Four Days To Go

…Before the predicted End of the World.

 

That day is also a special day for me and my most favorite guy in the world (well, okay, second best to you, Dad.). Since I am still stuck at home with nothing to do but gloat, eat, pray, and love, I’ve decided to entertain myself by taking pictures of my current bosses.

 

 

 

 

Scared the Cat has been busy lately chasing away our neighbor’s cat who has been claiming territory of whether who is cuter. We have accused him for peeing on the couch but since the couch is one of his favorite hangouts, we now have suspicions that our neighbor’s cat is responsible for this. Hence the territory claims.

 

 

 

Davey the Dog has successfully enchanted our other dog Tempe (photo below). She is now two months pregnant. We’re hoping for a cuter bunch but I guess we can definitely expect that from her. We still have no idea what breed of dog she is.

 

Tempe is fourteen years old (two years in human years). He hasn’t had a decent bath since he was born. He has many phobias and this includes hugs or baths. When I once tried to give him a bath by hugging him, he peed all over and pooped directly into my pants. Oh dear help us.

Chi-chi looks just like a chihuahua, is two feet tall and is probably expecting a child soon too. She likes to smile at us and so it wasn’t that hard to get a shot of her this way.

Milky / Whitey suffers from skin rashes. Due to a month’s supply of sardines which I didn’t know had this effect on dogs like her. She is  Davey’s daughter and likes hugs and has no choice but to like baths. She once had a strange affliction of lying on remnants of burnt leaves. She’s still alive.

 

 

 

You Intolerable Insomniac

I am sleepy. Definitely. It’s just that I’ve got so much to think about and so much to do. Have you ever got that feeling?

I actually published this earlier with a different paragraph right after this photo. For some reasons I lost it. Anyway, for a person with a lot of free time I am quite busy. I have thought of keeping a schedule but then someone had just told me that I was becoming a killjoy. And so at the moment I’m just trying to think of better ways to do what I want to do next. Hopefully I’ll figure this out.

I am so sorry, I know you might be thinking of storming out and jumping back to your facebook page. I swear I’ll get back to you with some film experiences about some films you may or may not have seen in the past few weeks. I’ll be coming back with a new 500 Movie Challenge with flexible offers and rules. I’ll be sharing something about films such as The Vow, Morning Glory, Ang Nawawala (What Isn’t There), and Cosmopolis.

Gotta get a clearer mind. Good night.

The Pleasures of Being Single

I had a friend who posted that they will be going over at the Shangri-la Mall in Shaw Boulevard and watch films for the CineEuropa festival from 1pm to 7pm onwards. He was single so I was glad for him that he was able to go on a watch galore. Until I remembered I had a blog that was a bit popular among my multiply friends, probably because they knew who I was and that this blog post seemed like a breakthrough for me.

I got this from my own Multiply account so don’t even say I plagiarized this. Forgive me for any mistakes I may have committed in this post but yeah, sure, read along.

Jul 16, ’07  6:20 AM for everyone

Seriously, when someone asks you about being single, and then gives you those huge sighed faces you just can’t help but ask yourself why you give yourself such disposition and let yourself be left out of the “it” crowd in the world where everyone expects you to be with someone. And I mean someone in the manner that you can sometimes not help but yelp about it and really, really wonder and ponder why, why, why are you the odd girl out?

But actually, there is no such thing as a pressure of having a boyfriend or a girlfriend. Hence it’s a matter of choice and the right timing. And instead, enjoying the SINGLE  life is one thing that makes a person’s youth a whole lot better. I mean, you can do a lot of things in your own way, and spend a lot of time with a lot of people without the pressure of crashing an appointment or a date with someone. And most especially, you can spend time with knowing yourself by building up your inner self, by ways that only God can do,

I am writing this because I am in Being single the same disposition as you or the many others who are striving to Is not improve themselves by having that significant other. And then in the end a curse.turns out in a wrong way that they often blame themselves for lacking this, It’s a gift. lacking that in the relationship that they have or they had. And for them to realize that being single is one thing that they should be proud of. It doesn’t matter whether you’re in your mid-thirties or in your mid twenties, don’t ask yourself why that guy hasn’t come up to you yet or why haven’t you gotten a hubby on Valentines day, please do keep in mind that true love isn’t a thing that rely’s on people’s opinions or peer pressure. It’s something that’s ought to happen, and about to happen. In one way that you can’t predict.

