Daytime of the night

Last night, an hour before curfew, I thought, "What if I walked around with my KATIPUNAN press pass? Will the checkpoint people consider the magazine as a "legitimate" publication? Can I say, Arts & Lifestyle, dude. Step aside? And if they insist on taking me to jail, can I say, I don't think you should do that. You know who my boss is, huh? April Jo-han-na Sescon, mo'fos!?"

Last night, at curfew, I thought. "What if David Blaine was having a show in Luneta right now, where he has to stay inside an aquarium for nine days, and what if he can't take it anymore, he has to leave the aquarium because all his blood vessels are bursting like longganisa and no one's around to help him? And, besides, will the aquarium be considered as his home, that if he leaves it by some splendirrific magic trick, he'll get sent to jail?"

Last night, an hour into the curfew, I thought, "What if the curfew simply goes on and on and on and let's say all the bathrooms in the building conked out and I desperately have to pee and the only place I can do it in is in the freaking bushes across the street?"

Last night, two hours into the curfew, I thought, "What if I went out right now? What if I went out disguised as a homeless person carrying a tattered Lucky Me carton over my head, singing Adeste Fideles? Would they bring me in? Would they falter when I raise the carton higher and say this is the only home I recognize, mortals!?"

Last night, three hours into the curfew, I thought, "What if my dad is out right now? What if -- Oh, shit."

Last night, four hours into the curfew, I thought, "What if someone from, say, Croatia, has been planning to serenade me? What if he planned to do it in such a grand manner that he'd drop out of the sky from a hot air balloon painted with stars? What if he gets shot because they all thought he was a terrorist, because the white mums he has in one hand could be a bomb and the guitar case slung over his shoulder could be a rocket launcher? What about this chance at true love?"

Last night -- well, this morning -- at five, I thought, "What if Art imitated life?" But it was in a dream.

They've boarded up the cinema

Fast, labo updates before I head off to the great abyss that is a long weekend:

1 - At 11:24 this morning, my mother texts: Will not meet. Trillanes is walking in Ayala. And I had an image of him simply walking. On his way to lunch probably. I bet he had no idea na tapos na yung recess sa hearing. And did anyone else see that military guy with the Lucille Ball wig?

and so

2 - Because Sen. Trillanes "exercised his right to exercise," I couldn't watch Enchanted. And the government has announced a 12 MN to 5 AM curfew -- or so my mother says; I think she just wants me to stay put, hehe. So today's plans scrapped, tonight's plans down the drain . . .

therefore

3 - I had to keep myself from going mad. Staying in bed wasn't an option, since my dreams of becoming a vegetable have been temporarily put on hold in lieu (leyooo, fuhnee) of higher aspirations, such as, well, uhm, not being a vegetable. And since I'm lazy, I ignored the heap of schoolwork gathering dust in a corner of my shelves. And since last night Yaps told me to get a Facebook account . . . well. That was that. (Add me!)

and last night, too,

4 - I went back online after living under an internet-less rock for a few days, and found out that Joey Nacino and Sir Ian Casocot won the first and second prizes (places?), respectively, for the fiction category of the (clicking Google, wait, wait, wait) Philippine Graphic/Fiction awards. :) Yey! Congratulations po. Much hugs to you.

In conclusion

5 - Happy long weekend, errybooty!

5432: Scenes from childhood

Six years old, a decidedly simpler time: my mother always working, my father forever disappearing, my brothers mere blobs. No lectures yet on preferring Barbies over GI Joes, no reminders to stay off trees and leave them worms alone. I climbed over stacks of gravel in empty lots, skirting raisin-shit of goats, chasing after dragonflies. Later, when all their wings have been torn off, I would be on my knees, cupping my hands through puddles, in search of tadpoles. Later, I'd throw rocks at boys and call them names I've overheard from shirtless men in kantos, holding lapad in one hand, with a sleeping baby balanced on their pot bellies. My knees are primed to bend that I could duck; those days, boys threw stones back. Later, I'd be running from Aling P's projectile slipper and/or Mang T's askal pets, a melon ice candy burning my grubby hands, sineguelas lumping my shorts pockets.

I would come home at six to catch Ghost Fighter. My brother Joshua on top of the table, covered in chicken grease and baby powder. My brother John in the middle of the bed, barricaded by pillows. My mother's spare pearls inside a box on the dresser, change from my father's pabilin money beside that.

And then the maid would screech, "Putangina kang bata ka, saan ka na naman nagsususuot?"

I would have loved to say, "Defying stereotypes, getting lost", but the words are as yet unknown to me, not to mention too long -- she'd whack me on the side of the head anyway (conveniently where the mud has not caked on my curls) because I dared show off my English skills.


