Un-saving daylight



My vacation's been extended!



Everything's going to be okay now. After yesterday, nobody's going to have to drag me kicking and screaming back to work. I will go willingly, calm and relaxed. I will sit at my desk, like a well-oiled machine, knowing the knots in my shoulders have been smoothed out. If everyone got a massage at least once a month, wouldn't the world be a better place?



So, ta-tah! I shall go and try to fit as much doing absolutely nothing as I can to the rest of Day 7 of Week 2 of My Doing Absolutely Nothing.



Oh, and go easy on the soda, will you?



{Silently, That Dog} - "You silently cheer me up.. You don't even know it." - They've already broken up but they have three albums out, so scoot on to Amazon now!

Snapshots



The Chess and Checkers House at Central Park, the old black guy and his sax at Battery Park, short trees with the season's golden leaves on Liberty Island, the immigrants' bunk beds at Ellis Island, the view from the balcony at Grand Central, bird shit on my pants.



{The Size of Our Love, Sleater-Kinney} - is that a cello in the background?

The drive home



Ha! I had a surprisingly good week-end. It was fun hanging out with my cousins, aunts and uncles who I get to see only about once a year. Ocean City was a ghost town when we got there last Saturday. The stores had signs saying: "See you in Spring 2003". The breeze was a bit chilly already. But we all walked along the boardwalk, shivered, shared a funnel cake, watched TV, had dinner together around a large table. We talked about other relatives, Philippine and American history, geography. And it's times like these, when you're not really expecting to have fun, that you actually do.



My cousin Josh volunteered to drive us (my aunt and I) home, since everybody had already left earlier. I vaguely remember meeting him when we were kids, but then they moved here about ten years ago and I only really met him again last year. The thing is, I'm not very good with enclosed spaces and small talk. And I was bracing myself for a horrible two-hour drive (you know, awkward silence, etc.; my aunt was sleeping in the backseat). And it did start out horrible. But then Josh started talking about how he used to go on road trips with his friends and how they'd get trapped in snowstorms in the middle of nowhere. And we talked and laughed and in the end, it wasn't horrible at all. It didn't feel like two hours either.



I'm just glad. It's nice rediscovering somebody - a friend or a relative that you didn't really bother to get to know before and now you realize that you actually have a lot of things in common. I'm also awfully touched because it's not a short drive, he has to drive back, he has work tomorrow and has to wake up early, and he left pretty late. Awww.



{Cold Cold Water, Mirah} - I finally got the Advisory Committee album! *starry eyes*

Destination unknown



Ahoy! It turns out I'll be doing something on my vacation after all. I'm spending the week-end at my uncle's house-by-the-shore in Ocean City. An aunt is visiting from the Philippines and at dinner today, I suddenly found myself appointed tour guide. Oh yes, I am the logical choice due to my lack of sense of direction and inability to read maps. I'm sure she'll be thrilled when we find ourselves lost in Atlantic City or Philadelphia.



{Gone Sugaring, Mirah} - chosen because of the line "...seen the wilds of Pennsylvania in the winter time," though it's not quite winter yet and I'm not going to the "wilds" of Pennsylvania...Am I?

Oh so purty



Gems acquired from the Library yesterday:



    

Lullaby - Chuck Palahniuk

Wonder Boys - Michael Chabon

Eating Chinese Food Naked - Mei Ng

Asleep - Banana Yoshimoto

Kissing in Manhattan - David Schickler



Also : changed lay-out, assembled table (woohoo, am now resident handyman).



{Jenny Come On, Dressy Bessy} - perky, bubblegummy, bob-your-head-up-and-down song

Day 2 of Week 1 of My Doing Absolutely Nothing



Yesterday, I realized the extent of my stupidity. So there I was, boiling water for the instant pancit canton, mixing the condiments in the little packets in, and then rushing to eat the whole plate because I had to get my clothes from the dryer at the laundromat, which is about a five-minute walk away. My sis and I were going to go have dinner at the Vietnamese restaurant but we realized we were both broke, so she just decided to go home. So there I was, folding my clothes into wonderful soft little piles. And there I am, watching mind-numbing TV, dilly-dallying. At about ten minutes before seven, my sister gets home, sniffs and goes to the stove, and turns it off! Shit. I had forgotten to turn it off after boiling water earlier. I mean, I was sure I turned it off. (I had probably flicked the switch to the right a little, put the flame out, but not the gas). So I had actually been sitting there for quite a few hours and all that gas had been leaking. Even a little spark, like my sister's key turning in the keyhole, could have caused a fire. Not to mention the fact that I had been breathing all those fumes in, too. Not to mention the fact that I had been contemplating about smoking a cigarette in the sun room. Aaarggghhh! This just reeks of stupidity. This is definitely going on my top five.



Yay! The delivery guy from Staples just came with my table. How hightech. He actually had me sign for it in his palmtop.



So now I'm off to the lib. I just have to make a list of books to borrow first. It is getting really cold.



Oops! Somebody's smoke alarm just went off. Gonna go check it out. False alarm. Ugh, that could have been me yesterday.



"You let me violate you...you let me desecrate you..." - Richard Cheese doing Nince Inch Nails' Closer in ridiculous cheesy accent with characteristically cheerful Sesame-Street-like accompaniment

Soo desu ne?



