Mang Pedring

At 1:36 am, September 12, my dog died.

Yes, a dog. This happened at a time when there are very disturbing events unfolding in the Middle East, East Africa and South Asia over that Anti-Muhammad movie. At a time when news about hundreds of garment workers who died when their factory burned down in Pakistan came out. And a good friend's sister has cancer. Insignificant in the face of these other tragedies, I know. But still.

Mang Pedring came to us in January 2005. And in his 7 years with us, he ran away many times but we would always find him. But there was one particular time when I thought he was lost for good and I told myself I will not cry, I will not grieve, I will reserve my tears for people, for real losses, for real heartbreaks. He is just a dog and I don't even like pets. I cannot even walk down a block because I am afraid of stray dogs. He had been gone more than 24 hours. And I did not shed a tear that whole time but I also did not leave my room until he was found the next day.

And now he is gone and I have cried buckets since, on the train, on the bus, in my hotel room, over breakfast. I am crying not just for a pet but for that girl 7 years ago who cleared out her Mano's room and went home with his books, his clothes, his documents, his things, and his dog. We were both so lost then, Mang Pedring and I.

I did not know how to be a dog owner. And he did not know how to be a normal dog. Call his name and he would run to you but not in a straight line as other dogs do. He would run in small circles, and more small circles until he reached you. It was dizzying to watch. And I figured out why. He was in a cage while my brother was away and that was the only space he knew how to move around in, all 36 inches of it. So when my home became his, he still moved around in that space in his head, 36 inches at a time. His circles became bigger and bigger over time until one day (I don't remember when, maybe a year later)he finally run in a straight line.

He did not eat his food directly from his food container. Instead, he would take pieces of dog food in his mouth, bring it under the dining table, drop the pieces out and eat them one bite at a time. And he would make several trips back and forth until he was done. Oh, and he would only start eating if one of us is already at the dining table.

And for some time he did not bark. He though he was a cat.

And I did not help him find himself (if ever there was such a thing for dogs). I was too lost, too sad. But we made it through, he and I, one small space at a time.

I am also crying for the girls of Matahimik Street (Daryll, Emma & Ruby) who decided he should be named Don Pedrito Garucho Urmeneta or Pedring for short. Blame it on the tanduay. "Mang" is used as a sign of respect for elders and we figured we needed a man of the house so he became Mang Pedring, a very unusual name for a dog. And maybe that's why he was confused- because of his name and because since then I decided to treat him like he was my alcoholic uncle.

Oh, we were young then, the girls and Mang Pedring. A different us, a different world.

I am crying for his caregivers (Nicky, Lorna, the tres Marias, Maica, Mana Adette, Uncle Dodi, Tita Ting, Uncle Joseph and Nanay Patsy). For Emma's mom who refused to call him Mang Pedring but instead called him Peter.

And for my mom, his primary caregiver, who narrated how he was confined and how he died (she told it like he was a real person in the hospital) and on the phone, said, "day, let's not get another dog, please. Makuri hin duro". For my Papa, who would feed him with his favorite tinapay every now and then even when he said we shouldn't and who could not bear to watch him buried. My parents said when I went home recently "we have 3 senior citizens in this house- kami and Mang Pedring".

And I am crying because it's another end to an era.

So no, I don't cry for dogs, I cry for people who loved this dog, of those years, and of a world with Mang Pedring in it.

Before May Ends

(My tribute to all Biological and Un-biological Mothers)


This conversation with my mom started with my very innocuous remark about my curly hair, how I never notice it until hairdressers ask me if my curls are natural, or when I first wake up in the morning. Ngatanan gad kamo, kurong, my mom said.

My mom then jumped from that topic to Hayden Kho, waray man la mag sulibang ko. And how she pities him now. What? Am I hearing what you are saying? And how did we get to Hayden Kho from my hair?

My hair, my brother’s curly hair, Mano her son, Hayden who is now in the news is a son to a mom who has defended him, she would defend her son too, no matter what- that was her logical flow. You follow? From the time I woke up that morning with my untamed hair, we were just one breath away from talking about Mano, the pinakurong among us.

She explained: Hayden is a mother’s son too. And if she were his mother, no matter what he did, no matter how wrong, she would take his side, and she would protect him. Like what Hayden’s mother did. I could have told her that Hayden’s mom got a lot of flak for that. I told my friends this exchange and they asked, but what about Katrina’s mom? I said, that is not the theme that day- for my mom, the mother and son story is the central theme this particular morning. The son who did wrong and the grieving mother. And if Mano were alive and did a Hayden, well she would go on TV and say, nilulong lang siya ng droga ni Katrina. She is funny that way, my mom. I could have laughed but I wanted to cry instead.

