truth in advertising
Posted at 09:47 AM

was on Timog Avenue late last night. leaned back to rest a bit, clearing space to get a little writing done before calling it a night. had my eyes shut but looked up momentarily to check were i was. saw a banner adorning a gay bar. in big bold letters it said:

gigolo presents RECTUM

i stared at it and kept looking back even when i had already passed. did i read that right? rectum?

got to sleep at about 3 and got up before 8. with a little sleep, in the clear light of day, i'm inclined to think my eyes were just playing tricks on me. that's not really what i read.

then again, it sure isn't something i'm capable of making up.

another high school anthem
Posted at 10:37 AM

last saturday, i was caught in a bit of traffic on my way to ortigas. was rummaging through the glove compartment trying to see if i had any other music to play. found a tape, plugged it in and was immediately sucked into the 80s. the tape was a compilation given to me by one of my best high school buds. i texted her right away "guess what i'm listening to...?" then she replied "great to remember the good times, 'no?"

high school was a hell of a ride. and when i heard this song, the air around me felt just like it did all those years ago. this was our batch song - well, at least our barkada and a few others yep, there was a good dose of 'me against the world' in me back then... hehe.

two rivers by the adventures

They might say we can't go on
They will try to burn you down
What they say can make you strong
But they can't see no reason when i'm talking to you
Don't wanna look behind the reasons why we've come this far
You'll feel the pride of what we are
Two Rivers run to see and catch your falling stars
In troubled times come to me for shelter
I'll be running to be with you and...
I'm willing to make that deal
Is there a chance to carry on
If they could feel the way I feel
They would see the reason
Why I'm talking to you.
Don't wanna look behind the reasons why we've come this far
You'll feel the pride of what we are
Two Rivers run to see and catch your falling stars
In troubled times come to me for shelter
I'll be running to be with you again...

my new favorite appliance
Posted at 09:30 PM

i am firmly convinced that one of mankind's greatest inventions is the paper shredder.

yesterday i got my first taste. i went to the creative writing center with a brown envelope bursting with things just waiting to disappear into oblivion. i pulled a chair and got cozy. when i came to, in about 15 minutes, i had a nicely filled bin filled with shredded bits of different colors forming pretty little layers.

i'm not sure what happened in those 15 minutes. there was something hypnotic, something mystical, about seeing all that paper turn into irretrievable, unrecognizable shreds. laying a paper trail to waste. erasing. removing. expunging. deleting. obliterating.

yeah, a paper shredder is a beautiful thing to have.

one of the reasons why she's the goddess
Posted at 07:30 PM

cynthia alexander's 'malaya'

we are a falling star
a crooked stair
a fragile pair
we are beyond compare
a breaking glass
a cactus chair

here we are
a game of chance
pale Moondance
strange romance
we shall find we shall discover
what is ours we shall recover

Malaya

a hint of fairy's breath
we dream a dream
of summers yet
on the wing a butterfly
a rainbow we must not forget

Malaya

flying over nameless skies
and unknown dune together
strong are we seeing truth
beyond illusion fearing nothing
we are free

Malaya

downloading
Posted at 11:02 AM

right now i'm downloading garageband. it's 36mb and i just use a regular dial-up. this could take a while

but i like downloading. the idea of getting more stuff for piglet (all the people who make freeware are lovely) and just having more things to tinker with...

downloading has a hypnotic effect on me. i can actually just zone out and watch the indicators - how much time left before the download is complete, how much of the file has been downloaded. of course now with garageband, which will take about 3 hours, i am deliberately looking away.

one of my pet peeves is botched downloads - waiting all that time then with just 5% to go, poof, there goes the connection. don't think that happens now with most updated browsers (you can always resume the download at a future time). whew.

of course the other potential pisser is that after all this waiting, my ibook might not be able to run garageband after all. ack! hwag naman sana...

seestahs
Posted at 04:34 PM

my sisters and i are very different people. if you were to bring us somewhere, say baguio, we'd probably never see each other again, never go to the same places - such is the difference in our interests.

one sister came home from a shopping trip with a couple of pastel handwoven bags and a shawl - something, i'm sure we'd all agree, i myself would never buy. another would blow a bonus on a tube of lipstick. i'm hankering for an ipod. one refuses to watch sad and violent movies, the other doesn't like animation. both are diligent, catholic-school educated women whereas i, am not. they would work hard and excel even in fields they don't like while i had to literally kneel in front of a teacher to get a passing grade in accounting.

genes are funny things. on the other hand, i know of sisters who are very much alike. that amazes me. i really wonder what that is like.

