oh, for crap's sake, take a machine's word over mine, why don't you?

the bank keeps calling me "ms. macelo." notice the missing "r" there? it's bad enough that they're confused about leslie samantha/samantha/sam, now they're messing up my last name too. either i keyboarded it incorrectly or i have terrible handwriting. funny thing is, my letters all have "marcelo" clearly typed. CHANGE your records already! i'm telling you who i am! stop believing the machine! i am not a macelo! ARGH! yeah, "r."

from a smell to guelphs.

thought process triggered by a smell:

-weird smell from the stems of a bunch of flowers
-reminiscent of an odor in a high school bio experiment
-google "oxytocin" (turns out, it's a red herring. i must've remembered it because of a times article by david brooks)
-google "plant growth hormone"
-auxin! yes, that's it! and in my head, auxin is always paired with gibberellin.
-the same time we were learning about gibberellin in bio, we were learning about ghibellines in social science.
-ghibellines are always paired with guelphs

the train of thought goes from smell to auxin to gibberellin to ghibellines to guelphs.

the train rumbles on:
third year bio can be summed up in the phrase "cyclopentanoperhydrophenanthrenes are actually steroids."

second year bio in a nutshell is "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny."

college? well. chem 17... the four laws of thermodynamics as stated by Ma'am Cruz:
1. i forget what the first is.
2. nothing is free. (conservation of energy)
3. you always pay for what you get, and you always get less than what you pay for. (entropy)
4. perfection is impossible. ("the entropy of a perfectly crystalline body at absolute zero temperature is zero.")

enough! between this and not knowing who i am, my eyes are starting to glaze over.

i am sam.

the name is sam. sam sam sam. it's not sammy, sam-o, sampot, samsam, sam-dude, or any other derivative or variant of sam. why do people insist on mangling my name? myself included!

(well, there you go, stupid. you have no right to complain).

i mean, if i'm sam, why the hell is this blog's url "ll"? why is my e-mail address "ll"? who the hell is ll? long story short: UP gave me "llmarcelo" and my anal self decided that all e-mail addresses and usernames must follow suit. easier to remember that way. so it has been, only my yahoo account was spared since it predates my UP e-mail address, the same UP e-mail address that i DO NOT USE anymore.

when i think of myself, i think "sam." i am sam i am.

i think, therefore i'm sam.

ego, identity, me, myself, i=sam.

i'm also a "marcelo." that's my favorite in-joke: "marcelo." depending on how you say it, it's either an insult or a compliment. and only a marcelo can deliver the marcelo in-joke properly.

so, i am sam marcelo. i always have been.

the freaky thing is, there is ANOTHER sam marcelo out there. i've googled myself several times (oh, c'mon, don't tell me you haven't) and turned up another sam marcelo. she's my age, she's also a samantha, and she lives somewhere in canada... i think.

this individual has as much right to think of herself as "sam marcelo" as i do. before i learned of my canadian doppelganger, i knew that i was the best at one thing: being me, being sam marcelo. turns out, there's another "sam marcelo" who is as good as i am at being "sam marcelo."

i'm twisting my mind into a pretzel here. can you tell? these are existential issues!

even our paper's database has trouble saying exactly who i am, i'm listed in at least three different ways. one thing writing for businessworld has given me is an appreciation for my middle initial. the "l" is my mom, i should let it stand. she's as much a part of me as "sam" and "marcelo." there's also something very sensual about "l." it's the tongue stroking, caressing the palate. i digress.

going back: i thought i knew who i was. then my bank had to go and tell me otherwise, so i had to write a letter. i kinda forgot that banks are, like, formal institutions.

To Whom It May Concern:

This is to declare that "Leslie Samantha L. Marcelo" and "Samantha L. Marcelo" and "Sam L. Marcelo" are one and the same person.

...

Thanks, and my apologies.

Leslie Samantha L. Marcelo (or Samantha, or almost always, just Sam)

we're going to the 'ship...again.

beat the rogues, 7 to zip. rozie qb'd the first drive, scored a TD, and capped that run with an extra point. after that, she handed the O to me--and i could NOT, for the life of me, complete a single pass. i finally got a five-yarder in to my slot after one million five hundred fifty-five thousand tries. frustrating. my timing was off, i kept throwing late. hats off to rozie, she was very vocal supporting me, and that meant a lot. the team was also very gracious.

anyway, i'm enjoying the win, we're going to the 'ship AGAIN, for crying out loud! never mind that we didn't bury the rogues 48 billion to nothing, or that my qb skills are about as effective as using a toothpick to slay a dragon.

it looks like i'm going to have to partially violate one of my boxes next week. i really, really, really need to get back into the groove.

i know what a teleber is.

legit term for "eraserheard"* lyrics: mondegreen

came across the word while reading a great nytimes article on the O.E.D and neologisms. hope that link works. if not, try googling for "Cyber-Neologoliferation." excerpt:

"I'm too embarrassed to ask the lexicographers if they have a favorite word. They get that a lot... Fiona McPherson gives me mondegreen. A mondegreen is a misheard lyric, as in, 'Lead on, O kinky turtle.' It is named after Lady Mondegreen. There was no Lady Mondegreen. The lines of a ballad, 'They hae slain the Earl of Murray,/And laid him on the green' are misheard as 'They have slain the Earl of Murray and Lady Mondegreen.' 'A lot of people are just really excited by that word because they think it's amazing that there is a word for that concept,' McPherson says."

and a mondegreen is exactly what "teleber" is.

*eraserheard: after the band eraserheads. i picked up the term from a magazine and thought it was funny and apt. it insinuated itself into my vocabulary and it'll probably stay there, regardless of my mondegreen-mindedness.

instant communication! instant rejection!

"who wants to hang, like, right now?" [send to group: berks]

*toot toot*
"i'm, like, in alabang."

*toot toot*
"sori. m on d way home alrdy"

*toot toot*
"hehe. m going to market2"

*toot toot*
"hey, sweetie. sorry can't. i'm in araneta."

*toot toot*
"m dty.."

*toot toot*
*Hey. Sorry, i'm going home na."

the silver lining is that i actually got replies from all of you.

Very Important Questions.

the democrats have seized control of both houses! rumsfeld has resigned! bush is going down! as america grapples with its issues--the iraq war, birth control, same sex marriage, stem cell research, separation of church and state--i present my own list of Very Important Questions (let the debate ensue):

1.what are the lyrics of the jump rope song? "i love you,...

a. teddy bear, teddy bear
b. teribon, teribon
c. telebong, telebong
d. televert, televert
e. teleber, teleber
f. teleboom, teleboom

2. which pinoy singer/band sang the song with the lyrics "pag-ibig ko'y metal (sa balat ng lupa)?

3. is it "cross merry" or "strawberry" shake?

4. am i really supposed to ask sen-sen my playmate to "bring back the rainbow into my celery"?

what sayeth the decider?

bora bowl champs.

represent! good job. wish i was there. thank you for missing me. thank you for toasting in my name. thank you for telling me that you want me to qb in our game vs. m (for real?). all the way baby, going for the 'ship again. yes, i'm still buzzed. go away.

don't drink and dial, don't binge and blog.

red wine.
san mig light.
swing.
let's sing the blues:

woke up this morning
with a pain in my head

woke up this mooooooorning
with a pain in my head
(pain in my head pain in my head)

woke up this morning
with a pain in my butt
('cuz my girlfriend's a slut)

vocals and lyrics: pa and sam
guitar: moe

alcohol just does wonders to your brain, man.
it isn't surprising that so many authors are substance abusers--it's fun to write when you're coming from an altered state of perception.
badabing badabam badaboom.
plus, you don't censor yourself, and you just have license to say most anything,
and you love everybody, and life is just so fucken fabulous... for real.

check it out, papa's a poet:

Beware the liar moon
that shines to illicit
love’s delight

Whose stolen sheen is dulled
by the coming of the sun’s
true and brilliant light
___
he likes rhyming... and ending with "!"s
here are the ones he sent to me while he was in mindoro.
they're short because they had to fit into a single text message, meaning, what, 160 characters? something like that. technology dictating artistry.
___
Red orb turns to brilliant white
revealing god’s work
azure skies, verdant fields—
LIFE!
___
A white bird circles frantically in fading light
the price of greed—a night of uncertainty in a strange tree!
___
She was the master moisturizer—
her skin was so smooth they idolized her—
one day she got rashez from her nose to her assez—
now even the dogs won’t go near her!
___
what's with all the "!"s daddy-o? not like you read this blog, or even KNOW that it exists.

went to the driving range with the old man. i don't know if i like golf or not. it did make me sweat, and there is some kind of satisfaction to be derived from whacking a poor, defenseless little ball to kingdom come.

but still.

raw pink flesh
skin-brown dots
sun burned sky
liquid sober love
moon scarred night

next? i'm a-gonna keep on going til this bottle is empty.








well, hell.
one solution: drink faster, little girl!

gotta make room for the golden stuff, off to the loo.

so, i've pissed it all away. i'm done. good night.

tracing the origins of the ultimate zone out moment, plus pixelated nipples!

i rubbed proactiv on my burn today, took me a few seconds to realize that i was putting zit cream on my wound. it was the texture of the ointment that snapped me back into the present.

