Frodo

August 2002 - February 2008

I found out last night that Frodo passed away several days ago. In dog years, he was about thirty-eight.

I honestly don't know what to say. I must admit I'm a little sad. Last time I saw him was in January of 2006. I wish I got to see him a few more times after that.

He was very cute and loyal and loving. He was highly excitable, and sometimes had trouble shutting up. But he was also happy just to be in the same room with us.

I just hope he had as much fun as I did when we were together. And hopefully, he didn't die a virgin.

This Is Not About You

Maybe it is. In a sense. Because I want to point it out, and make it clear, that this isn't.

Please understand that not everything is about you. There are some things that concern you. Some, not all.

Stop thinking that I think about you all the time. That I go to certain places because I am hoping I will *accidentally* bump into you. That I order food that reminds me of you. That I am friends with people that will somehow link me to you.

Or, that I do the opposite because I am avoiding you. Or, that I don't want to think about you.

I simply don't care.

Maybe your name is mentioned every so often. But I assure you, it doesn't mean anything. It's just something that comes up during the natural course of discussions between me and my friends.

I wish you would refrain from assuming that you are central in everything that happens in the world. Or, the events in my life.

To be honest, you are nothing more than a prop, a face in the crowd, the *bestfriend* to whom the thoughts and secrets of the protagonist are revealed. Something I can do without. Someone I should've done without.

This is the end. There will be no punchline, no twist and no confession. I don't think I can get more direct than this: This is not about you. Hardly anything is.

Sex And The City And Separation Anxiety

september 22, 2007 journal entry:

 

I finished watching Sex and the City around 5:55pm today.

 

And I miss it already.

 

I didn't know I would be this affected, but apparently I was wrong.

 

That's the problem with me—whether I am reading a good book or watching a movie or watching a series, I have a problem letting go.

 

That is specially true in real life. Especially before, I didn't want making friends because I was thinking that if I did I would be hurt when goodbye came. And even though I hardly called anyone a "friend," I still felt that pang of pain biting my heart every time I had to leave or be left by whomever I was spending time with.

 

Ned was the one who pointed this out to me. He said I had separation anxiety.

 

Well, now I no longer feel that with friends. Now, I can no longer wait until I'm home—alone.

 

But the feeling was transferred to my imaginary friends. I remember feeling depressed after finishing One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and most, if not all, of the books that I had finished reading gave me the same feeling of, I don't know, being abandoned?

 

Same feeling I get every time I move out of an apartment. You empty it, take out the lightbulbs, and 99% of the time, it takes you until evening or twilight, and you take one last look at the empty house and you can't help but remember where everything used to be just hours earlier, and then you close the door, lock it, and know that you are putting a period to that chapter in your life and that you will never go back to it, no matter what.

 

Same feeling I got after I finished Will & Grace and Friends. Deep inside I knew that although I might watch them again in the future, picking episodes at random or from the pilot of the first season to the series finale, I wouldn't have the same thrill of anticipating what would happen next.

 

But now, no matter how many million times I watch them again, I know that I would only be looking at old home videos and photographs. I will never be truly with them again. Their stories are finished. They have moved on. While I am stuck in the past that they have already left behind.

 

I loved Sex and the City. Maybe not as much as Friends, which I still think is the best series I have ever seen, although there are very few. The crafting of Sex and the City is very sharp, witty and funny. Yes, sometimes it's difficult to understand their predicament since you know which road they should take but they always choose the opposite lane. But just the same, you can never really abandon them. You wouldn't want to.

 

And I thought I wouldn't miss them all that much. That was why I was so brave to march into the finale. And I was crying the whole time knowing each of the four friends are finally getting what they have always wanted (whether consciously or unconsciously) and needed (whether stated or implied).

 

And then a couple of hours later, it sank in—I miss them.

 

I think I've been avoiding real relationships with real people because I knew suffering from this feeling would be inevitable. I didn't expect it would be ever-present, though. I hardly feel it for other people, but I suffer it endlessly for characters that are nothing more than black ink on off-white paper or light particles in tv and the monitor of my laptop.

 

Is this feeling supposed to make me realize I'm still alive? I'm not sure I like it that much.

bits on vincent, the 80's, and the peak of komiks

i saw a friend's blog about how much she had loved a particular series on komiks. i got excited, and post a very long reply. here it is--typo errors and all. i just asterisked the names.

damn! grabe, ****, paborito ko rin 'yung series na 'yun. as in pag nagbabakasyon ako with my ate who used to live right beside sa talipapa ng pepin st sa sampaloc, nauubos ang allowance ko kaka-renta ng komiks sa sari-sari store. at pinagtitiyagaan ko ang bantot ng palengke matapos ko lang basahin yung weekly (naging twice weekly ata sila) issue nun.

nasa dulo ng dila ko yung title. if i'm not mistaken it's a play on "lucifer" and "archangel gabriel." wild guesses: lucifer gabriel. whatever.

anyways, eto na... siempre, maliban sa anna lisa at flordeluna (yaikkks! 80's ang labanan) wala pa namang telenovela, fantaserye, chever-chever at kung anu-ano pang genre na naiimbento (to the point na 1 show / program per genre na halos. anyways...), ang sinusundan-sundan, ang idol eh not so much the direk, the writer, the channel. and kalaban ng mga artista sa mga fans ay ang mga... komiks writers and artists. ilan sa mga names na naalala ko right now are: mar t. santana (artist), zoila (writer), at siempre sina helen meriz at nerissa cabral (writers; whose works on komiks got translated to film. if i'm not mistaken, sa kanila yung "nagbabagang luha" at "pati ba pintig ng puso").

pero ang super-duper-mega idel ko ay walang iba kundi si vincent kua, jr. i had the chance to meet him sa ilang pagkakataon sa star cinema at abs-cbn noong matatapos na ang dekada '90 at sa pagsisimula ng ikatlong siglo. sobrang bait at unassuming. sa dinami-dami ng napatunayan niya, pero man lang hint ng hanging habagat kapag kausap mo siya. grabe.

sadly, though, according to a friend, he passed away na around 2 or 3 years ago, i'm not sure. hindi ko pa nako-confirm.

he was both a writer and an illustrator. i know of some people na sinusundan din yung works niya sa komiks. and remember him, and his works, until now. and he experimented sa konsepto ng sinusulat niya at illustrations.

teka, bakit nga ba ako naparatrat ng ganito? eh kasi sobra akong na-excite dahil dito sa entry mo sa blog about this lucifer-gabriel twist. KASI SI VINCENT KUA JR ANG NAGSULAT AT NAG-ILLUSTRATE NUN! (bakit kailangang sumigaw?)

you can ask *** and *** (fans din sila ni vincent) kung ano nga talaga yung title nung series na yun. and wala lang, but might i add, isa sa high points ng buhay ko nung makapagpa-picture ako with him. :)))))

bakit ba ang hilig mong magpatawa?

komo ba kalbo ka, feeling mo nakakatawa ka na?

tamanatamanaTAMANA!