Category: personal

catch that story idea!

I’ve set aside Falling Man to read this. Thanks Jaykie for the pressure buying me a copy. Note the lace bookmark. (I make bookmarks out of everything. Folded receipts, shirt tags, etc. This one came from a top I own. I still wear that top – amazingly the subtraction worked.)

I have an idea for a story, but every time I sit down to start writing it just runs away. It simply won’t take shape. Very frustrating. One of these days I’ll sit down in a quiet corner with a pen and my Spongebob notebook (the white, empty screen of my laptop is making me puke) and a cup of coffee and brainstorm until I churn out an outline. (“Outline” is a fancy term I use for snippets of scene descriptions and dialogue arranged in more or less chronological order. I don’t do the academic outline with the Roman numerals and shit, I’m not that crazy.)

Also, I just learned at the PSF V launch (thanks Charles for the head’s up) that my poem, “Tour Guide” (the last poem I wrote before the pesky poetry writer’s block hit), is in the April 4 issue of the Free Press. Yeah, I’m late, I’m sorry, I forget to monitor these things. Hope you can get a copy. :) National Bookstore and the convenience stores (7-Eleven, Mini-Stop) carry back issues; Jaykie and I even saw some inside a Mercury Drug branch. So yes, my poetry can be found inside a drug store, or on the shelf beside the booze. Coolest thing ever.

hello psf, we meet again

I was there last year.

A lot has happened since then. Quite frankly, when I attended the book launch of Philippine Speculative Fiction’s fourth volume, my first publication in the anthology, I was more apprehensive than excited because I didn’t know anyone. I’ve never met the Alfars in person, and it was obvious a bunch of the writers there already knew each other, making fun of each other as they gave their speeches, and calling each other by their first names and what the hell am I doing here. Thank God Eula came with me, so I at least had someone to talk to during the event.

Compare this scene with the PSFV launch yesterday (April 24), where Kate [Aton-Osias] told Jake that she’d seen pictures of him and our dates (all hail Facebook, sorry Jake for your girlfriend’s online exhibitionism heh) and Dean Alfar gave a heartwarming speech in addition to my introduction, calling me a “hot writer”, i.e.”She’s been published practically everywhere.” (Can also be i.e. “She looks hot.”) (I’m kidding Nikki.) The book launch felt like home, so when I gave my speech I was at least coherent. I mean, I gave a public speech and actually made sense! What an accomplishment.

Also, I discovered something while I was walking around the U-View Theater shopping for autographs: PEOPLE READ MY STUFF. This is a revelation! When I post plugs for my new fiction/poetry I usually don’t get responses, but at the launch co-contributors Isa Yap and Tin Lao actually approached me and said they’ve read my poetry online and loved it. Tin even said she’s a big fan, and that she was glad to finally meet me. Me! And I’m not even wearing my fuck-me shoes! How surreal. That made me feel warm all over. :D

Thank you to Jme, Beej, Phil, Juabe and of course Jake for coming with me to the event and for not insisting on the original plan of lifting your shirts to bare your torsos painted with the letters E-L-I-Z-A.

Thanks to the other authors for signing my copy!

Much love to Nikki, Vin, and Dean for the successful event. I am in awe of all your efforts to promote the spec fic field, I really am. (I just can’t articulate that in front of a large crowd, that requires more charm and more brain cells.) And look, you got two fourteen-year-olds this year. Amazing! Can’t wait to read the book.

(Semi) group pic! Sorry for my sucky phone cam resolution. Let’s see if I can get the names correctly. Seated: Tin, Kenneth Yu, Dean Alfar, Andrew Drilon. Front row: Isa, Nikki Alfar, me!, Kate, Charles, TJ Dimacali (na boyfriend ni Ders! UJP-UP peeps? Remember Ders? Maganda hair niya. LOL.), Mia Tijam. Back row: Ejay, Alex Osias, Joseph, and Vin.

Outside the gates after the event:

After that we headed out for dinner and then had dessert at Xocolat.

“Well I didn’t know the churros would arrive on a hell plate,” Jaykie said when this appeared on the table. I said it’s not a pentagram, but a Star of David. Jewish churros!

LOL. Good times. :)

geeky monthsary

Jake and I were celebrating our sixth month together (half-year, w00t) on the 17th, so of course we went to the Summer Komikon.

Of course.

