2013, a year in review

Overall, it has been a good year. I've been feeling the blues now and then, but I got over them. I lost 'friends' but those have been my decisions and I'm willing to live with the consequences. Nah, that sounds like drama but nothing dramatic has happened.

I've learned and realized a lot of small things I wished I did earlier. Like how to swim properly, I just discovered it could be fun, how the only trick to learn is not to panic and let the water work for you and not against you. Like wearing dresses is much more comfortable, and convenient for laundry than the usual ensemble of shirt and jeans. Small things that are actually pleasant, like being more kind and grateful to my family, and learning to be a better friend to others who also support me.

I've learned how important it is to not let other people define myself. Sometimes, people may seem to have good intentions but are actually trying to control me. Other people will think what they want, have their own opinions about others. But what I dislike is when they impose their thoughts, thinking that their opinion and what's best for them will be best for me. They probably don't realize that they're hurting people, when they don't even know the situation of that person, but run their mouths with self-important opinions without truly listening or understanding the other person's side. I realized that there are right people you should listen to, and listening to the wrong people who think they are right will only make it worse. It is not self-centered to say, Thank you, but I know who I am better, and your opinions are shit and stop shoving them to me. You shove yours to mine anyway, but act like I don't have a right to talk back. So here, I'm shoving it back to your face. Then leave with a dramatic turn, walk away, and don't look back.

We're getting far from the subject of new year. This year, I started writing more, a few poems (some which I've posted here) and some stories (which are not here), but I think I've improved a lot. The best way of learning a thing is doing it. Next year, I want to write more.

Also: the only important thing in school is enjoying learning. Everything else is secondary. I know most students these days act cynical towards their studies, and I think that's a sad thing. I really loathed going to school when I started college. But when I discovered subjects I enjoyed, like Library & Information Science, I never think of reports and assignments and papers as a bother. I loved doing them, because my enthusiasm was like an endless well. And getting good grades was just a bonus. And what did I get from that? I got the university scholarship twice this year, and didn't have to pay my full tuition for two semesters, saved a lot of cash problems. Not that they are my goals, but I think they're a result of positive things leading to more positive things.

That's it. The thought of 2014 is both scary and exciting. Going back to school this January will be hectic.

Another rant on writing.

Once, I was reading a blog by a creative writing student. The language was elegant, I liked how she wrote about her everyday life in almost poetic terms. I like it when normal and mundane scenes are rendered in a new way, and it was a delight to read. Then, I read that she had a long writer's block due to some comment made by her teacher who scorned most modern writing for being too "navel-gazing" -- that is, too much about the self, too self-centered and individualistic. Each time she tries to write something which looks like it would be about herself, the stern voice of the teacher comes back to mind and halts her.

That made me sad for her. This comment by a supposed 'authority' blocked her own creativity. I also see the teacher's point, though, but I disagree with it. Who was he or she to say that people should be scorned for writing about their own lives? We lived. We're humans, and each of us is the protagonist of our own stories. The stories I find most affecting are when the writer talks about her own experience, and I read it and find that I'm not alone after all in the world feeling it, and someone has written it in a way I can't express by myself.

But... What I learned about writing were from books about writing. William Zinsser and Natalie Goldberg, the two teachers whose books I read, is about teaching others to trust their own voices and experience. Everyone has a unique voice, everyone can write about their lives with honest dignity and detail. Writing, of course, is a personal act. How can we write about other things without our own perspective?

