The Holiday (1938)

Someday I'll go on a holiday, Johnny Case style. :)

Johnny Case: When I find myself in a position like this, I ask myself what would General Motors do? And then I do the opposite!

*

Linda Seton: You've got no faith in Johnny, have you, Julia? His little dream may fall flat, you think. Well, so it may, what if it should? There'll be another. Oh, I've got all the faith in the world in Johnny. Whatever he does is all right with me. If he wants to dream for a while, he can dream for a while, and if he wants to come back and sell peanuts, oh, how I'll believe in those peanuts!

*

For the Holidays

Holiday reading list:
1. Edith Wharton's Madame de Treymes, Brunner Sisters, and The Sanctuary
2. Milan Kundera's The Farewell Waltz
And, if there is time,
3. Eliot's Jimmy Stewart biography (Finding a copy of Jimmy's book of poetry yesterday in Booksale rekindled my love for him. He is the most adorable Hollywood actor, in my opinion.)

Holiday movie list:
1. Holiday (Cary Grant, the other love of my life!)
2. You Will Meet a Tall, Dark Stranger (I love Naomi Watts (I wish I were as lovely)! And I worship Woody Allen (I wish I were as crazy)!)

I itch to lengthen the above lists but the ginormous pile of Philippine Literature class readings to my left just about clobbers every chance of that happening. :P

And, lastly:

Clarise's New Year's Resolutions:
1. I will try my best to be selfless. I will go out of myself and think especially of those who are too kind and selfless to think about themselves.
2. I will re-establish my contact with God whom I dearly miss.
3. I will bring an eco-friendly bag everywhere and all the time, especially when shopping.
4. I will make more "art" and explore other media.
5. I will watch every single Orson Welles film available.
6. I will moisturize, moisturize, moisturize!

Habitue

When I go to the coffee shop where I go to write, the first thing I do is order myself a drink-- always iced and whipped cream-covered, the flavor is of no matter, and tall. The second thing I do is place it at the corner of my table where it stays untouched for the duration of my stay. Consider it a parking ticket, my license to linger. I take a while to write, you see; ideas do not come easily. In the meantime, the plastic cup steadily breaks into a sweat,the ice in my drink slowly melts, diluting the whipped cream into bits of goop which rest on top of, and never blend with, the coffee. And then, as if on cue and in complete harmony, one by one, words appear and sit on the screen in front of me, where they organize themselves into coherence just as slowly and thoroughly.

***
Watercolors from more than a month ago:





***
I wonder if this flu is but psychosomatic.

Stream of consciousness on a Saturday night with Saussure

It is because I envy that I hate. I could only hope I were as courageous.
I miss painting. And my books. And my movies.
I am buried in readings, and it appears as if I will never catch up.
I wonder if I am learning critical thinking, or if that is even something that can be learned in school.
I have to try not to whine anymore, for what will that do but cause people around me discomfort?
Apparently, I am wrong in thinking that acquiring knowledge is the only worthy pursuit in life. It is something that I love doing and tremendously, but given the finite amount of time I have at my disposal, I am uncertain if it is the proper pursuit for me. Doing nothing all day but read has engulfed me in compunction, for surely that is not the way to live. I lament the deterioration of my relationships, the loss of my art, which, no matter how dilettante, are after all still mine, and my lack of sleep.
Or perhaps I am merely rationalizing my sloth. The lazy finds ways.

Without pity

"Ecce homo."

Perhaps she is what a woman should be, for, dwarfing you with her appraising stare, she makes you feel that you are not one. Her eyebrows are unplucked, thick and meeting at the middle above the bridge of her aquiline nose. (Perhaps you should have not groomed yours.) Framing her upper lip is a smattering of hair, short and thick. (A sign of strength, always good in a woman.) Her lips are in constant movement. (A skill to be envied.) She is garrulous- she admits so herself- and you cannot help but wonder why. You search for glimmers of depth and meaning in her words. There must be profundity in there somewhere for she speaks with confidence. When she's not talking- something of rarity- she is typing away on her laptop, and the click-clack of her fingers on the keyboard is din. She does not listen- and perhaps she does not know how- for she repeats your words like they are truly hers. Under the table, her legs are crossed, the right swaying so vigorously you could almost hear it chopping through the helpless, defenseless air.

On Contentment

In an event I attended with some former colleagues about a year ago, I had the pleasure of being introduced to a man who worked as a film subtitle writer. His name escapes me now, but I can still vividly remember how the thirty-something fellow, with much aplomb, described his job for our benefit.

