flashbacks or backslashes?

i think i got caught up in the post-christmas and pre-new year hybrid parties that all my thoughts blew up into cosmic dust along with the pricey fireworks of our rich neighbor.

so much for flimsy excuses. moving on...

just last week, i participated in our overnight highschool reunion cum christmas party cum new year party cum thrifty birthday party of sorts. that assigned eventful day of the party, my friends and i cooked a little later than planned but nevertheless, we made yummy things. of course, i'm throwing some of the objectivity out the window since i was responsible for some of the food.

since we didn't finish cooking on time, as soon as the finished "gourmet" was done and set on the table, people started eating---not minding us, the people slaving at the kitchen, at all. i was not too happy about it.

for more than four hours, the "kitchen team" fought with the tear-jerking fume of the onions, charred ourselves black with the barbecue, tormented and exhausted our tongues with a battery of taste tests, chopped and minced the spices silly, gutted out and dressed the chicken to make it tasty, busied ourselves with the flour contraptions for the soup and forrayed into the world of violent cooking oil explosions. all i would have wished was for them to have waited a few damn minutes for us. i wanted to be of use but i didn't sign up for a feel of servitude... not to them, at least.

i just hate the way people just assume that things are ok... just because. oh, how funny that some things never change.

i followed my advice. i did grin and did bear with it. nobody said about not bitching about it, right? i thought so.

search and disarm exercises

amidst the raucous and the pandemonium of merriment and celebration in the party, i was able to talk to a friend i've not swapped stories with for quite some time. boy, did we talk about some stuff!

always trust that tales about heartbreaks liven up the party.

after a few drinks and when the adrenalin rush sobered down, we got so entangled in a discussion full of melancholic sighs and comforting taps on each other's person. there were thoughts that floated in my head, each one ramifying like a spider's web.

why do people have a hard time finding the one? it is, oftentimes, a play of fate when two individuals don't meet halfway. they feel around the situation, looking for portents that may eventually lead them towards what they want but in the end, they get lost in all the digging up for resolution.

we all are willing prisoners in our own little worlds that we personalize with trinkets of victory and scars of tribulation. why is it so arduous to see that person who is frivolous enough to let his or her guard down so that your worlds merge in an almost preternatural alchemy?

sigh.

am i frantically looking for it like i always did? not really. you see, when you actively do so, you end up wanting everyone to be the one that you force them into that label. it's just sets everything up for frustrationsville.

we don't have a magical genie to shortcut the process. i guess you just meet them as they come.

hear me, hear you

i think i may have created little opinionated (and sometimes whiney) philosophers out of my nieces.

mom reared me up that i am always entitled to voice out my opinions. whenever she used to scold me for anything, i had the right to speak up for myself and be my own lawyer, provided that i had valid arguments. it was quite liberal compared to other households which shut out children in favor of the norms of politeness and conservativism.

that's how i grew up, unrestrained and at the same time, tempered with the rule of mutual respect.

for the longest time, i was quite the debater. somewhere along my growing years, the older ones here grew tired of engaging in a game of logic and rationale. suddenly, i noticed that there already sprung two new "players".

do you hear that? they say that's the sound of a quite disturbed yet undoubtedly proud uncle.