a 2 am poem, still untitled

the night is weary a broken lover is a poet, is made of glass, fragile but forged in fire. she says farewell to him, it's a parting that begs for redemption. he remembers her words, turns them over and over in his hands, like a childhood toy discarded and remembered, he needs to keep himself busy now. heartbreak to him, is habit-forming. [for a friend and sis]

"I'm just like anyone. I cut and I bleed. And I embarrass easily." -Michael Jackson

"Well, you don't get to do things that other children get to do, having friends and slumber parties and buddies. There were none of that for me. I didn't have friends when I was little. My brothers were my friends."

"If you enter this world knowing you are loved and you leave this world knowing the same, then everything that happens in between can be dealt with. "

*****

Michael Jackson's controversial and highly publicized private life is now put to rest, together with a genuine musical legend.

People are out in the streets in a belated attempt to relive his glorious music, just remembering what it was like growing up, dancing to "Beat It" or "Billie Jean."

We all loved his music.

In 1959, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. The Big Bopper Richardson. Don McLean called it, "The Day The Music Died."

When I learned about Michael's untimely death, it felt like an era died with him.

Farewell Michael Jackson. People are out in the streets, doing their utmost to remember you and your wonderful musical legacy.

a little discipline, a little routine

in coming up with a children's story, i decided to follow the advice of this nice and attractive how-to book i picked up in the CAL lib. i initially breezed through the first 80-100 pages but opted to stop since i was getting way ahead of myself.

i'm trying to focus on coming up with a plot at present. one problem i'm having is that the moment our professor announced the requirement, an old idea immediately came up and i think my fixation with realizing that particular storyline is blocking any other attempts to conceptualize simply because it's the one i want.

i'm starting very slowly on a skeletal structure for the plot. every night, i make it point to write down something, anything, related to the story i'm coming up with, including self-imposed writing exercises. so far i think it's working. :)

i made it!

i anticipate a new chapter in my life before the year ends or maybe at the start next year. there's quite a long process to go through - my psych exam is two weeks from now, and a couple of more months of waiting to find out if my appointment will come in by december or january.

i am torn between my attempt at reconnecting with writing - it looks as though i will have to give up my MA CW if i am to start full-time at the dfa for my cadetship next year (assuming there's no hitch with respect to my appointment, etc.).

anyway, there's still a lot to be done.

i have a few months left to live it up! :)

it's a 4 a.m. post

... so i hardly expect myself to be lucid.

there was a power outage earlier which lasted for two hours. thankfully, despite the humidity, the night sky looked more like the early morning light to me.

i have little to blog about, really, and of late i've noticed that i've become more and more preoccupied with mundane, trivial things.

there was a brief moment last night, when, looking at the poems i'd written about two years ago, that i felt the urgency to write a new one. the moment was fleeting.

http://enuh.livejournal.com/tag/poems

*****

so here's my lifelong beef about writing. most people assume that whatever i write - especially poetry - is largely autobiographical. must broaden my horizons. must write something outside of what i am familiar with. or at least do a better job at what i'm familiar with. LOL.

*****

enlistment

haven't even begun enrolling this sem. arrrrrggh.

totally brain dead re: writing. nothing new. was chatting with jen from tomatobomb last night and she said, "mahirap atang magsulat pag wala kang harna sa buhay!" and that got me thinking, yeah, well maybe, but then again maybe i don't have anything interesting to write about these days. :P

survived the 3-day oral exams, but i've lost the time and momentum to actually blog about the whole experience. so i'm playing the waiting game. hopefully, all goes well and i'll be starting a new chapter by next year. if i were lucky enough to make it in the foreign service, then i'd have plenty of interesting material to write about later on. hehe.

poetry has lost its edge for me, at present. it takes a lot of energy, spontaneity and skill to craft a poem nowadays. above all, that moment of inspiration comes rarely to me now. the last time i was ever prolific was back in 2007. my best poems were back in 2000, methinks.

and looking back, i started out as an aspiring fictionist as early as age 7 or 8. and last summer's CL class renewed in me a sense of wonder for trying my hand at short fiction again. hmmmm.... hopefully i'll be able to enroll in fiction 1 workshop class this sem. 

image courtesy of http://www.heartymagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/archie-marries-ronnie-01.jpg

talk about delayed reaction... i only found out about this thanks to inquirer.net :P

amid growing concerns about the con-ass, AH1N1 virus, obama's ambitious peace proposal, global recession, nuclear testing in north korea,  even personal concerns about the FSE, comes this unexpected bit of news, upsetting young and old fans of the lovable comic strip.

i grew up buying (very few) and mostly borrowing archie comics, and at a point in my life, engrossed in the idyllic lives of riverdale's zany teenagers, along with my stellar collection of the sweet valley series. a little over 20 years later, i actually still care and feel a little nostalgic that there's a rupture in the otherwise predictable lives of archie in the gang, still hanging out at pop tate's, in their sweaters and 70's flares. more shocking to me is learning that the archie-veronica-betty love triangle is 68 years old!  

as far as i know, the standard formula hasn't changed. archie and veronica have an on-off relationship, archie is veronica's favorite boytoy and doormat, often temporarily replaced in favor of richer, more cultured guys. betty, on the other hand, is archie's plan B - whether as a substitute for ronnie or tutor when he's having problems at school, heck, even to do chores with! betty and veronica, although the best of friends, constantly hatch schemes that usually involve archie.

i always assumed that betty and veronica always ran up a 50-all score, just to keep things spicy. 

do i agree with the twist in the (nearly) age-old plot?

i don't remember ever rooting for either of them, i always perceived veronica to have an advantage over betty, being the girl archie has always been hopelessly in love with, and betty just being the attractive, likable and reliable alternative. in my opinion, it's not surprising that archie would eventually choose veronica (at least, at this point in time), given that archie's always been in love with her, no matter how snooty or scheming she can get. besides, betty has long played second fiddle to her. 

more importantly, i have other speculations as to why this twist came out:

1. boost flagging sales http://comicsworthreading.com/2008/01/21/historical-archie-sales

2. perhaps generate enough interest for a possible blockbuster movie?

the magic of archie comics is no matter what age or disposition or standing in life, the gang stays the same. jughead is always hungry, moose is always, well, moose. reggie is conceited. etc etc etc. i can't imagine what influence the comic has on popular culture, especially teen lit and shows. perhaps the twist is also to remind us about the comics' relevance in the age of the OC and gossip girl. :D

p.s.

off the top of my head:

speaking of gossip girl, here i think the roles are reversed. on gossip girl, to me, betty is serena, the more lovable and kinder blond hottie versus scheming, often-in-serena's-shadow blair. strictly speaking, nate archibald is the equivalent of archie andrews, and while initially secretly in love with serena, blair is his official erstwhile girlfriend. chuck here is reggie mantle.

on dawsons creek, just a disclaimer, i don't think there is exactly a one-to-one correspondence, but one can draw similarities. veronica, to me, is jen, dawson's (blonde) first love and the more unattainable girl, while joey, the reliable best friend later emerges as dawson's true love... til she ends up later on with pacey (yey!).

archie is everywhere! hehe :D