morning after

i woke up this morning. late again for work. i woke an hour and a half past the time i'm supposed to be already hunched over my laptop, done with checking the email, and already half-way through a new FAQ.

i woke up with a hollow feeling in my chest, as if my lungs got filled up with too much air and the cavities were screaming from overstretch. air that was dead. air that was starting to balloon my brain.

my eyelids were heavy- weak against the morning sun bursting from the tiny open window of my bedroom. i crawled under the comforter although it was damn warm. i crawled as if i was crawling into the dark hole in the ground.

i didn't want to face today. this present where nothing we talked about last night is real. today, we go back to being dumb dumbs.

365 days

remember how it was last year? three candles atop the chocolate cake. your eyes smiling. amused. surprised. i lighted those candles. afterwards we went down for coffee and smokes. it was only days ago that i saw bismuth's mix- oct 2007 on my desk. a song about a 400-horsepower black mustang exploding on the highway like a slug from a .45

with or without you. it was great this year. the trick or treat fiesta of sorts. remember that kid in a tigger suit? how we thought it would be cooler if he was dressed up like kurt cobain in that mtv unplugged session? did the marks of the face paint go away? the dragon on your forehead.

the other day, Wil wondered about you. commenting that his PSP is already a year older too because he got at this time of the year last year, he remembered. you know how he is. he can copy voices. so he imitated you borrowing the console and getting caught by her while you were deep into the game.

remember the short girl you had more than 2 bottles of beer with? that night you drank cerveza negra because that was what i was drinking someplace else. she misses you too. we had fun before. we were like kids in college running about this place. not trying to fit in at all. we were carving our own niche with our own clique.

oh, i forgot. you'd be sad to know they shut down hot and saucy. and that burger place upstairs. all that's left of our hangout is coffee cal. amusing how much things change for the ones left behind.

so how was yesterday? was there cake?

here's how i'm celebrating your birthday

i'm flying off to cebu for the weekend. there's a national beer drinking competition and i got invited to watch. have free booze. bum in a nice hotel at the beach front. bikinis. bikinis. beer. beer. and some stray jack daniels.

i'm loving JD these days. learned to drink it a year ago. somebody told me it's the drink of the loser stuck in agony and despair. i don't think i'm a loser. i can deal with stuck. i drink it straight without even ice now. how about that?

there's something in its smoky aroma. the first shot that momentarily burns my lips and leaves with a slight tingly sensation at the back of my tongue. and for a while my mind spaces out, fills up with a heady rush of sadness and longing and contemplation that lasts only seconds. as the whiskey courses down my throat, all my senses dwell on its trail of heat. i become closed to the outside world. there is only me. after the first shot, i watch the remaining amber liquid sit in my glass, like it can keep a secret and drown it forever. life is an illusion in its protracted light.

changed

my hair was thinning. or was i being paranoid? anyway, i cut my very long hair (that reached down to my waist). and now it's short. very short. just a little below my earlobes now. and i feel a little more free.

i have no money. or am i just too extravagant on my "obligations"? anyway, i retired my xda after 3 years. i loved that phone but it hurt to see it being held together by scotch tape now. it was very good to me. and now i got sucked in to this overly commercialized iPhone 3G. i miss my xda mini. it still calls out to me.

but the past has a way of catching up with me. i told her to let me be. that i won't meet up with ian. that it's not true he's not yet over me. he left me, didn't he? what's the point of her bugging me? see, i've got new hair now. new phone. i've got someone new too (oh wait. i'm in the process of forgetting that someone).

and the other girl who stole my could have been wants to be friends with me. bugging me. what the hell's wrong with people? i've cut them all off already. i'm restraining myself from telling her if she does not leave me alone, she'd lose a husband. because he still loves me. loves me more. or maybe not. i don't believe him. but that's what he tells me. i don't really care. i've moved on.

my friend mussolini loves popping balloons. those girls mentioned above, will lose their happy balloons if they keep bugging me. move on people. i just happened to have long hair, a good career, legs that look good in short skirts; they just happened to like conversing with me. i was just being me. and i'm still me, sans the long hair. but leave me alone.