Up I Hicc!

I have the hiccups. *SIGH* When I was a kid, hiccups were okay because they used to be quiet, and all you could see was me jerking a trifle bit. Now, I hate it whenever I have hiccups. Not only do I jerk, but I hiccup loudly. As in L-O-U-D-L-Y. Trying to suppress the sound results in a terribly high-pitched "eek!" sound.

Anyway, here's something I'm thinking of right now. *hic*

WORST TIMES TO GET A HICCUP

• You're on the phone, angrily complaining to a customer service assistant
• While singing the national anthem acapella in front of your whole batch
• You and your special someone's lips are 3 inches away from kissing
• In a debate, while you're proudly debunking the opposing team's case
• Hiding in a foxhole praying that your enemy doesn't spot you
• While playing the buzzer game (the one where you have to quide a metal hoop along a length of twisted wire and they must never come into contact with one another)
• On a roller coaster (Wheeeeee*hic*eeeee!)

Just a Thought

We humans are the scum of the universe.... How else could we manage to fuck up something as pure and as innocent as a child?

To My Friend

I just had an enlightening, albeit depressing discovery today.

There is no such person called The One. The idea of having a soulmate, a partner with whom you're going to have happily ever after with is utter bullshit. Anyone can connect with any person they like given enough effort to make the relationship work.

Everlasting love, closely related to the soulmate theory, is a f*cked up idea too. Love is only good in the first few minutes. It all goes downhill from there. People, by nature, are always going to live in a state of discontent. In effect, a couple or so months - maybe years - into a relationship, the love that was there before will slowly - and undetectedly - be replaced by disappointment. The closest thing we have to everlasting love is the last relationship we have before we die.

Love is overhyped. Falling in love is the best part of the process. The rest of it will be like having all your teeth pulled out. The way I see it, falling in love is just some pastime that the dieties use to distract you while they prepare for the upcoming torture. While you're intoxicated with the wine that is love, a dark entity (may be cruel fate, may be the one you love) is there quietly prodding around your being, looking for points of weakness. And once they strike they're going to leave you there in pain, bleeding. And in they end, if you survive and manage not to commit suicide, you're going to ask yourself Why the hell you chose to fall in love.

I don't know why the hell I'm telling you this, or why in hell I'm madly typing away in front of the computer at 4AM. Maybe I simply want to vent out my anger towards my X. Maybe I want to partake in an act of self-righteousness and warn you about the pitfalls of love (if things between you and you-know-who work out, you won't be as f*cking idealistic as I was). In any case, I wish you all the best in the world, whatever that may be.

L'amore può essere scopato, ma ancora la desidero. Love may be fucked up, but I still want it.

***

To Whosoever Is Concerned: Okay, okay. My coherence in both language and thought are terrible. And the Italian phrase is far from accurate. I'll study Italian as soon as I have the means to do so. Meanwhile I'm stuck using Altavista's Babel Fish. So give me a break.

Idiotizing the Idiot Box

Here are some of the shows you can catch on local TV:

Morning Star and Sis. Talk shows hosted by once-teeny-bopper-idols now trying to preserve the small ounce of fame they have left. Mediocre topics with mediocre guests. Think 30-minute shows about Gayuma, celebrity pets, and promotions for Star Circle Quest and Starstruck contestants.

Pilipinas Game KNB? Anything hosted by Kris Aquino is a no-no. That girl can talk the ears off anyone who's willing - or unwilling - to listen in record time. A little below half of that 30-minute talk show is filled with Me, Me, Me stories from Kris. Anyway, for the most part, its a game show that Jessica Simpson could probably qualify for. She won't win, but I'm estimating she could end up as 3rd finalist. So don't look for any intellectual stimulation here.

