Goodbye To That Donut

Goodbye, La Dee Da

2008-06-18T03:10:00.000+08:00

Goodbye to this blog! I've transferred to a less corny address. I'm not saying it's not corny, only less so.

Wet Wool Blankets

2008-06-06T16:04:00.001+08:00

It's a heartbreak-even situation,
Nothing lost and nothing gained.
So I'm 10 years old again,
Standing in the backyard,
Waving at a train.
- Ani Difranco

Happy Birthday, Morrissey

2008-05-22T13:43:00.006+08:00

Dear hero, imprisoned,
With all the new crimes
That you are perfecting.
Oh, I can't help quoting you,
'Cause everything
That you said rings true.
- Morrissey

I was going to put up a picture of you as a much younger man, when you were on the crest of it all and you had handfuls of flowers spilling from your pockets. I don't mean to say that you're no longer on the crest of it all, although everyone else says that you've already had your time, that it's already been decades since. Anyway, I'm not going to be sentimental here. I loved your songs and I love them still, all of them plaintive or ebullient or both, your voice coaxing open the fist in our hearts year after year. I know nearly nothing about you, no matter how much has been written of your life or how much of yourself is incarnate in your lyrics. And of course you won't read this, and you wouldn't know horseshit about me either. But today you turn 49, and I have sung with and along to you more times than I care to remember, and all I know is that I once thought the loneliness would be unbearable, and then I heard you sing. You don't know me, I live in a city you might never have heard of, you don't know me, but here is celebration, here is gratitude, here it is, here it is.

Typical Me, Typical Me, Typical Me

2008-05-16T05:10:00.013+08:00

I traveled to a mystical time zone,
And I missed my bed, and I soon came home.
- The Smiths

So here I go again, scrabbling around the flat at the most ungodly hour there is, at that bracket of time pinned between the opaque night and the first irreverent fingers of sunlight through the curtain. My place has always attracted too much clutter despite every noble effort, but right now, the mess is worse than ever: clothes everywhere, a couple of used Ziploc bags littered over the floor, my hiking pack leaning against the fridge, looking like some poor eviscerated creature that a bunch of poachers punted aside with a mean, steel-toed kick.

Make no mistake, I want to rally beside modern science in its bid for truth in the theory of evolution, but at this precise moment, the only thing I can imagine is Darwin's ghost hovering over my shoulder, clucking his incorporeal tongue, and thinking that the story of my life is the only thing that can torch his theory to the ground. All those years in the Galapagos looking at the beaks of those cute finches! Utterly wasted! Fucking shit!

Because – let's be honest here, kid – I don't evolve, and I never learn. This is the hundredth time I'm packing up for a trip at the last possible squealing minute, and my head is buzzing with lists that cancel out each other hopelessly. And I know I should be well-rested before I hike up any mountain, but forget it, I don't have time for sleep. Sleep, who needs sleep, goddammit. All I gotta do is soak my organs in coffee for the next twenty-four hours, and all I have to do is keep my head from crashing down to the keyboard while I'm at work tomorrow.

Anyway, I can feel myself coming undone at the seams. I am not kidding. In the last two months, I've been jumping from one place to the next, from one job to the other, from Manila to Capones Island, then back to Manila, then up to Banaue with Jose and Claire, the three of us slithering up and down the terraces, then further on to Sagada, then down to the congested avenues of Baguio City, then back to Manila, and before I could even say the word, "home", I found myself miraculously transported to my cubicle in Ortigas, still redolent of pine trees and bus-stop buko juice.

With Jose by a view of the terraces, which we have effectively blocked.

Me, Jose, and Claire, in the middle of the hike up the terraces.

In 16 hours, I'll be on my way up north again, this time for the Big Brother Big Sister hike up Kibungan, Benguet. It promises to be an incredible weekend, filled with good cheer and shiny faces and toothy grins, and my group for this climb includes beloved familiar faces, all of whom will probably try to restrain me with industrial sized ropes the moment I get drunk enough to run around the area, screaming until my throat goes to shreds.

Learn more about the program by clicking here!

It's going to be heaps of fun, oh yes! But good god, even if I were powered by Energizer batteries instead of this sputtering heart, I wouldn't last into infinity. Give me a boring weekend. Give me vacant hours and breakfast at 4 in the afternoon. Everyone knows that the Energizer bunny is a con artist! Let me be a fat-cheeked squirrel with my store of precious nuts. Hey, give me those nuts. Jose?

A Hot Day And A Sticky Black Tarmac

2008-03-28T00:29:00.005+08:00

I'm bleeding pretty colors,
Yeah, all over myself.
- Juliana Hatfield

The heat is a bully. The heat is the bully you once dreaded at school, the very same one who waited for you after class each day, his fist a packed sphere, a planet you were doomed to cross orbits with. Unlike the squinty-eyed bully of your childhood, however, the summer's heat won't wait after you've gathered your notes and stuffed them into your bag. It doesn't care to wait until the school's authorities clear out before it finally knocks you to the ground. The heat believes itself to be an authority, anyway, and will bring you to your knees even if the government vows to protect you. And everyone knows this government is shit and all its promises to be no better than chaff, so screw that.

But like I said, there's no stopping this summer. We're a country bisected into rain and sun, and now that March is ready to sigh out its last days, the heat has begun marching in steady legions into the city, stunning everyone into near-inactivity. The humidity is worse, too; the air feels sodden and irritatingly present, resistant to the smallest movement. Imagine curtains of molasses, try your best to picture it!

After all, an energetic imagination is what we all need now to get through this goddamn heat. If you can imagine what a curtain of molasses may look and feel like, you might also succeed in convincing yourself that the heat is just a trifle you can slap away into retreat. Forget cancer and those nasty ultraviolet rays. Your skin has the tenacity of leather. Your skin is patched over with small mirrors that reflect the sun's glare.

The sun, in fact, can do nothing but yell out its empty solar threats. The sun is actually ridiculous! The sun is a lemon drop you can pop easily into your mouth. When you grin, your smile radiates light from the lemon drop resting on your tongue. Even when the lemon drop has dissolved, the light resides in your skull. You are luminous at all hours.

If you can think that, you'd have won half the battle.

With A Fuse That's So Thoroughly Shot

2008-03-25T04:24:00.004+08:00

Burn down the disco, hang the blessed DJ.
Because the music that they constantly play,
It says nothing to me about my life.
- The Smiths

Part One:
When they set the tone for the evening, it was clear that subtlety had no place in the proceedings. The bass line thudded into our building unannounced, leaching through every door jamb in our floor and drumming away at the glass panes in our windows. The music hammered its beat up to my temples, where I felt my temper gather into swollen, livid clots stoppering my vessels.

AH AIN'T NO HOLLABACK GIRRRL AH AIN'T NO HOLLABACK GIIIIIRRRRL!!!!

Where in god's name is that shit coming from?? I flung open our windows and poked my head out into the cool evening, squinting at nearby houses and buildings, but the view only looked back at me innocently before their own shadows reclaimed them. Gwen Stefani was still belting away somewhere, and I decided that it was probably from the construction outfit next door; occasionally, music blasted out from some radio in the site, but it often petered out in less than fifteen minutes.

No harm in letting the workers have their portion of fun, I thought, as I stepped out to the stairwell with a book and a glass of soda. Even then, I thought it was curious for the construction crew to choose Gwen Stefani, or even the hip-hop track that came right after Hollaback Girl. In previous nights when the crew turned up the volume, it was almost always because Air Supply or Michael Learns to Rock came on, and I would later hear a couple of discordant male voices straining to hit the right notes.

Part Two:
But this time around, track after track of fecal hip-hop music shot out into the night, and our building – our floor, particularly – seemed to be right in their path. Well, fucking shit, I said to myself, taking a long draught from my glass. How in god's name were we supposed to get any rest with all this revolting music catapulting at us? The window panes hadn't stopped quaking, and I began to suspect that the construction site had nothing to do with it all. The worst part about it was that the music disclosed no signs of letting up; it kept on thrumming at every available surface until I was fit to be tied myself.

I drew up to the nearest window, and in no time, had picked out the locus from which the racket was booming out. At the top floor of FBR Building, a stone's throw away from ours, I could trace out the revolution of disco lights and their exaggerated sweep, could make out a line of heads bobbing to Nelly and his yammering henchmen.

I think I was relatively calm until I found the source of the music, most likely a sem-ender party thrown by a bunch of pompous rats flush with Daddy's easy money. Something kicked in me, kicked strong enough to punt my heart out from its warren and pitch a grenade in to replace it.

Before I even thought of it, I scooped up my book and my glass of soda and flew down the four flights of stairs with steam blowing out from my ears in hot white opaque funnels. I need hooves and horns, boys! I need a crimson sheet and a nervous matador! Give me a dusty stadium and a matador to kill fucking fucking fucking shit who do those brats think they are fucking shit it's nearly midnight and now I can't even sleep and my sister can't sleep and Gwen Stefani's voice is still careening about in my head give me that fucking squiggly-nerved matador I want his blooooood —

Part Three:
"Whoa, where are you going?"

I paused mid-step, huffing. It was Joel – he had been working his way up the stairwell, and I'd nearly bowled into him in my rush. "There," I pointed to FBR, clearing my throat. "Their music's blaring right into our fucking floor. I swear to god it's fucking noisy."

He turned his head and cocked his ear. Sure enough, a fresh round of beats was starting, and Joel winced. "Ugh, it's that hip-hop shit," he said, disgust plain on his face. "Wait, are you going to tell them off?"

"You bet I am," I said, hurrying off once again, instantly regretting the fact that I'd brought my book and glass with me, both of which were becoming a little cumbersome. It also hit me that my anger had begun to spike at the level of hysterics, hardly anything new.

Striding into the first floor of FBR Building, I halted briefly in front of a mirror and realized that I hadn't even run a comb through my hair, which was now in a hopeless wild tangle. Plus, I was wearing only boxers and a large shirt – I scarcely cut a commanding figure. But then I turned to the elevators and saw a sign taped near the doors: PRESS D TO BREAK YO SELF. I hopped into the first elevator that came, pressed D, and broke mah self. These morons ought to be shot.

Part Four:
A faint ding announced that I was finally in D. D for Deck. D for Dolts Weighted With Bling. D for Dickheads Who Impose Their Bad Music Upon The Neighborhood. As I stepped out, the music roared at me, louder than I had first imagined it to be. At least 80 kids stood around on the dance floor, all of them looking powdered and coiffed and giggly – even the guys, who were all probably fairies anyway. Their brains, alas, were jellied over on the floor in a quivering mess. A few heads turned towards me, confused. Oh my god ha, who's that girl in the pambahay shirt? What's she doing here making tambay? Oh my god is she actually joining this par-tay? Maybe she's somebody's yaya!

I tossed my head and surveyed the scene. Okay, plan of attack. Wait, there is no plan, all you wanted was blood. Wait, I don't want to end up in jail, but yes I want blood. Focus! I can't, it's too loud!! Focus! Okay! There's the bartender. Okay! There's the bartender, go for the jugular.

I cut through the crowd and made a beeline for the bar, a makeshift wooden structure that seemed ready to spring free of its own shape. A smooth-faced boy, too young to seriously be a bartender, bent into an Igloo to retrieve beers, and I took a hold of his shoulder as he straightened up.

"Hey, man." I said, pinning him with a look so malevolent I was hoping he would crumple up and pee in his own pants. "Who's managing this party?"

He stared at me in undisguised surprise, his jaw slackening. "What? Wh-what?"

"I said, WHO'S MANAGING THIS PARTY???"

"Um, ah, the girl, that girl, in white, um, ah, the girl in front of her, not the girl in white—"

"WHAT?" I said, crossing my arms. "What girl in white? Who the fuck is managing this party?"

"Ah, the girl, in white, see her? Um, there's a girl in front of her, that girl, she's the one in charge—"

He bolted with the rest of his sentence trailing behind him, and I shrugged and made my way to the Barbie Doll he pointed out. She had her arms looped around a guy, and she bounced to the music so much I expected her limbs to snap clean off her torso. "Excuse me," I said when I was close enough, feeling a little pacified now. Must exterminate Queen Ant. "Are you handling this party here?"

She turned to face me and gave a cloying smile. "Oh, yeeeaah," she trilled. "Yeah, hi, what's the—" The Barbie Doll looked me over, studied my boxers and my book and my glass of Coke, suddenly baffled. She tucked a stray wisp of hair behind one ear and said, "Um, did you just arrive?"

"Yeah, I did. Are you in charge of the party?"

She brightened up, and led me away from her group. "Yah! Hey, have you paid yet? Do you want to stay? You need to pay a hundr—"

"I'M NOT HERE FOR THE PARTY!" I said, exploding again. "I need to talk to you for a sec." I motioned at her to follow me, and when we found a spot that wasn't as noisy, I faced her, putting my hands on my hips. "I'm not sure if you realize this, kid, but you're holding this party right in the middle of a residential area, where people are trying to sleep—"

"What?" She looked completely bewildered. A flush of irritation crept into her expression. Oh my god, who's this girl in the pambahay outfit ba? Why is she making sigaw to me?

Part Five:
The beats continued to pound away, and a few kids brushed past to pay for the entrance fee. I sighed. "Orright, let me explain. Your music is blasting the living hell out of our building. We live on the fourth floor of that structure," I said, pointing to my own building standing mute. "I'm sorry to be so goddamn blunt, but it's difficult to get any rest when you—" I peered at her and felt like giving up. The Barbie Doll swayed a little on her heels, still looking a little stunned, and seemed to wait for me to say some more. "Oh, goddammit. Look, where are you from anyway?"

In a split second, her face rearranged itself, and she gave me a smug half-smile. "I'm from Ateneo," she said.

Well, fucking shit, that explains it, I thought to myself. I'd always hated that university and the way the students cheapened any damn language, all those prrang's and those now na's and those make tusok tusok the motherfucking fishballs. Shit, it was also my school, but I was never one for school spirit, anyway.

I shook my head at her. "Look, kid. I'm from Ateneo, too. What I'm trying to say is that your music is too loud."

The Barbie Doll turned to look at the DJ, who was sweating over the vinyl. Her shoulders were slumped now, and she turned to me with a beaten look in her eyes. "Do you want us to tone it down?"

'YES!" I exclaimed, throwing my hands up. "Yes, please!"

"Okay!" She nodded her head, looked at me for a moment, and began to walk to where the DJ and his turntable were stationed.

"Thanks, much appreciated," I called out, sliding into an elevator when it creaked open. On my way out of the building, I was surprised to see Joel standing over a bunch of inert guards seated by the entrance.

"There you are!" He gestured at the guards impatiently. "I was trying to tell them what a noise that party was making. You were right! It all goes right into our floor!"

"Oh, yeah," I nodded, feeling a touch depleted. All that excitement took a bit of puff out of me. "Don't worry, though, I told them off."

"Hah, good for them. What if they bring the volume back up?"

"Punyeta, if they try it, I'm charging right up again to that dumb little soiree of theirs." When we got up to the fourth floor, though, the improvement was encouragingly palpable; the window panes were still, and the music was fainter now and less affronting. I was, however, taken aback at how I was actually imperious and rude at both the young bartender and the Barbie Doll. Under ordinary circumstances, I wouldn't have stood for such behavior from myself.

But there's just no excuse for braying out music in the middle of the night, at exactly those hours when folks are trying to get some shut-eye. It's flat-out inconsiderate and ill-mannered. So goddammit, I say fight fire with fire. And if you happen to have a flamethrower, why, all the better. It'll only make for a rather fine barbecue.

All The White Horses Have Gone Ahead

2008-02-21T02:19:00.018+08:00

You will return one day
Because of all the things that you see
When your eyes close.
- Morrissey

You know how it is when you have a volume of poetry, how you can easily pick your favorite pieces in a heartbeat, or how your memory can dredge up the same verses that once sounded off the sleeping gong in your chest? And how, always, in that same volume sit the other poems, the other poems that do not speak to you, no matter how much you squint at the words and study the spaces between them? You suspect that the poet is saying something urgent and spectacular, but the work itself is a stranger who refuses to meet your gaze.

In Stephen Dunn's Loosestrife, there was one such poem that I bypassed a lot. Reading it felt like knocking on a door that preferred to remain bolted, and I went through the last lines as unmoved as when I started off. This evening, I re-read Imagining Myself My Father for the first time in almost a year, expecting nothing but the same impenetrability, and was instead knocked violently off my feet. If I'd been wearing socks at the time, the poem would also have yanked them off, hard.

I actually can't understand how I might have missed it. If there was anyone who should've appreciated the poem in an instant, that would've been me, Daddy's girl, a sucker for the old man and his bald head and his easter egg figure. In Dunn's Imagining Myself My Father, the dad is a salesman in the exact same fashion as mine was, a man whose work inevitably flung him to distant cities. In such an occupation, solitude is as much a given as the car rumbling beneath your feet or the highways spooling out to what feels like a dreaded eternity.

(I remember how, when I was in High School, Dad had approached me on the eve of one of his business trips. He wanted to know how to operate a Walkman, and if he could borrow mine so he could listen to his Sinatra tapes on the road.)

With Dad after my Graduation last March.

In any case, here's the poem. Some things are just too good to keep to yourself. And I think I'll call up Dad in the morning and ask him how he is.

Imagining Myself My Father
Stephen Dunn

I drove slowly, the windows open,
letting the emptiness within meet
the brotherly emptiness without.
Deer grazed by the Parkway's edge,
solemnly enjoying their ridiculous,
gentle lives. There were early signs
of serious fog.

Salesman with a product
I had to pump myself up to sell,
merchant of my own hope,
friend to every tollbooth man,
I named the trees I passed.
I knew the dwarf pines,
and why in such soil
they could grow only so tall.

A groundhog wobbled from the woods.
It, too, seemed ridiculous,
and I conjured for it a wild heart,
at least a wild heart.
My dashboard was agleam with numbers
and time.

It was the kind of morning
the dark never left.
The truly wild were curled up, asleep,
or in some high nest looking down.
There was no way they'd let us love them
just right.

I said "fine" to those who asked.
I told them about my sons, athletes both.
All day I moved among men
who claimed they needed nothing,
nothing, at least, that I had.
Maybe another time, they said,
or, Sorry, things are slow.

On the drive back
I drove fast, and met the regulars
at the Inn for a drink.
It seemed to me a man needed a heart
for the road, and a heart for home,
and one more for his friends.

And so many different, agile tongues.

In Corridors Of Time

2008-02-18T02:18:00.010+08:00

When you leaned over and touched me on the arm
it was as if my arm needed to be touched
in that way, at exactly that time.
- Edward Hirsch

Everything was deceptively simple. You took a bottle of beer and waved me over. I believe it was The Simpsons that got us going. I remember touching your shirt. I thought I was being very clever. I didn't recognize the evening as a precursor to anything. The hours were there anyway, factual and artless. I was thinking of tom-toms chanting through the jungle, an arrow whistling its passage through the trees. I was thinking of how dizzy I was. In my mind, your face and the streetlamps and the chuckling moon were all one and the same.

Even if I'd consulted a colony of fortune-tellers, none of them would have guessed.

I did not think the evening as a precursor to anything. The hours were there anyway, factual and artless.

I thought you had the loveliest hands I'd ever seen. I panicked when you smiled. I wanted to know what was happening, but the hours were greedy with their secret. They just wouldn't let on.

I would like to say something about gratitude or redemption. I want to be fluid with expression, I want the words to calve precisely from the hulking, speechless concept.

I don't think I'm very successful at it. Also:

I don't know of a story more beautiful than ours.

Hi, Jose.

I Got Confused, I Killed a Horse

2008-02-18T02:16:00.007+08:00

Now I know how Joan of Arc felt
As the flames rose to her Roman nose
And her Walkman started to melt.
- The Smiths

One:
Because I've handled a fair share of emceeing stints in the past, I was under the general – but patently false – impression that any hosting gig lobbed my way would be easy enough. Sure I'm entertaining, articulate, and versatile! Sure my voice is round and pleasant, with slightly smoky undertones! Mostly because I smoke, of course! The point is that while I lack confidence for so many other endeavors, I have never seriously doubted my capacity for playing the host, bursting at the seams with sparkling rejoinders and a grievous amount of abdominal fat.

I clung to this belief stubbornly – that is, until the luckless day that my friend Ike sent me a message over Yahoo Messenger.

Ike: Dude, you still do emceeing stuff?
Peachy: Sure. What's up?
Ike: JL needs an emcee for her wedding reception. Game?
Peachy: Game!

Maybe I should have trusted that first gnawing of apprehension when I realized that I'd just agreed to do a wedding. Oh, but I was so confident, I was riding on a gale that vaulted over mountaintops and disrupted ordinary weather patterns in poor countries like ours, I was just so sure of what I could do, knew to my bones that I could do it. A few moments after Ike had spoken to me, JL sent me a message, and I found myself nodding eagerly at every turn. February 9? No problem! At one in the afternoon? Grrrreat!

Two:
I think my enthusiasm had eclipsed my own uneasy history with weddings. It isn't that I have anything against two adults tying the knot in front of a swooning collective; I'm all for love and every given form of its strange profusion. I have nothing against five-year old flower girls keening down the aisle in a rampage of tears, rose petals, and white taffeta. At the very least, these things serve as entertainment, part and parcel of the comic hour.

Which actually directs us to the crux of the problem: I find weddings hilarious. During Chino's wedding some years ago, Mia and I snorted lungfuls of laughter back into our chests and quaked red-faced in our dresses throughout the entire ceremony. This was not a nice sight. I was right in front as one of the readers, just ten paces away from where the priest was seated, and Mia (being Chino's sister) was one of the bridesmaids, ranged right beside the bride's prim friends. Some time afterwards, we learned that our aunts had clucked among themselves disapprovingly, complaining about why Mia and I "had to laugh so much".

(By the way, these are the same aunts who enjoy Reader's Digest jokes, and are therefore not to be relied on.)

On the day of JL's wedding, however, all the self-assurance I'd managed to reclaim went flying out the window once again. I was supposed to wear a dress that showed just the proper amount of skin and limb, but the moment I zipped it up, it hit me that it just wouldn't do. The front part drooped so much, any chump leaning in from a certain height would see my boobs, or the sorry lack of it. Either I'd lost weight or lost boobs, the latter being a larger impossibility: I have never had decent knockers to begin with, and have no recollection whatsoever of getting a mastectomy.

Three:
I eventually found myself sneaking into the church in another dress, one that was approximately the size of a hand towel, a strappy blue thing that held to all my curves and invented them where there were none. Almost three-fourths of my entire back was bare, and the hem of the dress fluttered a little above the middle of my thighs. I looked like the witless slut who had tragically believed she was invited to a client's wedding.

Ike snickered when he saw me slipping through the entrance. "Hahaha," he said. "Haw haw haw."

I tugged at my dress. "Shut up," I snarled.

During the photo shoot, we all leapt up to where JL and her groom were standing by the altar, and we took our places beside the newlyweds. An industrial-sized electric fan howled away in our direction, and I held my skirt down gingerly and kept a smile frozen on my face.

"Peeeach!"

I turned. It was Jessette, the Maid of Honor, a former officemate I hadn't seen in nearly a year. "Hey!" I said, grinning. "Look at you! You look terrific!"

"Thanks! And you look so, uh – sexy!"

I grimaced. "Ugh, I was supposed to wear something else, but then—"

She guffawed. "You look scandalous."

There was absolutely no way I was going to win this.

Four:
"Hello, hello," The sound system crackled to life, and my voice – alien, too deep, sounding as though it were completely dissociated from me – spilled out from the amplifiers. We were now in the wedding reception venue, a room with a ceiling so low I could imagine my own breath ricocheting from the concrete above my head then jetting out to knock a few champagne glasses to the floor. I felt like a six-footer, felt as though something in my pituitary gland had gone horribly wrong and I'd gotten an ill-timed growth spurt. Shit shit shit shit shit. Nervousness rang out through my limbs in tiny spasms. I stepped away from the microphone and shot a beseeching look at my co-host, who was too busy digging his own hands deeper into his pockets.

"Well, uh, I think we could start now," I said to him.

He looked at me in mild surprise, as though he'd forgotten where he was for a few blurry seconds. He and I had been introduced just ten minutes before in a rush of names and polite, pre-fabricated statements: Yeah, hi, nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, too. I think we should start in a while Sure. He was the groom's brother, a fidgety guy with an anxious laugh, and he asked me if I'd done this kind of thing before.

"Emceeing, you mean? Well, yeah, but never weddings," I said, quick to lay out my disclaimer. If I screw this up, it's because I've never done it before. Absolution is mine! "What about you?"

"Uh, yeah," he said, scratching at his chin. "This is my second time, actually. The first was with our other brother."

"Excellent, at least you know the route. I'm not so sure about how to navigate this thing." I shifted my weight on another foot. Goddammit, these shoes were murdering me. "Are you the youngest?"

He pursed his lips. "No. I'm the eldest."

"Ah," I said benignly. He must hate these weddings, I thought. I felt the pressing need to spout bad jokes to this man beside me, thought that the situation could use a dose of crude humor. I wanted to elbow him in the ribs and flash him a conspiratorial smile. So when are you getting married, huh? Bet your folks ask you that a lot. Always the Best Man but never the...Man? HA HA HA! Koff koff. Oh, forget it. I took the program and shook it out. "I guess we could get this rolling now."

He nodded and stepped to the microphone, and I heard him start out with the first venturing greeting. I scanned the program and – holy shit, the Invocation?? What the--? Who's going to do the Invocation? I took my co-host aside just as he drew away from the microphone. "Hey, man, you wanna do the Invocation?"

An expression of pure dread spread across his face. "Oh, no," he said, almost recoiling. "No, no, I don't want to do the prayer."

I groaned inwardly. I hadn't prayed in years. My spiritual life was a wasteland rife with tumbleweed and slain cowboys and hinged saloon doors that creaked and swung with every wind's sighing. "All right. I'll just do it." I came up to the microphone. Goddamn, how did these things start again? Oh, right. "In the name of the father, and of the son, and of the holy spirit," I pronounced. Everyone in the room crossed themselves in unison, and I cleared my throat. "Dear Lord. Thank you for this day. Thank you for, uh, for the pleasant weather. Please bless the, uh, newlyweds."

One of the older ladies looked up and fixed me with a grim stare, and I tooled around frantically in my head for a few more lines to sustain the prayer. "Thank you for the. Food which we will. Partake. Of. Please bless us all. We pray for. A bright future for. The newlyweds. Thank you." I ended the prayer, and the guests crossed themselves uncertainly. I shoved the program into my co-host's hands. "Here, you take over for a while," I hissed.

I stalked over to my table, where Ike was also seated. "Shit," I said as I came up beside him. "Goddamn. That was a disaster."

"Dude," Ike said, one eyebrow raised. "That was the worst prayer I'd ever heard in my entire life. The worst."

"Come on, really?"

"Without a doubt. The worst prayer ever."

"Huh. Thanks a lot, man." I cuffed him weakly in the shoulder, then went back to the front, where my co-host was sweating through a string of names, the customary acknowledgments. I gave him a wan smile. "I think we're doing a nifty job so far," I told him after he let go of the microphone.

"Yup," he smiled, unconvinced. "We are. I think we are."

Five:
It just wasn't working. Weddings were too solemn, weddings were populated by too many matrons who frowned at short, backless dresses designed to amuse construction workers and overzealous Ateneo High School boys. I was mangling the whole event; I was sarcastic without meaning to be, and so was my co-host. It was obvious that neither of us was a big fan of weddings, and once we started floating wisecracks to the bewildered audience, we couldn't stop ourselves.

Still, I can't say that it was entirely a disaster. At the very least, I had my officemates in stitches, although god knows I wasn't even trying to be funny anymore. When the Dove Ceremony was about to start, I nodded to the Head Waiter, who promptly bustled around the pigeons in their gilt cage. "Ladies and gentlemen," I began. "We will now witness the Kissing of the Doves. Because that's what doves do. They kiss." I clapped a hand over my mouth, but it was too late. The older people gave me condemning looks while my former officemates exploded into shards of laughter.

When the reception was over, I struck out for the exit with a cigarette in my mouth. Thank god we finally got that out of the way, I thought. I stood by the entrance, taking ridiculously deep drags, when one of the older ladies appeared beside me. She took out her own pack of cigarettes, lit one, and studied me. A smile was playing at the corners of her mouth.

"You have a very beautiful voice," she said.

I coughed, startled. "Thank you!" I exclaimed, straightening up.

"Beautiful," she said. "You shouldn't waste such a lovely voice with all this smoking."

"Mm, yeah." I peered at her cigarette. "Well, you have a good voice, and you smoke, too."

She let out a laugh, turned, and pointed to a man hobbling towards the exit. "That's my husband," she said, without any apparent meaning.

I was running out of things to say. "Does he smoke, too?"

"No, no, only I smoke."

"Doesn't he mind?"

"He doesn't have the right to mind." She tossed her head. "Only the women are supposed to smoke. For all the stress we endure, you see. What do these men know of suffering?" She threw her husband a disgusted look.

I giggled feebly.

"Well," she said, stubbing out her cigarette. "We have to go now. It was nice talking to you. Take care of your voice."

"I will," I said, and almost saluted her. Meanwhile, Jerick, one of the flash animators from my former office, had sauntered over to my side. We traded high-fives.

"Oy, Peach," he grinned. "Ikaw rin emcee sa kasal ko, ha? Kung magpapakasal ako."

I sniffed. "Dude, didn't you see how I destroyed the reception?"

"Ano ka, okay nga eh. Tawa kami nang tawa."

Eky joined us. "Oh my god," she gasped. "Oh my god, Peach. You were so funny! I swear to god! You're nuts!"

"Aw, man." I said. "Thanks, but I don't think it really worked well with the older folks, you know? But thanks."

Jerick slapped me on the back. "Basta pag magpapakasal na ako, ikaw emcee ha."

Well, all right, sure. As long as someone else does the Invocation, I'm pretty certain I'll be fine.

There's A Place In The Sun For Anyone

2008-02-04T08:11:00.000+08:00

I've seen this happen in other people's lives,
And now it's happening in mine.
- The Smiths

What I recall most acutely from all the Sunday masses I attended as a child wasn't the heat stunning me into paralysis, or the gaudy frocks I wore, or the bright wallop of envy I felt when I saw the other kids playing tag while the priest intoned all those baffling words and Mom's hand on my lap kept me seated on the pew. Every squirm and fidgety motion was sent into retreat by a censuring glance from Dad, and I sighed and leaned back against the comfortless wood, thinking of my bike and my new fighting fish in its glass jar at home. I thought of how time expanded and lengthened without compassion in the small church, an hour feeling like three, the mystery of the host without its former charm now that I was permitted to take it.

I remember it all with great clarity, but one detail pitches out in starker color. My family almost always occupied the same pew on the same row, unless another family had gotten to it first. We weren't the only ones inclined towards that sort of regularity: nearly every Sunday, a woman and her daughter slid into the pew in front of ours. I hardly paid any attention to the mother, who remains formless and shifting in my memory, but I remember watching the daughter with a kind of obsessive intensity that may have been, in hindsight, completely unwarranted.

In fact, I do remember the daughter still, and what she looked like, and what she wore. I remember studying her while she went through the invariable religious motions in her modest dresses. She must have been just in her late teens, but I remember thinking that she seemed so grown-up, her movements possessed of a calm that I could never invoke from my own spare body.

