A few things you should know

Last Night.
How To Get Mistaken For a Hooker Around Taft Avenue Station Of The MRT.
Armed with an itsy-bitsy purse, and a backpack stuffed with hair products, eight pairs of new frilly panties, a laptop, a book, two dresses, and a partridge in a pear tree, I headed over to the outer lobby of the Kabayan Hotel, just a couple of skips away from MetroPoint, and Taft Ave. Station. I gave a winning smile to the security guards, and motioned to the ashtray. They smiled back, albeit warily. I grabbed a cigarette I deprived myself of for about 48 hours, give or take a couple of nervous breakdowns, and puffed away, imagining the bonemeal most probably coursing through my bloodstream, my shoulders slowly pulverized by the disgustingly heavy pack on my back (cuz you know, it’s a backpack!).

Halfway through the stick, a greasy old man walks up to me and asks for a light. He had big eyes, and one was more yellow than the other. I noticed he took an obligatory puff on his cigarette to light it, but then never put it to his lips again.

I inched away, pretended to be entranced by the landscaping.

And then he, shyly, in a way that may have been sweet if it wasn’t so creepy, asked me if I’d like to go up with him to his room. “It’s my first time here,” he said, as though that would make me actually consider the proposition.

I blinked. There was no panic. Merely utter confusion as to why anyone would confuse a girl with tons of baggage, literally, on her back and hanging off the crook of one elbow, to be a working girl. Cumbersome, much? Like, Excuse me, honey, can I charge my laptop while we get it on? Everything was starting to look funny, and hazy. The world was swelling, the way it did when I had too many margaritas, and puffed on too many Lethal Mentoses.

I shook my head, snorted out the hair that snuck into one nostril. I considered saying, “Boss, I haven’t had my balls removed yet.” Or, “Would you like to see the stillborn fetus in my purse?” Or, “Oh, I hadn’t had any action since the day before I left prison for a parole from multiple homicide.” Or even, “Oh golly wow, the doctor said it’d be difficult with a tumor hanging out from inside me.”

I blinked, again. Inched closer to the security guards. Considered laughing. Prepared myself to scream Fire, because Morgan Freeman told Brad Pitt in Seven that in rape prevention seminars, women are taught that no one responds to cries for help.

I considered laughing.

In the end, I said, as politely as I could, “No, thank you. I’m good.”

And the man with one eye more yellow than the other gave me this littlest smile that told me he knew what my answer would be even before he phrased the question in his head.

(This is what’ll get me in trouble one of these days: assigning humanity to people who mistake you for a hooker.)

*

The Day Before.
How To Let It All Go: An Exercise on Vanity
I felt—there was no other word for it—younger. I was itching to walk into the middle of the room, giggle, stun the crowd with my irrepressible youth, then leave, making them long for more. I was for whom The Cure’s Love Song was made. A sexed-up Shirley Temple. Like I looked like I just tumbled out of bed with some early San Franciscan swashbuckler who liked to wear tight pants. Like I woke up every morning to a kiss on the spot where my neck meets my shoulders. Like I could wear PVC pantsuits--not that I'd want to, I just could, you know?

“You look like that girl walking in the desert with James Bond,” said the girl who shampooed my hair. It was the first civil thing she’d said to me. Our relationship, up to that point, consisted of her pressing her hand on my forehead to keep me still, and her grunting when I got her wet when I sneezed just as she had her face close to my wet hair. I had committed the inside of her left upper arm to memory; she had a small brown mole about three inches up her elbow. It was a relationship that wanted of her smiles. I would never know her name.

I leaned back on the leather seat, squinted. The lights were too white; I could see every pore that had been compelled to bare itself to the world. My face looked like it needed a sandblaster. Oh, but my hair, my hair.

“Oh, nice,” said my mother, walking towards me, holding my copy of Rick Moody’s collection of short stories (which I got for 15 bucks at BookSale, HAH, KAEL, HAH!). She beamed at me. She looked at the shampoo girl, then she hastily looked away. She tried to catch the attention of the hairdresser, Miss Jocelyn, but the other woman was too busy parting her hair according to the starkness of her highlights.

“I told you to keep your hair,” she told me. Her head was cocked, the tips of her straight hair, threaded with gray, touching her shoulders.

I lip-pointed to the counter, watching myself, however blurrily, as I did so. I imagined myself in black and white, grains of sand sprinkled on my moist cheeks. Hello, good-looking, where have you been all my life?

My mother picked up the Ziploc bag from the counter, held it in front of her. She shook the bag. “There’s so much hair.”

I shook my head, my curls grazing my neck. “I know.”

I avoided looking at that bag. I’d already seen too much of it. Miss Jocelyn made Shampoo Girl hold my hair while she cut it. It was quite unceremonious. I still feel a tiny spurt of outrage whenever I think of this indifference. Do you know how long that’s been part of my life? I wanted to ask her. I held the Ziploc bag. She filled it in three goes: one clump of hair, another, then another. I stared at it for the longest time. And then I tossed it on the counter. I amazed myself at this roaring vacuum, of the sheer nothingness in my mind, not too much violent reaction to what was going on, not even a whimper. I had discovered Stoicism. There was no Undo button. Someone should be documenting this.

My mother was stuffing my plastic bag of hair into her bag. I thought of that scene in a short story I’d written, about how “Leah cut her hair, put it in a box, and gave the box to [her grandfather].” I was quoting myself in my head. I was on top of my tiny little fishbowl of a world.

“What are you doing?” I asked her.

She patted her bag. “I have a better use for it.”

“Oh?”

“I’ll turn it into a wig. Or just attach it to my hair.”

“You’re going to wear your daughter’s hair.”

She went on as if I hadn’t spoken. “I’ll gather it into a ponytail, and brush it every night.” She widened her eyes a fraction, and her voice came out breathy: “It’ll be like you never left.”

I laughed, then turned back to the mirror and run my fingers over my newly exposed nape. I saw the hairdresser was gawking at us. I tried to ease her with a smile.

I reached for my cellphone. No messages. I had texted P. about three times, telling him how earth-shatteringly short it would be. The last time I told him I wanted to get a haircut, like, seriously, he wailed Nooooo, and said, “If you do, I’ll bring it to bed with me every night, and whisper, It’s okay, it’s okay, no one's going to hurt you anymore.” That was a couple of months ago.

No messages. My swashbuckler was in denial.

“You look really nice,” said my mother. (I try not to recall when she asked me last night, “You want to get a nose job?” because my schnoz would prove detrimental to her plan to have me moonlight as model.) “Really nice.”

When we got home, I bullied all the boys into rating my new hairstyle. Joshua laughed, then ignored me the rest of the night. John looked like he’d rather be trapped in a cage with seven bloodthirsty gamecocks. The Father beamed and said, “You look happy.”

