moved on.

i have moved on to "greener" pastures :)

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please do update your links and blogrolls :)

be seeing you >:)

On lauriats and weddings

Over the past 23 years (not counting maybe the first 2) of my life, I have attended the traditional chinese weddings with the bad music, the mandarin-speaking host, and the over-invited guests with a bunch of empty tables in between.

Usually, the meal/12 person table would consist of a number of food dishes appearing after every n intervals starting from the appetizer, some 6 other random foodstuffs that would always include steamed fish, pigeon and crab, soup, and dessert. Not necessarily in that order.

This is what you call in fookien, the pan-to. Simply put, the Lauriat. The whole smorgasbord that should be fun to eat, but you should also mind your manners, as this is not a buffet, no second dish of the same type will be laid before you and there are other hungry people at the table.

In a world of Chinese culture, sometimes manners are really forgotten, I think of myself back in Shanghai 2 years ago. A bunch of rowdy loud Chinese people at the next table were in states of drunk and disorderly, smoking, drinking, and spitting. It was a sight to behold, and made me want to drain all my Chinese roots away.

Filipino-Chinese aren't even close. Which is good IMHO, but I guess some habits do stay, not in those forms but in some aspects.

Oldies generally are the most pasaway of our kind (anybody who's nearest to the GI population are more often the deviants). In an all-out formal event, they would be the deviants in slacks and a dress shirt that doesn't even quite fit the standards of an ordinary work shirt or a hideous matching blouse and skirt / blouse and slacks attire.

Don't even get me started on the people wearing jeans. I would have them thrown out of my own wedding.

Moving on to the actual wedding is how some people go all PG (patay-gutom) during the food. A dish in the lauriat is mainly good for 12. So lucky you if you get seated with only 10 persons with leaves you 1/10 chance in getting the last 2 steam prawns/dried scallop wrapped in radish or something like that. Well courtesy is always given to those who seem to be in higher status on your table, which means everybody older than you are or the kids who doesn't seem to know the value of courtesy as of yet, or are too spoiled for their own good.

I remember when I was young and I was whining about getting another steamed prawn, Mom would give me this huge long lecture about not being selfish. I stopped being a priss at wedding events and let everyone grab a hold of the last tasty morsel of food x. It's fun to see them push the table around in feigned respectable gestures about who wants to eat first and whatnot. :) which I was quietly observing through my muted Ipod and my headphones as decoy to make sure I look like some emo college kid dragged by her mom to the wedding.

So there was the Pg crew, who seem to have forgotten that there were 8 other people and got most of the cold-cuts, half the steamed grouper fish and got first dibs on the first of the two remaining prawns. They were cracking the steamed crabs as if they were at home, banging it with a spoon since the establishment ran out of crab crackers, making the crab shell fly towards my mom, who was not particularly happy having shells splatter her dress. I didn't even bother getting seconds of the ube buchi and sacrificed it to the PG crew and whiny english-speaking kiddie. Man was I ever the grown-up. I just stuck to eating the hot red beet soup that was catered for old people. But not people as young as I am! Haha. For those occasions mom would poke my leg everytime Pg couple would act all Pg, and I would be all nonchalant but I'd feel this little humor bubble growing into a giggle.

Anyway, we ended the event with mom overhearing them asking for a doggy bag to wrap up some of the goods from the table (maybe the orange centerpiece?) and me snickering as we went down the escalator and I was telling mom that I have never seen a hungrier table than ours.

She totally agreed.

it seems more me now.

no, i didn't the whole fuck you bit on the banner (although i almost did, harhar). but i'm glad to see notpoems looking more like me than looking like any other web template.

note to self:

* I keep falling into the green void. Must stop.

* so, you've just been a hot topic in a recent conversation (conversations if you count the repeat rate of the story revolving around the table), nothing seems better than a bunch of people all together talking about crap and didn't bother to swing and ask you further details to clarify the shit, the more juicier, the better so why clear things up? and ruin the fun of things? NEVER.

* So, you never really seem to get noticed. Why must you hone in territories of others when obviously you're not god-fucking wanted? In fact, someone who actually pretends to be something gets more beautiful attention than you have so whats the FUCKING point in keep FUCKING trying?!

...

ganiyanan pala ha,
PUTANGINA NIYO LAHAT.

so i'm eating cake

funny thing is, I told my dad i'd be home for dinner. when i got home at 8:00 and thank the blessings of smooth and easy driving all throughout the metro today, (I drove out of the parking lot around 7:25) while listening to a new-favorite album the The Click Five,
and all the stoplights were go green, except for a few timely reds that were to my advantage too.

when I parked the car and went up the dining table was cleared and i have no food, so after the quick shower i scourged the fridge to find anything edible without me cooking, and I ended up eating a slice of cake, 2 dinner rolls with butter and a mug of coffee.

I wish life could always be this simple, I wish life could always be happy :)

i wonder...

if it's possible for the ground to open up,
swallow me whole. then slowly roast me to my death...

come on, just this once,
then i'll be at peace for the rest of my lifetime.

car trouble.

