Electric girls with worn down toys

The UAAP Basketball Finals, Game 2, brought to you by Sasha Martinez, told in the Third Person, because all the cool kids do it this way:

First Quarter: Sasha starts transferring files from old laptop to new one. Decides to turn borrowed, fuzzy TV on, for some noise. Ah, the game. Sends mandatory text to brother, who's studying in the La Salle, GO ATENEO, to which he replies, GO ATENEO. Watches as the Other Team scores four points. Picks up The Book Thief, has an attack of conscience, and picks up Nicomachean Ethics. Conscience decides to live up to its highly selective reputation, and allows Sasha to pick up Zusak again. One team has a higher score than the other, but fuzzy screen prevents interpretation. Chirpy TV voice informs her of the last two minutes of the quarter. And then, incredibly pain from insides starts. Lights a cigarette, checks her laptops, shuffles out of the room.

Second Quarter: Off to the bathroom with cigarette. Don't ask what she did there. After, suddenly remembers the laundry that's been hanging on the clothesline for about two days. Drenched wet, everything is. Goes back inside, drapes wet clothes over the back of a chair. Ateneo might be winning. Starts to fantasize of classes suspended. Thinks of st---- timeline game for a class tomorrow. 1973, my boyfriend was born. Someone is screaming on TV. Puts down Zusak, picks up Aristotle. Puts down Aristotle, diddles with laptop. Finds encoded journal entries from two years ago. Cringes. Cringes again. Another trip to the bathroom.

Third Quarter: Someone is mad on the television. Sasha sends P. a message, ordering him to be careful. Does a flashback. Does another flashback, this time while playing Bennett's As Time Goes By. Lights a cigarette. Someone's texted, needs to know what to do about the paper on Iliad, due for tomorrow. Thinks, Fuck it. Looks for her paper on Foucault, and Recto as a possible sexual landscape. Grins at the grade. Remembers mother's text when messaged, "I got an A!" -- "You never cease to impress me :-)." Remembers she didn't know what to send in reply, so she simply paused in the middle of the overpass she'd been crossing -- that is, until grimy little boy tells her to buy some bananas for him to eat. Sasha looks at the television; she knows she has to keep up: journalistic integrity and all that jazz. Back starts to hurt with all the bending over the laptops. Wonders about electricity bill.

Fourth Quarter: Someone is really mad on the television. One of them guys looks like the worst kind of asshole, the kind that gives you all those vomitocious looks while you're sprawled on the floor with an assortment of broken bones. (Yes, I typed in vomitocious. Try it. It’s fulfilling. Making up words makes you feel invincible.) Sasha starts to feel giddy -- whatever magical juju makes the TV work has allowed her to see more than fuzz and static: Ateneo is leading. Sasha thiks, Wow, we might actually win. Thinks of how it all fits together, 150 years, senior year, that guy Chris Tiu, whom she always sees around school but can never recognize until bewildered staring and five minutes later. Horrifies herself with the spurt of school spirit. Lights a cigarette, transfers Feist and The Killers and Yael Naim to her other laptop. Last two minutes. Someone's still pissed. Someone does a free throw. Last 45 seconds, Ateneo leads by ten points, give or take. Computes in her head: three three-point shots, plus a two-pointer for good measure. Admits she's fatalistic. Last 15 seconds: a blue smudge on the screen hugs the ball to his crotch. Thinks she might actually like this sport. Watches a swarm of blue and white on the court. Sees all the crying, and the hugging. Thinks of how it'd be if she were there, imagines the rancid stench of victory and Gatorade sweat. More people are hugging. Sasha texts brother, and mother, and P., none of whom reply. Insides start to ache again. Lights another cigarette. Turns the TV off. Stores away old laptop. Opens a Madison Hayes file on new laptop. Wriggles on the bed. Sneezes. Acknowledges the start of a headache. After five minutes, all the text messages flood in, telling her what she already sort of knows.

