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.