*Cough, Cough*

Cobwebs and dust mites claimed this page. I hope to find the proper motivation to give this spot a proper sweeping. Let's see. 

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Crushing On Carding

Sid Lucero, it is the promise of you flickering onscreen that I watched Rosario and all I can say is: Why are you so goshdarn annoying?! When I say annoying I mean you dare to have it all: smoldering gazes, gravitas, panache, effortless restraint, undeniable depths of talent to match those steaming good looks! Ignore the fact that you’re fundamentally a celebrity/royalty but if you so much as drop a hint that your IQ is above 130 well I’ll overlook the whole morality of the debate and personally rally to have you cloned!

Your Carding is so palpable, gut-wrenching, devastatingly beautiful we felt we’re not watching scenes onscreen but a projection of a slice of our selves. To know that there exist close to nil Cardings in the world all the more make us pine for you to be real.

But you, Sid, is real, and someone else as real owns you.

So we watch your shimmering self onscreen as you toss your humanity towards the audience, eclipsing everyone, giving us voyeurs a darkened blanket to behold you with a mixture of awe, longing and pain.

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Vote For Chiksilog!

Obviously I'm too busy for a proper campaign so I urge voyeurs and random folks who wander in here to vote for CHIKSILOG for the blogger's choice category!

Best of luck, XG!

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Hushbreaker

Speaking of minor yet quite significant crushes, I am vacillating between Ann Curtis and Sid Lucero. I’ll give further details about this if planets align and some insane urge to blog hits me. Meantime, you, loyal voyeur, are getting these three grand sentences.

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Walking Home, Stirred

Movies reveal more than we really care to admit. Cloaked with blanket of darkness we see our forgotten, secret sadness, nervous relief, joys, humanity and aspirations staring back at us like mirrors that glimmer of omnipresent recognition. We root for the star-crossed, deeply flawed heroes flickering onscreen and a portion of us depart our private selves and leap towards the scene to participate, to toss out lines we are too familiar to recite—heartaches and absolute pining for instance, are said, in different words, phrases, idioms, expressions and nuances, all talking about the same deep, throbbing wound that we carry in silence, only now, following the movements onscreen we are reminded, like intimate echoes, and we nod with tender, awakened consent.

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Daydreams are Non Tax Deductible, Are They?

Facebook’s all fired up with updates 10.10.10. Impressionable idiots propagated this like it’s the most clever thing than splitting the atom itself.

I kid you, of course.

10.10.10 is supposed to be a perfect day. Since I’m the undisputed grumpmaster I’d say upfront that ‘perfection’ is the word that scares the daylight out of any rational man. Why do humans flog themselves with a delusion that there is such thing as perfect? Perfection is invented by deeply insecure people. The wise ones laugh at such folly.

But that got me into thinking. If I may leap right smack into this herd-like breed of thinking, how would I imagine a “perfect day” without boring people interminably with 10.10.10 memes?

What on God’s decaying earth is a perfect day? Let’s see.

A perfect day is when your ipod dock randomly picks U2’s Beautiful Day or Lighthouse Family’s High as wakeup alarm tune and you refuse to slam the snooze button.

You groggily drag yourself to the shower and the heater temperature doesn’t scald you to medium rare.

You pick up the shampoo/soap/body scrub and it doesn’t slip out of your clutch like an uncooperative eel.

You pick up the toothbrush and notice how your teeth gleams, making you make a mental note to cancel the exorbitantly priced whitening appointment from your smug orthodontist.

You gargle on your first caffeine fix of the day and feel happy as a pup, the warmth sliding down your throat makes you contented and calm.

You nail your day’s wardrobe at first try.

You exit your flat and the downward elevator opens at the exact same time.
There are no pesky kids, smelly people, and grumpy occupants in the lift. Also someone’s wearing your favorite scent.

Traffic was a breeze and you find yourself humming a tune instead of cursing under your breath or waving at other drivers with four fingers bent.

Attractive, sophisticated people share the lift with you instead of rowdy call center agents loudly displaying their recently acquired accent which makes you guess what part of Pluto is the provenance of such twaddle.

Your phone doesn’t ring.

There is a fight among your colleagues/friends over insisting to pay for your lunch.
You happily fork over heart-clutching dessert without mentally calculating the number of minutes of atonement on the treadmill.

Your superior had a bright epiphany and decided to do the smart thing instead of being an insufferable knucklehead.

The top priority tray is mysteriously depleted.

You pass by an ATM and there’s no queue.

You get inside the bank and the teller puts the “next teller/breaktime” countertop/tent card right after serving you.

Nobody emails asking you things that can be answered by life forms with five functioning brain cells.

Over dinner the waiter's not only attentive and polite but s/he places your orders right and has dimples that can put the Middle Eastern conflicts into a grinding halt.