Parked car, night sky

Because I'm procrastinating, and I think it's raining outside, and I'm sure I don't have an umbrella:

1 - By all means, I should be safely tucked in bed, or at least writing for shit's sake, instead of Googling Michael Phelps (kalaglag-panty, pramis), Mrs. Fields' bankruptcy (remind me to buy some cookies), and sexy-places in Recto. Hello.

2 - Aside from all that, that scene from Far and Away keeps playing on loop in my head, the one where Tom Cruise dies, and the camera follows his soul around the fields and the clouds, and Nicole Kidman is wailing all over him, and then his soul does a somersault and lands back into his body with a great, big gasp from him. Yes, that scene. I love that movie. It appeals to my Fabio-Covered-Books obssession. Gahdamn, I can never spell obsession right. Single S, double S! Anyway. Far and Away, rich girl, poor boy, pretending to be siblings, lives in a whorehouse, boy does a bit of Fight Club, girl shows her knickers dancing, they get separated because she's oh-so-sick and he realizes he can't take care of her, and then a long time later, they meet again, in some land-grabbing thing, and they hook up again, and I remember she's wearing blue, and wow, do I love that movie. Atrocious accents and all.

3 - I have this grand plan. Someday, when I'm rich and powerful, I'm going to write a historical romance novel set in the Philippines. Jill Barnett, romance novelist, did that with Just A Kiss Away, which is set in the Philippines, about 1896. I love this book (it's all about luuuurve), and I find it funny that Antonio Luna has a minor role. Now, I've been thinking, why can't I write a romance novel? None of those 35-peso books sold in 7-11s, but full-length novels with lots of hot men and swooning and sexy time? Why not? Yes. I'll do that. Get back to me in about ten years, give or take.

4 - Yes, I read romance novels. Get over it.

5 - On being rich and powerful. I told my mother my laptop refuses to work. It's shuddered its last shudder. And she said, "Oh, and we can't get a new one until --" And I butted in with, "Yeah, I know, when I'm rich and powerful," and she laughs, and says, "Actually, I was going to say, in December, but that works too."

6 - Good writerly news in my e-mail, and I'm tickled pink. I wanted to reply with, "You're fucking kidding me right?" Or even, "Okay. Who put you up to this?" Hay. Good tidings, and fluffy pink bunnies, and rainbows coming out of my ass. See? Happy. A part of me still thinks that it might be a mis-send (haha), though I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but only loosely, hehe. Little ol' 18-year-old me from the toad-splattered streets of Imus, and all that jazz. (Goddamned self-deprecation.) But I'm happy, ridiculously happy. Order of information dissemination: my mother (immediately called her up, and she squealed, and said, WOOHOO), Zoe (almost hysterically buzzed her on YM, and she replied with, "Oh, I'm happy for you -- what's this again?"), and then I ran out of the shop to Pancho (who gave me a high-five, haha, oh love), Martin (mental apir too, hehe), and then Marie (to whom I gave a rather pretentious write-up, for Heights, haha, and who kicks ass with her Palanca win!), and then there's this blog, although I realize I'm not making a lot of sense. (Besides, if I put this in a long paragraph, and plunk it in the middle of a long-ass entry, your eyes would've probably glazed over by now.) Okay. I'm talking about this too much. But, but, but. You know when you get really good news, and you turn the television on, and there's all this mess about rapes and pillages and burninatings of countrysides, and you keep wondering, "Jeebus, why the hell aren't they talking about how happy I am?" Yeah. Sometimes, I think the world revolves around me. It often does, you know.

7 - Happy birthday to Official Two-Year-Fixation Miyo Sta. Maria (got you!), sexy testudinine poetess Nikita Paredes, and my mother, who said this afternoon, "Yeah, I've been lying in bed all weekend, reading books. What's wrong with lying in bed all weekend, reading books? Can't I lie in bed all weekend and read books when I'm turning forty-one?!" That's my mother. I luuurve you. :)

8 - Okay. That's it. Awat na. Relax.

9 - Last brainfart. Ernest Hemingway, y'all (though with some contentions) -- "For sale: baby shoes, never worn."

