When All Else Fails, Cake.

I have filed a temporary restraining order on my gloom and have celebrated by eating carrot cake with cream cheese icing.I now feel a thousand times better.

Why not

imagine yourself to be this tiny piece of paper, probably lodged in the corner of your bag, forgotten, until came a random moment where somebody felt like rummaging through it, emptying it of its contents, turning it inside out, and then comes you, floating, weightless, landing on somebody’s lap.

Why not wish that she pick you up, turn you over in her hands, and then slowly, carefully fold you in the shape of a boat, an origami, a remnant of your childhood, remember? Why not hope that she carries you reverently, as she leaves the room, walks outside, and then crouches down at the canal: where you wait, suspended, wanting it to be over, wanting it to happen, whispering, let me go, let me go, let me go now, and then -

she spreads her fingers wide, and you, little boat, little one, drops on water, floating away, floating away, knowing it’s a dream.

But what a dream. And floating, knowing that the quiet happiness you feel is not that of a boat finally meeting with the stream, but that of a tiny piece of paper, being folded, and folded continuously, and folded until you felt that you have gone inside yourself. And that is all.

Wednesday Shorts

~

1.
Strong rains have commenced. Have to get out of bed but is held down by dreams of gay porn. Contemplated the dearth of straight men and decided I want a cigarette. Sat up and realized what time it is. Nine in the morning with some nasty downpour outside. Fuck me.

2.
Hopped to the bathroom but not before tripping on bra. Must clean room. This weekend. Untwisted the bra wrapped around my ankle and threw it in the hamper. Looked at my wall. Saw this remnant from my college org – a piece of paper saying,

I saw that.
- God

Cheeky. Stuck my tongue out.

3.
Took a bath and sang some Beatles. Please don’t wake me no don’t shake me leave me where I am. I’m only sleeping. Yeah. Yeah. Brushed my teeth with fucking strawberry toothpaste. Shit. Suddenly wanted a cigarette but summoned inner strength. Got dressed. Tried not to be pissed because of situation.

4.
Out of the house, out of the house. It rains. It floods. I slosh over here, I slosh over there, fucking flood everywhere, and my pants are wet and my socks are wet and my shoes are wet and fuck.

5.
Fuck work. I want to resign. Contemplated resignation letter in my head while waiting for the train. Thought about the lonely Christmas ahead with no money and tried not to vomit thinking about it. Halfway between Makati and work my hyperacidity told me to shove my complaints up my ass. Okay.

6.
Came to work all worked up. Have to go zen. Settled on a ditzy session with Vittorio. Watched Mister España 2007 to steady blood flow. And then ice skating competition in the 1984 Olympics. Contemplated getting a couch and placing it in front of our workstation instead of two uncomfortable chairs. Eyed some good-looking men, one particularly, walking around. Licked lips. Suddenly wanted a cigarette. But then changed my mind as I thought am just associating want for fag for want to eat something. Fag for cigarette, not fag for gay men, but that’s good, too.

7.
Had lunch with Jilly while watching slasher film. Thought Jared Leto looked beautiful before he bleached his hair. Watched credits roll for no reason. Was asked why I do it but cannot come up with an answer. Returned to desk to find out was declared AWOL by someone. Apparently shouldn’t have lunch because my lunch hour is about four hours and death by starvation away. Apparently. Thought about resigning again but remembered how forlorn my face would look come December.

8.
Traded messages with Jilly and maybe have learned something new about me today: My dear A, I still believe your wife looks like a horse. And I plan to eat oatmeal forever. And I don’t make much sense, even if I’m really trying hard to.

9.
Got notice from boss. Reading e-mail felt like I’ve been bitchslapped a little. Tried not to get angry, but was not successful. Really wanted a smoke, wondered why I didn’t smoke the whole day when could have done so, wondered why not smoking now. Can’t find self to stand up. Just wanted to bang my head on the desk until I knock my brains out. Replied in a very respectful manner to boss, very respectful manner worthy of do-not-bitchslap status but feel will get bitchslapped later again tonight. Considered resigning again, this time not finding any reason not to.

