Endless Line

Libera ex Infernis

It’s the emotional equivalent of looking at myself through layers of mirrors. I turn, try to find myself in the varying reflections, some tall and short and broken and twisted - but I catch nothing other than splayed flecks of motion. It’s hard to see anything when everything is moving so fast all at the same time. In chaos, an archangel said, thrives order.

Something breaks. Shards of glass take off to every direction, and one particularly sharp piece slices through the quasi-Romantic pretension that is the person you know as me. Do I wince, wail, cry? But I’m supposed to be good at pretension. No. I procrastinate. I wait for a few minutes, hours, days, and I justify the wasted time by writing – er, constructing a textual landscape.

The smile on my professor’s face when returns the essay is broad enough to rival that of Azgalor’s. “Brilliant!” He exclaims in a crazed, demented manner that is reminiscent of Tolkien’s Saruman. On my paper he wrote, ‘Exceptional review of Ilustrado!’. I, of course, have never even laid my eyes on that book, much less read it.

What was it that Crispin Salvador said? “Ezra Pound be damned. Poets lie, though beautifully. Don't make things new, make them whole.” But that is why things get broken, Jin argues inside my head. That way you can make them whole again. But Jin, I protest. You’re just a pen name I use to ship a particular silver-tongued Jashinist. You’re not real.

And then I have to wonder what else is not and has never been real. And then the inner turmoil begins again.

This is why I am broken. You made me believe that we took the journey of an arrow - shot far and true, never to return to the hostility we used to hoard for each other, but you deceived me and made the journey of a boomerang instead, edging away and then suddenly returning to the very same place you told me you have left. And for the first time, I am at loss as to where I home really is, and if I belong there at all. If I want to belong there at all.

I am scared. Of the future, yes, but more of the past and how it haunts the present. If it is of any consolation, I do feel sad right now. Maybe it confirms that I’m still tethered to home, even if only by its shadows and whatever experimental canvas of junctures you cared to paint for me.

“Be mature about it.” “Take it with maturity.” “Deal with it in a mature way.” Those are things Rex Dizon has told me too many times.

Maybe maturity is merely accepting the tally of all the finite and disappearing options of life. After all, love isn’t based on gratitude, and respect isn’t based on debt.

Kung sino man kayo.

I just need to say this, because you have no idea how pissed off I really am right now.

***

Seriously ha. I'm not the nicest person around and I'm even openly bitchy so I get it if I don't hit some people the right way, and that's fine with me. Pero yung sabihin na I just act nice para masabi ng ibang tao na mabait ako, dude, that's just soooo low.

Bakit, pag may nakita ba kayong ibang tao na gumagawa ng 'nice' things, like helping people out, sinasabi niyo bang "Ay nagprepretend lang yan para masabi ng ibang tao na mabait siya"? O ako lang ang pinag-iisipan niyo ng ganyan because you know that you already don't like me anyway?

And in the first place, sino ba sa tingin ninyo yang mga 'tao' na gusto kong magsabi na mabait ako? You and your friends? You think I'd waste my time pretending to be nice para tawagin niyo akong mabait? Duh, I'm sorry to have to break it to you but the world does not revolve around you and what you think.

At ang kapal din ng mukha ninyo na sabihing ako ang nagpepretend na mabait. Ako, when I don't like someone or something that someone did, I say it and as much as possible I try to confront the people involved para mabigyan ko naman sila ng chance to explain. E kayo? Malalaman ko lang na you're talking behind my back from another person who doesn't have issues with me but whose perception of me is affected by the things you say.

Wala kayong sinasabing issue sa akin, and I didn't even think that I had an issue with anyone so ibig sabihin you've been pretending to be my friends all along, and then you talk behind my back. Sino sa atin ang nagpepretend na mabait? How dare you say it's me.

And mind you ha, this is not the first time someone apologized to me dahil nagpadala daw siya sa sinasabi ng ibang tao na masamang ugali ko kahit wala naman siyang nakikitang ganon sakin. I shrugged it off the first time kase inisip ko baka whoever said it did not mean to talk shit about me, baka observation or heat of the moment rant lang.

Pero surprise, surprise! Hanggang ngayon pala you talk shit about me, and I know that you really mean it.

Grabe lang. If you think what you are doing is right and you can stand by your actions, why do you need to hide it from me? It just means two things. You can't stand by your actions or you're just really a low life. Hmmm, siguro both.

