Second Draft of Monologue DONE. Whew!

I just finished my second draft of my monologue, which I hadn't opened in five months. I got to read it with new eyes, and I got polish it to make it more "Fictional" rather than a personal narrative. My goal was to take "me" out of the piece as much as I can.

When I first wrote it I was very angry. The piece should have been called "Christina's written therapy." I hope the piece is actually stage worthy, but we shall see as drafts are being passed around and critiqued.

Looking at it now I feel a million miles away from it, which is exactly where I need to be.

My monologue is a mix of Dexter and Rupaul's drag race. I look forward to seeing it on stage, because I don't really want to perform this piece. The real life version was enough, and the fantasy version is just a little overkill. I'm getting feedback from a great actress friend of mine, who I hope will perform it.

I need a wordy and gutsy bootch to execute this character. God send me one.

January 2011

When I was still in Asia a part of me was eager to get home, because I had a lot of goals that I wanted to accomplish. Now that I'm back here in LA I need to fight laziness and fatigue to get from point A to point B.

I've decided that my phase of intense alone time is over. I'm actually going to find a way to socialize more in Los Angeles. I want to enjoy this city as much as I can, because I don't know where I'm going to be living in the next 6 months.

I'm an adult/kid. I go as I please. I'm here I'm there. Catch me if you can. I'm hardly as glamorous as those Kardashians, but I have a self confidence that I haven't had in a minute. I catch myself playing with hair and feeling cute. Every girl should feel that way, and men get in the way of that sometimes.

As each of my friends are moving up in their careers and having kids, I'm only responsible for myself. I suppose when I'm old I will look on this moment with a lot of relief, that I took this time for myself.

Three years ago I was working full time adult cohabiting with my college boyfriend. I was on top of bills, cooking, and a kick ass credit score. I was in my ultimate adultness. I think all of the girls my age are following an imaginary blueprint, but if the blueprint was enough. I would still be on the wifey track to super adultness

I miss being a hyphey wifey. Although I'm the fun single chick in a sea of couples ALL the time, it sucks to be dancing by yourself when all your girls are dancing with their boyfriends. I can only dance with "George Glass" my imaginary boyfriend for so long. *me doing my awkward robot* However, I've finally broken my pattern of being the serial dater/monogamous.

You know in Eat, Pray, Love when God told Liz to go back to bed. God whispered to me...."You cannot be a hyphey wifey right now." It's a relief to breathe and finally hear myself for once.

Woes aside, dating is not ideal right now. Five months ago it was a choice that I made out of anger from being betrayed. I'm focused on myself to get to where I need to go. I wish I would have taken more risks when I first graduated from college, and I'm doing that right now.

The first step was school. When I got home I immediately enrolled in the UCLA extension writing program. It was recommended by another mentor in Writegirl. It's my first college class in five years, and I'm looking forward to extending my writing community. It will also help me in developing a manuscript for grad school applications.

The second step is an internship, which hasn't been fully executed yet. I'm trying to expand my skill set so I'm looking at different opportunities. If there is an opportunity to follow Lindsey Lohan get her cocaine, and she hires me to brush it off her nose. Then I'll take it!

Bad joke I know. Jokes aside Boothebootch has been a great release to me. I never thought blogging would be therapeutic, but it sure saves a lot of money! The blog has grown with a lot of trial and error, but I think I've found my blogging style. I've been through the self loathing phase, the bitchy phase, the preachy phase, and the silly phase. All these phases have entertained friends, lovahs, and god knows who else.

Happy New Year to Boothebootch and to all you other bootches out there! Lets keep laughing.

Japan 2011

I'm back in Los Angeles now, and I've been meaning to catch up on the blogging. My last Asia trip has left me speechless, but I just needed to get back home and put things into perspective.

It's time to talk about Japan.

Japan is this magical place. As my dad would put it you walk around the city and you "feel like a kid again," because you get so distracted with everything that is around you.

Being in Tokyo was the polar opposite of being in Manila. It's a well operated and uniformed society. Unlike Manila, you see very few children. Japan has a really low birth rate, which may be the lowest in the world. Instead you see a swarm of fashionable adults, who are constantly shopping, eating, and commuting.

It is a society where everything happens in the most meticulous order, therefore making it really easy for foreigners to get around. If was a relief for a control freak spaz like myself.

What I couldn't control was my wallet, but I didn't go as hog wild this time. The last time I went to Tokyo it took me a whole to pay the trip off, which included my materialistic purchases.

