12.) Get antisocial when I get frustrated/disappointed/mad at myself. Feel better after making fun of ‘them.’

     My counselor was assigned to me after the guidance office discovered that I was getting more antisocial over the semesters in college. I was now a junior and loving it, according to the tests they gave me, but only if I was left alone. So one of the first things my counselor asked me to do was to make a list of the things that set me off, even just remotely, at the very first signs of anger. I didn’t quite get why he was making me do this, but he did say something about since I couldn’t afford to get a real psychiatrist, I should just be the one, at the end of the day to ask myself “Why?” Why did I get mad when this or that happened? I could feel a need to roll my eyes coming so I squeezed my eyes shut for a few seconds and wrote on the notebook again.

13.) Hate corny introspecting. Feel urge to roll eyes.

     Wow. Two in a day.
     I finished off what was left on the sizzling plate, asked for a refill of the coffee (after four moths of loyal patronage, one of the waitresses finally fixed an agreement with the cook to make me –but just me– coffee), my third, took out a novel that I was halfway through, and started looking for the place where I left off last night. I really didn’t believe in bookmarks. I always loose them, anyway, because when I read, I get so absorbed into the book that if I was crossing the street and I’m reading about a standoff, I’d definitely get killed first. If I do survive, I’d forget where I put my bookmark, so better that I just look for where I stopped the last time. I smiled at a thought. If I had time, I wouldn’t even be stopping at all. Aha! Before diving in, though, I took what I then thought was my last glance back at the skinny guy sitting only several feet away from me, across the room. His hair was a deep, dark brown. Almost black. Like waves of chocolate. My heart sank. I wonder how it would feel to run your fingers… I tried to shake off the thought by literally shaking my head, too. We got no time for that, you know that. Yeah. Let’s just get back to the reading, okay? I smiled sadly at myself. I wonder if I should tell the counselor that I talk to myself like this. I finally settled it and told myself, doesn’t matter now what happened today. This is going to be a GOOD day. This is going to end as a GOOD day. GOOD day… You are not going to stare at people in their party garb tonight. You are not going to scoff at the people making out in the street tonight, no matter how ugly you might think they are. You are not going to be kicking cars that passed by you too close for comfort. You are just going to read a few chapters now, pick up your stuff, go back to your flat, and drool barrels watching the movies. Remember: GOOD day… The smile became a tad brighter and then turned into a smirk.
     Well, would you look at that, the guy broke into the hotel room with just a strip of that Venetian blind! I had found my place in the book and I had started reading. I was once again lost hopelessly in my own little world of crime fiction, unaware, oblivious, heedless, unmindful, semi-conscious, and not a fucking care in the world.