The blur of fast-forward

I should really be working. One, because I'm getting evicted on the 30th and I am yet to buy goddamned packaging tape. Two, because a certain deadline is looming, along with all the other deadlines that enjoy making a sport of me. Three, because I need to get my flaneur mojo on because I've got yet another paper on T.S. Eliot and his madafakeen "The Wasteland." Four, because I dreamt of the girl next door and man, was that a doozy, and then a couple of REMs down the night, a dream about a poet/kainuman, and that was simply horrific. Five, because I am running out of money, hence blissful state of inebriation is currently out of reach, which means I can't not think of not working. Yeahba.

So what have I been doing? Paper-taping for one, because that's what good sleepless friends of good sleepless artists do. And then I'm knee-deep in vampire / giants with tails / blue aliens and buttsecksing and all that jazz, not because I've grown mad with boredom, but because I have to -- yes ladies and gents, I have to read about anatomically impossible men and women bursting like ripe melons within each other, and I have to write a semblance of a sane review for them. And so, if anyone is up for a discussion for the hidden tribes of New Norway and Trek M'Qian, give me a call. Bring booze, as we shall need it. The girl next door, optional. What else? Oh yeah, new detachable showerhead. Which reminds me of a conversation I had with someone a few months ago:

"So, what made you happiest sa Dumaguete?"

"Fuck it, hands down -- yung detachable showerhead sa Bethel's!"

Get yer minds out of the gutter, there was hot water. (Ooh, that rhymes.)

Let's go to the beach, kids, and burn our noses off. Will entertain you with the sight of the expanse of my sternum underneath the stringiest piece of neon green bikinis. Oh, the horror, the horror.

And boo, I missed the dolphins to Subic (because doing so required me to get up at 4 AM).

*

And now, some quotes. About Luuurve. From the books Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres, which has been gathering dust underneath a gigantic bed at our house at Calatagan, because after reading the part about the doctor and his goat, I found I couldn't read anymore. Maybe because I'd been at the apex of my Cute Guy at the Billiard Hall phase, which, thankfully, has long since passed.

"Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because that is what love is."

"Love is not breathless; it is not excitement; it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being ‘in love ‘which any of us can convince ourselves we are."

"Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossoms had fallen from our branches were found that we were one tree and not two."

What up, people?

Drop the phone

I don't know why I bother, but I guess I'm bored. So, here's the brainfart of the day, all of which point to me, because I'm an A-level narcissist that way. Woohoo. You won't be hearing anything about the goddamned ridiculous high-freakin'-prices of rice from me, nossirree, goddamned 40 bucks per goddamned kilo.

Brainfart:
I am still lazy, which scares me because I feel as if the summer's going to end before I know it, and I won't have time to be lazy anymore. And quite a bit disorientated -- I just love all the pretentious extra syllables in that word, don't you? I don't know what day it is really, and I have to look at the timestamp on this page repeatedly. I've got things to do, and yet I've gleefully chosen to lock myself in the nearest fall-out shelter to binge on trashy novels and McDonald's McNuggets McYeah. I've got stories to write, papers to submit, stuff to pack for my inevitable eviction but I've spent the past few weeks stewing with the heat, on my effin' ass. My dad's wondering what cliff his eldest daughter jumped off from, and my mother simply wants to make sure I'm not rotting away out of sheer unproductivity. My brothers are with that billiard table in Calatagan, and my dad's chickens are probably limping, because the weather's wonky. I've got more than my fair share of Jaid Black and I'm starting to ache with the surfeit of blue aliens making love on stone tablets. Stories of Divorce is just depressing me, so I often put it down and hunt for a hug. Sometimes, I think I need to read Nabokov again, because the last time I did, I couldn't finish it because the guy I was dating then was a self-confessed asshole. Haha, you know who you are. I'm wasting my time in front of this computer, and I haven't had breakfast. Been awake since three in the morning. I need to get a life. I have a lot of keys in my bag and they're making a lot of noise. John Torres is the shit. I can't seem to find my USB. I'm meeting my mother by the Plato Wraps at Taft. Miriam girls, I am picking my nose as I write this. I need to get a dress and some bronze sandals. I've got two hundred bucks in my pocket. Where the fuck are those McNuggets?

