IKALAWANG BAHAGI: TRANSMISYON 2004 (NAIWAN KO ANG AKING PUSO/N ATBP. SA SAN FRANCISCO)

Nung araw na pinatutugtog ni Inang sa Pilipinas yung I Left My Heart in San Francisco ni Andy Williams ang pumapasok sa isip ko e San Francisco del Monte. Eto ngayon bumabalik na ako sa aking sarili, I am returning to myself, buo na ang kasaysayan ko at napagdikit ko na ang misteryo ng Frisco at SFO. Pwede na akong mag-asawa, malaki na ako, meron nang pilosopiya sa buhay, Kung hindi tayo kikilos, kailan?

Sa eroplano papuntang SFO katabi ko isang Gringga Matrona na hawak ang libro ni T.C. Boyle, Drop City, istorya ng isang grupo ng hippies sa California na nag-migrate sa Alaska. Nung nag-settle na ang eroplano sa himpapawid lumingon sa akin si Gringga at ngumiti ng ubod tamis. Counterculture ang dating nya, tipong smarte at malalim. Art dealer? Writer? Tumingin sya sa librong hawak ko, Elizabeth Costello ni JM Coetzee, sabay tanong, Is he good? No he's not, sagot ko, He's great. Him, sabi ko in reference to Boyle, is good, but them, turo ko sa cover design ng libro nya, are great. Natawa sya. I know, sabi nya, I'm from San Francisco.

(Nasa cover nung libro ni Boyle ang isang grupo ng babae't lalaki na pawang hubo-tabo at mapipintog ang mga pwet; kapit-bisig silang nakapabilog at nakadapa sa damuhan. Obviously, mga hippies sila.)

Kung naging New Yorker lang si Gringgay hindi nya ako tatanungin tungkol sa libro ko. Either kilala nya si Coetzee o di nya papahalatang ngwek-ngwek sya. Yun o kaya hinalibas nya ako ng libro sa komento ko.

Sa paglapag ng eroplano sa SFO Int'l Airport lumapag din ang pruweba: di lang San Franciscan sa himpapawid ang maganda, pati sa lupa din. Bos, kalabit ko sa sekyung unmistakably Pinoy, pano ako makakarating ng downtown? First time?, tanong nya. Opo, virgin pa po ako, sabi ko. Haw-hee, tawang-aso nya, kita mo yung asul na van na yun (kaway sya sa driver), sakay ka dun, $15.00 lang hanggang downtown, wag kang magtataxi, welcome to San Francisco.

Yung hotel ko nasa Geary St., sa pagitan ng City Hall at Union Square right at the heart of downtown. Oh-la-la, sabi ko, nasan ba ko, nasa Morocco? Lakas ng impluwensya ng Casablanca sa tema ng mga buildings ah, pati yung ACT, teka mali, nasa Calumpang ata ako, andaming Pinoy, teka mali, nasa Binondo pala, andami din kasing Chinese (Gary Lising joke: sa counter ng hotel pagnagtanong daw yung Front Desk, Check-in?, isagot mo, No...Noy-pi.) Di ko nagamit yung joke, Check-in kasi yung nasa Front Desk.

Ambango ng SFO. Ambango sa mata. Maaliwalas ang paligid 'di gaya ng LA na toxic ang ere, o ng NY na toxic ang mga tao. Maganda ang disposisyon ng mga San Franciscans, pati turista nahahawa, pati environment nahihili, siguro dahil Asyano ang majority group ng population, alam nyo naman tayo, kahit tragic nagiging comic. (Sabi nung isang intelektwal, Pag ala kang alam, ikunot mo noo mo tapos maglakad ka ng mabilis. Har-har, puro ganyan tao sa Manhattan. Tas sabi pa ata ni Conan O'Brian ang LOTR daw influenced ng NY where every other man is a Gollum. Teka nga at makaharap sa salamin. NamPucha, tama nga sya.

