January 2012
3 posts
splash
When you’re alone for a long time, and you’ve decided that you like it that way, your life achieves an equilibrium. All your energies are equally distributed amongst all the different sections of your life. You get the right amount of sleep. You excel at work. You’re productive on your days off. You have time for your friends, you have a healthy social life, and you only drink...
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Well, it's not everyday my favorite emcee tweets...
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my week of gigging
This was a temporary return to my old Manila lifestyle of attending an average of 3 gigs a week. It felt good. I miss music.
I enjoy gigging in Sydney more. Nobody smokes indoors, and they bring in great international acts, like Miss Jean Grae here.
She had an intimate little solo show at the Good God Small Club. So glad I was able to catch her before she took the big stage 4 days later the...
December 2011
6 posts
2 tags
Some favorite X-mas photos
1) Giddyap, giddyap, giddyap let’s go! Someone built a sleigh and put it on his front yard for display.
2) Another guy went really OTT and turned his front yard into a disco winter wonderland, complete with music, disco lights, and a snowblower. WOAH! The wonders of suburbia.
3) Baby Jesus went missing from the creche this year, so we had to improvise last-minute.
4) Can you spot...
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sidewalk drawin'
The challenge of keeping my niece entertained on a sizzling, suburban December afternoon.
I drew the tree, she decorated it.
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putting up the lights!
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My year in lists
Major projects completed:
1) A full-length indie film: Suppose the Night Tasted Like Sugar
2) Album cover design for my dad’s second solo release, “Laro”
3) A play for Sydney Fringe Festival: “Aussies of the Magic Mic and Adobo Kind”
4) An entry for the Sydney Chalk Urban Art Festival
5) A 3-d soda pop bottle for the Castle Hill Orange Blossom Festival
6) An...
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soledad
The thing I value most right now is my solitude. Having complete possession of my own thoughts, mind, and feelings. Lingering for as long as I like in that interior room where my person is at complete liberty to play, to think, to feel, to be.
Solitude used to be loneliness, when I felt that being alone was just an interim period I had to go through before someone else came along. Being alone...
2 tags
My bestfriend’s X-mas gift to me: Windex, Harpic, Pine O’ Clean, a bad-ass scourer glove, Chux, and a basket of wooden clothes pins and chocolate…. in short, absolutely everything I need! Only a true friend would think of this :-)
November 2011
4 posts
1 tag
Dear Life,
Thank you for giving me what I need, and not necessarily what I want. Because too often, what I want turns out to be only what I thought I wanted. There’s always something better than what I want.
Love,
Me
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gratitude entry
Going through another transition, and I feel the need to write down all the things I’m grateful for. Things like good friends, probably the most valuable asset in my life right now. I’m the sort of person who’s spent a great part of my life training myself not to need others. It comes with the zeitgeist of the times, I guess, living societies that stress the value of...
2 tags
my favorite song
“What is your favorite classic pop song?”, was what an almost total stranger asked me.
I gaped at him. That’s a pretty big question to ask someone within 30 minutes of knowing them. I mean, that’s personal shit, man. Who knows what sort of picture of me he’d piece together based on my answer? I’d be subjected to some amateur psychoanalysis for sure.
Plus,...
October 2011
6 posts
1 tag
polvoron
The other week, I brought in some polvoron to work to have my co-leagues have a taste. Much to my surprise, everyone loved it! However, I feel that the store-bought variety I let them try was a bit disappointing, but that’s because I know what I like in my polvoron. I feel that my workmates should taste the real thing.
So today I stayed home and made polvoron, a recipe that yielded 86!...
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summer days are here :-)
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This year has been so full of big, big emotions. Now, I think all I want is equanimity.
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people
When I was a shy, introverted kid who didn’t know how to make friends, I used to use art to lure people towards me. I’d sit in a corner and draw until I was surrounded by a group of curious onlookers who wanted to talk to me. I’m no longer as shy, but I’ve found that it’s a formula that works to this day. Every time I draw in public, I get strangers talking to me...
