Boys Keep Swinging

For the longest time, I’ve always been a bit of a tomboy.  As a child I favored slingshots over Polly Pocket, Dinosaurs and Basketball over Princesses and Chinese garter.  I hung out with the boys, my hair a mass of tangled curls, dirt on my face, scrapes on my knees, boasting to my mother how I gave a boy a black eye for calling me a girl.

I did eventually have more girlfriends as the years passed, until I found myself working at The Picture Company, where its employees were 99.999% women.  This was the same year I learned how the art of girlie things, such as make-up and dresses.  Mostly because Kari took it upon herself to turn into some sort of makeover project.  She still rolls her eyes when I’m wearing my plaid pants though (hah!).

So now it’s really strange to find myself in a house made up of boys mostly.  For the past week it’s usually Micko and myself at the dining table, working on something for Lundag Kuneho.  Matthew sits next to us, playing Jagged Alliance which features the most atrocious voice acting in gamedom.  JA passes by and starts poking his head into the fridge and asks us how our day was.  When I watch the three of them talk to each other, I’m amazed at the amount of testosterone tinted by geek that pervades the household.  And yet, it feels like the most comfortable thing in the world.

So I’ve survived the first week of Project Independence.  I have to admit that for a day or two there, I suspected that I had walked into a huge financial trap of some kind that I wouldn’t be able to afford.  Thankfully things have started to settle, and the initial paranoid phase has faded into good vibes and trust in the future.  I still have to be incredibly careful about how I spend my money, but things have been fantastic so far.

Heaven loves ya
The clouds part for ya
Nothing stands in your way
When you're a boy

- "Boys Keep Swinging", David Bowie (Lodger)

Cooking Papa

Matthew has taken his role as homemaker very seriously.  Despite the fact that he works the night shift as a senior writer in Makati, he makes the time to buy groceries and regularly prepare meals for the Tan Family.  There’s breakfast every morning, and regular meals most of the time.

Matthew always insists on vegetables and fruit, and wheat bread over white bread.  Despite his health conscious ways and how seriously he takes his culinary responsibilities, he hasn’t had as much practice.  Which means that this happened this morning:

Pancakes that came out like…something white and fluffy had detonated the pancake from the inside.  But despite the few scorch marks and the decidedly questionable presentation, they tasted utterly fantastic.

When Matthew saw me taking pictures of the pancake, he knew I was going to blog about it.  He made me promise that I would defend his honor by pointing out that he had a beaten up pan to work with.  The kind of small, itsy bitsy pan that had seen better days, and had most of its teflon scratched away.  So despite his best effort and quite an amount of oil to coat the pan, the pancake fell apart into buttery nummy fluffy bits of clouds.

But even if Matthew’s ego was still suffering from the Breakfast Debacle, he more than made up for it with lunch! Behold! :

Matthew used a pack of delicious greens, and tossed them with cooked onions, tomatoes, and ham.  Then there was a lovely pre-packaged honey mustard dressing the sealed the sweet deal.  I loved the sweet onions and the way the ham played off the tomatoes.  We each had a bit of wine that Owee left for the Tan Family household, which made this Saturday lunch absolutely perfect.

So far,  the only contribution I’ve made to cooking for us is by playing Cooking Mama on my Nintendo DS.  Even in a virtual level, my cooking skills are abysmal.  I barely made acceptable boiled rice last night.  Though the miso soup turned out okay.  I’m hoping to conquer the Kimchi dish today!

Wherein poverty justifies theft.

No real post for now.

I only want to say: I finally found a spot in the house where I can steal internet from the neighbors.  It’s an incredibly weak signal, but it miraculously works from right next to my bed.  How ironic. I’ve been hunting for signal in different spots from the house, but I didn’t think there’d be one right next to my bedroom window!

Things have settled somewhat, that I can finally drag the camera out of the mess that is my life still half-unpacked.  I’ll take pictures of this house in progress tomorrow, and will hopefully be able to update the blog as well.  Here’s hoping that this nummy net connection will still be around then.

When you Rock ‘N Roll With Me

When you rock 'n' roll with me
No one else I'd rather be
Nobody here can do it for me
I'm in tears again
When you rock 'n' roll with me

- "When You Rock 'N' Roll with Me", David Bowie (Diamond Dogs)

So I’m at BoNa drinking a passion fruit flavored gourmet beer and feeling like it’s been ages since I’ve been here.  Even though it’s only been three days ago.  The past fewdays have felt like an age unto themselves, really.

