the break

that will not come because it is longed for and dreaded at the same time.

there. i think i have finally named it. the simplest version of which is: rushing home after class, for some alone time, because you do not want to get too sick of this place you work in, of these people you do love being with, only to realize that you cannot stand being alone with your thoughts either. you end up remembering too many things, things you should have done, used to want to do, had resolved to try to do. and right after that, what follows is a veritable guilt trip: what do all those things matter when, what's at the very base, at the very core has been unhinged? for good. your friend calls this place of absence the soul. you sometimes find yourself agreeing that it is, indeed. but then, oh, what petty, burgis concepts these are, you think. but you swallow, you choke on the truth at night, knowing that tomorrow is going to be no different from the day that just passed. that this "free time" is actually the most debilitating of forces. free, really, is just false. doesn't exist.

***

been thinking about what L said last night, about having lost the language for that which you want to write about. i think i know what he means. i told him this afternoon that it must be why i have been wanting to run away from what i think, and what i inevitably have to say. i want to listen. i want to watch. i want to read.

***

some five years ago i found myself working on what, in hindsight, i now realize to be a futile, even complicit task that involved farmers who were once agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) but who had since lost those benefits through -- what i understand now to be -- technical manipulations of the very system that was supposed to have protected them. i got paid a really good sum for it.

three years before that, i did a series of stories on the women of quezon who had lost their farmer sons, brothers, husbands and fathers to intense militarization/terrorism in their area. i did not get paid a single cent for that series of stories, but, to this day, i find myself going back to that experience of the truest, purest pleasure, when i saw those stories in print. and without my name on them.

***

or, it can actually be made so much simpler: there are too many smiling faces in december, and it's freaking you out. a student in your freshman lit class died and you want to weep for his mother who had this loneliness about her that radiated, it was beautiful, and sick at the same time. you could see the cracks, and you could see how the cracks held her together. and how brokenness made sense in other people.

or simpler still: you miss your mother and, having to wake up, every single day, to her absence is terrifying it snuffs the air, the voice, all motions and emotions, out of you. there.

lacan would be proud.

the truth is, i haven't been

sleeping, in the real sense of the word. in the sense i used to know of, and took for granted, my entire life prior to twelve months ago.

was complaining about this to friends -- eric, joel, vincent, lourd -- who probably couldn't have cared less. and i don't blame them, as they have found their own remedies for the same ailment. i thought that by speaking of it, blogging of it, i'd be cured of it. or, at the very least, they'd hand me a piece of the magical remedy. malas. none available.

they get it, don't get me wrong. husband weng gets it. (check his most recent blog post: reboot). but it's one of those things that we'd rather not talk about while enjoying real cold bottles of the cheapest beer in town, in a place which calls to mind a middle eastern romance (it's just along anonas road).

***

i just want to sleep. is all.

how we hung on to the great promise of the word

made flesh.

and of this: "Only say the word, and I shall be healed."

how we compusively rolled and unrolled the outright promise in this line, like a carpet to cover unsightly fears, to hide the ugliest truth.

how we fidgeted in guilt and anxiety: did we say the right words? did we say them right? did we say them often enough? did we manage to say anything at all? didn't she herself whisper it, wrap it in her sighs, in the painful intakes of her breath?

oh, words.

cursed them, swore them off. and yet, and yet. the paradox of it all. can't curse them without using them, can't swear them off without cowering in their presence.

the word made flesh, indeed.

(reply to larry's post: Whatever it is you want)

this is what happens when you lock yourself in

your tiny apartment, for an entire saturday, ignoring the beautiful windy afternoon, friends' invitations to dinner and drinks, wifely chores and teacherly obligations; as a way to celebrate and recall a mother's birthday and a daughter's short life: you realize that there are limits, that roles you value are contingent upon many things. you also realize that there is a sunday after saturday, that you can hold a conventional celebration with unconventional family and friends. and that stories are stories, and life is life.

***

thanks to ma'am jing, for helping edit this little piece. it's coming out in an anthology of modern tales.


The Other Daughter


It took years before it dawned on Anna that she was her mother’s creation. Creation as in brought into existence, manufactured from raw materials; a result of her mother’s systematic thought. No, not at all a figment of the imagination. A product. A being. A whole. Anna was named after her mother’s favorite sister, Aniana. She was created one stormy night, when her mother turned twenty-nine, eager for a daughter after having given birth to two boys. Upon learning this, Anna also instantly understood that she would only live up to the age of twenty-nine, a belief which her mother had laughed off, saying that Anna would live as long as there was life in her creator.

You see, Anna was the character in the stories Aurora wrote for the children. Anna was “The pretty little girl who loved to read books as much as she loved to play with her toys, the one who took naps at two in the afternoon after an episode of Sesame Street, who finished her vegetables before she asked for her candy, who fed and washed her pets once daily, who watered the plants morning and afternoon, who made her own bed, and said her nightly and morning prayers.” She was also “The poor little girl on whose head a colony of lice grew and overtook her entire body, because she played out in the sun all day and she refused to have her hair washed, combed and tied in a tight pony tail, so that she had to beg her fairy godmother to wave the colony of lice away with a wand, promising to never miss a day’s bath, to play out in the sun only when her mother allows her to.” Anna knew she was all those. When she and her siblings were young, her mother would read out loud to them from her little blue notebooks every night. Her mother would glance and wink at Anna at the start of every story. As soon as the soft, hollow voice would begin with “There was once a little girl…” a warm feeling would suffuse Anna’s entire body, and she would snuggle under her mother’s soft, smooth arm. Her mother would then secretly rub the top of Anna’s head with little sweeps of her chin, especially during the most engaging parts of the stories.

Anna was all those characters, yes. But she was also, quite specifically and concretely, the third child of five, with two boys before her and two girls after. Anna, therefore, was the one who got to braid her mother’s long, brown hair before her mother left for work. She got to assist her mother in the kitchen in the peeling and grounding of peanuts for the cookies, and in the mashing of potatoes, cream and butter in the aluminum tub. Anna was a character and a middle child, and she immensely enjoyed the privileges that went with that.

It was also because Anna was the middle child that, of all the children, she was the only one who was sent, perhaps as an experiment, to public school. There she was largely unseen. At first, Anna thought, it was not so much that they did not see her; it was only that they would rather ignore and tolerate her because Aurora, her mother, had been one of the most popular teachers in the same school. But after being part of, and remaining inconsequential in, several group games of patintero, water-water-go, and base-base, Anna seriously got to thinking. The confirmation came after a game of hide-and-seek when Anna realized no one had bothered to “seek” her. She had stood for hours, literally “hiding” in plain sight, her fat butt jutting out from behind a palm trunk, not noticing that it was already late in the afternoon, that the school grounds were empty, that the game had long ended. Anna became truly convinced that she was, in fact, unseen and unheard.

She continued to attend school anyway, even if no one saw her raising her hand to volunteer for an activity, even if no one heard her giving the correct answers to the most difficult questions. She eventually found the courage to ask her mother that she be allowed to continue attending school even when her mother had already left teaching. Anna’s mother had moved on to become first, a cashier in the government bank, then its first female Manager. After a few more years, she left the bank again to become the city’s first lawyer for women.

Unfortunately, Anna had to stop attending school when her mother started taking all those trips, giving all those talks, comforting all those women in all those different far places. Anna had to be by Aurora’s side, or close to her, in order to exist. Far from her mother and her mother’s mind, Anna got lost and ceased to be.

Anna learned her lesson when her mother went on a US trip with the husband. Anna refused to join them. She was enjoying her reading and her classes. School was much too important and fun then, as they were doing “Little Women” in English, “Mariang Makiling” in Filipino, geometric shapes in Math, and baking in Home Economics. Anna stood her ground: she did not want to go.

The morning that Anna’s mother left, Anna found that she could not locate herself either. She could not even leave the room to look for her mother because there were no room, no walls, and no boundaries, to mark the world she had been accustomed to. There were no voices, no air, no light. There was only a sensation of being let go, of being dropped, of disappearing into an abyss. It was the single most terrifying experience Anna ever had.

Anna later learned that on that trip, Aurora had been constantly nauseated and had fever and chills for three nights in sunny Santa Monica. The husband, a lawyer like her mother, there for a convention as well as a vacation, was much distressed over his wife’s condition. He was as devoted to Anna’s mother, as she was to him. Anna saw how they held hands in their sleep, and how, for all his position and power in court, he was almost as dependent on her mother as Anna was.

