i know i've not been diligent in posting here and a lot of things have happened that i would have written about, if i had the time.

well, not just the time to write, but also the focus to write. i've been distracted by a million things since i got back. good things, new things, nice things.

but right now am blogging here from seattle's best at boni hi-street. my most favoritest spot in the metro (i already said that before). how did i get here?

1. i wake at 630 to go to the DOJ early. to see this prosecutor who is so difficult to catch.
2. i reach the DOJ before 8. i have breakfast from mcdo at the supreme court courtesy of B and H -- classmates who work at the sc. they keep me company while i call the DOJ to see if mr. elusive has gotten in.
3. i speak with mr. elusive's secretary instead and suck up to her because she is by nature MASUNGET. by 930 i leave na.
4. i go home to the condo to take a nap (a perk of living so close to the office). i drift off and my momma calls and tells me there is military movement in makati. i hear panic in her voice and for a moment i think there is shaking in my building (reminiscent of the earthquake just the other day)
5. i go to work, pretend, pretend, then happily leave after the boss has left. besides, the office manager says we could leave na. my building a possible target. it has always been, and will always be.
6. i go to my car and realize that it's thursday. car coding.
7. i say fuck it and challenge myself to put on the charm if a traffic enforcer accosts me.
8. i end up here at hi street. i have 3 hours to kill til the car coding is lifted.
9. i text my best friend that i'm here. she is also here!
10. i see her, borrow her laptop, and wait for her, while she has a meeting.
11. i type this. damn its cold here.

am back at work. it was scary to come in. it really was.

as soon as sat on my chair, i called up this particular lawyer, a miss that i really like-- but she was not in yet. i called another and requested that she come inside my room because i wanted to see a familiar face. there was something i was stressing about but thankfully nothing bad happened while i was gone.

+++

before coming to makati last night, i played badminton with my sister and her officemates at ABS-CBN. i used to play with them on occasions, but not recently. of course i like saying am so much better at badmin now, and it showed last night.

playing again on wednesday, and am super looking forward to it.

i think i have enough coins to complete this post.

i have reviewed what i typed last night and realized that there are lots of grammar errors in it. i didn't have time to edit but as i've said, i wanted to preserve what was.

anyway - i also forgot to say that i am in melbourne. of all the cities i've visited i think melbourne is the most liveable for me. but i'm going home tomorrow and in a big way i think am excited to come home.

back to reality, back to the daily grind. but at least i'll be playing badminton on sunday. and monday. (happy thought)

finally, i think i'm missing someone.

i have less than 5 minutes 20 seconds to finish this post and "publish".

i hear the rain --- mad and noisy -- outside, after i get inside the hotel. i choose to drop my 1 dollar coin into the machine to give me 6 minutes to access the internet.

i want to write this now, because i don't want to forget. i want to capture the fun and craziness of tonight when i had a date with myself.

i watched the phantom of the opera tonight. i was excited to wear my newly-bought leather trenchcoat -- it's authentic and expensive but it doesn't matter. i have a leather trenchcoat. the temperature here is 5 degrees and i need to keep warm.

after the show which was great and made me cry because it reminded me of something, or somebody, i walked out of the theater. soon it started to rain and so removed my new pair of shoes placed them in my pocket and walked for about 2 km home. i am hungry but have no Aus money for food or taxi. but i have 1400 usdollars in my pocket!

countdown

in 105 minutes i will be oldER.

got a call from a private number which i knew was my good friend and classmate J's, who was calling from the u.s. she has never failed to call me on my birthday ever since she migrated. nice. she would be my first birthday caller for this year.

i'm obviously at work. just came from badmin and am in my sweaty outfit. haven't had dinner and i've 2 major pleadings to clear tonight. again, tomorrow is my birthday and even though i am on leave i would have to be here because i have 2 pleadings for filing tomorrow. told my assisting lawyers i'd only be here in the morning (read: before lunch). i intend to have my nails done (gotta gotta gotta) and buy stuff for my trip on friday. and maybe receive a surprise. maybe not.

birthday loot

this is the list of gifts i've so far received for my birthday, in the order that i got them:

1. selected poems of e.e. cummings (1923-1958) [from B]




2. the art of seduction [from B] - haven't read it. so all this time it has only been my natural charm that has got you hooked. :)















3. kodak easyshare 8.0MP digital camera [from my sister] - imagine my surprise when i got this. my sister is galante in giving gifts. i'm so lucky to be her younger sister.



4. two pairs of necklace and earrings -- accessories [from my mom]


5. lush massage bar [from BFF]
am a massage addict, i'm a skilled masahista.


no other gifts so far. my birthday is a little over 24 hours away, send your gifts now.

dear B,

am so sorry if i offended you.

me.

lunch without food, can be very tiring.

well meaning meddling

i walk into the room, expecting to see the usual business minded insurance underwriter. she looks up at me and i am surprised to see a woman who looks every bit singaporean. i wonder if she is filipino. she greets me in english and shakes me hand. i decide she is not filipino.

the interview goes on until we reach the part where i am asked of my birthday. i tell her it's next week and she greets me. she assumes i am married and i say no. she says, i hope you don't mind my asking, but do you have a boyfriend?

instinctively i say "yes."

