epictetus said...

"If you want to improve, be content to be thought of foolish and stupid."

Obviously, he is my kind of Greek philosopher; a man after my own beliefs. I have been called foolish and stupid in the past and I guess, even in the future, I will still be called these two despicable names, but I'm okay with that. I'd rather be called foolish and stupid than be stuck in a rut, never evolving, never growing, never changing, never improving.

I know I'll be doing a lot of things in the near future that will disappoint some people, but there are some things I just have to do in the name of self-preservation. My sanity is hanging by a thin thread and popping Paxil pills is not something I dream of doing in the next few years. So I've made a major decision, a decision that I know I can LIVE with; a decision that will still allow me to look at myself in the mirror each morning and be able to say, "Hello there, non-stranger. I still know you."

So, amen to Epictetus. I'm not in a race. This is no contest. To hell with some great expectations. Hello, happier LIFE!

i've been quoted! i've been quoted!

I am screaming like a Banshee here, but I can't help it -- I am so excited right now! My little (obsessive) book review of TWILIGHT published in the online version of The News Today (TNT) has been special-mentioned in a couple of web and fan sites. Can you believe that?

I don't know how this happened, but there must have been a glitch somewhere, some online blackhole must have sucked my review and vomited it right in front of some web writers while they were mulling over what to include in their web/blog posts for the day. And kazoom, they've included my name as the writer with a link back to my TNT article. Wow, how in the world did these people find my review? Do you know how many Twilight reviews are out there in the www right now? I tried typing "Twilight reviews" in Google and guess what, there are 13,700,000 results! So tell me how did these websites find my article? By some miracle I guess...

I've been feeling so out of it these past few days, and this little bit of sunshine has lifted my flagging spirits, put a smile on my sad face, and brought some humor back to my humorless sub-life. Being a writer can often be unrewarding, but rare moments like this make me grateful. It's just fulfilling not to be trivialized, to know that somewhere, someone out there is reading what you have written, spending precious minutes savoring the very words you have composed, and finding meaning in them -- and yes, enough meaning to quote you, appreciate you, and share you with the rest of the world.

Thank you to these websites for posting my Twilight review. You made my day, week, month -- hell -- year!

Twilight-movie.org - It's flattering to be included in this site's Breaking Dawn Reviews, News and Disappointment section along with reviews from Time Magazine, Teen Hollywood, Chicago Sun Tribune, Publisher's Weekly, and other websites.

Twilightnews.co.uk - which quoted the last paragraph of my review (part 2) and linked it to another major twilight fansite, BellaAndEdward.com, a top (#2) Twilight fansite which also has a link of my Part 2 review in TNT.

And lastly, TwilightSeriesTheories.com - for liking and quoting the last paragraph of my "Twilight Zone" part 1 review and for putting the link to my TNT article.

Wow, my obsession for the Twilight Saga has brought me a lot of good and a lot of happiness... the truth is, I loved the Twilight books (isn't it glaringly obvious?) and I guess that love translated to my writing the review.

So again, here are the links to my reviews, I'm sharing it with you:

Twilight Zone Part 1

Twilight Zone Part 2

Happy Reading!

old friends and my gypsy life

Old friends have been coming out of the woodwork recently and it's heartwarming (for lack of a better word) to know that somehow, in spite of my lunacy back then, I did make an impression on a lot of them. (Maybe the "lunacy" part was the one that made the difference... hmm...) I was able to reconnect with college friends and wow, they're all over the globe. I guess that's the norm now, to be away from the P.I. When you think about it, the world is so huge, yet with the worldwide web linking all of us, it really is so small.

Right now, I'm exhausted. I'm unpacking again and I'm wondering when this gypsy life will end. But I'm still lucky. To be able to move about, go to new places, and experience so much from all the traveling. I shouldn't complain and gripe about these things. I just have to be grateful that I'm constantly being given new things to experience and learn from. A few months from now, I don't know where I'll be again. But I know it'll be some place where I can grow and yes, live.

short-change

I looked at the Korean hairdresser with trepidation. He was short, reed thin, and had an uncanny resemblance to Dolphy during his Sampaguita days. He also had curly hair, the kind that he was obviously not born with, and I thought, “Should I trust this guy?” I mean, I could trust a gay hairdresser who looked like Dolphy with a bad perm any given day, but a guy hairdresser who looked like Dolphy with a bad perm? Nah. I’ve known a lot of gay men, my best friend being one of them, and I was positively sure that this Dolphy doppelganger was straight as an arrow. In my world, a straight hairdresser was a definite no-no.

I knew I should have bolted out of the hair salon before any permanent damage was done. But for some unexplainable reason, my butt stayed glued on the swiveling chair with the pedals tightly locked. I was suddenly and irrevocably at the mercy of Dolphy’s sharp shears. “Wa haircut you like?” Great, the guy could barely speak pidgin English. How am I supposed to tell him that if he makes even a teensy-weensy mistake with the length and the style, I will hunt him down and the rest of his clan in Korea?

I glared at Dolphy, giving him my serious, no-nonsense, I-mean-business face as I pointed to a 2005 magazine picture of Jessica Alba with short hair. I secretly prayed when Dolphy nodded in understanding; his scissors poised for that first, painful snip. As I sat there gripping the edge of the chair while Mr. Curly Tops lopped my locks, I knew that the worst was about to come.

