I'm now over here...
and updating just as often.
Difference
I've been staring at the same spreadsheet for the past two hours and nothing has changed. Well, maybe something did, but only temporarily. Any changes were always swiftly undone, effectively amounting to nothing changing after two hours of changing and subsequent undoing.
The girl in a neighbouring cubicle is acting as a mediator between her sister and her sister's on-again/off-again boyfriend. In between talking to the two lovers/non-lovers, she updates her mother, her father, her boyfriend and her best friend; a repeated, running commentary on the day's unfolding drama. I don't know if he loves her. She doesn't spend enough time with her. He hasn't paid rent in two weeks. She's flirting with a co-worker. The story is told and re-told and embellished and edited. The girl in a neighbouring cubicle is playing a solitary game of Chinese Whispers. Her phone is constantly ringing, dropping, dialling, on hold. And it's not helping in changing the same spreadsheet that I have been staring at for the past two hours.
Mum's fiftieth birthday is just around the corner. Over the past week I've held meetings with her friends, the MC, arranged for pre-recorded birthday wishes from New York and Davao, finalised a programme and a this-is-your-life-on-a-projected-screen-kind-of-like-a-movie-montage-but-not-really slide show. It's been an exhausting, tiresome exercise that, so far, feels rather unrewarding, overly contrived and a chore rather than a labour of love. I guess it's like any other birthday party. The only good, so far, to come of it has been seeing my uncle and auntie make their way from Manila to Sydney. But seeing them only makes me wish that I had some extended family to hang out with here. I'm jealous that I can't introduce anybody here as my cousin's cousin. That would be sick. Fully sick. Subwoofer. Thinking about it is not helping in changing the same spreadsheet that I have been staring at for the past two hours.
Blogging about staring at the same spreadsheet for the past two hours, and the girl in a neighbouring cubicle, and Mum's fiftieth, has changed nothing. I think I'll go get a sandwich.
News
By the time I woke up today our housekeeper had already managed to toil through all the weeds in our front yard and mop the foyer of our house to such a glossy finish that it looked as if I could glide all the way to the kitchen if I had been wearing socks. She had left the gate and front door open and unattended, and she hid behind the shrubs that somehow turned into square hedges over the years without our attention. I said hello. She didn't reply.
I made myself french toast for breakfast, which was a lot of trouble for a few bites of pleasure. Whilst eating I thought about the divine duck ravioli and pesto I had the night before and browsed through our unused cookbooks in hope that I would find the recipe. There was nothing - nothing even close to duck ravioli and pesto. All five cookbooks were Asian cookbooks; three of them, of Thai recipes. The closest was a recipe for duck curry, and in my books, that isn't even close to duck ravioli and pesto, though I'd still enjoy either.
As I was putting away the dishes I thought about something that D had mentioned a few days ago - her boss hated blogs and MySpace and Facebook and the like. But I couldn't remember the reason why. I think it might have been that he didn't like the idea that so many insignificant happenings could be broadcast so easily.
Mr Brightside
It started out with a kiss, how did it end up like this?
There's a phenomenon in this world that marries people and songs together at just the right time. It's like the equilibrium point in a supply and demand curve, that thrashing chord progressions and spoken words combine to meet you at the exact moment that the lyrics are apt, and they make beautiful sense in the X,Y and Z world.
New toys have always had the power to cheer me up. This time it's a Mac, and just as the advertisement promised, its sleek casing and foreign one-button mouse has resurrected a creative side in me that I've just let die since my break-up. I mean, you have to be creative when you've only got one mouse button to work with. The first project is (was?) a knee-jerk, angry, retrospective piece on the last five years of my life. I say 'was' because this has been shelved, quietly hibernating in the winter of My Documents gathering cyber-dust. It's a hundred-odd page mess that is my first attempt at meta-fiction. I hope to present this to a publisher by the end of the year, so I can relive the process of having another person tearing my heart apart, telling me of my shortcomings and abandoning me for some B-grade story about kid-sorcerers or Catholic conspiracies. The lack of a comments function in this blog says more than just oh, not many people read this - it says I can't take criticism very well. Let me tell you, it's hard being awesome.
But right now I'm trying to compose my own songs, with my own words armed with only an elementary knowledge of the world of music. I hope that emotion and ambition will be enough to drive me to create an mp3 I'd be proud to call mine. I guess I'm trying to create that phenomenon for myself, and every other stranger who might be feeling the same way. I've chanced on the phenomenon often enough as the stranger, so hopefully lightning will strike once for me on the other side of the relationship. It's a selfish way of returning the favour, really.
