The RH Bill debate: Yes, this woman will rant

This entire hullabaloo over the RH Bill is so frustrating. What the antis need to realize is that women have as much right to their bodies, their reproductive and overall health and their LIVES as the next man does. This is one of those times that I regret the backwardness of the Catholic Church, choosing to turn a blind eye on reality and insisting on ideologies, as if they were, indeed, experts on both the former and the latter. That this certain throng would rather have women going through teenage pregnancies and the requisite failed marriages and broken lives which are to follow, would rather have women die in abortion clinics, would rather have an entire population of children going hungry,  would rather deny its youth of the education they rightfully deserve, would rather that sex be seen as a topic to be reserved for semi-conversations in whispers, that the very word "sex" itself be seen as taboo and, in the process, stripping it of its very dignity--is an appalling state of affairs. That we are a predominantly Catholic country would mean that a bill such as this would offend a lot of sensibilities; but for us to be deprived of the kind of education necessary for the elucidation of this certain topic means letting us even further down, shoving us into an even darker dark than what we are already finding ourselves in.

The whole thing spells further poverty for this country, the continuation of the on-going oppression of its women and more suffering for its children, spells the certainty of the elusiveness of progress.

The non-committals belong to an entirely different plane. Educate your people. If they weren't so in the dark, perhaps they'd find the backbone to speak.

Love in the context of "lost".

Love in the context of choice. Love in the context of reality as reality dictates, of the non-dream, of the non-fairy tale, of the non-illusion. Love in the context of day-to-day, of years against the ephemeral now. Love in the context of hospital rooms and office halls. Love in the context of the war, not of Helen. Love in the context of spaces between rocks and hard places. Love in the context of morning versus evening, of ticker tapes versus piano keys, of the light-bathed versus the sun-kissed. Love in the context of Alice out of Wonderland. Love in the context of unpaid bills and food on the table. Love in the context of right against wrong. Love in the context of lines and wrinkled brows and crow's feet. Love in the context of Daphne and Apollo. Love in the context of adjacents and acrosses and antitheses and polarities. Love in the context not of cascading guitar melodies, tenderness, smoke rings.

Love in the context of absolutes, of senses and sensibilities.
Love in the context of not-you.
Love in the context of not-us.

from the weekend couch:

Tony and Maria, for the nth time, and I still love this film to bits. I remember getting irked when, years ago, I heard someone say how it's so ridiculous that the Jets and the Sharks dance more than fight when they fight. I mean, this is Broadway, duh. Can't we have some culture around here?

I. want. you. both.

But then again, this question would always beg to be asked: after the bills have been paid, from which bowels of my paycheck do I get the funds to buy a Tory Burch with, huh? Hah.

My birthday's coming up. Paging Santa.
=D

And while we're on the subject of shoes...

These came in from the (e)mail today:

Chanson's shoes at age 5 (?) or 6(?), kept by mom all these years, unearthed last Christmas

Here, sitting alongside Chanson's shoes at age 30 (OMG I'll be 31 soon!!!!!!! Waaahhhh!)
My feet didn't grow so much, I realize. =D
Photos taken by my very handsome brother, Earl. Thank you for sending! =)

Not so high now, please

Nowadays, my compulsion to wear 3-inch heels has definitely mellowed. Call it growing old (cringe) if you will, but I seem to be realizing what a welcome respite comfort is, versus the second-by-second effort (the intensity varies, dependent on heel height/width) one needs to exert and all the balancing and pretending-to-be-completely-nonchalant-even-when-one's-feet-are-turning-blue thing when one is walking, or simply standing, in heels. It might even be the wearing away of the self-consciousness one experiences when the need to fit in (with the tall crowd? hahaha) dwindles away as one's self-confidence shoots up, that je m'en fiche! attitude one acquires after an epiphany of some sort happens, which has something to do with the acceptance of things, in general, and of one's real image/being, in particular.


