Rainwater on Asphalt

"Monday is tired and Monday rains and wants us to rest. February gives us one last glimpse of gloomy skies before summer ushers itself in and the mercury madly rises. I smell the peculiar smell of rainwater pouring on asphalt."

Morning shift. As though it were a redeeming value for the sullied mornings, Makati’s afternoon skyline is a delight to the senses. The panoramic view of the 41st floor is like a scene out of Lost in Translation. Tower antennas from neighboring buildings rise for a more cinematic effect.
When a ray of sunlight escapes between clouds, it casts silver on the bay below. It’s when souls rise up to heaven, leaving a thousand diamonds on the water and on its trail up.
When the sun sets, towards twilight, the most spectacular palettes of color are painted with happy curves.
Then the city starts to light up. At the end of the day in the office, a little life, at least, seems to begin.

On the way to becoming a full-fledged fatso, you eat Yellow Cab pizza four times a week, Mongolian bowls, beef brisket on Yang Chow fried rice, and all the deadly, savory niceties from the cholesterol factory.

I remember one indulgent Saturday morning with friends. After breakfast at Mcdo with my officemates, with mcflurries and all, I met up with a few more friends and had coffee at the Seattle’s Best in Paseo Center, then beer and stuffed bacon pizza and a little lasagna at Sbarro’s. I sent my stomach sailing to LBM.
And that night I went to AV’s party to drink some more, engaging merrily into drunken banter before I realize (and regret) later on how loquacious I’ve become.
I am Jairus Jason’s lonely lump of fat.

There is never really enough time to seize the day. As soon as arrived home on Saturday morning from my shift, after gambling and losing on NBA Live with my younger brother, I went to Quiapo with O. for pirated DVD shopping. Although the latest movies aren't out yet, I got something produced by Almodovar, the whole third season of The Simpsons.
Saturday evening was a musical/play in CCP with ___ and ___. After the play we found ourselves trudging towards the bay area in Roxas Boulebard where M&L and D. met us up. It was D.’s birthday. Roxas Boulevard is a great idea with an ideal proximity for me, but the establishments are poorly organized. The service is terrible, and food and drinks are unreasonably costly. The crowd is too huge and the bay would have no solemnity left.
But I was just too happy with our crowd, with how ___ can make a mockery while exacting humor on everything. Nobody is ever bored around her.
That night, I was just glad I didn’t feel the need to be drunk as a whirlwind.
We went biking at three in the morning.
At 5 am we were at M.’s place. L. and D. made breakfast. I slept a little and laughed some more.
____ dropped by the house at lunch to watch Almodovar’s Talk to Her while I slumber away. I wake up to dinner with my family, then watched one of the DVDs I bought recently, something that’s at least less vacuous compared too what they’d show in the theaters.
And I could use some more sleep, and a day for reading, coffee, lounging and horsing around. Before I know it, it’s already Monday. Monday is tired and Monday rains and wants us to rest. February gives us one last glimpse of gloomy skies before summer ushers itself in and the mercury madly rises. I smell the peculiar smell of rainwater pouring on asphalt. I plunge into a dejavu about going to La Salle again, my nose teased by the moldy perfume of faded-yellow books from the library. I am Jairus Jason’s perverted sense of smell. It made me sleep so well.
Today February rains like June, as though time is really not there.

A Skyscraper Cave

“This is where grandiose dreams are drained, disappearing as it dusts quietly like forgotten job orders or resumes filed neatly in folders and file boxes.”

“This is where, despite how furiously the sun may shine… casting its golden gleams every morning, despite the breath-taking heights of skyscrapers, being here is like being enclosed in a dark cave, where all you see are shadows.”

A Writing Exercise/Warm-Up. Tired of what? I’m too tired; even to think of why I’m keeping this journal, why I string these words together. Somehow it has just become essentially who I am. It’s become difficult to become who I am, even by my own standards.
I’m thinking; why am I so drawn to writing this, why do I have to present myself to myself in a proper package? Why I feel inadequate if I do not write, if I write with less insight, if I no longer write with peculiar interest. I tend to lose interest in life – which is a most natural tendency, when your days are quick and redundant.

