news, views, ruse, muse

i'm just trying to relax here at home before i continue more writing work stuff here. waaaaaaah. never knew writing nonstop would somehow take its toll on me. but it's still okay. better than not doing anything pa rin, of course.

publication news! i'm being published in canada! yehey! a new feminist magazine called stella magazine has been corresponding with me since last year and i created an article for them. their premiere issue is due out any day now, said the editor sharlene. cool! this marks my first time to be published in canada.

on another continent, loren of lesbian network has been corresponding with me rin, and they liked the article i submitted for their LN magazine publication, a lesbian feminist magazine that somehow reminds me of isis' WIA. and that's in australia, new south wales area yata or something that sounds like that. so this marks my first time to get published in the land down under! wahoooo!

also that guy alex who's in charge of collecting people power 2 stories of the youth said my pp2 essay will be included in the book anthology they're making. yehey! and another book on asian lesbians, to be published by malaysian NGO icWOW, said they're including my essay in that book. yehey!

i love good publication news. :)

in other news, i'm home alone here. m went to laguna for some work thing and will be back tomorrow night pa. wah. so i guess i'll be holed up here today and tonight just finishing some writing work stuff. that's okay. i just miss having no breaks, because we already finished the new harry potter game (in two days! adik!), and the other games we bought aren't exactly fun to play -- not to mention scary yung isa, ha! anyway, tme to search for other games...or maybe another city-building game from impressions. sana after focusing on the chinese civ, they focus on other civs naman, like india's, o kaya sa aztecs and incans. we\'ll see what they come up with next. kung ano man yun, bibilhin ko yun!! original software!!! :)

in virus news, new viruses are being circulated as we speak, so avoid opening mails that look like mail delivery system errors, kasi virus yun!!! saka those that have zip files and emails from friends that say 'test' kasi they spoof addresses and send out these zip attachments to infect you. aarrrgh. basta be wary in general. just updated my antivirus software so i'm still cool.

in golden globe news, my latest favorite charlize theron won a golden globe best actress award for her role in MONSTER which she so highly deserves! ang galeng galeng niya dun! syempre added bonus yung nakipag-lipchukan siya nonstop passionately kay christina ricci heheh pero hindi nga, acting wise, panalo si lola charlize. sana sa academy awards din siya ang manalo, para naman dumami ang nananalo ng mga nag-portray ng roles ng lgbt-identified characters, like hilary swank's sa BOYS DON'T CRY. funny enough, like charlize's character in MONSTER, hilary's character here is also based on a real person. at pareho na silang patay. wow how tragic. hm.

speaking of awards, we recently saw MONSTER'S BALL and we're wondering why halle berry won for that role. but i can't say much because i haven't watched the performances of all the nominees of that year. pero weird lang, compared to greater acting roles and actresses, i really was not satisfied with her role and acting there. doesn't help that angelia jolie my love's ex billy bob is in that film. i mean, compared to other acting roles in the past, like jodie foster my original love's role in NELL, i can't believe that they'll award halle and neglect jodie. i mean, yes, that was 1994, but after a decade, i won't let this go! never! never! never! jodie deserved to win that year! waaaahh!!! :P

in other awards news, parang we would like to award a certain someone we know in UP Sappho before because she has done a complete paradigm shift of her persona. award for having a successful transition, i guess, from butch to powerpuff girl! as in. may ganon. akala ko nga femme-femme types turning stone-stone butches is the weirdest paradigm shifting i've ever witnessed (esp. in third dimension san juan circa '99) here in the local lgbt arena but no! may mas shocking pa pala. haha. well, sya, sige na nga, celebrate diversity. oh, but turning powerpuff doesn't mean she's still lesbian. in fact, she says she's exclusively dating men na daw. eh? o sya, whatever rocks your boat, girl. as for us, we'll just keep on paddling upstream, even if the ride's not so smooth most times. it's the ride that counts, naks! >:)

in other sappho news, we're so very excited about the new showtime cable show called THE L WORD with l of course meaning lesbian. it's billed as the QUEER AS FOLK for lesbians! finally, they smartened up and did a show like that! our kyuti vet friend and les correspondent in new york shared with us her mini-review of the show which premiered there last week, i think, complete with a scan of the show's flier (which is now officially my desktop wallpaper forever!). here's what she has to say:

The L Word: Taruz fatale!

