Ergh

Everyone's a disappointment.
I wonder why I even bother or care most of the time.
I so want to say "try my shoes on for size" but I bite my tongue. No one will understand anyway.
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Laughing Arguments

I never thought I'd say this. There is such a thing as a happy or laughing argument. I've been having these for the last five and I haven't even written about it yet. Silly me. (Insert southern belle methodist accent where apt)

So we were talking about this friend of mine and that friend of hers. I was commenting that I usually get them interchanged because they look alike. In true girlfriend fashion my better half pulls out pictures from the laptop in a driven and defiant show of opposition.

There we were in raised voices chuckling our heads off. Me with the they are like Eric Bana and the Hulk (yeah bad movie I know, I was keeping the references below the belt), and she kept flipping the photos and telling me I was a dumb blind stupid moron. And an insensitive schmuck.

We hugged and kissed after without a clear winner.

Ha!

*somewhere in our hearts though, this feels like the calm before the storm*

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Matt & Ivy

And just like that, the lyricist is back. Accompanied by the proverbial muse.

It would be a great Christmas to find this story finalized and then to start editing. Crossing my arthritic (ha!) fingers.
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That locked door is my head

It's imagery used a lot in films. A window-less room. A leaky,dripping faucet and a bucket in one corner. A dim bulb, maybe low wattage, maybe dirty, maybe both flickers from the center of the room's ceiling.

Yours could be one with cherry blossom or rainbow wallpapers. But it's still a window-less room.

This is where you hide, where you file and store. This is where you shudder, where you giggle, where you laugh your evil villain laugh and press the red button. This is where you are the heroes of song and of prose, brandishing your broadsword in defense of all that is right and good. This is the place that saved the world in King's Dreamcatcher.

Many along the path of your life will try to knock and take a peek, a gander. You will mostly refuse as permission granted to the wrong souls is guaranteed death. Death of your psyche, of your lyrical soul, of your magical essence, and then your breath.

Then there is one, that will sit outside that door. Quiet and patient. Through the pouring rain and the thunder and lightning that accompanies it. Through sleet and snow, through baking heat and sandstorms. Not asking to be let in, only happy to see you when you emerge and greet you with a smile. You'll then find a strength of purpose and trust never there prior.

Your hand open with that persons keys to that room. And the other persons hand open with your key in their palm. After that, can you really ever be afraid again?

May that hold true for all of us.

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In darkest of evenings,

There are times when we feel like all has been or about to be lost. They sometimes seem to stretch out without the hope of tomorrow. We remember them clearly; we wear their marks on our hearts.

In these times, we try and dig in to find our strengths. We either fail or succeed, and then find ourselves in the cusps of a new life, granted by a tomorrow that has arrived sooner than we expected it to. It could be bright or bleak - you never know.

You also do not know - when the clouds would break for a while and give you respite, an small oasis in the general emptiness that rules this vast chaotic universe. Then you smile; you laugh; you jest a little; and somehow although all else is very nearly lost, there remains - love, laughter, kindness, and the courage to stay the course.

I just did. With a wonderful woman I love enough to burn my life for, and an unborn daughter I will be meeting soon. Our story remains as bleak tomorrow as it is this morning, dark and uncertain, as any tale a bard or a castrati sung over the innumerable ages past. Yet we are together. That should count for something.

If you are alone and searching when you read this. Do not despair, you are not by yourself. We are here and rooting for you, and have left notes in the oasis of life. Good luck to all of us.
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...And you're stuck thinking, "It won't be THAT bad if the sun decided NOT to rise tomorrow"....

I get there a lot of times. I just try and not dwell on it. Out of respect for the rest of humanity if the Creator suddenly decided a lottery was in the offing and I was the winner.

It's not a happy condition we humans are stuck in. We chase, we scramble and all we get are fleeting glimpses. Gone and jaded too soon. Americans sum it up so neatly - "The pursuit of happiness". It's so broad and so ephemeral that we go through all sorts of hoops in chasing the hope.

That's all it is really. Hope. Hope that when we get the promotion, find the spouse, find that elusive collectible, nail that exam, win the bacon, we bring home the contentment in our hearts, to be locked in some glass box forever. Sadly it doesn't work that way. We yearn, we dream for more, then we chase again.

The world has invented a word to control our inveterate need - Contentment. This puts the brakes to the megalomaniac in you. Add religion and the state to the mix, and you are guilty, guilty, guilty for even wanting what you want. Which then means you, we, us are under control by the individuals with the same urges as we have. Which they then pursue relentlessly. Reason for the wealth stuck in the top one percent of the population spread.

So yes, I do think about it. But if not for the billions of you still dreaming of emancipation, I would be narcissistic enough to say "Oh yes Creator, I'd very much agree to the sun not rising tomorrow".
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Midnight In A Dark Damp Room

A friend once told me I get lost a lot for someone who's always had a car. I haven't really thought about it until recently, reliving those memories in my head.