He was gentle-mannered, quiet, shorter by two inches than Aurora who was five feet and eight inches. He made up for his lack of height, with sharp aristocratic features and a quiet authoritative demeanor. And he was a loving, though at times distant, father to his children. Anna liked her mother’s husband very much, but could not love him, because she simply was not capable – it was not in her system. She loved her siblings because she shared their blood; there was, within her, a mechanism for that love. However, she could not get herself to call him, could not even conceive of him as, father. Simply because there was nothing of him in her. Anna was solely her mother’s creation. Anna knew, and didn’t mind, that he had absolutely no awareness of her existence.

But since that sorry, discombobulating episode, Anna never strayed far from her mother’s side again. That meant leaving school altogether, to be her mother’s personal assistant. School, by then, did not matter much anymore. Anna managed by doing her own reading, when she wasn’t helping her mother in her cases, speeches, and studies, that is. She didn’t mind working with her mother. To Anna, those were perfect moments. And the sense of being whole and complete in her mother’s presence was such that Anna would often forget she was a self at all.

There were, however, a couple of times when Anna felt like going her own way, living her own life. Anna once dreamed of becoming the writer her mother had stopped being. In her own time, at home, Anna wrote stories endlessly, some of which her mother submitted for publication. One piece came out as a children’s book with her brother’s illustrations, under her mother’s name.

Anna also constantly dreamed of singing, of being heard, of sharing her voice, which was exactly like her mom’s—low, full, somber at times times; teasing and joyful at others. Anna had no qualms, no false modesty, when it came to her singing. Often, while at work, riffling through documents, arranging files, stapling together pleadings and appeals, her mother would start to sing, and Anna would join her, their voices rising in an uncanny unison—always on the exact same notes, but from different pitches, and exactly an octave apart. Her mother jokingly told her, one morning, over breakfast, that they should both pursue a career in singing. And they both laughed over the absurdity of this idea. But Anna knew, as her mother also did, that there was an undercurrent of something akin to pain, whenever she sang, knowing that her voice would never be heard by anyone else. It was through Anna’s singing, one day, that her mother suspected that Anna had fallen in love.

Aurora was right. Anna had fallen in love. The mechanism for love that was built inside Anna was set in motion in a way both strange and yet familiar. It was as though there were a part of the man she loved inside her. He was working as part of her mother’s staff, while trying to finish law school. Anna loved the way that the presence of the calm, reserved, young man, seemed to stabilize her mother. Anna even suspected that a big part of her being in love was influenced by this effect he had on her mother. He was, in turn, dedicated to Aurora; sometimes much too dedicated to her. Like most everyone her mother worked with, he was inspired to please her, to measure up to standards he wasn’t even sure existed. There was something in her mother that directed people’s behavior towards her; she was a subtle but powerful force. It was not only her beauty, it was her certitude; a certitude devoid of condescension. What Anna loved about him was that he was not fazed at all by this force that was her mother. He was not indifferent to it, he thrived in it.

He was lean and willowy; androgynous, even effeminate at times. He had long fingers that looked like they were trained on old piano keys, or had spent much time plucking and strumming nylon guitar strings. Oh how Anna had wanted so much to feel him and to be felt by him. Several afternoons and many dawns did Anna spend trying to summon all that she had and all that she was, in order to make a dent in his consciousness, to exist even as a mere whiff in the air he was breathing. But, to no avail. This broke her mother’s heart, too, Anna knew. The man eventually left her mother’s organization, married some nice young girl, moved to New York to pursue a career in immigration law. And he was slowly, eventually filed away, forgotten like an old, passionately argued, but hopelessly lost case.

Anna was able to return to the soothing rhythm of living with her mother. This was only disrupted when her brothers and sisters, one by one, left home to pursue their own lives. Anna suffered most, because she also suffered with and for both Aurora and Aurora’s husband. Much as Anna desired, she could never make up for the sense of emptiness the leaving of the children created in the couple.

Anna was with Aurora and her husband in Dr. Villegas’s clinic when, after a series of annual routine tests, it was confirmed that her mother who had just turned fifty the day before, suffered from an advanced stage of breast cancer. Upon hearing the news, her mother’s heart closed up, the act resulting in an instant quieting in the room. So drastic was the shutdown that Anna heard it very distinctly. In the heavy silence, she ran to embrace Aurora’s stiff body. At the same time, she wanted so much to reach out to Aurora’s husband, to help stop what she knew was the wild swinging of the pendulum crashing against the walls of his heart. She could see it in the lividness of his lined face, even as he himself tried to seem cool, struggled to clear his mind, to make sense of what he just heard. It was only much later, when they got home, that Anna allowed herself the kicking and screaming, the absolute childish resistance, the total lack of restraint, that she had been tempted to give in to while at the hospital.

Soon after, Aurora’s children came home—left their jobs, relationships, schools—to be with their mother, and Anna was glad that they were a family again. Her siblings had become different persons. They had been brought up on love, and had much of it to give. Their presence in the house hastened Aurora’s recovery. Her mother survived the first cycle of chemotherapy. When she was tested again, she was declared clear of cancer cells.

Everyone then insisted that her mother quit her job, give up her fights, learn to relax. Anna, however, understood her mother’s apprehensions about living a purely domestic life. She was convinced her mother should be allowed to live her life the way her mother saw fit. And despite the abatement of the scare over her mother’s health, Anna’s conviction about her own life ending at the age of twenty-nine was starting to influence her actions, decisions, and even dreams.

In the years that followed, everyone resumed his or her life, albeit with some adjustments. Debts had been incurred, some properties had to be sold, in the course of their mother’s treatment. This put a lot of pressure on the husband and wife who had reputations and public images to keep up. Both spent more and more time at work than at home. The fights her mother engaged in became bigger, the stakes became higher. Anna suffered from her mother’s involvement in these legal battles. The less Aurora thought of her, the more difficult the struggle was for Anna to exist unseen and unheard. As Anna neared the age of twenty-nine her dreams also became more strange, more terrifying. Because she knew they were real. They were going to prove themselves real.

On her own, Anna started to grieve even before the deaths and losses occurred. She tried to get used to the idea of the approaching tragedies by writing about them. Her heart bled as she wrote of the confusion and panic. And as she wrote, she herself had to struggle to breathe under the threatening cloud her characters could not escape. The thought of the family breaking apart, of losing someone, haunted the family, underlining their normal conversations, the last few meals they took together in the hospital room, the laughter they shared over some TV sitcom, the last hugs, and nonchalant caresses. After writing the story in her mother’s blue notebook, Anna braced herself for the worst.

Exactly eight years after her mother was declared a survivor of the disease, a growth the size of an orange was found in her mother’s upper left lung, along with several others in her vital organs. The cancer cells ravaged her body and her senses fast, but could not break her composure. Aurora managed to hide her pain most of the time—she kept her back straight, sat cross-legged, even if someone had to help her lift one leg so it could be crossed over the other. It was because her mother was very good at hiding her pain that everyone started believing in miracles instead of the doctors’ prognosis. The doctors would try to tell them that the mother might not have long to live, but the kids would just say, yeah, yeah, so? They have seen their mother bounce back from the worst bouts. They knew her better than anyone else did.

Anna’s dream of a few years before started to play itself out. By the time they celebrated her mother’s her fifty-eighth birthday in the hospital, everything was a potential source of pain—the littlest chink of light, the merest sound, the slightest evidence of smell.

One September night at the hospital, with everyone in attendance for dinner, a strong typhoon struck the city, rendering it pitch black, and keeping everyone stranded in the hospital room. Extra beds had to be wheeled in, pushed right next to Aurora’s own bed. Despite the strong typhoon tearing the city to pieces, the family found something gay in the occasion. It brought back memories of home, years ago, when they were all young, and they would gather round their mother for one of her stories. They recalled some of Aurora’s stories, and, hearing them, Anna’s body was suffused with warmth again.

The situation lifted everybody’s spirit, emboldened them not only to recall the past, but to look forward. Christmas plans were tossed around in the dark room, even ridiculous ones, like the father’s suggestion that they celebrate the holiday during the entire months of November and December. Laughter rang out. Anna clutched at her mother’s left arm the entire night, even as she joined in the laughter and gaiety, trying to ignore the rapid beating of her own and her mother’s heart.

After the laughter and bantering had died down, and only Aurora’s labored breathing was audible, Anna could not sleep. She was certain now that they were going to lose their mother that very night. Knowing that it was going to happen very soon made the knowledge new again to Anna: she was literally nothing without Aurora. This woman was her creator, her God, her Self.

