Be who you Are.

Before you tell your life what truths and values you have decided to live up to, let your life tell you what truths you embody, what values you represent.

Parker Palmer

Random thought.

I was browsing through a section entitled Used Books.

And I remember thinking suddenly:

Funny. Used books. Used books. How does one use up books? By reading them the first time? Used books.

What if it's they who are using us?

(shiver)

Scary thought.

When you belong to the Earth, stand up for it.

If you were a film...what would you be?

At lunch yesterday, I was with Aisha and Nina. They were talking about something which didn't interest me and out of the blue I murmured into my pasta:

"I feel like a noir film."

Aisha looks at me from over her glass and says, "How does a noir film feel like?"

"Bleak. Your outlook is the color of a bruise - everything's hopeless. Like you're trying to walk underwater, it's slow and impervious to you."

"What is?" Nina asks.

"Life."

I looked at Nina and managed a slow grin, perhaps to change the subject. "If you were a film you'd be a war flick." Just to rile her up.

"Thanks."

As Aisha watched us, I turned and jutted my chin out in her direction: "I know what you'd be, Aish. You'd be a documentary - on the Discovery Channel!" Nina and I finish together, grinning.

"That's perfect!" Nina agrees with me.

"What about you?" Aish asks me, exchanging a quizzical look with Ninz.

"Easy. I'd be one of those biographies. You know, like my own E! True Hollywood story. Something flakey and conceited like that! Only I would be the one interviewing myself." I mimic how an episode would go.

We look around us and laugh.

Then Aish suddenly stops chuckling and turns to me. "You know what. I know what you'd be."

Ninz and I look at her.

"You, Sasha, would be a series of short films."

"Hm? Short. Like a cartoon?"

"No, a series of short films. You're different from moment to moment. You have to get that first before you can guess what the whole flick's about."

"Sasha, Je T'aime, anyone?" I said after a moment, because I wait for Nina and Aisha to stop nodding to each other, laughing and exclaiming how A just gave the perfect description.

.....

What can I say? Bipolar anyone?

I live in moments.

And don't the world know it.

(well.. and don't I love it.)

Cartoons' still got it.

"Let go of what kills you. .

and hold on to what keeps you breathing."

- Spongebob

Llamame Azul.

To hide a passion totally (or even to hide, more simply, its excess) is inconceivable: not because the human subject is too weak. But because passion is, in essence, made to be seen: I want you to know that I am hiding something from you, that is the active paradox I must resolve: at one and the same time it must be known and not known: I want you to know that I don't want to show my feelings: that is the message I address to the other.

- Unknown

In case you didn't know.

I suppose people should learn from this.

If you have to hear Madea say it out loud first in order to realize its truth then you have to recite this to yourself every morning right after you dream and before you wake up so that this message becomes a rule engraved in the armour of your chest.

It's an innate knowledge that you're already born with.

But some people refuse to listen.

So I hope that this reminds you why you're here.

It makes Life so much easier.

Everybody has a Theory.

People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that’s what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that’s holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you’ll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then they leave. And thank God for it.

- from Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

He talks about you like you put the stars in the Sky.

Some loves are precious.

Because some things are yet sacred.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBzoQnwSb9Y&feature=related

La Boheme - The Philippine Operatic Company Staging.

So I watched La Boheme at the CCP.

There were only one or two standout performances and these belonged to the actors who played Rodolfo and Musetta.

I had taken Andrea to watch it, and for a nine year old she seemed to enjoy it fairly enough.

Catch me in a passive mood and I'd say it was a mediocre production.

Catch me in an expressive one then I'd have to tell you that watching this particular staging of the classic, extravagantly artistic opera made me want to run to the nearest Mercury Drugstore and buy a ton of Omega ointment and take aim at the stage.

The cast had truly wonderful voices that fit the bill - we talk of high Mi Mi Mi and deep resounding La La La voices here, of course... the actors' performances are an entirely different thing.

The man who played Marcello singlehandedly gave me the most gut-wrenching case of the sweats I'd ever had watching a staged performance. He was just so awkward that it was painful just watching him. His voice, deep and vibrant, did not match the amateurish awkwardness of his acting ability - he looked as if he did not know where to put his hands the entire time he was on stage. (Let me take a second here and paint a picture inside your head: in the first act, you are the only one freezing your ass off in an onstage cast of 4 men and you're the only one keeping near the barrel where you've got a bonfire burning and you keep rubbing your hands together in a way more reminiscent of a prep-schooler smearing paint all over his hands than someone who's simplest wish is to keep himself relatively warm). And lord, whenever he was was doing his solo lines, belting them out exquisitely (see I'm being fair) his hand would always find a way to bury itself between the top of his belly and the undershadow of his chest - the corniest boyband pose if there ever was one.

