world without end

Top 10

2006-09-14T03:53:00.000-07:00

These are the top 10 things that I hate. Well, maybe hate is too strong a word. More like, 'really intensely dislike.' But first, an honorable mention: unimaginative song covers!

As for the rest ...

10. Women wearing skimpy outfits who keep on tugging at their clothes to hide body parts that wouldn't have been exposed if only they had worn more sensible clothes in the first place.

9. Ordering food at a restaurant, waiting for it, and only then being told that it's unavailable.

8. Waiters (food servers my ass!) who assume that I want to be friendly with them and act all chummy with me.

7. Having to be told the entire bleeding epic just to hear the itsy-bitsy point that's being made.

6. People who don't put their spoons and forks together after eating.

5. Menu changes at my favorite restaurants.

4. Bad english.

3. Being told I have no more options. When I'm dead I have no more options. Not now.

2. Stairs.

And the number one thing I really intensely dislike ...

1. SWEAT!

She doesn't know

2006-09-13T20:12:00.000-07:00

Right. I know I said I had to get my mind of this girl. And I know that wasn't spectacularly succesful at it. I thought that things would get better over time - and it has been some time - but things haven't improved. If anything, they seem to have gotten worse.

I wonder what it is about her that moves me. Is it the gentleness I see in her eyes? Or maybe the eloquence of her long silences? I wonder if I am drawn to her for her unexpected outbursts of anger or frustration when she opens up a window into the raw majesty of who she is beneath that subtle smile. Many times I have sought the company of other people, only to find that their conversation seems painfully irrelevant. And though I spend less time with her than I should want, I feel there is a greater a depth of meaning to be had from those moments compared to the hours of tedium I spend with others.

Some people want like a candle flame - flickering and inconstant, wavering before the slightest breeze. Some people want like a forest fire. Right now, I'm somewhere between the two in my wanting her. Like a bonfire maybe. Strong enough to be a beacon on a dark night, but still within my power to douse. If I wanted to. Which I'm not sure I do. The only thing I'm sure of, is that I'm glad she doesn't know.

I'm glad she doesn't know.

Things I want to do

2006-09-12T11:29:00.000-07:00

I want to write a vampire story and screenplay for Anne Curtis. For some strange reason, I get that sort of vibe from her.

I want to write the great Filipino novel of the 21st century. It'll involve a cabez de barangay who lost the family fortune on a single throw of loaded dice, the second world war, a recipe for ketchup soup, tubercolosis, a second wife, a spectacular run for public office, a return to true love, a recipe for itlog-na-maalat soup, and a conversation between Mr.Spock and Galadriel.

I want to learn enough about web administration so I can creditably administer my own domain.

I want to watch the Beijing Olympics in Beijing.

I want to have a conversation with the Dalai Lama.

I want to open up a chain of community barbershops where people can sit around all day, talking about inconsequential things that would never shake the counsels of the wise and powerful.

I want to open up a half-way house for people from my hometown who have fallen on hard times here in Manila.

I want to build a three-story house where my room will have two outward facing glass walls.

I want you to change your mind.

I wondered where you went

2006-09-12T10:40:00.000-07:00

I went off to do some grown-up thing or other, but at the back of my mind, I was always thinking of you; wondering where you were, wondering what you were doing, and envying the eyes that gazed on you.

But, for the second time, I am back, my beautiful black blog. With no more excuses and a promise to tickle the keyboard for you more often. I have a lot to tell you.

Are they celebrating in the Palace?

2006-08-16T09:06:00.000-07:00

If they are, they shouldn't.

The President may have escaped being grilled by Senators, but she also lost the opportunity to prove her innocence. In the final analysis, she may have also lost her chance to be a truly great president.

Expect another year of deadlock.

xxx

On a lighter note, I visited this site because a friend recommended them. In case anyone stumbles across this blog, I don't want your time here to have been totally wasted, so check these babies out:

Warning Label Generator
Bush's email inbox
Windows/work humor
Top 10 Worst Company URLs
the weirdest English sentence
Most Unusual Buildings on Earth
what to do if your partner cheats
funny metaphors in high school essays

These babies are all set to open in new windows, so if you want to find your way back here, just click the back button on your browser. Go. Now.

Still Morissey, but with a bit more Sting

2006-08-16T03:59:00.000-07:00

I put everything on hold today and went to the Mall of Asia. I needed to get away from computers. I'm going cold turkey, you could say. Or trying to. I need to stop thinking about her, and computers make me think about her. So I needed to get away.

Pretty futile tho' since going to there only brought me closer to the sea, and the sea only reminds me of her as well.

This is stupid. I have not obsessesed on anyone this much since .... almost seven years ago.

Jumping the Shark

2006-08-14T22:44:00.000-07:00

My LJ experiment jumped the shark the day I posted my first meme. That it came from 'someone I couldn't say no to' isn't a valid excuse. I realize now that on that day, I had strayed too far from the original parameters of my return. Strayed, in fact, right into the realm of poor judgement.

