heh.
love.
hehe...
hahahah. hahaHAHAHAHAHAHA!
HAHAAAHAHaha...
HAHAHAHAHAAAAHAAAA!!!
...

alright.
rock bottom now. Only one way to go-
and its gotta be up. rise high above this.
life has to be greater than this.
and i am greater.

cold turkey on a bonafide yuletide

if each button takes 9 grams of pressure, i have a 72 grams of potential energy hanging over my fingers everytime i pick up the phone. 72 grams of potential energy to make yet another paradigm shift to my life.
They say that when someone dies, the mass of the body drops invariably by 21 grams. 21 grams, weight of your soul. maybe thats why its so hard to muster up the 72 grams of pressure- its more than 3 times the weight of my soul.
heh. i'm not making sense.
i wonder how much 72grams of marijuana might cost.

Cold turkey for the past two weeks had its ups and downs.
Got my life back in relative balance, and the business is progressing steadily. There were good things i learnt from her, ironically, in that i've learnt to bring positivity back into my life. Its surprising how easier things can be when i can just smile and move along to deal with things at a easy pace. The cynic in me would have dealt with things just the same, but i would always feel a lot worse for wear. And cynicism been an catalyst for my insecurities; and a barrier to my ambitions. i've been fighting life with cynicism for so long, to survive.
now it seems i'm fighting cynicism to live.
It helps that good old friends like Claire and Sammy are back to hang out with. Heather and Dre. Chester, still an inspiration after all this time with his cast-in-stone Cheshire grin and optimism. And Cherie, and Deb and so many others.

Its december, though, and the season had always been most important to me. The year ends with red and white and christmas lights, and i go into that reflective mood. How much as a person, in spirit and in being, have i advanced from the past year, if at all? What do i have, what am i leaving behind and what have i ahead of me?
in most respects, i can say that i'm happy with what i have and what i have ahead of me. and i'm trying to leave my cynicism behind me.
it was perhaps this question that led to a talk with cecile. For good reason, she's vehemently defensive. even hostile. i made a decision months ago that left her very... hurt. we've been together in a very long and very crazy relationship, and while i no longer care to rake up the past, our eventual break-up was in the works for a long time. but she seems to be doing very well in her life now, and for that i'm genuinely happy for her.

So much has happened since i made that decision. i found a capacity to love and care for someone that i never thought was possible for me. and i never thought it possible that someone could make me feel so tremendously, deliriously happy and alive. And i had never never thought i could let my heart be so broken.
However, i did not once, and i still do not, regret that decision.

...
gosh darn, princess, we had some amazing times together didn't we?

72 grams. and then what?
i dont know. my heart is the one thing i can't evaluate for this christmas. i don't have it, i don't know whats ahead, and i don't even know if its left me behind.
all i want for christmas...

22th Nov 2005

Let it die and get out of my mind
We don't see eye to eye
Or hear ear to ear

Don't you wish
that we could forget that kiss
And see this for what it is
That we're not in love

The saddest part
of a broken heart
Isn't the ending so much as the start

It was hard to tell
just how I felt
To not recognize myself
I started to fade away
And after all it won't take long to fall in love
Now I know what I don't want
I learned that with you

The saddest part of a broken heart
Isn't the ending so much as the start
The tragedy starts from the very first spark
Losing your mind for the sake of your heart
The saddest part of a broken heart
Isn't the ending so much as the start
-let it die
feist

seventy seven times seven times

i'm the last person i'd think of when it comes to 'perfect'.
in fact, i'm still the last person when it comes to any synonyms that remotely sound anywhere near perfect. like 'bloody manwhore, but cooks good instant noodles'.
but hey. at least i'm not the first on the list for 'fucked up fool of a pathetic male nurse, but can box to save what's left of his masculinity'.

