I would really appreciate your opinions on the following:

1. What makes a devil a devil and angel an angel?
2. What makes you realize that you love something/someone? And hate?
3. Would you be able to live with a love triangle... and if you say yes, would you rather be the center or a corner of it?
4. What, to you, is the supreme act of evil? Of good?
5. Would you rather be free or be saved? (Just choose the word, no explanation necessary. I want to know the actual TERM you prefer.)

Answers needed immediately. Please. Very low on ideas right now, and I have a deadline in around 12 hours. Use the comment function or email me.

Would you be able to tell if this was me or just some imitation of myself?

It's funny how we think of ourselves in a certain way. It's even funnier how that self-image embedds itself in our heads, and we come to believe it whole-heartedly, sometimes whether it's valid or not.

I see myelf as a passionate, ambitious person (yes, in my own way). I presume myselt to be what I think I am, but is it real? Am I not just some misguided, arrogant fool, forcing herself in a kind of life she has no right (or talent) to live?

I refuse to wake up in the middle of my forties with the realization that I wasted my existence on what-ifs and if-onlys. So I tell myself to live my dream right now, to leave no stone unturned, to channel my whole being into one amazing attempt at making my dream come true.

But is it worth it? And if it isn't, how can I tell?

Does the world really need to hear what I have to say? Does the world really need another ego floating in the space of its thoughts? Does the world really need me the way I want it to?

Maybe not.

But then if it doesn't, where does that leave me?

Besides, what is the weight of a dream anyway? Is it heavier than stability and comfort? Heavier than love? Than passion?

Sometimes it feels like it's me who has weighed it down. Only me. And it scares me to think that I may not be enough.

It's a sad, sad day when you feel your selfishness crumbling in the palms of your hands, falling through your fingers. Like soft, smooth sand. And you come face to face with a body that looks only vaguely familiar.

There you are. Standing naked. Vulnerable, weak, revealed. Shivering with silent visions you have hidden from yourself.

Quiz taken from Neva's blog, which I found through Ramon.


You are the pilot.


Saint Exupery's 'The Little Prince' Quiz.
brought to you by Quizilla

audblog audio post

Ooohhh... audioblog. Feels weird talking to no one in particular though.

Which is probably why I'd rather write. So let me write on about my school-centric non-life.

I hereby prostrate myself before all my classmates who work full time -- like Erik and Amy. They can't be human. They're probably the spawn of some alien race. And it's not like their day jobs don't require brains, because one's a financial analyst and the other one's a High School teacher. I can just imagine the mental stress they go through.

For starters, I have a critical paper, 3 annotations and a very stubborn short story to be submitted on saturday, plus 3 more annotations on monday.

Then there's the pile (okay, small pile) of undergrad papers I have to go through. Pre-check, if you will. I look at grammar, tenses, misspelled words (of which there are usually a lot, which I can't understand because we already have spellcheck), and trivial things like that. Mariana looks at the content.

And to top it all off, there were two more brown paper packages waiting for me when I got home. Filled with more books. Death to the mailman.

AND the clincher is I haven't been cramming. The workload is just really heavy.

Anyway, we had a staff meeting earlier at NYU... which meant I had to go to school in business attire. With high heeled boots. Walking in New York, where it always feels like walking a few nanoseconds slower than the general mob is a felony.

The staff meeting was pretty nice, though. People there actually consider me part of the staff already. Yay for another bullet point in my resume.

Oh, and then I also met up with Pat (and her mom and Sassa) at the Catherdral on 112th street. Pat and I went to this Gen meeting, which is kind of a laidback religious organization. I don't know how to describe it. Religious, but nice religious, because they're not the "Praise the Lord", "Alleluia!" type. Plus they don't proselytize, which is a real bonus.

So, that's all folks. I'm going to have to lock myself up in my little tower and start writing like crazy now. With my muse chained to the laptop.

(Big) Sigh.

A friend bought me an astrological birth chart. Serious horoscope shit. Twenty-frigging-seven pages of it.

So I went through it, right? Well, the strange part is I found myself very thoroughly described. It’s eerie in a really funny way. And it’s kind of interesting too. Then again, I guess anything would be kind of interesting when compared to essays on “piecing the denouement”, or “traveling the carnivalesque in 18th century literature”, or “exposing the female in the male pen” (actually, I found this one pretty funny – which probably means I’m really metamorphosing into a DORK).

I am now the proud holder of useless knowledge on ascendancy signs, moon signs, and can actually grasp the logic behind the statement “Fifth House in Aquaries in conjunction with Jupiter”.

Yeah, so if my career as a writer/teacher fails to take off, I can always get my deck of tarot cards (c/o Polots), go stargazing, and start spewing out phrases like “you have Mercury in Aquarius in Sextile with Neptune in Sagittarius which infers spiritual creativity”, and plant myself in Central Park.

Yup, I could do all those psychic hotlines thingies too. 1-800-WANDA. Or do a syndicated newspaper column. Wanda’s Horoscopes Incorporated. My birth chart says I’m supposed to be psychic anyway. Or highly intuitive at the very least, so I’ll just intuit myself a million dollars by telling people they’ll “meet a mysterious stranger very soon”.

I’m sorry. My muse has locked herself in a tower, reason has flown out the window, my brain is doing backflips, and I have 2 deadlines in 2 days. This is me dealing with the stress.

Convesation with Erik over the phone:

Erik: Do you see yourself as ambitious?
Me: Yeah. I guess.
Erik: Passionate?
Me: Yeah.
Erik: Well, in that way you're just like everyone in class. Maybe most other people in New York.
Me: And this means....
Erik: This means competition.
Me: Hmm..so how come you're helping me out so much? Does that mean I'm not competition enough for you? (Of course I was joking, okay. I'm too arrogant to take that statement seriously.)
Erik: (Laughs.) Au contraire. What use is a game if the competition isn't good?

I therefore conclude that New York is home to the biggest egos in the world.

By the way, I'm going to be shifting to squawkbox for the comments. (I can still access the old ones, though.)

[More]

Damn.

Damn the mailman. Yeah, I know it's not his fault, but for lack of anyone to lay the blame on (except maybe yours truly, but that would be impossible because things are NEVER my fault), I'm putting it squarely on him.

