Yes. I do not want to take your photo. I am easily exasperated and have difficulties conveying and verbalizing my thoughts (my preferred mode of communication is mind osmosis, what’s yours?). I have a picture, an idea in mind and sometimes, I think I’m the only one who gets it. Thus, I know how to move, I know how to pose, I know how to look at my camera (and nail that shot in fifteen minutes). Other people would probably get it all wrong.

Then, I really don’t know. I have never yet to try it, I might surprise myself.

Unfortunately, this idea came to me at 930 in the evening. When I get home, I’ll be too lazy to take a picture of— I don’t know— my dinner. So this is today’s photo:

I was aiming for pinup, ended up with rockabilly.

Aren’t you excited for tomorrow’s.

Songs 21-40 (because ten aren’t enough!) will be songs that defined my high school years! It’s always good to remember the late 90s and early 00s, when mainstream pop was actually good*.

Although a couple of those listed are actually from the mid-90s, I think.

21. I Don’t Want To Wait – Paula Cole
There’s something magical in Paula Cole’s voice and this song always envelopes me in warm sunshine; there is an itch to run barefoot on sand while being bathed in golden light, the wind in my hair.

I blame Dawson’s Creek.

22. #1 Crush – Garbage
Such frightening passion (bordering on creepy/stalkerish) that aptly describes the love between Romeo and Juliet (at least the 20th century Hollywood blockbuster version…and you bet I was a huge fan of the movie and soundtrack). Now imagine a 12-year old girl wailing the words (my favorite lines: I will burn for you, feel pain for you, I will twist the knife and bleed my aching heart and tear it apart. I will lie for you, beg and steal for you, I will crawl on hands and knees until you see— you’re just like me) to this song. Scariest declaration of love. I love it.

23. The Rockafeller Skank – Fatboy Slim
One of my former high school best friends and I used to dance to this in their house’s guest bedroom after school. This and Korn’s Got The Life. Basically, we did a lot of jumping around in our uniforms.

24. Maria – Blondie
Maria is the kind of girl I would like to be: walking on imported air, making your heart beat like a subway train, blue as ice and desire, and all that.

25. Near You Always – Jewel
I didn’t think that the song I used to skip in favor of the heartbreaking You Were Meant For Me, the commentary on American lifestyle that is Who Will Save Your Soul, and the poetic Foolish Games would be the song that would play in my mind when I was falling in love with the lover. <3

26. Landslide (Fleetwood Mac original) – Smashing Pumpkins cover or Tori Amos cover
Everyone loved this song— to the point of cheesiness— in high school and I’m a bit annoyed at myself for not appreciating the original version more, but it is what it is: I spent my awkward teens listening (with the occasional sob here and there) to Billy Corgan’s barely breathless screeching earnestly singing about the passage of time, change, and loss. Nevermind that I was too young to know what it’s like to build my life around something and someone.

In college, I come across Tori Amos’s cover and fall in love all over again.

27. Nothing Compares 2 U – Sinead O’Connor
Remixed, this makes a good jeepney rock anthem. Sad and pining, it makes a perfect companion.

(I am aware that this song— the original, that is— is older than I am, heh.)

28. Celebrity Skin
I totally have a thing for sexy decadence and angry girl anthems. And cokewhores. Plus, Courtney Love and Melissa Auf der Maur!

29. Shimmer – Fuel
Because all that shimmers in this world is sure to fade away. Again.

30. Life in Mono – Mono
Best listened to at the beginning of your day, preferably when it’s gray and dreary. Or while drowning past regrets in tea and cigarettes.

*With some exceptions, of course. Boyzone, Ronan Keating, Westlife, and A1, to name a few.

11. Stars – Au Revoir Simone
Cutest chorus ever (that makes me think of the lover who is thousands of miles away): “You make wanna measure stars in the backyard with a calculator and a ruler, baby. I found a letter that describes how the moonlight will lead me to the distant place that you will be.”

12. Both Hands – Ani DiFranco
Ani and her beautiful imagery ♥

13. The Quiz – Hello Saferide
When I was 15, I wrote this foolish little manifesto of sorts called “The Boyfriend Contract” listing what I require from, well, potential boyfriends. Said contract has long been erased from memory (thankfully) and I’ve sworn never again display such pompousness. But! if I’d ever have to (seeing that we all have a choice in the matter), I’d like it to be a little like this song. Questions like “Can you sleep when I grind my teeth?”, “Do you talk in the middle of Seinfeld?”, and “Do you still keep pictures of old girlfriends? Are they prettier than me?” before asking “If I fall, will you pick me up?”

