Dream: John Lloyd and Bea

Last night, I dreamed that I was getting married to John Lloyd Cruz and I was Bea Alonzo. We'd been completely in love, so I was confused that, right before the ceremony, JLC was suddenly distant. 

He spent time with his friends; didn't even look at me. I wasn't sure if we should even continue the wedding, but all the guests were there and I was already dressed. 

I thought about talking to him, worried that I'd be legally bound to someone who didn't want me even if he was JLC. Then I considered going with the flow but also being emotionally prepared to question him why he still proceeded to marry me. I would be blameless, I figured, even if stuck. 

I wondered if he loved someone else. But we had been so happy! And his eyes had always seemed sincere. And why hadn't he said anything?

We got married, but he didn't join me in the room later.

Then someone told me why, but I can't remember how. Maybe it was a narrator: You're messy. Your bed is full of cookie crumbs, and he can't stand it. He loves you, but he can't tolerate your being a slob. 

Bea Alonzo swept the clothes and crumbs off her bed. Sniffed her hands. Then she sobbed. 

Dream: Performance Poetry

I had a long and vivid dream, but all I can remember is the last part. 

After a long journey, where we had to eat packed meals and wash up in our cars, we finally reached a Makati hotel we called The Westin. I was with family and friends, and we occupied several rooms. 

The hotel was decrepit, aged by the pandemic, and you could no longer tell it used to be good. "This was my favorite hotel," my sister said, as we surveyed the room and stashed our belongings.

I checked the bathroom. It was clean enough, but it wasn't well-constructed. You could tell by the puddles gathering in some parts of the floor. There were also leaks--when you turned on the light by the sink, water spouted out of a crack near the switch.

We took quick showers, changed, and started to settle in.

We had dirty clothes and dishes and a lot of leftover food. As I was putting away some food containers on a dresser, I dropped a bowl of champorado, spilling chocolate and rice all over the floor.

My sister sighed and said, "Clean that up." But before I could, people started arriving, including old Filipino poets, with a couple of National Artists, tracking the chocolate mess all over the floor. But because the room was packed, nobody noticed. 

Apparently, we had agreed to host a poetry reading and my best friend Sherwil was going to perform a classic ars poetica piece about poetry. It was called something like The Point of Poetry or The Purpose of a Poem. 

When our friend Jimple--he was staying in another room--heard that Sherwil was performing this particular poem, he lent her an origami piece based on the poem that he had made a few years ago so she could use it as a prop. It was like a handheld pinwheel that transformed, as it turned, into several things: a blooming flower, a pointing finger, a smoking gun, a dancing lady, a pensive fairy ... 

When it was Sherwil's turn to perform, the whole room went quiet. She gave the performance of her life, unleashing acting skills even I didn't know she had. (I dreamed the entire poem, but I can't remember it in its entirety. Boo. It sounded a little like Ars Poetica by Archibald Macleish.)

Sherwil arrived at the last lines, which I vaguely remember: 

A poem exists so it can be all of this--

And she held the origami piece for everyone to see.

--a blooming flower, a pointing finger, a smoking gun, a dancing lady, a pensive fairy--

Everyone was blown away. Sherwil paused. Then continued:

a man's clothed honesty. 

The dream ended with everyone's applause.

Dream: Barcelona

Last night, I dreamed that I was catching huge koi fish in an enormous but shallow pool shaped like Denmark. I don't even know what Denmark is shaped like, but I knew it was Denmark. 

The fish were biting, but in some parts of the pool the water was not enough for fish to swim in, so I waded farther inward and tried to catch some more. In a deeper portion of the pool, I caught a giant goldfish but pulled out the bait (also a fish) and threw it back, like the others, I presume, since I kept catching fish but I wasn't carrying any. 

Then I had to go to with family to Barcelona, where we stayed in an old house lent to us by a distant relative. The house was empty except for some supplies left in the cupboard. 

We had our helper Jane with us, and for the most part of the trip, the two of us stayed in the house. I was content with it, being inside a house in Barcelona, and discovering the house's little spots of personality. 

It wasn't a beautiful house; it wasn't interesting even. But I kept finding traces of the people who had lived in it and that fascinated me. 