You see there was this girl (isn't there always?), and I was going all Morrissey on her. Not healthy. Not to mention not possible. There are a whole bunch of other unrelated reasons for my doing this, but the realization that I was spending more and more time wondering about her led me to decide that it was finally time to ride out of LJland for awhile.

So, I'm back to my original home away from home. Home to stay, I think.

I'm back

2006-08-14T21:54:00.000-07:00

That's it, I guess. The LJ experiment is over. And I'm back here ... in the dark unterbelly of my existence.

Testing

2006-08-02T01:49:00.000-07:00

Test!!!!

I'm here

2006-07-22T04:14:00.000-07:00

My poor blogger-baby. I know I've been neglecting you lately. I hope you understand.

I have two excuses.

First, I've been awfully busy fighting fires and all that. Remember how I said that you were about me writing for the sake of writing? Yeah, well, lately I've been writing for other - more mercenary - reasons. You became a luxury I couldn't afford.

Second, well, this site was getting kinda lonely. I needed a bit of interaction with other people to feed my imagination ... to give me something to write about. So I opened up a 'friendlier' journal somewhere else. I called that journal world without end too - I am loyal to your concept baby, even if I did my writing somewhere else for awhile.

But I'm back now, baby. And I hope I can still convince my muse to give me the words I need.

Yours,

T.

The Devil To Pay

2006-07-06T10:15:00.000-07:00

Johnny looked at the clock and realized that in ten hours, there would be the devil to pay. How could he have forgotten? Absentmindedly, he twirled the bloody scalpel in his hand; this surgery would last another fifteen.

"Stop showboating, John" Melanie said, mopping up the blood welling deep in the sedated man's open chest. "Focus."

Yeah. Focus. In ten hours - long before we can stitch this poor bastard back up - I'm going either going to die standing here, or I'm going to forget everything I know about surgery. Focus. Sure. Beat the clock.

Thirty minutes and nine hours later, John blinked back the sweat from his eyes. He thought he had it done - completed the complicated procedure in record time - when the heart monitor suddenly stopped its rhythmic beeping."SHIT!" he and Melanie said at the same time. "Adrenalin!"

The heart restarted with a visible shudder, like a person freezing to death. Johnny looked up at the clock and saw that he had fifteen minutes left. "Melanie, can you fin -" The monitor cut him off midsentence with a long eerie wailing. "Not again."

Johnny grabbed the heart and began squeezing it to keep it pumping. Suddenly, he could hear nothing but the pounding of the blood in his ears, keeping time with the un-dead heart in his hands, and the loud ticking of the clock. "C'mon, damnit! Where's my defib?" But they were already there; long thin rods with flattened ends.

"Get outta the way, John!" Melanie again, holding the defibrillator. He barely heard her, reacting more to the sight of the metal rods, pulling out his hands, watching the heart lying limp once again. "Clear!"

John staggered backwards, out of the operating table light and into the shadows. Exhausted. "Clear!"

He looked at the man on the table, sleeping peacefully, blissfully unaware of the battle being fought for the possibility of eventually waking him up again. That's not such a bad way to go, John thought. "Clear!"

At least he won't know what hit him.

The man's eyes flew open. John knocked over a tray of bloodied instruments. The man's head snapped to the side and speared John with those cold blue eyes. John felt a moist warmth seeping down his legs. In his head, a voice thundered: "He knows, John."

"Call it." Melanie again. Resignation in her voice. Defeat. "Time of death, 3:00 am."

Deal or No Deal

2006-07-06T05:13:00.000-07:00

Got home real early today - early for me anyway. Flicked on the tube and saw Kris Aquino doing Deal or No Deal. Seem's like Tita Cory's kid has finally found her true calling: being a game show host. Well, at least she's tons prettier than Alan K.

Now, I never liked Kris Aquino. Her nasal twang and Pinay valley-girl whine were like laxatives: they irritated the shit outta me. But as I watched her on tv tonight, I have to admit that she doesn't look half bad. Her chinoy-coloration (that creamy kind of fair complexion that isn't as pallid as a redhead's, as ivory-ish as most caucasians, or as yellow as most asians)was mesmerizing and, did she do something to her nose? I can't remember it quite being that un-cory. And the way she's stacked, well, you really know where the money went.

Good God. I'm starting to think Kris Aquino is hot.

