she wore orange in november. white in december. and blue in the summer. on the inside, she just wanted to be invisible (although her cleavage implies otherwise).

Dead In The Eyes – a new project wherein I hope to excercise sarcasm, irony and plain ol’ dickery by providing captions to pretentious photos (mine wil lbe included – sometimes).

To be honest, I was too busy looking at the cherry blossoms behind her that I didn’t notice that this was supposed to be a “fashion” picture.

The less you know about a person, the smaller the chances of liking him/her.

On the other hand, the more you know about a person, the likelier it will be that you will find things you won’t like about him/her.

So should you get to know the person or not? Especially when all you want to do is not like him/her.

-musings during a realization that i never really asked you what your favorite color was.

She likes going to the park. She goes on good days and on bad days. And even on days she would describe as “wala lang”. iPod and a paperback in hand, she would plant herself underneath a rubber tree decorated with red and yellow spaceships the Makati police liked to catch on nights when the stars would twinkle the brightest and the moon would resemble a half eaten monay.

The Makati police catches them with fish nets attached to the four twenty feet long bamboo poles they would leave on the rooftop of PBCOM. The spaceships, always hovering above that building, were attracted by the bonfire the citizens of Makati would make on nights the moon looked like bread – nights they believed to be when Bathala is happiest because the moon has filled her stomach once more.

The spaceships hanging from the trees weren’t empty. The spacemen were inside, unable to escape because the oxygen would kill them. So inside their spaceships, they would sing.

While she reads. Always Murakami. While she listens to her music. Always The Beatles. Never Steinbeck. Never Jeff Buckley. Always the same. Always on Tuesdays when the Makati police are drinking beer in bars, and the spacemen are singing for their dead.

Maybe I should just stop thinking about the things that might happen. Say “FUCK IT” and just kiss you.

Either way, the world has already ended, anyway.

-kaka, circa 2004

It started with a cat. Like most stories, it always starts with the most random things – like a broken record, a cup of coffee, a lit cigarette. But in this case it started with a cat. It was a 15-pound cat, to be exact, that chased a bear up a tree.

No, actually, it didn’t start with a cat. I’m kind of hoping it did though – just to make this story different from all those boy-meets-girl girl-meets-boy and then it was the end of the world kind of stories. There are zombies, of course, and water shortage, blackouts, time travel, and beautiful shoes.

But this is mostly about how a single kiss can change how the world spins.

- kanina ko pa naririnig boses mo but i didn’t know where it was coming from. i couldn’t find you.

- maybe i’m not really here. maybe i’m just in your head.

- planting evil thoughts?

- kailangan pa ba?

- ang gulo dito no?

i didn’t answer. taking a long drag from my newly-lit cigarette, i scanned the room. it was really a mess. i watched as two guys in masks (one wore a george bush mask too small for his face, the other was wearing joker’s face) clawed out each other’s eyes fighting over the last piece of meatball. an eyeball rolled and stopped by my left foot. i stooped down to pick it up.

- if only i knew evolution would bring us smaller brains and shorter tempers, i would’ve stayed in 1999.

- personally, i prefer curry over meatball.

i handed him the eyeball with my lefthand and took his bottle of beer with my right. i’ve gotten used to having 2 fingers, the other 3 have fallen off nearly 3 weeks ago. evolution, it seemed, decided that apart from giving the finger, picking noses and wearing expensive wedding rings, humans don’t really have use for their middle, ring and pinky fingers. it’s such a pity. i would have really loved to give him the finger then.

- i heard her birthday’s coming up.

- yeah. we’re having cow.

- cooked?

- of course. fortunately, we still haven’t lost our taste for salt.

only a few feet from us, a girl crouched facing the wall. i could see her arms moving, but what exactly she was doing, i couldn’t figure out.

- so hi.

- hi.

and i left. i lit another cigarette and put my diving mask back on.

- You know life is too short to waste it on verbal foreplay. People spend so much time talking about the weather, basketball scores, work, they forget the person behind the answers. I’d rather talk about you, than about the things around you.

- You know you lost me at foreplay.

Wrote this 4 years ago when I thought I could translate my feelings into amusing thoughts. haha obviously, I failed. I ended up looking like a bitter bitch (which I actually was)

I imagined it happening this way:

I would walk casually over to their end of the table, a Luger, miraculously still working and rescued from my grandfather’s baul, in my right hand. I’d say hello and make small talk with her. Maybe about the weather. Maybe about her hair.