Anyway, why the heck are we talking about love? Let’s enjoy being single! Okie?

Well, I am not single now. I was 17 at the moment and I was enjoying the single life. And grammatical errors.  It gets boring sometimes but sometimes it feels rewarding. Like you can always have the entire day to do things yourself.

But it feels different now, especially since I do have someone special now. We both reward ourselves of going back to our own Single selves (anyway, we’re not married. So technically we’re still single… but not ready to mingle. Sorry guys ). That’s the pleasure of lovin’.

Nothing

If the clock strikes 1:30, I’m getting out of my seat and into my chair outside, face the blazing sun, and do my laundry.
While doing so, I shall make sure that my dogs eat. I will feed them with rice and last night’s supper. I look up at the sky and realize that I’ve only seen a sky like this at the airport. Or during that trip we had to Puerto Galera. It reminded me of a childhood I will always look back at and that things moved at a slow pace. The only problem I had back then was how to do my math homework and that English paper we had to print out on a computerized version. My mother had just bought a typewriter she never knew would be sold by our brother a few years later.

I don’t miss work. That’s one thing I’m proud of saying. I miss the people at work of course. Some that I would say have made an impact on my early adult life by being friends with me, some have made an impact on how people can really manipulate other people, and some who may or may not have had a regard of me as a person who has made an impact on their lives. I can’t explain how that has happened but I just know that I will miss them big time.

Anway, going back to my laundry duties.

Twenty

Here’s a blogpost that has been waiting for me to press the ‘publish’ button for over two years. I got bored, too, so I browsed through my drafts and tadaaa… here it is.

 

I got bored so I browsed through my drafts.

My drafts are a mix of confusing grammar, unerring thoughts, stammered opinions, and just things that I was thankful I hadn’t automatically hit the Publish button.

If you happened to have stumbled upon this blog before, then you surely you must’ve noticed that I mainly blog about films. But before I was even open to writing about my film experiences (either as a whole or as a piece of crap that I still wished I never said..), I was among those silly little girls who sat around the corner thinking of how to end the world of the bitches.

Not entirely. But something like that.

But I am a little silly girl. I was. I’m not sure if I still am. But stumbling upon this post that I had a year ago. Last edited was on August 6, 2010.  I was writing twenty things I would do for the next twelve months. Like a resolution.

I just turned twenty last week. Yay!

A total of 104 friends greeted me through Facebook while ten people stayed up in the wee hours of the morning to greet me on or before midnight (which I of course was able to read in the morning..). Thanks a lot guys!

Now that I’m no longer a teen, here are a couple of things I’d like to achieve while I’m still in my “twenties”:

Meet Robert Pattinson in the flesh, and write the movie he’s staring in.

So what if you’re not into him like I do, at least I’m not trying to meet him and drool all over his face. Plus, I want him to portray something he’s never portrayed before: Jose Rizal, our national hero. Just kidding! Well, I have thought about what character/job I can give him but that’s something I can’t tell you yet.

Eat 50 eggs in one sitting.

Like the one Paul Newman did in Cool Hand Luke. Okay. Just two. One on breakfast, one on the evening.

Learn two more languages.

Sugoi!.. And continue with the french lessons.

Run in a full marathon.

Boost up on the endurance!

Submit your draft to Dorrance Publishing.

Right. It’ll be done in two more months.. two more months, I promise!

Visit a relative you never knew you had.

Thanks, Facebook for making it possible to know that I have cousins who look a lot like my father, and for cousins who live just in North Avenue.