*

"Metaphors are dangerous. Love begins with a metaphor. Which is to say, love begins at the point when a woman enters her first word into our poetic memory. "
- from Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

You're the best deal in town

When I woke up today (at 4:30 PM!) after a rather disconcerting dream of canyons and weird sculptures hewn from mountains and a lost pagan / Quaker tribe in the probably-not-there mountain ranges of Batangas-Bicol (dreams are like that, ya know), I realized that a.) I've got to pee really badly, and b.) I have not seen another member of the human race since Thursday night. Yes, my interactions with The Others have been restricted to instant messaging and random comments on my LJ communities, plus the guy from Happy Homes whom I ask every twelve hours or so, Kuya, menu please. And yes, that fall-on-my-face love-letter I told you about. And a phone call and a half from my mother in which we talked about The Shawshank Redemption and the tribespeople of Hmong (which are, I joked, from Hmongolia). Ooh, throw an egg on the hermit when she gets out.

So, I guess this is the part where I offer an intellectual discourse on solitude and the intrinsic value of being in the physical presence of your fellow man but I need my Happy Homes now. Later.

If you ain't got no money

Oh goodness, I've grown bored with procrastinating. It's gotten so bad, I'm writing three-page love letters disguised as your run-of-the-mill Howyadoin? e-mails to people I'll likely see the next day. I've nothing left to do, really [note to self:] but do laundry by the bucketload (because I'm tired of washing the same two shirts over and over again), get boxes in which to dump my Clothes, Clothes Not Worn In Six Months, Shoes, Things Not Used So Much (like, three years worth of college shiznit), Books Read Once And Will Never Reread Again (hello, Virginia Henley), and Books Me Likey (like my six-year-old Eight Stories by Sir Krip and lovely lovely Barthes and, hehe, Susan Elizabeth Philips-es). Oh yeah, and go back to revising "The Twenty-first Month" like mad, because my ever-dependable no-bullshit critic was foaming at the mouth when he read it. And Holy Pickled Tuna, Batman! I have to start writing new stories, if I have any self-respect left in me! [/note to self].

So. Ahem. In other news: Early this morning (around midnight, oh dear), thanks to the shame-a-turtle slowness of Aisis, I learned I did not go into epic failure, thus retaining my Atenean status. Yeahba. Good thing to know, because I've already signed up for a summer of writing so I'm less hassled with thesis next year (gasp, I know, the foresight is astounding). So expect me to roam the hallways of our dear old university with my mermaid hair flung behind me and hitting some choice people. That's one worry over and done with.

I'd like say more things that will prove I'm a sane person who spews sense (I dare you to say that three times fast!), but my ass is numb from sitting in front of the computer all day doing absolutely nothing, and I have to go take a bath and I have to think about saving them orphans in Malawi and the black-footed ferrets in South Dakota. (Gasp, will no one think of the ferrets?)

Okay, that's it. Toodles.

If I had eyes

1
Things have been ho-hum lately. Basking in the nothingness that is the beginning of summer. (Crap, may hold orders pa pala ako.) Spent a weekend with the family back in Cavite for Gabriel Joshua's graduation -- where I a.) met the ghosts of boyfriends past, b.) was made to promise to graduate with honors by well-meaning former teachers, c.) was told by my former principal that I was "always worthy in the eyes of God." Right.

2
More on nothingness: sleeping the entire day, only getting up for the bathroom, frantic messages from family and friends, and Isabel Allende.

3
Speaking of Isabel Allende:

"I no longer had the strength to grab a sturdy peasant girl by the waist and swing her up onto my saddle, much less rip her clothes off and enter her against her will. I was of an age when you need help and tenderness if you're going to make love. I was old, damn it."
- from The House of the Spirits

Happy summer everybooty.

