I often wonder about people who wander about, especially during midday. I wonder why they aren't at the office, or at school. Don't they have things to do? Before, between classes during my little film workshop, I'd wonder about all these people reading books on park benches in Union Square, or lying in the grass, getting some sun in Central Park. I figured they were all students, or actors between gigs, and they had time, between classes or auditions to literally just sit around.

Now that I'm here though, I wonder about all these people walking, standing around in the mall. Are they on errands? Are they on their way to meet other people? Are they between doing important, matters of consequence stuff, or do they just have a lot of time on their hands? I find myself wondering about this a lot because I wonder what they think about me, loitering about, between meetings, between shoots, on my way to get lunch, with my backpack and my book.

All images by Tod Papageorge, from his book, Passing Through Eden.

The Man From Manila

Francis M, 1964 to 2009.

ABC CBN
Philippine Star

getting out

I finally got to get out today. Around noon, I delivered to a friend nearby some of the t-shirts she wanted. Then I went on my way to get a Chinese lunch and a much-needed haircut. I was in light traffic, waiting in line to make a turn. I was really feeling better. When I get sick, I can get really down. And the past days of spiking fever, painful nodes, and soft food, - it was just going really bad for me.

It was good to finally get out, to be driving myself - despite what seems to be bruised bone somewhere in my left foot. I don't know how I injured it. I must've kicked something in my feverish sleep, and now I'm limping.

But, uncharacteristically, I was okay with that. Just another thing going on in the slow breakdown of my body. Another sign of the inevitability of an end. But also another reason to seize the moment. Yup, that's how I took it. No use getting down. I was just really glad to get out, to get back in my groove, see my friends, get back to work, albeit with a pill box full of antibiotics and vitamins.

Yeah, so back to being in my car, and in line to make a turn. I was feeling good, knowing there was life to enjoy and that I could tap into its infinite potential. It was such a moment, even my iPod was cooperating. It played the intro to an Ang Bandang Shirley song. I was doing my little hipster jiggling sway in the car (heavy tint helps), singing along:

Maari ba kitang masayaw
o di kaya kahit
upo lang muna tayo
habang inaantay
yung ating magiging...

Then my foot slipped the clutch, I was in gear, and I stalled the car.

monopoly

A month ago, like everybody else who was on some sort of Internet social networking site, I was making up a list of 25 Random Things About Me.

I had fun making that list, tagging friends, having friends comment on it, and commenting on theirs. Except that a few days after making it, I realized that I had forgotten one thing about me that should've made the list. Not that it was any more important that what I had written down, it was just less embarrassing than my #19 (Rick Price's Heaven Knows being my first CD ever.).

It should have been this: I love playing Monopoly, and I take the game very seriously. I try to think up strategies and theories on to how to win the game. I try to apply risk assessment principles, basic cash flow management ideas, and even chaos theory (i.e. my thought bubble: "If I offer to trade Flat Iron for his Reading Railroad, I wonder if that will jolt Battleship into selling Top Hat his Illinois Avenue, so that Top Hat and Race Car can take each other out, and I can have monopoly of the orange properties....Hmm.")

My all-time low, though, came at a game with Gino and two of his buddies. We ordered in for KFC, and before the food arrived, I wanted to make a three-way deal. I don't quite remember how it all went down, but I think that I got Pot to agree to sell Chin a property at a discounted price, in exchange for what I was going to trade for with Chin, and to make everyone happy, I was paying for their share of KFC. Something like that, they agreed, I got what I needed. And that was the trade that shifted the momentum of the game to my favor. Except that I realized that I paid real money to win in a game about keeping it.

I just remembered that this should have made my list of 25 random stuff about me because I've been playing it on my computer for the past days, and I still get pissed when the computer out-monopolies me.

HT: swissmiss

I needed that.

Finally got to see a doctor, and I'm finally on antibiotics. I'm hoping I can get up and going soon. I feel I've missed out on a lot. First off, there were those shoots I had to back out of. Then a couple of gigs here, some movies there. Then I stay in bed for some days and Marbury is suddenly a Celtic. Which is great because I'm not a fan of the Celtics. I hope Marbury will be a cancer that will eat them up from the inside.

I was most afraid of missing the Geothe/IFA-organized exhibit German photographers at the Yuchengco Museum. Good to know that that will be up until April.

Thanks to Tammy's FB note for that.