Sunday, July 10, 2005
Marty's Great Saturday Adventure
Howdy. It's around 1 am right and this is about as enough a time I spent at home to actually write. The story is long, ladies and gents, as yours truly is a bard who can never seem to shut up. My back hurts, my hands are clammy and my hair's a matted mess but never you mind, here's how it went.
5:00 I woke up. It was Saturday. I counted the hours, 5 hours I slept. Ugh. NSTP time. My dad brought me to Ateneo and I waited for the jeep to bring us to the site. Ironically, the jeep came late and we had to wait for an even longer time. Cocoy bitched about me wearing shorts in that sort of weasel-y kind of smirk he has. Annoying. Thing is though, he wasn't going with anyways so who cares. The jeep arrived at 6:30 and we were off to Las Pinas.
The road was gritty and smoke built up all around me, ick. Nothing like a jeepney ride to hasten a lung infection, I say. The trip lasted 2 hours and we finally got there. It was 8:00 and it was hot, the door to the main office was locked. Ugh. My blockmates in our jeep were still talking about PE weight training and well, shit all the while. Later on, we got to work.
Assignment was to carry hollow blocks up to the roof. Took a lot of elbow grease and a little girth to get through it but it was done. Three walls of hollow blocks in one hour, cool, I feel powerful, grrr. My arms hurt and all the guys in our block were dying from the heat or drowning in their own sweat, the girls sat and observed the class going on downstairs. Crap, haha but we did get fudgee barrs for a reward. Great, nothing in my stomach then sugar.
The service was over and we hopped into the jeep again, dusty, dirty and stinking of sweat and cement. We were all beat so we tried persuading the driver to stop by a nearby Mini-Stop. it actually got to a point where one or two of us wanted to bust out and make a mad dash for it... to no avail. We did find a Mini-Stop though and stopped over. I bought myself one bottle of water while the others pigged out on hotdogs and siopaos. What was cool was, Batman had his own slushy --> Batberry. Righteous.
Two hours it took to get back to Ateneo and the fatigue from the work was starting to set in. My legs were shaking badly and my back ached, I felt stiff but what was going to happen next, I didn't give a damn because I was on my way to the Neil Gaiman Book Signing. I met Richmond and Ryan at Ateneo and we went for a ride to the Taipan Bldg in Pasig to get confirmations to his writing conference on monday in which I will cut ELC and a history lecture in. Coolness, Literary Forum.
We stopped at Manila Polo Club and feasted on the Mongolian Buffet. Feasted, I mean eat whatever the hell was left. Richmond and I haven't met in a long time and it was good as time as any to rekindle our blood bond, involving a heated debate on whether Pirates were cooler or Ninjas were cooler. The debate was long and filled with really stupid comebacks, eventually delving into "Darth Vader is a Ninja" and "Chewbacca is a Pirate" which led to a Vader vs Chewy debate then. Dude, Pirates do jigs and they have their own cool jargon. Ninjas however, have mind bullets, can't get any cooler than that.
The debate lasted all the while until we got to Rockwell by this time, our debate rose into, Robot Ninjas vs Robot Pirates. I swear, people were starting to stare but we didn't care really. Time was 2:30 pm, the line was long but my day was longer.
The place was PACKED. It estimated a few hundred in there. Rod (Richmond) and I went for the book booth and I bought me a copy of the Kindly Ones for 1k! COOL! then we checked out the art booths and saw MY ENTRY at the very bottom. COOL! even if my work sucked at least Neil Gaiman SAW IT. WOW. COOL. A most unexpected surprise there, Joey passed by me a few times, creepy man. She's everywhere I tell you but I didn't care, Neil Gaiman was here!
After some two or so bands played, NEIL GAIMAN CAME under the applaud of many of his fans. I was screaming like a lunatic among a bigger crowd of lunatics. Man, he was so cool, talking in a British accent DOES make you sound smart. He answered one question which has been picking at my brain for a long time now and THAT, my friends is inspiration enough as it is. I'll keep it to heart what he said.
