I'm Not Wasting My New Shirt

I got a text from Marga late last night: BOSS ASKED ME TO STAY HERE UNTIL TUES. SORRY. RESCHED?

Thing is, I'm taking customers on a junket/conference. I'm leaving tomorrow for London for ten days. Ten days. I know a phone call or an email will not do justice to what I want to say.

So I decided to drive to Baguio where Marga is holed up for the weekend (with Dong and his bad hang-over as my reluctant travel companions). I'll talk to her face-to-face. Then I'll drive back late tonight to make my flight tomorrow morning.

This is less a grand, romantic gesture than it is my refusal to cradle the emotional equivalent of blue balls for ten days.

Leaving in 30 minutes. Talk to you in two weeks, people.

Dawson Leary, I am not

My sister Joanne slapped my back so hard, I almost coughed up a lung. "Were you drunk the other night?"

"No." I knew where the conversation was going.

"Did you kiss Marga?"

"Why ask when you know?"

"Did you start it because she was tipsy?"

"Maybe she started it and I was just being polite."

"So do you like her?"

"Does she like me?"

"It just happened. She's confused."

"I should talk to HER then."

Fishing expedition failed, Joanne frowned and turned her back on me.

Marga's been travelling for work for more than a week now. And the longer I wait, the harder it is to say what needs to be said. So, it's set: Saturday afternoon, coffee, G3.

Damn, I need a new shirt.

The Good Party after the Bad

On the day of the fundraiser, I arranged to meet Marga at the office lobby a few minutes after quitting time. That gave her time to powder her nose and me a chance to shower off the smell of Mr. The-Philippines-Has-A-Water-Shortage Expat with whom I was trapped in a conference room all day.

I did a double take when I saw her. She was perfect. As soon as the compliment escaped my lips, she playfully tugged on my arm, ready to "play" my date. "And you don't look so bad yourself, Jeff. Watch out -- baka pagsamantalahan kita mamaya." She did not call me 'Kuya'.

The event was, for lack of a better term, highway robbery. There was no way the dinner, the "show" and the "gifts" made me happy about parting with the cash I shelled out for our tickets -- good cause or not. Not that I was there for the finger sandwiches. [And here's a tip for reunion organizers, if you actually want people to enjoy themselves: Do not invite the principal, the entire faculty, the school nurse, and the PTA-crazy parents to your reunion. And then invite them to give speeches!] We didn't stay for the raffle, as there was only so much torture any carbon-based life form could take.

The crazy clique of eight women which included Marga and my sister, decided to invade somebody's family vacation house in Tagaytay for the night. The plan was to drive up there, eat, drink, talk till dawn and have breakfast together at their favorite turo-turo on the way down -- retracing a trip they took the week they graduated high school. Us men? We were just along to be bodyguards, to drive them, to pay for gas and to make grocery runs for food and drink. And for it, we were ecstatic. A night out with those funny, intelligent, beautiful women is what fun coming-of-age-road-trip movies are made of.

This entry would be too long and would read too much like a diary of a lovesick, fourteen-year-old colegiala if I retraced my steps, recalled what I felt, recounted the dialogues. It is enough to say that I MAY not need to keep this blog for much longer.

'Not so sure if I kissed her or if she kissed me; but either way -- happy, happy, joy, joy, happy, happy, joy, joy ...