*


The weekend after my first few days in kindergarten (the career girl at four years old). My father is cutting my hair.

We are in the front porch of our bungalow-type apartment. His red motorcycle is to my right, the green wire cages housing chickens are to my left. Behind me, my father is singing a Bon Jovi song in an operatic voice. Every once in a while, he will tell me not to laugh so much, lest my fidgeting make him tear a bald spot through my hair. Obediently, I'll quiet down. Sometimes, a hiccup comes out. Snip-snip go the scissors, the roosters would crow. I wanna lay you down on a bed of roses, my father will sing again. He is so close, I can feel his chest rumbling before he bellows, not an unpleasant pressure on my back. For tonight, I sleep on a bed of nails. I giggle. He will tug my shortened hair gently. Huwag ka malikot, ineng.

Snip-snip go the scissors. Cock-a-doodle-do crow the roosters. On and on, my father sings and in a moment, he will not be able to keep me still.

My father goes on singing. Two inches of my hair pattern themselves into intricate curlicues on the asphalt floor.


*


My parents are sitting in our wicker sofa, side by side. Behind them, on the wall, print-outs on scratch paper from mother's office, proclaiming Ba-Be-Bi-Bo-Bu.

My father is wearing slacks, my mother's hair riots in curls to her waist. Both of them cradle a bundle of blue and white blankets.

I inch closer and closer to them. I am holding out a glass teacup I'd kept inside the freezer the entire day. I have drawn flowers all over its crystallized surface using my finger, not yet three years old, as is the rest of me.

"Look what we have for you," says mother, her perfect English drawing me closer.

And so I look. Nestled in the bundle is a tiny, wrinkled face half-hidden by a mop of curly hair.

"His name is Gabriel Joshua," my mother tells me.

"Abeng," my father names his first son.

Disinterested, I shrug and make a face. I hold out the teacup farther that it hovers above the bundle-thing. "Look what I got for you," I tell them.


*


This could be a false memory: I am cowering in a corner of my parents' bedroom, flush against the cabinets. My father has chased me from the kitchen. He is holding a butcher's knife roughly a foot from my face. I know I am giggling. I know no he must be fooling around. But then?

My mother's voice, disembodied, exasperated, from the kitchen: Jeff.

I am two years old.

Slots

I remember when Lego came in mesh bags that bore only the brand sticker to tell you what to do with it. Lego wasn’t supposed to be anything yet – not a horse, not a Formula One racer, not a metropolis, certainly not a 2000-piece space station. Just a jumble of bricks after all, with deliberate knobs marring otherwise smooth surfaces. I remember when they simply came in red and yellow, white and green. I remember when things fell into each other without sound, hollow blocks one moment and the next a larger being, seamless save for the line revealing where they meet, still too thin for a sheet of dust and air to linger. I remember when everything had a place, an ever-present mate – but no one told you what it was, with whom or where. “Insert Tab A into Slot B,” but you had to go blindly. So aimless a direction, that we had to carry it over, beyond toys. Then, knob one to hollow two, plus a four-color option. Girl loves boy, boy may or may not love back. We chanted first came love as we played, reminding ourselves that that is what it is called, that is what we should do. Yet no one told us then how to make a first impression, how to smile, how to tilt our heads just so. No one told us how to start arguments with the words, “I feel.” No one told us that men and women were so different that the other was always two planets away. I remember when there were no t-shirts showing us 101 ways to do it on any hard surface. I remember when it all just happened. I remember when nothing came with manuals.

> After a cup of ridiculously expensive coffee, half a pack of lethal Mentoses, ten kikiam, and lots of moaning and groaning. Oh, yeah, and today's Philo class -- Heidegger. Wasak.

We're gonna go swimming

". . . to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race."
- A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce


*


It is amazing how a room can seem like a home people would dare live in with some curtains, a divider thingie, a tablecloth, Glade and those little pine tree scented paper things. Our room smells lived in and not in the nakabilad na panty kind of way.

Then again, any room with a paper crane and some well-placed Post-it notes is home enough for me.


*


Last night, a crash course in pseudo-French:

"Je m'appelle ca va?" Giggle. "My name is How are You." Uncontrollable giggling.

The language of love nga naman. Now. Attends, je t'embrasse le ciel.

Make it all fall faster

I think this is some sort of sick joke.

Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia is the fear of long words. Not making this up. First heard this on the FX on my way to Calatagan last Halloween. It had me snort C2 two seats across.

Sad, sad peoples who have this phobia. I can see it now:

"Hi, everyone. My name is John and I've got hippo -- WAAH!!!"

