A Toxic Fantastic April 4

Week 4: living hell week but capped off with a weekend in paradise Back to hell with fluorescent lighting. Cut-off week. Again the palpable pressure to hit sales. My boss asked me to bring in an extra 12 million peso sale 2 days before cut-off to make up for the team’s deficit. I stared at him like he was a madman thinking, “why don’t you just tell me to sell my soul to the devil?” I went off to negotiate for the 12 million peso sale and my nose practically bled for 3 hours as my buyers and I discussed variables, negotiables and non-negotiables. In the end they agreed and I happily drove back to the office ready to slap the 12 million peso purchase order on my boss’s table. I saw my other officemates who were all rejoicing at my news. They asked me how I did it and I said that I dirty danced my way to 12 million bucks. Laughter, laughter. Salespeople can be such ogres sometimes. But don’t get me wrong, I love my team. They’re like my big brothers. They keep me sane among all the chaos. Jill’s and Pier One. Semi-celebration at Jills with the bosses and drinks at Pier One with new friends. Fun fun fun. I was tired but I had fun. No more details. A baby birthday party and drinks at ATC. Joy’s baby Kyle celebrated his 1st birthday. Such an adorable little boy. A replica of his mom. I played with him and we made fun of the magician who was actually good but a little annoying and plotted ways to kidnap the cute little boy in the Tigger costume. Capped off the night with drinks at ATC with Dino, Vina, Aimee, Bry, Joel and Chev. We made fun of the food and the super bland Margherita. The boys talked dirty (tell me something new) and fantasized about Katharine McPhee and FHM cover girl Eula Valdez (did I spell that right?) and other hot mama celebs. I got tipsy (again, tell me something new) and followed my sisters and their significant others and we danced and drank til 4 am followed by a super early breakfast at our fave Kebab place. That was April for me. Packed. Crazy but fun. Very memorable. I hope May will be less tiring. I’d rather spend time chatting with my friends and my sisters and getting 8 hours of sleep this month. So far, my weekends are full with beach plans (yey!) but I know I’ll be so pressured again this month that I will find myself looking for g’s again. Whatever happened to my plan to stop partying til dawn? Down the drain. So far this week, I partied til dawn at Embassy and GB3 and worked from midnight to 6 am. Still balanced, in an insane, unhealthy way. But something I have long been waiting for to realize happened this month. It’s great news and if I have the guts and the time, I’ll write about it soon. All I can say is that I’m just sublimely happy right now. Despite the workload, life has been good to me and things are finally starting to turn around.

hey sister go sister. g nights with ats and dich

A Toxic Fantastic April 3

Week 3: heaven and hell on earth

Hell. I read somewhere that an office is hell with fluorescent lighting. Week 3 of April found me affirming this over and over again in my head. It was just hell week. Wyeth got their money’s worth as I worked and slaved my ass off non-stop for 3 days. I had like 45 tasks on my list of things to do (not kidding). And every time I marked one task as done, I’d add another one at the bottom. It was just plain hell. Burning, crucifying hell where I was on a sizzling hot treadmill chasing after time while being whipped left and right by beasts that look like men with goat heads (ok that’s really disturbing). I’d go to bed with the list dancing in my head like can-can dancers doing the can-can-can and I’d wake up panicking and running over the things that needed to be done that day as I shampooed my hair and gulped down instant coffee and drove off to work. I felt like my brain had dozens and dozens of neon-colored Post-its and I didn’t know which one to read first. I actually considered resigning to become a bum. Ok ok I filed VL for 2 days so I had to advance a lot of work but still, it was a really huge price to pay for a little R&R.

