Let me share with you a piece I scribbled down in between calls at work a week ago. I'd like to think of it as one of my more memorable brief moments of brilliance. Then again, I was just bored and had to keep myself busy so I wouldn't fall asleep at work. Anyway, moving along...
In the tradition of summer beach parties and late night drinking sessions, let me present the five-step guide to professional party mooching.
Step 1: Be Honest
Transparency should be your first code of conduct if you intend to freeload on your friends. Tell people about your financial dilemma before you even take a swig of that jello shot. No one wants to be stuck in an awkward position when the check comes so it's your responsibility to let everyone in the loop about your monetary problems to avoid any resentment and future loathing from the crew.
Step 2: Make sure you are the life of the party
To secure your gatepass to all the happy hour drinking parties at no cost, it always helps to be the life of the party. Make them laugh, tell the best stories and always be a sport. In this game, knowing how to kick it gets you the highest points to win the crowd.
Step 3: Be emotionally available
Although feigning interest in your so-called friends problems can produce astounding results for your popularity status, sincerity should always be practiced. Tempting as it is to just fake it, develop good listening skills if your goal is to attain gimik stardom.
Step 4: Be elusive
They say absence makes the heart grow fonder so make sure your friends miss you every now and then. If you know how play your cards right and schedule your party appearances to a T, your friends will miss you just enough to buy you a round of drinks the next time they see you -- all for you, all for free.
Step 5: Take care of your ride home
It's one thing to have friends pay for your beer but it's something else to have them take care of everything else -- including your ride home. Times may be hard and your resourcefulness may be impressive but have some dignity and take care of your own ride, it's the least you can do for yourself.
Friday, April 11, 2003
05:52 p.m.
Answer Me
Do you really love me?
How much?
How do I worth?
How do you see me?
Do you believe in love?
If you do, how much can you explain?
Does it mean a lot to you?
Tell me a sweet white lie.
Dedicate a song to me.
What is it you really love about me?
Write a poem for me.
Do you believe me?
Why?
Tell me your secrets.
Do you know that I love everything about you?
Sunday, April 6, 2003
09:02 p.m.
My week in numbers
April 1
April Foolery with Rex Navarrete P 500
Cab Fare P 120
LOA - 7 hours P 444.22
Bubba Gump's (Dinner)
Blue Bayou, Shrimp Popcorn & Mud Pie P 585.70
Good friends --
April 2
Invite Rex for coffee P 20
Coffee date set for Tuesday --
April 3
Commissioned half a day's work P 600
Sleep all-you-want --
April 4
Cab Fare P 150
Wendy's (Dinner)
Side Salad, Shrimp Sandwich & Fries P 110
DA slave work (7 hours) P 488.67
Compliments from a stranger --
April 5
Cab Fare P 190
Mcdonald's (Breakfast)
Hash Browns, Sausage McMuffin & OJ P 67
Kodak Fun Disposable Camera P 450
Colgate Toothpaste P 45
Japanese Garden Entrance Fee P 5
Flower Farm Guided Tour with the Severino's --
Sonya's Garden (Lunch) P 500
Gas P 100
Pasalubong - Buko Pie & Cassava Chips P 90
Pond's Prevent & Correct Cream P 40
EyeMo P 57
Milk Coffee P 25
6 hours in the car with good friends --
Jimenez Catering - Calamares (Dinner) P 40
VTO P 253.84
Sunday, March 30, 2003
03:47 p.m.
There are days when I feel like there's nothing worth writing about anymore. I mean really, who gives a fuck about what I did this weekend or last week? So what if I downed several glasses of Long Island Iced Tea last friday at a Karaoke Bar or that I have to hang out with a bunch of drunken ill-bred uncouth sex-crazed people at work? Life is so ridiculous as it is, why would anyone want to spend their time reading this contrived shit?
Friday, March 28, 2003
04:40 p.m.
Woke up this morning
I was staring at the ceiling cracks
And roadmaps and highways and landscapes
I have seen, I have been
To places far and deep in my mind only to find
Comfort in Your strangeness
Of moving shadows when I call the wind by name
Rushing Firewater in the dark of a cloud
I have seen, I have been
To places far and deep in my mind only to find
Comfort in Your strangeness
We are slaves to the crimes we commit
In fits of passion
We shame, We are nothing
We are nothing but the dust on Your feet
Dying to be born again
Singing Ether Water Fire singing Earth singing Air
I have seen, I have been
To places far and deep in my mind only to find
Comfort in Your strangeness
Wednesday, March 19, 2003
09:04 a.m.
