Also, this isn’t supposed to be something like a tweet, but that’s all I want to say for now.

Walking away from the GMA annex building, I figured, if I hang around there long enough, who knows who I might meet next? Somebody said, opportunities come along when you’re at the right place at the right time. He figured that you can just go to the right place and hang around, waiting for the right time. I think he’s right.

Tomorrow, I’ll have an interview at the same place. I hope I get it so I could earn something while looking for other opportunities. And that means living in Quezon City, too. Which also means seeing my best friends a lot, but not Nine. You win some, you lose some. T_T

***

I finally have a copy of Palad XIII. It looks fantastic. I’m not allowed to say much about it though, or even post a photo of it, so you won’t see a thing from it until around July. Office and Circulations Manager’s orders.

“It irritates me that I’m still afraid of getting lost, of going to places (without money) I knew nothing about and instead, I stay in familiar places. They bore me, without companions. I’m too embarrassed of myself to even talk to strangers because I’m too dull and boring. I’m sure I’m not the only one who thinks this way.

***

Thoughts in the GB square:

I think there should be more kids here. They enjoy the fountains and the fishes and turtle and ducks a lot. It’s just a lot of people seem to use this place to have a date or pick up chicks or guys as a sort of foreplay before they go back to their hotels and have sex. A foreplay place for people with money. Or maybe I’m just being dark and cynical…

Why am I here? Well, I feel like a townie here since I used to live here so hanging out is pretty…natural. I’m telling you though, this is a good place to just look at strangers.

***

I gotta admit, it’s hard to write fictional things in public places. But I’m still trying.

***

I wonder how my lungs look like right now. I’m not a chain smoker but I used to smoke from time to time. Then I stopped because it stopped feeling good. There’s a guy smoking near me and I sort of miss the act of smoking. But last time I did, it kept catching in my throat.

***

I like girls who wear funky socks. And girls who keep said socks on while having sex. (There’s actually a series of sex videos devoted to chicks wearing socks while they’re doing it, in a website somewhere. True story.) *End of Barney moment*

***

What if I’m two people at the same time? Or in one body, I mean. Two points of view. It’s like that one dream I had where I am two souls, a man and a woman, like Doctor Occult, ‘the double-souled one.’”

******

Tomorrow, I’m going to have another job application exam at one of GMA 7′s departments (I’m not really sure what they do) this time. I hope it’s alright.

About the only interesting things that have happened lately involves the old publication I used to work in when I was a college student, Heraldo Filipino. May is usually that time of the year where they hold their yearend workshop/seminar/turn-over ceremony. Naturally, I tagged along, having nothing else to do at home. It was fun, and it was then that I got a little chummy/friendly with a girl I call Nine. Neat name, really.

And then there was HF’s recruitment period as June began.  This time though, I went because of Nine. So yeah, we were more than chummy nowadays. She’s an interesting character living an interesting life, I sort of wish I could have the same opportunities she had. She’s also well-traveled, outgoing and can hold her liquor well. I’m going to stop right there before I start gushing like Ted Mosby.

***

So I’ve been looking around for my two missing notebooks (some of my notes and unfinished stories are in there, fuck, just please show up) and I found this old little notepad. It has an entry dated June 16, 2007. This is the entry (I edited some bits and added and taken out some parts so it all flows properly):

“It’s irritating when [most] teachers don’t really teach you anything useful. Like how to deal with family problems. How to deal with liking somebody. How to fix a relationship. How to forget someone. How to deal with threats. Multiple responsibilities. Work.

Instead, we were taught History, Trigonometry, Physics and a whole bunch of other subjects that will, in 10 or 20 years time, lay in the very cold [recesses] of our memory. We can’t learn the things we want [and the things we need]. Well, most of them anyway. Why? Because the world simply isn’t like that. Inevitably, we”ll always be in the dark. We’ll learn the things we want when it’s too late. What’s worse, we’ll learn the things we don’t want at the time when we’re hopelessly in the dark, when we want to know something else.

What do we want to learn anyway? Well it depends on a lot of things, really. Like

Who.

What.

When.

Where.

How.

[And most troublesome of all,] Why.

Isn’t it frustrating that being human—a living, breathing one—is so fucking complicated? But then, our life is what we make it. It’s complicated because we make it complicated enough. It’s simple because we make it simple.

