A one-day weekend is not good
But you know what? I'll live.

Mark bought tickets for our flight to Alicante. That should be fun. It'll be getting into autumn there, so it won't be as hellishly hot as it has been reported.

I've bought a Spanish phrasebook, but I'm having little hits of anxiety. What if I am totally clueless?

Poetry has made me the millionaire I am today
Not really. But I have, right now, in my hot little hand, a cheque for the queenly sum of €30.

That's right. Read 'em and weep.

I am still a professional poet. Ooh, yeh. Rockin'!

The things I do
I saw a movie: Buffalo Soldiers, quite good, in a noir-ish, cynical kinda way.

I'm reading a book: A Sweet Obscurity by Patrick Gale. 'Tis quite good, so far.

The weather's changing to an autumnal cool, daylight hours shrinking infinitesimally, the wind dancing on flesh raising little goosebumps.

But I'm looking forward to our upcoming week-long trip to Alicante. I think it will be fun.

Just like a weekend, only crunchy
Hey, I get the next two days off! Yay!

I might do something wild and crazy. Like read a book. Or go see a movie (I particularly want to see Swimming Pool with Charlotte Rampling). Or op-shop!

Hmm, I think I'm going to like working at this bookshop. They seem more reasonable to me.

Quickly now
Job's fine, but my hands hurt. Is that bad? I do this scanning and it's a big hurty object I carry. Maybe I'm going to get arthritis. Woe!

I went to a concert last night at The Point. I probably would have enjoyed it more had it been my sort of music. I hadn't even heard of Manu Chao prior to getting tickets to this event. I had heard of the Asian Dub Foundation though.

Me tired now. Must eat muesli and sleep.

Working girl
My feet hurt. And I'm wondering, do I still like working in a bookshop?

I think my sections are Fiction A-Z (yay!), Biography (ho-hum), and Sport (uh, wha?).

Now, I'm going to go for a lie-down.

Irishisms, Part... ummm... II? III?
Fillum: a movie, a film. No idea why there is an extra syllable, but there you go. Charming, innit?

Okay, my mind's a sieve. That's all I can remember for now. Never claimed to be a lexicographer or some such other clever-clogsy type person, have I?

Such a gorgeous summer Ireland's been having. It is just right, especially for showing off some of my summer tops. Yo-ho!

Went for a McFeed this morning and was not impressed by my stuffed-up order of pancakes. The first time, there was no butter or syrup (don't mind about the butter so much, though). Waited five minutes. Went up to the counter—still no syrup. 'It's got to be fetched from upstairs,' the teenaged boy shrugged apologetically at me. Sat down, got back up, taking my cold pancakes and said to him that I'll just got a fresh one when the syrup turns up.

Sat down again, ate a couple of bitefuls of Mark's snausage-and-egg-mcmuffs, disconsolate at my ruined breakfast. Got back up, waited some more. By that time, another customer was waiting for their pancake, too. The manager, after running around like a headless chook, asked what I was waiting for. 'My pancakes,' I bit out. 'I've been waiting ten minutes for my pancakes,' the guy behind me peeped.

My second batch was doled out to me, fresh from the microwave. I could feel from touching the base of the styrofoam packaging that this was not a hot pancake meal. I bitched at Mark, who took pity on me, went up to the counter and got me a tepid one.

At least I had syrup.

That'll teach me.

Bodies at rest
I'm not doing anything too strenuous before I start work on Monday.

Just finished reading Man and Boy by somebody Parsons. It's all right, but you know, I wish I can make myself skip from reading the blurbs, because a book can hardly keep pace with the hype, sometimes.

I wonder how I'll cope being back in a full-time capacity, after this one-month holiday?

Sedate
On the way home, I watched a dozen ducks sunning themselves on low-tide rocks in the river, every single one facing upstream. Some heads were tucked under a wing, others were grooming, still others were asleep on their feet.

It was very soporofic to watch them, as the water wound past, and the sun heating down overhead. I almost felt guilty for my sleepy thought: 'I wonder what wild river duck tastes like?'

By the way, I got the job. My second bookshop in Ireland! I'll get through all of them yet!

I'm in
I received a copy of Anon recently, and I'm in it! Yay! It's a beautiful little book, too.

I'm so proud.

