People have been asking me how my Christmas went. I’ve been meaning to write down a narrative of the events that transpired, but everything was just too surreal to put down in black and white. Took me a while to digest.

So anyway, here’s what happened:

December 23
We began our Christmas festivities by attending two wakes. The first was for an old family friend, the kind your dad got into scrapes with as a child and got drunk with as a teenager, the kind you wind up calling Tito (Uncle) even though you aren’t really related. The second was for my friend’s father. Both died two days shy of Christmas. Read the rest of this entry »

A batchmate of mine posted this on my Friendster blog recently:

hey, i read your poem published in Philippine Graphic. Asteeg.
arvin (Posted by: Arvin | December 25, 2006 09:33 AM)

*inhale*

!!!!!!!!

*skips giddily around the room with exessive amounts of glee*
*skip skip skip*
*exhales slowly*
*sigh*

Okay. My little moment of joy is finished. Now my question is, DOES ANYBODY KNOW WHERE I CAN GET A COPY OF THE PHILIPPINE GRAPHIC??? They never informed me that I got published. Either that, or my Spamguard ejected their acceptance email into the void.

Anyway. Back to my rejoicing.

*resumes skipping*

Been getting some really weird comments from hired spammers who probably earn a living posting ads on blogs. Was skimming through the posts on my “moderate comments” page. As usual, I got a number of “want to see naked pictures of me” and “check out our casino” ads. But also thrown into the mix were some  posts that were just too weird for me to ignore. Thought I’d share them with everybody:

1. stars are blind parishilton: When she heard unshackled patch, she incontestable stars are blind parishilton carillon in. (reminds me of the useless English you read stationery and mugs imported from some Asian countries. The ones with lines like “Spring of Picnic! Daisy and Donald happy day!”)
2. parishilton video: I complimented her on the decor parishilton video then asked if i may worn her in France pissoir.
3. Also expect of parishilton own single procreant situations to manufacture your anecdote hot and earliest. (What is it with Paris Hilton????)
4. (And my favorite) good blog is dead blog:-)

 

I have looked into the eyes of Sheer Terror.

I know now that Sheer Terror is a rather large Labrador named Magic. His lair is somewhere in Umali Subdivision in Los Baños. I was hanging out with Gani and Bom at Bom’s uncle’s house. (So many apostrophes.) The two had gone out to the garage for some manly conversation, perhaps discussing the finer points of Monty Python and the Holy Grail (”Pshaw! It’s just a flesh wound!”). On the otherhand, I had opted to lag behind, since I was still struggling to put on my left boot.

By the time I caught up with them, there he was. The gigantic, friendly, slobbery Labrador otherwise known as Magic. Who is a normally friendly dog. Unfortunately, he had been cooped up for the past few days without being walked, and was therefore as perky as a hundred caffeinated, extremely hormonal jackrabbits. This was no dog. This was the Furry Juggernaut of Doom.

And Bom had just let him out of his cage. Read the rest of this entry »

Hello Monday.

Once again, I find myself cramming. I should have started working on my “unprescribed” assignment yesterday, nay, last week even. Then I wouldn’t be in this jam. But I (and a small team of equally nit-picky, delightfully demented individuals) had to make little painted cutouts of Nativity characters for the kids’ Sunday school last Saturday night. And I was working with my obssessive-compulsive mother who has serious choleric tendencies. She insisted that we finish all  four of the backdrops (one meter by one meter plastic sheets with little pockets to stick the characters in) before Sunday. (Incidentally, the Sunday school teachers only used one of the backdrops during Sunday school. *Sigh* no matter.) We wound up sleeping around one am. Read the rest of this entry »

I was watching a DVD of one of Bob Marley’s concerts with my dad. My mom walked into the room and settled on the beanbag chair just as they were playing “Lively Up Yourself”. This is what my mom thought Marley was singing:

“You better tidy up yourself….”

That’s selective perception for you. Ladies and gentlemen, my mother. There ain’t no one like her.

Blog is the sound of an body landing ungracefully onto the floor.

All right. I admit it. I probably brought this on myself, after lurking on YM Chat so often. I wasn’t trolling for someone to have an “SEB”* with. I wasn’t even advertising for someone to talk to. To be honest, I was only watching the text scroll by, watching…how do I put this nicely…stupid people hit on other stupid people. In the interest of not protecting this person’s identity, I have chosen to use his YM nick here.  Read the rest of this entry »

I was curled up on my bed this afternoon, rereading “A Kick in the Seat of the Pants” (aside: a great book on creativity and ideas) when my mother came into the room, looking for missing (albeit clean) underwear. Clothes tend to get lost in the shuffle a lot in our house.

She looked at the pile of clothes on a monoblock chair, my unmade bed, and the readings I had attempted to stack in a neat pile on another chair beside my pc.

As I said, I was engrossed in the book, so I said “Hi mom” without looking up from what I was reading. Which is why I failed to catch the expression on her face as she looked around my room. But I didn’t miss the all-too familiar tone of voice. Read the rest of this entry »

You guessed it. Another griping session about how my mother doesn’t understand why I read what I read and why I write what I write. Another rant about how writing is a lonely road to travel. Blahblahblahblah. 

I’m giving you two seconds to hit the back button.

One.   

Two.

Still here? Okay. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.  Read the rest of this entry »