cabin fever

we need conversations in our lives. not just any other run of the mill conversations but there's always the insatiable pursuit of profundity. i know i have highly-talented friends. they could conjure the best meals and pastries ever while i don't have the patience for cooking lessons. they're also shoulders to lean on when their schedules permits. although i wait forever for texts replies.

there shouldn't be comparisons amongst friends, colleagues, neighbours or you'll never be happy. some are richer, replete with all the bling-bling. others are more successful in business and career. most are more fertile. we need empathy in our lives. by now, i know which one tends to compete. i just simmer or i scream really loud.

lacuna

it's a halt in communication. but no sweat, i will chill. i asked to meet a friend, in a text, a week ago. maybe i'm not good company for high street coffee, in my case, sugar free drinks.

but there's virginia woolf, i have books to soothe my concerns, such a dork. at least, the sickness is almost gone. there are some remnants left but it's not as debilitating. i still experience tiredness when i miss my afternoon siesta or venture a few meters from point A to point B.

nonetheless, yeah, the domestic arena is highly-competitive. as if you know, you're really nobody unless somebody loves you, which is a lot of crap. being in a union is hard work, it's not merely for display. you have to synchronise your thoughts together and have in-depth discussions on issues that befall mankind.

that said, i utterly salute my single friends. they're there during times of need. if only they live next door or at least nearby, i could inhale and exhale more comfortably. but i'm hoping to regain more bearings.

return to the fold

after a year of hiatus, my highly-articulate friend is back to her blogging digs. she's still the same, joy, relatable, a keen observer of people and pop culture. hope she continues to write and write.

rouse

i have to type this fast, as multi-dimensional blogging is not available in my phone.  the app is misbehaving.  let get this fixed during downtime.

at this very juncture, let's just reinvigorate and read.

and curse the factions and the mob.

sibilance

can hear my hissing sounds. can hear my heart beating. was supposed to go shopping with car's. both of us fell asleep. no worries. let her bake the cake for her friend's birthday.

speaking of friends, was able to retrieve my shoulder bag from Honey, who had the good graces to collect it from John Lewis in Kingston. forgot my bag in the cafeteria at nearly closing time a day before my birthday in June, a day after Honey's birthday. she rang the establishment and picked it up because i don't live near the area. the contents were just reading matters for that day's train travel, for good grief  i'll just stare at the scenery the full half an hour. it took me four months to claim the bag including Honey and Roy's birthday present for me.

my Virginia Woolf book ( a room of one's own) was in the bag. i was halfway through the paperback, a few hundred pages of her chastising her era of women needing a room of one's own in order to write. i've scanned through easy two non-fiction since then, autobiographical accounts and essays, which not too-severely deflated my self-esteem. i have to polish my verbal skills.

then there's the drumbeats of primark, which a label-whore golden baldie frowns upon as if he's selected the best shags ever or wears prada all the time. boy bawang kicks ass, man.

idea of fun

during the riots, as reported in the newsreel, almost all the shops in Clapham were smashed and looted. except for one. Waterstone's, the ephemeral bookstore, remained untouched, standing tall one Tuesday morning.

books are not as desired as a new pair of trainers or a new mobile phone. but i practically know someone who is into reading. i'm not sure if it's showing off her credentials or she really loves to decipher the pages upon pages of paragraphs. i'm sure it's the latter. but you know sometimes reading a big book in public is akin to the ostentatious display of a new gear from JD Sports or the priceless Chanel purse.

i don't see any of my intimate friends read a book in the train. i have to find out if it's such a dorky activity for them. but i see a lot of Londoners poking their heads into a scintilla of paperbacks in the tube. that means less noise in the carriage. and in the bigger picture, peace on earth? maybe.

so what are you writing?

is this rest day or what? after a week of work (day and night shifts) airport strolling, flying, navigating Thessaloniki in Greece in above 30 degree heat without an umbrella, watching a different breed of a sports event (more on that later) at Toumba Stadium, trying to read Greek, reading Stephen Fry, stopover in Milan, scouring the traveling crowd for a Carrie Bradshaw doppelgänger, praying for the flight not to be delayed, getting home before 2am, sleep for three hours, work for twelve hours, sleep, finish the documentation audits after I reach 10 posts or thereafter (leaving the house, taking the tube) I still have loads in my to-do list.

