The whole neighborhood is still asleep. As for myself, I slept 2:00 AM - 9:45 AM.

We are ordering Chinese via FDS for a late lunch.

Still a drizzly day. Nice and cool.

Good morning, Cubao!

Opened my bedroom window and let the day in.

The earth gnome said, "There is nothing special about today, nor was there something special about yesterday. Men have eccentric ways of celebrating the passage of time, but that is all it is, and all you need is to look at the journeys of the sun and the moon to remind you of it."

Everyone in the driveway is either too happy or too drunk--most probably with the lambanog I gave them. I'm leaving the ground-floor porch lights on for them tonight.

December 31 Midnight On P.Tuazon Boulevard

It was a drizzly midnight. Greeted the granddaughters and then went out to watch the fireworks. Not quite spectacular because my camera couldn't take the lights in the sky through the haze, but the neighbors had fun.

11:59 PM in the Philippines.

Happy New Year, Cubao!

ISOTSOMA!


MAGDAM TIRGAM
JUADARITA
ALAAYA
SARADOC

GEATAO
TE APELA

GEPARATO
GEPIPO
CHRISTUM PEPUM
BISTE
BANGE
BESTIPO

RECANTAR ITE
BUM
QUE SE DEUS PACTENIT
MOLAI
MALANAI
MOLAO
PETAT MATAT

HARI ANG DADAAN,
HAHAWI KAYONG LAHAT!

MAIGSAC
MAIGMAC
EGOLHUM PETIGSAC

PENIVICCIUM LUXCIRIS SALVAME

The old year becomes the new
The porn star still trapped
In the video loop that keeps him young.
The world ages, not knowing
He died and was buried yesterday.

Tore every page of my 2015 planner a la Paul Auster (actually to prevent phishing) and moved to my new planners.

Took down the wall calendar on our kitchen cork board and pinned up the new one.

An hour and a quarter to go!

Say goodbye now to dashed dreams, to heartbreaks, to days and nights of loneliness and despair, to all losses, betrayals, and deceits, and to all your frustrations.

There are people who love you, and who care.

Look your best, and look forward!

Gave the men on the compound a jug of lambanog, authentic coconut wine from Southern Luzon.

At midnight you don't need any mistletoe to kiss other people.

Anyone who catches a cold between now and midnight, will do so not due to the cold weather but to stress.

Three hours to midnight in the Philippines, I wish to greet, now, all of my Followers a Happy New Year full of blessings!

Every New Year's resolution should entail actions that are controlled by you alone, and should be regardless of what other people do, say, or think.

The best and the most realistic number of New Year's resolutions is three.

M.'s cafe will be open through the night, and will open at 12:00 NN tomorrow.

D.'s store will be open through midnight.

The right technique to use in order to sleep immediately and well at 1:00 or 2:00 AM is to make your mind instruct itself to start getting sleepy, albeit very gradually, as early as 11:00 PM.

Happy Birthday, Allan (January 1, 2016)!

Your birthday messages:

1) Friends are like plants in your garden. Know which ones flower, which ones bear fruit, and which ones give you vegetables.
2) Your children are your guides.
3) To please the goddess of honey, desist from partaking of honey.
4) Choose only one magical path, for it takes an entire lifetime to master it.
5) Knowing your priorities will help you focus.

God alone is not enough, for He is counting on His Creation to do Him proud.

Faith alone is not enough, for we are called on to take fruitful action.

Quite chilly. It's a toss-up between an Elvis jacket (yes, I have one) and a neon orange sports hoodie.

The sports hoodie wins.

I'm going to pass on photographing the house this year (long shots, medium shots, close-ups). It entails turning on all of the lights, not to mention going all the way from the ground floor to the roof deck, and then outdoors, and that is just such a production number.

I really like Google+. Your success as a writer is measured by the number of people who read your postings, NOT the number of people who say they like your postings.

What does it matter, after all, whether someone likes or does not like what you post? It is a piece of your mind, and you post it because you want to, and you will keep it there whether other people like it or not.

Reflections for December 31

What was the best thing you did for others this year?

Was that a one-time act or something that needs to be sustained?

What was the best thing you did for yourself this year?

Was that a one-time act or something that needs to be sustained?

Children already blowing toy horns in the streets.

Toy horn peddlers should be encouraged to roam and sell their ware. That's one way of making people decide to blow horns rather than light firecrackers.

Toy makers should also be encouraged to design attractive, new horns and noisemakers as well, though in time for next year, not this one.

How risible. That social medium attempts to protect itself by pretending to protect its users.

Almost done rearranging the furniture in the writing area. My desk is now located right outside my bedroom door, so that I can just slip through the door and sit directly on my chair at any time, even in the middle of the night. It means relocating the ceiling lamp, but I love room rearrangement! Things almost always look different whenever visitors come in!

A classmate sent me, via-email, attached photos of himself for me to use as references for an oil painting. He wants me to paint him as an ethnic warrior.

My suspicion is correct. Individuation is a cycle--it is not linear. After a man goes through the stages of warrior, lover, magician, and king, he goes back to being warrior and proceeds on a new journey.

Lunch with the granddaughters at M.'s cafe.

The cafe is open today, tonight, tomorrow, and tomorrow night. It had a bustling morning. Everyone who didn't feel like preparing their own breakfast ate there.

Last night the werewolf crossed the street to the burger stand.

It was an enchanted midnight. Some of the Sitio Catacutan Food Courts decided to remain open 24/7, including the fruit stand. The neighborhood always looks so different from the way it looks in the daytime. Even the people are different.

The air was as nippy as a fall night in DC, and I wished that I could have stayed there forever.

It is not true that whatever you are doing on New Year's Eve will be what you will be doing the rest of the year.

It is also not true that whoever you are with on New Year's Eve will be who you will be with the rest of the year.

All you have to do is think of what you were doing the LAST New Year's Eve, and the year that followed.

While we do love permanency, we also value CHANGE.

Despite years of mythology, storytelling, and movie-making, how much does life really learn from literature and art?

In all those, the villain is foiled at the end, and the protagonists with golden hearts live happily ever after.

Yet, how much of life is really NOT like that at all?

Scrying On New Year's Eve

Don't forget the dark dish with water. Surely you can do this some time today.

Fill a colored dish or bowl with water. Light a candle to invoke your spirit guides. Wait for at least three minutes. The flame should rise two to three inches vertically. Then take a fresh egg, carefully crack it open, and pour only the white (albumen) of the egg into the water.

Wait for the albumen to settle. It will form pictures of 2016, whether in a representational or abstract manner. Remember that it is your intelligent and mature interpretation that counts.

You may take mobile phone photos of the images in order to remember them later, if you like.

Afterward, snuff out the candle and pour the water and albumen into the kitchen drain, thanking your ancestors and your spirit guides.

Fires, road accidents, and similar disasters can be engineered by disgruntled political opponents.

They can also be indirectly caused, however, by the subconscious anger within persons, especially when such anger seeks expression.

Deliberate cause, non-deliberate cause.