Penury and Paucity

2006-07-05T06:55:00.000-07:00

i have been penniless now for an entire friggin' week! i think i know how this happened - a combination of overspending (naturally), bureaucratic redtape (again, naturally), and the incredible expense of throwing a retirement party for someone i don't even respect all that much.

worse, my muse seems to have left me to go on some sort of sabbatical. when i started this blog a coupla' weeks ago, i was bursting with stories to tell ... well, not whole stories but vignettes. quite literally, worlds without end(ings). but now ... utter nothing. my mind feels like a black hole creatively.

i need a jumpstart. now, where'd i put those jumper cables. Igor!

mace's mirror

2006-07-04T22:00:00.000-07:00

...

a bleary eyed and unshaven writer hunched over the keyboard of his derelict desktop computer, pounding out a story about a bleary eyed and unshaven writer hunched over the keyboard of his derelict desktop computer, pounding out a story about a bleary eyed and unshaven writer hunched over the keyboard of his derelict desktop computer, pounding out a story about a bleary eyed and unshaven writer hunched over the keyboard of his derelict desktop computer, pounding out a story about a bleary eyed and unshaven writer hunched over the keyboard of his derelict desktop computer, pounding out a story about a bleary eyed and unshaven writer hunched over the keyboard of his derelict desktop computer, pounding out a story about a bleary eyed and unshaven writer hunched over the keyboard of his derelict desktop computer, pounding out a story about a bleary eyed and unshaven writer hunched over the keyboard of his derelict desktop computer, pounding out a story about a bleary eyed and unshaven writer hunched over the keyboard of his derelict desktop computer, pounding out a story about ...

... by the time you finish reading this sentence will have ended.

The Boxer

2006-07-01T22:12:00.000-07:00

The boxer took long walk to the ring alone; his trainer, manager, and corner guys forgotten for the moment. At the end of the long dark tunnel, he could see the blisteringly bright kleig lights that flooded the ring. In his gut, he felt the butterflies slowly turning to lead and settling down into one big cold lump in his belly. He could just barely hear the hysterical ego-boosts and reassurances of his crew over the thundering of the blood in his ears.

The walk ended sooner than he expected. Emerging from the darkness of the tunnel, he looked around the arena and saw more empty seats than filled. If this sort of thing kept up, he would have to find a second job - maybe as a bodyguard for some government man or something. At this level, how much the boxer made depended entirely on how much the promoter raked in. Low ticket sales meant a smaller pot; sometimes smaller than could pay for all the painkillers. But what could a boxer do? He slammed his fists together unconsciously, reminding himself of the only thing he could do. The few people there thought it meant eagerness to rumble and responded with a straggly cheer.

On the ring, the boxer felt the springy boards under his feet - bouncing around a few times to check the responsiveness of the planks underneath the tarp. Too much bounce or too little would tire his legs and slow him down. He wondered how fast his opponent would be; how hard his punches; how tough his jaw. The bastard looked confident. Hell, the boxer thought, if I were six years younger than my opponent, I'd be confident too. All of sudden, he felt the age of his bones.

He took one last look around the ring and saw the usual faces: the local boxing commission rep, fanning himself with the programme, bored to tears; the has been sports reporter still looking for that flash of brilliance in the ring that he could write about with his florid prose; Manolo, the old promoter who first found him scrapping with other kids in the alley behind the old gym. The boxer wished Manolo hadn't come today; but Manolo always came. And then there was a kid he had never seen before, and wouldn't have noticed either if it hadn't been for the wide grin plastered across his face like it was painted on.

The first round came and went: the getting-to-know-you round. His opponent surprisingly mature, not rushing in to mix it up, but keeping his distance, getting the range of the jabs and sticks, bobbing and weaving with annoying energy. The boxer got in one good punch, tagging his opponent on the side of the head. But his opponent just shook it off and smiled. Is that the best you've got old man?

The second round brought hell into the four cornered ring. The boxer could barely see the punches coming - left, right, over, under, and across. The bell came just in time to save him the embarassment of showing the crowd that his knees had turned to jelly. He looked around the arena and saw the kid again; that smile unnerved him.

He almost didn't hear the bell for the third round had it not been for his manager practically pulling the stool out from under him. Everything seemed to move in slow motion, like swimming in syrup. His opponent leered at him and came in for the kill. He saw the fist coming and decided he wouldn't dodge. Instead, he forced all the muscles in his neck to relax and waited for the punch to connect. Whatta way to end a career, he thought.

Undercard ... local golden gloves champ ... regional ... olympian ... turned pro and became world welterweight champion in three years ... moved weight classes and made world bantamweight champion in a year ... national hero for a day and five years ... and now, canvass kisser for the first time in his life.

I'm just too old to keep on doing this,the boxer thought. Then the punch came, and the rest of the world went.

The boxer woke up in the empty locker room, an ice pack on his head, and a paper bag on his chest. He looked around and saw the kid again, only this time, there was no smile. "Good fight," the kid said, flicking a cigarette into some dark corner of the room. "Mr. Cruz won big because of you tonight." The boy moved to the exit and pointed at the bag. "He says thanks," the kid smiled again - wide, cheesy, and complicit. " Thanks, Manny."

Dwende 2

2006-07-01T04:22:00.000-07:00

Read Dwende first.

