She is staggering



At That Evil Place: Lo and behold, a lonely copy of Mirah's "You Think It's Like This But Really It's Like This". Totally made my day.



Also found: The Rondelles' Shined Nickels and Loose Change



Waiting for: Polaris' Music from the Adventures of Pete and Pete







Pete and Pete practically saved my life. For five months after grad (during which I didn't have a life outside of Pete and Pete), I would be the quintessential couch potato every afternoon at 3 pm when they played the reruns on Nickelodeon. The big black couch in the living room (in my parents' house in Bacolod) would be mine, all mine, for exactly thirty minutes. And I would clutch my junk food of the week and headbang to Apples in Stereo, Luscious Jackson, Magnetic Fields, Polaris or whatever cool band as the credits rolled. Ah, those were the days.



"Waiting for October...I cross my fingers cross my heart and hope to die..." - Waiting for October by Polaris

With kaleidoscope eyes



Yesterday The other day, I did my name in watercolor Kanji.

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My sister plays the piano for a Lutheran church with a German pastor and an Indian congregation. The other day she told me, in the way that older sisters sometimes have of telling, that I had to pinch-hit for her because she had to go to Westchester today. The last time I did that was a complete disaster. The church members were quite shocked when, instead of playing "Amen, amen" (for the benediction), I played the Gloria Patri, which really isn't supposed to come at the end of the service. Everybody knows that. Except me, obviously.

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So today yesterday, I dragged my sleepy self off my bed and set off to once again make a total fool of myself. And I did, thank you very much. I haven't touched a piano for months. Come to think of it, I haven't been to church for months either. I used to go every Sunday. Heck, I sang in the choir. And then, one day, I just stopped going. I still believe in God, or at the very least, the existence of a Supreme Being. I feel like telling him, "It's not you, it's me."

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I miss playing the piano. I miss running my fingers over the keys and making music. I've always found it to be quite therapeutic, sitting on a piano bench and letting my mind wander while my fingers run the course of a piece. Sometimes I wouldn't let my mind wander; I would listen to every note and try to do justice to a dead guy who probably spent countless hours fine-tuning the notes to make it sound just so. Sometimes, I would run a difficult passage over and over again and get frustrated. But always, I felt a certain kind of peace after I've sat on the bench. The piano is my punching bag, my canvas, my pen.



Well, now, I don't have regular access to one, which really sucks.

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After brunner (breakfast, lunch, dinner) at a charming cafe, we marched over to the friendly neighborhood video store and rented Zoolander, Ocean's Eleven, and Vanilla Sky DVDs. Zoolander was hilarious. Some stupid movies pretend to be smart. This one doesn't; flaunts it, in fact. Ocean's Eleven was okay (a lot of people probably said that about it). Vanilla Sky was... long. Very long.

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Hey, I just realized I use the word "suck" quite often. I'm sure there's a web site somewhere out there devoted to things that suck but here's my own list, anyway:



Things That Suck

1. cracks on the Sidewalk

2. the Sound of a fork being Scratched across a blackboard

3. passing through a turnstile after Swiping your Metrocard five hundred times and just missing the train by a millisecond

4. Spiders

5. the Sickly Sweet Smell of garbage

6. really large Shopping bags

7. Soggy Sandwiches

8. the Snooze button



Hey! They all have S's! Let me capitalize all the S's to emphasize my point. Yes, that would be a good idea. Hmm, so now it's a list of Things That Suck That Start With The Letter S Have The Letter S Somewhere.



Okay, okay. I have got to get some sleep, I mean, Sleep.



And, in keeping with the theme,

"It's oh so quiet... Shhh....Shhhh...It's oh so still... Shhh...Shhh....You're all alone...And so peaceful until...." - It's Oh So Quiet by Bjork

Worms



I was going to go online and post this*:



Nobody loves me

Everybody hates me

I'm gonna eat some worms

Big worms, little worms

Itsy bitsy teeny worms

Fuzzy wuzzy wuzzy wuzzy worms



First one's easy

Second one's greasy

Third one sticks to your tongue

Fourth one's busty

Fifth one's rusty

Sixth one tries to run



So cut off the head

And suck all the juice

And spit all the germs away

And if anyone asks

How many worms you eat

Three times a day!





because nobody was signing my guestbook but somebody just did! Thanks GGD.



*Works best when sung. Loud.

Oh, and my guestbook is up. Would love to hear you dropped by.

Are you getting lots of action? I hope so



Is it healthy to always be wanting to change your blog's title? I sure don't think so. The folks over at nycbloggers might be slightly irritated if I ask them one more time to change my info. As it is, my blog is currently listed twice for the same stop, with different titles and URLs.