A few days before the end of our trip, I found bottles stashed in the upper shelf of a cupboard. One was a European version of toyomansi. Another was filled with figs and olive oil. 

Jane was cleaning up when I found those bottles. I had needed to stand on a chair to reach them, and she told me to be careful because the seat was broken. I looked down and saw part of the seat wedged beneath a small and rusty LPG tank. 

That was when we noticed that parts of the kitchen were splattered with old oil stains. Jane wondered if she should clean them, and I said she could, but she didn't have to, since they had been there before we arrived. But she wanted to and she rolled up her sleeves.

I felt bad because she hadn't been outside the house at all. She hadn't seen what was there to see in Barcelona. Then I realized I hadn't been outside at all! And I had a dear friend in Barcelona who didn't know I was there. And we were about to go home!

I messaged my friend on Whatsapp. He said he was staying in this little cottage owned by a language school. He was teaching Spanish to engineering students and engineers. The school was also looking for English teachers, he said. Did I want to stay longer to have a proper vacation?

I woke up happier than I'd been in the past few days.

Dream: Burning leaves

I dreamed that I was woken up by the scent of burning leaves, and I stepped out of the house to find out who had started a small bonfire. I wasn't dressed to go out, so instead I peered over the wall. I saw a friend who passed away this year. He smiled at me and I was startled to see him, remembering he had died.

Then his face became that of his brother's. 

"Oh, hi," I said, "I didn't know you were here." And I thought you were your dead sibling. "Has anyone been burning leaves?" I asked.

He shook his head, and I went back inside the house to sleep.

Dream: Walking away

Last night, I dreamed that I was just leaving work in Alabang. Or was it school? Anyway, I was leaving and I saw someone I used to love. He was dressed very well, in a red shirt and black jeans, a jacket, and brown Oxfords (not brogues). He also had dark eyeglasses on. He was smiling, but not at me.

I didn't want to be seen, so I hurriedly walked away. When I realized he was just behind me, walking in the same direction, I walked faster. It started drizzling, and I walked even faster. He and some other guys hitched a ride on the back of a pickup truck and they passed me, and I saw him see me, but I kept walking and walked even faster when he got off the truck.

I walked and walked and suddenly I was in Cainta, far away from him. I walked towards a group of people, and I discovered they were at a riverbank. I saw a man I recognized as a friend's father. He and his companions were fishing.

I peered at the water and saw that it was part ice but still flowing, taking some fish and other river creatures with it. The people just needed to pull out the partially frozen creatures. I saw different types of frozen freshwater fish and even crocodiles, all frozen, their eyes still open. They didn't seem to be dead, just asleep, encased in soft ice.

Already there were huge piles of seafood ready to be sold, and the sight of the fish made me want to bring some home. I asked my friend's father if I could buy some, and he apologized and said that the sellers weren't there yet. 

Being told no made me want the fish more and so I was sad, and when he noticed my sadness, he handed me a few pieces of small flat fish, barely even full grown, for free. I took the fish and thanked him, but he saw I wasn't happy, so he poured some salt and pepper into a teaspoon, plucked some local berries from a nearby bush, and gave them to me. 

"Try this," he said. "It's good."

I still wanted the fish, so I lingered, and soon the sellers arrived. But then I realized I wasn't sure what I wanted anymore and the fish didn't look very appealing, so I just stood there until I remembered I was supposed to be on my way home.

But I had already walked from Alabang to Cainta, and I didn't want to turn around and walk back the same way. On the other hand, I felt that if I continued in the same direction, I would make it home, yes, but through a busier, non-scenic route, and the walk would be too uncomfortable.    

I walked around a little to look for a bus station and found myself in a small mall. The rest of the dream is hazy, and it ended with me, standing on a sidewalk, looking at buses that were headed one place near me that I had never wanted to go to. 

I can't recall the name of the place, but the feeling was the same as when I would be in Makati, waiting for a bus to Alabang and all the buses were headed to FTI. 

Dream: Almost a love story

I dreamt that I needed to buy a new phone battery because my current one already felt like half an orange. I took it out and got ready to go to the mall, mask and all. I placed my now-dead phone and the battery inside a resealable plastic bag, and then put it in a leather bag with my leather wallet. Then I got on a bus.