Note that these are the same processes behind cancer, which is, typically, anger, frustration, misery, or loneliness eroding the human body.

A celebrity says goodbye before midnight.

Crossing the new year is not jumping from the deck of one tall building to the next. It is finding a strong bridge between the two and crossing safely over it.

Make the new year begin TODAY. Learn from sewing. You need an allowance of at least 1/4 inch from one fabric in order to make a strong seam with the next.

So, go ahead and change your wall calendars, desk calendars, and planners now, if you have them.






.

We often say "Happy New Year!" mechanically, not knowing that it is our duty to make the coming year really a happy new year.

It is up to us to make it so.

Good morning, Cubao!

Last day of 2015!

Between now and tomorrow midnight our children will continue believing that we have all the money in the world to buy them everything they want.

The members of our high school class are now on Viber.

Deleting photographs from electronic Albums is like deleting memories of the past. Sometimes there are photos in which I value not the subject in the foreground but the background, such as a wall, that shows me what our house looked like before a renovation.

Dinner at home with Angelique and Aubrey.

Aubrey wants to make a coconut dessert dish tomorrow.

Resurrection.

My Christmas/New Year's gift to myself was never delivered at all. The sales person text-messaged me and apologized; their crew had gone home for the holidays and will be able to get on my order only next week.

The dust bin man's little boy has a new toy, a colorful little cart that he is pulling up and down the driveway. He always stops and converses with me, but he speaks only baby-talk.

Now that I am retired, when people say that I should look, talk, and act in conformity with social expectations, I just look them in the eye and tell them straight, "No one tells me what to do."

Found something on the Internet that I am definitely buying in 2016 but will most certainly make me poorer by P20,000.

She thought she was the best female director in the Philippines, but that is neither a title anyone can hold forever nor a title that stays in the people's memory.

I recall her name but will not mention it. She was my graduate school classmate during the time I was enrolled for a master's in Clinical Psychology. She'd apparently gone to an exclusive school all the way from grade school through her undergraduate levels. And then she got married some time during the semester, and so went on leave for a while. When she came back, she was a changed person. She was more aware of her body, of physical pleasure, and of how attractive she could be to other men. In a private conversation while we were both waiting for class she once told me that she enjoyed having more than one orgasm while having sex with her husband.

Whenever young, male, undergraduate students walked into the department office, she gave them devouring looks, as though telling them, "I know exactly what pleases you." Indeed, marriage opened up to her not only an awareness of her own sexual satisfaction but a curiosity about how the opposite sex obtained sexual satisfaction for themselves.

I never saw her again. I wonder how she is now, and whether she has finally obtained enough knowledge about the mystery of women, and the mystery of men.

Greet a Happy New Year at least three neighbors, in person, whom you don't usually talk to. Keep in mind that it is safer to greet them a Happy New Year rather than a Merry Christmas if you don't know what religions they practice or don't practice.

Reflections For December 30

1) On this, penultimate, day before New Year's Eve, reflect on everyone you hurt, whether deliberately, indirectly, or accidentally, and whether they were people close to you, mere acquaintances, or strangers, and whether you hurt them because of something you DID or because of something you SAID.

How did you hurt them, and why?

How can you make up for it before the year is over, thus diminishing your karma for 2016?


2) Then reflect on everyone who hurt YOU, whether deliberately, indirectly, or accidentally, and whether they were people close to you, mere acquaintances, or strangers, and whether they hurt you because of something they DID or because of something they SAID.

Forgive those whom you can, and say it out loud when you are alone inside your room.

As to those whom you still cannot forgive, your spirit guides will take care of everything for you, and give you good karma the coming year.


Remember: New Year's resolutions mean nothing until you have completed this exercise.

A day and a half more to the New Year. This is the proper countdown. I have no idea why atchays count down to Christmas rather than the New Year. It just doesn't make sense to me--and is quite obscene.

Late lunch at home with the granddaughters.

Still thinking of conducting a Stella-yelling contest outside our Cubao New Orleans French Quarter balcony, but only because it would be such a blast.

After my two boys grew up I stopped buying firecrackers for New Year's Eve. Looking back now, what a waste of money it all was. The amount I spent each year could have very well been used to purchase a laptop, or two cell phones, or food.

Indeed, what was the point of having all those big bangs when they really had nothing to do with masculinity, courage, and nerve? I also certainly do not believe that they drive away evil spirits, considering that we still have devils' traffic and devils' trafficking, whether human or non-human.

If firecrackers truly drive away evil spirits, I believe that the good spirits are driven away along with them.

Made a round of the Sitio Catacutan Food Court. At last one of my favorite stalls has one of the dishes that I always crave, and I bought two orders of that as usual.

The big stall I frequently buy from gave me a ceramic mug with its name emblazoned on it. Suddenly thought of M.'s cafe. It has a souvenir shop corner with Philippine handicrafts, but it is quite inconspicuous and needs an etagere that can display all the items properly.

Were You Part Of My Class Last Night?

1) We went to an excavation site. I'd seen the site and heard its story five times before--twice in movies and thrice on TV.

I was with O., an archaeologist. A former Spirit Questor, K., was also with me. He reenacted a death by falling through the dome of an old church.

Three museum officials also reenacted a drowning during a flood and almost did not reemerge from the water because they were being dragged down.

A curse is upon the excavation. A vindictive old woman is responsible for it. She walks among the other people in disguise, hoping to not be noticed, but I see her and I know who she is. She is very dangerous.

Skulls are being unearthed on the excavation site. Goblin-like earth monsters arise.


2) We went to a subterranean school for children and teenagers, accessible through a huge, concrete ramp that slopes down to the classrooms and offices. You were among the students.

I showed you a square crystal, like a cut, white sapphire, in my palm.


My messages:

--The excavated statue is alive.

--You need such a sapphire to shield you during the coming year.

I never knew complete happiness and bliss until I retired with a pension. It is a hundred times more satisfying than any single award I have ever received. It is actually getting paid to rest! I just have to keep myself physically healthy and alive, of course.

The most wonderful thing of all is to be able to exist without having to please other people. It is an experience that not everyone in this world will ever have.

Good morning, Cubao!

To do groceries or to not do groceries, that is the question.

Night Classes

If she is not allowed to vindicate her father, there will be a small revolution.

The Wands must continue to point to the ground.

To those who are not owners of any of the 36 Wands, place a printout of the map of your neighborhood or country in the center of your magical chessboard and keep it held down with four stones on the printout, each stone located in one of the cardinal directions.

Been watching Home for the Holidays on fyi,. Though it's really just a package of replays, I've been taking mental notes on home improvement ideas.

Love that bed floating over the living room!

Tomorrow, select a layout from http://tonyperezphilippinescyberspacebook11.blogspot.com/. Set up your magical chessboard with your chosen layout New Year's Eve and keep it in your bedroom through the following day. You may disassemble it on or after noontime January 1.

Had every chance to be photographed wearing my wuxia scarf today, but I just didn't feel like doing it.

Dinner at home with Aubrey. Angelique and J. are eating out.

