer, but I don't think so. I just wanted something familiar. But not routine.

Keep your secrets. I will turn it into crap if i get wind of it. Or. I really just don't care in either case. I don't care about whether you succeed or fail in your new thing. I was just trying to make conversation. It's not important. Nothing is to me anymore.

Maybe I am a masochist. How does the line go. Who makes me feel glad/Just to be sad/Thinking of you.

Hi. I'm 28 and I'm in this weird place where I haven't really taken the steps to be 28 yet. I'm not 22 either. I still buy CDs off the rack and OPM will always mean the Eraserheads and my favorite TV show will always be one week apart and love is eternal. When I was 16 (and 18 and 22 and 27) I took what was a promising future in being me and ripped it apart because I was scared and hurt and because somewhere I imagined a connection existed where there was not. Just because you aced Psy 101 doesn't mean you get it and even if you do I won't fucking listen to what you think the answer is.

I have trust issues. But you knew that before you got here.

Thansk for having that vote of confidence. I know I haven't done much to deserve that. But thanks nonetheless. It's nice.

The doctors (real ones) still don't know what is wrong with me. I'm too shy to tell them my theory.

Where have I been these past twelve years?

I want my life back.

I Want To Feel Something Other Than This

I guess that sums it up.

So there's really no point to the next few paragraphs, is there?

My friends tried their best to cheer me up, and it worked for a while, and I love them for it, but since they're my friends they also know I'm stubborn, so it doesn't really last. At least I have new quotes to barely live by.

I went to my temple. No, not Rockwell. The alma mater. The fresh air did me good but nothing much after that.

Retail therapy worked for all of eight minutes. That's a thousand bucks per minute.

Someone warned me about chemicals, so much for that. Besides, I'm not cool enough.

I'm too tired to go on.

You Know It's All I Think About

Last week I came across a sunburst standard Squier Stratocaster on sale, which was great because some time ago I decided it was time to own one of those things after years of Gibson fandom. But I sat on the decision/had too many meetings and when I finally came around to buying it this week it was gone.

Story of my life? Not quite. The story of my life would be trying to purchase it and being told it wasn't on sale.

...

Anyway I especially wanted one because I needed massive cheering up, where very few have succeeded. I'm not sure now whether that would have worked though.

I do not want: anything in black or red or double fat strats or strat-copies (technically a Squier is still a Fender) or super-strats or stratacoustics or strats in black matte. Just give me my sunburst and the complete Gin Blossoms discography.

Yes I'm stubborn that way or haven't you noticed. Nothing will ever do.

...

We've formed another band and while the set list is far from perfect, it does get me to play some of my favorite songs, which I won't share just yet. Suffice to say no freaking MYMP.

..

Still coughing and still wired out and still hanging by a thread. And going into software BAT. Something tells me I'm not through taking a beating.

Somewhere Along In The Bitterness

I feel that I will literally just drop dead...

...from exhaustion. I'm in meetings all day and my day starts at 10 and ends at 12 or worse and there are a billion things I need to do and I have no idea how to do them correctly so sometimes I need to do them thrice over just to make sure it's right and even then it won't be perfect and that just fucking kills me.

...from coughing. I've been sick for about three weeks now and I'm pretty sure people have gone past pity and into annoyance and sometimes I find it hard to just fucking breathe properly and I have this theory that it's really just crying without the waterworks and that one really bad cough will be my last.

...from loneliness. See above and it kills me to see you mad or unhappy and sometimes I really just wish my heart would just fucking stop beating.

...from depression. I have come to the conclusion that just by definition, I will never be good at the things I need to be good at so fucking badly.

No title this time.

I fell in love for the first time when I was sixteen. It started out the way it always starts: not at first sight, because usually "first sight" will involve unflattering flourescent lighting. There's this period of silent admiration, when every single day is just a contest of how good being with her can make you feel. This takes about the same time to deliver a package, around six to eight weeks. Then there's the very very short period where people start to notice and you yourself get a little vocal about it. Maybe throw in a back massage now and then. Okay, once, but you get the point. This short stretch will culminate in a singular night of celebration, in this case over beer and smokes.

What happens immediately after that is a mystery period. For example, if celebratory event happens/happened on a Friday, the mystery period will span that weekend. In these couple of days I am hung over with something else aside from alcohol, and I cannot wait to get back to class.

And then the bomb hits. On Monday, the girl is incredibly distant. Aloof (hate that word). Desperation creeps in. The type of desperation where you try to look around for anything that will start a conversation but it's all in vain. This goes on for about a week before she ends up holding someone else's hand, and I end up somehow on the depressing end of a stopped ferris wheel.

