tango is good, but i need cash

oh my god, Yoyo Ma's version of Astor Piazzola's Milonga del Angel. soft, sensual and sultry. imagine seduction. gossamer curtains billowing. imagine making love. the clouds parting for the moon. imagine heartbreaking parting. waves swelling and crashing against the shore.

i think it means words or utterances, milonga. milonga actually came before the tango, but somewhere along the way the two became almost interchangeable, and then some tango music had titles like Milonga del something something, and some milonga had titles like Tango del something something, too. but it's all tango to me.

i remember the first time i saw a live tango performance, both dance and orchestra, by argentina's national dance theatre company. (they were like the bayaninan dance troupe in argentina, pero all of them looked and acted like they weren't real people, like they were forever being filmed for some old black and white movie, or at least that's how they seemed to me anyway). this was in some dance fest in spain. and i know we were supposed to act like professional dancers, on a par with all the other groups, but i couldn't help it, i became a fan. what was i to do? i was sixteen - young and innocent and burgeoining with awe at every newfound knowledge of the world (excuse me, it's the music making me write in such a silly, romantic way). i remember standing at the side entrance, watching the tango in secret, instead of preparing for our own number. and i remember not fully understanding the performance, but finding myself crying and crying anyway. i had to pretend i had a tummy ache from all the gazpacho, to explain the crying. i couldn't find it in myself to put on a show, after watching such a marvelous one. for nights i fancied myself in love, with whom or what, it didn't matter. i was in love, and i knew it. and i finally understood the word orgasm after watching another tango performance. and i guess that was the beginning of the end of my dancing days. i didn't have enough discipline, and pride in my own. i wasn't patriotic, i was told. i did not belong to the stage. i became a spectator.

it's interesting how some of the most important memories or bits of personal knowledge never find their way into our writing. for some reason, i have always jealously guarded my tango memories against the emerging vulture-fictionist in me, sucking me of everything i hold dear, and turning them into bland, tepid stories. or maybe i'm making this all up. i really don't know or have anything. maybe i am the story. and i have no memory.

help, i need a job.

social compliance meets social complacency

i am in the office of an NGO that husband weng and i, as well as a couple of friends, have been involved with for some time now. the NGO is involved mostly with labor and human rights, and the global workplace (whatever that phrase means nowadays). husband weng is in a meeting in the other room, discussing social compliance with his, ehem, colleagues, and i am here exploiting office resources for my own non-heuristic purposes. this is what i have been reduced to, since i found out that i won't be teaching this semester at UP, that i will be jobless until november. i follow weng around wherever he goes. at night, while pretending to read theory and criticism for my thesis, i watch weng from the corner of my wandering eyes, and remain alert to his every move. when he picks up his wallet and the car keys, before he can even open his mouth to tell me where he's going, i jump up from the bed and say "sama ako!" kahit seven-eleven lang pupuntahan niya "sama ako!" when he goes to the bank at the corner, to withdraw from the atm, "sama ako!" when he comes to the office, even just to check his mail, or attend a meeting, "sama ako!" eh, kahit, bababa lang siya to get water, i scramble for my slippers, "sama ako! sama ako!"

i have no money to go around with e. i blew it all on books that i won't be able to use anyway, since i'm not teaching this sem. but i am not interested in looking for a job really. like my friends carl and ruby, i am just waiting for the ice to melt in my mango juice para dumami (ingenious, ruby!) and for the next writing job from our NGO, or from my friends in the media, or from heaven, to fall on my lap. two to three writing project can cover for half a month's expenses. husband weng has already assigned us five projects each for the next two months. so, there's really no sense of urgency to look for a job, methinks. i don't know what the people at home think though. my baby sister who's a student in college but who sings at all the weddings and funerals she can accommodate in her schedule has more money than any of us, and she has offered to send me some. kakahiya. but i might just take her up on it. or else offer my vocal chords as backup.

i feel too old to be competing for the jobs that are out there. i don't think i have the stamina to apply for any kind of job. been there been that, the sky's the langit, it's a base to base casis and all that. kaya nga UP lang inaplayan ko kasi it's close, comfortable and familiar. there were other offers, but... i don't know. just don't have the strength for anything else. i know that this is turning out to be a bad kind of complacency. but, i figured, for as long as i have an assured job at UP in november, i'm willing to wait it out likes this, sama sama lang muna kay husband weng. wait, weng's done with his meeting. "husband weng, where you going?" "yosi lang ako" "sama ako!" "sus"

how to elicit hate mail

i posted this in friendster, and the next day i received about five hate/worry/funny mails. nyahahaha.

"Extremely strange"

how people are so compelled now, more than ever,
to self-publish the things they want other
people to think about themselves. oh sure, from
time to time each one secretly suspects
him/herself of some hidden brilliance. but it is
disturbing when one can no longer just wait for this
to simply manifest in one's work and actions, for
this to be discovered by others. self-knowledge is
always good. this kind of self promotion is
something else entirely.

sadness indeed comes in many forms.