Love's (Inevitable) Logic?

After all that sleeping, scurrying, squirming --- I finally resolved to cease the searching.

It’s almost obligatory, to speak of this spell of bliss December brings. A charm carried by the cool, December breeze, like a soothing spirit. Like booze snaking down your throat.
It leads the leaves to a dance, along with the curtains, the mist of the incense. There’s always a delicate movement that never seems to stop.
Makati burns aglow with a million light bulbs.
Everybody’s pockets are full. Everybody’s extra kind. Everybody’s spending a lot of money on alcoholic stupor. Every year, I think I speak of the same fucking thing.

Love’s (Inevitable) Logic? The only logic of love is that it cannot be found where it does not exist. After all that sleeping, scurrying, squirming --- I finally resolved to cease the searching. Perhaps I made this decision too early, but I’ve already felt that she has no love for me and I can’t love her anyway. So there is no point in persisting. To my surprise, it is more liberating to tell someone that you do not love her. And so I do. And so I am. The dashing dates are good for show and there’s some fun but it’s really solitude that counts.
Love your loveless piece of fate.

Six Feet Under, A Week Of. Viewing around two or three episodes right after the shift, I finished the entire first season after a week. It’s amazing how a drama series with so much death, corpses and morbidity just relieves any grief left you have in the crevices of your body. I found myself sobbing every fifteen minutes, and laughing every twenty. Allan Ball is a terrific screen writer. Or maybe the dialogue is a bit too clever. Too clever, but also too real. Claire goes: “I wish that once, people wouldn’t act the clichés that they are.” Or “Is that the only option? Go to college, get a job, be a good consumer, until you drop dead in exhaustion?”
I stand in applause after each episode. I’d like to thank the Pirates of Quiapo for letting me afford the complete first season DVD set for 240 pesos. The best thing 240 pesos ever bought.

Morning Shift. Once in a while, it helps to experience what it like is to work on a regular day shift, like normal people do. When the skies stop glowing, you can have beer and pizza with officemates. You can sleep at night. This job has been too easy this month. There’s so much slackering involved in each shift that I’m wondering why they pay me. At least the say it will be more challenging this January.
In addition, weekends off are such a blessing. Like I always rant and rave about. Recently, aside from Greenbelt 3, the Racks in Valero is a wonderful place to be during Friday nights. It starts off with an acoustic band with a violinist, the some raggae music for the bonehead men, and bare-backed, stiletto-heeled women of the crowd.

I think it was my high school literature teacher and mentor, Mrs. P., who told me that people are at their most honest when they’re drunk. I’ve always wondered if this holds true, and why people are always apologetic, after they’ve lost all temperance, for their actions they’ve taken and confessions they’ve given in their inebriated frenzy.
H. is back in Manila, briefly for this Christmas season. Last night, together with his UP friends, we met at megamall. I had a beer while they were dining. We headed to Greenhills for bowling, and to El Pueblo in Ortigas for a few more drinks.
We bought a lot of fancy beer lat the 7-11 then headed to the house in Panay, where we had a few more drinks so much laughs, singing, and conversation.
And I slept all day Saturday.

It's December night alone at home, and I found some of my father's red wine. It's open but it's barely touched. I almost finished it. I had a little cheese on the side. Red wine warms my insides and blood rushes through knees.
Sometime while I was drinking, a cat sneaked into our house and happily feasted on a fish left on our dinner table. I saw what remained of the devoured fish, scattered on the dinner table. It’s like a corpse on the crime scene. A little mouse ran across the room. It’s 4 am and the neighbor’s German Shepherds are barking and wailing. Something strikes me, remembering how drunk I was last night. And then I felt afraid. I felt afraid of anything that just moved.
I’m afraid of what I’ve said, or what I might say, or think once I’m drunk again.

Psychoanalysis and the Project 2&3 Jeepney Ride

Hank Chinaski thought of seeing a psychiatrist. But instead of paying to see a psychiatrist, he had a few drinks and ended up having an imaginary psychiatric session.

Same Shit, Different Job. I’m basically just back in the game. I’ve been with ____ for a month now, and I’ve somehow transitioned to the job’s routine --- basically the same graveyard lifestyle I lived before. Only, it’s a little less stressful, despite the longer working hours. There are no definite sanctions, glide paths, and processes are less defined. I’d say that the performance metrics are loose. An enormous bulk of the calls are rejections from the respondents --- but there aren’t any escalated calls and I am finally rid of the irate callers that used to make my teeth chatter in horror and make my heart beat out of my rib cage. Breaks schedules aren’t strictly timed, and there’s a lot more room for slack.
It’s a relatively easier workload with a slightly lower pay. It’s just more mind-numbing, or as ___ would put it, a more “bobofying” job.
With the smaller crowd at work, I couldn’t be anonymous like I planned to. In truth, I’d have to keep my distance and try to shroud myself in the crevices.
I don’t regret quitting __ and I’m truly happy with that decision. This new job is almost the same shit but it’s pretty much all right.

Is this it? I can’t admit that this is all I can be. All my dreams have dried up but I can’t just let life drag on like this, despite the fact that I am living comfortably, or I’m able to dispel my desires.
I still ride the cab on the way to work. Unlike before, I now make an effort and I avoid the small-talk with taxi drivers. I’d rather keep the silence. It’s like diving into this transcendental state to my Jairus-Jason-at-work mode. How can I explain the fact that while I sit on the passenger seat, I secretly wish that I could sit there all night, drive around the city and marvel at the orange tints of the city’s sodium vapor lamps? As early as October, the capiz Christmas lanterns and custom made, dancing light displays are sold on the sides of the Buendia-Osemña highway intersection. Even worse, I’d like some bomb to explode in some uninhabited building.

In the recent medical check-up (as part of my pre-employment requirements,) my blood pressure was at 110/80. I took Approvel that morning. My right eye reads 20/70, and that’s probably one of the reasons why I get dizzy spells. I have better vision on my right eye.
Or maybe, I’m being blinded by conformity.

New Improved Room. A king’s ransom on the Wharfdale 8.4 diamond set up that enables Dolby 5.1 surround and even Digital Theatre Sound features. There’s a even a subwoofer whose vibrations on the floor also serve as a rat repellant. Time has become unnoticeable in the room since all the windows are already blocked off, and despite my graveyard shift, we’ve created ourselves an artificial night in the room. There’s even an entire rack devoted to the accumulating number of DVDs that I wouldn’t have time to rant and rave and write about about, or sometimes I don’t even have to time to view them. I’m not even able to distinguish the distinctness of the room’s smell since I’ve placed eucalyptus leaves, vanilla scented candles, peach tea incense gardenia tea lights and calm water for the oil burner. Sometimes, usually Sundays, I remove the heat insulators that block window, to look at the tree and let some light in.

Friendster and Blogs for Breakfast. Upon arriving home on mornings after work, I gobble on the breakfast my father prepares, while reading the papers. Also part of my morning rituals would be reading messages, accepting and reading friends, creating and approving the ego-stoking testimonials on friendster --- “the next greatest fad after SMS.” I signed up on Friendster last September, upon ___’s invitation, and now everybody’s just jumped into this friendster frenzy. Aside from seeing people (at least online) that you somehow lost touch with, what interests are characters with excellent pictures on the beach with bios that flaunt themselves as “kindered souls.”
I exchanged messages with this incredible character that just completely upturns your stereotype for self-obsessed fucking “fashionistas.” How can someone who looks like a page out of Cosmpolitan Magazine tell me that about the purpose of life and what her dreams are:
“As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.”
and:
“i dream of phoenixes rising from the ashes soaring above to touch the sunset that intertwines with rainbows. I dream of a murder of crows crying tears of blood that turn into rubies sparkling in the vast oceans that turn into bittersweet wine...”
There’s a certain gratification you receive in doing this.
Aside from Friendster, there are blogs to read. Blogs are evidence that real life is better than the movies sometimes. Many of the journals are surprisingly well-written, in a language so sincere and honest they just sweep you. Reading the sadness in the other people just mitigates your own sadness. People are also so fond of showing-off and publicizing their whining. You can now gaze at the very specific events which are not too displaced from the truth, and organically prove that loneliness is universal. Sadness and whining is just something to be exhibitionist about nowadays. Although these blogs aren’t exactly tailored to a literary sense, it also passes off as entertainment, best read while listening to Aimee Mann and Coldplay during Sunday mornings.