I don't think I can stand studying writing, as in a formal education about it. I believe writing and reading is enough for that. I read her experiences about classes and workshops, and each meeting sounded like a pressured episode of Starstruck. I am suspicious about the idea of 'constructive criticism', because reading is a personal act, too. Everyone will have different judgments. A critique will only point out a flaw or a personal opinion but in the end of the day its the writer who writes and practices.
- - - - -
"I’ve been in writing workshops where we have worked on a bad poem, criticizing it for twenty minutes. That’s ridiculous. It’s a waste of time. It's like trying to beat a dead horse into running again. You can have the confidence that the writer of that poem will write other poems. You don’t need to think that if you don’t whip something out of the bad poem the writer will never write again.
You can have the courage to be honest. “There’s some good stuff here, but it doesn’t make it.” And go on. It’s a good process to be willing to just let go. Allen Ginsberg at Columbia University went up to his professor, the literary critic Mark Van Doren, and said, “How come you don’t criticize work more?” His response was, “Why bother talking about something you don’t like?”

from Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones

Write as fast as you can because someday you’ll die and if you didn’t tell all the stories you had in you it will hurt. (No one believes me when I say this is the exact and honest reason that I have written so many books while being so young. I tell them: “I’m going to die soon. I have to write faster. I only have fifty years or so left if I’m lucky. That’s not enough time.” They laugh, and I’m not joking.)

Catherynne M. Valente

Thinner than thou, or ‘Fat Blues’ [a poem]

What, you’re eating regular meals and then cereal? My smartass sister remarks.
She thinks she’s better than me because she’s thinner than me
Her meals are evenly measured in perfect two tablespoons of cooked rice
I cannot live that way, I gorge myself until I am full, I eat until I’m sick

I imagine what it is like if I was waif-like, having a slender body
Hearing people’s compliments of how thin I am
But in reality my chin sags, my thighs constrict my pants, if my upper arms were sliced I have a bagful of fat
My sister is 14 and I’m afraid she has a kind of anorexia her circumference is smaller than mine

But in reality I am jealous. She’s better than me because she’s thinner than me.
I imagine weight loss, I imagine how its like to have a tight stomach
Then I beat myself over for not moving more, for eating too much
Then I pass by someone whose first remark is how large I’ve become...

I like writing, I disappear, if my thoughts are on screen or on paper you can’t see how fat I am
I blame society, I blame the concept of beauty, I blame myself for being ugly
Even if how much I convince myself to accept myself and how much I read about self-acceptance
I MOTHERFUCKING CAN’T.

Each mealtime I think of avoiding her, and I feel like she’s sneering if I eat less
Even if you try to starve yourself you’ll never be as self-disciplined as I am! Hah, what you get for calling me fat before when you were smaller than me but look at us now
I know there is something wrong.
I am thinner than thou, thus better than thou

I want to disappear so no one will see I’m fat, so I won’t have to see my sister’s self-importance and competition
I want to take a knife and be on a mission, I’d cut everyone’s eyes out
So no one will judge by the cover, so I won’t have to feel like I have to (literally) diminish myself to win BEAUTY.


I want to devour I want to eat all I can eat even your flesh I want to eat the world I wish I were a dragon swallowing fire and dust and planets and I will encompass space I keep on imagining dragging myself away I want to lie and lie and sleep and not have anything else to do with the world I want to stop thinking of myself I wish

It's this site's 3rd anniversary of existence! On blogging.

Text analysis from URLai: "subfuse.blogspot.com is probably written by a female somewhere between 18-25 years old. The writing style is personal and upset most of the time." (that's right)

"Most blogs have precisely one reader -- the blogger themself." ~Eric Schmidt
"I write because to form a word with your lips and tongue or think a thing and then write it down so you can never take it back is the most powerful thing I know." ~Natalie Goldberg

Before the stream of quick updates in various social netwerking sites, there were blogs. Blogs were new then, now they are somewhat unused. I started one because I'm reading them, and I like reading about the minute details of other people's lives, what they like, how they see themselves and the world. At first, my brother was in Manila and its one way we can talk and share about the new stuff going on by reading each other's blogs. I started writing in online journals before I ever kept physical journals. This site may be 3 years old, but I've been writing online since 2006 (most of which no one reads but me) but its only now I think I have found my voice. I admit the earlier stuff there and here was me still trying to show off, and until now its all complaining.