Those were Anna’s last thoughts before she somehow fell asleep.

In the morning, the storm died down to a light drizzle, rendering the scene outside in a milky haze. The room itself was bathed in soft gray. Everyone was still in deep sleep. Anna woke up and glanced over to her mother lying on her side, her right arm still entwined with her husband’s. Anna knew it was up to her now. Anna was, after all, Aurora’s character, and specifically the middle child. Anna was as good at this, as her mother made her out to be. She closed her eyes and recalled her dream.

Aurora is starting to stir. There is a calm, knowing smile on her face, even if there are still traces of sadness in her eyes. She stands on the bed, finally able to extend her limbs after several months. She bends over to kiss her husband, and then each of her children. She then carefully steps over their sleeping bodies to reach for a hairbrush, which she briskly runs over her hair. Then, she pulls open the drawer of the side table, to search inside for her wedding ring and her sunglasses.

It is while her mother is in the act of putting on her sunglasses and testing the strength of her legs, flexing her feet, that Anna awakens fully. At first she does not comprehend the scene before her eyes. She sees her mother carefully but confidently padding her way to the windows, drawing the curtains to the side, sliding the glass panes open, and stepping on to the sill, standing still to breathe in the cool breeze.

Anna scrambles to her feet. She barely has time to smooth her own hair, put on shoes, before Aurora motions for Anna to join her at the window.

In a while, her mother’s attending nurse comes into the room, walks over to where her mother’s body is, still wrapped in her husband’s embrace. From the window Anna and her mother look on worriedly, helplessly, as the nurse taps the man on the shoulder lightly. The others stir and awaken with the vague sensation of last night’s gaiety and laughter still clinging to their senses...

Anna opened her eyes, took one last breath, and braced for flight, as she heard the doorknob being turned, softly announcing the imminent entrance of her mother’s attending nurse.

And so it was that at the age of twenty-nine, at exactly half her mother’s age, at exactly the same age her mother was when Anna was created, the unseen and unheard life of Anna, Aurora’s character and middle child—the other daughter—ceased to be.


QC/Sept. 01-02, 2007

eagleton saves the day

got my copy this weekend! it immediately took its rightful place on top of a very exclusive pile (for our reading pleasure, and as sanity restorer) in the most private part of our teeny tiny apartment. must be the reason why i've been taking longer walks, and stubbornly writing fiction in the thickest of thesis work. meaning!!! meaning!!!

sometimes, i want to

get away




see new colors, gaze back at old structures



open new windows, look out to other cities



move to new rhythms, sway to slower beats



(just looking for excuses to post photos i took last march, actually. really. it is true though that i am
itching to run away again. but at the same time am more intent on staying to take care of old business.
and drink on the side.)

like being in a loop

that's how it has been these last couple of days. totally non-linear. and in a not very entertaining way. in fact, in the worst ways possible; random and intrusive. yes, a loop. not a link. a link has two different ends. this one that i am in, and the ones that keep intruding, seem to belong to a viciously closed curve, whose initial and final points, god forbid, but i know they do, coincide in a fixed point. i do not know which threatens more, getting to that point where everything coincides, or being subject to the dizzying shifts within the curve.

a character in a martha grimes novella who likes to watch people get on and off trains says that memory, by nature, is painful. i know it was written in a less trite manner, and probably in relation to movements through time and space. but i also know that things are bad when only the trite phrase stands out against a pagefull of beautiful lines.

so then, there are things that just have to be done to make things better. distractions are welcomed. instant celebrations of friends who won the palanca are held in the small apartment. about three foreign language films are viewed per day with the husband. cheesy folk songs are sung with friends, on the veranda, at four in the morning, while the storm prepares to rage at us. every word on writing tarantino says during his short talk is relished (because it is refreshing to hear somebody so unabashedly declare himself a serious writer, no matter if his writing is not taken seriously). and, whenever possible, the most elaborate, time-consuming meals are prepared, never mind if they're consumed within only a tenth of the length of time it took to prepare them. these things just have to be done.

yesterday was a day spent

on the train!

enough said.

***

i managed to read an entire theory book on the romantic-fantastic while i tried to ignore people getting on and off the train. rather, as i tried to not pay attention to them trying very hard to ignore me.

i also managed to exorcise some demons, my personal issues with this particular railway train line. not quite a breakthrough. but something, quite something. you know how you sometimes don't want to see yourself through it because of the break that it involves? i am at that point, exactly.

then i met up with L at cubao, since the original plan - to meet each other in one of the station platforms - turned out to be not as simple as it sounded, after all. like me, he sort of tortured himself all afternoon as a way to pleasure. (haha. sorry, am i projecting?) his mode of punishment was to obsessively go through an entire floor of tall, wide shelves of books for hours. and then to lug around a heavy load of books the rest of the afternoon. we got A. to join us despite her apprehensions about the uncanniness of us being in cubao at the exact time she was planning to be there.

well, we confirmed her worst fear: that the night would end with husband weng putting away empty bottles of wine, and her and L walking the short distance to their own homes from our place, just slightly more inebriated than planned.

***
i have just been told by my thesis adviser that my manuscript reads like creative non fic. i remember my fic being called theory-laden, and also being mistaken by adam as creative non fic. obviously, i have issues with genre and differences. i wonder if it's too late to care. i only know i'm too lazy to care.

what's bad is corny

is what sir butch told me one time. kakatawa. true e. the worst thing anyone could ever say about your work is that it's corny. so much less of a worry when people don't understand your works right away, or even when they contest certain turns of phrases here and there, complain about the lack or profusion of complex expressions of thought. as long as they don't call it corny, then there's still reason to plod on. this thought crossed my mind again last night at kublai's, while we were talking about MG's latest works, which are never corny. difficult, yes. opaque, sometimes. dangerous, often. interesting and playful, always.

corny is bad. what's bad is corny. thank goodness, i've never heard this said of my own efforts. perhaps it's been said, i just never heard it. no matter. they've been called many other things. some potentially hurtful, mostly harmless.

my real life though thrives in the corny and the camp. my family is corny. my parents have a theme song. we have a family theme song. we put on musical productions, video presentations. and i love it that we are corny that way. i used to be embarrassed about it, until i realized that the excessive corniness in real life is actually wonderful. they have a way of marking events, occasions, moments that memory would otherwise have a difficulty grasping. corny is deadly only on the page. otherwise, it aids in making memory come alive, especially when there is a lack of shameless laughter, or crying; when everyone's always trying to be cool about things. i love the real, the lived, so much more than the written now. so i'm fine with corny already.

here are the lyrics to some of those songs we have claimed as our own. (all of them were popularized by frank sinatra. now i know. obviously, my father's to blame.)

"Day by Day"
(Stordahl/Weston/Cahn)

Day by day Im falling more in love with you
And day by day my love seems to grow
There isnt any end to my devotion
Its deeper dear by far than any ocean

I find that day by day youre making all my dreams come true
And (so) come what may I want you to know
Im (that I am) yours alone, and Im in love (in love) to stay
As we go through the years day by day

(I said, day by day)
(as we go through the years day by day)


"The Best Things In Life Are Free"
Georger Olsen

(Charted in 1927 by George Olsen at #3 and by Frank Black at #16
Charted in 1948 by Dinah Shore at #18 and by Jo Stafford at #21
Also charted as a duet by Luther Vandross and Janet Jackson in 1992 at #10
Words and Music by B.G.DeSylva, Lew Brown, and Ray Henderson)

The moon belongs to ev'ryone
The best things in life are free
The stars belong to ev'ryone
They gleam there for you and me

The flowers in spring
The robins that sing
The sunbeams that shine
They're yours, they're mine

And love can come to ev'ryone
The best things in life are free


"Here's that rainy day"

I should have saved
Those leftover dreams
Funny
But here's that rainy day
Here's that rainy day
They told me about
And I laughed at the thought
That it might turn out this way
Where is that worn out wish
That I threw aside
After it brought my love so near
Funny how love becomes
A cold rainy day
Funny
That rainy day is here
It's funny
How love becomes
A cold rainy day
Funny
That rainy day is here

revised: Non-creative flash fiction

Conversation

Stepping out of the compound, we shiver, and then cringe, as we hear the rusty gates complain. “It’s Sssibeeria,” you say. A whiff of your brandy voice descends to, bounces off the slope of Matahimik Street.