::::::

My grandmother told me to believe in dwende. Experience taught me to believe. I first met Mota while vacationing at my great-grandparents' little house deep in the Negros countryside. I had been following a little brook that ran quite close to the house, curious where it came from. From where I stood at the beginning of my quest, it looked like the brook eventually disappeared into the brush clustered around the foot of the hill that overshadowed my great grandparents' home. Not too far, i thought. I can be there and back before lunchtime. And off I went.

Along the way, as kids will, I got distracted by this and that: a big-eyed dragonfly with crystal wings, a warty toad that I tried unsuccessfully to croak, a fluff of windflower that blew straight into my face. Before I knew it, the sun had gone behind the hill and I realized I hadn't gone half as far as I had hoped. Eager not to be beaten, I turned to run back home, but as I turned away from the woods, I caught a glimpse of something that should not have been there: a free standing pillar of gleaming white marble.

I wanted to go and investigate, naturally, and turned back to the house where I knew lunch and an irate great-gramma waited. I looked towards the wood again and the pillar had vanished. If I had been torn before - when I first saw the pillar - now, I absolutely had no choice.

All distractions ignored, the little brook forgotten, I rushed pell mell to where I had seen the pillar. Through brush and stinging grass, I struggled forward, always forward, until I reached the edge of the wood. Gasping for breath and sweating like a pig, I looked around for any sign of the pillar and found none. All I saw was a little spring - apparently the source of my brook - bubbling out from the base of a huge earthmound. Punso, I thought to myself. It had to be that.

Muttering the obligatory tabi tabi po, I approached the earthmound and looked it up and down. Made of dark earth, I couldn't have possibly mistaken it for a gleaming white marble pillar. No way. I looked at it from every angle, thinking maybe that the light filtering through the trees had played a trick on me, but the thing never even came close to what I had seen.

In disgust, I turned to leave and tripped on an exposed root. Being a heavyset child, I had always been particularly vulnerable to gravity; that day proved to be no exception. I came crashing down and hit my head on a rock. I didn't even have time to say goodnight.

When I came to, I had this suffocating feeling that I was in deep deep trouble. Then I remembered the knock on my head. A split second later, I remembered that I had fallen to the ground and not on the cushioned bed I currently lay on. I freaked. I jumped to my feet and hit my head on a low ceiling. I fell back on my butt and, for the first time, clearly saw the room I was in.

I'm not a good one for descriptions of spaces and all that, but I was a seated child of about 4'6" and the ceiling was about two handspans away from the top of my head. The bed I was on turned out to be no bed at all but several pushed-together ... quilts it looked like. All around me were things that looked like furniture pushed against the wall, as though to make room for something big in the middle of the room. And then I realized that the big thing had to be me.

That was when i started to cry. I used to pride myself on being a big boy who didn't cry easily. But at that moment, stranded in a place so different - so alien - to me, the tears just came and came and came. I bawled as hard as I could, scared to death. Within seconds, a door that I had not even noticed slammed open. And there stood in the open doorway was a man who, standing up, came up to eyes.

My eyes flew all over him, drinking in my first impressions: Bald; hairless face - not even eyebrows; chubby hairless face; black eyes speckled with silver flecks; fat; dressed in a flowing white robe studded with sparkly things - bits of glass, I thought - gathered up at the shoulder through ring that looked suspiciously like the plastic power rangers ring I lost last week.

"That's mine" I said, not knowing what else to say. I pointed at the ring.

The little man backed off, alarm written all over his face.

Emboldened, I tried to get up and bumped my head on the ceiling again. I fell back onto my butt with a dull thud. The little man tried to suppress a smile and looked up at me. He raised two hands in a placating gesture that I understood to mean sit back. Sit back.

He took the ring off his shoulder and held it out, pointing to me. Then he strutted around with his shoulders squared and made an exaggerated motion of throwing the ring over his shoulder. It landed at his feet. Then he turned around and feigned surprise at finding the ring. He picked it up, looked left and right a couple of times, shrugged and put it back on his shoulder again. I laughed at the little mime show and remembered that I had thrown the ring away after realizing that there hadn't been any kids that I could play with. This little man had apparently seen me throw the ring away and decided that if I didn't want it, well he certainly did.

Seeing me laugh, the man smiled. He pointed his finger at me and made an enquiring sort of noise in his throat. "Paul" I said. I had seen enough movies to know what that noise meant. He nodded his head and with great gravity pointed to himself and - in a voice surprisingly deep -
said "Mota."

First Contact

2006-07-01T01:28:00.000-07:00

{voz Gbrl} ... [nothing] no no there is nothing [there] or here or anywhere ...

{voz Smll} ... [no] disagree! most vehemently! [this] here nowhere else [place is] as written! ...

{voz Gbrl} ... [blasphemy!] shush He will hear [Orim] we are! we are! [rule] govern administer [Orim]! ...