The thing is, every single time I see him ambling towards the mailbox, he makes my stomach fill up with dread. A sickening, acidic, gaseous kind of dread all at once. And then he makes it turn cartwheels.

And I'll tell you why. It's because of those huge brown paper packages he inevitably has with him. Really huge packages that always have my name on them. From some library. Containing old, dusty (with actual exotic library dust -- sometimes from as faraway as Oregon), hardbound books with aged yellow pages.

He has become the unsuspecting target of a churning, violent, raging hate. And he actually has the gall to wish me a good day, in his sincere, chirpy, mailman voice.

"Have a nice one." He trills, walking to his truck, another dull brown paper package sitting casually on our doorstep.

Another brown paper package with five books smugly waiting to unleash educational torture.

I shudder to think that I may have to bring them to bed at night -- those evil books with their ugly words (like eustuchian, or cartilaginous) and even uglier plastic covers.

I have to smother the urge to scream in the man's eardrum to make him irrevocably deaf. Or sic my neighbor's loud doberman on him. Or run him over with the snowblower. Or hit him in the head with the shovel.

Churning, violent, raging hate.

It wouldn't have been so bad if the books were actually given (and not grudgingly lent) to me, to be read when it suits my frame of mind. Or if they were actually interesting. But of course that's not the case. They're usually on literary theory, written by some chauvinist whose time for genius has long since passed. And they usually have a loan time of two weeks. TWO WEEKS.

How, pray tell, am I supposed to read FIVE thick books, with miniscule print at that, AND write annotations on them, and go to class, and read the other books in my reading list (the nicer, un-dusty ones that I would gladly snuggle up with at night) and write and revise my stories, and review and critique the stories of others, in the span of two short weeks?

I've gone to the temple of the great Web god, but his scrolls and oracles bring nothing of use.

So I've resigned to ploughing through the graying dust of crumbling books from forgotten athenaeums tucked in forgotten corners of the great US of A. Untangling the knots of a derelict language. Thinking evil thoughts. Plotting evil plots. Against the chirpy-voiced mailman.

This is is what too much so-called "scholarly" work does to a brain.

I need a beer.

Damn.

Trix, just for you:



Brandon Boyd at the Grammy's, which was held at Madison Square.

Anyway, my muse has left me high and dry. Again. Too tired to chase it this time, so I let her fly away for awhile. I figure we can both use the break.

And a technical question (honest): Can you really have a heated intellectual debate while having sex? I'm going through some of my classmates' work, which we're reviewing tomorrow, and one of the stories has a part that kind of describes a discourse on Aristotle, while the couple is in bed, doing their thing.

I'm just curious because the scene is very well written, but I'm not sure it's all that realistic. I've never heard of anyone laying out the groundwork on a philosophical treatise while getting laid before.

Email me or use the comment function for your thoughts.

Five more months.

I can't wait to wear all the nice summer clothes my mom bought me. I can't wait to wear one of my 12 new pairs of sandals. I can't wait to finally store my big long coats.

I can't wait to feel the heat permeate through my skin so it feels like I'm thawing from inside. I can't wait for dry cement, and dry asphalt and no more umbrellas.

I can't wait to stop riding buses.

I can't wait for the humid heat that makes you feel like you're swimming in stretched out hot soup.



Trixie, Quiet Party, etc.

I just got off the phone with Trixie. God, I miss Manila, if only for the mobility and the spontaneity. The sudden calls to have a drink, sleeping over, talking all night, having friends, going to Nasugbu. All the little things I can no longer do over here.

There's a quiet party scheduled for Saturday at Dano.

This particular story is driving me insane, because it comes out in spurts. Maybe two pages at a time. It invariably stops after that, like a fountain pen that has dried out for the time being, waiting for the refill. Right now, it sucks to be me.

"Who was he?
Who could he have been?
The God of Loss.
The God of Small Things.
The God of Goosebumps and Sudden Smiles.

He could do only one thing at a time.
If he touched her, he couldn' t talk to her, if he loved her, he couldn't leave, if he spoke, he couldn't listen, if he fought he couldn't win." - p. 312


"It is after all so easy to shatter a story. To break a chain of thought. To ruin a fragment of a dream being carried around carefully like a piece of porcelain.
To let it be, to travel with it, is much the harder thing to do." -- p. 181

Taken from "The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy, which knocked me down because I wasn't expecting it to be good at all. I remember leafing through this book in high school, and I don't remember thinking about it, which is usually a sign of my indifference to a literary work.

So I just included this in my list for extra credit. To be read if I had the time. Obviously, the universe forced me to make the time to read this book. For some reason, it was the only book left unpacked in the whole house.

I say good job, little miss universe.

The imagery is incredible. Made even more so because it's so fresh and surprising. It just trickled out of nowhere, and sometimes I just had to stop reading to better see in my head the nuances of a scene she's trying to describe. And when it all came together in my mind, I realized how amazingly she captured the little details in her words.

It's even more fantastic because a strong sense of imagery is what I need right now. Erik says that's really what I'm lacking so far.

Perfect timing. See? I'm God's spoiled little child.

So okay.

New York was a city of puddles yesterday. It was raining continuously, the wind was pretty strong, and my umbrella irrevocably bent itself at a weird 77 degree angle.

My feet hurt. My legs felt like lead. Some of the subway tracks were under construction, so I had to walk a few blocks to get to another train. I discovered the 4 5 6 trains, the L and S trains, the huge subway network at West 14th street, and alphabet city. I didnt know about Avenues A, B, and C (which are further east of 1st Ave), because I had never heard anyone mention them before.

All in all a pretty dismal, but tolerable day, the high point of which was, as usual, class at NYU.


Class at NYU.

I'm not completely over my writing problems, but I'm getting ideas, so I'm getting there.

We reviewed my little piece in class yesterday. Very interesting, very helpful, very constructive. Some of the comments I was given, I kind of expected already. But some were totally new -- really good inisights. I was scared of the critiques at first, because I kept on hearing things about how Americans are really brutal when it comes to criticism, but I like this brand of brutality. So much better than the wishy-washy "It's okay", or the beating around the bush back in Manila.

As my professor said, if you're in a masteral class for writing, you should have already understood how the writing affects you, and how important the investment of your self is in your work. You should already know that it's yours and nobody can take it away from you. By now, you should have dealt with that knowldege and moved on.