10.
Resignation document started. Wondered if self was being prissy. Remembered parents droning on and on and on about responsibility. Tried to imagine forlorn face in December. Opened another window. Determined to watch ice skating to forget writing resignation letter. It’s not just about today, say to self. But all days ever since, day after day after day of that. Thought about smoking. And buying peanut butter chocolate cake to forget.

Still in a limbo, little girl, little girl.

Excerpt from My Monday Night

1.
A cigarette, a cab ride home.

2.
Chinese food and banofee pie.

3.
Some random songs that actually make sense:
- I’m Only Sleeping, The Beatles
- Rose Dragon, Javier Navarrete
- Take A Bow, Madonna
- Wild is the Wind, Nina Simone
- Feeling Good, Michael Buble
- Such Great Heights, The Postal Service
- Too Close for Comfort, Frank Sinatra
- Portions of Foxes, Rilo Kiley
- Trouble, Ray LaMontagne
- Nocturne, Fryderyk Chopin
- So What, Miles Davis
- True, Spandau Ballet
- Perfect, Smashing Pumpkins

4.
Some flirting.

5.
A camera, and possibilities.

6.
A poem — but then I changed my mind.

Is all. Good night.

Still drunkk at 8 PM

but what could be more terribly depressing than an abandoned old guitar

~

Terribly annoyed because my laptop is going bonkrs wandering how to manage perfect englishh wen inebriated but tpig here just to see if bitch can blog haha BTW lapop is dying his name is travis and fuck you microsofft vista fuck youu nd hafta go but thinking maybe should have an affair just to get depression over with

had nce driks last fri with friends from work and other places and felt happy but happier coz drank much with work friends so arrive quite buzzed out in other gig wasnt as fun but love seeing old faces ad huggin them and gettin hugged in turn was much spectacular ut coulda been better if calamares arrived soon and wasnt sweating and no drama involved but as always life not perfct what can you do eh

went hom with roken heart as always there will be boys that you wont get in this life so stop brooding over it yeah

smelt like cigarttes and whole lota beer so took a bath and listened to sinatra howl to the moon abou bein blue and yes was it true was blue blue blue all the wayhome and can do nothin bout it

wil be two year s in october shouldve been married but been fcked instead so here is to my stupidity and believing we could make it and had thrown your ring at your brothers face beause it shouldve been you shouldve also died n car crash but dont know why i did not probably to suffer more and thought about that tonight why didnt die but shit also unlucky with accidents so instead of dying got dislocated fucking soldier eh but you dont care

an this is proof that never really over anybody aand just good at pretending self is okay should just cut down calories and will self to stop smoking and get into other things to stop tinking about you and your wife and where the hell you are now proably making babies shouldve been mine but fuck it hope she gets fat and ugly and demanding and cuss you to death while in labor hope baby looks ugly not like you always handsome but still a fucker to anyone in their right mind

and maybe shoud just fuck your brother to shock you but shit

travis is acting up why did agree to get vista on fucking laptop and now havejust listened to canon in d for the sixteenth time and ate peanute butter mms which is delish but will probably go down to my thighs

and work tomorrow so maybe should sleep and TYPE THIS IN ALL CAPS DO NOT ERASE THIS POST COZ PROOF THAT YOU DONT MAKEKK SENSE WENT DRUNK AND think that is all bye

This is crazy; I am crazy!

Have just spent a whole afternoon googling ex’s name in le Internet. Add another half hour or two searching about his wife. Learned that she hyphenates their names together. My idea. Two whole bodies, not a single person. Independent yet happily married state; something I planned with ex before. Bastard. Fucking bastard.

And I am just drunk and this is not real, and I am listening to Horowitz since after lunch.

Suddenly, without notice -

Slinkies #3: Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow you may diet!

Because we did nothing here in the office but eat, eat, eat. Probably to compensate for our my growing boredom, and the fact that food can bring us happiness proportionate to our my desire to bitchslap This Certain Individual.

