the green backseat

tick-tock, tick-tock

2011-10-08T07:29:00.000-07:00

it's past 10 in the evening and my day is just starting.

my head just cleared from the splitting headache i had upon waking up from an hour-long afternoon nap, coming from dee's game.

i intended to sit down and work on the write-up at around seven this evening but surfing for additional facts to back-up my report got me to visiting flickr, facebook, and blogger--and that did me in.

i just learned upon entering the coffee shop earlier that this particular starbucks branch have an earlier closing time on weekends; it spells bad news for me--why oh why do you guys have to close just in time when my system's just starting to rev-up? oh well. i just have to go home and see where the night leads me.

so much for the scheduling i did last night, haha! i've to turn in a write-up on monday for consolidation with other write-ups in the group. clock is ticking, and my nerves are ticking, as well. LOL.

no regrets though. i was able to watch dee, even for at least 1 game, and it counts a lot. i can just imagine the scenario by dawn--dee coming in to find me wide awake, high on the write-up. i'll just smile, and let him sleep the remains of his day off. he'll smile back and say "get in bed".

i'll smile back and say, "just a couple of pages to go".

two people in the same room, separated by time.

orange is the new green

2011-10-07T09:40:00.000-07:00

starbucks columns.

been surfing the net and drinking my grande hibiscus blend hot tea for hours now (and its not hot anymore)--looking for COA and CSC facts i can use for my report (only two subjects to go) while simultaneously devising a new look for the backseat that has long been buried into oblivion.

yes, i'm planning to resurrect this little monster after quite a long hiatus from the blogging world. i really don't know if i can still command a following; but what the heck. i just want an online outlet for my thoughts that's been running awry ever since i can remember. my preoccupation with work and my masters course requirements cannot seem to contain them, and so i'm re-decorating in between visits to coa and csc websites.

i've updated the orangey look i made for season three to reflect a contemporary look that sure to elicit oohs and aahs from my old followers. oops, i forgot; silly me. reminder to self, you just said that you are writing for no one but yourself; to contain your seemingly uncontainable thoughts... you just said that, right? so stop this nonsense about orange looks and oohs and aahs. it doesn't fit in the equation, haha!

i'm sure i have majority of the data i need for my report, for now. tomorrow's gonna be a long day, tying up loose ends, trying to write a coherent report from this sea of madness called GRP's local initiative in the fight against graft and corruption. in the meanwhile, i'm gonna post this--qualifying as the backseat's first entry for the fourth season--and while waiting for dee to get out from work, i'm gonna stare at the screen, grind my teeth, tap my fingers in anticipation of the first comment. oops.

innocent and harmless

2011-06-07T03:06:00.000-07:00

it's been months now since i last posted. i looked at my last entry and marvelled how childlike and naive it seemed, gawking at the wonder that's hongkong. so much has happened since then. i enrolled in a master's class, and its really lots of work. lotsa work that lately, i think i've been getting the ire of my boss cuz there have been lotsa "sick" days when i call work to inform them that i cannot make it to the office. she hasn't really confronted me directly, yet. but i feel that its gonna be one of these days. there have been "innocent" questions like "when's your masters gonna be finished?" or "are you required to come up with a thesis?"--questions that have me asking myself, "why? and what are you really asking about?". i just might be over-analyzing things again, as has always been the case with myself, and the questions might really be harmless questions after all. i just want to finish my masters as early as possible so i can go back to the way things have been; socialize with my friends and family more often, and be seen more frequently at the office.

i love farmer's plaza!

2010-10-20T02:46:00.001-07:00

back from my first trip abroad with alec and van. nalula ako sa hongkong; i appreciated the sights and the tastes the city offered us during our five-day stay there. the wanton dumpling i tried at the SM food court equivalent in their Gateway Mall in Kowloon harbor is particularly good, and my curiosity had very well had its share of ample serving, what with the temple street night market just one block away from the hotel where we were billeted. but it also made me realize how well we have lagged behind as a country. the interior of train stations are much like many of our posh local malls here. and don't bother even thinking of farmers mall in cubao making that list, cuz for that i will not speak to you for months, nor dare utter your name even in hush-hush conversations with the closests of my confidants. LOL. the trip afforded me pleasure, but also opened my eyes that as a country, we have a lot of catching up to do. five days flew fast, like hunters competing for a fresh kill; and after screaming like crazy in disney's haunted hotel and staring wide eyed at those lovely sea creatures wading at the ocean park's many aquariums, i am finally back to reality, and with Hongkong pictures to last a lifetime, LOL.

zombie!

2010-10-10T18:35:00.000-07:00

no sleep last night. i dunno what came over me, that drove me on a read-athon all the way till the wee hours of the morning. i can't easily point my guilty fingers to the lord of the rings, although i must say that tolkien's writing is way too delicious for my starving literary stomach. the last time i had a serious reading fit was when i was still in good ole UP, during my anne rice phase that ended when i started work some eight years ago. the years that followed were years of intense social beefing-up and the physicality of those years rocketed sky-high, just way off the grid if ya ask me; but now it seems the geeky kid has resurrected from the depths and just wants to wreak havoc on my schedule like a rampaging beast. i mean, halleur, i have work to do, and that work demands me to be on my desk at exactly eight in the morning. a four in the morning read-athon finish and an eight o'clock work doesn't exactly carve what one might call a healthy lifestyle. ugh.

the bumpiest, the swerviest

2010-04-12T01:53:00.000-07:00

After a month or so of absence, i finally am able to write again. And guess where i am writing this entry, my dear reader? Where else but on a bus! Hehehe. Yes, on a bus. I’m on a bus, at the farthest end—the bumpiest, the swerviest (hehehe. pardon the word, i don’t know if it even exists at all. It seems my long absence from the blogging world has caused me to get a bit rusty with my command of the English language) part that seems to get better and better with every sentence i am turning. The road thinks he’s gonna beat me to it, and i’m soon to get tired of this attempt to update you. but nope. I’m not surrendering. Nuh-uh. Not one bit. Swerves and bumps be damned!

So. A month! A lot has happened, i don’t even know where to begin! Well lets start with my passions. I’m still as passionate and in love with photography as the day i first clicked my first click. I’ve already a growing collection which, a month ago, had been in dire need of organizing. If not for the week-long holy week vacation that was made possible by the generosity of our lolo johnny, i wouldn’t have even begun the task of building a solid portfolio from the mess that has been four months of just clicking and clicking and no deleting whatsoever (yes, i kept even the blurriest and crappiest photo i got); now i have 427 strong images that would speak directly of my art, or rather, my eye for art in anything and everything that passes me by, captured with the aid of my trusty cocoy.

Gizmo wise, if cocoy has been solidly turning in brilliant performances with every click, gael it seems these days, i find to be in a very sick condition. He’s been constantly crashing on me during the last two weekends that i’ve been using him. i’m getting a bit worried for him, what with just a year and a half of being with me. i’m thinking of having him reformatted sometime soon, if the problem continues to persist. Good thing i have all my important files backed up already.

We’re already approaching the sctex-nlex intersection by this time, and its already dark. There has been some sun in the sky when i started this entry, and now the harsh halogen lights of the sctex are in full blast. Tomorrow's gonna be the start of another work week, which i kinda dread, what with the pile of work waiting for me when i arrive. The surge of new laws and issuances have been in full blast since the middle of last year, that in retrospect its a miracle that i lasted this long, in being able to somehow keep up with all the activities needed to process a single law or issuance. Ang sisipag naman kasi ng mga boss namin. Hehehe. good thing, the benefits keep pouring in, thanks to our tireless union leaders who see to it that dedicated employees like me (hehehe) get rewarded for all their troubles. LOL. Through the efforts of our union, the management has recently approved a mass upgrading of the filled-up positions, and for the first time in six and a half years, makakatikim ako ng promotion, hehe.

This afternoon i posted at facebook a picture of me taken sometime in 2005. That was the year of endless hairgels, when i was trying too hard to look adorable and gwapo like the artista’s that time. Richard guttierez was the toast of GMA that year, doing one primetime show after another, a streak that will continue up to the present. dennis trillio was a fairly new discovery back then, but was a serious threat to richard’s career that bisaya, as have been reported in some gossip shows, had to take measures to ensure that dennis does not eclipse richard’s star. Both sport hairdos spruced up with the magic of hairgels. At dahil feeling matinee idol din ako, hindi ako nagpatalo. Nagtaas din ako ng buhok ko. hehehe. it amused me to think that i was so vain that time. going to my derma, going to the gym, and spending lots on hairgel tubes just to keep that youthful glow. nowadays i’m way past that Richard guttierez phase. I lead a more relaxed life, no longer worrying of not arriving on time at the gym and missing my fitness first classes ; or fretting over the traffic that kept me away my precious treadmill time. i still do yoga, but not in a class. I still run but not on a mill. I grow my hair long, and i feel like i’m jun pyo’s long lost brother. LOL.

Toll booth na. My stint on the road is nearing its end. I don’t know when the next entry’s gonna be, but i sure do hope that when i write my next entry, wala na ako sa likod ng bus. Kahilo, ampotah. Ciao.

ho-hum.

2010-03-02T16:31:00.000-08:00

i rarely post entries these days. if asked, i would usually reason out that i busy myself with other things. photography. yoga. my mini-novella. stuff. but truth is--and this, i've trouble admitting--i've simply lost interest, chronicling the mundane. the wonderful. the magical. the earth-shattering. stuff that make my world go round. like a poetry-reading session i recently attended. or those magical late-afternoon photowalks i had, going around guadalupe with eyvicat. its not that i lost interest in the things that make my world go round. i just got tired writing about them. i don't know if its just a phase. or something that would bury the greenbackseat six feet under. i rarely visit and comment on my virtual playground too--blogs that caught my fancy when the backseat was in its heydays. gosh, what gloomy talk this is turning out to be. i talk as if the backseat will really close. i don't really know what's come over me to write about this, or have the gall to even think about this.

if you'd care to even analyze me, i've the tendency to write on my blog during my most stressed-out episodes. or when i'm too inspired and overflowing with creative and literary ideas. given that my mini-novella's about to end, my life struggles at a stand-still--the ugly sick pig episode ending happily--and no idea for new poems or another novella has sprung out from my mangy mind yet, i suspect this phase will extend indefinitely. and yes, i'm heartily living the life i could only have dreamed of when i was in college. too content perhaps to even write about the little sparks that illuminate the daily gentle life.

oh, on a lighter note, i will be with friends old and new, at boracay this saturday. its my second time to strut the gentle stuff in this lovely island. i hope it would be a much more pleasant experience than my first one back in 2007, when i was down with terrible fever and unfortunately plagued with a bloated face.

ciao. gentle signing off.

praktis ako ng praktis!

2010-01-24T18:04:00.000-08:00

Most of the time I feel like that kid in the lucky me commercial. The crybaby who said to his mom with tears staining his chubby cheeks “praktis naman ako ng praktis”, when he learned he didn’t make it in the tryouts. Well, I haven't really been practicing, in the past two months. Actually I’ve been in hibernation, so to speak, when it comes to the matter of regular exercise; so I have no right to compare myself to the kid. But I share his frustration. Mine’s been accumulated over the years, as I tried so hard to maintain a slim figure through diet and exercise, afraid of going back to my old form—that fat kid everybody loves to squeeze because he’s so squishy-soft, but low in self-esteem coz he’s physically different from all the normal-looking kids around him. But yes, as the past entries lamented, I’ve been letting my guard down. I’m still far from that picture that I loathe looking at, but I will not wait for the time when reality meets history. In the last four days, I’ve been trying to go back to yoga. My sessions have been itty-bitty ones, not the full-length sessions I used to do. Small steps, but steps nonetheless. I’ve my exercise bag with me now, so that after office I could go back to working the treadmill at the gym. As I said in my previous entry, no weights first. I just want to feel the regularity of exercise coming back to my system. Yes, it’s me again back to “praktis ng praktis”, lets just hope I get to see some results in due time. Sabi nga ng nanay sa commercial, “tomorrow is another day”.

your one minute gentle

2010-01-22T00:53:00.000-08:00

nahihilo ako. kelangan ko na talagang magbawas ng kain. ang hirap naman kasing magpigil. kakakain ko lang sa chowking ha--sulusyon ko sa hilo. haay.

i'm discovering the joys of stop-motion animated movies once again. thanks, coraline! napadaan tuloy ako sa friendly neighborhood muslim vendor, and bought an 8-in-1 disc movie collection. marathon ito mamaya.

fuck, napurga ako sa commercials ng mga pulitiko sa bus kahapon. kanina din ulit, kasi maghapong bukas ang tv sa bahay. one could tell malapit na talaga ang election. ang kaisa-isang commercial to make my day e yung commercial ng lucky me about a boy na praktis ng praktis pero di pumasa sa tryout. hehehe, kulit.

tumambling ako sa usapan kanina nung mga kapwa ko nag-aantay na tawagin ang number ng bank teller. apat daw ang thesis nya. hello, buhay ka pa. pinagchismisan din nila yung mga batchmates nilang nakikita nila sa facebook. may koment si ateng bangka sa lahat ng mabanggit na pangalan. sobrang taba. sobrang payat. mukha nang matanda. hindi na nya babalikan yung isa--napagsawaan na daw nya. napalingon ako. hello ate ang ganda mo.

sunog sa kabilang kalye

2010-01-20T19:42:00.000-08:00

Maaga akong nagising, mag-aalas singko pa lang ng madaling araw kanina. Ginising ako ng landlady ko. May sunog daw sa kabilang kanto. Naglabasan din yung ibang mga nagrerent para silipin ang kaguluhan sa kalsada. Fire-out naman na nung lumabas kami at naki-usi—usok na lang ang natatanaw namin coming from the roof of houses. Buti na lang mabilis mag-respond ang mga bumbero namin. The last thing i want to do is to haul my things outside the street at magtatakbo palayo sa nasusunog na unit ko. hehehe. wa-poise.

So ayun, balik na kami sa kanya kanyang unit. Got to meet two renters na nun ko din lang nakita, and malamang yun na rin ang last na pagkikita namin. May kanya-kanyang mundo dito, most of the renters here work at call centers, and malamang yung iba kakarating pa lang from work, nag-reready matulog. Yung iba naman have day jobs like me, and malamang papagising na din to prepare for work. Ako, well nakaleave ako at pauwi naman ng province later, hehe. Since medyo mahaba na din ang tulog ko, i took advantage of having rested my body quite sufficiently, to do something i haven’t done in a while. Since my operation, i had zero physical activity relating to exercise so i tried my left wrist for the first time in nearly two months, if it can already withstand the pressures of chaturanga dandasana. Ok naman, nakaka-balance naman ako with the yoga push up position pero i notice that said wrist and arm kinda tremble with my weight when i lean forward, getting to the full pose. Yes, the operation weakened my wrist. Not the one to easily give up, i pushed myself to meeting the 14 repetitions of a full sun salute cycle i set myself to do on the outset. Natapos ko naman. Yan, puro sun salute muna in the next three days or so, just so masanay ulit katawan ko with exercise. Next week i’ll be including treadmill na, kahit pakonti-konti. Lifting weights will have to wait a little longer. Kung sa body weight nga lang sa yoga, nanginginig na ako, how much more with actual weights? Gudlak.

After that, i got to editing some pictures still in my sd card. Gotta remind myself to buy a reserve card; grabe, in just two months of shooting with cocoy (my Nikon dslr) napuno ko na kaagad yung freebie na sd card, hehe. Pwede na ko umuwi after typing this, actually, pero may bilin pa si geloy, and that anime shop doesn’t open til 12 noon. So i guess, i can still upload some pictures for flickr, and go to the fort to buy cupcakes at sonja’s. Shet, antakaw ko. haha! Hindi kaya!! Gusto ko lang naman patikman si ate, di pa kasi nya natitikman yun. Layo kasi ng the fort kung sasadyain ko straight from work in the evening tapos byahe na din kaagad ako pa-probinsya.. e anong oras na kaya ako makakarating non, no?!

of ugly sick pig and meat falling off the bone

2010-01-11T02:42:00.000-08:00

Go on, sear me a beauty
That’s it—tender, falling off the bone
That one sure looks tempting enough;
Succulent, til the last drop
that’s bound to glaze my lips, wet my tongue
Stoke my hunger for more
As you stoke that fire to a roaring splendor

I intended to post this one over at my poetry site but i was never really comfortable with it to begin with. I honestly think its crap. It must be that i’m still not over with the holiday bug—all those delicious food, haha! Well it just goes to show that gluttony and poetry do not mix very well.

My office pc is finally working—was just delivered today. Now i can finally go back to REAL work. I hope it doesn’t bog down on me again. Hah! So much precious data.. can’t afford to lose a single one.

Anyways, i’t gonna be a real quickie.. its nearly seven in the evening; in a short while the floodway will be teeming with schools of fish all wanting to be out. But this has just to get through : the ugly sick pig incident has finally reached a satisfying ending. Its a hard battle, but i ended victorious. All the hard work has finally paid off, thanks to the people who rallied behind my cause. The ugly sick pig has fallen to the ground. And i couldn’t be anymore happier.

goodbye, 2009!

2009-12-31T05:39:00.000-08:00

Four hours to go before midnight. I’m in my room, having just finished editing some pictures for upload at flickr, with Geloy playing by my desktop pc at the back. A little later, i expect Ate to be calling us down already so the yearly ritual of eating-til-you-drop could begin. But i still got some time. i haven’t been blogging as much as i ought to, as my previous “dear blog” entry would attest to. I don’t know if i could still sustain the same fervor, and gusto i had, writing down things in my mind, as i did at around this same season as last year. But whatever the case, i at least assure you dear reader, that the green backseat is still in operation and will still be the official home of gentle for years to come. As proof of that, i just finished working on my season four cum holiday banner—something that should have been done earlier, as i’m way well onto my fourth season; this being my fifth or sixth entry already.

The banner’s a bit different from its predecessors. Devoid of pomp and special effects, what you get is an in-your-face gentle; a gentle that is stripped down of layers and layers of adobe effects; the use of which, for some year now, has been espoused by yours truly—the self-professed prophet of adobe—extolling its virtues over raw, unedited, unprocessed images. Why the sudden change of preference? I don’t know. It must be that it comes with age. I know myself. Confident i could present myself to anyone and not afraid anymore of being seen for my flaws, i chose my latest picture without having to hide under blurs and color distortions. This is gentle the way he should be.

The picture’s part of my latest trip to Baguio with my cousin, Anno. This one’s at the ampitheater in front of the bell house, in Camp John Hay. The camp holds a lot of happy, dear memories i had as a child, with my family and the rest of my close-knit relatives. Now, my aunts are all indisposed, tending to their different illnesses, some of which i managed to blog about in my other entries. Being that Ate and her family went to Pampanga for the long Christmas holiday, and that i cannot take Nanay with me on a long bumpy bus ride, i managed to get Anno, the cousin closest to my age to tag along with me. this next one’s taken along the camp’s eco-trail, beside the wall-climbing facility and butterfly sanctuary.