By moving on, we come to the message. Every writer has something to say or she wouldn't be writing in the first place. A masteral class is supposed to make you see how well your message is being received. This is not the class for people trying to "express themselves", or "find an outlet". If that's what you need, lock yourself in your room or go back to Writing 101.

By this time, you should have already grappled with the "be true to yourself', "artistic integrity" issues. The problem you should have now is coming face to face with how you can best deliver that "truth of yourself" and that personal "artistic integrity' to an audience.

As they say in the CWP faculty, you should have over-developed egos by the time you set foot in the class.

And to me, that makes a lot of sense. I know what I want to say and how I want to say it, but I'd like to see if the message is ever understood.

So that's why I like critical reading sessions. I get a clearer idea of how I want my revisions to go. The more brutal the comments, the better. I don't need people to spare my feelings, and I never get on the defensive even when I think the critic is being stupid (I want to see how stupid people might interpret my work too). As you must know by now, I don't have an inferiority complex about these things. I know I'm not the best (yet), but I know I'm smart enough to get better.

So yeah, yesterday's session on my work was good. I actually felt a twinge of excitement when I saw people take out copies of my story from their envelopes/folders/bags/pockets. I felt a genuine rush when I saw the margins littered with notes in red pen. And I was lifted off the earth when I heard people discuss my story intelligiently -- like they read it, understood it, and cared enough about it to actually think of all those things they told me.

Just the thing to break the dam blocking my creative juices.

Why is Houston street pronounced House-ton here in New York? I don’t know. It must have something to do with the person who first said Stuyvesant or Schenectady in these parts.

Why is it that people will willingly twist their tongues around old words, hoping to mangle them into something just a little different, but shirk from facing anything that is too unique? The stress on diversity is that it is a new take on something old, never a new take on something altogether new.

But I’m not making much sense, am I?

Let me start over.

I am in writer’s hell.

I know exactly what to say, and I know how I want to say it, but the actual saying is turning out to be quite a problem. Whatever I type doesn’t seem right. Even my mental processes seem to be out of sync. I don’t know if it’s time for a break, or time to drive myself harder.

It seems like I’ve come face to face with a tunnel of distorted inspiration and there is nothing to do but plunge into the mess.

So, boys and girls, expect nothing new to appear in this blog over the weekend. I am chasing my muse and the running leaves no time for side trips to places like blogger. Expect also the absence of emails from me for the same reason.

I’ll see you on the other side.

The Reading

I waited for Grant and a few others at Violet Café (school color, you know). They wanted to prep me up and give me moral support, they said. When we all got together, they commented on my lack of nervousness because I was smiling and looking extremely unfazed. Hah, if they only knew I was disintegrating into butter inside.

We all walked around a bit, in an unsuccessful attempt to soothe Carey’s nerves, because she was going to be stage director for the night. They gave me a much-delayed tour of NYU’s downtown campus, which is actually spread throughout Washington Square. NYU isn’t a campus in the normal sense, because they don’t have gates or walls to enclose their buildings. They actually take pride in being an integrated part of Greenwich Village, even annexing Washington Square – the heart of Greenwich itself – as their own.

After a few history lessons on NYU and New York in general, we started towards the Provincetown Playhouse, where the readings were going to be. The venue was supposed to be the Fales Library at Bobst, but they had it moved since this “art series” was supposed to be in collaboration with the theater students.

Anyway, at 6:00, people started trickling in. I recognized some of my classmates with their friends in tow, some theater students, some reading regulars, a few members of the CWP faculty, and a rather large number of complete and total strangers.

The playhouse isn’t really a big place, but when you’re faced with the stares of people you don’t know, and you have certain knowledge that they are there to judge YOU (they paid $5 to hear you read, after all), your mind tends to blow things out of proportion.

I hadn’t even thought of the possibility of being invited to read, so to have that casually thrown around like it was the most natural thing on earth gave me anxiety attacks. I mean I knew it was because I was the unofficial TA, and they asked me out of deference to my advisor. I knew I wasn’t really ready. I knew some form of school politics was involved, but whatever the reason, the fact of the matter was I was going to read and people weren’t going to care if I had inexperience as an excuse.

If I was the puking kind, I would've puked a whole week's worth of meals right there.

You have to understand that this was a big deal for me. First of all, I’m planning to make a career out of this, and this was the first real test of how plausible that plan really is. Second, the people I consider literary deities were my audience. The people I read and dreamt of emulating were actually there to listen to me. And third, what the hell people, this is New York. Furthermore, this is NYU. People who were given the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize were in that audience. Yes, this was a helluva big deal.

I was scheduled to go first, which I told myself was a good thing, because then there wouldn’t be as many people because I knew a large part of the audiences in these things arrive rather late. Hah. Someone should have told me about the undergraduate crowd.

Since a few professors were participating in the readings, many of their students dropped by, and my time slot coincided oh-so perfectly with the empty space between just-after-class and just-before-dinner. Oh joy. “More people to see me humiliate myself” was the foremost thought running through my head.

Then I heard the emcee announce that we were going to start. He called my writing partner, genius boy Erik, up on stage to give my introduction. As expected, the intro was very, very brief.

To his credit, however, he did add a few other lines to his usual two curt sentences. (The other lines mostly consisted of “from Manila” and “surprising technique”.)

And I was on. You know how people say that the first few sentences are the hardest? That once you get up there and start talking, everything becomes alright? That the world suddenly becomes a friendlier place and you take control of yourself like you always knew you could and you deliver like a goddess of confidence?

Well, boys and girls, that did not happen.

If I was butter before I stepped on stage, I was butter that had been vaporized twenty million times as soon as I felt the harsh beam of light on my eyes. I am completely serious. I moved my mouth, but I had become mute. No sound emanated from my lips. They were going to throw garbage at me, I was sure of it. I was already mentally calculating how long it would take to clean of the debris.

The feeling of a presence beside me barely registered in my consiousness. Someone to give me first aid when the attack began, perhaps?

Boys and girls, it was the genius himself, out to save my pathetic hide. Yes, it was Erik. He had been waiting for me at the wings and he had followed me to center stage. He will now forever hold a special place in my heart for the line he uttered when I discovered that my voice had deserted me in my time of desperate need: “Ladies and Gentlemen, the author.” Minor applause. That was all he said. The man is a demigod.

