JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

Justin and Harry were staying at a hotel near Makati Avenue. My all-knowing friend and personal travel agent Kermit booked it for them. Patrice was expected at a friend’s house, but decided to crash in their room for the night.

When I rang the bell the next day Patrice opened the door. “Allo, did you sleep well?” I asked.

“They make me sleep on the floor,” Patrice said solemnly.

“No we didn’t, we said he could sleep on the bed!!!”

“Right there, see?” Patrice pointed to the rug between the twin beds.

“You horrible people, how could you make the child sleep on the floor?”

“No we didn’t! He’s making it up!”

This is the chaos I walked into.

Harry rooted among the boxes and proceeded to eat leftover pizza. “Pizza’s great in the morning,” he shrugged. Then he drank the warm, soupy remains of a milkshake. “That’s disgusting,” Justin said. I felt like Dian Fossey in Gorillas in the Mist.

“When you’re decent you can take me to lunch at Rockwell,” I said. “What am I saying, let’s go.”

Justin

Justin wanted to buy those shoes that look like gloves. Apparently they cost twice as much where he lives. Then they went to all the sporting goods stores but couldn’t find shoes in their sizes.

Harry and Patrice

We had lunch where I always have lunch: Wild Ginger. Adobo, kare-kare, and Patrice wanted sinigang. Tennis Mike turned up and said lunch was on him. Thanks, Mike.

While we waited for our orders to arrive Harry and Justin taught Patrice how to make his man-boobs move.

Patrice and Justin.

Some of my friends walked by, including James who made the earrings I was wearing. “All my friends are gay,” I pointed out.

“Really,” Justin said, “We hadn’t noticed. But you’re not—”

“You like guys, right?” Harry said.

“Of course I like guys. But I’m practically a guy.”

“Are you thinking of sex right now?”

“I’m not saying.”

“Then you’re not a guy,” Harry concluded. “What does Adidas mean?”

“It’s a contraction of ‘Adi Dassler’, the name of the founder.” Nerd.

“No, it means All day I dream about sex.”

The only heterosexual guys I hang out with are film nerds, and sometimes days go by before I speak to a straight guy, so this was educational.

Patrice and a blur.

Then we went to buy underwear and they wore the underpants on their heads.

Harry

We wandered into a shoe store and Manila Hilton immediately zeroed in on a pair of black knee-high leather boots. “Don’t you have enough boots?” I asked her.

“They’re not for me,” she said, “you should try them.”

“But. . .but. . .” Okay, I’ve always wanted black knee-high leather boots. I tried them on. They fit perfectly.

“You should buy them,” Manila Hilton said.

“Just what I need for my scary bitch reputation,” I pointed out. “Fascist jackboots.” Oddly this only made them more attractive.

“Go on,” Manila Hilton insisted, drowning out the practical voice in my head that was whining, “They’re expensive, impractical, and when will you ever use them?”

“You travel a lot,” Manila Hilton pointed out, “so you can wear them.”

Suddenly the completely unnecessary purchase seemed like an absolute necessity. “All right,” I said, “but just to be clear, we’re not going to be Thelma and Louise. I have no intention of driving off a cliff, especially with someone with three DUIs. Where does one drive off a cliff in Guam anyway?”

“There are a couple of places,” Manila Hilton replied. “Like Two Lovers Point.”

“Well I’m not doing the kamikaze drive off Two Lovers Point. Also, you’re the one with the future ex-husband, so if we run into the Brad Pitt hitchhiker he’s mine.”

“Deal. Look, killer stiletto boots!”

“No.” Manila Hilton is a bad influence.

Today was Megamall day—I had to get my cats’ supplies, meet my publicist friend for lunch, and check out Forever 21 with my sister (we had not been there).

My friend and I talked about renewing the National Bookstore sponsorship for the LitWit Challenges, and the possibility of a book. Then she mentioned that she’d organized a Haagen- Dazs event at the Megamall Atrium and would I like to drop by?

Of course I said yes, it’s Haagen-Dazs. My skills at bilocation were tested, but I managed to go shopping with my sister at Forever 21 and attend the press conference to launch the all-new menu of the ice cream brand.

At the presscon Haagen-Dazs reps Tess Panganiban and Cathy Castro noted that given the frenetic pace of urban life, today’s biggest luxury is not designer goods or snazzy cars, but Time. Women who juggle the demands of motherhood, wifehood, career, and general fabulousness need their Me moments. (Hah! I chose me over all of the above, so my entire life is a Me moment. But I do love the ice cream.)

