Pulse check

Weight: 97 lbs (gained 3 lbs from the recent week-long break from work)
Height: diminutive, still. pffft. hahaha
Books read: .5 (I know, right?!)
Movies seen: 4
Moves watched: 17
Hours of sleep missed: 76
Mood: ennui, extracted from determined resolution to detach from issue(s) causing chronic headaches, both actual and imagined
Number of (actual) headaches since last blog post: 4
Inspiration for this post: coffee date with girl friend
Girl friend's name: Celine
Celine's status: confused
Comparison with girl friend's status: same
View from the window: brown gate, neighbor's water meter counter, dried-up tree whose name I don't know
Plans for the near future: read the e-mails accumulated while I was on break from work
Tanduay Ice bottles consumed since general confusion began: 9 (so not an alcoholic, thank God, haha)
Closing in mind: a giant sigh, a shrug, a prayer for resolution of issue(s)

Jeanette Winterson, in the house:

"What you risk reveals what you value."  
(Written on the Body)


‎"You never give away your heart; you lend it from time to time. If it were not so how could we take it back without asking?" 
 (Written on the Body)


"The unknownness of my needs frightens me. I do not know how huge they are, or how high they are, I only know that they are not being met. "
 (Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit)


"I have a head for heights it's true, but no stomach for the depths. Strange then to have plumbed so many."
 (Written on the Body)


‎"I find pieces of myself everywhere, and I cut myself handling them."
 (Lighthousekeeping)


"I am good at walking away. Rejection teaches you how to reject."
 (Weight: The Myth of Atlas and Heracles)


"Hopeless heart that thrives on paradox; that longs for the beloved and is secretly relieved when the beloved is not there."
(The Passion)


"I have found that I am not a space where people want to live, at least not without decorating first. And that is the stubbornness in me: I do not want to be someone’s little home."
 (Gut Symmetries)


‎"He wrote on a piece of paper with his pencil.
Psychosis: out of touch with reality.
Since then, I have been trying to find out what reality is, so that I can touch it." 


"It's hard to remember that this day will never come again. That the time is now and the place is here and that there are no second chances at a single moment." 


"The body shuts down when it has too much to bear; goes its own way quietly inside, waiting for a better time, leaving you numb and half alive."
(The Passion)


"When I look at my life I realise that the mistakes I have made, the things I really regret, were not errors of judgement but failures of feeling."


"Perhaps all romance is like that; not a contract between equal parties but an explosion of dreams and desires that can find no outlet in everyday life. Only a drama will do and while the fireworks last the sky is a different colour." 
(The Passion) 


"I have a theory that every time you make an important choice, the part of you left behind continues the other life you could have had."
(Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit)


‎"What should I do about the wild and the tame? The wild heart that wants to be free, and the tame heart that wants to come home. I want to be held. I don't want you to come too close. I want you to scoop me up and bring me home at nights. I don't want to tell you where I am. I want to keep a place among the rocks where no one can find me. I want to be with you."



‎"I seem to have run in a great circle, and met myself again on the starting line."
(Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit)

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.

Overheard, over lunch:

A: This is really cool!
B: What is?
A: Waffle. Sevendust.
B: Whoa. You like that song?
A: I already told you, I fell in love with it the first time you let me listen to it.
B: Oh, yeah, I forgot...

...
B: But that's metal.
A: And so?
B: Okay. Okay.

...
A: Oh, look what's playing next.
B: What?
A: Aretha. Hahaha. From Sevendust to Aretha. Awesome.
B: hahaha. That's some eclectic shit you've got there.
A: Thank you for giving me this iPod.
B: You've thanked me a hundred times.
A: You know what this is? It's more than just an iPod. It chronicles the evolution of my musical tastes. Plus, it's the physical manifestation of your music and my music, blending. This iPod is us.

Awww.
Keso.

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.

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.

Some random stuff I want to write down today:

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

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

3. People come and people go.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Playlist

Thought I'd give you a peek at the 25 most abused songs on my iPod...

