I was a Teenage Anarchist.

I was a Teenage Anarchist. When I was younger my opinions where very black and white, I was either for or against something, and that’s how I defined myself. A lot of those opinions where formed by social influence from the scene I was a part of, being younger I felt the need to belong to something, a group of people, I wanted acceptance. Over time I realized how some people use their positions of stature to pursue their own personal agenda’s, selling their own personal brand of self- serving revolution. This all being the complete opposite of what drew me towards Anarchism in the first place. I found that the people who professed the loudest that they were the most open minded individuals were in fact usually the most close minded. I feel like the revolution sold to me when I was a teenager by the punk scene, by the Anarchist scene was a lie. The real revolution was the political awakening. That initial spark that made me want to change the world. And that’s what I’m interested in, maintaining that fire. That’s what the song is about. I am an autonomous individual. I think for myself. I have no need to supplement my identity through belonging to a scene or exclusively endorsing any brand of political thought. And if anyone is offended by that I feel like it only reaffirms my conviction. For if it’s heresy for an Anarchist to say “FUCK Anarchy” then Anarchism is truly just another flag, and I say burn it along with the rest of them.

- Against Me's Tom Gabel talks about the new song “I Was A Teenage Anarchist”, how he got into Anarchism, and why he got out of it. 


Read the entirety of this essay.


I was reading this tonight and the one long paragraph above was the last part of a post. It wasn't eureka in a sense that Gabel said the words my mouth wasn't capable of saying but more like in a sense that I've found validation. A couple of years ago, I wrote this: 


We now live the irony of our songs. and 
We started this to break the rules but now the rules we've made confine us.


If I remember correctly, it was the time I and some friends discussed the state of the scene in our town. I have to admit, I felt we didn't have the right to question how things were run because although we did care about this community, we felt that 1. we didn't give our all to help 2. even if we did help, it would be inadequate to make the situation better 3. whenever we tried, our efforts were watered down by a few people.


I know, number three is a pretty heavy accusation but I would just want to say that it is not entirely baseless. For one thing, the exclusivity of the community has sky-rocketed to the point where it had become a closed clique, to the point of elitism. It is so sad to think how a community that embraced the people who are trying to fight discrimination have driven some of them away because of well, discrimination.


Absurd and ironic and sad.


I remember when I was interviewed by a friend in another scene from another town on why I chose to stay here longest, I paused and thought hard and I knew the answer lay in the ideal and I wanted to tell him that even though the ideal is no longer alive, the music and message still is, and even though people change, the idea of a family outside of your own is hard to drop. 


I told him that once, I was an outsider and I was invited into this community by a couple of old-timers. From there, I met really good friends but I never really felt that I belonged. I fell in love with everything the community stood for and I cared about the people. It was much like home but still, I felt adopted. Maybe that was why I considered my options and made friends with people who aren't part of this scene. I even put up shows in the hopes that I can create a new community where everyone is welcome to live out their most creative selves. I succeeded somehow, and I even bridged some gaps.


This isn't a promise but I will still take part and help whenever and however I can. This scene is a huge chunk of the person that I am now, in strengthening my beliefs. I just hope that the ones who's got a hold of it now will be a lot more receptive, will try to make it part of their plan to educate, not alienate and to 

P.S. Happy Birthday. You're old enough to drive.

There is nowhere else but here.

After almost a year, I'm back. I won't say for good (or for bad. . haha) but I came back because there really is nowhere else but here. For real time events, we all have Twitter and Facebook but I don't know. I am still itching to write sometimes. Tumblr isn't even an option. That site is more like a dump of everything you see and hear and photos and scraps of whatever stuff mostly forgettable anyway. It's too much to handle.

This blog is like an old provincial hometown I left for greener pastures (the latest innovative social networking sites) and somewhere to return to when life is just too much in the big city. I'm back.