The Altis already had some battery problems when I got back from Cebu. I asked them to changed the batteries since around the last week of October.

I knew I will be hitting the fan with the car and I did. Haha.

After Powerplant, my sister and I went to get gas at Shell V.Cruz Extension. I turned off the engine and when I started the car, it won't start.

I instantly knew it was the batteries, and the attendant opened the hood and proceeded to try and make the batteries work. I told him it was weak and I pulled over to the side of the station.

Naturally, my sister called up her beau first. I called him up and told him our current predicament. He said get my sister to ask for a jumper wire to jumpstart the car. Told me to keep calm (which I was, stranded on a flooded unknown street was more crappy), and call my dad.

Sister called my dad and I talked to him about the situation and they were on the way. So is maurick.

Luckily, people up front where trying to jumpstart a car also, and asked if we needed some assistance. He connected the Altis into his white pick-up and I started the car which gave a purr of life.

Manong Mechanic told me to use the park lights first, switch off the air-conditioning and press the gas steadily to charge the batteries.

I gave him my deepest thanks and even offered him some money which he flatly refused. He said it was nothing and told us to drive safe.

Maurick arrived seconds later the car was running. He drove behind us. While I called him to tell we're ok. And we called my dad and uncle who was waiting for us in Quirino.

We convoyed towards home. Maurick at the back Dad and Uncle up front. I felt like driving for the president. Haha.

We got home at 12mn. Just in time for Dad's birthday.

The Power of the Tarot Force.

I wasn't really a fan of the whole divination thing. My 6 years of logical brain training have been a skeptic to all the horoscope and numerology brouhaha. Although it's fun to take it seriously sometime.

With my sister's raving about a particular reader's "intuition" and "power" I was curious to see what she can say about me. So we arranged to have dinner at Powerplant and my first ever Tarot Reading session.

We got there around 7:10. And only the guy was available, the proclaimed master was drained and her aura was a bit miffed. After 30 minutes of waiting was seated at the back part of Press Cafe at a table draped in woven cloth and seated in front of me is the Reader, a semi-young-old guy in his late 30s maybe with an easy smile as he asked for my birthday.

He started to compute in a little piece of paper what there is to be computed on my birthday. After which he looked at me and explained

I was born in 1984, 28th July with the element wood. Based from my birthday, my lucky number is 3 and my colors are anything that represents the wood, so surprisingly, shades of green, brown, a deep dark red and even black. I should stay away from bright red, for it represents fire. And Fire burns Wood.

In the deck of Tarot, I am the empress. Of unconditional love and compassion. People who knows me would laugh at such a revelation. (there goes Truths#1) .

He said one of the upcoming dates would be a good day. And whatever that can happen will go as planned.

There goes analyzing my birthday. On to reading the cards.

He asked me to place my energy on the cards, to breathe in the positive energy and exhale the negatives, shuffle the deck 7times, and to pick out 13 cards with my intuitive hand (my left).

He laid it out and looked at them intently, asking about normal stuff, if I was in a relationship currently, if I was working, and all that.

He felt that I was thinking so much about a lot of things. Boy, was he right.

Currently the empress is being blocked by a force that seems to be making me hard to balance my personal and my work life. He saw me in so much anxiety and I seem to be having pent-up negative energy inside me building (SCREW YOU!) and it was being a hindrance to my success. I was actually fearing relationship matters with my colleagues.

He told me not to get influenced by anybody but to make decisions on my own. No one should be able to direct me but myself and I think that's fair.

I maybe carrying heavy burdens right now, but everything will be lifted. It was the perfect time for me to find a job supposedly and I will be financially stable in the future.

It seems pretty fair. So when the general reading was over, he asked me to as him 6 questions. Anything I want to know, money, love career, family anything.

Here were my questions in no particular order.

1. Ano ba talaga problema ng mama ko sa akin? (what is really my mother's problem about me?)
   He was looking at the cards and looked at me with this tsktsktsk look. He told me that I will be more successful than anyone in the family, and I will be leaving them. For good. That is my mother's fear, that I leave her. Probably.
   
2. Would I be able to find a good job? Yes. Now's a good time to look.
   
3. How is he anyway? Doing better. His heart is lifted.
4. Will I get married? Yes, not only you will be married, but also financially stable
   
5. Will he and I be together in the long run? Maybe not, there's a chance, but it will be hard.
   
6. Are his intentions real? Real enough, but he may still falter.
   

I have gotten real and very practical answers

Then he gave me the cards, place them on my hands and ask for a secret wish, a wish that you can only tell when it comes true, so I placed my hands and wished for it with all my might. And I did. And picked out 3 cards if the wish would come true.

And lastly, what will be the road of my life. He said that for now, impulse is not a necessity but a need to be rational is more important. I would be successful and stable and I would even have enough money to help the poor. Amazing.

I thanked him for being enlightened (and tickled) paid him the php500 fee and left knowing a little bit more on what to do later on.