“Where’d you buy your shirt? It’s really pretty.”
“You look good with your hair swept back that way.”
“What’s your name again?”

And as if it was the most natural thing in the world, I’d press the barrel of my 90year old, give or take a few years, German gun against the side of her left temple.

“Your skin is so smooth. Who’s your derma?”
“What are you doing?”
“It’s my grandfather’s. Isn’t it awesome?”
“Yes, it is.”

I’d pull the trigger and blood and brain matter would explode all over the place. Milan Kundera would splatter on A’s shirt. Her environmentalism would spew out of the hole in her head so fast it would topple over D’s bottle of beer. Yellow liquid and thick red substance spilling. Thesis statements would cover C’s face and he’d wipe them off with the nearest napkin he could reach, equally stained with communism and Kerouac as his jeans.

“Pass the salt, please.”
“Have you seen the silent films being shown at Shangri-la?”

Life would go on as her head would hang limply from her slumped shoulders, a big hole where her thoughts on the new bill about removing VAT from oil prices and her thoughts on Mar Roxas used to be.

I’d wipe the my Luger with the hem of her shirt, surprisingly clean. My last bullet well spent. My grandfather would have been so proud. I’d push her off her seat, Fidel Castro, JPEPA, dolphins and credit card bills would spill out from her head, as easily as beer down a tambay’s throat. I planted myself next to C.

“What’s up?”
“You’ve got Nietczhe on your chin.”
“Thanks.”
“I haven’t seen you in a while.”
“Been busy cleaning up my Lolo’s Luger.”
“Nice gun, by the way.”
“Want to get out of here?”

And that’s what would have happened if my Lolo actually had a Luger.”

When the things you like remind you of the person you want to punch in the face…

I met this person (ok, a guy) some time ago at a party. He was cute – just to get that out of the way. But the important part was how he became a person of interest. Boy was pretty smooth, I have to admit. He was my “Before Sunrise” moment. Just like the movie. What started out to be just a drop off, ended up to be a drive home and the two of us talking til the wee hours with just a bottle of wine between us.

And he pushed the right buttons. Actually, I don’t remember how the conversation went anymore but I remember sitting side by side in the park bench outside our house and just laughing and laughing and laughing. I think we talked about the bands we liked, our favorite movies, the tv shows we watched. And we had a lot of those things we both liked – and they left me wondering (probably out loud) why I haven’t met him before.

And I had the warm fuzzies. That warm fuzzy feeling you get at the pit of your stomach. Butterflies. Tornadoes. A blessing of unicorns. An unkindness of ravens. It felt nice. And I remember it so well because I haven’t felt that way in a long time.

And the highlight to this romcom-esque night was when he leaned in to kiss me. And for a moment, I thought, “well this must be that can’t-eat-can’t-sleep-reach-for-the-stars-jump-over-the-fence-world-series kind of stuff that Diane Lane talked about in It Takes Two”.

And the moment had to end.

I did see the guy a couple of times after that. All amazing times for me. But just like the rest of my love stories, this ended with him disappearing. Ninja Vanish. Poof. And that left me hanging and thinking and struggling with unresolved issues/feelings and unanswered questions for a while.

After awhile I found out he got back with his ex and he moved to a land far far away.

We still talk sometimes – barely. Short messages over Facebook and YM. Nothing worth overthinking about. But he’s still the same. He still manages to push the right buttons for me. But the warm fuzzies have been replaced by that overwhelming need to punch him in the face just to get all that unresolved blah out of my system.

Well no, I’m lying the warm fuzzies are still there. And they’re nice feelings so I’m glad they haven’t completely gone away. Even with the realization/acceptance that this was just… something casual.

At least I have an interesting story to tell my friends over beer and whining.

I guess what I’m getting at here is that maybe we all need to light up a bit more with the pyrotechnics of life. This slightly eschewed rant on my bold (ok, insane) maneuvers was more a kick in the ass character building experience than anything else. But it got me here. Right where I should be. My best word of advice to anyone stuck on the see-saw of choice: do something new, try something different and take a risk going down a road that might just be a dead end. But find out. Because even if the worst happens, you’ll bounce back with the luggage of experience.

-Eli Ash