Monday, November 24, 2008

Wake Up

You spend 20 years in bed, unconscious, doing basically nothing, where you’ve got absolutely nothing happening for you. That’s a good one-third of your life. Then you die.

An average person spends about six to eight hours in bed sleeping. If he’s heartbroken, only two hours are spent unconscious while the rest is taken over by wallowing. No matter. Most of that is still time wasted. I’m not saying that humans should do without sleeping. You’ll mess up with your endocrine system and deprive yourself of serotonin. In English, you’ll make yourself cranky. I learned this from Scully. Tempers would flare and if nuclear bombs don’t annihilate mankind, we will die in our own rages. It’s only that I believe in staying awake while you can.

It’s 10:30pm right now on a Sunday. You’ve got work tomorrow? So do I. get your MP3 player and with your blaring earphones, walk the streets and stop by at Burger Machine for a longganisa with egg sandwich. Buy pirated DVDs and have a movie marathon. Write. Have sex. Write about it. Text your girlfriend. Blog about it. Surf the net. Meet new people. Then have sex again. Build relationships and destroy those that aren’t healthy for you. Sit in bed drinking while waiting for Chowking to serve breakfast, although they’ve replaced the ham with paper. Visit the red-light district. Text your ex and flirt with her. Learn a difficult song and sing it and just this once let it be you who disturbs the peace of the neighborhood. Do a hundred sit-ups. Go to Starbucks and complain about their Wi-Fi fcuk it it’s supposed to be for free! There’s just too much to do and if we live to be 60, that’s practically throwing 20 years in a vegetable state. Make something happen. Right now. Sleep only when you can’t sustain a vertical position any longer because there’s just too much opportunity for that when that time comes when you aren’t able to wake up.

Friday, November 14, 2008

What time is it? II

My weekends are mine. Nobody has got any business taking ownership of my Saturdays and Sundays. Fridays, even.

I will laugh my teeth out till they fall off, say some crazy and stupid things that I won’t admit to saying afterwards, and shut down my brain circuits. I will talk to everyone even when I’m pissed. I will smile at everyone and don’t take that to mean flirting. I refuse to ruin my non-work days even when that means I gotta sell myself.

If something’s not right, I will neither think nor talk about it on a Saturday. I will hold it off till Sunday. When Sunday comes, it has been forgotten. I will not face it on a weekday either, hell no. It would steal my focus from work. That’s just goddamn unacceptable. It’s enough that I deal with a daily hangover. Weekdays are a bummer so my weekends deserve to be a huge wildfire. I’d like to keep it that way thank you; now move to the side and let me pass.

It’s an hour and a half past Saturday. I shouldn’t even be writing. That’s what time it is and I’m gone. Don’t run after me unless you’re prepared to get ran over. Naaah. Just playing. Inuman na!
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Originally written on 09nov08, 0130hrs | midnight sentiments

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

What time is it?

"Time is the fire in which we burn..." Dr. Soran, Star Trek: Generations, by Rick Berman
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There are only 24 hours in a day. It’s practically the same throughout the 365 days in the year. Unless you’ve been abducted by aliens or have been altered by extraterrestrial influences, you know you can’t stretch it.

I spend six to eight hours sleeping. It’s when my hyperactive mind rests. It rests not by way of shutting down. It kicks away the rules and let something akin to insanity take its reign. It figures how to spend P130 million because it smells it can happen. It doesn’t matter that the probability of winning in the 6/49 lottery is almost 1 in 14 million, which is roughly the same probability as obtaining 24 heads in succession when flipping a coin. In my life, I've done lottery thrice. The odds of winning is... insane.

I spend about an hour and 15mins trying to wake up, dragging my feet to the bathroom, bathing, getting dressed, and basically making myself battle-ready for another week day. I don’t put on a battle gear but I make sure that my head can take a day’s battering.

I spend 10 hours at work looking for a problem, coming up with a solution, presenting it to the bigger executives and having the solution rejected. It doesn’t always happen but when it does it is phenomenal. I burn my circuits out while doing a million other things (please don’t let me use Multitasking the word is overused and overrated I feel like imploding every time I hear it) like answering a question nobody else attempted to answer as fatasses decompose in office chairs better than mine saying this or that particular solution isn’t good enough. I come too close to spontaneous human combustion every time. Or spontaneous human explosion. I fear for the tenants of PBCom the building just might not be able to take it.

I spend about two hours waiting. I can’t stand waiting but it’s a necessary evil. I wait for a cab amidst the noise and haste, suspended within a cloud of smoke and dust and heat. I wait for the green light as the cab crawls through. I wait in line to get some lunch. I wait for the end of the day itching to be home with my chips and vodka.

I spend about an hour eating. More if I eat breakfast, which I don’t usually do. Sometimes eating isn’t so much as eating. I’d call it ingesting. I go through it because it’s needed. I will skip lunch if it didn’t make me cranky as the afternoon progresses. But I really have to stop eating. It’s still a flat tummy down here but I seriously feel I’m gaining weight.

I spend about two hours trying to clear my head when the day ends and be prepared for another refreshing insanity in dreamland. I read a book, listen to music, hit the shower for a second round, text, write or whatever else under the moon. When I assault the sheets with my weight, I make sure I head straight to dreamland. Being awake for an extended time in bed is such a demon.

There are 24 hours in a day. There isn’t much else that I do, and I’ve got no time for complications.