I had Smashing Pumpkins’ album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness in my head as the weather got me down again. I got my Kuretake from my art bin to stamp out whatever I’m feeling today.

I had to let it all out. I need gloomy colors.

I need to finish the the placement of the elements but I have to stop as the paper bleeds too much.

I must walk away from this. It’s not working. The paper just bleeds and bleeds. I will layer this later.

Twin A asked, Mommy, why a sunset again? I said, you know how much I love sunsets. I’ll never get tired of painting it, taking pictures of it, of watching it.

Many people are addicted to taking photos and/or recording videos of themselves, while I am addicted to taking photos of the sky, the sun, the horizon, the sea, and mountains. Is it because I don’t like myself? I don’t know. Maybe because I find the world around me more beautiful.

Maybe I’ll just do some sketching outside 😐

Oh well, I wasn’t able to do anything outside the house because of Mommy duties…so I just did a loose watercolor exercise to practice my water control.

Well, I got drastic results. 🥴

Tomorrow when I arrive at the hotel, I’ll start my urban sketching exercise. That is if we’re not going to watch Gomburza—a Filipino movie that is creating so much buzz, especially among the A-B markets. It’s a historical movie and yet it left many people in tears at the end, as I have read in several reviews of the movie. One Facebook review said you could feel why the execution of the native priests have become one of the major sparks that inspired the formation of the Katipunan, an underground movement that led the rebellion against Spain—the first anti-colonialist revolution in Asia. As I was once been told, you cannot win against the revolt of the masses, the ordinary gulok/golok-wielding people who had everything to lose.

The last showing of this movie is tomorrow. I hope they extend it.

I couldn’t go out earlier today since there were only two of us editors on duty today for the whole Asia Pacific. I had to edit one story from one of my reporters and once I finished it, I was free to go shopping at the local hardware store for materials for Twin I’s homemade microscope for her science project.

Only then was I able to get out of my house this week. Been cooped up inside for too long. The stormy weather dampened my appetite to go on long drives this holiday season because all of the things I wanted to do were outdoor activities like hiking and jumping into one remote lake (Lake Yambo) several towns away from here. I even planned to go glamping in Tanay, Rizal with the girls but…oh well. Maybe I’ll do that for Chinese New Year when there will be less stormy weather.

It’s only today that it stopped raining. 🥴

Now that our HQ has ordered everybody to be back in the office, I would need to go to Singapore once a month, I guess. That’s annoying. I would have to squeeze it between Twin A’s regular MRI scans and check ups, Chinese New Year, Taylor Swift concert (she has pushed up the prices of hotel rooms and plane tickets so I have to avoid those dates) and Ramadan.

And now that I have finally moved house and Twin A will soon be ending her TB treatment, I would finally be free to travel abroad for leisure, my first since 2018. My travels in 2019 were all for work and it didn’t leave me any room for leisure travel outside the Philippines. I gave my Philippine Airlines miles to the ex (for Taiwan and Hong Kong) so he can travel because he needed to be out of the country every 60 days for visa renewal. I also used my Cebu Pacific miles so we can travel together to Bohol for my birthday.

Anyway, 2020 of course was a disaster, 2021 was iffy and 2022 was easier but I didn’t dare travel outside of work because my experience with Covid was still fresh and my bout with the disease was a nasty one and I didn’t want a repeat of that.

Now, where will I go? I can go to Sapporo in June or Ho Chi Minh/Hanoi in May. I can ask fairy gaymother K or my sister to go on a train expedition with me along the Greater Mekong region, but that requires two weeks of personal time off from work and I don’t think I have enough holidays to cover that—unless I plan to give up a week of holiday in December. Europe, specifically Spain, is too expensive for me this year as I’m still rebuilding my investments after spending on the construction of my tiny home without bank loans… I think I can do that if my training in London for the ambassadors program pushes through. I can extend my stay in London for a week then to Scotland. However, this would be derailed if they have the training again in HK. 😶

Meanwhile, I was featured in a newspaper article this week.

The writer is a good friend and she said she quoted me verbatim because the experiences I shared were very different from that of my other colleagues here. 🤣 🤣🤣

Because there was nothing to edit today. I didn’t feel like writing two pending stories that had been stewing in my computer.

Because I missed painting.

I did another version of this painting, same angle, same subject. The first one I did a few months ago was more crude than this but this is still not satisfactory.

Why did I repeat this? Because I couldn’t get the clouds and waves right. I need to practice how the light is reflected on moving water. Dang it, it’s really hard.

I need to practice more. 🫠

I did a refresh of my workdesk tonight so I will be motivated to work later today—because I’m in no mood to work. 😢 So I hope a clean desk would inspire me to be organized later this morning and push myself to be productive. Ganbatte がんばって !

I got rid of the old gaming laptop that I used as a desktop for the past three years or so to free up space. It wouldn’t turn on anymore. 😶 Good thing I was able to retrieve important docs before it completely conked out. However, I still have some files there like interview recordings and similar stuff that I would like to download and transfer to my external hard drive.

