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some time back, i received this text message: it sucks how i'm only a footnote in someone else's love story.
it reminded me of another person i dumped, not too long ago. so here i was feeling post-break-up blues, only to be rudely reminded how i was a nasty bastard myself to someone else. not that the guy who dumped me was a nasty bastard; i didn't even know what he thought.
i still don't know what he thinks.
later this week i'll start working in ortigas. after nearly thirty years, it feels like i'm finally cutting off my ties from makati: first, by moving out of my parents' and second, by not working within the central business district. i still live less than a mile from the city i grew up in but it's a distance that further insists on separation.
i don't feel like looking forward to the next few months. the last two years to me have been gloomy and marked by a lot of separations. what i want to do now is curl up in a soft bed until i fall asleep. and i feel like i could sleep for a long, long time.
i really am tired.
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 in between hacking through the codes for drupal and figuring out how to fix some database problems (that means i have to figure out how the code works using code that doesn't work, find out what exactly doesn't work, and -- by some miracle -- maybe fix it), and thinking of how to raise money for the upkeep of the side-project website, there were other things i had to think of: renewing the apartment lease. pre-employment medical exams and job requirements. a missing person case. somehow, i still managed to keep a conversation with the recent ex.
we will be working for the same company and the same building. it's an odd coincidence: i'm moving there because the client i work for decided to move to another outsourcing company and the client wanted to bring in the tenured agents to the new location. i managed to get a satisfactory deal out of it, too. the ex applied for a post and was accepted.
and then the ex told me this other guy will join that company, too. that gave me a sudden sinking feeling in my stomach. this other guy is one person whom i don't wish too see again. i have one team-mate whom i refer to as anti-soulmate: i don't like him but it seems i'm destined to be stuck with him through several agonizing lifetimes. but anti-soulmate has not yet achieved that i-don't-want-to-share-an-elevator-with-you-i'd-rather-go-out-and-take-the-stairs level of dislike that i have with the other guy.
so like a lot of awkward things that could happen when talking to former lovers that you remained friends with, my conversation with the ex ended on that note.
but there's more.
ten minutes later, another ex sent me a message. oh great, a day of the exes. he found out about me transferring to ortigas from the more recent ex. no surprises there. i said it's okay, but the other guy will also be joining the company so that (to put it mildly) is a bummer.
talking about the other guy wore me out worse than working on 5 websites, so i decided to end that conversation. i half-thought that maybe another ex (i.e., the ex i don't speak to anymore) would suddenly surprise me. anything could happen.
that night, while waiting for the collaborators in the website side-project, the boyfriend said we shouldn't be seeing each other anymore. he doesn't think he's cut out to be a boyfriend. well, that is just a GREAT way to end a very surreal day.
so i've been dumped. again. we didn't even last two months. life is just wonderful.
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Saturday, April 4th, 2009
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the other night, while we were walking along dela rosa on my way to work, he compared himself to the dog-turned-human in happy ghost 5 (known to us as magic to win, the one that starred kris aquino). for the last 2 hours, he had been sniffing at me every couple of minutes, trying to recall how i smelled when we first met 3 days ago.
the day before that, he told me how, as he was about to fall asleep, he suddenly recalled my scent: "as if you were standing before me." scents are often difficult to describe precisely and he couldn't say what exactly the scent was like. was i musky or sweaty or damp? well, he made it appear like it seemed like a pleasant smell so i didn't feel too conscious about it.
i told him i'm not really a "smell" person.
i told him about his toes, how i noticed it was painted with clear nail polish because it shone with reflected light while we were lying on his bed, trying to sleep. when he said he frequents forums, i told him i knew that already: he had this manner of moving his fingers in the air while he talked, imitating using the keyboards. his fingers were long and delicate; i joked he probably doesn't do a lot of house chores.
he would frequently pout deliberately and grin to show his dimples.
we've been observing each other, you see.
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so the world screws you up so slowly in all directions and it's easy to see yourself as a victim and blame everybody else for not doing anything. and why am i writing like i'm going to a begin a self-affirming and inspirational essay?
i say fuck you world.
i'm not going down easy.
