dammit! it has been a very long and tiring day... and i love it!

i haven't slept for the past twenty-four hours and i'm not complaining---hell no! i just finished scrubbing myself down after reaching home from a birthday gimmick-out of a friend.

i need to recharge and snuggle up and venture off to dreamland but before i do that, i'm having the itch to doodle my thoughts. here we go...

cut back to yesterday, a few minutes after lunch. i was burning phone lines with a friend, having the subtle but nagging desire to go out. incidentally, it was a friend's birthday.

markie: "birthday nya ngayon ah. wala bang nasabi na pumunta tayo sa kanila?
friend: "wala eh. gusto ko sana umalis."
markie: "oo nga eh. sana nga mag-text sya na pumunta tayo sa bahay nila. oh well..."

a few deep breaths of boredom later i received a text message: "punta daw tayo sa bahay nila. 1pm." hmm... life is beautiful.

i was in the process of preparing to ditch home when a good number of my uncle's visitors ambushed the house. effing crap! i have a situation here. i tried my best to be a little hospitable and jolly, all the while eyeing the living room clock like a hawk. the moment that the surprise guests exited our abode, i speeded to clothe up for the house party.

knowing for a fact that i was to venture inside the intestine of the pasig palengke, i wore simple clothes that would never give a hoot about the agora scenery: a loose shirt and comfy jeans.

when i got to the party i was a bit held aback by the small number of people. it was either an intimate party or my friend was on stingy mode. wow. i was one of the few who were invited and i was proudly in charge of the party favors (eg the wordfactory game and the cheap playing cards bought from divisoria). there was spaghetti on his menu of party food and i totally pigged out on it! yum yum!

while doing party stuff, there was this soft hush about a certain eastwood gimmick-out. geezers! the people were dead-set on going to that place and i was wearing mall clothes and a lazy pair of sandals! to make the long boring story short, there were some twisted arms but all of us including insecure ole' me were coerced into jumping in.

the day being the eve of christmas eve, it wasn't really a surprise to see the eating places packed with people. we spent an awful amount of time scooting around for the place to have our past midnight munching. we ended up eating at bargo. the food was nice but the service was infuriating! there we were, people exhausted from walking the eastwood streets, and we get our orders at least a stomach-rebelling hour after. no tips for them... and it had nothing to do with our emaciated wallets.

they decided to go dancing. heck, i think i've got two left elephant feet. it was a horrible thought to think about me strutting my ass but being ashamed to be tagged as the party pooper, i agreed. our group raided blue onion. the place was ok---it gave a cozy atmosphere and the crowd inside looked normal based on my head-case standards. the r&b music was nifty that it managed to incite me to subtly jerk my arms and bob my head up and down. we didn't realize that it was already four in the morning until the lights were turned up and the place was preparing to close curtain. our wasted out congregation sat our butts out in the chairs and tables fronting the place. the early morning sun was at hand. we decided to head back to the birthday boy's house to rest.

on the way to his place, we got stuck inside one of the arms of the market. it was really christmas eve. it was just a little past four but the market was teeming with busy people. it was like one vast ocean of bodies going about their business, like little oiled microgears of a behemoth. wow. it was almost astounding to watch.

we spent the time at my friend's winding down with a few friendly but competitive rounds of bridge---i know we ain't ordinary people. other people wind down by sipping coffee and lounging around in the couch but we decide to play strategy games. that's just us.

anyway, we waited for the day to completely announce itself before the whole lot of us headed home.

now, here i am---sitting in front of the pc, breaking away from the mad keyboard-thumping just to give way to a yawn or two. damn, i feel alive... and a tad sleepy.

it's officially bum season in our house!

this afternoon i got a little too comfortable watching cable movies in bed. it started with me being held up inside one cozy room due to an ally mcbeal episode rerun then it went on until i continued my quasi-marathon by letting myself be entertained by a six-year old flick entitled "you've got mail".

i remember being in my sophomore year in high when this romatic comedy was shown on the silverscreen. needless to say, it was a date movie hence, i really didn't get to see it in theatres. it would have really looked a tad too pathetic to go my friends. talk about rubbing it in.

