"If there is a feeling better than that strange moment when a stalled story unsticks and becomes inevitable, I do not know what it could be." -Neil Gaiman

1. If I hear Fireflies by Owl City one more time, I will slaughter Minkie (our chowchow), smoke it with cayenne and herbs, barbecue it, and eat it with relish, tearing through the skin and licking my fingers afterwards. I SWEAR TO FUCKING GOD. (Well, okay, no, I don't. Minkie's our family pet. BUT PEOPLE PLEASE STOP IT WITH THAT SONG. Hesus para niyo nang awa! Is this what passes for music these days? I call it, Double A: Aural Annoyance.... Or or or! A.F.A.: Aural Fucking Annoyance!)

2. I just finished reading Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger. I liked the contrast between the daylight sadness and the gothic intentions. Certainly enjoyed it. Not high literature, but it was a good read, couldn't put it down for a couple of days. The funny thing is, I had the Olsen twins as my unintentional visual peg for the main protaganists, Valentina and Julia.

Isn't it funny how that happens with some books? You try your best not to associate their physicality, their looks, to people you know in real life, but sometimes the book is just seriously asking for it. Then you end up with a book with people you know (that extra level of similarity to reality is a good thing, but I meant it physically; you're reading about these characters in a book and one of them looks like your grandfather, one looks like the bitch who made your life hell in high school, one loooks like...Mary Kate Olsen!), instead of characters that the author actually created for the narrative.


3. I LOVE FRISKA VILJOR'S LATEST ALBUM, For New Beginnings. As in, that's all I've been listening to the whole of November, day and night. Not kidding. Not not not. I painstakingly chose 3 of my favorite tracks from the record, here they are. I love them I love them I love them! And this record is just...inspired. If you have faith in my taste, go buy it now from Amazon.com, or...download it. Let's not be pretentious.

Last week, death surrounded me. Not the least because it was Halloween, or All Souls Day.

For practicum, Kim and I were tasked to go on a location survey for a film that Borgy Torre is directing. It’s exactly what it sounds like: we just have to survey the metropolis for possible locations for Borgy's film, which is still in preproduction. Specifically, we have to look for a cemetery for poor people, preferably a hilly expanse crowded with crumbling tombstones. So last Thursday, Kim and I went to the Manila North Cemetery to see if it might be a contender. I’ve never been there before. I'm used to desensitized American-style cemeteries, replete with geometrical plots, neat lapidas lying flat on almost turf-like Bermuda grass. I'm also used to clean landscaping peppered across what’s essentially a clean horizon with full view of the skies, to the likes of Manila Memorial Park in Sucat, where most of the dead in our family are buried. I was in for a surprise with Manila North Cemetery.

It was a nasty visceral shock to the senses.

Manila North Cemetery is old, with niches, mausoleums, irregular-sized tombstones haphazardly strewn around the place. Some of the niches are piled up as high as 4 bodies, that is to say, 4 crypts on top of each other. These tall structures cast long shadows on what’s already a cramped place, especially upon the approach of sundown: indiscernible shapes paint the cemented surfaces to eerie effect. It’s right out of a scene from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and true enough, after a few minutes in the place, I wouldn’t have found it so strange to find Cesare walking around, portending my near doom.
There are some mausoleums and tombstones that are inaccessible because of all the interlaced plots. Already labyrinthine paths have been disregarded and used as space to hunker down more crypts. One would have to be ready to climb on top of other crypts in order to reach other parts of the cemetery, something that strikes me as so disconcertingly disrespectful to the dead; and frankly, it’s just creepy to climb all those crypts, especially after watching all those zombie movies where the dead come alive. There’s that extant thought at the back of my head that the dead inside the crypts will be indignant, and come after my blood when I least expect it. Horror movie imagery gives birth to a lot of irrational fears, I'm living proof. Needless to say, it was creepy, trudging around the place and taking pictures, another no-no according to a convincing number of horror flicks, lest I want random white specters on the photos. I'm told they're rather photogenic; if not photogenic, then they're camwhores at least.

"Life is just too ornate to simplify. So why bother myself with the little trivial matters of being a good girl?"

Our caretaker has just brought my late Lola's dog to our house, after all this time, because I think my Lola's house will be finally rented out. It 's been two years since my granny died. The culprit in question is an aging golden retriever named Kobe. I don't know what got into my Lola Nating's head that she named it  Kobe, perhaps it's a reference to Japan (the place or the succulent beef), or the NBA player. I wish I could still ask her. It's probably the latter thanks to my granny's lovely quirkiness. Kobe's still pretty lively for his age, and takes to strangers easily. He doesn't bark. And he has the shiniest golden retriever fur I've ever seen. He was playing around under my window this afternoon, and I was calling out his name. He stopped as if hearing a ghost, wondering where the sound was coming from. I did it one more time. Then another. It amused me way more than it should (chalk it up to my strangeness.) Kobe just couldn't figure out who was calling out his name! He didn't look up. 

