Squeeze these in:

1. Finish presentation for Iloilo before lunch
2. Meeting with the Web Team at 1pm
3. Fax documents to our regional offices
4. Design and print posters and streamers for tomorrow's camp
5. Label the art supplies and pack them
6. Check the camp program flow
7. Buy last-minute supplies
8. Have dinner with Kulas

I'll be on my toes today. Wish me luck. I hope there won't be problems with the kids tomorrow. Six-year olds don't wet their beds anymore, do they? And they eat stuff other than hotdogs, right? It's going to be fun but really tough,too. I'll post their artworks after the camp. Can't wait.

someday i'll have my own rocket ship to take me to the moon

from crayola.com

Sometimes it's good for you to read about other poeple's lives through their journals when you're having an "i-need-to-get-a-life" syndrome. It's usually a rollercoaster ride, this feeling, but what the heck, you've got to get out of it and move on.

And so as I try my darndest to forget about my fuck-ups, I'm learning to face each day one step at a time--baby steps if you will. So many people are in such a mess, too. Even worse. Hell, I don't even care if I'm sounding a la Hallmark. See those sunbeams, o? I'm trying.

Well, among the things I need to be grateful for and should smile about, there's Bunny and her blog. Her most recent entry really made me grin :)

I need discipline and patience. Most of my friends have either won or joined the Palanca while I have yet to even decide on when I will, too. I am plain lazy.

Eric smsd me that Nick Joaquin passed away this morning. I have yet to have a beer with him. Of course, he's one great loss blah blah blah. But not really, when you think about it. He has lived a full life.

OK. Back to work. Im finishing a presentation for a lecture on Web Writing I'm giving in Iloilo next week. Duh. I can't even write well on my blog. I remember when I was still teaching in Silliman. I'll get by naman, I hope :)

Oh and speaking of Eric, he didnt get into this year's National Writers' Workshop in Dumaguete. I dont know what happened--either it's politics or he just didnt make the cut. I dont know na rin how his writing has come by eh. His fiction was the best back in college, earning him grand prizes in USTetika and the Rector's Literary Award. I was always second. Oh but at least I was the one who got the 1.0's in the subjects that mattered to us Lit seniors. Hehe.

Myrza Sison of Cosmo got into Dumaguete this year (and Monica Macansantos, Eric added). Haven't read their literary works, only Myrza's columns. But this early, I have seen raised eyebrows and have heard murmurs...

Buti na lang Mitzie Correa got in. Congrats, Mitzie :)

***

I wish Crayola would have their products here, like the ones theys ell abroad. They only have crayons and oil pastels here. My students love Crayola products pa naman. I lvoed them too as a kid and I still do.

In fact, I bought a fresh box of 64 Crayola Crayons last Sunday at National Katips. Couldn't help it. I was shopping for supplies for my students. Sarap. You get to shop for stuff you like even if they're not for you :)

Back to work na talaga.

PS. Kulas will fetch me later and go with me to shop for more supplies for the camp. Sana di na kami galit.

I'm tired of posting the same shitty stuff about me. I have been too tired actually: of work, some people around me , of the same crap that goes on day in and day out. I've got to break patterns here.

Tina asked earlier if I was happy about my life and I gave her a straight 'no'. Kulas would say I'm too dark, too angst-ridden. That I need to cheer up, face the world smiling.

I want to do just that. Believe me.

***

I've turned out to be an insecure, self-loathing, people-doubting, bitch. I don't like me anymore.

***

I am pouring out my energies to work, the art camp this saturday, basta away from thoughts of me.

Turbulent Indigo by Joni Mitchell

You wanna make Van Goghs
Raise 'em up like sheep
Make 'em out of Eskimos
And women if you please
Make 'em nice and normal
Make 'em nice and neat
You see him with his shotgun there?
Bloodied in the wheat?
Oh what do you know about
Living in Turbulent Indigo?

Brash fields, crude crows
In a scary sky
In a golden frame
Roped off
Tourists guided by
Tourists talking about the madhouse
Tourists talking about the ear
The madman hangs in fancy homes
They wouldn't let him near
He'd piss in the fireplace
He'd drag them through Turbulent Indigo

"I'm a burning hearth," he said
"People see the smoke,
But no one comes to warm themselves
Sloughing off a coat
And all my little landscapes
All my yellow afternoons
Stack up around this vacancy
Like dirty cups and spoons
No mercy sweet Jesus
No mercy from Turbulent Indigo"

Apologies to Joni Mitchell

These are the times when I think I would gladly welcome sadness or solitude or tedium or even the feeling of stagnation rather than this unpredictable cruelty: a sinking feeling that pulls me down slowly and then pushes me up again, leaving me weightless and light once, then heavy and burdened after. I wish I could come up with a metaphor for this. Like Joni's turbulent indigo.

***

I feel that I am being stripped off of my feelings. My emotions and sometimes my thoughts are questioned: why are you sad? why should you be sad? why do you get mad?

I used to feel like a complete person. And part of being complete is being able to give myself wholly to another; being able to trust.

I hope I am not turning out to be a stranger to my own self. And because you would not understand, I shall not give any explanation anymore. I am very, very tired of being asked why I am this way...

***

I am a woman who is kind-hearted but fair and just. I take care of those around me: family,friends, a Partner,strangers even. I value honesty so much.

I love my body. And those who know me, or who have known me, men and women, know how my body arches in delight when secret crevices are discovered or how it winces when pain comes, physical or otherwise.

These are just a few things about me. I do not know if-- despite the fact that you claim to love me with all your heart, all your life--you know this woman.

Holy Wednesday

You ask yourself what the universe is really offering you, all these years of asking questions, wondering, wondering and never getting the right answers. Open your hands tonight. Fall on your knees. Pray.

Pray for redemption. Pray for your own heaven.


******

I guess I should be relieved I wouldn't have to work this week. I need the break, except that I am not really getting any. It's weird how things are turning out here. It's Ninang's first chemo session today. God, let her be alright please.

My high school bestfriend Elhyn arrived from Canada because her dad passed away. We went to their house in the South to pay our respects. I wonder about my own death. I am no stranger to it, though. Two years ago, my Tatay and Nanay left us for some sunny field in the sky. I have always imagined heaven to be like that: sunny, a bright and golden field of barley, willowy. Like Sting's.

******

I have been neglecting my writing, my canvases and my paintbrushes. All I think about now is my family and how to help them more; my friends, Kulas. And more.

So much more.

******

I realized tonight is the first time in weeks, months even, that I get to play some music and listen to it. As in really listen. Funny, Kulas has been complaining that I dont know how to listen anymore. How true, as my thoughts meander all the time. It's sad, isn't it? I am not like this. I was never like this.

I*****

I am grieving about something I have lost and will never find again. White is the color of mourning.

Good night, Tintin.