Suddenly, I was in San Francisco, as if the bus had entered a portal and exited in the US. We were about to arrive at the bus stop. The bus paused, and a girl hurriedly stepped out. Then the bus moved again--slowly driving down a dozen or so huge steps that led to the water.

This was a usual stop in San Francisco, I gathered. I dropped my leather bag through the window on the third step. I signaled to a woman watching the bus to please get my bag. She picked it up and gave me a thumbs up sign.

The final stop was submerged in knee-deep water. I waded back to where the woman was to get my bag. We made small talk and it turned out she was with a group of family and friends planning a trip to Manila the following week because they needed to get in touch with a Russian man. Among them was the man's best friend from his childhood: Tony Shahloub, dressed as Monk, now single.

I asked about their friendship, and he told me that his Russian friend had saved his life. There was something like a gang war in their teens, and some other fights. The Russian friend was also funny, and that helped shape Tony's brand of comedy.

I was actually treated to a Stand by Me type of flashback in sepia. Like a dream within a dream.

When I said goodbye to the group, Tony grabbed my hand gently and asked if he could look me up in Manila. He said he found me nice and charming, and would I want to perhaps join him as he went around. He had a feeling about me, he said. "Can you meet me somewhere?" he asked, both confident and shy.

I considered his age (66) but realized that I had hung on to every word he said and that talking to him was the most fascinating thing that had ever happened to me. He was funny and witty and he made my mind come alive with interest. I could love him, I thought.

I said I would give him my number, but we both didn't have phones. He handed me a Pilot tech pen and an old glossy receipt. If you love pens like me, you know that those two don't go well together! I couldn't seem to write my correct number. I have a lot of 8s but when I wrote them down, they either looked like 6s or 9s.

I told Tony I had some paper in my bag and took out a pad of 1/4 sheets of paper. But then the tech pen wouldn't work. And I misspelled my name. He talked as I tried to write, each attempt with increasing panic. He told me how his Russian friend had ended up in Manila, and how he was now ill and alone and wanted to see him.

They hadn't been in touch for years, so there was a lot of catching up to do. I found an old pen in my bag and started writing with it: my full name and phone number. I attempted a hundred times, I think, but didn't get it right. When finally I was able to write it down, our conversation had become so engrossing I forgot to hand it over.

And suddenly, I was back in Manila. In Southmall, where people weren't wearing masks and I had to go through a crowd to get my phone battery. I still held in my hand the piece of paper for Tony. But I seemed to have traveled not just in place but also in time. It was a week later, and Tony had arrived in Manila.

There was a radio playing loudly an interview with him: It was his first time to visit, he was saying, and now he understood why his Russian friend had stayed. "There is magic in this place," he said, "and it makes me feel more alive than I have ever felt." He was sad he had to leave.

I looked at the piece of paper in my hand and kicked myself mentally for not remembering to give it to him. How could he find me now? He wasn't that big of a celebrity here that he would be easy to stalk. He was back in San Francisco when I finally got in touch with him.

"I'll come back to visit you," he said. But we didn't say when.

Dream: The one that I let get away

I dreamt that I was at an old house that we'd converted into some sort of headquarters for work, and an English man dropped by with his five-year-old adopted son. The man was Neil Gaiman, maybe 10 to 15 years younger. He was also single.

The little boy was cute and playful, and I watched over him as Neil and my colleagues did some work together. I overheard interesting bits and pieces of their conversation, and I joined in.

Soon the two of us were bantering, and I was being extra witty (and also very cute, since this is my dream after all) despite his very English humor (and Aussie accent; I realize I don't know what the real Neil Gaiman sounds like).

"You guys should start dating," one of my colleagues said, "You seem to have amazing chemistry."

I said no way, but only because I was mortified. I mean, this was still work and hello, this was Neil Gaiman.

He grinned at me and said, "Do you want to bet that it won't work out between us?" I was confused, so I responded with a laugh. "Let's make a bet--give me your number," he said.

I laughed again, still confused. When I didn't budge, he asked for it again. "Oh, you were serious?" I asked. He smiled flirtatiously, and I was a little dizzy as I entered my number in his phone.

