STORIES, STORIES

It was so easy for me to find someone I had no idea how to find in a city like Jeddah. It's amazing. The secret lies in keywords. *** It's 6 a.m. again. I'm now fighting the urge to watch another episode of Flight of the Conchords. I imagine if I were a New Zealander, I would be a Jermaine. But then again, I always imagine I'm someone else. " I'm not crying. For your information, there's an inflammation in my tear glands. "

It's too quiet in here. He passed away two days ago, but she only told me last night. I wonder how she mourns the death of her brother. The last time they saw each other was probably more than a decade ago. I'm almost afraid to ask her how he died, because it might sound too uncaring coming from me. Like, I SHOULD know how he died, why should I even have to ask. In fact, how come I didn't know about his passing? Where was I? We never knew much about him. I saw him maybe 4 times in my (his) lifetime, when I was much younger, when they would visit us here. I lived in the Philippines 5 years and never once saw him or his children. Siblings invariably grow apart as they get older. I know they were very close as children, but things change. I wouldn't know what to do if anything happened to any of my brothers or my sister. And yet, I don't really stay in touch. Much.

Did you hear the one about the Saudi guy who went to Manila for a nice, relaxing holiday in a place where he knew no one, and ended up being slashed in the face in so many places that he spent more than a couple of months with his whole head bandaged? Yeah, probably not. It never made the news. It happened to a friend's friend's friend. I heard about it today. The guy was mugged, too. After he got better, came back to Jeddah, told everyone he knew never to go to Manila. It's not safe. I love isolated incidents like this. They are the parents of stereotypification and urban legends.

I'm too lazy to google an image for this blog entry's title. You will have to make do without the eye candy. *** Apparently, a little disappointment goes a long way. At least I think that's all I needed to get out of this rut. Well, no I'm not completely out of it, I'm still reveling in the muddy waters of the emotionally crippled. But you know how you think you're going in one direction with somebody and then realize halfway through that your aiming for different destinations, and you kinda pause and then let go of the person's hand and just watch them walk on, while they're still talking to you, thinking you're still there? Yes, that drama. It shook me out of it a little bit. Because now here's the tricky part. Do you run up and try to catch up with that person and go on anyway? Or do you make a u-turn and head back where you started? I am truly a shrink's dream patient. All this vagueness. I can hear the shrink's voice in my head: ...

Things I should've done today but didn't: 1. My students' reports due this week. 2. Update my calendar. 3. Blog about something worthwhile that would give the fuckheads I call my friends something to read and entertain themselves with. (Haha I still heart you guys for being my emo dumpsite.) 4. Read a couple more chapters of Memoirs of a Geisha, which I've been trying to finish for the past three months already! ** Things I shouldn't have done today but did: 1. Rearrange my books reverse-alphabetically. 2. Eat a shitload of chocolate. 3. Smoke that extra stick. 4. Rearrange my wardrobe according to frequency of use. 5. Thrown out a bunch of business cards I have no use for. 6. Get online. 7. Go to the park after work. ** Things I shouldn't not have done but didn't do: 1. Honesty. 2. Finish a poem that I composed in my head that went like this: My name is Presence. I come in the form of all things. I laugh inside the universe of a paper bag. I beat the drums ...

Yes, I can't! The last thing I need right now is for someone else to remind of the things I want to be but can't. I beat myself up enough about it, I don't need help from anyone to put myself down. I realize there are so many things I could/should be doing now. Things that I like and that I'm good at, things that I'd have the passion to learn about and TRY to be the best at. For instance, I could be: 1. A Lawyer. Contrary to popular belief, I think I would make a good lawyer. I know how to focus, I like arguing, and I always look for people's mistakes. I'm always on the lookout for little details that I can use against people, should the event arise that I need to. I wanna be a lawyer. But I need to go through law school for that. 2. A Film Director (Fine, Assistant Film Director). I think I'd make it as one. I love drama, I love lighting, effects, angles, scripts, delivery. I wouldn't be a very good director, maybe, but I can be one. But I would ...

It works. Sometimes. It's very exhausting to be diplomatic at all times. Because isn't it all about restraint, after all? I wonder how much easier non-diplomatic people have it. I wonder if I should quit being so nice to people. Yes, I am aware of my being nice to people. Very aware of it. Because I make a conscious effort to be nice to people, to make them feel as comfortable as possible. Does that make my being-nice less pure? Does it mean that I am, in fact, not very nice at all, since it is not natural for me? No, it's not natural. 9 times out of 10, I just want to be nasty and cuss people out. I want to not care if they get their feelings hurt. I want to judge people. It's so much easier to say, "That's just fucking stupid" than "Oh, maybe there is an angle to this that I haven't checked". The reason I wonder is because I am so hurt so very easily. So many things hurt me. A tone, a word, a pronunciation, a silence, an implication, a look...

Cousin Z is having a baby boy in 3 months. Earlier today, we discussed baby names. She says she is having a hard time deciding what to name the boy. It's easier to name a pet, she says, especially with the funky, edgy names she has come up with. The problem she is having is that whatever she names her son, our Filipino/Maranao relatives would bastardize the pronunciation. Take for instance the following: (Original name --> Filipino/Maranao pronunciation) * Fatah --> Patak * Mohammad --> Mokamad (nicknamed Moks) * Ejaaz --> Etchas (which means "shit") * Saleh --> Salik The original names and their proper pronunciations would be gone in about a couple hours after baby is named. It's pretty sad. Which is why I have resolved that my kids will not have any of those names. If my relatives are gonna mis-pronounce them anyway, I would at least give them something very difficult to mis-pronounce. For instance, "Ubuntu".

Gay? Nay? I mean, so what if he's gay (which is unconfirmed, and most people say he's not)? I just think he's a beautiful (gay?) man. I mean, Look At That. James Franco. Please excuse the teenage hero-worship posting. It's just that I love men. Gay or otherwise. :P

Does Death look like this? When I found out I was going meet some new people earlier tonight at a little get-together, my newly anti-social self actually cringed. Until very recently, I've always loved meeting new people, starting conversations, having a good laugh. Now, I'm just always afraid that I'm going to be extremely bored. Nothing interests me anymore. Call it arrogance. But when I'm bored, I smoke more. And when I smoke more, I sleep with a heavy chest, and I wake up with a nasty smoker's cough, very bad chest pains and my hair smelling of smoke. It reminds me too much of college. Except I no longer have the club-entrance stamps on my wrists. But I had fun today. I met some really nice, interesting people, friends of friends, cousins of friends. I like it when people are up for anything, for good fun. It makes my job of entertaining them much, much easier. As a result, I learned to say a few sentences in (Argentinian) Spanish, all except one of which I'...

Some days, even when I feel like updating my blog, I don't, because I'm afraid I'm beginning to sound too judgemental of others. Other times, I'm more afraid of others judging me. But you know what, judge me. I encourage it. The biggest obstacle to complete understanding of another person's character and/or motivations is the fact that we, as human beings, are very judgemental. That's what makes us survive. That's what we base all our decisions on, how we choose the things we do or don't do. Judgement. We choose one course of action over another thinking that our choice is the right one, for whatever reason, whether or not others may perceive it as such. When we are faced with people who picked the other choice, we are baffled. Why? Because we don't understand why they are not like us, why they didn't think our choice was the right one, or at least the right one at that moment. If we stopped to think how different and unique each person is from o...

Our cleaning lady was grossly maltreated today. This was someone who is hard-working, very honest, very loyal to the company, who has been working with us since the company first started here. And she was accused by the new director of trying to steal something that was lost JUST BECAUSE SHE HAPPENS TO BE BLACK. Well look at that. The last thing I would expect in a place where people would more likely make fun of a Bengali or a Filipina than a Habashiyah. Apparently, racism is not exclusive. This isn't something new. Anyone who has lived here for more than a few months is probably familiar with this kind of racism from the locals. If you're not Saudi (or if you don't at least speak like one), or you're not a Westerner (read: LOOK like their idea of a Westerner, i.e. blond with colored eyes), you might as well be a piece of shit. You are treated like shit, anyway. At the workplace, you don't have as many benefits as your Saudi counterparts. At shops or restaurants, t...

My first attempt at graffiti.  Well, of course I would write Olaf's name. I call this masterpiece of an artwork "Unconditional Love" because, even though Olaf has been annoying me lately with its stupid (uncalled-for) growling, I still love him enough to risk being caught by cops vandalizing a wall at the park. Also, I blogged about my crime (of passion). This must be what motherly love looks like. *** I don't cook. But tonight, I made dinner for me and my brothers. Yes, this is dinner. You want food? Well, you ain't getting it from me. Instead, you get this uber-delish grilled cheese totally-unburnt sandwich thingie. I was gonna make hotdog sandwiches but I don't cook meat. I call THIS masterpiece of culinary artwork "Don't Ever Ask Me To Make Dinner Again, Bitches". Also, I've just been test-driving The Burkina-Faso's 3.2 (apparently NOT 3.5) megapixels. I won't insult it by comparing it to the Nikon (whose name is Madonna, by the w...

There is wisdom (and some grammatical errors maybe) to be found in the most mundane of things. For full of life. Amen to that.

Man. I finally found it. I came across this essay in 2002 for one of my Creative Writing classes. I still wish I could write something like it. WRITE LIKE JAZZ. by Brian Tucker Bim-do-bam-bap. Man, I write like jazz. I write like Billie Holiday crying sweet, unhappy love songs and Coltrane on rained-in Friday nights when inspiration is low-man-low, and motivation is rent. Dig this crazy, splayed finger, tap-tap-typing like Thelonious on ebony and ivory, and hear me scream something like bip-do-bam-bap as a new paragraph reveals itself in the form of cool. It's not in the broken-down line breaks or half-hearted metaphors that my thinking takes shape. It's in the unheard rhythm of an author stuck somewhere in the unholy limbo-middleness of black, white and unread all over. Bim-do-bam-bap. Do you feel that acoustic jibber-jabber splashing out of the verb choices and similes left understated and overdone? Can you feel the pulsing percussion of a long-winded, hyphen-crazy, thesaurus...

Because being positive about life is synonymous to being (slightly? a lot?) irresponsible, today I called in sick to spend a whole day doing.. nothing. I went to a cafe, got online on both my laptop and my phone (because I can! Haha!) and went crazy commenting on just about every blog, news article, essay and website I came across. When I got sick of that, I went to H's house to harangue him and his wife. I've been feeling a bit unsocial lately.  And yes I know, I know, BE like the people you WANT TO ATTRACT, blah blah blah. I'm working on it. *** In other news:  My Xperia can't download flash player.  Oh my gulay.

I did it again. I deleted my Twitter account twice because I really found no use for it. However, now that I have The Burkina-Faso to up my loser rating (expect me to be all cross-eyed and constantly on my cellphone), and since I found Christopher Walken (only my favorite actor of all-fucking-time) on Twitter, I BE BACK. *Missy Elliott voice* Fallah me.

I have a confession to make. You see how the sidebar on the right says "Entries" and a list of the months follow with the number of entries right next to each month? I want the number to be the same as the number of days of said month. February this year was 28 days. So call me what you will. *** I had such a bad start this past weekend. I thought it would be better, considering I had so much fun Wednesday night at dinner with some former and current co-workers (and Kimmy!). We went to Benihana, where no one really wanted to go on account of "Ew, sushi". I somehow managed to convince the manager to tell the staff that my guests would be (should be!) asking for the Jackie Chan reservation as part of a game (the goal of the game was to make the guests as uncomfortable as possible asking for Jackie Chan in Jeddah, purely for my enjoyment). The food was great. I'm not a fan of sushi, but I was either very hungry, or the sushi there was good, because I liked. I even ...

My good friend Squeek lost his camera and equipment. This is my cue to curse the thief to the hellfires of photography. May he burn in ugly lighting, 1 megapixel fucking ISO deficiency and wrong white balance!! Seriously, that is just terrible. Hopefully, Squeek doesn't get a Nikon for his birthday. *** I'm still shocked that Filipino musician/rapper Francis Magallona passed away recently. I always thought he was one of the most talented in the industry. His blog haunts me. A couple days ago, my cousin Kaka N and I were watching his wife Pia on The Filipino Channel talk about him. She seems strong enough. I hope they get through this. :( RIP Francis M.

This was taken about an hour ago as I was frantically looking for the Language Settings. I was all like: "Al-lughah! Al-lughah goddamnit!!"  AJNABI ANA!! I need to learn Arabic, people!! Help! (Yes, Hning, I'm talking to you! Haha!)

Good news first. I've succeeded in training myself to sleep a couple hours earlier than my usual 4 a.m. YAY! Around last month, I'd force myself to get offline by 2 a.m. (at least most days). I also stopped using the laptop, writing my reports, and doing all manner of work in bed. (No, that's NOT WHAT SHE SAID!) The good news is, I'd get sleepy at or around 2 a.m. now! Next goal: 1 a.m.  The bad news is, I don't think I'm sleeping tonight. I just got a new phone, and I'm figuring it out. I love this part, the Clean Slate. So I like my new phone. I like how it looks, I've learned to use it for the most part. I was a little disappointed that it's nothing new, really. I should've researched more before I bought it, because I thought it would be... something more than what it is. I had this phone in 2005 (or something like it, I forget the model now) It worked on Windows Mobile, as does the new one, a Sony Ericsson Experia (which by the way, I've...

Dear Archibald. Happy birthday, dahling.  I am very bad with dates, but there are just some that don't escape me. Your birthday is one of them. Funny enough, I would forget your birthday year after year when we used to hang out, the whole lot of us. Really, who remembered whose birthday? It was one of those things our families had in common, not celebrating birthdays. The last one you had with all of us wasn't even a proper celebration of you, was it? It was an excuse to gather the whole family, get drunk with every man, woman and newly-turned-teenager in our not-so-little fucked-up family. We had sung two songs over and over that night, The Last Dance, the one that Kaka J loved, and of course, Alicia Keys' If I Ain't Got You. We will always have Alicia Keys. These were the only two songs everyone knew the words to. We liked the fact that we had our own little exclusive club, that we were among celebrities but we chose to ignore them. The things that made us outcasts. I...

