IMODO.COM -   the soaring chorus

WINDING DOWN

Am once again blogging from the cheapest ever (yet most...adventurous) internet service we have found in the Hong Kong Subway Central Station.

What me and my cousin Daryl did was purchase a ticket to the cheapest destination (Jordan at HK$4) and ride aaaaaaaaalll the way to Central Station (worth easily a HK$9 fare, crossing the ocean to Hongkong side) where the internet kiosks are located. We blog to our hearts content, and simply make our way back to the station where we first got on, and we even get our tickets back to boot since we technically never really went anywhere. So we get free internet, and a nice ride, all for free! (pathetic, ain't we? Don't care! Hee!)

We're at the tail end of our 3-day HK trip, and we'll be taking the morning flight back (impractical, I know, so it's basically a TWO day vacation in HK, but that's what my aunts wanted, and they paid for my ticket, so whatever...). I am utterly exhausted.

After Victoria Peak where I last blogged, we took the bus back to the Star Ferry station and crossed the sea back to Mong Kok Side, where we went back to the hotel to drop off all the stuff we had bought and go have a late lunch.

The family wanted something more substantial this time, something with RICE, dammit, since the dim sum was not enough for them (horrors! Philistines!) so we wandered a bit and found our way to a restaurant that specialized in tofu. I'm talking tofu of all conceivable form and shape.

Deep fried tofu. Mapo tofu. Stuffed tofu. Fried tofu dimplings with cheese. Tofu in black bean sauce. It was a tofu lover's paradise. I ordered the chinese omelette over rice and an order of stuffed steamed tofu (the 'stuffing' was a ground shrimp on top of tofu sqaures which was quite good.)

After eating we finally made it to MONG KOK baby! And it was every bit the shopper's paradise I rememebered. After spending only on food since I got here, I finally bought tons of cool clothes to augment my wardrobe and gig-wear: a pair of deep green fatigue-style pants, several chinese rope-bracelets, a couple of cool t-shirts, a few rope medallions, plus pasalubong. I can't wait to break all of my stuff in. *squeals*

Egads. I am turning even more and more gay by the day, aren't I?

More to tell, but when I get back to Manila. It's 11:35 pm and I still have to pack for our morning flight tomorrow.

WOOHOOO!



Am blogging via The Pacific Coffee Company coffeehouse on Victoria Peak in Hong Kong. More free internet, complete with webcam. Isn't technology awesome? Hong Kong rules if for no other aspect that they have internet for FREE in all sorts of places. I'm beginning to suspect that's why I have yet to see one net cafe in the city, as they'd probably go out of business with so many places offering it free of charge.

What have we done so far? Well, late last night we went walking along the Harbor and saw the absolutely gorgeous view of Hong Kong at night, which is best described as Manhattan built in front of a mountain. It's the Autumn festival here, so people were walking arounf with paper lanterns with tiny candles lit inside.

In the moment that made my night, Tracy, my cousin Kieth's fiance, wanted to know where to buy one of those lanterns. So I went up to this pretty young chinese lady and asked her politely where she bought it, she smiled and looked at her friends, giggling. She told me she bought it at Sheung Wan, and then offered her lantern to me right there and then.

What can I say? My charm and good looks can still win them over, girl or guy. *GRIN*

Next on the itinerary: Go down Victoria Peak via the Tram, then off to Mong Kok for shopping. And hoefully that aforementioned Chub hotspot. Wheee! More to come the next time I come across a free internet station.

GREETINGS FROM CENTRAL STAION

I wasn't planning to post anything until I got back but I saw something here that I simply HAD to take advantage of. It's the Mooncake Festival tonight in Hong Kong, which means everyone is out on the town, and the subways, ferries and the like are open later than normal.

I am with my aforementioned cousin Daryl in the Central station where we were supposed to simply change trains to go back to our hotel, until I saw something I could not resist: FREE Internet access inside the station. How cool is that?!?

Wala lang, I guess this is just a post to say that I could. I WILL say that I had some excellent sio mai today with mushroom chunks and fish eggs on top, plus some delicious Dark Chocolate Gelato with Chili(!!!) the sweetness comes in and then the kcik. I MUST try to recreate that flavor when I get back.

More details when I take the trains again.

OFF I GO

In about 12 hours, I will be on a plane to Hong Kong, where I will be spending 3 days there with my balikbayan titas and my fil-am cousin Daryl (who is REALLY a hottie, I will be posting pics of him for you all to drool at, hee!)