So just to clarify, it was not Hayden my mom sided with, she emphatized with Hayden’s mom, just in case the anti-Hayden group set camp outside our house.

But that morning, even before I had my first cup of coffee, my mom had once again shown me what this mother-love thing is all about. In All about my mother, (something I wrote two Mothers’ days ago) I have said all that I could say to pay homage to my mom. And I wondered, would I ever be like her?

*********
My mom’s declaration of unconditional love reminded me of a very indulgent question that only a non-mother like me would ask. I have asked this question over and over again: What if I have a child and I end up not liking him/her? (What if they end up being the over-achiever classmate everyone detested, or the bully, or the airhead I would make fun of? What if she/he does not like books? What if the sound of their voices is irritating? What if? What if?)

Consistently, and without much hesitation, every single one I asked who is a mother said, “that is not possible.” It is impossible for any mother not to like their children.

Of course a non-mother like me would have a little difficulty understanding this statement of seemingly unquestionable fact. But the daughter in me, who is loved by her mom, major flaws and all, somehow gets it.

********

The plan for this trip to Tacloban was I would bring back my cousin’s kids to Manila from their summer vacation. When I arrived, the two now very home-sick kids were waiting for me. The conversation went:

Kuya Shameer: Nanay Jet, sabi ni mama sama kami sa iyo balik Manila basta hindi lang kami makulit.
Me: Ok, basta I only have two rules, don’t call me Nanay Jet if there are single men about and hindi kayo mag poo-po-poo ha…
Kuya Shameer: Bakit, walang toilet?
Me: May bathroom, Pero si Nanay Jet, hindi nag-clean clean ng poopoo, ever…
Ate Lousie: Kasi wala ka children kaya hindi ka naghuhugas ng pwet?

Such insight from a five-year old. Poor kids, they would really have to hold it, if they travel with me.

But motherhood and baby shit have always been inseparable from my mind. When I was a teenager, my mom would always tell me, kung gusto mo magkatae early pa, hala sige, pag-asawa hin temprano. Mom, that was very effective, look at me now.

Now, decades beyond my teenage years, I still panic if these kids, whom I adore and who adores me in return, calls me from the toilet, saying, “tapos na ako”. It’s Mana Adette’s job, she’s a mom, she has no qualms about these things.

In my mind, that is what sets Mothers apart from us the cool titas- this kind of love that makes it ok to wipe the shit off somebody else’s ass. Shet. Pakshet.

*******
So would I be willing to do that? (and more, I know, but in my mind it all starts with dirty diapers)

My brother once said that one has to decide early on whether they want to have children or not, and past a certain age one should not have children anymore (he did not say what age though). I took this to mean that he has already decided not to have kids. I suppose that marker has to do with being at an age where you can still grow with your kids, or play ball with them without getting a heart attack after. I have thought long and hard whether I want to have kids and at some points I said I am cool being the greatest Tita ever (and ask my pamangkins, I am the coolest Tita EVER). Now the only thing that I am certain of is that I do not want that option taken away from me.

Now, I am surrounded by women who badly want to have kids but for many reasons could not just yet. We talk about it sometimes, or we don’t most of the time. But the mere fact that they are already considering being responsible for another life is already remarkable. I will dance a million times in front of the fertility goddess for them if that would help.

********

And then, there are the un-biological moms (dyndyn’s term not mine).

Aimee and Rubylee have long ago started calling each other MA, - just because they could only really depend on each other. Another mother-sister—mother relationship I admire is that of Dyndyn and Baan. They are mothers to each other and mothers to Dantoy.

There’s Mommy Jasmin, who has done a pretty amazing job in raising Jehu, and like any other Mom has already set aside her own dreams and has planned her life around him.

Drey has reluctantly and temporarily assumed the role of the mother while waiting for her mom to wake up from her sleep. Darl recently stood as the mother of the groom but has long ago assumed the role of mother in the Delgado household. In one conversation with Darl and Drey, we concurred that taking on the role of the mom in a mom-centered household is not an easy feat. We may be competent in our jobs, but thrust in the roles that our moms played, we reach a certain level of incompetence on things that our mothers have done so effortlessly.

