changes.

Erosion is constantly occurring in this city. I suppose it cannot be helped, the way some parts of you fail to withstand the beating of cultures and expectations. I don't think I'm strong enough to preserve all my parts. Every day, I notice these subtle changes--thirsting for coffee in the morning, a new hat, needing music again and perhaps, a little weight gain. I'm even entertaining the idea of a tattoo. *raises eyebrow* Nothing too terrible, actually. Just a bit free-ER...err..more free. I find myself slowly changing before your eyes. I don't know if you see it, already. I'm still me, right? The city continues to pulse with life and I am just attempting to keep up with it.

I hope you recognize me when I come home.

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Struggling to defend..love.

It is exhausting to defend..love. Struggling all the time--to explain it, to believe in it, and to find it, is truly a chore. Deceptive love..how will people know that it's real if our hearts are capable of "loving" again. and again. Repairing itself to accommodate someone else, regardless of doubt, pain, or misery. As if our hearts can take that much loss! But it IS real! How do I explain it? It is strange to meet these agnostic lovers.

And what of our love? A battling of individuals trying to remember and forget the most. A love independent of ideal qualities, ever changing, strangely beautiful? It is a terrifying thing, this love of ours, precisely because it seems rare. We bounce back and forth between i-don't-want-to-lose-you and I-have-already-lost-you-because-you-love-me. Am I just idealizing things between us? I should stop playing witness to the world. It shouldn't matter to me--what they think, I mean. KNOWING should be enough for me, right? I have to admit that sometimes it isn't.

It's must be this distance...this innate longing to be together...it highlights just how far apart we are right now.

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Planetarium

J and I went to the Planetarium last Monday. Imagine sitting in a dome-like cinema with the movie being played overhead. The show was entitled Journey to the Stars and was narrated by Whoopi Goldberg. (Click on the title for the site! http://www.amnh.org/rose/spaceshow/journey) We found out that each of us contains about a teaspoon of the very first stars. And that only 1% of all stars turn into supernovas; Live fast, die young, I should say. :)

Born from stars, in the end we will lose ourselves to the wind; mere stardust risen from the grave.

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Atmospheric Disturbances

Went to the Strand Bookstore the other day. J and I went crazy, yet AGAIN. I'm hoping to collect enough books to last me until December. I'm already anticipating how moving to that town will heighten my loneliness.



So..anyway, I'm currently reading this book. The cover's awesome! And the reviews won me over:

"A relentless exploration of how a man could fail to see clearly the woman he loves"

"Galchen's dark and comical mystery is a clever take on the ways of love, longing, and overanalysis can drive you absolutely nuts"

Sounds quite promising, doesn't it? I'm looking forward to how this story will unravel.

There's hope after all, L. The writer's a DOCTOR and an MFA graduate! It's really possible, 'ey? I'm rooting for you.

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APW Festival

So J and I are looking forward to the weekend! Three days of music, alcohol, and friends!

Just like home.

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Puzzle Project

Just passing through one of Coney Island's streets in search of a bathroom. I marvel at this city, pulsing in color.

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The Way of It

This is the way of it, wide world over,
One is beloved, and one is the lover,
One gives and the other receives.
One lavishes all in a wild emotion,
One offers a smile for a life's devotion,
One hopes and the other believes,
One lies awake in the night to weep,
And the other drifts off in a sweet sound sleep.

One soul is aflame with a godlike passion,
One plays with love in an idler's fashion,
One speaks and the other hears.
One sobs, 'I love you,'and wet eyes show it,
And one laughs lightly, and says, 'I know it,'
With smiles for the other's tears.
One lives for the other and nothing beside,
And the other remembers the world is wide.

This is the way of it, sad earth over,
The heart that breaks is the heart of the lover,
And the other learns to forget.
For what is the use of endless sorrow?
Though the sun goes down, it will rise tomorrow;
And life is not over yet.
Oh! I know this truth, if no other,
That Passionate Love is Pain's own mother.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919)

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Just awful.

So..this is me, feeling terrible. It's awful to confirm the worst of my fears. I should've expected something better! Why did I have to expect THIS. I don't want it to come true.

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Hello? World?

Any semblance of presence over there??? I'm not that far away!

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MOMA

For more pictures, click on the title of this post.

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Finding pieces of you in the MOMA

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The stars are out tonight.

The stars are out tonight.

We are drawn to turn our gazes upward--to look at brightness, somehow defiant at the heavens looking down at our mediocrity. Answers constellate themselves, depending on what we want to see. Trace-the-dots. How often we mistake their combined form for another, only because we don't know where to look or what to see! They seem to be grateful for the distance from our questioning gaze, wise to avoid questions that are answered by experience. We were born from stardust after all.

They continue to burn, oblivious to the answers we've assigned to them. And we continue to gaze at their enduring death, yearning to burn through life like the glorious moment of a rebellious falling star. Maybe it's the pursuit that matters--the blaze of light across the dark sky. A Shooting Star! A Falling Star. (Close our eyes, make a wish.) We are changed by the desire for something beyond THIS. Something MORE than this.

Maybe because the stars burn so so bright, we're meant to witness only their dying, lest we perish in their terrible beauty. Incapable of surviving such brilliance, they tell us--THIS, should be enough...for now.

Relieved, they are glad for our silence. Enough for tonight. We pry our eyes away with difficulty. They are just stars after all. And we just hope for meaning in such tragic deaths.

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J!

I can't believe you find time to demand time! hahahaha!!!

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The Other 1

The train doors open and close at every stop. People come in, just for a moment, until they disappear on their way. No traces are usually left behind. Neither wet footprints nor perfume withstand the crowds.

