Words

by Dana Gioia

The world does not need words. It articulates itself
in sunlight, leaves, and shadows. The stones on the path
are no less real for lying uncatalogued and uncounted.
The fluent leaves speak only the dialect of pure being.
The kiss is still fully itself though no words were spoken.

And one word transforms it into something less or other--
illicit, chaste, perfunctory, conjugal, covert.
Even calling it a kiss betrays the fluster of hands
glancing the skin or gripping a shoulder, the slow
arching of neck or knee, the silent touching of tongues.

Yet the stones remain less real to those who cannot
name them, or read the mute syllables graven in silica.
To see a red stone is less than seeing it as jasper--
metamorphic quartz, cousin to the flint the Kiowa
carved as arrowheads. To name is to know and remember.

The sunlight needs no praise piercing the rainclouds,
painting the rocks and leaves with light, then dissolving
each lucent droplet back into the clouds that engendered it.
The daylight needs no praise, and so we praise it always--
greater than ourselves and all the airy words we summon.

please someone put a title to this

Whatever rocks your boat, beautiful, do it before they tell you not to. Everybody says don't as the song goes but few people I know actually know that song and fewer still like that song, or could sing to that song. My mind feels light as air or something similar to air and I really should be fumbling for a pillow to lay my head on. I've been complaining about not having had enough sleep and now the words come out of my fingers as if they were gushing out and I am not aware what sentence I am in or if what I am writing is still a sentence and it should be good to let go at times but there is still that --that-- I can't find the darn word oh yeah, that neurotic compulsion--even when one is afloat--to look back and check if the sentence is still following its proper thread or if the punctuation is correct but at this point it'll be too far behind to look back and really see what one has gone through as there are things that we, even with the utmost earnestness at bringing back we can no longer bring back, or change, or wipe clean no matter how we try to wipe things clean they remain stained or tainted with something what that something is we could not put our finger on or even think of naming because our mouths have run out of names to give to the things we see and hear and touch and cannot we drift along like words falling from the mind to the page, in streams sometimes in drops when the mind draws blank after blank after blank.

And what do you know of my griefs?

Broadway Frenzy via YouTube

Some lasting impressions:

1. Bernadette Peters has this amazing performance of "Being Alive" from Sondheim's Company at the "Hey, Mr. Producer" concert. She is one feisty redhead! Click here to watch.

2. Robert Cuccioli is hysterically wonderful as Dr. Jekyll/Mr Hyde in Jekyll and Hyde. Click here for his moment in "This is the Moment."

3. Lea Salonga awes as Fantine in Les Miserables. Is there anything this girl cannot do? Watch her here.

4. I love this clip of Mandy Patinkin singing "Children Will Listen" from Into The Woods. Here, he sings a medley of "Loving You" from Passion and one of my all-time favorite Broadway songs "If I Loved You" from Carousel.

5. In this clip, Michael Ball sings "I Only Want To Say" from Jesus Christ Superstar with such aplomb that I played it over and over when I bought the Andrew Lloyd Webber 50th Birthday Concert DVD. Il est magnifique!

6. Michele Marsh, as Hodel, sings "Far From the Home I Love," perhaps one of the saddest songs from The Fiddler on the Roof. And, of course, "Matchmaker"!

7. I read somewhere that Vanessa Redgrave, by far, overshadowed Julie Andrews in the Guinevere role (Camelot) and I couldn't agree more. In "The Lusty Month of May" and "Take Me To The Fair," she delights as the slightly bored, inwardly playful, scheming, perpetually singing queen.

8. Here, Lea sings the Gershwins' "Someone To Watch Over Me" from Crazy For You in a beautifully laid-back way. And, without a doubt, here is the most beautiful version of "I've Never Been in Love Before" (from Guys and Dolls) I have ever heard.

I could go on and on.

Some other time, perhaps.
=)

I want to read

this:

this:

and this:

So let me try to change the way I look at the rain and, perhaps, I'd find something else in it...

Does the rain in Paris speak French?

Yeah, I know, it's a stupid question.

Oh, well.

photo from A Cup of Jo.

More on the Weather:

Dear, dear me, been getting headaches because of this confused, temperamental weather. Been lazy and cranky and blah and it doesn't help that work has not been a slide down the rainbow lately.

One bright spot to my week is that my dad and brother were in the city for a few days and the kids and I got to spend time with them, roaming Glorietta (which has become a dismal disappointment) and Greenbelt (which is gorgeous, thank you).