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WatchBecause I’m feeling brave, sharing a track I recorded for the spoken word album “Romancing Venus Vol. II” for Kooky Tuazon back in 2004 (?). Listening to it, I realize I’m holding back, and I’m off key in some bits haha. But I think it’s got a nice groove to it.
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Well, looks like we done somethin' good here...
And so… palakpak naman diyan!
September 2011
12 posts
1 tag
This tree was always in my garden in Manila since I was a small child. it was enormous, twice the height of my house. Yesterday, a super typhoon toppled it down.
One of those things that make you feel the passage of time.
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Opening night tomorrow!
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likenesses
I’ve already uploaded some of these on my illustration blog alamundo.tumblr.com.
But I have more followers here :-)
A couple months ago, I modeled for artist Rodrigo Luff. Here are some of the sketches and rough paintings he’s come up with. I just love them!
5 tags
remember when romance was analog?
I miss the days when romance was analog.
Courtship used to involve risk and effort: phone calls on landlines where guys had to run the risk of your father picking up the phone, and having to be grilled by him for a few minutes after having delivered some sort of polite salutation, often akin to “Good evening, sir, may I please speak to your daughter?”
With the advent of pagers, we...
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11-hour sleep
My morning hair is so awesome.
Dear customers,
I apologize for not being 100% up to parr in my service as of late.
Though my pleasure usually lies in sincere service with a smile, in charming my way into your hearts even for just 5 minutes of the day as I hand you your latte, all my emotional and bodily energies are currently focused inwards.
Read: I’m burned out. The fire needs fuel. The body needs plenty of sleep,...
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Why do we continue to suffer long after we’ve left places of suffering?
We may leave behind situations or relationships that hurt us or imprison us, but our minds tend to linger there a little bit longer, stuck in a loop. Even though we can leave toxic places or relationships behind, pain has to be unlearned. Sometimes it’s just a matter of constantly reminding ourselves that we are...
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mi cuarto
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lessons for the month of aug-sept
As a creative, you must show up. If you do not show up, then you fail.
An artist draws. The only way an artist fails is if you do not draw.
The more you create, the more you want to create. Creating is giving of yourself, while making yourself bigger in the process.
As a creative, it is up to you to create your own rituals to keep the creative stream unblocked, and to sharpen your skills....
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Australians of the Magic Mic and Adobo kind
Hi guys, I’m performing in a play for this year’s Sydney Fringe Festival.
You can read more about the show in an interview with co-writer Rosary Coloma in the Australian-Filipina Magazine here. :-)
See you all there!
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I love my best friends. They know who they are. Always they reorient me and remind me of who I am. Amidst the noise and confusion of life, they remind me to listen to my own voice.
They seldom give me the answers to life’s pressing questions, but they help me arrive at what I know to be the right answer.
But they don’t judge me when I get things wrong.
They are there to laugh with...
August 2011
6 posts
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the father issue: memoirs on my father
1) My father has me balanced on the soles of his feet. He lies on his back, straightens his legs, and lifts me high into the air, higher than the sky. On my belly, I balance precariously, like a spinning dinner plate on a pole. I am 5-years old and I am Superman, Peter Pan, and Wonder Woman.
2) My father places a book in my hands. “Sophie’s World” by Jostein Gaarder. It is...
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8 things i collect
1) Frogs
I have them in all shapes and sizes. I sculptures, and paintings, and little figurines. I have unique pieces, and ordinary pieces from all over the world. I have frogs made of glass, silver, stone, crystal, resin, wood, and plastic. They all have stories. I’ll tell you all about each one of them some day.
2) People
I collect people and their life stories. I like to know what...
1 tag
The Warrior's Reminder- Erykah Badu
I am awake My mind is free I am Creative I love myself My will power is strong I am Brave I practice patience I dont judge folks I give not to receive I dont expect I accept I listen more than I talk I know I’ll change I know you’ll change I’ll hold on one more day I start over when necessary I create my own situations I am cosmic I dont have the answers I desire to learn I am...
fitting in, standing out
I work in a cafe in one of the most touristy areas of Sydney. Therefore the very counter I stand behind while taking people’s orders is an international hub, a meeting place of people from all over the world. I can’t count how many different faces and races I see everyday, how many foreign accents I have to decipher, and how many times I have to devise ways to communicate when a...
