On Women and Drugstores

So, Kathryn Bigelow has edged out ex-hubby James Cameron for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Saturday's Directors' Guild Awards. Woman has once more triumphed over man. (Evil laugh).

I don't know if you'd understand, but realizing that I'd already seen all five nominees gave me a fuzzy, giddy feeling.

I know, I know. I'm bragging. Sorry.

Anyway.

I went to the drugstore today--Watson's, to be exact, where I bought half a basket of goodies (toothpaste, conditioner, etc.) and took my sweet time scouring the make-up section for the perfect shade of brown eye-liner.

I love drugstores. I really do.

What is it with women and drugstores? Like, what is it with women and groceries? Although the two aren't as similar as one might think, in that the latter has something to do with that more quotidian, obligatory quest for the utilitarian whereas the former is more of like a leisurely stroll--shears in gloved hand, ready to nip the blooms of one's choice--along some sunlit garden where all sorts of flowers grow in abundance.


But what is it with women and bombs? That would take a separate entry to discuss, I think. In the mean time, I suggest you watch Bigelow's "The Hurt Locker." An answer should be there, somewhere.

Yup. It should be there.

Rise Up, Little Sistah...

You gotta rise up, little sister
Turn on the light
Wise up to the stories you've been told
'Cause love don't come in black or white
No no no no.
-Diane Birch, "Rise Up"-

*video from here.

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.

The Wisdom of CoCo

All I ask of you is one thing: please don't be cynical. I hate cynicism- it's my least favorite quality and it doesn't lead anywhere.
Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen.

-Conan O'Brien "The Tonight Show" farewell speech-

Farewell, JD.

Jerome David Salinger, January 1, 1919 – January 27, 2010:
Literary giant, Holden Caulfield's creator, recluse, icon.

Read the story here.

My dad

is really something else.

We were texting just this afternoon and I was telling him about my unusually busy (not that it's ever been not busy, just that it's been especially busy) and colorful week at work and he told me that he had just dismissed the foreman of the team of builders working on the new house because said foreman was reporting to work inebriated (which is, come to think of it, ground for termination). My dad is now acting as foreman. I have no idea what it is that a foreman does. But, there.

In my mind, I was, like, sheesh, Daddy, is there anything you can't do?

See, my dad is sort of a jack-of-all-trades, an all-around kind of guy, cosmopolitan, if you will, doing a little bit of this and that and everything else.

I remember being a first or second-grader and seeing the plan my dad had drawn of the house he was having built (which was ours). Awed, I asked him, "Daddy, did you draw this? You're goooood!" Even as a child, I was already a doting fan.

A few years back, when Friendster was still the "in" thing, I remember writing in my profile: "My dad is the one man whom I measure all other men against."

The loot: Erstwhile stage actor, Fisheries grad, one-time teacher, competent banker, talented singer/musician (he sings and plays the keyboards in his rock band and the church choir and he plays the guitar, too), architect/engineer, contractor, real estate broker, interior designer, Ping-pong champ, dancer, Art aficionado, guidance counselor, loving husband to my mom, wonderful, wonderful father to his three proud, adoring kids, and my steadfast saving grace.

Whew.

I told him, "Daddy, you are one tough act to follow."

And he is. He really is.

I don't think any other kind of worry can equal that of a mother's for her sick child.

Thank you, God, for making Kim well.

It's Twilight, That's Why

"And if, by chance, that special place that you've been dreaming of leads you to a lonely place, find your strength in love." -from "The Greatest Love Of All" written by Michael Masser and Linda Creed-

I was raised in fairy tales. From what I could remember, the people around me had always done their best to protect me. I grew up thinking the world a good place and this, perhaps, was what made me fodder for the wolves.

And when I went out on my own, I found out that people and places and things weren't at all as good as I was taught they were.

And so I broke. Into pieces. And I wished that I'd been shown the blacks and the grays as much as the pinks and the whites. I cried and mourned for the self that I saw, scattered in fragments across my eyes. I realized: They were wrong. Love was not all.

But it came to pass that what gathered me back into wholeness was the love that I knew I always had, the love I realized I had never lost, the love that the people who loved me had to show me was there, all along, so that I would find the strength to keep on wanting to be whole.