So, I'm small, ehem, petite. So, sue me. Whatever the reason, sooner or later, that almost instinctive election of form over function begins to make less and less sense, until it reaches a point where its logic altogether disappears. I haven't reached that point yet (I would still never wear shoes or sandals that are totally flat--give me an inch and a half, at least), and I cannot be entirely sure if I'll ever get there, but things almost always change, and who knows perhaps I'll get there, someday (not that I'm wishing for it). After all, we are as tall as we feel. And, as far as I'm concerned, I've been feeling 5'9" high, recently.
=D

This unfluctuating propensity

to compartmentalize my life.

"Cause all I want is the moon upon a stick/ Just to see what if..."

The latest from Radiohead:

"Lotus Flower", here.

The Month That is

Tailing the heels of a funked-up first month of the year, my February is brimming over with laughter and Oscar nominees and Grammy winners and my kids' bout with and eventual recovery from measles and bonding time with my mom and prayers for and hopes for a good year and occasional givings-in to purchases and work, work, work and once more teetering in killer stilettos and allowing myself to indulge in conversations with good friends and revisiting old haunts and entertaining dreams of Tory Burch bags and Anthologie shoes. =)

I am blessed, and for that, I am thankful.

Friday morning, half-awake

We find ways, or look for ways.

When the creaking of a door reminds us of someone leaving, of someone arriving, of a door opening for memories to come in, or go out of; when a half-open closet brings to mind a messed up life, or a recently-concluded fight; when an indentation on a pillow intimates a sleepless night, or sleepless nights, of dried tears from those sleepless nights.

We look for an open window to look out of, to breathe through, then look up and mumble a prayer for a swirl of wind to whisk the despondency away.

The Carpenters "I Believe You"

Since it's almost hearts' day and all, thought I'd share this piece of loveliness with you.

Indeed, few singers could rival Karen Carpenter's heartbreakingly beautiful alto. Melancholic, enchanting, delicate.

Have a love-filled week. =)

Thank God For Mothers

This week promises to be a real grind, as Kim's got the measles and I won't be able to take time off from work so I'll be jetting (I wish!) between the office and Makati Med, and this I'll have to do everyday, until the doctor decides that the little guy is fit to be discharged.

A blessing comes in the form of my mom, who'll be coming here all the way from Bicol, so the little one will have someone watching over him while I'm at work. This has me musing about the cycle of life that my mom usually speaks about: one day, it'll be my turn to do what she's doing, when my kids have kids of their own and grandma Shan'll be on call to watch over their little ones when Mom/Dad can't.

Can't wait for Kimpot to get well. He looks so wawa with those rashes and the discomfort of being sick.

When I am unable to sleep, I listen to this:

And the cares go away like leaves blown by some vagrant wind.
Listen to "All I Want" here.

Fixin'

There's something extremely satisfying about looking into a closet of neatly-folded clothes, I realize that now. Yep, after months of putting it off and pretending I could still find my way in the mess that was my closet, I finally hauled my lazy bum to fold, organize, fold, organize. It was getting kinda difficult to look for something to wear,  what with the unrecognizable mess my clothes had become. I took everything out and nearly gave up when I saw how much folding and arranging I had to do. But I knew someone had to do it, and I knew that someone could only be me.

So that's the news for the day. 

And, oh, let me leave you with a quote, straight from the mouth of the great Sen. Miriam Santiago: "that kind of ignorance could only come from a one-celled amoeba!" Such eloquence! Astig talaga si senator!
=D

This blog has become an incoherent mess.

Will be fixing it soon.

Sign of the times:

Dragon Dance passing by...

from the weekend couch:

Invictus


Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul. 


-William Ernest Henley

After all, the princesses in the fairy tales I read as a child must've had other things to do besides waiting for their happy-ever-afters.

Evening

The sky puts on the darkening blue coat
held for it by a row of ancient trees;
you watch: and the lands grow distant in your sight,
one journeying to heaven, one that falls;

and leave you, not at home in either one,
not quite so still and dark as the darkened houses,
not calling to eternity with the passion of what becomes
a star each night, and rises;

and leave you (inexpressibly to unravel)
your life, with its immensity and fear,
so that, now bounded, now immeasurable,
it is alternately stone in you and star.