point is, nobody's perfect. life is easy for some, much tougher for most. and when these imperfections scream out for second chances out of their own accords, life usually gets rather too hardnosed about forgiveness. you make a mistake, and you pay the consequences. fuck around with the wrong molecule in this universe, and it'll blow up right in your face. cause and effect. karma and zen and yingyang and a fucking tray of fortune cookies.
but it gets so much weirder when it comes to someone so close to your heart. on the one hand, its so easy to serve up forgiveness and enough chances to make the 'second' in the term become rather insignificant. on the other hand, everytime it happens again and again, and it hurts so much more and gets so numb at the same time, that u wonder what its all for.
how many times more will i be hearing lies? how long more do i have to doubt?
i wanna learn to trust you. i honestly honestly do. i may be cynical, but as much as i'd hate to admit it, i do have a heart. and i do have u very close to my heart. if i can't trust u, who else is there?
and as much as u might think otherwise, i dun like to rake up the past. u feel guilty, u feel sorry, yes i know. but bringing up the past doesn't make it any less painful than it ever was for me either. i still have things to sort out. i still have questions and doubts. and i don't have answers.
oh i can find out the truth. been there done that. but the truth is a far cry from an answer that i don't even have a question to. how do u reconcile what happened with what u told me, and still expect me to be able to shut that all out, put on a smile and start from scratch like nothing ever happened?
it's tempting, i grant. for so long, i have always wanted to face anything and everything up front and brutally. take the first hit, and find the source of that shit and pound it into obligatory inexistence. i want to that. i can. i had everything in place, money at the ready to wreak a fourth of july on somebody. But now, in all madness, i'm really tempted to go into denial and run. like it never happened.
things have been going great. and maybe its the cynic in me chirping. its been going too well too soon.
is it?
or is it all happening again, and i'm letting my guard down because i don't wanna believe that u can say you love someone so much, and let it happen again.
what should i do? what would u do?

screwed v2.5 beta

being with her changed and challenged so many things that i thought was innate for me for so long.
i had always been crushing my ego; but she sparks this confidence in me. had tried to be as emotionless and mercenary with life, until she came along. ultimately, its how hope and ideals creep their way into a cynics microcosma.
Is that good or bad?
But then again, the real question should is which point of view we wanna judge these changes.
but i'll keep it simple for myself. i might have some new ideas popping around, but hey. i'm still michael, and i'm still that goddamned cynical dumbfuck i was. maybe tempered with mouth-wash, too much chocolates and a little faith, but still here. so it doesn't make a difference if its good or bad, simply because the line between good or bad is no longer thin, its non-existent.
so she's right. i walk, talk, eat, drink, drunk, puke, write, listen, sing and repeat cynicism. Can things change? all things can change. life can always pull a proverbial rabbit out of your hat. but nothing so deep-seated changes in the short span of a month. especially when the coupla months before that only supported cynicism as a defense mechanism.
but one thing, at least, had never changed so far. and at this point, i hope that one thing mattered, and that it meant something.

Well I don't know if I'm wrong
'Cause she's only just gone
Here's to another relationship
Bombed by my excellent breed of gamete disease
I'm sure when I'm older I'll know what that means
Cried when she should and she laughed when she could
Here's to the man with his face in the mud
And an overcast play just taken away
From the lover's in love at the centre of stage yeah
Loving is fine if you have plenty of time
For walking on stilts at the edge of your mind
Loving is good if your dick's made of wood
And the dick left inside only half understood her

What makes her come and what makes her stay?
What make the animal run, run away yeah
What makes him stall, what makes him stand
And what shakes the elephant now
And what makes a man?
I don't know, I don't know, I don't know
No I don't know you any more
No, no, no, no...

I don't know if I'm wrong
'Cause shes only just gone
Why the fuck is this day taking so long
I was a lover of time and once she was mine
I was a lover indeed, I was covered in weed
Cried when she should and she laughed when she could
Well closer to god is the one who's in love
And I walk away cause I can
Too many options may kill a man
Loving is fine if it's not in your mind
But I've fucked it up now, too many times
Loving is good if it's not understood
Yeah, but I'm the professor
And feel that I should know

What makes her come and what makes her stay?
What make the animal run, run away and
What makes him tick apart from his prick
And the lonelier side of the jealousy stick
I don't know, I don't know, I don't know
No I don't know, I don't know, I don't know
No I don't know, I don't know, I don't know
Hell I don't know you any moreNo, no, no no...