I think I’m likely to fall in love with my ideas about people, than people themselves. Jairus Jason is fucking delusional.

Going Out with 18-year-olds. After you hear all her stories, it gets pretty fucking annoying. Pretty girls aren’t the answer to your problems.

Psychoanalysis and the Project 2&3 Jeepney Ride. I’ve been working for ____ for over a month and I haven’t even completed my pre-employment requirements. One of the requirements is a neurological exam which obligates me to visit a clinic in Kamias. I used to often Kamias, and this rather uninteresting place has such power over me. I was in high school or early in college. There were a lot of first times. It all comes back to me when I’m around the place.
So one bright noon I rode the Project 2 & 3 jeep again to prove my employers that I’m not nuts, and neurologically fit to work. Expecting heavy traffic on the commute, I brought Charles Bukowski’s Post Office as company. It’s a book I thoroughly enjoyed, and even related to, even though my lifestyle wasn’t that transient. As one reviewer puts it, “His language is the poetry of the streets viewed from the honesty of a hang-over.” That, with horse races, whores, and classical music.
While I was on the jeep, I read the part where the character, Hank Chinaski, thought of seeing a psychiatrist. But instead of paying to see a psychiatrist, he had a few drinks and ended up having an imaginary psychiatric session. Hank solved his problems by analyzing himself, and saved money.
Upon arriving in the clinic, the doctor wasn’t there. Her secretary told me she had to attend an emergency session with a patient who gone gaga on the spot.
I ended up eating at the McDonalds in Kamias, where ___ and I used to hang out. I should’ve saved all that time and money and just psychoanalyzed myself.

Inebriated Ice Skating. The not-so-yuppie-friends from various call centers, as ___ puts it, went to a posh place called Ponticello (where we usually have drinks during the mornings since booze is half-priced.) Each of had a lot of laughs and five to six bottles of beer. From some weird angle, ___ promoted Blast internet cards that showcased a free hour of ice skating in Megamall.
In our inebriated state, it made sense to go ice skating in Megamall. We swung by the bowling alley and had another pitcher as though to make sure we were drunk in the rink. Although I could still skate, we bounced like pinballs over the rink. We crashed around two hundred times. I was in office attire. I haven’t had such spontaneous fun in a long time.
My legs and knees were so sore the following night, I had to miss work.

Wide Screen, Flat Panel Dreams

My older brother gave me a tip on how to make a dream come true, or perhaps how to make it less costly. You can buy a TV at the port area for nearly 1/10th of the cost. I thank the Japanese for shipping out what they might’ve thought as crappy surplus appliances, and the streetwise Filipinos at the Pier who sold what we consider out here in the third world as “luxury” items. I’ve been dreaming of having a flat panel, wide screen TV and I gawk at the showrooms at the mall. Although it didn’t meet my 40” minimum, and it wasn’t flat, it was the closest I could get. It made conquer yet another little dream.
With my one-month hiatus from working, I’ve somehow achieved all these little dreams, as well as my whims, even caprices. All these nights out, all the money splurged on food, dating and booze. I nearly drained the savings account.
I’m inclined to feel empty now that I’ve had the little dreams I have left.

Slacker Incarnate Ressurected

A flood of images, a torrent of poetry is waiting to be worded. My cup has not been emptied of passions. And there will be time to break this mediocre silence.

My resignation took effect last September 4, 2003. It’s official. I have become the bum I have dreamed of becoming. The world is conquered one little dream at a time. I have no schedules to adhere to, no prescribed life patterns to follow. My only occupation is to be a slacker incarnate, a pathological dreamer. It isn’t too easy to do what I’ve thought I would accomplish before I resigned. I wanted to decongest my mind and let an influx of ideas enter. I thought that’s how I’d figure out what I really want out of life, or what to do next. It will come, but it won’t come in a heartbeat. Despite all the time I have in my hands, this bumming around business provides a lengthy list of exhilarating activities that you can’t do them all in one day. It seems that you’d never run out things to do, even as a bum. I only have a little dough to live off though.
On the first night of my resignation, I stayed in the office to say goodbye to some friends and co-workers. Although I often doubt the earnestness of human relationships, I have to say that I have developed an attachment with some people in the office. And yep, I’d really miss some of them. And I’ve learned a thing or two about life, or about the travel industry, about contact center operations, customer relations management, about the travails of office politics and office gossip. Or maybe there was a friendship that made an impact in my life. I treated the e-mail team to pizza, and wrote them a rather sentimental farewell letter. Although most of the letter was sincere, some of it was merely just touchy blabber, flavored with nice-sounding words. What really made my day was the way many of the people in the team sent me their own thank you e-mails, and sent the entire e-mail team their thank-you. Many of them responded, including team supervisors, with many other thank-yous and congratulations. Someone probably thought of sending a glad-to-finally-be-rid-of-you. One of them even shed a tear.
But I should not shed any tear, or be nagged by any guilt. I’ve longed for this. This is one of those abysses that I should jump into.
There it was. My first job after college, the launch of my so-fucking-called career. Two years and two months of my twenty-two year lifetime.
Sometimes, life does tend to make an automatic reconstruction of itself. I think it was my April 2001 calendar, on my post-college limbo, when I asked myself one of the most important, life-shaping questions of all, which I have to ask myself again:

What the fuck now?

While in that limbo in between this job or the next thing to do, here I go again with the plans I’ve hatched.
Jairus Jason, M.A. Philosophy. The third term starts this coming January. That’s three months away. This translates to three more months of bumming around. Yummy. The upside to this plan is that I will have an undertaking that I am profoundly interested in, and something that would pass off as my passion. My thirst for knowledge will not remain unquenched. I'll have a lot more intellectual intercourse, or even have something legitimately scholarly to say. I can live a life of learning, and come close to teaching Philosophy for a living. Since I’d only have to take a few units, there would be room for some spare time, for everything else to savor in life. Besides, this was part of my original plan when I was 15 or 16 years old or something. The big downside is that it will be difficult to have a steady source of income to maintain a-little-bit-more-expensive lifestyle. For the meantime, my immediate, non-intense plan of action is reduced to reading another history of philosophy book.
Jairus Jason, Anonymous. As if I were not anonymous enough in this world, the other attractive option is to just find another job and become just anonymous – and have my little, easier pleasures. I want to be in those shoes again, like when I started out in PeopleSupport. It comprises of just working in the day/night, and having a little life after work. I’ve set my time limit to working in _____. I told myself two years. I should sustain the perspective, in this little existence of mine, that something else must be worth doing, and I will reap some significance. I should also say that I was already happy that I’ve worked there. Unless I remove myself from that comfort zone, I will never land on a higher plane. I’m sure I’ll find something else to do. I need to pressure myself to find something else, and beneficial part of that pressure requires that you bum around a little. Money is a secondary consideration. I just want a job that is less stressful, something that would give me more time to my own, maybe something I’d enjoy more, something different from my previous job, a new environment of people who I can afford to be anonymous with. That’s a charming idea. I miss solitude, I miss the me who has been – eccentric. Work at _____t has welded me so much with people that I can’t have that eccentricity and solitude.
Jairus Jason, Failed Writer. A co-worker told me that since I used to write e-mails for a living, I should now write for life. As a bum, I can finally found the time devoted to long hours of reading. I haven’t cropped up any new story ideas, and it has been thirty three thousand years since I’ve produced a truly legitimate creative output. Since I started working, I wrote two or three bad poems. But with all this time in my hands, the wisdom gained, the learning that surrounds me, the fascination that fills me, the spectacles dazzling my eyes, the sounds that serenade a rusted soul into recovery, smells, tastes, must come together and mesh into something edible, something to feed the soul and resurrect a writer’s dying voice.
Like the Genesis, writing could be done out of boredom, or loneliness, the way god created man, and man demanded woman out of god. Creation demands for something to come out of you, something that enlivens and enriches. A flood of images, a torrent of poetry is waiting to be worded. My cup has not been emptied of passions. And there will be time to break this mediocre silence.
If all else fails, I’m a failed writer.