{voz Smll} ... [wait]!!!

...

{voz Smll} ... [see]? look observe [peaceful] no surprise no anger tranquil [familiar] recognizable

{voz Gbrl} ... [why]?? query interrogative [do they] what reasons justifications rationcinations [call us] nomenclature nominative name [angels]???

The Quasi-Judicial Murder of Rex Borra

2006-06-30T23:00:00.000-07:00

OFFICE OF THE OMBUDSMAN

Confidential Memo to: [redacted]
From: [redacted]
Re: COMELEC Automation
Date: 29 June 2007
EYES ONLY
=====================================

[redacted], I received instructions today from [redacted]. Word is, the original draft is unacceptable because it clears the COMELEC entirely. According to [redacted], that would put [redacted] on a collision course with the [redacted][redacted]. That's something [redacted] cannot afford right now. Especially with all the controversy stirred up by [redacted]'s comments about the [redacted][redacted] being wrong in the Echegaray case. In other words, someone's head has to roll.

I objected, but I was overruled. I said that the COMELEC would not be able to take another blow to its credibility; that it would be unfair for the COMELEC to be made the whipping boy again since there is absolutely nothing wrong with the contract. But I was overruled. Again. And again. So, to cushion the blow, I suggested that we put the blame on the BAC and Borra.

The BAC because they're not impeachable officers and, with the atmosphere as poisoned as it is now, no one will really investigate them too closely anymore. As long as we say that they're guilty, we can safely assume that everyone will believe us; that's what they were expecting anyway.

Borra, because he's considered by a lot of people to be the straightest guy there. If anybody can survive this, it would be him. Besides, everyone knows that he's pretty competent. Whoever tries to convince any judge (or impeachment court) otherwise will have a very difficult time proving incompetence. In the meantime, we've complied with the Supreme Court's ruling, the opposition gets its pound of flesh, and the public gets to read about heads rolling. Plus, assuming that [redacted] plays his cards right, the focus on Borra will give the rest of the COMELEC breathing room and allow it to survive mostly intact - at least until 2007. Everybody wins.

[redacted] was so happy with this solution she practicallly got out of her chair to applaud me.

So, please get on this right away. Re-draft the findings to jettison the BAC and put the blame on Borra. I'm sorry this is on such short notice, but I am confident that you'll do a great job as usual. When you're done, give a copy to [redacted] so he can get it on radio right away. Don't send an official copy to [redacted] so they can have the weekend to plan their next move.

By the way, I saw our old professor Niccolo today. He says hi.

sgd. [redacted]

Beck

2006-06-29T09:35:00.000-07:00

Beck is pregnant.
She's only fifteen.
She's still in school.
The guy is a bit older.
Employed as a laborer.
They have no prospects.
And their folks are mad.
And who can blame'em.
Beck's mom trusted'er.
And she screwed that.
I truly wonder why.
Beck is pregnant.
Where to now?

Dwende

2006-06-29T02:57:00.000-07:00

My grandmother believed in dwende. Not Lorca's variation, but more of the Tolkien genus (our dwende are a sort of cross between Tolkien's dwerrows - or dwarves as most people misname them - and hobbits). She told me that alot of people made the mistake of thinking that dwende lived in earth mounds or punso. "No," she said. "How could people live in such small things? Its unrealistic and stupid." I go, riiiiiiiiight. We're talking about creatures no more than 2 feet tall, caucasoid with flowing white beards and pointy hats, and gramma wants to be realistic. However, seeing as how I was only a little over 5 years old at the time, I kept quiet. So she continued with her explanation.

Dwende, she said used earth mounds only as gateways to their cities which were underground. These cities were supposed to have been above ground a long time ago, but the movements of the earth eventually subsided them to where they are now; and they've been their for a little less than a million years. This, according to my gramma, was why many people still see dwende
above ground: they miss the sky.

Dwende cities do not have a sky, as you might imagine. Instead they have very high ceilings of intertwined plant roots, including tree roots and grass roots. These ceilings were painstakingly grown on by the dwende starting from when they learned that their cities were slowly sinking. It took each city a thousand years to grow their ceilings, my gramma said, explaining why dwende hated people who destroyed trees and why we had to always say "tabi tabi po" - a kind of warning combined with a plea for forgiveness for the intrusion - before we stomped around gardens or pulled up particularly ancient looking clumps of weed.

Being an aspiring archaeologist at that age, I looked at her askance. If there are dwende cities underground, why haven't they been dug up yet? I demanded to know. She smiled at me and patiently explained a little more.

No one has ever dug that deep, she said. Dwende ceilings begin about half a mile under the surface, and the tops of the highest buildings in the dwende cities are about another mile farther down. "So it's hot down there because of the m-m-magma?" I said, struggling with the word but terribly proud to show off that I knew how to use it in a sentence.

