*sigh*

there's something about cleaning my mouse ball while listening to two of us by aimee mann that makes me so at peace with the world.

:)

RANDOM LIST

1. ate too much sugar today. not good.

2. mike thinks i'm asleep. i actually want to call him up... but he's tired and i want to be mature tonight and let him rest. (yeehee.)

3. listening to 'i am sam' soundtrack makes me miss my crazy life back in college.

4. chatting with red is always refreshing. we can chat for hours about life-altering things... and meaningless shit. it's the best thing ever. i miss you red.

5. i drank nature's tea earlier tonight. my stomach is going wild on me now. herm.

6. i am addicted to harry potpot. i watched the prisoner of azkaban again tonight. i cannot wait for goblet of fire to come out. eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep! i'll be working the day it comes out. craaaap.

7. i'm turning 24 in less than a month... and i feel like a total loser. well... not really. but i feel so under-achieved. i should kick my ass harder and keep this ball i have rolling. yabaah.

8. everyone's cheating on everyone these days. pathetic.

9. i am a firm believer that dumbledore is still alive. :P

10. i woke up from my nap this afternoon looking for mike like a lunatic. that has never happened to me before. talk about in too deep. :P

11. i realized today that my father says the lousiest jokes in the world. i love him for that.

12. strangely, i do not enjoy DVD or CD shopping. i panic when there's a shitload of titles in front of me to choose from. weird.

13. my relationship with my computer is becoming too serious. i think we need to cool off and give each other some space.

14. i miss the golden girls. i really learned a lot from those old maids.

15. mean confession: i hate maria mena. i think she tries too hard to be profound.

16. i hate shopping at national bookstore. for some reason, i end up walking out the store with more things than i need. tsk tsk.

17. EMBARRASSING CONFESSION: i have NO idea what people mean when they say "mazel tov." someone enlighten me.

18. i am having the strangest recollection of a bedtime story my ate z used to read to me... about a mouse stealing cheese and clothing and cotton from some house for its' family. apparently pests experience human conditions as well.

19. i have no idea why my friends ask me for love advice... when i totally suck at it. i can't even write a freaking script on love. yeeesh.

20. i wonder sometimes if i'm living the life i'm destined to live... and if it matters that i am or not.

DOKYUMENTARYO

hapunan ng isang butiki sa silid-aklatan.

astig!

*burp*

eight months old

photo by joy yu

48 million drafts later...

... i revise for the 49th million time.

so THIS is life...
it's all about drafting and revising..., writing and eventually rewriting..., editing and eventually re-editing..., doing things and EVENTUALLY finding out that you've done them wrong so that you're given a choice to either A) see what you've done as a waste and kill yourself... or B) see what you've done as an opportunity to pick up yet another valuable lesson.

thank God i'm sensible enough NOW to choose B. gawin nyo pang 548 million drafts yan... gagawin at gagawin ko hanggang kinakailangan....

all for the love of living life. :)

maging akin muli

kapiling mo akong laging naghihintay sa tanging tawag mo
pag-ibig kong ito
isang pananabik sa puso ko
sa 'yong pagbabalik sa piling kong puspos ng pagsuyo
manahimik at makinig ka't maging akin muli.

in college, this was the song that brought me back to faith and to all that was good and memorable.

now, it plays again that i may head, answer, and learn what He has planned for me in this lifetime.

thank You.

wonders never cease

so gab was sick, and it was dengue nga. tsss. damn striped mosquitos. we brought her to the hospital earlier this week, where she was confined for a few days. i was her faithful achay... ready to run, jump, sit, stand, and swim (but not to wake up in the middle of the night. hehehe.) just to make her feel better. i never thought that being a bantay could be so fattening. gab didn't have much of an appetite, so i ended up eating all the food that was meant for her... about half a dozen country style donuts, goldilock's meat pies, chocolate cupcakes, mamon, butter cake, pizza, subway sandwiches, and chocolate malt balls. yeheeeeeeeeebah. oink oink. but i wasn't all just a useless pig, eating gab's leftovers. i got to do some reading -- YES! i'm finally done with harry potter 6. i cried like a baby. kakaiba. KAKAIBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. i heart dumbledore. *sniff* -- and also got to write a few film concepts and notes for my future project with reg (*wink*). so exciting! more importantly, i got to do some movie-watching on hbo... which kinda led me into thinking about things....

it started off with one of my absolute favorites, Love Actually. it was the scene where billy mack went to his manager's pad on christmas. his manager was confused as to what billy mack was doing at his place when billy was invited to elton john's rockin' christmas party... and it was then when he said the most cliche truth in the most un-cliche way...

Billy Mack: I realized that Christmas is the time to be
with the people you love.

Joe: Right.