So moving in has been all kinds of pain and stress.  I’m sure it will all make a wonderfully entertaining story in the future that will warrant a barrel of laughs.  But in the meantime, I’m once again looking for a fast forward switch that will bring me one month into the future, after all these initial lessons of adulthood will have faded to a dull ache.

The pinnacle of which has got to be me in the shower, with conditioner in my hair (which I could afford because Matthew’s mom donated some), soap up my ass and wondering what happened to the water pressure.  Only to find out 5 seconds later that there was NO MORE WATER. Even though we had spent hours and an immense amount of cellphone load calling up four different water delivery services that were all varying degrees of incompetent before we FINALLY HAD WATER yesterday only to have an entire tank run out THIS MORNING.  It was a good thing the voice of my paranoid mother in my head instructed me to save a small amount of water the night before while washing dishes, which meant Matthew could grab me some and it was enough for me to get a semi-decent rinse.

It turns out that some mechanism in my bathroom is busted (another one of the many things the landlady had failed to mention when we signed the contract), which had effectively drained all of the water out of the tank, and the money we spent on the damn water with it.

I feel absolutely powerless in the whole situation.  I realize that I usually have at least two back up plans for most things, because I do know that things have a natural tendency to go awry.  But in the face of this, my severe lack of experience is making it perfectly clear that there can be no such thing as a back up plan.  Just one painful lesson after another.  And I know this is just the tip of the iceberg.

I knew it would be difficult of course.  I knew seeking independence wouldn’t be a bed of roses, and would be equally harsh on the ego as well as the wallet.  But knowing such things doesn’t make it any better.

What does make it better is going to sleep next to Matthew and waking up next to him.  And knowing that this isn’t a rare thing, but something that will joyfully and almost effortlessly repeat itself every morning.  Breathing in Matthew in the cool morning air felt absolutely perfect.

And then he turns to me and murmurs, “Imagine, this is what forever is going to be like now.”

And for a girl that is made up of so many words, either leaping off inappropriately from the tongue or echoing in the monologue of my mind…I had nothing to say.  Absolutely no words formed.  It was just beyond that, wasn’t it?

The only thing I could do was smile and kiss him.

It makes everything worth it somehow, in some ridiculously illogical and cheesy way, it does.

Cranky Matthew, Silly me.  Somehow, it works.

And in the future, knowing that I am capable of standing on my own two feet, carving my own path, learning from my own mistakes, will make this whole thing absolutely necessary.  Having Matthew with me just helps me touch on that more easily, but I know this is a rite of passage that is ultimately up to me.

I can’t help but share a classic photo of what entails Matthew and me most of the time:

The Wrong Words

And the wrong words make you listen
In this criminal world
Remember it's true, loyalty is valuable
But our lives are valuable too
-  "Fantastic Voyage", David Bowie (Lodger)

Still in the middle of packing, the books alone took up 8 regular sized plastic bags.  It’s incredibly bizarre.  I already left behind a good deal, but there are just certain titles I couldn’t part with.  I refuse to listen to anyone who tells me to “stick to the essentials”, because these people obviously don’t read.  How are books NOT essential?  What are these people talking about?

I am willing to sleep on a futon (instead of a mattress with a bed frame).  I am willing to take a death trap tricycle rather than keep the car.  I am more than fine living without a television and cable tv subscription.  I can forgo the desktop computer and its electricity bill high jacking ways because I’ll be bringing along the laptop.  I can use a dipper and pail instead of a shower to save on water.  I am willing to never microwave another thing ever again because I don’t want to pay for the overpriced convenience.

But I will NOT, under ANY circumstances, leave behind Terry Pratchett, Haruki Murakami, Neil Gaiman, Sherlock Holmes, and countless other books.  I can leave behind the cheesy Star Wars novels, and even the David Eddings trilogies, but I couldn’t leave behind the guilty pleasure that is Mercedes Lackey’s Oathbound series.  Though I did leave behind the Media Theory books  because I’m bringing Butler’s Gender Trouble anyway.  I’m also still freaking out because I can’t find my copy of Barthes’ Camera Lucida.  If anyone has that, please return it to me!

I can be ridiculously practical in most things.  It’s the earth sign in me, naturally ready to shrug off and leave the unessential.  BUT GODDAMMIT, THESE ARE BOOKS PEOPLE.  This collection of literature is what separates me from the Twilight-worshipping MTV-dependent slack jawed masses who wouldn’t know art and beauty and taste if it hit them in the face.

