Ba, I am danger!

You'd think 3 years with this allergy and I'd have this thing down to a science. And I have, I have: I can enumerate the foods I'm supposed to be allergic to: cheese, chocolates, alcohol-- especially beer, strawberries, tropical fruits including mangoes, seafood--the list does go on. And I've done enough experimentation to know which of these I am specifically allergic to, and in what amounts:

1. Cheese - Anything over the tiniest slice gives me a vicious vertigo attack. Attacks occur one to three days after intake, and lasts three days, too. No pizza, no cheeseburgers, no fondue, gratins, grilled cheese sandwiches, Cheezwhiz, cream cheese on bagels... you get the picture.
   
2. Chocolate - I can have a little bit, like one Snickers bar divvied up over three days, or so. (Sad, but true.) So unless I pig out with a whole can of Lindt mini assorteds, I'm fine. Chocolate ice cream seems okay, though.
3. Alcohol - Beer, I can stand one to three bottles in one night, although I rather wouldn't. (Seems I've lost my taste for it.) This one gives me an attack definitely, so I prefer another malt product. Whiskey is fine, fine, fine. Or any other hard liquor for that matter. I try to avoid wines and brandy because I'm supposed to be allergic to grapes, too. But I do like an occasional red now and again. Suddenly, I miss Japan where beer and whiskey prices are almost the same.
4. Fruits - Strawberry is a culprit, but I don't get a lot of chances to enjoy fresh ones anyway. Tropical fruits don't seem to have any adverse effects.
5. Seafood - Having lived 2/3 of my life near the sea, and loving Japanese food as I do, I am so grateful I turned out not to be allergic to seafood.

How do I know all this? I told you: I have this vertigo thing down to a science. And three years of experimentation, well, let's just say I could publish a paper on it. Sure, I miss out on a lot of foods-- just Italian mostly. Oh and mexican, too. And pizza. And most desserts. But, as you've probably heard me say more than once (all together now): as long as I'm not allergic to hard liquor and cigarettes... You could say three years has helped me deal with it, too.

So somebody please, tell me why, why, why I jumped at my mom's idea of lunch at Yellow Cab yesterday, clapping my hands in excitement like an idiot (instead of my usual sarcastic remark). Worse, when they remembered and tried to suggest someplace else, I bulldozed over the protests (They were half-hearted, true, but well-meant.) and even walked--no, marched--right into the pizza parlor first, myself. Ate two and a half slices of their meatlovers pizza and guzzled raspberry ice tea, giddy like I was doing something never attempted before, or something petty, but illegal.

And you know what else? I had the gall to be surprised when I woke up a little woozy, my head like a water-filled balloon--early this morning. When I weaved my way out of my room--holding my head in case it fell off and crashed like an aquarium around my feet-- to get my anti-vertigo drugs, my mom simply glanced at me and hmmmmed. I whimpered like an orphaned puppy.

Good thing, I remembered to up my dose of betahistines. But that's all I can really be proud of.

I believe in the scientific method: question, observe, experiment, conclude. Three years I've watched the food I take in. Three years I've experimented with what I can or cannot eat. Three years I've suffered: There was a year in Japan I had three-day attacks monthly. Oh, and my last attack was Christmas. Yep. December 24, 25, and 26, 2005 I was either asleep or trying to sleep. I've made conclusions, such as on the specifics of kinds and amounts of foods I should avoid. I've concluded, too, that sleep is my only escape (Oh, there's the Van Gogh experiment I have on reserve for unbearable situations.), and that most of the time, I can lessen the effects, enough to keep me functional, anyway, if I "overdose" on my Serc.

I have three years' worth of information. Tried and tested, conclusive information at that, where the scientist happens to be the test subject, too. So again I ask, why, why, why? I'm afraid there might not be any answer but brain damage. All that whiskey I enjoyed to make up for pizza must have finally caught up with me.

And you know what hurts the most? While I was eating that pizza and feeling giddy? I think I was giddy more for breaking my rules than any longing for pizza--it didn't taste as great as it does in my head when I imagined it. So now I'm suffering and I can't even say it was worth it. I told you: Brain damage. How pathetic.

Curiosity has not only killed the cat, it has won some lucky sons-of-bitches the Nobel prize. Seems like I don't belong to that category. That thin line between genius and crackpot isn't so thin after all.

Because three is a crowd, and a crowd is good.

Like I always say: when in doubt, waste time. And because I've been tagged. La-di-dah!

THREE NAMES THAT YOU GO BY:

1. Drey/Drea
2. Andrea (when the parents are mad; and in Japan, actually. Did you know that Dorei in Japanese means slave? Dorei-mon is actually the Japanese-Engrish for Slave Mon-ster! Ha! And you thought he was a cute robot cat.)
3. Inday (Haha!)

THREE SCREEN NAMES YOU'VE HAD, INCLUDING THE ONE YOU USE NOW:

1. Dreyers. Yes, the ice cream.
2. sevenfloors. Why? That's when and where it all started, I think.
3. Dreydlocks. Because I've always wanted them.

THREE THINGS YOU LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF:

1. My face.
   
2. I try to be more honest, everyday. Especially with myself.
   
3. I jump and ask questions later more often than not.
   

THREE THINGS YOU DISLIKE ABOUT YOURSELF:

1. My hips.
   
2. I look much nicer than I really am. I'm too polite.
   
3. I jump and ask questions later more often than not.

THREE PARTS OF YOUR HERITAGE:

1. The "Indian" look that comes from being three quarters Filipino and one quarter Spanish.
2. My Filipino grampa is a small-town farmer who, through sheer hard work (and a cold and hard heart), sent all his seven kids to college.
3. My Spanish grandfather was an alcoholic and unbelievably promiscuous. It was rumored that he beat my Lola. He was a good-looking SOB, though.
   