Billy Mack: And I realized that as dire chance and
fateful cockup would have it, here I am, mid 50s, and without knowing it I've
gone and spent most of my adult life with a chubby employee. And much as it
grieves me to say it, it might be that the people I love is, in fact... you.
[pause]

Joe: Well, this is a surprise.

Billy Mack: Yeah...

Joe: Ten minutes at Elton John's and you're as gay as a
maypole.

ain't it great? it's so new for me... how this particular scene made me realize things about my own life... about the situation i was in. i know i had a pile-load of stuff to do, but i willingly and STRANGELY said yes to watch over my sister. (okay. so i kinda had no choice... but even if i did have one, my answer would've been the same.) this isn't to say what kind of a sister i am... that i'm all loving and crap. i'm actually a pain in the ass to my siblings sometimes. they rarely say it, but i'm "the different one" among us. i always got in trouble with my parents, never thought twice about how they'd get affected and was self-centered like anything. but that was before.

i dunno what happened... but i feel like things have changed. like... i care more about my family now than i ever have before. i worry about them when they're not feeling well... and i want to be there for them when they need me... or even when they don't need me. altho my parents or siblings may not agree with those things, i kind of don't care... so long as i continue to love them that way.

and then it hit me... this is EXACTLY how my family cares for me... willing to do everything for me... not caring whether i care they care... just as long as they know i'm well. i cried thinking about it... even ended up listing down every insane sacrifice my family made for me... which made me cry even more... and VERY happy. despite all the disagreements and clashes that get in the way of a peaceful home, i've come to realize how lucky my family is to be blessed with such security... that no matter what, we have one another to cling on to for love and support.

all this from a stupid dengue mosquito. wonders really never cease.

PARTNERS AND MARRIAGE

CORRECTION: I just found out that contrary to popular belief, the essay below was not written by Professor Eduardo Calasanz. It is an excerpt from Letters to My Son: A Father’s Wisdom on Manhood, Life, and Love by Kent Nerburn. :) sorry for the mix-up.

_____________________

i was cleaning out my hard drive earlier tonight and came across this exceptional essay that was forwarded to me thru email long, long ago. reading it now -- two years and over a thousand painful, heart-yanking experiences later -- made me cry a little... and smile loads. :) having gone through quite a lot in the (relationship) department made me appreciate what the writer had to say here. truly... i cannot imagine anything more gratifying, tho difficult, than finding one's true love in life. *sigh*

please take time to read this. it'll only take ten minutes at most, and every minute will be worth it. i promise. if you've read this before, read it again. hopefully you'll find new meaning to it as i have tonight.



PARTNERS AND MARRIAGE

I have never met a man who didn't want to be loved. But I have seldom met a man who didn't fear marriage. Something about the closure seems constricting, not enabling. Marriage seems easier to understand for what it cuts out of our lives than for what it makes possible within our lives.

When I was younger this fear immobilized me. I did not want to make a mistake. I saw my friends get married for reasons of social acceptability, or sexual fever, or just because they thought it was the logical thing to do. Then I watched, as they and their partners became embittered and petty in their dealings with each other. I looked at older couples and saw, at best, mutual toleration of each other. I imagined a lifetime of loveless nights and bickering and could not imagine subjecting myself or someone else to such a fate.

And yet, on rare occasions, I would see old couples who somehow seemed to glow in each other's presence. They seemed really in love, not just dependent upon each other and tolerant of each other's foibles. It was an astounding sight, and it seemed impossible. How, I asked myself, can they have survived so many years of sameness, so much irritation at the others habits? What keeps love alive in them, when most of us seem unable to even stay together, much less love each other?

The central secret seems to be in choosing well. There is something to the claim of fundamental compatibility. Good people can create a bad relationship, even though they both dearly want the relationship to succeed. It is important to find someone with whom you can create a good relationship from the outset. Unfortunately, it is hard to see clearly in the early stages.

Sexual hunger draws you to each other and colors the way you see yourselves together. It blinds you to the thousands of little things by which relationships eventually survive or fail. You need to find a way to see beyond this initial overwhelming sexual fascination. Some people choose to involve themselves sexually and ride out the most heated period of sexual attraction in order to see what is on the other side. This can work, but it can also leave a trail of wounded hearts. Others deny the sexual side altogether in an attempt to get to know each other apart from their sexuality. But they cannot see clearly, because the presence of unfulfilled sexual desire looms so large that it keeps them from having any normal perception of what life would be like together.

The truly lucky people are the ones who manage to become long-time friends before they realize they are attracted to each other. They get to know each other's laughs, passions, sadness, and fears. They see each other at their worst and at their best. They share time together before they get swept up into the entangling intimacy of their sexuality. This is the ideal, but not often possible. If you fall under the spell of your sexual attraction immediately, you need to look beyond it for other keys to compatibility.