(photo of me and my sisters. the one in black is our cousin nina who recently returned to canada. i'm going to miss knowing that she's just around here somewhere... she's kinda like a sister too.)

wow. this is soon
Posted at 02:47 PM

according to this site


i am going to die on:

Thursday, October 18th 2018
At the tender age of 47 years old.

and the possible causes of my death are:

Heart Attack (26%)
Cancer (12%)
Contagious Disease (7%)

the late 80s
Posted at 02:07 PM

trying to continue the high school story (which was set in the 80s) and take the protagonist into college, to her mid-20s and stop when she's 30. to help me along the first part, the 80s part, i would listen to music from that era just to recapture what it was like. so in my head there would be that authentic ambience kung baga.

i want to do the same thing now but i can't remember what the music was like when i was in college. i can't remember who was famous, who was considered emerging, underground, etc. it's a blank and i'm vaguely annoyed by it. wasn't i into music in college?

i remember a few. there was a slew of gary v concerts when i was in college so he must have been at the peak of his popularity then. i remember singing 'la isla bonita' on the way to class. i remember the fine young cannibals. i don't remember much more.

now i have to open a window to google to find out. if anybody has any memories of music from around 1988-1992, please let me know hehe

some sort of direction
Posted at 03:21 PM

over lunch today, jing hidalgo decides to talk about the stories i submitted to class. one was shot to bits, the other was better received. sad story shot to bits, amusing story better received.

"hay naku," she tells me. "huwag ka nang mag street children or pa angst angst. comedy is your voice."

something i'm beginning to accept. i guess i just had a bit of trouble grappling with the concept since i do like heavy, moving literature. the lyrical, the pained. all those stories and novels really get to me. well, it seems having them get to me and being able to write them are two different things

so tongue-in-cheek it is.

i know my mom would be happy. all the time i was growing up she always thought i had a future as a stand up comic (yeah, di lang talaga ako seryosong tao ). that or a lawyer. well now i'm an argumentative writer of amusing things. close enough.

plagiarist. again.
Posted at 12:30 PM

caught one in my class red-handed. read the story submitted - set in some 'burb in queens or whatever. everyone with very distinct new york addresses. c'mon!

did a quick google. found the exact same text. with some names changed (to avoid being busted on google? ewan).

i fumed of course. cussed my heart out. raged. had the urge to tear something (but didn't). i had to see that student in 20 minutes. i had to be professional - which meant no strangulation, no stick beating, no knife fights. dang.

so after class, while another student was asking me something, i pointed to the plagiarist and said: i need to talk to you. when i turned to face the culprit, said perpetrator kinda loooked like this:



so i said, "you know, don't you." and she nodded.

"give me a dropping slip tomorrow." then i left.

i'm too kind.

show teaser
Posted at 08:57 PM

this is one of the reasons why you should catch the show in december.

this past week we made progress with the production. high beam has hit the studio. should be getting their tracks next week to mix into one of the dance numbers. met with armi of up dharma down last night and looks like their original song (which will be a solo dance) is a winner. that should get into the studio next week. things are looking good

and today i got this.

(shot taken from the opening video. photo of joanna castro, the show's choreographer.)
[img:349148]

it's baaaaccckkkkk
Posted at 11:52 AM

somebody once said something about raising the stakes so that when you fail, at least you fail spectacularly.

well, that i've done - fail spectacularly. the most recent defeat coming just a few months ago when i left the lit program. of course on hindsight shifting to the writing program was one of the best things i ever did. but at that time it was, well, a failure.

now, the site of my defeat is about to be resurrected. i have to submit this paper about the nature of the comics fandom here in the philippines - that comics is not really popular in the sense of it having a wide readership, but the fan base is very active. almost cultic in nature.

this paper, in its original form, got me into a lot of trouble. now i have to rewrite it. face it again and go over the same ground. i'm a braver person than i thought for attempting this.

tula naman
Posted at 11:49 AM

was reading a book on poetry last night - so i'd have something sensible to say to my writing class when the discussion on poetry begins. hehe

came across a poem by anne sexton. thought i'd share part of it here. man, this woman sure was troubled. then again, who isn't?

so without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, the first verse from anne sexton's 'anna who was mad'

