Domesticities

1. Yesterday, I cooked chicken soup enough to feed a small orphanage. I handed over a big bowl to the next door neghbor, but I was still left with a vast amount of the soup that made me think about Africa.

I had to end up forcing everything down my throat, images of scrawny Somalian kids in my head, like a UN PowerPoint presentation. I felt less guilt, though, because I didn't let the food spoil.

I need, no, I wish I can afford my own refrigerator.

2. When I first saw my new apartment, I would hardly call it love at first sight. The walls are dark pink (though the landlady insisted they are lavender), the toilet lacks a flush, and the apartment is a little too conveniently located--aside from a church, a self-help laundry shop, pharmacy, bakery, and water-refilling station a few steps away from my door, there is also a mortuary very, very nearby. Some afternoons, I'll wake up suddenly because a there's a funeral procession, and Hindi kita Malilimutan (I will Never Forget You) is on. It never fails to cheer the spirit.

In the end, I took the apartment because of the cheap rent, the tiled floor, the window looking out into the street, and the double-lock doors. I'll be moving out soon, but in the meantime, I will have to bear with the afternoon dirges.

3. Leon is dying. My plant was doing fine, and then after his fifth flower wilted, he entered a depression phase that rivaled mine. His leaves yellowed and then browned, and he seemed to made up his mind not to bloom again. I thought he was going back in the closet.

Curiously enough, he got over his emotional phase, almost at the same time I got over mine. I asked Leon what made him unhappy, but he wouldn't tell me. Like me, my plant likes to keep things to himself once he's already okay.

Plea for help: My copy of The Hobbit is gone. Gone! I was dusting my books yesterday, and I found out it's gone because I want all my Tolkien books to be arranged beside each other in the shelf. As usual, I might have lent it to someone but I could not remember who. If you're the one who borrowed the book from me, please let me know as soon as possible. A prize awaits you if you text me within the next 24 hours.

Back on track

Almost two years ago, I was perfectly fine. I was taking a full load at school, was occasionally writing news for the student paper, was earning a very considerable five-digit salary every other Friday, was managing to read at least one book a weak, and was washing my own laundry. Then I became a bit too naive and tried new things I knew little about. I think I was too confident that I will ace everything I set my mind into doing. I was younger and I was still used to being fairly successful at things I want to do. Of course I was wrong.

There is a scene in the movie Juno where Brenda, Juno's mom, tongue-lashes the "ultrasound technician" who says it's a good thing Juno is giving up the baby for adoption.

"What is your job title exactly," Brenda asks the clueless troglodyte.

"I'm an ultrasound technician, ma'am," says the ultrasound technician.

Then Brenda delivers her knock-out, kick-ass line: "Well, I'm a nail technician and I think it's best we both stick to what we know."

I reckon it's about time I take Bren's cue and stick again to what I know best right now: dividing my spare time into novels and writing desultorily on my blog/s. Then maybe, maybe I'll be perfectly fine again.

PS. I'm sorry about the new photo. I wanted a new picture, but the last phase of my cosmetic surgery isn't done yet.

Questions for Jon Favreau, 27

A few questions, Favs, if you don't mind.

1. Why did you not have a more decent picture in Time 100?
2. Who took that unfortunate Facebook photograph of you and a cardboard Hillary Clinton?
3. I guess you will bump into each other very often now in the White House?
4. Are you aware that a lot of people, blind-googling your name, mistake you for the director of Iron Man? :D
5. What's the real score between you and that Ali Campoverdi?

Of Bedouins, blogging, and boredom

I feel strange: sedated and disinterested, like a bored dairy cow. I have a suspicion that if I wake up and find myself, curiously garbed as a Bedouin, inside a tent in a North African desert, the whole incident would hardly throw me into a fit of panic and surprise. This is a very dangerous thought, of course, but not necessarily entirely undesirable. Nomadic lifestyles have their exotic charm.

I am mildly envious of others here in the blogosphere who always write about something. Someone wrote about suicide (again), one on trade barriers and the bovine epidemic, and another on wasted romance. I am almost tempted to write about the possible connections of all three discourses. But all I could blog about is either my half-done posts or my interminable boredom. Ho-hum.

A blogger wrote about an advice given by a common friend, Melane. I wonder why during these sorts of times in our lives, we always feel inspired to invoke her sagely advice.

She told me more than once before: Pinili mo naman yan.