My Guilty Pleasure: Notebooks!!!

Usually, many girls' guilty pleasures include makeup, bags, shoes, or clothes. I am not saying i don't find any interest in any of those mentioned above (because i do), but i have always had a soft spot for beautiful books and notebooks ever since i was a kid.

Lo and behold my collection!

Blame it on anime, or just the love of cartoons and art. I have been doodling and sketching ever since goodness-knows-when. It's a healthy but frustrating habit, since i am a bit obsessive-compulsive when it comes to my drawings.

My favorite one of the lot has to be the Moleskine my boyfriend gave me for my birthday this year. He knows i've been eyeing every Moleskine stand i get to see in bookstores so he decided to buy me one himself. Yup, he's very sweet.:)

For those who are in a budget or want to give your artist friend a gift this Christmas, i promise you won't regret buying Yeah Notebooks. My previous doodles have always been done on this notebook because they always have those non-ruled ones on eggshell colored paper, like the ones used in Moleskine. It works great with Uni Pin drawing pens too!

Ok that's about it for the random post. Have a happy weekend etranger!

Regardless of the inevitable, of even having the slimmest chance of changing something.. sometimes what's important (and more often than not, the right thing to do) is just to let things run its course.

Of Unfinished Works and Short Stories

He did not understand it, that piece of cardboard paper in his hand. It was handed to him after a he bought a can of coke and a week's worth of bread. He absentmindedly put it in his coat pocket along with the folded piece of receipt.

When he got home and finished watching the 8pm news and his fastfood dinner, he went to his bedroom, went through every pocket in his trousers, shirt and coat as he readied the hot water in the bathroom. It was then he found that piece of paper: a worn scratchcard. He used his keys to rub the silver coating off of the paper. At first, he thought his eyes were playing tricks, but he squinted and read and reread each letter carefully. It was clear and absurd as any other fine print. It read:

"Congratulations. You won another lifetime."

Sometimes all it takes to get your head out of dangerous deep waters is a good step back.. which is why keeping little tokens or reminders for yourself every now and then is not such a bad idea.

I don't quite remember when or how it started. How change seems to fall into our laps ever so often now like  the crisp brown leaves of an old tree brushing against the wind. It was several years back when i used to run  around school in full uniform, with blisters on my knees and dirt on my cheeks; a few years ago when i had to wait anxiously at the hallway of the university for grades that did not mean as much as i thought they would. Then it was about 12 months past when i took the boards that entitled me to the word 'Engineer', which i have not--and in most probability--will never get use.

And here i am now, in an office desk among others, working in an industry i swore to myself countless of times that i'll never enter. Conversations with old friends revolve around the lines of the 'future' or how-things-have-changed or how people have. Somewhere in between I've resigned myself to the reality that contradictions are as familiar as any other circumstance i could stumble upon, that nostalgia gradually becomes a word used often at two in the morning as one gets older, and that working people are the hardest to get a hold of. and around those various realizations i have, by some means, forgotten what it was like to be amazed at how so many, many things are different now more than ever. That eager, restless emotion that i used to feel at the start of every school year has quickly turned into a quiet acceptance. The days and nights spent are segmented into trivial routines of this and that; into needs instead of wants or dreams.

It makes me wonder if anyone else feels the need to break free from this shell of conformity to the rules of society. to understand that money, or success do not mean much for a life unlived. and i am now resolved to find a balance in things. to recognize limits, and never cross unless there is a need to do so. to know the word 'enough' varies from people to people, but that it should be what it plainly is--sufficient, adequate, just right. Mostly, i just want to feel content with what i have at the end of the day. Honestly, simply, just content.

Here We Go - Mat Kearney & Counting The Stars - Augustana Doodles

as promised on this post!

[Here We Go - Mat Kearney] A lot of things go through my mind when i hear this song. Mostly things in motion: the rows of streetlights going by, an old film reeling on a white backdrop, ferris wheels, bicycle wheels, you name it. I think it's because the song talks about the cycles of circumstance; how moments in life get repeated in a different year, or a different face. it's bittersweet: the hope that comes with second chances, or the fear of repeating past mistakes. it can go either way.