In the end, it was the belief in goodness which I thought had betrayed me that saved my life, after all.

Dad, Mom, Ma, Earl, Otom, Jackie, Kim, M -- Thank you for the love that keeps me going each day.

I'm so senti today. Been crying at the slightest provocation (like hearing "The Greatest Love Of All" after a million years).

It's twilight pa.
Hay.

From The Weekend Couch

He's a Libra

This morning, I woke up with a headache, probably because I've been sleeping piecemeal for the past two days. I should probably hydrate.

Yup, I should.

I thoroughly enjoyed watching Jason Reitman's "Thank You For Smoking". This kid (he's 32) has got loads of talent! So far, he hasn't let me down, not with this one, "Juno" or "Up In The Air".

That's all I got for today. Haven't even had lunch or breakfast yet.

Will be watching "Fargo" later.

One of the Butterflies - by W. S. Merwin -

The trouble with pleasure is the timing
it can overtake me without warning
and be gone before I know it is here
it can stand facing me unrecognized
while I am remembering somewhere else
in another age or someone not seen
for years and never to be seen again
in this world and it seems that I cherish
only now a joy I was not aware of
when it was here although it remains
out of reach and will not be caught or named
or called back and if I could make it stay
as I want to it would turn to pain.

I found this poem in Jonathan Carroll's blog. Such sad lines. It's painful, the truths they carry.

Hay.
*sniff sniff*

Found:

Rickie Lee Jones: Pirates, 1981
Thanks, Mr. K!

So, Kathryn Bigelow is James Cameron's ex-wife. Interesting fact. Guess too much genius does split a unit into two.

Anyway, had an interesting conversation with a friend today, over coffee and after-work relief. Don't you feel lucky to have people to talk to, just because? I do. And this after years of self-inflicted isolation inside sturdy walls, built with much care, one gray brick after the other. What a relief it is to realize that once the teenage angst and the depression of my early twenties had crumbled down, so did those walls. Once in a while, I do find myself feeling the urge to put them back up, brick after brick--but only once in a while. And I always find myself stopping half-way. There's almost always something that distracts me.

(End of speech and cheese)

Been raving about "Avatar" this week. I'm not a fan of Sci-Fi (both film and Lit--I hated my College Sci-Fi class so much, I built walls around me the whole semester), but this movie grabbed me and grabbed me hard.

Oh, hey, I ended up circling back to James Cameron (sans Kathryn B.), after all. Completely unintentional, thank you.

Have a great afternoon ahead.

Found:

I am beginning to hate empty spaces--

--blanknesses that stretch into miles, empty silences that roll upward to crests and fall down to plateaus, ending in emptiness, always emptiness, never-ending.

...
Empty spaces are blank canvasses for what's no longer there.
And silence is an empty space.

I remember punching holes into the air

500 Days of Bummer

A lot of folks who saw "500 Days of Summer" had said it was a great movie. I had little motivation to catch it, but since its fame had spread through word-of-mouth and facebook, I thought, why the hell not.

So I gave it a try.

And I'm glad I did, not because I liked it, but because it added something to my small cache of film wisdom: mainly, it added points in my list of the ingredients of a bad movie.

In short, I was disappointed.

I think the movie had something to say, you know, all that shit about how we are all products of our upbringing and how our ideologies (which we might have carried with us for most of our lives) can be shattered by one brief, shining crash to the earth. The message being a cliche, there was more pressure on the part of the film-makers to make sure that the delivery was thorough.

As it turned out, there was a total lack of character development and the plot didn't make much for credibility. The script was, well, nondescript (beats the shit out of me why it's a front runner in the Oscars screenplay department--or so I've been told), short of like telling the viewer, hey, you're smart, you should be able to get it, we're even giving it a different spin (you know, that whole rewind/fast-forward thingie they did with the plot) and spicing it up with references to cool stuff like "The Graduate" and Dorian Gray (what was it doing there, anyway? Were we given any prior indication that Summer even read, in the first place?) and sprinkling the scenes with a good playlist (The Pixies, Regina Spektor, Carla Bruni), short of having that Tom guy say, "hey, I like cool stuff, I'm a cool guy, so you better think I'm cool and this movie, cool!"