And then he fixed my mike stand.

It was just the thing I needed to boost me a little. At least I wasn’t completely alone. I was still vaporized butter, but at least there was someone there who could collect the particles and force them into some kind of distinguishable form, because as he was fixing, he was also giving me a hurried little pep talk. I was well in the middle of the first paragraph before he deemed himself satisfied with the stupid mike stand.

I probably talked too fast and there were words that were probably undecipherable to the audience’s ears, but I got through it in one piece. I wasn’t booed off the stage. They actually even clapped. And I got the perfunctory congratulatory remarks. But the clincher was I got invited again.

NYU people are such sadists.



In other news.

Pat’s Bank Street interview was today. And genius boy gave me a copy of the script of Metamorphoses. My prize for surviving the stage, I take it.

Ahem.

Boys and girls, I'm reading my work today at exactly 6:35 pm Eastern, 7:35 am Manila. Let us all hope I don't make an idiot out of myself.

Erik (aka genius boy) will be there as my writing partner, of course. He's supposed to give my "introduction". I'm looking forward to hearing what he has to say, although I'm kind of anxious because I'm not totally sure it's going to be all good.

It was better when I knew I wasn't quite "there" yet. At least I knew. The uncertainty of not knowing if I've actually gotten closer to being "there" is killing me. It's even worse because I've found someone I'm willing to believe.

Anyway, if all goes well, you can expect me to post the story I'm going to read in the coming entries. If not, let's forget I ever menioned it.

BTW, Pat's inerview at Bank Street today. Say a little prayer, people.

History Lesson

I just got off the phone with genius boy Erik.

Who would've thought that Village Ma, the place we went to for my birthday, used to be known as Reinzo (?) coffeehouse, and that it was a James Dean hangout? Or that Cafe Wha?, where Pat spent Saturday night, was where Bob Dylan played his first gig in NYC, and that it helped launch Jimi Hendrix's career?

The house a block across the street was where Louisa May Alcott wrote the classic "Little Women". Various cafes and former speakeasies (?) in the same street were home to such figures as e.e. cummings, Dame Edith Sitwell, and most probably to our very own Jose Garcia Villa as well.

And this is just MacDougall, he says. There are more places around the downtown area that just absolutely reek of history. He also says that if I were of the stargazing sort, I could probably spot a few of the more "current celebrities" (from the startlets to the spoiled heirs) if I parked myself outside the latest club/bar of the season. Just wait for the descent of the deities of fame.

I wonder if Erik gives guided tours of Manhattan. Hehe. He'd be perfect at it... then again it's starting to look like he's good at everything he does. A financial analyst taking an MFA in Writing, and who's terrific at both, is something else. A true blue Renaissance man if I ever saw one.

I mean who else can tell you about the people who conceptualized the Manhattan grid in 1891 (or something), offer to show you exactly where they conceptualized it, tell you of a story written in the same building, and explain the present value of real estate in that area all in the same breath?

It's just amazing how he not only knows about the city -- like where to eat and where to go and stuff -- but also the history that surrounds it.

These are the times when it just hits me that, yes, I am in New York. This is where dreams are a-plenty, competition is fierce, and greatness abounds. I'm still in awe over the thought of past genius flowing through the route I take to school practically everyday. I will probably see these places in a whole new light when I pass them by tomorrow.

Then again, boys and girls, this could all just mean that I'm in good company. Hehe.

And I had to discover it from the WASPiest person I know. Amy, the only possible contender for having ancestors on the Mayflower in our class, just told me about a veritable Little Manila in the East Village. They have Krystal's Cafe which serves sinigang, dinuguan and the ubiquitous adobo, in a very typical Pinoy setting (formica tables and cafeteria tiles, she calls it).

There's also Elvie's Turo-turo, which her ex-boyfriend had taken her to see a few weeks ago, only about a block away from Krystal's, and reminiscent of cheap kanto food, only New York-ified.

Must stop by one of these days. I hope they have a more affordable price range than Cendrillion's $20 dinner entrees, although I must say Cendrillion was a nice experience. Their soft-shelled crab appetizer thing was really scrumptious. Ditto for the black rice paella. Even Grant said that although the Kare-kare was new to his tongue, he found it satisfying. And they have buko shake. (Buko, for those of you who don't know, is young coconut.) Buko shake was never my favorite, but it always reminds me of my dad so when I saw it on the menu, I ordered it. Their version was smoother. I liked it.

Cendrillion's more "gourmet" Filipino then home-style cooking though, so even if the food seems familiar, you're still in for a few surprises which is fantastic, because they're very good at what they do. Then again, for the price, they damn well should be.

Wow, I think I just made myself hungry.

BTW, If you pray, please include Pat and her Bank Street interview in your conversations with God.

Back to living in a freezer.

Spring? Hah. What a joke. Two feet of snow just fell over the weekend. Blizzard yesterday. State of emergency in the tri-state area. Yes boys and girls, spring remains a far-fetched rumor, a distant hope light years away, and in the meantime we must shovel the path to the kitchen, clear the driveway and pray that the snowblower doesn't crack under the pressure.

On the upside, temperature does increase a few degrees when it's snowing, so right now it isn't really siberia-cold. We're hovering just around the freezing point, so it's actually a good day for winter play. Although numbers are known to drop to the negatives soon after flurries, so tonight might feel like a little trip out to Pluto.

Anyway, since present weather conditions are what they are, I skipped class today. When nature throws you something like this, it's almost a given that you're to exploit it, right? Besides, genius boy skipped, which means three quarters of the whole class probably skipped as well.

So here I am, curled up in my bed, snuggled deep into the coziness of my comforter, reading a delicious new book (Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman, if you must know), desperately trying to remember what a hot Manila day means.

To the powers that be, let me dream of my tropical island tonight. Please.

I just finished reading Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” (thanks Tita Winnie), which I squeezed in the middle of Ninotchka Rosca and Joy Kugawa as my “break” book.

Yes, I have a “break” book. A “break” book is what I read in my spare time, away from the books I have to read for class. Usually I choose something totally different so that I can re-charge my mind and let it rest from whatever it’s trying to absorb from assigned bodies of work.

Since I’m taking contemporary Asian Literature, I thought Ayn Rand was the perfect foil.

To those who haven’t read her, please do. She elucidates so many thoughts running around in my head that I have no words for.

