It’s weird going home to a house that you’ve always prided on being empty and find a few strangers lurking around. I have never been one for socializing (remember, I am the fencesitter here) so it’s kind of awkward to be walking around knowing that there are a few yellow colored eyes following your every move.

Still, one must roll with the punches and pretend that nothing has upset the balance of tranquility that I’m used to having. I must have been stoned to high heavens when I wrote that blasted article a couple of weeks back. But no matter, what’s done is done and I can only look forward to the future. Hopefully once the controversy has died down, I’d be able to return to my usual humdrum existence.

My teenage hero Doogie Howser, MD the very first blogger (I think) is now more popular as Barney Stinson(How I Met Your Mother), he of the Bro Code and all that. But I can still remember how much I enjoyed that show and how, every night, he would write in his electronic journal his thoughts and the things that somehow changed his view of the world. I couldn’t afford a computer then so I followed his example by keeping volumes and volumes of journals, something that my mother used to read and needle me about.

I used to love poetry as well but they were more of baits rather than anything else. Baits for what? That I’m not prepared to answer.

It’s funny how quickly this post has turned introspective though I am feeling that at the moment. After a DVD marathon last night that started at 8pm until the wee hours of the morning, I still ask myself what happened to my dream of enrolling in a creative writing course in UP. I guess practicality has kept me rooted to the ground. FUCK practicality though, I would be happier discussing some crazy author’s suicide more than anything. But, the die has been cast and I will have to live with the lot that I find myself now.

I took out my Rilke copy (Letters To A Young Poet) last night in between screenings and I remembered my own correspondences with somebody a few years back. I no longer have any contact with that person and I wonder what that guy is up to. No good, most probably.

It seems, my own solitude has served me really well, except for some bouts of schizophrenia every now and then. Watching movies or having lunches by my lonesome seems really, really natural now. Not that it bothered me in the least bit before, despite my colleagues’ raised eyebrows.

It’s still a source of wonder for me how some people can’t seem to do that. I see office mates and friends panicking whenever they find themselves alone and without a pal to go to lunch or to dinner with. It’s insane how much lengths people would go to just to be ‘not’ alone– a concept that’s as natural to me as breathing.

But then again I am a wanker so what the hell do I know.

There really is a danger when reading stuff of this genre, you get sucked in the storyline and sometimes you drown. There are stories that make you wonder whether the life you lead is really the one that you want to live. I have to admit it that there were moments in between chapters that whatever confidence I have in my existence was shaken and all I can do to prevent a meltdown was remind myself that what I’m reading does not necessarily reflect my life in reality.

Still, for my own sanity, I have to keep away from themes like these. I should just limit myself to porn and mindless violence. lol.

Cliffhangers

The first time I saw this picture, I felt like a bucket of cold water was poured on my head. I thought about all the bitching I’ve done when driving along potholed, unpaved roads in the province; how I cursed government officials for those old, rickety bridges in the countryside.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not about to stop with my bitching. There’s enough fund for those roads to be paved and those bridges to be replaced; the funds were just, how do we say this, diverted to some trapo’s deep pockets. It’s just that putting everything in their right perspective, when you look at something as deplorable as this you kinda feel relieved that you are not in their shoes.

I’m not sure if this is a slight version of schadenfreude (happiness derived from other people’s misery), perhaps it is, but somehow I got the feeling that I was a bit too harsh in my rants against them politicos.

Hmm.. Nah. Not really.

It wasn’t that I was idle or anything. I just kinda thought other blogs were more important than this. This blog is a parasite after all. No viable financial returns whatsoever. Except that I kinda feel uninhibited here. No thinking twice whether what comes out in the screen is politically correct or not, no rewrites, no nothing. Total freedom.

There’s something to be said about that.

Let me waxe philosophical for a moment. One of the greatest satisfactions in life is to be able to feel deeply about something. We all know how temporal life on this planet is and it would be such a waste if we’re just living each day waiting for the inevitable to happen. So the best we can hope for is that we’ll have something bigger in our life than our usual everyday existence; something that would distract us from the dreariness of our everyday lives.

For the present this is my distraction. I say for now because I do not know how long this fascination will last. When I was younger it was that fuzzy yellow ball that makes me get up everyday. I couldn’t stop thinking about tennis. When I’m in school and not on the tennis court, I play matches in my mind. I read all the tennis literature I can get my hands on and go to great lengths just to watch the world’s best play. Now with injuries and age (some may refer to this as injury, and no I’m not that old) I have to be contented with playing tennis in my mind.

Call it passion or calling or vocation, but the important thing is we have something that makes us all pumped up and feel fully alive. At the moment blogging does this for me, and I can only hope that I can sustain this feeling longer than my earlier tennis fantasy. The good thing about blogging is that it is timeless. You can never be to young or too old to blog.

I’ve been blogging for at least 5 years now.  In that span of time I have lost track of the number of blogs I have started and have failed to sustain.  But there are some that for sentimental reasons I have maintained until now.  In trying to make sense of the new platform that I am trying out, I suddenly had the urge of putting all things I have written about under one roof.  Here.  I wonder if this is the right thing to do, having created for myself personas that would shame a schizo with multiple personality disorder.  There are also a lot of entries from other sources that in my opinion should never see the light of day.  Posts that should never be imposed on any man, stupid or otherwise.  But then again, these posts are part of who I have become.  This semblance of a person that I am.

 I used to go about this exercise in a rather brutal fashion.  I would get a feel of the posts I have written and if there’s even a hint of hesitation in my part, it goes to the recycle bin.  I now realize this erroneous method of deciding whether a post should survive my purges or not.  What I have done is tantamount to literary genocide.  I did not give these mediocre posts a chance to at least breath the internet air when in hindsight these are the very posts that reflect my imperfections. 

This time around I’ll try to be more forgiving towards myself. 

Expect a slew of posts to be added to this blog in the next couple of days.

Lately I have been watching out for those days. I’d get up every morning and assess myself; how am I feeling, do I detect any discomfort, is there any pain somewhere. More often than not, there will always be those small aches. Without meaning to, stress from all sorts of things can cause this. When I find myself saying yes to any one of these questions, I move on and just deal with it.

But there are also days when everything just seem to fit. There are no discomforts, no anxiety, and no nagging thoughts. These are my perfect days. And by God I take advantage of days like these. I go to my favorite resto and eat my favorite food, I call my friends, and I smile at everyone I meet. If possible, with the SO or a friend in tow, I go to a movie at the end of the day to celebrate the joy that the day brought me. I believe that it’s only fitting to end a really nice day on a high note.

For most of us, happiness can be very fleeting and unless we watch out for it, we’d be doomed to live our lives in constant agitation.

I am almost done with Season 3 of Boston Public and I can’t wait to get started with House MD’s third season. I cannot help but wonder if what I’m doing is healthy at all but I figured that since im already a bit wet, might as well take the opportunity to take a bath.

As Allan Shore loves to say– indeed.