Anna who was mad,
I have a knife in my armpit.
When I stand on tiptoe I tap out messages.
Am I some sort of infection?
Did I make you go insane?
Did I make the sounds go sour?
Did I tell you to climb out the window?
Forgive. Forgive.
Say not I did.
Say not.
Say.

a total wimp at monopoly
Posted at 06:54 PM

i have monopoly loaded in the palm and now and then, when i feel the need to do something automatic to clear my head, i play a round.

after a few games, monopoly takes on a fascinating logic of its own. the less money you have, the quicker you lose it - and the more money you have, the easier it is to make it.

the lack of money instills a certain fear. oh no i've only got $75 left, i sure hope i don't land on the income tax space. ack! he bought his 3rd railroad, that means now i have to pay quadruple!

but what i found most disturbing about it is the game's objective. your aim is actually not to make money, it's to drive the others bankrupt. you can be left with just $1 - but as long as others are left with nothing, then you win.

yes, i do know that the world works that way. but thank God, not all of it. not all of life has for its objective getting rid of others. and based on how much i cringe when my opponents in monopoly are about to be eradicated from the board, then i know i'm glad that - while i know there is that chunk of the world that is certainly dog eat dog - i have managed to live in a space that isn't. otherwise i'd probably be the first out of the board.

gadz they're still at it!
Posted at 09:51 AM

i've been complaining about this since last night.

our neighbors acquired two new singles. 'til they take my heart away by claire marlo, and that song by ian - something about the heart knowing the missing piece. they've acquired two new songs and have been playing them over and over and OVER AGAIN!

not even the album nooooooooo. just these two songs.

ok, i do appreciate claire marlo's song - especially since spy told me that the whole album was recorded live in one take (or something like that) so it is quite a technical achievement. and ian - well, even though we aren't really friends, he's a good friend of good friends and so i am happy that his career is really taking off and that he's popular and all that. but still...

the songs were playing the whole day yesterday. the whole FREAKING DAY! and this morning, as soon as they got up, they started again. i can't take it anymore.

i'm off to oil my rifle.

and the hits just keep on coming
Posted at 01:46 PM

"so how are your neighbors?" stef asked me over brunch this morning.

"yeah, i have to post about that," i said. "they've taken up bingo."

around 8pm last night claire marlo and ian finally stopped. what i heard were sounds that sounded like the beginnings of a mic test. some baritone muttering short syllables over a mic. oh no, i thought, they were switching to karaoke - maybe all in all ian was the better option.

but then 930 na and still no singing (don't get me wrong, i was thankful). hm. tagal naman ng mic test na yan. i tried to listen to make out the sounds.

B15
O72

dang. they're playing bingo. and yep, you guessed it - straight through to this morning.

nagpapanggap
Posted at 12:20 PM

had my first drum lesson c/o marti didn't have much time though - just had 10 minutes of instruction. in that time, i got as far as 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and... and then the bass on 1 and 3 and the snare on 2 and 4. at the rate i'm going i could play out a song in around, oh, a year or so. hehe

and there's something about my being left-handed that makes things look weird. i think. did i get that right?

anyway, even if i never do play - i've got a couple of pics to build a myth around.

(photo by stefanie juan)
[img:356608]

when the production process is worth documenting
Posted at 09:06 AM

(killing time before i get hungry enough for breakfast. longganisa eh, sayang if i'm not fully prepared. hehe)

so the show is tomorrow. small one. just a gathering of a few friends - around 30 or so people. the show itself is very simple... barebones. got sherie singing broadway accompanied by mele on the piano. for 3 numbers joanna will be joining them on the floor. for one number, there will be a duet. ninna was mentally tapped as the other vocalist. there isn't much in terms of stage design - got 3 par 56 lights to take care of the whole thing, and al graciously agreed to set that up.

the first fun thing that happened was when i couldn't get my paws on an accompanyist 2 or 3 weeks before the show. buti na lang i asked al who suggested mele (up to that time i had no idea mele could even play the piano - knowing him to be a stage director and lights designer).

so that was set. all that was needed was for sherie and mele to run through the whole thing twice or thrice. so we set a day the other week but mele couldn't make it. we moved it to saturday, but then sherie's thesis interviewee suddenly rescheduled and she couldn't make it. so we moved it to wed, but mele's grandmother passed away and he couldn't make it. so we're down to today, the day before the show. so far everybody's still available.