How does the slacker incarnate’s day go by? It’s like having a day-off everyday.
Monday, 08 September. At the start of the day, I read a few chapters of “The Reader,” (which I'll want to talk more about later on) then made a second attempt at watching a French film called “Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train.” This film is incredibly dull. It’s unbearable. I can’t last this movie. I always sleep on it, attempt after attempt of watching. I woke up to lunch and saw “Almost Famous” again. It tells us to be “unmerciful when you write.” Tell the truth with all its warts and dark spots. Write about the gore, the embarrassment, the sorrow and inevitable loss. It just made me think that this is what makes writing real. At night, I head to Greenbelt 3 to watch ___'s gig at Kidd Creole. H., J., ___, _____, ___, ____ and ____ were also there.
Wednesday, 10 September. Finished reading “The Reader.” The book starts with recollections of a 15 year old’s love affair with woman two or three decades older. The story moves into how their love transpired, and was almost lost, or almost endured. It’s an endearing read that raises questions about morality, the incapacity of justice to bring judgement. It’s a story of how even if love may be denied or abandoned, it can outlast everything as if it were never lost. The first time we love, is always the one that lasts. I kept thinking of the first time I loved. Some people only love once in their lives.The story that just draws you, despite characters that seem passive and undemonstrative. The book achieves a terrific literary sense and even philosophical substance. I love how the reading and bathing came before the lovemaking – and how this was sustained throughout the story. I love how he was obsessed with her smells, which I could almost smell, myself. I hate how he would never smelled her that way again, or ever love again. After the read, relishing and reviewing it, I go to the gym for some limb-stretching and running running running. I spent the night helping out my brother and his classmate on their thesis, while having a little drink.
Thursday, 11 September. A perfect day for slackering. HBO movies, Friendster, NBA live all day.
Friday, 12 September. The previous evening, I started reading a terrific play called “Last Order sa Penguin.” I’ve been itching to read local material again, and I’ve fulfilled my craving. I’ve read this while listening to my growing chillout playlist, and taking it steady in a room whiffed with the smell of burning perfumed oils. I finished reading the book in one sitting/lying, until the early hours of Friday morning. I laughed like a hyena on this book. I slept a little and woke up in the afternoon. Went to the gym again, which has become an every-other-day habit. It’s Friday night is as seductive as usual. Met up with ___ at Greenbelt 3 and just had drinks around at Vodka Ice Bar and Absinth. The original plan was to party at Wasabi. It was too early so we headed to Bistro 110 first and downed a few more bottles. At 1am, we were at Wasabi and went home whirling.
And so it goes. The Slacker Incarnate days go by. Everyday must involve something even slightly interesting, like watching Filipino flicks to blissful sonic trips with new CD buys at UM (most recently: Hed Kandi’s latest Winter Chill, Radiohead and Smashing Pumpkins.)

What all this time is, is what I should take I advantage of in my status as a twenty-two year old bum with some means to play around.
All these --- her hand on mine, soft waists, flesh crashing, pretty faces --- was a curiosity I merely missed.
I am at the height of my selfishness, so when something is demanded out of me I resign to the aloneness I have happily adapted to.

Between September 22-26, I spent a lot of time being extensively interviewed by an Information Technology company with vacancies for a start-up division in their Marketing Department. I never thought it would be this quick to get a new job. So much for all that “what-the-fuck-nows?” “What-does-it-all-mean?” stages and “What-the-fuck-should-I-do-with-my-life?” questions I’ve been asking myself. I haven’t had the ultimate, best of bumming around but with my paranoia I feel that the savings account is quickly draining and I don’t think my parents would be too happy with my slackering for over a month. I considered the location (PBCOM tower) and it was a within the block of the Makati office I previously worked, nearer the loading zone, only with less of _____'s friendly environment and a slightly older crowd. This paid just about the same salary. I’ll be a pioneer in a start-up Marketing department division. It guarantees weekends off Business casual was required. I just had to bite the offer, which was the first to come along. I think I really did well in the interviews. Maybe I just got too piqued about not having a ready answer when people ask me what I’d do next. Perhaps I wanted to prove myself that I’m marketable in terms of filling out job vacancies.
And I got hired. Work starts again in two weeks. Now it’s only like affording yourself a two-week vacation leave and starting from scratch again.
I didn’t think of it too much and just jumped at the chance, not to mention how I joined myself back again in working life’s loop, less than a month after I left it.
I’m not even writing my thoughts on it since I’m already suffering a long journal lag and so much has just been happening.
But that’s it. Later, I’ll be too old for just about everything I planned on doing back when I was young. What the fuck are plans for? I’d be repeating all the clichés I’ve advised myself, ranting the same rubbish, blabbering the same bullshit, philosophizing the same philosophies, typing the same words, hitting the same keys, thinking the same thoughts, hearing the same music, living the same lifestyle, yammering the same complaints, having lost touch --- all as though I’ve already rehearsed for the life I’ve lived.
Months from now, the prophet prophesizes: I’d ask myself,

“What the fuck am I doing?”

The Existential Sunday Comics

And then I long for the ending, like how we all secretly wonder how our own life would end. Jean Paul Sartre said something like this before...

Thursday night. I went to one of my officemate’s birthday parties. The celebrant was part of the group I went with to Gallera and ___ didn’t have a date so the timing’s perfect. This was a Makati bar that’s frequented by a good crowd. We did have a good crowd that night and you recognize some of them from college. They all looked posh and snobbish. Once you meet them, they are not even snobbish and posh. They’re merely boring, yet often pretty good-looking. Nowadays, the ladies just dress better and better, and become less and less interesting with their rather generic characters. What is there to chitchat and chew the fat about but hows-your-career now or who-you-goin'-out-with?
We had to wear red cloths on our arms so that waiters can recognize the ones who can get free beer. A week ago, a group of around 200 young soldiers wore red armbands during their brief revolt in Oakwood, Makati. I admire their candor for exposing the anomalies in the Army, for standing up to stress their good point in a way that is literally more explosive than firecrackers during New Year’s Eve. Pilosopong Tasyo would’ve commended it. And now it’s also a party fashion statement.
I got all boozed up with the free flowing beer. I joined a few officemates to North Park for a food binge.

Existentialism in the Sunday Paper’s comics section. Of all places. Calvin and Hobbes had always been existential. I have the slightest clue why children are given access to this type of literature. Nietzsche once said something like, of all animals man was the most sorrowful that he had to invent laughter. Now, children just laugh at the most inconsolable human tragedies, or dilemmas shown in Calvin and Hobbes:

“We’re each going to die, our species will go extinct. The sun will explode and the universe will collapse. Existence is not only temporary, it’s pointless. We’re all doomed. And worse, nothing matters.”

This morning, Calvin and Hobbes philosophizes again:

“The secret to happiness is short-term, stupid, self-interest.”

