Menthol-Guy

I slept 10am to 8pm and 9pm to 5:30am. I only ate Bega (the vintage one with a strong, bitey taste) and two slices of whole wheat bread, ovened some Libby’s, boiled an egg. The sleeping might just be a result of two days of carousing and quaffing.

Friday was a long day.

Having skipped my one-and-a-half Art (Humanities 2) class, I decided to blog about my wild, hangover-filled morning instead. After much mental indecision (I don’t know whether I’ll wait for my hangover to pass, but that I thought it was impossible to be assuaged by time and tablets made me reconsider my choice) I then went to my 11:30 to 4 class, upon which the 1-4 class is Crop Science 2.

We did rice planting. It has caused much backpains in all of us, aside from the free tan and the sweats. The muddy feeling was relaxing, though, like volcanic rocks arching your flatfoot and soothing your feet. The paddy is really soft and unmistakeably warm, and by the time you first walked on it you would be giggling so hard since it–if you’re lucky–tickles the senses.

It’s fun planting rice after all, getting dirty, walking on bunds (pilapil), feeling the earth and stuff, but I wouldn’t do that for one whole day–or if given the chance, for a living. I did it mainly for experience. Our professor somewhat pointed out that farmers have been doing a tough job to give us rice in our plates, and that in order to accommodate or at least comprehend such reality, we have to “experience the very act of rice planting.”

Then I went to the Bestfriend’s birthday party at Bedspace, Greenbelt 2. I’m late, of course, because I forgot the camera batteries and I decided to hop a jeepney back to the dormitory–and it took twenty more minutes before I got a bus. The SLEX reconstruction is a given travel hazard, and the fact that it was unavoidable made my adjusting of ETAs (expected time of arrival) a habit. I got a taxi at Magallanes and paid a hundred and fifty pesos (I know, overpriced) just to get to the event at eight-o-clock. The rally at Paseo de Roxas was another hazard, but that I had warned the taxi driver not to get any closer to Paseo de Roxas cleared the odds of getting late for another hour.

It was fun meeting her college friends and dancing a bit. She first warned me not to smoke in her birthday night. Well, I know it might ruin her day, but honestly, I thought of smoking that night since I thought she would be eighteen enough to understand–but of course I still understand her decision. I respect that. I mean, c’mon, everyone hates me for being a smoker. Almost everyone–except beer buddies which has considered no-smoking people as KJs (killjoys).

Until now, I couldn’t come up a word to describe my detestable smoking habit. Well, I smoke whenever I feel like smoking–and that chance would be rare. I just don’t know what to say when certain friends have caught me smoking and would ask, “I thought you’ve stopped smoking?” and with that I’d answer, “yes I’ve quit smoking but I smoke at times when it’s cold…” and other confusing reasons. I don’t know. I think I’m just a social smoker or something–like, whenever I see a friend smoking I would also smoke just for the benefit of togetherness or something. I’d rather not talk about that. My rule number one, though, is never buy any cigarette. My smoking is dependent with whoever I’m with–if ever they’d give me free puffs, then fine.

She also said that I should “refrain from acting snobbish” and instead “wear a friendly aura.” Well, after I had met one of her blockmates and had strolled them around the mall, she said that her blockmate’s impression towards me was a huge snob (not really a huge one… but you’ll get the picture). The Bestfriend knew me as gregarious and cordial, but that cordiality, was only specific to those people I have known for years, and that, she mysteriously had not noticed since the blossom of our friendship (maybe it’s because we’re always with high school friends). In reality, I’m quite touchy and stolid with newly-met people, and it takes a couple of meet-ups before I would feel comfortable with a certain person. However, I easily gain momentum in befriending someone when we both have the interests, the fun-related impressions after sizing up each other, the stomach-aches of joking, or generally, the common ground where we can dwell our conversations–and maybe that’s not the case with my bestfriend’s blockmate.

Some people take me as someone affable and everything, but really, I’m not. I take into consideration our common experiences (as long as you love alternative, or rock, or blogging, or ultimately J.D. Salinger, I’ll be your instant friend) and parameters as well.

The party was great–except that there were some beer spills and my inability to mingle with others.

I went home with a cranberry juice and some whole wheat egg-and-bacon sandwich from Starbucks. I hailed a cab somewhere down the road, near Max Brenner, and that hail-and-wait took twenty minutes of my time.

“How much would you like to pay to Alabang?” The desperate-to-go-home Kevin said two hundred pesos. I’m stupid with pricing, but I intended to do that since I’m desperate to go home, and that I didn’t want to be left out at Greenbelt sipping juice to bide my time for the morning, and that I didn’t care how much money I’ve got just to go back to Laguna before dawn.