If you want to know why I’m wary of love and various confessions of, it is because I don’t believe in many people’s definitions of the word. If you want to know why I am the way I am, then I will answer that it is because the sole purpose of my life is to be me, the way I want to be, depsite what the world says about it, despite what everyone thinks I am capable or not capable of, despite the needs/desires of the people I hold dear.

I don't care about what kind of person you think I am, I only care that you see it and think it, that you acknowledge it, not because I want to show you some form of truth, but because I derive pleasure from showing myself in all my glory.

Yes folks, I am a conceited selfish bitch, and if you ever have need to know what that statement really means, look at her definition of the phrase, and see why that is exactly what I aspire to be. If you have ever found me egotistic, arrogant, or self-centered, know that I think I am too, and that I am well-aware of the fact, and that I am proud of it.

“I swear by my life – and my love for it – that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.” -- Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged.


But on to lighter things. I cannot believe that I just finished my break book, but I haven’t yet finished reading Joy Kugawa, and I have a paper due on her tomorrow. It seems I’m going to have to use up a “red card” for this one.

(Red Card: excuse slips. At the beginning of the sem, my professor told us that she hated hearing about excuses from students regarding late submissions, absences, and all that crap. So what she did was hand out red cards, two per person. A red card allows your late submission/absence/whatever to be excused without questions. However, she won’t entertain explanations above the red cards. If you can’t produce one, even if you’re an honor student, you’re mother is dying, and it’s a matter of pass or fail by half a point, you will undoubtedly fail. She’s pretty ruthless that way.)

I don’t know why I’m having trouble concentrating on my assigned books. They aren’t hard to read. Given different circumstances I’m pretty sure I’d think them extremely interesting, but for some reason, I’m just not into them now. Strange.

And she says that she told me all these things, that I am who I am because she has told me these things.

She does not realize that I stopped listening to her a long time ago – that I’m not even sure I had ever listened to her at all.

She does not realize that I seldom put the opinion of others before mine, that I have made very few exceptions to this rule, and that she has never been an exception, that I don’t even think it’s possible.

She does not realize that she only knows what I have showed, that she is the least person I would like to become, that I consider her success my failure.

She doesn’t realize that I have been out of her reach for so long.

She doesn’t realize that she has no idea who I am.

[More]

First of all, there’s a blizzard tomorrow. Oh shit.

Metamorphoses.

This play is amazing. Incredibly so. Pat and I got $25 standing room tickets because the $35 rush tickets were sold out 10 minutes after they started selling them, and we didn’t want to spend $80 on the regular ones.

It’s funny that they actually give you a little numbered spot on the railing to stand on. And you absolutely can’t sit, kneel, squat or sit in an unoccupied chair, even if it’s right in front of you. I kid you not.

Another thing that must be said, is that there was one scene where a guy was completely naked from start to finish (and the scene started and finished with him), and everyone, especially the actor, was just totally nonchalant about it. People were so indifferent, that it actually didn’t hit me that he was butt naked until about five minutes after he had entered the pool that served as the stage. Again, I kid you not.

But back to how remarkable the play was.

First of all, it was very uniquely set up. Instead of the usual stage, there was a shallow pool in the center. The theater was pretty small, so it was as intimate as you can get in Broadway. It wasn’t ostentatious, loud, or showy at all. Neither was it cheesy or overly sentimental. And there were no lavish costumes or heavy prop pieces.

Basically, it’s an exploration of the idea of love, done through a dramatization of a collection of stories all loosely constructed from various excerpts from Greek mythology. You have Midas and his golden touch, Psyche and Eros, Orpheus and Eurydice, some wood nymph and some wood god, Phaeton and his father Apollo, and a few other stories, as the backdrop for Zimmerman’s exposition of what love means.

Sure, most of what the play said has been said before, but then again most anything that is said on love has been said before. We all know it’s damn near impossible to say anything new on that oh-so worn out topic anyway.

The only thing left to experiment with, is the way things are said.

And Metamorphosis is one of the most successful attempts at that experiment I’ve come across. It’s just beautiful. The actors were good, the script was good, the sequences were good. The 90 minutes of stand-up time was worth it.

What makes it so astoundingly different, at least to me, is that amid the ubiquitous loudness of the musicals and the obvious drama of the other plays, this was kind of a proudly made whisper, rendered all the more effective because of the quality of its softness.

A softness that permeates the senses and nestles in your mind, so that it wasn’t just moving emotionally, but it was actually an intellectual exercise as well. So that you come out of the theater feeling satisfied. Not just highly entertained or amused, but truly satisfied.

To my ever dearest genius boy, thanks for the recommendation. Absolutely fantastic.

Okay, my comments aren't showing because haloscan is having server problems. You might be getting a runtime error message when you load my blog. That's blogger trying to give me an upgrade. So sorry for all the technical shit hapenning at the same time, I'm trying my best to work it all out.

Anyway. I watched Metamorphoses with Pat today. It was amazingly beautiful. But more on that tomorrow.

Also watched Daredevil. I love the soundtrack. Can't really say much about the movie except I think Ben Affleck is hot, but you already know that.

My mom's here from Manila, with a ton of new clothes.

And I'm really, really stressed about my story. I have just been told by the only person I feel I can rightly trust about my writing to switch the voice of that particular piece to something else. Actually, I just got off the phone with him and what he said, verbatim , was "lose the words but stick with the ideas. Rewrite the whole damn thing from another perspective because this one isn't working as good as it should".

Holy shit. Chuck 15 pages into the trash bin. 15 pages squeezed from sleepless nights and autistic days. 15 pages of a real labor of love. A really tall order, but well, I trust him with this. I have never really trusted anyone with my writing, but I trust him. He's a genius, and he's brilliant, and he's got talent oozing out of his pores, but more than that, I think he actually loves the story almost as much as I do. So I've given him my trust the only way I know how. Completely, absolutely, totally. Which probably makes it a good thing that I don't trust all that often.

Yes, I know this is my work and I should have the final say. And boys and girls, this is my final say : I trust him with this.

I'll let you know how it all turns out.

Back Home.

Actually, today went pretty well. I was pleasantly surprised.

