Hindi Malamig ang Pasko ni Niño Valencia.

Definitely NOT.

Especially when you're in Batac, Ilocos Norte.
Mainit ang Pasko hindi bilang may kayakap o kasiping o kapanaig o pag-ibig.
Mainit lang sya talaga dito.
Saying hi and hello from the scorching north, happy holidays everyone!
Let's all toast to that!

-Anino 12/25/08

A poem about a facial cream

Nivea

One hundred thirty bucks

I should’ve just ordered a Big Mc

But the thought of your smoothing cream

Makes me take out a violet bill

That night when you kissed my face

When you smeared your fluid on my skin

Ahhh…. What can I say?

The violet bill is nothing.

How I wish you would always stay

Perform your miracle to lighten up my sad face

Even just for a few weeks

Cover me with your vita-cream

But you are no exception

Just like the others that passed me by

They have just stayed for just a time

And then,

a violet bill will again be just fine…

Looking Back

t'was originally written on 12/18. Just want to update something on my blogspot.

I got an email from friendster blogs reminding me to moderate the pending comments of my entries on their blog site. As I clicked on the links on the email, I saw two unnecessary comments from a spammer selling me Viagras and potent-pills! hahaha! I would think over their offers if they just sell hair regrowing products. Anyhow, since I was already on the page, I took a quick review of my old blog entries dating from 2004 and was both hilariously surprised and nostalgic on how long my entries were and on how crude my form of writing was. but as I scrolled down further and further on to my older blog entries, I realized the contents of my blogs were pure, unadulterated, and free. Reading my old entries were more like looking back in my history and finding out how much of me has changed and how much of me is still the same. I still feel like writing when I'm in love or melancholic, and somehow I have seen a change in which the freedom I got back from college is now fading and is now being restrained to basic necessities such as salaries, jobs, troubles of getting old. i guess I just miss my old self again or i just miss the old times. I wonder right now if I have progressed or regressed or remained stagnant. either ways, I can see that I have definitely changed and is continuing to change. I shall look back into this entry again to remind me of who I am today, with or without Viagra pills.

__________________________________________________________

Segue:
Today is the 80th birthday of my dad, Ret. Lt. Sgt. Felicisimo T. Valencia. A man so alive and kicking, he went to Campo Crame from Camarin all by himself yesterday. cheers, dad! I know if you look back right now, there'll be a lot of things you'll also be reminded of. Hope I could also look back as much years as you do. :-) Love you pops!

pag-ibig

Sometimes I feel you taking me for granted

leaving me on your table 

like a cup of coffee you brewed to perfection

And after I have satisfied you with a sip or two

you'd go back to your papers and leave me cold..

Now another sip you will have,

and with my coldness you smirk and put me back

Leaving me with the sink to welcome my affection

And then you brew another me,

but because I love you,

I am always at your disposal.

Niño in full NOSTALGIA

Once upon a time Niño dreamt of becoming a Biologist studying whales in the Pacific. He had this vision of becoming part of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) as a researcher, being assigned in the Amazon jungle studying new plant and animal species and becoming world renowned as one of his country’s pride in terms of science and new life discovery. He had dreamt of traveling to dense forests and glaciers and oceans discovering new life forms and studying them. It was a life full of adventures and full of discoveries.
And so in 2002 right after his high school graduation, he persuaded a degree in science. It took him three semesters to make him realize that his dream is far too expensive, too delusional, and too boring to be confined in the four corners of the university’s laboratory reading a two kilogram physics book.
In 2003 he was offered to act on a play by one of the junior art students in the university. At that moment, he saw the exciting new things these art students do in class. Then another dream came into his mind. A dream wherein he works in the field of media, an exciting life of a reporter, the taxing yet productive life inside a production, and the vast opportunity one can have on that course. And so he shifted to arts.
In arts, he saw wonderful new things one cannot find by reading a physics book or inside the four corners of the laboratory. He has learned the alcohol volume of Emperador brandy, the meaning of a hangover, the fascinating substance they called nicotine, the affordable price of Colt 45, and the wonderful sex each night. He saw freedom. But with that freedom he gained, he eventually felt exhausted from all those desires. He craved a more substantial life.
And then he evolved from those things and delved deeper into society. He volunteered for UNICEF and learned that there are people deprived of those wonderful things he have. He immersed himself with the children in conflict with the law and saw the pitiful situations those children suffer inside the maximum security compound of the Bilibid. He helped out his sister in promoting a presidential act and attended the Palace for its ceremonial signing. He grieved and he cared. He cared so much and hoped so hard that he could change the world.
Unfortunately, fate—no—economy landed him on a call center job after college. There he stayed for almost two years earning lumps of money each month and polishing his tongue each night to have the most perfect twang. It is not regrettable that he had met new friends and learned new things on that career. It is just that during the two years of stay he was in the company, he began to forget—the one crime a person can have upon himself that would make him most regretful in his entire life. He forgot to dream, to be free, and to care. Slowly he deteriorates from all those dreams he had and became a robotic worker each night. Then one day, the three days of darkness came.
A friend approached him to help promote an indiefilm and Niño, getting bored in his sedentary lifestyle willfully obliged. At first it was a shock for him to deal with those people but upon realizing their intentions, he understands. Then he remembered. And so it was the start of another dreaming, another hope, and another adventure. One by one he met again new people he never thought he would know personally. He was reopened to different ideas, different perspectives, and philosophies. He saw the great cause these people are fighting for. On his small, novice way he helped them for he believe and trust in their ideologies. And so, on his call center job, after almost two years of being in the workforce, had resigned.
We see now Niño sitting on the floor of his cluttered room jobless, without any money left in his pocket, and with only 10 sticks of Marlborro Lights on his side. He warms up his fingers by writing this blog, and is now ready to subtitle Manuel Conde’s Genghis Khan.
Once upon a time, Niño dreamt of an adventure in the Amazons, of whales in the Pacific, of becoming world renowned, of being a reporter, a social worker, a catalyst of change. A man can only dream so much until he wakes up and realize that there are realities he has to face and that there are certain dreams only meant for sleep. For Niño, he just wanted to go back and study the glaciers, the forests, and the whales. And to end this fairytale, so to say, he dreams of the far away Pacific and of the singing whales happily ever after.