So the much awaited "The L Word" premiered last Sunday and it was
HOTTTTT! I scanned the invite flyer for your enjoyment. Panalo yung
mga sex scenes, shetttt!!

I have a feeling pare-pareho tayo ng favorite character, at least by
looks. Mine is Shane, the reckless rocker-type (the most cool-looking
in the photo) with black hair. She's the Brian Kinney of the show.
All she does is sleep around and she's proud of it. Plus she gets who
she wants just by giving them a look. Funny, in the first episode they
were doing connect the dots with everyone they slept with, and of
course the name "Shane" was so big and everyone was connected to it!
Sounds like someone I know, I wonder who that is?

But then there's also Bette, who is played by Jennifer Beals (Flash
Dance). She's not my type but she has her own power dyke appeal that's
just so sexy. Kinda reminds me of M, circa 1999, in Likha Diwa sa
Gulod, the first time Libay showed her off. Alaala...nung tayo'y
mag-swithart pa...She was wearing this sexy tie-dye spaghetti strap
dress I remember, tapos sabi namin kay Libay, "Psst, bay-li, tanong mo
kung bakit ang ganda nya." Tinanong naman! Ayan tuloy, nagkatuluyan.
Now we're all married and we never go out. Hehehe. Ay, ako lang pala
yun.

Anyway, I will try to tape the rerun on Wednesday, and send it home.
Surely the DVD version won't come up until after the first season is
over. Enjoy!

hahaha, i swear, k, when we read that review, we were laughing so hard here. made me miss your company, too. kasi i remember that was a pastime at sappho, trying to connect the dots and we will end up with certain persons as dead ends, and yeah, in connecting, kakatawa, ang lola d ang prominent lagi. di ba nga all the letters of the alphabet mapupuno nya ng exes, hehe. fatale! haha those were fun times for sure. hm gets me to think, universal pastime yata sa mga byaning ang connecting the dots... haha. funny.

oh well. 'nuff with the stories. gotta get back to work.


me angal? tapon mo sa jotjotjotblog@hotmail.com

those jologz days we used to know...

[sing to the tune of those canaan days from the andrew lloyd webber musical JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT and with a french accent]

...ver 'ave they gone
ver did zey go?
eh bien, raise your beret
to those jologz days...


we had a jologz reunion the other night at greenbelt's restaurant 12 (and we still don't know why the place was named as such) because jojo is here and that's like her despedida day (so i should say was here). it's also her sister's bday and they had an open bar. it was a good night with the jologz sans labordei and of course ithaca joe.

but before i ramble on, lemme put things into perspective. jologz is the collective name of my literary barkada in dumaguete '99. funny division of talents there - all guys were poets and all gals were fictionists, but that's just our barkada, the young set. and of course there's an older set who didn't hang out much with us, so we young 'uns were the ones left to explore dumaguete during those may summer days. there's moi, jojo, bunis, indi and we were all saints while popa, mayouno and jose comprised the hansons heheh. together we are the jologz. why the name? i dunno really, maybe because that was our catchword of the month (aside from keri!). or maybe because sometimes, the people we met and the places we saw were kinda jology. and our behavior at times was jology, too. as in, in order to save money, we bagged the freebie chips snacks in the session room and took them to the pension house hehehe. wala lang kasing makain din dun na matino most times, at malayo lumabas sa kabihasnan for food.

anyway, that was us, the jologz. i think it was 2 years ago or so when we last saw each other together. i think i remember joe and jojo having a garage sale because they were ready to fly to ithaca, new york (ny nga ba yun exactly? oh well) because joe got a scholarship at cornell university there for poetry, no less. way to go jose! galeng galeng! and he's already graduating this may. galeng! jologz pride! or course the others i see once in a while, indi the most because she's also in isis (and the one who got me in there in the first place, thanks girl;)). popa we see whenever he comes out with a new volume of poetry, eh he comes up with one every year yata so yun. mayo is my textmate especially when there are media-related eks because he works at malaya newspaper. but these days, i hear he's gallivanting around youthfests and summits (as a rocker dude, no less haha) here and there and picked up a singaporean gf along the way. aha going asia na ang lolo, ha. heheh cool. of course bunis i see a lot lately because of the different pr gigs of anvil's FASTFOOD FICTION anthology kasi ng we are both included there (but i kinda owe her one for pocahontas-ing the tv show appearance heheh peace girl bad timing lang talaga 'yun).