Andaming tao sa Union Square, merong magandang chick na lumapit sakin akala ko yayayain akong mag-date kaya sabi ko agad bago magtanong, Yes, of course, yumpala mamimigay lang ng cards, nakasulat: Jews for Jesus. Yun na. The card spoke of, for, about, the city. Merry mixture, salmagundi, diversified unity (unified diversity?).

SFO is a city of neighborhoods, sabi ni Turo, short for Tour Guide. The people love their neighbors and will fight for them. (In contrast sa NY the kindest word one will have of his neigbors is "They Suck" and the kindest thing one will wish of them is "To Fuck Off".) Madaling ma-appreciate yung sinabi ni Turo. Pagsakay ko sa cable car na-feel ko agad ang sense of community, or even of family. How you doin today? tanong sa akin nung car driver (actually di naman nya dina-drive yun, hinihila lang ata nya yung cable), tapos paalala pa nung pagbaba ko, Watch the cars, sir. Tas yung mga pasahero kwentuhan ng kwentuhan kahit di magkakakilala, tapos pag takbo ng mabilis downhill, huwwweeeee, sigawan ang mga bata, tawanan ang mga matatanda, kasama ako ng mga bata sa sumisigaw kasi nabuta na yung edad ko kumbaga sa larong bente-uno. Tapos alambitin din ako, naaalala ko tuloy yung mga bus na papuntang Laguna na walang dingding, meron pa ba nun ngayon?

Next stop, Nob Hill. Hmmm, tipong class tong lugar na to, Snob Hill. Next stop, Painted Ladies, naalala ko yung eksena sa So I Married an Axe Murderer, takbo si Mike Myers sa damuhan parang von Trapp Family sa Sound of Music, tapos kita sa background yung contrast ng Victorian houses against the city skyline, picture perfect ako dun. Next stop, Lombard St., antarik ng kalye, 90 degrees, pag nag-park ka siguro para kang nasa pagitan ng langit at impyerno; next stop Haight-Ashbury, Cha-cha-cha ng cha-cha-cha; next stop, Palace of Fine Arts, what beauty, and then... Golden Gate.

This is the Golden Gate? tanong nung isang turista. Disappointed sya, sobra siguro ang hype para sa kanya, tapos ganun lang pala. Oist, atin-atin, dalawang grupo lang siguro ng tao ang talagang naiinlove sa GGB: grupo #1 - mga civil engineers kasi alam nila ang structural integrity/vitality/virtuosity/generosity/curiosity nito na kayang magpagewang-gewang hanggang 6 ft. to the right at 6 ft to the left, mahiya syang nag-eelectric slide, atsaka the fact na yung isang cable magkabilang panig na sumusuporta sa kanya e binubuo sa loob ng 27,000 cables na singnipis lang ng pencil lead; at grupo #2 -yung mga nagsusuicide doon kasi alam nila ang talagang makasaysayang ability/capability/sagacity/serendipity/serenity ng tulay to serve as plataporma sa kanilang pagtalon, mas noble pa nga ang plataporma ng GGB kesa sa plataporma ng mga kandidato sa Pinoy eleksyon; dali mga politikong pinoy, punta na kayo sa GGB at mag-join sa grupo #2!)

Maya-maya akyat kami ng mataas na mataas, 900 ft. above sea level, Twin Peaks, boy, tanaw mo ang buong syudad 360 degrees, there's the Pacific Ocean, ayun ang GGB, the beautiful SFO Bay, ayun ang Presidio, there's the Pacifi Heights, Russian Hill yun, asan ang mga Russians?, that I can tell is downtown, kita kasi ang pyramid ng TransAmerica Bldg, there's Oakland...ah...naooverwhelm na naman ako, gusto ko na namang magpalipad ng saranggola.

Dito ako titira, nowhere else in the world, this has got to be the prettiest city in America, sabi ko kay Turo. Kelangan $150,000 ang income mo para makabili ng bahay dito, kaya mo ba?, tanong nya. Pero minsan naiisip ko din, sagot ko, na maganda rin sa ibang lugar.