I still see this tiny online space as a deserted island occupied by only me, located over the far coasts of dense cyberspace. I think of it as an online scrapbook rather than journal, as in most entries I've been copying and pasting things: videos, music, a lot of quotes, funny or insightful pictures. The content is lazy, I used to have a vision for it I've forgotten. The reasons why I like blogging:

• Lame as it sounds, changing the layout. I like playing around with colors and designs, installing themes. Putting moving .gif images to entries, too. They're fun to look at.
• It helped me write. If I wasn't writing about my lame life, writing will still seem like a daunting task most students are scared of. Actually, I started not having any idea about what writing is, I only learned it by doing automatic writing exercises from a strange zen/writing book. Blogging is a good beginning for all other writing, as there is an assumed audience (no matter how meager the visitors). When writing, you naturally begin to think of arranging and adjusting sentences that would make something more interesting to read about, you start caring about words.
• To speak out. I've written things I can't express when I'm only speaking, the audience is the world, and writing is my way of sharing an accurate picture of my thoughts. What I hate most is the suffocating feeling of other people defining myself for me, telling me what I am, forcing what they think, that who they think I am is who I am and I should change to suit their needs (not about me at all but about them). I don't mean to sound that self-centered, but its been an endless source of frustration as someone with an identity crisis. It's like theft. Does this sound too vague? It's like a way of saying, "These are my thoughts, what I think of myself. You can read or skip or leave as you wish."
• So I have a place to write about books, anime, manga, libraries, or whatever comes to mind that is worth writing about. If I post it on Facebook or Twitter, it doesn't feel right and my thoughts in long-form can't fit.
• Freedom. On the net distribution is free, we are self-published at almost no cost. Each site is personal, no one can say what we should do or write about, there are no rules.

From October 4, 2010, there are about 120 entries and a hundred posted comments. I'm not prolific and this site doesn't get a lot of hits. I thought of doing a list of 'best posts from 2010 to 2013', but scanning all the things I wrote here seems daunting. It feels like who I was at 17, 18, 19, and now at 20 are wholly different people. It might be fun, though, browsing and observing how a mind changes over the years. But I can't do it now... not due to some dramatic reason, but finals is coming next week...

This will still go on for a long time, for another three years or more. 

Ode to Electricity [a poem]

(Note: I don't usually write poems, I just want a good electric supply and a future with no blackouts.)

You left again with no warning, leaving me in darkness.
The streets submerged in quiet, the collective hum of TVs, computers, electric fans and radios silenced
I salvage for artificial light: high-voltage lamps and candle-stumps
I wait, and wait, in the false hope that you would go back.

You'll always go back.

Hours pass. I perspire in bed, unable to sleep, I only dream of your return.
A candle flickers in front of the mirror, shadows dancing on my floor in orange and black
I seethe, almost froth in the mouth like a rabid woman, now desperate
Now angry, that they would take you away, but I trust it,

You'll always go back.

Without you, I am unable to do a thing, the night invites demons again.
The wind blows and extinguishes the wisp of fire on wax
The weak white flare on my flashlight stutters and turns off
I bite my sheets, I taste my sweat, in this damp dark I cannot rest.

And I doubt it now,
Will you ever go back?

[P.S. Someone shouts, "Yes, nag-siga na suga!" *Hay salamat pwede na ko ka Facebook!*]

random scenes of cannibalism [excerpt]

I do write stories, but they are kept in anonymous places and written under secret identities somewhere in the corners of the vast, vast web. Just a hobby for fun and practice. Who knows, if I ever become an author or something, this blog is ready for future novel updates (As if. I've read enough authors' blogs that say it's not the best way to make a living). This is part of a much longer thing, scene in the middle of a war. I still got a lot to improve. Soon, I will write and post a complete story about college before I graduate.

---

1.
Come morning, two masked men take her out of her prison, and made her eat. It was only when she smelled freshly-cooked food that she realized her hunger. She had no way to count how long she has been inside. The spell drawn over her made her weak. Everything has been a blur, a haze, it didn't cross her mind to escape. They made her sit and eat on a small table.