the other day i was with ninna and asked her if she could make it to practice today. 'for what?' she asked. 'the friday thing,' i said. 'what friday thing?' uh oh. she didn't know...and worse, she couldn't make it. i got sherie on the phone: 'ninna can't make it.' 'what??!!' and we couldn't skip the number because it was one of the 3 joanna was going to use. thankfully, at around 11 that night, our angel ailene said yes, she'd sing and so we rehearse later.

tomorrow i've got class - believe it or not - from 1 to 8. and so i won't be around for any of the physical preparations. there won't be any dry run of the whole thing. this isn't how these things are usually done i know.

but there's a tremendous set of talent going on that night. i have complete faith in all of them. should be a fun ride

excerpt for the weekend
Posted at 09:56 AM

this is an excerpt from a piece that will be coming out in a collection of light and humorous essays that deal with ailments... around 30 writers talking about what's wrong with them - from nose bleeds to obsessive-compulsive disorders. hehe. should be an interesting book that will be out in a couple of months or so (yes, that part was a shameless plug )



I am a liniment junkie. For the past thirty years I have been smearing myself with all kinds of menthol-camphor-eucalyptus formulations and now I fancy myself a connoisseur of sorts. It is my knees I usually lavish with these remedies...

I’ve had the pains since I was three. I don’t remember the first time they hit but my mother tells me that one day I just waddled up to her and told her they were painful. She got a bit worried because at that time I was suffering from chronic tonsillitis that could have led to rheumatic heart disease of which joint pains are a symptom. Well, the tonsillitis went away and my heart seems to be managing just fine, but the pain alas has remained.

I can’t remember a period in my life that I didn’t have them. It’s become habit for me to pack my trusty liniment and a knee brace whenever I travel.

Often the pain is just uncomfortable, annoying. But it is not uncommon for the pain to be so intense it would wake me up in the middle of the night groping for my beloved liniment. I remember crying as a kid because of the pain, crawling to my parents’ bedroom because I couldn’t walk. Now I just swear. A lot.

life has a funny way
Posted at 05:44 PM

had anybody told me anytime before this year that i would be spending a saturday evening watching a play based on an agatha christie book in a small theater in crc (my age shows when i still call them maryknoll and crc - at least i don't say theresiana for poveda. hehe), i would have said they probably had the wrong person.

until june this year, i hadn't even set foot in crc. my closest encounter being seeing it from the starbucks across the street a few years ago.

but life has that fantastic and wonderful quality of taking turns you don't see coming and bringing you to worlds you wouldn't have thought you'd be in. now i find myself quite taken by the fact that in that school, they have a building that has rooms on half floors.

and there i was last night with friends (and i think it's really cool that in crc one is foz and the other is fozzy, both turning around to look when somebody would yell 'foz!' and i swear if i had my eyes shut i wouldn't be able to tell who between the two was talking. hehe ) to watch the school's theater group's rendition of agatha christie's 10 little indians (or 'and then there were none,' depending on which edition you read).

(this entry has a lot of comments in parenthesis doesn't it).

it was a pretty good production, technically smooth - with heartstopping gunshots - and the people onstage could hold the audience's attention. the material was a classic agatha christie whodunnit - and i love whodunnits, grew up on them.

watching it staged, i realized though that a whodunnit is really just begging for camp. even without being deliberately campy, it is - and this i could pick up from the audience's reaction. there would be moments of high emotion - hysteria, fear, suspense - and they would border on funny. the audience would giggle at times. and so, geek that i am, i took notes... for a future writing project i've been mulling over for a few months now.

oh, and i did rip off an idea about stage design from the play. ripped it off and filed it away to be pulled out when we do superstar. (and y'all who read this and who'll be involved in the production - i know i know, it's a ways off. but we gotta get started soon. half a million pesos is going to take some work to raise).

so yeah, back to my point this was an evening that i wouldn't have seen coming. but i had a blast isn't it great how turnings work?

words for today
Posted at 10:23 AM

SLEEP: A natural periodic state of rest for the mind and body, in which the eyes usually close and consciousness is completely or partially lost, so that there is a decrease in bodily movement and responsiveness to external stimuli. During sleep the brain in humans and other mammals undergoes a characteristic cycle of brain-wave activity that includes intervals of dreaming.

