And I'm blogging about being randomly strewn towards people I barely know.

Last Thursday, I sat next to Robert Alejandro on a jeepney ride to Alabang. We do not know each other, only that he added me in Facebook and invited me to an ATD Orientation in Powerbooks in Megamall in which I attended; but of which we did not speak a word to each other, at all. He must have waited for me to let him know I answered his invite, but then, I barely know him except for that he appears on TV sometimes.

Today, I have seen a former schoolmate at work, we have forgotten each other's names, but we have spoken like we have been bestfriends early on. I have seen him waiting in line for a jeepney ride in Pasong Tamo extension, and then on the same bus I took from La Union to here. We were too embarrassed to ask what we were called in high school. One of these days, I will shed my apprehensions and ask his full name and ask him more about what happened to all those people I have already forgotten about. Today still, I noticed this boy who came to the clinic whom I know is the current love affair of a girl I am not speaking to anymore. Last month, the boy who was behind me was E's (ex?) boyfriend. I wanted to ask him how E is doing these days but I might scare him away, for randomly asking him something when we barely know each other and for remembering his face and forgetting his name.

I have to get back to sleep now.

There was a time when Erson and Mayo and I were almost inseparable. We saw each other everyday. At that time, it never crossed my mind that we will eventually break away from it all.



Looking back, I wasn't too interested in looking at the future.There was a kind of a standstill then. Nothing else mattered but the thesis we were writing and Zuma, I guess. The simplicity of it all is almost unreal.

Photos stolen from: http://bubudynasty.multiply.com.

This was the book I attempted to read when I was tired from working too hard for nothing and I thought it was an incoherent bunch of phrases.

I read it again yesterday – slowly, this time.

It stirred itself in a circular motion, you can pluck any page as a starting point and you will not get lost if you ventured further. You can read the last page and find it linked to where the first page began and they can be interchanged. The first can be the last, the last can be the first.

I purchased it when it was On Sale! How convenient at that windy November nightfall in Powerbooks. November 18, 2006 to be exact. Funny how fast time and employment and sleep can consume worlds of opportunities to be educated by something as powerful as this.

I would’ve paid for it twice or thrice the measly discounted price now. Every page I hold close to my heart for me to remember that by the time I reach thirty-one, which is “Not old. Not young. But a viable die-able age,” I should have already stopped pursuing the Big Things. And to remember that the Love Laws “that lay down who should be loved. And how. And how much,” can be disobeyed only by those who come prepared for its pointless but nevertheless unforgiving punishments. And to remember too that Tangerine is my favorite color from now on. Imagine how fun it would be to have a tangerine typewriter or a tangerine point-and-shoot.

It is brimming with other, equally important Truths to be remembered in its 321 pages. I will not remember them all. But I can read this again. This is something I cannot tire of. Something that should be clutched and reread and underlined and memorized.

Thank you for “cheap coincidences” in bookshops.

Kath = Brilliance + Thoughtfulness + Mush + ♥

Oh I love you, Kath. Because she suggested this wonderful link.

Sometimes, I wonder why there are people (Lifesavers, that's what I call them) who know exactly how to brighten up your day when you barely have the time to brighten up yours.

One example would be Uncle Jong who sent me a silver watch on my birthday (when I was actually saving up for a silver watch because I am almost always late and time deprived).

Another fine example would be Kath♥, who took her time to comment on my long dormant Multiply to show me that there is a life out there, waiting to be documented in photographs. What's brilliant about is, that I have been meaning to post a photo a day using Keno (honestly, the thought did cross my overworked mind several times already!) but you know effing unlucky I get because 24 hours in a day is never enough. And then I say to myself that Keno is much too overweight for a cam to be carried everyday, anyway. And that I cannot afford to be mugged (I would die if anyone snatches that cam from me) because I work til 8pm and get home around 930 which is the best time for camera/cellphone/wallet snatching. And oh, I work on Saturdays, too.

Then again, if I took a photo a day, uploaded them every Sunday and managed to do this religiously (with stress on the word: religiously), I'd feel delightfully fulfilled. I guess all I really needed to start was the nudge that was posted as a comment in my Multiply. And yes, I would like to be "able to look back at any day of your year and recall what (I) did, who (I) met, what (I) learned…" and "to document (my) travels and accomplishments, (my) haircuts and relationships" and of course, to be "a better photographer."

I'm still undecided if I should post the photos here or in my Multiply. I'd start on Sunday. Wish me love. :P

my mind to join photo contests when this month ends. I'm looking forward to it because I know the experience comes with some sibling love and hopefully, a bit of luck. :D


Which brings me to remember that that won't be the first time I'd be joining a photo contest. The first contest was in college, and in retrospect, I had absolutely no inkling as to what I stood up against being that I didn't have any formal background on photography (still don't). The results were based purely on gut feel and playing around with whatever pixel range and lighting I had at that time. The cam I used (which wasn't even mine to begin with), wasn't even branded! and it was supposed to be a 7.2 mp but I later on found out it was close to just a 5.-something. I didn't even know that the small tulip sign on the cam stood for macro. Haha.