However, on the PATH Train to JSQ today, smudged blood colors the floor as I step inside. Dark leather shoes settle above it, as ordinarily as if it were kitchen tiles. A homeless person calls out for mercy, "We can all become homeless. Please feed me." But people avert their gaze, in a weak attempt to feign blindness. But we all heard him. Passing through the aisle, his arm brushes against my shoulder. I am too busy looking at the stained floor. Finally, the train doors open. People rush out. The color red smudges every shoe.

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A Moment

The clouds had made a crimson crown
Above the mountains high.
The stormy sun was going down
In a story sky.

Why did you let your eyes so rest on me,
And hold your breath between,
In all the ages this can never be
As if it had never been.

Mary Elizabeth Coleridge (1861-1907)

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Those Who Love

Those who love the most,
Do not talk of their love,
Francesca, Guinevere,
Dierdre, Iseult, Heloise
In the fragrant gardens of heaven
Are silent, or speak of at all
Of fragile inconsequent things.

And a woman I used to know
Who loved one man from her youth,
Against the strength of the fates
Fighting in somber pride
Never spoke of this thing,
But hearing his name by chance,
A light would pass over her face.

Sara Teasdale (1884-1933)

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This is how Filipinos eat Candy Apples.

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Just Smile.

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"Exploring" may be hazardous to your dignity

Lollipops.

(pauses for violent reactions)





Care for a nipple, anyone?

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Coney Island

Last Saturday, J, M, and I decided to take the E train to its last stop. It's interesting how the sea calls us still. And even if it wasn't the best beach to go to, we couldn't wait to be near the water's edge.

Plus points:
Soft-serve banana ice-cream
Man in orange briefs showing off his BALLS
Old Woman in a BRA
EXTRA white people

We have an instinct to deny our landlocked state and acknowledge the mariners that that we are. Like turtles born on land, we know that we must seek “the pounding of the waves,” the pulsing of collective memory. Not exempted from the mixing of blood and water in our veins, the sea is part of us. And though we risk the assuring concreteness of land, time and time again, we realize the need to thread through the unknown and surrender our gravity. Only then do we experience reconciliation between what we are and what we'll never completely be. And so finally we return to shore, ready to hold up our own weight, if only to wait and be called home again.

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The Function of Art 1

On the 1 train to 51st Street, a man armed with charcoal and a small notebook entered one day. Swirls of color stained his arms with tattoos that must have meant something to him. To her they whispered, "We cannot be contained."

Glancing around, he waited for something to speak--mysterious eyes, a shy smile, a strand of hair waiting to be brushed away. In their seeming ordinariness, he knew that each one still had a story to tell; each face, a fleeting testament to one's odysseys. But his eyes finally rested on her. He recognized her even if he'd never known her. And so with a strange sense of urgency, he simplified her life with lines of black and white, illuminating her soul with shaded depths of gray.

When he was satisfied, he flipped his notebook. A collection of strangers flash by. She wasn't his first. Stepping out, he hides a smile, proud to carry with him a testament to each one's secret desire--"Please see beyond me."

Recordar: To remember, from the Latin re-cordis, to pass back through the heart.

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LDF

If only I could stop breathing,
squeeze this ache and
clasp the vertigo inside me
in my fists...

If only I could run
to close this space
that reminds me that we're apart,

If only I could make you truly see--
see me,
how I am without you,

Then there would be no need for these quiet tears, shouting in ALL CAPS, and emoticons.

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Must stay calm.

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so this is how it feels to be angry.

Seriously? Seriously. How could you?

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For Inspiration...

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Heart beat!

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Bird in Flight

Fingers melt into sable wings.
I, a fluttering form
unable to escape these walls.
Nature dictates
its well-worn path--
This is north,
That is south.

I must go my own way.
But I cannot help
but be defined by you,
pulled by an instinct
born before me.

Ah, nature.
Or cruel fate?

I think we both yearn to break
away from this bond
and discover
our own shapes,
removed from these hands--
this glaring light,
that only illuminates our
incapacity to see beyond ourselves.

So why do we hold on
to this painful mimicry,
of me trying to be what you are,
a life void of color,
unable to let you go.

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Rationalize!

I ABHOR Omission!
Why? I would do the same.

Why?

It will just sour the talking!
You're talking about good things and then you're going to mix in those other people for no good reason?
How would that go, "Oh, by the way, I hung out with so-and-so"

But isn't honesty always first. What else is there, without honesty.

Peace?
How do you rescue that--hanging out with so-and-so?
To rescue it you have to say, "she's actually interesting"

I guess.

Which makes it even more weird!
The other option is "wala lang"
---Which is WORSE because you'll think he's being secretive!

Fine.
Rational, but not helpful.

So no exit talking about pointless meetings
So just omit!
Omission is the key to healthy relationshipssss.

What a lovely way to live.

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How much space does one person need?

So this is it...



This is the living room. LANG. hehe. I'm planning to make it my bedroom. :)
Then down here is the kitchen. It's HUUUGE.



And this is the bedroom which I plan to convert to my work room. :) It's really too much space for just one person.


Visitors, anybody? nudge. nudge.

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Orientales Putas!

(9th ave and Hudson? What does that MEAN? hahahaha!)

Last Sunday, we ended up drinking with J's friends from Kaplan. Apparently, there was a girl there who had a crush on her classmate so she got the wrong idea (thought J was after the guy) so she kinda got pissed. We thought it would be easier if we just left but the other girls told us to stay. So, we did.




We ended up drinking on the rooftop of their apartment.
The moon was full...with beer and drunken laughter.

"EXCUUSE, Why is two?"

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Is evanescence--fleetingness--a necessary element of the thing that most moves us?"
--Gregory Maguire

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Mikha's Fragile World

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We rejoice in our broken-ness.

"How children love the broken thing! And a puzzle is for the piecing together, especially for the young, who still believe it can be done."

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