“The ice is melting there, the death of ice,” you add, smacking your lips, inhaling deeply. The empty bottles in the bag you’re carrying rattle and jangle as they knock against each other and hit the side of your thigh. You are swaying. The ground under our feet is heaving like a tentative wave.

It makes me think: Surely that swaying moon, smug with the knowledge of melting, knows about this, this death of ice. I don’t know why I think that thought though. I don’t know now why I had thought it would be a good idea to get drunk— and not just drink, but get drunk— with you tonight. I don’t know why we got married. I thought we had agreed to be married to ourselves, and date each other on the side. I thought we were going to travel the world, help the poor, write novels. I don’t know why we both ended up as teachers. I don’t know why I am starting to hate hearing, listening to, pronouncing words.

“The streets are clean, well-lighted,” I say instead, laughing a little at the lame attempt at allusion.

“What?” you ask.

“Oh, nothing.”

“I wass stalking about Sibeeria, I mean talkings abouts Siberia--”

Yes, yes, I hear you, as I hear the seas sigh. Something in me is going to give, finally.
I think about the glass of ice swamped with soda and brandy. And I know why I think that thought. I think this, too: What I’d like to do right now is to grope in the shadows for your hand.
I feel there’s something wrong here. Left alone in the cold our fingers might go blind!

Meanwhile, you continue, “But then again, it’s after midnight…” Again, I think: It is in quiet hours that hands learn to master the spaces and the lengths, the curves and the coarse lines of fates. And we will ask ourselves much later, years and years from now. I, still lonely, drunk, by then much older, woman. You, still brooding over matters, still teacher, husband, man.

What the hell has Siberia got to do with us?
What the hell has Siberia got to do with us?

“Well, I’ve read that sssome eleven people…”

Oh my god, you’re still at it. Some eleven people have what? Turned away from the cold to seek the warmth of hell? As in this conversation, perhaps, the molten syllables will make their way smoothly down to settle in the memory of my throat.

And why the hell am I thinking in extended metaphors?

“But since we’re in the tropics…” You go on, and on, and on.

I wish you’d stop.

I take my clammy hand out of my pocket and reach for yours. It encounter’s glass, steel,
bottles of beer, and withdraws from the contact.

“Oh, oh, and you know? The waves?” You nudge me with your left elbow, and the bottles in the bag rattle again.

I face you. And then I tell you: “Yeah, I know, I hear they, too, mourn the deaths and desperately try to freeze in mid crash.” And then I dash down the street.

“What? Hey, where are you going?”

I stop at the nearest lamppost, lean heavily against it, and puke. Finally. You reach me, breathing short, heavy breaths. Your face is red. Your eyes are alive likie they have never been before. You seem to me magnified by some strange force. I look away, to the direction of the 7-11. The brightness of the store softly illuminates the entire block. I think of Alfon’s short story, the one which has beautiful, vulnerable children in them. The story has nothing to do with us. We do not have children. Else we would not be drinking like this. Almost every other night.

“You okay?”

“Yes. I’m good for four more. And then no more.”

You join the bag of bottles in your right hand with the other one in your left. The bottles clatter and jangle like mad. And then it’s quiet again. You extend your right hand. I take it. We walk down Matahimik Street.

tomorrow will be

exactly nine months since the big quiet shutdown.

it's not so much that the past keeps intruding, really. it is that there is this door and i keep opening it, i am the one who keeps intruding. because i just can't help it.



***

was talking with friends ruby and easy last night about the big three-oh. and how it does things to you. to your heart, mainly. softens you up, somewhat? creates new fears and anxieties, maybe? i think at some point we three agreed that in the end it is all good and exciting, really. 'cept that mine, when it happened, just came and went. am all the better for it, i guess. a much bigger thing extending beyond myself happened. no, actually signalled the end of a life, of the world, of things ever happening. in a manner of speaking. in many manners of speaking. so, i never actually turned. 30 just came by and left in a huff.

photos fr the last party

we gave. there should have been more, i could have at least taken one shot of each group, if i didn't do a k.t. and disappear for almost an hour. fun yung party because everyone got drunk. isn't that the main objective all the time?

here:

i know i promised to wring the neck

of the person who will give me such an advice. but k, who happens to amuse me no matter what he does, gave the advice. and it was given so nochalantly, so meaninglessly, that i have no choice but to take it. once again, i was amused by people's capacity for cliche. and that's enough for me to get by these days. so here it is.

****

i have only dreamt two memorable dreams since we moved in to this tiny apt (na nagpapanggap na townhouse). both of them had to do with my mother. in the first one, i don't see her but i know she is inside the house, or the room. and the rest of the dream is too personal for this space. but just so i won't forget, and just so i can say i took the advice, the dream had people in them, lots of people. it had some screaming. a lot of anger. and certain lines that would put the sappiest soap operas to shame. in the other dream, she is about to say something, or she has asked me to say something to someone, and then i saw this wound in her forehead, and it started to spread into blue-black vines across her face. when i wake up, i am all sweat and panic and feeling like i was supposed to be somewhere, do something. and then i realize it was all a dream. and i want to go back into it.

there has got to be a cure for this

malady, this aversion to speech, she thinks. she knows she has written of this here before, perhaps many times already. is she fascinated with it? is she secretly entranced by it? i have read somewhere that the way people deal with intrusive thoughts, fixations, is to naturally develop another one in the belief that this new neurosis will somehow mask the effects of the first ones. don't we see this all the time in each other? the more we protect ourselves and each other, from our selves and other people, the more suspect we and our intentions are. the more she talks and converses and comes up with quips and funny remarks the more her stomach turns. the bile rises. i see it happening all the time.

i suspect that this stems somewhat from her protracted thesis work. she knows she should let it go already, but here she is, tweaking and cutting and restructuring again. it will never end, if it were only up to her. thank goodness there are such things as advisers, and penalties, and tuition fee increases, otherwise... otherwise! but she hates what she has done thus far, and yet cannot let it go. she hates the fact that it is meaningless and useless. full of words. she balks at the lines she's strung together, packed into pretentious stand-alone paragraphs. she wants to hang the person who thought up those arrogant, flimsy, inconclusive findings. she wants to shoot those who produced the worst of them books, which she had to read and reread and apply herself to. she wants to gather all the words, tie them up real tight, and then, and then violently pull them apart.

i suspect that this stems not just from the thesis work. i suspect that this is borne of those moments she felt most inutile, words were most inutile. when there were only images and no words. when there were words but no meaning. when her body should have been acting without thinking, and then the thinking just had to come along, comanding the body to move, the face to break into a human smile, the eyes to flicker once in a while. the commands were always packaged in words.

reply to dyndyn's rage

i accidentally came across an article on the Burgos disappearance in the Philippines Free Press last week. grabe. this leadership has absolutely no sense of respect, no redemption, no remorse. the actions of those who carry out the orders are but pale reflections of those who gave them out. that totally incredible tale they spun-- about how members of the community actually stole the plates of an impounded car parked in the miltary camp, and attached it to that other car used to abduct Burgos, in order to frame the military-- is just too much! they don't even have the brains and the conscience, to come up with a feasible, sound story. pusa.

author/article spotlight:

here's an essay on a mother by a son who was also her fan, colleague, and critic. the essay is insightful and informative, to say the least. what's most remarkable about it is that it is written in a way that is restrained, unsentimental and yet vulnerable at the same time. susan sontag fans will be glad. but will also want more, more, more on this extraordinary thinker and writer. check it out: "Remembering Susan Sontag" by David Rieff(http://www.vqronline.org/articles/2007/winter/rieff-remembering-sontag)

***

i did not know that david rieff was susan sontag's son. i had come across some of his so-called "travel essays", but which were actually more about public policy, identity and migration. i remember he offered curious perspectives. he sounded a bit like robert hughes (of the "shock of the new" fame): very white, very male, in a sense, but extremely engaging and always sensitive. i guess we have susan sontag to thank for these other traits. if not for the mother, the son would have just been very white, very male.

the dynasties are crumbling

everywhere, but in tacloban. how very, very sad. someday, i am going to process my thoughts and feelings (aww!) about the elections, and write about it. and it will be heartbreaking to no one, unforgettable only to me, and beautiful only to god. =)

***

i am looking at early 90's photos of my dance troupe, recently posted on the web. and i am trying to reconcile the image of the thin, wiry girl with the wide smile, with this other one at the keyboard. the feeling is strange. everyone in the photograph is strange. indeed, people are strange when you're a stranger. someday, i am going to process my thoughts... wait a minute, didn't i just type this same line minutes ago?

