Remembering the Dead

I'm feeling guilty. I'd completely forgotten about Josh's first death anniversary.

Here's a repost from last year:

Goodbye Josh

I’ll be doing my biggest fan a belated favor by posting his name here: Joshua D. Bueno (Feb7,1989-Oct18,2007). He copypasted a page of my blog onto his once in high school.

He was battling with Leukemia while I was having imaginary nose bleeding from all my finals work. The bodily fluid I shed the day I received the news included no tears until a moth landed on my chest. May pagkamanyak talaga tong si Bueno.

I simply wasn’t in the mood to mourn. I thought I had already mourned his loss 3 years ago when we had graduated from high school. I developed the habit of crying over people during separations and forgetting all about them afterward. He was one of the last to wish me well then. He said I’d get far. But then again, I did say he was my biggest fan. He always went out of his way to give me encouragement and praise. I never really took him seriously. I always regarded him as a delusional bumpkin (whom I suspected was too shy to go out of the closet) just because he thought I was worth anything. As far as I was concerned, it was the last time I’d see the boy. I was right.

As soon as I started college, I tried forgetting everything. I changed my number, my friendster account, my name. I tried fitting into a new life without the supposed dead. I couldn’t prevent meeting old classmates, and hearing about how others were doing. I heard Bueno was a constant Dean’s Lister, besides being active in the student council of St Paul’s Business School in Tacloban. I also heard he had developed a fashion sense and had found himself a beauty queen of a girlfriend (there goes my closet queen theory).

On October 16, I received a message from my mother that Bueno was in the hospital. They were apparently discussing me. My mom told me about the pride in his voice when he talked about what he had been hearing about me. It was as if he was seeing me on the road of success as he predicted. He didn’t know how off course I was. My mom suggested I call him. But I was running low on load, and I had a hundred other excuses.

It wasn’t real to me until I actually saw his corpse and talked to his mom. Our eyes brimmed with tears as she recounted how optimistic he was despite the odds. He’d accept any amount his parents would give him. He had no vices, and even to the very end, he told his mother to keep on fighting, because like chess, even if you lose a piece, you can still win.

I realized he never became a different person. He would always be my bumpkin friend, and the least I could have done was to call him up while he was still alive. We never really know what we have until it is lost. And I never knew how much I really cared until it dawned upon me that I’d never hear his cheesy lines anymore, and know that he meant every word.

Goodbye Joshua. Though I never told you, you could’ve been larger than life.

~~~

A year later, I realized nothing much changes. We set ourselves up for heartbreak. We still cherish the dying and ignore the healthy. We still mourn the dead and forget the living. We are only reminded about how fragile moments are when we are faced with our own mortality.

Relishing the sem break

For two days, I was dead to the world. I slept and slept and slept, and woke up in the evenings to lurk the intarwebs. And slept.

On the 3rd day, I went out with a bunch of office mates. Woah. "Went out with office mates" sounds weird. This coming from the girl who doesn't even go out with classmates. Aww, don't feel so bad *insert classmate's name currently reading post*, we'll go to a bar one of these nights and pretend neither of us feel weird about it.

It was a foreshadowing, that I would be working in the next couple of days.

But the only thing I'd done lately was a feature story on a Lapida maker. I interviewed the dude this morning, and fell asleep as soon as I went home. I had apparently forgotten that the story was due ASAP. And I want a lapida. A marble one will do just fine :3

I had a strange dream about old friends, where one of them turned into a clown working for a fair and the other wanting to keep me in her bag.

I woke up to work on my story, when Pangs and Fruhlein arrived. We all went to Ayna's place, where we met with future lady-killer, Jack (see what I mean about the Santiago idea?), before going to Big Foot with pizza.

I thinks my groom is afraid of me. :3 I likes him aredi :3 And liek Pangs said, I'm marrying the terminator. :3

On the way home, I was on a jeep, relating my motivations for my role with Pangs (method acting) in the first person. So I was basically telling him about sleeping with someone to compensate for the lack of passion in my real relationship and ending up falling for my fubu. There were 6 guys in the jeep, and all of them were eavesdropping. Sex sells.

Apart from which, I'll be going to Dumaguete this Friday, come back for a debut (Fruhlein's), shoot a party scene on All Hallow's Eve, and possibly actually party, and go over my screenplay with my AD.

And enrollment. No going home for me apparently.

An Ode to the Half Moon

I cant access DA.

~~~

It is an old game you play with me
That solemn wink in the black sea
That makes me feel like a voyeur, guilty
But indignant that I should be

Because there is nothing I can do
About you showing me what you do

And I will wonder where the rest of you went
With all my precious time on you spent

But you lure me on, out my window
To wait and wonder, til the break of the 'morrow

And lose more of myself
As I always do
And put pride to the shelf
Just to battle with you

Pity

Lamentations! Lamentations!

