More than anything, it is always the death of someone or the end of an event that makes you stand still and listen to your own solitary insignificance.

----------------
It somewhat saddens me - the fact that I cannot even make an effort to wake up early in the morning to jog. I, instead, go to the gym now to make up for lost days. Thirty minutes on the treadmill, for me, does not constitute a real run. You miss out on a lot of things- the first kiss of fresh air, sounds of people waking up, the day slowly unraveling.

We still have the best mornings. Upon waking up, everything seems to have that old, blurred quality, as if you were stuck wallowing in an old photograph. And in the photograph, whispered promises of better things - an untangled life, a greater good, a future happiness. This is probably why a lot of Filipinos are incurable optimists. (This is not meant to be taken as a compliment)

-----------------

My friend A, who works for a monthly, was asked by her boss to do a write-up on a boy, all of 12 years old, who is an advanced chess player, a talented instrumentalist, and a wunderkind of sorts. This boy has ADD. But A (who became a blood sister of mine during our days at the Journalism Department at UP) is supposed to write about how normal this boy is when really, there's nothing usual about him.

So I ask her, what are his interests, what are the games that he likes to play?

She tells me he has no friends.

Okay, I ask, favorite breakfast? Crispy meteorites? Salty Mars men?

Nothing that special. Sausages, I think.

Oh okay, that's normal enough.

It's hard enough to begin an article, she says, and now I'm stuck with an opening paragraph that
has the word sausage in it.

Sounds juicy, A.

--------------
I do not appreciate my having memory lapses at this day and age. Especially in the business that I am currently in, I cannot afford to have misplaced adjectives and spilt infinitives.

Note to self: Resume reading the dictionary.

----------------

Margaret Atwood on writing:

“I look back over what I’ve written and I know it’s wrong, not because of what I’ve set down, but because of what I’ve omitted. What isn’t there has a presence, like the absence of light.

You want the truth, of course. You want me to put two together. But two and two doesn’t necessarily get you the truth. Two and two equals a voice outside the window. Two and two equals the wind. The living bird is not its labeled bones.” – Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin

-------------------

The perennial question: Which would you choose, what you want or what you need?

I think you choose this - the thing that you want - because it is something that you have not owned; a treat that you can’t have on a regular day like you would something as usual and expected as a toothbrush. A need is a given, a sum of laid out parts. You consider its consistency a weakness, something that you can do without. And you say, I’ll get it tomorrow or some other day or next year because you know that you only have to look sideways and there it is – on shelves, inserted in books, stuck in the limbo of your neglect and its love.

With something you want, there will always be that element of surprise, that strange perfection, an urgency that overwhelms. It is the grotesque apple, the calming hour, the sudden crisp smell of cinnamon when you close your eyes. It is devoid of banality because it is unknown and oblivious. It weaves itself in and out of your cup of regret. Tucked in your shirtpocket, drowned in your cigarette smoke, wrapped in your blind faith. In spite of all this, you reject its presence in your life because you are afraid of saying yes to weakness yes to probable events yes to upheaval.

Still you reach for it –this thing that you want- and keep it hidden from everyone else. You can’t let other people see you hanker after it, what with all the private hunger going on.

----------------

At the gym, there is a trainer named Jayne. She looks so much like her. Or what I imagine her to look like. This infuriates me most nights but I refuse to be taken in by my recollections. But seeing Jayne here is like having her around, in the flesh. It makes her less of a myth, which frightens me. My imagination has gone amok. She is squished under the leg crunch machine or helplessly pinned down by one of the more muscular weightlifters, her eyes reduced to little black x’s. But I decide that I’m being too cruel and am doing Jayne an injustice. I am sure that she is a lot nicer and doesn’t lack the necessary characteristics to qualify as a human being. She smiles patiently at me when I can’t complete crunches. The smile hangs on her face like a dangerous ornament, a curved amulet.

------------------

My former Journ classmates from UP and I are collaborating on a blog account that we’re planning to put up soon. The ideas that we have gathered so far are both stimulating and refreshing, to say the least. Most of my Journ batchmates have managed to pursue their/our craft (sniffle), so I’m sure they are better writers now than they were before.

I’m not going to mention the specifics yet since we haven’t sat down and discussed everything. Everyone involved wants to do things right, especially since this would ,again, involve writing for the public.