“Ultimately we all sound like broken records glossing over the same wounds and the same bouts of giddy happiness.” Yet I continue to write, and take some of it to account. I write, even if the only line I can say is: What the fuck anyway? Living requires metaphors, the production of phrases both to abstract my reality and just make my reality – mine. Writing is when I take possession of this reality.

I can almost see now, how this puzzle is pieced. A small ray of sunlight enters the room, and lands on a bookmark in my desk, highlighting the yellow in Carl Spizweg’s “The Bookworm.” This old man is on top of a ladder cataloging books on a high shelf. Then it’s gone in a jiffy, and the sun just burns for every other atom and dreg in the world. Everything else that becomes altered into insignificant little specks in an infinite cosmos. Then it shows itself again, the 4:47 pm sunlight of the setting Sunday sun dapples the yellow sheets of my scribble pad, the old wood of the desk, and glints on the spilled fountain pen ink. I’m hearing a perfect sunset song, something out of the Calm 6-track chillout sampler, which 5 or 6 years ago, after buying a few chillout albums, was given to me as a freebie by the pretty-looking Chinese merchant who appeared to own the pirated-CD store in the left wing of UM.

The sun sets in the west, and none of its last setting rays would’ve made it to the room, if not for the tinted glass panels of the building windows across the street. At this time of the day, towards dusk, sunshine is literally mirrored to the room. I see it on my arm and it glares on my pores, against the fan-blown hair which came out of it. Now sunlight is cast on the Escolta Circa 1880 postcard. Sunlight mirrored on a painted sky, on a postcard’s faded sepia tones. And I think of how my life is as repetitious as the rhythm of my own breathing. But even if a lot of it is the same, I just must write, the way our lungs breathe air, hands must push pens.

For January weekdays, morose Mondays and all, I’m slumped into working life’s routine. Without much motivation, interest, or any grappling with reasons why I should go to work, I mindlessly manage to wake up at 7:30 pm to prepare for work, sluggishly entering the bathroom door for a shower at 8:30 pm. I just have to appreciate the fact that work is less excruciating now. I can’t complain as much. I even have time to snatch some lines and write haikus (if you can call it that) in Filipino between office hours. When I arrive home in the morning, I often manage to read two or three stories from the Palanca Anthology of Winning Works in the 80’s. So far, my winner amongst winners is Eli Ang Barroso’s “Our Lady of Arts & Letters.” This story has such a powerful, dramatic plot and a hair-rising climax. The elements of the short story as I learned it in lit class – is put in such excellent use. Awed by his characters, you can almost feel the writer showing-off his mastery through the sheer brilliance of having the development of his characters point reference to popular characters in literature. I’m awed even by the character’s own thoughts.

“I will say only this – you don’t generate but rather recycle ideas. Given enough time, I can trace your ideas to all the books you have read. Your mind is shamelessly derivative. It is a collector of clichés. And your life is nothing but a cheap imitation of art. Intellectual parrotings don’t impress me.”

