I trudge to work anticipating all the ruckus left hanging over the weekend. I know that I will not go home early (like I ever did). I know that whatever goes wrong, it is default that the fault is mine. I know that I cannot weasel out of that fault, because I am not a supervisor, nor am I an ideas-factory.

These are the times when you forget yourself. Not in the spirit of selflessness, not of the choice to be unselfish... of not thinking of yourself... but of forgetting who you are. Because of all the selves people deem you to be, need you to be, want you to be. I am a poet, I am an artist. In my soul I want to create, to give birth to the outpouring of feelings; made into a reality that is not true, made into fantasies that are not false. In my soul I wish to dwell. And my soul I deeply miss... being with. And as to when we shall dwell again, I do not know. Then, they will know that I am a poet, an artist. And I will know who I am.

But for now I am not me. Default settings don't set me that way.

Yes, I actually survived a weekend without blogging. I thought I'd be shaking like a fish out of water without it, but I didn't. What was my cure? Horseback-riding on the country side in the mornings and endless bargain shopping in the afternoons. After that, you'll be too tired to look for an internet cafe... aside from the fact that your butt will hurt like hell from a worn-out saddle.

However I'd have to face reality. I inevitably will have to blog. My ass can't take the horseback-riding (let alone the fact that I don't have a horse) and even if there are endless bargains, the cashflow isn't.

And so I blog.

Get this - I'm actually shopping for rubbershoes. Why? I got lured. Yes, I was reeled in like a flapping fish... to what my friends and boyfriend claim to be the greatest deal ever. Seven thousand for the entire year? Cheap! That's what they said. And so the impossible has happened - I, the sportless girl, have enrolled myself to a gym (gasp!). But then I realized... I don't have the shoes for it. Nor the clothes. Unless I can wear vintage dresses from ukay-ukay. Right. But let's focus on shoes first. The "clothes" bit deserve a whole new post.

So there I was, strolling amidst shoes I never even considered looking at. Chunky, metallic, utterly style-less innovations promising ultimate comfort whatever sport you're in. Like comfort ever mattered when you've got 3 more inches, slender heels and sexifying straps working to your advantage.

My boyfriend presented me with a white Adidas number with silver web-like trimmings and lime green highlights. He said, "here's a nice one". Nice?!? They're horrible! The thing looks like a ship. And lime green. The flexibility of that color to be paired with any hue other than itself (or white) is slim to none.

He rolled his eyes and proceeded with presenting me with the next style. These ones, he claimed, has shock-absorbers. Can it absorb the shock on my face because of its horridly shocking color and fabric combination? I don't think so.

Next - a pair of Climacools. Mesh overload. End of. No wonder they were on sale.

And so I ask myself... am I emotionally ready to splurge 3,000 bucks for shoes that adds no sex appeal, slimming illusion, or even an inch of artificial height? Shouldn't I just add a couple of hundreds and get myself Nine Wests on sale? But then... I can't gym with them.

The internal battle ensues. Unless someone can help in finding the perfect rubbershoes for a stilleto girl like me.

disconnect, disparate, desperate.
desperately seeking loneliness, seeking self.
selflessly impersonal. a person.
a person alone,
alone with a person
inside.

in the big scheme of things, what you're always looking for is what can't be found by looking, but by seeing

When the mere thought of work makes you sick as a dog, wanting to vommit...

There was a CSI episode where Sarah said that smiling prevents regurgitation. So, being in an industry where image is everything, a smile can work to your advantage in more ways than making you pretty:

1. Let's first start with the obvious. A good smile makes you pretty. It makes people respond to you in a more positive way. It creates a human connection. It makes following-up more bearable (even just a weee bit more) to disgruntled, hot-tempered ideas-factories. Not like you care.

2. A smile makes your voice sound pretty. Very useful if you're faking enthusiasm over the phone. It disguises your sinking, loathing feeling for talking to a god-forsaken fashion victim who feels that you're close friends. After hearing that oddly satisfying "click" after your newly-found close friend bids you an irritatingly cheerful goodbye, drop the phone on the cradle like it was a boulder mashing a clove of garlic. You can drop the smile too.

