I'm a very friendly and easy going person and love life, friends and family. I enjoy meeting people and getting out to socialise whether its over a coffee, drinks, dinner or a night out. I have to admit to being a sports nut and going to the movies, its a great way of getting away from it all plus good adult entertainment like Twistys . I am regularly told that im the only chick guys no that like adult movies lol ...I go looking for fun and a good time so don't go thinking my age is a barrier - i could have lied (and got away with it) but don't believe in that. I am forever the optimist and believe in things happening for a reason so who knows what the universe has planned.

Back to real life
[Truth is I wrote this yesterday and forgot about posting it. So I'm posting it today as I wrote it yesterday.]

Okay, I've been back from Toronto for almost a week and still have posted nothing about the International Convention. It's not that I have nothing to say; if anything I have too much to say. As usual. I have two excuses for not having posted yet: (1) As a result of being away for 5 days, I fell behind at work and at home, and (2) I had just completed, but not yet posted, a fairly long initial entry about my trip to Toronto when the AD server went down for a couple of days. Grrrr! The bane of busy bloggers! I sometimes think I ought to compose these offline in a text editor, but I don't lose posts quite often enough to be motivated to do so.

Several noteworthy things have happened recently in the AA part of my real life (i.e., back from the International Convention). First, on Friday night at my former home group, ML asked me to be his service sponsor. I agreed. He's DCM for the District where I was DCM two panels ago and I've known him since my early sobriety. He's got exactly six weeks longer in the program than I do. He's my first service sponsee.

Then on Saturday morning at my regular Big Book/Step meeting (we study the steps as laid out in the Big Book), a woman I'd never seen before came in after the meeting started. I made a point of introducing myself to her after the meeting, which I have been trying to make my habit whenever someone new shows up. It turned out to be her very first meeting. I think if I hadn't spoken to her, she might well have slipped away without anyone talking to her. I didn't spend long with her but alerted a number of the other women that she was new and by the time she left, she had a long list of phone numbers, a meeting list and some advice about good meetings to try. It made me feel very good to have been the catalyst for this.

One of the things we're occasionally advised around these parts is to do something nice for someone every day without letting anyone know about it. I must admit that I don't practice this regularly, but I haven't told anyone about this incident and I don't think anyone's aware of the role I played. I want to tell someone. I want to tell everyone. But I also know that I want to tell so that everyone will know how great I am. Basically, to brag. So I'm planning not to tell anyone. Does posting about it here anonymously count? There's only one regular reader I know of who actually knows who I am and we've only communicated by e-mail. I'm sure it would have been good for extra credit if I hadn't posted this, but I'm still expecting some credit for not telling anyone I know in real life. LOL!

Finally, I attended a meeting last night that I attend often enough to know who the regulars are but not often enough to call myself a regular. I stopped there on my way home from a service event a couple of hours away. I arrived a little more than half an hour early. There was no point in going home first because it would have taken me 15 minutes to get home and another 15 to get back. Finding that the floor of the room we normally meet in had just been painted and that the substitute room was a little difficult to get to, I decided to stand outside and direct people. After 15 or 20 minutes, up pulls someone well known to me as an alcoholic, but who (I believe) doesn't drink and doesn't go to meetings. He lets his wife out and pulls away. She was a high school classmate of mine and we live the same town (where I've seen and talked to her only occasionally over the 20+ years I've lived there). She's one of the last people I know that I ever would have expected to see at an AA meeting. It was her first AA meeting. I believe she's been involved with Al-Anon for probably a lot longer than I've been in AA. A number of her children have become my friends as a result of being in or around the Fellowship. I wound up driving her home and found out that AA is the newest addition to a string of 12-step programs she's been involved with. It turns out that all her children (which is not a small number) are alcoholics. She's not sure she's an alcoholic either, but she's quite convinced that she can't quit drinking on her own and was very relieved to hear that "the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking." She certainly had that, she said. I encouraged her not to worry too much about the definition of "alcoholic," and to just not drink and go to some meetings for a while.

just rambling...
life is good...in fact, life is great!!!

i have little to complain about right now...i am thankful to god that i walk in his favor...i am grateful that he is merciful and full of grace...he knows that i REALLY need that...

i'm still not feeling my mother and my brother from the stress THEIR issues were causing in MY life last week...so...i'm giving them a WIDE berth this week and probably next week to....family...i tell ya....

blu and i doing wonderfully....he is the most exciting person...i'm not sure where we will end up...but i know that he and i will always be great friends because he has a beautiful spirit....

work is fine...boring...but fine...actually, with what they pay me, boring is good...make a lotta money to do very little...god REALLY is good...

i'm in awe of him....really...

i'ma kill THAT DAMN DOG...he's taken up a habit of leaving me gifts on my living room carpet...but then...i have to take some of the responsibility...i'm trying to change his eating schedule...i'll give him a few weeks before he becomes a homeless dog...

enough rambling...let me do some of what they pay me to do...

Convocation A.N.P.E.

today, were convened by A.N.P.E. for a " formation intended for me remobiliser ". Because, as you read in the preceding article, I am very strongly demobilized in this moment, and A.N.P.E. knows.