When I think of it now, I don't understand why I was so fixated. She wasn't very remarkable, was pretty in a muted way, and she never drew any attention to herself. But I zoomed in on her anyway and created vast improbable fictions for her to settle into. I convinced myself that her name was Rose. She had countless friends, was popular in school, was kind and intelligent and universally adored. She liked a boy who liked her back, and he held her hand and helped her with homework and eliminated the need to understand fractions or the chaos that a wayward decimal point could cause. Rose had read every Nancy Drew mystery, and as a matter of fact, owned a complete collection of it, which was ranged neatly over her neat study table in her neat sun-dappled bedroom.

Sometimes she turned around in her seat and caught me looking, a development that always gave me a brutal shock. I would whip my eyes to another point in the church until she turned to face the priest again, or I would fake a yawn or brush some invisible piece of lint off my skirt. In any case, my little invented world for Rose pressed on, although I couldn't get rid of the feeling that even as I spun plot after labored plot for her, a crevasse of infinite proportions persisted in the space between her pew and mine. None of my stories were ever adequate.

I didn't see Rose for a long while until I was in High School. By that time, she had completely receded from my concerns, and I was too busy wrangling with my own adolescent preoccupations, my ineffectual dramas magnified by a storm of hormones and a bloated sense of suffering. But then she reappeared one Sunday, surprisingly smaller than I thought she was, and once the initial flare of recognition had quieted down, I found myself oddly embarrassed by her presence. It appalled me that I'd devoted so much time in my childhood to a trumped-up fabrication, realized what a pathetic exercise it was at escaping from the playground's ruthless politics or at banishing a nine-year old's secret loneliness. I don't know why it was such a big deal to me then, but I was a teenager – everything was a big deal. I paid severe attention to the priest afterwards, and concentrated so feverishly on every part of the Mass that I went home that morning with a headache banging away in my temples.

Anyway. I'm not sure why I brought that up. Earlier this evening, I was smoking in the stairwell with a cooling mug of coffee, reading a book that Jose had given me for Christmas. A little boy – I didn't know there were children in this floor – had come out from one of the units to stand by the windows facing the stairwell, and he remained there for a curiously long time, staring out at Katipunan Avenue in a posture that struck me as too solemn for someone so young. He looked like he was waiting for somebody, expectation and frank yearning articulated in the angle of his neck and in the way he leaned against the grating. He was real and he was a ghost of things past. I wanted to say hello.

Dialogues: A Post-Holiday Special, Part II

2008-01-09T02:08:00.000+08:00

(A nod to last year's Post-Holiday Special)

Dialogue 1:
Daughter is home for the holidays once again, but this year, the whole affair has a dark note to it. Daughter's Friend died two days before Christmas, and Daughter goes to the wake to pay her respects. After the prayer vigil, Friend's Mom introduces Daughter to Friend's Aunt.

Friend's Aunt: Are you working, or are you still in school?
Daughter: Well, I'm already working, but I do hope to go back to school when the chance comes.
Friend's Aunt: To study what?
Daughter: Creative Writing, most probably.
Friend's Aunt: (peering closely at Daughter) Hija, what's your last name?
Daughter: Paderna.
Friend's Aunt: (putting hand over mouth) Oh! Are you the daughter of Atty. Paderna?
Daughter: Oh, no. He's my uncle, though.
Friend's Aunt: Is he still alive?
Daughter: (taken aback) Uh, yes, he is.
Friend's Aunt: Ah.

Conversation dies.

Dialogue 2:
Mom and Daughter are in a Chinese restaurant, having just ordered the chow and waiting for Dad to park the car. Daughter has bought a copy of Time Magazine, and is leafing through it while Mom watches her.

Mom: What a pretty daughter I have!
Daughter: (looking up) Hmm?
Mom: Pretty, pretty.
Daughter: Wow, really? Thanks, Mom!
Mom: Well, I'm your mother. I'm supposed to say that you're pretty.
Daughter: Oh.

Dialogue 3:
After getting off the phone, Daughter pads over to the kitchen where Dad is attending to the Kare-Kare. Mom is also in the kitchen, helping out.

Daughter: I just got off the phone with Jose. He wishes you both a Happy New Year.
Mom: Oh, how nice of him!
Dad: Okay, wish him a Happy New Year for me, too.
Daughter: (brightening) Really? You mean it?
Dad: And tell him that I told you that if he's just playing games, he better look for someone else.
Mom: (hotly) You're just saying that because you played around, too!!
Dad: You know, that's exactly the kind of attitude that doesn't help anybody!!

Fight ensues. Daughter slinks away.

Dialogue 4:
To make the Kare-Kare, Dad needs to make the beef tender by letting the pieces simmer for around two to four hours. By the fifth hour, however, the beef hasn't yielded, and Dad stomps around the house, frustrated.

Dad: I don't understand it. That beef has already been simmering for hours.
Daughter: It's all right, Dad. We can wait.
Dad: I'm very disappointed.
Daughter: Oh, don't worry about it. I'm sure the Kare-Kare's going to turn out just fine.
Dad: The man who sold me the meat told me the pieces were from a calf. It should be really tender!
Daughter: Maybe it was an athletic calf.
Dad: Haha.
Daughter: Hahaha.

Dialogue 5:
By the eighth hour, the beef isn't ready yet. Dad is clucking his tongue, and the Kare-Kare's been moved from lunch to dinner.

Dad: I shouldn't have blanched the pieces. That could be it.
Daughter: I have a theory.
Dad: What's that?
Daughter: That calf was a triathlete before they butchered it.
Dad: What's a triathlete?
Daughter: --
Dad: Is that a dinosaur from the Jurassic period?
Daughter: It's an athlete who runs, swims, and bikes, all in one race.
Dad: I didn't know that.
Daughter: For sure.

Dialogue 6:
After what feels like a century, the beef is very nearly done. Dad checks on it periodically, a relieved look spreading on his face.

Dad: Okay, forty-five minutes more, and we can sit down for dinner.
Daughter: Excellent!
Dad: I'm sorry it took so long.
Daughter: Oh, it's all right, Dad.
Dad: Maybe I shouldn't have blanched the meat.
Daughter: Well, at least you know better now.
Dad: Yes. Do you mind waiting a little more?
Daughter: Not at all.
Dad: I promise to make it worth the wait.
Daughter: It always is.

I Booked Myself in at the YWCA

2008-01-09T01:07:00.000+08:00

I'm a boy and you're a girl.
La la la la la la la la.
You're a girl and I'm a boy.
La la la la la la la la.
- The Smiths

Okay, let's see how this works. Surveys are great when you're too lazy to be creative for another drawn-out post.

57 Girl Confessions

Note: This is almost making me gag, but I'll stay with it!

1. Is it cute when guys kiss you on your forehead?
It's all right, but a guy can do better than my damn forehead.

2. A big poofy dress or a short party dress?
This is such a dumb question. Why would anyone want a big poofy dress? Since when has dowdiness been attractive?

3. What would you do if you received a long love letter?
Eat it.

4. Group dates or single dates?
I am so tempted to skip this survey, but I'll see how far my patience carries me.

5. Do you hate it when guys act different around their friends?
Aren't we all licensed to act differently with different groups of people? What is this quiz assuming, that we're all uni-dimensional? Morons.

6. Are diamonds a girl’s best friend?
Fuck no. Diamonds are boring. I can't even eat them. At least love letters are chewy.

7. Is your hair up or down today?
Down, the way it usually is.

8. Do you straighten your hair?
Why spend on hair treatments when you can spend the money on books and beer? Glug glug.

9. Favorite mascara?
What other girls are wearing, especially if they're clumping up, because it looks funny and I can laugh at it secretly.

10. Do you get your nails done?
No. I'm a nail biter and manicures are useless.

11. Small or large purses?
A backpack.

12. In your purse, what are your must haves?
Cigarettes, a lighter, money, and admittedly, a powder compact.

13. Jeans or sweats?
Skirts.

14. Do you wear clothes/shoes/jewelry that’s uncomfortable?
WHAT A DUMB QUIZ.

15. Do you text message a lot?
No. Texting is a pain sometimes.

16. What would you do if you got pregnant?
Abort the baby.

17. What’s your favorite color?
Dark red.

18. Heels or flats?
It depends, you moron.

19. Did you ever cry during a romantic movie?
My tear ducts are naturally overreactive.

20. Would you ever leave the house without make-up on?
Rarely, but yeah.

21. Walmart or Target?
I hate shopping. Next question!

22. Do you wear collared shirts?
Shit, my patience is about to expire. I'm still on the 22nd question, and there are 57 all in all!

23. Do you like preppy boys?
No. They're corny, and tend to be perverse. They probably engage in coprophilia. They probably want to have sex with your mom.

24. Do you think lip gloss is the best!?
I don't wear lip gloss.

25. Do you own any big sunglasses?
No.

26. How long does it take you to get ready in the morning?
Two hours, of which I'm just spaced out for an hour and thirty.

27. Do you like to wear band-aids?
My brain's shriveling up.

28. Do you like skater boys?
Brain's gone.

29. Do you often wish there was something you could change?
Brain has been listed in the World Book encyclopedia as an extinct creature.

30. Gold or silver?
Silver.

31. Do you like to receive flowers?
UGH, NO.

32. Do you like surfer boys?
That's it, I'm done with this quiz. To hell with the rest of the questions.

33. Do you dress up for the holidays?

34. Do you like to wear dresses?

35. On a scale of 1-10 how much do guys confuse you?

36. In the last 48 hours have you hung out with a guy?

37. Would you date a guy shorter than you?

38. Do you like to hold hands?

39. What is the youngest you would date?

40. What is the oldest you would date?

41. What do you notice when you first meet a guy?

42. Is it hot when guys sweat?

43. What is the best feature in a guy?

44. Do you like making eye contact?

45. Are you afraid of the unknown?

46. Would you kill for chocolate?

47. Did you ever spend all day/night getting pretty for a guy?

48. On a scale from 1-10 how fun is shopping?

49. Do you freak out if you miss your favorite show?

50. Do you yell a lot?

51. Do you wear sweatpants/pajamas to school/work?

52. Have you ever dressed unlike yourself to impress a guy?

53. Do you write a lot of mushy love poems?

54. What makeup could you not live w/ out?

55. Do you fall in love easily?

56. Do you have cramps?

57. Do you think you have the bestest friend ever?

2007-12-25T03:17:00.000+08:00

I just realized that Johnny Marr is much cuter than Morrissey.

Also, Johnny Marr is a Scorpio.

I am tempted to step into a place of utterly flawed logic, but I will resist the compulsion.

.

It Pays My Way and it Corrodes My Soul

2007-12-25T01:23:00.000+08:00

Sweetness, sweetness, I was only joking when I said
I'd like to smash every tooth in your head.
- The Smiths

It's no secret that I refuse to have anything more to do with Philosophy, now that I've shrugged my shoulders free of its weight after all those years in University, those dreaded Oral Examinations where I had to elaborate on the significance of Heidegger's work on morality, or how Descartes' exercise in "unmitigated doubt" ushered in a persistent era in epistemology, yakkety yakkety. I am done with it. Finished. And I did love it once, when I was a shiny-eyed dud, although I don't mean to say that all those who persist in loving Philosophy are shiny-eyed duds. I am only saying that I was a different person then, and that the herculean, labored abstraction that Philosophy represents no longer appeals to me.

Still, stuff like the video below kills me, and maybe I did understand enough of my classes to actually appreciate this clip. It's fucking hilarious! I almost choked here in my seat from laughing too hard! I send my thanks to Crisgee for shooting me the link to this.

Oh, and to tell you the truth, I didn't really hate Philosophy that much, and genuinely favor Kant over Nietzsche, whom I think is an overhyped, syphilitic codger. Still, there is much to be commended in Nietzsche's work, and stop me now before I go on into some ridiculous, overwrought rant.

Ladies and gentlemen, the video. Nyuk nyuk.

.

If A Double-Decker Bus Crashes Into Us

2007-12-25T00:39:00.000+08:00

And you never knew how much I really liked you,
'Cause I never even told you – oh, and I meant to.
- The Smiths

Dear one, you were a dervish, a hurricane I can't claim to have known very well, though I knew some things about you, a distant friend. You wanted to be a lawyer, yes? You loved as though tomorrow was an illusion, and the present a dapper tune you always wanted to play, the way you plinked away at that piano in your house when we were in High School. What young things we were. I still remember those afternoons in your front yard when you helped me figure out that blasted snarl of equations – do you know I never would have passed second-year Math if it hadn't been for you? Oh, you always thought you were never enough, you looked at your sister the way I looked at mine, we always thought we were never good enough, never pretty enough, never smart enough, eternally fucking up. Have I ever told you how much I envied you for how obstinately you dismissed fear? Or how I admired you for the way you blazed past criticism, even if it was secretly wounding you? I never told you these things. It doesn't matter now, you're gone, what use is it. I'm flying home tonight, and I will see you in your casket, and of course it wouldn't be you, none of us will believe it. You were alive one minute and all your breath pressed out of you the next. I want to think that tragedy is something we should be smart enough to expect. But none of us thought you would go so soon. Oh, Ivy, you were always more than enough, did you know this?

Ivy Lalaine Omelio
02 November 1983 - 23 December 2007

I've Got A Cloak, It's A Bit Of A Joke

2007-12-02T07:01:00.000+08:00

Me, I want a hula hoop!
- Alvin and the Chipmunks

I can't sleep. I'm tired, oh so tired, although I can hardly understand why; all I've done is stretch catlike in bed from one honeyed hour to the next, enjoying my blessed, featureless Saturday, plucking books from their towering stacks, revisiting old titles and giggling through my favorite parts. I can never give any of these books up, these mighty babies, all of them cradling universes between their covers. Miracle of miracles! The written word. Such terrible terrible terrible joy.

Goddammit I really can't sleep. It isn't even Saturday anymore, it's 5:48 in the morning, and my weekend is trickling down to Sunday dreaded Sunday. Sundays always herald the looming blue of the workweek, and how can I give up my bed, how can I? I've given it fresh sheets of a pink so uncharacteristic of me I almost love it. How can I give it up?

So now we are in December. Mmm, December. Even if I didn't have a calendar around, I would've known. There's an unquestionable nip to the air now, and the world is chillier than the last eleven months have known it. Twenty-four more days, and I'll be sailing home in a plane aloft, the fleets of clouds parting for the flying machine, and Dad and Mom will be waiting for me at the airport. I'm sure to overpack again, the way I always do, and Mom will have something to say about my weight, and Dad will have something to say about my job, and he and I will be singing Frank Sinatra songs in the car all the way home while Mom hums along.

The great misfortune is that I will be spending Christmas Eve here in Manila because of work. Oh the tragedy! Christmas Eve in Manila is such an abomination. But what the hell, I'm already resigned to it. At least I get to celebrate with Ate Monique while she languishes through the Holidays, doing overtime to satisfy her ill-disguised masochism.

"So it looks like I'm really going to spend Christmas Eve here," I say to her, stretching out in bed some more, feeling for the limits of my ligaments. She is rushing around the flat, brisk and efficient, about to go back to the office to do more overtime. It is a Saturday, and she is evidently crazy.

"Yeah." She yanks out the towel-turban from her head and her hair tumbles out in a wet black tangle. "Me, too."

"I know. Hey, look," I say, brightening up. "You want me to fix something for the both of us? Dinner for Christmas Eve?"

"No."

"Oh, come on!"

"We'll just end up gaining weight."

"You're mad. Look at you, you're a kite. You're skin and bones. If anyone should be losing weight here, that would be me. What do you want me to cook?"

"Nothing," she says, tugging a comb through her hair. Her hair has always been incorrigible, ill-tempered, accorded with a life of its own. She's hated it for as long as I can remember. She's hated it even when she was but a translucent fetus, even as a zygote, when her little developing cells hinted at the genetic code that would give rise to such a wild mass. She thrashed and thrashed with all her zygote energy in our mother's pillowed uterus. What a girl.

Still, despite her affected opacity, my sister is perhaps the only person who has ever made definite, genuine attempts to spoil me. She comes home bearing small gifts for me: a candy bar, a bag of lychees, pastries wrapped in colored cellophane, a llama. She has, indeed, given me a sneezing llama named Jerry. I have fed it with pancakes and beer.

Of course I am making this up. My sister would never do such a thing, we aren't allowed to keep pets in the building. But I wasn't kidding about the other small gifts. My sister is a jewel, a diamond that no mallet can pound to smithereens. Her bone structure is nearly flawless, and her face is full of utter delicacy. The nose draws a graceful line above her perfect mouth. I look absolutely nothing like her.

In her company, I am cloying to a revolting point, I drape my arms around her and ask for piggy back rides even if there is no chance that she will bear my weight. She is nearly half my size.

"Hug," I command, having transferred now to her bed. She hates it when I do this, and I don't blame her. My bed is perfect, and I have no business spreading myself out on her own bed, but I do it anyway. I let my head hang over the side.

"No," she says, gathering her things.

"You know what I'm thinking?"

"What."

"If I were a guy, I would probably have a small dick."

"What?" She chortles. I am killing her.

"Yeah." I hold up my hands to the light. "We're talking statistically here. I have awfully small hands. I'm only 5'3. I would most probably have a small dick. If I had a girlfriend, she would be so disappointed."

"I don't know how you come up with these things."

"Oh, but you'd be worse. You're just 5 feet tall on a good day. You'd be one of those sorry men with sloping shoulders and womanly hips."

"And a small dick?"

"And a small dick," I say, nodding sagely.

"Bye," she says, hoisting her bag over her shoulder.

"Give me a kiss."

"No. Bye."

Ah, all that studied frigidity. How can you not love her?
.

Hello, I Love You, Won't You Tell Me Your Name

2007-11-20T01:11:00.000+08:00

You painted me, and I sat quite still.
- The Sundays

There seems to be an incalculable force at work here, some demigod with abstruse eyes and a voice that sounds like it's always on the verge of spilling over into laughter. I don't know what it is, exactly, but that force is causing at least 70 percent of my friends and acquaintances to call me a name that isn't even mine. At least, not technically. If we're going to be rigorous about things, I go by only two names: my real name, which is Charisse-Fuschia Arriba Paderna, and my nickname, which is plain old Peachy.

If there is such a demigod slinking about behind the scenes, though, he's been responsible for all these people kissing me on the cheek and trading high-fives with me in a demonstration of bonhomie, and then finally calling me Pechay. Pechay. Not Peachy, but Pechay. Not the fruit, but the vegetable with broad, emerald leaves. As in that common thing that sprouts from a layer of dung-enriched soil and is harvested so it can be sold at your local market, where a bunch of the stuff can be bought cheap so your Dad or your Mom or your household help can fling it into a greased wok with onions and garlic and ginger and cubes of tofu, and then serve it in all its leafy, steaming glory right under your waiting nose.

Crunch, crunch.

I don't get it, I really don't. For some reason, people seem to switch almost imperceptibly from Peachy to Pechay, without so much as a premonitory gesture. I've noticed, though, that the switch usually occurs at that point in our acquaintance where they feel like we can stop pretending that I'm respectable. Because face it, whatever credibility I've managed to hoard while growing up has been lost, lost, irrevocably so! It's all been fed to the hogs, like left-over pechay!

I'm sorry, the simile was winking so persistently at me, I couldn't resist abusing it.

But let's go back to the subject at hand. If you're thinking that this is a recent phenomenon, you're dead wrong, like dead pechay. Okay, I won't do that again, promise, no more bad similes. Anyway, you're wrong. This sort of thing has plagued me as far back as that summer when I was six years old, rollicking down the neighborhood's narrow streets with the other kids, riding our bikes and playing hide-and-seek or squealing through this dumb game we made up ourselves called Shark Shark.

That's around the first time one of the kids called me Pechay, and he laughed so hard at the discovery of his own unbridled wit, I was quite sure he was going to choke on his own tongue. Which he did not, unfortunately. More unfortunately, however, the other kids caught on to the jeering as though it were a case of mumps, and I was cowed back to the safety of our house by a full clutch of neighborhood kids chanting Pechay, Pechay while a few others haw-hawed in the background.

What poleaxed my six-year old heart the most, what snuffed out all my illusions about justice and parity wasn't just the fact that the boy who started it didn't choke on his own tongue. Oh, no. What destroyed me was the fact that his name was Lep-Lep, Lep-Lep for crying out loud, and wasn't that an infinitely bigger laugh than what Peachy and all its possible permutations could ever be? I mean, holy shit, Lep-Lep? As in, leper? Like, kess my leps? Lepsteck? And why was I on trial here, when the other kids' names stank worse than mine? What about Tata and Bibing and Wapol?? My name wasn't even Pechay, it was Peachy. Haw haw yourselves, goddammit.

The name asserted itself through time, refusing to be eroded away by the procession of years. Since that summer of my childhood, though, a callus seems to have formed where Pechay kept on rubbing itself against. The name no longer hurts or offends, but I feel strangely divorced from it, no matter how many times the name has been appended to my person.

What I find intriguing, though, is the barefaced universality of it among my friends. I have friends from different circles who have never laid eyes on each other, and yet share the identical desire to label me as a green leafy vegetable. I've done a little investigating, too, in an effort to wring out a logical explanation for the switcheroo, to bridge that trench opening up between Peachy and Pechay. How does one get from Point A to Point B?

"So, I got a question. It's just that, you know, I do get around to wondering why most of you guys call me Pechay. Why? Why??"

"Because you're Pechay! You're such a...a Pechay!"

"All right, wait – is this something you actually agree to do among yourselves, like, Oh, let's start calling her Pechay instead of Peachy?"

Some head scratching. "Uh, no, we just somehow get around to calling you that, it just kind of pops out."

"But I don't like Pechay! Why can't you just call me Peachy?"

"But we can't stop just like that!"

"Yeah, but Pechay sounds so tacky! I'm not tacky," I'd say, stamping my foot.

"Of course you aren't tacky. It's just something that we end up calling you, that's all. Wanna have some beer?"

"Orright, let's go!!"

Obviously, not a lot of investigating gets done in the end. I'm beginning to suspect, however, that it all boils down to the fundamental question of my alleged personality, which is also allegedly incongruous with the alleged traits espoused by the name Peachy. I can no longer count the number of times I've been told that I don't seem like a Peachy, that Peachy somehow doesn't fit. Bruce said it himself when he recalls the first time I hung out with them. My name had been mentioned by Camille a number of times in the past, and Bruce was expecting to be introduced to a sweet-faced giggling thing with fluff for brains. Instead, he found himself shaking hands with a wild-haired, beer-guzzling girl who swore like a sailor and – had fluff for brains. At least he got that detail right.

Some anonymous, sweet-faced girl. No amount of plastic surgery
can give me that kind of face.

While I'd like to humor myself and think that I am a Peachy, that I am, indeed, peachy, rosy and fragrant and lovely when ripe, the consensus seems to be that I am not, nosirree. I am, apparently, green when right for the picking, and I grow directly from earth that the wise farmer has scattered shit upon. There's an acrid bite to my leaves when you chew too intently on them, and when I become part of the left-overs, I will naturally be fed to the hogs.

But I give you vitamins and I am packed with fibre. Which encourages bowel movement. Which you so need now, when the only things you seem to digest are burgers and chips and your own inexhaustible regret.

I am supposed to be good for you. I've been told that.
.

2007-11-18T12:16:00.000+08:00

Be Happy Be Arbitrary Part IV:

Elaine's coming over on Tuesday.

My sister and I are cleaning up the flat, finally.

I'm coming home for Christmas.

My sister isn't.

Let's talk about disbelief.

Can you let hatred radiate across a city so it reaches its intended target?

No, no, not radiate, more like shoot, much like a laser beam would.

Or the way a balled fist shoots out into the air.

Let's talk about belief.

No, no, let's talk about disbelief. Disbelief is easier.

I slept the entire day Saturday. It was midnight when I woke up.

There's this chapter in Oscar and Lucinda that murders me every time I read it.

I drank six cups of coffee right after waking up and my hands moved nervously for the rest of the morning.

An ant bit me on the arm and I had to kill it.

Disbelief is comfortable.
.

Test My Tether

2007-11-16T00:37:00.000+08:00

Hair is gray, and the fires are burning.
So many dreams on the shelf.
He said, "I wanted you to be proud of me."
I always wanted that myself.
- Tori Amos

The days moved as if through sludge in those months I spent in Davao, a second Leave of Absence hefted upon my school record and time rolling out in front of me like some infinite, blank scroll waiting to be written on. The afternoons were laziest of all. The sunlight would come cascading to the backyard until everything seemed to be covered in molten gold, and the dogs, Coco and Nugget, would either be loping around in a half-drunken fashion or napping by the back door until sundown.

Sometimes I'd play with them, the three of us racing around the perimeter of the house. The game often started in the backyard; I would stand around innocently while they sniffed the air, suspecting something, and then I'd break into a sprint, the both of them catching up and yapping wildly, their forms like little whirlwinds tossing around my legs. They were mad about that game, those dogs. We usually ended it at the backyard, at that area with the bermuda grass spread out over it, and I would lie down while Coco and Nugget panted noisily nearby. I lay down even if the grass felt itchy through my shirt, even if there was dog shit some yards away stinking up the air.

Other than that, there wasn't much to do except curl up in bed, on the living room sofa, on the floor, anywhere – curl up with a book or with the television and its relentless stream of entertainment and information. A cartoon here, a sitcom there, and then a documentary featuring leopards. I loved leopards the best. I would watch leopard documentaries for hours; I loved the way they arched their backs right before springing up to a tree branch overhead. I loved their massive, feral bodies, all sinew and spotted pelt, the way they carved out stubborn, solitary lives.

Mom had scores of recipe books stacked in various areas in the house, and I thumbed through each of them until the urge to whip up something would overrun me and I would heave out the giant Kitchen Aid mixer and all the bowls and spatulas, I would take out the tubs of flour and brown sugar from the shelves and leave the sticks of butter softening on a white saucer.

I made Choc-Oat Chip cookies to die for. I made them so that handfuls of chocolate chips were folded generously into the batter, the walnuts chopped coarsely so there were huge chunks of it in every dollop of cookie dough. I made the cookies large and soft and buttery. I made them so that they surrendered to your mouth.

Dad would come home and find a tray of the cookies cooling on a rack, and he would take one and chew on it thoughtfully, nodding his head. "That was the best cookie I have ever tasted," he'd pronounce grandly. I would grin at him whenever he said this, because he said this of every single cookie I made. He and I would go grocery shopping for more ingredients, bags of Toll House chocolate chips and large cans of Diamond walnuts and small sacks of flour. "You have to make more, four more dozens, maybe," he'd say, pushing the shopping cart purposefully.

We would run into his friends in the grocery, and he would brag to them about the cookies while I stood fidgeting in quiet mortification. "She makes very good cookies. We're buying ingredients, in fact. You should order a dozen from her." And they would, they would order a dozen until I had orders piled up high to the ceiling. These people usually started out asking for a single dozen – later, they'd call up the house and ask for four dozens. Sometimes six. It was crazy.

At night, I would go out from my bedroom to get a glass of water and catch Dad sneaking out a cookie from the container, crumbs of an already-eaten cookie flecked on his chin. "I like to munch on them while I'm watching TV," he'd say quickly. The television wasn't even turned on.

I would kiss him on the cheek and go back to bed and read some more before turning in for the night. The crickets sang loudest outside my room, so much music coaxed out from a pair of wings and friction. I haven't yet found a better lullaby.
.

It's Burning On The Road

2007-11-11T21:19:00.000+08:00

But don't forget the songs that made you cry
And the songs that saved your life.
Yes, you're older now, and you're a clever swine,
But they were the only ones that ever stood by you.
- The Smiths

Birthday week's spiralling down to its end, and it's been – as I've mentioned to anxious friends – one of the best that I've seen in recent years. Not because the 5th of November was welcomed with a huge party, limitless alcohol, a giant cake with the surprise of a male stripper crouched inside, oh, nothing like that. And although I wouldn't object to such a celebration – that male stripper would've made for a lot of laughs – my 24th birthday was fun enough, with friends treating me out to seafood and beer, not to mention a tiny cake from AMCI friends, plus a poetry reading and more beer capping off the day.

And then, of course, there was half a day and steak with Jose, which is always a foolproof formula for a wonderful time.

Slouching outside Purple Haze while waiting for Mahal's gig, ending the Birthday Week with Obbie and Abbey. Photo courtesy of Obbie.

The only fact that could've caused a dent in the whole thing was the Delayed Pay Check, a development which is never acceptable nor welcome in any given universe or solar system. I'll bet even one-eyed, slime-cloaked extraterrestrials would throw a fit if they didn't get their checks on the appointed date – because, really, no matter how indifferent you claim to be where fiscal shit is concerned, you have to concede that having an empty wallet is definitely no fun.

Still, it's all been great. Light years better than last year's birthday, to be frank. Even Carlo remembers what a wet blanket I was, what with that panic attack giving me a good wallop in the morning and ruining my mood for the rest of the day. I may have been asking for it, though – days before my birthday, I would stay up at night and worry about what I was doing with myself, where I was headed for, if I was at all headed for anything. That sad, needless slurry of anxiety that twenty-something folks like to dunk themselves into.

While I'm not saying that I now avoid those questions altogether, the last year has been all about going over those same concerns without obsessing over them, or finding the tragedy where there was none, or conjuring new monsters because it was a habit you couldn't resist catering to. What I'm saying is that I am now a better person because I've been paying a lot of attention to what Oprah and Dr. Phil have to say, and I bought myself a copy of The Secret and found a real wellspring of hope in it, and I've recently decided to give up beer in favor of knitting reindeer-themed sweaters for all of my friends.

I'M KIDDING.

I actually haven't made a lot of progress. I still have a filthy imagination, I still swear a lot, my moral self is in shreds (if it was there to begin with), and I lie to Dad about going to Mass. But I'm quite proud of how far I've gone in the last 12 months; at the very, very least, I can wriggle my ears now. Unassisted. I am that cool.

-----

Peachy: I got a question for you.
Ate Monique: What.
Peachy: Suppose that you had a pet lobster –
Ate Monique: I would never keep a lobster as a pet!
Peachy: Okay, all right, but what if all the lobsters in the world had been wiped out, and you were asked to take care of this one remaining lobster while the rest of the scientific community looked for a mate for it? So supposing you had this lobster, right –
Ate Monique: Okay.
Peachy: What name will you give it?
Ate Monique: Um, I don't know. Why?
Peachy: I'd probably name it Freddie.
Ate Monique: Freddie? Well, actually, yeah, that would be a good name for a lobster.
Peachy: Isn't it?? Isn't it perfect? Doesn't a lobster look so much like a Freddie? Can you imagine it inside its aquariu--
Ate Monique: Wait a minute, why am I even talking to you about this??
Peachy: I have no idea.
.

A Case Of Do Or Die

2007-11-04T15:36:00.000+08:00

When we look back at it all,
As I know we will,
You and me, wide-eyed.
I wonder, will we really remember
How it feels to be this alive?
And I know we have to go,
I realize we only get to stay so long.
We always have to go back
To real lives, where we belong.
- The Cure

For the last four months, I and some 30 other people submitted ourselves to what, in countless ways, seemed to be a demonstration of actual dementia. I can't understand now how we all managed it, how we blazed through the Makati traffic every Wednesday night in our running shoes, sweating it out just when everybody else was trudging back home; how we were able to rouse ourselves awake every Sunday morning to run all along Fort Bonifacio and to grunt through set after set of insufferable ramps. I think of all the kilometers we'd sprinted through, or all the mountains we'd so far scaled, and I can't resist shaking my head at it all. It was crazy. No doubt about that.

