What I'm reading right now:

from chapter 10, p. 497:
And she, Frederica, had had a vision of being able to be all the things she was: language, sex, friendship, thought, just as long as these were kept scrupulously separate, laminated, like geological strata, not seeping and flowing into each other like organic cells boiling to join and divide and join in a seething Oneness. Things were best cool, and clear, and fragmented, if fragmented was what they were.
     "Only connect," the "new paradisal unit" of "Oneness," these were myths of desire, the desire and pursuit of the Whole.
     And if one accepts fragments, layers, tesserae of mosaic, particles.
     There is an art form in that, too. Things juxtaposed but divided, not yearning for fusion.

Heartbreak

is seeing one's child shed quiet tears.

Thank you for getting well, my baby. You gave mommy quite a scare.

For S--

We talk of sadness and agree

not to.

TODAY:

What's yours?

"As though the very act of unbosoming one's secret self were simply another way of affirming it."
-J. Neil C. Garcia, Myths and Metaphors-

It's funny how we eventually find ourselves looking for the things we love, even as they intermittently blur themselves from our immediate surroundings, even as we find ourselves losing them in the course of the day-to-day, because the drone of the quotidian is a plane that's easy to disappear into.

The pull soon comes and we give in, only too willingly.

I experienced such a relinquishment--consciously, at that--when I came across where Garcia described how "lingering in it can induce in you such feelings of sharp melancholy", pertaining to "one's solitude as a poet".

I make no claims, at all, of being one, oh no, that would be a sacrilege.

I meant that I realized how I would always have that hunger for words and the many designs I could make of them and out of them--no matter that they are clumsy, at best and feeble, at worst.

There would always be that desire to design some imagined tapestry, because I know that I have my own loom on which to weave--my years and the gaps in between, for even in those gaps, there is, and there will always be, something to create something with.

As, of course, there would always be that struggle with the self over what is real and what is imagined, over the self and the desired, that all too consuming desperation which can only find rest in line, in stanza.

Arrgh. Total lack of understatement up there.

Convoluted, convoluted, convoluted.

I need another cup of coffee.

Nakakaloka

Yesterday, over snacks of cookies and chocolate cake:

JACKIE: Mommy, which would you rather choose, the heart or the soul?
ME: (silence)
KIM: I'd rather choose the soul 'cos the heart can be really stupid.
ME: (silence)


Hay.

Gloria Jean's Cafe, Robinson's Galleria

So this is what it's like on a Monday morning here.

There are too many people, too much noise from the adjacent road, too many conversations going on, that my powers of alienation refuse to shut out. The jazz music from the store's speakers are drowned into paltry strains.

OMG, there is an Anthony Hopkins look-alike sitting on the couch two meters across mine, eating a grilled sandwich, could be BLT or something. Blue eyes, and all. Yup, he's white. The guy, I mean. M-- says he looks more like James Gandolfini.


Noise, noise, noise. Zone out, Shan.

Nope, can't do it.

Grrr.

The weight of ninety-seven ticking clocks

Facing a door almost always brings about that feeling of waiting, that sense of expectation, some imminent arrival--

even when there is no beginning to circle back to, in the first place.

I guess one's distance from the door presents what available gradations of anticipation there may be.

I am approximately eleven wide steps away from a door. And, no, I am not waiting for someone, or anything, in particular.

Still, yes, there is that feeling. That feeling.

“Fear can keep us up all night long, but faith makes one fine pillow.”
-author unknown-

From the weekend couch:

"Being alone: there's a certain dignity to it."
-Janet Livermore, "Singles" 1992-

These days,

I keep hearing more and more people end their sentences with "or am I just getting old?"

Or am I just getting old?

Hangover: extended

I was sitting in front of my office desk this morning, staring at the PC and not trying very hard to lull myself out of the lazy, hazy stupor I was in, now and then saying a weak "hi" to co-workers passing by, my right index finger playing absently with the miniature chandelier on my right ear. Then, a thought crossed my mind and I blinked and froze. I took off both my earrings, looked at them and realized I was wearing mismatched ones.