Today I love all things Japanese. A silly grin pops up on my face every time I remember Roksu (who's in Kyoto). He says he's going to send me a postcard with Hiragana and Katakana characters, so that I can ask the cute Japanese boy from Tech Support to translate it. I took Nihonggo in high school and college and I still remember the characters pretty well, but Jap Boy doesn't need to know that, does he? Thanks for the idea, Roksu, but you know I'm not gonna do it, anyway.



I've been looking for a lounge band to like. How timely then that my alarm clock/radio was tuned in to this station (I'm not even sure which, really) yesterday, and the guest was a guy who "swankified" popular rock songs. I love Richard Cheese and his band Lounge Against the Machine (Bobby Ricotta, Gordon Brie, Buddy Gouda). How can you not adore someone who takes angsty songs like Radiohead's Creep or Pearl Jam's Betterman and actually makes them sound...happy. So I've been downloading all day and tadaah! I now have lounge versions of The Rockafeller Skank, Suck My Kiss and even Nookie (with an upright bass!) And their version of Garbage's Only Happy it Rains has the riff from Singin' in the Rain! I still can't get enough of them but thanks to Amazon, in five to nine business days, I'll have a copy of their first album Lounge Against the Machine in my hands! Yay!



I got to work Thursday on the dot, nine AM, not a minute sooner. So it was not a pleasant surprise when I found a loooong line to get into the building. And I was thinking to myself, is the job market really that bad that we all now have to get in line to go to work? Well, it IS that bad. But it also turns out they were X-raying everybody's bags, briefcases, purses, shopping bags, what not. Another Al Qaeda threat. No one was even surprised anymore. "They're X-raying everyone's bags. Al Qaeda." "Oh, okay."



Went to Battery Park for lunch. This time, I stayed and sat by the water, set my phone's alarm, read a chapter, watched the businessmen and tourists with their cameras, listened to an Oriental guy playing some kind of string instrument. It was a beautiful, cold but sunny day and from where I sat I could see the Statue of Liberty. It was not without regret that I left twenty minutes later, and I realized I had not eaten anything.



My vacation starts on Monday, and already I've planned two whole weeks in my head of not doing anything.



Ian: You're gonna get bored.

Me: I want to get bored.



I'm going to pay back my sleep debt. I'm going to go grocery shopping and then I'm going to cook menudo (I just discovered this wonderful thing called Mama Sita's Menudo/Afritada Mix, which I got at the Filipino store in Queens). I'm going to spend one whole day at the library. I'm going to do my laundry, iron my clothes, clean my room and shift stuff around. I'm going to sit in front of the computer all day and not care if I stay up until three AM because I won't have to get up early, or get up at all, the next day anyway. I'm going to watch TV until my eyes hurt. I'm going to exercise like crazy and then I'm going to take a nice long shower but I'm not going to dry my hair. I'll let it air-dry while I read one of the ten books I'll bring home from the lib. I would shop if I could, but since I'm not going within 100 feet of the office, I can't pick up my check, so I'll be broke. But I'll be happy broke. I'm going to alphabetize my CDs and gasp! listen to every one of them, if I want. I'm going to paint and draw and color, and maybe even finish my Katakana workbook. I'm going to watch DVDs galore. I'm going to have a wonderful time.



"Shut up and eat! Too bad no bon appetit!" - Birthday Cake, Cibo Matto

What's in the box?



Yesterday, I found out a terrible secret. It's something that the people concerned don't know about. If I say anything, people could get fired for divulging information that is confidential for now. It bothers me that if years ago, if this was one of those quizzes that claim to tell you who you are, and I were asked if I would tell them, I would, without hesitation, say yes. But now, confronted with the situation and the complications, I know I will never say anything.

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While reading Me Talk Pretty One Day on the train, I had to look away and skip a few parts lest I get mistaken for a creepazoid. Seriously, I was forcing my lips not to tremble and emit guffaws. I had to cough about 27 times because I was in serious danger of laughing out loud, and not just a giggle either. The hyena kind of laughing out loud. Lesson learned: Never read Sedaris on the train. Read it in the privacy of your bedroom where you can laugh out loud all you want.

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After work yesterday, I had lunch at the McDonald's with a piano. An Asian woman was playing lounge music: "Look at me, I'm as helpless as a kitten up a treeee..." Sometimes it's a Duke Ellington look-alike playing jazz up there (on a ledge on the second floor), and the waitress always whips a (paper) place mat out just as you sit down, and you forget for five seconds that it's a McDonald's. I got off at Union Square because I remembered I had my sister's Barnes and Noble card, and that I was thinking of getting a Japan travel guide. Well, I ended up with a travel guide AND a workbook (which I started on last night) and Ellis' The Rules of Attraction.

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I watched Seven again for about the umpteenth time yesterday. It's one of my favorite movies of all time, and I was telling a friend who didn't like "slow" movies that I would have liked it more if it weren't for Brad Pitt. Strange, but two of my favorite films (Seven and Fight Club) have him in them, despite the fact that he's easily one of my least favorite actors.



"Information travels faster in the modern age, in the modern age..." - Information Travels Faster, Death Cab for Cutie

Y-O-Y



Why do I always find out about shows after they're sold out? Why does no one believe me when I say the Empire State building is purple pink orange (Aww, heck, here's the schedule)? Why is it warm when I put on my jacket and cold when I don't? Why does sleep never come when I need it? Why do I have to work on Saturday? Why why why?



Oh David Sedaris, save me from a night of despair!



"Where can I go to repair all the wear and the tear till I’m once again the previous me!" - from On A Clear Day You Can See Forever