And I could see our days were becoming nights/I could feel your heartbeat across the grass

And so it has been a year. Tanti auguri. On the eve of your birthday last year you made me bruschetta and some lovely pasta and we shared a bottle of red wine. Our dessert came straight out of a box but I couldn't care less. I miss you, nearly everything about you - your cockiness, our endless conversations about wine and Italian food, the smug look on your face, how you always mumble and I hardly understand what you say. And the way you look at me - no one has ever made me feel so adored. I have long stopped keeping tabs on you, but you still manage to creep into my thoughts every once in a while. You were my favourite out of all the rest.

It's Fete dela Musique again. I recall some three or four years ago I left Fete happy as a lark.

As J.M. Barrie said, God gave us memories so that we might have roses in December.

Porque ya sabes que me encantan esas cosas/que no importa si es muy tonto/soy así

I am not a happy camper. My hormones are all over the place. I feel like a blimp, or as Juno would put it - I am a planet. I am at my fugliest too. Right now I am concurrently The Most Inadequate Person In The World as well.

Consuming a horrifying amount of chocolate did not even help at all. I now eat thrice the amount of food I used to have when I was sick, but I think it only exacerbates the situation further. But how can I help it if I am always starving and having terribly bad cravings for sweets?

Being hormonal along with the depression bit of CFS do not a good combination make. Whilst listening to music does help me deal with things a bit better, then again it can only do so much. Now even imagined (or real - My sense of reality is quite skewed at the moment) transgressions commited by people I once held dear make me go to pieces. This past week has truly been a maelstrom of sadness, but I told myself to only be crestfallen about it for a couple of days at most. Being emo for extended periods of time gets old really quick anyways. Molly Ringwald could not have said it better in Pretty in Pink - I just want them to know that they didn't break me.

Last night I went out to have a couple of drinks by myself and it felt glorious. After all, there are things that you will only be able to sort out when can hear yourself think. Afterwards I hung out with a handful of friends who were prepared to accept the me that I am right now - a very hormonal girl with issues who eats like there is no tomorrow. And I can only show that flawed and human side of myself to very few people in this world.

I just need some time to regroup and I will be back to regular programming shortly.

Mad Girl's Love Song

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

- Sylvia Plath

My top five songs of the week

I have repeatedly listened to these awesome songs in the past few days:

1. Help I'm Alive by Metric
2. All the Wine by The National
3. Requiem for O.M.M.2 by Of Montreal
4. I Still Remember by Bloc Party
5. Heart by Stars

So much good music, so little time.

When there is nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire

1. He would always read me his poems over the phone, very late at night. I remember having to go out to our terrace just to hear him, as reception still wasn't that good back in the day. Once he read me something too beautiful that I found myself closing my eyes, almost inhaling the words.

2. We would always chat with each other online for hours, but offline our relationship was awkward. He would laugh at everything, and all his sentences were punctuated with chuckles. I resolved one day to stop talking to him altogether because I eventually got sick of his diverting all conversations to the topic of this girl he was in love with. I told him that was the last time he'd ever hear from me, and he hurriedly typed Ti voglio bene before I logged off.

3. We were walking hand in hand in a very dark mountain resort. It was nearly winter and it was a very chilly night. He pulled me close to him and kissed me, then he started shivering. He was convulsing with cold and asked if we could come inside my room so he could turn on the heater. He turned to me and asked, Is this the effect you have on men?

4. He would lend me books and DVDs of arthouse films. He lent me his Griffin and Sabine series, and I innocently mentioned to him that I absolutely loved one of the postcards. I borrowed this movie off him one day, and when I opened the case to pop the DVD into the player I notice the postcard was tucked inside.

5. I was still in pajamas, hair rumpled, face unwashed. He was making me a lovely breakfast of pancakes and bacon and I was watching him cook in the kitchen. He stares at me for a good few seconds and I hear him mutter I'm crazy about you under his breath.

6. He and I challenged each other to a drinking contest, and we finished a bottle of vodka in less than an hour. We both passed out on his bed, and then at some stage ended up kissing under the covers. It was surreal, and all very hazy. That night wrecked our friendship and things never reverted to what they used to be before.

