06 Jan 2012
by angkuletin Musings Tags: new year, resolutions
It is the first week of January 2012 and I find myself sitting on a stool, typing away on my laptop which sits atop a plain white wooden table, glancing every once in a while at three other big monitors on tables on my left and right in front of me, music playing, while people walk up and down the wooden steps of this urban minimalist office I happened to have found myself in this Londony afternoon (read: umbrellas) - contemplating on some statements slash accusations hurled at me on the phone by some Neanderthal (oops livin high and yu-uh, takin it easy). Strangely enough, this office reminds me of some bar called S. Yes, bright white lights and walls and bookcases (real or imagined) always remind me of offices. Maybe that is the reason why I wouldn’t want to hang out at Bar S. Who wants to hang out at the end of a work day and still feel like you’re still at the office? Regardless of who owns this bar or that bar, I have a predisposition for dim lights.
A predisposition to never be that exposed, but maybe only by a tad? A desire to not be too seen, to be there, but not really be there, a choice to be social or anti, aloof or otherwise. Yes, dim lights.
What am I doing here, really? I’m here because the beach is here. The beach is calling me (cue in: All Saints’ Pure Shores). Arriving at the grand terminal two nights ago, with the weather comparable to that of windy, rainy, minus snowy, Chicago in February, with my evergreen everbright big backpack heavier than mine and Lia’s combined weight and an overnight bag packed with all that I might ever need, including cottonbuds, I asked myself that question. What am I doing here really?
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08 Oct 2011
by angkuletin Musings Tags: boots, musings
The only bus at the terminal when I walked in at four in the morning was a Florencia line with a sign to Nato Port – Sagnay. I boarded it with a smile and thought how nice it would be to actually get off at the port. I told the conductor I was getting off in the town of Pili, some fifteen kilometers and thirty minutes away, and paid the fare of P15. Oh how I long for the beach, I thought as I closed my eyes.
I woke up to peer through the stained glass windows and the pelting rain into the dark of what looked like vast expanses of watery rice fields and I knew instantly I had slept too long. I checked the time – five o’clock. Sleepy and not knowing where exactly was I, I decided it was best that I get off in the town proper, whatever town that happened to be.
I entertained the thought of getting off at the port but I looked at my boys and decided, maybe next time.
I got off the town proper, still not knowing what town, and walked under the eaves of the line of sari-sari stores shut at five past on a rainy Saturday morning until I found a sign. It read:
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03 Sep 2011
by angkuletin MOMents, Musings Tags: elephanty, MOMents, plastic flowers, silly panty, silly stuff
After a long day of going everywhere with Myx – local high schools, the Pili Municipal Hall, my friend’s house, the airport, the Cam. Sur Water Sports Complex, Ateneo de Naga University and San Miguel Corporation office, the last thing I wanted to do was go back to Wharf, even if I have been missing Tanikala Tribe for a while now. I made it home in time to take Lia out for a little trip outside!
We took a pedicab to we didn’t know where…. until I had this funtastic idea!
“Is that store in the old Benjie cinema still open at this time?” I asked the pedicab driver. He said it closed at eight.
When we got there, the guard was already closing some of the display windows. Apparently, they close at seven thirty, and Lia and I barely made it!
We walked in and Lia and I went silly crazy! Coz we’re silly crazy like that!
By the entrance was a row of colorful plastic flowers! Lia loves flowers. Actually, she only loves them because she loves giving them to me. Flashback to that fight she and her cousin Marielle had over these plastic flowers on a vase at my dad’s house. Lia has made a habit out of taking the flowers out of the vase and giving them to me. She wants to see me holding them with my hands, and preferably near my chest, if not on top of it when I am lying down.
So on this one afternoon when my eldest sister and her daughter were at my dad’s house, Lia took the flowers and gave them to me. Her cousin took the flowers, which were lying on top of my chest, and says, “This is mine!” Lia ran to her and tried to take the flowers back saying, “This is my Mama’s flowers! My Mama’s flowerrrrsssss!” and thus began a screaming, crying match with a tug-of-war for the beloved plastic flowers. I looked at my daughter’s eyes, her face streaming with tears and saw the struggle for “her Mama’s flowers” and I didn’t know whether to laugh or stay mum. Half of me wanted to just take the flowers away from my niece and tell her, “Yes this is MY flowers!” but I’d like to believe I’m the kind of mother that lets my daughter fight her own fights.
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29 Aug 2011
by angkuletin Musings Tags: musings, yellow bench
I should be writing. There are so many things to write about and people to write to. Letters, I should be writing letters and these days, I seem to do nothing else but that. Important ones, not like the ones I used to write. Ones that do not matter now, if they ever did.
I should be writing letters, but right now, at 3:51AM, the last thing I want to write are more letters to other people. Perhaps a letter… to myself. Musings, like the ones I used to write.
Two nights, I sat on a bright yellow bench, with my dusky pink sweater wrapped around me, a cup of strong sweet and creamy coffee in a stryfoam cup bought from the sari-sari store nearest to that bright yellow bench that has endeared itself to me, and listened to Taylor Swift’s Fearless on my phone. I never did pay much attention to Taylor Swift, except when her video is on the music channel because she is absolutely pretty with that pouty lips and tiny mouth of hers, and except during that time when Kanye West was an a** to her at some particular awards show, but for some reason, I found it fitting to listen to Taylor Swift as the wind blew my hair around my face and the coldness of the early morning seeped into my jeans. A pair of bootleg jeans, perfect for my cowboy boots that has made itself famous in this particular city I happen to find myself often enough these days and that I have dug out of the bottom of my childhood cabinet – a memoir from my high school days.
