City Story

So there we were at the flea market in Brussels, leafing through old poetry notebooks, when the owner of the stand came over. He was an old man with very white hair and dressed in a suit, probably handsome when he was young, but now making heads turn because floating about his shoulders and hanging to just above his knees was a flowing white cape. Yep, he called to mind a grandpa Superman.

"Do these notebooks please you?" he asked me in French.

"Yes," I replied, "I find them very charming."

Taking the one I had in my hand and adding another, he tucked the two objects under my arm, and said, "I give them to you, as gifts; just because you are so pretty."

Needless to say, I was charmed.

P.S. It turns out that this is a tradition amongst Belgian schoolgirls, to have notebooks that you have your classmates draw on and write poetry in. My friend from Brussels, who is in her thirties, remembers doing this when she was young. And now we have Myspace and Facebook.

Thrift Shop Find--Brussels

My friend warned me before I came, "In Belgium, it always rains." I never listen, however, and so periodically found myself getting drizzled on last weekend when I flew over for a quick visit to Brussels. So when, as we were walking around the flea market at the Quartier des Marolles, I happened upon this umbrella, I just had to get it.

Aside from never listening, I'm also not very practical. The umbrella was cute, but didn't prevent anybody from getting drizzled on. Can you even spot my purchase in this picture?

Read All About It

Ah! So this is how it feels like to be a Hollywood actress promoting a film :) Not, of course. But some wonderful bloggers and website writers have interviewed me about the shop, and these are what got published. If you're looking to kill time, take a look?

On Roadside Scholar.

On Pinoycentric.com.

On the Etsy Europe Street Team blog.

Not Appleless*

The White Apple

My nickname is Apol, which actually began as a jokey "Pineapple." (When I was a baby, I reminded people of the fruit's leaves, they said, because my hair stood up straight from roots to ends from my crane.) Then the grownups got tired of having to say all three syllables, and so they began calling me just "Apple." This was how it was until I was 18 years old, when summer came and I was bored, I tried my hand at writing plays. I finished a one-act mess, attached a title page, and thought it sounded so flighty and girly, how my name was spelled on that serious expanse of white paper. Claiming artistic license, I began spelling it "Apol." The name has stuck, and that is how it is spelled up till today.

Still, they do say that part of us will always long for the sweet days of childhood, which may be why, as I sit in my workroom these days, I've been picking some apples.

Pommes d'Amour

The Peaceful Fruits

* I got title from an Aimee Bender short story. Thanks to the LitCritters for sending me a copy!