Last week, I’ve resolved to quit my job. I don’t know what to do next. But Calvin is right. You can even translate it to cliché’s: Time flies and life waits for on one.
With this short-term, stupid, self-interest, I’m going to be happy.

Tonight, I’ve been distracting myself from those thoughts and went for the usual terrific dinner alone, then a movie.

Even ants must be tired. Monday would’ve been uneventful, it if isn’t the official day I filed my resignation. I just stopped whining and stopped worrying and just pulled the trigger and jumped the abyss. Self-indulgent as it is, I’m very flattered that my supervisors are still urging me to stay and pep talking me into staying. Nothing much happens in the office except to endure work. Except perhaps, those excellent moments of having laughs with officemates whom I’ve grown a fond closeness with, and enjoying the chillout music which you get to hear sometimes. And there’s a lot of HBO movies to watch at home. My leaves were approved already. One more month. One more month and I still feel drained about working until my 30th day of notice.
Even ants must feel tired. This tired.

Breakfast with other officemates. Breakfast with officemates became more frequent ever since the McDo in Paseo opened. It’s cheaper and closer than the usual North Park. Only, the fucking breakfast stories are perpetually the same. The same calls, issues, accent slurs, and despise for other office mates. The same shit in different versions, which I’ve been hearing about for the past two years. Eternal recurrence must be real. What can I expect? I can’t just change the subject of conversation to the dichotomy between philosophy and literature, or what they think would be the most feasible interpretation of human evolution.

It was St. Dominic’s feast day. Earlier in the afternoon, life dragged on as usual and I was in Greenbelt, having coffee and trying to touch base with a former officemate. She was pretty, pretty interesting with an even more interesting fashion statement. A med school student in UST who went to Ateneo for her undergrad. We had the usual see-you-again-soon. It was Friday night off and I met up with M., DN, and R., for a drink. I was on my fifth or sixth drink when my younger brother called me and told me in a shaken voice, that they were in the hospital.
I was drunk, and it made me feel it less as I absorbed this sorry event. We all stayed in the hospital until the morning.
I wasn’t there when it happened, but I’ve heard about the story around one hundred two times. The usual crowd was gathered in front of the house at around 11 pm to head off to the Friday night gimmick. A group of five robbers armed with .22 and .45 caliber handguns presented themselves as policemen, ranted that they received a complain from our neighbors, and the bastards just started to ask for everyone’s bags and cellphones. My brother protested and one of them pulled the trigger to his chest but the gun jammed. The earth must have stopped. Another one of them shot a .45 to his leg. They fired two more shots, probably in a frenzy, and a .22 bullet hit my cousin’s back. It went out through his left arm instead of his chest, as though fate blew it’s own auspicious wind to keep them alive. The robbers ran rapidly to their getaway car: a taxi named Exodus. Even moments have their allusions. No one caught the plate number. Nothing was taken, but a lot changed. It’s an ammunition of sadness, anger that turned to despair and paranoia. Everyone thanking everyone for being alive.
My brother and my cousin managed to still humor everyone else about what happened. Yes, we still had a lot of laughs when we were at the hospital. Even God must have a sense of humor.

I saw Hannibal with my brother when he was already back home to recover. Lecter tells us to be grateful for the wounds, for they possess the power to remind us that the past is real.

At the back of my head, I’ve always tried to prepare myself for life’s blows, especially for the more fatal ones. I’ve hadn’t seen anyone close to me have a brush with it until now. It fills you with so much of that raw fear that you fear even writing about it. You can feel your heart beat out of your ribcage. I’m thankful that our family was able to bear this blow. Today, I throw my faithlessness away and thank the Saints who gave heed.

It one of the nights I spent at the hospital, I read the entire book of Job.
I spent most of my 7-day vacation leave at the hospital with my brother and my cousin. Some nights, ____ and I watched videos at home while having a drink or two. I even managed to see an exhibition in Cinemanila. The incident kept my mind off thoughts about my recent resignation, which would be effective next month.

The bumming-around, in-between-jobs period is the time to decongest my mind and let an influx of new thoughts enter, and finally let other things to happen.

I went DVD-shopping again in Quiapo with O. Depending largely on what’s available, I usually get something such as:
- A classic I haven’t seen before (e.g., The Piano, Singles)
- A recently-shown, acclaimed movie, recommended by a friend I can trust with for discerning good movies (e.g., 28 days later, Animatrix)
- A good laugh (e.g., South Park)
- All time best movies (e.g., Fight Club, Amelie)
- Pornography
- International films I haven’t even heard of. I usually just experiment on anything with Cannes Film Festival nominations and awards, or fimiliar director's names: Krystof Kieslowski, Pedro Almodovar, Lars Von Trier, Gus Van Sant. What ends up as the best DVDs on my little collection are mostly comprised of these festival films.

Last night, after catching up on sleep, I treated myself to a burger, and even cooked fried rice with Onang at three in the morning. I took a shower while having a beer. Hot water splashes down to me and cools me down as the cold beer slides in to my throat. After the shower, I saw the film I bought, even though I haven’t heard of it before. I just thought the name Gus Van Sant sounded familiar. Besides, this one wouldn’t be too strange since it had Matt Damon on it, and he was a co-writer. But what was there to write in this film anyway? It has the most useless plot: two friends both named Jerry goes to the desert in search of an unspecified “fucking thing,” decides not to search for it anymore. But when they decided not to abandon the search, were already lost in the desert. Throughout the film, they just looked for the place where they parked their car. “Hey Dude Where’s My Car?” was funny, and this wasn’t. The DVD’s jacket pledged visual breadth. The film opened with the shot of a car moving a long the empty highway for a full five fucking minutes while playing a sound song you’ve heard in some soap opera. Most of the film shows them taking dreary walks in the desert. The only visuals were sand, clouds, the endless sky, rock formations, which weren’t even too fascinating, or wouldn’t be striking enough to make you spout a big “wow” like you would when you see the Grand Canyon. Only fifteen minutes of the film had a musical score.
I thought about this film again, and beyond its story, or the lack thereof. And I thought I saw what all the visuals and what this rather existential plot tried to convey. Two hours of a film where virtually nothing happens with its ridiculous plot and preposterous events (like how they survived the desert without food or drink for almost three days) must tell me something. It was all a visual exaggeration. An existential story for Kafka TV. After the first thirty minutes, I started to really enjoy it.
This is a movie that makes us think our own thoughts, of dressing it with our insights and tossing in our own metaphors instead of spilling breathtaking special effects on the screen, or adding zing to it by putting lots of sex, then box a message somewhere in the dialogue.
I have no objections about what this film seems to tell me. We go through life searching for an unspecified thing. We turn our back, and we’re lost.
And then I long for the ending, like how we all secretly wonder how our own life would end. Jean Paul Sartre said something like this before. We either die and leave people behind, or the people who matter to us are the ones who die and leave us behind.

In Fragments

Running, again. Perhaps there is really a lot to run away from.

I followed my mother’s advice to work out and exercise. Mothers are often right. Before my body turns into an entirely lonely lump of fat, before my heart fails after a cardiac arrest, I have to run. I even enrolled at a gym at the Pan Pacific in Adriatico. I like taking walks at that part of Malate, then running on the treadmill for a few kilometers, 30 minutes on the stationary bike and 20 minutes on the transport relieves stress. I’m not counting on losing weight, but together with consistent medication, this has definitely improved by blood pressure. My muscles must be pleased to be flexed. The gym-crowd consists of older ladies with tattooed eyebrows and a lot of time, and middle-aged men in their mid life crisis. Inevitably, there are pretty young women with great legs on short shorts and those little dumbbells.
The workout makes sleep come easier after work. And more importantly, it lets me run.