------------------

It’s almost summer. Can’t wait to enroll in a workshop.

-------------------
Admittedly, I am not longer a Sexton fan. But there are really some poems of hers that still strike me numb.

Like this one:

For Johnny Pole On The Forgotten Beach
Anne Sexton


In his tenth July some instinct
taught him to arm the waiting wave,
a giant where its mouth hung open.
He rode on the lip that buoyed him there
and buckled him under. The beach was strung
with children paddling their ages in,
under the glare od noon chipping
its light out. He stood up, anonymous
and straight among them, between
their sand pails and nursery crafts.
The breakers cartwheeled in and over
to puddle their toes and test their perfect
skin. He was my brother, my small
Johnny brother, almost ten. We flopped
down upon a towel to grind the sand
under us and watched the Atlantic sea
move fire, like night sparklers;
and lost our weight in the festival
season. He dreamed, he said, to be
a man designed like a balanced wave...
how someday he would wait, giant
and straight.

Johnny, your dream moves summers
inside my mind.

He was tall and twenty that July,
but there was no balance to help;
only the shells came straight and even.
This was the first beach of assault;
the odor of death hung in the air
like rotting potatoes, the junkyard
of landing craft waited open and rusting.
The bodies were strung out as if they were
still reaching for each other, where they lay
to blacken, to burst through their perfect
skin. And Johnny Pole was one of them.
He gave in like a small wave, a sudden
hole in his belly and the years all gone
where the Pacific noon chipped its light out.
Like a bean bag, outflung, head loose
and anonymous, he lay. Did the sea move fire
for its battle season? Does he lie there
forever, where his rifle waits, giant
and straight?

I think you die again
and live again, Johnny, each summer that moves inside
my mind.

updates

Birthday bash

Last Friday, M, a co-worker of mine, and I left the office at around 9pm, went and paid our bills at Slimmers World, and decided to go out and celebrate her upcoming 24th year of existence. We went to Gilligans at Festival and were appalled by how crappy the place looked but since we were too tired and lazy to even think of going to ATC, we decided to rough it out.

We sat on a couch and were talking our way into a frenzy when she noticed that there was this man, three o'clock, who was taking pictures of us. Of me, in particular. He kept aiming his cam at us and we were motionless for a while, stay or go, we couldn't decide. The place was packed with people and we wouldn't be able to find another seat. We were expecting our drinks so we decided to stay put for awhile, glancing from time to time at the weird man with the weird mustache in the weird overalls.

So finally, after 10 minutes, our request to be relocated was granted. We specifically stated: a seat as far from masculine activity as possible. When we got there, we couldn't even really talk since the showband that performed that night had their instruments up so loud. After our few pathetic attempts to restart our previous conversation, we decided that it would be better if we called it a night. So we went home, slightly disgruntled and very tired. Our feet ached and she laughed when I said that I felt like I was really 80.

Funny how taxing it is to unwind these
days.

Once there was a way, to get back home

It says on the receipt they gave me, in exchange for my P100 bill (that I was hesitant to let go of), that I commited an infraction against a particular indecipherable ordinance written on the receipt.

I jaywalked. I don't know if there is such a word, but that's what I did. I thought it was okay, really, because there were three of us (all women. tsk, tsk.) crossing the street. The stringy policeman, who looked so much like the mangongotong in the Pugad Baboy Strips, said to the women, Hoy bawal dyan. He even laughed a little. To my surprise, he asked me to stop and chat awhile. He said:

"Hindi mo ba alam na bawal tumawid dyan?"

I was skeptical, to say the least. I really did not need to go through this conversation with a policeman who looked like he hasn't bothered to shave for a week since I only had roughly three hours sleep 'cause I went to The Outlaws' gig in Katipunan. I was a bit irritated and decided to play the dumb provinciana role I usually use to get
myself out of particular scrapes that I generally commit in the city. Inspite of all my sordid attempts to look dumb and innocent (o yes, they are two different characteristics), my plan was foibled. I decided to lay it to him straight so I told the freaky Pugad Baboy character look alike that I did not have money on me. And I said, with the cheekiest voice that I could muster at seven fucking thirty in the morning:

"E bakit yung mga babae, tumawid tapos pinalagpas niyo?"