It's been a while since I've been to Hong Kong, or out of the country at all (I don't count the trip to Thailand because... well, anyone who knows me knows why). This will be fun. I look forward to touring, buying some cool new clothes for gig wear and getting some bloggable material and photos.

All of you kids be good while I'm gone, okay?

JUST IN CASE...

... on the offhand chance that any of you are interested, Silent Sanctuary has a gig this sunday, Spetember 26 at Mayric's for Sunday Grabe Sunday. Along with SilentSanct, other bands on the lineup are Techno-god Wolfmann, New Wavers The Pin-Up Girls, Political rockers Einstein Chakras and the almighty IMAGO!!!

Can I just say I am SO jazzed about that last one. I have loved and adored Imago's music -- and Aia, an angel on earth if there ever was one! -- since the first time I heard them. To finally be on the same playlist as them...... well, that's nothing less than one of my dreams come true.

So if any of you lurkers out there (it's no longer a delusion! I KNOW you're all out there reading! hahahahahahahahah! nabisto na kayo!!!) are interested in seeing the demented mind behind this blog up onstage performing, pop on over to Mayrics this sunday night. (Show starts at 10pm. mayrics is located along Espana, in front of UST)

Rock on! Woooohooooooooooooooooooo!!!

PORN STAR QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"I'm not trying to be a millionaire, you know? Money isn't everything, it seriously isn't. People lose track of that. I wanna be able to sleep at night. I wanna, in twenty years, look back and not be ashamed of anything I did, and I don't want to feel raped, and women who do things for money, eventually, I think, in my opinion, down the line, are going to regret that."

--Keri Windsor, on working for the right reasons

Remove the porn context from that statement, and it's STILL valid.

ALL BETTER NOW

.....I have been since the morning after I made that last post, actually. My thanks to all who showed concern for me :). I just got into a depressive funk (it's been a while, I was due) which I quickly got out of once I got back to playing, singing, performing, and talking with some good friends. (Hi, CeeDee!)

I also have a LOT of interesting things upcoming which I will not talk about yet for fear of jinxing it, but rest assured when and if things are set in stone (or shot on camera, whatever...) I will be blogging about it extensively.

It's great living a full life.

STUPID, STUPID, STUPID...

Moron. I knew what the deal was going into this, but in the end I STILL ended up getting clobbered anyway. And I have no one to blame but myself. Even when I try to be tough, the feelings end up seeping through anyway. I feel too fucking much for my own fucking good. Sorry Nic, I wasn't able to follow your advice re: my heart and my body. *sighs*

Dammit, why do I keep DOING this to myself?

A TREATISE ON LOVE, SEX AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN

There is lovemaking that is bad for a person, just as there is eating that is bad…

…Every nutritious sexual recipe calls for at least a pinch of love, and the fucks that rate four star rankings from both gourmets and health food nuts use cupfuls.

Not that sex should be regarded as therapeutic or to be taken for medicinal purposes – only a dullard would hang such a millstone around the nibbled neck of a lay – but to approach sex carelessly, shallowly, with detachment and without warmth is to dine night after night in erotic greasy spoons. In time one’s palate will become insensitive, one will suffer (without knowing it) emotional malnutrition, the skin of the soul will fester with scurvy, the teeth of the heart will decay.

Neither duration nor proclamation of commitment is necessarily the measure – there are ephemeral explosions of passion between strangers that make more erotic sense than many lengthy marriages, there are one-night stands in Jersey City more glorious than six-months affairs in Paris – but finally there is a commitment, however brief; a purity, however threatened; a vulnerability, however concealed; a generosity of spirit, however marbled with need; an honest caring, however singed by lust, that must be present if couplings are to be salubrious and not slow poison.


********************************************

From Niccy Chiccy's blog. I absolutely adore her ability to turn a quirky phrase that no one has thought of before in quite the same way. If I could only compose a song the way that she writes, I'd take SilentSanct to the top of the charts.

LOVE AFTER LOVE

The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was yourself.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

-Derek Walcott

WHY I LOVE MY FRIENDS PART 001

Setting: Late August, in my car driving on way to DLSU for my initial gig as Silent Sanctuary's vocalist. Up to this point I have been relaxed and confident, but sure enough the tension has finally started to build. In an attempt to alleviate it, I begin writing text messages and sending them out. One such exchange is as follows:

ME: It's an hour and a half before my first ever gig as Silent Sanctuary's vocalist. I know I shouldn't be nervous, but I am. It's times like this that I wish I had a boyfriend to tell me that they believed in me and that they loved me.

