Braising my Beef

like any other day, joe, our very faithful vietnam-born chinese customer, came to our office and was at his usual bantering self. usually, we talk about crazy chinese movies (kung fu mahjong and kung fu hustle to be exact), how to order pan fried noodles in a chinese restaurant, his daughter carla or things that are just plain pointless.

today, joe was telling me how he had encountered people who say with so much conviction "i am not asian, i am filipino!"

OH FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!!!!!!

and then he went on and on with the other stupids who say "im not chinese, im taiwanese" and so on and so forth. since singaporeans, taiwanese and hongkees are of chinese descent, they shouldnt be ashamed of calling themselves chinese (for the most part, i think they are just being nationalistic, so in my opinion, people denying their chineseness because their passports say otherwise, is a good thing and is also politically correct)

i think it is funny that i quite acknowledge the fact that THESE PEOPLE ACTUALLY EXIST. im sorry for those offended, but for crying out loud — the first thing they teach in social studies is "THE PHILIPPINES IS LOCATED IN SOUTH EAST ASIA" argh!!! (and not having attended school in the Philippines is NOT an excuse)

i am a contradiction in motion. i hate the idea that i should be friends with strangers just because they are filipino. i also dislike the idea of living in jersey city, or queens because there is a whole barrio of filipinos there (no offense, i just hate the competition that comes out of it, along with the amount of chismis). and yet i crave for my dinuguan, krispy pata, selecta ice cream and sinigang. i would probably never date anyone again who isnt filipino and i would always, always talk in my mother tongue (and yet i write better in english!).

maybe my "i am from UP Diliman" superiority complex creeps up on me, but for crying out loud, at least i know where im from.

i am asian. i am filipino and i love my black hair.

there comes a time when our existential dilemmas just get too much. i, for one, have gone through the first part of my quarterlife crisis, and im probably going through my second, third and fourth phase, but at least the first part is over.

ive never really given much thought about this until i asked carlo what he did when he had his own bout. true to a guy’s form, he summed it up in three (very guy) words of wisdom. pause, rewind and play.

his psych war with age was defined by quitting everything he was doing (job/career and girlfriend) and going back to his old ways — he went back to the university to hang out (bumalik sa fine arts at tumambay.) after the whole thing, he was a happier boy — hell yeah, you should listen to his happy hour stories!

one thing i realize from this short instant messenger conversation is the fact that i have done this myself. i quit my job (long before this, i quit my bf too), went to boracay to get sloshed, got sloshed everyday except wednesdays and sundays (yeah, that was fun!) and went back to university to take some drawing classes.

looking back, i realize that i enjoyed my quarterlife crisis phase 1. (then again, i think im qualifying goofing around with a "term") and i would most certainly attach most of my manila memories at this point in my life. it was hard, it was easy and it was a lot of alcohol.

then i pressed the reset button. packed my bags, moved here.

and back did i go to square one. a different job, 5 different places i called home, a different mode of transportation and a different lifestyle — a new set of "parents," new house rules, new currency etc etc.

i still ask myself "what im going to do now?" and i dont think the question will ever leave me. ive learned to live my life one day at a time. ironically, things work their way into place bit by bit.

i have to admit, carlo is right. pressing the reset button is refreshing.

i dont know if i will ever press my reset button again, but something tells me that pressing it will get me into more stress that i can handle. (besides, i hate heartburn)

its official! i can finally go out without my jacket (except going to work, my seat is right below the *brr* ac vent!) and celebrated the day going to the beach by myself.

this is the second time i went to the beach by myself and my first time to orchard beach. this beach is part of the long island sound and it being part of the filthy bronx, it is beautiful!

i have nothing to complain about the beach, ITS THE PEOPLE THAT TICKS ME OFF! the hispanics are too loud with their boomboxes and the others are just LOUD. its weird that i turned up my player just to drown out the sound.

i tried taking pictures, but i didnt take enough good ones. maybe next time i’ll just bring a sketchpad.

well, till the next time, im probably heading off to pelham bay park.

