Karma chameleon

Last week I paid for all the procrastination, all the dilly-dallying, and all the hesitation that I did instead of doing my work. At the start of this month I had two self-imposed deadlines that I set in order to be free from these commitments so I can move on to my next project(s). One deadline was Monday, June 4. The other was Tuesday, June 5. I had decided to spend the weekend working my ass of so that by Monday morning I can meet deadline #1 then still have the rest of the day for deadline #2.

But what did I do? Instead of doing what I intended (working my ass off), I dawdled around the house and around the web (please refer to my previous post). So come Sunday evening, I had accomplished nothing!

Thankfully deadline #2 had been moved a day later, but deadline #1 was more problematic. I've been working on this for too long that I just wanted to be free of it already. So I had to give notice that instead of Monday, I'd be submitting my commitment on Friday, June 8.

This is how the proverbial cookie crumbled: on Monday I worked on deadline #1. On Tuesday through early Wednesday I finished deadline #2. I started work on Tuesday, 8AM, worked non-stop until Wednesday, 4AM. After emailing my submission, I slept for 4 hours then got back to working on deadline #1 again. I had to stop by 5PM because I saw old friends from the Philippines and Indonesia who were here for a conference. Kimrun and I took them out to dinner because they'd gotten tired of hotel food. On Wednesday I was only able to work in the morning because I had promised to take them shopping in the afternoon. This time Kaloy went with me. The afternoon shopping stretched to dinner so I managed to get home by 10PM. I was dead-tired and Kaloy knew it so upon his advice I slept right away and woke up at 6AM on Thursday, got back to work at 7AM and did not stop until Friday at 12 noon. I made my submission at 3PM, as I promised.

At around 4.30PM I finally succumbed to sleep deprivation and slept through Friday night and the rest of Saturday. On Sunday I saw 4 new pimples on my forehead and a new depth in my eye bags. 

Always something there to remind me

It is a quiet, Sunday mid-morning and I have two huge tasks that I need to complete by Monday afternoon. But, instead of being neck-deep in work, I found myself wandering around the web, and looking at the profiles of people who are not part of my life now. Nope, they did not die, but they may as well have. Ex-lovers, ex-colleagues, ex-friends, that sort of thing…

I'm not sure why I do this. Whether it is a combination of my voyeuristic and masochistic tendencies exerting their influence on my mind is beyond me. I just do it. Not to renew my ties with them. Hell, no. Except perhaps, to keep tabs? See what they're up to these days in their little corners of the world? Look at how they appear now? Geez, I should probably be working for an intelligence agency. Didn't someone told me many years ago that I am suitable for intelligence work? It was a career counselor or something similar. This was echoed by a friend who admired my capacity to be still for hours just silently observing the goings-on in an outdoor cafe.

Still, I would like to know why I keep doing this. It's a waste of time. Seriously. I examined my feelings while doing this and I came across a blank wall. Except for the reasons I previously mentioned, nothing else came up. My mother faults my memory for this. According to her, my sharp memory keeps me from letting go of the past. That I forgive, but never forget. That is very true. I, in fact, do not believe that phrase. It does not make sense to me. I mean, I can forgive, and I sure can stop bringing up one's past mistakes, but I will not forget them. Because keeping those things at the back of my mind will help me avoid the same mistakes or protect me if they indeed happen again.

If there is anything that I learned fiercely from my mother, it is this: once trust is broken, you can never bring it back.

But I digress. In coming across a blank wall in my search for a reason, does this mean that I am destined to be doing this over and over again, as the list of my exes grow longer? I hope not. I do not want to spend the rest of my life pondering on the imponderables. I don't want to end up like Marcel Proust!

Better for me to sign up with the nearest intelligence agency, pronto!

Here comes the rain again

During the past week, the warm weather in Phnom Penh has been interrupted by gusts of wind and rain, especially in the late afternoon. I wondered why before realizing that May was over and the rainy season is upon us.

The rainy season. I remember when I first arrived in Phnom Penh three years ago, I was struck by the mild-ness of the rainy season. Compared to the tempestuous rainy season we have in the Philippines (typhoons, floods, and the rest), the rainy season here is so mild and predictable you can practically schedule your day around the rains. Usually, you get a clear morning, a humid noon and the rain between mid-afternoon to early evening. Sometimes you get rain before dawn, resulting in an overcast morning which brightens up late morning and the rain again on the afternoon. Now it's a bit erratic. Al Gore's voice begins to drift inside my head, talking about global warming.

June was a happy month for me. When I was a boy, I associated it with the opening of the schoolyear, ergo new shoes, new uniforms, new things: a bag, lunch-box, notebooks! About three weeks before school started, my mother will take me to department stores and school supply stores to shop for school stuff. Of course, I didn't have the final say as to what kind (or brand) of things I end up with (That decision-making power was bestowed upon me during high school) but that was okay. In fairness to Mama, she never refused me outright; she would ask what I liked, and if it fit her budget, she'd buy it. If it didn't she'd offer another suggestion. Besides, Mama never bought me a notebook that had movie stars on the covers, or a tacky school bag. We would buy shoes, belt, school bag, lunch box, pencil case.

For the other school supplies, she regularly went to this shop in Divisoria (Manila's bargain shopping district) where she's buy things in bulk: notebooks, writing pads, boxes of pens, glue, adhesive tapes, pencils and crayons, reams of art paper, rubber eraser, scissors, puncher, stapler and staple wire, and a small bolt of plastic cover sheet to cover my notebooks and books. I remember how I used to love the scent of these plastic cover sheets. These things were stored in a closet in our house, so that for the whole school year, I wouldn't have to worry about school supplies. No trips to the neighborhood store to buy a few pieces of bond and art paper and a tube of glue. No worries of running out of pad paper for writing. That's how organized my Mama was, is, and will, I think.

June is still a happy month, until now. The changing of the seasons usually have a buoyant effect on my feelings and emotions. I am usually excited, not frightened, by the concept of change. It is only when that change becomes all-too real that it causes my innards to knot themselves into a tight ball, and when the change looms above me like a storm-cloud, i will again feel suddenly relaxed and without an ounce of worry. 

What the heck. Give it to me. Whatever that is. 

You are the universe

She was the one who caught my eye since I saw her face in the Miss Universe website weeks ago. Riyo Mori, raven-haired with eyes that seem to be glowing and  lit from within. Just as Whitney Houston cooed in her song, 'So Emotional': "I don't why I like you, I just do!"

Perhaps I was still smarting from Kurara Chibana's near-win last year, or maybe this fascination with Japanese women started when Miyako Miyazaki finished 5th in the 2003 pageant. There's something about these three women, something that to me made them all worthy of the title. After all, Japan was the first Asian country to win the title in 1959, so they've been deserving to win (to a slightly greater degree that the Philippines, who last won in 1973 and almost won in 1999).

But I'm really loving these Japanese ladies of recent years. In fact, I was so in love with Ms Chibana that I changed my drag name from Mimi Kikimura to Kurara Chibana last year. Now the temptation to embrace the name Riyo Mori is almost too strong to resist. But out of loyalty to Ms Chibana, I will resist said temptation. Besides, almost every fag in town will surely call themselves Riyo Mori because she won. Well, fuck those fags. Where were they when Japan wasn't winning?

This year I am really happy with the outcome because my bet won! Surely, Ms Korea had been declared by pundits to be the lady to beat because of her beauty and grace but these days, those are not enough. You gotta have spunk, and character, things that Riyo Mori sweats off her porcelain skin. From her confident swish and swagger wearing her national costume to her playful twirling of the shawl in the swimsuit competition to her devil-may-care romp wearing that neo-gypsy Gucci gown in the long gown competition, Riyo Mori ate up every inch of the stage given her, along with the other delegates (ha-ha!).

On a sad note, I was really hoping that Ms Tanzania will make it to the top 5 but I guess one can't have it all. I think Ms USA got in the top 5 because of her live fall-and-rise on stage. Shades of Ms Miriam Quiambao in 1999. And I really think Ms Korea's answer in the final round deserved the 2nd runner-up post, at least. It would've been tremendous and ground-breaking to see Japan and Korea fighting it out for the crown, with China sulking as the 2nd runner-up (dream sequence).

And, while I'm not surprised to see Ms Philippines receiving the Ms Photogenic Award, I am proud to say that this year, she really deserves it. 

It actually felt like Christmas morning. I woke up around 7AM, saw that Kaloy was still sleeping, so I crept back to bed. At around 8 I woke up to Dave's voice and I shouted, "Ms Uuuuuuuuu!!!!" as I stretched and yawned. Over coffee, scrambled eggs and cream crackers the three of us watched as the pageant unfolded before our eyes. By 10AM, Riyo Mori is the new Ms Universe, and I am here, reporting it to all of you. 

Let’s hear it for the boy!

Yesterday Kaloy and I helped a dear friend organize and host his birthday party. I like Derrick, the celebrant; he reminds me of one of my oldest friends in Manila, Emit. They have similar dispositions, behaviours, and the same tendency to have highlights in their hair. I just realized, they were both born in May (Emit is on the 22nd, Derrick yesterday). Derrick is about 3 years older than Emit.

Derrick is a doctor who works for an international NGO; he is based in Koh Kong, a province about a few hundred kilometers outside Phnom Penh. He is married to another doctor, Michelle, who also works for another international NGO. However, Michelle's work takes her as far as Bandah Aceh in Indonesia. Alone on his birthday, Derrick phoned me last Friday from Koh Kong asking for help on what to do on his day. I told him we can discuss it when he's back in Phnom Penh.

Saturday night he came to my house. For a no-fuss party, my idea was to grill food and serve drinks, alcoholic preferrably. But he wanted more: some karaoke singing and being Filipino, a noodle dish to accompany the grilled food. I listed the things he ought to buy the next morning and promised him that Kaloy and I would prepare the noodle dish of 'Pancit Canton'.

Kaloy woke up at around 10AM on Sunday, and he immediately set out to cooking. First on his list was spring rolls, which he had been obsessing to make the whole week. He took a long time doing this, probably not realizing the complexity of doing such dish for someone who lacks the regular practice of wrapping those rolls. We had a late lunch as a result but I did not dare complain. After all, I didn't do anything to assist him in cooking. 

At around 3PM I went to the supermarket to shop for the ingredients of the noodle dish. Kaloy wanted to take a nap but I was back less than thirty minutes later, rousing him from impending sleep and sending him back to the chopping board. This time I helped in preparing the ingredients. I would have helped more but when we found out we had differing methods of preparing the meaty ingredients, I stayed away to let him do it his way.

At 5PM Dave & Romyr came by, along with a heavy downpour of rain. Soon the dish was cooked; Kaloy took a shower while I transferred the steaming-hot dish unto a container. Derrick's house is not far from my house. We were soon off after I took my own shower. No sign of the rain on the pavement. We arrived at half-past 6 at Derrick's house. The table was set; I chopped whatever needed chopping while Dave finished grilling the rest of the food. Romyr put the portable karaoke machine to the test. Wowie soon arrived, followed by Daden and Neil, then by Derrick's Khmer colleague. We had dinner. Maros arrived after a late invitation, in time for the karaoke.

Everybody had fun during karaoke: singing off and on-key, an impromptu fashion show, poking fun at Derrick's lack of a proper ice bucket, Kaloy's disdain for boyband music, and Derrick's macho dancing. I sang one  of my signature songs (the theme song from the movie Carrie, not the 'Gift of Love' by Bette Midler). And most importantly, we got happily drunk.

Derrick's SMS this morning (the italics are mine): "…thanks kagabi (last night). That was a blast." 

Let's hear it for the boy!