A lot of you -- and I won't mention any names but you know who you are -- have been complaining that I write a lot of cack on this thing. You bitch too much, you just aren't fun anymore. Bah. Suddenly I am the disobedient girlfriend who refuses to go down on her boyfriend despite hitting the three month relationship mark. So what if I've been emotional over a few things lately. Honestly, I feel that my social skills are deteriorating because I don't get out enough. All that's about to change anyhow so quit your whining.
Last night, my virginal friends and I set out for some coffee and cakes at this place called Cravings. Playing catch up with my friends is always something I've enjoyed. It's even better when it's just us girls. We love to gossip about each other's lives while throwing sardonic comments at each other. My friend Nicole is the ultimate tease, dating several men at a time but never putting out. She doesn't share much of herself with us as much as we do so I often wonder how she really is when she's with her boy toys. Apples, on the otherhand, is a different case altogether. This girl lives in fantasy land, daydreaming about these highly successful, powerful men. One day her Prince will come, she says. They'll serendipitously bump into each other at a grocery store and she will be in love forever, just like in the movies. Talk about having your head in the clouds.
And just to live up to the reputation, she begs us to go cruising in her current lust object's neighborhood so she can check out his house and see if he's home. So off we go, joyriding through the tree-lined suburban streets of Quezon City while she cooes and sighs over his peach and white wedding cake mansion. We yield to her high school-ish ways for a total of ten minutes -- parking the car outside his house -- before flooring the gas pedal and heading off for home.
We ended up staying at this folk bar for a night cap. Think 1960's - radical activism on guitar strings and a mic. It's a nice little bar where you can guzzle beer and eavesdrop on other people's conversations while swathed in cigarette smoke. We weren't really planning on watching anyone that evening but on the way home, we passed by My Brother's Mustache and decided to stop by and watch Joey Ayala. This man rocks. A brilliant composer-lyricist-performer, a multi-instrumentalist and arranger, a story-teller and stand-up comic, a poet-philosopher and occasional magazine columnist, I like him already. He is definitely going to be interviewed for Ayshiet.
For all my wit and all my wisdom, all my passion and all my power, there are certain things I simply can’t control. Perhaps I can’t even influence them. This is not a thought I find especially inspiring. Omnipotence may not appeal to everyone but it strikes a very dramatic cord in me. That’s why I find it so hard to walk away from a drawback or a difficulty. I just want to keep on trying, any way I can. Will my additional efforts make a difference today? Perhaps not. But I have to make them anyway. And who knows, maybe I'll get lucky...
Saturday, March 15, 2003
11:20 p.m.
Already, I can feel myself getting old. I look at the mirror each morning when I get home from work and I see how much I've aged. My skin has gone dry and sallow. My eyes are bloodshot and drawn. My muscles go into involuntary spasms because of fatigue. I wouldn't be surprised if my hair started falling out.
I decided to call in sick today. A little less than two months and work has finally caught up with me.
My soul is gaunt.
Thursday, March 13, 2003
07:26 p.m.
Oh, mirror in the sky
What is love
Can the child within my heart rise above
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides
Can I handle the seasons of my life
Well, I've been afraid of changing
'Cause I've built my life around you
But time makes you get bolder
Even children get older
And I'm getting older too
Wednesday, March 12, 2003
08:50 a.m.
It took a while but here I am again. Damn, I get no love from you people. But that's ok, we all have our own little lives to take care of. Anyway, I've been on a three-day break off work so I've been doing fuck all and enjoying my limited freedom. I think I enjoy my bed too much. I sleep like there's no tomorrow and I wake up when I please (usually at 2 am to eat breakfast).
At work, they offer Volunteer Time Out's for people who are on the verge of a mental breakdown. You literally take some time out from work for that day/shift/hour and either head home or sleep at the Break Room as soon as you feel a seizure coming on from saying "What City and State please?" over and over again. It works nicely since you aren't marked down for job abandonment. I managed to convince my Team Lead that I was up for a VTO :) Works for me when I get to stay home longer than I should.
My side projects are getting a lot of attention these days. Ayshiet has some brand spanking new articles for you to pore over when you're holed up and dumbed down at work. Have a read and post a comment. We need all the support we can get on this one seeing as we must've spent a good three hours on a trans-atlantic conference just to sort out management and deadline issues among the three of us. It's hard work so I need some feedback on this one, you know what I mean?
Summer is here and I got a few writing gigs at hand so things are rolling out nicely. An editor friend wants me to write an article on summer skin care AND a CD review for her beauty magazine so that's something to keep me busy for a few days. I'm not allowed to whine over the payment deal since they only shell out gift checks to all their writers. Is that even legal? It doesn't matter, I'm a literary whore anyway.
Since working for DA, I've developed a couple of minor complications. My left eyelid has a nervous twitch from the irregular sleeping patterns that I keep and I have a cut on my tongue that stings every time I talk. All that stuttering last week had me biting my tongue every few hours.