*This is the part where even I was scratching my head.*

But what about complexity and simplicity? If we’re happy about it, then so be it. It all [boils] down to contentment, which has its roots [in] expectations. Those two are very powerful things. If only people expected less and be contented more. I wish I am.”

Damn, where did all that angst come from? Geez, kid, you’re not the only one with issues.

I also read another entry from around the same time (about a few weeks later), complaining about the deterioration of my skills, which is weird because I found myself complaining about it year after year and forgetting that I’ve complained about it the year before. So I guess that was just an illusion. Maybe what’s deteriorating is my motivation…I guess.

Oh yeah!

That reminds me. There’s one other interesting thing that happened over the summer. I managed to finish a short story and it’s going to be published on Palad, HF’s literary digest.  It will be my first foray into published fiction so I hope my, er, momentum doesn’t stall.

And oh, another thing. My siblings and I have been going to the gym every other day or week. I can lift heavier things now. But my belly’s still there. And school just started so we won’t be going to the gym as a group anymore. That sucks. I guess I’ll have the chance if I have money for gas. It’ll be lonely though.

***

I suck at blogging.

Period.

My routine doesn’t vary that much, but it’s more like this. I wake up at around 9 to 11 am, having slept late the night before and the absence of natural light in my dorm room messing with my ability to naturally wake up, even though I’m getting enough sleep. So I tend to oversleep.

If I’m still too sleepy and nobody’s watching TV in the dorm common room (it’s not much of a room but a bench, two chairs and a TV in the entrance of the floor we’re in), I’ll go and turn on the TV and tune in to National Geographic Channel, or Discovery Channel and if I’m desperate, Animal Planet. I watch nothing else. Unless there’s a movie I like in one of the movie channels. If I don’t have the time to watch TV (and there’s nothing to watch anyway), I just go take a bath. I go back to the dark room where I can’t open the lights if anybody’s still sleeping—I hope some of them are nice enough to notice that I’m asleep and stop being total dicks by watching something on their laptops/portable dvd players on loud speaker or talking loudly on the phone—and change. Pack my stuff. And go.

Down the steep stairs, turn the two locks, open door, get out, close door, lock the two locks. Wear shades if it’s too sunny out. Put on headphones, play music. Walk.

Every morning.

That’s how my day begins on Thursday to Monday. From the dorm, there are various routes/destinations I walk to depending on the day/situation. On Fridays and Mondays, I walk to my dad’s office to haul my laundry in the car. (So they can take it home and I wouldn’t have to pay for laundry.) I’ll walk along Kamagong street up to the Ayala Avenue extension, cross Buendia Ave., walk some more until I reach the Stock Exchange building. And once a week, one of the WWF (World Wildlife Fund, not World Wrestling Federation) girls would come up to me, ask me to take some time to listen to them and maybe ask me to accept an offer. Or something. Almost always, I’m too much on a hurry to take the time. If it was an attractive woman though, maybe I might take the time. I don’t know. But mostly the weight of the laundry and the lack of time just gets to me so I seldom stop. I think I just stopped once before, long ago. After I take the laundry, either I go to DBP (See ‘On Mondays…’) or go to the Greenbelt (See ‘On Saturday…’).

On Mondays, Wednesdays to Fridays, if my mom brought some food, I’ll walk to her office and eat my breakfast there. I walk all the way to Buendia Ave. then ride a jeep to DBP. That’s how I save up on lunches.

On Saturday and Sunday, and on weekdays without free lunches (grumble), I just stop by one of the fastfood joints or eateries along the way and eat the first meal of the day. Then I walk to Greenbelt and go to either National Bookstore (for the open comic books) or to PowerBooks (for the ambiance and writing on my coverless notebooks).

On Monday nights, I commute back home to Cavite after work.

Tuesday is my day off. Mostly I go out (to the mall, a coffee house, or the university). If I’m not outside, I just stay at home. Play games on the PC, dick around in the internet, watch a movie. Read a book.

On Wednesdays, it’s either I wake up at 4 (I’m in Cavite), pack my things, take a ride with my parents to work, go to my dorm, sleep some more, then do the usual morning routine.

Or I wake up late, eat breakfast, dick around in the internet again, do the usual ritual before leaving the house, then commuting to Makati, either just in time for lunch or for work.

Another regular thing I’ve been doing since I started work was going to Saguijo for the Terno Inferno gig. I still haven’t met a stranger there that became my friend after. Maybe I’m still just a little too introverted. And awkward.