*       *       *

     Last night I dreamt that while looking in the mirror, deciding to let my beard grow a bit more because I was starting to look too much like Justin Timberlake, I realized that I was Justin Timberlake! I woke up two minutes later and realized that I had thrown myself off the roof of the Playboy Mansion and fell on a queer rock formation below.
     I didn’t always have dreams like these, mind you. Oh, okay. They usually happen on weekends, the times when you don’t have work and there really isn’t much to do with your life… especially one life sans a girlfriend. The blur in my eyes suddenly wasn’t so blurry anymore as I tried to sit up. Well, that really put things into perspective… My sister thought it was plain crazy, just running away like that. She'd started asking those questions again. Are you now angry with me as well? Is that it? Are you sure I’m the one you’re supposed to be directing your anger towards? We’re getting a lot of misdirected anger here, Orleee… At that time, I remembered a scene from the de Niro movie, “Analyze That.” Billy Crystal kept telling de Niro’s character to “Hit the pillow! Hit the pillow!” And he did. With a gun. That had always cracked me up. But now, it was more of a message to myself. I keep remembering that scene every time I feel like I was going to blow up. Sam’s interrogations were one of the instances that always nearly set me off. But then again, come to think of it, after a week of all the tabloids still covering that Britney catastrophe, everything seemed to set me off! Lij said I needed someone who could professionally help me with my problem. I don’t really blame him. Jumping off one nauseatingly tall precipice after another every night must mean you’ve pretty much invested most of your time, money, emotions, and sanity into that cold-hearted, two-timing, cross-eyed bitch. My agent said it was totally out of the question, seeking a psychiatrist or even just a counselor. To put it in Jane’s own words, “If word got out that Orlando Bloom was seeing a head doctor… let’s just say that your movie deals will be reduced to hmm… nil, and then you will be left out in the open Arizona desert beside Mariah Carey to rot… and then die.” It was pretty convincing, how she put it, and scary. But she was right. Only in the show business would you pitifully rot before you actually cease to exist. I was starting to have problems already, even as early as now. Maybe I was already starting to rot; Atti won’t even come near me for fear that he might come out with some of my stench on his shirt, too. Geez, I kept telling them, it was only a little fight in a little restaurant! Every actor must have a public outburst sometime in his career! But of course, no one would help. Even Jane decided to issue a press release saying that I’d “just imbibed too much alcohol that night,” and that I was “deeply regretful of my actions, and would answer to whatever charges I would be facing.” Now, where in heaven’s glorious pastures have you even heard that kind of bullshit before? Your manager, your agent, actually throwing you to into the lions’ den? Hah. No wonder she came cheap.
     So, left swinging in the wind, no help from my family, no help from the agency, and with professional help as a thing to be seen as my very own Kryptonite, I decided to do the next best thing: I convinced Lij to come with me to look for the world’s best beach. Of course, the exaggeration was caused by the too much alcohol that I now imbibed regularly.
     “Think of it as therapy, Lij!” I’d thrown my hands up. “And you’d be killing two birds with one stone: You’d be able to help me get over this thing and get to surf all you want at the same time!”
     “Orli, the only thing I’d be killing here if I went along with this is you.”
     “What do you mean?”
     “What do I mean? What do you mean, “What do I mean?” I mean, in your condition right now, you really don’t need to be near any water! For all I know, if we do find the perfect beach, you become overcome with its beauty and with your twitty emotions and decide that you could die happy then and drown yourself. That’s what I mean! I don’t really want to go “The Beach” with you.”
     “Oh, do shut up, Leonardo. I only jump off high cliffs and tall buildings, remember? And do you really think that I’d fly all the way to the Philippines just to play jungle-boy with you?”
     “The Philippines?”
     “Yeah. Take a look at this.” I handed him a long, glossy brochure. “I took this from Jane’s desk. Have you ever heard of this island Boracay? They’ve got surfing spots, too…”
     “Un. Real.” I didn’t know Elijah’s eyes could get bigger that they already were, but they did. He the scooted over to where I was sitting. “Yo, dude, check this out! They got surfing places, too! And- and- and you could see the fucking fish in the water! Man, oh, wow…”
     “WOW Philippines.” That was the heading printed across the front of the brochure. It sure was a ‘wow.’ I grinned inwardly at Lij’s reaction. I knew I had him at ‘hello.’ Well, at ‘check this out.’ “So you’re coming with me?”
     “No.”
     My face fell. “What do you mean ‘No’?”
     “I mean, no! No! I won’t go- nah, I’m just teasing you.” An impish grin had slid up his face and stuck below his cheekbones, but it dropped as suddenly as it appeared as he jumped up from the couch and crouched at its end. He knew I was going to clobber him. Under normal circumstances, I really would’ve, but now, I was just relieved that he was coming with me that I only smiled at him.
     “Man, I’m not really sure what you have, but you sure have a serious case of it.” He looked around the room and when his eyes spotted the white wastebasket overflowing with and surrounded by different sizes and shapes of bottles, he turned back to me. “Aside from your alcoholism, I mean.”
     “Aw, Lij, don’t start…”
     “Hey, don’t ‘Aw, Lij’ me, you dumb fuck. I’m serious! I’ve been in this business for as long as I can remember and I know what I’m talking about when I tell you that she isn’t worth it. Nothing is worth it. No, let me rephrase that last part: “ He turned to me, put both his hands on my shoulders, and shook me with every word for emphasis. “She. Isn’t. Worth. Shit.” He let go of me and stared at the Two Towers teaser poster of Legolas hanging across the room. “So forget her, forget humiliation, forget revenge. She really isn’t worth it.”
     “Yeah. You’re right. Of course you’re right. That stupid cross-eyed bimbo…”
     “Theeere we go. Frankly, though, all you need is a new girlfriend.” He grinned at me but his tone was still serious. “Look: if we really are going on this trip, we are going there to have fun, alright? We’re not going so we could drown ourselves in liquor because it’s cheaper there. Alright? You got me?”
     “Yeah, I got you.”
     “Okay.” His voice became enthusiastic again and I saw him make his way out of my door. “Now call Billy or Dom up so people won’t think that this is a fag thing.” He then quickly ducked behind the door and shut it fast as an ashtray sailed toward him.
     “LIJ, YOU UNBELIEVABLE BUGGER!”