As it turns out, M.'s cafe will be open New Year's Day after all.

Reflections for the End of The Year

Review your year.

--What were you afraid of most?

---What did you desire most?

After answering those questions to yourself, ask yourself, again, whether they are patterns that are likely to be repeated the coming year.

How would you break those patterns?

What would breaking those patterns result in? What specific changes would occur in your life because of it?

You do not succeed because you do not dare.

Go against the mainstream.

Serve and eat pointy fruits, such as mangoes and bananas. They are visual symbols of defense, and will keep you protected throughout the year.

A cup of strawberry wine.

Angelique and J. are at the center, briefly coming home, and then going out again to see a light show.

Do not raise children in a tiny house. They will grow up dreaming of building themselves a big house.

Do not raise children in a big house. They will grow up dreaming of building themselves a tiny house.

Go with regular-size houses.

As you walk in balance, live in balance.

The parakeets always shriek whenever I forget to feed and water them. The other pet birds just sit on their perches patiently and wait for me to remember.

Never judge a talisman by its size, its material, and its look.

Here is my interpretation for the day matching the current screen saver that Microsoft 10 has given me:

They remembered Paris, and terrorists attacked the Republicans' political rally. The candidate who was addressing the public at that time was shot. His microphone dropped to the ground. He was rushed to hospital but he never came back. The variety of footprints indicate that men of different types were gathered there, but had no real unity. The varied orientations of the footprints also illustrate chaos and a lack of direction.

Are the employees of Microsoft psychic? Are their screen savers precognitive images?

It's quite interesting to interpret these screen savers. It's so much like interpreting other people's dreams!

Maybe I should start a compilation of all of them.

What I find distasteful in modeling and cooking competition shows are the post-production insert shots in which contestants are instructed to say something critical and negative about their co-contestants just to keep the show interesting. This thoughtless, directorial ploy actually generates a lot of ill will in real life.

Never dream of owning an expensive house. It will always be a bad investment. Everything else will be expensive thereon, including upkeep and repairs.

The best plants to have are those that can survive on their own and require no maintenance. These are the plants you do not take care of. They are, on the contrary, the plants that take care of you.

I love little girls when they are five to seven years old. At those ages, they are bossy but cute. They know what's right and what's wrong, what's neat and what's messy, what's safe and what's dangerous, and they will lecture and scold everyone, including adults, without trepidation.

Good morning, Cubao!

Been drifting off to sleep at night and waking up in the morning at the same times, like clockwork.

There is one little ritual about New Year's Eve that others don't know, which is to serve the midnight food in rectangular or square dishes or containers, to invite stability into the coming year.

Tomorrow, the 29th, is the date when a lot of waylaid blessings that didn't manage to get to you during the year might finally do so. I observe that this happens on the last third day of each year.

Good night, Cubao!

Snacked on leftovers. As head and administrator of the house, I always end up being the janitor fish that eats what the others no longer want to, to avoid unnecessary waste, during holidays.

The day flew by, and I feel that I failed to capture it in its flight.

Dinner at home with Angelique. We are all at home, but Aubrey is still full from the birthday buffet she partook of.

The closest substitute for Chinese black vinegar in our neighborhood supermarket is Datu Puti's Sukang Iloko, actually brown vinegar made of sugar cane. I love it so much that I sip it off a tablespoon before eating.

Flu weather is once again here.

People will not vote for her because she looks like the various villainesses played by Carol Varga, who will remain in the country's Collective Unconscious for at least two more generations.

It is quite unfortunate that, whenever I conduct "Writing from The Heart" workshops for public schools and government institutions, the crayons they provide are "Best Buy" crayons. They are quite substandard and difficult to lay opaque colors with. Perhaps the producers of those crayons are better off making birthday candles. It is inadvisable to provide would-be artists with poor materials. They will end up deciding not to become artists at all.

Back from the Sitio Catacutan Market. Now waiting for Aubrey to come home from her classmate's lunch party.

Despite work day schedules, alarm clocks, birthdays, and holidays, it is really death that indelibly marks our time.

A tiny house becomes boring to its inhabitants in no time. What you should do is apply tiny house ideas to every ROOM in a REGULAR-SIZE house.

If you don't cover your head you will surely catch a severe cold, and it will take long to get rid of it.

Lunch at home with Angelique and Margo. Margo's mother makes good rum cake, and I think I'll order some for New Year's Eve.

January 1 is the beginning of the CALENDAR year, hence our calendar planners.

The TRADITIONAL beginning of the new year is November 1.

Kichiro Mayuzumi chewed up Angelique's iPhone earphones, and now I have to buy her another set.

This is the kind of problem I don't mind, instead of the other, bigger, problems I see other people beset with.

Instead of coveting an inheritance, why not just strive to be a success and do better than the person being inherited from?

Did a round of the Sitio Catacutan Food Court. All stalls are open again, at least until New Year's Eve.

Aubrey is off to a friend's lunch time birthday party.

Finally took down ALL our Christmas decor. It feels great to not have to see them for another year, and to visually move on.

Where it is snowing, it will snow through the month of April 2016.

Subliminal Communication Exercise:

Can you read the word being spelled in my Google+ page cover photo today?

Good morning, Cubao! The last week of the year begins.

Slept eight hours last night.

Now on page 13 of Bruce Lee's Tao of Jeet Kune Do. Some months back I was still on page 11. It's not the kind of book you read like a novel. After reading four or five lines you have to reflect on the meaning of the passage and, in order for it to make sense, immediately apply it to your life.

If a passage does not unfold to you like a flower in full bloom, you have to be willing to wait for it to do so.

Night classes are held 4:30 AM Philippine time unless otherwise specified.

Night Classes

Finally watched Maleficent on FOX Family Movies. I missed it when it opened a year or two ago. I was in Singapore doing a "Writing from The Heart" workshop. There were many Maleficent tarpaulins but I just didn't have any time to catch it there.

Good night, Cubao!

Expecting a delivery tomorrow, but I'm not jumping out of my skin to have it. If it comes, it comes.

Every person has a new power symbol or power object for the year. You will dream of yours any night within the coming week. If it is an object you already have, keep it in your room. If it is an object impossible to have, take a photo of it or make a drawing or painting of it and place that in your room.

Pendants are meant to be touched and fondled--rubbed gently with one's fingers. That way their magical powers are activated.

As a psychic, do not restrict yourself to your family, your circle of friends, your neighborhood, and your country. Go global when you can. It IS a small world, after all.

Dinner at M.'s cafe with Angelique, Aubrey, and Margo, who is sleeping over. Margo lives on 4th Avenue and walks to our house.

2016 will give birth to new shapes, new forms, and new genres of music, and everyone will be astonished.

Every tree will have dead branches and leaves. You either cut them off or let them fall off on their own.

To fully enjoy the rest of the holidays, spend at least one, productive hour ALONE.

Entertainment singers are today's gladiators.

Chito, Chevy, and Vinci visited. We had lunch at M.'s cafe and then went to the center. Bought Chevy and Vinci new clothes, and we had ice cream.

