Ad I recently saw in Nickelodeon for the popular lollipop:
Chupa Chups: The Pleasure of Sucking.
Yes, I like to suck on a cola-flavored lolly myself. And no, I don't find failure particularly pleasant, but I suppose there's a lesson to be learned somewhere. What about you?
*****
To have never taken a solitary road trip across country? I mean everybody's got to take a road trip, at least once in their lives. Just you and some music.
At least that's what the girl in the movie said. A movie, by the way, that's left me wondering why my life is not remotely movie-like. And I'm not asking for Cameron Crowe either! I mean honestly, who expects to find John Cusack holding a boombox playing Peter Gabriel's In Your Eyes outside their bedroom window? I was kinda a groupie once, but I was no Penny Lane/Lady, and besides, Kate Hudson is Kate Hudson. And no "You had me at Hello." moments either. But.
Maybe just a time when you're in that perfect moment--whatever moment that is--and just have the perfect song play, too. Just a really good soundtrack. Is that too much to ask?
I'm reading this book where these two girls went out on a disastrous double date. On their way home, the guys sit in front, and the girls are stuck in the backseat wondering what went wrong. One of them says, "You know, if this was a movie and there was a score playing, think how great it would look." Mary Poppins had it wrong. It was music that made anything go down a little bit better.
But. I got sidetracked. A solitary road trip, just me and some music. Seems like a plan, which is why I've been thinking of going to Guimaras next weekend. See what I can or can't do, and grab some alone time at the same time: The beach, the sun, the sand. My bikini, sunblock, flipflops and sunglasses. Bunker oil lapping at the waves lapping at the shore...
I've got to get my bags packed and my iPod loaded.
*****
In other news.
The turntable is in good working order. Small miracles, small miracles. My dad isn't here yet, and I don't know when his vacation leave will push through. I've told him over the phone about the receiver, and the first reaction (which is far from the final verdict, I'm sure) was a disappointed "Oh." There's time enough for that, and as the turntable was glad to play, Un bel di vedremo.
See what I mean?
*****
You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve?
Monday, September 18, 2006
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Hold me, thrill me, kiss me. Kill me.
Wow, look at her go. Three posts in five days. Unbe-fuckin'-lievable.
*****
Anyway. I have about five days to commit suicide, throw myself in front of a semi, be a victim of reckless homicide, volunteer to keep the peace in Afghanistan, etc. It won't matter any way after September 16th, because my Dad is coming home for a vacation, and he will then find out that I... That his really old, really amazing, really everything stereo receiver and possibly his Technics turntable has been fried.
And I did it. His really old-enough-to-know-better, amazingly stupid, and really in-trouble daughter.
It started out innocently enough. I wanted to listen to my CSN CD, which I haven't l heard in as long as I can remember. (And no, I am NOT that old. It's just that a month ago I went to a Spy gig at Bistro, and they played Woodstock, and Love the One You're With and the whole time I kept wishing they would play Almost Cut My Hair, which is my favorite song after Southern Cross.)
So there I was. I put in the CD in the DVD player, and turned on the stereo component and put it into "auxiliary" mode. Nothing. That Aiwa stereo's been around since forever and the buttons hardly work anymore, it's so old. I figured it must be the batteries in the remote control, so I changed them. I pressed the power button and still, nothing. The CD was playing but there were no speakers, no sound. So I fiddled around the back with the speaker cables. I figured the stereo must've conked out and nobody noticed. (It's basically just my Dad and me who like our music--me rock, him opera--loud in the house. Everybody else's fine with those lame-ass battery-operated radios and well, an iPod.) I took the cables connecting the DVD from the Aiwa stereo, and put it into the stereo receiver reserved for the turntable.
I turn it on, and again nothing. So I checked to see if it was plugged in. Mystery solved. I unplug the Aiwa from the voltage regulator, plug in the receiver in its place. Finally! I fiddle with the volume, but while the CD has been playing tracks 1 & 2 (Woodstock and Marrakesh Express) continuously, all I hear is this static... this buzzing sound. Something's wrong but I can't put my finger on it. The buzzing sound continues and seems to concentrate into a certain pitch, a certain decibel, slowly, slowly, until... KABLAM!
Well, the sound was actually more like a medium-voiced Boom! but, you know what I mean. At first I was in denial. No, that did NOT come from the receiver... which I could've gone on believing if it were not for the thick white smoke that suddenly rose up from inside the instrument. I could've ignored that, too, especially if (and I mean IF) I had been smoking something more... pleasant, I guess, than plain cigarettes, or if I'd put on a different CD, like say, The Who's Tommy, or The Kiss' Hotter Than Hell, AC/DC's Back in Black, Nirvana's Nevermind... You get the picture.
