So I have this “Ballads” playlist on my iPod. Today, I decided to hook up the player with my living room speakers and I concluded that I’m in a somber mood because suddenly these songs that I only play when trying to sleep took on a different meaning. Tina Arena’s take on Elton John’s Your Song actually made me want to call my brother to come home and bring a guitar so we can jam. Maybe it’s the setting and I hit the right volume, I can clearly hear the instrumentation, even the vague sounds of Stagg Drums in the background.

Now I only need it to rain outside and this will be a perfect somber day. I already have my coffee.

My neighbors must hate me now. I think it’s close to 2 weeks that I’ve let my alarm clocks – yes, plural – make those awful, awful noises for a stretch of time without actually waking up. It’s just that I’ve been kidding myself – nay hoping – that I’ll be able to start the day really early, but what actually happens is that I go to bed rather late because I can’t seem to concentrate on my work and finish everything by the time I’ve set for the day. Scheduling be damned, it means nothing if you don’t follow it. I think I need to find a sort of tap and die app for my phone alarms. Heh.

I think I’ll always love poetry.

Over the years, I feel like I’m becoming more and more cynical, practical, and less emotional. Not always a good thing, but it kind of saves you from sweating the small stuff, so to speak.

So what does poetry have to do with it? Well, poetry is not practical, it’s meant to stir emotion, and it demands you to use your imagination. I think poems – especially the great ones – are almost always written with an extreme experience or state of mind. Comparing straight prose to poetry is like comparing leather wallets to an expensive designer purse.

I’ll always love reading poetry but I am hoping that I can recapture my ability to write poetry. It kind of left me.

I was reading an interview with the creator of the TV show Bones (and I wonder why I am so lacking in time!), and he described Brennan’s (Emily Deschanel) new situation as a mother as being this “big open wound” of a human being. Although it was never stated in the show, viewers have speculated that the lead female, Temperance Brennan, the most brilliant forensic anthropologist in the whole wide world, has Asperger’s syndrome.  She’s continually shown as having inept social skills, which the show uses for humor, but now that she has become a mother she begins to develop feelings she doesn’t know how to make sense of (just roll with it, because as an avid viewer, I always catch inconsistencies in this part of her characterization). Her emotions are suddenly exposed like having giant projector bulbs around you that makes everyone see your every superficial flaw. I expect many tears in the coming episodes, both as humor and emotional bait.

For everyone else, the next few days are going to be either sacred or, in the very least, rest days. For me, it’s all the same. I’m not trying to make any kind of statement here – sentiments or otherwise. It just made me feel a little bit odd (for lack of a better word) when a client asked me if I’m working over the Easter holidays and I said yes. Because they asked me last Christmas and New Year and I also answered in the affirmative. For a little while there, I thought about the impression I’m giving, then I’m back to my self-preservation corner thinking “Who cares, anyway?”

In the very least, these public holidays will stop me from purchasing any more free shipping coupons this week, as I’ll surely not be able to have them delivered until next week.

I had set up a bank account that’s supposed to give me, as a bonus feature, up to four times my average daily balance as an insurance (accidental, I think – see, I didn’t even check the life insurance info to be sure, because having somewhere to save up was the more important thing for me). Seeing my meager balance get depleted because of unexpected circumstances, or extra purchases, or slower than usual flow of work, I can’t help but feel deflated and terrified about my future. I think in that regard, there never can be enough insurance. Well, unless I suddenly start earning waaaayy more than I can spend in a month.

So I tweeted today, and I’m 70% serious about it, that I want a life coach – not just about finances but everything else. Any takers?

I’ve always thought that diets will not work for me – I love food too much! I mean, I don’t really eat a whole lot in one meal, but I cannot see myself skipping meals for the purpose of losing excess weight. Typically, that’s ok because I used to engage in a lot of activities like badminton and at least cardio workouts at the gym. In the past 2 years, however, I allowed myself to focus too much on work  – a non-physically active activity, so to speak -  that I can only shake my head at my image in the mirror. The problem is when I remove my eyes from the mirror and again sit in front of my laptop, all thoughts of getting fit fly out of the window, at least until I begin to feel something in my body that will make me worry again about being so unhealthy. Well, I haven’t even tried to read those appedex reviews to see if such pills can help.

Looks like one New Year’s resolution of mine is not working out at the moment, but I can only try to make some change. Maybe writing this here will give a little bit of a much-needed push.

Well, I’ve realized that movies are literally missing from my schedule – watching at the cinemas or at the comfort of my home with my usual uhmm downloads and DVDs of favorite stuff. At least I’m still able to catch up with my favorite TV shows – most of them are currently on hiatus anyway – but whatever happened to my plans to purchase movies, like my dream to have a complete Disney fairy tales collection?

Well, nothing that can’t be rectified. Excuse me while I prepare my TV for some movie marathon.

This is not in the very least an important feat but I thank myself for not making a big purchase today when I’m so close to doing so. I was at the Smart Store at the Mall of Asia today, trying to buy their new broadband stick called “Rocket Chic” just because I read that my area is within the 4G/HSPA+ coverage of the network – plus I can’t resist the bright pink color and the promised 12 Mbps speed. Alas, it was not available at the store so I thought, maybe I should buy an iPhone 4S just because of the recent increase in my credit card’s limit and also because I couldn’t stop thinking about the phone anyway.

I got a queue number and when I’m next bolted out the door to clear my mind and weigh the pros and cons. It didn’t help that my sister kept on pushing me to buy already (she said I ALWAYS complain about my current phone anyway), but it turned out that is what kept me from taking the plunge. When someone tells me to go do something I like, I usually begin to question my own want and the direction of my planned action. This would be easier, of course, if I have a stash of silver bars somewhere, but I don’t.

Admittedly, it’s still a question of when I’ll finally give in. But that I won this round against myself is very much appreciated – by me. I really need to be around more people. Maybe.

I bought a Targus black backpack from a deals website last year, thinking that if it looks too “for-school-ish” I’ll just give it to my brother and buy myself another one. It’s very easy to be convinced by the discounts presented to you in such sites (or is it just me?). When my sister found out how much I bought it for (PhP 2,500), she told me it’s too much. (But the site said it was PhP5,000 in stores!)

So I used the backpack for my SG trip last month, hoping that it can carry my iPad and Mac as well as some clothes and a smaller bag – as my hand-carry bag. Turned out, it’s so heavy that although it has so many compartments for other stuff, all I was able to carry with it is my 13-in. Mac, iPad, and small personal necessities (passport, pen, e-tickets, wallet, etc.); I felt that anything more than that will break my back.

After we came back, even my brother is not too keen to take the bag for himself. So now I’m looking for another one in Ebay – maybe a dakine backpack that’s much lighter and hopefully not too expensive – for my upcoming trips. I’m often bad at purchasing stuff (especially online, which I enjoy doing more than actually buying in stores), so this time I think I’ll have to give it more time and research.