Philly Orange Line

Naked bulbs
In concave spaces
Of darkened tunnels.
One.
After.
Another.

Screech of wheels
On tracks.
Rumble.
Rumble.
Rumble.

Tinny voice
Announcing stops.
Open metal doors.
Bellow of sirens.
Stink of piss.
Plodding of feet
On dirty tiles.
Shuffle.
Shuffle.
Shuffle.

/begin art life update/

I am now the peddler of books and I love it. :) I will be selling Monster on venues when Joel can't. Troy suggested that I too construct a little chapbook like alfie's and sell it along with his books during these venues. Such wonderful guys to look out for everyone too! :) I think I'll take Troy up on the creation of my own chapbook. But I'm very modest when it comes to my own work. I asked alfie if I can borrow from her design. Heck, I'll ask to buy one of her chapbooks. :) I guess I know what I'll be giving people for Christmas...

And no, The Monster's Ball (book release party) will not be postponed! I will read and participate on that day after all! Whee! Oh happy day!

My week is packed. I am doing something every night except for Friday night--meetings, classes, shrink appointments, lunches with friends, and Christmas shopping on Thursday. I will be doing the CSU Long Beach Marketplace during the day on Saturday, December 7. Sunday is my official day of rest. I've purposely planned to do nothing that day. I love my life right now and I feel blessed.

Thank goodness, I'm not working. Otherwise, these extracurricular activities will be swept by the wayside and I would've hated that. Because nothing dampens creative sparks than a padded grey cube...

/end art life update/

Thanksgiving 2002, San Fernando Valley, CA

I am thankful, Lord,
For my family
Who thought I went insane
For the past six months.
Because they all said
When I got
The blue hair, the tongue pierce,
And when I resigned from my corporate job,
I was rebelling against
My impending thirtieth birthday.

I am thankful, Lord,
For my friends
Who shared the same spirit
Of adventure as I always did.
For they had no qualms
About calling me
When they wanted to take
A little jaunt across the state,
Or across the continent,
With only a map and gumption.

/edited section/

I am thankful, Lord,
For my fellow artists
Who had done nothing
But encourage and cultivate
My art and theirs.
And in so doing,
We created good magic
To spread throughout the world.
We enflamed the Muses
That sparked our creativity.

I am thankful, Lord,
For free will,
For financial planning,
For living frugally, and
For divorce.
Since these things,
All rolled together,
Gave me a chance
To live my life
Exactly as I wanted to live it.

/begin art life update/

Good news and bad news in the art front. Good news first: Joel was summoned by one of the directors of the Ford Foundation for something Asian-American playwright related. This summons was also another chance to pitch to the Ford Foundation some funding for the small press for the Pilipino Artists Network. Bad news: The book release party will be postponed to the point that I will miss it. I will still contribute as much as I can to the preparations but I'm bummed that I won't get to read. I want to take every opportunity to read my stuff at every venue I can get. But if I'm not there... *sigh* I can't stay for the book release party because I have to leave for South America. I need to be back in Los Angeles by March for another set of book readings I'll be doing.

I am getting bored reading the book I need to read for class. I'm blocked and I can't seem to get past page 5 of the one short story I'm currently writing. I need to finish Chapter 1 (I'm on page 14) of my novel and I forsee it to be 25 pages long, this chapter. I want to read my anthology of The Best American Travel Writing for 2001. I want to read On The Road.

Sorry, the rant wasn't part of my art life but I might as well add it. After all, it is writing related. ;)

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

/edited section note: I always thought I'd never have to edit anything I have to say in my writing and poetry but the complete version of this poem/prayer is available in my chapbook. :) You're going to have to buy it to figure out what was edited out! hee-hee-hee./ (addendum added December 2, 2002)

/end art life update/

Ignore the posted date above. This was started during the very small hours of the night right after it turned Sunday, November 24, 2002 and was finished on the very small hours of Wednesday, November 27, 2002.

/begin art life update/

I am mad as hell right now. I don’t know if it’s PMS or because people have not been returning calls, emails, text messages, or common courtesy to me today. Maybe it’s the combination of all of my peeves and ills rolled up into a bite-sized, bitter, and jagged ball and lodged in my throat that’s making my temper short and my retorts extremely abrupt. I replied to anything anyone said to me today in quick bursts of unveiled annoyance. Today, I am a fervid misanthrope.

