J: I’m awash with this great sadness again. Probably listening to too much Icelandic music. And facing the reality that I will be alone and lonely for the most part of my life!

P: What do you mean alone? That you cannot have a significant other?

J: No, not that. Even when I have my “other” I’m still this way. Alone in the existential sense. Ano pa nga ba. Everybody dies alone nga, diba? And everywhere I go, I feel this way. Here in the Philippines, I have many friends, but I’m still like this. I guess it’s an incurable disease I have to live with forever.

P:Yeah, it’s an existential issue. Walk through this absurd life with pride, ika nga ni par excellence Albert Camus. Maybe when you leave for a foreign land you’ll ironically feel at one with the world…

J: Maybe I’m really meant for the world! And the world is for me! Maybe it is my other. I always feel alive whenever I’m in a foreign land. The remoteness and the newness of everything fuels my life. Maybe that’s why I like the unheard, the obscure, the rare. Familiarity breeds comfort, but with the unfamiliar, I am home. Random mindfuck like these rule.

P: Sounds like you have a plan to me!

(Contrary to what you may think, I am not talking to myself. Although that’s a thread shy of the entire existential introspection experience.)

My work blog, lelelulu seems too impersonal for livejournal-style entries, so I’m going back to my lalijamboree blog for now. (Yeah, confusing, but nobody’s a steadfast follower, so it doesn’t matter.) And I’m on leave from design work for about two months, so that would mean the other blog would be on hiatus as well. If anybody would care to ask, I’m just spending a lot of time thinking and discovering the way a mid-priced art brush sways on thick paper when dipped in inky watercolor. It’s a therapeutic activity akin to an art rehab (if such a thing exists, which I think, is likely.) As much as I would like to keep things light post-flood, I would now talk about epiphanies.

EPIPHANIES!

Not in the Jesus Christ sense of the word, of course, but in Wikipedia terms, “the sudden realization or comprehension of the essence or meaning of something.”

Not that I’ve comprehended and realized a lot of things myself. It’s more about the associations of random things, like walking around the army gymnasium with Joy Division’s “Dead Souls” piped in the iPod made me think of army goth fashion. Is there such a thing? My limited google-ing doesn’t reveal anything. However, I remember a specific scene in Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams:

Army Goth Fashion by A. Kurosawa from 'The Tunnel' scene

While I was walking back to the condo (I was supposed to type ‘home’, but I realized that it wasn’t–epiphany 2!), I thought of editing Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams to the tune of Dead Souls. Choppy-style, postmodern, whatever you want to call it, but I never got to do it. Mr. Kurosawa might sue me to death.

Which brings me to my third epiphany: my Halloween costume.

P.S. I wonder why my Clockwork Orange post is so popular. Similarly, it’s a post on fashion/Halloween costumes. Maybe I should specialize on writing about Halloween, doncha think?

Got this from busmate Angel, living her Sweden/Euroculture dreams.

Make your own here.

+++

while my mind is heavy as a boulder, stuck deep under river currents,

my heart is as light as a feather, floating faraway where the mind could never imagine it to be.

Ticking off the days until I visit Bangkok… I have started reading on the touristy places to chance upon, but I still have a vague itinerary on my mind. If my BKK companion would only allow, I’d like to backpack in the city (and Thailand in general) unmindful of any hotel reservations only because there are hostels around to lug my ass for some slumber, which I assume will be short because I will spend most of the time walking and taking snapshots. I want to get lost in the country–even just for four days. I don’t care if I have had already crossed the border to Cambodia. Haha…

I want a Southeast Asian trip soon, who wants to join??? ) Let’s slate the date around June. Then probably climb a mountain (not necessarily Kota Kinabalu, but that’s also an option), and meet some Europeans along the way. Then, we’ll go back to our home country and go straight to Sagada for the yogurt. Yes, just yogurt! Haha. Or maybe if the weather permits, Batanes (but I doubt that would happen in June; April would be a better month for the Ivatan immersion)

Oh, and then I’ll visit Ivy in that semi-provincial city in Indonesia. I’d like to meet her students! I remember her telling me how the kids had socks with holes and dirty-looking faces but (according to her) had immeasurable money. Then we’ll hit the beach. I wonder if the beaches there have gray sand. I don’t like gray sand very much.

