Monthly Favorites: October 2015

This is a bit hard to do. October flew by so so fast, I'm hard-pressed to think of anything that registered as a favorite. But this might be a good exercise, thinking of something that brightened up the month, regardless of how little the month left an impression. I do want to lessen the feeling that time is just speeding past, but I don't want to feel in the moment if the moment is full of shit anyway. Hence, the need to dredge up the good things, above all others.

But I digress. On to the favorites:

1. The 2 hours of peace and quiet that I've been having most mornings. I requested for a change in shift at work, so I had to time in at 7 and leave at 4. (Everybody else is supposed to come in at 9.) I am NOT a morning person. (Come to think of it, I am not an evening or afternoon person either. I'm just a sleepy person.) So this change was hard---why-don't-I-just-kill-myself-hard. But arriving early at the office turned out to be good for me. I don't think I got more done at work, but it is soothing, to be able to sit down alone for a good two hours before keyboards start clacking away, people start to walk around, and messages start clogging up my Skype. It's by no means chaotic, but I always found it slightly harrowing to come in when things are like that.

Weirdly enough, I went to Bangkok earlier this year and I had 7 days of peace and quiet, because I went alone. And I didn't like it. I was lonely. Happy to be in Bangkok again, but lonely nonetheless.

2. I finally got started on braces. Let me clarify that I am not happy to be wearing them. They aren't as painful as I thought they would be, but they are annoying. The thing about them that brings me joy is that I am paying for them out of my own pocket, and I am not borrowing from anyone to do so. Financing your own life is always a great feeling, isn't it?

3. Roasted rice tea. In some countries, apparently, roasted rice tea is a very humble product. Too easily available, unlike, say, certain varieties of green tea (I forget which) that come from plants that are hard to care for. But I tried roasted rice tea for the first time in October, and it's quite fragrant and comforting. In spite of being warm, it reminds me of frozen pinipig in coconut milk, a cold dessert which happens to be another favorite.

That's all I have for October. But my horoscope says November is a time for things to pick up. My fingers are crossed.

Monthly Favorites: September 2015

I love YouTube. In fact I got a postpaid data plan JUST for YouTube. I don't text that much, I don't call that much, so theoretically I would get by with just a prepaid phone number. But I can't be bothered to watch TV, because the shows are too long. I don't really like listening to the radio, because I can't get through two minutes without fiddling with the channels. So I have to pay for YouTube, for my passive entertainment needs.

And I'm a sucker for monthly favorites videos---YouTubers would just sit in front of the camera showing/telling you about their favorites for the month. Most of them would whip out makeup, wearables, whatnot. So soothing to watch, haha.

And since this month has been nothing but a clusterfuck of fuck yous from the universe, I thought, why not take a page off those YouTubers' books and catalog the things that made the month tolerable? Maybe it would prevent me from whipping out an anvil and smashing my own head in. And so here they are. My favorite things/people/events for the month of September:

1. Nadine from that government office I've been bugging for my thesis---I am working on my Master's thesis, and getting the data has been a source of grief. I've expected the back and forth to take about a week or two. Obviously, it's taking MUCH longer. Apparently, I am requesting data that is sensitive in nature, so there needs to be lots of deliberation before the office can decide on whether they'll give me the data or not. I can angst about this right now, but let's not bring that kind of shit on this blog.

Now Nadine answers the phone for that government office, and she is just SO helpful. She can't give me the data, of course, but I appreciate how she gives me updates on who she's bugged on my behalf, and how (e.g. 'I left so-and-so a note and talked to him when he was here, so he won't forget about your case'). It may not be a guarantee of anything, but it eases my emotional suffering.

2. The movie, 'Heneral Luna'---I doubt I have anything new to say about the movie. The goriness of the movie stressed me out, and perhaps there is merit to what detractors say, i.e., that the movie is simplistic. But it is beautifully made; it is filtered enough to present its thesis to the average moviegoer; and it speaks to the issues of my time. And it is inspiring. It is inspiring that a young person made such a movie, and that the producers (businessmen, generally portrayed as opportunists in the movie) backed it up financially. And now it's an entry to the Oscars. What an exciting time for the arts, indeed.

3. The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf---Always quiet enough to let me study (or pretend to study), and with the friendliest staff. I really should learn the names of these nice people who ask me how my breakfast is going, and leave me notes with my coffee.

4. My trip to Japan, which is materializing at last---Even as a kid, I've always been fascinated by Japan. And this month, a friend and I scored really really cheap tickets. We're going in March next year, and the day-to-day planning (by my friend, because I mostly just toss in requests and say yes to whatever she proposes) is a high point of my day.

I guess that covers it. And now, I guess life isn't any better just because I blogged about my monthly favorites. But I must admit, I am feeling better. Onward to October.

Wishful Thinking, Thesis Data Edition

There were too many days spent buried under the bed, turned away from the sun outside. I had gone pale, gray, a shadow of my former self.

"Come out and play," my friends would say. "It would make you feel so much better."

"No it won't," I would answer. "I have no reason to go outside." And I stayed in bed, festering like a sore. I had no desire to play, to rise, to open my eyes at the start of every morning. I had stopped dreaming at night, and stopped noting the times I would drift off to an empty sleep.

And then you came along. And it was like opening all of the windows. The sun was shining through at last.

Wanted: Plane, Ship or Flying Dinosaur (Or Why I Am Blogging Again)

I used to have a forest, but I can’t find it.  Before, to enter, all I had to do was stare at a wall really, really hard.  And sooner or later, I would come across someone I’ve never met.  Once it was this man whose job was to extract memories from small, everyday possessions.  (Whether he extracted memories to help amnesiacs or solve crimes hasn’t been revealed yet.)  Then I met this little kid whose mom died.  Only, she doesn’t seem to know, because she pops into the classroom of one of the teachers in her school, and everytime she comes she is bearing a gift.  So sure is she that this teacher looks just like her mother, and that they are one and the same.  My forest was a forest of voices.