Eventually, the actual book signing took place but people with stubs got priority so that's like 700 stubs THEN the free-for-all. We took upon ourselves to just hang out outside until the stub people finish. Richmond asked a friend of his to have his Endless Nights signed in exchange for his soul though... We went to Seattle's Best and talked for a while. I was talking about how much I wanted to meet Neil face to face because he, my friends, made a 9 yr old kid's dream come true. I talked about how it would feel to be under his presence and stuff like that and Richmond told me, "Dude, you can have my signed Endless Nights" I was shocked, no one has ever done something so nice to me before but I couldn't do that to my amigo, it was too much. "It isn't the book, bud, it's the meeting I wanted" I replied and he gave me his best wishes because the line was long and time was short and I had to go. Tomorrow then. Thanks Richmond, you're the best!
The drive home was fun. Richmond and I relived some of our memorable moments back in Xavier and how we formed a motley crew of people turning them into insane lunatics. We figured out that it was somehow because of his strong Animus and my strong Anima working in unison within a group. He and I go way back and now, we start to think alike but him with more mind and me with more heart, a wicked combination. Nevertheless, our charm to bring out the best in people astounds us because it's been happening for as long as we can remember. Fast Forward then, it was Debut Time.
Okay, I was late as it is and Stanley had to be fetched. ZOOM. I pick up Stanley. It was the first debut I was attending and it was the debut of my good friend Charmie celebrating her 18th birthday. whee! I was wondering why she invited me, I was never to good in parties and I wouldn't do anything special but nonetheless, it's for a friend and I was asked so... off I went.
Now, the Debut itself was pretty and shiny. I felt a little bit of my cynicism start to cringe. Mirrors man, lots of them around me. Hate them, haha. I met some Ateneo peeps there, Marc my blockmate, Kalil the new guy in ECE and Ekai from English last year along with some other of Charmie's friends (sorry, I'm too stoned to remember the names haha) Two things caught my eye in the Debut. First of course was the debutant, what is the word to describe it? Radiant, yeah. She looked radiant in her gown, I swear I wouldn't be surprised if the whole roof came apart and a giant hand took her up to heaven hahaha. Second was the pretty little prism thing my glass of water was making. Cool. Pretty.
After a day of wackiness, it was hard to contain myself especially in a room full of people I didn't know, wearing a suit. God, I'm so uneasy going to those kinds of parties haha, it's like I HAVE to behave and keep the wisecracks to myself. Basically, I just hummed along to a tune in my head to keep myself controlled. Funny things that happened um... some kids got dripped with candle wax, I saw Kalil dance a waltz, some ribbon thing got burned and pretty much everyone's speeches were entertaining. Anyways, it was a good experience to be in because I was witness to a friend of mine in a most momentous occassion, the party was really about her that night and it really was special for her I think.
I realized finally that I forgot that I had a gift in my pocket. Silly me haha. I wanted to give it in person and have this whole speech ready telling her to never listen to my depressing and bitter rantings but that wasn't really my thing cuz she was spending time with old friends and new ones for that matter and face it, I wouldn't want to ruin that so I just placed my gift among the other much, much bigger gifts and disappeared, such is my way.
Stanley and I got coffee after the party. Started talking again about people and their lives. Haven't talked mono e mono with Stan in a while so it was as good as time as any to pry a little more on the cold hard carapace of his. The talk was good really, I learned a little more about people and the coffee was good, I felt sophisticated haha. Finally, my car came and I am going home, to this very moment as I write to you about this Saturday's Adventure.
What's for tomorrow? I'm going to camp at the Greenhill's Neil Gaiman Book Signing and GET THOSE BOOKS SIGNED. I'm going solo this time around, no cavalry. Peachy. Life just got a little more interesting for the Spectralkid.
Riding the Lightning
1:06 AM
