WALANG HIMALA! *BANG!*

I never erased the e-mails I received during my trip to the US two years ago. Since I didn't have much to do on this Friday night, I read through all of them and had a blast. It's just plain funny how things fan out in a span of two years.

Here are some excerpts :

"oh and i think, I THINK LANG, that the gym is
beginning to pay off. my body's adjusting to the
routines na, and i have these weird bumps on my body.
i'm hoping they're muscles. it's been so long since i
had any kasi eh."

- Manong, after his first month at the gym.

"it's really nice though, how we're the only punk band in the lineup for that night,
and the organizer just saw us at wack-wack during cranked"

- Mikey, still playing with TTP Project. One Day Old had not been conceived yet.

"hullo tae."

- Ning, e-mail greeting. Nothing much has changed I guess :)

"I've been doing some research
(excited na talaga) and there are a lot of really really neat places to go to up
north. remember the magazine i showed you, cruising? i checked it again and
they went to banaue and tuguegarao."

- Det, talking about a road trip we were supposed to take up north Luzon when I got back from the states. It never pushed through. To be honest, I only remembered about it now after reading this particular e-mail.

And here's the clincher:

"speaking of the guys, i saw them at Vince's birthday
party last Saturday, sabay na rin ng victory party ng
ateneo. it was a ,lot of fun because i had the
opportunity to not only see Bastie after 2 years, but
sina Mitch and friends were there. we stayed till
around 3, and we followed to Pravda, and then Venecia."

MANONG!?!? Was that really you?!?! Hahaha...who would have thunk.

Wow! I'm having a senti trip by virtue of old e-mail. Cool.

I didn't sleep well last night despite the fact that I had a good workout at the gym.

I have been sleeping in Papa's room for the past few nights since he has been out of town. I, alone on the queen sized bed in the master's bedroom with the big ass TV. I was growing quite accustomed to it.

Last night though, something roused me from sleep every now and again. I initially paid no attention to it, thinking that it was just Betchay scampering about and populating the room with her fleas. By the third hour, it was getting to be an annoyance and so I promptly opened the door and kicked her out of the room. I settled down back into bed and tried to sleep. After five minutes had passed, it came again. I sat up and looked about. It was walking around the room quite slowly. I stared into it for a few moments until my eyes finally made out a figure that was devoid of any unique feature, save for one. It was missing its right breast.

I might as well could have been staring into a very dark place and yet my eyes remained transfixed on its nearly shapeless form. The calm in me started to erode and all instinct for control and self preservation started to kick in. It was instinct that compelled me to act. It compelled me to give my visitor a name.

Guilt.

I lost again to cigarettes. Five days of abstinence was not a trivial undetaking and I would like to take that as something of value. But Sunday night came along and I nearly bit off Jack's head. Also, driving home with my nerves frayed was not a pleasant experience so I did what I thought was most sensible; I lit up. Ahh. Much better.

I had my driver's license renewed yesterday. It was relatively painless since the LTO has finally gone computerized. While I was waiting though, there was a man in one corner preaching about Jesus and singing what he called the "Salvation Anthem". Of course people ignored him. But then after ten minutes a small group had started to gather around him. These people were actually listening. I couldn't blame them. With all the crap happening before elections,I guess you approach whatever glint of hope you find whenever it calls to you. So after the actors, it would be the Jesus freaks who will come to power. Great.

Just when things seemed to be at a dead end, Saturday came along and I had an editing job to do (HA! In your face, Valentine's!) It took me nine hours from capturing to final tape and my brain was mush after all of it. The strange thing is, I could not stop working. After the project was completed, I had to sit and settle down from the intertia of nine hours of working non-stop.

Mental note: I love what I do.

Of Oven Toasters and Badminton Girls

My inspiration for the day is the instruction manual that came with the new oven toaster. After trying to decipher it for about 10 minutes (I quote," 'Pa, Pa' sound may be hear during operation, this is normal since, it is the expansion and contraction sound of the oven."),I decided to move on to more productive things. So here is my own instruction manual based on how the day played out.