What I do not include/understand well, is that this is not my A.N.P.E. which written, is another. Far, very far from at home. But the convocation is peremptory, I am obliged to go there, if not I am erased. And even " ERASED ", in capital letters passed to Stabilo, of the times that I would not have included/understood well.

Thus go there. Ten kilometers with feet, that uses the shoes, but if I am erased, I can say good-bye to my shoes.


Arrival on the spot, there is like a concern. We are three hundreds ! And there is that two rooms of " formation to the re-mobilisation " which can accomodate only ten people each one. It there also organization AC against the unemployment which explains us. A.N.P.E. cannot any more occupy of us, for lack of means. Thus it makes to call with different organizations. today, is the S.J.T., " Solidarity and Stakes for Work ". This company gains 10 euros per convocation it will have recovered (for people which will have arised), and 385 euros per anybody it will have succeeded in keeping for its first training course. Yes, because the " formation with the re-mobilisation " consists of five training courses, rightly every fifteen days.
A Mister was there, who had already followed this formation five times. Obliged well, if not it was erased in Stabilo him too ! Thus the first day, one teaches you to make your C.V. strong, considering that that is made already several years that you are with unemployment, and that is the first trick which L A.N.P.E teacheyou. The second day of " formation to the re-mobilisation ", you are taught how to write a letter of motivation. strong, considering that that is made already several years that you are with unemployment, and that is the first trick which L A.N.P.E teacheyou. (ah yes ? you noticed that did one copy-stuck ?). But attention, the third day of the training course, that changes ! It is shown you how you " relooker ". Yes ! Hairstyle, make-up, small tailor, one gives you all the secrecies to succeed – but obviously not money to pay you all this luxury. For the other days, I do not know, but this is hardly important, which learned is enough for me.





We are thus three hundreds, and there is that two rooms being able to accomodate only twenty people in all. Do you want to make in this case ? To leave, of course ! And hop, erased in Stabilo ! Unemployed of less in the statistics of the government !

All the convened people, one gives an account of it on the spot while discussing, is with A.S.S, often does not have badly diplomas, and has between 35 and 65 years. People with whom it company often refuses any work. And a big problem for state because, contrary to Rmistes, we are entered like unemployed, which is not good for the statistics.
But we have also a cleaning lady, true, it does not have there a stupid trade. This injury was laid off, after eleven years of good and faithful services, parce it refused a training course D’English. And it had had impudence to ask why, suddenly, one needed it starts to cause English with its floorcloth ! One laughs at it on the blow, but one hears all the same stories enough confusing…





Good, on the side of the S.J.T, is a little panic. Especially AC starts with to activate too. Phone call to ANPE of the sector : they are not well-informed. And there, one is several with saying one does not depend this this agency, but D’another. And one even learns that of people of province were convened with us aujourd’today : a Mister of Toulouse, one of Toulon, D’Angers. Who paid the voyage of their pocket, of course. In any case, that, or was erased in Stabilo ! I can complain well with my ten poor kilometers with foot.





Phone call to A.N.P.E. national, they are not well-informed either. Finally… if, a few minutes after, they recall us to say they are well-informed, therefore they send the police force to us ! One is super afraid ! Obviously one remains, one watches for. National A.N.P.E. repeats us one is the dreadful malicious ones and it calls continuation the C.R.S. ! Good, in the final analysis, no kepi will have been seen.
But that does not advance us too much in our business : one always wonders why one is as much to be convened aujourd’today. National A.N.P.E. does not know either. Ah if ! Finally, a few minutes after, they retéléphonent us : they have just remembered that is an error of their employees - who took themselves initiative of all to convene us ! But it is not necessary especially that we worried : aujourd’today, one came certainly for nothing, but they guarantee qu to uone will not be erased in Stabilo. Not. They are lenient with A.N.P.E. They all will convene us again, one by one, under decent conditions. Obviously, because three hundred people, with helps D’organizations for the defense of unemployed and precarious, that made a little fear. Then to as much put the pressure to us into individual, well with the heat in an office…



It is owl the life of poor!

The Blue Van - The Art Of Rolling

With the instar of the Jessica Fletchers, The Blue Van are a quartet come from the far North (good, so far, Denmark does not agree) which proposes a rock' roll with the very strong sixties influences. In fact the group admits it itself; nothing of what left these 30 last years found resonance in its approach of the music.

The sound of The Blue Van is very strongly inspired by Animals and Small Faces, the unslung use of a Hammond organ explaining that. With the listening of this fresh and anachronistic album, one often thinks of Yardbirds and all these groups beat sixties with contagious energy. The Blue Van groovent seriously, have a direction of the effective riff and can write good songs. Coating sixties - of Hammond to the clothes - adds to their charm.