It was my first time to go to Alabang, and it was slightly deserted, and that it made me remember Quiapo (mostly in negative terms, but Quiapo is a wonderful place for DVDs and cheap cameras, but still I wouldn’t dare to go there). I got down in front of Starmall, crossed the other side of the street, and boarded a jeep to Calamba. I needed to go back to Los Banos since our org’s finals–UP lingo, and which I can’t translate to any other word–was also scheduled that night in a resort.

It was almost a one-hour trip bisecting the entrails of Laguna: San Pedro, Sta. Rosa, Binan, and Cabuyao before I even arrived at Calamba. I got a jeep to Pansol where Monte Vista and Sun City and all other resorts are irrationally placed. It was night and I can’t identify or recognize landmarks so I got down in front of a night club (Flawless) and, with the fear of being kidnapped or being forced to go inside, I ran, ran, ran to Pansol–which was a mile away, at 2 in the morning.

I started to go home at 7 AM, barged myself inside the MRT at 8:30 (I even collapsed numerous times to my seatmate’s shoulders during the trip since I was terribly sleepy and my REM stage commences in a split second–dreams occur so fast I even had a dream within the Kamuning-Quezon Avenue interval).

All these things made me sleep for eighteen hours. My Dad thought I was dead (seriously) or that I was depressed from the party since I locked myself up in my room and turned off my lampshade (which was normally lit up almost all the time) and that our maid confessed that my Dad had confessed earlier his worry towards my undisturbed sleep.

I thought today’s only Saturday!

_{P.S: To the Bestfriend, I haven’t uploaded the pictures yet since I forgot the connector at LB. Sucks, I know. I’ll do the uploading ASAP.}

I’ve had like twelve (or fifteen?) bottles of Red Horse yesterday and it was nasty. Boy, was I nasty. I’m with four of my friends (actually, two of them I newly met–the wonders of beer-drinking) at the Square, where every Thursday night at LB are usually celebrated with booze and everything. We emptied two Red Horse beer towers. I went home under the influence with a friend, and we stayed and slept at the dorm, and the next thing I know it was 9:54 AM and I have a 10:00 AM class.

Bullshit.

So I stood up and Elaine wasn’t there–Elaine, my friend, who’s really smart to consider me as that guy friend whom you could sleep with, without any hesitation, without any doubts of being naughty. She got up earlier for her 7 AM class, I remembered. All I could hear was that lyrics, “Should’ve done something, but I’ve done it enough. By the way, my hands were shaking. Rather waste some time with you.” The Used, I mused.

I stoop up and lost gravity. I nearly collapsed, good thing my hands saved me from the impact. I never thought hang-overs could be this nasty–the sting was unbelievably fresh, like I’m still drinking beer for seven hours.

I was pissed off with myself since my ten o-clock class is just awesome, yet I couldn’t do anything since I’m wasted like that, lying on the floor, hoping for sanity to fall from somewhere. I ate breakfast and the hangover’s still there. Goddamnit, who invented hangovers anyway?

I think I’m having my relapse over boozing. Scary shit. But really, my friends have been a good influence lately since they’re all clean-living (except the womanizing, they would always say, and it was stupid, them doing two-time shit) and they’re prohibiting me to smoke–which is why I don’t smoke anymore, or at least in front of them.

Last semester was great. It felt great, actually, since I’ve been juggling on my acads and the organization and nothing more. No Thursday nights, no hangovers, no I’ve-just-woke-up-and-I’m-slightly-kind-of-stoned mornings. Everything’s just great, I’m having the time of my life with my grades. I thought, hey, with the right influences I could study.

This semester, generally speaking, I’m sober enough (since right now I’m still incompletely sober since my brain’s been slowly adjusting to sanity and I’m in the state of recuperation, and my vision’s absolutely blurred) to assume that I’ll be doing better with my acads.

Or was I drunk-blogging again? No shit?

