|
|
Guess I'm doing fine
The first snow is falling as I write this, warm in the room with a bottle of Pepsi (no Coke) and Beck's Sea Change album on (track 4 on repeat).
Snow looks lovely when it's falling; reminds me of Makati Day when everyone throws pieces of paper from the office buildings along Ayala Avenue. It really looks like crushed ice, only really white and not transparent, and it looks like dandruff when it falls on black coats. Anyhow, it's amazing, and the sky is a sleek gray and with the bald trees and white snow it feels like being in a postcard.
Still, I'm waiting for it to cover the whole ground because it melts when it hits the ground as it rained earlier. Anyway, nice work, the weather. Nice timing, too.
It's my first Christmas away from home, I mean really away because two Christmases ago I was in Jordan but only for the holidays. I've been in France for three months and it was fall when I arrived and now it's winter. I'll admit it's exciting to be in a new strange land, walking under the snow and wearing scarves and coats as I'm not used to doing but well, that's change for you: things change all the time, and I like that. It's a challenge to adapt. although Christmas shopping in Manila is more enjoyable, because one can really find lots of things and boxes and all that. Things are just soooo expensive here.
We're making a little trip to Bordeaux for Christmas, and are supposed to spend a few days at Carcassone too. Traveling is the best way to forget that you miss some things, because your mind is occupied and you're busy counting miles on the road to think of home, or whatever. It works both ways though I guess. I'm an expert at anti-miss tactics. Lots of tricks up my sleeve.
I should call home soon to convince my brother to buy In Memoriam the PC game... the best game of the year, for all websurfers and snoops out there. I've always thought of myself as a fantastic Googler, and if you feel the same way and want to be a detective then GET THIS GAME!
I want to point out that I miss Cubao (because the Cubao community rocks... really it's the best place in Asia... it's got ukay ukay and I miss ukay ukay clothes and shoes... kill the conos!)
I really feel stupid and slow and lazydays these days, so forgive the braindead updates, and if I am what I write, then so be it.
Damn, the snow stopped.
It's a bit boring, Earth and humans, I think, now that I've seen Lord of the Rings. I mean, there aren't any Orcs or hobbits or Legolases and mutant elephants. I mean physically, as I know some people rather Orc-ish in nature (ok, fine. I dare anyone to mention hobbits and me...!). I wish I could go to Gare de Lyon and say, "A ticket to Middle Earth, please..."
Dooo deeee doooo. Hum. I'm bored.
Girly Post
Yesterday J, L and I (meaning J, K and L...hehehe) watched Lord of the Rings 3 in English. It took me a few hours to get back to reality. It was amazing this film!
Kala: Legolas!
But he IS clean and his hair is always perfect. The little braids are nice effect. He killed a mutant elephant too! I mean, wow, right?!
Kill me but I haven't read the book, so I can't get into any in depth discussions with you about it. But I like to watch it. I think I already mentioned this, no? Oh well. Hehehe.
Oh! The pressure!!! The pressure!! My preeeecioussss
The pressure of writing and sending Christmas cards to people is upon me! Woe is me! I can't make small chitchat and end the note with "...and by the way, Happy holidays". So fake, so fake. I have too many addresses and not enough cards and stamps. Do people expect me to walk in the freezing cold to La Poste and chap my lips in the process? My gloves are lost! I've overturned the whole flat and still I cannot find them!
On a "my preeeecioussss" note I still have not seen the last of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Saturday nite we had a film showing of the two previous ones. Seven hours mes amies. In French. Then there was a contest and I came in last but I still got a plastic figurine of the oh-so-lovely Legolas, with his blond hair and pointed ears. Kill me, I've never read the book. I just like the fight scenes.
I have yet to upload precious pictures of the Fete de la Lumiere, a must-see in Lyon during 8 December because they project light shows on famous monuments and me, I like light shows because at the same time they sell cotton candy and me, I like cotton candy alot.
Off to Christmas card writing I suppose. A painful task, but somebody's got to do it.
O.K. with my decay
After careful musing, I realised that I must really be a horrible person, because if someone in front of me slipped on a banana peel, I would laugh to my heart's content instead of helping him up.
