yea, i'm back.
as some of you already know, i was out for a while, negotiating in behalf of one of my most vital organs. sadly, i had to let half of it go, to save the other half. i'm a conservative when it comes to most things concerning the state and stability of my internal organs and my sanity, but i had to admit that these ones (little organ parts) had to be taken out. they've been wreaking havoc inside my tummy for a while now. so, much as i grieve over the space they vacated, and which can never be filled, life has to go on. forget about it. no use crying. there's probably a moral here, somewhere.
but, a while ago, as soon as husband weng left me to my own devices, i limped to the bathroom, peeked into my bandage, surveyed the area around the cut, touched the wound, tried to feel for the vacant lot behind it. i felt like a spy, a voyeur perversely, secretly excited at being able to view somebody else's private sordid property. (or, iba lang effect ng drugs sa akin).
it's fascinating how the skin is like a palette when it bruises, preserving evidence of colors mixed. there is now a very faint purple-blue-green around the wound. so, i am posting this poem simply because...
Making PurpleBy Dan Chiasson
Nibble what nibbles you, play dead, play bored;
play sad, shell gaping, like the cockle used for bait;
like the melting purple eat the mud, be seen through
like the pebble purple, light and soft like the reef purple.
Imagine yourself suffusing a woman's gown or sheets
your bloodstream running through a king's inkwell.
Those rich dyes once were your ideas, your love
of broccoli rabe. Half-killed cockles attract purples,
the reef is littered with open mouths waiting to snap.
I am trying to make my pain attractive, my yearning
pretty. A man caught me in a fine-ply lobster pot.
He scalded me until I nearly died, then threw me back.
I gape like this because of the ordeal. Did you foresee
this moment, where what you intended to devour
devours you? Did you know they'd haul us up
into the suffocating air, our bodies fused together?
He wrecked my body so that it looked like need.
You made your insatiable greed appear like love.
(thanks to all who visited, brought flowers, fruits, sweets, poems, books, anecdotes, prayers.)
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Tuesday, May 24, 2005
reply to joel's jedi badiday
on the surface, it seems like star wars has a clear message, a moral lesson: rebellion is bad, thinking for oneself is unacceptable, one has to go with the force, the collective. it's certainly easier doing so. that's why darth vader's character continued to fascinate, capture the imagination, because we know that he lost everything, he took such risks. he did a brave thing by going against the prevailing system. the problem is, he was coopted by another one. but then, we later find out that, actually, he was coopted only as much as he allowed it. when he saves luke's life and defies the emperor, we understand that darth vader/anakin has always been his own person, has always been the only independently thinking person in this whole saga.
the rain remembers!
two years! husband weng and i have been officially married for two years. wow. that's no joke. we'd always thought we'd escape the trap, that we'd survive this lifetime having a steamy affair with each other while being officially married to our own personal lives. but, no, we fell right into the trap bearing flowers and white-gold rings, trailing not-quite-white dress across the aisle.
we thought we'd get away with it, the whole tradition, by putting together the wedding plans in the most haphazard and careless way we knew. we only decided at the last minute to print out invitations at ruby's office. we didn't want a church wedding, so we had fifteen-minute nuptial rites. we didn't want a formal dinner, we prepared cocktails and sponsored an alcohol binge. we didn't want a june wedding, we scheduled it for an end-of-summer kind of thing. we didn't want it to rain but master nabokov how it poured and poured! t'was the first rain of may, i remember. we couldn't hear what the priest was saying, as he had to compete with the battle right outside the chapel.
was much, much worse at the reception. the bar we booked was flooded. i tried to act the perfect hostess, carrying my light beer from table to table, holding up my mud-caked skirt. the set-up at the roof deck had to be moved to the billard hall and the quasi irish bar. billiard tables served as buffet tables. my mother's grimace served as a passable smile (especially when she heard easy singing "vibrator na saging". mother: ano kuno?! me: ah, ano,"the creator is loving"). my father took advantage of the madness and confusion by devouring all the red meat dishes he could pierce with his fork. boy, did he have the time of his life. his creatinine, blood sugar, and uric acid reached uncharted heights the day after. (he's doing much better now, thank goodness).
