I like reading.

Only two things can truly keep me up all night long: a good book and a girl.

So today I decided to re-arrange my bookshelf in search of my seemingly lost copy of Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson. It's such a valuable copy/edition and I feel my heart break a little more every time I fail to find it. Yes, it got a bit more broken today.

On a lighter note. I piled up magazines where I wrote for and ended up with this (sorry, had to remove photo... privacy shit). I think I started writing around 2009, but only on the sides, and I'm quite a happy bee to realize that they're not as few as I thought they were. I got to cover the entire table, yey!

Other than my articles, my Starbucks 2009 2008 planner also resurfaced. This is probably my busiest planner because it has so many add ons and stick ons and whatsoever. It's truly more a scrapbook than a planner. In the spirit of commemoration, let me share with you a lovely conversation, an exchange on paper to be precise, that I got to experience with this girl I "dated" in 2009 2008. She's someone I fondly call K, and it's so interesting how my entries of her feel a bit fresh in my memory. I guess it goes without saying that when something good and honest happens, no matter how badly or even how soon it ends, it's fond to remember the good times.

K: So??? I don't know. I can't judge something that comes from the heart because there is no right or wrong answer. Actually, your "letter" just brings up more questions. I guess I interpreted it differently because I don't know how you felt when you wrote that. Has the person you're writing about read it already???
Me: Yes I think. I gave her a copy. It's a closure letter. Like before I go, I just had to say things I didn't get to say. Do you think it's okay?
K: Hmm... A goodbye letter... S? (S-- WTH I don't know how to spell her name) Yes it's ok... but sounded like you were still hung up on her when you wrote it.
M: S-- yeah, I guess I was but it's okay. Like after I wrote it, I'm good.
K: Hahaha!!! I knew it!!! Sorry sorry sorry. But that was like very recent huh... May, right?
M: Yes. Let me read please (pertaining to a paper she had out)
K: It was for class. About my dog that died. That's it. We had to write it on the spot. It's nothing, and stop changing the subject. So did she reply to your "closure letter"?
M: No she didn't. I'm not changing the topic. I'm begging you to let me read.you. Can't I know you more?
K: Know me? Haha... you won't find out anything from that worthless paper. It was like seatwork. Why do you want to read it so bad?
M: Because I really want to know what's in (points to a drawing on the paper, pointing on the head)
K: Wouldn't you rather like to know what's in (points to a drawing of a heart)
M: I do.
K: So it's better you don't read the paper. I am ashamed of it because it does not show what's in (points to a drawing, two arrows pointing to different things: the head and the heart)
M: Let me read something that's from your heart.
K: Well you have to learn to read me because I don't put it on paper or words because my lame words doesn't do my heart justice.
M: I try, always try my best to read you. I don't know if I do it write :s
K: Haha! No you don't do it RIGHT sometimes (mocking). Am I really that hard to read? If I am, I guess I like it that way.
M: TANGA KO!!! I wish I just cut (class, we were in class at that time, she sat in my class that's why we were exchanging papers) and we just hanged out or something. And yes, I think you're hard to read.
K: Ok. (then she drew a big O and K, encircled the K and put an arrow to it, pointing to an M, that was inside a heart... my college nickname starts with a letter M)

--- June 24 2008

Seriously... 'til now, I have no idea what that wild moment was about!

To those wondering, I figured it'd be proper to begin this post with No Umbrella because to me it's a song that is hugely about seeing things through with a person.

Right now, there's this girl who's territorial. I sometimes wonder if she also wants to own my past--something impossible because the past is over! Sometimes, it comes to a point where I wonder if she'd rather I have an empty past than like this, where I have these stories (bigger than life, or alive more than ever in my mind) where she is not a part of. I don't know if it's wrong to remember, I always figured, it's very honorable to do so.

Today I finished reading one of the books E recommended. I really liked how it ended. There was such a beautiful coming together as the novel reached that inevitable close. It was like a gorgeous display of fireworks where the tiny explosives you planted on air would light up together with the booming sounds and blooming pyro display. I liked how it went down my throat, how it made sense of the different flavors that I had to understand from beginning to end. It was an exquisitely aged wine, washing down the confusion with a just explanation.

When I read the above "memory" off my journal, I remembered how on that first lunch date with E, I got to read a few of her raw words. It was a poem fresh off the furnace, made in class, probably as her mind floated away. She immediately and rudely pulled the paper off my hand and I never got to read that particular poem again. She said she would email me a better poem, that she's just a bit too shut about her words especially when they're not yet on their final and polished stages. She emailed me already, but I'm still unsatisfied. I'm truly insatiable, I will not argue with that; but reading above "memory" reminded me of how she said she would also send me that very poem, once it's finalized.

I wonder how much waiting would cost, this time.