dream sabbatical

last saturday i had a dream that i was in a car with an older cousin who is a writer, her daughter who has the most amazing sense of humor, a couple of friends who want to be writers and have acquired some form of humor in the process of becoming, a husband who i think is secretly laughing at us, finding humor in everything "writerly" that we do, and another friend who doesn't want to call herself a groupie, because she isn't, really. it was raining and we were on our way to valle verde 5, to attend a party with other writers. in my dream there were bridges and flyovers. tall buildings and wet cars. very phallic symbols all. then when we got to the party, even more symbols: the host was already in the middle of a cold pilsen with another writer friend of theirs. we then arranged ourselves in some lacanian order around the freudian table. a nice lady in an apron served us a round of good old san miguel. in a while, dinner - really good food, too - was served and we moved to the bigger dining table, and i think one of the writers addressed me and gave me a random writerly advise, and then went on ahead with dinner. then one by one, more writers arrived, bearing something cold, hard, and phallic wrapped in brown paper (wine lang pala), and joined us at the table. then we, the younger ones, had to (or just felt like we had to) remove ourselves from the table, and so soon found ourselves at the kiddie table, gulping down whatever was offered to us. then, cut to: int. 1 am, sunday, in our living room, table in the middle, more bottles of beer, tanduay, me and cousin and friends laughing and laughing, talking and talking, congratulating dear allan pastrana, bitching about some other postmodern kuno dude, hardly making any sense. then, cut to: ext. 545 am, sunday, outside the st. luke's emergency room, my niece's middle finger black and blue and swollen. cut to: int. emergency room, some eight doctors trying to remove a silver ring from a badly swollen finger, with pliers, and other impossible tools. cut to: ext. 640 am, sunday, international airport, goodbye hugs and kisses. cut to: int. verite office, monday night, blogging, trying to ignore pile of books and thesis materials... wait, those weren't dream images, they really happened. oh, how lame. but thanks, sir krip, gracious host. goodbye dear cousins, bringer of funny stories. hail st. luke's doctors, most of whom had the most idiotic ideas about how to remove the ring, but never lacked in earnestness and sincerity.
;-)

yeah, the whole month of july did seem like a dream. i only wrote 3 of the 30-page quota i had set for myself. and now it's august and i have barely two weeks to produce the whole draft. i have already texted some friends that i'll be going on a month and a half sabbatical leave. so, see you guys in september. preserve some of your livers for your marathon drinking sessions with me.

update for ian

oh ian, ian, ian, so many things to write about, so many people to bitch about, so many government blunders to rant about, but for now, all i can offer is this: neil gaiman is beautiful kaayo. you should have been here, ian, while the world was suspended on its axis for a few days. ;-)

tango is good, but i need cash

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

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

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

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

help, i need a job.

social compliance meets social complacency

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

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

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

how to elicit hate mail

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

"Extremely strange"

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

sadness indeed comes in many forms.

pain made pretty

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.)

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!)

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.

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.

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.