The hubbub and crampness of the venue did not hinder him from taking his sweet time, and he demanded our full attention. With much detail he told us about how an entire day's work produces only thirty minutes worth of subtitled film. He paused after saying this, allowing the gravity of the statement to sink in. Thirty glorious minutes. Wow. When we have oohed and ahhed, he continued his story. His every day is spent watching movies and television series, he said, pausing every so often to jot the actors' dialogue down. He described the strenuous task of looking unfamiliar words up on the Internet to make sure everything is correctly spelled. He enumerated a couple of medical terms from television show Grey's Anatomy. He looked around the table. "It is important that you spell them correctly," he said gravely, and 24's Jack Bauer came to my mind. He proceeded to talk about how, because he spends so much time doing what he does, his dreams at night now come with subtitles as well. Such is the price one must pay when one chooses such a career path, he explained.

I remember that while listening to him, I was in utter disbelief at how he delivered that bit of information with much hauteur and ill-concealed arrogance. He was simply sparkling with exuberance. Here's a stenographer to an inanimate entity, a person whose days are just about completely devoid of any form of social contact, and who, at thirty-something years, has seemed to reach an impasse career-wise-- and he regarded his job as a Nobel Prize winner would his life work. Here is a man who is content, I remember thinking. And then, I remember being suddenly inundated with feelings of jealousy.

Contentment is so elusive.

500 Movies for Rache

The reason I haven't been updating lately:

500 Movies for Rache

500 movies, 6 months, 3 film philes, and 1 cinematically-deficient darling.

Remember, remember.

So I will be taking my first MA class this coming semester. Finally, finally! Below is the application essay I submitted to the university's admissions office last September. I hope to never forget what I have so confidently and enthusiastically written back when nothing but getting into the graduate program mattered, especially when the coursework is already proving to be a bit too much for me and is slowly driving me to the brink of insanity. I hope to never forget that I love to learn, most of all.


I read a New Yorker essay about a most peculiar man named David Karp. David Karp calls himself “The Fruit Detective” (he has a calling card and all), and traipses about town in a safari costume complete with a pith helmet, in search for weird, flavorful, juicy, fecund fruit. He then shares his discovery with the fruit-loving public through his newspaper column, and acts as a middleman to suppliers and grocers. People who have had the pleasure of meeting him describe his passion for fruit as highly ebullient to the point of mania. Once, he was sighted hopping about in the bushes in sheer ecstasy when he saw a white apricot. When he’s not looking for fruit, he’s writing about fruit, talking to people about fruit, compiling songs about fruit, and, of course, eating fruit.

I have decided to pursue an MA in Literary and Cultural Studies because- this may sound overly ambitious if not downright silly- I want to become a literary expert. I am a teacher, and while it would be easier to just say that I want to pursue graduate studies because I want to become an immensely competent educator and be the best teacher that I can be, fact of the matter is, my reason is quite selfish. I want my MA because I want to be David Karp. I want to spend my whole life with that which I love.

I have long been in love with literature. In fact, all my life, the one adjective that I have always, so lovingly and superciliously used to refer to myself is “well-read,” whether it is undeniably, absurdly unmerited, like when I was young and my claim to fame was that I read all Sweet Valley books and- that which I considered my greatest achievement- all twenty-six volumes of Compton’s Precyclopedia, or- to some extent- deserved, like when I fell in love with Jane Austen and F. Scott Fitzgerald and decided to get my hands on and read every available veritable piece of literature about them. I want to get an MA in Literary and Cultural Studies because, like David Karp, I long to scour the world for books, write about books, converse with people about books, compile songs about books, and, of course, devour books. It’s all very self-serving now, you see, but I am certain that everything else- works of charity, a fiery literacy advocacy, etcetera- will just follow. When a person is head over heels passionate about something, it is impossible that she does not attempt to make the whole world fall in love with it. It will touch everything about her, her entire being, and every thing and person she encounters. I know that, like David Karp, I will be spreading the love for books so enthusiastically they will call me the crazy book lady. My primary targets, of course, will be my poor, unsuspecting students.