It’s probably done before, of course, but execution is crucial and this one stands out exceptionally. I’m thinking of how he thought about all of it, and it just humbled me. The artful use of language and clever phrasing of his own figures of speech is almost just a given. This ranks up to one of the best locally-written short stories I’ve read in my entire life. It kept me up all day.
I also started on reading a little Philosophy again. I selected to review Kierkegaard. I’m reminded of how he trashes Hegelian Idealism, and emphasizes individualism, or focuses on individual existence. “He was the gadfly who stings you until you perform the essential act of introspective self-knowledge.” I related with how he acknowledges anxiety and dread, since I was an angsty, zit-ridden teenager who chanced upon contemplating the meaning of life when I first read him. I’ve always wondered whether I was in the aesthetic, moral, or religious stage. But I wouldn’t really be an advocate of these stages. I dislike how he holds religion, Christian religion at that, as the highest level of consciousness. He jumps seventy thousand fathoms and remains deep in the water, blinded by faith. How he loved irony.
The past few weeks, most of what I’ve been listening to would be Eggstone and PurpleChickens. They’re both classified as Indie. What it probably takes to be indie is that it’s really good music that not a lot of idiots listen to. Eggstone doesn’t differ much from Blur in having that general character of European bands, in terms of sound. They’re probably the European counterpart of Weezer. But what I especially love about them is how their rather sadness-ridden lyrics become strangely relieving when accompanied by cold, passionate vocals: “And in my eye, something is telling me that I have to rest for a while…. Supermeaningfectyless.” I hope they play this song in my wake or eulogy. In a song called Birds in Cages, “Maybe it will rain tomorrow… Maybe I’m insane tomorrow... One thing is for sure, I’m not happy anymore.” And in “Neil,” “I need Sundays… I need Highways… More than I know, when I die, I will be gone forever… More than I wonder, why on earth do I try to be so clever…” What I also would adore most about PurpleChickens is the lyrics. And I wouldn’t even say this with any bias on judgment because I know Aldus Santos, its vocalist and writer. Offhand, I’d say that this is one of the best feats local music has ever achieved in years. I can hear traces of what influenced him in music back in high school: The Beatles, Grunge and REM. If I didn’t hear about them, I’d mistake this album for a foreign act. Aldus sings in Dream Systems, “If I smile the smile of the forgetful… run from me run from me… If I smile the smile of the forgetful… stay away stay away stay away.” Or in Eyelash Envy, “I was saltwater… that you wiped off from your brow.”
On weekends, there’s still time to troop to the mall. Last week I saw the Lord of the Rings III on a date with myself. The previous week, I was with ___, D. and ___ at Rockwell, just having some laughs at the expense of other people, merely by looking at them. Then we spent all night drinking at Marie’s. Two weeks ago, I was right smack in the middle of Greenbelt III with ___, ____ and ____. ___ just came from Quiapo and she brought candles and penis rings. Each of us was assigned with, and lighted a candle, holding it while sitting on a bench. We received a few curious glances, as though we were having a happy, yet solemn ceremony.

I juggle the days and nights, watching them slip off my hands as someone who is unskillful in this pursuit. Every morning, as the end of the shift nears, I see how time melts through the 41st floor window. The Makati morning skyline is nothing that ranks as awe-inspiring, if it is not a downright horrible sight. The whole city is covered with obvious dirt and smog, divided by a clear horizontal line from the whiter clouds up above that industrial sludge has not reached and harmed. If this were an era in life, what must have been a period of "career development" has been a period of intellectual recession. At night, no stars are seen from the 41st floor window. The lights of the city look like an unmapped constellation with tiny galaxies of street lampposts, tail lights at the rear end of cars, lights from the airport runway, neon signage and the distinctive green and blue light emanating from Greenbelt. This galaxy is a galaxy which has lost its glamour. Its stars are old and tired, dying to become a supernova. They await their gigantic explosion, that second wave of the big bang which the lifeless occupants of these stoned edifices that will breathe life on their humdrum lives. We beg for something enormously stirring to happen, to perk the guts out of us. An explosion to shake us out of out of all our cherished beliefs. Like the last scene in Fight Club.
This is probably why when I ride the cab at night, I've always suspected that something is about to explode in this city, something that the bomb-sniffing trained dogs have not found.
And this is why this city has begun to look like a city of ruin from the 41st floor. This is why smog douses its skyline every morning, its whole radius covered in black cloud. It is because this is where everyone's passions begin to wane, in the long huddle of their laboring. This is where grandiose dreams are drained, disappearing as it dusts quietly like forgotten job orders or resumes filed neatly in folders and file boxes. This is where, despite how furiously the sun may shine and stretch its rays, casting its golden gleams every morning, despite the breath-taking heights of skyscrapers, being here is like being enclosed in a dark cave, where all you see are shadows.

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?”