Oh, the shock, the awe. Yes, the awe.

I mean, how could I?

I put the poor, unrelated objects on the desk and realized it was time to wake up.

I am about to leave my 20s.

This statement poses a lot of questions.

Hopefully, I would be able to come up with answers.

I know, I know. I'm just being emotional.

But, really, what is 30 like?

I don't feel "30", at all.

Yeah, yeah, I'm still in denial.

=P

Today's Find: The Proustian Meme

From Vanity Fair:
"First, the Proust questionnaire was dreamed up neither by Vanity Fair nor indeed by Proust. In fact, it was a Parisian parlor game among the novelist's bourgeois crowd, and it is believed to have been popularized by the daughter of the 19th-century French president Felix Faure. "Antoinette Faure's Album"--a red leather journal adorned with an ornate, blind-embossed trellis--contained entries from many in Faure's social circle. She would invite friends over for tea and then ask each an identical sequence of questions: "what is your favorite virtue?... Your idea of misery?... Your present state of mind?," and so forth. They would all answer, in long hand, in her little red book.
Proust, who twice filled out Faure's form with precocious gusto,--at ages 14 and 20--subsequently published his answers as "Salon Confidences Written By Marcel," in an 1892 article in La Revue Illustree XV. His name would become associated with the questionnaire posthumously..."

This could well be one of the earliest forms of what we know today as the meme. Imagine having to invite friends over and prepare lunch, or snacks for them just so they could answer your meme. Buti na lang may internet na ngayon. =D

Some interesting answers I read in the mag today:

DORIS DAY, actress, My greatest regret: "Most of my marriages." (April 1995)
GORE VIDAL, writer, My greatest fear: "Elevation to the papacy." (October, 1994)
DAVID BOWIE, musician, My greatest fear: "Converting kilometers to miles." (August, 1998)
FRAN LEBOWITZ, writer, humorist and social critic, How would you like to die: "Vindicated." (November, 1994)

For the questionnaire, go to vanityfair.com

From the weekend couch:

My fifth Almodovar


("Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown", 1988)

I think, therefore, I squiggle

My friend, M--, is very anal about his books, which translates to his being finicky, as well, when it comes to my books. He used to scold me about dog-earing (I know, I'm bad, but I've changed my ways--I use book marks now) and barks at me when I leave them lying on the floor, or any other surface aside from a clean one. He thinks that the only proper place for a book--except, of course, when one is reading it--is a bookshelf.

He was shocked when I, so proudly, showed him my old poetry books, which had notes on the sides of the pages. "But it's a sign that it's been read, that it's being read. And that the person reading them actually cares about comprehending them, about studying them, right? And, besides, my analytical skills are heightened when I write things down."

If he weren't enough of a "guy" guy, I'm sure he would have rolled his eyes at the logic I was trying to present. "Write them some place else, then."

Heartless. Bigot. Purist.

Today, while I was blog-hopping, I came across these:



So, it turns out, the late, great David Foster Wallace wrote notes on his books. Now, I have someone on my side.

(images via We Love You So)

Diet? What diet?

I can resist most chocolates, but not Twix.

This is a staple. period period period.

Ube hopia. Sarap!
Especially if it's eaten after being made to cool in the ref. =)


I'll be a good girl again, tomorrow.
Promise.

And now, for something light...

My lunch:

After lunch:

The only thing missing was a breeze.

Roof

four years ago, she was a brown, bent object hunched amongst six years worth of her life--six years' worth, four years ago--wrapped in black garbage bags, huddled, doleful, in the jagged, empty space enough to fit four wheels, a body, just one, in the empty lot beneath the trees--

--the trees. Even now, she thanks those trees, the shade that made the sun's glare seem less harsh, kinder than how he put six years'--no, six years' and a lifetime's--worth of her into those bags as if they were trash

Embrace

You know the parlor trick.
wrap your arms around your own body
and from the back it looks like
someone is embracing you
her hands grasping your shirt
her fingernails teasing your neck
from the front it is another story
you never looked so alone
your crossed elbows and screwy grin
you could be waiting for a tailor
to fit you with a straight jacket
one that would hold you really tight.

