I'd rather

Many hellos to Cor, Allan Pastrana and Kash Avena. Cor went home early, but Allan, Kash and I went on to do the whole Sex and the City shiznit sans Manolo Blahniks. :)

This has been a weird night, and I'm sure you'll all agree.

All hail the toothbrush! :)

Name-dropping: Sylvia Plath

I am having lunch with Sylvia Plath.

It seems that I am having lunch with a photograph peeled from the wall of a man lovelorn. She is grainy, and though I squint that she may focus, she never does. Parts of her are gone, the spaces between her fingers have disappeared that her hands are like small, smooth plates, cupped ever so slightly, and I think, "How does she hold a pen?" Her hair, once blond, is now the color of smoke seen from a distance.

"Do I want a Ted Hughes?" I ask her.

She only smiles. She does not even look away.

I am having lunch with Sylvia Plath.

She smells like pot roast and gas fumes and never says a thing.

I stand up to leave, she bids me to sit down.

I do not. Instead, I nod to say that she could go on.

In her fingerless hands is a journal. She reads: "Perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything it is because we are dangerously near to wanting nothing." The look she gives me is nothing less than pointed. As in, "There, kid. See?"

"Go on," I mumble.

"There are two opposing poles of wanting nothing: When one is so full and rich and has so many inner worlds that the outer world is not necessary for joy, because joy emanates from the inner core of one's being. When one is dead and rotten inside and there is nothing in the world: not all the woman, food, sun, or mind magic of others that can reach the wormy core of one's gutted soul planet."

I am quiet for a long time, standing there in front of her, my mind assailed with her scent, the non-spaces of her hands, her ashen hair.

"Sylvia," I say. "What the hell does all that have to do with it?"

Take your taste back

Last night.

In the bathroom, under the shower, she is bent over. Her hair trails downwards, skimming her thighs, almost touching the tile floor. It curls and curlicues into itself, delicate and fine, the way it is in that poem she now struggles to remember.

The water running down her spine is almost like a warm palm. Almost.

Last night.

She wakes up, gets out of bed, and grabs the envelope from the shelf.

It is so easy to let some things go. So easy to throw them away.

She goes back to sleep, where she dreams about a ring and a curtain.

Last night.

"Love," s/he said, "is a series of chemical reactions that fool the brain into thinking you feel more than the need to procreate."

Last night.

She only needs to hear the words.


*


Tonight.

Someone will read a poem and she will pretend it is not about someone she knows.

Tonight.

Did you throw it away?

Tonight.

His laugh is a reply she doesn't want to dwell on.

Tonight.

She is about to say it, but thinks too much. It is a choice between his silence, or words he doesn't mean.

Let me know what spring is like

I woke up at 1:30 PM, and spent my token 5-turned-15 more minutes in bed, mentally mapping out my day. And then I hopped over to my laptop to do some blogging, thereby ruining the carefully conceived plan made under my covers.

And thunder is rolling outside, which means I can't traipse and frolic in the city of neon and chrome.

Methinks I have to take a bath now. And call the registrar so I can enlist as SOH 879 3/892. And head on over to La-La Land, dragging Moosebert by his orange antlers.

...

Obviously, this whole entry is just an exercise of stalling.

No, Ma'am Typhoon, ma'am. Not yet. Not yet! I have a meeting with destiny!!!

(-_-)

Maliligo na.

They keep each other amused

My grandmother sent me a text message, telling me about an aunt's friend's itinerary. That he's coming to Manila tonight, though leaving for Cebu early tomorrow morning, then back to Manila on the 17th. My lola adds that he's an eighteen-year-old American.

I can practically see her picking out china patterns and flower arrangements. That, and the more obvious, "Get your skinny butt down here and flirt, for heaven's sake. Didn't I and my bevy of four daughters teach you anything?"

I can just imagine me reading Murakami under the covers, while an overly loud discussion of Mr. Chase Person's finer attributes goes on all over the Belen house.

