Early (but not THAT early) on a Sunday morning

I don’t know if it’s because I slept half exhausted and still in pain that I managed to beat my 4:00-4:30 am body alarm.  I woke up at past 5am this morning.  So I crawled out of bed around 5:30 and turned on the espresso machine.  I’ve been working on my RSS link here and I’m afraid I still didn’t get it right.  (RSS Expert advice most welcome.. please leave a comment or e-mail me at gothamchicketsy at gmail.com)

I just want to curl up and spend the rest of the day in la-la land, or in bed just puttering around.  I have never been one to sleep all day.  There’s something about the sun hitting my eyes — even when I’m asleep — that wakes me up.  The thick drapes in the bedroom don’t help — it seems I’m just wired that way.

Even when I was younger and I would come home in the wee hours of the morning, my body would promptly give me a kick in the behind and wake me up when the sun started to shine.  I have learned not to fight it.

I attempted to start something with polymer clay last night after not sitting in my craft corner for what feels like ages.  Then I realized that the handle to my pasta machine is not where it’s supposed to be.  A search through my area while watching the episode of Blue Bloods that I missed didn’t produce the yellow colored part of my contraption, so all I managed was to condition some antique gold clay.  I had bought some embossing plates I am dying to use — but I cannot until I can run the clay through the machine.  So that didn’t get very far.

Of course, BFF Fe was online (Viber) and we did our usual “Good morning there in New York” and “Good evening, Manila.”  Our conversations usually revolve around traffic, the hearing postponement of the day, the plastic flowers (or some such) in the Judge’s sala or the client who just won’t follow his/her lawyer’s advice.  Or she talks about Mia, her nephews and Dodong.  I talk about the commute into the city, the characters I work with, my make up, and all those other things that make up my world here, 10,000 miles away.  Today was short and sweet.  She’s exhausted, too.

The last few hours of the weekend and I don’t really have anything planned beyond mass in an hour.  Maybe I’ll make nice with my bed again. =)  And tomorrow, a new week begins.

 

 

 

Monday Musings (Random thoughts on another day I woke up before 5am)

It’s still pitch black outside even if it’s already 10 minutes to 6:00.  I finally gave up trying to go back to sleep after waking up at past 4am and crawled out of bed to brew my morning cup.  My brain is still trying to wake up all it’s circuits so I thought I’d just write up a list of disparate thoughts which, I hope, I can or might develop into a full blown post somewhere along the way.

Monday usually finds me feeling like I’m floating from the weekend to the rush of the new week.  I do look forward to the start of the week and the thought of Monday as a reboot to the weekend just ended helps get me on my way.  I wish there was a third day to the weekend, but then at the same time, I often find myself wishing the work week itself was 6 instead of just 5 days. (I know I’m blabbering, but I make no apologies because it’s a Monday — an EARLY Monday morning.)

Facebook  (and my BFFs mom) yet saves my day (and pulls me out of the hole) from a missed Cindy Lauper concert promised to BFF Fe some moons ago..  We all make promises.  I try not to.  More so when I know there is a good chance I won’t be able to keep it, because I not only hate to disappoint the person I’m making a promise to, but worse, I disappoint myself.

I had an unplanned trip home in March 2012 (right after the Christmas visit of December 2011 and before the last trip this December 2013) and it so happened that Cindy Lauper was playing in Manila.  I promised Fe we would go, but we didn’t.  And I know she’s felt bad about that since .  But over the weekend she posted something that sort of saved my neck (although not entirely).  I’m sorry, Peps… even if you say I need not apologize.. I am.  I knew you were looking forward to that concert and a promise is a promise.  For whatever it’s worth, I have never enjoyed attending and dancing at a concert like I have with you — remembering that Side A concert we saw courtesy of you-know-who way back when I saw a lot of concerts and fashion shows.

Moving to New York in 2000 — (and I’m suddenly hit with “Wow — it HAS been THAT long!”) — I have always been content with the lifestyle choice I made when I started working here — until now.  Knowing what I am and what I had accomplished before I moved here, and then taking that giant step back to adjust to my new life in New York, I wonder if I had not short-changed myself in embracing the “family is the reason I came here in the first place” bit in choosing the career path I took.

