The Weekend

1. A gnarly tale of financial priorities. I damaged a wisdom tooth and passed on several opportunities to have it taken out, mostly because at one point, a former dentist suggested that I needed a specialist ($$$$$$$) to take it out. I mean fuck that I thought when I got an estimate, which could cover the purchase of two luxury bags. The tooth didn’t hurt at all so I waited until it loosened to a point where I could actually pull it out. I thought for minute that maybe I needed to see my current dentist to take it out just in case there was a complication, because you never know. But again, I thought it would be embarrassing that a well-dressed adult man, who could well afford a $300+ extraction, would let it go this far. But I was already at that point- I could feel the tooth with my tongue dangling by the thinnest of whatever it was that was holding it in place. It seemed stupid going to the dentist now and forking out $300. The dentist would probably laugh at the easiest money she ever made. So I pulled it, slight twinge of pain, a bit of bleeding, and with a small torch, saw with relief that the clot was already there. It closed up overnight and I didn’t even need to eat soup for dinner. See? Saved some money there.

2. I’m not the most DIY orientated of people which I blame on my upbringing and a culture where for a reasonable fee, you can get things done for you. But shelling out $80 to get a chain taken out of a bracelet, or to change a broken clasp??? And I almost did, except that that person who did the repairing was away sick. So it took a full week before I came to my senses and watched enough YouTube videos to realise that with some tools, I could shorten the jewellery myself and fix the broken clasp myself and not be a totally useless person.

3. I think we’re in for the kind of winter that’s not good for dressing up- WET and cold.

Out of office

1. Should aim staying over in the warmer months next time

2. The perfect routine; work from 7:30am to 11; walk to the gym; work till 4:30; nap; dinner; sleep at 9:30.

3. The mental impact of eating food you grew up with can never be underestimated- fuck dieting.

4. It’s been a while since I had scrambled eggs with tomatoes. Dad made it all the time, the perfect accompaniment to fried fish or Spam. There would be heaps left over and I would remember eating bits of it throughout the day until it was all gone.

5. Kids grow up so fast it makes me want to cry.

Binagoongan

Pandesal

Baby pusit and pork-chop

Breakfast of scrambled eggs & tomatoes and Wagyu tapa

Laing and boneless bangus

Working weekend

I almost lost my phone and then my ring, which gave me an epiphany of sorts; I thought that I didn’t have that much of an attachment to material things, but I do.

The phone was easy enough because I left it in an Uber, which we recovered in 20 minutes, but the ring was a mystery. I thought I’d lost it while doing my business in a cordoned-off, private restroom at the arena where we held our show over the weekend. I swear I remember taking it off while I was in the cubicle and putting it into my toiletry bag. Fast forward two hours, I suddenly realise that it wasn’t on my finger, and the panic and grief I felt was something I didn’t expect.

Suffice it to say that I went back up to the restroom half a dozen times, scanning the floor, the stairs in the hope that I had dropped it, praying under my breath for God to make it twinkle in some dark corner, some crevice. But alas.

I cursed myself for having way too many sakes the night previous, hence a grumbly stomach worsened by a breakfast of a big McDonald’s Brekkie Burger with an extra beef patty and a fried egg. See what happens when you SHIT at work? Something bad happens.

It took the whole day for me to accept the fact that these things do happen - you win some (the day previous, I got word from my doctor that my blood-sugar reduction diet was working) and you lose some.

Our show closed at 4 pm and we started the process of packing up. Just randomly, I reached for this box where we’ve put in our empty coffee cups and various trash and absentmindedly riffled through it (like why right? I could have dumped it straight into the bin) and saw a glint of silver.

It was the ring. Honestly don’t know how it get there, or maybe I’m losing my mind, but I’m glad that God returned it to me.

The Weekend

What I really, really want, but can't have

1. A huge plate full of rice (guilt and fear of illness have most likely shrunk my stomach- I feel physically ill if I had more than a cup).

2. Solid, well-formed hands and fingers with no veins and creapey skin. I’d like to wear heaps of rings, but my hands are ugly.

