Thursday, February 23, 2006

A perfect ending to a wonderful day

I left the house yesterday at 5 am and took a cab to Paddington station. Winter is still here with a vengeance, outside it was cold, dark and wet but that didn't dampen my mood for one bit. I was picking up my best friend. We came here together but she left to work in the pastry section of a big hotel chain in Hong Kong. I was standing at the platform waiting for the heathrow express to come in. I was pacing up and down the platform in excitement; and then there was screaming, and tears. We stayed at her place, and talked nonstop from paddington until midnight. I am so so happy she is back, my friend from childhood; the woman that I consider as one of my closest relatives. London has become brighter; even the weather didn't get me down today. It is a great day.

Funny enough, this city has loads of surprises in store. After spending the night at Winnie's place, my husband went home early morning to get ready for work as I chatted away with my bestfriend. When I called him up to ask him to take some things to oxfam, he got really snippy. I thought it was because he missed watching *one of the best football games that I ever watched in my entire life* as my cab driver put it. I can understand my husband's frustration with having missed watching Chelsea vs. Barcelona as I wanted to see it too. I don't like arguments being a protector guardian (i'm full of these today), so this dampened my mood a bit. My mood worsened when my cabbie told me how a chelsea player got kicked off, kind of a deja vu for them since they got Liverpool's goalkeeper sent off a week ago (booooo).

I came home tonight to find a bicycle chained to our gate. Some idiot (there is no other way to describe this person) thought our gate would be the best place to secure it with a thick chain and heavy duty padlock. I wouldn't really mind in normal circumstances, except this moron chained it where the gate normally opens, and now it's stuck halfway. I (and the people living upstairs in my building, which includes a very pregnant woman on the top floor) have to squeeze through the gap, step on the bike (it's impossible to step over it, unless you're all legs and no body) to get to our front door. Not cool at all. At first I thought it was a prank, the back wheel was missing, and the front wheel was all bent; this is London afterall. My nice-guy-living-upstairs neighbor said it was probably one of the people living next door who chained it there(obviously no one in our building would be dim enough to inconvenience us and themselves by chaining their mode of transportation to the part of the gate where we usually pass to get to our front door). They obviously did not notice the keypad, or were so brainless that they think it normal to chain someone else's front gate. Nice-guy-living-upstairs, who is usually docile, also told me that if *that darned thing* is still there by tomorrow morning, *I'm going to rip it apart.* Ahhh, I get the feeling that the front wheel was probably in good condition when *that darned thing* was first chained there, and then proceeded to get more bent as my upstairs neighbors let their frustration out on the unsuspecting wheel, only because they couldn't wring the neck of the person who actually put it there. I called my husband at work (very rare occasion as chefs hate being interrupted at work, they get grumpier than usual), I found out that he had to climb over the gate to get out of the house; the bike was in perfect condition when he last saw it. It was spanking brand new, had both wheels and was chained perfectly to the gate (which wouldn't open at all). This is a fire hazard!!! Uh-huh, now I get why he was so grumpy. I should probably tell my neighbors that if the bike is still there when my husband gets home, then nothing's going to be left of the bike when the owner picks it up tomorrow morning. I don't like vandals, and this counts as trashing someone else's property, but in this case I'm all for it.

It could have been a crappy ending to a really good day, but as I got in the house, this man was waiting for me. This is why I got married. Enough said.




This time I called my bestfriend, told her all about the bike and had a laugh. All in realtime. Life is getting better by the minute.

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Another one for insomnia

I'm on a roll with flowers lately. Hmm...scratch that. I've been into flowers since I can remember, and my insomnia has somehow given me a renewed passion for everything floral. I hope this keeps up, my sudden burst of energy for painting gives me something to do while I have loads of time on my hands. Hopefully, by the time I get a job, I'll have enough paintings to open up my own gallery (dream on kid).

Monday, February 20, 2006

Insomnia

Insomnia is defined as a chronic inability to fall asleep or remain asleep for an adequate length of time. I don't have a problem remaining asleep for long periods, for people who've been with me during sleepovers, they know that I can sleep for an absurdly long time. The problem with me is falling asleep. During my waking moments, my brain goes into overdrive so much that I have trouble shutting down. I have so many ideas whizzing around my brain that I have an inability to turn them off when I need to. Nowadays, I sleep every other day, which is scary. I went to my GP a couple of days ago to ask for help...I didn't get any. Basically, she told me to find other ways of falling asleep, short of bonking my head so that I conk out, I don't know what else to do. I asked the pharmacy for help, and they gave me these over the counter pills that do an amazing job. Hopefully, I'll be able to get into a normal sleeping pattern after I finish the meds so that I won't need to be a zombie every other day.

The plus side to this is I have so much more waking hours to paint. I find that this helps me relax, my brain only thinks about mixing my paints to get the desired colors that I want. Amazingly, I am able to produce paintings without much effort. At the very least, there's one good thing about not being able to fall asleep.

Friday, February 17, 2006

The Prodigal Daughter

I'm going back to the Philippines next month. I've been having nightmares about it, probably cause I haven't been there for 3 years. Has it been that long? A lot of things have changed since I last saw Manila. I've finished school, became a chef, left work, been jobless, got married (tiny tiny detail), moved into a tiny tiny flat, and lived on no money at all. Very very different from my life back home. Home. For years I've wanted to leave home...for as long as I can remember I've hated living in Manila. I just couldn't wait to leave. Now that I'm nearing my homecoming...I'm overwhelmed by this feeling of how much I've missed home. Home home home...I can't stop saying it. I can't wait to see it, I can't wait to feel it. My self imposed exile has been good...it has been a very rude awakening. Living in the Philippines, I didn't feel any connection to it at all, or so I thought. The thing is...the more you deny yourself of something, the more you end up wanting it. Here, in the land of football, baked beans, and big brother I have made peace with myself. No matter how much I tell myself that I am happy to be living here, I know I am overjoyed at the prospect of going back there. Even if it is just for a little while. If I need to go back to recharge my spirit, then it must truly be HOME.

What has prompted all this mushy feelings for my beloved Manila? I recently stumbled across a blog by a very funny man calling himself batjay. His humor, the off color jokes, things he writes about...they are 100% Filipino. His website is lightyears better than all of the websites sponsored and run from Manila, and this is only from one mean Filipino machine. I truly, truly enjoy his website, short of stopping myself from subscribing to his posts (I think I'm still very much trying to balance out being chinese and growing up filipino...hey I've had years of subliminal training so don't hate me). And the eureka moment...I enjoy Mr. Batjay's writings simply because it reminds me so much of...you guessed it...home.