In many ways, I realize now that that choice was noble and pure and is still true in my heart (and all I have to do is look at the boy who unabashedly proclaims his love for me at every turn) — but I wonder if that choice had boxed me into a role and persona that was much, much smaller than the real person I am.  (That’s a thought for me to ponder, and not meant to be answered here.  Monday.. musings.. get it?)

I have come to realize that while ACCEPTANCE does not exactly equate to FORGIVENESS, it does help to push one forward to go past what one has no control over.  I’ve always been an “I will fix this” kind of person.  I don’t know if it’s arrogance or simply my bull-headedness about being able to control things  and not letting things control me.  For the past year, I’ve been grappling with a festering wound within that I have somehow managed to tuck deeper in my heart in a vain attempt to simulate healing.  People ask me how I’m doing — I say I’m okay.  Not exactly better, but I’m okay.  That, in itself, is already “acceptance” in a sense — knowing where I am and where I’ve landed after the rollercoaster ride of the last year.

I had forgotten how I had missed school and my plans of taking on a course in History until recently, and over the weekend, when I embarked on a new journey of learning.  Procrastination has been a close companion even in my younger years.  Once it clings to me, it is so hard to shake it off.  Not too long ago, I had enrolled in an online history course via podcast from YALE, and while I was sooooo excited at the start, I never went beyond the first lecture.  Over the weekend, I got a new recommended course, this time from ColumbiaX, and I am actually excited — VERY EXCITED — to hit the books again.  (You should see my eyes twinkling at the thought.)  For all the years I spent with the Sisters of Saint Paul de Chartres (nursery to high school), the giant minds that helped shaped my once-sheltered brain to think more broadly at the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of the Philippines, and the most challenging years at the Ateneo School of Law with the Jesuits — one thing I missed the most when I got here was studying and learning and the challenge of reading and pulling together my own thoughts and analysis from a textbook.

I had even seriously thought of auditing classes at NYU (which is why I get their course catalogue every year), but then, I never had the time.. or couldn’t make time.  Thanks to technology and everybody’s rush to be at everyone else’s fingertips, it’s a totally different classroom now, and I can be in it whenever I want to be in it.  So excited for this one!

Some things we lose cannot be replaced — like the 5,000 or so photos on my iPhone (which aren’t on my cloud) — but I can always keep taking photos and immortalize future memories in the next handheld I get.  It wasn’t so much the loss of the iPhone 5S which was part of the technology trove I get from work — but it was all those photos that I snapped away from blog graphics to pictures with my family and precious selfies of my funny guy and I.  The iPhone is being replaced this week — and I’m not complaining even if there’s a company freeze on upgrades to the iPhone 6.  But I cannot help but cringe at the thought of all the photos I lost, and the “notes” in the journal section where I had stored bits and pieces like my morning dose of the Serenity Prayer.  (Which, after a year of saying it every day in the morning, I have yet to memorize.)

It wasn’t such a total loss because a good batch of them made it to my Flickr account, and at least 300+ are on my Instagram feed.  Still.

There were a ton of photos of my altered book which was meant to document the “bare background pages” to the finished journaled layouts which are now in limbo.  Thankfully, my Thank You Postcard Project photos are actual scans of the postcards, so they were not on the iPhone.

I have somehow gotten over the initial disappointment, but it only serves to remind me that I should have backed up the files instead of relying on the fact that my iPhone and I were joined at the hip.  That is, until it fell out of my purse and into someone else’s hand.

6:55 and my day has to move on now.  I have indulged myself enough as I waited for the sun to start rising, and it’s slowly creeping up over New York City.  That doesn’t mean I can just linger here.. which I wish… but cannot.  It’s Monday, after all.  Hope you all have a good start of the week.. I know mine has gotten off to a very good one.

Taking care of Me

I’ve had a productive day.  I just finished spending the afternoon working on two pairs of pants… soaked my feet in bath salts, but had to stop short of giving myself a pedicure as I can’t find a pusher.  (For the nails..)  I have the living room all to myself.  Before I start working on dinner, I thought I’d write.

