things that are making me happy

my sleep and as a consequence, my bp,  finally normalized thanks to the melatonin.

it’s time to do some list of things that are making me happy, to restore the vibes on this blog lest it becomes another letras_o.

without farther ado:

1. the weather. i did a walk of dickensian proportion to the park and after about a two-month absence, the cold in a truly open space felt comforting. that there were no PE classes and less runners and bikers also helped. on the way back from the walk, i saw pumpkins on stores getting bigger and bigger by the block.

2. augmented reality app on the iPhone. a subway map that uses the camera to point you to the subway. how cool is that? i hope to take a pic in action tomorrow.

3. “black gives way to blue” by alice in chains and “brand new eyes” by paramore. it makes the commute to penn station and back worth it. come halloween time and it would be lycia and metallica. on a side note, pearl jam, the band that never went away, launched its comeback album “backspacer” via target. complete with TV ads. okay, let’s keep this happy.

4. “californication”. not yet “six feet under” but close. very close.

5. friends arriving this week and more friends spending halloween in NY.

let’s do more optimism tomorrow. and the day after.

untitled (about the unpublished)

a couple of nights ago, when i awoke at the unholy hour of 2+ ayem, i opened a blank page and just stared at it because i don’t want to write just yet. 2 unsubmitted, unpublished stories are still in the folder and in the same folder is a page containing titles and story ideas. but i just don’t want to fuck my fall because i am basically useless when a story needs to finished. so i resisted like a jedi.

and then the wife told me that i am cranky as hell so i better start writing again. soon.

my defense was that i just need to sleep.

she countered that it is what is not making me sleep in the first place.

and for that, i have no more words.

ramblings on melatonin

joy went back to work today and because of the weight caution that the doctor ordered, i have to bring her to penn station and carry her laptop trolley all way to the coach. all is good except that it is screwing my sleeping pattern into pieces. i slept around 11 peyem last night drunk on a bottle of red wine and awoke at 2.45 ayem like an old man. so by the time she was ready to go, i was ready to sleep. we cabbed it but the subway on the way back on a rush hour monday was epic.

my only hope is this melatonin supplement, all these little white pills with no FDA approved claims. already got my siesta loaded on it. let’s see what happens later. i really need to sleep. waking up early and not writing is a bad, bad thing.

***

we went to jollibee queens over the weekend and i devoured a two-piece chicken joy. isteyts-side serving but the breading and the gravy feels and tastes wrong for a jollibee. it was weird seeing all pinoys specially the ones with accents, affected or not. the kicker is the mandatory token white girl on the counter (NY state law, no all-insert race here employees in a business establishement). and yes, pinoys, even in the new york still order their jollibee by combo numbers.

***

the biggest small victory was finding frozen (frozen, not freeze dried) dahon ng sili and malunggay leaves at the hong kong supermarket. finally, i can have a real tinola. especially now the weather is dipping into the mid 50s. the veggies come in ziplock sandwich size-packets that are brick heavy due to ice inside. it felt solid. had they reduced the size, it would be something akin to the technology in aliens 3, that cubed whiskey.

***

californication is the shit. i almost fell off my seat on episode 2.

***

with the rebuilding, heroism and all, i hope we pinoys get to anger before we get to acceptance. this is something totally preventable. these last few weeks, i have been having thoughts about how smiles, like the air, are free in the philippines. unlike here in new york where you have to tip somebody to receive a smile. but then again, because you are paying, you are getting the service that you deserve and you have the right to a full accounting for every cent. this is a very bad comparison but the more i think about it, all the more it seems that the only thing we are good for are smiling. not only that, we are smiling while others are robbing us in broad daylight by smiling robbers. please. get angry. get very angry. or else this will happen again next year.