The top three splurges was a sweatshirt at Bathing Ape, a baseball jacket at the Nike Store Tokyo, and a couple of items from Jeanasis. That's it, but my wallet is still hurting.

If you are an Asian fashion bootch it's very easy to get sucked into the fashion monsoon that is Tokyo. You feel constantly under dressed, and the urge to buy really great clothes just compels you like a demon.

On top of that everything fits you.... perfectly. Well almost perfectly. My thick ass thighs didn't even dare try to put on any pants. I'm just saying.

My cousin and I wanted our wallets to take a break from hurting itself, so we were looking up Tokyo tours online, and we found the Tokyo Ghost and Goblins Tour. It was only $30 U.S. dollars and we got to see some of the spookiest places in Tokyo.

It was one of the most interesting tours I've ever taken. Our tour guide was American, but has been living in Tokyo for the past 25 years. We visited various shrines that honor magical creatures. In the picture to the left I'm standing next to the Kappa Shrine, which is a shrine dedicated to magical Frogs, who like to pull women into a river and have their way with them. LOL.

We went to the cemetery tomb of the Japanese artist Hokusai, who is famous for his painting "The Great Wave off Kanagawa"

The creepiest place she took us to was "Old Hags Pond." I'm not sure what the Japanese translation for this is, but it's a site of a really famous serial murder. The picture is below.

As the story goes, there was this old woman who owned a hotel and she had a beautiful daughter who would stand outside to lure men.

Apparently the girl would lure in these men to have sexy time, and after they went to sleep the mother would push a big ass bolder from above and crush them.

How did the old woman get this big ass boulder above the bed after she was done?

Any smart person would agree that there are holes in this story, but the tourguide told us that apparently this woman had killed 999 people. Then there was this handsome man who apparently got the pretty daughter excited in her panties.

When it was time for the old woman to push the boulder on the pretty man, she crushed her pretty daughter's face instead. Her daughter was her 1,000th victim. The woman was so distraught she drowned herself in the lake, and what's left of the lake is a pound around the monument. AAAH!

My cousin Marc thinks that this story is a crock of shit. However, there is a freaking monument with a pond so that the ghosts of the dead boulder men do not wander around the city.

The ghosts apparently cannot separate themselves from water, so there you go.

What's even creepier is that there is children's playground next to the pond which is to the left. I suppose every culture has their set of tales, and this one definitely creeped me out.

It will definitely be a long time before I go to Tokyo again. After my last trip which was two years ago, I made it a point to watch "Lost in Translation." I felt that I would have a better appreciation for the movie this time.

It's really easy to feel out of place here. For people who are looking to travel to Japan, it helps to pick up a few Japanese phrases. If you didn't do your homework, what usually helped was a notebook and a map. I would usually write down places that I wanted to go, and people were kind enough to direct me where I needed to go.

Although I feel really out of place when I'm in Japan, I appreciate how kind Japanese people are. It doesn't matter to me whether it's fake or not, it's appreciated. The more you travel you realize that you simply a speck of dust. My trip to the Philippines and Japan brought me the best quality time I've had with my family in a really long time.

I had to part with my Bestie/Cousin Marc and I HATED it. We traveled together in both the Philippines and Japan. What am I going to do without him?I feel so bad that I relied on him to be my translator and gps, because my ditsy ass could barely make my way out of the hotel much less around Manila or Tokyo.

I'm grateful that he was able to stand seeing my face everyday for three whole weeks. We put up with food poisoning, colds, and mental breakdowns together. However, he and I are pretty in sync in terms of traveling interests and now he's GONE! WAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!

We will find ourselves together again, although it's usually half way around the world. He is now back in Australia and we have resumed our usual schedule of Gchats and facebooking.

I didn't cry when we parted like the panzie that I am, because I cried a week before. I cried when my mom noted that Marc really takes care of me. My mom had to tell me to stop crying because we were in the middle of a department store.

I'm getting teary as I am typing this and always wish that Marc didn't live in a faraway neverland called Australia. He is the best travel companion a bootch could ask for. Everyone loves Marc and there is no reason not to. I miss you bestie. It was a great trip wasn't it :)

Tondo

I need to take a moment to talk about Tondo. Over the years the Filipinos always talk about Tondo being really rough, and the people are tough. I've known Filipinos who want to brag about being tough, so they mention they are from Tondo.

My family apparently never bragged about it because I did not realize this until recently, that my fiesty family is from the infamous Tondo.