But then I suddenly found myself crying. I miss her. 

Last night, Anton and I were waiting for Lyle and Carlo to arrive in Magallanes. Anton picked me up from Sherwood (I was drinking with Trish, Kim, and the boys.) We got to Magallanes a bit early, Lyle and Carlo were still on their way. We decided to get some beers from Select in the meantime. So there we were, parked behind Jollibee, sitting inside Anton's car, just swilling our beers in the darkness, waiting for them. Lit up some cigarettes, and between us, good friendly conversation as always. We made sure to hide our bottles when police or the Magallanes barangay people passed by. It was my fifth beer of the day (having started early with my college friends, we haven't gotten together in a while) and I was thinking, "Holy shit, I feel like an alcoholic." I thought about  how many hours of this week I've spent guzzling down alcohol...and when it dawned on me what it implied, I just wanted to stop. It makes me seem like I don't do productive things when I do. But it must seem like that to other people. I don't feel guilty at all though; in the end, drinking is self-acknowledged tomfoolery, a slow demise to the liver; but it is state-approved tomfoolery nonetheless, as legal as waking up early on a Sunday to hear mass, legal the way stoners wished bud was. I'm not a criminal because I happen to drink a lot, it's tragically common enough.

A lot of people know alcohol in its escapist guise. And they'll all tell you, it's fun while it's flowing down your throat, your belly, then the warmth is smoothing it's way up...but honestly, nothing's ever worth how murderously painful your head feels the next day. It's the truth, and I agree. Jack Coke and a couple of hits, you'll feel like you can do anything. But upon waking up, the sensation of being hit by a 10-wheeler truck, twice, is evoked. Not pleasant. So when I said that I don't like what it implied...I meant that I didn't like how the habit implied me as someone who needs to escape every day, and does it cheaply with drinking, who knowingly suffers pointless pain in all those mornings-after. Because that sounds sad.

But in life, I guess there just comes a point when a bucket of beer or 14 shots of Jager stop solving anything. When it stops being a mystery, when you know exactly just how high (or low) your alcoholic tolerance is, when you know what drinks (or other substances, let's not pretend) tickle your fancy and give you the best high -- it stops being a ride and just becomes a habit. When sobriety becomes precious... that's the point where I ask myself, what have I been doing? Sure, it makes it easier to talk, it strips away almost all of my inhibitions, already good music sounds even better, we all laugh a little louder, the night is our muse, the whole world becomes ours. But doing it every night... wow. I'm too soft for this shit, seriously; it messes up something inside me, and I'm not talking about just my liver. I like my alcohol as much as the next person, but when I've been drinking for consecutive days, all I ever feel like doing upon waking up is eat, play with the kids at home, and have sweet innocent slumber in the afternoon in my bed. But I give it to inebriation: it makes wholesome things more distant, and therefore more desirable. Nothing makes me enjoy Sunday lunch with my family, talking and eating happily, or having coffee with my significant other, than being hungover. It's like, here's the opposite high of drinking or baking out: the simple wonder of being with people I love. And it's that contrast that makes me say "I'll never drink again."

But we all know those are empty words, right?  It's a funny life.

Today, I'll spill. I can't guarantee cohesion though, with my writing. 

You know how people say that there are certain big junctions in life, and what we path we eventually pick will resonate over time, so we better choose correctly? The thing is, I didn't count on encountering those junctions so often. Sometimes it even trickles down to that moment right after I wake up, and I'm staring at the white ceiling, my face bathed in sunlight streaming in from the window...and I wonder, "Is today a good day?" Maybe it's just me, but on some days, it all boils down to that one moment. Sometimes I wake up and I just know it won't be a good day. But on most days, it's a choice. I wish I could say that I always try to wake up on the good side of the bed, but sometimes it's tiring make that effort to breathe life into hours when I'm awake. Getting up from bed is the tiniest junction there is, but there is so much resting on your disposition the moment you start your day... I keep on thinking if I've spent too many days starting mine being grumpy and not wanting to face the world.