There were instances where I'd drive lonely desolate highways in the dead of night and dare myself. I'd turn off the headlights until I lost my nerve. I'd drive off with almost no gas but with money in my pockets, trying to see where the roads will take me. During these runs I've met all sorts of folk from absolutely seedy to unbelievably enchanting.

I know now. I love to get lost because I find bliss in nerve wracking confusion. I was a wreck then, but found a twisted sort of happiness in those fleeting encounters. To settle down is to be responsible, to make decisions. To float in the waves of fate and chance is a wicked form of bliss; control relinquished and thus disappointment free.

I can't really do domestic although I would say I love it too. I need the reckless breakneck frenetic pace of going crazy once in a while. Of stepping out of my car in the dead of traffic and sitting in the rain, heedless of stares. Of gunning the engine without a clear direction to head to. Of walking in the rain while my breath comes out in white tendrils of warmth.

The rains come and go as they do. But they aren't my rains. They aren't my dark brooding clouds. They aren't my melancholy. They aren't mine, and perhaps they never were.
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Can't I be mad?!

I've always tried to be jovial. I think once upon a time I was. I remember my grandmother chiding me for not being serious enough about life and things that future men contend with, with due gravity.

I find now that I am considered by most of those I know to be quite negative and bitter. When in all honesty I am trying to just be realistic. This society I live in has gotten so bad that we have to smile at each other and say "Hey you look good and I'm glad things are well" when you are an American dollar away from actual starvation.

But I'm not writing about my socio-economic climate. I am mad. Of course I am. Why wouldn't you be when everyone around you has the gall to tell you that "God will provide" when you are rightly going crazy trying to provide and make ends meet. That "Everything will be alright" when they are not. When you are striving for resolution and all you get in return is Yoda speak.

How can I not be f*cking angry when I need food and all I get are platitudes? I don't care about having the patience to "bear" things because I already am. Now if people around me would care to lift their fingers a little and help, then maybe I/we can afford more than a symbolic bag of potatoes.

I saw an old woman once frail in her age, mixing cement in a construction site to earn her keep. After seeing that, everything else is just an excuse. If you want it enough you find a way. If you don't well its just another flimsy justification.
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And The Dawn Breaks For Yet Another Day

I'm partly glad, I don't have the same readership as before, as this place is akin to a rudderless ship. Desolate, empty, a ghost floating aimlessly on the currents of time.

I used to write with a vengeance. Now it just feels pathetic most of the time, trying to reach for meaning and eloquence and not getting either. I can't write about anything right now, the exercise in any subject feels - contrived.

All I'm doing right now is passing time and I am apologizing for cluttering the web with some more unhelpful garbage.
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You're Usually Handed A Fork When You Need A Spoon

Here I am again, racking my brain about, trying to find something worthwhile to write. As is usual I am failing miserably. Hindsight, that old soul wagging a finger at us saying "I told you so" is such a pervasive influence on me now that I'm stuck in a rut most of the time, second guessing myself about each decision I'd have to take that it just makes everything all the more confusing. I've found this to be the bane of my existence, this freezing and choking on the verge of good things to come.

I had done more than half a dozen restarts on this blog hoping to recapture the clarity I felt when I wrote before, but I'm still unable to find meaning or direction in what I wanted to do. My life is collapsing around me, like ice shelves. Falling into the sea as they melt under an unending assault from the sun. Yet writing holds no rope or hope of catharsis, love is stripped bare of all its assumptions ; strong yet inexplicably unhelpful to my further despair. All the ghosts of past lives are walking in the living room, having gotten free of the closet - chatting with the spirits of the present. But none go out the door so I can grieve and rest.

I can't find my muse. Maybe I've been trying too hard. And as they say, you're given a spoon. When all you needed was a fork.

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Philippines hit for 'hiding' poor at prestige event

Philippines hit for 'hiding' poor at prestige event

Potemkin. Potemkin. Potemkin.

I actually had a little respect for Ricky Carandang, before all this, and I still do. After all he still tries to do his job, and that should not be easy - with the Chief being as insensitive as he is.

The deal here is that we Filipinos have voted in a President out of the sentiment of loss due to the death of "heroes". Utterly unprepared for, we rode on the wave of emotion again and found ourselves here. With an incompetent bench running a beat down country.

I wonder how my countrymen let our public servants get away with this. Outsourcing companies under foreign ownership sack for misses less than these and we elected all these clowns into office. This is the main reason why we are poor. Never mind the amount of children for now, that's an unharnessed wealth of resource somewhere along the line. We are poor because we are still enslaved, waiting for a messiah to set us free, and deliver a golden age. We have not outgrown four hundred years of Spanish rule, not yet.

