2011 out, 2012 in.

2011 was (is), in a word, trippy for me. There were many lows and many highs. I took the several trips this year, a year I had dubbed as my Adventure Wow Philippines year. I took my first plane ride, got to help in publishing a book, threw myself off a platform into a gorge with nothing but metal clips and high tension wires to prevent me and a couple of good friends from dropping into a tree-filled ravine, changed jobs, got taken off the singles’ market, joined a publishing group, met a lot of new friends, and lost a few.

Let’s start at the beginning.

I can’t feel my arms

This morning I came to the realization that I have woefully let myself go. Back when I still worked in Makati, while I wasn’t necessarily concerned about my diet, I walked five kilometers a week. Now, I wake up at noon, then plod the few steps to my desk, wipe the drool off my face and work. The consequences of this deploring new exercise regiment got up this morning, pointed at me and laughed its ass off.

Last night, Nanay was making siopao for an order of 70 pieces. It was needed in the morning, therefore, it needed to be made in the dead of night. I, obviously overestimating my atrophied muscles, volunteered to make the dough. It’s fairly easy to make: lukewarm water, put in some yeast, throw in some sugar, wait a few minutes, add in some flour, add in some baking powder, mix, add more flour, add lard, mix, and add the rest of the flour. By the end of the mixing phase, you should get a slightly sticky, lumpy mass. Kneading for around 20 minutes gets the lumps out, making the dough smooth and springy (This is tested via a poke test. The dough should spring back when poked.)

By the time I finished the second batch of dough, I was sure I pulled a muscle on my right shoulder, and my arms were threatening to fall off. Making dough is pretty grueling, though I have to admit that it’s strangely cathartic. Kneading is pretty much abusing the dough as if it said something bad about your mother.

Right out of the mixing bowl, dough starts out flaky and falls apart rather easily. You spread flour on the clean counter so it doesn’t stick. You start “working” the dough. It looks pretty violent, because it is. You stretch, roll it into a ball, stretch, roll again. Repeat until the dough looks smooth and passes the poke test. It’s a lot of work, but it’s pretty fulfilling. Especially when you watch the dough rise, put it in the steamer, and finally get siopao (my ‘special siopao’ is made with just the dough with some salted egg inside) for your troubles.

Anyway, I think I need to do something to get fit again. I have a lot of other figurative siopao to make.

Moving is a Bitch with Acid Spit

My life has become a series of moves this past couple of weeks (including this one): house moves and web hosting moves, among others. Those of you who have moved house or web property at least once know that moving is a bitch with acid spit – one who harbors extreme hatred for you and would happily claw your eyes out if it ever catches you sleeping.

The Hosting Move

About two weeks back – Black Friday, which heralds the coming of Commercialistmas in the US – there were loads of sales and promos that extended to Cyber Monday. The Overlord, the webhost for both Young Underpaid Professionals and The Antithesis Collective, bought new hosting services from another company. She informed me of this before and after actually purchasing new hosting. I never really thought about the consequences/work I’d have to do after she transfers everything from one hosting to another until last week when she said that there were too many files to upload.

/cue Psycho music before knife descends on Janet Leigh/

Of Blocked Air Passages and General Bad Luck

So the past few days have been spent in general misery because of a cold. You know the general progression: from sneezing once while eating dinner out with old friends, to an asshole bug building a blockade of snot inside your sinuses. The situation disintegrates at the point when you can’t breathe from one or two nostrils. (If you had a choice between having a blocked nostril and having blocked nostrils, which would you choose? Personally, having just one blocked annoys me, though having two blocked reduces me to a mouth breather which needless to say, leaves much to be desired.)

To top it all off, your eyes water and your head feels like it has grown to planetary proportions. Your body demands a horizontal position; ironically, you can’t breathe when lying flat. Working through a cold (through your body’s threats of a lie-down strike) is misery with spiked cleats on.

Day 1: Wi-tribe

Day 1: Wi-tribe

The Thrills and Perils of Being Ready for An Undin Attack

So yeah, last Monday I went and turned 28 (I just couldn’t scrape up the time to write though, where does time go anyway?). This year, it was a day well spent in doing absolutely nothing. Well, not really ‘nothing’ since I was making a website while watching TV and inhaling vast amounts of coffee. It was too hot and humid for October, but it was chill and steady in general. I contemplated being a year older again, decided that 28 doesn’t feel like anything special and resumed working.

Like what I said last year, it would have been nicer to get some special effects when you “level up” another year. Cake (ref cake) is nice though, and blowing out the candle on another year spent living is significant if you realize the irony of “snuffing out.” (And like last year, I figuratively watched the sun set with Rem.)

Here’s an abrupt segue: Did you see the Magandang Gabi Bayan Patayin sa Shokot ang Buong Bayan Special? I did, and boy, oh boy. I have to admit – Kabayan Noli’s first few lines gave me the chills. I found the last bit, the one with the little boy and his ‘imaginary friend’ that turned out to be a demon named Golok, especially chilling. (Note to parents: please do not assume that every friend your kid refers to by first name is from something they saw on TV like Barney, Dora and SpongeBob. They might be evil supernatural creatures bent on taking your children to the fiery depths of Hell. Got that? End PSA.)

break break break

I’m taking a quick break, for heaven’s sake, because I swear the gray matter is running so slow today I feel a little stupid. Come to think of it, isn’t it weird that taking a break can prevent you from breaking down? Maybe I’m reading too much into stuff again – I can explain okay? I’ve been writing about wireless connectivity technologies the entire night and there’s only so much 4G and IEEE 802.16 Air Interface Standard one could take.

Anyway, before I went off on a tangent, I know I had a point in there somewhere. A break. Everybody needs one. I mean, you can only take so much abuse right? There are times when some things just won’t go your way, or things happen too fast, or the universe just ups and kills your cat with no provocation and no reason. It’s exhausting, and I realize I’m sounding like a bitter old woman here, but it’s true. Without a break, you may at some point, get the urge to bring a high calibre automatic weapon to work and gun everybody down. Or you may be the type who sits down in a quiet corner, starts giggling uncontrollably, then when the sarcastic hilarity fades, is reduced to hysterical laughter and tears. You get the point.

