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Back from Cold City
Friday, March 30, 2007

pizza box fire.
So I just stumbled out of a 6-hour bus ride from Baguio, grad rehearsals are currently underway, my actual college graduation is this afternoon, and I am home, online. I rule.

Had a last-second microvacation with the HegEmoness and Javs. Roughly two days in Baguio doing nothing but eat, drink, make fun of each other, sleep and feel very nippy. I did my mandatory ukay hoarding and ube bingeing, but I did not get blasted like last year, when I drank Javs’ kryptonite of a gin-lime concoction and woke up topless and smothered in cold, gummy vomit. In fact, it was the HegEmoness who ended up the most wonky among the three of us, turning into a four-year-old who tries to steal posters off sari-sari store walls. She kept us well-entertained. Oh, and we built a good fire with pizza box-kindling, too. It was quite the achievement.

It was a nice little microvacation all in all, and I appreciate our adjourning it moments before I do my thing in a toga. I would rather go through this Most Important Day of My Life in Theory feeling absolutely out of it rather than completely clear-headed. It will make me impervious to the sap in store, among other things.

So here’s to graduation day and whatever its aftermath. *clink* May I not fall asleep onstage.


posted by marguerite @ 11:24 AM

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The Hours: Near-Quarter Life Crisis Edition
Sunday, March 25, 2007


I’ve found god in dishwashing. There’s something about turning inanimate objects from slimy to screeching clean that just does it for me. I like it when my hands are all wet and soapy. I like lemony-fresh in liquid form. I like handling slippery glass. I like rinsing, watching suds scurry down plates and bowls and spoons and forks to reveal

shininess.


It started at 2 this morning, when I decided to cook myself some cheesy scrambled eggs. While I’d normally just dump the utensils in the sink because I lack a conscience that way, I decided to wash them as the eggs cooled. Had the Beta Band playing in the background, and I have to admit that it is perfect domestic chore music. I found such great satisfaction standing over that sink and eradicating any trace of my early morning actions.

It happened again just a little while ago, when I decided to wash up my lunchtime mess. I had Nine Inch Nails as a soundtrack this time around, and it is equally apt dishwashing music. Everyone must try scrubbing away at slop and grit while Trent Reznor sings about him wanting to fuck you like an animal.

I guess when you don’t want to sleep because your nightmares are on a roll and you don’t want to stay awake because the memories that fuel these nightmares are on a roll, the best thing you can do is numb yourself out with domesticity.


posted by marguerite @ 3:48 PM

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2 Posts in 1 Day Makes Margie A Dull Whore
Friday, March 23, 2007

grace.
I was bored the moment I woke up today. The very instant I opened my eyes. Was in a pretty irritable state because of it too, but I didn't really do anything about it until about an hour ago, when I finally hauled my ass out of my computer hole to grab more MineShine and menthols at Ministop. The last time I was out of the house was to get MineShine and menthols at Ministop. Days ago. Laugh at me.

It started to rain a few blocks into my midnight walk. It's incredible how everything instantly becomes farther away once it rains. I only had my hoodie, so I ended up sitting for a while in front of a hardware store, crouched like someone about to knife the next passerby. When I finally got to the store, I bought the stuff I had told myself to buy and sat on the stools facing outside. Offered an ample reflection of the goings-on inside. A testosterone-fest, to my enjoyment. Two bayaws were picking on this Jarvis Cocker lookalike, I don't know why, and it got so heated that Cocker boy up and left in his snow white Beetle, and the bayaws dallied by the curb, puffing away on their cigarettes and making jerky, who ya got, motherfucker? motions towards the streetkids. There was an old bum sitting next to the bayaws. He was sipping from a mineral water bottle. Eensy-weensy, conservative sips, as if his bottle contained the last few ounces of water on Earth, the steady rainfall meaning squat. I walked back the moment the rain let up. The edges of my jogging pants mopped the road up pretty well.

But enough of this hackneyed paragraph. Enough of waxing, um, whatever adjective is apt to wax at this moment. How did that term come about, anyway? Wait. Let me Google.

