Songs I Know

There's particular comfort in knowing that a semblance of eternity can be found in a song. It can be revived, but the original remains. You can go back to it and it wouldn't change---the meaning, the essence, whatever it stood for you when you first heard it. Eternity in a time capsule of melodies. The idea is fascinating.

Whenever I feel particularly sad, I seek solace in the songs I know. They don't have to be good or immortal like The Bohemian Rhapsody, I just have to like them. Songs won't judge nor care who I am and they won't be mad at me if I don't turn out as they expect me to be. They don't have the physiological signs of being alive, but the people that made them live through them. In a sense, songs are like people because they have feelings. What makes them inhuman and thus, perfect, is the fact that these feelings never change.

I have use for feelings that never change. You might think that such feelings are more often than not unneccesarily obstinate in the face of impractical situations, but they can be useful too, in the proper context. Unchanging feelings give a song, and a person, identity. They are something to hold on to. We all need something to hold on to.

Ultimate Super Fantastic Blogging Rule of the Millennium

You know, I suck. I violate the Ultimate Super Fantastic Blogging Rule of the Millennium: thou shalt reply to comments and visit the commenter's blog. When I began in this blog, I was eager for any comments that might come astray my way. But in my iph blog, comments are a norm and I can't really faithfully follow the Ultimate Super Fantastic Blogging Rule of the Millenium anymore.

Some of them are intelligent and some of them are dumb. I like intelligent comments. Dumb comments make me wonder what-did-I-do-NOW? Rest assured, you people who still read this drivel from your feeds or for old time's sakes, that I try to visit the commenter's blog when I get the chance. I try hard with replying too.

The point of all this? It's PE tomorrow and I'll be jogging eight rounds. I overpicked the nail of the small toe immediately next to the big toe of my right foot, and it kind of hurts. My Converse trainers are hopeless and they look so tee-hee I don't want to be seen in them, so I'm using the pair of Vans I just bought, which means that I'm still breaking them in and they. Hurt. Like. Hell. To use.

Deducing from the above information, we find that PE will be hell tomorrow.

I don't know why I'm still awake. Before I went online (about 11:50 PM), I peed and a random thought occured to me, or rather, a random line: ako ang kunin mo ako ang kunin mo! Familiar eh? That's Kris Aquino before she jumped off the bell tower with that thingy in the movie Sukob. I liked that movie. I thought about the thingy after the magic line. It looks like a malformed bride person with rotten rose petals swirling all over it like there's no lunch tomorrow. Sweet thought at midnight, really.

If I drink, I most probably will be drinking now because I'm lonely. I seem to have a habit of estranging people I love, and it's almost always just a matter of time. It's a bad habit, and I will never be proud of it. I still haven't talked to Betch. I don't know if I should. I'm thinking everything will just fall into place, but I'm also afraid that they won't and then where would I be? I keep on remembering Marchelle, back in freshman highschool. She was a great bestfriend, but because of a trivial reason which I will not disclose because it reminds me if just how horrible a person I am---well, I just stopped talking to her and that one I never fixed. I don't want that to happen again. What the hell, it feels like it is happening again. I'm not doing anything about it because I don't know what to do about it.

Ah, well. Everybody's changing and I don't feel the same, fuckit.

I have a boyfriend. He's nice and supportive and we understand each other pretty well, but sometimes I wish that we understand each other more. I have become acquainted with his view of the world these past few months and admittedly, some of it does not make sense to me (don't ask me what, it's just a general feeling) or I totally disagree with. Maybe I'll get used to it. I do love him, but this asymptotic thinking sometimes makes me feel isolated even when we're together.

My, my. I intended this post to be just a few stray paragraphs long but lookee what we have here! A whole bunch of pathetic, if-I-drink-I-would-be-drinking-now bullshit. When I go this low, I just remember what Sir Ronald, back in junior high, told me---a writer should not feel self-pity. It made sense to me then because I was competing for editorial writing, and editorials should have conviction and an almost arrogant self-confidence to be effective. But now I am competing for a life I want, and I feel sorry for myself.

The mantra, a writer should not feel self-pity, is just a mantra now since I heard it four years ago. It doesn't make sense anymore, but it's comforting to mutter it anyway.

A Depressing Decision

Right now, I want to stop school. Political science is just not my thing. Sure I'm interested in hearing about European politics, the obsolescence of capitalism, the Indonesian socio-political culture, and how half-baked taxes are the worst things you can do to a country---sure I'm interested. I'm interested in a lazy, heavy-lidded way, like how cats regard a crawling salagubang or how drunk people regard their vomit on the car floor. I'm interested, but right now I am not willing to spend another goddamned year and a half studying political bullshit as if I'll remember it after graduation. You know and I know that I won't.