Before going home to the province for the long break, i sortof managed to jot some things down on paper so i could just retype em the moment the urge to blog pops up. Work issues have been getting me down as of late, and there’s no refuge i could think of than good ole backseat. The paper’s still on my wallet, but on second thought, besides not up to the job of typing down what has already been written—i’m more comfortable in writing my thoughts as they come—i’m also not keen on picking on fresh wound. Madrama ba? Speaking of wound, my other wound, the physical one, is healing quite well already. Nakapaghugas na ako ng plato kanina, without the fear of over-twisting my wrist and stirring things underneath my still visible stitch line. Yes, contrary to others telling me that i could and should already be moving my wrist normally to answer to the daily chores of life, i’m still a bit apprehensive as to its effectiveness in handling the normal gentle routine—lifting weights and yoga, that is. But seeing that my waist’s growing more and more comfortably relaxed with the established gentle appetite, i therefore resolve that by the coming year i should put a little more effort into losing weight and shaping up. Part of aging gracefully is knowing how to take care of one’s body; something that i should be putting more effort to, as i haven’t been getting enough sleep because of another addiction that just developed—Plants vs. Zombies, that is, hehehe. Geloy, this is all your fault. But seriously, i need to develop a healthier sleep pattern too, next year.

so, sabi nga ng mga chikadora sa mga showbiz columns na binabasa ko sa opis pag turn ko nang magbantay sa monitoring desk (news articles are so boring) after na nilang mailatag ang latest showbiz chika for the day.. they always end their column with “so, there”.

So, there.

sa pilipinas, ginto ang snowflakes!

2009-12-18T02:46:00.001-08:00

glorieta 4, makati city

merry christmas blog friends!!

insensitive

2009-12-14T19:08:00.000-08:00

I was at the CR this morning when I overheard our office janitors havin a conversation about their thirteenth month pay.

Janitor 1 : O, dumating na daw yung 13th month natin?
Janitor 2 : Oo, kahapon lang.
Janitor 1 : Magkano?
Janitor 2 : 5 thousand pare
Janitor 1 : Ha? E di ba last year nag-8 thousand na tayo?
Janitor 2 : Dinig ko nga 4 thousand nga lang daw sana ang ibibigay ngayong taon.

I didn’t stay long enough to hear what Janitor 1 replied to his colleague. I went out knowing fully well that everyday, they are exposed to the employees talking how much “benefits” they are going to receive this Christmas from the big boss, or what additional cash benefits the employee union is still lobbying for the common good of the employees.

The office outsources its janitorial service to third party service providers, so the janitors do not enjoy the same monetary outpouring as the rest of the employees receive at Christmas. Its just saddening to think that these are the most overworked people around, doing numerous other things at the beck and call of most employees, other than cleaning the office premises, and they get a meager bonus for Christmas. We (I’m not excusing myself from this) remain day-in, day-out insensitive as to even remind ourselves to hush up a bit in their presence when the topic of conversation veers towards christmas bonus. Ampangit tingnan, di ba?

Sigh, office culture has crept into my veins.

ang drama ko naman talaga o, kainis. haha!

2009-12-08T02:49:00.000-08:00

Dear Blog,

I know I haven’t been writing on you quite as much as I would want to. These past few days, I have been really itching to report to you what has been keeping me busy, happy—taking much of my time to the point that I’ve no energy left at the end of the day, to compose my thoughts and be with you even for just a few minutes—but I know you’re just there, constant in your undying affection for me, your inconstant, ungrateful friend. One year is no easy feat in the blogging world, and we’ve manage to hold onto each other through the grueling twelve months, sharing the highs and lows of everyday living; and it is this recent unnatural new high that has caused me to write this one, knowing that you would be jealous no doubt of my new-found friend. But don’t be. You will always have a special place here in my heart. It’s just that my creativity is now spilling onto other forms and other media, here on the internet. I recently fell in love with photography. And having been consistently reporting to you until about a month ago, I have no doubt that you already saw this one coming. Yes, havin a DSLR camera paved the way for me to have another avenue with which to pour my heart. Suddenly, my poetry and short fiction which I have so prided myself to having created, nurtured and kept alive for the last twelve months or so, had to take a backseat (maybe this is what the “green backseat” title is for—did I have foresight in coming up with a title for you; knowing that someday this would happen… the backseat taking a backseat? Hehehe). well, I know this is just temporary. As with other things that went before, when I finally have my fill, it will eventually go back to normal, with me taking alternately and in moderation all the wonderful things that make my world go round. But for now allow me to share to you this one. And please don’t get jelous.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ojcruz/

Love,
Gentle

si nanay at ang mga panget na tuta

2009-12-03T07:50:00.000-08:00

Dadalawa na lang yung tuta namin out of the three that i wrote of, in my home alone entry last October. Yung pinakakyut sa kanila na gustong gusto ni nanay, dinampot ng mga hinayupak na kapit bahay namin some days ago. Marunong na kasi silang lumabas ng gate. Last ko syang nakita on the first night after my operation, nung kakarating lang namin ni ate from Manila. Pinansin ko pa nga, kasi last week lang eh behave pa sila. Kahit bukas pa yung gate, di sila lumalabas. and then yun nga, nung papalipat na kami sa kabilang bahay for the night biglang sumunod silang tatlo with the two grown dogs at lumabas ng kalsada. Ala namang gaanong nag-effort na papasukin sila kasi nga maliliit pa lang sila at nakakalusot pa sa siwang ng gate kaya kayang-kaya nilang bumalik after ng gala nila. Pero hayun, the next day ala na sya. Bumalik yung dalawang panget na tuta except sya. Problemado tuloy si nanay. She’s thinking baka yung isang taga neighborhood na palaging bumabati sa aso at nag-oofer pa kay nanay na bilhin na lang, na sya ang salarin. Syempre ang nanay ko sisimple-simple lang yan pero may natatagong taray din kaya’t nakarinig na lang si Anita (ang mahaderang neighbour) ng “they’re not for sale” in ilokano. Hehehe. that day, palagi nya yung binabanggit. Syempre, palagi mo ba namang kasama sa bahay tapos bigla-bigla na lang mawawala. Nakita ko pa ngang nakadungaw sa terrace si nanay at medyo nakatulala. I thought it couldn’t be the pup entirely. Matanda na si nanay. Mabagal nang maglakad at medyo bent na ang likod. Most of the time, pag wala kami dahil may kanya-kanyang pasok (even CJ, na may speech therapy sessions in the afternoon), she’s left with the dogs and her afternoon telenovelas. so just imagine it for her, the loss. Kinakausap-kausap pa nga nya yung mga yun. And yes, i couldn’t help thinking that it might be other concerns too, relating sa pagtanda. Haay. Ayokong maging emotional dito. Medyo malakas pa naman si nanay. Sya pa nga ang gumising sa akin at nag-asikaso ng almusal ko when i left for manila to see my doctor yesterday. i just dread to see the day na bigla syang manghihina. Parang di ko kakayanin.

season four pilot | episode one : chubby fingers

2009-12-02T04:38:00.000-08:00

It’s been five days since my surgery at the Makati med. My left hand and fingers are back to their normal size once again. Finally i can type this one, which has been germinating in my mind and accumulating in details ever since the anaesthesiologist woke me up at the operating room, without so much as wincing in pain whenever i try doing it in my normal pace. When i say the word bloat, can you picture my right hand with its bony fingers placed side by side with my left, which has never been anything but chubby and bursting with mysterious fluids during the first three days post-operation? If you can, well and good, coz that’s not the end to it. Picture my bloated left hand’s knuckles slowly turning purple; the purplish hue seeming to crawl up, toward my fingertips. And if you have an overactive imagination like the one i have, you might probably be thinking the same thing i’ve been thinking, prior to the follow-up consultation i had with my doctor yesterday, wherein he vanquished all those negative thoughts down the drain, to the last savory drop—that no, i’m not dying; that if the purplish hue reaches my fingertips my fingers will not start falling off like wilted leaves from the main stem, leaving me with a super productive stump for a hand—i just need to flex my fingers so that blood will circulate healthily through them, and that’s what i’ve been doing. This entry is exercise for my fingers, hehehe.

Going back to the moment i woke up—i’ve no words but thank yous, to the medical staff who assisted in the operation; to Casle, my nurse who saw to my needs during the operation, to the motherly anaesthesiologist who never left my side way until i’m out of that super deep sleep—if you ask me now, that was one freaky, creepy sleep. It felt good. I was havin good dreams. It wasn’t a flat sleep with no dreams but a busy one (though i couldn’t remember any of the details anymore), but its also something i don’t have control over. It could have gone on forever, with me rolling from one dream to the next, and never waking up at all. And so just imagine the relief slowly creeping up my being when i did wake up, realizing where i was, with my left hand and wrist bandaged neatly on my side.

I’ve so much to be thankful for! My friends and relatives who kept me strong with their text messages. I kept reading a long list of you-can-do-it messages days before the actual procedure just to have the proper mindset, hehehe. Thanks to the bulldog, shattershards, eyvicat, scheez, geek, grems, ryan, ada, and mar for those encouraging text messages. To my online blogmate-well wishers, i appreciate the comments you’ve been leaving on the various entries i wrote relating to the dreaded surgical operation. Special thank you goes to my cousin Melvin, who tended to the wound because i’m too scared to even remove the bandage and look at it. I got four stitches, hehehe! It really pays to have a nurse for a cousin, huh. And yes, the last one goes to my family who supported me throughout all of this, with Ate even taking a leave from her work to accompany me on the day of my surgery.

Love you all. Pag may nakalimutang banggitin sana huwag magtampo.

how bout a poem for a season ender?

2009-11-22T16:43:00.000-08:00

thus ends another season of the green backseat.

here's a poem i managed to thumb with the help of my trusty celfone yesterday, at the bus going back to Manila. the passenger in front of me slept all throughout the travel, reclining her seat to the maximum so i couldn't bring gael out to jot my thoughts. my imagination was so fertile yesterday that i was feverish--unable to stop til i get the words right; and i did, i think.

the title is love at first prick.

go figure. hehehe.
_______________

and she laughs—
sickly and sweet;
saunters silkenly,
holy down your highway;
tears up her skirt,
cracks up a dance;
to taunt and to tease—
tear you out your wits

oh she crackles—
and you crack;
bones break,
burning and barking
mad;
boiling your brain a soft
gooey goo –
flushable, edible
straight down the loo.

and she sings—
close your eyes,
hear her sing;
lull you sick,
lull you sweet;
loose your marbles
bit by bit

and she laughs—
hoarse as a whore’s,
wild as a child’s;
close your eyes,
close your eyes;
swirl round and round
her rasping, lilting
hurtling lullabye

can you spell grr in five letters?

2009-11-22T05:07:00.000-08:00

GRRRR.

kainis. may magjowang nauna sa akin sa sakayan ng tricycle, and i had to wait for frigin five minutes more before deciding to walk home na lang kasi wala nang dumarating na tricycle sa pilahan. five minutes lang naman na walking distance ang bahay ko (well, yung nirerent ko) from boni--that is if you're walking like cops are chasing after you; mala-walkathon ba.. walk to death for 250 meters. ganon. meron namang mga tricycle actually. di nga lang sila umaabot sa kinatatayuan ko. lumiliko na sila kaagad mga sampung hakbang lang from where i was standing. ano ba, di ba nila ako nakikita? dun sa tinayuan ko naman ang tamang antayan, i'm so sure of it. sang taon na din naman ako dito. at mukha pa silang mga nagmamadali lahat. dinaan-daanan lang ako, potah. at lalo lang ang inis ko when i'm in my last stretch toward the home run (home run talaga!) nang magsulputan silang lahat sa tabi ko nang sunod sunod. heto ako naglalakad, nagmamadali para makuha sa bahay yung ipapalaba ko sa laundry shop bago ako mapagsarhan for the night--at kumakain ng alikabok nyo. cough, cough. shempre dapat soshal pa din sa pag-ubo.

naka-abot naman sa laundry shop. after much trouble. thats trouble spelled in all capital letters--TROUBLE. Potah talaga.

oh the flare!

2009-11-21T19:35:00.000-08:00

Question : What do vain people with camera celfones do with their idle time? Gosh, is that even a question? Take self-pictures of course! Hehehe. after four years of unabashed posing, be it at work or the bus, or the restaurant—to the horror of uhm, mortified onlookers, i have managed to accumulate almost 200 worth of these cute and priceless gentle pictures, haha! I haven’t really given much thought of transferring these to gael or to other devices, but since the ongoing trend during the past week until now is transferring pictures, well i guess it’s high time that my camera pictures receive an equal treatment as with my other picture files, and get transferred to much secured storage devices as well. Whew. Four years. looking at these many gentles, i’ve noticed one thing : iisa lang ang anggulo ko! hehehe. and that is the slightly upturned face, revealing my sexy neck and moderately angular jaw. And of course—my flaring nosetrils! Hehehe. syempre, nagkakatalo lang sa overall mood kung nakasimangot ako or super ngiti. For documentary purposes, having accomplished this momentous task four years in the making, i will upload—not 200 of them—but a few that passed quality control. And for my dear gentle readers who suddenly feel nauseated by all these, you’re welcome to throw up in the privacy of your respective CRs. Hehehe. Trip-trip lang. ;)

hmm. i think that with this entry and the previous ones, the backseat might already be fast evolving into a photoblog! well. that remains to be seen in the coming season. ;)

click!

2009-11-20T07:25:00.000-08:00

i spent the whole day with my camera. i went home to the province this morning, holding my camera--in the mrt, the bus. i took snapshots of people and terminals.. and stuff;

and then my battery went dead.

note to self : must buy extra battery... uhm. i might need to buy a longer zoom lens too--i seem to fancy photographing people doing their stuff; and i'm havin a hard time, doing it with my itty-bitty lens. hehehe. when i got home this afternoon, i charged my battery right away, for me to take some more pictures.. clicking all the way til the light won't permit me to click anymore. i took a snapshot of my mom.. and then some flowers.

i'm going to manaoag tomorrow to pray for my operation, and to have my camera blessed too. and yes, to take pictures. :)

manong joe and mikee's mom

2009-11-17T18:00:00.000-08:00

Manong Joe was just across the corridor, consulting with his doctor; outside, a female staff, a driver and two bodyguards were patiently waiting for him to come out. Mikee’s mom, Tingting, in a gold and black ensemble, was strutting her stuff along the corridor as I was waiting for Medicard’s approval of the three tests I was supposed to undergo prior to the operation, and the operation itself. Three hours at the Makati Med just for all these stuff. I fear. Like all people about to undergo an operation, I fear all there is to fear. i close my eyes, trying to remember the confidence in my doctor’s voice as we were talking about my decision to have it finally removed. I close my eyes, trying to picture all these rich, politically-powerful people, entrusting themselves to this same hospital, this same team of doctors my health card privilege affords me to consult with—and I am somehow comforted.

9 days to go

the caramoan picture storybook

2009-11-15T23:55:00.000-08:00

a scene from the window seat, going to camarines sur

the inland waterway going out to sea is teeming with lush vegetation, mostly nipa and bakawan

caramoan town proper at 6:30 in the morning. this is already the busiest part of town; so "busy" that most people here know each other by name

this was the modified tricycle we rode during the two days worth of sight-seeing

an interesting old house we found by the roadside, on our way to the "stairs"

the stairs - 537 heart-thumping steps all in all, led us to

this breath taking view

one of the clearest waters i ever saw. clearer than that of boracay's; little fishes kept playing by my feet the entire time we were on this island

our tour's last stop - this island held many fun corners that i discovered one by one with my camera

like this one, straight out of a tourist's brochure

and this magical spot: the sunlight falling on the water's surface is glorious

before leaving the caramoan port on our last day, we were treated to an unexpected and very welcome "extra" - a peek at the mayon volcano; majestic from a distance

counting down to caramoan

2009-11-09T16:32:00.000-08:00

four days to go to caramoan.

excited for the next big pose.

the checklist

2009-11-03T01:36:00.000-08:00

Member data record, check.
Form 1, check.
Certification of member contribution, check.

I remember doing this exact procedure—going from one office to the next, obtaining the required documentation and signatures, around july of last year when I elected to have a newly discovered tendon cyst surgically removed at the Makati Med. The process I underwent involved punching two holes around my wrist and pressing on it hard, forcing the gel-like cyst out from its receptacle. It was done by way of local anesthesia, and was finished in a matter of five minutes. In a matter of one month, the mound that was flattened, grew back to its original size. It’s been more than a year already, and once again, prompted by cancer-scare brought about by the recent turnouts of cancer cases in the family, I once again go under the knife. Only this time, the doctor, who is an orthopedic surgeon, suggested that I go to sleep because local anesthesia might not entirely cover the pain once the procedure begins. Natatakot ako. Di pa nga ako nadedextrose sa tanang buhay ko, ngayon kelangan kong matulog for an operation? Pano kung di na ako magising? Masakit ba ang tusok ng karayom, going through your veins? I have to accomplish this major task before the year ends. Ayoko nang palaging may iniisip. But before that, I’ve one more major outing with the guys this coming November 13 at Caramoan, in CamSur. I know, it’s gonna be hard on my part, trying to condition myself to enjoy an outing knowing that I have to take care of serious business once I get back to the metro. But I’m not Gentle for nothing. Pleasure has always been my province. But pain? Uhm…

birds

2009-11-02T16:37:00.000-08:00

in keeping with the pyesta ng patay fever, i'm reposting this poem which originally appeared at naked scribbles. enjoy!

the birds
have fallen
silent
I cannot tell
the time of day

the shadows
playing by
my bedside bemoan
the passing
of May

you look
at me pallid
and shrunken
from across
your pillow

never thought
these curtains
could ever turn
this rotten
this yellow

the garden lies
unkempt
the fountain, dry
the gates rust
the leaves sigh

my breath heaves
gazing out the window
the sky is ashen
like your urn is
ashen, too

i look
at you pallid
and shrunken
from across
my pillow

you’re always silent
as the birds are silent
these days--
tenderly, unflinchingly
your eyes held me lovingly

yes, yes
it is time

ang outing ni nanay

2009-11-01T16:19:00.000-08:00

ang saya-saya!

home alone

2009-10-30T22:48:00.000-07:00

October 30, 2009. 9:55 pm. I’m home alone. Not that i haven’t been alone at home even for once, in my 28 years of existence in this blue and green planet third from the sun called Earth. After high school i’ve lived independently away from home, struggling in the academic republic of Diliman, living from one dormitory to another. Well, technically i was still dependent on my father’s money then, but i wash my own underwear and cook my own instant noodles—well, you get the drift. i take care of my own stuff and ignore another else’s. It’s a dog eat dog world out there; that i learned early on in life, thanks to the daily jostling i was subjected to, for a good four years of my college life. Work didn’t improve my lot; i learned that things only get more interesting as you go further down the road. But yes, it’s my first time to be literally left at home here in the province.

Ate, Kuya and the kids had to beat the rush so to speak, of people going to the cemetery for the celebration of All Saint’s Day. It’s always been like this for 5 years already, ever since my brother-in-law’s father died. They had to go to Pampanga early so they could be here for All Saint’s Day; so that we could all visit Tatay’s grave together. But this time, they took Nanay with them. After all the stresses the recent typhoon brought, they thought a little travelling could do Nanay good, to get her mind off the everyday things. So when i arrived last night from Manila, Ate informed me right away na taong bahay ako.

