It's the last day of the year and I am fidgeting.

So my New Year's resolution is this: stop fidgeting. Be cat-like, instead.

Here it comes again,

that blah feeling, that "BBB: Bored Beyond Belief" status on facebook, that perpetual stare at the ceiling, that urge to roll the eyes over most--no, over everything, that limpness, that utter lack of interest in anything except nothing, that vacuity, that pull to doldrums-land that even coffee can't pull back, that other BBB: Blankness, Barrenness, Bleakness rearing its ugly head.

Was it a gust of wind that brought it in? But, I suddenly miss Katipunan, that strip where the National Bookstore, Cravings, and Sweet I are, that strip in front of Ateneo where a fairly new Starbucks is nestled, where I know I could spend a whole evening, just watching the people walk in and out, or stay and laugh or space out, where I know I'm sure to grow nostalgic over remembering my student days in UP Diliman, because that strip was a constant piece of concrete, a favorite tambayan of those days, along which I would saunter --at times, aimlessly, at times, with a purpose , like, to buy a book at National, or, to give in to a Sweet I cake craving--wait, may Tita Amys' pa ba dun?

Hayyyy.

Is it summer already?
Hmp. Thought so. Time to switch to iced coffee.
Hate it.

Meet Apollo:

These days...

image from erinsavage

Despondency always arrives unannounced.

But why does it need to come, at all, in the first place? And for no apparent reason? Or does this happen only to some people? You know, the ones with certain personality traits that make them baits for its hook, like those possessed of some, or all, kinds of neuroses, heavy to moderate angst supply, or some kind--distant relative, even--of artistic temperament, if you will.

You know how it is, when a host of negative thoughts and anxieties suddenly descend upon your hapless little brain and decide to stay for some time and you're left with the task of entertaining said host and you, frowning as you do, would be side-tracked long enough to stop and question the sense of what you are doing.

Yeah, that sort of thing.

And it's exactly the kind of thing that would make you want to turn your back on everything--up to and including what, or who, is in front of you right then--and run off to build a little cottage in some hill-surrounded clearing where all you'll have to deal with are your cat, the laundry and your adobo.

How convenient that it should come now, I mean, with J.D.'s passing away, and all. Not that they're in any way connected to each other, heavens, no. How presumptuous--and downright rude--of me if that were true, or if I allowed myself to think that that was so. So, no. The thought just crossed the writing of this post, that's all.

Oh, to be a hermit.

The thought seems tempting enough. Can't blame the fella.

Feeling that blah feeling again. Not a good sign at all.