We had 7 pm reservations at Cendrillion, which was packed with couples. The fun started as soon as I got to see the menu. Adobo, Crispy Pata, Laing, even sisig. No wonder the place seemed suspicously full of Asians. Filipino fine dining right smack in New York. He thought I might like it, he told me kind of shyly, which was sweet and endearing, but gave me too much power. I couldn't resist.

Being the "experienced" one, I ordered for both of us. Telling him about dinuguan, balut, kare-kare, and all our other incredibly exotic dishes in detailed glory and knowing he'd have to eat some of it after gave me a most enjoyable sense of sadistic pleasure. The look of incredulity on his face is absolutely priceless.

We then went to MacDougal, where I met up with some friends from school, including genius boy and his "Drip" set-up (more on Drip in the coming posts). I think it was about this time that Grant took a bus to Queens to get his car. He doesn't usually bring his car to Manhattan because he'd most likely have to quit school just to pay off the parking fees (around $10/hour, min).

And then he took me home.

Only I didn't get home right away, because we got lost. You have to understand that I've never gone home from NYU in a car before. I had always taken public transportation, so I never really paid attention to all the exits and turns. Yes, I take the blame and all, I just want to put it in context and not look more stupid than I have to.

I have to say we had fun getting lost though. So when he finally figured it out after 45 mins, I kind of felt sad that it was time to go. I had a really good time bombarding him with anecdotes of slaughtering pigs, chasing chickens, diving for pearls, and climbing coconut trees. He kept on shaking his head and looking at me like I was some strange creature, which to him I probably am, even if I eventually confessed to making most of the so-called anecdotes up.

So the verdict? He's a really nice guy, which most people say is a rarity in New York. I'm glad to be his friend. He's goofy and he acts like a kid sometimes, but he can be really smart and insightful when he chooses to be, which he thankfully chooses to be quite often. And he's got his priorities straight, which is refreshing. He actually knows what he wants to do, and he seems to have the means and brains to do it.

But the best thing about him is he genuinely likes my company. Irrefutable sign of good taste. Ahem.

El Dia de los Enamorados

What the hell. Grant (that's friend of a friend) sold his tickets to Metamorphoses because he couldn't find a date, just ten minutes before I decided I wanted to watch it enough to go out on Valentine's day. So then he tried to buy them back but the person he sold them to wasn't re-selling for anything lower than $120. He tried buying online, but they're all out, which is understandable because the last show is on Sunday, and I know a lot of people have been wanting to watch this play ever since Time called it #1 show of the year.

Best bet would probably be rush tickets, but since its a.) Valentine's, b.) a friday, and c.) Fashion Week, chances are all the rush tickets will be gone an hour before we even get there. (So Pat, Saturday, okay? Please?)

He offered to get tickets for something else, like Medea (another Greek-based play) or 42nd St (good reviews) but now I don't really feel like I want to go because it's not going to be Metamorphoses and I'm not sure anything else will be worth the hassle.

Just imagine the confusion in the Times Square area. Cops all over the place. Gawking passers-by. Starry-eyed couples holding hands. Tents all over Bryant Park. Plus I'm pretty sure some of these fashionable people will want to catch a musical/play before they storm the parties.

A chaotic nightmare I would much rather dive into with a good friend or just miss entirely. BUT, since I put him through all that trouble, I kind of feel obligated to go out and watch something anyway.

Well, whatever. Free top-caliber entertainment at the very least, and he does have a car to take me home (the upside to living in Queens and not in Manhattan).

Yeah, might as well.

Sorry, but I just couldn't resist sharing this little card I got. Happy Valentine's Day Manila.

I will shut up about the crass commercialism, the tedium, and the predictability of roses and chocolates and cuddly little teddy bears, or whatever it is you’re getting/giving your significant other. I will not berate the usual hand-holding and occasional smooching that this day always let loose on the public. Better words have been churned out by far better writers.

Besides, I’m even more tired of the customary anti-valentine speech.

I’d disregard the day entirely, but that’s a bit of hard as the high school across the street is preparing for some formal dance, and there are cardboard hearts all over the sidewalk. In this case, it’s pretty clear that ignoring it won’t make it go away.

So here, boys and girls, is a little something to help you get in the mood of things. I hope it makes you feel good about the countless dollars/pesos you just spent on flowers that will inevitably wilt, even as the world stews in anxious uncertainty.

Let’s just think of it as my little white flag.

“Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it. … It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more.” -- Erica Jong

Filched from Persh





I'm exceptionally artistic!

Find your soul type at kelly.moranweb.com.


Virtues: You look for immense creativity and individuality in people, including yourself. You're not happy with anything less than brilliant, and you focus on being expressive. You value energy, liveliness, and upbeat personalities, but you're not supportive of moodiness when you yourself can be unreliably moody. Seeking activity, you like the bustle of business but need the secluded atmosphere of a studio or private corner.

Aspirations: You feel the need to express your talents, whether it be through writing, drawing, singing, dancing, composing, performing, or photographing. While you strive to ever improve your work, you want to display it as soon as possible when your impatience kicks in. You want to be a prodigy but you might not have the means right at your fingertips. Trust me, do NOT move to New York to do it. Yeesh!

Quirks: Conformists bother you because of their lack of individuality. You're often late or unreliable. You're showy and refuse to share the spotlight. You only tell little white lies. You worm your way into the hearts of others, but be careful; some people despise the show-offs.

Factors: Surround yourself with activity and you'll always have material to work with. Involve friends and family in your projects so they don't feel like envious outsiders.

Future: Show business or not, you'll settle down happily if you're among those who appreciate your natural talents and desire to perform. Don't stay in one place too long, and don't be too hasty in defining your relationships. Who are you to judge what only time will tell?

Stupid.

The primary reason I toyed with the layout was because I wanted to feature an image of a three-panelled painting I fell in love with.

Of course, stupid me lost the file, and there is no other way for me to get it, unless I ask someone to take a really good picture of the piece (again), and there's no one to ask. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Until I think of what to do with the space to the right, an image of my friend's abdomen shall call it home.

I hate my stupid claustrophobia.

Let me tell you about the big, long commute that was my day. I got on the bus to New York, submitted a few things that had to be submitted before 4 pm, and had lunch with a friend. Got on the subway to 14th street, so I could could catch the path train to Jersey City. Walked about 6 long blocks to the Social Security Office, where I had to wait two hours just to get 2 measly pieces of paper, because the white-haired dragon ladies at the desks were taking too sweet a time.

