Thirteen

[ENTRY 69..✍️]

Thirteen days without electricity.

Thirteen days without internet.

I know I said I'm handling it better than most people my age but gosh, I miss modern convenience electricity provides so much now. I miss the internet. I miss Netflix. I miss learning Spanish. I miss improving my French. The only time I could charge my phone is when my older sister comes home from work bringing a fully-charged power bank. But even with that, the signal is still an absolute shit so using phone data as a substitute for wi-fi only frustrates the fuck out of a person. The kind that makes you want to throw your phone against a rock-hard wall.

I started feeling this way when I finished reading the 2nd book of "The Stormlight Archive", an epic fantasy novel by Brandon Sanderson and by far, the longest one I've ever read. Over a thousand pages of about 400-thousand words each volume. Ever since I was done with the 2nd book, I suddenly felt empty. I have the 3rd book at my disposal, which, by the way, is even longer than either of the precedent books, but I don't feel like proceeding to it yet. I wanna take a break from reading for now and just seamlessly browse through the internet, which is of course, a luxury most people on the island can't afford these days. (Yes, I live on an island.)

So guess what I did during the arrival of Christmas? 

Nothing. I just slept. It's not like we do anything fancy during this season but at least we usually have festive foods prepared. And most importantly, we HAVE lights. This year, however, not only were the trees or roofs blown off by the typhoon but so was the Christmas spirit. Absolutely no yuletide greetings were thrown about by anyone during the 25th of the month. At least, from my observation.

Yay to the most awaited holiday of the year turned blah.

I just slept during Christmas Eve, woke up at exactly midnight because of the sudden noise (at least some people still managed to have fun with firecrackers), half-consciously stood up for three seconds and looked outside my window into the sky. I didn't see any fireworks so I went back to bed again. Lamest Christmas ever. During the day, I mostly spent it reading "Words of Radiance" (the 2nd book of "The Stormlight Archive") and I actually had fun being mentally transported to another world, mostly because the chapters I was reading were packed with thrill and action and got me so excited. I suddenly feel like a nerd spending the holidays with my nose buried in books. Bah. I'm saying that as if I have any other amusing things to do even if there was no calamity.

Boredom. Boredom. Boredom.

My younger sister teased me with one of the people who comes and fetches water from our jetmatic pump. Crazy bitch. But he's actually a pretty cute guy and I immediately took notice of him the first time I saw him because of his scent. It was during the evening my sibling thought the pump broke. 

The night had just fallen then and she shouted: "Who was the last person to use the pump?!"

The tone of her voice very much sounded like our source of water was finally done for, so upon hearing this, my ears immediately perked up because how were we supposed to bathe now? Also because I was the last person who used it. Haha.

I got out from my room, went downstairs, and into the open air where a small group had already crowded around the water station: my sister, her boyfriend, two male kids, Mrs. Lanny (whose cat practically lives in our house now; and upon hearing the shout of my sister, came over to see what was going on), and two guys each bringing a large container.

I walked towards the party and asked, "Did it break?"

I immediately whiffed a fresh and masculine aroma from one of the guys. Storms, but it did smell so good.

"It's not emitting water anymore," my sister replied—part anxious, part resentful—whilst pumping it.

I looked to see and this relieved me. "Oh! I thought one of the parts got broken again and needed to be welded..."

I've encountered that same problem a few times even before the typhoon and from my experience, it isn't something to be nervous about. It just happens. Although the first time it occurred to me, my stupid ass thought the underground water had finally run out. Lmfao. But turns out you just have to keep pumping it until you feel the handle heavier, an indication that the water will come out any second now.

"It's just normal," one of the two kids said. "We have one like this in our hometown and you only have to put water in the hole to make the water come back again." 

Aye, that'll indeed, make the operation faster, having performed the same thing once myself.

So I went back to the house to get a large mug of water and when I returned, I slowly poured it into the top orifice where the air comes out. But one of the guys, the cute and neat one, stepped forward and said, "Allow me." So I gave him the mug and let him do it. He really smelled so good. Fresh good, like he just bathed, with a mix of cologne.

I guess it was because of that minor interaction my sister teased me when we were all hanging outside the house one afternoon: me, her, her boyfriend, big sissie. The guy entered the gate with a water container again and before he could pass us by, my younger sister, with a stupid grin on her face, told everyone that my crush was coming. And the moment she said this, we all looked at him. Of course, the guy noticed four pairs of eyes suddenly fixated on him. I immediately shot the little bitch a look that says she is retarded. Yeah, he's neat and pretty cute but he's not my type. I don't think he, or this, is even worth mentioning about, but my life's been really dull for a long while now that I take notice of even the smallest things I usually disregarded before. Maybe just to have something to write about. Or maybe I'm unknowingly hoping for something to happen out of these particular frivolous happenstances… I really don't like him that way, though. But honestly, with my boring life, anything would be nice.

Anything at all.

Oh, here we go again. Rolling my eyes. You know what I mean. Not those. Bitch.

Sorry. Stupid voice in my head. Tsk.

[Originally written: December 29, 2021]