The extreme mind bending I did the past two days rendered me useless today. I just turned into a vegetable and had a brain rot, just watching videos on my tablet or phone all day. I just wanted to be brainless.

I couldn’t tell you how much I’m carrying on my shoulders right now. I was losing my patience—and I have lots of it—with a reporter that I’m trying to save. I highly suspect that the reporter has an undiagnosed ADHD and I told our boss several times. A long-time friend with whom I had a falling out was recently diagnosed with ADHD and she told me via FB Messenger. I haven’t responded to that chat yet because I was still hurting from her treatment of me—she was callous and dismissive of me or whatever I said. She just didn’t have anything else besides herself and whatever other people say don’t register. She attributed it all to her ADHD.

Anyway, this reporter is in hot water right now because it takes too much the of editors’ energy to keep them out of trouble (forgetting compliance SOPs and being careful with details). This person already got our company into trouble last year, which caused my burnout and my desire to quit. Our regional head already lost patience last Wednesday and said this is not sustainable. So on Thursday I wrote a story that this reporter should have led but insteae I took into my hands the responsibility for this because I cannot risk mistakes. I worked until late Thursday night just to keep things in order and publish.

Yesterday I edited this reporter’s story, which took the entire afternoon until evening. I had to treat this person like a child and ask questions like I would a child like point 1, 2, 3, 4. I had to do it several times (“No no no, you are not answering my question! It only requires a yes or no. Did they or still not have a partner, yes or no?”) until I get satisfactory answers.

It was is exhausting.

Add to that the stubborness of other reporters who do not follow the strict standards we impose when we publish stories. I was editing until 9 pm last night.

I am just emotionally drained as well.

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… so tired.

I’m so tired of take out food and fried food. I’m without a fridge for a month now and that fffffvcking local Panasonic service center is the worst I’ve encountered. It took them a month to say that there’s an internal leak and they had to bring my unit to Manila. I can’t move on to buy a new LG fridge because that ffffffvcking unit is just under 4 years old.

Some of my frozen goods from my last grocery shopping when I still had a freezer are in my mom’s house and I’m slowly eating them down. I took the last of the thin pork strips from my mom’s fridge yesterday and made a sort of bibimbap for my girls with what meager resources I have. I was able to make a good gojuchang sauce to go with it.

I will call Panasonic in Manila again to complain. Again.

Meanwhile, I’ve been slaving away in the past two days to be able to reach my story quota. I’m still three stories short. After two weeks of courting a local company for an interview, I got rejected. I half-expected that because the owner is very conservative and do not want investors or an IPO. 😔 Some companies’ staff are unprofessional, like they don’t respond to emails, not only here in the Philippines—this is Southeast Asia-wide. An SGX-listed company that I’ve called several times is annoying. If they don’t want to reply to a media query, then they could just say so, like this other SGX-listed firm that I chased in January.

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I’m soooo done.

I was working until 10 pm, emailing people, calling India at 16:30, their local time.

I still have to call Singapore at 8 am tomorrow.

I’m so stressed. I’m doing my best to keep one reporter from being fired. I kept another one from going berserk because a company used our talking points for an interview with a competitor who had just the good luck to have their interview scheduled a day or two ahead of us. I had to quickly think of new angles and topics in a matter of minutes while our reporter was on his way to the interview.

Managing people is a lot of hard work. I’d rather chase stories.

There is so much going on in the world today but somehow I know things will be ok when I see green trees. Nature grounds me and reminds me of what is important.

And I did something so random this morning: I jammed with the busker at the community market. I sang half of Tadhana by Up Dharma Down and full of Time After Time by Cyndi Lauper (EBTG/Tuck & Patti version).

Why? I don’t know. I feel like I’m getting dry. My soul is getting dry. I need art, need an outlet for creativity.

I saw B at the market today. He and I go way back, he helped train me in theater in high school and we were in the same theater group in college. We just had a long conversation about the lack of community for creatives and the kind of workshops we used to have 20-30 years ago to hone a new generation of talents. I told him I’m searching for theater workshops for my twins and sadly, there is a dearth of creatives who offer that in our area these days. He said he is in touch with the director of Cultural Center of the Philippines, whom I’ve known personally because he was my mom’s blockmate in college. B said he will let me know if CCP has a youth program where I can enroll my kids this summer break.

