back to sub zero

it's still dark at few minutes after seven in the morning. it's way too cold for my tropical tendencies. a freezing winter in any other name, would lead to a fine gorgeous summer.

noms, Gongs

no surprises for this year's oscar nominations, maybe except for a best supporting actor nod for mark ruffalo for the kids are all right and a snob for mark wahlberg for the fighter. his other co-stars are nominated, bale to amy adams to melissa leo in the supporting categories.

the ceremony will be co-hosted by james franco and anne hathaway. i'm used to stand up comics or comedians or someone with the many talents of hugh jackman eliciting applause but this combination might work with the musical numbers.

the news

in the midst of the headlines on sexism, racism in the male banter of football and all the negativity in this vast universe, the riots in Cairo, the bombing of a bus in Manila, it has been a fragile state of affairs. back to tuning into the news channels, mostly BBC this time rather than CNN, there are also the free papers i couldn't thoroughly finish from cover and cover. i'm tired and drifting off to beauty sleep. but back tomorrow.

mike test

it's still chilly to the bone. the minor drizzles are leaking into our kitchen sockets which when wet, as they are now, wreak havoc to the connection gadgets including the boiler and the stove. so it's mightily cold in the pantry. no warm water. i'm under the sheets all the time. it's back to the dark, dark ages.

poverty was our thing growing up. i learned how to dabuk the kalayo when cooking as a child. a rice cooker was not yet de rigeur. we had an artesian well for drinking water. until now, our main water source back home is still the deep well in the backyard, dependent on electricity. it's not for the nephews' consumption. they got really sick back in '07 after dad's funeral. for kids raised in developed countries, it's prudent to use bottled water for drinking while in RP. the water company says our location is still far away from civilisation. i'm not sure if that's the truth or it's just merely the end product of kickbacks society.

hopefully soon the kitchen problem would be fixed, i could come out from the rut. to be in a bad mood, with all my red drippings, is not good.

blog5

further reading.

onion-skinned

in this year's golden globe awards, ricky gervais as the master of ceremonies was the gem. the deadpan delivery was great. hilarious! to the butt of the jokes like the slebs du jour, the characters of the tourist and tony stark, lighten up, at the end of the day, you have millions in your bank accounts and your fans while i tackle the sight and smell of real blood and sobbing realities of physical and emotional wounds, to the television bloggers from major publications who wrote about the death of gervais career, really we have to worship at the cult of celebrity?

chris colfer's win brought a tear to my eye. i didn't see that one coming. for jim parsons, long live sheldon cooper! the big bang theory is my porn.

breather

took a break from the computer and blogging the last few days. tried to clean the house but couldn't accomplish the entire task without creating more clutter, virtually inadequate when it comes to binning the overflowing books and magazines. outside, it's still dark, as if last month's solstice never happened. it rains a bit. it rains in the afternoon and i drift into dreamland.

art is to a movie

y tu mama tambien is such a fiercely beautiful film, weaving the tapestry of two teenage boys taking a road trip with an older woman against the backdrop of mexico's socio-political situation. containing blatant, evocative sexual depictions, it's a gripping coming of age story. although what's with the dénouement? friends are friends forever and all that rubbish, right?

but maybe the few days of summer are the few days to savour, a few days for reflection, marking the future and carving thy destiny.

the leads are all gorgeous. the narration is pitch perfect, spanish never sounds more poignant.

specials

was lurking in facebook in the early morning, at least my version of an early morning. glancing at irvin's travelogues and photographs, like the one above, is an exercise on good aesthetics. seems like a heaven of a place. hopefully the servings are delightful. can't wait for february.

then

august 28, 2006

laurie, mcdonald at the emmy's

i kind of dig hugh laurie and his dr.gregory house character. too bad, he was snubbed for an emmy this year. why not him instead of peter krause? six feet under was great but at the end, alan ball showed us that only a gay couple is capable of a happily ever after. what was wrong in giving brenda and nate a happy ending? but in house, this line is so true, “why is it that when you are dying everybody seems to love you?” or when berger guest starred, i mean when ron livingston guest starred, house quipped, “do you think he goes to africa to serve the poor, no, because he wants all the attention,” or something to that effect. reminds me of team jolie.