[Counting Stars - Augustana]

i can't get the colors right on the camera for the first drawing, and i'm too lazy to use the DSLR. so there. lol.

Have a Happy Tuesday everybody!:)

Of streetlights and stop signs

maybe decisions would be easy to make had the road to the 'right choice' been illuminated like the warm yellow lamp posts of a seemingly endless highway. you know you're going somewhere, and most of all, you know how to go back.

Wishful Wednesdays

we're always thinking it only happens in the books or in the glossy backdrop of a movie screen, or to someone who's a friend of a friend of our friends. we're always trying to compromise circumstance by justifying that there's going to be 'still some time left'. there's no need to rush--there's the next twenty-four hours right there, swiveling around the corner. or that there's about 2 short years to wait til' you stand up, pack your bags and really start living without the world dictating that it's better to be practical than to be idealistic. that it's the people who have a 3-months-worth-of-work of a handbag who are happier and content than those who are just simply happy, period. we're always thinking that bridges won't suddenly collapse under our feet, that the car will take us to the destination unscathed, or that we will keep waking up to a brand new day.. but it rarely is the case. we fail to realize how much of a fragile thing our lives really are.

and it's not just because i'm Wishful this Wednesday. it's probably one of the things people don't quite ask for but really need. it's something we all need.

time.

goodbyes seem to always leave a bitter taste in the mouth. it's like all the million things people should've said before the parting get jumbled up and rolled around on the tongue in an undesirable manner. and most of the words don't come out right, or they don't come out at all.:(

Hello, Thoughtful Thursdays.

there's something about the color of the skies. something about the damp sting of the cold summer air. it's the way the road looks after it's been drenched with the rain. or the faint glow of the lamp posts against the grey of the buildings and the cars revving by. it makes me remember things buried in between the pages of tattered notebooks and paper napkins. there used to be piles of those leaves strewn carelessly in my room. the sketches, phrases, sentences. words used to come so easily when it rains.

the thing about circumstances is, people always have to make sense of it. they go for the long, straining process of dissecting sentences, of glances, of the silence, of the reason for the sudden change of tides because they fear the short, simple task of asking. because that simplicity in itself is what's terrifying--when layers and layers of conjectures, of thoughts and questions are abruptly stripped and rendered useless. it's like driving a hundred miles an hour without brakes or seatbelts on; there's no safety, nothing to stifle the inevitable impact of grasping the truth in all its aching glory. and like all accidents, like car crashes, not everyone makes it out in one piece.

Incorporating the word phones into a poem..

[8:53am]

i'm starting to think,

that phones are lifelines

mapped under our feet,

and over concrete electric posts.

like a web sprawling

ceaselessly,

for another end to hold itself onto.

and this pattern of numbers,
of 8s, 2s and 3s
paves the difficult route
to a familiar voice
a laugh,
miles away yet close enough
to reverberate echoes at 2am,
of the Hows, Whys, and What Ifs.

there'll always be things we wonder about at the dead of the night.

***

side note: the 8s 2s and 3s were part of our house's old phone number. i decided to use it here cause it just fits the poem perfectly like an old pair of cherished gloves. writing's amusing that way.:)

what else do we have, if not hope?

like how people involuntarily cast their eyes to the sky when the sun breaks through the gray of the storm. like lamp posts guiding restless souls in the gloom of the night to a somewhere, anywhere. like dreaming, where we allow most of what we could not once our eyes open to the waking of a new day. like the simple belief that everything--absolutely everything--will carry on to be yesterdays and then yesteryears. and no matter how much we insist that that piercing ache, or that feeling of demise is something we're not going to live through, we do live through it. if the world won't stop for bliss, then it sure wouldn't stop for a tragedy. /willtrytoedit

maybe there is no such thing as growth, not figuratively or in an idealistic sense anyway. we think we're all learning to decipher between the lines and periods of sentences spoken, or even the deafening lack of it. the things we swore under exasperated breaths to never repeat, to never relive, suddenly arrive at the foot of our doors in the form of another year, another name, another split second of our dearly guarded walls crumbling down.

maybe all we have is a whirling cycle of circumstance, or tornado if you please. it begins in the calm of a sunny day being enveloped by a mass of gray imposing clouds; then the arrival of the storm over the horizon and its cruel descent on our lives. the catastrophe left of its passing--the helplessness and despair that soon follows after. and then a moment of acceptance, resignation and understanding.. getting off of our knees buried deeply on the ground and cleaning up the mess--salvaging what is left of the crushed and broken, if there is any at all.

