Braising my Beef

grr. my blood has evaporated from its boiling point. i am officially as stark raving mad as jessica zafra (but i am a lot prettier than her, in my opinion.)

anyway, i was set to see my tita to give a package to her to send to my mom. unfortunately, i had to deal with her stupid cousin who just conveniently didnt call me so we dont meet up, even if she was 10 blocks away from where i was. ewan ko ba!?!?! kasi naman, hinde makapag isip ng tama. and really, THEY THINK 10 BLOCKS IS FAAAR in new york city.

this is the reason why i hate dealing with graying suburbians!!!! aaaaargh.

i was planning to mail it to her but judging from this kind of behavior, i really wont even bother! its too much of a pain to deal with. also, there’s this nagging thought that they might make up some silly excuse about the package not getting to its destination. oh the hassles and the annoyance! argh. i swear, im not going to grow old like that.

also, i hate the fact that there are people i know who can actually go back to living with their parents at will. oh shit, I DO HAVE THAT OPTION! mwahahaha. okay, lets do the countdown again… 23 days and four years.

on a lighter note, i went out last night with dex, melvin and mark (whom i just met — dex’ roomie) to go to the pushpin graphic yearbook launch. wow. i saw milton glaser and paula scher in person (but i did not speak to them.) thanks to melvin, these names now have a face attached to them. ive only seen their names on design annuals and credits. of course i didnt have an invite, and with gatecrashing comes free booze.

melvin did have one, after all, he’s one of them AIGA members. that one organization that i would want to belong to. it was painful of sorts, you know. i was there looking at pages and pages of prints that shoulda, woulda, coulda…

i keep telling myself that i cant hack the graphic design job again. really, this all makes me too sad.

and then i tell myself, its not too late to go back and try out my career with baby and coco again. its just 2 years of hiatus.

then there’s living with mommy dearest. still, i havent come to terms with this one, but i know it wont take much. maybe, i will just throw caution to the wind and jump on it.

it sounds fun and cushy. getting rid of my apartment wont be that hard either.

on a bad day, the last thing you need is someone asking you for directions on how to get to anywhere around new york city.

this much i know by walking around midtown manhattan on a rush hour and being harassed by jaw dropped tourists looking up at the tall buildings. after living in the city that never sleeps for almost two years, i think i know my wonderful midtown by heart.

on a particularly bad day, i was crossing park avenue on 49th street going towards the waldorf astoria. one particularly jovial old guy with a british accent smiled at me and asked me smack in the middle of crossing the street, "hi, do you know how to get to the airport?"

i looked very harassed and very untrustworthy of directions that i looked more lost than he was, and said "which airport are you going to?"

he told me he was going to JFK and that he didnt have many bags and he was wondering if there was a faster and cheaper way to get to the airport. i automatically thought of the airtrain jfk because i love that thing but telling him to get on the E train on 53rd and 5th was too much of a hassle, if he was coming from the waldorf. so i told him, "i think there are shuttle buses that go to the airport from the grand central, which is a couple of blocks from your hotel and is a quarter of your actual cabfare."

and he said, "oh yeah. that’s good then. thanks, luv!"

off he went with his shopping bag of gifts to his opulent accomodation, and i walked towards 53rd and lexington for my train with a big smile on my face.

it never crossed my mind that strangers can lift my spirits. thanks, luv!

as a child, i hated good friday. it was the time when all the channels broadcasted everything that was about the catholic faith. it even went to the point of getting the noontime shows to have "lenten special" dramas instead of the garden variety singing and dancing. (if you cant remember, it was tito vic and joey having this mini telenovela about repentance.)

then came cable. i no longer hated good friday because of tv. i had hbo, cinemax and the discovery channel to occupy my time. also, the malls eventually opened, i guess mr. henry sy, the tantocos and the gokongweis figured out that the days reserved for reflecting is not really used by everyone to go to church, but instead to go out of town and have some sun, sand and sin.

then i started doing my own sun sand sans sin because i barely had enough time to sleep with the jobs i held in manila. it was the official time when my fone wont ring and clients begging me to see their new ceiling or their new menu board. it was pure bliss.

the united states does not observe good friday, and if you want to or have to, you do it on your own. i didnt observe it last year, and this year i decided to do so. i took off work at 12nn and went to church for a bit, to take the guilt off, i guess.