In the event of my acceptance to the graduate program, I will be a part-time student and full-time teacher—the statement alone evokes pity, I know. As it is, my workload as a teacher is definitely not a stroll in the park, and I am expecting graduate studies courses to be quite arduous. I can now vividly picture papers piling up and waiting to be checked, a humongous stack of books waiting to be read, and weekends spent writing papers and in preparation for presentations. Truth be told, though- and I say this with great conviction- I am not the least daunted. In fact, I cannot be more excited. Every time I study the now dog-eared course catalog, I regard it always with love and utmost affection. The advantage of my situation, I think, is that I have decided to take this path wholeheartedly. I am not pursuing graduate studies because my career compels me to, but because of my own desire to learn. That is most important in pursuing an MA degree and successfully, I think— a genuine, irremediable desire for knowledge, that openness to learning. When you see me going to class ridiculously early on a Saturday, I will be with a smile on my face.

What further intensifies my anticipation to finally start my study of literature is the idea that I will be doing it in Ateneo. I received my undergraduate degree from the university and I have, with great awe, witnessed how the institution has so skillfully molded me, and transformed me into a person I never knew I could become. More than anything, Ateneo has taught me pagpapakatao, something which, since then, has penetrated my every word and action. I have decided to pursue my graduate studies in my alma mater because I know that I will be learning not only about literature, but also about life. I know that with Ateneo, I will come out not only a David Karp- a literary expert through and through- but a literary expert with a heart, someone who will use what she knows for the good.

Long overdue

Ink
Watercolor

(1)

She watched as their feet
Plodded on
Briskly
Across the grass
Toward home

Had she not looked up
And seen their faces
She would not have known
Their saunter was
Without joy.


(2)

When the sunlight
Touched his brow
He bristled and
Woke with a
Start

The light streamed
Through his blinds
Stubbornly
Harshly
And cajoled him out
Of a dreamless
Sleep
To a life emptied
Of dreams.


(3)

With a fork
She poked the flesh
And butter
Hot and slick
It spewed like
Molten lava.

Bouts of obsession

This is what came out when I doodled without thinking, without focus, and with total abandon. For hours I doodled, and when I was finished and truly saw what I have made for the first time, I was nonplussed. It scared me quite a bit, this chaos, this utter lack of organization.

Calligraphy pen on watercolor paper



Something for Ice's cubicle

Watercolor

A character sketch

He is lacking in savoir faire, and utterly. He feigns a blase disposition but his conversation betrays his unsophistication and eagerness to please. He likes to engage in discourse filled with platitudes and sophistries, a charlatan pretending to be a savant. His political commentaries, which he gives around gratis, are often fatuous and his critiques of literature, expressed in a manner theatrical and with much gesticulation, are almost always lacking in depth. His laughs are intentionally strident, as he finds that that is the only way he could draw attention to himself.

**

On my marshmallows

I emptied a huge pack of fluffy white marshmallows into a jam jar, to be consumed abstemiously. I take two or three at a time, never more, because they are just so pretty in the mason jar with its floral engraving and white and red checkered tin lid and I want to prolong the prettiness as much as I can. Aesthetics win over the urges of the tummy.

On the "odor genie"

The odor genie absorbs the fetid air coming from the dingy dog that set up camp outside our house (poor thing has yet to receive its first bath from its master). Whenever the genie absorbs the squalid smell that intermittently wafts through the window screen and into the room, it effuses a raspberry scent that at first smells sweetly like candy but which the brain soon learns to classify as acrid because of the fetidness we know it heralds as it masks.

Bottle Rocket

"One morning, over at Elizabeth's beach house, she asked me if I'd rather go water-skiing or lay out. And I realized that not only did I not want to answer THAT question, but I never wanted to answer another water-sports question, or see any of these people again for the rest of my life."-- Bottle Rocket, 1996

Watercolor

Jar

Watercolor

A girl is a girl is a girl.

"Elegance is refusal."
--Coco Chanel

Today, I am to face a most daunting challenge, the ultimate test of self-restraint. First, I will watch Coco et Igor and Tom Ford's A Single Man, and then I will go shopping with friends later in the afternoon and not buy a single item of clothing. I promised myself I will scrimp and save for a proper sketch pad and my tuition fee.

Let us see. :)

Speaking of poverty, here are some of the things I would like to buy but can't:
1. A tailored blazer that will make Coco proud
2. A couple of framed New Yorker covers
3. Still Larousse Gastronomique (Just for show, I admit.)
4. A French-looking coffee table (preferably whitewashed)
5. Champagne flutes
6. A framed movie poster of Hors de Prix
7. A set of calligraphy pens (I would like to try drawing with them.)
8. A fancy shelf for Ice's toys

The list could go on and on. And on. And on.