So basically, my horrid attitude did me in. He called in a restback, a policewoman who looked like she wrestled when she was younger. He said Woman, take care of this worthless infidel, and she took me by the elbow and led me to the third floor of the Muntinlupa City Hall. I yakked all the way to the third floor and I was so aware that I was already making a nuisance of myself. I truly applaud her restraint. She talked to me calmly, guaranteeing that she would make sure that next time, all violators would go through the same process. Because I am the spawn of two loveable but extremely skeptical people, I told her outright that I did not believe her. Then she said that just because others were let go doesn't negate the fact that I violated one of their ordinances. She left me on the third floor, staring at a woman
surrounded by dilapidated chairs in an otherwise empty floor. She shoved the receipt at me and held out her hand.

I wasn't mad because I was fined for a violation that I clearly committed and I am glad that the policeman wasn't the usual mangongotong. It just felt so unfair - the way he let the other two women get off without so much as a reprimand and I was stuck with walking all that way to the friggin city hall alone.

But I paid the P100 fine. Was still mad afterwards.

---------

After my horrendous experience, I walked to the bus stop (ever so careful of pedestrians, this time) and my heart absolutely sank when I found out there were no air-conditioned buses. I will not feel guilty about sounding ditzy. Really, I needed a break. Since there were no buses of the sort that day (according to the conductor), I decided to board the ordinary buses. After I paid the fare, I fell asleep.

I woke up to the sound of spattering raindrops. Everyone else were closing their windows. I left mine defiantly open. I faced the window, closed my eyes, and felt the raindrops fall on my cheeks. The bus radio played The Platters' Only You. I felt like I was four again and alone in the house on a rainy afternoon. I remember holding tea parties for my books. I smile and sigh a little. Can't wait to get home.


--------
Overheard a woman calling her daughter 'Nil Anne'. That's the way she pronounced it, anyway. Fancy naming your daughter after nothing.

Names are wishes, Papa believed. You are a slate. Someone else's history is written on you. Eventually, when you are strong enough, you will have your own story, written on someone else's bright face.
--------

Antonio

So, when I arrived at the apartment, my brother's friends were there, eating lunch and laughing. Such happy boys.

I kiss my brother on his shoulder (I sadly cannot reach his face and he is not too keen on stooping) and he introduces me to his new girl. She is a slight person, has a small frame ( so like Mommy, before she had me). I think of her as shy, but perhaps she's just not accustomed to strangers. But I won't be one for long.

I am happy that Anthony has found someone. Not that there's anything outwardly awful about being alone. Actually, I would've preferred that he be by himself for awhile so that he could have time to do some thinking without some other voice clogging his questions that only he can answer. But I guess, nowadays, especially since Christmas is almost here, it will be hard for either of us to be alone.

Anthony actually takes more after Papa. Ma's stoic soldiers. My brother, so far, has had only three girlfriends. He will be turning 21 this November. Like Papa, he has
never had a roving eye but they both appreciate/d seeing beautiful women. And they were/are both very frank about it.

Anthony is not much of a charmer. But he has an earnestness in him, a sincerity that I think appeals to women.

If there's one thing I'm proud of, it's the fact that I was raised by and have grown up with such achingly faithful men.


I am happy that Anthony has emerged out of the rut that his ex left him in. I am happy that he has lived up to one of my father's most fervent hopes - that we both be undefeated by other people's shortcomings; that we never wait for anyone, no matter what the consequences would be. One can only hope for so much, after all.

Round Robin

I am beginning to wonder why I find it so hard to rouse myself out of bed these days. Is it because I feel so light lately (FYI for those who are not in the know: I am finally dieting), that even the mere idea of getting out of the house seems preposterous? Or is it because I am finally ready to admit that I am tired of the place I am headed to?

----------

I also wonder why my being on a diet is such a big deal around here. Yesterday, two of my officemates came up to me and kept snickering and giving me unsolicited advice like : don't starve yourself, it's not like you'll be committing a mortal sin if you eat chips, blah blah blah. This irks me. a lot.why do people feel the need to take it upon themselves to insinuate their petty little concerns into my life?

----------

So today, M told me 'You look better now. I think it's working.' Thank God. Not that I was about to give up on myself.

