Back in the saddle

“It’s like riding a bike really,” I thought as I gingerly eased my bottom onto the stool, feet balanced precariously on the footrest, elbows planted squarely on the edge of the bar for support. It’s been years since I sat at a bar's bar, my prodigal return caused by my home boy’s confused and confusing visa-renewal-turned-emigration to New York, the land of brotherly shove. I’d forgotten how pleasant it is to sit facing nothing but a near-empty wall, a refrigerator full of beer, and the bartender, or in this case, our friend and bar owner, G. It’s the sitting side by side, I think, that does the trick. It frees you from the burden of making conversation but stops short of cutting you off from your seatmates’ banter.

Sitting at the bar is cool. It’s all those iconic moments and characters in film. You end up role-playing in spite of yourself. For a while I tried to pretend I was the laconic hero in a cowboy film, quietly brooding over my beer, occasionally throwing pithy lines at the bartender or squinting at some no-good punk while an Ennio Morricone theme plays softly in the background.

Ah but there was only G and the boys. And the only no-good punk in the bar was the guy who stupidly parked his car too close to mine.

I ended up closing the bar with J, barfly of the South. And phony cowboy that I was, I drunk-drove, not into a fiery sunset, but to a dark sky slowly turning ashen with the dawn. Oh well, it still feels good to be back in the saddle again. Hi-ho Silver!

Hair piece

I knew it was going to be a shitty ride the moment she sunk her body into the seat in front of me. Hate ran hot when she deftly slid her fingers up her nape and in one swift motion, spread her hair all over the back of the seat—inches away from my face.

Now hair, women with long hair to be exact, tap a hidden rage in me. It’s the years of sitting behind them in jeepneys and having their disgusting alien tendrils fly into my mouth and whip me on the face that makes me a little homicidal when I see hair so wantonly spread before me. I think I did temporarily go mad because I spent the next thirty minutes willing myself not to do the following to her hair:

Set it on fire…
Chew gum and festoon it round her head…
Trap strands in my bag’s zipper and then yank it close…
Braid pens, keys, flash disk, wet tissue, Difflam, the springs of my notebook and whatever else I can find in my bag into the ends…
Sneeze and pray that my virus and green snot gets in there good…
Flick boogers into it…
Engage hair owner in good old-fashioned sabunutan…

Maybe next time.

Hammer time!

Years ago our mother brought my sisters and I to a Unilever family thing during which I was inveigled to ride something called “The Hammer”. It’s essentially a curved cage that first swings back and forth, gaining momentum until it finally loops in a 360.

I hated it.

The contrived thrill of park rides never appealed to me. I don’t like to be shaken and stirred. I get queasy and irritable.

And now I find myself in a real-life Hammer. People around me are moving out and on. It’s disconcerting. I’m queasy and irritable. And terribly sad.

I hate it.

In praise of 23 (sort of)

There’s an object lesson in twenty-three year olds that I’m not getting. What is it about that age that I’m unconsciously and inexplicably drawn to? Should I look back at my twenty-three year old self to find it? And what do I expect to find beyond unbridled sex, profligate drinking and generally irresponsible behavior? Some forgotten hurt or a life-altering experience perhaps?

T.H. White wrote that a woman’s interesting period happens in her 20s when she is just getting a sense of her self. A woman-child untouched by life’s realities with a hopeful heart that’s yet to be broken by cruel men, even crueler women, facial lines and time.

Twenty-three year olds always seem poised to go somewhere gay and exciting and terribly exclusive. And it’s true too. They are, after all, on the cusp of life itself and all the joyful, grievous, dreadful things it brings.

So here’s to all you pretty young things. May you stay 23 forever.