In solitude

Random musings from this afternoon:

When I muse, I turn my head sideways up, almost always to the left, as if the answers in the world rest there. I purse my lips, lest a thought comes out unpolished and before it is organized into coherence. Sometimes, I take a while, and when I stop, I forget about what I was thinking.
*

Kenny’s/Seattle’s at Katipunan is a place you go to in order to be lost. You go there to be somewhere else. The beauty of the place is its sense of detachment. It does not pretend to be your home; it lets you alone. In its vastness—two spacious floors peppered with around a hundred tables- you find priceless solitude. Order your food, grab a seat, and, in a moment, you are in your very own microcosm. The place becomes oblivious to you, and you to it. The place doesn’t mind that the colorful paintings lining its walls and its floor-to-ceiling sculptures are ignored—it knows its purpose is to be unobtrusive. The waiters leave you alone because they know that you desire to be invisible. A man in the corner nook happily taps away on his laptop, grinning wildly once in a while and laughing to himself like no one is looking. At another table, a group of teenage girls talk loudly of their secrets and of high school gossip; no one hears. You scribble away in your journal vigorously as you did when you were younger and had the bedroom all to yourself. For a while- an hour, perhaps- you feel truly alone, and you bask in this thought. All it takes is a sweeping glance across the vastness of the room and its hustle and bustle, and you are back. The trick is to not look outwards.
*

At the next table, a man with a nice, baritone voice talks about Facebook in the manner of an expert. It takes you a while to know that he isn’t. Nearby, his infant daughter sits proudly on her yaya’s lap and looks on, hanging onto his every fraudulent word. You wonder how long it will take her to find out.

In Booksale

A man of about fifty rummages through stacks of National Geographic back issues with utmost determination. He is oblivious to other people in the store, not budging an inch when a teenage girl attempts to squeeze in next to him to reach for a copy of Seventeen, and not even when she later exhaled in frustration. He exudes an air of superciliousness, unknowingly perhaps, like he is doing something of extreme importance. He inspects each magazine very carefully, flipping it over, feeling the edges, holding it up to the light, squinting an eye to examine the spine for bruises. He eyes the yellowed, dogeared books like they are diamonds, raw and uncut, and he, a master jeweler. Some magazines date back to the 1950s, and these he lovingly sorts into a neat pile next to him. Perhaps, they are diamonds.

Dancer

For my father, who forgets that he is loved

Watercolor

Le grande cuisine

"[Gourmandisme] shows implicit obedience to the commands of the Creator." -- AJ Liebling

I am reading The New Yorker’s Secret Ingredients, and two essays especially piqued my interest.

Some years ago in France, a group of twelve sat down to a 30-course lunch. The feast lasted for about 11 hours, and, when it was finally done, it was already past midnight. The mark of a true gourmand, according to one proud participant, is the ability to eat even when impossibly full. The meal’s cost was equivalent to a brand new Volkswagen. When the abstemious public frowned upon this gluttonous event, the aforementioned participant said something to this effect in their defense, “We had no need for a car so we didn’t buy a car. We were hungry, so we bought lunch.”

In still another essay, a writer illuminates the reader on how to kill a turtle, and properly. Allow me to divulge this much: It involves an extremely sharp hook, the turtle on its back, and green soup. A jolly, innocuous Pong Pagong suddenly crossed my mind, and I couldn’t help but cringe in utter despair. Poor dear.

Here’s my quandary with regard to le grande cuisine: While the succulent pastries and asperges bathed in butter could make me salivate till my mouth runs impossibly dry, the meat courses have this uncanny ability to make me suddenly want to either (1) convert to vegetarianism, or (2) go the extra mile and champion an animal rights group.

Thank you, Farellys!

There's Something About Mary was on Star Movies today, and I watched it for the first time ever. It was already halfway through when I caught it but I liked it still. It's too cute for words. Ice was right beside me and he could not believe that I haven't seen the movie- which he described as groundbreaking- before. Where have I been hiding? When I got to the scene where Matt Dillon mouth-to-mouth resuscitated and burned Cameron Diaz's dog back to life, I, myself, could not believe that I took so long to watch it. Why, this movie is genius!