Done in this wicked hour
When the bridegroom pricked his member
Within a poisoned flower

And the bride, she knelt
Amongst the roses
And crushed the poisoned flower
And her sweet sweet Moses
His face turned swiftly dour

Rest quick, rest at ease
Quickly now, be at peace

And we shall mourn for the lost
And we shall mourn for the prick

~~~

It's a whole 15 days from Halloween, and a day after Moon Doll's birthday. This was written during a break from watching Elvira videos. Advanced Happy Hallow's all you happy campers. :)

Pissed

I was with Veron at Turtle's, doing 8 months worth of catching up, when a boy came into the gate with an outstretched hand. I brushed the boy off, told him to go away, and continued talking to Ate Veron. Eventually the kid started shouting and wailing, going "Ah di mo manghatag ha?", virtually just being annoying. We were paying him no heed when he approached us and started poking at Veron's hair. I stared at him, and he started poking me. I put my foot in front of us, yet he continued with the poking. I put a hand in front of my face and cursed him, apparently the intimidate roll failed, because he continued on. I stood up, at which point the boy ran. I ran after him, to make sure he knew I meant business and to make sure he wasn't coming back. A couple of citom officers standing by asked me what was up when I came back. I guess it wasn't their jurisdiction, but it would still help. The owner of the little mountaineering nook beside Turtle's came out and asked us what the kid did. Apparently, he frequented the place, harassing the patrons to get money. Lechugas.

I choose the people who harass me, which I why I met up with Veron. She hasn't changed one bit. And I was in such a mood that I was willing to break the boy's fingers for touching me. Not that I could have accomplished such, but the will can do amazing things.

Do any of you know where I can get an airgun?

I'll take a month

Last night, the silence was broken by a piercing scream. Happens all the time in books. Or movies. Seldom irl.

But the woman screamed as if she'd just met Frankenstein. Now Franky, as we all know, lives inside her head. Because the real Frankenstein wouldn't go through that much trouble just to scare little old her. Where is he from anyway? Europe? Unless of course she was his mail order bride. But then again, do the undead browse filipinaheart.com? Yuck, zombie love. Point is, Frankenstein lives in her head. I have monsters in my head too, why do I have to save her from hers? Besides, it's halloween, monsters are supposed to be EVERYWHERE. On your yards, Under your beds, inside your closet, in your pants, in your dreams. Monsters everywhere. They get there whether you like it or not.

The monster in my head isn't as large as a worm yet. But it's burrowing itself amongst my brain cells, making room for a home, with a lanai up front, and perhaps even a swimming pool. It'll live there and feed off me, and grow til it's larger than my brain, and I'll burst open, with a child born of my head, the way Zeus had Athena. But I'm no God of Thunder, so I'd prolly die. Which is a good thing sometimes. The dead do own the earth after all, and all I own atm is my past. And dredged up memories aren't cool to have.

Sieze the day, someone is bound to say. But what if it siezes you? Makes you into some sort of human console and press your buttons til it wins? if you're getting images of Chobits, I guess you get the picture.

Otaku Fest 2.0

FYI, we're coming up with another Otaku Fest, with more delights to watch out for, specifically:

TEH BISHIE PAGEANT!!! (Yes, it's a pageant for boys who look like bishies. And I shall be part of the screening committee. Because I said so >:P)

Workshops (I still have to contact potential resource people, so topics are pending)

More hobbies

More merchandise

More featured guests (Alodia perhaps? mehehehe)

More games

More lulz

And most of all, moar kittehs!!!

The possibility of picking up where the Mandaue Lan party left off is also in the works, and we're still open to ideas. Finalization is set for 2nd week of October, and the event itself is set on December 13 (unless something comes up). Still accepting suggestions and willing victims to be part of organizing committee, coz like they say, if you want something done, you have to do it yourself.

Carnival of horrors

So the elders decided we were competition for the karaoke mic and had us go to the carnival.

This wasn't a very good idea for me to begin with since there were only two of us college girls and a handful of elementary kids since the kids my age were all at a rave party my brother organized. I regret not going.

My co-babysitter, Ate Mae, was starting to get stomach pains. She suspected food poisoning. I lold at my bad luck. Then Ate Jean came from the rave party, and invited me along, baiting me with news that an old fling had gone to the gym and had become "delicious". The kids were getting impatient. The kids won over newly buffed dude (I was overpowered).

Entrance was at P5. The place was packed with people, gambling booths, and three rides:

1.)a ferris wheel that looked like it would collapse with the right wind

2.)a network of eetsy bitsy airplanes. Out of order.

3.)a "horror" train.

So Ate Ara decided everyone would get on the train. Little Raiza didn't want to get onto anything that had "horror" on it. I told her she was scarier than all the horrors in the world, but she stayed behind with Kisses. So I paid 6xP15 for the whole lot who were getting on the train. That was the least sulit P90 I'd ever spent in my entire life. I would have made a much better job. All that was inside the tunnel was a kid in a frankenstein mask. And he stayed in the same area. At one round, he hid behind the curtains, I suspect, not to be mysterious, but because some of the kids in front were hitting him. Lulz. Kid prolly didn't want to respawn no moarz.

So after the trip, some of the kids had managed to escape me, and had started betting on the gambling booths. I was able to round them up and leave before they could do anymore gambling.

I suspect the most excitement we would have gotten is if someone tried stealing my purse and the eventual running after the turd.

So we went home. I guess I AM going to that rave party after all. And if that sucks as well, I'm going home to make my own horror tunnel.

The Lady on the Mountain: A Repost

He was an artisan, made famous by his sculpting in particular. He was said to be a prophet of the aesthetic, for there was no rock or stone or wood he could not turn into a thing of beauty. What was even more curious about his work was that it seemed as if his hands sculpted life into his media.

He worshipped beauty, and it was his quest to sculpt what to him was divine. Men from far and wide came to commission him to sculpt their Gods and Goddesses and he obliged. Even the leaders of the land came to him with expensive gifts so that he’d sculpt them. His perception of beauty earned him many powerful enemies. He earned a price over his head for rejecting many commissions.

Eventually, the artisan took his tools and climbed a mountain to live the rest of his days alone with his art. He was set out to create the embodiment of beauty, and in his loneliness, he fashioned it to be a woman. When there was nothing more to perfect, he kissed the lips of the statue, happy that his life’s work was done. Then he walked away and was never heard of again.

To this day, Galatea waits on the mountain, covered in ivy and wildflowers.
-October 22, 2007