/will edit more

i miss being at a concert; i miss feeling that nothing mattered when you were at one except the music. there is no tomorrow, no yesterday, no years ago or the years that will be--only right now. everywhere you look you could see it in people's faces: they're all waiting for the next song, the next rhythm, the next strum of the guitar, the soft tapping of piano keys, or the clang of the drumsticks like one waits for love or some other amazing emotion that gives them butterflies in their stomachs. and you realize, right then and there out of the thousands of people you've never seen your whole life, that you all have and share something in common--this night is something you're never ever going to forget.

i want to start this year right.

and that, for one means, writingslashpostingonblogs often. i will try to make it as substantial (or interesting) as possible, for thoughts like anything else, should not be used in excess of what is otherwise needed or asked.

so here's an awesome concept for an exhibit or maybe a cafe: walls super-glued with tons of manuscripts!!


i do feel awfully sorry for the books, though; but it is better this than the dump (which these babies would probably be in, if not plastered in these walls).

* * *

i see black coats, hear the
noise of heels against the rough pavement
empty stares, empty conversations
of how doomed the world is,
or theirs for that matter.
i see glances of people
passing by.
none of them honest,
not even mine.

dated 12jan2010

so before the year ends, here's a post (which as you would prolly notice, is kinda overdue and messy):

it feels like an ending. an ending the same as that of any year when nights stretch longer than the days and the cold becomes a familiar companion in the waking hours of morning and late afternoons. it's the same christmas tree and all its blinding lights. the same smell of peppermint and coffee coming together in a dance of sort; even the sight of gift wrappers bring nostalgia of years i can barely remember, and suddenly i find myself missing the shiny foil wrappers and the smell that wafts through the air when the presents are undone. yet amidst all the comfort of familiarity, i have never felt it so different--i've never felt so out of place.

and maybe it is supposed to be like this: life changing moments are there not because it's cruelly inevitable, but because life gives us another reason to change or become anew. the forks in the road are merely paths we haven't seen before but have always been there, and always will be, so long as we are breathing. then all the sweet detours, the last second u-turns, the unanticipated roadblocks, the needed pit stops, the humble yields, and everything in between the cracks and gutters of the road will make the destination for us. and it would all be worth it--more than worth it, in the end.

if i let it sink, i will with all certainty, drown in it.

lord knows when or how i will be able to recover from that.

there is something achingly beautiful about things that are fleeting. they don't rust, wither, or die away--they don't change because you never get to see them when they do. they just exist in that moment. in that second of a minute in a lifetime, our eyes and hearts try to hold on to every single intricate thing possible--the colors, the words and sentences, the music playing in the background, that unmistakable feeling in our gut. we hold on to these like the pictures we keep hidden in the boxes of our memories.

wrote this a few days back on a scrap of paper and found it squished with my review (ugh) papers. the months-long (or was it year-long?) hiatus on writingslashblogging has taken a massive toll on my grammar and vocabulary. it's gonna take a lot to bring the old habit back but i'll try my hardest. even if no one visits this site anymore. *3*

the reflection is barely visible in the rain drenched concrete road yet i recognize it like a dear old friend from a yearbook of several summers past. i wonder if people ever notice it--notice themselves staring back, illuminated faintly by the streetlights and shops that are never open to anyone's heart. wonder if they wish silently to themselves to be on the other side of things where regret was just another unfamiliar word found in tattered books and songs. but time isn't made for wondering aimlessly into forever or the end, eyes weren't meant to look down or back for long, and like the rain that dries up into nothingness, so do the musings.