Truth be told, There's Something About Mary is just one among a fairly big congeries of 90s movies that I have yet to see. You see- and I say this without a tinge of exaggeration- I did not have a proper adolescence. I did not have my fair share of pop music, teen flicks and TV shows. I did not know Freddie Prinze Jr. and I thought the Hansons were a rap group. I went straight from Home Alone to Lifestyle Network and Audrey Hepburn. When I finally did watch teen flicks, they were from the 80s. Breakfast Club, Sixteen candles, Pretty in Pink, and, my favorite teen flick in all the world, Say Anything ("She gave me a pen. I gave her my heart. She gave me a pen!"). Usually, I try to defend this cultural penury by stating, a tad too belligerently at times, that my taste is just too cultivated for my generation. However, looking back, I am beginning to think that it's highly possible that this argument is but an obstinate refusal to succumb to self pity. It could be that I was never an adolescent not because of my sophisticated, discriminating taste, but because I was too scared. You see, back then, my brothers always gave me a hard time whenever I tried to fit in with other girls my age. The moment I started doing something remotely "in," they would pick on me relentlessly. The torture, I tell you! It was akin to the Spanish Inquisition. This is not to hold a grudge against my brothers, though. They were, themselves, just being adolescents-- boys who did not know how to deal with girls if their lives depended on it.

My coping mechanism, no matter how seemingly pretentious now, worked well to my defense. I do not remember a time when I regretted not having a normal adolescence. I did not mind being absolutely clueless during reunions with my high school friends and the conversation suddenly turned to Clueless and Backstreet Boys and Spice Girls and the recent American Pie. I liked my 1950s/Martha Stewart/FTV adolescence just fine. After watching There's Something About Mary, though, I could not help but pay heed to this little thought in my head that maybe, just maybe, I missed out on a very important stage in my life. And so, here's what I intend to do: I think I'll have my adolescence now-- film-wise, at least. :)

From a dream

Watercolor


I painted this house from a dream I had, something which I thought I had long forgotten, and I only recognized it when it was finished and Ice pointed it out to me.

*

Last Saturday, we went to an antique shop somewhere in Quezon City that we have come to love. The shop had a massive collection of odds and ends (they sold everything from old Le Divorce and Cary Grant VHS tapes to floor-to-ceiling glass windows, tiles, and hot tubs), and almost everything was dirt cheap. We went there in search for a nice coffee table that could pass for French, and a purple chandelier for my friend, but to no avail. Instead, we found ourselves carrying a green glass candle holder home. The candle holder was quite romantic, I bought a pale turquoise candle that smelled of white lilies just for it and I thought they looked lovely together. When I started writing this, I was going to describe the candle holder as "crystal," but I suddenly realized that I did not quite know what that word meant. Apparently, this is crystal:

n.

1.
1. A homogenous solid formed by a repeating, three-dimensional pattern of atoms, ions, or molecules and having fixed distances between constituent parts.
2. The unit cell of such a pattern.
2. A mineral, especially a transparent form of quartz, having a crystalline structure, often characterized by external planar faces.
3.
1. A natural or synthetic crystalline material having piezoelectric or semiconducting properties.
2. An electronic device, such as an oscillator or detector, using such a material.
4.
1. A high-quality, clear, colorless glass.
2. An object, especially a vessel or ornament, made of such glass.
3. Such objects considered as a group.
5. A clear glass or plastic protective cover for the face of a watch or clock.
6. Slang. A stimulant drug, usually methamphetamine, in its powdered form.

I'm still not sure if my new candle holder is crystal, but I'm sure that I like it very much because it's green.

Monday and indisposed

At home getting a hold of myself. I find that a great way to rejuvenate one's self is to read good books and scribble random ideas on paper. :)

Habit #1

She has the habit of tracing objects with her eyes, feeling their outline delicately with an imaginary finger. She would run the finger over their corners, slowly and gently, memorizing the roundness of their curves, almost with affection. But her eyes, they would be filled with intensity and belligerence. She would, for hours, study these objects not with wonder, not through the eyes of a dilettante, but of an expert. She would stare at them so intently, as if she's wheedling out of them a dangerous secret-- a secret she is certain the objects conceal.

Mr. fancy fish's seaweed friends

Watercolor




I finally have two New Yorker anthologies-- Secret Ingredients, a collection of fiction and non-fiction works on food and drink, and Wonderful Town, a collection of short stories about New York. Both are so lovely, they're all I can think about all day. For good reason, I am expecting the first book to make an epicure of me. For reasons less cogent, I am hoping that the second will inspire me to try my unsophisticated hand at the short story. :)