Okay, maybe Mercedes Lackey isn’t really the epitome of literature, but I’ll beat up anyone who tries to separate me from Crime and Punishment and The Elephant Vanishes.

At any rate, during this frenzied and all together not terribly productive packing period (I feel that I am unearthing more than I am packing at this point – I haven’t even BEGUN on the CLOTHES), I decided to use the time wisely by uploading the first part of the Tan Family Chronicles.  This would have been up sooner, but I really didn’t want to compromise on video quality, and this took about 4 hours to upload and everything.

Unfortunately, Vimeo and WordPress still don’t get along.  Click on the image to get to the real video.  Please excuse the mess of my introduction in the first bit, I had no coffee.  So even at 2pm, I am incapable of stringing a complete sentence together without caffeine.  Fantastic.

The Tan Family Chronicles: Part One from Jamila R. Nedjadi on Vimeo.

Insanity laughs under pressure we’re cracking

Taken years ago at Sentosa, Singapore.
I very much feel like a cuttlefish today.

I’m absolutely overwhelmed, and floating along stubbornly and inexplicably over the surface of things.  I’ve mentioned that the last few months have a common theme: waiting for things to sink in.  Today is no exception to that.  I’m moving out tomorrow.  I’m leaving behind a comfort zone, a relatively pampered lifestyle -

(such as: the fact that I have very little money is balanced by how I can live with my family, not pay for electricity or rent, and drive a car.  I still had to pay for gas, toiletries, extra things of course, but everything was relatively easy I’ll give you that)

- and moving out into very exciting and decidedly scary independence.  I’m moving out of this house tomorrow, and I still have not packed.

Yes, you read that right.  I have not yet packed. A. Single. Thing.

I need to put my entire life (well, maybe only the very essential bits of it) into plastic bags right now, but the books alone are so intimidating and so VERY MANY that I really just want to call up Micko, and run away to BoNa and have coffee and so many damn fucking cigarettes. Even though I really don’t have the time, and cannot afford the coffee and cigarettes.  I’m staring at my forlorn empty pack, and wondering where the hell have all the cigarettes gone, because I have not smoked one all day.  So now I’m drinking an insane amount of water to somehow work with the oral fixation to help ease the vague stress.  And I’m watching children under the age of 12 dance professional ballroom for some strange British contest show instead of shoving my things into plastic bags, and I really want those fucking cigarettes.

Plastic bags?  Why did I mention plastic bags?  Shouldn’t I be putting this shit into boxes?

I can’t bring in boxes into this house because my deranged mother (who I love dearly most of the time), will not allow “dirty boxes” into her “clean house”.  She’s only allowing me to throw my life into ridiculous plastic bags that she bought, and she is relatively sure they are clean and therefore cannot possibly muck up her gorgeous home.  So when people ask me why I have to move out despite the economical crunch of it all, my mother and her plastic bags are a beautiful example.

I’m twenty six years old.  I should be making up my own insanity and inflicting it on myself and others, rather than being victim to my mother’s crazed logic.

Forgive me if there are no photos and no logic behind this post.  I left my camera at the back of JA’s car during another crazed home shopping trip yesterday, and therefore cannot upload photographs.  I also left my logic somewhere, because I have been trying to keep my head on while people around me have not responded so well to the stress of things. Now my hinges are coming loose in the sight of all this PACKING that MUST be DONE.

On that scrambled note that hopefully made sense at some point, I will go now.

Oh, last bit of a warning: we’re not having internet in the new house for the first week or so, as I am not sure when we can get things installed and paid for.  Until then, I will visit BoNa when the wallet permits to blog when I can, which will be irregular at best.  We will go back to our original programming once the dust settles on my life.

Wish me the best of luck you guys.  I’m going to need it.

I know it’s going to be worth it.  I just need a little more strength to see this through.  And a whole lot of Bowie.  I’m going to put on the Dublin 2003 Reality Concert Tour on the HIGHEST VOLUME POSSIBLE, and rock out to REBEL REBEL and HALLO SPACE BOY and UNDER PRESSURE while I throw my life into these stupid plastic bags.

See you all on the other side.