Smitten by May Day’s Eve
a Nick Joaquin short story
a climax forgotten, a copy lost
the conscience-struck me then realized

ID lace, sheets of paper, folders and books
stacked within layers of more paper of white and yellow
shook the bag empty of all its possessions
hoping to find that missing piece
that literary piece so engrossing
its very wit that occupied my mind for long
the fast-paced
continuous and never-ending singsongs of vividness
the whispers and coos and hush-hush
which I lost track of
which I so love the most
which, unforgivingly
I would lament from this day
my habitual forgetfulness

The residues were almost drained
and the whereabouts of the copy uncertain
Fuck!
I must have left it at Mini Stop
passing the time with a friend sipping coffee
canned Nescafe coffee, I can still remember
and the yellow-and-blue stripes
and the towering ice cream
and the sweltering day outside
and the concave mirrors at its corners
and the very table where I
must have
left
my Nick Joaquin

or maybe in the jeepney
with the bangus vendor aboard
and a friend wearing olive green cargoes
and the thickening earwax of the driver
and the hustles of the crossing
and the windy breeze of speed and haze
I should
have dropped
my Nick Joaquin
there

or maybe during my Math class
where I was inattentively listening
where I was late for five minutes
and I quizzed myself
with polynomials
laws of fucking exponents

That feeling of regret
of moroseness
of sheer no-one-to-blame-but-me feeling
that biting hatred
toward obliviousness
has been plaguing
me for months

Bring me back
my Nick
Joaquin

“I’m starrrrving. Where do you want to go again, anyway?”
“Graduate school,” she said between strides.

At that point we were exhausted. We were walking uphill, treading the asphalts and the paved sidewalks. It seemed strange that the nine o-clock sun can burn skin in a while, so I decided to open my umbrella to give us shade.

“Damn it, this is tiiiiiring.”  I was slightly gasping for breath.
She wasn’t replying.
“Why would you go there again? The last time we’ve met, you told me we’re going to the Graduate school.”
“I’m fixing papers for my cousin… she’s a bit reckless in terms of her papers.”
“Oh.” I’m having a hard time catching my breath.

We spent another five minutes until we reached the Graduate school. It was a cozy place, more like a rest house than a Graduate school with pine-looking trees and needled leaves, soily smells, foggy mountains slumbering behind it. “Wait for me,” she said, as she went to the swinging door and I nodded as if I were her puppy. I decided to sit at the smooth concrete stairs with hands bracing my aching legs. The concrete felt cold and polished.

After a couple more minutes, I started roaming around the place acting like I’m from Graduate school, like I’m just looking at the memos and the billboard announcements. A lady, probably a graduate student herself, lit her cigarette stick as she ambled on the stairs, her eyes watching her every step, her fingers almost clasped in a knuckle of concentration and care.

“What took you so long!?” I asked with perplexity and agitation. She knew my tones. She knew me.
“I haven’t thought the process would take that long.” I sighed. “Sorry.” It was a bit sarcastic.
“Yeah right,” I said, holding the railings of the stairs, “and you have a ten o-clock class. It’s almost ten!!!”
She stood there, silent.
“What?” I finally asked.
“So you’re mad…” That you-should-be-guilty tone; that accusing tone!
“Look…” I’m trying to find the right words.
“It’s just that we’ve been going here twice, and I’m always dragged along, and then you would always ask me to wait and sit in the steps for hours. Like I’m a dog or something. And I don’t even know what you’re doing in there.” I said in a singsong chain of words.

We went downstairs and walked without saying anything. I opened my umbrella again, but this time we were walking parallel to each other, at least three steps away, as if we didn’t really know each other.

“Hey. I’m really starving.” Her pony-tailed hair was swinging sideways as we sloped our way downhill.
“Here.” She held out something in a white sandwich plastic. The kind of plastic used by street vendors for almost everything.
“What’s that?”
“You told me you’re starving. Here.”
“And this is? You made this?”
“Ham and cheese roll.” Our pace has slowed for a while, making room for less heaves of breath and more conversation.
“Cool.” I took a good bite from it and it was oily, like it was soaked in vegetable oil for days. It acted like an oil-filled sponge. It tasted crumby, salty, and chewy at the same time. The bread crumbs were almost insignificant–it wasn’t even crispy.
“Where the hell did you bought this, anyway?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Spill the beans.” We crossed the road and walked as we were being sheltered by huge trees with sprawling branches swallowing the sky. I closed my umbrella and got my handkerchief and slowly wiped the sweat in my forehead and in my neck.
“She was selling some ham and cheese rolls for her organization. I didn’t do my assignment, so we made a deal. She’d let me copy her assignment and I’ll buy a ham roll from her.” She said this matter-of-factly.
“Pretty much of a fair deal, huh.” I said, dispassionate with her story.
“Well, I knew you would be asking for something to eat since it would be a long walk and you would surely rant about being exhausted. I knew you would tell me how you’ve been sweating like a pig and would somehow get hot-headed since it’s hot, and my visiting the Graduate school looked pointless to you.”

That is the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard in years.
I never ever thought she knew me that well.