also, at the emmy’s, kelly mcdonald nabbed a supporting actress trophy in a miniseries or movie for the girl in the café. her name is so run of the mill that i forgot she was the young lady who made me watch trainspotting. i read an interview of her last year in the evening standard magazine for her role in nanny mcphee. she narrated how trainspotting became her very first acting job and she wasn’t coy with the frontal nudity. how old was she? maybe 16 or 17 when danny boyle chose her for the role of schoolgirl who was ewan mcgregor‘s love interest? she was down to earth in that ES interview, quite oblivious to the fact that she was part of one great film. i haven’t seen trainspotting before i read that ES piece that i watched it immediately when i got the time and felt it was such an artistic endeavor, a cautionary tale, not a way of life. anyway, mcdonald’s speech at the emmy’s was poignant, in all its scottish glory.

TV’s fall season is upon us. there are tons of shows to look forward to. i wouldn’t have the time in the world to watch even my slumbook favorites. but late september in the states is january here, in the UK. may is may though as there are no re-runs in between. fingers crossed, this time next year, hugh laurie would be nominated or even win an emmy. is that too much to ask? now back to snoozing.

four years zooming past

august 28, 2006

the boring talk

as fate would have it, none of my friends follow sports. my brothers are quite articulate with the subject. but they’re guys and guys are expected to have an inkling about the discipline. it’s in their DNA. aside from my significant other, who can distinguish raul bravo from raul gonzales blanco, i have no one to talk to, whenever tiger woods reaches another milestone. like that playoff win over stewart cink in Ohio. after that stumble at the US Open, tiger emerged from his bereavement on fire, capturing two majors. 52 titles in twelve countries, 12 majors at the age of 30, one great decade. surely, the people’s champion and his fans are not amused.

but i was more than amused, more ecstatic than you can imagine, when jun limpot finally won his first PBA title. thirteen years, it took him. he’s no longer the franchise player. his teammates are like ten years younger. one of them, marc pingris, is going out with danica sotto. and i always think of dina bonnevie’s children as little kids. i knew it occurred in july but still feels like a dream, so there. i got to shift loyalties every time limpot makes his move — from sta. lucia to ginebra to purefoods. i asked for his autograph three times, the last one was ten years ago when he was with SLR. i don’t really have a chance to watch the PBA the last few years but in this highly-interactive world, information travels fast. but sans TFC or the likes, i rely merely on texts and prints. moving live images are hard to come by from my quarters. sports telecasts may be easily accessible with a click of a button, but sleep and tiredness always comfortably wins me over. thus i feel like losing a part of my existence. yes, i have to read more on NBA players named kirk hinrich of the Bulls or chris paul of the Hornets and watch a bit of world basketball championship. the sad thing though, it’s not on my regular telly. plus i’m still in the concentration camp so i cannot waver even for a little while.

in the darker side of sports, the recent reports on floyd landis and justine gatlin are not exactly good read. their sports are on top on the list of obsessive drug testings. it would have been better for landis to not have won the tour de france but not show excessive testosterone in the cup rather than the other way around. but what happened, happened. greg lemond could just zip it.

those days

august 21, 2006

chores on grammar

Using the wrong tense never fails to creep through my work. Or the dangling modifiers. There is this crazy perplexity on prepositions. But the good side of this blog culture is that one can edit till eternity. We are not perfect. I make so many mistakes that it takes months before I can pinpoint blemishes in the flow of words. But I relish the editing as much as the writing. There’s this cozy comfort in making words more resplendent. And if several of my friends discover flaws in my so-called paragraphs, it’s kind of embarrassing. Nevertheless, I just keep my fingers crossed it wouldn’t be that bad or awful, that I could still make room for rectifications and amendments.

To help me harness the miscalculated sentences would be to catch up with my readings. In between filling up the washer and watching the Gilmore Girls marathon at Hallmark, I have to finish that long-forgotten Women in Love by DH Lawrence. Does that mean Bill Clinton have to wait, again? Maybe. Juggling Kafka, DH Lawrence and Bill Clinton, sprinkled with a touch of TS Eliot, would be somehow manageable. Or I would just ignore them altogether and drift off, get some grip with the thing called, the day job.

