Bus ride to wherever

I've been avoiding the television lately. I find it too hypnotic that I can't get anything done anymore. The whole house is a mess, I've been neglecting laundry duty and my refrigerator is about to freeze over into the next ice age. Unfortunately, this strategy of mine doesn't seem to be as effective as I've hoped. I come home late at night from my gas station hang-out and am greeted by a mountain of chores. What do I do? Nothing. I just stare back at the filth and mumble a promise to get it done this weekend.

Ah, but this weekend I'm off to a wedding. So on Sunday, perhaps? Most likely I'm to be too lazy to do it. Oh well, better take things one day at a time...

*****

I'm currently thinking of Sagada. I guess I'm stressed out. Sagada is my "safe" place... it's where I feel like going to when I want to forget or be away. I don't have to do anything, just sit back, relax, have a cigarette and a steaming hot cup of coffee. However, getting there is quite stressful in itself. So my mind then settles for Baguio. The next best thing, I guess.

Hmm, how about a new adventure? Somewhere I've never been to? Or somewhere that I haven't considered before? Some people I know check in to a hotel when they want to get away from it all. I would like to do the same sometimes, but the steep cost of booking a suite or a room just isn't helping me out. So yeah, hotels are very unlikely in my book.

When I was living in Pangasinan for my OJT, I used to ride the bus to Baguio or Manila just to be somewhere else. I specially enjoyed the non-airconditioned buses as they had more "character" and stopped more often. This means I get to spend more time on the road, which is okay with me as I really had nothing much to do when I got to where I was going, anyway. Also, I could smoke inside the bus, something which the new laws of smoking in public areas now forbid. I took the last row of seats, the ones that no one wanted to sit in, and then look out the window the whole time. I'd watch the fields, trees, carabaos, stores, houses, practically anything in my line of sight. Night journeys are the best, it isn't hot inside the bus and the glow of streetlamps or the moonlight gave a lot of surrealism to the whole experience.

Once while walking on the roadside in Urdaneta City after helping myself to an extravagance known as the Jollibee palabok fiesta, a bus stopped and the conductor called out that it was going to Pasay. I was walking toward the line of tricycles heading to the interior, but in a millisecond found myself hopping onboard the bus. I remember having to call ahead to a friend of mine, I needed to borrow some money as I realized that I had only P200 on me and the fare, including the return trip costs P202. I had to walk for an hour before I got to his house and claimed the loan, then spent half of it on beer.

Hopefully, a magical bus won't be stopping at my feet this time, lest I shrug my shoulders and hop on to a trip to anywhere. Not that I don't want to, but I might forget that it's a Thursday and that I've to be somewhere more definite tomorrow.