P. and I have messaged each other about Joyce Carol Oates, Ian McEwan, needing a bath, needing to sleep, travelling, Mucha Lucha. There is an elephant in the room. I have been painting it neon pink. Hello, good-looking, look where I’ve been all my life.

Fight the fire that's in your hand

1
A few months ago, when it seemed like everyone around me was getting their congratulatory Palanca letters, I went back to my dark corner and banged away at my laptop, trying to shoo away the hurt and, yes, the outrage of missing out on all the excitement. (Call me childish, fuck you, haha.) Beside the sincere happiness for friends, and yes, pride (in Marie's case, oh god, you make me want to cry, I love you, I am unexplainably proud of you, sweetie!), there was resignation, yes, that I should yet again be content with living vicariously, and yes, damn it, the confirmation of the goddamned fact that the world doesn't owe me anything, none at all. And so I banged away, banged away at the laptop, came up with a story, then another, coming up for air to drink with friends, to get some hugs and awkwardly given pep talks.

But what nagged me, damn it, what was stuck in my goddamned craw was my mother. I wanted to give her something tangible, damn it, something that could make her incredibly proud of me, more proud of me than she'd ever been. I wanted to give her the honor of walking on Palanca-winner-dust-spattered carpets of some hotel, in shoes we'd bought specifically for the occasion. I wanted to go up on a stage (or whatever it is) and grin at her while I hold a medal, and the, hehe, the check. I wanted to give her a hug, what medal there was between our sternums (it's her fault I'm flat-chested), cool at first, then warming to the skin beneath our dresses. I wanted to tell her, "Mom, I won a Palanca. Apir!" But I didn't. And I couldn't do all that, not this year, no.

I sent her a message, a couple of days after all the winners of the category I'd joined in had surfaced: "Mom, I wish I could tell you that I won a Palanca, and that it was for you. But I didn't. Sorry."

And she replied with, "Oh love, that doesn't matter, and yes, this is cliched, but there's always next year. You will always make me proud, Palancas don't matter, not really. Know what? Just give me your diploma, and I'll be the happiest mother in the world."

And I cried, and I couldn't send her a reply, because I was too preoccupied, bawling with my face buried in the nearest welcoming chest, which smelled of wood chips, soap, High Endurance, a good night's sleep, a hell of a good morning, and that moment when you sit down with the clothes that have dried on the clothesline and you just need to smooth the creases with your chafed palms.

"What's wrong?" he asked, and I showed him my phone, and he kissed the top of my head, and he said, "Awww." And then I punched him on the stomach, and he laughed, and I knew exactly what he meant.


2
The first time a certain award-winning, highly esteemed poet (buwahaha) made me cry (yes, this wasn't a one-time thing), he made a shot at my mother. This was at the heels of him saying my mother was hot. (Men are weird that way.) And then a few seconds later, he said, in not so many words, and I do not quote (so italics na lang): Your mother, she is bad, yes.

See, I had launched into the inner workings of my family, of how my brother and I sneak out at the dead of the night to share some Lethal Mentoses, of how my mother always let us go our own ways, make our own choices, but never letting us forget that the family was always there for us. All that mushy stuff that I couldn't really verbalize, and so I just gave examples. Poor ones, apparently, because then Mr. Poet said something, implying my mother was a bad mother, and before I could reach for the nearest beer bottle and rid the world of a great literary man-dude, the glare I'd directed at him had turned wobbly, and before I knew it, I was trying to stoically stare at my shoes instead, and damn it, I was crying. Gah, guerilla-girl tactics, crying, yech. Conscience-ridden me, fuck it, decided I'd have more satisfaction fantasizing his death by molasses and fire ants, rather than me doing it myself with any blunt object, or my elbow (which is also considered a blunt object anyway).

Mr. Poet apologized, and I think he knew he should never tread on that plane again, because I may have cried that one time, but the next time it should ever happen, I will draw blood. Promise. Reminds me of the time when my principal kept hinting that I was the spawn of damned people, and my head was abuzz with, One word about my mother, you hag, and your face will blend in to that blackboard behind you not too nicely.

Mr. Poet said, "Oh, don't cry na, Sasha, sorry. I said your mom was hot naman, di ba?" Orayt.


3
My mother wrote me a letter a year ago, for an Ethical Will project for a Nonfiction seminar. And this is what I wrote for that project, or tried to write (yes, my nonfiction sucks ass):

The night before this paper was due, my mother sent me a text message: “I have emailed the values. Please insert where you see fit – Never lose your sense of humor and your belief in the wonders of one-liners. Approach life with passion not timidly and safely. Do not be afraid to get hurt but be afraid if it does not make you stronger.”

Reading the message aglow on my screen, I was struck with some sort of trepidation. My mother has never been the sort of person to give out Hallmark cards during birthdays. She’s never been the type of mother who baked cookies on weekends or demanded hugs and kisses as she came home from work. My mother is an abysmal cook. Maybe because it’s inevitable that she be compared to my father, who does all the cooking, and with good food, at that. Over the years, my mother’s repertoire has changed little: sushi, salsa, chili, tacos, penne with seafood sauce and molo. The one time she baked some brownies for us, they came out rock-hard and she was forever banned from approaching the oven by a two-meter radius – banned by me.

She’d not the type of mother who would ask you aside and talk to you about your life, begging for some tidbits about boys, school, boys and more boys. She doesn’t ask, “How are you feeling, dear?” as she tucks a wayward curl behind my ear. My mother asks, “How’s school?” And I would mumble the token, “Okay naman,” all the while, not-so-surreptitiously making a beeline for the exit. When given a more honest answer like, “I’m miserable. I hate school,” she asks, “Why? What’s wrong?” and we’d get to the bottom of it, but not without making some U-turns and detours here and there, talking about the latest The Simpsons episode, or some favorite wrestler, fencing all the while with one-liners from TV, mostly cartoons. An inquiry about my location would be a paraphrase from Dexter’s Laboratory, complete with mangled accents:

“Sasha, where are you?”

“Right here.”

“Where here?”

“Here here.”

“I don’t see you . . .”

With the last line being said together: “Uh-oh, I think Dee Dee’s become the caaar!”

Completely inane, as you can see.

The mushy words that linger between us like secret farts have all been uttered under duress, complete with squirming and really awkward laughter. Happy Birthday? Hug. Happy New Year? Hug. Merry Christmas? A hug, plus a kiss if she gave me something really pretty.