The dorm where I’m staying frustrates me. I can go out and come back whenever I like but I still feel that I’m not free there because I don’t own a room to myself. And because I don’t like my roommates. The room is too small. It’s always dark because somebody else is sleeping. (On weekends, I’m almost always lucky to have the room on my own, until I wake up the next morning.) So when I wake up, it’s hard to get off the bed because I missed daylight on a window right by the bed where I’m in.

The dorm is located right beside a bar. On weekends, there are session bands playing covers of some popular songs. They’re too loud (obviously), and it isn’t an enclosed space. The singing is always bad.

There’s a Japanese place just several paces from the dorm. The food is absolutely amazing but the prices are pretty hefty. Maybe I’ll go back there next payday.

***

I’m relieved when on some days my routine is broken by a party, by a meeting with a friend, by an event, by a scene that is amazing and out of the ordinary. Sometimes it’s elation that I feel, depending on what happened that broke off from the norm.

***

I don’t remember much of my dreams lately. I can almost say I don’t dreams as much, but that’s just poor recall of course. Although sometimes, images or a scene comes to my mind unbidden. Perhaps my dreams are spilling over to my waking mind. Perhaps.

***

My contract ends on February 10. This was the second time they extended my contract. When will they talk to me about giving me probationary status? Thus putting me closer to regularization? Do I really want that?

If it happens that I will continue with PDI, then I should find another dorm/boarding house soon. The place I’m in sucks.

***

I think I’m getting used to being alone.

This is also the year I had my first paid job. (This is also Inquirer’s 25th anniversary, a celebration I got to participate in. I felt honored.) It felt good that I’m supporting myself now. This is also the first time I’m living in a dorm away from home.

I’m there there are other things.

After 2010, we are never the same. I am never the same. And after this year passes, perhaps we will change again. For bringing each other to this point, we owe each other gratitude. As for myself, I regret nothing. At the end of the old year and the beginning of a new one, I am fine with who I am.

I’m happy with how this year turned out for me. It wasn’t the best, but it changed me greatly. I hope that this year, I keep some recognizable amount of creative momentum to write. I believe it will be another life-changing year, for me and all of us.

Well okay, there are two people his mother visits that he knows, a grandmother and an aunt. He met them, he even lived with one of them. For several years, his grandmother lived with them until her death seven years ago. That was all very well, he hated her, and so did everybody else in the household. She doesn’t mean anything to him at all. In fact he was glad that she was gone. No more domestic hell. No more shouting and stuff that smell like shit. It was her time, and boy was he glad that it was.

His aunt was okay. He met her a couple of times. She was kind in her own tough manner, and her kids were friends with him and his siblings. She died of cancer. That was 12 years ago, he thinks he remembers. He can’t remember the last time he visited their tomb (they shared).

He doesn’t want to remember anyone on November first, nor does he want someone he will have to remember on that day. If there’s someone, he can do it anywhere. If he wants to visit them, he can do it anytime he wants. Doing the visiting and remembering on the same day every year doesn’t mean anything. Do it the same way long enough, it becomes a habit, a forced tradition. An involuntary reflex. A meaningless habit. Clockwork. A mere tick before the clock of your life strikes the hour.

“Let’s find someone to bury,” he joked. Don’t take him seriously. He doesn’t mean it.

***

Every November 1st, visiting the remains of the dead means visiting his relatives. His parents’ cousins, aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters. This is always part of the reason why he hates visiting the dead. Visiting the dead would mean visiting some pieces of shit that are still living. Filipino customs place an importance for respectful etiquette for your elders. The pieces of shit would automatically and imperiously put out their hand (palm down) so that the younger ones can touch their foreheads on the offered hand. Normally, children were the ones who initiate this customary acknowledgment of the elders’ presence, reaching out for the elder’s hand and touching their foreheads on the bare knuckles. Now it is demanded, not waited on as a sign of sincerity. Respect is demanded.

It becomes even harder when the persons demanding this don’t deserve his respect. When all they did was ask his parents for money, or “borrow” some and not pay it back. It becomes harder when his parents can’t resist them, when they can’t handle the pressure. It becomes harder when some of them are just gossiping little wrecks spreading rumors about your family, the people they ask for money, for “help.” It becomes harder when they do nothing to improve their lives and not be a bother to anyone. It becomes harder when they almost punch the air asking them to put their foreheads on the knuckles that belonged to that hands that held the money they rob from his parents, the hands they used to cover their mouths when they spread lies about his sister, the hands they used to deal drugs.

