i miss my bed

i don't like whining. but today i will make an exception.

i miss my bed, my house, my mother, her house, our dog, and having a life.

i've been spending way too much time at work.

i know that there are people who stay at work longer, who do more work, blah-blah-blah.

but that's not the point. i think i'm spending too much time at work. that's it. that's how i see it. that's how i feel.

it's not a problem for me, really. i like what i'm doing so much that most of the time, i'm oblivious of the time. i'm almost always surprised that it's already friday when it seems like it was only monday or tuesday when i checked last.

(this is not going anywhere.)

yet, somehow, i have this weird feeling that i am not at all appreciated. or, probably, i am made to feel like my efforts are unwanted.

* * *

the stage is dark.

and the spotlight is focused on the scars and blemishes--
blinding everyone to everything else.

no flowers, no applause for this jester.

method acting, my ass.

the audience is waiting
and expecting.

the non-paying kibitzers,
watching through frosted glass
and over plastic cages
are critical
and waiting--more like praying for
or preying on--
a missed beat
an ad lib
a skipped line

or an impromptu laughter.

the brows are raised
and the claws--unsheathed

ready to pounce on the slightest--read: nonexistent--
provocation.

all in the name of fictional maternal instincts.

this stage has turned into an operating table
on which i--or the specimen i have become--am lying down.

my head and chest and groin have been cut, opened and spread
wide.

i lost my humanity the moment i looked
and let myself be led
onto that sacrificial table
where no soul has ever been saved.

with the last strand of self-respect
i will sew myself up again.

and stand up.

proud. like before.

Sex Makes People Healthy, Cheerful, Strong, Beautiful and Sleepy

I found an interesting article about sex and its benefits.

samwise' first pix

samwise has been with us for only a month. yet his size has already tripled.


these are his first pictures. taken earlier today.

advance deathbed musings

it's been thirty one days, twenty hours and forty seven minutes since the beginning of two thousand and seven.

so much for "making the year 2007 last longer than 2006."

that was the only new years resolution i had the guts to make, and i can't even be true to it.

this year might just slip through my fingers without my knowing it.

i'm scared of going to bed tonight (or tomorrow morning). i'm afraid that when i wake up, i'd find that 2007 is already over.

i don't know what's wrong with me. now, it's so important for me to make each day last. to relish every second. to savor every breath. to feel the air around me.

i may not do anything important, i may not discover the cure for aids (or genetic stupidity), but at least i know how i'm wasting my time.

i don't want to grow old and look back and wonder how i spent my youth. of course, it would be great to look back and know that you did really amazing things. but i'm a simple man. i have no illusions of greatness.

knowing i've gone to mts. banawe and sagada, boracay, vigan, et cetera is good enough for me.

going to more places like pagudpod, batanes and guimaras, wasting away in bed reading my favorite books, or being a couch potato for several days watching my favorite movies and series on dvd's, or learning new recipes, or making my own furnitures, or chatting and having coffee with good friends, dining with my mom and siblings, writing scripts that may or may not get produced, dramas that may or may not get staged, fictions and poems that may or may not get published, or having sex for days on end are good memories to look back at.

i just wish that when i finally do something about this, i'd still have enough time.

eighty eight

today, the 30th of january is my father's birthday.

he would have been eighty eight today.

he was a simple man. he had no major ups-and-downs. and as far as i know, he had no major ambition, or any major failure.

but he was a good man. he had a lot of friends. everybody in our town knew him. nobody said anything bad about him. everybody spoke of him like they were close friends of his.

he neither got into politics nor joined any prestigious organization so he was never influential. but up to this day, everybody knows us--his sons and daughters--and refers to us, as "anak ni peles."

he was not perfect as a husband. but my mother, who is independence-incarnate, must have seen something in him that made her stay with my father for fifty years. and now, for the past three and a half years that he's been gone, my mother visits his tomb everyday after mass. according to her, she just stays there for a few minutes and talks to him. maybe she gets lonely sometimes and she needs to feel his reassuring presence. or maybe she, to quote from a gilbert o'sullivan song,

"couldn't understand why the only man,
she had ever loved had been taken.
leaving her to start, with a heart so badly broken."

(i'm not sure i could finish this. the more i think about him, the more i miss him. and somehow wish that he were still here.)

he was far from being an ideal father. but if i could live another lifetime, and had a choice, i would most probably pick him again.

he didn't have much. but what he lacked materially, he compensated for by kindness and love. he always worried where we were. he didn't like it when he couldn't see us, literally. of course, we hated it. but deep inside, we appreciated that. that made us feel wanted and reassured.

what he couldn't teach us himself, he let us learn on our own. most of the time, he didn't say no whenever we wanted to go somewhere or do anything. (or maybe he just couldn't say no to my mother. anyways...) considering how restless he would get whenever we were out of sight, letting us leave the house was surely a big sacrifice for him.

he never expected anything grand from us. so there was no pressure whenever he was around.

he was the most appreciative person i have ever known in my whole life.

his smiles were some of the most genuine.

and his heart, one of the purest.