My life so far:

Looks like I’m going to be homeless again real soon. This time for good.

I don’t know what to say anymore, really. This topic has been exhausted to its core already: my family is dysfunctional, my parents think I’m a joke, and everything after that leads to my writing at six in the morning of the 18th of September that yes, I might be getting kicked out in the next few days if things don’t settle down.

I don’t know what my crime is. I just wanted to write, just wanted to pursue my dreams. I never knew it would be this shattering.

But I need to survive first. There’ll be time for crying later. So, a list:

1. Pack bags. Take only the stuff that you bought with your own money. Leave everything behind that was provided for since birth, because your parents demand it. It’s a good thing that you have the presence of mind to buy your own clothes over the years, else you’ll be leaving your house naked.

2. Take all your books. Put in boxes. Contact friends who can keep these for you until you find a decent place to stay. If worse comes to worst, you will have to sell them if you need to get by and stay alive. Divide those that you can’t give away against those that you can let go. And among those that you swear you’ll keep forever, pick one book. It must be That One Book that will provide some measure of spirit to keep you going, just in case it comes to that point.

3. Save a copy of all your contacts. You will have to let go of your mobile phone.

4. Save a copy of all your files onto your external hard disk. This is very important. You knew there was a reason why you insisted that you buy that external hard disk out of your own money. If ever you can’t bring your laptop with you, at least you have a copy of everything that you need.

5. Steal your laptop. Yes it’s your parents’ graduation gift to you, but the fact still remains that they bought it. So most likely they will demand that you leave it behind. Put up a big fight over this (since you’re leaving anyway), and if that doesn’t work out, steal it.

6. Pack your cameras. They’re all yours. If you work harder, you can make a living out of it, too.

7. Look for a place to stay. There are transient houses, rooms for rent, bedspacers, dormitories, and all that. Start calling.

8. Look for a job (if you can’t steal your laptop). Your freelance thing (and your dreams) might have to be postponed again. Indefinitely. Try looking for a job that does not require corporate clothing, because you don’t own that many clothes.

9. Stack up on ulcer medicines. Be prepared to go hungry.

10. Be strong. You have spent the last twenty-two years surviving. You can do this.

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.

My great grandmother died.

1.
And there is nothing more to say about it. I was on my way home Friday night when I got a call saying she passed away. She was 98. Quite a relic, actually.

2.
Then again, she has turned into a child these last few years. I was glad it was all over. For her sake, at least. Deep down I know, the only reason why my mother’s family kept on bringing her to the hospital time and again when something happens, like when her heartbeat slows down, or when some other major cause of panic occurs, is because of their own damn selfishness. I don’t know if I’m much too jaded, but I think that this is all a part of the “this-is-what-families-do” crap, and I really did think if she was lucid enough she’d have issued a Do Not Rescuscitate order a long time ago.

3.
It’s a peculiar thing, death.

4.
She looked so frail inside the casket. As opposed to the towering figure I used to remember when I was a child. When I looked at her, I thought, no, she does not look like she’s only sleeping, or what other fucktards still say to reassure themselves. She was in pain for the past week, with water filling up her lungs. And she looked like it, lying there, beneath the glass, inspite of the new silk dress, the necklace, everything that was done because of the grieving’s denial, as if to say, “I’m only sleeping, darling, no, I am not dead.”

5.
I wonder how she felt, what she was thinking, lying in the hospital, waiting for all her damn relatives to unplug the tube and just let her be in peace already. It irked me, that week, last week. It made me mad, how my mother’s family continued to prolong her life so her other relatives from all over the world can come home and see her before she dies. This conscious decision of having her in the ICU for days and days on end, while people come and go and look at her like she’s a damn creature on display – it made me really, really mad. What is this hypocrisy for? People left, went on with their lives, forgot about her. And now, now when she is making her way towards death, reaching out her arms to embrace the thing that happens after this life, now people are clamoring to come back. What for, what for?

6.
I tried to understand it. I tried to think about it as I stand and look at her for what I believed would be the last time, a week ago. She was conscious, breathing, looking at something only she can see. She cannot hear me, cannot even remember me now, and I can’t even touch her, no. She no longer is the woman I once knew. I don’t know the person in bed before me, and that kind of dissonance, knowing that logically she is my great grandmother, burrows a hole inside my chest.