But it was the sharp stinging smell of ozone that cut it. I've smelled enough overheating electrical appliances my whole life (don't ask me why) to know when I'm in trouble. So I shut off the AVR, wave one hand uselessly to dispel the smoke while I suck hard on my cigarette with the other. Panic time. I check the voltage, and here is where the mystery's solved. So, just how much damage to my Dad's equipment, and my brain, was there? Let's just say that I didn't move in front of the receiver for a whole hour and a half, just in case the smoke disappeared but the wires inside were invisibly burning the house down.
(I was chanting, Oh God, Oh God, Oh God, like I was having great sex, except that every now and then that chant would be interrupted by, Please don't kill me, Daddy... Well, maybe that applies, too.) Uh...Ehem.
Finally convinced that the house wasn't burning down (invisibly or otherwise), I checked for damages. I unplug the receiver, and unplug the cables connecting it to the DVD player. I check the fuse area, and as if the receiver wasn't punishment enough, that's when I notice it: The Technics turntable was plugged into the receiver. Oh.My.Fucking.God.
I didn't have the courage to see if it was still working. I just couldn't. Maybe tomorrow, I'll take out one of my Dad's records and try it out. Maybe. I'm just too scared right now. Besides if I'm not sure yet that it isn't working, there's still a chance that it is, that the turntable was spared, right? Right?
It started out with that great, great song, Almost Cut my Hair. Definitely cut my head.
See you on the other side.
*****
Anyway. I have about five days to commit suicide, throw myself in front of a semi, be a victim of reckless homicide, volunteer to keep the peace in Afghanistan, etc. It won't matter any way after September 16th, because my Dad is coming home for a vacation, and he will then find out that I... That his really old, really amazing, really everything stereo receiver and possibly his Technics turntable has been fried.
And I did it. His really old-enough-to-know-better, amazingly stupid, and really in-trouble daughter.
It started out innocently enough. I wanted to listen to my CSN CD, which I haven't l heard in as long as I can remember. (And no, I am NOT that old. It's just that a month ago I went to a Spy gig at Bistro, and they played Woodstock, and Love the One You're With and the whole time I kept wishing they would play Almost Cut My Hair, which is my favorite song after Southern Cross.)
So there I was. I put in the CD in the DVD player, and turned on the stereo component and put it into "auxiliary" mode. Nothing. That Aiwa stereo's been around since forever and the buttons hardly work anymore, it's so old. I figured it must be the batteries in the remote control, so I changed them. I pressed the power button and still, nothing. The CD was playing but there were no speakers, no sound. So I fiddled around the back with the speaker cables. I figured the stereo must've conked out and nobody noticed. (It's basically just my Dad and me who like our music--me rock, him opera--loud in the house. Everybody else's fine with those lame-ass battery-operated radios and well, an iPod.) I took the cables connecting the DVD from the Aiwa stereo, and put it into the stereo receiver reserved for the turntable.
I turn it on, and again nothing. So I checked to see if it was plugged in. Mystery solved. I unplug the Aiwa from the voltage regulator, plug in the receiver in its place. Finally! I fiddle with the volume, but while the CD has been playing tracks 1 & 2 (Woodstock and Marrakesh Express) continuously, all I hear is this static... this buzzing sound. Something's wrong but I can't put my finger on it. The buzzing sound continues and seems to concentrate into a certain pitch, a certain decibel, slowly, slowly, until... KABLAM!
Well, the sound was actually more like a medium-voiced Boom! but, you know what I mean. At first I was in denial. No, that did NOT come from the receiver... which I could've gone on believing if it were not for the thick white smoke that suddenly rose up from inside the instrument. I could've ignored that, too, especially if (and I mean IF) I had been smoking something more... pleasant, I guess, than plain cigarettes, or if I'd put on a different CD, like say, The Who's Tommy, or The Kiss' Hotter Than Hell, AC/DC's Back in Black, Nirvana's Nevermind... You get the picture.
But it was the sharp stinging smell of ozone that cut it. I've smelled enough overheating electrical appliances my whole life (don't ask me why) to know when I'm in trouble. So I shut off the AVR, wave one hand uselessly to dispel the smoke while I suck hard on my cigarette with the other. Panic time. I check the voltage, and here is where the mystery's solved. So, just how much damage to my Dad's equipment, and my brain, was there? Let's just say that I didn't move in front of the receiver for a whole hour and a half, just in case the smoke disappeared but the wires inside were invisibly burning the house down.