One of these is laughter. Laughter tells you how much you will enjoy each others company over the long term. If your laughter together is good and healthy, and not at the expense of others, then you have a healthy relationship to the world. Laughter is the child of surprise. If you can make each other laugh, you can always surprise each other. And if you can always surprise each other, you can always keep the world around you new.

Beware of a relationship in which there is no laughter. Even the most intimate relationships based only on seriousness have a tendency to turn sour. Over time, sharing a common serious viewpoint on the world tends to turn you against those who do not share the same viewpoint, and your relationship can become based on being critical together.

After laughter, look for a partner who deals with the world in a way you respect. When two people first get together, they tend to see their relationship as existing only in the space between the two of them. They find each other endlessly fascinating, and the overwhelming power of the emotions they are sharing obscures the outside world. As the relationship ages and grows, the outside world becomes important again. If your partner treats people or circumstances in a way you can't accept, you will inevitably come to grief. Look at the way she cares for others and deals with the daily affairs of life. If that makes you love her more, your love will grow. If it does not, be careful. If you do not respect the way you each deal with the world around you, eventually the two of you will not respect each other.

Look also at how your partner confronts the mysteries of life. We live on the cusp of poetry and practicality, and the real life of the heart resides in the poetic. If one of you is deeply affected by the mystery of the unseen in life and relationships, while the other is drawn only to the literal and the practical, you must take care that the distance does not become an unbridgeable gap that leaves you each feeling isolated and misunderstood.

There are many other keys, but you must find them by yourself. We all have unchangeable parts of our hearts that we will not betray and private commitments to a vision of life that we will not deny. If you fall in love with someone who can not nourish those inviolable parts of you, or if you cannot nourish them in her, you will find yourselves growing further apart until you live in separate worlds where you share the business of life, but never touch each other where the heart lives and dreams. From there it is only a small leap to the cataloging of petty hurts and daily failures that leaves so many couples bitter and unsatisfied with their mates.

So choose carefully and well. If you do, you will have chosen a partner with whom you can grow, and then the real miracle of marriage can take place in your hearts. I pick my words carefully when I speak of a miracle. But I think it is not too strong a word. There is a miracle in marriage. It is called transformation. Transformation is one of the most common events of nature. The seed becomes the flower. The cocoon becomes the butterfly. Winter becomes spring and love becomes a child. We never question these, because we see them around us every day. To us they are not miracles, though if we did not know them they would be impossible to believe.

Marriage is a transformation we choose to make. Our love is planted like a seed, and in time it begins to flower. We cannot know the flower that will blossom, but we can be sure that a bloom will come. If you have chosen carefully and wisely, the bloom will be good. If you have chosen poorly or for the wrong reason, the bloom will be flawed. We are quite willing to accept the reality of negative transformation in a marriage. It was negative transformation that always had me terrified of the bitter marriages that I feared when I was younger. It never occurred to me to question the dark miracle that transformed love into harshness and bitterness. Yet I was unable to accept the possibility that the first heat of love could be transformed into something positive that was actually deeper and more meaningful than the heat of fresh passion. All I could believe in was the power of this passion and the fear that when it cooled I would be left with something lesser and bitter.

But there is positive transformation as well. Like negative transformation, it results from a slow accretion of little things. But instead of death by a thousand blows, it is growth by a thousand touches of love. Two histories intermingle. Two separate beings, two separate presence, two separate consciousness come together and share a view of life that passes before them. They remain separate, but they also become one.

There is an expansion of awareness, not a closure and a constriction, as I had once feared. This is not to say that there is not tension and there are not traps. Tension and traps are part of every choice of life, from celibate to monogamous to having multiple lovers. Each choice contains within it the lingering doubt that the road not taken somehow more fruitful and exciting, and each becomes dulled to the richness that it alone contains.

But only marriage allows life to deepen and expand and be leavened by the knowledge that two have chosen, against all odds, to become one. Those who live together without marriage can know the pleasure of shared company, but there is a specific gravity in the marriage commitment that deepens that experience into something richer and more complex.

So do not fear marriage, just as you should not rush into it for the wrong reasons. It is an act of faith and it contains within it the power of transformation. If you believe in your heart that you have found someone with whom you are able to grow, if you have sufficient faith that you can resist the endless attraction of the road not taken and the partner not chosen, if you have the strength of heart to embrace the cycles and seasons that your love will experience, then you may be ready to seek the miracle that marriage offers. If not, then wait. The easy grace of a marriage well made is worth your patience. When the time comes, a thousand flowers will bloom... endlessly.

gyeb-gyeb is a sick.

in the head? well... *snicker* no. she's been down with what seems to be the flu (it might be dengue). since i am her roommate, i am also sumkinduvlike her attentive nurse-slash-yaya-slash-sponge bath giver. yebbah. gotta love all that tender loving care... bwahahaha. :P

to those who get to read this, please offer a short prayer for her that she may get well soon. tenks.