Author Archives: admin

Out in the wild

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Back again. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I had the faulty Kullen drawer exchanged at Ikea but Kullen became sold out so I had picked the cheaper Lennart drawers and some random stuff for the kids so that the amount would be equal to the cost of the item to be exchanged. So tomorrow night I will building more drawers.

Then our Manila reporter, Kr, and I agreed to meet at Starbucks in BGC to work after her press conference. It was nice to work outside and see daylight while editing although it rained heavily. It was quite cooler today that I felt I should have brought a light sweater with me. Just when I thought that summer is already here, the weather decided that to go in another direction.

Kr and I haven’t seen each other in two years so it was quite a relief to work with a live human being across the table and talk shop face to face. I was so productive this afternoon that I was able to edit three stories in an hour. Then I sketched to while away the time.

Art and photo by CallMe Creation.com

I didn’t realize that my pocket watercolor pan (Classic) didn’t have black. The other pocket watercolor (Artisan) has that. Which is an excuse to buy me that one. Tee hee!

After BGC, I dropped off Kr in Estancia in Capitol Commons because she will meet with a friend for dinner. Then I battled my way into an almost-pre-pandemic traffic jam going to QC. I was a bit exhausted driving, maybe because I didn’t have enough sleep (as usual). I took my meds pretty late last night so it took a while for them to kick in and was able to drift off past 3 am. Got woken up again after 3 hours.

I wonder what kind of devil is waking me up every three hours?!

I told Kr I should try working outside more these days now that I discovered that my mind is more alert and productive when I’m outside. I need adult conversations too! I missed BGC and Makati CBD–my usual haunts on weekdays. I missed picking the brains of execs face-to-face. I should invite one of my sources for lunch in BGC one of these days as I still have a gift cheque for a buffet lunch for two at Shangri-la. We usually talked politics on WhatsApp and some scoops.

I missed dressing up, putting on make-up and jewelry regularly. Makes me feel empowered. As I told other reporters before, if I get rejected by execs or get thrown out of conferences, at least I’m not ugly and a failure both at the same time (LOL!).

My feet hurt though because I chose to wear a new pair of clip-cloppy shoes with heels today. Note to self: DO NOT break in new shoes when you’re going to walk around BGC or Makati.

Torture shoes from Call It Spring that I bought last Sunday. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

Hmmm. Now my goal is to work once a week outside, probably Tues or Wednesday, and meet with sources before Edsa becomes a huge parking lot again. Staying indoors for 2 years really messed me up.

Building, fixing

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Twin A painting in the background while I build this shoe cabinet. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I’ve always built stuff if I have a manual for it. I didn’t have to rely on any man for manual labor if I can help it. Maybe at the back of my mind I knew I would be living alone in the foreseeable future? I don’t know. I’ve always been self-reliant.

Et voila! Neater shoe storage and better sleeping area for the cats. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

And I built one of the drawers for the girls but I need to return it tomorrow since it had a faulty hole for one of their proprietary screws.

This is Kullen. I am doubting its longevity. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

After I return this tomorrow morning at Ikea, I will just work in some coffee shop in BGC and meet with our Manila reporter since she has a presscon tomorrow at Shangri-la Fort. Face-to-face meetings are coming back, methinks.

Thus ends my working in isolation. I would have to dress up again. Yey. I kinda miss that.

As I was saying, I try building or learning to build by myself because I can’t rely on other people doing things for me. If it’s way over my head, then I will gladly pay for it like plumbing and electrical jobs. But I if I can learn it, I will always try to do it myself.

Like fixing computers. I learned how to set up a home network, from laying cables to setting up modem and routers/repeaters. Later on, I am the one being called back home to set up my mom’s internet connection and fix her laggy laptop (clean it, reinstall the OS, or add RAM, which I did the last time). My sister-in-law (my brother’s wife) calls me Ms. Butingting (tinker) because I was always tinkering with something, even if I end up destroying the one I am tinkering with. That’s how I learned. Now I can add RAM or swap an HDD to an SSD. I learned how to install or reinstall operating systems. So far I haven’t bricked some motherboard because of an attempted BIOS update (because I haven’t; too scared because an internet connection hiccup may ruin it). I learned how to dual boot my computers (Windows/Linux) and worked around UEFI setups. I learned Linux by myself.