Anxiety, Change, and other random ramblings

Okay, so I’m still up, yes – because a. I’m working, and b. I wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway. I’ve been blaming this restlessness on change anxiety, and it’s true (or so I shall maintain until it proves otherwise). A couple of things have changed recently namely my job and my work arrangements. Other things are on the verge of changing as well, like my address and my age. Let’s get one thing out of the way before I start psychoanalyzing myself yet again: Change scares the living crap out of me.

the mental washing machine

If you’re anything like me, then some things are started that just don’t get anywhere near completion. Sometimes it’s sad when I clean out my file storage. Yesterday, while backing up, and doing general cleaning on my files, I discovered the miserable state at which I have left my notes and such. I have another load of unfinished laundry in my mental washing machine. They range from half baked stories to essays with no conclusions, project proposals and ideas that should have been set in motion months before. It’s ugly, how my brain farts are all over the place.

There comes a point when you are desperately out of anything to wear and you are left to two choices: sniff each one of your articles of clothing to see if there’s anything that the mold haven’t got to yet, or roll up your sleeves and fire up the washing machine. I should be firing up the washing machine, I know. Though after careful sniffing, here’s something I wrote eons ago that the mold hasn’t got its fungal fingers on:

Have you ever been constipated before? You want to poop but can’t, however hard you tried? (Actually, if you tried hard enough you might get yourself hemorrhoids.) Anyway, bad bloody images aside, constipation is a bad, bad thing to have. Good things come to those who cannot shit though, as there are drugs available that can help you (nope, this is not an ad) whereas you can’t drink anything to cure constipation of the brain.

When one gets brain constipation, ideas refuse to be shat out and sentences that were there a second ago vamoose into thin air. This is typically bad news for somebody like me, who like the girl in the Dulcolax commercial feels terrible, out of sorts, and irritable. The difference between me and the girl in the commercial is that she doesn’t get paid to empty her bowels, I on the other hand, am paid to write.

Under the Storm: 150 poets, 150 pieces of contemporary poetry

Jim Morrison said it best, “Listen, real poetry doesn’t say anything; it just ticks off the possibilities. Opens all doors. You can walk through any one that suits you.” I’ll admit it on the outset – I can’t write poetry. Good thing the inability to write poetry (or at least poetry that doesn’t evoke peals of sidesplitting laughter) doesn’t dampen my ability to appreciate a good poem. .MOV International Film, Music, & Literature Festival has teamed up with The Antithesis Collective Publishing Co. to produce an anthology of epic proportions.

The collection is aptly entitled Under the Storm: An Anthology of Contemporary Philippine Poetry and features the works of 150 poets (known and unknown, emerging new talent and enduring poets). With this eclectic mix of poems in various styles and techniques, Under the Storm holds a lot of promise within its 360something pages.

Under the Storm is geared for launch tomorrow, September 2, 2011 at the Ayala Museum. Cocktails start at 6PM. Under the Storm: An Anthology of Contemporary Philippine Poetry is available for pre-order at theantithesiscollective.com/shop for PHP 450 (pre-ordering ends today). It will be sold at the 4^th .MOV International Film, Music, & Literature Festival (Sept. 1-6) for the special festival price of PHP 600. Once The Storm hits the shelves, its regular retail price will be PHP 800.

If you’re still on the fence whether or not you want to pre-order the book, check out the pictures below.

More at YuppieUniverse.com

Under The Storm: An Anthology of Contemporary Philippine Poetry

Handa ka na bang sumugod sa gitna ng unos? Pwes, magkita-kita na lang tayo bukas sa Ayala Museum para sa official launch ng Under The Storm: An Anthology of Contemporary Philippine Poetry, Day 2 ng MOV International Film, Music, & Literature Festival. 6PM, September 2, Ayala Museum. Ulit-ulitin para maisaulo.

Gwapong-gwapo, fresh off the presses! Today ang huling araw ng 450pesos pre-order price (kung gusto mong humabol, larga na sa theantithesiscollective.com/shop, as in ngayon din). Sa Ayala Museum bukas, 600pesos ang presyong launch at MOV International Film, Music, & Literature Festival. Tumatagingting na 800 pesos ang regular retail price after the festival.

Blasting Back to 2002

So this afternoon I got to talk with a couple of fresh grads out looking for work. They didn’t know each other but had chatted each other (and me) up while waiting in a small cramped glass room. How I got there and what I was doing there is a whole other story we’ll discuss when I get myself a beer.

So anyway, these two kids were both fresh grads and both still with the wide-eyed, slightly confused look of people nurtured inside a controlled environment then unceremoniously thrust into a wild and harsh world. After the small talk, I asked them how many companies they’ve applied for. One gave me a solid number (4), the other told me, “Nakakarami na po ako.”

After we went our separate ways, I lit a cigarette to contemplate my place in the universe. I realized a few things: a. that I am old; b. that because I old (and experienced), I am no spring chicken, I do not tolerate bullshit, and I know what I want; and c. that because I’m old, the convo set forth a trippy blast from the past. Me from 2002 flashed before my very eyes.

Rio from 2002 was an 18 year old gangly kid freshly dropped out from college. I was lucky: when I started looking for work, my nanay’s friend was looking for a data encoder. I didn’t have to look for another job after I lost that one. My boss took me with him to another company when the previous one closed, and by then I was a draftsman. Next, I was tech support, then a marketing associate, then finally a writer. (A writer because I write. No frills, no artiste aspirations.) Here comes my point: That long convoluted path to where I am took years, I now am doing what I love doing, and I think I’ve found my place (I’m just working to get myself a cozy spot around here).

I hope they find theirs too. Eventually.

*Oh Batman, I’m old!

Acetone depletion and Angry bird Falcon

So this morning, I un-velcroed my ass from bed and went to work. I wore my trusty no-slip (except on mossy underwater rocks and bad footing, therefore it’s your own damn fault for being clumsy) Sandugo sandals, since slipping off a sidewalk onto the path of a moving vehicle is not a good way to die. I was sitting inside the shuttle on my way to work, and a girl was looking in the general direction of my toes.

I realized belatedly that a few weeks back, I was bored enough to do an activity I do once a year. I had cleaned my toenails. Now before you lecture me about the importance of good hygiene: I clean my toenails regularly, thank you very much, but not with the complete ensemble of a pusher, a nipper, a nail file, a nail cutter, and subsequent pink chemicals. Yes, I do it once a year. Yes, I do live like a college dude. Don’t look at me like that.

bartender, another monster coke float please.

Receiving criticism for work you’ve written is part of being a writer. It’s actually a requirement for a writer to ask for feedback. It helps, really, when you are told that parts of your sentences suck, that your subjects and verbs have irreconcilable differences and should be annulled, and that your stories are pure drivel and your manuscript should be thrown into the fire. That last part isn’t true: I typically keep my sucky stories so I can laugh about them on my free time.