Making a list
I've been so good, I think. Doing things to keep me busy during this jobsearch. Some are even jobsearch-related!

I don't want to be a journalist. I just want to be an editor. Is that so hard for peeps to understand?

My spore-scars are fading daily. I'll be left with nothing but weals where the annoying fungus has marked its path on me.

Hurray!

An interview
Tomowwow, tomowwow, I love ya, tomowwow!

I'm plumping for a part-time job, but you know, I feel a bit weird not working. Seems unfair to me. They're only offering full-time work at the moment.

Ah, well. What can you do? Mark's suggesting I negotiate, but I'm not that kinda girl.

I need girl-power.

What the heck am I doing?
I'm in denial. I've got this directory, full of contacts in the magazine publishing industry, and I'm afraid to use it.

I guess I'm scared about leaving my ass to hang out in the wind. Yeah, that's it.

My theory is, if I go for a job that doesn't matter so much, that it won't hurt if I don't get. You think? Maybe?

I'm such a wimp.

Grind
Oh, my nose! Darn this grindstone!

I wrote an application today. Hey, I gotta start slow, you know. T'ain't easy.

Here Comes the Hot Tepper
My interview by Interrobang?!’s Dave Tepper
[Ooh, these are all well thought-out questions, Dave.]

Fantastic! Here we go.

1. Most Americans don't even know what Canberra is, much less how to pronounce it. (My readers, of course, are much smarter than that!) Tell us Yanks three things about Australia we really ought to know.

• Australia has a really embarrassing Prime Minister at the moment. The most embarrassing thing John Howard has done, to my mind, was when he sucked-up to your President in the most obsequious, brown-nosing manner possible. Like, get a room, guys!
  
• Having moved around a bit (from Manila to Hobart, Melbourne, Aberdeen and now Dublin), I can say that the best thing about Australia is that it gets a lot of things right, but it’s still a long way off from places like Amsterdam or Hong Kong, both cities that I love for their energy, atmosphere and culture.
  
• Kangaroos don’t hop down the main street of most capital cities.
  

2. What happened on 15 August 2002 that made you start blogging?

That was my first day in Aberdeen, Scotland. I was to live there for six months, the longest stretch of time I would be away from Australia. I wanted to set down my thoughts, so that I could share my experience with family and friends back home. I also knew I needed to be occupied during that time, because I was only on a visitor’s visa to the UK, and was not allowed to work. That was some major suck.

3. "Neither a debtor nor a lender be." Here at Interrobang?!, though, death is not an option: would you rather be a debtor or a lender, and why?

I don’t like being in debt, so I’d rather be a lender. But I’m a poor lender, too! I would hound my little brother and sister when they’d borrow a dollar, nagging them, asking, ‘Can you pay it today? I’ll start charging interest soon, you know.’ I was, like, eight. Mind you, I’ve got a fairly hefty HECS (Higher Education Contribution Scheme) debt. [This is a debt accrued by students who can’t pay up-front fees on university courses, discharged by paying extra tax once the ex-student starts earning enough money]. Ahem.

4. What will your life be like ten years from now?

God! Who knows? This is a toughie. Okay…

I’d like to have my first and second book of poetry published by then. I’d want to have seen more of Europe and the US… Definitely want to go hang out in Canada. So, ten years from now, I’ll be more worldly-wise, I think. I’ll have cats. I’ll have a room for my books. That’s all I can see. So if I have those things that must mean I’ll be mostly happy.

5. Who was your first love, and whatever happened to him or her?

First love. Hmm. That would have to be Aaron. I actually wrote to him early this year, as I was terribly curious about that very same question. In summary, this was the answer.

He was in a motor vehicle accident. He required reconstructive surgery. He got better. He started managing bands and doing karaoke gigs. And he’s got a young son now, who seems to be the most important person in his life.

Whew! [Thanks, Dave!]

Okay, dudes and dudettes, here are the rules:

• If you want to participate, leave a comment saying "interview me." I will respond by asking you five questions.
• You will update your blog/site with the answers to the questions.
• You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
• When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Now, who’s up next?

Q&A
I've just put my name down for an interview. It's a meme going around that's caught my fancy.

I'm all a-tingle. I wonder what my questions will be. I'm tempted to say 'please be gentle', but that might come out all wimpy. Hmm. What about 'bring it to the par-tay'?