Other than that, I've been trying to assuage my weather woes with as much good music as I could get my hands into: lots of India Arie, Carrie Underwood, some Broadway, Christina Aguilera (tried her "Walk Away" and "Save Me From Myself" upon a friend's recommendation), and good ol' Ella Fitzgerald.

Several friends are in La Union for some surfing and I kinda feel a tiny pang of regret that I didn't go with them--even if they had tried to cajole me into it, like tens of times--though, at the same time, these rains would've taken away whatever fun I would have had if I'd gone.

There, you see, the weather has got me all confused, too!

What are you doing to keep dry and sane?
=)

Unsaid

So much of what we live goes on inside–
the diaries of grief, the tongue-tied aches
of unacknowledged love are no less real
for having passed unsaid. What we conceal
is always more than what we dare confide.
Think of the letters that we write our dead.

by Dana Gioia
(found at Jonathan Carroll's blog)

Rain

Another gray day.

The rain falls in an incessant, stubborn rhythm and there's a muffled wailing that accompanies it. After weeks of glaring, yellow mornings and sticky, orange afternoons, this wet grayness is, surprisingly, an unwelcome foil to what is supposed to be the dry season. And in as much as I abhor the heat, I would have wanted a less sudden transition.

If, indeed, we are shifting into the rainy season.

Isn't it a little too early for that, though? Or, perhaps, I am merely letting myself drown in the despondency that hit me unawares this morning, the usual way it catches me when it comes.

The Sky's Mood Swings--and So Does Mine (?)

What's with the shift in the weather's tone?

Suddenly, it's raining (and raining hard!) in the middle of what is supposed to be--and what has promised to be--an excruciatingly hot April.

I overheard someone ask: is it the end of summer?

And, despite my cranky take on the heat, I found myself thinking: I hope not.

I mean, summer ain't all that bad, right?

Tee-hee.

Let's Talk

A and I have been "talking" via our blogs, she having written a post about what she would tell her 16-year-old self should they get the opportunity to have a conversation. Tough chance, I know, but still, it's a whimsical and very pretty thought.

This got me thinking about my 16-year-old self and here I am, trying to think up things I'd say to her should we ever have the chance to meet.

I'd probably tell her:

1. to take her writing post at the school paper more seriously;
2. to study, study, study, especially the Math lessons she'd taken for granted for so long;
3. to quit whining about the trivial, frivolous so-called "problems" she's facing daily--there's much, much more to come and she'd better save those tears for when they'd really need to be shed;
4. to listen to her mom and dad--they're right, most of the time, didn't she know that?
5. to go out some more and not confine herself to her room, much like the hermit that she was;
6. to smile more, laugh more;
7. to throw away those over-sized shirts and start buying girly tops;
8. to sing, sing, sing;
9. eat all the 3M palabok she can possibly eat because she's gonna miss it horribly when she's older and far, far from home; and
10. to stay a child for as long as she could because adulthood will last ever so much longer and by then it'll be too late to regret not having stayed a kid when she had the chance to.

She probably wouldn't listen, though. She'd be too far away, too caught up in her stubborn little shell of adolescence.

She's one to dig her heels pa naman.
Hay.

Lit Geek Update #14: Kafka, Funny?

I mean, the thought of Kafka as funny never, ever occurred to me, in all my readings of him. I pored through his stories with unabashed earnestness, approaching them with utmost thoughtfulness. Man's essential solitude and loneliness have been his central themes, all throughout, have they not?

I--and most of us, I'd presume--would turn out to be mistaken, apparently. In the initial paragraphs of "Some Remarks on Kafka's Funniness," the third essay from David Foster Wallace's Consider the Lobster And Other Essays:, he writes:

"...it is next to impossible to get them to see that Kafka is funny. Nor to appreciate the way funniness is bound up with the power of his stories." -p. 61-

And I spent more than half an hour mulling over these lines:

"No wonder they cannot appreciate the really central Kafka joke: that the horrific struggle to establish a human self results in a self whose humanity is inseparable from the horrific struggle. That our endless and impossible journey toward home is in fact our home." -p. 64-

I rearranged the ideas in several different ways, tried to twist the logic to see if it would give, caught a headache in the process, finally decided I'd had enough, then went back to it with a firm resolve not to give up until I could roll the words of the simplest paraphrase in my tongue as comfortably as I can. Eventually, and thankfully, I succeeded.

