black forrest cake

lazily, i forked on my black forest cake, slicing and moving it around the plate but not eating it. it was too tempting when i first saw it, like a full-blown infatuation when i leaned towards the glass display to order my first cup of espresso. now, after my third cup, it just stayed there untouched, looking old and fake and shrivelled.

i stayed up late last night just deciding on what to tell you. i did not want to miss out on anything, i created a list just to make sure i get to mention everything in succession. you know me when i'm upset, i tend to speak faster than a train crash, but this time is very important. i need some sort of cohesion and planning to make sure i don't mess up on this this time.

then, at 2 past 4 in the afternoon, you cheerfully slid through that door, letting in a bit of late sunshine as it shone behind you like a halo. i just sat there still, confused, frowning, and undecided on how to feel. noticing my reaction, you immediately mirrored my frown, like a remote with fresh batteries. "what's wrong?" was all you managed to say.

everything, i wanted to say. you, me, these three cups of espresso and this heart that outweighs me. some questions just hurt more sometimes. people say answers do but they can't always be right.

"nothing," i lied. there goes all the things that i wanted to say. always, those things just get snatched off my mind before i even have a chance to protest.

"that's good to hear," you lied back. how can there be nothing wrong when you had to go out of your way after my phone call to meet up in that lame coffee shop?

but then again, we have been in this scene before; a dozen hundred times i almost have a queue at the back of my mind on what is going to happen next.

you held my hand, like you always do when you run out of things to say. as my tears start to flow, i wonder if i would ever get the chance to tell you what i really want to say. i want to explode just to relieve me out of this heaviness, but crying will do in the meantime.

then my phone rang. it was a familiar name, and after the conversation ended with me saying okey, you gave me a meek smile and silently you said, "you're going."

"yes."

i finished my cup, taking my time while taking deep breaths. why can't you just steal me away? why can't you just take me away, somewhere far and behind all these?

wiping my tears has always been a chore. it washes away my make up, so at 4 in the afternoon i have to wear shades to hide the clues. why can't people just be with the ones they want and let everything else figure out its own place under the sun?

sighing, i went out of the coffee shop, thinking, that things would have been less complicated had you not told me you are going to wait for me.

it all starts with betrayal. everything seems to start with that subtle feeling of betrayal; how you run out of coffee for your coffeemaker, how the weather becomes sunny all day when you decided to wear a coat on a gloomy morning, or how you notice that glaring, self-disrespecting grammar crime right after hitting the send button on a text message to your boss.

i thought for a while my greatest fear was to be left alone. there's me waiting for a cab under an unglamorous rain, and you slowly drive by with some cappuccino-colored-hair girl on the passenger seat. but the more i realize how i couldn't be that girl, the more thankful i am why it didn't work for the two of us, that in the long run, i'd rather be out in the rain than be comfortable beside you.

years go by and my fears have matured. from running out of coins for the vendo machine, to the fear of deciding on a wrong hairstyle after my hair had been cut and sticking with it for x number of months until my hair grows back. but thank goodness fears should change constantly. we grow out of our current fears and move on to better ones as we grow older.

last night, you begged for me to stay. that's one fear i never anticipated. fears are planned and foreseen, but never, never catches you off guard.

i decided this was my biggest fear. it was never entertained, always shrugged back at the back of my mind. it's that big of a fear that i feared to confront it. i know i would never bring myself to saying yes for staying, because i might actually do that, and bring a convenient end to this drama that's just building up.

as i press the button for the  elevator doors to my office to close, these little stories of betrayal come back. the coffeemaker, the weather, my basic grammatical instinct. and yes, of fate too for making me move on and bringing me up close to this fear.

the world, in fact, isn't flat. we move inside this circular bubble; the faster we run, the faster the things we try to get away from come back to us. everything just sort of ironically comes back.

but betrayal leads to happy endings. it's that thing that keeps us hoping, that while we are out there waiting for a cab under the rain, someone could actually walk by and give us company.

random ramblings

i pass judgment on people based on their fingernails. i think people should walk more and littering should be considered a heinous crime. i listen to the beatles, read the news, and yes, i have opinions on almost anything. i decide on my own faith and no one has the right to tell me what to believe and what not to. i read the bible and search for my own truth. i love soya and i don't eat pork, and while i don't argue on other people's gods, i believe mine loves me to the point of death. people should read more and spend lesser time online, maybe plant more trees but definitely stop so much hate by starting to talk more and stop parading on the streets with placards that bear caps lock statements and exclamation marks. we are much more educated and civilized than that. i love to laugh, but on everything, i decide with my heart. i believe hitler didn't get enough playtime when he was a kid, and when the wind blows against my face and hair with a cup of hot tea on my lap, i know, somehow eveything will be right again no matter how wrong.

watermelons

when i first started this blog, i made it a point to post here everyday. doesn't matter what- quotes, a song, an essay, whatever. i just have to write here no matter what.