It comes from Old English 'weaxan', meaning the same as German 'wachsen,' namely to grow, to increase in size (like the waxing moon), or to assume or reach a certain quality or state of development.

It is also interesting to note that that the Old English ‘weaxan,’ grow, which is Germanic in origin, and related to the Dutch ‘wassen’ and the German ‘waschen’ derives from an Indo-European root (which I believe is ‘woks-’) shared by Greek ‘auxanein’ and the ‘Latin’ ‘augere,’ to increase, which is ultimately the root of such words as ‘auction’ (increase the bid), ‘augment’ (make larger, increase), auxiliary (additional), and ‘eke’ (increase, enlarge, lengthen) and ‘eke out’ (supplement, add to, to make [a living], support [existence] laboriously).


O, tara. 2 a.m. pa lang. Sound trip muna tayo.


posted by marguerite @ 1:00 AM

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Kaya Ka Ganyan E.
Thursday, March 22, 2007


Boredom has forced me to relive upsetting childhood memories. Many thanks, Youtube.

The Adventures of Mark Twain was one of scariest films I had ever seen as a kid. It had Satan in it, and the genocide of little clay people, an old pipe organ with faces of anguished souls trapped within, the more-graphic-than-expected banishment of Adam and Eve from Eden, etc. I used to watch it at least once a week and had regular nightmares as a result. I could never get enough of it, though. It got under my skin. The creepiest, most addictive kind of creepy, probably because it was Claymation, which provides that "real, but not" quality. It was also extra unsettling because I had been told it was a kid's film, which led me to watch the damn thing over and over again once I got home from kindergarten, trying to fathom what friendly kiddie message that weird white mask guy (who, apparently, was Satan, but I never really caught that bit of dialogue when I was younger) was trying to convey by performing a mini-massacre on mini-humanity in front of Tom, Becky and Huck Finn.

The video posted here shows that particular part of the film. I wish there were more excerpts, because the whole thing was filled with equally perturbing moments, but, well, what can you do.


posted by marguerite @ 7:52 PM

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Bomba
Tuesday, March 20, 2007

calm like a bomb.
Meet Bomb Girl. Bomb Girl likes to dream of bombs.

I am so bored, my tummy hurts. My body is mad at me because all I've been doing the past few days is make treacherous one-foot journeys from my cot to the PC, or treacherous twenty-foot journeys from the PC to the refrigerator, or treacherous ten-foot journeys from the refrigerator to the couch, or stupendous hikes aaaaallll the waaaaayyyy uuuuuuppppp to the second floor bathroom. Today was slightly different since I actually managed to make the FIVE-BLOCK SOJOURN to Mini-Stop for MineShine and menthols huwaw. A celebratory milktea was in order after Peachy's text and Larry and the Hegemoness' phone calls. Oh, and I actually walked back as well, which makes a total of TENBLOCKSCANYOUFUCKINGBELIEVEIT.

What else, what else.

Finished Paul Auster's New York Trilogy. Spaced out on the couch. Drew Bomb Girl. Took a picture of Bomb Girl. Fixed Bomb Girl's picture up with Auto-Contrast because I am ignorant. Uy, malapit na ang South Park. Babai.


posted by marguerite @ 9:33 PM

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Bundok Bundok Bundok Bundok Bundok
Monday, March 19, 2007

my old dorm.
My high school has a website now. This is a huge technological step up considering that we only had one computer with dial-up Internet access when I was a senior. It was in a corner of the faculty room, and we only used it for emergency emails and checking the UPCAT results (provided that we spent the mandatory hour sucking up to the room-full of teachers and/or feeding them enough inter-student intrigue to last them the week.)

Quite a number of people have asked me about PHSA’s application procedures, and I’ve always been iffy about encouraging others to go to Makiling. The reasons for this sentiment, which I’ve been harboring since I left the mountain for college, are better left for real-life conversation. Probably because a blog entry cannot accommodate all the tears and riled up hand gestures such an explanation requires. Those were four of the best years of my life, and I am incredibly indebted to the place for who I am and what I’m capable of, but I wouldn’t exactly wish it on anyone else.

