understatement posted by imani , Wednesday, January 14, 2009 at 6:59 PM, in Labels: freefall

this woman is just amazing. i don't suppose even that word would suffice.

named catherine elise blanchett, cate was born in ivanhoe, a melbourne (australia) suburb. she described herself to be 'part extrovert, part wallflower.' (which calls to mind...the wallpapers!!! right mumai, chi, louie, ara and jos?) :)

by the time she was completing her secondary education, she explored her passion for acting - but it was not until 1992 when she finished her studies at the national institute of dramatic arts (still in australia) and started a serious career in theatre. cate is not only a thespian but also is a ballerina - hope you guys saw her in 'the curious case of benjamin button' - my all time favorite.

she has a number (a great number actually, considering she began making movies only in the mid-90's) of films under her belt - to mention a few: elizabeth, the talented mr. ripley, pushing tin, the gift, the shipping news, notes on a scandal (i love this one), the missing, veronica guerin and the aviator (where she potrayed katherine hepburn and won herself an academy award for best actress in a supporting role - and this is (i think) because of the complexity of her character. this is one of her films in which i know she is not only 'in character' in front of the camera but also becomes the character - she spoke like katherine hepburn and beautifully executed even the slightest of katherine's nuances and idiosyncracies).

cate was already famous when she was offered the role of the high elf queen galadriel in the lord of the rings trilogy - but doing this movie certainly gave her a more permanent niche in the industry.

well, elf or no elf, cate has proven herself as a force to reckon with - i think it is inevitable praise her acting even when the movie itself is bad. way to go cate! :)

i'm on a diet posted by imani , Tuesday, January 13, 2009 at 6:13 PM, in Labels: freefall

a cate blanchett movie diet, that is :)

kismet posted by imani , Friday, January 9, 2009 at 11:08 PM, in Labels: something else

‘I was born under unusual circumstances’ – and so The Curious Case of Benjamin Button unfolds…

But I could not bring myself to write anything right after seeing it. It felt like it would all be a big – I don’t know – some sort of blasphemy or sacrilege or something. I knew that I must first feel everything, contemplate upon what I have seen and heard and understood, atom by atom, fiber by fiber.

It was just all too good to look at. All nine thousand nine hundred seconds of it.

I saw ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’ yesterday. And until this very moment I am speechless. I really do not know what else to say about the movie, except that it is magical.

For two hours and forty-five minutes, my eyes were glued to the silver screen. It was not the typical story. Thank God it wasn’t.

Brad Pitt plays Benjamin Button, a man born with a peculiar disease – as a baby, he looks like an 80-year old man and carries in him a number of maladies that can only be seen in old – and dying – people. As a child he was blind from cataract and was in the advanced stage of rheumatism.

Daisy was brought to life by the captivating actress Cate Blanchett. I’d say Daisy lead a pretty ‘normal’ life, but when the two protagonists met – everything in both their lives took a strange turn.

Benjamin’s disease caused him to age backwards. The older he got, the younger he looked – at least on the outside. But this peculiarity did not hinder both of them to find love in each other.

If you haven’t seen the movie – please, make it a point that you watch it today. As I mentioned earlier – it wasn’t a conventional story – I do not want to simply categorize it as a ‘love story’ – as I know the movie attempted to present something deeper or more sublime than that and has actually succeeded in it.

I guess what I love about the story is the truth that the characters might have been doomed from day one but they went on and risked everything in their lives to share a love and to share as much time they can with each other. Perhaps a higher power was controlling what was happening to them, winding the hands of the clock back for these two love stricken individuals – they were in the same moment but their bodies – and their lives – were moving the conflicting directions.

There was a part in the movie when both Benjamin and Daisy were in the middle of their lives, he was 49 and she was 43 – they looked at themselves in the mirror – and Daisy said: ‘We finally met.’ And something struck me – we are looking at two people who have loved each other for as long as they can both remember, who were, by some wicked twist of fate – intended to share only that brief moment in their lives when neither of them were consumed by their fears of aging – or its reversal, for that matter.

Love is fortified by faith. Faith is betting on the most important thing in your life with your last cent. To love is to have faith in the other person and to have faith in the other person entails risking each day – all because you know that such a commitment would require having to fall in love with the same person over and over again – having to renew that love, that passion, that fire every single time you wake up.