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09 Aug 2011
by angkuletin Design, Musings Tags: alphabet, board books, colors, ninja batty shogun, numbers, suntan target, ugly books, ugly dolls, ugly ghost
This MBP, as battered as my favorite cowboy boots but far from being my favorite as I have no other, keeps telling me that I do not have enough memory, my scratch disks are full, blah blah blah. As I sit here listening to my playlist composed of Jason Mraz, Ray LaMontage, Bon Iver, Nouvelle Vague, Pete Yorn and Imogen Heap in the past four hours and staring at colorful pages, I can’t help but wish that I too did not have enough memory.
I’m looking at colorful pages of…. ugly dolls and ugly books. They’re cute but they make me cry, and I don’t quite know why. My scratch disks are full.
I’ve found new homes for the uglies I used to own. They’ve moved on. I like keeping things that mean something to me but a few months ago, I found myself looking at some of them and wondering where they came from. I probably have MCI.
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08 Aug 2011
by angkuletin Musings Tags: dates, musings
I make it look like Naga and Manila are not nearly 500 kilometers away from each other with the number and frequency of trips I make between the two cities within a month. The past months have been truly frenetic, as is obvious from the infrequency if not totally lack of, blog posts. Let’s not mention the database crash that occurred almost two months ago that left my site with features and almost half of my old entries missing.
Moving on (and I’m always moving on it seems), I am back in Manila to work, work, work it all away. From my original Wharf Galley staff of seven, one headwaiter, two waiters, one chef, one assistant cook, one cashier and one sound technician; I now have nine, plus one bartender and one operations manager. This makes the work, for my staff a little bit easier with regards to inventory, and for me a whole lot easier with the responsibilities I used to have. I now officially have someone to audit my daily financial reports, in addition to my accountant/bookkeeper on retainer, and to run my errands while I am not in Naga.
Though it may seem that I am always out on supposed nights out, otherwise known as gimmicks, those are actually gigs I have to go to as part of my responsibilities as bar owner, producer and somewhat band manager.
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24 Jul 2011
by angkuletin Musings Tags: best friends, boots, Jake Salvador
…have seen the best and worst of my days. We are the best of friends.
Copyright by Jake Salvador
20 Jul 2011
by angkuletin MOMents, Musings Tags: home, musings
I’m back home now, where I fell asleep on the sofa earlier this morning after having about an hour and a half of good chat over chocolate milk with H. Lia watched her favorite morning shows on the telly while she laid in my arms as I slept.
As of this writing, I am sitting on Lia’s orange little chair while the electric fan blows our way, fanning me and my little one who is fast asleep on the sofa. She was stacking cans of soft drinks on the table in front of the television set when she turned around and slipped on her milk bottle. An accident that left her sprawled on the floor, with a bleeding lower lip and screaming for her Mama. I picked her up and cradled her in my arms, wiped the blood, the sweat, whispering in her ear words of comfort, until she fell asleep. She fell asleep with a frown on her face, while I had a smile on mine. I have missed this so badly. This. This baby in my arms. The past nights were spent pining away for her, as I could not sleep in my hotel room, in a bed that in the past I have always shared with her, missing her hands entwined with mine.
The past weekend had been very difficult. In so many ways.
But yesterday as I was leaving, I hugged my father tightly while he was cooking his dinner, asking him if he was going to be okay all by himself. I went home to get a blanket, and so that I could sit on the rocking chair in the balcony and spend some time with my father. A little chit chat. We had cried ourselves away last Saturday, quietly, as discreetly as possible.
Today, I am thinking of going to the hospital or a doctor to have my back checked, maybe have an x-ray done. Maybe I might also have some time to go to the dentist. Dulaang U.P.’s Rizal X is opening tonight so maybe, finally, after so many months, I can shoot again. Then it seems that my Travel Factor friends are all in town so maybe we can get together for our usual midweek get together. Maybe, just maybe.
This blog has been through a lot. About 50% of the original content is missing. The backlinks don’t work half of the time. My list of favorite links on the right navigation panel need to be set up again. I need to bring back the categories and the top navigation drop-down menu. All of my about 4,000 tags were totally erased. Ah, a lot needs to be done.
Tomorrow it’s all back to work again. I’m not looking forward to the operational meeting as I believe we will be looking at “Not Done” tasks again, and no one will be happy about it. But for today, let me lounge around in my own home, while my baby sleeps, comforted by the fact that in her dreams and in her reality, her mama is back.
13 Jun 2011
by angkuletin Design, Musings
It’s the little things that matter. It’s the little things that make up a big picture. It’s the little things that we forget. And it’s the little things that we need to be reminded of, time and time again. It’s the little things that hide in the corners, or that show up in unexpected places.
East Coast Park, Singapore
Analysis is Paralysis
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13 Jun 2011
by angkuletin Musings
Knees to my chest, a cup of delicious aromatic coffee cradled in my hands, I look up the sky and take in the beauty of clear skies dotted with just about a thousand stars, the Milky Way adding charm, if not magic, in the blackness of the sky, intermittent flashes of lightning behind dark gray clouds hovering over the Pacific Ocean, beyond the horizon, beyond the tops of mango trees, and smile to myself.
It’s going to be a beautiful day I can tell.
I close my eyes and take in the sounds of an early provincial morning, the crows of roosters all around, blending with the feeble yet distinguishable songs of the cicadas, remind me why I like the early morning hours in the province.
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