Annika Norlin writes some of the funniest, most adorable (and saddest) lyrics.

14. Fuck and Run – Liz Phair
Once upon a time, I was a trusting (and very masochistic) 18- or 19-year old being strung along by this guy. This is how he made me feel.

15. Tempted – Squeeze
Reality Bites <3

16. Breathe Me – Sia
00:11. Favorite part.

17. Fiery Crash – Andrew Bird
I can’t help but smile when he sings “Just as you were starting to say something apropos, I don’t know” and the bum bum bum bum and whistling that follows.

I also have a crush on him.

(And Sufjan Stevens and Rufus Wainwright.)

I mean, look:

18. Your Rocky Spine – Great Lake Swimmers
This is how I would like a boy to describe/sing about my body (none of that Your Body Is A Wonderland crap).

19. Elevator Love Letter – Stars
If this song had a heart, legs, and arms, I’d take it home with me and teach it how to love ♥

20. Photobooth – Death Cab for Cutie
I think that had I heard Photobook before We Laugh Indoors, it wouldn’t have taken me years to warm up to DCFC. Sad songs sung cheerfully— definitely one of the quickest ways to my heart. Plus, the melody is so.cute.

But anyway. Thanks to Gino, I now have blog entry fodder. Instead of boring you, though, with a long list, I have decided to breakitdown! into ten parts (Shazam!— ten instant new blog entries to get me out of my blogging rut). Added lulz as I try (and fail!) to describe my choices.

(I also thought of categorizing the parts into playlists: breakup songs, favorite post-rock tracks, rainy day music, complements to caffeine and nicotine etc etc but I’m too lazy to. Moo.)

1. Við spilum endalaust – Sigur Rós
The train had pulled in to Ortigas station and just as the doors were about to hiss open, this song started playing on my iPod. Like I always do, I sighed. Quite loudly, because I heard myself despite having the volume turned way up. At the risk if sounding like a wide-eyed adjective-inept idiot, I’ll go ahead and describe this song as “pure magic”. And “beautiful…OMFG, beautiful”.

There are two songs that have this effect on me (sighing audibly, like I am exhaling my proverbial heavy heart); the first is this and the second is…

2. First Breath After Coma – Explosions in the Sky
Pling pling pling…my heart swells.

3. Flocks III – Collections of Colonies of Bees
The buildup, the buildup, I have a special place in my heart for songs that start slowly and tentatively and then just burst into brilliance (HAHAHAHAHA WTF AM I SAYING HAHAHAHAHAHA) and after it stuns and hypnotizes you, ends with a flourish, perfectly. At 10:47, I shake my head in awe. I probably look like a moron everytime.

4. Motorcyle Drive By – Third Eye Blind
I love that, no matter my situation in life, this song always seems to hit the bullseye. Perhaps there is a part of me that will always be 12, naively sad, and wanting. I am in love with the lines Careening through the universe, your axis on a tilt, you’re guiltless and free / I hope you take a piece of me with you. !!!

5. Charm Attack – Leona Naess
Yummy pop goodness, this defines my freshman year in college and is probably the best song I’ve ever shared with my female friends. I remember a girl friend and I singing-yelling “Watch out! He’ll charm you! Smoother than the LAweather that’showheholdshimselftogether heiscolderthanthewinter Iwrapmycoataroundtobetter *DEEP BREATH* COUNTERACT! HIS CHARM ATTACK! THAT LEAVES ME HUNGRY WELL! I’M NO SAVIOR BUT I TRIED TO SAVE YOU WITH! ALLLLL MYYYYY LOOOOOOOOOOVE” in the school hallways. Ah, so much love <3 for Leona Naess.

6. Lost Coastlines – Okkervil River
This is the kind of song that gets me out of bed at 3am to fish my iPod out of my bag (in the dark!), like a craving that needs to be satisfied, just so I’d have something lovely to lull me to sleep (and it fails to put me to sleep, of course, as these guys are such goooooooood lyricists that I end up listening listening to the words). “Is that marionette real enough yet to step off of that set to decide what her dance might be doing? Ruining the play to, in the ensuing melee, escape”. Seriously? Such eloquence <3

7. Last Goodbye – Jeff Buckley
Did you say “no, this can’t happen to me”? Did you rush to the phone to call?
I did, I did.

8. World Spins Madly On – The Weepies
Opens with “Woke up and wished that I was dead” and ends with “I thought of you and where you’d gone and the world spins madly on”. Oh, heartache.

