Or alternately: "The Universe you are trying reach is either unattended or out of coverage area."

...

I was waiting for two literal calls (or even just SMSes) from the Cosmos yesternight. Neither arrived. How fucked am I.

...

Wawa Gorge/Dam, Montalban, Rizal
19 March 2008

For swimming, family picnics, and hafcars photo-opts.

* Site also popular among various hobby groups (i.e. bikers, rock climbers, spelunkers, etc.) but don't go biking/climbing/spelunking on your own then killing yourself later, saying you got the idea from me.



Low budget daytrip with high-maintenance girlfriend Katrinka

...


( How to get there, etc )

Forgetting could be awesome sometimes like on a random day, you stumble upon some cool shit you were absolutely nuts about a while back but eventually forgot, and now it's dusted itself off and somehow managed to find you again and you're like ohmigod! ohmigod! ohmigod! like you can't believe and it's this intense reunion and falling in love twice over.

I was certain that the first time I'd tour Asia, it would be a Wong Kar Wai retrospective: burying secrets in Angkor Wat, running all over HK or Macau after five million cheongsam changes, perfectly putting on blood red lipstick only to be smeared off by a mystery boy in Singapura.

But nerr.

Asian tour '08 is clearly Path to Boy. (Unfortunately, not my boy.)
May 14-29, Singapura - Malaysia - Thailand(?), with head huntress Charlikins.

And I love it!

...

E.O.F. ceasefire.
Great food, great outfits, great gifts, and even greater conversation.

They started the parade way early this year (at three in the afternoon, so I imagine it was lantern lights vs. midday sun). When I finally got there around 8pm, the whole thing was practically over.

We were at the Admin building for the fireworks. And fireworks = nostalgia = Charlin recounting (what I insist to be a false memory) one particular Lantern parade spent supine over the grassy Sunken that had involved two simultaneous light shows (celestial and pyrotechnical) and some ice cream.

The only other Lantern Parade I was with her (I'm gray on who else we were with) involved cotton candy and not ice cream, and keeping vertical at all costs.

'Huwat! That never happened!'
'So why would I have that memory?'
'Couldn't it have been some -other- parade with some -other- person.'

Coz despite the years of friendship, there are still a few remaining things I wouldn't give Charlin the benefit of first refusal. Rolling over campus grasslands would be one of those things.

... ain't fun one bit.

I'm almost tempted to let them starve just to get a point across. (Never works, btw, coz there's always salvation in Ginisa Flavor Mix.)

I completely understand Mother now. Nagging is love on a loop. On a loop. On a loop.

one of the perks of central living is easy access. you're one ride away from everything and hours are lost in cubao (ukay♥), divisoria (bargain hunting), ongpin (mei-ha!) and of course, carriedo (pirate-friends).

lootbag!:

saturgay was let's-pretend-it's-still-my-brithday dinner with the faglove mix (romel & eunicia, charlin & yvex). charlin's GC at italianni's and further saltsist remarks ousted dining plans at a venetto, where unis, our resident fertility charm, had already ordered a plate of oysters to hone her recently discovered gift.

and speaking of gifts, yay! rome got me the book i wanted! love gifts! love friends!

this year's theme is BAWAL AKO I-UPSTAGE, AKO ANG MAY BIRTHDAY. but yves yves-ed the whole concept, showing up reed-thin and carrying what looked like, erm, beyonce's handbag.

ateh, nakita ko ko si yves, kaya lang... parang ndi. naka-handbag kase.
naghahanbag na ba sya as a person?

from eunicia la loca || 10.11.07 20h08

...