"Eat," one of them whispers to her, placing a plate of steaming meat under her nose, and the smell was like morning. She took the cutlery and ate mouthfuls of rice and ground meat in red tomato-syrup sprinkled with chili and peppercorns, chewing and savoring the warm food in her mouth. She ate plates of sizzling steaks lathered in rum gravy and candied onion rings. There was a dish of meat as soft as flan, her spoon slicing a perfect semi-sphere on the pinkish surface. It was some sort of skin and meat, a silk honeyed pudding glazed in thick white buttercream.

"It's delicious, right? Can't help but make a hungry girl eat," the other masked man says. "You are lucky to be our guest. Partake our choicest meat. That delicacy is expensive, and you might only taste it this once in your life," he said with a smile in his voice, glad to share their food. They both sat in front of her and watched, seeming fascinated with a hungry girl wolfing down mouthfuls of food.

"How does it taste?" they asked.

"Perfect," she answered between bites. "What meat is this? I haven't tasted anything like it before."

"The virgin womb of a girl your age, the other one was meat and steak cut from her thigh," he replies, and she sits straight and looks up for the first time and sees dead girls on the long countertop, all still fresh and cut in half. They are lying down, their heads propped along the wall, all of them are smiling. She can see it clearly from here, the clean insides of rib cages empty of hearts and lungs. The girls' identical long hair was wet, drawing wavy patterns across and between small pre-pubescent breasts, their skin clean and perfect in its pallor. Chopped girls laid next to chopped fish remains of sharks and bluefin tuna, and the half-girls placed beside the half-tails made the combined corpses look like bisected mermaids.

There were also reverse-mermaids, large fish-heads lined beside chopped human legs, young genitalia covered in crushed ice.

"Spoils of war. There is famine, and we can't afford wasted meat, can we?" the man said. She didn't puke it out like they expected or like she expected, but swallowed it all down. They tasted perfect, and a hungry starved girl couldn't resist any food. Then, she felt afraid, that she might be next to be slaughtered. They read her mind, laughed at her sudden shift in her chair, like a scared animal about to run away.

"You're special. We won't sell you for meat," the butcher said. "Eat. You will need all the energy to run away." She did. She ate it all.

---

2.
I want the ocean, the real one, not this shallow illusion. You are my prison. Save me.
Kill yourself.

You will not die. Your death will be birth as I will change you, turn you into a new creature, I will give you nacre skin and rainbow fins, eyes that see forbidden colors, and you will be a the first of your kind. You will no longer breathe like a girl. You will cease to remember your name as you don't need one. You will see as I see, the depths, you will be one with creatures unnamed shining with bioluminescent skin as stars in space in the deepest trenches, it will be paradise. I have cities under the sea, cathedrals made of domed ribs of whales, pillars of winding coral, an altar of the shell of the great tortoise. Angler fish, narwhals, kraken would pass by and welcome you with hymns, and you will sing as they do. You will have new ears to hear them, their songs too wonderful for human ears to ever hear.

The creature showed her images flashing through her mind, like quick shimmers of water on the back of her eyelids. Glimpses and visions only hinted at, never fully shown. Yes, her closed eyes brimmed with tears as she saw them, beautiful as they were even if incomplete, that she's afraid her eyes might be inadequate to comprehend them.

What is your life, the limitations of your biology, come close to this?
I will give you what you cannot even imagine. I will make you siren, seahorse, crayfish, urchins, flounders, sea snakes, lampreys, lampetra, pacifastacus leniusculus, physeter catodon, prionace glauca, acipenser transmontanus, linckia laevigata, vibrio cholerae.
You will the first of your kind.
Set me free. Kill yourself.

The disembodied voice spoke of sorrows as old as thirteen hundred years, and all her life at thirteen was nothing compared to the creature's eons and eras of imprisonment. It carried the memory when the world was but one great sea, when it was called Ocean instead of Earth, when it was a lone unmarred sapphire sphere in black space.