the cases of red wine and beer, and the bottles of vodka and brandy that kept appearing from out of nowhere (thanks to my dearest cousins) saved the night. we'd like to think that everybody who braved the rain and the flood that night enjoyed the party as much as we did.
husband weng and i were reminiscing and laughing about it again kanina, because we found ourselves trapped inside a small cafe along morato by the sudden rain, and we had to wait out our 2nd anniversary night right there. we got home pretty late already, but just in time to catch csi-ny, six feet under, jay leno and conan. all in all, we'd say, it was a perfect anniversary celebration. even the weather cooperated!
thanks again to all who greeted. thanks also to the rain which remembered, and whose timing is impeccable as always. oh, speaking of which, here comes the rain again... goodbye, summer!
(inuman next week, mga bayawsters!)
we thought we'd get away with it, the whole tradition, by putting together the wedding plans in the most haphazard and careless way we knew. we only decided at the last minute to print out invitations at ruby's office. we didn't want a church wedding, so we had fifteen-minute nuptial rites. we didn't want a formal dinner, we prepared cocktails and sponsored an alcohol binge. we didn't want a june wedding, we scheduled it for an end-of-summer kind of thing. we didn't want it to rain but master nabokov how it poured and poured! t'was the first rain of may, i remember. we couldn't hear what the priest was saying, as he had to compete with the battle right outside the chapel.
was much, much worse at the reception. the bar we booked was flooded. i tried to act the perfect hostess, carrying my light beer from table to table, holding up my mud-caked skirt. the set-up at the roof deck had to be moved to the billard hall and the quasi irish bar. billiard tables served as buffet tables. my mother's grimace served as a passable smile (especially when she heard easy singing "vibrator na saging". mother: ano kuno?! me: ah, ano,"the creator is loving"). my father took advantage of the madness and confusion by devouring all the red meat dishes he could pierce with his fork. boy, did he have the time of his life. his creatinine, blood sugar, and uric acid reached uncharted heights the day after. (he's doing much better now, thank goodness).
the cases of red wine and beer, and the bottles of vodka and brandy that kept appearing from out of nowhere (thanks to my dearest cousins) saved the night. we'd like to think that everybody who braved the rain and the flood that night enjoyed the party as much as we did.
husband weng and i were reminiscing and laughing about it again kanina, because we found ourselves trapped inside a small cafe along morato by the sudden rain, and we had to wait out our 2nd anniversary night right there. we got home pretty late already, but just in time to catch csi-ny, six feet under, jay leno and conan. all in all, we'd say, it was a perfect anniversary celebration. even the weather cooperated!
thanks again to all who greeted. thanks also to the rain which remembered, and whose timing is impeccable as always. oh, speaking of which, here comes the rain again... goodbye, summer!
(inuman next week, mga bayawsters!)
Monday, May 23, 2005
sometimes i get sick
really sick of words, and of reading, of writing. of hearing them being spoken, lyrics to songs being played. music makes me want to scream. the sounds explode into little shards of colored glass piercing my head. bile rises to my throat.
one afternoon, theater students were playing some perfectly decent pop music at the FC lobby. i was on my way to a meeting at the dept. office. i had to run to the toilet to puke. i had to chew on strong mints on the way back. i hate to look at mouths forming words, transforming faces. such an effort having nice mr. edwin to just hand me the medical clearance form, with minimal talk. i sometimes have to listen very intently to myself, to know that i am still functioning. i also have to tune myself out other times, so i can go on talking to people i like, but also protect myself from the noise i'm creating. it's exhausting. really. if there is hell, this must be it for me.
i am blogging because i want to cure myself of this sickness. force myself to deal with them, when they're at their most evil.
but i've also found that alcohol helps a lot. drinking with people i like makes words kind. words smile. look pretty. smell good. chewy and juicy. really.
one afternoon, theater students were playing some perfectly decent pop music at the FC lobby. i was on my way to a meeting at the dept. office. i had to run to the toilet to puke. i had to chew on strong mints on the way back. i hate to look at mouths forming words, transforming faces. such an effort having nice mr. edwin to just hand me the medical clearance form, with minimal talk. i sometimes have to listen very intently to myself, to know that i am still functioning. i also have to tune myself out other times, so i can go on talking to people i like, but also protect myself from the noise i'm creating. it's exhausting. really. if there is hell, this must be it for me.
i am blogging because i want to cure myself of this sickness. force myself to deal with them, when they're at their most evil.
but i've also found that alcohol helps a lot. drinking with people i like makes words kind. words smile. look pretty. smell good. chewy and juicy. really.