-Billy Collins

From the weekend couch:

"Just because there are things I don't remember doesn't make my actions meaningless." -Leonard Shelby, "Memento"-

A snippet, or some

When we talk about other people, we do so in fragments. Fragments, because, in reality, that is all we have of them and that is all we will ever really know about them--of their moles and their scars, the barely-there sadness in their smiles, the lilt in their laughter, the secret fears they keep, the lifetime's worth of memories they hold in themselves. We might know one, or some, but even that knowledge will certainly be in fractions, and the pieces could be smaller then we would ever know.

The next person probably doesn't know that a strand of hair on their very own head has already turned gray.

Do you remember, with absolute certainty--even as you say you recall it in vivid detail--that single event, or that sequence of episodes that you know changed you forever?

For even as we think of ourselves, we think in fragments, too--larger ones, perhaps, yes, but still, fragments. For what memory is too clear, too present to be whole enough to be called whole? Even the the conversation over yesterday's breakfast blurs away into scraps. Last week's talk over coffee shrivels into crumbs. Pillow talk agenda disappear into smaller and smaller bits. The us of three weeks, five months, fourteen years ago might already be strangers should we meet them again tomorrow.

The odds could certainly vary, but our actions this morning might no longer make sense to us two days from now.

It's been an overcast week

and I sure know I'm not talking about the weather.

So, yeah, I guess this is me:


Gloomy. Old. Eeyore.

And how to handle fear is to shut it out

shut it out
shut it out
over and over exhale put it in a paper bag and throw it away but is that the way to go or is it to remind oneself that the fear might not be real it is not there it is just a figment a chimera a trick conjured and therefore it is the mind that one has to drill because if one is able to bully the mind then the fear should it be there at all should be there enough near enough to be gripped and gripped hard hard enough that it might soon die from the tightness of the grip but what of the nothingness in the fear what of its not being there but here what of its non-manifestation except in one's dreams in one's thoughts in one's blank spaces where nothing is nothing and only fear is real enough to be because the fear is real or is it but yes it is there is it not or is it here here here

Whisked away

It saddens me to think of all the words I should have written down that I had let go of, instead. The absoluteness of their loss weighs down on me like some long-forgotten heartbreak that has come back and refuses to go away.

What wind, which wind, I wonder, had carried them off, and where to?

And what about the journals I had misplaced, or may have thrown away out of some sort of anger I may have felt that time, what of the many manuscripts I had written, in longhand, typed and edited and re-typed, and then lost? What of them? What of the sleep given up just so the words could be strung together, just so the lines could be worthy, at all, of touching the whiteness of paper?

And what of the aches so deliberately recalled, what of the joys so painstakingly pinned down, labored over so they could be just as real on the page?

"Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths."

-Etty Hillesum-

And so, it goes, that we sometimes find ourselves gasping from running too fast. We race with seconds and outrun minutes, trying to beat deadlines, chasing whatnots and what-ifs.

I had just such a run today. But, for some reason or another, I found myself stopping midway because I realized I had forgotten what it was I had been running after. What was it I was chasing? Whose invisible fingers were putting creases on my forehead (good thing they were temporary--the creases, I mean)? What was it that made me worry so, that gave me such restlessness, such unease?

Halfway through the lunch I was picking like a bird on, Sheila asked me, "why so quiet?"

I told her I was trying to remember what it was I might be forgetting.

And who's to say that our lives aren't all spent running? One of these days, we ought to have our heads examined. Perhaps, there is some winding mechanism there that we can turn maybe counter-clockwise or a button we could press to slow down and therefore ease the agitation?

Caffeine update

BEFORE: Double tall mocha, please.

NOW: Double, non-fat, no whipped cream, 2 packs Splenda,tall mocha, please.

As a tot she was
Surrounded by fishbowl silence
She had no horns
No wings, no tail
Just a smile nobody
Noticed while adults
Talked at mealtime.
She did not ask
What worth she had--
Who am it or
What is I.
When guests arrived
She gulped down food
Slipped out of her chair
And floated into her room
Like a bubble and
Burst behind closed doors.