I closed my eyes and tried to calm myself. The last time I went short was six years ago and I didn’t even go willingly. A gay hairdresser friend of mine probably spiked my drink and drugged me throughout the whole process because when I woke up, I had a bob cut and my hair had hues previously unseen on humans. From that time on, I’ve grown my hair long. I figured, I’d rather look ten years older with my long hair than look like Paris Hilton’s Chihuahua after a day of pampering in a Beverly Hills dog salon.

The plan to cut my hair short had been brewing for quite some time. I never had the courage to do it until now. I knew that this was the perfect time, this being a time of change; well, for me at least. Will I come out of here as the butt of all jokes? Will I be called “helmet-head” behind my back? Will small children point their chubby fingers at me and laugh, or worse, cry? Or will I step out into the streets, emancipated and free from the shackles of my old life and the long hair that was weighing me down?

And then, just as my thoughts began to formulate the fastest way to escape from the Korean fiend and the chopping of more precious hair -- I suddenly felt giddy, light, like a ton of baggage was lifted from my shoulders. As the dead ends fell to the floor like autumn leaves, I felt renewed -- alive! Then, with seemingly dramatic flair, Dolphy whipped the plastic cape off of my shoulders, and I could almost hear the drumrolls. The deed was done. There was no escape, no turning back. I slowly opened my eyes and stared at the new me. And I . . . beamed. Holy Moly! I looked ten years younger! Pleased by my reaction, Dolphy examined his handiwork. Although he looked a tad smug, he was probably more relieved that I would not be hunting his family after all.

My eyes twinkled as I objectively appraised my reflection in the mirror. I will never be a Jessica Alba look-alike (and I was never a fan of hers anyway, it was just her 2005 hair that I wanted to covet), but I was happy with myself. If I may say so, for a 30-something woman, I didn’t look bad, not bad at all. I realized that I had a graceful neck (ahem!), and my shoulders, newly-bare, glistened under the bright lights of the salon. All of a sudden, I couldn’t understand the reasons for my apprehensions, why I had been so scared at the thought of doing this. Then it dawned on me: sometimes we just have to get out of our comfort zones, try things out, take risks, venture into the unknown, or simply, in my case, get a haircut in order to discover what and who we really are.

I skipped out into the crowded street. My chin-length hair light as a feather, dancing with the summer breeze. A little girl holding her mother’s hands looked up at me and -- smiled! I grinned back, relieved. Ah, change was good.

random thoughts and words

Wish I was the author of this beautiful (and true) prose, but sadly, I am not. Can't help but share this with people who truly understand (and live!) its meaning...

"I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?"
-- Mary Oliver, The Summer Day

breaking dawn: my verdict

I'm done. I've never read a book this slow before. I wanted to savor Breaking Dawn, to feel, to enjoy, to understand the nuances and meaning of each paragraph, sentence, phrase, word. And so I did. As usual, Meyer tells a riveting a story. The pace picked up from the last book (Eclipse), the excitement gradually built, then peaked to a crescendo --making my palms and the soles of my feet all clammy and sweaty (this happens to me when I'm excited and nervous), then the denouement came, tying everything up in a neat and satisfying package.

Of course, I've known all along that this book is no Foucault's Pendulum. In other words, even an 8 year old would be able to follow the plot and not go, "duh?" In short, there's no intellectual mumbo-jumbo here, no profound Proust-like symbolism to the narrative. But, regardless of how intellectually accessible it is, I got hooked. I'm no hypocrite, so if I enjoy a book (in this case all 4 books), then to hell with my Literary Criticism teacher who mouthed post-structuralism, Jacques Derrida, and Roland Barthes, in between puffs of her Marlboro lights.

Call me shallow, but I'm a gushing "Bella and Edward 4ever" fan. But, because I'm such an opinionated bitch, I would just like to say that Meyer was a little bit predictable (or maybe I just read the previous books until they were dog-eared) in Breaking Dawn. I'm not going to ruin the surprise for some people especially those with zero imagination, so rest assured there will be no spoilers here.

Also I was extremely distracted by a lot of typographical errors (missing letters, etc.) and proofreading lapses. It was painful to have found a lot of mistakes in the previous books and I was expecting the editor/s to have done something in this last one -- but I guess they all fell in love with Edward and lost all of their faculties while editing.

Another distraction was the never-ending contractions. For example, "she'd've", etc. (I'll look for more examples when I'm not too sleepy, because I am positively catatonic right now -- it's 5 am!). It's okay to use this kind of colloquial contraction when one is talking informally to someone, but in writing? I mean, are the editors saving pages or something? Nobody knows how to write "she would've" anymore?

All in all though, I closed the book happy and contented, not wanting it to finish so soon. But all good things must come to an end -- and so should this review. (For now, at least.) Let me get some sleep and I'll babble more tomorrow. Goodnight, twilighters. It's the break of dawn and it's time for me to retire.

breaking dawn

Well, I'm still awake and it's almost 2 am. It's August 2! It is going to be the break of dawn in a few hours and I'll be damned if I don't get a copy of S. Meyer's Breaking Dawn. I think I better get some sleep just so I'll have the energy and the strength to elbow them kids.