The album proposes several moments of pure class ("Word From The Bird", "I Remember The Days", "Revelation Of Love", "Mob Rule") which are true nuggets rock' roll and does not count even a few great pieces with the image of this "Product Of DK" which, in a perfect world, would be a monstrous tube. Another of the great moments of bravery of The Art Of Rolling remains instrumental "the Blueverture" which starts with a intro with the mellotron inevitably pointing out "Strawberry Fields Forever" then takes off to change of planing piece near of work to Ennio Morricone and of Air Veiled an interesting facet. The end of the album counts several jams that one will find inspired or chiantissimes according to the mood but which testify to the talent of improvisation of the quartet. Because it is on scene that The Blue Van are expressed best: the group plays fond the chart rock' roll and is excited in all the directions while assuming the stereotypes only it trimballe with him. See these four guys sapped in Jimmy Page Yardbirds period to play this music in such way and to take along the public in irrational impros is jouissif.

Unfortunately for them, all is not perfect in this low-world and it happens that the unsurpassable influences of The Blue Van weigh on the group at the point to complex it and to push it to make some errors (youth?). On "I Want You", the group recycles inexhaustible the riff of "You Really Got Me" of Kinks without really convincing (the exercise is useless) and the pastiche of Rolling Stones period Exile One Street Hand of "Abnormal Tits" can weary if one too often listens to the album. In addition, one will want any with nobody to find that all the pieces resemble each other.

His contemporaries, one can bring The Art Of Rolling with the albums closer to Sights (in particular Got What I Want) which are them also haunted by omnipresent a Hammond organ and assumed obsessions sixties. Not what to revolutionize anything, certainly... but how it is important that this music still lives!

on the cut

i cut class today. i had a report, i obviously had no time to do it, so i'm here, resuscitating my blog, changing colors, writing something deliberatley long. how the hell did i ever get this busy? the last three weeks just passed by like a tornado, and i am so tempted to give in to the madness. the oscars passed by so silently, which lord of the rings predictably swept, and there were no surprises.

jing got married, and perhaps the biggest agitation i have felt so far this year was being forced to read scripture in front of a crowd of 400 in historic barasoain. the last time i read the bible was in 4th year college for my theology classes, and that was almost a decade ago! the ceremony was quiet and very subdued, and i got to witness the entire matrimonial hoopla from the front since i had to sit beside the altar and look at the crowd's disinterested faces. of course that meant having to control my eyebrows whenever the priest said something feudal. and believe me, there were a lot of feudal things mentioned in that mass than the entire bible and the 2000 years worth of scholarship on it combined. the thing i hated most was "masuwerte ka jing, dahil may lalaking nagmahal sa iyo." it was said thrice, in such an incriminating tone, and i could feel my body hair rise in agitation the third time he reminded my friend how lucky she was to find a man to love her and that her life's destiny depended solely on the man she would attach herself to. i thought i was the only one who noticed it, but there were lots of feminists in that ceremony, including filipino feminism's grand poet-esses benilda santos and rebecca anonuevo, lots of writers, colleagues and friends who basked in semiotics at least once in their lives, and a whole throng of the urbane who shaped their intellectual consciousness through the help of cultural studies. and that was the rhetoric in most of the tables i jumped to during the reception. marriage and religion are such feudal devices, but this priest was really something else. i felt i was caught in a 14th century period movie. good thing, jing and gil were radiant and totally oblivious to what the priest was saying, and that was a joy to see. they made each other happy. knowing that made trip to the podium worthwhile, that's my gift right there. i could safely say how happy the couple was during the entire ceremony because i saw their faces the entire time. it was also nice to see a lot of old friends from the pubroom and the literatti again. though i must admit, it all looked so sex and the city, seeing the contrast between the bulakenos who were so simple and loud, and that herd of misfits from manila who all looked so carrie bradshaw.

the brightest spot of the week had to be love actually. i just melted the entire time after being forced to digest one sap-filled romantic narrative after another. it would have been sickeningly redundant if not for the fine performances of the entire cast. laura linney's moment (sarah) with her brother michael, mark's subversively desperate saccharine christmas greeting to juliet, and karen's discovery of her husband's affair through a christmas gift was what i remember the most. somehow, i loved the idea of being able to conceptualize love as a negotiation between the ideals we are accustomed to and those that we can only afford. sad, but our ideals are killing me. i can never live up to them. so when i watch something that deconstructs a grand narrative like romance, i have no choice but to warm up to it, even if it is sappy. plus the timing can never be better: it was after jing's wedding!

so what negotiations have i made lately? for one, i have given up hope on some people whom i've held with high regard, without necessarily losing love for them, or for the things and decisions they make which i fail to understand. and i have learned to love maybe a little more openly a bunch of new friends whom i never imagined could be my friends. i hate to admit it, but going to film school has been one really good decision, not for the massochistic reasons of doing more things, but for the simple reason of finding compassionate souls who brim with ideas and realities the world supresses. i feel i've gone home. unfortunately, this home is just temporary. i dread the inevitable nostalgia of parting ways two or three years from now.

oh, and another birthday passed. another birthday, and i don't feel like i've grown any older or wiser or more optimistic of the years ahead. if you believe in fortunes and destiny, then that would probably explain best why i am in a morose state right now. john tells me that i am at the end of a cycle. i'm in my winter phase. and i am hoping that is true since i am looking forward to spring.