Well I don't know if I'm wrong
'Cause she's only just gone
Here's to another relationship
Bombed by my excellent breed of gamete disease
I finished it off with some French wine and cheese
La fille danseQuand elle joue avec moi
Et je pense que je l'aime des fois
Le silence, n'ose pas dis-donc
Quand on est ensemble
Mettre les mots
Sur la petite dodo
- the professor & la fille danse
damien rice.

'hush hush'

secrets.
what do you do, what do you do?
its weird. for so long i've been able to handle secrets. probably because i hardly have any myself in the first place; i always have friends around i trust. and while i may have 'verbal constipation' of sorts, like heather puts it, i do sort them out. with close ones, or mostly by myself. everyone, i suppose, is allowed a coupla skeletons in their closets, and i would have mine, of course.
some have bigger closets. and some have darker skeletons.
and i perhaps have that privilege, that my friends do trust their selective old bones with me from time to time. i have very few things i can be proud of, but one of them at least, is that people do trust me. maybe its the face; or maybe its the fact that i hardly get surprised at much anymore. though, i hope its actually because i manage to help them out with it or sort through it as objectively as possible.
but i digress. as much as i have been able to be objective and blunt, i find myself losing that touch recently. with all the stuff happening, i have gotten myself emotionally attached to my problems. and while i recognise the mind to be more wise than the heart, lately my heart has been rather deafening.
how ironic.
and i'm finding skeletons hiding in all the wrong places. and these secrets i learn, i sometimes wonder if its better that i left them in the closet, or do a forensic on them and bury them asap. but knowing me, i'd much rather know everything and face them upfront, instead of having them lie six feet under and come right up at the worst possible murphy moment.
ok one dilemma down, another conundrum in the line. now i know these things, and like the proverbial truth that hurts, it sucks to know them. so the heart screams, and the mind tries to find ways to shut it up. So- what do u do? Get myself in the calm and objective state of mind, talk it out and sort it through; or let it slide, and trust the other to be able to face it squarely and honestly, sort it through, and be wise enough not to let it happen again?

But i realise both are not options at all. Their simple idealistic logics are reason enough.
So what do you do?

penned another one.
heh.
im on a roll:

you want time
you want space
you wanna disappear
without a trace.
you wanna be strong
you wanna be wise
you wanna blow some luck
and roll the dice.
you wanna call
you hang up at the tone
baby you can't face it all
alone.

*
but i'll keep my cool
i'll be your fool
when you run, where you hide
i'll take the silence in my stride
take your time, don't be too long
i'll be waiting, don't get me wrong
i don't need it all
just to be there when u fall

you wanna lie
you want the truth
you want the cake
and eat it too
you want it all
you don't want a thing
you want me to buy
the wedding ring
you want me
you want another
you cry his tears
on my shoulder.

*
(cont)
So i'll keep my cool
i'll be your fool
and maybe someday
you'll be mine too.

- fool
23rd Sept
michael.

bleah

wrote a new song. yay.
no idea wat to call it though.

Welcome to earth
and take my breath away
you heard my silence
in the music they played
and i don't know why
she didn't just pass me by
opened up my door
and you were here before

*
but hey, i'm good
things they never work out
the way they should
hey, i'm okay
i'll stay this way anyway
what else could i say?
what else could i say?

you raised me up
buried me again
silver lining
drowned out in rain
and in the middle somwhere
on the road to nowhere
we share a cigarette
and place another bet

*

i shoulda known better
when it didn't matter
i shoulda known by now
the only good that good does you
is bring you down

*

someday i actually wonder if i can make money out of any of this heh.
at least i got something out of pain no?

dealt me a showhand..

guess the Old Man's still got some fight in him left after all.
guess He's still got that bit of dry wit in him.
just realised that all this while might actually had been a slow start to a huge joke. Only, his punchline was rather taking its time in the coming heh.
But, hey, im not complaining.

