Boozeless

20-something candles sans a cake and chardonnay.. just how great is that?

It's a busy (albeit boring) day of folding, unfolding and cramming stuffs into my holdall for a short getaway. And this pretty much sums up my whole 20-something years of elusive existence captured in the words of Anaïs Nin:

"I am an excitable person who only understands life
lyrically, musically,
in whom feelings are much stronger as reason.
I am so thirsty for the marvelous
that only the marvelous has power over me.
Anything I can not transform into something marvelous,
I let go.
Reality doesn't impress me.
I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy,
and when ordinary life shackles me,
I escape, one way or another.
No more walls."

Well, here's something fun (read it as better-than-nothing) while waiting for gifts to arrive:

The Meaning of your Birth Date

Your Birthday Calculator

Cheers!

Pass me that Kleenex.

The Dash

This reduced me to a soggy heap of Kleenex.

One Shot

DSC_4266,
originally uploaded by archer10 (Dennis).

This photo translates the vain hope of a drifter who has been fettered for such a long time in a junction and is suddenly, just so suddenly, coerced by time to make that crossover.

How ironic it is for a writer of one's life not to know how her story is going to unfold. How can one take an omniscient view of things sans a crystal ball and tarot card? When you have written and crumpled too many pages it's debauchery to leave things to chance and adventure without a ballpark estimation of the risk. After all, there is only one life. One rough draft and that is we all have.

A Treacherous Joke??

The revelation that Kundera denounced someone is seen by Czechs as a vindication of their belief that he has been betraying them for years,” said Petr A. Bilek, a professor of comparative literature at Charles University here. “His fellow dissident writers have long tried to dismiss him as someone who writes intellectual pornography for mediocre Western readers.

(Read the entire article here.)

Can Milan Kundera's The Joke be a byproduct of one's nagging conscience? Can his "metaphysical ponderings" be his soliloquy of remorse? Horrendous, if you think about it. So horrendous that I must head toward the bookworm's lair and read The Joke. Pronto.

Nonetheless, it alters not my deep imprint of fascination forThe Unbearable Lightness of Being. And yes, I'd still say, Kundera is still one of the best contemporary writers.

It's the only thing

For me, the physical object of the book is in itself a bridge between what began in the mind and returns there. It is also a bridge between different lives and different times. I love to take down a book from the shelf and turn the pages. Would I want to do that with my e-reader?

From the moment the download of Austen's Sense and Sensibility was completed, I had tried to inveigle myself into finishing the entire e-book within a week. But the week turned into months and I wasn't even able to get past chapter one. And I thought, I ought to give myself a reprieve and extended the reading challenge the entire summer. Having submitted myself to the artifice of horizontal and deskbound positions with disappointing to nil progress, I conceded defeat.

And accepted the fact that there's no next best thing to feeling the book against your palm while curled up in bed or sitting in your favorite squashy wing chair.

Blueberry Nights

Jude Law + Norah Jones + Warm brew + Sweet Pastry = A++ movie.

My Blueberry Nights is no different from Norah Jones' crooning. You always get that laid-back and cozy quietude as she warbles a tune.

Digression: Odd as it may seem but I'm drawn to beautifully slender and dainty hands. Naturally, somebody oohed and aahed as the limelight turned to those beautiful hands of Ms. Jones. One time, when some friends shoved my carcass to a rock concert, I couldn't remember a damn song they played but I had the perfect mental picture of the vocalist's hands.

By the way, you can watch My Blueberry Nights here.

Quick guide to roll with the punches

Life doesn't have to be a continuum of pain. One can be the victim of some unknown force's wry (and even sick!) humor for certain days or months but it doesn't have to be that way for always. Or at least I choose not to.

Of course, the surest pick-me-up of a thick glasses-clad bibliomaniac is a quick trip to the bookshop. It's easier to roll with the punches when you're literarily inebriated.☺

I'd rather have tragedy.

14,400 pretend sheep have gone over the fence. Yet, something as waiflike as sleep easily eludes me. I have misread the signs again. You maybe right, I should only be reading books and not persons. Except that I am addicted to mysteries and riddles. You're one enigma I have yet to decipher. Your reappearance is a story whose grand denouement I have awaited. What is it to me if the denouement is a tragedy?

Tragedy is better than nothing.

Tragedy is better than having to recite a religious litany hoping such divine incantation lulls me to sleep when I would only be awaken by someone whispering your name.

In any case, I have been careful to chafe my words free of any expectation of this second encounter. Just don't go saying things you don't have the intention of keeping because the thrill of your reappearance makes me such a helpless prey for you words.

Spooled or not to be spooled to antecedents

The past has a way of guilefully sneaking right behind your back when you have been too engrossed daydreaming about the near future plan. I say the near future because this plan ought to materialize early or middle of 2009. If not, I'll take the easiest route of wimping out which is suicide, as I told close friends in jest. None really took me seriously because, well, I don't really know for sure why but I can only guess my being squeamish over blood-needle-and-anything-of-that-ilk has got a major factor to my friends' unconcern to dial the schizophrenic-in-the-house hotline.

Perhaps I have been reading too many existentialist novels that I have lingered in a what-is-the-point-of-life-but-death state for quite a long, dreary time that I actually stopped plotting long term plans and goals. Until an almost forgotten bolt of motivation just gushed out from nowhere rousing a dormant dream. To be completely honest about it, the motivation did not just come from nowhere. It has always been there just immobilized and fraught with unmet expectations and unnecessary career detours. It took Jeanette Winterson's tour to an old English city and Spitalfields to recharge a frayed circuit. Daydreams of this goal has been compounded by some lines and narratives on Winterson's The PowerBook that somehow, I can almost taste the spaghetti laden with salsa di pomodori made from fresh, plum tomatoes like some lovers' lips bruised from excessive kissing, and then topped with parmesan and basil. This is one of the joys of reading. No, I'm not talking about the joy that comes from an imagined puckering of lovers' lips although, that can easily be one of those. Reading exhumes forgotten but valuable perspectives and in some rare fortunate occasions, you get to exhume your old better self.

Exhuming my old self and the process of accepting the responsibility it entails is not entirely an easy feat. I could merely view this exhumation as an end in itself. But that would defeat the victory of finding oneself. Thus, certain goodbyes must be said. A comfortable hermitic lifestyle must be shed. Hard as it is, exhuming your old self also dredges the so-called unfinished business of your past. In my case, there were several. One of them crept up unexpectedly reminding me of an old, familiar thrill. What unnerves me, is my too perfect memory of the feeling. Too perfect that I felt the same tingle when we first held hands. This is the past's ideal bait for someone who always wants to know the end to every story.

What do you do when the past creeps up behind you and teases you with memories of a certain smile? Do you allow yourself the chance to know how the story unfolds? Or dismiss it as one of life's tricks that you need to ignore and quickly get on this regained track before opportunity leaves you behind completely?

Still Saffinated

Rafa Nadal bagged the Wimbledon crown from The Fed in the most unforgiving way. And what happened to the racquet-smashing, cussing Safinator?

Rearing his gear for the next tourney along with some more racquet-smashing. And I'll still be rooting for The Safinator!