Late or early

I have got to stop staying up late. My three extra awake hours ended up being spent on chasing rainbows about some new thing I can do with my Linux machine that would allow it to share files with... yadda yadda yadda, I can't even remember why I was "improving" my system in this manner. Maybe I have a natural affinity for following directions... ^_^ Anyway, in the end I was not able to get the result I was looking for, and all I have to show for it are red, swollen eyes.

Maybe resting them a while would do the trick.

Song in my head: Kidz Bop, "Stickwitu".

Seventeen syllables, No. 70

That is not the wind:
Wind can't make concrete walls sway
Like breeze-blown curtains.

Tamago

Yes. Now I can sleep.

The case of the advanced alarm clock

I don't remember whether I've already mentioned this, but I have an alarm clock that sets itself to Daylight Saving Time whenever the time comes for it to do so... in the US Mainland. Living in the Plantation means never having to worry that you have to "spring forward and fall back," but that is precisely the predicament I find myself in.

But it's a testament to how busy I've been (or how much time I've wasted) that I just now realized that I've been getting up an hour earlier than usual. I know this because there's a discrepancy between my alarm clock and a Mickey Mouse mechanical clock somewhere on my wall. And yet I don't save any time at all, I find: usually I fall right back asleep.

At least I only have two more seventeen-syllable entries to go.

Thanks for reading.

Song in my head: Jim Brickman, Michelle Wright, "Your Love".

Seventeen syllables, No. 66

The cloud-wrapped Moon looks
Like the sound my bedroom makes
When I fall asleep.

Shuteye

Never would I have thought that I would be so tired that I actually feel like I deserve the sleep I'm about to get.

Good night, everyone.

Song in my head: One Republic, "Apologize".

Seventeen syllables, No. 48

Non-cold water is
Unthinkable beneath this
Mealy, hardtack Sun.

Somewhere in the darkness

I don't know what it was about where I slept (or at least tried to sleep ^_^) yesterday. It was a velvety dark and warmly gloomy night (whatever that means...) as I sat within view of the sea. Sometimes when the wind whipped up the right way, I was even able to smell it. The white tops of the waves were small but it was due to distance. It was so peaceful, bordering on the eerie, actually.

And I was ready. I had a guitar and some paper to write on.

About two hours later, I woke up with a start. I looked up from where I sat. The night was still as dark, and the division between sea and sky remained shrouded. But now there was a completed song on a piece of paper, and another almost done. It was a moment: I haven't written anything in verse for the longest time, and for me to be able to come up with these songs kind of confirms me in a significant way this year.

Soon I'll type them out and store them somewhere safe. I hope my bandmates receive these songs warmly, at least.

Thank you very much for reading.

Song in my head: Leann Rimes, "But I Do Love You".

High resolution

I was conversing with Kim tonight, mainly on nothing at all, when she asked me whether I made any resolutions this year. It gave me pause, but when I was ready to answer her I found that she has gone offline. The answer still fresh in my head, I have decided to instead respond on this public forum.

The reason I haven't made any New Year's Resolutions in the past years is simply that I felt that I have not had the wherewithal to stick with them through the entire year. It was quite an unfortunate time I had last year, having bad things happen, but more importantly than that, I very often felt sorry for myself last year. I could not even fathom any self-improvement at the time. My healing leg prevented me from accomplishing many of the things I hoped to do in 2007. And my deflated self-esteem made me unable to do much else after that.

You shouldn't get the impression that I was depressed. I don't think I was ever depressed in the last year; I was merely severely limited, I should say.

But I did make--and keep--a resolution back in 2007. I resolved to keep the wrapper to every double cheeseburger from McDonald's I ate last year. Sure, it was both meaningless and pointlessly stupid, but the point was that it was easy. And sure enough I was able to carry it through the whole year. I will count the wrappers tomorrow.

And I guess I am making a resolution for 2008 as well, and it is thus: Whenever I can do more than one thing, I resolve to do the more useful and beneficial things first. I purposefully left it a little vague so that I can interpret for myself what it means for something to be useful and beneficial. This year I want to finally stanch the horrible gash in my side wherein I leak copious amounts of perfectly good time. I've had this for years now, but I believe that it is not yet too late to correct myself.