     Frankly, though, all you need is a girlfriend. Lij’s advice echoed through what felt like my hollow skull. Hollow, but with something floating in it. Something as wobbly as an egg yolk but as heavy as lead. My brains. Even my thoughts weren’t that coherent anymore. My brain has melted and is slowly making its way out through my nose and ears. I lifted my head slowly so as not to upset the wobbling lead yolk in my head too much and found Elijah looking at me questioningly.
     “What?” I wrinkled my eyebrows together.
     Lij lost the questioning look and switched to exasperated. “You haven’t been listening.”
     “Sure I was!” Hold the head steady… steady, mate… “You were talking about the boat ride to that island.”
     “Owbee, that was nearly an hour ago.”
     “Oh.”
     “Look. You are not cooperating. And this was your stupid idea!”
     “Hey.” I pointed a finger at him, but I forgot that that involved lifting my head off my arm, and a numb pain that was like a blow to the head reverberated through my skull. The lead yolk’s vibrating. Great. “Hey.”
     “Hey, what?” Two unrealistically blue eyes glared at me expectantly. “Orlando, you’re drunk again…”
     “I was… I was just saying… hey.” A pause to recollect my thoughts that have seemed to have dissipated with the rest of my brain. “I know this isn’t a stupid idea… because if it was… the filthy human wouldn’t fly over to catch up with us, okay?” Neither Dom or Billy said they could make it when Lij called them up, but I actually was a bit surprised when Viggo accepted and offered to just catch up with us as soon as he finished reading for a role in a new movie. I managed to give Lij my ‘best smile.’ Then I remembered that my ‘best smile,’ when I was drunk, according to my friends, looked like I had stolen a sack of pot, hid under my bed to smoke all of it, and died there, so I switched to my ‘forgettable, inconspicuous laugh.’ It was just one ‘ha’ to be truly forgettable and inconspicuous. Only I forgot that when I’m drunk, ‘forgettable and inconspicuous’ sounded like a cat coughing out a fur ball the size of a melon.
     “Okay, look, I’ve only seen you drunk twice, but I’m pretty sure you’re getting there already.” Poor Lij was getting queasy. Little crow’s feet formed at the sides of his surreally brilliant blue eyes, which seemed more crystal-bally with the alcohol. Oh, yes, I knew I was drunk. “Let’s just get you some coffee to sober you up a bit, okay, man? Then we’re going back to the condo and you are not going out anymore for the next two days, hear?”
     “I hear you, mum.” I grinned lazily at him. I wonder why he’s so concerned. Wonder if he’s ever been attracted to me, Lij. I wondered if I said that out loud.
     Apparently not, because now he was picking up the menu and scanning for coffee. “There isn’t any.” I closed my eyes, still grinning.
     “Any what?”
     “Coffee.”
     “There isn’t any coffee? Orli, man, when you’re drunk, you really do get wasted!” A flash of concern across his face. “This dump is called ‘Café Maison’ so there’s supposed to be fucking coff- you’re right.” He put the menu down and straightened up. “You were absolutely right. “
     “Appsolutely!” I wasn’t that drunk yet really, but I just loved seeing Lij squirm. I knew what he was thinking. He was thinking if he can’t sober me up in the next two minutes, we would be thrown out of the restaurant two minutes after that.
     “Now what kind of fucked-up place would claim to be a coffeehouse and not have any coffee?!”
     “Café Maisoooon…” I thought that if I grinned any more at him, he’d break my nose. “A toast to the wonders of deception!” I raised my longneck and then fell back on the booth and emptied the bottle in three gulps.
     “Hey, quit it. I thought we already talked about this. She doesn’t des- “ Lij’s voice suddenly lowered to a whisper. “Look: I don’t know about you, but I’m getting pretty sick of playing shrink-and-shoulder-to-cry-on here. Now you listen to me, Orlando. One more word about your pathetic little demise there and I am out that door, you hear me? I’m not joking!”
     I gulped down the beer that was left in my mouth and paused. I guess his warning didn’t quite seem to register in my brain right away because I was only halfway through “They could’ve just told me, you know. I mean, I’m a nice guy!” when Elijah jerked the table forward and said quietly but forcefully, “That’s it. You know, that’s it!” Then he strode out the door and left me there with one hand raised, calling after him, “Don’t you think I’m a nice guy?!”
     I put my hand down with a sigh and carefully propped my head on both my hands. Now what? I looked to my left and remembered this faint sound while Lij and I were talking just a while ago. I saw this girl, a rather pretty kid, really, muttering what seemed to me, although I knew nothing of their language, were a string of violent curses. She suddenly stopped and took a deep breath, sighed, and began slowly rubbing the bridge of her nose with her thumbs. Cute kid. I really didn’t want to upset the wobbling lead yolk in my head at that time, so I just kept on looking in the girl’s direction. Nice stems, really, if she didn’t look like a decade younger than me… She’d dropped a cd case in her food and was now wiping the sauce off with a handful of napkins. She looked tired and exasperated, ready to explode any time; her hands were trembling as she retrieved this small notebook from her bag (which strangely never left her back even though she was seated) and started jotting things down. Still talking to herself. Now she was smiling. Smirking was more like it, actually, but at what, I had no idea. She looked like she had something on everyone in the room. Cute. Malicious, but cute. I groaned inwardly as a dull wave slowly swept underneath my temples. Drinking to get rid of last night’s hangover! Who’d ever thought I’d see the day? See if it works, mate, and then call me! It was so bad now, the war ensuing in my head. It felt like a thousand pinballs just bouncing off the inside of my skull, and with that, the precarious and seemingly eternal wobble of the lead yolk.
     I needed coffee. I did. And badly. So bad, actually, that I could almost smell it… in that stupid coffee house that didn’t serve coffee– Wait. I did smell coffee! I turned my head sharply to the left and saw the girl having refill of coffee. Of coffee.
     “What the f–“ The head-turning caused the pin balls to bounce to the left part of my head and I had to lock my jaw for a few seconds to keep myself from scaring the people off with my moans. A few excruciating minutes later, I had partial control of the loose cannons in my head again. So I turned to talk to the girl. She was getting ready to leave, the cds were now gone, and she was stuffing a paperback into the backpack along with them. I noticed that the coffee cup was just half-empty.
     I called to her, “Hey, how come you’ve coffee?”