MTB ang Saya-Saya and Eat Bulaga. Shows that have subtitles or have the same name as a toddler's pastime can only be appealing to people whose IQs are only two digits. "Ang Saya-saya?" Hellooo... I don't think so. The shows' success formulae is as follows: scantily clad dancers, ill-mannered and vulgar hosts, luck/chance games that give the scantily clad dancing women an excuse to dance and scream excitedly at the top of their lungs, currently famous actors and actresses lip synching (badly) to the latest pop tunes, topped off with a 15 minute period that allows the hosts to crack really bad knock-knock jokes, throw cream pies at one another, or basically do anything tasteless and idiotic.

Sandara's Romance. This is what I don't get with Filipinos. We're all about nationalism, and yet the second-placer for Star Circle Quest was a Korean girl who's inept in speaking and understanding Filipino and much more inept in acting. I don't know if the network is to blame for going against their better judgement or the TV viewers who, well... are just plain STUPID. Anyway, this show is just a bunch of romantic chinovelas hosted by a Korean/trying-to-be- Filipino-actress who is, unknown to many, actually a messenger of Satan himself. Hehe.

Spirits, Krystala and Mulawin. Spawned of and for the fantaserye genre, these shows actually try to create a fantasy world filled with muntant teenagers, a flying girl who's superhero suit is much too small for her, and man-birds (well that certainly sounded dirty). The stories are stupid (sorry, I couldn't think of a more appropriate word) and the "special effects" (I refuse to call them as actual special effects) are worse than those 1950s Godzilla movies that have screaming people covering their faces to protect themselves from a toy dinosaur.

Star Circle National Teen Quest and Starstruck. Here are two shows that are the epitome of Filipino reality TV. I blame these shows for spewing out untalented actors and actresses, catering and contributing to the growing tastelessness of TV viewers, therefore producing even more horrible TV shows. Contestants are subjected to insults from supposedly-made actors and actresses (basically fags or bitches who can try and imitate Simon Cowell). Oh please. Their insults are as bad as the "Yo Mama" comebacks.

*SIGH* There is a great famine of talent here in the Philippines. Wait, not just that. Talent, intelligence and good taste.

J30

I don't know how to start this thing that I'm writing. A jillion opening lines are going through my head but I'm too high to actually complete one full thought. So I'm starting it with this one. Hehe.

Anyway, I just got home from Greenbelt with Jeni. The MMFF movies are showing, and they're not actually appealing to the both of us so we decided to just sit down at the Coffee Bean and talk talk talk.

Trés stimulating.

We talked about how our present and future were and will be faring off. Apparently, both of us are living in this state of discontent. As I've repeatedly said tonight, our lives are blah. We've succumbed to a life of monotonous normalcy. Nothing especially exciting has happened in our lives. Ask any one of us to name anything we've accomplished for the past 20+ years of our lives and we'll go dumb and stare off into space, thinking of something to say.

We've both graduated from college and we're on our way to becoming typical yuppies (well, she's already working and I'm about to look for a job, but for the sake of argument, let's assume we're both working already). Anyway, we're slowly succumbing to our daily routines: work, sleep, have a little fun on the side, and work again. Upon close inspection our lives seem okay, but on a much broader scale, you have to ask, "Where the hell are we going?"

I hate this. I've finally begun to actually realize that my life is pointless. There's nothing ahead of me. Sure, I have my plans and my dreams, but I'm nowhere near achieving any of them. The one path my life is likely to go through is to find some decent programming work and that's that. At least, that's the only one I can see right now. And I'm not content with it. I don't want to live my "default life"; I don't want to be just another graduate that La Salle produced that will live a seemingly preset future. I don't want ride the same tide that many of my batchmates have gone to. I want something else; I want to be that someone who makes waves. I want that someday, I'm going look back at my life and proudly say I actually did something.

The problem is I don't know how.

Well, life is still going to force me to work. And I suppose I really will find programming work to help here at home (and maybe add a LITTLE value to my existence). But I need to promise myself that I'm going to save some money. And hopefully in a couple of years or so, I'm going to do what I want to do. I'm going to start off with the little stuff, like finally going bungee jumping and reading a lot of books and making it a habit to go swimming. Once I've done those, I'm going to work on my large-scale goals - like starting that graphics design business with Jeni and doing some volunteer work.