Heaven. 4 days in Bangkok with my friend Al Jean. 4 blissful days of shopping and Thai food, clubbing and sight-seeing. Absolute heaven. I love traveling and I wish I had all the money in the world to go all around the world. Damn, I wish I can find a job that will let me travel everywhere minus the pressure. Haha. Dream on Maya. It was my first time in Bangkok and this is what we did (will post the pics soon):

Day 1
8:30 flight via Thai Airways. “Bangkok. Economy. International.” check-in at the Sofitel Hotel in Silom where we oohed and aahed at our accommodations and at the view Welcome drinks at Pat Pong – first taste of Singha beer and an interesting couple of hours at this controversial red light district watching go-go girls. Bubble bath where I fell asleep in the tub and woke up at 4 am with my toes and fingers all wrinkled up like prunes

Day 2
Did the tourist thing by visiting the Wat Pho Temple, home of the giant golden reclining Buddha (which reminded me of my College Philiosophy Professor Dr. Co) and the famous pagodas of their previous Kings MBK mall shopping where I screamed “why oh why was I born in Manila and not here?” upon seeing the really cheap shoes and clothes Lunch at Food Corner – lunch for 35 baht! Pork fried rice and coke for 10 baht Siam Square shopping where we bought shoes, shoes and more shoes Dinner at Silom Village: grilled shrimp with garlic and butter, stir-fried morning glory veggies with nuts, fried grouper with garlic Drinks at a vodka bar in Sukhumvit where I relived my Vodka7 days A bottle of Merlot and JD&Coke at Saffron Sky Bar of the Banyan Tree Hotel, overlooking all of Bangkok. Pretty romantic place.


Day 3
Starbucks at Amarin Plaza, Mo Chit area – caramel macchiato and buttered croissant My first tuktuk ride to Pratunam Market (Bangkok’s 1-6-8) where we bought kikay stuff and pasalubongs Bayouk Sky 2 mall where we bought more accessories Lunch at Food corner MBK (again). Cheap and good food! MBK shoe shopping and grocery shopping at TOPS for sampaloc and curry powder and fruits. I did a little store check as well. Motortaxi ride back to hotel for 10 baht – I rode a motorcycle taxi cause I was too tired to walk all the way from the BTS to the hotel. I put on the lame excuse for a helmet and clung to my shopping bags and to the stinky driver for dear life. When I got to the hotel, I took the longest and most relaxing shower of my life. Thai Massage at Chang Spa for 250 baht – I’m ticklish so I was laughing the whole time then I fell asleep… Dinner at Joe Louis, Swanlum Night Bazaar (a better Metrowalk gimik area) - fishball in green curry, stir fried beef with nuts, pork in red curry Gimmick at Q Bar, Sukhumvit Soi 11 where we drank Tiger beer, Singha beer Bacardi breezer and Jagermeister with Red Bull. Entrance was 600 baht but the drinks were relatively cheap. Bonding over Bacardi Breezer, Mudshake, almonds and Lay’s potato chips in the bath tub. Q Bar closed at 1 am so we bought drinks at 7-11 and got drunk in the hotel room and talked about the usual topics and suspects.

Day 4
Jatujak Flea Market (ala Divisoria with all the Pasilios) – super pawis day I felt like I was going to collapse from the heat. We had strawberry shake and fried pork with sticky rice as merienda. Late lunch at the DinHao Cuisine resto (sour soup, barbecued pork, pork dumplings) – really good food! Mango with chili powder at the park before getting on the BTS back to the hotel Dinner at Brown Sugar turned Thang Long resto, Luan Sung Soi (fried fish, soft crab shell salad, shrimp and thai rice with shrimp paste and lots chili! Grilled pork with sticky rice) – again really good food and great ambience. I heard somewhere that the Princess occasionally dined there and they’d close the whole Luan Sung Soi just for her. Clubbing at Bed Supper Club where we each downed 4 glasses of JD and Coke and danced like there was no tomorrow with all the hip tourists in Bangkok. The music was great, the DJ was fantastic and the crowd was super fun. If you plan to go here, you need to bring your passport to get in. This place is a must see if you wanna have a good time.