Well we've been free for quite some time. Most of us just don't know it yet. And so, we fall prey over and over again. I keep wishing Marcos fought on, a couple of shots would have discouraged all of these vulture families that have become ascendant since they left. At least back then, we were not that poor.

Take Doubt Away

We've all dealt with doubts one way during the course of our lives. We've wondered about our decisions, pondered about our missteps, and spent ridiculously long hours fretting about regrets.

It won't change a thing. There is only one reality we have, and it is staring us/you in the face right now. This is the bull whose horns you need to grab; this is your sixty seconds, your seven minutes, your final chicane, your buzzer beater, your hail mary pass. This is yours.

Never mind the lack of a stadium, roaring crowds, cameras and lights. The pain will still be the same, and the joy still as sweet.

We go to join the battle, regardless of our state. Doubt, fear, feel. But never wave the white flag of surrender. Life is too short for cowardice.


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Stuck

I find myself yet again, locked in the embrace of one of civilized society's wickedly beautiful daughters - the traffic jam.

Modern consumerism and gluttony at its human best. An endless, undulating metal beast of gaudy colors and sparkling lights. A cacophony of sounds from engines, exhaust pipes and radio speakers.

The beast devours the grains of sands that constitute our lives, poisons the air, eats the resources of our mother earth and feeds the greedy all at the same time.

I want to get out of this. I want to be free of this. I want a quiet life.
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Get Light-er

My best friend emailed me earlier, and gave me a start. I was playing around with a story and she told me to keep it "light". There has been so much swirling around the past two years that kept me on the edge most days. I'd say I'm happier, but with that joy comes the fear that I'd fall short of my responsibilities.

Then there is all of that still remains unresolved. I'm tired and after all that am still on uneven ground. I'm scared. But maybe she said the right thing. With life as short as it is, maybe - I should keep it light.
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Before You Off Yourself

There are mornings I wake up and feel like there is a huge bag of rocks on my chest. The nostalgia feels like a mountain resting on me, the weight of the years almost unbearable.

Sometimes I wonder, how the rest of humanity can go along with the flow of life. Not a rockstar, not an inventor, not what you had set out to be. Not the life you wanted. Not the love you sought. Solace from your religion is what people usually say. Is it really contentment with your lot of the draw, or is it a choice between acceptance and utter dark desolation of despair?

Even then you wake up, however lost the years, the friends, the choices have been; however bleak the universe is; despite your trunkful of coulda, woulda, shoulda, you still have woken up. What happens when you don't? I am not sure. Cross the bridge when you get there I think. But I have woken up, as you have. It would be a waste to not try again. It may all end up in failure, since there is no proof there may be a win today. But - what if?

Brought back to my youth by The Avengers

Avengers Movie Website

After multiple disappointments with Marvel characters in movies, this optimist-pessimist decided that the scales tilted from Tortilla chips and burgers at TGI Friday's to a date with the Avengers movie. Well not fully, I kept some for insurance and had an apple slush and tortillas before the movie.

I kept the expectations to a minimum. After all the character surgeries done so the X-Men can be GP, what else would someone who grew up waiting for six months before one got a chance (chance being the operative word) to get the newest Marvel comic book, all the superhero movies felt something like a betrayal of our youth. It felt too sanitized, to get through the censors at which ever board had a say.

Boy was I wrong this time. My wife who is six years my junior, almost did not watch the movie as she was watching me. I felt like I was ten again, moving through the pages of an Avengers Annual, the one sent by a very loved relative from the USA. I felt as I did then, blood quickening as I had been so excited but needed to finish my homework and chores first before I could solemnly unwrap the comic book and start reading. I felt both torn and impatient at wanting to know how the story ends and trying to keep time frozen.

I laughed, I clapped, I cheered, I whooped (when the Hulk knocked Thor down on a whim). I went back to days when Ben Grimm battled the green monster in the city streets of USA. I went back to when it was cool that Dr. Blake was Thor. I went back from all the dreary, tiring grown up modern world I know now, this third world country I call home, and went back to being a child transported by the story tellers and artists of Marvel. I felt good, for the first time in a long time, about having spent my money.

Thank you Stan Lee and team. Some other hardcore fan/s would still find something lacking as purists would usually do. I'd say this time you've outdone yourselves. I met my childhood self today, and for that you have my gratitude yet again.

Barclays shareholders revolt against boss pay awards

Barclays shareholders revolt against boss pay awards

This makes one really wonder why Filipinos, who are not an illiterate race, are unable to rise to our potential and take control of our situation in this manner.

Folks, we are going to continue to get abused in all aspects of civilized life, until we get our heads together and make our leaders accountable for their actions and decisions.

I dearly hope people may listen someday.

