Once again, I have nothing.
And while most of my favorite bloggers would rather keep to themselves these annoying and now-repetitive admissions of failure, here I am nurturing the frustration and feeding it fat for everyone to read.
Continue reading “Don’t Interrupt the Sorrow”
Some nights I wish that I took poetry lessons to heart. To learn Language. To make it dance then break its legs. To make it crawl out of the page, make it punch people in the gut, or maybe in the face. To know its dirtiest kinks and please it like a lover until it writhes and shivers and screams.
But tonight let’s just file these thoughts in a folder called “dreams.”
To Myself
Franz Wright
You are riding the bus again
burrowing into the blackness of Interstate 80,
the sole passenger
with an overhead light on.
And I am with you.
I’m the interminable fields you can’t see,
the little lights off in the distance
(in one of those rooms we are
living) and I am the rain
and the others all
around you, and the loneliness you love,
and the universe that loves you specifically, maybe,
and the catastrophic dawn,
the nicotine crawling on your skin—
and when you begin
to cough I won’t cover my face,
and if you vomit this time I will hold you:
everything’s going to be fine
I will whisper.
It won’t always be like this.
I am going to buy you a sandwich.
The poem is from Franz Wright’s Ill Lit: Selected and New Poems. The featured image is 20,000 Leagues Beyond My Mind by Dawani de Leon.
A part of me regrets posting the Plath poem last night. Work has been a shitshow this week and yesterday was just — hay, ‘tang ina. The gist, I suppose, is I fucked up.
Or other people fucked up. But because my brain is wired a certain way, I have this crippling tendency to just take in all the blame.
This morning, for example, the contractor told my boss that our project had not been running smoothly in their site. Parts never arrive on time, he said, and it’s my job to tell the vendor to provide all the parts on time. But I always speak with the vendor and he always assures me that he’s got it, that he knows the drill. Welp. Apparently not.
The other day I had a different problem with another project. The site discovered existing issues with my design, all of which I assumed were already handled in the past. Again, apparently not.
So I made all these assumptions and they ended up biting me in the butt. I’ve been trying to justify my decisions but, to be honest, they were really just shitty decisions. I fucked up.
Continue reading “Friday Hustle”
I have no plans tonight. R invited me to “his thing” but I already made up my mind: I hate social interactions on Friday nights. Sorry, R. Happy birthday.
Weather Network predicts a high of 13’ today (Celsius, not Freedom). I will be visiting another open yard site for work; I hope I don’t freeze. The last few days have been unusually warm for October, but I don’t want to jinx it. Oh god let’s not jinx it.
Maybe I should go to the gym tonight. Yes, that could be the plan. Go to the gym after work, go home, and eat cake. There should still be some beer in the fridge. Perfect.
I did another book tag I found on The Reading Hobbit. Fun, fun.
Yes, totally. And I don’t really care so long as the pages remain intact and the words remain legible. I’ve long abandoned this banal sentimentality towards physical books; nobody is any less of a reader just because their books look “used.”
Essie lent me (or gave me, haha) her copy of Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao about 10 years ago. I’ve read it so many times and now the back cover is almost torn off. Sorry, Essie, for never giving it back.
It depends on how busy I am and how “heavy” the book is, literally and figuratively.
Continue reading “Book Tag #2: Of Friday plans and reader confessions”
Today’s a Monday, I know, but this is my blog, so let’s follow my rules. (And I’m sure the creator of this tag wouldn’t mind? Or at least I hope they don’t).
Anyhoo, I am currently
reading America Is Not The Heart by Elaine Castillo, and it’s hitting way too close to home;
writing this post and a thinkpiece (charot) on OPM and migration. The second one doesn’t seem to be taking shape though — I just don’t have the discipline to do research, prfft;
listening to Eraserheads’ “Sino Sa Atin” off the under-appreciated “diket-diket” album Natin99;
thinking that I really do like Natin99. Legit, beh. Enjoying this album comes with age, I think; I just never cared for it when I was younger. But now? Dude. “Kahit Ano” is the barkada anthem. “Tama Ka,” “Maselang Bahaghari,” “Pop Machine,” “May Sumasayaw” — damn solid bangers, I’m telling ya;
It’s been a long day.
I left the house a few minutes before 7:30. My goal was to be at the new work site by 8 am, and according to Google I still had enough wiggle room to get there right on schedule. I was cruising through 118 taking my sweet-ass time when I sensed a bright, white flash — a speeding ticket!
I couldn’t understand why I got flashed. I was only going a little above 60 — definitely under 65 — so, what did I do wrong? Maybe this was a 50 road, I told myself, but I wasn’t even a block away when I saw another flash. Wait — was I ticketed twice? Was there another hidden camera? Why would they set up two speeding flags so close to each other anyway?
Magpapaskil ako ng mga litrato bilang pananda sa nagdaang linggo. Maraming mga munting pighati ngunit marami ring munting tagumpay. Natutunan kong kaya ko namang kaligtaan (kahit panandalian) ang pag-inda sa mga problemang wala sa kamay ko ang solusyon. Naging mas maunawain din ako sa ibang tao, at lalo na sarili ko. Matagal ko nang ikinukumpisal ang mga pagkukulang at pagkakamali — panahon na upang patawarin ang sarili. Kaya ngayong gabi, hihinga ako. Magpapahinga ako. Kaya ko ‘to. #
Sinulat ko ‘to kagabi, Biernes. Pero Sabado na. Tapos na ang pahinga. Balik na ulit sa pag-aaral ugh ‘tang ina.