So anyway, this morning I got feedback for one of the stories I wrote and let me just say, BURN BABY BURN! The test reader seemed so incensed (irked, angry, furious, miffed) at my writing that she took a lot of her precious time to detail my shortcomings. Her tone tempted me to write her an apology for wasting her time on my story. At any rate, she sounded like the reincarnation of William Safire in heels, with fangs and can breathe fire. (I happen to like William Safire; he shared his lessons in locution, language and usage with humor so nobody minds being corrected.)

when you're assailed with a bundle of cuteness

So today, I tried out the Tumblr Cloud app, and realized that I mention Mabie tons of times in my posts (mostly crazy chat logs and insane adventures in motherships). I also realized that I haven’t written anything for myself and my entertainment in more than a month. I find that a little amusing, since lately I’ve been spending much of my time not wallowing in a dank dreary pit of misery.

I have been writing, yes - mostly copy, work stuff, and all of the other stuff that require good grammar and some concept of cohesion and coherence. Fiction, not much. I’m in one of those states when, upon waking, you are excited to welcome a new day. It’s a state when your waking hours are much better than those spent asleep and dreaming. (Did I just write that? O_O Hocrap. Cue Rica hurling a block of cheese in my direction. One cannot duck these, may pektus eh.)

Though of course, we can’t have good days every day.

James Boice talks about The Good and The Ghastly facts about writing

James Boice talks about The Good and The Ghastly facts about writing

There are moments when you meet people who are absolutely interesting and insanely pleasant to (virtually) interact with. It’s a plus when said people are open to sharing themselves to the world. Thanks James Boice, while we can’t promise to eventually be as good as you are, we can however promise to be as rabidly persistent.

screwy photography

pirs taym using an oldschool cam and film! bobo shots, FTW!

stop.

I don’t remember when I changed my to-work walk route, but I do remember why I changed it: my old route included stairs. An old basketball injury has bestowed upon me a bad knee so my idea of hell is actually a never ending flight of stairs with fangs. (My homebound route still involves stairs though – not one, not two, but three underpasses!)

So anyway, as I was walking to work this morning I paused at sprinklers. No, I did not pause in front of them (though that would have been nice, it’s scalding), I just stared at them. I’ve been walking past that park for a few months and only noticed them this morning. I’m not actually sure why: Were those sprinklers installed recently? (I doubt that.) How could I have assumed that the grass, trees, and shrubbery survived on nothing but the drool of squalling brats and great landscapers?

Then I realized that I haven’t actually been to the chapel when I walk by it every day, I haven’t walked around the park on a regular day, I haven’t fed the fish (I don’t know if it’s allowed), and I haven’t checked the giant Easter egg spaceship (yes, it really does look that way) and the other statues in that park up close. Every time, every morning, I’m hurrying to somewhere and I didn’t even stop when yellow flowers were falling from the giant tree and carpeted the walkway across the pond.

Well, note to self Rio: visit said park, look like a damned tourist by taking pictures, sit on the bench and think of nothing.

The Gummy Bear Analogy

Last night, I was having coffee with Chris. At one point, he looked up at me and asked, “So, how do you feel?” Lately, my friends have been asking me the same questions – how I am and how things are going and all that and I always find myself using the yosi analogy. Since Chris is not a smoker, I gave him the Gummy Bear Analogy:

So you’re craving for a gummy bear, so absolutely dying for one that you’ve scoured all the stores within a 10-kilometer radius of your house and your office just to find one single gummy bear. You’ve turned your house upside-down, checked inside bags, and even checked in the “quite impossible” places like the floor of your closet and under your carpets. No gummy bears. Just when you’ve given up the prospect of getting any gummy bears and maybe you’ve even resigned yourself to a gummy bear-less existence, you find a lone gummy bear sitting on the very tip of your nose.

When you find it, it delivers a shock and fries all of your circuits. The initial WTF usually comes with the following questions: Where did this gummy bear come from? How could I have missed that? After you regain your composure (you will never fully regain this, I’m sorry), you stare at it in wonder for a few eons. You stare at it and wonder if it’s just a Phantom Gummy Bear, or one of those gremlin assholes who love disguising themselves as gummy bears, or a Ghost of Gummy Bears Past. You even wonder if it’s a jellybean and not a gummy bear at all. You cautiously approach the gummy bear, making no sudden movements and not making eye contact. If you’ve had previous encounters with extra douche-y gummy bears, by this time you probably own a 10-foot pole specifically for the purpose of poking suspicious gummy bears to discern its intentions.

In the middle of all that thinking, you realize, “But wait, haven’t I been looking for a gummy bear all this freaking time?” You laugh at this, you laugh especially because you’ve been so obtuse not to have seen it. All things said though, you’ve found a gummy bear, and that feeling of AHA! and the joy of finding something great washes over you like a river of rainbows and unicorns and kittens.

Oh, and to answer your question, I’m deliriously happy, thank you very much.

sana bobo na lang ako sa math.

hindi ko alam kung bakit ayaw matanggal nyang pangungusap na yan sa utak ko, hindi ko din alam kung san sya galing, pero alam kong totoo sya. sana bobo na lang ako sa math.

pero bakit nga ba gugustuhin kong maging tanga sa isang subject na kahit hindi lahat ng aspeto ay nakakatulong sa normal na buhay (if train a leaves the blah station at x speed at 10:45pm EST and train b leaves the blah blah station at y speed at 4:21AM PST, at what point will this question make sense to you?) ay nagagamit pa din naman lalo na pag nagcocompute ka ng bill sa restaurant at unti-unti mong narerealize kung gano kaholdap ang presyo ng beer.

may nagsabi sakin dati - o nabasa ko to kung san - na pag deficient ka sa isang bagay, sa ibang bagay napupunta ang skill points na para dun. siguro naiisip ko na meron akong ibang maayos na paglalagyan ng skill points ko sa math. o siguro naiisip ko na mas okay sanang naging cute na lang ako kesa marunong sa math. diba parang mas okay pakinggan ang “bobo sya sa math, pero cute sya” kesa sa “hindi sya cute, pero magaling sya sa math”?

pero ayun. pede ko din ilagay yung math skill points sa pasensya, o sa better judgement at madami pang iba. kung tutuusin, mas makikinabang ako kung sa pagpapasya na nga lang sya napunta, o sa pagtitimpi.

teka. parang naligaw na ako sa punto. (cue: celine dion. it’s all coming back, it’s all coming back to me now~) oo, sana bobo na lang ako sa math, pero wala akong magagawa. hindi ko sya mapapalitan. walang customer service center si batman na pwedeng magpaskill point reset, at wala din akong magandang rason na maibibigay kung meron man.

may magandang puntong inihain ang paborito kong pilosopo na si mariebelle. isasadula natin sya para masaya:

“gusto ko po sanang ipagpalit ang math para maging cute.”