These characters were star-crossed, ill-fated, tested by misery, but they did not succumb to their limitations nor did they let themselves be defeated by the inevitable. They redeemed, liberated and saved each other. Benjamin and Daisy had a child together, named after Daisy’s grandmother, Caroline. This fact was revealed to Caroline (played by Julia Ormond) only when she read Benjamin’s journal to her ailing mother.

Daisy died shortly after hearing the entries on the journal, hearing Benjamin’s words. Years back, Benjamin, on the other hand, has gone back to being a child, and died in Daisy’s arms. They have endured a lifetime filled with anguish and questions. In the end they found the certainty and answers in each other.

Alfred Lord Tennyson once said: ‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.’ Truly, there are things in our lives that transcend both time and space, there are truths that will remain long after we have passed away. Love is the same – regardless of which side or angle one sees it from, it is the same, regardless of our age.

More than anything, I think that it is not the moment that leads us to the person that we love the most – it is the person who guides us to that precise moment in our lives we will keep and cherish and remember – it is the one we love more than anything on this Earth that makes and will make everything stop – and make that brief second last an eternity.

the woman called eva posted by imani , Monday, January 5, 2009 at 3:06 PM, in Labels: freefall

since last week i have been asking people at work if they have ever seen 'casino royale,' the 2006 installment to ian flemming's james bond. not a lot did. so it was inevitable that i answer their 'whys?' and i would always mention this particular conversation between james and vesper:

(this is what i recall from the scene after our james bond was tortured)

vesper: you know james...if all that was left of you was your smile and your little finger, i would still think of you as a man more than anybody i know...

james leans to our beguiling bond girl and says:

james: that is because you know what my little finger could do.

now even i am curious of what his little finger could do. wahahaha.

so i have seen casino royale again at least twice for the past week. i thought it was because of daniel craig - he is one beautiful man and he looks naked even when he is clothed from head to toe. but then i realized it was because i had a bigger crush on eva green, the actress who plays vesper lynd - the girl who broke - and ulimately made - james bond.

turns out our girl eva (born eva gaelle green) is also a model and has posed for christian dior. she is a french actress with a fraternal twin sister, she's born to an author/actress mother and a dentist father. so that explains her perfect teeth. ehehe. she was born - darn it - on july 5, 1980 - a fellow cancerian (i want to call her and tell her it's time for some bonding session). she plays the piano and once wrote the score for a movie she also starred in. she has received a BAFTA (the british oscar) recognition for her role in casino royale. and she's only 28 years old.

i have never really been a big james bond fan (though i love sean connery - there really is just something about older men), but what i love about the way eva green executed her role as vesper lynd was how she made drowning in front of a guy who is madly in love with her look so good. vesper was the reason why james bond wanted to quit and why he became our tragic (stilll scorching hot, though) spy. that's some acting. and i mean it. in hollywood where dumb blonds get to be in more movies than really serious, talented actors - seeing eva green in casino royale is really, a breath of fresh air - she is sophisticated and stunning. and she tore james' heart apart.

a morning in mandaluyong posted by imani , at 2:17 PM, in Labels: freefall

i do not know about you guys, but the title sounds a little funny to me.

i don't understand how it became so suddenly, unexpectedly, incredibly cold in manila lately - or at least in mandaluyong.

the airconditioning in our office, which usually makes my body so stiff i start feeling like android sometimes (you see working in that kind of situation makes me feel and look more 'mechanical') has began to feel more like a nice, comfortable house with a little fireplace - compared to the temperature outside our building.

last january 4th, i went out for a break and i swear the air was perhaps several degrees below 20 - as all the tiny little nerves on my face broke - that second i knew that people around me could mistake me for a stressed-out vampire kept awake not by blood but by caffeine.

there was a point i started worrying that because of the cold, my boogers will turn to icicles (would be cuter if they'd look like snowflakes), impair me of my sense of smell and prevent me from breathing altogether. the truth is, i just think it is unfair. for people like me at least.

you see, for the past few years, despite my unbelievably humongous appetite, i have remained, steadily at a hundred pounds. i am not sure why. my bosses have, to some extent, concluded that it is either that i am anorexic or weirder - diabetic. blame it on genetics. but, i would have to say, that i am thankful to my mom and dad for their excellent genes i never worried about dieting and am relieved i never have to suffer the ill effects of dieting.

that morning when i went out for a breather, i was with one of my friends - ryner - and i could just imagine what the poor guy must be going through when he muttered a line from the movie simon birch: 'it is so cold my balls are turning into marbles!' wahahah. i had to let out a fiendish laughter.