there was a time i wasn't hanging out much with this group because i was kinda preoccupied with some matters of the er, heart, 'ika nga (eek korni!) and that was such a tumultuous time, man, i swear. i never knew how much i missed these people's company until last friday nga sa despedida ni jojo. we ended up reminiscing about the good ol' dumaguete days, like mayo seeing chickenjoy floating in the waters near the boulevard brickwater area, the girls taking 2 laps in a hotel's pool because that's the whole length of the pool--two laps' length, bunis and indi (and everyone) having permasmiles when drunk and/or high, that kind of stuff, the stuff that happens outside of the workshop sessions because those are the most interesting, anyway. i mean, who's gonna like the company there inside with sawi the macho heterocentric dude leading them most times? like when somebody said something about my story CURVE SONG having song lyrics, sabi nya 'ha, meron ba, saan?' and he didn't even get its lesbian content. haaaaaaaay... haysus inay, get out of the island once in a freaking while! buti pa si ma'am edith, galing ng comments. pati si ms. marj e at ms. beni s, cool sila.

hay naku. of course, who would forget mickey the quintessential dumaguete silliman workshoppers' guide to everything underground there? what a character. told them that i met a similar character in sagada when i went there 2 years ago. funny what ganja does to people. well. met some other people there who brought us to some other under things, like moses the leader who gave us a tour of silliman and invited us to a poetry reading in a place called the catacombs because it really is a catacomb, man. i swear, ultra creepy. then i also met this bi girl there who, er, kinda gave me two long shots (glances?) during separate occasions, and gave me the shivers, really, because a friend in manila who has been a silliman fellow years ahead, when asked what she thinks of this bi girl, told me explicitly 'not with a ten foot pole.' okay, so i steered clear. heheh. good advise, ha. but then there was someone there whom some of us wanted to touch with a pole, ten foot long or shorter, because er wala lang, she had bad histories in our respective books. well, whatever. we just swam the other way, that's all. we're a peace-lovng bunch, after all. :P evil!

of course who could also forget the cheap food (fresh kilawin tuna good for 3 for the price of 1), cheap beer (20 pesos buy one take one pa nga yata yun) and cheap internet (20 pesos an hour at that time is cheap, man). so syempre may-i-surf/chat ek kami ever most nights there. ayun, walking walking around there, not much in gimmicks because of the limitation in transportation. we were thinking of exploring nearby siquijor but we kinda backed out when we found out who's going there, so wa na. heheh evil!

when we got back here in manila, we used to hang around together a lot all the time back then. mayo's pad, my naranghita crashplace, big sky mind, those places. those were good times, really. i enjoyed them. learned a lot from these people, too, especially in poetry. i'm glad that they're still glad to see me even after i didn't show up lots of times there during those tumultuous times. i'm glad these guys and girls are okay, doing fine somewhat in their lives, and are still cool.

hey ithaca joe n jojo, take care there, will ya? promise, i'll bring a box of quickchow toyomansi there when we get a chance to visit. :)

those were good times, precisely because i think those were the times when i was forming my identity as a writer, for real, you know? i never really thought of becoming one fulltime, nor did i ever think i will make a living out of it or i will make it my main selling point. i still thought (and also hoped) at that time that i will still be a cinematographer. but i'm glad i didn't choose that life, really. it would have been a different me if the people i met then met me now. i dont even think i'll be able to do this, writing like this, you know. funny how fate sometimes alter the roadsigns of your life and make you take detours that will eventually course you to where you want to go, even if you didn't think you'd go there in the first place. ahh, am i making sense here? wala lang. sometimes, i kinda miss those days, days of just eating corn for lunch and sleeping 'til noon and writing all day and night and sleeping at 5a. but that's the life of the twentysomething. totoo pala yung depiction na yun ng decade gap na yun sa SEX AND THE CITY dati about the age thing, twentysomething and thirtysomething. your late 20s will really define most of yo for the rest of your life, i think. tama yata yung astro charting thing na sabi ni bles about that, about when someone reaches that point in their lives. dami nga nangyari, dami decisions, dami ring things solidified.

