have you ever read your old entries and then realize your crying?

it's a crazy thing
this thing called life

 
happy bday blog.
2years.

 
another day of life
at the corporate grind
another day of life
just when i thought i was getting to unwind
this is my life
as a grown up
but maybe i shouldn't have wished so hard
to be able to be miss independent and livin large
bc they never told you that you'd have to fit in the bill
and right those checks for all your ill
shit
damnit
i didn't know life would be like this
but i dont wanna complain all the time and sound pissed
off
because that would just make me a whiner
and i'd rather be a winner than a whiner
mayhaps maybe a wine-o
but that life would feel so blinded by substance
numb by circumstance
lost without feeling
life would be constant reeling
but instead i'm
back to this life
another day of strife
back at the corporate grind
another day of life
wishing i could get back to times of unwind
but i know that that would be impossible
bc this is simply
another day of life.

 
gyspies, tramps, and thieves

i always knew growing up that my family was funny.

there were divisions between us.

we would always be together at family parties but the parties were separated. separated by the well to do cousins and uncles/aunties and the not so well to do, but gettin by cousins and uncles/aunties. my family fit into the latter.

i never really used to think about this weird stratified division of my family and how some of my fellow not so well to do relatives felt like hey had to prove themselves to our other relatives.

i can remember how i at my lolo's 90th birthday party i hung out with my cousin Dante. He's all tatted and pierced up. Some could say he had a tough life. He dropped out of high school and became a piercer some tattoo shops. I remember when I was in the 6th grade Dante had stopped by my Tita's house to visit and I was doing my homework. I remember feeling kind of scared of him because he was the "black sheep" of the family, but somehow I knew that Dante was the same funloving kid who used to go to family parties and hang out with me and my cousins.

My Tita Nenette and my mom are examples of women that I would like to grow into. They both married men that my Lolo and Lola disapproved of. It's kind of strange to know that at one point my Lolo and Lola didn't like my own father. My Lolo and Lola both thought that my dad and my uncle were "beneath" their daughters. They were especially vocal with my Tito Mike. My Tito Mike once told me that when he got married to my Tita Nenette my Tito Oca told my Tito Mike "Guess you hit the jackpot now?"

That's what I mean by division. It's pretty much rich vs poor. And it's not like my other relatives are extremely rich and we're destitute poor. But the class stratification is definitely there.

The irony of my Tita and mom's situation is that my dad and my Tito Mike are the two people in my family that my Lolo and Lola used to turn to for help. They were always there to help. When my Lolo and Tita Evans went back home to the Philippines my Tito Mike came along, kind of as "protection". They wanted my dad to go to bc they were going to our hometown and my dad's family is respected, but my dad had work. And he also knew that they needed him for a safe trip, but he couldn't be there. It didn't stop them from using our family name though.

My Lola's brother, Lolo Nando, lives in our hometown and he told my Tita that if she was harrassed she should say she's the sister in law of my dad. Shit a damn name? that's protection...My dad probably would've been her bodyguard had he gone.

It pisses me off at the negative attitude my dad and my uncle went through. Somehow I think me and my cousin go through it too. We aren't the doctors and lawyers that my grandparents envisioned. There's only a one who's a doctor and two who are engineers. We all took different paths. Sometimes I think there's a division between us and sometimes I think I just ignore it.

No family is perfect. Mine is far from it. I wish the division would disappear. I think as I've grown older it somewhat has. I doubt it will go away completely, bc the scars from past words are still there. But it's my family and I've only got one.

just some thoughts, nothing big.
just some thoughts...

 
enough of my wishing and wanting. i finally did something about it and bought this:



mayhaps this is a sign that my lifes finally about to change?
or perhaps i'm finally taking control of it rather than it taking control of me.

el fin

 
hey
how ya doin?
just thought i'd say hello

haven't been in here for a while. guess i'm being a biter and copying mike and his reminscent attitude and returning back to blogger. my blog's bday is coming up as well. i guess we hopped on the blogger bandwagon together.

it's strange how life takes a turn on you.

there's a line in the movie LOVE & BASKETBALL that always gets to me... i think it goes something like:

when your growing up you never question what the life you'll lead in the future will be.

or something to the effect of you have no doubt that the future you've envisioned for yourself is the future life you'll have.

i don't know if i've ever envisioned a "future" for myself. i always have seem to simply walk the path that's put before me. i suppose the dreams of being on broadway or being behind a camera [film or photography] were just lofty idealistic dreams that i always knew weren't fully attainable.

i suppose its kind of sad that as a child i knew already that those goals were too far from my grasp. but the more i think about, the more i wish/want to do those things.

i'd like to just grab my dad's camera equipment and just walk around and take pictures. not just the staged pictures or message pictures. my ideal were to just chronicle the life and the surroundings around me.

i'd like to get started. i dont want to be just wishing for once and get cracking on it.

i remember when taking film classes that i had a vision. i was good at mise-en-scene. i was happy with the medium. i was happy with myself....

i need to process all this stuff.
i think i just need to grab the equipment and hijack it from my dad.
i think i just need to take a chance.

i want the life that i envision for myself that will make me happy
not just content,
but happy.