It's about 10.50 am where I am and it's been a total of two hours since I started writing this shit. Everything seems to be in slow motion right now. The music, the words, the thoughts are trickling in at an even slower pace. I have to go back to work tonight so maybe my head is misleading me to think that I have more time than I actually do have. I have to finish that skin care article today before I head to work because I really want to sleep tomorrow instead of worrying about that damn article on a Thursday. 'Sides, I have to work AND plan for my friend Paolo's graduation hurrah pull-out party this weekend.
I've never had a friend request that I plan his party for him but I agreed to do it for Pao since he's such a great kid. I can't believe he's all done with school. I met him when he was a sophomore and I was a senior at college. I took him under my wing immediately. He was such a brat when I first met him. Didn't care about anyone else or anything else except himself, had no existing relationships whatsoever with his parents or his younger sister. I'm so proud of him because he's grown up to be such a mature, socially adept and responsible young man. He's had his moments but I am always in awe at how far his perspective has widened after all these years. I think i learn more from him now than he ever did from me.
Friday, March 7, 2003
08:07 p.m.
I don't know who I am anymore for saying this.
We were talking about the intricacies of writing memoirs and it led to a pretty heated debate involving everything from online journaling (ah-ha!) to how creative can you get before it becomes fictitious? Anyway, what got me was several realizations during class. Don't write memoirs (personal essays, creative journals, etc.) in hopes of preserving your memories. You cannibalize your own life for parts and in the process lose the memories. It's the opposite of what I always believed I was doing. for example, say you spend a couple of days writing an extremely amazing paragraph, or a witty paraphrase, etc. Already, you've spent more time writing about it than you did living it. The intensity of the writing process blurs out the actual event, and after you finish you no longer remember anything BUT the writing.
Memory is insubstantial. New memories keep replacing the old. My latest obsession of trying to take as many pictures as possible in "hopes" that I'm recording the present only leave me with one-sided, one-dimensional viewpoints. Again, what I was hoping I was going to accomplish vastly differed from what actually was being accomplished. It's like I've transferred possession of my memory to my snapshots so I no longer need to remember the incident. But then, I can't remember anything from those times except from my wretched collection of JPG's I've stored oh-so carefully on my hard drive. The quirk of her smile, the ripple in her dress, the gleam in the water, forever immortalized and unchangeable. It's a paradox in itself, a fox chasing its own tail, mending circle. But I seek discontinuity. And through it all, it almost makes me want to stop taking pictures for some reason. Basically, I don't think I can continue journaling with the same fierceness or naivity that I used to have.
Journaling is much like raising a child -- sheer willpower just won't do. If you have a little baby crying in the middle of the night, and if you depend on willpower, the baby will starve. You do it out of love. Willpower = weak. Love = strong. There's no need to whip yourself out of bed to care for the infant. You go to the baby out of love for that particular baby. As is the same way we go to our journals and write.
Wednesday, March 5, 2003
05:05 p.m.
How hard can it be to deliver "How may I help you in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania?" Not that difficult, I would imagine but for some strange reason my first official day at my night job has proved to be an evening of bungles and fumbles as I struggled with my delivery and speech clarity. I felt like such a retard. And to think that I've been training for a total of five weeks and passed every speech test with flying colors. Yet there I was, mic in place, fingers poised over the keyboard and I can't even properly deliver "I'm showing North State High School in Schuylkill." Fucking hell, it's such a shame that I can't commiserate with the callers, I would've charmed the pants off every single one for every call I bungled. It's not fair because I would have callers laughing for a good fifteen seconds every time I stuttered and all I can do is say "I do apologize for that." Good Lord, I've been brainwashed to act like a big pussy.
Things are kinda rough at the moment. Work and lack of sleep prevent me from doing all the things I'd like to do. I wouldn't be complaining so much if I was making a lot of money but with creditors hounding my ass and utilities to pay, I am left with nothing. So if you don't hear from me in a while, that can only mean one thing - I ran out of money and didn't get to pay my bills.
If you're in a generous mood, donations are appreciated.
Sunday, March 2, 2003
05:13 a.m.
Once in a house on a hill
A boy got angry
He broke into my heart
For a day and a night
I stayed beside him
Until I had no hope
So I came down the hill
Of course I was hurt
But then I started to think
It shouldn't hurt me to be free
It's what I really need
To pull myself together
But if it's so good being free
Would you mind telling me
Why I don't know what to do with myself
There's a bar by the dock
Where I found myself
Drinking with this man
He offered me a cigarette
And I accepted
'Cause it's been a very long time
As it burned 'till the end
I thought of the boy
No one could ever forget
Friday, February 28, 2003
06:38 p.m.