well, i'm just glad most things turned out the way they did. i love being a writer, living this life i have now, still having the friends i have, and being myself. it's cool.

jologz4evr!

don't wanna miss a thang!!!!!!!

miss what? miss stuff, that's what. like i miss walking outside, miss going to the mall, miss watching movies in theaters, miss biking, miss running errands (waah domesticated fool! heheh), miss grocery shopping, basta! miss kong lumabas, that's what!

been cooped up here in our house since i got sick last wednesday. can't really go out anywhre, for pollution will be the end of me, what with the cough and cold and severe sinusitis in full gear. aargh i hate weak bronchial tubes! but i'm grateful that it's still not asthma. gone are the days when i would wheeze in bed, like drowning on air, as the attacks lunge on me. good thing it's just like this now, no more loss of air things.

so i just hang out here in front of the computer, write stuff (which is good! i'm writing!), surf the net, finished harry potter book 4, watch dvds. running out of things to watch already so i better head on home again and borrow some of pop's stuff there. m and i are also thinking of trekking to greenhills to look for SMALLVILLE season 2 (clark bading!) and some other stuff. maybe this weekend.

got some publication news also, which is nice. an anthology in the works and the usual at our herword gig. this time, i reviewed painter friend maita beltran's kusineo resto in mother ignacia. hey check out their lamb, really good. also a cozy place to stay, date-wise or hibernate-wise. plus there's smoking tables and free parking, a rare thing in the metro these days. and of course there's that article about young lesbians and their feminism in isis international's WOMEN IN ACTION (WIA) magazine. i'm kinda pround of that one, nicely done if i say so myself. heeheehee.

kinda frustrated these days because i missed the entire metro manila filmfest! never got to watch any, man. hay nako. guess i'll try to catch up na lang kung may natira pa, or maybe i'll catch it in UP na lang later this month or next month. have to see RETURN OF THE KING, too. hmm... i wanna get well naaaaaa!!!!!!

did i already mention i got another blog? yeah, a more formal one than this, features mostly my works, works in progress, and now i decided to move all my film and book reviews there. so they're now at pandora's new humble abode. check it out.


objections? throw 'em at jotjotjotblog@hotmail.com if you dare to be unsquare.

sick is it!

nothing prompts a writer to write more than sickness, as in, sick kasi hindi healthy. maybe there's this desire to get out of bed and do something.

so that's what i am now -- sick. konting sinat, few coughs, very bad sinusitis, and lots of plasma-like stuff eeek yuck heheh. grossed you out, didn't i? :P

seriously, this started during lunchtime couple of days ago. was it the lunch? hindi siguro, bakit si m okay pa rin? so it must be the weather. yeah, medyo nag-drizzle nung araw na yun. or maybe it's the impending doom at the pit of my stomach that we won't get back our 75k again after that pizza fiasco. hindi rin naman, kasi we were able to encash 40k, so richina happiness galore ang mga lola nyo. so then, i don't know where the sinat came from. basta tinaaman na lang ako ng lintek.

so my headaches are gone today (pero sakit kahapon fotah) and the throat's not so sore anymore, thanks to those lozenges. and the back is not aching much (fuck, i'm getting old!) but i still feel cold sometimes. kay eto ang byuti ko, not eating much. i called up mom and found out pop's also out with the flu or something, compounded by smoker's cough, so there. wow, parallel sicknesses! ngeh. chaka. akala tuloy ni mom yung ubo ko dahil sa smoking din, aba nag-imbestiga kay m! heheh. pero hindi naman eh. la lang, bad case of cold at talagang sinus outbreak ako eh. so there.

