pathos

have you ever felt pathetic? like nobody listens to you? or that nobody cares? it's like everybody's trapped in their own hall of mirrors and you're banging at the walls, trying to get through to anybody who would listen. and it's always your fault. nothing you do makes sense. you're selfish, insensistive and uncaring. so you swear never to talk again. but nobody notices at all so it's just utterly pointless to be silent.

everything you do is an exercise in futility. you feel stupid and just want to curl up in a corner and die. but it's pointless because no one will notice you're gone. and if they do, it's still going to be your own damn fault.

you're screwed since you were born.

pathos

have you ever felt pathetic? like nobody listens to you? or that nobody cares? it's like everybody's trapped in their own hall of mirrors and you're banging at the walls, trying to get through to anybody who would listen. and it's always your fault. nothing you do makes sense. you're selfish, insensistive and uncaring. so you swear never to talk again. but nobody notices at all so it's just utterly pointless to be silent.

everything you do is an exercise in futility. you feel stupid and just want to curl up in a corner and die. but it's pointless because no one will notice you're gone. and if they do, it's still going to be your own damn fault.

you're screwed.

no roses

i don't want roses, r. i want the paper rose you made me from our first date. you rolled it out of silver cigarette wrappings from empty marlboro packs and used the cellophane to make sure it survived the giving. it smelled stale and the paper bud drooped to one side from the paper stem. but i loved that rose. i didn't quite know how to keep it because it would get crushed or boggled out of shape. i didn't want to press it between book leaves because i wanted to preserve it unflattened. i don't know where i stuck it eventually until it got lost somewhere along the way. but i loved that rose. and i get heartbroken everytime i remember it and i can't find it anymore. i love it still.

do you remember that crappy birthday card/poster/thing you made for me? you made it from scrap and bits and pieces of anything you could find around the boarding house. you had to make it after i left the night before and finish it right before dawn, when you knew i would be slipping out to see you fresh with morning dew. you posted it on the door so i would be surprised after my morning walk to your apartment. you felt it wasn't much but you didn't see me take it to heart. you said you wanted to impress me because you wanted to show me that you could make things too. it was the most beautiful and heartfelt card you ever gave me. not that i don't treasure every little thing you gave me afterwards, but that one, most of all.

i don't want the things you can buy me now. i want the things we used to count centavo coins for. i want the time we would spread a banig and a blanket on the rooftop and squint at the tiny stars through the manila smog. the night would be stuffy but it would be cooler up there. the cement would be warm from the summer day fast fading, but you and i would be comfortable with what we had. we would talk for hours unti there was nothing left to say. until the next day or until i had to go home. then we would count centavo coins again and share the coffee manang would serve us at the carinderia.

i want everyday again, walking senseless circles around the neighborhood, aimless wanderings and rambling musings. i want to hear you say you want to celebrate evolution again. you told me the history of mankind had only one point to make and we should celebrate it with how our hands were able to enfold each other's properly. fingers entwined, thumbs caressing, palms cupped comfortably. while we walked upright, talking, smiling. voila! eureka! the whole point of darwinian theory, explained! i laughed so hard and you just smiled, ear to ear. the dinosaurs died so we can hold hands.

i want that again. i want so many things. need and want are two different things, i know. but this time, need and want converge. i want those things, those times again, because i need them like i need you.

destiny-zero 7

When I'm weak I draw strength from you
And when you're lost I know how to change your mood
And when I'm down you breathe life over me
Even though we're miles apart we are each other's destiny

unsent letters 1

my dearest r.,

it was a couple of years back when someone else asked me the same question your eyes ask me when i catch you reading through my old things. in response to him, i strung up a few pretty words and breathed life into them, offering a salve for his wounded pride. but you, you are different. you ask me the same question but disdain the same answer. and i, in shame, do not know what to give you in reply. i don't want hollowed out prettiness disguised as prose or poetry for the richness of meaning behind my returning touch. so much words, inappropriate, they blur and erase true meanings. i cannot offer them to you, i can't bring myself to use them for you. they are not for you.

my heart breaks for something to give you, some concrete proof not resting on metaphysics and gossamer trailings. i want something you can hold up to the sky and say, "look, this is her answer!" and your eyes will burn with pride because you have something no one else has and i made it and gave it life for you. just like that someone a long time ago. and i don't want that for you. it is a small, pretty, petty thing that will fade away and collapse in the dust like countless other things like it in the ages. but still, of course, my heart breaks for something to give to you.

what do i have to give you then? i am sure you have a ready answer when i returned the question to you. and i am surprised at my surprise that your laughing eyes gave the answer away. do you remember? i laughed and the laughter escaped your eyes into your mouth and shot out into my waiting arms and waiting heart. waiting and waiting. and all our life together, we will be waiting for the answer to spell itself out in its rambling sentences full of complexities and conjunctions; spilling and over-spilling, defying all the rules of grammar and correctness that try to govern man's speech. and by then, when the punctuation marks are made, we would hold this thing and wave it above our heads for all creation to see and say: "look! this is her answer and mine!" and we will laugh and laugh and laugh because only you and i will understand; and our eyes will burn with pride and something else entirely because we have something no one else has. i made it and you made it and the life we gave it will never wink out of existence.

always yours, l.
___________________________________________________________________________________

note: an ex-lover once asked me why i never dedicated any poetry to commemorate his presence in my life. so i made him a poem of which i can safely say, was nice, but nothing exceptional. r., not once has ever asked the same question even though i can see he wonders how he would seem in the colors of my words. he reads through my stuff sometimes, when he thinks i'm not looking. and i relish the poking around, his curiosity, interest and examination. my finest work, to say the least, is not one i would care to debase with pretty words. whoever you are, dear reader, i am sure all this might sound terribly abstract. but trust me, you'll get to the bottom of it someday without realizing it (if you haven't yet). and as sure as r. and i are laughing about it, you will be laughing along with us.

wedding yada yadas

I'm at my MOH's (wedding slang for Matron/Maid Of Honor..naks!) yakking away about all and sundry things pertaining, and veering slightly off tangent, to the day.