Now she's an actress
In search of a script.
Sometimes she freaks out
Tired of her horns
Wings, tail, tired
Of bowing, smiling
For no one. Guests come
And do not wonder
Who she is or
Is she an it
A doormat, an empty chair
A wallflower or decor.
She still remembers to
Sneak out like a bubble
Float into her room and
Burst behind closed doors.
She is protected
By her fishbowl silence.

-"Wife" by Marra PL. Lanot-

Almost March

I departed from my usual greens-and-wheat bread-and-proteins diet today. Ate lasagna (I had one plate and finished the portion my son had left uneaten) and a few spoonfuls of some rich, sinful chocolate cake from Starbucks. Ugh.

Ah, Sundays. They make one forget.

Anyway, what I really wanted to say is that tomorrow marks the beginning of women's month.

M-- here says it's ridiculous that only one month should be alloted to celebrating woman's greatness--an entire argument that would be quite interesting to pursue, but I'm too tired and I have to haul my a__ off to work later.

Round about the same time last year, I wrote this. It's leaning towards the corny side, and kinda overstated, besides, but there you have it, my angry stance at making sure that woman is given her proper place in this world.

Fly high, my girls! We are beautiful!
=)

What torture lurks within a single thought
When grown too constant, and however kind,
However welcome still, the weary mind
Aches with its presence.

-from "A Fixed Idea", Amy Lowell-

Differences

Tell me about your childhood.

Tell me about what you woke up to each day, and what woke you up. What time on your clock? Were your sheets soft? Were they thick enough? Could you remember the scent of the sun on your pillow? Or were there more important things than sunshines and pillows? And did it matter? Did it matter if you woke up early or not?

Did you get lots of presents during Christmas? Did you celebrate Christmas? Were Sundays fun days, or were they just gloomy transitions to Mondays? Did you have ice cream on Sundays? Or were there more important things to spend on than ice cream?

Tell me about the people around you. Were they nice to you? And what is "nice" for you? Did they smile a lot? Did they smile at you? Did they tell you you were pretty and did they tell you enough? Did they hug you when you were good? And what is "good" for you? What is "bad"? What did they do when you were bad?

I'll tell you about my childhood. Let's compare notes.

Then maybe we'd understand each other more, and judge each other less.

Ted Neeley, 27 years after JCS

A friend shared this video on his facebook.



"Gethsemane" is my favorite song from "Jesus Christ, Superstar" (1973).

One word for dear ol' Ted: amazing.

from youtube

Closure: Movement

She looked up, her gaze fixing on me. Her eyes had a guarded look to them, which soon, however, assumed an intensity that she, perhaps, could not feign. It felt to me like she was boring a hole through the canvas, piercing past the oils with her stare, asking, is it true? Are you there?

A shout was frozen somewhere in my throat and I struggled inwardly, straining against the confines of my prison, feeling more trapped now, more than ever, now that I had begun to, once again, wrestle with I knew not what. It was like this, too, the first time I regained consciousness and found myself where I was. Only now, I struggled more fiercely—against these unknown walls, against immobility, against despair—because I knew that someone had somehow found out where I was.

Did prayers still get heard in this day and age?

She rose from the chair and walked toward me, her steps wide, determined. She stopped just near enough so that I could hear her soft, deep breathing.

She laid a hand on my arm, running her eyes all over me. I knew that her hand was on my arm because I saw it there. This lack of feeling pained me the most. So, I braced myself, giving it one final, solid push, as if physical effort would free me from the incomprehensible state I was in. It was almost painful, the strain; so that when I felt I had reached the end of my strength, I eased back, slowly, exhaling the tightness.

She was so near. I could see just exactly how beautiful her eyes were as they looked searchingly at me, how they were like whirlpools I wanted to go to pieces in, how her gaze was like a spell that held me, as if her eyes were arms wrapped tightly around me, yes, and I, wretched being, longed to bury myself in her aliveness, to feel her, palpable, in my hands, to be palpable in her hands.

