All Hail SMS # 008

As I am wont to do, when I am in transit, I usually text friends random thoughts, useless trivia, saccharine epigraphs, and updates on the present state of affairs in my life: for instance, a cute boy I've seen, two mountains conquered, several seeds for potential stories identified (the sacristan, Mila, the mayor's son). Today, one memorable exchange goes:

G (me) : On my way back to Manila, past mountains and the South China Sea, I collect the pieces of myself that I thought I'd lost long ago: a brick from my ancestral house, love letters my grandfather wrote my grandmother during the war, tales of woe from women who have seen better days, old vinyl records, and the mayor's son, who bears an uncanny resemblance to my brother. I am whole again. I have enough strength to slay four thousand dragons.

K (best friend extraordinaire): slay dragons? i'm telling you - it's the meat. shame on you.

(a few days ago, i texted her that for the first time in over a year, i ate meat. "blame the irresistibility of the ilocano empanada," i'd said, "i already feel my arteries clogging up, and my karmic chi, now inconvertibly unbalanced." since then, she has not let me live it down.)

G: tsk. trying poetry on you is like trying to read poetry to a cow. speaking of cows, if i see one more bovine grazing in yet another field, i am fairly sure i will scream.

K: how far is vigan from manila and why are you seeing cows? where's the picturesque countryside made popular by the road trip-leading-to-self-discovery genre? oh, and i hate to be repetitive, but what's with all the meat references?

G: that is my super ego talking. vigan is 12 hours away from manila. i have 10 more hours to go. and dragon is not technically meat because it is mythical.

K: your arguments don't help one bit. mythical meat? what kind of loser are you?

G: better mythical meat than mystery meat.

K: is that all you can think of? different kinds of meat? i'm initiating a topic change. how was your day? mind you, i did not ask what you had for lunch.

G: I had lunch with several descendants of former Philippine presidents. I also shot lots of pictures of loom weavers, wood carvers and craggy mountains overlooking the sea. How was yours?

K: that sounds divine. i had to go to rizal this morning, emergency leak. (K. works for her father's company, which sells fire equipment to factories and plants). on the way back, the pinoy big brother theme played on the radio eight times.

And that, my darlings, is why I love my friends.