In the midst of programmed chores, the backlog of readings managed to accumulate. But the business agenda is the priority. With all the errands to run and things to do, flipping through Women in Love is not even on top of the list (image from amazon.com).

reruns meltdown

august 20, 2006

television for company

it has been almost three years. and to paraphrase carrie bradshaw, “their absence is palpable.” all we’ve got of both friends and sex and the city now are reruns and the dvd’s. there are no more new episodes.

as i was contemplating going to the medics a few days ago, scared to death i might fall in the wayward hill due to blurry visions and dizziness, i was thinking, i don’t have a carrie to call for my samantha. or a monica or a phoebe to lean on for my rachel. aside from being witty, ( or hilarious when it comes to friends) both shows were mostly about kinship. my friends are great. they’re amazing. some of them live across the pond, unreachable from my landscape sans for the e-mails and sporadic phone calls. the ones within a 20-mile radius would probably sit with me at the doctor’s clinic, if i was not only hesitant to give them a ring. but as observed, our colleagues are very much saddled with work and if there are any free time for some, they mostly spend it doing their chores or soak in their indulgences if they’re fortunate.

in sex and the city, the girls are wealthy, with jobs we all love to have. they can afford their chanels and manolo blahniks. they own apartments in the prized locations in manhattan. in friends, they were not as deeply absorbed into glamour as the girls of SATC but those were surely magnificent digs. yes, monica and rachel, and chandler and joey had to share space in the first four seasons, but they got along so well that there were no kitchen awkwardness and living room issues.

all in all, they were not real. carrie bradshaw couldn’t have accumulated a hundred manolos, jimmy choos and christian louboutins on a columnist’s salary. or phoebe must have bumped into a fortune to be able to afford her living quarters. in the real world, we all have to buckle down and till the soil until our hands are rough and dry. sometimes we bleed, or i bleed as i usually do. we do not sit at a coffee shop every day. or have weekly brunch with a coterie dolled-up in expensive outfits. but we surely do love watching their antics on the small screen (photos from friends-tv.org and flakmag.com).

past mel

august 11, 2006

mel gibson, et al

mel gibson’s drunk-driving arrest and jz's 2004 column on the passions of the christ (copied and pasted on her blog) didn’t actually deter me from all things mel gibson. the mug shot had me asking questions not of his anti-semitic rant but whether or not he was the same mel gibson of the year of living dangerously, or let’s see, tequilla sunrise. when you were one of those studs heralded with the title sexiest man alive, would you feel obligated to live a lifestyle like brad pitt, look at the mirror every second of the day and still look stunning at 60? i’ve read paul newman makes sure sure his eyes are on their bluest blue when he makes public appearances. but who cares about looks when you’re already ancient, weak, feeble and incontinent? every one, except for princess diana and company, becomes wrinkled eventually. it should be that the kindness of our hearts should reflect our outside appearances. but that is not always true, it’s more of the other way around.

anyway, disney will still distribute apocalypto. and i haven’t seen an image of any of gibson’s seven kids, just to see if one of them has inherited dad’s bone structure. well, just like the rest of the voyeuristic world, i haven’t caught a glimpse of suri either (photo from fortunecity.com).

another summer piece

july 29, 2006

trekking to see ledley

this piece should be in the sports category but since i’m a blatant sports freak, anything about sports is always personal. i would be going to stop by white hart lane again tomorrow to watch tottenham hotspur against internazionale milan. seeing the brazilian striker adriano in the flesh would be a better thrill than bumping into beckham. i know some unbelievers view football as boring as facing a white wall for hours. ninety minutes with nothing but the time on the scoreboard. but doesn’t a no-hitter in baseball is also nothing but zeros on the screen? actually i love watching baseball when the pitchers are trying to outdo each other. homeruns put me to sleep. in addition, american sports always take a million hours. two hundred forty minutes just for basketball alone with a hundred timeouts and a thousand fouls? the game clock stops with one or the other. it’s convivial to see pace in whatever field. whether it’s aaron lennon from the right midfield or kobe bryant from the back of the court. then there’s ledley king, tottenham hotspur’s captain. injuries kept him out of the world cup. rio ferdinand, ke barbaridad. sol campbell, he’ll kiss you then will stab you in the back. the other half (i would say soulmate) and i walked miles on tuesday just to watch the spurs against stevenage football club. SFC has a very small ground. i gained some deep-seated insight that standing room only could actually be fun . my legs, my feet were virtually writhing in pain. i would need new shoes or new legs or manage my pain much better. and we’ve got ledley at the back. yes, my dear simba. we still got ledley at the back.

