Convert a small corner or parapet in your house into your own sanctuary within a sanctuary--a couch lounge, a writing desk, a card table with scented candles--and enjoy spending time alone there rather than in your bedroom.

Let the breeze ruffle your hair through its long, slim fingers.

Stampedes are a reflcetion of the animal indtinct that still remains in man.

New ideas should be carried out slowly and carefully, rather than quickly and impulsively.

Never end the day without thinking of your loved ones.

It is useless to work on a friendship between two incompatible persons.

Maintain your social and psychological mechanisms to avoid unexpected breakdowns.

Everything will change after the second typhoon.

The younger ones should be protected from colds and fever even before the rainy season officially begins.

 Value routine. It keeps you sane.

Check the existing materials and supplies before commencing a project.

A superbitch should never get sympathy from anyone at anytime.

Karma makes the cheapskate lose out on everything.

Stressful Saturday

One-hour, deep tissue massage

Smile at yourself in the mirror. It never fails to have a positive effect.

Stolen items eventually become accursed.

Today he spent some time alone and began doubting his political career choice.

The day will always begin to smooth itself out after lunch time.

Do not overeat just because you overordered.

Count your blessings but not your tragedies.

Angelique has been assigned to work as an election paralegal again, this time in Mindoro.

Try a little butter with adobong sitaw.

You need to define your different kinds of rest.

Know that you have friends who are more loyal to you than your distant relatives.

Your penmanship will always reflect your state of health.

You kept teasing him and posted viral memes about him. Now he is ready to leave you behind, and you will actually miss him terribly.

A white bedsheet, cardboard puppets, a flashlight--and you're all set to produce an instant movie for the kids.

Fairy music comes from flowers in the garden, as though the blossoms were live speakers.

Do not desire anything too much. In the long run, karma will take it away from you with a vengeance.

Why is she acting like a stupid schoolgirl? Didn't she have enough practice all those years when she was deeply in love with P.?

Never sleep on a full stomach. Your body will not digest your food properly.

But, if you must, do so in a sitting position.

Even in the summer time the dreaded mosquito attacks.

Avoid following more than one set of appointments. for that can be extremely stressful.

 

You take a plunge either to challenge yourself or to learn a bitter lesson.

Organize a neighbors' barbecue while the summer lasts and have a great time.

It is all right to have too much of a good thing as long as you are able to use them in rotation.

Interpolated Incubation

It is possible to send dream messages to any person of your choice. Before going to sleep, write a letter to the person, fold it, and then place it under your pillow.

Every time you abort a video ad, you do physical harm either the model or the director.

At night he feels bitter and alone and resents it, that is why he has such a wry sense of humor,

She humiliates you in public, then apologizes to you in private. Now that the tables are turned she is unable to accept the harsh realities of life.

When I was about eleven years old, a big fire broke out in a town outside San Fernando, Pampanga, where I was on summer vacation at the time. One of my aunts, whose friend was a fire victim, commuted to the town in question to visit her friend, and tagged me along,

While walking through the ruins of the fire, I felt an impulse to pick up; a tiny, charred piece of wood and put it in my pocket. Back at my aunts' house, I placed the piece of wood on a shelf and felt some kind of power emanating from it.

I have always been partial to fire wands and my enemies have always been punished with fire, and I wonder whether this episode in my boyhood had anything to do with it.

A cynical writer's notebook catches negative memories and ideas on its pages like flypaper.

 You have to knock gently three times at a statue's feet before anything else.

If it no longer works, abandon it.

Grilled is more healthful than fried.

Be able to recall an exact body position you had in the remote past, including where you were and how you were feeling, and that is what you can effectively regress to.

Quite tedious, but it actually takes an urban business nine years before it begins to pick up.

May 3, 2025

Tony L. sent us a huge basin of fresh oysters from his aquaculture farm in Malabon.

Jerome steamed them today, May 4, with quick-melt cheese and garlic, and that us what we had for lunch.

The first step to ruining the rest of your life is getting married to the wrong person.

