...it's the film based on Marjane Satrapi's comics of the same name. It is excellent. Watch it if you can, and read the comics (which I haven't finished yet, btw). Heck of a year. Had a blast. Here's what I was up to:
I read 24 books. The ones I enjoyed most were The Fountainhead (my favorite - I both love it and hate it), The Price of Salt, The Hours, Never Let Me Go, Fresh Air Fiend, Palestine, Walden, The Passion, and Art and Lies. Watched at least 50 films. The ones I enjoyed the most were Crimes and Misdemeanors, Stranger than Fiction, Babette's Feast, 100, Reservoir Dogs, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Juno, One Six Right, and Nina's Heavenly Delights. I also discovered Doctor Who, Star Trek Voyager, and Firefly/Serenity. Became addicted to Monty Python sketches as well. Saw a lot of documentaries with Scout (my favorite is the BBC series on the Roman Empire). Best year work-wise. So far, this is my best year, both financially and in terms of the work I get. Already mentioned how some of my articles were posted at the New York Times website and the CNN Money website. I also got to work for one of my 'idol' travel writers, Rolf Potts. That was fun. More importantly, I'm still so passionate about my work that there are many, many mornings where I get up and I just couldn't wait to get started. Also, I got my perfect schedule down. I now work only 12 hours a week. I start at 3am and end at 6am every Mon, Tues, Thurs, and Fri. Wednesdays and weekends are for mischief and hobbies. I may be passionate about my paying work, but I also love my hobbies, my wife, and my pets, so I made sure I could spend time on them as well. Wrote my first short story in five years. The last time I wrote a short story was for one of my creative writing classes in UP. Finally finished one short story. Not sure what to do with it yet. Carpentry. Finally got into carpentry. Built that nightstand, a house for my rooster, and a compost bin. Other notable events of the year:- 2nd Anniversary with Scout
- Taught Scout to ride a bike.
- Got a new kitten (Stevie) and found our pet snail.
- Trained my dog, Kitchie.
- Bohol trip, especially that motorcycling through the mountains thing. Unforgettable.
- Got into model airplane building (I have 3 so far).
- Learned how to make sushi
- Bought my laptop, Zoe
- Watched Avenue Q with Scout
- ToyCon where we bought the model Voyager ship
- Tagaytay trip with Mangoes (and pineapples!)
- That kickass lesbian concert with June Millington
- Lantern Parade with the G2G Peeps
- Walking tour of Marikina River with Bea (and we did it again with Barbie)
- Met up with the people who mean the most to me: Mabelle, Donna, Soli, KC Friends, and the Mangoes.
- Spent Christmas day with Scout's family - shopping, eating, and watching a movie.
- Started new blogs: Frugal Pinoy and CelineRoque.com
More importantly, this is the year where I truly defined what I wanted out of life and who I want to be as a person. I realized that happiness is not something to look for, rather, it is something to be achieved. It's the state where there is no conflict between your values and what you are, what you want to do and what you are actually doing. By surrounding myself with only the work and activities that I am passionate about, and people that I truly love, I really feel like I'm living. I look forward to 2009 and hope to make it as fun and fulfilling  How about you, how did your year go? 1. Awe and Audacity
2. Notes and Notoriety
3. Promise and Promiscuity
4. Mass and Masculinity
5. Fees and Feasibility
(Scout and I had a few moments of boredom some days ago. This is the product.)
I've been really unhappy with my new neighbors. They've been loud every night since they moved in. This experience with the new neighbors (And some of the current neighbors I dislike) made me want to do this little exercise. What kind of neighbors do I want? What would an ad for them look like?
Wanted: Perfect Neighbors
Lesbian couple seeks new neighbors. Here are the desired characteristics:
- Must be atheists. (Agnostics and Unitarian Universalists ok.)
- Must have over 100 books (Books by Danielle Steele and Stephenie Meyer not counted).
- Preferably, majority of their books cannot be bought locally.
- Must not have a karaoke machine or Magic Sing unit.
- If they are in possession of the above electronic devices, they must either have a) headphones or b) a soundproofed karaoke room.
- Applicants with intention to grow vegetable gardens preferred. Must be open to barter of produce.
- Childless couples or singles preferred. If you have children, they must be well-behaved. Little girls must be well-dressed and not look like miniature hookers (Really, what is it with those parents who dress up their 3-year olds in "sexy" outfits? Are you drugs?!)
- Must be homosexuals (gay-friendly ok).
- Priority will be given to applicants who are veterinarians.
I had dinner with Soli last Tuesday, but it seems like yesterday. Time moves fast when you're living. Your life isn't separated into days like blocks on a calendar. There is just the moment now and the one after it. You are constantly in motion.
This moment I hear church bells.
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Only one story left for me to read in The World and Other Places. I'd like to finish Walden. It's engaging, but I can't last long reading a book on a computer screen.