i think i consumed half of my chapstick that morning. i had to - lest i want for my lips to chap and for its skin to flake and for me to ultimately not be able to talk. this weather is driving me insane. how do you imagine i keep myself warm - even my jacket and muffler are useless. the fact is i do not have enough body fat to keep me from getting hypothermia! i bet it makes me look so pale and lifeless that if i would have a coronary, people will not actually notice anything different.

i am not ready for this kind of weather. if i wanted cold i would go to baguio - but the thing is i was just in baguio three weeks ago. i do not suppose anyone is ready for this kind of weather. even the 'healthier,' 'fleshier,' people at work are going ballistic, arguing that they cannot stand the weather because they do not have a jacket on. i wanted to scream at them - i HAVE a jacket on and it's not helping me!

you know what, i think it's really just plain global warming. the sudden change in temperature. we are a tropical country. i would understand why it is so cold in baguio - for christ's sake it's in the mountains - but manila? mandaluyong? it has been so chilly the past few days even the smog is cold. the smog is supposed to trap the freaking heat. having said that i just realized that we can actually vie for a spot on the guiness book of world records - with manila being the biggest greenhouse on the face of the planet. global warming is scary especially when i know i never really used 'spraynet' growing up. i have never cut a tree in my life. i know i kill ants for fun but that is beside the point.

okay. i think i have done enough ranting here. let me just fix myself a cup of coffee.

the first for the year posted by imani , at 1:31 PM, in Labels: freefall

I had my first cup of Starbucks coffee (my favorite blend – white chocolate mocha, make that extra hot please) with my best friend since time immemorial – MONETTE.

We had a blast. I actually think that i should have not used the phrase 'we had a blast,' - because thinking about the time that we spent with each other - that phrase is just inadequate. It was a freakin’ bomb. Well, a lot of juicy stuff was mentioned during our conversation – we hung out around 6 hours. WOW.

As I may have mentioned in my previous posts – Monette has been my best friend and my sister from another mother since we were in high school. Sophomore year, specifically. So that basically means we have known each other for 12 years – a realization that never ceases to make me feel so ancient. But as we both have said – we feel young but we know we have gained so much insight about life throughout the years. And I am really proud of that. I am proud of the people we have become.

So we met at around 130 pm. I initially waited for her Starbucks, the one sitting in front of Citibank building in Paseo de Roxas. It was waaayyy after my shift so you could just imagine - I looked like i just came from Hades, which was the slightly the truth - the day I had at work was just impossible, but allow me to exclude you - my 2 faithful readers - from the agony and misery - I do not suppose I would feel such profound joy recounting the stuff that I had to do at work.

So I was wearing my shades, not for the fear that people will judge me because my eyes look dead, but because I was happy - I was meeting my best friend and the sun - my sun - was shining so high up the sky my eyes started to hurt. I guess it was happy too. Then I saw a figure manifest on the mirror. I stood up and turned to her direction, an exclamation issued from my lips. Holy expletive. I ran to her and have her a hug. She has become thinner and my hair has become a lot shorter since we last saw each other – which was I think when we celebrated her birthday. She was startled when she saw my haircut and I immediately debunked whatever notion she might have formed in that beautiful brain of hers and told her that: ‘I just felt like getting a haircut – I am not depressed!’ Wahaha.

After about thirty seconds, I told her the sad news: 'They do not have a loo in this branch. We have to go somewhere else where I can empty my bladder.' Because I was sure we'd talk and drink coffee and talk some more. So we walked for a few minutes and repaired to yet another branch of Starbucks Coffee - in Pearl Drive (hope I got that right) - just beside the Old Spaghetti House. She bought us coffee and I ordered a couple of cinammon swirls. My brain was turning into soup because of hunger and I knew I had to get my sugar fix really fast.

Darn – I am trying to gather all the bits and pieces we spoke about last night and I suddenly feel like I am in my high school chemistry class – cramming for the quarterly exam. Jesus.

Basically we spoke about her most recent break up. I won’t reveal the name of the ‘being’ as I want to spare her from ever seeing it on my blog – I am scared of wounding her even more than she already is. She has emerged to drown (again) and has scribed an ambigram of the word ‘faithful’ on her right wrist – and all my love, hope and faith goes out to her. When I saw her newest tattoo I was reminded of that time in my life I had nothing to hold on to but my faith – hence I etched an ambigram of ‘faith’ on my left waist. I remember that when I was in college, I wrote about my friendship with Monette and I mentioned that she and I always have been ‘parallels’ – we think alike and we feel what the other one is and must be feeling without having to say so much. Seeing her yesterday affirmed that belief and I honestly feel like I have just been saved.

