10/31/2017 ‒
What filter works best with this?

I'm doing this wrong.

I haven't been to Tokyo Milk Cheese Factory in a while. When we discovered their expensive biscuits - which we enjoyed, but treated like dessert from a rarified part of the world, which, well, arguably, Japan is - they were having severe supply chain problems. They would often run out of their items, and there would be a couple of days in a row or so when the staff would be sitting there, doing nothing but telling people that almost everything is out of stock.

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10/19/2017 ‒
At the very least

I feel complicit.

I have read the stories, the few ones we have been allowed to see, and I feel complicit.

It's an unsettling feeling. Perhaps that is the point. Perhaps that is what I am supposed to feel. Perhaps I must feel unsettled, the way every woman - or at least, those who shared their stories - felt unsettled when they found themselves at the receiving end of an unwanted advance, at the very least an unwanted advance. It's unsettling to think that, despite trying your very best to be respectful - to recognize boundaries, at the very least to recognize boundaries - you are still the perpetrator; you are still the antagonist; you are, and always will be, the monster in the closet.

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10/10/2017 ‒
Do much more

The kerfuffle over what Joey de Leon said last week somewhat dovetailed nicely to this week, and to today, specifically. Today, apparently, is World Mental Health Day - another one of those days about another one of those things, only this time it's much more pressing than most.

Pressing, because never before have people been more aware of the importance of mental health. Never before has the impact of mental health on individuals been clearer, in a world not just of increased stresses, but of increased connectivity - we know more about each other, in the paradoxical way that we know less about each other. The message could be clearer, finally.

And yet, because of the paradoxical nature of things these days, we know little. Nothing we see is real anymore. Nothing we see is true at first glance. So here I am, writing what I am going to write, and here you are, just listening to what you know will appeal to you.

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10/05/2017 ‒
Joey de Leon thinks you're making up your depression

"'Yung depression, gawa-gawa lang ng tao 'yan."

Oh, man, not at this point.

I wasn't angry at Joey de Leon. Sure, it's disappointing to hear this viewpoint on national television, but it is his viewpoint, and I get where he's coming from.

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10/03/2017 ‒
Something stupid (but not like "I love you")

Early in our relationship Shalla and I had a discussion about how often we should say "I love you" to each other.

It's not that we're tired of it. Heck, we were just a few months in back then; there was still the allure of being in a new relationship, or, in my case, being in a relationship for the first time. It's just that we wanted to get it right, and somewhere along the way she read this article - don't remember where, but you know the Internet, always has the right answers, supposedly - that says you shouldn't say it so often.

I don't remember much else, though. Was it once a day? Only at particular points of the day? I remember the underlying concept being "don't bombard your special someone with those three words because they will lose their power soon enough". So, the logic goes, don't say it too often.

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