And so I propose that after Mother’s Day, there should be a day dedicated for all un-biological mothers. Let me bring this up with the Hallmark people, that should be a strong start. Or come up with a contest for Ulirang Hindi Ina. I could go on and on with these ideas (I could hear Weng heave a big sigh, adi naman kamo, nagwinaso-waso na naman) but in the meantime, let me just say: Mothers of all non-mothers, you rock!!

Black Saturday

“My only question is,” she said, “Where do they go after this?”

Faith, I believe is the word, I said. I cannot not believe, otherwise where would they be? At that time, I envied the people around me with unwavering faith, because the conviction that he is somewhere, wherever that is, is better than struggling with the questions – Is this it? And then?

Once, some time ago, an aunt and I agreed that it is better not to seek answers to, or look for meaning to these permanent absences. This is just how it is, you feel it, and then.

So for you, my friend, I share this:


The Same Old Figurative
by Joel M. Toledo

Yes, the world is strange, riddled with difficult sciences
and random magic. But there are compensations, things we do

perceive: the high cries and erratic spirals of sparrows,
the sky gray and now giving in to the regular rain.

Still we insist on meaning, that common consolation
that every now and then makes for beauty. Or disaster.

Listen. The new figures are simply those of birds,
the whole notes of their now flightless bodies snagged

on the many scales of the city. And it’s just some thunder,
the usual humming of wires. It is only in its breaking

that the rain gives itself away. So come now and assemble
with the weather. Notice the water gathering on your cupped

and extended hands—familiar and wet and meaningless.
You are merely being cleansed. Bare instead

the scarred heart; notice how its wild human music
makes such sense. Come the divining

can wait.
Let us examine the wreckage.

(for B, who has just recently said goodbye to a love one; and for him, I say a prayer)

Because D once said:

‘Enough of that cryptic death stream of consciousness thing.' And so, three years later, I decided to drop Notes from Six Feet Under.

A little note on why this is now Horoscope Junky. I am a compulsive reader of horoscope. I subscribe to the daily yahoo horoscope and monthly, I check out www.astrologyzone.com. I once tried to explain why in my first ever blog entry.

So I decided to let this blog go where my horoscope tells me.

My March horoscope said: “It would not be a good time to get engaged and if you don't have to, avoid getting married. Finally, you must never have plastic surgery when Venus is retrograde, which thankfully is a rare occurrence...’ Gosh, and I had such big plans around these things. Ha-ha!

So I guess the only thing I can do that is not in the realm of life changing experiences would be to go back to this page. But it has been so long that I no longer know how to compose paragraphs (with a topic sentence and supporting sentences ba)…so let’s take this slow. The best that I can do right now is come up with a list.

25 Random Things

(This is a facebook thing, not sure why it has to be 25. I started thinking about what I would write on my list of 25 while I was on my dentist’s chair, trying to get my mind off that drilling sound)

1. One of my biggest fears involve losing all my teeth in a freak accident, like getting so drunk and waking up to find myself picking up my teeth from the bathroom floor of Sarah’s.

2. Still on fears, I have always been afraid of dogs. When I was about 8 or so, a small puppy bit me (the story around this involves a lie that a cousin and I did not take back until we were in our mid-twenties, when we were too old to get a spanking and to be grounded) and I had to be injected with anti-rabies vaccine everyday for about 2 weeks. Hellish for a kid to go through. I was bitten two more times after that, the last one by Maguay, the Delgado’s dog. It was not his fault, he was sick and grumpy and I was sun-shiny happy. Could be irritating for anyone. Darl said he bit because he actually liked me. Does not make sense to me, I never understood that whole law of love and violence.

3. I love solitary walks but these have been seriously hampered by my fear of stray dogs. So now I go on solitary drives. Simon, my dream interpreter, said that every time a threatening dog appeared in my dreams, it means I am anxious about something or there is something I am afraid to face during my waking hours. And he was so right.

4. I have a dog though- I call him Mang Pedring, a toy poodle (I have no problem with dogs once they become my friends). He is back home with his grandparents because his single working mom (me) can’t leave him to starve to death while she is travelling.

5. What I miss most from my childhood is climbing trees. And even if I can’t climb them, I love pine trees. I particularly like peeling resin from its barks.

6. I know this is not environmentally-friendly, but I am always nostalgic whenever I get a whiff of dried leaves burning. Reminds me of lazy afternoons back home. Tita G introduced me to the romantic smell of pine cones burning.

