the zeppelin of burning dreams

Life's a bitch when lightning strikes twice at the same spot.

My dad's in the hospital, although he's pretty much recovering now, so that's fast becoming good news. The bitch part is that something went wrong.

And as of this essay's writing, it has been an hour since my paternal grandmother died. She went peacefully enough, at the fruitful age of 95. No longer will we hear her genius in the piano, but at least her hardship's over.

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On the up side of things, something big's happening. Soon. Watch out for it.

These past few days have been excruciating. I've dealt with indecision, grief, sympathy. Too many singular sad emotions.

My lola's wake went ok, at the very least. It attracted a huge number of people, most of them people I did not even know. That was endearing; the children of one of my family's oldest and most trusted housekeepers were there, with the older man crying his eyes out. In his words, my grandmother was a hero. I'm inclined to agree. Lola was one of the most practical, simplistic people I've ever seen, which was strange since she had with her an impressively intelligent mind. Most people's minds go first when old age settles in, but in her case it was the last. Even when her heartbeat was so weak that we couldn't even get a pulse, her mind was in tip-top shape. She couldn't talk, no, but she could understand. And she was one of the kindest, too. She couldn't even say no to a fly. If there was something to give to people who needed, lola would. Without a second thought.

My dad couldn't see her mother off to the cemetery, since he himself wasn't in great shape; but he managed to go to the mass. His brads were there, and his children. Kuya Migs had a hard time not crying. He did, eventually I think. Ate Yeyey didn't either. She was probably happy being here with us during the ocassion, since she lives and works at a museum in Singapore. Ate Caring didn't have to cry in the open. That's what Kuya Boris is for. She's the luckiest of us all, I'd say. She's married. My mom's in Spain so my dad's really pretty much alone. Kuya and Ate Yey aren't married. In the wholistic sense, they truly are by themselves.

As for me? I couldn't even cry in the funeral. I didn't cry in the funeral, even though I could feel the tears welling up. But I did cry later on, when I was bringing Mao home. And it was there where I discovered something new about myself.

I couldn't stand being alone. Couldn't take the thought of it, couldn't stand the gravity of it. Can't deny the gravity of how the thought affects me. I now wonder how I've become so desensitized to this loneliness, embracing it for a quarter of my life as if it were my solidarity, the caryatid of my being. I look back on all those years I tried to promote my "loner" personality, developing an affection for inanimate beings.

I needed to weep. And I wept. Mao wept.

You scored as Drunk Cat. Put down the bottle, Cheech. Sign up for some AA classes and drink a glass of water. Bars are ok once in a while, but you shouldn't be sleeping at them. Drunk Cat 38% Nerd Cat 30% Derranged Cat 30% Love Machine Cat 22% Couch Potato Cat 13% Ninja Cat 5% Pissed at the World Cat 5% Which Absurd Cat are you? created with QuizFarm.com

'nuff said.

Here's an item. A gigantic percent of the population are writers, technical or otherwise. They get paid a stipend - I call it a stipend since it is nowhere near to being a real salary as it is to being an allowance - of less than twenty thousand, which is owed to the delusion that writers do not have much work to put up with in the first place.

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At Jollibee: Please keep an eye on your belongings.

at the side of the sign is a face of Jollibee, looking like he had just stolen something.