Beggin' pardon, but it is one month before the big day! can you believe it?! So as of last entry, we were able to find a modista who had imagination. Get this, she was Ina Magenta's dressmaker! It's like the entire universe is getting in on the act! I can almost hear the cosmic ho-ho-ho's rumbling across the galaxy. Throw in angelic snickers and you get the idea.

Anyway, RF's typing the missalette as we speak. Hehe. Poor baby deplores his typing skills. He says he's on page 4 or thereabouts. I think he'll be done in time for September. Now if that was me, I'd be done by December!

The invites, sans print and frou-frou are in their envelopes, waiting to be gussied up and addressed. At least, everyone's updated about plans...sort of. hee!

Menu's just about done too. The cake, of course, has to be Estrelle's. Or else...as my cousin delicately put it. And I wouldn't want to be stabbed by a fork on my wedding banquet. Pinoy food with accomodation for the pork eaters, beef eaters, chicken eaters and vegans.

We also found these skirts for the flower girls. BARGAIN AT MARKET!MARKET! Hehe, got the last ones. Perfect.

Anyway, will update again later, this keyboard is killing me.

evidence and wedding bellz

five years in the making and we only have scant few pictures to show for our coupledom. we never realized it until someone asked if we were going to have an AVP of our "love story" at the wedding reception. iiiiick! *cringe* not that i have anything against wedding videos per se, but the moosh factor is just way above the limit for me. besides, there isn't anything (er...almost) that anyone doesn't know about us so, nevermind.

come to think of it, if we had a camera, we'd probably have a bazillion pictures of people, places and things we've had in our lives. dami na rin naming napuntahan. it's nice wandering around with the guy. anyway, inggit nga kasi mas marami na siyang lugar na napuntahan sa 'kin. and i'm the one who has the 'gypsy' handle. pfbbhht!

<--rf in houston, can you tell?

but it's okay, i guess memory isn't really lost. and it's definitely fun reminding eachother, and the people we were with, about the trips we took and the comedy of errors along the way. kahit walang incriminating evidence, you'll always remember.
baguio. two..three years ago?-->

anyway, the wedding plans are coming along...okay. we got most of the important stuff out of the way, like papers, seminars and legal stuff. we only have to pick up the marriage license and his confirmation certificate and we're good to go. we got the church and reception venue worked out and we got the rings too! nothing more to worry about but paying the balance of church/reception fees! aaaaaand...there's the small matter of the invites (which we're handmaking this weekend), the misalette and vows. and oh, our clothes. hehe. don't ask.

one month to gooo!!!!

splashing paint around

jonas threw me something to play with a few days ago and i enjoyed the chance to do something new for a change. coloring's always been fun for me. but i know i still need help with color coordination. that's why i stick to wearing sandals. no socks to mismatch..heheh! i'm still figuring out how to put in sparks on the superhero alter-ego. it has to be nice. if you want to see a bigger pic, jonas has.

o yeh, ate carol got colorfully made over too.

and then, stuff naman ni jac pinagtripan ko. wehehehe!

dinosauric

to think i'm supposed to be the tech-adventurous type according to my astrological profile! i've had this blog since 2001, but it's only now that i've mustered the patience and yes, the courage, to face the daunting task of journaling, blog-style! it took me three hours just to figure out posting my mug on the page, controlling how the entire thing would look and trying to get a word in edgewise while the thing tried to relegate me to a template-generic blog existence. well, template din ang bagsak ko. tequila something to be exact!

painful na my head!!! ouch ouch the blog-jargon, the templates, the scripting...joskoh! ANO TOH?!...journals were easier to keep back in the day. well. to my sister, that's probably "back in the day when dinosaurs walked the earth!". haha to the tech-savvys. the last time i tried figuring out these new fangled thangs was when i wanted to learn html. fine. i think i learned an entirely new dictionary of computer slang. just when i was getting used to my new found language, here comes java. the only java i knew back then referred to the brewed kind. then dhtml. and scripting. which is java and dhtml. you can say i don't know crap of what i'm saying because i really don't. i got lost between gotoandPlay (frame) and tweening. oh, tweening belongs to flash. i think i got tweening down.

isa pa 'yang macromedia na 'yan. i enrolled in a class to "upgrade" my marketability and became acquainted with flash 3 or 4. we got along pretty well. i was even able to make a small animated frame and a few bouncing balls that changed color. i got the A's to tween into B's and red apples. then came macromedia flash MX. all dem buttons and choices treating me with open hostility. i swear i hyperventilated just looking at the monitor. scary shit. my brain could not take all the information present. or maybe, i really have ADHD. too many details are scary for me. i dunno.

so here i am with swish. nice interface. simple. no formulae to figure out. all alchemical machinations with a simple click of the menu! heehee.

and then blogging sneaks up behind me to clobber me senseless. puuweht!

so this is blog..er...blogger.

well. we 'll see if this is the start of a beautiful friendship.