What a feat!

And then I read the passage to a friend, asked him to turn the lines around his head, then tell me what he thought about it.

I'm guessing he went through the same thing I did.
=)

Wallace ends the essay with these superb lines:

"You can ask them to imagine his stories as all about a kind of door. To envision us approaching and pounding on this door, increasingly hard, pounding and pounding, not just wanting admission but needing it; we don't know what it is but we can feel it, this total desperation to enter, pounding and ramming and kicking. That, finally, the door opens...and it opens outward--we've been inside what we wanted all along. Das ist komisch." -p.65-

Counting the Days...

Release date: May 19, 2009

Summer Whining From the Sun-Hater

Hah!

Oh, yes, folks, time to welcome the sweltering heat again.

It's that time of the year when electric bills skyrocket to alarming heights because of A/C and electric fan abuse (Christmas is another thing, what with the lights and all, but I think most of us have come to our senses and realized that decking our homes in ridiculously numerous colored lights is just not worth it); when the A/Cs and fans themselves conk out from over-use; when wet bodies frolic in the beach and under the sun, tanning and burning in reckless abandon, mindless of the premature aging the precious skin is put under; when tempers flare with the hot, dry winds (are there any winds, by the way?).

Poof, I was never really a summer person, never one to get all giddy to go to the beach and laugh and grin and toast like there's no tomorrow. The most I'd do there--if some really persistent friend would ever succeed in convincing me to go, in the first place--is to lather up on tons and tons of sunscreen, put on a nice pair of shades, find a really shady corner under some really leafy coconut tree (a bunch of coconut trees would be best--the more shade there is, the better), stack up on two good books, or three, sit on a thick, dark blue towel and curl my toes in the sand. Worse, I'd probably fall asleep, willing myself to wake up only when it's 6 pm, when the scorching heat would already have simmered a bit.

For all that I am a Pisces, I'm really a goldfish in a fishbowl, happy to swim in my own little space, where the waters are tranquil, and where I am safe.

And where there's no premature skin aging happening.

Party-pooper, you might say. And missing a lot, or something to that effect.

Whatever.

"Beautiful Flower" (India Arie)

This is a song for every girl who's
Ever been through something
She thought she couldn't make it through, yeah
I sing these words because I was that girl, too
Wanting something better than this
But who do I turn to?

Now we're moving from the darkness into the light
This is the defining moment of our lives

Cause you're beautiful like a flower
More valuable than a diamond
You are powerful like a fire
You can heal the world with your mind and
There is nothing in the world that you cannot do
When you believe in you
Who are beautiful (yeah you)
Who are brilliant (yeah you)
Who are powerful (yeah you)
Who are resilient

This is a song for every girl who
Feels that she is not special
Cause she don't look like a supermodel Coke bottle
The next time the radio tells you
To shake your money-maker
Shake your head and tell them
Tell them you're a leader

Now we're moving from the darkness into the light
This is the defining moment of our lives

This song is for you (Yeah you)
This song is for you (Yeah you)
This song is for you (Yeah you)
Yeah you
You are brilliant...



video from youtube.

Mulling Over My Week

My dad sent me a text message this afternoon, asking me what I did during the Holy Week and it got me thinking: what did I do this Holy Week?

It occurs to me that without having mapped out anything in particular, things simply conspired to provide me the "air" I needed for the culmination of Lent, namely: I came across "Jesus of Nazareth" while channel-surfing yesterday (Holy Friday) and decided to watch it (what remained of the 6-hour film, anyway), finding myself involuntarily reflecting on the world's current religious/spiritual state and, inevitably, leading me to ponder my current spiritual state;

and this morning, I finished reading Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal, which is a seemingly tongue-in-cheek story told for laughs, but from which we just might get the reflections we seek in the other, more serious books of our faith and could not seem to find. Now, I started reading this book a few weeks ago, with no thought, at all, of the Holy Week and it strikes me as significant--even strangely calculated--that I should get to the final chapters (where the Christ's passion is relayed) during Holy Friday, and finish the book by Black Saturday.

Below are some lines in the afterword that had me musing:

"This story is not and was never meant to challenge anyone's faith; however, if one's faith can be shaken by stories in a humorous novel, one may have a bit more praying to do." -p. 443-

Tomorrow, Easter comes. I wonder what'll be in store for me, then, and thereafter.