But, well – it's all done now, and we wrapped up the Basic Mountaineering Course with our Induction Climb in Mt. Kalatungan, Bukidnon, a five-day, high-altitude hike that brought us to the very summit of the sixth highest peak in the Philippines. It was, by and large, the best climb I have ever been on, chiefly because the mountain bore with it an undeniable air of secrecy, as though walking down its half-concealed trails was proximate to plumbing for the answers to very dark, somber questions like Will I be able to take a dump somewhere down this path because my colon feels massive now?

Or, when you are blessed with bad eyesight the way that I am, you can be speeding up the trail with your 50-pound pack on your back, gloating over your supposed agility and much-improved reflexes. You feel like Samson! Which is definitely apropos, because Samson had long hair, and so do you!!! Your pace seems much like flight itself, and you're going at it so that the features of the trail become smudged together like some piece of impressionist art. You're about to thank your own nearsightedness for making everything seem so dreamlike when POW! you ram your left thigh right into a small tree trunk, something which your eyes did not pick out from the shadows. The pain is incredible, you double over from it, and your nerve endings are braying out their protests like a herd of beleaguered cows. Moooo, they say, you idiot, we told you it was time to get contact lenses!

But since I couldn't get contact lenses at 2,000 meters above sea level, the same dumb accident happened to me at least two more times on my way to the summit. As I type, I can see a family of livid, purple bruises peeking out from my shorts, and I've grossed out friends and officemates alike by showing them off. Reactions have ranged from the horrified, awe-struck Oh my god to genuine disgust, with people covering their eyes and making gagging sounds.

Honestly, people shouldn't be so damn sensitive.

But let's talk about the mountain. Mt. Kalatungan, while not as wildly popular as nearby Mt. Kitanlad, was perhaps more beautiful, primarily because not as many trekkers usually venture over its body. The trails had a somewhat robust look to them, with the plantlife creeping in from the sides to prevent the paths from widening any further than they should.

Most breath-stopping, however, were the large sections of mossy forests sprawling down the mountainsides. I'm not talking about run-of-the-mill moss here, the kind you see on the walls of derelict buildings, although we certainly still found the same type at different points in our trek. What I'm speaking of, really, are the varieties you will see only in tropical rainforests such as those rooted in Kalatungan, mosses of a wraithlike green, dangling off in whispering tassels from branches overhead, embracing the trunks of stolid trees, beds of them carpeting the damp earth. Walking through these stretches of terrain was like intruding into a place so sacrosanct, precisely because they were far-removed from the filth and artifices of daily, urban living. As we made our way down one mossy forest, Mau Alcazar, one of the senior members, remarked that it felt like we were suspended in some fairy tale, and we all had to agree with him. If there had been a forest spurring on the imagination of the Brothers Grimm, it must have been close to what Kalatungan's mossy forests looked like.

However pleasant most of the climb had been, it wasn't without its difficulties, most bullheaded of which was the cold. As was expected of high-altitude climbs, the chill came at us in a stealthy march, and the higher we went, the more pervasive it became. The cold was something we'd come armed for, but by evening, the temperature had dropped to such a frigid degree that we all found ourselves cocooned in fleece jackets and multiple layers of clothing, shivering and cursing at the icy wind hissing through the trees.

The situation was compounded by the rain, which visited us nightly and seeped through our small tent, whose waterproofing was shot and rather hopeless. Small puddles of rainwater collected on the belly of my sleeping bag, and I was turning paranoid with such macabre thoughts as the possibility of hypothermia; I imagined myself a stiff corpse, blue-lipped and empty eyed, my tentmates shrieking at the discovery of my motionless body, weeping friends and relatives, pancit and pusoy dos and Coke making the rounds during my funeral, which would most probably be on a sunny day, I thought, and they should play Don't Change Your Plans by Ben Folds Five when they're scattering my ashes over the ocean, I do love that song to pieces, it's such a tender, tragic tune, so pretty, yakkety yakkety, and the train of thought would go on until nothing else but exhaustion drove me to consummate sleep.

And then hours later, I'd wake to my skin warming and the sun glimmering through the foliage, and I had never felt as exultant as when I'd zip open our tent and find the dew forming shyly on my sandals, my own blood quickening from beneath my flesh, the heat piping down to the tips of my fingers and toes. Oh, there it finally is, I'd think. The world once again offering you its open hand, the way it always has and will, its surprising friendship without fail or demand.
.

Send The Chairs And Lamps All Scattering

2007-10-17T17:35:00.002+08:00

And I'm brain-dead, I keep smiling.
- The Beta Band

October is proving to be the most recalcitrant month of the year, proceeding the way an impossible two-year old kid would, running around in wild zigzags and foiling all your attempts at capturing him. I can't recall missing as many hours of sleep in such a concentrated period, and the last time I let the stress score one over me was – well, in college. Now, my days are frighteningly predictable – I can hear the deadlines snarling away at me even before I get to my cubicle in the morning, way before I snap open my Inbox to check for new messages, updates, new assignments. Perhaps a message from some hotshot lawyer telling me that a rich, distant relative has died and named me the sole beneficiary of his sprawling estate, how about that, such a lucky lucky girl I've turned out to be!! Such good fortune, oh my god, can you belie--

Forget it, I don't have any rich, distant relatives anyway. And hotshot lawyers can't be expected to bear good news. And I want to have a donut right now, a Boston Kreme from Dunkin Donuts, all warm and yielding and sweet.

Wow, that was incoherent, even by my standards! Good job, Peachy. Oh yeah.

-----

Well, a number of folks have pointed out to me that this blog hasn't seen a new post in quite some time, and you're going to have to excuse me for that. I am not kidding when I say that this month is insane, this month should be bound up in a straitjacket and herded into the nearest sanatorium, it is a threat to society!

Look, work-related deadlines normally don't get to me this much, but work isn't the only thing I've been fretting about; since October reared its ugly head into the scene, I've been hounded by a slew of requirements for the Basic Mountaineering Course (BMC): the Orienteering make-up exams, the Red Cross Basic First Aid training, and the 15-kilometer run, among others. While I have all three cleanly out of the way, I still have Thursday's Interview to go through before I can properly qualify for the Induction Climb, which we're already planning obsessively for.

I'm getting the inaccurate, apocalyptic feeling that all this madness will never end. But it'll be over in a while. I have to trust that if I intend to remain functional. HOLY SHIT MY RIGHT HAND FELL OFF! Just kidding.

Hiya, Thing.

-----

So around two weeks ago, during a particularly oppressive week in the office, I stood up from my seat in my cubicle and tottered over to the washroom, hoping to rest my eyes for a minute or two. I hadn't gotten much sleep in the previous night, and by the time 2:00 rolled in, I was all set to fall into a coma, lovely and all-engulfing.

You're probably recoiling and thinking, Sleep in the bathroom?? Eeeww. But wait!! Because, look here, you haven't yet seen our office's washroom. It is a beauty, a real piece of work - or at least it is, as far as office bathrooms go. It's almost always kept immaculate, and the cleaning lady sees to it every night and makes sure it's spotless. And the tiles are all in this charming, dark shade of red, and the chrome bathroom fixtures wink at you when you flick open the light, and the toilet bowl always flushes in this agreeable, comely way. It's a peach of a bathroom, I swear to god.

Flush it all away, go!

Anyway, the plan was to sit in the corner with my knees drawn up to my chest and my back resting against the wall while napping for a few minutes. I'd done it before and pulled the stunt off without a hitch, so I was pretty confident about the whole enterprise; anyway, all I really needed was to close my eyes for just a few minutes. God, that feels so good, don't you just love catnaps, hmmm? Delicious, absolutely deliciousdsdgfl;ansd;f;askd;kwfkwdadlfkandfasdfddfjurwrwo--

--and the next thing I knew, somebody was bent over me, shaking me awake. "Peachy? Peach?"

I cracked open my eyes, blinked for a few moments, then shot up from the floor. "Huh-- um, ah, wow, oh my god, I'm so sorry, shit, I totally fell asleep, oh god, oh shit--"

"Um, okay ka lang?" It took me a second or two before I finally recognized Tin, one of the girls from the IT department. She had in one hand a set of keys, and she was looking at me curiously.

"Ah, yeah, I am. God, I'm so sorry, were you waiting a long time?" I stammered out.

"Mga 30 minutes. Tulog na tulog ka ah." She said, smiling.

It didn't take long before the entire office learned about it, and since then, I've been the butt of jokes, the sitting duck looking right at the end of a rifle barrel. Later, I learned that while I'd been knocked out on the bathroom floor for at least half an hour, folks had been trying without success to open the door, knocking on it fiercely to make sure that nobody was inside. And since they got no response, the only recourse left was to ask for the spare key from the Boss, and when they opened the door, voila! Peachy prostrate on the floor, drool curving down her chin. Quite a fetching sight, really.

People here haven't shown any signs of letting the incident pass, so when I'm making my way to the bathroom, they start grinning and saying stuff like, "Oy, huwag kang matulog, ha?" Or "Naku, baka inaantok ka nanaman." Or something like that. One of the guys even told me that they've reserved an award for me, which I should be receiving in one of the office's future parties. The Sleeping Beauty Award. I mean, WOW, I am touched, all this concern is just warming the cockles of my heart, you know? I have never felt more loved in my entire life, no shit.

Honestly, the situations I get myself into.
.

With Mind Bullets!

2007-10-02T20:32:00.000+08:00

I am not afraid, I can hardly wait.
- The Juliana Hatfield Three

Stuff You Gotta Do Before You Croak
1. Go bungee jumping.
2. Have a room in your house where every wall is lined with books from the ceiling to the floor. Not an inch of space spared.
3. Ride the most awesome roller coaster, wherever that'll be by 2030.
4. Establish contact with extraterrestrial life forms.
5. Walk from Ortigas Center to Katipunan Avenue. Alone.

So, then. Walk from Ortigas Center to Katipunan Avenue. Alone.

Check.

Now I know that I can whip out some pretty watertight lies if I wanted to, and that I tend to kid around a lot, but this time, I am dead serious. I am so dead serious, I can feel myself decomposing on account of the sheer power of my own seriousness. I AM SERIOUS! I AM REALLY SERIOUS!

I did walk from Ortigas Center to Katipunan Avenue last night. Alone! From 9:30 p.m. to 11 p.m.! With the cars zipping past me and the smoke from the tailpipes hovering dumb in their wake!

All right, since we're in a serious mood – since I'm in a serious mood – I'm going to talk about how it all began. It all began last May, when the notion to walk all the way home from Ortigas began to grow tentative shoots in my head until the concept itself hardened into a mighty tree trunk, stout branches, heavy globed fruit. And the idea persisted all these months, but I kept on dismissing it and furnishing excuses for myself, most of which were pretty valid.

For instance: you can't walk the entire distance between Pasig City's business kernel and Quezon City's university area if you're wearing a skirt, particularly if said skirt happens to end in any region above your knees. Which is the case with most of my skirts. Also: if, by any chance, you are wearing three-inch leather pumps, you are dead meat. You are carrion and the hyenas will slink out of the roadside bushes to rip you apart.

Those hee-hee-Hyenas.

So the feat demands the satisfaction of certain conditions.

Be certain that you are at your frumpiest state so that drugged-up perverts will find you a questionable target. Not that drugged-up perverts will care if you look like shit, but you're pretty much inviting trouble if you execute the act while you're dressed to the nines. Bad idea. The trick is to look as though you're too poor to subsist on anything but bread and water.
Be certain that there is nothing else you want to do but walk all the way home. The impulse should grip you by the throat and refuse to let go.
Be certain that no other true options exist, and that you can't commute home because you were an absolute bonehead and you forgot to withdraw money from your passbook account while the banks were still open and you have no cash at all and are too proud to borrow money from your officemates.

That is exactly what happened. Monday found me looking like a wart with arms and legs, a dowdy wart masquerading as an office employee in Ortigas Center. Peachy the Wart. I'd also forgotten to withdraw money from my passbook account and was too concerned about my ego to borrow a few bucks from officemates. And for some reason, hiking back to Katipunan seemed like a ridiculously good idea, a brilliant opportunity I would be a fool to turn away from.

At exactly 9:30, I began walking from our office building, wove my way through the sparse traffic and over to Meralco Avenue, then up the Valle Verde area. I'd already decided to forgo EDSA altogether and picked the White Plains route for the sake of efficiency. So there I was, hurrying energetically down the sidewalk, coasting along on my feet with the rhythm of omnipotence thrumming rich beneath my skin.

I climbed up to the long stretch of road between Valle Verde and White Plains, where Corinthian Gardens sat smugly and the houses rose from the ground with their forbidding faces. A few cars roared by while the streetlamps gasped out their slow, feeble light. The night crept on further in its menacing pace, the darkness a hungry animal with jaws swung wide open.

Isn't this fun? Hehe. Wait till Ate Monique finds out that you walked all the way fr--

Shit, I'm getting scared.

Shut up.

Okay, seriously, this is getting scary. Is anybody following me? Fuck!

Nobody's following you. You believe in the basic goodness of people.

Basic goodness my ass, what if somebody leaps out from behind that tree with an ice pick and asks for my wallet and my cellphone??

You don't have any money. And you don't have a cellphone, you dolt.

OH MY GOD, HE'S GOING TO KILL ME BECAUSE I'M POOR!

He won't! Nobody's there! All right. Listen. You believe in the basic goodness of people.

I believe in the basic goodness of people. I believe in the basic goodness of people. I believe in the basic goodness of people. Oh dear God, if you're there at all, pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleas--

Calm down.

All right. Okay.

Good girl.

But then the busy artery that led from White Plains to Katipunan Extension took me into its stream, and a gale of relief swept me up and carried me down to where the flyover dipped its concrete head into Katipunan Avenue. I was almost hysterical with happiness, snickering to myself as I made my way down to Aurora Boulevard, feeling lightheaded under the sodium lamps.

It was already 11 when I swaggered up the apartment building and swung open the door to our flat with a triumphant flourish. Ate Monique, who lay curled up in bed, stirred from sleep and frowned against the light.

"Turn off the light," she grunted.

"Guess what!" I said, stretching my arms up for effect. "I just walked all the way from Ortigas! Swear to god!"

"What? "

"Yeah!!!"

"WHY??"

"Well, I, ah, felt like it. You know, for kicks. And, ah, I didn't have any money, I forgot to withdraw from the bank—"

"That's just stupid. " She drew the blanket up to her neck and shut her eyes. "You gotta plan your day and make sure you withdraw early enough before the banks close. What if anything happened to you yakkety yakkety yakkety mumble mumble."

All right, forget it. Don't listen to my sister, even if she has a point. I mean, holy damn! How many folks do you know have walked all the way from Ortigas to Katipunan by their lone selves? I'm ready to bet that nobody in my immediate circle has even come close to doing that. Nobody! I know I've done a lot of foolhardy things in my life, oh, I've lost count of them, and maybe this takes the cake, maybe I was stupid, but look! I do not have an ice pick lodged between my ribs. I am still in one piece. Unassailably so.

Away with you, Ice Pick.

Is anybody willing to take me up on that bet? At stake is fifty pesos. Which is just about enough for an FX ride from Megamall to Katipunan! Because honestly – the whole excursion was a huge thrill, but I have never been so fucking scared in my entire life. And I am not doing that shit again, unless I run out of money once more and fall victim to my own sense of bravado. Tangina.
.

Intermission

2007-09-20T15:23:00.000+08:00

.

If I hear that blasted Fergie song again, I am going to scream.

.

'Uh,' Said The Lady To The Man

2007-09-19T11:00:00.000+08:00

I don't know if it's cloudy or bright.
- Frank Sinatra

Number One:
I was supposed to begin this entry with the phrase, Against my better judgment, until a rare spasm of understanding cut through me and I realized that better judgment was something that I have never been in possession of. In fact, I seem to have a gravely deficient capacity for good judgment alone, and am always prone to making Bad Decisions. Which does make for a pretty exciting life, certainly, but which also makes matters horribly unwieldy or slippery.

So I want you to imagine a 500-pound sea cucumber, an indignant 500-pound sea cucumber with serious goo all over it, the creature smelling distinctly of the ocean's quiet decay. And because you're feeling magnanimous, you decide to take it home with you in the name of science, you hoist it over your shoulder and you start waddling across the seaside and over to your Dad's idling car, a 1978 two-door Toyota Corolla, and then you try to stuff the sea cucumber into the trunk. It won't fit of course, because the damn thing is five hundred fucking pounds and now the slime is just sloughing off from the resisting animal and onto your arms, the stuff dripping down your legs and forming puddles around your feet, and then it hits you that OH MY GOD WHAT AM I DOING? And the sea cucumber tells you, OH MY GOD WHAT ARE YOU DOING, TAKE ME BACK TO THE SEA, YOU MORON.

Peachy, you dolt.

And then the sea cucumber dies in your arms. And it surprises you to find that there's something banging away from inside that cavity in your chest, something that feels alarmingly like the stirrings of a conscience, or worse, a capable heart.

Number Two:
But I'm digressing! Against my better judgment – never mind the inaccuracy in that statement – against my better judgment, I decided to buy a new book yesterday, something which I can ill afford to do these days, since so much of my money is already being sacrificed to the Basic Mountaineering Course and my silly little luxuries. Not to say that I regret signing up for the BMC, oh no! But holy shit, if I had a better idea of how much it was going to cost me, I would have saved up more industriously before signing on the dotted line.

And it's been nearly two months since I bought a book, the last being Winton's The Riders. Book-buying used to proceed at a steadier rate for me, and I'd always made it a point to never let my stack of Pending Reading go below five books. But I'd been so busy in the past months, so captive to the blizzard of activity, and I wasn't able to read as much as I'd wanted to. In the past, I used to mow through two or three books each week, rereading a few well-thumbed titles from my own collection if I was strapped for money. But in the last month, I'd only managed to finish two books. It's been downright pitiful.

Right now, I'm still in the last few chapters of The Riders, and the novel is beautifully written. Tim Winton is a fucking genius, such a wordsmith if there ever was one, but I still prefer Dirt Music over The Riders. Dirt Music killed me, and when I rose from the dead, it hunted me down and felled me again! How many books do you know are as merciless and as hungry for blood? I can only tick off so many.

I was hoping to buy something by Ian McEwan, but was dismayed to find that the only titles that Powerbooks carried were the ones I'd already read: In Between The Sheets, The Cement Garden, and First Love, Last Rites. So after a lot of vacillating in the store, I finally marched to the counter with a copy of John Updike's Brazil.

I already own another Updike book, Couples, and loved it for its deadpan delivery of suburban tragedy, its description of the tenuous social cords that bind a group of people surrendering to the weight of their own secrets. The language was fantastic. I decided that Updike's Brazil would be a well-calculated risk – there is nothing
worse than a disappointing book – and when I read the first paragraph, I knew instantly that I'd picked a real knockout:

"Black is a shade of brown. So is white, if you look. On Copacabana, the most democratic, crowded, and dangerous of Rio de Janeiro's beaches, all colors merge into one joyous, sun-stunned flesh-color, the sand with a second, living skin."

John Updike, you bastard. You make a pretty sentence and you make it look so effortless. Bastard bastard bastard.

Number Three:
We just concluded our third Training Climb, where we filed like ants up and down two mountains in the Kibungan municipality. It was, by far, the best climb I'd ever gone on, and the mountains were gorgeous beasts of rock and earth and flora. I would like to go back there if the opportunity came up again.

Trees are exciting, I tell you.

Number Four:
My birthday is less than two months away. My head now contains little else but humming static, and I go home from work feeling like I'd spent an entire day outside myself and the confines of my skin. Two Peachys, one pounding out the articles in time for the daily deadline, the other hovering around, kicking half-heartedly at chairs, clipping her toenails. The concept of bilocation preoccupies me now more than it ever has. I am not in any way religious, but maybe Christmas is all I need. I've always loved Christmas. I tell myself that there is no such a thing as a 500-pound sea cucumber.
.

We Will Wade In The Shine Of The Ever

2007-08-30T00:19:00.000+08:00

Did you say, "No, this can't happen to me?"
Did you rush to the phone to call?
- Jeff Buckley

All right, hold it.

Before I go on, I'd like to yell my hundred-decibel CONGRATULATIONS to Mikael Co and Douglas Candano, both of whom won in this year's Palanca Awards, and both of whom damn well deserve the recognition! Kael snagged the First Prize for English Poetry, while Doug will be flying off to Canada with the Second Prize for English Fiction cradled smartly in his hands. As it so happens, both guys were co-fellows of mine - five years ago - in the 8th Ateneo-Heights Writers Workshop, where Kael brought upon each of us the uniform label, Rakstarr. Which is a bastardized version of the term Rockstar. Which is why it was so cool, since it was so emphatically coarse. We have never made a secret of our pedestrian tastes.

Kudos to you, Kael and Doug. What else can I say except that I'm awfully proud of you both? The fact that you haven't at all stopped writing, not at any point – well, that in itself is beyond remarkable.

It seems well-placed to sneak in one of my favourite Edward Hirsch poems here, something euphoric and celebratory. And what better piece than In the Middle of August, seeing as how the past month has proven to be such an obscenely generous one? You're almost inclined towards suspicion, where, by dint of habit, you count the doomed seconds until the other shoe drops. But what if there is no other shoe? All around you is the explosive sound of a thousand bare feet drumming upon terra firma, the beat born somewhere in the fevered axis of your body. Listen: it is gratitude's own arpeggio, escaping raw and weightless from your limbs.

In the Middle of August
Edward Hirsch

The dead heat rises for weeks,
Unwanted, unasked for, but suddenly,
Like the answer to a question,
A real summer shower breaks loose
In the middle of August. So think
Of trumpets and cymbals, a young girl
In a sparkling tinsel suit leading
A parade down Fifth Avenue, all
The high school drummers in the city
Banging away at once. Think of
Bottles shattering against a warehouse,
Or a bowl of apricots spilling
From a tenth-floor window: the bright
Rat-a-tat-tat on the hot pavement,
The squeal of adults scurrying
For cover like happy children.
Down the bar, someone says it's like
The night she fell asleep standing
In the bathroom of a dank tavern
And woke up shivering in an orchard
Of lemon trees at dawn, surprised
By the sudden omnipotence of yellows.
Someone else says it's like spinning
A huge wheel and winning at roulette,
Or drawing four aces and thinking:
"It's true, it's finally happening."
Look, I'm not saying that the pretty
Girl in the fairy tale really does
Let down her golden hair for all
The poor kids in the neighborhood –
Though maybe she does. But still
I am saying that a simple cloud
Bursts over the city in mid-August
And suddenly, in your lifetime,
Everyone believes in his own luck.
.

I Got All The Change

2007-08-24T22:09:00.000+08:00

I'm just sitting around, being foolish
When there is work to be done.
- Tori Amos

Here's a meme I pilfered off Gabby's blog.

Which bands/artist do you own the most albums by?
Hmm, hang on, I'll have to go through the candidates here. I have around 5 albums of The Smiths, 4 albums by Tori Amos, 5 albums by Aimee Mann, and 3 albums by Tool. I guess it's a tie between The Smiths and Aimee Mann then.

What was the last song you listened to?
Let me see now. I think it may have been Led Zeppelin's Immigrant Song. Either that, or it was You and Me Song by The Wannadies.

What's in your CD player right now?
My discman is currently playing Tool's Ænima album.

What was the last show you attended?
Let's just name the last gig I saw. Saw my friends play at Vida de Malate early this month.

What was the greatest show you've ever been to?
I think it may have been Cynthia Alexander's really really small concert in UP Diliman. Oh, and Coke Bolipata's performance at CCP last February, which I watched with my sister. Wait, was that last year or this year? Basta yun.

What's the worst show you've ever been to?
I always find myself ultimately having fun, so I guess I can't really answer this question.

What's the most musically involved you have ever been?
I sing in the shower on a daily basis, sing at my work cubicle by the hour, and I whistle at every turn,so I suppose that in some sketchy way, I'm always "musically involved." However, if we're talking about being "involved" in a more formal sense, I'd have to say that the last time was around 3 years ago, when I took violin lessons.

I play the violin really badly, but if it's any consolation to myself, I can do a fairly passable rendition of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star." But my bow's currently out of whack, I haven't been practicing at all, and am now questioning my ability to read notes.

What is your favorite band shirt?
Oh, I don't have one, I think. I used to have a Slipknot shirt, but that was my only band shirt, so I guess that doesn't count for much. I usually steer clear of band shirts, anyway.

Which musician would you like to hang out with for a day?
Morrissey. If not him, then Frank Sinatra. Who's already dead. So maybe Freddie Mercury will do. But he's dead, too! Ah, the quandary.

Who is one musician or group(s) you wish would make a comeback?
The Smiths.

How many music related videos/DVDs do you own?
Not a lot. Less than 5.

Name 4 or MORE flawless albums:
1. The Queen Is Dead by The Smiths.
2. S.C.I.E.N.C.E. by Incubus. Honestly. This album was released way before they sold out and got all schmaltzy, and is a pretty tight piece of musical genius.
4. The Fragile by Nine Inch Nails
5. Mer de Noms by A Perfect Cirle
6. Tidal by Fiona Apple.
7. Ænima or Lateralus by Tool.

I would have more answers to this, but as usual, my memory's letting me down again.

Name 5 of your favorite songs of all time
Goddammit, this is always such a sticky question. Of all time is a tall order, so I guess this'll have to be my Top 5 songs for the moment.
1. There Is A Light That Never Goes Out by The Smiths.
2. Ironman by Black Sabbath
3. Parabol/Parabola by Tool. Such a sexy, sexy song. It makes me want to rip off all my clothes.
4. Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen. Also my favorite song to sing on Karaoke.
5. The Last Of The International Playboys by Morrissey. If there's a song that absolutely tickles me, this'll have to be it.

Oh, and can I violate the rules and name a couple more songs?
6. Beautiful by Aimee Mann
7. America by Simon and Garfunkel
8. Got You Where I Want You by The Flys
9. The Promise by When In Rome
10. Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley

Okay, so I just ended up with a distended list. Nobody's suing, right? Right?

What is your favorite movie soundtrack?
It's a tie between the Reality Bites and Great Expectations soundtrack.

What was your last musical "phase" before you wisened up?
Hahahahaha! Oh my god. I was a really big fan of Korn in High School. It's not so bad when I think of it now, but I don't suppose I could listen to them again in as appreciative a fashion as I used to. Grade School, of course, is another story altogether. I, ah, liked a few Celine Dion songs then. You can stop laughing now, hehe.

What's your "guilty pleasure" that you hate to admit to liking?
I actually like Eternal Flame by The Bangles and Debbie Gibson's Lost In Your Eyes. I know, I know!
.

Now Where Did I Put It

2007-08-21T22:01:00.000+08:00

Your head will collapse
And there’s nothing in it.
- The Pixies

Another 10-kilometer run was earmarked for last Sunday’s training, and I woke up that morning with my body vigorously protesting. Not that anything was sore; as a matter of fact, most of us had swiftly recovered from the second Training Climb, and the entire batch seemed sufficiently ready for a 10-kilometer run.

But last Sunday, when the alarm clock’s jangling slapped me awake, all I wanted to do was to shut the damn thing off and wriggle back under the sheets. I’d had only two hours of sleep, and the previous night saw me polishing off 15 cigarettes in a single sitting – definitely not a good recipe for a good run.

Still, training day was training day. Fuck. Fucking fuck, I thought to myself, and the swearing persisted all the way from our flat to Fort Bonifacio, where our Sunday runs were always held. By the time I’d tumbled out of the cab, my fellow trainees were done with the warm-up exercises – they all looked remarkably chipper, their faces wearing perfect Sunday Morning expressions. I, on the other hand, looked like a total degenerate, an absolute toad. I didn’t have enough time to comb my hair, and when I got to the Fort, I still had water dripping from my hair and onto my shirt. Nasty.

Once I’d gotten my act together, though, everybody else had rocketed ahead of me, and I decided to take it easy for a while. I jogged side by side with Karl, a fellow trainee, and he and I whined to each other about how we only got so many hours of shut-eye.

"Tangina. Inaantok pa ako," Karl groaned.

I yawned. "Ako rin eh. Dalawang oras lang tulog ko."

"Pag nakatulog ako habang tumatakbo, gisingin mo ako ha."

"Hahaha. Sige."

At one point, though, I decided to go ahead of him, cranking up my speed to my normal pace. Despite the lack of sleep and the shitload of cigarettes, I didn't do as horribly as I thought I would, and I wrapped up those 10 kilometers in 1 hour and 7 minutes. As I jogged up towards Jollibee – our finish line, to all intents and purposes – I felt pretty pleased with myself, imagined confetti and ticker tape, a full brass band honking away, what a fantastic morning this was turning out to—

"O, wala kang nakalimutan ngayon, ha?" Jo asked me as I trotted to a halt by her table. She was in charge mostly of taking our attendance and noting our running times, and she'd already recognized me as the trainee with the uncanny knack for forgetting stuff. In previous training days, I'd arrived in full runner garb but without the running shoes, which I'd somehow forgotten to bring. And just last Wednesday, I'd gone around begging for extra socks from folks – I'd shown up with just half a pair, and ended up running with a white sock on my left foot and a black one on my right.

I grinned at her. "Everything's good, didn't forget a single thing," I said, picking up my stuff. I was raring to go home to change into fresh clothes, probably catch a few hours more of sleep. I turned to a couple of fellow trainees who'd finished the run ahead of me, and asked, "So I guess I'll see you guys at Ken's place after lunch, yeah? For the whole batch project thing?"

Zean and Ollie looked at each other, baffled. "Uuwi ka na? May ramps pa kaya tayo!" Ollie said.

"What." I put my bag down and raised an eyebrow. "You're kidding."

Zean shook his head. "Nope. We can't go home yet. We still need to do 10 rounds of ramps with 10 pounds, plus we got the ropemanship and land navigation review until four today."

No fucking way. "Hang on. Didn't Alman say that we only needed to show up for the 10K run, then we would be free to go home?"

The entire group laughed. "Peach! Bumili ka na kasi ng cellphone!" It was then that I learned that modifications to the Sunday schedule had been made, and that a last-minute e-mail and text brigade had informed everybody of the changes. Everybody but me, since I neither had a cellphone nor an internet connection at home.

I wrung my hands. "But but but – but I didn't bring extra clothes today, I was supposed to go straight home after the run. And I don't have any extra underwear! And I didn't bring my backpack with me, all I have is this corny corduroy shoulder bag!"

Luckily, two of my other co-trainees had extra clothes with them, and they offered to lend me their stuff for the rest of the day. The downside to the solution, however, was that these charitable co-trainees were men nearly double my size, and that I was compelled to make do without a bra for the entire afternoon. I ended up looking like I was part of that whole hip-hop movement in the late nineties, suckered in completely by Puff Daddy and his gang of r-r-r-rapping minions.

I guess a moral lesson is in order, yes? All right, here it is. Anybody with as faulty a memory as mine should never be trusted. I am not kidding. Folks like me lose a range of belongings over any given period, folks like me forget your name and the fact of your existence, and folks like me cannot be relied on to remember the delivery numbers of fast food chains.