34 Degree Saturday Morning

So I wake up and wonder if I set my thermostat wrong, as the room temperature stood at 24 Celsius. Good enough to not be uncomfortable, but I like cold balmy air. I don't think I can take Alaska, my preference would lie around autumn weather.

I go up and decide to take a leak, since I won't be able to start on my blog anyway, with the bladder screaming for attention. I open my bedroom door and - enter the airport tarmac.

Well that's how it felt anyway moving from 24 to 34 degrees. Darn it, I used to remember liking the summers here where I was born. Now it feels like the land is trying to suffocate you in summer and drown you in the monsoon. I may just be pessimistic, you can ask my countrymen how they feel about it, now since I haven't packed my bags yet again, I can say I'm mildly optimistic.

Note to policitians - you're stealing taxes, manipulating the economy to accumulate more wealth, so can you at least please leave some trees around? Pretty soon there won't be any of us left to abuse anyway, so it's a win-win situation.

I so want a Blackberry Playbook

Blackberry Playbook

Note to self:
"If the one who talked to Faust talks to you. Ask for the Playbook. And maybe a matching phone."

or

"Will work for Playbook"

The IPad is for kiddies. Grown-ups get the bb tablet.
Tee hee.

Philippines seeks US defence boost amid China row

Philippines seeks US defence boost amid China row

We've been called little brown americans somewhere along our history. It feels from the inside of this country that we've been trying to find our own identity but still try to grow with the United States as our primary model.

We love everything American.

So what happens to all those that campaigned so vigorously against American presence in our shores? That emergent bully does not play by the rules. Looks like we run to America after all, to protect our sovereignity that we've accused them of infringing.

Sigh.

A Fundamental Question

Are you a believer because you are, or are you a believer because you would go crazy in this chaotic world without that hope of something higher and better?

I found myself grappling with that question a couple of midmornings back, and I still haven't gotten a straight answer yet. Funny how one can delude one's self eh?

You see, hear, and read about it everywhere. First world citizens who have all the opportunities in the world living lonely lives; third world citizens living in squalor living lives where hope is hope itself. As one learns and goes out into the world the inevitable questions surface. Are we to live our moments in this earth purely in the way we were raised, or are we to define it as our own?

Life knocks you down, makes you cry, gives you opportunities to laugh, intervals when you feel invulnerable, and puts you in the dark, in those occasions of gnawing doubt. One should begin to wonder, with all the beauty of a rising sun, the nostalgia that arrives with the death of the sun and the birth of the moon, with how the sharp tinge of ozone brought about by falling rain on hot pavement can bring emotion to us, is this all there is? Is there somewhere we go to? Is it our vanity as an intelligent being that makes us refuse to believe that we just close our eyes, lie down and become worm fodder?

But... do we take it as is? The way our elders have handed it down to us? In spite of the hate all that supposed love has created? Or do we at least try to evolve as we grow in civilization? With all that, how can one believe as strongly that Someone is actually watching and guiding us?

I am still hedging my bets that there is a Supreme being. Just not sure yet whether I'm the former or the latter. Which one are you?

This Is The Way We Brush Our Teeth

If you just happened to crawl out of a rock recently chances are that it hasn't reached you - normal dysfunctional people like all of us hate unsolicited advice. There are those who pretend that they do of course. But those are attention junkies. They don't really care about what you say, only that they have your full and undivided attention.

Ok so I've again deflated you or someone elses only ticket to happiness. But hey really, if I wanted to know what you think I'd have asked you don't you "think"?

So now I've no choice but to give you a response right? Right. Go take your two cents and gag on it.

I've been told I blot out the sun

Not in a good way though. The princess has acquired this habit, as her own psyche is so similar yet so different from my own - where my self deprecating handling of my soul is a coping mechanism, my hope for the best and expect the worst, she just goes on blinking red lights and the alternate flashing of "does not compute" and "system shutdown" in her lovely almond eyes. Which of course comes with the verdict of proven genocide against unicorns, fairy folk and the like. I believe in magic thank you very much. How else can elected officials steal your taxes and make you vote for them again if magic did not exist?

Doesn't bode well for your writer dear solitary reader as I have to censor myself now when I used to just talk to a wall. God forbid I take the sun again and hide it in my poophole (which is where I think she guesses I hid it)

Trying to write II

So here I am still stuck in real life, unable to find my road back to make believe land and sadder still is my inability to make even those midnight runs to the sarcasm store I used to frequent before. Sucks bigtime lemme tell you.

Maybe it's because I'm stuck in a rut too. Unable to travel like I used to and stuck with my dumbass ride that I keep meaning to dress up but never finish. I really hate that, driving some battered tin can rust effing bucket.

I am trying to find my mojo and I very well can't. It feels like my prose oriented soul has gone and sawed off a shotgun, loaded it, then drank a can full of insecticide for good measure before chewing on a scatter-shot.

I find it so unfunny it's funny. That's how sick it is.