1. Lessons Learned - Carrie Underwood
2. Didn't I Blow Your Mind - Aaradhna
3. Lost in Space - Aimee Mann
4. 32 Flavors - Alana Davis
5. Boat Watcher - Cara beth Satalino
6. Mercy - Duffy
7. Criminal - Fiona Apple
8. Mad About You - Hooverphonic
9. This Strange Effect - Hooverphonic
10. I Would Die For You - Jann Arden
11. Pretty Baby - Vanessa Carlton
12. Coffee and Conversation - Joni Mitchell
13. Love Lockdown - Kanye West
14. Confide in Me - Kylie Minogue
15. 1000 Oceans - Tori Amos
16. Better Than You - Lisa Keith
17. Opelousas - Maria McKee
18. Samson - Regina Spektor
19. Any Man of Mine - Shania Twain
20. A Case of You - Tori Amos
21. Who Are You - Lea Salonga
22. Kiss From A Rose - Seal
23. The District Sleeps Alone Tonight - The Postal Service
24. Calling it Quits - Aimee Mann
25. Better - Regina Spektor


Maria McKee "Opelousas" video from youtube.

from YENTL

I am reminded of a thought that occurred to me after watching "Yentl": that if men were a little more like women, then more women would be happier and more men-women relationships would be worth staying in.

Earl

When my brother and I were small, we'd do what most kids do: fight like cats and dogs. And, like how it is with small children, we'd make up after a teeny short while and go back to playing as if nothing happened. Before that, though, I'd be my usual sumbungera self and tell on my brother to our Dad with a bratty "Daddy, si Earl!"

Earl, though, would do nothing of the sort--a sure sign of guy-ness, even at a young age. I would always be the one crying when we fought. And he would give in once he sees the tears streaming down.

Earl had really nice hair when he was a kid. It was fine and straight and done in a bunot cut, which made him look like a cute little pixie. Add the round eyes, small nose and heart-shaped lips, and the pixie look is complete. He was a cute child, period. Yup, cuter then me. Plus, he was sociable, friendly and diligent, while I was sulky, withdrawn and a señorita.

Portents of things to come, you might say.

Fast forward to today:

Earl (who's two years younger than me) has become my Kuya. He plays the role to the hilt especially with our youngest brother, Otom, and he's doing a wonderful job. He's very mature for his age and has proven himself dependable and level-headed, a complete contrast to my fickle-minded, idealistic self. His scolding (done with lambing, of course), I realize, is just what I need whenever I find myself in the dumps and choose to wallow in my tears instead of dusting myself up and facing whatever it is I have to face. He would talk some sense into my head and then I'd feel better, stronger.

The last time we talked, I found myself feeling immensely better, and laughing at the fact that my brother and I have had a reversal of roles.

The respect would always be there, of course, and the love. The presence of these two have kept us bonded over the years and over the distances. Our parents brought us up in a way that family ties would always come first, not because it is an obligation, but because it is something that is second nature to us. Love each other, our Mom would always say. And don't ever fight over such a shallow thing as money, she would add.

Today is my brother's birthday. He is twenty-six years old (gosh, can you believe that?). I can hardly believe it myself. He used to be six, even sixteen, for goodness' sake.

Time flies awfully fast.

Nothing Beats the Oldies

Caught a couple of old musicals on the Turner Classic Movies channel last Sunday:

1) Easter Parade (1948)- which starred Judy Garland (as Hannah Brown) and Fred Astaire (Don Hewes). Irving Berlin's "It Only Happens When I Dance With you" is such a lovely song, and so is "A Fella With an Umbrella," light and funny and sung by a girl and a guy, meeting for the first time and walking under the rain, sharing an, um, umbrella.
Some interesting tidbits about this film: The role of Don Hewes was originally written for Gene Kelly; the movie was the only collaboration between Fred Astaire and Judy Garland; and another movie (The Barkeleys of Broadway) was planned out for them, however, Ginger Rogers had to take the place of Judy Garland. Cool story, huh?

2) An American in Paris (1951)- an Academy Award Best Picture Winner, with Leslie Caron (as Lise) and Gene Kelly (as Jerry Mulligan). Nothing could compare to "Our Love is Here to Stay." The Gershwins are such geniuses! The movie was Leslie Caron's debut into filmdom (she went on to play the title role in Gigi, some years later).
One of the film's highlights, aside from its score, is a 13 minute uninterrupted "dream ballet," (described as "pretentious" by some critics) which cost half a million dollars to produce! Was wondering if the dance scene was ever gonna end, the first time I watched it.

Wouldn't mind watching these films for the zillionth time, though. Makes me feel like a child again.

The trouble with meeting so many people

(This little ditty is for my friends from Mortgage and Auto-Finance with whom I shared 24 fun hours in the Tagaytay Strat Plan)


There is no name that will suit this kinship

because truth is,
later at 7 a.m.
we all will have lost the nerve to:

sing like long-time pals
(who got drunk)
or laugh at our clumsy ping-pong
or outdo each other at poker
or laugh over small talk

or remember each others' names.

