{QuiCk QuiZ}

sorry i hardly have time to update. anyway, just an online quiz here...


"Sweet Dreams" (by Eurythmics)
Sweet dreams are made of this
Who am I to disagree?
Travel the world and the seven seas
Everybody's looking for something
Some of them want to use you
Some of them want to get used by you
Some of them want to abuse you
Some of them want to be abused


Which 80's Song Fits You?
brought to you by Quizilla

-{iNduLgiNg}-

i'll be really busy for the next months so here i am in an internet cafe surfing my heart away. anyways, i went to my dad's place last monday and stayed there just to snooze and snooze and snooze. i hardly get up, i only do when i read which is in the wee hours of the morning and then when i eat. didnt even get the chance to watch tv.

this morning had the chance to browse thru my old journals and well, i must say they are mostly filled with entries about well my ex. i also had the chance to read an entry about my first ex. haaaayyy.... and now here i am again alone. oh well. *long sigh* aside from going thru cheesy entries about my past relationships i also got the chance to read this wonderful article that i so damn love, it was published thru the Varsitarian a couple of years ago. this is a long one but a good read i tell you. if you have time pls read... here goes...

CLOSING THE CIRCLE
BY: Feljandro P. Ramos

"All things are far - and nowhere does the circle close."
--- XX, The Sonnets to Orpheus, by Rainer Maria Rilke

~~~o0o~~~

When we speak of possessing, we speak as fi the objects we keep are meant to be ours; as if in our possessions, they achieve immortality or permanence. That's why we have heirlooms and keepsakes dusting in time, and stashed in attics waiting to be set again in the eyes of everyday life, waiting, however remote, to be used again. That's why we have journals to keep records of daily events in our lives, both petty and poignant. That's why we have museums and libraries to house the immense collection of proofs of our development from a tool wielding-ape to a quasi-god trying to grasp the fundamental laws of the universe. A sociologist commented that we are a curious species, who like to keep things only for the memories they satnd for.

This nagging need or want, to keep the past puts us slaves to the hurt of loss. i've lost so many things, and there's more time to lose more. there are poetry books that i had lost, like Ricardo de Ungria's Decimal Places which Guy bought for me. When i lost it, I thought I lost the five or six years i've splent looking for it. I thought I lost a part of Guy that gave me the book. Pens, Pilot blue ballpens, how many have I lost since I took to the allure of the swirling blue lines that I weave on paper? I'm also notorious at losing handkerchiefs. Sweating profusely, as always, under the sultry sun, I'd reach deep into my pockets, only to find out that I have nothing to wipe the sweat beading my nape and neck. Keys? Well, I have little to lock away so I dont have keys to lose. Oh yes, my school ID. Up to now, my morning would not be complete until I've turned the house upside down while looking for it. Though this time I'd find it inserted in between the pages of my books or organizer.

But i dont only lose things. I've lost friends before. Some, I now admit, with a tinge of humility, have decided to lose me. When I was in grade school, I belonged to a small group of friends. Three in fact. We were bonded in our penchant for Voltron lions, GI Joes, play dohs and silence. Even when one of us went to study in the Philippine Science High School, and both of us stayed at Lourdes School Quezon City, we still kept in touch. The one who remained, Patrick, revealed one day that he was going to the States in a week or two. A month came by and still no word of his flight. Callously, I made him the object of a joke. The week after that, he didnt come to school. Then another, and still another. Later on, I learned from his grandmother who came to pick up his credentials that he had already left. I was stunned, I was consumed with guilt. But the fact remains that he left without a word.

When we lose things, we go back to where we thought we lost them. Sometimes going down on all fours, we would sweep the ground for even a semblance of those lost things. Then we'd stand, blood still pounding the sides of our heads. We can only sigh and say, "I've lost it.". Or we'd make pilgrimages to every lost-and-found cathedral around the vicinity in the hope of finding them again. If only we could go to a Vatican of things lost and found, where they would inevitably be, then we might yet find them. But alas, not all lost things want to be found.

It would be nice if we could find our beloved where we lost them. Going back to the places where we wove our dreams and memories, we half-hope and half-expect to find them there. Their loss hurt us so much that we weep nights to sleep. Upon waking up, eyes baggy and bloodshot, we would gaze at the white space yawning beyond the window, and still weep. Eleanor, and I guess most of us, feel that losing the object of one's love is the most profound pain. Which leads me to Jose, who asked me if it's possible to love without the pain. His eyes were wet with sorrow as he let his questions pass between his lips.

Guy bought me a rosebud, one star-filled and promising night. The petals were soft, red tongues of love's fire that licked my heart. I felt a small ball of warmth grow inside me. I placed the rosebud on the kitchen table, and prodded Guy to unbud his love within me.

Morning came and brushed its wings on my face, and love had fully bloomed between me and my lover. I returned to the kitchen table to put the rosebud in water. It was gone. I looked for it under the table, I looked for it at every nook in the kitchen, in the drawers, in the cupboards, in the trash can, I looked for it only to find loss.

Every time I sense the loss of the rosebud, I would be torn by hurt. And I couldn't do anything except think of what a beautiful vision the rosebud in a long and slender glass vase on the window sill and against the morning light might have been. It possessed me and one by one, I felt, for a flower, what the wilting of petals was like.

My friend, Alex, tired of hearing me complain about the loss of my rosebud, played a song by Joni Mitchell. She sang, "Dont lose yourself away...". Don't lose yourself to the existence of your loved ones because that is death irredeemable. Not even love nor life could bring it back.

Days after that, I couldn't stop thinking about my lost rosebud. It was haunting. It was painful. But then I realized that the rosebud wasn't entirely lost. It is within me. In my memory. In my heart, through time, the rosebud in me became a rosebush. the heads of the roses blossomed and filled the hollows and spaces of my soul.