To put it in a clam shell, this movie ends up undermining the audience's intelligence, and I hate movies that do just that.

Plus, it tries too hard to be cute, though its many attempts at cuteness--far too many, I have to say--end up streaking the place with 500 mismatched shades of mediocrity.

And that whole "Autumn" thing at the end? That was the last nail on the movie's coffin. Made me want to throw up.

Up in The Air

There are movies that make you roll over with laughter, movies that make you bawl like a baby or weep like a young boy whose heart was broken by his first love, movies that make you swear under, or over your breath.

"Up in the Air" does none of those.

What it does is leave you with that nameless emotion slowly but surely tugging at your heart and prodding you to get on your feet to look for, or go to the people you love and give them a tight hug and tell them how much you love them and appreciate their presence in your life. Yeah, that cheesy sort of thing, you might say. But cheesy is as cheesy gets because when it comes to the people we value, there can be no such thing as saying "I love you" too much because there is no telling--it'll be completely beyond us--until when anything can, and will last.

The tragedy of being human is that we do not know. So, yeah, go and give your pa a hug, your mom a peck on the cheek, your friend a slap on the back, your dog a bone.

Before the moment goes up in the air, before it's too late for regrets, before the intention to appreciate gets rendered hopeless because either you, them, or the moment, has gone away.

And away is seldom a happy place.

And, sitting there in the middle of that crowded cafe,

you are brought out of your invisible bubble and the jarring din of the people around you rushes into your quiet like a sudden stream.

Just like that.

Looking at the face of the watch resting on your left wrist, you realize it's been almost an hour since you sat down and started reading the book of poems you had impulsively bought from the nearby bookstore and you think, you wonder, what power of self-containment was it that enabled you to shut everything--the drone of voices, the sundry, small human movements, the afternoon heat, the forgotten cup of coffee, the discomfort of staying in one position for a certain length of time--out and get lost in the words, the lines, the stanzas on the pages of the book on your lap? What sort of self-centeredness? What selfishness? What apathy? What trick learned from childhood? What sorcery?

Sign of the times: letters blooming on a screen

me: can you give me a moment?
friend: A moment to what?
me: A thought just occurred to me which I think is worth typing down.
friend: Ok.

whatever happened to "worth writing down?"


William Shakespeare's handwriting

Lola Coqueta (2009)

I held the glossy in my hand and pursed my lips, thinking, wouldn't I be better off buying a book of poems, instead?

I spent the rest of the afternoon reading this:


A worthwhile read, for only PHP150. The glossy was priced the same.
I'm glad I chose to buy what I did.
=)

Keeping Up With Ebert

Reading Roger Ebert's Best Films of The Decade and seeing Kathryn Bigelow's "The Hurt Locker" (2009) in the list (in the number 2 spot, to be precise) recalls to my mind a conversation I recently had with my brother. He was asking me why I liked "The Hurt Locker" so much. Going into know-it-all mode, I launched into a tirade about how the movie's plot didn't really seem linear, therefore it was different and I liked things that weren't part of the bandwagon, how the focus was mainly on the character and how everything else was built around his motivations, etc. I ended my little spiel with "did you know that it was directed by a woman?" He was surprised (funny and sad that it still surprises people that women can be as good as men, if not better). But I preferred to think that what induced the reaction was the fact that the movie was really what one might call a "guy movie", but then, again, this is another problematic statement, which can be problematized in a number of ways, but which I will not launch into for fear of further digressing from the topic, which is Roger Ebert's best films of the decade.

Whew.

Okay.

So, anyway, Roger Ebert being who he is, it pleased me to note that I had seen quite a number of the films on his list, a few of which I had written about--or,at least, made some quick post--in this blog. Let's see, so Jason Reitman's "Juno" (2007) was there and so was Spike Jonze's "Adaptation" (2002). The Coen Brothers' "No Country For Old Men" (2007) got a spot. Guillermo Del Toro's "Pan's Labyrinth" (2006) made it, too.