The Komikon is primarily a celebration of Pinoy komiks. Also, some stalls sell jewelry:

This year’s was held at the Bahay ng Alumni in UP. Entrance fee is P50. There’ll be another one in November. :)

While walking around, I said at one point, “Ooh, cosplayers.” And Jake laughed and said, “First time you saw one up close?”

As a matter of fact, yes. LOL.

I don’t think this is Pinoy komiks though:

Anyway, I only had enough money to buy a copy of Manix Abrera’s 12 (Jake and I were going to have dinner later). The lady at the Visprint stall said I should come back in a little bit and have Manix sign my copy. So I did:

12 is a collection of twelve wordless stories in comic book form. Since all you have are images, this is a book you can read in one sitting, and the kind you can share to a wider audience. The collection, like most short story collections, does not stick to a single genre, mood, or emotion (funny, sad, existential, horrifying, just plain weird); this makes the stories unpredictable. One of the stories here won the grand prize (but was disqualified for getting published before the results were announced) in the recently concluded 3rd Philippine Graphic/Fiction Awards, sponsored by Neil Gaiman. It’s one of the most heartbreaking stories I’ve ever read, and there aren’t even any words. Brilliant.

/end review

There’s also a comic cover re-creation contest. Remember these?

Dinner at Jack’s Loft in T. Morato. We really just wanted to try their famous iced tea.

I like it! And I love their dessert selection. They call this I Declair. Killer.

Here be the remains of my apple pie a la mode:

Smile! :D

date day, night

I hate it when a national holiday falls on my day-off. How come other people get to enjoy a workless day and have the weekends off? I work on Sundays! I don’t get a long weekend and I still need to share the train with them? No fair.

But April 9th treated me well. Met with Eula after er months – and we went shopping! Typical. After lunch we went around Market! Market! and finally got what I wanted – big, chunky, clunky rings. I LOVE IT. There were rows and rows and rows of stalls selling costume jewelry and semi-precious stones inside the mall. I mean it. We actually got LOST at one point. It was amazing. Eula said she saw Imelda Marcos shopping there once. You should go to there. Seriously.

Here’s Eula and I showing off our rings while inside CBTL in High Street. (We were hiding from the heat. Gah.)

I also bought necklaces and earrings. They’re selling ’em quite cheap anyway. Next time, I’ll buy bracelets. Let’s do this again, Eulaaaaa. ;)

* * *

Met up with Jake that evening, then off to Trinoma to meet up with Carl and his friend and see Date Night.

THIS MOVIE HAS TINA FEY AND STEVE CARELL HOW ON EARTH CAN YOU GO WRONG. (The sex robots are just a bonus.)

Watch it.

Dinner at Tokyo Cafe with the rest of the HGC gang. I’ve avoided Tokyo Cafe for the longest time because I thought the food’s crazy expensive. Okay naman pala. Next time we go there I’ll order the parfait.

So there. How was your –

No. I won’t ask you about your weekend, because most likely you had a long weekend, so yeah yeah you had an extra day to watch DVDs. Hmp.

vacation, or this incredible heat

Bulacan till Easter Sunday. Halu-halo. My mother’s caldereta and kare-kare, yum. Sex and the City. How I Met Your Mother. Some Big Bang Theory. One story, done, but needs re-reading and edits. One story, edited, final read, done (hopefully). Silly computer games, like Diner Dash, to kill time. Jollibee with my brother. Re-read Atwood’s The Robber Bride. Drank Mint Choco Bailey’s with my father while watching a godawful action film.  Made my brother watch The Ruins, and of course he hated me for it, hehe.

The heat was torture. I’d take a long cold shower when I wake up and in a few hours I’d be swimming in my own sweat. I’d take a shower in the afternoon, and I’d start sweating while wiping myself dry. How can we live like this?

I hate the summer. I love beaches, the feel of the sand, the look of the water and the sky, but I hate the heat. Hate it hate it hate it. If asked to choose between an airconditioned hotel room and swimming at the beach under direct sunlight, I’d choose the hotel room in a heartbeat. I’m a worthless tourist like that. Seriously, we should hold tours at night, and swim only when it’s dark. (Boy, I sure hope the sun would hide behind thick clouds during the Bohol trip with Jaykie and Friends next month.)

Anyway, met up with the boyfriend after Lent. It was so hot during the commute back to the metro that I was SERIOUSLY this close to punching a stranger. Seriously. Seriously. So I had a shower first in my airconditioned room. Airconditioning. It is bliss.