Okay, okay, okay. So my lola isn't the malevolently giddy matchmaker I've attempted to make her out to be here. She's a sweet lady, a former beauty queen (hehe), with a hankering for mah jong and 5-peso bottles of Coke. My mind's just frolicking in La-La Land, as usual.

But this isn't the only time this has happened -- both my grandmother's behavior and my mind hauled off to La-La Land. A couple of years ago, on her trip back from the States, she took out a thick photo album and pointed to some blurry pictures of a blond boy bent over a newspaper. Resisting the urge to say, "Bigfoot is blurry!" or some other inanity, I asked who Blurry Blond Boy was.

"That's (I forget his name now)."

I nodded what I hope was an interested nod.

"Mabait na bata. Magalang pa 'yan. And really helpful," my lola went on.

"Hmmm."

"I showed him a picture of you."

At this point, my eyes had popped out of my skull. The only recent picture I'd sent her was my high school grad pic. Iridescent blue toga, red-red lipstick the make-up artist sloshed on me, and a fake bookshelf for a background.

And then my lola handed me a blue comforter and some striped bedsheets. And then she said: "Siya naglaba niyan!"

Hm. At the time, I thought it was cute, if not odd. Now, I'm leaning more toward the odd factor.

(Oddly enough, tonight I'm on my bed, covered with the striped bedsheet some guy whose name I can't remember laundered some years ago.)

All this, of course, gets me thinking: Why is it that in family gatherings, the first question ever asked about me (right before asking what the hell Creative Writing is) is whether I have a boyfriend or not? Or the more presumptuous, Balita ko may boyfriend ka na daw, ha from aunts and uncles and the occasional second cousin (who's seven going on forty).

My token answer is, "Wala po," while edging not-so-surreptitiously towards the nearest exit. Whether I lie or, in most cases, tell the gospel truth, all of them never believe me. Jeesh.

"May boyfriend ka na daw."

"Wala po."

"Sus."

Gah.

On my eighteenth birthday, the usual questions came by the bucket. By the seventy-eighth question, which was asked by my tipsy father, I pointed to Sarj, who was sitting beside me (gazing at her San Mig Light with what looked like horror, no doubt caused by the witnessing of my dysfunctional family) and said: "Dy, girlfriend ko po, si April."

True to form, my father never missed a beat. "Pareho pala tayo ng type, anak."

At which point April slugged her beer, and I tried to steer my father away from doing The Spanish Inquisition Act on the few men I've invited.

And then, fairly recently, my mother asked me, as I bought mouthwatering open-toe high heels, "Bakit? May boyfriend ka na ba?" Maybe because I mentioned I could use the shoes to stomp on a few choice pair of balls.

After a split-second decision, I decided to go for the different track. And so I said, "Yes."

Guess who just shrugged and went off to another display rack? I don't know what's kookier: me getting harassed with questions I can never answer correctly, or not being believed when I give them the answer they want. Kahit magsabi ng totoo, o magsinungaling, or make up a whopper that Sarj is my long-time girl-lover and muse extraordinaire, no one freaking believes me. There's an insult in that disbelief somewhere. I just don't want to think about it right now.

Basta. Tonight, I'm going to bed with the men(?) I love most: my orange-antlered Moosebert and a whored-out book by Palahniuk. Oh, and those hot shoes.

Whether you believe me or not.

PS
Oh, and, hello to Tita Bong, the (hopefully) only person in my family to ever read this blog. :)

It's business time

It's complicated, (s)he says.

*

The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them — words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in our head to no more that living size when they’re brought out. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you’ve said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That’s the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller but for want of an understanding ear.

- from The Body by Stephen King.]

We're all in this together

Happy birthday to Aizen Daryll! :) Arguably The Maverick of the three Sulague sisters -- if they were a crimefighting trio, that is. (Ashley's The Future Hotness, Alyanna's The Smart One Who Likes Hearing Quotes from Shakespeare and Nash.)