Day 5
8:30 Limo pick up at the hotel. We dragged our zombie asses off to the airport KFC Brunch at Don Muang International Airport Headed Back to Manila and to reality It was really fun. We were never bored. When we had nothing to do, we’d talk about the people around us in Filipino or imitate the nasal announcements made over the train’s PA system “Next station is Sala Daeng.” We also pretended to be Thai whenever we saw tourists and greeted them “chenes” instead of “Sawasdee Ka” with matching head tilt while trying not to laugh. When people asked us where we’re from, we’d say Jakarta or Singapore depending on our mood. A lot of people thought we were locals though because of our hair. We also played games like “Spot David Beckham in the Pepsi ad” and “What place in Manila does this area look like?” Binondo, Taft and Divisoria were the most popular answers. Bangkok is not that pretty but it sure is a colorful place.

My first overseas trip with my college friend Al Jean. I had the greatest time. Thanks for being my tour guide, my photographer, my make-up artist, my gimmick buddy, my luggage fixer, my human alarm clock and my travel mate. If only we could do this every month!! Again, Khop Khun Ka. Next stop for Sayuri and Pumpkin: Cambodia J Hopefully the other girls can come with…

A Toxic Fantastic April 2

WEEK 2: bonding with my golden girls, my god and my beloveds

Al Jean’s birthday party. We went to the spa, sweated and chatted in the sauna, got a well deserved uber-relaxing Swedish massage, ate dinner, had coffee, shopped for booze then sat at the round table with our moodlighting ambience, clutching our drinks as we waited for her to turn 26 at the stroke of midnight. The other girls arrived and we drank and chatted, drank and chatted…this time about some really sentimental things like what we regret in the past year, what we loved about the past year, what we wish for the next year and what moment in our lives we would relive if life had a remote control and we could push the rewind and pause button (my, my, we really are getting old). We also talked about the usual topics like men, relationships, sex, marriage, the heavy feeling on your chest when you’re hurting so badly (which Thiella interprets and graphically describes as many tiny dogs gnawing hungrily on your bloody heart). Al Jean made a wish and blew out the candles on her Starbucks chocolate cake. Inja got drunk and dunked a week’s worth of toilet paper in the bowl. The birthday girl wanted to cry so we screamed out the meanest and most cruel things we can say about her life (uh-huh we’re certified sick-ohs) but nope, she just laughed at us like a robot void of tear glands with a heart made of granite. It was Thiella who ended up bawling her eyes out for the nth time (damn you Erwin, you f-in a) as we all looked on, blinking away our own tears and giving her words of encouragement and all our love while looking around ready to protect her from tiny-heart-gnawing-dogs that might apparate out of thin air. Since misery loves company, we had a pity contest (ala “wala yan sa lolo ko”) wherein we tried to beat each other by highlighting how pathetic our lives are. I forget who won the Ms. Wretched award though. We also made Tequila Rose shakes, which we gulped down like Slurpees and had a condom-blowing contest which Eve won. Those who got tipsy drunk stripped down to their shirt and undies til we all sobered up and realized that it was already light outside. We cleaned up and got ready for bed at 5 am, woke up, had breakfast and lounged around and watched dvds like dirty cats (wishing we could just lick ourselves clean since we were too tamad to go shower). It was a great night and a great party. I have weird but really great girl friends. Like I said, same feathers.

Lent. Bonding with family and with God. Spent the long weekend with my sisters, mom, dad and brother-in-law. My sisters and I went to Fort where Diche Kytes practiced her newly acquired driving skills. We went to Starbucks for cake and coffee where they bickered lovingly about driving do’s and don’ts. We stayed home and lounged around and girl-talked like friends til dawn. We went to Church, reflected and prayed, watched religious films on TV and talked about prophets and prophecies. Diche Kytes and I set up our mini-office on the first floor where we worked on our backlogs. We shopped like the material girls that we are then rummaged around Ate Karen’s balikbayan boxes for junk she doesn’t want to bring to the States (they’re migrating to LA on May 9. sniff). We looked at our pictures from London and reminisced about our pubbing and clubbing nights there, particularly the night at the Liquid Lounge pub where I got drunk and I was dancing and screaming “I don’t care, I’m not gonna see them anymore” over and over again. Then I threw up on the street, (on all fours) while she scolded and said that I was going to get deported. Then we planned more nigh-outs here in Manila including Embassy Hiphop Nights and El Cheapo g’s at Metrowalk. I also bonded with my mom, opened up about my love life and she gave me advice and assured me that the legendary hula that one of us will follow in our Tita’s old maid footsteps won’t come true (but I could see her smiling at the possibility that I’d grow old and husbandless with her and my Dad). I asked her, jokingly of course, if it was okay for me to become a single mom. My jaw dropped when she said yes. Haha, that’s my mother. She asks me to button up my blouse and wear my Scapular all the time then gives me permission to bear children without a marriage certificate. A walking contradiction just like me. I’m definitely my mother’s daughter.