“you feed it once and now it stays”

gray skies and grey earth and grey buildings all around. the trees have not yet turned their color. a few stores have pumpkins on display and at times square, a demon can be seen here and there.

all around me, melodrama is happening without the help of the cure.

it’s not my godsdamn problem or concern or what the fuck ever in the first place but there you go.

all i wish is to be intelligent enough to camouflage the events and turn it into a piece of fiction because really, what is happening is stranger than that. there is the whole reversal shit and the negation of negation where the whole series of events are propelling beyond anyone’s control into someone becoming what that someone most despised before. love to indifference to hate to self-loathing masquerading as love.

a kabit or a kulasisi almost broke your family and look at you now pretty little girl, a godsdamn mistress. i hope you are proud when your mother goes through the whole fucking thing again because that’s what mothers do, they found out things hidden from them. i hope you yourself spawn a daughter and that you get to live long enough to watch her getting fucked by a married man on the side.

i need a drink. i am a very tolerant person but this is getting beyond belief.

should you read this, know that we care.

and know that you know that we know that you know what you are doing.

on the queue

as if tonight’s new CSI: NY and top chef aren’t enough.

my continuing romance with B-movies and direct-to-video releases

there’s “may” with anna farris, and “hard candy” with ellen page, or shall we say pre-ellen page of that “juno” cuteness?

the hunt for worthwhile b-movies (some cinephile with a degree in film would surely lambast me for this poor and philistinic diction) is the motion picture equivalent of hunting for small press books. or, for the record folks, real indie. you have to go through a slushpile of shit before you find yourself a diamond. part of the allure, at least for me is the fact that these finds would never, ever make it into the mainstream and to quote a movie line “the mainstream is shallow, that’s why it is called a stream.” it’s a wonderful world indeed when no fucking dudes would reference your most cherished intellectual porn because not only will they not understand it, they also couldn’t get to see it. no, i am not talking about “the bicycle thief”.

anyway.

this year’s title is “deadgirl”.

but make sure to watch “jennifer’s body” first.

’tis the season for teevee

the rain and the cold is back with a vengeance. nyorts and tsinelas would now be suicide. this would only mean one thing…tv.

tonight, fringe season premiere.

followed by megan fox on conan.

followed by megadeth (megawho?) on jimmy fallon.

that would just about make up for the lousy jay leno comeback.

splinters

the weather improved a bit with the sun shining and the cold retreating. but stores are already stacking up on scarves and pumpkins, hurrying up to the inevitable october. which, with a lot of friends dropping by, could only be a good thing. haven’t been out of the upper east side much, except for that one time traverse into SoHo. i am ready with my walking shoes which, if we go with the adage, is a pair of running shoes.

* * *

i got one of the biggest scares of my life yesterday. the pharmacy called that they could not contact my prescriber and so i called all the knowns numbers and lo and behold, voicemail. one of the moments that i just kinda heart new york as even generic meds for the most common of heart medications needs a prescription. luckily the prescriber picked up her phone (turns out she is on summer vacation – much deserved, i believe) and things got sorted out. i could not begin to imagine the alternative of rushing to the ER just so i could renew a prescription. i’ve had enough of ERs this year.

* * *

an email arrived from a senior student in UST asking for permission to illustrate my story “All We Need is Five Meals a Day” for her thesis on books illustration. i gave her a go, of course (with the necessary rights management precautions), and wished her good luck. i am excited as hell how the characters will look especially Lenor, he of the dangling intestines.

* * *

time to read, as no writing will be done until november. fall is my summer, remember?

the week

days of rain and clouds and cold had me under the weather that i just want to sleep as long as i possibly can. the only good thing is that the wife is not yet working (although she can now carry her laptop around the house and her walk is nearing normal pace).

we almost had the entire week done on delivery or takeout and last night, a dinner of crispy pata and kare-kare. i took a bite (just a bite because i know it’s deadly for both the heart and the gout) and then ordered “fired up” on the cable but both, with their collective strengths (litid and sawsawan and “we are cheering, we, we are chee-ring!”) failed to lift my spirtus santos. i even did not read a single page from the book i am currently into.

now i am on the cleaning mode, doing the laundry and shit.

i am rambling because just want this week to be over.

today

a sticker in the nearest bus stop. maybe a propaganda by massive dynamics?

and so moving on

the deed has been done.

the drinking (shiraz and stella and heineken and corona) and the eating (pinoy foods from bayan cafe that are best partnered with lipitor) and some singing (the cure on karaoke).

my wish was to have another story published or approved for publication within the year. and good health of course. and lots of benjamins. i guess the health should have came first.

i am just grateful that joy was pronounced OK when we went to her doctor and that she was allowed two more weeks of paid disability leave, so hurray for us. i have never seen a doctor with a bedside manner this exceptional. it made me realize again that there are professions, and then there are callings.

so.

time to open the email draft and attach the manuscript and do that damned submission and then my birthday would be complete.

oh, there’s the MoMA membership to be renewed and the rollingstone subscription to be cancelled so i can subscribe to zoetrope and tinhouse. let’s see if amazon has cemetery dance or weird tales.

happy birthday to me. see,  i can do optimism.

