At the Marco Polo

As usual, I arrived late for the Wednesday Club 888 press conference. I thought there was nobody inside the little bar just beside the hotel's concierge counter, when I saw the empty chairs near the glass door.
But when I entered, everybody was there. I saw Q and Joel Esco and the rest of the group gathered around the bar, sipping lukewarm coffee from their cups while Awi and the others were crowding around a man in pink in the next table, ambush interviewing.
I was in no mood to join them because I just had a row with Karl, who lost his ID when we were supposed to go to the bank to open his savings account this morning. I stormed out of the house in Matina and boarded a jeepney, feeling ill-used and exploited despite my having screamed so loud, I must have awakened the neighbors.
Even as I took my seat very near the presscon's speakers, my anger at Karl's sloppiness had not left me. Probably it had borne a hole in my stomach. Waves of nausea and exasperation swept over me. I've been reminding him about his ID since the other day but it was only when we were about to go that he finally decided to look for it.
"I don't need an ID," he was saying earlier with that sheepish grin all over his face, the same grin used by his Dad, when he was trying to tell the children, "Don't mind Mama, because we know better. She's just plain neurotic, paranoid, etc.. ."
I was angry. I still am. He needed an ID to go to that bank and he had been postponing going there since eternity. Urgghh, children. As if it was for our own sake that we are doing things for them. I've been feeling sooooo bad in being treated this way. I'm a disgruntled ONE. I feel like I could start a WAR!

The Woman in White

I don't know how to go about my story. Angst, according to Nico, would lead to pangs or hunger. I got to write as fast as I can to earn my bread but I can't because I think, I don't have to eat that much to stay alive. Besides, I need to blog.
Today is the last day of the ASEAN Tourism Forum and all the guests are doing the last minute shopping before their flight tomorrow. There's going to be dinner hosted by some city or town somewhere. I don't think I can go there. I don't need to go.
All I care is to be here, inside the press center, sitting before a keyboard and a computer. Somebody left a cup of coffee and a pile of saucers near this desktop I am using. Except for one or two computers, the press center is full. I don't understand my notes. The woman to my right is talking to her companion from Manila. A while ago, I've been laughing at something that Jessica Zafra has written on her blog and this woman asked me if I had done my stories for the day.
Maybe, she was making an accounting, I thought. I heard she was from DOT or something. I told her I have done wwwooooolll my stories already. I was about to tell her, I've done so many stories for ATF, some came out of the Inquirer business features, some did not come out at all. As long as I can blog here all I can, I really couldn't care less whether they come out or not.
She opened her computer and I can tell that she's under some very visible throes how to go about her story. She typed on her keyboard, "media release," all caps. Thirty minutes passed and she was still staring at the white monitor. I don't know what she found there. It must be quite interesting. She's wearing a white blouse and a pair of black pants. Then, her companion pulled a chair and sat beside her and she said, "She's with Inquirer." Her companion smiled. "From Manila?" I said, no. "Provincial," the woman said. I wanted to strangle her.