7.
And now she is gone.

8.
At the wake, people trickle in, and I was constantly annoyed and amazed at how many relatives she has. These relatives, where were day in the last few years while she was succumbing to the cruel way of nature, sliding back into childhood, erasing recognition, any trace of memory? And how they had the gall to smile, to greet their condolences like someone’s having a birthday party. And what of her own daughters, who continue to fight over who’s going to get the rest of her property, who’s going to stay the night to be with her corpse, who has the biggest flower arrangement of them all. It enrages me so much I wanted to scream.

9.
I’ve only been at the wake for a day. I think it was enough. Everything that’s there, everything was a joke.

10.
And I wanted to protect you, Lola, I wanted to keep you away from all of them. I know we’re all holding tight to our grief, and I know we all have a right to deal with it the only way we knew how, and I’ve never been that person who can hold her heart in her hands without breaking down, and so here is a poem, here is a poem, Lola, here is a poem – because it’s the only thing I can give without having to fight back the tears:

Bluebird
Charles Bukowski

there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I’m not going
to let anybody see
you.

Homeless, Day 4

~

1.
Dear psychotic, deranged and intolerable excuse for a parent:

I don’t know how else to deal with you.

You forget, you always forget: I am the only one who has it together in this family. I’ve pulled it together ever since I was nine years old watching you hold her neck in your hands. I have drawn myself up and took to the task of bringing balance to the table, as I’m the only one who can see from the outside. Everyone is just too involved.

2.
I used to think that I am a robot, because I can detach myself easily from what is happening, long enough to pride myself into thinking that I was a clinical observer of the moronic ways in which we deal with one another’s lives in this family. However, I realize now that this is a curse, being a fucking middle child that is, because frankly, nobody really cares for the one who has it together, because that is exactly it: I have it together. You are all too busy freaking out with all the predicaments that you yourselves have gotten into, because of plain stupidity.

I am not saying that I’m not swimming in my own shit. Most of the time I do, but I try my fucking best not to drown. Most of the time I do it for you, for all of you, because if I am not there to juggle all of your arguments together, we would all have died of massacre a long time ago. We would have murdered one another to oblivion, and not only would we behead each other, I believe we would also drink one another’s blood, because that’s how thirsty we are for retaliation. And yes we are that cruel and inhumane.

3.
Which brings me to my next point: I am getting tired. I do not know where to place myself anymore. I do not know where to fucking put my words, because every time I open my mouth to say something, there will always be a nasty comeback from you, even if I am not even talking to you in the first place.

So let me give it to you straight, in the eternal words of Kahlil Gibran, although I’ve long away chucked his book because of disappointment in attaining peace in this shithole this family is in right now:

“Your children are not your children,
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but are not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.”

4.
So there. Shove this up your ass. I am not yours. And I am perfectly capable of thinking on my own, too. And just so we are still on the topic of keeping it together: I will like to remind you that year after year, starting from the day you gave me a good education, I have never once dilly-dallied with the money that you spent on me. I have far more exceeded your expectations, even the expectations that you have from your all your other daughters put together. I haven’t gotten myself kicked out of school. I didn’t demand that you let me study what I want to study. Never, not once, have I devastated you so badly. And although studying in the university was a bitch for you to pay, I made it worth your while. I really did. I gave you what you wanted. All of it. The only thing I ever wanted was my dream, and I threw it out the window for you.

Now that I am starting a life on my own, I am still giving you what you want: obedience. I don’t know what else you fucking want from me.

And until now, I still think you haven’t really understood the meaning of that word, obedience. It doesn’t mean a bond that cannot be severed. It means a choice.

Forever and ever, it is a choice.

From someone who resents you,
Your daughter

I can’t do this anymore

How can one group of people be so endlessly disappointing?

Homeless, Day 3

1.
There are other names for homelessness, which I find pretty interesting:

Other names for homelessness

The term used to describe homeless people in academic articles and government reports is “homeless people”. Popular slang terms, some of which are considered derogatory, include: vagrant, tramp, hobo (U.S.), transient, bum (U.S.), bagman/bagwoman, or the wandering poor. The term ‘(of) No Fixed Abode’ (NFA) is used in legal circumstances. Sometimes the term “houseless” is used to reflect a more accurate condition in some cases.