Asia is my target before September begins.   After September, let’s all guess where!!!

furry resume

toothpastefordinner.com

gothostat

toothpastefordinner.com

forty four inch brims

toothpastefordinner.com

Heheh…:)

***

Just a few more farts and something’s ready to rumble.

(In Tagalog: Konting utot na lang at meron nang mangyayaring kaguluhan!!! Na masaya ha. heh)

Coffee-alcohol combination is weird, yeah? One part makes you jolt; the other half makes you sleepy. And the idea of cream in it makes for a really pwe drink! Now that’s what describes me right now, coffee-alcohol. But in reality I’d probably be Vodka, straight up.

I want to accomplish a lot, but I’m feeling reaaally lazy! Good thing there’s going to be another Rafa-Fed game!!! Rafa for the win!!!! Marry me!

Belle and Sebastian’s Nice Day for a Sulk comes to mind:

Nice day for a sulk
The girl smells of milk
Her horsey teeth explode around us
And we run for cover she found us
In the cheapo bar with a bag of chips

Nice day for a mood
The forecast is good
The kids are melting in the doorway
Keep the gang together
Theres no way will you ever be misunderstood by me

Nice day for a jam
The fall, manfred mann
Dance party, summer lasts forever
When the bands together and bobby
Drank too much and fell in the clyde

***

I want a summer, like the summer of 2005.

(Love that word, betwixt. Very high school poetry-ish.)

It was a Sunday road trip of cliches. First, it wasn’t at all a road trip–we were heading back to Manila from Pampanga, my officemates and I. Earlier this week, we had to finish our regular magazine deadlines that had us running amok, us like headless chickens trying to catch up before the publisher starts asking for our output. Good thing this Friday, we stayed at a nice hotel where had our company planning seminar. Fortunately, it felt more like  a vacation than work, hence, aplenty of steady vibes. 

Before we hit the road back to the city, we had a breakfast of lovely sorts, bread, cheese, salad, Japanese food, cereal, etc. Anything that our stomach could afford to digest in harmony (or disharmony). My tummy was full, thus, after a few laughs inside the van and an appreciation of the blue sky against grey bridges against green rice fields, my mind triggered sleep. I played The Sundays on my iPod (yes, I’m that literal person), and then Stone Roses before dozing off until NLEX. Eighties indiepop is my ammunition for a smooth Sunday start, a sweet punctuation for capping off a hectic week.

I’m too lazy for some wordy update (yes, so unlike before) so here’s a sloppy collage I made.

These are the stuff I’ve been surrounding myself this January. The cliched year-end recap and new year’s resolutions are dumped in my other journal, ha, so I’m sparing you from that.

weeoooowee!

So I went to HK (again) last December 11 with my closest buddies, Kat and Larie, and my editor (slash kasama sa kagagahan) Rey. I managed to buy these:

Clockwise from top left: black leather bag from Esprit, cheapie shoes from Mongkok (I got six pairs!  Two of which went to my sister and a pair to my Mom. Only two pairs in photo), fedora hat and striped top from Cotton On, mustard bonnet from Mongkok, notebooks from Muji (I get so giddy with new notebooks!), green chiffon dress from H&M, purple bomber jacket from Mongkok, and a black jacket from Uniqlo. Products photographed on top of my newly-acquired red/white paint dripped  sheets from Ikea, which I got for HKD 399 (Ang mahal! Badtrip, wasn’t able to check the tag well!)

But among my purchases, these are my favorite! Carrie Chau postcards from her exhibit at Times Square, Central and a Vivienne Westwood pin from her fashion exhibit at Artistree, Quarry Bay.

See more photos after the jump.

I’m gleeful with my shots here. The winter light gave a soft illumination to my outdoor photos.

5AM is:

Jeff Buckley falsetto-eing Lilac Wine on my laptop

A Holga self-portrait in front of the dresser mirror

16 hours of wakefulness

Hong Kong Hangover (as well as these two popular mice still on my mind)

The effect of a Php 55 tall coffee from 7-11

Trying not to think so much but still having the mind work for this entry

Lightstalking

Wilting away before the day you should

Who will I meet in three years’ time?

Plans

Like envelopes waiting to be stamped, sent

And opened