I felt myself weakening, the longer the seconds ticked away; felt, more painfully now, the helplessness that I had long ago learned to come to terms with.

Oh, God, that she had come so near, so near.

So near.

I felt that I could no longer bear it, and I prepared to give up.

The jolt was indescribable, then, when I began to feel, very faintly, the feather-lightness of her touch as she trailed her thumb along my hand.

Today's dollop of knowledge:

"Women get the last word in every argument. Anything a man says after that is the beginning of a new argument."

-author unknown

I've been a good enough girl.

For the past several days, I've been feasting on greens (with Caesar as my preferred dressing)



and whole wheat bread.


(I don't eat it by itself, of course. Yesterday, I had Italian sausage on whole wheat bread and earlier, beef pastrami on whole wheat bread. But, yeah, it's all on whole wheat bread. Ano ba, ang kulit.)

So, maybe, I do deserve to have this right now.


Just one small bag. Promise.

(I think dieting is ok as long as people don't identify the word "dieting" with "starving oneself". It's all just about eating the right kinds of food and the right quantity (or lack thereof, hahaha). And one other thing it's got going against it is that people are generally crankier when they're on a diet. Though I was a grouch only during the first two, maybe three days. Now, I'm back to normal--or almost normal.)

Potato chips!!!

And the ladies lunched

Drat, I can't find the Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo essay I had been meaning to base this post on. I skimmed through her Coming Home, which was where I remember having read the phrase "they call it pampahaba ng buhay", or something to that effect (I am not altogether sure if that was the exact line). I think I remember her referring, too, to Gilda Cordero Fernando's book Ladies' Lunch and Other Ways to Wholeness. Age can blur so many things.

Tsk.

This pampahaba ng buhay she alluded to was that important ice-breaker in every woman's--or man's, for that matter--daily humdrum of routines: the lunch date, or shopping appointment, or cozy dinner with the best friend or college barkada, or the social afternoon call (merienda) to someone from the exclusive ladies' (or guys') clique. It is that most needed conversation, that good laugh over coffee, that outpouring of secrets and dreams and woes to a friend, or two friends, or even three. You figure how it becomes a "pampahaba ng buhay." Because it is.

I had one such tryst earlier today with my dear, dear friend Sheila, who is one of the rare few who have really taken the time and effort to break down my carefully built brick walls, said "hello, how are you?" so many times, said number of times eventually softening my hardened heart and allowing her entry so that now, she is an indispensable persona who adds so much value to my life. We had lunch of pasta and chicken (for her) and salad (for me, yes, I am on a diet again) and iced tea and exchanged hosts of stories and gossip and thoughts, as if we hadn't yet had enough of it in the office, mainly, I guess, because a lunch out is an entirely different thing. We didn't seem to run out of fodder for conversation. We never do, anyway.

So, yeah, you should definitely catch up with that old friend, or that trusted peer. Grab that chance to bring back that joie de vivre, that chance to be just a girl, just a guy, worry-free and young (no matter what age one may be) because meet-ups and talks like these do much to ward the stress away. It keeps one healthy, ready to go back to life's same old palette of grays and browns.

Because in those two short hours, or three, even, there will be good vibes all around. And an exchange of dreams and hopes, too, definitely. And laughter, loads of it. Sadnesses, too, perhaps, yes, but always, always, that sense of knowing that there is someone (aside from that significant other, maybe) watching out for us, or simply someone who will listen and share her views to help one turn a problem around, or to be the stronghold for when one finally gets the courage to confront that difficult issue.

Or just smile back, when silence is all there is, and silence is all that's needed.

Dear, dear Jim

I have just discovered, today, that James Merrill was a Pisces. He would have turned 84 this coming March 3rd.

from "The Broken Home":

A lead soldier guards my windowsill:
Khaki rifle, uniform, and face.
Something in me grows heavy, silvery, pliable.

