All about the In'ernet.

Here's the continuing saga of my spam.

My junk e-mail is starting to develop a personality. It is now trying to insult me:

what a stupid face you have here davidemmanuel.alano
davidemmanuel.alano is a moron
You need to improve your little friend

And a hint of blackmail:

We caught you on tape davidemmanuel.alano

Then it has started to wisecrack:

Close encounters of the nude kind
Honeymoon on moon

and this:

The Loin King

(of course, that cracked me right up, even here in the office)

...

Going through the sites where I usually spend a lot of time I stumbled upon this news:

goddamn. Diablo 3 is on development. what in the world am I gonna do when I can't even buy my own PC. ohmanohman.

to the lady in new york.

Been browsing through the book, and through my memories eventually. There's this seeming question: do you pick up where you left off, or start all over again, like there never was a memory of it. It has lain beside me now since I picked it up from the post office, and I still I am not sure whether to start on the first page or somewhere else, or whether to read it all. It's old really, it even smells different. But, yes, thank you, it's not really that you owe me, at that time, I was sort of glad you were reading it, or was about to read it.

"...to the last hour of my life, you cannot choose but remain part of my character, part of the little good in me, part of the evil. But, in this separation I associate you only with the good, and I will faithfully hold you to that always, for you must have done me far more good than harm, let me feel now what sharp distress I may..."

Those lines stopped me from reading any further more than five years ago. Reading them again, I was waiting for that sort of familiar twinge of pain somewhere in my chest area. I can only muster a halfhearted perhaps; that that feeling had all been sussed out some years past, you see, she still hits like a jackhammer sometimes.

Perhaps I should leave off reading the book altogether. And read more science fiction instead. Then again, I suppose I might leave it all up to you, like inspire me and I'll finish the book once you get past these lines. "...I saw no shadow of another parting from her."

But thank you still, for letting me hear something from the years past, and the now.

gamol on a saturday night.

A sunday and I'm staring again, the infinity of gray in the office only broken by some afterthought of colors in a few places. I've been home and back again. A blur and Manila is in harsh analog focus again; back to the grime of vehicles and drying spit in the streets, and the myriad personal bubbles going their own ways. I walked around yesterday and ended up being smothered by people, a Sargasso without the mystery, and the seaweed of commerce. And always found myself drawn into bookstores for refuge and that semblance of silence.

Going back to the apartment, I ventured a question to myself whether I am finally welcoming the embrace of Manila or if I should finally go home. Yes, home.

The question went unanswered as I lay down finally to sleep and it's still there hanging in the aether, looking at me.

...

I never knew that walking around Megamall could stress me out. Or perhaps it was because of some reflections of myself I saw as I walked past the windows of the mall, alone, and carrying a white plastic bag with four thin used books inside.

I slept for eight hours.

thought patterns.

When we were never twenty, tripping over words and class schedules, we thought big and moved small. College and all the things that fell into place; as I look back, like pieces from different jigsaw puzzles that never really fit. Then I think of Jackson Pollock. A smile. The colors were good next to each other.

The two score or more paradigms for life that back then we named and believed and the number often increasing when were drinking, I can't really remember now. Rather, our own kind of twisted ethos that we never thought about consciously but we now call our own here in this city. A shift every time we come home to Naga, or spend some time with anyone other than the five of us. Shift. Shift. Our very own dogma.

With my face just a little more than an inch from the doors of the MRT, I am looking at the familiar and always strange sight of EDSA. I am nearly thirty now, and looking outside I am conscious again of the strange sort of tiredness I feel, that has been there a few years now.
Some sort of decadence. As much as I like how that word sounds, it is not a likeable word in definition. Stagnancy. Then I get off the train and make another promise in the cold air of morning, something about tomorrow and the coming tomorrows after that. Wishes, tinged with a light shade of frustration desperation. It is hard to move through the detritus but it still feels good to move.

In the darkness of the apartment I see the four sleeping and lying in the refuge that is sleep. I think now, everything is just a matter of waiting. Even death. These are all just fabulous moments in between; all those conversations and fights and silences, the time spent looking for a semblance of permanence and companionship with or without the added help of chemicals. Sometimes just that small talk to help tide the day over.

