more codes

mores code

morse code.

konti na lang.

. .... ... ..... ....... . ........

manage your hunger.

moderate your greed?

i am not greedy.

just hungry.

chemistry. or the lack thereof.

there is somebody that i could (if forced to) spend one whole day with in one room and not say anything to. i imagine filing my nails (hands and FEET if necessary) in his presence and not feel dyahe about it. that is how much i don't like him.

there has been a recent development in his life that i would call a jackpot moment that is the only thing going for him. other than that, shiyet, what a lousy, lonely boy he is, for being who he is.

alam ko masama ako. but it's my blog.

nexxxxt!

this familiar feeling surfaces
like a well of water it lifts
up to my head and i recognize it
i say hello yes it is you
it has been a while.

and all this time i thought
i have forgotten who i am
and that i don't remember
anything else --- except---

it is when i am this
that i become a different person
and this is when i realize
that this is truly who i am.

and only for documentation purposes:

it was time for me to tell you that there was an imbalance somewhere in this. in my world, it has to be a certain way and not that way. but even then i did try to ride the ride the best way I could, which was, for the most part, fun.

i believe that we get what we deserve. what i must have gotten from you (or did not get), was what i deserved. we could have been better friends, i think, but something - i don't know what it is - prevented that.

but all in all, am good. it's just that it's not a minor thing for me to lose a friend especially due to a miscomm. i don't fight with my friends. i just disappear from their lives.

+++

AND i have 15 NObodies. yes, you told me you don't care. but i do. and since we're not really friends after all, i believe that you don't really give a flying @&^#.

little miss sunshine

at around 11 a.m., my cousin mayang texted me to call home. i replied that i was in a meeting, then added "why? problem?"

i hate getting messages like that. i hate that they make me call home and i don't know why i have to call them when they could have already told me what they wanted to say.

morbid thoughts ran through my head.

then she replied, "nanalo si ice. 2nd place."

hahaha. she was referring to our dear niece, isobel, who competed in a singing contest at her school. this was a big deal for us last weekend. we had different reactions about her joining.

firstly, we didn't push her to join. in fact, we didn't want her to join. but she wanted to and all we could do was to support her.

sunday morning was spent looking for the right song. i wanted her to sing some cutesy little girl song, something catchy that would not bore the audience. my sister wanted her to sing this pop song, something ice already knew. but i wasn't so sure.

ice has a good singing voice, but she gets off-key a lot of times. i'm not sure if this is normal for little children but i surely have heard kids as young as she is sing in tune. so that was my initial problem.

but anyway, i was outvoted. she was going to sing this pop song. my five-year old niece then walked around the house, with earplugs and an ipod, listening to this song over and over and over until she memorized the lyrics.

sunday lunch was spent videotaping her while singing so ice could see her "stage presence". ha ha. am not kidding.

then, yesterday. i heard there were 7 of them that competed. she won second place.

character building

you gotta stop you gotta stop it's like american idol, you can't always audition and not get through to hollywood.

+++

'twas pretty harsh what you said, but it was all deserved.

+++

...pero...

+++

i guess i expected some compassion, despite.

+++

but i own it up. it's all me, it's all mine.

our firm's relaunch is done!

am so happy. because it finally came and went.

am so happy because it was a success. read here.

so many stories. so little time to write.

highlights:

1. leading FVR to the front despite his protest. he wanted to stay at the back. i told him "you gotta make me do my job." he relented.

2. introducing myself to Mar Roxas. i told him i could be a very good campaign manager for 2010. he laughed. i said, no, i'm serious.

3. telling gen. joe almonte to cut the long boring speech. i passed a paper to him that said "sir, please proceed with the toast." upon reading my note, he told the audience "oh, i've been told to proceed with the toast". everybody laughed and heaved a sigh of relief. then he went on to ramble. i was thinking of writing him another note that says "sir, please proceed with the toast NOW." buti na lang he stopped na.

4. rehearsing johnny litton with his spiel. making him feel relaxed.

5. getting mad at the head of the string quartet. call time was 4 pm, event at 6. she said she was "approaching ayala" at 530. i asked her if they were complete na, but she told me, "i don't know i've not seen them yet." blood rushes to my brain and i cut her off --- the event is at 6pm and you're not sure where your members are?? kelan ninyo planong dumating dito??? i passed on the phone to a colleague. but to be fair, they were good. but even then, di bale na. magkakasakit ako sa puso sa kahihintay sa inyo! (if you want to know who they are, call me.)

6. the company greeting me onstage.

7. seeing my college professor. i became guarded na because of that event in greenbelt before. last night, he was the one who reached to beso me. all the best with matching wave.