“ha? bakit? ayaw mo nun, hindi ka magsusummer classes sa geometry, algebra o physics, at hindi ka din madadaya sa suklian.”

“kasi pag cute ako, pede akong magpacompute sa iba. pero pag magaling ako sa math, ako na nga magcocompute, wala pang cute sa equation.”

kung tutuusin, praktikal nga naman na argumento yun. kung cute ka, mas madaling gawan ng paraan ang mga bagay bagay. pero ayun nga, kung di ka pinalad sa genetic russian roulette na yun, anong gagawin mo? magpapacute? aastang cute? parang hindi magandang solusyon para sakin yun.

akina yung bill, ako na magcocompute.

Anong sabi mo?

An Audiotard's Writing Mixtape

An Audiotard's Writing Mixtape

Clue: The Audiotard in question is me.

itutuloy ko sana, pero parang okay na.

on a bus bound for nowhere

Have you ever been on an ordinary bus (kamikaze bus of doom) between the hours of 10pm to 6am? I have, the most recent of these death trips was late last night. It’s a rush really, unlike trips in the morning when EDSA is quite effectively choked with a bunch of noisy, smelly, and slow moving herd animals. Late night bus trips are different; in fact, they are oddly life affirming.

Fun fact: I used to spend 4 hours a day in buses on the commute to and from work. 4 hours x 5 days a week = 20 hours a week x 4 weeks x 12 months = 960 hours a year. Spent in a bus. To put that in better perspective, 960 hours is 40 days. (The sad part is, one would assume that I live in Silang, Cavite and work in Makati to endure this slow and torturous commute. During this period, I lived in Las Pinas and worked in Makati.)

The Mini-Marshmallow Madness

MALLOWS!

The Antithesis Collective reviews

So what’s your favorite book? The Antithesis Collective has reviewed the their favorite books and has established their differences in tastes:

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

Manazuru by Hiromi Kawakami

Lord of the Flies by William Golding and The Best Philippine Short Stories of the Twentieth Century (edited by Isagani R. Cruz)

The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin

Waking the Dead by Scott Spencer

buses and poetry

[Naisip/nasulat ito habang nakasakay ako sa bus kaninang umaga. Buses and I go way back, and the trip allows me time to think, wallow, muse, and like this morning, write. :D Comments are welcome, don’t be shy. And don’t be afraid to bash.]

I remember
The mere thought of you
Was an invitation,
A temptation, and surrender
To fire,
Of needy kisses and burning embers
Of me breathing you in
Taking you inside
And relishing each draw,
And each release.
Each tryst ending with you
Consumed.
You lie there spent
Discarded
With your taste lingering on my lips
Only a memory

His kisses replaced yours,
Now bittersweet and telling
Of an end beginning
And I
Needing something for my hand to hold
Have come back
To you
To contemplate
As smoke curls up and embers dissolve
To ashes

chasing dragons with plastic swords

So last night I started feeling off and under the weather, and thus I have been running on half (mental) capacity. At the time of this writing, I am high on bioflu. Have you ever tried doing any smart activities while on flu meds? Everything is a blur, so even the simple activity of getting from point a to point b somehow becomes an exercise in retardation (one foot in front of the other Rio yes that’s it now the other foot). Amidst the blurring lines and squiggly surfaces, it’s a little disconcerting to mull over some things since I consider mulling, wondering, thinking, and considering activities best done when not on flu meds.

This morning I have been arguing with Mabie regarding a trip which will pretty much require me to figuratively jump through flaming hoops, crawl under barbed wires, and climb every mountain, ford every stream. Wait, what? So while arguing – which is basically her typing furiously at the other end and me with my arms crossed and grunting at every point she made – she used a card I have never seen before. It’s the “Nag-iiba na ang demographics natin” card.

beating a 15-storey Block with nothing but spit and automatism

Writing used to be a morning habit, a ritual before starting things that are regimented and are stamped with deadlines. Lately, writing for myself has been feeling like a chore, something that can be put off until it is forgotten in the daily grind. This happens, I guess. It’s a phase. It’s a phase though that I don’t want to eventually get used to, I want it to be a phase that I’ll always dislike the way people dislike constipation.

I used to write humor and sarcasm (or so I’d like to think) but finding humor these days seems tedious, forced. It’s fascinating how I used to find something funny in bus rides or in Chucks, how I can stop and think about things that interest me or annoy me. I don’t think the humor in little things escape me, I can see them perfectly well now as I did then, it’s just the writing that escapes me I think. That’s not a good image: words evacuating from my brain en masse, slipping through my fingers, landing at the tip of my tongue.

Dear Amazon,

WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU CAN’T SHIP THIS?

Sige na please. Huhuhuhu.

Love,

I-WANT-IT-NOW.

sometimes, i'm barely sentient.

So last night, I was with Rem at Eya’s office. They were filling out forms while I was providing background noise. As they were doing that, guy passes by and Eya looks up. “Hey, (name). These are the people from The Antithesis Collective. This is Rio, the editor, and Rem, the partner. They’ve received your manuscript.”

Have you ever been caught with your pants down in public? I guess the 5.5 people who read this blog think that I am generally glib, witty, and fast on my brain cells (or not, but whatever, right?). So yeah, as soon as Eya said, “Rio, the editor” and “your manuscript” my brain froze in its tracks and automatically went into flight or fight. In this instance, my language centers fled and my tongue made a valiant attempt to continue speaking. While the effort was noble, I’m sure my own nanay would disown me if she saw me that way.

I remember thinking, HOLY SHIT ON STILTS, DID SHE JUST INTRODUCE ME AS AN EDITOR.