So if you want yourself or your kid to have a life-changing experience with possible harmful side-effects, by all means apply.

Also on the website is an online version of Variations, PHSA’s official school publication and the cause of my traumatized stance towards journalism. Apparently, this year’s staff is no longer under the Nazi of a moderator I had been under, so good for them. Nazi Moderator used to play favoritism-related mind games with the staff and always went apeshit whenever we prioritized our academics or arts requirements over her beloved paper. Winning the PressCon (government-run journ contests held in public high schools all over the country) seemed to be the one thing that convinced her of her dignity, so she pretty much enslaved us back then. Especially we creative writers, who, due to the tiny student population, were automatically part of the editorial board whether we wanted to be or not. And I used to like journalism. I really, really did. Back when I had a choice.

Now that four years have been placed between me and Makiling (and now that I have more time on my hands than I can standOHGODGETMEOUTOFTHISHOUSE), it sure is fun to look back and gripe.


posted by marguerite @ 9:41 PM

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HahahahaSibolHahahahahaha
Friday, March 16, 2007


We have DSL at home now. So this is what it feels like. I've been heading straight for the PC like a moron since yesterday, but I know the novelty will wear off in about a week. Or at least by the time I run out of music to steal. For now, however, permit me to Youtube Robot Chicken till my eyes melt.

+++

LS Awards last Wednesday. I really don’t know what to say about it. I guess it went fine, and what my friends told me was true, that the whole hoo-hah was mostly for my mom and my grandparents. Should tide them over for about six months. But seriously, I had a good night, and listening to Sir Vim’s citation was pretty damn cool. The weird posture I had adopted as I stood in front of everyone in Escaler, a stance which Larry described as “waiting for something really terrible to happen,” belied the fact that I was having a little happy moment. I mean, I always stand that way, with that same slouch and that same face and that same uncertainty with hand positioning. And it may or may not imply a feeling of impending chaos. Regardless, thank you, Larry, for giving it a name.


posted by marguerite @ 1:52 AM

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Saturday, March 10, 2007

open wide.
It was my first time at the dentist in an embarrassingly long while. A new dentist, but they’re all the same to me, since all of them end up telling me that my mouth is fucked. Despite having a serious oral fixation and grinding my teeth every night, my teeth are nice and straight. Their appearance, however, belies the fact that they are older than they are supposed to be. The insides of my teeth are of a 60-year-old’s, but the outsides are of someone my age. Or something like that. My teeth are dying but they won’t. Inside my mouth is a contradiction.

There was a tiny stuffed koala clinging onto the edge of that harsh, rectangular light they set above your face. As the dentist proceeded to hurt me with her drill and her polisher and her bitter observations, I just stared at the koala, its face smushed against the light’s plastic frame. The octopus told me that you can kill koalas with fright. The octopus also gave me a tiny stuffed koala of my own, exactly like the one I saw at the dentist’s, but mine clutched onto a boomerang. My stuffed koala holds on to its death-object.

I hope the koala at the dentist’s is doing okay. It has seen countless others with ravaged mouths, longing to spit their blood out.

+++

Tagged by Twinkle. These book memes are relentless.

1. You're stuck inside Farenheit 451. What book do you want to be?
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

2. Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?
Justin Cobb from Thumbsucker by Walter Kirn.

3. The last books you bought were:
short story collections, those “best of so-and-so year” and “best new voices” deals, and Killing Yourself to Live by Chuck Klosterman

4. The last books given to you were:
Diary and Choke by Chuck Palahniuk (from Whammy) and What is the Short Story? by Current-Garcia and Patrick (from the octopus)

5. Three books that would have made more of a difference in life had I read them years earlier:
Still Life with Woodpecker by Tom Robbins, Diary by Chuck Palahniuk and The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

6. Three books I borrowed and don't want to return anymore:
I return most of the books I borrow right after I read them, so my mind is mush right now.