After all this while of being the one who never believed in these stuff anymore, along comes Val.
And then, wow.
wow.

et spiritu sancti

if i ever loved a song so ironic for me:

LILIUM

Oh si usque edita victus sapientia
et lingua deus no praetendiese
Beatus vir qui suffert tentationem
Quoniam cum probatus fuerit
accipient coronam vitae
Kyrie ignis divine eleieson
O quam sancta,
quam serena,
quam benigna,
quam amoena
O castitatis lilium
-Yukio Kondo and Kayo Konishi,
performed by Kumiko Noma

which roughly translates as,

the mouth of the just shall meditate
and his tongue shall speak judgment
blessed is the man who endures temptation
for, once he has been tried
he shall receive the crown of life
O lord, O holy fire, have mercy
O who sacred
who serene
who benevolent
who lovely
O lily of purity

i sometimes wonder where i stand with the guy upstairs...

post-borneo syndrome

im feeling like crap.
the kind that you extricate out of your system after a mad buffet of rotten food with chemical coloring, spiked alcohol with triple espresso, and way too much self-induced anti-depression pills.

im feeling like crap.
im getting sick.
at least i hope im just getting sick.
bleah.

for those who smoke,
are there more boxes of matchsticks
or more packs of cigarettes sold each day?

for those who love,
are there more who buy the flame, however temporal,
or more who are just addicted?

fuck. who cares?
every cigarette starts from a fire somehow anyway.

diatribe

had a discussion about judgement last night
don't even know where to start.
it is within human nature to judge i suppose. in fact, i do believe judgement is what separates homosapiens with the other creatures. Theological or not, we are created with a distinct awareness of ourselves. This consciousness of our existence also allows us to realise we are a factor to the macrocosm about us. The choices we make influence a fabric of reality beyond our immediate being, it affects not just the physical world we are in, but most definitely other individuals. one of those first things we probably did wrong as dumb little kids was to not realise that. who knew if you decided to pee all over uncle sam, he'd be pissed? Forgive the pun-- but then if given that choice i'd still pee on Uncle Sam if i could get away with it.
oops.
Point is, we don't yet realise how we could affect others- that is, until we find out that others affect us too. If Uncle Sam pissed all over you (like he's doing to just about everyone now), i'd think you'd be rather upset. so maybe ala carte urinating can't be too good. ;)
take a bit of a thought-jump, and it might bring us to realise where judgement is rooted. Discerning wrong from right, evil from good becomes an organic education. The bible laid down the commandments, society lays down the morals and pompous polititions lay down the law. These judgements of human choices and actions in life base themselves on universal pretexts of what should be good for others in general would probably be good for the individual.
one way to look at it, seems like we're brought up in a world that insinuates the instinct to judge. Beyond the basics aforementioned, we're starting individually to judge others for their worth, status, appearances... and, once in a while, we might even consider their personality.
Is that a good or bad?
who am i to judge that? without judgement, without rules or principles, society degenerates to a state with as much civility as the animal kingdom. even so, all morality and ideals stem from rather unrealistic absolutes. Judgement, whether we'd admit it or not, draws us to decide towards a conclusion in the black-or-white. anybody would be a fool not to realise we teeter consistently on the in-between, as well as the contradictory. Grey areas plague us everyday, and i guess it gets easier to be apathetical and cynical to it all than to constantly try to tell ourselves we were wrong amd have to reevaluate our preconceptions about somebody. It doesn't get any easier when people know enough to present themselves to ease you into a favorable judgement.

