As Is

I started my Friday morning off with some well-deserved sleep. When I woke up, I tidied up the room so I pass off some physical activity. Then I read the assigned articles from school that counts mental exercise. After a long shower, I drive to Ortigas to pick-up D. The traffic wasn’t an expected rainy Friday night bumper-to-bumper. It’s easily endured when you’re listening to Kaskade’s Chillout Sessions.

Since I’m inclined to eat healthier we order the Bangus Belly and a side dish of laing at Oyster Boy. We had a drink with S. and F. I manage to limit myself to three bottles. D. and I go home and Friday night turns out to be something like a perfectly blended fruit shake after a swim on a hot day.

Despite less than four hours of sleep, my mind felt at its sharpest during the Saturday mornig Philosophy of Science class. And when you’re in a hung-over train of thought during recitation, it becomes unstoppable nothing can just ram into it. And just when you think you’ve made an acceptable, or a fine analysis, someone just might have been less amused or even annoyed. But what the fuck anyway, that’s what we’re in class for. If you’re too intellectually indolent to let any nincompoop thought pass in class, then that nincompoop idea stands. And just like how it is in the world, nincompoop ideas that pass, prevail as truths. Geez. Wherever the hell did that come from?

I met D. for lunch and with a lot of nostalgia we stop by UM to see if there are pirated CDs. The bets I bought are: Chicane’s “Far From the Maddening Crowds,” Chicane’s 2006 sessions, Snow Patrol’s “Eye’s Open.”

We also went to CCP to renew our subscription for this year’s season of plays by Tanghalang Pilipino. We caught the Virgin Lab Fest that same night. The teaser reads:
“See how Dory, a call center agent, can go to have a crack at the country’s premier literary competition. Up to the challenge, albeit mentally challenged herself, one can catch a glimpse of what goes on in the minds of aspiring winners, even the most delusional of them.”

It was very entertaining and promising for a lab fest play. But the protagonist’s Ruffa Mae Quinto antics are just too unoriginal, and some of the punch lines have been too overused.

Before the play, we shared a seafood hot pot and a tuna and shrimp bento at Rai Rai Ken. It's still fatty but it’s in a smaller quantity, and I’ve managed to deceive myself that I’ve made a smarter food choice since I was able to abstain from beef and pork. If ever this is a delusion, it made me feel better anyway. Besides, weekends are the only time I get to eat something relatively yummy.

After the dinner and the play, we play some poker at home, treat ourselves to a few glasses of wine, and turn in before dawn breaks.

And then it’s Sunday. There will be work again later but we let love blossom in a mid-July afternoon. There is some time left, and as if devouring a delicious dessert, I read a back-issue of the New Yorker.

Then I wrote, this is how I’d like my life to be.

The Measure of Demands (in 100 words)

This is the quantitative measurement of my life's most immediate demands. Go to the drugstore for a week's supply of Versant 5mg (to be taken once daily). Go to the grocery for: 400ml of shampoo (so I won't have to buy another bottle for a month), 40ml of anti-perspirant (the one that smells slightly like Armani, to match what's left of the 34 fl. oz. of Armani), 160g of toothpaste (whitening 12-hour antibacterial protection). Go to the bank for gas money (roughly 600 bucks per week, 13-14 liters to the tank).

If kept simple enough, life's demands are pretty manageable.

My Life is a Blank Page (in 100 words)

Today, my life is a blank page. I have the slightest idea how this story would unfold, so I somehow let it automatically chronicle itself. The world always has something awe-inspiring, something significant, something terrible, and there's always, always something boring. Suspected terrorists blow up trains in Mumbai. My blood pressure shoots up to 190/120. There's a strong chance of a stroke, yet I scarcely feel it now. Malacañang bribed bishops. There’s never enough time to prevail over boredom. And she told me I shouldn't be afraid. Life is blank page, but at least I barely feel that it's empty.