would it be considered lying

if you raised your hand in answer to the question: "do you know how it feels to be limbless?"

author/book spotlight

"Winner of the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize and the City of Vancouver Book Award, and a Regional Finalist for the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book

Longing, familiarity, and hope suffuse these stories as they mine the charged territory of relationships – subtly weaving in conflicts between generations and cultures. Madeleine Thien’s characters in some way want to make amends, to understand the events that have shaped their lives. A young woman searches back in time for the pivotal moment when her family lost faith in itself. Two sisters keep a vigil outside their former house, hoping their long-absent mother will appear one last time. A wife helps her husband grieve for the woman he has loved since childhood. A daughter remembers the simple ritual she once shared with her father and the moment when her unconditional love for him was called into question. Compassionate and revealing, delicate and wise, these stories chart the uneven progress of love and lay bare the heartbreaking truths at the core of our closest bonds." (www.mcclelland.com)

the blurb does the book a great disservice. trust me, the book's so much less fuzzy and so much more astig than it's made to sound.

it's been so long since i've been pleasured by (yes, pleasured!) by a found book. most of the books i now admit to be favorites were "found", and my memory of how i "found" these books astonishes me, sometimes. when i recall the act, the circumstances that led, the forces that conspired to, my having "found" them, the memories become as powerful as the books themselves.

i found this book in a bargain books stall located in the basement of sm-cubao. h.w. and i were there to look for an outdoor tent, for our family cemetery lot in tacloban. my siblings had this idea of holding a picnic at the memorial park on mother's day, hence the tent. but this book is what we found instead. along with another cool find, a very interesting memoir written by j.d. salinger's daughter. (i didn't know i had a sister!) in a sense, the books we found, and the decision to get them instead of the family tent we were supposed to buy, did not stray from the day's theme.

i have another new curse

last year it was tuta as in tutang ina, now it's pusa! as in pusang ina!, or ay, pusa!, or pusa nga yawa! it's a very satisfying four-letter curse, very versatile, good, forceful impact if used appropriately. you get away with not saying bad words in front of the children, but let off steam in an equally satisfying manner. try it! you'll see... =)

it all starts with one

and will never ever end with just that one bottle. arrgh!!! don't get me wrong. i love lightning parties, and all that they entail and result to. love 'em! i just hate myself for not being astig enough to go on hiding under the blanket with H.W. all day the following day, for not being astig enough to say fuck that i don't need to go to work today, i deserve to sleep all day... because we ended up drinking just a sigh before sunrise. hahay. the things we can't help from doing, the help we can't ask for, or give. hahaaaay. i rambled in class for a total of fifteen minutes this morning, before S. took over for her demo. buti na lang. mind was mush and pulp bits. in my head all i could hear of myself was "ok, what do you think? and you, what do you think? you agree? aha. hmmm. what about you? poetry, slurp, slurp, speaker, tone, slurp, slurp, zzzzz..." i was soooo relieved to give way to S.

i know i say this all the time, but... i will never, ever, EVER, work the day after a good drinking session. just ruins the experience.

***

woke up from a most-needed nap, recalling lingering bits and pieces of the conversation i had with H.W. and L. last night. it was about that particular sense of loss - mingaw - which has no relief, no logic, no beginning, no end, no weight, no height, no shape, but takes up a lot of space. and is the only matter that makes everything else cease to matter. a matter of absence that is so present, and permanent. and you know how it is when you wake up to dusk just settling in. and the thoughts you have upon waking, they just totally set the darkness of the tone for the rest of the day. mamingaw!!!

jet lag

is something i never have to deal with after a trip abroad. not that there's a significant time difference between the phils and the few places i go to. not that i travel a lot. in fact, i've only been to one place with that much of a time diff compared to ours. it's just that i've always wondered what it is all about, exactly. i am a bit fascinated with it. okay, not just a bit, a lot. i've been preoccupied with time differences and relativity lately. actually, for a long time already. it's something that takes up half of my consciousness, most - no, all - of the time. if i allow myself to dwell in it, god knows what i'll come up with. and it's not even a creative preoccupation. it's just... well, crazy, sometimes. i get really, really drawn to and into what might be called tiny cracks into the past. my past. distant and recent past alike. i dream about it. i dream myself into it. it makes me dizzy sometimes. and it occurs anywhere and anytime it wants to. i had an episode last tuesday in tacloban. was in bo's coffee club with a friend, we were waiting for my brothers to pick us up, and next thing i knew i was stuck in it, in this little crack, and i couldn't breathe. my friend offered me a cigarette. after a puff, i had to go to the toilet to throw up, and splash water on my face.

but, back to jet lag. i kind of know what the feeling is, actually. it is, i think, similar to the affliction that always paralyzes me after a trip home. happens without fail. i arrive in manila, or wherever, and i am disoriented. i either go on like a manic patient for a whole day without sleep and then promptly pass out without warning, or else i sort of black out the minute i am off the plane, such that everything else i do after deplaning is a blur. one very simple, logical explanation for this is that i am never able to sleep on the night before i leave home. even back in college. even as far back as high school when my sister and i were still active in the dance company, and we would go on these tours and such. sleep was simply impossible, and i have long stopped trying to have some, or even a little of it the night before a scheduled trip. so, i take the trip the next day and after that the hours, days, months, years meld into each other and i just float. on rare occasions, i allow myself to sink.

still another explanation is that i leave a huge part of me at home i every time i leave it. and it takes an equally huge effort to recover.

i sometimes think i have been grieving for a loooong time, even way before the deaths happened.

i won! i won!

in a race against my other selves.

so, last night's wine and beer with Ch, Ad, J(b), R, J(g), and A was actually a celebration of a feat only i knew about.

saya lang.

***

and god, am i relieved the holy week is over! another feat there.

***

someday, when i grow up, i am going to write about "what i learned" from the workshop. and it will break hearts, mine being the first one.

checking papers in the wilder east

last night i met a burmese guy in his mid-fifties who looks like noriega, is called noriega (but later revealed that his other name is frank, but that he'll have to kill me now that he told me his name), and who owns a way cool bar called noriega. but the bar is free of the stuff the original noriega is notorious for. it is located near the patpong district, but noriega the man was able to turn noriega the bar into the kind of place where it is perfectly normal and safe for a woman to sit at the bar alone, and enjoy her drink without being picked up or being suspected of wanting to be picked up. but then again, with all the heavenly bodies just within one's reach, who would be interested in normal people? but it's totally cool that there is such a place as noriega's for tourists who just want a quiet drink. i never got to try it though - having a quiet drink alone - because i was with a mixed-race, mixed-gender, mixed-profession, 80's music-loving, chain-smoking bunch of thirty-somethings.

we also went to a place called cheap charlie's, where it was really cheap, but the man tending the bar was not named charlie. bad trip. apart from selling really cheaply-priced drinks, cheap charlie's is also famous for its location: right in the middle of a street, atop a thin curve of uneven concrete. and there is a sign which says: attention, do not step back, keep off the street when a car passes. or something like that. kakatuwa.

i can't wait to be back here with husband weng, and with bayaw friends (kung matutuloy sila) next month.

okay. back to checking.

Tagged by Joel

1. One book that changed your life. Thornton Wilder's Theophilus North which I read some fifteen years ago, and probably did not fully understand, but which also probably ruined me for life. It's an older, wittier, sadder, funnier, more tense (because older) Catcher in the Rye kind of story. I recently rediscovered the beloved old copy in our Tacloban home when I was there for the holidays. The book is as old I am. This year marks its 30th anniversary. And the character, Theophilus, is 30 years old.
2. One book you have read more than once. All the Nabokovs.
3. One book you would want on a desert island. Any thick paperback I can turn into edible pulp or sanitary wipe.
4. One book that made you laugh. My cousin's.
5. One book that made you cry. Lacan's Ecrits. Too difficult. Heartbreaking.
6. One book you wish had been written. Lacan in poetry.
7. One book you wish had never been written. Can't think of any.
8. One book you are currently reading. Children Playing Before The Statue of Hercules. An anthology of short stories edited by David Sedaris.
9. One book you have been meaning to read. Purgatorio.