obviously, this blog was first written with a broken heart. this has become my own wall, and i don't really care how many few eyes read this. i just have that desperate need to write and it's not for the people reading, it's for my own survival.

i have never imagined how fragile the heart is. it survives, but it gets broken on a daily basis and goes through a tremendous amount of pain no happy pill could cure. but still, it goes on. it still loves no matter what the consequences are. the heart is clueless that way. it never learns.

and when it's hurt, all you can do, is cry.

but then again, these writings have saved me. it has, one way or another, helped me from those thoughts that keep me up forever while in bed trying to sleep. it has kept my sanity in place. that, and the heart that never stops whining, but still loves the most that it knows it could.

another year

i don't like celebrating birthdays even as a child. just like for any kid, my mother would prepare food and invite all other kids in the neighborhood with cakes and ice cream and what have you. as i grew older though, the parties stopped coming. honestly, i hated the attention. i don't like everyone kissing me in the cheek and smiling and getting pictures with them. i hate that.

later on, birthdays became all about who stands last on an alcohol spree with close friends. just recently, however, i started going away from people and just spending it with my mother. last year, we went to bantayan island in cebu. a year before that, we went to guimaras. then a year before that year, we went to baguio.

today, on my birthday, i was alone eating french fries.

earlier last night, we were asked what our greatest fear is in a leadership session held at work. i have always thought it's heights. so i said i am acrophobic. just today, i realized, my greater fear is being alone.

i guess it's hard because i have always been surrounded by friends, and by people who love me. halfway through eating the french fries, i felt like running home just to make sure they're all still there.

but of course, i can't spend the rest of my day just being melodramatic about the whole thing. this is just an ordinary day. just like any other days in the year. i just happen to be older today. just like most years, alone. just more alone this year. yawn. just another ordinary year.

so for now, the facebook greetings on my wall and the happy birthday text messages would suffice. i know i am loved, maybe not by the same people i love, but i could survive with what little love i get for giving out too much.

this is it. happy birthday to me.

the weather. it speaks for me

someone used to ask me if i am sad everytime it rains. heaven is crying, so i am probably sad, he said.

i started thinking that maybe, for some insane and wild reason, the weather does know me. it's not always sunny and bright when i am happy, but yes, it does rain when i am not happy. coincidence, you may think.

every time i take a cab going to work, i tend to reflect on things. i don't do this during bedtime, i do this when i see different faces passing before me through the glass windows, and how the sights change from huge buildings to slums to busy streets to whatever this city decides to show me.

it is during this time that i take realizations to heart:

1. people lie all the time. the sweetest words, are often the sweetest lies.
2. i love way more than i am supposed to.
3. i could cry to sleep all i want and people that have hurt me wouldn't care.
4. my coffee intake is 4 cups.
5. distance matters.

the list goes on. i could have 5 different lists that i take note of mentally each day, but one lesson is obvious- i still have a lot of growing up to do.

so with this, i concluded:

1. doubt everyone and everything until you are absolutely and definitely proven wrong.
2. do not let go of people who truly and sincerely love you, no matter what the consequences are. sometimes, a true and sincere love is the only thing that matters. everything else is temporary.
3. make sure the people who walk into your life are worth crying for. the people you choose will eventually hurt you. those who value your tears are the ones worth crying for.
4. my coffee intake is 4 cups. i will keep it at that.
5. you don't have to cross oceans to fulfill a promise. sometimes, fulfilling a promise involves somewhere nearer. most of the time, you have to stay home.

i own every heartache i have. i realized, i have let go and held on to the wrong people. i should have been wiser, but scars are beautiful.

so, with the last taxi ride, it was raining hard. having this mental list is easy, but how do you make a heart follow a list that the mind made?

maybe, the weather does know me.

10 things in bacolod i wanna take with me to manila

1. my room. the mess, my collection of cd's, the very old huge cabinet and how things are arranged
2. the clean streets
3. sander's coffee and sausages and the early morning drunk talks
4. my internet connection
5. the music and the nonsensical conversations i share with friends
6. the food. God, i will miss the food here
7. lacson street, and the late afternoon walks on flip flops
8. the beach
9. my mother's sewing machine
10. my coffee maker

imheremovie

well, here goes. i get varied reactions with this short film, which i won't elaborate on.

this film, if put in a nutshell, is all just about being here. i'm telling you just in case it isn't obvious enough. personally though, goodbyes for me are healthy. the more painful it gets, the stronger you become afterwards.

find it here: www.imheremovie.com

my funeral

a couple of days ago, it was our neighbor's funeral. it was raining quite badly, and my mother had woken me up at least 3 times already. truth be told, i felt lazy so i just pretended to be asleep. as simple as that, i missed the funeral.