----------
Yesterday, too, my good friend, MP told me, ' Let's you and me get out of this dingy office.' Our office is anything but dingy but we decide to leave our cubicles anyway. We get two cups of free coffee from the vendo and step outside. We feel the cold air on our faces and remember that it’s almost January. We are suddenly pensive, as if someone, or something, is about to leave us.

----------
Speaking of departures, my supervisor up and left us. She is now working in the other site. Funny, when she was here, I wondered what I'd feel when her voice no longer existed for me. I was appalled by the fact that I didn't feel anything. Zilch. Nada. Zero. Then I remember - this is usually how i respond to departures, to inevitable losses. A barrier redeems itself in my mind, saying that it doesn't matter. Things will remain separated. I believe this, at first. Afterwards, on some random morning, while reading a book or staring at the living room lamp, I cry for no reason.

----------

A gem that I found through the poemhunter site. Written by Yehuda Amichai (a favorite of Langston Hughes), translated by Chana Bloch:

Forgetting Someone

Forgetting someone is like forgetting to turn off the light
in the backyard so it stays lit all the next day

But then it is the light that makes you remember.

--------------

When in doubt, restart

--------
I owe my father an apology for feeling, for the first time in my life, the need to be like other people. Is it really all that bad, Papa, to be on the safe side of things for once? (In my head, my father says, Surely you mean insipid. Foolish can be a good word. Not safe. Never safe.)

----------------

Someone sent me this email yesterday. It's an excerpt from one of Murakami's books, Kafka on the Shore:

"At any rate, you--and your theory--are throwing a stone at a target that's very far away. Do you understand that?"

I nod. "I know. But metaphors can reduce the distance."

"We're not metaphors."

"I know," I say. "But metaphors help eliminate what separates you and me."

A faint smile comes to her as she looks up at me. "That’s the oddest pickup line I’ve ever heard."

"There’re a lot of odd things going on---but I feel like I’m slowly getting closer to the truth."

"Actually getting closer to a metaphorical truth? Or metaphorically getting closer to an actual truth? Or maybe they supplement each other?"

"Either way, I don’t think I can stand the sadness I feel right now," I tell her.

"I feel the same way."

-------------

B told me this interesting anecdote (antidote?) yesterday about an ex-boyfriend of hers. I call it "Actual Conversation with a Lemming."

EB: Miss ko nang alagaan ka, puntahan ka senyo. Tapos nood tayong movie.

B: Yeah, but we can't do that anymore 'coz we have both moved on.

EB: Saan?

----------------

Marguerite Duras on desire:

"I acquired that drinker's face before I drank. Drink only confirmed it. The space for it existed in me. I knew it the same as other people, but strangely, in advance. Just as the space existed in me for desire. At the age of fifteen I had the face of pleasure, and yet I had no knowledge of pleasure. There was no mistaking that face. Even my mother must have seen it. My brothers did. That was how everything started for me-with that flagrant, exhausted face, those rings around the eyes, in advance of time and experience."

--------------


Check out Harvey Finkle's photographs in his series, The Readers:

--------------

It's always best to end things with a song:

Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses
U2

You're dangerous 'cause you're honest
You're dangerous, you don't know what you want
Well you left my heart empty as a vacant lot
For any spirit to haunt

Hey hey sha la la
Hey hey

You're an accident waiting to happen
You're a piece of glass left there on the beach
Well you tell me things I know you're not supposed to
Then you leave me just out of reach

Hey hey sha la la
Hey hey sha la la

Who's gonna ride your wild horses
Who's gonna drown in your blue sea
Who's gonna ride your wild horses
Who's gonna fall at the foot of thee

Well you stole it 'cause I needed the cash
And you killed it 'cause I wanted revenge
Well you lied to me 'cause I asked you to
Baby, can we still be friends

Hey hey sha la la
Hey hey sha la la

Who's gonna ride your wild horses
Who's gonna drown in your blue sea
Who's gonna ride your wild horses
Who's gonna fall at the foot of thee

Oh, the deeper I spin
Oh, the hunter will sin for your ivory skin
Took a drive in the dirty rain
To a place where the wind calls your name
Under the trees the river laughing at you and me
Hallelujah, heavens white rose
The doors you open
I just can't close

Don't turn around, don't turn around again
Don't turn around, your gypsy heart
Don't turn around, don't turn around again
Don't turn around, and don't look back
Come on now love, don't you look back