The plan is quite simple. See to it that the dogs are fed, see to it that the doors are bolted properly and the cooking gas shut tight before leaving the old house for the new one at night. The house thing is simple enough. One only has to read between the lines for the “house” instruction : don’t get it burned or burglarized. Simple? Yes. But nonetheless, nerve-wracking. I’m OC by the way; so i had to check the cooking gas quite a number of times before being able to convince myself that i did a good job in closing it tightly. Feeding the dogs, well it’s quite manageable. But I quite forgot to consider the fact that there are three puppies involved—and they’re not even potty trained! So i spent a good deal of the afternoon in the garage picking up puppy poop. Of all the places they could choose to relieve themselves, sa sementadong part pa. Pwede naman sa gilid-gilid ng bakuran. Haay.

I’m writing this entry quite disappointed knowing that i would not be able to post it right after i seal it with my kiss. Remember my free internet 24/7 entry some weeks ago? Well, nadiscover na ata ng globe ang booboo nila and they’re equalizing all the “free” access time i had back then by sucking up every single peso i load on my visibility kit. Imagine ha, nag-load ako ng 100. In five minutes time, zero balance na ako. That was also the case the other night. I tried loading the 100 pesos kanina using a new simcard with the hope that since it’s a new sim, they won’t be able to charge it to guilty-user-me. malas. (hindi yan malas, ang tawag dyan, karma hehehe). Seems they’re tracking the gadget itself, and not the sim as i previously thought. Unable to surf the net as originally planned, i decided to make it a productive me-time by doing a full yoga session.

Lumalalim na ang gabi. Manunood pa sana ako ng Moulin Rouge (hehe, dami ko plano noh?) pero bukas na nga lang. Inaantok na ako. Sana dumating na sina Ate bukas at huwag sa mismong November 1 pa.. ayoko nang magdakot ng pupu ng mga tuta!

the meeting

2009-10-26T20:13:00.000-07:00

i was in one of the restaurants near shangrila mall's cinema lobby, attending a meeting. funny how the chairs the attendees (including myself) sat on, resembled those highschool armchairs we used back at school. i was at the back row, with most backs turned away from me; but i had the funny feeling that all the men and women attending this meeting were all high profile people in the society--businessmen perhaps, or politicians even--i can tell from the suits and the coats. in front of us, customers were lining up for gourmet sandwiches at Oliver's sandwich counter. the light chatter starting to emerge was suddenly hushed when she entered the room, resplendent in her eighties big blonde hair, teased to perfection; big pearl bling-blings dangling from her neck, happily chewing her bubble gum. "ooh, its melanie marquez! haha, great", i thought to myself. a booming voice somewhere declared, "all rise for the president". and suddenly all the men and women in the meeting rose to greet her. Horror of all horrors. Am i really seeing this? this is melanie marquez, right? then she started to speak : "All right ladies and gentlemen, you may take your seats. as you all know i called this cabinet meeting to let you see my new dress". a red polka-dot piece with big shoulderpads. "You see, this is the current state of our country".

and then i woke up. thank God i woke up.

sleepless

2009-10-22T18:23:00.000-07:00

when i held you last night, i just knew i have to have you for myself one day

pag-iipunan kita.

curious little things

2009-10-20T19:00:00.000-07:00

things i've recently seen that fill my head when there's nothing else to think about:

1. the wonderful tv series GLEE and its cast of wonderfully talented characters.

2. and two foreign language films shown in the recently held spanish and italian filmfests:

the riveting performances of the lead characters, with Maribel Verdu in topnotch performance as a smoldering hot momma in Los Girasoles Ciegos (The Blind Sunflowers)

and the exuberant coming of age film Ma Che Ci Faccio Qui which translates as What Am I Doing Here?

yet another pepeng post

2009-10-19T10:17:00.000-07:00

Wrote this aboard the bus going back to manila last sunday. Yes, this is another pepeng post. don't say i didn't warn you.

Pabalik na ako ng manila. I never realized that my two days worth of stay in the province would be so much different from my previous weekends there. For one, the landscape has changed a great deal. Antaas ng putik na naiwan ng baha, from the looks of it, malamang galing pa yung mga yun sa bundok. Yung graba na ipinatambak ni tatay sa bakuran nung kakalipat lang namin nung 1995, nabaon na. Nagi-start nang mag crack up yung putik dahil kahit paano umaaraw na the past few days. i just dunno how it will fare in the following days, with the coming of the new typhoon.. will it harden up enough na maging lupa na sya ulit.. or will it return to muck? Secondly, i’ve been stationed with the washing machine. As in all-day activity ito ha. Most of our clothes got soaked by floodwater, at walang choice kundi labhan lahat, otherwise mangangamoy lang yung mga yun sa cabinet. Mula sa makakapal na maong hanggang sa light articles, from new ones to the oldest, everything had to be washed. Gustuhin ko mang magmoment everytime may naeencounter akong favorite kong t-shirt nung bata pa ako, e hindi ko magawa sa dami ng kelangan pang labhan. No wonder pagkakain ng dinner, ang aga kong nakatulog. Grabe mga tumatamang bagyo sa atin ngayon. And its not surprising that the senate had to create a new committee just to deal with all things pertaining to climate change—for how else can we explain all the things that befell us so far? suddenly, all the major issues that used to preoccupy the media had to take a backseat. Even Sunday afternoon entertainment shows like SOP had to change format to conform to the call of the times. you suddenly see the major stars from the two big media networks manning the telephone lines. Uso eh. That’s how i used to think when ondoy hit Marikina the hardest. Mag-iiba pala ang pananaw mo when the tragedy hits closer to home.

too much, just too much

2009-10-18T18:11:00.000-07:00

It’s 6 in the evening. I’m in the dining room scattered with dismantled seats that my brother-in-law managed to salvage from the wreak that is our L-300. We still haven’t plugged-in the refrigerator in its assigned sockets for fear that the electrical wirings that got soaked in the flood would short circuit and explode. I arrived early to find much of our clothes hanging in the clothesline drying in the open air; the newly-bought washing machine (the old one perished with the great flood) whirring all day; and much of the house, still badly in need of cleaning. As Geloy accurately described it, Camantiles (our barrio) has turned into a swamp. True enough, i arrived early in the afternoon by tricycle, but had to walk the remaining two blocks to get to our house because the tricycle driver refused to go on anymore for fear of getting stuck in the mud. Good thing, ate had already warned me against wearing shoes and pants, so i arrived in style, wearing the shortest shorts i could ever find, and a pair of flip-flops to compliment my get-up. The flip-flops didn’t serve its purpose though, as i learned early on that more than a fashion accessory, it’s actually a hindrance—the road being slippery and all; so i walked barefoot, amidst the mud that looked like the chocolate used in the turtlepie we ate at Conti’s last week, and the swimming tadpoles slightly visible in the murky waters beneath my feet. It feels like i woke up suddenly to find myself an unwilling contestant in a magsasaka challenge, in one of GMA’s reality tv shows.

Suddenly, my eleven days of continuous workout, my recent trip to Makati Med to have my wrist checked for the tendon cyst that’s been bothering me for a year already, and the impromptu “show” i put up at the gym—doing a full yoga session last Wednesday, despite having already finished my workout earlier, just because a member did a few poses in which i felt “upstaged”—all their seeming immediacy (and bloggability) vanished at the site of this total devastation that befell our household. Sis said its gonna take us til Christmas to be totally out of this mess. I bet it’s gonna be a longer healing period for our neighbor who lost her husband to the great flood.

This is too much, just too much.

hey blog.

2009-10-13T23:40:00.000-07:00

hey blog.

i forgot to greet you last night. i ought to, but so many concerns have been running on my mind all day, and i totally forgot. sorry.

a year huh? well. hard to believe. but it is. a year. and you were with me, laughing with me when i make a fool of myself; crying with me when i'm hard-pressed against a wall of uncertainties.

thanks blog, one year of living, laughing, loving and learning. i ought to make this post one heluva tearjerker, but on the last minute, i decided not to overdo it.. madami pa namang ibang pagkakataon. maybe on our silver anniversary, i'll throw you a grand parteeh--i-giguest natin sina marian and dingdong, wachasei?

but for now, a simple thank you will suffice.

thank you, blog.. and i love you.

ondoy part two

2009-10-08T19:18:00.000-07:00

yesterday was part 2 of my romantic workout, something that the fitness trainers in the gym have come to call the act of working out by candlelight. the brownout has been projected to last way until monday, so the management have stocked well on their candle supply; while i have prepared myself to do my cardio using the stationary bikes, given that the treadmills are currently rendered inutile by the situation. on my way home last night, i have planned to write about how i was kinda easing well into the situation, not being irked anymore by the constant squinting in the partial darkness just so i could be certain that the individual weights i'm putting on is what my program says they should be.

but the general mood (and my concerns) suddenly changed when the taxi driver turned the radio on, to monitor the flood situation in pangasinan. i froze in my seat to hear what has befell my province. prior to that news, i have been in constant exchange of short messages with my sister, saying that the flood waters have already reached our yard. that was before i had my dinner; there was a gap all throughout my gym session, and when i checked my celfone as was prompted by the radio that manong driver was currently tuned in, i was terribly troubled to find out that much of the low-lying houses surrounding our house have already succumbed to the floodwaters, and three households have already taken refuge at our house. yes, we have turned into an instant evacuation center. my nephew told me when i called this morning to check on the situation, that "may tubig na sa silong"; to think that tatay saw to it that the house had certain leverage in elevation when it was constructed five years ago.

pepeng, you have turned our province into ondoy part two. i hate you.

hardcore

2009-10-07T17:51:00.000-07:00

"dito magkakaalaman kung sino talaga ang hardcore. brownout? brownout ba? sus. brownout lang pala eh. hehehe."

thus went the overheard talk among trainers at the gym last night, having arrived just mere minutes before the brownout-in-conversation nearly ruined my schedule. nearly, that is. i won't be fazed by a mere power interruption--after taking much trouble to get there after office hours, first by mrt then by jeepney--and i've already changed costume in the lockers for chrissakes!

so i worked out by candlelight. did my cardio by candlelight. amidst ghost stories the trainers shared with each other, i did my crunches. and nope, i'm not "hardcore", i just don't want the effort put to waste.

third day ko pa lang kaya, hehehe, after matigil ng ilang linggo because of the pusit (see related story here).

excited.

2009-10-06T18:10:00.000-07:00

i had oatmeal cereals for breakfast today, then i made tuna sandwiches and packed 'em for lunch. i've been planning how this day will play out, since before going to bed last night; making sure that i wake up earlier than usual to prepare my meals. excited ba. i even bought multi-colored sandwich bags at Rustans (chochal) for me to put my cute little sandwiches in.

oh, and i'm also downing barrel-fuls of green tea since last week pa. hehehe.

sana lang magtuloy-tuloy, no?.

free internet 24/7

2009-10-01T09:16:00.001-07:00

its been over a week now that i have free access to the internet. i dunno if it's a glitch from globe or probably a come-on to lure more customers into buying their visibility prepaid kits-turned tatoo; go on.. lure 'em into the free service.. wait.. wait.. then bam! charge to the hilt! (or something like that--i'm never good in concocting conspiracy theories to start with, hehehe) tho i suspect it more to be the first reason.. for why else would internet service be free, given that we're living in the information age and every scrap of information is priceless? yeah. probably a glitch. and i'm loving every minute of it. and who wouldn't? gentle online 24/7 without spending a single peso to surf the net, do his blogging and stuff. how i wish there's no end to it! but as they say, all good things must come to an end--and globe is bound to discover their charity work in due time and make reparations to the system. but for the meantime, its free and i'm enjoying it to the max! hehehe.

the long and winding road

2009-09-27T03:29:00.000-07:00

Note - I meant to post this one last night, as i was traveling back to Manila, amidst the uncertainty of the roads made unpassable by Ondoy. Due to slow and intermittent internet connection, majority of what i wrote wasn't saved. The following is a reconstruction, an approximation of what i had in mind yesterday.
________

Thank God for SCTEX, really. It made my travels going to and from Manila a lot faster. It's a nice thing that bus companies have finally utilized this highway, as travels going to Pangasinan are lengthier these days thanks to local traffic generated by the bustling cities along Mc Arthur highway. Though SCTEX is really heaven sent, how i wish travels to the countryside could be easier if only SCTEX or NLEX for that matter would be extended up to Pagudpud. That far, huh? I know, its wishful thinking. hehehe. It's more plausible with SCTEX, though i think; but for that to be carried out, it will have to go round the main road, dodging towns, settlements and all signs of civilization. I heard though that SCTEX will be extended til La Union, but i'm quite doubtful if my travel time will be a lot faster given the fact that its gotta go round the towns, rather than in a straight line.

Now, with the train system, thats different. Should the plan by the government to extend the MRT upto Pampanga pushes through, I'll be one helluva happy commuter. hehehe. One college professor who had ample connection with the government mentioned this in class about eight years ago. I wonder what happened since then?

hysterical

2009-09-26T18:27:00.000-07:00

The wind is still wreaking havoc as i write this. We were lucky here in the province that ondoy didn’t hit as hard as it hit Manila. I was looking at news footage yesterday and still couldn’t believe seeing that Quezon City of all places, would literally turn into a sea; for local teen star Jennica Garcia to be hysterical over live phone patch, says a lot about the situation. Back here in the province we had the usual brownouts whenever strong winds would play with the electric posts servicing the area, but situations like that are quite expected already. It’s the terrible floods everyone frets about. We were on the lookout exactly for that sort, when we crossed the street last night to the other house, trying to see the far end of the street if our old neighbor, the river, has already risen. I just hope everyone i know who was in Manila at the height of ondoy’s wrath is safe and didn’t get hurt.

I’ll be leaving the province this afternoon. I hope the floods at NLEX as reported in the news, have already abated by then, or else it’ll be really messy. Reports said its the worst flood to hit the metro since 1967, and that’s saying a lot. I also hope that the gentle abode at Boni is still standing by the time i get back. I mean, i know it’s in a state of perpetual mess, but throwing in murky flood waters would spell nightmare for me--i hate clean-up operations. i hate cleaning, period.

auntie tuding

2009-09-23T18:58:00.000-07:00

i was at the shuttle bus last night going to the mrt, braving the evening traffic when i received a text message from auntie tuding asking me how i was doing. she was the only relative aside from ate i told of the ugly sick pig. she knew of the story that i had to endure for a year, before i finally said enough and began the process of moving on. as the highest official in our little hierarchy told us in one of the weekly flag ceremonies we had, at the beginning of the year, - life is too short. it took me nine long months to finally let go of hate and start embracing the fact that it happened, and i just have to charge it to experience.

i told her i'm finally moving on. she replied it was a good decision on my part, and added, "wag ka nang makikipag-away ha".

then just with those words, everything had to come back rushing, everything i endured. but then i had to stop myself from getting agitated, because i remembered that auntie tuding endured, and is still enduring much. i asked her how she was doing with her battle. she told me that she's ok so far, "ok pa naman sa kalusugan at sa isip", adding as an afterthought perhaps, "pangit na ang ante mo"..

i can't help but feel sad for what fate has dealt on her. then i remembered it was her birthday last september 11, and i haven't even greeted her. so i greeted her a belated happy birthday, and said sorry for not able to do so on her very day.

but i haven't really forgotten. in fact during that very day, i intended to greet her. but i could not bring myself to say "happy birthday", when i know the big C is lunching with her, eating her cake, enjoying her balloons.

working on a novel

2009-09-20T06:55:00.001-07:00

The sun was up early this morning. It rose golden and majestic over the distant hills to the east; its rays melting away those delicate curtains of mist that hung like spider lace over the fields and the meadows, and the little brooks they passed by along the way. They have been travelling by bus, a rickety one, for almost two hours now; and each bump along the road is reminding Clem how hard it is, getting to the island.

-excerpt from the gentle novel

The past two days had been very busy days.

After my (draining) episode with the CR, i decided to go home to the province to recuperate and be with the family. I brought the golden compass with me, intending to read through Lyra and her exploits but i was barely able to finish two chapters because—hold your breath—i was able to get a move on with my (ehem) novel already (yay!). Yes, ambitious though it may sound, what began as lazy afternoon scribblings in july became a full-blown literary wonder of sorts only two days ago. Hehehe. even the planned re-watching of before sunset had to be rescheduled because it’s not an everyday, regular thing that an inspiration to write a novel strikes. Indeed, the power of the pen has been pushing me to new (and exciting) heights previously unimagined by this gentle writer. its like sleeping as belle in the evening and waking up as the beast, come morning (you just have to buy the analogy). whatever blessing or devilry this is, i'm not exchanging this for the world! i've always dreamed of writing stories, and its finally coming true.

image source - www.pbase.com

a poop story

2009-09-15T02:39:00.000-07:00

i can hear grumbling in my stomach like ten thousand orcs suddenly launched an attack in middle earth. thunderous rumblings.

doctor said it was probably food poisoning.

it's my second day now, in house confinement. sadly, imodium and rest did not help in quelling my tummy activity, as my trips to the cr yesterday numbered to about thirty.

and the poop coming out was vile, yellow liquid.

so today, off i went to makati med for consultation with a professional. i came home with a number of strong-dosaged medicines in order to quell what he suspects to be a case of gastroenteritis.

the result for the fecalysis he requested i undergo is due tomorrow.

meanwhile, i'm praying that the meds do their part tonight and in the succeeding days.

lesson learned : never eat the head of an inihaw na pusit if water is oozing out from it like puss.

shop!

2009-09-11T17:57:00.000-07:00

As today is my laundry day and i have nothing more decent to wear tomorrow, i decided to do some shopping for clothes in the nearby robinson’s department store in their pioneer/ boni branch.

When i was in college, and also a few years back when i was already working, i would almost always go for high fashion—meaning, i would always buy the most expensive shirt my money could buy. The shirt/ clothing article has to branded, otherwise i’d feel naked, or itchy all over. Talk about being imeldific. But the later years sort of mellowed the fashionista monster in me. now, i go more for what’s working for me rather than what’s in fashion. During the selection process, i also take time to pick pieces which have classic lines/ cuts so they don’t easily go out of style. And lately i’ve discovered that the department store can be a treasure trove of scintillating finds, if one is keen enough to look.

So what did i buy? statement shirts. Not the kind that asks “sino best friend mo doon”, on one side and answers “shempre ikaw lang”, on the other. I still have an ounce of self-respect remaining to buy those kinds of stuff and actually wear them. Hehehe (wearing promotional shirts is another thing altogether though, something i’d very much like to talk about in another entry, when inspiration strikes ).

As i was roaming around the display racks, I discovered a brand that’s not too popular among the masa; i’ve gone a notch lower than “imeldific” and settled for “portside” (well i haven’t met anybody or saw anyone in the street who wore any of the designs i saw, and they are actually good). Artwork used to be a good brand, but due to its rising popularity as an alternative choice for shirts that pack in the extra oomph, its lethal levels have been somewhat diminished lately—may nakakasalubong akong kapareho ko, gosh! hehe.

So this brand, when i saw it, was actually a breath of fresh air. Having saw that a lot of thinking went into designing the graphic tees, i bought four shirts. All for the price of 776 pesos. As i was leaving the premises, i caught sight of a pair of cargo shorts that, judging from the material and the simple way it was designed, i think will last a solid five years, without going out of style. i bought it too. And it’s not Mr. Lee, or Dickies, the prices of which can easily be placed around the range of 1000-1300, or much higher.