I better get to the bath. It's almost 11 am.

back to the bronte sisters

caught a film version of  wuthering heights (1992) the other day starring ralph fiennes as heathcliff and juliette binoche as cathy linton and catherine earnshaw.  i was enthralled for a bit.  heatchcliff doesn't seem as terrifying as he is in the book. binoche meanwhile is exquisite in every character that she portrays, whether it's catherine or cathy, or as marie in dan in real life.

the latest film adaptation of my favorite book is the cary fukunaga's directed jane eyre with mia wasikowska as jane and michael fassbender as mr. rochester.  it's UK opening is 9th september. hope to find some few vital cinema time or back to the dvd's.

a few noises

i like this not blogging every day routine. the state of not being rushed in subjecting oneself to scrutiny, is refreshing. that in addition to being handed extra shift in which to earn our dough. i sleep more. i eat more. the surrounding's a mess. last month's with a few day's off, i got stumped just laying off the housework. not a good idea when the mind is not at peace with chaos.

to think, to read, to absorb

22 •c

It seeps into your soul, indolence. Is it the curse of summer? Or merely the product of poor time management? Or lying in, with the 24 hour tv clicker is the beauty of existence? Or tired means tired, rest is priority. I guess that's it, a sabbatical, away from the glare of tiny screens and toxic rants.

at the least

bookshops.
libraries.
i don't have the time to read that often or to truly comprehend the classics. but i try once in a while despite my preponderance to procrastination.

last month i left a shoulder bag containing my handy Virginia Woolf tome in John Lewis food court near Kingston. my friend Honey was able to retrieve the bag but haven't seen her since that day of croissants, Hampton Court gardens, photo shoots in the park. the book is still waiting to be finished.

in the meantime, i'm scanning the gossip pages of the daily free newspaper or i could regale myself with the words of Charlotte Bronte in Shirley and make a valiant effort to stop the addictive habit of scouring the Internet with no specific sense of purpose.

docu

On Thursday, I saw a documentary on Edgar Allan Poe. I felt like reading The Fall of the House of Usher anew. Just when we were doing it in school. The short story's ending made our class of teenagers think and realise it was not too spooky after all. Plus in the clip, the actress playing Virginia, Poe's young and sickly wife, reminds me of Laurice Guillen's daughter.

Just surveying all the literature I need to tackle is debilitating. I should be energised by the depth and beauty of words. But the pulverising grind takes too much time. At this minute.

wires

Mommie Dearest, both the book and the movie, based on the account of Joan Crawford's adopted daughter, Christina, about her life with the legendary actress might be or might not be fiction. In any case, controversy sells (alcoholism, wire hanger tantrums, physical abuse) igniting interest thus ruining a name and a legacy.

I haven't read the book (couldn't find my mom's copy) but I saw the movie recently, it was just a case of tiger mothering. Some overachievers are simply too strict with their children, pushing them to reach their potentials, not settling for their definition of mediocrity. Even in childhood, it's vital to prevent the kids from turning into brats. In this environment children may flourish or simply become resentful and rebel their heart out or write a scathing autobiography after the parent is dead (Mommie Dearest) or alive, like the case of Bette Davis daughter BD Hyman who penned Her Mother's Keeper and its sequel.

futz

futz was the word of the day on friday, with terms such as idleness and simpleton as part of its meanings. there was a lack of creativity in my subliminal longings and ambitions. yeah, whatever rubbish i could muster.

i was also trying to work out the underlying motivations behind dh lawrence's women in love. the adaptation seen recently on BBC four with Rachael Stirling and Rosamund Pike as the Brangwen sisters is gripping. Pike as Gudrun is quite good. she looks definitely authentic as an artist, such a gorgeous actress with the mellifluous accent. makes me want to check out An Education with Carey Mulligan.

wait, wait

the title had no bearing to my state of mind, just about to dash out somewhere, but first the exfoliation process. i got to close my netbook screen and evaluate how to gain access to this tome. i'll write more about slum or slum living next time, like the previous writing promises i couldn't link or even recall. not that i know anything about informal settling, what i reckon is what i observe in the marginalised society where i developed as an adult. this article mentioning the malalusan fire in bacolod. what is the malalusan fire? it's quite a significant topic of my childhood. i'll try in the next post.

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).

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.

sharpen

a resplendent sunday afternoon. much to my chagrin, i'm reading slower than my usual pace.

charlotte, emily polemics

having read both jane eyre and wuthering heights, i mulled over the terminologies reflected in the ongoing debate between the sisters in this article. preferring jane eyre myself, and being juxtaposed to a librarian is definitely not too shabby. aside from attaching articulate lyrics to haunting melodies, the excitement in a rock star's routine is much too melodramatic for my liking. while a librarian is being surrounded by books, lots and lots of books, in a hubbub of cool serenity.

actually, i find wuthering heights too dark and gloomy, and the fact that it was adapted into film (hihintayin kita sa langit) starring richard gomez and dawn zulueta, directed by carlitos siguion-reyna does not bode well in my affections. not that i don't like richard or dawn, i just wasn't drawn to that interpretation. while the film devotion, very fictional in any shape, way or form, may have urged me to like charlotte better than emily, only a little bit. jane eyre stands on its own by way of plot and flammable paragraphs. the mad woman in the attic may be a product of imagination but the miseries and tragedies of boarding schools is an authentic account of appalling conditions in those days, before the coinage and mass production of antibiotics.

others prefer emily, i've got to find the time to read her poetry. at the moment, i'm reading all things charlotte. later, anne.