I’d like to say these are my plans but planning is really a rather serious term. I’d rather say “my alternatives” in that way I wouldn’t be obliged to pursue them and would remain as options. This recession thing had our counterparts in the US slashing their wrists or perhaps killing their own children —very escapist actually but we can’t blame them. This financial blunder has affected the entire universe. The bad thing about recession though is this - as they strip off others of their jobs of course eventually it will be outsourced to other poor unfortunate third-world country such as l tet’s say - Philippines and vice versa. We gain some, we loose some. Right now, we are on a roll. However, I am blaming Canada for it. While I am drowned with a lot of paperwork and contracts galore, my mind usually takes me some place else that sometimes I find a hard tapping in my shoulder asking ” Earth to Joyce, come in, Joyce.” I’m sure eventually, this outsourcing stint will find it’s way back into the ice age and when it does you might find me in the following places or I might opt doing the following:

 

1. I’d be here in my couch watching reruns of Will and Grace and Charmed - Yes, it’s been awhile since I found my self bumming around that I actually miss the feeling of being completely hopeless and miserable not because of deadlines I might miss but for fear that boredom will eventually gnaw me and render me completely paralized.

 

2. I’d be in the nearest video bar singing ZOMBIE - following the foot steps of my alcoholic uncle, I’d do myself a favor my continually testing the limits of my alcoholic tolerance, the capacity of my liver and my neighbors self-control over sparing my dear old life.

 

3. I’d be picking up that old guitar case and rock your world - Yes. Run for your lives because when my last pay arrives I’d buy an amplifier, a pick and a sturdy electric guitar.  K, but if someone was strong enough to get a hold of me and pound me into a bloody pulp before I even get close to strapping in my guitar, I might just settle as a roadie.

 

4. I’ll run away and find an unchartered territory, change my name where I can pretend I have amnesia and start over again. Wouldn’t be nice to have a clean slate? I know it has been used in some many movies. But it’s so much better to experience it in real life. Truth is stranger than fiction.

 

5. I just might become a professional masseuse - they say I have good hands. hmmmm. 

 

6. Perhaps, I’ll finally give into my aunt’s plan of sending me to the United Nations as a volunteer. Hmmm, still contemplating. What better way to reach an unchartered territory with no internet, no communications, no technology whatsoever and be declared officially cyber MIA. Tabula Rasa at its finest.

 

7. Undergo sex transplant and enter the brotherhood of the Jesuits. Isn’t it unfair that they don’t have female counterparts? I’ll become filthy rich and eventually rule my own school and have the the little altar boys worship me every Friday.

 

8.I”ll cut my hair. Perhaps become an impersonator of some sort. I’m sure I’ll figure it out.

 

9. When another laffapalooza hits, I might drag myself and get humiliated more—jobless and unfunny where am I in the Philippine ladder?? 

 

10. Sit here. Just here and breathe  fire in this pen while I listen to my dad’s complete Beatles collection. Aaaaah, this is the life.