I wrestle long with my youth. / We try so hard to live in the truth. / But do not tell me all is fine. / When I lose my head, I lose my spine. --Mumford and Sons, "Hopeless Wanderer"
It's one of those "I had so much to say on the car ride here, but now that I'm sitting on my bed I'm so freaking tired I'm probably going to fall asleep in the middle of this post" posts. But I've always been looking for an excuse to say "At this point, it's easier to stay awake" and right now is that excusable moment. It is four thirty in the morning of the first day of November in the year that the world is supposed to end and ladies and gentlemen, I have word vomit.
So I haven't been Tumblin' for a while and the reason for that is because I think I'm actually doing things? I thought productivity would feel like, well, something, but it's like the past week just sped by, all faster than a speeding bullet and such. Then again, maybe that's just the nature of sembreak. You're not allowed to feel it happening, no matter what you're doing.
Anyway, the reason I'm here now is because I can't decide if the past few sleepless hours were eventful or uneventful. Lots of things happened but they're things that happen all the time.
All of my thoughts about it were left in the car, so here's what I can scrounge up off the top of my head. (Yes, sorry, bulleted post again. I mean, come on, it's four freaking thirty. Please understand that this isn't usually the time when my brain excels at writing transitions between thoughts.)
1. I'm not doing NaNoWriMo this year because I decided I have a life, which I'm starting to think isn't true. After my productive week of reading three YA books (The Fault in Our Stars among them, yay! Thoughts on that some other time. Like maybe never.) and finishing up my axe-bass, I fell--am falling--into this incredible lull of watching Gilmore Girls and eating everything. I know that's what sembreak is usually like for me, but I kind of hoped that the productivity would pull a vorpal sword and go one-two, one-two, and through and through.
(SPOILER-Y TFIOS-related side note: If anyone asked me to recite impromptu poetry on a plane or on anywhere, I'd automatically go 'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe. I doubt Jabberwocky would be particularly inspiring in the area of inciting guys to confess their love to me.)
Anyway, with or without a so-called life, I'm going to try to work as hard as I can next semester (which starts next week, I mean what) so I must minimize distractions. Ironic that I'm not writing to focus on studying about writing, but like I've been saying, college has ruined me and I'm blaming it and hormones for everything.
Oh, and I didn't join the contests I mentioned a few weeks ago. I wish other people were disappointed in me because my disappointment in myself is clearly not making the cut.
2. I've begun to think that everyone who's written about boys--children boys, not boys boys--is lying, because I don't think years of YA literature properly prepared me for the attack of my cousins. Cousin's sons, actually, but cousins is shorter. They're three little boys who were all born within a year of each other and they are BOYS.
I was at Heritage (It's called Heritage Park, but it's a cemetery so whatever, I'm calling it Heritage) since about six yesterday / a while ago / some indefinite time in the past. It's actually one of the prettiest cemeteries I've been to. It's all grass and it looks like a golf course from the outside. Inside it's like a camping ground. It's my first Undas there, because both my maternal grandparents are buried there now, so it was...exciting? Is it politically correct to call a graveyard exciting?
Anyway, it was too dark to read, so I was a /hopeless wanderer/ and just gravitated to whichever tent had the least number of sleeping people. And yes, the former sentence is the only reason why I chose to quote Mumford and Sons for this post.
At around midnight, I got bored and lay in the grass to look up at the stars. I probably should've thought about TFIOS, but all I could think about was that that was the first time I'd seen so many stars since I was in grade school. My other cousin's daughters (my family tree is hard to explain, let's go back to just calling them cousins) came over and I tried to do that thing where I point out constellations and educate the children, but I'm bad at talking so I just lay there.
That's when my boy-cousins went over and did the most random things. They were obsessed with gore ("Nakakita na ba kayo ng kinatay na pusa?"), body parts ("Yung buhok mo parang pirate.") and horror films (insert every Asian horror movie ever here; they also mentioned The Grinch a lot of times). They were also well-versed in insulting people. At one point, they piled on top of each other and the middle one suggested that they be bread. He'd be the pickle and the others were the buns. True story, bro.
