women asking out men

it was late saturday (or was it sunday already) and my friends and i were trying to stay awake while at a friend's dad's wake when the conversation steered towards women asking men out. now, being the *demure* dalagang pilipina we ought to be, the overwhelming answer from the girls was a resounding NOOOOOOOOOOO. after all, didn't the rules teach us we had to play hard to get? and weren't we raised to be chased and to allow the menfolk to do all the hunting?

then the guys asked, "what if you hit it off?" followed by "and what if it's just for coffee?"

hmmm... i thought to myself, so coffee is different now? is asking someone out for coffee not the same as actually asking someone out for a real date?

the question came back to me once more yesterday when, the girl beside me in the fx, called up someone and asked the other person on the line out for coffee. and (i presume) when the guy sort of balked at the idea, the girl went on to get *fake* pissed, saying, how she'll be hard to get from now on and that she's un-inviting him for coffee. (in case you're interested, the conversation went on and on and on, and that early morning coffee extended to her asking the other person on the line out for lunch at world chicken which, apparently, he was supposed to pay for)

have i asked anyone out for coffee? i guess so. i usually old friends to go out for coffee -- and that actually translates to i-want-to-chat-with-you-to-catch-up. sometimes, i go for coffee with clients which translates to we-need-to-talk-some-more-about-this-matter. sometimes, coffee means let's-meet-there-so-i-can-sit-while-waiting-for-you. and, those five or so months i studied for the bar, coffee meant i-need-to-study-and-going-home-will-just-mean-sleeping. but coffee as a means to i'm-not-asking-you-out-but-i-wan't-to-go-out-with-you ... i don't think so.

i'm 33 and admittedly, there are days when i'm in major panic over the fact that at my age, my mom was already attending PTA meetings at CSA. i'm scared whenever i watch discovery health and i keep hearing how any pregnancy over 35 is considered high risk. i never imagined myself to be this age, single and alone. does this mean that i should, as that girl in the fx did (and she was considerably younger than me), start asking men out for coffee?

a perverse fascination

i don't know about you, but for some reason, i've always been fascinated figuring out what people carried in their bags. so it shouldn't come as a wonder that i not only go through most of the pictures here but that i also google "what's in my bag" once in a while to find more pictures.

so, when a friend mentioned how it's weird that a tv show has for one of its features stuff inside celebrities' bags, i just shut up and made a mental note to watch said tv show.

the thing though is that save for having had my bag featured once by a bunch of students in the school's magazine, i've never really bothered taking a picture of what i had inside my bag. i don't think i've even really bothered taking stock of what's inside my bag to begin with. in fact the only time i bother with its contents is if i'm searching for something and realize that (1) i left it in my previous bag (2) i left it on my desk at work (this usually happens to my wallet which i usually stash on the out tray after lunch) or (3) i have no idea where it is.

but seriously, i guess the reason why some of us like to virtually peek into people's bags is that we feel it gives us a tiny glimpse of their souls, or their lives, or of their hearts. it's pretty much like reading another person's blog. it doesn't matter whether you know them or not. sometimes, it doesn't even matter if you can relate to it or not. the anonymity coupled with the sincere and honest outpouring of emotions (or, in the case of bag voyeurism, the contents of one's bag), makes for an afternoon of reading, understanding, and the most important of them all, of relating.

me, i miss writing. i miss being able to pour my heart out on these pages. i miss writing about ups and downs. i miss the friends i made on this blog. i miss reading online friends' blogs. i know that more than ever, a lot of people blog now than they did seven years ago when i first started out, but somehow, it's not the same friends i made then. plus, there's so much more avenues for writing now - twitter, for one - that rare do you find a post that moves your heart and soul the way blog posts did then.

or it could just be i was in my twenties then, and so were my online friends, and we were all so full of angst that all we could do was write and write and write. and now they've all moved on to real lives filled with meetings and careers and what not, and i'm still here, trying to deal with the very reason why i started writing in the first place.

p.s. and yes, that's a jollibee tuna pie inside my bag.

the day i went out to buy a flourescent lamp and came home with a new television

it was a not-so-good thursday. as i was walking to the car, i accidentally stepped inside a MAJOR pothole at the mcdo parking lot at ATC and fell.

as in on-the-floor-a**-kissing-the-cement kind of fall. while there were several cars waiting for a parking slot. and several cars in the drive-thru. it was super embarrassing. and all i could do was silently yelp out "ouch." thank goodness there was a couple who helped me get up, asked if i was okay (i sort of was, although my ankle hurt terrible), and reminded me to rotate the ankle every so often (which i did).

i carefully limped to the car (thank goodness it was nearby) sat down for a bit and breathed.

i had several stuff planned, the most important of which was to stock up on food for the long weekend. but with the threat of ankle swelling up and being unable to drive home because of it, i decided to go home ASAP. at least if something were to happen, i'd be home and not stuck in my car in town center.

i woke up friday with zero food and a still-painful ankle. so i snacked on whatever i had in the ref. by 2:30 pm, the ankle was slightly better but my tummy wasn't. i had to get food soon or i'd go crazy.

so i thought, okay, maybe to make the drive for food worth it, i should run some errands too.

so i did.

i had two pairs of pants cut.

since i had to wait for an hour or so, i drove to kfc to have super late lunch. it's been a while.

i don't know if it was cost-cutting or something but it was relatively warm in kfc so i didn't want to stay too long. then i remembered i had to get replacement for the kitchen light so i went to robinson's handyman ...

