dreams and memoirs

remember: the tragedy of life is not what we lose, but what we miss. - paulo coelho

i've been quite bothered about something lately and i'm not sure if i should blog about it. i've had an ugly experience with blogging before, especially when one's in a vulnerable state. i'm not talking about myself - it was actually someone's post about me. anyway, i don't think i'm vulnerable now. i was, a couple of weeks back, but thankfully i was preparing for something really important then and couldn't just afford to write or get distracted about other stuff. right now, i guess i'm as sober as i'll ever be, so here goes...

some weeks ago i had this dream about someone. in the dream, i chose him and i've never felt happier and free. then i had another dream about him, we were on a date and it ended in an escalator scene. the escalator was long and steep, and i remember being scared to go down. and that was it. freud says dreams are manifestations of your inner desires. i don't agree totally, but i believe dreams are representations of things that are in the recesses of our minds. anyway, as you can probably imagine, i was so hung up for a few days (i dreamt of these on 2 consecutive nights), and i started to wonder what these dreams were telling me.

i thought about how "we" ended. there was really no "us" but i loved him dearly, and i'm sure he loved me more. as i recount what happened, i realized that there really is nothing else i can do. i had my chance and i blew it. i mustered enough courage to "win" him back, but it's simply not the same anymore. feelings change, as do people.

so i lost.

it was a tough reality to accept, but in retrospect, even if i knew that i'd lose, i would've done it still. at least i wouldn't be flooded with what if's, knowing that i did what i can. heartbreaks happen, but we move on.

i'm a happy kid now. when i saw this tweet from paulo coelho, i felt lucky that i didn't experience the "tragedy of life" despite losing something i really wanted. and i realized i'm exactly where i should be, with the person who loves me despite my many imperfections. :) love is not a feeling, it resides in the will - i should remind myself of that more often.

and hopefully none of these haunting dreams anymore. :D

thoughts after the deluge

everywhere life is full of heroism

i remember this line from my life's motto, desiderata - after seeing all the people who went out of their way to help the flood victims of the recent storm ketsana that hit the philippines.

i know there are a lot of unsung heroes out there. God bless the Filipinos.

take me away, the song

got the chance to hear this song again while driving around singapore to do site inspections. my header on this blog - aside from it being a default for the blogskin i used - was partly inspired by this song, so i kept it.

*sigh* the acoustic version just makes me melt...

Lifehouse - Take Me Away (acoustic)[MP3-Codes.com].mp3 -

it keeps leaving me needing you

i've got nothing left to say
just take me away

because i want to remember

okay, this won't be long. just want to list these quotes down:

because there's nowhere to go but everywhere... keep rolling under the stars, generally the western stars. (jack kerouac)

maybe because i'm waiting for the fireworks, or for every light to put off all together at the tick of midnight... don't stop looking for magic everyday.

these are the mottos that i forgot to live by. stumbling upon them once again through a friend's blog - the friend who gave me these quotes as a send off and a birthday wish, by the way - just made me have knots in my stomach.

thanks crazy, for posting these words again. you know how i'd love to roll under the stars.

thanks bart

it's been 4 years since i had a post about a pet. that was when i wrote about bwit, my pet hamster. i had her when i was in 3rd year college and she died the summer after. now i'm writing about bart. some of you may have known him, he's the pitbull that scared the hell out of some of our visitors at home, especially when he makes this rattling noise whenever he jumps on top of his dog house.

last night i got a text from my mom telling me that bart had already died. that morning, my mom called me with that worried tone that makes me palpitate. she told me that johan, my 1-month-old nephew, had been confined. he choked on his milk and couldn't breathe for a while. he's now on dextrose and had been diagnosed with pneumonia as some milk got into his lungs. if antibiotics couldn't get it out, they'd have to punch a hole in his lungs to drain it. i was in tears. then my mom also informed me that bart fell sick suddenly. he couldn't stand and wouldn't eat. she said that while she doesn't want to lose either of them, she hoped that bart would 'redeem' johan instead. johan's condition is stable now, thank goodness. but bart had already left us.