Masaya talaga sa SFO. Punong-puno ng optimism. Carefree ang mga tao, peaceful, para pa din silang mga hippies ng University of California sa Berkeley kahit na yung iba sa mga hippies noon e hippopotamus na ngayon;

Me setback sa SFO: It lies on the San Andreas Fault. Pero dahil optimist sila e no problem, lumindol man ngayon e responsibilidad yun ng ibang tao, handa naman sila, tsaka may party pa ngayon, I'm sure hindi magcoco-incide yung lindol sa prty, will it? Handa naman ako palagi, pabida ni Turo. Lagi akong may flashlight sa bahay.

Handa talaga ang mga San Franciscans at mahilig sila magwarning. Sa kantang San Francisco ni Scott McKenzie nga, nag-alarma sya. If you're going to San Francisco, sabi da, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair. Maaliwalas din sa SFO kasi very tolerant ang tao't batas. Kaya nga andun ang mga bading, walang aalipusta sa kanila. At alam nyo kumbakit andaming bading bukod sa tolerance? Pinangalan kasi ni Santiago Cermeno ang syudad in honor of San Francisco de Assissi. Uh, sissy.

Oist, tutal di ka naman taga-NY, kilala mo ba si William Saroyan? Sabi kasi nya malalaman mo talaga kung buhay ka kung pupunta ka sa San Francisco at di ka mabo-bore.

Yeyyy, buhay pa ko.

SA PANGHULING ENTRADA NG TAON...

UNANG BAHAGI: TRANSISYON 2004

- Sama ako sampu sa 'yo, Prof. Jim Paredes. Maski inuubos ako ng pighati (daig pa ng tuberkulosis ang takbo ng apoy sa pagkonsumo ng katauhan ko), pinipilit kong bumangon para man lang masabi sa kakilala kong Thailando, Sori pare, ano ba maitutulong ko? Pwede 'tong bisig ko, pwede 'tong kotse ko (maihahatid ko kahit saan ang tulong na maipapadala mo), pero sabi nya, OK lang ako, kami, malayo naman sa amin ang mamamatay-tubig, sana kayo sa Pilipinas OK din lang. Nayakap ko nga sya eh, si Jar, taga Bangkok, mas inalala pa nya kung may kamag-anak akong nilunod ng baha/bagyo sa Luzon kamakailan lang.

Ganun ba talaga ang trahedya, pinaghihiwalay tayo, tapos pinaglalapit-lapit? Matapos may manenok, akap-akap tayo sa isat-isa? Kabaligtaran ng komedya, pinaglalapit tayo, tapos pinaghihiwalay, tulad ni Victoria Giambate (tsura mo ba kung ayaw mong magparamdam, o di sige, sama-sama na kayo nung mga kakosa mong sina, sino ba yun, sina bananadakdak - cute sha, noh? - kaya lang tipong res ipsa loquitor...)

- Tapos nung isang araw nagbabay naman si Susan Sontag. Una ko syang napag-isip nung bata pa ako (at matanda na sya nun), tungkol sa kuro-kuro nya sa Vietnam War...tapos pagdating dito nabasa ko yung maikling kwento nya na The Way We Live Now na patungkol sa buhay-New York, para silang mga bubuyog, bzzz, chismisan sila ng chismisan gaya ng ginagawa natin dito, bzzzz, kasi Ganito Ang Buhay Natin Ngayon bzzzz habang nagbabakasakaling wag tayong lunurin ng mamamatay-tubig. Sabi ko nun, She is my favorite intellectual.

Nung nahapyaw ko naman yung In America nung 1999 na nanalo ng National Book Award (ngaba?), sabi ko, mmmmm, naghahanap ng Utopia, Ms. Sontag, You are my favorite leftist intellectual (kahit di ka pampered - sa tingin ko - gaya ni VG-lante!)