One of the priests (I cannot remember who anymore) said last year around this time, "The difference between a wish and a resolution is that a resolution is both sensible and possible to achieve." I only got one resolution, but I recognize it as a real resolution, one that would undoubtedly be difficult to carry out (heck, I'm breaking it right now; I could be sleeping! ^_^) but something I can certainly hope to achieve this year.

What about you? Any resolutions from out there?

Thank you very much for reading.

Song in my head: Ambrosia, "Biggest Part of Me". A really hopeful song, which I hope reflects my outlook this year.

Happy New Year

Happy new year to all of you out there.

I write this in the Plantation, hours after the family and I return from Seaside where the big fireworks display happens customarily. This is the first year we are able to capture the event on video, and there we were, our hard disk camcorder pointed fastidiously upward, as we shared in the yells and other racket in front of the old Ypao Beach Store (now a restaurant).

I am tired. Now that in itself is not unusual; I find that my most hectic time of year is the Advent/Christmas season. Music is in full demand during the proceedings of these holidays. But now I'm more tired than I was last year. I conked out after only one Carolling night, and the only reason I was able to show up for the fourth night was that I left the house with that express purpose. And now as I write this I have a slight pounding in my head, which tells me that I should end this post right quick and get some sleep.

Earlier in the week I was finally able to write some Christmas cards to my far-flung friends. I wanted to start some sort of tradition with myself, as a way of remortaring and strengthening those paper bridges I built (and perhaps to start some new ones). I don't know. Half the people I invited never came forward with their snail mail addresses, which says two things about our current culture. One, why mail it out when you can email/MySpace/Friendster/Txt it? Gone are the magic of the closed envelope and the expectation of the carefully-written word inside. Two, the Internet is rife with people we do not know who want to get to know us so that they can take our money. Perhaps they erred on the side of caution and took me for one of these schemers.

It doesn't matter, really. I'm not sure whether my handwriting is widely readable, anyway. If anything else my Holiday wishes should shine through as clearly as a bell, in 10pt Verdana/Arial/Georgia font on a glaring computer screen in the dead of winter. Right?

Hopefully.

So, in wishes expressed most clearly by the style sheet applied by your browser of choice, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and have a safe and hopeful New Year.

I for one am partied out. I screamed my heart out Seaside as the incendiary blasts pounded in my chest. I shall go get some sleep in my Moon-chilled room in the Plantation.

Thank you very much for reading.

Song in my head: Tom Jones, "It's Not Unusual". What a catchy song! Gets the job done in less than two minutes.

All-nighter

Yesterday, I pulled off an all-nighter. I shouldn't have, because I ended up needing all that sleep this afternoon! ^_^ You may know how much time you use sometimes, but you never know exactly which minutes are going to be used up!

Song in my head: Kalapana, "Naturally".

The small hours

This week I'm venturing into the small hours again.

I spent every other night of last week awake, without a single drop of sleep while the Sun lurked under the horizon. And today I'm doing it again, this after having been amply reminded of the effects of staying up all night. It was just this last Saturday that I woke up at maybe 8:30 am with an intense throbbing pain in my eyes that wouldn't go away for such amount of time as to almost make me nervous. It was a weird pain: it felt as if my left eye were forcibly jammed into the back of my eye socket and was stuck there, immobilized. Not a pleasant experience... but then again it was an experience that I've never felt before. Never in my earlier exploits with foregoing sleep in years past have I felt that particular pain. I conjecture now that the pain came from my eye muscles which were forced to work overtime that night.

At this point I would counter to myself, "Hey, cut me some slack! I had some things to do." But actually, that's not an issue anymore after maybe about 4:30 am. Because at about that time, if you aren't yet sleeping, that's what you need to be doing. ^_^

I had finally caved in and agreed to teach someone how to play piano. She seems definitely interested, and I am too (I'm really wondering whether I can find a replacement pianist or whether I would earn much money in the process), but the books are yet to get here. I'll have to scrounge around for some books that I used to play from when I was learning piano myself.