*This is so stupid! Anyway, what I really wanted to say is that I had a great time. c")
Looking forward to next year's!

Conan and Jay on the Rewind

And The Writers' Strike is finally over. (I felt the need to write it as a proper noun--it's become such a phenomenon over the past months, as most everyone will agree, and considering the effect it had on the American entertainment industry).

The great Conan O'Brien, without his writers but armed with his Harvard degree in History and Literature, managed to make do with slapstick, stupidly innovative gadgets and laughter-inducing brouhaha. His ever-reliable wit, not to mention his tall, lanky frame and cartoonish face crowned with that pompadour-like red hair, pocked with those beady eyes, that longish nose and those strip-thin lips (I have a feeling that one day, not long ago, he suddenly had this urge to strip off his mouth and sketch on a new pair of lips!) got him through those trying times.

And Jay Leno, undoubtedly my favorite among the three late night talk show hosts (I'm not much for David Letterman--there's simply too much sarcasm in his humor that leaves a sour taste), remained his old, hefty, understatedly funny self. He didn't have to resort (much)to antics and stuff; though without Conan's comical looks, his, uhm, sizeable chin and spectacularly down-to-earth (oxymoron, anyone?) way of delivering his punch-lines more than made up for the absence of the organized script.

So these two hosts have yet again proven that they are forces to contend with, and that they could stand on their own, much to the satisfaction of the late night talk show addict.

Reposted from my previous blog(s)

July 18, 2006
Nothing, Whatsoever

When I was a whole lot younger than I am now (yep, I feel old), my favorite weekend pastime was sulking and giving everybody that get-out-of-my-way look, barging into my room as if the rest of the house was on fire, plopping into my unmade, books-and-papers-and-whathaveyous-filled bed and reading myself to death, vegetating like a piece of broccolli (i love this veggie, by the way) left out in the sun until my eyes would droop and so would the rest of me (how convenient that a pillow is nearby and I can just get lost in dreamland and meet Eustacia Vye on her way to meet The Native, or, maybe, just maybe, the great Holden Caulfield himself). Whew. Long sentence, wasn't it? But where was I? Oh, Holden--no, dreamland? I forgot. Totally lost track of my thoughts. What was I writing about? Sulking, I think, or maybe something to do with being young? I am typing, typing, typing and I don't care if I am making sense, or not. Are the punctuations correct? Is my grammar okay? Whatever. The point is...well,the point is that I don't have a point. I am rambling and how I started would tell you what kind of a person I am. Or maybe not. I mean, the last book I read was like a week ago, and it's taking me ages to finish the great Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five. I remember reading Slapstick when i was thirteen years old and not being able to make heads and tails out of it. It was my dad's, by the way. Yep, the great Dad who boasts of not having gone through the Hardy Boys and going straight to Moby Dick, from whom I got my copy of Faulkner's Light In August which is still in my bookshelf to this very day, pages tattered and browning away and browning some more, and all. Where was I, again? Oh, yeah, Slapstick. Fast forward to seven years later: One of my favorite English teachers, Prof. Thelma E. Arambulo (she says she hates her first name, but a heck of a woman she was!) tells us, her English majors-- and by the way, Contemporary American Lit just rocks!-- that the great Kurt would write in bits of paper and compile them into a piece of work that is so incoherent it would have your eyes glued on to the pages until everything would make sense. Where are you, James Merrill! Theodore Roethke! You Beat poets! Adrienne Rich! Omigawd my punctuation is so downright sloppy but I don't care I'm writing can't you see. I wonder, why this difficulty with Slaughterhouse Five? I mean, I read The Hours, Mrs. Dalloway and An Invisible Sign of My Own (which I bought at a booksale for a hundred and ten bucks and turned out to have been autographed by Amy Bender herself!) in a span of, like, four days. Is it just laziness? Is my brain deteriorating into something awful? Is it Vonnegut? The answer to this is: I don't know. I really don't. And I still don't know what my point is. I have no idea what shape this entry is taking. And, really, why is it called an entry? Because you enter the words into the keypad and they pop out into the screen? Who first thought of calling it an entry? Did it have, in any way, a likeness with how James Joyce started using the word epiphany to mean something else other than the feast of the three kings (were they really kings?)? I am so lost. Other words/names to think about today: canon, pathos, incoherent, James Thurber (where in the world can I find a book by him, aside from the UP CAL library?), lunch (or breakfast first?), sleep. Yep, sleep. I think it's lack of sleep that got me started, lack of sleep that made me go on, and on, and on. Stop. This is so much fun I'm dozing off.