It’s a beautiful day in New York today.  Just said hello to my bestfriend, Fe.  She’s off to breakfast now, though. =)  (SHAMELESS PLUG: Atty. Fe Siton now writes a weekly column for Inquirer’s BANDERA, “Ibandera ang Batas” which comes out every Friday.  Do watch out for her.)

Answered a couple and wrote some e-mails.  I love that technology keeps us all connected, but nothing beats a phonecall or even snailmail.  I love receiving letters and holding what I read in my hands.  These days only Fe writes that way anymore. =)  Everyone, it seems, or most everyone is just a text or an e-mail away.

Even my Globe OFW Sim has been quiet except for the occasional rave or rant from Fe.  My sister texts me straight on my US phone, and most of my friends in Manila who are on Blackberry do BBM (Blackberry messenger — Reminder to self: BBM Toks.)  My closest friend on my GLOBE sim is Globe itself who doesn’t let up with all the promos which I don’t think I’m qualified for anyway because I’m on “roam”.  Duh..  Text me something please!

There is the occasional Facebook or Gmail chat.  Still, most days, things are quiet.  Maybe it’s the timeline.. maybe it’s just work.  It’s Saturday here and I’m already thinking about Monday.

Meanwhile, I’m taking care of me.

After lunch with the boys in Minado, I walked over to Utrecht (Art Store) in the same strip mall and found certain shades of Sculpey Polymer Clay on sale for 77cents apiece!  Take note, though, that NOT all Sculpey is on sale — only a number of shades and they were all practically gone by the time I got there.  Still, 77 cents on 8 2-oz blocks is still a bargain.  Other colors are priced just under $2.  (Still  a good buy…)  I love browsing this art store even if I am no artist.  I’d love to know what the different paints are for — acrylics, oil, watercolor (I work with) and pastels (which I am trying to work with..).  All that paper!  (Me and my thing for paper again…)  I would’ve gotten some molding compound (my favorite liquid mold, OOMOO is available here but not at Michael’s) but they weren’t on sale and I still have quite a stash.

Bought myself a few tools — a flat iron for the hair because my hair is in a rather unwieldy shape because I’m growing it.  Got a haircut a week ago which was great, but because the longer hair hits a wave, it looks “bulky” and funny to me.  It’s still short but not quite as short or trimmed tightly as I have been used to, so the mornings find me spending a bit more time to look decent.  It doesn’t help when it’s humid outside, too, because then it takes three times the effort, no thanks to my wavy hair.  So I thought I’d help myself with a flat iron — a first time for me, so wish me luck.  (I think I remember how the stylist used it when she fixed my hair after the cut.. Well, I think. LOL)

Found this utterly gorgeous polish I saw last week, but which I thought I’d get this week, and get it I did.  It’s “LIVE YOUR LIFE” by Nicole by OPI.  (Talk about message marketing..)  It’s a pretty concoction of light pink glitter in various shades in a clear polish with flecks of little pink hearts.  Cute, huh?  (It’s the girl in me…)  Sometimes bits of color like that can really perk me up even if it’s going to be on my toenails which are mostly hidden in closed shoes during the week. (Or I might take out my sandals and slippers for the commute this week if it doesn’t rain.)

And I’m finally sitting down on my workstool and creating something for myself.  I’ve put the shop on vacation for now and am concentrating on creating pieces I can wear.  I got a strand of beautiful mother-of-pearls the size of M&M Peanuts in very elegant shades of white, yellow and sand beige, and I was hoping to make a choker out of it but I am having a tough time stringing the pearls correctly.  Stringing, if you must know, is something I’m still learning but I haven’t quite given up on it.  I’m getting the hang of making the knot fall where I want it to, but I still end up messing things up every third or fourth bead.  Sigh… practice, practice, practice — I tell myself.

And I’ve been writing.  I even almost wrote prose again.  =)  Well, got a line or two out then the idea went pfffftttt…. Sigh… I haven’t written prose since I got here twelve years ago.  I don’t even try anymore.  Maybe I’ll start encoding my “ancient poetry” written in my younger years.  (My oldest having been written in 1979…the others I had lost..)  I brought them here to New York scribbled on notebooks and compilations of paper one time I came home from Manila — and I have promised I would start encoding them before I “lost” them.  I just haven’t quite started because there is a ton of them.  There was a time in my teens when I wrote more than one poem a day for quite a stretch.  Imagine.. four liners to  four stanzas long and longer .. I seem to have run out of juice after I drifted off to college.. adulthood got the best of my creative streak where poetry was concerned and seems to have put an end to it.

