Driving East at Sunrise

By reeza singzon

Navigating this toilsome life from being young and stupid to middle-aged and semi-wise isn't easy, but one woman tries to overcome every obstacle in a bold and venturesome way, though with a lot of hilarious finger-pointing at herself and at others. What will she do to repel an escalating attack launched against her by a determined army of crows, turkeys, bats, and hormones? Can she survive the scarcity of quality men? With her propensity for planning her own demise, will she survive at all? To find out, scroll up and get your copy today!  

• Language: English
• Publisher: a. teresa singzon
• Release date: Jul 14, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393960157

Book preview

notice

this is a work of fiction. names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events, is purely coincidental.

caveat

this book is not for children, nor for the easily offended.

dear boy friend

july 30, 2013

––––––––

dude, enlighten me, my friend. what is hot to you?

typically, when guys ogle a female and breathlessly proclaim, she’s hot! i scan the vicinity and see no one with an alluring face or a seductive, magnetic presence.

does your hot consider only a woman’s body? what about a face that could launch a thousand advertisements for beauty products? how about a spicy sense of humor? do you give points for stunning intelligence or lovely personality?

i ask because, while some of the women you salivating guys describe as hot are indeed attractive from behind, turn them around and you’ve got a cubism painting that melted in a fire.

to give you some perspective on my inquiry, let me tell you a story: 

in high school, the girls that every testosterone-fueled boy wanted to take to the prom were alarming to look at. i thought those girls looked afflicted with some tropical disease that bled them dry and consumed a third of their body weight. the more the boys drooled over them, the harder i wondered if those girls hid grilled steak under their skirt that they occasionally fanned to waft mouthwatering aromas when they walked by. 

in college, the same type of girl had every guy slobbering, even though she could stab you with her sharp pelvic bones if you tried certain kama sutra positions on her. i’d wondered if she and the cadaverous girls at my high school were related.

this didn’t bode well for a chowhound like me with dominant fat genes. i survived the mean teen years only because i was born with a proportionate face more classifiable as renaissance rather than expressionist. i also cultivated perpetual glowing cheeks through frequent suntanning on the roof of our apartment. although i dieted from time to time in preparation for important occasions, i generally ignored the weighing scale and didn’t bother with those aerobics videos. also, i chalked up four boyfriends before i turned 19, so i thought i was on a roll.

alas, in my 20s my weight began to climb, slowly at first, then it shot full-speed ahead and hit the 200-lb. mark, passed it without difficulty, and then proceeded to flirt with the 250-lb. limit on some carnival rides. for someone who barely stood 5 ft. 2, my bone-crushing weight became grave cause for concern at the doctor’s office and for anyone who happened to sit behind me in crowded places.

i got stuck in a yearly cycle: slim down 10 lbs. for summer, gain back 20 lbs. by christmas. it was like doing the diet cha-cha, one dainty step forward, two huge steps back. there was a lot of creamy pasta, cheesy hotdogs, crullers, cakes, flan, milk chocolates, and ice cream going on for me then, and my jaw was the only body part getting any exercise.

when i needed to diet for an approaching special occasion or to prepare for the beach, i simply stopped eating for a few days and the weight would peel right off. needless to say, this weight-loss strategy was not sustainable. i was certain there was a way to permanently and safely keep off the weight, but i couldn’t be bothered to find out what it was. i kept thinking i could easily and permanently lose all the weight once i’ve firmly decided to, i just haven’t firmly decided to.

as my mirror was only about two and a half feet in length—just enough to reflect my mid-torso up to the top of my head with some headroom for aesthetic balance—i didn’t see the mayhem in my increasingly expanding hips, thighs, and waistline. and those loose house dresses and gartered skirts and shorts didn’t help either. all i kept seeing in the mirror was my botticelli face with its rosy suntanned cheeks, which would be misdiagnosed later on as cardiovascular disease, but i’m getting ahead of my story.

i was mirror-challenged and therefore blind to all the chaotic expansion projects from my waist down, but some people did see the havoc, notably, my doctor and some of the guys i’d dated.

one day, my doctor nudged me towards a weighing scale to try to weigh me for an employment-related medical exam. i hesitated at first because he was motioning for me to climb onto an ordinary bathroom scale.