Out of curiosity and sheer chance, I managed to catch wind of your latest news. Goddamn, that brought a sour taste in my mouth. As one stupid turn deserves another, I attempted to contain the fires, or just purge everything, by way of tequila shots and Heineken. It was nice to be taken back to those oh-too-glorified days of how I used to define fun. But the fun didn't end there, although it should have. I never knew I had so much spite and fire within. Just as stupid turns go, so too did the revelations, and it's just been a fucking tragic story of one discovery after the other, not unlike a Springer episode. I like things to be moving, I'm a big fan of motion as well as emotion, but right now I'm an out-of-control trolley of unnecessary groceries that will inevitably crash into the most expensive car in the parking lot.
It was only a kiss, it was only a kiss...
Apathy
In the never-ending conflict between material desires and fulfilment of the heart, I've come across common ground where both will be completely dissatisfied, yet neutralised - apathy. Strangely, it is a natural opposite to both forces which makes it just dandy; killing two birds with one stone, really. This is not uncharted territory, nor is it feared. But regardless of what it is or what it ain't, it doesn't really matter. Right now, I couldn't care less.
Breaking free from the drop-outs of Unwired, I'm beginning to realise my true leeching potential. Frasier, Will & Grace, um John Waite's - Missing You - I've got them! The next installment of past sitcoms, or tunes that will inevitably be given my disgraceful treatment at Karaoke World, are all I look forward to, because they are finite and last a lifetime. Few things in this world fit such criteria.
Box
I, like everybody else in Sydney who didn't want to get fined, stood by a flimsy cardboard booth with a stupidly large piece of paper at hand sometime last month. Unlike most, however, I didn't give mine much thought, nor did I complete it 'properly'. After all, how can I take an activity like voting seriously when one of the nine parties is named The Fishing Party.
It was around this time that a new employee begun work at my office and I was, and still am, in charge of training her. It's amazing how ambiguous a short, emailed introduction from the CEO can be when he described her as 'experienced'. So far, the only signs of experience I've witnessed are her wrinkles. Despite working in several dubious institutions in my time, I don't think I've met anyone less proactive, or with a lower IQ, than this woman. In retaliation, I've waged a silent war against the corporation by refusing to answer any fucking obvious questions from this woman (are the client files in the filing cabinets?) and by forwarding the most difficult clients to her. It's petty I know, but it feels so right!
I, like everybody else in Sydney who didn't want to get fined, stood by a flimsy cardboard booth with a stupidly large piece of paper at hand sometime last month. Unlike most, however, I didn't give mine much thought, nor did I complete it 'properly'. After all, how can I take an activity like voting seriously when one of the nine parties is named The Fishing Party.
It was around this time that a new employee begun work at my office and I was, and still am, in charge of training her. It's amazing how ambiguous a short, emailed introduction from the CEO can be when he described her as 'experienced'. So far, the only signs of experience I've witnessed are her wrinkles. Despite working in several dubious institutions in my time, I don't think I've met anyone less proactive, or with a lower IQ, than this woman. In retaliation, I've waged a silent war against the corporation by refusing to answer any fucking obvious questions from this woman (are the client files in the filing cabinets?) and by forwarding the most difficult clients to her. It's petty I know, but it feels so right!
A month ago I left a family that had helped me for so long. It's one of the few things that I actually care about, and it breaks my heart every time I think about it. Like right now.
Trying To Understand
A few weeks ago an MRI scan confirmed that my Dad not only has one, but three slipped discs in the upper spinal region. Due to its position and stage of development, surgery is an even fifty-fifty gamble between a complete cure or being completely paralyzed. As a man of reason and strength, he's opted to bear the pain, placing the needs of his loved ones ahead of his own.
In light of this news I have decided to spend even more time with family. I've been pestering Mum with questions about him that I had never cared to ask before. And with every seemingly inconsequential story that she recalls I have begun to view everything that he has done, and continues to do, in its proper context.
I hope Chiara doesn't wait as long as I have in trying to understand him, because she may not have the luxury of time.
07 - I Like Your New Stuff Better Than Your Old Stuff
Hi, I'm back. And with photos. LOTS of photos that I cannot be bothered to upload on another website - ask me if you want to see them. And if you do see them, please don't comment on the photography. I've never been good at taking criticism, more so when it's due. But in saying that, I don't really see the point of experiencing sights behind a lens. If I really wanted a 'perfect' shot I'd walk to a souvenir store, pick up a postcard and that should feed their family for a day. Stories too will not be re-told - this blog is for things that I will most likely forget, and nobody ever forgets their holidays. So, what's this all about? Well, nothing much, really. I had an epic wall of text ready to be transferred to this blog, but I've decided against a public declaration. Lofty goals have been set and the wheels are in motion. The inner circle already know, and they're the only people that need to know.