Standing right in front of me

What happens now? For four days, the pious sit huddled in make-shift chapels in the middle of asphalt streets, chanting the Pasyon to the tune of whatever latest song caught their attention. Jesus Christ, yeah, dude died on the cross, yo. Until Sunday, the trains shall be motionless. Birds will delight on hearing their feet tick and tack against the steel roofs. Brothers will most probably lounging in hammocks while chickens scuttle beneath them. Green mangoes shall be peeled.

I'll be here, in Katipunan, no witness to that, kept company by Francine Prose, Gala Dali, Francis Ponge and Aime Cesaire. This is not a well-intentioned sacrifice of a well-meaning schoolgirl. This is plain absent-minded stupidity coupled with inherent laziness. Ai-yah. And me gots less than five hundred bucks to my name.

I should have gone at the first fade of sunlight, with nothing but Blue Angel and a change of underwear in my bag.

*

The girl next door, they say she looks like me. Except, of course, she has breasts. Comparatively, they simply exist.

She has long brown hair, curling from the shadows above her ears. Her lips are thin. When she smiles, a semi-colon deepens in the corner of her mouth.

Maybe some time before Easter, I could knock on her door, holding a mug of Swiss Miss in one hand. I might say, "Hello there. Have you heard me through the wall?"

*

A part of me wants to sit on the steps of that (obscenely arrogant) church in Varsity Hills, gnawing on Chickencow barbecue. Hm, Chickencow. I wonder if they're open today? Oh, sadness: a girl, alone on Lent, chatting up the waiters and waitresses, sipping RumCoke. Yes, why not?

I also want some Cherry Coke. (Do they still make those? Had I been the only one who liked its curling sweetness?) And some Cappuccino Mudslide. Would it be in bad taste to head on over to Rustan's and get myself some liquor? Yes, I think so -- even I know that much.

*

The flower shop across the street is closed. No one, apparently, wants to buy flowers during Lent. Why, though? They're on full-swing Valentine's and November 1st. Why not Lent? Love and death (in the pages of some tattered leather-bound book) -- potent combination, big sales? Or is it because you can't have a cup of coffee afterwards with Jesus? Because he has no tombstone to lay daisies on?

*

Holy fuck the palaspas, it's only Wednesday night.

Jack Frost nipping at my nose

On taking a breather from the mountain of Coetzees, Polotan-Tuveras, Fuenteses, Lahiris, Joaquins, Gonzaleses, Pounds, Heideggers, I picked up a book with a florid green cover (from my ever-present stack of floridly-green-covered books) and thought:

"I want a 6-foot-2, 200-pound Norwegian slab of a bodyguard who had been a detonations expert before; a manicurist and hairdresser before that; an interior decorator before that; would schlep a little black kitten called Lucifer around; and watch One Tree Hill with me while we devour a tub of vanilla ice cream.

And his name shall be Sven, denied a part in Baywatch for having the compulsion to look lovingly into the camera ever so often, denied a part in an Off-Broadway musical about homosexual loving for being too masculine. Loveable, Self-Esteem-Issues-Plagued Sven."

'Tis all.

They've boarded up the cinema

Fast, labo updates before I head off to the great abyss that is a long weekend:

1 - At 11:24 this morning, my mother texts: Will not meet. Trillanes is walking in Ayala. And I had an image of him simply walking. On his way to lunch probably. I bet he had no idea na tapos na yung recess sa hearing. And did anyone else see that military guy with the Lucille Ball wig?

and so

2 - Because Sen. Trillanes "exercised his right to exercise," I couldn't watch Enchanted. And the government has announced a 12 MN to 5 AM curfew -- or so my mother says; I think she just wants me to stay put, hehe. So today's plans scrapped, tonight's plans down the drain . . .

therefore

3 - I had to keep myself from going mad. Staying in bed wasn't an option, since my dreams of becoming a vegetable have been temporarily put on hold in lieu (leyooo, fuhnee) of higher aspirations, such as, well, uhm, not being a vegetable. And since I'm lazy, I ignored the heap of schoolwork gathering dust in a corner of my shelves. And since last night Yaps told me to get a Facebook account . . . well. That was that. (Add me!)

and last night, too,

4 - I went back online after living under an internet-less rock for a few days, and found out that Joey Nacino and Sir Ian Casocot won the first and second prizes (places?), respectively, for the fiction category of the (clicking Google, wait, wait, wait) Philippine Graphic/Fiction awards. :) Yey! Congratulations po. Much hugs to you.

