w a r c a r: September 2004

Of cabbages and kings...

Just got home from an enormous lunch at Minado. Minado's is a Japanese all you can possibly eat buffet with sushi, sobas, hot meals like terriyakis and bbqs, an assortment of salads, desserts, and a variety of other scrumptious things on the menu. For only 13.95 (weekday lunches)!

Gawd. We got in at 12:25 and didn't leave until 1:40 -- and only because they already gave us the check (we didn't ask for it so we took it as a BIG hint). That was over an hour of full on gorging by people who normally eat a complete dinner (possibly with dessert)in under 20 mins. John went to get food 5 times -- and he always came back with an incredibly full plate. I think I must have gained 5 lbs from that meal alone -- (actually I just checked. I gained 3.5 lbs).

BTW, I got a freelance gig. I’m going to proofread a novel called “The Loser’s Club”, which is being published by small literary indie Ludlow Press. It’s not a lot of money, of course, but what the hell do I care? It’s a start.

The book itself is a pretty good one, as I understand it, although I’ve never read it. The reviews are good, anyway.

Hopefully I’m on the right path – my plan (crossing my fingers) is to work part-time and augment whatever income that will generate with freelance work, whether that be writing, proofreading, or editing.

Anyway, I just got my copy from the publisher last night. Yay.

I'm tired.

It’s frightfully lonely to be misunderstood by the people you share your space with. Sit quietly and remember how it once was. Detach, detach. Tired, tired, tired.

Reprints.

At six

I watched the lizards crawl to the floor for a kiss. My nanny said it was because the bell for the Angelus had rung. Even lizards had to pray.

And so every day they crawled down and crawled up again. A once a day pilgrimage to the chaos of wooden beams and marble, of feet stepping over and sideways, of mice and falling toys, of drops of sweat and saliva. Because their lips had to touch the ground and atone for their reptilian sins.

And what did they pray for? A fat fly for their next meal? Little lizard eggs? Salvation?

If you prayed, but didn’t know why, did it count? If you prayed and didn’t know to whom, will anyone hear it?

Do you remember how rosary beads slip off the string? Another Ave Maria floating on the tip of your fingers. A rose up to heaven. Remember me? Remember me. Please.

Will they rain on her as she sits on her throne, I wondered, or will they fall gently at her feet? The stems must be devoid of thorns for her. But who feels for the roses’ stings? Who will prick the flesh? Who will bleed?

Dios te salve, Maria, llena eres de gracia, el senor es contigo.

Grace. Am I graced?

Will she hear the hundred ave marias as she sits where she does? I am praying. I am praying for a little sister. I am praying for a bike. I am praying for the lizard that prays more than me.

Aba Ginoo Maria, napupuno ka ng grasya, ang panginoon ay sumasainyo.

The Lord is with you. With you. Always. Even in the bathroom, my nanny said.

I am a child, a child, a child. I am the president and the queen and the little boy who lives down the lane. I am the buyer of 5 cent gumballs and sugar powder.

I am a child, a child, a child.

I am playing with jackstones and the little sandbags.

Her face is kissing the floor. Like the lizards. She is wearing a strng around her neck. Like a rosary. Maybe she is praying. Another Ave Maria, another rose.

Another red, red rose.

______________________________

A Balloon to God

It was the somedays that we pinned hopes on
days and days that floated up and never got here
like balloons let go in the afternoon sun
bearing notes scrawled in childish script
taped on, tied ‘round with a little red string

we tacked on our little hearts
to helium shells that would never come back
somedays that travel far, far away
scraping the bottom of a cloud
colliding with a little wing

along the way we thought
they would meet god or his angels
and they would read the undecipherable letters
made by hands that hadn't learned to write
and they would understand
like santa claus

that's why we scrambled off our feet
i suppose
to run and walk and fly
leaving circles of lives
chasing after that someday
taped on, tied with a little string
to a balloon

chasing after god's reply.

Rage! Rage against the dying of the light!

Literature is dying, if isn't already dead.

"The National Endowment for the Arts released a survey in July based on 2002 Census Bureau data that indicates just 56.6 percent of Americans had read a single book of any kind in the year prior." That's of any kind. Meaning that can include 12-page picture books.

