My Sheila

I talked to my dear friend, Sheila, yesterday and after two weeks of not seeing each other, the conversation was a welcome respite from the monotony of work, work, work and the daily grind of keeping up with the colorless, unilateral world the industry we work in so easily becomes.

Catching up with her made me realize how important it is to have someone you can talk to and not worry about:


a) not being understood;
b) being over-read;
or
c)being stared at in the face and thought of as some loony person blabbering away into blabberland.

Sheila and I, we get each other. We would often:

a)catch each other's eyes and burst out laughing;
b)be in a conversation with other people, exchange glances and know what the other is thinking;
c)tell each other things we don't normally tell the greater majority of our friends, or colleagues;
and
d)keep secrets for each other, cherishing the fact that we each have someone we can release our bottled up trivia and non-trivia to.

We've agreed, a long while back, that we belong on the same wavelength. Our minds are in tune with each other. I can share my silliest thoughts with her and know that I will not be scolded, or thought of as shallow. With her, I know that I can pour the saddest and darkest contents of my heart and know that I will not be turned away or judged. And I know that she knows that she can run to me, anytime.

Thank the fairies for friends.
Such treasures they are.

Lit Geek Update #16: Neil Gaiman's NEVERWHERE

I must confess that it took me a while to sink into the novel's realm. My rule of thumb when it comes to deciding whether to finish a piece of literature or not is that I generally go by how the first few pages make me feel and then decide from there. These initial pages will make--or break--the book for me. If they appeal to me, I go on, and if they don't, back to the shelf the book goes. It was different for Neverwhere.

I gave it a chance. I curbed the urge to slam the book shut, what with the unappealing--almost trite--prose the novel began with. I told myself, hey, this is my first Gaiman novel and maybe his works do take some getting used to. Just because I absolutely adored his Smoke and Mirrors (which is a collection of his short fiction), I plodded on.

And I'm glad I did.

To the Gaiman greenhorn, Gaiman's works, I surmise (I say "surmise" because I have yet to read enough of his works to use any other verb), call for suspension of disbelief to be appreciated. As opposed to the magical realistic work, which assumes the "magic" in the fiction to be part of the "real", Gaiman's kind of fantasy employs "magic" that is more protuberant and intruding, and therefore, more difficult to swallow. I know Gaiman fans will probably protest; and that is why I started this paragraph with "to the Gaiman greenhorn."

It was all just part of the "how d'ya do" stage, though. Or, to be more exact, of the first thirty pages, thereabouts. Eventually, in this case, I gave in to the pull of the succeedingly superb, visual turn the prose took. The descriptions were something else, a quality that is most probably consequential of Gaiman's expertise as a graphic novelist. Needless to say, I found myself engrossed in the sea of words and worlds and possibilities given to me by the author. Richard Mayhew's journey(s) with The Lady Door became journeys that I wanted to follow.

I am in the book's final pages.

I'll be reading American Gods next.

Darkness

Victor Hugo:
"Darkness is dizzying. We need light: whenever we plunge into the opposite of day we feel our hearts chilled. When the eye sees darkness, the mind sees trouble. In an eclipse, at night, in the sooty darkness, even the strongest feel anxiety. Nobody walks alone at night in the forest without trembling. Darkness and trees, two formidable depths--a chimeric reality appears in the indistinct distance. An outline of the Inconceivable emerges a few steps away with a spectral clarity. You see floating in space or in your brain something strangely vague and unseizable like the dreams of sleeping flowers. There are fierce shapes in the horizon. You breathe in the odors of the great black void. You are afraid and are tempted to look behind you. The socket of night, the haggard look of everything, taciturn profiles that fade away as you advance, obscure dishevelments, angry clumps, livid pools, the gloomy reflected in the funereal, the sepulchral immensity of silence, the possible unknown beings, swaying of mysterious branches, frightful torsos of the trees, long wisps of shivering grass--you are defenseless against all of it. There is no bravery that does not shudder and feel the proximity of anguish. You feel something hideous, as if soul were melting into shadow.
-Les Miserables, "Cosette" book 3, chapter 5 "The Little Girl All Alone" pp 388-389-
*this section of my copy is shamelessly dog-eared and has been so for the past eleven years*