In Corregidor

Ramon was our tour guide. He's seventy-four years old and has been a tour guide all his life, except for when he was a boy. When he was a boy, he was just a boy in the war, and now that is all he can talk about. He is old and he looked it, but he also looked strong. Throughout the trip, he stood erect and flailed his arms about energetically whenever he thought he was sharing something interesting. Other times, he indulged in salacious jokes, the kind that certain old people find awfully funny and which young people find more than a little creepy, and I longed to cover my students' ears. I asked him where he lived and he said in Sucat, Paranaque. He took the bus and ferry early that morning to get to Corregidor to show tourists the sights. In Corregidor, there was nothing much to see except for remnants of buildings with some bullet holes in them. I inspected the buildings and they did not impress me—I did not think they have ever been beautiful. Loss is only tragic when it’s the loss of the beautiful. When these structures were destroyed, all that was lost were the lives of people who probably have been dead by now, too. Loss is only tragic when the thing lost could still be here now but isn’t. Great people, they could have been, but every time has its own great people, anyway. The grief for the island belongs to the people of the past. We will have our own reasons to mourn. I did not know to which time Ramon belonged. I asked him if he does this everyday. He said not anymore, only four to five times a week. He can no longer do it, he said, what with his health. I said I think no one can, and turned my head away.

That night, Ice and I attended a dinner party in Ayala Heights’ Corregidor Street. Ice marveled at the coincidence, and at the irony of it all. We drank wine and nibbled cheese and ate caviar spread on crackers, and they talked and I quietly laughed until almost midnight when I knew I truly had to get some sleep.

Mr. fancy fish

Watercolor

The week in watercolor

Flowers and self-portrait

At home

I love Hemingway's essays about his home. His Paris apartment in the 20s was, to put it bluntly, austere. It did not have a fireplace nor a private toilet, and, for furniture, had only a mattress on the floor. Nonetheless, its walls were adorned with pictures he and his wife Hadley liked, and so they loved it immensely.

It reminded me of my own current home, bare and in desperate need of some furniture, but home nonetheless. Here are some snapshots:




The chandelier I told you about

The bird cage we found at an antique shop


Fitzgerald books waiting to be devoured-- a surprise from Ice

Some of my classic Hollywood books

The false spring

Watercolor

We will always have Paris.

Eloise's Paris Apartment (Watercolor and ink)

I always keep a stack of books on the floor by my bed: a thesaurus, a dictionary, and two or three books I alternate depending on my current predilection. On weekends, even before I rise to wash my face and brush my teeth, and even before I wipe the sleep off my eyes, I would reach for one of them and read. I would read around twenty pages, or more if they're really good, which they usually are. Yesterday it was Dumas' La Dame aux Camelias. This morning, it's Ernest Hemingway's A Movable Feast. Lately, I have been having dreams so terrible they leave day-long impressions on me. I have recently taken up watercolor again in an attempt to sublimate this dark and heavy weight in my heart into something productive, but now I find that nothing cheers me up better than a good account of Paris. And, you know, it is true what they say that no one writes about Paris better than Hemingway. I think I truly understand Humphrey Bogart's character in Casablanca now-- in the most dire of circumstances, we can always look back at- or in my case, look forward to- sweet, sweet Paris.

Flowers 1

Watercolor

Without Why

Acrylic on photopaper

"The rose is without why, it blooms because it blooms,
It pays no attention to itself, asks not whether it is seen."
-- "Without Why," Angelus Silesius

Sunlight dappled the tree, making the dew on its delicate, almost wraith, leaves glisten. The green shined like a cluster of freshly-polished emeralds snuggled against the pale blue silk of the sky. With the soporific rhythm of the wind, the bejeweled tree danced languidly; its brown neck is poised proudly, slender and graceful like a swan's, aware of its striking beauty. Below, the lake mirrored this grandeur, its sparkles like pixie dust on the picture.

The Poet

Ice writes the most beautiful poems. He whips them up in a minute or two; I do not know how he does it. I know his poems are breathtaking in their beauty, but really, I do not understand them. I do not understand them, but really, I know that they are beautiful. I tell him that they are lovely like music, that I love them for their haunting melody. Still, I wonder how he feels, being with someone who does not understand. That must wrench his heart.

I wonder what it must be like to understand his poems. I wonder about the phantasmic truths his words hold.

What's for Dinner?

When I was still living in my parents' house, I dreaded dinnertime. We abhorred rice,my siblings and I, and dinnertime invariably meant rice. And so, dinners at our home became not really about the breaking of bread, but an endless tirade on (what we believed as) the poor quality food we were served. Oh, how we wallowed in self-pity. We have suffered for too long, after all.

