Neglect
My life seems to conspire against my blog–they (referring to the aspects of my life: friends, acads, orgs) loathed it, that they use every stratagem and subterfuge known to man just to go against my blogging, just to stop me from doing a three-year habit (should I still consider it as such when it had been washed away from my system ever since I entered college?)–but I’m still doing it.
I wonder why.
This semester looks pretty tight with a theater and a critical writing class, though I can’t help but feel proud that I could still afford to drink (a bit), in the midst of reading short stories and the academic mishmash. I quit jogging two weeks ago, no wonder my stomach bulged (as if I had abs to begin with) once again. I have been neglecting my facial hair for three weeks and running, have been neglecting the luxury of reading books (my recent purchase would be One Hundred Years of Solitude for 150 pesos from Booksale!), have been neglecting my camera and the guitar as well (as if–though the phrase might sound overused–that I have guitar skills to begin with).
Ultimately, I have been neglecting writing (creative-wise) for so long. It pains me to know that even if I considered it as something precious, I neglected it from the juggles and shuffles–whatever that means.
Noche Buena
December is nearing, and though the trend of installing Christmas lights and decors has immensely decreased through the years (I couldn’t blame practicality), I’m still hoping to have a nice Christmas with Dad and… the maid. Of course. I’m thinking of grilled T-bone steak marinated with nothing but salt and pepper, buttered corn and carrots, some simmered asparagus, and tossed Caesar salad. How American, I know. It reminds me of that traditional Thanksgiving dinner (it happened May of 2008, when I last visited my Mom and my sisters and my niece in New York; my sister told me it’s a Thanksgiving dinner since we’re still… together).
Spaghetti is too heavy for the appetite (steak’s just fine for me; even better since it’s not easily spoiled, and can be fried again with garlic as salpicado, oh my), and we usually eat the traditional hamon in New Year’s Eve. I’m not fond of pancit (except pancit bihon guisado), not fond of speared hotdogs and marshmallows, too.
Wait, that doesn’t even count as something you’d prepare for a Noche Buena.
Damn it, I’d rather eat sardines and fried rice for Noche Buena (fine, pass me that platter of sausages) if Mom and my sisters were there, eating with us in the small round dining table we have. It would be very fine if my brother–if ever his third detox in the rehab worked and those ten years of drug addiction behind him–would be eating with us, too, for Noche Buena. Then our maid, Jenny, would be preparing a bonfire to burn our one-foot Christmas tree she bought in the marketplace for forty pesos in replacement of a towering one, adorned with the balls and thingamajigs dressed in this red-and-green Christmas attire, and that gold sash you usually see in beauty pageants. At its feet I’ll find a simple, heartfelt gift: a pack of Royce chocolate-coated potato chips. Fuck yeah.
What I’m saying here is that I don’t really care about the steak or that plateful of corn and carrots. Heck, it even reminds me of my family in New York! What I would really like to happen is this scene you see on local TV channels (thank goodness I don’t watch TV anymore–it might depress the hell out of me), those station IDs with such a delusional Filipino family eating Noche Buena. Together.
But if it ever that scene comes true, with the sardines and Mom and my sane brother and all, I would prefer Spanish sardines better than the canned stuff. Pass me that mashed onion-and-tomato combo soaked in patis and suka, please.
This entry was written by , posted on November 25, 2009 at 1:38 am, filed under 2in1, Baaaack then, IRLs, Life at UPLB, Slang and random. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
It’s one of those nights where it’s too late for yesterday and too early for tomorrow.
Well, I was lying in my bed in this Norman Mailer way–I mean, the way Norman Mailer’s character in The American Dream might have done it, smoking a cigarette stick and just blowing it away to the ceiling. It’s a classic way of smoking, methinks, with Cherry or Donna sleeping besides you, the way they must have looked like in the 60s or 70s, or the way those hipster polaroids depict it. I have just finished watching Insomnia from the laptop, directed by Christopher Nolan (I’m finding my way around directors lately; I think that I should know the directors too, out of respect), and by the time I was smoking my last cigarette through the Norman Mailer way (I should reread again that book if I would ever grow up, since I couldn’t exactly grasp the entire plot, sorry) my iTunes started playing blink-182.