Neil Gaiman:
""Darkness is happening," said the leather woman, very quietly. "Night is happening. All the nightmares that have come out when the sun goes down, since the cave times, when we huddled together for safety and for warmth, are happening. Now," she told them, "now is the time to be afraid of the dark." Richard knew that something was about to creep over his face. He closed his eyes: it made no difference to what he saw or felt. The night was complete."
-Neverwhere, chapter IV, p.103-

*Painting: Sunflower by Gustav Klimt*

Overheard:

A: Did you know that The Great Pyramid of Giza is the only one of the 7 Wonders of The Ancient World still standing today?
B: WTF? The hell I care for your pyramid. duh.
A: I'm just saying. It's a nice-to-know. Plus...
B: Oh, spare me.
A: Almost all of 'em were destroyed by earthquakes. How tragic.
B: I am so interested. Leave me alone, you geek.

Hmm. Cool.

When I think of all that has been taken from me--
countless white spaces between time's black hands--

Sign of MY times: age masks

When I flip through a fashion magazine, I generally find myself going past the beauty section (i.e. make-up and beauty products, for those not in-the-know). Lately, though, and most recently, this morning, I've noticed that I've been lingering--and I did linger--far longer than I used to on a feature on moisturizers or, as they are called, "age-defying" creams in botttles or tubes or what-have-yous.

Uh-oh.

I'm fast approaching my thirties, that's probably why. They say that the best time to start lathering up on those "miracle creams" is when a woman is in her twenties. I've been using moisturizers religiously, but only the kind that you may call "basic" and not one of 'em "miracle" ones. hahaha. What's with this word? Perhaps it's time to bid the basics adieu and say "bonjour!" to the more "intensive" creams. blech

I never thought I'd see the day but here I am. I am starting to dread the time when people would actually guess my age correctly. For now, most of them take me for 24.

Hee. Good enough for me.
=)

I was in one of my pensive moods this morning and a line from Wordsworth's "Ode: Intimations of Immortality From Recollections of Early Childhood" blew across my thoughts, as the line was connected to the chains my mind was piecing together. I decided to look the poem up and I found myself starting to feel sad upon reading the first lines of the first verse and grew even sadder as I moved onward...

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it hath been of yore;--
Turn wheresoe'er I may,
By night or day,
The things which I have seen I now can see no more...

Oh, to be a kid again! Adulthood is such a sad affair.

In the room, everyone was beautiful.
Silks rustled with tulle
and toad's skins
kept very quiet
under lavender and lily.

Harry, Harry

Once again, I must ask too much of you...

"Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" was a real winner. Kids probably won't enjoy it as much as they did the first couple of episodes, as this one is much, much darker. The themes it explores--and the way with which the movie is executed--are, decidedly, for the older crowd. A few have complained about its lack--well, compared to the first ones--of scoring and, dig this, "too much dialogue"! Whoa! So what were they expecting--all spells and fights and flying?! Exposition, folks, exposition!

There may be a few tears waiting to fall for the soft-hearted ones--I know I felt a lump in my throat in the movie's final scenes--and adults forcing themselves to "grow up, grow up!" might end up with some double-taking and mulling over to do. The magic of Harry Potter is that its magic almost always gets to people. Even non-fans have confessed to have been moved by it. Impeccable cinematography and an almost flawless casting are, of course, very essential pluses.

I heard the last book will be broken down to 2 movies. We have some waiting to do, then.

Meanwhile, let's all kindle that child-like belief in magic. I know it'll get us through the long wait.
;)

***

I'm glad to note that Roger Ebert who, so I'm told, is not really a Harry Potter Fan, still thinks it a good film. Click here to read his thoughts on it. I had to shake my head, though, when I read what he had to say about Daniel Radcliffe's acting, though he did have a point. Being "the chosen one" in the middle of such a powerful cast and standing up to the expectations coming with and tailing after such a role is a tall, tall, order.