Which meant that I had to reschedule my trip to the DMV (again) because I obviously wasn't going to get there before closing (which was at 4:30). I then had to rush back to the Path Train Station, because I had to catch my class at NYU. Got off at Christopher Street, walked just two blocks (thank god), and sat through class.

I was too tired to do the usual after-class chitchat, so I just walked back to the subway station, got on the A-train, got out at 42nd street, and went up to my bus terminal. Got on the bus.

And then disaster struck. After 15 minutes of being in the bus, I couldn't stand it anymore. Stupid claustrophobia acted up. Good thing I was sitting way up front, so I could at least see the road. Eventually, I just felt so bad I went down the next stop which was at Teaneck Armory.

Boys and girls, of course I had to walk home because there was no way on this Earth you could've made me ride a bus/car/any enclosed vehicle at that particular moment.

Now let me explain that little walk. Out of the Armory and into the road, if you keep on walking for five minutes, you will hit Teaneck Road, the main street of, you guessed it, a little town called Teaneck. If you keep on walking on that road, you will eventually hit Washington Ave, which is a main thoroughfare going through a number of towns, Bergenfield being one of them. If you walk a little more, you will find yourself in Dumont. Dumont, dear people, is where I live. I had to walk through three towns just to get to where the bus usually drops me off. Then I walked a little more to get home. And this is the brisk, New York kind of walking, where it seems someone's going to drag you into the pits of hell the moment you slow down.

I now know that it takes one hour and forty minutes to walk from the Armory to my back door.

I will say though, that it was a pretty nice, if long, walk. I couldn' see the stars or anything, and the pavement was covered in slippery sludge, but it was solo face time, and that's always good. We all know how much I like my company.

Back in the land of the living.

Did anyone ever tell you about the unnoticed epiphanies that litter your life?

Everyday the universe cries out to you, desperate for you to feel the hot breath of truth upon your face. And everyday you refuse, spewing out excuses that range from feeding a dog, to brushing your hair, to drinking beer, to being lazy, to watching MTV.

Everyday. Until your ears get used to her screams. Until your mind blanks her out completely. Until you forget that she was ever there.

And one morning you will wake up and you will feel a black hole openning inside you, sucking you into the vortex of uniform tomorrows. And you will become a drone, like so many others. You will live life according to the time-honored formula of generations of people who made excuses, who never heard her, who are deaf to the vastness of this world.

And you will content yourself with echoes, and shadows, and reflections. And you will be happy.

Because you will never know what happiness really is.

Water -- Danton Remoto

For you, my lover, I will be like water.
I will be Lock Lomond flowing
in loneliness from Ardlui to Arden.
I will be the Falls of Dochart hurling itself
down the hills of Breadalbane,
the rocks rumbling with my cascading force
I will be the rain, slanting
over Stirling in needles tiny as pores.
I will be snowflakes drifting
From the Orkney to the Isle of Skye,
falling in silent fury, as if focusing themselves
in the cold eye of memory.
For you, my lover, I will be like water.

“and i am alive to see a man against the sky” -- e.e. cummings

My writing partner is a genius.

I am blown away. I am in AWE. I want to crawl into a cave and hibernate into oblivion.

Only I can't do that because he's much too inspiring. He is like a light shining down into the deep dark crevices of your mind, until you finally emerge feeling like a blind man who can at last see. And you feel like you have a hurricane of pent-up energy bubbling up inside you, so that you either have to shout at the world, or write like the devil, or explode.

The amazing thing is, he's so at ease with the fact that he's got talent. He gives off the impression that to him, it's just something that's part of his world, and he's dealt with it. I mean he could probably have gone the way of the intense, screw-the-world, moody, opinionated, arrogant artiste with the huge chip on the shoulder to match, because he certainly has the genius to pull it off, but he didn't.

Instead, he's the quiet observer who sits near the door at the side, looking deceptively average. He never interrupts the teacher or whoever's talking, and just lets every single outspoken existentialist/post-modernist/gay/lesbian poet/fictionist say his/her piece.

Except sometimes, at the end of their various tirades against the world, he drops these little insight-bombs (with absolute and total calm), and you can just feel everyone's brains pump into high gear in a mad attempt to prepare for the explosion.

I think that's really what the whole class waits for now, and it's kind of like a game with us to see who can spark him off.


In Other News: Only in New York.

I have been invited to a couple of gimmicks in the past few weeks, but this latest invite (care of genius boy described above) is a bit new to me.

Boys and Girls, introducing the "Quiet Party". Evidently tailor-made for all those people who have gotten sick of NYC's loud bars, loud conversations, and even louder people.

They hand out pens and pieces of paper, and you just write to people in the room. Some people make a chain-story, some people flirt, some people use it to de-stress, some people just write whatever pops in their heads. Whispering is allowed only at the front of the bar/room/club. Silence everywhere else.

I must admit it all sounds very interesting. Will schedule an appearance (Pat, game?) for the next one.

Oooh. Steak. Really thick cuts of tender beefy goodness.

I haven't had cow meat in a long, long while (yes, that includes hamburgers), so when my tita presented me with a really scrumptious-looking charbroiled T-bone, sizzling and medium rare (the way I like it), I couldn't resist. I love biting into pink flesh. I love the faint taste of blood on beef. And I especially love seeing the red juice ooze out as I cut. Gastronomic bliss.


WAR. WAR. WAR.

I'm so tired of this shit. Maybe they really should just release all the mayhem they have hidden in their secret labs and end the frigging world once and for all. I'm sure the universe is just waiting for us to get ourselves killed so it can make something infinitely better to take our place. I mean what's the sense in propagating a species that is hell-bent on its own destruction anyway?

You have a guy who insists on making nuclear warheads and laboratory epidemics and all that, and tells the world that he's not making them, so he can continue on making them and telling the world that he's not making them, the end result, presumably, is so he can wipe out a big chunk of this planet's population when everyone's too busy making their own weapons of mass destruction.

Then you have another guy who's raring to destroy Guy Number One and everything within a country-wide radius of him, because he doesn't want anyone ( again, presumably) to have the power to wipe out a huge chunk of the world's population (except him?), because, and this, dear folks, is where it gets interesting, he wants to uphold the ideals of "Liberty, Freedom..." and all that crap.