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Friday, January 23rd, 2009
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I bought 2 oranges on my way to work last night. I put them in my bag before I took a motorcycle from Fort Bonifacio to Ayala.
The driver I had was familiar. I used to get him often, when I still stayed at the parents'. He drove his bike like the wind: fast, effortless and exhilarating. He wore his hair long -- longer than mine -- which fell into soft curls to the middle of his back.
Recently he had his hair cut really short. Before I moved to Mandaluyong, we've become familiar to each other to the point of casual conversation and I commented on the new hair.
He asked me how long I've been keeping my hair and I said four years. He kept his for 15 years; at one point it even reached his buttocks.
"But I grew out of it," he said. "That was when I was still a bum." I didn't tell him I liked his hair.
Work ends at 5 in the morning but I stayed until mid-afternoon to fix some decors in the office. I finally went to the apartment to shower and change clothes. As I'm writing this, I'm in cab on my way back to the office.
Before I left the apartment, I emptied my bag, and guess what? The oranges were still inside.
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Friday, December 12th, 2008
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---
That took a few days after I deposited it Sunday morning (after I came from Pride). I left it, forgot about it, went on a two-day off, remembered I still had the camera with the guards all this time, forgot about it again, only to finally get it back this morning. That's the reason I have posted any of the Pride photos.
After I left the office, I waited for a bus in the usual stop I go to along Ayala, only to realize that buses were not passing by Ayala today because of traffice rerouting. Disgusted for not remembering it sooner, I went to two thrift shops near our building, found a pair of pants in one, then found out that I forgot my metal card holder which I left on a counter while rummaging my pockets for the camera's claim tag.
My Dog, when will it end?!
Of course I had to go back again to the office, ask if the guards saw my card holder (they did, happily, and kept it among the deposited items) so I was able to get it back.
Ladies and gentlemen: Blonde moment number 4 in twenty-fucking-hour bloody hours. Was there multiple interstellar collision in my star chart since yesterday that's causing my fate lines to go all wonky?
Too tired to take a bus, I first passed by an eatery and bought lunch as JV requested, took a cab and snoozed on my way back home.
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Wednesday, December 10th, 2008
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 He messaged me the other day, asking if he could drop by The Chairless Apartment and if I'd want to have drinks with him. I said, "Sure." I don't work on Tuesday nights and drinking would be better than doing nothing. I hardly have any money until Wednesday morning, and I wouldn't say no to someone offering to bring alcohol to my apartment. Well. I wouldn't say no to very nearly anybody.
Dar arrived with two liter-bottles of Red Horse. I had enough money to buy some ice so we're good with cold beer. We'd already started when Anton came; he finally met the "Daryll" written on the blue post-it note still stuck on the bedroom door. JV woke up from comatose some time later; it was a reunion of the original three guys who occupied The Chairless Apartment.
I guessed Dar was initially hesitant to see me. The last time I saw him, I delivered his things to his parents' house. It ended up with me storming out. Was that three months ago?
But I was not angry at Dar. I couldn't stay angry with that bastard for long; and by long, I meant longer than 10 minutes. "You went here when you learned I was ill," I told him. This was sometime after we broke up, and he surprised me by going to the apartment unannounced to give me meds. "I couldn't stay angry with you after that."
So we talked and drank our beer. He recounted how I played footsies with him that first night I stayed over at his place. "Right under my grandma's nose!" he pointed out. We went well beyond footsies that night. "Well, you let me!" I countered. "You could have stopped me but you didn't."
In the end, he spent the night in the apartment; he still had work in the morning and it'll take too long for him to get home. We slept next to each other. It was like the old days, except it's not like the old days. There were times things were a bit awkward, the way old lovers could be awkward when with each other's company. And three years of being together left a lot of marks and hidden compartments in various places in one's mind. Three years that ended like that could bring nasty surprises if one wasn't careful. But we had beer, we had fun and there wasn't drama from me or him. It was a good night for both of us.