Well, yeah, we can't be trusted, but if you fork over some food, we would totally appreciate the gesture. And we won't forget to say thank you! And for some reason, I can't remember what the point of this blog entry is. None, most probably.

-----

Here are a a lot of pictures from our Ropemanship and Land Navigation review, post-10K run. Images courtesy of Lynda Sison.

We borrowed Zean's cap for, ah, the full tacky effect.

Me, Diana, and Karl

All right, the zombie look.

George, Ruth, Wash, Suzette, Edwin, and Alex

Karl, Rhinie, Me, Aaron, and Diana

Huh. Right. It's nice to be flanked by weird feet. I think.

Ken, whatever's the matter?

Ollie, Allan, Jenipie, Chester, Maxine, and Wash

Diana, George, Ollie, Wash, and Alex

Me, Rhinie, Mitay, Lynda, Bojo, Jacq, and Allan

Uh. George. Yeah.

Zean can do wonders with a compass and we love him.

Aaron, you look absolutely lost.

All that rope must be good for something.

Must shove off now. My head's about to crash down to the keyboard.

Today, We Escape, We Escape

2007-08-13T23:21:00.000+08:00

Am I cursed, am I blessed?
I can’t tell! Oh, yes!
- Jeff Buckley

It soon became clear to me that my apprehensions about our 2nd Training Climb (TC2) were rather well-founded, and not just products of an implacable sort of paranoia. Notorious for being the most technical and grueling of all the climbs in the Basic Mountaineering Course, TC2 was supposed to accomplish a number of things, among which were:

1. Killing all our idealized notions about mountaineering, and
2. Killing us.

On the first count, TC2 was a screaming success. The trail we followed up Mt. Mariveles in Bataan was one that was hacked open during the climb itself, a path that was in the same breath new and unforgiving. We scrabbled up boulders and mud-slick inclines of around 70 to 80 degrees, the full brunt of our packs groaning down our backs, and with scarcely anything to latch on to for support. Sometimes there was nothing to reach for but young, spare-bodied trees, a length of rope, or your groupmate’s hair swinging in front of you like some illicit invitation.

Of course, you’re better off not pulling at anybody’s hair for support, unless you want to have your eyes clawed out during the trek, in which case, you’d have to be an absolute nitwit and shouldn’t be climbing any mountains in the first place, dumdum.

Easy, ladies. Easy.

As it stood, I’d already cultivated a healthy feeling of dread for TC2 in the days leading to the actual climb. Although I fared pretty well during our training days and was the second fastest female for our regular runs, trekking required much more than mean legs, which I already had. What I didn’t have – and which mountaineering finally asked of me – was a solid sense of balance. Balance! Look, I’m a total klutz. Absolutely. I’m the slapstick industry’s cash cow, the kind of person who walks into walls and tumbles headlong into the pavement and spills soda all over her skirt. If I can’t even balance the damn cup of coke on my food tray, how am I supposed to keep my balance on that mountain?

The answer is: I didn’t manage to. I couldn’t. During the trek, I suffered major slips at least thrice, the first being the worst. It was one of the muddiest parts of the steep ascent, and while I tried to heave myself up, I lost my footing, crashed on my belly, and slid around two feet down the trail, my face plowing through the muck. When I finally got to my feet, I had dirt in my mouth, dirt up my nose, and murder, murder, MURDER! in my heart.

(And then I cried for a short while because I was so pissed at myself, which was embarrassing, so I’m not going to talk about that. What a baby! Oh god.)

I’d be lying, though, if I said that the climb was pure calvary and little else. Sure, sure, our trail was a crazy one, I (inadvertently) ate a lot of dirt, and my pack was so goddamn heavy, I had half a mind to kick it off the mountainside and watch it diminish into the valley’s yawning mouth. But Mt. Mariveles also had rivers snaking through it, restless tributaries that stunned you with their chilling clarity. The mountain was also heavily wooded, and I saw the most interesting things: trees with an armor of vicious spikes raised along every inch of their trunks, plants whose leaves bore the frank threat of thorns, a great number of pretty beetles and bugs, lines of gigantic, docile ants.

The best part about the climb wasn’t even the drinking, when we rinsed off the day’s labors with vast amounts of rum and vodka (although that certainly made things, ah, interesting), or the fact that I’d gotten out of the climb with all my bones intact, or the fact that going up a mountain is always a feat worth reckoning. My fondest memory of Mt. Mariveles is of this little gray lizard who hopped onto my hand during the trek, settled on my thumb, and looked at me in this inquiring manner. The little critter made no move to get away and seemed unruffled by our presence – it would’ve stayed on my hand longer if I didn’t nudge it back to a nearby tree branch, from which I assumed it fell. The lizard blinked for a while, cocked his head at us, and then it was gone.

It was the coolest thing ever.
.

In The Presence Of My Knuckles

2007-07-28T20:59:00.000+08:00

Patience is like bread, I say –
I ran out of that yesterday.
- The Lemonheads

Due to some belt-tightening measures I’ve imposed on myself, I’ve taken to washing some of my own clothes on weekends instead of dumping them all at the nearest laundromat. The only drawback to this new scheme of mine is that apparently, doing the laundry requires strong, limber arms and a lot of leathery skin on both of your hands, excellent qualities which you will no doubt find in an ape.

Unfortunately, it’s just out of the question to ask your simian brethren to do your laundry: not only is it a deeply inhumane act fed by an avaricious brand of anthrocentrism, it is also nearly impossible to execute, since an ape would be rather hard to procure in these parts.

Haha, what a bunch of hooey! I was just checking whether or not I could still whip out that kind of bullshit. Girls and boys, this is what you learn in University: how to compose sentences you will, at best, only half-understand, the exact same stuff that can put you to sleep faster than a handful of Valiums will. Not that I’ve ever tried Valiums.

Nonetheless, I did mean what I said about not getting monkeys to do your laundry. It’s just not right, and if you’ll ask PETA or WWF about it, you’ll find that they will echo my sentiments about the subject. Also, I believe in kindness to animals (with the exception of roaches) – why else would I be friends with folks like Brian? I’M KIDDING.

Brian, you're embarrassing us.

All right, enough of that, I’ve taken too many detours from the actual topic. The point is that I do a quarter of my laundry now, and boy, it certainly is no picnic. For one, I have the weakest arms this side of the planet, and besides, I’ve never been pushed to wash my own clothes until recently. In other words, doing the laundry is a chore I’m generally unaccustomed to, not because I never do any chores, but mostly because I’m awfully picky about the domestic tasks I carry out.

For instance: it would take hours before you can convince me to do the dishes, that loathsome, loathsome chore. Conversely, I would most likely jump at the opportunity to sweep the yard and set the table, and I would probably weep veritable tears of joy if you ask me to iron your clothes, which is my favourite chore of all time.

Laundry was an altogether different matter, though, and hardly of any concern. Back home in Davao, there was always a helper or two who could take care of it, and if my Mom succeeded – as she did, time and again – in driving them away, a laundrywoman was around to catch the entire, cumbersome burden.

Now, on the other hand.

I just finished washing eight shirts, six pairs of socks, two pairs of shorts, and two skirts, AND MY FINGERS ARE BLEEDING. Holy fuck. I must have been halfway into the pile when I realized that the skin right under my nails was smarting like hell, and when I took a look at one of my fingers, I saw a delicate ribbon of blood unfurling through the suds. Fantastic, I thought. It was extremely lucky that I wasn’t a haemophiliac – otherwise, I would’ve ended up spraying my blood all over the fucking wash, in the tradition of Lupo the Butcher.

Going through the rest of the clothes was pure torment afterwards; I had never wanted rubber gloves so desperately in my life. My next mission, therefore, is to tramp over to the grocery store and get myself a good pair of rubber gloves. If I’m not using them for doing the laundry, I could always fill up the gloves with water, tie the ends with an elastic band, and voila! Instant makeshift water balloons! My sister had better watch out.

Once I regain a firmer toehold on my finances, though, I’m going to abandon the enterprise and let the laundromat have its way with my clothes. I mean, fuck this shit. I’m no hand model, but my fingers are too fucking important, you know? The hierarchy of needs must be preserved.
.

From A Great Height

2007-07-24T16:33:00.000+08:00

My friend says we’re like the dinosaurs,
Only we are doing ourselves in
Much faster than they ever did.
- Porno For Pyros

Some of the most distinct features in the Makati Business District are its underpasses, those subterranean tunnels into which you let yourself be sucked whenever you want to cross a street. Now the underpasses could have taken on an otherworldly character, something along the lines of Alice’s rabbit hole – after all, there is something enchanting about the very fact of their presence (the citizens’ taxes are going somewhere!), and there’s something equally awesome about the brisk efficiency exemplified in those walkways; you see all these corporate yahoos proceeding in this no-nonsense pace, checking their watches, flicking the sweat off their brows, and doing the macarena.

Ah, those yuppies.

To tell you the truth, none of them ever do the macarena. I just wanted to insert that because I can’t stand a lot of corporate yahoos, largely because I envy them for their fat wallets and their stunted perspectives. Am I being judgmental here? I don’t give a damn! I’m poor and I have every right to be judgmental!

Back to what I was saying. The underpasses have incredible potential for what you would, in a moment of sentimentality, call magic. You walk into one and you almost feel this strange roiling in your chest, a sensation that feels suspiciously like that old villain, Hope. This country may be on to something, you think, the peso is really on a roll, and maybe Gael Garcia Bernal secretly wants to have my babies. You’re pandering to your other delusions until –

- the heat and trapped humidity in the underpass collide into you like a fireball, KABLAMM, exactly like that. You’re still reeling from the force when another assault comes at you. It is the:

Attack

Of

The

Retard

Ad.

I usually don’t mind ads too much. Well-crafted campaigns can be extremely entertaining, and they can be great conversation fillers when your date with Ginoong Tae isn’t faring very nicely. For some incalculable reason, though, the underpasses peppered all over the Makati Business District are lined by some really retarded ads, of the kind that screams low-budget and a sordid lack of imagination.

Or perhaps I’m being too harsh. But take this ad I saw, for example. Probably for a food court in the area, it depicted a yuppie couple cuddling in the middle of the establishment, an open laptop gleaming into their faces. From the looks of it, they’re thoroughly enjoying what the laptop is showing them, maybe live updates on the stock exchange, Nasdaq, or whatever it is that gives yuppies a monster hard-on. I wouldn’t know.

The only problem with the ad is one glaring omission from the scene. If this is a plug for a food court, where in god’s name is the damn food? The message communicated seems to be this: Go to our food court with your laptop and your lady love, do some surfing and canoodling, and we’ll make you happy. Still, the question is elbowing us in the ribs: where’s the chow? And isn’t that yuppie couple famished at all?

Look at that beauty!

Maybe they’re not looking at stock exchange updates, maybe they’re rifling through pictures of pot roast and pizza. Crispy Pata or Sinigang. Or maybe steak. It’s lunchtime, their bellies are brewing up a revolution, but what do they do? They’re just sitting there, staring goggle-eyed at that laptop and not buying any food! Is it any wonder that the ad deserves to be called a Retard Ad? I’ll bet the bozos who made it can’t even tie their own shoelaces or do simple arithmetic – they’re that asinine.

And if you think about it, a lot of billboards go for the same effect: some couple or a group of folks having the time of their lives, bizarrely delighted, but with the product itself nowhere to be seen. I mean, honestly. I’d like to know what’s making them so goddamn ecstatic, I want to be let in on the joke that’s making such a huge difference in their puny lives.

Oh, but you’re going to say that these ads are supposed to sing to the escapist in each of us, to the obstinate impulse to scoot from the dreary marshes of daily living. Here’s a cheerful pair of yuppies in a food court, you’ll say, and that should pacify you momentarily, a salve for your bruises.

But the ruse doesn’t work, you know? I’m tired of all these messages couched in the syrupy language of cheap satisfaction. I want you to give me what I need to know, I want the thorny truth, the sort that can bring you to your knees with one ruthless, unequivocal blow. Otherwise, it’s all talk. And god knows we already got enough of that flying around.
.

On The Run Again

2007-07-21T22:00:00.000+08:00

I can’t believe that life’s so complex,
When I just wanna sit here
And watch you undress.
- PJ Harvey

It was that rare instance when Lady Luck was in a compassionate mood. I wished for the rain to come during our first Training Climb to Cinco Picos, and I got it in liberal doses. You must think I was cuckoo to have wanted so much water pelting down at us, but Cinco Picos – also known as Tatlong Tirad – was a mountain cloaked mostly in grass and little else, with scarcely any trees for climbing, throwing rocks from, or any tree-related tomfoolery. That meant almost zero shade for sun-struck hikers, and we were warned that a clear day would be tantamount to a hellish climb, with the heat charging at us relentlessly.

Besides, I’d forgotten to bring a hat – if it had been sunny then, I would have returned to Manila baked to a crisp, Peachy the Potato Chip.

Photos courtesy of Jenipay Pangilinan.

During the descent, with Assistant Team Leader Kim and groupmates JV and Elmer.

Love your pack. Still with Kim, JV, and Jenipay

Messing around in the river with groupmates, post-descent. Jenipay, Alman, Me, Joseph, Niel, and JV.

River rocks make for fantastic trail food. Tasty!

Not getting enough of the river. Me, Gerry, Joseph, JV, and Jenipay.

In any case, my first climb was an excellent one, despite the fact that the hiking shoes I borrowed gave out after the first river crossing. We were all divided into six groups, and ours was the first to arrive as a complete group in the campsite, and also the first to break camp the next day and descend to the foot of the mountain.

Already, I’m looking forward to the second Training Climb, which is supposedly much more arduous than the first. I’m hoping for the next mountain to have more trees, though. Tomfoolery ain’t the same without them.

-----

The Acquaintance Party for our training batch went unusually well, given that we all organized it in less than a week. I don’t remember having been so goddamn hammered in my entire life – I’d been drinking well before the party, and by the time the games had begun, I was drunk enough to yank off my bra from under my shirt for the “Bring Me” game. The night was a fine blur of free-flowing alcohol, and I chugged down any drink thrust my way, which ranged from beer to vodka to tequila.

Photos courtesy of Bajay De Guzman.

We got the Pirates theme going. Me with fellow trainees and Sir Manny.

Peachy's rear end and lovely co-trainees: Beth, Camille, Maxine, Tita Jenny, Lynda, Jenipay, and Mitay.

Harassing fellow trainee Badong in the middle of the Suck My Straw game.

It was also the first time I’d ever passed out from drinking so much: I woke up to find myself in the passenger seat of a car hurtling down a highway, with our Assistant Group Leader, Erik, driving casually, and my fellow trainee, Jenipay, sprawled out and unconscious on the backseat.

“What – wait, hic, how’d I get here?” I hiccuped.

“Uy, okay ka na?” Erik asked. As it turns out, he had to carry my carcass to the car, since I’d effectively lost all of my motor functions and was unable to stand up by myself. I had no recollection of this whatsoever, and there was an entire block of time that I couldn’t seem to account for. I turned in my seat, still hiccupping, and looked at Jenipay, who remained knocked out where she was.

“What ha - hic - ppened to her?”

“Ayun, nalasing din.” Erik said. “Okay ka lang diyan? Sobrang wasak ka kanina, eh. Haha.”

Fuck. I groaned and slumped back in my seat, still feeling drunk, and tried to reassemble my memory of the night’s events. Hmm, I can’t fucking remember anything. Fuck. The last scene I could retrieve in my head was a vague picture of me sitting on the floor, fighting to stand up, but that was as far as my memory served me, and all my efforts at trawling for other memories were futile.

Okay, that’s the last time I’m going to let that happen. I feel cheated out of half the night’s excitement, since there was so much that I couldn’t remember. And I had to be carried to the car! Fuck! I mean, how embarrassing is that? And it’s no joke lugging my weight around, I’m at least 115 pounds!! And what if I’d said anything incriminating? What if I’d gone around confessing my affinity for watching man-to-man sex? I’m kidding.

I am never ever ever ever ever drinking that much again.

Oddly enough, I think I may have mouthed off that sentiment a number of times before. But it’s all right. I’m an expert at self-contradiction, anyway.
.

The Sun Shines Out Of Our Behinds

2007-07-13T16:08:00.000+08:00

I know a place where we can go,
Where we are not known.
- The Smiths

Speeding home in an FX last night, I found myself cheered by the prospect of kicking open the door to our flat, dropping my things to the floor, and collapsing lifeless on the bed. With my tongue hanging out. With buzzards circling me overhead. I'd been feeling pretty much like a zombie the whole day, anyway; I spent 8 hours in a cubicle with a string of dancing beds orbiting my head, went about my work with the enthusiasm of a block of wood, and crawled out of the office when 6 o'clock came around.

Except that when the FX finally spat me out onto Katipunan Avenue, I realized that I didn't have my house keys with me. I'd misplaced them a couple of days ago and couldn't seem to find the damn things at all.

Oh, screw it, I thought. I could stay awake for a little longer, why not! I could send my sister a message and just ask her when she was coming home. Ah, technology. I could just sit on the stairwell and play dead while waiting for her!

Except that when I fished around my bag, I remembered that I forgot my phone at home, which meant that I had no way of contacting my sister, which meant that playing dead on the stairwell was out of the question. And who knew when she was coming home? 10, maybe? Midnight? Peachy, you are such a clever little bastard. What a great time to forget your keys and your phone! Well done, well done.

When it comes down to it, I’m certainly the sort of person whom Post-It notes were designed for. The only trouble with Post-It notes is that once I’ve bought a tablet of them and used a quarter of the notes, they’re as easily forgotten, and could sit unused on my desk for at least a year.

I recall having bought planners in the past, filling in the days faithfully for the first two months, and then discarding the entire effort altogether towards April. In other words: I start out every year with all of my plans as harmoniously pieced together as the Brady Bunch. By June, the same plans have all been shot to hell, and what I have instead of the Brady Bunch is a family where the Mom smokes crack, the Dad’s a tranny, and the kids all have mutant penises on their foreheads.

-----

Are you safe and well? Tell me that you are, mister.

-----

I can’t wait I can’t wait I can’t wait!!! I hope it rains during our climb tomorrow. Oh my fucking god. I’m not even sure if I can get any sleep tonight, I’ll probably be chewing on my nails until my alarm goes off and it’s time to skip away to the assembly venue.

Here’s the Climb Itinerary:

Training Climb 1
14-15 July 2007
Mt. Cinco Picos, Zambales

Day 1: Saturday, 14 July 2007
03:00 Assembly at Ayala Tower One
04:00 ETD for Bgy. Cawag, San Marcelino, Zambales
07:30 ETA at Bgy. Cawag; Breakfast
08:00 Start of trek
08:30 Community service/outreach at Mang Lando
09:00 River crossing
11:30 First rest stop – Nipa Hut
12:00 Resume trek
12:30 Lunch at Bulldozer Area
13:30 Resume trek
15:00 Hidden Spring
15:30 Last Nipa Hut; last water source
16:00 Ridge Summit
17:00 Campsite
19:00 Dinner
20:00 Team socials/group presentation
22:00 Lights out

Day 2: Sunday, 15 July 2007
05:00 Wake-up call; breakfast; break camp
07:00 Start of trek
08:00 Ridge summit
09:00 First Nipa Hut
11:00 Bulldozer rest stop; lunch
12:00 Resume trek
13:00 Last Nipa Hut
14:00 ETA at Mang Lando
14:30 ETD to resort (wash-up area)
15:00 ETA at resort; wash-up; early dinner
18:00 ETD to Manila
21:30 ETA at Ayala Tower 1

Until the next installment, ladies and gentlemen.
.

Wake At 6 a.m. And Think About Your Holidays

2007-07-10T21:34:00.000+08:00

I never wanted to kill –
I am not naturally evil.
- Morrissey

I CAN’T BELIEVE THAT THEY PHASED OUT TAMPONS IN ALL THE MERCURY DRUG BRANCHES! Putangina. What am I going to do now, ask my friends to ship me boxes of tampons from abroad? Tarantado talaga 'tong Mercury Drug.

-----

I’m probably the last person to cough up any religious allusions to clarify an idea. Still, I can’t help but mention the biblical Jonah here, and I can’t help but succumb to the same leaden feeling he must have buckled under when that whale swallowed him whole.

Jonah, Jonah, Jonah. If you truly did exist, buddy, I think we’re on the same boat, and I’m not trying to be clever with that pun. These days, I feel as though I’ve been intercepted and gobbled up by some deep-sea mammal in mid-stroke, I feel as though I’m wading through the creature’s fucking entrails and I’m waiting for the Good Fairy to turn me into a real boy, I’m so tired of being a wooden puppet!

Oh, wait, that was Pinocchio, not Jonah. Excuse me.

I'm not kidding, though. I don’t mean to be dramatic, but I feel as though the days are shaving hefty chunks of my flesh from off my very bones, and I half-expect to find nothing but exposed marrow where a section of my arm used to be. I want my goddamn life back! I’m sick of going home and thinking of work and waking up and thinking of work and looking at the stupid clock and thinking of work again. I’m sick of waking up during the weekends and thinking of mollusks! Actually, I meant work, not mollusks. I just felt like using mollusks because it’s such an interesting word; I love the way the consonants are ranged arm-in-arm like old friends, I love the guttural U, and I love the way the last S has to elbow its way out to be properly enunciated.

Mollusks are such peaceful creatures.

Get me out of this goddamn fucking whale.

-----

I’ve taken to wondering about our excretory habits, mostly during those times when I’m walking down Ortigas and spread out before me is an expanse of human butt. Butts of all sizes. Butts decked out in all sorts of material. Butts sticking out or turning coyly away from view. How can you not think of excretion when you have all these butts poking into your face? Not literally, of course, but you know what I mean.

Anyway, so imagine that taking a piss and taking a dump were as commonplace a public scene as any chump lighting a cigarette. If any chump can light a cigarette while walking, any chump can urinate or shit freely while walking. God, can you imagine that? What a terrible thought.

Suppose you see a yuppie about to cross a street, and he has a newspaper folded and tucked under his arm. He’s checking the time on his wristwatch and stepping off the curb, and a stream of piss is coursing down his thigh. And it’s nothing, it’s no big deal, everybody’s doing it! People are casually peeing and taking a dump wherever they are! They’re in their business suits and they stink! I mean, can you imagine a civilization like that, a fully-functional and firmly established one, but where the citizens are virtual, walking toilet bowls? And think of what Friday nights would be like in a beer joint – there’d be pools of piss everywhere and nobody would so much as flinch! Weirdos.

And what if farts were really colored gases? The real stink bombs would give rise to miniature mushroom clouds the exact color of a healing bruise: greenish purple. Milder emissions would be distinguished by yellow smoke, and green fumes would signal the release of a decently rotten fart.

But if our bodies worked that way, we wouldn’t need to guess about who farted in a roomful of people, and there’s just no fun in that. Think about it: a number of the most exciting situations are actually the direct result of Fart Whodunits. In fact, some of my dearest childhood memories are comprised of Dad and Mom squabbling fiercely in the car, bickering over who passed gas.

-----

The brightest patches in my weeks seem to be concentrated now on my AMCI training days, where I run for kilometer after kilometer, with my ribcage sheltering an exultant drum. I don’t know about you, but there’s nothing quite like a good run to pop the earth back to its old equilibrium or to salvage an otherwise lackluster day.

One of my best runs so far was during the Adidas King of the Road (KOTR) Race two Sundays ago, where I clocked in at just around 51 minutes for the 10-kilometer run. 51 minutes!!! Even I couldn’t believe it. Adidas’ official record of my time goes up to an hour and fifteen minutes, though – this was because I was late, and I started the race at exactly 6:24 a.m. where everybody else had begun at 6 a.m. By the time I crossed the finish line, it was only 7:15, just less than an hour after I began running.

With fellow trainees and AMCI members after KOTR.
(Photos courtesy of Bajay, I think.)

With AMCI members. That's Ike scowling beside me.

All in all, my time for KOTR was leagues better than my time for the Animo! 10K run last February, which I finished after an hour and twenty minutes (read about it here).

Since the entire Basic Mountaineering Course (BMC) started, I’ve been compelled to drink considerably less than I used to, and I’ve resorted to just staying at home and getting lots of rest on Saturday night instead of going out and getting hammered. My cigarette consumption rate has also decreased significantly, with me smoking less than 8 sticks a day.

Anyway, our batch is set to go for our first Training Climb this weekend at Cinco Picos in Zambales, and just the prospect of going up the mountain is enough to send me bouncing off the walls from sheer excitement. On my way home last night, all I had to do was think of the first Training Climb and the fact that it was mere days away, and I felt my insides dissolving and crashing down kerplunk! to the soles of my feet.

It’s insane. It’s totally batshit. This mountaineering thing almost feels like a rehashing of old times when you were an unsuspecting fool and you were completely in love with this other kid, and you said the dumbest things just to sound smart, and one word from him could dismantle you piece by awful piece. And when his hand caught yours, you understood that his hand was a new city, it was a new city and you wanted to live in it.
.

There's Such A Chill, Such A Chill

2007-06-26T11:46:00.000+08:00

You take up my time
Like some cheap magazine.
- Pulp

In a well-meaning attempt to keep myself conscious for a serious all-nighter, I downed six cups of strong instant coffee in the span of one hour and smoked like crazy in our building’s stairwell. I gotta tell you that I’ve done this before, and that in each case, I ended up feeling like a firecracker gone haywire, all buzzed up and popping with too much explosive energy. Naturally, I hardly got any work done; instead, I found myself periodically hooting from the caffeine rush, or tugging at my own hair, or doing jumping jacks.

Also: I never learn. I knew that slugging down all that coffee was going to make me antsy, but I did it anyway. Still, I’m happy to report that the results weren’t disastrous, that despite the caffeine-induced fidgeting, I did get all of my work done. Without a wink of sleep. Zero! Nil!

Unfortunately, I’m still buoyed way too much by the rush, even if it’s already been six hours since I drank the coffee. Let me tell you something. I do not drink coffee regularly. My body is not used to caffeine. HOOOO BOOOOOOY I AM SO FUCKING REVVED RIGHT NOW. My hands are cold, my eyes feel like they can shoot out laser beams, and I got this nasty facial tic going, I can feel it pulsing right now below my lower lip.

HAAAAUGH!

My friends! My lovers and countrymen! I am in such an elevated mood, I feel like --

Jumping straight up to the ceiling and unscrewing the light bulb right before I hit the floor!

Running down Ortigas and giving high-fives to everybody!

Singing The Knack’s My Sharona and whistling the guitar solo to boot!

Yodelling!

Yodelay-heeeeeeeeee-hooo.

-----

Some nights ago, I dreamt that I was in the middle of the AMCI training, and that I’d taken a break after completing a few rounds of running. While I was unsuccessfully trying to flirt with a (fictional) fellow trainee, I caught sight of Edward Norton sprinting towards us, a determined expression stamped on his face.

"Holy shit!" I said. "Is this for real?? I can’t believe Edward Norton is training with us!"

"Oh, yeah," Fictional Fellow Trainee replied. "He just managed to join us today, though. He wasn’t around during Diagnostics and the first Training Day."

"Fuck! Oh my god!" I was hyperventilating. "This is incredible! I’ve always had the major hots for him! And he’s here with us now! Oh my god, he’s running nearer to us. Oh my god. Oh my fucking god."

So Edward Norton jogged closer, and when he was mere yards away, I waved frantically. "Edward Norton!" I yelled. "I love you! I’ve seen so many of your movies, and I love you! I love you!"

And he looked coolly at me, flung off a "Thank you," and sped away.

.
.
.

I’m almost tempted to commiserate with the Dream Peachy and her fractured heart, but goddamn, she was such a dolt, it was mortifying. First, you don’t go announcing your love for someone while he’s running. Second, you don’t go announcing your love, period. Dream Peachy was crestfallen and shot down when Edward Norton spurned (spurned!) her, but hey, she was asking for it. Tatanga-tanga pa kasi. Ayan! Na-reject tuloy! Tarantado.

The moral lesson is this, kiddies: Edward Norton is inaccessible. And the subconscious is a wicked thing.

Admittedly, though, I'm still a sucker for Edward Norton. Aw, shucks.
.

Don't Sound Like No Sonnet

2007-06-22T00:05:00.000+08:00

If you’re so clever, then why
Are you on your own tonight?
- The Smiths

Some insidious bug has been going around and striking folks down with the flu or other small (but very inconvenient and discomfiting) illnesses. Since the week began, I’ve been nagged at by stubborn headaches and the creeping sense that a fever was crouched and waiting for me at the next corner, but did I act sensibly about this? No! I went ahead and smoked like a chimney, kept late nights, and basically made myself into Work’s whipping boy.

Anyway, I had to miss work today on account of my awful state. I woke up with a fever and felt like I had an anvil sitting squarely inside my head, lodged right between my cranium and my nasal cavity.

I hope to get better pronto, so I’ve been plugging myself with Vitamin C and paracetamol and Dole Pine-Orange juice in the hopes that my immune system might get the goddamn message and shape up on the double. There is no way I’m staying sick, I absolutely forbid it. I mean, I got a meeting slated for Friday, plus the AMCI training on Sunday, and then my bandmates and I are supposed to do a jam session this same weekend, so how am I supposed to sing if my throat is shot?

God, my head hurts.

-----

Be Happy Be Arbitrary Part Three:

Dear Santa,

I know Christmas is more than half a year away, but please humor me. I would like to stop attracting creepy security guards, because the attention makes me very uncomfortable, and I have no dreams of dating any creepy security guards. In other words, I want to find out how I can turn off this mechanism that seems to draw creepy security guards to me. O Santa, O benevolent Yuletide fatty, heed my call! I don’t want to have to go back to the office building and have that guard tailing me again and asking me questions about my marital status.

Also, please give me money and a sexy bodeh if you can, and smite mine enemies while you’re at it.

Ingatz in da North Polezzz! Tnx! Mwahugzzzz! K? K!

Your loving fan,
Peachy A. Paderna

-----

Earlier this week, while I was online and in the office:

b----r: hi!
peachypaderna: Ah, who’s this, please?
b----r: my name is biggi, 27F...
peachypaderna: Do I know you?
b----r: aren’t u a hot lady?
peachypaderna: Nope, I'm actually a guy. My name is Peachy, but I'm a 16-year old boy and I have bad facial acne.
b----r: sorry. then i thought u are a friend of mine ....
b----r: bye!
peachypaderna: Bye!

-----

To the little nazi prick with an overinflated sense of self:

I want you to shut up about it. It was one night and it was a mistake and you were terrible in bed.
.

Well, The Pleasure, The Privilege Is Mine

2007-06-09T21:32:00.000+08:00

It's gruesome that someone
So handsome should care.
- The Smiths

I tell you now that --

-- it is not an insurmountable task to get my cooperation. If tagged, I will respond in kind. I will prove the truthfulness of this statement.

(Tagged by Joy Ahoy Alloy Polloi. That was a nasty exercise in rhyming. Tsk!)

Each player of this game starts with 6 weird things about himself or herself. People who get tagged need to write a blog entry of their own as well as state the rule clearly. In the end, you need to tag 6 people as well and list their names. Don’t forget to let them know they’ve been tagged!

Well, let's see now. I think I'm one of the most normal people I know. I go through the daily, necessary routines that at least 80% of ordinary folks impose on themselves, such as brushing teeth, taking baths, going to work, masticating and digesting edible matter. I love the word masticate!

