It’s been a few months since I’d last held work in my hands. I recently left my job to look for better opportunities. So far, my applications have been unanswered. A risky move, really. Knowing that I have a son to support, a family to help and a promise to keep. I can’t say that I’ve been that much of slacker, I can’t say I have been the opposite either.

My hiatus in almost everything has brought about realizations and pained truths. In my relationships, self-appreciation, pride and on areas too many to mention. It hasn’t been too hard nor has it been too easy. It is a pedal malfunction. Way too many things unattended and undervalued.

I had suffered a few setbacks in my relationships. I’ve fallen out with people I should have taken care of. I’d lost the respect of people I have looked up to and have been forever indebted to. The factors in maintaining good relationships have risen up and my scores are on an all time low. So much for my investment in people. I have reduced myself to a mere companionator – not in the sense of a movie quip that meant “pimp.”

A funny thing really, I find myself good company – maybe too good of a company even for myself. I scare people and the book of Neil Strauss isn’t exactly helping me acquire the necessary social skills I need to work in the real world. Too much theory, I’m too afraid to put it to work. I’m starting to ask myself how I had managed to hold on to these people, and how, for that matter, did they manage to be in good ties with me for so long? I think I am now getting the response.

This is nothing but a diary entry that has been long overdue. It feels normal. A soliloquy but not in the poetic sense – more on the depraved and desperate sense. All I have are my caps to block people’s looks and my glasses that have been scratched way more than they need to be. My playlist consists of good melodies and my head with the fantasies I fail to keep even in my dreams. What fucking luck – I don’t even believe in that shit. 

Fucking. 

Useless.

I can’t say I’ve invested my time and resources in the wrong people, it’s just that they could be made on a more reasonable time. I’ve had lapses in judgement, I don’t deny these things. The only worse thing I can do is deny myself of the justice that I’ve paraded in the faces of people all these years. You don’t get that fucking low. Clearly, I have anger issues. My good friend had said it to me once, jokingly. I felt flush. Depressed and angry. What a fucking nice mix. There’s no way you can drink around that.

Something's wrong with my thought process. It's something that I always say to people when I talk to them as I almost chase them off with the nonsense that comes out from my mouth. And it has been finding its way to my writing as well.

Having fun is something of previous stranger to me. For the longest time, I avoided going out with friends though I find myself getting sucked in anyways. I had a weird thinking that when things are getting good, it can only get worse from then on. It was a constant gnawing feeling. It is an itch, dangerous to scratch. Whenever I down a bottle or enjoy a cup of coffee outside, I just get this feeling at the back of my head and the bottom of my gut. It's like something bad is going to happen.

I had held on to this thinking for a very long time until I forgot how it felt like to be down. The regular questions as to why shitty things happen were a ruse to the more serious problem. I was just having too much fun. Everything was just a blur. Even the problems seemed like a math problem, no worries since I can deal with them mentally. The thing is, I suck at math. Suxxxxx.

Apparently, the feeling is shared by my mom. She told me that she was exactly like that when she was in college. The big difference between us is that she was put together more than I ever was and am now. She's on a different league and apparently, everybody else but me.

I'm sorry. This is just verbal abuse. It's a waste of code and memory. Here's the only place that I can't hurt or maim someone else in my release process. I'm a mean drunk at times.

Amateurs

A very peculiar thing happened today. I told our chief-of-staff that I'd be late for work since I had to do something in Makati. She said 'Ok.' The thing is, after doing the errand, I got into a bus with my mom back to QC. The bus was humid and had air as heavy as smog. You can feel the war moisture stick to your skin and alveoli. The bus was 'air-conditioned' and asked for the air-con fee. It sucked at that. 

Well, what sucked even more was that 4 hoods got on the bus. Regular hiphop guys. One with a hoodie on even if the temp outside was a smelting room similarity. The other was wearing a hoodie with a beanie and cheap wayfarers. Tall, that one. Probably wore fake Adidas shoes, too. Motherfucker. All the details I remember are those of the three fuckers. The last one I noticed was a guy wearing a ball cap on reverse. He looked fucking dumb. They all had baggy pants and cheap looking sneakers.