(I was chanting, Oh God, Oh God, Oh God, like I was having great sex, except that every now and then that chant would be interrupted by, Please don't kill me, Daddy... Well, maybe that applies, too.) Uh...Ehem.
Finally convinced that the house wasn't burning down (invisibly or otherwise), I checked for damages. I unplug the receiver, and unplug the cables connecting it to the DVD player. I check the fuse area, and as if the receiver wasn't punishment enough, that's when I notice it: The Technics turntable was plugged into the receiver. Oh.My.Fucking.God.
I didn't have the courage to see if it was still working. I just couldn't. Maybe tomorrow, I'll take out one of my Dad's records and try it out. Maybe. I'm just too scared right now. Besides if I'm not sure yet that it isn't working, there's still a chance that it is, that the turntable was spared, right? Right?
It started out with that great, great song, Almost Cut my Hair. Definitely cut my head.
See you on the other side.
Saturday, September 09, 2006
Love affair with love letters.
Ottawa, April 6, 1955
My dear,
aaaTime is short. Dr. Shortcliffe says it will be a matter of days, doesn't he? This is not, of course, what he tells me, but what I overheard him saying to you last night, whispering in the corridor, after I was moved to the General. My hearing has remained oddly acute.
aaaMy mind, while less acute, is at ease about financial resources for you and for the children. The house, of course, is secured--for I feel sure you would be reluctant to leave familiar surroundings, particularly your garden--and there are sufficient funds as you know for the children's education.
aaaBut you will want money for travel--why is it we have not traveled, you and I?--and for small luxuries, and it has occurred to me that you might wish to offer for sale my lady's-slipper collection. I am certain it will bring a good price... I expect you will sigh as you read this suggestion, since I know well that Cypripedium is not a genus you admire, particularly the species reginae and acaule. You will remember how we quarreled--our only quarrel as far as I can recall--over the repugnance you felt for the lady's-slipper morphology, its long, gloomy (as you claimed) stem and pouch-shaped lip which you declared to be grotesque. I pointed out, not that I needed to, the lip's functional cunning, that an insect might enter therein easily but escape only with difficulty. Well, so our discussions have run over these many years, my pedagogical voice pressing heavily on all that was light and fanciful. I sigh, myself, setting these words down, mourning the waste of words that passed between us, and the thought of what we might have addressed had we been more forthright--did you ever feel this, my love, my marginal discourse and what it must have displaced?
aaaThe memory of our "lady's-slippers" discussions has, of course, led me into wondering whether you perhaps viewed our marriage in a similar way, as a trap from which there was no easy exit. Between us we have almost never mentioned the word love. I have sometimes wondered whether it was the disparity of our ages that made the word seem foolish, or else something stiff and shy in our natures that forbade its utterance. This I regret. I would like to think that our children will use the word extravagantly, and moreover that they will be open to its forces.
aaaDo you remember the day last October when I experienced my first terrible headache? I found you in the kitchen wearing one of those new and dreadful plastic aprons. You put your arms around me at once and reached up to smooth my temples. I loved you terribly at that moment. The crackling of your apron against my body seemed like an operatic response to the longings which even then I felt. It was like something whispering at us to hurry, to stop wasting time, and I would like to have danced with you through the back door, out into the garden, down the street, over the line of the horizon. Oh, my dear. I thought we would have more time.
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaYour loving
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaBarker
From Carol Shields' The Stone Diaries.
My dear,
aaaTime is short. Dr. Shortcliffe says it will be a matter of days, doesn't he? This is not, of course, what he tells me, but what I overheard him saying to you last night, whispering in the corridor, after I was moved to the General. My hearing has remained oddly acute.
aaaMy mind, while less acute, is at ease about financial resources for you and for the children. The house, of course, is secured--for I feel sure you would be reluctant to leave familiar surroundings, particularly your garden--and there are sufficient funds as you know for the children's education.
aaaBut you will want money for travel--why is it we have not traveled, you and I?--and for small luxuries, and it has occurred to me that you might wish to offer for sale my lady's-slipper collection. I am certain it will bring a good price... I expect you will sigh as you read this suggestion, since I know well that Cypripedium is not a genus you admire, particularly the species reginae and acaule. You will remember how we quarreled--our only quarrel as far as I can recall--over the repugnance you felt for the lady's-slipper morphology, its long, gloomy (as you claimed) stem and pouch-shaped lip which you declared to be grotesque. I pointed out, not that I needed to, the lip's functional cunning, that an insect might enter therein easily but escape only with difficulty. Well, so our discussions have run over these many years, my pedagogical voice pressing heavily on all that was light and fanciful. I sigh, myself, setting these words down, mourning the waste of words that passed between us, and the thought of what we might have addressed had we been more forthright--did you ever feel this, my love, my marginal discourse and what it must have displaced?