Every single night, over yet another unpalatable meal, we would complain, endlessly, about the sheer incompetence of the (poor, unsuspecting) cook, and fantasize about pasta, and mashed potatoes, and burgers, and buttered vegetables-- anything, really, so long as it is not rice. Once in a while, one of us would snap out of his sluggishness and make our fantasy a reality. Often, this person would be my brother's girlfriend, who is actually quite the cook. We would then feast on the non-rice meal hungrily, like a pack of vultures. Those nights were the best.

Now that I am living independently from my family and can eat absolutely anything my heart desires, I have realized that my problem with dinner is, really, not so much rice, but the idea of having to sit down to meal at a specific hour every single night regardless of whether my tummy is already grumbling, or still full. My dinners in the past five months were rarely constituted of rice, and yet I still dreaded it with my whole being, much like how a hyperactive toddler dreaded bedtime. What I hated, I now realize, was the very concept of dinner. I apparently despise this routine. The toddler refuses to be tucked into bed at seven. He wants to sleep only when he is sleepy! Clarise refuses to be tucked into a dining chair at seven. She wants to eat only when she is hungry! Well, you know what? I think Clarise will do just that.

Declaration of Independence Item 1: Clarise shall eat only what she wants, only when she wants.:)

Ms. Cranky

When I wake up on the wrong side of the bed, I relinquish a significant amount of control to the universe, and my day becomes all about this hopeless power struggle. I wish to claim autonomy over my life, and the universe wishes to push me around and poke fun at me. As the day progresses, I become increasingly cranky, disgruntled, and, most of all, stupid. I mean really, which person in her right mind dares take part in a tug-o-war with the cosmos?

Exactly.

Gelassenheit.

We call it odious

Blame it on my shelteredness and innocence (and therefore on my stupidity) but I choose to be adamant in my belief that, more often than not, what we suspect as unctuousness and forced familiarity could very well be just friendliness- sincere, well-meant, and wholehearted friendliness- pure and simple. I wonder about this intense aversion to congenial behavior. I wonder about this inclination to think the worst in people. A smile too many or too eager, or a story a tad too revealing for our comfort, and a person is suddenly a social pariah. This is exasperating! Not everyone is out to get us; some people are actually quite decent. Some people actually mean well. Why, then, do we put up a defense so impenetrable, so unforgiving, so fatal? Why do we refuse to let anybody in without a fight?

Why does mankind choose to persecute itself?

On My Final Weekend of Lethargy

"Don't let the victor belong to the spoils."
--Anthony Patch, The Beautiful and Damned

I am down to my last two days of summer vacation, and I can't say I can complain. Three whole weeks of glorious inactivity are already too generous a gift, I'm sure you would agree. I think it's high time I am unfrozen from my stupor.

To make the most of my remaining days as a free woman, I am basking in F. Scott Fitzgerald's genius. The Beautiful and Damned is just exquisite! My favorite writer (This Side of Paradise has elevated him to the ranks of Jane Austen and Edith Wharton) is simply incapable of disappointing the reader, I must say. Literary experts invariably consider his The Great Gatsby as the perfect novel; in my opinion, his other works are definitely not far behind.

I'm about two-thirds through the novel, and I'm getting quite impatient. You see, what I really want to do is to devour it. I want to read it with abandon. I do not want to pause to catch my breath or to intensively digest a phrase. What I really want to do is to read the book as I would read Sweet Valley Twins when I was a child. I want to lose myself in its pages.

While getting engrossed in a novel as lovely as The Beautiful and Damned might seem most natural, I find that, sadly, I am now incapable of experiencing that. You see, for some years now, I have been slave to this rather annoying compulsion to consult the thesaurus for every single unfamiliar word I encounter in texts. I seem to have lost faith in context clues. This endless shift between the novel and the thesaurus keeps me from succumbing to the book's hypnotic powers.

This compulsion is a most arduous and time-consuming task, and, I have to say, Fitzgerald's eloquence isn't helping at all. He says garrulous and loquacious when he means talkative, and writes stentorian when he could easily say loud. My unsophisticated vocabulary is obviously not prepared for great books. It is highly possible that I am actually spending more time with my thesaurus than the novel.

Oh Fitzgerald, if your stories weren't so compelling (and you, so cute).

Anthony Patch

"So to Anthony life was a struggle against death, that waited at every corner. It was as a concession to his hypochondriacal imagination that he formed the habit of reading in bed-- it soothed him. He read until he was tired and often fell asleep with the lights still on."
--F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and the Damned

I deserve plastic flowers

Our lovely flower garden is now just pots of potpourri. God bless their souls. I guess there's no denying it now-- I am a black thumb! They spoke the truth, after all.