9. Hear Me Out – Frou Frou
#7 used to be my numero uno breakup song…until I discovered this song in a Hed Kandi album I downloaded a couple of years ago. While Last Goodbye screams of desperation— a more appropriate emotion during breakups, Hear Me Out is calm pleading and denial with a little bit of hope. “I’m a slow motion accident, lost in coffee rings and fingerprints. I don’t wanna feel anything but I do…and it all comes back to you”. Oh oh oh <3

10. Daniel – Juliana Hatfield
So simple and pretty and very girlypop 90s (nevermind that it gets repetitive towards the end). This song makes me wish I had blue eyes so I could shock a boy by telling him “My eyes are blue like you. Our babies will be born blue.”

Holy industrial hand wheels! I blogged! 11-20 some time this week!

Let’s take this picture of this hipster wannabe (one who has spent too many hours reading diet pill reviews):

Drag/paste the texture on to a new layer:

Change the blend mode to whichever looks best (I usually set mine to multiply):

Hit U to bring up the shape tool and choose the rounded rectangle (or whichever) and adjust the radius as you please:

Right click and choose "make selection":

Set the feather value (the higher the number, the softer):

Backspace to delete!

Ta-da!

If you’re Filipina and on Flickr, please join the FF group. We do weekly themed pictures and well, we’re fun.

If You Wish To Be Removed From This List
Jeanne Marie Beaumont

You must be more careful. You must wash your hands up to your elbows and dry them with a linen towel. You must say please. You must swallow your lumpy medicine. You must draw a card and return it to the deck. You must deny deny deny. You must put it in writing. You must write your name on a cup and pee in it. You must read Moby Dick. You must read Moby Dick again. You must perform forty hours of public penance. You must eat your spinach and finish your milk. You must shave. You must do windows. You must name names. You must demonstrate your ability to parallel park. You must share. You must lock the door and leave the key under the mat. You must change diapers. You must sift the dry ingredients and fold them into the wet ingredients. You must learn to work around the pain. You must drop a sack of unmarked bills in the trash bin by the sweetgum tree. You must forget what you just saw. You must produce your passport when asked: now. You must slip into something more uncomfortable. You must revise. You must, for your own protection, put on the blindfold. You must reset your clock. You must let the dog lie at the foot of the bed. You must pay the piper and leave a generous tip; use exact change. You must burn the dark letters. You must bail some water. You must forgive your mother. You must march to the river’s edge. You must stop crying. You must give away your possessions to the poor. You must soak in bleach. You must pledge allegiance. You must summon the energy to clear the last hurdle. You must be very very brave. You must click your heels three times. Wish to be removed from this list, moved from this list, emptied of all words.

Genius. ♥

Trying to get back into blogging. I’ll be back, eventually :)

Isn’t annuity a nice word?

Last night, I asked the boyfriend what his favorite word is/favorite words are. I was playing with an idea for my 365 and I wanted something that didn’t seem very la-di-da and something I could easily turn into an image. As expected, his initial answers were of the lemme-think kind (I don’t know. Sex? Helga?).

So I told him my current favorite words: gossamer, scintillate, effulgent, and strident…and harlot. I like harlot. A lot. It also seemed like the perfect karma-bait question (I was wrong, I only got 16 replies) so I headed over to Plurk and asked my friends for their favorite words. I got brazened, unbridled, ramifications, ineffable, inevitable, etc etc. Finally, he answers :

I really should go ahead and create that My Boyfriend Says the Darndest Things blog.

…………………………………

This is a little late and is no way of any great importance but I would like to announce to the internets that at long last, I have figured out what my biggest turn on is. I used to think it was power and my dating history shows that I am drawn and tend to go for alpha males. Most of them were douchebags (unfortunately/naturally), but hey, they were powerful douchebags! This ruffled the boyfriend a whole lot, of course, as there is that possibility I may leave him for the next more powerful guy (never, I say. Never!).

…

Anyway, it’s romance. When I think about it, I’ve always been a sucker for romance (and the idea of love/falling in love and I’m really glad I’m not easily swept away). I’m just worried that I have a bit of twisted idea of romance— none of that wining and dining, courtship, flowers, and chocolates sort. At my worst, I’m of the metaphorical dragon-slaying and princess-saving kind. At my best, I’m fine with being cuddled like a kitty cat and being told I’m beautiful.

I sound emotionally easy, don’t I?