Found:

Sasha Frere-Jones contemplates the timelessness of U2's music in this New Yorker post.

Some interesting bits:

"The band’s first (but not its sole) legacy is its sound, easily identified within a few bars: a high, chiming guitar figure, usually simple in structure but fleshed out by the ringing of open strings and the doubling effect of a delay unit; a charging, near-military beat and bass line stretched out with a little extra swing; and singing that is defiant and loud and slightly weird."

and:

"Yes, the band’s most famous member is the least technically gifted, and the most influential, the guitarist David Evans, a.k.a. the Edge, is the least likely to pipe up in public."

Her article further cements my belief that the band's detractors are wrong to judge “No Line on the Horizon” the way they are doing. Hmp.

(photo from TheNewYorker.com)

Lit Geek Update #13

I'm so lovin' this book! Funny funny funny!



For the easily offended, though, read at your own risk!

From Rilke:

Lingering, even among what's most intimate,
is not our option.

***

...Here falling
is our best. From the mastered emotion
we fall over into the half-sensed, onward and onward.

***

Only you
drift like the moon. And down below, your nocturnal
landscape grows bright and darkens--

-from "To Holderlin"-

My shy moonshadow would like to speak
with my sunshadow from far away
in the language of fools;

-Muzot, mid-February 1922-

from Uncollected Poems

Lit Geek Update #12

Here, Virginia Woolf writes, "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is going to write."

Shakespeare's sister must've had severe clinical depression, tsk, tsk.

If he had a sister.

Re-read the book over a cup of Starbucks' tall mocha latte with an extra shot of espresso. One thing about Woolf's writings is that one reading is never enough. I must've read Mrs. Dalloway thrice and I still feel it's not enough.

Rachel Getting Married

I am not well-versed in matters about film and I've only recently discovered that Jonathan Demme was the director of "The Silence of the Lambs" and "Philadelphia". This piece of information made me go, "hmm..."

I felt embarrassed because despite a friend's recommendation that I watch it, I had shrugged "Rachel Getting Married" off as a chick flick just because Anne Hathaway was in it (such a stupid conclusion, I know). I ate my words, yes, and, along with them, several huge, painful lumps of emotion.

I did not at all feel that my intelligence was being insulted--the movie made me think and ask questions, one after another. Its raw depiction of reality, and all the ugliness and pain that comes with it, at times became too much for me, but perhaps that is where it succeeds most. The script is superb (Jenny Lumet did a wonderful job) in that it is devoid of sugar and sap, yet--and perhaps owing to that--the movie hit home, right where it should.

Being the opinionated, thinking human being that I was, I empathized with the main character so much to the point of hating almost everyone else in the film. The thought of depressed people being judged by other people depressed me to almost below zero (or zero, then, alright). But then again, with the movie climaxing, and my emotion-blinded brain clearing up, I realized, hey, depression isn't--and will unlikely be--a low-hanging fruit that anyone could just reach out for and put in the palm of one's hand as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world. Very few people would recognize it for what it is, least of all acknowledge that they are afflicted with it, so expecting the sane to understand would be like telling someone to chew on broken glass and expecting them to do it.

Whew.

This movie hit me hard. I'd recommend a hankie, or a pack of tissue, should you decide to give it a try. They just might come in handy.

=)

Lines

Let me erase the word
before the final letter
falls on the page.

You refuse to speak
so let me
be mute with you.

If the upturned palm cannot hold more than what it could give
what right has it to ask for more?

So I will close my hands
and keep them so

folded
dove wings.

Haircut

Finally, some time to breathe.




The past couple of weeks had me waiting in the wings to exhale. The excitement from the tension and pressure at work had built up to an alarming crescendo and it felt like I was holding my breath the whole time. So, this afternoon, I went to trusty old David's for a much deserved (and long delayed) haircut. This was partly brought about by my thwarted attempt to purchase something nice and pretty for myself--I searched the shops in vain but found nothing to my fancy, so a trim seemed like a good detour with which to channel my frustration--and partly by the ball and chain that my heavy mop of long, unruly locks had become.

Now, dark circles around the eyes would disappear with careful dabs of concealer, but split-ends are an entirely different matter. My extremely dry, frizzy and very long hair had become the telltale sign of the tremendous stress in the workplace and no amount of conditioner could mask the miserable tangles they had meshed themselves into.

