Smoke Log

I've had 10 sticks for the last 4 weeks. I've been monitoring my smoking since I'm on the road to quitting. Yep, I haven't completely gotten off the vice yet, but actually I haven't been feeling the need for it lately. The last 5 sticks I had were in the effort of trying myself if I would actually give in to smoking again.

It doesn't feel as good as my 3-packs-a-day routine before. I don't feel the need for it anymore. I've also learned that alcohol triggers my "need" for it so I'm also cutting that down --wait, I already did. This clean living log makes me feel good, hence the post.

Sorry for making this a (b)Log dear Cheetos. But if you must know, a cigarette stick is like a Cheetos stick. Though the cigarette may be the real deal in terms of "flaming hot" and that it is a good instigator for Maya, and that alcohol may be the best lubricant for letting ideas endlessly flow in the vessel of the mind,

Nothing beats cheese.

Psychadelic Awesomeness

It's been 9 days since I last smoked a cigarette stick. I smoked one awhile ago and I found it amusing that my body isn't actually "needing" the vice. Usually, within 48 hours, my psychological state would declare the scarcity of nicotine in my body. Thus, by the time my kingdom enters the withdrawal era, my fortified castle falls to the hands of the plague - meaning, I really have to smoke a goddamned cigarette to get my ass back to working.

But it's been 9 days man, and past that withdrawal stage, there has got to be nothing more liberating than being purged from a killer vice. I realized that I am not dependent anymore and that I am not looking for it when-I-feel-the-need-to just like before.

Though bloodshot eyes and chapped lips have been the prices I've paid, there has been no regrets so far. My lips are now swelling because they've been used to regenerating everyday after being burned by cigarette filters every 15 or so hours a day. I'm guessing that it's still adjusting to a cleaner living. Unfortunately, my blown up lips have been conspiring with my knuckles such that I seemingly made it out of a brawl which mum's been suspecting of when I arrived home. The knuckle swelling's caused by training by the way.

To tell the truth, I've been in a brawl with my inner self. And hello world. I made it to virtual reality.

Covert Ops Within the Self

It has been a little over three months since I posted something in this blog. I put up this site December 2008 and named it after my favorite junk food, Cheetos Flaming Hot, basically because I've been a snack lover all my life. The simple concept I had back then was that this blog was supposed to contain the flaming hot snacks of the mind. Those ideas that instantly come from nowhere, blazing and coursing through the ethereal void of intellect - yep, that's pretty much the stuff I've been trying to concretize by writing. Then came the dawn of this dull blogger account.

Then, I probably encountered the biggest phenomenon I ever had during that time. I started putting up posts related to this field of existence I've never been to we call "love" and it was all about Bianca. It seemed as if everything has been diverted to coincide with such unreal destiny, all because she too, as I did, loved Cheetos Flaming Hot.

So why am I posting this now? As a writer I am mutually obliged to fulfill the requirements of my job, which is to save the ideas. Ideas drown in an abstract sea we call the "mind" and we are constantly on a boat called "consciousness" trying to save the drowning ideas once they float from the bottom of the sea. They needed to be saved as soon as possible, and I mean as soon as possible, for they may sink in back again. And as far as my experience would go, they hardly resurface the second time. Writing this, I've got to disregard that I only had three hours of sleep. I have to save this idea.

An hour and a half before this blog was posted, I was here on my bed waking up from this dream. Supposedly, I was in some university chilling with friends. There's this curved covered walkway with gray metal posts holding the roof I was passing through which led to a big green field that served football trainings in the afternoon. At the left was a brick red and white building exclusively for senior students while opposite it was a small cafeteria near the other end of the field and a walkway with stone benches leading to it from where I've been standing. It was early in the afternoon.

Well, I spent time with my "friends" in that university. My dream told that it was my break time and I still had no class to catch up. I was walking around, meeting lots of faces that come and go since that field has been busy catering to the students, serving as the highway to their respective classrooms around the school. I've been giving high fives to the people I knew as I would normally do on any day. I've been wasting money by buying snacks from the numerous booths at the side of the field opposite the walkway leading to it. And, to tell the truth, I've been practically wasting time. That was what I thought to myself while in that dream and I quite enjoyed it.

Part of Mike's wasting time scheme was being a douchebag to others. It has always been in real life. I mean, he wasn't like that before. He turned into one because he honestly and idiotically thought that life fucked him up that he had to always blame something for a certain fault, which Melissa, this other girl that came along later in his road, pointed out for him. Yes, whenever, Mike's doing something stupid, he always had a fall back excuse that this specific experience turned him into this and that, which to me, as I've realized 5 minutes ago, was total bullshit.

Anyway, as I was being that douchebag by destroying someone's perfect day, I picked on this guy. Well, he bumped into me and didn't say sorry when I was about to. Scratch that, I wouldn't unless he did. It's pride at stake. On second thought, I was actually going to apologize when I heard him turn around as he passed by and walked a few feet, thinking that he was going to say sorry. When I looked back, I saw him glaring at me with angry eyes; I knew they were angry. I've always seen such eyes in my day to day reality. So there I was bumping onto someone and that someone bumping onto me which consequently pissed off the both of us.