The stupid-looking guy with the stupid fucking cap paid for his fare. 11 pesos in exchange for pieces of tickets. The tall motherfucker with beanie and shades on stepped on my dress shoe. Shouting ensued inside the bus. Familiar flicks of butterfly knives clicked and clacked inside my ears. Motherfuckers are pointing it at two women at the back, two seats behind where my Ma and I sat. The fuckers were asking for the bracelet and yelling "Putangina nyo, 'wag kayong makialam dito!" Panic followed.

After a moment, everything was over. They got the bracelet of the woman they apparently followed from a mall not far back. Motherfuckers and their knives. Putangina ng mga taong ganun. Puta talaga pasalamat sila wala pa kong lisensyadong baril kundi dalawa siguradong patay sa kanila.

If it were a fairer fight, two of those guys would probably be beaten to death inside the bus. Too much leash are given to those motherfuckers. I really wanted them dead. I wish I had a gun to shoot them with. In the face. In between the eyes or on the cheek and through the back of the head. Though I probably have to take the day off, my dark gray polo barong may have splatters of those mofos blood on it.

I swear to god I wanted them dead.

afternoon delight

Well, hello.

Early lunch today. Thought it'd be better if I got my thing going earlier to get on to working my ass and actually finishing my work ahead of time.

The queue at the fast food I ate at was just terrible. Kids are running all around the place and stepping on my feet. It shouldn't have been that irritating but I was wearing slippers so they kinda stubbed my already stubbed toes into the ground. And they were the type of kids that were annoying when inside the mall. They smelled like young sweat and looked like they had mucus falls for noses. I'm sorry, I swear I'm not that mean of a guy.

My stomach was rumbling, it was craving for a big meal. I ended up ordering a 215-peso meal that consisted of a heavy almost all-meat sandwich, a piece of chicken and two servings of rice (I had to make my stomach happy, it was fed up of digesting carinderia food, side note: I love carinderia food; but it gets old when you eat the same stuff for 3 straight days.) Whew that was a long note inside parentheses. Well, hello. The rice was steaming hot. It torched my tongue but it felt good when it went down my digestive pits.

I'm going to get #Instagood with you here and post the sandwich that I am saving for later. Tada! Hipsters rejoice!

One way trip to Fat Fairways/Cholesterol City. Oyea!

Well, just got news from our budget officer. They are approving my allowance for this week but they slashed a good 500 pesos for the "time" I apparently spent outside the work environment. I's cool with tha shit. Couldn't argue with people who feel like they own your life with the monieszzs they pay 'ya.

I'm looking forward to the weekend. I need to see some familiar faces, hear familiar voices and get some good news. I'll be seeing my kid on the next weekend so that's definitely going on my calendar.

This post makes no sense whatsoever. It doesn't even point to a relevant topic nowadays. I'd like to talk about Marvic Leonen's appointment to the Supreme Court or the passing of the Sin Tax Bill on its third reading at the Senate but the sense of injecting politics into this private space seems inappropriate. If I wanted to do that, I'd be making a new blog about it.

I am just bored as hell. I swear to God, I'm mean when I'm bored. And I don't even make sense.

P.S. Thanks to Holden Caulfield. You just got swaggerjacked. Peace, homies!

Sphincter Tolerance

Asshole drawing by Kurt Vonnegut

*Bleep* Attention. Attention!

Today is Sphincter Tolerance day. It is celebrated to remind ourselves to ward off assholes everywhere. Law states that their species be preserved. If hunting is allowed, they'd be a dying breed within days. Whether at work, school, commute or on personal holidays, remember to have extra patience with them. 

Please resist the urge to shoot them in the face with a double barrel shotgun or drive a stake into their annoyingly beating hearts. Their brash attitude, stupidity and maybe, your extreme luck will kill them. One day, they may get struck by vengeful lightning, let's keep our fingers crossed

That is all. *Bleep*

On my last post. It's not the 100th, sorry guys.

Jotting.

This here, post, seems to be my 98th post. I forgot to post two drafts in my queue. Sad. The last post is apparently not my 100th but I'll stick to it because that's what Semper Fidelis means.

Anyhow, apparently, there is a buzz going on with the Hysterical Literature videos in the art world. It has been called many things among which "high art" and apparent "poor taste" are the more stronger words.

I'm not a student of the "art" but as I remember from my earlier classes, there had always been a separating line between the "high brow" and the "popular." Of course, the richer tend to be more learned in "appreciating" art as it is or was, hence, collections and carefully curated works that they have "claimed" that only the people higher intellects, like themselves, can understand. The popular are the bakya, with cheaper tastes for artistic swill and the always dreaded mainstream. I see the image as a perceived pyramid wherein the one percenters enjoy the view from the top and the bums hold the lower levels of the pyramid feed off the leftovers of artistic interpretation, appreciation and conception.

It so happens that sex and art, when mixed, is a whirlwind. Will it be pornography if human sexual pleasure and excitation is captured in canvas, photographs, film or graffiti? Will it be art if done in a clinical artistic way? I, for one, don't know shit.

Kulturang Popular, you really taught me a thing or two. I'm not an expert but you make me sound like I swaggerjacked one.

Here are the links to articles I've managed to scour for your discerning eyes and understanding. It's not necessarily branding. The need for qualifying and identifying which specific genre it falls onto or which people can understand its message is, I think, unnecessary.

Reid Singer's article on Artinfo regarding the mixing of the high brow and the low with  a suicide leap bordering on porn.

Danielle Ezzo's reply to Singer's article. Describing the more than flawed structuring of the belief of straight edge art and its connection to the "one-percenters."

Here, model Stoya describes the experience of battling the sensation and paying attention to the book.

Lastly, Supervert's reaction to the series. 

This shit's profound, man.

lesson learned: never sit on your phone

Still at work. But I'm hoping to go home later this afternoon. Ah, how nice it is to finally think you're going home. Though I wasn't really far FAR away, something is still amiss. I've noticed my arms got thinner, maybe it's from the lack of exercise and additional stress because of work. The late nights were also a factor. I also noticed that my neck grew rings of fat around, leaving creases of unhealthy fat. My gut grew bigger, too. Thank you fast-food chains. I'll die fat, fast because of you.

This will be a breather for my usual longer posts (I am sorry for that, btw.) I had no connection last night so I wasn't able to post anything the past couple of days.

Just this morning, I said goodbye to my phone. I cracked the screen by sitting on it. It crushed under my steadily increasing weight and against my cheap knuckle dusters on my right back pocket. The LCD screen broke in more than 3 places and the colors were dead pixels: streaks of bright pink and navy blue along with white lines and black gapes. 

There was consolation to it, though, I managed to make a few calls before putting it away in my bag. Glad to have mastered the interface to call up my mom who gave me the phone. It was a short call full of apologies. She laughed and reminded me how much the phone cost as a joke. I was embarrassed. I told her I'll get a new one on my own.

That's pretty much it. It was a waste and I felt stupid for not remembering that I had the phone in my back pocket. I thought of leaving that phone at home the moment I got a new one. Oh well. I feel bad. If it were really mine, I wouldn't have felt that way. It's just that I remember my mum having to put up with a crappy phone set just to buy me a new one that I've managed to wreck twice now with finality and deep sentiments.

It's funny how we can get so close to things that are material only to remember that it was just a symbol of a deeper connection. I didn't care about how much the phone cost, I cared about how my mum thought of me the moment she decided to give it to me for my birthday.

Camping sa opisina

Heto, unang beses kong magsusulat bago pumunta ng trabaho. Well, technically tinulugan ko ang trabaho ko dahil sa mismong opisina ako natutulog for the past 2 weeks. Hindi ko pa rin maintindihan ang ginagawa ko rito. Clueless. 

Sabagay, kailangan ko pa sigurong mag-isip nang mas malalim. Ang tanging reprieve ko ngayon ay ang ideya na makikita ko ang anak ko pagdating ng maiksing bakasyon na nakalaan para sa paggunita sa mga yumaong mahal sa buhay. Naalala ko tuloy ang tita ko na nawala noong nakaraang taon. Mag-iisang taon na rin mula nang pumanaw ang Tita Mila. Nakakamiss ang tita. Sana nagustuhan nya ang memorial tattoo ko para sa kanya. Nginig ang taba ko sa tagiliran dun ah.

Dear online diary, I am soup

Lately, I've been struggling to write things that should just come out naturally since there is not much introspection involved (I think) in writing them. Depth is average, I thought too. Understanding is average. Explanation should be. Memorability should be too. But, I thought long and hard and understood that I had to think harder. I thought it was simple.

This will be a post regarding my thoughts lately and the confusion that led to relatively longer process of writing them.

1. I have no clue with what I'm doing now - I've been working on my own for nearly a year now. After graduation, it was all I could think about. Come to think of it, ever since I had a son, it was all I could think about. I said to myself "I will build an empire for my prince" which is actually true up to this point but I had no image in my head how to do it. And now that I'm working, I still have no clue to what I'm doing. I'm amazed at the fact that I still have a job and that I haven't been kicked out (earlier.) This politics thing is just exhaustive and I start to wonder why people do this much to get to government seats. I'll talk about this when I get the time but the political machinery, planning, scheming, destroying, tapping, teabagging, creeping, spending, sleeping on the job and a whole lot more is just dizzying. I feel like a dog at the office, just waiting for my food to be served. I also think that I am dumb, in one way or another.

2. I don't remember things as much as I have to. Tattoos don't help nor commemorative items - I have this scar on my left hand that signifies my birth into circle. Yes, I remember the tenets but no, I do not remember the pain that I had to endure to get it. I love that scar but I don't remember how ideological I was back then when I was on the process of healing. I was shiny in every which way that a new member should be, reciting in my head the many different ideals the scar stood for. That's just me. Sometimes I think that I just don't really give a fuck about the more important things in my life right now. I am just drifting by and letting myself be swept to any which way the current goes. I think it's kind of a good thing but a majority of that thinking tells me to give more thought into remembering the more important things, people and events. I don't suck at remembering things, I guess. I'm just good at not caring enough.

3. I fail every single time. - I think I have an attention span of a goldfish. Maybe that's why number 3 is too short. I have to write down things so I don't forget~ what was I talking about again?

4. I let go of people I should care more about. Hence, number 2. - Generally, right. Maybe that's why most of the friends I've made during the earlier years of my life have been recent strangers to me, even the good ones, too. That just sucks. They've all got their groups all intact and there's me, on another plane of existence. Whoa, deep. I'm trying to make an effort of mending old friendships and trying to keep the ones I have right now. Is it me or is it getting depressing more and more as the list gets longer?

5. Politics. Fuck me. - This pretty much sums it up.

6. I'm looking at the people I know, people hard at work, and I wonder what I'm doing with mine. - I get up to look at pages of my old planner and see some scribbles I did back then. The answer still eludes me. There are all these good people doing things that they are really good at and having a good time. Maybe, some of them are like that but the rest are doing fine. And then I look at my office desk and see nothing getting done. Or I do these things but just have to push extra hard, even the simpler ones need nudge down the already steep hill. I can't seem to get on the bandwagon.

 

There are a couple more things that I'd like to write about but I can't seem to wrap my words around them. I need my muse.

basag katahimikan

Panahon na para magbawas ng mga kalituhan sa kasalukuyan. Marami nang extra baggage na hindi naman na dapat binibitbit. Tingin sa malayo pero mag-ingat sa mga papalapit, baka mahagip.

Mata sa langit, paa sa lupa.

istey tru

Magsusulat ako...

Mamaya.

Tatapusin ko lang 'tong trabaho ko habang naghihintay ng antok sa gitna ng tatlong sementeryo at isang punerarya.

Maraming salamat.

Magsusulat ako mamaya. (With matching buntong-hininga at nginig ng boses.)

napakarandom ng post na to

Hindi ko alam kung ano'ng meron sa "Skinny Love" ni Birdy (oo, Birdy ang pangalan nya at sya ay menor de edad, shame on you) pero nakakakati ulit-ulitin.

Malungkot pero maganda. At ang konsepto ng isang 'skinny love' ay parang masarap palawakin. Ba't nga ba 'skinny?' Skinny jeans? Payat lang talaga? Siguro nga payat lang. Kulang? Ewan. Mahirap ipaliwanag nang buo pero parang masarap isipin.

Naalala ko tuloy 'nung una kong nalaman ang ibig sabihin ng salitang 'melancholy.' Tatay ko pa ang nagsabi nun, of all people, inisip ko 'nung bata ako tho mas naiintindihan ko na ngayon. Marami rin syang pwedeng ikalungkot. 

Shet ang deep ng sugat ng melancholic na tao. Depressed in spirits? Damn right.

Sumasali pa ang "Ghost of a Good Thing" ng Dashboard Confessional. Bwisit kang iPod ka, bakit kasi gumana ka pa uli. Patay ka na e.