Save up for your future “child”.

Although at the moment this will not be possible, it’s best to save up something for the future just in case. Like, maybe, a lost baby ends up in your doorstep.

Keep it up with them Bangs.

I’ve had these on and off since I was four. Either as an accessory to a homemade apple-cut courtesy of my mom, or as an accident I’ve made one evening while I was hating on my forehead, I think it’s better to just stay there. On your forehead. It kind of adds the mystery.

Martha Grimes is my new Hero.

Her Richard Jury series has kept me up in the afternoon, rolling in the bed at every Old English suspense she writes. I haven’t read this way since Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next series.

I Thought I Saw Your Face Today..

..But I just turned my head away. Sings She and Him’s Zooey Deschanel. The past is at its rightful place. Time to focus on what matters more importantly.

CINE WATCH! CINE WATCH!

Don’t limit yourself to Cable TV. There’s a lot of films out there (namely the ones in the hanging cabinet in your room filled with films, the ones in the living room, and the ones waiting to be mentioned by your Cinephile friends..)

I’ll get back to you in a few days to check if I have done something in these posts.

Dance. Dance. Dance

I’ve got trouble saying how I feel but I can dance, dance, dance

- Lykke Li

As I Stand Here

One of the things I like to do on weekends is to take photographs of strangers. And photographs of things in general. I like to jog on weekends too so I take photographs of co-joggers and myself in sweat.

A photograph of myself in sweat is not something I’d like to share to you in particular. It’s not as interesting as the next photographs you would see in this post.

Just like Zooey Deschanel’s character in Yes Man, I too love to take photographs during my jogging trips. While I was warming up, I took a snap shot of this place in Quezon City that I haven’t been able to dwell into. I’ve been here so many times that I haven’t been able to notice this. Like most of us, I guess I’ve been too busy to take in what we see, even in just a little few seconds. And so, I took in a little less than five seconds. A lone tree that was perhaps pushed by the change of weather yet it chose not to die —- instead, it chose to grow it’s leaves even more and adapted to the change of times.

How many of you out there (yes you, whoever you are reading) who’s gotten this dream of dying? Well perhaps a ratio of about 7 out of 10 have dreamed of finding themselves dying (in whatever instance or situation that occurs into) or perhaps 7 out of 10 have NOT dreamed of finding themselves dying (sorry, my bad of insinuating this thought..). Well, I’ve found myself dying in a number of dreams, but the most similar thought is finding myself floating into some realm of surrealism. Much like floating into a painting that looks real (much like the first photograph). A painting that contains several mountains and a few splashing rivers of several different colors. After that dream, I always find myself wondering if that might be true. Yes. After waking up to that dream I always find myself wondering before praying or even while brushing (or not brushing??) my teeth just to start the day. What if that’s how the after life looks like? What if we wake up to a little bright light and find ourselves momentarily drifting off, off to see the ones we love and hate getting stuck on earth, not even caring to wave us off goodbye or laughing at us for just drifting off to some estrange world? And after seeing all this beauty of the earth, we’re drifted off into a world filled with anger and hate, rage and fear, of loathing and jealousy? Fire into fire into fire?

Well I guess you’d either laugh at me now or say ‘whoa’?! I know, it’s too hard to digest. But that’s how I feel whenever I’m looking at something this beautiful. I stand there and wonder how we never get to just stand there and look. And listen to the birds chirping. And feel the dampness of the sunny wind whirling all over us. I guess I just got too busy.

We’ve all gotten too busy.

So the question is, have we really been to busy to even care? Have we been too old enough to tell ourselves that we know the answers to everything.. or have we just been old enough to tell ourselves that we don’t know and that we don’t care? Oh come on, that’s not how we’ve been taught in school, right? Haven’t we all been taught to keep asking?

Gemini

Sometimes when people don’t understand each other, they just falter and give up.

