Author Archives: poeticnook

somewhere i have never travelled

Posted on by

everybody has a happy place, somewhere at the back of their minds, a place where they can retreat to when the world has failed them, a distant memory that gives them comfort and keeps them sane. it may be that time when they were walking hand in hand with someone they love and the worries started to fade out of sight or that childhood moment when all was right with the world and everything seemed to last forever.

my secret corner is that time at the fiesta carnival when i was 4 or 5, my ma and pa at one corner table looking over a bucket of kentucky fried chicken while me and my older brother were busy riding bump cars. i was holding a hotdog on a stick and peeling the skin from it while kuya tried to steer clear of the railings. it was one of those carefree times that i would always go back to now whenever i feel sad or alone or betrayed or hopeless or bitter. i imagine myself riding that bump car and spinning round and round and round till all the troubles float in circles above me and finally disappear into thin air.

everyone needs a happy place, a nook where they can hide and be at peace with everything else.. where time stops hurrying for a while and lets one take a deep breath before rushing out into the fast and blinding world once more..

have you been to your happy place lately?

i never said i was good

Posted on by

a friend will always want the best for you, unless they’re split tongued backstabbers out to get you the minute you look the other way.. more often than not, they will tell you what you need to hear in not too kind words so that you may somehow wake up from your self deceiving reveries. all this, of course, for our own welfare.

i never really took directions well, i always wanted to have my stab at things and carve my own path without having to consult any maps nor ask questions on which street i should turn to or which train i should take. needless to say, i’m not built to take criticisms like a grain of salt. i usually come up with a witty and surprisingly annoying comeback like “this is my life, let me live it, go out and have a life of your own” thus i find it quite hard to accept that some of my closest friends still attempt to needle me by enumerating all my past mistakes.

ok, so i’m not good and wise and perfect like the rest of humankind, but what the heck, i’m allowed to have some temporary lapses of judgement, i haven’t killed anyone so far, so i guess i can still have a free pass at life and not be constantly nagged right?

ah well, i’m just ranting, i thought i got over my temper 10 years ago.. seems like it’s coming back, must be second childhood.

brave new world

Posted on by

guess it’s been quite a while since i last visited these orange pages of sunset colored memories, a year to be exact. i’m homeless again, wandering along the vast prairies of the western world. i’ve just survived a couple of snow storms, another clie reset, and a change of job. life just goes on and on like a song that’s on eternal repeat.

i needed to post again because the pen has been beckoning me to carve more stories into stone and make a landmark out of each moment. i wish i still remembered how to write.. is it like riding the bike again after spending a long time walking? jittery and unsure at first then after finding the second wind, things go on smoothly from there..

so where do i begin really? today is as good as any for a starting point, i’ll just work my way backwards and forwards and sideways.. whatever.

just got back from niagara falls. the weather was balmy, with wind chill at -13 but the place still kept most of it’s mystique intact. rode the climate controlled gondola which had a great view of the main attraction and the rest of the city, being on high places gets me high. wish i could be like the seagulls on horesshoe falls, wish i could soar high above my limitations and reach the sky..

a wedding and an impacted tooth

Posted on by

my wisdom tooth decided to torment me today. the gums on the left side are swollen and i cant even open my mouth to speak. not that i talk much anyway, but since i have to ask a lot of questions at work, this would be a total pain.

on a totally different note unrelated to pain, i’ve noticed that a lot of my friends and acquaitances are getting married this year, at least 5 of them are. must be the season of getting hitched like in grey’s anatomy, or i must be getting older. i’m sure the former is more true.

top of the world

Posted on by

went to cn tower last sunday, 147 stories high with a nice view deck and a 360 degrees revolving restaurant. the tour guide said it was the tallest tower on the planet, so literally we were at the top of the world.. *hum that karen carpenter song on the background* so that’s how it felt like to be on top, alone and empty and not to mention bitter, especially when you’re surrounded by couples smooching each other left and right. you would want to cut the railings and throw them out.

cn has a glass floor and you can look down all you want till gravity pulls your stomach upside down. i discovered i don’t have any fear of heights so i sat and rolled and jumped, wanting to feel the motion sickness that my friend nie was having.. no effects though, i probably left my feelers somewhere. one of the guests asked if it was safe to jump on the glass floor, the guide replied “yes of course, you can jump all you want, you only fall once” =p

riding the subway and going downtown for the first time was quite an experience, we didn’t know where to buy tokens or whether to get transfer tickets. finding our way to the tower was like traversing a maze, we encountered a couple of detours due to police barricades and falling ice. after the sight seeing, we missed the film and the roller coaster simulation and proceeded to dinner and shopping for souvenirs instead. i didn’t get any, i have a feeling i might be going back there sometime soon,.

next stop: niagara falls.

i am a hollow reed

Posted on by

I grew up watching “Perfect Strangers” on Thursday nights. In this comedy show, Larry chants a weird mantra every time Balky annoys him: “I am a hollow reed, troubles blows through me like the wind *insert sound of wind here*”. It keeps him sane, grounded and in control. I could use a mantra, I could use a double barrel shotgun then run amok and blast the minions to another galaxy. Tsk, I should stop reading True Crime books.

