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Casual Wear
Friday, November 30, 2007


The statement tee has given me much happiness, for its proliferation in others’ closets has blessed my daily skulk around the city with a tad more amusement. Most of those who wear these things do not give justice to the haughty declarations crying from their chests. I have yet to see a man wearing an FBI: Female Body Inspector tee (or some such cheap shirt boasting their superiority in the sack) who didn’t look like gangrene-on-a-stick, or a woman wearing a Bitch Goddess or Pour Me Rum and Here I Come tee who didn’t look like she’d never seen real cock before (and was very much afraid to). Every single time I see text on fabric, I make sure to read it. And then laugh. And then marvel at the city as it basks—nay, smolders—in the warm, warm rays of Irony.

Biding my time at good ol’ EDSA Central one evening, I saw a woman wearing a black tee with the words I Am The Reason! printed on it in bright yellow. As she crossed the street to my stretch of sidewalk, I took a good look at her face and dismissed her as yet another tee casualty. Mousy, for the most part. Didn’t seem at all like The Reason for anything worth all that silk-screened swagger. Naturally, though, a few moments after she left, I started to wonder what The Outcome was in the first place. And got bothered by it. She was The Reason for what? What? What was this end-result that Mousy over there was hinting about? Though I knew it was probably some I Am A Good Little Gerbil in This Multi-National Corporation/Call Center/Pyramid Scheme and That Means I Matter, Fuck It kind of deal, it still tried to sound apocalyptic. And being that I had not much else to invest my emotions in, I forced myself to feel great concern.

What? What?!?! The Reason for whaaaaaaat?!?!?!??!!!

A few minutes later, a guy wearing the same shroud of mystery crossed the street. He looked pretty plain; didn’t seem like The Reason, either. And then another unremarkable guy with the same threads followed close behind. And then a girl. And then two guys. And then another girl. And then another guy. And another. And another. And then, suddenly, it seemed that every other person crossing the street—none of whom looked a notch beyond Puwede Na-brand pogi or basta hindi ako mukhang paa—was The Reason. And on The Reasons surged, their collective nondescript-ness oozing menace, however muted, along that chunk of city, and then went their separate ways. It was after six. They were off to their respective evening haunts, most likely, to announce their newfound importance to friends and loved ones. Or fight crime. Like Batman.

I never figured out what The Outcome was, or even which rinky-dink conference or mass wedding these people came from. I didn’t bother to ask because I’m hopeless that way. That, and I would rather not know, despite going mad from all that wondering. Part of the statement tee’s irreverence, I suppose. Because no matter how striking the mismatch, I wouldn’t really ask Inspector Gangrene for the basis of his pekpek-prodding prowess. Even if he’d looked way too thankful or surprised that I, a random human of the opposite gender, was speaking to him. For he might really be an ace in the sack despite everything, just as those Reasons might really be the, um, Cause. Or not. Guess I like to keep guessing. Or at least pretend that certain people have a few bombshells left for me.


posted by marguerite @ 8:49 PM

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Watering Holes
Saturday, November 24, 2007


Wrote this two days ago. Was supposed to blog it, but the futility of doing so was still ever-so-slightly apparent to me then.

I have tired myself through boredom. It’s the most unnerving feeling, bogged down in the massive, murky caverns of the restless. I have this incredible desire to explode, but my body doesn’t have enough energy to ball up, much less detonate.

Work has fallen dormant. The TV show’s been put on hold ever since our banned episode and will only air again once we have everything reformatted. Not much being asked of me from my other rackets, either. Was plagued by so much free time today that I went to Megamall to get some trivial bank business over and done with, and that took all of five minutes. Then went to a café to supposedly eat and read at a leisurely pace, but only found myself ordering more and more shit to preoccupy myself, and since I felt so bad about gorging, I walked the whole length of each of Megamall’s five floors and then footed it home. Passed out on the couch. Woke up at dinnertime feeling bloated and annoyed. Tried sprucing up my blog template for an hour or so only to go back to the old one.

I am so tired and bored. Whine, whine, whine.

I have decided to post that sad-sack soliloquy above because, a few days later, it’s all still the same damn thing. It’s funny how bored I am, gravely preoccupying myself with the most inane tasks—such as trying to figure out how to burn these goddamn BIN files onto DVD-Rs (motherfucker, I can’t watch half of what I’ve torrented)—although I’m afraid the hilarity is starting to get lost on me.

The most interesting—and by interesting, I mean bodily-movement-related—event I’d undergone recently happened the night of that original blog post. Having decided not to post the tripe anymore, I was squirming around in bed, feeling sooooo faaaakkking useleeeeesssssss, when Carl called. His car had gotten all wonky and overheated somewhere along EDSA, and if I could please meet him at EDSA Central to help him out.

And off I went. I, Margie, Un-Knower of All Vehicle-Associated Concerns, Kibitzer in Any and All Possible Incidents Open for Kibitzing, She Who Shall Squirm (squirm! squirm! squirm!) for All Useless Folk in the Shaw-Ortigas Area.

