antecoitus

Disclaimer: Okay no disclaimer. All of it happened so wala akong magagawa, yun na. hehehe.

Lei, sagutin mo ang email ko tungkol sa Gresya!!! Excitement, naiihi ako ahahha. To the rest of my beautiful evaughl clan, na sabi nga ni Princess e idedemanda ako for emotional damages, I still love you pero alam niyo naman ako — may aning-aning, hindi marunong mag-maintain. Sana huwag niyo muna kong itakwil. I love you all to bits.

———————–

Me had a beautiful week.

Thursday Night

The
usual manager’s round was on and I think I delivered a good speech,
except for that stupid slip up I made about sales management everything
went good. Huwag na nating pagusapan dahil kahit ako hindi ko pa
matanggap.. ehehhehehhe. Ang shunga shunga ko. Slowly I am feeling more
and more comfortable arguing operations with all the managers and I am
taking Freddie’s sarcasm way lightly than before. Now I don’t beat
myself up so badly, I just go in front of the mirror and give my
reflection the middle finger.

This time
we went to Jaromer, roughly a hundred and ten kms from prague, where we
had the round and some "other" activities. During the evening I had a
nice massage and stayed in the sauna for half an hour. I couldn’t do
more than that in the sauna since I was beginning to feel like my bum
already had blisters. Afterwhich, I played billiards with Petr, talked
with the other people and played wine glasses.

At the end of
the night, the men had some sort of a bet over a billiard game which
featured a very interesting heated argument about cheating in the
middle. So me and Jirka became referees. My rule: anyone who argues
with the referee’s decision gets a yellow card, anyone who becomes
truly emotional gets a red. Ang dali talagang takutin ng mga lalaki
minsan. We finished at three in the morning, tired from laughing.

Friday night

Lei
came over all the way from Michigan. I have already met some of her MBA
friends from UMich the Sunday before and they were actually a nice
bunch, they asked me about so many things, from Czech dumplings to
saying thank you to why I broke up with the boyfriend (thanks to my
mother who just found it so necessary to discuss on the phone how I got
conned while I was having dinner with them - in the middle of sipping goulash, ukinamfwet).

We
went to Cafe Louvre for dinner with some of her girlfriends but they
left early for Celakovice. So Lei and I were left to decide where to
party. We went to Ku bar at first thinking of having some shots before
heading towards the party. So with Leah and her backpack, we entered Ku
bar, but it looked like they were having a private gay party. Sayang
hindi kami invited. Whahahhahahah mangarap pa ko, maybe I should try
hanging out with more "lovely" people here. Kung sabagay I will always
have the chance to pretend to be lesbian and get in since most of them
are lipstick lesbians here. Ay puta I am somekindofadesperado na, ano
neng?

We went to Mecca for a proper house party, and Lei was so
lucky to be here when the Friday night parties featured were actually
very good. I think she had a great time, aside from being hit on
several times I think she survived without any serious injuries.
ehehhehe. There was this little cutesy English guy who kept coming to
us but I was pushing him away, nung hindi pumuwede ang bastos approach,
naging friendly na ko. Sinabi ko ulit na matagal na kami ni Lei and
we’re just staying for a couple of days. I thought he was adorable, no
not attractive, para siyang… uhmm puppet. He had really big eyes and
this sharp accent — " you girls are really cool, you’re not scared of
guys around here" — e singlaki ka lang ng hinliliit ko pano ko
matatakot?

Saturday

Saturday found us shopping
around prague and visiting the sex machines museum where I found
several very interesting items. ahahhahhaahhha. May mga gadgets na
hindi mo talaga malalaman kung san ginagamit kung walang prompt. And
then there was this 1927 porn movie with stars actors who were a little
bit on the chunky side.

Cute. And
well weird because they never got completely naked plus I believe they
were forty-ish. Susmaryangmahabagin. Para ko na ring nakita
maglampungan mga magulang which is a major eww. (insert goosebumps
here) fwede vuh? But some people enjoyed it, some people were nervously
snickering, I bet they were looking for the right way to react.