Hey man what's up?

Oh, nothing much, just masticating as always.

Parents can tell their kids, Don't masticate with your mouth open!

Also, when a man and a woman are tearing off each other's clothes in the heat of passion, one of them can exhort the other to Masticate me, jungle cat!

On to business.

Number One: The first "weird" thing about myself would be the fact that I can reach my nose with my tongue. I can also touch my chest with the tip of said tongue. To this day, I haven't met anyone who can execute the same gestures -- if you can, and if you are male and no older than 45, please post a message on my shoutbox and maybe we can meet up. I will bring a bottle of chocolate syrup and you can bring the contraceptives. And then we tongue-wrestle. Haha! I'm sorry, that was a tasteless joke.

Seriously, though, I was born with a tongue longer than most. When I close my mouth, my tongue has to bend itself in the middle, mirroring the appearance of a mild bell curve on a graph:

The curve isn't as drastic, of course, but you get the message. It's just too bad that I'm not a lesbian. I would have made scores of women very very happy.

Number Two: Sometimes I can stay up all night just worrying if I've committed a spelling error. I almost drove myself to the brink once, wondering if I'd spelled irreparable as irrepairable. I only got to sleep when -- unable to withstand the internal pressure -- I unearthed our dictionary and found out that the two versions were acceptable.

Number Three: I am very anal about my penmanship. In the past, I've consumed whole tablets of stationery for a single letter, mostly because I didn't like the way I wrote a particular letter B or how that apostrophe looks too much like a maggot. Sometimes I'm just beginning the letter and I think the Dear ____ looks annoying, so I tear out the sheet and start again on a fresh one. At work, I can spend at least twenty minutes revising one post-it note which only I would read anyway.

Number Four: My sister and I speak to each other in an exclusive language of our own making, and which we are simultaneously protective of and embarrassed about. Nobody else has heard us use this language -- nobody, except for our parents and our cousin, Mia, who always makes fun of it. She also swears that she can imagine me and my sister aging into wizened spinsters and still living together at 70.

Number Five: When I happen upon someone whom I think is attractive, my first impulse is to laugh. It was torture the other day: I was in an FX en route to Greenhills to meet Bruce, Obi, and Abbey, and across from me was a guy in this generic, service crew-type uniform, and he had lovely brown skin and very clear eyes and it just pained me, I wanted to laugh so badly but I couldn't!! My mouth was quivering and my cheeks hurt like hell from the all the effort it took to keep a straight face. You cannot imagine what a relief it was when my stop finally came. But holy goddamn fucking bunghole, that fellow was cute.

Number Six: I have four noses in different secret areas in my body. When you and I become friends, I will tell you where they are.

It's too tough to pick the folks I'm tagging. If you want to pass this around, you are most welcome to! You're just as free to claim that I tagged you, and you will have my blessing, my children. If you don't feel like it, that's all right.

I would like to have some ice cream right now.
.

You're Celebrating Nothing And You Feel A-Okay

2007-06-06T09:44:00.000+08:00

And when you're dancing and laughing and finally living,
Hear my voice in your head and think of me kindly.
- The Smiths

Here are a number of pictures from last Saturday's trip to Enchanted Kingdom (see previous entry), lovely shots courtesy of Mr. Olivier Agustin, otherwise known as Dindo.

Mr. Olivier Agustin

I'm kidding! His nickname is really Obi, and his real name (Olivier) is really pronounced the French way. Obi loves to dance at every standing opportunity, and he also moonlights as a gigolo. Unfortunately, he doesn't make much money because he usually operates on a pro bono basis.

Ms. Abbey Grace Yap

His girlfriend Abbey supports his sideline by coming up with costume designs for his acts and planting labelled tin cans (Support The Pro Bono Gigolo!) beside every Jollibee counter in the county.

(Pictures of Mr. Agustin and Ms. Yap were lifted without permission from Ms. Yap's Multiply account.)

Anyway, the pictures:

In line for the Jungle Log Jam: Abbey, me, Bruce, and some random strangers.

Hey man throw that into the wash! Bruce, me, and Abbey.

-----

Be Happy Be Arbitrary! Part Two:

In other news, I am once again itching to get another piercing up my left ear. I got 6 of them running up my earlobe right now, and I think I want a seventh one. The compulsion latches on to me every year, it seems. And whenever I go home to Davao for Christmas, my aunts and uncles appraise me warily, unsure about what the multiple piercings might signify. I want to tell them that it means nothing, that it's probably comparable to their own small obsessions: the acquisition of new cars and businesses, the creation of perfect babies whom everyone will fawn over.
.

Don't Stop Me Now!

2007-06-04T09:51:00.000+08:00

I'm a rocket ship on my way to Mars,
On a collision course!
I am a satellite, I'm out of control!
- Queen

Because the weekend was spilling over with tons of free time and some cash to spare, Bruce, Obi, Abbey, and I decided to devote the entire Saturday to a romp through Enchanted Kingdom. Actually, romp doesn't quite cut it. What we were really planning to do was to challenge the presumed capacity of our vocal chords by going through the real screamers. Haha, I'm sorry, I'm being such a bastard! That was just a complicated way of saying that we wanted to jump into every worthy ride and shriek ourselves hoarse.

Two things, however, put a damper to our bucking enthusiasm. The First Downer was the fact that Anchors Away, one of the rides we most fervently worshipped, was undergoing maintenance and was therefore out for the day. Upon being informed of this, we were so overcome with emotion that the four of us promptly ripped our shirts apart and sprouted sudden chest hair. Furthermore, we each turned a frightful shade of green and began speaking in what was later determined to be Latin. Park authorities were forced to throw us out of the premises until we calmed down, and even then, they sprayed us with staggering doses of mace.

I'm kidding. All we did was look sorrowfully at the ride, the impotent fake ship hanging there, and thought of how Enchanted Kingdom was quieter by a thousand screams because Anchors Away wasn't open. What a bummer.

The Second Downer was the violent spell of rain that assaulted the Park for at least an hour. As luck would have it, the rain fell hardest while we were in the middle of going through the Jungle Log Jam. So while our plastic log was being lifted up the ramp for the climactic drop-off, rainwater sluiced off our faces and prevented us from seeing much. Our screams were mostly intuitive -- we couldn't see exactly how far the drop was because of the rain, but our bellies sure sensed it, and we squealed like stuck pigs until our log hit the water.

For those who are familiar with the ride, you're probably just as well-acquainted with the camera strategically positioned by the Jungle Log Jam's famed drop. Once you've wrung the water out of your hair and walked through the exit, you can check out the captured images of you and your plastic log when it's falling off the edge and your scream is vaulting up from your stomach and out of your mouth.

We checked our picture out and sure enough, the camera's timing was right on the money. Because I was at the front of the boat -- I always take the front seat -- my face got total, maximum exposure. So did all of my teeth, which were faithfully reproduced by the camera and graciously revealed to the public by my mouth opened in an uncompromising AAAAAAA! I swear I could've traced out the crannies on my molars just looking at that picture. I've always known that I literally (and figuratively) have a big mouth, but when I saw my Jungle Log Jam picture, I realized that I could solve the overpopulation crisis by inviting whole cities and villages to reside in my mouth. In fact, if I can stretch it enough, around half of Mindanao can relocate and set up shop on my tongue.

That's actually a gross thought.

Despite the rain and the absence of Anchors Away, the four of us still managed to have a spanking good time. The rain caused the crowd to thin out a bit, and we took advantage of this by going on repeated takes on the roller coaster until we'd ridden it about ten times - maybe more!

During the first six times that we rode it, we screamed our heads off and kept our arms raised gamely overhead. On our last few stabs at the coaster, though, we dared each other not to scream and to look as poker-faced as possible. In an attempt to affect boredom, Bruce and I sang The Do-Re-Mi Song (Doe, a deer, a female deer!)while our car thundered over the rails and all we could see were treetops and dirt and treetops again -- I was so addled, though, that I forgot at least half of the song's lyrics. Once the ride came to a stop, Abbey and I found ourselves giggling in our seats, tickled to the bone by our own fruitless restraint and general silliness.

We also went through the standard rides: the Rialto, the humongous ferris wheel, and the Flying Fiesta, which we rode on whenever we wanted to dry ourselves off. Obi didn't fare so well with the Flying Fiesta, though. The poor guy disembarked from the ride looking pale and quite ill, but he got almost no sympathy from us, not even from Abbey The Girlfriend. Aww, Obi, we tutted, you don't seem so well. Dizzy from the ride, huh. What a loser!

Anyway, Enchanted Kingdom was awesome, although we were all beat at the end of the day; we didn't even have enough energy to keep a conversation going during the ride home. Abbey and Obi were knocked out and asleep in the backseat, and I sang to myself and along to my Discman while Bruce drove us all back to Manila's snaking highways.

What else do I say? All I know is that the best theme park rides let you nosedive when every force calls for it. You gotta let gravity do its job. It's awesome to be scared shitless for a few seconds and to hear, afterwards, the dogged mortal speech of your own heart. Why, you almost thought you'd lost it to the sky.
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Was It Because I Lied When I Was Seventeen?

2007-05-31T14:40:00.000+08:00

Your leg came to rest against mine,
And you lounged with knees up and apart.
- Morrissey

It was a blitzkrieg of rain the other night when I rode an FX from Ortigas to Katipunan. Early on, I could tell that it was going to be a long ride. Traffic was expectedly at its worst, the way it often is when the tropical storms hit the city. The White Plains area was especially troublesome – all I could see on the avenue ahead was a glowing line of brake lights from idling cars. And the FX claimed nothing but mere inches when it moved along the asphalt.

I was squashed in front with a pregnant lady, who sat between me and the driver. Mom called up, but I asked her to call me back at around the time that I’d get home. Shortly after I hung up, the FX driver leaned over in his seat and peered at me.

“Are you…are you from the States?” he asked me haltingly.

I laughed. “Hindi po.”

“Ah, nagko-call center ka ba? May accent ka kasi eh.”

I shook my head. In any case, we started yakking away. Most cab and FX drivers I’ve conversed with are pretty chatty, but this one was particularly talkative. Which I didn’t mind, since I usually welcome any conversation chucked my way, and am half the time exchanging small talk with strangers across the metro. So the driver asked me about where I worked, where I graduated from, and we spoke about that for a while, and then he began talking about how he used to be a cop and that he just recently retired, that he’d been all over, from Canberra to Las Vegas. It was a little queer because we were the only ones speaking inside the FX; all the other passengers were mute and probably only half-listening.

Well, so we gabbed about politics and the recent elections, and how this country is led by a leash by some of the most depraved shitheads around. The usual fare for any disgruntled citizen who has to pay taxes and find it absorbed in the pockets of some big-bellied politician. Etcetera etcetera. Meantime, the rain was ramming down on the windshield, visibility was poor, and floodwaters were rising knee-deep in a section of Katipunan.

My stop was nearing and I said, “Bosing, diyan lang po ako sa may overpass.”

He nodded briefly but went on talking. “Eh diba connected ka nga sa mga travel travel? Tingnan mo naman kung ano yung pinakamurang Boracay package.”

“Sige po. Ah, boss, sige, diyan na lang ako sa overpass.”

He swerved the FX to the pavement, still talking. “Oo, sige, pag-aralan mo yung mga rates ha. Eh lalo na ngayon na hindi peak seaso—”

KABLAG!

The FX bumped straight into the rear of a huge ten-wheeler.

“Damn!” I said.

“Punyeta!” said the FX driver.

Bow.

-----

Be Happy Be Arbitrary! Part One:

I stayed up until midnight talking for hours to my sister about --

--burgers. One of the most contentious issues we wrestled with was the question of whether bacon in a burger was a good idea or not. My sister was firmly against the concept – she thought that bacon made the whole creation a little too salty, whereas I thought that bacon was one of the best things in life, that the goodness of bacon multiplied with the goodness of a killer burger equals heart attacks that are well worth it so give me the damn burger or else!

That said, I am still deeply loyal to my favourite burger of all time, McDonald’s Double Cheeseburger; although it doesn’t have any bacon, the blasted thing is so fucking good, I am almost convinced that eating it is better than getting laid. However, getting laid is still better, so scratch that. Other favourites include Hotshots’ quarter-pounder with blue cheese, plus that other burger they got with bacon and mushrooms and a horrific amount of dripping cheese .

In general, I require lots of mustard and onions, and I normally stay away from mayonnaise because I can’t stand the stuff unless unless unless! Unless we are talking about KFC’s Zinger, in which case, mayonnaise isn’t such a bad thing, because the Zinger can work miracles and bring back the dead, which means that you should NEVER EVER EVER eat a Zinger when you’re in the local cemetery and it’s 3 in the morning because zombies will bang open their caskets, crawl out of the dirt, and pursue you to the ends of the earth!!!

To the ends of the earth!!!

To the ends of the earth!!!
.

I've Got A Mouse And He Hasn't Got A House

2007-05-29T11:47:00.000+08:00

Be ready to get confused:
There's definitely no logic
To human behaviour.
- Björk

I dreamt last night that I was a tall brown guy named Michael. I had a large, soft body and graceful wrists, and my fingers were long and tapered. In addition, I was also a total fag, a real fruity fairy, and I had a fatal appetite for song hits and gossip culled from hours spent in the neighborhood beauty parlor. I used a pretty bandanna to keep my hair off my face. An absolute poof!

In the dream, I had a younger sister who was slightly retarded, but whose limited mental faculties never prevented her from getting into all sorts of trouble. There was an extremely ferret-like quality to her face; she always looked as though she were about to sink her canines into your arm. She was quite a loopy one, but she was very very mischievous, and she had frequent, harmless run-ins with the local police. This made matters a little difficult because we were orphans, my sister and I, and I was away from the house and working most of the time.

One day, I (Michael) bounded back home from an afternoon spent with fellow fags. When I opened the door to our shack, however, I saw that my sister was huddled on the floor, and towering over her was a circle of cops, who were all talking loudly to each other and taking down notes on their little notepads. Upon seeing me, my sister leapt off the floor, sped to my side, and stuffed a great wad of money into one of my pockets.

AAAAAAAAAYY! I (Michael) shrieked, tranny-style.

My sister scurried behind me and squatted on the floor.

One of the cops sauntered close, tapping his notepad with a pencil. Look here, he said. Your sister just stole money again. What are we going to do about this?

My sister looked up at me incomprehendingly and her face cracked into a smile.

Suddenly, the dream became a TV drama in the tradition of Maalaala Mo Kaya. Violins wept in the background. I scooped my sister from the floor and into my arms, and I wailed loudly, rocking her back and forth. Kung gusto mo ng pera, humingi ka lang! I cried. Alam mo naman na pwede kang humingi sakin ng pera, di mo kelangang maging magnanakaw!

What??
.

I'm Crossing You In Style Someday (Revised!)

2007-05-27T15:13:00.000+08:00

You're acting kind of smart
Until your heart just goes whap!
- Frank Sinatra

This here's my Visual DNA, something I got from Naya.

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

Below is a summary of my profile, although not everything here is to be believed. I think.

Moods: Go Getter
You're strong and maybe solitary? You're never afraid of a challenge and you see beauty even in the most inhospitable environments. You have a pioneering attitude to life - always moving onto the next challenge.

When it comes to art, you're definitely unconventional. You like to think differently, always from another perspective. You have a good sense of humour.

As for music, you're a focused listener and always on the lookout for something new. Your music collection is your treasure.

Your choice of treat reveals either real exhaustion, or maybe a bit of laziness? Either way, you're never happier than when you are rugged and snuggled up, eyes shut.

Fun: Conqueror
Always the first to take the leap, you never look back - you try not to have regrets. You like to take the plunge: this attitude will give you a wealth of experience.

For kicks, you like to experience life at full volume with the lights on full. You're extremely passionate and emotional, and a bit of an exhibitionist? You express yourself and don't mind who's watching.

When it comes to holidays, you'll take experience over comfort every time, whether under canvas or under the stars. You love the chance to be in the wilderness and the freedom of being in charge of where you're heading.

What grosses you out? You favour the natural look and can't stand a pumped and plumped, plastic appearance.

Habits: Junkie Monkey
So you're a sociable type who works to live, looking forward to all your free time. Being a creature of the night can make some mornings a pretty rough ride. When it comes to drinking, nothing beats a night out with your mates. Unwinding with a few beers, relaxing the shoulders, loosening that tongue and letting the day disappear - perfect.

As for the home style, it's not on top of your list - you're too busy with other things in life. You collect and store - you can be a hoarder.

Love: Touchy Feely
When it comes to love, you think sex...you have plenty of urges, desires, maybe even demands! Let others think of it, you like to take more of a hands-on approach!

When you think of freedom, you think of being in charge of your direction. The open road and a full tank can take you pretty much anywhere.
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Or On A Crowded Avenue

2007-05-25T13:37:00.000+08:00

Up above, aliens hover,
Making home movies
For the folks back home
Of all these weird creatures
Who lock up their spirits,
Drill holes in themselves,
And live for their secrets.
- Radiohead

S T R E S S

If I look at the word long enough it starts to look silly. Suddenly, the first S looks superfluous, and all I can see is the word Tress. Stress is no longer tied to its strict, clinical meaning, it now sounds like a product that I have to smooth through my hair to keep the frizz at bay.

I am currently into weight-lifting: my eyebags weigh at least 100 pounds each, beefy little babies who can do heart-stopping miracles. They're so brawny, they can lift a small Japanese sedan off the pavement, toss the damn thing up a hundred feet into the air, and catch it to the applause of an admiring crowd. My eyebags can do this without breaking into a sweat.

I want to lie down.
.

You'll Go Under Like A Submarine

2007-05-23T13:31:00.000+08:00

But if I stayed here with you, girl,
Things just couldn't be the same.
'Cause I'm as free as a bird now,
And this bird you cannot change.
- Lynyrd Skynyrd

An hour after the conclusion of Happy Mondays in Mag:net Katipunan, I discovered with horror that I had gone onstage, read out two poems, and traded jokes with friends and acquaintances for the rest of the evening, all this with the fly of my pants grinning open.

(Bravo!)

Last night, I took a piss inside the spacious unisex washroom of the nearby McDonald’s. The day and its demands had walloped me quite a good deal, and I sat there on the toilet spacing out and humoring my bladder and just feeling generally exhausted.

Whoosh. The door swung open. A guy stood outside, his eyes round as saucers. Everything proceeded as though in slow motion, you know? I turned my head and looked at him, and it didn't occur to me yet that I forgot to lock the door, that there was a grown man in the doorway with his jaw plummeting to the floor, that my skirt was hiked up over my hips and my knickers were gathered around my knees, that I was still peeing anyway despite the intrusion.

And then of course it hit me, kapow! and I screamed and the guy bleated out an apology, and he slammed the door close and vamoosed before you could say excretory system, abject humiliation, or Peachy is a dolt. I got to my feet, scrambled to the door, and locked it before I got any more unwitting visitors.

My question is: what idiot forgets to lock the bathroom door before taking a leak?

(Bravo!)

As Gab did tell me the other night, “Peach, I don’t know why these things happen to you and only to you.” I don’t know why, either. Fiona Apple sings, I seem to you to seek a new disaster everyday, and there you have it, folks, that’s my entire autobiography condensed in one line. It looks as though I have this fantastic talent for bearing equal shares of stupidity and pure bad luck, a condition I’m more or less used to by now.

I mean, what’s next? Me showing up for work in pyjamas? Hahaha! Wait a minute, I did that in college. Hee-haw hee-haw.

-----

I have decided to clean up the storehouse of my daily vocabulary, meaning, that I will try to swear a lot less than I usually do. This resolution has come about only because I’m realizing just now what a complete potty-mouth I am. Look, we all need profanity once in a while, don’t we? We say fuck! or its rough equivalent to serve the needs of our stronger emotions – it’s very therapeutic.

But the way things are, swearing already seems to be par for the course in most forms of my expression. Tsk tsk. Last Saturday at the recording studio, I kept on stumbling over a line in the dialogue, and when I’d screwed up for the third time, I threw up my hands and said, “Ah, fuck.”

And then through the glass pane, I could see our director and the sound engineer doubling over in laughter. “What’s so funny?” I asked through the microphone. Turns out they were betting between themselves just fifteen minutes before that I would start swearing anytime soon (“Tingnan mo, magmumura na yan maya’t maya.” “Sigurado ka?” “Oo, pustahan tayo.” "Sige.").

Some days back, Bruce asked me, “Hey, you remember Jimmy?”

“Hmm? Jimmy? Who’s Jimmy?”

“Oh, you know, that Korean guy in Starbucks I introduced to you.”

“Ah, right. What about him?”

“Well, I ran into him the other day.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. And you know what he said?” Bruce laughed. “He said, Hey, where is your friend? I said, Which friend? And he said, You know, girl with dirty mouth, fuck, shit? And I said, Oh, you mean Peachy! And he said, Yeah yeah! Peachy!”

“Oh my god.” I covered my mouth with one hand. “Oh my god. I didn’t know that I gave people that impression! All right, that does it, I’m going to stop cussing, I swear to god.”

“What?” Obi cut in, shaking his head. “But that’s who you are! That’s what makes you you!”

Until that moment, I wasn’t aware that a large chunk of my character had rested all along on the words fuck and shit. Imagine that.

And then yesterday, I happened upon the blog of one of my former officemates, Des. She had an entry about the time when I visited TDP after my resignation, during which she showed me pictures of her newly-adopted kittens, Bob and Marley. Here’s a snippet from her entry:

Peachy: Tangina, who’se (sic) brilliant idea was it to name them Bob and Marley.
Me: Ako.
Peachy: [Putang] ina. LOL (Peachy says [putang] ina and fuck a hundred times a day.)

As you can see, some changes have to be implemented. I can’t keep on doing this, abusing the convenient ambiguity of swear words and how they can fit in almost any context. Fuck can apply to a host of different situations, and its meaning can fit around practically every event, depending on your purpose. But it’s lazy. It lazy lazy lazy. I’m not saying that I’m going to stop cursing entirely. I’m just going to keep it a little diluted, so that fuck, shit, and putang ina don’t pop out from most of my sentences.

Alternatives abound, anyway: geez louise, holy moly, gosh, shucks, shoot, fudge, rats. Instead of saying, Goddammit, the sun is a nasty fucker today, I could say Geez louise, the weather sure is gosh-as-ever hot and humid in this li'l ole day.

Shoot me please.
.

The Fruits Of The Loops Of The Friendships That Droop

2007-05-21T16:21:00.000+08:00

I will not be destroyed by this neurotic woman!
- Woody Allen

This is my newest poem. Will work on it when I can.

In A Family Reunion

The conversation sprung quick among us,
Our clan’s history already fair game:
Grandfather’s infidelities, an uncle’s treachery,
The lambent grace of our debutante-cousin.
Someone began to talk about my father
And all the women who wept for him,
How the terrain of his face once mirrored
The sheen of Elvis in his golden youth.
Laughing, I called him up and said, You were
The most handsome, how about that!
Later on, when dawn was shuddering
through the curtains and we were tottering
Drunken to our beds, I thought of my story,
Which I couldn’t tell them – how, for eight years,
Every girl and boy in my class had taunted me
For my ugliness, and what a funny thing it was
That I had a father so ravenously adored. I know now
That acceptance is nothing the past can teach you:
I have long wanted my own history shaped
So it could thrive prettily from this family tree
And drink from its old blessed vein, so that I might
Forget the nimble cruelty of schoolchildren,
And find that perhaps, in the end,
Belonging could just be the effortless affair
Of sharing in a single bloodline.

-----

Got this from Maan.

THE 7 DEADLY SINS SURVEY

1. WRATH
Who did you last get pissed at?
My sister.

Who was the last person who got really angry at you?
NAYAAAA! Lady, you and I have gone down in TDP history. Here's a kiss. Kiss!

Do you keep grudges, or can you let them go easily?
Well, I get mad pretty easy, but the anger's quick to go. Unless it's a major offense, in which case, I could carry a grudge for months. But long-term, time-defying grudges? I'd rather drink.

2. SLOTH
What is one thing you're supposed to do daily that you haven't done in a long time?
Running.

What's the latest you've ever woken up?
I once went to bed at 3 a.m. and slept well until 8 in the evening the next day. That's 17 hours of sleep. And I wasn't even drunk when I hit the sack! Clap clap.

Who have you been meaning to contact, but haven't?
Wow, this is sticky. The list accommodates everyone from High School friends to ex-officemates.

What is the last lame excuse you made?
I claimed that I was having really bad menstrual cramps. This is never true. I do not get menstrual cramps. I just eat like hell during my period.

How many times did you hit the snooze button on your alarm clock today?
Lots of times, apparently. I don't even remember! I'd woken up with a start and saw that I'd slept for an hour more after the set time, but I couldn't recall waking up in between the alarm going off and the time that I actually woke up. Hang on, I'm confused by that last sentence. I'll bet you're confused, too! We are definitely meant to be.

3. GLUTTONY
Meat eater?
Mmmmm. Meat. Mmm.

What is the greatest amount of alcohol you've had in one sitting, outing or event?
I drank three liters of Pale in one sitting last month. That's the most recent occurrence. Oh, and during my cousin's debut, when I drank most of the Fundador and I polished off all the red wine, and then I nicked two beers off the hotel suite's fridge. Hahahahahahahahaha.

Have you ever used a professional diet company?
Yes. The Catholic Church. KIDDING! That was such a bad joke.

4. LUST
How many people have seen YOU completely naked?
Barring my family (because they don't count): Eight people. Just because you're naked, though, doesn't mean --

Have you ever caught yourself staring at the chest/crotch of a member of your gender of choice during a normal conversation?
I don't catch myself staring; I know when I'm staring. This reminds me of the film Labyrinth, and how David Bowie was always in this outfit that held to his frame perfectly - I was in fourth grade and all I could look at was his crotch, and I was thinking, what in god's name is that bony-looking protrusion? Obviously, we didn't have Sex Education. Tsk.

What's your fave part of the body?
The most useful part, what else. What a dumb question!

Have you ever made a proposition with a prostitute?
Not strictly.

5. GREED
If you had $1 million, what would you do with it?
Buy all the books that I want. Buy a house. Put up a beerhouse.

Would you rather be rich, or famous?
Hmm, famous. People are willing to pay for your drinks if you're famous. If you're rich, you end up paying for everyone's drinks.

6. PRIDE
What is the one thing that you've done that you're most proud of?
The invention of velcro. Oh, wait, that wasn't me.

One thing you have done that your parents are most proud of?
Going cold turkey on my medication.

What would you like to accomplish in your life?
Wiggling my ears. Am still working on it.

What did you do today that you're proud of?
Feigning interest at all the proper times.

7. ENVY
If you could be anyone else in the world, who would you be?
Jinky Oda

Have you ever wished you had a physical feature different from your own?
Yeah, I've always wished for six arms.

Lastly, what is your fave deadly sin?
Gluttony.
.

You Can Buy Love From A Payphone

2007-05-17T10:18:00.000+08:00

I'll be your girl if you say it's a gift,
And you give me some more of your drugs.
- Fiona Apple

Number One:
Desperate for a seat in the smoking area of the nearest McDonald’s, I’d asked two harmless-looking young ladies if I could share an especially large table with them.

“Sure,” one of them chirruped. I smiled and sat down on the seat farthest from the both of them, and proceeded to wrap up some work I was unable to accomplish in the office. Barely five minutes after I’d seated myself, however, the girls began chatting at the speed of a shining bullet train zipping through a tunnel.

“Kaya ayun tinext niya ako tapos tinanong niya sa akin if I was in a relationship eh sabi ko na nga na oo tapos sabi niya bat daw ako nagsisinungaling sa kanya eh hello ano bang pakialam niya di ko nga maintindihan kung bakit ang kulit kulit niya eh sinabi ko na nga sa kanya na di ko siya type pero blah blah blah santa claus santa claus santa claus—”

Holy mother of god. I cast stealthy glances at the tables peppered across the smoking area – there must be an empty table here, there has to be an empty table here, goddammit!! But the area was crammed with diners and the unmistakable smell of french fries and ketchup, and I sighed in my seat and decided to hold it out until I could find another table. Beggars can’t be choosers.

All of a sudden, two more girls came up to the table with full trays of food, and the gossiping girls began moving their chairs to make room. Oh my god, I thought. Earlier, when I had asked the first two girls if I could sit with them, I motioned towards the empty seats uncertainly. “Are you expecting company?” I asked, but they just shook their heads pleasantly and pulled out a chair for me.

Well, it turns out that they really did have company. The newcomers looked at me in mild puzzlement, and one of the seated girls reassured them, “Makiki-share lang daw siya, wala kasi siyang maupuan.” I smiled at them, surprised at my own embarrassment. I mean, these girls were being so generous, so unnecessarily kind. I began to gather my things. “God, I’m so sorry for the trouble, I think I’ll just move back ins—”

“Hinde, okay lang yan no! Di naman kami naiistorbo eh. Pasensya ka na, medyo maingay pa naman kami,” one of the newcomers said. I looked at her face and was taken aback by its friendly directness, I looked at the faces of the other girls smiling genially at me and saw how they were so much like windows flung open to an unassuming view.

And I wondered why I had at first thought that it was all strange, that they were strange, and why insincerity was something I’d already come to anticipate, in much the same way as one expects to find in a face a pair of eyes, a nose, a row of teeth, the hidden forked tongue.

Number Two:
In this same McDonald’s branch, I always see a filthy white cat with golden spots taking interminable naps by the entrance. Always. Without fail. Every time I’ve seen that damn cat, it’s asleep on its side, the soft kitty belly rising and falling to its own breathing. The little critter kills me. Look, I know that it’s been to every dumpster in the area, that it’s the reason why antibacterial soap will never lose its market, but when the kitty finally wakes up and toddles close enough to my seat, I bend over and pet it.

I saw the kitty again this evening, and I was worried about how it was looking a little more gaunt than usual. I wanted to give it some chow, but I’d already eaten all of my Chicken McNuggets. What to do, what to do. I was sitting there chewing on my nails when the guard whisked by, picked the kitty up by the scruff, and tossed it casually to the pavement. I almost fainted.

Why can’t I save all the cats? Why??

Number Three:
During the brief elevator rides that take me from our office to the ground floor (and vice versa), I’ve occasionally shared the lift with a scraggly young man who also gets off on the same floor as I do. The guy has a permanent leer on his face and is about as attractive as a tapeworm. On my second day at work, I stepped into the elevator and found him there, and while we zoomed up to the tenth floor, he fidgeted and cleared his throat nonstop.

“Miss, kasama kayo sa Lakbay, diba?”

“Oo.”

“Nag-o-OJT kayo?”

“Hinde. Employee ako.”

We finally got to our floor and I hurried out.

From that point on, I’ve noticed that the bastard seems to materialize most everywhere I go. At least 60 per cent of the time. This in itself isn’t remarkable . Except that I’ve also noticed that when I’m smoking outside the building and he also happens to be around, he does little else but puff away at his cancer stick and stare at me. What, do I have spinach growing out of my fucking ears? That slimeball is giving me the total fucking creeps.

I was taking a cigarette break again this afternoon when I saw him coming up the stairs leading to the building. He stopped in mid-step, looked at my direction, lit up a cigarette, and just stared at me the whole time. I stubbed out my cigarette and he did the same, and when I went inside the building, so did he. Inside the elevator, I glanced at him and he was still at it, staring at me as if I did have spinach growing out of my ears.