* * *

update: and so the waiting begins after receiving an email immediately after submission that final notice of acceptance or regret will come out in over two months time. lord. but there’s the professionalism of the editors to be thankful for, responding immediately like that.

* * *

i should have deleted my facebook account, that fucking evil thing, yesterday and then i realized that it is the only medium that helped me find out the email of someone that i could collaborate with in the future. and so there, it’s back to ignoring the damned site instead of unplugging its miserable life.

fall starts

the weather continues its descent and just like that, the shorts and the summer dresses are gone (although there are still a few sun worshippers at the park lying in their underwear to catch precious sun rays).

winter is going to be proverbial. but for now at least there’s fall.

tomorrow, rockband will release the beatles, steve jobs will unveil a new iPod, timur and tim will screen a new animated feature, and motorhead will stage a new concert. also, i will turn a year older. another year spent without a visit to the ICU. i have long stopped making a big deal out of this but after a couple of visits on death’s door, i can’t help but at least be thankful.

my only wish is to find the balls to submit a couple of stories. and to write a project proposal about an anthology in mind. so those are two wishes, but who’s counting?

* * *

i also wish i don’t believe that letting someone read an unpublished manuscript is bad luck because, honest opinion or no, it would really help. now, that makes it three wishes.

summer ends

it’s official. fall starts tomorrow.

to celebrate, we pigged out with sushi, wine, steak, and ice cream in that order. hurray! every victory away from the kitchen needs to be celebrated.

it’s a long weekend because of a labor day holiday and, instead of nueva orleans, central park will have to do. there’s no negotiation with recuperation. i am just glad that the wife can now walk a bit fast, and central park will just have to do.

there’s still a lot of work to be done and i’ve been hanging out at the bookstore to feel angry and hateful. there’s nothing like the feeling that one could do better to start one’s self. of course, there’s also a self-imposed deadline. i just want this story done. there’s another writing project i am calling as “project rock ‘n roll” that just came my way in the bath tub, a real eureka moment, and this is something i will not  let go, this has to happen in the year 2010 or else. next to the novel, this is the shit that will put my name on the map. seriously.

ok, time to “final destination” before more wine.

but first, tums for the tummy. the steak was really heavy.

“now i can’t think | think why i should even try”

title studies:

the scar that isn’t there

runner ups:

1. anno domini

2. for you have made them a little less than the angels

3. (life’s a bitch) and then you live forever

it’s nice doing the thinking old school, writing with my red pen on sheets of scratch papers held by a clip.

i turned over the macbook to joy so she could have something to do to combat her ennui, like creating her facebook account (i have warned her it is evil) and organizing our NY photo album to be ordered through apple.

it’s “ponyo” time before i wrestle with the words again.

page 27 is giving me the finger

the dreaded blank page stares and adds insult to the injury.

i can almost see “the end” but with every word wrestled onto the macbook, it seems to be moving farther away.

this is a very important story that needs to be written down while the smell of disinfectant sprays and the shimmers of IV tubes are still fresh in my mind. the working title is “fade to black”, metallica’s anthem to suicide and so maybe this is what needs to be fixed first. i don’t do outlines but i can not write a single word down without deciding on the title (except for this one, of course, something written on the other journal to purge the anxiety of waiting in the operating room that just evolved into a monster of a story).

so, title studies here we go.

this needs to be done with before the season turns because autumn is my summer and i don’t want anything, not even writing, fucking up the ray bradbury weather.

the novel can just suck it.

* * *

three successive hurricanes have dragged fall with them. into the low 60s this past week and people are wearing scarves and hoodies already.

just like last year, i still jologize new york by running for a dozen eggs at the grocery in my nyorts and tsinelas.