THOUGHTS

I enter a room that I have seen so many times before, feeling the same feeling, memorized the first lines to say, rehearsed the answers to the basic questions in my head. As always, people pack the room, a light buzz of a conversation going on in the air.

It’s 11 o’ clock in the morning. No one serves drinks or opens up this early. Nope this place isn’t a bar.

I can see why people frequent this place. Most of us here want something from someone. Some offer something for what somewhat needs badly. The rest, I perceive them to be either hiding under masks and their true orientations with intent to fool the multitude or just straight out wear their sexualities on their sleeves.

I’m here for the possibilities.

Outside this room, anywhere in the real world that waits outside, I slip, stammer, eat my words or leave myself with my tongue in cheek. In the real world, conversations fall apart at a single mistake. My mind is not as efficient as a PC. Editing is not done in real time in my head.

Not in this place. I have full control with my words. I get to see them before they come out. Edits can make me sound smart and witty, my complete opposite.

Today, the going is slow. It’s like fishing. You work your line, making sure the bait is in place. You can’t expect a bite the moment you cast your line. You wait. And while you wait you look at what’s around: the water, the morning breeze, the pale rays of the morning sun breaking into the sky. Today, there are no bites, a few false alarms. Sundays probably aren’t the best days to find some interesting people here, and there will be other days or nights where this may turn out differently from today.

I make a quick exit. Today is not my day.

The possibilities that I was looking for just wasn’t there.

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Childhood Snacks Challenge

Name as many childhood snacks as you can. There are three main categories: candy, chips and cookies. Go!

Candy:

Tarzan bubble gum. Bazooka Joe. Gum with Voltes V or Daimos Stickers (made by Soonly Food Products, I remember that clearly). White Rabbit Caramel (the brown ones). White Rabbit Chewy (the white ones where you eat even the inner wrapper). Storck. Halls Honey Lemon. Fruit-Tella. the chocolate Fruit-tella (forgot what it’s called). Tootsie-Rolls (thick, short and candy version).

Big Boy. Juicy Fruit. Doublemint. Chiclets. ButterBall. Cola Candy. Snow Bear. Chupa Chups. Nerds. Fizz Wizz. Everlasting Gobstoppers. Runts. Peryahan cotton candy. Stick-shaped candies in cigarette boxes. Confectioner’s sugar stored in little plastic containers complete with mini-straws. Little candies size of a small small pebble put in a straw, capped on one end by a bent staple wire and a toy on the other end. Haw Flakes.

Nips (make a rainbow…). Curly Tops. Flat Tops. Footballs. Serg’s Bars. Goya Choco Orange bars. Big Bang (i miss them). Small Goya chocolate ‘bar-lets’ with red Goya stamps and shiny silver wrapping. Gold Coins. Texas chewing gum (oh how I remember my late grandmother keeping us out of her sari-sari store in the province from emptying her glass bottles of Texas…).
Chips:

Cheezels. Chickadees (all those freebies…). Sunshine Green Peas. Pee Wee. Cheez-It (fingertips go yellow…). Tortillos (round). Kornets. Tortillas (triangles). Humpy Dumpy (stinks but yum!). Lechon Manok. Nagaraya cracker nuts. Growers small packs. Chippy. Chiz Curls. NACHO! (all those dark and spicy and salty chips are my favorite!). Clover bits (solid barbecue flavor). Clover Chips (cheese is the best flavor of clover).

Cookies:

Hi-Ro. Chocolate Chips. Ginger Snaps. Butter Cookies. Jolly. Presto Creams. Chocolate Pretzels. Sugared Pretzels. Knick Knacks. Choco Mallows. Crunchies. Cookies in wakes that come in big cans. MARIE! FITA! Sky Flakes. Rebisco sandwiches. Hansel.

Wow. Makes me realize how much of a local snack demon that I was when I was a kid.

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Paranoid Freak

I think one of my contact lenses is trapped behind my eyes. I forgot to take them off last night in my drunken stupor and slept with the lenses on. I don’t remember the lens for the right eye fall off while washing my face or when waking up to the sound of neighbors singing “My Way” early in the morning. I took the left one off without ease and I was trying to remove the right one when I realize there wasn’t anything to take off, noticing blurred vision in my right eye even before taking off the left one, and the irritation of rubbing my finger on the surface of my right eye.

Let’s just hope I’m being paranoid. I’d rather go to bed tonight thinking I’ve lost a contact lens rather than it being in some corner of my eye that I have no way of knowing.

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My Cyborg Name is…

Uber Geek!