A lot has happened the past year. I don't even know where to start. The great thing about writing in here is that I don't feel like there are rules to follow. I don't have to start chronologically right? Just the events that seem pretty major like:

♥ saw my sister and her family back home from Switzerland early this year

♥ finished my last three major subjects with good grades

♥ worked in a restaurant kitchen for 2 1/2 months without pay

♥ went to Manila - saw Dashboard Confessional play and talked to Chris Carrabba for like a few seconds lol and have him sign a cd and my shirt

♥ tasted Dairy Queen for the first time

♥ saw a man I love get married

♥ found someone else to love and he turns out to be married(ish. . seriously taken)

stuff like that. .

Sorry about the last two in the list, I am quite OA when it comes to matters of the heart and I guess having a food blog and keeping myself busy with other things like career (which I don't have as of the moment) and family and music and art and whatever doesn't really change that fact, it just helps in alleviating and/or aggravating the problem. . whatever works. LOL

My last post in here's like September 2009. Fast forward to today.

I had this petty fight with my ma this afternoon because she rearranged furniture in my bedroom and I didn't want her to. But she was right and I was wrong. The bedroom looked better. I just couldn't admit it to her though or she would be high and mighty yak about how right she was. I love her. She cares about the things I care about. My brother told me to throw away my books because he thinks it is the devil. He said it made me jaded and artsy and fucks up my priorities and he said the reason why I don't have a love life and a job is because I am too alternative and passive and hedonistic and selfish. In his words, I don't take life seriously.

He may have a point. But headstrong as I am, I do not take it. Really, this is all I got. These are the only things I know are mine. If he took away the very few things I'm good at, I am better dead.

I just fell silent today. What am I in this house but a bum? He's right in that area.

But you know, I try. I am looking for a job. I am waiting for calls.

And I don't want to work a job that I don't like (call center agent?).

I would rather get minimum wage cooking or busing dishes.

I could not throw away my books. I could not stop listening

to the type of music I love.

I know a lot of people who threw their dreams away for money. I know a lot of people who chose to turn their backs from the things and people they love for something the world told them would be better.

They are miserable.

Call me immature. I am just not that type of person. I tried to be. I felt dead, you know. Really, I would rather die.

Happiness can't be bought.

I just want to be happy.

We all do.

Midnight wonder.

When we began, we knew what we were here for: the discovery of deeper understanding, the need to tame the rage of our idealistic youth. When did we stop questioning and why? We now live the irony of our songs. It pains me to see us turn out the way we shouldn't be. Did we forget what we began? Our causes running out like burning coals left out to die. We started this to break the rules but now the rules we've made confine us.

When did we stop questioning and why?

The one who got away.

I wanted to do the right thing, hard as it was. My beautiful parents taught me well.
But one thing that was never discussed in the dinner table and Sunday get-together was how to deal with love when it fails you.

Ma and Pa never skips the sermon on 'true love that waits', 'true and honest love', 'enduring love', 'love is work', 'waiting for the right one', 'chastity' and all other subjects that only hardline Catholic parents could muster and I will be forever grateful for the morals they have instilled in me. I believe that discipline is one of the best kinds of love a parent can give their kids. Without it, I would have been out there doing unthinkable and unspeakable things. I would have been a lot more wounded girl in this cruel world.

And then came love. The kind you read in books and see in films. The intense feeling of being swept off your feet. The overwhelming kind. And the best part, it was the kind of love that was returned and maybe even more than you could ever have again.

Everything in its perfect place. The feeling was mutual. The distance contributed to the build up - like the start of a song towards the chorus. He, the ideal man. Strong and wise with a sense of humor that matched your own. The man who wanted to meet you. The man who wanted to see you and cook for you in the morning.

The man with a wife and child.

When the world crashes down on you, when your walls collapse, when your sanity leaves you one day at a time, what do you do?

The hardest part was not doing the right thing.
The hardest part of it all was when the right thing kills you in the middle of the night when you sleep alone in the dark. The hardest part was getting through the day with smile on the lips and grief in the heart. The hardest part was convincing him that the feeling is no longer mutual on your part.