that blog in summer

could hardly wait for the longer days and shorter nights.

july 21, 2006

walking and talking in the heat

it’s delightful to see tiger do well in this heat. i couldn’t even venture outside my protected zone to avoid the glare and the soaring temperatures. but the world’s best golfers are out there competing in the Open under the intense humidity amid dried fairways and dreadful bunkers. those with early tee times clock in at the unholy hour of 6am. at least the third round starts at eight twenty. i’m so eternally grateful i could watch the Open this weekend.

plus there’s the added laxury of being glued to the Tour de France. i’ve read about floyd landis early travails in lance armstrong’s sequel to his bio it’s not about the bike entitled every second counts. landis is a colourful personality. his connection to armstrong makes him a media favorite. still, i miss armstrong’s dedication and strategies on winning the tour. the texan was utterly scientific while bordering on weirdness. he wasn’t only counting calories, he was also weighing his food. i presume he would tend to look up his blood results and check up if his numbers balance in the pyrenees. but lance is now basking in retirement, cycling with the likes of mcconaughey and gyllenhaal. not clashing against the robbie mcewens, oscar pereiros and andreas klodens.

as i watch all the sports i could muster, i feel like the catherine keener character in walking and talking . i don’t necessarily wait for the phone to ring. i have this craving for reading my friends’ blogs and e-mails. i send selected e-mails to some kind souls. however instead of being undulated with inspiring replies, long and significant pauses are thrown my way. so what’s with the chain mails? i know incalculable errands compete for attention or i just ask too many questions about the blue state of Illinois.

but after the summer comes the breeze of autumn. i wouldn’t be walking and talking the next few days. i have to delve deeper into the core and keep up with the readings. it’s disheartening to be an unhurried reader. not keeping up with the enlightened tide makes us linger in the nerve centers for novices. and when we come around to the essence of the venture, we’re left on our own, little support and some very nasty critics.

bigger, fatter now

i'm even bigger and fatter now.
well.

july 07, 2006

fatty blues

there are times when some folks find it easy to dish out comments without thinking. i take into account when certain opinion-laden souls say i’m getting a lot chunkier the last few months. it’s probably because of my carbo-loaded diet or the fact that i sleep a lot. i became stagnant in march due to something tragic and producing teardrops slowed down my metabolism. but the days of my fast metabolic process are way over and it’s time to borrow some ideas from the janet jackson book of slimming.
it’s actually not politically-correct to tell others they’ve gained weight. or worse yet, they’re fat. but when it comes to me there is suddenly an exception. i’m built with a huge sensitivity chip, not very good in absorbing criticisms. thus my fear of people. because people judge. in the words of stanford blanche, "everybody judge. some people do arts and crafts, we judge."
at the moment it’s a struggle with the clothes. all my trousers pre-2006 no longer fit. i cannot work out in the gym as the social implications seem so frightening. and i love my share of spaghetti a week so switching to salads would be like suicide. a herbivore, i’m not, definitely. there’s the matter of my joint pains. it’s severe pain every hour of the day on every joint if i haven’t taken my tablets. my movement becomes completely static. i’ve managed the pain over the years; prolonged warm baths, painkillers and now somebody to help me stand in the morning.
gaining weight is mainly a downside to getting older. however the frequent transgressors have probably not heard of emily post. so i can appreciate the insouciance. i could ask who she is and i’m sure they’ll answer, "sino iyon?" or i’m just miscalculating their range. but why couldn’t they just say "hello," rather than their immortal favorite, "alam mo, tumaba ka?"