Writing practice things

If I wrote on my blog as regularly as I do on my notebooks, I'd have 500+ entries by now, but I keep my crap to myself. But most of the time, I forget this thing exists. My notebooks are not journals, mostly it is a chaotic mishmash of my day, and a lot of random writing exercises I made up for myself. Sometimes I reread them, most of the time it is boring, sometimes I am fascinated by my own mundane life. It started with that Wild Mind book years ago, and the habit is hard to break. So, here are examples of things I've written (I'm posting it because hello I need something to post to fill this blog up with new stuff):

June: Life Lessons from Subway Surfers (I had to uninstall it from my phone, too distracting)
"Subway Surfers" is an addicting game, I even dreamed of it last night. I jump, somersault, air-fly through the eternal three-lane subway and try to be careful and try my best not to collide with trains and metal stop signs, not to slam my face and end the game, while avoiding a fat policeman also forever on the chase. I can think of it as a metaphor for life, it keeps on going on day by day in a subway of eternal days (that will keep on going on until I die), leaping forever. Even if I happen to face-wall through a train's windshield or the red-painted metal of attached storage boxcars, there is always another game, an eternity to play but I must stop thinking of that subway, instead focus on the real quizzes I will take today and at 7 AM sharp tomorrow morning.

Kamakhya, an aspect of Kali.

May: Religous Idols
When I was young, my mother forbid having religous icons in the house, mostly Catholic artifacts of pictures or statues of saints. My brother once got an Xmas gift of a simple stained glass with a picture of the holy family (with Jesus' heart out for all to see) and a generic prayer in Times New Roman. She gave it away. I wasn't in the communion rites of 90% of the class in grade 2. I dislike the solemn expression of the Christian saints.
I recall a sidewalk sculpting shop specializing in making Virgin Marys and all else. Plaster casts and cement filling a room made of bamboo and rusting tin roof. Praying, our lady of the sidewalk. I'm not Catholic, always thought their service too ritualistic. But now I hardly go to church. I grew up with my mom's religious conspiracy books saying the Catholic church as the real whore of Babylon, harbringer of the End of the World, Jezebel the Mistress of Sin.
I find more fascinating the statues of Hindu gods: four-armed Kali, pastel multi-colored heads of Kamakhya, white Shiva, blue-skinned Ramayana. Not sure, I don't even know if those names I wrote are the actual names of those deities. I should learn more about them. Mother Hydra, Cthulhu, Buddha. A paper-weight laughing fat Buddha, or the reclined one with fat lips and closed eyes.
I recall how once G pointed to a golden figure displayed in the library and arrogantly said, "They're their gods, search the net," and I shouldv'e answered, "Yeah, if you know so much then who are they?"

January: Fireworks are boring
Last night, I went to SM with my classmates to look at fireworks. I went home reeking with BO and other odors that clung to me from swimming in that crowd where I felt nauseous claustrophobia. It feels good to be in open air again. Straining my neck to look upwards the exploding things got boring quickly, and in that crowd I wished I never would have gone because my house is near and the view is pretty much the same from my window where I can sit without my neck hurt.
There were a few unique fireworks. Shimmering zooms. A little spark bursting in the middle of the sky and the tiny lights bursting into tiny explosions. Shooting stars with streaming, sparkling tails. Their finale favorite was that glittering chandelier thing that seemed to envelope the entire sky. After all, it's not every night there's a fireworks display, but I'm sick of it. It's the same, but now I have an idea why people flock to watch it.
Dinagyang, the actual festival on Sunday? That, I never learned to appreciate even if I was born here. I have never watched it live, only on TV.