The past week has been so crazy. THESIS 24/7!!!!! But I can proudly say that our film is slowly transitioning from pre-production to filming...finally. Last Friday, Kim and I held a casting call at the Television Production lab in Miguel. I think we finally found our Perry, the lead character in our film, in JV Canta, who's from U.P. and who does theater. I just realized how hard it is to perfectly put together a cast for a film. As in mahirap! An actor's resume, background, and experience count, of course, but it's that certain magical quality that cinches it, an affinity with the character being auditioned for, and potential chemistry with the other actors. And as the director, I found myself being very picky during the casting call, looking at their faces, the very etches in their eyes, the way they open their mouths... Kim and I created the screenplay with love, as with all the characters. Right now we're consumed with finding the perfect actors who can breathe life into the story we've put so much thought to.  I think we're lucky to find JV. 

In connection with that, Kim and I met up with Borgy Torre last Friday in Greenbelt. If you're not much into local films, Borgy Torre's an up and coming filmmaker who graduated from DLSU some years ago. He directed Bonsai, which was a short featured in this year's Cinemalaya.

There are so many stories I wanted to tell you,
but I'll grasp them tight,
hold them close,
wrinkled as they are

1. I Don't Care - 2NE1 (Fucking catchy JEEZUS CHRIST)
2. Cavaliers - Bombadil
3. That Girl - KiD CuDi
4. Walkin' On The Moon - The-Dream ft. Kanye (Could not care less about the Kanye debacle.)
5. Judy And The Dream Of Horses - Belle & Sebastian
6. The Saltwater Room - Owl City
7. Utsukushisugite Beautiful Eyes - NEWS (This song is cheesy to the point of being painful. But I love it.)
8. Something - Jim Sturgess
9. Guiding Light - Muse
10. The Geese of Beverly Road - The National
11. Come Back To Me - Utada Hikaru
12. Happy Girl, Lucky Boy - Park Hye Kyung (Light girly music. For taking a bath or dressing up, smth like that.)
13. Broken Throat - Adam Arcuragi
14. Hot n Cold - Katy Perry
15. Kaze - Arashi (What's a playlist without an Arashi song to prettify and uplift everything!)
16. Psychic City - YACHT
17. Find A Way - Nickasaur!
18. Evidence - Urbandub
19. White Water Hymnal - Fleet Foxes
20. Sea Shanty - Quasi
21. Run This Town - Jay Z ft. Rihanna, Kanye West

So many insist upon seizing the day and making the most of everything, but then again, the seizure is to accumulate a bountiful pile of memories, monies, friends, gizmos and stuff that cannot, for the life of us, be taken with us when the lights are cut off for good. This life is one of hoarding, like it or not, and it's about gaining and gaining and property and finding the most blissful honey in our strivings for such things. All in the name of gain. We try to be good people or powerful people and we try to fill our bodies and portfolios up with streams of value all with the disbelieving notion that we won't be able to take it with us when we go. Though, we've all seen those caskets get lowered into the ground. They don't come back hours after the ceremony and pump those wooden boxes full of all of the things and intangibles we've acquired. Perhaps the object of the insatiable work ethic of our souls to not be shortchanged and of our hearts to be mothered and of our pockets/homes to be teeming with our collections is to make all of it so impenetrable, so vaporous and so vivid that they won't have to be carried with us. They will invite themselves into the darkened and tight quarters with our fleeing spirits and our embalmed carcasses with the rosary or whatever we clutch in our waxy fingered hands.

Shit, I wish I wrote that. But that's Sean Moller care of Daytrotter, reviewing Dark Dark Dark's session. Do yourselves a favor and download this particular session, listen to the gem that is Wild Goose Chase. If you don't know what Daytrotter is, well, you're missing half of your life! Off to the noose because you might as well be dead! (But seriously, Daytrotter sessions are golden. I can't survive a week without a new one.)

And no, I'm not feeling particularly cheerful. Will come back and write cheery stuff when it occurs to me.

My DLSU yearbook write-up, care of Kim Guevarra and Bernice Chua, two of my good friends. Kim is my notorious partner-in-crime in college, a fiery friend who always makes every moment memorable. (And we're soon embarking on shooting our thesis feature film, so I see many adventures ahead!) Bernice, on the other hand, is my long-lost sister, definitely one of my oldest and closest friends. She knows my heart well. So I think I'll trust to the fact that they really know me. And for them to write such words about me, it's just wow. 

I felt really warm-hearted when I reread this on the Green & White confirmation site. :)

"Nina proves every moment to be her best. Boldly creative and perceptive, she never fails to see the world honestly--be it behind the lens, within her words, or face forward. Taking hold of the essence of so many intangible emotions, even mundane ones, she exhibits the authenticity and perhaps, eccentricity, that only true writers and artists possess. Her life is a pursuit of meaning and dazzling beauty because from her heart to her fingertips, her only desire is to live."

♥