I am tagging Dyndyn, Jet, Maryanne

sometimes it's nice to be away

but it's always good to be back. = )

travel, for me, no matter how near or far, is always a surreal experience. it makes me dizzy thinking about time, and space, and shifts in the universe. and then when the language factor comes in, the experience gets even headier.

makes me sad how we have to speak the white man's language in order to communicate with our own neighbors.

makes me sadder how much of what we know about ourselves and our neighboring countries are based on hollywood images.

oh well.

there are days that don't count

and there are days that do.

yesterday counts.

of all the days, it had to be yesterday when the taxi we (larry and i) were in had to conk out in the middle of a highway leading to a place totally unfamiliar to both of us. we were strangers in a strange town. but no one panicked. no one hyperventilated.

"ano'ng problema, manong?"
"di ko alam e"
"wala ba'ng gas, manong?"
"meron"
"makina?"
"hindi e"
"baterya?"
"ewan"
"Baka nga gas..."
"siguro"

and then manong got off his seat, walked over to the front, opened the hood, tinkered with the engine a bit, went back to his seat, turned the ignition, and the vehicle sputtered back to life. no explanations.

***

it was a day of wandering very cautiously, like timid out-of-towners, in a mall which could have been any other but the mall we (l and i) were supposed to be in. the concern was valid. between the two of us who forget our bags in places where we drink or smoke, mistaking one mall for another is highly probable.

***

it was a day of drinks, and catching up, reconnecting, relishing funny stories, expressing genuine concern over the not so funny ones, with very good friends (emmily and her husband, dan, and then with allan). lovely people all.

***

it was a day of following beer with more wine and some whiskey at home. and then of unabashed singing of songs we (larry, jet and i) unknowingly or secretly memorized. husband weng secretly laughing at us. we became even more immodest as the day wore on and the alcohol kicked. gospel, standards, cebuano kundiman, streisand broadway tunes, you name it. nothing was spared. even our goodbyes were sung.

****

yesterday was a day that counts.

all i know is that

i can't write. not that i really have to. well, maybe i do. and maybe that's why i'm not doing it. if i do ever get to write, i will write about the following:

1. desaparecidos and time machines
2. headless bodies and explosive sex
3. trains and second-hand shops along aurora where country music is the only kind of music that gets played
4. spanish colonial land titles gathering dust in some obscure antique shop in kamuning
5. the history of jose mari chan songs
6. imelda swimming in the huge olympic size swimming pool right behind the sto. nino shrine facing the leyte national high school
7. more stories about floods and drowning and big, empty houses
8. me wringing the neck of the person who told me to write about it so i will feel better

***

i can't stop drinking. this, i really have to do. try to do. but, these days, i'm only happy when i'm drunk. truly. i will try to cut it down to three times a week.

***

i couldn't keep myself from laughing when students in an intensive english language class i'm handling asked me if i was filipino, because i looked either nepalese or mexican. russian, i said. oh, they said. are you serious, i said. yes, i am, one said. very good, i said. lesson in asking yes-no questions over, i added.

***

i can't imagine 2007. it scares me. too many important changes happening. too many important people gone.

***

i can't afford to let another term pass without having finished my thesis. i have been drilling myself too long on what it is i'm writing about. i don't make sense anymore.

the other list

of things i need to do to keep me sane, should include this one:

Regulatory Architecture for Microfinance in Asia


and these:

> have wine in the afternooon (also in the evening, and late at night)
> ruminate on laughter and lacan (with larry, hehe... hmmm, too many L's there)
> have longer weekends
> dance
> sing
> hang out at antique collectors' shops
> take long walks along morato on early sunday mornings
> call home
> listen to my one year old nephew try to pronounce my name, mumble it, yell it over and over in different ways and manners as though with that one mispronounced name he is able to tell me his joys and woes at home
> print out my thesis and promptly forget about it
> watch ultra violent, heart-pounding action films with strong narratives and daniel craig in them

The list keeps getting longer.

Apart from looking at Christmas lights and lanterns, hearing Christmas songs, and going to the Sacred Heart Church in Kamuning and the Mount Carmel church in New Manila, et.al., today I just discovered a few more on the virtual/mental list of “things I can no longer do because they terrify me, make my heart race, make me cry; make me feel paralyzed, suck the air out of my lungs”:

> Send packages through, or even set foot on, any LBC branch – because there is no longer any need to send meds by LBC every week, like I used to when she was on a break from radiation and therapy
> Ride the LRT2 alone –because everything about it- the smell of steel and plastic, the look on passengers’ faces – and everything it passes - the decrepit manila streets, misshapen houses, and impassive malls remain unchanged; because I rode it almost everyday for almost a year, and it always took me to the Leveriza station where I would get off and, from there, take a cab to the hosp, and be with her there where she was always mom and I was always child, even if I was mothering her most of the time. So precious and empowering were those moments that I ceased to mind rejoining the world the following day
> Listen to the song “Across the Universe” and most Beatles songs – because when it gets to the “nothing’s gonna change my world part” you know that the speaker is trying very hard to convince himself, but it’s all a dream, and it won’t last


mental note: there has got be a list of things i need to do to keep me sane.

My sisters and I, at the hospital just hours before my mom passed away. Everyone was around to say good night. We were just preparing her for sleep.

My mom, on our last family vacation in Mactan.

thanks to everyone

who condoled with us; visited, lingered, stayed up late; sent flowers, sympathies, prayers; offered masses, food, cash; shared stories, laughter, poetry and songs.

deeply, deeply appreciated.

how quickly the world shifts

i wonder where all my happy projections disappeared to?

just happy to note that

1. thesis is moving on, i'm finishing three chapters before the month ends (woohoo! sorry na lang sa mga nacriticize. what can i do? i have to sound like a real cl major)
2. classes are going well, i'm putting together midterm grades, recording scores diligently (is the pagpapanggap becoming real? omigadz!)
3. i saw jamie foxx's behind! (in miami vice. galeng! ng movie, i mean)
4. my sister's coming home! and with her baby, too! (and we'll go shopping and drinking and swimming and dancing and talking, talking, talking. i'm also anticipating little fights once in a while. )
5. the whole family will be here again! (i'm moving my desk and a whole shelf of books to our shoes and smoking area, to make way for unfurled sofa beds. not very happy about this bit. pero sige na la...)
6. the whole family will be in tacloban, barugo, and possibly cebu again! ( i can just imagine the chaos)
6. i think i can finish another story next week (pero over na, i won't force it)
7. i think i can actually finish 2 bottle s of 13.5% proof wine and still attend classes the next day (although i don't really have to)
8. there are only 6 weeks to go before vacation!!! husband weng and i are going home to tacloban, and will spend weeks at the beach!!! (i'm planning to read a minimum of ten non-theory books while at it)
9. there are only 6 weeks to go before my big three-oh! (i've always loved this age. been looking forward to it for thirty years)
10. i'm sure there are other happy things to note, i just can't think of anything any more right now. hard enough coming up with a list of ten. =)

oops, i did it again!

i woke up early today. reread my CL reading assignment. prepared a sort of lesson plan for the week. came up with a fun, creative seatwork for the students. left the house 2 and a half hours before class time. noticed the unusually light traffic. congratulated myself, felt rewarded for being early to school. whistled an otis redding tune while walking to the dela costa building. said good morning to the guards. and then saw that the department office was locked, that the entire building was empty and rather dark. finally noticed that the whole campus was, in fact, eerily quiet, and bare, somehow. how very, very stupid of me! of course, classes were suspended for the day! i don't remember why though, i just vaguely recall receiving an email from the chair weeks ago. saint someone's day, or something. i should reacquaint myself with the saints one of these days, so i'll know all the holy holidays. haaaay. i can't count any more how many times something like this has happened to me. just weeks ago, during the bagyo, while rushing to make it to class on time, i totally missed, or stupidly dismissed, the big, bold signs saying classes suspended on all levels. and they were positioned right in front of all the three gates i had to pass on my way to the dela costa building. it's not that i love my classes too much to the point that"no classes" signs don't register in my head any more. i love my classes, but not that much, and not all of them. and it's not that i hate surprise class suspensions. i pray for them, fervently, every day before i open my eyes to the world. it is that, every time i make a resolve to change my ways, be more organized, act less on instinct and more on foresight, something like this happens, and the world grants me and my illogic a reason to slide back. excuses, excuses... but it's frustrating, really. i should treat work the way i do drinking, just do it whenever i want and whenever i can. just kidding. i need to be renewed for next sem. can't afford to be on an unpaid leave again.

pero sana no classes again tomorrow.