i was thinking about how elegance and efficiency presume (assume? indicate?) the existence of a god--a thought that's been with me for several days (blog entry on that coming, i need to let the thought marinate some more). and THAT thought actually started a week or so ago on a train ride, while ruminating on mathematical proofs and computer code and language, and seeing buildings and re-telling myself how fucken ugly our buildings are.

ugly buildings being the reason i couldn't relate very well to howard roark's passion for architecture. back when i was reading fountainhead, i remember asking myself why ayn rand chose architecture, of all pursuits.

and, of course, realizing that our buildings are ugly only came about when i stumbled on frank gehry, thom mayne, santiago calatrava, etc. while infosnacking months ago.

you know how conversations can jump from, say, t-shirts to pixelated (as in pixel, short for picture element, as in resolution; nothing to do with "pixilated" as in crazy, as in me; which is why i prefer "pixelized"; but google has only 110,000 hits for "pixelized" and 324,000 for "pixelated"... so we go with "pixelated") nipples?

let me say that one more time without going off on a tangent: you know how conversations can jump from, say, t-shirts to pixelated nipples?
it's quite fun to trace how conversations go from one topic to another. same thing with thoughts and coming up with some sort of excuse for rubbing proactiv on my burn today.

gammy (19??-2006)

my dearest gammy,

introductions to memories are slippery things, aren’t they? we usually remember without preamble. so i will write the way i remember. did you know that you’re a wikipedia entry, gammy? if you google for “remmie brillo suaco” you’ll get a list of entries, mainly having to do with “silapulapu and the zebut brothers,” for which you won a palanca.
i have a confession to make—i’ve had a copy in my possession for quite some time, but i’ve never gotten around to reading it (i read a few pages, i remember that your introduction reminded me of michener, perhaps it was the onomatopoeia). are you disappointed, gammy? i have a feeling you aren’t, because you never forced any book on me. i believe it was this gentle attitude, plus the fact that you never thought i was too young to read anything that’s made me the voracious reader that i am (voracious when i have the time. meaning when i’m in the bathroom. the weirdest thing i’ve read in the loo was a yellow cab pizza delivery flyer).
i will also treasure the little dedications you wrote in your distinctive handwriting in the books that you gave me. the books that you sent always had more than one story in them. for example, i know that it was rochelle who gave you the dragonlance preludes trilogy in staten island new york on july 6, 1992.
i adore how you called me “my dearest sam-sam” in those messages, and how you would call me “sam-sam dah-ling” when you would talk to me. it made me feel like i was in a black and white movie, “sam-sam dah-ling, how’s my FEH-vo-rit?” the way you would say “favorite,” with the drawn out first syllable and the trilled r, made me feel i was in another time. that’s another thing, gammy, you weren’t ashamed of superlatives or exuberance, you had favorites and you made it known to everybody that i was one of them (pa was another, yes? does that mean i’m my father’s daughter?).
whenever you’d visit us, you’d sleep in my room. a full bladder would rouse me from sleep and you’d always be up, reading by lamplight. i’ll always have that image of you, the book so close to your face that it was almost touching your nose. “you’re still awake, gammy?” (i have a talent for the obvious, i know), “yes, dah-ling, when you’re old, you don’t need as much sleep.” (i’m older now, and it’s true, you really don’t need as much sleep, or maybe, we can’t sleep as much as we’d like). so, i’d make weewee and go back to bed, comforted that you were awake and reading. it was you, gammy, who made me love books. i will always, always appreciate how you never talked down on me or treated me like a child, i was never too young in your eyes. or is it that we were two children talking to each other? i thought it was cool that you never gave up dragons, elves, and knights. we like our escape, don’t we, gammy?
we also like words. you always said that it was nonna who was the writer, and that it was too bad her creativity took a technical bent. i would have liked to have read stories by nonna. how is nonna, gammy?
i learned the word “limn” from you, gammy. you said i had the ability to limn things (your original sentence was much more eloquent than that, forgive me) in an e-mail, after i sent a long one recounting my don antonio river adventure. i have since used “limn” in, well, you know, my stuff… those words i string together. when nonna passed away, you started sending your memories in e-mails with the subject “the heart remembers.” i loved getting those. i have printouts of them, and i re-read them from time to time. whose heart will remember now, dearest gammy? please say hello to nonna. i know that she’s looking out for me, she visited me in a dream and cooked us carbonara. she didn’t talk to me, but the dream left me with so much peace and so much love. when i woke up, i ran to the kitchen expecting to find her there. when i first told tareens and xandra about it, the tears just came.
i guess my heart is remembering now, isn’t it gammy? it remembers how the “three brilliant brillo sisters” would play mah jong. how you would speak Spanish when you didn’t want any of us to understand what it was you were talking about. how you and mamita would smoke and drink beer. nonna was the good girl, why did she go first? just asking…
papa says that of the three of you, you led the most “colorful” life. what he means by that, i don’t know. in his stories, you were the artist, the dreamer, the one who eschewed practicality in favor of fun. is it true that you treated your friends to a cruise with the money your mother gave you? pa says you were the “carpe diem” type, did you like dead poets society as much i do?
also gammy, i think your sense of humor is closest to pa’s and mine. you like word play, and pa could always make you laugh. did you hear his latest ones? (sili idea and pro bono? man oh man, i DID enjoy them, though).
a vignette: we were out in the garden, in the swing, and you said something to the effect that puns were the lowest form of word play. why? i love puns, if there were a puns club, i’d be a member (you like that, gammy?). if you think puns are low, what about alliteration? i adore alliterating as well. i found this scrawled in piers anthony’s ogre ogre: “the punning intricately woven into the narrative is very enjoyable! smashing!!! hilariously funny” HAH! you do appreciate puns.
you also knew how to make fun of yourself. i remember that time you saw yourself in a video. it was of your party, i think. you gasped in horror, “oh my god, that’s me?! i thought i was pretty!” i thought that was a riot. your mind was sharp until the very end, gammy. i wish we had more conversations.