Then he and his son said goodbye to us, because they needed to get breakfast. He gave me one last look and signaled that he'd call me. As they walked away, I was thinking, "Oh my god, is Neil Gaiman going to be my boyfriend?"

My colleague told me to go after them. I said no. I had work, and I didn't want to rush things. But we did watch them walk away.

Outside the old house was a movie theater. A long queue had already formed for some big Hollywood movie. A beautiful woman in the middle of the line recognized Neil and ran after them to introduce herself.

She asked how he was finding the Philippines, then asked him where he was going next. He said he and his son were off to look for breakfast. She said she knew the perfect place and described how to get there and how good the food was.

"Would you care to join us?" Neil asked.

The woman did, never mind that she already had a movie ticket. I watched them walk away.

"This is why you are single," the narrator in my dream said.

We are off to a slow start, 2018

Last night, I dreamt that I was in the United States with some people, including a boy I liked years ago, someone I was interested in again. We were all staying in a relative's house; the family was out of the country and had invited us to use their home.

All of us were friendly, but we weren't exactly traveling together. I had my own plans, including reunions with other friends I didn't share with them. However, as people who find themselves together tend to do, everyone started planning as a group: tours, night outs, shows. I hesitated; I always start out wanting to do my own thing, not following anyone else's agenda.

But when they invited me to a barbecue night in the backyard, I looked at the boy I liked shyly and thought: This is a good way to get to know him better. I imagined the two of us chatting on the porch, laughing over drinks and maybe liking each other a little bit more.

I ran off to my room and took a shower. Before dressing, I decided to lie down in bed for a few minutes. It was morning when I woke up, still with bathrobe on and a towel wrapped around my hair. Barbecue night was over; I had lost my chance.

That was the end of the dream.

I woke up a little upset at myself. Later, when I shared this dream with friends, I wondered: Do I feel bad because I am so slow at everything?

Years ago, I tried to make a vision board, but I couldn't fill it up. Someone I went to grad school with scoffed at it and said, "Dagdagan mo naman ang mga pangarap mo." Add to your dreams; have more ambition; be more; do more.

Lately, I've been rethinking this idea of "more."

One of the articles I read last year that left an impression asked this question: What if All I Want is a Mediocre Life? Of course, the writer doesn't really want a mediocre life. She wants a small, slow, simple one and she defines it for herself and declares it enough.

That's something that I am committed to this year, but it's also something I'm slow at defining. But I'm getting there. I'm getting there. 

I had a nightmare after watching IT (2017)

I watched the last full show of IT (2017) last night. I'll write an entry on it later, but first this.
This is the nightmare I had after watching IT.

***

I dreamt that I had grabbed a cute blue-eyed white kitten through the window of a car stuck in EDSA traffic.

I was walking on the sidewalk when I saw the kitten, a family pet, about to get crushed by a reclining seat, so I reached into the car and pulled it to safety, fully intending to give it back immediately.

I knew the driver, and I had been seeing pictures of her five-year-old son and the kitten named Brutus on Instagram. She mouthed a "thank you" and reached out for the kitten, but as I tried to hand it over, the traffic lightened. I half ran beside the car, hoping to toss the kitten back in.

"Stop for a few seconds," I said to the driver. But she didn't, or couldn't, and soon she had to drive faster up the Ortigas flyover. She sped away in her BMW, leaving me standing on the sidewalk with Brutus.

I played with him a little. He liked being babied, so I cradled him in my arms and rubbed his tummy. But on the way home, I had to put him in a small cloth pouch with a plastic cover and a zipper. He went in without complaining and promptly fell asleep.

I expected a call from Brutus' family. Two days later, still no call.

Why wasn't she calling?

Also two days later, while talking to my friends, I suddenly wondered where Brutus was and realized I had forgotten to take him out of the pouch. I ran to my room.

Heart pounding, I picked up the pouch from my desk. There was no movement. When I opened it, out came the dead kitten, stiff and dry, hair still fluffy but body a bit flat. A tiny leg fell off. There was no blood, only a deflation.