This is proof that I spend about 60% of my time looking at food while my butt grows bigger every day here at the office:

• 80 Breakfasts – What began as a blog to chronicle her breakfasts has evolved to a very classy site that discusses recipes and meals. Good photography involved, too. I’m not only envious of her skills in cooking but in taking pictures as well!
• Smitten Kitchen: food, laughter, and a whole lot of life. The perfect recipe for Happiness.
• Cooking Master Boy – One of my favorite anime series ever. It’s about a 13-year-old boy on his way to becoming a Super Chef during the time of Ancient China. Dramatic animations of one-on-one cooking tournaments, with sweeping arm movements and spinning woks, as well as very informative cooking methods. You’ll be entertained!
• Burger Rush – Help Chef Heidi run a burger restaurant by buying recipes and matching ingredients to create delicious burgers!
• The Scent of Green Bananas – She makes everything look so easy. And her kitchen utensils? As delectable as the food she makes.
• Iron Chef – Watch episodes of Iron Chef here. I love Iron Chef because not only is it theatrical and exciting, it’s a damn great performance. Reminds me how great chefs believe that cooking is an art and how much I wish to be a judge there!
• Top Chef – For more drama, watch Top Chef.
• Table for Three, Please – This is more for my benefit. I stalk this blog to know where I can find good good (and I mean gooooood) restaurants here in Manila.
• Dessert Comes First – A celebration of dessert, for one. A foodgasm of more food, for the win!
• Traveler’s Lunchbox – Food, travel, and more food!
• Flickr Food – Everything in the Flickr universe tagged with Food.
• Cream Puffs in Venice – I just drooled looking at her site.
• Chubby Hubby – Where all wonderful links to food, as well as his own posts, make life a little better.

This is Dinner, Not a Family Crisis

INT. FAMILY DINING ROOM – NIGHT

My father sits at the head of the wooden table, wearing a red shirt, holding his mobile phone with his left hand. His right hand is massaging his forehead with quite an intensity. I was sitting at the end of the table massaging my left shoulder with my right hand. My youngest sister is standing to my left, her hip touching the edge of the table, playing intently with a Nintendo, her face to the screen because the light is dim. My eldest sister is sitting on the sofa adjacent to the dining room, frowning, rubbing her stomach. My third sister can be heard putting about in the bathroom. A smell of something I can’t name as always wafts into the room, probably came from her perfume bottle. My mother is nowhere to be found.

PAPA
(shouting)
Where the fuck do you guys want to eat?

ELDEST SISTER
(exasperated)
I already gave a suggestion! I already gave it a while ago!

MAMA
(voiceover – probably in her room, eavesdropping, again)
I already asked every one of you a thousand times, and yet, nobody wants to answer me! Am I the only person in this house who is eating out?

THIRD SISTER
(annoyed)
But we already gave a suggestion days ago! Don’t you want to eat there?

MAMA
(shouting, coming out to the dining room)
I already told you, the restaurant’s closed because of a private function! You’re not listening to me!

ME
(calmly)
Where do you all want to eat then?

MAMA
(shouting)
That’s what I was asking all of you! Why can’t you just give me an answer?

YOUNGEST SISTER
Let’s eat at that American restaurant.

MAMA
(shouting)
I don’t want to eat there!

ELDEST SISTER
Let’s eat at that Japanese restaurant.

MAMA
(shouting)
I don’t want to eat there!

PAPA
(to my ELDEST SISTER, shouting)
Are you stupid? We just ate there a few nights ago!

ELDEST SISTER
(shouting)
But you were asking me where I want to eat! I happen to want to eat there again!

ME
Let’s try that Italian restaurant.

MAMA
(shouting)
I don’t want to eat there!

