adventures in neverland

it's sunday, so let me be self-righteous and self-indulgent here. prick our conscience for a bit. at my favourite coffee place this morning, while trying to clear my mind of cobwebs mostly composed of paranoia, sadness and a pinch of anger, a family of three arrived, aptly-dressed as though they were going to the hamptons for the weekend (tennis shorts, dark shades, rl polo shirts, expensive canvas shoes and sneakers) carrying with them two lovely midget dogs, the kind socialites in london or los angeles used to carry around seasons ago in their arms as though they were the latest it bags. of course, this being manille, some were just catching up with a fad long gone in the first world. then a uniformed maid arrived, carrying two more cute as a baby dogs, who looked exactly like the first two pets that the wife (i presume) and her teen-age daughter were carrying. as soon as the maid arrived, before they even asked her to sit down and join them, the wife asked her what ti...

dear  you, yes, the wonderful you. i know what you are doing right now. sleepless, troubled, bothered? sitting on the veranda right outside of your room, staring at the darkness. it's raining, yet you can't sleep. everyone else is now asleep. in fact, the whole neighborhood is humming, dreaming, like there is a contest on who can snore the loudest or sleep the most deep. the rain has cast a spell on everyone and put them to sleep. even the usually noisy frogs are quiet. except for you. you keep on thinking -- what's going to happen now? tomorrow when you go to mass?  when you see your friend r again. i can tell that you are confused. guilty. scared? i hope not. but you just turned twelve. too young to know what's going to happen next. you wish there is someone, like a magic mirror, that can tell you what lies ahead. life, at this point, is like the teevee soap operas that you love to watch along with your mother and sisters -- there is always a big ...

if i have tons of cash (say i win the lotto or a long lost rich relative left me with lots of money as inheritance ) and build a home of my own, i will definitely have a quiet, calm, relaxing room where i can read all day, all night without any distraction. here are my favorite home library looks: don't you just love to laze around in a room of your own (or even just a corner), read a favourite book while ella fitzgerald or barbra streisand is playing. add a steaming hot cappush or cocoa and presto, what a wonderful world! (ps: all photos in this post were taken from different web sites. no copyright infringements intended. please inform the blogger if you want your photos removed. thank you.)

paradise? no. that will be too much. that's already hyperbole! i won't go as far as describing this "tiny" patch of land near the manila bay as such. but on a good day, when the sun is about to set and there's not much crowd, and the breeze is cool and crisp (and not smelly), then one can already experience a little sort of bliss just sitting on the concrete seawall overlooking the sea, gazing directly at the fiery colours in the sky, as evening takes over from sun, while silence and then darkness envelopes everyone and everything else, including the coconut trees that seemed out of place in a concrete jungle that is manille. when in a jovial mood, or when i want to shake the lethargy away from my system, or when i just want to sweat all the negativity out of my body, i usually walk from the ccp complex near roxas boulevard up to this place at the back of mall of asia. it would usually take me around half and hour to forty five minutes to get there, pas...

in my past life, i must have been a gypsy. wandering along strange lands and trying to understand people conversing in strange tongues. along the way, i gathered haunting places, unforgettable faces, poorly captured photos and litters of memories. here are some of them. swallowed by the sunset flute in greens daddy and son a penny for your song boys at play bike for hire boy in a window the saddest jester cocktales strawberries for a smile the playing field men at work (making noodles)

“wisdom comes to us when it can no longer do any good.”   ―  g abriel garcí­a márquez ,  l ove in the time of cholera going to this particular shopping mall depresses her. maybe it's the old linoleum tiles whose colours don't match at all (some are white, some are orange, others green. put together randomly as though the workers are drunk), or the toilets that have no tissue papers and smell of piss all the time, or the young men and women who distract your quiet contemplation of what to buy by grabbing your arms and offering you pirated dvds; others to give you flyers announcing the availability of newly constructed condominiums and houses that can be bought at "affordable" installment schemes. she also dislikes the very bright lighting, the plastic plants and flowers, the stench of cigarette smoke, body odour and sweat. the whole place reminds her of an old, dying man. the smell of death is unbearable. she wonders when will the owners ...