I was horrified. I had no idea how to tell my friend I had killed her beloved pet! I could say he just died of natural causes, I thought to myself. Or maybe I could just say he ran away. But maybe her son needed to see little Brutus' body for a proper goodbye.

I put the tiny corpse in a shoebox, still not knowing what to say.

And why hadn't she called?

I went back to my friends, silent about my accidental murder. They were talking happily about their babies.

One of them looked up at me and asked, "So, how's my baby? Did he behave?"

I had no idea what she was talking about.

What baby?

Why was she asking me about her baby?

I woke up when I was starting to remember.

Dream: A boyfriend and a dentist

I dreamt I had an amazing new boyfriend who did development work with a focus on counseling poor children. He was smart and kind, but also handsome in a rough way.

I met him when I was visiting his place of work with a girl friend. It was stressful because the children kept trying to steal stuff. My friend wanted to leave, but I caught a child running off with my phone, and I sort of understood the work he was trying to do. We clicked.

My friend left, I stayed, we talked, and he walked me home later that night. I put my arm around his, we looked at each other, and we were suddenly in love.

The catch: Being with him meant having to go to a dentist regularly, one that he had worked with before. The dentist's office was in Gotham City and the dentist was like a cross between Joker and The Penguin, with a face riddled with pus-filled pimples. I didn't have any cavities, but he liked to pry my mouth open and poke at all my teeth with his slimy penguin hands.

The dentist wasn't a bad person, but he was gross. He smacked his lips every time he looked into my open mouth. But my boyfriend was always in the room during my check-ups, offering moral support.

The last scene I remember left me with my mouth open, kept open by a mouth gag. The dentist was peering too closely into my mouth--again, I didn't have any cavities--and I was thinking of my new love and saying to myself, "This is so worth it. This is so worth it. This is so worth it."

Dream: Real friends eat together

I dreamt that I had received a care package from a US-based relative filled with healthy-ish, but hard-to-find junk food products from the Philippines. You could order it online from anywhere in the world and send it to Filipinos.

I surveyed the contents of the box, picked out the vegan ones, and set aside the other products for sharing with my loved ones.

I thought of giving some to my best friends Sherwil and Em. For Sherwil, I set aside different foods with dark chocolate in them. For Em, I set aside barbecue chips and other sweets.

When the time came to share them, my friends and I, who were located in different places, traveled via what felt like astral projection to converge in one dimension.

I woke up because I was smiling too hard, completely amused that we had astral-projected only so we could be together ... to eat junk food.

Dream: A note from Neil Young

I dreamt that I was one of a handful of people to attend Neil Young's book launch at National Bookstore in Glorietta. For some reason, Neil walked out after being introduced and his publicist took over to talk about the coffee table book. She had interesting stories so we (Jimple, Paul and I) stayed. But I was starting to worry about the book signing that would follow because there were only four or five of us left.

We bought books anyway (Paul bought an extra copy for a friend) and lingered too long at the book signing table. Just as we were about to leave, Neil arrived, a smile on his face. He started signing our books, asking questions about us as he did. He wrote personalized messages with his blue fountain pen -- to Jimple, he wrote something about music and life; to Paul, something about yoga and India; and to me, he scribbled a note that I didn't read right away. Later, I told myself, so I could have a moment.

We walked out of Glorietta, leaving Neil at an empty table, carrying our books like treasure. Paul had his in a reusable shopping bag; Jimple had his book wrapped in his black corduroy jacket; and I held mine, wrapped in plastic, close to my chest. I was wondering what message Neil had for me when I woke up.

Dream: A television studio tour

I dreamt that my mother, my eight-year-old niece Keona and I had stumbled upon an ABS-CBN tour. It was free, it would take only 30 minutes, and there was a man giving away large packs of butter coconut cookies. I accepted a pack, looked at the ingredients and said it wasn't vegan. But I took the pack with me anyway.

As we walked to the start of the line, the guides started calling out to all the tour participants: "Come on, run!" And so we ran, from one dark studio to another, through one dark hallway to another, seeing nothing of interest.

"No wonder this is free," I thought to myself. "This is the suckiest tour ever." The tour guides, all long-time ABS-CBN employees currently not working on shows, were tasked to handle tours by management as an effort to bring the station closer to the public.

