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"