-Rainer Maria Rilke

It's official:

Redemptions

or was the point always
to continue without a sign?
-Louise Gluck, "Matins"

I have all too recently realized my folly of letting things pass under my nose. Without me noticing them, without me giving them notice.

What a terrible, sad way of life it is--to wake up and go through the motions of one's day, to close one's eyes off to slumber without first looking at the stars and wishing on one, just because one has not wished on a star in ages, just because one has forgotten to, or ceased to believe in such things. Things like wishes, and stars, and blessings, and rainbows after rainy days. In even more intangible intangibles, like love, and faith, and hope. In believing that life is good, that there is much to be thankful for, despite and in spite of the daily toils, the unrealized dreams, the occasional hunger, the uninvited sadnesses.

But life doesn't cease to remind. And it has given me constant nudges until I learned to pay attention to things I have unintentionally taken for granted.

That there is a roof over my head, that I have a job that more than gets me through from one pay check to another, that I can buy the things I need and want, that I have a nose that lets me breathe, that there is air to breathe, at all--I am thankful. But more so, for the fact that I have a family who has never, ever abandoned me, come hell or high water, that I have friends who stay with me in good times and in bad, that there is grace that keeps on saving, over and over, and over again--for these I am grateful, happy to be alive.

May you have a blessed year ahead.

from the weekend couch:

from the weekend couch:

from the weekend couch:

I noticed that there haven't been much to see around here lately. Maybe it's the approaching holidays that's bringing in the sloth but I haven't been seeing much updates. Oh, well. Time to ho-ho-ho, I guess.

Ho-hum.

In the mean time, I'm looking forward to another coffee date with my brothers when I go home this Christmas:

Now that got me hankering for chocolate! This, in particular:

CRISPY M&Ms!!! Yummy!
*sigh*

(Random) Thoughts (as usual):

1. Nowadays, the pattern of the bi-monthly paycheck saying "hello" and, after a wee bit of time, "goodbye" has become so noticeable that it's gotten to be a basic expectation. (sigh)
2. I started reading a book almost a month and a half ago and I still haven't found the time to finish it. grrr
3. Christmas weather is descending upon us. I only wish the days weren't as scorching as they still are now, as the night breeze is such a welcome cool.
4. I'm so itching to catch the latest Harry Potter movie but haven't found the time to do do.
5. This is the first time in years that so many people in the office are grumbling about their 13th-month pay (me included). I just hope all those taxes are going where they should be going.
6. I miss my mom's spaghetti.
7. A list doesn't always have to have ten items on it so I'm ending this at seven.

Cinderella

The prince leans to the girl in scarlet heels,
Her green eyes slant, hair flaring in a fan
Of silver as the rondo slows; now reels
Begin on tilted violins to span


The whole revolving tall glass palace hall
Where guests slide gliding into light like wine;
Rose candles flicker on the lilac wall
Reflecting in a million flagons' shine,


And glided couples all in whirling trance
Follow holiday revel begun long since,
Until near twelve the strange girl all at once
Guilt-stricken halts, pales, clings to the prince

As amid the hectic music and cocktail talk

She hears the caustic ticking of the clock.

--Sylvia Plath

These days, I mainly just breeze along. With the minutes, with the hours, with the days. If you asked me now where my month has gone, I'd probably answer with a shrug, proof that time has, indeed, passed by without my knowing. My "days" end a couple of hours after the sun rises and  I am usually to be found outside, talking to a colleague, or two, with my mind really flitting away into wondering where the hours have gone and did they have to go so quickly, and had I done all I had planned to do when the day began? The weekends drift by too quickly, and I hate that it has to be that way.