My mother shows her love in a markedly different way from all the “normal” mothers out there. (Yes, all of us, including her, admit that my mom is abnormal and weird.) She does it matter-of-factly and in this way, she manages to surprise me. Like before college, she asked me if I wanted to be a writer. When I said yes, she asked me to shift into this course. When I thought about applying for a writers’ workshop, she told me to go through with it, only if I wanted to. I did, and she let me. Of course, she listened, patiently, as I told her of my irrational fear of flying – mainly because I haven’t done it before. She listened and told me, “Come on,” with her signature smirk.

But I know that I can tell her anything because I know I will be heard as an adult. And she has a way of putting things into perspective for me. When I lost a phone, I fretted and cried and she said, “It’s only a phone. Sayang, sure, but we love you more than that.” And she was hugging me. When I sunk into episodes of depression, she’d call me everyday, saying as little as possible, and our small talk slowly pulled me out of my funks.

No, my mother is not the conventional mother of fragrant kitchens and spotless aprons. My mother is the mother who laughs at cartoons with us, the one who goes with me to spelunk for books in second-hand bookstores, the one who squirms at a hug, the one who occasionally slips and calls us “love” once in a while.

The following is a letter from her to me. Reading it at such an opportune time once again put things in perspective for me. These tidbits from my mother are things I am grateful to receive, and something that I hope I will carry with me, as Hallmark as that may sound.

*

Dear Daughter,

In terms of material wealth, there is not much, if none at all that your father and I can bequeath to you. It saddens me personally as I have made it my vow that my children will never experience how it feels not to have money in the pocket, to have to ask a parent and have her give you a litany of how hard life is, that money does not grow on trees, blah, blah and more blah. I have made my needs of the least priority if my children have urgent needs of their own. Perhaps this has made me a push-over. This is of no consequence, however, as long as they will know the feeling of belonging. My life is governed by past rejections that my perspective has been warped by what not to do. The values that I wanted to impart to my children are based on everything that is opposite to my personal experiences and my hurts yet with the attempt to intersperse it with the sense of right and wrong. My upbringing was one that is sheltered because of my mother who for selfish reasons did not allow me to go out anywhere not even for a Girl Scout jamboree. With you and your brothers, I took the other route and allowed you to mingle with your peers, to join activities and thus expose you to different environments, opportunities, scenarios, judgments which I am hoping will translate to future intelligent decisions based on actual knowledge and experience rather than vicarious learning.

Along the way, I try to guide by example hoping that my actions will be passed on and lived by my daughter and sons. I am aiming for financial stability and independence. To achieve this, it should be done through hard work and self-reliance. Each task is important on its own and there is no job too small or too big that it cannot be done the best possible way it can be done. Everyone should be treated with fairness and respect. Prejudice or bias does not have a place in this family. Always carry with you a sense of honor. Hold yourself liable to your commitments and meet them whenever possible and always try to make everything possible. Let no one belittle you not even yourself. Brand and luxury is not a priority. Comfort is. Make this your mantra – form and substance, substance and form. Do not approach anything armed with only one. Always take them together. Set your immediate objectives, however selfish they may be. However, this should only be at the start. Your objectives must always end with plans to pay forward, to give back what you have been blessed with through hard work. Stay practical. Never let your heart rule your mind. Focus on your objectives. Keep your eyes on the prize and do not deviate. There is always the right time and place. Analyze all actions with pros and cons. There is no fate. There is no destiny. Your future is set by the choices that you make. Do not over analyze either that you will never act. Your first instinct is usually always right. Be forthright. Do not hide behind lies and half-lies and as the UP people say, the truth will set you free. Face up to your decisions. Do not fret and try to anticipate other people’s reactions and, more importantly, do not dwell on their reactions. However, if you decide on something, you should be able to prove yourself right.

Your father cannot stress enough the importance of family. Between him and me, he is the one who has heart. He’s Homer. I am no Marge, sadly. What I am is a mother who wants to see all her children happy, content, leading useful and productive lives and who watches out for each other. The success of one is the success of the other. I am not talking of dole-outs. I am talking of time and effort and follow through to make each one’s life meaningful. All I can give right now is unconditional love, free of judgment but filled with action plans and guidance. And hugs. Yes, really.

I love you, Elisha. I say that with implicit fact rather than sweet sentimentality. Chill.

Always,
Mami (I am your)



4
I cry easily. A compliment, a spontaneous hug, an e-mail, that Globe commercial when there's a man in a wheelchair and there's a woman fussing over him and he sends her a text message and the woman looks up and smiles at him really soft-like. I cry easily, and even though I'll probably lynched by the gliterry literary world, I mean every tear when I mean every tear. Seeing my name in print, for example, or on a bulletin board along EDSA walk, those kinds of tears. And then my mother, who's caught me off-guard more times than I care to count.

I remember when my Pollyanna essay, Everybody Has a Story appeared in the Youngblood column and I called her while she was in the office, and when she came home, she had eight copies of the newspaper and a tub of strawberry ice cream, and she told me, laughing, how she'd knocked on the metal door of every closing sari-sari store just to get the copies. I remember, when I got accepted in Ateneo for AB European Studies, she told me to write a letter to the administration, asking to be shifted to BFA Creative Writing, because that's what I really want, wasn't it? And I remember, after a class with Sir Krip, when my short story The Return was discussed, and he'd told me during consultation, "I can't teach you anything else. You're a writer." And I called my mom, and we did some mutual giggling. I remember when that story got published in Free Press, and it was my mother I called first, and she kept saying Wow, and she kept saying, You're first short story published, in Free Press. Oh god, that's a big thing, right? and I remember how I stayed on the line as she Googled what Free Press was, and what it could mean. I remember that a year ago, in Calatagan, Martin sent me a text message, congratulating me on some good writerly news. And I ran to the nearest Internet shop (hard to do, in Calatagan, hello), and before I could think of the damage to my ridiculously unhealthy body, I ran to my mother, who was curled up in the bunk bed reading Byatt, and I said, "Mom. I got in. Dumaguete." I remember how she helped me pack, making a table of what I should be wearing for the day, and how we both forgot to pack some underwear, and so all my bras and panties were stuffed at what available nook and cranny there was. I remember her calling me up right after my first story was discussed, and I told her everything they said, and then I called her after my second story was discussed, I remember this phone call happened while everyone was in a Dance Tribute, and I was weaving my way in and out of the lawn, trying to keep my voice low. I remember when I came back, and my eyes were glazed, and we were in a cafe in Quezon, and she ordered some coffee, and she said, "You want to talk about it?" And I said, "I can't." And she said, "Ew, I don't think I want to know then." I remember when another story was published, and she laughed, and said, "Good job, love." I remember when Sarge Lacuesta sent me a (suspicious-looking, haha) email, informing me that The Return was a finalist in this year's Free Press Awards, and I'd stared, dumbfounded, at the computer screen, and then it was my mother I first thought of, and I sent her a message (short on load), and she replied with, and I quote, "WOOHOO." And then she called me and squealed, and said, "WOOHOO" again. I remember sending manic messages to her during the ceremony, telling her I had to go to the bathroom real bad, screw everything, and her telling me to Calm down. Apparently, B. loses her hair when she's stressed, and you lose your bowels. And I remember I texted her, "Didn't get anything, save for a box of matches. I'm off to get drunk." And I remember she replied with, "Okay. But not too drunk. You've got class tomorrow." I remember when I saw my name on the Heights bulletin board, telling me I was a fellow, and I remember I told her first. I remember the morning of the workshop, and she sent me a message, "Have fun. Chin up when criticism goes your way. Don't let your head grow big with whatever praise they give you." And I remember coming down from Antipolo, having lunch with her, and we both didn't have to say anything. I remember when Marra Lanot of Graphic told me This Fleet of Shadows would be published soon, and I remember my mother telling me, "You never cease to amaze me." I remember when I got the Heights issue came out, and I told her I had two stories there, and she said, "Yay, love. You never cease to amaze me, kid." And I remember her telling me, after reading Quick, the Tomatoes, "You never cease to amaze me. Can you really smoke aphids out?" And I remember I cried because of that, but I replied that yes, you really can smoke aphids out. I remember, just last night, telling her, "Mom, oh my god, the story in Graphic is out! Page 42! And Sir Krip's column, buwahahaha!" And she replied with, "Ah, wonderful. Congratulations! Where can I get a copy?" And I remember, how, just this morning, I told her how a professor had told me, "This girl can write," over that overly dramatic story of mine about the Japanese Occupation, and I remember that I quoted a barf-able line to her, "I truly have nothing to live for. And that makes me the perfect candidate to die for anything at all," and I remember how my mother wrote me, "Simply amazes me how you meld seemingly disparate words and turn them into a story." And I remember how I just sat back, and just stared at the computer, and tried to telepathically hug my mother, trying not to cry, because I was in Mag:net then, and Sir Rock was beside me, and it didn't seem polite to cry while he was staring at a picture of Sisig-stuffed Sili.