6 Reasons You Will Never Be A Writer

6 Reasons You Will Never Be A Writer

Guilty as charged.

the-write-idea:

Wondering when you’ll reap the fame and fortune that come with your dream of being a writer? Well, probably never. If:

1. You don’t read

At least, not the right things. You read all the books on writing and polishing and publishing, and all the books that literary critics are praising, but nothing of any real value. You don’t read books that light a fire under you, you don’t read in your genre, you don’t read non-fiction for fun and inspiration.  You don’t have an Audible membership or a library card and you couldn’t name a book that has meant anything to you since you turned 20.

If you were learning to be an accountant you’d study accounting law. If you were studying to be a doctor you would read medical books. Stephen King, in On Writing calls it the Great Commandment: Reada lot, write a lot.

“Read, read, read, Read everything — trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it.”

-William Faulkner.

2. You’re too busy to write

You’re not independently wealthy: you’ve got a job, a family, commitments, a social life, a pressing engagement with the cast of Glee! You can’t possibly squeeze any time out of your day to write.

Jon Scalzi, current president of the Science Fiction Writers of America puts it bluntly and truthfully:

So: Do you want to write or don’t you? If your answer is “yes, but,” then here’s a small editing tip: what you’re doing is using six letters and two words to say “no.” And that’s fine. Just don’t kid yourself as to what “yes, but” means.

You can make time to write, but something else is probably going to have to give. It might be sleep, it might be ‘watching Ellen in the afternoon’, it might be having lunch with the same people every day in the dreary work cafeteria. It might be ‘feeling bad about yourself because you’re not getting any writing done and eating ice cream instead’.

But, chances are, you can make time to write.

3. You have no original ideas

Every time you sit down to write you are paralyzed by the overwhelming feeling that everything has been said before. Well, you know what? You’re right. But it hasn’t been said by you, in this time and place, at your age, and in your circumstances. Agent Donald Maas talks a lot in The Breakout Novelist about the difference between ‘original’ and ‘unique’. You don’t have to be original, but you do have to be ‘unique’.

I once interviewed Daniel Pinkwater and he said the same thing: only you can speak in your voice, and if you write for a while you’ll discover what that voice is.

I love that what my readers need, they can only get from me. It’s riskier, but much more ego-gratifying
-Daniel Pinkwater, 2003 interview

He also said,

Ideas are everywhere. I have 60 ideas a day. So do you. So does everybody.
-Daniel Pinkwater, 2003 interview

The trick is paying attention, taking those ideas and developing them into the story only you can tell.

4. You have no qualifications for this. You don’t know what you’re doing

No writer does. Every artist is engaged in creating something unique and new. Experienced writers say this all the time: I don’t know what I’m doing until I’ve done it. Here’s a little evidence:

The only way to write is to write… Stupid b*****d job.
-Russell T. Davies, Doctor Who: The Writer’s Tale.

Very few writers know what they are doing until they have done it.
-Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life.

You can’t completely understand what good writers do until you try it yourself…Write from the very beginning, then, and keep on writing…The next story will be better, and the next one after that still better, and eventually—
-Isaac Asimov, Gold

5. Your Writing Sucks

When you do make the time to write, it’s hard. The words do not come dripping off your pen easily; all the elements in your story don’t come out in the right order; your characters are flat and uninteresting and they speak in cliches; you want to give up.

And that is what Anne Lammot calls your ’shitty first draft’. It has to be got through in order to get to the second draft, the third, and the polished end result. If you are too scared to suck, too scared to fail then you will never be a writer, because all writing involves putting some truly terrible prose on the page — and excising it later or, like William Faulkner, throw it out entirely and start again,

Write. If it’s good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out the window.
-William Faulkner

Sure, it’s scary but even the great and prolific Isaac Asimov says, of the writer’s daily task:

We sit there alone, pounding out words, with out hearts pounding in time. Each sentence brings with it the sickening sensation of not being right.
-Isaac Asimov, Gold

Can you allow your first drafts to be less than perfect?

6. You’re Too Nice

In real life it’s nice to be nice: people like you, you offend nobody and your mother is proud of you.

In literature, being nice doesn’t pay. It’s boring if nothing happens, if no-one gets upset, if no-one is threatened, insulted, shamed, murdered, even. Your writing can be your playground. Be nice in real life if you must but, in your writing,

Embrace your inner sadist.
-Donald Maass, The Breakout Novelist

/insert

So I was rereading some of the stuff I’ve written (specifically the stuff I wrote during the time when I was bored out of my skull) and I had an epiphany. This is not exactly news to me that I am a serial self-insertionist in my stories. Rica put it in the geekiest terms possible: It’s like a comic book. You’re writing the same character but in a different universe.

[If you have read any of my stories, the characters in question are Paris Ross, Alexis Santos, the girl on the bus in Ang Pagtakas, the shopkeeper in The Shop, Mayari, and several others I may or may not have self inserted myself into.]

Random, random

Yesterday was pretty miserable for me. The good news was it had nothing to do with Valentine’s. The bad news? It had to do with everything else. It was one of those days when everything went wrong.

I walked toward the bus stop and marveled at the silence in my head. My phone had died and therefore I had no music. I let an older lady get on the bus before me and she got the last seat. Small things like that can be irritating.

While waiting in line for something, a guy about a head shorter than I am cut in line. I swallowed the fury that leapt into my throat and threatened to make my mouth rush into a barrage of big words. At times like that, one should remember two things: a. knowing you are perfectly capable of beating somebody into a mass of pus doesn’t mean you should; and b. your big words are bound to be lost on idiots, so don’t bother.

Date A Girl Who Reads by Rosemarie Urquico

Date A Girl Who Reads by Rosemarie Urquico

robbiefelipe:

vodkalemonade:

Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag.She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilightseries.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.

THIS. my wife’s gotta read, man. And no, not some Twilight, or Percy Jackson whatevers. But read, as in READ. haha.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5peqCDJi0A

Sad, upbeat song.

And it’s not like they were ever actually unhappy in the lives they lived
He married Martha, she married Tom
Just this fake notion that something was wrong
An ache, an absence, a phantom limb

Ben Folds/Nick Hornby - From Above (Video) (via benfoldsTV)

(Source: http://www.youtube.com/)

Anecdotes: The Mother Ship and the Mabie True Friendship Test

Let’s get some records straight: I can assemble a PC, I can fix a radio and other electronic devices with some duct tape and sheer will, I can reach stuff on high shelves, and I can execute a left hook. I can even build websites, write copy and short stories, and *gasp* sing in tune. Despite all of these things I know about and can satisfactorily accomplish, I do not know anything about fashion.