At work today, I suddenly realized that I seem to like being around guys more than I do being around girls. Is it because I've been around girls all my life and I'm making up for all the lost time and missed opportunities? Like that's any news right? I don't know, I just like being around guys. Is it the attention? Maybe. Then again, its not like my guy friends fawn and dote over me so that can't really be it. I think it's because the ones I hang out with, most of them anyway, aren't fussy at all. They're game for anything, no frills, so not high maintenance. Not that I'm saying girls aren't but I only know a handful who are ready for anything. But I'm digressing. What I'm really trying to say is this, I think I might actually be a bit of a tomboy (Surprise, surprise you might say. Bah.) and all of it has something to do with how I was raised. I have two older brothers and I think Mom was surprised to finally have a girl, she didn't have a clue where to start. My sister's lucky because when it was her turn, my Mom knew better. I was sort of the experimental whatever-are-we-going-to-do-about-you child. It's not that I don't appreciate it because I really do, I just wish sometimes maybe my relationship with my Mom could've been a bit better. It's sad because I don't think I really know what I'm missing. And when that happens, when you don't know what you're actually missing, you don't go around looking for it.
Wednesday, February 26, 2003
03:42 p.m.
Even in my sleep, my dreams haunt me. I found myself sitting in a van with a seasoned Filipino comedian. I don't know why he was there or why it had to be him. The only explanation I could think of is that this man kept me company while growing up. As soon as I came home from school, I would spend my afternoons watching his shows on TV for an hour or two. Why waste such a perfectly good afternoon napping when I could do something else more productive? He always did remind me of my dad.
I found myself crying when I woke up. He told me that he had to give up a lot of things and work twice as hard to make his dreams come true. I was crying because I wanted the same for myself. I promised myself that this year is going to be life-defining for me. I will do whatever it takes to achieve all my objectives.
All of a sudden everything seems to be happening at once. Well, I say all of a sudden, but of course that’s really always the story of your life. When is there not a lot on your plate? Right now though, there’s an additional sense of urgency – an edge that’s intense even by your standards. You are beginning to realise that an elusive objective might just be attainable after all. You can see, though, that to make this happen you are going to have to work hard and cover a lot of ground in a short time. You are excited and nervous at once. Don’t be. Just be determined. /cainer
Friday, February 21, 2003
02:04 p.m.
Maybe I just want to fly, want to live, I don't want to die.
Maybe I just want to breath, maybe I just don't believe.
Maybe you're the same as me?
We see things they'll never see.
Maybe I will never be all the things that I'd like to be But now is not the time to cry,
Now's the time to find out why.
I feel you're the same as me,
We'll see things they'll never see.
Wednesday, February 19, 2003
01:41 p.m.
All my life, I missed a boy. And he never came.
Monday, February 17, 2003
08:08 p.m.
Here we go, I'm hanging out in Camden
Drinking with my girlfriends on a Saturday night
This guy says, "Come and meet my girlfriend"
She's sitting in the corner looking rather uptight
So I say "Hello" and I try to be nice
But I see he's feeling itchy
Trying to play us off each other
"Girls, girls, please don't fight"
(you get the picture)
Hey you, the muscles and the long hair
Telling me that women are superior to men
Most guys just don't appreciate this
You just try convincing me you're better than them
So he talks for hours 'bout his sensitive soul
And his favorite subject is sex
I don't think he even really wanted it
But, Christ, this guy's too much
(I wanna tell him)
I'm as human as the next girl, I like a bit of flattery
But I don't need your practiced lines,
your school of charm mentality so
Save your breath for someone else
and credit me with something more
When it comes to men like you, I know the score,
I've heard it all before
(Here comes the next one)
Blondie was with me for a summer
He flirted like a maniac but I wouldn't bite
I'm weak and he was so persistent
He only had to have me 'cause I put up a fight
Oh God, the boy had such an ego
He liked to talk about himself all day and all night
You think you're such a ladykiller
But you were nothing special
'til you turned out the light
When he's nice to me he's just nice to himself
And he's watching his reflection
I'm a five foot mirror for adoring himself
Here's seven years' bad luck
(I wanna tell him)
When you say you love me
you're just flattering your vanity
But I don't need your practiced lines,
your school of charm mentality so
Save your breath for someone else
and credit me with something more
When it comes to men like you,
I know the score, I've heard it all before
You're such a ladykiller,
always on a winner, thinking that you're in there
Oh boy, you're such a ladykiller,
super sexy mister, call it what you will,
You think you're such a ladykiller,
I just bet you're still there, posing in the mirror
Hey girls, he's such a ladykiller,
but we know where he's coming from
and we know the score.