raymund, who took care of bart for a while, asked me to take a picture of him when i went home for a vacation 2 weeks ago. i wasn't able to, cos i really couldn't get near him. i just usually checked on him from our window. now i regret not going out to see him up close.

i really have this slight cynophobia, even with our dogs (and we usually have at least 4 dogs at home). i wasn't like that when i was 7, i used to snuggle with our semi-dachshund dog fida and even helped her deliver her puppies, and you know how fierce pregnant dogs are. but then there was this incident when i tripped and accidentally fell on top of doggie, my grandaunt's - you guessed it! - dog and he bit my ankle. back then whenever i described him to others, i'd tell them that he's like a cow, cos he seemed huge to a grade-schooler like me. in retrospect, he might just be your typical labrador-sized mongrel. :D then it also happened twice that my mom got bitten by our neighbor's dog and i was worried sick because of rabies. luckily the nasty dog didn't have one. and of course there were those few occasions when a dog was running after me. those must have taken a few years off my life. watching quarantine early this year just relived my fear of rabies, and i had a hard time sleeping for at least a few nights because of it. :S

bart was one dog i'm scared of. one obvious reason was his breed. he's our second pitbull, and also our second dog named bart. when my friends and i hang out at our front yard, they'd ask me what if bart got off his leash, and i'd tell them to run for their lives. my greatest fear when coming home alone was seeing our dogs, especially bart, running around the house without a leash. i don't think i could get myself to go in. sometimes, when i feel that the coast is clear, i'd still make a dash from our gate to our front door while frantically searching for the right key. but i guess this fear was all in my head. bart was really a gentle dog, he hadn't bitten or attacked anybody. raymund who loves dogs, used to walk bart on the streets. he told me that bart was only mad at other dogs, but not at people. i've only heard of two people he didn't 'like'. i took a peek at him when i was home last time. of all our dogs, he's the only one who seems like a human trapped inside an animal's body. that's how i feel whenever i see his gentle eyes.

my parents told me that maybe bart did give up his life for johan, because other people say that our pets sometimes take our burdens for us. and i'd like to believe that he did. i'm still crying about it (as in right now, haha), but i'm thankful for whatever bart may have done for my nephew. we'll miss you dearly, bart. :'(

ps: kindly include johan in your prayers for his speedy recovery. thank you.

porcupine

this was porcupine 3 yrs ago...


he turned 4 last week. 4 yrs did go by in a blink. he's looking more handsome now, dontchathink? :D

cake courtesy of his ninang/ate cha (that's me!).

it's not a pretty picture of sami, but they're sooo cute in this photo. i wanna hug them too!!

how i met the stranger

when i left work yesterday, i still hadn't decided exactly what to do or where to go. since raymund was in some steamboat resto for his colleague's farewell dinner, i knew i'd be wandering off alone somewhere else. i was thinking getting some soya ice cream first from mr bean, just across the road (i have this coupons that'd make you pay 30 cents less, haha!). but when i got to the lobby, they were fixing the carpet, which blocked the way and led me to exit from the other door. just outside that other door was the queue for the free shuttle that goes from our office building to city hall to suntec city. so i found myself queuing too, while trying to read one of neil gaiman's short stories to kill time.

then i got off at city hall. it's been quite a while since i took that shuttle bus, and when i got off i wasn't entirely sure which way to the mall. i wanted to go to MPH, this bookstore in raffles shopping centre, that's connected to the city hall mrt station. so i just walked, and followed this other guy in front of me. i had to restrain myself from walking my usual pace (which is relatively fast) so i wouldn't get ahead of him. but i guess wherever you are, it's quite easy to know where the mrt station is cos everyone's headed for it.

so i got into the mall, thank goodness. wandered to the basement cos i remembered that's where the bookstore was. got sidetracked at watsons, cos my night time moisturizer had already changed consistency and was bordering on sticky, so i wanted to get a new one.