And because I’m swirling in a maelstrom of super negative energy, this entry is dedicated to my most favorite real-life corporate villain: my recent ex-boss.

Let the impalement with bent and rusty skewers begin.

Note: This story* is in .pdf format. If you can’t view it, please download the latest version of Adobe Acrobat Reader.

*Mother of all Disclaimers: For those in the know, keep this to yourselves, okay. Refrain from laughing or gasping too loud as to not arouse suspicion. And for goodness sake, don’t pass this link around to people like it was some dirty piece of smut. Don't print it. Don't do a "Save As..." and pass it around. Just don't. Respect my wishes, okay. It is for the enjoyment of those chosen few allowed into my mental inner sanctum. Please keep it that way. Otherwise, I’ll just get upset and I’ll stop sharing my writing. You know this is going to be something special if the darned disclaimer is almost as long as a story. Brace yourselves.

After you’re done reading, I would appreciate some Comments on this thickly worded piece of descriptive prose. I know it’s got grammatical errors and I’m working on that but... Almost every sentence is a zinger, or your money back. Guaranteed. :) Click here to read the essay now.

/end art life update/

/begin confusing personal life/

It Feels Like I’m 17 Again

I went to bed at 11:00 PM on Monday night a little confused. After many days of sleeping at 3:00 AM, I was surprised that I woke up at that time. Filipinos believe that if you wake up in the middle of the night, for no apparent reason, someone must be intently thinking about you somewhere. E is flying over the waters of the dark Pacific by now to New Zealand. Could it be that he was thinking about me intently enough to rouse me from a dream-filled sleep? Possibly. Because my thoughts drifted to him even before I opened my eyes to look at the time...

These blue-eyed boys will be the death of me. I can do nothing but laugh just as this one, oh yeah, This One with the ice-blue eyes, sandy brown hair, and that dimpled smile I know so well, said hello to me under the glare of the airport sidewalk lights. It’s very strange because after being part of this man’s life for 13 (yes, thirteen) years, being with him makes me feel like I’m 17 years old again.

/mind hears song 17 Again – Annie Lennox/

He even tastes the same. There is a sweetness to him, that at the first touch of our lips, floods me with passion and memories. His kisses are familiar. His lips upon my neck and face fall tenderly, well, at first but not for long. I know very well what pleases him. His body is not unfamiliar to me. Not at all... With a glint in my eyes that he knows quite well, he is aware I have become far more versed in certain words and deeds than when I was 17...

But thankfully, I didn't revert back to being 17 again in my hang-ups and issues. In fact, during our conversations, I found out that we had become analytical and logical adults, not giddy teenagers. Our birthdays are coming up. In December, he will turn 32. In January, I will turn 30. It's hard to believe that this was the same person I gazed upon when I first met him when I was 16. I let him know my current state of mind and state of being. He... Well, he still maintained that distance I was so familiar in trying to bridge but this time, he was unafraid to answer some difficult questions I asked him. In a way, I was glad that it took this long for him to answer these questions about us and why we do what we do to each other. Time made us wiser. Time made us braver. But time didn’t seem to do very much to dampen that magic spell we wove years ago. Because...

Being with him, even for a short time, made me feel like I lived in a world that was filled with nothing but newness and great possibilities. I felt like I was 17 again.

... But sadly, without being in love this time.

/end confusing personal life/

Well, maybe not quite yet.

Indeed, it takes innocence to appreciate the lessons learned by the charring and bruising of life upon us who could never be together and could never forsee being apart...

It took him three years to get his pilot’s license. He’s still the expert sailor that he has been. He made a promise to take me on a plane ride someday. He made a promise to take me sailing someday too. I’ve gone sailing before and it’s just wonderful. But I’ve never been in a small plane like a Cessna before. I am very happy for him and his career and travels and happy at the prospect of having yet another set of adventures with him. But nothing breaks my heart the most than people I love breaking promises to me. I hope he doesn’t do what he fears most to do to me, to break my heart, by breaking his promises...

/art life update/

Two Haikus About Far-Flung Places

Alaska crispness
Bounded by three thousand miles
Los Angeles smog

Little voodoo dolls
Gumbo, beignets, muffletta
Mardi Gras and jazz

/end art life update/

/interject banal personal life/
I'm tired. I'm tired and sleepy because I've been sleeping at 1:00 AM every night or so doing nothing, it seems. I'm either reading or writing or talking with people online. Then my body automatically wakes me up at 6:30 AM as a throwback from my working days. I need to snap out of this because the lack of sleep is making my left lower eyelid twitch like mad. Either that or sleep earlier, like 11:00 PM... I'm going to do yoga now and finish that book I need to read for class. And yeah, my back is peeling like crazy.

