Mondays I’m an irresponsible student
Tuesdays I’m the most studious person in the world
Wednesdays I’m a busy body
Thursdays I have to be dragged out of bed.
Fridays I’m everybody’s friend
Saturdays I’m like every other person in this city
Sunday mornings I’m a prop-up protestant
Sunday afternoons I write poems like this
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Back track
I remembered how my birthday turned out to be. Shitty. Feeling ignored and crying alone in the car at 1 in the morning. Not good. How I sat in the balcony after and watched lightning flashes in the sky. Pretty. Good though that now that I look back I think the moment was actually beautiful. But lonely. People can only ever say something was positive later on. In retrospect. If you recall. In hindsight. Looking back. If you come to think of it. Actually. Actually.
Actually I have this corny sounding feeling, what great writers of the past probably described as a longing in the heart. I feel this longing in the heart. Strange because I’m not sad about it. But something’s missing. Turns out people can be incomplete but still feel okay. Turns out. Well that was that. After all. After all.
(This one goes out to Ayisse, Remika, and Dixi. And to all the other people I miss, after all, after all 
Nina Bmatz Ange Carol Jerms <3 )
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Tags: poetic fail
Most Starbucks outlets here in Manila are usually designed for groups of people. You know… for hanging out and hogging space for 5 hours with a purchase of a tall sized horror called their cappuccino or a grande caramel frappuccino while talking about bitchy classmates or this so and so boy from that all boys high school. *catches breath* Although there’d be a little corner for people who are lonely, usually in the stores situated around universities wherein the target market is already-caffeinated enough uni students who need a bit of that cafe buzz to get their brain cells going. Because uni students will never run out of tests and quizzes to study for. And yes, some of them actually do study.
So it was a pleasant surprise to find one branch, the one beside Landmark supermarket in Trinoma, that was seemingly catered for lonely people trying to un-lonely themselves. So you have the bar where you order and get your drinks right? In front of it there’s a little separator shelf of some kind and then built into it behind that is a stretch of cushioned seats facing the clear glass, facing the outside world of car and taxi pick-up and drop off area. Then there’s a line of 5 small round tables one after the other. Each table sits around two, one person sits on the cushioned couch thing, while the other in a chair opposite it. Although who are we kidding, only one out of five tables actually sit two people. The rest are lonely bright-eyed dull-brained people like me under the pretense of doing paper work, writing homework, or stealthily downloading porn with paid wi-fi. There are also little corners with small tables around the shop. Okay fine, so some of them are for groups of three people or more but I swear there was this small projected space from the glass wall that only fits one chair and one table. I was tempted to transfer there but I thought I’d call attention to my perpetual state of lack of company some other time.
The only other place where I’ve seen this set-up is in Japan. Although there, there’s a much larger space for lonely people. The bar is usually located separate from the sitting area. In train stations you usually have to walk a little off to the seating area, having to pass by little flower shops or other bakeries. Or in bookstores, the sitting area is on another floor. I guess they’re lonelier in Tokyo than in Manila. Or we just have more moneyed high school students here who like going to Starbucks.
…what was I going to say? Oh yeah, that in the middle of writing my awesome paper for Introduction to Folktales (it’s a story about how my little sister secretly eats the food we offer in altars – some weird mixed up Chinese and Catholic practice we used to have in the house), I felt genuinely lonely. How do I know it’s genuine? Well for me at least, it’s when I can’t even be bothered to whine about it or write about it while I’m in that moment. Instead I recall everything in a blog later on. Oh yes, space waster.
One of these days I swear I’m going to start a conversation inside a coffee shop.
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Tags: consumer hell
Hello we are both lonely
You know how there are single serving friends? If you’ve seen Fight Club you’d know what I mean. But in general, yeah, people and company are consumables. They’re only good once. Blablabla. I thought I’d name this blog that. So yeah, I formally dub this ze Single Serving Blog.
