Friday, September 17, 2004
6:13 PM |
Bored, and Some Other Things
Sometimes, when you have a public blog, you have to know which things to keep out, and which things to keep in.
-- Anonymous Blogger
But who really gives a shit? I
want to feel naked to the world. My life has always been an open book anyway. And generally, bloggers tend to post their most searing epiphanies and emotional battle scars online (see Wanggo Gallaga's exquisite rants in
The Flight of the Rocketman), while strangely keeping happy moments off the Net. My Chesire Cat of
Connect the Dots, for example, has yet to blog about her Palanca Award for her poetry. We had a nice exchange via text messaging the other weekend about her burgundy dress for the bash at the Manila Pen, but I still want something longish to chronicle her experience during the awards night. So far,
wala pa. I texted her about it, and she says she's too busy living in the real world. Why is that always the case? Same with me, as well. I tend
not to post when something really important happens. But when I'm bored,
hello Blogger, here I come.
Which is really a nice segue to say what I really want to say:
I am so fucking bored. I am so bored I'm like one of those Energizer bunnies, but this time in need of new batteries. I'm still banging those damn cymbals, ever so slowly now, but I need juice.
So, of course, you might be wondering why I said, just the other day, that I felt strangely happy. Blame Debarge. And Bubu's birthday. (We celebrated his birthday over dinner somewhere nice -- but he was nursing a terrible cold, so it wasn't quite as romantic as I would have wanted it to be.)
Pero cute
naman when you're taking care of your S.O.,
no? My maternal instincts took over last night while we were trying to go to sleep and he was sniffling like there was no tomorrow, and it was nice in a weird, caregiver kind of way.
My mood for the past few weeks, though, ever since I turned 28 (again), has generally been sour. Internally, that is. To the rest of the world, I am soooo sunny, I could kill myself.
"
Hala, si Ian, angst-ridden
na naman," you might say. "How retro."
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I want to dig up my old VHS copies of Ben Stiller's
Reality Bites and Cameron Crowe's
Singles, and mope ...
beautifully.
The truth: I don't know what to do anymore. I'm in a limbo. I'm listless, and I've been spending way too much time in bed when I should be doing something worthwhile, like painting, or taking up photography again, or directing a play, or writing. Or formulating escape plans to get away from this slowly-imploding, God-forsaken country.
But no... I have surrendered to hopeless routine instead. My classes this semester have generally been uninspired, because most of the good students already enrolled last summer, and I'm left with the boring ones. (I would know. I was
the summer literature teacher. And I had a great time teaching those summer kids. That's why I love summer classes. They're always a booster to my academic juice. First semesters, on the other hand, have always been downers.)
I haven't written anything worthwhile for more than a year now. I tried my hand at science fiction -- about how, in the future, they cloned Rizal from a tuff of his hair hidden away in that
lamparilla of his which one of his sisters stole away during the hero's last day in Intramuros; only to find out that the cloned Rizal was, in fact, a woman -- but the finished draft is flat and uninspired. I have a thousand ideas in my head, but I'm always tired to even contemplate sitting down and developing any of them.
I am always tired these days, saddles with the baggage of expectations. There seems to be no time at all to be creative. All of my energies have been focused on studies, and work, and M. And then all I really do is watch
Oprah and
Amazing Race and
Blind Date and
Sex and the City ... I feel I don't own my life anymore. I feel divorced from my reality, and my old aspirations.
(Sighing dramatically.)There's a reason why I'm putting all of these delicate things down online. I've always believed that words have the power of exorcism. I'm writing all these down in my blog because I want to feek free of them in real life.
The other day, walking around Lee Super Plaza like a zombie, I decided to go to the Books Section, but discarded most of the things I saw.
I have too many books at home already, I said.
I can't be buying another one. But there was one book that caught my attention.
Brian Morton's
Starting Out in the Evening. It feels good, this book. It's so sly in the way it makes you identify with the characters. The language is simple and, in a sense, elegant, and the prose occasional flares with beautiful insight. It makes me want to go back to writing again.
My only hope now is this rising tenderness in me, this slowly swirling desire to move. I'm taking deep breaths. I'm slowly getting excited to get up from my protracted bout of slothfulness. By God, I can do this.
I can.
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
GO TO OLDER POSTS
GO TO NEWER POSTS