Hmm? What was that? Oh, yeah, his top movie of the decade was Charlie Kaufman's "Synechdoche, New York" (2008) which inspired this conversation between a geek friend and I.

I should remind myself to come up with my own list. Hmm. Wheels in the mind turning...

Here's to more good films for you and me...
Cheers!

First book I'll be reading this year:

(published 1997)

Come in, 2010

I spent New Year at work, and, in that respect, at least, it was no different from last year.

Otherwise, things were better.

You know that lightness of being (which was in no way unbearable, by the way) that people have when they're happy? I felt that. The last New Year I remember feeling that way was when I was a small kid. Long time ago. You know, all wide-eyed and bright-eyed and content and excited, at the same time? It felt good to be my age and feel good and actually look forward to the coming year.

Wishing you that lightness of being, too.


Happy New Year, reader. Things will be better, you'll see.
=)

Sleeplessness.
Desire(s) translated into restlessness. Or, that which is untranslated into the fulfillment of said desire(s).

For time to run faster so that the next task can be worked at and accomplished; for the object of one's affection (a dress? a goal? a woman? a man?) to be within one's sight; for time to unravel, unravel because time spent in sleep is--or seems to be--stationary, and lack of movement is desire fulfilled.

Whereas our nature requires movement. How contradictory, this raison d'etre.

Sleeplessness. Desire unfulfilled. Movement.

Toss, turn.

Racing to the 24th

I did my Christmas shopping quite late this year. Compared to last year, I did not spend as much time scouring shops for gifts for family and friends; mainly, I guess, because I already knew what to get for each.

Traffic was a headache today. I mean, it's usually heavy Fridays, but the jams I found myself in earlier this evening were horrendous. Lines in front of ATMs were eyesore-long. The mall I went to was thronged by on-the-go shoppers.

Looks like most of us were--and still are--caught in the holiday rush.

How's your Christmas rush going?

You know how it is

...when the hours and the days drift by like never-ending seas of curtains and you barely have a moment to blink and realize that they are actually unfolding before your eyes because the only thing you know is that you're there, watching, and not noticing that the curtains are not only moving but are really changing color, too?

The past several days have been like that. As usual, there's comfort in cliches, so, yes, the days have flown so swiftly by with the breeze, and the chore of having to step back and retrace one's whereabouts from the starting point of choice, up to the mark one has drawn between the step before the finish line and the actual finish line, seems a needless one, one might say, because something always seems to get lost in the retelling.

Or is something gained, instead?


I am going home soon--in less than two days, as a matter of fact. Probably explains all the breeziness.

Imogen Heap: "Ellipse"

Released: 2009
My favorite tracks: "Half Life", "Between Sheets", "First Train Out", and "Bad Body Double"

Imogen Heap turns 32 today.

But that is not the subject of this post; though this doesn't mean that the statement above isn't true.

Okay, okay, start over.

Imogen Heap turns 32 today.

...the sweeping insensitivity of this still-life.

Ransom notes keep falling out your mouth.
Mid-sweet talk, newspaper word cut-outs.
Speak no feeling, no I don't believe you.
You don't care a bit. You don't care a bit.

-Imogen Heap, "Hide and Seek"-

*Watch the video here.

My favorite tracks: "Hide and Seek", "Headlock", "Goodnight and Go", "Have You Got it in You?", "Loose Ends", and "The Moment I Said It".

And if I could sing myself a merry little tune

...I'd be fine.

It was the saddest thing. As I and a friend were walking in the mall just last week, my mind's eye captured the sights and sounds of the holiday cheer--the glitter, the carols, the laughter, the reds, the yellows, the greens--and I thought, all these will be gone before we know it. I looked around and saw lights disappearing into the air, saw the dying smiles on folks' faces.

I shook myself out of it.

Brr. It's been awfully cold, lately.

Precious

"Some folks has a lot of things around them that shines for other peoples. I think that maybe some of them was in tunnels. And in that tunnel, the only light they had, was inside of them. And then long after they escape that tunnel, they still be shining for everybody else." -Clareece 'Precious' Jones-

Some funny shorts from an e-mail my Ninang sent me:

FIGHT
A couple drove down a country road for several miles, not saying a word. An earlier discussion had led to an argument and neither of them wanted to concede their position.