I’m trying to take better care of me.  I’m reading more and trying to consciously spend more time doing the things I like to do a few minutes everyday — one of which is spending time here.  I’ve also been good with the vitamins per my doctor’s admonition.  Little things that I keep forgetting, so I finally put a reminder on the blackberry every night.  I’m trying to enjoy the little things and putting them all in a small bucket of  “happy”.  It’s like stringing together old jokes that were once funny and are funny again when I play them over in my head.. funnier still when replayed one after another.

I just remembered there’s week-old cake in the fridge — I think I’m going to have some.  (Might microwave it to make it a little moist again.)

Meanwhile, I will go back to Winterfell and King’s Landing as I try to get on with Book III of a Song of Fire and Ice, “A Storm of Swords.  ”  And there’s the pearl stringing to redo…

A warm hug from across the oceans – From my bestfriend, Fe

Wherever you are,

whatever you’re doing right now,

you are so very loved.

Can you feel it?

I hope so, I really do.

Because we both know

some days can be, well,

trying —

to say the least..

And although I know you’re fine

and perfectly capable

of handling things on your own,

you still deserve some moral support.

I still want to be there for you.

Rooting for you in the tough moments,

celebrating the good things with you…

caring about and supporting you

every step of the way.

So don’t be afraid to reach out

when you need me, okay?

And always remember

how dearly and completely

you are missed, appreciated,

admired, and loved.

Always loved.

Then she writes : “I love you.  Happy birthday.”  Of course I had to reach for the tissue and wipe the tears away.  Thank you for the love and friendship, Fe…

When you miss your bestfriend so…

It’s been 11 years since I left Manila, and while I have settled nicely into my home here in New York, I would have thought the friends I had left behind in Manila would’ve adjusted by now as well.  Apparently not.

My family has done a better job only because I think they know that I may be in Alaska and stuck there and unable to do my almost every year and a half interval between homecomings and we are still family, but my friends have not been as lucky coping.

My bestfriend, Fe, has avoided Makati for many reasons through the years, traffic being one of them. But per her admission, there are just things she cannot bear doing because she would end up doing them without me. She has purposely avoided going to the places we used to go to together because she says it just hurts to be there. We had made it a habit to sit and just people watch — be it from the food courts, from one of the restaurants, or even just lounging around at Starbucks. Going back without me there, according to her, is very painful.

Once she chatted up someone I had used to go out with and he gave her the same reason. That going around the places I used to frequent was just not the same. That one, I can understand perfectly. There is always a sting to returning to places once shared with someone you were involved intimately with after a parting — specially a painful one.

But between bestfriends — can it really be that painful after 11 years? Apparently. I guess I didn’t go through that because I was the one who moved away. Everything was new to me — so I didn’t have any memories to avoid about the places I visited. When I walk the streets of Manhattan as I have a conversation in my head with Fe, I dream of one day walking these streets with her. It helps that she’s been here once before I moved here, so we have shared favorite places and memories of the things I see and do. One day…

During this last homecoming, we walked around Greenbelt and while waiting for a cab back to the hotel, she tells me she hadn’t been around Makati as often as we had gotten used to. When I asked why, she said it was because I was gone.  I wanted her to go see Cyndi Lauper’s concert this March for us — or watch her forever idol Dolly Parton’s new movie Joyful Noise, and she simply said “No. x x x It’ll be too painful.”  I wish it were not, but I know that pain in a different sense.

I was just telling another friend this Sunday how difficult ir is when all your friends are back home.  Facebook, G-mail’s Google Talk, regular e-mail and text messaging have helped to bridge the distance somehow and makes it so much easier to stay connected, but it isn’t quite the same.  That’s why I’m grateful that I got to see the people who mattered the most to me during this previous visit home.  It gave me a lot of memories to take home here to New York.

Here’s hoping we get to see each other soon, my friend.  Hang in there..