"It would be," she said, "but before you get to the magma (big smile at me to show that she noticed my use of the word) there are many big rivers buried deep in the rock."As my gramma explained it, the water of these rivers came from sinkholes near the north and south poles, starting their journey under the earth as chunks of ice. As the ice from the north flowed down to the south pole and vice-versa, the ice melted, taking most of the magma's heat. Not all of it, though, so the dwende cities had warmer climates.

Did they have a sun? I asked. My gramma shook her head firmly: no. That's ridiculous, she said. The dwende didn't have a sun, but the tree-root ceiling has many plants and animals that give off light light fireflies. I nodded sagely. I had discovered fireflies just the night before, so I understood what she was talking about. Animals - and plants - like fireflies, she said, followed a biological clock that told them when to switch their lights on and off. So imagine a million million million of these animals, she told me, all slowly turning their lights on and just as slowly turning their lights off, with some forgetting to do it when everything else has gone dark. That, she said, is biological night and day.

I pestered her for more details, but she said she was tired and that she would continue explaining things to me in the morning. I went to bed that night wondering if I wasn't in some underground city, watching stars that were really just lit up mushrooms and bugs. It made me feel real small and - even at that young age - helped me understand perspective.

::::

More to follow, of course. But in the meantime, other people have written about, and drawn pictures of, a hollow earth too: here, here, and here.

1 | 2

Bayan ng Bigo

2006-06-29T00:17:00.000-07:00

Officialy, the community is called Bagong Pag-Asa, the New Hope. A resettlement area dominated by three low-cost apartment buildings that rise above the shanty-town that covers almost every square inch of ground. This is where the dregs of the city come together: murderers, thieves, whores, runaways. Here they make lives for themselves, falling in love and raising families while they eke out a living by whatever means possible. Everything here is for sale or for rent or for the taking; nothing is beyond the commerce of man. Even children know this, and their eyes tell you so. Hard, flinty, measuring - always measuring, trying to figure out what your relationship could be: would he be your victim? or you, his? For children raised in Bagong Pag-Asa, every possible kind of relationship could be boiled down to those two choices.

The cops don't come here, anymore, not since they lost three mobile patrol cars, fifteen handguns, and four of the city's Finest, in a riot that started out with a child's ball being popped run over by a passing police car. The riot lasted two days. After that, no one called this place Bagong Pag-asa anymore. For everyone here, and for everyone beyond the barbed wire fence the cops built around this community after the riots, this is the desperate county; ang bayan ng bigo.

- An introduction to Bayan ng Bigo. I've been tossing this idea around in my head for a long time now, dreaming up the people of this place. I think now, I am ready to tell their stories.

21 grams

2006-06-28T23:51:00.000-07:00

Startled out of wakefulness
I stumble into a dream
Deep in the hear of everything
Where the seasons obey no rules

Above me a bird flies past
Dragging shackles in its wake
Chasing, perhaps,
After the memory of a long-lost love

Beneath my feet the earth rumbles
As beetles march by
With the gravity of war
furrowing their glistening brows

Beside me an elephant ponders the weight of the soul
And wonders if he should have more soul than me.

Ghostology

2006-06-28T23:36:00.000-07:00

I grew up in a family that believed in ghosts. My mother believed in them, my sister often claimed to be harassed by them, and my father - well, he laughed at ghosts but shivered when no one was looking. I, on the other hand, wanted to talk to one.

There are lots of stories about the dead communicating with the living, the bible notwithstanding. Ghosts have been with us (humanity, I mean) since time immemorial, antedating all organized philosophical systems - even Catholic dogma. I suppose you could say that the belief that something of us survives death is one of the oldest philosophies. If nothing else, it is certainly the most persistent. Myself, i think that ghosts are a trick of the mind - some deep corner of our psyche that tries to tell us something using the form and voice that will best grab our attention.

Remember, our minds are complex affairs. There are levels of awareness that we are not attuned to. Like dogs being able to hear sounds in the ultra-frequencies, or sharks being able to detect the bio-electrical fields of other fish, or dolphins being able to paint a sonar-picture of their environment, humans definitely have the potential (at least!) to tune in to the world in extra-sensory ways. The mind, therefore, would be operating on at least two levels: the sensory level where the input is primarily from the five senses; and the the meta-level where the input is extrasensory. I think the sense of being looked at (when you 'feel' someone watching you) or 'women's intuition' are very common examples of the mind operating on the meta-level.

This partitioned mind works like this: the sensory mind allows us to function in our ordinary environment, reacting to normal sensory stimulus, and operating according to strict logical rules; the meta-mind, on the other hand, responds to a whole different set of stimule and operates on totally different rules - analogous to what IQ testers call 'lateral thinking.' These two minds don't always interact, probably because we are so bombarded with ordinary sensory perception that we don't 'hear' the meta-mind.