The hands they used to knock respect off their skulls in the hope that they fall to the ground, squirming and writhing, ready for them to eat.

Every year, it gets worse. This is his parents’ way of torturing themselves. Their complicated masochist fetish. And their children just get dragged along.

Paul is thinking of someone to bury. But nobody to visit, nobody to remember, no story to tell.

Last Saturday night, October 16, we went to Saguijo to watch Up Dharma Down and Radioactive Sago Project (RSP) play. By we, I meant Patricia, Lea, Ica, Joi, her girlfriend Anna, Travis, and Ira. Travis and Ira came later than us, but we’re all still good. I discovered two good bands in there too, Encounters With A Yeti and Sleepwalk Circus. They sound great.

Ica, Me

Ica, and me goofing my face off

Anna + Joi

Lea, a very tired teacher

Travis, Ira, and me. Glad they could join us.

After a long time, I finally got to buy him a beer w/ my own money

The lost boy

Travis and Ira. Hanging out under the stairs reminds me of Scott Pilgrim

Patricia, owner of much of the pictures, and the camera used to take them

They're not telling

Oh yeah, I saw Tere (co-worker at PDI) and her boyfriend (somewhere in there) at the gig.

(from left) Me, Ica, Lea, and Joi

Ica and Lei

...plus me

We are out for beer

We're okay

Armi Millare (and the three guys) of Up Dharma Down is getting ready while surprised by Ria Bautista of Paramita (with the thumb- up)

We are awed

Obviously having a good time, not noticing Ria Bautista behind me

Carlos Tanada, lead guitar

Paul Yap, bass

Eah Mayor, drums. Oops, blocked by Armi. He's there alright, better than having disembodied hands beat the drums

Oh, there he is.

In between performance. RSP up next. Me (covered), Travis, Lourd De Veyra, and Ira.

And the band fires up the beat and the sound

And then the wordsmith does his thing

Swaying along

Shaking it

Grand. They've got a cool guest guitarist and DJ here, pity they weren't pictured.

It was a great night. Beer bottles were drained, cigarettes were smoked, guitars were played, drums were beaten, brass instruments were blown, songs were sung, laughs and shouts were unleashed and a good time was had. And then it was time to leave.

We went to Anna’s condo, hung out for a bit more and had a lot of laughs. And then sleep.

My hangover follows the next morning.

***

I just finished Hard-Boiled Wonderland and The End of the World by Haruki Murakami. It’s a beautiful book. It’s exciting, compelling, sad, mind blowing (the info-dump in the INKling altar was), poetic, and even funny. I am now certain that I am a fan of Murakami.

***

It’s depressing to go back to my dingy old room. The nights make me feel alone and terribly sad. It’s even sadder when I go to sleep and smile knowing I’d be happier in dreams…perhaps.

I moved in this morning, so I brought my own mattress, which was bigger than the bed-frames, and pillows and clothes and stuff. I don’t have a lot of stuff so I guess that’s a relief, but I have nagging feeling that I’ve forgotten a lot of things to bring. The doorknob was installed a few hours ago I think, so that’s a relief too. So after I was done hauling in my stuff and fixing my bed, I slept for a few hours in the room just to get the feeling of sleeping alone in a place that isn’t my friend’s, parents’ or even mine. Thus, it will be my first time living away from home. I know, I’m pretty late on this whole experience (just like a lot of other things) but what can I do? I lived near the university I graduated from. In many respects, my sister got through them earlier than I did.

I also got my first pay-check today, which left me feeling odd at first, which then turned into a feeling that resembles relief. Or satisfaction. Bordering on excitement, perhaps. I can today is eventful, and I’m going to relish it because the next few times would lose their magic soon enough.

I will buy a book.

***

Tonight, Ica and Lei are watching John Mayer’s concert at SM Mall of Asia. Argh, I should’ve been there with them, but I’m stuck here at work. I’m not disappointed that I couldn’t see John Mayer play live, rather I’m disappointed that I couldn’t have the fun of watching the concert with Ica and Lei. *sigh* I heard it’s raining hard at the venue, I hope they’re okay and having the time of their lives. I also hope they don’t get sick afterwards. (Then again, even if they got sick, they’d still be happy and euphoric, and that can get them through the whole ordeal.)

***

I found this blog post on the Ways to (seriously) improve your writing. Quite handy, I hope I remember it well.