Gaps, patches and in-betweens

I have been traveling by myself for quite some time whether it's just to and from the office, or to conferences, countries. And I have lately resorted to eavesdropping. Before I didn’t care what was going on around me but now I cannot help it. This I do if I do not have my mp3 with me. I like these ‘keep it to yourself’ gadgets. If you crank it loud enough to a certain volume, it drowns out whatever noise there are around you – foreign language, foreign music, people on celphones, people chatting and lets you hear Rob Thomas crooning 3am to only you or get Green Day into your system at a level without worrying about the neighbors. If you crank it up some more, there is a level when you feel like you’re the star of your own MTV. You start to feel your feet and then body moving to the rhythm of the music. You resist the urge to strike a pose as the song hits a melancholy note or nod or roll your head to a rhythm. There would be times when other people will star in your MTV. Like when...

She was always nondescript, ducked behind the reception desk of the business center. I found her soft-spoken and a bit shy, her voice not among those who would laugh loudly when they're having fun at the lobby. She would always click the automatic lock open for those who have forgotten their key cards hoping to get away with it by smiling apologetically through the glass doors of our office space. I caught up with her in the pantry the other day as I was to have lunch and she was finishing up. At first we talked about where each of us were staying. My place is a bit far - or so I thought. Compared to within the city center, I guess you can say I live at least within city limits. She lives in the next province. I commute via a 20-baht van ride and the sky train, four stations away from the last station which approximately would take me 30 minutes or more travel time, depending on traffic. It takes her two hours to get to the office via a 50-baht van ride and then a bus ride. She liv...

When opportunity starts knocking, it comes one after the other. Sometimes, overlapping even. Is it bad timing? Or is it just fate teasing, flirting with you? Has it been decided on already or do we really have a choice in what happens? Or are our choices premeditated by our unconscious state of being and circumstance, with influences from social structures and other influential internal and external factors? And in the end is there ever really a choice? I would like to think that there is. When we look at ourselves, and others around us, and thinking about the opportunities presented to us in the past, and the present that we are looking at is less than the promise of amazing than was expected, we think: what the hell happened? And should one be faced with the question about one's own life - how do you answer that and be true to yourself? Do you say: life happened - which is a measly excuse for whatever happened to you and does not sound like owning up to wrong decisions and choi...

I first met her at an action protest event in Bangkok. Ok. Press rewind button. Bwzzzt. I first met her online for the action event protest in Bangkok on climate change. It was a skype meeting. We were both based in Chiang Mai but we never really met each other in person. Then we saw each other at the event itself a few days after where we joined the protest actions that culminated in a big event with all concerned groups and citizens telling the people inside the UN building to get their acts together, stop the yapping and commit to lesser carbon emissions. She was French, very pleasant and pretty. I think the boys only called me for a drink after the events to use me to get Amelie to go - but I was in Chiang Mai by the time they called. Shortly after the Bangkok events I left my work and have not been in touch with the group or with Amelie. Almost four months after, I saw an ad for a job here in Chiang Mai with a position that seemed to be crafted for me in Amelie’s organization. I w...

I found oooooold friends, neighbors in fact at our old place in Cainta on FB lately. Then I almost asked my 12 year old daughter of one neighbor we had when I was almost the same age as she is, mistaking her for my younger sister, until I caught myself thinking – hang on. There’s something wrong in this picture. My daughter will have no idea who I am talking about because she has not lived that life, in that neighborhood. When I realized I was on the verge of the slip-up and saved what remaining 38 year old dignity I have against another one of her 12-year old “You’re getting old, mom” looks, I thought, whew. What the hell was I thinking?! It was the strangest feeling. Friday, February 19, 2010

Maybe it is man’s nature to be in awe and scared of something bigger than himself. The matter of size and power scares him, heightening the feeling of not being in control. So he tries to overcome that fear by transferring it, instilling the fear in the bigger, wiser animals and controlling them. He tries to have power over the animals by teaching him his ways, his understanding of things, what he wants the animals to do until man has brainwashed them and the massive, powerful beasts are subdued and tamed to thinking that man is their master. Yet even with man’s self imposed stature in this power structure and being able to command the animals, fear is still never far from his mind and heart as evidenced in the way he conveys his instructions. He screams, yells, and gives orders seemingly angry at himself for being small and weak thus projecting fake confidence by hurling rough words in booming voices like whips trying to convince himself that he is in charge. It reminds me of the way ...