a story of mine got published pala

in the free press, two weeks ago. but you wouldn't be able to make sense of it. major misprint in the middle. the editor apologized naman for not being available to supervise the printing as he usually does. still, i feel sad about the whole thing because this is one of my most playful pieces, i was trying to arrive at some meaning there (ahem), and i was very happy it got accepted for publication, until i saw just how confusing and meaningless it was on print. oh well. at least i'll get something for it, enough for a round of drinks i guess.

just some notes on a damp sunday morning

1. was up early today. went down for coffee, and to make muni muni at the back of the house. was cool and foggy outside. very quiet. soft gray. you wouldn't think the house is literally just a stone's throw away from tomas morato. i have forgotten how much i love waking up early on a sunday morning, when the entire household (the entire city!) is still in deep sleep, when even the dogs are quiet, seemingly aware of the sundayness of it all, not demanding feed until at least ten o' clock. i just recently discovered this beauty. used to hate sundays with a passion. would feel my stomach twisting in all the wrong places every time i wake up on sundays. when jet, ruby and i were sharing an apartment in teachers' village, we would try to come up with different remedies for our sunday blues. we would drink on sunday afternoons, or evenings, and feel bad the following day anyway. we would have emma and other friends over for lunch, and also feel bad anyway, when they all start to leave to prepare for their mondays. we even tried attending sunday services at claret! and you can guess how we felt after that, anyway. weng and i used to go to the movies or just go malling on sundays, until it also felt a bit trite, having to line up behind bubbly, overextended families. and then, since the summer, with the whole family in town, with the obligatory lunches with our own extended families, sundays became just so hectic and exhausting, i started waking up before everyone else did to steal some sunday quiet for myself. it's wonderful witnessing the household slowly come to life. by the end of the day, i don't feel that much cheated anymore.

2. last wekend, we all trooped to cebu for a cousin's wedding (it was beautiful, a garden wedding by the sea). and while there, at the beach, work just completely deserted my mind. funny how easily one acclimates. although i had gone back to work as early as first week of june, somehow, i only, really felt the weight of it all this week, after the cebu vacation. a bit abrupt, actually. and now i actually miss the chaos and boisterousness of my own, big extended, very noisy family.

3. but i love this silence, too.

4. it's also nice watching world cup replays very early in the morning. i feel sad for japan, south korea and saudi arabia. feel na feel ko pa naman my asian roots during the world cup. now that they're out, i am nurturing my postcolonial connections with our latin american and african brothers. down with the imperialists!

5. happy ako for australia and italy, actually. even for poland, which left the world cup with some kind of a bang.

6. and now, my personal sunday ends.

is the summer over?

for the first time in many, many nights, we are sleeping with the windows open. there is actually a steady, light, but fresh and cool breeze coming in through the window tonight. it's actually quite pleasant. but for all the whining and complaining i have been doing about the unbearable summer heat, this cool night makes me want to cry. don't worry bayaw, i won't. hehe.

other inveitable summer-end signs?

i have started receiving emails and text messages from people at the department, informing me of my oficial class loads, schedules, etc.. how i'd like to ignore the messages for a longer while. but
i know i have to get out of this funk soon, and start putting together my reading lists for my own good.

i have slowly gone back to joining friends for drinks, to make the most of my last couple of vacation days. this compulsion is a bit strange to me. i have noticed that every day or night off i can get from caregiving (which is what i have been doing on a full time basis, this summer) i feel i have to spend getting drunk, or hoarse from singing and laughing and talking, talking, talking. the days-after are weirder. i regret and feel bad often for the noise i made the night before, and spend the whole day irritated, and frustrated that i cannot escape hearing my own voice. kung puede lang mag shaddup, or mag sign language na lang the whole day...

friends and family who are in the states or in europe are preparing to come home for their summer break.

i am getting more and more attracted to, and have started taking out from storage boxes my old, jackets, suits,wraps, boots.

husband weng is fervently, feverishly trying to finish his xbox games like there's no tomorrow.

and for all this, what i'm most worried about really is that i have nothing to show for my two-month summer "vacation". well, i did finish a short story (and did it in a rush, just so i can say i produced something this summer). but the more important writing i should have been doing, working on the last 25% of my thesis, i have practically abandoned. bad, daryll, bad. no more beer for you.

so sad summer's almost over. good thing there are a couple of things i can look forward to in june: cousins, sister, nieces and friends coming home. teaching fiction and feature writing. being forced to finish my thesis. getting to use the ateneo and UP libraries again. working with bayaw joel at the ateneo and miriam. purple haze opening in our neighborhood. welcoming back mookie girl from her own vacation in ny. receiving monthly salary. "art film" nights (haha!) and margaritas with ruby, jet and emma. ending hospital visits!

yea. ok na rin.

an early goodbye to summer then.

i heart u.p.

was in UP yesterday to return an over-over-overdue book i owed the humanities library. was able to wangle a hundred-days discount (palugit!) quite easily, and so left the libe with more than enough change for a mug of capuccino at the choco kiss, and more than enough time to wander and walk under the canopy of raintree branches around the university oval semi-aimlessly. i keep forgetting how much pleasure i derive out of these little surprises. i even forget how much of these free pleasures i actually deserve. (huhuhu, bring out the violins!)

dear friends and fellow fans,

check this out and pass it on : http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeslrlq/gamalinda/index.html

something i've been encountering in my dreams for quite some time now

a character, loosely based on a former househelp. i've been promising myself to write out her story. but i don't want to be all feminist about it. an interesting woman's narrative is all it is.


The name is Marietta. Seamstress. Resides in a shanty, squatters’ area, along the Maqueda Bay.
Hails from southern leyte. Had a husband, a soldier, who went off to war in Cotabato, and who did not communicate with her for four years. During those four years, the family lives in abject poverty, one child dies from a swimming accident, another is buried with their house in a terrible mudslide. She decides to leave. She meets a truck driver who plies the Southern Leyte – Tacloban route. She hitches a ride with him to the city with her children. The man is married, but promises to help her out. He introduces her to relatives living in the squatters’ area. Marietta rents a room with one of his cousins, who makes a living as a seamstress. She helps out in the small business, to earn her keep. Her children start school in Rizal Elementary School.

Eventually she is able to buy her own singer sewing machine, have her own little shanty by the sea. One of her children is finishing high school. This girl is quite pretty, has strong healing hands, known in the community as a good “masahista’. Her mother is afraid for her, that people might take advantage of her. Marietta is trying to take the courage to ask one of her clients to sponsor the girl’s college education, preferrably in Manila.

Marietta has also had two failed relationships since marriage, one of which was inevitably with the truck driver, the other with a quiet Muslim who has since left the city to go back to Cotabato. She still pines for her first husband.

The scene opens with her drinking Tanduay all by herself, contemplating on her life. She just had a fight with her daughter who ran off with a neighbor of theirs. Her other daughter has not come home for two days, lately been hanging out with the bad sorts, along Magsaysay boulevard. She is quite drunk when a client, who needs an emergency repair of a wedding gown, comes knocking on her door, catching her singing an old Visayan love song to herself.

The scene ends with a bloodied wedding gown, and a pair of scissors glinting in the dark.

Mwahahaha.

cool, gray, damp afternoons; an elegy, and a remembrance

cool, gray, damp afternoons remind me very much of my dorm days in UP, of me always cutting afternoon classes in favor of endless hours of reading, and smoking, and often just being overtaken by ennui. second sems were the worst, my sloth encouraged by cold december afternoons. i was always strapped to my bed facing a wide window and an enormous star apple tree. i think 3/4 of the short stories i wrote in college had my corner of the dorm room in gothic-inspired kamia residence hall as setting. talk about limited exposure, and utter laziness.

so many things these days keep reminding me of UP, or of my UP days. at the terno concert in marikina shoe expo last saturday, for example, i was surprised to see so many people from my batch in UP, most of whom i only became comfortable and friendlier with after college. the whole event, in fact, had a very keen UP atmosphere about it, i thought. also last saturday, I received a call from emmily, one of my closest friends from college, one of the very few I made, outside the circle of friends I had from tacloban. she and her husband dan are in town for a short break. we arranged to meet and spend a whole day going around, visiting old haunts – like our dorm - or simply hanging out in UP.