Author Spotlight [2]: William Zinsser (with postscript on current school life)

Writing organizes and clarifies our thoughts. Writing is how we think into a subject and make it our own. Writing enables us to find out what we know – and what we don’t know – about whatever we’re trying to learn. Putting an idea into written words is like defrosting a windshield: The idea, so vague out there in the murk, slowly begins to gather itself into a sensible shape. Whatever we write – a memo, a letter, a note to the baby-sitter – all of us know this moment of finding out what we really want to say by trying in writing to say it.
(from Writing to Learn by William Zinsser)

Last post was about free writing. I find writing practice to be useful in all kinds of writing I am doing, be it essays, papers, or stories. It’s good to just keep the hand moving for awhile, and even if I felt like I had nothing to write at first I had put down words that might be useful, and sometimes I surprise myself that I actually had something to say. My mind was doing its own thinking while I was writing. Then, I can revise.

Zinsser taught a different type of writing: non-fiction and technical writing. He values simplicity, clarity, and brevity. As a frustrated student who had a hard time with dense ‘nose-bleed’ inducing academic texts, his style is refreshing. I read Writing to Learn during a time I wasn’t in school, and it helped me a lot when I got back and it made me realize things I couldn’t have realized in school. In the book, he showed excellent examples of clear writing in all subjects. Clear thinking leads to clear writing, and any topic can be made simple or interesting with it.

Here’s an example from Zinsser’s book of a bad sentence:
“The ongoing reconfiguration positions Barbara offsite to hopefully identify growth and profitability potentials beyond what is currently being realized.”
At first reading, I can’t understand it at all. Translated by Zinsser in simple English, it just says:
“Barbara will try to find out why we ain’t doing better.”

Why all the long words? But that kind of sentence in the first example is found everywhere. I admit I’ve fallen victim to it, too, thinking that it sounds smarter if one writes such complex sentences. Students often think that ‘the longer the better’ when it comes to class essays or papers, inserting unneeded words which actually distort the message than clarify it. In reading and writing prose, I now prefer the short yet clear than the long but wordy.

---

I’m starting my last year at university! I’m having a bad case of senioritis:
I have six subjects for this sem: Research (thesis), Rizal (the teacher is so boring), Principles of Teaching, Geography, Afro-Asian Literature, and Education in LIS. Good luck to me.

Author Spotlight [1]: Natalie Goldberg & words for beginning writers

I'm planning a series of posts: Author Spotlight, on my fave writers; and Fave Fictional Characters, for which I already have 1 post. 

In elementary and high school, writing was a foreign concept. I thought only those inherently talented in English could do it right (you know, those already in the school publication or sent to contests against other schools), and I wasn't that good in that subject then. Assignments and on-the-spot class activities on writing essays or poems was a nightmare. I would look at a blank piece of paper the whole class period and feel very helpless. English had us write in Formal Composition notebooks, where my half-assed essays written hurriedly at the last minute would return filled with teacher's corrections scrawled in red. The low grades didn't encourage me. My group of friends then were well-spoken in English, so articulate in their writing, already having intelligent discussions on Harry Potter... while I nodded along on the sidelines feeling out of place. Most of my school life is me trying to not draw any special attention to myself.

I picked up Wild Mind: Living the Writer's Life by Natalie Goldberg sometime in high school. I bought it, thinking I would finally learn that elusive secret of writing. Instead, it contained things I didn't expect about writing. It wasn't a writing book at all, the author was just talking simply about her life and experiences. I first learned the concept of Zen from this book. The 'rules' in the book were really simple and I found it easy to follow. The book said: "These rules are the bottom line, the beginning of all writing, the foundation of learning to trust your own mind. Trusting your own mind is essential for writing. Words come out of the mind."

The Rules:
1. Keep your hand moving.
2. Lose control.
3. Be specific.
4. Don't think.
5. Don't worry about punctuation, spelling, grammar.
6. You are free to write the worst junk in the universe, galaxy, world, hemisphere, Sahara desert.
7. Go for the jugular. (Something scary comes up? Don't stop, that's where the energy is.)

I think I breathed with relief during that chapter. Until then, what I knew about writing was from English classes. We studied grammar rules, elements of literature, and diagramming sentences. For the life of me, I can never understand why we need to diagram sentences. I always thought it was silly. I would have found writing more interesting then if they taught it like this. It was simple freewriting as a start.

