JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

My heavy hints landed solidly. It’s not even December yet and I got this pair of earrings from Jeffrey.

Yes, that’s Elvis Presley.

Yesterday my sister went to Divisoria for her annual wholesale gift shopping. I tagged along, wearing my new earrings. Roaming around 168 Mall is a blast—except during the holiday shopping madness, when all the merchandise is covered in people. And it was a weekday—imagine what the crowd is like today. (In America retailers call the day after Thanksgiving Black Friday and it’s the biggest shopping day of the year.)

There were slightly fewer people on the third floor, so we could browse at leisure. Cookie went into a shop selling sparkly trinkets. I was looking at rings (way too sparkly) when an attentive saleslady noted my earrings. “Ang ganda naman ng hikaw nyo (What nice earrings),” she said.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Sino yang nasa picture? (Who’s that in the picture?)” she asked.

“Si Elvis,” I replied.

“Asawa ninyo? (Your husband?)” she went on.

On one hand I wanted to recite a short history of rock and roll and Elvis’s place in it so that she could grasp popular music in its proper context. On the other hand the trinkets place was slowly filling up and I just wanted to shop.

“Oo (Yes),” I answered. No doubt she thought I was very lucky. It would’ve taken too long to explain that Elvis died when I was a kid. I remember my parents talking about it: the king of rock ‘n roll had died of a heart attack while sitting on the toilet. His diet of fried peanut butter and jelly sandwiches may have had something to do with it.

You know how the baristas in coffee shops ask for your name so they can call it out when your order is ready? Sometimes I don’t feel like having my existence announced, I just want my caffeine, so I tell them my name is Elvis. Which means I am married to me.

You can never have enough scarves. Raymond found this in ac632. It was the last one haha.

Melo had this idea last year: Why not post a list of the stuff you want to get on Xmas? It would eliminate guesswork on the givers’ part, not to mention the recycled fruitcake, scentless scented candles, and wine so recent grapes are floating in it. Yes it’s the thought that counts, but in the general chaos people just aren’t thinking.

Then I thought: Why should I be the only greedy one? Why not help the readers who dread receiving another recycled fruitcake, unscented candle, and bottle of sour grape juice?

Introducing the Public Xmas Gift Registry. You suggest gifts you want people to give you this holiday season, but are too polite to ask for outright (or the would-be givers are too dense to take the hint). And since you are cleverly disguised by your usernames, you can always deny your participation in extortion. Post your wish list in Comments, and in a few weeks we’ll have a raffle with a prize or something.

Let me start by saying

Earrings! Earrings! I want earrings, the weirder the better. Yeah I have lots but I want more. I went around the mall today and these were the only ones that appealed to me: thick doughnut-shaped cloth earrings from Bleach Catastrophe. The rest were too twee or ballroom-dancing-matronly. (Incidentally gold plating makes me break out.)

Don’t give me books because I might already have those titles. Although first editions of The Catcher In The Rye are always welcome. And James Salter’s books.

Always welcome: Vintage eyewear.

Begin the avalanche of avarice.

I’m always looking for a lightweight bag that will carry all my stuff without tearing off my shoulder. Here’s one I found at the Likhang-Habi Philippine textile bazaar at RCBC Building last Friday:

You can wear it like a vest or put it over your shoulder.

My friend Rene found this for me: a pre-WWII vintage “Binakol” woven blanket. It’s beautiful and practically indestructible, and if you stare at it long enough you see visions. My cats took to it instantly.

If you’re interested in fabrics, linens, blankets, and other materials woven the traditional way, Rene represents the weavers’ cooperatives in Ilocos Norte and can help you source them. His email address: rene.guatlo@gmail.com.

Two cats in Little Tokyo, 7 September 2009.