We were in front of the cafeteria side of the field near the walkway filled with benches. Naturally, I approached him and held up his collar. He almost dropped the food he held on his left hand which I couldn't remember, perhaps a cup of cereals, and he looked terrified, which was what I wanted. I walked a few steps back and dragged him to me. He was frozen in his own footing as he was helplessly tagged along by my right hand. And then, I shouted at him. I ridiculed him in front of everybody. I've been telling him "how he shouldn't act that way when he cannot man up his own ground," and as soon as the lesson seemingly pierced through his mind, I shoved his defending arms aside and pushed him on the chest as hard as I could. He was thrown back four or five feet before he regained his balance . He looked at me one last time, and as I was about to dive right in and throw in a punch square at his face, some familiar figure walked up to my left side and told me, "Mike, stop!!!"

It was a command. As soon as I heard it, the guy I've been picking on turned around and ran away. I checked to see who was stopping me. It was Bianca. I think I just started picking on the other guy because I knew she was there though I've been bumping on people around the field and have been picking on them the whole day. It just so happened that she saw this one coming and I wasn't actually prepared for a grand confrontation.

With a concerned face, she looked up to me and told me the words I told the guy I called the dick moments before; she cleared it to me that "I shouldn't act that way because I have no right to do so." The dialogue was of course in Filipino which made the message come across much more striking. When I raised both my hands towards her shoulders in disbelief in an effort to bring up an explanation for my irresponsible actions, she bluntly said "I'm leaving."

Without saying another word, she hung her bag on her left shoulder which she has picked up from a bench she's been sitting on with friends along that walkway. She turned around and walked away briskly. I couldn't spit out another word. I knew she was pissed at me. And as I thought of catching up to her and telling her I'm sorry, it just occurred to me that I should be sorry for more important matters, and not this petty fight I picked up. This idea was an idea that could be classified as the most flaming hot I ever had.

Though it was just a dream, it was parallel to reality. True, I have been wasting time. I've always been an attention whore bitching out on the past. I covered up my weakness by trying to be strong in front of others the wrong way. I knew it wouldn't help, and it didn't. As of now, I've been devastating the hope high heavens has mandated on me by treading the wrong path. I knew I was practically wasting time after getting kicked out of the Ateneo. I didn't give a shit, even the slightest of it, because I learned to be numb from all these fuck ups life has thrown in front of me in each and every step I took towards the future. I just wanted to get rid of all that crap, you know, that 25 o'clock in our days when we can't understand any goddamned thing for Chrissake - not even ourselves or our awareness - and it allegedly drives us to the spectrum of plain stupidity, or psychological inconsistency, or emotional instability, or whatever.

In that dream, I looked at Bianca's eyes. And I saw through it the truth that I should have realized years ago. Right now, I feel like I've been a total douchebag to her. During the days I was trying to get into her life as any other normal guy would upon seeing her beauty, I tried to get her attention as much as I could. I tried to impress her. There were plans for Valentines, or for class speeches since we were classmates, and all that hype I exhausted myself with because I wanted to be friends with her. And later on I hoped it would lead to something greater than that - than being a friend.

And I asked her at the wrong moment. I didn't know why I did; well for one, I had a good day with her. Yet in the end, I wasted everything for a goddamn spontaneous and reckless action. When I thought we were already good friends, it all faltered, all of it, I thought.

One good explanation is that the foundation of that friendship I've formed weren't that much of a help in achieving my goal. Throughout the course of our history, I've always been coming up with ideas in the effort of trying to make her time with me happy. Clearly, it has dawned unto me that I wasn't being myself in that process. It wasn't Mike that Bianca has been seeing from December 2008 to March 2009. It's the effort and the dedication. I was just in the process of reinforcing the foundations of our friendship by presenting her who I really was when I destroyed all of it.

I now think that I deliberately wasted her time, that I am at fault, that I made things hard for her, and that I owe her all apologies. I could have done better after everything, but I did not. I threw it all away. I honestly think that I wasted a friendship. I pursued her because I was happy with it and it did make me really really happy to an extent that I haven't felt anything like it all my life, seriously. Now, I genuinely think that I can go to hell with it, with "it" being my lousy excuses for my scattered self. I've just been covering up my stupidity all this time. And now that I've clarified to myself what my mistakes have been, I am now at peace with a part of myself. I still have many things to sort out.

Aside from apologizing, I think it is appropriate to be thankful for everything. I mean, if it wasn't for B, as I've learned to call her lately because I found it cute, I wouldn't have been this. I wouldn't have been cheerful, determined, enlightened, etc. my brains could spill any minute now. I couldn't have been any angrier than myself for being totally, wholly, completely stupid and intellectually incapacitated after failing "us." I can't help myself into explaining what I feel right now. I know I can make it somewhat clearer, but I still am overwhelmed by the fact that I am now a repaired shithead on the face of the planet. Cheers! As far as I'm concerned, I'm now going to be a better person after this. I don't know how, but I know I'll be. Thanks to B for unfolding this life in front of my own eyes. I may be an insignificant person in her life as of now. It doesn't really matter.

I know I've failed in deconstructing the idea, but what the hell - as long as I keep it intact, I'm sure it is going to be a constant reminder to me for... I don't know. Loving women did me good things, and I am very much thankful for all of these. I myself am not sure if I've encapsulated the idea with my understanding, but yeah, operations have begun in saving Private Mike. Let's see how a revived Homeric hero would actually play out.