We
had coffee near the Asrtonomical clock and waited for it to chime,
ahahhaha chime ba yun e anlaki laki? ehhehe… teka bakit ako natatawa?
Lei found several sketches and paintings she bought for home, at nung
hindi na niya maramdaman ang mga daliri niya sa paa dahil sa ginaw,
nagyaya nang umuwi.

We called Wojtek afterwards and asked if he
wanted to have dinner with us at this Pakistani specialty restaurant
which had delicious choices. Everything was going fine until they
started talking about the ex. See, Lei and I had this two year hiatus
from the friendship because she did not trust the relationship I was
beginning with N. Only the issue got all blown out of proportion and we
had the worst fight of our lives. At first it was funny but then W made
this comment that everything that happened may have been a typical
example of how stubborn I am. That made me furious. Firstly, I was not
the only one who took the wrong turn in my relationship with Lei, it
was I believe both our decision to fuck it all up. Secondly, he had no
right to trivialize an excellent relationship. Fine, N made a mistake,
but that does not nullify four years of my life. Nobody has the right
to tell me that. So I jumped on him until everyone in the restaurant
was staring at us, Lei was uncomfortable and Wojtek was red as a
cherry. He said sorry and we actually had to fix the whole issue up
until three in the morning. Now its all good. I apologized to Lei but,
well, I guess it was nothing new to her… she knows me well enough to
understand that that’s just how I handle crap thrown at me.

Sunday

We
had lunch at El Gaucho, chicken livers, sirloin and grilled chicken,
protein overload. Dahil ito ang kailangan namin para sa mga sumunod na
oras ng paglalakad at pagpapa-pichur. I took her to the Castle, to the
Bridge, at marami pang iba. At the end of the day, we asked Wojtek (who
just came for a day from the mountains to snowboard) to give her a ride
to the main station to Celakovice.

Its not like me to be
narrating like this, this is just not my usual style, but I guess I do
not want to forget anything that happened during Lei’s stay here. As I
was hugging her before she boarded the train which will take her
outside of Prague (and then she flew back to Ann Arbor the following
morning), I thought, there is something very quintessential about this
friendship. Its just difficult to define something that stewed for two
years and still managed to get out of its own misery, by itself. Hmmm. I guess when it’s built to last, it transforms, then continues.

The heavens has a way of telling you to stop. I was supposed to have a full weekend which was supposed to start today; instead I am currently stuck here at the airport because I missed my flight. I had to repurchase a one-way ticket just so I can go back to p r a g u e. This means that I have to stay at the airport from the time of my flight which is at 1700h to the first flight from g d a n s k with a connection to p r a g u e which is at 0545am. My freaking taxi driver took a short cut or more apropos to say, what he thought was a short cut. I didn’t dare go back to the city because I know that hotels are fully booked. On Tuesday night I had to sleep at a sailors’ hotspot hotel, it had a sort of regatta-ish theme which was the only good thing about it because the whole hotel was stuck in the 70’s, the same decade they changed the furniture. Leaving the office at 1515h I was hoping to make it to the airport at 1545h. However my the taxi driver wanted to make it faster so instead we ended up in the middle of apparently rush hour traffic because it’s a Friday and everyone leaves the office earlier on a Friday. That’s e u r o p e for you. It took us an hour and a half instead, making me miss the check-in. The freaking check in woman suddenly became the most powerful woman in my world, but she knew no mercy. I was gritting my teeth the whole way from Gdynia, close to making the cab driver’s head bleed with my tiny phone which I suddenly wish was one of those early cell phone models that can be mistaken for walkie-talkies (o kaya panggayad ng yelo) for maximum effect. But he’s old, and old people have an unexplainable effect on me. They make me unreasonably merciful. Now, here I am waiting for the 12 hours to idly pass, hoping I can just close my eyes wake up and see an emaciated stewardess asking me if I will have a ham or a cheese sandwich. Worse, I’m wishing Hiro Nakamura was real and that if he were, he would give me a no strings attached invitation to bend the time-space continuum with him.