Oh, the drama!
World Inc. (HDR)
A hardly natural cycle has taken me to this place, though strangely inviting, I am not moved. It's concrete arm leads me to a promise of heaven, even lending stepping stones and a hand to guide me to my ascent, but I am still not moved. Instincts alert me to be wary of inauspicious windows locked by bent steel. Yet the voices around me have led me to this place, as the voices around them had done so in the past.
From the ground, all that can be seen are ominous clouds and a behemoth made to trap and exhaust life until the days end. And come tomorrow, expect nothing less, or more. After all, one cannot expect different results from the same behaviour.
So today, you'll find I've left, following in the footsteps of the Man who is chasing a shooting star. The world looks so surreal when captured in such stark contrast.
Mother (read between the lines)
Prior to this post, I couldn't think of anything more impersonal and insincere than borrowed work - but once again I believe I was wrong.
...at the same time God, who is airborne and appears against ovoid drapery, is contrasted with earthbound Adam, lying on a stable triangle of barren ground.
The inspiration for Michelangelo's treatment of the subject may come from a medieval hymn called Veni, Creator Spiritus, which asks the 'finger of the paternal right hand' (digitus paternae dexterae) to give the faithful speech, love and strength.
Adam's index finger, the most famous in Western art alongside God's, is in fact not the work of Michelangelo. It was damaged beyond repair by a crack that appeared in the ceiling in the mid-16th century and was repainted by a papal restorer.
(Ctrl+C & Ctrl+V from Wikipedia - The Creation of Adam)
Excel
As you can see from the above graph, there is not much to report to my shareholders other than it is business as usual. Below is a brief overview.
The past Financial Year saw incredible losses in Sleep, offset by an increase in Traffic and Reading. The record hours of Work for minimal pay has again appeared as a major force in the Projectamor Portfolio. It is an integral component of most Portfolios, and it will come under review this year. We aim to make this component more efficient. Most alarming, however, is the rise of Boredom - though only constituting 5% of the Portfolio, it is highly volatile and is forecasted to rise in a winter of discontent.
Joy, representing 2% of the total Portfolio, came in fits and spurts in the past Financial Year. This can be attributed to the acquisition of The Strokes (fuck yeah!) tickets, WoW milestones and the World Cup. This sector, however, is likely to diminish to almost nothing as the one-off events pass. Projectamor does aim to invest more research and activity into this sector, and it is a major focus point for this year.
All in all, a rather solid, if uneventful, year for the Projectamor Portfolio as it hopes to reach a respectable result come maturity.
And Around
Listening To: Josh Rouse - And Around
I can identify the lowest point, I can identify the points when it looked like the episode was over but I've never been able to pin-point exactly how and when it started, and I don't know if it will ever end. I've tried pegging it to different measures - how much I weigh, how many activities I'm involved in, how many close friends come to my aid, the Dow, the ratings of the Opposition Leader on a two party-preferred vote - but I can't seem to find anything else quite so unstable and incomplete. I'll have to look into quicksand.
I've turned to History for answers, but all it tells me is that I've moved around a lot before and that I wish for nothing more than to establish. I've turned to Geography and connected all the dots of all the places I have been to and have lived in before, and when connected it took a lot of imagination and rotation to forcedly see anything. It was a pattern of a serial criminal or an obscure constellation. But then again, aren't they all? Check out Caelum if you don't believe me. How the fuck is that a chisel?. I've turned to English and Literature, and all I found were circles in plot holes, revolutions, seasonal changes and protagonists returning home. A shape that is impossible to draw freehand.
Maybe my view is askew, that shapes and patterns and cycles etc will always behave their way, and that I shouldn't be using such fickle things as measure. But they change, and that's all I really want to do.
Nothing To Say
I found this .gif lying around My Documents, but I can't remember where I'd sourced it from. It was my wallpaper once upon a time, when optimism was my flavour of the month. But its flavour, and the month, has long passed. A lot can be learnt about a man from his desktop.
Winter is well on its way. I know this for a fact because I'm wearing more than one layer of clothing now. The heater has been wheeled out and it has won the battle for power point priority (alliteration, fool!) against my twenty-year-old TV. In case you missed it, it was a rather one-sided affair, with no real highlight to speak of.