It's frustrating. I want to stop college, but that decision will make my parents very, very sad. Education is an important advantage to anyone these days, that much I can't deny; neither can I deny that it's their most important and lasting gift to me. Maybe going through this mental drudgery everyday will pay off someday, but right now? I'm just a whole bunch of tired and bored with this gig. The only things that keep me going are my parents' expectations of me and the vision of their happy and proud faces when I get my diploma.

Should I shift? The answer should be yes. The problem is, I don't want to do another couple of years. I can take comparative literature, fine arts, philosophy, or maybe fashion design, but I don't want to, now that I'm this near to getting my plastic sash in a year or so. I guess I'm sticking with political science like a limatig with no cigarette smoke for miles.

Whatever. This depressing decision still doesn't stop me from wishing I'm working in a decent office getting decent pay right now. It doesn't stop me from wishing that everyone should just go to hell and let me be a starving artiste in the streets of Belgium. I don't mind being a basket-maker in Polynesia, a cobbler in Copenhagen, a septic tank cleaner in New York, heck, maybe even go to Nepal and raise llamas if that's what it takes! So long as I'm not here right now.

Hoarder

I'm a hoarder. I like, no, love hoarding things as if the holocaust will descend on me tomorrow. This habit might be a useful thing if the things I hoard can be used to help me survive in a holocaust, but no. Can 200 odd books, a closet full of clothes, art supplies, make-up and tons of paper shield me from radioactive fallout and the decline of civilization? A rugby boy would have a better chance in hell.

I do it unconsciously. Last time I had a really bad itch, I went to two second-hand bookstores and ended up blowing my dough on fifteen books, three of which I think I haven't even read yet. It wasn't a planned thing, really. I saw one book by Alduous Huxley, and then another by H.P. Lovecraft, and I was lost. A sales lady looked at my pile increduously and asked whether I'm doing it for a school requirement. Of course I wasn't, and it gave me a smug pleasure to say it. I love reading, and I'm rather proud of it.

I don't like throwing things away even if the chance of them being useful is as thin as an anorexic. I rationalize and rationalize and put off throwing my junk until they pile up in my room and eventually gather a thin film of dust. I have a tendency to hold on obstinately to my material belongings and why? I don't know. All I know is that I'll feel bad if I won't ever see them again.

Never Been Madder

Maybe opposite poles attract, but when they eventually find that being opposite poles isn't as glamorous and romantic as they thought it would be, they get bored. The cohesiveness falls apart along with the initial fascination. It could be anything, but I'm sure that's not love.

I always thought that a connection between two people supposedly in love covers far more than physical attraction. Intellecual attraction is far more important, because after all the kissing and the snuggling and the anything-you-can-think-of, all that would be left is conversation. If two people in love can't pull that one off properly, I believe that they are in love for all the wrong reasons.

I've always been after the perfect fit. I don't settle for so-so fits, okay fits, blah blah fits—just the perfect fit. But maybe, just maybe, I settled for a so-so fit. It's causing me unbelievable amounts of stress and angst. I don't like stress and angst is overrated. It's wearing me out. I don't want to stick to someone just because I want to prove all my friends wrong. I'm sure there's a bigger reason other than that and this so-called love. I just can't figure out what it is right now.

Let's hope I figure it later, after this tantrum has worn off.

Tell me, am I boring? Do I have to know all about concepts such as Web 2.0? Do I have to be damn good in Photoshop? Tell me, what should I do to be interesting and to deserve some of your time online? Maybe a video of me doing cartwheels would do the trick. I can't do cartwheels, but I might try and me falling flat on my ass might amuse you.

I have never been this mad for a long time. I don't cry often either. But just for making me mad and making me cry a bit, don't expect to hear from me for a long time. Hit the caps lock, turn on the fuck meter—the only time you actually care enough to tell me something in more than two sentences is when you're mad at me, so what the hell.

A State of Calamity

It's just like one of those rains: blustery and cold, loud and crass, forgettable. It was met with celebration. Water levels have reached critical and we Filipinos love our baths, after all. People have been panicking about the Angat Dam, rice supplies, the next exam, and unicorns. And then it rains. Hard. Celebration morphs to tragedy as several municipalities were declared under a State of Calamity.

Including mine.

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