An old fart

In winter, there is this certain hunger that feels nothing else but cosmic.

It seems like a black hole has birthed between the rib cages. Then, it starts to consume slowly, almost painstakingly, all matter known to science, starting from the very pit of a small body. The hunger strikes at the first sound of a gut, wrenching in emptiness. The emptiness then slowly grows to scalar destinations, like how the milky-way grows: to fringes that know no boundary but just the turning of voids upon voids.

This hunger inquires the capability of the mind itself, in measuring the untold places that a full stomach can’t grasp. It lasts on the minutes that the body can tolerate its isolation from anything that gives it life. During this time, only the most basic of science works; the life-forms in the space that is the stomach now feed on the simplest forms of glucose, the ones that are easiest to break down to create heat. Soon, the emptiness vacates, as near-freezing temperatures occupy. The sound growls even more, though not howling but certainly not a whisper. Then for a moment, the space is trapped within a space. Within a hair of a second, the black hole stops absorbing; the dark matter is burgeoning, and an explosion is poised to be cataclysmic.

A Fart. The Fart, after all, is god.

Slow routine

My current obsession lately, mainly during the short time I had to sit and eat infront of my PC, is to read the daily routines of various famous people, mostly writers, architects, scientists and the rest of the trust-fund babies, collated in a blog I found the other day.

It made me think of how much of a slack I am, not because I don't have a routine, but that I have a slow one. It just doesn't seem right that mine is also very flimsy, meaning, my routine, which is already slow, can break easily without notice mainly due to external distractions, or an impulsive deviation from my usual walk to school (like when I suddenly feel the urge to drop by a cafe, and actually do stop for at least half an hour).

Anyway, took some photos today, school-bound. Foster the people (below), was playing madly like small minions of mine, inside my ear.


It's sugary, comes out warm, and turns cold in less than five minutes. One practical thing to speed up a bit the slow routine. Total failure, though, unless I consume 4 more cans of these through out the night.


Rarely I use the station nearest my house. The route to school using this station takes me longer, thus slower. Nobody likes long, slow rides, right? Not always, but certainly I would not be talking about trains anymore. haha.


I had my bi-monthly session with the shrink today, and he was late. Probably, the guy before me gorged the earth with his meandering river of tears, that my shrink had to climb back to the surface and mop the floor. If I am not kidding you, then proceed with imagining the struggle of climbing back for your life, from a precipice that would drop you a thousand feet to raging salty waters of tears, only to  reach the top to mop the floor. Seriously now.


My uni is soooo obsessed with buildings that are architecturally influenced by honey combs and structurally inspired by cheese cake. They are now building a new one, this time nearer my actual lab. I am wondering what sort of superstition imagination has come into the minds of the architects behind this? It comes with no serious thoughts that everytime I pass by here, I'm reminded of Tom and Jerry and that highly-coveted piece of cheese their funny lives revolve around to. I just hope they (the building and the artists behind it) impart the same level of happiness I feel to other by-passers. Otherwise, they'd fail big time in making people remember the bickering of the cat and the mouse, and the quintessential appearance of Tweety Bird from time to time.

Meanwhile, I would do anything for you, Mark said. Mark Foster, in particular.

3 winters ago

Tokyo, lately, is as cold as the lips of a cat. The only thing that keeps me warm is the thought of Foster the People skitzo-dancing in my room.

Anyway, the long, cold walks back home at 3am keep on arresting me with memories of my first winter. I remember then, I wasn't at all complaining of the coldness, but rather was inanely amused of how cool it is not to smoke but still puff a lungful of blue, smoky air just everytime. After 3 years, all the amusing images of winter, even the magic of snow, have found a cold shoulder, so to speak.

I dug some old photos to serve this recent rememberance. I was living in Yokohama then, and school was a 2-hour commute. Holing up in my room was especially a guiltless need on very cold days.


Sometimes, a futon can draw the thin line between heaven and hell. Of course, I choose hell. haha.
But I swear I can do just about anything and everything without leaving my bed.


I remember how carefree those days felt, with the vibe of a new city constantly pumping a bizarre feeling of awe and wonder. And to think I spent most of my time inside my room!


The best thing about living on a third floor at the middle of nowhere is the fact that nowhere means only the man on the second floor can hear how I whacked the life out of that guitar. It took half a year worth of noise music before I received a formal complaint. :p


I find empty, colorful boxes very ornamental back then. Or anything with written Japanese on it for that matter. But three years worth of winter scalding has practically changed me into a zen-loving, minimalist schmuck like this. I just don't make sense sometimes. Like now. haha...


What hasn't changed really is how I ridicule my self with post-it notes of absurd reminders like how to make life beautiful, how I should work harder, or how I should at least finish my thesis. Sometimes, I just can't contain in unwritten silence what I'm supposed to be (not) doing. And I wasn't even naughty in grade school.


I have since changed to Adidas moisturiser, if you happen to ask. Apparently, the sensitivity of the skin on my face matches my heel's. But seriously, not a zit since the brand change even with -5 degrees centigrade and 0 precipitation weather. Mind that.


Winter has a way of consoling me by providing the nicest, sunny mornings.Most of the time, a cold, sleepless night is all worth waiting because of such a sunrise .


Though not all the time.


Found a monkey stunt I did after the first winter because I was extremely happy that the fear of going out and frost-biting myself has finally come to past, hallelujah.


During winter, I feel like a garage: damp, stale and eerie. After winter, I feel like a green lawn with colored balls rolling around, where kids throw banana peels in riot, and mothers lay red-white checkered picnic mats with skids of guava marmalade. Just like self-discipline, I can't seem to contain happiness. This is so not the way how to go down this slide even with marijuana.


Another proof of the uncontrollable happiness of surviving the first winter. Haha.

Keep warm, everyone.

Hometown glory

There is only a certain sunrise that can perfectly match irony of your current melancholy.

Went home for the holidays, and for the first time since I started living on my own, I felt the immeasurable distance and the subtle cruelties of the bigger world out there. Perhaps I stayed too long in a warm place? The bigger boy in my wants to digress.

There was a December, when I swam at my hometown's beach at midnight, that I saw a million stars, and I knew at that moment that it took me too long, or I have gone too far only to be consumed by a seizure of the most beautiful paralysis, droned by the salty waters of this place I grew up in. Or maybe it was just the beer, and the small hiss of pot.

Now that I am back to winter, my feelings are scanty.And so are the reluctance of a life worth writing about, or photographed.

Below is a bay famous for sunsets.
It's almost embarrassing how my camera never saw any of the paradise I went to.

Happy New Year people of the world. I wish for all the best things in life that a year could do to each one!
  


Music by Adele, Hometown Glory.

The October that I did not exist

It's funny how a month has passed unnoticed. Seriously, where was I last October?

I probably was there, though I belonged to the night, where sun-filled days were mere illusions.
There was also an illusion of the self, wanting to miss so many people, because a walk home at past 3 in the morning can be quite lonesome at times, especially with the growing smell of cold autumn creeping through the sleeves of a thin cardigan.

Where was I, really?

In those rare afternoons when the pill has stopped working, and the day was singing like Beatles, I played with kids a quarter century younger to see the difference of naivete and a scheming mind.




Other times, ending on a late dinner at the only open restaurant on my block at 1 am bananas in the morning.



There were ample times too, spent on the train, which I particularly love on rainy days.



The afternoons when the sun waited a bit for my rise, I walked around the neighborhood, thinking of everything and nothing at the same time.



Where was I last October? Perhaps too busy being obsessed with the comforting feeling that I was mostly alone and genuinely happy.


India Arie's Heart of the matter