*       *       *

     I was, for a moment, frozen on that spot where I was standing. The skinny guy just talked to me. I think. Should I turn and see? Should you turn and see?! What are you talking about? You want to trade a lifetime supply of coffee in a coffee shop that doesn’t serve coffee for a small exchange with a skinny guy you don’t even know? Maybe. No! No. Now, this chap might not be here anymore tomorrow, but you will be, and your problems will be, and you need all the free coffee you can get. Now run. The speculation lasted for about two seconds, and two seconds later, I was running out the door.

*       *       *

     What was that about? I stared after the girl who just up and ran when I tried talking to her. Maybe she recognized me… nah. I don’t think she even looked at me. There was still a numb but painful wobbling in my skull and I desperately needed as much coffee as possible. I got up and started for the door when I couldn’t help but look back at the leftover coffee at the girl’s table. It was still steaming. Should I? No way, mate. No way you’re making me drink from someone else’s cup. But you’re drunk. Then find a Starbucks and drink or find a loo –fast– and throw up! Please, just one sip? No way, mate, too disgusting…
     “Ah, fuck it.” I said hoarsely below my breath, reached for the cup, finished it off in one swig… and spit it all out. I’m dying of lead contamination … It was worse than the hangover; the coffee was the most bitter that I’d ever tasted. “Ugh.” I wiped my mouth with the back of my palm and surveyed the damage: I’d sprayed coffee all over the table, the seats, what was left of the squid… and a notebook.

*       *       *

     My notebook! I was already halfway to my flat when I felt the sudden urge to jot something down. I had felt around for it in the backpack, but it wasn’t there. Oh, geez, don’t tell me I– I heaved a deep sigh and turned back.