Clutching my purchases on the way home, i sort of felt like tatay. When i was still in my elementary and high school years and he was at the height of his purchasing power, he’d go to the department store instead of the individual shops and boutiques that carry a singular name. He’d buy the sm basics and the sm-commissioned shirts with simple designs on them, when he can easily buy designer labels. i know this for a fact, because he’s a watch freak, and in one of the trips to Manila, he bought one that actually doesn’t fall in the Seiko, Swatch, or Guess category (those were the only brands that this barrio lad actually knew in those days).

i’m still a long way from being able to buy a designer watch without the feeling of overshooting from one’s budget, feeling sorry later on for having to tighten one’s own belt so to speak, for the lapse of judgement. All i’m saying is that, like tatay, i now know the convenience of doing the shopping at a department store; getting good finds that are fashionable, without draining you dry of your resources.

ang libre ni manong

2009-09-09T19:09:00.000-07:00

Nalibre ako ng agahan kaninang umaga. Ang nanlibre, si manong ng opisina namin. Si manong na matyagang nagsisiroks ng mga dokumento na iniindex ko. si manong na kabertdey ng tatay ko. si manong na magreretiro na ngayong a-kinse ng buwan na ito.

Di ko maipaliwanag pero may kakaibang lungkot sa pagitan namin kanina, habang kumakain. Hirap akong imani-obra ang usapan tungo sa mas masasayang bagay, kahit maraming pagkakataon na gawin ito, dahil pareho naman naming alam na isang lingo na lamang ang itatagal nya sa amin. Di naman kami gaanong close; napakarami din naman kasing tao dito na kailangang pakitunguhan kaya’t di kami gaanong nabigyan ng pagkakataon na mag”bonding”. Pero yung mga maliliit na bagay na namamagitan sa amin, gaya ng biruan kasama ng iba pang kaopisina habang nag-aantay ng ilang minuto bago mananghalian, ang pagiging “maharot” at chikboy nya sa edad nyang iyon—sila ang mga mumunting bagay at alaala ni manong na babaunin ko pag naghiwalay na kami ng landas.

Malungkot si manong. Bakas sa mga mata nya. Maliit lang siyang tao sa opisina, kakarampot ang sinisweldo. Ang tanging ipagmamalaki nya pag nadalaw syang muli sa library, ay sya ang nagsiroks at nagbind ng pagkarami-raming libro, clippings at kung anu-ano pang bagay na nasa pag-iingat ng library sa humigit kumulang na dalawampung taon. At sigurado na ang kanyang pagdalaw sa amin. Marami pa kasi syang aayusin sa GSIS bago nya makuha ang retirement benefits nya.

Ayaw ko sanang tanggapin ang libreng pa-agahan sa akin ni manong kanina. Pero naisip ko din na tinyempuhan nya talaga ako, at ayaw ko namang magmukhang tumatanggi sa pagpapasalamat na ibinibigay nya. Ako kasi ang palaging nakukulit ni manong na gumawa ng iba’t ibang sulat ukol sa nalalapit na nyang pagreretiro at paghingi ng rekomendasyon sa iba’t iba pang mga nakatataas na tao para matulungang maipasok ang anak nya sa aming opisina, kahit kaswal lang muna pansamantala.

Ala naman sa akin ito. Sabi ko nga, hilig ko talaga ang pagsusulat. Pero ang mapasalamatan sa bagay na taos sa puso mong ginawa ay walang kapantay pala ang dulot na tuwa.

regrets, i have a few

2009-09-08T19:27:00.000-07:00

last night, i was supposed to head straight to the gym after i got out from work. i already had my rubbershoes and extra shirt packed in my bag, and all i gotta do was alight at the shaw station of the MRT, eat dinner and make a dash for the gym after, ignoring the pitter patter of rain falling on the pavement. somewhere along the mrt line, a short bit before reaching shaw station, i suddenly had a craving for yoshinoya's beef gyudon bowl. it was so great a craving that i ended up at sm megamall instead, vowing to myself that i'd just walk to shaw after satisfying my tummy. after dinner, i had the urge to browse for a couple of minutes at the adjacent powerbooks, looking at, and browsing a few pages of the new titles on display. i somehow got carried away, sashaying through the shelves, that when the recorded announcement played out stating that its 10 minutes to closing time, i was brought to the present, a bit alarmed that i had a workout to catch.

the bookshop employees who were already readying to leave, made casual remark of the harsh rains that were already making tiny rivers in front of the shop. i took a casual glance of the situation through the glass doors and decided its best if i just head home, and reschedule my workout the following day. i water-splashed my way from megamall to shangrila, holding onto my wind-battered umbrella like there's no tomorrow. reaching the long staircase going up the mrt station at shaw, i decided to go for it rather than cross the street to wait for buses that would carry me the opposite direction. i reckon that i'll be incurring more splashings and teribble winds if i stay that course, and it'll be a lot faster going home, riding the MRT.

as i was lining up for the ticket booth, i saw from afar, to my right, the still-busy street of shaw boulevard, going to my gym's direction. for a bit i was tempted to go down the opposite staircase, brave a few short bursts of wind and water to the jeepney terminal that would carry me to the gym's doorstep. it was well within reach. but then reason triumphed over impulse this time, and i was on my way home.

on board the train, i didn't do the usual stuff of hating myself for the wrong turns i took. it all just happened. i simply took it as events making up a bizaare, stormy night.

one sunday afnun at shats'

2009-09-08T17:58:00.000-07:00

30 minutes to 7

2009-09-08T03:54:00.000-07:00

Its 6:30 in the evening. I am just winding down from the work done during the day. The boss’ television has just been turned on to TV Patrol, her favorite news program. The big bosses have just finished their work, talking and debating among themselves for a good three hours and a half, crafting policies that would be beneficial for everyone’s good. I have just made my exit from my database work, and 7 o’clock seem far away, just waiting for it; so I decided that this entry will make it in time before I log out of the office premises.

I often whine and complain about a thousand and one things, gargantuan and mundane, relating to work—about how things do not seem to get better, and work just seems to pile up—but I’ve also realized that engaging in all these makes me feel most alive. Listening to the bosses’ banter while encoding the first quarter issuances of the other department mostly relating to holidays and call centers, actually make my blood rise with excitement. I like being in the center of things. i thrive with stress but at the same time despise it. whatever, I realize I love my work, and though it is riddled with mountainous hurdles, I will not exchange it for anything else. Intrigues and politics be damned!

mirror, mirror

2009-09-07T18:57:00.000-07:00

Saturday. Its one of those days when I don’t have to do anything, especially when I’m home in the province; not busting my gut out trying to exercise to look like Akihiro Sato in the Penshoppe Guadalupe billboard. I can wake up as late as i want, and luxuriate in the cold water of the shower without worrying that I’d be late for work. I’m a shower freak. I linger in the shower, not content at having lathered and rinsed my body in one go; I’d linger some more minutes just to make sure that my face, neck, armpits and singit have been given the proper attention they deserve, scrubbing them with my soft palms; making sure that cleansing, purifying water run its course over my entire body.

I go out of the shower area, feeling refreshed and energized, just like any other saturday before that. Only this time, I manage to catch a reflection of my face in the oval mirror adjacent to the shower door. Its not that I don’t look at my face, ever. Even those who renounce and shun narcissism are bound to look at their faces even for once, in a week's time. And I’m a child of narcissus. Hehehe. Though that might be the case, I am still surprised to see that the face staring back at me no longer exudes that youthful air I fiercely held onto say, a good two or three years. The face is a lot sterner now, and lines around the forehead, however faint they may be, are already showing--if you squint hard enough, they’re there, staring right back.

Coupled with my bulking body, I no longer resembled that strapping youth that the mirror fell head-over-heals with, six years ago; that mirror, which tatay himself installed when our house was newly-built, and was the current toast of our place for its daring bold colors and imposing rock façade.

Time indeed has passed, and as Old Rose in the movie Titanic was bound to say, “reflections changed a bit”.

several hundreds lighter

2009-09-02T19:51:00.000-07:00

Last Monday I splurged on two hardbound books. I bought the vampire-themed Twilight and Pullman’s The Golden Compass. I’ve already read The Golden Compass on paperback and having loved the book on first read very much , I wanted to have a proper copy of it—a hardbound one. I immediately went to re-reading the book but because there’s so much to do and so little time, I have not really gone far as much as I would have wanted (I stopped at Lyra’s Jordan hehehe) ; besides, I still have my anime to cover, and a newly copied avi format of an art film to watch.

I actually bought Twilight on impulse. I originally planned of buying Pullman’s trilogy in one swoop but the unavailability of the hardbound edition for the next two volumes left me somewhat feeling dissatisfied. Determined to have another title before I leave the bookstore, I ended up browsing the pages of Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight. I have had encounters with this book before, in other bookstores, and I must admit that it didn’t manage to catch my attention at first, mainly because the preliminary paragraphs didn’t hit it with me. But lo and behold : at Fullybooked, that Monday afternoon, Twilight’s first paragraph actually pulled me in. it might be the time of day, it might be the mindset, or the light, or the ventilation. But I was actually liking it, enough for me to make the purchase. And that sold me. I went home several hundreds light in the pocket.

two men

2009-09-02T18:42:00.000-07:00

There were two men talking across from where I was sitting in the steam room. from their looks, both of them are somewhere in their sixties, and from the ease of their conversation, it looks as though they’ve been long time friends. The younger-looking of the two asked how the other’s massage went, and went on to tell how he had his. The masseuse, he tells his friend, is an attractive young woman of perhaps twenty-four years. He was raving about how his erogenous zones were coming to life with just mere accidental brushes of fresh skin, but had a sudden drop of temperature in the room when the girl started calling him tatay, to ask if the pressure applied is okay. This elicited a guffaw from the other one, and a smile to my face. Old folks. Hehehe.

Their conversation carried over to their observation that no matter how hard they exercised, their sweat glands do not seem to produce as much sweat they used to when they were young. One of them jokingly pointed to it as “ang mapait na katotohanan” (the bitter truth). Sigh. The preoccupations of the old are not very different from ours.

the great calm

2009-09-02T03:26:00.001-07:00

It feels like I’m perpetually in a calm before the storm—the storm hovering at the periphery of my vision, never materializing, but still managing to make its presence known; like a shadow lurking at the corners of a dark street, or a lump at the back of my throat. (oops, am I making sense?) I feel like i'm floating, not being able to make a decision as to change this course I am in, right now. Or, I think the question I should be asking myself is, is it really time for me to be making the big decisions? Or should I wait it out until the right time comes along? Sigh. Such is the state of things right now. Like Harry Potter, I know I am still destined for great things. It’s just that circumstances conspire and compel me to act differently from what I really am underneath; compels me to be this eternally shushing librarian perpetually ignorant to the finer things in life, like going out for a late-night beer drinking party with friends, maybe?

a fight to the death

2009-08-15T23:16:00.000-07:00

I know. I’ve too much appetite. Appetite for food. Appetite for the good life. And this’ll do me in someday, and maybe sooner than i think it will, if i don’t do anything about it. Yes, i’m doing the gym stuff. And the yoga stuff. But i haven’t been the same gentle that did the breakthrough crash-diet-and-shrink-several-pants-sizes-down thingie several years ago, to the astonishment of practically anyone and everyone i know. I’ve grown old. And my resolve’s kinda been washed out by the tides to this shrivelled little thing that squeaks its last ounce of hurrah with every sit-up, warrior and boat poses i do on the mat these days. It doesn’t seem to help that there’s practically good food everywhere i look. I know i shouldn’t be saying this but i do blame the genes for blessing me with this over-the-top voraciousness that’s gonna put an army of enlisted men in a boodle fight to shame. i’ve got to do something about this. I don’t want to take the onslaught of fat just sitting down, despairing at how things been so unfair. I wanna fight. I can fight. I know i still can. Somehow.

gentle's yoga tracklist

2009-08-12T18:56:00.000-07:00

I slept late last night trying to rebuild my i-tunes yoga tracklist, which I accidentally deleted some months ago. Yes, I can practice yoga even without music. But today its gonna be different because I will be initiating somebody into the world of bending, and the experience has to be a total package in order for the conversion to be complete. An officemate recently expressed interest in yoga and has approached me if we could practice together during our office’s sports hour. I immediately said yes—I myself am needing the exercise. Lethargy it seems is the name of the game these past few days. my last gym visit I think was Thursday last week, and what? Its been seven days since then. I promised myself last night that I’m gonna be gentle with her, reserving the acrobatics in later sessions, and just focusing on the basic moves. But knowing me, I don’t think I can hold onto that promise for even a minute—fearing I’d somehow loose myself in the middle of a Michael Jackson song and begin pretzelizing, to her horror. Hehehe.

Here’s the tracklist I managed to put together last night :

1. Damascus / conjure one
2. Here comes the sun/ the beatles
3. Wildflower/ rachel sage
4. The way you make me feel/ michael jackson
5. Center of the sun/ conjure one
6. Holding out for a hero/ frou frou
7. When you gonna give it up to me/ sean paul ft. keshia cole
8. Love generation/ bob sinclair
9. To love somebody/ nina simone
10. True colors/ cyndi lauper
11. Facing east/ thievery corporation
12. I’m yours/ jason mraz
13. Big jumps/ emiliana torrini
14. I say a little prayer/ aretha franklin
15. Walk on by/ seal
16. White flag/ dido
17. Underneath your clothes/ shakira
18. You had a bad day/ daniel powter
19. I started a joke/ the wallflowers
20. Everybody’s changing/ keane
21. If I ain’t got you/ alicia keys
22. Beautiful/ christina Aguilera
23. Hand in my pocket/ alanis morissete
24. Ride a white swan/ t-rex
25. A love that will never grow old/ emmylou harris
26. Love for a child/ jason mraz
27. Flightless bird, american mouth/ iron and wine

a cloudy forecast

2009-08-12T03:43:00.000-07:00

The corridors, hallways, open-air spaces outside this building, the shuttlebus, even the MRT—they all have become constricting, restricting places.
_____

If only it didn’t happen, this would not be how my life’s turned out to be. I would’av enjoyed my coffee breaks more without thinking of running into you. Or bumping into you as I line up at the canteen in the mornings for breakfast.
______

If only the family’s been a little more closer, then I wouldn’t just have you as my ate here. I would’av gotten an entire horde of kuyas as well; instead of just us meeting accidentally by the hallway, or bumping into each other at the elevators, acting it out like we’re both busy, as to say a little nod will suffice . Last time I saw you, you didn’t even nod in my direction.
______

I really miss you, you know that? At the shuttlebus I yearn for that closeness, the warm smile coming from you. Sometimes I imagine I’ve just fallen into some bad dream; but I’m just deluding myself. Passing the stairwell brings back memories of our batcave days. the MRT’s become some sort of a hide and seek game we play each night.

pano kung wala na talagang pangkain?

2009-08-11T17:27:00.000-07:00

hanggang kelan dapat tumulong? sabi ng iba dapat bukal sa kalooban. dapat, nanggagaling ito sa taos-pusong kagustuhan na maibsan ang dinaranas na hirap ng taong nangangailangan. is it a given that at least you have to feel for the person for the help to qualify as genuine help--otherwise, pakitang tao lang? what if the person needing help did not at any point made you feel important, other than for the reason that you have money to spare? what if at some point you felt a genuine urge to help, to make a difference not only in her life but also for her child's future but you somehow felt your help didn't go to the right place? na instead, ipinantawid gutom lang, or ibinili ng gamit--when the money should have gone to something like finding a job? and then she asks again for money. and you feel parang niloloko ka na lang. pero pano kung kelangan nya talaga? pano kung hanggang duon lang talaga ang abot ng isipan nya at di nya nakita yung unang intention mo? ipagdadamot mo ba ang konting halaga just to drive a point when you think that point will not sink in anyway? pano kung wala na talagang pangkain?

money talk

2009-08-11T03:41:00.000-07:00

This morning while riding the bus, I caught on news that President Macapagal-Arroyo’s stocks as indicated in her annual Statement of Assets and Liabilities are being scrutinized. The issue? That her stocks rose in an unprecedented manner, in just a matter of three years. Now, whats wrong with that, one might ask. One of the early morning news commentators said that while buying stocks out of your own money is ok, the turn of the numbers make everything suspicious. Has influence been exerted at some point involving the financial transactions, that would necessitate a congressional inquiry into the president’s wealth? From the corner where I was sitting, it did seem something to be alarmed of. I wasn’t able to commit to memory the exact figures that were flashed, but the whole thing, in consonance with the expensive dinner that the presidential entourage recently gobbled up in their trip abroad, made me think of the status of my own finances. Fuckin shit. While I’m so very much still in a struggle to reaching my first million (and it’s a looong long way, getting there, believe me), here are the top honchos of our poverty-stricken country allegedly stacking hundreds of millions, or billions in their private coffers. what a very sorry state we are all in.

good ole family warmth

2009-08-10T03:00:00.000-07:00

Whew. The weekend passed me by without so much pomp and ceremony that I barely felt the weekend pass me by at all, hehehe. I felt like I was floating, limbless, in the three days that I spent at the province; lying on the mattress in front of gael, passing from one death note episode to the next; from one filler episode of one piece to the next. It was a typical weekend, if one would call it that.

Nanay’s homey paksiw na bangus reigning supreme over a bed of steaming rice. Ate’s cooking adventures, with me as first mate—sprinkling salt, pepper and other spices (because she’s too afraid to go overboard/ miss out on the measurements, hehehe)—and my nephews lining up for taste tests of her culinary concoctions afterwards. Our “unggoy” time right after dinner when cj asks his kuya in his cutest way for “tutuyi” as I massage ate’s scalp.

As an added activity, ate was able to finish the harry potter movies in a marathon that geloy and myself engineered. Hehehe. She’s so busy working, even on weekends, that the scheduled brownout announced one day ahead at their office turned out productive—relating to our bonding time, and her knowledge of harry’s adventures.

So she stayed at home and watched the three remaining harry potter films, in between our cook-ups of bicol express that nanay so craves for these days. The last movie she saw prior to our marathon was chamber of secrets. ain’t that a shame, noh? Hehehe. Harry’s already falling in love with ginny. Ron’s running to escape lavender’s affections; but harry remains to be the cute-face kid of 12 in ate’s mind. imagine her reaction seeing harry dueling it out with voldemort at the end of the order of the phoenix.. precious. Oh, that’s me btw. I just love watching facial reactions from people while they’re watching movies I’ve already memorized from countless viewings. Hehehe.

T’was a rainy weekend but my heart surely warmed with good ole family togetherness. I wish I could freeze frame in my mind my weekends in the province forever. For they may not be the spectacular, traveling, mall-going, cinema-hopping weekends that urbanites like us have been accustomed to, but they surely make me feel like a child again.

To float, from one episode to the next.

the numb doormat blues

2009-08-03T00:23:00.000-07:00

The following paragraph was my supposed entry yesterday. At the last minute i decided to scratch it, having been already pacified with food. Lots of it. And lots of love too, from friends who stayed with me as i kept on munching burger king’s mushroom swiss burger, french-fries and affogato sundae, til my hurt feelings have been finally appeased. Nonetheless, having already processed said incident, for documentary purposes I am now posting it. thanks a lot guys, your pep talks made a lot of difference. Even the bulldog’s craziness helped in its own weird way. Love you all!