THREE THINGS THAT SCARE YOU:

1. Spiders.
2. Breaking bones.
3. I can swim, but I get panic attacks when my feet can't touch the bottom. Leftover trauma from when I fell off a moving pump boat in Guimaras when I was 12. It felt like I sank 20 feet without touching the bottom: It was dark and the sun a pale yellow overhead like a scene from Baywatch. I had to kick to the surface and swim to shore by myself (no Hasselhoff!). I had Jaws nightmares for a week after, complete with the ominous score.
   

THREE OF YOUR EVERYDAY ESSENTIALS:

1. Glasses/Contacts.
2. Coffee and cigarettes. Sad but true.
   
3. Food.

THREE THINGS YOU ARE WEARING RIGHT NOW:

1. A tanktop.
2. Shorts.
3. Glasses.
   

THREE NEW THINGS YOU WANT TO TRY IN THE NEXT 12 MONTHS:

1. Running. Seriously, and for good. Again.
2. Learn Spanish and improve on my Japanese.
3. Oh! Start my MA in Literature! Yey!

THREE EQUALS TWO LIES PLUS A TRUTH:

1. I've been mistaken for a prostitute.
2. I've been a prostitute.
3. I've been with a prostitute.

THREE THINGS YOU JUST CAN'T DO:

1. Wiggle my ears.
2. Be inexcusably rude and magnificently angry in public.
3. Kill myself.

THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE HOBBIES:

1. Reading.
2. Drinking coffee, smoking, doing nothing and people-watching, or having great conversations with friends.
   
3. I really like to wrap presents. Pretty good at it, too.

THREE THINGS YOU WANT TO DO REALLY BADLY RIGHT NOW:

1. Get a massage.
2. Write, write, write. I haven't written nor re-written anything since I went back home. Grrr.
3. Get laid. Seriously.

THREE CAREERS YOU'RE CONSIDERING:

1. Poetry.
2. Teaching. This is my calling, I think.
   
3. Triathlon. No kidding. Couple of years back I used to train. Before laziness took over.

THREE PLACES YOU WANT TO GO ON VACATION:

1. Alicante; visit my Great Aunt Ito who's really old and alone in a nursing home with Alzheimer's and a broken hip.
2. New York and live it up, ala Sex and the City.
3. Palawan or Batanes. Because I've never been.

THREE TRUE LOVES:

1. Banana splits.
2. Thunderstorms.
3. The smell of brown paper bags, especially if they hold hot bread. Or the smell of books.

THREE FAVORITE ANIMALS:

1. Reptiles. Don't ask me why.
2. Our ugly but adorable mutt, Pudjot.
3. Lions, tigers and bears. Oh my!

THREE REASONS WHY YOU'RE DOING THIS SURVEY:

1. Because there are more important things to do.
2. Every blog needs a good survey, now and again.
3. Because I love Bazooka and I'm disappointed to find that, not only is it 3/5 the orginal size, but the comics (and fortune!) has been removed from its current packaging! Oh, the things that happen in the world today!

THREE PEOPLE WHO MUST TAKE THIS QUIZ:

1. Anybody who feels like it.
2. Anybody who's as bored as me.
   
3. Anybody who's got more important stuff to do.

THREE WORDS:

1. Isn't
   
2. this
   
3. fun?

This shit is almost a palindrome.

Whenever I start complaining that my life is boring, please, please! somebody slap me.

In the last 4 or 5 years, I've noticed that whenever I curse my nothing-is-happening life (which happens about once a year), shit starts to happen. Drama, complications, problems, or just about any one of the your garden-variety psycho stuff(break-ups, hell-at-work, scholarships-to-Japan (haha!), non-scholarship-to-Japan, stalkers, asshole boyfirends, other people's asshole boyfriends, stereo-receivers-being-fried... you know, the usual shit) start to happen to me.

Well, this time around, the shit hasn't exactly hit the fan yet. And since I'm not planning on getting shit-faced, I'm ducking, big time:

My life is great! My life is happ'ning! I feel rrrreeeeevvvved! Yeeehaaw!

Okay, that should do me for now. Cross your fingers.

Imagine me and you

I'm happy. Kind of.

I am, really. But I don't know why, exactly. So I'm suspicious. Ha!

*****

I learned a new word, a couple of weeks ago that I really like: Frangible (frăn'gə-bəl) adj. It means breakable, capable of being broken, given to breakage. I don't know why I fell in love with this word. It seems a marriage between fragile and tangible, which somehow makes the breaking all the more painful, somehow.

Like seeing JC Intal breaking down after Game 3, and being hugged up from the floor by his parents. Frangible. Inconsolable. Heartbreaking.

*****

Ateneo was the number one team and held the best record. UST barely made it to the Final Four. We were on top and they were the underdog, both hungry to prove themselves. But fate had to have its way.

"If this were the NBA, it wouldn't have happened!" my best friend insisted over the phone. I know, I know. But this is college basketball, and the drama, the momentum, and the kind of fate that is in charge of epics and hero-making and idealism had to have its way.

If I were from UST, I would be sure, now, of why exactly I am happy. But I am not, and all I can say is, it had to end that way.

Which makes me think there might be different kinds of fate.

*****

Milenyo, on the other hand, is another story. Not fate. No, not exactly.

It just gets me thinking how fragile we are, how given to break, at any given moment. How frangible.

*****

But, I'm supposed to be happy. Or at least it started out that way. And again, I don't know why, exactly. Me and you and you and me, no matter how they roll the dice and all that.

*****

So happy together. How's the weather?