Category: personal

in sickness and so on

Jaykie and I only really get to see each other during the weekends, so it sucks when one of us ends up sick during those two (or three) precious days. We were thinking dengue or UTI or something fatal, but when we (with his brother-in-law and kasambahay) took him to St. Luke’s Global City last night (pretty place, but Makati’s one-way streets are maddening; can you imagine bleeding profusely and trying to figure out where the entrance to the ER is through those streets jesus christ you’ll die) and after the bloodwork and the urinalysis came clear and OK it was decreed that Jaykie has a throat infection. Antibiotics, paracetamol, water, and he should be as good as new.

I don’t think I’ve been to an ER before. Maybe as a child, but I remember nothing. It’s so silent. I was so used to the chaotic medical dramas.

* * *

There are no 24-hour fast food joints in Global City! It’s an outrage! Last night both McDo and Jollibee closed their doors with those plastic signs that say they’re open 24 hours oh the irony.

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New old songs in my music player: The Veils, The Decemberists, Mariah Carey’s Christmas album (damn right!), and soundtrack of The Lion King (Broadway).

I am nothing of a builder/but here I dreamt I was an architect.

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I realized over the weekend that you only consume 105 calories if you control yourself and eat just one-half of a Hershey’s Milk Chocolate bar. That’s just 5 calories more than your regular cereal bars.

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I am sooooo excited for HBO’s Game of Thrones. The pictures are fabulous!

I got the link from GRRM’s LJ blog, where he’s either “tired” or “stressed”. He’s only “happy” or “bouncy” when he’s talking about football. LOL.

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While still in the condo Jaykie said he wanted to take me out on a date. We wanted to watch the Harry Potter film, but how, I said, he was burning like a bed of coals. I’m fine, he kept saying. He wanted to take me away from all this (gestures, takes in the room with his hands), even for just a few hours.

You’re the sweetest thing. Feel better and we’ll go have fun this weekend, fo’ sho’.

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Have a laugh. Read this. One-hit wonder na makata hahahahahahahahaha. (Link from Kate.)

just some random photos of food

1. So I’m sure you have heard the news that Jollibee has bought Mang Inasal for P3 billion. So maybe this explains the sudden disappearance of soy sauce in little air-filled plastic tubes (that you have to open carefully with your teeth or the tines of your fork, unless you want soy sauce all over your shirt) and actual calamansi from their rice meals.

Toyomansi! How horribly civilized! But at least they still included sili with the meal. We thought they now didn’t, at first, until we found the sili stuck in the underside of the chicken. Jaykie was so worried.

2. This is my favorite dessert combo from McDonald’s. Apple pie + plain vanilla sundae = apple pie a la mode. I invented this shit, yo. (Not very original, but let’s pretend I’m the first person in the  entire world to think this up.) We had it maybe two weeks ago, and again on Friday. The boyfriend liked it. My flabs screamed in revulsion but I ate the dessert anyway. It was heaven.

3. Despite the occassional apple pie a la mode or choco mousse or Mister Donut’s belgian choco dip (I have a sweet tooth, it is just IMPOSSIBLE to cut sweets from my life), I’m still sticking to my no-rice diet and my exercise regime (quite lousy, compared to other people’s: one-hour jog/brisk walking two to three times a week, and weights on Saturdays). I think it’s working. I think. I feel lighter now. I haven’t weighed myself yet, but I’m glad to know that I still got things under control.

4. If things go downhill again, I’ll try Mark Haub’s Twinkie Diet. It sounds awfully fun.

cake with a side of guilt

So. Diet. Little to no rice, no sodas, no chips. Desserts should be limited only to fruits.It would really be best if I didn’t eat anything at all.

I want to lose weight so bad, but friends ask you out, and you ruin your diet willingly.

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Jaykie and I went out with my high school friends on Friday. Dinner at Mang Jimmy’s. Had rice, had soda. Probably had too much tapa mix. After that, Banapple. I bought the Snickers cheesecake for me and the boyfriend, but also sampled 1) blueberry cheesecake; 2) cookie dough cheesecake; and 3) their famous banoffee. Probably gained ten pounds right there. But it’s always fun to go out with my high school friends. For some reason we ended up talking about Maria Ressa. (“Si Ging Reyes daw papalit. Bongga pala ‘yun. Akala ko itinapon lang siya sa Amerika.”)

Flashback: That morning I went with Jaykie to UP (he was just going to pay for the second sem – PMAM y’all). Walked in the rain. Typical, really, for rain to pour during enlistment period. I miss UP, but I don’t miss this torture. Jaykie wrung his shirt dry on the Bahay ng Alumni parking lot while I shielded him with my umbrella. Lunch at ROC, where I had fish and a slice of pastillas cheesecake. Mmm.

Saturday lunch was at Trinoma. Baked ziti and one-half of a pizza at Sbarro, then yogurt at Golden Spoon. Jaykie took me shopping as a birthday gift!

Kikomachine Komix No. 6:

A new mp3 player! (My Zen player conked out oh many months ago, and I’m too poor to buy an iPod.)

Shirts from Artwork, which entitled me to a free doodle book. :)

Thank you, Jake. :)

This cell phone bag I bought for myself. Only 80 pesos!

That night I was reading a book that mentioned chocolate, and all of a sudden I wanted chocolate. We ended up ordering from KFC. I had mousse but for the first time in my life, I had my rice replaced with a split bun (which by the way tasted like day-old bread).

I should exercise like a crazy person this week to burn all those calories gah.

But great weekend, as always.

back

1. It rained on my birthday. No surprise there. I was told, repeatedly, to lose weight. No surprise there, either, but I was surprised by the intensity. I ate cake, but it saddened me.