I feel numb. Its like the ugly sick pig incident is happening all over again. And yes, the culprit is another ugly sick pig. Whereas before, the pig’s pedigree leans on the native side, now the fuckin pig is more like a Berkshire, or a Yorkshire, or any of those white chinky chunks you see in meat shops. Fuckin meat shops. They never run out of those fuming, mouth-frothing varieties that seem to get me wherever i go. I sometimes wonder if its my lot in life to be a doormat. And i hate myself for that. if only i’d been a lot less gentler--he wouldav gotten a barrage of fuming, frothing tsunami of expletives coupled with a rousing recital of the Consumer Protection Act complete with amendments and annotations. with heart as black as his hooves, he attacked and he assaulted; he swirled and he twirled; while i remained timid, gentle me in the face of utmost danger. i hate it. i hate myself.

as i said, ok na ako. love ko na ulet sarili ko. really, i do. tsup!

gentler's yoga report

2009-07-31T01:44:00.000-07:00

an update to the last entry the sweat, oh the sweat :

if ever you were wondering dear gentle reader if gentle was able to finish one full session of yoga last night as has been intimated by master gentle himself, i'm here to report in all honesty that he did not. but not to worry, because the master himself is not worried. in fact he told me in all honesty that he kind of expected it, since he has quite bulked up.. but he was quick to dispel any and all speculations on the contrary that the bulking up meant becoming a large barrel of margarine--in fact, he quite honestly appraised his physique as the yummiest incarnation of gentle in recent years.

now, for the details :

the master was able to finish only about half of the poses before deciding to sleep for the night. he noticed that the execution of the poses were still the same; that he did not loose any of the flexibility he has prided himself over the years of practice. but one thing he noticed as he was executing his favorite royal pigeon pose--halfway through the set of poses for the full pose, he looked back over his shoulders and noticed that his legs were a lot more muscular than what he remembers them to be. hence, the "bulk" referred to in the earlier statement. he stopped right about in the middle of his routine, after executing upward bow pose with aplomb. his message, before heading to gym this afternoon was:

i'm gonna try to execute the remaining poses in my routine, tonight.

it is his wish that this message be conveyed to the gentle followers all over the world.

truly yours,
gentler
(gentle's butler)

the sweat, oh the sweat.

2009-07-30T02:03:00.000-07:00

i miss the stretch. The sweat freely flowing out of my pores, drenching my skin; flooding me with an inexplicable euphoria. I miss feeling the arch of my back, in upward facing dog; my breath resounding in my ears as I go into a deep fold. I miss the four corners of my mat.

After nearly two months of going to the gym, feeling my muscles bulk-up, I’m gonna be having a session tonight. I’m excited, yet I feel like I’m a newbie all over again. I’m hoping and praying I’d be able to finish a session and not just collapse with tiredness on the floor after a few poses.

Oh well. We’ll see what happens. As they say, once a yogi, always a yogi. Or did I just made that up? Or, as Anne Rice said, “let the body instruct the mind”; or did I made that up, as well? Hehehe.

lazy afternoon scribblings continued

2009-07-27T03:47:00.001-07:00

The faint glimmer of the early evening stars just come out to play by the horizon, threw specks of dull starlight at Theo; instantly fading on skin contact, as the entire place, now reflecting the muted colors of a twilight sky, slowly succumbs to the enveloping dark.

He has been absent-mindedly sitting on the sands by the beach for what seemed an eternity, watching the billow of soft waves curl gently at his feet, soaking them and the underside of his trousers wet. The shrieking gulls that have glided over the immense blue of the sea that afternoon as he was walking along the rugged shoreline, have now fallen silent and gathered themselves like some priests in congregation, huddled at the rocks some short distance away from the shack—now barely a shadow against the swirling blue and black evening sky.

As his mind continued to swim with the somber images of the gathering dusk, Theo slowly made his way up the steep terrain leading to the shack; little by little it emerged from the shadows, luminous in his vision, for the moon had already risen from the sea like some magnificent dream, bathing the landscape in sparkling silver.

He had just arrived that afternoon by small boat from the main island with a couple of other tourists, who, like himself, have chosen an obscure hideaway as their adventurer’s paradise to pass the weekend by.

The island’s share of tourists these days are trifling, dwindling figures compared to the past seasons; leaving some of the shop owners and inn-keepers with no choice but to temporarily close shop amidst the heat, and the dust, and the flies whirring incessantly over rotten mangoes and carabao dungs lying in the dirt. Children—who use to approach tourists drinking in makeshift bars during the peak seasons to sell them necklaces strung from shells and pebbles—are regular children once more, marching in packs towards their respective houses and shouting inaudible, exhausted goodbyes to their comrades after a day's worth of climbing trees and soaking in the surf. He trailed this ragtag band’s ascent, sluggishly walking a few steps behind, until he reached his own address : this rundown, wind-battered shack, just a few meters above the sea smacking at the cliffs.

With a lingering glance and a wry smile at the little gang slowly breaking up for the night, he proceeded to close the door, shutting himself in darkness as palpable as his sorrow.

happy birthday nanay!

2009-07-25T17:27:00.000-07:00

love you very much. thank you for being the caring mom i've known all my life. :)

lunch-less, sleepless | an afternoon nightmare

2009-07-23T06:35:00.000-07:00

Today has yet again been one emotional thriller ride (its always like this when i’m dealing with the ugly sick pig story arc of my life--what else is new?) and it definitely left me emotionally drained at the end of the day; well, that, plus the sad fact that i missed my lunch and my afternoon siesta, dealing with it—which is probably partly why i’m like this right now.. grumpy and unbearably out of sync with the world. in the end its still a mix up of emotions that left me here in the middle—unable to assess where i am, in this seemingly never-ending fight. On the one hand i’m happy that i was able to accomplish one crucial step to having a resolution to all this mess. I’m secretly commending myself for mustering the courage to take a firm stand in all this (well i’ve taken my stand before, but this one, this singular action i took this afternoon of seeing the powers that be and speaking to them, seemed to be the final straw that have sealed-in all that i’ve done so far, previous to this action); but on the other hand i’m also at a loss knowing that i’m still in the middle of this long tedious process, and that taking this step has eventually sealed in my fate too, to be in this predicament for an extended period, in transit it seems, until all these knots would have been eventually untangled. Help me, God. i feel so small and helpless right now, ready to cry and fall apart..

lazy afternoon scribblings

2009-07-20T03:36:00.001-07:00

i don't know what to make of this. it seems like a good introduction to a novel or some work along that magnitude; but i've never really written one so this might be my debut if ever. hehehe. i know there's great research and preparation involved into writing such things so i'm just posting this to inspire me to go on. if no inspiration comes, its ok too. just consider it an exercise in character study. if something develops from hereon, i'd welcome it graciously. here goes some late afternoon scribbling. more to come, if inspiration further strikes.

the faint glimmer of the early evening stars just come out to play by the horizon, threw specks of dull starlight at theo, instantly fading on contact, as the entire place, now in muted colors of purple and gold, slowly succumbs to the enveloping dusk. He has been absent-mindedly sitting on the sands by the beach for what seemed an eternity, watching the waves crash gently by his feet, soaking them and the underside of his trousers wet. The shrieking gulls that have taken most of his attention as he was walking along the rugged shoreline that afternoon have now fallen silent and have gathered themselves like some priests in congregation at the rocks some short distance away from the shack. Their shack.

just like frogs in the june rains

2009-07-15T03:39:00.000-07:00

Just when you thought the thing has already died down, then you hear talk of it again; and you go “oh puhlease, will you cut it out already? All of you!”

It was the subject of an overheard conversation between two women, while i was out for a bite, one early evening, at earl’s sandwiches, nearly a month ago—makati office girls, i presume. Demure on the outside, full of kink on the inside. It was the subject of hushed conversations at the office too, when the thing just came out, between officemates one would not think of as people who would dare talk about such things, even in hushed tones. I just kept all observations to myself, not wanting to fan the flames of prejudice that’s been spreading and engulfing the country like wild fire. Yet again, late this afternoon, an officemate said “pinakagrabe daw itong lalabas ngayon.. mas mahaba at mas maliwanag”; the tabloids too, upon scanning a handful from my post at the monitoring desk late this afternoon, apparently seem like frogs enjoying the first drench of June rains.. except, its not June, anymore. Sigh. Ever heard of the word, enough?

short and sweet | the pastry chef monologues

2009-07-14T06:18:00.000-07:00

i like this. these short bursts of consciousness and ideas that get themselves molded into words; into streams of thought that make up this blog. its not like me at all. i usually build on a single idea, embellish it to the point of no return and make out a very ornate, layered cake in the end. i'm not a "little sweets" pastry chef. i'm an ostentatious cake maker. but not now. it's a welcome change, actually. adds up nicely to a shattershards observation of late that my blog seems to be all-sugary sweet, and spare, and uhm.. white? hehehe. with these short bursts of ideas, i get to single-out one and make an entry bout it. it's particularly useful now, as my head nowadays swims in a myriad of thoughts (maybe partly because the office is doing its annual inventory of books--on top of my regular load of indexing proclamations and republic acts--that my tendency to cram things in my head gets doubled, around this time of the year; hence the overflow of ideas). like when i had this thought that most towns usually gravitate to declaring a town holiday at the eighth of december of every year. its an observation that just cries to be taken note of, in this blog. interesting..but is it a necessity? nope. its just an icing on the cake that can easily be discarded, anytime. so i'm not gonna be expounding on that and waste a precious paragraph or two, theorizing on the whys; instead, i'll stop this very second.

see? short and sweet.

money money money...

2009-07-14T05:47:00.000-07:00

i want a new cellphone. its been years since i've had a tech fone thats worth brandishing in the streets (to the oohs and aahs of potential cellphone snatchers, hehe). i want to build a new wardrobe ; re-awaken my inner madonna. (she is after all, the mother of re-invention, don't you think?) i want those shiny professional cameras i see on display at tech stores. i want new books to line my shelves, regardless if i do read them at all, given those other things i busy myself with. i want, i want, i want. yes, this was gentle in his most material incarnation, as he was parading himself at serendra with the bulldog, shattershards and eyvicat 2 sundays ago. so many shiny things to stare at, and drool at, throw myself at, and bowl over. but heck, i passed them all, eyes closed, with the gentle resolve not to give in to temptation. can you imagine? its like gentle in a religious procession, reciting "oh no, please, no. keep away from me, you shiny thing you".

the start of the year has been good. the office has never been this attentive, in recent memory, to the financial needs of its employees. so i'm saving up. saving up for the big spend? hehe. nope, oh please, God... no. there will be a time for that, but not today.

luffy and the concept of nakama

2009-07-14T03:44:00.000-07:00

"Nakama" is a new word I am very pleased to add to my vocabulary. It is a Japanese word that generally means “friend” or “circle of friends”, and can have varying degrees of meaning, depending on its usage. In One Piece, the anime that I am currently head over heals with, Luffy (the main character) makes mention of the word several times, especially during moments of high drama, when circumstances require that he stand up for the friendships he has made along the way. Yes, it’s a shonen (anime that caters to boys mostly because of its action-packed, over-the-top fight scenes), and one would most often than not conclude that all that kicking and sword-fighting done in the name of friendship is an exaggeration of the concept. But it really feels good, after watching an episode or two. Walking one evening with shattershards, the bulldog and eyvicat in serendra, on the way to the bulldog’s condo unit at the Fort for a late-night dvd viewing, I’ve wished in my heart to replicate the closeness of luffy’s nakama to that of my own nakama. I know, you might say I’m reverting back to a high school-ish way of thinking (though "high school-ish" nowadays can easily be contested; kids these days don't think in simple terms anymore, hehe; so a more accurate phrasing would be : "highschool-ish" 12 years ago). but truth to tell, that’s how I really feel right now; and happy bout it nonetheless.

on ryan and friendships

2009-07-14T02:52:00.000-07:00

I consider myself lucky with the friendships I have formed over the years. Even during my elementary and high school days, I haven’t been one who will easily end up in big groups. I’ve always been someone who’s more inclined to forming one or two close-knit associations with a classmate, a dorm mate, or an officemate, at specific points in my life; the luck there, I suppose, is that those friendships remained, even after years of not seeing the other. I guess it’s partly because when I choose to reveal myself to a person, its usually a no-holds-barred session that will always end in that person knowing me from head to foot, even, as they say, in the tiny moist crevices (an advice to you, dear gentle reader : don't take this literally, ok? hehehe). Thank you, ryan for the gift of friendship. I’ve said this through text, and in facebook; but I somehow feel the urge to thank you here, too. thanks friend.

possible stalker in da haws.

2009-07-05T21:55:00.000-07:00

paranoid lang siguro ako but i think i am being stalked.

nope, scratch that. make it

paranoid na siguro ako kaya i think i am being stalked.

to those privileged few who knew the backstory concerning ugly-sick-pig, no, this is not an ugly-sick-pig related incident.

having had so many things happen to me in just a year's time, at first glance, ugly-sick-pig could easily be the most probable creature-candidate to stalk me. but judging from the cunning way this thing has been done, i doubt ugly-sick-pig's hooves are the marks i'm currently investigating on. from the evidence gathered, this stalker has far more cunning than ugly sick pig will ever have or ever possess. and it just sickens me that this creature just won't leave me be.

ganun na ba sya kamiserable, if ever my theory slash hunch proves to be right? well i guess if you're old, ugly and unloved, its THAT easy to be miserable, di ba? i'm praying though, that i go wrong with this. i just have my hands full with so many things right now, that the last thing i need is to be followed around by this creature from hell.

...not that i resent being followed. i thank you, and love you guys for following me! ;)

this entry is intentionally cryptic. decrypt at your own risk.

camwhore reprised

2009-07-04T21:32:00.000-07:00

a good friend of mine from a previous job and i have recently gotten together after a long time of no communication. the silence is not deliberate, we just got busy, i guess.

we kept each other's numbers in our respective lists though, checking on each other's being once in a while, at friendster or on facebook; but nevertheless went on living our own lives, not knowing when we'll ever be meeting again. indeed, prior to our meet-up last wednesday at the megamall, it has been 2 years since we last saw each other; and it has been six years since that emotional farewell party from my first job where she was one of the well-wishers; and sometime along that period i reckon, preceeding by just a mere month, of course figures my long, intimate conversations with her before breaking the news that i'm leaving for another job. yes, we were close. and its a bit saddening that we haven't maintained regular communication over the years except for a trickle of "hello, musta?" once in a while. so when out of the blue or by a freak accident of nature in which we got to truly engage each other up again over facebook's messaging system last wednesday, we decided to meet up that very night.

*** (yes, lets call her "***" for the time being) was her usual beaming self when i saw her from the corner of my eyes, standing up from her station in a villman net shop at cyberzone. she has been waiting for me for over an hour already, i guess--though i have apologized early on in our short messaging conversations that i cannot, try as i might, leave early from work to meet her. all my previous worries dissipated when i saw her familiar, out-of-this-world smile greeting me. she was wearing a pink shawl made of slightly shimmering fabric that i don't remember to jive with her taste of clothing accessories back when we were still officemates; it suited her fine features perfectly though. after an unexpected warm hug from her (wow, she really did miss me, hehehe) and exchanging the requisite pleasantries, i soon learned that the shawl in contention was indeed not hers, but another officemate's. whew. good to know that i still know her afterall.

we had our dinner at amici's. we ordered their fruti di mare pizza which effortlessly ranked 10 in gentle's levels of scrumptiousness. at the onset we agreed to divide the pizza equally for two but she wove her magic over the course of dinner conversation that i ended up eating around five or six slices. shit. all those hours at the gym going down the drain as easy as one-two-three. she laughed again. while spooning her vegetable soup, she casually put forth a subject i've been meaning to avoid ever since the first "hello" was uttered: so, are you willing now to pose nude for me? (for the backstory click here)

gulp.

this is not a goldilocks-paid writeup

2009-07-03T00:02:00.000-07:00

i'm at sm megamall now. i just payed for my monthly electricity consumption at the bills payment section of the mall, and later proceeded to have my lunch at goldilocks. i ordered beef caldereta and fried rice like i always do, whenever i find myself dining here. looking at the attractive pictures of their menu displayed before the counter, i was tempted to try one of the combo meals which looked tempting enough (pork barbeque, laing, pancit and rice), but decided to opt for my first choice instead.

my love affair with the goldilocks caldereta goes back some fifteen years ago, when CSI Mall (yep, after the famous tv series, but obviously its predecessor), the first big mall in pangasinan opened its doors at dagupan city. i was around twelve then, i think; and i thought to myself "wow, such a huge mall with nice airconditioning!" hahaha. promdi talaga. well, we go to manila every now and then (refer to previous posts) but dagupan is the closest thing to a bustling metro that's well within reach whenever tatay needs to buy stuff, see sights or just go check on whats new. so there i was, with tatay; and i think nanay and ate were there too, but my mind is a bit hazy on this bit of detail. it was already noontime when we've already finished making the rounds of the newly-opened shops. we soon found ourselves at goldilocks with its clear floor-to-ceiling glass panels, so people outside the mall can be all the more enticed with whats being had by its hungry patrons.

tatay being the foodie expert started pointing at this and that dish, and soon enough he had the perfect pairing ready for us to feast on : beef caldereta, fried rice and lumpiang shanghai. just imagine--tender beef slices in a spicy-creamy tomato sauce concoction topped with green peas, potatoes and grated cheese. pair that with the steaming, multi-textured goodness of their fried rice with sliced ham, carrots, garlic and onions... lovely. of course, lumpiang shanghai perfectly complimented the fried rice and provided a good contrast with the saucy caldereta. yum. i think i had two orders of fried rice then. hehehe.

that was my first goldilocks experience; and to a young promdi boy of twelve years or so, it was a sumptuous one. i remember the late afternoon sun warming my skin as we traveled back to urdaneta after a day of scouring the streets of dagupan; but moreso, i remember the caldereta, the shanghai and the fried rice.

so whenever i find myself in a goldilocks restaurant, i always have this pairing in my mind's catalog, ready for easy pick-up. its like having a little part of tatay with me wherever i go. uy, its been an hour na, since lunch. maybe that part of tatay is being digested na as we speak. hehehe.

when i was in first year college and still learning the ropes of living by myself (and SM City North Edsa was the only SM City known to me), i remember how the caldereta i used to order there being so much closer to the caldereta of years passed. that one was much bigger in serving, too, than the one i just had (and is currently digesting in my stomach). the taste is still close to the caldereta of CSI Mall's opening day, but the serving is an itty-bitty version of the glorified caldereta in my mind. even the size of the fried rice was halved. i didn't order shanghai btw, as i'm a bit on a tight budget (and shanghai is far too common nowadays--even our canteen in the office has a similar-tasting dish offering). well, what am i really saying? all i'm saying is that i'm just a bit disappointed with the experience. and that's the whole point of this blog, really.

well, ang nagagawa nga naman ng isang buwang pagkawala. hehehe.

ow-em-ji.