which explains why my usually lusty appetite (as an officemate once described it) is absent today. so now i'm eating lettuce with my very own concoction of vinaigrette as dip. rabbit food, sabi nga ni osang once sa akin, sa presscon yata ng LA VIDA ROSA niya. aba, sarap ng kain ko ng salad ek sa 1301 ba yun sa ELJ bldg tapos tinabihan ba naman ako at sinabing bakit rabbit food lang daw ang pagkain ko? hay nako darling, in ten years, ang flawlessness mo ay magiging dulot ng good diet, hindi ni vicky belo, but i digress...

i'm also eating those cheese wedges that came from the isis christmas basket. weird lang dahil the one that said it was mixed with mushrooms eh maanghang! unless i'm reading my french wrong (champignon is mushroom, n'est-ce pas?) but the cheese is okay nonetheless.

got some neat stuff during the holey daze, in spite of my bahhumbugness creeping in pa rin. from isis nga, this basket containing nice spanish red wine (na nilaklak namin ni dré dito before new year), homemade pesto (still in the ref), a pack of pasta (ayun sa pantry cum cupboard) and i think it's italian chocolate (sarap, 'cept may nuts eh yoko ng may halo sa choco pero nilafang ko pa rin, you know how i like tasting different kinds of choco). meron pa palang bag of kiatkiat yun pero i gave that to bay, yung helper sana namin sa pizza parlor the day i told her we\'re reneging the contract. then i got this nice blue mini-parol from indi (raise da blue lantern lola!) which is still there nakasabit kasama ng wind chimes in our front door. from my monito monita there naman, which turned out to be mari all along (sabi na nga ba ehhhhh!!!), i got what i wanted -- tori amos cd SCARLET'S WALK which features music that, thank goodness, is not accompanied by that bosendorfer of hers. (i could just take so much of that instrument, lola tori , sori! next time, experiment naman with cellos and violins or something. bagpipes even. kulintang? sitar!) i also got a prize nga pala for being in the winning team of the isis olympics -- candleholder. serendipity naman kasi egad of m's pbsp gave me a candle for a gift when we went to their xmas party. ayun.

teka sidestep to recall that isis olympics. i don't know what came over those girls there (i think it's OVERWORK!) but they just wanted to let it all out in an event like that. it was fun naman, grabe. may mental olympics na trivianess eklavu, tapos may charade (hello, bobo ko, di ko ma-mime ang MATRIX REVOLUTIONS in ten seconds! heheh) to kick off an AMAZING RACE sorta race within the vicinity of qc circle (i think amazing race fan len's group won that part) pero walang tatalo sa min sa sidecar bike race na may jumprope interval pang kasama. that event was sooo tiring but so much fun! wish they'd do it again next year!

so back to the gifts. ay, rhona also gave me a gift pala, some shoelace thingie which is nice. napansin niya sigurong lagi akong naka-boots or sneakers sa office heheh. len also gave me a mini-bag of goodies din pala, chocolates from geneva yehey sarap! saka this parang headband thingie (at least, i think it's a headband!). tapos we also got gifts from neighbors. our landlady gave us some kind of a fruit basket with, er, fruits na nalimutan ko na kung ano. basta may orange. then our nearer neighbor gave us a pack of biscotti for our coffee daw. ayun.

m also got lots of gifts when she went home which she happily displayed to me na nakatago sa isang palanggana (gift din sa kanya). me naman, also got some from relatives and friends during the christmas party reunion and the annual concon. dré and yari gave us a gift din pala, that shells thing na nakasabit sa wall ngayon in lieu of the big paintings now gone.

uh oh, the nape's smartin'. baka this means i have to sign off na? hm, we'll see. matira matibay. wala pa naman akong magawa rito because i'm alone and i don't feel like doing whatever. well actually, i'm looking at the two mini-mountain bikes we bought during the holidays and they're just there in the kitchen, beckoning a sikatuna vill tour. maybe when i get well, honeys. sarap pa naman sanang mag-bike sa peyups this weekend.

hay naku, back to that reality of being sick. which brings me to the reality that i am moving forward to being a thirtysomething this year. waaah hindi na talaga ko gen-x!!!!!! but that's okay. it's inevitable, 'ika nga ni agent smith.