Well, I have a date with E this upcoming Monday. Damn that man with the sandy brown hair and the ice-blue eyes... Now, that's a name that's pregnant with history. Yeah, he calls it catching up but I call it a date because when he and I get together for coffee or whatnot it becomes... forget it. I'm not going to talk about it. Let's just say that the sex writing might get a little more graphic in the next few days.
/end banal personal life/

/art life update/

Lovers' Banter

Both selfish in bed
We work on who orgasms first.
Both forceful with words
We argue Kafka, Bulosan, simplistic Hemmingway.
I read literature to my audience.
You read as well.
Both grope each others' flesh
We let fingers talk.
Both ceasing thoughts with lips
We silence our tongues.
I quiver for you.
You stand erected.

In my first entry, I talked about a poem about erection. Here it is. I fleshed it out (no pun intended). I wanted to make some link through poetry about the role of intellectual ribbing in arousal (no pun intended there either). After all, the brain is the biggest sexual organ. That is the premise of flirting. Damn, Joel--I know you're not reading my blog (but alfie does)--now I'm obsessed with the challenge! Be sexual storytellers indeed. How truly out of character of me to talk about these things! I'm the outwardly modest one! But growth only comes from breaking away from one's creative coccoon. Ay! I'm a wimp when it comes to talking about sex publicly. I want to hide my face and crawl under a rock. It must be that Catholic upbringing...

Okay, let's apply what I have learned recently about poems. According to my creative writing teacher, the mark of a good poem is:

"Read the poem backward, from the bottom up, to see if you evoke the same emotions."

Hey, I read this from the bottom up and it still shows the link between intellect and arousal. Who knows if it's good? I'm a stodgy prose writer and a far cry from being a poet.

I got a critique from my teacher about the doppelgänger entry below. He said that I should explore the issue more about the girl in the picture. I think I will take my own advice, when I made notes on my own copy, that I should explore the narrator's fear and doubt that maybe she is the person on the picture. Now how wacked would that be? It happens now anyway that celebrities are suing porn sites for super-imposing their faces on naked (if they're lucky) bodies and purporting them as authentic.

Cool. Sounds like a plan to me.

/end art life update/

/art life update/

I hate it when dates are wrong. I cancelled my shrink appointment so I can go to my supposed video production class only to find out the people teaching it aren't there.

The office is closed on Mondays. The girl in my creative writing class, who gave me the class referral, called me back when I told her the office was closed. She was apologetic and gave me the number of the person teaching the class to confirm. Yay! A new contact!

Oh well, next time.

I just read the book I needed to read for class and tried to write more stories. That wasn't working well at all.

I'm behind on a task for the collective I'm part of too. I need to send out contact invites to organizations who want to do booths, games, and performances for the book debut we're doing on January 19, 2003. I will do that first thing tomorrow morning.

/end art life update/

/begin mini-essay/ -- warning: adult content

doppelgänger

During my internet wanderings, I come upon a nude photo of an Asian girl. You could see a hint of the black thigh-high stockings she wore on her spread-eagled legs. What would've been a polite little tuft of wiry black hair between her legs wasn't there. She is perfectly clean-shaven and you can see the darkness of her enflamed nether-lips. Her black bra was raised above her firm little breasts exposing her chocolate brown areolas topped with tanned, hard nipples. Her torso slopes casually and looks relaxed upon a blue, woven blanket, creating an inviting depression in the middle of her body.

Anyone, male or female, would've just shrugged and dismissed the photo as another piece of soft-porn/nude smut floating around courtesy of the big business of internet porn.

Except...

The girl in the photo is a spitting image of me.

She has short hair like mine. She wears glasses. Her facial features are very much like the facial features I see on the mirror. Her eyes are squinting in a way that I would squint at a camera too when I smile. I shit you not.

With the hair on my arms standing on end, I fire up Adobe Photoshop and enlarge the picture. I see the girl's skin, her face, her fingers, and her nether-lips in pixels. I search her skin for markings similar to mine, a mole here, a stretchmark there, or a blemish in some other place. But I see no markings of hers that were the same as mine. In fact, I can determine that she has a lot less hair than I do. Her slender body looks so much better than my body even when I was most fit in my younger years.