3. It prevents regurgitation. The most relevant of all. You're sick of work. You wish you could plunge a knife into every throat letting out a totally nasty, irrelevant but percievably humorous remark in a lousy attempt to lighten up a meeting. You absolutely hate having to deal with co-workers who are a floor below you but who think that they are floors above you. You'd love to vommit on their self-proclaimed thrones everytime they pull out an i-can-afford-to-be-difficult-because-it-wont-be-my-fault attitude. But no. You smile. You whip out the fakest but most genuine-looking smile that could possibly fool even an FBI agent. Because at the end of the day, they really could afford to be difficult. And you can't throw up on them.

Maybe I should shift careers. Should I just be in CSI, where throwing up will be no problem at all. But until I get a degree enough to qualify me for Crime Investigation, I'll just have to content myself in playing pretend.

Smile now. Throw up later.

Summer's ending. You've soaked up as much sun as your vacation leaves could permit. Are you feeling the peeling feeling?

Being born a morena, I literally soak up the sun. I'm a sponge lying on the beach, absorbing all the darkening rays possible. I tan even through a sunblock with 70 SPF. I tan even through a henna tattoo. And the tan or should I say, "the darkness" stays there, indefinitely. And unlike my melanin-challenged friends, I will never feel the peel.

These friends of mine (the melanin-challenged ones) always tell me how they envy my skin. So many tan amplifiers, tanning lotions, so much effort just to get the darkness that us pure pinoys abhor. If there was a tanorexic murdering psycho, he or she would probably love to skin us alive (or dead). And so why don't we feel good about not feeling the peeling feeling? Why do we actually welcome peeling, just to become white - and for some people, quite unevenly... white face, dark neck? It's so rampant here in Manila that I'm wondering if there's a shortage on mirrors. Nonetheless, the lotions and potions are endless.

I for one, grew up with people practically placing fair skin on a pedestal (thanks mostly to my mother, who walked around Boracay in a long-sleeved polo). The goal was to be white. Because more clothes would look good on you, more guys would like you, more girls would want to be like you. It's silly isn't it. And it took me a while to peel out of this mentality. After all the papaya soaps, lightening lotions and peel-inducing concoctions, you'd realize that there's really no way it can be done. You're born with it and so live with it. Just take all your skin in and give out a big, burning sensation-free sigh of self-satisfaction.

So here I am. Tanned, unpeeled and proud. No matter what my mother says.

I knew it. I knew I was writing and not listening to that client briefing. 3-month old poems still deserving a debut.

PRANCE
Feel the murmurs.
They dance behind the trees.
And the branches sway, unknowingly.
Obliviously.
To the songs of stabbing crows.
And the wind does not know,
murmurers they be-
that blackness is upon them.
As trees fall to their dance.

EMPTY SHORES
Even in this vast nothingness
I could not write.
Could not say.
It mutes me more. Lures me more-
not to say.
A word.

I haven't raised a paintbrush in almost a year. I yearn for the swooning scent of linseed oil, the rancid odor of turpentine that coats the air with a thickness only i can appreciate. I miss the rythm of the brush, loaded with paint, caressing the primed canvas in unison with the crescendos of Handel's Hallelujah Chorus. I still play that Messiah CD... in traffic... on my way to work. But it isn't the same. It's void of the satisfaction and content... this feeling where you'd just have to roll your eyes back and heave a heavy sigh.

In August last year, I took advanced lessons in Oil. There was a gallery show to culminate the course. So much appreciation. Someone even wanted to buy my work. I was so inspired to create more. I did a couple more. But then the inspiration faded. I had to work.

I haven't written a poem in months. I have notebooks to keep all my creations in place. And I bought a nice ring-bound leather notebook, with the kind of paper that had fine, unbroken lines... and was thick enough to hold erasure over erasure. It hasn't been filled. I miss the days where I could just whip out a pen and scribble a verse. I had another notebook, it is now rusty and worn, because of the number of writings... I wonder when my nice leather notebook would be in such a way. Rusty and worn is good. It shows me how much passion is between the lines, amongst the pages. It reminds me how I couldn't bear separation from writing, how I couldn't stand not having a pen furiously engraving inspired words into a page. I'm having separation anxiety for that separation anxiety. I wonder where my other poems are now. Lost in between notes, presentation sheets, business reviews, creative briefs.

I guess that's what I am right now. Lost. Without canvas or quill. Lost to a keyboard and Times New Roman. My hands move differently now. They don't sway, they don't caress, they don't hold a pen in furious passion.

Where do I work you ask? Why do I keep myself in such an uncreative rut? I work at an advertising agency. Go figure.