Haagen-Dazs is helping women give themselves permission to put up that Do Not Disturb sign and indulge, Tess said. These are their new indulgences:

Joyful Party: mini-scoops of Vanilla, Green Tea and Strawberry ice cream, Raspberry sorbet, Mango Sorbet on griddle cake decorated with almonds, cherries, pretzel sticks and chocolate sauce.

Fruity Journey: Strawberry ice cream, Raspberry sorbet, Mango Sorbet, and Strawberry Cheesecake ice cream with fresh fruit.

The Create-Your-Own section of the new menu lets you design your dessert by combining the flavors and toppings you desire. Of course all the classic Haagen-Dazs flavors, fondue, ice cream sushi platters, and cakes are also available.

Interesting to note that earlier in our history, during the Spanish colonial era, ‘indulgence’ (indulgencia) was a grant from the Catholic Church giving you time off from Purgatory on the sins you had committed. It was one of the church abuses Jose Rizal satirized in his novels. Now ‘indulgence’ usually means ‘luxury’. Which is another way of viewing time off on your sentence in Purgatory.

In Forever 21 my sister noted the number of plainclothes security men patrolling the premises. Which sort of defeats the purpose of ‘plainclothes’. She bought accessories, I bought a white shirt. Then we ate ice cream.

Having figured out London’s public transport system I proceeded to use the knowledge for evil, i.e. shopping. While I was in a dressing room Charice’s single Pyramid came on and I had what may only be described as a burst of national pride. And I speak as one who would excise the words “world-class” and “multi-awarded” from every text. I wanted to run to the store’s paging system and announce, “She’s Filipino!”

My friend reports that there is actually a campaign to Not have Charice on the TV musical Glee because she does not have an American accent and is not pretty enough, ergo not a proper “representative” of the Filipino. I hadn’t realized the Philippines was in Scandinavia. (Or Brazil, depending on skin tone.) Excuse me, perky blue-eyed blondes with chiseled features, straight noses and long legs, most Filipinos look like Charice. Perhaps when you are president you can make us wear paper bags on our heads, but for now we are perfectly happy to have someone short, brown, and flat-nosed (pango) out there on the world stage, making the competition sound like they have laryngitis.

Denouncing Charice for her looks (or “breeding”) is like knocking down Manny Pacquiao for his English pronunciation: It’s beside the point. No one questions the importance of appearances in this image-conscious era, but talent still overrides all other considerations.

Then again the talentless are always resentful.

Almost the first words one hears in London:

I am staying in a house with a red door. The building is very old and the residents are forbidden to change the facade in any way.

We started watching the Nadal v. Haase on TV but after Haase won the first set (How dare these lowly-ranked players play so fearlessly against the topseeds, it’s wonderful) my friend got so tense that we had to go out. We ended up at Selfridge’s where there is a massive sale on designer items. (All the stores are having sales, it must be the season). Christian Louboutins are going for 150 pounds, down from 500 or so (Conversion rate: about 67 pesos to the pound, and it used to be 104). They could be going for 150 pesos and I’m still not wearing heels.

The very first hat I tried on fit my head! And it wasn’t at some fancy millinery, it was Uniqlo. My giant head loves London.

Who are these people behind the police barrier, was there a riot?

No, they’re people falling in line for iPhone 4.0. This scene was repeated in every Apple store I saw.

In Soho by the sex shops and gay bars, this group was praying for the souls of the damned, presumably the patrons of the sex shops and gay bars. Funny that they should gather outside a shop called Snog. They look like they’re praying for a snog.

The streets were teeming with people, and it was a Thursday.

Maybe they were celebrating the start of summer, or (still) drinking to England qualifying for the knockout stage of the World Cup, or tourists, or just getting out of the house because it was hot.

Photo from the Guardian

We sent Big Bird to that store in Greenbelt 5 to check out the currency situation reported here.

When he asked for the price of a table, the salesperson whipped out a calculator, punched in some numbers, and gave him the price in pesos. (If Big Bird had really wanted to buy the table he wouldn’t have asked for the price. He just wanted to hear the answer.)

Apparently some of our readers had already been to the store.

Big Bird should’ve said, “Why is the price in pesos? Aren’t you a multinational company?”

You can’t win.