midnight meals

i wonder if this is the reason why my family eats so much. or why i do. hahahaha.

but i like the fact that sometimes late at night --- the dogs are all sprawled in different portions of the dining room, the lights are actually off in the kitchen, dinner had been served earlier, the dishes have already been washed and put away ---- i'm getting a glass of milk and maybe a slice of cheddar cheese, and i hear footsteps.

and we're around the table talking. i guess it usually happens when we might have not had dinner together that night, or if some of us have work to do and need to refuel.

but it is these conversations that make the unhealthy habit worth it. it is like the way that my siblings and i find ourselves around the table past midnight on black saturday cooking bacon after a day of fasting. always the same laughter, the same wry smiles.

tonight was with papa and tita didi. and our voices were loud. there was sliced quezo de bola on the table, and miong was barking for attention.

obviously this doesn't only happen late at night. one thing i heard when i first taught was that i would gain weight because really, that was the only way to unwind when there were 120 term papers waiting to be checked. i always drag people from doing work by asking to be fed. hahahaha!

my lunch in styrofoam (!) led into a long conversation about the childhood i seem to have shared with the people in the cast of the thesis play i'm in (even if they're all students), and when i accompanied a friend to rustan's to buy a loaf of farmer's bread, we were giggling about a dream she had. kuya and i shared a fantastic meal of chickenjoy one tuesday this week, perhaps to celebrate the new toy cholo has bought for the house.

obviously no new thing. but this week i realized i missed people.

(i think that was actually my version of thanksgiving.)