5
I wanted to make this as short as a paragraph, but you know how things are.


6
From Written on the Body, by Jeanette Winterson: "You said, 'I Love You.' Why is it that the most unoriginal thing we can say to one another is still the thing we long to hear? 'I Love You' is always a quotation. You did not say it first and neither did I, yet when you say it and when I say it we speak like savages who have found three words and worship them. I did worship them but now I am alone on a rock hewn out of my own body."

Wala lang. Bzzzt.

They taped over your mouth

1 – My dad called me, said, “Magaling na raw magsulat ang anak ko a.” And I laughed, and joked, “Ay, kagaling raw nireng anak niyo, kagaling.” And I remembered how, in Calatagan, I’d be walking with my grandmother from our day in the market, and she’d stop by, it seemed to me then, every freaking house on the street, making idle chatter with the neighbors. And I’d listen to her talk to them, say, “Parang uulan ngayong hapon,” and then, she’d say, again, “Parang uulan ngayong hapon,” but slower now, almost as if the last thought was just for herself, something gentler than a mutter, something more iterative than a mumble. Ah, words.

2 – A week or so ago, P. got Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Memories of My Melancholy Whores and Of Love and Shadows. And so I sat down, ignored everything that I should've been doing, and read Memories, and hours later, I was done, and I had this gem: “Don’t let yourself die without knowing the wonder of fucking with love.” Amen.

2.1 – I hereby resolve that before I turn twenty, I will have read One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (and Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, and this one, and that one), and not just have skimmed them, looking for the juicy parts. Pramis.

3 – Medyo late news 'to, ha, pero mahirap lang mawal sa utak ko. During the Heights book launch, AHWW co-fellow Brandz handed me a contributor’s copy. The pretty, hardbound one. The kind I never knew existed until about a year ago, when Martin brandished his, and I growled, “They give you that when you get published? I am so sending them my stuff.” Anyway. There I was, wearing pink (the pinkness of my shirt is relevant, it just is), with the book nestled in my spread palms, and I thought, Shit. The kind of Shit you say when you’re not exactly about to cry, more like so giddy and gaga over everything that you just want to go on a Hug Rampage. That kind of Shit. Yes, kinilig ako. (Translation: Yes, I so got kilig.) I opened the book to the table of contents, saw my name (saw my name again, buwahahaha). I ran to P., (and to Martin, to Marie, to Panch the Younger, and to Petra, haha), and I said, “Oh god, look.” Wasak lang.

Siguro dahil may history kaya wasak na wasak ako, haha. Siguro. I remember, freshman year, I submitted about five poems, and five short stories (sinagad e), and each and every one of them got rejected. Fine. Haha. It’s emo daw kasi (and this was before they all started using the word – iba talaga ‘pag pasimuno, hehe), pa-gothic. Astig lang na meron na na-publish na ‘ko sa wakas, haha. That’s the sentiment, haha: finally.

Wala sa isip kong magyabang. Kinikilig lang talaga ako. Malabo siguro, may mga iba diyan kung saan-saan na na-publish (parang pinaparinggan ko sarili ko, ang labo, haha), pero, eh, basta. Ayoko i-analyze masyado, pero eto masasabi ko: It’s almost the same feeling when you get yourself a new pair of skinny jeans, and you try them on for the first time, and you’re hopping around the damned room because they’re just so freaking tight on you, and then when you’ve calmed the zipper and the buttons down, ang sarap ng kapit ng tela sa hita mo, every centimeter of your legs can feel the rasp of that denim, the weave, even the stitching running along the side. So, yeah, beyond the observation that I wear really tight pants, that’s what this particular publication feels like. Apir!

(At sa wakas, na-publish din kami ni Martin sa (technically) isang anthology, or publication. Sabi naming dati, at least once, simulan namin sa Heights. Sure, you have to flip over the book to see each of our names, pero okay na’ko dun, for now. Cool lang, hehe.)

4 – I have been chanting, “Get thee to the nunnery!” since yesterday afternoon, and it is, quite frankly, driving me crazy.

Parked car, night sky

Because I'm procrastinating, and I think it's raining outside, and I'm sure I don't have an umbrella:

1 - By all means, I should be safely tucked in bed, or at least writing for shit's sake, instead of Googling Michael Phelps (kalaglag-panty, pramis), Mrs. Fields' bankruptcy (remind me to buy some cookies), and sexy-places in Recto. Hello.

