unforgetful lucy

going to grad school without my fellow marxist on mondays is not fun at all. i hate not having my sparring partner. the prof throws a question and it falls dead on the floor. it shouldn't have been that way. because had we been there together, we could have educated the class about IMF Worldbank's origins, the menace that lurks in our countrymen's obsessive compulsion to amass all glittery things, etc., etc.

in the guise and belief that they could pass off as knowledgeable, the classmates resort to sharing personal accounts in an attempt to show the prof that they feel those global truths . it was as if the rest of us are part of a grievance committee willing to listen to their inconveniences. i roll my eyes and freeze to death (from the crazy cold airconditioning) and think, these people try too hard.

i went home knowing that i could have learned more had there been others who knew their world history and current events.

then i browsed through friendster.

i came across the account of a former bestfriend, my first hearbreak. we are both members of a group but when i clicked on her account, the violator said, "only 1st degree friends of _____ can access her account." i am not even a friend anymore.

it is dismal (sometimes in the sick humor that i've got, funny) how certain memories reappear and the heart throbs sadly with the pain that comes with them.

gettin' high on joy joy pills

bluffing my way through a hosting stint, regaling safety engineers with words that sound funny to me but charming and brilliant to them, parading in my skirt and flowery dangling earings in front of a roomfull of male stategists (whose job it is to be paranoid about whole amonia tanks leaking or men falling into ventilators and large meat grinders), are the joy joy pills i popped today.

i had to sit through technical presentations and freeze to near death from the overly-cold airconditioning, yes, but looking back, after losing count of the grey matter lost by my brain, and thinking with the still active parts, i safely deduce that i had fun.

one of the sis sent me an sms yesterday and recounted the joys of going to a spa. ah! to feel those muscles flex and loosened. i wanted to leave my pc and follow suit. but of course i was shackled to my hunched-over-the pc position for the rest of the day yesterday. so the next best thing to do was plan a spa get-away. she asked if it would be alright for her to have her boyfriend of eight years tag along. so i said ok. another lightbulb moment.

perhaps the illuminati has been shooing away the bf's too much. might be ok to have an illum meet with them. those single like moi would just have to content ourselves with the thought that life is still beautiful. yeah, really it is! just pop those joy joy pills and everything's alright baby. wink* wink*

making like a frog about to vomit a sack full of flies

i didn't know marriage can cause me headache even if it's not me going into it. a childhood friend has just decided to marry this guy she's been with for only 6 months, in a long distance relationship.

the guy said, they won't have a church wedding yet because he still has a lot to prove to her parents. so they'd do it in secret, without her parents' blessings. what is marriage in secret anyway? nice reasoning bozo!

i mean, why get married when you don't have yet a house of your own, a salary that can actually decently feed a family: own a life where dependability on parents can totally be severed. why would you like to marry when you can't even choose to use your cellphone for an hour's talk? or buy shoes without sacrificing lunch money? or even dream a European trip without having the shakes? why? why? why? you bozo?!

why can't she wait until they can actually figure things out?

but growing old has made me realize that i should let other people figure out what's best for them. that i should keep my mouth shut if i don't agree. so all this pent up thrashing is causing me serious migraine. my temples are throbbing like a nebula about to implode. count the ways bismuth can drown.

so i tell her, if you're happy, then i guess you'd be fine. gulp!

well, i guess, i don't know true love even if it clubs my head to pulp.

am i too sedated for romance? am i too practical for love? or am i just damn right?

laughing at the bastards

to convince myself that there's something else in this city other than work and traffic and smog, i resolved to notice peculiar details of my day. i find that by doing so, my sense of humor is elevated.

walking home one late afternoon, i almost bumped into a buddhist monk (shaven head and orange gown and beads and all). now, that was three years ago and i couldn't still reconcile his presence in our neighborhood. i didn't see him again either. i am becoming more convinced everyday that i willed him into being, to humor myself. he afterall had that sheepish, shit, i feel like everything about me calls for weird stares, i might as well have dressed up like mother theresa, trasvestite style look in his eyes. and help! i'm lost! gasp!

and this morning, a band of policemen with convicts in hadcuffs boarded the public bus i was on. they moved in the aisle, like a sea of orange and blue misfits to sit at the back. the other passengers were gawk-eyeing them, turning their heads, their mouths not moving but i could hear their protests, their horrified gasps. the convicts themselves looked sheepish and ashamed that the government's bus had to break down on them and thus cause undue fear on the good taxpayers commuting quietly, back to the tall buildings that house and suppress dreams. their closed mouths were saying, "puta madre! why can't they just bring us quietly to where they would treat us worse than animals without dreams?"