One night, Mabie ‘dragged’ me to accompany her shopping at Greenbelt.

Have you ever been to a place where everybody else speaks another language and everybody looks in amusement every time you make an innocent comment? In the Ally McBeal universe, you’d suddenly find a sign pointing at you in great neon lights saying EEJIT. If you have been there, or imagined the scenario to some extent, then congratulations, you have been to the Mother Ship. A Mother Ship is simply a place that contains something your friends like and can talk about in great detail. They can go on and on about how each and every item in that place is made, works, or looks and how each is different from another slightly different item – you get the picture.

Anecdotes: The UST 400th anniversary turista trip

So yesterday, I went to UST with Mabie, Rem, and Chris. Since Chris is a turista so to speak, we pointed out the places we hid out when cutting class, among other places where we used to hang out. Weirdly, Rem (AB SocSci) and Mabie (AB Philo, yeah!) never met there. I (BS PreCom - Bullshit Pre-Commercialism) spent a less than a year there, so lower chances of meeting them. Personally, I liked Tinoco Park (where I used to tutor peeps), the UST Library (I was a regular at the frigid Filipinana Section and the dusty Humanities Section), and the ever so masukal Botanical Garden (if nobody ever goes there except to hide out).

Spot the Turista! Clue: The Guy in the Middle.

While there, I felt a tinge of nostalgia that was soon overpowered by an intense, debilitating feeling of old age. I officially spent around eight months there. Some random notes:

Ang Pagtakas, Part 5

Parang akong tanga, tumitingin pa rin ako sa cellphone ko kahit alam kong walang signal. Ito na nga ata ang sinasabi nila na kawalan ng closure. At syempre, dahil nagpapakaengot na rin naman ako, nilubos lubos ko na.

Pag nagkita kaya tayo ulit, maaalala mong allergic ako sa tuna? Alam mo pa rin kaya kung pano ako gisingin nang hindi kita mabubulyawan? Tatawagan mo pa rin kaya ako ng alas dos ng madaling araw para lang magyosi at magkape sa tapat ng bahay nyo?

Napansin kong pasulyap sulyap sa salamin si manong drayber at kahit yung magkasintahan sa may katabing upuan ay tumigil sa pag-uusap. Biglang naging interesante ang pagnguya ng kambing sa labas ng bintana. Ako, umiiyak? Hindi no, napuwing lang ako.

Alam kong pinagtatawanan na ako ng kung sino mang nagsusulat ng telenovela ng buhay ko. Kung sa bagay, kung ako ang nanonood ng ganitong klaseng telenovela, binabato ko na ng popcorn ang screen at sinisigawan ang bida ng “Ba’t ang tanga tanga mo?”

Natawa na lang ako. Yung klase ng tawa kapag wala namang nakakatawa.

Ako ang umalis, pero ako parin yung naiwan.

Ang Pagtakas, Part 4

Alam kong tatawaging akong Diether Ocampo ng mga kaibigan kong fluent sa gayspeak. Oo na, bitter na kung bitter. Sa tingin ko may karapatan akong maging ganun, katulad ng pagkakaroon ko ng karapatang maging cynical at sarcastic. Idagdag na rin siguro ang karapatan ko to self flagellation.

Habang lumilipad nanaman ang isip ko, nag-iba na ang view sa bintana. Pinalitan ng mga bukid at ilog ang buildings at shops sa tabing daan. Bigla kong naalala ang sinasabi mo pag nakakakita ka ng bukirin. “Endangered species na talaga ang mga taniman.”

Napansin kong binibilot ko pala yung ticket sa kamay ko. Akalain mo yun, sa isang lugar na walang nakakakilala sa ‘yo at sa akin at walang nakakaalam ng nangyari sa ‘ting dalawa kundi ako, eh meron pa rin talagang mga bagay na nagpapaalala sa ‘kin na you do exist, somewhere out there.

Ang Pagtakas, Part 3

Nang bumalik ang lumilipad kong utak, may nagsasalita sa tabi ko. Ilang segundo pa at may kumakalabit na sa ‘kin. Parang may humablot sa kwelyo ko at hinaltak ako pabalik sa bus.

“Miss, ticket.” Sa itsura ng kunduktor, mukhang kanina pa nya sinusubukang tawagin ang atensyon ko.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Nun lang rumehistro ang sinasabi ni manong kunduktor. Medyo napabikwas ako at binuksan ko ang bulsa ng bag kung nasaan ang ticket ko. Maling bulsa, tingin sa kabila. Buti nalang medyo mahaba-haba ang pasensya ni manong.

Nung inabot ko sa kanya ang kapirasong papel, napangiti sya at sinabing, “Mukhang madami kang iniisip, ma’am.”

Marami akong kaibigan na susungitan ang medyo psychic na kunduktor na iyon, pero dahil ako ito, okay lang. Ngumiti na lang din ako at sumagot, “Hindi, kuya. Wala lang pong tulog.”

“Ah, ganun ba.”

Pinagmasdan ko habang ginagawa ni manong kunduktor ang ticket ko para sa bus. Hawak ang maliit na puncher, mabilis nyang binutasan ang ticket. Dalawang kopya. Pinunit nya at inabot sa ‘kin ang isang mala-resibong piraso ng papel na nagsasaad kung magkano ang pamasahe at gaano kalayo ang pupuntahan ko.

Gaano ba kalayo ang “far enough”?

i hate that i need you,

to live, to breathe, to eat,

i hate that i have to beg to get you,

to touch you,

only for you to flit past my grasp into somebody else’s

i hate that whatever i do,

i can’t do anything without you.

you are my crutch, my ever present hang up,

it’s hopeless to think i can live without you

or forget about you,

and i hate you for that

i really really do.

Ang Pagtakas, Part 2

Mukha nanamanang free parking area ang EDSA kaya binalikan ko nalang ang pagmamasid sa sidewalk.

“Ano ba, Batman? Pinagtitripan mo nanaman ako eh,” nasambit ko habang nagsilabasan ng mga payong ang mga tao.

Napasulyap sa ‘kin ang kunduktor. Nginitian ko lang siya. Nakalimutan kong naka-earphones nga pala ako.

Binuksan ng drayber ang wipers, mukhang may naglalabas ng matinding sama ng loob sa itaas.

Ginagamit mo kaya yung payong na binigay ko sa ‘yo?

Ang Pagtakas, Part 1

Ang init. Tumatagaktak na ang pawis ko habang naghihintay ng bus. Sabi nung ale sa ticket booth, mayamaya pa daw ang susunod na byahe.