2 - Aside from all that, that scene from Far and Away keeps playing on loop in my head, the one where Tom Cruise dies, and the camera follows his soul around the fields and the clouds, and Nicole Kidman is wailing all over him, and then his soul does a somersault and lands back into his body with a great, big gasp from him. Yes, that scene. I love that movie. It appeals to my Fabio-Covered-Books obssession. Gahdamn, I can never spell obsession right. Single S, double S! Anyway. Far and Away, rich girl, poor boy, pretending to be siblings, lives in a whorehouse, boy does a bit of Fight Club, girl shows her knickers dancing, they get separated because she's oh-so-sick and he realizes he can't take care of her, and then a long time later, they meet again, in some land-grabbing thing, and they hook up again, and I remember she's wearing blue, and wow, do I love that movie. Atrocious accents and all.

3 - I have this grand plan. Someday, when I'm rich and powerful, I'm going to write a historical romance novel set in the Philippines. Jill Barnett, romance novelist, did that with Just A Kiss Away, which is set in the Philippines, about 1896. I love this book (it's all about luuuurve), and I find it funny that Antonio Luna has a minor role. Now, I've been thinking, why can't I write a romance novel? None of those 35-peso books sold in 7-11s, but full-length novels with lots of hot men and swooning and sexy time? Why not? Yes. I'll do that. Get back to me in about ten years, give or take.

4 - Yes, I read romance novels. Get over it.

5 - On being rich and powerful. I told my mother my laptop refuses to work. It's shuddered its last shudder. And she said, "Oh, and we can't get a new one until --" And I butted in with, "Yeah, I know, when I'm rich and powerful," and she laughs, and says, "Actually, I was going to say, in December, but that works too."

6 - Good writerly news in my e-mail, and I'm tickled pink. I wanted to reply with, "You're fucking kidding me right?" Or even, "Okay. Who put you up to this?" Hay. Good tidings, and fluffy pink bunnies, and rainbows coming out of my ass. See? Happy. A part of me still thinks that it might be a mis-send (haha), though I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but only loosely, hehe. Little ol' 18-year-old me from the toad-splattered streets of Imus, and all that jazz. (Goddamned self-deprecation.) But I'm happy, ridiculously happy. Order of information dissemination: my mother (immediately called her up, and she squealed, and said, WOOHOO), Zoe (almost hysterically buzzed her on YM, and she replied with, "Oh, I'm happy for you -- what's this again?"), and then I ran out of the shop to Pancho (who gave me a high-five, haha, oh love), Martin (mental apir too, hehe), and then Marie (to whom I gave a rather pretentious write-up, for Heights, haha, and who kicks ass with her Palanca win!), and then there's this blog, although I realize I'm not making a lot of sense. (Besides, if I put this in a long paragraph, and plunk it in the middle of a long-ass entry, your eyes would've probably glazed over by now.) Okay. I'm talking about this too much. But, but, but. You know when you get really good news, and you turn the television on, and there's all this mess about rapes and pillages and burninatings of countrysides, and you keep wondering, "Jeebus, why the hell aren't they talking about how happy I am?" Yeah. Sometimes, I think the world revolves around me. It often does, you know.

7 - Happy birthday to Official Two-Year-Fixation Miyo Sta. Maria (got you!), sexy testudinine poetess Nikita Paredes, and my mother, who said this afternoon, "Yeah, I've been lying in bed all weekend, reading books. What's wrong with lying in bed all weekend, reading books? Can't I lie in bed all weekend and read books when I'm turning forty-one?!" That's my mother. I luuurve you. :)

8 - Okay. That's it. Awat na. Relax.

9 - Last brainfart. Ernest Hemingway, y'all (though with some contentions) -- "For sale: baby shoes, never worn."

Watching an in-flight movie

I am so exhausted, any minute now I'll be keeling over with foam bubbling out of my mouth. My big toes hurt -- it wasn't a good idea to wear 3-inch wedges for a 3-hour commute, no matter how many times you tell yourself that this would be more convenient than bringing another bag for your shoes. People look at you when you tower over everyone else in the train cars, and too bad for you, you look like hell. You smell like a public payphone. You need a bath, you need to go soak those toes. What are you wearing tonight? How many times do I have to tell you that not everything in embarrass is doubled? I need teachers for this semester. Do I just pick afternoon classes, or do I conscientiously research the profs? Exie Abola's my thesis class teacher, and I just missed Martin. Hala, Martin, WTF? Hahaha. Haa. I'm going to have to call you Professor now, am I? Hassle. By the way, my toes hurt so goddamned much. What am I going to wear? My eyebrows look like happy squirrels cavorting on my face. I need teachers for this semester -- why are there eight freaking subjects listed to my name? There is so much to do, and I have to be somewhere else in thirty minutes -- happy birthday, ZoeDee. But I need another bath. I need to put a flamethrower to these eyebrows, and have I shaved my legs yet? Oh. Fine, I'll wear pants. They go well with my hobo-in-wedges look. Add an expensive stick of cancer. Rommel Adducul has nasopharyngeal cancer -- and I managed to spell that correctly on the first go. Smoking while trying not to be seen/smelled only aggravates the wonky heart conditions. You're pathetically quiet, and you sharpen your cha-cha moves with the wind and the smoke. This morning, my youngest brother and I giggled over the nilagang baka, his hairstyle, and having to turn the TV off for a snoring father. And a big congratulations to newly-sixteen Gabriel Joshua who's officially in college. Scared, I asked. No, he said. Ah, I replied, I was fucking terrified. Scheds, I have to fix my scheds. God, my fucking toes. God damn it, licorice-flavored toothpaste does not taste good.

Things happened while I was gone.

*

From Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin:

"Why is it we want so badly to memorialize ourselves? Even while we're still alive. We wish to assert our existence, likes dogs peeing on fire hydrants. We put on display our framed photographs, our parchment diplomas, our silver-plated cups; we monogram our linen, we carve our names on trees, we scrawl them on washroom walls. It's all the same impulse. What do we hope from it? Applause, envy, respect? Or simply attention, of any kind we can get?

At the very least we want a witness. We can't stand the idea of our own voices silent finally, like a radio running down."

When the Spanish babies cry

I woke up at 8:30 this morning, and the house was quiet, and I played five games of Solitaire. I looked for my journal, scribbled down a dream I was, at that very moment, forgetting, and marked a date a week from the end of the month with sparkly hearts and jumping stars and what seems to be the disembodied head of a baby panda. I read a poem by John Brehm, titled “The Poems I Have Not Written,” and thought about the stories that were waiting for me in that land of unclaimed stories, where a lizard scuttling on the wall across your bedroom door might mean that in three fast blinks of your left eye, the wind will part, rivulets of air and dust conspiring with you to hasten the steps of the person – other side of the world? a city away? down the road? – you are meant to be with. I thought about a friend in Paris, in a room brimming with Van Goghs, Vermeers, and Klimts, thought about the men that must have slept with her name on their lips, after an hour of conversation and baguettes and cheese. I thought about the young boys two blocks over who ride their bikes at midnight to meet the yayas of the children. I thought about how it would be hot soon. I thought about tonight, about how I’d spend the evening drinking with my mother and an aunt, in some not-so-polite pre-Mother’s Day celebrations. I thought about tomorrow morning, about whether I’ll be awake when the cake that greets the four mothers in this house would arrive. I thought about a day I would not have to wait for for too long, and thought about the dress I may or may not wear with shoes, or maybe slippers? I thought about the ceiling I’ve missed waking up to, the sunlight that streamed through the gray glass of picture windows. I thought about the song that would play in the background as I’d ride trains and field the screams of grinning children I do not know, about the silence of the dead tomatoes when a door finally opens and I finally get a hug from someone who’s not half the length of my body.