Tapos, nung lumabas sa New Yorker (o sa NY Times ba yun) yung reaction nya sa 911 at kinontra nya ang akusasyong duwag ang mga terorista, sabi ko, uh-la-la, Ms. Sontag, you are my favorite leftist intellectual bitch.

SPENDING (NEVER SKIPPING) CHRISTMAS IN TRANSITU

I got home today, December 26th, at 4 pm ET, with body three-quarters spent, and memories of money well-spent. Since 2 pm PT yesterday I was on the move, if not on the rush, from the other side of the continent, like a dippy double-agent with a crucial rendezvous with nothing and everything, forever looking over my shoulder to see if I was at least followed by a pertinacious fly dispatched by the dispatcher to find out how I was doing. I was - still am - doing fine. Thanks much to Jet of Antipolo (for now), and to Ree of Quietrivers (and Roaringwords) for the Christmas greets. Moments like this, opening your blogsite as soon as you got home from a long hiatus and finding out some surprising visits, and it tugs your heart to find that in your absence people leave their mark to assure your future presence. Thanks, beautiful people and happy holidays, too.

And as I was saying, I was on the move. Funny how we could not always follow the mathematical principle that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. In my case I had to do a turnabout, a turnaround, probably even a turn the tide in order to get home from the other side of life. I just had to do away with principles, mathematical and otherwise, you see, for in this trying times the best way to spend the holidays was with the love of your life - be it for the heart, be it for the mind, be it for the eyes; be it a person, a place or a thing - for in the sole company I had in this long travel, JM Coetzee through Elizabeth Costello, it was written that women are the creatures that live closest to the ground. Make it then, for keeps, that the person I was with, the places I went to see, and all things I enjoyed, were all women.

Here was my record of motion:

December 25, 2:00 pm PT, I was shuttled to the train station;
December 25, 3:00 pm PT, I was in the train going to San Francisco;
December 25, 8:00 pm PT, I was, in my regressing mind, the only living soul in San Francisco. The city was deserted, everyoneone was in the comfort of their homes, and the neons twinkling in symphony were telling me, Go home already, you punk from the East.
December 25, 8:30 pm PT, I was in San Francisco airport ready for my 10:pm PT flight, only to be told it was delayed for two hours or more.
December 26, 8:30 am ET, I was in Pittsburgh, watching the snow flakes rudely obstructing my view of the tarmac. My final flight was, as the first, delayed because they had to scrape the wet snow that blanketed the plane. In my boredom had to go around and find some lonely girls. To my unfortune, all the girls in this city were very, very happy.
December 26, 2:00 pm ET, I was in my city, cold and windy, finding myself at a bookstore/cd store, looking for books/cds to send my bestfrineds from the Net. I got them the books/cds, though I'm not sure I could send them those books/cds, so people please understand that it's the thought that counts, the thought that I bought you these books/cds. In the meantime that I am weighing the pros and cons of sending these cargoes to you, let me brag the stuffs I thought you about:

For Belle: George Winston, All The Seasons cd
For Jobert: BarenakedLadies Stunt cd
For Jet: Rare (or was it medium rare?) live/acoustics cd of Matchbox Twenty
Ghost: A very rare recording of AB cd
Angela: Of course the book you were asking for, hija, JF Gardner, plus ah, surprise...
JungianRocker: Luciano Pavarotti under hypnosis cd;
Dennis the missing in action Bopis: Disgrace by Coetzee;

For my last post this year, (this lifetime?), my travails in pretty San Francisco, and the most beautiful place I've laid my eyes on, the Yosemite National Park. See you when I see you, then.

PART II: MOSTLY ABOUT THE MOVIE

1. In the course of my wine drinking I learned several wine lessons like this, Wine's biggest enemy is heat; the long stem handle and broad base of a wineglass are there to provide our hands - heat generators - with parts to hold away from the body of a filled glass.

2. My friend Marty, professionally doing inventory of wines in a hotel, supplied one ridiculous, When we talk aloud in a wine cellar we disturb the wine, thus making noise another wine foe.