i turned to him and inquired, doc, aren’t bathroom scales inaccurate? i mean, i’ve heard they add 5 to 10 lbs. to your actual weight.

i thought i saw one of his eyebrows raise a tad, but i let it pass. he eased my doubts by assuring me the discrepancy, if any, would be insignificant.

thus reassured, i gingerly stepped on the scale. as it only went up to 300 lbs., the needle went wild out of its mind. i half-expected smoke to gush from the sides and a violent explosion to eject me and launch me through the glass windows.

to avoid further appliance abuse, the doctor quickly ordered me to get off the scale and to sit down on a nearby plastic monobloc chair so he can take my blood pressure.

i eyed the chair doubtfully.

the doctor eyed my wide bottom skeptically.

finally, he said, you may sit down on my swivel chair. please rest your right arm on the desk and relax so we can get a correct reading of your bp.

i eagerly sat back on the cushy swivel chair and placed my right arm on the desk as directed. then, for the next fifteen minutes i watched mesmerized as the doctor and his assistant huffed and puffed trying to wrap the bp cuff around my massive upper arm. at that time, my arm measured 24 inches at its thickest, probably more than the hip measurement of the emaciated girls at my high school.

the doctor and his assistant tried every which way to pull and stretch the cuff to get the velcro to latch on properly. they yanked and strained and barked at each other until they both grew red in the eyes.

as a last desperate attempt, they tried to velcro two cuffs together to form a longer cuff then hurriedly wrapped this makeshift extended cuff around my arm, as if speed would make it work.

unfortunately, as soon as the doctor began squeezing the inflation bulb, the velcro ripped loudly apart.

so much for getting a reading of my bp, let alone a correct one.

no one spoke for some time. i swiveled my cushy chair from side to side as the doctor limped towards a bench and slumped down to gather his strength. breathing heavily, he closed his eyes and bowed his head as if in meditation.

a minute later, the doctor’s head was still bowed and i began to worry about him. apparently his meditation failed to lift his spirits. not even right said fred could revive his energy with their upbeat party hit i’m too sexy thumping on the piped-in radio.

meanwhile, the assistant inspected the bp cuffs closely, looking somewhat incredulous.

finally, the doctor lifted his head. half-whispering and half-wheezing, he told his assistant, let’s get some blood samples.

i followed the assistant with my eyes as she hobbled to a nearby cabinet and took out a syringe and some tubes. a third person, whom they called a phlebotomist (not to be confused with a lobotomist), was then summoned into the room. she confidently sashayed towards me, produced a tourniquet and tied my right arm tight like i was about to begin injecting drugs, and began tapping and feeling around on a spot in the crook of my arm with her index finger, to entice the vein to introduce itself to me, she told me with a friendly smile and a wink.

two songs finished playing on the radio and the phlebotomist was still searching for a vein who might be enticed to introduce itself to her.

her expertly-applied makeup had begun to sweat as she desperately searched for my veins who were apparently too shy and had chosen to hide behind my layers of flab.

she then instructed me to make a fist. i felt stupid with my right arm in a tourniquet and my left hand making a fist, but i did it anyway to help her along.

not the left hand... make a fist with your right hand please, the one with the tourniquet, the phlebotomist begged. she didn’t sound too confident anymore.

i glanced at the doctor; he was still sitting on the bench a few feet away, watching everything with an occasional headshake, as if deeply regretting not having studied wildlife dentistry instead. his assistant was also watching anxiously; i could tell she wanted her friend the phlebotomist to succeed at the task at hand so the clinic could at least chalk up a win.

after i’d made a fist with the correct hand, the phlebotomist probed around on my skin once more. i still couldn’t see any vein on that arm, but she must have felt something with her fingers because she suddenly lunged in excitement and stuck the needle in the crook of my arm. blood began oozing from the puncture site, but no flash of red flowed into the syringe. oh my god, i’m so sorry, she stammered as she wiped sweat from her face, which made her mascara smear.

she then tried drawing blood from my other arm, but this only produced the same gory result. i noticed her breathing had become shallow as she wiped

Reviews for Driving East at Sunrise

[Leslie Arsua · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I really love it! I love the wittiness and the humor. I find myself bursting out laughing! There are also chapter/s that made me cry, scenarios that i can relate to. Very insightful and funny at the same time. A 10 star for me!