I don't waste time pretending to be what I'm not to please other people kase sa totoo lang, I would rather please myself and that's what I do. If I'm nice to somebody, it's true. If I'm bitchy to somebody, it's also true. Hindi kase ako katulad niyo na plastic.

So kung sino man kayo, fuck you. I would say forget you nalang, kaya lang baka sabihin nyo na naman I'm pretending to be nice.

This is my 100th post

and I would like it to be about thanking:

1. Rex Dizon, for convincing me to put up a blog

2. Everyone who has read, is reading, or will read my posts

3. Myself, for actually putting up with this.


Now please excuse me, I have to:

1. Mourn the loss of my beloved Dan Hardy

2. Watch Season 3 of Leverage

3. Oh, yeah, write a Polsc 177 (or is it 178?) reaction paper.

Tata everyone. ^_^

For the BMW in Red

On a stormy sea of moving emotion
Tossed about I'm like a ship on the ocean
I set a course for winds of fortune
But I hear the voices say

***

Each sunrise that blooms, blossoms and bleeds out is a series of colors that change only with the order one joins the game. It’s sky blue if you join first, purple if second, yellow if third and finally orange if fourth. As far as she could remember, he has never created a game and thus claimed the color dark blue. Whether it’s because she always volunteers to create a game first or their chinky-eyed friend is too frustrated to wait for a game to be created whenever they lose so he creates it himself, she will never know.

Instead of each setting sun ghosting through the blue-orange skies with the promise of another laughter filled day the next time Apollo rises, it’s now a series of blog post representing a number with which he measures his days. She has noticed the change in the posts. When that number was relatively large, the posts (at least in the non-emo blog) were either relatively happy and in I-will-shrug-everything-off mode or romantic dabbles about who knows who, but now as the number fades away, the posts are more personal, more emotional.

She wonders if a day passes when he forgets to count.

***

It’s not the first time he skived off his classes (or what’s left of them) for the noise-splashed freedom of the tambayan. It’s become usual for her to arrive and find him there, drawing or scribbling or eating or drawing.

“Naayos mo na ba yung papers mo nyan?” she asks.
He shakes his head, replies that he doesn’t even want to think about it.
“Ignoring it won’t make it go away.” She replies as-a-matter-of-factly, rather insensitively.

Perhaps too insensitively. She has told him that his posts are poignant, but she has never told him that she feels sorry about his situation, not even shown a bit of sadness for him directly. Maybe a part of her, the one who doesn’t forgive easily, still sees him as the guy who snubbed her for so long due reasons unknown or don’t want to be known.

Unlike her though, he has always been forgiving. Now he acts like nothing happened. He talks to her freely without the slightest hint of caution, gives hear a heads up every time there’s dinner or an EBS, comforts her about her failing situation. The way she sees it, when he leaves, he wants her to be a good memory.

Sometimes she feels like she doesn’t deserve it.

***

‘Sorry’ is a word that sounds distastefully foreign on her tongue. She tries to mouth it every now and then but she can’t get used to the disjointed syllables jostling through her teeth. The word ‘sorry’ to her equates to images of mistakes and guilt, and Martin.

Peter is the name she gave that stuffed bear she received two Christmases ago. Everyone else calls it Ondoy because she left it near a window the weekend of Ondoy and it turned from a polar bear into a black bear. Peter slash Ondoy sits quietly with Bloobee, Carlos, Kirk, Tigger, Rufus, Christopher, Adrienne, Misha and the dozen other stuffed animals in a corner of her room.

Her mom asked last Christmas if she wanted to give Peter slash Ondoy away to charity. She shrugged mindfully and said no. And then for some reason she wondered whatever happened to Pokey, that pillow who came with Peter slash Ondoy.

As far as she can remember, she hasn’t said sorry for what she did to Pokey. Maybe one day, when ‘sorry’ doesn’t seem so exasperating, she finally will.

***

He says that they are close again. She’s not sure if she can agree. Then again, closeness has always been arbitrary.

These days she’s all about that pretty boy angel with the smexiest lips on heaven and on earth who is totally clueless about the dynamics of porn, or that German basketball player with the perfect set of teeth who is always so close but never really quite gets to the championship, or that French UFC welterweight champion with the most beautiful blue eyes who made it crystal clear that he is not impressed with your performance. If she’s not talking about them, she’s blogging about them. You’d think she doesn’t care enough to remember anything unrelated to the aforementioned men.

But she does. She remembers that PC game about cars, that freaky movie about genital anomalies, that day when Kamaru made a total idiot of himself.

And she just hopes that he didn’t miss that look in her eyes when out of the blue she bought him a plate of tacos last time.