Whether the breezing along is a good thing or not remains to be seen because I have a nagging feeling that it could very well be just one manifestation of my determination to detach from things and detachment, though it wards away hurt and disappointment, could also leave one cold, and unfeeling, and just plain lonely. There are two sides to most things, that much we know.

So, how've you been?

Ennui.

So jazz music is really a conversation

one eavesdrops on and it is of course a good kind of eavesdropping, though one could always choose to exert effort and pretend to be discreet as if the conversation isn't something one should be privy to. Either way, the

chatter between the drums and the sax and the trumpets and the piano and the cello and all that scatting

should perk the mind up into action so that one emerges more intelligent after the whole auscultating-slash-snooping thing, or more awake, at least, because all that exchange could only be more poetry than non-poetry

and poetry more often bestirs the brain cells than not, so it is, perhaps, safe to say that aside from a confabulation among voice and/or instruments, jazz is also poetry.

Blink/Blank

Mostly, I just stare, then blink, and realize there's nothing to write about. Scenes from my day, or my week, flash briefly across some blankness and then go away, just as quickly. I blink again and realize, once more, that there's nothing to write about. There's this germ of a writing project that's planted itself into my mind's soil that's been haunting me from time to time, though when I sit down to begin, I find that there's nothing there.

Even that last sentence was an afterthought (whose verity should not be discredited, however).

I should go away, one of these days.

Then I'll probably bring something back with me, something to tend that seed with.

Excuses, excuses.

The trouble

with weather forecasting is that it's right too often for us to ignore it and wrong too often for us to rely on it.  
-Patrick Young

Dedication to M

by Rainer Maria Rilke

Swing of the heart. O firmly hung, fastened on what invisible branch. Who, who gave you the push, that you swung with me into the leaves? How near I was to the exquisite fruits. But not-staying is the essence of this motion. Only the nearness, only toward the forever-too-high, all at once the possible nearness. Vicinities, then from an irresistibly swung-up-to place --already, once again, lost--the new sight, the outlook. And now: the commanded return back and across and into equilbrium's arms. Below, in between, hesitation, the pull of earth, the passage through the turning-point of the heavy--, past it: and the catapult stretches, weighted with the heart's curiosity, to the other side, opposite, upward. Again how different, how new! How they envy each other at the ends of the rope, these opposite halves of pleasure. Or, shall I dare it: these quarters?--And include, since it witholds itself, that other half-circle, the one whose impetus pushes the swing? I'm not just imagining it, as the mirror of my here-and-now arc. Guess nothing. It will be newer someday. But from endpoint to endpoint of the arc that I have most dared, I already fully possess it: overflowings from me plunge over to it and fill it, stretch it apart, almost. And my own parting, when the force that pushes me someday stops, makes it all the more near. P.S. Happy Birthday to: Friedrich Nietzsche, Michel Foucault, Italo Calvino, P.G. Wodehouse, and Mario Puzo. Libras, all.

I'm thinking that around eleven hundred dozen thoughts

must already have been in my mind and gone away and I never had one chance to really mull them over. Well, maybe a chance, or two, but the days have again blurred into so many yesterdays and I'm left with nothing to reign them in with. The world I know has been--and still is--afloat with five, six figures preceded by dollar signs, percentages, goals to be reached, action plans to put into action, a team to lead, differences to neutralize.

Numbers, numbers, more numbers. This is one of the great ironies of my life. When I was in school, I hated my Math classes to the core, but look what I have become now: an employee in a bank, munching on numbers for lunch.

But anyway, on my ride home today, I found myself grinning like a fool while in my head I danced to some cheesy 90's song from some juvenile girl band. It's been a recurring daydream, really, and it tickles my funny bones to no end, the fact that I get so much entertainment from watching myself performing, on stage, some really basic, corny, girly steps. And then the scene shifts to another dream sequence where I am Shania Twain and her "That Don't Impress Me Much" video is really my video and I'm wearing that leopard print outfit and I have red hair and I'm rolling my eyes at the rocket scientist, the guy with the hair kept in place by so much extra-hold gel and the guy who's really Brad Pitt. And I'm singing, of course. And then there's a shift again and it's still the same song but I'm singing it live, in front of an audience made up of the folks at work and I'm still wearing the same outfit and rolling my eyes.