You know, the problem with me is that I lack determination. Right now, I'm so hyped up to start doing all those things, but I'm afraid that once I wake up tomorrow, I'm going to lose interest and bum around the house again.

*SIGH*

Oh well, I'll try to change. Wait... not just try - I WILL change. I'm going to motivate myself, and I'm going to use this journal to remind me of how much I have been discontent with the past 20 years of my life and how determined I am to change it. I'm going to be a worker drone, but only for a while. I'm going to change my life.

Postscript: I'm going to start it now by going to straight to bed immediately after posting this, so I can wake up considerably early tomorrow to help my mom do the laundry.

Release

It's been nearly a week since we last talked. The communication draught is partly my fault, and I'm sorry. Its just that the day started out really bad, and you never asked why I wanted to call you. You even neglected to reply to my message; not even to tell me that you'll text me later.

So here I am now, immersing myself in the silence between us.

For the whole week, I've been tempted to send you an apology... a Merry Christmas greeting. But everytime I pick up my cellphone, a voice inside my head reminds me of how often I've been the one to apologize, to bow down and give in to you. Or precisely, my feelings for you.

Three years. Four years now. We had our anniversary last December 7. But I guess you wouldn't remember that, much less care about it. Unfortunately, I do. For four years I've been in love with you. For four long years I've put up with the once-every-three-months meetings, with occassional text messages. For four long years I've done nothing but show you how much I care about you.

I suppose there's no question about it. Everytime we have a fight, I always apologize. No matter how grouchy or how moody I become and how bad our fights turn out because of this, we always manage to patch things up. No matter how much of an absentee boyfriend you become, I still smile at the sight of one unread, solitary text message from you.

Anyway, this Christmas coupled with the unbreakable silence between us has led me to rethink our situation. Don't get me wrong, I still love you. It's just that I've finally realized that you will never ever love me the same way I love you. I haven't accepted it yet, but I'm getting there.

It hurts. I'm saying that just so you know. In case you didn't, I just wish that one day you'll be able to feel firsthand - not the pain you brought on me - but the gravity of the love I felt for you. I wish that someday you'll fall in love with some girl as intensely as I've fallen in love with you. Then you'll come to a point when every sleeping and waking moment is filled with thoughts of her, when you just want to give her everything, when you want to hold her in your arms and try to make the world right just for her.

You may have never fallen in love with me, but all I want is for you to know how much I did fall in love with you. I want you to know that love isn't just a word, nor is it a simple emotion. Love, at its greatest, is so complex that one's existence often relies on it. It's at this point that I want you to realize how important love is, and that playing, ignoring or acting oblivious to another's feelings is utterly indefensible.

I wish you all the best. And I wish you all the love in the world. It's about the greatest, happiest emotion you will ever feel. Trust me, that's what I felt four years ago.

Calling For God

A newborn child is found strangled and thrown in the trash.
A woman is raped.
Three men are shot to death by five others.
Childhood innocence lost on the living room couch.
Drugs for sale, cheap.
By the death of one, others seek the death of another.
Where is hope? Where is salvation?
I search for answers but the clouds speak no reply.
I cannot see what they claim is all around me.
I call for God but there is no answer.

You and I

I do my thing and you do your thing.

I am not in the world to live up to your expectations, and you are not in this world to live up to mine.

You are you, and I am I, and if by chance we find each other, it's beautiful.

(--Frederick Perls, Gestalt Prayer)

Conversation

"Quindoy, will you marry me? (grin) I know I'll make you happy...."

"Hahaha. (scoff) You know I'll just make your life miserable."

What I'm really thinking: "Yesyesyesyesyes!!!!"

*SIGH*

This was nine-thirty AM, some days before today (I've lost count). We were both just joking then. But maybe I wish we weren't. Harharhar.