THIRD SISTER
(shouting, exasperated, annoyed to the nth level,
comes out of our room to the dining room)
SO WHERE DO YOU WANT TO EAT! WE KEEP ON GIVING OUR SUGGESTIONS BUT YOU DON’T WANT TO EAT WHERE WE ALL WANT TO EAT! WHY DON’T YOU JUST SAY THAT YOU WANT TO EAT AT THAT CHINESE RESTAURANT WHICH YOU KEEP ON MENTIONING A FEW NIGHTS AGO!

MAMA
(shouting)
But I don’t want to eat there!

ME
Who’s treating anyway? Who’s going to pay?

PAPA
Not me!

MAMA
Not me! Probably my brother!

ME
So where do you want to eat then?

MAMA
(shouting)
Can’t you all make a decision right now? Time is running out!

PAPA
(shouting but with a hint of don’t-you-dare-fuck-with-me)
WE’RE GOING TO EAT AT A FILIPINO RESTAURANT.

ME
Fine.

ELDER SISTER
Fine.

THIRD SISTER
Fine!

YOUNGEST SISTER
Fine.

ME
Let’s go.

My father grabs his keys. My mother shuts her mouth. We all go out of the house. We enter the car. We go to the restaurant. We eat.

THE END

Wham, Bam, Thank You Ma’am

I’m just fucking knackered. And no, it was not a one night stand I’d care to repeat, thank you.

What it was, was a fucking car crash I swear happens only in the movies:

We were in the highway, I was riding this cab named Princess Erika, like it was specifically meant for me, I should’ve fucking known not to be enticed with this kind of shit Fate throws my way, oh it’s a fucking cab named after my alter ego, a princess for chrissakes, a fucking princess, but no, let’s try it, shall we, let’s ride fucking Princess Erika and see if this pumpkin-cum-coach-cum-third-world-greasy-cab can bring me home before fucking midnight, and so there we were, we were doing 120 on the highway, the fucking highway of Manila, where it’s impossible to do that, but yeah, we were doing exactly that, and it was almost midnight, we were about to turn to that second-to-the-last avenue stretch before home, and then suddenly WHAM! BAM! FUCKINGOHMYFUCKINGFUCKINGSHITWHATTHEFUCKISHAPPENING and then suddenly the cab is careening towards shit knows where, and I can hear screaming tires and I can smell burning tires and I am down to my nose on the seat beside me and I smell something funny and I thought oh fuck is this jizz fuck did someone just jacked off in this cab before I got on oh fuck this is disgusting, and suddenly there’s this big weight, oh fuck it’s fucking godzilla out to crucify me, and everything just w e n t s l o w m o t i o nnnnnnnn

And then we stop.

And then I can’t fucking breatheohfuckbreatheyoudontwanttodiebreatheyoushithead and I felt something digging in my back and my mind flashed back to this Final Destination scene where an airbag kills some chick and I won’t fucking die like that and I was hyperventilating and on the verge of panic so I gingerly tried to pull myself out the other door and before I could push it someone opened it and helped me out and then I was standing in front of THE FIRST CAR CRASH OF MY LIFE.

Man. It was a fucking surreal feeling. This big-ass bus rammed the cab I was riding, and it fucking rammed my side. The door where I was sitting was completely dented, and it was what was digging in my back, and maybe a quarter of the nose of the freaking bus. I was right, it was Godzilla after all, coming for redemption for all my nastiness. I looked at the driver, he was bleeding with a big gash on his forehead, and all that blood, I SWEAR ALL THAT FUCKING BLOOD, I just had to sit down and get myself a fucking smoke. A paramedic went to me and asked me where I was hurting (A paramedic! So fast! Impossible!) and I stood up and I gestured incoherently with my left hand (was smoking with my right) and found that I can barely move my left arm at all. The paramedic obviously knows what’s going on, because he took my arm, talked to me about the weather (THE FUCKING WEATHER! AND I’VE JUST BEEN IN A CRASH!) and I was pondering over this weird turn of conversation when I suddenly heard – AND FELT! – this fucking LOUD POPPPPPP go in my ears and I suddenly felt weak in the knees and I had to lie down, no, the fucking street is dirty, okay, okay, fucking sit down.

