Long Decembers

I remember having chicken pox when I was twelve, hearing the early Christmas mass music when I woke up at five, being stuck in the TV room for many slow days, just drawing and reading and watching four blurred channels until my teacher and some classmates visited one afternoon because they thought that I had dropped out of school, because I wasn’t exactly attending my classes weeks before, and it was surprising because nobody visited me before when I was sick, and they weren’t exactly people I was close to, since I felt that school at the time was killing me with boredom, and all I had was myself.

Six Decembers later, I was in a strange new place, wide-eyed and dumbfounded, all too giddy with what felt real, and entangled, surrendering to the cool damp weather and to the heat of the moment, the softness of the bed, the pain that’s just in our heads, hands calm and clasped, touching divinity and beyond, without the sounds that spoke in the waking hours, but new ones like breathing and heartbeats and the soundtrack of mouths sticking to excited and nervous skin.

A December later, things became complicated, but the complications felt good and interesting, as if every path was uncharted territory waiting to be touched, wanting to be touched, by the hands of God, the hands of love, the hands that rocked and cradled, but some paths weren’t open, and ten or so Decembers later, there’s a feeling of déjà vu, of learning the same lessons again, of knowing why things turn amiss on occasion, why the days seemed to change with the soundtrack and the plans, and when December comes and cloys with its soothing winds and sparkles, I still love it, as I do the changes brought about by Decembers past that I can still see and feel, and my bed, a new one, is inviting as always, and we still steal moments, special moments that define us, that make us real in a time of unreality, and the month isn’t long enough for the things we want to do.

Thanks Galore

Just wanna thank Paeng for the nice review. Thanks to Paolo Manalo for the Friendster testimonial, too. I wanna share it!

"Forget the blurbs on the back of the collection, Lexy, Nance & Argus: Sex, Gods, Rock & Roll is Oliver M. Pulumbarit's owning the comic book form. I'm reminded of the graphic storytelling style of Alex Robinson's Box Office Poison and the meta comic narrative of Dylan Horrocks' Hicksville but LNA isn't a copy of either. Oliver maximizes the two-page comic book narrative form to give us the episodic development of the lives of three engendered characters at the turn of the century (from 20th to 21st) and highlights the comic book's unique strategies of sequence and consequence, juxtaposition and self-reflexivity, panel ellisions and caption cluttering. I look forward to reading more. (And more Jim, please!)"

And thanks again, Gumby, for this smashing new compilation:

Dollar- Give Me Back My Heart
Heather Nova- Truth and Bone
Midge Ure- Breathe
Jann Arden- Good Mother
10,000 Maniacs- Green Children
Sarah McLachlan- Strange World
Primal Scream- Love You
Silencers- I Want You
Glass Tiger- Someday
Alison Moyet- Is This Love
Icehouse- Crazy
Gin Blossoms- 29
Daryl Hall- Dreamtime
Belinda Carlisle- Mad About You
Cheap Trick- The Flame
Jars of Clay- Five Candles
Two Minds Crack- Upside Down
Sixpence None the Richer- Tension is a Passing Note

Thanks!!!