Then they put us on a bus driven by a cameraman. He said we were going to the ABS-CBN village behind the compound. The station had built a village for shoot locations and also for temporary residences for all station employees and talents when they were working on projects.

As we drove around the village, which actually just had two streets, we passed by a TV reporter interviewing Boboy Garovillo and Ian Veneracion on the sidewalk. We also caught a glimpse of another actor, one whose name I could never recall, closing a house gate. He didn't look happy to be there, and I wondered if the celebrity sightings were staged for our tour.

Then we passed a Balinese-inspired house that had a sign that said, "Chat's Resort." It had a big yard and a pool. "I have been here before," I said to no one in particular. The memory was hazy, but I just knew it wasn't my first time in the place.

Then I remembered: Once upon a time, I worked for ABS-CBN and our team wanted to hold a "team-building activity." We went to Chat's Resort. We arrived so early that I had to buy coffee from the nearby café. I was even dressed for an outing -- neon sundress, beach shorts, flip-flops -- and I was convinced that Chat's Resort was in Batangas.

We parked in front of the café beside Chat's Resort. The driver told us we were going to walk around the village and instructed us to wait at the café for our guide for this leg of the tour.

The café, more like a canteen actually, was self-service, being run by another off-duty tech guy. One of the tour participants ordered two full meals for himself. As someone took his order, the tech guy chatted with me about the tour.

"Too bad Lucky and Bea just left," he said, "Bad timing. But Popoy is still around, and I think you will be interviewing Popoy."

Popoy who? I wanted to ask. Of course I had an idea, but I didn't want to break the spell! But --

The tour participant paid for his order and the cashier didn't have enough change. Instead, he offered the guy free hopia. The guy helped himself to seven pieces, but they could no longer fit his plate. So he handed me one.

I was biting into the hopia and thinking of what question to ask John Lloyd Cruz -- "Did you ever dream of being in a festival like Berlinale?" -- when I woke up.

Dream: The big one

I dreamt I was in a UP campus and it had older buildings built in the early 1900s on top of huge boulders. These buildings looked much like the buildings of UP Diliman but were made entirely of polished stone.

The stairs in the older buildings were always uneven; sometimes, a step would be too far from the next and would be too small to fit even a child's foot. Sometimes, the handrail had disintegrated so you had only wobbly balustrades, if not their exposed steel bars, to help you.

I was working my way down from the fourth floor when I felt the earthquake. It started as a smooth and consistent shaking, and I propped my hands on a wall to avoid getting dizzy. Then the shaking picked up strength, and I just knew it was "the big one."

I ran out, then stopped to pray and plan what to do and where to go and how to contact family. I looked up and saw that behind me the facade of the newer buildings had already started crumbling. I turned my head -- then realized that the campus being on top of a hill, I had a good view of its surroundings -- and saw black clouds swirling in the air, turning into a tornado.

This will pass, I told myself, as I slowly walked through falling debris and saw cracks appearing on the walls of every building I passed. I kept walking until I found my feet on top of solid rock.

The earth stopped shaking. The buildings creaked and continued crumbling. I chose one that was closest to the boulder: the geological sciences department building.

I found a room and forced its door open -- only to find a group of South Asian male scientists trying to enter the same room from the other side because it was the room with the best bathroom on the floor.

Even as the scientists pushed past me to use the bathroom, that room became my base for the next couple of days. I shared it with others, mostly female UP dormers, because they had supplies.

Occasionally, we would overhear the scientists discuss how beautiful Filipinas were because of our long history of foreign occupation.

Dream: Welcome to Ancientsia

I was in Camarines Sur with Sherwil, a girl who switched from a high school friend to Lorie, and Jimple. Jimple had managed to come because it was near his home town. CamSur, however, was in a highly elevated place, so at night there was zero visibility due to fog.

I had made a couple of friends on the bus, and when we rolled into the station, they immediately set out in the fog to make reservations at Midnight, supposedly a happening club that was in all the DIY CamSur itineraries online.

But we weren't there for that. We were in CamSur for the experience of a special Ancient Age-themed inn we'd heard a lot of but knew nothing about.