To you.
I know it hurts, but you are so full of love, baby girl. So full of love. It shines through beautifully in everything you do.
And no matter how much it hurts, cynicism just ain’t your style. You know it.
And it will be okay. Promise.
July 2011
8 posts
My story is nothing new. It has been retold countless times in a million badly written pop songs.
I fall in love with all the best things in a man and ignore all the other things, and naively hope for the best even though it’s all working against me.
And in the end, what I want to find is something very basic and simple, but I look for it in complicated people.
I guess I just pretty...
1 tag
As always, I begin new phases in life with a prayer:
Dear Creator,
Test my courage, always. Instill in me, the practice of being brave, creatively and in all else.
When I’m going the wrong way, or getting too complacent in an unsatisfactory situation, shake me up. Wake me. Bless me with discomfort so that I shall continue to aspire to higher places.
Make me open to receive the good...
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Manila, you will see your prodigal daughter soon. I’m coming home.
Sometimes, I just long to go back and reconnect with that piece of my heart that I left there. Sometimes, I just need to go back and remember who I am. Or who I used to be. Sometimes, I just need to be Filipino.
When you’re far away, you romanticize your hometown. I miss rain. Big, fat tropical rain. I know rain...
Peace of mind is found only in the present, when you exist squarely in the moment, neither re-living the past nor anticipating the future. It amazes me what a deep sense of equanimity I can feel doing something ordinary like washing dishes, wiping a table clean, or sweeping a floor, so long as I am focused on it 100%, not wishing I was somewhere else. A quietness of mind, feeling neither elation...
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family day in the cemetery
Photos that my dad and brother took on their phones.
This is a beautiful, hidden little pocket of Sydney that I occasionally visit for picnics with friends, a heart to heart, or to just to sit, draw, and watch the sunlight change.
Was all too glad to share it with my family.
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letter to my future husband
At 28 years old, I find myself childless, unmarried, living in a share apartment with my most pressing concern being the placement of my next tattoo. Such a stark contrast to the life I envisioned when I was in my very early twenties wherein I would by now be a domestic goddess with one young child and another on the way. And a husband.
Everyone is getting married. People much younger than me....
3 tags
five dollars
On my half-hour break from work this afternoon, I found a good patch of sunshine by the pier and leaned back to devour my 6-inch tuna Sub.
I was feeling good. I had found 5 dollars in the middle of Broadway earlier in the day, a busy Sydney Street. I was running across an intersection when I saw something familiar and purple, wet from the winter rain. I managed to take a few steps back and snatch...
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in transit
When 2011 began, I spent the stroke of midnight on a speeding train that was eerily empty. In fact, I got to my destination at about half the time it usually takes because all the platforms at every stop were empty. Nobody was boarding or alighting. Maybe I wasn’t the only one on that midnight train, but it certainly felt like it.
Filipinos have a superstition that whatever it is you get up...
June 2011
9 posts
2 tags
Who?
Can anyone tell me who this artist is? The painting is entitled “Lakambini” and is hanging in a restaurant in Manila called “Silya’t Sili”. Photo is from Clickthecity.com. :-) Lovely painting!
Somewhere sunny and warm...
… is where I wish I was.
3 tags
Customer service is not a forever job, but I admittedly can get very passionate about it. I can directly affect a person’s day just by treating them well. It makes me feel somewhat powerful to know that I can get people to respond positively to me just by my body language and my tone of voice. It’s instant karma…when I give off positive energy, I get positive energy back.
It is...
1 tag
stamps
At last I come to the end of my wandering. In 5 weeks, I’ve been on 12 plane rides, seen 7 cities in 4 countries, changed time-zones 6 times, and have had to adapt to 4 different languages.
In those 5 weeks of nomadism, I feel I’ve found a sense of peace, a sense of stillness even as the world seems to change rapidly around me. This year began with a tidal wave of change that took all...
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i hella ♥ SFO