Went to UP. Lunch at Choco Kiss (airconditioning!), had the Chicken Kiev. Some The Office. On Tuesday we planned to stay indoors, but ahoy rotational blackouts. Even a moron wouldn’t want to stay indoors in this heat, so off we go to UP, which also experienced a blackout (fuck – it’s as if it’s following us), played cards with Mark who happened to be at the HGC tambayan, then off to the mall.

We watched this! (Mark mentioned that Jme wanted to watch it on Saturday I’m sorry Jme it was hot and I was miserable and I wanted to laugh please don’t hate me for dragging Jaykie and watching it ahead of you guys. T_T)

As I was saying –

Photo from Filmofilia.

I love this film. (Despite the fact that the children speak with an American accent while the adults speak with a Scottish accent – despite the fact that they’re all supposed to be Vikings.) It’s  one of those few 3D films that you won’t mind paying extra to watch through the funky glasses.  (Now, if I can find me a theater where your chair tilts as the dragon spins and descends…)

3D tech has been abused lately, but in this case, it’s quite effective.

Oh, and have I mentioned that I was sweating while we’re waiting in line to buy our tickets inside the mall?

I was sweating. Inside. The mall.

It was seven p.m. when the film ended, so it was safe to venture out since the sun’s finally disappeared from the sky. But before we went home we tried eating at this Vietnamese restaurant (whose name I can’t remember! The heat’s killing off my brain cells!) for dinner. I enjoyed the salad. The vegetable’s really fresh, and the dressing’s light and tasty.

All in all, great vacation. (But still – the heat’s a real fucker.)

* * *

In other news, my story “Once They Were Gods” will appear in is in the April issue of Expanded Horizons soon. Watch this space.  Go click and read! :)

I’m also looking forward to the Summer Komikon and the Philippine Speculative Fiction V book launch this month. Yay!

open gaming meet

Did you hear the wind on Friday? I was in QC at the time, and it was howling and we thought it was going to pour, so we just stayed indoors and ate pizza and chocolate. Diet becomes non-existent in the face of apocalypse.

On Saturday the wind died down, and I went with Jaykie to my first Open Gaming Meet (OGM).

I’ve never been to an OGM before. In fact, I’ve never heard of the event before Jaykie mentioned it during our dating days of yore.

Anyway, set-up is simple: you pay an entrance fee, and you and your friends get to play whatever boardgame/card game is available on the center table. I suppose you can also bring your own game.(The OGM is held once every month in SM Marikina. Entrance fee is P50.)

Simply put, this is the place where a fairly large number of geeks gather together to play instead of conducting, I don’t know, experiments for nuclear research. (Because this can’t be done in Marikina. Have you seen the garbage dump site just outside the mall? The damn place would explode.)

Jaykie gets to have a big-ass ID because he’s an OGM regular:

We played the card game Bang (me, Jaykie, Jme, Beej, Phil), wherein I played the Sheriff, and I won!

Then we (me, Jaykie, Sam, Derps) played Kragmortha, which I thought was a brutal game. Reminds me too much of Truth & Consequence and high school. I won’t play this again LOL.

Jaykie and I watched some games for a while, then played Labyrinth.

Last game of the day for us (me, Jaykie, Derps) was Kill Doctor Lucky. God, what an infuriating game. I wasn’t even able to take a picture of it, because we couldn’t kill Dr. Lucky. (Derps offed him, eventually. After what felt like five hours.)

That was fun. I’d go to the OGM again. :) (This picture’s from Sam.)

* * *

After that, off we go to Mandaluyong for Carl’s housewarming party. AND WE GOT STUCK IN THE FUCKING ELEVATOR. Well, just for three minutes but did you read that? WE GOT STUCK IN THE FUCKING ELEVATOR. I sort of freaked out when I imagined the elevator car falling down to the ground floor. Damn my brain. But then two guys pried the doors open and we were free! We were between floors 4 and 5 (Carl’s on the 8th). A scene straight out of Being John Malkovich, as Jaykie pointed out.

The hell with nuclear research. Let’s make overloading a myth. An elevator with infinite space! Yes? Yes?

I really need to diet.

dinner party + weekend

Dinner with Research peeps and friends for Ate Julie’s birthday. Thanks for the invite! So much food I even had some chicken to take home with me, har har.

Kroc Grille, Shangri-La. Photos from Cyril. And Andrea.

* * *

Weekend was too much Project Runway and Top Chef and stir-friend veggies with oyster sauce and homemade chicken noodles. I like boys who can cook. This boy in particular yihee. ;)