Happy birthday, Stephen King, and how's the next book going, Mr. Martin?

While posting about Stephen King's birthday, I wandered into George R.R. Martin's Facebook page, wondering why I couldn't tag it the way I was able to tag King's. I scrolled down his timeline and found a throwback picture of GRRM as a zombie chewing on one of his books.

One comment said it was a scene from the future, when the "Winds of Winter" would have already been released. Someone else replied, "Never gonna happen."

I felt my heart break a little at the thought. I can't imagine not ever finishing reading "A Song of Ice and Fire," especially with the way the last season of Game of Thrones was written, despite its recent Emmy wins.

I got into ASOIAF very late, but I fell fast and hard. I'd never been into medieval epic fantasies before, but GRRM pulled me in completely. It was a whirlwind affair that brought back the geek in me.

But I guess this is how to love. We get to enjoy the ride, with no guarantees of an ending.

Just read: The Stories So Far by Jessica Zafra

To prepare for my thesis writing and revisions, I started reading short stories by Filipino authors again. As it was my latest acquisition, The Stories So Far by Jessica Zafra was on top of my pile, so I started with it.

I stopped reading Jessica Zafra's essays in the early 2000s, when I had regular access to it at the newspaper I worked for. Either I outgrew her bitchy persona or I embraced my cheerful, positive, emotional (and perhaps escapist) side -- maybe both -- but I simply lost interest, after a couple of years of following her column  as religiously as I could, given that our newspaper man didn't carry the newspaper it was in.

But I stayed a fan of her fiction writing, even if there was only one collection and even if I don't always share her worldview. Her stories are good reads -- well-formed, compelling, cerebral, strange and yet familiar, and they somehow reflect my own journey as a child of the 80s and 90s -- but sometimes they leave me tired and not liking the world. This is not a bad thing, of course; it's just a matter of preference.

Every time I read her stories,  two things happen: First, I suddenly have the urge to respond with a more encouraging fiction of my own. Second, I am reminded to revisit Luis Katigbak's Happy Endings.

Anyway, I was happy to hear she had a follow up to Manananggal Terrorizes Manila and Other Stories.

I enjoyed The Stories So Far. I especially enjoyed the stories about Jude, the smart girl with a troubled childhood. I felt like I grew up with her. However, my favorite story is "914, 915, 916," which is about the residents of a strange apartment building who share the same space but not the same time.

Stories usually earn my loyalty with lines I fall in love with. I do not particularly love Jessica Zafra's writing voice, but I admire how crisp her sentences sound when I read them out loud in my head.

Here's a part that I particularly like. It's from the story "Heavy Metal," where Jude, who we first meet in another story when she was in the third grade, is now in university and dating a bad boy straight out of the 1990s. She realizes that she doesn't know him very well after all, and he brings her to his place for the first time. I liked it because of how the sex (Jude's first time) was introduced in the cataloguing.

He takes my hand, turns it over, and kisses the palm. "You like me, don't you."

"No, I can't stand you, that's why I'm here." My mother will kill me. She's probably calling the police as we speak.

"You're a very strange girl," he smiles, which is totally unfair because there is no sarcasm to counter a smile like that.

The stairs creak. There are no curtains on the windows. There's a wooden crucifix and a poster of The Clash. The sheets on the unmade bed are striped blue and white. The springs squeak. The ceiling is eggshell white, with cobwebs. The ceiling fan is whirring. The wrapper won't rip, he has to tear it open with his teeth. Without meaning to, I start giggling. I wait for the fadeout.

Book hunting

I said I would just pass by Book Sale, scan the shelves for pre-loved books, and run off to do my errands. It was already late--I had attended the 4pm mass, the one in Filipino, which I barely understand, as my first language was Visayan, and even if I am fluent in Filipino, I often find it hard to access its written form--but I ended up staying an hour and a half anyway, coming out with I don't know how many books--including a lovely purchase that, I can say, now that I have two copies, I will give as a surprise birthday gift to a dear, dear friend.

That book was actually a delightful find. I was just scanning the children's books--I have this fantasy of preparing a nice little library for my two future kids--when I found it. My heart actually leapt, as it had only been days since I came to know of its existence. It was Sunday's gift to me for being a good girl, waking up early to tidy up the garden (because our stay-out maid Jean, who we'd been calling Jane for years, because that's how she pronounces it, is sick), filling up the water tank, watering my herbs (not exactly a garden yet, but it's wonderful that they're still alive), and feeding the dogs.

I spent 45 minutes more, sitting on the floor next to random toddlers, alternately pulling up my dress' collar (low neckline, boo!) and digging through other children's books (including newer editions of the Disney books I read as a child, which I was so tempted to buy for my niece Keona), to see if they had another copy of the book waiting for a second chance to make a reader happy. Unfortunately, there was none.

So, officially obsessed, I headed off to the real bookstore (the National one, haha), braved the last-minute back-to-school crowd, and prayed to find another copy. Just because. And I did! I found the one and only copy--a second time! Of course, being brand new, it was more expensive, like five times more expensive, but who cares? Can you say meant to be?

P.S. As usual, I bought things I don't need too--a turquoise-inked pen and a coral blue mechanical pencil. Cheap thrills!

First book of the year: Eat, Pray, Love--or first, I cry

I first heard about Eat, Pray, Love from the Oprah Show. I was hesitant about reading it, as I still have a pile of guaranteed feel-good reads to make a dent on, but when I found a copy for a little over a hundred bucks at Booksale, I quickly grabbed it. I picked it up after New Year, and I found it to be such a delicious, beautiful read.

Gilbert, thirty-something and recently divorced, travels from Italy to India to Indonesia in pursuit of pleasure, piety, and the balance between the two. In Italy she eats, in India she prays, and in Indonesia she finds love.

I'm still in the Italy part, but already I'm wondering where I am really in her book. I think I'm at where she was, before she found the guts to make her journey.

Bleh. But it's good to cry.