*orchard beach is subway accessible via the 6 train and the bx5 and bx12 bus connections.

ps. the bus driver said "happy father’s day to everyone. im just reminding you that we dont want flowers. we like money in an envelope. i repeat, money in an envelope!"

its again that time when pauline tells me that she’s staying over for her dose of new york….

for this third time however, a lot of things have been different.

most of it is, dare shall i say the a- word? ageing.

i remember the first time she stayed with me in my brooklyn apartment — we romped around the city the whole day and whole night, shopping, eating, clubbing, walking around, whatever, like excited 18 year old girls who just got their first too-good-to-be-true fake id’s. (no, i didnt have to deal with that fake id thing, they dont check id’s in manila bars)

now, its different.

its just meeting up for dinner and going home.

not that it is a bad thing, you know, its just that it smacked me in the head that we are no longer our young energizer bunny selves. we have morphed into complaining, joint aching, whining almost 30-year olds.

it might be a bad thing, or a good thing, i dont know.

sometimes, i ask myself. if i was still living in manila and living with my parents, will i feel as tired as i do here in new york?

perhaps not, but maybe.

having experienced three winters and a load of sunshine until i moved here, i have quite a tolerance for the warm weather.

of course, its never a vice versa kind of a thing as i keep myself into the eskimo level of dressing up UNTIL TODAY, the middle of JUNE.

as soon as the new york weather got into its 60’s, suddenly the entire city of manhattan started wearing tube tops and flip flops. i, for the seasonal sore throats i get, CANT. and it gets unbelievably annoying when people start asking me why im still donning eskimo fashion in the middle of spring.

and they say new yorkers dont give a rat’s ass… i guess dressing warmly is the exception to the rule?

after my afternoon errand/woo from tribeca, i was back at my office building’s lobby waiting for the elevator. garbed in three layers of clothing, and possibly longjanjans, this dunbar guy (much like a fedex guy, but dunbar is a valuables shipping company) asks me how i can be dressed in so much fleece and corduroy because its warm outside.

i said "oh, i have low tolerance for cold temperatures. id rather be hot than freezing." in the most matter-of-fact-way.

and he went on and on about how nice the weather is. at this point my mind was at a blur and it took some superhuman strength to stop myself from quipping…

you’re fat, you have natural body insulation, I DONT!

you know me too well if you know that im a person with her 2 cents (times a bazillion), and for the most part i cant shut the f-up.

a lot of people who know me know that its a convoluted sense of truth and humor, that for others who refuse to see the funny part about it see me as a person with a bad disposition, or just plain judgemental. yes. i absolutely agree that i am a great pintasera.

but anyway, i have this bad habit of being the great best reactress of all time (term borrowed from lee’s blog). apparently, sometimes its a bit OA.

this reactionary nerve in my nerves are just out of whack. i tame it most of the time, but it always has a way of coming out of my mouth.

i tried psychoanalyzing myself about why i do these unnecessary things to make me feel more stressed out. i came to the conclusion that i make a big problem of a small thing that is not even my problem in the first place.

so now, i try to placate myself with the phrase "its REALLY not your problem."

and then i ask me, what if this not-my-problem-problem still affects me? does it become my problem then?

it probably is, but i’ll keep telling myself that its not mine to think about. maybe it will just solve itself eventually, hoping that the results are not disastrous.

finally getting my key west pictures almost posted to the internet….

(because after 5 weeks ive finally downloaded the great pictures!)

anyway, i was happy enough to be driving around in a convertible, but was squinting to high heavens because my sunglasses werent the great thelma and louise kind, you know the big square ones that im supposed to wear with a bandanna — and with the fright of doing a bridget jones with that bandanna flying off, i settled to get yet another pair of the big square sunglasses!

i dunno if you can see that i have failed to remove the blasted small sticker that says 100% UV protection, but i sure did. in this picture and among other ones… but i have PHOTOSHOP! nyahahahaha! i just stamp-tooled the sticker out. nyahahahaa. hence, save for this one in this posting, you wont see it. you will know about it and you will have a testimonial from me that i have done this blunder, but NO PICTURES! hahahahahahha! (its the white dot at the bottom of my left "eye")