Too mid-90s, methinks.

Carry-on hand luggage
Did you know that, since it is both expensive and rare in Ireland, I brought back not one, but two kilos of Milo in my backpack?

Yep. I'm nothing but a donkey for drinking chocolate. Can you blame me? Didn't think so. Absolutely dirt-cheap in Manila. And how can one possibly live without it?

Belly
Ever since that French bint from Pulp Fiction lisped out that she thought pot bellies were sexy, I think a lot of girls/women (me! me!) have struggled with this concept.

"But! We're meant to be thin! Pot bellies are not shown on magazines in a glamourous light! How is a pot belly sexy?"

So it is when I get a little belly. I feel ambiguous towards it. I poke it, see if it shifts, melts, vanishes, jiggles like jelly concentrate.

I think I can see the woman's point. But you know, I'm still not sure.

Cured like ham
Well, I'm getting there. Bought some funky stuff to zap the spore-driven fungus into oblivion. Bye-bye itches, bye-bye highly infectious state.

Just hope I haven't given it to the cat.

Jeezum crow! All the way from Manila to here—ringworm. Un-cursing-believable.

Ringus wormius
Those insect-bites I mentioned in my previous post? They've mutated.

Dudes, I've got ringworm.

Oh yeah, it doesn't get any better than this.

Jobbie
Status: slack. The last two days I've slept, read and et, and not exactly in that order, either. Hmm, reminds me of when I was on the dole after doing Honours. So, still no job, yet.

My insect bites have turned into red-edged sores. Mark's bought me calamine lotion, but sometimes the urge to scratch is almost too much to bear.

What I Did in My Summer Vacation: Notable Highlights

1. Was in a jeepney accident.

[If you go here, you can find out what a jeepney looks like. Essentially, a jeep is a people-carrier, like a bus, except people are more squashed in than oily anchovies, and the jeeps try to outdo each other in the garishness and look-at-me stakes.]

Any other place in the world, and it would've been clear that the other driver was at fault. My poor mum banged her head. The funny thing was, not more than thirty minutes earlier, I had been speculating with Ma how an accident would be pretty awful in one of those. Bizarre.

2. Had gastro.
Yep, Ivy did throwy-up. Not nice. That'll teach me to

• lick my fingers after trying on shoes without washing my hands
• eat halo-halo
• undergo extreme body-temperature changes in the space of seconds [i.e. one minute outdoors in 35degC heat, then swanning around in cool, air-conditioned comfort the next]
• not be acclimatised to the country's food/weather/culture.

3. Was in a typhoon.
Lots of water. Lots of wind (no, I'm not still talking about my gastro experience). One papaya tree was nearly lost. It was very loud. I spent most of the time playing with a kitten called Zebra.

4. Was caught in the middle of a coup attempt/military mutiny.
Well, that last is not strictly true. But I was most anxious, because I thought I wouldn't be able to come home to Mark. Still, one good thing did come from it: I could get more Philippine pesos to the Euro. Yes, I'm a political animal at heart. Thrilling.

Googling myself
Help me. I can't stop.

Well, that's not exactly true. It's been about three weeks between the last time I googled myself and the previous time.

Interesting, innit, what the 'net has to say about you?

But the thing is, if I don't google moi, how would I know about this review?

Kahloo-kahlay!

I will survive
And so I'm back, from outer space. I just walked in to find you here with that sad look upon your face.

Well, not exactly outer space, but almost 24-hours of travelling time is enough to give one an out-of-body experience.

And I'm all loved-up (from Mark) and fashioned up from shopping! Yay! I love it when clothes fit.

On the taxi-ride home, I noticed that, hey, Dublin was actually having nice weather. Pity, I was a bit out of it with lag to take advantage. I was updating the driver on what I've been up to, and as he dropped me off, he wished me good luck on my job-hunting. Maybe taxi-drivers should charge more for their sideline as impromptu therapists or something.

It was good to show Mark all that I'd bought. He didn't do too badly out of it, either. We've been so thrifty (oh, alright, downright Scrooge-like) for so long, it was hard for me to just buy stuff for myself. Felt like I had to share some of the fun.

And it's been fun. Now, time to knuckle down, I think. Starting Monday. It's another long weekend holiday this Saturday. I like Ireland.