As they passed a barnyard of mules, goats, and pigs,the husband asked sarcastically, 'Relatives of yours?'

'Yep,' the wife replied, 'in-laws.'
***
WORDS
A husband read an article to his wife about how many words women use a day....

30,000 to a man's 15,000.

The wife replied, 'The reason has to be because we have to repeat everything to men...

The husband then turned to his wife and asked, 'What?'

***
CREATION
A man said to his wife one day, "I don't know how you can be so stupid and so beautiful all at the same time."

The wife responded, "Allow me to explain.God made me beautiful so you would be attracted to me;God made me stupid so I would be attracted to you !"

Heehee

When you start reading "sink in" as "skin it"

...then you know something's wrong.

You could be: a) sick; b) extremely sleepy; or c) just plain old fatigued. One could probably add a dozen or so more reasons to the already mentioned, maybe I'm just too lazy (or too sick) to put my brain cells into action.

Either way, I guess it's time to run outside and get some fresh air.

Or, hit the sack and doze off, and this, barely an hour after waking up.

*this post was spurred by my attempt to reread Luis Katigbak's creative nonfiction collection The King of Nothing To Do. "Sink in" appears on the first essay in the book.
=)

Let me shout, too.

In the same way that I put off writing about typhoon Ondoy (I eventually did, I couldn't help it), I have also tried to put aside saying anything about the Maguindanao massacre. And this, for reasons difficult to put a finger on; though I will definitely make an attempt to make sense of it in this post.

I did try, you see. Tried to be my usual, clammed-up, indifferent self--a side of me which only the people closest to me understand, or tolerate--who would much rather stay in one corner and watch while everybody else scrambles for something. It's a sorry state to be in, most people would say. But it does have its advantages, which might seem selfish, but to those who understand the human psyche and its workings, and how the clamming up is a result of some trauma or another, it would make sense.

But, moving on, I could only stay quiet for so long. Not that it matters if I could, in any way, influence those reading this blog--which is not to say that I fancy this blog to have a host of readers because I am fully aware that it doesn't; but if I could provide some faint glimmer of rhetoric to you, dear reader reading this now, then I would be content. And as for the self that is trying to make sense of this whole thing, let it be spelled out that this is for you, so that you could gather whatever pieces of it you may and, in the process, perhaps emerge the least bit enlightened, for whatever it may be worth.

I realize that this may be the only time that I get to vent about it, so now is definitely not the time to hold back. Excuse the lack of understatement. It is not called for, at this time, nor will it be until the perpetrators pay—and pay what they owe—for the deed they have done.

So, the massacre. Massacre. The word itself is chilling, and for it to be actualized is nothing short of horrifying. Horror should be reserved for the movies, not real life. That this atrocity even happened is stupefying.

What evil, allegorical worm could be bad enough as to plant itself in someone’s mind, which must be narrow enough, small enough for the worm to be incubated and for it to grow to a size unwarranted by such a brain, so that it would, at some point in time, break loose into an act so violent, so full of hate, so blood-curdling?

I did feel my blood acerbate the first time I saw it in the news. How dare these people think that they could kill and violate and tamper with life and get away with it, too? It’s the proverbial glutton wanting to have his cake and eat it. Or, the severely misguided charlatan who was given a hand and now wants to take the whole arm.

It is an assault to the Filipino, this barbarity; a crime against humanity and its animus.

I am fuming as I type this. One can only shake one’s head and wait for what happens next. And the Filipino—even this Filipino--will wait. Woe to him who underestimates our capacity to think, and feel.

At the end of the day, though, is the question of what will happen next: so we have expressed outrage at what happened; so we have talked about it, discussed the details in detail, shaken our heads at the unreality of it all; so some of us, especially those in positions of power, have vowed--in front of millions, in front of the press, making our words seep through the television screens and the airwaves--to follow this affront through and ensure that justice sees daylight.

The question, then, is: where does this all end?

Here is a prayer that the archives get to record the event to its last; and may it be written in the last page:

RESOLUTION: JUSTICE.