(it could've been a longer guest-/ entree list, but no one ever plays nice. it would've been social genocide to have gathered them all together during feeding time.)


better late than pregnant. the birthday dinner with the fagmix
@ italianni's, gb3, 10.11.2007

sometime before dessert, the resto staff came out for a birthday song/medley complete with maracas, which delighted me to tiny, chewable bits. the performance left me in tears, with my falsies almost falling off. when they got to the coda, romelson (my one true love) joined in and supplanted their ready choreo.

ahlaveit this year! whatever drama you're in, you always always win with friends.

in the grand celebration of freedom and bitterness (because those two go oh-so beautifully together, donchathink?) i've dedicated three full days of last week to pelicula '07: the 6th spanish film festival.

five of the seven screenings i went to, i went to alooone--two of which were even LFSes (last full shows, baby), which is kind of sad & mad & very tragic spinster-found-dead-by-her-cats-three-days-after, but at the same time stays true to the overall sentiment.


i'm missing one ticket (otros días vendrán, oct 11 LFS).
the escort must've swiped it when i wasn't paying attention. fee-fi-foe-fum.

{ there was supposed to be a review of the films on this general space right here--
/\
|
|
|
\/
and i didn't get lazy, i was starting to write them all right--but they could only keep on sounding self-indulgent and stringy and eouff! and what's the point, right? so i gave up. }

false eyelashes is the absolute next level--so i come to work, a different pair each day like it's the most natural thing.



( ... )

( ... )

going hermit crab = not most brilliant travel strategy, especially when: 1) expenses will be split three ways and 2) decisions are called by the majority and they easily out-vote me, two:one.


there ought to be a skinny on the cdo - camiguin trip somewhere here, but i'm straining my neck trying to write it up as ouchless as possible.



soon, comrades.

these days, i'm so zen it's not even funny.

i am also celinefreakin'dion singing 'all by myself (don't wanna live)' to an audience of exactly zero, which could be funny but isn't the point.

( THE POINT IS... )

it's seven full hours of sleep and not needing to rock myself first.
it's accidental babies by damien rice without the thought of a personal dedication.
it's forgetting. in all five dimensions.
it's reading about her and my pigeonheart not breaking.
it's not feeling the need to read you write about her at all.

but it's also switching off.
it's impatience.
it's days and weeks folding into each other, indistinct.
it's finding nothing and eventually not even looking anymore.
it's july rain, it's skin and song stripped of meaning.
it's static taken for silence.

the so-called "wanderlust buddies" are a bunch of soggy serial flakes.

taker-for-granters of the five-paged itinerary, which, unbefuckingknownst to them, was borne of purelove. anal tendencies. whatever.


you.. you... YOU TOURISTS, YOU!

this is, i sincerely suspect, the happiest i've been (since, well...)

when did happiness become all and only about unguarded glances and lips & hands wet from always kiss kiss kissing and cellotaping hope onto the moment (any moment) just long enough until maybe it might actually mean something, anything, as if hearts-on-sleeves were a universal arts & crafts project. when did we start doing that? and why?

when the world can hold a whole lot more, and will for you if you knew how brave it is to ask nicely, a lot more than your put-on tragedies and awkward touches and blood thinning over pages of stale verse; you've always been so weightless, and we couldn't forget.

since learning to work my mouth again, and exhale when it's become impossible to take everything in.

because we've lost all ability to meet up, normal-like (without pre-approved themes/ photoconcepts, faxed in programme of activities, weather forecast for the next 36 hours, etc., etc.):

Photo-opts Sa Intramuros Dahil Miss Na Daw Ako Ni Yvex
(or more likely dahil naiinggit sya sa vigan escapades ko)




haffcors, charlin was there as well, as neutralizer/scorekeep



the rest of the damage, here. you've already seen most of it.

"hormonal imbalance?"

and mrs. wrath (that really is her name, why would i be making this up?) nodded like she meant to unhinge her neck in fanatical agreement with me when i pled insanity during office breakdown # 3.

3 of 5, and counting.

Capones Island, Brgy. Pundaquit, San Antonio, Zambales.
25-26 May, 2007.

Low budget daytrip.
Island-hopping. Sun bathing. No real swimming.
With ever-choosy travelbuddy Charlin


.: ilog maria: the promo tour .:. gallaga's lost barrio scenes :.





.: capones island :.