And I realized, fuck, I had a dislocated shoulder. Fuckity fuck. And it just made its way back into the socket. Ohohoho.

And then the police came, in the form of MMDA shitheads, because the police, they say, were, erhm, too busy, and I’ve had enough of this shit, so I hailed another cab home, and I just wanted to go home, because awhile ago I tried calling home, and as usual, nobody’s fucking up, and I had to go home, battered and bruised and almost dead.

HOLY FUCK! I almost died!

That’s what I thought while I was coming home. I almost died. And I happen to be wearing crappy clothes and even crappier underwear. I don’t want to be known as that lady who wore crappy underwear and who rode a cab that’s listening to this program called Dr. Love and whose seats stink of fucking jizz!!! Aaaaaarrrgghhh what a travesty! Thank fuck I’m alive, thank you.

Scene when I came home:

I barge into my parents room, and I found my parents in bed dead asleep:

Me: I got into an accident.
Pa: *Rises from sleep.* Oh. Okay. *Lies back down again. Snores.*
Me: A bus rammed the cab I was riding.
Ma: Do you need to go to the hospital?
Me: I don’t know.
Ma: Well, at least you’re alive.

At least? It’s a fucking tragedy.

I will never wear my gold shoes to work ever again.

It was my last trip to the bathroom before I go home, and my bladder is threatening to embarrass me in front of the hunky security guard. So I skipped to the loo and got myself a first class seat at the live performance of The Woman Who Peed So Long I Sang the National Anthem In My Head and She Still Wasn’t Finished.

I stood there, with my spanking new shoes, gold as Buddha’s belly (or maybe not) – and I seriously can’t believe she’s still peeing. I bent down to see if it’s all true, if it’s not some prankster pouring juice out of a bottle. But the strappy sandals with the fake jewels confirmed that it was a woman in there, and not a fucking geiser.

So I sat there and listened until she was done. I was at the second stanza of e.e. cummings’ Somewhere I Have Never Travelled when the credits rolled, er, when she pulled her pants up. I heard her zip up, but she stood there for a few more minutes. What was she waiting for, I wondered, as I hurriedly pulled my pants down. My bladder has had it, either I pee now or I’ll explode. And then it occurred to me, shit, she was embarrassed, she’s probably waiting for me to finish so I can go out first and nobody’ll have to see her. I laughed out loud at this, and at this moment, this fucking moment, is when my body decided to rip out a definitive, generous fart like I’ve never heard in my entire life.

It was fucking criminal! It was the kind of fart that would immediately get you disowned and get served with divorce papers at the same time. It’s a legitimate grounds for a life time in prison with no chance for parole and a bath. It was that fucking loud, I could’ve sworn it was not me.

So I stood there, motionless, but my bladder gave way, so I stood there motionless but peeing.

I peered down and saw The Woman still standing there. What the fuck was she waiting for? I saw movement and shadow and realized that fuck, she’s bending down! Alert! Alert! Houston, we have a problem! She’s bending down!

I hurriedly pulled my pants up, wriggling, and I know that she has seen my shoes, my fucking gold shoes, and now she’ll be looking all over the office for The Woman Who Farted So Loud She Broke the Ice in Antarctica! Fuck!

So I did what she did. I stood there and waited and waited and waited. I had already signed off for the night, there’s no work waiting for me, so I can afford to stay in that cubicle as long as I want. She stood there, too, taunting me, the bitch. Maybe she’s thinking, we’re even now. You heard me pee, I heard you fart, now we’re even. But no, no I will not give you the satisfaction of showing you my face.

Eventually she left. And I stayed a few more good minutes before I deemed the coast clear. Once I got out there was no sign of any strappy sandal anywhere, so I hurriedly went to the elevator, anxious to get home. Whew, fucking close call.

I therefore conclude: I will never EVER wear my gold shoes to work EVER again. Confucius says, Woman who makes fun of others peeing will get caught farting with impunity while someone’s peeking.

Amen.