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.