Something happened at the framer's.

I was at a frame shop located in a somewhat seedy part of Makati last Saturday (I’m cheap, I tell you) and waiting for the manager to issue a receipt for our transaction, when I heard ghastly screaming outside the second-floor window. “What was that?!” I asked the manager. She glanced nonchalantly at the direction of the sound and shrugged, “A, wala 'yan” as if commotions of the sort were an everyday occurrence there. I walked back to the car where P was waiting and he said, “What took you so long? Akala ko maba-Babel na ako rito (referring to the movie where the character of Cate Blanchett [an American] was accidentally shot by a Moroccan boy and the whole fiasco was blown out of proportion back in the United States as a terrorist attack).”

According to P, while I was at the framer’s, a cop went running to a group of men, brandished his gun (Western-movie style), and collared someone. Since he was on foot and alone (go figure), he had to drag the man amidst the loud protestations of the man's family and friends. He then hailed a pedicab, kasi nga naglalakad, or what people here call a trisikad or padyak (because this conveyance is really a bicycle, fashioned as a tricycle). Anyway, he hailed a pedicab, threw his quarry in, and shouted to the driver, “Sige, dalhin dun!” which we could only surmise he meant as his office, the police station. The female relatives of the collared man were crying and told his group of tambay friends, “Sundan n’yo! Dali, sundan n’yo!” Someone produced a jeepney where everyone piled in (butcher, baker, candlestick-maker) and soon the bigger vehicle was behind the much-slower padyak, both traveling at maybe 5-10 km per hour.

One might probably laugh out loud at this comedy that is law enforcement in the Philippines, if the reality of the farce was not already too painful. 

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P’s artwork, titled Ang Paborito Kong Aso, mixed media on canvas:

Yo solo quiero caminar . . .

From the text of an invitation to a dance performance at the CCP, titled I Just Want to Go On:

"I want to go on because I refuse to be just meat in the hands of time."

:D

Weee.

Thanks to the camera's digital zoom, we got this close to Elliot Yamin in Glorietta. I had to peek at him in between the necks of people who seemed to have no problem having their personal spaces invaded . . . and vice versa. We stayed at the second floor of the mall because hazarding a spot at the ground floor activity area was suicide. Believe me I tried. If the mass of humanity pressing on me was not deterrent enough, the collective smell of people sweating in delirious anticipation proved to be my undoing.

After the show, the organizers permitted a meet and greet with the artist. I pushed and shoved like the best of them only to be told at the front that only a select few may approach the artist. My legendary charm (believe me I have gotten through a modest number of traffic-violation tickets simply by acting coy. Hey, it's not something to be proud of, but you get what I mean) failed to move the sentries. I silently fumed inside as I saw the privileged few paw and kiss Elliot and I murmured to the fetid air, "Damn you, Ayala Malls . . ."



But, thanks to a husband who is nothing short of Superman and who has a vast network of friends in the right places, I got myself a fourth-row-VIP ticket to his ATC show. Bwahahaha!



Boy was Elliot handsome . . .



and talented . . .

As I prepared to enter the meet-and-greet area with the much-coveted pass, I saw mothers, with their children, begging the guards to at least be allowed to have their CD sleeves signed. I saw teenagers in tears, throwing fits as their horrified parents looked helplessly on. I wanted to help them, I really did, but what could I do? I had one meet-and-greet pass.

Life's a bitch.