But it doesn't change the fact that this naked girl with her lips puckered to the world looks frighteningly like me. A friend of mine asks me, after I sent him the pic, if I remember the blanket and sheets in the background, doubt tingeing the edges of his voice.

"Are you nuts? I remember every single time I was ever photographed naked!" I say, feeling affronted by the accusation.

My friend coughs.

"Look at this! The lighting on the photo is perfect. Never was there a time when those polaroids came out this good ever. Even retouched! This photo was made by, minimally, a semi-pro. This pic is not of me." I explain.

But even if I knew that wasn't me, nothing alleviates the creepy feeling that someone is getting off looking at a picture that resembles me. I also get the creepy feeling that I should really curb my urge to get in front of the camera now, clothed or naked. Now I'm paranoid. I certainly hope what's-his-face keeps those polariods hidden well. In fact, I certainly hope he burned them all by now.

/end mini-essay/

So Chris, does that answer your question about where the sex part is? Sheesh...

terminal position: the position we are in as he explodes in orgasm.

I keep two lives. I keep two journals. The first journal has been chronicling the day to day in my (once) corporate and personal life for a year and half now. This journal chronicles my artistic life. The first journal easily degrades into painful descriptions of the vapid and banal and for the truly special days, popcorn explosions of self-depreciation. While this journal... well, why too can it not painfully describe the vapid and banal with popcorn explosions of self-depreciation? ;)

Frequently asked questions:

Q. Where's the other journal?

A. I ain't sayin' and no amount of bribery or begging will make me say where it is.

This journal will have poems, snippets of prose begging to be critiqued, ideas, and events that occur in the life of a newly-admitted artist/writer.

So here we go...

Sunday, 8:14 AM

I woke up knowing damn well I didn't get enough sleep. I spent last night talking first on the phone and then online with a friend to send pictures online plodding.plodding.hi-res digital pics on.a .................... slow.assed.di-al-up. All 30-some-odd pics got to its destination sometime during the wee hours of the night. I know he will enjoy them.

I love the beautiful people I am with. I am in love while in this bubble of being--of being the newly admitted writer who had been brainwashed for years to think she actually made a good corporate automaton--to the beautiful people who radiated good magic in the air. Their words evoked feelings from other people last night. It's a powerful thing and it feels good.

Last night, we had a successful night selling books and getting the word out about our noble cause of raising the child/small publishing house of ours. Indeed, this labor of love was conceived as an idea and its cells multiplied in the minds of other people. By uttering words in a mic, we announced that it now has life. Its little heartbeat can be faintly heard in the world. "We are planning to start a smaller than small press!" Oh! Such pre-natal care it's going to need.

It is 8-something AM and I'm going to read. I need to sleep more.

Because...

/interject banal personal life/

I have to exercise. Shit, maybe I should just get up and ride my bike. I need to burn 400 calories a day in order to lose a pound or so a week so I can look half-decent in a backless dress. It's holiday time and that means strutting whatever unvoluputous body parts I have in perhaps the slinkiest clothes I will have the misfortune to slip myself into. Not only that, my back is burning from that damn chemical peel yesterday morning that, my aesthetician assures, should remove the blemishes from teenage acne breakouts on my back. Yick. Gross.

"If you're grossed out by sloughing skin now," she says, "Wait three days and you'll be molting. Oh yeah, then we'll be sandblasting your back too. Girl, don't forget to apply this extra peelant in three days, okay? I put you down for sandblasting on Friday. Ta-tah! Enjoy your day!"

Ouch, I thought, the myriad of piercings and tattoos I have don't hurt half as much as that initial chemical peel she put on. Damn...!

All because--

/back to artistic life/

I need to fucking write. Ideas and poems are floating in my head. I promise to write a poem tomorrow. There is one floating in my head right now about an erection. Thanks, JT for giving out that challenge to not-so-secretly make us all sexual storytellers. Okay, I'll take you up on it. I can never say no to a challenge. But I don't remember the last time I wrote anything vaguely erotic. The closest one is that mini-poem I got on top of this journal entry. I got that from riding my bike yesterday. Hey, I notice I compose poems in my head while riding my bike. Coincidence? ;)

I want my caffeine hit now, please.