Nic is right, I really need to snap out of this drama mode.
Today I was reunited with a pleasant summer memory. Three hundred and fifty or so days ago from today, a Japanese Airlines flight carried me away from the sandy shores of boisterous youth, the emboldening company of friends and a half-baked pseudo love affair - incident, really. Never one to sleep in airplanes, I stayed up as usual watching TV. Having seen all the English movies available, I explored the Japanese offerings and was surprised by the most cleverly amusing show on the planet - Trivia no Izumi, Fountain of Trivia (for a taste search for "trivia japan" in google video). It was like one of those ideas for a book or movie or, as in this case, a TV show that was so good and suitable for your pleasure you wish you were the one that came up with it. Despite my heart being in shambles and my mind lost in a haze, I remember laughing hysterically though ever so quietly to keep the two gentlemen sleeping soundly next to me from waking. It snapped me right out of my pathetic melancholy, for the moment.
I don't know why I thought of it this morning, the memory intensified by watching the episode on google video, convulsing quietly as I did before, so as to not wake up my mom and sister. Like Proust's tisane-soaked madeleine (oh dear, have I really become so pretentious? ay, mourn the death of small talk) my small experience today waking up to that memory flooded me with associations to that summer - Manila, the heat, the crowds, the noise, the train, the traffic, unpaved winding roads, empty resorts, cramped housing, abandoned buildings, people on the streets, the partying, the drinking, the spending. That summer, like Manila, like me, for all its near-hopeless brokenness I knew then and felt then I loved! Why? I suppose that is the big question that needs answering - and what I'm supposed to do with that love.
i've been so morbid lately. this should stop.
this morning i got a call from ingrid. yay! it was an excellent start to my day. it's nice to have unscheduled days. i read as much as i want - then read some more. there really isn't much else other than that. i want to go to the beach, but no one has been willing to go with me lately. i do feel restless occassionally - i want to go to work, but i can't. i can't say this is the way things are supposed to be - how do i know about the way things are supposed to be. but perhaps i should also admit to myself that i need the break - that i should just take it easy for a day, a week or the rest of the month. i'm too stubborn, i think, too used to doing more than i can handle and never having guilt-free time for myself. but then i get to thinking of how useless i am, and how there must be work that has to be done somewhere for someone or something like that. sigh. i just need to calm down.
i should take the time to think about my future - that big scary chasm beneath the edge of my toes.