"Hi, John."

How long should a word be that it's actually scary?

Equilibrium? Shiver!

Antidisestablishmentarianism? Pees pants!

Supercalifragilisticespialidocious? Nervous breakdown!

Hohay.


*


"Don't worry. Everything will fall."

Wait. Blink. Wait some more. "Go on, please."

"What can I say? I'm a pessimist."

And tails, we'll try again

Brainfart, because my muse is out chasing worms with a peacock's tail feather:

Roughly an hour ago: stuck in traffic on my way to Modern Poetry class. And then, like a cow, gigantic man-4WD darts out of nowhere. I am then nose to nose with its bumper. The front license plate thingie reads, in iridescent red, in big tough-guy letters, LAWYER.

This gets me thinking. When I become rich and powerful and get a car that doesn't require me to push it uphill every one hill in a while, Ima get a license plate that reads, SLOB. Or, VOLVO-DRIVING SOCCER MOM. Or, @#*!. Or, MAFLOUFLOU BERRY. Or, the more wistful, WRITER-IN-TRAINING. Or, BANANA. The list is virtually endless.

Oh, and I have nothing against lawyers.

PS - See you kids at the Happy Monday later. :)

Dance to this beat

Am unwinding in an internet shop because I suddenly found myself for a hankering for technology. Stepped off the LRT-MRT combo one odd hour ago, as I met with my mother dearest in Taft. Doing my daughterly duty of mooching for moolah.

I told her about needing to read seven books for Phil. Lit. And then I told her I need copies of them, since I can't continually horde the books from the libe and I can't actually see myself buying those books because well, I can't afford it. And then I told her that I could have them photocopied and then hardbound (so they could look like legitimate books) in UP. And then I told her I'll go to all the living writers, say, Sir Krip, to ask him to sign a pirated copy of his work.

My mother stared at me in horror.

"Buy the books," she shrieked. "They're books!"

Silly me. We are a mother-daughter team who could go spelunking for books in secondhand shops even if means not having to eat dinner that night. Or all nights two weeks afterwards. Not to mention the eye-rolling we got from the boys at home. Haha.

So I'm going to get seven new books. Nine, if the universe is conspiring. A hundred million thousand when the universe conspires enough to make me rich and powerful. Buwahahahaha. Ha. Haaa.


*


Random updates on Sasha's life:

> Went to school, even though I had no classes for the day. The world is turning on its axis as we speak.

> I made Martin say the word gloop.

> ZoeDee gave me two technically useless but utterly adorable paper clips shaped like a pig and a zebra. Oh, love.

> Nikay is so sex-hay.

> I'm staying in this Phil. Lit class I'm currently taking, although Sir Jimmy Abad every Tuesday and Thursday is certainly tempting. I crush you, Sir Jimmy!

> My back hurts from all that photocopying.


*


It seems only yesterday I used to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me I could shine.
- On Turning Ten by Billy Collins

Let us go then, you and I

I realized that I shouldn't be doing all this ew, work on the first day of class. There's still roughly an inch of highfalutin readings over there I have to go through and I've just taken the time off (translation: I peeled my nose from between the illegally photocopied pages of an introduction by Sir Jimmy Abad) to well, er, procrastinate. Blog, I mean.

[How My Day Went]
Anyway. I stumbled into Philo class, ten minutes late. Because that's just who I am. Then I had my Phil Lit in Eng class (I should come up with a better name for that). Classmates kami ni Cat Quevenco and Marie La Vina, plus all my other Math blockmates from two years ago. Anyway. Came out of that classroom with the doom and gloom of someone who has been told she'd have to read seven novels (seven!) before the semester ends, on top of every other thing in the class and other classes as well. Okay. And then I went to Third World Bel for some Third World Lit, where I'm classmates with Trish Elamparo. Oh, yeah, I saw Andrea Teran sa Bel Cafe thingie. Wasak. And then after class I saw Martin and I tagged along with whatever he was up to, then I saw Sarj and we did our thing sa smockets. And then off we went to Modern Poetry, where I heard the word decrepitude used for the first time in the history of human monologues. And then Sarj and I met up with Lia Albano and Gab Murillo to go to the Fiction workshop, and then after forty-five minutes of waiting, waiting, waiting, we left. I think the prof forgot about us. Oh, well. So now I'm here in the libe, doing my goodie goodie schoolgirl thing.
[/How My Day Went]

Oh yeah, and I'm minoring in Lit. Haha. Figured since I'm taking all the required subjects, I might as well call them something. Kahit pampahaba lang ng degree title, hehe. BFA Creative Writing, Minor in Literature. Shiyeht.