My biggest turn off? Unavailability. I find it quite amusing that nearly two years ago, the only reason I had agreed to meet up with the boyfriend was because I had deemed him to be emotionally-unavailable. Someone safe. We all know how that turned out ♥

…………………………………

I was re-reading my personal astrology portrait, trying to make more sense out of it. I say more because I’ve been reading the damn thing since 2006 and I still don’t completely get it. This is the gist of my personal astrology portrait aka who you are when you’re a female born in Manila, Philippines at 730am on May 31, 1985: Sun in Gemini, Moon in Libra, Ascendant in Cancer, Moon in the Fourth House, Saturn in the Fifth House, Neptune Opposition Ascendant, Venus in the Tenth House, Sun in the Twelfth House.

Eh?

But anyway, having my ascendant in Cancer (is that the proper term? My ascendant in Cancer?) apparently “gives the tendency to completely retreat when hurt or frightened of a situation”. Werd, berd. Staging distance is my defense mechanism. What’s yours?

Well, this entry was just all over the place, much like a drunken Helga on a weekend night.

Yay,discount furniture!

But I do like answering questions that call for self-indulgent answers.

And so here we have Your Best Year Ever! with just enough material to turn into a series of self-indulgent blog entries. I didn’t even read the whole text, I just scrolled down to get to the part with the questions.

1. What did I accomplish?
2. What were my biggest disappointments?
3. What did I learn?
4. How do I limit myself, and how can I stop?
5. What are my personal values?
6. What roles do I play in my life?
7. Which role is my major focus for the next year?
8. What are my goals for each role?
9. What are my top ten goals for the next year?
10. How can I make sure I achieve them?

Question #1: What did I accomplish in 2008?

You know it’s not going to be a very good answer when you have to go through your 2008 blog archives to refresh your memory. In somewhat chronological order:

• Found the courage to quit my miserable call center job (though this went down— har— in December 2007) and take up a proper course in web design.
• Maintained doesn’t seem to be the right word so…continued to nurture a long-distance relationship with the man I fell in love with in 2007. It’s been a little over eighteen months since we first met and we’re still together. What surprises me is that this does not surprise me. At all. We’ve had our moments, of course, like this incident in December when we broke up for three hours (something I will not elaborate because it was so silly). Some people have asked how we do it and it’s simple, really: it’s because we want to be together. It also helps that we both want the same future ;)
• Got curls! I’ve always wanted a perm and I finally went ahead and got one last March. The curls are gone for the meantime but as soon as my hair has rested and is long enough, I’m getting my mermaid hair back.
• Got a non-call center job in June 2008. Eight months later and I’m still at it.

…And that’s it (???).

Suddenly, my 2008 feels so unfulfilled. Well, there’s motivation to make the most out of 2009. I want credit card machines for my birthday. Just because.

Today is a little bit of both and it’s no surprise that I’m feeling a little blue.

Or perhaps it’s just because I’m hungover. I really should learn how to control my Friday night alcohol intake but in the company of nutty friends, I tend to let go. I must have had ten beers last night on an almost empty stomach but I still had my wits with me when I cabbed it home at 4 in the morning. It’s hard to get drunk drunk when you’re always on your feet. The aftermath is always horrible, though, and I woke up with a beer gut that would put a college fratman to shame. I don’t regret the beer, I regret the meal I wolfed down before I went to bed. And the two meals I once again had, immediately after waking up. All I can do is sigh and make a half-empty promise to myself not to do it again. Right.

I haven’t been writing lately and it hurts me a little, I feel like my mind has been squeezed dry by the internet (of all things!). I hung out with an old friend from college the other night, Phil, who is one of the best and most versatile writers I know. I find it amazing how he never runs out of words and I actually asked him that “How come you never run out of words?” I had too-quickly drank two bottles of beer by then and his answer’s a bit fuzzy but I do remember him saying that writing is a challenge for (I’m sorry but this is so apropos: the universe seems to be in sync with me this afternoon; right after I typed that last sentence, Mikah sent me this link) him…something like that. I don’t do interesting conversations justice.

The lover says I am good at writing, that I inspire him but that I just don’t apply myself. I guess it’s because I get sidetracked too easily and this is one of my biggest flaws. There’s just too many interesting and trivial things grabbing for my attention and if the world would only stop being so fascinating to give me enough time to collect my thoughts. But that’s not how it works.

Lover: it’s like a huge part of what made me fall in love with you.
Lover: i love the written word, and you are a walking written word.

Yep, this is the hangover doing the writing. Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone, I’m off to look at computer desks before getting ready for tonight (which shall be spent in an office studio somewhere along Katipunan Avenue, playing with cameras and lights). I leave you with a quotation quite fitting for today:

A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.
-Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

You got it, boyfriend.

I feel like saying something truly inappropriate.

I think I’ll go sit on a snowflake.

Maybe I should try fiction.

Or weight loss pills.