Perhaps I’m losing it because I spend days and days editing the same text for the same product.  I write a lot too, but I write about the same thing.  So now I’m afraid that too much time spent on rules of style and grammar have pruned and swept and manicured my mind—and now I’m left with a proverbial hedge along a sidewalk.  Oh, I still hear voices, but I want them all to shut up, because they all belong to me.

And those voices I am losing, I haven’t heard their whole stories.  All I see is the hedge and the sidewalk, and I’m afraid that I’ll never walk a woody, overgrown path again, to bump into the man extracting memories and the kid bearing gifts.  I’d love to sit with them and chat, but they came to me in dreams, or while I was at the supermarket, picking out shampoo and toothpaste.  Who knows where they live?

Perhaps I wasn’t any fun to chat with, because (le gasp) repeatedly I brushed them away, busy figuring out if chief of staff is hyphenated (no), if spaces should come before and after an em dash (no) and if the em space is any bigger than no space at all (yes).*  So now I am stuck with a few repetitive voices, all mine, and I would rather listen to anything but them: They tell me that I ought to be creating spreadsheets for my budget, chant that I’m slowly but steadily going through the seven deadly sins, and suggest that maybe, just maybe, I should drink a nice gallon of vodka, and perhaps find a roomy oven to stick my head in.

And so, I promised to just string one sincere word after another.  Maybe, after pages and pages of them, I would have enough to weave into a plane, a plane of words.  Or a giant drill, a ship, or a flying dinosaur.  Anything to get out of the straight and narrow and into the forest, with its unknown monsters.  And we can live creatively and prolifically ever after.

*Notice to my employer: Not that I don’t enjoy my work—truly, I do.  But a chat with a man who can give you a video of your first kiss by scraping a bit of the material off your old tube of lipstick—that beats proofreading company brochures, everytime. 

Today, I Cursed Some Generations

Practices That Merit Malevolent Curses

1. Trying to flag down a jeepney in the middle of the night.  Especially when you aren't sure which could get you home.  You are new at work and haven't gotten your commute down pat yet.  You are new at work, but have already been asked to render overtime.  So much for having some time to smell the flowers after you punch out from the daily grind.  The only flowers you smell are those outside houses mourning their dead, reminding you of what could happen to you at this hour, if you don't get a jeep.
2. Getting into a jeep and then discovering that the driver has selective hearing.  Asked if his jeep passes by the Taft MRT station, (twice) the driver says yes.  30 minutes later, he takes it back, saying, I thought you meant MRT, Quezon Avenue.  Those stations don't sound alike to me.  Imagine that.
3. Having to get off a jeep in yet another new, unfamiliar stop, because of said driver's selective hearing.
4. Finding the right jeep, but having to get off again, because a couple of minutes after the driver has taken you in, he realizes that no, he isn't going to Baclaran tonight after all.
5. Finding yourself in an unrecognizable place that looks straight out of a Carlo Caparas rape movie because the driver has decided to ask you to go flag a new jeep right as he was driving through it.

The Process of Malevolent Cursing

1. Rant: Not everyone has a sense of direction, you know. It isn't a goddamned bucket of rose petals, ending up lost and bargaining with God in the middle of the night. I know it isn't the driver's problem, but what does a girl have to do to get some assistance around here?
2. Curse the jeep drivers, with their sins of ommission and their sudden decisions to drop you off in places that could really use more lights.  
3. Curse their children, too—that they may lose all sense of direction until they are unfit to become drivers of even toddler carts, so that they would be unable to carry on the bwiset practices of their fathers. 
4. Realize that you have cursed a hell of a lot of children.  And we're only talking about one night.

Here's My Body. Take Any Part You Will

Something that I dug up and pieced together again:

The soft recesses of our mouths—they will one day wait for someone, and when that someone does not come, desire makes makes the soft recesses feel dry to our own tongues.
The spot between the neck and the bone of the shoulder—it will one day be forever at the ready for the weight of someone else's head.
The arms—they  will seem to grow as long as they do to wrap completely around somebody.  Or at least hope that if they happen to be short, somebody still ends up fitting inside the circle that they make.
The stubborn softness of our bellies and the swell of our own bodies—they will stay to keep hurting those we wrap around and roll with.
Sharp, protuding bones—they resist pads of fat, because there will always be those willing to hurt a bit when skinny people reach out for a hug.

Of all the shapes bodies become, whether through eating, working, or just letting be, isn't it delicious to think that somebody, someday will want and fit with that body of yours?

Notes to Self While Getting Lost on the Way Home (Again)

I dislike long roads in cities, not because I easily get tired, but because I easily get lost.  Who would think it possible to get disoriented along an avenue?  The path is straight; still I lose my way, because of the derelict houses and dark shops that seem to shift and move ominously as I move forward. I am always compelled to pause, turn the inevitably wrong way, and forget what jeep or bus I should be boarding next.  Five nights of wrong buses and lanes, each one a testimony to strengths I lack.

Once, it was dark when I took the wrong bus. I got off and grasped, as an adult, the fear of the dark for the first time.  I think it feels the same as hearing words from that mouth, and not believing that that beloved mouth can mouth words that sharp and strong.  It can't be, I think, feeling like a child pushed into a van hurtling in the dark, with drivers unknown, no parent to hold my hand.

In moments like these, I want a map, to tell me what bus to board, what word to say, which place holds monsters. Or a promise that eventually I would be found, if I keep feeling my way home.