Simple home repairs I can deal with. Workarounds and manual labor are ok with me; I don’t have to act like a damsel in distress, unlike some stupid female out there who acts like she’s dying if no guy can help her. I have little patience for women who knew nothing but open their legs and have something between them. Use your brain, girl! When it comes to car repairs, I had to learn how to deal with them. Even when I had a husband, I never relied on him to do my car repairs for me. Besides, he won’t do it for me anyway.

There’s some kind of freedom knowing how to do things on your own. I don’t have to rely on any man to do things for me. I can figure it out on my own. If can’t physically do it, then I hire somebody to do it. No big deal. I can’t be like my mom when my father died; she was so lost when it comes to home repairs and dealing with tradespeople. She was kinda helpless…she always said it was my dad who had to deal with leaky faucets and broken doors.

That’s why when I was on my own, the first thing I bought for my apartment were home improvement tools. Now I’m completing my power tools as I am about to order my jigsaw tool. Circular cutters occupy too much space.

One day I will have a shed in my garden that can be my workshop. Like this girl:

Sorry, can’t help myself

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More saturated colors for on-the-go sketchers. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I didn’t wait to order this online. I just bought it off the shelf. I found that the 18-color tray was too big to put into my shrinking bag (my bag has shrunk since the pandemic began) so I bought this pocket watercolor tray. Because I’m serious about starting my urban sketching hobby. It’s art therapy. Now all I need is a waterbrush pen and I’m all set. I already started sketching while we were waiting to be seated at Ramen Nagi at SM Mall of Asia in Pasay.

The couple infront of us in the queue while we waited to be seated at Ramen Nagi. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

The girls and I went to SM Mall of Asia because we needed to buy drawers because their tables are already collapsing due to the weight of their stuff inside their tables’ drawers. In the first place those tables were cheap as they are MDF and are not built to last. I didn’t invest in hardwood tables because I knew they would outgrow those. I just needed them to stay upright until we move next year. By then I would have had ordered a custom-made study/computer table together with their loft beds. So the remedy is to buy the drawers that they could use under their loft beds when we finally have our flat.

Ikea! Photo by CallMeCreation.com

And we ended up in Ikea. I also bought a shoe cabinet and lots of frames. Twin A asked for the bunny watercolor painting to be framed. I don’t know where she will hang it but, ok. Ikea frames are cheap anyway.

Can’t also help myself buying fake plants and other home stuff. I need to surround myself with things that make me happy. Things that remind me that life is not always that bad. Real and fake flowers are some of those.

Cheap happiness. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

Vase = PHP 60 each, Ikea. Fake carnation = PHP 30 per piece, Ikea. Bouquet of peach flowers = PHP 90 (Shopee). I’ll just find a strategic place I can put them so the cats won’t knock them over. My cats had once destroyed my oven toaster because they were goofing around.

Speaking of cats, Kimchi was again dressed up by my children.

She chose to station herself in one of our boxes. Have box, cat automatically fits herself in it. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

She ran away to hide in my room and basically commandeered my table the entire day until we went out.

Cute. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I’m already doing fine. I’m peaceful now. I am surrounded by the things I love. Life has become more placid now that I was able to process the events earlier this month and now I can move forward. I’ll try to work outside now to hop off my usual routine and I’ll see if this will improve my disposition. I can’t always hide from the world. And if I run into him with his girlfriend, so be it.

Company over

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The girls started having friends over again after two years of being by themselves. For dinner we had Korean BBQ because that’s the easiest to serve when you have company.

Photo by CallMeCreation.com

Hopefully, the kids will finally have face-to-face classes this coming school year. A lot of kids are having a hard time coping. My college-age nephew is one of them.

Because I didn’t take any sleeping aid last night (just to try), I was wide awake until 5 am today 🤦🏻‍♀️ and I wasn’t able to take a nap so I’m like… Whatever.

Flowers. I’ve always liked them. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

After 4 hours of sleep, I finally gave up and started attending to my container garden at 9 am. It keeps me grounded, it is meditative, and it gives me things to look forward to everyday. While I’m trying to fix my body clock (I can’t bike if I lack sleep or else might get into an accident), domestic and quiet pursuits like gardening would have to suffice.

I fear I’m becoming Emily Dickinson…Becoming more of a recluse as time goes by and whose existence is only proven by correspondences. She has lived the last decades of her life puttering around her home, never married, and shunned social interaction to the point that she spoke to visitors through the door.