Bah bah bah bah bah bah
Bah bah bah bah bah bah

Thats o-kay!
Its the terror of knowing
What this world is about
Watching some good friends
Screaming let me out
Pray tomorrow takes me higher
Pressure on people

- Gail Ann Dorsey and David Bowie, "Under Pressure"
(Reality 2003 Concert, Dublin)

See them as they really are

I’m totally re-addicted to Picasa now, as their latest version has a very awesome updated college system.  Like I say, it’s no Photoshop, but it’s a good alternative when you want something quick and easy that still looks good.  And it’s FREE.  You can’t go wrong with that.

The Pammu sniffing away and giggling at the aromatic wonder that is Bona Coffee’s Mocha Orange Sunset.  Pammu would break out into helpless giggles as the orange zest nestled in the whipped cream assaulted her senses.  “I WANT TO BURY MY NOSE IN IT!”

I really love shooting Pammu because light always glows on her beautiful skin tone.  Utterly gorgeous.  I can’t wait for our next shoot.

(My personal favorite concoctions are the Autumn Harvest, Cinnamon Bun Latte, and Ginger Graham Latte.  But everything is GREAT at BoNa!)

This is Micko.  I was trying to take a picture of the truck that had hastily painted its license plate number along the side of it, when he kept on inserting his head into the photo to get his picture taken.  I grabbed him and told him to stay in the frame if he was going to be so makulit (roughly translates to: annoying).  Hence why he takes on the child like face of innocence.  Which so does not work.  (Our friendship has devolved into a strange brother-sister one which people continually point out.  Just what I needed, another makulit little brother.)

Like to take a cement fix
Be a standing cinema
Dress my friends up just for show
See them as they really are
Put a peephole in my brain
Two New Pence to have a go
I'd like to be a gallery
Put you all inside my show

- "Andy Warhol", David Bowie (Hunky Dory)

Who said time was on my side?

Self Portrait in Drunk, 09/22/2008

I don’t have any words for it right now.  Not the right ones.

Just a vague sadness of the reality of things.  The reality of time.  The permanence of change.  Perhaps it’s because I’ve been seeing the world as photographs, as frozen moments, of memories in two dimensions.  I forget the nature of things, and I was suddenly reminded of the fact last Monday night.

The childish part of me wishes that it would never have to happen, so I would never have to miss any of it.  Would a life of disconnection and apathy be easier to bear?  It would mean that I wouldn’t have to pay the price for the happiness, the warmth, the sense of belonging, the strange mirror friendship is made up of.  Would I rather not have the laughter, if it meant that I wouldn’t have to face again the regret, the belated epiphanies, the slow and silent deaths of relationships that in ways are both merciful and merciless, fade from memory?

It only takes a photograph you’ve forgot was ever taken.  It only takes a faint tugging of the mind, a Déjà vu made up of memories half transparent.  You let go of things but the remains of their presence linger indefinitely in the lines of your palms.

Most of the time I find myself in a moment, laughing helplessly and opening myself up completely to the now.  But there’s a small part of me lately, a small voice that wonders if this moment will just become another memory tinged with regret, with hapless nostalgia, with the unforgiving sharpness of 20/20 hindsight.  An even smaller voice wonders if this won’t even be remembered.  If what mattered so much to me at one point won’t leave so much as a trace on my conscious mind.

I don’t want to be the child that will want everything or nothing at all.  I understand that this life is made up of compromises, and it’s the acceptance of those compromises that makes things as beautiful and precious as they are.

But I don’t want to have to keep giving up the things that matter to me.

Oh, my
Naked eyes
I should have kept you
I should have tried
I should have been a wiser kind of guy
I miss you

You alone across the floor
You and me and nothing more
You're the great mistake I never made
I never lied to you, I hated when you lied
But I'll survive your naked eyes
I'll survive
- "Survive", David Bowie (hours...)

Retrograde: 11.03.08

This was was typed up last November.  I’m not sure why I never got around to posting it, but here it is, two whole months late but just as true today.

And just for the record, I did listen to Kari’s advice.

>>>

November 3, 2008

On Kari’s last day in Manila, I was sitting on her bed and watching her struggle with her luggage.  Next to me on the bed was a random pile of things Kari had thrown my way that wouldn’t make the trip with her: InStyle Magazines (great lighting and fashion portraiture!), instant juice and ice tea packs, a bracelet, and other somesuch things.

She took a look at the closet and said, “Do you want the shoes?”

I gasped in shock when Kari gave me her killer red sneakers with the white stripes and the red flats she loved to death (I remember how much she pouted and cranked when Paul’s screen door scratched them).  There was one pair, a strappy sexy pair of bronze and brown.  Stilettos.  Let it be known that in the 25 years of my life, I’ve never owned a pair of sexy strappy stiletto heels.

