Doppelgangers and lobsters

Third consecutive night of staying late at the office. Sorta big thing tomorrow, by office approximations. Last night, I logged out around 230am. At midnight, I saw our guard's doppelganger. Might be my astigmatism. Second time I saw something like it though. I told my colleague before she has one and she jumped at me. Friday night I was with 2 guy colleagues here also and out of the blue I plugged in Smashing Pumpkins and crazily mimicked Billy Corgan's voice doing Butterfly With Bullet Wings. "Despite of my rage, I'm still just a rat in a cage." Junee freaked out with the freakish precision. Then I did Gary V's Di Bale na Lang. Hay. Stress and the boundaries of insanity it pushes you to.

Anyway, I caught this short story by Woody Allen in The New Yorker in the light of the Madoff hullabaloo and its whirlwind of entanglements. The story is hilarious though, about fucked-up clients who ended up as lobsters to exact their revenge on the crazy sonofabitch by pincering his nose.

When at a loss for words...

...give them that look on your face.

Her majesty.

Munai

It’s almost unlikely to hear Chris Brown or Beyonce over the vehicle radio, which was showing signs of dead air, as we inch closer to Munai in Lanao del Norte. But to think such would be succumbing to the usual backwardness and ignorance of the “central people” about Mindanao who are “too cool to care”. (May Philhealth ba kayo d’yan? Pano kayo gumigimik?)

We are “massaged” inside the vehicle by extremely rough roads. There is nothing to be seen but tall coconut trees, smoky air coming from copra burning against the morning Munai rain.

Munai is almost cloistered, so when you see bullet holes perforating the municipal hall, you can’t quite imagine that heavy gunfight last August 2008 once ruled over its relative calmness, with 23 out of its 26 barangays severely affected.

A view of Munai from the top of the municipal hall, and children.