Sometimes, however, like in emergencies or potentially life-threatening situations, the meta-mind throws an override switch that basically grabs our attention, either pushing the sensory mind into the background, or enhancing it to a fantastic degree, typically with an adrenalin spike thrown into the deal.

Naturally, since this is pretty exhausting physically, the meta-mind probably can't do this alot. So, for other situations less drastic, the meta-mind finds some other way to 'talk' to the sensory mind without panicking it. Enter, GHOSTS.

Ghosts are meta-mind creations that act like messengers: delivering information generated by the meta-mind to the sensory mind in a way that attracts the sensory mind's attention. Sometimes, the messenger will be a departed love one, sometimes it can be something from our worst nightmares. The sensory mind -- not knowing what else to do -- interprets the messenger as a ghost. Now this can either scare you or inspire warm and fuzzy feelings of nostalgia or 'ay! naalala nya ako!' The bottom line is that the message was sent and, with any luck, understood.

So, maybe, the chance to ‘communicate with the dearly departed’ is not really something to be afraid of, but something to be welcomed as link between the world we are aware of and an inner awareness that isn’t cluttered by the world. God knows that with all the crap going on in our daily lives, we all need to be reminded that some things are just as important -- like keeping in touch with old friends or family, or forgiving someone for whatever wrong they did you, or just being thankful that you're alive.

banality

2006-06-28T10:04:00.000-07:00

Raw fish and pineapples? Becks' girl sure is determined. Hope she saw her hubby bend that ball the other day, like he had telekinesis or something ... what am I saying? Getting cross-eyed from hunger, she might have even seen it twice. Or maybe she lost 6 pounds because of a triple whammy of food poisoning from all that raw fish.

Know that ad campaign where they try to turn stereotypes on their heads? Dove, I think. Or the Body Shop. One of the questions asked was: Flat or Flattering? On Selma Blair, definitely flattering. BTW, I just Googled it, and it's the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty. Whatever that means. I understand self-esteem and all, but beauty is truly in the eye of a beholder. So, if I think that skinny is less attractive than Reuben-esque then that's real beauty for me, isn't it? The reverse holds true, except that with this Dove campaign, I'm supposed to feel like a jerk for thinking that.

Drawing comparisons to Paris Hilton is never flattering, except for when I say that Jackie Rice looks a bit like Paris (sometimes). So, it must really suck for the really excruciatingly Nordic Gwyneth Paltrow to be likened to Paris for recording her own album. After all, Gwyneth has proven that she can actually croon. Remember Cruisin'? It was from that movie Duets.

A rave review of Superman Returns makes me really curious; while a picture from Spider-Man 3 gets me even curious-er. That's a colored picture of Spidey in a black suit. Personally, I preferred the real black suit he had in the comic book. The one that turned out to be a symbiotic creature that eventually became Venom. It was a weird story arc, but Marvel was floundering back, so we just suspended our disbelief and shelled out 100 bucks per issue, at a time when you only paid 1.50 on a jeep, and 40 pesos could get you a steaming bowl of Ted's Batchoy. Ah. But maybe my memories of that time are too fuzzy to be trustworthy. I seem to remember gasoline being free back then.

Oh, and before I totally black-out, did we really have to see these? C'mon Britney, baby! Yer killing me here!

Layla

2006-06-28T07:59:00.000-07:00

i fell in love with a hooker. Ok, so it's not original, but that's what happened. I fell in love with a whore. I met her at this hotel on Roxas boulevard. From the outside, you could tell that the hotel had seen better days - days of glory even. The first time I saw it, I remember feeling sorry for that hotel. Of course, I didn't know at the time that this once grand hotel that now stood only as a dark, gritty, seedy reminder of its former self, had an elevator to heaven.

Ok. So it didn't quite go all the way up to heaven, just up to the Manila skyline in fact, but you didn't have to go higher up than that to meet the angels. And that's where I met Layla. Sweet, beautiful Layla. She had a face that i imagined should belong to an angel, and a body that could not have been designed for anything but sin. The minute I saw her through the tinted glass, I knew that my money had her name on it.

I pointed her out to the poker-faced attendant there. She made a note of my choice and breathed into the microphone "Number 32, taken." For I second, I thought she was going to call for a price check. My hands shook as I forked over the fee for the massage; I had never done this before and I suppose my nervousness showed. "Relax, sir." The woman said helpfully, if with a voice as bland and devoid of emotion as her eyes. "Number 32 is very good."

I managed a weak smile and hurried after the man who, with a lecherous grin, showed me into a room. Standard hotel room - the usual: big king-sized bed, a large tv, but no Number 32. I walked over to the picture window and just stared at the view, not knowing what I was supposed - or expected - to do. Should I take off my clothes and jump into bed? Should I sit around like Richard Gere in pretty woman and act all amused by my most recent purchase? And then she came in.