7. For home fresheners, I would prefer the smell of freshly-baked bread or brewed coffee. I can’t stand those lemon or strawberry car fresheners or any fruity smells- gives me a bad headache.

8. If Nicolas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas said, ‘You can never ever ask me to stop drinking’, my version would be: ‘You can never ever make me eat ampalaya (bitter lemon) and okra, ever.’

9. These can make me cry without fail: all boys’ choir during Sunday mass, the show Extreme Makeover Home Edition, sports-themed movies where the underdog always wins the game, the movie Running on Empty, the song Smile, and early morning flights to Tacloban.

10. I can’t throw keys away. I keep all of the keys I find in a box even if its owners are long gone, even if the doors that they open are shut forever, or even if the drawers that were under lock and key are now empty.

11. I am all about big wide windows and open spaces. The view from the bedroom window has always been my primary consideration when moving into a new place or checking into a hotel room. My first anxiety attack happened when I drew the curtains of a hotel room and found out it had no windows, just frosted glass. The reason why I decided on my place now is that it had windows you can actually open, unlike other high rise condos where all you get are closed, suicide-proof glass windows.

12. My biggest pet-peeve: Men who carry the purses/small bags of their girlfriends or women who let their men do that- I have never understood why they would need to do that. For me bags are fashion accessories (aside from the practical purpose it serves) so why should I let someone else carry it for me?

13. Another pet peeve is the song Bakit ngayon ka lang. Trust me, in all videoke bars, there would always be married or otherwise committed men singing that song (with feelings pa).

14. It is very important for me that the person (s) I would end up spending a lot of time with would be able to pronounce my name just right- Jet, not Jit, not Jate, not Jets. That’s why I dropped Claudette in the first place- got tired being called Clawdet. Besides, Claudette is so French and I am so, so not.

15. I took diving lessons and went diving twice after I got my license and have not done it since. I took sewing lessons, and have not been back after the second lesson. Now I plan to take photography lessons, wonder if I will make it to the third session.

16. For most of my high school and college years, my plan was really to be based in the US, in New York pa. But now, I can’t imagine living anywhere but here in my country. I love travelling but I get so home-sick and I can’t wait to come back. I tell people I meet when I travel that I live in a tropical paradise. Among the many reasons I can’t imagine living anywhere else: the tropical weather, the beaches, inexpensive salon services and spas, and my family (not necessarily in that order).

17. Among the things I thank the Big Boss for are: that I do not have motion sickness, I do not have allergies, and I can sleep anywhere, at will and in any position, and I have a small circle of very good friends (again, not necessarily in the order of importance).

18. My retirement plan is to own a beach resort in one obscure island that only accepts guests I like; where money would not be the currency accepted as payment for room and board--payment would be through songs belted out in abandon, stories that can make me laugh or cry, even those untold, those that still have to make their way out of their hiding places, and tales of passion and compassion. It will also serve as half-way house for my friends, who can be the resort’s resident eccentric artists. Ines, when I told her about this a year ago, said I should keep and carry a symbol of that dream with me all the time to make it happen (she kept a leaf or a twig- for her dream house or dream island). I wonder what airport security would do if they find me carrying white sand in my pocket.

I am pretty sure that there are seven items we could lift from my previous post to complete the 25 (just realized I have been in a list mode).

1.

Garfield Minus Garfield Moments

Larry’s find- http://garfieldminusgarfield.tumblr.com/

-- and we realized we are Jon in these strips, oh well, sometimes. Here are my own “without Garfield” moments:

1. I sit on the floor and try out the ‘how to fold a t-shirt” instructions that someone found on the net (in Japanese, no subtitles). I show my friends how to do it.

2. I watch Home Shopping Network and I am compelled to get the food processor so I can turn spinach into a form that I can swallow. But wait there’s more…

3. My dreams appear in the form of powerpoint presentations- before the next frame appears, I have to click the next button first.

4. I carry on conversations with myself, sometimes out loud, if I don’t catch myself in time (now, who doesn’t?). One time, I was on a public utility jeep, and the tail end of my conversation with myself slipped out—I said “…I don’t want to talk about it”. Good thing it was my stop.

5. If I can’t sleep, I really try to count sheep, the ones that jump over the moon. No kidding.

6. I watch Hallmark channel on lazy afternoons and Crime/suspense in the evening.

7. I am taking sewing lessons so I can add sewing curtains and repairing ‘ukay’ finds to my Garfield minus Garfield moments.