A Toxic Fantastic April 1

I said this was going to be a short entry since I’m swamped with work but I still found myself typing away… making up for all my lost blogging time.

What can I say? It has been a helluva month for me! A helluva stressful, eventful month. April flew by so fast, I barely had time to bask in the knowledge that beach season is here! I had no time to dig my toes in the sand or splash around the ocean. I was too busy living the stressful corporate life to plan anything other than a spontaneous gimmick with friends at an acceptable bar somewhere. Work was just toxic. Hang-me-by-my-toenails-torture kind of toxic. The pressure to deliver at work was just palpable this month. I was actually relying on coffee to sustain me throughout the day until I started getting palpitations from the caffeine. So now I’m a bit of a javaphobic. I order decaf, nothing else. But despite the loads of stress and tension combined with my annoying firedragon of a boss constantly breathing down my neck, I still managed to maintain a very fantastic social life. I don’t know how I did it but now that I think about it, I had the best work-life balance last month (hmmm… must be the Libran scales). April was just a blur. Literally. An absolutely crazy whirlwindish blur of places, faces, numbers, clothes, Excel files, shoes, birthday cakes, screaming bosses, drunken officemates, churches, roads and airports. At the end of the month when I sat down to finally rest, I found myself shaking my head, glad I survived last month. I felt like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, with black pumps in place of shiny red shoes, minus Toto and the barnyard braids.

Here are the social highlights of my oz-like April adventure. Work was just work and discussing it will bore you to death. Basically it was about me and my laptop and my car, mostly typing, computing and driving back and forth from Batangas to Manila with my colleague who was taking over my area since I have been reassigned to Manila (yey! Back to city livin’). Socially I spent my month like this :

WEEK 1: of birthdays, bosses, bottles and bowls

A Powerpuff Party. We had a surprise birthday party for our friend Thiella who’s been really depressed for the past month. Man problems, as always (we actually have this theory that we are all cursed when it comes to relationships and we’ll all grow up alone but still friends ala Golden Girls though I still mentally knock on wood whenever we say this…I do want all of us to be happily married someday). We prepared a week ahead for a Powerpuff Girls theme party, complete with party hats, loot bags and games. Together with a Powerpoint presentation for her about the “Many Faces of Jhoanna Thiella,” where we flashed her life before her eyes. She was so happy, she was crying like she was being tortured. We screamed surprise, ate like starved sumo wrestlers, played games, sang videoke songs, ate chocolate mousse, drank coffee, and reminisced about our college heydays. Then we discussed love problems, men and sex like we always do but this time minus the alcohol and the slurring and flushed cheeks but with silly party hats and name tags on our color coordinated shirts. It was a fun day. A good day. A day we will relive and retell til we’re golden girls old.