7. Three books I wanted to like more:
Choke by Chuck Palahniuk, Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh and
Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

8. Three books I pretended to have read:
--- (wushu)

9. Three books I am happy I bought last year:
those short story collections from question 3 (I’m an infrequent buyer, obviously)

10. Three books I wish I had written:
The Perks of Being A Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer and A Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I tag: Oreo, Peachy, Kael, Eirene and Nante


posted by marguerite @ 9:55 PM

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Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Nicked from Larry.

1. One book that changed your life.

The Twits by Roald Dahl. It was the Ramos-admin brownout summer, and my aunt lent me the book to keep me from whining too much over the heat and the lack of a working Family Computer. It was the first children's book I had read that tortured grown-ups mercilessly just for being grown-ups, and it made me realize that people could write very, very mean stories because they had very, very good points behind them, and that you didn't have to be a grown-up to read or write something vicious.

2. One book you have read more than once.

The Perks of Being A Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, the book that kept me from dropping out of high school. Up until last year, when I just couldn't bring myself to, I read Perks every single September, and made sure to read my favorite chapter on my birthday. I hope I have enough EQ this September to continue with the tradition.

3. One book you would want on a desert island.

I'm thinking something long. I'm thinking Dave Eggers' memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, so I could feel hopeful and entertained at the same time. I'm saying 'hopeful' because when you give me a desert island question, I'm already set on the idea that I will just be waiting for some rescue team to get me out of there, because no way am I staying on a fucking island alone.

4. One book that made you laugh.

Still Life with Woodpecker by Tom Robbins. The HegEmoness lent this to me last year, and I still haven't come across anything else that cracked me up that way. It also has one of the best last lines EVAR.

5. One book that made you cry.

Monkeys by Susan Minot. My mom gave me a copy she found in a Booksale when I was eight, and although I loved it then, it was when I was sixteen and re-read it that the book blew my mind. There's a chapter there about a house party, and of course it was only when I had become a teenager that I finally understood how depressing high school parties really were. I was bawling.

6. One book you wish had been written.

I think Roald Dahl was working on another children's novel before he died. I would've loved to read that, especially since it would've been set in the 80s or 90s, most likely.

7. One book you wish had never been written.
Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach. COULD YOU STOP IT?!?!?!?!??! I had never been more annoyed being slathered in sap and self-righteousness. Shit.

8. One book you are currently reading.
Past Perfect, Present Tense by Richard Peck. Javie lent this to me last week. Peck is a short story writer for children, and most of his stuff here falls way, way, way flat. As in the type of stories that make you go "nyorknyorknyooooork" when you reach the end. There are a couple really good ones, though, so I haven't put it down yet.

9. One book you have been meaning to read
Extremely Loud, Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer, the Boy Who Can Do No Wrong. Wench Eigenmann got the copy I borrowed from Javie because I had left it on the dashboard. Wench!

10. Tag five people.
Twinkle, Peachy, HegEmoness, Kael, Naya


posted by marguerite @ 8:59 AM

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Saturday, March 03, 2007

”Nalipasan na kasi ako ng gutom, e.”
- Doug Candano, after eating 7.8 bowls of Yoshinoya gyudon in 20 minutes

This afternoon at Megamall, the HegEmoness, Arrrkaye and I cheered Doug on during the grand finals of the Yoshinoya beef bowl eating contest. We had talked about Doug joining the thing, believing that his prowess in snarfing horrific amounts of food down in inhumanly short spans of time would, some way, some how, result in something more beneficial than just the chance for us to stare at him in pure horror. And he actually joined the thing, so of course we had to be there. He won third place and got a beef bowl-shaped trophy + cash. Good enough for eating the weight equivalent of a human baby. The guy who placed first with 8+ bowls had set a picture of his ex-girlfriend on the table for motivation. He looks as smarmy as he sounds.

Our Doug as Devourer groupie trip marked the end of my post-relationship, post-university life daze in Katipunan, wherein I did not go home for almost 3 days, eating out, drinking out, and conking out on couches with friends.

I do not have school any longer. I do not have an octopus any longer. I have been pried open to all else, and I will handle it with mad nerve like always, this infinite succession of yes, please, anything.


posted by marguerite @ 10:29 PM

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the girl


Marguerite.
23.
Pasig City, PH.

Damned the man, saved the empire.

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