Some people remember things, some people stick to things, and some people stick to the memory of a person. Or a cat. Or their favorite teacher’s name. Or a book. Or a character from a book.

I remember everything, although I very much would like to forget everything. It comes back to me like a recurring dream. This one would come back to me like a recurring daydream. Like by the time I get home from work, that one hour or forty-five minute drive home (depending if I went home early or I was on overtime) would be like daybreak. Everything you’re not supposed to think about you begin to think about. Like cars crashing into the Commonwealth highway, a car about to collide into our bus from nowhere, a person knocking into my door at ten thirty just to bother my sleep, and then the afternoon sunlight hitting my eyes on that unforgettable afternoon.

In this mini daydream of mine, which I repeatedly have almost everyday as far as I can remember is on that instance wherein I am found sitting in a dewy grass, it’s in the afternoon and I stare at the trees where the sun creeps and peeks like a kid in hiding. I am waiting for someone, and this someone is someone I keep remembering almost once a week, once a month, once in every quarter of the month. He walks into this serene picture, carrying two bottles of water and looks down on me with that reassuring smile. I haven’t seen him in a while and I’m not planning on seeing him any soon. But the problem with people you try best to forget is that their faces are the last thing that disappear.

And so, as I post this slightly personal post, my only desire is to completely forget. But as I say goodbye to that only beautiful memory of that person, I would like to say ‘thanks’ as well. And formally, goodbye. I hope this message reaches across.

I just hope so.

#336: Gigantic

11 September 2011

I was excited to get my hands on a copy of this film by Matt Aselan which stars Paul Dano, Zooey Deschanel, Ed Asner, and John Goodman. I haven’t heard of this until I stumbled upon a synopsis of this film thru wikipedia.

The plot is simple and very interesting: A mattress salesman plans to adopt a chinese baby. Although he’s applied to get one several times, he never gets qualified. His plans to adopt is temporarily set aside once a quirky woman arrives in the mattress shop to pay for the bed her father chooses to buy. After paying, the woman takes a nap on the bed. Soon they begin a casual affair, although as you find me typing in the words ‘casual affair’ and perhaps several images of meet-cutes in the park stream in your mind, these scenes are quite few in the film. Not that I want that conventional Hollywood rom-com thing wherein the lovers go everywhere hoping to make us feel all giggly. There’s a few of that in this film. So few that I was hoping for a breakthrough.

Brian Weathersby is the mattress salesman, played by Paul Dano in a pokerfaced babyface fashion. His face is mostly in a bit of a smug accompanied by wonder in a low-key performance. He’s often being attacked by a homeless man played by Zach Galifianakis, one time using a pipe and the other shoots him during a hunting trip. Their last encounter is in a fist fight which ends up as Brian stabs the homeless man. The homeless man disappears, making us understand that everything is just a figment of Brian’s imagination but leaves him in a beaten up state.

Zooey Deschanel plays Harriet/Happy Lolly, the girl who finds herself comforted by the mattress she pays for for her father. She lives a privileged life with her father, and works with her sister who’s a host at a local show. Deschanel’s performance is as usual fresh and quirky but unpredictable.

The film also stars Jane Alexander and Ed Asner as Brian’s parents who both live upscale outside of the city. Mr. Weathersby is somewhat cool and very unconventional. John Goodman plays Al Lolly, Happy’s father who refuses to pay the extra delivery charges after purchasing the $14,000 mattress. Both wealthy parents appear to be very unusually supportive.

This movie is very.. very… boring in a sense that you would still want to watch it just to find out why things happen in the film. If I might add the part at the beginning wherein Brian’s friend, a gerbil scientist, experiments with mice swimming in a tank. According to a review I read by Stephen Holden from the NY Times, this is Aselton suggesting that this is his approach to the world, as a scientist examining a species under stress. Reading this made the film a whole lot sensible. In a way, Gigantic isn’t just a blunt comedy trying to make a point but showing us that generational misunderstanding isn’t just about a film with kids on a rebel against their parents.