the Earth-bound adventures of the Lost and Found

Start:      Sep 28, '07 8:00p Location:      Tapas Bar & Lounge, Crossroads, Banilad, Cebu City The Women in Literary Arts turns Swet Sixteen... Had to write a poem after so long of no practice. And sing impromptu.

my third cebuano poem... =) got the idea for this last summer, but never quite got around to writing it. a few weeks ago, i was standing at the corner waiting for a ride with vince, my officemate, when i asked him what tree it was that i'd been feeling sympathetic for all these months. when he told me it was a duldul (kapok), which is what people use for pillows, i knew i had found my poem.   and since our WILA valentine reading  was coming up, i thought it would be the perfect time to write it. and now i know why i wasn't able to write it before--it had to be written in cebuano. and since i've just recently found my cebuano voice, it could only be written now, in this joyful season of words.   still with some help from boogie  who was in danao the whole time. was texting him throughout the rainy afternoon (opted to stay in and write instead of look for lunch), and then called him when i finished the poem at 5 pm to make sure i pronounced the words right. also w...

Start:      Feb 11, '06 6:30p Location:      Kahayag Café, M.J. Cuenco Ave., Mabolo, Cebu City In anticipation of Valentine’s Day and in celebration of February as National Arts Month, the Women in Literary Arts, Inc. (WILA) is hosting a poetry reading dubbed "Hay, Gugma! In Praise and Lamentation of Love". Flooding the stage with words of passion and longing will be Cebuano literary greats such as Ernesto Lariosa, Tem Adlawan and Myke Obenieta. The floor will also be opened to anyone who wants to share a sigh of contentment or regret over that four-letter word poets have been writing about since the beginning of time. Please feel free to pass this on!

just came from another meeting with WILA. but this one was a special one, as it was the thanksgiving dinner of judge jun dumdum for the award he received for "Best Decision" (definitely, judges who write decisions on murder or rape cases that can actually hold your attention SHOULD be given awards), as well as for his and ma'am ging2x's 29th wedding anniversary. it was also our first Writer-in-Focus session, and i was asked to be the guinea pig. oh well, what the heck, i don't take these things seriously, anyway (my public self is there, but my real private self is always somewhere else during these affairs), so i said yes. it went pretty well, i think, although we spent more time on my creative process (how i write poetry, how i started, etc.), rather than on discussing my poems. i was looking forward to getting feedback, too, since i haven't really let people seriously read my "feeling" or intuitive poems, especially the ones i've written sin...

to be published as lost and found column #15 As far as I was concerned, they were creatures from another planet. Never got along with them, had no idea how to. They spent long moments in front of the mirror before going back to class and sat together in corners during lunch break whispering about the cutest boys. Maybe I’m a late bloomer or maybe I just have low EQ, but I never could sustain conversations with them for very long. And truth be told, it made me insecure. Was I normal? Why didn’t I have the compulsion to blab about the boys I liked? Why couldn’t I look fresh and neat no matter what hour of the day, and bat my eyelashes at just the right time? Thank God this is one of those things that improve with age. Not that I’m evolving into a girly girl, although I now use lots of chemicals on my face other than soap and water. (Heck, I don’t even use soap anymore. We now have facial wash and body wash to suit our sensitive skin). And yes, I’ve developed my own eyelash-batting strat...

and it's 3 a.m.... i'm not really supposed to be wasting time on this anymore. but the computer was on tonight, and the files were just beckoning to be revised.... anyway, i've decided that glass is the best material for this because we can etch and color the art on one surface and etch the text on the front surface. i saw a plaque today that did that at... eden nature park. that's where we went this afternoon for papa's birthday. of course, everything there closes by 4 or 5 pm if you're not staying overnight, plus it started raining on our way there up to the time we finally left at eight. we were waiting for the rain to stop but it just poured harder and harder... anyway, at least we got to swim in the pool. underwater pix to come.