DEPRIVE: to take something away from; to keep from possessing or enjoying.

i woke up at 8am yesterday (sunday) morning. i have yet to go back to sleep. went to bed about 1:30am earlier today, spent time reading, writing, playing... then i started to get tired, but not sleepy. read, wrote, and played some more. finally i was sleepy, but couldn't sleep. i thought i'd focus on clearing my head, closing my eyes, and shutting everything out. and just when i managed to that, my alarm went off.

so with no sleep i had to teach a class at 7. fueled by adrenaline which flowed freely because the sight of the dark circles under my eyes completely freaked me out.

here we go again
Posted at 09:56 PM

2 hours of sleep. 2 in the last 36. i'm starting to look like this



if i don't already.

problem is, this has happened too many times before, and i know there's no sleep for me tonight either. sigh.

buti sana if i could work. but nooooo. my thought processes are already too slow and are becoming inaccurate. i have a bad feeling i'm going to say something really dumb in class tomorrow like "chairs can fly with orange rooftops" and just pretend it's poetry. i can type a sentence now and then, and i do. and that's about it.

ok.

i'm off to stare at the ceiling now.

that'll do pig, that'll do
Posted at 11:29 PM

(i was tempted to write about my still sleepless state. well, ok, not completely sleepless. about 5 hours since sunday. doesn't count for much, does it... but since that's just frustrating, i'll blog about something else...)

we had to set up a video show in our living room (long boring story) and so my brother-in-law dutifully brought home a projector and screen and a laptop to play the cd. he hooked everything up and ta-da! no video. the audio though was loud and clear. wait, that's not so accurate - there was a partial video - the entire window of the windows media player was there, all except the actual video we wanted to see.

so after watching him agonize for around 15 minutes, i offered, "you wanna try my machine?" and so i bring my beloved piglet down, hook up the projector, and in 5 minutes got the whole thing going.

maybe not wanting to admit defeat, my bro-in-law still tries to hook up his windows pc in case it was just a loose connection. still no go. so piglet it was...

ran 3 video cds - played for 3 hours, no hitches. finally, a few minutes ago i rescued my 'book from the living room and gave him a well deserved pat on the lid. "that'll do pig, that'll do." i love my mac.

and i'm still not sleepy. dang. i really don't want to take a pill because these insomnia fits hit so often i might get hooked. but if i go for one more day like this... sigh

of gummy bears, happiness, and things learned today
Posted at 07:06 PM

i say that the world can't be such a bad place as long as there are gummy bears. and, in relation to this, if you can't find joy in gummy bears, then that's unfortunate.

in my ref i have a bag of melted and resolidified gummy bears. the story behind this is joanna (who actually dissects them - but more on that later) gave me a pack which i had to leave in the car for a period. this of course resulted in their melting. this however led to the new joyous discovery of eating melted gummy bears by twirling the now snot-like substance around your finger and chewing happily.

plunking them in the ref made them form again. of course they didn't form into individual bears, but into a technicolor glob. so now and then i pick up the kitchen scissors, cut out a chunk of resolidified, technicolor gummy glob and enjoy

one way to enjoy the bears is to moisten them with saliva and watch them take on pretty jewel colors. trust me, it's worth the experience there's another thing you can do - and here's where the dissection comes in.

after a couple of practice runs to ensure accuracy, you can bite off a portion of a bear, then bite off the opposite portion of another bear and then join the two bears together! mix and match for more fun!

and this folks, is what i learned to do today

random thoughts on writing
Posted at 06:44 PM

sometimes i think writing is underappreciated. people are more likely to swoon over a painting, a symphony, rather than words. but think about it, writing, when done well, is also something remarkable.

of course there are some of my favorite writers. ann patchett has the ability to mesmerize me. mario vargas llosa has me floored in the presence of genius. douglas adams's knack to just be downright funny is amazing.

some local writers are really worth looking out for. when i saw the manuscript of bing sitoy at the u.p. press i was going on and on at how excited i was that those stories were finally coming out in a single collection. and i'm eagerly awaiting the book of migs villanueva.

but the beauty of the written word isn't just found in these. it's all around, all around.

just take the blogs. i hop around blogs now and then and while i think all are fascinating, i find those of dez and the demigoddess and remwastrel really good reads.

and then young people who write be it not as professionals. stef's fiction voice has a quality that i don't find in contemporary philippine lit. deus is a budding onomatopoet (did i get the spelling right? hehe). bianx writes really good funny stuff which is not common for her age. jo strikes the right chord whether funny or painful. i have students that i take the time to urge them to continue writing - they can churn out really engaging work...

