Ice Carvings

( Publisher's Note: i am already delirious with the thought of converting that suggestive title into a steamy novel, and visions of money bags coming from film rights and royalties are dancing around my head. Like the sleazy Pinoy director, i might even get to pick the cast...and in today's crisis, stars will do anything to get the lead role. Unfortunately, the contents of today's journal are nothing like what the title suggests.) Some things you take for granted. You do them without much thought. Getting up to go to work. Checking your wallet and your cell before locking the front door. And going around the car before you ride in it. Going from house to the office is a neverending decision on which way to go, yet you always take the common sensical approach and still drive down the usual route. This is the curious case of how i see my day will shape up. The presence of two omens are my daily oracle, and i have no idea when or how it started. Commercial Rant Let me rant ab...

This one I wanted to write about long ago. Thankfully, now I have the time and the effort to do so. Notice how every car’s driver gets offended when a passenger suddenly turns up the dial, switches stations, or ejects the current CD? It’s natural. Passengers violate the sacred rule of driving. He who drives, has control of the whole car – acceleration, brakes, door locks, windshield wipers (even the small jet of water from those tiny holes in the hood), and most of all… The car stereo. It’s a given. Passengers ride with you, and in return, you get to push the buttons and turn the dials. It’s nothing dictatorial nor despotic. By stepping into the car, they entrust their lives to you, a demigod with a license to plow the streets of EDSA. At the very least, they can show their appreciation by letting you choose The Cure over The Cascades. My mom is one of those “I bought the car, so I choose the sounds” type of person. She always rants about “sweet music,” but in decades of experience liv...

what the hell is a rain check anyway??? how did something so innocuous a pair of words evolve into something that means "next time na lang?" i'm on the belief that somewhere we'll never know, a cabal of intellectuals meet every 3 months and decide which words goes into the mass consciousness. there must a secret conclave that pairs random words together and make them into a new colloquial expression. take rain check. checks are good as cash. PDCs are unknown everywhere else but the Philippines. So having a check is having ready cash. Then rain. Rain is weather. It may sound somber, but there is nothing wrong in the word itself. anyway, the secret shadowy organization would probably conduct their meeting like this: "Hey Joe, i thought you couldn't make it to this conference?" "I was supposed to go on vacation with my secretary, but she cancelled last minute. Mumbled something about the weather being bad and all." "Rain, huh? Would probably ...

I’m all lost in the supermarket I can no longer shop happily I came in here for that special offer A guaranteed personality I wasn’t born so much as I fell out Nobody seemed to notice me We had a hedge back home in the suburbs Over which I never could see I heard the people who lived on the ceiling Scream and fight most scarily Hearing that noise was my first ever feeling That’s how it’s been all around me I’m all tuned in, I see all the programmes I save coupons from packets of tea I’ve got my giant hit discotheque album I empty a bottle and I feel a bit free The kids in the halls and the pipes in the walls Make me noises for company Long distance callers make long distance calls And the silence makes me lonely And it’s not here It disappears I’m all lost - "Lost in the Supermarket," The Clash ------- we spent the better part of sunday going to Makro Cubao. Just by looking at enormity of the place, i just realized i don't need most of the god awful things ever invented b...