3. Some culture are different from others. Reds are kept at room temperature although French people preferred them chilled, like champagne. I like many things French but their treatment of red wine, like the way they carry exposed bread in the grip of their armpits, is something I cannot tolerate.

4. My greatest wine lesson, however, was given by this movie I am reviewing, and I hope to give this lesson, this movie, some justice. Heard this cliche before, 'life is like wine'? Sideways tells us that, and Sideways tell us more (American jurisprudence defended the idea of not providing any legal retirement age for US Supreme Court justices: they age like wine.)

5. Sideways is this year's My Big Fat Greek Wedding and its biggest accomplishment is by strengthening the reinvention of the cinema: no big studio backing, no big actors appearing, inspired scriptwriting, focused acting, great directing.

6. When I saw Paul Giamatti in American Splendor, I counted the weeks and the months to see his next movie. When I finally saw Sideways where he is Miles, the lead character, a loser of many dimensions (sounds like a winner!), I found him to be the movie's 3rd best thing. The 1st is the script (come cut my hand if it loses in the Oscars), the 2nd is the acting of Thomas Haden Church, as Jack, whose fantastic support of the lead is something I've never seen since Chris Cooper in Adaptation and prior to that John Malkovich in In The Line of Fire.

7. There are two pumping scenes in Sideways, in full view (but not necessarily in close up view, sweet J!) and one scene of a fully naked man running in the streets towards the camera. These 3 scenes make up for the R rating but which rating I beg to disagree with because these scenes all look so absurd and atrocious and hilarious that our basest and most prurient of instincts and interests will have no time to react until probably 40 years after we have seen this movie. (True: I saw this movie with my conservative mom and I had never felt an ounce of uncomfort watching those pumping scenes, or even in those scenes where Jack said to Miles, in horror, What the fuck! - which phrase was so hilariously delivered in the given scene I don't know how to explain why it is so hilarious.)

8. Sideways is about relatioships: man's relationship to their parents, to their friends, to their new acquaintances, to their subordinates, and to their current, future, and past flames. It tell us, in performance and not in narrative (this film is not one inch of celluloid preachy) when a relationship has to start, to end, to go slow and easy, to resurrect, and to kill itself.

9. Sideways tells us that you are what wine you drink. Miles' favorite wine, pinot noir, by his own words is a most difficult grape to grow because it is not a survivor, and it has to be coaxed by the winegrower to exude its fullest expression. Miles, a loser, is not a survivor, and has to be coaxed by everyone - hi ex-wife, his best friend Jack, his mother, his current flame - to exude his fullest expression via the manuscript of his novel which had been rejected big time.

10. Miles is the movie's biggest irony. A literature professor, he is shown in one scene as being on the verge of sleep while one of his students is doing, very decently, an oral reading from a classic. And there's the catch. The film is an irony. An average moviewatcher will consider the film as chauvinistic, with women being portrayed as easy pawns in men's sexual palms. Quite the contrary, the movie shows men not only as losers but frauds as well, as personified by Jack who, previously shown as macho, cries like a child without shame after losing his (and his future wife's) wedding rings.

11. There is only one movie I have to wait to make a fearless forecast: Million Dollar Baby. If not for that Clint Eastwood film I can now make my prediction without much predilection - Sideways will be the Academy Award's Best Movie of the Year.

12. Life is like wine. And life, like wine, like Sideways, is great. The envelope please.

On the art of wining, whining, winning
cbsreview: Sideways
Alexander Payne, dir.
Rated (R)

Part I: Not about the movie

As I write this I study my inexpensive Gato Negro, a combination Cabernet/Merlot produced and bottled by San Pedro Vina of Molina in Chile, and my twisted tongue confirms its medium body. My nose (or actually half my face) is welled up inside the wine glass and tries to confirm what the bottle tells me: bright and flavourful showing cherry and berry notes that finish on a crisp background.

Singhot-singhot, my nose seems to say.