... to buy this. i was supposed to buy akari but the lady said firefly (with german technology) is better. i don't know why but i believed her. i had visions that my light would be as fabulous as a german car, haha.

i was on my way down the escalator when i spied the appliance center and decided to check the goodies. there was this 29-inch flat screen (but not LCD, and not the type you can hang. i think they call it super slim or something) on sale at S&R the weekend before that i sort of wanted to get but didn't so i thought maybe i could check out the price at robinson's.

i'm a smart shopper like that (i'd like to think).

i was looking at the television sets on display when something caught my eye. S-A-L-E. from P34,990 to less P7,000 to only *drumroll* P21,990.

the guy approached me and said, "ma'am, dalawang pieces na lang, reserved na yung isa."

i panicked and immediately called tita mayu. she sort of panicked along with me. we've both been thinking of buying a nice flat screen tv so my excuse has always been i'll buy only after she bought hers.

but then, for some reason, i couldn't wait any longer.

yes, i've always wanted a flat screen. you see, the television i use we've had since i was in grade school. it was so embarrassingly old that in that facebook meme where one of the questions asked about my tv i simply said "dusty". it was so old that i can't read the news ticker at the bottom of the screen cause the picture won't fit the screen anymore. but it - for some magical reason and save for the abovementioned complaints - worked perfectly well, except that one weekend in law school where CSI turned green but was fine the following weekend when i went home again.

but i wasn't about to spend that much money on an impulse purchase. shoes, yes. bags, yes. but a television when the one i had at home was still serviceable? maybe not. so even if the guy kept pestering me to make a deposit, i didn't. i said, let me sit down and think about it some more.

thanks to the free wifi, i surfed the net and briefly acquainted myself with the merits of this television. although it was cheaper in indonesia (or malaysia?), the guy who did the review said the tv was 9/10.

i could live with 9/10.

then tita mayu told me something like "this is the reason why you work so hard. so you can enjoy the fruits of your labors. you've always wanted it. go for it."

and so i did.

the day i went out to eat, get pants cut, and buy a circular flourescent lamp, i came home with this.

and, yes, i agree. life IS good.

p.s. my ankle hurt big time but adrenalin allowed me to bring down the tv from the car by myself and set it up in my room. sad to say, the next two days, i'm not sure anymore whether what kept me home was my desire for my ankle to heal in time for work today or the happy new tv in my room.

cabin fever

i was exchanging SMS with a friend yesterday when she finally put what i've been feeling the past couple of months into words: cabin fever.

i know i couldn't explain it to friend x how i'd rather be alone these days. after all, i'm the kind of girl who can't even go to the bathroom alone. my secretary even used to justify it by saying that maybe since i live alone, i've all this pent up energy waiting to be unleashed every time i'm around people.

the last couple of months however - and i'm trying to blame the hormones and injections for that - i've been craving for some serious alone time, especially time away from friend x. at first i thought it was cause there were things i couldn't do with friend x (like going to surplus shop which i absolutely loooooooove). then it came to the point where everything felt so tedious - eating lunch was tedious, walking to the parking was tedious, being around friend x was tedious. friendship, for the first time in my life, felt like a chore i couldn't wait to get done and over with.

and then she finally put a label to it: cabin fever. ever watched (or read) stephen king's the shining? while we're not exactly stuck in a huge haunted hotel in the middle of winter with no way out, we're stuck in a tiny office, with no other choice of friends except each other. we eat lunch together, we go to the office library (ten steps away) together, we go home together. heck, we even took a vacation together. during the best of times, we watched america's next top model while exchanging SMS with each other. we were <-this-> close, and while it was good (even great) during the best of times, i realized something about myself: that somewhere deep inside of me is that grade 4 kid who ate lunch alone so she could finish early and be in the library to borrow books before the afternoon classes began. i though high school (and all the intervening years in between) devoured that quiet girl whom the teacher could not remember. apparently, i was wrong.

happy easter (monday), everyone!

may all of your easter prayers and resolutions come true.

p.s. if you're not the new year's resolution writing type, well, i believe easter's a great time to change over to a new leaf. i know i've got a couple of resolutions up my sleeve.