But he told me, the probable reason why we can no longer find a community and workshops for the new generation of creatives is that because we are in a desert now. We are drained. And it’s probably the time for us, our generation to start it again.

Ugh, it’s a tall order.

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Speaking of EBTG, I searched on Spotify for my favorite EBTG album, which is Acoustic. Just like that, the name of the album is just Acoustic 😁. I had loved them in the 1990s and when I had my first job, I would go home from work and I would play the entire album over and over while I was lying on my bed with scented candles lit. I would play One Place several times before turning in for the night.

One Place

A summer evening; I walk past the window,
Baby’s crying; Someone’s cooking dinner;
There’s laughter on the TV
Someone’s learning the violin.
How at home, it heals
At times like this, I feel that…

I could like to live like anybody else
In one place
And I could be happy and fulfilled
In one place

So I get the map out
And draw a line of where we’ve been
It goes through sea and sky
Twenty-five planes this year
And it’s only July…
This is not some Bible, like on the road
It’s just a song about coming home
And whether…

I would like to live like anybody else
In one place
And I could be happy and fulfilled
In one place

And you know that I have found
That I’m happiest weaving from town to town
And you know Bruce said
We should keep moving ’round
Maybe we all get too tied down, I don’t know
Hell, I don’t know
I’m happy to be home (Still alive)
Happy to be home…

In the end, if you take care
You can be happy or unhappy anywhere

And I think we maybe all rely too much
On one place
I know I never would deny the need
For one place

So I get the map out (get the map out)
Yeah I get the map out (get the map out)
C’mon, get the map out (get the map out)
Get the map out (get the map out)

This song captured my internal conflict at that time: the need to be stable and rooted in one place at the same time I desired to be on the go, to travel and be bouncing from one place to another. To be a journalist and/or write for National Geographic.

At that time I also felt Tracey Thorn’s wistfulness to be just in one place, stop touring (“25 planes this year/and it’s only July…”) and raise a family (listen to their song Apron Strings). So I wasn’t surprised that they stopped by year 2000 and disbanded EBTG and Tracey said she’s not going to sing live anymore.

I’m happy for her when I read that she and Ben Watt chose to have kids after had hung their guitars. Now 25 years later, they decided to have limited shows in UK after releasing their first album in 24 years in 2023 or 2024. They already have grown kids already so it’s about time they come back.

They already have their One Place, just as I have also built my One Place—a place to plant my roots—in the same place where I started wondering about whether I should tie myself down or fly.

Driving to Metro Manila today was not bad since I was able to reach my destination before 8 am. Well, almost since I spent more minutes going around Valero because of parking issues. It only took me 1.5 hrs on a Friday morning—not bad.

I was debating whether I should write my story in Makati and be caught in traffic or leave early. I ate ramen first so I can think.

I was getting sleepy so I decided I will write the story at home and sleep early.

Nope. The universe had other plans. My car wouldn’t start. I already had an inkling for quite some time that my starter is fucked because I have a hard time starting my car in the mornings. I have already changed the battery in December so it is relatively new and shouldn’t be the cause for the hard start. But this time in Greenbelt my car was just clicking and not starting the engine even if the battery is fine. Long story short, I pulled out my jumper cables and the nice driver of the SUV  several rows over jumped-started my car.

I made sure I got home in one piece, withdrew some cash and went straight to an alternator/auto electrical shop.

It’s my starter, not the alternator, which is busted. The alternator is fine and is charging my battery. It’s the starter that is problematic. It needed rewinding and one bolt was already shot.

Well, my car is already 20 years old so this is just part of the normal wear and tear.

I remember emailing our Manila reporter, Kr, last night about a conference that we were not invited to but should cover. Then I read Kr’s email at 10 am today telling me that some reporters are going to crash the event and just do some ambush interviews.

I had to quickly shower and get dressed to catch some of the panel discussions in the conference. I arrived at 12:30 pm, exactly an hour before the first panel came on stage. What did I get? Well some nuggets of intelligence from one CEO I interviewed, something I could tuck in my pocket for future reference. And a possible story.

Wash. Repeat tomorrow.

This quota thing is making us all insane.