then i got to the bookstore. i decided i wanted to read murakami again, this book i saw from casual poet's blog (although i still have neil gaiman to keep me occupied for at least a few more days). since it was still early to have dinner, and i couldn't rack my brain on where to have dinner alone (i do mind eating alone outside!), i felt it would be fine to just search for the book without asking for assistance from the staff. i browsed through each shelf of popular fiction, which i thought was the most apt category for the book. but it was taking much longer than i expected. so i went to the counter and asked where i can find murakami's books. the girl pointed me to asian novels, at the bottom of that shelf, she said. so i was scanning the books quickly and got to the bottom part, when i was interrupted by a man who was sitting on a small chair with a pile of books on the floor. initially i thought he worked in that store and was just arranging the books. he asked me if i read murakami and what i thought of japanese authors and to recommend one of murakami's books. i said i've only read a couple, so i pulled out a copy of after dark and gave it to him. apparently, he was the chatty type and had such a loud voice that i found myself answering his questions, giving my opinions on stuff and getting weird looks from other customers. i don't even want to enumerate all the things that we talked about. he's a self-confessed "mad" person and evidently he was. from what i've gathered, he's a cook, an english teacher, a poor old but important man, and had suffered from a recent stroke/heart attack. that explains why he had a walking stick with him.

he's not like those really old men you'd take pity on cos they can hardly walk. he's not that old, he's in his 60s, was enthusiastic, a little too friendly, obviously eccentric, opinionated and a bit too demanding! he's the type of person who can see a situation clearly, and has a well-defined picture of his personality, that much i can say. he invited me to join him for dinner, at a food centre outside cos he can't afford to have dinner in the mall, which he reckoned, would easily cost him about $10. he's poor, he said, so his dinner budget was only around $3.50. okay, i may be too naive or just plain stupid to not have declined. i actually got out of the mall and accompanied him cos at the time, i couldn't find any reason not to, except that it's completely bold and unusual. i thought well, he just had a stroke, seemed to be needing some company, and i had nothing else to do and didn't want to eat alone, so what the heck. i ordered fishball noodle and he ordered his tofu and veggies. he asked me to do him a favor and buy a cold barley drink for him, which of course i didn't ask him to pay. he kept asking me to "do him a favor" such as speak a bit louder (he's partially deaf) and let him hold my hand/arm when crossing the street. when we're on our way back to the bookstore, i was already a bit annoyed although the things he's asked of me were fairly reasonable. he invited me to this film and this session with a playwright, cos he thought i was interested in these kinds of stuff and felt that i'd also find him interesting once i get to know him more. i'd say his friendship was too much for someone whom you've just spent 2 hours with (which he also recognized).

back at the store, he took a lot of books - about $300 worth, which he can pay for thru some means, like charge it to some organization or something, i dunno. he asked me to include the book that i wanted to buy so i'd have 20% discount too since he's a member and was entitled to it. personally i didn't want to, cos at this point i didn't want to have anything to do with him (like some debt of gratitude). he was asking the staff to do this and that, like check his book list, make him an invoice - much to their annoyance. and he can see that. the guy from the counter was a bit rude to him, clearly he's pissed off. that guy asked if he can have a word with me and i said okay. he told me that this old man i was with (he knew that i went out with him for dinner, and i felt embarrassed and stupid now), was "not right up there" (he meant his head), and it's better that i don't have connections with him cos he assumed the old man would just be a nuisance to me. i knew he meant well. i told him that i know he's mad, and that i agree with him, cos i really don't want to have connections with someone who's practically a stranger. so i paid for my book, and the girl at the counter gave me an apologetic, or rather a pitying smile, probably felt sorry for me for what i had to put up with in the past couple of hours when i had really just planned to buy a book.

i bid the old man goodbye, told him i had to go and headed for iluma, where coffee bean was open til 11pm. it was a pretty neat place to hang out, and i felt a bit irritated for having allowed that thing to happen to me, which took so much of my time. but then i asked myself, what's wrong with it anyway... other than it's completely bold and unusual and made me get weird looks from people. oh well, i'd just be more on guard next time, and not be swayed easily regardless of how harmless everything seems.

i have the murakami book now, turns out it's in the biography section after all. if only i've specified the title sooner, i wouldn't have gone to the asian novels. but it was meant to happen. i was meant to meet the stranger, for what cosmic reason, i'm not so sure. i don't really care now. i just want to start reading and eat ice cream.