after which, i went window shopping on 5th avenue. oh the abstinence! really, i restrained myself from buying anything on that street!!! although i did try on a necklace that i was getting myself for my birthday, but that’s not buying. it was just trying it on for size.

then i did some groceries and then slept. yeah. my first real siesta on a workday. it was good.

somehow, i feel hypocritical for pushing to observe the holiday to my boss, but having to squeeze vacation days off him just makes it all worth it.

back in college, lyle told me that the possibility of having genius children is greater when the mom gets pregnant between the ages of 22-24 and the dad from 22-26. i cant remember the age range he told me, but lee tells me that the woman’s maximum age is 27 and the guy’s maximum age is 29.

my birthday is coming up in less than a month and somehow i am dealing with the fear of my tick tock biological clock (and i have one more year to use that chance of having a boy or girl genius). in reality, my big worry is the fact that ive almost crossed my "mid twenties" and im crawling into my "late twenties."

in any rate, lee doesnt worry about her tick tock biological clock because of her son — and yes she and her hubby was in that genius children age range.

also. there’s the thirty and flirty dilemma of jill to think of. i havent seen a gynecologist in a long time and i hope and pray that im far from having POF.

then there’s being an old maid… well, they all say, its too early to worry about this…

but if my mother is ever so slightly hinting that she’s hooking me up with her friends’ nephews, i think its time to get a wee bit worried.

oh well.

why am i here?

i have relocated my ass to new york in pursuit of the proverbial greener pasture. i say that it is proverbial because in spite of the fact that i do live here and comfortably enough, i still think that manila is the better place to be.

after living like a crash test dummy in a rollercoaster ride for almost two years, i have enough of everything disastrous to accept the failure of living in the land of milk and honey.

first off, i dont have any ties here in new york that really bind me to stay here. my immediate family is all back in manila. im thinking, i probably wont be thinking about going back if everyone was here.

secondly, i dont have any responsibility to provide a better future for anyone else except myself. a lot of people think that my real future is here in the united states, only because my salary affords me to rent my own apartment share. actually, its the only thing it can afford. it cant afford any type of investment, nor could it afford a second hand car.

thirdly, my job is miserable. dont even suggest to me to get another one because my papers are tied to this one.

and lastly, im a ball of loneliness and depression. negative as it may sound, the idea of leaving the big apple gives me that endorphin boost. i have no intentions of packing my bags until i turn 30, nor speak in absolute and final terms. a lot of things can happen between now and four years later that may change my mind. oddly enough, it actually makes me look forward to turning 30.

and im barely 26.

so really, what is the purpose of living in the second best city in the world if the only thing that makes you proud of yourself is something that you could give up in the blink of an eye?

i dont know. and all i could think of is snuggling beside frusty.

lee’s son has a teddy bear named mr. bear.

i met mr. bear last thanksgiving, and according to her, he is their other child. migs cant sleep without mr. bear (his teddy bear) and it is very important to take mr. bear everywhere. as they were telling me about how he was bawling when he had to deal with a substitute bear, i couldnt agree any more with migs. i dont accept substitute bears.

unlike migs, i didnt grow up with a teddy bear. my allergies made my mom forbid me to have one, and i guess that goes along with growing up independent. i had my first stuffed toy, sheepie, which was something that i forced my ex to buy for me (i chose it, hehehe, it doesnt have fur and its a pink sheep — god knows where it is.) which was something i used to pour out my frustrations on.

when i travelled to the united states for the first time, it became a pink throw pillow with a pig on it, and then it was a yellow weird looking thing that he named bugawoo when i went to sri lanka. and then some powerpuff girls pillows (i was addicted to them!) and then nothing. i never knew the importance of these critters until i got all to frustrated with my life here in new york.

i got mine 2 christmases ago, its a cowboy teddy bear with a cowboy hat. but ive taken away that cowboy hat because it hits my face whenever i sleep. i didnt name it right away, but i did find an appropriate name for it — frusty bear.

like migs, i sleep with my frusty bear most of the time, and even if he’s got a slew of friends, chicago cub, willbear wright, grr, bear in underwear, ben (ben franklin stuffie), i usually end up sleeping with frusty. i love all the other stuffies, but somehow there is just a weird comfort about frusty. i tried using an ostrich as a substitute, but that didnt work. there was no comforting feeling from that ostrich (that one doesnt have a name yet but it wears a necktie.)