i found myself thinking that if i were one of the bald, orange-clad, with a big P screaming on my back, handcuffed doomed soul, wouldn't i stare at that 35-ish woman in cheap make-up, tight-fitting jeans and high-heels and take a fourth of a second longer walking past her and whisper, "would you like to be my 5th?" and chuckle.

three dreadful things

i haven't had a deep sleep since last week. always, at about 3 am, my consciousness elevates to near-wakedness before diving back to a dream-filled slumber. the dreams are always about people talking without their mouths moving. but for about a minute of this near-wakedness state, i scare myself by thinking of things i'm afraid of. not about the black gob of hovering incubi that fester me (i have managed to exorcise them long time ago), but about the monsters i keep beneath my skin.

a thorough analysis of my past, present and projected relationships and behavior has made me conclude that i am afraid of three things:

1. defined existence

i am afraid of the long, sure line to living my life. i hate

having to follow some concrete plan although i love to

scheme. i want bends in my path, potholes where rain water

may gather and when the sun dries them up, cracks to grow;

this got me to understand why i don't really feel guilty

coming late to a casual lunch or some boring grad school

lecture, or work even. i tried punctuality on a day to day

but i found that losing my nonchalance about the mundane of

the world is not worth a few more minutes in

bed.

2. compromises

i am mostly angered than afraid when i have to compromise.

i believe that i am never without a choice. to compromise is

a sign of weakness or stupidity. only the stupid or the

weak do compromise. and i sometimes fall under either of the

two. and it scares me that adulthood is teaching me that to

compromise is essential and all the world is all for it. i

can never understand the concept of the win-win scenario.

dude, when you lose some and gain

some, you haven't really tasted victory at all.

3. long-term contracts

somebody would have to tie me naked on a tree first

and threaten me with a slow painful death from ant bites

and sulfuric acid to get me to do things over and over. but

even then, i'd prefer brain death over compromise. thus, while

i can conceptualize, launch and stage something, i cannot

do sustaining with as much enthusiasm. in this, i may have

have found that shining bulb that illumines the real truth

about the lack of long-term romantic relationships in my

life. i get bored too easily. i do have some great loves and

they would forever be engraved in my being but romance fades

for me.

and for these three reasons, i am convinced that i am doomed to a single, chaotic, near-crazy existence. not too bad really.

chronicle of a death foretold

something has gone awry. the doc says, "abstain from spicy foods, caffeine, nicotine, softdrinks, stress, etc, etc." i have exhausted youth. bad, bad, baaaaaaad.

of course, the stubborn rebel called me wouldn't take heed. the pills i pop would work doc, don't worry. this heart can still take blows. and if it turns out i'm just delusional, then there's nothing i can do about it, is there? atleast i've already qualified for graduate study diploma. "But stupid idot, the trappings of this material world cannot rescue you from impending doom," cloaked dagger would quip. "got to hell!" i'd say.

dancing to rod stewart

i asked moi if he would dance with me. i hate dancing but i never imagined i'd someday find it romantic. rod stewart's fuzzy the way you look tonight said everything i wanted to say to moi. and he said, he doesn't know how to dance but he'd hug me instead. good enough for me.

my fellow marxist on mondays sent me a nonchalant message one day saying that i should go find the hand i want to hold forever. this could be it. but then again, it's me. i lose what should be mine.

easy as korean

last night, my two brothers were watching a korean movie without subtitles. they were laughing as if they could understand every word said. now that's what i call an effective movie.

in one of my meetings this morning, the "manager at my beck and call" was like my brothers laughing along with the inside jokes, nodding to the cues and insinuations as if she could understand everything. she almost fell off her chair when i said she could edit one of the three audio visual presentations i've to do. my boss, let's call her mother goose, was very worried when she found out i tasked the "manager salivating after my brilliance" to execute one of the AVP's. but mother, i'm not tearing out her marshmallow world. not yet.

but enough about work. my friend who's got a bicycle between her legs (she'd kill me for this irreverence) would agree. life is not about corporate slavery. it is about spending halloween drinking vodka mudshake at a girlfriend's house, talking teary-eyed sometimes, gasping for breath from giggles the next about past loves and the sweet horrors of what could have been. it is about falling asleep in airplanes on the way to a great weekend. it is being dressed up in a lilac gown, hair down, walking like a goddess into a room of men amazed at the rare blessing given them. their gasps, music to the ears. it is being young, brave and strong. it is raising expectations and purposefully breaking hearts. it is not caring whether the audience understands the plot or not.