My boss’s party. Another excuse for my firedragon of a boss to fill his bottomless open valve throat with alcohol…the flammable secret to his firebreathing abilities. It was at this bar somewhere along Pasay Road (I refuse to disclose where). There was a live band, flowing booze, people were dancing and singing with the band like we had no work the next day. Highlight of which was my singing Time After Time onstage with my officemate Blue (they made me drink Vodka7, SML and JD for Pete’s sake, hence my award winning performance). Ugh. It was humiliating but they all clapped and cheered like I was the next American Idol. The cherry that topped my onstage mortification was my reunion with the toilet bowl – a friend whom I haven’t been face to face with for a long time. Again, I blame the mixed drinks. At least I expelled all the greasy food and I had no hangover the next day. But to date my colleagues still imitate me screaming “this is not fabulous, nakakahiya, yuck” interspersed with vomit sounds. They were outside the girl’s toilet laughing like hyenas while I blew like a bulimic and silently cursed whoever discovered alcohol. Jolly good fun. Again, a night to remember but hopefully a night they will soon forget.

Metrowalk with high school friends. Mario’s then Aruba in Metrowalk . I bonded with friends, met a new friend. It was fun since we haven’t gone out in a long time. There were 5 of us. My friends disclosed how I could beat them at drinking in front of our new friend and I wished that the earth would open up and swallow me whole. I learned about Vina’s swimming skills and Pat Pong experience. The boys talked about basketball, NBA Live and Katharine McPhee. We talked about poker, babies and our friends who weren’t there. Another night to remember and I know I’ll never forget. Hahaha. Geez. I am going to get teased for writing this. And still I’m not pressing the backspace key. Mental imbalance really is one of my trademarks. And yes my fingers are still typing. Ok stop. Moving on…

Mirror Mirror On the Wall

The other day I was sitting in the waiting room of my buyer’s office waiting for my appointment with him. Bored to death, I scanned this girly magazine circa 1997 and read this article about looking at yourself in the mirror and seeing what’s inside and not what’s outside. Like cross examining your persona. It basically said that you should try to describe yourself in 5 sentences and if you are able to do so, you know yourself pretty well. Duh. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out. Still, I took out my pen and tried to write down 5 sentences that would sum up who I was. Nothing. Hirap pala. Scratch. Bored and restless, I ended up writing the following. I guess I’m just addicted to words. They just poured out of nowhere. Pardon my vanity but this entry is all about me. You should try it, I had fun.

I'm Like A Child

I love freely and unconditionally J I like hugging people and getting hugs from people, kissing and sniffing people’s cheeks (granny kisses!), tickling people til they laugh so hard they can’t breathe, biting and pinching body parts (arms and cheeks most of the time -- gigil!), making funny faces during meetings and during serious conversations, laughing til I snort and til my tummy hurts from too much gas (haha), watching Cartoon network, Disney channel, playing silly kiddie games, making pa-cute to get what I want (even when I’m dealing with business partners). I throw tantrums like a 3-year old. I get cranky when I’m sleepy, I still sing and dance in the shower. I can just sit still and pop bubble wrap all day. I bite my fingernails when I’m nervous or bored. I like it when I’m pampered and taken care of J (who doesn’t?). Occasionally, I like it when I’m treated like a child. I can lie down in bed while hugging stuffed animals for hours. I swoon over Barbie dolls and MyScene dolls and all their accessories, Sylvanian family dollhouses and the gang of Winnie the Pooh. I treat stuffed toys like they’re real people…

I can be such a guy
I can drink like a guy…til im tipsy happy buzzed…then I swear off drinking for the rest of my life…(then I drink again the following week) J. I drive like a madman and curse like a foul mouthed truck driver at them sh*theads who leave the g-damn yellow lane. I play video games til my eyes hurt. I can hang out all afternoon at a video game arcade playing House of Dead. I party late during Saturdays and sleep til noon during Sundays. I play poker while drinking beer from a bottle and smoking like I’m some gambling lord from a MAFIA movie. I like to watch suspense thrillers and gory horror films (but sometimes I get too scared, I end up watching them through the gap between my fingers). I can hang out with guys and not feel girly or flirty. I can beat guys at billiards. I can sleep anywhere, anytime, any place, in any position. I dress up in jeans and shirts and Havaianas more than frilly tops and skirts. I think Lindsay Lohan is hot.