and then last monday, i found myself going to UP to visit, actually just to touch the door of, the office of a favorite teacher who just passed away. i was informed of her passing by some co-faculty members in ateneo. prof. fernandez was also a teacher of theirs last sem, and she was my teacher in aesthetics two years ago. i was very much affected by the news. just weeks before that, they had told me that prof. fernandez has been using the papers i submitted to her class as examples for her other classes, and that i should pay the old prof. a visit because she remembers me, and talks about me in her class. i was very surprised to hear that. i didn't think she would remember me at all, although i really did like her class, and was unusually diligent that sem. but i usually never go out of my way to befriend, or be friends with, teachers. i never talked to prof. fernandez outside the class room, for instance. i wanted to, but always felt shy to actually do it. but then she always had this lighthearted manner about her in the class room, that made you feel like you’re not in a class room, and she always used a conversational tone, even when giving a lecture, not at all like the typical professor emeritus. and yet she was very sharp, for her age. she also gave us what i thought was a brilliant reading list, which made us go back to the classic texts, encouraged us to take stock of how ideas and conceptions about art and literature have changed, and yet have not changed all that much, through the centuries. hers was one of the last classes i took before i started working on my theses (feeling ko, i’ve worked on at least three kasi e), and went crazy trying to finish one. i have been meaning to pay her a visit, drop by her office, or sit in one of her classes, but somehow never got around to doing it. and so, last monday, i finally did get around to dropping by her office at the faculty center, but only to press my palm against her office door, say a prayer of sorts, and offer her my deepest, sincerest thanks.

and then, last night, after the writers night, while we were walking away from the faculty center, i just terribly, terribly missed UP or being in UP all of a sudden.

now that i know how to post photos...

jeep lag

these days i always find myself waking up before day break. i would make muni-muni for about thirty minutes, before getting on my feet at exactly six am, with coffee at hand by six-thirty, and then out of the door by six forty-five. since the semester started, i have never been late for my classes. except for that one time, at miriam, when all of a sudden i could not find, actually couldn't remember, what room my first class was in. i actually arrived at the campus ten minutes before the bell rang, but finally found, or rather remembered, my room assignment twelve minutes after the bell. so i had to go up and down, and round and round the building for a total of 22 minutes! jeezuz. i thought such episodes would never return. that was a good warning for me though. every day thence meant that i need to make a special effort to be alert. i would hate for people to judge me based on my forgetfulness, as i do have many other flaws. but the effort at alertness takes its toll on me pala. everyday, when i arrive home, husband weng would always ask me how "it" (the struggle to be awake, alert, alive, enthusiastic) went, and i would always be happy to report that "it" all went well. but, just after narrating to husband weng, and to derek, how the day went, and how amazing i was, being so all together, and not feeling a single tinge of sleepiness, not at all spacing out even for a minute, i would then pass out. no, black out, really, like a light bulb being switched off. almost every day i am dead to the world from two in the afternoon until around six in the evening. ang weird. it's like i have no more control over my body, over sleep. sleeping, for me, used to be the most expendable of all the required human activities. and now, this. husband weng and derek have an explanation, and a new term for it: jeep lag. since i started working, i made a resolve kasi to limit my taxi rides. and so my body still hasn't gotten used to the daily commuting grind, even if my overactive mind would like to believe that i am so out there, so together, so part of the moving horde, or herd, crossing edsa, in a jeepney.

my body has yet to get itself unused to lying down, or leaning back, feet up on the desk, at whatever time of the day it wants. meanwhile, i am at the grip of this strange, new, urban affliction of the lazy and the spoiled. i simply have to submit to its powers, i can't know where those four hours of my every day life goes, when i black out. ito na nga, jeep lag , at its worst.

retirement mode

it is only the middle of my first real work week since june. and i am already dreaming of retirement. it's not that i do not enjoy what i do for a living. when i'm inside the classroom everything is, in fact, so okay that, after classes, the shock of being outside the world, waiting for a ride by the pavement, or snaking my way through traffic, only intensifies. these retirement thoughts usually strike when i get home from work, especially on my m-w-fs, when my classes end at 1130am. as soon as the bell rings, i am off, barely able to contain my eagerness to be home, to be in this, my corner, by the window, with the comforting shelves of books around me, and husband weng in his corner watching his films (if not playing that goddamn xbox!) and, sometimes, my brother, derek, in his own corner, strumming some unknown song on the guitar, evoking images of the sea and the sand, of palm leaves swaying, of tanduay being poured for the nth round, under a moonrise. ahh... retirement. ruby, jet and i often talk about this. we keep thinking up schemes to support our plans of having very early retirement, like, say, in our late 30s or early 40s. and i think we've come to the conclusion that at the rate we're going, we might not yet have enough to retire on, before we actually become senior citizens. ang tagaaaal pa nun. now na, sana. haaay.

hay buhay

was feeling out of sorts all day yesterday. this business of missing people, missing oneself, missing a turn, is not always fun. i wanted to shake it off soon as i found the strength to get up from bed. i thought of doing the laundry, but husband weng had emptied out our hampers pala before he left for amherst. then i thought of making breakfast, but mayet beat me to it. then i thought of wringing the necks of the roosters strutting back and forth in our backyard, but God said no, they don't make good tinola or fried chicken anyway. so i just forced myself to come up with a list of things to do, things that would take me out of the house. first on my list was to drop by the scout lozano office to visit jet and ruby, but it was crunch time at the office, and i didn't want to be in the way, so i decided to move to the next item on my list.

i normally take a taxi to get around, but thought it a bit sad sitting behind the driver's seat by myself, looking out to the streets that were surprisingly empty too, at around two pm. i decided to take a UP-Pantranco jeep. i found it a bit reassuring to be seated with strangers who knew were they were going, what they were supposed to accomplish for the day, and it made me feel like i truly belonged to this group that had a purpose-jeepney-driven life.

but by four pm, i ran out of errands to run and reasons to run away, so i found myself walking from the intersection of roces and morato, to our street. when i got to the corner, near libreria, the nice old attendant recognized me and waved to me. and that was just the kind of warm welcome i was waiting for all day, so i took my favorite seat facing the smoggy street, and cried like a fool. one minute lang naman. by the time my coffee was served, i was good. but by the time my coffee was done, my reputation in the coffee shop was also probably already done for.

then joel texted, tribu at 830. so i went out to drink with the bayaws joel, easy, mikael, and waps last night, something i have not done in a long time. and i’m glad i went out last night, i’m glad i drank beer, just what i needed, for my own self-preservation. happy na ako when i got home. and just before i drifted off to sleep, i texted husband weng what i thought was a real sweet, loving goodnight message. when i opened my phone’s outbox this morning, ayayay i could not make sense of the text message i sent him. hehe. sorry, husband weng.

haaay... another day to waste.

goodbye twenties

spent a nice quiet birthday with husband weng last night. seemed only right, after the rowdy, boisterous singing and dancing and drinking and magic performances and unbridled talks about history and poetry and sex, last sunday, which kept us up all night and until around 6 am the following day, monday, my birthday. but it really was a lot of fun. i was genuinely surprised by the surprise party. and touched, by those who arranged it. it was great seeing everybody at a drinking table again. seems like we all degenerate a little, or a lot, when we get together. just like the old times indeed.

in fact, the house seemed much too eerily quiet, last night, after the party of the night before, that's why husband weng and i decided to go out, despite the drizzle. we walked down tomas morato street, chose a small chinese restaurant, and ordered birthday noodles. after dinner we went to our favorite corner cafe, libreria, this time dressed more decently, not at all looking like we usually do on those many nights we hang out in that same corner to hide, while we smoke. the cafe attendants and the seven-eleven people were a bit surprised to see us so well-dressed. funny. and, all in all, a nice way to end the day.

***

so, today is the first day of my last year as a twenty-something year old person. does it matter? no, it doesn't. makes no difference. funny, this whole year i've been telling people i'm thiry. di pa pala. i was twenty-eight lang, nung october 9. but, as i said, it doesn't really matter. what i am going through right now is very very much similar to what i went through seven years ago. i feel like i took a major backslide. if this happens every seven years, can't be that bad. kayang kaya. but, as i told drunk and dazed friends, when they weren't listening, last sunday, i am going to change all that now.

i am wondering if it is too late to be a believer.

ok naman si lord a, si jesus. he's not a bad person/entity to start believing in again. gogo (or, father clyde, as he likes to be called by those who don't know him any better)would be glad. he might even start thinking of my impending conversion as his doing. if only he knew.

***

thanks again to everyone who remembered and dropped me a line. to those who didn't make it to the drinking session last sunday, we'll arrange another one soon as i'm able to.