Wednesday, April 30, 2025.

Lunch at Bellini's Cubao Shoe Expo Araneta Center on a whim.

No Italian pasta or pizza for me. I'll take a good piece of meat, except beef, which is bad for me, at any time: porschiatto, pollo, or pesca.

I had a Caesar's salad and roasted pork belly cooked in herbs.

Sometimes, when a lower middle-class woman has set some money aside, she proceeds ro purchase an unwary man of her choice.

It is easy to tell whether it is the woman who pays for everything, Her first priority is traveling with the man and having their photos taken, and she is very demonstrative toward the man in public even if it is embarrassing to the man.

May 1, 2025

Today is the Feast Day of Saint Joseph the Worker.

Wrong: I feel amazed.

Right: I am amazed.

Amazement is not an emotion. It is a MENTAL STATE.

Wrong: I feel  indifferent.

Right: I am indiferent.

Indifference is not an emotion. It is an ATTITUDE.

Right: I feel nothing.

Correct, bearing in mind that apathy is essentially a PSYCHOLOGICAL CONDITION bordering on neurosis.

Especially if you are a writer, know your emotions, their terms, their descriptions, and their references. Do not mix apples with oranges. Otherwise your readers will be walking around with your ignorance in their pockets.

Never abuse anyone's generosity.

When bipolars do damage to others, they really do so first and foremost to themselves.

A water fountain you can turn on from time to time inside your house is an auspicious item.

Warm is better than chilly at bedtime.

An old servant is trying to come back and steal from you.

Not everyone who is sweet and friendly is trustworthy.

Anything beyond repair belongs to the dust bin.

Be earlier than your invited guests.

Do not press the shutter until you feel you have a good shot.

 Always keep your good stuff under lock and key.

Live for others, but live for yourself as well.

Year-end holidays are best enjoyed whenever they are planned and prepared for a year in advance.

Conflicting instructions always make people break rules.

Write and paint because they are easy, not because they are difficult. Otherwise enjoy life and do easy things instead.

His mousy, spinsterish mien makes him a poor candidate for negoitating with world leaders.

"The old boys" band together and uphold their traditionalist values.

It is unwise to let others dictate what is good and what is bad for you.

The artists made their political biases clear, and now they neither have sponsors nor audiences.

Now watch out for fhying insects in droves.

Now that the old director's heyday is over, he fears the onset of poverty and the mockery of his peers.

They can no longe beg for money from a dead producer.

Many men deny what does not conform to their idea of reality.

Never allow your religion to prevent you from being yourself.

Your body will tell you when to rest and when to rise.

Feel free to hex people who make you wait unnecessarily. That includes doctors and City Hall officials.

Romantic love will always distract you from your true mission.

Now that The Crowning of Mary is done, all of the paintings in the Reading Room of the Glorious Mysteries on the second floor of the library of Maryhill School of Theology are complete.

The paintings are:

--Adoration of the Magi

--The Glorious Mysteries: The Resurrection

--The Glorious Mysteries: Ascension

--The Glorious Mysteries: Descent of the Holy Spirit

--The Glorious Mysteries: Mary Is Assumed Into Heaven

--The Glorious Mysteries: The Crowning of Mary

--Saint Sebastian

--The Pauline Letters

--Peter Is Called to Ministry and Martyrdom

I will soon schedule a guided tour of the paintings in this reading room and the albeit still incomplete paintings in the lobby and four other reading rooms (three on the ground floor and another on the second floor of the library).

Will probably serve pizza and soda, but I cannot include the public in this initial tour, because the group will be quite rowdy and irreverent with lots of laughing and hooting. It will be comprised of my models, neighbors, friends, Spirit Questors, and Joy Luck Club members, many of whom are not art lovers and will be coming mainly for the pizza and soda.