evolution

june 24, 2006

glory hunting in sports

sports fans usually rally behind the champions — it’s fernando alonzo rather than kimi raikonnen; manchester united, arsenal and liverpool rather than some bottom-table clubs. i, too, was guilty of glory-hunting. if the lakers were not in the 1984 NBA finals against the boston celtics, i wouldn’t have bought those magic johnson’s biographies almost eight years later, in 19 92 pe-Barcelona Olympics. and after more than two decades, it still pains me everytime the lakers have a bad season.

in some cases, i just got lucky, it wasn’t apparent after the 1990 US Open that pete sampras would collect 13 more major titles, minus the French of course, but you win some, you lose some. though it took sampras almost three years to follow his first US open, his serve and volley could have easily wilted in the heat of the agassi commercial appeal. tiger woods, in serendipity, has done well, after i got glued on his attempt for a third straight US amateur title in mid-1996.

sometimes loyalties are based on one’s own hometown teams or cheering for your country with full force and impunity during football’s world cup. for the neutrals who are just beginning to embrace sports, most people go for the michael jordans and in recent developments, his heir apparents. a classmate became a jordan fan after the 1993 NBA final. i’ve read that others prefer the dishevelled look; the long-haired andre agassi, goran ivanisevic, johnny damon et al. one broadsheet editorial bludgeoned sampras’ serve to death after beating agassi in the ‘95 US open, the writer could have been an agassi fan. everybody has a type. the classic sample based on country affiliation is tim henman or andy murray during wimbledon. oh, if only federer is british. all would be well in the uk mainland. but the ryder cup always give the brits a rush whenever the yanks play like individuals, losing badly before the third day even commences. would this year be any different?

as sampras is already cocooned in marital bliss with his miss teen usa 1990 and their kids, i only have tiger to root for in sports evets. it’s not going to be easy as he is still grieving from the death of his father. conquering the likes of vijay singh and the people’s champion phil mickelson would be an emotional grind.

and those who didn’t like sampras then are now in the federer camp, making sure that the hairiest man in tennis would be eclipsed in his lofty position. by reaching the french open finals and winning tons of clay court titles, federer has already overshadowed pistol pete.

torpid

it was raining this morning. combining dusk and water pouring from the sky makes me feel sleepy. i capitulated to my definition of an endearing weakness, but in reality it's just plain laziness. should keep eyes open.

the second blog

note: gabrielle solis is now in chicago.
learning to sharpen one's claws is the solution.

sourpuss
may 17, 2006

mean girls is not just a lindsay lohan feature. or a chick flick set in a high school wonderland. in my florence nightingale realm, they’re actually living, breathing creatures who constantly need reminding of how amazing they are in this universe. they reside in our work quarters when we’re the newbie still finding our stride or a grizzled veteran about to leave the door. one of the nicest people i know advised me to just ignore them. easier for her to say. she’s like a gwyneth paltrow sans the wet nurse. the mean girl doesn’t always dress like carrie bradshaw or regina george. in all appearances, she could be the loud griper with hair extensions from the fourth wall. or a pimply-faced 45-year-old who undulates from generous to cheapskate in a beat. or a 5-9 gabrielle solis with pre-school kids. there isn’t a way to avoid them ever in life. they exist everywhere. how can they not? but it’s definitely more relaxing when they’re not around.

saunter

left the mall at about quarter to nine last night. i wasn't even aware it was early evening, i thought it was just an afternoon stroll. but what do i expect? we got into the building at maybe half five. it's still a four pm sunset or earlier, it's always dark outside and in the bedroom and sitting room of my infinitesimal environs. time is merely a digital, clock hand device, morning, noon, night. my concept of time is hay wired. 10 degrees in the positive scale but wintry.

as opined by one of JZ's readers after that dinner at ciao baby cucina in june, westfield's not shit, smaller than mall of asia but better than greenbelt and i've been to greenbelt.

january nine 2

it's my mom's birthday on sunday and as my husband's grampy says, despite the passing of years, it's hard to get over the death of a parent. recently, i come into contact with my aunt's e-mail written after mommy's funeral, talking about parenting perfection. nobody's a perfect parent. my mom certainly was never hands-on but her style made us proud. when she got angry, she seldom softened. she never took much notice about other people's opinion, no pretensions. she seemed to know every trivial aspect of pop culture, her classmates and friends, her relatives, geography. she attended all our PTA meetings, helped me buy clothes until she had her stroke when i was 22. it would probably be mean to say that the stroke was a blessing because with that, she stayed home, less gallivanting, more reading. but when dad passed away, i could discern the restlessness but not the heat stroke that triggered the infarction. she was so well-loved by her friends that even until a year ago we have more good housekeeping magazines than we can afford to bind.