I think the haircut did wonders.

My head feels pounds lighter, my mind a little less clouded.

If You Forget Me (Pablo Neruda)

I want you to know
one thing.

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.

"I promise myself, to be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit the presence of trouble."

What helpful lines! Got this from A's blog.

Burt's Bees!

It's that time of the year again.

I've had severely wind-burnt lips for days now and it'll most probably last for months (I know 'cause I have this every year). It hurts like crazy, especially right after waking up and, worse, people have been teasing me nonstop about it. One asked me if I had collagen injected to my lips; another called me Angelina; and the worst that I've gotten was being called "Joker."

(edit: eating, laughing, yawning, and brushing my teeth have become chores. It's agony, this. :()

I use this:



But now I think I need to get this:



disclaimer: this is not an advertisement, though I have to say that I swear by Burt's Bees lip balms--they are such a source of comfort!

Paper

In the office, today, I found myself buried in paper.

For a good part of the day, I sat in front of my desk, sorting loads and loads of documents, patiently weeding out the obsolete, "for-shredding" ones and trying my hardest to stack them in a neat pile, but which ended up still collapsing in an untidy heap, anyway, because I didn't have the sense to realize that once the pile got too high, it'd surely topple. I ended up squatting on the floor (and to think that I'd chosen this day, of all days, to wear skinny jeans) and put the damn things back in order.

I muttered a lot while I was at it, but in reality, I was thankful for the exercise, as it kept my mind from drifting to anxiety-land.

I looked through folders, peeped into envelopes, removed paper clips (for re-use), skimmed through pages to make sure I didn't dispose of the ones I still needed. My trusty cup of coffee, of course, sat faithfully on my desk, keeping me company, assuring me that things were alright.

And what do you know, I actually managed to cook up a semblance of order, finishing off with a clean desk, a less cluttered (I was going to type "uncluttered" but changed my mind--I can never be "uncluttered") lateral and a pedestal that I could actually put things in and not lose them after three minutes.

At the end of the day, I handed the heavy pile of unwanted documents to the cleaners, hoping that they'd end up being recycled. The documents, not the cleaners, that is.

Energy Conservation Tip:

shut the mind down shut the mind down shut the mind down shut the mind down shut the mind down shut the mind down shut the mind down shut the mind down shut the mind down shut the mind down shut the mind down shut the mind down shut the mind down shut the mind down shut the mind down

Rilke: Paris, April 1913

Overflowing heavens of squandered stars
flame brilliantly above your troubles. Instead
of into your pillows, weep up toward them.
There, at the already weeping, at the ending visage,
slowly thinning out, ravishing
worldspace begins. Who will interrupt,
once you force your way there,
the current? No one. You may panic,
and fight that overwhelming course of stars
that streams toward you. Breathe.
Breathe the darkness of the earth and again
look up! Again. Lightly and facelessly
depths lean toward you from above. The serene
countenance dissolved in night makes room for yours.

-Rainer Maria Rilke Uncollected Poems, trans. Edward Snow, p. 57-

I Love: DKNY Be Delicious

From sephora.com:

Be Delicious
A modern feast for the senses. Served in a sleek metal and glass apple bottle, this juicy fragrance combines the scent of apple with a sophisticated blend of exotic flowers and sensual woods. Like the city that inspired it, Be Delicious celebrates individuality with refreshing spirit.

Notes:
American Apple, Cucumber, Grapefruit, Candid Magnolia, Tuberose, White Muguet, Rose, Violet, Sandalwood, Tender Skin Accord, Blonde Woods, White Amber.

My Lola's House

Reading this post from The Cat's blog blew me into a nostalgic swirl. Spirals of memories of my Lola's old house in Albay where I spent my early childhood put a sentimental spell on me and I found myself traveling way, way back in time, when I lived each day one at a time (adulthood makes this concept virtually impossible, won't you agree?).

I remember writing about that very big, slightly worn and very charming old house in one of my journals (which I can't seem to find, darn) and raving about the loquacious chickens milling about with their chicks and the resident turtle inching his way with an upturned nose, never minding anybody's business except his own. There, too, was Queen, the dog, who was immortalized in one of my pictures which my dad took when I was a toddler in diapers, with pink curlers on my already wavy hair (what was my mom thinking?), my lolo, Papa, beside me, smiling that perpetually benevolent smile of his. It was from Papa that I discovered who Robin Hood was. My brother and I usually spent siesta on his hammock, listening to his stories.