CT: these days i cant help but wish i was back in a time when everything was easier
Hot Shot Lawyer Guy (HSLG): you’re telling me. i wish i was 10 years old all over again
CT: no matter how simple you want things to be, they always find ways to morph themselves into something complicated. i should go back to being 6 years old and never grow up
HSLG: it’s days like these when i realize how great it is to be mentally retarded. so what’s been up with you
CT: i found a song that would keep my nerves calm. its on eternal repeat in my ipod right now. ill probably be mentally retarded before the battery runs out. =) so your job is keeping you busy? no time to have personal problems?
HSLG: everybody has personal problems.=) my job, thankfully, keeps my mind occupied.
CT: i don’t want to have personal problems, i’d like to donate my body to science hehe
HSLG: hahaha. it sounds like you need a good laugh

IPOD MOOD: “Pink Bullets” by The Shins

clean house

Posted on by

There’s this great show on the lifestyle network called “Clean House”. The people from CH will go to your place and help you declutter. They’ll encourage you to let go of things that you think are so valuable because of sentimental reasons but are actually just plain old useless junk in the eyes of others. I’ve watched grown men cry over Hard Rock beanie babies, assorted shot glasses and Harley tees they’ve collected over the years. I’ve seen middle-aged women cling on to old bridal gowns they will never wear again or weird looking dolls they got from their mom.

The memory value is indeed priceless, and if you have a big room where you can stack up all your trash in a shelf like a museum of sorts, I doubt there would be a need to give them up. Unfortunately, space is an issue and renting a warehouse to store the piles of accumulated stuff is not an option. (Hmmm, this gives me a business idea) And so the waterworks begin as home owners try to hold on to their treasure trove while the CH staff bribe them with entertainment center and dvd players to stop them from living in the past.

Tonight, I’m starting my very own CH project, Operation Clean Heart. I need to start anew by discarding old emotions. I guess this is part 2 of the letter ripping episode I did some months ago, but this time, I’m ripping my heart right out.

IPOD MOOD: “Your House” by Jimmy Eat World

haagen daaz all the way

Posted on by

Next week I’ll be starting with my new work, but I still have to report in my current job to finish some tasks and turn over my responsibilities. That would mean 80 hour work weeks, I feel like a lawyer or a med intern. I hope the pay is enough to cover the hospital bills.

Visited my old high school last Tuesday, it felt so much smaller than I remembered. Somehow old worries seem so inconsequential now as I walked through the hallways and listened to a lecture on balancing chemical formula and solving differential calculus. I wanted to barge in and say “Hey, you know what, as you go through life you’ll find out that not all things are similar to chemical compounds with definite atomic weight and can be balanced nor are all problems like polynomially complete equations that have roots” But of course I just held my tongue, they would have to learn that for themselves. My physics, math, economics and literature olympiad participation did very little in helping me get through the most difficult phases of my existence in this world. Most of the times, my idealism that everything has a logical explanation or a rational solution just made me more pessimistic. It’s easier to accept that all is random, no need to find patterns and arithmetic progression to understand it.

So now, as I shed my old beliefs and stretch my new found wings, I hope I’ll wake up one day and find out that I can still fly despite all the bruises and beatings.

I can almost see the rainbow over the next horizon.

IPOD MOOD: “Unwritten” by Natasha Bedingfield

nothing new

Posted on by

The past week has been quite turbulent. I’m starting this new campaign where I don’t let bad people and events affect me anymore. Hence let me start a new blog hopefully to lift me up and remind me that good things happen somehow. It can’t always be gray clouds all the way. Saying it will make it true.

“There are no accidents in life. Everything happens for a reason. We meet people because they have a message for us. Ignoring them means losing the opportunity to hear that message. Experiences happen because there are lessons to be learned from them. Failing to analyze an experience means losing the chance to learn from it” – James Redfield, The Celestine Prophecy –

IPOD MOOD: “The Distance” by Evan and Jaron