The thing with Monette and myself is that we might not see each other often or communicate (there are certainly a number of ways to make that happen now) a lot but when we do meet we are always able to pick up where we left off. I guess some things never really change.

We talked about a gazillion other things – books, traveling, the people back in high school (our classmates' funny nicknames and our terror teachers), the fact that we have so much respect for mathematics and we both have resolved to understanding that it is one language we are not really good at, the girl sipping her coffee in another table who probably had about a pound worth of foundation on her face she looks like Lestat (the only regret there, i hope the anonymous girl reads this - is that tom cruise is prettier), love lost and regained, defining oneself in the midst of a very tumultuous breakup, loving who we are in spite of the mistakes that we have made – and what makes everything different this time is the fact that we are both growing (a little) older and growing up.

I told Monette that I haven’t been able to write poetry in a long while – because the thing with us is that we cannot really come up with anything unless we are really, really sad or when we are on the brink of suicide. We have to induce pain to write. Aside from tattoos – we’re masochists that way.

Before I said good bye to her last night, I realized that I wouldn’t want to spend the last 12 years of my life any other way – that is because I have her and she always have seen through me and have loved me not despite of but because of my flaws. We appreciate each other not because of the things that we can do flawlessly but because of the things that make us different – the things that separates us from the rest.

we took this photograph of ourselves sometime in 2004 or 2005

starbucks intramuros

Truly, there can’t be a better elixir than the friendship that she has given me, than the love and support we have offered each other over the years.

And for you, Monette, my dearest - I know we both have been 'lost' at some point in our lives, but I am sure that you will find your way back - for not all wanderers are aimless. I love you.


written january 3, 2009

our journey posted by imani , Tuesday, December 30, 2008 at 5:16 PM, in Labels: freefall

it was your faith that has kept me from giving up even when the roads were harrowing...

and it still is your faith that will keep me moving even when the seas are raging...

if it means being with you...

my journey begins and ends with you, and i will be by your side, to take your hand, share your laughter and wipe your tears away.

you are love and i love you.

ever yours, faithfully.

have a rockin' holidays! posted by imani , Wednesday, December 24, 2008 at 1:05 PM, in Labels: freefall

To realize your strength before you succumb to your fears
To realize your faith before you give in to discouragement
To realize your hope before you yield to disappointments
To realize the magic and wonder that lies within you before you defer to anonymity
To appreciate your mistakes and learn as you move on
To understand your failures to value victory
To recognize your capabilities before you surrender to your imperfections
To accept your humanity before you submit to the inhumanity of this world

Is something you owe yourself.

I lift my glass to all of you – may your holiday this year rock more than it did the last time!

i will pay posted by imani , Monday, December 22, 2008 at 12:09 PM, in Labels: freefall

to watch chris cornell sweat.

what not to expect...ever posted by imani , at 10:02 AM, in Labels: imani's 'best list'

i think i am in a position where i know i am utterly capable of listing down 10 things that i should not have expected when i came back to work - after a ten-day leave.

1. that the first day at work would actually sound like the overture from the sound of music - that out of weird coincidence, julie andrews will appear on my monitor, spread her arms and sing: 'the hills are aliiiiiiiiive, with the sound of muuuuussssic...'


2. that there won't be over a thousand emails from my inbox alone, not to mention that both my managers and eight of our supervisors have their own folders. geesh.


3. that i won't have to induce myself to a coma by having to read and understand all the emails that require my understanding in less than two hours.


4. that the reports that i am solely responsible for will miraculously write and create themselves and send themselves out - complete with the accurate distribution list.


5. that i would not need more than the songs loaded on my mp3 player to keep me sane.


6. that i won't be expected to go back to work and act as if i took the hiatus so that i can prepare myself for an even crazier workload.


7. that my body would inevitably go out of sync...meaning i would have to 're-learn' sleeping at noon and keeping myself wide awake at night.


8. that flowers will be offered to me...that i will find them sitting pretty on my pod.


9. that i would find the idea of marilyn manson at 4 in the morning helpful. (it beats me - the thought of him suddenly sprung from my consciousness - or unconsciousness - while i was reading through an end of day report for one of our services).


10. that i won't bleed and i can wing it. apparently this technique of mine ('winging it') was worthless this time.

so there. sometime this week i wanted to pound my head against the fire extinguisher behind me for deciding to take my vacation leave this time of the year. too late for that, i think.