Let me remember to tell you, too, about the mornings, when I would wake up to the smell of frying tocino, longganisa or badi (dried fish), which my brother, Earl, used to be really crazy about. The tocino and longganisa later made way for bacon. For lunch, it was cocido, or adobo, or mechado or afritada, or escabeche. Mama (my lola) made it a point to cook the best meals for her grandkids and her cooking is one of the things I miss fiercely. Mama's food was priceless. There, she poured out her love and her heart.

Come to think of it, that grand, old house was Mama.

The last time I passed by the place, though, I saw nothing but tall, green grass.

Thoughts on Women's Month

I've dipped my fingers--no, make that hands--in quite a number of debates, and most of these were arguments with male friends, verbal romps ranging from the mundane to the lofty, from flippant topics to weighty ones. There is something strangely satisfying in seeing the look on a man's face when he senses defeat creeping along with the words being thrown at him by a woman who's determined to avoid losing, at all costs. And it wasn't the woman who started the match, in the first place.

...or was it?

The thing with today's female is that she is angry, and rightly so. I don't want to indulge in prattling (as men would call it) about society's having favored the son over the daughter for centuries and centuries, but I will, anyway, because woman has held her voice in hushed tones for far too long and has lately refused to be silent.

It's written all over history and literature, that man has worn the iron glove for far too long. But woman will no longer have any of that. Out with the washing and the fingers burnt from cooking day in, and day out. Now, you see her out there, in her clicking heels, smart skirt and crisp, tailored blouse (with ruffles, too), ruling the corporate world alongside men; in her tiny, short shorts, braving the heat and the dust and overtaking the smug, muscled runner (who's male, of course) in last Saturday's 10k.

It doesn't matter what she is, or what she wants to become: truth is, woman is gaining on, and even outdoing, her male counterparts in fields which which used to be ruled by men. Goodness, she can now grasp the world in her hands if she wanted!

No more speaking in whispers and bowing heads in silence. Woman has, in all her emancipated glory, finally come out and the men better watch what they say or else they're really gonna get it.

May you realize your true worth this Women's month, and ever after.

Hurrah to girl power!

The Kim and I

Me: Do you know what tomorrow is?
Kim: Saturday.
Me: What else?
Kim: Last-day-of-exams day.
Me: What else?
Kim: Go-to-mall day.
Me: What else?
Kim: Birthday-Mommy day!

:)

Good Morning

A peek through the curtain revealed an 8 o'clock that was cool and mild, if a little gray, not the kind of morning you'd expect to see on a summer's day. Just perfect for running, so I slipped into my running pants and put on my running shoes, did some warm-up, turned on Robyn's "Cobrastyle" and prodded my legs into action.

I met a white man walking his dog (a very handsome husky--though I can't really be sure if it was male). The man said "good morning," and I said "good morning," back. Before that, he had greeted other joggers, which assured me that his having greeted me was in no way out of the ordinary. The thing with us, Pinoys, is that we like going our own way. I, for one, certainly wouldn't have thought of saying hello to a stranger, just because. Which is sad, come to think of it.

I jogged through the streets of the village, willing the sweat to come, pushing away the negative vibes, exorcising the morose thoughts. I ordered my mind to focus on the peacefulness of the morning. I felt thankful to be alive. With each swing, I tried to count my blessings. I took deep breaths. I ran, and ran, and ran.

It was the perfect way to jump start my morning. As I was eating breakfast, I felt mighty glad thinking that it had given me the energy to do things for the day--do some cleaning, perhaps, or re-organize my closet.

And now I am in front of the PC, hopping from my blog to my Facebook.

Today: TAKEN

I was shouting, "asteeg! astig ka, Liam! astig ka!" after Liam Neeson uttered these lines, via phone, to his daughter's abductor/s:

"I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you."

And in that incredibly calm and clear voice, too! Goosebumps and hysteria! I was trying my best to hold on to my seat (and my screams) all throughout. Didn't have much success, though.

I can only be glad that I didn't see this in the movie house. I would've annoyed the hell outta my neighbors.

