A Royal Pain In The Solar Plexus

I was tomboyish when I was younger. I think that being tomboyish is the most attractive option to females who are far from being attractive, the sort who throws up their ungraceful hands early and say "If I can't get a boy, I'll be a boy." They'll harbor a secret wish in their hearts. They'll hope (sometimes unaware) that being boyish will show other boys that they have something in common and thus, desirable. They'll snort at love, marriage, and children but if the opportunity to have all these in one swoon comes up they will take it and not let go until it stops biting and kicking. 

Love for me used to be optional; it's there, and so what? I can get a good dose of love in books minus all the hassle. This used to be so easy to say—everything is so easy to say when you don't know what you're talking about, after all. Also, I wasn't too excited about marriage. I've heard too many marriage horror stories from my mom ("Wag kang gagaya kay blah blah, binubugbog siya ng asawa niyang lasenggero. Nabuntis kasi kaya nag-asawa ng maaga. Naku, kawawa naman.") to be excited about marriage. My mom is a dogmatic, single-minded human being who bores things in you and makes sure that you never forget them. It's all done in the name of love, of course, and I can't really blame her. 

 
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A Feast of Granola Bars

Whatever I commit to writing in this blog is something that I've thought about for some time already. True, I write spontaneously; I don't plan whatever comes out of the keyboard. All I do is hold one thought, a nameless and amorphous thought that has been floating around in my head, and I try to make it solid, to bring it into material existence using words. There are a lot of tumbling, bodiless thoughts in my mind. The purpose of this blog is to give them life.

However, I don't see myself as a good writer. I can admit that I write better than average in the sense that I know how to manipulate words, how to make them say exactly what I want said. But writing isn't all about words. In fact, writing has little to do with words the way painting has little to do with paint. You can use crayolas, color pencils, oil paints, water colors, but the medium is only a medium without an idea or a thought to direct its impression on the canvas. You can use interesting idioms, intelligent figures of speech, artfully placed commas, strategically placed periods—but they are only words, and without an idea or a thought to direct them on paper or on a screen, they will remain only words forever—disembodied and meaningless

 
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Kang-kungan

I was checking out the sinigang for lunch, poking a fork around the pot. I notice that the kang-kong is dismally outnumbered by the gabi. I become immediately cranky. Sinigang should have a lot of kang-kong, whatever happens.

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Tags: mama stuff

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The ‘Suko’ Music Video

Before watching this video, I want to be clear on some very important things: one, that I am horribly un-videogenic and I hold no illusions about it. Two, the song was written four years ago. While I am not going to ask for your forgiveness for the utter jologness of "Suko" I would appreciate it very much if you don't mention it. The song became a favorite of my high school pals when I released it; incidentally, my high school best friend is the one who directed this video for a class project. Three, I am averse to posting any unflattering digital portrayals of myself in the interwubs (as a general rule). However, I will make an exception this time for all time's sake—as a tribute to the song which people seem to like and as a recognition to the effort put forth by the production team.

Here goes nothing (ala Billy Madison). 

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Behind the Shrubbery

When I first met you you were no one

I did not even remember your name and

You did not fit in my vision of the world

To fall in love with

At ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-all

But then I came to know you better

Turned out that you weren't who

I thought you were and should be but

So much better than I still find myself

Luckier than I deserve. 

When Talk Is Cheap

I value conversation. It might be the intensely focused sort or the pointless kind so long as it's fulfilling. How do I know when a conversation is fulfilling? When my heart beats faster and I move only minimally, then I am probably caught up. Fortunately, this particular high is easy to find. I try to surround myself with interesting people as often as possible so I wouldn't spasm with withdrawal.

Like all things, however, conversation dries up. What to do when this happens? Laugh.

 
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Homily

Tagamasid, the official campus paper of the College of Arts and Sciences of UP Manila, will be revived next year after seven years of hibernation. We're currently looking for writers. Qualifications? If you study in CAS and write well, you're in. It's easy. You don't need to show us your True Copy of Grades, Form 5, a 2×2 ID picture or some such—just send me an email at lizlanuzo@yahoo.com.ph. The only hitch is that the qualification "write well" would be mainly defined by me. I'm not strict or evil, per se, and even though I'm not easy to please I am not unreasonable. So, yeah, give it a shot.

Or not.

 
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The Discovery

What do I want more than anything else in the world?

That's passion—that feeling when we want something more than anything else in the world. Why is this suddenly so important, you ask. Well, it's a toss-up between Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead and a confusing discussion in ethics class regarding freedom and free will. I waited in Pedro Gil for thirty minutes around 5:30 today in cold rain, and the question of my passion has been running around my head in loops. There's no answer.

 
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Secret Ovaries

Do you know that I don't know exactly when Marco and I became boyfriends-and-girlfriends? Do you know that I also don't know exactly when I fell in love with him, and that he doesn't know either? Do you know that Marco hasn't cut his hair in six months, and that while I love how his hair falls on his face (as the love songs go), it's still terribly annoying? Do you know that I haven't eaten lunch yet? No, you don't know that.

Marco is one of the most difficult people I've ever come across in my as-yet-short life. He is the only man I know who might, upon closer medical inspection, have a pair of hidden ovaries floating somewhere in the regions of his pelvis. These secret ovaries, connected to hidden fallopian tubes, seem to excrete (at unpredictable times) invisible menstrual fluid which causes Marco's uncontrollable mood swings. This is the only logical explanation I have for his mind-boggling irritability.

 
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Chicken Scratch

Survivors of the First Ever Last Man Standing with Professor John Ponsaran. Still looking bedraggled and shaken here, ugh. That's Ting, Mary and me in the picture in the girls' bathroom.

First ever Tagamasid meeting with Uretz, Ting, Reighben, his boyfriend Jaypee, and Jodie, the Editor-in-Chief. Well, we thought this will be our office but we were moved to the next room, which is gloomier and older. Eek.
 
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