In different languages, the term for homelessness reveals the cultural and societal perception and classification of a homeless person:

• Britain: “rough sleeper” (person who sleeps “in the rough” i.e. outdoors)
• Spanish: “persona sin hogar”, (person without a home) , “sin techo” o “sintecho” (person without roof above)
• French: “sans domicile fixe” (SDF, without a fixed domicile)
• German: “obdachlos” (without a shelter)
• Italian: “senzatetto” (without a roof)
• Portuguese: “sem-abrigo” (without a shelter) or “sem-teto” (without a roof)
• Polish, Russian, Slovene: “bezdomny”, “бездомный”, or in more frequent use, “бомж”, standing for without fixed place of living (без опрделенного место жительства), “brezdomec” respectively (without a house)

taken from Wikipedia

2.
Sound so much better than “kicked out”. And then, some seek out to better explain it, which intensifies my feeling of being ostracised:

“People who don’t have shelter are houseless – not homeless! Homelessness has nothing to do with a lack of shelter. Define Homeless: ‘An inadequate experience of connectedness with family and or community.’ “

taken from Beyond the Homeless Myth

3.
Then again, Episode 7: Night of the Living Homeless (South Park, Season 11) makes me feel a little less bitter.

Homeless, Day 2

1.
There was one little forgotten fact when I was kicked out: I have my own copy of the keys of the house. So, of all their rotten luck, I am indestructible in ways that they cannot imagine.

I snuck in last night to take a little nap, and then woke up before dawn so I can sneak out again. From there, I walked random streets until I collapsed, exhausted, in a McDonald’s chain, drowning my miseries in a cup of bad coffee.

I am glad I have survived Day 2 of being homeless, although I kept looking over my shoulder once in a while, certain that I’m part of the cast in a bad movie somewhere.

2.
Anyway, I realise that surviving is not merely dependent on strong will and state of mind. And since I will never be MacGuyver no matter how hard I try, I devised this list of important stuff that you should definitely have in your personal belongings, just in case you turn out to be homeless right at the last minute.

The Top 10 Things You Should Always Have With You

1. Money – bills and change (to pay for a decent meal and for stuff that you can’t get for free)
2. A pen and a notebook (if all communication fails, draw – or make signs)
3. Some identification (just in case you’ll end up dead somewhere)
4. A good pair of shoes (for running away from rapists)
5. A pack of cigarettes (okay, maybe more) and a lighter (of course)
6. An umbrella (rain or shine, it has its uses)
7. Swiss knife (the closest you’ll get to MacGuyver)
8. Tissues (trust me, you’ll need it)
9. Toothbrush and toothpaste (you want the help of strangers, you don’t want to kill them)
10. Water (keep yourself hydrated!)

Some runner-ups but I figured it’s hard to fit them all in a bag anyway:

1. Clean underwear – because you can’t afford for your underwear to stand on its own and walk away, that’d be pretty fucking frustrating
2. A crucifix or garlic – to ward off vampires
3. A gun – for killing zombies, but you really, really have to take perfect aim
4. Mobile phones – I don’t trust the fucktards because these things die on you just when you need them
5. Thick socks – to save you from hyphothermia
6. Desmond – to help predict the future
7. Haley Joel Osment – to see dead people and maybe smoke some pot
8. Condoms – for protection, what else?
9. Beer – when all else fails, there’s always beer
10. Some gum and a pair of shades – to look nonchalant while attempting to do something stupid

Remember: never, ever trust strangers, because you’ll never know when you’re in The Joe Schmo Show.

Homeless, Day 1

1.
This is why I hate Mondays. All the crap some of my friends say about Mondays being for abandon is not entirely true.

My friends used to have their whole Mondays dedicated to drinking out and staying drunk until Tuesday and the rest of the week, until the weekend rolls around the corner. The days pass okay, because Monday has been over and done with through bottles of beer and packs of cigarettes and conversations to last through the night.

But not for me. This is Day One of Being Thrown Out of the House for the Nth Time. I can remember the same thing happening to me a few years ago, and that almost killed me. While I was in the middle of my own shit I also have a job to do then, but since some people don’t understand the concept of “being thrown out of your own home”, and that professionalism aside, it’s really hard to deal with stuff at work when you’re worrying about where to go spend the night come evening, I resigned from my position. And then succumbed to numbness.