She padded into the room with the silent grace of a cat, and the smile of one that had just eaten a bird. Or maybe one that was just about to. I felt my keys slip out of my hands, but I never heard it hit the floor.

An hour and thirty minutes later, she planted a light kiss on my mouth - the first time I tasted her lips - and got up and went into the bath. I lay there for a long while, tired and thoroughly happy. Happy listening to the sounds of the shower and happy imagining how she must look under the running water. That was when I realized that I couldn't stomach the idea of waiting for her to come out and handing her my money. Instead I got up, put the cash into her purse, and started getting dressed. By the time I had buttoned up completely, she came out of the bath all ready to go, looking none the worse for what had happened between us. She took up her purse and politely motioned for me to walk out of the room ahead of her whenever I was ready. As I passed her, I wanted to give her my number, my address, my heart. But before I could muster the courage to speak up, she rose up on tip-toes, brought her lips close to my ear and whispered, "Thank you."

Thank you. Nothing else. No sales talk to ensure a return engagement; no hard sell, trying to pump up my ego; no sob story. Just a plain old thank you. "No, thank you" I said, with just the slightest emphasis on the 'you.' After all, she had done me the favors. And I wanted to tell her that and offer her all the promises and assurances of a better life beyond the sound-proofed walls of the brothel. But she looked at me with those eyes and, with not a word, asked me not to get her hopes up.

When I realized how empty my promises would have been, my embarassment returned with a vengeance. I couldn't look her into the eyes anymore, so I looked away; I walked down that darkened corridor like a guilty man, ducked past the security guard - who, perversely enough, came from St. Peter's Security Agency - and slunk into the elevator.

On the way down, back to earth as it were, I couldn't help but say her name over and over again. Layla. In french, they have a term for all those things you would have wanted to say, but couldn't. Things that occur to you only when you're on your way out. The spirit of the staircase, they call it. Or the elevator.

I never saw her again, nor did I ever go back to that simulation of heaven. But I fell in love with her - or more accurately perhaps, now that I can be honest enough not to confuse love with hormones, I fell in love with how she made me feel - guilt-free, unremorseful, and unburdened. Seeing Layla naked in the half-light, walking away from the still-warm bed she had just shared with me, I knew with certainty of the sun, what it must have felt like for Adam back in the day. And anyone who gives you that, you just cannot help but fall in love with.

The King

2006-06-28T03:32:00.000-07:00

Everyone called him the King. But when he tried to be King, he fell short. He fought a good fight, he said. No one could ask more from him. But not everyone agreed; especially those who had counted on the King becoming King. Their discontent gave birth to a smoldering anger inside their hearts, not just for the tyrant that they had not displaced, but also for the King who seemed all too eager to slip away over the hills and far away.

The discontented plotted and schemed in dark rooms and brightly lit hotels and coffe-shops. For a long time, they could not agree on a plan. The King had loyal subjects who cared little about carrying on the fight when the King himself had said that he intended not to. And so they kept on plotting and scheming, gnawing at the bitter roots of their disappointment.

One day, one fo the King's most loyal lieutenants approached the Councils of the Discontented. With tears in his eyes, he recounted the sleepless nights he suffered, stung by the King's withdrawal from the field of battle. He felt betrayed, he said. He felt ... used. He had decided that the King owed his loyal subjects one more stab at the Crown they all aspired to.

The Discontented kept silent, knowing that more would soon come. After a while and several shots of firewater, the Betrayed outlined his plan. "We must turn him into a symbol ..." he began.

Three weeks later the Discontented and the loyal subjects threw a feast for the King. A lavish affair with food and drink overflowing. For awhile, it seemed that all had been forgiven, and that the King's subjects had finally accepted his decision to seek peace with the one they called the Tyrant. The Betrayed sat next to the King - his sovereign's right arm. "Forgive, me, My King," the Betrayed said. "I should never have doubted you."

"Do not worry about it anymore, my friend," the King said. "Come, let us drink instead and forget all this talk of war and betrayal." The Betrayed pressed a cup into the King's mighty right hand and watched as his King drank deep. "Funny you should say that," he muttered.

Thirteen hours later, the Betrayed stood in front of the King's mournful subjects and, with tears in his voice, declared "The King is dead." The wail that rose up from the gathered crowd shook the dawn and startled birds from their perches up in the trees. The Betrayed held up his hand and brought stillness back.

"Before he died, he told me to tell all of you: Keep on Fighting!"

In the cozy darknesses of their cars and SUV's, the Discontented smiled. The coming days would be muted in mourning, but soon - so very soon - the battle would again be joined."

return

2006-06-28T03:07:00.000-07:00

this is a return of sorts. a return to writing for the sheer pleasure of it - and to hell with whoever's looking over my shoulder. and as come-backs go, this one has a 50-50 chance of actually turning into something.

2006-06-27T10:47:00.000-07:00

ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc, et in hora mortis.