7. He and I were at our usual meeting place. I was getting worried because I had to get home soon. Out of nowhere, a massive fireworks display went off. I was in complete awe, captivated like a child. I would squeeze his hand everytime the fireworks would form pretty images in the sky. It turns out the pyrotechnics were part of the US Embassy's 4th of July celebration.

8. I was home alone again as my flatmate had been sleeping over at her boyfriend's for nearly a week. I was aching for company. It was past midnight and I asked him to pop by, and he took a cab just to get to my flat. He asked if I wanted to take a walk, and we went around my quiet neighbourhood for an hour or so while having a very good conversation.

9. We were on holidays and having breakfast with other friends. I had absolutely no appetite that day, and he was convincing me to even just take a few bites of my food. I don't know how it happened, but we just began to hold hands under the table.

Life, work, friendships

Yesterday I was finally let go from work. My Team Lead (and good friend) and I reached a mutual agreement to just end my consulting engagement immediately and not stick to the prescribed 30-day notice stipulated in my contract anymore. She had a word with the Manila Office Director and thank goodness he was fine with it.

I profusely thank my Team Lead for arranging for this to happen. I was only staying on because of her, really. Well, I guess it was difficult not to turn a blind eye to the fact that my productivity was heavily affected by my condition, and she had a good chat with me about it. In the end I admitted that even the simplest project reports took me ages to write. While working, I always get distracted like anything, and it has become a chore for me to concentrate and compose my thoughts. I hardly am able to make sense of the stuff I read, and I find that when chatting or texting with friends and family there are significant details that I fail to pick up. In short, I am not as sharp as I used to be. This gets me all sad of course, as my livelihood is wholly dependent on my mental faculties. However, I resolve to approach this proactively and do something about it - I promised myself that by next week I should already be reading a full-length novel and the daily paper...small baby steps until I get back to my old self.

If there was something good that came out of my very brief stint with that company, it would have to be, hands down, the awesome people that I met and managed to be friends with. It amazes me how I successfully became friends with a good number of people in a span of only two months. Throughout that period I have hung out with an insanely funny, warm and intelligent lot. I was also pleasantly surprised to have met people who have discriminating taste in music, books and movies - it has been my life mission to find people who like the same things, and so this makes me very euphoric. On my last night I had drinks with these mates at work and it was wild fun. Alcohol truly does bring people together. Even in my drunken stupor I made it a point to talk to everyone and give them hugs. I sorely miss those guys.

I'm really a trooper when it comes to friendship, and just thinking about friends leaves me feeling all warm and fuzzy. This dark phase in my life has truly caught me offguard, but the overwhelming support of family and friends has helped me get by. Everyone was exceedingly supportive of my decision to quit my job, especially the parental units. Oh if I had a dollar for everytime someone wished me to get well soon, I would be made for life.

Opening a can of worms

Lesson learnt: do not wiki the illness you are afflicted with unless you are prepared to accept what it would tell you. When I got to the bit that said "six months", I began to sob uncontrollably that my tears blurred my vision and I couldn't go on reading. When I finally got a hold of myself, I decided to SMS my good friend who is a medical doctor to ask him to confirm the veracity of this wiki article.

I managed to finish reading the whole wiki entry at some point, but with each paragraph I was being crushed more and more. It was too spot on that it actually got scary. Those are all of MY symptoms, for crying out loud.

Then my phone started to ring and it was him, my MD friend that I had consulted earlier. Apparently he had already flipped through his textbook to revisit that very short bit on Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. He proceeded to interrogate me about my symptoms and asked me to give him my abridged medical history, in typical doctor fashion. We had a very good talk and he was able to knock some sense into this very stupid head. He balanced his dual role of being a physician and my good friend throughout the conversation, and I love him to pieces for it - even if it meant having to berate me for blindly believing what fricken Wikipedia had to say about my sickness. Well, in such uncontrollable surges of emotion one is likely to forget that Wikipedia is not exactly the most reliable fount of knowledge around.

At this point in time, I just really want to have my life back. I'm very, very tired as it is.