Despite Sickness

Today, three friends and I visited the homes of two friends, both recovering from ailments.

The first one is a visual artist, who suffered from paralysis & heart problems last year. We're happy to see him painting again.

The second one, a crafter, suffered a stroke years ago and is still unable to move the left part of her body. Thankfully, her joyful energy never faltered, greeting us with so much warmth and excitement.

Seeing them today was a bit of a reminder of how fleeting & insignificant most of our concerns are, how basic things like the ability to move and carry out simple tasks should not be taken for granted. I am happy to see them both recovering, that even in sickness they try to move within their space, within their capacities. 

Friend number 1 is still painting, creating, despite the physical difficulty of doing so.

Friend number 2 has maintained her "loudness" (her words), her infectious laughter, and entertained us by telling us stories of her many interests, from bugs to Mesopotamia.

Workspace of Friend number 1

After bread, coffee, and stories were shared, my friends and I left our second friend with a bit of a heavy heart, that helpless feeling of not being able to change her situation. We decided to "process" our experiences over a bowl of noodles and bread. Most of the processing was really just us shedding off the weight quietly as we had our lunch. Later on, we asked each other - what was our takeaway from the interaction?

"Deepen connections, take care of each other," said one friend.

"Don't be too extreme or hard on yourself, everything in moderation," said another.

"We never know when sickness hits us," said the other

Aside from all that they've said, I'm also asking myself, "what are my perceived limitations and how can I move within this space in my own capacities?"

In a way, I saw that glimmer of empowerment in them, and how DESPITE these difficulties, they move, they carry on with their day, no excuses. This is not to undermine how hard their situation is, or anyone's situation for that matter. This is the situation, this is the circumstance, this is the condition. Now what? 

I read somewhere that we can only truly just show up every single day, with no expectation of perfection or control. As a bit of a closet perfectionist, this is a breather. 

We can't do it alone, we need community, and maybe that's a big chunk of the "now what" part. 

I just wish for them to get better fully, so they can move further and take up more space.

Let us take care of ourselves, let us take care of each other... 

- Ivee B (10/04/22)

Hanging with the Raisin Girls (and Boys) at Night of Hunters: Tori Amos Night 2013

Tori Amos will forever be my goddess, my music icon.

No, not in a fan girl way. Tori Amos is this entity of musicality, spirituality, sexuality, beauty, creativity, and consciousness... yet still so real. I love her in a way that I resonate with the drumming of her soul, something that I simply cannot explain. A bliss of another kind.

I was lucky enough to be part of Night of Hunters: The Annual Tori Amos Night at Conspiracy Garden Cafe, Visayas Avenue, which is held every August of the year to celebrate Tori dearie's birthday.

Can't believe my name is here. I'm still dazed.

The goddess turned 50 this year.

She's 50, yes! Unbelievable? Partly botox of course. But still...

I remember being 19 and simply dreaming of even just attending Tori Night. I'd read about it in the Internet. I knew there was a bunch of toriphiles (people who avidly listen to Tori Amos--okay, her "fanbase") in Manila, but I didn't know how to reach them. That time, everything was limited to Yahoo Groups and exclusive online communities. Thanks to Facebook, last year (2012), I was able to contact the organizers, Ms. Charms and Mr. Alden, and I gathered my carabao skin and, ahem, volunteered to perform for Tori Night. I don't normally present myself in such a thick-faced and shameless kinda way, but for Tori, I would!

Imagine the bliss I felt when I got to meet people who loved Tori the way I did; imagine a room packed with people jamming to her songs! Tori isn't very well-known in the mainstream, and as much as I would like everyone to like her, I only know a handful of people who genuinely do. (call me weird)

This is me performing during last year's Tori Amos Night at Conspiracy Garden Cafe:

 

 Sleeps with Butterflies

I was in an unexplainable form of ecstasy that night, more than that blissful feeling of eating ice cream, seriously. Better than any addicting drug. This was the weed of music. The weed of TORI.

For this year's Tori Night, I was even more ecstatic to find out that a bunch of artists I look up to would be performing as well! Wawi Navarroza, Kate Torralba, & Tao Aves (who performed last year too). I was starstruck. My love for Tori and her piano-playing has led me to share a piano/stage with those artists. You are cosmic, Tori.

Kate, Wawi, and Tao.
(Kate's photo from a video screenshot from her FB; Tao's photo from her FB profile)

 

Meanwhile, this is me, the wannabe, attempting to "do a Tori":
 

Far from this, of course:

Looking forward to next year's Tori Amos Night!

