A New Years Benediction

Because I feel so down and low and can't see any sun in my future, I've decided to give myself Neil Gaiman's New Year Benediction. It goes:

May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.

I also wish it on everybody; with a more fervent prayer to my good friends, this year.

May we find what we are all looking for :)

Life of a Henna Tattoo

Everytime I go to Boracay - which is quite often, I always wanted to get a henna tattoo but that never happens because I always ended up doing something else.

Last year. we spent the night there in Boracay. I just started reading the Stieg Larson's  Millenium series - the first novel was entitled "Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" and. I thought it would be a great time to try the henna tattoo. And how convenient that there was this guy called Jeff who was just outside our cottage inking anyone who was willing to pay a hundred bucks.

I chose a small butterfly design and while Jeff was painting on my leg, he showed me his original drawings which he offered to paint for a little extra. I told him I just really wanted the butterfly.

Now, if I really wanted a tattoo it would never be a butterfly. I thought that butterflies are really the easy way out. If I were an animal. I'd be a koala or a free-spirited mare. But they don't seem to to be very popular for quick and unplanned ink art. Anyways, I liked Jeff's original artwork to allow him to add free swirls to my now stained leg which grew from a butterfly to a more elaborate painting.

Maybe I forgot that I wasn't Lizbeth Salander, and that I wasn't smart enough to think about skin testing henna since I've always used it for my hair after a re-bonding treatment. To cut the long story short, after the ink faded into my skin (it usually last two weeks) and seeped into my pores, I developed a rash in the exact same shape of my elaborate butterfly. Not only was it itchy, it was so inflamed that not even my Earth and Me Boo Boo Cream can contain it - although it relieved the itch quite a bit.. I have yet to see a dermatologist to make sure it doesn't stay permanent. But right now, I have a brown abstract and ugly tattoo on my leg that hopefully, will dissipate in time.

Ah shucks, this will not look good in the new swimsuit. LOL..

Kids, don't try this at home. Get a skin test before you get that henna tattoo.

And try to remember that you're not the superhuman heroine in the books that you read. You're just the girl with the blotched up henna tattoo. LOL..

Early Bird

A quick post. It's four-thirty in the morning. Too early to get up. Too late to go back to sleep.

Trying to pass the time checking out twitter and blogs. I feel I'm sooo not ready for 2011. Just had so much fun these past few days that I haven't touched my computer as often as I thought I would. Which I think is a good sign that I will not overwork myself to death this year. Or at least I hope not. January already holds promise of new jobs. I also have a wedding to go to at the end of the month - not mine! So will have a short vacation to look forward to. 

Anyway, Happy New year Folks! And hope that this year will have less angst than last year - hahaha.

Best Gift Ever in the Big Four-Oh!

My nephew, Paolo bought me a backpack for Christmas. It's big enough to carry my laptop, my notebooks, books and all the IT gear I tend to lug around. :) I knew there was something special about that kid.

Anyway, sorry I didn't get to post any proverbial account of my four-oh birthday. Rest assured I had a great time. They scheduled the office party on that day so I went there after spending time with the current man in my life - LOL - the guy on the right. Won a cellphone during the raffle while feasting on my favorite poison - Gilbey's Premium. Birthdays and Christmas Parties are the best excuse to get drunk at work. After the party, my friends and I went to Bourbon and had margaritas and did hand dances to unheard music. Then we went somewhere that involved peeing in the bushes, puking and a flat tire. Those I will keep between me and co-workers to laugh about in the years to come. But heck, I enjoyed myself.

So my life begins ...

Merry Christmas Everybody. :)

Gush!

My two favorite people in one place, one time, one picture. How about that! :D

awake

Been awake since twelve midnight. I think I just ruined my natural wake-up call.

I was working all afternoon and decided to sleep early. Since my biological clock just seem to need 5-6 hours of sleep, I woke up past midnight and can't get back to sleep. So now I'm just waiting for the sun and for my phone to to signal me off the bed.

It's Monday and I feel like I have to drag myself to work. I love what I do but for days now, it feels like I'm doing nothing for nothing. Nothing at the day job inspires me, no exciting project on the horizon and no meaningful tasks to look forward too.

Good thing that I have friends at worknwho is always ready for a good chat.