but i digress. who gives a flying fuck about all anthro-apologies.
i got smacked in the face in that discussion. somehow, it seems like i always believe im right.
personally, i find that one of the biggest insults ive had the fortune to be stabbed with.
i do not, at any moment, believe whatever i say to be universally right or true. im not quite that much of an idiot.
au contraire, i live knowing ive been wrong with so many things in my life. one thing i know i'm right is that i never am. i learnt about myself the best way- which is the hard way. it is not self-doubt, self- deprecation, or self-conscious that i cross-examine myself constantly. because there simply is no 'self' here worthy of any recognition.
and in that line of thought, i consciously refrain from placing judgement on anyone, without first doing that to myself. and after that, its simple maths to realise i am absolutely in no position to judge.
i always believed the best judgement you ever make is one made against yourself.
i know my fuckups, and i know very well my own problems. and i always try not to give voice them until i've resolved it with myself. Ultimately, who gives a shit about the trip-ups of a fool?
and it becomes excruciatingly frustrating when someone comes along the way and tell me i don't know im wrong. even a fool learns not to lift his head after he's been smacked in the face so many times. especially when i was once dumb enough to think that turning the other cheek was actually a good solution.
how far have you looked into yourself before saying that to me?
if you really did, you'd know you wouldn't say anything remotely like that.

S.O.L.= Stasis or Limbo?

i had to repeat this story till my jaw needed axle-grease.
definitely not something im proud of. but then pride had always been the demon i loved mocking. so lets have it.
got charged with two military offences as of friday. Something about inappropriate usage of property and disobedience of general order. the thing about how language works in any law book, even one as inane as the army's, it so fucking vague anything u do can fall well into its impact crater. what really happened should be a fable for all kids of adam and eve. don't eat that tasty fruit, or you could cause the end of the world.
digressions aside.
got called back for a saturday duty in the guard house. its 24hr borefest so people think of ways to entertain themselves. i brought a book and a coupla cds. i was done with the book by lunch. i didnt have anything to play the cds with. so i trooped down to my office and fished out the laptop and brought it back to the guard room. The process is a lot more complicated, involving keys and signatures, but lets not bore with the details. Lets just say i processed the key without the signature. so me and the guys there played music for the day. i packed the laptop and hid it away from view lest anyone thought silly ideas. they proved to be my silliest idea yet though. The next morning's handover was a fucking mess. and i had to trot back and forth around camp like a mad hatter to get things settled. that is absolutely no excuse for completely forgetting about the laptop, but thats just wat this fucking fool did.
i forgot.
i booked out in a flair of dramatic irony, in a state where nobody saw the laptop and nobody knew where it went.
monday came and passed. i was on course on the other side of the island, when this side panicked over the possibility of a breach in security. some ninja apparently infiltrated the camp, entered a secured office and left with a laptop, without a trace. i was oblivious to that until saturday evening when someone called and asked if i knew where it was. so there was me in the impact crater, wondering what hit me. 'holee shit. its in the guard room. i completely forgot to return it.' this was after the camp already alerted the higher commands about that darn ninja.
long story short. i got drowned in shit. they found the laptop where i found it and everythings intact. but the possibility that it could have been stolen or that it could have been a real ninja, or that the ninja could have worked for al qaeda is the shit im drowning in. so i got charged. In their defence, it could be considered a severe breach in security. i most definitely did make a humongantus mistake. i gave a lotta people a lotta trouble.
and i really really could have been a evil terrorist. im evil enough, i just forget things too often for osama to trust me.
disclaimer: i seem to be making too light of this entire thing. but i need a momentary timeout from kicking myself between the thighs. 'you are your greatest enemy' was a saying i took to heart long ago. and its become an obsession. times like these i get fantasies of hara-kiri with a charred stake, digging my own innards full or burnt splinters with my own useless hands. nothing suicidal, u understand, thatd be far too easy a backdoor.
mom and dad finally realised what i meant when i told them i've already said to myself whatever they wanted to say to me. i know myself well enough to know which buttons hurt the most when pushed, so lets just. keep. pushing.
didn't want to make her cry. i know parents need to get it out of their system, to say something when we fuck up, to somehow punish us. whether by pain, emotional blackmail, financial blockades or just mental torture. to make it seem like they're doing their job. to make them feel like they won't make anymore mistakes with this fucked up loser of a son. i understand, i let them say it.
but one thing that snapped me, is when they say i dun seem like im guilty, or repentant. that i don't know the gravity of the problem or that i don't care. i keep a straight face, but i do give a fuck. i AM disappointed in myself, i AM extremely pissed at my stupidity and i absolutely appreciate my worthlessness thank you.
at least now you know.