At 8:32, the babies from the room above mine cried their way into the morning, and I turned on the bed, and went back to sleep.

If I had eyes

1
Things have been ho-hum lately. Basking in the nothingness that is the beginning of summer. (Crap, may hold orders pa pala ako.) Spent a weekend with the family back in Cavite for Gabriel Joshua's graduation -- where I a.) met the ghosts of boyfriends past, b.) was made to promise to graduate with honors by well-meaning former teachers, c.) was told by my former principal that I was "always worthy in the eyes of God." Right.

2
More on nothingness: sleeping the entire day, only getting up for the bathroom, frantic messages from family and friends, and Isabel Allende.

3
Speaking of Isabel Allende:

"I no longer had the strength to grab a sturdy peasant girl by the waist and swing her up onto my saddle, much less rip her clothes off and enter her against her will. I was of an age when you need help and tenderness if you're going to make love. I was old, damn it."
- from The House of the Spirits

Happy summer everybooty.

The little spies

Family update: Baby cousin Ashley spent her second birthday dressed in a lilac gown, in the arms of Jollibee -- who "accidentally" let one gloved hand wander momentarily to my flat behind. I could have touched his ass, but I doubt he would feel it.

Spent Sunday with my family (yes, I have one) -- Mom and I running around Festival Mall looking for shoes and secondhand books, the boys in tow, grumbling, holding our bags. John Vincent's average is above 90, Gabriel Joshua needs Chapters 4 and 5 of his thesis and my father thinks brown looks good on him.

*

Writerly update: Woke up at three this morning to the sound of my calves shrieking in pain. Must've been all that traipsing around the Metro last night. Opened my laptop, admired a shiny new gadget attached to it like a cyst (thanks to my mother for filching a Flash Drive for me), then started hammering away at the keys. End result, one odd sunrise later, is A Knock on the Door, four pages (uncharacteristically short for me, sufferer of Acute Literary Elephantiasis) of my first ever completed short story of the year. YEEEY!

Which means my ever-pending Red Earth has been whining repeatedly and continuously due to neglect. One damn scene refuses to be written. Tadyakan na 'to.

*

Friend-ic (what's a modifier for friend?) update: Blockmates and I had an inuman thing at Aila's pretty fly pad -- we watched Rent for the umpteenth time, ate Nikay's pesto, and urged Sandelicious to go on. I also watched people fall off like flies, succumbing to sleep. At which point, I opened the windows to scream random adulations to slumberous Loyola Heights.

I missed you crazy peoples!

*

Voices in My Head update: I need to get into that My Chemical Romance concert. Angst na kung angst. Sarj and I shall be in it together, and my emo prowess, combined with her innate ability to spread terror and horror to the ends of the earth shall make Mikey and Gerard Way to fall on their knees in front of our Chuck Taylors.

Oh, and Paramore's Crush Crush Crush is stuck in my head.

Waves are crashing

. . . And stars are falling all for us.
(Because it is stuck in my head and I need to send it out there so it'll feast on the LSS-hugging corners of your minds. *Evil laugh*.)

*

Anyway. The last week of class shall be a flurry of required novels, smuggled novels, and dinners with lovely people. ZoeDee and her crabcake thingies. Rar. :) And splendiferous coffee. Oh, gosh. Blockmates and blockmate friends, see you on the 22nd. :)

Then it's off to the wilderness of Cavite, then to Calatagan for some frozen beach-ness. Christmas Eve has, lately, been a night of grilling hotdogs with my brothers, chasing chickens (to my father's consternation), making molo soup with my mother, and sleeping on top of my uncle's billiard tables; dinner consisting of tacos, sushi, pizza and the odd estupado; the brothers who squirm from your hugs, the father who blushes when you kiss his cheek, the mother who stares at you for two seconds before she lets herself be smothered with an awkward hug.

Won't have it any other way.

Aww.

Ahem.

*

Last Christmas, I realized that the induction to adulthood was barricading one's self in one's grandmother's room with a ton of Christmas wrapper, hardening one's heart to the squeals and pleas and flimsy excuses (Ate Sha, kuha lang ako ng . . . ah, hair brush . . .) of little cousins everywhere. Nothing like knowing other people's gifts and near-suffocating one's self with scotch tape to know that you're a freaking adult.

*

Random(-er): That song by Jose Mari Chan that begins with a trapped-in-a-tomb-voice that goes Whenever I see boys and girls never ceases to freak me out every single time.

*

Another random brainfart from the depths of my past journals:

"The reality was, you only knew you were loved if you were left and returned to, if you were ignored and then craved. Occasionally you would be seen for slightly less than the sum of your parts, and that was love, too. Love announced itself with a sting, not a pat. If love was love, it was urgent and ripe and carried with it the faint odor of humiliation, so that there was always something to be made up for later, some apology in the works."
- The Brutal Language of Love by Alicia Erian

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.

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

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. :)

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.

Wouldn't it be nice

Last night.

From Mercury Drug for my drugs.
Looking for a place to eat.

My mom comes over. Joel Toledo is spinning in Mag:net. Risking social status (what little of it I have) I tell her, "You want to eat at Mag:net?"

"Not really," she says. "Masisira yung floppy disk ko."

I roll my eyes.


*

Crossing the street.
Still looking.

Mom: Pinapawisan ka ba?

Sasha: Nope.

Mom: Ako pinapawisan!

Sasha: Wow.

Mom: . . . and I often get hot flashes lately!

Sasha: Ah.

Mom: *big grin* I'm getting menopause!

Sasha: You don't have to sound so proud and perky.


*


Rapzi Tapzi under the overpass.
Thinking of what to eat.

Mom: That embutido looks so sad.

Sasha: Wah?

Mom: It looks like a chopped up penis. A skinny one.

Sasha: Mom.

Mom: What? Look at the right end of it. That's a head!



*


Still at Rapzi Tapzi.
Updates.