The next time I’m taking a cigarette break, I’m bringing a paper bag with me. When that weirdo does the whole staring bit again, I’ll start screaming into the bag. Or I could cover my entire head with it. Or I could cover his puny little head with it. Or I could just sock it up his ass.
.

From Your Lips You Drew The Hallelujah

2007-05-13T20:11:00.000+08:00

My sympathy lies with those who try
To cage you in and love you more and more.
- Leona Naess

It’s been roughly a week since I last posted anything here, and I’d like to take this as a welcome development. The only reason why I could have updated as regularly as I did was because I had nothing better to do with my time. I am not saying that ardent bloggers are a bunch of snorting donkeys who do not have social lives. I am only saying that the frequency of my posts was symptomatic of my sorry state: jobless, bored, and completely shot through with alcohol. Please refer to the equation below:

Not to mention the beating my liver took from all those weeks of nonstop drinking. I was hammered with friends almost every night, and then conked out and asleep for the rest of the day. My sister would cluck her tongue at me and say, Look at you, aren’t you disgusted at yourself? I often responded by batting my eyelashes at her, letting a lazy grin spread across my face, and then plopping right back to bed for a 3-hour nap.

All this freewheeling had to be aborted by the appearance of The New Job, which I have been reporting to since Monday last week. Which meant that I had to shake myself sober, pick up my carcass from off the linoleum, and wake up in perfect synchronicity with the city’s own rising.

I also began rifling through my closet once again for something I could wear to work, an activity which revealed a horrendous fact: nothing would fit me anymore. NOTHING! Over the past weeks, I’d ballooned beyond recognition – or at least, if friends still recognized me, my clothes certainly did not. As I struggled to zip up one of my favorite skirts, it gave me the cold shoulder and said, I don’t know who the hell you are, but you can’t wear me because you’re TOO FUCKING FAT YOU REVOLTING SWINE HAHAHAHAHAHA! It was absolutely chilling.

The way things are right now, I would never dare to go anywhere near a piggery. If I amble past one, the owner might come running to me, fling a lasso round my porcine neck, and drag me protesting and squealing(!) to the pens, where I will live with my brothers and sisters until we are finally transfigured into delicious honeycured bacon.

-----

Last Monday night, I stood in front of a roomful of people and read out a poem I’d just recently written. This was, in fact, my first poem in one year and seven months, a hiatus which worried the plasma and antibodies out of me. Days before, Joel Toledo had asked me if I could be one of the evening’s readers, and when Monday night finally came, I sat inside Mag:Net-Katipunan, aware of nothing else but my insides, which were effectively being clobbered and pulverized by sheer nervousness.

It was terrible: when my turn came, I could hardly read the words on the sheet I held in front of me, and spasms rocketed down my legs – out of the corner of my eye, I could see my right knee jerking this way and that. It wasn’t an encouraging sight. And I couldn’t control my voice, I was so fucking nervous, I felt as though I would shit in my pants at any given second. I am not kidding. The worst of it was that I neglected to read out one crucial word in the poem’s last line, something I realized only after I stepped off from the stage.

I don’t understand why I am just now getting this crippling sort of stage fright; I’ve been doing this kind of crap since I was in Grade 2, year after year of harrowing declamation contests. And I can no longer count the times when I had to stand in front of the entire student body and read sections from the Bible(!) for our First Friday Masses. And although I did get the requisite jitters, the nervousness was never ever this bad.

Well, at least I’m writing again. Here’s the poem I read out last Monday, which still begs to be revised a little more.

I Have Faith

I have faith in the ordered
Stirring of stars when dusk lowers
Itself onto the earth,

When the streetlights blink open
One by one across the city. I have faith
In the clamour of these streets,

Their self-sustaining roar a promise
Of the next day’s easy unfurling. But also,
I have faith in the young woman

In the coffee shop, a book open
On her lap, and I can tell that the room for her
Is no longer there, but the book still is.

Already, her cup of coffee has grown cold,
And people cross and re-cross their paths
Around her, small rivers, one roiling

As attractive as the next.
But for now, she will not know
Those waters and their currents,

Because on this evening,
A universe has risen from a single page,
From a sentence she has just read,

And which has cut her open, the way
A knowing knife splits ripened fruit,
So that one finds sap, flesh, seeds –

I have faith in the elegant math that finds
Eloquence in the muteness of the heavens.
I have faith in the heavens,

Whose fiery bodies keep this land
Illuminated, and I have faith in the truth
And turning of every life’s rivers,

Their tributaries driven by the current
Of so many stories. But most of all,
I have faith in the lady in the coffee shop,

How her heart quickens in recognition
Of a world suspended in a word.
Oh, it is only a book, and it is only

A sentence, but I have faith in those
Same words, I have faith in the spaces
Potent and humming between them,

What they contain,
What they do not yet contain.

-----

My current project is to learn how to wiggle my ears. It has always caused me great sorrow, how my ears will not yield to the command and natural authority of my brain. I have beaten my chest and howled at the moon in my boundless grief. I say Wiggle! but neither ear budges, not even for a fraction of a millimeter. O the torment. O deep dank well of despair! Romeo romeo wherefore art thou o romeo you handsome little fucker you.

Well, that’s about to change! In fact, I’ve been practicing how to wiggle my ears whenever I can, I have gained some mastery over the muscles responsible for their movement. I practice while walking to the office building, I practice inside the elevator, and I practice while commuting. The last – practicing while commuting – isn’t a very smart move. I was trying to wiggle my ears in an FX last Wednesday, when it occurred to me that the other passengers were looking at me funny; only then did I understand that I wasn’t wiggling my ears at all. I was flaring my nostrils instead.

I’m making some progress now, although three problems have surfaced so far:
1. It’s difficult to wiggle my ears when someone asks me to.
2. It’s difficult to wiggle my ears in front of a mirror.
3. I can’t seem to wiggle my ears more than three or four times in one go.
.
Still, I’m pretty optimistic about where this is headed, and the initial difficulties do not deter me. Practice, as the saying goes, makes pudding and pie so that all of the adorable bandicoots can mosey right into the picnic grounds and give us some tips on how to make the best tacos in the world!

I’m kidding. I just wanted to say that practice makes perfect. Wish me luck! Wiggle wiggle.
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Oh, Oh, Smother Me Mother

2007-05-04T15:57:00.000+08:00

I know I'm unloveable, you don't have to tell me.
- The Smiths

Having gone through some of Morrissey's past interviews (most of them conducted in the zenith of The Smiths' popularity), I am currently sold on the idea that no man alive is smarter, wittier, or more endearing. Morrissey has my heart and Morrissey has my pineal gland, and if he decides to hold a concert in Manila (a remote possibility), I will sell everything that I own - including body parts or organs - just to get front-row seats. I am not kidding.

Here are a couple of excerpts from his interviews, harvested from a fansite that contains most everything relevant to the Moz's and The Smiths' career.

Could you bear being with someone?
Sharing yoghurt and things, you mean? No. I don't like to share really.

Are you selfish?
I'm selfish in a positive way. Self preservation and all that. Sharing is a funny word. I do send off money to the Blue Cross - animal refuges, things like that.

Don't you worry you'll end up 55 and all alone?
Yes, but it seems unavoidable really. It seems totally unavoidable.

Here's more:
Isn't it an object lesson: to be less personal in future?(sic)
I can't be interviewed and talk in light, wispy terms. In throwaway interviews where people ask me basic things, I feel an absolute sense of worthlessness. You can do a hundred interviews and explain absolutely nothing about yourself but I tend to get asked very serious questions and to give very serious replies.

When I talk about my childhood, it always comes across as being severely humorous or so profoundly black that's it's embarrassing drivel but it always has a strong effect on people. Some unwritten law states that you're not supposed to admit to an unhappy childhood. You pretend you had a jolly good time. I never did. I'm not begging for sympathy, but I was struggling for the most basic friendships. I felt totally ugly. (Morrissey is sniffing loudly.)

Oh don't cry.
No, actually I'm dying of hayfever.

So, it's not a heavy coke habit?
Not yet, I'm working towards that.

And more:
Do you blame anyone or anything for you being alive?
Not at all. But I wouldn't want to inflict it on anyone else... I cannot understand having children. Even if the opportunity arose, I would definitely turn it down. No, I don't blame anyone for bringing me into the world, but I do feel that life is excessively overrated.

Finally:
You were forced to construct your own reality?
Yes. This took me a long time. But more importantly, I think that when someone is not at all popular, for whatever reasons, one tends to develop certain forms of survival. A survival which excludes friends, which excludes social activities.

That in a sense is how I organised my life. If you cannot impress people simply by being part of the great fat human race, then you really do have to develop other skills. And if you don't impress people by the way you look, then you really do have to develop other skills. And if you are now going to ask is everything I did just a way to gain some form of attention, well that's not entirely true. It is in a small way, but that's in the very nature of being alive.

Wanting to be loved?
To be seen, above all else. I wanted to be noticed, and the way I lived and do live has a desperate neurosis about it because of that. All humans need a degree of attention. Some people get it at the right time, when they are 13 or 14, people get loved at the right stages. If this doesn't happen, if the love isn't there, you can quite easily just fade away.

This could have happened to me easily. Several times I was close to... fading away. It doesn't give me great comfort to talk about it. I do not wish to relive those experiences. But I came close... In a sense I always felt that being troubled as a teenager was par for the course. I wasn't sure that I was dramatically unique.

I knew other people who were at the time desperate and suicidal. They despised life and detested all other living people. In a way that made me feel a little bit secure. Because I thought, well, maybe I'm not so intense after all. Of course, I was. I despised practically everything about human life, which does limit one's weekend activities.

What else was there?
Nothing. Books. Television. Records. Overall, it's a vast wasteland.

Has the memory of those years been destroyed?
No, not at all. I remember it all in great detail, I seem to remember it every night and re-experience the embarrassment of it. It was horror. The entire school experience, a secondary modern in Stretford called St Mary's. The horror of it cannot be over-emphasised.

Every single day was a human nightmare. In every single way that you could possibly want to imagine. Worse... the total hatred. The fear and anguish of waking up, of having to get dressed, having to walk down the road, having to walk into assembly, having to do those lessons... I'm sure most people at school are very depressed. I seemed to be more depressed than anyone else. I noticed it more.

Tell me, have you ever seen a psychiatrist?
Ha... not really... I have seen one or two psychiatrists. They just sit and nod and doodle. Perhaps if I was cured, so to speak, I would just walk blindly and amiably into every given situation, and I don't think that would be me, really. Maybe unhappiness keeps me going forward.

-----

Now, one of my favorite songs from The Smiths:

Hand In Glove

Hand in glove,
The sun shines out of our behinds.
No, it's not like any other love,
This one is different - because it's us.

Hand in glove,
We can go wherever we please.
And everything depends upon
How near you stand to me.

And if the people stare,
Then the people stare.
Oh, I really don't know
And I really don't care.

Kiss my shades.

Hand in glove,
The Good People laugh.
Yes, we may be hidden by rags,
But we've something they'll never have.

Hand in glove,
The sun shines out of our behinds.
Yes, we may be hidden by rags,
But we've something they'll never have.

So, hand in glove I stake my claim,
I'll fight to the last breath.
If they dare touch a hair on your head,
I'll fight to the last breath.
For the good life is out there somewhere -
So stay on my arm, you little charmer.

But I know my luck too well.
Yes, I know my luck too well.

And I'll probably never see you again,
I'll probably never see you again,
I'll probably never see you again.
.

If You Go, I Will Surely Die!

2007-05-02T19:46:00.000+08:00

Like a building that’s been slated for blasting,
I’m the proof that nothing is lasting.
- Aimee Mann

Monday
Apparently, what I proclaimed in my previous post was a bunch of hooey. I broke my own promise the first chance I got and went drinking in the evening with Margie and Carl.

Before you pass judgment, let me at least defend myself, however poorly. I spent most of the afternoon in Ortigas, discussing options with a potential employer in a coffee shop, and I went back home to Katipunan with a new job tucked cozily in the crook of my elbow. In other words, a celebration was called for! Alcohol!

After much hemming and hawing, the three of us finally settled on a drinking spot elegantly named Beeracay. We rolled our eyes. “I can’t believe I’m drinking in a place called Beeracay,” Carl groaned, tossing his head. The spot was sandwiched between two other beer houses along Xavierville Avenue, and despite its name, bore no resemblance to the actual beach resort or to any given beach, for that matter. Beeracay is nothing but a collection of tables and chairs, plus the customary mishmash of boozed-up clientele. To establish the ambience, the brilliant proprietor decided to bathe the whole area in blue light. Priceless.

Because neither Margie nor Carl was in the mood for beer, I conceded to ordering gin-based drinks. We got a pitcher each of Gin Orange, Gin Ponkan, and Gin Pomelo, and I grimaced after every swig I took – I hate gin, and will resort to it only when I’m feeling companionable or desperate.

While yakking with each other and drinking our way towards a comfortable buzz, Margie and Carl took advantage of my good nature by composing a little tune entitled Peachy The Prosti, sung to the melody of Frosty The Snowman. Needless to say, the lyrics are rife with inaccuracies. My friends are hopeless scuzzballs and are not to be believed under any circumstance.

Margie has just recently posted the entire thing in her blog with a picture of me striking a cheesy pose: I think I was supposed to look seductive, but I look retarded and pained instead, as though I had a coke bottle driven up my ass.

Anyway. FUCK YOU, MARGIE AND CARL! We will go drinking again and I will exact sweet sweet revenge.

Tuesday
Broke my promise once again and went drinking with Brian smack in the middle of the afternoon. Drinking with him can last for hours, since the both of us are repositories for tales of doomed love. In other words: we totally suck at all our romantic pursuits. I tell him exactly how stupid he is, and he subjects me to the same treatment. It’s fantastic.

On rare occasions, though, we turn aggressive in the company of fellow drinkers – the other week, we went drinking with Bruce and Obi, and I think Brian and I might have given them a faint shock. At one point in the drunken evening, Brian stood up, threw his chair over a rope fence, and began declaiming loudly about Super Mario 3.

The security guard nearby took one step towards us, glaring at Brian all the while.

Less than a heartbeat later, I was on my feet, and I grabbed Brian by the shirt, growling, “You better fucking sit down. If you don’t fucking sit down, I am going to fucking punch you in the fucking face.” Bruce later said that my fist was balled inches away from Brian’s face, and Brian, cowering, retrieved his seat and lowered himself onto it.

“I just wanted to talk about Super Mario 3,” he whined.

“Shut up. You’re making a scene,” I said, oblivious to the fact that I, too, was making a scene. A group of drinkers was looking at us goggle-eyed, and I swung around in my seat, propped my elbow up against the backrest, and told them, “Please don’t stare.” Quite instantly, they snapped their eyes back to their drinks and kept their heads lowered until I swivelled back to face Bruce and Obi, who were blinking at me, speechless.

“Wow,” Bruce said. “That was actually hot.”

“I think I’m drunk,” I said, covering my face with my hands.

But that night was exceptional, and Brian and I laughed like hyenas about it the next day. Normally, we just nurse our drinks peacefully until we’re properly plastered, which is exactly what we did on Tuesday.

Well, now. Allow me this period of unrestrained debauchery. I start work on Monday next week, and I’m not sure whether I dread or welcome the prospect. My wings are going to be clipped! Oh god.

At least I won’t be so poor anymore.
.

I'll Never Be Anybody's Hero Now

2007-04-30T17:26:00.000+08:00

I was happy in the haze of a drunken hour,
But heaven knows I’m miserable now.
- The Smiths

When I think about it, this blog has become a sort of chronicle of how I can exhibit laziness, gluttony, and other forms of overindulgence with little contrition. This doesn’t say much about my character – in fact, I am convinced that as the years collapse onto each other, I seem to be getting worse, a sentiment shared by my cousin, Mia. When we went drinking last Thursday, we agreed that neither of us was really improving with age. More than ever, genuine maturity feels as though it is light years away, attainable only with the aid of a rocket ship and a band of over-achieving astronauts.

Oh, it’s terrible. I remember the 18-year old Peachy as a more hopeful creature, shot through with ambition and the obstinate belief in herself. But I was also a pedantic piece of shit, and I thought that because I was a Philosophy major, I was licensed to trumpet out my smarts whenever the opportunity arose. And I honestly believed that non-Philo majors were worthless because they didn’t read Descartes or Heidegger or Kant as fervently as we did. HA HA HA, can you believe that? I may have been a promising young thing, but I was also an insufferable asshole.

I confess that I still am an asshole, but my company is less poisonous than it was five years ago. The point is: there is no point. Haha, I’m kidding. There is a point! Here. Rest the tip of your right forefinger on this area. THAT’S THE POINT! Hoo boy. What a riot. God, I’m so witty, I can’t stand myself.

Screw that, I’m being corny. What I meant to say is: I would never want to re-assume my 18-year old self, even if I am now a totally directionless prick, careening wildly towards the gutter. Still, at 23, I find that there is much room for improvement. To tell you the truth, my own body seems to be demanding that I take immediate steps at fixing myself and paring down my excesses. Over the past weeks, I have grown adept at the following:

1. Guzzling down obscene amounts of alcohol on a daily basis, so much so that my liver has converted to Catholicism and is, at this moment, praying for divine intercession.

2. Falling asleep in very small spaces with three other bodies. Nonetheless, I thank Bruce for his limitless hospitality and for giving us a crash course on contortionism. I have always wanted to become a human pretzel. Bruce and his room have made it all possible.

3. Borrowing sleepwear from friends, since decency won’t allow me to sleep in a short skirt. And because most of my friends are invariably male, I end up wearing oversized shirts and shorts that go way past my knees. Despite this, I am no less grateful to Bruce and Egan for their generosity.

4. Collecting new toothbrushes for spontaneous sleepovers.

But last Saturday, while sharing half a gallon of Double Dutch ice cream with Ego and Egan, it hit me that I couldn’t hack this any longer. We’d spent the previous night at Egan’s, chugging down beer and watching movies and generally having a good time. But I woke up past noon the next day, a headache thumping away in my temples, and I swallowed down a gob of ice cream that Saturday afternoon and decided that enough was enough. I’d been drinking too much. Some moderation was certainly in order or was long overdue.

I have since promised myself that I will not drink from Sunday to Thursday, and that alcohol should be restricted only to the remaining days: Friday and Saturday. I have also vowed to resume my evening runs – I haven’t gone jogging in more than a month, and I feel like a fucking pig. (I didn’t say, “I feel like fucking a pig.” That’s just nasty. I said, “I feel like a fucking pig.”) Oh, and I want to play airsoft again, because I miss Oscar The Gun and I miss sprinting around and shooting down hapless men (or, conversely, getting shot at by the same hapless men) and watching BB’s ricochet off windowsills and tree trunks.

Healthy living, here I come! You can’t make me quit smoking, though.
.

You're A Clever Swine

2007-04-25T19:11:00.000+08:00

Prithee, my dear, why are we here?
Nobody knows – we go to sleep!!
- The Pixies

All right. Try not to panic. I will not panic. My funds are dwindling down, being vacuumed away into the evil maws of The God Of Metropolitan Commerce. What I am saying is that I have been spending indiscriminately, mostly on beer and food and cab rides. I am also saying that because I am jobless, my current lifestyle is one that is unsustainable, and the fact that I am still pursuing it can only mean that I am a pigheaded lout. I am also saying that true destitution is not far off and is an outcome I can suddenly imagine for myself.

I think of those shipwrecked sailors, bobbing over the surface of the briny blue with just a piece of wood to cling on to, and the sharks are circling them and eyeing their kicking legs underwater. The sharks are thinking, Mmm, legs. Wonderful, fleshy, human legs. Lovely blood and the marrow to suck. Mmmm.

I will not panic! I will not panic!

This is mostly my fault. I should be vigorously applying for jobs, sending out my resume to anyone who’s expressed any interest in hiring a writer, but I haven’t done that. I should have accepted a couple of job offers, but I turned up my nose at them and drank with friends instead. To date, I’ve sent one or two half-hearted applications to a number of companies, but when they contacted me, I once again turned up my nose at them and drank with friends instead.

All this snootiness can be explained. Look, I spent the past year frittering away in a cubicle in a skyscraper, writing insipid web content for real estate agents, or proofreading websites and zooming in on grammatical and typographical errors. It bored me clean out of my skull. And I had a good amount of money every month, but I was plain plumb miserable. I was the only writer they had there, everybody else was doing web design or programming. And I woke up for each workday thinking of my superiors’ hideous grammar, and I would slump back in bed, discouraged in the first 5 minutes of wakefulness.

In other words: I am never ever going back to that kind of shit again. Ever. I don’t want to write traditional web content anymore, because traditional web content is engineered so that any stupid teenage hick could read it. In fact, nobody reads anything over the web anymore. Web content is designed so that Google picks up on the keywords and directs millions of visitors straight to the site. In the end, the written word is without consequence, it occupies the blurred fringes. It’s too depressing.

Anyway. I need a job. I am strapped for cash. I need money for food books beer cigarettes mobility. I need a job buttressed by some purpose, anything with a minimal cause to it. I don’t want to be caught in a system that’s too dumb to do anything but generate profit. Because even if I do need cash, enough of it suits me fine. I could never wear opulence well, I would look ridiculous, like somebody with an extra thumb in each hand. Like a guy with feet too large for his own body, clown shoes. A person cross-eyed and drooling.

Maybe I’ll just go and be a prostitute. I'll stand around in Quezon Avenue from midnight till 6 a.m. in fishnet stockings and teased hair. I’ll start using RDL products on my face. I’ll slather on Kissa Whitening Lotion para kutis mayaman. For the final flourish, I’ll douse myself in Lovelybabes Cologne or something.

Oh, who am I kidding, it’ll never work! I’ll never get any customers! After all, the only men I seem to attract are security guards and cab drivers. Excuse me, I think I need a beer.
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Today Has Never Happened And It Doesn't Frighten Me

2007-04-23T16:40:00.001+08:00

The truth is not kind, and you said neither am I.
- Toad The Wet Sprocket

I never knew that I’d been harboring an ability that lay latent and snoring for all of my life’s 23 years. Before this, I was satisfied with the reach of my aptitudes, which covered sleeping for 15 straight hours, singing the occasional ditty without going off-key, eating an entire pizza in a single gluttonous sitting, and rendering Sinatra’s My Way in a flawless sequence of melodic farts. All right, I made the last one up. I’m not that incredible, and I apologize for being gross.

But until two Fridays ago, I didn’t know that I could be so good at putting a halt to an existing conversation, or that a single statement from me could produce a round of uneasy laughter and 5 minutes of pulsing silence. Maybe it’s all the time that I've spent indoors or beer-ridden, but for some reason, my social skills have shrivelled up into a dark little raisin of rudeness and the utter disregard for tact.

Which is funny, because I can’t stand rude folks. I’ve always made valiant attempts to quell the snide remarks fizzing on the tip of my tongue. It’s also true that I’ve often failed at this enterprise, that I have been needlessly cruel now and then, but the point is that I try to be good, I swear to god I do.

Perhaps I was ill-humored because I was forced to crawl out of the house by the pressing need for money. I was tasked to write an article for a magazine, to cook up a review about a couple of new shops in a swanky commercial area in The Fort. A mini-Greenbelt, so I heard. The prospect of going there was putting me in a very bad mood; I hate Greenbelt, I hate Makati, and I hate those tight swathes of skyscrapers and those preposterous bars and their expensive beer. My dislike for the area was further aggravated by the frankness of my poverty.

I was supposed to meet the magazine’s Editorial Assistant at 12 noon, so I set out and rode the train in the white urban heat, feeling gullies of sweat creep down my back and between my breasts. A girl in the train stared at me, and I stared back at her until she finally averted her gaze.

All right, you didn’t have to stare her down. Why the hell are you so combative today?

I don’t know. It’s so fucking hot. I just want to go back home and read.

Well, if you don’t make some hard cash, you won’t be able to do that for long.

Why not.

You need money to buy the books you read.

You’re right.

Besides, all you have right now is 83 pesos and 25 cents. And you’re out of cigarettes.

Yes. Thank you. I love it when you rub it in. Makes me feel all wet and special.

Soon after I arrived in their office and introduced myself, I was stuffed into a cab with S, the Editorial Assistant, and R, the magazine’s photographer. During the ride, we fought the faulty airconditioning and the discomfort between new acquaintances with fits of well-meaning small talk. Office politics somehow became a topic, and S started talking about their boss, the Big Boy in the system. It was somehow at this juncture where my manners began to deteriorate.

S: You know, so when the boss wants something changed, we have to change it, and nobody can contradict him.
R: If he wants the cover photo replaced, we have to do just that, even if the replacement is worse than the original.
Me: Ah. Is he young and rich?
S: Yeah, he is.
Me: I’ll bet he’s also pretty stupid.

(Uneasy laughter, 5 minutes of silence.)

I began talking about my former employer.

Me: He isn’t such a bad guy, except that he’s never in the office.
S: Never?
Me: Yeah, he hardly ever goes there. He’s the brother of the guy who started the whole outfit. So he heads the operations in Manila, but he’s never even graduated from High School.
R: Whoa! Does he know anything about the work you guys do?
Me: Nope. But he sure hauls in a lot of dough.
R: Wow, that’s not so bad for someone who didn’t get past High School.
Me: Yep. I kind of envy the bastard myself.

(Uneasy laughter, 5 minutes of silence.)

Later, we all met up with H, the Editorial Consultant, and the four of us moved to a tea shop, a place I was supposed to write about. We were ushered to a table by the shop’s managers, and glasses of exotic, pricey iced tea were handed out to us. One of the managers offered a strange blend to me, a recipe she plucked out of thin air and created on a whim. I was warned that the drink would probably taste nasty, but I accepted a cup of it, and I took a venturing sip of the concoction with everyone looking on expectantly.

Manager: How is it?
Me: Ah, it’s very – um, earthy
H: “Earthy”? Lasang lupa?
Me: Well, sort of. (Taking another sip) It’s, ah, interesting.
Manager: Does it taste a bit like tree bark?
Me: Yeah, it does taste like that. There’s a very pronounced woodsy flavor to it. Quite acidic, too. Haha! Did I just say that? I’m sorry, I actually don’t know what the hell I’m talking about. God, I’m so full of shit.

(Uneasy laughter, 5 minutes of silence)

When I think about it, I must have been lucky to get out of there alive. If any of them decided to stick a knife between my ribs, I would have accepted the indictment and the wound. I wouldn’t have held them accountable, oh no.

You're A Window, I'm A Knife

2007-04-19T18:50:00.000+08:00

He never really looks at me
I give him every opportunity
- The Smiths

The music was pressing itself against us from every corner. I swear I could feel its cheek against mine, or maybe I was just drunk, since I'm almost always drunk anyway. His eyes were limpid, his eyes were singing arrows, the crease on his eyelid a great and eloquent curve and ending on the perfect spot, I could have looked at that crease hour after hour. I've discovered my problem, over bottles of beer I talked to a friend named Ego about it, I said, you know what my problem is? My problem is that I fall in love with too many people everyday. The other week I walked out of the train station in Cubao, and there was a girl walking ahead of me, a girl with a bad haircut and her bare nape agleam with sweat. I'm not bisexual, I'm very straight, but I think I fell in love with her and her ratty sneakers, I saw how the afternoon light hit the curve of her cheek, some fuzz going on there, and she was heaving a big big package, and she strode along awkwardly under the weight of it, and my god, I had to follow her, I just followed her through the streams of people and this city can be so loud! I must have looked so stupid, keeping up with her and trying to get a better look, and then there it was finally, just a face, but it was all that I needed and if I see her again I think I'll remember her and I walked on home and the flat was empty, but it's all right, there's always a cigarette around and there's always some music to play in the PC and then a book to read, none of it is really so bad, all this summer needs is half an hour of rain coming down as generous curtains do in a theatre, the lights slightly dimmed, a man and a woman kissing in the half-glow, every small thing that stirs in your memory when you close your eyes.
.

We'll Make Great Pets

2007-04-12T00:09:00.000+08:00

‘Cause I can’t live loaded and I can’t live sober,
And I’ve been this way since the end of October.
- Aimee Mann

It was high time that I shook myself free of this torpor. The situation had come to a point where it was nearly impossible to extract me from the grip of my sheets. Apart from that, my biological clock’s already gone batshit over the past weeks: I was hitting the sack at around five or six in the morning then waking up past noon, the air in the flat moving in a fevered trawl from the summer sun. Buffered from the earth’s measured turning, I burned time away by reading and smoking and eating and shitting. Or singing to every song I knew until my voice gave out. Or writing ridiculously long blog entries. I looked at the length of my recent posts and was overrun with alarm: the entries hinted at nothing but my own boredom, boredom, boredom!

Well, you know. There’s been a battalion of hours, minutes, and seconds hurtling at me from all sides. I’ve been staving them off for so long, it was about time that I killed them all, with a spear driven into each of their ticking hearts.

So yesterday, I rose earlier than usual and tramped to 20th Avenue, Cubao, where Brian’s apartment stood. I had agreed to help him spruce up his flat, where he had only recently moved into, rooms still unfurnished and full of the sweet odor of fresh paint. Two quick jeepney rides from Katipunan, and I was there on his street, fuddled by the great heat and the ceaseless roar of automobiles. Brian himself wasn’t home from his graveyard shift yet – I was at least 15 minutes too early, a miracle worth reckoning.

While waiting for him, I wandered to a panaderia close by and eyed the tray of star bread furtively. Since childhood, star bread has been a subject of my obsession, and I’ve always eaten the things with a methodical exactness that I should’ve instead applied to my Math lessons. First to go was the bun’s bottom section: I would work my way up from the soft crust and into the dense center, and I did this until nothing was left but the sugared crown, which I dismantled peak by peak until all I had was the small valley of bread in the middle. This was where all the sugar fell into: my favorite part. The act of eating star bread was itself an exercise in restraint, just going through the entire thing until the sugar loomed close and –

Shit, I’m making myself hungry. Suffice it to say that I ended up buying star bread after all. Upon collecting my change, I spied a carinderia across the street, walked to it, and bought a bottle of pop from a woman standing gravely behind a row of lidded pots. I sat down on a wooden bench, lit up a cigarette, and took out the star bread from my bag. A white rooster strutted royally by my feet, his comb and wattles a proud red. Ain’t that cute, I thought. I broke off a tiny piece from my bread and threw it at his feet, and he pecked at it inquiringly, trying without success to gobble it up.

Suddenly, a flash of brown feather, the breadcrumb gone. It was a hen, newcomer to the tableau, and she was now clucking low in her throat and studying the bread in my hand. Hungrily, it seemed to me. I broke off more pieces from the star bread and tried to fling equal parts of it to her and the rooster, but she dove for every crumb I threw, foiling the rooster at each turn.

I laughed in my seat and a man turned to me curiously, but what the hell. The birds were entertaining, I couldn’t help myself. The rooster even looked as if he were acquiescing to the hen, turning away somberly whenever she stole a crumb that he was already fussing at. Once or twice, when she pilfered another piece from him, he would express frustration by clucking in staccato or by dragging a single wing against the ground. Otherwise, he surrendered to the developments. I resolved to count the times when he managed to eat, and I came up to only four. In the meantime, the hen’s crumb-count must have shot up to over a tenfold.