ICEBITCH*: People already believe in you and love you. You don't need a boyfriend for that.

ME: Are YOU one of those people?? *looks anxiously*

ICEBITCH: *Arcs eyebrow* Am not going to insult your intelligence. You SHOULD have ALREADY figured out the indirect implications of this conversation.

ME: I love you too, Icebitch. :)

*Name has been changed to preserve her reputation as a hardass

CAN YOU TELL ME HOW TO GET TO AVENUE Q?

Watched the Tony Awards last night on Star World where I finally got to see a performance from the show Avenue Q, which ultimately won best musical for 2004.

For those of you not theater-inclined, Avenue Q is a brilliant musical tackling such coming-of-age topics as relationships, identity, and finding one's purpose in life. The big twist is that they do it Sesame Street style, using puppetry. My theater buff friend first let me listen to the song "The Internet is for Porn" (what can I say? He knows his target market *grins*) and I instantly fell in love with it.

Irreverent, foul-mouthed, sweet, profane, hilarious and with a Big Giant Heart (tm Kate Monster) I want to see this show sooooooooooooooooo much.

FOR NOW
Avenue Q

Everyone's a little bit unsatisfied
Everyone goes 'round a little empty inside
Take a breath, look around, swallow your pride,
For now...

Nothing lasts, life goes on, full of surprises.
You'll be faced with problems of all shapes and sizes
You're going to have to make a few compromises,
For now...

But only for now! (For now)
Only for now! (For now)
Only for now! (For now)
Only for now!

For now we're healthy, for now we're employed.
For now we're happy, if not overjoyed.
And we'll accept the things we cannot avoid,
For now...

But only for now! (For now)
Only for now! (For now)
Only for now! (For now)
Only for now!

Only for now!
(For now there's life!)
Only for now!
(For now there's love!)
Only for now!
(For now there's work!)
For now there's happiness!
But only for now!
(For now discomfort!)
Only for now!
(For now there's friendship!)
Only for now (For now!)
Only for now!

Only for now! (Sex!)
Is only for now! (Your hair!)
Is only for now! (George Bush!)
Is only for now!

Don't stress, Relax,
Let life roll off your backs
Except for death and paying taxes,
Everything in life is only for now

Each time you smile,
It'll only last a while
Life may be scary,
But it's only temporary

Everything in life is only for now.

MORE FAMOUS THAN I THOUGHT

I've never kept a hit counter on this page because on one hand, I didn't want to start writing with the idea of doing it for my "faithful readers" (I am typing this with a look of irony on my face, believe me) and on the other, I didn't want to deal with the blow to my ego in case the counter revealed I was being read by next to no one.

I guess I can finally throw that second assertion out of the window. Someone I am semi-seeing, has admitted to knowing about my blog and kept silent to me about knowing it, ever since we met, which was months ago. In fact, the only reason he let on that he knew was because *I* had finally let him know that I kept a blog in what I THOUGHT was a gesture of opening up to him more. I didn't give him the URL to imodo.com, but it turns out that it wasn't even fricking necessary.

I guess I can be grateful that I made the decision several months ago to keep the details of my private life (and whoever I may or may not be seeing) OFF of this blog. Mainly because I didn't want to turn this particular journal into yet another one of those "what did I do this weekend" type things (not that there's anything wrong with that).

Quite honestly, I had thought that this blog was fairly well hidden on the web, as apart from a few links from friend's blogs, I don't go out of my way to promote it. At least the ones I THOUGHT were reading this blog were people I already knew, so it was fairly safe; I could still bitch and complain and whatnot, I just couldn't do it about my friends, heheh.

The thing is, Semi-seeing Guy (who henceforth I shall refer to as simply "Guy" for brevity's sake) found out about my blog from his friend who I am most definitely NOT familiar with, and he in turn discovering my blog through a link on a common acquaintance's page. Friend of Guy instantly recognized my name as soon as Guy told it to him and offered up the URL. Guy claims to have not read this page, but up until last week, I thought Guy had no knowledge of this blog, so what do I know? So here was a guy with whom I had no preexisting connection to, and he STILL found my blog without my knowing.