Not long now before I also turn to the refuge of sleep, I quietly understand that we have our own paradigms. Then unconsciousness now, an inward dream of my life companion and daughter.

Gestalt.

- for my friends and roommates.

on your mind.

Something about this afternoon is taking me way back to the Jesuit Residence, where a host of my memories reside along with old friends, loves and faces not that easy to fade. Reading through the past and the way others write now is making me see how far I have fallen. The thing is I can still remember the exact shade of the sun when I fell, It was a slow fall, it was falling on the side on the mountain not a drop from the sky. Pain beyond anything the name pain is given. I never really had writer's block, I realize now, I simply chose not to write. I used words and phrases like "post apocalyptic confusion", "memory" or words to that effect most of the time, to reflect my current state of mind at that time. A lot of things were scraped from me during that fall, a lot of things. Stupid fool. Stupid crazy fool. Insert smiley here.

Yes, I have picked myself up, without even realizing that fully, then also spent a considerable amount of time walking around aimlessly. Some times looking at the mountain, wondering if I should climb back up again. But I lost my way I think after that and also lost the mountain from my view. So, I just walked and found myself on a mountain, and found it to my liking. If I fall this time, it would be a straight drop down. Fatal.

This has been a lifetime ago, I have just been looking everywhere for the single major reason that took up more than fifty percent of the pie of not really writing.

So, I have come around again, even if I still listen to mostly the same songs. I will write again in the meantime, pick up where I left off. There's such a thing as transcendence.

a veil of vagueness, a sense of numbness and a general feeling of tiredness.

I see sunrise again outside the windows, three months to a year everytime. I'd like to pull the blinds down now, there's nothing new except that it's good to see the sun when she's this gentle. I'll be trudging home again in a little more than an hour. bus, mrt, jeep then an uneasy sweaty sleep. I hardly remember my dreams, it must be the heat or I drown it out with my uncoordinated thoughts. I am wasting away, I guess. Writing and creating something new with my hands seem to help but when my mind tires the feeling comes again.

Or there's just too much noise here. Someone I know has grown uncomfortable with silence, and turns on the TV just for the noise. It turns out that being uncomfortable with silence is much more common than I thought. But I miss silence, and it is one of the easiest things to find Solitude in. And one of the rarest things here in this city.

Almost everybody I know has been warped by work (me, included of course), even if a very few can contest that the work they are in right now is the one they like. It's not that hard to lose yourself, to change without yourself ever knowing, in a sense to forget some parts of yourself. To repeat myself: most of the time the only things we know now are things that we don't want or the things that we must avoid, the things that we truly want are just getting out of reach, or ignored because it is a much harder thing to strive for. We are not who we are anymore. We change even more unconsciously. The only way we can know this is through our old friends, lovers, exes, favorite companion, parents and only if we listen. And I add: ourselves. nosce te ipsum, even if introspection is a difficult thing to do here in Manila.

Perhaps dreams may also have something to do with it. And also its absence, moreso its absence I think.

I just need a big hug right now, and something new, yes, something new.

daytrip.

On the bus again, this time going back to Manila, a daytrip and I was finding it hard to sleep. The sun was at her most importune mood and kept coming through the curtains, then there was the radio which besides the songs being played was at the "bisyo na 'to" frequency. Damn. It took me awhile to suss those things in the background. I was singing a song intermittently and smiling all the while trying to recreate the ditty in my head, and going back to the few hours I was in Naga.

It's been awhile since I have been to Naga, not just months but years now. Just like the song I was singing, intermittent, and it was not really coming home but a sort of a revisit every time, and every time always secretly wishing to stay there, even with all the changes. It is home after all, even if it gets smaller and smaller for every year that I stay away. It is the same each time I come down from the bus, time slows down and I breath easier. There is traffic now, but never what we have here in Manila, after all Naga doesn't have traffic lights. I guess I miss the place more than I am conscious of.

There's a bridge down somewhere in Quezon and we are taking the long and scenic route to Manila. I guess I'll be late for work then. I find myself singing the song again.

"Chickading, chickading, may isang chickading na dumapo sa sanga, dumating ang isa..."

C'mon now, aside from Naga, I also miss my daughter.