Well, hello, hello, history has gone and repeat itself.

If I am going to talk again about my family and all the dastardly lives we all have, I am going to have to write a book or a screenplay, and I won’t stop until it becomes a full-length film, until it becomes a major blockbuster hit, until it has made everyone laugh and cry so hard they shit themselves, until I have raked enough money out of my sordid childhood that I’m content to have exploited myself that way to millions of people who sit through a two-, no, two-and-a-half-hour film – I need the extra hour for a killing – wanting to be entertained.

Let’s just say that I’m glad I have the intuition to save a few bucks from my first paycheck. It’s more than enough to last me for two more days until my next salary comes. It’s more than enough to get me through another night of wondering where the hell I’m going to stay before I come to work the next morning.

So fuck Monday mornings. The worst shit always happens to me after the weekend has come and gone.

2.
And all the stuff I said in my last post about the night shift fucking things up – well fuck midshifts, too. The rug has been subsequently pulled from under me last Friday night, and I’ve been told that I would have to fuck my body clock once again to make way for a midday shift. So here I am, Manila afternoon time, waiting for some work to come, which is hilarious since people from New York are still sleeping at this hour.

I don’t know, really, why I have taken this job. No, wait, I think I know – it’s because of the fucking money. Yeah. The fucking money, which will hopefully pay for the bills, and will help my siblings get through school. The fucking money, which I have handed over to my parents, who have just kicked me out of the house again this morning.

Well you know what, fuck my family, too. I’m sick and tired of everything. I am living the classic dysfunctional life. We have all the crazy members:

• One who doesn’t know how to express emotions properly, and is losing money in the business
• One who has adulterous escapades and is currently delusional
• One who is a closet homesexual and has been in college for about a million centuries now
• One who has issues about religion, is antisocial, almost got married secretly but got jilted for an ex-lover
• One who is supposed to be gearing towards medical school but is consumed with vices and boys at an early age, would probably get pregnant sometime soon, and has current ambitions of being anorexic
• One who is a product of someone’s promiscuities but doesn’t know it yet, is currently harboring a self-identity crisis and currently failing school, too, and is probably also a homosexual

3.
But as I’ve said. I will not talk about my family. So there.

4.
And I will not say anything about this to my friends. Because I will not make other people feel sorry for me like the last time. This is my shit, always have been. Today is just a different day, is all. I just don’t have a home. But so does everybody else in the whole fucking world.

5.
Not to worry. I am a strong and resilient woman. I will repeat this to myself until I no longer feel as fucked.

Karma Chameleon

halfway between Bonifacio Avenue and Guadalupe

~

It was one of those afternoons: we were in for a long drive, and I was in the car with the two people I’m resigned to simultaneously hate and be fond of at the same time. My parents are on a mission to buy me some clothes so I’ll look respectable (finally, after ages) when I go to work this week. I just had my pre-employment medical exam at a clinic and was feeling a bit nauseous, when I was suddenly attacked by my perennial bout of paranoia.

Before I go into that, I’d just like to say that because of that exam I’m scarred for life, and I think I may never apply again for another job just to save myself from another trauma-inducing event that left me feeling shocked and a bit out of breath. The family doctor who was interviewing me just suddenly grabbed my arm, stood me up, and felt my breasts. At first I didn’t think it was an assault since she was a woman, but the nature with which I was accosted was very much bizarre and far too much for my brain that I immediately went apeshit. On a freaking breast exam. Of course it’s not everyday that I have my breasts man-, no, womanhandled, but of course I’m also not new to this breast-groping thing. (I grew up in an private Catholic school for girls, where it’s but normal to grope one another.) However, I did feel that this was much, much INSANE compared to when my ex-boyfriend-now-married-man-ergo-FUCKING-BASTARD and I were complete fools for each other. This was like the season finale to Titties, Meet My Hands if ever there was such kind of show. You know what I mean? I’m telling you, I’m fucking scarred.

Anyway, I was in the passenger seat, tucking myself away for preservation, trying not to think of some weird shit like nipples coming alive and attacking me til I die, when I was suddenly gripped by a wild panic attack. A few friends have once seen me hyperventilate: it was during my late-night birthday celebration at someone’s house and I suddenly thought of school requirements and then Attila the Hun’s fist was squeezing my throat dry. I was like that in the car, but this time I was fucking worried about karma.