It's a little overwhelming, these changes. I literally feel like I'm drowning. When I first learned how to swim, I struggled the most with calming myself down and trusting the water. I realized that the only way for me to not drown is to "let" myself drown. It took a lot for me to push myself off the pool floor of the shallow end on to the several-feet deeper end, to let the water carry me. Many, many times, I had to pause and breathe properly, and stop gasping for air. It was only the third day that I ventured away from the pool's edge, to not have it within arm's reach. The first few times I did this, I could hear my heart pounding in my ears, and the mixture of fear, embarrassment, shame, cowardice, struggle, resistance and panic was heavy in my chest. I would trust the water a little bit, let go, but forget to breathe, and then feel myself slip into that muted world just below the surface. Whenever this would happen, this almost-drowning, I hear myself say...

Holy Shit. I know why I hate rollercoaster rides so much. See that moment up there? That moment. I know it too well. Much too familiar. *** Disclaimer: I'm not like this all the time, am I? No, I'm not. Having said that, fuck the disclaimer.

Photo by Dhahi Al-Ali I finally got to try the much (I'm tempted to say munch) talked-about bakery that everyone's been raving about here in Jeddah. Friends and I stopped by the shop earlier tonight, and I liked the little shop. Very novelty, very artsy. We had so much (munch!!) to eat that we did the whole I'm-never-eating-again scene. As is the case in Jeddah, the place is owned by people we know, the art and photography on display were by people we've worked with and rubbed elbows with at one point or another (like this nice one above). I'm surprised I didn't run into someone I know at the shop. Good Friday.

Interesting thing happened to me today at the salon. So I go with friends to have things done at the salon we always go to, where most of the ladies are Filipinos. We've been going there for most of our nails and eyebrows for a while now, so the ladies know us, they know our stories, our backgrounds, etc. I'm always mistaken for a non-Filipino. Sometimes, Filipinos come up to me asking me where I'm from, because they kinda feel that I'm Filipino, but aren't so sure. Other times, they just assume I'm Saudi or Malay. That's when it's funny, because they start talking about me and I understand everything they say. ( I heart gossip. ) So this one customer, who was Filipina, starts gossiping about me and my friends. She was saying something about how "our kind" (Saudi girls) are too lazy to groom ourselves, how bratty we are, etc. The manicure lady shushes her quickly. "Shh, shh," she says. "This one's Filipina, no! She understan...

Normally, I don't give a shit what Maranaos say about me. They can call me all kinds of names, spread all kinds of gossip about me, I don't give a flying fuck. Seriously. Because most of the time, they can't prove it. Besides, I always say to myself, why should I have to apologize about who I am to people who don't really make an effort to actually get to know me? When I posted a picture of myself showing a leeetle bit of skin (more like, cleavage), I did think it was a bad idea, for many reasons, one of them being that it's a little too accessible to these people. But because I am Miss I-Don't-Care-What-You-Say, I just posted it anyway. It's a nice picture, I thought my photographer did an excellent job, and I thought people should see it. I didn't think it would give the Maranao Paparazzi the proof they've all been waiting for. I can just see them huddled around someone's computer, calling out to anyone passing by to check out the girl, who is ...

The best thing about obsessive love is that spring in your step, that smile you always have on. The worst thing about it is that you end up obsessing about something that is not entirely accurate. We always have an image of that other person, and we subconsciously build that image; take away the bad traits or conceal them, hide them neatly under the bed, along with the things they do that hurt you and break you down; and highlight the (imagined?) good traits and the things they do or say that make you feel special. And then reality shows up and shatters you. Best be careful, he said.

I mean, I admit, I'm fond of gossip. I like to be in on the outrageous, scandalous, life-altering kind. It's the spice of life. But I hate when people put me on the spot for some gossip. Double standards? Fuck yeah.

February was Psycho Month. It seems like the center managers have a special file where they put all the crazy, paranoid, attitude-laden, fucking psycho students' assessment papers, and marked this file with my name. But no matter how crazy they were, I gotta give it to them; their determination is astounding.

I hate to admit it, but it seems like I am allergic to any and all facial moisturizers. GOTDAMNIT. I spend a shitload of money on crap that I use once or twice and NOTHING. Not even The Body Shop works. I am allergic to all mascara, and all moisturizers. WHY?? WHY?? *** In other news, as per goofball traditions, I am engaging in video calls with friends I see and talk to everyday. It's fun. It's like, we're totally hanging out. Like, totally. I wish I had some nail polish to complete this entry.