i was facing 10 days in DB. i was already resigned to that fact, up till the point i marched into the CO's office in the dead of the night. When he read the sentence to be 12 days of SOL, i must've been a little too surprised to react. i had mumble a reaply after being jabbed by somebody.
Its 2 days more, but its a lot more lenient a sentence. At least i get to type all these down.
i know i got a lotta people to thank. ppl spoke up for me where least expected. i'm still stunned. and im thanking them still, not in so many words, because there are better ways to do so.
but one thing my parents wanted of me were words. they wanted me to thank god.
come to think of it, i might have mouthed those words, but seldom have i truly said it.
so um
owe ya one, Pops.

________________________________________________________________________________________

sta·sis
n. pl. sta·ses
A condition of balance among various forces; motionlessness: “Language is a primary element of culture, and stasis in the arts is tantamount to death” (Charles Marsh).

lim·bo1
n. pl. lim·bos
Word History: Our use of the word limbo to refer to states of oblivion, confinement, or transition is derived from the theological sense of Limbo as a place where souls remain that cannot enter heaven, for example, unbaptized infants. Limbo in Roman Catholic theology is located on the border of Hell, which explains the name chosen for it. The Latin word limbus, having meanings such as “an ornamental border to a fringe” and “a band or girdle,” was chosen by Christian theologians of the Middle Ages to denote this border region. English borrowed the word limbus directly, but the form that caught on in English, limbo, first recorded in a work composed around 1378, is from the ablative form of limbus, the form that would be used in expressions such as in limb, “in Limbo.”

orbital dysfunk

you left on a roadtrip.
spinning on a beeline, trying to gather enough velocity to be thrown off that orbit you weaved with so much toxic dust.
you hitched on so many rides you never thought you'd be on.
Maybe they know where they are going. Maybe you did, maybe you had a map. But you rolled the pieces with tobacco and smoked it into harsher lungs, and flushed the rest down the drain with as much intoxication.
maybe if you throttled fast enough in that plastic spaceship, god would find more competent toys to play with. While stocks last. Batteries not included. Each sold separately.

And after all that, hey, the air suddenly smells familiar. A little devastated by tsunamis of carelessness, yes, but that washed up blanket is the same one you woke up from. Yesterday, or two months ago.
you're right back on the other side of the same place.

you have a new suitcase of masks and cosmetic lies. They are better painted by a more practiced brush. we could keep them. we should.
shut up. don't worry about that.
how the fuck do you lie to yourself if you don't know who you are.
shhhh.

if the last two months were any indication, you still have that much of yourself to murder.
sitting down, with your closest friends and a choice intoxicant, you find yourself pathologically unable to unearth the the troubles and hitches within you. How do you untie a self-binding knot in the blind?
Still can't get past thinking that your problems are only yours to deal with. Your insecurities are secured behind a lock whose key you swallowed. Still refusing to admit you're too bloodied from the punches you threw yourself every single night. Arrogant in knowing how you nip any possibilities of pride in the bud with that blunt rusty knife. Indulging shamelessly in the ironies of you.

So why put all these in words now? One thing you know, your words know you better than you know yourself. And perhaps if you wrote in second-person perspective, you could displace yourself enough to spell things out. And perhaps if your allegories get convoluted enough, you'd still be encrypted in your status quo.