This week, I watched:

1. "Zodiac"
Director: David Fincher
Stars: Jake Gyllenhaal, RObert Downey, Jr., Mark Ruffalo



2. "The Usual Suspects"
Director: Bryan Singer
Stars: Kevin Spacey, Chazz Palminteri, Gabriel Byrne, Stephen Baldwin, Benicio Del Toro

Middle of things

All in all, a very busy, very fulfilling week.

The inter-process calibration I've planned out and organized from late last year and scheduled for yesterday finally pushed through (and with fantastic results--all in all, a success!); I received a zero-variance rating on my monitors (for week 1, at least); plus, I've been running more regularly since the beginning of this month (oh, yes, March is indeed my favorite month, heat and all!).

Apologies for whatever jargon-like terms I may have used. I'm just so full to the brim with satisfaction that I had to let it out, otherwise I'd spill over.

Then again, I'd better not let it go overboard. I know something not quite so good will be bound to come around the corner, anyhow. I mean, doesn't it always?

And, oh, yeah, I almost forgot to tell you about what happened last Monday.

But let me save that for another post.

from THE NOTEBOOK

Noah: You're bored Allie. You're bored and you know it. You wouldn't be here if there wasn't something missing.
Allie: You arrogant son of a bitch.
Noah: Would you just stay with me?
Allie: Stay with you? What for? Look at us, we're already fightin'
Noah: Well that's what we do, we fight... You tell me when I am being an arrogant son of a bitch and I tell you when you are a pain in the ass. Which you are, 99% of the time. I'm not afraid to hurt your feelings. You have like a 2 second rebound rate, then you're back doing the next pain-in-the-ass thing.
Allie: So what?
Noah: So it's not gonna be easy. It's gonna be really hard. We're gonna have to work at this every day, but I want to do that because I want you. I want all of you, for ever, you and me, every day...


giant sigh.

She knows Eddie Vedder
(spell check, please)

I wish we could talk
about Pearl Jam
but I only know
Maria Callas.

You laugh and ask me

if I'd seen
Fargo
I answer, "no, but
The Sound of Music, I'd seen
a hundred times."

Snicker

and then

separate ways,
as always.

But
have you ever thought of
wanting
to talk to me about
Camelot?

I guess
not.

Revolutionary Road

He should have taken her to Paris. He should have given her more time. He shouldn't have slept with that dumb brunette. He shouldn't have shouted at her, or called her "sick" or made as if he was about to strike her. He shouldn't have made her feel even more awful than she already did after the failure of the play she acted in. He should've listened to her more, understood her need for nonconformity. He should have taken her to a shrink at the first signs of depression.

He should've been more of a man...

Having said all these things, I wouldn't have the movie start and go and end any other way (good thing Richard Yates made the book that way and Justin Haythe saw it fit to write the screenplay the way he did).

In the sad, mad world of Frank and April Wheeler, that ending was inevitable.

And then there was Knox Business Machines and the run-of-the-mill bachelors and fathers offering unsolicited advice to Frank; the Wheelers' neighbors and good friends, the Campbells, who obviously were battling some low-lying demons in their relationship and home life, as well; John Givings, their realtor's medically depressed son, who became an immediate foil and a glaring reflection which so forcefully threw them toward reassessing their supposedly perfect life and "specialness."

And there, too, was the baby.

A heavy, beautiful one, this film. Made me swallow hard to push back the lump of dysphoria in my throat.

The tears rose, all the same. I am such a cry-baby.

Let's see you sit through this one and stand up cheerful.

The Reader

Beautiful.

I was teary-eyed, as usual.

Some random stuff I want to write down today:

1. That person you seem to hate so much without really knowing why? Chances are, there is a common trait (or two, or three) you and that person share.

2. There are good girls, but then, there are bad girls, too.

3. People come and people go.

4. Today is a gift, that's why it's called "present." --from "Kung-Fu Panda," so I've been told, though I think I remember someone having forwarded me this in a text message.

5. Kenny Rogers Roasters' chicken noodle soup is yummy!

6. The weekend will be upon us very soon--something to smile about, right there. =)

7. Coffee on the carpet, after a day or two of being there, will stink. eew

8. I have a thing for counting the steps when I climb a flight of stairs. And it is a must that I end with an odd number. Otherwise, I improvise. Or something.

9. If we look close enough, we'll find that there is always someone who will listen when we need to rant. If that person rants with us, then all the better!

10. We do our best to get by, day by day. And most of the time, we get by just fine.

Sloughing the Jigglies: Action plan #2

Since I have been unable to follow Action Plan #1 to a T, I have come up with a supplementary measure: I am running again!