How to trap an elephant in a cage
And so I put a bandage over it, tugging carefully at the ends, making sure that I didn't make too tight a knot. Sitting by the window, the neighbor's Christmas lights were off, and the building looked like a monster in the dark, the fog thick and immense, the fog eating me.
"Why bother taking care of a wound," spoke a voice at my side, quietly, in a sagely kind of way, and I looked down to see the fat, orange cat, "when it closes naturally?"
"Because..." I started, then hesitated to continue, for I realised I was talking to a cat. After a moment: "...because it feels better that way."
"I think nature is most intelligent, what do you think?"
"I guess so, too. But I"m not sure."
After a few minutes of silence, still looking at my computer screen, I asked quietly: "Why then, do you lick your wounds, after a fight with the neighbor's cat?"
He didn't even blink. "Because that's what cats do. And if you've noticed, I'm a cat."
"Sarcastic one, too."
"We're all sarcastic."
I opened Photoshop and started to make a beautiful drawing of a cat.
"And since we're playing 20 Questions here, human being, tell me this: Why do you leave notes in wallets?"
"Because I like the idea of opening something to take money and coming up with something money can't buy."
"How cliché," replied the cat. "Could you be any more corny? I'd love to see you try."
"Why is it," I asked, still staring at the computer, "that you come up to breathe air, then you dive down again, and you try to swim but you don't know what it's for, and you don't know how you learned to dive, and it all comes naturally, and wounds heal by themselves, and bandages soothe the mind, and incense calms, and tea makes the stomach sound funny, and my fingers, my fingers, they feel so rough and calloused, as if my fingerprints are too heavy?"
The cat refused to answer, it was busy licking its paws. A few more minutes passed, the temperature dropped, and so did my energy, and the fog continued to hide bad people with bad intentions as far as my eye could see.
I started to feel sad. I was talking to a cat, I was drawing a cat, and it was far from perfect. And the Christmas lights were still off. And I knew that everyday everywhere there were people talking to cats, like me, and healing their wounds, like me, and bringing together all their remaining energy to make beautiful drawings, even though it didn't matter.
"I lick my paws," said the cat, slowly, languidly, his voice like a spoon turning in a cup of coffee, "because I have no hands to put bandages on the places that hurt."
That was the last thing he told me, and he went to the kitchen, his tail swinging, to take a drink of water.
The wound under my bandage started to heal, because the body makes it that way, because that's how humans work and cope, and when I saved my drawing on Photoshop, I saw that what I had created was perfect.
Here
"I happen to be dressed for success
Here by Pavement
Là pour ça
This morning I opened my eyes and the leaves fell off the trees, and the blue was pushed by gray, rain fell from the gray roof over my head and I felt very, very sad.
The cat scratched at the window, wanting to come in. Meanwhile, I put my hand over my eyes. So for a moment I blocked out the sight of the leaves that fell off trees, the blue that was pushed by gray, and the rain falling over my head.
When you sleep you feel less sad, but dreams can be gray as well, and I ran my tongue over my mouth and discovered in horror that my front teeth were missing, and, in the middle of my panic, I woke up, just like that.
And I ran my tongue over my teeth and everything was okay and in place, and I felt happy but happiness never lasts long.
Downtown at Bellecoeur are newly-installed Christmas posts: white, towering, flowery. They look out of place in the rain, out of place from all the Joyeux Noel signs. Everything seems out of place under the rain, even people who make sense or mind their own business.
And why should people seem in place, when we are never really comfortable, even in our own skins, dressed like the people we are, called by the names we were baptised with, molded into the bodies we were borne into? Why should things be comfortable, when it's a piece of blue sky to be uncomfortable with yourself, once in a while?
If only I could give everything to everyone who wanted it. If only satisfactory explanations could be given when we really need explanations. If only I could stop second-guessing things around, if only, like the Nada Surf song, I were "walking home from a party drunk on Bacardi and listening to voices that lie"...
But you can't really get everything, and tomorrow is another day, hopefully tomorrow will be better, and there is no problem with continuing. Continuation is some sort of automatic response, a thing of the body, the will for the follow-through motion as they say in tennis; an occupation; Sisyphian multi-tasking.
So continue to press your face against pillows; continue trying to make another world your world, life is a balance of the things you know.
|