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Saw Happy-Go-Lucky with wife. Don't ask me about the plot.
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I need to see my dentist.
From The World and Other Places, which I'm reading right now. This paragraph spoke to me, especially since the people who saw us off to Bohol were astonished to discover that we only had a backpack each. Parang overnight daw. This sums up my sentiments perfectly:
Luggage. Heaven or Hell in the hereafter will be luggage or the lack of it. The ones who recognized that love is enough and that possessions are borrowed pastimes, will float free through the exit sign, their arms ready to hug their friends, their toothbrush in their pocket. The ones who stayed up late, gathering and gathering like demented bees, will find that you can take it with you. The joke is that you have to carry it yourself.
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Scooter. I've just had Charlie's tires vulcanized and the front rim replaced. Haven't had the chance to ride him yet, especially since I discovered that his front brake wasn't working (when I had the accident before we left). Need to get that fixed this week if I want to get any riding done.
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Business. The relaunch of Web Content Wow is creeping in closer and closer, and I'm working on it everyday. I think I'll meet the deadline and get my old business revamped. Although I'm financially better than ever, I'd still like a safety net, preferably something that works well even if I rarely intervene.
Tomorrow I'm meeting with B, Nina, and Ferrari (or Steph - we suspect they are the same person) to discuss our illustration studio. I already bought the domain name (DrawStreet.com), but that's the smallest possible step I could ever make. Much more to do. If I'm lucky we'll launch in 5 months?
Back home from our trip, which took us around 9 days. Below is the last entry I wrote in my diary. I feel that it captures my feelings about the trip, so I'm copying it here rather than writing a new one for Multiply:
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Tonight is our last night in Bohol. I'm glad that we approached this trip with curious, independent spirits. Instead of riding the enclosed sterility of vans and taxi cabs, we walked. We rode jeepneys, tricycles, and the habal-habal. This allowed us the privilege of getting an intimate feel of the roads, overhearing the intonation and flow of everyday speech, and opening all our senses to all the little things that make the character of this place.
There were mats of mushrooms and rice laid out to dry under the sun. There were two women riding a motorcycle with a dead rooster dangling upside down from the left handgrip. I felt the cool air of the Bilar forest on my legs, and saw the sun peeking from behind the foliage as I looked up with raindrops on my glasses. At the back of the habal-habal, these raindrops feel more like pebbles than water. Also, when you close your eyes during the ride, it feels like you're in flight.
Instead of going on the highway from Corella to Sevilla, our habal-habal driver, Danny, took us through steep, unpaved mountain roads that could easily beat up a car, but not his Honda TMX - a motorcycle that has more things in common with a Manila tricycle than a Dakar Rally bike. A few inches to the left and you'll find yourself falling to your death. It was raining and we lost our map somewhere near the mountains leading up to Sikatuna.
The flowers we buy in pots here grow wild in those mountains.
Now that I have experienced these things, I feel like there is no other way for me to travel. Wherever I go, my steps must be slow and deliberate, so I can feel the distance between places and not merely shuffle about from point A to B.
How can I return, knowing that most of what happens in Manila is all that shuffling?
Busy day of writing ahead. Three more articles today, three tomorrow, and one on Saturday. Had to cancel some dates (sorry Frogs  this is probably the nth time) and rearrange a whole lot of things to get as much done this week as I can. This is because Scout and I will be off on our Cebu-Bohol trip next week, and we don't want to do much work while we're there. Things I look forward to: caves, trekking, the river, the sea, and food. Notes on the past week: - Yesterday I had a minor accident with my scooter and ran over my potted parsley. The pot died, the parsley survived but had a few broken stalks. I'm so lame and boring that my first accident was with a potted herb. An herb used to garnish fancy pasta dishes, for crying out loud. - But I am glad that the accident was lame and boring, causing more embarrassment than pain. - Scout and I celebrated our second anniversary last Tuesday. Soft tacos. Cake. Chicken. Pancakes. Everything was good. I'm a very lucky woman, marrying my best friend. - Had a haircut. Much, much shorter now. It wasn't obvious how long my hair was (almost halfway down my back) because I tie it all the time. I felt like a cave woman. - Obama  Passing of Proposition 8   Finally finished my second carpentry project - a house for my rooster. He's strong and feisty so we need to contain him. Plus, I'm planning to set up a garden in my backyard. I can't do that if there's a rooster eating everything.
The entire project took around 3-4 weekends. In the end, I had to ask for Nene's help to apply the final coat of paint. I was just so eager to get it done.