The big publishing companies are cutting their losses by taking less chances. They mostly just publish crap that they know will sell. And the smaller houses that used to take chances are getting gobbled up by the corporate sharks. Who knows how many geniuses have fallen to the wayside? Who knows how many unique voices will forever be unheard? Who knows what we're depriving ourselves of...

Sure there are still bookworms out there (most of you probably are), but it seems we're a dwindling minority. Read Benjamin Strong's article in the Village Voice here. It's pretty interesting. I'm sure you'll agree.

And so, this:

October 1-3, 2004. 10-4. Washington Sq Park.

ing

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Plus I already signed up and got my $25 at absolutely no cost to me. So if you like, you can just sign up, withdraw your $25, and never think about it ever again.

And to sweeten the deal, how about your very own gmail account as well? Nothing to lose, baby.

ambitious little thing

I'm truly starting to hate writing all these synopses of my own work. I always have this feeling that I'm missing something terribly important and that my manuscript will get chucked without so much as a glance over because of it.

No, I haven't finished anything yet, which makes the writing of a synopsis that much harder.

Plus it's so cold. This weather always make me feel like my bones are all achy and creaky. Yes, even though I'm only 23. Well, I'm off to see Sky Captain Angelina Jolie.

Pictures

Last night was spent in the East Village - Alphabet City area. Fun. We had dinner at Crystal's, then did the hookahs at Horus, and then just found ourselves a nice, quiet, on the verge of closing bar with a heated patio (it was cold last night).

Oh and John has somehow managed to get hold of Missing, this game that I've been harassing him about. It's so inteesting. It's a mystery game and they've even set up special websites and stuff.

At Horus with a hookah and a belly dancer.

And finally, winding down at the Sidewalk Cafe

FREE!

I am now officially UNEMPLOYED. And I couldn't be happier! I'm free! I'm free! I'm going to dive right into my various writing projects. My babies are calling.

PS- to my fellow AMazing Race 5 watchers, some Philipine trivia:

The vehicle they decorated is called a JEEPNEY. Not jeepnie, not jitney, but Jeepney. Jeepney is actually a play on two words: Jeep and Jitney. Why? Well, because the original Jeepney was constructed from WW2 jeeps left by American soldiers. They were modified into their present form, which can seat around 14 passngers (probably more). That brings us to jitney, which means a small bus. The jeeps were able to accomodate as many passngers as a small bus hence, "Jeepney". Jeep + jitney = jeepney.

My ox is broken

For you people who don't know yet, I quit my job on Monday. Tomorrow is my last day. I'm so excited. I hate desk jobs.

Manila, Manila (and crazies)

All ye TV people

Just thought you guys might want to know, Manila is going to be tonight's stop on The Amazing Race. CBS at 10pm.

_______

Anyway. Today is crazy. We're backed up on appointments (there are three people in the waiting room) because the big boss was an hour late coming back from his lunch meeting, the phones aren't working, and our CFO is interviewing applicants in the lobby.

Plus the CEO and the CFO are both making contradictory instructions for the design layout. Oh did I mention that our printers are acting up as well?

Madness.

Random

Perhaps I’m just tired. Maybe I’m tired of believing – of holding on and chasing dreams. Maybe I’m tired of trying to make a mark. Maybe I’m tired of constantly swimming against the current. Maybe I’m tired of holding up and deflecting criticism and rejection and being strong and steadfast.

I’m tired of wanting the world in the palm of my hand.

Part of me blames the numbing toll of a 9-5. Hours and hours of routinely brainless activity. Chained to a set of rules and appropriate conduct. Thoughts quietly herded and guarded where you can see. They’re not free to wander here.

It's hard for me to write like this. Exhaustion has a way of squeezing out the metaphors from my mind, killing the words. And not writing does something to me. It makes me numb. It makes me weak. It makes the world shift out of focus and out of color. I don’t want to live like this. I need to believe that I was meant for more.

I watch them. The horde. The herd. Going from day to day. They seem content. They worry about money, love, work, but they don’t question their lot or their existence. They are satisfied. Stable. They take it for granted.

They're not concerned with the bigger picture. They don’t ask the why’s. They don’t feel infinitesimal. They don’t feel like a little pebble trying make a big splash in a never-ending ocean. They don't feel the need.

They are the river that runs in my everyday now. I watch them and I wonder. Wouldn’t it be easier to lose myself in everyday? To stop trying? Wouldn’t it be easier to be content?

But then again, I was never one for contentment. I don’t want to be content.

I was made for more.

Fridays

Yesterday... all my troubles seemed so faraway...

First off, had a great time last night. Watched Mean Creek, which was good even if it's a predictable movie with a predictable (if sad) ending.

One of the things I liked about the movie is how they tackled the profile of a bully. Too often, when movies try to humanize the monster of the playground, they end up with a soft-boiled egg - hard on the outside, soft (and gooey) on the inside. That's too simplistic. That's not all they are. Yes, they do have problems, and yes they do want friends, but they are also thinking individuals. They dream of other things, want other things. Bullying is not a full-time job.

Making the bully dyslexic was a good touch. Here is a person trapped by his circumstances, and in this film, you can feel just how trapped he is. He has no avenues by which to express his personality in ways that other people will understand. I know for a fact that dyslexia is not just about numbers and letters, it's a wholly different way of looking at, grasping, understanding, rationalizing things. And this film, I think, concretized the imagery. The scene with George (the bully) in the car with all other kids, quietly explaining his "LD" was poignant. I found myself wondering how it must feel to live in a world where the reigning logic is at odds with your own.

More than bullying and dyslexia though, I think it's a movie about the undercurrents that run through the tortuous rites of our childhood. Too often grownups see children as innocent and naive. But children are not shallow pools of humanity. They are thinking people, and sometimes they're more frightening because they haven't yet learned the structures of human thought...

"Grownups can deal with scraped knees, droped ice cream cones, and lost dollies, but if they suspected the real reasons we cry they would fling us out of their arms in horrifed revulsion... We need that warm adult stupidity... We suffer until, by sheer stamina, we escape in the dim innocence of our adulthood..."-- Geek Love

One of these days I'm going to write on this topic at length; it's already a recurrent (if discombobulated) subtheme in my novel/novella.

But anyway, on to lighter fare. John and I went to Odin's apartment after the movie and had ourselves a regular old inuman session. Gossip was the order of the day as we talked about Odin's Italian roomie who does not shave (and wears sleeveless tops while raising her arms and scarring people for life), the "salsa" in the bathroom, and certain people from college.

Made soup today, and it's pretty good. My first time making a soup nearly from scratch. Yay me.

Subway Horrors... (care of Hurricane Frances)

What a way to start the day.

Everyone's late, so none of us will get any "late deductions". How frustrating is it to leave at 7:03, because you want to get in early (so you can take your time eating a bagel with cream cheese), only to arrive at 8:50 and 20 minutes late? Ugh.

I got as far as the Roosevelt Ave Stop, and then the train stalled because the train in front of us hit their emergency break. When the train finally moved, I guess the driver found that it couldn't really move because there was water on the tracks... so there was no service for all of the RVG and EF lines, which are the only lines that run in our area. Good thing I even made it to Roosevelt. By the time John got to the train station all service had stopped and people had resorted to hailing private cars and begging for rides, but that's another story altogether.

Anyway, they finally told us what was going on (prior to this we were all just sort of staring at each other stupidly) and I was eventually forced to transfer to the 7... which was horrible, because naturally, by now, all the trains were packed and everyone was simultaneously trying to get off to transfer to the 7 as well.

Claustrophobic yet, Wanda? I did manage to squeeze myself on the 7 that was just on its way out. My body was in a slightly diagonal position, and I had lost most feeling in my right leg, but at least I was getting somewhere. It was going to take us a long time as most 7's were going local, but at that point we were just glad we we were on a moving train.

Anyway, after an eternity of inhaling much of the BO-perfumed air (that's Body Odor to you) in the train, I was finally able to get off at Grand Central. Much running ensued (as we started on our very own 5-meter dash to the opposite side of the platform), and I was feeling slightly smug for having been able to squeeze myself in the 5 train which looked like it was about to leave. Of course that would have been too easy.

"Due to water at the 14th St Station, the trains are delayed... we do not know the extent of this delay... blah blah blah", so out I go, along with the rest of the human sardines. I somehow managed to succesfully squeeze myself inside the 6 train just across the platform, which was local and was going to take forever. When we got to 14th St, I jumped out and squeezed myself into the express 4 on the opposite track.

How I managed to prevent myself from hyperventilating under these circumstances is a mystery to me still.

What a way to start the morning. A good quarter of the people still aren't here yet. It seems everyone has their own horror subway story.

I just hope it's all fixed when I go home.

Karaoke, aliens, and gastronomic orgies...

Extremely image-heavy post coming up. Plus this post is really incoherent.

First of all, I just want to say that I think it's sad summer's officially gone and we've only been to the beach twice. That's a record for me, seriously. So very sad.

Anyway, did a lot this weekend. We karaoke-ed, painted, cleaned a lot around the house, did the laundry, drank lots of beer and rum and cokes, hung out with various people, watched a movie, set up a new TV and DVD player in the living room, sorted out other people's trash (long story to be told another day), got a ton of new books...

Pictures from karaoke night, first and foremost. This is the Disco Room at Tinga Tinga (Madison, between 32nd and 33rd). They have a BYOB (bring your own beer) policy, which was great.

John and his sister, Sandy

Rishi, belting it out.

Rishi and Jubie do a duet.

Me and John. Yes, I look like a sleepy cow, but this is
the only pic with me in it, so there.

And my Painting of an ALIEN:

At first I didn't know if it was a girl or a guy...
so then I just decided it was an alien. Hehe.

As fun and productive our days off were however, the highlight of this weekend was really the FOOD. I must have gained a hundred pounds over the weekend! So much inredibly good eating to be had. As it was John's mom's birthday, we had ourselves a regular Chinese banquet. We had lobster (scrumptious), Peking duck (heavenly- fast becoming a real favorite), mussels (delicious), frog legs (pretty good), fish belly soup (fantastic), cake, and a slew of other goodies.

And we also had homecooked Indian food at Kamal's place, which was so terrific. I don't think I've ever really had authentic homecooked Indian food before. And since Kamal was cleaning out his closets, I got to take home a ton of books. Yay me!

I'm putting myself on a diet right now. Well, right after I digest the ice cream we just had at Piu Bello's anyway.

All in all, one hell of a good weekend.

Apolitical but...

I'm officially apolitical, especially since I'm not a US citizen. But this just cracks me up. Courtesy of the Village Voice.

More vacation time than anyone in America still currently employed? That one hit the spot.

And may I just say that as a resident of New York, and as a Wall Street-er (naks), I'm really beginning to hate the flood of annoying people that came with the Republican Convention - the Republican delegates and the protesters alike.

Don't get me wrong, I don't hate tourists. It wasn't too long ago that I was one myself. But Great Frigging Buddha. Tourism is not an excuse for arrogant stupidity.

I mean, is it really necessary to lumber down the middle of the frigging sidewalk during the PEAK of rush hour with your cameras, snapping each and every greying building on Wall Street? All SIX of you walking side by side? At the pace of an injured tortoise?

Notice how all forms of life seem to clear out of Wall Street Sidewalks at 5 pm? How there are no birds, no squirrels, not even rats? That's because even rodents can comprehend the laws of New York rush hour.

And yet, unlike vermin, YOU (of college activism and Texan cowboy hats) do not seem to possess the capacity to understand the danger of standing like a statue in the middle of a Wall Street Sidewalk at 5 pm. You seem confused at the madness you find yourself in the middle of. Let me (somewhat) enlighten your pea of a brain. When a herd of suits suddenly descends upon you, understand that each one of us is desperately rushing to escape the miserable monotony of our wage slave lives. Each one of us is ready to attack anything in our way. Each one of us is in her own special state of murderous anger. Therefore, DO NOT stare blindly at your map, as you stand immobile on the sidewalk, in careful contemplation of your next step. You are a ROAD BLOCK. You are the bane of humanity. You are standing in the way of a woman and her emancipation. There is NOTHING to contemplate. STEP ASIDE and get out of the way, moron.

God. I cannot tell you how frustrating it is to finally leave the painful confinement of my office, only to come upon a pack of idiots blocking my way to freedom. I cannot tell you how frustrating it is to finally get in a subway car, only to turn and discover that these same idiots are holding up the train because one of their friends is still at the top of the staircase, walking at the pace of the aforementioned injured tortoise's half-dead grandmother.

I wish they'd go home already. The whole lot of them - delegates, protesters, every single one. Ugh.

Just a bunch of PS1 Pictures.

This is how we spent the early part of saturday night.

Making our way to the Museum. God that place was packed. I'm not sure what made us go there exactly. It wasn't the music, to be sure. (I hate anything techno.)