Towards the end, the rooster just looked on wearily while the chortling hen snapped up the pieces. He wasn’t even trying to get to the bread anymore. I tutted at him. “How about that, big guy,” I said to him. “You’re all swagger and no balls. Why do you do this, are you under some spell, or what? Do her brown feathers leave you smitten and gasping for oxygen? When she clucks like that, do you hear violins? Did she bear your children?”

“Well, yes,” the rooster said to me, unexpectedly gifted with speech. “We actually have two daughters. And my hen eats like hell and she has a separate fridge in the house for her exclusive use. There’s nothing in it but chocolate and candy and ampalaya juice for her diabetes, what a riot huh. When she clucks, I don’t hear violins – I just hear clucking. But she’s not so bad herself, and we’ve kinda stuck to each other for 25 years already. There’s never been any other hen. And I let her have the bread because she likes it more than I do anyway.”

“Hey baldy, you’re stepping on a crumb and I want it,” the hen said to him.

All right, I’m kidding, the chickens and I never had a conversation. In the end, as I was leaving for Brian’s place, the rooster just straightened himself up and shat unceremoniously on the curb. I almost applauded.

Have a Happy Anniversary, Dad and Mom. Try not to kill each other.
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Take Me Away To Nowhere Plains

2007-04-10T20:17:00.000+08:00

I will whistle Beethoven for you.
- Robert Olen Butler

Fuck that shit. I shaved the day into a nub by re-reading Dirt Music by Tim Winton, alternately loving and despising the author for the homicidal beauty of his novel, the way a single paragraph – a single line, even – could plug up my windpipe and rip me awake by the sudden threat of tears. You fucking sentimental twat. Everything makes you cry! You oughta be ashamed of yourself.

Case in point: this afternoon, my sister rented a copy of The Da Vinci Code from the nearby video store (why she picked the movie escapes me), and I sat down beside her to watch it just when the film was slivering off into its conclusion. I caught a line tossed out by one of the characters, some silver-haired dame with wrinkles webbed out across her face, and she was saying to Audrey Tautou, Your grandfather wanted you to know that he loved you veeery much. Or something like that. It was so cheesy, anyone would’ve keeled over and laughed himself right into a straitjacket.

But I had to stand up and retreat to my bed, I couldn’t let my sister see that my eyes were pooling up and that I was sniffing back the drip into my nose. Fucking stupid. It was just one line, for godsakes, it wasn’t as if I’d been involved, it wasn’t as if I’d been trailing the plot from beginning to end. But there you have it, I can’t seem to put a lid on myself. Kick me in the shins, please. Thank you.

Anyway, Dirt Music did me in again. The first time I read it, the novel struck me whooping off the planet and onto Pluto, where the resident aliens (there’s an oxymoron) decided that I was a useless pisshole and punted me back to Earth. Now that I’m reading it for the second time, the effect is catastrophic beyond imagining. I keep on falling in love with one of the main characters, a shattered man who exiles himself into a distant island, a place bereft of other people. His move is marbled through with a desire to flee from his own history, and he is sick of the fallow hum of community gossip. Luther Fox, that’s his name.

In the island, his life is overtaken by a panorama of unremitting sunlight and the violent fluency of the ocean. His needs are whittled down to the most elemental ones. Luther swims alongside small sharks for recreation, and loneliness pushes him to converse with a Brahminy Kite arcing high above his head. The silence is unbearable for him sometimes, as this excerpt shows:

“It causes him to throw stones or break tree limbs to no purpose. He runs along the beach to kick up sprays of shell like a mischievous child and he yells until his throat is sore. He still can’t believe he’s managed to arrive here without a single book.”

And as these things go, he is jammed between the memory of a certain woman and her actual, stubborn absence: “Some days he thinks of nothing but the hairs on the back of [her] arm.”

Ah, these lovely bruised men. These fictional men, all of them just ink on paper, really, but why do they assemble themselves so seamlessly before me, tendon and semen and knuckle and hair? A voice, an eyebrow cocked, the surprise of a laugh pitching up from the gullet. The shy bump and shadow of an Adam’s apple. A whole life spread-eagle over 461 pages. If Luther asked me to, I would’ve gone with him to his feral island of manta rays and boab trees, I would’ve packed up in a second.

Goddamn that, get a grip, lady. He isn’t even real. This has to stop. Maybe I should get a job, get employed. But if that means sealing myself off into a cubicle, forget it, I’m not doing that shit again. If it means being bolted to a sighing PC for 8 hours while I dream about the next cigarette break, well, fuck me dead. Fuck me to the local mortuary. Fuck me straight into the gilded afterlife, if there is such a thing at all.
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Battersea Bardot, Come Down To The Station

2007-04-08T13:44:00.000+08:00

Now you're sitting on a Paris train,

Laughing at your own jokes again.

- Beth Orton

If I remember it correctly, I made an entry last year on the inconsequential things I busied myself with during Holy Week. This post will honor the season similarly, since I am of the conviction that Holy Week is an excellent time. It is an excellent time because in the hushed trickle of its days, the city’s roads are swept free of commuters and blaring horns and saliva, and I am permitted to remain in the flat and grow a farm of barnacles on my skin, not moving much, not doing much, just looking heavy-lidded at the walls or at my brown legs spread straight in front of me. I am licensed to do this, and I cannot be rebuked for my laziness. I love it all fiercely.

Before I go on, though, I want to publicly congratulate my cousin, Mia A. Paderna, for passing the 2006 Bar Examinations. The exams and all else involved in them – the coma-inducing reviews, the terrific expense, her sanity fraying in progressive degrees – was a bitch, a real pain to put up with, and she will confirm this statement with all the graphic passion you can distill from a romance novel. Even now, I feel a great swell of pity for her when I think of everything that she’s had to endure, such as staying with me and my sister for a couple of days here in our hot, cramped flat, with books lying akimbo on their spines and clothes littering the floor like slain warriors.

I can still recall how Mia went all bug-eyed when she surveyed our flat, her vision moving restlessly from one disaster area to another. The flat was in a total state of calamity. It still is a bit of a hopeless case now, but I swear to god that my sister and I were living in a radioactive zone then. At the rate we were going with the mess, I’m surprised that a new and errant appendage hasn’t yet sprung from my body, that I haven’t yet been maimed by all this possible exposure to radiation. One day, I will disrobe myself before a physician’s probing eyes and ask him, is there anything unusual here, is a third eye – or god forbid, a knob of a cock – growing under one of my shoulder blades? Can I make a fortune from it by appearing on Ripley’s Believe It Or Not?

For slogging through the exam and surfacing from the experience in one piece, I think Mia deserves applause – she, as well as all the others whose names appear on the list, including Brian’s older brother, Jefrie Sahagun.

Anyway, she will be coming here on the 23rd of April for the Oath Taking, and I have promised to attend it, to take her out for dinner and drinks, and to keep her company for as long as I remain an unemployed piece of tripe. I don’t mind any of this – Mia is perhaps the only cousin I have with a knack for heady fun and a mean sense of thigh-slapping humor, not to mention a deep affection for beer. I think we have good times ready to uncoil ahead of us.

-----

You are very certain about whom you like and whom you do not like. If anyone grates on your nerves, if anyone is at the very least potentially annoying, you do not give him the time of day, and nothing he can do will coax a reaction out of you. It is an easy, simple thing. You only hope that he will one day take the goddamn hint and stay away. You tire of being polite sometimes, and you are this close to asking him to please fuck off.

-----

But the years have instructed you to keep the words for rudeness folded away in the most vibrant pink of your throat. You feel this tiny secret crevice fill and thrash sometimes, not only for the sharpened words you hide there, but also for the other captive words that wish to leap out, words that are not at all angry or despairing or gnarled in every place. These words are soft as the belly of a flame and they whistle faintly in their ascent to your mouth and they are in each rare escape the language of the doves.
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My Only Weakness Is A List Of Crime

2007-04-02T17:40:00.000+08:00

Ate Monique, Dad, Me, and Mom

Mom, Me, and Auntie Malou

This is what marriage does to otherwise normal people.

=====

Presently, I have a small gash running its angry red tracks down my left butt cheek, an injury I sustained while bending over to retrieve my fallen hairbrush from the floor. As it so happens, I stuck my ass out not into empty space, but into one of the hooks propping our mirror up against the door. Consequently, I ended up with ripped underwear and a wounded derriere (that even rhymes!), and I howled in pain for a full minute or two until my sister smacked me on the side of my head.

I'm kidding. My sister never smacks me on the head. But I wasn't kidding about the ripped underwear and the blood appearing like a string of crimson beads on my rear end. I think that when the gods were doling out Grace and Poise to humanity, I was probably elsewhere, scrounging for chow. Or sleeping. And maybe my folks foresaw the way that my limbs would never comport themselves to the laws of elegant motion, so they signed me and my sister up for ballet lessons when we were pre-schoolers.

But I totally sucked at ballet, man. I was too fat and ungainly. And grace continues to elude me, even in adulthood. It wouldn't be such a problem if I didn't subject myself to so many little accidents from one day to the next.

A Portrait Of The Paramecium As A Disgruntled Paramecium

2007-03-20T10:00:00.000+08:00

Give it a rest, won’t you? Give me a cigarette.
- Morrissey

Girls and boys, I have something to tell you. I have discovered that it is, in fact, possible to devolve from your designated state in the natural order into a simpler, perhaps more plant-like one. It’s as easy as shucking yourself free of your clothing and then slipping into your pyjamas. If you’re especially skillful, you might even find yourself ranked among the protozoans, waving your cilia this way and that in the peaceable organic soup.

Because I am especially skillful, I myself have actually succeeded in devolving into a paramecium. Or at least, I think I look like one now, because I have not gone out of the flat for three days, and for some reason, am also singularly resistant to the idea of venturing out of the building. Motion feels like it is being conducted underwater or through some peaceable organic soup. All I do is feed, feed, and feed myself with detached precision. I don’t even enjoy the food much anymore, but I can’t seem to stop stuffing my face with anything that looks remotely edible. Koff koff. Oh, sorry, turns out that was a dust bunny.

Come and join the party!

I think I may also be losing my capacity for verbalization, and the closest I have come to speech in three days is grunting out vague noises to my sister, or asking her to go to the nearest 7-11 to replenish our diminishing supply of Coke Light. Because there is probably no other person who knows me as well as she does, comprehension is a breeze for her. In the meantime, I have been heartlessly – paramecia don’t have hearts – plying myself with the Nacho Cheesier! goodness of Doritos tortilla chips. If you pinch me in the midsection right now, you will, in effect, be saying hello to the circumference of fat piped around that area. Imagine those squeaky rubber toys. You and I could make wonderful music together.

(pinch)
Squeak!
(release)

I guess I might be classified as a paramecium of the sophisticated variety, since ordinary paramecia never consume Nacho Cheesier! Doritos or Coke Light. Nor do they have sisters that they can recognize, and ordinary paramecia don’t realize what a blessing it is to have a 7-11 glowing half a block from your flat. Nonetheless, I’m all paramecium, cilia-lined and unicellular: meaning, that I don’t have a brain, and I don’t have a heart, and I don’t have a fucking pineal gland, and when I eat Doritos and drink Coke Light, I am actually – get this – siphoning it through my oral groove. Nourishment goes schloop right into me. When I have to take a dump, my anal pore takes care of everything. I am so cool.

Being a paramecium is pretty neat, actually: I don’t have to try to look good, because looking good is a puerile activity I have absolutely no need for. Besides, you overweening humans have an altogether wonky notion about what good-looking should be, and for that, you ought to be shot. I can’t understand what you see in these Richard Gutierrezes or Sam Milbys or these Georgina Wilsons and Iya Villanias. They all seem boring or badly fed, not to mention wretchedly symmetrical. They look like they’ve just been wheeled straight out of some production line, right out of some factory in Beijing. Mannequins, all of them.

What I don’t get is this: why would you want to screw the brains out of a mannequin? That was a rhetorical question, so unless you want a mail bomb, don’t answer that. As I was saying, the mannequin doesn’t even have the brains for you to screw it out of, for godsakes. (Mail bomb.) And it can’t contribute to a proper conversation, it’ll just sit there and look immaculate in that facile, acrylic way. But maybe that’s your point. In which case you really ought to be shot, then quartered diced cooked, then fed to your own unsuspecting relatives who think the fare is ordinary caldereta and nothing close to human meat, until someone drops the bomb on them (I’ll volunteer for that) and then they’ll go retching and grasping at the tablecloth, the dishes and cutlery will all come crashing to the floor, and then the web of horror will be spun further on to every conceivable pole, all the way to Greenland or to Uzbekistan, HA HA HAAA!

But I shouldn’t trouble myself with all this vicarious bitterness. I am a paramecium and I don’t give a damn.

Because as a sophisticated protozoan, I don’t have to worry about dating and sexxx and genital warts. All I have to do is wait for the appointed time, and lo. I have reproduced by virtue of my mitotic powers. I have fissioned neatly into two autonomous paramecia, assuring my species of extended survival and inflicting no pain on anyone, not even on myself. No sputtering farewells, no sobs punctuating the evening gloom, no vacant-eyed corpses in the morgue. No more nights of unspeakable hyperacidity, agonizing over the fact that you and your greasy ex used to share bodily fluids, what a loser you must have been!

No, none of that drama. Paramecia are gentle creatures and adroit swimmers. Paramecium love is good love. Ask the Dalai Lama. Ask anyone.
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Well Now

2007-03-17T21:24:00.000+08:00

Hmm, good point.

Although --
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Take Your Filthy Hand Off My Thigh

2007-03-15T07:41:00.000+08:00

Why does it have to be so hard to lose weight? Why can't I be skinny like the rest of them twiggy girls? I hate it. I wish I could just get myself a cleaver and fillet all this flesh off me. Except that I'd probably need a truckload of anesthesia for that. And mops to sop up the blood.

I wish I had a cat.

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Velouria, Her Covering

2007-03-13T14:28:00.000+08:00

Tagged once again by Margie

1.You're stuck inside Fahrenheit 451. What book do you want to be?
I'd probably want to be Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. If you're going to torch me, I might as well be wicked for it.

2. Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?
Why, yes. Ira Holloway, the main character of Robert Olen Butler's They Whisper - as the novel's narrator, Ira was an average yahoo who was perpetually infatuated with a host of women, none of them swatches from the same material. I mean, he wasn't the sort who had a single type, the dames he went for weren't strictly beautiful the way today's airbrushed chicks are, but they each were – or so he claimed – stunners in their own small ways.

He was never duplicitous. And maybe he was too generous with his affections, but he never laid it on thick. He was always forthright. I half-willed his character to materialize from the pages in as corporeal a fashion as possible, but we all know how that panned out. Everything's in my head, apparently.

3. The last books you bought were:
The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
First Light by Peter Ackroyd
Hotel Du Lac by Anita Brookner
The Cat's Pajamas by Ray Bradbury

I bought all four books over the past two weeks. I need to think up of smart ways to evade financial ruin.

4. The last books given to you were:
The Double by Jose Saramago, given to me by Camille for Christmas last year.

Rumours of Another World by Philip Yancey. Jeremiah gave me a copy for my birthday.

Secret Bones by Alice Sebold, courtesy of Naya, a parting gift of sorts before she left for Tuh-rahn-noe.

Without Feathers by Woody Allen, this from Carlo, whose ass is totally being cooked in Singapore right now.

I sure hope I didn't miss anyone.

5. Three books that would have made more of a difference in life had I read them years earlier:
Providence by Anita Brookner. If I'd read that in High School, I'd have put a lid on all my delusions a long time ago.

Little Birds by Anaïs Nin.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Not to mean that it didn't knock the wind out of me – it did! I think High School would've been the perfect time to read it, though.

6. Three books I borrowed and don't want to return anymore:
I intend to return all borrowed books, except that I keep on forgetting to.

7. Three books I wanted to like more:
Why Are We In Vietnam? by Norman Mailer. It still hasn't yanked me in by the collar, and the first chapter is steeped in all these references to American culture. I'm putting the novel – and further judgments – off until I finally gather enough patience to read the damn thing.

The Guermantes Way by Marcel Proust. I'm sorry, but the first hundred pages bored the living daylights out of me. I've owned the book for nearly three years already, but I haven't gone past the beginning chapters to this day.

Amsterdam by Ian McEwan. It won him the Booker Prize, but I still think his other novels were much, much better.

8. Three books I pretended to have read:
Being And Time by Martin Heidegger. Eh putangina kelangan kong gumawa ng report para sa klase eh.

The Confessions of St. Augustine. Tanginang Medieval Philosophy. What a yawner that book was.

Yung textbook namin sa Theology 151. Kelangang pumasa.

9. Three books I am happy to have bought last year:
You Shall Know Our Velocity! by Dave Eggers
Independence Day by Richard Ford
Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon

10. Three books I wish I had written:
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
Enduring Love by Ian McEwan

And finally --

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. I can't even begin to imagine how much money he reeled in with all that drivel he wrote.
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2007-03-12T12:06:00.000+08:00

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There's something very attractive about the word tarantado.

TARANTADO!

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You Got A Problem With That?

2007-03-12T08:42:00.000+08:00

OH MY GOD, I GOT IT!!!

2007-03-10T23:15:00.000+08:00

It's fricative!!! The word is fricative!!!!

Putangina, gusto ko tuloy ng beer. Whoohoo!!!
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We'll Trampoline Finally Through The Roof

2007-03-10T23:05:00.000+08:00

Enough!

Over the past four hours, I have unsuccessfully tried to recall a particular word, I have subjected my memory to a remarkable flogging, trying to beat the fucking word out of it. In a while, though, if the situation persists, the Mystery Word will dismember me quite happily while I flail about in bed, begging for mercy. Shit. In the meantime, I’ve tried to distract myself by reading Richard Ford’s Independence Day, but I’ve failed at that too, since all I can think of is the word that I can’t seem to remember. I am now imagining a lot of hair-pulling in the future.

In fact, I am not doing my book any justice, because it is in all respects an excellent novel, and Richard Ford writes with an acuity so finely-tuned, every page threatens to spill over with intelligence. His language is flawless. His characters are well-wrought. The novel’s main guy, Frank Bascombe, is at every turn funny and disarming. If there is anything about Independence Day that I must complain about, it would probably be how reading it is a little depressing, because the main character’s sensibility is too palpably American, too goddamn Western, too resigned to the imminence of failure, too accepting of the expensive compromises that the heart makes so that when it expires, it does so only imperceptibly.

Shit, but that word, I just want to remember it, but I can’t!!!

Okay. What I currently have is a ghost of a definition. I know, at the very least, what the word means. It’s supposed to point to the sound that a consonant makes when you pronounce it, the word is subsumed in the field of Phonetics. I remember encountering the Mystery Word probably in mid-college, I may have been around 17 then; it was in a book I was reading, and the Mystery Word just reeled me in, it was there on the page and it was new, so new, I’d never heard of it before. I didn’t know what it meant then, but I looked up its definition afterwards, and I was perfectly glad with the discovery.

I can’t stand this. I don’t even remember what the word’s first few letters are. And my head keeps on dredging up a flotsam and jetsam of other unrelated words, all of them coming to me of their own volition, just a mess of syllables appearing, coalescing, and then separating.

Fumigate
Trafalgar Square (!)
Conflagration
Pilfer
Immunity
Funnel Web Spider (!)
Obstreperous

Shit shit shit shit shit.

I don’t know what to do anymore. I feel as though my head might just roll off from my shoulders and out the door in a minute or two.

Hold My Head

2007-03-10T15:15:00.000+08:00

Because I was tagged by Margie and Naya, let's get the ball rolling!

(That statement does not aspire to be logical. I make no apologies for that, either.)

1. One book that changed your life.
Well, maybe changed your life is a bit over the top. But if I were to name a title that shifted a good number of things here and there, it would be Ernest Hemingway's For Whom The Bell Tolls. Although I read voraciously in Grade School, I completely foreswore books in High School, believing them to be directly damaging to my budding social life. Piece of shit. Anyway, I did a decent job of the Social Animal Act, and the day after I graduated from High School, I couldn't resist the compulsion any longer: I went straight to the National Bookstore branch in Gaisano Mall and bought a copy of For Whom The Bell Tolls.

I don't think I've stopped reading since.

2. One book you have read more than once.
It's a tie between Michael Chabon's Werewolves In Our Youth and Stephen Dunn's Loosestrife.

3. One book you would want on a desert island.
It's another tie between Dave Eggers's A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius and Don DeLillo's Underworld. On a desert island, I'd probably need something massive, a book whose scope is a little more vertiginous than usual. These two books meet those requirements perfectly.

4. One book that made you laugh.
This is the day's third tie! That would be Dave Eggers's A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius and Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City. I still think that the latter is McInerney's best novel -- if you intend to buy any of his titles, my vote would go to Bright Lights, Big City. I bought a copy of Model Behavior some time ago, and was hugely disappointed. It was all shot up with crap, executed in a style which, I suspect, was supposed to prop up the novel's purpose -- in the end, however, McInerney's literary gimmickry crippled the novel beyond saving. And the plot smelled suspiciously of something that McInerney tried to pull off with Bright Lights. Ho-hum.

In other words, if you see the novel Model Behavior by Jay McInerney and are tempted, I suggest you run to the nearest exit as fast as you can! Can! Can!

5. One book that made you cry.
Oh, everything makes me cry. My fault is that I'm too easily moved. Maybe the better question would be Which book made you cry more frequently than most? I'd say Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey. It just kills me from chapter to chapter.

6. One book you wish had been written.
Self-Contradiction As A Moneymaking Machine.

7. One book you wish had never been written.
Ah, fuck. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, probably. Suddenly, everyone was a literary expert with smart things to say about pursuing your dream or challenging your limits, or whatever schmaltzy message the book was trying to promote. Fucking waste of time. I couldn't finish the book myself, the inspirational talk was making me sick.

8. One book you are currently reading.
Independence Day by Richard Ford. It's the Pulitzer Prize-winning sequel to his earlier novel, The Sportswriter.

9. One book you have been meaning to read
I have a stack of books waiting to be read, among which you'll find Hotel Du Lac by Anita Brookner, Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon, Couples by John Updike, and The Cat's Pajamas by Ray Bradbury. I know you were just asking for one title, but I guess I never follow instructions well enough.

10. Tag five people.
I don't tag people. But you're free to answer this Meme if you feel like it.
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The Better To Eat You With, My Dear

2007-03-06T17:50:00.000+08:00

“Grabe just walking to [Bellarmine Hall] makes you sweat na.
Pero if you’re, like, going to sweat, you might as

well sweat nicely. Tapos you can get a good tan pa.”
- From a conversation between two Atenean

girls in a Smoker’s Pocket Garden

“If there was only something between us other than our clothes.”
- David Bowie, The Heart’s Filthy Lesson

It was too far-off from 5:30 p.m., but I was already in school anyway – I knew that if I stayed much longer in the flat, I would go mad. I woke up at around 8:30 that morning, my body leaden from a night of drunken debauchery, the pile of Theology readings by my bed a visible reproach. As things stood, I had only – hmm – nine hours to study for my exam, but even then, I’d loafed around and smoked by the PC, listened to music, read a chapter or two from Anita Brookner’s Altered States, the latest book I’d bought for myself that week. It was such a languorous Saturday. The next thing I knew, I looked at the clock and it was half-past eleven, 3 hours spent on Nothing, my favorite preoccupation.

By the time I got out of the house, it was almost 1 in the afternoon, and I hadn’t even begun on the first Thesis Statement, I hadn’t touched my readings yet. I was going to be so screwed. To prepare myself for an afternoon of tremendous screwing, I went to the nearby McDonald’s and ordered a box of Chicken McNuggets, which I polished off while reading about the first stirrings of Liberation Theology in Latin America.

I walked to school soon after – along the way, everything seemed to jump out in sharp relief. There’s nothing quite like panic, shushed down and trussed up, to produce that effect.

For the most part, I hung out in the Pocket Garden off the side of Dela Costa, consulting my readings and smoking enough to secure the fervent love of tobacco companies everywhere. A young man in a pink shirt sat on one of the Garden’s benches. His shirt proclaimed, Tough guys wear pink.

Well, buddy, you don’t look so tough to me. In fact, you seem rather scrawny. A double cheeseburger will serve you well.

Ah-hah, but maybe he is tough. Perhaps when he says tough he is talking about chutzpah, the strength of the spirit, that sort of thing.

How do you know that, have you seen his spirit, is it strong.

I don’t know. But looks can be deceiving. Beauty is only skin deep. You should never judge a book by its cover.

Shut up. Tell me what the Pastoral Circle is all about.

The Pastoral Circle is distinguished by four very important steps: the dialogue with experience, social analysis, Theological reflection illuminated by a basic Christian faith commitment, and finally, orthopraxis.

Very good.

Sometime later, I proceeded to the area where the Oral Exams were being conducted. A few students were around, some of them seated with a look of active dread smoldering on their faces. Others were chatting brightly with fellow examinees. I took a seat and stared at a crack in the wall running uninterrupted from the ceiling to the floor. A scribble of ants was hurrying across one section of the painted concrete, and I decided to take a closer look at them. These were the sort with transluscent abdomens – if you bore down your palm on them, the air would fill with a strange, cloying odor.

It was then that I noticed the Sign-Up Sheet for our Oral Exams, the names written on it. More importantly, though, I noticed something I hadn’t seen before, an announcement for all Graduating Seniors: as it turned out, we were supposed to congregate on that very day with the University President for an event called Pabaon. Graduating Seniors from the School of Humanities were scheduled to meet with Fr. Nebres from 1:30 to 4:30 in the afternoon. I checked a clock ticking nearby: it was 3:15.

Shit.

I turned to one of the guys seated in the waiting area. “Excuse me,” I said, “but this thing with Fr. Nebres, are we actually required to attend it?”

“Oo, required yun. Pag di ka pumunta, di ka ga-graduate.”

PUTANGINA. “Seryoso?” FUCKING SHIT. “So ano pala yung ginagawa dun?”

The guy laughed. “Wala naman. Parang nagshe-sharing lang si Fr. Nebres about Ignatian spirituality eklat. The Ateneo tradition, yung mga ganun. Di ka naka-attend?”

“Hindi eh. I didn’t even know there was such a thing until a minute ago.”

“Ah, ganun? Pero pwede ka naman magsulat ng letter sa ADAA, sabihin mo kung ba’t di ka naka-attend. Gawa ka na lang ng excuse para maka-graduate ka.”

I nodded. “Ah. Yeah, I’ll do that. Salamat.” I thought for a minute, then turned to the same guy again. “I’m sorry, but is there anything else we have to do to graduate? I mean, apart from attending the Pabaon and passing our subjects.”

He looked at me like I’d just flown in from Pluto. “Oo naman! Yung Clearance. Di mo alam yun?”

Holy shit. “Clearance--?”

“Oo, Clearance. Sandali lang, ba’t di mo alam yun? Ano, kelangan mong kumuha ng Clearance Sheet sa Registrar’s Office. Tapos may mga pangalan dun, kelangan ng signature for each name.”

“Ha? Kelan ang deadline nito? Pasensya ka na. I’m really out of touch with the University: I’m three batches ahead of you, and I don’t attend my classes. I just need to take the Final Exams.”

“Ah, kaya pala.” He smiled good-naturedly. “Sa March 7 ang deadline, pwede mo pa siyang gawin next week.”

I thanked him again, and rushed off for a smoke to soothe my nerves. When I returned, he was nowhere to be seen – that guy may have been the only reason why I can finally graduate after seven years, and I never even got his name. I felt as though merely thanking him was insufficient, that a larger expression of gratitude was expected of me: the rest of my cigarettes, a fistful of money, maybe an impromptu song-and-dance number.
.

Next Installment

2007-03-05T06:52:00.000+08:00

It's been remarked that in most of my poems, animals figure abundantly, although this is something that I have never consciously worked at. But maybe this is why Mary Oliver is one of my favorite poets, because of the way she observes the natural world unflinchingly, the way those very observations are drawn hand-in-hand with deft insight. I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about. But do read this poem from her book, Dream Work.

Dogfish
Mary Oliver

Some kind of relaxed and beautiful thing
kept flickering in with the tide
and looking around.
Black as a fisherman's boot,
with a white belly.

If you asked for a picture I would have to draw a smile
under the perfectly round eyes and above the chin,
which was rough
as a thousand sharpened nails.

And you know
what a smile means,
don't you?

~

I wanted the past to go away, I wanted
to leave it, like another country; I wanted
my life to close, and open
like a hinge, like a wing, like the part of the song
where it falls
down over the rocks: an explosion, a discovery;
I wanted
to hurry into the work of my life; I wanted to know,

whoever I was, I was

alive
for a little while.

~

It was evening, and no longer summer.
Three small fish, I don't know what they were,
huddled in the highest ripples
as it came swimming in again, effortless, the whole body
one gesture, one black sleeve
that could fit easily around
the bodies of three small fish.

~

Also I wanted
to be able to love. And we all know
how that one goes,
don't we?

Slowly

~

the dogfish tore open the soft basins of water.

~

You don't want to hear the story
of my life, and anyway
I don't want to tell it, I want to listen

to the enormous waterfalls of the sun.

And anyway it's the same old story --
a few people just trying,
one way or another,
to survive.

Mostly, I want to be kind.
And nobody, of course, is kind,
or mean,
for a simple reason.

And nobody gets out of it, having to
swim through the fires to stay in
this world.

~

And look! look! look! I think those little fish
better wake up and dash themselves away
from the hopeless future that is
bulging toward them.

~

And probably,
if they don't waste time
looking for an easier world,

they can do it.

=====

And then maybe I'm feeling self-important for posting my own poem here, the last one I have written to date. This poem is set to appear in the pages of Dapitan Vol. 4, according to a recent entry by Ned Parfan. I think I wrote this on October of 2005, and since then, I haven't come up with anything new. Which sucks. But I hope to weasel my way out of this hiatus, as I have weaseled my way out of my Theology exam, or out of various unhappy circumstances in the past.

Black Ants

They came along with the mangosteen
Flown in from another city: black worker ants
Whose thoraces were still full and fat
When the package was opened and the fruit
Taken out. Seeing their frantic swarm, I thought

Of the other ants – three kinds of them –
Already sent out across the apartment’s walls,
Inside the cupboards, ant-feet to the drumbeat
Of the hunt. And now these black ants.
I imagined the bread-bin invaded,
The jar of peanut butter crowded into:
A new host of nuisances.

But even as I write, the intruders
Are breaking out into lone marchers, stunned
by the absence of trees, the unyielding concrete,
the fruit vanishing into our mouths.
They will want nothing here,
Will drop lifeless soon, when their bodies
Submit to the last, awful nibbling of hunger.
Meanwhile, the mangosteen trees sway
In Kidapawan, other ant colonies thrive,
Small birds hover, watchful.
Of what use now is pity

Or sorrow, when this is simply how fauna are ordered,
this is only how things are. Elsewhere,
In the proximate and the distant,
the hand of life persists, persists.
.

Small Oddities

2007-03-02T11:23:00.000+08:00

Today:
I saw a man with huge ears in the elevator. I mean, huge ears. I wondered if he could fly.

I saw one full-grown man pinch another full-grown man in the butt. The former winked and the latter giggled with pleasure.

A young man was singing to himself while walking down Katipunan Avenue.

Climbing up the overpass, I smiled at this lady going my way, except that I realized afterwards that I didn't know her at all.

Yesterday:
I rode a cab going to school, and it was very hot.

The cabbie was a woman.