How intensely people used to feel!
Like metal poured at the close of a proletarian novel,
Refined and glowing from the crucible,
I see those two hearts, I’m afraid,
Still..

and the final 5 lines, oh, what sharp sadness:

Under the ballroom ceiling’s allegory
Someone at last may actually be allowed
To learn something; or, from my window, cool
With the unstiflement of the entire story,
Watch a red setter stretch and sink in cloud.

Coming across this Randall Jarrell poem in my Post-War American Literature class in college forever sealed my fascination with fighter planes:

LOSSES

It was not dying: everybody died.
It was not dying: we had died before
In the routine crashes-- and our fields
Called up the papers, wrote home to our folks,
And the rates rose, all because of us.
We died on the wrong page of the almanac,
Scattered on mountains fifty miles away;
Diving on haystacks, fighting with a friend,
We blazed up on the lines we never saw.
We died like aunts or pets or foreigners.
(When we left high school nothing else had died
For us to figure we had died like.)

In our new planes, with our new crews, we bombed
The ranges by the desert or the shore,
Fired at towed targets, waited for our scores--
And turned into replacements and worke up
One morning, over England, operational.

It wasn't different: but if we died
It was not an accident but a mistake
(But an easy one for anyone to make.)
We read our mail and counted up our missions--
In bombers named for girls, we burned
The cities we had learned about in school--
Till our lives wore out; our bodies lay among
The people we had killed and never seen.
When we lasted long enough they gave us medals;
When we died they said, "Our casualties were low."

The said, "Here are the maps"; we burned the cities.

It was not dying --no, not ever dying;
But the night I died I dreamed that I was dead,
And the cities said to me: "Why are you dying?
We are satisfied, if you are; but why did I die?"

Mommy matters

I bought my daughter her second pair of gladiator sandals last Saturday. She loved them, of course--she seems to love everything I get for her. And she wore the new pink-and-brown semi-jumpsuit I got for her last week. I told her, "you're so pretty!" and she said, "you too, mommy!"

Asus. hee.

So, anyway, we spent one-fourth of Sunday afternoon singing to Miley's "Party in the USA" at our favorite Starbucks. In as much as I want her to be all Broadway-ish and pop-free--I stuffed her mp3 player with Broadway and musical tunes--I am aware that my daughter is a kid and that she does, and would eventually, hear pop all over and would pick out ones that she likes, no matter how I try to "educate" her on what's good music and what's not. This is not to say that pop is bad, per se, though the kiddie pop nowadays can be irritatingly, well, pop (yeah, yeah, too many pops right there). And "Party in the USA" is quite catchy and "sing-able", I have to admit. So, I guess that's not too bad.

I'm debating with myself whether or not to teach her Tori Amos, Aimee Mann and the other angry female musicians (when she gets older, of course). I wouldn't trade them for Rihanna, et al, but I'm not altogether sure if my daughter would benefit from all that "angriness."

But, let's see. Jackie's only 10, anyway. Let the kids have fun. Miley could only do so much damage.

I hope.

You know how there are topics that we avoid, words, even, or names that we try so hard not to utter in conversations, both with someone else and with ourselves, or else the pain will seep through us, just like that, and totally water down our soldered brace on reason, and make hash of whatever semblance of cheerfulness we may have been feigning, for the longest time?

From the weekend couch:

How quickly we size each other up.

But if I ever found myself where you are now, would I be able to stand up and move forward?

And do you think you could retrace the steps I took--without bitterness, without self-reproach--before I reached this spot?

from "The Flower Girls That We Were"

And the snapshots, of course.

The times that I looked at the ten or so pictures which my mom put in an album, my mind registered a blank, and I drew up more questions than answers: Why was I frowning all the time? Were the flowers in my basket real or not? How did I feel, sitting there on the pew with the other white-clad flower girls? Why did I look so anxious, while they seemed so much at ease?

Looking at the photos felt a little strange, as I did not have any actual memory of them ever happening. I did not recall how it was to be wearing the white, boat-necked, ankle-length dress, bare except for a wide orange sash tied around its waist; or how the headpiece made of orange flowers felt on my head.

