Empire Series in Mind

I have aced many exams in my life but this question, 

I can't answer: 

why doesn't Empire have a single bad episode? 

Campy at its best. Cookie is my type of mom-in-law. 

Give her an Emmy!

Unlikely

Ever experienced a weird day? A very, very weird day that almost all of it is spent with unlikeliest people to contact you or see you at the unlikeliest place at the unlikeliest time. This is that day.

Started off with a morning text from someone you have been pining for. Longest time. Your mobile beeps, expecting promotional offers from the bank or your favorite restaurant for a discount on weekdays ending with -day for food ending with "+ 12% EVAT." But then, it's that "someone." It's that feeling that chills and warms you at the same time. It's that unlikely feeling on a -day you initially planned to end with "+ 12% EVAT."

Went on to have my regular Baclaran later that night, praying for the impossible yet surprised for a different impossible. I met my former bosses. Plural: 5 of them. Five of questioning where I have been hiding, why I have been hiding; to which, God seemed to instantaneously reply on my behalf - soul-searching? I love God's sense of humor. Something between the unlikely morning and the unlikely evening was a foreshadowing of some sort. An outsourced partner asked me whom I have worked for back in ABS-CBN. I mentioned Ginny Monteagudo Ocampo. She was there in the church, gobsmacked as I was. The universe granted a wrong different wish. Or was it just the right answer to a question that hasn't even been conceived to this day? "Depressed ka ba? Ako rin e. Pagod na ko. Gusto ko na ngang mag-retire." Man, she's only in her 40s. Foreshadowing of some sort.

We parted ways, them asking me to take a picture. No, not of me with them; this is no souvenir item for a rarity. Neither was it to corroborate a gossip of the kristopersnickety's whereabout. I repeat, there's 5 of them. Like one of those mortifying times at a club when a bunch of girls asked me to click their cameraphones for their monopod-less heads, my lady bosses simply asked me to snap for them. Probably with a suppressed thought bubble, "Sucker! WE gotcha! And we GOTCHA!" Is it wrong to be in the church, praying this wasn't happening?

That fateful coming upon climaxed to a series of double takes on people I thought were all too familiar. Ethan Hunt Mission Impossible-esque paranoia came upon me. I thought I saw a former fling's boyfriend. My eyes were sore from computer that day. My hunch couldn't be 20-20 certain. Ten, fifteen minutes later, in another area - my favorite candle room, I saw my former fling. I love God's sense of humor.

This short film of unlikelies never stopped at "fling." I flirted with the universe and dared to bring my favorite Japanese candies Hi-Chew into existence in the convenient store located in the slum. Family Mart never has it, 7-11 never has it, Mini Stop never has it. The odds with Lawson! Yet universe won, albeit a rip-off. My, oh my.

Alternative World

Some days, it's all about Pop. 

Some days, it's all about R&B/Soul. 

One day, like today, it's Alternative.

Seems to have grown from a seed of new desire to a tree of subconscious absorption. 

"I would understaaah-hiye-hiyend!" 

rings like I were in junior high again. 

Alas! Walking home got me a buddy in tow; a semi-charmed buddy that sings me words of bromance and Spice Girls-y assurance. Interestingly, my soul fressed on it with another earworm "Learn To Fly." Foo Fighters not dead. I'm getting it. Someday, it's gonna be all about Me and my quest to fit a far-fetched mold. Wait for it. It'll make some noise. In a new world. I am learning to.

One Less

One less worry yesterday, a thousand more tomorrow.

And like a traitorous wallop from behind, it hit me

- a sudden slap of gloom.

Stirred me to die to listen to "One Less Bell to Answer" on an unfounded, profound feeling.

No, I will keep shooting you down, Big D.

This is not you pulling me down,

haunting me from place to another.

I am strong.

Until this lyric poured on me like cold water - "my life's so empty" - meaning like it shouldn't ever.

Even a hundred lifetimes from now. I badly need to find someone who can match my madness.

My soul on the outside looks different from what I think I used to be one hundred lifetimes ago.

I am no millennial in this lifetime; probably in another.

This song is soothing and melancholic at the same time.

Keep playing,

stop "playing"

Beep Beep Booboo

Can't remember the last time I rode a yellow jeep.

6-7 years ago?

Dragonboat days.

Today, it took a welcome booboo

to channel cowboy back.

Think moving in to a new condo,

leaving the keys (and all valuables) inside.

Both you and the agent have no spare keys out.

Brilliant.

MOA and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. 

were too accessible to resist 

and kill time with (while waiting for roommate's key in 5 or 6 hours). 

I had to enjoy without a penny.

Cue generosity of the agent to lend me some.
Enough to buy me a ticket.
But not enough to buy me some movietime munchies.
Oh, I have incalculable 7-11 Rewards points!
Oh, I have Globe Rewards points!
Oh, I have scored a free meal from Fridays.
One thing I learned: Life's Rewards come in points.

Leaving Alone

Living alone goes full circle when you are leaving alone.

From the last Cry of Pugadlawin at work to the last mane mowing at this fun barbers, from the last batch of dirties to the laundry to the last tenancy notice that reeks of injustice and profiteering, from the last glimpses at my favoritest folks in the hood to the last draught of half-sugars,

this has got to be the most histrionic of the subdued

in human history.

On the heels of yesterday's spate of good news and a satisfying visit to my beloved Baclaran (and The Flash finale's feels), 

today chooses to follow through bittersweet.

My deliberate tendency to be obscure continues to abuse this blog with ink that conceals itself from misjudgment or in hindsight, with philosophastering that screams vulnerability than wisdom (or a mix thereof).

My epiphany today: I am alone but I ain't lonely.

Love Is

Love is 

a feeling; love is 

a work in progress. 

Love is 

a state of mind; love is 

a state of various affairs. Love is 

selfless and selfish at the same time. Above all, love is 

not defined by a single word or two. It is defined by the stages a relationship goes through. 

That love is initially a feeling. 

That love develops into an idea of survival. 

Jamba Joy

This is my depression's Starbucks.

Or simply my sinew's victuals.