I can be such a girl
I’m not streetsmart. I don’t know streetnames. I still get lost in places I’ve been to a gazillion times (even Powerplant mall, for crying out loud. It’s the mall across my old office where I worked for 3 years). I need maps – I always ask my friends to draw me maps but I still end up asking help from gasboys or bystanders. I throw up when something smells really bad – like super stinky garbage chutes or spoiled food. I like to eat french fries with ice cream then curse at myself for consuming too much calories. I get really mad-eye-moody during my period. I love to debate about how men are from mars and women are from venus. I put on make up when I’m stressed out or when I feel so damn ugly. I can shop like there’s no tomorrow or credit card limit. I like cute cuddly puppies (I watch them in pet stores and swear I’d buy one soon). I cry my way out of tickets when I get caught for reckless driving. I know nothing about cars – just how to operate the radio and what the button thingies on the dashboard will do. I like to hang out at coffee shops to read books and magazines or to gossip with and about friends and celebrities…or just watch people going about their businesses. I can clean my room and the entire house when I get super OC attacks like I’m freaking Martha Stewart. I cry when I’m really stressed, when I see old people begging or being mistreated in the movies or in real life, when I go to weddings, when I watch romantic films, when I read about tragedies in magazines or newspapers, when I see my friends or any family member cry. I like pretty little kikay things. I swoon over rock stars, hot abs, sports cars – preferably rock stars with hot abs in sports cars J

I can be artsy-fartsy
I like to talk in my fake British accent (haha, will you light my bloody fag?). I love traveling and learning about different cultures and languages, visiting museums and historical places (if only I had all the money!). I make scrapbooks and art projects like I’m the host of Art Attack. I’m a frustrated writer, I write about my experiences and my opinions usually in my blog or in my personal journal. I have a nasty habit of buying and borrowing books but I barely have enough time to read. I collect button pins and hardbound journals but sometimes they’re so pretty I don’t want to ruin them with my ugly handwriting. I look at art, watch foreign art films, sketch or write my thoughts on Starbucks tissue, on my planner, or on any writeable surface. I love doing creative collages, be it manual or through Photoshop or Powerpoint. I love watching plays and musicals. I love taking photos, preferably stolen shots of people doing silly stuff or being serious or being themselves. If I can, I’d be a writer and an illustrator of children’s books. I wanna be the next J.K. Rowling. Haha.

I can be such a hopeless romantic
I tend to talk about love and relationships like I’m Joe d Mango. I give out advice like I’m Dr. Phil. I love giving and receiving surprises to and from people I love. I look forward to wrapping gifts and writing cards to people during special occasions. I think that Romeo and Juliet is the greatest love story of all time but hello did they really have to kill themselves? They could have just gone to Morocco to get hitched in secret! I still do FLAMES, write my crush’s name with little hearts around it, practice my future signature on scratch paper, keep love letters, movie tickets and receipts from memorable dates. I believe in destiny, in the soul mate principle, in happily ever afters and meant-to-be-togethers. I believe in marriage and on certain ultra-sappy days, I believe that the Beatles were right when they sang “All you need is love.” I believe that loving means accepting, trusting, forgiving and forgetting and that love will conquer all….famine, terrorism, racism, bigotry, revolution, PMS, adultery, transvestites, (and for my friend I hope love will conquer the heart of a loathing self centered atheist… a heart that beats for no one but his f-in self L). I believe in romance, kissing when you slow dance, moonlight serenades and candlelit dinners, poetry and love letters in pretty scented stationery. I look forward to the day that I’ll say these words to that one special person I know I was bound to spend the rest of my life with as we take our vows: I’ll be there for you, these five words I swear to you, when you breathe, I wanna be the air for you, I’ll be there for you. I’ll live and I’ll die for you, steal the sun from the sky for you, words can’t say what love can do, I’ll be there for you (Jon Bon Jovi. Sigh. He IS the great one). Seriously, underneath all the occasional cynicism and biting humor, here beats a heart that has been dented and broken one too many times but still believes that it will heal and learn to love again…

*bullshit cough*