Hmm. Whaddya say, could it be that in the deepest recesses of my subconscious, I have some delusional hope that I could become famous? The word is delusional. But, hey, we all have to take a break from our own daily grinds, right?

After all, it's really the light, seemingly silly things that help us get by.

Here

is never where there is and I am made to make do with what is in it: the two shoe boxes under the shoe cabinet, the coffee mug on top of it, the yellow stress ball perched so snugly on the mug's mouth, the film of dust on the ball, the nothing in the dust which can't be nothing but which I call nothing because I cannot see it--

Men With the Heads of Eagles

by Margaret Atwood

Men with the heads of eagles
no longer interest me
or pig-men, or those who can fly
with the aid of wax and feathers

or those who take off their clothes
to reveal other clothes
or those with skins of blue leather

or those golden and flat as a coat of arms
or those with claws, the stuffed ones
with glass eyes; or those
hierarchic as greaves and steam-engines.

All these I could create, manufacture,
or find easily: they swoop and thunder
around this island, common as flies,
sparks flashing, bumping into each other,

on hot days you can watch them
as they melt, come apart,
fall into the ocean
like sick gulls, dethronements, plane crashes.

I search instead for the others,
the ones left over,
the ones who have escaped from these
mythologies with barely their lives;
they have real faces and hands, they think
of themselves as
wrong somehow, they would rather be trees.


found here.

Brr

Walking in the rain (and I don't mean a drizzle) on a gray morning (and this is not some drama shit, I had simply forgotten to bring an umbrella, is all)

So it's the rain who ushers October in. I forgot who did for September.
It's officially windburn season for me. Time to stack up on lip balms again.

Thinking life

could be contained by mere words, you throw two into the air, carelessly because you were asked too soon for, well, something someone could live a day by, and without so much as a minute to consider what it is you will hand over, and because you have to go where you will be expected to throw out more words and catch them in return; you leave not knowing that when you come back, what you had so impulsively given will not take the form you had expected it to take (because where you had gone, you had time to form a notion of forms even if it meant shaping them in between, well, words).

From the weekend couch:

"Tonight, I'll show you how dreams are prepared. People think it's a very simple and easy process but it's a bit more complicated than that. As you can see, a very delicate combination of complex ingredients is the key. First, we put in some random thoughts. And then, we add a little bit of reminiscences of the day... mixed with some memories from the past...
Love, friendships, relationships... and all those "ships", together with songs you heard during the day, things you saw.."

And the cherry is the clincher

I am so not a beer drinker. Never did learn to like the taste. During nights out, 2 bottles are usually more than enough for me. I'd rather have a frozen margarita, though not all margaritas turn out to my liking, either.

Recently, I've discovered the perfect companion to my occasional happy hours with some favorite pals:

Plus, it doesn't make me drunk no matter how many shots I've had, and the cherry that comes with each fat glass makes me happy in some sweet, weird way.

Have you had a shot lately?
=)

And "Never Let Me Go"

Oh, oh, oh! Another film to watch out for!

Norwegian Wood

Watanabe and Naoko have come out on film! Unbelievable. I just hope Tran Anh Hung did justice to this lovely Murakami book.

And Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood did the music.
This is definitely something to look forward to.

Thank you, Ace, for the alert. =)

This dress, I love

I am such a sucker for tiny, girly dresses and I so love this one! I couldn't stop staring at it as it reminded me so much of my rustic childhood, hihi. I think I had a dress similar to this one when I was a little, little girl.
photo via A Cup of Jo

Moments and Nescafe (this post is not an ad)

The moon was a shining, round plate last Friday, and it was a shame that I couldn't linger outside long enough to admire it. Three minutes, and that was it. Why couldn't we have more time to just do things like that--look at a full moon, listen to the sound of chirping birds, savor a butterfly-on-our-shoulder moment? The to-do lists beckon too strongly. We really should add "enjoy the evening quiet" to it.