aaaThe memory of our "lady's-slippers" discussions has, of course, led me into wondering whether you perhaps viewed our marriage in a similar way, as a trap from which there was no easy exit. Between us we have almost never mentioned the word love. I have sometimes wondered whether it was the disparity of our ages that made the word seem foolish, or else something stiff and shy in our natures that forbade its utterance. This I regret. I would like to think that our children will use the word extravagantly, and moreover that they will be open to its forces.
aaaDo you remember the day last October when I experienced my first terrible headache? I found you in the kitchen wearing one of those new and dreadful plastic aprons. You put your arms around me at once and reached up to smooth my temples. I loved you terribly at that moment. The crackling of your apron against my body seemed like an operatic response to the longings which even then I felt. It was like something whispering at us to hurry, to stop wasting time, and I would like to have danced with you through the back door, out into the garden, down the street, over the line of the horizon. Oh, my dear. I thought we would have more time.
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaYour loving
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaBarker
From Carol Shields' The Stone Diaries.
Friday, September 08, 2006
Yes, waiting sucks.
First.
Yes, yes, I have come to the conclusion that I haven't completely gone off my rocker when I decided to ask, "Why wait?" Waiting sucks. And yes, I didn't go about the waiting, nor the ending of the waiting in the best possible way, but that's really all I can find myself to be sorry for. Because now, I hope I'm on my way to where I really want to be, instead of waiting (there's that word again) around for some good samaritan to give me a free ride. Here's to being a student again. Go me!
Second.
One of the things that drove me crazy while I was in Manila, was that my sister had had all my books shipped back to Iloilo. And so after a few weeks of re-reading the few books I brought back from Japan (which I've read a million times over there), I was beginning to go crazy. (I had read High Fidelity from middle to end, start to middle, and then start to end before I conceded that I needed help.) My sister was no help. She considers her Chemistry texts good reading, and doesn't mind rerererererererererereading Harry Potter 5 & 6 or Clavin and Hobbes. Good thing I have friends who still appreciate good fiction.
But now that I'm back in Iloilo (Yes, I went home, what's it to you?), I immediately looked through my books (Immediately after two days in front of the TV, that is.) and decided to create another Reading List. Here they are:
Most of the books I've had forever. (The reason I have bought so many books without having read them all, aside from the excellent prices at Booksale, is that I have this fantasy of being 35 and retired(see, how lazy I am?), on a lounger on a beach somewhere with all my unread books stacked on one side and that's what I do all day--read and read and read (sunbathing and sipping mai tais) until I've read them all, then I can die in peace. Weird, huh?)
Anyway, most of them I've had since before: Some are a re-read, others recommendations, plus a smattering of the pretentious (Umberto Eco? Hello!). But the point is, I have a project for the next few weeks, and it feels good.
(Aside.
Incidentally, this going-through-my-old-books stuff has made me remember all the other books that I used to own but now I can't find--if you have borrowed a book from me and still haven't returned it (and have not given it to some girl you were hoping to impress, hahaha!), I really would like to see that book again... please. Even just to touch it and smell it again. Really. All my Kundera--from The Joke to Identity and everything in between, my Shirley Jackson short stories, even my romance novels, and all the others that I've forgotten!!! Ohmygod. I really miss those books.
So, please.)
Anyway. Third.
I tried to submit to the Ateneo Workshop, but I didn't make the deadline. (Fuck, fuck, fuck!) I had completely forgotten about it (too much waiting can actually do this to you). Anyway, being the eternal, irritating optimist, I'm now taking this failure as a sign that my newer stuff aren't that great. Haha. But I did submit some re-written, re-worked poems for publication and I hope, I hope those do better, because I sweated my ass off to rewrite them, and I do think they're good (ehem.) and, it was on time at least. (Please, please, please.)
Fourth.
This is what happens when I have been silent--on paper, on the net, vocally, even-- for so long. I reach a threshold and then I just bubble over. Drey, stop. (I have just replied to the backlog in my email. Ten or so emails in two hours, one in Japanese! Grrr.) Seriously. Stop.
Last. Promise.