hm, nawala yata ko dun. well anyway, basta, when you're sick, you come to appreciate the things you take for granted on a daily basis, like having no sinus attack eks and friggin' headaches! pero such is the nature of humans, i guess, to take for granted things that are there and regret their loss when they notice them gone. bad habit. i should change that this year.

which brings me to new year's resolutions. do you keep any? i stopped making resolutions a long time ago. instead, i thought of starting projects, like i think it was two years ago when i started that project of writing mini-reviews of films i've seen and books i've read in order to continue what i've been doing during my film college days (write mini-reviews of all films i see). but that project came to a halt for some strange reason (er, katamaran?) and now i've lost that data when my old hd crashed last year. fucker.

well anyway, i was thinking of a new writing project for this year. sinimulan ko na actually sa laptop but i'm thinking of continuing that offline, as in sa pages ng notebooks instead. minsan kasi kaka-bug down maghintay ng booting ekek ng computer. no matter how much i like this technology, i still appreciate the old format of writing with paper and pen. well, that's just me.


hahaha was just browsing through the news and read this funny article about britney spears' blitzkrieg wedding, at the same time poking fun at right wing assholes who keep on denying marriage rights for the lgbt community.

excerpts:

It's all so clear now. I finally understand what all those right wingers are talking about when they want to protect the sanctity of marriage and keep it just for heteros... Yup, marriage needs to be preserved for just man and a woman couplings. You know, people like Britney Spears and her childhood pal Jason Allen Alexander. Yessiree folks, Britney and Jason are the poster children for all that's worth preserving in the hetero lifestyle... The Little White Wedding Chapel on the Vegas strip was the sort of venue every breeder bride dreams of, a sort of Disneyland of nuptials. It is a classic location for tacky weddings, the kind conservatives want to keep all to themselves... Yes, the Spears-Alexander affair was the wedding of 2004... The whole thing was videotaped, and for good reason. The marriage was over before the snapshots came out of the 1 Hour photo shop. So, I'm left with one nagging question. Will the Spears-Alexander wedding tape be used in commercials by the right wing to convince middle America that marriage is only valid if it involves two heteros of opposing sexes?

read the full article here:
http://www.365gay.com/entertainment/news&gossip/010604Shownews.htm
Hunk Groom For An Hour
by Jed Lang
365Gay.com Entertainment

haha kakatawa. kasi naman lola britney, makikipag-lipchukan ka kay lola madonna for media mileage tapos eto naman papakasal ka at papa-annul in less than 24 hours. what will this girl think of doing next?

happy news: hiwalay na pala si ethan at uma. hay salamat natauhan din sa wakas ang lola uma. heheh. bad ko. pero teka, kelan ba sila naghiwalay? eh kahapon ko lang nalaman eh heheh. ah basta, oks na yun at natauhan siya, tulad ng natauhan si angelina jolie my love sa pakikisiping kay billy bob chaka. hay bakit dugyutin ang type ng mga girlash na to?

happier news: may film pala si charlize theron (na kamukha ni ashley judd na kamukha ng girl dun sa chaka travolta film BASIC) at si christina ricci (wednesday addams pa lang, idol na! with lines like 'be afraid. be very afraid' heheh) na lovers sila!!!!!! MONSTERS based on a true story. according to the review, maganda ang pagkaka-handle ng love story nila. yehei may bago na naman akong hahanapin sa greenhills, aside from SMALLVILLE season 2 (we just can't get enuf of pretty pretty clark heehee mukhang bading). was also thinking of looking for CSI MIAMI pero i watched an episode over the holidays and man, wala siyang libog. characters are very dry, as in tagtuyot, lola, walang juice, 'ika nga hay tingnan mo na lang dun sa leader nila eh, that guy sa nypd blue dati? chaka acting. biased ba o nasanay lang ako sa good characters and filmic/cinematic seamless technical-story weaving ng CSI original las vegas? kaka ko dahil csi keri na rin, buti na lang di ako nag-order nun sa dvd guy. chakah.

oo nga pala, i created a new blog din last month. wala lang, more formal than this one, features mostly my works. was thinking of creating a website for my works pero eh, well, eto na ang testing:
http://islandville.blog-city.com