Over drinks your favorite humans try and set you up with someone you’d actually bone at first glance.

You bone the one you’re set up with and it restores your faith in the universe.

Cosy flat greets you like a loyal pet.

You slide into bed, wishing there is such a thing as a perfect day.

You realize there is none so you let out a soft chuckle as you click off the lights and surrender to the kindness of dreams.

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Oh, Hello, I Forgot My Keys, Bye

Visitors, most especially the untreatable neatniks, would glance at my office desk and elicit a low groan of disbelief. Their eyes would torpedo on the mounting mess of office priorities (what priorities? Everything’s stamped “the world will end this nanosecond, finish this fucking work!”) and their minds would whirr with high and mighty judgments about my abysmal lack of tidying skills while trying out of politeness not to imitate the rapid eyeball rolling trademarked by Linda Blair. The hell I care; I love my desk—it has a “lived in” resemblance of King Tutankhamen’s crypt after the looters trashed it and the mere fact that I’m making a vain parallel to mummified royals tombs and the rubbles of my working space is proof enough that I’m still trying to have a semblance of a busy, productive professional life. Ergo, blogging duties be damned. Pesky inquiries about my whereabouts, or the state of my well-being (no, I’m not decomposing unmourned in some remote landfill, though I know of some people who wish I am), this compact entry should be answer enough for now. I miss Manila and my favorite haunts, the mindless movies and the smart banters with smartass online friends who long ago threw the proverbial towel of defeat from waiting for a semi-coherent update.

Also, hello Xienahgirl and DencioPadilla.

There. Now I’m back to semi-silence.

ALSO: hello misterhubs and doc ian!

There. Hahaha

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Loudcloud, Vaguely Explained

N.S., a voyeur of this blog, needled me with questions that prompted this unplanned post. His concerns are the following:

I am writing to tell you that I am amazed by your writing in your LoudCloud Blog. How do you make such good writing? Do you have special, maybe expensive software? What books are you reading? What habits of writing can you give to a frustrated, non-English speaking, aspiring writer like me? It’s been more than 3-month ages ago since your last post in your blog. You used to be prolific, and the dwindling total number of posts each year is noticeable. Still, the quality of each post impresses me to no end. They are at par with those by Jessica Zafra or Clinton Palanca. Now, if you could answer and share with me why you are so good. Hope you help me with my poor writing. And hope to see that long overdue post, which is worth it.

Your kind words make my nipple harden especially when I keep on rereading that bit where my incoherent twaddles are mentioned in the same league as The Overlord Of The Universe and another fine man of Philippine Letters. However I have a nasty chromosomal streak that keeps my delusional tendencies in check so I must dampen your enthusiasm and say that I am not at par with those literary supernovas. I am not being coy; false humility is not stitched in my DNA either. What I do best is poke fun at the ridiculousness of everything (Hello, Cris Pablo! When’s the next flick?).

My blog is what it is: a blog. It’s not falling into the caliber of writing worthy of thesis dissection. It’s an obscure repository of warped drivels and occasional bursts of emo-ness that would make your epithelial cells curl.

I am sorry to have disappointed you dear N. I thought I’d make it painless for both of us and point you directly to Rilke’s Letters To A Young Poet so I can resume combating with my tornado-riddled daily life. I fear I am not the most credible adviser as far as finding your writing voice is concerned. The chic and catty Kitty Go once said that writing and cooking is something inherent: you either have it or you don’t. But I am sure there are seminars or workshops where foundations of great writing are taught, helping you find your own voice.

As for loudcloud, it’s not a voice worthy of analysis. It is an irregular disjointed howl of random things that the general universe can exist without much need of. Save for a few voyeurs who inhaled prohibited substances and for inexplicable reason keeps digressing here for unpredictable dispatch of warpedness.

Their persistent loyalty is rewarded with very long gaps in between posts.

Thereby educating them with the virtue of forbearance.