One of the five that didn't make it. A re-write of an early morning writing exercise.
Patterns repeat
Like when a girl sneaks
a boy into her room after dark—
her mother had forbidden it
who broke away at the words
forever, chain, us versus others;
but up walls. Circumvention
creating paths, patterns
The light come the morning finds—
an empty bedroom, breakfast for two—
hints of the unspoken, the silence
of the nights to come.
Yes, yes, I have come to the conclusion that I haven't completely gone off my rocker when I decided to ask, "Why wait?" Waiting sucks. And yes, I didn't go about the waiting, nor the ending of the waiting in the best possible way, but that's really all I can find myself to be sorry for. Because now, I hope I'm on my way to where I really want to be, instead of waiting (there's that word again) around for some good samaritan to give me a free ride. Here's to being a student again. Go me!
Second.
One of the things that drove me crazy while I was in Manila, was that my sister had had all my books shipped back to Iloilo. And so after a few weeks of re-reading the few books I brought back from Japan (which I've read a million times over there), I was beginning to go crazy. (I had read High Fidelity from middle to end, start to middle, and then start to end before I conceded that I needed help.) My sister was no help. She considers her Chemistry texts good reading, and doesn't mind rerererererererererereading Harry Potter 5 & 6 or Clavin and Hobbes. Good thing I have friends who still appreciate good fiction.
But now that I'm back in Iloilo (Yes, I went home, what's it to you?), I immediately looked through my books (Immediately after two days in front of the TV, that is.) and decided to create another Reading List. Here they are:
- The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne
- The Longings of Women, Marge Piercy
- Lord Jim, Conrad
- Kinkakuji, Mishima
- Our Father, Bernice Rubins
- The Shipping News, Proulx
- Doctor Fischer of Geneva or The Bomb Party, Greene
- Pere Goriot, Balzac
- The Art of the Novel, Kundera
- Love in the Time of Cholera, Garcia Marquez
- In the Name of The Rose, Umberto Eco
- In Cold Blood, Capote
- The Silmarillion, Tolkien
- The Robber Bride, Margaret Atwood
- The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck
- King Lear, Shakespeare
- In the Skin of a Lion, Michael Ondaatje
- Accordion Crimes, Proulx
- The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, McCullers
- Leaves of Grass, Whitman
Most of the books I've had forever. (The reason I have bought so many books without having read them all, aside from the excellent prices at Booksale, is that I have this fantasy of being 35 and retired(see, how lazy I am?), on a lounger on a beach somewhere with all my unread books stacked on one side and that's what I do all day--read and read and read (sunbathing and sipping mai tais) until I've read them all, then I can die in peace. Weird, huh?)
Anyway, most of them I've had since before: Some are a re-read, others recommendations, plus a smattering of the pretentious (Umberto Eco? Hello!). But the point is, I have a project for the next few weeks, and it feels good.
(Aside.
Incidentally, this going-through-my-old-books stuff has made me remember all the other books that I used to own but now I can't find--if you have borrowed a book from me and still haven't returned it (and have not given it to some girl you were hoping to impress, hahaha!), I really would like to see that book again... please. Even just to touch it and smell it again. Really. All my Kundera--from The Joke to Identity and everything in between, my Shirley Jackson short stories, even my romance novels, and all the others that I've forgotten!!! Ohmygod. I really miss those books.
So, please.)
Anyway. Third.
I tried to submit to the Ateneo Workshop, but I didn't make the deadline. (Fuck, fuck, fuck!) I had completely forgotten about it (too much waiting can actually do this to you). Anyway, being the eternal, irritating optimist, I'm now taking this failure as a sign that my newer stuff aren't that great. Haha. But I did submit some re-written, re-worked poems for publication and I hope, I hope those do better, because I sweated my ass off to rewrite them, and I do think they're good (ehem.) and, it was on time at least. (Please, please, please.)
Fourth.
This is what happens when I have been silent--on paper, on the net, vocally, even-- for so long. I reach a threshold and then I just bubble over. Drey, stop. (I have just replied to the backlog in my email. Ten or so emails in two hours, one in Japanese! Grrr.) Seriously. Stop.
Last. Promise.
One of the five that didn't make it. A re-write of an early morning writing exercise.
Patterns repeat
Like when a girl sneaks
a boy into her room after dark—
her mother had forbidden it
who broke away at the words
forever, chain, us versus others;
but up walls. Circumvention
creating paths, patterns
The light come the morning finds—
an empty bedroom, breakfast for two—
hints of the unspoken, the silence
of the nights to come.
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