For the past couple of hours I have eaten my first meal of the day, beet root soup, sweet and sour chicken with rice (which was neither sweet nor sour) and a coke. I have bought gum and caramel candy , which cost me a mere 5 euros and for that I had to use my bank card because I had no Polish zlotys left (the store clerk was looking at me with humorous pity). I have bought an internet card from the same store after a couple of cigarettes outside the airport. I have watched 3 couples say goodbye sucking faces, 2 business men looking for electrical sockets for their laptops and one whole family dragging their bags to what is currently my most coveted place in the world, the check-in counter. I am leaving the time consuming activities for later which includes among others, writing about my current pitiful circumstances, working and reading a book. I have 10 bloody hours left.

The world has suddenly stopped and allowed me to think. I used to ask God for some time to just be left with my thoughts without having to worry about the next thing on my agenda.

Be careful what you wish for because God certainly has a sense of humor.

I keep thinking why this happened to me. I’m a good person, I use the magic words, I even wipe the toilet seat clean before I leave. Not that it’s a magnificent tragedy like, I don’t know — acquiring drug resistant tuberculosis. I only have one explanation though, when things are changing in your life, and for the better, you tend to forget to say thank you. To stop… even just to quickly say those two words.

After talking to W on the phone in shock and close to tears because it is the first time ever that I have missed a flight, and while hauling my 17 kilos of luggage, I saw the chapel (yes, they have one, this is p o l a n d, John Paul II was a citizen). God is subtly using a ploy to drag an ingrate into his house. Mystical and cheesy… how trite you say? How clichéd? I know, I thought that too, but who can say no to an open invitation to cry without anyone judging you? So I went inside and completed the sorrowful mysteries of the rosary.

After which, I surprisingly, started weeping.

I guess, I cried because I was exhausted, happy yes, but definitely worn out. I cried for my friends and my family whom I know will have aged when I come home in December and I have had no part in the forehead wrinkles they’ve developed from the moments when they needed someone to tell their story to, or the laugh lines which mark the jovial moments I could have shared with them. I cried again for having been pained before and for acting like it was alright that I was not able to say my piece to that one (and only) person who had to hear it. I cried for all the gifts that the man-in-charge gave me even if I never had to ask for them. I cried for all my weaknesses, for the times when I acted strong while my knees were buckling. I cried for the splendid experiences I have encountered.

I cried for my wonderful luck and for all the blessings that have disguised themselves so much I almost missed them. Like I almost did this one. I didn’t think I needed a good old bawling session with myself, but even this one He had to think for me. Can I be more inept?

Now that I am older, I end up with less and less time to be left in peace. When I was younger I used to have moments in church (especially in St Jude’s), my bedroom, or the UP s u n k e n  g a r d e n to feel incorporated into a bigger plan. Those moments provide you with ebbing feelings of being humbled by your triviality and of being big enough to fill a part of a grand design which ends in a perfectly harmonious exactness of imperfections. You feel like a soldier and a king at the same time, you follow and yet you decide. I get less and less of those moments now, because I am too busy with the mundane.

The more worldly you think you are the more green you have actually become.

After reducing a percentage of my body fluid, I wiped my tears and went out. I told myself, it could have been worse. I could have been in Prague now, oblivious to the fact that I failed to acknowledge the One who made someone insignificant like me be stuck in an airport in northern Poland because I was doing what I think will make a difference in my life and in other people’s. No matter how naive I am that what I do, actually will.

Tomorrow I will be partying, like a maniac. I have to look forward to that. I have to have something to look forward to. If only to rid myself of homeless-like feeling today. W just called me now, he told me to stop planning for tomorrow and jus try to be safe in the airport. How did Tom Hanks (do it in the Terminal)? Patience, I’m definitely learning that now. I have no choice.