I just realized that Johnny Marr is much cuter than Morrissey.

Also, Johnny Marr is a Scorpio.

I am tempted to step into a place of utterly flawed logic, but I will resist the compulsion.





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It Pays My Way and it Corrodes My Soul

Sweetness, sweetness, I was only joking when I said
I'd like to smash every tooth in your head.
- The Smiths

It's no secret that I refuse to have anything more to do with Philosophy, now that I've shrugged my shoulders free of its weight after all those years in University, those dreaded Oral Examinations where I had to elaborate on the significance of Heidegger's work on morality, or how Descartes' exercise in "unmitigated doubt" ushered in a persistent era in epistemology, yakkety yakkety. I am done with it. Finished. And I did love it once, when I was a shiny-eyed dud, although I don't mean to say that all those who persist in loving Philosophy are shiny-eyed duds. I am only saying that I was a different person then, and that the herculean, labored abstraction that Philosophy represents no longer appeals to me.

Still, stuff like the video below kills me, and maybe I did understand enough of my classes to actually appreciate this clip. It's fucking hilarious! I almost choked here in my seat from laughing too hard! I send my thanks to Crisgee for shooting me the link to this.

Oh, and to tell you the truth, I didn't really hate Philosophy that much, and genuinely favor Kant over Nietzsche, whom I think is an overhyped, syphilitic codger. Still, there is much to be commended in Nietzsche's work, and stop me now before I go on into some ridiculous, overwrought rant.

Ladies and gentlemen, the video. Nyuk nyuk.


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If A Double-Decker Bus Crashes Into Us

And you never knew how much I really liked you,
'Cause I never even told you – oh, and I meant to.
- The Smiths

Dear one, you were a dervish, a hurricane I can't claim to have known very well, though I knew some things about you, a distant friend. You wanted to be a lawyer, yes? You loved as though tomorrow was an illusion, and the present a dapper tune you always wanted to play, the way you plinked away at that piano in your house when we were in High School. What young things we were. I still remember those afternoons in your front yard when you helped me figure out that blasted snarl of equations – do you know I never would have passed second-year Math if it hadn't been for you? Oh, you always thought you were never enough, you looked at your sister the way I looked at mine, we always thought we were never good enough, never pretty enough, never smart enough, eternally fucking up. Have I ever told you how much I envied you for how obstinately you dismissed fear? Or how I admired you for the way you blazed past criticism, even if it was secretly wounding you? I never told you these things. It doesn't matter now, you're gone, what use is it. I'm flying home tonight, and I will see you in your casket, and of course it wouldn't be you, none of us will believe it. You were alive one minute and all your breath pressed out of you the next. I want to think that tragedy is something we should be smart enough to expect. But none of us thought you would go so soon. Oh, Ivy, you were always more than enough, did you know this?

Ivy Lalaine Omelio
02 November 1983 - 23 December 2007

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I've Got A Cloak, It's A Bit Of A Joke

Me, I want a hula hoop!
- Alvin and the Chipmunks

I can't sleep. I'm tired, oh so tired, although I can hardly understand why; all I've done is stretch catlike in bed from one honeyed hour to the next, enjoying my blessed, featureless Saturday, plucking books from their towering stacks, revisiting old titles and giggling through my favorite parts. I can never give any of these books up, these mighty babies, all of them cradling universes between their covers. Miracle of miracles! The written word. Such terrible terrible terrible joy.

Goddammit I really can't sleep. It isn't even Saturday anymore, it's 5:48 in the morning, and my weekend is trickling down to Sunday dreaded Sunday. Sundays always herald the looming blue of the workweek, and how can I give up my bed, how can I? I've given it fresh sheets of a pink so uncharacteristic of me I almost love it. How can I give it up?

So now we are in December. Mmm, December. Even if I didn't have a calendar around, I would've known. There's an unquestionable nip to the air now, and the world is chillier than the last eleven months have known it. Twenty-four more days, and I'll be sailing home in a plane aloft, the fleets of clouds parting for the flying machine, and Dad and Mom will be waiting for me at the airport. I'm sure to overpack again, the way I always do, and Mom will have something to say about my weight, and Dad will have something to say about my job, and he and I will be singing Frank Sinatra songs in the car all the way home while Mom hums along.

The great misfortune is that I will be spending Christmas Eve here in Manila because of work. Oh the tragedy! Christmas Eve in Manila is such an abomination. But what the hell, I'm already resigned to it. At least I get to celebrate with Ate Monique while she languishes through the Holidays, doing overtime to satisfy her ill-disguised masochism.

"So it looks like I'm really going to spend Christmas Eve here," I say to her, stretching out in bed some more, feeling for the limits of my ligaments. She is rushing around the flat, brisk and efficient, about to go back to the office to do more overtime. It is a Saturday, and she is evidently crazy.

"Yeah." She yanks out the towel-turban from her head and her hair tumbles out in a wet black tangle. "Me, too."

"I know. Hey, look," I say, brightening up. "You want me to fix something for the both of us? Dinner for Christmas Eve?"

"No."

"Oh, come on!"

"We'll just end up gaining weight."

"You're mad. Look at you, you're a kite. You're skin and bones. If anyone should be losing weight here, that would be me. What do you want me to cook?"

"Nothing," she says, tugging a comb through her hair. Her hair has always been incorrigible, ill-tempered, accorded with a life of its own. She's hated it for as long as I can remember. She's hated it even when she was but a translucent fetus, even as a zygote, when her little developing cells hinted at the genetic code that would give rise to such a wild mass. She thrashed and thrashed with all her zygote energy in our mother's pillowed uterus. What a girl.

Still, despite her affected opacity, my sister is perhaps the only person who has ever made definite, genuine attempts to spoil me. She comes home bearing small gifts for me: a candy bar, a bag of lychees, pastries wrapped in colored cellophane, a llama. She has, indeed, given me a sneezing llama named Jerry. I have fed it with pancakes and beer.

Of course I am making this up. My sister would never do such a thing, we aren't allowed to keep pets in the building. But I wasn't kidding about the other small gifts. My sister is a jewel, a diamond that no mallet can pound to smithereens. Her bone structure is nearly flawless, and her face is full of utter delicacy. The nose draws a graceful line above her perfect mouth. I look absolutely nothing like her.

In her company, I am cloying to a revolting point, I drape my arms around her and ask for piggy back rides even if there is no chance that she will bear my weight. She is nearly half my size.

"Hug," I command, having transferred now to her bed. She hates it when I do this, and I don't blame her. My bed is perfect, and I have no business spreading myself out on her own bed, but I do it anyway. I let my head hang over the side.

"No," she says, gathering her things.

"You know what I'm thinking?"

"What."

"If I were a guy, I would probably have a small dick."

"What?" She chortles. I am killing her.

"Yeah." I hold up my hands to the light. "We're talking statistically here. I have awfully small hands. I'm only 5'3. I would most probably have a small dick. If I had a girlfriend, she would be so disappointed."

"I don't know how you come up with these things."

"Oh, but you'd be worse. You're just 5 feet tall on a good day. You'd be one of those sorry men with sloping shoulders and womanly hips."

"And a small dick?"

"And a small dick," I say, nodding sagely.

"Bye," she says, hoisting her bag over her shoulder.

"Give me a kiss."

"No. Bye."

Ah, all that studied frigidity. How can you not love her?
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