October 27, 2006
From Billy to Randall

Correction: It's AIMEE, not Amy Bender. Sorry for that. I happened to look at my bookshelf this weekend and saw the mistake I had made. A whoops! moment, right there.

Slaughterhouse-Five was a real blast! Yes, I have finally finished the book, and managed to swallow Faulkner's As I Lay Dying in between. Now, S-5 (that's what I've taken to calling it) is about this guy named Billy Pilgrim who's become unstuck in time (sounds so glamorous, doesn't it?) and gets abducted by the Trafalmadorians (hope I spelled that right) who, by the way, are a group of aliens who have taken a keen interest in the human race. Now, what the book implies(or what I have gleaned from it, whichever) is that Billy began to have these hallucinations (they could just as well have been real, for all we know) after he survived the 2nd World War (why does this phrase always have to be in caps?), the climax of which (in Billy's experience, at least) was the bombing of Dresden, Germany. Slaughterhouse-Five is the name of the structure which housed the Americans (Billy included), and which miraculously escaped the bombing (yep, it was supposedly that disastrous).

Now, what am I doing? I am boring myself to death. I didn't come out here to give a summary of the book! No way! Go and read it yourself! But why should you, right? Why the @#**#$% should you read a book written by some guy (sorry, Vonnegut fans. No insult intended, none at all) who had nothing better to do than write a book about some crazy war survivor who had, in turn, nothing better to do than walk in and out of time zones?

I am so incoherent. This is what non-writing (is there such a word?) does to people who used to write like writing was breathing. And so I have taken to coming up with patches of script that I am hoping would turn out to be worth this page, anyhow. Or your time. Now that was downright smug. I mean, am I really writing this with the thought that someone would even care to read it? But then again, there's always the zeitgeist, the invisible audience (reader, whatever) one has in mind when one is writing. I mean, come on, give me that luxury, at least! The only person I'm pretty sure would read this is the friend who gave the book to me. So, there.

Well, back to Dresden. Reading about the bombing made me remember Randall Jarrell, a contemporary American poet who was a fighter pilot during the WWII, who wrote about what it was like to be up in the air and just fire and fire away at a piece of geography (it mustn't have seemed real to them, at all, just a part of the map they were ordered to annihilate). That there were people being killed, living beings being shred to pieces by the ammunition raining like fire from the sky-- these would hardly have occurred to them, at all, at least while they were at it. What Jarrell's poem ("Losses," that was the title) seems to be pointing at is the unreality of what was happening, to them who were no more than just pilots with an assignment. What was real enough must have been what came after, that moment when the task is done and they land and hear about it from the news, look at the photo spreads of the ravages of war, the deaths, the shattered limbs, the ashes. And then they say, or think: Hey. That was me. Us. I did that. We did that. And then the sadness. The ache of guilt. And everything else.

I have no idea how to end this. A period would, I think, have to do for now.

So there.

Questions Bored People Answer (got this from Gabby Lee's blog; title, mine)