For my cinematography class back in third year college, I shot a commercial for a make-believe cooking show. I was channeling Nigella Lawson's fabulous show then, so I paid extra attention to my set. I bought dinnerware from Gourdo's, had my model wear a flowing white dress (I wanted her to look really romantic a la the domestic goddess), took out all the nice china, and kidnapped about seven of my grandmother's beloved plants.

I can still vividly remember Mama's protests as I hauled the pots off her garden to the car, leaving a trail of soil on the road. Even as I assured her that I'll be borrowing them for just a couple of hours, she was hesitant. She looked like she didn't trust me one bit. I saw it in her eyes, in the way she was unable to hold my gaze. I remember feeling offended then, but in hindsight, I think she was just being intuitive. She was absolutely right to mistrust me. You see, thirty minutes later, her plants died-- all because they were in my custody.

I have always dreamed about having a flower garden, but that incident kept holding me back. About a month ago, I finally mustered enough courage to let go of the past and pay the gardening store a visit. Oh how pretty my plants looked! Their flowers were varying shades of pink, just adorable. I pictured myself drinking tea from my floral teacup, surrounded by them. For the first time, the dirty kitchen I so abhorred looked wonderful. Oh, I can still remember.

Now they're dead, and so soon! The once pretty flowers hang from their dehydrated stems, all withered. They look like potpourri. Despite the fertilizer and their daily showers, they look like potpourri. Maybe I should just make them potpourri.

Goodbye, Heidegger! Goodbye, Nietzsche! Goodbye, Kant! Goodbye, Plato!

Forgetting is long

"...[L]ights were glimmering in faint perhapses."
-- Sylvia Plath

I find that I cannot trick my mind into forgetting things, because later, when I sleep, I will dream. Hope- stubborn and resilient hope- has become my fiend.

Aporia

I'm afraid I no longer know where to find God. I am overwhelmed with sadness by the reality that I no longer know how I may love and serve Him because I know that He exists. He exists, deserving of my love, and yet I lie here, immobile. Woe is me.

Understanding Sylvia

Death is all over Sylvia Plath's journals. I can relate to her lamentations, to her many grievances and desires, and because of this I am frightened. I am frightened because I know what ultimately became of the great poet. You're not alone in your loneliness, Sylvia. Not at all.

The Chandelier

The chandelier had been waiting for us for a week now. When we finally dropped by the antique shop this afternoon, its sockets have been altered to accommodate energy-saving light bulbs, and its crystal drops have been stripped of several layers of dust. It glistened in the daylight. My heart surged with excitement; I could already picture it hanging from our ceiling, luminous, sparkling.

A bigger antique shop recommended by Ice's colleague was just a few blocks away. On our way home, we decided to take a look. We looked at chandeliers. We asked how much the nicer ones cost, and then, whenever a saleslady replied, we would furtively throw each other smiles of victory-- our chandelier's a steal. "I could give you a discount," they would hastily say as we started to walk away. "Thank you very much, but no. We're just looking."

I have to say, I never enjoyed window-shopping more.

:)

I see failure in the horizon. :'(

Audrey, Edie, and Orson

Promotional still for Sabrina

1. Audrey Hepburn was an artist-- and I'm not talking about her movies. The lady painted really well. Her watercolors from when she was little are just amazing. You must see them. Also, before she became an actress, she was an accomplished ballerina. She was too tall to become a prima ballerina, though. But you probably know that story already. What I am certain you do not know is someone who is more beautiful and talented than our fair lady.

Vogue, 1965

2. Edie Sedgwick was also a ballerina. Back when Sedgwick was just on the verge of becoming America's it girl, Diana Vreeland and her infallible eye for the beautiful and trendy-to-be featured her in Vogue. The article had photos of her wearing those famous black tights, and being flexible, and looking fabulous. She was also quite the sculptor, you know. She once made a life-sized sculpture of a horse (she was also an equestrienne). She took an insanely long time to finish it (or did she even finish it?), because she was never quite satisfied with her handicraft. Psychologists say her obsession with the horse may be attributed to some very intense father issues.


Promotional still for Citizen Kane

3. Orson Welles, the lead actor, writer, producer, and director of the greatest Hollywood film of all time, read a book a day throughout his life. No wonder he was such a genius. When screen goddess Rita Hayworth finally divorced him after five years of marriage, her reason was, "I could not take his genius anymore." Wells also once said that he never prayed. He did not want to bore God.