Lessons learned (some are supposed to be common sense):
- Wire mesh hurts and can prick you if you're not paying attention - Always have a fair amount of staples nearby - If painting near the scooter, uhm... cover it. Or else paint drops will be everywhere. - Have people nearby when stapling the last of the wire mesh from inside the coop. Or else, when you hear the last staple press into the wood, you'll wonder "Hmmm.... how do I get out of here?" People can help you out by lifting the coop while you crawl under it. I have roughly 36 feet of wood left from the ensaymada rack I tore apart. A little more than enough for the compost bin, my next project. It shouldn't take more than 3 days to build, but I'm excited already  | Lazy day | Oct 14, '08 7:49 AM
for everyone |
If I don't get up at 2:00 am and start work by 3:00am, I'm doomed to work all day. When i follow my schedule, work is done by 6am, and the rest of the day is spent reading, watching a movie or episodes of Doctor Who, or doing carpentry stuff. What happened was I got up at 2am and was too drowsy to work for some reason.
The only thing I accomplished today were the invoices and walking Kitchie.
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I dreamt that I was in a movie with Mariel Hemingway (in her 20s). In the scene we were shooting, I had boyish hair and was reading a greeting card to her. The greeting card contains a nihilistic quote (real or invented, I don't know) that goes something like "Everything in existence is nothing. Nothing is real."
At first I thought I was in the movie Manhattan, and I was playing the Woody Allen character, but I was dressed differently and decades younger.
Parts of the dream was like Pleasantville in reverse - some objects would just turn greyscale.
There's also a part with Natalie Portman and Kate Hudson in my livingroom, but that one's kind of kinky.
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Finished Atlas Shrugged last week. Currently reading The World and Other Places by Winterson. My goal is to read 25 books this year (not counting the ones for work), and I only have 8 more to go, including this one. I don't think I'll stop at 25, though.
On my way to meeting Soli for lunch, I was crossing the street and felt my right sole flapping against my heel. My favorite shoe was coming apart. I told him that I'll be a little late as I needed to fix my shoe.
I went to the Handyman branch in Farmer's and bought Mighty Bond. I tried gluing back my heel. Both my thumbs had accidental glue drops, I waited for the glue to set then I walked back to Gateway.
But before I got there, my heel fell off again. So I went inside Jollibee and tried to glue it again and wait until the glue set.
I walked to Fully Booked, where Soli was, dragging my right foot so that I don't accidentally rip my sole open again.
The good news is that the sole didn't come apart again.
The bad news is that when I got home and tried to take off the bad shoe, I realized that I had glued it to my favorite pants.
Halfway - a very long way - through Atlas Shrugged, I found myself wanting to take a break from the hard business world of Ayn Rand. I wanted to feel, which is something that the protagonists of the book rarely allow themselves to do.
So I picked up Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, which Jeanette Winterson wrote when she was 24. That's what I was last year and I didn't manage to write an award-winning novel. But Winterson is rare, and I found myself thinking today that I hope she doesn't die soon.
If she dies, where will I find work like hers? It will take more discipline than I have to stop myself from reading all her books. If I've read them all, what will I look forward to? Rereading, I guess. But there is nothing like discovering a book for the first time.
May she live a long, prolific life so I will have many more of those first times.
I finished reading it in 24 hours, eating and napping in between. Having read her later works, I can see that in Oranges she is still unpolished, relatively new to her craft. But she already found her voice, and I wonder how long and hard I have to work to find mine.
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The fire at Pisay is still at the back of my mind. Looking at the pictures, it was already different from what I remember. Is that why I'm hesitant to go back, why I've never attended one of those homecoming events? When things change in the places I love, the places where I was most happy, it just reminds me of how much time has passed and how that place was never what I remember it to be, except for me. I know some people who don't romanticize high school the way that I do, but seeing as how I spent more time living rather than studying, it's understandable why I feel that way.
This is what the fire tells me: I lived there and I have to commit it to memory. The place itself may crumble.
No pictures - which is good. I often find that too many snapshots during group gatherings tends to make the occasion more like a production rather than a genuine meeting of people who have some catching up to do. The picture-taking can be detrimental to conversation. (Or it can be a life-saver if conversation is just that bad.) Besides, Saturday's celebration was the org barbecue, and those people tend to be camera shy. As for Sunday, it was just me and Mabelle - who would want a picture of that? (Well, maybe Mabelle who, surprisingly, did not insist on her cuteness this time.)
The sad part was I was sick both days. I let the org barbecue continue because I was the host and didn't want to cancel things at the last minute. I had to see Mabelle as well, since she would soon have to go back to her regularly scheduled med life. I enjoyed them both and forgot about the pain for a while.
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Atlas Shrugged. Engaging. Can't put it down. Like The Fountainhead, I don't necessarily agree with everything Ayn Rand is suggesting, but I appreciate that the ideas are giving me the chance to do some heavy thinking, directly confronting my ideas about work, society, and business. It's important to bring one's own ideas and beliefs under rigorous testing. How easy it is to get lost and be so out of touch with the world when you're complacent.
| 25 | Sep 25, '08 2:06 PM
for everyone |
That's it - I'm giving up on The Snow Leopard. The first half was captivating, but once I got past that it was all "snow. sherpas. lentils. painful feet. snow. sherpas. lentils. painful feet. lentils without butter." I scanned it to check if something would be worth it in the following chapters, but it was all "snow. sherpas...." over and over again.