Oh yeah, and I'm going to have to really read 'The Wastelands'. Yes, that 'Wastelands'.


*


oh god it's wonderful
to get out of bed
and drink too much coffee
and smoke too many cigarettes
and love you so much
- Steps by Frank O'Hara

This is how we should begin

The days leading up to school used to be a flurry of red National Bookstore plastic bags and pressed uniforms. Everything would smell of unraveled plastic cover and Kiwi shoe shine. I would be stocking up on pens and highlighters and intermediate pads. I'd buy earrings. I'd get new underwear. I'd doodle on my notebook covers. I'd stick a photograph of my parents (the one where my dad was carrying my mother and my mom has her arms around my father and they are in a swimming pool) in my planner.

Now, I'm just looking for booze.

Last Friday, after I got tossed and tumbled by the RegCom, I met up with Sarj and ZoeDee in (like, you know) Starbucks. Cuz we Atenistas, haha. Ahem. Catched up on things, which roughly translates to me jumping Zoe because I hadn't seen her in months, me attacking the Dunhills waiting to be attacked on the table, me getting free coffee. We talked about the usual stuff: neon green dildoes, writing styles, threesomes, this girl's boobs, Victor's grand gesture, a washing machine, a diamond ring, more threesomes and shouting matches. And then Xander came and joined us, which means April got fried big time.

Wee. (Sasha is giddy. I can't help it.)

And then more things happened that night, which included an imaginary (um)friend, a bucket of beer, a gigantic burrito, dirty dancing to Enrique Iglesias and an aluminum cowboy/stripper.

School starts tomorrow. I got the classes that I wanted, which means I won't be able to sustain a normal conversation without throwing in something from my predicted mile-high Lit readings. Philippine Literature, Third World Literature and Modern Poetry, plus a lot of Philosophy thrown in. Oh yeah, and Sir Krip's fiction workshop. Oh, gah. What did I get myself into?

School starts tomorrow and random stranger beside me is telling the random stranger beside him that, to quote, "Alcohol is the best way to get girls."

School starts tomorrow and I am yet to figure out if I'd actually be able to wake up for it, as I, of course, am still in sem break mode, which means I woke up at 4 PM kanina.

Oh, well.

I'll see you kids tomorrow. :)


*


Public Service Announcement: Who wants to shack up in my former dorm? I've been staying with Helen and the others (former roommates) in curfew-free Prince David, but I can't legitimately leave my dorm yet if no one takes my slot. So. So. Help. :)

Though her mouth is generous

James Richardson says, "Only half of writing is saying what you mean. The other half is preventing people from reading what they expected you to mean."

So.

November 2. I am scraping the melted wax of November twos before from my grandfather's tombstone, at the same time trying to figure out why cemeteries are the new lover's lanes. A girl is waiting by the acacia tree. She is looking at the charred ground of what was once a sugarcane field. The boy is yet to come for her. The rumble of his motorcycle is yet to disturb the stillness of the day. (I wonder where other people are. I think about my cigarettes, wonder if they have all gone stale.)

November 3. I do not stay long in my parents house. My father refuses to speak to me, because he might ask me to sleep over. My mother is bent over the stove, stirring the spaghetti sauce. My brother Joshua is thinking about a girl named Ellen, whom he will never meet. My brother John does not realize that all of us is waiting for him to come through the door, grinning like he used to. A small frog has turned its mint-green back to us, watching the wall and waiting for ants that dare scuttle along its line of vision.

November 4. My new glasses make everything clearer. Few people know that they have been mere haze for a couple of months. There is only one person who I bother to sit close enough to that I can count his eyelashes if I feel like it. I count them now, as he takes a sip of coffee in a place no one would recognize us.

November 5. I have talked about how trains are the worst places to meet people. I am wearing a pink skirt that slides along the ridges of my ankles whenever I walk. I am sitting beside a poet I have not seen in a month or so. He wants me to stand beside him two weeks from now, as he talks about Klimt's The Kiss. I see myself, a fading reflection on his glasses. I see other people in them, with me, those behind me: the lovers who never hold hands but would soon; the lovers who would never ever hold hands; the lovers who held hands the entire day, then stopped when the clock struck eight.

November 6. I am introduced to a painter. We talk about Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Kafka. We talk about the demand of objectivity in observing tribes and the inability to pull it off. We talk about how truths are easier to understand and accept when given in a subjective, literary manner. He will ask me if I have a boyfriend. I will tell him that I don't think so. He will then read a poem to me, The Rider by Sarah Manguso. His voice will be soft and steady. He will sound like he has spent quite some time letting words roll from the inside of one cheek to the other. He will be quiet after the poem ends. As will I.

