Livin high and takin it easy

I have been really, really stressed out the past weeks. I have been really, really busy with so many things, primarily with taking care of Lia as she continually needs activities to busy herself with, as well as tying loose ends from the various little jobs I did.

So last week, I finally made it to Bonifacio High Street, which happens to be my favorite mall – not because I shop there but because the atmosphere totally relaxes me. It used to be the mall we go to all the time, when we still lived in the condo in Taguig.

Seriously, the only shops I go to in Bonifacio High Street are Bo’s Coffee Shop (if full then Starbucks, if full, then Seattle’s Best), Fully Booked and R.O.X.

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Photo blogs on the VLF 6 – long overdue

Happy Days Ahead – new music from theater friends I happened to come by during VLF6 (Thanks William and Victor)

Travel Factor Olympics

Perhaps, my take on Toy Story 3, Eclipse and Inception. Just perhaps. Though mind you, these are not reviews. Just my personal thoughts on the movies I caught on theaters the past weeks, of which I have not been able to write about.

My husband will be away on business trips to China and Japan so I guess I’ll not be having my usual schedule. Though perhaps more specifically, I’ll not be eating so much as I won’t have my cook around. *straight face goes here*
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We have a scheduled trip to Bohol on September, just us the little family, and another trip to Batanes with the little family and my mom and her eight other friends but tell you what, I am finding it quite hard to plan for these trips. Why? Because it seems I am losing the traveler in me. Could that be possible?
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I thought the shoot call time was for 7pm so I scheduled my last Lab Fest documentation, which is for Set B, for Sunday instead of today. The call time was moved to 4am for tomorrow – and that afforded me the luxury of spending the entire day with my family at home. And ahhhhhh, it’s good to be home today.

It’s been such a tiring stressful week. Yesterday I went to CCP to document Sets C and A. I had to spend some time with Lia first so I left the house at 2pm. I had initially asked my husband to drive me all the way to CCP so I’d make it. I told him I’d just pay him P250, hahaha. It being a Friday, traffic was bad. On the way to Ortigas Avenue, we turned around and decided I was just going to take the LRT.

I completely missed Suor Clara and more than half of Sa Package Counter, that was how long it took me to get there. I even fell asleep on the LRT2. Good thing I already have acceptable photos of both plays so I didn’t have to stress myself out too much at what happened.

I already found out who Actor23 is and have finally arrived at a conclusion on how to best deal with the situation. I already talked to my boss about the controversial blog, which she has been completely unaware of until today, and I know now where I should stand.

I have three reasons to be happy today.
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With all the activities in this site that I never really expected, I found myself for some reason, going back to one of my entries. I have forgotten what it actually contained but towards the end, I remembered. And how vividly it remains true to this day.

“Coming back from the play, done with dinner but not quite eager to come home, we stop by our usual place for a bottle of beer and a cup of coffee and a lot of conversation. We talked about the play like we always do. In the middle of the conversation, a memory came back to me. It was that of what of Glecy Atienza said in a class while we were talking about the Virgin Labfest back in 2007. She said that if people in the industry only wrote whatever it is they talk about every time they watch a play, we would all be better off. Everybody talks, but nobody bothers enough to write what we talk about. Some people tell me I should write about what I see or write an opinion when I post my events. I tell them I am afraid. Not because I do not have anything to write about or that I do not have an opinion but simply because my opinion might count more than it should. The last thing I want is to be another Joey Ting, no matter if his intentions are good or even that I completely understand what he does even if not what he says.

Soon, I will write down what I think. Not because I want to let people know about them but because I want to remember. People forget. I know whatever I think will pass me by and will be forgotten, unless I keep a record for myself. I will not try to pretend I know what I am talking about or that I am educated in the matter even if I may be. I will write what I know limited as it may be to my failing brains. I will write what I feel and what I think because I felt. I will write for nobody but myself.

I am waiting for inspiration still. But it might be round the corner. And it might be coming sooner than I expect. But if it does not, I guess I will continue waiting. And hoping it eventually will.”

Written September 26, 2009

I went to Azta Urban Salon in Eastwood, a salon owned by college friend Jon Bantigue, to have my hair done. The last time I was in Azta was in 2007, when I had highlights done on my hair. I have not been back since.

I just told senior hairstylist Jojie that I wanted a new look and that really short is okay.
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.. or even just a different do.