An hour later, as we walked around yet another condominium model unit, it occurred to me that apartment hunting in metropolitan Manila could become your social life. In places like New York it already is. You’d get to see a new place each weekend, decorate it in your head, imagine living there, and create an entire alternative existence for yourself. It would be a literary exercise, and it would take you out of the mall biosphere. Unless the condo happens to be on top of a mall.

Escape From the Mall in Emotional Weather Report, today in the Star.

According to this piece most of the ingredients in shampoo are ‘a veritable toxic dump on your head’ and then the shampoo that ends up in our water supply causes male fish to grow ovaries. Eeeek!

What’s really in your shampoo by Bill Bunn in Salon.

Some shampoo sounds more like chicken marinade than shampoo, boasting of vitamins, minerals, protein and herbs. But, the vitamins and minerals and exotic extras play a useless role. So whether the shampoo brags that it is “infused” with real beer, exotic proteins, vitamins, antioxidants, or extracts from some fabulously endangered species, the additive saturates the users’ minds, not their hair.

All these ingredients would go bad were it not for preservatives, a chemical equivalent of the right to bear arms. Sodium benzoate, for example, is handy because it kills nearly every living thing that might start to grow in a shampoo bottle. Ironically, in most cases the detergents won’t go bad. It’s the psychological ingredients that need preservation.

And I was just crowing about having found a solution to frizziness: avocado shampoo, avocado conditioner, avocado treatment wax, anything avocado. True, Jay-Lo our hair theorist had recommended the actual fruit: cut in half, apply to hair, wash off. But it’s so much easier to buy a bottle of something sweet-smelling.

A few days ago I noticed a line of ants wending their way across my bedroom. I respect ants, industrious little creatures who carry loads many times their weight, plus I’d seen their Walt Disney cartoons so I left them alone. The following day there were more of them, and I was worried that they’d bite my cats so I swept the ants away and searched the room for whatever it was that was attracting them. There were no dead insects or bits of food; as far as I could tell the ants were migrating from the corner of one (closed) window to a crack in the opposite wall.

Photo: Can’t bite these.

When I woke up yesterday the ant parade had turned into an infestation. As I pondered a solution to this problem that would not involve insecticide (the smell makes me ill, and they are not pet-safe), some of the critters crawled onto my leg and bit me, thus sealing their doom. The safest solution that occurred to me: Citronella, a natural oil that is used in perfumes and insect repellent.

Carlo was going to Rustan’s to look for a very tall champagne flute; I figured that their houseware section was a good place to look. I’ve usually gotten polite and efficient service from the Rustan’s staff, although a lot of the salesladies who worked there when I was a kid have probably retired. At the room sprays and scented candles section I asked the salesladies if they had Citronella spray or any other organic insect repellant. Even before I’d finished my question they replied, “Ano yon?” “Wala” and “Baka sa Essenses.” Hmm, not the service I’ve come to expect from that fine establishment. I repeated my question and one of the ladies began a desultory inspection of their bottled oils to see if they had Citronella; they could not recommend an alternative.

At Essenses they had a citronella bug spray for babies, but it cost P995 for a 250ml bottle. Carlo suggested L’Occitane, but they didn’t have Citronella, and even if they did I’m not spraying ants with L’Occitane product. “Then we should go to SM,” Carlo said, “Because ‘They’ve got it all.'” I rolled my eyeballs and off we went. Right at the door of the housewares section I asked a salesman if they had Citronella and he quickly produced a room-and-linen spray (P279.50) and a bottle of essential oil (P349.50). Amaaazing. Then Carlo found an extremely tall champagne flute for P490, a decimal place less than the fancy one he’d considered buying.

When I got home I squirted Citronella linen spray on the line of ants and they promptly stopped moving. It was an ant massacre. Wish our species could co-exist in peace, but they opened hostilities. I swept away the tiny corpses and sprayed Citronella on their hideouts. Tonight we’ll see if it worked.

36 hours later. Looks like it worked: the ant parade has not returned. My cats usually hate citrusy scents, but they don’t mind the citronella.