“If they fit, you can have them.  You’ll just have to crazy glue the lining.  I used to wear them every single day, even to work…”

I laughed and slipped them on, and heard Kari cursing under her breath, “DON’T FIT DON’T FIT DON’T FIT!”.  Because yes, that’s how openly two-faced and psychotic Kari can be.  But they did fit, and I did bring them home.

I’ve been wearing the other pairs religiously (red being one of my favorite colors), and sometimes when I look down at my feet, a part of me thinks “I wonder what Kari would say if she were walking with me right now.”  In reality, she’d most likely say, “Let’s stop walking,” because she was such a lazy bum that way.

I finally broke out the super glue and took the shoes out of the closet.  I put on the brown dress, the one that’s innocent in every single way (with a hem that brushes past the knee), except for the fact that the neckline stops exactly a millimeter away from where the middle of my bra begins.  That’s a lot of cleavage.  I put on the suede coat and the lion heart necklace my brother gave me, and it was time to put on the stilettos.

My mother isn’t much of a conversationalist, and I cannot remember the last time she talked about any one topic in as much as she talked about the stilettos.  She refused to change the subject for a good 15 minutes.

“HOW ARE YOU GOING TO WALK IN THOSE THINGS?” she barked, eying the shoes suspiciously.

“YOU’RE GOING TO BECOME TALLER THAN YOUR BOYFRIEND WHEN YOU PUT THOSE THINGS ON.  DO YOU THINK NICOLE KIDMAN WORE HEELS WHEN SHE WAS WITH TOM CRUISE?” she continued to scream, because she grew up in Cavite and everyone in Cavite is born with a megaphone in their lungs.

“YOU CAN’T DRIVE WITH THOSE SHOES ON.  HOW ARE YOU GOING DOWN THE SLOPE TO THE CAR WITH THOSE HEELS?  IF I HEAR A BAM! I’LL KNOW IT’S YOU!”

The shoes got me into a wealth of trouble (the good kind and the bad kind) that Friday, and I woke up in the morning with an emotional hangover the next day.  Even though Kari and I have an ocean separating us, that didn’t stop her from giving me hours of tough love and honest advice (that felt like threats) over instant messages.

“And I was wearing yours shoes that night!” I suddenly told her.

“AYAN NAMAN PALA EH!” she screamed back at me.

Apparently there’s a history that goes with the shoes.  I don’t even want to begin what terrible things Kari inflicted on the male race when she had them on.

But it’s good to have tough love, when you find yourself in a place where logic fails and consequences seem hazy.  I’ve been dishing a lot of tough love out myself lately, and it feels just about right that I should have such a helping myself.  It’s good to know I have friends who are willing to give me the verbal punch to the gut when I need it, every so often.  And Kari is the kind of girl who will always be ready to give you that damn verbal punch.  She’s done it so well, my conscience sounds like her now.  Which isn’t pretty.  But when she’s right, she’s right.

I really do hope you make it in New York Kari.  You absolutely cannot think about Manila until you’ve exhausted everything else.  Manila will always be here for you.  I’ll always be here for you.  But make New York count while you can.

But if you do come back, I’ll be at the airport, crying like an idiot.  I’ll be wearing a pair of your shoes, and smiling through the tears.  I’ll force you to smoke a cigarette and drive your ass to Gourmet’s where we’ll gorge on cheap food and come out smelling like meat.  We’ll swear like sailors and laugh like clowns and smoke like dragons and drink like fish.  It’ll be great.

But until then, I’m ready to give you completely to New York.  Just know you’ll always have a friend here in Manila.

Guess who has a new blog?

Well, it’s not a BLOG blog.  Yes, that’s how I’m justifying it.

I started a 365 Photo project last year, but then I started commuting to Makati for my job at TPC Rockwell, so I couldn’t bring the camera around with me on a regular basis.  Which meant that project slowly died.

I’m determined to make it work this time though.  I’m really not completely satisfied with my photography.  The practice will do me good.  I can’t promise that everyday will reveal a spectacular photograph, but I will try my best, and will always be honest.

You can find zee 365 Photoblog Project by saying HALLO, SPACE GIRL!

Do you have a photoblog I should know about?  Let me know

Day 4 of 365, "Red Money"

(and yes, like this blog, I use David Bowie lyrics as titles a whole damn lot as well.  IN FACT, Hallo Spaceboy is an amazing Bowie song.  HAH!)