All of the questions that I ever had about them were IMMEDIATELY answered. I actually get frustrated at times because there is no one in my family that will actually back down from a fight, and have no issues with speaking their mind. Although when we do fight, it starts and ends quickly. Most of the time.

I suppose when you grow up in a small and crowded space you have to end your fights quickly, because everyone is in your face.

Whenever I was in Tondo my cousin and I would take walks. Filipinos love to go "malling," and as much as I love a mall if I went into one more Shoe Mart I was going to scream.

My other cousin jokingly asked if we enjoyed our "educational walks," I didn't know how to respond to that and I just showed her the pictures I took.

"You make us look like we live in the slums," she says."

I didn't think that I did. I sort of resent photographers who make a career of taking pictures of poor people. So I explained to her that at some point I want to make a book about our family, and I wanted to capture the personality of the neighborhood. However, I can't deny that when I looked around I saw that this place was fucking nuts and the crazy part is, it just grows and grows.

My cousin mentioned that they have tried to clean up the area, but the progress is slow. Shabu (A form of methanphetamine) is a problem and has gotten in the way of potential reform. I'm sure there are other factors that are being mentioned or considered. There is so much to see, yet nothing to see. Building after building there are clothes, children, couples, animals poking in and out.

If you walk around Obrero there isn't a moment of quiet that passes you. The sounds of children, cars, shop keepers, fighting couples, are surrounding you. The noise is rises in that way when everyone is shouting at the same time.

The sound of Karaoke is synonymous with couples yelling and children laughing. I felt the stares, but I walked ahead. It was very clear that I wasn't from here. There were times where I felt that the stares were cold, so I would randomly smile at a child to see if they would smile back.

Before my Lolo died he specifically said that he wanted his house in Obrero to stay in the family. As much as my aunts do not understand why he wants to keep the house, in a way I do.

I suppose as our family gets more and more American with each new generation, there is at least one tie that we can keep that reminds us where we are from.

When my family talks about where they are from a neighborhood called Obrero. It wasn't to my awareness until this last trip that Obrero was in Tondo. I stayed here for a total of four days to spend time with my mom's oldest sister. She is the only one of the nine children that wanted to stay behind.

With a broken leg she is bed ridden, but with enough Filipino talent shows and telanovelas to keep her occupied with the day. I worry about her quality of life. Her environment is not ideal for elderly people with disabilities, but she refused to leave forty years ago and I can't imagine that she will ever leave. She is apparently the toughest out of all of us.

While I was there I couldn't help, but think about my Lolo.

During the last years of his life my Lolo would walk up and the down the neighborhood to chit chat with everyone. In his 90's he walked very, very slow. Being in the middle of the people typhoon that is Obrero, I can understand why he wanted to be there when he died. He didn't want to be alone.

If there is anything that I love about Obrero it's that even if want to be alone, you are never really alone. As I now sit in my mom's quiet house, that is probably big enough for 5 five Obrero families, I still can't believe we are from Tondo. We are not hood tough, but we managed to get through so much as a family. We have each other's back till the inevitable. I would like to imagine that this value is rooted in Tondo.

And I would like to say.

Tondo...... Jesus you guys are tough..... beautifully tough.

Philippines 2011

I just got back from the Philippines. This is the fourth attempt to write a proper entry and I can't seem to finish it.

I don't know what to say. Every time I think about Manila I have very mixed emotions, and they are actually really extreme. I either want to throw a tantrum or start an advocacy organization.

I want to adopt every child, every dog, and every cat and start a sanctuary. I want to be aligned with my family and not feel such a disparity in our opinions. I truly want to understand this crazy ass place that is my ancestral home.

I think for the sake of my own sanity, I will let the feelings be. My opinions about the Philippines are not right or wrong. I felt what I felt.

I'm simply not Filipino enough for the Philippines. That's okay. I'm arguably Filipino enough here.

Despite how I feel about the Philippines as a society or my culture. I truly love being Filipino. The Philippines has one of the most inspiring and fearless histories of any colonized country. Filipinos survive in any predicament that they are given starting at a very young age. The importance of family is stressed in the simple nuances of daily life, and it made me appreciate why it is my family is so close. As the U.S. continues in a self centered culture, Filipinos will always exist in a tribe.

I don't know what my connection to Manila will be from this point on. I would only go back to do some sort of work if the opportunity arose. I'm not sure what that could be, but I don't think I can vacation there ever again. I need a purpose.