Scenes from a prom

Yesterday's photographs

Yesterday I walked in the familiarity of Ateneo.


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Aha! The final missing piece in my The New Yorker anthology collection! FullyBooked imported but one copy and Ice decided that it should belong to me, naturally. :)

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I do not think I will ever outgrow French rom-coms. I adore them so.

And done.

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I brought a book to the hospital last night but found that as in churches where one decides that the only act he should dare allow himself is prayer, the waiting area of the emergency room appears to hold the same sanctity. One simply waits and to do anything else would be impious. And so I waited and realized that it was the first time in my life that I truly waited. It was a wait unlike my impatient expectation of my fetcher or the unfurling of my flowers' petals or so and so for last night I did not know what I was waiting for, and in a strange way it was a wait that was unburdened and I thought it virtuous.

I find that the best way to get flowers is to get them while they are still unassuming buds because then I will get to watch the petals unfurl unhurriedly and gracefully into familiarity. The process is always elegant, and the wait most beautiful.

Valentine's Day

there becomes;
a slight stillness, that glides
side to side
but with resolve to
stay put, not anywhere else;
not ever away or beyond
you.

--From Ice :)

Scenes from a loo

In a restaurant tucked away among the narrow streets of Marikina, the washroom reminded me of a washroom from a movie that I have seen a long time ago and which I presently cannot place. It was strange, having a strong sense of affinity with the loo.




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I spent all of today making a lady's bridal bouquet. She wanted fabric flowers, and wildly-colored too. Here it is slowly, if a little slovenly, shaping up.



And here are fresh flowers Ice got for my desk. They will bloom tomorrow, the florist said.


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I still cannot believe my friend is a missus.

Berkeley

This is US1 Berkeley, my advisory class and first ever, too, and whom I do not love enough. Barely a month is left in the school year and I have yet to love them truly.



One of them, Kiel, the one in the racing outfit, is painfully shy. He rarely speaks up and when he does, he does so softly, but is always with a smile. For almost an entire school year he has been my charge, but for almost an entire school year I have not been able to let him know that even though when I ask him how he is and he tells me he is fine I smile like one who is satisfied, I know what he has been going through at home and at school and at everything else. I did not want to pry. Yesterday I decided that I will talk to them, one by one, and when I asked who would like to go first, he raised his hand. Outside their classroom we sat on the floor and I asked him if he will not mind if I tell him the truth that I know something about him and he nodded and then he talked about everything. As I listened and nodded and hugged him as he talked away in that quiet way he does, I wondered if he had been wanting to talk to me about everything for almost an entire school year now, too.

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More recent watercolors

Scenes from a classroom

This is how Alain and Matthew end their debate about the Yankees.

My weekend with Fran

Back when I was in high school and we shared the television set, I used to watch The Nanny on Sundays with my brother Carlo. It was the perfect cap to my weekends. I recently discovered a complete The Nanny playlist on Youtube and spent yesterday watching seasons 4 and 5. When I finally stopped, I found that my neck and bottom ached from all the sitting. Boy, am I old. It was all very poignant and bittersweet.

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Today's breakfast: slices of yesterday's baguette, feta cheese, olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and mint tea


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I suppose it's time to take the Christmas decor down.



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Watercolor Saturday


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I am terrible at household chores, but wonderful at transforming old wine bottles into drinking water containers.