There are a few of you out there who I would like to catch up with - you know who you are! And yes, I have lost your number/email address. So if you have something to say, would like to discuss the weather or even analyse the meaning of a man's desktop, call me. Call me now!
Yadda Yadda Yadda
A week or two ago I walked out of MetLife for the last time, leaving parting words with workmates via a hastily, and poorly written, email. Colleagues would be too friendly a word - I never really did like any of them, but I'm too polite to tell them. Oh, except for M - but I guess that was because she is beautiful and genuinely nice, a rare combination in the nine to five farce.
So now I lose track of days very easily, except for Tuesdays. The movies are cheap on Tuesday's, and it's fast becoming one of my favourite days. Now Tuesday's the day by which all other days are marked against in my calendar. I've come to realise that without a nine to five, Friday just doesn't have the same meaning as it used to. Friday is just a day when I stay at home to avoid excessive crowds, drinking overpriced drinks in dim and poor lighting. Monday just doesn't feel the same either, but Sunday morning is still lazy and I still manage to wake up early on Saturday.
Whilst in search for a local library, I was hit by the ambiguity of a sign outside a building nearby my house - Women's Library - All Welcome. I made a tentative attempt to find out if they really meant the All Welcome part, but quickly turned away when I noticed that the foyer was filled with women, and not a man in sight. I went back a day later when they posted another sign - Second-Hand Books $2 - but retreated once again after finding that there were no male authors in the entire collection being sold, plenty of women in the foyer and not a man in sight. How sexist.
I haven't been so confused by a sign since that time I came across an intersection with four Stop signs.
A week or two ago I walked out of MetLife for the last time, leaving parting words with workmates via a hastily, and poorly written, email. Colleagues would be too friendly a word - I never really did like any of them, but I'm too polite to tell them. Oh, except for M - but I guess that was because she is beautiful and genuinely nice, a rare combination in the nine to five farce.
So now I lose track of days very easily, except for Tuesdays. The movies are cheap on Tuesday's, and it's fast becoming one of my favourite days. Now Tuesday's the day by which all other days are marked against in my calendar. I've come to realise that without a nine to five, Friday just doesn't have the same meaning as it used to. Friday is just a day when I stay at home to avoid excessive crowds, drinking overpriced drinks in dim and poor lighting. Monday just doesn't feel the same either, but Sunday morning is still lazy and I still manage to wake up early on Saturday.
Whilst in search for a local library, I was hit by the ambiguity of a sign outside a building nearby my house - Women's Library - All Welcome. I made a tentative attempt to find out if they really meant the All Welcome part, but quickly turned away when I noticed that the foyer was filled with women, and not a man in sight. I went back a day later when they posted another sign - Second-Hand Books $2 - but retreated once again after finding that there were no male authors in the entire collection being sold, plenty of women in the foyer and not a man in sight. How sexist.
I haven't been so confused by a sign since that time I came across an intersection with four Stop signs.
Disabled
For my efforts in attempting physical activity over the weekend, I have been rewarded with two fractured bones in my right foot. So I'm limping, bed-ridden and struggling to make the early-morning, or middle-of-the-night, toilet dash.
It's not a pretty sight, so no pictures will accompany this update.
On the bright side, I have an excuse to purchase my very first cane!
Update
Well, it's been confirmed - it's actually not fractured bones, but Gout.
Yep, a form of arthritis, generally found amongst men in their forties with elevated levels of uric acid.
I've been told to watch my diet, especially my intake of meat, and to stay away from alcohol, nuts and certain seafoods.
Worst.
Possible outcome.
Ever.
For my efforts in attempting physical activity over the weekend, I have been rewarded with two fractured bones in my right foot. So I'm limping, bed-ridden and struggling to make the early-morning, or middle-of-the-night, toilet dash.
It's not a pretty sight, so no pictures will accompany this update.
On the bright side, I have an excuse to purchase my very first cane!
Update
Well, it's been confirmed - it's actually not fractured bones, but Gout.
Yep, a form of arthritis, generally found amongst men in their forties with elevated levels of uric acid.
I've been told to watch my diet, especially my intake of meat, and to stay away from alcohol, nuts and certain seafoods.
Worst.
Possible outcome.
Ever.
What's Doing
Every morning I'm finding more and more hair on my pillow, and I'm starting to get very scared of the inevitable - I'm going bald. A few weeks ago I thought I had hope, after finding a strand of pure white hair, but I've been told since that it's no guarantee - that you can go bald and have white hair. I've hit jackpot, the best of both worlds, so it seems.