We checked in. The rooms were all beige and wooden, the beds not even soft. I was disappointed -- until a voice on loudspeaker told us to hold on to anything. The entire building started shaking, then it started moving like a gigantic rotating stage prop (and the voice on the loudspeaker said as much, more poetically), dislodging itself from the site.

First, all I could think of was, "There would have been no plumbing?! What about the plumbing?" Then I held on to dear life as the rickety structure rolled on the highway for half an hour then slowly entered what looked like a gigantic driveway.

"Welcome to Ancientsia," the voice said. Then it proceeded to give us a tour of all the amenities. There was a grayish field that was Pompeii after the volcanic eruption, a bright sunny field where you could dust off some fossils as if you were in Greece, expansive diggings on the ground that was straight out of Egypt, et cetera, et cetera. It all looked authentic; most of the fossils, one of a dinosaur, were even real.

What struck us most was an area that was a reimagination of ancient Philippines, tropical and lush. There was a small jungle, and you had to cross a land bridge to get to the marsh, then a short walk would get you to a lake. The "lake" was a mishmash of bodies of water separated by mud dikes.

There was one section with a natural hot spring like the one in Pinatubo (you could boil an egg), while another had what looked like thick boiling mud. Another section had sweet and cold water from a natural spring, and that was the visitors' favorite because it was closest to a swimming pool.

Entering the area, we were given hard hats and a choice of containers (a plastic jug for liquid samples, a plastic box for more solid specimens). I stayed behind because I wanted my helmet in a color that "meant something," but the staff manning the entrance had no idea what I meant.

When I caught up with my friends, there was a small drama brewing. Jimple had disappeared for a couple of hours with a new guy friend, and Lorie and Sherwil were upset at the principle of it because he had helped that guy friend "get some."

I showed them my plastic water bottle. "Let's collect samples," I wanted to say, but I dropped it into the water and it floated away, slowly melting. Then I noticed how the tourists had dirtied the water, all sections of it.

Sherwil, Lorie and Jimple made up and they said they were going to wash up and maybe we could check out Midnight. Since I had arrived late, I lingered.

When I was alone, the waters in all sections suddenly receded, taking away all traces of human presence, and yet some of the drains and water spouts were revealed like a magician's hand. Fresh water quickly replaced what had been drained and when all the pools were filled, the place was magical again: bubbles and tiny waves sparkling in the sunset's light, and there was even flying fish in the cooler waters.

It was beautiful and I was alone. So I called out to my friends, and they came running back. We spent a few more hours in the natural spring section, talking about our lives. Lorie was the last to speak -- when Jimple suddenly turned into John Lloyd Cruz.

"You haven't seen me," she said, "as in really seen me." We nodded. Then she asked, "Can you see me?"

I said, "Awww."

Then I excused myself to use the restroom.

Dream: I give you my personal best

There was a small tunnel connecting SM Southmall and our village gate. It was maybe 20 or 30 feet long, and you'd have to crawl or slide on your belly to go through. At each end of the tunnel were books where you could record the time it took you to go through. Every day, the person who broke the day's record got a small prize from SM and bragging rights.

Keona and I tried to do it. I surprised myself by completing it under five minutes. Keona, however, did it under three. Then a famous athlete followed us and did it under two -- with her bike in tow!

Soon after, however, her record was broken by this guitarist from an indie band. He'd been through a tough spell, he scribbled in the record book, and he offered his new physical prowess to a bandmate, their singer, who helped him through drugs and depression and a broken heart with the beauty of poetry. "I give you my personal best, man," he wrote, "and it's a gift that's going to keep giving."

And even as he was writing that, Keona was already getting into the tunnel to try and try again.

(Before I fell asleep, I was reading up on kaizen.)

Dream: Downgrade

I dreamt that some kind of apocalyptic event was happening, and as we were getting away from it, my sister Kai bit my smartphone. It broke in half and I was upset because I didn't want to have to buy a new one. The phone still worked, sort of, but it couldn't be put back together anymore because not only was the screen shattered, the main shell was also cracked.

I was so upset my sister, feeling guilty, set me up for one of the charity television shows where they surprise poor people with gifts. The main host was Eddie Gutierrez; sometimes his other kids, especially the ones who aren't as famous, would co-host.

