My mother gave me money so I decided to go to the mall today. I viciously needed to buy the 6th and the last volume of Scott Pilgrim by Bryan Lee O’Malley and Michael Crichton’s posthumously published latest novel, Pirate Latitudes. My sister spontaneously dragged herself along with me because my original plan was just to go there alone and drown myself into books in bookstores which I usually do whenever I’m in my phase of depression.

We got to the mall and went straight to Comic Quest only to find out that Scott Pilgrim volume 6 is out of stock. But I was lucky to get a copy of Pirate Latitudes in National Bookstore. To slightly mend my failure of not having Scott Pilgrim vol. 6, I bought myself another book, The Supernaturalist by Eoin Colfer. The books pretty much satisfied me and my day.

But my sister wasn’t satisfied, so she forced me to watch Step Up 3D with her. It took her quite a long time to negotiate and convince me to watch it ’cause I’m not really a fan of the series and all. But she won at the end.

And so we watched Step Up 3D.

The movie was great, actually. It’s really entertaining and the dance numbers really blew my mind. But it’s cliché-themed, focusing on following your dreams and knowing what you want and all that. But what makes it better than the previous Step Ups aside from better dances, is it’s plot is quite unpredictable. You know the feeling of watching a movie and kind of knowing what will happen next? Well it doesn’t offer that kind. And even though the plot is speedy like only 90 minutes long, it’s pretty satisfying. It’s more than about dancing and the overused “follow your dreams” sound bite, it’s also about knowing and having the right time for things.

The right time for things.

It roughly applies to me right now. I feel boxed. Like I need to escape. My school, my house…freedom is nothing but an illusion. And I feel very clogged, I need to go out and breathe for some time.

But when are the right times for things? I wanna do a lot of things in my life but I fear failing to do everything I want because I feel like life is very short and I am caged within the four walls of my future. So I try to find a way out.

When the movie finished, my dad called and he said they’ll be out for a few minutes. I said I left my keys in my room. He said we could go home at 8pm. It was 7pm. So my sister and I wasted some time around the mall.

We walked around and ate.

On the way home, I was feeling inexplicably down and depressed. Maybe I didn’t like the night. Or maybe it’s because I was unable to buy a copy of Scott Pilgrim vol. 6. Or maybe it’s a psychological effect of my current sickness. Or maybe I’m just bipolar and I’m currently on my phase of depression.

What I usually do when I feel this way is I spend a lot of time alone. In isolation. So I can forget the world and think about whatever.

We finally got home and I swear to God, I don’t feel sweet, really.

I felt the heat of the flames touching my lips and the tip of my tongue. So I threw myself away on the pavement and I started stepping and stumping on the remaining ashes like a fucker slapping a whore on the ass, screaming, “BAD THING! YOU’RE A BAD THING! BAD THING!” and then we started laughing. We walked around to no particular direction. I was laughing and singing in my really bad voice, not minding the annoyed pedestrians. I felt like I was in total control of myself, like I am the master of my own body. So we just kept walking, not minding the time or the weather, because we were in a trance, stepping away from reality one step at a time. It felt like the nerves in my brain were dancing but everything else was burning. But I felt no pain, because I was in a trance.

I was so ecstatic to have some full rest, when summer started, away from the worries and hard works of my course. And I thought by May, like what I usually feel every May, I will get bored and miss school, miss studying, miss being mind fucked by mathematical problems and scientific concepts. But May is ending and school will be starting some weeks from now and I don’t feel the usual excitement to go back to school, but I feel bored and tired of resting and of self-isolation in my room all day. I also stopped reading. I am halfway through Henry James’s novella The Turn Of The Screw and I can’t finish it albeit it’s really interesting theme and plot and to think that it’s thinner than an elementary school notebook.

I think I have lost it, the spirit or the energy or whatever you call it.

What I feel right now is the feeling of breaking away. I wanna go away with some people — my friends — to some place where there is great landscape, or to the beach perhaps. And we’ll just talk all the time, eat a lot, take pictures, laugh hard and forget about life and the future — just having fun. I wanna forget about the future, about my career when I get old. I wanna float in the air, as though there’s no gravity. But it’s just really impossible. The future rides on my back like a shell on a turtle and it makes my pace so slow.

I know I sound like I wanna get high on drugs. Please don’t get me wrong, I’m just venting an I have no intentions of snorting coke nor inhaling weed. I just feel so different. Maybe it’s mood swings or maybe I’m bipolar or maybe it’s college.

—

Writing is an important part of me and I’m kind of losing it. My writing is getting worse, as I have observed with my previous posts. I lack inspiration and motivation and of things to write about. For sure, I can write about anything but the words to say are on shortage and I can’t catch up with my rapid thoughts. Somebody said that writing is easy, that you just stare at a blank sheet of paper and wait for drops of blood to flow out your head. But bleeding is pretty hard, I guess. Specially if you don’t wanna get hurt.

—

On a lighter note, a friend told me I should pursue photography as my career and take it seriously. But I think it’s considered as a hobby for now since I’ll be needing a kick-ass DSLR to be a serious photographer.

Anyway, I have established a photo blog.
http://jmaratienza.tumblr.com
If you’re on Tumblr, follow it if you want. Kthnks.

The car travels in a constant speed creating a cumulus cloud of smoke behind. From inside the speedy vehicle, you can see nothing outside but distorted lights painted on a black canvass. I do not mind it at all, until it starts to accelerate and speed up into an amount that is almost like the speed of light. I am traveling very fast and I cannot help but to feel very scared. So I take my hands off the steering wheel and grasp my seatbelt very tightly. But my legs are shaking and sweating so I lift them up from the pedals and take my knees up on my face. I sit in that position for a few minutes until I realize that no one’s controlling the car anymore and it is no longer driving very fast. I open my eyes and saw that everything is still distorted outside except for the bright moon that is clearly seen from the windshield. It is growing bigger and bigger. No, I am going closer to it. I am being pulled by the moon like the tide. And then I realize that life is full of stupid metaphors and I should stop over-analyzing things.

A few weeks before summer vacation. I do not know where my life is going to lead me.