I had a blog months ago that I was just doing for myself. But then, my friend The Goddess of Graphics Design sent me a bundle of CDs and I started toying around with some fonts in ImageReady. I found this cute font called Chick, and I thought it would be a cool gif to put on a page, so tadaa! And that is how my blog came to be called That Chick - a chick and her wacky ideas, which I realize now sounds slightly stupid. I know my layout sucks and all that, but I'm not in a hurry to make it look better.



Anyway, this is supposed to be my happy post for the week. I went to Six Flags with some friends and my cousins this week-end. I only went on the chicken rides because it was a red letter day and I wasn't feeling all that good (no to mention that I'm chicken). But the highlight of my day was winning a 4-foot red-and-yellow dragon with sparkly wings for shooting a ring in a bottle neck. And he is HUGE. It was one of those games where you get a bucket of small hoops for $5 and you have to shoot one in the neck of a bottle to get a prize. Now let me make me this clear. I have NEVER won anything in a game my whole entire life! I suck at these things. But suddenly there it was: my hoop in a bottle neck and the attendant asking me to pick a prize. "Anything?," I said, my eyes as big as the dragon's.



Of course, we (me and my good, kind, wonderful friends) had to drag Horace all over the place and in a few months, I just might realize there is some truth to a jealous lady's statement that he's "just a dust collector". But here he is now, in our little apartment, out of place but nevertheless a testament that all things are quite possibly possible.



"Let's do all the things you said..." - "Murphy Bed" by Mirah



*By the way, I also won two little chicks (!) for shooting two balls in the blue holes. I'm on a roll!

Feet pounding on asphalt



I took a long walk to Battery Park today during my lunch (half) hour. Just walked on and on, past the delis and the newspaper stands and The Bull. I lost myself among the tourists, with their sun visors and sneakers and road maps stuck carelessly in pockets, and time, time, time on their hands. And for a minute, I felt just like one.



I would have loved to sit by the water and watch the world go by, but it was time yet again to go back. Back to unfinished spreadsheets and barely legible phone messages, and more piles of paper than I know what to do with.



--------------------







from "The Professor and the Madman", which almost made me miss my stop:



One of the parties to the colloquy was the formidable Dr. James Murray, the editor of the Oxford English Dictionary. On the day in question he had traveled fifty miles by train from Oxford to meet an enigmatic figure named Dr. W.C. Minor, who was among the most prolific of the thousands of volunteer contributors whose labors lay at the core of the dictionary's creation...



... "A very good afternoon to you, sir. I am Dr. James Murray of the London Philological Society, and Editor of the Oxford English Dictionary. It is indeed an honour and a pleasure to at long last make your acquaintance -- for you must be, kind sir, my most assiduous helpmeet, Dr. W.C. Minor?"



There was a brief pause, a momentary air of mutual embarrassment. A clock ticked loudly. There were muffled footsteps in the hall. A distant clank of keys. And then the man behind the desk cleared his throat, and he spoke:



"I regret, kind sir, that I am not. It is not at all as you suppose. I am in fact the Governor of the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum. Dr. Minor is most certainly here. But he is an inmate. He has been a patient here for more than twenty years. He is our longest-staying resident."





Now THAT is a preface.



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With a hopeful little lilt to my step, I went once again on a long walk, this time to that evil place, because today's the day. I half expected to see the shelves empty and people with cheshire cat grins walking out of the store. But there it was. A whole shelf. No crowd pushing and shoving. No one even grabbed a copy the whole time I was there, staring at the shelf. And here I was all prepared for a tug-of-war. Oh well. Maybe they already got their copies earlier.



"Walked the streets today, mindless of the way, I argued with my feet..." - "Walk Down the Road" by Cynthia Alexander

Of men and bottled water



according to this, i am a schizotypal-histrionic-avoidant-obsessive-compulsive freak. hmm, well, except for the freak part (and maybe the schizotypal and obsessive compulsive part) my entire being completely rejected the idea. until yesterday when i got my daily bottle of water from the vendo. upon returning to my desk, i discovered that for the life of me, i could not, could not open the bottle. i tried so hard. i really did. there just was no way to open it.



now, let me just mention that my sister has called me a wimp not a few times. i suck at sports or anything that involves physical strength. clearly, i had no choice but to ask a gentleman to open said bottle for me.



but the mere thought of it - of asking a guy to open a bottle for me - i just couldn't do it. it completely went against all the self-sufficiency crap that i believe in. in a job that involves the lifting of heavy boxes of paper on occasion, unless it's absolutely necessary, i don't usually ask any of the guys in the department for help. i just grunt and pretend i work at a shipyard. and this.. this.. bottle (!) had the nerve to resist.



it took me all of two hours, after a lengthy internal debate, to finally ask my fatherly seatmate to please open the bottle for me because the cap didn't have any perforations on it and even if i wiped it dry i still couldn't get a good grip. only because my throat was parched, i refused to spend another cent on that stupid vendo, and the water was getting lukewarm. even now, i can derive some satisfaction from the fact that he had a difficult time opening it, too. i almost wished he'd give up.



so, histrionic -- maybe (after all, i DO have a blog), avoidant (fear of embarrassment, etcetera) -- a little, schizotypal -- in some ways, obsessive-compulsive -- maybe more than i'm allowing myself to accept.



boy, do i have issues.