The reality is this. I enjoy my wine without the hi-falutin wine-description inscribed on the label; my tongue is fast in certain venues but its ability to identify nuances in wine is superslow. It's probably the lack of coordination between my taste buds and brain, with my brain telling my tongue, Hey licker just gulp it down. There's a hint of cherry, alright, the metallic smell is at a minimum, alright, but crisp background? Crisp background my ass!

Maybe the bagoong I had for dinner was fighting for attention. Bagoong: a necessary evil if for dinner you're having boiled talong with sukang paombong. Chopped kamatis and sibuyas floating in soy sauce generically labeled Toyo were part of the entourage, the condiments big participants in that interaction called dinner, not playing second fiddle to the night's stars babyback ribs and ginger blue crabs.

But this specific dinner the red was my specific star, remaining my companion as I type this very word, word. For the truth is I love reds: merlot, cabernet, chianti. Hell, you may give me a glass of tincture of iodine with iron fillings and drops of rubbing alcohol, then tell me, Savor the crisp background of this red, my love, a vintage 1922 Reisling coinciding the year of your birth, my love, find all hints of spice and oak and cinammon and peach and berry and what have you notes on this beauty, my love, for after this you'll drink no more, my love - and I will probably grab the wineglass and take a sip and let that first sip stroll in my tongue to assure that every square millimeter of my lengua prangka is wetted by your nasty concoction, my love, and even if my mouth suddenly froths in different colors and my eyes roll in different directions, my love, I will say, This is great oh Luningning my love, there's a hint of ohk here and taning there and is that beri-beri I note somewhere, and please, Luningning, can you pass me that plate of poisoned mushrooms over there...BLAGG!

Reader, this is the art of the Why, Ning?

(Coming up is Part II, and I promise to follow this rule: If you blog, don't drink!)

CLASH OF TITANS

I shall walk beside all things
Till all things
Come to know me.
- Marin Sorescu, Perseverance

I, too, shall persevere, in spite of this heart which, in the meantime, is in a chronic state of chaos. The words are incriminating, here for the picking: meantime and chronic do not jibe; one is temp, the other infinite. Ahhh, confusion clarifies.

I read the draft in MS Word while dithering around, dithering around a la Keane in Can't Stop Now, understanding with misery the principles of cause and effect. If I drink I will get drunk. I am drinking; Oh drunkenness, where art thou?

The draft: The Pink House on Periwinkle Street is intended as 6th of 13, this specific spot seven stories away from pan. I look at the text and find them in shambles. These words are my mirror, they assume my reflection horroris causa.

In this evening of irony I look around and check the ingredients: A glass of cheap Merlot; organic bananas from Honduras; a view of the blazing sky from my patio facing west; cd music from the component playing Neil Young's greatest hits; a short story anthology called Telling Tales edited by Ms. Nadine Gordimer ruffling between myself and the computer monitor; and the television screen, in zero volume, showing a man struggling underwater. These, ladies and gentlemen of the freaking jury, are surefire ingredients for insanity.

Yet I don't need them for I am already insane. A couple of days ago I read in an "underground" book of lists that we come closest to the pathology of mental illness whenever we are sleep-deprived. I am very sleep-deprived. In my insanity you must watch this syrupy saliva from the left corner of my ill-begotten mouth accumulate at the bottom and as I move my head left to right the bottom of this gooey trapeze gets heavier and sways away like a pathetic pendulum.

(1. There was no need for Nancy, a pretzel vendor from the Dominican, to further drive me nuts. She spoke no English but when I asked her "Que paso?" the other day about the worry lines, she said, sans accent, "I am perturbed"; 2. I noticed the stress getting into my essential nerves when I almost kicked my car and asked it, if it were to answer, why I would need 2,000 lbs of steel to carry 200 lbs of ass; 3. Pink House on Periwinkle Street is certified trash. Everytime I type a word the one before it becomes wrong.)