Or I’m becoming like Sandra Bullock in the movie The Net. Come to think of it, I am living that movie. My colleagues for the most part have not met me personally or those who have known me have only seen me a few times in a year. I go in and out of our offices in different parts of the world without so much of a whisper. I do everything online, even ordering groceries and my medical consultations. I rarely have cash in my wallet nowadays, everything is paid by credit card or via QR codes/e-wallets.

Friends from 20-plus years ago find it strange that I’m so domesticated that they could no longer associate the hard-drinking, hard-smoking party girl of yore. I drove a truck then and my friends and I would park it somewhere and we would be drinking at the back of the truck. There was a time that I was so hammered that I drove home in first gear and a friend on the passenger seat was guiding me because I was already blacking out. 😂

Oh the folly of youth. You always feel like you’re immortal.

I was in this phase when I met the girls’ dad. The ex-husband didn’t think well of me before. I even wondered why he even bothered. It was really all a mistake, right from the very start. I stuck with the relationship to prove something probably. Pressure from my father probably. Pressure from my mother probably. Some friends from the industry asked why did it feel like as the date of my wedding grew closer, I looked like a bride who is about to face the firing squad?

I no longer bothered analyzing things. It’s done. It’s over. 17 years wasted. As Twin I said, it wasn’t all that bad; you had us. Yes, that’s the best part of that.

So it’s like I’m living a new life. I’m now the hybrid of my sensitive teenage me and the adrenalin-junkie 20s me. Let’s see what’s in store for the hybrid me.

Friyay!

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Kimchi sleeping on my iPad. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I’m quite satisfied that I had been somewhat more productive this week despite my sleeping problem that I have yet to solve. I still keep waking up at 3 or 4 am. But so far I’m getting the hang of it now. The company I wrote about yesterday didn’t have issues about the article that came out today despite my earlier report about their stuff without their blessing. I hate it when companies file complaints when nothing was really wrong–it just so happened that I was able to dig information about them and I get to write about them without their spin. Anyway, that’s life for me. You can’t last in this business without having nerves of steel.

Speaking of cats, my neighbor had called a home service vet to spay the stray orange mommy cat and she’s recovering inside our cage stationed by my neighbor’s side/back door. I just have scheduled a neutering surgery for the white stray cat on the 24th but PAWS has yet to email me if my schedule is confirmed.

Painting everything, including my nails. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

My hands were restless last night while I was attending our townhall meeting for the global editorial staff so I had my nails painted. Applying nail polish on myself without errors is an exercise to master holding and painting with an unwieldy brush. By the time I was done with my fingers and toenails, the meeting had ended.

Twin I complained about her cheap wireless mouse no longer working so I finally had an excuse to pass down this very reliable Logitech keyboard and mouse set to her and ordered my own Logitech mechanical wireless keyboard and mouse combo. It was more expensive than I was aiming for. I was initially thinking of buying the Royal Kludge mechanical wireless keyboard that I had been eyeing for a few months now but I saw the very colorful and retro Logitech one...I’m shallow like that. But hey, Logitech has been tested and my old set is working perfectly fine and the battery life lasts two or three years.

Lying down, staring at the lights and the ceiling. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I’m finally more relaxed this Friday compared to two weeks ago when I had to parse in my head the chaos that happened. I’m listening now to piano music while I lay sprawled on my bed. I’m thankful that I have settled down a bit and anxiety is slowly ebbing away. A lot of self-love and good support system are needed to be able to get up from every stumble like that. I thank my friends for being my crutches when I go through moments like that. K had been checking me every now and then and has been concerned about my lack of sleep. B has been reminding me that I am an ok human being and it is him who is problematic.

I am thankful that I no longer had this weight to carry with me around. He keeps chasing things but it seems like he doesn’t know what he wants. He is never really happy and I constantly worried about making him happy and satisfied when we were still together. But he never for once thought about my own happiness, about what I liked, what I wanted. It’s hard. Until he figures out whatever that he is supposed to be chasing, he will keep bouncing around. I couldn’t keep up with that, I finally realized.

With every stumble I had, I keep realizing things that I lost. The first time I grieved his physical loss. The second time is I grieved over the person I thought he was. The third—and hopefully the last time—is I grieved over the realization that I wasn’t really loved. I had to let go of that illusion now that I have digested all these–everything.