It has come to my attention that I am bad at talking generally, but particularly, I'm really bad at talking to boys--children boys, boys boys, the whole male population. I don't understand them. I have a brother but we were never really super close and he was always just as weird as me. I spent high school in a Catholic girls school, but even in grade school, I stuck with the girls. This is a huge gap in my knowledge that I'm realizing way too late. For God's sake, I want to be a preschool teacher, I will face this everyday. This must be fixed.
3. I didn't sleep at all at Heritage. For some reason, I just didn't want to. I kept lying down, but I didn't go to sleep. The weird thing though was that each time I lay next to someone, they ended up falling asleep and I was left to stare upwards. There is a metaphor in this.
Case number one: Late afternoon, one of my more hyperactive girl-cousins, who is four and never stops moving, couldn't get to sleep. She's my favorite because she has these huge eyes and reminds me of that one girl in One Hundred Years of Solitude, the one who gets spirited to heaven or something, who's really pretty and doesn't wear underwear or whatever. Anyway, I lay down in the tent with her and asked her if she was sleepy. She said yes so I told her to go to sleep. She did.
Case number two: I lay down next to my mom. I wanted to tell her things and ask her questions, but because I am bad at talking, somebody else was sleeping in the tent, and I just couldn't say "Mom, sometimes I'm really sad and I don't know why," I just lay there and talked about nothing. She was awake at first because there were a lot of planes passing by and they woke her up. Then she fell asleep.
Case number three: I was with one of my girl-cousins in the field. No tent this time, just the stars. We were being harassed by the boy-cousins and for some reason, she just fell asleep in the middle of it all.
All those times, after I knew that they were asleep, I still lay there. I don't know if I was making sure they were asleep or if I was just used to staring at the ceiling, only this time there's no ceiling. Maybe I'm used to being the last one to go to sleep. If I had one peso for every night I was still awake when everyone else was asleep, I probably wouldn't be very rich because we're in a recession. But still, I'd like to know.
4. I miss my iPod. I didn't realize that everything was a reference to a song and that I needed to hear songs immediately when I remember them otherwise they'll get stuck in my head all day, until I lost my iPod. I need a new iPod. The LSS-es just aren't decent substitutes for the real thing.
5. Oh yeah, Halloween. Well, it rained. Really hard. Getting to my tita's village was vicious, but we got there. And it was still raining.
On the plus side, before I left the house, I did my makeup and people thought it was good. I don't know if that's good or bad, but considering the kids didn't get a lot of candy because we only left the house after the rain stopped, I'm taking it as a good thing in context. My axe-bass survived the rain so that was awesome. It actually felt pretty awesome that I made my costume--clothes, props, makeup, and all--on my own and people recognized the character I was supposed to be, so it really wasn't that bad. And of course, spending Halloween with my beloved girl-cousins and sister was pretty great, too.
On the minus side, I realized that my family was really just keeping up Halloween for my grandmother, because it was a way to get the family together. I never noticed before how getting together was actually a struggle because everyone lived so far apart. My mom's ultimatum was that unless we could find a way to get ourselves there without bothering anyone, this year would be our last Halloween. So that sucks.
Last minute addition: I'd've liked to talk about Welcome To The Dollhouse which is weird and sweet and disturbing and has quickly become one of my favorite movies, but I'd be giving everything away. I'm telling you now: Just watch it, because you just have to.
Woo, okay, yeah, that's it. That came out longer than I expected. The sun is rising now, but the moon is still visible. This is all I wanted to stay awake for, actually, because I've also been looking for the opportunity to say, "I think I need a sunrise. I'm tired of the sunset." even if I'm not. Still, sunrises are beautiful and with this one rising over the first of November, I can say I have officially pulled an all-nighter. I feel like I'm witnessing everything about November, but I'm not really doing anything about it. Whatever, maybe I'm not supposed to do much anyway. (Hello, second sem. Fingers crossed.)
It's 6AM in the Philippines. In eighteen hours, we are going to see the face of one Mr. William Darcy. With this, I leave you.