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The Séance of Sleep

Outside my window sleep avoids the city and I am a compatriot in this plague. Looking down, the opposite lanes of EDSA stream with headlights; their velocities determined by degrees of drowsiness, urgencies and whether the limbs tapping the pedals have had an extra cup of coffee that afternoon. Pedestrians huddle in elevated walkways, their movements erratic, like a ballet orphaned by a sinister choreographer. Near the lower end of the stair planks the blind guitarist strums paeans to heartbreaks, accompanying the desperation drifting from sweet unschooled voice of the equally-blind female vocalist seating beneath him, their tragic duet a catalyst of sudden philanthropy and quiet shudder of relief among passersby who are confronted of their plight but unwilling to imagine having a chance to share in their misfortune. A pair of lovers, having just punched out their attendance sheet in the nearby grocery walk by, their feet a bundle of aching nerves for having stood all day yet their spirits are light, consoled by the thought of sharing a bowl of goto in the neighborhood stall—a moment where they are absolutely assured to be in control of their destinies before they part ways with a quick kiss into the hard boards of their respective bed spaces to dream of better lives before tomorrow’s drudgery start to creep in and rob them of such fantasies. A Sluggish cabby combs the streets for that random call center agent rushing to midnight shift so he can meet the boundary rates; a slight mix of remorse and guilt creep into his thoughts for having acted like a jerk, tormenting commuters during rush hours. Along the fading refrains of sappy pop songs and the hoarse voices of late callers seeking breakup advice from a DJ who feigns sympathy, he touches the dangling Rosary twined around the connecting node of a rearview mirror, bargaining with God for a generous passenger. Street urchins accost strangers with practiced expressions of pain only to be ignored. Policemen patrol the well-maintained lanes this side of the metropolis like bored hawks, avoiding an occasion of impulsive penile erection from staring at the pinup leering in the center spread of a tabloid. The convenience store across the corner becomes a beehive of chains smokers, drifters, a couple darting off their car who forgot a quart of milk earlier, insomniacs, hustlers busily tapping their mobile phones with their impatience growing while their patrons suffer the slowness of elevators and BPO employees having animated conversations in their newly-acquired accents. I pull the canvass curtain shutters, forfeiting myself from tableaus of wakefulness staging autonomous concerts twenty nine floors below, wondering what shades will float into my dream, if it ever comes, and whether it will have a face or a name that will haunt me long after I wake up.

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Just Because Jose Mari Chan Made It His Album Title Doesn’t Mean I’d Get out Of This Rut

Change, as clichéd tongues would mechanically wag to no end, is constant.Jose Mari Chan wailed (rather painfully) about it too. Though there is little room to dispute this unadventurous wisdom the smartass in me would oftentimes roll my eyes and reenact soundless vomiting midsentence when this very tenet is uttered.

What makes this tired belief more insufferable is the fact that whoever utters it is possessed of massive reserves of optimism that makes you wonder whether s/he swallowed both the sun and Oprah for breakfast.

I, being a habitual pragmatic/jaded lot, would take on this disposition with characteristic glum of someone who steered clear of Chicken Shit For The Soul, which is the cue for Mr./Ms. Sunshine to save me from the clutches of pessimism. Which, is precisely my cue to start screaming and begin entertaining thoughts on cannibalism.

And the most annoying thing is Mr/Ms Sunshine would smile brightly when you reject his/her positive, cheerful and hopeful disposition.

MSUNSHINE: Change is the only constant in this world.
YOU: So is your endless supply of clichés that makes my pancreas gray with boredom.
MSUNSHINE: (Smiling so bright you can tan youself under his/her gums): Why so negative?! Today is but another day and tomorrow...
YOU: *stabs him/her with a salad fork in the eye*

Which makes me wish for a raw deal:

IDEAL MSUNSHINE PREACHING: What an ungrateful, wretched bastard you are! Of course things change and you can either grow up and embrace this reality like every thinking person would rather than moping around like a baby who deserves to be forcedfed his own diapers! If it were up to me, fools such as yourself refusing to accept the evolutionary nature of things should have been aborted so you become less of a burden in this already insane world! Get real you piece of waste of protein!

I would have more respect for a person like that.

But no, I would always receive a dramatic sigh, an almost-psychotic smile and a sympathetic gaze that tells me the mutterer of a thousand clichés is worried for my very own welfare.

S/he probably is, and it’s a comfort to know it.

But why is unsolicited kindness always the Siamese twin of cliché?

Whatever happened to originality?

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Hello, I Maybe On My Way Out Again

Disappearances are the hotbed of anguish. Often than not the despair resides in the hearts of those who are widowed by nonattendance, where it throbs and branches out like springtime tendrils searching for answers or apologies. The absentee, no matter how valid the reasons, or how urgent the manner of departure will always leave a bruise while carrying with him a pouch of guilt that can only be mended by homecomings.

When words fail you, melodrama comes in handy, doesn’t it?

Hello, I’m partially back. (Be warned though: this might lead to another sudden exit.)

I miss out on a lot of things, obviously. Just thinking on how to catch up exhausts the living sap out of me.

I wish I know which one to pick up first: the broom to sort out the cobwebs around here, or the mouse to click my way into non-refundable ticket to sunny Rio?

Decisions, decisions.

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Hello, Arsonist II

Strange. Ego deserted me and I muddle about for sober words to explain this sudden, awakened fondness. I go about my hectic day distracted, trying to locate a proper drawer in which to confine this incomprehensible stirring. Your harmless smile was a constant ghost - unshakable, omniscient like blinking billboards growing in every vacant space. It lingers: merciless, relentless, confronting me in every turn, humiliating me into realization of my feared vulnerability.