I'm going to try and get some sleep now, seeing a how my field of vision is starting to swim slightly, and the edges of my laptop screen start to throb. ^_^

Song in my head: Cyndi Lauper, "Time After Time".
Currently reading: Soseki, The Miner. Partly to enjoy the story, and partly to see whether I should voluntarily withdraw from my Modern Japanese Novel class...

Death list three

I was walking with Maggie and Jesse from Bohemia to Colleague, on the left side of the road, in order to watch out for vehicles. Suddenly a burly-looking truck loomed behind us slowly, on the wrong side of the road. There were suddenly three vehicles all around us, and just as quickly the road was empty again.

We looked at each other, and finally I said, "Did someone order a hit on one of us?" Then we cooked up multiple conspiracy theories as to which of us ordered the hit, and which one of us it was on. My favorite theory that came out was that I ordered the hit, and that it was for Elaine, but since Elaine was not walking with us the hit did not go through, and that there was nevertheless a timebomb in my car that, as soon as Jesse realized its existence, I had to deactivate. ^_^

I called it a rehearsal of emotions should one (or more) should suddenly die. It was funny, but at least to me, it was thought-provoking. And hey, seeing Maggie get some fresh air with us that night? That's got to be valuable.

I talked with Serenity earlier today. For once, it was day here, and it was the deep of night in Oz where she is at. ^_^ A reversal of roles... and finally I got her to talk at length about something happening with her! Did I really have to wait this long to hear about her side of the screen for a change?

Good luck, Serenity. In all that you do.

In other news I finally used the pasta machine. Pictures will follow soon.

Thanks for reading, everyone.

Song in my head: Sean Cullen, "Wood, Cheese, and Children".

Unofficial withdrawal

Something I hope to never hear again. ^_^

I watched a movie with some friends tonight. Well, actually, there was only one friend--Kim--and the other three I met for the first time tonight. But I guess they are friends at the time of this writing. ^_^ We watched Stardust, and I remember cheering out loud at the part when the main guy finally gets the courage to do what we have been wanting him to do since the beginning of the movie. It took him a week to do it? It took me much longer.

You know, I never would have thought that I would see Kim leave. But in a sense, I guess we all have some sort of idea what life requires of us. And her life requires her to seek new horizons. The way I see it, the horizons are all the same.

I am sleepless again, just one day after the Weekend. I don't ever want to forget what I learned in it, but it is only now that I'm realizing how much I have to go through. When I ended the weekend, I expressed my happiness that I have passed the weekend program. But a staff member asked, "But are you ready for what's out there?" He moved away before I can say my answer out loud: "That question will take a lifetime to answer."

I am sleepless again. I am really confused... it is like I want to break down and cry, but I can't. There's no macho upper lip reason behind it, either. Because really, what is the use? I can't cry because I don't think my problem is solvable by me alone. So what do I do? I've been sitting in one place, silently, staring at my wall, or my window, or my ceiling. It was good that I found something to do: finally place all my loose notes from the semester so far into their own notebooks. Nothing is as therapeutic as order.

I can't believe that tomorrow I'm going to the store to pick something out to send Kim off with.

I can't think.

Song in my head: Survivor, "The Search is Over".

Seventeen syllables, No. 22

The first Sunbeams that
Come through the window loudly
Pierce my ears. It's warm.

Chess--what about you?

Can you beat the Rozerem beaver in chess? I did--and much to my surprise, I might add. ^_^ I have never considered myself to be any good in chess, but I guess I can surmount a beaver in the beginner level.

I feel another diversion coming along... play a few hundred games with a progressively stronger computer, and post the results here. ^_^

Thanks for reading.

Song in my head: The Beatles, "You're Gonna Lose That Girl".

That's so cherry

I laugh when I remember that six or seven years ago, I dreamt about a time when I would know what it would be like to sleep in. Now I find myself longing for that time when I could wake up at 5:30 am on a good day. ^_^

Things change real quick nowadays.

I realized that Jesse's final paper for the Literature class crystallized for me my sudden interest in haiku. He essentially says that poetry is a way to unwrap our raw thoughts, separating them from our own and our society's metaphors and modes of thought, in which our thoughts are usually packaged. I am beginning to realize that the large majority of my thoughts are overpackaged; I then see my haiku as an exercise in unpacking my thoughts so that I can test whether they can stand on their own.