Under the Blanket

I'm down with a cold. Again. I only get sick once a year, so coming down with this very bad cold barely a month after I recovered from the previous one--which was worse, I must say--is a little disconcerting. Or, baffling, at the most.

I think I'd be able to come up with a host of possible reasons, though, namely, that:

a) the past week's flurry of activities finally got to my immune system;
b) I am vitamin C-deficient;
c) I'm sleep-deprived;
d) it's my body telling me to take more rest;
e) the December breeze--aka "the herald of depression and all things numbing"--is whipping us, folks of the warm land; or
e) I'm simply getting old.

The last one makes the most sense. LOL.

Or not.

???

Maybe it's all of the above.

Bottom line: being sick sucks big-time!
Ugh.

Let's Poem!

Today, in the office, a co-worker approached me and asked if I could lend him a book of poems. Now, I work in a bank and the odds of people who earn a living as "financial consultants" going to each other for literature-related (and i'm not referring to the Shopaholic series) matters are a hundred to one.

Anyway, so I asked him what kind it was he wanted and he asked if I had a Tennyson book. "Oh, so you like the Romantic poets?" He said he didn't think Tennyson was at all romantic and so I had to give a brief speech on how I was referring to the era and not the adjective. It warmed my heart, though, to see this young man so interested in poetry. I told him I didn't own any Tennyson but that I could lend him a Rilke volume; gave some unsolicited advice (it was probably the English Major in me), too, that he ought to try reading Filipino poetry in English. He said he just might and thanked me profusely for my willingness to lend him my Rilke.

As he was turning away, I couldn't resist asking, "J--, do you read Dan Brown?"

He said, "nope, and don't have plans to."

I gave him a grin and a nod of approval.
Good boy.

Now let me remember to bring him that Rilke volume.

Thanksgiving in Manila

So there was the party that S-- and I lost a lot of sleep on (though the sleep I lost was nothing compared to S's), that turned out just the way we had all planned it to...








where an engagement was announced and cheered on


where mentors were thanked and put on the spot






where there was fun



and fun

and there, too, was a toast...


And this is why I love working where I work.
=)

Pandora

And so you stand there, turning the box in your hand, looking for cracks where you may peep through, examining the angles for irregularities, squinting at invisible lines, lines you know might not be there or might be, thinking, thinking, should you pull the string and risk letting what's inside get out, or should you leave it where you found it, do you remember the exact spot it was sitting on? You're thinking, maybe you're not supposed to be holding it, in the first place, maybe it was meant to just be there, where it was when you saw it, but what if it meant for you to find it, yet how could you be certain that it meant for you to find it?

But, oh, what nice, pleasant possibilities lie inside its four corners, what beauty, what hope? And you, who've been looking for beauty, for hope, how tempting to unwrap the beauty, the hope.

And, oh yeah, watch this, too

It's kind of a "guy movie" but I liked it. I can be guy, too, I realize.
blech
=)

Just a tiny thought

I can't believe it's raining and raining hard. It's been extremely dry, lately Thank goodness the December breeze is lending us its presence during certain parts of the day, somehow. If not, the heat would be unbearable.

My blah list for the week:

1. Strings and strings of girls (and the odd handfuls of boys, or "guys" if you must) are trooping to the movies for that "New Moon" thing. Ugh. I've long since given up trying to even get myself into any discussions--or debates, as they most often turn out to be when I dig in my heels and sharpen my claws to pounce on the just as stubborn opponent who is convinced that the Twilight "saga" (arrggh) is the end-all and be-all of literature and filmdom--about this fad. It's a waste of time, so let the girls scream and swoon and fight over who's hotter, the vampire, or the wolf... am I getting it right? Don't even remember those guys' names. I know the girl's name is Bella, though. Haha. I'm such a Twilight dork.

2. As for me, I am currently obsessed with Joel M. Toledo's The Long Lost Startle.

3. Well, Facebook's Cafe World would rival the attention I give the above-mentioned book, though. This game is so addictive, it's made me forget all the other FB apps I've been previously hooked on.

4. As if things couldn't get any shallower, I've also been indulging in back issues of Instyle.

This post is a whole lot of nonsense. Didn't even reach to 5.