Yoohooey for me!

LOL

Let's see how long I'd be able to keep this up.
Thanks to The Cat for the commiseration.
:)

It's my favorite month of the year!

MARCH
by Emily Dickinson

Dear March, come in!
How glad I am!
I looked for you before.
Put down your hat-
You must have walked-
How out of breath you are!
Dear March, how are you?
And the rest?
Did you leave Nature well?
Oh, March, come right upstairs with me,
I have so much to tell.

Perfume

The morning's wee hours proved the perfect time to watch "Perfume: The Story of a Murderer."

I was a clean slate (read: had no idea what the movie was about) when I watched it. I was glued to "Dangerous Minds" and then saw the flashing "next on Star Movies: Perfume" thing on the top left of the screen and thought "Perfume" seemed like a nice movie title. So, I decided to watch it.



My fascination with scents found a framework in this 2006 film, where the protagonist is an olfactory savant whose obsessive pursuit of the perfect scent (after having discovered that he, ironically, has no scent of his own) drives him to turn to unconventional (to say the least) methods. His detachment from everything else unnerved--and enthralled--me. There was something mystical about him, and something amoral, at the same time.

Directed by Tom Tykwer ("Run, Lola, Run"), this movie was adapted from Patrick Suskind's 1985 best-selling novel. It stars: Ben Whishaw as Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, Dustin Hoffman as Giuseppe Baldini and Alan Rickman as Antoine Richis.

Click here for information on Enfleurage.
But watch the movie first!

Twinklings

Today, someone told me: it's not the breath you take every moment, but the moments that take your breath away. I'm not quite sure I got that right, but it's a beautiful thought, nevertheless.

There's a fairy tale-ish element in those lovely, ephemeral three winks when you simply have to gasp (in awe, amazement, or pleasure), that stay with you long after they're over, sights as simple as:

a scarlet bloom amidst luxurious green;

the twilit sky, bursting into orange and red, with velvet, ashen evening in the background, ready to wrap the world in its gigantic embrace;

a child's wide-eyed and toothy smile, full of joy and trust;

that of you, walking back home and laughing at that most recent, silly moment, your hair blowing and your chuckle floating in the afternoon breeze...

May you have one such moment today.
Have a great weekend!

Lit Geek update #11: Italo Calvino's "The Daughters of the Moon"

I read this story over at TheNewYorker.com.
It puzzled me, but this paragraph, I think, would best encapsulate what it is the story is trying to tell:

"In this world where every object was thrown away at the slightest sign of breakage or aging, at the first dent or stain, and replaced with a new and perfect substitute, there was just one false note, one shadow: the moon. It wandered through the sky naked, corroded, and gray, more and more alien to the world down here, a hangover from a way of being that was now outdated..."

And then, follows another brilliant paragraph:

"Ancient expressions like “full moon,” “half-moon,” “last-quarter-moon” continued to be used but were really only figures of speech: how could we call “full” a shape that was all cracks and holes and that always seemed on the point of crashing down on our heads in a shower of rubble? Not to mention when it was a waning moon! It was reduced to a kind of nibbled cheese rind, and it always disappeared before we expected it to. At each new moon, we wondered whether it would ever appear again (were we hoping that it would simply disappear?), and when it did reappear, looking more and more like a comb that had lost its teeth, we averted our eyes with a shudder..."

Sheer genius. Just the mere thought of the moon dying... Won't that change everything the way we've known them to be?

The story ends with these lines:

"...we realize that now is when life begins, and yet it is clear that what we desire we shall never have."

Pessimism is Ugly.

Looking at the sky still shakes my faith, at times. Its vastness warps its beauty.

Sloughing the Jigglies: Action plan #1

For breakfast, NO RICE.
For lunch, pig-out.
For dinner, yoghurt.


Yeah, sorry, I can't get rid of the pig-out thingie. I told myself that even if I went on a diet, I will have to binge on at least one meal for the day, and lunch seems like the best time to do that.

You think this'll work?

Growing Up

Some years back, the sight of a plane in flight was a beautiful sign of good luck, a portent of something pleasant about to happen. Etched against the blue sky, the plane was my beacon of hope. It lifted me from my slump.

Now, I have realized that the only reason why I constantly see airplanes is this: I live near the airport. (Well, relatively)

Poop.