So I've been pretty lonely the past two weeks having Mica and Eisa gone. I've been spending my days at home not doing much and not really talking to anyone. So when Mica finally came home yesterday and Benny deciding to host a dinner party at the apartment to celebrate his Gohonzon Enshrinement, I guess I was in a bit it a social shock at first. I found it quite difficult to socialize with people at the beginning but once the alcohol kicked in, the fun started and didn't stop till very late.

I attended a study meeting at Rann's yesterday afternoon. There were only five of us who were there, Rann, Oli, Erica, Ayi and moi. I skipped over to Target after that to pick up some toiletries then headed home. Oli mentioned during the study meeting that Marianne Pearl is an SGI member so I dug up my copy of A Mighty Heart and finally decided to watch it. That woman is living proof that with this practice, one can never be defeated.

I didn't have the energy to make myself lunch or dinner so I ended up munching on a cheese, fruit and vegetable platter and sipping on club soda as I enjoyed my movie. Benny made dinner of salad and pasta so I had a bit more food after.

Okay, so the dinner party. All I can say is WOW. Good thing I managed to Flip the hilarious night because we will all want to see what happened again and again and again. I still laugh uncontrollably just remembering it. So I know some hilarious jokes aren't as funny unless you were there and I know these are a lot of videos but you have to see all of them. A bit of a background, Benny decided to let us listen to his original composition which he plans on using for his show and I had the brilliant idea of making him dance to the tune of his own song. We all relocated to his room where he could blast the song through his speakers and he and whoever else (you'll see who) could dance their hearts out. Leo and Benny are both professional dancers btw (so is Mica).

It was Andy's birthday and since he wasn't around we decided to make a birthday greeting video for him. We also made one for Eisa since we all missed her.

This is what happens when Buddhists are high on life.

Got the day off again today because Richard and Paul requested different days off this week. Spent it doing laundry, cleaning the kitchen, the bathroom and the living room. I was scarfing down my indian food delivery when Andy texted me that he was celebrating his birthday dinner at a thai place on the the upper east side. I got dressed, met up with Mica and headed to the shi-shi part of town. The food was nothing like Sri Pra Phai's but I was already full from the indian food so I only had chicken satay and tom yum. We finished our dinner and headed back to Brooklyn.

I love having Mica back yehey!

I haven't had a haircut in a year. I was a bit apprehensive about getting a cut here for the first time since Vicky from South Salon has been cutting my hair since 2001. After seeing Rann and Oli's new 'do, I decided to get an appointment at Hair Kuwayama on the East Village. It's run and operated by a bunch of cute japanese girls. Usually the first thing I look at when I enter a salon to get a cut is look at the stylists' hair. If they all have good hair then I can trust them. I got my cut from Aya who seemed more nervous about cutting my hair than I was. She kept asking me if she was doing okay and would snip off little bits at a time and watching how I would react. I left her alone to do her thing while I sat and read a magazine. Later on she asked me if my bangs were too short, I then asked her back what she thought. She stared and scrunched her face up in concentration and kept looking at my hair in all angles before she finally said, "it's okay." I then told her, "Then its okay then. Hey, you know more about hair then I do so if you think it's okay, then it's okay, I trust you." She laughed so hard after that and kept saying "Thank you, thank you" in her cute japanese accent. I didn't really ask for a drastic cut. I just wanted lots of layers to thin out my unruly hair and I got exactly what I wanted. At least now I know she can handle my hair and will definitely come back if I want something more bold.

This is me in the subway making a pa-cute face on my way to Hair Kuwayama. I don't know why my bright orange jacket (Eisa's hand me down) looks red here.

This is me at the New York Culture Center (SGI center) with Rann before the study meeting. The left photo was meant to be a silly face but with Rann's angle made it look sultry.

Since I was off today, Rann invited me to the study meeting for the Empire State district since he was handling the study presentation. I grabbed lunch in one of those falafel corner stands (chicken and lamb over yellow rice with white ad hot sauce YUM) and finished my very late lunch at Rann's restaurant while waiting for him to finish his shift. We headed to the center and chatted until it was time for evening gongyo before the meeting. We had dinner at a nearby pizza place and I headed home in the rain.

I got home to a quiet apartment and proceeded to clean my make-up brushes which I haven't done in a while. I'd rather not say how long, you'd think I'm disgusting. Benny was home but we both realized that the usual noise that we've grown accustomed to was mostly caused by Mica and we both miss her.

Okay, I'm going to finish watching Fa yeung nin wa (In the mood for love) which I started re-watching the other night. It's such a beautiful movie you all need to see it! Since I'm trying to learn the language, I've been trying to watch a bunch of asian movies lately (also saw Kung Fu Hustle and Mou gaan dou - Infernal Affairs FYI: Andy Lau is HOT in that movie, not so much in House of Flying Daggers though) Ok, off to my movie.

Okay, I'm trying to blog even if there's nothing real big to share. I used to be able to write about the most mundane things anyway. Today I've begun making cocktails for work! Yehey! I used to have to rely on Richard and Paul to make them for me everytime I had a drink order and Lily usually cuts me off the sched if there's too much people at work because the boys are needed on the floor more because they can bartend. I've been expressing my desire to learn so I'm less of a burden to the two boys during busy nights. Today, Richard was patient enough to teach me and let me handle drinks everytime an order comes. I can make cocktails yehey! Ang babaw ko shet pero big deal sakin yun. Hindi na ako sobrang walang kwenta.

Was supposed to be off by 11pm but Richard and I got out by midnight because of a group of girls who wouldn't stop drinking. Oh well...Good thing the trains didn't give me too much of a hard time and I got home not too long after that.

Yun lang naman. Wala naman ako talagang kwento. Miss ko na si Mica, isang linggo pa bago siya makauwi. Wala akong makulit sa bahay shet.

I just spent the past hour watching through some of the flip videos I've accumulated ever since I bought the camera. I've been laughing and clapping like an idiot reminiscing on the good ol' times I spent with my friends. Man, there was a lot of drinking and eating...man oh man, the eating! A lot of the videos I have on file are unpublished ones that didn't make it to this blog and the previous one. They make me want to laugh and cry at the same time.

Speaking of reminiscing, I meant to publish these a few days ago after me and Louiie chatted during one of my drunken nights. It was meant to have a blog on it's own entitled "Letters from a Ghost" but I didn't want to sift through the rest of them so I will publish the following two excerpts:

"I am having a blast in New York. This place is dirty as hell,
but it has a weird energy to it (or maybe it's because they stop serving
alcohol at 4am instead of 2am) and I am seriously considering living
here before I turn 30. As they say, if you can make it in New York...."

"I think I just left my heart in New York. The day I was leaving I felt
this 'bittersweet elation' coming over me which was weird since I feel
I'm more a rational person than an emotional one, but sometimes I
have a penchant for contradicting myself. NY really is the modern
Babylon, and when you're there you can just see and feel so many
disparate elements converging in this one place, as if to say
'everything that matters happens here, and only here.' "

July 2005

I was reminded of these letters a few weeks ago when I was in the train on my way to work. When I take the subway to work, I try to make it a point to sit on the left side by the window, so I always have a good view of the Brooklyn Bridge and downtown Manhattan as it crosses the Manhattan Bridge. No matter how exhausted or sleepy I am, that scene always makes me thankful for everything's that's happened so far.

At the end of the day, I just remind myself that I AM IN NEW YORK.

Remember Omee's Mohawk? Well someone else got a hawk...sort of.

Although from here, it looks more like a cowlick.
She's cute anyway so it works for me.
Gawd I miss her so much.