Leap

Today is the one day that only comes once every four years and since the last time it happened I still wasn’t writing my thoughts on this webpage yet, I should have at least something to write today.

I also decided to open up this business I’ve been working on the past few months today, this one is not about the leap date but I had been thinking of opening this up on a february though some of the walls and ceiling aren’t finished, even the air conditioner wasn't working yet, but I’m thinking at least I only get to celebrate its anniversary once every four years. Anyway they woke me up this morning that before the business would start running, some christian priest had to say some prayers inside perhaps in wishful thinking that the business will rake in good fortune. I swear it was easier for the priest to tell everybody here to work harder because that’s how you rake in fortune for real. Anyway my head was spinning from waking up too early and I fixed myself a bit and brought my morning coffee to the place unlikewise everybody who were holding candles, so I just had to leave my coffee at the corner and get myself a stupid candle too. The priest was some very old guy where his hands trembled when he held on to his little black book of prayers and his voice trembled too and you couldn’t hear him talk because some of the other workers were pounding on wood and aluminum bars to my leap day deadline.

I thought his prayers were going to be some long ritual that will take so much time but it only took him about ten minutes to finish his call to heaven and then he started sprinkling holy water all over the place. He was good at this though, from the way his hands trembled, the holy water droplets got all over the place including into my cup of coffee over at the corner.

My cousin told me that this priest is very sick from some kind of disease which I forgot because my head was still sleepy, which probably explains him hardly holding on to his little black book. I felt sorry for him though, I mean his old and alone and sick, so I placed one thousand bucks in an envelope and slipped it to his little black book of prayers, it wasn’t for his prayers or anything he did for the leap day, I just have this big problem with sympathy towards humanity, it eats me from the inside.

The Triumvate

I spent the lunar new year alone in manila again, I stayed in a hotel in the middle of chinatown so that I could get the feel of the holidays but it wasn’t much fun though, the streets were crowded with people because some tv network brought in show biz people up in some parade around chinatown and everybody around was dying to get to see them. Its not like that they could even touch them or anything but they just went plain mad watching, and its not like they’re part of the new year at all and I’ll bet these people on the parade don’t even know that it’s the lunar new year if not for their agents telling them to dress in red and join the parade at chinatown and leave the crowd going bonkers.

Anyway I had some beers over at my room watching the mayhem from my window with some chinese dumplings for take out, I couldn’t eat at any restaurant downstairs because they were full of chinese families in red eating together so I just had to buy anything that was already up for grabs and I ended up with dumplings, they were so easy to buy because you could just point at anything that looks good and save yourself from reading any menu, they all tasted great though.

Keloyd’s old man bit the dust on the lunar new year and he was also in manila over the weekend, he was going to have some beers in makati with his friends and I was planning to drop by him to see him if he’s feeling fine or something because he’s probably down. Imer was also in makati avenue playing ball and we were going to have some beers ourselves later too. I was riding the jeep on taft avenue when another old friend jom smsed me up asking how was I doing, I told him I was about to meet imer at makati avenue and if he wanted to join us for beers, but he found the place too far because he’s in sampaloc and what chance it was because sampaloc was only a few blocks away from my hotel. So just I got down from my ride and called him that I was there and maybe we could just let imer come over. I felt imer will come over because the funny thing was me, imer and jom used to be the triumvate of drunkards in our class and it has been a very long while since we met the three of us altogether again, on occasion only two guys could meet, it was like some reunion we’ve been waiting to happen. But the problem was I had a plane to catch at five in the morning, much less I should have seen keloyd after what happened to his old man.

I think the thought of having a plane to catch at five in the morning made me hold on to my senses the whole night even after I had ten bottles of beer, I swear I was crazy to drink that much. All I could remember was I left them at three in the morning, had coffee in my hotel and slept at the taxi to the airport. I woke up and my head was still spinning so I had to hold on to the airport luggage cart with my stuffs while walking to the check in counter and then slept at the airport again, I woke up the second time and went up the plane and slept at my seat again. The third time I woke up it was daybreak and I was already at the airport back home, my brother fetched me up at the airport and I told him I’ll drive because I knew my brother is not fond of driving at all but he said

“you look wasted, I’ll drive”

Then I slept again, by the time I woke up it was way past seven and I was staring at my desk at my room and thinking about what to do at work later when I began to goddam realize… how the hell did I manage to travel 300 miles back home like that?

Sister's Birthday

Eight months was long enough, I can hold myself longer but I need to take in alcohol more often again, I’m expanding my father’s business twice fold even thrice fold that I can no longer handle the pressure. I just want to drink and unnerve and get the hell out of reality for a while.

It was my sister’s birthday last saturday, I didn’t greet her or anything, I never did to anyone in our family, maybe because that I don’t even give a crap about my own birthday. I could have left for manila that morning but my father decided that we should go out in some buffet for dinner. The problem with buffet dinner at those restaurants where you could eat all you could for just a certain price tag, is that you’d always feel so hungry when you’re thinking about eating all you could, but hunger is so persuasive that by the time you get there, you couldn’t even eat half as what you felt you could in the first place.

When we got into the restaurant, they had this picture of the chef who did the food at the buffet outside, it was big and it had all his credentials for cooking and the picture was just so goddam big that you could count the strands of hair from his goatee mustache. He was sporting some goatee on his chin to look hip or something and it made you worry if some of it fell while he was cooking.

The food was great though, half of what I ate was japanese sushi and the other half was what was laid on the rest of the table. They tried to make the whole menu so classy by giving silly names to the food and you wouldn’t know what the hell it was. Like this one they called mahemahe del veranda when its just plain fish with cheese, and they should call it fish with cheese because it might confuse somebody who doesn’t like such and they’ll end up taking a platefull and later get billed for leftovers. I even thought mahemahe is some kind of big shrimp.

What was more ridiculous was that the waiter told me that they don’t serve beer, I doubted it has something to do with their religion and too bad they’re missing the finer things in life. But I was thinking I should have said cerbeza de beber or something because maybe they might also have some other name for beer on their menu just like their food.

Anyway I took our bill after dinner and left for ariel’s internet cafe for my share of beer for the night with some of his patrons, some of them bought beer from another bar and I took half a liter in a big plastic cup and I didn’t know the plastic cup would be so soft that I ended up crushing it and spilling my first beer bottle for my sister’s birthday down on the floor.