Who's gonna ride your wild horses
Who's gonna drown in your blue sea
Who's gonna taste your salt water kisses
Who's gonna take the place of me

Who's gonna ride your wild horses
Who's gonna tame the heart of thee

---------------

country daisy juxtaposes

peter mccormick, i know why
you do not love me.
it is because i am normal.
mediocre, if you may.
i know that you've seen me put the
tissue roll face up. my knees are bowlegged
and scratched a bit. when i was in highschool, i won the science
prize for best in original manuscript.
i whistle in the dark. i believe in God and go to the church regularly to pray for lost souls like tommy harris who painted the town billboards red
last may. i do not drink aspirin. i paint molehills out
of obtuse planets. there are days when i like singing
in the rain. i am a cliche, a round robin.
there are no secret crannies that i plan to take you to.
with me, there would be no nameless lovers
popping out of nowhere, like they do in cinemas.
i have never been to the Pentagon. i have a difficulty
playing scrabble and am comfortable talking in txt lnguge.

oh, peter mccormick, my malady is this:
i am not at all banal. when i wear my hair a certain way
or don a new pink blouse, do you not notice that i am as unique as everyone else?

For M

they whispered about her infront of her children.
they claimed that they remembered her, or rather

the christmases when everything she bought them
did not fit. this was a sign, they say, that she never bothered

to know them - why their feet were made of
sand and stone during the times when they

were children. she was a mystery to the youngest sister for she ran off to a convent and said prayers to a god

whom she denounced years after, finding
the right footstool for her faith

and knowing somehow that she
would always be better than who she was

then - a hollow child who breathed her life into words and dreamt of gold to fill herself, instead of mopping the floors and helping mother

create kamote sweets to feed the rich. rich is what she wanted to be. imagine the length of chances, the various lives she can lead.

her dreams were monsters, they say. she was undone, disgruntled, reimbursed from gods she did not acknowledge. her children hear them whisper that she died of wanting,

of having known hunger. it is late and they decide to move on to the part of the narrative when it is already night time. in the scene,

she has snapped. she is commanding everyone to move out of the house she had bought with foreign blood. she screamed at their mother. imagine that.

disregard the fact that all her life, there were no arms around her. disregard the fact that she was a stranger to them - a stray wound that everyone forgot existed.

this is their favorite memory of her - she lying on a yellow sofa,
death leaning over her shoulder. she is whispering that she is sorry

but by now, she doesn't know that she's even saying it. or to whom. it was the morphine talking, carelessly moving around,

finding resurrection in her veins. it told her stories
of grandeur, stories that she passed on to her frightened children.

in her passing, her sisters do not remember her loving notes.
they do not remember her smiles that said see me. know that i am here.

but they are reminded of everything else - the smell of weakness on her clothes, fistfuls of her tears, her loss. they smile a knowing smile.

her children, orphans now, do not say a word. they traipse
down to their newfound sadness and wonder if it is

all true. but when they dream, they see the bright blue flame of her body. she advises them not to hurry towards her.

in the morning, they remember their hearts, so constricted with love that again, they are emptied out.
---------------------

this poem is for my mother, who always smelled of summer rain.

Come, I will tell you

the one true story of my life.

you might find it disconcerting because it does not include passion.

there are no descriptions about daffodils rising forward; no solace in boredom.

my life is made of soft velvet.

it is a story that begins with smoking fat cigarettes at dawn and ends while chasing new promises around corners.

in it is a dew drop mixed with the milk of the cities and the slow waiting of harbors.

my life is a lover who has forgotten about the way i smell.

it is a hand let go, suddenly.

indeed, there are deaths of remonstrations.

there are swift songs of the wind.

in it, too, is a crease on a page and hole in the nook.

it is me saying o yes, innocence with cherries on top please please god.

my life is a cat that licked the rest of the cream. it was always a hungry little bugger.

at times, it is a window. you must not use it as an alleyway.

there are always pictures of me walking against traffic, carrying salvation in a purse.

i am a mountain of kisses and a grave of clocks.

(you are in it. you wake me up sometimes.
and with my eyes open, i look surprised everytime i realize that I am still here.so much so that my mouth opens, gapes into a balloon that is flying towards something, always farther away.)