On a different but slightly related note, I’ve been searching for Koenji photos on Flickr to see how my new neighbourhood’s going to look like. I know I think I’ve mentioned before that I already love it even if I haven’t been there yet. I have a feeling it might end up like a one year long indie movie or something – cliche as it may sound and it kind of wants to make me puke inside my mouth when I say that but really if I pause long enough… I THINK IT’S A LOVELY THOUGHT hahaha. But things are different in photos. The amazing thing about Japan though, every photo I’ve taken in that place looks exactly as it’s rendered in film (or digital camera LCDs). The quality of light is lasjdalskjdaks I can’t describe it in simple adjectives. Let’s just say…
The quality of light gives you the feeling of waking up from an afternoon nap to find that it’s the golden hour and you’re not quite sure if dawn is breaking or dusk is setting but you feel content not knowing what the time is or not having to bother with anything. Or it has the same refreshing feeling as eating a bowl of fruits and drinking a glass of milk outside in your balcony, one breezy morning. Or walking around UP in June during the afternoon, while the sunlight’s pretty and it just rained lightly that morning… kind of like how water droplets diffract the light.
Below is an example of how conversations between my friends and I have been turning out lately..
me: what is the most logical move when confronted with this scene? please tell me. http://www.flickr.com/photos/cecilia772/2803336772/in/set-72157606872503881
remika: hello we are both lonely let’s be friends
Can I just say though that the exposure in the photo I linked there is perfect. PERFECT. And wow turns out Starbucks Tsutaya in Shibuya can be that empty. On weekday mornings maybe? I’m sure some weekend morning I can be found here. Alone
Filed under: Art photography and other awesome things, Before Tokyo happened | Leave a Comment
Tags: cities and bright lights, Photography
I like cake.
I was driving home when August 31 came. I’ll spare you the details but it was a really bad start. I ended up crying though mostly from 1) being touched by the early morning text messages and phone calls while I was driving, 2) the realization that finally, I’m leaving, and 3) sad things that sound silly like my grandmother sitting beside me in the car but totally not greeting me. I had a little break down inside the car after I parked it in the garage, while there were lightning flashes outside. I sat in the balcony and stared at these lightning flashes and just enjoyed the light breeze and quiet early morning. Calm before the storm eh? Sure enough it was raining hard that night while I was on my way to dinner with some of the best people in the world.
I don’t really understand how I’m easily ticked off these days by other people’s facial expressions, small comments that majorly annoy me even if the person saying them is one of my best friends, by silences that aren’t supposed to be there… stuff like that. Oh well.
My dad called me the night before the 31st because he told me he’d be on the plane back to his field site the morning of my birthday. And then my aunt e-mailed me. I find it rather unusual how I’m surprised at the amount of support I get from my family. Somehow I’m not really expecting them to show so much support but they’re like preemptively supporting me as well which is awesome! I guess it’s true that in the end it’s our family that we can rely on. I don’t want to sound like a jaded, lonely forsaken hag but even friendships get dissolved. I’m confident with the close friends I have though… I think. Thing is I’m relatively easy with the whole trusting other people business and I don’t really expect much in return. So when I find myself expecting something from my friends I get confused because I feel like I’m being too selfish when in fact it’s just… right?
One thing though… I expect everybody to read between the lines. And I get really annoyed when they seem too dense to catch on.
I’m happy and disappointed and sad. I don’t really want to go emo over this – wait, maybe that’s the problem. Maybe I should go all out emo on it. And then after some time the feelings won’t be as meaningful and I can ditch them and feel normal-happy again?
What did I wish for on my birthday? That something significant will happen to me this following year sort of “career”-wise. In that path-in-life kind of way, you know?
Wtf I could’ve just wished for a nice boy who likes food, electroacoustic, and travelling, and is slightly girly.
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Tags: my closet is full of dead suicidals, tri-tri-tri-trivial time
