oompfftt!

Yesterday was a shitty day -- literally. I woke up to the sound of my belly doing a Royal Rumble. Something was in a hurry to fall, and it's not my colegiala neighbor's underwear. I climbed out of bed sweating, swearing, thinking, What in god's name brought this? The calamansi juice I gulped before sleeping? Contaminated tap water? A congressman's face on TV? Regardless, I was dashing in and out of the john the whole morning until Imodium (god bless the fucker!) took care of the problem. Funny how things you take for granted on normal days can save your neck on bad ones.

In between frantic trips to the toilet I wrote the first draft of my intended entry to the Philippine Star-National Bookstore "My Favorite Book" contest. Joining writing contests is one of my addiction these days. So far I've joined two: Philippine Star's Lifestyle Journalism Writing Contest, where I lost, dammit, and Fully Booked's Neil Gaiman Fiction Writing Contest, the result of which will be known on July 15. Anyway, for "My Favorite Book" I picked Kerouac's Desolation Angels. This is more than just my favorite book; it's actually my Bible. (Hunter S. Thompson's The Rum Diary is another, but I'm afraid I can't write a decent article on it without going ballistic on my previous employer, a certain nobody named Klink Ang. Hence, Desolation Angels.)