2009-07-02T20:26:00.000-07:00

o-m-g. i really have to clean up the room. and not just walis the floor ya know. it has to be major. like punas and stuff. (whoah, why am i talkin in a freakin kolehiyala way all so suddenly???)

last night i had major coughing scenes, one after another; something that just happened on the spot. like michael jackson's death. or david carradine's. (more on david's, later). i think it has something to do with the dust sticking to almost anything and everything inside that little abode i have been occupying for almost a year now. and when i inhale, ya know, like when the lungs expand to take in a fresh gust of air, its those sticky particles of dust that get through. and so the coughing scenes.

if memory serves me right, the last time i did a major clean-up, like arrangin things and stuff, was when shattershards and eyvicat slept-over around december of last year, after spending a day touring the metro and its obscure, out of the way eating places together with chyncha and the rabbit. hehehe. i'm so freakin clean and organized ya know! waaaiit! before those eardrum-shattering reactions, hear my alibi first wil ya? puhleaase??!

well... arrivin rather late from work, as i get off by around seven in the evening.. i have to wait for yet another twenty minutes for the shuttlebus to leave and take us directly to the mrt; takin the train and arrivin at boni / shaw by eight pm, eating my dinner then goin straight to gym for my evening workout. arriving home i barely have enough energy to do anything but to watch my anime! it ain't fair!! and what? you still expect me to dust things and be the freakin maid?? no way!! i've to sleep, ya know. i'm onto my sixty-second episode for one piece, btw. hehehe.

i'm in a net shop at boni right now, my precious globe visibility kit (now repackaged by globe as "tatoo") having left my care some two weeks ago. by leaving i meant, slipping from one's pockets unbeknownst to the gentle one. adik kasi eh, pati ba naman kasi sa bus papunta ng manila nag-iinternet; ayan tuloy, nahulog sa bulsa. i should'av just waited to arrive at boni and just surfed to my heart's content there! but nope! it just can't be! five hours sitting and doing nothing but staring at endless stretches of fields and houses (and occasional cuties along the way) is just not the way to go. i'm a type A personality; i've to always have something filling up my time, else i go bonkers. boinnng!!

so why am i here at the netshop? well, aside from the obvious (typing away, dear gentle reader), i had to check my email for an e-ticket and print it for tomorrow's seminar i am to attend, with shattershards at SM City North Edsa. the seminar's on blogging and how to make money out of what you babble about. sounds interesting? i hope. for myself and shat's sake hehehe. well, i really don't know what the particulars are of the said seminar, as i am just working on the overview eyvicat gave me, when he got ourselves registered for the event through mother zephyr. eyvicat's at cebu now, so its gonna be me and shats tomorrow, sitting it out for a 9-5 session that, i hope won't spell itself as b-o-r-i-n-g! welwelwel. pray its not, dear gentle reader.

about the david carradine item i babbled in my intro, well its this news article that came out at Time (i think) not one week ago saying that "Bill" from Tarantino's fourth opus Kill Bill, was found dead in a hotel room somewhere in Asia, his cause of death being "auto erotic self asphyxation" or something like that. its not as big an item like jacko's death but having read the item somewhat sent shivers down my spine. an officemate asked me what i make out of the clinical term the magazine printed as cause of carradine's death. i said to her its just another way of saying he died from "sobrang sarap". Time is just decent enough not to treat his death as tabloid fare; had it happened here and not in other parts of Asia, i bet our tabloids will have had a grand time feasting on poor David.

oh well.

season pilot : wala lang

2009-06-29T18:04:00.000-07:00

in the days leading to the broadcast of this season's pilot episode, i have been thinking hard on what to write, going back to my days of inactivity, searching the big events, the little moments, and everything in between. it has to be big. it has to be grand. epic. profound. funtabulous. nothing short of mind-blowing in all aspects; it is after all, the greenbackseat--the online chronicle of a gentle life.

should i write about my work-out days at the gym? my love affair with the treadmill and how the headcoach irks me everytime i see him? should i write about those two old tribeswomen i see every night at the boni mrt station, begging for alms from train commuters? or perhaps how, some nights ago, while sipping coffee from a kopiroti shop, i had this "nescafe" moment--it just felt like i'm shooting a commercial with every sip, haha!

sorting out those little details is enough to get me excited. everytime i think of something, another completely unrelated one pops out of my head, like a mushroom springing forth from the earth. (a glorious image, don't you think?)

i even thought of writing about how i think nanay has aged gracefully, and how she always looks young before my eyes; but i never intended my opener to get too melodramatic so i scratched the idea before it ever got to be a full-blown one. i suppose it'll be enough to say that i take from my mom a lot. some would say i got my (hot) looks from tatay, but the unseen ones (uhm, aura?) i got from her. magaling kayang magproject ang nanay ko. hehehe.

anyways i'm wearing my (newly-bought) luffy pendant today. luffy is monkey d. luffy--the 12 year old kid with the infectious laughter, and the main character in "one piece" anime which i soo love; and i'm not feeling so teenager-ish today. not at all. haha!!

i was at comic alley yesterday, looking for one piece collectibles to put on top of my desk at the office, amidst a sea of teenagers that gush at naruto, deathnote and bleach. the saleslady was secretly laughing at me in all probability as it took me quite some time to decide which is better for a pendant--a straw hat one or a pirate skull? it was such a hard decision to make, really, such that i already purchased zoro and sanji action figures but still, i haven't quite figured out what, out of those two choices, will make a better statement when i wear them. imagine me being stuck in that predicament while i was wearing my monday uniform--a long sleeved barong tagalog. hehehe.

i ended up buying the straw hat pendant, and i couldn't have been much happier with my choice. two of my officemates noticed it already; well, whadayaknow? they like it too, much as i do. surprised, surprised? nope, not quite. i've always known i have such excellent taste. hehehe. :)

with the zoro and sanji action figures, i decided they're better off at home than in the office. they're too much precious to be left idling around. what if somebody just picks them up? there are lots of people lounging at the library afterall, and one can never be too trustworthy, even if they're just action figures.. well because they ARE action figures!

well. so much for a profound, funtabulous, mind-blowing season opener. dang!

season 3 teaser : a taste of things to come

2009-06-22T18:27:00.000-07:00

post script to closing shop

2009-05-31T00:28:00.000-07:00

I’d probably get a haircut soon. I know, all those curls... sigh. I’m gonna miss em. but I’ve resolved that hair will grow as I acquire a new body (nakanaks, hehehe), in say.. eight months? (gulp!) ay, ayoko na ngang magsalita. Basta. Sana. Hehehe.

The sun is finally shining now. Makakapatuyo na ako ng briefs.

Natuwa si nanay, maaga ako bumaba, nakaligo na and everything. Kala nya maaga ako aalis. Ang di nya alam ise-set up ko lang pala si Gael dito sa garahe to blog and watch anime. I started watching Cowboy Bebop’s movie length feature Knockin on Heaven’s Door last night, kaso nga lang sa sobrang antok ko, di ko na natapos. It’s either that or episodic na lang ang length ng attention span ko, waaahhh!!

I’m moving onto the 16th episode na nga pala ng Code Geass.. Zero will be confronting Cornelia na, hehehe; and I just recently started with One Piece—from the pilot episode, looks like it’s gonna be one helluva addicting series, too. Monkey D. Luffy is an interesting and wacky character; will probably rival Radical Edward’s, a fave in Cowboy Bebop.

Hmmm...gotta invest on a portable hard drive.. napupuno na si Gael ng sandamakmak na anime titles, i gotta make space for a library, and soon.

I know, my previous post should be the last in this season, but there’s such a thing as post-script di ba? Ganyan ang blog adik.. lulusot kung lulusot. Haha! Eh pano na ang 60 episode per season na counting? The previous one was the 60th. Well, lets just enclose this episode in brackets to signify na additional episode lang sya. Pag sa orig na dvd, sa special features lang papasok ‘to. Hehehe.

Naubos na ang visibility prepaid load ko. yoko namang payamanin ng husto yung tindahan sa kanto... kakabili ko lang kaya ng load kanina. In that case i’d probably be posting this entry later, pag asa bus na ako, going back to the metro. Bili na lang ako load sa bayan mamaya before boarding the bus.

closing shop : the green backseat season 2 finale

2009-05-30T16:53:00.000-07:00

30 May 2009
6:12 pm

Wow, whadayaknow? You’re reading the season finale to Green Backseat’s 2nd season!

Yup, I know, its kinda abrupt.. no teaser write-ups, no warning shots whatsoever.. just bam! And here we are, at the end of all things. (applause!)

At the end of the first season (the 60th post), a season which was nicely ended (with the last entries covering an entire subject on why do we blog), i mentally took note that each season should ideally comprise of 60 episodes each—I know, its kinda long; Heroes ended its first season with merely 23 episodes, hehehe—what I failed to do, was to inform you dear reader of my intended format. And so here I am, profusely apologetic of this sudden ending...I’ve new readers who are just warming up to my writing style, just having stumbled upon this, the gentlest of the gentlest blogs in existence here in the blogosphere for chrissakes.. and here i am breaking to you the sad news. Cruelty? Nah. (thanks for following me btw, new followers!) Gentle just wants to rest and devote some of his time to some other things he has been neglecting for some time now.

If you are a regular reader you would’av easily guessed that this whole “I’m-ending-this-season-tis-the-last-you’ll-read-from-me” thing has something to do with the fact that I’ve decided to go back to exercising in the gym. I was foolish to think that closed door dance workouts, yoga and running from time to time will cover all the exercises needed to maintain a delicious body worth salivating for; it was a mistake, closing my gym membership, almost two years now. Well, I could’av survived with the set-up, actually, but what did me in was my naturally HUGE appetite that craves for merienda, even knowing that I just finished eating lunch or dinner. Hehehe. I’m not talking ‘bout dessert; ya know, that sweet little thing that you eat right after each meal? I’m talking ‘bout those medium sized meals unto themselves that you take in to fill those relatively long hours in between the proper meals. Hehehe. somehow nanay thinks it’s just natural though, to crave for meryenda after dinner. Kunsintidora ba. :)

So there. Back to square one, I suppose? I found this gym near my address (well actually, isang sakay pa ng jeep—but its ok). I conducted an ocular inspection one night, after office hours, walking the stretch of shaw boulevard; it took me almost an hour’s worth of walking endlessly, to finally find the place (as it happened, I was walking along the opposite direction pala, hehehe. kamusta naman?) the instructors were very accommodating, touring me around the gym to familiarize me with their facilities. We haven’t closed on any deal that night, but I left the place with my mind made up. If funds become available this june, and boy, they will, there’s no turning back. :)

And so where am I, exactly, at the closing of Backseat’s second season? I’m in my room here at the province, typing away on Gael. It just stopped raining and I’m about to go down to finish washing my socks and undies, which I left temporarily to check on Geloy and CJ playing “Heroes of Might and Magic” on my desktop PC in the other house across the street. Then all of a sudden, it rained really hard, like the sky’s about to collapse on us with all the rain it could muster—so I was stuck for a good one hour. With nothing to do, powerless to cross the street to the house where I left my laundry, I decided to write and make myself productive; trying my best, in words, to console avid Backseat readers who might feel they have been cheated with a sudden announcement of a season ender.

Well, here it is, anyway.

Goodbye for now; Backseat’s eight-month run was one helluva rollercoaster ride in the emotions department, but you stayed anyway, gentle reader. Surely this won’t be the last you’ll read from me. Season Three won’t be far away; as they say in Showbiz, I’m just gonna be ironing things with the management before the new season pushes through with the pilot episode. Starting this june, the production team will be very hard at work to ensure quality production in terms of top notch sets, riveting plotlines and special effects, come airing of episode one, hehehe. tsup. Stay tuned.

And now, to the laundry!

there's a rat in my bowl

2009-05-27T20:48:00.000-07:00

Change bedsheet.. check. CDs littering the floor put on the shelf.. check. Empty water bottles put in the trashbin.. check. Dirty clothes counted for later delivery to laundry shop.. check. Dirty socks and undies packed away to be washed personally by moi at the province..check. laptop and celfone chargers already in the backpack.. check. Whew. Now at least my little home away from home has that semblance of a home after that mild clean-up of sorts. I really ought to seriously clean the place sometime soon and by clean, i mean really clean. Some days ago i had the heart pounding experience of flushing down a rat i found swimming in my toilet bowl early one morning—how’s that for an early morning cardio workout, then huh? before its just cockroaches running the length of my walls,(of course i have my handy tsinelas to take care of em..for good) now, its rat on the menu. I wonder what’ll be next?! Calling animal rights activists in the neighborhood!! ;P

But for now i think that single effort will suffice, as i have to go home today. Took a one day leave from the office so i won’t worry getting home late at night; i used to opt to head home directly (by home i mean the province) after my last day of office work but i sortof changed strategy so i can drop by trinoma to buy northpark taipao for ate and nanay. Yesterday, the three-day seminar ended; i can’t be doing anything much at the office now, even if i chose to work this one single day, as the weekly work schedule i plotted for myself was ruined anyway when i decided to accept the seminar assignment, so its better off to take the day and run some special errands before going home, right? Ate made lambing last time that she kinda misses the taipao, so its taipao i’m gonna hunt for. But that’s gonna be after i deliver the laundry to the nearby shop.. and had some breakfast filling my tummy. Ciao.

promdi sa library

2009-05-25T18:50:00.000-07:00

i am currently at the national library of the philippines, blogging away. :) totchal, di ba? hehehe. the office sent me and an officemate to a 3-day seminar to update various skills needed to better dispense our librarian duties. i didn't know it included blogging, hehehe. the seminar's program stated that 2nd day will focus on web design; true enough, we were introduced to a slew of html programing jargons; midway through the lecture though, the speaker (who was my batchmate during the board exam i took some years back) probably saw the knotted foreheads in front of him and decided to shift to something more fun--free blog hosting sites over the net! hehehe. most of the participants were greenhorns and so it took them quite sometime to acquaint themselves to the new blogging environs; so what does a seasoned blogger do in these (ho-hum..) trying times? blog to death! haha! despite my familiarity with UP's main library building, whose expansive 4 floors are solely dedicated to housing the university's voluminous collections, i still found the national library as an imposing structure. from the outside, the building just exudes taste in design. i can easily place its facade alongside government buildings depicted in hollywood movies, and it won't look out of place. my officemate who previously worked for the national library said that the entire collection covers five floors. i took the opportunity to get oriented by an "insider" and asked her to play tour-guide to this wide-eyed promdi (hehehe). i must admit that i must have looked like i just saw the mrt pass me by for the first time. hehehe, nakanganga ba. she brought me to the rare collection of the filipiniana section where she used to work; running my fingers through some personal documents of gregorio del pilar with his signature no less, brought me to tears. hehehe. exaj lang. :) though i would have loved to stay a bit more to see the rizal papers, because of time constraints, we found ourselves going back to the philippine normal univerersity for the second-half of the session. sigh. that would have surely made my day. hehehe. well, i can always go back some other time to run my fingers through lolo jose's signature. :) the afternoon session involved a recap of the morning demo at the national library. when ed the lecturer passed me by, i told him we were batchmates during the board exam. seeing that i already have an existing blog, he didnt bother to discuss tech stuff with me but rather talked bout des (a common friend) and her recent demise. we didn't have much in common except her so even though it pained me to talk bout her last days (and her wake) i swallowed it like a bitter pill. well, i've to say byebye for now, as the participants are slowly leaving the room. 5 o'clock na eh. have to head home na din. ciao!

hot-hot-hot : the hayden-katrina sex video

2009-05-19T17:47:00.000-07:00

people at work just got hold of the controversial hayden-katrina sex video.

i've seen worse things than that, and will not play immaculate and pure; but watchin the controversial video knowing that hayden orchestrated everything to capture on screen what should remain hidden--and on top of all that a clueless katrina, all my heart goes to her and my repulsion to him. some said that she deserved what she got; even going to the extent that its her karma, for having an affair with a man who's currently in a relationship. still, others speculated that because she looked like an expert, doing all "expert" things in the video, that she's probably doing it, not only with hayden, but as a sideline to augment her showbiz earnings as well; playing escort to politicians and businessmen in between shootings and guestings. people could be very cruel, passing judgment like that. even if that were the case, we really cannot know her own circumstances--things that pushed her to doing those allegations, if ever they were true. what escapes me is why oh why, that with all this katrina muck-raking, hayden seems to emerge scratch-free. is it because he's a man, and this society entitles him to do whatever his little black heart wishes, regardless of who will be the casualty? it sickens me to think that behind that angelic face, something as cruel and perverse a mind could exist; damaging somebody's reputation for what? for the pleasure of hyper-boosting one's ego. and they say there are lots of hayden videos to follow. tsk.

busy little me

2009-05-19T00:02:00.000-07:00

"For the heart is an organ of fire"
—Count Laszlo de Almassy, the English Patient

"We are bound by the secrets we share"
—Barbara Covett, Notes on a Scandal

"To love another person is to see the face of God"
—Jean Valjean, Les Miserables

"We are loved beyond our ability to comprehend"
—Jewel, Spirit Album inlay

"Put your hands on me, Jack"
—Rose de Witt-Bukater, April 14, 1912, R.M.S. Titanic

These are but a few lines I found myself reciting last night and early this morning, alongside lyrics from musicals I grew up listening to, and some other trivialities of Hollywood and other media. Hehehe. I dunno if it’s just me (well, it really is just me, who else is there to point to), but I find dwelling on the little details a very interesting exercise for the brain and the emotions as well. It’s a librarian’s characteristic, I think, to be very keen on details, that some people might find it a bit bordering on the insane and the lunatic. this has always been me as a kid; and last night, as I was havin coffee with a fellow blogger, the signs of lunacy manifested itself in full view.

What in the world am I talkin about, you might ask. Well we’ve talked about many things, actually, and because there is an unwritten rule in the world of blogging that you don’t talk about a fellow blogger behind his or her back, I’m not in the position to divulge anything that has been put on the table except harmless things such as trivialities. Hehehe. toward the last sip of coffee I found myself reciting things from musicals I listened to when I was a child. i say recite because I do not have the requisite vocal chords to translate ‘em into intelligible songs; so I just had to make do with recite hehe.

Blogger Alena was so transfixed with my so-called powers of reciting the lyrics from memory. And to think that it’s Miss Saigon from grade three. I told her that when I am so enamored of something, as in the case of a musical—the rendition of the songs contained therein—I tend to recreate in my mind the scenes depicted. at an early age of nine, I was able to immerse myself fully with the heart-wrenching story of a girl who mothered a bastard in Vietnam War. With that, I can say that more than anything else, I quickly learn using my emotions; no wonder that growing up, my playground became intense, highly emotional films, or music with thought provoking lyrics sung with an attitude the spells g-r-a-n-d.

And, as if my little recitation game last night wasn’t enough to hush up my restless mind, I kept on with my little game as I was riding the shuttlebus, going to work this morning. This time I busied myself with quotable quotes from the movies to preoccupy busy little me. Hmmm. I wonder what’ll be next. Hehehe.

threesome : the loves of gentle

2009-05-15T00:48:00.000-07:00

1. i'm taking back the earlier statement i made about facebook. Its one heluva addicting networking site. What i love about it is the twitter-like spontaneity of its shout-outs, allowing for feedback in a matter of minutes; and there’s also the levels of privacy / disclosure you can choose to assign to people on your friend’s list. I still have to fix the number of applications present in my application boxes though, as i rarely use most of them. I came to have them in my possession during my infancy in facebook when i didn’t exercise filtering—i just accepted all incoming request from friends; before i knew it i was swamped with applications i don’t have much use of, much less, enjoy. As my facebooking experience improved, so did my level of enjoyment. So now, i’m registering this entry as an amendment to an earlier entry where i lambasted people who were easily converted by the allure that is facebook. I’m in love.