*       *       *

     Ahhh… finally, decent coffee… I had just stepped out of their local Starbucks, just around the corner from Café Maison with “The Works,” what I called an orange mocha frappucino with double everything on it. I was starting to like this neighborhood. I’d just entered a Starbucks drunk but nobody seemed to notice. Nobody even recognized me! I still couldn’t decide, though, whether that was a good or a bad thing.
     I dog-eared the page on the notebook where I stopped reading and stuffed it in my jacket. There was no name on the notebook, but I was curious, so I tried reading it while waiting for my coffee. It was like a journal, only a bit technical sometimes. And there were drawings, not just your ordinary doodles, though. Oh, there were doodles, but there were sketches, too. I’d only seen one when I flipped the pages fast with my thumb and noticed a rough sketch of a boy facing away. Then at the bottom, there was a caricature of what seemed to be the girl stabbing the boy with a pencil. It cracked me up, so I decided to read more when I got back to the flat we rented out (Lij didn’t trust hotels for some reason).
     The flat, it also happened, was just around the corner at the other end of the block. Some block, too. There were so many restaurants, from fast food to fancy, lined up side by side it was a surprise that all of them were packed. I passed by two bars, a club, two condominiums, a car dealership, a liquor store, two video stores, three banks, and more Internet cafés than I ever cared to enter. Lij’s friend who lent the flat to us said that there you could go shopping for anything on the next block. It was like a utopia for runaways.
     Which was what I was feeling like right now. Maybe it was a bad idea, flying off to nowhere without telling anybody why. I’d told Jane that I needed a vacation to just clear my head and that I would make it up to her when I got back by reading for anything she wanted me to, even if it was a documentary on the old churches in Canterbury or something. But I didn’t explain why. She was glad when I told her that I was leaving, but she was probably thinking that I was just trying to get away from the spotlight for a while after that very poor behavior I displayed when Britney and I broke up. And maybe I was, but right then, I really didn’t think so. There was another nagging feeling from inside of me that I really couldn’t understand.
     Aw, bloody hell! It’s just the booze, Bloom! I laughed at myself and rubbed the back of my neck. I thought you came here to party and surf your ass off, but it’s as good as if you’ve never even left the country yet! You’re in a little strip, miles from home and miles from the nearest beach, and now you don’t think you even want to leave?! And aw, god, now you’re talking to yourself!
     “Drink more of that coffee or sleep on it or something; you’ll be up and optimized when you wake up tomorrow!” I said that one out loud with a chuckle, maybe because I didn’t know yet where I was going to be waking up the next day.

*       *       *

     I was tired. I was tired and I was exasperated. But they couldn’t even give me a break! I felt throwing my hands up in the middle of the street and like screaming into the sky, “Ey, yo, Deux machina dude! I’m tiiiired…! Why in the hell are you doing this to meeee….?” I settled on biting my lower lip and looking down while walking (I knew I was involuntarily shooting daggers at people with my eyes as I walked by). I was tired, I was exasperated, and I was still roaming the strip when I was already supposed to be in front of the computer, wishing that I, too, was some mobster’s daughter or something.
     But noooo, you just had to loose your stupid notebooook…! Ugh. Found out something about myself again; my conscience was more ruthless than an evangelist on speed. I smirked at myself and felt for my notebook. Golden, golden! I have to put that one down- My face turned sour as I remembered why I was walking down Katipunan Avenue in the first place. I started to feel the familiar strain of my eyes narrowing and my jaw locking. I couldn’t even speak anymore as I was also feeling the beginnings of a hyperventilation. I guess I was just so lost in my own little world, the walking already just a mechanical task, that I didn’t even see this guy chuckling to himself until later when he was already sprawled on the sidewalk.

*       *       *

     I honestly didn’t see it coming. Honest. One second I’m sauntering down Runaway Utopia, carefully sipping the coffee when I ran into the girl from the crappy restaurant. Literally.
     “Oh, crap!” I cried when the paper cup I was holding got crushed between us. Then I hissed and tried to resist the urge of jumping around when the coffee ran and burned down my chest. I only recognized the girl when I saw the expression on her face because it brought back the feeling I had just a while ago in the restaurant when I first saw her. I felt fascinated and terrified at the same time. I saw so much fury and disbelief in her narrowed eyes and her parted lips that for a moment there, I thought that I’d wronged her in some way before and that I should be running away now. Maybe the running away part was right, but I guess it didn’t sink in right away because I remembered the notebook and I started to say “Hey!” when I was cut short by something I vaguely remember. What I did remember, though, was seeing a dull flash of gold as what looked like a ringed finger on a tiny knuckle fly right at me.

*       *       *

     I honestly didn’t see it coming. Honest. One second I’m rushing through the strip, trying to control my rising temper when I ran into this guy holding a tall cup of smoldering coffee. Literally.
     I was speechless. My hyperventilation was now coming in too fast and I was getting a bit light-headed, as I couldn’t believe what had just happened. It was only later that I realized that my chest was slightly singed from the coffee; at that time, I was just… shocked. Suddenly I just stopped breathing altogether and fell silent as I watched the guy in disbelief as he hesitatingly hopped around, the cup still in his hand. Then, if it wasn’t any worse already, he turned to me and said, “Hey!”
     That was it. I snapped. Something inside of me snapped and the next thing I knew, I was walking away from a semiconscious fellow sprawled on the pavement and rubbing my ring finger, which seemed to have taken most of the damage when I screamed and socked the guy. I forgot what I was there for after that and just turned around. On the way back, I yelled and kicked a car that nearly hit me while it was backing out of the Pizza Hut parking lot.
     So much for that GOOD day.