Hey, sweetie. :p

You're my wonderwall

One of my roommates, Ate Mabs, moved out today, to a place in Makati, so she'd be closer to work. I won't go into the details here -- I barely managed to not look like a leaky faucet, blubbering over her shoulder as she went -- but needless to say, I shall miss her. Especially Helen. Like, a couple of days ago, I asked Helen for some acetone and she told me Ate Mabs had some, and then she paused and sobbed, "Yan, pa'ano na tayo 'pag wala si Ate Mabs?"

I, on the other hand, aside from the whole person leaving thing, thought of other, bigger things. Like the fridge. And the electric stove. And the water heater. And the oven toaster. And the TV. Hehe.

When she'd gone, I looked around at my dorm room and realized, not only the token mushy It feels so empty but the more pragmatic, "Holy fuck, wala nang laman yung kuwarto!" Ang dami naman kasing gamit ni gaga.

Anyways, we'll miss you loads, Ate Mabs. From griping about boys, to having our own personal stylist/fashion police, to opening bottles of Red Horse and spending the night around our table sucking on Lethal Mentoses. And you.

(Insert Spice Girls Goodbye theme here.)

EDIT: Helen tells me that Ate Mabs texted her to say, "Miss you guys. It's so quiet here."

Aw. Wala ba naman yung talak namin ni Helen eh. Hay.

*

And because Ate Mabs has gone, I took the opportunity to sift through three years worth of junk. Now, I've got a clean, color-coordinated closet (cuz I'm feeling OC); four (four!) large boxes of books; shoes in boxes; bigger desk space; a new bookshelf (wee!); and an artsy fartsy wall which includes pictures of random peoplesss, some doodles I made, some doodles by other people, photos by Nathan Archival (wah, san galing yung mga yun?), a (crappy) poem I made on the back of a bingo card, a poem someone wrote for me (awww, barf, hehe) and a memo from the United Hills Association that says, verbatim:

WARNING: Beware of a certain person, in his early twenties, driving a cream-colored car roaming around the village trying to victimize young females walking on the street. The driver stops in front of them, open the door, trying to touch them and shows his private part. . .

Panalo kaya, hehe. I will show you my private part!!! Nyarrr... :)

I thought it was interesting enough to put on the artsy fartsy wall. Problem is, my gaze wanders from my laptop screen to the damn wall often, and in my mind, on loop, is: Oooh, pretty.

Para sa'yo / ang laban na 'to

Today, I woke up to Manny Pacquiao behaving like a gentleman toward Barrera. I guess I understand why, superficially -- Mexican dude looks like a bulldog na pinagsarahan ng pinto. And there Manny was, who minutes ago was grinning with barely contained excitement, working the crowd to the tune of his ballad, and now, in the ring, hesistant and flighty, none of his "Wee! Wee! Ima punch you now, motherfucker!" attitude. Maybe it's the training camp. Maybe he's thinking of that hot chick who sang the Mexican National Anthem. Who knows?

In the end -- a forty minute fight turned into a two-and-a-half-hour spectacle complete with ad blitzkrieg -- he won, a unanimous decision.

After the fight, Mario Lopez asked him: "Do you have anyone in mind right now to have a fight with in the future?"

"Tonight, I'm going home to the Philippines to celebrate."

And then we said, "Okay, thanks, bye bye Marc."

Hay. It's okay. We love you and all that jazz. Go, Manny. Though I now feel nothing but fear at the havoc you'll wreak in the Philippines once you get back here. Ads galore, another run for politics, seventeen and a half albums. Plus a music video or two.

But Barrera won me over with his, um, stoicism. The interview with Mario Lopez, though I forget the details now, showed a quiet man, a dignified man, who, though he lost the fight, knew, without evident arrogance, that he did the best he could do, he had a great run as a boxer (he retires after this), people loved him and there's always the chance of hooking up with that Mexican National Anthem chick. He's not a detestable opponent. (I remember gesticulating wildly with a bottle of beer at Morales' crushed yet otherwise still muy caliente mug, in indignation and, well, haha, national pride.) Good job, Mr. Bulldog, sir.