the wonder of the written word is not just in Literature. it can be found anytime somebody says something just right, just the right word in just the right tone - it's like that perfect note, that perfect brush stroke. it's art.

delinquente
Posted at 09:57 PM

i suppose had i developed any study habits at all during my high school and college days schoolwork would be a lot easier for me. but... well... that's that.

so i found myself this morning not having read a couple of essays that were to be discussed in class in the afternoon. had class til 10am after which i had to go to the press (and wow, i can't remember why right now). then i had class til 1 after which i had to go back to the press to help out with something about the ailments book. got that done right before 4 which left me an hour to read. which would have been enough time.

thing is, i ended up going out to eat. well, largely because i was hungry and had a 5-8 class - therefore really needed food. but yeah, can read while eating. here's the catch though...

kasama ko mag-merienda ang teacher ko. ayun, nakakahiya na yun.

but yeah, read i did - tried to make it appear like i was reviewing the essay for finer points rather than going through it for the first time. i don't think my teacher fell for it. but he just chuckles and says "ikaw mag-discuss nyan sa class." and so i had to read it again.

hay.

yes, yes, i know - i had 2 non-class days in a row. yes, that was enough time to read these essays.

oh well.

crisis approaching
Posted at 10:07 PM

last april, when i had a week in baguio, i toyed with the idea of taking drum lessons. my sister's nephew raymond is a drummer and teaches part time at mussar. he told me that he could hook me up with a really good drum teacher there and in a week have me playing.

i did consider it because i thought i had the time and, well, why not, right?

but i couldn't get my sked straight in baguio and ended up not taking the lessons. then i thought, end of urge to learn. end of story.

and then a few weeks ago, we had a short rehearsal session in cubao. gaki was on drums and man, that girl can drum! something in me stirred. the feeling was creeping back in. looked like something i'd like to try.

then even more recently, i got my first few thumps with marti's supervision (who was very encouraging and convinced me that left handed drummers are cool hehe). and then i found myself practicing those thumps when i remembered. hmmm.

then just this evening, raymond comes to the house for dinner and the conversation goes to drumming. i confirmed the fact that a drum set, while not cheap of course, isn't all that expensive. a good electric guitar costs more money. double hmmm.

so i said over dinner: if this midlife crisis hits full force, i'm taking lessons and getting myself a drum set to practice. (i have just the spot in my room.)

my sister gives me a look and says: can't you pick something more quiet?

on a wing and a prayer
Posted at 09:52 PM

Worlds Apart by Jars of Clay

abridged though. hehe. for literary effect or something

I am the only one to blame for this
Somehow it all adds up the same
Soaring on the wings of selfish pride
I flew too high and like Icarus I collide
With a world I try so hard to leave behind
To rid myself of all but love
to give and die

To love you - take my world apart
To need you - I am on my knees
To love you - take my world apart
To need you - broken on my knees

Did you really have to die for me?
All I am for all you are
Because what I need and what I believe are worlds apart

So steal my heart and take the pain
and wash the feet and cleanse my pride
take the selfish, take the weak,
and all the things I cannot hide
take the beauty, take my tears

take my world apart

today
Posted at 09:16 AM

today is my self-imposed deadline for finishing the book manuscripts.

the past 2 or 3 days i've lost almost all sense of time. i lie down when i can't think of the words or how to shuffle things around. when that happens sometimes i catch myself falling into a quick sleep then i get up and get back writing. i go down for a quick meal then back up. read a bit, play a bit, surf a bit, then write.

i'm exhausted. but i will make the deadline. right now i've got 15 hours left.

my sister asked why i don't just move the deadline and i said i couldn't because i have to set a date and stick to it otherwise this would never get done. i'd never be happy enough with it and will end up revising for the rest of my life.

i was done with some form of these manuscripts back in april but took them all back. i'm happier with them now - but it's causing a strain. big walloping effort. and to think i'm not even writing big things, this is just light and hopefully fun stuff.

it's a tremendous experience being in the middle of this - consumed, absorbed and only half aware of the rest of the world.

i have a hazy view that the rest of my life will continue starting tomorrow. there will be that onslaught of checking papers, recording, show planning, lesson writing... but starting tomorrow. right now all of that is paused in some tableau. on hold for some future i can't even perceive (though rationally i know it's just the next day) and right now it's just the manuscripts. what a moment.

i love this