So here's to a long Summer, a walk a day, a haiku per two days. ^_^

Thanks for reading.

Song in my head: Dirty Vegas, "Days Go By".

P.S. Props go out to Kim, who looked something up in the Urban Dictionary and is exploring verse. ^_^

Nothing, and To kill a mockingbird

Yesterday was a good day to do nothing.

Now don't get me wrong; I did something, but in this case I think that the sum of the things I did amounted to much less than the individual things I did. I mean, sure, I watched TV, and ate lunch, and sat around at home. But I had no net output.

...you know what? It felt kind of good. ^_^

And, I guess, good for nothing.

OK, but I did read a few more chapters of To Kill a Mockingbird. I'm enjoying it mightily. I cannot remember what I was doing the same day lat year, but I am fairly certain that I didn't read any fiction. I'm thinking that this English class is reawakening something in me that I thought was dead for a long time.

When I got to the second to the last page of Regeneration by Pat Barker, I put it down, uneasy. There they were, Rivers writing a report about Sassoon's progress in Craiglockhart, and I was keenly aware of the fact that if I read any more paragraphs in five minutes, Rivers would cease all conscious, observable thought, action,--change. In a sense, he would die, together with Prior, Sassoon, Burns, Anderson, Bryce, Sarah Lumb, and all the other characters. And I would kill them, they whom I have resurrected in my brain so that they could play scenes for both my escape and edification. Pat Barker, like Charles Dickens and Mary Shelley before her, made the dough, but I baked the characters in my own mind. And as a result my Rivers and Sassoon would be different from Jesse's Rivers and Sassoon and from the Riverses and Sassoons the thousands of other readers would have had.

I felt a sense of thrill in this co-creation, this amazingly intimate, unique collaboration between author and reader. In the last four years I have not read a single work of fiction (OK, that's most probably not true, but I cannot remember any) because I thought for a long time that my imagination is dead, or at least broken, and I didn't know how to fix it. As a result I read mostly nonfiction works, like textbooks and instruction manuals. But now I'm thinking about writing a reading list, and commenting on my latest characters.

If this tirade is a bit long, blame Kim. She gave me the questionnaires that gave birth to these thoughts. And I'm glad she did; I hope that this Summer doesn't halt my reading activities. And I guess I'm also glad that Elaine and Jesse own so many classics. ^_^

Thanks for reading.

Song in my head: James Taylor, "On the 4th of July". I thought of this song when I read about Prior and Sarah having their moment in the bushes in Regeneration.

P.S. You should really try reading fiction aloud. Sure, it can get tedious, but you're rewarded by hearing your characters talk. I credit To Kill a Mockingbird with bestowing my normal speaking voice with an Alabaman twang for the time being. ^_^

Asleep

This book I'm currently reading, Regeneration by Pat Barker, is easily the heaviest book I've read so far. It's about a war psychologist serving during the First World War. Its depiction of the fall of the old Victorian order and subsequent de-Romanticization of war and idealism is represented so effectively in the soldiers sent to Craiglockhart mental institution, trying to deal with their past. Very heavy work, but I am enjoying reading it. Makes me think about what they had to go through.

I'm pretty tired right now, and just as well. I have an early dentist's appointment tomorrow. So maybe I'll choke down another chapter of Regeneration, play a round of Tetris (I bought a handheld version this afternoon ^_^), and then go to sleep.

Thanks for reading.

Song in my head: Phil Collins, "Against All Odds".

Open window

I think I should get more sleep. Last night, after Wendy's night, and having headed home, I stayed up. But it was for no particular reason other than to stay up. I think it has something to do with the things going on in my life.

A few days ago, while conversing with her, Kim said that I should not dwell on my past mistakes. At the time I agreed with her, but after she signed off, I asked myself. If I don't dwell on my past mistakes, where would I dwell? It seems to me that I have been wallowing in what Dickens called a "Slough of Despot" for what would be almost two, three years now, and frankly, I don't know any other place to dwell in--any other place to call home.

Maybe I should now instead dwell on how to fix things. It would be more productive.

Thanks for reading.

Song in my head: Gary Numan, "Cars".