Oh, and yeah, 5) watched "Paranormal Activity" last night. Spooked me out, it did. For once, I was thankful to be in the night shift. At least I didn't have to worry about sleeping--or not getting any sleep--in the dark.

Okay, now I remember: the vampire's Edward and Jacob's the other guy. Oh, wait, is it Jacob, or Jakob?

Here, Now.

The poem indeed is the long lost startle. The moment has passed, it is again lost, but having been lived, it might be imagined, recuperated. And so it is there again, in the poem, for through language a path to it has been found; it is held now and here in the poem's all too human hands--too human, finite, mortal, so that in one or the other reader, it may also be nowhere.

So, Dr. Gemino Abad writes in his introduction to Joel M. Toledo's second book of poetry, The Long Lost Startle. I serendipitously found this book while waiting in a bookstore for a colleague. We were to buy art materials. The wait led me to find poetry. Poetry, which, I realized, I have been gravitating towards more than fiction, lately. The cache of good poetry proves small these days (I mean, what percentage does it represent in this pop-lit-and-bestseller-that-sells-because-it -is-more-sensational-than-literary-dominated culture?), so that discovering a good book of poems is actually tantamount to unearthing a treasure.

Now you want to believe again, as if you've lost/ how it is to find things. (from "What is Required")

Hence, Joel Toledo and his Long Lost Startle. Following suit his Chiaroscuro, it explores the world as it is in the here and the now, where the "here" takes up the smallest fraction of what here means for most of us, and the "now" is the actual second you are in now. The result is, indeed, the startle that we have long since forgotten, that moment of awe which most of us had lost along the way, having gotten entangled in the speed of our own lives, so that there is no more moment to pause, catch our breaths, and just look and see what's before our eyes, and whatever newness there is that we might find, whatever wonder there might be for us to experience.

The clock declaring its singular point, the hour,/ the now again it is midnight, full minute of it,/ fulfilled and finishing./ ("The Long Lost Startle")

With the moment not even seen, the discovering would be totally out of the equation. And so much, too much, would have been lost.

/And, finding nothing to fear, you lean back into/ the silence that comes next: the lack of clock, the rest./ (The Long Lost Startle")

This part of my world has been so painfully neglected. Sorry, dear blog. I've been bad to you.

Some updates are due, then.

...

...

But my, oh, my, I'm drawing a blank. Or, ellipses.

Tsk, tsk, tsk. What's up with that?

Nerina, Where've you been all this time?

Lit Geek update # 22: recently read books

A Pale View of Hills (Kazuo Ishiguro):
This is a novel that is very quiet on the surface but is extremely disturbing, underneath. Most everything is undertow. It left me thoughtful, piecing things together, dipping my hand in the water and feeling the current draw me in. Masterfully understated. Definitely another Ishiguro coup de maitre.


Bel Canto (Ann Patchett):
The ending was another "The French Lieutenant's Woman" moment for me. I was completely disillusioned by the epilogue, hence, I went back to the paragraphs prior so that the ending that stayed with me was the one that came before the actual one. We always have a choice; and I chose how the story would end for me. Otherwise, I found the novel beautifully written. Another testament to music's power of transcending all the ugliness in the world.

My 4th Almodovar:

My 3rd Almodovar:

What I ate and did not

Now, let's see.

Thursday, in the office, I had a plateful of baked macaroni. Which i finished, by the way. It was M--'s birthday, too, and I was treated to lunch at Cibo, where I had yummy Pasta Veneziana with wheat bread. In the evening, I had cheesecake with my double tall mocha latte.

Friday morning, I looked in the mirror and groaned. My shoulders were ballooning again--they're always the first to rise up to the occasion once the calories start loading in.

Saturday morning, I started dieting: zero to minimal rice and carbs, protein and veggies only, and the occasional finger food (translate: chips).

Today is Tuesday and, so far, I have been successful.

My friend, S--, told me helpfully, "if that's what makes you happy, dear, then go for it."

Hee.

The 7 Von Trapp Children...

...all grown up.


I got this from an e-mail my dad sent me. There was a warm, fuzzy feeling in my heart when I saw these pictures. I must've seen "The Sound of Music" a hundred times.

Well, okay, maybe less.