This is about the other guy

Ooh, you are still pissing me off.

You caught me in a lie, I had no alibi

What is the difference between love and obsession? Didn't both make you stay up all night, wandering the streets, a victim of your own imagination, your own heartbeat? Didn't you fall into both, headfirst into quicksand? Wasn't every man in love a fool and every woman a slave?

Love was like rain; it turned to ice, or it disappeared. Now you saw it, now you couldn't find it no matter how hard you might search. Love evaporated; obsession was realer; it hurt, like a pin in your bottom, a stone in your shoe. It didn't go away in the blink of an eye. A morning phone call filled with regret. A letter that said 'Dear you, good-bye from me.' Obsession tasted like something familiar. Something you'd known your whole life. It settle and lurked; it stayed with you.

- from The Ice Queen by Alice Hoffman


*


It was called evolutionary biology. Under its sway, the sexes were separated again, men into hunters and women into gatherers. Nurture no longer formed us; nature did. Impulses of hominds dating from 20,000 BC were still controlling us. And so today on television and in magazines you get the current simplifications. Why can't men communicate? (Because they had to be quiet on the hunt.) Why do women communicate so well? (Because they had to call out to one another where the fruits and berries were.) Why can men never find things around the house? (Because they have a narrow field of vision, useful in tracking prey.) Why can women find things easily? (Because in protecting the nest they were used to scanning a wide field.) Why can't women parallel-park? (Because low testosterone inhibits spatial ability.) Why won't men ask for directions? (Because asking for directions is a sign of weakness, and hunters never show weakness.) This is where we are today. Men and women, tired of being the same, want to be different again.

- from Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides


*


"'I'm enjoying my hatred so much more than I ever enjoyed love. Love is temperamental. Tiring. It makes demands. Love uses you. Changes its mind." Her eyes were closed. Beads of water decorated her face, and her hair spread out from her head like jellyfish tendrils. "But hatred, now. That's something you can use. Sculpt. Wield. It's hard or soft, however you need it. Love humiliates you, but hatred cradles you. It' so soothing. I feel infinitely better now."

- from White Oleander by Janet Fitch

Then we wouldn't have to wait so long

The little girl's name was Aislinn and a giant lived under her stairs. She, of course, had never seen the giant, because everyone knows that if you saw one, your eyes would fall out and turn into aloe vera on cement cracks. Besides, the giant was far too big for her to completely see. Everyone knows that too.

Aislinn knew that a giant lived under her stairs because she could feel it waiting for her to step on the fourth step, because the gap between the fourth step and the fifth step was the only place in all of stairs of all the world where giants could slip their hands through to grab little girl's ankles under their frilly nightgowns. Aislinn always made sure her feet didn't land on that step -- she'd jump from number three to number five every time.

One night though, she woke from a dream were she chased dogs through a field of bluebells, and found herself thirsty. She got out from bed, careful not to trip on the hem of her frilly white nightgown and tiptoed out of her room, and down the hall.

Aislinn was yawning and rubbing her eyes as she went down the stairs, one step at a time.

She couldn't hear the slight rumble underneath her, crouching under the stairs. And there was simply no way she could see the hand -- as big as her daddy's car! -- slip from between the gap of stair step five and stair step four, and the finger that traced some little whirls and swirls in the wooden surface of step number four.

"Waaaargh," yawned Aislinn the Little Girl, rubbing her little girl eyes.

And the sound rumbled and rumbled. And the finger traced and traced and whirled and swirled.

. . .


*


Sasha is sleepy. Broke too. But the sleepiness is more immediate.

And, like OMGWTFBBQ! -- in ZoeDee's words: "Keep it local, luv."

We'll do it in the dark with smiles on our faces

1
An aunt notices the absence of butterflies cavorting around a typewriter from this site and asks, "What trouble are you in now?"

2
On the subject of love lives, I ask my 12-year-old brother John Vincent: "Ano naman ang ginagawa mo dun sa girlfriend mo?"

Sighs a long-suffering kind of sigh. "Ayun, binabantayan."

