Buddhists Do Scratch Their Heads Too

I am nursing a very bruised ego right now. It all started one breezy afternoon when, in pursuit of lessening the fats clumped hidden inside my ass, I decided to step out of the house, move my elephant legs a little and throw my moisturizer-less cheeks out in the cold.

The weather was freezing cold I felt like a trapped little mouse running aimlessly inside a room awaiting for the cat to catch me. Or at least, I felt I exploited my cheeks under the cold weather.

It didn't help that I was terribly bothered by my fear of a wrinkly face in the future. On my way back to the car, I happened to receive a letter that I shall officially file as the biggest insult I've ever come across in my entire life. Not only it bruised my ego, it sent a chill down my spine.

The letter said....

"Nail Cleaning 5% Off. Hurry Now!"

Initially, I was not at all that affected. I reckon it could be just another college student handing out flyers. He probably decided to wedge all these flyers to random peoples' cars so he could go home early and watch porn with his buddies.

My paranoia sparked up like a fountain of piss gone mad when I realized as I looked over my surrounding that all the cars parked beside me did not have any letter of insult slipped on their wipers. Only me.

Meaning, the flyer-handler chose only me. (Unless all the cars beside me left earlier, which is kind of impossible). He must have been watching over me to know that I, specifically, need to clean my nails. I am being stalked and signs that I may be abducted anytime now are flashing before me.

I am still in a state of shock and paranoia right now and the memory is a little bit fuzzy. All I could remember seeing on the letter was the "Nail-Cleaning" word in bold and black as though its primary task was to yell at me. Reading it somehow hauls me back to my traumatic childhood when my mom with pink curlers on her hair would poke at my nose, demand me to go take a bath and chase me when I refuse to.

My self-esteem is dropped somewhere in the abyss. This is absurd. Just because I peed inside the shower room and my hands had an uncalled for intercourse with some stranger's undergarments I am now coined to be the recipient of such an insulting letter demanding me to clean my nails. Worse is, they're making it sound like I need it badly. Hurry now. Hurry now? So you can't wait till next week?

I believe that is not a right thing to do. If you have a problem with my nails, tell it to me straight on my face. Look at my mom, she doesn't care if she's got pink curlers on her hair. She is not afraid to confront me woman to woman like a proper woman should.

Don't be such a coward leaving damaging letters on peoples' car during broad daylight and hello??? do you need to tell the whole world that the owner of this car needs nail-cleaning? How dare you? What about the people who pick their noses on public? What about the people who shuffles their hair to make up a confetti of dandruff? What happened to freewill? Where's democracy?

I am heartbroken again.

The other day as I was surfing the net, I came across someone's blog. I forgot the url of the blog but I remember one of the blogger's latest entry was all about peeing inside the shower room.

The blogger whom I assume to be pregnant based from her writings confessed that she recently peed inside the shower room after her workout because she's too lazy to walk to the other side of the locker room. She then proceeded to ask if she was embarrassing herself by telling the whole world the dirty thing she did.

Her readers comforted her by telling her it's normal and that they have at one point in their lives done the same thing as well and so she doesn't have to worry. Now it appears to me that people, at least the blogger and her readers, don't do this normally.

My question is, isn't peeing inside shower room normal? Coz I've been doing it for as long as I can remember. Am I strange or just disgusting or what?

There are many kinds of girlfriends one could have. There's the chatty and loud one whose uproarious laughter can cause a ground-breaking earthquake. There's  the feisty cynical one who thinks that everybody is trying to take advantage of her. There's the shy and quiet one whom you can mistake for a lamp post and there's the doormat one who seems to be constantly forgetting where she left her pride.

A friend of mine, let's call her DG (for doormat girl), is the kind of girl whom you'd no doubt categorize as the last. She's the type who makes it a habit to be dumped by guys like it's an annual event and thinks that working a relationship out means swallowing her pride. She's sloppy like that always leaving her pride inside the four walls of her room to rot by itself.

Sometimes, as much as I hate to describe her like this, she is bordering pathetic and desperate already. But of course, for DG, it's defined as loving unconditionally. I don't know but I think there's a thin line between unconditional love and plain stupidity. She's somewhere near the stupidity spectrum.

Recently, a guy dumped her (again). As this happens as I said almost every year, I learned that dealing with DG is simply to be as insensitive as I possibly can and be completely honest with her. She emailed me the other day whining once again about her lost love. She said that she finds it hard to fathom why the guys she likes always give up on her and would that mean that she has a mistake on her side too.

I kindly told her that her only mistake is that she continuously allows people to treat her badly and that love is like a pair of shoes. If it doesn't fit right on her feet then that means it's not meant for her. It's time to throw it out and buy a new pair. I felt like a genius. I didn't want to be totally harsh on her so I thought this analogy was very precise to convey what I wanted to say - that simply the guy doesn't want her back and that she has to stop mulling over something obsolete but instead look forward for what the future has to offer.

However, once a doormat, always a doormat. She then responded with another question asking what if she doesn't have any money to buy a new pair of shoes and that she's already satisfied with her old pair of shoes because it's comfortable, it's classic, it's everything she wants.

At this point, my blood reached its boiling point. I think I can errupt like a volcano anytime. In fact, I think I emitted hot smoke from my ears after reading her reply but I am a good friend - a doormat as much as her. I could have ignored her and treated her like a crappy pair of shoes but I chose to reply.

I told her that I didn't exactly mean that she has to get a new pair right away. Rather she can view it as a new goal to save up so she has something to look forward to. For now, she just has to learn to let go and stop holding on to things that are crappy like the guy who dumped her, who constantly ignores her calls and who doesn't show up on agreed dates. I told her the guy she likes is not even made of leather and what's there to  feel sad about?