He wanted us to stay friends. I could settle for friends, I guess.
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Monday, November 3rd, 2008
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 "It was inspired by a situation I saw a lot of my friends get in to. I really like reading magazines about science, you see, and when people fall in love, they make this kind of drug in their bodies so they become addicted to each other physically. "Nature makes things so that the drug lasts for three years, so if they're together they're just on a natural high. Nature makes sure that people get three years to sort out if they want to be together for life or not; that three years is a try out time. Then they wake up and it's a 'Whoops, what am I doing here?' kind of thing? Then they are forced to sort out if they love the person, like real love, or if it was just a trick. "I just read this article and I looked at all my friends since I was a kid, and I saw that it always happened after three years, it's so strange. You think you've never seen people so much in love and then after three years, like precisely, they ring the phone in the middle of the night and it's , 'Bjork, I'm coming over' and they come over and say 'I don't love him, what is it? I don't look forward to coming home anymore. What's wrong?' Then at that point I could actually say, 'Well listen, it's science.' "They get really hurt of course, it's this David Attenborough dilemma I've got, I really want to be him. Another completely different angle on the same thing is when you fall in love with a person, you think that might be the last time, that maybe you will never ever fall in love again, so it becomes a very precious thing to you. So you start showing the person you're in love with you're best side only and you keep all your bad parts in the bag behind your back. "For some terrible reason, for which I'm actually a bit pissed off with, is when you fall in love with a person you start to separate into two sides and you're only sweet with them. "So basically, 'Hyper-ballad' is about having this kind of bag going on and three years have passed and you're not high anymore. You have to make an effort consciously and nature's not helping you anymore. So you wake up early in the morning and you sneak outside and you do something horrible and destructive, break whatever you can find, watch a horrible film, read a bit of William Burroughs, something really gross and come home and be like, 'Hi honey, how are you?'" Bjork, on writing HyperballadFeedback, February 1996 |
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Saturday, November 1st, 2008
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found in jessica zafra's blog:Japanese man petitions to marry comic-book character
TOKYO (AFP) — A Japanese man has enlisted hundreds of people in a campaign to allow marriages between humans and cartoon characters, saying he feels more at ease in the "two-dimensional world."
Comic books are immensely popular in Japan, with some fictional characters becoming celebrities or even sex symbols. Marriage is meanwhile on the decline as many young Japanese find it difficult to find life partners.
Taichi Takashita launched an online petition aiming for one million signatures to present to the government to establish a law on marriages with cartoon characters.
Within a week he has gathered more than 1,000 signatures through the Internet. of course my first thought wasn't "what a loony!" but rather "where would i hold the reception?" -- you could have an idea of what my thoughts on these things would be. if only it could happen.
but the thing many readers tend to overlook on comicbook characters is that they are just that: made up characters that came to life in the mind of another writer or illustrator. a character, no matter how many faults the writer infuses in it, would always be perfect because it is meant to drive a story to a predetermined conclusion.
unless we're talking about american superhero comics here, where a succession of writers would sometimes have various takes on an existing character without minding continuity.
but i digress.
the most difficult thing about marrying a comicbook character wouldn't be how it will sign the marriage contract, although that would be a challenge. it would be whether the characters' authors should also be there on your honeymoon night.
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Wednesday, October 15th, 2008
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 ... i wish those who'd wear them would make sure they keep their feet presentable.
i was checking out this guy on the train the other day: he had an okay face. clean haircut. relatively good choice in clothes. i looked at his feet and he was wearing flip flops.
nothing ruins a fashionable pair of havaianas more than dirty toenails.
i am still undecided on what i think about the whole fashionable flip flops thing; i'm more into sandals rather than slippers, and at any rate i almost always wear shoes when i go out. but if one will be showing one's feet in public, one might as well exert some effort in ensuring that one's feet are clean and well taken care of.
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cold.
numb.
fruity.
frustrated.
wistful.
slightly occupied.
curious.