I guess it's time for Atlas Shrugged. Not the lightest way to begin my 26th year, but I'm sure I'd love/loathe it if it's anything like The Fountainhead. 
Above is a photograph of something my wife made last night, baked scallops with a breadcrumb crust, topped with cream cheese and fresh parsley. Scallops à la Scout?
When I bit into it, and she was trying to ask me how it was, I couldn't help but shout "YOU MUST EAT IT NOW!"
It was absolutely one of the best things I've tasted in years. It was very flavorful and held many surprises. The rough texture of the breadcrumbs, the taste of toasted garlic, a bit of spice from the crushed red pepper, smokiness from the paprika, followed by the cold, smooth cream cheese and the refreshing parsley. I could've exploded on the spot. Stark contrast (temp and texture of cream cheese vs. warm breadcrumbs, dried paprika and peppercorns vs. fresh parsley), and yet everything went so well together. This should be in a restaurant.
I feel so proud of my wife
Writing a creepy scene at 1:00am alone in a dark room is strictly prohibited. It will make you ask the question "What is the creepiest scene I've ever read?" and therefore make you think of scenes from "The Historian". This will make you stop writing because you will be constantly looking over your shoulder, afraid for your life.
You cling to your blog as an antidote.
It does not work.
I finally finished it!
This, my friends, is my first carpentry project. It's a nightstand for our bedroom. Although I could've done some things better, it's sturdy and has the overall look that I like.
When I first expressed interest in carpentry 3 years ago (ang tagal pala magmaterialize), many people laughed and said I was too clumsy and would probably hurt myself/cut off my finger/suck at it (depending on who you ask). I almost believed them, but now I have a nightstand.
I was surprised to find that carpentry can be quite relaxing. It's very different from my writing process, which tends to be fast paced. I need to keep up with my thoughts when I write, and almost everything is so spontaneous. With carpentry, I do all the prep work beforehand and when I start creating, my mind is so focused on what is happening NOW. No multi-tasking, no hundreds of voices screaming in my head. It makes me feel so present.
Also, when I started this project I noticed I would get very tense - my teeth would be clenched, my grasp would be so tight. Later on, I realized that if I just trust gravity and my tools, I don't need to exert so much force. When I sawed off all four legs, I did it without breaking a sweat. And, with the hammer, it's not about how much of my own weight I put into each stroke - it's all about the swing.
I can't wait to get started on my next project. Either a compost bin and a coop for my rooster. I'm so excited
Now halfway through The Snow Leopard, and I've been alternating it with Fresh Air Fiend. The more I read, the more I want to write. I still have so much to learn.
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My hand rashes have gone and I'm almost back to life as usual. I've started on my carpentry project again. It's a nightstand. Or a stool. I'm not certain.
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Baby Mama is funny. But not as funny or layered as Mean Girls.
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As the weeks go by I realize that Marikina is becoming less rural and more suburban. This makes me upset. When I look out my office window as I do now, the view is no longer composed of clouds, sky, and trees. The view is a behemoth of a house, and on the foreground is my laundry on the clothesline. The laundry is a fact of life, but the house is a fact of life I do not want to acknowledge. In the last two years at least 6 construction projects took place on our street, most of them new houses, while the rest were my existing neighbors adding levels. The largest of these renovations now has 3 floors and a swimming pool on the roof deck. It is purple and has gigantic "Greek" columns, making it look like a birthday cake.
At least the house from my office window isn't as visually offensive.
I can't wait to move to Pangasinan. 2011 should be the latest.
 The photo is my (failed) attempt to look like a Magritte painting. I'm holding The Snow Leopard which, I'm sad to say, I haven't finished yet. Many things in my life are put on hold: - Could not train my dog for a week, or do any carpentry work because of a severe hand rash (the doctor says the cause is environmental or from a bug). It's all dried up now, so I'm looking forward to the following week. - I suspect that it's because of the lack of manual labor or my weird sleeping patterns, but the past two weeks have been difficult for me when it comes to writing. But, strangely, not for Frugal Pinoy, where I three posts in one week! It's a miracle since I usually write just one, if at all. Yesterday I was close to catching up, as I was only an article behind at the end of the day. - Barbie came by today at noon. I woke up at 2:30pm. I appreciate the simplicity of our relationship, where she can just come over and I don't have to 'entertain' her. She'll open the fridge when she's hungry or thirsty, she'll watch TV, she'll sleep on the couch. No asking for permission required. Anyway, back to work!
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