Giving my unconditional love, opening up my home and my life, and building up a family for him so he would no longer be alone was too costly—it was at the expense of my entire well-being. I am now going through therapy and God knows when I will be all right. Fourteen months is a long time. Although I can look at it this way: it gives me a better perspective on what I should be pursuing instead and found my true self in the process. I lost her somewhere along the way. I was so busy adulting and pleasing other people that I neglected myself.

As part of my art therapy, I will try urban sketching. I will be going out to work in a coffee shop and from time to time I will try to sketch my environment. Like the urban sketchers I follow on Instagram.

I feel excited whenever I start a new drawing.

I’ll probably start next week so I can finally finish three pending articles I have on my to do list.

I should buy lots and lots of sketch notebooks. I’ve been looking at them online…hehehehe.

Metaverse/s

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I attended a press conference this morning about the metaverse/s hosted by one of the big global banks. Simply put, it’s one of the sectors we should be looking at right now. It has gone beyond gaming and NFTs. It’s beyond immersive experience and simple AR/VR. It has crept into commerce, industrials, and fitness. Soon it will be in healthcare and other mainstream industries.

My notes during the webinar/press conference. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

As a journalist, I always try to investigate on my own the things I am writing about. Just like in financial services, fintech, and e-commerce I’ve tried all the services and technology that are available to me so I could nitpick and see how it ticks and tocks. When I started covering the local stock market 15 years ago, I started investing in stocks so I could fully understand the mentality of an investor and see and write about companies how an investor would look at them. I went to visit power plants and control bases of power grids to see how power is dispatched and attended a looooooot of conferences so I know what I was writing about like an old grid choking or a power plant tripping.

So I have a pending story about a private equity firm that banks on heavily on the metaverse, through content and infrastructure. I haven’t written it yet because I needed to totally understand (even though I have already skimmed the surface) what makes it tick and how blockchain figures into the whole metaverse. With this press conference, I can finally complete that story.

Since the future of hyperscalers like Meta, Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and to some extent, Sony, are in this metaverse, I might as well get immersed into their world–into the world where it sprouted: gaming.

I have played games in the past but I wasn’t that so much into it that I got immersed. In elementary I played, like everyone else, Nintendo games like Legend of Zelda and Mario. Then in college I played PC games. My college friend (the friend who just reconnected with me a few days ago) gave me a copy of Pokemon when we were in our final year and I played it until the wee hours because I had too much time on my hands. I had only 11 units enrolled at that time because I was just finishing my thesis and I have already frontloaded some of my courses in the prior years. I had a boyfriend who introduced me to Final Fantasy and Worms. I stuck with Worms because I could play it on a PC at home but Final Fantasy has to be played on a PS, which I didn’t have. Besides, Worms is sooooo cute but it’s a strategy game, which I liked. When I was already working, I had a PSP loaded with games that worsened my carpal tunnel syndrome like God of War and Prince of Persia. I sold it to my brother because I couldn’t get things done.

The problem now is I have access to too many games (hello, Steam!) that I may not be able to get things done again. So I think I should just stick first to reading stuff on Reddit and Discord to understand the inner workings of the metaverse. These bankers who were talking about it this morning seemed like they have inhabited this realm.

I just finished a long article (I think at least 1,000 words) this afternoon and it was like pulling out my teeth. I should get back into the habit of writing three stories a day, like when i was with local media. I used to be a fast writer. I really lost my groove last year due to obvious reasons but I should be able to pick up the pace now that I declare this is the last time I will fall down on my knees because of him. He didn’t even care about me even when we were still together, so why should I let myself be still affected by him until now? He doesn’t even give a flying fuck about me.

B messaged me that she’s in Boracay right now. I told her K will be there next week. She said, “Oh dear, K is always here!” I replied, “He’s immensely enjoying himself there with all his sexcapades that’s why he keeps coming back.” B then said, “Why don’t you join him in Boracay next week?” She said she might visit. I said that I will just be a hindrance to his grand plans when all I want to do is to do is kite boarding. B said, “you don’t want to have sex?!”

“Uh no. I should be healing first.”

“Why don’t you heal and have sex?” B asked.

“Because I’m not like that. It has meaning to me,” I said.

I guess they don’t understand.

Even in my younger years I’ve never been like that. It’s the conservative side of me. It’s the sensitive artist/writer in me. I’ve never been reckless. I only slept with four people in my entire life. Four. And that’s the end of it. That’s why it hurts when my partner screws around.

“No, you guys go. I’m happy where I am right now,” I told B.

I’d rather be celibate like my cats.