She asked me why I'm so positive. What if she can't find a good one anymore? What if she can't find another pair that she likes. What if there's no more guy reserved for him and one hundred more what ifs and questions. You'd think by now, I have brought out a jackhammer and shipped it to her. You'd probably think I might have told her, here's a jackhammer and please whack it on your head three times so you can either wake up to the reality or you can sleep forever and stop bothering me but that's not what I replied.

I told her I'm not hopeful or anything positive. I am just thinking practical and that between walking barefoot and walking with a pea inside a crappy pair of shoes, I'd choose walking barefoot anytime - no questions asked. I will not allow a pair of shoes make my life miserable. But she wasn't convinced. By the end of our email exchange, she confessed she still misses the guy and she can't move on and that even if she did not admit it outright, she's still hoping she can fix her shoes.



Sigh....


Sometimes, I really wish my friend were just another pair of shoes that I can throw out of the window anytime. Whoever catches it is probably full of sin in his past life.


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Choosing which kind of dress shoes to wear to a special occasion is important, since the shoes can sometimes make the outfit. Choosing the right brand can be important too, since most Steve Madden shoes for dress occasions are quite different kinds of shoes than the kinds of styles you'd seen in Rocket Dog shoes for example.

So you were once pooped by a bird, you want a retaliation that'd make the bird go "oooh ooooh.. stop hurting me... i'm sorry for pooping at you but....please stoppp.. !" yet you do not have an iota of idea how to get a grab of him, pluck his feathers even save any means to wring his neck.

Your chest is forming chunks of popcorn everytime you see a bird soaring like a freeman while you recall the time you have to desolately wipe off that sticky poop he dropped on your face. You want vengeance. You want payback. But you don't know how.

Guess what? I have the answer.

Go to your nearest Chinatown like I did, choose a chinese restaurant of your choice and order fried pigeon.

I promise once you get a taste of it, you'll forgive all the insensitive birds who have hurt your pride and pooped at you in the past and you'll say to yourself, "Now I know why these goddamn birds exist."

Yes, I ate half a bird a few weeks ago and I did it for the 10 of you who once admitted to be a bird poop victim. You have to agree I am noble.

Moral #1: Vengeance is easy. You just have to know your way around Chinatown.




The only problem with Chinatown is this: some servers in chinese restaurants are non english-speakers or at least not that fluent.

When my brother and I enthusiastically told the dumb waitress we wanted fried pigeon, she gave us a deadpan stare. Like we were talking greek to her; Like we were asking her to strip in front of us when all we wanted was a plate with a fried pigeon on top.

It was a dilemma that left me and my brother helpless. How do we say pigeon in layman's term? Fried Bird? Fried Dove? Fried little bird? Fried chicken but not quite chicken bird?

Our desperation reached to a point that we nearly raised our two hands together and flapped it. Except that we were still on our right minds and we knew that's not how a brother who's 27 and a sister who's 26 are suppose to act inside a chinese restaurant.

Thank god there was a smarter waiter behind us who understood and gladly translated (to the dumber waitress), "Wui Ka." I don't know what "Wui Ka" means but I sure do know that remembering that two syllable word is safer than flapping my hands.

Moral #2: On second thought, vengeance is not that easy.  You have to remember that the password is "Wui Ka"

My hands are not virgin anymore. It is with utter displeasure that I announce to you my friends that my hands have just been raped by no other than the laundry articles of my brother's roommate. Officially.

That big sloppy boy left his pile of laundry in the washing machine once again and before I have the chance to march to his room and shove all his soggy clothes straight at his face this morning, I caught my hands, much to my chagrin, having an orgy with his socks and briefs already. Like my hands suddenly sparked up a life of its own. Gawd I feel so dirty.

On hindsight, my hands can't be any weaker now what with the things it experienced. See, It's very much like nursing a broken heart.The first few times you experience being dumped, it gives your heart that flinch. After a few more times, it will become so routinary you can sleep it over easily and wake up fresh the next day like nothing happened. In other words, I can pick your nose with my right hands and wipe your ass with my left and it won't bother me now. Invincibility is the middle name of my hands now, honey.

Please don't give me that condescending stare. I am still the same me. Just minus the innocent hands.

On other news, I went to Manhattan's Chinatown the other day and did something really really noble. You guys will be proud of me.

My visit to Chinatown is inspired by Jason Mulgrew. He wrote a lot of interesting things to see in Chinatown and you can read over some interesting observations here. If you haven't heard or read of Jason Mulgrew, you are so missing at least six and a half of your little fingers.

I have a feeling Jason Mulgrew is soon going to make it big now that he has landed a project with NBC/Dreamwork. Check him out before he gets too busy and starts abandoning his blog.

As for my noble deed at Chinatown... watch out for my next post...

Also, why do I get this strange voice in my head that says you people are belittling my hairstyle and the way I dress with my previous artwork? Are you trying to tell me that I have a poor sense of fashion? I dare you. Send your pics to me and let's compare who has the better hairstyle.

This is what I do for the most part of the day... sipping a cup of green tea, controlling my diet and wasting a lot time.



[now imagine you are a ceiling.]

When my butt starts to get stiff from prolonged sitting, I change position.

I lie on my bed, stare at the ceiling, prick the pimples on my forehead and pray that a genie will pop out from nowhere.


I could lie all day praying for a genie to come out but we all know life is not a fairytale. I'd be lucky already if I could catch a lizard.

So I just opt for the feasible one - go to the kitchen and stuff myself with green tea cookies, iced tea with milk, cheesecake, muffins... anything edible I can find inside the fridge.

Who cares about Serenity? Who cares about frolicking kids and a cup of green tea? I am going to eat and there's no stopping me! Dammit.