Ceso moonlights in the daytime.

If you were coming in the fall - Emily Dickinson

If you were coming in the fall,  

I ’d brush the summer by  

With half a smile and half a spurn,  

As housewives do a fly.  

If I could see you in a year,          

I ’d wind the months in balls,  

And put them each in separate drawers,  

Until their time befalls.  

If only centuries delayed,  

I ’d count them on my hand,         

Subtracting till my fingers dropped  

Into Van Diemen’s land.  

If certain, when this life was out,  

That yours and mine should be,  

I ’d toss it yonder like a rind,         

And taste eternity.  

But now, all ignorant of the length  

Of time’s uncertain wing,  

It goads me, like the goblin bee,  

That will not state its sting.

I have a new blog.

Y’all supposed to think it’s funny. http://deargreatleader.tumblr.com/

SIMPLE.

I wish that when I was younger I could have met my current self. We would have sat down at a coffee shop so that I could explain life to young me in terms that only we would understand. It would have saved me a lot of hardship.

You can listen to all the sage wisdom you want, but things only make sense when you can explain them to yourself in your own words. For instance, I’ve been told for three years that Breaking Bad is the best show on television, but only after I watched it was I able to tell myself exactly why everyone was right. Other truths I know now that I can explain them: that I’m not missing any crucial information and that poker really isn’t all that fun; that heartbreaks do fade but they take about a year longer than you expect and by the time they do you really don’t care about it enough to notice; and above all else, life is simpler than you think.

I used to think that life was an intricate series of levers and pulleys, buttons and switches, Mexican standoffs and hostage negotiations. As I get older I realize that life is more Netherlands minimalist than Jackson Pollock. The problems don’t get fewer, and in fact they grow in number, but the way I index them in the database is different. More problems get filed under fewer category headers.

Things are getting simpler, and it’s making life better. Here’s the cheat sheet:

People want to be liked. We all crave attention and affection and we all reject shame. When we get embarrassed we send a thug version of ourselves to the forefront to do our fighting for us. We’re at the top of the food chain just under fear. We don’t want to be in a relationship to hear the words “I love you,” we want to be in a relationship to say the words “I love you.” We want to feel needed, and exceptional and we hate feeling insignificant. We want to ace a hearing test. We are binary creatures; if we’re the plaintiff, we want to win every dollar. If we’re the defendant, we want guard every penny. We want to make more money than last year. We don’t want to get cancer or die in our cars and we want the same for our loved ones. We go out on weekends to try and have sex while trying not to get punched in the face. We drink so we can be ourselves and not mind it so much. We’re desperate to be understood. We want to know someone else has felt it, too. We hate being judged unfairly. We want to make the person we heard wasn’t all that into us change their minds and admit they had us wrong. We want sunny skies with a chance of killer tornadoes, just to keep music sounding good. We take hours upon hours to admit to self consciousness. We don’t know exactly how to pleasure each other. We just want love. In any and every form.

See? It’s simple. :)

— From John Mayer’s blogpost titled Simple

Wherein I tell you about my little jaunt to the rice terraces…

I went to Batad, Ifugao over the weekend. Yes, Batad, that quaint little village up in the mountains. The trip was in line with my, uh, quest to live a little (bit more). The ostensible purpose was to see more of what the Philippines had to offer. The actual goal was, of course, bragging rights to having conquered such a tough trek (if I may say so myself).

The trip up north took almost ten hours as, midway, the bus broke down. At the middle of the road, straddling both lanes of the highway, with not even the faintest hint of light, we contemplated the possibility of a speeding ten-wheeler truck crashing into us and turning us (the people in the first two rows) to corned beef. I then invite Pau to consider that people coming to help us might also be the cause of our demise, as I recalled to him the case we had in law school about an overturned bus that burst into flames after well-meaning, if a wee bit stupid, group of farmers approached the bus with lighted sulos. After some tinkering, and random banging of tools to the innards of the bus, the bus crew get the bus started. At 9am, we finally get to Banaue and the much-desired breakfast. 

Because of the delay, Guido, our guide (how apropos, di ba?), tell us we’ll have to flip our sked. He says we’ll start with the visit to Banaue Museum. Cheryl gets to meet the granddaughter of H. Otley Beyer, the American anthropologist who, if Wikipedia is to be believed, is the Father of Philippine Anthropology. We learn that Beyer ends up marrying Lingayu Gambuk, the 16-year-old daughter of an Ifugao village chief. Having been presented with the unique opportunity to probe the mind of one of Beyer’s progeny, Cheryl asks, “Ano naman ho ang pakiramdam na inasawa ni H. Otley Beyer ang ninuno niyo?” 

After a bumpy jeepney ride of a little over an hour, we get to the saddle point. Guido tells us that this is the start of our 45 mins to one hour trek to our quarters for the weekend. 

(To be continued when I find the time.)

Wherein we bemoan…

the lack of good write-ups about which bars are cool for beer and music. Very briefly, I flirt with the idea of coming up with one myself. Wouldn’t it be cool to get nominated for the Supreme Court and have to explain/defend to the JBC how I should be included in the shortlist of recommendees to the President despite my being acknowledged as an expert in, err, Bacchanalian pursuits?

ETA: I worked for a former dean of UP Law a few years back. Everybody agreed that the old man was very, very smart and deserved a seat in the Supreme Court. I asked why he was never named to the Court then, considering that he was pretty tight with a former dictator. The consensus? It was the drinking that supposedly made him unfit for the Court.

Wherein I diss One Day…

right at the cinema’s CR just after the movie was shown. I said it was either pandering or exploitative, depending on the emotional state of the viewer. I imagine I ended up ruining the afterglow of the movie for some of the girls, mid-swoon over Jim Sturgess.

Of course, I called dibs on Jim Sturgess before the movie began. 

Wherein Dawkins basically calls Rick Perry dumb as fuck. →

Later tonight,

I will pretend to be hoity toity, artsy fartsy at this thing: The Philippine International Art Fair. Watch me as I ooh and aah over the pretty (?) pictures I cannot afford.

I’ll try to post pics later—not of the art but of me looking at art :)

(ETA: Of course, I didn’t get to go. I LOVE my job *repeat 100 times*.)

Let’s get physical.

Officially started my gym-ing today. First day program was a bitch. Three sets of pushing, pulling, and lifting things heavy, much too heavy for my puny arms. Have a feeling waking up tomorrow will bring a lot of pain. You’d think the Gym-Boy would start me off easy, get me to enjoy the idea of gym-ing first. At least, I did. Not a chance! There were smaller dumbbells available. I saw them. But no, he had to pick the 2.5 pounders (and together they were 5 lbs). 

You think I should go back tomorrow?

William Butler Yeats - Brown Penny

I whispered, ‘I am too young,’

And then, ‘I am old enough’;

Wherefore I threw a penny

To find out if I might love.

‘Go and love, go and love, young man,

If the lady be young and fair.’

Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,

I am looped in the loops of her hair.

O love is the crooked thing,

There is nobody wise enough

To find out all that is in it,

For he would be thinking of love

Till the stars had run away

And the shadows eaten the moon.

Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,

One cannot begin it too soon.