_THE GLORIOUS MYSTERIES: THE CROWNING OF MARY_

THE GLORIOUS MYSTERIES: THE CROWNING OF MARY

Oil on cradled canvas

March 19 - April 28, 2025

For Maryhill School of Theology

For this painting I used the most number of reference photos, because of the inclusion of 12 crowns from 12 different appellations of the Blessed Virgin, some of which are canonical crowns. 

Inner circle, Left to Right: Crowns of Our Lady of Penafrancia, Our Lady of Remedies, Our Lady of Fatima, the Immaculate Conception, and Our Lady of La naval. 

Outer circle, Left to Right: Crowns of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Our Lady of Peace and Good Voyage, Our Lady of the Pillar, Our Lady of Guidance,

Several motifs are carried over from The Glorious Mysteries: The Resurrection: the motif of angels and the motif of sunrise, and, from _The Glorious Mysteries: Mary Is Assumed Into Heaven_, the Philippine Carnival Queen gown. After all, if the saints could be garbed in the raiment of the royal Renaissance Italians, I don't see why I can't do the same to them in tropical finery within the context of my own country. Maryhill School of Theology calls it enculturation. 

Aubrey sat for this painting, as she did for Descent of the Holy Spirit and  Mary Is Assumed Into Heaven. Leah sat for the two angels.

I no longer use pencils/graphite for construction lines. Instead, I use a brush and paint dilute, which is easier to wipe off. All of the lines are painted freehand.

As with all other of my paintings, I followed a three-stage process:

1) Construction lines using photographic references, during which I completely enjoy the methods of groping

2) Layering and color blocking, ensuring that the entire canvas is covered with paint and thus eliminating the need for underpainting. At this point no matter how crude my images still are, everything is good as long as I know exactly how to refine them. 

3) Glazing on completely-dry layers. In this particular work, here is how 30 glazes on 15 opaque and semi-opaque layers looks like. The glazing process is always the longest of all.

Can you see the hidden messages in this painting?

The auditory stimulus I used while working on this painting is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFrGuyw1V8s. Do listen to it while viewing the work, but the lyrics have nothing to do with the subject matter of the painting.

Photo by Neil de Leon

Construction lines took me two days to compose.

Layering and color hlocking. Seven layers were applied befpre this photo was taken. Afterward, the background was filled in with a mixture of alizarin and titanium white.

This is how 30 glazes on 15 opaque and semi-opaque layers looks like.

Worked an hour on 30th glaze.

This painting is finished, March 19 - April 28, 2025, and awaits vernissage.

Now facing a lazy Monday afternoon.

Have fun, ensuring that it will not be the cause of your death. Almost everyone forgets that.

Many men hold fast to their religion because it is their only comfort in death and in journeys into the unknown.

A great disappointment due to internal politics and racial discrimination.

Rest adequately before meals. Never plunge into lunch or dive into dinner.

Be happy to pay karma in this lifetime. It frees up your future.

Slept well last night, and today, Easter Sunday, does feel like a brand-new day.

Now they with an F need to take especial care.

No news is good news.

An ice cube melting in your mouth really helps.

Great service on Good Friday!

We ordered an LPG tank and it arrived five minutes later.

A group of cheerful spirits will come into your bedroom tonight and greet you hello just as you are drifting off to sleep.

What happens next is up to you.

Shared from Elias:

Another month of unbearable heat and then the rains will come traipsing in.

Permanently avoid everyone--friends and non-friends--who expect you to give them paintings for free--or who haggle with you over the prices of your paintings. 

They have no authentic appreciation of art, and rhey will never have it.

Aubrey flew in from Bangkok.

A pair of diving flippers arrived for Angelique.

Our electrician installed our compound address and spotlight on our gate, Will turn the light on as soon as it gets dark.

Happy Birthday to Princess, the cafe baby, who turns three years old today.

Her third eye is open.

Friday, April 11, 2025

Pampanga-food lunch on a whim at Abe Restaurant Gateway 2 Araneta Center

Jerwin creates a miniature figure of me with the assistance of AI. Its accessories include my twisted wand from Australia, two paint brushes, and a quill pen.

His prototypes: