The Flight of the Rocketman

You know I can breathe, even when I cheat
Should, Should've been over for me
No angel came
-- Juarez, Tori Amos

The stupidest thing happened to me the other day. Goodness, I felt like such a moron. My keys slipped out of my pants and those are my only copies. I never got the time to make duplicates. It was horrible. From Saturday evening until this morning, I was pretty much wearing the same clothes except when my best friend, whose house I stayed in, lent me clothes for the house.

I even went to a VTR in my clothes from last Saturday. Thank God they were very neutral in terms that I wasn't in extremely night-out dressy clothes.

It was just a really silly, stupid, funny situation to have found myself in. Now, I have to ensure that I get these keys duplicated and leave them with someone I can trust (most probably my brother) so that if this stupidity ever happens again; I don't have to ask a favour from my friends to let me sleep over.

I watched 5 one-act plays of PETA last Saturday and found myself thoroughly enjoying myself. I was invited by a good friend of the family who is an actress to watch the plays. It is part of the laboratory workshop of PETA in their efforts to try and enrich Philippine theatre with new works. From this performance of the 5 plays, they choose which one they will develop into a full-length to feature in their next theatre season.

It is so nice to see PETA growing and moving away from the in-your-face dialogue and situations that are so obviously symbols and metaphors that it makes you want to cry for having been spoon-fed the theme of the play. 3 of the 5 plays showed a lot of subtlety, wit and intelligence. They really struck a chord in me and made me very hopeful for Philippine Theatre. I think it is good that PETA continues to try and produce plays in Filipino and more importantly, are moving towards more quality work.

I can remember when I watched Lisa Magtoto's Agnoia. That was a treat.

In fact, it is time to be more cultural. I remember before, back before I was turned into a cosmopolitan, night-owl; I used to go to museum with friends and we would critique artwork and explain what we felt and what the artist was trying to accomplish. I remember going to bookstores with friends and reading off to each other from books that we found interesting. If we were lucky, one of us would have money and would buy one of those books and spend the next few weeks lending that same book to each other and hurrying them up so we can sit down as a group and talk about it. I remember rengga sessions and art collaborations back in the days when making art was the sole purpose of my life -- to the exclusion of living.

Now that I've done my share of living, shallow as it may have been (maybe), I'm off to find the balance. Sure, I still enjoy dancing and what dancing does for me but I will not be the kind of person who works and then goes out, works and then goes out. Boring. I want to be the kind of person who works, watches movies, dances, reads, watches plays, goes to museums, knows the history of certain locales and landmarks. I want to be a complete person. A sort of modern rennaissance man who is involved in so many things.

It's more important to be someone who is as large as life and not just a tiny parcel of it.

And I don't want people to box me in a sort of simple category. I've got to keep people guessing all the time. Make sure that they can't figure me out. Be everything that I can be and then push it as far as I can to be even more.

I have this sudden rush. This spark. I'm holding on to it as close as I can to my chest. See if I can start some sort of fire and let myself get burned.