When I got to Carl and his fevered little ride, Carl instructed me to go inside the Starbucks right next to us and ask for a gallon of water. And off I went. I, Margie, The Pushover. The barista manning the place was a sour-faced little bitch, and the fact that I looked every bit a girl who had just stumbled out of bed, thrown a hoodie on, and was just too eager for some action, did not help. She eventually handed me a jug with traces of non-fat milk in it and pointed to the washroom. But the jug did not fit in the sink, much too bulky for its mouth to reach the faucet, so I had to go back out and ask SourPuss for a spare cup. Finally, stocked with passable paraphernalia and wrung dry of every single drop of shame, I made like an urchin and filched the place of its agua. Trooped back and forth between washroom and car with my fat little jug, trying very hard to believe that this was quite the worthy task, a task that would properly validate my barren, barren day.

And then, once the car was cured, Carl passed by my place and we played with my webcam. The End.

I think I’ll wrap this entry up now, before I embarrass myself any further. Have finally dug a friend up to hang out with this afternoon, anyway. Woohoo. Oh, and by the by, another reason why my days have been pretty drained is because of that stupid Ad Congress. Everyone’s in Subic having sex but me. Copywriting bastards.


posted by marguerite @ 11:26 AM

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Demmet, Woman!
Saturday, November 17, 2007


Above is a screenshot from the latest episode of the particular talk/comedy show—on the particular new cable channel that caters to one particular gender—of which I am a segment producer. (I am in no mood for a lawsuit.) The shot’s from a gag we did where the show’s production team pretended to be that night’s musical guest, renegade rakstars Baste and The Mastards. From L-R: me (The Girl in the Dirty Trench), Pancho (The New Pancho Villa), psycho-guest Oz (who went apeshit on the show’s host during his origami demonstration because the host wasn’t capable of making a flawless flapping paper crane), Tengal (as his alter-ego Baste G’azin, the recurring irate misogynist character we’re grooming for total cult status), and our bad-ass exec prod/demigod Karl.

The episode also featured a whole slew of swearing in the opening spiel (bleeped out, which upped the hilarity as all censorship is wont to do), a comedy skit on the porno industry, an interview with Kael a.k.a. Taba, a welga scene out on the studio sidewalk, etc. It was our best episode yet. It was banned. The powers-that-be refused to air it due to all the profanity and visual humping references. (Don’t fret, Taba, your segment was relatively the most family-friendly.)

Now, considering that it is our thrust to assimilate a (hopefully) funny brand of deviance into this show, our getting censored can be considered some sort of achievement. I suppose it’s a sign that we’re doing something right. All we have to do now is not to temper it, but to let the craptasticness wriggle into the segments with a tad more subtlety. Our request for a later timeslot should also work in our favor (we used to be on primetime, kamusta naman).

It’s good fun working for a chauvinist network, being someone who has more empathy for the dumbass philosophies of the opposite sex than for her own. It is ironic that these very philosophies have placed me in many a damned taxi-riding situation, but still. Can’t fucking help it. But I am, and always will be, a cunt—every inch female, mind and body forever pestered by the fascinating phallus. Yet, judging by my need for self-preservation, I do find it far more constructive to be in the company of men.

There’s a father issue here somewhere.


posted by marguerite @ 4:42 PM

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Pussy Galore
Sunday, November 04, 2007


My grandmother had a stroke Friday morning. I woke up a few hours after the fact, just barely able to absorb my mother’s harried text message through the murk lent by the previous night and its stimuli. I then spent most of that day fluctuating between fatigue and fright, skulking around the emptied house, unsure of what to think and how to feel. I had been updated that she was alright, but such information hardly ever dispels thoughts that have already begun to dog you.

She’s still in the hospital, and the house still feels very vacant. She has gotten better and is supposed to return tomorrow, but that’s tomorrow, and there is nothing tangible— or downright real—about that term. For now, there is an off-kilter, near-menacing mood to this place, and it’s making me all weary and wary.

Now, as with my stance towards astrology, my belief in the supernatural and its irrational ilk is flimsy at best. Regardless, there are some coincidences that the Overromanticizer in me can’t help but mull over. Case in point: the demise of my cousin’s cats.

My aunt believes, after having read of such a phenomenon, that pet cats die in order to dampen the bad shit that happens to their owners and their families. They kick the bucket just prior to someone’s misfortune, both a buffer and an omen. The night before I was robbed, for instance, Skipper the Cat died. (He was then thrown a Happy Death party—yes, with balloons—and now rests in supposed peace beneath a potted plant in the backyard—and no, I don’t know which one.) After my brush with the thieving bastards, my aunt was convinced that Skipper’s lot was meant to soften the blow, that his death may possibly have prevented my own. I, of course, didn’t know what to believe and wasn’t bothered by this indecision.

Then a morning or two before my grandmother’s stroke, just as I was about to jet for work, I came across a kitty carcass next to our gate. It was yet another member of my cousin’s extensive, tamed menagerie, albeit dim-eyed, rock-stiff and an ant-and-worm free-for-all.

It really is tempting to put two and two together, especially considering that my grandmother is said to be doing alright. I probably have the urge to do so only because it provides this strange sense of safety, this possible karmic web sturdy enough for all slip-ups. True, a large part of me is disapproving of this, ashamed that I could even regard something so seemingly hokey as a security resource. Then again, there is still that smidgen of me that knows safety isn’t certain. There is nothing tangible—or downright real—about that term. Thus, in that sense, I should be given leeway to value a few delusions. Moreover, there’s not much else to count on in such a hollow house.


posted by marguerite @ 2:37 AM

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the girl


Marguerite.
23.
Pasig City, PH.

Damned the man, saved the empire.

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