Waiting for Chito, Chevy, and Vinci to arrive. They've already been on the bus from Bulacan for two hours and are still at Quezon Circle.

Three and a half days more on my 2015 planner, but have already marked out important events in the new one.

Keeping an actual, physical planner is a form of self-discipline. It complements what I have on my mobile and my computer. My big planner stays on my writing desk. My smaller planner I take with me all the time.

Electronics are supplements, not replacements, of actual, physical, things. That is why nothing can ever take the place of a face-to-face conversation or deep reflection over a writing pad.

You take on the personality of your electronics, but non-electronics take on yours.

Never vote for a traitor.

Politics is evidence that we live in hell.

I delete, unread, all e-mail with the catch-words "Sale", "Save Up To __%", "Your Free Gift Awaits You", "Subscribe Now", "Last Chance", "Free Shipping", and "Complimentary", among other 1940s con techniques.

There is one sure way to finally get rid of cyberspace sites that keep pestering you to sign up on them: do the initial steps of signing up without giving any of your personal passwords, and then inform them by e-mail that you need to unsubscribe because you don't have a credit card. They will block you, thinking that you will e-mail them back and beg them to keep you on, not knowing that they are doing you the big favor of keeping themselves out of your world forever.

Why even campaign when you very well know that you will be overthrown before your term is over?

Measure your success by every quarter, not by every half or every whole.

Someone should make a compilation of New' Year superstitions.

Remember everything you did the past New Year? Did any of it work?

He will not win because his posture and his voice--though meant to impart albeit fake meekness and humility--are already those of a defeated man. He mumbles. He mutters. In effect, he lost his balls.

Tony Perez's Art of War: A talismanic shield will keep you unharmed, but you need, along with it, one or more than one talismanic weapon.

Men do not go to battle with shields alone.

One can love the world theoretically but not realistically, because love is a child's set of building blocks, in which each building block is a specific.

Stillness is creepy because it is never followed by stillness. It is always followed by disruption.

I heard his song on someone's radio yesterday afternoon. Now I am inexplicably obsessed to buy his CD, which is saying a lot, because I don't collect CDs, what with different kinds of music already in my mind.

One decorative, geometric cone or pyramid INVERTED on a stand, with its point to the ground, in each cardinal direction should keep you safe AND feeling safe.

A quiet day in the neighborhood. I'm waiting for the sun to stop blazing before going up to the roof deck to trim the plants.

I thought of moving the aviary up there, but it would be difficult for the birds to weather storms. They are pet birds bred in captivity after all, and they never experienced having to fend for themselves.

Microsoft 10 shows you a series of screen savers, asks you to choose what you like and what you don't like, and then you get stuck for days and nights with the screen savers that you said you DON'T
like. What it gave me this week is that awful shot of a microphone on the ground with chaotic footprints around it, as though a massacre had just occurred at a Microsoft party and everyone had gone home.

Good morning, Cubao!

This is a day in which everyone needs to do a special gesture of kindness to the environment.

Good night, Cubao!

Programming a pair of pangil ng kidlat for ____.

Dinner at home with Aubrey. Angelique and J. had dinner out.

Watched Despicable Me again on DIVA. The first time I saw it was during Animation Council of the Philippines's festival at De La Salle University College of Saint Benilde's Fine Arts building last year.

Back from shopping, then had a banana milkshake at M.'s cafe.

Now Angelique is off to meet J. at the center.

Aubrey decided to stay home.

Will probably take down all the Christmas decor tomorrow. We are repainting four walls after all. I know that it will feel so good to see the house in its post-Christmas, normal, state once again. I certainly don't want to greet the New Year with all of those holiday trimmings.

Lunch at home with the granddaughters.

Angelique, Aubrey, and J. are planning to go to the center later today, and I to one of my favorite shops.

Stepping outside the house after the Christmas bedlam is like emerging from shelter after a storm.

Stowed away my knitting stuff, in preparation for moving on to painting in oils again.

Benjie is scheduled to arrive tomorrow, meaning that I need to be up early again. Hoping to finally have four walls repainted.

Retirement means that all scheduled work, whether serious or whimsical, is for me and me alone, not for an institution I do not own. This is how I have always wanted to live--not as a cogwheel that must turn when it has to but as a free, independent wheel that turns only when it wants to and stops only when it wants to.

Good morning, Cubao!

Slept eight hours last night. Woke up briefly 5:30 AM because S. roused me to turn on the valve that fills up the water tank; M.'s cafe is open again after the Christmas holiday.

Good night, Cubao!

Our past two days were centered around engineering dinners.

Looking back now, I cannot help but think how ridiculous that is, and I am still not convinced that Christmas would be incomplete without such dinners.

Christmas dinner with my sister Alice, my two granddaughters, and Angelique's childhood friend Margo.

All I want now in life is to live long enough to see all of my grandchildren well-employed and happily married. Should I die before that happens, I shall have to watch over them as their spirit guide.

Tomorrow I start reading the three plays that were sent to me for dramaturging. As before, I will post my critiques on my blog Writing from The Heart.

We are now preparing our Christmas dinner. We're going Chinese, with buttered ham.

Respect every child's individuality by not forcing him/her into a mold fashioned after your own dreams.

Artists fear blindness, musicians fear deafness, gardeners and chefs fear the inability to smell and to taste (those two senses are directly related), but everyone fears numbness and the inability to touch.

When a man fears and neglects his Inner Child, it is because he saw that his Inner Child is female.

Why do they always cast as Santa Claus and wedding priests men who look like the lead man in Just for Laughs?

I stopped watching Downton Abbey long ago because it is quite depressing to me. It is all about decadence, as in Anton Chekov's The Cherry Orchard.

Watch CNN if you want to hear for yourself how the word "absolutely" is overused. This is true of both interviewers and interviewees. It takes only one person to spontaneously say the word "absolutely"--and you hear it many times thereon in the entire conversation.

Perhaps Syrian refugees should learn how to frequently use that word. It might earn them a sense of belonging.

Question: What is your religion?
Answer: Absolutely.

I wonder what happened to one of my graduate school classmates, a woman whose husband was in prison, and I also wonder where she is now and what she is now. She was so bitter and miserable (which must have driven her to study Psychology in the first place) and thought it was her duty to shoot everyone down and make them bitter and miserable too.

Late lunch with the granddaughters.

M.'s cafe's staff members are in the cafe cooking their lunch anyway, though the cafe is closed to the public. Apparently not all of them went home for Christmas.

We left the paraffin oil lamps lit through the night on our family altar and will leave them lit through this day and through tonight. (They are in well-anchored glass vessels and shielded by glass chimneys.)

If you are too busy to attend to others, they will be too busy to attend to you in your own time of need.

Save up all the money that you usually spend on destruction and spend it on food to feed your family.

One of the irreversible results of globalization is that no single country can ever dominate the world, no matter how much it aspires to.

The only thing lacking now is a truly global language that every country will accept.

Gave the dust bin man's little boy a sweet bun and a sack of candies. I note, though, that he is quite overweight and verging on phat.