There are days when I wish I could just stay home and curl up with a book. This is one of them. Finished Stieg Larrson's "The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo" (the first book in the Millennium trilogy). Last week I read the "The Girl who Played with Fire" (the second book of the trilogy) and fell in-love with Lisbeth Salander, the computer hacker who solves crimes as a researcher for a security agency. I'm now waiting for book three: "The Girl who kicked the Hornet's Nest"which I guess would end the Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist saga. The author had a plot for ten books but due to his untimely demise (yeah, I know, read too many spy thrillers), he got to write only three. I have a feeling I'm going to hate book three because there would be more intended for book four.

Stieg Larsson is a Sweddish author who died at 50 in 2004, of a heart attack. The story is sometimes quite violent but I like how he makes unexpected twists and turns of the plot. It never turns up like you expected ... almost like Korean movies. LOL. And I just love this Salander girl with her tattoos and her powerbooks and her boxing. I love how Larsson places secrets in his characters and the neurotic tendencies that each of them has. A must read.

Working Break

Hi folks. Been pretty hectic for awhile. After the concert, things didn't really stand still like I expected it,

My younger brother arrived with the future wife and we have exciting plans for their wedding souvenir which I will be working on in the next month or so.

Then I had family dinners which are a never miss bit occasions coz I have this one big crazy family with a great sense of humor.

And then I fell in-love with a book - but that calls for another post entirely.

Then there was this trip around Panay with my Coop. We went from Iloilo, to Capiz, to Aklan with an overnight stop-over to Boracay (I have a henna tattoo to prove it), then off to Antique and back in Iloilo in 48 hours or so.

I slept the whole Sunday and woke up only to catch the Harry Potter movie.

I'm awake quite early today and my mind is filled with work and projects to do. I'm excited again, a product of separation from my computer and my workload for at least a week. I needed that.

No deep philosophies to share today. Sometimes it pays not to think at all . The trick really is knowing when not to. And planting that idea in your brain so it knows when to stop. Sort of like Inception :)

Or maybe I'm still dreaming. Hehe

Letting God

I've been carrying around a lot of anger these past few months that it has consumed me. It's no wonder that I feel tired and heavy all the time. And what's worst, I think I was also responsible for feeding that anger or allowing people to add to it.

It's timely too that this Friday, we will be having a Reunion concert of the church group I so dearly love. No matter how much I question religion and its practices, I still believe in a Catholic God and I worship him in ways I feel is right to me. In the end it's all between you and you're God. So after practicing for the concert last Saturday, I realized that I can no longer carry this resentment with me. I needed to let God. Hehe. Good thing he is All Mighty right?

So after working late on a website Saturday, at 3am, I poured out all my anger in prayer. I felt I needed to cleanse myself of all my resentments. It was bloody. LOL I had a lot of reasons to be angry. But being angry gets me in more trouble now and it's making work more burdensome. So I'm letting God carry the burden for now. These things take time to heal but I will battle hate this week. I cannot forgive yet. That will take awhile. With all that had transpired, it may even take years. But I will try to be less vindictive. And I will be more patient with this person and with myself. God cannot make miracles overnight.

I feel so blest with friends and more blest with family. I have everything I need. I think I'm surrounded with a lot of goodness and goodness begets goodness. I shouldn't let negativity take the best of me.

For now, all I can do is avoid negativity. I cannot promise to be silent when I think something is wrong. But I will stretch my patience longer. And I will try not to let my anger rule me. I will let God.

The kids will be singing this song in the concert. It's my mantra for the week: LOL.



I know I sound boring when I get all prayerful LOL. Maybe we just need to rest from all the profanities for now. ; ) Profanity will not help my dancing -haha.

Waves of hate

It's been awhile. Everything just feels off-tangent these days that I couldn't find the time nor inspiration to write anything.

Today, I encoded data for ten straight hours without eating anything. I know I didn't have to do it but I was compelled to. Anger is a strong motivator albeit a dangerous one. I realized now how much I could do with that much focus.

I wish the circumstances or at least my motive was more honorable? No, that's not it. I wish there was less resentment but the events that has transpired during the week had made me emotional and rage was inevitable.