i gave the same bear to my cousin adi on her 12th birthday, and the card read "you’ll never be old enough for a teddy bear."

yep, im almost 26, and ive got a teddy bear. i know its odd but it really helps.

well, i cant help but sing like madonna. ive just put in a shipping address to my wonderful amazon.com wishlist, and i pray and hope that i get that chopard watch in the mail — retail value: $15,000.00.

well, it is a wish list, and really, going overboard on wishing for material things i cant afford is not a bad thing. you know what they say, be careful of what you wish for, they might just come true. (yes, i was very cautious in wishing for that chopard watch)

true to my wishing skills is this 100dollar ceramic knife, which of course i think is overkill, if im just going to pound a garlic flat with it. i love ming tsai, and i think he uses that. i want one too.

im hungry. maybe i’ll blog again tomorrow, and talk about more substantial things other than wishing. ick.

oh yeah, i guess this is brought about by my upcoming birthday! hooray, hello chopard watch!

there, there. doesnt this remind you of snow? well, i would prefer orange and white and gray. i know that i could change the colors of my font all the time, just like lee does, but that’s too much of a bother for me to do.

now that ive seen how other people’s blogs have more stuff other than their interesting lives (read: photo albums) ive finally decided to publish not one, but FOUR photos. this is an initial upload and i still have to photoshop a lot of picture for clarity — and that is another hassle for me.

how i wish i had lots of time to pour out to my blog. but i rarely do with the sock drawer overflowing with newly washed socks, and the endless cooking and washing of dishes and pots and pans. now i wonder, should i eat more food?

i dont get why i do so many things for this blog and nothing for the honest blog as lee puts it. i guess the anonymity of that blog allows me the freedom of sloppiness, and the comfort of just ranting what is up in my head.

i think its time to post and see if this "large" body font post works. i hope it does. normal font is too small.

i dont know if the fans of my chronicles know about this, but if they do, they would definitely throw some rotten tomatoes at me.

and i would gladly stand there, stiff as a board just having my rain of tomatoes.

i just read this blog and to me it is very very disappointing. i know i write a whole load of better than this, but somehow my literary diarrhea just ate too many apples and had too much coke. and now, the steady stream of quippy quips and hilarious observation hibernated.

in fact, it has hibernated long before winter started, and its still snoring since. i guess its been pressing the snooze button far too many times that it got too comfy. god knows id like to press my snooze button more than the manufacturer’s recommendations.

oh i dont know. maybe a few more days of this periodic whining, i will get my groove back.

yeah, that sounds right. stella got her groove back.

ive gone to philly last weekend to finally sample my first real philly cheesesteak.

i dont understand why i never bothered to go even if it was 25 bucks and two hours on a bus one way. i just realized that ive gone to sri lanka in a whim and i cant imagine why i never bothered to go on a two hour bus ride where everyone spoke english.

i went with aggie to meet up with her old classmate jenny. if there’s one thing im too happy about this trip is the fact that i let my direction goddess mode go on vacation and let jenny drag me everywhere i needed to see and do. seriously, i wont be able to navigate philly like the way i navigated washington, dc the weekend before.

in philly, i saw the fountain of youth. and it oozes of chocolate

it started out as a nonchalant story of jenny that the ritz-carlton philadelphia had a dessert buffet. well, i havent done dessert buffet in my entire life, even if i went on a G-Day (gluttony day) with budj and brandie and the rest of the alamaters. jenny said it was 15 bucks, but when we got there we found out it was 25. + tax, tip and 20% gratuity of parties of 6 or more (we were six) the bill was about 32 bucks per person.

but lo and behold. there was a chocolate fondue fountain that was 4 feet tall. i tell you, the feeling was somewhat spiritual and orgasmic. and that was just looking at it. (the picture is still with jenny. i dont know if she has snapfished it)

and looking at it was really worth my 32 bucks. lavish, but not yucky like the plaza hotel, and grand but not tacky like the waldorf astoria.

of course there were other things aside from the chocolate fondue fountain, but really, there isnt anything much to talk about after four feet of warm, shiny, fragrant, rich smoothly flowing chocolate.

if the chocolate wasnt too warm, i would have probably attempted to achieve some chocolate covered arms, hands and face.