They who are lonely work without rest.

Never thank anyone for love. Just love them back.

Thanking them is a verbal resolution that you don't want to give anything back, and that you are ready to shut the door.

Your first visitor this day will symbolize your state of happiness.

No one has ever thought that putting together and designating a group of intelligent WOMEN to solve the devils' traffic will finally resolve the situation.

I am curious to see, between now and New Year's Eve, how many families, men, and boys have ACTUALLY become conscientious about health, safety, and the environment by NOT lighting firecrackers and firing guns.

If things remain the same, then so will many other things remain the same, including devils' traffic.

For many people Christmas Day is a day to eat leftovers from Christmas Eve. Why not celebrate on the 25th instead, and then eat leftovers on the 26th?

There are times when fighting too hard for what you want is a stubborn refusal to accept reality.

Some people have everything and you'd better get used to it.

More well-dressed children, accompanied by adults, entering our compound, evidently to make Christmas calls. I can see everything from my bedroom window, against which my computer table is.

A Merry and Enchanted Christmas to all of my readers and Google+ Followers!

May one of your wishes come true this very day!

Good morning, Cubao!

Oversleeping is a luxury as precious as gemstones.

The worst thing to me always about Christmas Eve and Christmas Day is seeing, on TV, children ravaged by war, poverty, and hunger. Not only in other countries but also in my own.

Watching The One on AXN only because I like Jet Li, but I have never believed in mixes between karate action and futuristic settings.

M.'s cafe will be closed tomorrow, Christmas Day, and January 1, 2016, New Year's Day, to allow the staff a brief day with their families outside Metro Manila.

Roasted chestnuts taste great with a cup of red wine--or with a glass of Pepsi Max.

Good night, Cubao!

It was a stress-free Christmas Eve because we stayed home the whole day and didn't have to witness and experience crowds and devils' traffic.

Christmas Eve dinner with my granddaughters and my two sisters.

Aubrey made shepherd's pie, baked macaroni, baked potatoes with jackets on, and carrot cupcakes.

Watched Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed on HBO. Definitely better than the first one. The script is more engaging than those of the usual, straightforward, formula, cookie-cutter plot that the series is patterned after and always relies on. While keeping to a late 1960s look the production design and art direction are state-of-the-art and grandiose, making the movie appear to be very expensive.

I liked Scooby-Doo ever since I established the Spirit Questors in 1996. Over the years I gave away my talking Shaggy doll to Joylyn and my battery-operated Mystery Machine with complete characters to Chevy and Vinci. All I have now are the Scooby-Doo Barbie doll collection and the Scooby-Doo chess set.

Late Afternoon Reflections

What is the one thing you'd always wanted to do this year but were unable to?

What was the most wonderful thing that you did, or that happened to you this year, that you never expected and that resulted in something you should be grateful for?

Mid-Afternoon Reflection

Is there at least one person in this world who loves you unconditionally, or seems to?

Is there at least one person in this world who will grieve upon your corporal death?

Do you reciprocate that person's love? Have you been treating that person fairly, and do you provide that person what he/she truly deserves?

Do you communicate well with that person?

Retouched something in M.'s cafe with a dab of zinc white and a dab of vermilion.

Afternoon Reflections

What is the best thing you received this Christmas?

What is the best thing you gave?

What is the best thing someone did for you?

What is the best thing you did for someone?

What is the best thing someone told you?

What is the best thing you told someone?

Late lunch at home with the granddaughters.

Bought mangoes for Aubrey's mango float. They should be good, ripe, and ready tomorrow.

Roasted chestnuts from my sister Alice.

A rain cloud is a swash of ink that feathers across the sky.

When people who overuse the word "absolutely" get married and the priest asks them "Do you accept this man/woman to be your husband/wife?", do they say "I do" or "Absolutely"?

Frankly, I love the word, "Yes." It is the most absolute response in this world.

Bought food at the Sitio Catacutan Food Court.

Now Aubrey is up. She is scheduled to commence Christmas Eve dinner cooking at 4:00 PM.

The houses buzzes when there are women in it. A house with only men, to me, feels inert.

Bought a can of ground Classic Roast during yesterday's groceries, and I'm having two cups right now.

Everyone else here is still in bed.

The morning is still, but a lot of children dressed in their finest are walking up and down the street doing their Christmas Eve calls.

Good morning, Cubao!

And a Merry Christmas Eve to the world!

Slept nine hours last night and I feel refreshed.

There is one sure thing we have agreed on doing tomorrow, which is to oversleep through noon.

Programming my Dumbledore and Lord Voldemort wands on Christmas Eve. After all, Hogwarts clearly celebrated Christmas and bedecked their dining hall with decorations, although, perhaps, only because the other face of Christmas is that it IS a pagan occasion.

Christmas trees, bunting, balls, candles, mistletoe: yes, all of these celebrate the pagan in Yuletide.

Gradually selling and passing on magical stuff that my family doesn't want and need to selected people, so that, when I die, all of those items will have been disposed.

Good night, Cubao!

As chilly as a desert night.

Watched an episode of Unplugged Nation and saw that, on the third day of living unplugged, the featured couple started looking to me like that couple in Grant Wood's American Gothic.

Let us face it, it could be urban living that keeps us young, because we become concerned with how we come across to other people, whether right next door or blocks away.

Before groups can change, the individuals who comprise it first must change.

E2 visited. Brought him to M.'s cafe for a snack.

A woman from whom I ousted a negative entity gave me this towel as a Christmas gift, though I hadn't seen her in years. She is quite poor, and I was touched by her gesture.

One can change one's image only if the new image is true to himself.

Gypsy caravan: the ORIGINAL tiny house. I want one to place on our roof deck! I also like the one in the movie Carousel.

This is the one from the movie. I love the tiny back porches hung with lanterns. So cozy. Definitely a place to read Tarot cards.

Photos from the Internet

Subliminal Communication

Study the Comelec poster. "PILI" is written above "PINAS" in such a way that the entire thing can be read as "BINA(S)". Above, to the right, is an innocent-looking icon with a black letter "Y".

This year I proved to myself that men can wear pearls and get away with it.

Now we need to go to the Castle of Baking and Confectionery to buy supplies for the desserts Aubrey is planning to bake. I think I'll just send the granddaughters to do that. After all, the castle is only two blocks away from our house.

We had to buy a new, large frying pan with a non-stick surface. The one we are using had small portions of the non-peel surface peel off, and Aubrey refuses to use it. Aubrey will use only cooking utensils that are in perfect condition, and none of us in the house are allowed to touch them.

I used to think that being a hermit would seclude me from everything. It has, on the contrary, attuned me to everything.

The sun rises on you and your enemies, which is really much better than having typhoons raging over everyone.

Filipinos are frequently envied. That is why they are sometimes discriminated against. They are well-dressed and wear real jewelry, for one, and that is intimidating to people of other races.