i will always hold close to my heart those words you sent me a long time ago, after i sent you a bunch of my stuff.

“to take up the subject of sharing creations with others or the public-- i cannot emphasize too much the fact that no criticism whether favorable or not should matter to the extent of providing an incentive when favorable and dousing the creative fire when it is unfavorable. what others think of your creation should be a matter of complete indifference to the creator. one creates because it is a need, a hunger; because the heart, the soul is filled to bursting with all it holds and must empty itself. for as long as you can do so you need no more. if the product of that creativeness pleases you (and very often it does) then indeed is the creative fire justified and when it pleases others (as happens quite often) then can one say 'the cup runneth over'...

i did tell you that your poems call to me… touch my heart and imagination even as i realize that there are some picture images that neither my mind nor heart could have conceptualized.

the siren song… embers… color grey—saludo ako, hija… teka, may insipirasyon ba talaga—in the flesh, or katha lang ng isip at puso…

the latest of which your favorite as of now: the slayer of the sun? well, while i admire the words forged in the anvil of your creativity—i find the images rather strong… almost, violent.

continue writing, my darling… i smile because no force or circumstance can stop you from writing so let me rephrase that with—continue to share your wealth with me.

with oodles of love,

gammy”

-from an e-mail dated July 23, 2001

so, gammy, here i am blogging about you. i wonder what you’d say about what i do now and the “stuff” that keeps on writing itself. i’ll post the pieces you mentioned, so that if you come upon this entry, you can re-read them. leave a comment, gammy? or visit me in a dream, just like nonna did.

siren song/Caylabne
[stanza 1: 4/5/2k1 stanzas 2&3: 4/20/2k1]

the siren song of the sea
lulls me to sleep,
the waves cradle me
and caress my whole body
as i float, weightless
on the water.

every sound is muted as
they make their way
through the depths.
i close my eyes and tune into
the haunting melody of
the waves making love to the shore.

the wind gently touches my face,
reminding me that the sky is overhead.
through closed eyelids i can see
rorschachs of orange as
the sunlight suffuses
my upturned face with warmth.
___
embers
[5/7/2k1]

under the blanket of night
i can think of you
and say that my love
has metamorphosed,
from the white heat
of a blaze
that starts spontaneously
in the womb of an arid month,
to the steadfast glow
of embers that refuse to die
even after the blaze
has been forgotten.
embers, enduring,
unseen, ever present.
sometimes, the wind blows
and fans the flames,
sparks form
and the white heat
rises again,
dies again.
underneath it all,
the embers remain,
among the ashes,
among buried memories.
embers, waiting for you
to stir them to life,
wanting the burn to last
longer than a moment.
and so it has been
for more than the turning
of one summer into another.
___
grey
[undated, ca. 2k?]

if i were a color i'd be grey.
grey like the skies pregnant with rain.
drops unsure whether to fall or not,
but there nonetheless.
tears held back,
hoping for the sun to burn them away.
____
slayer of the sun
[7/8/2k1]

you hang low in the sky,
fat and heavy with the blood of the sun
you have just slain.
the orange stain of your crime
stands out in the darkness.
your guilt weighs so heavily
upon you, my love
that you cannot escape
your earthly bonds.
you are like a feral predator
peering out of its lair,
waiting for its next kill.
unblinking and unwavering,
you stare at me,
i could never survive you
in that game.
as the night wears on,
as the clouds wipe away
the traces of your deed,
your bone-white beauty
shines through,
and you are absolved
of spilling blood.
cleansed and purified,
you rise up into the heavens,
ethereal and unreachable.
free again, you leave me,
your earthbound lover,
to wait until you must feed
once more.