Too exhausted to care
The most difficult thing about being mentally exhausted and physically wasted is that you’re too tired to think of ways how to snap out of it, much less get up to actually do something to rid yourself of ennui and recharge.
It’s a vicious cycle, really.
All day today I slumped like fungus covering a rock in the bottom of a stream and watched DVDs. One Pixar cartoon after the other, and then two psycho-suspense features that left me feeling like I’ve eaten too much candy: bloated but unnourished.
This blog is mainly what’s saving me from myself these days (this and my husband who tirelessly keeps making trips to the 24-hour convenience store next door to get me chocolate bars, vinegar chips and other junkfood even as he keeps railing against me for eating the stuff).
I. Am. Exhausted.
I suppose I had this coming. I really did. Stupid eating habits, erratic sleeping patterns and non-existent exercise on top of the stress of the day-to-day grind in the gargantuan alligator pit also know as the Philippine House of Representatives.
These days when I let my mind think of what lies ahead of me in 2006 — the routine schedule, hearing the stupid and infuriating arguments and explanations the so-called leaders of the country will be spouting in their various privileged speeches and statements to the media, I begin hyperventilating.
Like now. Better stop. I. MUST. NOT. PANIC!
New Year’s resolutions (just humor me here, okay? This is the secondary list)
1. Write two short stories
2. Eat vegetables
3. Sleep earlier
4.Do the laundry every week instead of every two weeks and having the dirty clothes pile up like unintentional sins in the hamper
5.Do not read while lying down
6. Do no eat in bed while reading lying down
7.Clean up bed immediately after eating while reading lying down and thus keep ants away from bed
8.Cut softdrink intake
9. Quit buying soup bowls (I collect the things, aaargh. They’re gathering dust and the only time I get to use some of them is when I’ve used the others and they’re getting covered by moss in some neglected corner of the kitchen sink. Which leads to Resolution No. 10…)
10. Wash dishes and cutlery and glasses immediately after meals instead of letting pile up like unpayable gambling debts.
The thing about being married is this: your housekeeping habits somehow lapse and deteriorate because you’re always thinking the other person will do the chores you’ve been neglecting. This proves to be a fatal mistake because more often than not, this is also what the other is thinking.
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They’re selling fake Havainas in Quiapo. The real ones cost P950; you can get a pair of Havanas (which look and feel like the real thing) for P50. I’m thinking of getting myself at least three pairs and wearing them (a pair at a time, of course– not all six flip-flops, wiseguy) whenever I go to Ayala Center or Greenbelt 4 where there are Havainas stores, harharharhar! Knock-offs (and ukay) are the best. You can look as if you spent P10,000 when actually it’s more like P1000. It’s not really the brand or label you’re wearing, it’s actually how you wear your clothes and footwear. Nasa nagdadala yan, pare.Am an original member of the Kontra Copyright group. Pirates, ahoy!
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My husband tried to cook leche flan yesterday and ended up burning the plastic Lock And Lock container he so…foolishly…steamed the egg and milk mixture in. I was startled from sleep when he suddenly crept in and lay next to me in bed looking embarassed.
"What’s the matter? What did you do this time?!", I asked him, mostly kidding.
"Nasunog ko yung leche flan. Mali estimate ko ng tubig. Natunaw yung plastic container…"
I have since brought him two aluminum pans for his future leche flan attempts.
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Is there anything to look foward to in 2006?
Nothing.
Under Macapagal-Arroyo, 2006 can only be another devastating year for the Filipino poor: more political killings, more lay-off by the thousands, higher taxes, higher prices of basic commodities and rates of electricity and water services, higher oil prices, more cutbacks on allocations for social services, increased public debts, more corruption, more OFWs coming home in boxes after being abused, maltreated and killed abroad, more kidnappings…
And the list goes on and on.
It’s really hard to write anything cheerful when it comes to my hopes for the New Year. For myself and the people I love and care most about, I hope for good health and less stress; but for this country?
(I wish I could be more like a Douglas Coupland narrator and be successful at puncturing a hole in a black canvas of experience and truly appreciate the small happinesses that happen: a newborn baby yawning, a flower gently opening at daybreak; a school of koi swimming in Olympic-winning formation in a Zen pond - but I’m not. People who really know me would lose no time calling me the original calling me the Munchkin Girl, and it’s not because I like the Wizard of Oz - it’s because I always see the hole and not the doughnut.)
Unless the Revolution wins in 2006, the darkness will remain, and the country’s economic and political record will continue to be in the red ( not to mention the human rights situation — blood red, that is). The next best thing, however, would be to have Macapagal-Arroyo kicked out. I will personally throw a freaking party complete with balloons, ice cream and cake if and when the witch is overthrown.
My husband and I have taken to having morbid discussions on how we want her out of Malacanang. The two ways that have topped are list are the following: via a swiftly debilitating and incurable illness; she gets caught in a major infrastuctural or natural disaster.
Do I take the crimes of this government personally?
You’re damn right I do.
