Remebering the First Time

Dear O,

Though you do not eat spicy food—maybe that’s your Scandinavian taste coming to play—I will always remember you with every taste of jalapeno flavored chips.

I don’t even remember which brand of chips I was feasting on when you kept on bringing back the party to our room. But since I heart Cheetos Jalapeno like I’ve never hearted any junk food before, associations shall be made between my favorites.

I wonder if I will ever see you again. Or if you will ever reach your dreams. But images are slowly returning. I am slowly remembering. And when I finally saw how that kiss occurred, you bet my knees turned into jello.

Now that I remember, you bet they become jello every time.

Love,

L

Ugly Distractions

(photo from here)

So here we are again. Feeling crappy on a crappy Tuesday. There is simply too much to be done. I’m beginning to think that the universe is giving me that much workload (so much!) to keep me from thinking all these thoughts, and worrying unnecessarily.

And yes, work can be successful in doing that. It has been successful is distracting me. Except its success is momentarily. Then I go back to thinking and that makes it sad. The ugly part is that thinking’s success rate making me sad is almost a hundred percent.

I should stop indulging myself in this unnecessary worries. I know I can’t afford it. Besides, he doesn’t deserve it.

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Do I make it sound as though there was something to speak of, of that non-relationship? Because there you go: It’s a non-relationship. iI’m not even sure if there was even a shadow of a hint of friendship.

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Could this be singles’ remose that comes up along valentines day? I never had this. And I’ve always been single on Valentines day! Ugh.

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No. I think it’s every girl’s guilty pleasure.

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UGLS.

Cut here Accessory

Am not a jewelry kind of girl—clearly this is not jewelry but accessories, most jewelry folks will say— but this is right up my alley. I like!

(photos from artlebedev)

Reading—Read

Last night, after three months of reading, I finally finished 2666, Roberto Bolano’s masterpiece, a book that has won a few awards in 2008. I don’t really know what to say about the book—I’m not about to critique or review it, hell no—but I feel compelled to write about it. To note that I enjoyed it and if it weren’t 893 pages long, I’d read it again as soon as I finished it.

But it’s 893 pages long, and my book backlog is long, and I have been itching to go book shopping again. And it’s not particularly handy to bring along with me. So.

2666 is hypnotizing. There are many creases tucked in between stories: dialogues between characters, their memories and their dreams, and even conversations between the reader and the narrator. I liked how the narrator talks with the reader, at times admitting that he also doesn’t know what’s going on in his characters’ minds.

It is Bolano’s command of the language— how beautifully he writes— that makes the book seem like a ride, like a trip. Sometimes he writes like a journalist, detailed, precise, succinct, as in the part about the mruders. Other times he writes like a poet, his words caught in a watery film like dew.

I really don’t know if I was 420-ing that time but there was a part there when he rambled on about the leather jacket one of the characters, Hans Reiter, was wearing so caught up was he with the detail, and the supposed flashback it gave the person Hans was talking to when he was wearing the jacket, and I dunno. It seemed like the author was 420-ing. Like he was tripping on the jacket!

I read the book a few times stoned and yes, I enjoyed those few times quite frankly. Not that the book seemed better when under the influence, but there were passages that seemed more real, as though I was there, as though I was the one dreaming it, during those times that I read it stoned. ehehe

Previously, I mentioned my favorite part of the book, right at the onset of it, about how a girl gave the boy she likes a nickname. Too precious. Allow me to put that again, only because it makes me smile every time I read that exerpt:

When I was little, there was a boy I liked. I don’t know why I liked him, but I did. I was eight and so was he. He was called James Crawford…The first time I talked to him—this I remembered just a little while ago—I called him Jimmy instead of James. No one called him that. Only me. The two of us were eight years old. His face was very serious. What was my excuse for talking to him? I think he left something on ths desk, maybe an eraser or a pencil, I can’t remember now, and I said: Jimmy, you forgot your eraser. I do remember smiling. I do remember why I called him jimmy and not James or Jim. Out of fondness. Because it made me happy. Because I liked jimmy and I thought he was very handsome.

Since then, I’ve come to underline a lot of passages, either because I liked what he was saying, or I liked how he was saying what he was saying. Here are a few more:

He would swear by Aztecs, since he didn’t like storms.

Also,

Silently, the corpse awaited autospy.

And also,

Everything collapses in pain. All eloquence springs from pain.

There are a lot more I underlined, but the three were the ones I managed to write in my journal and to go through those 800 pages ain’t a walk in the park.

I can’t say it’s become a favorite, 2666, but I completely, utterly, enjoyed the ride.

Let’s put it this way: I’m now reading Alain de Botton’s The Art of Travel. But you know what, I want to pick up 2666 and start the pilgrimage all over again. It’s been reverberating since I finished it last night.

Ahh, these Swedes!

(photo from inthelightofitall)

I swear, the world and learn a thing or two from Swedes! Have I mentioned how much I love Sweden? Well, not love love, because I have yet to go there. But knowing their music and loving it, and then seeing and instantly loving their design, and now this proverb, too. Gah! It is my dream to go there one day.