Years ago I was sent twice on training to DC. Naturally I was in groups comprised of colleagues from other countries. I noted that all of them did not read literature and philosophy and were incapable of intellectual conversations. They were employees who did not think for themselves and followed, instead, only what their American supervisors told them. They were shocked whenever I spoke my mind. They resented my expensive jackets and trench coats and the way I shopped for exotic things, not to mention knowing where to find them.

At the end of each day I was just too glad that I was unlike any one of them.

Major groceries spree. Lunch out with the granddaughters.

Yes, there were crowds. Crowds make everything un-enjoyable.

Cognitive dissonance occurs when people make an effort to discuss and analyze politics intelligently, yet, in the end, all of the atchays vote independently of their discussions and analyses anyway.

It is the same process at work in every neurosis.

If you are able to, eat only vegetables and fish today.

A spoiler is not the revelation of the ending of a movie.

A spoiler is posting that there will be a Christmas Day tragedy, not to annoy people but for them to take precaution.

Actually he will not win, and he will regret having spent all that money rather than saved it for a rainy day, though none of it was his to begin with.

A person is in hell when you entrap him or her in a personal, self-serving, selfish fantasy that you play in your mind over and over again.

Thus, all pornography models are in hell.

Thus, your unwilling beloved is in hell.

Yet one more illustration that one man's heaven is another man's hell, and vice-versa.

Only atchays believe that they can build houses and structures that are "pang-habangbuhay". They even dream of it.

What would happen if I wake up one morning and discover that all the street sweepers, garbage collectors, peddlers, and sidewalk vendors had suddenly become well-read intellectuals overnight?

Good morning, Cubao!

Looks like a fine day, and I hope it stays that way!

Good night, Cubao!

The nights have been as cold as a giant glass of iced water.

Dinner with Aubrey at M.'s cafe.

Finished assembling my wuxia scarf! Hope I have time to have it photographed tomorrow!

Angelique attending a small party with friends at J.'s house.

Small parties--as opposed to parties with huge crowds of guests-- seem to be the in thing these days.

I think, it is because social media are comprised of madding crowds, and everyone wants to be far from them from time to time.

Assembling the five panels of my wuxia scarf. Looking good.

Holiday Shifts

On or around this time our compound security guards drop by their agency on ____________ Street to know whether other guards have been volunteering to work shifts on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year's Eve, and New Year's Day. It seems that one of the compound guards wasn't so lucky to get one of those days off, and will be on duty Christmas Eve.

I can imagine how difficult it must be for guards to work holidays, away from their own families. I always go out of my way to make sure that they are fed good meals, have coffee, candy, and gifts that I know they will appreciate.

Lunch with Angelique at M.'s cafe.

Aubrey and her friends arrived from Greenhills and they'd eaten already.

Before the year is over, dispose of one unwanted thing from your bedroom and replace it with one wanted thing.

If you can't do that, do a general cleaning of your bedroom, including your bedroom doors and windows.

I am using two planners for 2016: the usual Executive Planner produced in the Philippines with a full page each day, which I've favored since college, and the orange Seattle's Best planner/journal. Before I retired I was using four at a time (one for work, the second for the Spirit Questors and magical work, the third for my "Writing from The Heart" workshops, and the fourth, the one with full pages, for my personal life (yes, I have one). Only because one of my friends from the office travel service, CATO, received tons of them for Christmas from different airlines (Japan Air Lines had the best airline planners) and knew that I wanted them. She must be sitting in the Octagon now, smoking a cigarette and thinking about me this very minute!

I encourage everyone to use more than one planner--rather than use one or more magical name. It confuses unwanted astral visitors, shields your life and your year, and protects you from all sorts of attack.

Compartmentalize your life! Using more than one planner builds more defenses around you.

While casting a spell--whether offensive or non-offensive--do not swallow your saliva.

Dreaming of a Ducati motorbike. The shop, after all, is right across our house. I know that it will go with my hermit look, but it costs more than a car and is really too expensive.

Last year they had a gorgeous racing jacket albeit priced at P40,000. Yes, even if the shop is just a few steps away, our neighbors and I don't buy anything. We just dream.

Meeko designed and executed a new banner for my "Writing from The Heart" blog for 2016. Will post it on the blog toward January 1. Love that dragon pen!

Our next construction project will probably be all about upper-floor walls. This will have to wait a bit, though. I don't want construction dust flying all over again, at least, not just yet.

Aubrey is cooking our family's Christmas Eve and Christmas dinners, and we are having my sister Alice here. We need to do groceries soon. I dread it, knowing that there will be crowds of people at the supermarket.

Good morning, Cubao!

A sky the color of champagne, as lustrous as champagne pearls!

Aubrey and her friends are shopping at Greenhills this morning.

Aubrey enjoys wrapping gifts. These are some of the gifts she wrapped for her sister and her friends today, keeping to her Snow Queen motif.

Good night, Cubao!

Finished knitting the fifth and last panel of my wuxia scarf.

Will begin assembling all of the panels tomorrow.

8:30 PM. Angelique and J. arrived from fitting.

Dinner with Angelique, Aubrey, J., and Aubrey's party friends at M.'s cafe.

3:36 PM. Aubrey's first guest arrives.

Wearing my 1940s bakelite Santa pin through the 25th.

I suspect that it was a pre-war, Coca-Cola or Pepsi-Cola gift pin. I found it years ago inside my aunts' stashed-away, mystery boxes.

Bedrooms for teenagers should have their own toilets and bathrooms, good lighting and alternative lighting, a study table, a sitting or lounging area, good ventilation, an air-conditioning system and an electric fan, a TV, a balcony or porch with seating, its own entrance and exit (as in Aubrey's room, which even has its own staircase leading down to the small loggia), and, if possible, a kitchenette or small pantry. That way, when their friends hang out or have a little party, they won't have to wander through the rest of the house.

Never wish for a partner you are not meant to have, for your real power manifests in your solitude.

Aubrey Decorates Her Room For Her Little Christmas Party, 2015

Aubrey's Snow Queen motif. She cut out snowflakes from paper and placed them on her sliding doors. Yet another reason why glass sliding doors are very flexible.

More snowflakes above her headboard.

Aubrey is my only grandchild so far who loves scented candles and paraffin oil lamps. She lights them on every special occasion. I always caution her never to leave them unattended.

The sliding doors from within. The key in decorating with light is to remember that light illumines and paints with colors. It is NOT projected. It is SHADOWS that are projected. Hence, when one turns on a spotlight, it merely disperses light. When a cutout of branches and leaves are placed in front of the source of light, it is the cutout that is projected, not the light.

How strange. Our neighbors Mrs. Kho and her son seem to have moved to another location. I passed their old house last week and it is positively abandoned. I hope that her son will read this, whether accidentally or not, and find the time to reach out to me.

Sometimes the people you yearn to see the most are no longer there after you turn your head and look again.

Your e-mail message:

"Manong, I wanted to greet you on the 25th but I might not have access to a computer or privacy on that day.

"I'll just greet you now.

"It's been my most significant year.  The way I illustrate it:  I put myself in a dark place.  I was very despondent so I turned to God.  He is sooo good He replied right away.  You came along and handed me a lamp.  From bleakness to direction.   Hopefully I make the right choice whenever I encounter a fork in the road.