They put me on a tight close up, a camera shoved at my face. Eddie tried to coax out a sob story from me, but all I could say was my sister bit my phone and broke it. I couldn't even fake cry.

Their disappointment was thick in the air as Eddie wrapped up the show. But they still gave me their surprise gift: a Huawei phone several notches lower than my Samsung Galaxy Note.

I tried to be thankful. I did.

Dream: Starman?

I dreamt that I had joined an international group of servicemen for a boat, plane or spaceship for lunch. They didn't say which, but they all had uniforms with marks of their designation. They had stopped by Manila for some R&R.

They took a group picture, and as the picture was being taken, one of the men I had been talking to put his arm around me until it became more of a hug.

Then he pulled me aside. "Let's take a walk around this place," he said. The place was like Malacañan Palace, by the Pasig River, but I couldn't make sense of the signs. I could read the words, but none of them meant anything to me.

He held my hand as we walked. He was nice and flirtatious, and the conversation was interesting. I wondered if we would kiss.

We went on a small unmanned boat on the river, and the view was amazing. "How could I have known this would be Manila's future?" I asked him, pointing at the amazing colors of the skyline. The buildings were painted to complement the sunset. The riverbanks were clean and filled with tropical flowers.

He suddenly pulled me close to him, just in time for me not to get splashed by a speeding convoy on the the river. Five or six speedboats passed, one of them, the only white one, bearing a sign that said SHEIKH.

"A diplomatic visit, maybe," I said to my new friend. He looked at the armed men on the other boats and nodded.

When the convoy had passed, our boat, still unmanned, started moving, bringing us back to the restaurant where we first met. There were more signs, even a billboard, but I still could not understand the words.

"Where are we?" I asked him. He said something, and in my mind I heard it as places I rarely go to, like Novaliches or Caloocan or Kuala Lumpur.

"Is this even the Philippines?" I wondered to myself. "Earth?"

It was dark. It started raining. The streets were inundated with green sludge. It was starting to feel like Bladerunner.

He let go of my hand and waded into the green sludge. "Yuck, I won't do that!" I said. But I didn't have to. He continued wading away from me, not even looking back as he climbed up a waiting bus.

I stood in the rain, on a step that was slowly sinking into the green flood, the increasingly alien billboards blinking brightly above me, wondering what the hell that was all about.

Dream: Meow

The seduction of the cat side, it begins.

I dreamt I had a white cat. It was forced on me, and I was busy working so I just let it stay in my room. When I checked on it, I saw that it had crawled under a pillow to sleep, hugging a pad of paper. I needed the paper, but when I took it, the cat swatted at me playfully then went back to sleep. I continued working on my laptop in bed, and I felt the cat crawl towards me, snuggling against my back.

It was still sleeping contentedly when I decided to keep it.

Dream: No surrender

Last night's dream: I was living in a house with Samantha Jones, the Kim Cattrall version. A man came to visit, and I could tell right away that he wasn't who he said he was. We thought he was going to take us hostage, and Samantha seduced him to win him over.

The man gave in but didn't capitulate. When he stepped out, Samantha asked me to tie her to her bed. "Just make sure I can untie myself easily," she said. I wasn't sure what she wanted to achieve, but I agreed.

I left to look for things to tie her up with, and bumped into the man. "Who are you?" I asked him. He looked at me meaningfully. I suddenly realized who he was. "You are a cop!" I exclaimed.

He pressed a finger to his lips. Somehow I understood that the bad person here was Samantha, so I decided to tie her up for real. I picked up four leather belts.

I tied Samantha's left arm to the bed post and looked at her splayed on the bed. She was wearing a red see-through nightgown. I touched her collarbone on impulse and she smiled at me seductively. I had to bend over her to reach her right arm and as I did so, she purred and stretched and my heart skipped a beat.

I ran to the cop to tell him I couldn't do it because she was too sexy. We were still talking when Samantha strutted across the room, left arm dragging the entire king-sized bed, and declared, "I have to go and pee."

The cop's mission was a failure. I left him. Then I got ready for a date, putting on my high school uniform. I was swirling the too-long skirt around, listening to it rustling against my legs, when I woke up.