On a different note, I think Nescafe's "Para Kanino Ka Bumabangon?" commercial is really nice. Tugged at my heart strings the first time I saw it, as it made me realize that although we have different reasons for plodding on and facing the grind of the repetitive everyday, it really is the people we love we wake up in the morning for. I couldn't find it on YouTube, sayang.

Ikaw, para kanino ka bumabangon?

Because I'm too lazy to look up the synonym of random

Because I like starting my sentences with "because", I let it go at that. Even if the clock shows 8:19 a.m. and the bottle of my favorite perfume is nearly empty and I could hardly recall the stories I had told last Sunday night, or what I might have told if my umbrella were orange instead of blue. Or who would ever think it isn't really a book that's underneath the three books on top of my dresser but a planner that goes so well with how hard we all had laughed when we realized the tequila hadn't at all gone to our heads because sober is as sober goes as far as that pile of bags is concerned. So two pairs of shoes have died this month and I linked my arm around a friend's arm because, indeed, I couldn't bear to walk without mulling this thought over my head and it's forget-me-nots, my dear, not Deep Purple, or Carole King.

Night Cap

The discovery that you like cherries comes with the discovery of Tequila Rose and the lateness of both introductions hits you the way milk is painted pink by the right amount of red. Gentle. Subtle. Absolute. Like the finality in the absence left by all the cherries you had thrown away. Like the certainty held by the eyelids just before they shut into sleep.

Lit Geek update---

What I'm reading right now:

"...the great and saving lie--that our love for things is greater than our love for our love for things--"

from the weekend couch:

"So if I asked you about art, you'd probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. Michelangelo, you know a lot about him. Life's work, political aspirations, him and the pope, sexual orientations, the whole works, right? But I'll bet you can't tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You've never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling; seen that. If I ask you about women, you'd probably give me a syllabus about your personal favorites. You may have even been laid a few times. But you can't tell me what it feels like to wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy. You're a tough kid. And I'd ask you about war, you'd probably throw Shakespeare at me, right, "once more unto the breach dear friends." But you've never been near one. You've never held your best friend's head in your lap, watch him gasp his last breath looking to you for help. I'd ask you about love, you'd probably quote me a sonnet. But you've never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone that could level you with her eyes, feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you. Who could rescue you from the depths of hell. And you wouldn't know what it's like to be her angel, to have that love for her, be there forever, through anything, through cancer. And you wouldn't know about sleeping sitting up in the hospital room for two months, holding her hand, because the doctors could see in your eyes, that the terms "visiting hours" don't apply to you. You don't know about real loss, 'cause it only occurs when you've loved something more than you love yourself. And I doubt you've ever dared to love anybody that much." 

Synching

Facebook status for the day: "why is the moon so slight,/ And why does it seem that as soon/ As I locate myself, I move/ Away again/" -from "The Insomnia of Izumi Shikibu", by Mookie Katigbak

(insert roses here)

As if copious amounts of coffee weren't yet enough, you fix yourself another cup while trying to recall in which movie it was that the girl said she could never be with a man who didn't know who Dostoyevsky was or was it really a movie or was the girl a girl you knew and you realize the girl was you and the thought leaves you pensive and staring at the roses

painted on the cup

Thursday has spilled over

to Friday and now, technically,  it's already Saturday and I am still awake. We-ell, there was a nap of an hour and a half in between, but it almost doesn't count. Not complaining, though, except, maybe, for the shoe disaster incident last Wednesday, which I plan to write a separate post on--oh, but that was Wednesday and we're talking about Thursday. And Friday. And, oh yeah, Saturday, too. Oh, but this week has been fabulously busy and fruitful and now it's time for a fabulously long stretch of slumber.

Good night, my dears. Or good morning, if you will.

(owl flown in from this site)

from the weekend couch: