A bit of silence

It’s much too noisy here.

When I try to sit somewhere and enjoy a cup of coffee, there would be loud, idiotic pop music playing.

When I try to take a break at work, the few times I find myself alone at the pantry, someone would walk in while I’m eating and turn on the TV. And then leave a few minutes later.

I don’t even try to take a walk outside because there would be traffic and people. Too many people making too much noise.

Is it too much to ask for it to stop, even for just a few minutes?

It’s supposed to be Oscars season!

Holy crap, I completely missed Sweeney Todd. It’s no longer showing in theaters, not even in Festival Cinemas which attract a lot of fucktards who talk during the movie but which I’ll still take because they screen movies longer than other theaters do. I also missed American Gangster. Why have all the award-nominated movies been replaced by such tripe as One Missed Call and The Eye? Do people want to see Hollywood remakes of Asian horror movies that badly?

New pages

Okay. I’ve neglected this blog long enough. And I owe Louise a post.

I received my new Moleskine notebook in the mail today. It’s a lovely little notebook, black leather cover, crisp, smooth pages, fits perfectly inside the inner pockets of my bag where the security guards at work won’t question its presence because they won’t know it’s there. I bought it off eBay ph at P500 – almost half the retail price.

I like having new notebooks. When I was a pimply little primary school kid in Singapore, I used to go to NTUC almost every week to buy new notebooks. I wrote a lot back then. Stories about plucky little heroines having grand adventures, most of which I never even finished. Then, after a few years, I would betray myself and throw the notebooks away because I thought the stories I wrote were stupid. I was afraid someone would read them.

I’ll tell you one thing – the stories I wrote when I was a kid are a lot less stupid than the ones I wrote as an adult. I never finished most of those either.

So, with this new notebook fresh and crisp and waiting to be lovingly written in, I’ll try to do something I hardly ever do. I will write a story. And I will finish it.

One Hundred Years of Excrement?

Oh my God! Glorietta 2 killed Kenny!

Shit, really?

That’s it, I’m going there on Sunday. Who wants to join me?

(x-posted at LJ)

After Glorietta

My internets have been fucked up since yesterday morning so I wasn’t able to post sooner.

So there was an explosion in Glorietta 2. Nine people are dead at last count. A member of a militant group texted the media that they did it.

I’ve experienced a mall bombing before. It was in Megamall seven or eight years ago – a small bomb went off at the cinema across the one I was in. Everyone felt it when the bomb went off. It was a sudden jolt, like a split-second earthquake. At first, you’re not sure what just happened, or if something did happen. Then someone dares to look and tells you there’s smoke, you should evacuate. And you do, calmly, even, hoping as you’re walking that no one’s died, knowing someone has.

My grandmother was watching live news coverage of the aftermath Friday as I was about to leave for work. I didn’t catch the time the blast occurred so I worried about my brother, who works in Makati and takes the Ayala Terminal shuttle home. If you’re in the mall, the nearest exit to the terminal is the one at Glorietta 2.

The blast occurred in the early afternoon. If it had gone off during rush hour, or on a payday Friday, more people might have been killed or injured.

First thing I did when I got to the office was to search for a list of dead and injured. Sorry to sound insensitive, but I was relieved there was no one I know on that list.

A day after the blast, it was business as usual. Because of course, the best way to deal with something like this is to carry on as if nothing happened. Hey, everyone does it, even me. After exiting Megamall after the bomb went off, we crossed over to Shangri-la Mall to finish the movie we were watching.

(x-posted at LJ)

Or maybe not

Christmas carols have invaded my solitary stalking of cheer again. Today, it was at SM (where else?) while I was searching for the capiz photo frames my mother wanted. I felt hollow, as if my little black heart had decided to go on an indefinite leave.

Again, the question: Do I hate it so much because other people are happy and I am not?

Just a little – you know

There are certain hours of night when I’m just sitting at my computer and listening to people talk. Sometimes I can’t stand it and I want to scream.

Why am I sick on a weekend?

Sinisipon ako dahil dinaanan ako ng dalawang bagyo ngayong linggong ito.

Sigh. I wonder when I can have a normal weekend? Someone drag me to a spa.

No tea

I just want good Japanese food. Do you understand? Some hot miso soup followed by cold, luscious salmon sashimi, and then unagi bento or katsu don with maybe gyoza or mabo tofu on the side.

Sigh.

After a disappointing round of attempted shoe shopping – I found a beautiful pair of brown suede flat pumps at Charles and Keith, but of course they don’t have my size – I searched all over Glorietta for Teriyaki Boy. Why Teriyaki Boy? Because it seems Haiku in Greenbelt 3 does not serve salmon sashimi, Tokyo Tokyo’s tiny servings can not satisfy my hunger, and there was no way I was going to Isshin by myself on a Saturday night. Besides, Teriyaki Boy has decent ebi tempura so I figured their other menu items were okay too.

It took me half an hour to find it because Glorietta does not have a store directory I can refer to. When I finally got to the restaurant, I found out they don’t even serve green tea. There is a Japanese tea kettle and some cups on the counter. Must be for display only.

I was famished and didn’t want to look for another place to eat. I ordered miso soup, salmon sashimi and unagi don.

The food was served fairly quickly. The sashimi was actually okay for something so cheap (only Php140). But either the cook does not know how to cut salmon properly, or the resaurant doesn’t buy the nice portion of salmon to begin with (because of course that’s expensive). It made me miss the wonderful salmon sashimi at that Japanese restaurant my dad would take us to in Clementi.

The miso soup was just all right – slightly hot bordering on lukewarm. I wish they had put scallions instead of chives in it. The unagi don was nothing but a tiny, sorry strip of grilled eel resting on a huge bowl of rice. I felt I was being insulted. Not only was that strip of eel not enough to eat a lot of rice with, but I was expected to pay Php228 for it.

I had to remind the waiter to serve my drink halfway through the meal. Then I saw him pouring hot water into the tea kettle and serving it at another table. I thought they didn’t have tea?

At least they had J-pop – real J-pop, not a cheap karaoke imitation – on the CD player. You have to give them half a point for trying.

I hope they have my size

It seems Ateneo has a co-branding deal with Adidas. Limited-edition apparel and accessories will be sold in Ateneo’s A-shop and selected Adidas concept stores.

This means I can finally get my hands on those jackets I’ve been lusting after since freshman year.