Sheeeeesh. So much for keeping a low profile. It's not ALL bad, mind you. A pleasant surprise was that one my readers who revealed himself to me thru email turns out to be an artist of a comic that I am actually a huge, huge fan of. Those types of little surprises I LIKE. :)

But now, I realize that I can't be as personal as I want with this blog, and that I DO have to watch what I say. People I don't even KNOW are reading this, and if I vent out here about someone that annoys me there is a possibility that it could get back to that person before I address them personally, which breaks one of my own self-imposed rules.

I mourn the loss a little bit, I guess. About losing the total freedom of being able to write whatever I want without fear of consequence. "But no one is stopping you" you think, "You're STILL free to write whatever you want to write!" Yes, yes, yes, technically I guess that is true. Other people can and DO write about the people that piss them off (and mention them by name) the people that they sleep with, all the gory details. And while I don't begrudge them for doing so..... that's not MY thing. As famewhorish as I can tend to be, I STILL like to maintain a bit of propriety and anonymity.

And besides, if this page gets known on the web, I'd like it to be for something more than because I write about who I fucked last night.

I'll probably open another journal, most likely the low tech kind; using a pen and this old-fangled material called "paper" (remember paper?). If I DO choose to do another online journal (I have a mild case of carpal tunnel syndrome and it is much easier to type than it is to write) I have to make sure that I remove all traces of my name and connection back to me for maximum deniability.

Ah, the trials of being a victim of one's own fame (ironic expression on my face again!).

And here I thought I wasn't getting any readers because of the low hits on my comments box. Turns out you're ALL out there, just lurking. Heh.

I hope your family enjoyed the ice cream, R.

TANING
Imago

Sa'n mapupulot ang pag-asa
May katuwiran ba ang sana
Ngiti ko ang iyong galak
Langit ko ang iyong kandungan

ref:
Permiso sa isang araw na
Makasama ka
Abiso ng pusong bulag
Na humahanga

chorus:
Tama bang aminin na nating may taning
Itong pag-ibig natin
Dakila man walang kasaysayang kakapit
Sa bulag na pag-ibig

San hihingi ng patawad
Kung walang dahilan
Tangis ko ang yong luha
Nais ko ang iyong kalayaan.

REALIZATION

Sang this in church this morning. I've sung this countless times before, but as we were singing during communion, it struck me that it could be a prayer for spiritual peace, for those who were in pain and had lost themselves, just as I had during the beginning of this year.

And in that moment I began to cry. Not out of sorrow, but from sheer joy for all the gifts that have been bestowed upon me and just how far I had come, how complete I was again.

I realize all that I have right now: friends and family who love me. A future where I am on the threshold of achieving one of my longest-held dreams. And perhaps, just perhaps, someone who I could find myself falling in love with (but for the record, I must state that I am in no rush to do so.).

I am just so frigging blessed. And I am grateful to The Divine, God, the universe, whatever your belief system calls it. If I can bring peace to someone else through my singing, as it was brought to me by the ones who loved me, then that will be the greatest thing in the world.

PRAYER OF ST. FRANCIS

Lord make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred let me sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon.
Where there is doubt, faith.
Where there is despair, hope.
Where there is darkness, light.
And where there is sadness, joy.

Lord make me an instrument of your peace,
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
To be loved as to love

For it is in giving that we receive-
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned.
And it's in dying that we are born
to eternal life.

LET'S ALL GO TO STARBS!

Introducing Caffeinerush.

An utterly BRILLIANT and HILARIOUS blog. His skewering and parody of conotic language is spot-on, but the added bonus -- what is REALLY astounding -- are the number of people who angrily comment (on average of over a hundred per post!) and take the guy seriously. Too, too funny, on so many levels.

Of course, none of the people who read THIS blog would ever make that mistake, right?

Now, go click the link and check it out. I'll still be here when you get back. Will just grab a mint caramel frap at Starbs first.

HMMMMMMMMM..........

Today was a very, very, very eventful day. I am not exaggerating when I say that the series of happenstances that took place over the course of this day was not unlike something you would see in a fairly well-written sitcom (Not quite the level of say, Frasier, but definitely on Will & Grace or friends).

I even have a witness. Perhaps she will blog about it before I will, seeing as she was an participant (victim?) in the whole debacle. I will most definitely blog about it as soon as I get the energy, but for now I am utterly exhausted.

My my, I DO live an interesting life.....