When I was in my High School (here we go again) I used to listen to them. Not really non-stop and all that exaggerated fanboy lines, no. This Dell of a laptop first broke down in its first year, in 2007, and all my music files were wiped out from the system–my blogging archives and my music, including my entire blink-182 discography. I soon got tired of redeeming my entire library back (which is full of Saosin and Senses Fail, heh) so I didn’t give a shit about my library until recently, when I tried logging in to my Last.fm account.
I downloaded some of their albums I liked last Friday and it hit me.
One of my personally memorable posts in Utakgago.com is entitled “Songs as Memory Cards”, and though it did fail (unanimously!) in its attempt to narrate or pose this capability of songs to save memories, well, I still liked the thought. I don’t even think the readers understood what I’ve said in that post; they thought it’s esoteric, or that it is just some fucked up delusion I made
What hit me is that whenever I listen to blink-182 songs, I don’t remember High School. At all. BUT it gives me shivers, for in the summer of 2007 at Fort Lee, New Jersey, when I was at the backseat of the Subaru my sister used to own, I was listening to blink-182’s Down. (I do have an unquestionably sharp memory.)
At my sixth puff I was listening to Stay Together For The Kids, and it was eerie to listen to, in a night like that. November. The biting cold.
As I type this I’m listening to All The Small Things and all I remember was their awesome video–they were nude, all right, and they looked like Backstreet Boys and shit and it was beyond hilarious.
I know some of you guys don’t like blink-182 since they’re punk, or that you hate tattoos who happened to look like men (or rockstars, or Pharrell). But to put it generally, there are certain kinds of songs where we develop this special, personal (even biased) intimacy. Our spines shiver, our faces smile, our eyes well with tears out of the nostalgia we stoically deny. May it be blink-182 or that braided Britney Spears singing in the late 90s–or even Sammy Davis Jr. for all I care–the point of those special songs we have on our playlists, on our iPods or what-have-yous, is to refresh memories in our minds. It could torture us to the point that we would want to delete the song or crack the CD (don’t do it; I’m also on the verge of deleting my blink-182 songs because of the same reason) but that’s life: it’s a royal pain in the ass no matter where you go. At least you’re listening to a song. I’d be damned if it’s blink-182, too.
That way, they’re memory cards. I don’t really care if you guys understand it, but this is better than the former write-up (which is so last 2007; bordering on palm-in-the-face sentences and awkwardly written emotions).
This entry was written by , posted on November 9, 2009 at 8:46 pm, filed under Baaaack then, Last song syndromes, Pensive shits, Sentemotional. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
An uncle once told me, probably out of shock for five, six long interminable years of longing, with the familial head-to-toe scan, that it took him a while to remember that it was me–not Dad–who’s visiting to review his eldest (my cousin) for the UPCAT.
“Man, you’re just like your Dad. You look exactly–and I mean exactly–like your Dad thirty-five years ago!” I winced out of embarrassment for my uncle and Dad had a massive dispute two years ago, and that meant that if he were to have a gun right now he’d pick a revolver and lock it under my jaw.
It was funny that ever since I was born, I consider stray remarks regarding my resemblance to Dad an insult. A very personal insult. “No, I look like Mom! Right, Mom? I look like you!” Mom would nod and smile, and her dimples would show, and goddamnit I didn’t have her dimples.
In this blog I’ve been very careful not to disclose anything about Dad, though a couple of mentions can be searched but anything close to personal can be considered vague, if not pointless. Backed up with reasons, my mind tells me I should leave Dad. Nest in my dorm, probably work at the coffee shop–the typical teenage runaway scenes where the protagonist embarks on a bus, smokes non-stop, chit-chats some random seatmate, just like old Holden. Catcher in the Rye.
This entry was written by , posted on June 22, 2009 at 10:11 am, filed under Baaaack then, IRLs. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