My thirty-nine-year old mom's hair is in the Posh Spice haircut. My fifteen-year-old brother, Gabriel Joshua, got a Mohawk. And since my grandmother's staying with them, my dad can't beat some sense into his son, lest he face the wrath of my sweet little lola.

My twelve-year-old brother, John Vincent, has a suitor named Rosita.

"Joshua says that this Rosita is really pretty," Mom tells me.

"Uh, isn't he in fourth year?" I ask. "What's he doing looking at freshies for?"

The pretty Rosita is texting him messages like (my mom whips out phone to show me) : "I think you're cute and very funny. You make me laugh a lot. Cute talaga! I like you a lot, John."

I huff. "We girls never did that in my day!" I say, waving my fork about.

When she's laying in her Sunday best

Packed.

May have bought too many clothes, but even now they don't seem enough. "Do you need all this underwear?" my mother keeps asking me. And then she drops a five-inch book on my lap.

"Where's your toothbrush?"

I leave tomorrow, noon-ish. Will wait two hours, then board a plane that may or may not plummet 102,483 miles into a pond, then maybe, just maybe, resurface in "humid" Dumaguete, lost the minute the air hits me splat.

Blink, blink.

One nostril is runny, the other one's clogged. My head feels like it's stuffed with cotton, and someone's wringing it to get all sanity out. My throat is sore, I sound like a drag queen on Prozac.

Have to shave my legs. Shit. That's an hour's worth of bending over. 45 inches each leg, thirty minutes each.

I'm starting to think that all this [my] talk about Dumaguete is getting snooty. Ew. I don't want to be one of those persons who introduce themselves as, "Hi, I'm Moonbeam Von Liverwurst. I went to the Dumaguete Workshop," then insert simpering smile directed at everyone in a five-mile radius.

I wish I can carve out all my snot and brain spasms then deposit them in some politician's tushy.

Good night, everyone. See you when I see you.

World peace.

PS
I haven't opened my cellphone in a week. So apologies to those who sent me messages that didn't get replies. Especially you, Mr. IKYFMH.

XD

And as you gently sip this drink

Peculiar farking summer, ladies and gents.

Yesterday, from my lola's in Paranaque (hello, hello, to my incredibly pregnant tita, Robyn), went to Cavite, where I reunited with the couch-meant-for-the-dumptruck and my laptop. And now, I'm back in Calatagan, Batangas, for my brothers' kumpil and the town fiesta. Yum yum lechon, estupado, menudo, maja de blanca and leche flan.

(Hello to Yaps, and all the other blockmates of mine, who could've been here with me in food heaven -- but alas, may pasok kayo. Buwahaha.)

Here I sit, using my other tita's laptop. You know, the one with the Windows 98 OS, no Microsoft Office programs and a toggle circle thing that's supposedly this machine's mouse.

Gah.

*

When I woke up this morning, I had a rather interesting abundance of happy hormones. Now, though, after miles and miles of noise, pollution, people and MILES, I am starting to get grumpy. Pota naman o.

And this is pointless but I might as well say it: IT'S SO BLEEPING HOT!!! (like, OhMyGod, WhatTheFuck, Barbeque!!!) IT BURNS, BABY. OOH, IT BURNS!!!

GahGahGAAAH.

Stupid macho cock (er, chicken)

Have been back in Cavite since Tuesday morning. Which means I shall no longer sleep on cold floor tiles reminiscent of morgues, or on a bed whose agenda includes eating me bit by bloody bit. Which means no more blankets of Indian mangos in different stages of rot on the dusty ground. No more waking up to Marikit the Dog chasing random chick (as in manok) through the living room.

Astig.

Now it's back to coagulating on the couch. (Yes, I sleep on the couch. A feel-the-springs-against-your-ass couch. My family doesn't think it's necessary for me to have a bed. I don't, after all, live in the place. Sus.) Back to wading through the archeological dig that is the surface of our house to get from one place to another. Back to mindless cable (hell-oooo, Seeley Booth and House and Lucas Scott, Triple H and MadTV). Back to cooking for myself (which means, I'm going hungry. Ayos.)

I am closer to the metropolis but that does not mean I am any closer to civilization.

Yesterday, under threat of mortal melt-age, I fed my father's chickens. These are not sissy chickens, mind you. These are tough'uns -- they tear out your throat, peck by peck, until you beg for mercy, kissing their scaly little feet (claws? talons?). Gah.

There was this one particular chicken. Strong one. Muscular, big, fierce. Pretty one. Glossy red feathers on its impressive breast, green-black feathers on its back, black-black feathers stuck to its ass. And that weird fleshy red thing on the top of its head that reminds me, frightfully, of a tissue-mass found on a female human body. Or a droopy old man's body.

But I digress.

I hate that chicken. There I was, melting, leaving puddles of me on the grass, carrying a bucket of feed with me. And I went to him, tiptoed, gave him the respect his stature demanded. I nearly kowtowed. But then Mr. Tough Guy decided to farking attack me, a flurry of feathers and tight, compact muscles and that screeching.

I got away, but only barely. I threw his food pellet things at him and sneered. (A sure sign of my maturity.)

"Adobo," I growled.

He stared at me. Malevolently. Kulang na lang, background music and a clap of thunder.

I stepped back. He had that "Ima get you now, bitch" pose going on.

Walk away, Sasha. Walk away.

Stupid macho cock (er, chicken)!

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it was a mighty battle.

And he sure as hell won.

Staring at the phone

My vagina is about to fall off. And it's not falling off without a fight. Which probably accounts to why I woke up scowling at the ceiling and will probably go to bed snarling at my pillow. I am glaring at everything and everyone. No one is safe.

This morning, while I grumbled sa bathroom:
John Vincent: Ate, bakit yung mga senators --
Me: *growl* Can you please not interview me while I'm in the bathroom? Thank you.

Lunchtime.
Gabriel Joshua : Electric fan, buksan mo.
Me: Ayoko.
Gabriel Joshua: Mas malapit ka.
Me: *screams* Mas mukha kang tagabukas ng electric fan kaysa sa'kin, kaya IKAW magbukas.

Afternoon.
Gabriel Joshua: Saan ko 'to ilalagay?
Me: *tiny, keening scream* Sa dulo ng mundo. Sama mo na rin sarili mo, puwede?

Kanina lang.
Me: Okay, family, I'm a Martinez. And I'm on my period. Which means all hell will break loose any time now. Galit ako sa mundo. (To the boys) At kung hindi pa tayo aalis ngayon, mangangagat ako! I am NOT kidding, people. Move, move, MOVE.