~~~o0o~~~

In love, yes, we always lose ourselves. We lose ourselves because we blindly abandon to the promise of being united to our other halves. We like to hold them within our arms. We tighten our embrace in the hope that our bodies will meld together. That we will be one with them.

However, oneness, or unity is infinite. So long as we delude ourselves with the union with our loved ones, we will experience pain. True union occurs only between our souls, and death is the true unifier. Coming closer together will only halve the distance between you and me, but we can never be truly one. We are earth-bound, unable to ascend to heaven in this reality. Only heaven is infinite, where hapiness, serenity, and unity exist - and sadly, heaven is beyond us for now.

Love is the space between the firmament of infinite unity and the terrain of painful separation. Though we cannot, in the here and now, attain heaven, we can aspire to it, which is why we seek out others, who may help us achieve such an ethereal state. As Ma. Leovina Nicolas said in 'Damyata', "All forms of human connection are transient - if not illusory.", so we must realize that we can never find finality in any loving relationship. Sooner or later, things must end. And once again we are alone. "And if we don not know how to love one another, it is because we do not know how to be alone," Miguel de Unamuno wrote in his 'Solitude'. Into ourselves, we retreat to gain the knowledge of who we really are. And that knowledge is what we can share, for love is sharing oneself.

"Much of our pain is self-chosen," said Kahlil Gibran in 'The Prophet', I guess what most people find objectionable and wholly repulsive with pain is what happens next. What do we do with the pain of loss, with the pain of being lifted off the back of love? When after flying with our borrowed wings, it melts away like the wings of Icarus and we find ourselves hurtling down to the sea, what do we do?

In 'Sonia', Francisco B. Icasiano wrote, after the death of his daughter, that "Pain... is beautiful only when one can rise from its depressing power". Michaelangelo's David is a masterpiece of the human body in stone. But the stone from which David was born did not become beautiful without the blow of the hammer and chisel. "Although he is called the same person; he is always becoming a new being and undergoing a process of loss and reparation," Plato immortalized in Symposium. Because of the pain that we feel after separating from our beloved, we become new persons. We gain more insights and we become greater lovers because much of what we have is there to be given away. But in the process of loving, we should leave ourselves behind. Love leads us gently to the real us. And yes, Henry, the greatest love is still the love of oneself.

~~~o0o~~~

Pain sustains me in my writing, in my efforts to be a writer. If my heart were to be a separate body from which I draw blood to infuse in my writing, it would be riddled with needle pricks. To taste the juices of a fruit, one must cut through the flesh. And if it could, its scream would rip the air. And charged with the responsibility that goes with writing, I should help others toward growth.

~~~o0o~~~

But one does not have to feel pain when loving. We should gladly let our loved ones go, when they want to. And we should not feel any less because they were not ours for keeping, and because they have enriched our humanity. They have helped us to be better persons. So as the poetess, a great mother, and teacher of love and loss, Ophelia Alcantara-Dimalanta, versified in 'Finder Loser', "I shall go on seeking lost faces and faiths... sadly aware that later... I shall lose them all again..." The epiphany that occurs in admitting that we find to lose, frees us.