2. This paragraph is dedicated to yet another new-found love : Red Mango’s frozen yogurt. I first encountered red mango through jamiedavinci’s blog, when he mentioned the trinoma branch as one of his project sites. Though he sounded, er, read very enthusiastic about fro-yo in that particular post of his, in truth i just dismissed the product as another ice-monster wannabe, which i didn’t really enjoy upon first taste of it, some years back with cleng, during one of our foodtrips. Then came the subsequent print features in newpapers/ magazines that just jumped at me. the color scheme utilized by the product is so warm, that something in my mind just clicked upon seeing it. In one of my walks at megamall after office hours, i chanced upon a newly-opened branch, and decided to give it a try. The yogurt itself comes in two flavors, the original and the green tea flavors, respectively—i chose the original one as base; to which i added blueberry and chopped almonds as toppings. The verdict? Heaven in a cup.

3. The third in this love triangle post is the one i went to last night : my favorite spa in quezon city which i haven’t visited in months. Before the morong, bataan outing, i have already planned to schedule a massage there; but because i’m already quite removed from the vicinity, and going there after office hours would be a tedious task, i kept on putting it off until last night, when the urge became too unbearable, hehehe. i reasoned out, since my birthday came and went, i ought to get a little pampering done. The massage i got last night wasn’t a spectacular one though, basing it on the standards of my earlier visits, as my favorite masseur is currently preoccupied with an earlier request when i arrived; instead, i was relegated to an uninspired massage from one of their newbies, i think. But maybe because i was too tired from all the walking i did, prior to getting there (i had an earlier errand/ request from sis), it didn’t seem to be too bad at all—as i found myself falling asleep as my sore muscles were kneeded by codename "uninspired-newbie-masseur". For that wala siyang tip. Hehe. The sauna was good though, as all the excess water in my body trickled like fresh spring rain to hungry gutters.

minus the juicebar and the gazilion channels

2009-05-11T19:40:00.000-07:00

ok, i seriously need to go back to gym now.

i haven't really put on much weight that will necessitate the president of this land calling for national emergency, but i have been putting on flabs in the midsection that's quite alarming, in the sense that, before, i can already see a glint of muscle forming underneath the skin... now its just flab stretched miles and miles in my tummy area... waaahh!!!

ok, there's always yoga, which builds strength, muscle definition and flexibility that is a dream come true for all fitness enthusiasts. but yoga is not your ordinary exercise that you just get on whenever there is time. it actually demands concentration in a way that's also emotionally consuming. having said that, it’s not everyday that one would choose to practice yoga as it requires a certain frame of mind. and you can’t always be in that frame of mind, trust me.

and then there's also the age issue.. is it age related? well, i guess. how else do i find myself in this lethargic bliss, if not for the aging cells that whisper, "you need to get rest from all that strenuous exercising, o most gentle one!", hence the week-long laziness that pervaded my joints. but that will be nicely countered by the observation that some ancients i know of do not stray from their fitness routine for even a second's blink. and here i am, barely out of my teens (in vampire years, that is) and is in serious need of overhaul. hehehe.

that was the pool of thoughts i swam in, as i rode the bus going to the metro yesterday. i am kinda missing the fitness first environs which I left more than a year ago, but given the current economic situation of the country in which this gentle being is very much a part of no matter how he tries to exempt himself, i am forced to look for a good alternative which won't bleed my resources dry should i decide to enroll in a gym again.

Enter the local gym that got into my attention when eyvicat handed me a flyer that was also handed to him, at dinner last night. In the months living in my current address, it managed to skirt my attention as it was a bit out of the way from my route, going home at night; though it’s not that really out of the way as just a few meters walk from the MRT will bring one right to its doorsteps. Or at least that’s what the flyer was saying. From the information printed, it looks as though it is offering the same amenities as that of fitness first, minus the juicebar and the television with the gazillion channels. “weights, sauna, treadmill, boxing”. And best of all, what nearly sold me is the monthly fee of Php 600 per month.

Hush, now, my subjects.. I guess a trip to the gym is scheduled, one of these days.

all ye, beware. big time emo in the house.

2009-05-10T04:19:00.004-07:00

As days roll by, it has become saddening to think that you can’t really hold onto things, to people; those who cradled you and held you as a child, your role models for the true, the good and the beautiful; those that played both major and minor parts in defining your happiness, shaping your memories as an individual—all of them slowly receding to oblivion; preoccupied with their own individual sorrows.

Standing there, i thought, i was happy here, once. I was carefree and laughed in a way that real laughter should sound. I was a child here, once. Filled with joy and surrounded with love.

Now things are in shambles, rickety, and beyond repair. I don’t know what else to think. I don’t know what else to feel. This intensity is now making it apparent that i haven’t downed enough gsm blue this afternoon for me to feel the requisite numbness enough to compel me to lose touch with reality. Happy birthday to me.

away from me, you glutton spirit, you!!

2009-05-09T09:17:00.000-07:00

What a tiring day. I am writing this, at the eve of my 28th year, and 2 days of uncontrolled eating. I started my day, waking up with no definite goal in mind other than updating my music library, removing extinct links and streamlining my music to the stuff i currently enjoy; and retaining those that still work for me. Those that come from another era of taste—not necessarily that of a genre, i’m talking bout those things i previously enjoyed and now seems to hail from another time; a child’s taste in music—will definitely have to go. I am happy to report that nothing got accomplished of such grandiose a plan. I spent my day floating in a limbo of sorts. And no exercise, too. I just ate. And ate. And ate. And ate. Well, tomorrow’s gonna be my birthday ain’t it?

It all started Thursday night, when i went to my cousins’ house at ilang-ilang street, in commonwealth avenue in quezon city. The cousin i wrote of recently, died from the aneurysm attack she suffered. It was a sorta wake that i went to, except there was no corpse, no coffin to see physically. It was an online viewing for relatives, as she was in the U.S., working as a nurse when it happened. The desktop was turned on for the rest of the night going well into dawn, up until the time that i left for the province at around 10 in the morning, the following day.

The whole affair was the most un-wake-like wake (if ever there is such a word) i ever attended, thus far. instead of biscuits and coffee, we gorged on one of my cousin’s home cooked lomi noodles. Then one of my nephews, who is just about my age ordered roasted chicken and “crispy ulo” from nearby a lechon kiosk. We ate it alongside sips of san mig light and a Johnny walker black label that one of the nephews brought from his recent stint as a seaman abroad. We also had potato chips flowing in abundance to supplement the roasting. By the time one of the nephews took a picture to document the get-together (as everyone i know from that particular branch of the family was present that night) we were all so tipsy and smiling that the picture didn’t look like it was taken from a supposed funeral wake, at all. We did manage to say our prayers, though; and shed tears when gracie finally gave out her last words for her mom.

At around 3:30 in the morning when we retired to one of the assigned rooms for us, one of the nephews [kid kati] prodded me to treat him along with four other nephews present, to a nearby starbucks coffee house, rationalizing that it has been a while since we last saw each other and what is a starbucks, when it is your loved ones you are treating. At first, it all seemed like an ambush of sorts, as my wallet will definitely bleed from the overpriced coffee. But rationalizing to myself that it’s gonna be my birthday in three-days-time anyway, i gave in to kid kati’s proddings. And so the six of us walked to the nearby call center building in which a starbucks branch was housed. Along the way, i was already computing and sweating cold beads of sweat for the estimated cost of those six cups. Lucky for me, that when we got there the store was already poised to close and is no longer accepting orders. Hehehe. so we ended up at the adjacent ministop convenience store where they feasted on siopao and second-rate, trying hard starbucks frappucinos. Lucky me, indeed!

And so the gluttony continues til today. After hearing mass this afternoon, sis and i went to chowking to have an early night merienda at six pm, of congee and tokwa’t baboy. Arriving home, i made sure nanay had company (meaning, eat ulit... hehehe) while eating the siopao we took out for her and cj. Then i proceeded to make the fruit salad in time for tomorrow’s celebration, but that which already got a severe “tasting”, from the time i was whipping it, to the time we finished dinner at around 9:30 this evening. May natira pa naman for tomorrow. Haaayy.. haayyy talaga. At bukas pa ang birthday ko ha. Ayaw ko na kumain!!! Please!!

Sun sea and sand : 3 days at Pescadero Point

2009-05-06T01:09:00.000-07:00

It’s been 3 days now, since we have parted from the place; but I can still see clearly in my mind’s eye those small grains of sand staring back at me, up close and personal, as I melt to the ground in sitting forward stretch. Ah. Three days of mat-less yoga on sand, under palm trees, with nothing but the feel of sand on your feet. The sand sometimes, er, oftentimes, cling to your body as you perspire; and the sea breeze is at constant play, coming in through you and around you. Whew! Outdoor yoga has never been this visceral, I say. The practice truly rocked. Hehehe.

The late afternoon/ early morning jogs I took by the beach, really provided a sharp contrast with my city runs that spelled more like “health hazard” rather than “healthy”—what with all the smoke one is bound to inhale just by running in the vicinity where cars and other vehicles honk at each other to death. The sand provided an added challenge; I never thought it would be that hard; like wading through some thick, gooey syrup. I learned the trick early on, though; that to run more easily, one has to stay close or near the water; where the waves come-a-crashing on the sand. And running barefoot, besides the fun side of it, will only make the activity a breeze. I dunno, there’s just this thing that makes running barefoot a lot easier than struggling with the sand with your flip-flops on.

The beach was in Morong, Bataan. Earl, who found the place for the eight of us (Earl, Arnel, Eric, Noel, Francis, Gentle, Eyvicat and Jay) who went there last weekend in time for the May 01 Labor Day/ Pistay Dayat celebrations, chose it over the other place he had been eyeing, precisely because it was near the Ayala Land developed and managed Anvaya Cove. He posited that because it’s near Anvaya Cove, the sands must be pristine. And so we bought the idea. We went there half-expecting paradise. It didn’t turn out as we expected. Hehehe. It’s just a regular beach, much like what you will find in Pangasinan; but it served its purpose nonetheless—a breather from a tiresome city life. While I pretzelized myself on the sand—amazed to discover that mat-less yoga is the way to go in beach yoga sessions, my companions hunkified their physique by way of beach volleyball.

Arnel brought with him adobo that his aunt, who runs a carinderia cooked for us; and not to forget the divine brownies he himself baked that had eyvicat salivating to no end hehehe. when the food from home ran out, we survived with roasting hotdogs over fire and buying cooked food from nearby carinderias around. The strategy was a real saver, as the trip costed around Php2500—transportation, lodging and food for three days included.

Of course what is a night at the beach without good ole videoke bonding? As I am quite old-fashioned in my musical tastes, the group saw me singing Neil Sedaka favorites. Hehehe. I grew up with my dad’s taste in music, so there. They have no choice but to accept my singing with all their hearts, haha! Surprisingly, Earl also knows a tune or two of Neil Sedaka’s songs, so I didn’t turn out to be so far-removed from the present world at all.

And oh, there’s ghost-sighting, too; for what is a night at the beach without videoke sessions AND ghost stories? Hehehe. Among the group, it is Earl who claims to have a third eye, and that he can easily see spirits. He told the group that he saw a malevolent-looking ghost, an old woman who looked irked with the group’s singing deep into the night. He was clearly frozen stiff. When asked what she looks like, the ghost; what she’s wearing, characteristic of an Earl humor, he told us that Lola was wearing an empire-cut dress with lotsa electric pleats on the bodice. Hehehe.

days roll by | poym-poyman sa aking nalalapit na kaarawan

2009-05-05T03:29:00.000-07:00

they say
that days are like waves,
crashing onto shore;
a symphony slowly building
into sweet crescendo;
and we are but poorly made
sand castles, waiting to crumble
at the onslaught of such overcoming
magnificence

let me put it this way

I say
that days are like waves,
crashing onto shore;
a symphony slowly swelling
into sweet crescendo;
and we are
but sand castles swaying
swirling with their presence--
overcome by euphoria, even
as the last of our towers descend
grain per sweet grain
into murky sweetness

the green backseat goes to bataan

2009-05-03T04:36:00.000-07:00

an enchanting morong, bataan beachscape.

gentle shoots cover for upcoming CD album. mabibili sa pinakamalapit na botika.

fuckin aneurysm

2009-04-28T18:56:00.000-07:00

a very sad news struck home today. mourning veils my aura black. i still havent recovered from momoy's death, almost three years ago; and today, his mom suffered from the same traitor of a disease. she's in a state of comma, and respirator dependent as of the moment. my heart goes to dear gracie.

"..naka-duty sya sa ospital nung mangyari, around five o'clock. kagaya din nung nangyari kay momoy, biglaan din. ugat sa utak. tinapat na kami nung doctor.. ala na daw aasahan.."
--from a telephone conversation with ate malou

__________________________________

August 20, 2007

last week had been a week of terrible floods and endless rain here, in my little spot in the world called the philippines. somehow the overcast-nimbly (full of nimbus clouds? hehehehe) skies reflected the somber feelings i've also held. aug17 was the day that momoy died. he was in his teens when it happened, a year ago. he's my nephew, and was my roommate for the better part of two years. he had chinese eyes, and a cheerful disposition that is contagious like disease--only, the difference would be, is that you'd be very much happy you contracted it. :) no one had an inkling it would happen. everyone rationalized that he cant die. not this early. hes way too young. but it happened nonetheless, and all of us in the family still carry in our hearts that hurt that someone so young and so full of unrealized potentials should go like that. aneurysm, they say, was what did him in. a vein popped... snapped and boom... gone instantly. we found him in the toilet, lying unconsious like he just felt like sleeping while in the middle of taking a dump. imagine the horror when all of us were roused in the middle of the night to a scene like that. our beloved momoy lifeless in the toilet floor. part of me wants to give all the remaining details but a part of me also wants to forget it, or at least keep the hurt to a minimum by not writing about them anymore. on his first year death anniversary, we braved the strong rains and went to the the province to visit his final resting place. we held vigil there amidst flowers and balloons we brought, and tried to remember all the good things that have endeared him to us. to me, momoy is both child and adult--a complex nephew worthy to be in league with an equally complex uncle. hehehe. he loved food with such ferocity you cant possibly contest that he lives to eat, and not eats to live hahaha. joke, moy, wherever you are. :) that, i say, is the child in him; but on the far end of the spectrum of his attributes, is that he can carry on a completely adult, intelligent conversation like hes been doing it his entire life. momoy is a treasure trove of ideas, and we would carry on talking about almost anything til the wee hours... ahh.. i still miss him. the remaining days of the week rolled by with me feeling lethargic. i planned to carry out at least one type of exercise but to no avail--i was too down and out to move and pretend like everything's ok. i just spent time watching dvds at home, and cooking... and eating; the way momoy would spend his ideal weekend. :) good thing the sun is shining now as i'm writing this entry. a sign of moods lifting high? i hope so.

the baboy days

2009-04-26T23:51:00.000-07:00

I started my weekend on a hopeful note; that because I have resolved to stay here in the metro, I’d probably, in most likelihood, find the time to exercise. Thursday night, it didn’t happen. The whole day of Friday, newp. Ah… Saturday, I’d exercise on Saturday. Wish again, gentle. I finally found the courage yesterday, though, against the alarming backdrop of an idea that I’d be this glorious butterball if no contingency measure is to be taken, come May 1—the day that volleybelles and friends are scheduled to raise up a storm on the shores of Bataan Beach for its annual summer gathering and grand photoshoot. The preconceived dance workout turned out to be a big jog-in-place activity, as the initial jumping moves I practiced in one of the songs in my playlist turned out to be so jumpy—that I’ve decided to take it to a higher level, and jogged the remaining 50 minutes of the supposed “dance” workout hehehe. The early evening found me sweating to my essence as I practiced a full yoga session before winding down for the night. Hah! The things you do to look good for the camera. Hehehe.

the days I did not spend sweating, were spent eating (I’m still on rehab for gorging over a can of Lay’s, potato chips, Saturday night hehehe), lounging over a cup of coffee, chatting over the net, or watching anime episodes stored on gael’s hard drive.

i met with a former college dormmate, Mark Rabe, last Saturday at the Gateway mall in Cubao. In freshman year, we lived in the basement, along with other fifty or so boys who came from far-flung provinces in the country. He was my provincemate actually; living just a few towns from where I lived; oblivious of each other’s existence, up until I studied in the republic of diliman and met him just a few meters away from my room. What probably endeared him, as with the case of gremil, (whom I also met for a cup of coffee some weeks ago), glen and dawn, to mention a few comrades, hehehe, was that we were a bunch of oddballs who found comfort in the eccentricities of the other, as one tried to make sense of the new environment that was UP back then.

And so we chatted over burger king and dimsum and dumplings favorites at the foodcourt. And so we followed it up with coffee and tea at coffee bean and tea leaf, at the mall's groundfloor. Though he claims to have gained a few pounds (yes, he did, actually), and now goes with the title “atty.” before his name, he’s the same mark with the annoying british accent I know from before; nosebleed tuloy ako sa kaka-english, haha!

Meet-ups seemed to define my weekend, as aside from meeting up with mark, I also met with several people; in online meet-ups, that is. Shattershards, was actually surprised to see me ‘online’, as he was accustomed to my usual weekend schedule of going home to Pangasinan. Sa sobrang tuwa sa pagkakita nya sa ‘kin pinaulanan ako ng sandamakmak na Jason Mraz mp3s hehehe. we also talked a lot about the news of an avatar live action already in the works which got us both excited. I was also able to chat with the enigmatic Dylan Dimaubusan and boy wonder Herbs; both are blogging world sensations in their own right and i tremendously enjoyed seeing that they are as spontaneous as the feel of their write-ups when I’m reading them. They were both pleasantly surprised (I guess) with what they saw on cam hehehe. reactions range from “you don’t look twenty-seven, more like a college freshman; to something like “you have a kids body, judging from your arms and shoulders (ouch), hehehe.

I also found myself immersing on anime, when not chatting online or meeting for coffee. I am glad to put into writing that I was finally able to finish the last three episodes of Baccano; I was also able to move on with the Cowboy Bebop episodes that were somewhat stalled when I got busy with exercise and writing during the preceeding weekends. I guess you can’t actually do them all, huh?

In any case, I’ve resolved to run later this evening around Mandaluyong City Circle to make up for my baboy days hehehe. Wish me luck.

at sundown shadows conspire to give me

2009-04-24T07:35:00.000-07:00

that, or photoshop. hehehe.

sobrang cheesy talaga!