Nothing quite prepared me for your unscheduled arrival. I was in my prime that day: competent, self-assured—cocky even—dispensing shallow anecdotes, second-hand philosophies and creative treatises to pass the time as we all wait for the scheduled creative session to commence. I was bantering animatedly with your colleagues feeling rather good about myself: Life is worth living again—a positive career detour, novel challenges and I am in a time and place where I am in my element, the very familiar neighborhood of my creative enthusiasms.

I should be untroubled of the fact that you seem conventional on the surface: calm, steady gaze, fairly beautiful in a nonthreatening way, a self-possessed smile that is equal parts shy and searching.

You eroded me on the spot.

My defenses would hastily, alarmingly remind me that there are far more overwhelmingly beautiful subjects around worthy of my obsessive pursuits. I deal with them on a regular basis, them being demigods and demigoddesses blessed with polished features, physical proportions and excessive charisma enough to weaken the uninitiated. They orbit my professional life as faces we employ to trigger desire in others. And I thought that I have set my feet firmly at a point in my life when I can capably boast to have seen a fair share of superior good looks enough to be immune and unflustered; that I am now accomplished in the art of not being easily awed; that I would know how to navigate my way in a crowd of loveliness unscathed; that you will be a commonplace comparison to the grand buffet of beauties out there.

I never realized the gross miscalculations of it all until you held my gaze and that blameless smile raced across your bright, disarming face.

I was this close to being gone.

So I might as well profess this disconcerting feeling and come out clean of this disorientation. I might as well commit these thoughts into writing in the great hope that seeing them take shape into characters, words and paragraphs the feeling would come off too ridiculous and restore my conviction; that this is mere delinquency, a passing weakness not unlike beholding and being smitten by a glossy spread in a magazine. That this stirring is naive, silly and eventually be regarded inconsequential, a future source of shudders, self-mockings and embarrassments. Yet it’s not as easy as it seems. There are no manuals and tonics that can be easily had for these anxieties. That being human is sometimes an agonizing and sudden roundabout route into defencelessness.

However—and contrary to all these self-abortive denials—allow me to come to terms with a great difficulty:

You have set my armor worthless and I gazed back at you that day quietly shaken, my thoughts racing.

I was wordless, my spirits ablaze.

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Hello, Arsonist

Confidence is an elected armor, isolating my helplessness and the arrows of your steady gaze. Look elsewhere because I am beginning to fumble for words.

I’m starting to feel naked.

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Give 'Em Hell, Osang!

Noontime television shows are a daily source of pure steaming shit. They keep on bastardizing the media’s powers and shred every remaining speck of intelligence of viewers. They keep on churning subhuman, formulaic, unwatchable idiocy and pander on the desperation of underprivileged populace and brand it entertainment and civil service.

And now it seems that the charming sparks at MTRCB, in a blinding flash of supergenius, are hell-bent in establishing a society of sedated woodpeckers of us.

MTRCB I have a branding slogan for you: "Thinkers Will Be Shot"

I applaud the balls of Ms. Roces—she’s been candid, brutally honest, yes, and speaking for what seems to be a fair assessment of majority of our educators isn’t about being insensitive: it is a glaring malaise that needs a sobering rethink. Our dank educational system has long ago gone to hell and when someone points it out she is vilified? People, you don’t need to oust a judge like that: you put her in charge of the government! You don't suspend a show not because you have an outspoken judge; you suspend it because its very existence is offensive to the basic dignity of humanity.

This is a democracy and a contrarian opinion should be encouraged, not subverted.

MTRCB is neither a voice of reason nor the guardian of morality. It’s an unwanted institution gloating in it's sparkling vision: zombify every citizen into a society of agreeable, slavering idiots.

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Hello, Dreamer

[ DOC WHO? ]

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Hello, Truant

Dear LouCloud,

Skip the pleasantries and let’s zero in on the most raw of facts: you’re a negligent blockhead. You seem to have forgotten how to write a decent blog, and let’s not even get started on the sorry state with which you have abandoned TBAC.

What happened? Someone stole your thesaurus? Shift+F7 keys worn out from rampant abuse? Mental Herpes?

Frankly I am sorely disappointed. I have put up with your inadequate postings in 2009 and I will no longer tolerate the same dismal state in 2010.

I miss you and your many hideous tendencies. I miss us.

Where are you? Where were you? Have you allowed yourself to drown in the gutters of a good book and decided not to come back?

Will you come back?

If you ever did, will you have breathless stories to tell?

Will these stories rush on like rivers of running sentences drowning me, drowning cities?

Please write back. Meanwhile I am swimming in the rhythm of repeated glancing towards the driveway, anticipating your homecoming.

lovelots, verbosecity.blogspot.com

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