In conclusion

5 - Happy long weekend, errybooty!

Make it all fall faster

I think this is some sort of sick joke.

Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia is the fear of long words. Not making this up. First heard this on the FX on my way to Calatagan last Halloween. It had me snort C2 two seats across.

Sad, sad peoples who have this phobia. I can see it now:

"Hi, everyone. My name is John and I've got hippo -- WAAH!!!"

"Hi, John."

How long should a word be that it's actually scary?

Equilibrium? Shiver!

Antidisestablishmentarianism? Pees pants!

Supercalifragilisticespialidocious? Nervous breakdown!

Hohay.


*


"Don't worry. Everything will fall."

Wait. Blink. Wait some more. "Go on, please."

"What can I say? I'm a pessimist."

And tails, we'll try again

Brainfart, because my muse is out chasing worms with a peacock's tail feather:

Roughly an hour ago: stuck in traffic on my way to Modern Poetry class. And then, like a cow, gigantic man-4WD darts out of nowhere. I am then nose to nose with its bumper. The front license plate thingie reads, in iridescent red, in big tough-guy letters, LAWYER.

This gets me thinking. When I become rich and powerful and get a car that doesn't require me to push it uphill every one hill in a while, Ima get a license plate that reads, SLOB. Or, VOLVO-DRIVING SOCCER MOM. Or, @#*!. Or, MAFLOUFLOU BERRY. Or, the more wistful, WRITER-IN-TRAINING. Or, BANANA. The list is virtually endless.

Oh, and I have nothing against lawyers.

PS - See you kids at the Happy Monday later. :)

Let me know what spring is like

I woke up at 1:30 PM, and spent my token 5-turned-15 more minutes in bed, mentally mapping out my day. And then I hopped over to my laptop to do some blogging, thereby ruining the carefully conceived plan made under my covers.

And thunder is rolling outside, which means I can't traipse and frolic in the city of neon and chrome.

Methinks I have to take a bath now. And call the registrar so I can enlist as SOH 879 3/892. And head on over to La-La Land, dragging Moosebert by his orange antlers.

...

Obviously, this whole entry is just an exercise of stalling.

No, Ma'am Typhoon, ma'am. Not yet. Not yet! I have a meeting with destiny!!!

(-_-)

Maliligo na.

I'm tired of the weather

While waiting for my slot, Philo orals: "Uh, so Socrates went to the poets, because they were blabbing about how, uh, smart they were and, like, when Socrates went there, he found out that, like, they we're so kidding them. So Socrates said that, like, these poets think they know everything because they have, like, metaphors."

Panalo, ampu.

*

I have finally desecrated my legendary notebook. . .

. . . yes, that's how dreary my life is right now, that I spend money to tell you I've written on pieces of paper. Grabe na 'to.

Tonight it's gonna be easy

UNIVERSE, CONSPIRE WITH ME! RARR!

Take over, the break's over

Restrooms at Berchman's Hall:

"Seriously, like, I'd rather go commando than wear a freakin' thong."

"I know, right? I mean, the only reason why I wear a thong is that I know it'll come off five minutes later."

In the aftermath

Some brainfarts:

1
I hope the weather would make up its mind already so I'd know what to wear.

2
Is it just me or does all this chilly wind inspire diarrhea to blossom within the dark depths of my, er, soul?

3
How come when I finally drag myself from bed, to trudge to school, it is to find out that my oh-so-benevolent professors have decided to grace us with free cuts?

4
It is illegal in the Ateneo to use a helicopter to go to school.

5
I have twenty bucks to my name. And only because I sodomized my poor piggy bank, Mr. Piggy Bank, so that he could cough up the coins.

6
I can feel the acid burning a hole through my stomach. Medyo sa kaliwa.

7
I think Optimus Prime is God Incarnate.

8
If there's a group of people in your society that goes by the name of Decepticons, and you still expect them to hold tea parties for you, then your species does deserve to be wiped off the face of this planet.