November 7. I am quiet. Not because there is a conversation inside my head that I'd rather keep to myself, a conversation with a being very much like myself -- impatient, impetuous, impulsive, easily bored. I am quiet because I have lost the ability to speak. My throat has prevented me from doing so, like a hand curled into a tight fist, that sand could only sneak and slither to escape. I squeak every time I tell things I want them. I show notes to tricycle drivers, informing them of where I have to be. I could be bent over the toilet bowl later tonight, spewing squid and baguio beans. Instead of groans, what sounds like the scrape of heels on wet grass would come out of my fetid mouth.

Hay. Analyze that, mo'fos.

You should rest

Halloween is the new Valentine's Day. It has something to do with all the black widows, the fishnet stockings, the open shirts, the peg legs, the leather jackets, the angel wings, the mouse ears, the band-aids, the fake blood, the masticated boobies.

That night, I made someone laugh so hard, he nearly peed his pants.

Sweet.

Lobotomizing enlistments

I'm on vacation, which means I've gone cold turkey for a while, which means this could get snarky, or could fail at snarkiness and bitchery -- it pendulums here and there -- but all I really want to say is: AISIS, you are the current bane of my existence.

Yes, yes, I realize how pathetic it is to gripe at a freaking program, however ineffective and useless (bakit may manual reg pa, taena!) it is, and I will most probably be just sputtering like mad. I could begin with the fact that I had to wake up at an ungodly hour during a freaking holiday just so I could enlist in classes I was basically coerced to enlist in. I could go on and on and on and I will most possibly cease to make sense after the first tangina, AISIS, so I'll just ask you to scoot on over to Martin's site since, of course, he makes much more sense than I could ever wish to have.

Whew.

Basta. The thing is, I prefer to study Philippine Literature under Max Pulan, Modern Poetry under Vince Serrano and I don't know why but I want to study Theories and Practices of Writing, even if its a three-hour Friday night class.

Hay. I might enjoy Shakespeare and Graphic Novel-ing and Poetry Tutorial (gasp). Shakespeare's interesting inuman conversation -- just ask Marie La Vina. 'Sides, I still wanna know what happened to Ophelia, and what the hell one of King Lear's daughters' name is. Cordelia yata. And Graphic Novel-ing. Sarj is there, which means, well, we can create a force field around ourselves to ward off Narutards. And I was there at Gino Bagsit's Heights Talk and he's a purdy nice guy, even though he basically ignored my Hermionic attempts to answer his questions. And Poetry Tutorial with DM Reyes. Okay, sana eh, pero we're forgetting one thing -- I don't fucking write poetry! God knows I wish I do, but I don't.

I could like the classes I'm stuck in, but basically, there would always be the feeling that I just got stuck there. Every time I'm having a hard time, I'll say, tanginang AISIS yan. Every time I have to wake up, drunk on the way to hungover, every first and third Tuesday morning, I'll say, tanginang AISIS yan. Every time I hate the classes, I'll say, god damn you, AISIS, while shaking my fist at the high heavens, a margarita in the other hand.

Anyway, Sarj and I came up with a master plan to rock AISIS out of its smarmy techie pants. I'm feeling much better because of it. (Then, if that won't work, either I go perform lobotomies on random people with a pair of rusty pliers, or I sulk Monday to Friday, this coming sem.)

Ah! Before I forget, eto pa isa kong reklamo ko -- araw-araw ako may klase! Kalokohan! Gah.

Enlistment Woes, Part 2

Well. Until I work this thing out (translation: whine to Xander), I'm taking Sir Krip's Fiction Workshop, Poetry Tutorial with Sir DM Reyes, Graphic Novel thingie with Gino Bagsit, Shakespeare (eep!) with Glenn Mas and good ol' Philo 102 with Sir Lagliva.

And it seems I'm a somewhat normal undergrad now, as I've got classes every freaking day. Oh, well.

(Enlisting for the TTh Philo class, I thought: But I'll be drunk after Happy Mondays. Jeesh. Gawin na kasing Happy Fridays, Joel.)

Anyhoos. That's it. Am off to Calatagan in a couple of hours.

Toodles. My imaginary (um)friend is acting up. Oh, well.

Enlistment Woes, Part 1

Ha? Bakit FA Elective lang nandito? I wanna take Phil. Lit. in English! And Modern Poetry! And Theories and Practices and Writing! Bakit ganito? Sabi puwede Humanities subjects! Wah. Wah. Wah!

Hyperventilation starts now.