meg ryan was in it as the bookshop owner named kathleen, who seems to have this intimate relationship with books. opposite her was tom hanks who filled in for the role of joe, the multi-millionnaire bookstore empire heir. i could narrate to you the plot but that wasn't really the thing that caught my attention.

books---it was the books. i have loved books ever since i was a young kid. whenever my nanay let me choose a reward for something i did great in (or just some present to feed my being a spoiled brat then), i had an awfully hard time choosing between books and toys. for a normal gradeschool boy, the options aren't of equal footing. who wouldn't pick snazzy transformers bots over bundled pieces of paper with scientific names of dinosaurs who lived in the jurrassic era? i could raise my hand.

you would think that i frequent public libraries---i don't. public libraries appeal to me like a checkered violet and yellow sweater with ice cream cone prints. enough said.

show me a bookstore and that's a different thing. i have all the markings of a typical bookworm. cast me away into a mall and the first thing i would look for in a directory (this directory consultation is geeky in its own right) is the damned book place. no clothes stores, no arcade centers, no food stops in my mind... just the bookstore.

there's something romantic about catching a book that you want and knowing that there's a possibility of it being yours. you immediately check the price and your temporary bliss is either hiked up or watered down. very much like looking for love... or the semblance of such act.

you see a book that you fall in love with. instantly you form a bond---a whirlwind affair with it, running your hands along its edges, unmindful or papercuts, flirting with your little laughs of satisfaction. you feel yourself being drawn to it with every passing second, dancing slowly like waves of opposing currents making passionate love just before they plummet into the island rocks. it becomes a part of you and unconsciously you plan of living everyday of your life with it. you turn the book over. you fall into sudden death---it can't be yours. it will never be yours. you know that no matter how much you emotion you pour and exhaust out, it can never be.

it is the end of something that will never be.

wait. am i still talking about a book?

yes it's december and the loneliest season is at hand.

december came in a breeze. i never realized it until i took a bath one very early morning and i felt as if ice cubes were purposely thrown into my bath. needless to say, it woke me up with an icy jolt. darkness also enjoys its stay on the horizon too much. the morning rush hours tarry a little bit later in this time of the year. i guess people are just getting too cozy with their fluffy pillows and warm blankets. no one is to be blamed.

my family already set-up our christmas lights and all the flashy decors that the supposed merriment requires. as usual in this oh so competitive neighborhood, every house becomes a semi-permanent disco bar of twinkling trinkets and santa clauses.

we've had our first onset of pesky (excuse the scrooge term please) carollers too. as most of the children from years ago of carolling know for a fact, the only possible replies they incite from our household are: "patawad po muna" and the very promising "bumalik kayo sa eksaktong araw ng pasko kasi baka dun namin kayo bigyan". ain't my family so generous? so i was told.

it's december and i haven't even started my christmas shopping yet. but wait! since when did i shop around for presents? well, "never" comes as the most credible answer.

again i blame the stingy family for my lack of enthusiasm in gift-giving. since the folks at home are all senior citizens, they are quite complacent with the belief that their age earned them the right to not dish up packages wrapped in green and red. the youths at home headed by me settle for the holiday food that they have always been keen on preparing for the entirety of my el kuripot familia. you can't complain and whine too much about the "giftless" situation with a stuffed stomach, believe me. not in this household, at least.

just today, my entire family seems to have been plagued by the christmas bug. i woke up finding everybody doing some pre-holidays cleaning---cabinets were embalmed clean, windows were wiped immaculately tidy, bed covers were given the seasonal color change and people were sweating happily amidst all of these.

my asthma always saves me from these house chores and once again it reinforced one of the hundred reasons why i don't want to rid me of that pretty useful lung ailment. i just stayed in my room and surfed the net. don't pity me because i can't do the very appealing task of acquainting yourself with the dust mites of our abode. don't pity me please. though it's taxing to do, i'm ok with with just sitting around my room chatting away.

it's markie's take on christmas. live with it.