1. Wake up from a dream that ends with a strange girl whacking you on the head with a badminton racket.
2. Take a moment and realize that oddly enough, that racket wielding girl gave you the heebee geebees and that your heart is pounding.
3.Wipe the cold sweat from your brow and get up from bed.
4.Say hello to your two adoring fans and shower them with affection even if they are not human.
5. Have your breakfast of champions.
6.After breakfast, realize that it is already an hour away from lunch.
7.Have lunch anyway.
8.Sit down to the PBL championship and watch your team win.
9.Go to the neighborhood computer store and buy supplies for the family computers.
10. Have dinner with your father and brother.
11.Reduce your brain to mush by playing PS2 for two hours.
12.Prepare a hotdog sandwich and smother it with Dijon.
13.Have hotdog sandwich as snack. Wash down snack with can of beer.
14. Watch the English Premier League while consuming food. Think to yourself," Wow. Why so manly?".
15.Read indecipherable oven toaster manual.
16. Write your blog.

I realize though that this set of sixteeen steps is more of a product of boredom rather than inspiration. Everything but the strange badminton girl was on autopilot today. So here goes my automated sigh.

"Pa, Pa"

I just watched Lost in Translation for the fourth time. What can I say? I love the movie.

I'm in a rut right now. Not much editing jobs to do, just a lot of vcd's and dvd's to make. I can't seem to write anyhting I like when I'm in one of my down swings. I just watch a lot of TV when this happens. Apparently, I need all the positivity I can get just to write a blog entry that is half decent and to my liking.

One pleasant discovery for the day though is Alicia Key's song "You Don't Know my Name." (I'm sure Dylan would give me that funny look if he knew I was listening to Ms. Keys rather than the Slayer songs I should be practicing). Ah. But such is the way of good music. It does not choose its victim. Even an over aged metal head can learn to bop to the Jackson 5 grooves of that song. It sounds like Jackson 5 doesn't it? Hmmm.

Abstraction

Last night, my friend, Jack and I stopped over at the neighborhood Shell Select to buy a pack of cigarettes. Half of the shop was in disarray as it was being renovated. Above the dust coated glass door of the shop, hung a red sign made of Styrofoam. The sign read, "Happy..", followed by a drawing of a white heart then "..Day!". Feb. 14 was right around the corner.

"Pare, ano yung 'Happy Heart Day'?" Jack asked pointing to the sign.

"That's not happy heart day," I answered. " Happy Valentine's 'yan!"

"E bakit heart?" he ventured on.

My ears were tingling."I guess tinamad sila sa pagsulat ng 'Valentine's'. You know it's just like when people shorten Merry Christmas to Merry Xmas."

"That's a different thing," Jack replied. I had to agree with him; that was a bad example.

"I guess it's like when a sign says 'Merry Christmas' but instead of the word 'Christmas', they put a picture of Santa Claus or a Christams Tree," I said hoping to redeem myself. "So in this case, instead of 'Valentine's', they put a heart in its place."

"Alternative ba ng Valentine's Day ang Heart Day?"

My ears were practically flapping.

We capped off the night with what I would like to consider a learned discussion over a few beers and a cup of coffee. We talked about Philippine politics, George Dubya, and feudal Japan. No abstract reasoning was required.

Out of boredom, I typed my name into Google to see what kind of net pressence I have. The first search result was a link that had a flash cartoon I made about a year ago.I can't believe it's still online. Anyway, if you need to waste thirty seconds of your time, watch this slumber filled skit of Mr. Miong.

I woke up relatively early today after a full eight hours of sleep. Now this is a blessing of sorts for me for it is rare that I get to see the morning sun without the haze of a hangover or sleep deprivation. I am a chronic insomniac and my hours do get messed up quite easily either by chemicals or by choice.

I suppose I have to attribute the newfound normalcy of my sleeping habits to doughnuts.

Yep. Them round little treats that wreak havoc on a many a persons' diets. I have heard some people argue about the metaphysics of the doughnut hole (Is the hole an absence of doughnut or is it a physical entity in itself?) I for one would rather take my dougnuts at face value and stuff myself with them.

They're just doughnuts for crissakes!!

Then last night at 8 p.m., my two friends and I decided to head to that new little doughnut shop in makati to buy and take home some Sunday night snacks. We've been to this shop twice before and on both occasions, it was nothing but a twenty minute transaction. Last night though turned out to be completely different as the line snaked from our little doughnut shop all the way to the noritake ceramic sale display. It was unbelievably a two hour wait. And the people just kept on coming. This was no longer an ordinary doughnut shop. This was a cult. And whatever truth the term "just dougnuts" held for me was erased.

As with most things, I try to look at what I have gained from last night's doughnut fiasco, which, leads me to my return to normal sleeping patterns. The wait at the doughnut shop exhausted me and this was eventually compounded by me crashing, after the sugar rush from the doughnuts. So it was nightey night for me by 11:30 p.m.

Now, if only I could get my lazy ass to the gym...