With extra tomatoes.

***

Carry on my wayward son
There'll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Don't you cry…don't you cry no more

-Carry On My Wayward Son, Kansas
Supernatural Opening Theme

Just because I listened to this song over and over and over while writing this.

Officially Missing You

And have sleepovers all the time.


Now we rarely get together to be complete.


I miss my friends. :(

Ganitong Oras Bukas

Ganitong oras bukas, katatapos lang ng make or break exam ko sa Econ 141.

Hindi na ako papalag. I leave it all to the highest authority in the universe right now, Fidelina Carlos.

I don't know what I did wrong (well, I do, but that's beside the point), but I have cried a liter of tears (literally) and wasted almost P600 on prepaid credits calling my parents and bawling about my situation, and that has been enough. Sabi nga ni Dad, tanggapin kung ano ang mangyayari.

At dahil doon, ganitong oras bukas, wala na akong pakialam. I will shop like crazy, take on Joyzieh's 1v1 DotA challenge, post on every thread at Sherdog, stage a writing comeback for Jin, download every Castiel wallpaper in the net nad eat anything and everything that I want to.

Tomorrow I will be happy, and nobody will be able to take that away from me.

FUCK YOU, ECON 141.

These make me so happy :)

This is what happens when you make an angel watch porn.

This is what happens when you tell him a figure of speech that they apparently don't use in heaven.



This is what happens when you make him pretend to be FBI.



This is what happens when you try to be sarcastic to him.



This is what happens when you tell him that lying is part of human nature.



This is what happens when you tell him not to make your brother feel left out.



And my personal favorite, this is what happens when you tell him that Heaven Express doesn't work well with humans.

ZOMG. Three posts in five days, all about the same subject. Not even Solis has made me do anything like this.

I am crazy about Castiel, with or without Dean!

Gah, who am I kidding. Every scene where Cas' cluelessness and Dean's impatience clash is priceless.

And indeed, cluelessness has never been SMEXIER! ^_^

Dutch Courage

Many nights ago, something happened and something pissed me off. I wanted to rant but at the back of my mind I knew that I might regret the things I'd say (don't we always regret the things we say when we're pissed off?) so I decided to have a friend translate my rants into Dutch - that way, I would be able to rant and nobody would know what I'm talking about. Win-win situation. OR SO I THOUGHT.

However, a formerly-emo-but-now-more-sneaky-than-emo boy who watches the video 'How to Date an Otaku' (under the guise of teaching her how to play a certain RTS game) was so sneaky that he actually found a way to translate everything I said. He told me that he knew what the post meant and I dunno, for some reason I was terrified. Not that I'm ashamed of what I posted - maybe it was because nobody involved was supposed to understand it but it turned out that someone did figure it out.

Oh, and it gets better. Formerly-emo-but-now-more-sneaky-than-emo boy told formerly-emo-too-but-now-more-in-love-than-emo boy that he knew what the post meant, and so formerly-emo-too-but-now-more-in-love-than-emo boy tinkered with the post until he also got the message right.

I don't know why but my first reaction was to take the post down. As I said, maybe it's because my objective was to have nobody understand it, but now at least two people did. Unfortunately, Formerly-emo-but-now-more-sneaky-than-emo boy and and formerly-emo-too-but-now-more-in-love-than-emo boy were wise enough to save copies.

And now they think they have something that they can use against me, even just during joke times. Which they technically do.

And I do not hate the fact that they have an upper hand, but I hate the fact that I seem to be scared to let other people know what I feel, in this case... uh, pissed-offness? (I'm not really angry, I'm... pissed) I think that nobody should ever be scared to say what she feels (unless she develops feelings for Justin Bieber) because if you feel a certain way, then there must be a reason why, and as long as that reason makes sense, then the way you feel makes sense as well and you shouldn't be afraid to let other people know about it..

So here I am trying to drink in Dutch courage to stand up for everything that I just said in the former paragraph. And this time I don't need a friend to translate it.

I am not upset when people point out my mistakes. If I did commit those mistakes, which I did, I own up to it, which I did too, in front of everyone. What pisses (note present tense) me off is the fact that there are some people who make a big deal out of the mistakes that other people make, but completely turn a blind eye whenever their 'friends' are the ones who make mistakes. If non-friend is late, if non-friend did this wrong, if non-friend did not do this at all, they make a big fuss out of it. If friend is late, if friend did this wrong, if friend did not do this at all, they don't say anything AT ALL.

Again, I'm not angry that they told me what I did wrong. I made mistakes and I accept that, and I'm not upset that they point it out, especially since the event was the proper forum for it. Again, what I dislike is the way they choose to ignore the mistakes that their 'friends' commit. They have every week in the month to say something about it, but they don't. Or more appropriately, they never do. I don't even have to give clues about what those shortcomings are. Everybody feels what's missing.

I'm not angry at anyone. I'm pissed off about the way some people act, and now it's okay for me to have everyone know that. I'm not posting this to wage war on anyone. I'm just saying what I feel.

And now, I feel free.

Intermezzo

Because apparently, Staccato is not enough and my blog can accommodate another post about this tall, blue, millean-neoliberal ‘stranger’ who is my justification to answering ‘yes’ to the question ‘Can you like and dislike someone at the same time?’

***

After everything she said about you barely a few weeks ago, she never imagined that your next meeting would be anything like this.

It was not even supposed to happen. She was supposed to have her class at PH 224, end of the story. But chance (not destiny, not fate, just pure chance) decided that today when she went to PH 224 after Ken’s treat the room would be empty and she’d have to go to FC; that Denesse would change her mind about her offer to accompany her to class; that she would walk to AS’s first floor alone.

That she would meet you on her way there.

You were on your way upstairs as she headed downstairs. She didn’t recognize you right away (did you have your hair cut recently?) but as you drew nearer and her eyes flicked at your direction, she realized that it was indeed you.

And she realized that even though you were talking to someone on the phone, you were definitely looking at her too.

It wouldn’t have mattered, until she suddenly remembered that although you had talked to her two times before (you talked to her, not you talked to each other, because she didn’t say anything back) the two of you have never been formally introduced to each other, so technically you were strangers.

And basically two strangers were staring at each other as one made her way downstairs and the other made his way upstairs, amidst the flecks of motion rushing to and from every direction called AS at 1pm. (And no, the world kept its regular axis, rotation and revolution - no slow motion moments.)

Awkward.

She quickly looked away, and from the corner of her eye she saw that you did exactly the same thing. She blames neither herself nor you; after all, indifference, or at least feigned indifference, is what a person’s reaction should be to strangers.

The only thing that annoyed her is the fact that for some reason that she herself can’t explain with even a single ounce of coherence, she just had to bring her eyes back on you again.

She was, for the lack of words, horrified to see that you had looked at her again too.

She looked away for the second time, feeling blood gush to her face. Why does she feel like she forgot to sign out before viewing a stranger’s page at Multiply and the stranger viewed her page back? She never even owned a Multiply account, for St-Pierre’s sake.

The only thing that annoyed her more is the fact that despite how awkward the situation already was, she couldn’t help herself from looking at you again.

And for the third time in about five seconds, you were looking right back at her.

She muttered an obscenity but could not keep an amused grin from taking over her indifferent façade. She didn’t know if you took it as her smiling at you in acknowledgement, but your free hand moved slowly, reluctantly into… will she take it as you waving at her in similar acknowledgement? (Nah, she won’t.)

She looked away from you for the last time just as the two of you finally walked past each other, she on her way downstairs and you on your way upstairs. This time, she kept her eyes on the ground until she saw Jaime Naval’s feet.

And for the second time in three weeks, you made her ears burn.

Everything is better with Glasses On

Because I watched a replay of UFC 107 last weekend and I realized that although I have always rooted for Kenny Florian (heck, I named my badminton racket after him) because he has such a likeable personality (and he is one sick grappler), I have discovered that I find his brother Keith ridiculously HOT because Keith is basically Kenny with glasses.

And yes, if you must ask, the first thing I loved about Solis is that he played judo with his glasses on. ^_^

The Photo Post (for Archer)

Dahil lagi mong sinasabi na iniiwan or pinapanood ka lang namin pag dumudugo ka. :)

Click images to view in original size.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:


Exhibit C


Exhibit D


Exhibit E


Exhibit F


*** Not that I'm saying na mas magaling ako kay Archer. ^_^ Ang akin lang not entirely true na lagi namin siyang inaalay. Haha this is the irrefutable proof. ^_^

Putangina lang.

Dahil sa totoo lang, yung nagpapakatotoong Nic ay maraming gustong sabihin ngayong araw na to, pero yung nagpapakatinong Nic ay sinasabi na hindi niya dapat i-blog ang mga gusto niyang sabihin.

At apparently, inunderestimate niya ang intelligence gathering skills ni Lawi.

Putangina lang talaga.