It was my aunt's wedding, but I did not remember being aware of that, or of anything at all. The orange and white-colored flowers arranged along the pews did not look familiar. I did not remember seeing my Auntie Nene so young, so vibrant in her white gown; looking dazed with happiness, sitting there across the altar with her equally young groom, an ineffable smile spilling from her lips. Neither did I recall my uncle to be half as handsome as he was in his medal-festooned, white military suit. Did they, on the other hand, remember the whole thing—from beginning to end—it being their wedding and all?

I didn’t know.


Running my eyes over the photos, I remembered the things my parents had told me about each frame; and, in time, I began to gather a sense of familiarity, somehow, of the captured portraits. Still, it was different from having an actual memory to anchor the familiarity on. Somewhere between the pictures and my eyes, there always seemed to be a hollow that would have only been filled by memory itself. I looked at each snapshot with a perceptible lack of emotional response, except for something akin to regret—regret that I would never be able to say the words, “I remember.”

-March, 2004, CW 141/ Creative Nonfiction 2-

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons. -T.S. Eliot-

Last Saturday, I received what was probably one of the best news via text message that I've gotten in a long, long while:

AN ENTIRE WEEK OF FREE COFFEE FROM STARBUCKS!!!


Life is great!


Cheers, darlings! I leave you with this very amusing attempt at balladry by some anonymous chap (or girl, for that matter):

Caffeine is my shepherd; I shall not doze.
It maketh me to wake in green pastures:
It leadeth me beyond the sleeping masses.
It restoreth my buzz:
It leadeth me in the paths of consciousness for its name's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of addiction,
I will fear no Equal™:
For thou art with me; thy cream and thy sugar they comfort me.
Thou preparest a carafe before me in the presence of The Starbucks:
Thou anointest my day with pep; my mug runneth over.
Surely richness and taste shall follow me all the days of my life:
And I will dwell in the House of Mochas forever.
(source: quotegarden.com)

The beautiful and the odd

...and i knew then it would be
a life long thing
but i didn't know that we
we could break a silver lining

and i'm so sad
like a good book
i can't put this day back
a sorta fairytale
with you

*vid from youtube

The Way I Am (Ingrid Michaelson)

If you were falling, then I would catch you
You need a light, I'd find a match

Cuz I love the way you say good morning
And you take me the way I am

If you are chilly, here take my sweater
Your head is aching; I'll make it better

Cuz I love the way you call me baby
And you take me the way I am

I'd buy you Rogaine when you start losing all your hair
Sew on patches to all you tear

Cuz I love you more than I could ever promise
And you take me the way I am
You take me the way I am
You take me the way I am

*vid from youtube

Outside, the drowsy twilight

scatters shadows on the streets:
a tree here a bramble there and shrubs

or someone walking--

If we didn't try hard enough

to fill our days with something, some thing, anything--

did we waste time?

Story excerpt turned sudden fiction:

Then there was that time when she, thirteen years old and sulking, refused to eat her meals but for a few bites, staring, instead, out the window and into the street, watching the neighborhood kids playing Patintero. She nibbled incessantly on her fingernails as she listened to a Kiri Te Kenawa selection over and over again, dark circles around her eyes for lack of sleep.

Her father started worrying.

“Don’t mind her. Just some growing pains, I’m sure. She’ll snap out of it soon enough,” Lola Amparing said, looking thoughtfully at her granddaughter, her mind turning like wheels.

That night, Stella found herself drinking—not too willingly—a colorless, bitter liquid, which her Lola Amparing had told her to take.

“That will do you a world of good, believe me. So drink. I don’t want a drop left in that glass, you hear me?”

Stella did as she was told, after little resistance. After the first taste, she grimaced, then finished the rest in one big gulp. She was not one to disobey her elders, and neither was her Lola one to take “no” for an answer.

She went to bed with a bitter aftertaste clinging stubbornly to her tongue. She fell asleep almost the same instant as when her cheek touched the pillow; and the face of the handsome, slightly rugged boy that had stuck itself to her mind for weeks quietly detached itself like a piece of yellowing leaf, blown away by some mysterious wind.

Basic Multiple Choice

Choose the best answer:
a) be happy
b) sulk