I'm Still Here
I thought I had lost this blog to poor memory. Four months somehow rubbed out the log-in names and passwords from my system. I'm glad i was uncharacteristically patient today and kept pounding away at the keys until, miraculously, I gained access. Edgewise, you might say.
Anyway, I have news. I got a new job! Well, actually, I'm just back to my old job. But with a new boss, so well, it's more of a new old job and I'm doing marvelously well so far. Plus, some people tell me I keep smiling these days. Ah! Ain't that swell!
True poets...wish neither to applaud nor revile their age; they wish to know what it is, what it can give them, and whether this is what they want. What they want, they know very well..." Matthew Arnold
In Transitu No Longer
Oh it's not so bad after all. The very talented Ian Casocot picked up my poem The Transit of Venus and it's now on the Philippine Literature Survey page at http://www.geocities.com/icasocot2/pioquinto_venus.html.
Ally McMe
I'm off to court in twenty minutes. As y'all know, I'm not a trial lawyer (am much too tame) so I rarely make appearances in court. However, there's such a thing as a Court of Tax Appeals to which taxpayers appeal their deficiency tax assessments, claims for refunds and all things tax.
I do all things tax, so that's where I'm headed today. I promised myself that if the Justices scream at me, I won't make a bad time of it. I've lost 7 lbs. so far in the past week and that bigger triumph won't be affected by any kind of setback at work. :)
Write, Shit? Shoot!
I really need to learn how to punctuate correctly. I used to be really good at this but now, geez. That nice little book, "Eats Shoots & Leaves" ought to help.
Writing Up
Just my luck. Yesterday, I hounded J into finally reading my blog and he did, which was nice of him, considering he had more consequential and far-reaching matters to attend to. Anyhoots, I thought he'd be gratified to find I'd called him 'ever-considerate' and even posted his forrest gump photo. But no such luck, kiddos. He handed me a big, fat, excoriating commentary that lay me low for like an hour and made me feel like a halfwit and one.
The gist of the impossibly mordant diatribe: it's just juve-y (great, now I'm not even sure that's the way to spell it. I'm a crappy writer who can't spell). Anyway, he told me that he'd seen my old essays and that they were always light and fresh and well-written and this blog just isn't--me. At which point it dawned on me that he was criticizing not me, but the blog as it is so far. Apparently, he felt that on normal days, when I'm just my plain old smart self, my writing rocks!
So I guess I'll be writing in the lofty way I've always been known to write (cut it, will you?). And you better get used to it. :)
J as forrest gump ? 
Nightingale
We got dem tickets! We got dem tickets! As a valentine-cum-wedding anniversary present for each other (yes, we're cheapos, so?) J and I got tickets to the Norah Jones concert on March 12. We're both just in love with her. Or at least we were two and a half years ago.
Come away with me, in the night...
Hmmm...It hasn't been that long, really, but it seems ages to me now. Back then J called me Doodles and I called him Doodee (oh gimme a break, it rhymes with Judee that's why). Now, we've become lazy and just refer to each other using the one-syllabled 'Dear'.
Which reminds me. Have I told you today is our wedding anniversary? It is. Yaaaayks (wink, wink).I should give him something that's not store bought. But I don't wanna write him yet another poem. That would make me boring and one-dimensional.
Maybe a song!
Come away with me, and I will write you a sooooooong...
Can't do. Tone deaf. Tin ear.
Oh. I know! I know! I know! I'll set up a blog for him so he can write down his thoughts. He's always so witty you know. He is. Check this out. J snorting at my South Beach Diet yesterday at breakfast in The Old Spaghetti House along Valero: "No, I'm on the South End Diet. South Beach AND rice, AND pasta, AND garlic bread..."
Okay. I know. That was a joke for radio, not print. Fuggidaboudid.
But I was saying, I can even teach him how to photoblog. I learned how to just yesterday (insert wide grin here while figuring out how to get some smileys on the darned blog).
What if J yells that he really has no time for 'silly' stuff like this.
(Think...
Think...)
Aha!
I'll just say: "Gedaholdayerself, Dear. At least it's not Friendster!"
Isn't she just adorable?
Hitch Your Bandwagon to a Star
Hey, guys, guess what? I've joined the bandwagon of South Beach Dieters and we're hurtling towards the much-touted land of weight loss.
Yes, folks, almost a week ago, I decided that the babe--the one I always suspected was hiding inside of me--needed to come out and be seen. Of course, an appalling number of eggs and several Subway salads later, she's still nowhere in sight but, well, you know how it is with these babes. She's probably just having a hard time deciding whether to wear her hair up or down.
So I weighed in today at...wait..never you mind. Suffice it to say that I've lost 5 full pounds, thank you. The next fifteen should be a sugar-free cakewalk.
I'm having the toughest time today, though.
I usually never crave for chocolates but this morning, I ran myself ragged looking for sugar-free Hershey's in the supermarket. It was going to be my cheat-food, you know, the one I grudgingly decided I'd allow myself today (oh but just once!) during this whole punishing affair. The supermarket didn't have them though, which is just as well. Those dark devils contain sugar alcohols and well, I'm really no cheat.
Oh and my ever-considerate husband--the one who's been cooking bacon and eggs for me a couple of days now and treating me as if I were afflicted with a bad case of um, whatever illness sounds really bad--he offered me a cherry from his drink. I'm telling you, I wanted that one so bad I'd probably remember how it looks like years from now. But, don't worry. I'm totally, positively, in control. After I heard my breath catch in my throat or my nose or wherever, I firmly turned the red bastard down (the cherry, not my husband).
I suppose it would really be a lot easier to keep with this if cakes and chocolates and baked ziti weren't just. sooooohhh. fine. You know what I'm saying?
Okay. I have to go withdraw now.
God, a Poem
Truly doubt if the poem below will ever get published or if I even want it published. I did a kind of dumbing down but somehow enjoyed writing it so much that I think it's worth putting down somewhere. :)
The Transit of Venus *
Very few allow themselves
to get caught up
in the cosmic,
knowing one’s
piece of earth
is enough
and going out of
one’s way
to measure
distances
or plot
revolutions
is a galactic effort.
To most of us,
The thrum
of old knowledge
comforts,
lands light.
But
I have known
some
who bothered
to look
out and up,
expecting nothing,
and everything;
allowing
themselves
to be spun around-
circling centrifuges,
in a kind of giddy
whorl,
They had the better view.
They’ve seen
the shadow
against the sun.
*The next of a pair of transits will take place on June 6, 2012. If like me you missed the first of the pair last June 8, 2004, you’ve got one more chance in this lifetime. But you’ll have to wait.