The cabbie was a woman who looked like a man.

I saw my former Arnis instructor and pretended not to recognize him.

I had a phenomenal crush on him when I was a freshman, when he waved those Arnis sticks around during P.E. class. He was very sexy when he moved.

He looks like Garfield. He looks like a Mongolian Garfield. A Mongolian Garfield who can do Arnis.

I never said Hi to him because I was too embarrassed for my own desire, which, during that benign afternoon, had taken the form of a hairy beast breathing down my neck.

Two Days Ago:
Two guys overtook me while I went on my evening run.

A few minutes later, I overtook them.

These guys were assholes.

I didn't know them, but they were assholes anyway.
.

Under Strange Skies

2007-03-02T07:55:00.000+08:00

This will always be a favorite, written after Pieter Brueghel's The Fall Of Icarus.

The Fall Of Icarus by Pieter Brueghel
(Click on the image and direct your eyes to the lower right portion of the painting.)

Musée des Beaux Arts
W. H. Auden

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters; how well, they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
.

Your Tongue Is The Color Of Tang Owens Juice

2007-02-28T17:55:00.000+08:00

Hahaha, tangina, ang bobo mo talaga! Bobobobobobo.

Anyway, my folks are coming here on the 29th of March for my Graduation. I cannot believe I am graduating. In fact, I don't know where I can get a fucking toga, because besides the final exams anchoring me to the University, there's nothing that keeps me there, nothing, nothing! I don't know shit about what to do for Graduation Day. I don't know when it is, or where it will be held. I can only predict that wherever it is, Graduation Day will be filled with venerable Jesuits pacing around in the heat, faculty members hobnobbing with each other, and graduating Ateneans who will soon find out - with much chagrin - that they have been hoodwinked, there is nothing waiting for them in the real world, all their opportunities are lost, so they can all go to hell.

I don't even have my own graduation picture. Dad and Mom will just have to settle for my High School mug. Me with braces. I was actually the first person in our batch to have the damn things fitted on. And then everybody else finally got braces, and when they smiled, they had the colored elastic stretched around the brackets. But I was so uncool, my orthodontist was so uncool, so terribly outmoded, all he had were the clear ones, and of course, I didn't have a choice. And then at one point, he decided to be a little innovative and started using blue elastic, which we tried on my braces for a time.

But I went back to the clear ones. Besides, I've always hated the color blue. Blue is so boring, so bland, so stupid-looking, blue couldn't count from 1 to 10 even if you gave it a week to learn the sequence, even if you paid it a million pey-sows.

I don't know what to wear for Graduation Day.

Oh, I know!! I'll just show up in my underwear. Mismatched underwear! Yung tipong beige yung bra mo pero black yung panty. Or kung hindi black, yung panty mo na may flower-print. It's summer, anyway.

Cough.

I don't know what to do with the flat, it's a mess, it's always a fucking mess.

I can't stop eating Kitkat.

I can't stop eating.

I can't stop.

I can't.

I --

-- am sixteen going on seventeen, I know that I'm naïve. Fellows I meet may tell me I'm sweet, and willingly, I believe!

Ah, yes, the story of my life.
.

Not A Coincidence, Apparently

2007-02-27T08:35:00.000+08:00

November Spawned A Monster
Morrissey

Sleep on, and dream of love,
Because it's the closest you will get to love.
Poor, twisted child: so ugly, so ugly.
Poor, twisted child: oh hug me, oh hug me.

One November spawned a monster
In the shape of this child,
Who later cried:

"But Jesus made me so.
Jesus, save me from pity, sympathy
And people discussing me."
A frame of useless limbs
What can make good
All the bad that's been done?

And if the lights were out, could you even bear
To kiss her full on the mouth, or anywhere?

Oh, poor twisted child: so ugly, so ugly.
Poor twisted child: oh hug me, oh hug me.

One November spawned a monster
In the shape of this child,
Who must remain a hostage to kindness
And the wheels underneath her.
A hostage to kindness,
And the wheels underneath her.
A symbol of where mad, mad lovers
Must pause and draw the line.

So sleep and dream of love
Because it's the closest you will get to love.
That November is a time
Which I must put out of my mind.

Oh, one fine day, let it be soon.
She won't be rich or beautiful,
But she'll be walking your streets
In the clothes that she went out
And chose for herself.
.

Imagine That.

2007-02-26T09:31:00.000+08:00

Thanks to Joel for pointing me to this poem. Here's to cigarette breaks by the stairwell and Mitch Hedberg humor. Hehe.

The First Dream
Billy Collins

The Wind is ghosting around the house tonight
and as I lean against the door of sleep
I begin to think about the first person to dream,
how quiet he must have seemed the next morning

as the others stood around the fire
draped in the skins of animals
talking to each other only in vowels,
for this was long before the invention of consonants.

He might have gone off by himself to sit
on a rock and look into the mist of a lake
as he tried to tell himself what had happened,
how he had gone somewhere without going,

how he had put his arms around the neck
of a beast that the others could touch
only after they had killed it with stones,
how he felt its breath on his bare neck.

Then again, the first dream could have come
to a woman, though she would behave,
I suppose, much the same way,
moving off by herself to be alone near water,

except that the curve of her young shoulders
and the tilt of her downcast head
would make her appear to be terribly alone,
and if you were there to notice this,

you might have gone down as the first person
to ever fall in love with the sadness of another.
.

It's Not As Difficult As You Think

2007-02-22T07:32:00.001+08:00

The Do-It-Yourself Guide To Unquantifiable Happiness:
The New Step-By-Step Version!

Step 1: Visit your local supermarket or hardware store.

Step 2: Pick out a can of kerosene. If item is unavailable, any household product of proven flammability will do nicely. You will also need a scouring pad, as well as a box of matches.

Step 3: Fall in line for whichever check-out counter is appropriate (cash or card?).

Step 4: Pay for your chosen items. If you are settling the transaction through cash, don’t forget your change!

Step 5: Proceed to your own residence by way of your preferred route. Remember that you are not in a rush here! This is a delicate process and must not be accomplished in haste.

Step 6: Putter around the house for some time. 45 minutes of fruitless activity will thoroughly improve your state of mind.

Step 7: Review the items you have so far purchased, and range them on the kitchen sink. Place the can of kerosene (or its substitute) to your left, the scouring pad to your right, and the matches between the two.

Step 8: Keep two clean hand towels and a pitcher of water within reach.

Step 9: Open the can of kerosene (or its substitute)and pour some of its contents onto one of the towels. Rub all over face. Use more kerosene as needed.

Step 10: Discard the used hand towel.

Step 11: Strike a match and set your face on fire.

Step 12: Wait for around 8-10 minutes, your head ablaze by the kitchen sink. Resist the urge to drink water or any liquids. This is one of the most critical steps in achieving Unquantifiable Happiness! During this period when you are so patiently waiting, the flames are licking your face clean of your own features. Skin, nose, mouth, eyebrows, you name it!

Step 13: Once your skin and your facial features have been effectively obliterated by the fire, take the pitcher of water and pour it over your head. Remember to do this over the kitchen sink, so that you do not create a mess. Otherwise, Mommy will get really mad.

Step 14: When the flames have died, take the scouring pad and scrub away at every charred piece of unidentifiable gunk still clinging to the bone.

Step 15: With the remaining hand towel, buff your new and featureless head into a brilliant, captivating shine.

Step 16: Change into your favorite glitzy dress. What a relief it is, getting rid of that joke of a face. Now that you are Unquantifiably Happy, it’s time to party like the party animal you are!!

Note: Considerable hair loss should be expected. But you’ll be too happy to care by then, won’t you, you gorgeous sonofabitch. Ooh la la!
.

Would You Like Some Vitriol

2007-02-20T08:30:00.000+08:00

You're detestable, the whole lot of you, scattered willy-nilly across these 7,107 islands. I want all of you to just go to hell and rot there, they ought to throw every one of you into a pool of red-hot, bubbling lava. You and your diminutive swinging penises, whipping this way and that.

I'll always have my books. So eat shit and fuck you.

=====

Golden Arches Development Corp.
Katipunan Ave., Corner Rosa Alvero St.
McDonald's Katipunan
Official Receipt TIN 000-121-242-039 VAT

Eat-In

6PcNug 1 73.00

Total 73.00
Net Total 65.18
Cash Tend 100.00
Change 27.00

For roughly four months now, I've been eating Chicken McNuggets almost everyday, almost automatically. I can't help it. Maybe if I snorted a handful of ground black pepper with the same frequency, things would be more exciting.
.

But There's No Resolution

2007-02-19T10:00:00.000+08:00

Some weeks ago, she made a detour to Megamall after work, hoping to check out Mizuno's line of running shoes. She wasn't as floored by them as she expected to be, and she didn't find a pair that she particularly liked. To boot, the goddamn clerk was freaking the bejesus out of her, he was just hovering obsequiously nearby, pelting her with questions.

Ma'am, andami niyong hikaw ah.
Ang cute naman ng mga hikaw niyo.
Masakit ba?
Ilan ba yung hikaw niyo?
Saan niyo sila binibili?
Saan po kayo nagpa-butas?

She wanted to whirl around and tell him, “Go look it up in Google, dammit.” But of course she answered each question as politely as she could, barricaded Rudeness away in some unnamed corner of her head where it made indignant noises. She left the store shortly afterwards and visited an optical shop, where she eyed frames and wondered whether it was high time she wore glasses again. Her vision is shot, it is so goddamn shot that when dusk settles in, her world is populated by indistinct shapes and colors that bleed lazily into each other.

The shop's attendant approached her and guided her to a shelf of frames, then another. And then she looked at the girl's left ear and started asking questions about her piercings, just like the clerk in Mizuno did. Ang cute ng hikaw niyo, Ma'am. Hindi po ba masakit? Hindi po ba mabigat?

She marveled at this. This was the second time a stranger had asked her about her piercings in the last half-hour. It was the screwiest thing: with all the cuckoos traipsing around in their emo hair and their emo outfits, she'd have thought that her earrings would've attracted the least attention. In many counts, she looked rather ordinary. Except, perhaps, when she wore eyeliner, miles and miles of it over her eyelids, but she didn't even have the energy for that anymore. She saw the same people everyday, the same heads balanced on the same bodies, and the effort directed at trying to look good had lost what little impetus drove it in the first place.

She decided to head home, probably in an FX that would bring her straight to Katipunan in less than thirty minutes, and she cut through the mall expertly. It wasn't even four o'clock yet. Walking to the exit, she happened to pass by Le Coeur de France, and she flung an offhanded glance through its glass windows.

What she saw broke the cadence of her stride: it was a young woman seated all by herself, her handbag by her arm, a croissant untouched in front of her. And the woman was crying implacably, her shoulders heaving, and the girl caught the weeping lady at that exact instant when her mouth was tugged down at the corners in unapologetic despair, her sadness a looming monolith inside Le Coeur de France.

Maybe somebody died, the girl thought. Or the lady was dumped by her boyfriend. Or she went bankrupt. It could've been anything. It bowls her over sometimes, when she thinks of how everyone is a vessel of stories, all those stories stowed away or tipped out into other vessels, so many of them, millions and millions, all those stories swimming naked or undisclosed.
.

Happy Banana Day

2007-02-15T12:58:00.001+08:00

Normally, Valentine's Day doesn't coax out a lot from me, not even the briefest grunt. In the previous years, I've always met the day with some dumb amusement, and Valentine's was often concluded by a few rounds of beer with a couple of friends. But yesterday, I was flush with an extraordinary amount of good cheer, I was ready to greet every stranger with a peck on the cheek!

It was preposterous. I was seriously beginning to annoy myself. I called it Happy Banana Day.

During the lunch break, I trouped over to Megamall with Camille, who was planning to buy roses for both her mom and her boyfriend's mom. As for me, I was fiddling with the notion of buying a flower or two, which was odd, because I didn't care much for them. Flowers have always been curious things for me, and I've never quite understood why a bunch of roses could easily be a romantic statement. I would have to agree with the observation that women are baffling that way: give them a bouquet of flowers, and kapow! they start twittering like sparrows on heroin.

But I always make room for a few anomalies. And yesterday was one big fucking aberration, aberration spelled out with fat hearts and dopey-eyed lovers, and I wanted to get flowers, I wanted them, goddammit. In Megamall, Camille and I went through the flower shops, stalls where masses of suffering men were waving around 1,000-peso bills.

I peered over their shoulders to look at the buckets of flowers. I didn't want any old rose, certainly not. And the tulips looked so goddamn demure, it felt wrong to even try touching them. I rejected the mums and the lilies in a second. Maybe this isn't such a hot idea, I thought. The men stood sweating and smelling of Axe, picking this rose and that, pointing to a bucket of lilies, it was crazy.

And then -- !

-- this pail of absolutely lovely flowers was sitting right there, oh holy fuck, they were the most gorgeous things ever. And the men were so conspicuously ignoring it, they just clamoured for the stupid roses and the stupid tulips, and that pail of flowers was just stunning, stunning, stunning. I called to one of the girls behind the counter, and asked for three of those flowers, and I didn't want them wrapped in plastic or stuffed in a box, I only wanted a ribbon to hold the stems together.

I asked for the name of the flowers: I couldn't recall seeing them anywhere before, they weren't the least bit familiar. And the girl shrugged and gave me the name, it began with the letter Z. But all the men around me were so loud, and I plucked myself from that crowd and all those limbs knocking against each other.

I held the flowers in one hand and my brain became all flossed out and strung through with sugar. It's incredible what some flowers can do to you.

Me and the flawwers.

Later in the office, Google informed me that I'd bought Zantedeschias, a fancy name for Calla Lilies. Officemates swooned when they saw the flowers. “Wow, may Valentino ka pala ha! Who gave you the flowers?”

I beamed. “I bought these, actually.”

“Aww, that's nice. Para kanino?” Wink wink.

“Well, ah, for myself.”

“---”

“See, they were so pretty, I couldn't resist, I just had to have them.”

“Ang labo mo talaga.”

In any case, I hope everybody had a Happy Banana Day. Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.
.

Onion

2007-02-13T08:13:00.000+08:00

Last night, I dreamt that a red onion had taken root and begun growing on the top of my head.

It was a very very small onion. It was less than two centimeters wide, but its roots were long and knotty. Later in the dream, though, a friend had to yank it out; she said it wasn't very attractive to have an onion sprouting from my scalp.

It's great to have sensible friends around!
.

All's Well That Ends Well

2007-02-12T07:00:00.000+08:00

I am told that people think when they run. There was a story I heard once of this Jesuit, this old priest who cooked up his fanciest mathematical theories while sprinting around the campus. I remember being amazed. What genius all those busy veins and arteries must have produced!

What goddamn genius.

I never think when I run. When I run, I am nothing but live muscle and breath.

=====

Your name, I decided, should be Maurice Bishop. Have you read that novel by Anita Brookner, Providence, it’s called? Your name is Maurice Bishop. I will be Kitty Maule.

What I learned is this: you have to watch out for your own imagination, Kitty Maule. You have to clothe yourself against its sly winking eye. Because that goddamn imagination of yours, it will be your undoing. It will give your doubt the casual shape of an open door.
.

Almost A Bullet

2007-02-08T07:57:00.000+08:00

When I stepped out of the cab that Sunday morning, I saw them in the pre-dawn light, a country of them barrelling towards me, the slap and thud of feet whole in the air.

It was my first race ever and I was late for it. Holy mother of god.

Over the past week, I was mostly on tenterhooks about the 4th Animo! Run, an annual race hosted by the De La Salle University Running Club. Evil Ike coerced me into signing up for the race with him and his girlfriend, and my anxiety expanded when I learned that I wasn’t as efficient a machine as I thought I was, given that I’d been much slower in my evening runs lately. And to think that I registered for the 10-kilometer race! What a dumdum.

The race itself was to be held on the grounds of the Mall of Asia at 6 in the morning, and after picking up a bottle of Gatorade from the nearby 7-11, I flagged down a cab and sped right to the venue, almost an entire city away. By the time we swerved into the mall’s parking lot, the runners were already 15 minutes into the race, and I rose from the cab open-mouthed. I can’t begin to tell you how incredible they looked, all these men, women, and kids – kids! – shooting past me, all that collective, anonymous strength.

Luckily enough, I wasn’t the only numbskull to arrive late for the race, and I headed off for the starting line with a large bunch of other folks. We were a funny sight, tugging at our shoelaces and tying up our hair, cantering all the while. I decided I was being stupid for getting so nervous about the race: most of us seemed like beginners here, and a lot of the participants who sprang off early were already slowing down to a leisurely walk. Others ran at intervals, walking then running, then walking again.

It was also my first time to go running on asphalt, and I picked up on the difference instantly. Compared to Ateneo’s concrete paths, the asphalt roads circling the Mall of Asia were kinder to the knees. Running there was delicious, delicious! Like Crispy Pata! Like a 2-inch steak, medium rare and a little bloody! Like togue!!!

Previous to the 10K race, I only had a piddling idea about the distances I covered while jogging, and I flattered myself by guessing on the miles that my legs could ring up. But during the Animo! Run, it hit me that my usual evening route was a midget, a pipsqueak beside The 10-Kilometer Bully. The other runners who signed up for the 5K race were required to finish just one lap – we, on the other hand, were supposed to negotiate the circuitous course twice.

And those 10 kilometers felt like a goddamn eternity, they felt awesome and outrageous, they felt like pure hot song, all those things at once. I couldn’t stop running, I didn’t want to, and the sun climbed higher and higher into the domed blue. I thought then that I would rather die than quit in the middle of the race. Sometimes the very air seemed stripped of oxygen, and I would tell myself to slow down a bit, I had to remind myself about those 3 kilometers still unfurling ahead of me.

Look: I wasn’t gunning for a medal, I wasn’t on a mission to set a record for myself. My only aim was to finish the race as swiftly as possible without pausing in the thick of it. (I also wanted to overtake as many folks as I could, which might make me an asshole, but that’s all right.) When the finish line hovered into view, I broke into a sprint faster than I’d ever gone. I sailed through the last few yards unsure of everything but the mute quickening of my own blood and the asphalt underfoot – I had never felt so fantastic in my entire life.

I mean, holy shit!! Why get laid when you can run?

All right, I’m kidding. Getting laid and finishing a race are probably of equal impact. What’s easier to accomplish of the two depends largely on you or your genetic make-up. Or on the frequency with which you brush your teeth.

When the race was over, I did the necessary stretches, retrieved my backpack, and began looking for Ike. The parking lot was humming with talk, runners and their friends gathered in separate little coteries. Everybody was guzzling down sports drinks and horsing around with each other. I squinted in the sunlight, took out my phone, and sent Ike a text message.

Dude, san ka na?

I kicked aside a few water bottles and wove through the crowd. A car honked somewhere, and laughter rippled across one section of the parking lot. Around 15 minutes later, my phone’s message alert went off.

New Message
Ike Sulat
Read Now?

Yes.

Man, sorry! Kakagising ko lang...hope you had a good run.

Ay putangina.

Ike Sulat, I will never let you live this down, do you hear me?? I mean, you invite me to this race, and then you don’t wake up for it at all!! Classy, real classy. This is sort of like the time when you proposed to go jogging in Ultra, and then you got the both of us lost, do you remember? You said, Peach, jogging naman tayo sa Ultra! Maglakad na lang tayo from the office, alam ko kung pano papunta dun. And I said, Sure, sige ba! And we walked and walked and walked, and then we got lost, you stood there scratching your head while the cars scooted past us and down the length of C-5.

And then it began raining, and we got soaking wet, I had this stupid tiny umbrella that couldn’t accommodate two full-grown bodies. And when we finally found our way to Ultra, we didn’t even get to jog – we ended up drinking instead! Honestly, Ike, bumawi ka naman sakin. Libre mo na lang ako ng beer, hehe. Kahit dalawang bote lang.
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The Horror

2007-02-02T13:08:00.000+08:00

I am now a snail. Officially.

Since Monday, I'd taken up jogging again, executing all the two rounds of my normal routine despite the unnaturally chilly weather. Over the past few days, the entire metro has taken on the identity of a fridge – breathe, and you can almost feel the air cleaving its cold path through your respiratory system. They say the winds are from China or from disassembling glaciers, although I haven't verified the truth of either claim yet. In any case, I think most of us are pretty glad with the change in temperature: I, for instance, can now move briskly under the noonday sun without breaking into a sweat or looking like a primary source for Minola Oil.

Well, to tell you the truth, I still look like a primary source for Minola Oil. Even in cold weather.

Anyway, I've been told that the frigid weather could make running a more taxing endeavor, but I thought nothing of it and jogged anyway. Well, holy shit. Monday night, I ran without stopping for a good 45 minutes, only to find as I got home that my shirt was dry. Dry! It was then that I remembered how I'd run all over the campus, the way my hair swung freely behind me in the evening chill. There was hardly any sweat, and I could've sworn that an icicle was forming obstinately at the tip of my nose.

Now – I do know my body, I know its usual schemes for keeping up with me. And in the past, I would come home from jogging with my shirt drenched and my limbs slick. For fun, I would ball up the shirt in one hand and catapult it at my sister, who would then squeal dramatically like a stuck pig. Running was always victorious at keeping me gross.

Although Monday's run defied that pattern, I was up and running again on Tuesday night, and when Wednesday came, I hit the streets once more. The evening was no less cold, and the wind drove needles into my skin, hundreds of them whistling to every pore. I overtook a guy, two guys, a million guys!!! They collapsed on the curb, tearing their hair out and cursing their infernal potbellies. I trampled over them, and they clamoured for mercy, the soft-bodied slugs they were.

When I was done, I checked the time to see how long it took for me to accomplish the entire run.

53 minutes.

FUCK.

FUCKING SHIT.

FUCKING FUCKING SHIT.

By December of last year, I was already running two full rounds in a matter of 35 to 37 minutes, but now, 53 fucking minutes?? FUCK! Fuck to the 10th power.

I am currently in a mild state of terror, especially because evil Ike has just recently convinced me to join a La Salle-sponsored race this Sunday, and we both signed up for the 10-kilometer run. As I type, I can see my runner's number in all its printed glory sitting squarely against the computer monitor. It says 1129. I can see it happening now. Runner No. 1129 getting creamed at this race, finishing last, roadkill for all the other racers, her right cheek glued to the asphalt and a few teeth knocked out. Runner No. 1129 will be a superb wreck.

I might as well be running in my leather pumps. Stilettos. Tangina niyo.
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How Can You Not Love This?

2007-01-30T11:21:00.000+08:00

America
Simon and Garfunkel

“Let us be lovers, we'll marry our fortunes together.”
“I got some real estate here in my bag.”
So we bought a pack of cigarettes and Mrs. Wagner pies,
And we walked off to look for America.

“Kathy,” I said, as we boarded the Greyhound in Pittsburgh,
“Michigan seems like a dream to me now.”
It took me four days to hitchhike from Saginaw,
I've gone to look for America.

Laughing on the bus, playing games with the faces.
She said the man in the gabardine suit was a spy.
I said, “Be careful, his bowtie is really a camera.”

“Toss me a cigarette, I think there's one in my raincoat.”
“We smoked the last one an hour ago.”
So I looked at the scenery, she read her magazine.
And the moon rose over an open field.

“Kathy, I'm lost,” I said, though I knew she was sleeping.
“I'm empty and aching and I don't know why.”
Counting the cars on the New Jersey turnpike,
They've all gone to look for America.
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Meme No. X

2007-01-24T10:55:00.000+08:00

Filched this from Brian.

When was the last time you got drunk?
I usually stop when I'm comfortably buzzed or drowsy from the alcohol. Pissing drunk, though – the last time would've been around May last year. I was in Stir-Crazy with a bunch of people from the office, and after rounds and rounds of beer, tequila shots were passed around like death sentences. Sometime later, I was found crawling to the pavement, literally on all fours, throwing up like there was no tomorrow.

What's your favorite style of socks?
White ankle socks.

One big gift or a bunch of little gifts?
One big gift. One very big gift. One very very big gift.

When is your birthday?
November

Who's your best friend?
I have multiples of that. It's impossible to have just one friend topping the hierarchy.

Do you like energy drinks?
Not particularly.

When was the last time you went to a carnival or a fair?
A carnival!! Damn. If Enchanted Kingdom counts, then it's been almost a year since.

Do you like upside down rollercoasters?
Absolutely.

Have you ever witnessed/been in a wet t-shirt contest?
Nah. It's funny, though. I and the other neighborhood kids used to prance under the rain, and some were in shirts, and most of us were topless. Even the girls had nothing on, save for a pair of shorts. This is an irrelevant memory, but it's cool to retrieve it now.

What're your favorite kind of chips?
Anything, so long as they're smothered in cheese.

What's your favorite aquatic creature?
The anglerfish (obviously).

Ever drive your car on a sidewalk?
No. But I did drive the family car right into a canal: one of those narrow, concrete affairs, all angles. Dad and Mom were in Kidapawan, and I snuck out the car in the afternoon. I'd just learned how to drive then. I was practicing the whole parking shit when I backed into a canal, wedging the front right wheel into the yawning gap.

I laugh about it now, but during that time, I was panicked and desperate, I chewed my nails down to veritable stumps. I paced around the car, tried lifting the damn thing out of the canal (which didn't work, naturally). In the end, I got myself out of that fix by calling on a couple of hooting construction workers two blocks away. They heaved the car out, my problem was solved, and I rewarded them with litres of Coke and loaves of bread.

I confessed the incident to Dad a year later, and all he did was laugh at me. I was expecting him to blow his top.

Would you rather bake brownies or cookies?
I wouldn't mind baking both.

What's your favorite coffee flavour?
Not much of a coffee drinker. When I do go for coffee, I just have it black, with a few packets of Equal stirred in.

Aspartame will save me, if no one will. Hahaha.

Do you own a knife?
I used to own a Swiss Knife, the real deal. I lent it to someone and he lost it. Damn.

Right now, I own two kitchen knives. They aren't even all that sharp, which is a bummer when you're chopping up tomatoes.

How many scars do you have on your body that are non-surgical?
Lots of them. I'm a klutz, and the fact that I play airsoft on weekends doesn't help me much. Mom used to have big dreams for my legs, but she was forced to chuck them. She had to: my knees make out with the earth at least once a year.

What is one turn-off about someone you are interested in?
Stupidity.

What is one turn-ON about someone you are interested in?
Stupidity. I know, I know. I can't understand it myself.

Do you own a fish?
I had one when I was a kid. I bought it from one of the peddlers stationed outside our school, and the fish died promptly within a week.

Do you think there's other life in the universe?
I am in cahoots with them.

Do you sleep with your bedroom door open?
No. Unless I want the entire floor to see me and my sister sleeping buck naked.

Are you the type who can sleep anywhere if need be?
Definitely. Give me a horizontal surface, papatulan ko yan.

What are you mostly addicted to?
Cigarettes and beer, I think. And McDonald's Chicken McNuggets.

Are you supposed to be doing something else instead of this survey?
Let me tell you something. I'm always supposed to be doing something else.

What will your wedding song be?
Marriage is for morons.

How many times do you say "fuck" a day?
You don't want to know.

What's your most-used swear word?
I use a lot of them in equal measure.

Do you fear death?
Nope.

What's your favorite video game?
I don't play video games. Unless you count Free Cell, Solitaire, and Hearts. I'm dull that way.

Are you currently dating someone?
Yes. I am currently dating Chicken McNuggets.

Do you like to play football with your friends?
---

Do you like big crowds?
It depends. I find them exciting sometimes. Other times, I just want to hurl a hand grenade in the middle of them and watch the viscera fly.

When was the last time you checked the time?
I hardly do.

How bored are you, exactly?
Well, gee.
.

2007-01-22T09:35:00.000+08:00

He had your hair, exactly like yours. He walked the way you did. I had to hide myself behind a parked car.
.

No More REM For You, Kiddo

2007-01-19T12:37:00.000+08:00

I will be talking about last night's dream. A lot of it won't make sense.

Walking down a street in our subdivision, I noticed a crowd gathering, the air alive with murmuring. As it turns out, the entire neighborhood had collected themselves right in front of our house, and I saw the people craning their necks, angling their bodies to get a better view. A female security guard ambled by, and I stopped her with a few questions stewing in my head.

“Why's everybody here? What's going on?” I asked. She disclosed that a certain Lito died in our house while drinking by himself: his liver just plain quit on him, and a glass of scotch was found half-empty by his corpse. Lito was a poor carpenter in his 40's, had a girlfriend who was crazy about him, and whose only fault lay in his untrammeled love for good Scotch. How he was able to afford expensive alcohol on a nightly basis was a constant puzzle to friends and fellow carpenters. All in all, I learned that Lito was regarded as a pretty likeable fellow, and even when his organs were pickled in Scotch most of the time, he was never ever a difficult person.

But that night, drinking in our house, his liver gave one last resigned gasp, it flipped over and declared itself useless for all intents and purposes. And then he bled copiously from the inside, his skin broke in places were the blood could not be contained. He died swiftly, it was only a matter of one minute proceeding to the next.

I squeezed my way through the crowd and saw Lito's bloated body slumped over our dining table, one hand limp, blood dripping down each finger. Our living room was redolent of decay, the place stank of offal in the thick of decomposition. Nearby, his sobbing girlfriend was caught in a tight ring of hankie-wielding sympathizers.

A bulldozer rumbled through one wall of the house, tearing down a large section of concrete and lifting Lito well above our heads.

I saw that Lito had very long lashes, they curled upward in a pretty fringe. I thought then that if he were alive, I might have fallen in love with him.

And then the tractor slid Lito's corpse straight into a clear polyethylene sack, which was sealed shut soon after. My parents arrived as the spectators trickled out of our front yard. Dusk set in, and Lito's body, sheathed in plastic, lay serenely over our dining table. Candles were lit around him, and my folks decided that for the night, Lito's body would have to be consigned to my bed.

“But I can't sleep with a dead body in the same room!” I protested.

“Well, we know that. We'll sleep in your room instead and keep watch over Lito. Right now, you'll just have to sleep in our bed.”

I walked over to the living room and watched the moon. A veiled threat hung weighted in the evening air.

The next thing I knew, I was standing over Batman(!), who was supine on a steel-topped table, weeping like a girl. Tree branches sprang from beneath his skin, their wooden forms shooting up to the ceiling.

.

.

.

I don't know where the hell Batman came from. I don't know how he could have been connected to Lito in the dream. But that's exactly what happened.

Who in god's name is Lito, anyway??

=====

Three days ago, I woke up at 3 in the morning, panic knifing me straight in the gut. The alarm clock was ringing, and all I could think of was that F had gotten married the previous week. Oh my god. He got married. And he never told me about the wedding. He will never tell me about the wedding. And, ah, he married a girl named...uh, Jane! Yes, Jane. Shit, he got married. Fuck fuck fuck.

I can't understand how I might have gotten that idea. I haven't heard from F in a long long time now, and I'm not the least bit psychic. I couldn't have dreamt it, because I don't remember dreaming anything remotely tied to F being wedded. And I don't know who the hell Jane is, where that name came from.

My imagination is going wonky on me. Hoo boy.
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2007-01-17T14:39:00.000+08:00

Damn. Touch, Peel, and Stand by Days of the New is such a sexy song. Call the band a one-hit wonder (which indeed they were), but that song sure packed a wallop, all sticky and heavy and sugared. Like Christmas Ham. Which is not sexy. But that's all right!
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