The first activity she suggested was to simply write for 10 minutes without stopping, starting on "I remember". Just write and keep your hand moving. The book says we each have the 'creator' who writes, and an 'editor' or the inner critic. The goal is to stop that inner critic from interfering with the creator, and tap the unlimited creative potential of our minds and unconscious.

The #4 rule is, Don't think. Goldberg calls her process writing practice, and not journaling. This rule is important because as she says: "We usually live in the realm of second or third thoughts, thoughts on thoughts, rather than the realm of first thoughts, the real way we flash on something. Stay with the first flash. Writing practice will help you contact first thoughts. Just practice and forget everything else."

This book taught me that I don't have to always be a good writer with perfect prose, but allow myself to be illogical, to be boring, to write what I want and what I really feel, to write complete nonsense replete with errors or expletives. I don't have to care, as I'm writing for myself and not for anyone else, not for a teacher I have to please for a high grade. I don't have to measure margins, to crumple paper when my handwriting goes bad or the erasures are too much.

What freedom!

And since then, I've probably written thousands of words. I have a lot of words to write still. I'm no longer scared of writing. It had no magical secret or anything. I just keep my hand writing.
- - - - -
One last quote from Wild Mind:
"So finally a writer must be willing to sit at the bottom of the pit, commit herself to stay there, and let all the wild animals approach, even call them up, then face them, write them down, and not run away."

Where all lost things go

*I wrote this when I was desperate because I lost something important (not a diary). I found it four weeks later when I wasn't thinking about it, here all along. I have quite a reputation for being forgetful and absent-minded. 

- - - - -

- - - - -

 She slumped on the chair, broom in hand. Strands of unkempt hair stuck on the moist sheen of sweat on her forehead and neck. A sigh of resignation. She's swept and overturned every corner of her room and the house, opened every bag and folder, rearranged entire shelves and drawers but she still didn't find it. I must have left it on the chair during class. But why would I leave it there when I always check? Appear! So she surveyed the room once more, swept, overturned, looked, reviewed her steps the day it was lost. Still nothing.

Stop tormenting me! Bring it back! The despair of something ultimately lost and irretrievable. The relief of finding it was just there after all (but not this time). She's ofen heard her mom complain to "them"-- invisible beings that borrow things only to "return" it to the place where youre sure you've placed that something. How many days has it been? Has someone read it? Well, my name's not there, but all my delusional thoughts, hatreds, and fantasies are there. Hell, why did I even write it all down!?

 After another unsucessful half-hour of searching, she ended up on the computer, googled "How to search for lost things". It suggested breathing exercises. Step 1: Don't look for it. Sometimes your stress doesn't make you clearly see what's in front of you, it says. Up to Step 13, which says Let Go. Simply accept it was lost. She skimmed another article on how to look for things using ESP and psychic powers, but she didn't read further than the first paragraph. Well, its just another notebook. Who'll know it was me anyway...

People always tell her she always looks lost. She's always looking for something. She almost has a talent for losing things when she most needs them. Her mother can't trust her with anything. They still haven't developed the software for my problem.

 The last thing she lost was her wallet with 2,000 pesos of tuition payment. She hasn't told her mother, she just starved in school for weeks to save it back. She lost five wallets before that. She's thought of going to school to look for it. The heat's outside unbearable and and her nth umbrella was left god-knows-where. No cash. She's lost her diary with her shittiest secrets not meant for anybody to read but herself.

 No, it wasn't filled with raunchy sexcapades (no potential or experience or appeal for that), it doesn't have classified information that will cost the safety of the country. She forgets everything but tells herself this is the last. But she loses another five things everytime she decides that, so not very encouraging. This won't work. Let's try the law of attraction: I will see it tomorrow, dancing in front of my face. I wish there was a spell for finding lost things. Where do lost things go?