2. I need to lose 20 pounds. I will have to starve myself.

3. Look, pictures of my siblings play-fighting each other for my benefit.

4. My poem, “Bath Time”, will appear in the November issue of The Houston Literary Review.

5. Usok # 2 is up! My story “Elsewhere” is in it. Congrats to my fellow lady authors, and thank you to the artists, and of course editor Paolo C. for his patience.

6. Thank you to Jaykie and his family for treating me out to dinner last night. :)

7. I am 24. I am 24. I am 24.

8.

9.

10. How the hell can I lose 20 pounds?

one for usok #2

From Paolo Chikiamco of Rocket Kapre:

The wait is over. Be here on November 3, 2010 for the launch of the second issue of Usok, the webzine of Fantastic Filipino Fiction. Three all new stories, each with a custom piece of art by some of the best digital painters in the country, with a cover by CG Pintor founder K. Lapeña. Please spread the word!

Table of Contents:

100% of Me by Kate Aton-Osias

Elsewhere by Eliza Victoria

The Widow and the Princess of the Dwende by Elaine Cuyegkeng

Artwork by K. Lapeña, Mark Bulahao, MJ Pajaron, and VN Benedicto

The artwork, as always, is fantastic.

While waiting for Nov. 3, you can always visit the site. Look around. Paolo’s got interviews, news, articles, stories (check out Usok # 1), everything spec fic. :)

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I’ll be celebrating my 24th birthday on Nov. 1 (woo-hoo!). I’ll be offline for more or less four days, starting tomorrow. Will be spending time with family. Enjoy the weekend! :D

a trip to the hospital, weekend games

I had vertigo in grade school. Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo, to be precise, though of course I didn’t know it was called that. (I didn’t have Internet, then. Ha!) I’d get the dizzies if I lay on my side, or if I tilted my head up and down. Sometimes even when I lay down flat on my back. I would have to elevate my head with pillows when I sleep, and try very hard not to move. It faded away after a week or so.

I had the dizzies again on Sunday, and I still had it on Wednesday night, along with an excruciating headache that crawled down my forehead. I didn’t want to go to a hospital, and I was so sure it would just fade away like last time, but Jaykie was worried, which got me worried, so on Thursday morning I asked him if he could drive me to St. Luke’s.

I’ve always thought St. Luke’s was the shiny building in the middle, so I went straight there with my Medicard. Alas, outpatient clinics are in the more rundown buildings on either side of the shiny building. I went to Medical Arts first (“Strange term, Medical Arts,” Jaykie said), and was told to go to the PET building right across. So off I went to the PET building. I was told to go to Room 713.

Room 713, I was sure, was empty and locked. I waited some more (Jaykie was still parking). Finally I asked the busy Room 711 for directions. Apparently I was in the North part of the building. The Medicard room is in Room 713 also – but Room 713 SOUTH.

The world was spinning – literally – and I could only think, Which smartass sumbitch thought of giving the same room numbers to both wings?

(Actually, now I’m not sure. Maybe I was waiting in the South wing when I should have been in the North wing. The point is I was in the wrong wing standing in front of the same room number. You get the drift.)

So I went to Room 713. I said “vertigo” and I was referred to an ENT doctor in Room 812. There was a line, of course. The wait took TWO HOURS. I mean, wow. We were able to eat lunch in the middle of it. (I kept apologizing to Jaykie; waiting sucks.)

BPPV was the diagnosis, and I was told to move instead of avoiding the vertigo-inducing positions. “You’ll notice that the dizziness disappears.” She recommended three hearing exams: pure tone audiometry, speech audiometry, and brainstem auditory evoked response.

All three exams had to be taken in the main building. Shiny! I had to wait in line in the cashier to get a receipt for the exams, but at least (and I kept reminding myself this to suppress vertigo rage) I didn’t have to pay.

The audiometry exams were simple. A technician puts an earphone over your head, and everytime you hear a sound, no matter how soft, you raise your hand. Then the technician reads words to you, and you have to repeat the words back to her. Took twenty minutes, and I was able to get the result right away. (Left ear had mild senso – something. I didn’t bother to figure out the graphs.)

I couldn’t take the BAER the same day, so I had to go back early the next day. Torrential rains, and I had to go back so I could have my nervous system checked. Argh. Here I was made to lie down, and a technician attached electrodes (electrodes! like in Fringe!) on my head and inserted earpieces in my ears. I was made to listen to clicks and whirrs for an hour. I was told to relax, but come on. Anyway, I did my best. I certainly couldn’t sleep.

(I got the results from fax today. More graphs, but everything looked fine.)

Jaykie downloaded a PDF reader on his PSP so I could read my ebooks. Now I want a PSP. LOL.

We had tequila on Friday. Though it gave me incredibly painful stomach cramps at two in the morning, it cured my vertigo! Or so I think.

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We went to the OGM on Saturday. Had fun. Played Incan Gold (where sometimes you win if you decide to run away – I don’t like the values this game teach LOL!), Senators (I won!), Dixit (lovely French game where you are handed cards with surreal imagery – I. LOVED. IT. I would buy that fucking card game! Though I don’t get the name.), and Werewolf, which unfortunately we had to end before we could finish the game because it was getting late.

Realization: What I need in the OGM is a constant game partner who can play some lousy boardgame with me while Jaykie is in RPG. Heh. Anyone? Yes?

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This morning is foot spa day! My soles were scrubbed raw, and now my feet and my toenails are happy.

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I need time to re-write a story for an editor who is kind enough to want it for publication. AGH GIVE ME TIME WHY IS IT SO HARD TO WRITE NOWADAYS.

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Dear Universe,

I want to go home on my birthday. Please don’t let me spend my birthday with the first floor flooded.

Thanks.

Love,