And then I find out that the boys have been snooping around my stuff. JesusChristOnWheels, ano ba. I guess this is the consequence of sharing a room with three of the species, one of them a precocious little kid who likes to tell me to kiss his ass; the other, a looming bugger who thinks he's now got an authority on me just because he's suddenly taller than me; the other-other, the perpetually-eighteen uncle. (May kabilang bahay naman eh, dun na kayo. Grr.)

Which means they've regressed to reading my diary, pasting my girly things on the walls, and using my coloring pens to draw mindless tagging stuff whatevers on cabinet doors (GROW UP, PEOPLE). And that they've found my cigarettes which have ALL gone stale (gah) because I haven't smoked since school let out and my perpetually-eighteen uncle said, "Lagot ka sa daddy mo," while lighting one not-so-stale-pala cigarette with my purple lighter.

And I can't unleash my fury. Because someone else's looms. Because frankly, although my father hasn't raised his voice in me in sooo sooo long, he is still my father. An easily-hurt, easily-disappointed, guilt-tripping, the-wrath-of-three-nations father.

Punyetang malagkeeeeht.

*

Although my body was acting up again -- back, mini-migraine, mangoes-in-tummy, sleeplessness -- not to mention my hairtrigger modd swings nowadays, I trudged off to the ordered chaos that is the town's general merchandise store thing.

I spelunked for any semblance of civilization. I looked for BreadPan (yung green). Wala. I looked for Hello (yung blue). Wala. I looked for Sola. Wala. Putehk, nakakapansin na ko ha.

I looked for DutchMill (yung strawberry-flavored). Then, slow horror. WALA.

Pauwiin niyo na ko, sige na. I might just possibly go crazy. I want to burrow into a corner and hide. I miss my family, love them to tears, but you can only take on so much madness, unrelated to your craft. Dang, I'm such a mess of emotions right now, I want to cry and throw things and eat a fucking mango.

This too shall pass. Calm yourself, Sasha dear, ride this out.

Yun.

Too bad I fell for it

After the Car Ride From Hell v.226, with (predictably) a Martinez male behind the wheel, I stumble into Calatagan, land of rascal Spaniards and their beleaguered wives (of which demographies my paternal grandparents belong to, go figure), and I discover one of the sweetest things ever to grace my seventeen years:

There is decent freaking INTERNET in Calatagan, Batangas. Gahd, the heavens have unfastened and little nekkid cherubs are frolicking about, doing the boogie to the rythm of my heart. (Okay, horrible metaphor overload.)

Putehk, FINALLY.

Sure, I have to squeeze myself between girls in tube tops YM-ing their boyfriends in Lithuania or something, and the kanto boys screaming at the MU universe, whilst they hold plastic bags of rugby. But it's a small price to pay. Mom let the bomb drop that my brothers and I would be staying here for a month and I expect cyberspace to become an IV drip to keep me alive.

This and unlimited food fresh from the seas and the trees.

Which reminds me that I have to gripe: people around me are in a frenzy to effing feed me. The food is fantastic, which makes it so hard to refuse it. Libre pa. ^_^ But please. At this rate, I'll be a blimp by the end of the summer. I already look like an overstuffed longganisa in my jeans as it is. Yip-de-doo.

*

Soon-to-be senior boy Martin got invites to the Free Press Awards, which are tomorrow night, and he wants me to come with. I want to go, not because I harbor any delusions about actually getting something -- I'm not invited, DI BA? -- but because it's such a kick-ass literary event with swarming writers. And I wanna say hello to Sarge Lacuesta. See how writers interact -- pen and paper? yosi and liquor? hand signals? telepathy?

And there's free booze daw. Winner.

But I'm here. With YM-ers, their hearts Lithuania-bound, and hollow-eyed boys with rugby in plastic bags.

So, Martin dear, good luck, get drunk and nasty, tell me what happens (leaving out the drunk and nasty parts) and please please don't tell Plans B, C and D that they're plans B, C and D. (-_-)

*

(It feels more like a cold war, rather than an actual fight. On one hand, we can blame it on not having seen each other for quite some time now but on the other, well... Well. Either way, I miss you.)

*

When I get back to civilization, can we ALL get together and get knocked shitless with drunkenness and nicotine?

*

RANDOM:
1 Yaps, kamukha mo yung buong bandang Callalily. XD
2 Hindi Perpetual Heartbreak si PH Chua, Powdered Heart na lang. :p
3 When ang start ng summer classes niyo?
4 I STILL MISS Y'ALL. :)
5 Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeach!

Wanna wait for silence

I'm off to Calatagan, Batangas in a couple of days, where the entire Internet network consists of one desktop, OS Windows 98, going at 15.5 Kbps. The decent Interenet cafes are at least a town away, in Balayan, where a Jollibee stands grinning beside a lost-looking Rizal.

So this means I'll be in hibernation from the bloggie blogosphere for some days (weeks) or so.

Until then, I'll be in my sunny hometown, whose roads are littered with cow dung and flattened froggies; where there is a rather curious shortage of condoms (leading to the sharp rise in pregnancies); where Brian and I sit on top of my father's 1975 Mistubishi's midnight-blue/mold-green hood, being feasted upon by rabid mosquitoes; whose Mentos supply I've completely horded and sucked on.

And since my darling Nami (my laptop) got zapped by lightning a year ago, I can't connect dial-up from home. And I don't have Wi-Fi. Which means I'll trudge to the Internet shops my brothers haunt just to deliver my inane randomizations in my bloggies.

All this is a rather rambling and Sasha-esque way of saying: I may not be updating as often as I usually do because I'll be in exile. Yeyness.


*


EMO MODE 1 ON
ZoeDee lectures me on the power of positive thinking, the laws of attraction. Think and ye shall get it. So here I am, thinking about the Dumaguetes, hoping hopin hoping. Beaches -- blue and green frolicking with waves and winking sun, Jimmy Abad, dappled sunlight on sand beneath coconut fronds and random foliage, fried iced cream, Edith Tiempo, a table, possibly radioactive water, and Edith Tiempo. Hope.

And then I see a motherfucking typo. ARGH.
*stabs eye with pen*

There are times that I am deathly afraid of hoping because I know that the rejection might crush me harder. When I get the news, I'll be in Calatagan, between sugarcanes, being chased by a snake; or in Cavite, melting under the gleeful, macho sun and avoiding dishwashing duty; or with Yaps, drinking and trying not to pseudo-smoke.
EMO MODE 1 OFF


*


EMO MODE 2 ON
Dear Lover-I-Don't-Have-to-Love,

I am wanting an abstract You because He just won't cut it. All of them won't.

Yours,
The Abstract-er Me
EMO MODE 2 OFF


*


Hello to happy tree friends, PerpetualHeartbreak Chua, Dino, Gia, Yaps, Sarj, Jevvie, Nikita, Gabie, Helen, ZoeDee and our brothers and sisters in EasterLand. :)