Now maybe I've read too much Hornby, but I know I came up with this theory long before I read the book or saw the movie (I think she's witness to that): that every uh, "relationship" since then has had more or less the same fucked up storyline. The time periods may stretch or contract a bit but relative to each other they remain the same. And it all ends up the same as well, except usually it's without the ferris wheel. But always it's a fucking circus. Bouncing off the walls and whatnot, being destructive inward and outward and generally just screwing your life until there's nothing left. And one day there will really be nothing left and you will have to find something else to read.

What the hell makes me think that each one is different? Or that one day it will all change? And what the FUCK happens over the mystery period? Not that it matters, probably. I cannot stop it.

And why does it hurt like it was new every time?

Happy birthday to me, by the way. It's my party and I'll cry if I want to.

Taken Hostage

I guess it's time to shake the dust off this quote from the Sandman books:

"Have you even been in love? Horrible, isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens your heart and it means someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses. You build up this whole armor, for years, so nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...

You give them a piece of you. They don't ask for it. They do something dumb one day like kiss you, or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so a simple phrase like "maybe we should just be friends" or "how very perceptive" turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a body-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love."

in Sandman: The Kindly Ones by Neil Gaiman

This is shaping up to be the saddest, suckiest birthday ever.

There's No Way To Go But Down

Outside Looking In (from the Gin Blossoms) is probably the best-named best-of ever.

...

There's NO way to GO but down.

Yes, it's another delay and another black mark on my record and another two weeks of slaving to the grind. It's all very new to me, why? Because usually I don't stick around to find out how delayed a project is. Haha. So funny coz it's true. Somewhere out there there are a couple of former project managers who are not laughing.

It got so bad I actually drove around the block a couple of times hoping I'd run into someone I know so I could go out for a drink.

Des says it builds character. I'm fucking dying of character.

And yet when people ask me how work is I always say it's great. Either I'm too proud to admit that things are going wrong (work-wise, the other stuff that's going wrong I'll get to in a bit), or I'm in denial. Or both.

But things are great. Honestly.

...

Ran into a couple of friends, independently. One was the harbinger of way delayed news; the other was the harbinger of delayed enlightenment. No, I shant elaborate.

Except that I realize again I have a weird way of coping.

...

I spent Saturday at work (because clearly that was the weekend's hottest ticket), fighting software design issues, sleep deprivation, that lump in my throat, and talkative officemates. It always has to be something, isn't it?

...

I was looking around and I realize I've been tagged! Very timely, too (okay, so it's dated last year). I need the cheering up:

Instructions: Name ten of life’s simple pleasures that you like the most, then pick ten people to do the same. Try to be original and creative and not to use things that someone else has already used.

In no particular order, and trying not to be too specific:

1. Well-blended vanilla shakes.
2. Celebrity impressions.
3. An email that I can reply to without double thinking what to say.
4. The guitar outro to "Alive".
5. Seeing you break into a smile or a laugh.
6. Breakfast.
7. Perfectly worded sentences.
8. Sunday afternoon Ateneo campus.
9. Meetingless evenings.
10. Good endings.
    

I won't ask ten people to do the same because I don't have that many readers.

Edit: For some reason that list made me feel worse. Ahhh to hell with it.

You know what the source of all pain is? Caring.

And All Of My Lonely Secrets To You I Tell

Now look what you've done.

A friend once told me that listening to Everything But The Girl was never a good sign. I'm inclined to think that he's right.

I can't take this!

If I listen to any more of this I'm liable to break down.

Speaking of EBTG, that's one band name I wish I had thought up. The other one would be Dashboard Confessional. There's some linkage there somewhere. Find it.

Speaking of linkage, and just because it's all over the blogosphere, I link. You're killing me, Steve Jobs.

Sometimes In Life You Get A Second Look

The first post of the year comes to you from my fevered brain in bed on a Saturday night. And it's surprisingly upbeat.

So 2006 was far from perfect. In fact, there were times when it just plain sucked. And times when things were just blah. So what's with the outlook?

It could be that I've finally learned to take the good with the bad, instead of just highlighting the crappy stuff like quitting your steady job and delayed project deadlines.

Or it could be that this was the year I found myself at a/with company that was cool enough to work for, and decided to take the step out of just being a developer.

Or it could be that I've turned well-adjusted. Or sold out, depending on who you talk to.

Or I just ended the year perfectly.

Yeah, that's it.

(I think I just dared reality to wipe the smile off my face. You know what? Bring it on.)

...

Yeah that was a crappy retrospective. But I'm sick, and I need to sleep/watch House, unless he operates on a baby again. Maybe tomorrow.