I have been thinking for the past month about getting a haircut, not really because of the heat or the fact that Lia likes tugging at my hair, but because I am sooo bored. My hair bores me to death. And it was only last night that I realized, I have had hair this long since I lived in the island. I have had hair this long for five years!!!

So I am overdue for a short do. Not that it’s going to be the first time, I have had a short do for most of my life. I had a short do half of high school, half of college and most of my grade school years.

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I took off a moment to have a little bit of “Me time”… something I have not really done in a long time.

[more to follow....]

I am all over the internet. I am very googable. I write a lot of stuff everywhere, post a lot of pictures and can be seen in every social networking site that ever hit this side of the planet. Sometimes I wonder if that is right, sometimes I wonder if it’s what I want or how I want things to be. Do I not value my privacy?

I have been asked more than once as to why I blog. I forget now how I defended myself or my actions but I am sure poorly.

Every now and then I ask myself that same question, why do I blog?

Yesterday I chanced upon someone’s blog, someone very close to me, and since it was an old blog, I went through three or four years worth of blog entries – and in the process, learned a lot about how that person thought, felt and how things, events, persons, were generally perceived. Close as we are, I did not know that side of her existed, or that those are her general thoughts and feelings, and in the end, I was left surprisingly and without my knowing it, bewildered and confused. That made me think, if someone close to me were to read my blogs, how would her/his perception of me change? More importantly, would I like this change?

True to my seemingly bipolar nature, there are times that I do not want to share anything about myself to anyone, that if I could erase everything about me on the internet I would. But yet again, true to my bipolar nature, these feelings are fleeting and I find myself coming back yet again.

I have not answered my own question in all these years, why do I blog? Perhaps it is time to answer, or at least attempt to come up with one that I hope I would myself believe when this feeling, this motive-questioning, comes back to haunt me yet again perhaps a few months or years from now.

I like telling stories. That is why I like to write. I have got so many stories to tell, so many experiences to share, and I want to because at the deepest core of my being, there is always this hope that somehow, someway, these stories, if only even one, will touch someone else’s life or perhaps leave a lasting imprint on someone’s thoughts – even if they do not really remember where they got it, much more who wrote it.

I blog not because I want people to know me, or help people understand me, my actions, the motives behind my actions, my deepest hurts and feelings, my joys and all these little tidbits of trivia of my very much insignificant life – but because I am just some ordinary person with an ordinary life, mundane, even mediocre at times, trying to validate my existence in this world wherein everything is ordinary, unless you do something (even just a litte bit) out of the ordinary, not for anything or anyone else, but yourself. This is me trying to make a difference. This is me trying to matter, not as someone specific, but someone blending in the general sense of things.

I forced myself to get out of the house, like totally. I forced myself to leave the house without Lia because I was stagnating at home and I did not feel like doing anything at all and I needed some inspiration or perhaps I needed to force myself to do something, anything, just so I can force myself to do the things I actually need to do.

Ahhh, so many things to do, so little concentration. There is enough time, there must be, the problem lies in my concentration. The ability to be efficient with whatever time I have in my hands. Sometimes I’ve got so many things in my mind, so many things I want to do yet I cannot find it in me to actually do it, that I end up just lingering in Facebook, or Twitter or Multiply, or forever checking my mail while the clock ticks away, and then I find myself at the end of the day with nothing to show for.

So today, I forced myself to bring myself to the nearest, most accessible, least energy required Starbucks and I’m now sitting at a table outside, typing away a blog that perhaps will not make sense in the end but will at least give me something to show for, and will provide an avenue for my fleeting, raucous thoughts.

I’m sitting here thinking to myself that I cannot afford this coffee I am drinking, thinking about my lifestyle and the lifestyles of other people and thinking that everything is all a matter of choice. Sometimes it appears I have a lot of money, for someone who doesn’t have a real job, with purchases such as this and that, and travel to so and so places, but as I’m sitting here, listening to unfamiliar wonderful music emanating from this coffee shop’s loudspeakers, I think about the last time I bought myself a pair of jeans, a pair of petty I just-bought-myself-this-pair-out-of-whim shoes, the last time I had a facial or how often I have been to a salon for a mani-pedi or a hair treatment, and the answer was its been a long time or few and far between. I live my life simply, as simple as I can and I like to think I work hard enough for any purchases or anything I ever get for myself.

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