"Instructions" by Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Charles Vess, speaks true of being kind and avoiding evil

Please click link to enjoy full color pages of a Neil Gaiman gem:
Browse Inside Instructions by Neil Gaiman, Illustrated by Charles Vess



Saw this on Nong Gil's blog, Mari-it, clicked on it and discovered a little piece of heaven from papa Neil and illustrator Charles Vess. I'm not real sure if these are all the pages, but anyway, I loved this one page from the book--

This is a little bit similar to one of the popular verses from the Bible -- from Romans 12:20, which says,

"if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head."

Just a little something to remind us what forgotten Catechism and/or Sunday school classes had taught us-- to learn to be kind, to know what's the right thing to do under circumstances and to be aware that evil is just lurking beneath the deep dark woods. Just something nice to post and share before I go to bed.  At 3AM. Have a blessed night. Or morning.

List no. 1- stuff I should write about

Well, hello to you whoever you are who wound up in this blog of mine. I've been lazy as ever, so instead of seeing actual posts, here I've left you a list of things that I should have blogged about in these past months. Hope I can actually find the time and the energy to write about some, if not all of them.

1. How 2011 went.
2. Movies and books I've watched, which are A LOT. Speaking of which,  think I'll post a sub-list for each of these categories.
3. Decisions or non-decisions I've made.
4. Bible verses I've read/ Homilies I've listened to, or the lack thereof.
5. Trips, or the few of them I've gone to.
6. Friends I've made. :) Quite a lot I'm proud to say, especially my HGS girlfriends Dana and Sweet, also Jee, and also my housemates Mary, Bern and Florence.
7. Things/ loves rediscovered -- which includes watercolor painting, sewing (just altering, to tell you the truth), and Photoshop! (lol)
8. Opportunities grabbed and missed.
9. People lost.
10. Happy thoughts and sad thoughts.
11. Dreams, hopes, wishes and prayers for the future.
12. Family and kids, and how horrifying it is to love with teenagers especially when you're finally becoming less like them.
13. Sibling wars.
14. Mom wars.
15. Daddy jokes including the infamous "Bakit, sino ba yan?"
16. Old friends I'm always thankful for, like Adel and the Silak people and the other artist types who fuel my terribly dry engine.
17. My disastrous tendency to be an overly distracted adult. Was I an undiagnosed ADHD kid, and still am an ADHD adult? This list just somehow proves that. Oh my.
18. Why FB is such a bottomless pit of nothingness disguised as a platform of substance. And also how FB can bring not only unproductivity and sometimes depression.
19. Animals? Dogs. Dogs. Dogs. Raffa the new puppy.
20. How it's killing me that I didn't AND don't love this guy yet he's always, always, always on my mind despite all of these things and a million others that I'm occupying my head with in an attempt to not think about him. And yet I do. See? :(

Two dark thoughts and a light one

(otherwise titled, "The actual state of things")

These two darker drawings would basically reflect the general feeling of utter discord that I feel nowadays. Now, don't feel better for me yet because the light floral watercolor was from better times, just uploaded late.

As you can see, I started with a flower, and from there proceeded to hair which looks like a flower or a flower which is actually hair (however you see it, it's of very little importance) and to just, hair-- crazy hair.

Oh, well.

There WAS nothing

I haven't written a single blog post for May and June because there were things I had been busy about. Or there was just nothing. Nothing at all.

To stick to the busy excuse, believe me that I had gone up (or down) to several towns, did a lot of research for a writing assignment that I haven't yet finished, attended meetings and interviews here and there. I've also gone home and attended to some important business there. And I also took care of a job interview in a university, where I sat in an interview, did demo teaching, and after a few weeks, was informed ('regrettably,' as per the university HR officer) that I didn't get the job. So that's it, apart from all the other boring blah.

On the other hand, I also had pretty much a great time with a lot of wonderful people -enjoyed the rides going to and coming home from the towns I visited (and the moving window pictures on the buses and jeepneys), watched movies, went on walks, ate at different restaurants, ate lots of ice cream and crepes and blueberry cheesecakes, finished several bottles of beer and glasses of tequila as well. There was a trickle of parties all through May which I somehow enjoyed, a couple of them maybe I enjoyed too much, because I got drunk horridly. It will never happen again. And then of course, there were those times with :). It would be unfair to say I did not enjoy those.

Anyway, after all those running around for a whole month, it's like as if I was done living. Like I have reached my quota for having fun and for doing essential things such as going to work/doing work, like any mature, responsible person ought to do. I was attacked by this terrible case of anti-social behavior that pinned me on my bed for hours every morning, on my chair in front of my computer for several more hours after I've woken up for the day, and then a few more hours staring at nothing, punctuated by instances of going to the CR or to eat and drink. All I wanted to do is read a book or watch a movie or post comments on my Facebook page, or chat with whoever online. And in all instances, I don't know if I was even completely 'there' at all.

I don't know if it's a seasonal kind of disorder, or if it's any disorder at all; or maybe it wasn't and it was just a terrible case of good ol' bout of laziness. But it's crazy. I was going crazy about being that crazy. I've never been this inutil! A whole month and a week running?

There was just nothing. Nothing at all. No poems, no drawings (maybe one which is too dark and sad, and which I might post if I feel morbid enough), no diary scribbles (there were only dates, and what I did on those dates, and maybe timelines and short anecdotal comments on encounters with you-know-what). Other than that, nothing more.

I was like a zombified me. Only my basic survival and instinctual drives were working.

Hopefully writing in past tense would mean I'm through with all that and that I'm ready to rejoin the living world.

Hopefully.

A million sparkly little pieces

I want to write lines of how you lit the sun with your hands and your mouths,

oh your many hands, and your many mouths.

Yet they escape me.

I never can grasp them.

Because these lines—

They instead glide down into the very center,

Where the phantom of your mouth is still felt even after hours,

Where they beat, beat, beat.

Warm and tender and bright,

With me, they beat.

I want to write lines of how these phantom lines

Pulsed, pulsed, pulsed,

and pulled at me,

and tore me

into a million sparkly little pieces.



*This is the first poem, in fact, the first piece of writing, I have done after a good two months now. It must mean something. :)