So I forced myself to sit there and type with just one goal in mind: the quicker I get the job done, the more distance I give between me and a certain person. That reward to me drove me hard enough not to stop or think about anything else but achieving it. It also helped that I was moved not to rest when I hear her voice.

I was in rage. All I could see was red. When it manifested itself Thursday evening, I cried out of sheer frustration that I CANNOT, WILL NOT, WANT NOT to be like her. I hate that she's spreading lies and rumors about me. I detest that we can see her hidden motives and others cannot. I hate that when she spreads these lies, we are not there to defend ourselves. I hate that she's making up stories about my friends and manipulates people to get sympathy but most of all, I hate that I hate.

Hating her has become an obsession. The sound of her voice irritates me. Her mere presence makes me want to smack her. I need to put as much distance between us as fast as possible. It's not healthy. And having this much hate does not make me happy.

How can I let this go if I know she's going to keep hurting me like this? How can I stop hating?

The Difference Between Then and Now

The Greeks have two words for time. The first is "chronos", which refers to the chronological time or sequential time - the time which passes our watches when we look into it. It's also the time when we look on our calendars and see Monday through Sunday.

The second is "kairos", which is the time in between - a time of indefinite period in which something special happens. I think our teachers back in the church days called it "the opportune time" - the right time for something to happen, the God-given time.

While chronos describes quantity of time, kairos refers to the quality of how time is spent.

I'm mentioning this because people around me wonder why I changed. Why what worked ten years ago may not work the same way today. Why I, who never complained ten years ago, suddenly became fierce at this point in my life.

I used to be meek and peaceful. Most of the time, I still am. But I am at this point in my life where I'd like to be able to say: I learned something in the last ten years. And the things I learned had taught me what works for me and the people around me and what does not. It has also taught me that I can change things and that in my own small capacity, I can effect change for the better - for others and for myself.

Yes, I've become more talkative than before - maybe because I know more than before. I have formed more opinions. I now know what I like and what I don't like. I know who I love and who I hate. If I happen to say it out loud now, it just means: (1) I no longer want to keep my silence, and (2) that I now know what I believe and (3) that it's time for me to say it.

E.C. White describes kairos as "a passing instant when an opening appears which must be driven through with force if success is to be achieved".

 I no longer want to be meek, quiet and pretend I know nothing. I don't know everything. But I know enough. I no longer want to wait for change if I know change is inevitable. I just want to be heard.


It's kairos. It's time.

Too early

It's too early to get up on a Sunday morning. I can hear baduy 80's music blasting from somewhere. A more muffled Christian music is playing from my sister's room. She's organizing a Fund-raising concert and sleeps with that music day and night. And Binoy is screaming like Freddie Mercury - probably from the medicines he has to take for his cold. That baby doesn't like the sight of a medicine dropper and belts his way to Kingdom come.

I'm on my bed typing this. For the life of me, I can't bring myself to get up even to pee. Good thing that I slept with Atticus (that's the laptop's name) beside me and I have a very thick blanket around me.

A mental checklist of things I have to do flashed before me. Let's see. I have a website mock-up to finish, a concert logo to design (my sister's project), two tarp layouts for the YE event, a birthday caricature for a friend - if she emailed those pics, and a campaign poster for a friend for the Barangay elections. All that in a day. Phew! Just thinking about it tires me.

It's cold -er. I have my curtains drawn and the fan off but I still feel cold.

My friends came by last night and again invited me to go to mass today. The bell is not tolling yet. But I don't know. I still don't feel like it. I don't think a priest's sermon will rouse me enough to do good today. I need a more deeper inspiration. I think I need Freddie Mercury. Or maybe a bit of  classical music. It will take more than Sunday mass to get me out of bed in this cold.

By the way, I just killed two mice with two separate mousetraps last night. You know, those white gel-like traps where the mouse sticks to and cannot move. Have to buy more of those. I'm running out of names to call those rodents invading my peace.

My nephew's room got flooded again last night too. When rain started getting stronger - maybe the typhoon passing - the roof in that side of the room burst and created a waterfall. Flooded the dining room and my nephew's bedroom. Sigh. I really need a new house. I need to win the lotto. I need to buy a ticket to win the lotto.

But alas, I cannot bring myself to get up today. Too early on a cold -er Sunday.

But wait, I have to pee now.