That was the power of the tarot force.

two sides.

Life will always rely on a side a and b (think overnight stay and lack thereof briefs). Surprising as it seems, nobody really likes looking at both sides, especially if they have already seen the comfort zone.

I want to talk about the two sides of a particular touchy topic that is very one-sided throughout the years. You can read on to know what I am talking about. And you can save all your violent reactions later in the comments section.

~

It's always hard to let go of someone you love, especially if you really and truly care for that person. Sometimes, you'd think that the world has ended and you don't give a flying f anymore about life, wishing we just die and move on in the ashes.

How we all wish it was that simple, that each time life gets so hard, we just want to lay an eternal rest.

I guess the only friend we really have in this predicament is time. During a period in which I like to call The Gray Haze, waking up and sleeping was the hardest, getting out of bed was as bad as trying to lift 40 muscled men out of the way to haul ass in the shower. I am willing to bet that 5 years of my life has been shimmied away from the massive amounts of caffeine and nicotine that have rushed in my system, and tilted my already insane mind into a craptastic breakdown of fallen tears and giddy laughter.

It was madness. A circus.

It took a while, but the pain slowly went away. It used to be a gut-opening, inside-slicing, God-why-don't-you-kill-me now pain, but there's gonna be one morning you wake up and it won't feel as bad as it was in the X Years Y Months and Z Days that has passed.

I have dropped into that shit hole a few times. One of them was close to me slitting my wrists and screaming "BLOODY MURDER!". Running around the city screaming "P!*#@&$@()!@ niyo lahat!" or "P0t4 ako!" Whichever works. Whichever felt right at the moment.

Now I look back on all that and laugh. All the devious lame-brained schemes, the equally lame plotting that I never did, and all the mixed-up, pent-up emotions that I have felt.

I know what had happened before, you don't forget it, you just accept that it's there and you just let it live inside you, but how you let it live, be in fear, anger, sadness or acceptance will evolve once you have had a deeper understanding of the situation.

This is my Side A, I was the victim.

Let's flip over the tape to Side B, I was the victimizer.

Yes, I broke up with someone. A few years ago, there was a time where I had to have a choice, options were laid out before me, and I know there's no such thing as having your cake and eating it too.

Nobody takes as much hard shit as the victimizer.

First, we go to the victim himself (obviously, it's a guy, if it was herself then there would have to be some side story revelation that I really am gay). The hysterics, the explanations and the pleadings. The manic almost crazy tendencies. I remember the day we sat on the benches at the university having one of the many "talks". Asking me back, asking me all those questions that I really cannot answer, and it made me guilty. Guilty of making a decision that obviously had to have some complications, but I had to be strong. I had to go through and live up to what I have done, and never look back in regret. But only regret with all the what-ifs.

The most recent one was the hardest one, we were friends for years and I admit to being an ass. I told him everything, honestly, I didn't had to go through any pretense, nor I think cheating was the answer and just letting up when all the shit hit the fan. I told him point-blank. And god that hurts. But I'd rather have one clean swipe of the knife than a slow jagged painful one. I couldn't help but think if I was making a mistake or I wasn't, but I knew that I would be lying to myself and lying to everybody and I will be living a lie.

That I cannot take anymore.

During this time, I was probably in all the grapevines that was twitching and pulsating in waves throughout wired places. I was messaged by curious friends who was trying to dig the issue from me. They had to use my sickness as an excuse to open a conversation. (why, thank God I'm sick), when they could've asked me directly without bullshit, without all the crap.

I was judged harshly by people who only seem to know one side. The only side people like to read. I was being pushed into the you're-making-a-huge-mistake corner, and I need to see some sort of "light", it was as if I was on some delusional dream and I need to "wake up". I believe they still cling on to some idealistic pleasure of being meant to be means forever and ever, and I ruined that for them, and they want me to go fix things up and they want me to plead guilty and say I'm sorry for being a stupid piece of shit and go patch things up pronto.

It also seems that they want to make me pay, only because I was honest, only because I didn't want to lie to save myself or to save my face in front of my friends...

The only thing I'm sorry for is hurting him. I am not accountable to anybody else. If you want to hear an apology from me for you, go line up, I'll get back to you, or maybe not.

Being in side B makes you know who your real friends are. And I love them even more, with my life. I am thankful for them seeing both sides first before poking me with inquisitions and all the hoopla. They were listening, and that is the only thing I want them to do. Is to just listen.

~

Going through those sides were a roller coaster experience. Where one side is like going up slowly, and painfully, like waiting for an inevitable doom only to be racing down through all the spins. And the other is going through all the loops, sharp edges and dangerous turns, like awaiting for death.

Both praying for the fucking ride to be over.

There is no ideals in this story. No bull. Just the cold and brutal reality.

Early 2008 Birthday plans.

I, (insert my full name here), will go to Niigata to watch the 2008 Fuji Rock Festival.

AND NOBODY'S GONNA STOP MEEEEEE.

SCREW YOU ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!