There’s a jeepney strike today and people are all over the streets with no means of commute. We could all use a little walking.

Thursday afternoon, in fragments. Met up with ____ again, and walked around Rockwell followed by a rather joyless meal at Jollibee. Met up with ___, downed a few bevies and ate pesto pizza at Sidebar. Drank some more at home while watching Y Tu Mama Tambien with ___.

Friday, in fragments. Off to the gym again. A little reading at home while listening to a long chill out playlist, calm water burning. Met up with ____ at Café Adriatico for one drink, the young women of Friday night activating the party mode. There’s not a decent heterosexual place to dance in Malate. Now it’s gay people marginalizing heterosexuals. Temple in GB3 for a beer while ____ had her cosmopolitans and her dancing. I went home and found ____ and ____ drinking with my brother so I drank some more… A.V., her girl and my older brother arrives and we drank some more. I sleep a couple of hours. Rockstar’s on HBO, La Salle wins a game in the UAAP. ____, _____, and _____, hangs out at home for an hour before I run to the showers and prepare for work. Slept all day Sunday. Burned out and toxic at work.

The Alchemist Conceded

Without dignity, without meaning, now is that time to just drift. Like a needle swept by the sea.

This must have been how the alchemist felt when he conceded that lead couldn’t be turned into gold. Even earlier in my life, I’ve already realized that the philosopher’s stone cannot be found. In this part of my life, that feeling is in full blast. Now I’m feeling all this meaninglessness to the bone. Could there have been dignity, or meaning in the search? I feel that I’ve totally given up on that quest. Without dignity, without meaning, now is that time to just drift. Like a needle swept by the sea.

While everyday is a reality check, there is time to watch really good DVDs of acclaimed international films, or read books that retain the dreaminess in me. There are days off to squander a fortune on Greenbelt 3 to watch movies at 130 bucks per ticket and two hundred bucks on cinema food.

I spent some of my days off with H.’s housemates, (the P. crowd) along with some high school friends. "Our own Palm Springs," H. said, alluding to Coupland's Generation X. This is our early 20s, so it goes. I missed how music sounds so much better when your senses are stimulated and your consciousness semi-heightened. I missed how easier it was to perceive yourself as eloquent despite the senselessness of what you are saying, whether or not the senselessness turns into accidental genius.
___ so brilliantly persuasive yet unacceptable: that poetry was futile and senseless. She defended her ideas with a nonchalance that embarrasses any rhetoric born out of passion.
___ says, “we all want to rule the world but end up working in call centers.” We remember Fight Club. “You are not a unique and beautiful snowflake.” We all wanted to be movie gods and rock stars, until we resign to become the nobodies that we are.

Ultimately Selfish Determinism

Full of character, familiar to happiness, used to loneliness, examined so many answers but left blank, as though the world conspired to answer only with question marks.

I long for lyricism amidst all the mercantile prose of work.

On the weekend of my 22nd birthday, I went back to Subic with my brother, who will be working there all weekend. I’d like to thank him and his company for the ride and accommodations. I spent so much time alone staring at the open sea while having a drink. The only inconvenience were the mosquitoes, pestering you during nights at Scuba shack. I shouldn’t have worn shorts. I took long walks around Subic, and for the first time in my life, went to the beach alone. On a number of occasions, I thought I’d approach someone. But I guess I was too determined by this happy aloneness. All this time alone with nothing to do but savor Paella and grilled squid on restaurants by the beach during afternoons. Sunlight sparkles like a million diamonds floating by the sea. A salty breeze wafts as you drink watermelon shake or as you light your cigarette. The best part of it was sleeping in the hotel all day, in long, long, hours. And of course I was able to affirm that at the moment I was in love with myself. It’s more difficult to dredge up the past now and remember exactly what I thought.

It would have been difficult if things took the route where I persisted on loving someone else. But then, without bitterness, without regret, I have chosen the ultimately selfish end. And I’m glad I did. I would find out, later on, that there are a lot more endearing smiles and dazzling eyes. Very quickly these faces came and went, all to become faceless again.

At the beginning of May, I made an instant decision to join my officemates to Puerto Gallera. Despite how weary we were of work, and how literally tired for coming off the shift and going straight to Batangas and the ferry to Mindoro, my officemates seemed never tired of partying all night squeezing fun out of the weekend. I’ve never seen such determination to be happy. There were a lot of people on Puerto Gallera on our first day, since it’s the Labor Day holiday weekend. The beach was crowded with ladies in their bikinis and bare legs and backs, and nincompoop guys in their board shorts. When the ferry arrived at White Beach we were greeted by other officemates who were already there. All my officemates simply looked better if they had nothing but their bikinis on. Accommodations and food on Gallera were extremely cheaper compared to Boracay. We got them for a really good price, after a little effort. All bars sold beer at thirty bucks a bottle. The beach is not so pristine and the place had lesser character compared to Boracay. Some of the bars played Chicane and some chillout, most of the music were hip hop and R&B. It was more of a party place. Nonetheless, the beach was not much of a hype but still beautiful, and with our crowd it was so much better. And the parties here lasted longer. My officemates never tired of dancing. There was the usual fruit shake by the beach, the massage, banana boat rides, barbeques, seafood and kebab. As we swam in early mornings, had lunch and swam again in late afternoons, there was barely enough time to sleep but still managed to drink again at night. After getting drunk, we lie on the sand and stare at the stars. There was also time to meet someone new. One of my officemates brought a friend with her. I had a few drinks with them during the afternoon, while everyone went dancing to “In the Club.” We shared a common inability to dance. While everybody else got drunk and danced all night, we took a walk. This is the part of the movie where the dreamy music fades up and the romance swells – or at least I took it that way. We met earlier that day. It was beautiful – how she was thin yet she had round features. You know she’d grow up some more to reach that full bloom. She had a snobbish air hanging with her. We talked and drank together on the beach. Later that night, while taking our stroll, she lay her life open and told me her story. I listened intently. She’s the only child of a rich family. Her father has planned out her career for her. She probably has never made a deliberate choice in life. Never had a boyfriend but was also interested in a hunky Filipino-Canadian whom she met in Pravda. They have a house in Canada, and she lives in Alabang. She’s geeky, she supposes, but goes to Pravda a lot. Strikingly stereotypical daughter of the Filipino elite. Not too long ago, I’ve given up my dream of becoming Pepe having her Carmen Villa. In this case, class struggle robbed all the romance I had left it me. When we got back to rejoin the group, her friend remarked, “Where were you? We thought you got kidnapped.”

On the way back home, the ferry to Batangas made me mentally draft my last will and testament. We laughed off the strong waves at first, but as we moved on the passengers were calculating the ratio of available life jackets. As early as noon the waves were strong and boat tilted to as much as a 45 degree angle. In an attempt to assuage our fears, I held hands with an officemate who was sitting on my lap and wrapping her arm around my shoulder. On another occasion, I would’ve been turned on. As the wooden boat docked, I couldn’t dislodge my balls from my neck.

Another summer ends well.

No matter how we choose life, we continue to live a rather passive existence. I remember how walks along La Salle, Ayala, CCP and Nakpil, the books in the library or in Powerbooks brought me such bliss. It made all the absurdity manageable somehow. It made me embrace it.

Does life slowly dip into a quiet desperation, as you grow old? I already imagine my walks along Valero, Paseo, Ayala and Greenbelt, when I find myself in a different spot from where I walk now.

I’ve slept for only three or four hours everyday for the past week. I can’ return to sleep anymore after having my first four hours. My mind’s too distracted to concentrate on reading. I end up getting drowsy over the smell of the room’s burning scented oils, or get too lad back and loungy with Chillout music. Work hasn’t been the hassle it’s been, but has become very demanding. It keeps me pretty occupied. My off is two nights away. I’d like to watch good movies, go to the theater, gobble cheeseburgers, read all day, write all day, get to have dinner and coffee, funny and profound conversation with Nietzschean quips and occasional existential angst or deconstructive art, books, and movies, in these excellent restaurants. Would it be asking too much if she looked like a celebrity?

I look around my room and realize how all chilled out I am and how I hand-picked my lifestyle based on available resources, however I still often feel blank. Full of character, familiar to happiness, used to loneliness, examined so many answers but left blank, as though the world conspired to answer only with question marks.

I love how paper absorbs thick fountain pen ink then dries up, like how memories become indelible and permanent.

Nowadays, everybody seems to dream of just being conventional.

Potentially Meaningful Chaos

I have lost my faith very early in life, and Philosophy has led me to believe that everything is just possible yet I cannot believe in anything or in any of these possibilities.

Life must have some way of letting our choices, wishes, or even our whims win over our own inexorable fate. There is no organized way of explaining this. I have lost my faith very early in life, and Philosophy has led me to believe that everything is just possible yet I cannot believe in anything or in any of these possibilities. I now have a more crystal understanding of why many had just chosen to decorate their lives with love or deluded themselves with a so-called passion.
Looking back into how I have lived thus far, I could say that I will be willing to die tomorrow. Even though life is just beginning everyday. I can’t even say that I still have any dreams left. Even a flat panel TV and a handful of supermodels. I’ve already realized I can live without those.

This realization has been made concrete when ___, after we had a few drinks at Sidebar and went off off to observe the splendor of the stars in the Universe at Miss Universal. He asked me what my plans are. Of course, I didn’t really have any plans hatched for the future. Perhaps all my self-expectations have now fully diminished. I used to have it all figured fucking out. Now I’m a walking fucking cliché. He told me to make them along the way. I wonder how that really works. Like that classic cliché, cross the bridge when you get there. Where is the fucking bridge?
The universe, with all its suns and milky ways --- this entire existence, is all a potentially meaningful chaos. More often, it has been tragic.

Palm Sunday’s Coincidence and Nostalgia. I started reading Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Another serving of magic realism, and everything Garciamarquesan is the perfect read for these summer months. This is the kind of read that completely absorbs and becomes an indelible pigment in your memory, as the summer heat scatters its kisses on your skin. And that smell of the crisp, yellow, bound pages. Perhaps I am merely trying to re-live the summers before, since exactly after that, I’ve lost love and graduated and took on work. Since then, I think I’ve said it before, how I felt like hibernating, as though a long winter of life has passed.
I am burning with nostalgia for those summers, and thus I try to re-live.
Is it not coincidental; Jeremiah de Saint Amour died on gold cyanide, and thereafter, Dr. Juvenal Urbino died falling off a mango tree, on the same day? Now, as I scan the pages of a book I’m having this big time dejavu.
How do I explain the consistent fact that the neighbor’s German Shepherds not only bark loudly but also howls, cries as though it were tormented, every time the clock strikes 4 AM? O. thinks that a specter visits this part of Malate. Must they have habits and schedules?

Even in dreams, all this chaos must have some sense.

I love watching the neighbor’s huge tree dance with the wind during afternoons while I read, and listen to my play lists. Especially when the streets are silenced on a Palm Sunday, and another holy week, my favorite week, comes into my life.

Everydayness

Everyday there is everydayness. Everyday ho-hum. Everyday humdrum. Every fucking day.

Summer and a stream of consciousness. Maybe I was too lazy to even put my thoughts into focus, to establish these words into a more telling order. Someone once told me the writing in the form of stream of consciousness is superlatively effective. Everyday there is everydayness. Everyday ho-hum. Everyday humdrum. Every fucking day. What is it? What is it that I would I live passionately for? What death would make it all justified, and not everybody dies like a hero or a martyr or remembered after a few years except when someone throws a death anniversary ad in the Obituaries with masses heard for even in the most unheard of parishes in provinces? Only death is forever. What is my creative output? My meaningful pursuit? My happy remembrance? Who would be there to embrace while remembering the remembrance. To embrace in my bed while watching my DVDs. This stuff is simply more effective when you’re all boozed up and you are not too conscious in writing in a stream of consciousness. But not too drunk last time with D.N. when my drunkenness ended up asking for the number of the mini-skirted waitress. Bastard. Only to never even call. I love to juggle words and be redundant and the sound of an assonance. I have not done free association for a long time. Perhaps I am afraid and I’d censor myself. Keep it all bottled up and until it explodes nuclear. All these for the sake of having an entry this month. To whittle the worthlessness of it all. To cease time, and encapsulate it. To flow liquid and non-linear through time and just slide through the past and the future and the now and maybe emit all that boredom. To throw this away, and hope to find the formerly barren land but now you have found all the things you’ve lost, like a lost umbrella. All that you have lost that is still part of you somehow. Never look back. Never look back to what you have written and think too much to ruin it. You will regret some of it later on, but would you rather not regret? What is my Truth? I’ve asked myself that like twenty seven thousand times and twenty-four more. Regret Nothing. You can never regret nothing. God knew it all. I’ve always wanted to write that God is the omniscient, cosmic encyclopedia Britannica. I stole that from the Alchemist. A book I hated because it became just too popular although it reminded me so much of basic philosophical themes and sounded like a Little Prince for adults. Although The Little Prince was anti-adult. And Holden Fucking Caulfield never grew to be twenty-one.Now I eat too much again and I love fried chicken and the nuts with roasted garlic that would’ve been honeyed in sweetness went dry and salty. I feel all right. Mozart plays again with quick classical music with the many notes. I am surprised how Microsoft Word finds my sentence construction grammatically correct and coherent. I lack more adjectives, and I do not draw much from the wellspring of images. More similes and figures of speech. More clouds in the sky, and some images that would’ve taken time to think of. Like, I would’ve written something like -- Mozart plays again with music with the many notes sprayed like gunfire in the hands of a killing madman --- only less aimlessly – as a matter of fact, dead accurate on hitting the keys, the piano played like magic in the hands of the supreme sorcerer. I could do that. Maybe I could write a collection of poems, and my or stories enriched by reading so many of those finely thought-of plots and fascinating images. But why have I not? Was I too busy rationalizing myself --- and me me me --- this “morbid self-attention” I have devoted myself to? “morbid self-attention” like I heard it in Scorsese's Taxi Driver. Is it true that so many things are happening in life and they also deserve to be cradled into literature: like how I take the cab at night and ride the bus every morning. Are all those for me? Would someone else take the time to appreciate it anyway? Weaving all these words into a beautiful fabric --- blinding your eyes with a wide sea of shooting stars or big round sequins from which it gently sparkles during these summer nights. Enriched with images carefully placed from raw abstraction into absolute sense, delivering a real sensation and a ponderous effect. How will the story end? Maybe cite something profoundly philosophical or, always smart to deconstruct something in what was done. Not obvious deconstruction, but one that takes figuring out and one that is delivered with a unique literary metaphor and an allusion --- to something like the book of Job in the bible, or incorporating the song of songs into a sexual act and deconstructing it, to answer the question – What are hierarchies do they reverse? I saw this recently in a good-enough Mexican film called “El Crimen de Padre Amaro.” “Summer and a stream of consciousness” sounds nice. I am tired of writing about the summer heat and the memory it brings, often delicious, rarely dismal, or the many sensations I could describe when summer arrives like someone’s lips scattering itself on my skin. Wow. I filled a page. This must be what it feels like to be a cigarette burned to ashes and butted out – with a thin white mist vanishing into thin air --- and feel its emptiness.

This month is the month of Mars, the god of war. This month came with war. It is as though history and mythology and this symbolism is something that is truly alive and organic manifesting itself, like the way stars seal our fate. On the first night of yet another gulf war, the US fired 72 satellite-guided tomahawk missiles on Baghdad. Skies lit up with missiles and anti-aircraft missiles, Apache Helicopters and Jets fly by like the modern day Angel of Death. With fired up oil wells, Iraq burns like Sodom and you can watch it live on CNN, BBC, CNBC and Fox --- preferably with a bowlful of popcorn and Coca Cola as they show the progress in this war. Real life is really a stage. People don’t need to act. History, life, death and conquest unfold live on TV nowadays. News is delivered on a real-time basis. Iraqi TV shows how America makes victims out of the people they promised to liberate, while. Sadam Hussein throwing his speech on how God is on their side in cutting the American aggressor’s throats. Young soldiers struggle in desert sandstorms. Young children in Iraq die or don’t have to go to school since there’s a war. Young people in the world protest this war, or maybe just watch everything on TV. It’s my second serving of a Gulf War in one lifetime. I guess we’ll keeping on having due to the United States’ delinquent defense contracts. Or maybe its all about the oil. At this time, Colaition forces have progressed from Southern Iraq moving towards Baghdad, paratroopers land from the North, jets and missiles fly from the Persian Gulf. All these rockets and their skies, and bombs flanked on their city. Admittedly, little does it impact my life, aside from the many calls that flanked our office since these Americans felt guilty about their vacation packages or felt afraid about traveling. The calls at work became more fucking complicated due to the directives and procedures and policies we have because of the war. H. went to Iraq a few days before the war to advocate peace, to take the stance of these people, form his own wise opinion and have them published on the highly regarded opinion pages of Today. When he arrived, he didn’t even have to tell me stories since I’ve already read them on the daily. As for me, I take no affirmative action. Although I often sympathize with the neighbor who has a more sorry lot, I have no war of my own. And even if I had a war of my own, I feel that I would’ve lost by default.

I’ve recently been asked to give a historical person I’d be interested to have lunch with. It would be Arthur Schopenhauer. Perhaps I could verify if the father of pessimism does have a jolly personality and a splendid appetite. I heard he died shortly after having breakfast.
Room with a view, on a Sunday morning.. The balimbing tree my brothers and friends used to climb when we were children is blooming with small red flowers. I wish I knew the scientific name so I can sound, well, clever. Atis which grew on the tree beside it dries up from the dust, sun and pollution. It has evolved into something which looks like an acorn. Maya birds chirp in a chorus, and the neighbor’s dog barks. Jeeps start to pass by. A cab drives by. Someone is sweeping and I can hear the wooden broom scratching against the pavement. The Benitez side of the house is at least, lined with trees. The summer Sunday sun once again, writes poetry through the gleams and shadows it casts on the green of the trees and the black of the asphalt. Inside the room the air conditioner hums. I light up the oil burner to dispel the alcohol, yosi and the Saturday night gimmick cocktail smell that the clothes still carry. I should buy a new fragrance for the new oil burner. I can’t decide on which film to watch again this morning, or continue reading, or re-read a story. I ate too much again and I’m not happy and am convinced that Chowking is terrible fast food. I wonder how I’d look like in an Amorsolo portrait. I’ve been addicted to looking at the wedding portrait of Mariano Garchitorena and Cardidad Pamintuan. The colors exude the richness of their era and the lavish elegance of the gown. The girl seems to be thinking of someone else and a contemplative silence is seen beaming on those still eyes. The guy looks like an old, true blue coño kid. I wonder how their marriage turned out. At least there was art which became its offspring. I know that people do love one another in great depths and deep magnitude and incredible emotion rare as ghost orchid flowers and filled with profound meaning as voluminous dictionaries. And maybe I am just, truly, incapable of loving someone now. Work is the long agony of wanting, waiting to resign. I’m thinking about a pension plan again. What an encouraging premise to promulgate. It should be the new company statement.

The next day, I went to work thinking it was my last day, savoring every detail of it: from the cab ride and the sodium vapor lamps of south superhighway, to the blue neon lights lining the edges of the RCBC plaza, the yellow edges of the GT tower and the lights at the Enterprise. To all the characters at work.To each and every e-mail, to each furnishing in the office, and the laughs with officemates. To walking to the loading zone. And finally to the bus ride home.

Life Went By

Time really flies and leaves the littlest trace. I could barely remember how my life went by, except for its obstinate sameness I desired and loathed, enjoyed and frowned upon.

It’s the last day of February. Time seems to be passing in light-year units nowadays. Time really flies and leaves the littlest trace. I could barely remember how my life went by, except for its obstinate sameness I desired and loathed, enjoyed and frowned upon.
Though you can’t really remember everything that takes place in your life, little seems to be actually taking place. Dinner and dessert with friends, and laughs, drinking at home with my brother and his friends while they finish their thesis, drinking alone at bars, dressing well, going out and meeting someone new and then wanting to meet someone else, going to work, writing those e-mails absorbed in a professional-sounding disclaimer language, then eating compulsively, watching films, reading these good books, listening to music and writing my journal. I have surrounded my life with these niceties, which seemed to have lightened my need to affirm my existence, like many other people who have not resisted mediocrity.

“This is it.” We’ve always thought. The now is what you have thought about before. Then time fled, and “this is it” becomes “that was it” or maybe even “that was it?” It all became ordinary, as always getting more and more queasy of commonplace happenings, glad at rationalizing that it’s all right and steady.

I’ve always wanted to delve deeper in to the moment. At the back of my head, I am wishing that there was a way to suspend time --- not only to make a memory persist, but to allow a moment outside the plane of time.

I started writing at around 5:00 am today, after a day’s off goodnight sleep. It’s six thirty in the morning now. The morning light begins to rinse the sky, and the sun finds its way into the room filling it with fresh and crisp yellow shine. The sound of vehicles vroom in the streets. The day is a ball rolling. There it goes again.

I went to the mall to buy this 900 peso CD case I never would’ve bought if I still had my more practical ideals set two or three years ago. But then I thought of the welfare and protection of my pirated CDs, and the will to just have the things I fancy and can afford when I’m desirous --- this one for example, books another.
My fancy was also struck by a 600 peso board game. I’ve enjoyed and triumphed in Scrabble even as a child. I realized I’m not a child anymore but I bought it with the thought that it would be fun to play alone, play with the words in Filipino, and even the mere idea of forming words out of a random set of tiles with letters and corresponding scores.
When I was playing alone in the room, my older brother laughed at this idea. He joined in and we ended up playing for six hours. What was pathetic is that it was supposed to be my game but I only won once, with all the words my vocabulary supposedly flaunted.

Eternal Hourglass Trickling

"In the trickle of time’s eternal hourglass, in this little existence of mine, something must have even a smidgen of significance, something else must be worth trying."

Writing requires a strong heart? The writer must be able to withstand the extremities of emotion, to have prudence from being consumed by the fires of one’s own passion, to bear emptiness and fill it up. To turn the must frail gesture into the most pompous event, and the most pompous event into a frail gesture. To take nothingness, to take Being, blend it and put into paper. It takes a strong heart to be a writer, instead of the merely written about.
Instead of just being a big writer-wannabe.

Where did my writer’s voice go? Has it drowned it the drone of Makati’s early morning traffic? Suppressed by the small squabble or the vicarious venting of irate customers? Did my voice die and resurrected into a --- beautiful buzzing bee? The simplest explanation turns out be the right one: Ockham’s Razor. I am suspicious about that and think that this medieval philosophical principle is obsolete, if not terrifically false. Nowadays, it would have been more likely to adhere to a principle such as: the stupidest explanation turns out to be the best one. This is what we tend to believe. Like, the earth was formed out of this big fucking bang. God created the universe in seven days. Jesus Christ is an alien. Human beings came from monkeys. Like, the Truth is a great loneliness.
I think it was Einstein who said, “There only two things infinite --- the Universe and human stupidity… I’m not sure about the former.”

“I’ve given up on being brilliant.” I forgot who said that. Or perhaps I’ve quoted it too often that I forgot it was I, like reverse pumping ego or labelling theory.

With all this fuss about my sky-rocketing blood pressure and having an impending heart attack, I had to eat healthy. And I began running again. Running to have a little less paranoia. (I have discovered that running not only relieves you, but also effectively reduces your fear of anything. This must be scientific.) I ate less, and am grateful for my Ops Manager’s concern. She slated me on dedicated e-mail that made my work not much of a drag. Although required visits to the doctor, and buying expensive medicine actually is a real nuisance. I barely even drink anymore. I smoke 2-4 cigarettes a day.
Life is a series of compromises.

It was my self-love, my excessive indulgence, which weakened my heart.

And why have I not imparted my love? Is something noticeably lacking in my life? I can’t prevent myself from asking silly questions. And I am tired of sophisticated rationalizations, or yielding into self-pity. The answer is simply because this perfect-idea girl of mine has not miraculously popped up from the world of ideas and assume perfect human form to amuse me with her witticisms, be insanely in love with me, my groins, my ankles, and be all that I want her to be. Now, that’s something ultra-hyperbolic. The more obvious truth is that I even though I start regularly meeting up with someone, love chooses to conveniently lurk in a limbo. So I am blissfully alone: loving myself, loving myself too much, and that pretty little figment of my vivid imagination. I’ve sporadically asked myself why I’m alone, but I never complained. In a moment of weakness, I would jump at the chance on anyone who would spread her legs apart. How difficult it is to even fall in love --- to revel in something that is rat’s ass stupid.

Meanwhile, my aloneness steadies.

My aloneness is an oxymoron: it is preferred-adapted.

Success is merely a stubborn insistence.

I’m beginning to collect enough determination to quit my job very soon, maybe sometime around summer. Maybe after (1) saving for a little investment in case I’m bumming for a month or two or three (2) another trip to the beach. Or maybe I should add (3) after tempestuous, multiple-orgasmic sexual intercourse with a dashing officemate while in the office. Right.
When I took this job I promised myself that my maximum length of stay with the company would be two years --- and that is if I get to enjoy what I’m doing. I think the estimates were too rough. It’s been one year and six months, and statistics would say that I actually enjoy myself only 11% of the time while I’m in the office and absolutely enjoy myself 89% of the time when I’m not in the office. I’m closing the time of my life to learn to laugh at the risks I’m going to take, and learn to humble down when it is life’s turn to laugh back at me. This must be a way to allow living to open to my being. I’ve enjoyed mentally drafting my resignation letter. I’ve hatched a few interesting plans, about what to do after resigning, or while being in the torturous, indeterminate state in between jobs. One of them, of course, is to find out what it’s like to have other jobs.
While working on my resume I had to describe what my work consists of:

My work consists of providing comprehensive and quality customer service. It has been my task to efficiently and effectively resolve customer service issues while multi-tasking across multiple channels and capably utilizing technology tools and business systems. These generally outlined duties and responsibilities are performed meeting all client-imposed service levels, with a customer-friendly yet highly professional quality of work that is constantly monitored and assured. This type of work not only requires in-depth client-based knowledge needed to help its customers, but also demands that the representative make sound judgment calls in implementing business policies and decisions, and promote a lasting customer relationship. Given continuous and extensive training on business policies, business tools, and business strategies to handle client-specific needs, (particularly in Internet-based travel service, domain registration, hosting and other website services,) and the skill it thus yields, this work experience earns one an excellent customer service background.

Or what my work may really consist of is:

My work consists of kissing the customer’s ass. A lot of American dotcom companies outsource their customer service department since they see it as a mere necessary evil. They can take advantage of cheap Philippine labor, and cut down on costs. The irony is that the reps in this country are smarter, friendlier, more committed, bred in the best Philippine schools. They are talented, but they compromised to sell their soul to capitalism, intelligent but more interested in having the higher middle class lifestyle, more than willing to kiss customer ass for dough. The companies probably would only have to shed out half as much for these reps. While we try to genuinely help customers, we mostly endure their vicarious venting, bear the burden of their disgust, then muster up excuses, spout our spills and stress ourselves out on a 24x7 basis. Globalization, American Imperialism brought to you by Voice Over Internet Protocol. The land of milk and honey comes to you. They pay the new grads relatively better wages than most companies would, we get sick (physically or figuratively) but also get good health benefits, and the Americans chip off a lot of cost off their shoulders. What this experience thus yields: another newly grad who took on the job discovers how this world really works.

In the trickle of time’s eternal hourglass, in this little existence of mine, something must have even a smidgen of significance, something else must be worth trying.

“Against boredom the gods themselves fight in vain.” – Nietzsche. I haven’t told this to myself in a long time. Maybe, I’m just bored.

How did the rest of your life begin today? The night at work becomes less and less tedious and the least bit stressful since I’ve been slated on dedicated e-mail. Moreover, my stats are impeccable on the performance metrics this month. A perfect 100% for QA sessions for three consecutive weeks, and I’m meeting the prescribed average speed of answer more than 150% above standard. I don’t know long this will last, but with this work I do not feel like Atlas bearing the weight of the world.
I know that going back to the voice channel will be like paying a great penance.
After work I turn on auto-sleep mode in the bus after taking a walk to the loading zone. The January mornings have been chilling. Upon arriving, I eat a light breakfast and take the car to CCP. I’ve been running with increased speed and endurance. I catch my breath while walking around the film center, in the shade of these tall magnificent pebble pillars, and maybe even in the presence of the infamous phantoms of construction workers who built this beautiful edifice by the sea. On one side, the buildings of Makati are clouded with smog. Buildings that has eaten up so many lives.
Compared to other hobbies or sports, the great thing about running is that it’s very basic. All you have to do is run. In it’s basic form, you don’t have to devise sports techniques, coaching analysis, consider team work or any requited concentration. You can let your mind sink deep in thought. Right after running I treat myself to a currant-flavored sparkling water at the Figaro. I enjoy the jazz music that pipes in, and the view of the trees dancing with the wind, behind the window blinds.
On some occasions after work, I wait for the movies to open and have myself one of those chicken popcorns or Baskin Robbins ice cream while watching. Seen on film, The Lord of the Rings is a slightly easier version of something like Homer, Ovid or Iliad. It seems, however, to be something made specifically for blockbuster cinema, a little bit more idiotic in execution, but heavily fancied up with eye-popping special effects. I’m really glad though, that some theaters in Robinsons already have neck rests, cup holders and THX surround sounds, and you only have to pay half as much compared to seeing it Glorietta or G3. And then I’d stay at the mall to get decaffeinated coffee and maybe some sweets, while eying pretty ladies of all ages.
Or after work I listen to my records. I haven’t gotten over MOS Chillout annual 2002, and surprisingly enough, Rivermaya’s live and acoustic is an excellent local find. I also put this compilation of songs from high school, most of which I downloaded from the net on a nostalgia trip. And of course there’s Jazz.
Or after work I read a little and write my journal. When I read the first story on Ian McEwan’s “First Love, Last Rites,” I already decided on getting another book from him. The first story reminded me a lot of Jeff Noon’s “The Cabinet of the Night Unlocked.” Only, I think McEwan’s seems to have mastered that dispassionate tone of delivering themes that passionately. He powerfully produces a familiar estrangement and fascination. You can see all the elements of the story, and each gesture work towards that strong, surprising ending.
And then I sleep it off rid of those disturbing dreams since less distress is due to me.
How did the rest of your life begin today? The rest of my life is beginning to start off better everyday.