"Not only for the coming year but perpetually: may you be endowed with greater health, gladness of heart, contentment, deepest of insight, and continued altruism.

Merry Christmas to you and the people closest to your heart!  Happy New Year na rin!

"Maraming Salamat po!

"_____"

My reply:

Hi _____!

Merry Christmas to you and yours as well! I am happy to have touched your life over cyberspace. Here's hoping it isn't snowing too much where you are.

I know that we will probably never meet each other in person, but it is wonderful to know that we can always keep in touch by e-mail.

I have known of many persons, women in particular, who, when planning the construction of their house, measure everything, including their prospective furniture, to the very last centimeter. These are people resistant to rearrangements and decor changes because their minds are set on only one vision.

I build and renovate the other way around. I proceed with general construction, listening to the workmen's suggested changes and adjustments because I value and learn from them, and then, after everything is done, I adjust the furniture and decor accordingly.

My way works because of constant reality checks, without being obsessive-compulsive, without being disillusioned, disappointed, and frustrated, and, most importantly, without yelling at the workmen.

Angelique and J. off to the fitting. Aubrey back from shopping.

Aubrey is decorating her room with a Snow Queen motif for her and her classmates' Christmas party.

Went to the Sitio Catacutan Food Court. Bought two kilos of mangoes. I cannot survive without them. The mango tree is my tree. Next to it are bamboo, banyan, peepal, and camachile, in that order.

The reason many Filipinos age and die in misery is that they retire as contractual employees and therefore receive no pensions to sustain them afterward.

Flaunt your collections, your clothes, and your jewelry, but not your food.

Wear your talismans at least once in rotation before the year is over. They need not be visible; you can wear them inside your shirt.

Good morning, Cubao!

Bright, sunny, and cool!

Angelique is off to a fitting as a member of a bridal entourage, and Aubrey and her friends are having their Christmas party with exchange gifts in our house.

Need to relocate some lamps.

Now the Wands must point once again to the ground.

This message is only for the owners and caretakers of the following:

He with his bed against a wall can fall only one way.

Good night, Cubao!

Almost done with the fifth and last panel of my wuxia scarf.

Dinner at home with the granddaughters. It was briefly rainy again, and we didn't feel like cooking or going out. Ordered Chinese food.

Rearranged furniture alone. A formidable but fulfilling task. Looking good.

Sometimes your truest friend and teacher is not the person sitting right next to you but sitting at a computer miles across the ocean, across rain forests, across dense metropolises, in a place you have never been to and seen.

M.'s cafe is planning to have an outdoor hot dog stand.

The gnomes will sing cheerful carols for you tonight.

In enchanted places, typically those with lots of plants and trees, fairies hold evening celebrations. You hear soft, rondalla music in the air and are unable to tell where it's coming from. It is always there, and it never stops.

When gnomes carol, even the mice stop and listen.

An old man who is in good shape is ten times more impressive than a young man who is.

Last night the rain exited like Lady Macbeth.

Today is as clear as conscience.

Good afternoon, Cubao!

Slept ten hours last night, roughy 2:00 AM - 12:45 NN. It's Benjie's holiday and I usually wake up at 7:30 AM when he comes in.

Angelique got anxious, gave me a Viber call, and knocked on my door to be sure that everything was all right.

Lunch with Angelique and Aubrey at M.'s cafe.

When it rains for days and nights and then the rain finally stops, there is a lull in the air. I hear no voices from the driveway. Everything seems to go inert, as if everyone is in disbelief that the worst has passed and is quietly waiting for someone else to move first.

The series is replayed ad nauseam, but, since I like the subject matter, I watch it all the time. Maybe after it no longer plays they will finally sell the entire set of DVDs.

Gorgeous cast, except for the female protagonist, who seems a highly unlikely romantic choice by the male protagonist. And, if I may be allowed to say so, she looks like King Kong to me.

Good night, Cubao!

It's 10:13 PM and the rain has completely stopped. It is, nonetheless, still very chilly. When I took my hot shower the bathroom filled with a fine mist of steam.

Still working on the fifth and last panel of my wuxia scarf.

Dinner at home with the granddaughters. We are all trying to get used to the new configuration of the rooms. I have already decided to keep what works and change what doesn't work.

Whenever you decide to reinvent yourself, do it only for yourself, never for other people.

A new stall has opened at the Sitio Catacutan Food Court. It offers dishes that the other stalls don't, which is truly wonderful!

Lunch with Angelique, Aubrey, and Benjie at home.

Angelique then went to the Castle of Baking and Confectionery to buy something.

Did some rows on the fifth panel of my wuxia scarf while Benjie continued to work in the house.

Still raining, still pouring!

Your Hangout message:

"Hi, sir Tony. Hihingi lang po...ng payo. ...(H)indi ko pa rin po alam ang gagawin. Mahal ko po ang pamilya ko, ang tatay ko, ang nanay ko, ang mga kapatid ko. Pero gusto ko na pong ayusin ang sarili kong pamilya. Gusto ko na pong magdesisyon para sa anak ko, sumubok man lang ibigay sa kanya yung buong pamilya, convential type ng pamilya na magkakasama ang magulang at anak. Pero hindi ko po alam kung paano sasabihin sa magulang ko ito, nang hindi nagmumukhang sumusuway sa kanila o walang utang na loob sa ginawa nilang pagtanggap ulit sa akin sa kabila ng aking pagkakamali. Paano ko po ipaiintindi sa kanila na may mga bagay na kailangan po na ako ang magdecide, na may sarili akong buhay na baka iba sa gusto nila para sa akin, nang hindi sila naooffend o nadidisrespect? Naiipit po ako, at pakiramdam ko po, nakakulong ako. Walang hawak o control sa mga mahahalagang bagay sa buhay ko. Gusto ko lang po maging masaya nang walang tinatapakan na ibang tao.

"Sending you again photos of my father, mother, and my daughter's father. Gusto ko po malaman kung paano ihahandle ang mga personalidad nila, at kung totoo/malinis po ba ang hangarin ng tatay ng anak ko sa amin. Maraming salamat po, at pasensya na sa paulit ulit na mga tanong."

Hello _______________!

Has it ever occurred to you that all you have to do is show them this message that you sent me?

There are things you have to clarify for yourself though:

--Won't you change your mind again in the future?

--In case you become abandoned, are you financially capable of having your own house and cover all expenses for your child and yourself?

I am all for independence, especially since living in someone else's house means that you have to follow rules that are not yours, whereas, in your own house, you establish your own. However, think this over, applying all the worst-case scenarios you can imagine, before acting. What I see from your photo is that you constantly waver between two personalities--dominant and passive, rebellious and conservative, mother and daughter, wife and lover--and that whenever you are tired of being one you yearn to be the other all over again.

Her father was well-known to academics because of one book that he wrote. She is not, and she will never be.