Ah well, goodbye old machine, you served me well.

What was supposed to be a slow day for edits became a hectic one as I was informed by my friend, G, that the opening of the bids for the rehab of NAIA is ongoing. I went online to attend the opening of bids and quickly drafted a story.

The opening of bids is still ongoing as of this writing.

So much for taking it easy today 😶

This is my last glass of sparkling red grape to keep me sane today. This is my third bottle. I pretend that this is alcoholic because I can no longer have any of that. I haven’t had any coffee or tea for three weeks now. Occasional juice drinks but in small amounts. Got to be careful as stress triggers my stomach acids and I am a bit stressed today.

Workday is done, got my story published at 8 pm or thereabout. My girls are with their cousins in a hotspring resort and will spend the night there. My tiny home seems spacious now that I’m alone.

This morning Twin A attended a manga drawing workshop. It’s nice that I can finally let them go on their own without me having to ferry them to and from wherever they needed to be do whatever they need to do. Activities for teenagers are just within walking or short jeepney rides. In contrast, in QC they were so dependent on me; and if I’m too busy, they will just be stuck in the apartment and be on their computers the entire day.

So enjoy moments like this. I get my me time while my kids are enriching their lives. ❤️

We just lazed around yesterday and stuffed our faces with food. I was alternating between reading a book and watching Youtube videos. Sleeping in between. Lots of sleeping. We can’t go anywhere as some friends have reported on social media, going from our town to the next town northwest took at least two hours. That’s just more or less 10 km. Our highway was clogged with cars of families going in and out of hotspring resorts. I don’t want that kind of stress when I need to recharge.

So going to Tagaytay for some cool weather feels is out of the question. It’s bedlam out there.

I’m supposed to do some advance writing today because tomorrow I will be editing stories from China and Japan (and probably a little bit from SEAsia since our Vietnam reporter didn’t go on leave). There would be a little window left for writing and I don’t want that.

I woke up to Kimchi sleeping on the pillow beside my head, while Sushi was at my foot. It’s lovely to wake up to clean, fluffy pets who seek comfort in me. ❤️

I’m just collecting my will power to get out of bed and start refreshing my work desk.

I found this on my cousin’s reels. It seems like she just split from her husband—has been posting cryptic messages on her IG and has deleted her Facebook. That’s her coping mechanism, I guess. Poor thing. 💔

It’s hard to have your heart breaking at this time of the year. A time when your world shouldn’t be falling apart and pretend everything is all right in front of your parents and sibling. Been there.

I remember writing this shit three Christmases ago. How can I had been so wrong? I guess that’s my coping mechanism back then, telling myself lies, intellectualizing it when it was just a simple case of cheating and all that crap that came with it. Oh the amount of lies I believed!

Then this was followed by writing about the concept of home. It’s still true that I no longer feel like my mom’s house, the one I grew up in, is home for me. What I created in QC was home—for a while—and as I said in a post a week ago or so, I’m still conflicted about my feelings about that apartment.

But what I have now is my own little space in this world. This is home now.

The day after Christmas 2020, I walked for 2 km or so at 6 am and contemplated about what to do with my life after it has fallen apart. I asked myself where do I go from here?

Is it the pursuit of happiness? Umm, probably not. Happiness may be incidental, something that happens. You cannot be constantly happy because life fucks up. And chasing happiness is…fucked up as well. Maybe the best thing I can think of right now is the pursuit of contentment. Being content is not equal to being mediocre. Contentment may be reaching a high bar that you have set for yourself. But never being content may be equal to unhappiness and may launch you into this endless pursuit of nothingness.

So where do I go from here? I don’t know. And it’s ok.

The next day (Dec 27), I made up my mind to move to the province and build a small house. At that time I said I will be building it by the sea and have a condo in the city. But I guess that will take a while. I have to build wealth first instead of going into debt for a house that is unnecessary.

But at least I have my own place now where I can build a homestead and live sustainably. My goal came into fruition somewhat. After I’m finished with Twin A’s treatment and be cleared of anything (reserving my cash for in-case scenarios), I will be saving up for a solar power hybrid setup while building my vegetable garden. The goal is to be self-sufficient for a bit so when zombie apocalypse happens, we can hold on for a while.

From the ashes of 2020, I had built a simple dream. That’s how I coped with heartbreak. Even though I was so lost, at the back of my mind I knew what I was going to do and where I would be going. I didn’t have any idea how I would be able to do it but by the grace of God I was able to achieve something.

I had been cooking the entire day yesterday and I only had one hour to get ready for church. It’s funny that our family was split going to different churches but—ah well, my mom has accepted that we’re happier with our faith than the one foisted upon us by tradition.

Merry Christmas!

Meanwhile, I’m gonna be like this today until I get back to work on the 27th.