It’s like this: I’ve always believed that I’m bound to experience the hardships in life no matter what happens, because I’ve got a birthmark on my left butt-cheek because life is like a rock, it’s hard. I’m kidding. Because my life is like that. I’ve seen it happen so many times to me in the past, it’s but logical to assume that the same course will be predicted for my future. And since I’m going to spend so much time channelling my miseries into positive energy, the chance for happiness will only come once in awhile, thereby enabling me to appreciate the good things with complete sincerity. I also think that this might have happened since I’ve done something really, really bad in my past life and I’ve done nothing to appease the karma gods by continuing to be an idiot in my present life.

I know: these all sound like I’m sitting on a pile of big-ass shit. Maybe, but when I’m intoxicated with my own list of philosophies I believe in the authenticity of these self-serving principles.

Anyway, with all my recent mishaps after I was accepted for a job (delays in government-related papers, a little spice of elder sister-cum-black sheep brand of envy, getting sacked by the flu, and the what would now be known as The Medical Exam Disaster), I was convinced that I am now at the receiving end of a series of unfortunate events. Add to this the fact that I also believe that since having a job is a good thing, and I’ve had quite a few good shit happen to me in the early parts of this year (graduating on time, achieving all my listed goals), it is now time for me to experience a few disastrous things. I’ve been slacking off with my misery, so maybe now they’re making me pay. BUT FOR THE LOVE OF KAMA SUTRA, WHY CAN’T I JUST BE FUCKING BLISSFUL NOW AND THEN TURN ME INTO COCKROACH PISS IN THE NEXT LIFE?

Pfft. Seeing as I am not in any way religious, I think nobody would listen to me anyway, one god or another.

And since I’m stuck in a car with my parents who will never understand how they were able to breed some asshat like me, and I just needed to spill, spill, SPILL MY FUCKING GUTS ALL OVER THE DASHBOARD OR DIE, I opened my mouth. And I talked. And I told my parents shit, shit I’ve never even told my friends because they’ll think I’m a fucking nutjob. I said: I’m scared, I’m fucking scared shitless, I don’t know what I’m doing, I think I’m fucking things up, I think things are starting to fuck up for me because the good thing is done and over with, and things are always like that for me, when one good thing happens about ten bad things happen after, it’s a constant fucking exchange, and it will never change, this cycle, I’ll only be entitled to happiness once in a while because after that I have to get ready for the onslaught of the fucking bad things that break my heart and I don’t want to fucking hurt anymore, you know, and now this is the point of no return and what the fuck am I doing what am I doingwhatIamdoingwhattheFUCKamIdoing???

I might as well have told my parents that I’m Dirk Diggler and I actually got a ten-/eleven-/twelve-/HORSE-inch schlong inside my pants. I might as well have told them that I once caught them having sex and that it scarred me for life, too. SCARRED ME. HORRIBLY. So I sat there and killed myself over and over for about thirty minutes hoping in the back of my mind that my mother won’t take out her precious rosary and place it on my forehead. After I finished spewing dumb stuff my father turned to me with a stoic look on his face, and I instantly knew that I was adopted from a pet store and now they’re giving me back. My father said, “You’ll never be happy in this life,” like it was some prophecy I don’t already know. But his voice betrayed his disappointment, so then I felt really small, and really adopted and wanted them to give me back to wherever I came from. My mother, incredulous but still riding on her high horse of denial, as always, told me to “…stop thinking ridiculous thoughts because I’m only poisoning my mind,” and that I should turn to prayer so that I’ll get some direction in life.

So I shut up, and tried finding friends in my address book who might be able to understand, even just a fraction of what I’m feeling, and thankfully I did. Both of them told me that this was normal, and the things I’m undergoing regarding my papers and other stuff pre-employment era are normal, and my way of making sense of things was normal, and that I was, in fact, normal. And after about two hours of freaking out, that was the end of it.

I know I still have to explore this fucking confusion, and I also know my paranoia has masked itself into a healthy sense of alertness of things. I’ll deal with it sooner or later, I suppose, but right now I’m just concentrating, really, on not dreaming about evil lady doctors and their hairy monster molester hands.