i miss her. but that's expected. her grandchildren may not able to experience first hand her many wonderful qualities, hopefully all of us her kids, would live up to her ideals.

first blog

i've been backreading and analyzing my posts from previous years, stuff from friendster and the likes, transfer files and blogs, concentrate on facebook (you win this round zuckerberg).
since i don't want to lose the comments, i'll include this one, written months in the future by my brother.

november 8, 2005
30 minutes for ticking
i only have a few precious minutes to gripe, grumble, wail and whimper. this is done in between my exhaustion and not being able to do the laundry and meeting unfriendly creatures in the so-called saving and sustaining lives department. in all my years observing the beauty that is the filipino, it dawned on me that the cut-out is a basic martha stewart in the body of a typical bella flores character. it’s always party and gossip for the typical. there’s nothing really wrong in throwing a bash for a birthday or for a child’s birthday for that matter. in my terrain, it seems it’s always a contest on who has the grandest shindig. and why does it need to be in a hall or a theatre of spectacle? within that midst are the pseudo food critics or people who thought of you as a great failure because you cannot whip up pinakbet for the pure-blooded pinoys. which dish did you prepare? i was once asked in the north of england. a relative of a relative with one opinion too many would pound you senseless if you don’t measure up to her cooking and a long-lost friend once remarked about a maja blanca being so messy. these parties could be merely their excuse to be a naysayer in the lives of others or to show off their significance in the social order.
comment:

May 22, 2006

Day, I guess some people have it’s own nisus bad or good and for bad people being different and kind is balderdash. love you always. Next month will be your birthday. happy happy birhtday. I pray for God’s blessing always.

re-design

going dark blue at present.

after four years, maroon seems so tiring and dated. plus red represents a lot of fiery, abhorrent team affiliations. were the lakers ever red? the template could be totally unpleasing to the naked eyes. the grey could go lighter or darker or a picture header might just be the key to magnificence. i'll tweak and match for a little bit. i'm a creative disaster in more ways than one but at least, they're my colours.

kinship

what do we look for in a friend?

i tend to use the word nice a lot, a lot and a lot, especially in describing close associations.

helpful, congenial, beautiful (on the inside). down to earth.

a kind soul that may not embrace the crap that i like, but accept the aeryn suns, the sheldon coopers, the carol hathaways, the samantha joneses, the jane eyres, the rachel greens, the michael corleones, the jimmy mcnultys, the niles cranes. life may not always revolve around what we see on screen or read in a book, but there's the charm in knowing that although our choices differ, we have friends. we have family, and that the schmaltz keep on pouring.

reality nap

Plans to levitate towards the nearby shopping center to purchase perfume and spend the M&S gift card I've accidentally bought myself fell through when I drifted off to sleep before midday. Again. Shouldn't procrastinate really.

sparks

in the vat

the first, second and third days of this new year were either spent working, thinking about work or preparing for work. didn't even breathe through a retail high during the holidays. the vat increase is a current gloom, the scourge of the not so cash rich. it is reflected in my phone bills, sending photos from one mobile phone to another hit my bills pretty damn hard. it's all hidden charges, or checking facebook in europe. can't wait to get rid of the other phone.

for the winter's tale, it's still dark and cold, no longer hideously frozen but nonetheless penetrating for my tropical skin. january would flew past by the hectic activities, opening the windows for february swirl.

gracious

i don't really do new year's resolutions. but i will stain the authenticity of that statement by promising to consume more green and leafy garden's delights and procrastinate less, to move about after a stint of nine hours straight in bed regardless of the very heavy workload at the place with one office. be more gracious and polite. but i will still revel in the goodness of belgian chocolate trufles and pie's cupcakes. dance. read more books of merit. visit more museums. try to grasp the meaning behind my friend not knowing reese witherspoon.

good night

i could have danced the whole night.
but i was working the next day.
and new year morning in london is not
for the fainthearted.

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