The Metaphysics of Renovation

Last night I stepped through the newly-cut archway between the lounge and the passage to the kitchen. I was suddenly overcome with an almost numinous feeling. It occurred to me that, only a week ago, there was a solid wall right there that I could not physically pass through, but that now, all it takes is a step from lounge to passage. It was like stepping from one world to another, a defiance of physics made possible by time and creative energy, and I wondered whether bridging gaps between nations that build walls could not also be possible by cutting metaphorical archways through them.

I am highly entertained by Say Yes to the Dress because:

--Some women still do not realize that they cannot look good in a traditional wedding dress, no matter what.
--I love watching the salesladies' seemingly put-on brightness and insincere patience in the face of clients' indecision.
--I love the moment when they say, "Shall we make it pop?", i.e., crown the dress with a veil, during which the expressions on their faces really say, "Now I'm going in for the kill."

Tweedledum and Tweedledee not only have matching shirts, they have matching bodies as well.

Devils feed on traffic.

Last year I'd have been in the office anxiously wishing the rain would stop.

This year I am at home wishing that the rain won't stop.

Benjie and I are doing more work on the house. The cement step at the entrance to the small loggia and the cement steps perpendicular to the staircase into the lounge have set. Repainting the walls is next, but I have yet to decide on colors. Definitely not white--white walls are reminiscent of government housing, art galleries, hospitals, and school clinics, and always make me feel that the residents have just moved in after paying up for their house and lot, are color-blind, or are economizing on paint.

Today one of my spirit guides told me that this is the time when other men are being asked to pay back for transgressions they committed since their teen years onward.

The guide called this season a Karma Christmas.

As early as high school he was intelligent enough to realize that he was undesirable to men and women, and so, probably subconsciously, he honed his mind and became the highest achiever of his class. It seems that, after graduate studies, even that was not enough. Something seemed lacking. That was when he turned to God and became a lay brother. Now he claims that he is happy and content, but everything he says and does points other ways.

Your mind takes you places no other vehicles can.

Your heart will always stay home.

Crinkles are really chocolate coolers.

The only time I keep my mobile on my person is when my granddaughters are not at home.

So, don't call or text-message me and expect me to be responsive at all times.

Amateurs tend to conduct team-building programs as group dynamics programs, believing that their processes and objectives belong to the realm of social psychology. After all these years none of them have questioned why their trainers' games have had little or no impact on their audiences.

Team-building belongs to the realm of clinical psychology. It must address the individual self rather than the collective persona of a group, for addressing the latter will have only a shallow effect and, in the end, the participants will remember only the venue and the food and how much personal fun they had, and then go back to their workplace essentially unchanged.

Good morning, Cubao!

The storm down south has reportedly abated and gone, but it's cold and rainy up here and everyone is walking about under colorful umbrellas.

Good night, Cubao!

It is so chilly that the thought of lighting candles in our iron firebox--our portable fireplace--crossed my mind.

Angelique and J. are at UST's Paskuhan.

Dinner at home with Aubrey.

Fancy fireworks at Araneta Center almost every night through New Year's Eve.

Christmas party at Samson College of Science and Technology, on the other side of the compound wall. Every Sunday I hear their ROTC cadets. Tonight I hear their party music and their revelry.

It is wrong to assume that persons without partners are sad and lonely. It is, as a matter of fact, an atchay notion.

Done working for the day. Another storm due to hit Mindanao tonight, and so will keep tuned to the news.

More cleaning and more redecorating. I was reluctant to get rid of our pair of old, Chinese temple lanterns because they were quite expensive. And so we cleaned them...

...took off the tassels and the picture panels...

...changed the panels to solid, African colors--and we now have a pair of hanging, Art Deco lanterns!

How many stupid, illiterate, and unenlightened hackers still continue to believe that my e-mail system has a "maximum capacity" that can be "exceeded"? Cyberspace is as infinite as the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin.

In Metro Manila I no longer hear people say, "I like riding with him because he's such a careful driver."

In Metro Manila, with devils' traffic, speeding does not even exist.

Don't offer foreigners cornick and tell them that it's "cornick". Tell them, instead, that you're offering toasted grits.

Sadly, at least one Aeta family made it to Cubao. I saw them yesterday on my way to the shops: a father, a mother, a little boy, and a little girl. They were sitting beside the street, the father a distance away from them as though unwilling to accept their situation. Each of them had cardboard folders on which were written, "Namamas Ko Po. Palimos Po." It was evident that no one, in vehicles or on foot, had anything to give them.

Later, when I was with Peter in M's cafe, they trudged by, glancing wistfully through the glass doors. All of them looked hurt, unhappy, and undignified.

I didn't do anything this time because, when I did do something for them in the past, they came back everyday for more, took other Aeta families in tow with them, and camped out on my plant box. They lit fires to cook rice and trampled on my flowers. I even gave in to buying from them a set of bows and arrows embellished with goatskin I neither wanted nor needed. Perhaps they were attracted by Chito's huge, ficus tree, one of the few trees on P. Tuazon Boulevard. All of them were beautiful and exotic, and I believe there is something intense and enchanted about aboriginal faces,  but I swore to myself that I would never do again what I did. For, indeed, ignoring them is the best way to ensure that they will not come back and live the lives of beggars.

I felt sad, therefore, not only for them but also for myself.

When urban children see ethnic minorities as mendicants, they lose all respect for them and ultimately for their heritage. And, of course, they grow up to be atchays.

Christmas is what you make it, not what others make it to be.

I did not take him in because he went to every other psychic in town, and he seemed nothing more than a slut.

The dark knight seems to rise, but he will never get there.

Sinukuan

In 2013, after my third Haring Bakal initiation in Santander, Cebu, I brought home three sinukuan wands. I kept one to craft into an actual wand. We cut the other two to produce several clean pieces.

While sinukuan wood originates north of Metro Manila in Luzon, where there is actually a place called Sinukuan, it can be found anywhere in the Philippines, and mainly from mystical places. It is alleged that, when a mage hunts for it in forests, he comes upon a tree around which the other trees and plants bend toward it, as though kowtowing in obeisance. The mage must ask permission from the tree to take one or more of its branches.

Sinukuan is characterized by its natural, cross-section design, typically a flower in the center of which is a cross (sometimes perceived as a cross with a petaled halo). It is believed that whoever has a piece of this wood will overcome all obstacles, particularly those generated by other men. When a sliver is kept in one's wallet, it assures the owner that he will never run out of money. It is also possible to place a piece in a bottle of extra virgin coconut oil to be used for potency (sexual and otherwise) and empowerment (literally and figuratively, that others bow down to your will).

I think that sinukuan is akin to "Saint John The Conqueror" in the West, because, while SJTC is a root, it could very well be the root of a sinukuan tree.

I gave the pieces to the members of the Spirit Questors (the real Spirit Questors, i.e. students who were trained by myself and by no other persons), The 36 Wands, and Haring Bakal Cubao.

In this photo the pieces are quite dark, because the wood generated sap during cutting. It exudes a peculiar, fairy-like scent.

Close-up of a cut piece

Close-up of a dry piece