The cast had featured a large cast of children - and by this I mean, people who are of the as currently horizontally challenged and age (in)appropriate group - that, say, below the 15 year old mark.

The children had wonderful voices that made one's belief in their future success solidify in their stomachs. But putting so many of these innocent lambs out on stage was like running those wooden ducks on the shooting booth - no matter how cute and talented they were, their presence made the majority of audience members want to shoot them with a pellet shotgun. Why? Oh let's see... because it's a known fact that children and pets are the most difficult to feature onstage. Again. Why?

Because no matter how organized and strategically placed you teach or direct them to be before the curtain rises, the after part always is an entirely different matter. Their performance was so-so at most, relieving and fresh the first 10 seconds they arrived on stage, and then again so awkward to watch while the whole thing was going on because not only did they look like a group of ants, complete with plastic joy written all over their faces, suddenly running amok - they also moved in one large group, all 20+ so of them - at one point they were a massive wave moving from one end of the stage to another and when they closed in around Musetta's former paramore (ie The Old Guy who Gave a Supremely Amazing Performance) their shocked and amused "laughter" looked so staged and...sa Pinoy, sobrang plastik that you wanted to cringe and slide down your seat to hide until they went away so you could breathe normally again.

Mimi on the other hand, had such a delicately stirring voice that you could not help feeling her pain - but her stage presence made you sort of glad that she was lamenting being sick so that she could hurry up and die already.

And that, friends, brings me to the conclusion.

The conclusion of La Boheme where the cast surround Mimi on her deathbed is supposed to be one of the most heartwrenching scenes you will ever see on the theater stage.

Suffice to say that when you watched the scene during this staging - you wanted to melt and giggle with relief at the knowledge that you finally get to leave the theater and this bunch of amateur behind.

Now, I say amateur because there really is only one person to blame - the "acclaimed" director... who I didn't bother to waste my time on trying to find out his name.

For fear I'd ask a hitman to track him down and ask him to give me back the money I spent on the tickets.

Bottom line:

• La Boheme is the number one and most loved opera in the world.
• The entire cast in this production has large potential.
• Approximately four people in the cast has absolute out-of-the-ballpark operatic voice and acting abilites and fierce stage presence (one of them is the boy who sang a little solo and who therefore outshined the rest of the younger-aged cast)
• BLAME THE DIRECTOR for concoting this modernized, half-assed, unthought out, mechanical, awkward and just BAD staging of this dynamic and timeless opera.

Our thoughts to Maestro Giacomo Puccini who must be turning in his grave.

Time's unexpected Expose.

When you grow up, pretenses and bad decisions tend to fall upon your wake like a shadow.

The thing that surprises you most is an unexpected realization which hits at the most alarmingly common time of day.

The realization:

The ripples that form from those pretenses and decisions have managed to defy the laws of science and spread their rings inwards instead of out.

Until those circles finally close in on you, and you feel like a bad joke the universe is chuckling about.

At 4 PM in the afternoon: You smile at the barista as you order your caramel frappe. You take that long breath before you dive into the blue pool located at the center of your condominium complex...(who knows, a million eyes hiding behind windows may be watching you. blue, brown, yellow, green, black, violet. but you don't care. you don't care. all you see is the welcome gaze of the pool smiling back at you). You give a sarcastic quip that makes your friends laugh or shriek or roll their eyes. You take out your handpainted Audrey Hepburn notebook and tap the fresh white pages with the edge of your ink pen.

And before the sun passes over your eyes, the explosive flash in your mind is gone. The billions of equations fall away, each pitchfork and crossroad you had ever crossed ceases its grip on you and you breathe in air.

In the nanoseconds which pass in aftermath, you watch as the barista hands over a smile, meant to be charming, as he hands you your frappucino.

The twinkle of watchful attraction glimmers in his eye.

You look down into the cinnamon powder which an unknown stranger sprinkled across the foam in your cool drink like a starry constellation.

And you decide that you have never felt such a brief moment of isolation as you walk away from the counter, carrying a drink with your name splashed across its side, and into the arms of the Entrance door.