Inalok nya ako ng mas maagang bus, pero sabi ko, hindi naman ako nagmamadali. Mahaba na din kasi yung pila sa likod ko, malamang, may nagmamadali sa mga yun.

Bawal manigarilyo, sabi nung karatula sa pader. Kungsabagay, may pagasulinahan sa may sulok. Dahil ayaw ko naman mandamay, binuhat ko nalang uli ang mabigat kong bag at lumabas ng terminal. Dun na ako nagsindi at naghintay.

Bakit ko nga ba di kinuha yung mas maagang bus? Natawa ako. “Hindi,” sabi ko sa sarili ko. Hindi lang talaga ako nagmamadali.

Once upon a time when I was still a fledgling writer – I still am I suppose, only older and a little more battered – when my friend Annabs presented me with a project. It was called Promdifiction.

I liked the idea. It was short stories that were to be presented in 5 parts. Half of it is fact, and the other, fiction. It’s up to the readers to figure out which parts are pulled from the writer’s inventory of imagined experiences and which are true events. I wrote a story for it, entitled Ang Pagtakas. The story eventually made its way to another publication – at which point it became a victim of a mix up that retitled it into “Promdification.”

Promdifiction.com is now an experimental site (found here: promdifiction.tumblr.com) and still lovingly maintained by Annabs. The magazine I published the story on is still on shelves, though I won’t to tell you which mag it was to protect my poor pride.

Anyway, to start off this year’s February lovapaloser series I’ll release Ang Pagtakas here again in the form it was originally intended to be read: in parts. I hope you enjoy it and give me feedback, will you?

Walking with a Cramp

Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night with a screeching cramp? If you haven’t, it’s a pain much like getting drop kicked in the face by a soccer player with cleats on. Once afflicted, you snap into a state of bewildered wakefulness (like so, “Wha—Ooooww.”). Screaming does not help; the pain sadistically lingers for a few excruciating minutes, and when it finally goes away, it leaves you with one more reason to hate the universe.

This morning, I was walking my usual 1KM to work (the other 1KM from work) when a cramp seized my left leg. This persisted for a few meters, and since I was favoring the other left leg, that started cramping too. I was still at Makati Avenue, about 800 meters away from the office I needed to be at before 9 o’clock. It was 8:49.

For the Love of Buses: EDSA Blast

For the Love of Buses: EDSA Blast

Suddenly, the simple commute to work doesn’t feel very safe anymore.

semantics

all i really want to do right now is have one good long cry.

The Girl Who Reads

The Girl Who Reads

You, the girl who reads, make me want to be everything that I am not. But I am weak and I will fail you, because you have dreamed, properly, of someone who is better than I am. You will not accept the life that I told of at the beginning of this piece. You will accept nothing less than passion, and perfection, and a life worthy of being storied. So out with you, girl who reads. Take the next southbound train and take your Hemingway with you. I hate you. I really, really, really hate you.

Dear Kids at GoHotels,

I hope when you are 27, just turned in from a meeting at 4AM, tired and damned sleepy, some shrieking kids also run in the halls and wake you up at 8AM.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyihQtBes1I

Para sa mga natanga, natatanga, o matatanga palang (or yung mga medyo sadyang tanga lang talaga), si Sheryl Crow singing If It Makes You Happy.

(Source: http://www.youtube.com/)

Morning Rituals

Every morning, I follow a few morning rituals before going out to another work day. My ritual includes sitting down to breakfast, having my first mug of coffee, lighting my first cigarette, munching on a few pieces of pandesal, staring at nothing and thinking of nothing in particular while waiting for my brain to boot. Twenty minutes later, I kiss my nanay after hurriedly gulping down my second mug of coffee and she calls out things I may have forgotten. This morning, I was halfway out of the house with Larc~en~ciel screaming Ready, Steady, Go into my eardrums when I did a double take.

My mom said, “Wallet, Cellphone.” I patted the pockets containing the things in question and narrowly missed the last reminder as I was closing the door: James. I removed one earphone. “Ano po yun?” “Si James baka nakalimutan mo.”

The Road Trip North: A Few Notes

I gave the heavily sedated telling of the road trip the last time; this time, a few notes.

One. I still live pretty much like a college dude. When it was time to sleep, Rem took out a kikay kit. I took out facial wash and uh, toothpaste. Angel remembers that time when she stayed over at the southern suburbs of Las Pinas: she looked for moisturizer the next morning. According to her, I replied with the “Uhh… Wut?” look. That’s pretty accurate; some skin/hair/body care products may as well have product descriptions written in alien.

So yeah. I’m stuck in the college dork phase in terms of personal hygiene and general vanity.

Walking Through Walls

So yesterday was my first day back at work from vacation. I was fully rested, though I think my brain was still dulled by Vacation that it failed to notice the madness creeping in on my Monday. All was well (I think) until I almost walked into a white wall at Glorietta.

I was on my usual route, Ayala Walkway to Greenbelt, to Landmark, to Glorietta and finally to SM Makati and EDSA Ayala. I’ve been using the route for years, and honestly, I’ve stopped paying attention to where I am going while on the said route. Yesterday, I was texting a couple of friends, commenting about how cold it was. Then I looked up and saw that 2 steps in front of me was a blank wall. I stared at it for a while, puzzled at the sudden development, before doubling back to take another route.

The Road Trip North

So last Friday I embarked on my first trip for 2011 (which in my mind, had been labeled as a year for adventure) with my friend Rem. Baguio was recently reported to be at frigid tundra temperatures, so when Rem gave me a choice between frigid tundra and new territory, I chose the latter. We were to drive from the northern suburbs (the vicinity where Rem lives, I don’t know what it’s called. I live in the southern suburbs and only have rudimentary essential-to-survival knowledge of Quezon City) to Ilocos Sur.

MORE HERE.

Natanga Lang: A Love Story, further details

Natanga Lang: A Love Story, further details

A few days ago, a brilliant brain fart – wait no. Actually, it was Rica sarcastically telling me a great title for a Star Cinema movie (Joel Lamangan, have your people call my people. We’ll do lunch, preferably with John Lloyd Cruz). “Natanga Lang: A Love Story” has then evolved to a creative exercise challenge. There are no prizes here, no promises of glory and shining, shimmering, splendid phones. We just present you with the opportunity to remember and laugh, to lambast an old love, to imagine, and to be creative.