"is this a release or a build up of pressure?" - of pressure by mirah

Frappuccino







i got to work at 8:30 today. had breakfast at mcdonald's because i didn't want to be too early. practically shoved my sausage mcmuffin into my mouth, and was at my desk at five to nine, screaming "i maaaade iiiiit!!!!" The Boss beamed at me: "yes, you did." i went to sleep at 11 pm last night. big improvement over my usual 1:30 am. i was late three days out of four last week. in college, with two weeks of classes to go before the end of the semester, my philo 102 teacher told me i had 8.5 cuts out of nine. after that, i was in the classroom every single day at 7 am. for two weeks. it's true. you can check my yearbook. i listed it under biggest accomplishments. i suppose, perhaps, i have a slight problem with punctuality.



i tried to get through the day with the minimum amount of caffeine. i only had a bottled mocha frappuccino in the morning instead of my usual medium black two sugars on the side. by the middle of the day, i was cranky, disoriented and edgy. swerving to avoid the camera crews, i raced to starbucks to get something, anything, with caffeine. i'm thinking, i should probably try to quit. not cold turkey, mind you. maybe i can start with dark, and then maybe, in two weeks, regular. and then, maybe, a small light one sugar. blech!



"Where is my mind?...where?..." - where is my mind by the pixies

Who you callin' cute?



yipee! watched the PPG movie today at Pavilion. i wanted to stay and watch the credits in the end, but we had to sneak out since we were the only "adults" there. well, at least the only adults without kids. my sister said we should have borrowed the neighbor's. i loved the movie! (spoken like a true fan) obviously, i'm not the best person to ask. however, i will concede that i had a feeling the kids wouldn't like it that much, although they all gamely clapped in the end when blossom, bubbles, and buttercup vanquished the evil monkey throng and otherthrew mojo jojo (i don't care, i still think he's adorable). well, you'd have to watch it yourself. take your four-year-old niece along if she's allowed to hear the word jerk.



i didn't know cellular phone companies checked credit. otherwise, i wouldn't have gotten myself all worked up over the prospect of getting unlimited week-end minutes with voicestream's $29.99/month plan. voicestream is one of only two companies offering GSM in new york (that i know of, anyway). at & t is upgrading soon, but they still have TDMA phones. with voicestream, i could get a 3390 free with the plan, 200 minutes, 500 ping-pong messages, unlimited week-ends, and unlimited calls to other voicestream phones within the US. i found out through the vendor, however, that i had a "T-class" credit, which means i would have to pay for the phone, a $75 connection fee, and i could only get the $39.99 plan. so what else is new? i don't have credit history, since i just moved here and i've realized just how true the maxim "bad credit is better than no credit at all" really is. heck, i didn't even get approved for a macy's card (thus i am defiantly not linking them). so, rather than pay an outrageous sum for minutes that i'm going to end up not using, i went for prepaid. which is more expensive in the long run. but i don't really have a choice, do i?



and since i'm on the subject, can i just say that phones here suck eggs? US uses the 1900 frequency, unlike europe, asia and africa which use 900/1800. all the good phones are only available in europe and asia. unless you get a tri-band phone. however, i don't want to get a really expensive phone because i'm broke. sure, you can get cheaper world phones from siemens, motorola and ericsson. i, however, am a nokia loyalist like most asians. so, i'm making do with the 3390 and late-night sungka sessions.



no domain name or host yet. i got the next best thing, however. free hosting from tripod and a more-or-less personalized url! good enough for now..



"i am not afraid.... i can hardly wait... " - spin the bottle by juliana hatfield

Coming out



after looking at amazing blogs by amazing people, i've decided to tell people about this blog :) it's just that i've been keeping this thing for months now and yet have remained in lurker mode. but. that zero in the lower left corner kind of looks lonely. so i'm going to hunt around for a domain and start tweaking my template.



i'm also going to start looking around for a phone (yep, i survived 10 months in new york without one). i left my good old 3210 back home when i moved here. but recent incidents involving a certain tired, sleepy person and missed train stops have made it a necessity to get one of those. besides, paying one's own bills brings one's attention to how much one really incurs in long distance charges. not that getting a cell phone would reduce my long-distance bill (on the contrary). it's just that having "texting" as an option might make it less tempting to call friends in other countries.







this is the reason why i only got five hours of sleep last night. i would post an excerpt here except that i can hardly type. i swear, this bank job is killing me. i can practically see the coroner's report. cause of death: paper cuts and carpal tunnel syndrome.



"i'll wait and see if you'll give it to me..." - pollen by mirah