The Zen Bitch Speaks

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Syrup and honey

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Weeks ago, while I was waiting for the computer to finish its daily virus scanning, I turned on the TV and started to surf channels. When I got to Channel V, a video caught my attention. It showed a blond woman standing on what seems to be a box, surrounded by male dancers. She was performing inside a gymnasium, or a hangar. Huge chandeliers shone from the impossibly high ceilings. As the video progressed, the feet of the dancers started to catch fire. When the song ended, some of the dancers were consumed by the flames.

I was consumed as well. The song had a distinct retro feel, kind of like Amy Winehouse’s music. Duffy’s (yes, that’s her screen name) voice, however, was distinct from Ms Winehouse’s. While Amy’s voice was deep, earthy, and smoky, this singer’s voice was almost girlish. But, I imagined, if her voice was a girl, this was a girl with a very colorful reputation.

I googled her name and saw her on YouTube, Wikipedia, and her official website. I learned that the 23-year-old Welsh singer is the most prominent of the so-called ‘new Amy’s’, referring to Amy Winehouse. The two other singers are Adele (who sang Counting Pavements) and Gabriella Cilmi (haven’t heard her). Duffy herself is reputedly called ‘the new Dusty’ (after Dusty Springfield) by the British press, something that she dislikes. To me she looks like Bridget Bardot at first glance.

Last week, to my pleasant surprise, I saw her CD called Rockferry on my friendly neighborhood (pirated) CD/DVD shop. I quickly purchased it and was immensely satisfied with her record. Like Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black, each song in Rockferry works as an album and as individual songs. her lyrics are filled with pathos without being mushy, the melodies are retro but still manages to sound fresh. Like Amy, her songs range from slow ballad to bouncy tunes, singing of love imagined, lost, and thrown away. Where Amy Winehouse’s singing is gritty and ironic, Duffy’s is unaffected, at times effortless, and never coming off as ‘performed’.

Her lyrics are equally sincere. The title song’s refrain goes: ‘I’d move to Rockferry tomorrow/ and build my house, baby with sorrow’. My favorite track (Warwick Avenue) takes place in an undergound station, where two lovers meet, presumably after spending some time apart without really breaking up. The melody reminds me of the opening riff of ‘My Girl’. She sings: ‘Don’t think we’re okay just because I’m here/ You hurt me bad but I won’t shed a tear’. Another couplet goes, ‘You think you’re loving but you don’t love me/ I want to be free, baby, you’ve hurt me’.

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Posted by pinakadalisay at 1:33 am | permalink | Add comment

With a smile

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

I wanted to buy an iPod. I’d been planning to get one for the last couple of years but I’d been putting it off due to many reasons: my mobile phone plays music, my computer has great speakers, I have an old but still reliable Discman, i have a mini-component at home, etc. Last Monday I decided I will really buy myself an iPod. Kind of like a present to myself since I didn’t get anything for myself last Christmas.

The iPod I had in mind is the 80GB Classic. In black, which is the same colour as my next MacBook (which I plan to get later this year, replacing my old iBook). I went to 3 shops here in Phnom Penh who claimed they were official resellers and scouted their prices. One store had the lowest price (about $20 less than the other 2) but the staff had tremendously poor English language skills and other than showing me the price in their calculator, they couldn’t tell me anything else. After four years, my Khmer is still rusty, I must admit. I left the store because I had another appointment.

When I came back on Tuesday I was able to speak with the owner of the shop, and I learned that their latest shipment of black, 80GB iPod classic (and other products, I assume) has yet to be released by the customs. He told me that he expected it to be released the next day. He took my number and told me he’d ring me when he’s got the product. I left the shop happy.

That afternoon, while I was sharing a soft and chewy (because it was kept at room temperature) bar of white chocolate at a friend’s house, I felt something loosen in my mouth and mingled with the chocolate. The fixed bridge anchored to my upper left molar got dislodged! Checking it in the toilet, I pulled it out of my mouth and stared at it. The ceramic coating was worn; there was even a hole on the metal underneath.

This was made in early 2005, by our family dentist, who is actually the son of our original family dentist. Along with the dental clinic, he inherited his father’s clients as well. A year later my mother discovered a new dentist and we started coming to her. When I went to her for my annual dental check-up last December 2006, I complained to her that food particles got inside my fixed bridge. I knew that it wasn’t supposed to happen. When new dentist checked it, she noted that the style used to make my fixed bridge wasn’t used anymore, short of saying that our former dentist did a banged-up job. I was dismayed.

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Posted by pinakadalisay at 8:10 pm | permalink | comments[5]

Joy to the world

Monday, May 5, 2008

My original intention was for the previous post to be about the despedida party thrown for Joy last night. I also wanted it to be a happy post: a proper send-off, so to speak, for somebody who to many people embodies her very name. However, as it is often the case with my writings, sometimes the words get the better of me and they run off to directions that I did not intend to tread. So this time I will focus on the party, so help me, God!

In my opinion, the despedida actually started on Saturday night. After the mass, Joy had a short photo session with the choir, whose members regard her as the ‘Simon Cowell’, bluntly pointing out when the singing deviates from its usually-high quality. After that, Joy treated us (Lou, me, Lala, Tita Sonia, Tita Purit, Trixie, Daden, Doc Marisa, Daddy Dick, and Bea) to a buffet dinner at Juliana Hotel.

Last night, people started arriving at Bistro Lorenzo (a Filipino restaurant) around 6PM, as per the invitation sent by Lou. Joy arrived at around half-past 6. After a prayer led by Jojo, the 40 or so guests dined on beef stroganoff, sweet and sour fish, chopsuey, chicken cordon bleu, fresh spring rolls, noodles, and lechon. For dessert, there were leche flan, gelatin with coconut milk, and fresh fruit salad. I immediately felt full after a single trip to the buffet table. Must be the couple of glasses of iced tea I drank before eating.

When the guests have eaten, Bridget (the Singaporean former beauty queen and member of the church choir) took to the floor and asked the guests to speak on how Joy has touched their lives in the time that they had known her. When Joy entered the restaurant after her cigarette break, we applauded and sat her down on one of the chairs and the testimonials began. 

Friends old and new came forward, speaking of how they first met Joy and how she had touched their lives. Jojo told the story of how, in her most relaxed moment while talking to Jojo, Joy removed her bra non-chalantly. Nary, a Cambodian colleague shared how she owed her professional development to Joy’s tireless generosity. Tita Purit likened her to an umbrella that provided shade from the sun and rain. Doc Marisa talked of the family she has found in Joy and Lou, something that had lasted for many years.


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Posted by pinakadalisay at 4:50 am | permalink | comments[1]

Until you come back

Sunday, May 4, 2008

This afternoon, I cut my thumb on one of the metal pegs that held the wooden backing of the picture frame that I was filling with a photo. I was preparing my going-away present for Joy, who is leaving Cambodia in a week for work in Mongolia. I didn’t notice the cut until I felt a slickness as I was pressing the photo into the frame. When I lifted my thumb from the photo, it was smeared with my bloody thumbprint. It wasn’t a complete print; more like a smudge actually. It glared against the whiteness of the photo paper, like a red exclamation point. I looked in front and noted that the smudge wasn’t noticeable at all. I was glad.

Lou’s sms yesterday, inviting me to the despedida party for Joy and asking me to bring something that represents how she had touched my life, sent me to a mild state of panic. I couldn’t think of anything to bring, although I’d been working on my present for more than a week already. I’ve only known her for a short time, as compared to the other people in our group.

So I thought hard and realized a few things in the process.

I met Joy because of Lou. When I came to Cambodia on April 19, 2004, Ms Ruthy, my boss who knew Lou, advised me to get in touch with her. When I called Lou, she offered to take me out to dinner. Lou and Joy picked me up from the house of my Cambodian friend, where I’d been staying. It was Friday, May 14, 2004, around 7PM. They brought me to Bamboo House, the now-closed Filipino restaurant. While having dinner, I was introduced to Jojo and Verse–who arrived shortly after our food was served. They seemed to be a happy and agreeable group.

After dinner,  they agreed to go to a hotel for some after-dinner drinks and coffee. On the way to the hotel we passed by Phsar Thmey (literally, New Market but it’s official name is Central Market), when Joy told me that the market was built on reclaimed marshland. And that each year, the building slowly sinks into the land that gets soft during the rainy season. This struck me hard and until now I don’t clearly know the reason why. Joy’s story made so much an impression to me that I wrote a poem about it months later. I dedicated this poem (called Phnom Penh is Sinking) to Lou and her. I posted this poem in my poetry blog.

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Posted by pinakadalisay at 11:48 pm | permalink | comments[4]
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Zen Bitch

an old soul, paying for his karmic debts as a chronicler of tales of joy and misery, as a listener to other people's secrets, and as the voice of the unspeakable. makata. manunulat. development worker. kasuyo. bugtong na anak. a former drag performer. kalaguyo. kaibigan. future carpenter, bread-maker, or bar-tender.

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pinakadalisay:

malamig na rin dito sa phnom penh, spiky… lalo na sa umaga…

pinakadalisay:

thanks, ande!

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zen btch…ok naman dito kahit malamig ang panahon.

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Just Stopping BY! Nice Site!

pinakadalisay:

hi spiky! ok lang naman ako. ikaw?

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salamat sa pagbisita sa site ko uli. musta ka na zen bitch?

pinakadalisay:

teynks, kiel… will read it… now na!

kiel:

posted the reaction to your latest post na. hope you like it, too.

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