9
Kuwento niyo sa'kin yung mangyayari sa Harry Potter ha?

10
I am so out of touch with reality.

11
My article on Dean Alfar and Speculative Fiction is more than 6,000 characters over the limit. That means I'm in for a monster whipping from Sarj. Wee.

12
Who wants a superstorm? Come on, raise those hands, people, raise em up hiiiiigh!

13
Someone in cyberspace needs to sleep.

14
Mia Tijam, nasaan na yung pasalubong ko? :')

Same same

Shleepy. I'm hunger.

I think I'll get a lover and fly him out to Spain

I am spelunking for respectable books, you're steering me to the decidedly non-respectable books section.

"Follow your heart, kiddo." Your face is in its "Seriously, I'm serious" mode, which is enough to warn me that you're up to something. I look up at you, eyes narrowed, lips pursed.

You hold up a florid book. On the cover, there's a woman in a corset. That's it. In raging red letters, super-imposed on a shiny, Turtle-waxed butt cheek, are the words First Impressions LUST. (Emphasis not mine.)

I manage to catch a waterfall of snot before it embarasses us both. My sniffle reverberates inside the musty bookstore. I hold my polite-company books closer to myself.

Primly, I say, "I don't read those kinds of books."

"Yes, you do."

"No, I don't."

"Trashy books with Fabio covers, right?"

"Not that trashy. And sweetie, that's not Fabio."

"I've seen you before."

My eyes narrow further and I shift my respectable books from one arm to another. "No, you haven't. I don't read those kinds of books."

"I know where you keep them." You shrug, check your watch, take my spelunked books, and drag me to the cashier, all at the same time. All with that maddening, I Know You Find Me Hot smile, patent pending.

"You're not buying that," I tell you through gritted teeth.

...

Five minutes later, Alice Hoffman and Lillian Braun Jackson in my bag and "First Impressions LUST" by Mistress Something Something in your back pocket, we waddle around.

"I can't believe you did that!" Insert sniffle here.

"Don't worry -- I'll let you highlight the juicy parts."

I stand on tiptoe to give you a respectable swat to your head. You dodge it with irritating ease.

After a few moments of aimless walking, you turn to me, IKYFMH smile in place. "Wanna watch Spider-Man?"

"James Franco, ayuh."

"In spandex."

"Of course," I sniff.

As we wait in line for tickets, I remember Senseless Principle #342, "Don't hit on me while I spelunk for books." I tell you this, as we walk blindly into the movie theatre, Harry Potter's nasal screams from the trailer ringing in our ears.

I thank the gods the IKYFMH smile isn't glow-in-the-dark. "I wasn't hitting on you. That would be redundant."

Damn, but my hand in yours feels good.

"Got you," you tell me, over your shoulder. I don't have to look up at you to know you're smiling a decidedly less smarmy smile. The one I prefer.

"Got you."

And that's how I learn that my smile glows in the dark.

Paranormal mates society

Someone here needs to seriously fix her weird sleeping habits.

I feel like a thief in my grandmother's house. A thief who takes a bath at 1:30 in the morning, munches on raisins and melted mocha ice cream, who internets all night long, laughing (gasping with mirth) with my imaginary friend plus newfound snarky bitch friends Candy and Sarah over ridiculous mantittes and overtly helpless-bored looks with the contrived illegal buttsecksings, half-scribbling the beginnings of a story, using my tita's laptop without her consent, and it's nearly five o'clock in the freaking morning and everybody is going to wake up any minute now and they'd find me crouched over my illegally-used laptop, on the dining table, exactly as they left me some odd hours ago, sans laptop, of course.

Got all that?

And in the background, somewhere, is the insistent beeping of my cellphone, which I haven't graced with mine eyes for more than a day now. Are y'all texting me, hunny bunnies, wondering if I've been farted off the face of this puh-lanet?

EEK! I hear squeaky floorboard sounds from the upstairs. Demmit!