About that Wislawa Szymborska line (i.e., 27th birthday)

*November 6, 2020 A few weeks before November 6, the poem Possibilities by Wislawa Szymborska came to me like a directive: “I prefer, where love’s concerned, nonspecific anniversaries/ that can be celebrated every day […] I prefer not to ask how much longer and when./ I prefer keeping in mind even the possibility/ that existence has its …

I works at freelance podcaster

Hello reader, This weekend I joined in an activity which is totally new and intimidating to me. Jade Mark shared to me the plan he has been brewing with David Jayson about creating a podcast where we’d talk about millennial trends and angst. I know I’d hide myself in any public speaking activities, being aware that …

Book review on March 2020: Women, women, women

Apologies for the two-month delay of this blog post. March had been a terrible month as it was the onset of the community quarantine; April was more terrible with weeks of self-imposed internet disconnection; May is a month when I’m struggling to stabilize everything that had happened to me and to the world, and I’m …

Disposing of/holding on

I was first introduced to Marie Kondo last year when I once received messages of friends asking me to adopt the wacky socks they do not want to use anymore.  Marie Kondo has become a household name, so phenomenal that she has become more of a verb than a figure. To ‘Marie Kondo,’ as how …

Book review: Tales on love for February 2020

I am coming back from where we left off: a quick review of the books I have read in February. I pored over four books about love—one fiction and three nonfiction. The following were Enigma variations by André Aciman, Unrequited by Lisa Phillips, Modern romance by Aziz Ansari, and Modern love by Daniel Jones (ed.). …

A love letter

To whom it may concern: If you fall under the category of the brokenhearted, the depressed, the friendzoned, the ghostee, the abused, the stuck, the invisible, the solitary, the incomplete, the waitlisted, or the abandoned, I am giving this letter to you. So February 14 excludes you from those who will celebrate this day with …

Your January 10, 2020; my December 31, 2019

In my head, today marks my New Year’s Eve. It’s still December 31, 2019 in my calendar. I kid you not. I believe that time is relative and a social construct. I have two situations to exemplify.  A. March 11, 2018. The day we had to fly out of Washington DC, it was daylight savings …

Zine for sale: Running for HIV/AIDS and other essays

Shoutout to everyone especially the mental health advocates and HIV advocates! I am selling one of my zines ‘Running for HIV/AIDS and other essays’ for 100 PHP. This will be sold either online (bulk orders only!) and during the #BLTX9 on December 13 (Zero82 Lokal Bar, Davao City, 6 pm to 12 midnight) and December …

Dear diary, and other musings

Dear diary,  I’m not sure when you’d be tired listening to the things I carry and to my intrusive thoughts. A lot of people have quit because I am a liability, and I am glad you are neither a people nor a ghost. Well, you really have no choice. And worry not, you won’t read …

Note to self – 26th birthday

6 November 2019 🥰🥳🙏🍕  First of all, there is no happy birthday in the context of failures in the government, scary health issues in the nation, and the Mindanao quake, to which my twin Kleent agreed. I am slipping away virtually, conserving my energy to things that matter, like writing and teaching. No grand party, …