The man on the tv screen is now terribly struggling. I take the headphone off (off my head, of course), put the book down on the computer desk, turn the tv volume up, and be horrified by the sight of this man trying to get out of what looks like a steel cage submerged in water. In vain he grapples for air, struggling to get to the surface, struggling to get back to life, with cheeks inflated he must be saving the last remaining bit of now poisonous air in his lungs. Now he loosens his grasp of the steel bolts. The puffy cheeks become unpuffed. He sinks. With both arms floating on the sides and feet up he suddenly looks like a tired man sitting on an invisible lazyboy. The man is now dead and every second of this horrible transition is shown on film while a proem of some sort is being narrated. The movie turns out to be Zentropa by Lars von Trier.

I feel the surge. Should I puke or should I not, should I stay or should I go? I go back to my computer desk, pick up the book and start reading the first story: Bulldog by Arthur Miller.

Bulldog, too, is about transition. The tension in Miller's story builds up from the time the 13-yr old boy acquires a puppy from an older woman with whom he has sexual orientation, up to the time the man from the dog pound takes the puppy from him. In a surprising twist by the end of the story, the kid experiences an unexplained sense of happiness. He plays the piano with some chords he had never learned, some tunes he had never met. This last paragraph is epiphany, a discovery of happiness I have never encountered in a short story for a long time. I begin to smile, then laugh, then smile again without tension, without apprehension, with plenty of reasons. I wear back the headphone and right on target is the cd's last track, Harvest Moon, Oh my Lord, my favorite Neil Young song I last heard 15 years ago! I am pleasantly surprised, not knowing the cd has it. I am floating. I am singing. I am Miller's 13-yr old boy in an unexplained feeling of happiness..."Come a little bit closer, hear what I have to say, just like children sleeping we could dream this night away..."

Tonight I will be able to sleep the sleep and tomorrow I'll summon the essence of Flannery O'Connor to reside at the tip of my pen. In this beatific night of quadruple-media, the scores are tied, 2 against 2. But since happiness is at the moment, I no longer plead insanity. The transition is at hand, this song should not end, this story should not end. Heck, if I am this happy even this post should not end.

The last one I can make, this post will not end...

wala lang...

Mis ko lang kayo, mga pagkagagandang nilalang. Ako? Eto, sira pa din and pc, sira pa din ang ulo, nung tumawag nga ako ng tech support sabi ko, Pwede ba unahin nyo 'tong ulo ko, tapos sabi nung t.s., Akala ko ba sir punumpuno kayo ng memory?, sabi ko naman, Oo nga pero kulang naman sa tornilyo.

Nung nagpunta yung mangungumpuni ng pc sa bahay, tanong nya agad, Bos windows 98 ba to? sabay turo sa vintage pc, sabi ko, Malay ko! Umiling-iling lang sya na para bang me nagawa mabigat na kasalanan at nagsisising ganap. Tapos maya-maya may dinowload syang cd. Tapos sabi dun sa screen...45 minutes...waiting. Humikab-hikab sya. Tapos sabi ko, Nagte-tennis ka ba? (nakita ko kasi yung raketa sa trunk ng kotse nya). Oo, sagot nya, Lika palo muna tayo sa baba, yaya ko, Good, sagot nya. Ayun, laro kami, laro, laro, (pinaglaruan ko sya, har-har, kala nya ba porke ala akong alam sa computer e ala din akong alam sa tennis). Tapos after 1 hour balik kami sa unit, sabog ang pawis nya, pero parang ambango ng pawis nya, Tutuloy ko na lang to bukas, ha? mungkahi nya, Sure, kumporme ko, tapos alis na sya bago magbigay ng mahiyaing ngiti. Umuwi sya kasi hula ko gustong-gusto na nyang maligo.

22 years old yung mangungumpuning nagtetennis. Kamuka ng nasirang Julie Vega. Taga Colombia.

Problema: Di sya bumalik, di rin sya tumawag. Nayko, ngayon ko lang naisip, di kaya sya mismo si Julie Vega?