3. A modestly substantial, well-formed butt. Yes, I do squats and all that everyday, but alas…

4. Perfect eyesight. FUCK these goddamned glasses.

5. Full, luxurious, out of control, brazenly lush facial hair.

6. Justice on my own terms.

7. To go back in time just once and be able to say to this person - YES YOU WERE WRONG YOU STUPID CUNT.

8. Longer eyelashes

9. To go back in time just once and say to my Tatay (my mom’s dad) - I PICKED A DIFFERENT PATH AND I’M GLAD I DID BECAUSE I’M HAPPY.

10. To go back in time just once with my camera and take a million photos of my old cat Tiger because I can’t remember what she looks like anymore :-(

Thursday's list

1. I’m glad these shoes fit, even if I’m agonising over the fact that I don’t have the appropriate pants and socks that I think would suit them.

2. There was a party that I was invited to this week that I had to decline. I needed to buy a new suit jacket, but I ended up using the money to buy these shoes instead- and yes, some of us don’t have an endless supply of disposable income to buy everything we want.

3. We’re nearing the end of May! Where has the time gone??

4. I need a clock (or timer) for the bathroom; something has changed in my morning routine, and I’m cutting it very close (I’m out the door at 6:49 am to hitch a ride with Mary).

5. Wouldn’t it be cool if you could buy time like literally?? (remember this movie?).

The Weekend

1. Every year on May 10 (Matt’s birthday) is Sisig Day. Boil it, season it, grill it, chop it, season it and Uber deliver it.

2. Sisig is a treat, eating it with rice (as if there’s any other way) is a treat.

3. I love the Auckland CBD. On a Saturday (or any other given day), it’s like being in a world where none of the real world’s problems exist, because who cares? Queen Street is so tiny with traffic controlled so you can sit at one of the benches and not feel that you’re in a city.

4. I would love to live in the city; if we didn't have Lily the cat, we probably would.

Snap

Do images say more about what a person is and what their life is all about? I do hope so, because I’ve been struggling with writing about my life. Something just refuses to flow.

I remember when I was younger when it was so much easier. But I was obviously a different person then. I didn’t have any friends, I never left the house, I spent the day reading and day-dreaming and later, writing. Being alone creates the perfect conditions for writing.

But I’m never alone now, haven’t been in a very, very long time. Real life isn’t what I expected it to be, but I’ve made my peace with it. I’ve found my place in it. I’ve found the things that allow me to live comfortably, according to social standards as well as my own. I’ve found the pursuits that give me joy and contentment. I’m learning to set aside the things that I can’t control or have no power over. I’ve put aside the mistakes I’ve made, apologised for some of them and have never repeated them again. I try every day to be kind. I try every day to push aside bad thoughts like grabbing the phone of this idiot in my 7:05am bus who insists on playing his shit music out load, and slapping it across his ugly face.

Real life as it unfolds every single day is the best story of all. At the end of one, I discover that I neither have the energy or the creative words to write about it.

I’ve lived it and survived to live the next one- isn’t that enough? So can I just take a photo please?

Out of office

Holidays are exhausting. When you get back, you realise that you need a holiday to recover from the holiday. But with steadily accumulating leave that I can’t even accumulate, I decided to take the whole of the Easter break, my birthday leave and tomorrow’s Anzac Day for a grand total of eight days to do fuck all. Well, actually did a lot. We took a car to the island of Waiheke, did a 24km bike ride of the island, and marvelled at how the rich locals spent a normal Wednesday night drinking $300 wines and nibbling on exquisite, but tiny pieces of roasted lamb loin (it was very good).

Today

The Lenten season of my childhood is gone. I can be dramatic and say something stupid like, where is God, but I know the answer to that. He’s here, in me. I think of kindness and empathy and generosity every day. I try my best to be kind, emphatic and generous every day. Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I don’t. But I know that God is not keeping tally. He just wants you to try, every single day for as long as you’re alive. That’s all you can do.

But yeah, I miss the traditions. I guess, it’s kind of the point of Catholicism- the pageantry gives the season its allure and its mystique. You deprive yourself of meat, of entertainment, you think of an entity with superhuman powers yet had allowed himself to be nailed to a cross so that you will be saved (from what, it didn’t really matter). When I was young, I believed all of that but on a level that was more philosophical than mystical.

When I grew older, it became easier to take that path and not because I believed it any less. Some were just silly (Mark Wahlberg sporting his Ash Wednesday smeared forehead on his socials), antiquated (the Stations of the Cross) or stupid (not eating meat).

I remember on one of my mother’s visits to New Zealand that happened to fall on Lent, we were craving for squid, but only if it was sold with ink which you most always never find here.

But by the miracle of Jesus and Mary, we found one at Pak N Save, but alas, the staff wouldn’t sell it to us; they were mortified that a packet had slipped through their quality control.

We had to explain (and beg), that it was exactly how we wanted it.

I don’t remember now though, whether we got it in the end.

I miss the craft, not the pay check

1. Does attempting to write, count as ‘I’m still trying to write.?”

2. It’s easier now to simply take a photo to remember something by: the way the autumn sun feels and looks different. How your $500 sneakers matches your $300 pants. How standing in your backyard putting your laundry on the line feels like being back in Pangasinan.

3. Since 2012, I’ve taken over 45,000 images and wrote ZERO stories.

4. In my teens, I submitted short-stories for a women’s magazine (MOD) and was paid P500 per story. I wrote the story long-hand and had my dad’s secretary type it out.

5. I wanted to take up BS Psychology at UP Diliman because I thought I wanted to be a doctor. It was my dad who actually asked me to change it to English as a preparatory degree for law. I didn’t become either.

6. Nearly everyone in my high school batch took up nursing, which I thought was appropriate for dull people with no talent.

7. I switched majors in my sophomore year (Creative Writing), got accepted to the Philippine Collegian (and wrote racy, ambiguous fiction) and earned my drinking/SM Mall money proofreading on the side for a UP publishing house.

8. Worked in advertising out of uni and I fucking hated it. Ad people were egomaniacal, ugly narcissists. It reinforced my belief that if you did something just for the money, things wouldn’t end well. Never again.

9. Went back to Pangasinan to work for the local office of a national newspaper chain and managed to convince management to allow me to put out a weekend magazine that folded soon after launch. Realised that I was a maniacal, actually attractive narcissist.

10. Spent the next 10 years writing fiesta greetings for all 44 Pangasinan municipalities and wondering if perhaps, I should’ve taken up nursing instead. But in hindsight, I would have failed spectacularly at a job that required great people skills and a personality that is anything but dull.

11. Moved to New Zealand and ditched the writing. I realised that I had to choose between doing something that I was comfortable with or doing something that expanded that further and paid a bit more.

12. My niece and her fiance just bought a house in one of the most expensive (and overpriced) housing markets in the world. She’s barely 25, and she’s a nurse. Yes, I definitely should have taken up nursing.

ooff

I get nervous all the time like the next person, but I usually get over it once I make a more accurate and logical assessment of the situation. I’ve never had anxiety but I’m starting to believe that the more you think about it, the more you repeat it, and the more you hear about it from people around you, the more real it becomes until you become, well, fucking anxious.

The whole three months of the year was a build-up to stuff at work that I thought was going to be epically challenging. Well, it wasn’t. It was epic for sure (AI! Marketing Automation! Generative Video!), but hardly challenging. You ride it like you would a good wave and at the back of your mind, you knew that you were going to do well- and so what’s next?

A co-worker is leaving today after nearly 14 years. We started in the same year and have been inseparable in a way that can only be described as meant to be. We were the A-team. We accomplished a shit-load of stuff, most of which we did from scratch. We were looking at a couple more high-octane times. So when they say without any warning that they’re leaving, the impact of it for me anyway, is like being shot by a bullet. But you’re still moving very fast so you can’t feel the pain. Not yet - and so what’s next?

These days

1. Dieting is back in the house but we vowed not to let that destabilise a healthy routine; you’re not settling into bed to binge on some stupid show just because you don’t have enough calories to go on a run. So we’ve been going to libraries and getting books to read in lieu of another season of Married At First Sight Australia, and Auckland has some of the best libraries that I’ve seen anywhere. There’s nothing more mentally cleansing than another volume of Alice Munro + a Starbucks cold brew.

2. Praying for Pope Francis. Why the fuck would God take the good people and leave us with the cunts?

3. Booked tickets for the Philippines for the holidays because it’s never too early to prepare for these things mentally.

4. Still need a non-family purpose trip, so scratch LA because it burned down, plus nobody I know really wants to step into American soil for fear of being contaminated (you know what I mean), so that leaves Japan or Tahiti.

5. It’s the Oscars today and I’m on Team Demi.

Wish you were here...

Wonderland

In Auckland city alone, there are over 4,000 parks and reserves, covering almost 11% of the land area. There are no snakes, poisonous plants, pesky insects, scary predators or weird people with bad intentions.

If you feel like reconnecting with nature or simply decompressing, you don’t need to drive far; there’s always a patch of green somewhere.

Epiphany

Over dinner at the second reincarnation of this chicken place in Pukekohe, B asked us the all important post-Christmas question of, ‘when will you take down your Christmas tree?’. I joked that we would still have it standing on the 17th of January so that we would have the pleasure of having M retrieve her birthday gift from under it.

M grinned, making a face and while we all laughed, deep inside, I was still baffled that a woman who has perfected thoughtful, tasteful and financially appropriate gift-giving could forego NOT putting up a tree in her flat. But that’s a boundary we didn’t want to cross; it’s her space and she had all the right in the world to do anything she wanted to do in it including NOT putting up Christmas decorations. It rankled, but I had to respect it.

The answer was that we didn't have a date, or rather, we left it to when we got around to doing a major start of the year clean-up which could be anytime up to the 1st week of February. It wasn’t really a big deal and besides, we liked having the twinkling lights.

‘Tradition states that you could have it up until the Epiphany- 12 days after Christmas- and if you don't, it would be bad luck.” B declares after having looked it up on Google.

Well then, nothing like the Asian in me to be immediately convinced at the mention of two words: ‘bad luck.’

We ended up removing all the Christmas decorations on the 1st of January.

(NOT) New Year resolutions

I just realised today that I may have confused tasks I need to do (and can actually do), with New Year resolutions (which you’re not obliged to do).

So here’s my (initial) list:

1. Have a proper pedicure

2. Go to an actual dermatologist

3. Finish culling your clothes

4. Go to the gym during the working week

5. Study stuff properly

6. Put financial savings into aggressive mode

7. EAT more vegetables

8. Bake PROPER stuff

9. Better food planning

10. Better time planning

5 days before Christmas

The bathroom was finally done, along with a million touch-ups for the laundry area and the toilet. The man from the vanity place took one look at the stain on the quartz top and declared gravely that if it ‘looks like a thumbprint, then it most likely is a thumbprint’.

I was bracing myself for a 2-3 week wait for another custom-cut replacement if it wasn’t.

So that’s done.

Final round of work meetings with everyone making the usual small-talk and the big question of ‘what are you doing this Christmas’? I was tempted to do an animated spiel of all the quirky, non-traditional things we had planned to do, but I was actually exhausted this week so I simply said, ‘just spending it at home’, which was essentially true.

You can do a lot at home.

I’ve always fantasised about spending Christmas elsewhere, but I must say that the allure of spending it with people you actually love and care about has a stronger pull, though if I was paid to spend it in New York, I probably would!

Anyways, took Friday off to get things ready like clean the house, clear out the fridge and just generally relax as I’m still working on the 23rd and half the day on the 24th.

Partayyyy

Hard to believe that I literally go to only two scheduled social-affairs a year, and now that B&E have moved on from hosting their epic New Year soirees, there’s only one left- our work-do.

That’s nearly 14 of some of the most memorable get-togethers with people you see five days of the week.

We’ve done everything from simple barbecues (at a colleagues spacious home), to hotels, historic venues and even a boat (actually missed one). And I look forward to it because it’s the only time I get to drink alcohol (prior to New Year’s) which in hindsight, has probably saved my life. Before leaving the Philippines permanently, I was literally drinking every other day. It was fun but it couldn’t have been healthy.

And I make an effort, because why not? I buy an entirely new outfit (like literally even the shoes shown on the lookbook) which is also my outfit for Christmas dinner. I get to either have a puff of someone’s cigarette or better still, get an entire cigarette all to myself (thanks D!). I miss smoking, but I’ll be damned if I ever go back to the habit.

And I get to finally see who my co-workers really are are outside of work which can be very entertaining (!).