burned out firechild

Finally!!! After more than a month of hibernation I am back to blogging. The long break from polluting cyberspace with details of my trivial life was mostly due to the circus that was Cinemalaya, and also to the growing demands of work at Oracle (after hours of exploiting the free internet connection at my workstation I have resolved to do my job and actually call people to sell training). It is a good thing too, I can actually sit back and look at the month that had passed and assess the varied ways on how I wasted other people’s time. More like a monthly report the way it’s done in the so-called corporate world… fellow lurkers brace yourselves, this will be a lengthy one

Balanghai-ed: Ahh… my 15 minutes of fame is over. The Cinemalaya film festival wrapped up last July 23 with the Shorts & Winning Films screening at the UP film institute. The darned festival just got stuck to this small slice of my life— since I started to film last October 2004 till now. I’m still working at flushing it out of my system. Which will be hard with the other festivals where we’ll be entering our films, schools where the films got invited, gloating over post festival articles, anonymous blog entries, and pictures… lots of pictures…All in all, it just felt really great to be in the company of filmmakers, to watch their films, to get best screenplay for shorts (which was really strange because only a few really understood or appreciated the blood bank when it was still on paper), to drink free wine, to read your name in broadsheet articles, websites, other people’s blogs, to see your film up there on the big wide silver screen… haaay… enough!

Forging Storge : No love life this month. And i’m not complaining, really. Romantic love isn’t exactly the best thing ever created. This is the month I have spent the most number of hours with my friends. I am grateful that i have many…And this month, I have had the special power of bringing all of them together. I labs you all!!  The Moonchildren: I shall start with them because July is their birth month. So a big happy birthday to Setsuna, Jedi, and Solemn Luna… mutable signs are so much fun. Laughter is always good for your health, wonder is an important fuel for dreams, and sensible perception keeps my sanity in tact. That is why i need them within close proximity– my sweet satellites… Plus they don’t disagree with me, instead let me make a fool of myself. Which is actually good for me. I miss Sunny a lot though. Among the three she is the most evolved. But i like to kid myself into thinking that nothing has changed. Di ba? Di ba? Twin & the Immortals: This was the month that we had our first complete barkada picture. After 11 years. We’ve all changed a lot. But nothing really has changed. We’re still, uh, like that. With Twin, something feels a teensy bit strange. 4 years apart and a thousand mile distance can do that to the best of friends. Not knowing where to begin, what to divulge, what to leave out, what the other would be interested in, how to say it, when… Who am i kidding?! We’ve fallen out. Yun na yun. My almost-tears during my four-red-horse-bottle-stupor was a clear sign that we have. Chet and Che… they have always been there, and they will always be…. La Familia Rojo: The Redroom people are now my 2nd family. I lump with this group Shiney- editor of the universe and the intellectuals of Panay, Grazita O, Chard, Meyor & Lowi, Rhap, the Blood Bank crew… With them I have become a festival whore, a pictorial manic starlet, a ranting alcoholic, and a filmmaker. I cannot call myself indie for I am highly dependent on these people, without them, no blood bank. period. The Lost Boys & Girls: It was great seeing them again after ages… paolo, edwin, dems, bong, guido, gari ,harold, j, bahag, junsabayton, shugo, ato, aloy, mike, eman, lani, tala, amrei, teks, mary ann, cci pipol, everyone who went to see blood bank… salamat. i better stop now before this turns into an epic thank you speech.

Dark Charm:My Neil Gaiman experience was the ultimate proof of how lucky i am this month. Well I was already lucky to get an invite to the writer’s forum at the music museum from sunny. But the main event for me was actually getting neil my god to sign my book (check out my typelists to find out which one). But my bright pink balloons of hope deflated as soon as i saw the line at Gateway mall and finding out that they were no longer giving out passes. Fine, i was resigned to my fate of being a loser and decided to pig out at the overrated Taco Bell…  But when Tropang Endless (coined by Paolo) got back to fully booked to hang around and moon with envy, I chanced upon Marv, my former shift manager who was the last person I expected to see at the Gaiman book signing. I told him my sad tale and near forced him to take my book and sneak it to be autographed. Well, he didn’t have to because because the kind hearted girl (and p*tang*na I had FORGET what her name was! ) standing in front of him in line had an extra pass!! Her friend left and so she didn’t know what to do with the extra pass. The girl was probably my genie in a previous life. To cut the story short. I got in to have my book signed within the next 5 minutes. Whew! Ang swerte ko. Anung sinabi ng mga pumila pa since 12 noon!! Hah!!

Picture Whore: I still find it hard to explain how I can manage to have photo albums in friendster without owning a digital camera. That’s all thanks to grazita o., paolo, & other generous beautiful people who have digicams. I look like a buffoon. Instead to attending to declan, that is what i do in my free time. I am a starlet… shame… shame…

Resolution for August (isang malaking "yeah right"): I will get declan to see his dev psych, buy my own digital cam and document his childhood instead of my beer guzzling embarrassments, get my pc fixed, write my aswang script, get declan twice a week therapy for both OT & speech, open either a time deposit or dollar account, concentrate on working…

Well that’s it folks. July in a gigantic nutshell. See you next month!