8. drinking 5 glasses of wine, feeling happy buzzed, talking to guests, friends and important government officials.

9. waking up at 3 a.m., all thirsty. i had no more water in my ref. i drank tap. yuck.

p.s. the whole event i had a radio on that allowed the production people to coordinate with one another. every once in a while, the door guy would report to me

"senator angara is here."

"FVR is here."

"baby arenas is here." (ha ha. he didn't report that to me, but she was there really.)

"manny villar is on his way."

"senator roxas is here."

sinong hinintay namin na di dumating? madami.

basta ako yung hinintay ko, dumating.

a breakthrough

since she likes chinese food, our family went to chinatown. i parked at the first parking space i found and we walked around, looked for what seemed to be a nice authentic place to have late lunch.

she was chatty. she posed for photos. she ate a lot.

we went to hi street later, i told her it was my most favorite spot in the metro. she brought ice to animal land, and we ended up sharing a few hundreds each so ice could get a bunny rabbit and some accessories for it.

we are now home. she's watching tv.

she says she's going to take her sleeping pill to help her sleep.

+++

she's doing pretty good. i hope she doesn't backslide.

have always heard of the proverbial last straw that broke the camel's back.

didn't think it would ever happen to me, but i thought wrong.

i could feel that i'm beginning to see the light.

but first, i've to look for a new back. or camel.

it is believed that she is going through a phase.

+++

can't wait for feb 11 to come and go. maybe i should set up my own firm for events organizing.

another lesson my guru taught me

lesson no. 4: all relationships end. what is important is how you handle yourself when it ends. you must handle yourself with class.

random thoughts at 1207 am

over a hot bowl of thai noodles i told this boy my secret desire to be a #&!@*. from across the table i could see his reaction -- he was probably internally debating on whether to laugh out loud or to just keep it all in lest he offend me tremendously. he didn't say much but he did say something about photoshop.

anyway, okay lang. it's a dream after all, a dream i know will never happen, for various reasons. but if i could live my life all over again, i'd like to be that.

+++

but am pretty pleased that i've been called not nice tonight. you may find this very weird but i prefer being called not-nice than nice.

+++

and some even more random thought before i go off to sleep --

everytime i think about my state and feel bad, i remember what you told me before -- that you used to want something so very bad yourself, and you didn't get it. it makes me feel less bad about my situation because even heroes like you do sometimes fail as well.

the year of magical thinking

dear armi,

thanks for suggesting that i get this book and give it to my sister. i did, yesterday, when we were in megamall.

i scooted to national bookstore, got her the book and gave it to her while she was inside powerbooks. she smiled me a dry smile, immediately went out and opened the red plastic bag. she sat on a chair at a nearby restaurant and started reading. i joined her... we didn't care that we were not buying from that place. my sister looked hungry, not for food, but for meaning.

i want my own copy of that book.

you know how much c.s. lewis' a grief observed helped me in understanding grief the way i knew grief. i was young, totally uncool for thinking i was going through grief. now i know that grief for a young heart is foolishness for somebody who has lived more.

grief is not a state of mind, it's what happens to you. you have no control of grief, it possesses you. until you get exorcised of it, you're truly truly not yourself. you just have to wait for time to heal you. you can't wait to move on.

in the meantime, i look at my sister and i see her cry. when she's not crying, she's staring out into space. she hears us chatter over meals and every once in a while I see recognition on her face, like she gets it, she knows what we are saying, and she's deeply involved in something else other than her grief -- then that brief moment passes and she's back to being herself.

i cry for her, oh how i worry about her. but there is nothing anybody can do at this point.

lessons my guru taught me

i am humbled by your wisdom, your no-holds barred and catty tongue. i am impressed at how you can make me not finish my defensive statements and reduce me to a stumped high school girl, nodding her head in agreement with everything that you say.

lesson no. 1: admit your pettiness. it's part of who you are. after you've admitted your pettiness, you won't feel the need to justify your behavior.

lesson no. 2: you don't need to say what is on your mind. there is so much power in silence.

lesson no. 3: don't talk about the future like you know what it's going to be like. nobody knows about forever or a lifetime. you won't even know about tomorrow.

lesson no. 3: wisdom lies in listening which you do, and not in speaking which i always do.

to be continued

reaching the plateau

this is how it is with her: she gets excited, she wants it, it's all she wants, she goes for it even when it doesn't make sense or it's not supposed to be.

she's there for quite a while.

then it becomes ordinary. she hits a plateau.

problem: what if it's a high plateau? still good hence she's never coming down?