This being a creative exercise, you have freedom to choose whatever media you want to use and in whatever form you want. Here are some suggestions:

• Epitaph
  
  • “Here lies Mike, who lied through his teeth. Too bad he can’t sweet talk a bullet.”
  
  

Read more: Natanga Lang: A Love Story, further details | Young Underpaid Professionals http://www.yuppieuniverse.com/creative-non-fiction/natanga-lang-a-love-story-further-details/

An Offer You Can’t Refuse

A couple of weeks back, I chatted up a friend of mine, Angel (hindi nya tunay na pangalan). She told me that a company told her that they are about to make her an offer she can’t refuse. Well, thought I, that may not amount to anything much but that’s bound to be interesting. Later, she chatted me up again to report what the offer was:

Angel: i gots my offer btw

Angel: and it’s measly.

Rio: o_o

Angel: 17K fulltime, nechan.

Rio: that’s it?

Angel: grabe.

Angel: that’s eeeet.

Rio: that’s the offer you can’t refuse?

Angel: apparently.

Angel: ohmigad.

Angel: parang… ang baba naman ng self-esteem ko kung tanggapin ko yun.

Rio: an offer i can’t refuse kasi involves a 6-digit tax free salary, free gourmet lunch and dinner, a porsche, and a daily backrub.

Note to future employers: Yes, my idea of “an offer I can’t refuse” includes the said things. It’s not that I am expensive, or skilled enough to be expensive, it’s that that’s literally an offer a yuppie like me won’t be able to refuse. Not 17 thousand pesetas.

In theory, An Offer You Can’t Refuse shouldn’t be used at all, especially by prospective employers attempting to lure employees. An Offer You Can’t Refuse can be consigned to the Corpo Mythical Creatures, because any offer preceded by the said phrase can fall flat on its face faster than four o’clock. Let’s be realistic, of course you can refuse 17 thousand pesos, especially if your job requires being creative all the time, being at events all the time, making logos, making proposals, rendering 10,000 hours of overtime (nevermind that there are only 168 hours in a week) and producing AVPs, among other (not less shittier) things. If there is a real, honest to goodness unrefusable offer that isn’t limited to one’s imagination, please let this jaded pisante know.

The Making of the Road Trip Soundtrack

I have had the pleasure of going on road trips with friends, but some of these trips have been marred by unfortunate soundtracks.

Next weekend, I shall be embarking on another road trip with Rem and Mabie (if she doesn’t pull another Jerico – which is to say, confirming but ultimately not showing up). If you have just tuned in to this writer, our previous excursion in a vehicle involved a little VW bug named Mo, a giant swervy bus, and a failure to reverse.

I also went on a road trip with Rem a few months back when we popped my Baguio virginity. Long story short, it involved a thick fog (it was my first time and it was terrifying for me), ACW-236 (we owe our lives to the driver of that van who we followed through the Silent Hill fog and thus we didn’t come rolling down the mountain screaming and flailing), and ABBA.

Last night, the Universe conspired against me via cat mating rituals

This can also be called: For Whom the Cat Wails Toll.

So last night the Universe conspired against me by way of feline mating rituals. Apparently, there’s a superstition from the Visayan provinces that if cats… uhm, do the act in the vicinity of a house (trust me, everybody knows when and where cats are getting it on, they’re noisier than a pair of overacting porn stars), somebody in that house is pregnant. *cue lightning flash and thunder claps*

Well, a cat couple has been using our porch as a hovel (read: sex den) for the past couple of days. The only people in the house are my nanay (menopausal) and myself (two words: el nino) and the neighbors have started getting curious. Nanay gave me the speculations over dinner last night: “I heard somebody say, ‘Baka si Ate Ester yung buntis.’ I said, ‘Asan yung bubuntis?’” She said further that it can’t be me who’s pregnant because I don’t have a boyfriend (thanks for the reminder, mom).

I replied in the words of my eloquent friend Karl: “When has the lack of a significant other stopped babies from being made?” But well, I have to admit that my mother is right; she knows me well enough to know of my serial monogamy and sex philosophy.  (I have a whole set of stringent rules about relationships that therefore translates to my current state of celibate singlehood. One of the rules state: Thou shalt not share.)

All things considered, what does the cat omen mean, Universe? Are you just toying with me like Globe, you heartless bastard? Or are you trying to be biblical on me and Nanay? (For those who did not grow up with Religion as a subject for ALL of your student years, here’s a briefer: Hundred-year old Abraham’s wife Sara was menopausal but Batman gave them menopause baby Isaac. The other biblical miracle baby is of course immaculate-conception-by-product Jesus.)

So yeah. Pakyudobol, Universe.

Friends, Trolls, and Tumblrbots,

I personally challenge you to a creative exercise involving this theme:

No, I am not kidding. The challenge is for you to write a soulful poem/bleeding love story/angry song/bitter letter/bordering on pathetic ode – you get the idea – or use any conceivable media (remember, somebody photographed Christ in piss) to produce a crime scene photo/documentary/emo music video circling around the theme above. (By the way, wag nyo pong nakawin yung banner, kasi ako lang gumawa nyan nakakahiya naman. I don’t want anybody embarrassing themselves on my behalf.)

If anybody is curious, here is an excerpt of Natanga Lang: A Telenovela:

I’m in love with her. Sure, for the first few days of our acquaintance, we hated each other’s innards, and we traded insults about each other’s mother. She called me a leery bastard and I called her an impetuous bitch.

Then we had an ordeal. We had to emergency land on a deserted island – long story, who knew pure manliness and shrieking MAYDAY MAYDAY like a highschool girl wasn’t enough to keep a plane aloft? – and we had to subsist on coconuts and tiny crustaceans. After a few hours with each other, after a talk by our magic bonfire (made without the help of matches and visible dry foliage) and sharing clothing for heat, we were saved. After that excruciating ordeal, we started giving each other meaningful looks and secret smiles.

So yeah, creative exercise. If you want to share your pieces (for this year’s Yuppie “Have Yourself A Merry Little Barfintimes Day”), don’t hesitate to tell me about it. Friends, you know my email address so you probably know where to send yours if you do plan to submit anything.

PS. Previous experience tells me not to expect anything from you useless bums. So nope, not getting my hopes up. :P

If you want previous YuppieUniverse Valentine’s Specials, you can check out Yuppie Replay: Rom-Coms and the Classics, Love According to Disney, and Willingly suspending disbelief.

FURTHER INFO HERE.