So, if only for that, I'm completely with ya, Daniel.

Rewind

4 posts in close to 3 weeks. I definitely have some catching up to do.

The problem with Facebook is that it takes up too much of one's time and easily thwarts one's resolve to do other things, especially when one has low EQ, like me. I stare back at the days and think, but so much has happened and begin to wonder where to start stringing them into words and lines. Ugh. Problem.

But then again, one can always start where one is. And it just so happens that beside this window are 5 Facebook windows, each one opening to a different FB application, all with pending stuff--energy fill, time before one can work a job again, or harvest a crop, or stamina to fight. Heehee. So, it's all FB, FB, FB. One thing I've sworn off, though, is one game I used to be so addicted to, which is Bejeweled Blitz. I swear, I was on it for days and hours in a day. I grew cranky and impatient when each game gave me a paltry score, and angry whenever someone else beat me to a level, or several levels. Losing is not my forte. I am a sore loser. Well, at least, I'm admitting it. Right.

The same goes for arguments. Work is one of the best venues for sharpening one's arguing claws. Recently, I found myself in a 3-day battle of sides with someone who, so some have said, I was better off giving up on. And I was like, why? I saw no reason not to dig my heels just because people saw this person as someone not worth wasting one's time in pushing back on because he would never give in. I knew I had a point and I was determined to make it.

By the end of the third day, I found that my determination had paid off. I had him where I wanted, which was: on the ground where I stood. The cause I fought for were to benefit quite a number of people, and so we all shared the victory and its advantages.

Sweet. =)

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: Darkening Themes

A student's blind faith in his mentor.
Unfathomable guilt that drives a man to tamper with his own memory for fear of discovery.
A villain's steady, gradual descent into darkness.
Trust and betrayal.
Death.

Still, in all of these: magic.

Go, watch.

Peer AJ was singing "Puff The Magic Dragon" the wrong way and I corrected him. I said,"it's "lived by the sea" not "living by the sea"". He, ever so stubborn, insisted it was "living" and not "lived".

My dad taught this song to me when I was a kid and I knew it well enough to stand my ground.

"Wanna bet on it?" I had my right eyebrow raised. A hundred, let's get it on. He pretty much just shrugged, looking up the lyrics on the net, then turning to me with a huge grin on his face and saying, with that annoyingly smug tone of his, "I am never wrong. Peter, Paul and Mary wrote the song wrong."

Hah.

Still, I won.
Heehee.

My Very Bad Habits:

1. wearing heels five days a week;
2. buying heeled shoes when I already have one too many;
3. playing Mafia Wars, Sorority Life, Farm Town, YoVille, and Barn Buddy on Facebook instead of sleeping (got dark circles around my eyes to show for it);
4. dwelling on a problem for too long (a peer once said, "anything that you let last for more than 5 minutes is self-inflicted");
5. drinking coffee in lieu of having a decent meal;
6. preferring Starbucks coffees over any other kind of coffee (bad to the wallet, tsk, tsk);
7. not saying "no" to what my darling kiddos want (bad, I know, but surely moms out there would understand);
8. grabbing a bag of chips every so often;
9. preening in public;
10. arguing for the sake of winning (especially when it's the male vs. female kind of debate hahahaha).

I'm spending too much time on Facebook. LOL.

What are your bad habits?
;)

I'm just saying.

If you don't know much about something, I say step down and stop pretending that you're an expert on that particular topic. You'll come out looking like a fool, honey, so just quit it. If you're gonna compare the Harry Potter series to "The Da Vinci Code" movie, I say, stop. It'd be like, well, putting a smocked bed spread beside a smocked pillow case and trying to decide which one is prettier. Saying that "The Da Vinci Code" is way better because it "tackles real life" (eww) and that the Harry Potter movies are corny because they are "unrealistic" is, like, duh, lady. Where've you been?

And to tell me that you have every right to give your opinion on the matter because you "studied literature for two years"? Come on. I'd bet my next pay check you didn't even pay attention to your English 1 class.

Pffftt.