So before I let it go completely I am making a serious attempt to grow it. I want to savour the duty of having to shampoo and condition, to brush it aside when I'm engrossed in a novel, to run my fingers through it when it touches my eyes, to have the summer breeze pass through it when I'm waiting for a bus.
Right now it's looking like a badly cut mop, with an excessively long rat's tail - in other words, not pretty. But fuck it, it's there. And I'm happy to hear people tell me I need a haircut, and actually mean it.
In other news I have discovered the joy of listening to ambient albums. Prior to Brian Eno's - Music For Airports, I had always thought of ambient music as songs that didn't have words - and then I realised that that's actually classified as instrumental.
I wrote a love/goodbye/thank you letter to Blizzard a fortnight ago regarding WoW. I was going to post it here, but posting such a letter about a video-game, on a blog, would be just too much geek-loving from me, so I've decided against it. I will however leave a screenshot of me, my Felsteed and my Imp riding out to a Durotar sunset in memory of my WoW days.
For the Horde!
Sans
MEMORY CARD ERROR - CANNOT READ
I circled two blocks in a figure eight (or an infinite?) pattern for twenty minutes instead of taking the card down to the camera store, too scared to have a professional tell me that my memories were well and truly gone. I felt like a new card was no consolation and that it was just a waste of time and paper to fill out a warranty form for something invaluable.
So the remaining days of my trip to New York are in the drafts section of my blog, and it will remain there to gather cyber-dust and to be forgotten. I don't really feel like back-tracking anyway - the moment has come and gone, and I've lost my faith in memory.
I've started packing my things, getting ready to move into a cozy, ground floor studio, set back from the lively street that I am on now. The fact that it's too small to house guests doesn't really bother me, because I know I operate best on a one-on-one basis. Or a one-on-none.
The windows are boarded with a plastic white sheet and the floor is of a faux-wood material. I was told that the white screens were installed to ensure my privacy from the prying eyes of other tenants and a dull red brick wall, but all I see is a flimsy security device that is begging to be tested.
The process of moving is nothing new to me, but this time I'm trying to change by purging myself of what I now see as unnecessary baggage. I'm throwing away fancy twenty-first birthday invitations. I'm throwing away receipts of presents that I'd purchased with effort and thought. I'm throwing away pens that no longer work. I'm throwing away my silky, white shirt.
It doesn't fit like it used to, anyway.
Just So You Know
I write this as Mariah is telling me repeatedly that we belong together. It's still my current, guilty pleasure, and now that I've had a few months to accept the fact that I really, really like this song, I am comfortable to publicly confess my love. So there it is.
I just thought it would be better that you hear it from my blog, rather than a third party.
I write this as Mariah is telling me repeatedly that we belong together. It's still my current, guilty pleasure, and now that I've had a few months to accept the fact that I really, really like this song, I am comfortable to publicly confess my love. So there it is.
I just thought it would be better that you hear it from my blog, rather than a third party.
Home, Sick
I've been sick for the past few days with a minor cold/cough. It all started two days ago when my parents and I hopped on a hop-on, hop-off tour around New York City. You know those double-decker tourist buses with an open top? Well, we happened to hop on board the minute it began to rain. I felt betrayed by Mr G, the local weatherman, who had been pretty accurate up until that moment. Light snow my ass.
Being the stubborn bastard that I am I stuck with the tour and wore a FDNY hat so that I wouldn't get so wet; and so that I could look the tourist part - complete with my I<3NY shirt and camera.
So for two days I was bed ridden, reduced to watching TV, which progressively got better as the night turned into early morning - double episodes of shows such as That 70's Show, Will and Grace, Frasier and South Park on non-cable TV. I was in sitcom heaven.
And of course this led me to the arms of my darling Pizza. Keeping in mind that American sizes are fucking ridiculous, I emphasised the word 'medium' in my order. What they gave me was something that took up as much space as a spare tyre, only a lot more tasty. Note: when ordering here, list EVERY topping that you want, because apparently a 'super supreme' here is just cheese if you don't specify the ingredients.
But when all was consumed and the infomercials started to run, I couldn't sleep. I kept thinking about home, and my room and people and stuff and it kept me awake for too long. I wanted to call someone to see how things were, what's been happening, but I already knew what they'd say. Still I wanted to hear it repeated for reassurance, for affirmation that what I believe and know to be true, is true.
So, with my full recovery I celebrated by dedicating Today as a salute to indulgence:
* TV
* Lots of Coffee
* Dinner out at Times Square
* New CD's
* New books
* New camera
* Dessert with every meal
* Cabs instead of walking/subway
* Generous tips
And if you were here with me, it would have been perfect.
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