All those didn't matter though, as I was one happy member of the clicking crowd. It was only towards the end of the event that I found out that my  rivals were among the best in Baguio and the Philippines and the world, most probably  (some of them were photographing for the PDI Northern Luzon Bureau. My goodness!).

Here's a handful of the photos I salvaged from that wonderful initiation:

[It was for Camp John Hay but I forgot what the name of the event was or even the theme. I also don't remember which of the following I turned in (there was a maximum of 5 photos for each contestant but I only submitted 3).

I also forgot what captions I came up with since these are bordering on the melancholic and the event was supposed to promote Camp John Hay as a haven for stressed out vacationers. It's not likely that these images promote something "gay" or "fun" or anything like that.]



Of course, I didn't win (haha). I ended up somewhere in the middle and that was good enough for me, I tell you. It was such a memorable event for the clueless first timer that I was and I'm wishing for more of these spur-of-the-moment days. 

I want to believe that humans have past lives. 

And I've always been curious to find out what I was before (did I also get to be a fat Persian cat, I wonder), and if I were, was I persecuted for my weight and if I were human, was I evil or not (did my innate evilness surpass my innate goodness?), was I indifferent or passionate (and what about?), was I artistically-inclined and did I also freak out because of math? 

In other words, I want to know if I was anything like I am now. So I clicked and clicked and clicked some more only to find out that: 

Alice's Past Life...

You Were: An Insane Undertaker. Where You Lived: Central Africa. How You Died: Buried alive. Who Were You In a Past Life?

 

Hahaha! Well, first off, the keyword here is: Insane. Hm. Thank God I'm anything but in this present life. And of all the nightmares of dying a horrible death, I get to be buried alive. Ohgawd. Scariness. In this life, I am claustrophobic. And, I get to be an Undertaker! Interesting.

Stumbling upon this video, the other day... I was transported back to 2002. It was the annual Freshie Night and Marvs came up with the most brilliant idea: For us to render our own version of Rent. I had the most goosebumped skin when I saw this video, I wish we got our version filmed that night.

when things were simpler. Now, they are as distant as everyone else. If I could love this distance, I'd be better off but no fool can do that.

Of course, Syd and Maru are still in school. Zig, is somewhere in Pateros? Zig, where the heck are you now? Because knowing him, he can't be pinned down to only one location. Erson is in Pasig. Working for IBM. And Mayo is in Baguio, partying and studying. Haha. :P

I miss you all. Ogad, I wish I can bend the Time-Space Continuum. I wish things were back to being simple. I wish we all lived near each other.

Seeing that I do not have all the time to take note of what has happened, I will try to remember what needs to be remembered and I hope I get these all in one coherent piece. No, I am not melancholic but this melancholic tone remains in me however I try to lose it. 

1. We managed to become friends. That wasn’t easy. Nothing is easy – that one I only learned in all those chaotic days in August. No, not everything after all, carries me to you. 

2. I ‘m finally done with Harry Potter. And I don’t mean that only because I finally turned its last page, but because I’ve outgrown him. If there were an 8th installment I’d probably doze off after the first chapter. And I’m not watching any of those Potter movies anymore. What remains in my memory is that child's tale by Beetle the Bard. Now that bit reserves the right to be remembered.

3. I still didn’t get that piercing I so wanted to have in college! It’s been years, OMG! And yet, I keep on forgetting about it when I’m out.

4. I wish I took note of the day I slipped. It was under a moonlit sky, (that much I can remember) and I was staring at that vast space that seemed to hover slightly above me. You were telling me to find Orion’s belt, wasn’t it? 
But I’m terrible in looking for constellations. Those stars did nothing but stare back at me and I always get distracted by one thing or another – the neighbors shouting, the stray cat, the static. 
Maybe I could only find Orion’s belt if you were with me. You could point it out with your finger and I’d pretend I’ve seen it. That would be more fun than me looking at the enormity of it all and without you to make me feel that those stars are where they should be. I meant it, by the way. 
                       
                       Don't say a word 
                       I know you feel the same 

5. I miss Mayo. 

6. And above all else, I miss Maru.
 

I had this copy of Ateneo's Heights. There was one short story there that I loved. It started with an excerpt: 
"At midnight/I sent out my thoughts/out in the horizon/No shining thought/gave me comfort/at midnight." 

I lost the book somewhere. Never found it again, I don't even remember what the story was called. But that poem got stuck in the cluttered crevices of my mind even up until now.

Google found out this written by Friedrich Rückert, a German poet. Below is a translation by Emily Ezust. At midnight, I projected my thoughts out past the dark barriers. No thought of light brought me comfort at midnight. It's gonna take me next month to receive that shining thought I've been waiting for.