and 2 seconds later i say "noooo." i don't have a boyfriend.

now i wonder why i said yes, when obviously i don't. it's a mystery.

but i digress. the point is, she picks on my job as the reason why am not married or don't even have a boyfriend. she tells me i should leave my room once in a while or else...

i resent this part. i resent that my job is always being blamed for my singlehood. why blame my job? why not blame me? am a neurotic, complicated, un-simple woman. i know what i want and usually it's not gettable. when it's totally off-limits. the people who want me, i want them only when i see signs of flight.

i tell BFF i need to see a shrink and she says there's no need for it. i ask our friend who has a ph. d. to counsel me but he refuses to as his own life is not in order. so much for free counseling.

seriously, aside from counseling, i've considered just going into the nunnery. i used to pray a lot and fear authority. i could be a great nun. i sing. like maria.

the beyonce experience

on the gravel, in our high heeled shoes and office clothes, J and I looked moneyed and corporate, but ultra uncool for not having tickets to go beyond the walls that separated the legit audience from the unticketed us. it was her idea to go and listen to beyonce and it was my last minute idea to buy tickets anyway and see her. she said ok but it was too late. we didn't know where to buy and didn't have the energy to look. (when we were at hi street, i was calling out "scalpers?" every once in a while. maybe not the wisest thing to do, but hey i like walking on hi street, which, is my most favorite place in the metro.)

anyway, we waited for beyonce to come out and say hello manila or hello philippines. the wail of the crowd signaled the start of the event. the air was thick with beyonce's deep voice. inspite of the wall and the tiny screen flickering from the distance, it felt like i was actually part of the beyonce experience.

comments:
1. i was disappointed that beyonce hardly ever addressed the crowd.
2. my officemate said that, despite no. 1, beyonce was amazing -- sexy, gyrating yet able to maintain the good quality of her singing voice
3. the makati policewoman manning the area i was at had a really cool uniform on. i want to wear that to my office costume party.

we heard beyonce, bumped into people we knew, got surrounded by biker dudes being trailed by skateboard dudes. we had dinner at texas grill (?) that served yukky food. their burger was expensive but bland. even their fries tasted weird. never going back there.

last night was fun, maybe because i was with my BFF (best friend forever -- haha) at my most favorite place, and she was telling me the good news that she was going to transfer to a company based in makati (finally!), or maybe because beyonce's presence was electrifying, or maybe i was just happy at the prospect that my life is so open like the football field anything could happen. like sitting in at a class where the teacher is uber cool.

okay that last sentence above is totally misplaced hence you won't get it. but i do.

last night i had that moment when i thought:

i love my single i-can-do-whatever-the-^%@#-i-want life.

in my happiness i texted some friends who made the following comeback:

put that on a bumper sticker. i'll buy.
isn't it nice to be an adult?
not sure how to respond. may gusto ba tayong patayin or something?

exactly the opposite. i don't want to kill nobody. on the contrary, i want to love love love.

+++

before going to bed, i chanced upon e.e. cummings (again. i read him in college):

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

heard that neil gaiman is coming to subic third week of november. i'm not a fan but i'm curious enough to see what the fuss is about. i've seen stardust, have read some of gaiman's graphic novels and even coraline, and know that he looks like a rock star. it'd be cool to see him but maybe not when i know that everybody who's more worthy to see him would be there.

so i tell X that i find it weird that gaiman's here whenever am not here. last time he was here, i was in japan. this time around i'll be in australia. X tells me maybe gaiman and I are like clark kent and superman. we could be one and the same person.

cool.

being busy and forgetting

tonight i was made to draft an urgent motion that is supposed to be filed early tomorrow. writing under pressure distracted me from what goes on around and what does not, and after i've finished my draft, that was the only time i thought about what i have found myself always thinking about. now as for when that would finally be wiped out from my thoughts, is a question i want answered.

you are my sweetest downfall

driving home last saturday night, we heard this on the radio and i couldn't help but gush. i've long heard this song but never really got the chance to listen to it completely.

while i crawled on edsa it felt like i was in a music video (ha-ha!) and that this was my song. never mind what the song is saying, never mind that the singer is russian. the melody is haunting and so are the lines "i loved you first, i loved you first".

a few hours later, he texted to say that he loved me first. how true, indeed.

dear sean,

it's 530 a.m. and i've not gotten any sleep at all. partly my fault because i indulged in a late night munch with a friend, even though i knew that my work for you was waiting here at the office.

have you gotten the scanned copy of the pleading i e-mailed you? did you know it took me more than an hour to figure out how the scanner worked, and another hour for me to break up the file and further reduce its size so that i could e-mail the copy to you?

am worried about what you may say about my draft memorandum. it's a complete rehash of our petition, and even though i wanted to add something even more fantastic in it, i dared not since opposing counsel simply changed the title of its comment to memorandum. in other words, i wanted to answer his lousy pleading with the fantabulous pleading that you have already seen. more importantly, it's halloween, and while everybody else is partying or sleeping, i'm here at work, trying not to get spooked.

anyway, you replied already. you seemed happy to hear from me. i hope you will still be happy when you read the memo.

gotta go, sean, sun will be out soon and i've not slept.

happy long weekend (though not so in the u.s. where you're at),
me