norweig

Can’t wait to go to Baguio. I’ve been itching to go up there again and smell the cold pollution. It’s an annual ritual for me: walking the crowded Session Road and its capillaries, dining in coffee shops and eateries, wearing three layers of clothing even when it’s hot, taking less expensive cab rides, shopping for coffee beans at the Baguio City Wet and Dry Market, and downing alcohol like there’s no tomorrow. And I’m sure that’s the least of it.

In my eager anticipation to be reunited with this cold, dying city (at least, according to TV Patrol) which I have always adored since childhood, I randomly sift the pieces of my broken life for fond (or traumatic) memories of Baguio. With Louis Armstrong singing "Stardust" in the background, naturally. :o)

My favorite recent Baguio trip, of course, is the one when I went there alone and spent eleven days prowling around. That’s two or three years ago, I think. I remember buying a bottle of vodka and drinking to death while watching late night television. Waking up the following day I realized that I didn’t have drinking water in the house so I ate oatmeal with vodka for my very late breakfast.

I also remember getting an old copy of The Great Gatsby in the middle of the Baguio Wet & Dry Market, sandwiched by piles of Tagalog romance novellas. With Robert Redford and Mia Farrow (movie version cast) on the cover, I bought my precious copy for only P15.00.

There’s also one time when I joined some human rights summit held in Brentwood. I shared a room with three punks from the South. They were dressed up for the occasion: black shirts, leather bracelets, tattoos, body piercings and skull sculptures in their rings. We had peaceful co-existence—they smoked pot while I read my book—until they took a pee on my bed. I guess they resented the fact that, among all the people sharing the room, I was the only one who had strong feelings for taking baths. There was a great hygienic abyss between us, so the room-sharing thing would never have worked out.

I can't wait to go back there.

(Photo: Lower Session Road, taken last October 2004)

pain and suffering

Last night my heart was hurting like hell. Well, not exactly my heart. It was my lower esophagus actually. My digestive acids went crazy again and it was just impossible to sleep as I had to get up every five minutes for temporary relief. I remembered putting my stash of my favorite antacid in my bag but did not find anything after almost an hour. At half past twelve I searched for medicine bottles in the kitchen like a maniac. No luck. Frustrated, I drove to the nearest drugstore to look for an antacid the size of a basketball. As I feared, Mercury Drug ran out of Kremil-S chewable tablets. I went to another drugstore. No pink pills. I settled for another antacid that suspiciously looked like a deformed mothball.

(More than a year ago, I searched for “heartburn” in Google. Medical websites cited the usual causes of heartburn and to my distress I realized that I brought everything on myself [my perennial heartburn, that is]. Weight gain, check. Ill-fitting trousers, check. Lack of exercise, check. Spicy food, check. Oily food, check. Alcohol, check. Chocolates, check. Cigarettes, check. Coffee, check. I thought that the solution to my digestive problems may not be antacids—the solution is to become dead.)

bakery in cubao

Took this photo months ago (I think) using an idiot's camera. It's a bakery across the grimy Thunder Station disco.

the mafia

The office beside ours is ran by Italians. Nobody in the building knows exactly what they’re up to. Not the building caretaker, not even the gossiping drycleaning girls on the ground floor. For weeks I thought nobody occupied their space because I’ve never actually seen anyone come out through those one-way mirror glass doors. That is, until last week, when they started popping up all over the place: smoking in the hallway, talking Italian in their mobile phones and smiling in the elevator. Offhand, I think of two possibilities: they’re either cautiously hiding illegal activites or secretly cooking pasta to match Bellini’s.

more penguin photos

Photos taken at the Penguin Cafe, September 3, 2005. Coffee and dessert with the youthful Boom Enriquez (in yellow) and Panch Alcaraz (in a very weird candid pose) after a day at the Book Fair.

penguin cafe photo

Photo taken at the Penguin Cafe, September 3, 2005.

distancia amigo

On my way to work this morning I was driving behind this yellow truck (not the basurero). Painted on its tail were the words "Do Not Follow Me.....Because I'm lost too." And right below those lines, "Distancia Amigo." Laughing to death, I drove past the truck and went to work.

rooftop musings

Today marks my first month as Managing Editor in a small publishing house that specializes in customized magazines. Well, they initially hired me as Junior Writer because, as my boss describes it, my writing is "raw." But three days ago, my boss referred to me as his Managing Editor--not a problem for me, really, because it could only mean that he's starting to trust me more.

My guess is that every workplace is horrible and it's just up to people to choose which hell they'd like to go through. I'm glad though that after a month in this job I've never had any thoughts about leaving or jumping off the window. I attribute it to pure luck that I have a reasonably supportive boss, a smart smoking buddy, cooperative officemates and free parking. Most importantly, for the first time in a long time, I am challenged by what I do.

My only problem now is: I'm running out of corporate(-sounding) jargon.

zzzzz

Lately I've been having near regular sexual nightmares.







I wonder why.