Disneyland (in 100 words)

There is a quiet room in this reclaimed land. “Disneyland,” it’s called. Considerable office space is allotted to discourage employees from sleeping in their workstations, or for whatever convenience (you may actually live here). There are ten 3-decker beds, each with a uniform white bed sheet, pillow, and a blue fleece blanket. There is a usually sleepy security guard assigned to watch out for the sleeping. They are the guardian angels of this carnival of dreams. They must easily understand why the angels were rebellious and envious. And they must have seen whatever it is that happens during your sleep.

Why Didn't I Write Before? (in 100 words)

Why didn't I write before? I would have been able to look back and say: what an excellent thought to re-absorb, what a splendid experience that was. Instead of just forgetting. You have never truly lived until you have written about your life. Writing is the act of owning, of possessing your reality. So now it's time to delve into the details. Begin gently, like your first sip of steaming-hot coffee. Then pick up the pace as in a conversation that's grown interesting. Don't worry about the time you lost or running out of space. There'll be another one tomorrow.

Would You Be My Muse? (in 100 words)

"Would you be my muse?" It's been so long since writing enriched my life. I could not remember the last time I wrote anything freely - without restraint, without actually tailoring my reality neatly. I've forgotten the time when I wrote as myself, not as somebody else who became who I am. Let me be nameless and let me tell you everything. Let me tell you about beauty, how senseless it is. Let me tell you how the moon moved in this reclaimed land by the sea, how the wind wrapped this evening in a lovely embrace. Would you, please?

I Think Therefore I Am Stupid

I’m a PhD student with a 4.0 (first term) and 3.75 (second term) GPA.
I earn a considerably decent income.
I can spell the word concupiscence
And even use it in a sentence.

I’ve read some books, which I understood (I think)

But mostly, I think I’m stupid. (I can’t help it)

But frankly, so is everyone.

Coffee for the Cold Cuts

Sunday night air-conditioning at the office treats us like the quickly-decomposing cold cuts in the frozen compartment. I drove to a coffee shop in Blue Wave for coffee.

It’s red cups time and toffee nut latte tasted like Christmas. It conjured a vivid memory of the first time I tasted it. I was so sleepy and we were doing database updating/mindless encoding tasks in ____. I went down to the Starbucks in Valero with B. Life was probably more humble but way better back then: my 41st floor view, my desk by the window, launch cast all day, actually enjoying the day I also remembered the time we had Toffee Nut Latte in Tagaytay with D., B. and A. around Christmas last year. That was the perfect place, the perfect timing for this seasoned drink.

So I savoured every hot sip while in an office that reduced us to meat in a freezer. The coffee was still good. Stuck with this job, I imagine how life was so much better when I had these sips before.

The Process of Getting There

Life simply loses its novelty when you put too much logic into it.

Process Thought tells us that the quality of life suffers in predictability. Life simply loses its novelty when you put too much logic into it. Maybe we really just wanted some dreams to feel real: pristine beaches, D. in a white bikini, and being in an amusement park for our hearts. So we decided one night to join a trip to the beach the next morning.

We had a few drinks in Ortigas the night before, but still managed, excitedly, to wake up at 5am. From a gas station in Mandaluyong, we joined the bus with P., who always had excellent stories from the grassroots to the government to the imported chocolate-filled refrigerator of the British Council. P. got in the bus from the terminal. We were also supposed to be with S. who had just finished a drinking binge until 4am.


The story was that P. waited for S. outside the bus in the terminal. His stuff was already in the bus – laptop, board shorts, beach clothes, boy bawang and all. S. was late and the bus was leaving, P. still waiting outside. When the bus left without him, he ran and chased it from the Cubao station to the Nepa-Q-Mart.

He made it, the laptop and the boy bawang right where he left it. S. can just follow later. While we didn’t drive our own car to Batangas, the trip itself was relieving. It was a sunny day partnered with a cool October breeze. I’m glad to be traveling in shorts and slippers and shades, a backpack and D. - most of all. It was a glorious morning. We sang along to songs from the iPod and read a page or two of Lonely Planet Thailand during the bus ride.

We met S. at the Batangas port. At the boat, young people on the way to the beach took pictures of themselves in their camera phones and brought their iPods out. I saw a tab or two of valiums on one of their bags. The water was calm and the trip itself, calming. Everyone looked out when a dolphin jumped in the water. But this scared D., who couldn’t tell a shark from a dolphin.

Upon arriving at the usually crowded White Beach, we traveled by land to another island, Talipana,. We met up with F. and his friends. They were already settled in and already having lunch a Luca’s. It was an Italian Restaurant by the beach, owned and operated by an Italian, Luca, and his Filipina wife. The oven-baked pizza was excellent, not to mention how you get to smell baking bread, pesto, or thick tomato sauce from the pasta – having it all in a relatively quiet beachfront. You hear a familiar Chillout tune – something from Zero 7.

And there we were.