JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

Ooh, there’s an Illy cafe at the big cavernous NAIA terminal 3!

Naah, skip it. The coffee is by Illy, but the pastries are fossilized. And expensive. And I ordered a double espresso that was served in a large cardboard cup. I said, Please put it in a china cup. They said, We’re out of the little cups. This in a near-empty cafe. I said, Then put it in the big cup.

Two tables away a white guy in board shorts was talking loudly on his cellphone. Then he handed it to his girlfriend, a tiny Filipina girl with long, straight hair. She continued the telephone conversation in labored but correct English, then said goodbye and handed the phone back to the white guy. He said, Why did you hang up?!

He said goodbye, the girlfriend pointed out.

Why did you hang up?!?

We were finished talking.

WHY DID YOU HANG UP!?!

I wanted to say, Hoy afam, huwag mong sisigawan si Inday. Kung ayaw mong magkamali siya, di ikaw ang kumausap.

Instead I tried to eat the calcified cheese danish for which I was charged P95.

Emotional people are following me around.

* * * * *

Blast, there’s no US Open tennis telecast on cable TV at Avenue Plaza Hotel in Naga. There was basketball, baseball, golf, and rugby, but no tennis, and I’d been looking forward to watching the semis in my very nice hotel room. I ended up channel surfing for hours, hoping the tennis coverage would start, and even when I decided to go to sleep I kept bolting upright every 30 minutes shrieking, Has it started? Has it started?

The life of a tennis fan is full of self-inflicted jet lag. So now I’m exhausted, so exhausted that when I heard the score on CNN I couldn’t even say What! I thought, Oh well, the Fed is slowing down, and good for Djokovic to be in another final.

Maturity is not fun. On the other hand I will sleep soundly tonight instead of agonizing over every point in the final and deluding myself that I can telekinetically help the ball over the net 12 time zones away.