In the meantime, I'll have to make do with performances at home with my dad as my loyal audience.

Enjoy the torgasm!

♫♪,

Ivee

Film 1 : From Santolan to Guadalupe

One lazy afternoon, I took the MRT and shot the entire trip from Santolan to Guadalupe station (with a few cuts), not intending to create something out of it.. You know that perfect feeling when the perfect soundtrack hits you like a bullet in the gut as you view the crazy world from the window train? That's what inspired me to create this simple video, in the lens of a typical city person going about a typical city life.

Recycling Glass Bottles

We all know that one of the many ways to be more environmentally-friendly is to recycle our trash. The question is: How?

I know. Some of us have only a few milliseconds in a day to actually sit down and come up with recycling projects, or even just think of which pieces of trash to recycle/re-purpose. The truth is, when we look around us, even just a glimpse of our office rubbish bin can already provide a plethora of recycling ideas.

My knack for recycling has been around since I was a kid, well, blame it on my being a Pack Rat. I have boxes of random (and I mean random) things, odds and ends, thingymajiggies that would probably trigger questions like "Why on earth would you want to set aside that used cereal box?" or "Do you honestly think you're still going to read that greeting card after 10 years?".

One of the things I honestly LOVE recycling are used glass bottles.

Here's a glimpse of my current "collection":

Looking around my rooms (plural because I currently have two: one in my parents' house, & another in my little "nook", where I am trying to be an independent adult. Haha!), here are some glass-bottle-recycling projects which I've done in the past, which you can try as well. (or maybe you've already tried them, which is great!):

Pen-Holder. Just fill up tiny bottle (e.g. a potpuirri oil bottle) with sand or gravel, and be-ribbon it.

   

A "Conversation Piece" slash paper weight. It's simply a scarf stuffed inside a bottle.

Bracelet/Hair Scrunchie Holder. Yeah, that's a glass bottle holding them all in place.

Piggy Bank. Make it look pretty with used sinamay and a string or ribbon.

Paint brush holder. Fill it up with sand or stones, be-ribbon, and top off with a bead.

Another Conversation Piece (which can also be used as bookends). See my pack rat tendencies? Yes, inside those Gatorade bottles are tabs from canned sodas, which I used to collect as a kid. 

I hope these recycling ideas'll also inspire you to recycle glass bottles, or any piece of trash for that matter.

If you have any more recycling tips and ideas, I'd be happy to hear all about them! My email ad is iveeispoison@gmail.com, or you can also just leave a comment below. Thank you!

Looking forward for more recycling ideas and projects! :)

♫♪,

Ivee 

Hippie-Inspired Chocolates

Hello!

This is my first-ever post, and I hope it goes well. (Let's see how this thing works.)

I intend for this blog to be an avenue to share creations, some of which are my own, others, probably just "stolen" from/inspired by other peoples' ideas. :)  A “creation” can be anything from a craft project to a written song. Let’s create!

Anyway. I held some sort of celebration last Saturday for my 24th birthday, and since I love giveaways I decided to hand out chocolates instead of knick-knacks. I combined the theme (hippie) with my, ahem, personality. Read: Sweet. *cough cough . :p

Since I am on a pathetically tight budget, I did what most smart yet bordering-on-poor people would do: RECYCLE. I was glad to see heaps of chocolate in the fridge in my parents' house, which were given by a family friend from Holland. Lovely. Nobody was eating them, so I had the liberty to tear off the beautiful packaging and replace them with something far less beautiful, yet equally interesting I guess.

Here's how I did it:

Gather the Chocolates. The wrapper designs are so lovely that I think I'll be using them for a future creation.

Carefully tear off the wrapper. I had to eat quite a handful of them because I wasn't able to tear off the wrapper properly. Not that I'm complaining :)

Trace the wrapper on a crazily-painted/dyed sheet of paper.  For this paper I simply splashed 2 colors of dye all over a sheet of pattern paper. You can also use watercolor or any type of coloring media. The trick is to just make it appear crazy and psychedelic.

Cut! No need to be perfect and use a goody goody ruler, darling.

Wrap and seal! It's better to use gluestick for this, but in my case we didn't have one at home. Better yet, you can use double-sided tape. Glue can be toxic, you know. Kidding.

Leave a mark. I wrote a good old 'thank you' on the wrapper, but you can be more creative and think of other things to write/draw/stick on it.

Present it. 

Serve it! Enjoy!

♫♪,

Ivee