T R A V E L   T I M E .

My lower back begins to make its discomfort known, like tugging hard on the side of a mom’s shirt asking for a lollie or permission to play outside or just exclusive attention to get what it wants. The red-orange chair on which I was attempting so hard not to slip out of was not helping my present disposition at all. It was slightly slanting forward at an angle that makes me plant both of my feet harder on the carpeted casino floor plus I was constantly checking my zipper since I just ate and it tends to open on its own in all its distasteful glory infront of an audience composed of semi-VIP casino players. Just great. I am about to reach an hour staying in this stance. I was the designated Card Dealer for a semi-big Baccarat table. Technically, they call it a Midi table. Well, I see it as a wannabe-Presidential table when it comes to casino table hierarchies. Just saying.

I had 5 people playing in front of me. All of them were Koreans except for a Filipina around her 40s who was constantly changing seats from the leftmost to the rightmost. She just cannot stay in one spot. She is a big woman but I have not noticed how she transports herself with me getting a sight of the significant chair-transferring activity. I tell you, she is a fucking teleporting ninja, man.

The muddled up smell of cigarette smoke and kimchi from my lovely players is finally hitting my wrong buttons. I was constantly and dizzyingly checking my watch for my break. I needed to get out. You have to fucking let me take my break. Seriously.

Finally, I meet some friends at the third floor smoking lounge where we spend most of our breaks if we were not eating at the canteen or sleeping at the second floor. Aside from the cigarette smoke, the clanking of chess pieces with its mandatory accompanying trash talk, the blaring television, there is this little cloud of thought that I will not always see these people in this third floor lounge.

“Cheers! Sa ating nalalapit na paghihiwalay!” Oh, and do not worry. We are all still under the same sky and stars.

P.S. Checkmate.

A product of today’s spontaneity — my first and will be my only tat. This is my husband and I. And just like our marriage, it cannot be undone. :)) I love you, Chuglets.

Maturity of thinking is not seen by how deeply intellectual you could get in your conversations with other people. It is not by how you expertly induce your neurotransmitting brain cells to decipher all these intangibly complex ideas and put them into suave words, further recklessly plummeting into the oh-so-ever tempting profundity of it all.

Maturity of thinking is seen thru opening your mouth without overlooking other people’s feelings.

<circa 2k>

I stare at the blinking cursor on my blank document page for an eternity. It blinks as if angrily, as if scoffing at my incredible incompetence to write anything. To say something. No stored up ramblings? Not even a buck worth of suds and blather? There is too much ahead of me in point of fact, but I guess I am just enjoying how I am mocking the excessively demanding blinking cursor. Yeah, suck on my silence and blink to death, evil cursor!

Relax. Yeah, it is a basic that people should learn to pick their battles and too much blood has been shed in polishing this over beaten cliché. So, here is an ostentatious pirouette ending in a low-bow declaring a temporary white flag shoot-up between me and the blinker. Madali lang akong kausap. 

With the cutting silence of 3 a.m., I feel the stubborn awareness of my own self, sitting on the bed, my back on this wall. And it is just funny. Because I feel like I am in the middle of a lovely crossfire despite the respectable serenity enveloping me. There is this undeniable tug of war between recent past and semi-immediate future. I was playing with a different set of possibilities in my hands a little over a week ago. But now, I am here. I chose to be free and all.

And yeah, I may not be making sense now, but I will write again. Yes, sensibly and with impressive consideration to the imploring cursor for me to write anything. To say something.

Plus, “One day I will see the clear blue…”

<repost from 29 June 2010>

a little wedding conversation.