As a butterfly lands on our palm, let us make it feel our love. And one way to do it is to keep our hands open. Let us not cage it within closed fingers. If we do, we might bring about its death. And then we would have lost completely what it can teach about life. Basking in the golden light of morning, allow it to spread and beat its wings for the last time as ti flies away.

~~~o0o~~~

In keeping our hands open, we prevent the pain when our loved ones fights to be free. Is not the love we shared with them not enough that we need them to be forever with us? That would be selfish and most unloving.

Let us not dwell on the what-was for we cannot bring the past back; after all, it brought us to where we are right now. And the what-could-be are nice dreams, but they are not real. This moment when you are with your beloved, is what counts. And make it count. "If there's anything a lover is," said Leo Buscaglia, "it's a person who realizes that the only reality is 'now'." If we become such lovers, thent he circle has closed around us.

-{LuXuRieS}-

blogging will now be a luxury, as we are no longer allowed to use the internet even before and after the shift. as for some changes, i will already be based in alabang. kinda taxing when it comes to commuting but i guess it will be well worth it. i've been looking forward to it, i mean the training, however, i got word that training will still be in makati and worse, it will be in that decrepit insular building. good thing it will be a mid-shift, as i would hate to be assigned there on a graveyard shift since there are a lot of creepy stories about that building. well perhaps i will be able to blog again later on after the adjustment period.

had coffee with some of my closest friends at the office last week and it was only then i realized just how much i missed them. bonding with friends has become a luxury as well as of the last few months. its fun to hang out with them again and hear them bash, and i mean really bash other people and to hear them revert to their serious side as they vent out their ramblings and discuss their insights over the most trivial things. it makes me feel that finally i am able to talk again to people who make a lot of sense although i just really have to hold my tummy from laughing too much because of their merciless bashing. makes me feel really grateful that im friends with them otherwise i'd also fall prey on their vicious habbit of scrutinizing even the most minute details of an innocent creature's persona and
making a laughingstock about what falls short in their high standards of what's at least normal and acceptable.

last thursday morning after our shift we headed to seattles at the paseo center and red told us about his not so pleasant jeepney incident on his trip to the alabang site one time. makes me wonder what's in store for me there. anyhow, he told us that if you take a bus, when you get off its either you take a jeep or a cab - which is next to impossible, in going to the site. unfortunately, lord, high, almighty red had to subject himself to a jeepney ride everytime. one most unfortunate afternoon, he was seated in the jeepney with 3 nursing students across him. he paid the fare but has no smaller bill so he had to give the driver i think a P100 bill. the girl across him took out her face powder and looked at herself at the mirror and said something about the foundation being good because it does not get cakey or something. red was just blankly looking at her. when the girl put her face powder back in her back she looked at red and grimaced. that started an argument between them and knowing red, he gave her winner lines that were absolutely dripping with sarcasm.

girl: papacute pacute wala namang barya!
(to this red reacted bcoz first of all he is gay and second she is pimply and according to him she is ugly in every sense of the word)
girl: ayoko sa lahat yung tinitignan ako eh!
girl2: oo nga bastos!
red: miss, sorry ha kung tinitignan kita. ngayon lang kasi ko nakakita ng bakulaw na nagme-make up!
the girl turned to her side to avoid his glaring stare.
red: miss, miss (ayaw tumingin eh). miss, dagdagan mo pa ung powder mo, kasi kita pa ung mga ketong mo sa mukha eh.
(to this the girl did not react and continued to avoid facing him. but red just couldnt have enough, he looked at the poor creature
from head to toe and noticed the dirty old white pair of shoes she's wearing, which gave red another idea.)
red: miss, magkano kilo sa palengke ng sapatos mo?
(on his way down the jeepney he said...)
red: miss pag-igihan mo ang pagme-make up ha ampanget mo kasi!

he said he wouldnt mind people labeling him as "bakla" for engaging in a cat fight with women becoz that's exactly what he is. he's just in a quandary whether he'd have to slip a flower on the side of his ear just to let people know he is gay coz most of the time he is mistaken to be straight when in fact he is actually part of the competition. it was really hilarious, made having coffee even more fun.

oh well i'll be having more of this coffee sessions perhaps also with new friends this time, once i transfer to alabang. and yes that surely means less time for blogging.

-{a NiGhT of cHeeSy sMiLeS}-

bloggers night was great, at least it wasnt raining really hard this time. sorry guys we decided not to do the poll again, it was a good initiative by orbital but since everyone who voted for dencio's grill did not show up, then the next eb will be a videoke already becoz most of the people present on the eb wanted that. so for all of you guys who are planning to join the next eb, it would be a videoke night whether you like it or not. here are some of the pics courtesy of tina and orbital.







nice to finally meet tina and graveyard zombie, hope more people could join us the next time. we'll sing away next time folks!!!

-{ReAd MoDe}-

i have a lot of things i wanted to write about but for some reasons, the words seemed elusive so i decided to just while away the avail time by reading fellow bloggers entries and since we are not allowed to use the internet during the shift, i did a "copy-paste" marathon of entries prior to the start of the shift. i even remembered orbital, he used to be so pissed with my old ff8 template coz he cant read it so he'd copy and paste my entries on MSWord to be able to read it. i'll comment on the entries later after shift.

~~~o0o~~~

ay i have kwento pala, i chanced upon a blogger yesterday morning at the underpass from enterprise to philippine stocks exchange. she's wearing a blue sleeveless top and maong pants with her hair still wet. she seemed very fresh and yet she seemed so pre-occupied. i, on the other hand am so into telling a story to my friend - peng, that i felt unsure that it was her. she went past us already when i realized it was her. so i called her, but i uttered her name in a low voice. i dont want to risk humiliation, so when she did not turn around i assumed it was not her. but then when i got home, i saw her text message on my phone, and i asked her if she is on a morning shift, if she used the underpass and so forth. and yes it turned out that it was her. hehe kung sino sya, well intayin nyo na lang sya mag react. kung di man sya magreact, eh ibubuking ko na lang sya sa bloggers night.