Destroy Iraq so we can be free. Let's make our sons and daughters kill all their little boys and girls and wait for the retaliation that will surely come, so we can all sleep peacefully at night, knowing we've upheld the ideals we stand for.

"Let's beat up the new bully in the playground", says the old bully to his friends.

I mean, sure, Crazy People with Hitler-like delusions must be stopped. Only we've chosen another crazy person to stop him. Why we couldn't just have hired a sniper to shoot him (and maybe his like-minded friends) is beyond me. We had to get the whole damn world into it too. Hear ye, village people, let us all hunt the Beast! Burn them at the stake!

It's just like a plot out of a terribly written apocalyptic movie. Only it's real. And it's insane.

Bush and Saddam, and all of those people are insane. And they are OUR leaders, so that probaby makes us INSANE as well.

Obliterate insanity. Obliterate the world.



In other news

Friend of a friend from two weeks' post ago, sort of asked me out for Valentine's day. Poor guy. He's semi-dating a Latina chick (and I mean CHICK), but she's going to Tampa for some business trip (?) this weekend, and SHE suggested that he ask me out instead.

Lareina, the Latin knockout, is truly cool. She knows I'm basically too selfish to get into anything stupid (like a relationship), so she figured her guy would be safe with me. Plus he has tickets to Metamorphoses ($75 each), which is in its last shows (run ends on the 16th), and she knows I really want to see it. Unfortunately I'm not in the mood to go out in the midst of coupledom madness, and be witness to all the sappy smooching that is bound to happen in New York, so he can go find himself another safe singleton/shrink to unburden himself to.

I was leafing through some old stories from old writing classes.

"It seems that I am still me -- stretched and pulled and hammered down, but at the core of it, I'm still made of the same stuff.

The difference in the way the air feels as I suck it in, the way the moonbeams are a few shades paler, the slight rise in the pitch of silence, those things are felt and seen and heard by the same me. It's the world that has changed.

It's the world that falls and rises around me, transforming from one thing to the next. It's the world that keeps on surging, like waves crashing on top of each other. It's the world that insists on unfolding into other versions of itself, while I stand caught in this middle, unable to do anything, except stay the same."

I wonder what I was thinking when I wrote that. It wasn't a part of a story or anything, it was just one of those hastily scribbled notes on the back of a crumpled page.

In other, more delicious news: Pat got hit on by a tattoed, eyebrow-pierced, 21 year old in Atlantic City just a few minutes ago. With some attempts at flirting ("You're so gorgeous, you should be a model") and hand-holding (complete with, ahem, pinky promises). Hah! What did I tell you? In this country, it is impossible not to get hit on at least once, especially if you're sitting pretty, all by yourself. Hehe. I'll let you get all the other juicy details from her.

I gained seven pounds. I'm depressed. I need help.

I need the cheap, natural, painless, scarless version of liposuction.

I'm trying to run as regularly as possible, but with the snow as thick as it is, I might have to skip that for the next couple of days. I don't like going to the gym because I think It's boring. I know it's probably all the cookies my tita keeps on buying for me, but asking me to say NO to cookies is like asking Bush to stop being a lunatic --it might happen through some twist of fate, but the odds are very much against it.

And yet, I adamantly refuse to balloon into an obese version of me. I do not even want to be the chubbified me that I have become.

Yes, I know this might sound oh-so trivial and shallow, but I can't help it. I need some form of release for my inner ditziness. Better let it go this way than find it compounding inside until it eats up everything of substance and then I become irrvecobaly transformed into... shudder... little miss kikay (feeling) conyita.

The much lesser of two evils, I would say.

If only I could develop an eating disorder. But that would be too mainstream of me, now wouldn't it? Too high school and Thursday night TV. Besides, how could I possibly refuse to eat (anorexia)? And I've never learned to throw up on purpose (bulimia).

I will have to wallow in the depths of my superficial misery then, and hope that it actually burns some calories.

Ahh... the attack of the weighing scale monster.

I need strength.

There's only one way out of this looks-induced self-disparagement. There is only one way to regain my so-called equilibrium.

I shall have to do what every self-respecting selfish bitch does in times like these: read the blogs of people who have it worse.

"I am suffering the pain of someone who is trying to keep the one person they love from leaving this world. But I don't want to talk about it now. Because I'm high, and it feels good. "Better than sex," Sick Boy said in Trainspotting. Well no. But in the absence of, I'm certainly not complaining."

To start with, something a little serious. We have been put on high-risk (orange) alert today, due to threats from Muslim Fundamentalist Groups. This alert is expected to last until the middle of this month. I think it's on CNN's Breaking News

I just found out that they've released warnings in most NYU campuses for students to always be on the alert, and to always be on the safe side, while maintaining a fair attitude to all those concerned especially those of Asiatic origin. Other schools, especially those with very multicultural populations, are following suit.

And due to the heavy snow (it's still falling outside), classes have been cancelled for the elementary and secondary levels.

Unfortunately, Pat and I had to brave the weather today, flurries and all, because she had to submit something at Columbia, and I had to drop off my packet at my professor's apartment over at Cathedral Parkway, which is about 6 blocks south and 4 blocks east of where Pat had to go.

It turned out to be a pretty nice walk. We've decided that around that area (Upper Manhattan) is where we want to live. So much more peaceful than where NYU is. Downtown is utter and complete chaos.

But enough of that. On to the lighter side.

Boys and girls, I present the pictures from my birthday weekend.



At Ground Zero.


Pat and I, eyeliner-ed and lipstick-ed, at Village Ma, a Thai bar downtown


The King and I.


Pat, Nix, and I posing in front of a diner they featured in Seinfeld.


Nix and Pat camping in my tiny room.


Me and Pat, as we listen to Cynthia. I love my friends.


Me, Pat, and Elisa at Pat's house, a few hours before leaving for Atlantic City.


Pat, me and Anika in our nice room at Bally's.


Anika, Me, and Pat, drinking beers at Planet Hollywood in Atlantic City. Yes, we got carded.


The three of us in a nice touristy pose.


The spa...


On the streets of NJ's Gambling Center.


It's kind of like Disneyland for those above 21.


Getting nostalgic... pining away for our tropical island paradise...


In a full-length winter coat, AT THE BEACH. Had to take a picture of that.