ordinarily, my guilt should have already struck me dead. i never miss a neighbor's funeral. i came to think of it though, that dead neighbor and i were not really chummy. my memory of him that stood out the most is of him kicking my dog when it got in his way. i was a little kid back then. i cried.

now, when i think about it further, i start wondering what memories i'll leave to people when i die. will they be happy memories, biatchy, awesome? most of them would be happy memories, i think, since everyone knows i am usually happy whether forced or not. although, i won't be surprised if people would remember me for my sarcasm. ehm.

happy memories. nice. but exactly what do we know of what people say about us behind our backs, eh?

my teacher in college once gave this exercise- he told us to imagine ourselves attending our own funeral and what could people be saying as we are being lowered to the ground. whatever we want to hear them say about us at that time, we should live our lives working on that. my teacher wanted to be remembered as a good dancer. he is working on that his whole life, and i think he's doing pretty good at that.

i remember my friend marcy and i talk about this over coffee once. we talked about people that are likely to attend our funerals. aside from playing george harrison's all things must pass, i also want my funeral to be held at 4 in the morning. i want that day to be attended only by people who truly care about me. at 4 in the morning, i will know who would actually bother.

i would like to have an epitaph too. i don't care if no one has that here in the philippines anymore. i want i want an epitaph. and as my friend kalani would say, my epitaph should say 'in here lies a small body which is too huge for the world to contain.' or something like that.

death fascinates me. it does, really. dead people don't, though.

my goldfish

a couple of weeks ago, i saw my goldfish floating in the fishbowl. it wasn't levitating or being scientific by going against the law of gravity.

it's dead.

all along, i knew the goldfish had some psychological disorder. it would wander around its bowl aimlessly and unidirectionally, looking helpless and nonsensical. a lonely childhood, perhaps, since the goldfish had lived all its life inside that bowl alone and unsocially.

my goldfish committed suicide. i knew it.

i flushed the goldfish in the toilet and as i went to return the bowl, i realized, i placed the fishbowl in the kitchen, facing the area where my mother would fry fish.

i am to be blamed, afterall.

therese

i like the sound of the name therese. it's simple. very lady-like and timeless.

i was reading it off from a magazine with my father listening, when i paused and said the name out loud again. therese. i liked the sound of it and mentioned to my father that he could have named me therese instead of the one i have now. he said, "i would have, except that your mother wanted something else for you."

"so you really would have chosen the name therese, too?"

"yes. ask your mother what your name should have been."

i did. she said my father would have given me the name therese.

hmm..

it actually means the one who reaps according to wikipedia. quite interesting, actually.

come to think of it, my father and i would have chosen the same name for me. out of a hundred million different names in the world. we couldn't have only agreed to one name. we both chose it.

6 annoying people you find in facebook

okey, i am totally making this up. if i am wrong, please come up with a painless way of telling me i am, but i am not taking this back. you may have to fit into one of these, but hey. i may have, too.

1. the concessionaire
this is the group of people who lets you know what they had for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. they usually start with, "had bread and butter for breakfast! yum yum," or something cute to that effect. but wait, there's more. they haven't told you the rest of the meals that they will have for the rest of the day yet. i mean, it's cool that you are letting me know that you are eating, but please, unless i take note of your calorie intake, spare me the information of each and every meal that you are having.

2. the drama queen
while we usually hide in the toilet to cry, these people like hanging their heartache out in public. their status would say something like, "heartbroken. huhuhu.." i mean, it's human nature to try getting other people's sympathy, but please, those 500 or something friends in your facebook are not really friends you would cry with in real life. some of them may just have been your classmate from second grade that you wouldn't even say hi to when you meet in the mall.

3. the photo freak
now these are the people who flood your walls with pictures of them with everyone they are with in every single angle they could think of. they go to lunch with person x and upload 30 photos after lunch. come dinner with person y and they add 50 something more photos. i mean, okey. we get the proof that you saw each other today. sometimes, they give me the impression that they live their lives so they could put something interesting in their facebook page.

4. the dj
i don't have to elaborate on this, do i? this is me. i put all the things i listen to online and i flood your walls with it whether you like it or not. evil laugh.

5. the ebayer
they basically use facebook to sell. whether you use whatever they sell or not, you are still going to get tagged. no excuses. they tag you from lip balms to summer dresses. who cares if you're a guy?

6. the happy gamer/quiz addict
i can't remember the exact date i blocked the farmville application from my facebook page. everyone was giving me trees, plants and what have you. also, "look! xyz just saw a lost cow." aww.. then comes the mafia wars, and everyone was asking help for whatever job they had to do. i guess this is just normal, to let everyone know you are 65% evil in the "how much evil are you?" or that you could have been a lawyer according to this quiz you just took. but please, believe it or not, some of the people here actually have more interesting things to read about than just knowing in which level you already are in this current game you are playing every other 5 minutes. take it easy.

i guess this what makes facebook fun. just remember though, overdoing it is evil. pure evil.