1. Were you named after anyone?From Chanson D'amour (a Lettermen song) and from Vanessa Redgrave, the actress
2. When was the last time you cried?last Monday
3. Do you like your handwriting?I don't think much of it. Although several have complimented it.
4. What is your favourite meal? fried galunggong with sinangag and a dip of toyo with calamansi. yum!
5. Do you have kids?Jacqueline Louise, 8 and Joachim, 6
6. If you were another person, would you be friends with you?The probability is high. I gravitate toward weird people.
7. Do you use sarcasm a lot?Depends on who I'm talking to. With Myton and Kane, yeah.
8. Do you still have your tonsils?Yes.
9. Would you bungee jump?Never. I don't see the point.
10. What is your favourite cereal?I don't like cereal.
11. Do you untie your shoes when you take them off?I wear pumps and sandals. No sneakers for me. Except before, when I used to run. But yeah, I untie the laces before I take them off. (Sorry, long answer)
12. Do you think you're strong?
My opinion of myself varies a lot.
13. What is your favourite ice cream?
Cookies and Cream and Double Dutch
14. What is the first thing you notice about people?
whether they're like me or not (talk about self-centeredness!)
15. Red or Pink?
Hmm. Tough one. But I think I'd go for pink.
16. What is your least favourite thing about yourself?
My arms
17. Who do you miss the most?
Daddy, Mommy, Earl, Otom, Mama
18. Do you want everyone reading this to fill it out?
Sure.
19. What colour pants and shoes are you wearing?
Right now I'm wearing an over-sized shirt and I'm barefoot
20. What was the last thing you ate?
Ensaymada from Shopwise
21. What are you listening to right now?
It Never Entered My Mind by Miles Davis
22. If you were a crayon, what colour would you be?
Apricot
23. Favourite smells?
Coffee, warm croissant, frying garlic, frying bacon, my new body wash, Victoria's Secret Secret Crush (my scent forever), Clinique Happy (for women), Liz Claiborne's Curve Crush for men
24. Who was the last person you talked to on the phone?
Kim
25. Do you like the person that sent this to you?
It wasn't sent to me. I snitched it from Gabby's blog.hihi.(thanks Gabby!)
26. Favourite sports to watch?
None, really. But lately I've been forced to watch wrestling (!) because my best friend is a fanatic. And I mean fanatic.
27. Hair colour?
dark Brown.
28. Eye colour?
Wish I could say hazel. But no. They're black as black can be. haha
29. Do you wear contacts?
Nope.
30. Favourite food?
Adobo, Fried Tuyo, Chicken macaroni soup, pizza, carbonara, Glazed Donut (Go Nuts or Krispy Kreme), Garlic Bread, Baked mac, mac and cheese, sisig, churros (whew! now I'm hungry)
31. Scary Movies or Happy Endings?
Neither
32. Last movie you watched?
Intruder in the Dust (it's this old film adapted from Faulkner's novel)
33. What colour shirt are you wearing?
white. with a blue print that would best remain unspelled (is this a word?)here.
34. Summer or winter?
Summer
35. Hugs or kisses?
Depends on who they're from. :)
36. Favourite dessert?
Gloria Jean's Choco Macadamia frap
37. Most likely to do this quiz themselves?
people who like to talk about themselves (haha!); people who have a lot of time in their hands (like me-- I'm hibernating right now)
38. Least likely to respond?
People who have better things to do
39. What book are you reading right now?
What Was She Thinking? (Notes on a Scandal) by Zoe Heller
40. What's on your mouse pad?
Coffee stains. Haha
41. Favourite sound?
Miles Davis, Jackie's and Kim's voices, Doorbells (not buzzers)
42. Rolling Stones or Beatles?
Beatles

From BLOGTHINGS

Hey, there! Try going to www.blogthings.com for some fun stuff. You could really get hooked, though. I can't believe I spent 2 hours in that website! Well, here are some of the things I found out about myself (some true, some not):

label: HOW'S YOUR INNER CHILD?
answer based on questionnaire: Your Inner Child Is Sad

You're a very sensitive soul.
You haven't grown that thick skin that most adults have.
Easily hurt, you tend to retreat to your comfort zone.
You don't let many people in - unless you've trusted them for a long time.

label: WHAT KIND OF FOOD ARE YOU?
answer based on questionnaire: You Are Chinese Food

Exotic yet ordinary.
People think they've had enough of you, but they're back for more in an hour. (mmm...)

label: WHAT'S YOUR PORN STAR NAME?
answer based on questionnaire: Your Porn Star Name Is...
Tight Cherry (haha!)

label: WHO'S YOUR CELEBRITY STYLE SISTER?answer based on questionnaire: Your Celebrity Style Twin is Mischa Barton (nice!)
Funky, bohemian, and girly.

label: WHAT TYPE OF WRITER SHOULD YOU BE?answer based on questionnaire: You Should Be A Poet (hah!)

You craft words well, in creative and unexpected ways.
And you have a great talent for evoking beautiful imagery...
Or describing the most intense heartbreak ever.
You're already naturally a poet, even if you've never written a poem

label: WHO SHOULD PAINT YOU?
answer based on questionnaire: Salvador Dali

You're a complex, intense creature who displays many layers.
There's no way a traditional portrait could ever capture you!

label: WHAT MYTHOLOGICAL CREATURE ARE YOU?
answer based on questionnaire: You Are a Mermaid (really?)

You are a total daydreamer, and people tend to think you're flakier than you actually are.
While your head is often in the clouds, you'll always come back to earth to help someone in need.
Beyond being a caring person, you are also very intelligent and rational.
You understand the connections of the universe better than almost anyone else.

So there. Try it, folks!