( travelogue )

guess who rekindled things (or is it just kindled- sans prefix, coz the last few times didn't really count?), sounding scandalously s1ngle despite friendster status?

ok, that doesn't narrow it down to anything.

but vague insinuations of region one cohabitation were flinged around with such torturous ease (and snatched, posthaste), i could be imelda marcos. or is it more aptly gabriela silang?

been here a week but everything else that isn't soiled denims or canned food or toothbrushes had thoughtlessly been left to sit inside boxes marked "HANDLE WITH CARE <3" (although, after the battle with unending rolls of packing tape, we start to mean it less and less).

no one has even bothered with the new address. like bunched up underpants, something wrong you'd need to get used to eventually. yesterday, i got locked out because i was carrying around my old keys. we could try but we may have elected, preconsciously, to fight feelings of settling in.

bit by crummy bit, their turgid hearts are beginning to show weakness. they are on their way to missing me! which wasn't part of the plan, pulling away from the familiar; there was never even a plan.

...

two months AWOL, mister consistency-is-key turned up again on my metaphorical doorstep, exactly one hundred fifty-three hours, gmt +800. and, despite the tiny schoolgirlish *squeeeeee!* i let out at this invite, i really have lost all compounded biannual interest.

go find some other crowbar, lover.

at sa larong musical chairs ng mga puso, nagka-upuan na silang lahat.
gameover, pakshet naman.

(versions: unis & weinwein)

waking up to cat lint and the stale, dry taste of oh, look, you! what a way to say goodbye by making that couch again and lying in it.

you see, he knows he's not
just remembering this dance

he's there

in both moments
simultaneously.

just then, it's obvious: time's a lie.

some somethings are better than some nothings but very rarely when that something has the nature of, say, pedophilia.

this is totally charlikin-territory (welcome to the wilderness!): five foot ten inches of tall, lanky, unadulterated catholic-flavored goodness. the small of my back rendered h.e.l.p.less.

h is for hurry...
    e is for urgent...
        l is for love me...
       PLEEEASE!

i may have set a precedent, the follow through coming @ 5am, new year's. he had better odds catching me two hours earlier, though.

consistency is key, my little holiday treat!

some people want it all
but i want no--nothin' at all
if i ain't got you baby...

but then again, some people have universally certified gay men for their hot new boyfriends making it harder to officially complain.

things like this feel so hand-of-godish, invoking more than the usual schadenfreude point-and-snicker fit. it's as if a certain balance in my world has been restored; a sense of hope, renewed.

...

coz if there's something to learn from 2006, it's that divine providence doesn't take to whinyness too well.

the slightest sound rouses me to movement. life's on permanent date stand-by. centuries of fine tuning the mating rituals of our species and they still ask you out for 2pm on a monday or early christmas morn. ask you out or over.

i could become a rules girl, lil miss never-after-a-wednesday. but when he's damn edible like that?

galera. it's gotten embarrassing to say that we still go there. heck, it's the only destination ever. partly because i can plan for a mindoro trip in my sleep (+ i've mastered the art of packing lightly); partly because the last time i ventured somewhere else, i very nearly died, then very nearly got engaged, and then very nearly died again; but really mostly because it's the only sort of minibreak i can afford. (sidebar/inside joke: "it's a common problem amongst young people..." "pimples?")

the shores have gone from virginal (three years ago, comme moi!) to a version of baywalk, slightly glorified, where swimming is still acceptable and engenders only a limited range of skin maladies.

contracting two varieties during my last visit, i've sworn off going there again. hennyways, travel is but an occasion for photographs, so here's our most photo-documented trip yet:

you never get to what the phrase actually, existentially, means until after four months of not seeing him, he turns up, within a good eye-clawing distance, and you're suddenly unable to decide how to make use of that space between you two. manually dismantle his trachea? rip his clothes off?

or maybe both; you've certainly got the time now.

on one hand, the message smelt of smug intellectualism, with the mention of things like "the teleological" versus "the preferential"