Mga Martinez talaga o.

3
I tell my dad about the pending dress code in Arneow and he gifts me with the wisdom of one who has had three beers at lunchtime: "Ay, naku, ineng, habulan lang yan!"

4
From Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, one of my favoritestestest books of all time (because it's so spanking unapologetically evil, buwahahahahaha). Ahem: "When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving oneself and ends by deceiving others; that is what the world calls romance."

5
Justine, my dear girl -- sa susunod na punta mo dito, paabutin mo naman ng kahit anim na oras tayong magkasama ha, ija? :) Enjoy Frog. (In Germany daw.)

6
From Roald Dahl (whose book, The Witches, I am giggling over right now): "A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom."

7
"Spend time every day listening to what your muse is trying to tell you," says St. Bartholomew.

I don't love you like I did yesterday

Taking a page from Sarj's book and drowning all my sorrows with My Chemical Romance.

I'm a teenager, remember?

Will it matter long after I'm gone?

Once upon a time, there was a prince living at a white tower. He lived there so long that he forgot to feel. He watched the sun disappear into the fleecy pink clouds and all he did was shrug. He lay down on yards of satin that embraced him and all he did was shrug. Soon, the red of the roses that crawled to his window faded into white in his eyes, and the green of the trees was but a different shade of ash.

Yet all he did was shrug.

One day I'll wake up and it won't hurt anymore

Ooh, you make me so mad.

She said, I think I'm going to Boston

Okay, okay, okay.

Dear I Am Tempted To Call You By Your First Name, Though That In Itself Is Idiotic Because I Have No Idea, For The Life Of Me, Who My Butterfly Haven Of A Blog Dared Offend:

You're blameless, I have a blackened steel heart. Angels cried at your birthday, orgies were held at mine. Flowers bloom wherever your delicate feet tread, whereas there are only cracks in the asphalt of my paths. Honey flows mist-like whenever you open your mouth, and I only seem to signal the Second Coming whenever I open mine. Not to mention whenever I write something.

We've established that. So. Let's have coffee sometime and plot against him. Okay, I'm kidding. Oh, me and my lurid sense of humor. Oh, me and my vindictive blackened steel of a heart. Sigh. So few people actually understand the snarkiness. Oh my, my, my. Misunderstood emo git. Sob, sob, sniffle, sniffle.

Human beings would insert an apology right about . . . here. But I haven't had much training in that department.

Yours,
Heartless Hag

PS
The first five people who have been offended by any of my writing, at all, whether it be the color of the font or the width of the page, please step right up and claim a year's supply of No Bitchery Coupons, care of the Principal's Office.

PPS
Christ, I've fucked it up again, haven't I? Damn it, off to the slammer I go.

But you're yesterday's child to me

And I realize that I am not going down without a fight. It will amuse some of you that I got the fire and brimstone lecture, but I never had a good track record with disciplinary officers anyway. But I do learn my lessons. So even though it might seem like I'm tilting my impudent ass towards you well-wishers, I'm really not. Just waiting for them butterflies to come out.

Like my high school classmate Eric loved to say: "It's better to cheat than to repeat." I don't really see the relevance of that statement here, but hey -- it is what Eric loved to say.

What I am trying to say is: The Golden Rule is Don't Get Caught. Perform my demonic duties with just the right pinch of Stepford-ness. Be a robot. Don't get mad -- get even. Forgive, but never forget. Or even more heartless, forget but never ever forgive. Little things we learn in kindergarten recess and carry with us to fight the sheer unblemished souls of well-meaning angels out there, fluttering by with nary a monitor-shard scratch.

(Damn.)

Where was I? Oh yeah, trying to summon enough humanity in my black, black soul, to act the least bit penitent.

Balik kayo in 50 years.

PS
I just feel I'm going to get sent to the principal's office yet again. Oh, well. I'm a Martinez. We're supposed to be reckless mavericks with a taste for trouble and long-suffering women. Or men. I missed the last part of the Family Code.