Saturday, May 14, 2005
Japan
husband weng and i had lunch a few days ago with mitch ong and alwin aguirre, very good friends of ours. mitch just came from a two-month stay in japan, and we were all eager to hear of her lost in translation moments there. she had many strange and fascinating stories about japan. she said she was most struck by its coldness. coldness, in all sense of the word, she said. made me change my mind about it being one of my most possible alternative asian countries, next to macau. also brought to mind a favorite billy collins poem. and a favorite taxi driver who also used to drive my niece and her friends to school, and who would threaten the kids a trip to japan when they don't behave. well, here's that billy collins poem about a japan that's not quite like mitch's version. and here's to our old driver, threatening his passengers with a trip to japan which will never happen. god bless his soul.
Japan
Today I pass the time reading
a favorite haiku,
saying the few words over and over.
It feels like eating
the same small, perfect grape
again and again.
I walk through the house reciting it
and leave its letters falling
through the air of every room.
I stand by the big silence of the piano and say it.
I say it in front of a painting of the sea.
I tap out its rhythm on an empty shelf.
I listen to myself saying it,
then I say it without listening,
then I hear it without saying it.
And when the dog looks up at me,
I kneel down on the floor
and whisper it into each of his long white ears.
It's the one about the one-ton temple bell
with the moth sleeping on its surface,
and every time I say it, I feel the excruciating
pressure of the moth
on the surface of the iron bell.
When I say it at the window,
the bell is the world
and I am the moth resting there.
When I say it at the mirror,
I am the heavy bell
and the moth is life with its papery wings.
And later, when I say it to you in the dark,
you are the bell,
and I am the tongue of the bell, ringing you,
and the moth has flown
from its line
and moves like a hinge in the air above our bed.
Japan
Today I pass the time reading
a favorite haiku,
saying the few words over and over.
It feels like eating
the same small, perfect grape
again and again.
I walk through the house reciting it
and leave its letters falling
through the air of every room.
I stand by the big silence of the piano and say it.
I say it in front of a painting of the sea.
I tap out its rhythm on an empty shelf.
I listen to myself saying it,
then I say it without listening,
then I hear it without saying it.
And when the dog looks up at me,
I kneel down on the floor
and whisper it into each of his long white ears.
It's the one about the one-ton temple bell
with the moth sleeping on its surface,
and every time I say it, I feel the excruciating
pressure of the moth
on the surface of the iron bell.
When I say it at the window,
the bell is the world
and I am the moth resting there.
When I say it at the mirror,
I am the heavy bell
and the moth is life with its papery wings.
And later, when I say it to you in the dark,
you are the bell,
and I am the tongue of the bell, ringing you,
and the moth has flown
from its line
and moves like a hinge in the air above our bed.
ayayay, i give in
this is all carl's fault. who am i kidding? i don't have time for this blogging shit. i am multi-tasking personified demonized. three other ms word windows open and waiting for my expert recommendations and remediation plans for clueless garments factories, and i'm blogging?!. eh, pa'no, husband weng (of the almodovar meets lolit solis hair fame) and i were overwhelmed with all the angst and angas, and the summer heat, and the brandy and beer, and joel's kabayawan, and the cornball drinking games last night, we couldn't formulate enough adult advice to take carljoe out of his misery. felt bad when i read his post. am still thinking of what to say to him to make him feel better. i hope dumaguete does what he's hoping it would. i hope "she" doesn't do what we fear she might. (INGAT, CARL!) hehe.
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