A few years of silence with a bit of friendship in between.

And after the longest time - the first meeting. The face to face encounter between the one who let go and the one who got away. You shake hands and kiss amicably. How are you? How's work? Life? Like a drill you've been practicing all those years you've missed out on each other. Kids and career. A little about the wife. You feel a pang of sorrow nibbling on your ear.

You ask yourself, "Am I a better person for being here?" just to test yourself a little like seeing him in the flesh is not already too much. And the answer, of course, is YES.

Yes, you are a better person for choosing right over wrong. What if's and regrets aside, you are stronger for going through the fire rather than playing with it. Your humanity is larger than life. Your love exceeds your emotions. Your brokenness a sacrifice.

And now, alone you face the future. With strength, you will get by. Loneliness being a constant visitor. Your mind being the disagreeable dog that guards the gates of your longing heart.

You are the one who got away.


+ + +

'For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you.
Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
And think not you can direct the course of love
For if love finds you worthy, it will direct your course. '

-Kahlil Gibran (The Prophet)

Thank you for smoking.

I am not necessarily fond of cigarettes but if you wave one to my face and it happens that we are in the middle of a drinking session I would beg to have that one stick. I remember when I turned edge many years ago, I had to give up drinking. Had to, because of urinary tract infection. People might find it poseur-ish when you choose a lifestyle just because you have to - or you are advised medically to do it. What is overlooked is that you also have the choice to not take that advice. I quit drinking because I was afraid to experience that pain again. That UTI incident was the worst pain of my life. I felt my hips are going to split. It was worse than undergoing a chest tattoo. It was like having a child.

When I am with a crowd, I get offered a lot of booze and smoke. So I tell them I am on medication for them to back off. I thought it was going to sink in to them somehow but the next time we get together, it's the same old thing.

Just have one. Just one. Here's a stick. But I don't feel like smoking without having able to drink. So just have one drink and one smoke.

I couldn't live with it - having to say no every few minutes. Back then, I also couldn't live at home on a weekend. I was the only sober person in the crowd and the crowd couldn't tell what I'm doing there. My feelings of being a killjoy was confirmed when someone walked up to me and said 'you make us feel weird that you're not drinking'. I know, I nodded. People get uncomfortable when they are dealing with something they have no name for. So one night, I told them I am off medication but - I quit drinking and smoking. They ask why. I said, I just chose to quit. Then someone (I forgot who it was) said, you're straight edge. From then on, they call me that and I was known to be the only sXe person in that crowd and I totally enjoyed the privilege of drinking fresh milk or fruit juice in front of them without ever having to go through being offered a drink and smoke every 5 minutes. I saw that since, I am straight edge, they now feel comfortable drinking around me because what I'm doing had a name.

But that was a long time ago.

I am currently an occasional drinker and smoker. The "edge" of my past was just okay to look back to. To reminisce and get the fuzzy feeling of abstinence, that I once was a thirsty person saying no to that dewy glass of drink.

I'm glad I have overcome that bullcrap. LOL.

POST NUMERO UNO!

I've been keeping a diary since I was in 3rd grade and being the big curly-haired geek (not Greek... and my curly hair was a perm courtesy of my aunt granny), it was my solace. It was where all the action took place. I told it everything that bothered me in my day. May it be good, bad, happy or sad. No matter how ordinary it is too.

So I have to say that early on I was set to document my life only before, I was the only who had
access to it.

When I turned 20 (I think), I lost interest in paper and went electronic. I kept 4 blogs.
It's a whole different world because it made my life out in the open but the fact that I can choose what to post and what not to post made it super duper seductive.

So why do I blog?
I WANT TO SHARE.

Because I know how I learned some important things from other people's blogs too.
I feel I need to give back.

WELCOME ME.


I would like this time to thank BLOGGER for this incredible space.
And my good friend and photographer, Jan Sunday, for the photos on my layout.