2009-04-20T19:31:00.000-07:00

I dunno what got into me but i suddenly had this thing going with commercials. This weekend saw my senses sharpened so suddenly to the production values, script and theatrics of the commercials dominating the local television scene these days. Maybe it was my prolonged exposure to the television screen inside the bus, last Friday, when we spent almost the whole day on the road, on account of going to Cavite for Tiya Gunding’s wake and going straight home to Pangasinan after. In all the buses we rode that day, there it was, the television, airing some show; i have never been a sucker for local TV so you’ll just see me giving a ho-hum to all these, no matter how extravagant, cheap, creative or trifling the attempts to replicating foreign game shows, soaps, or series in existence today. I’m not gonna make this entry a hate campaign against local TV, baka idis-own ako ni Ize Water pag nabasa nya to hehehe. all i’ve been saying was i didn’t pay attention to the shows airing all those time that i sat with a sore butt on the bus. My point of entertainment? The commercials interspersed in between gaps. Hehehe.

Blame it on my decision of not buying a television set for my Boni abode, or just electing to watch DVDs instead of making tele-babad all day when i’m at home in the province; for when the commercials started airing, i was so amused watching some of them—some for their sheer creativity; some for their humor/ comedic timing that is so in-tune with today’s sensibilities; and well, others for their sheer stupidity. Hehehe. well, here’s a rundown of the commercials that managed to get my attention and kept me entertained even up to now, just thinking of them :

1. vit water – its already a given that product endorsements flock to Manny Pacquiao. When you see him onscreen endorsing Alaxan and/ or his other numerous endorsements, you see a sportsman in action, you hear voice over sound byte spread over a few clips, and a final shot of him delivering a nod of approval for the product. Not with vitwater. For this commercial, you see Pacquiao getting intimate and smiling for the camera, gigglish, even, speaking directly to the consumer/ viewer in English. In English!! I dunno if it’s just me but it seemed he was also faking an accent, haha! And the “now you know” line was delivered in a very endearing manner as to put to shame Robin Padilla’s similar docu-interview styled commercial where he also spoke in English to “drive” his point. Pacman was just plain adorable in this commercial.

2. LBC – i found the scenario depicted very humorous: the delivery guy handing over to the boss a package which he quickly opened whilst walking, in time to see a subordinate sleeping on the job.. and what do you get? A batok style comedy using the content of the package delivered, reminiscent of dolphy movies. Hehehe. Ah, kaya pala makakarating agad, i said to myself. :)

3. liveraide –i find the whole scene ridiculous: Robin Padilla walking into a bar full of alcohol drinkers, and asks the bartender for what, a glass of water?? WTF?! Yes, the scene drives a point, that drinking is bad for the liver; but translate that to a real world scenario—ask a bar tender for water and lecture the room of the perils of drinking. I doubt if you’ll walk out unscathed of the fury you’re bound to stir. Mata mo lang ang walang latay.

4. cornetto – hanggang saan ang maaabot ng bente pesos mo? So far the commercial have two running versions –one in the barbershop and another one set in the fastfood / burger joint. I find the burger scene funnier. Hehehe. Imagine yourself ordering a hamburger only to be unwrapped in front of you and taken a bite at by the cashier/ service crew to the give you the exact size of the burger that corresponds to the amount you are willing to pay. The last shot showing the expression on the cashier’s face, still chewing your burger is just priceless. Haha!

5. Greenwich -the extreme cheese overload commercial starts with a romantic shot of John Lloyd and Bea boating by a lake ala somewhere in time. The scene cuts to John Lloyd’s close up where he says he wants to end their friendship cuz he wants to start loving her as his girlfriend. At this point another boat enters the scene full of John Lloyd’s barkada (which appeared in the previous Greenwich commercial) giggling “weeee!! Sobrang cheesy!” this is the complete panira moment to an otherwise romantic shot. Works very well, if you ask me, to introduce to the scene their “sobrang cheesy” line of pizzas. Hehehe.

dripping wet

2009-04-20T13:30:00.000-07:00

Despite the the unforgiving sun and the scorching heat we experience all-day (hot hot hot), we are somehow given a taste of the coming rainy months by nightfall. Indeed, when i went home to the province last weekend, i was surprised to find the ground wet with rain. Sis volunteered the information that it has been raining there for almost a week now, almost every night--a welcome change to the smoldering hot nights that have been ravaging us in the land called the Philippines. when i arrived last night at my Boni abode, i was greeted with a heavy downpour that spelled c-o-o-l, even just for one night. Seems that rainy days are set to arrive in the coming weeks. well, its just an unofficial prediction from a gentle observer that need not be taken as a declaration of a pure, absolute and immutable truth.

In any case, i have exhumed from the vaults a blog entry i wrote that spelled a major disaster to my office uniform, that one fine day of August 07, 2007. Let this be a warning to all. heed this, and be saved. :)

after months of waiting for rain here it comes pouring. rainy season here in the philippines should have already started around june but its only last week that it came in full force. i write this entry after having braved the heavy downpour, waiting for public transport that came in trickles amidst a sea of people anxious to go to their work places ; powerless to stop the lashing winds staining their uniforms wet. to make my case worse, my trusty umbrella turned traitor on me as a hole so small as to go unseen all these months made itself known to me like an epiphany--in trickles the water came, soaking a good part of my uniform. i had to hold my umbrella then at an angle that would deflect the drippings away from me. ahh, such is life. after a decade or so of waiting, a bus arrived. against my will i was forced to take it lest i'd really be soaking wet. the ride took me to the train which would be more convenient in sunnier climes but given my predicament i would have been happier riding the F/X vehicles plying Quezon Ave-Quiapo but each and everyone of them passed me by... brimming with passengers. so i had to take the train. going to the station from where the bus dropped me is another hurdle--rain, rain, rain everywhere. happily the train ride is uneventful and is a welcome change from what has happened to me so far upon waking up this morning. running late, i decided to take a cab from the train station; a decision i'm not happy with, as all taxi cabs that passed me are already hired. every minute that ticked is a sad reminder that i could have been luckier had i taken the second option of taking two rides again--the first another train ride and the second, taking the orange-colored shuttles that ply vito cruz street dividing manila and pasay--taking me straight to my work. one easy taxi ride seemed tempting enough. that is until you realize that everyone had that option in mind. at this point the rain is still beating hard on me. with the streets flooded and water splashings here and there from vehicles that do not care to take a second look at pedestrians they terrorize, my shoes and socks became the sorry casualties. i arrived at work stepping finally down from the prize taxi with socks dripping wet. what a nice way to start your day, huh?

kill joy and other stories

2009-04-18T08:33:00.000-07:00

Call me “kill joy”, but is it just me who finds it annoying that neighbors a few houses from ours are having a videoke session broadcasted over a loud speaker system; one that can easily figure in town fiestas, perya coronation nights, pa-liga—things that make up a common probinsyano’s mode of entertainment circa 1980s; what with its blaring subwoofers and that damn singer, whoever he is, who’s been trying too hard to fake an accent, that, at its best, would still fall in the “trying hard” category despite the “your a good singer” rating he keeps on getting from the recorded grading mechanism in the videoke. Not that i have anything about “promdi entertainment” as i call it; in fact i’ve been part of that kind of entertainment when i was still a kid growing up in this barrio. I’m just pissed that there is presently no occasion to warrant them holding a session like that—it isn’t Christmas, Halloween or Valentines to be singing at the top of their lungs at this hour, 9:30 in the evening, at the expense of your neighbor’s peace of mind. They were like this too, a week ago. When i inquired from my mom who these people were, she said it’s the tropa of one of the uhugin kids that play barefoot along the unpaved subdivision roads when we moved here in the mid 1990s. Fuck. So he’s playing it hip now, huh? And to gather your tropa each weekend, for an entertainment such as one that will require the full attention of your neighbors, that really takes a lot of balls. Fuckin lots. We’ll he’s not a son of a fuckin big-bellied policeman for nothing. i bet the fruit takes a lot after the tree.

Was at Robinson’s Place Pioneer last Thursday night. I ate dinner at KFC; decided that a two piece chicken meal was in order after having sweated it out, jogging my wits out in Baywalk with officemates during our office’s sports hour. (see related previous entry). After the hearty meal, i made my usual rounds at the tech outlets that abound in the mall. One of my stopovers was this hole-in-the wall shop called gadget house. What set them apart from the other tech shops is the low prices with which they sell their products. I inquired as to how much they sell a Nikon D60 and they pegged it at 34k. That’s a fuckin 10k difference from a shop selling a similar item not 20ft away. Across gadget house is an equally obscure corner called pick-a-book that sells second-hand books. Whadayaknow, they got a hardbound jewel kilcher poetry book a night without armor selling for P160. That’s a big bargain considering that it is hardbound. When it came out in the bookstores some five years ago, if i’m not mistaken, it sold for P700 or P800. Didn’t buy it though, i bought A.S. Byatt’s Possession which i found lying alongside Philip Roth and Jane Smiley titles. I read it immediately upon arriving at my place, stripping out of my clothes and going directly to the C.R. i dunno if it was the weather, or the book itself. I found myself sweating profusely in minutes. The language was romantic and will no doubt memerize, but it is not anne rice romantic—it’s something else; fuckin lot more verbose and a certified nosebleed material. After a while, minutes after lying down on my bed i fell asleep. Maybe its A.S. Byatt, or the earlier jog, i dunno. Let us see in the following days.

Yesterday, i was with my sis and my bro-in-law; we went to Cavite to attend the wake of an aunt there. Sis was open to the prospect of going to Tagaytay after, as our cousin mentioned that it’s just a P38 bus fare and one is already in Tagaytay. She didn’t insist on the idea though, as kuya might oppose; what with nanay and the kids left alone by themselves at the province well into the night, going there will surely eat up precious hours of travel. Going back to the bus terminal in the afternoon, Pangasinan bound, i took the reigns of the triumvirate and suggested we ride the MRT; it surely saved on precious hours potentially lost in traffic jam, have we decided to ride the local buses instead. It was Ate’s second time to ride the MRT, and the idea delighted her that we could go to Ambos Mundos by train should we decide to take an adventure in the metro by public transport. Hehehe, lakwatserang ate. : )

a refreshing way to burn

2009-04-18T04:30:00.000-07:00

A mild fury was brewing in the waters of Manila Bay as we jogged the length of the Baywalk from CCP Complex going to the US Embassy last Thursday. Sea spray met with our cheeks, and on occasion, we had to watch our steps as occasional rivulets formed along our path, making what started out as "just one of the regular jogs", an extra challenge. The Baywalk that afternoon was still full of its regular customers though—fellow joggers who didn’t seem to mind receiving a splashing once in a while; photographers who, armed with their cameras, shoot at children playing with the statues; street vendors plying the route however timid the turnout of their sales maybe.

My officemates decided to stop upon reaching Pedro Gil, and just waited for me to finish my round; I was determined to reach the embassy this time—putrid stench of the sea air be damned! And I did. The first few jogs we had, I always felt cheated that we should turn around upon reaching Pedro Gil, knowing that I’ve more energy reserved to reach the US Embassy even. The run that afternoon proved my hunch, as I speeded up upon reaching my appointed marker and made a dash for the embassy, just a few meters away. It always feels good when you know you performed a bit better than your last performance.

The run back to the office felt sore though; the coarse opening of my left rubber shoe kept rubbing with my skin just above the heels; in time, that friction made a cut and a wound made its presence known by slowing me down. The slowing down was enough to make me appreciative of other sights previously ignored—news reporter Kara David already wrapping up a shoot of her spiels that will be interspersed throughout a segment, one that was probably finished days ago in the editing room; a graduating class from the University of Caloocan coming out of the Folk Arts Theatre after the ceremony was over—happy to have finished college, but apprehensive of what might be in store for them in the real world.

Passing by the throng coming out of the building, I couldn’t help but feel lucky that we didn’t have to rent a place during my time just to have a decent graduation ceremony. the place was there all year round. just a few trimmings were needed to transform it into someplace magical for an event such as a graduation ceremony. and yes, the garden does look great at around this time of the year. Realizing how big an "issue" it is turning out for me, considering that I graduated from college some seven years ago, I laughed it out and proceeded to jog on the way to the office.

It was only upon arriving at the office that one of my fellow joggers noticed the wound. I said I ignored it intentionally coz I didn’t see the point of making a big fuss out of it. We were in the middle of jogging and since it was pretty much bearable, I just trudged on. The show must go on, ba. Hehehe. haay. I wonder how much calories I was able to burn? Can’t wait for the next jog. :)

seeing the world from another angle

2009-04-12T22:54:00.000-07:00

I still have to take an actual picture of me doing this pose; but yup, as you can see, the contortions allow one to see the world from a different angle; bottoms up. Haha!

Will be heading for manila today, after lunch; with that, i’m very glad to have squeezed in some yoga poses this morning, before plunging head long to battle it out again with the big world tomorrow; i doubt it if i’ll be having as many sessions as i want to have 'em, when the daily grind formally starts.

Well as you can see from the picture, the highlight of my personal practice is called the karnapidasana, or the ear pressure pose.

The idea, after having done all the preliminary poses, is that one should be limber enough to take on the final pose—well, at least for my practice—which will require one to be upside down, kneeling, with his head in-between both legs, so that the ears are “pressured” to produce a low humming sound that will actually give the impression that one is floating inside a womb, weightless.

It might be a hard pose to execute at first, but after a few sessions, you will actually realize that more than a stressful pose, its a relaxing one, actually. Plus, you get to have the added bonus of seeing some parts of your body you don’t get to see everyday, hehehe.

photo taken from - http://yoga.about.com/od/yogasequences/ss/inversions_7.htm

cento!

2009-04-11T03:29:00.000-07:00

I must admit, there was a time that i was so smitten with Friendster; it was, during it’s time, the ultimate application in the web; your homepage where you can showcase your own personal style, and let your friends know you’re as hip as hip can be.

That was before the advent of Facebook (which i never really enjoyed using); now, everywhere i look, people are slowly migrating to mark zuckerberg’s creation. friend requests from people i know from way back—from friendster’s heydays—are flooding my facebook inbox. Even some of my officemates (the demographics of which, here in my job spells O-L-D; oh well, that declaration is made relative to my age, hehehe—everything's subjective, really) have decided to make the switch. Soon i’ll be forced to just burrow a hole in the ground under a tree, to shrivel and die a fabulous death away from all this growing madness.

Good thing i’ve stumbled upon the joys of blogging. Having the backseat all for myself afforded me freedom to do practically anything i want with this space given to me in the digital realm. I can post anything i want; have as many readers as i want; or as little (i can pick a few lucky ones who can read my blog, if i choose to, and make my blog “private” to the rest of the blogosphere); i can redecorate on a whim, when fancy strikes—put as many colors as i like to put, or use them sparingly. Blogging brought out gentle the writer, and i couldn’t have been any more happier with the result. Blogging put me face to face with my fears; i brought me closer to my aspirations.

I am here, i am now. I love what i made of the backseat, and what the backseat made of me. here’s to another hundred posts! (uhm, cento, as used in the title, is an italian word for 100)

(a note to the gentle reader: Friendster and Facebook remain to be tools for contacting me, as not everyone enjoys being listed in my phonebook; all i’m saying is that Friendster has lost its appeal to my inner teenager with the birth of the backseat and its subsidiary, naked scribbles.)

the march of the ants | header launching

2009-04-09T22:04:00.000-07:00

Welcome to yet again another launching of yet again another green backseat header, haha! I took this picture two years ago using my Kodak c663 when it was still working. I was together with my cousins, exploring the “woods” at the back of my grandmother’s ancestral house when i suddenly had the urge to see how my digicam would fare with macrophotography; directing my lens to a group of marching ants at one of the mango trees felled by some past typhoon. I reckon that somehow, it (the tree) waited in vain for a bit of a nudge to make it stand upright again; i say in vain because it already took root in its current reclining position—very much like cate blanchett’s signature pose in Elizabeth, hehehe. so there it was, with the ants marching on its back—bathing, it seemed, in a glorious glow of the late afternoon sun. I felt so drawn to the entire scene unfolding, that i took successive pictures of the parade. This one stood out from the pack, and i kept it; never knowing that in one of my artistic fits i’m gona make use of it in time for the Lenten edition of the gentle blog. I chose a much simpler font and color this time for the blog title, to make the background picture take centerstage. Its growing on me right now that i doubt if its gonna stay only for the Lenten season. But knowing how unpredictable gentle is... oh well.

bago matulog

2009-04-09T08:44:00.000-07:00

No exercise for five days now. Wow, gentle... kumilos ka naman please.

what i missed out on exercise tho, ibinawi ko naman with writing. Ewan ko ba, when i force myself to write about a specific topic, and by this, i’m referring to poyms, mas malamang sa hindi e mapupunta sya sa iba, sa kakaisip at kakabuild up ng ideas, may makikita akong mas magandang idea na di gaanong related with the first one, and this i end up pursuing instead.

Taglish ako ngayon kasi napagod din ako sa kaka-fix up ng sidebar content ko. Napansin ko kasi its been a while since i put in new content—palagi na lang kasi gentle hears, gentle eats, gentle reads; so i thought of adding new materials, like mga favorite entries kong nigawa since nagstart ako with backseat. I also thought up of adding the 25 gentle things post with my profile, cuz i think it helps me to get intimate with my readers na din. Of course, nagising ako feeling ready for a photoshoot so i turned on my webcam and started flashing my smile na din, haha! shempre blinur ko na din ng konti para mysterious pa din kuno.

Dalawa lang kami ni nanay ngayon, so tatabihan ko na syang matulog after ko mapost ito. Umuwi sina kuya at ate sa Pampanga with the kids for the holy week so its my time naman din para makasama nanay ko. Ayon, makulit pa din. At ow-si. Kanina nung lumipat na kami ng bahay e ilang beses nagpaikot-ikot sa baba, ikot-dito ikot-duon muna ang ginawa bago umakyat; looking for the switch ng ilaw sa likod. Nabuksan na ata lahat, ala pa ding umiilaw. E pundido pala. O e di solb na sana. Nakalahati ko na ang akyat (asa landing na ako, going to 2nd floor) nung tumawag na naman sya sa ibaba. Tinatanong kung napatay ko na daw ba yung ilaw sa garahe. So eto ako, paspas na bumaba para patayin nga. Oo na, nakalimutan ko nga. Sori, tao lang. :) Pag di kasi ako ang nagpatay, gudlak. Mabagal nang kumilos ang nanay ko. Malamang mas abutin pa kami ng syam-syam kung aantayin ko pa syang makarating dun. Pero ang memorya naman nya, matalas pa. She’s very good with details. Parang ako. Malamang yun ang namana ko sa kanya. Though that might be the case, selective na din ang memorya nya; may mga di na sya natatandaan, but what she does remember, dun nagfifit-in yung galing nya sa detalye.

No-meat diet kami kanina, well, except nung umaga. Humabol pa yung kormbip na matagal ko nang naiimagine kainin. Yun yung pinagsaluhan namin bago umalis sina ate. Then dalawa na lang kami for lunch and dinner. Ayun, pinagkwento ko ng pinagkwento. Dun sya naaaliw, reminiscing nung asa manila pa sila at bata pa si ate. Kinikwento nya kung pano napalo ng tatay si ate kasi ayaw kumain ng talong. Ilang ulit na nyang naikwento yun pero hinayaan ko na lang. Yun ang bonding time namin e.

Hay naku, so malamang postponed na naman ang yoga. Antok na din kasi ako e. Plinano ko pa, after this nga sana, pero bukas na lang. Mas kelangan ko ng tulog cuz i rarely get that pag asa manila ako. Tis the season to be resting. Goodnight blogspot!