8. I take down notes when I watch Barefoot Contessa.

9. I think about my Garfield minus Garfield moments.

10. I blog. (hehehe)

Greetings for the New Year

In 2007, I said goodbye to smoking, and except for one minor lapse one drunken-night among strangers, have never smoked cigarettes since; watched my parents walk down the aisle on their 40th wedding anniversary; swam with the Butanding one summer weekend and saw Mayon Volcano for the first time; met and made new friends; met newfound cousins; was unexpectedly told I am loved by a dearest friend, which drove Tita Gigi to tears when I told her about it; walked the ruins of an ancient city in Thailand; was happy to see an aunt recover from breast cancer and prayed fervently for the recovery of another good friend; spent 6 months getting an open water diver’s license and spent oh so many weekends by the beach and 60 feet underwater, was treated to a weekend in Las Vegas by very good friends whom I have known since grade school and I finally realized what ‘handsome’ is while watching Chippendales; was blessed with my parents’ good health and unwavering good sense of humor; drove a mini cooper in suburban roads of Amherst and enjoyed an spectacular solo early morning drive from Tagaytay to Batangas; was excited to welcome a cousin’s new baby; felt for a friend’s grief over a recent loss; finished reading many good books while spending so many hours in many different pre-departure areas; enjoyed a night of music and heard my favorite song ‘Smile’ played with a passion that resonated from deep within; shopped for cds in Quiapo; cheered on friends who got engaged, sang many love songs on videoke with good old singing and drinking buddies; said goodbye to my home of three years and anxiously moved into a smaller place that I could now call my own; sadly watched my dearest housemates pack up and move into their own little places; found a new home for my dog; climbed the 268 steps to the big Buddha in Lantau and offered a prayer for my brother on his death anniversary; laughed out loud so many times, cried a few times; celebrated my birthday with an after dinner party with friends closest to my heart while missing those who could not be there; and capped the year with a quiet time with Papa, Mama and Mana Adette, all of us grateful for this time together while never forgetting him, whose absence will always be felt.

With deep gratitude I say goodbye to 2007 and look forward to 2008! May the New Year bring you love, peace of the soul and mind--

There was a time when my nephew, Mika, asked everyone he met how old they are. His mom explained, “he is currently obsessed with time.” He followed this up with a morbid statement, “people die when they grow old.” His young mind still cannot grasp the vastness of space and time between him and the “old”, between the tangible and a mere memory, between now and permanent absence. But he continues to ask, 'how old are you' or ‘wawa are you old?’ As if the numbers would give him comfort. I smile and say, “don’t worry Mika, I am still young.”

In a Vogue magazine article, I learned that Vladimir Nabokov also liked to talk about time.

“In what way?”
“In the morning, he would look at his watch and say, ‘I make it out to be 8:15; what do you have?”

Nabokov’s lifelong preoccupation, the article went on to say, was memory, things lost but still present.

While I, I am currently obsessed with freezing time--in digital pictures, in videos, in notebooks that I lug around, in all my documentation tools. I often find myself in the middle of a joke that had everyone laughing, or in between sips of wine at a family dinner, just taking a moment to commit everything to memory—how they laughed, what he said, what they said in return, what time of day it was. And I wonder, will I remember this exactly as it happened?

Or maybe, it’s just how Joel said it in Chronos (http://rambling-soul.blogspot.com/2007_10_01_archive.html) --

And it goes on and on, this pattern of forgetting,
like the erratic beating of hearts.
The learned calls it Pi, the endless, as if

the mind has no need to negotiate with time.

For a friend, who is far away from home and says he misses the rain...

WAR STORIES

This is an excerpt of a letter that I received from a good friend whose work and heart have lead her down south in the Philippines. The day before I left for work-related travel end of July, she was on her way to assist in the evacuation of women and children in Mindanao. We talked about how much of the stories of the innocents caught in the crossfire are buried under the ‘bigger’ news about the whole military vs. the MILF thing. Her courage, optimism and sincerity have never failed to amaze me.

The letter

Dito naman sa amin sa Mindanao, fighting has moved to Sulu nowadays, the original home of the historically courageous Muslim warriors (Taosugs). Basilan was spared, although more than a thousand families have been displaced by the deployment of the Marines and the Army. Our Project area was totally vacated when the people saw the troops occupy their community facilities. Yung timber port na ginawa mismo ng mga tao for landing ng kanilang maliliit na bangka, pinunu ng military artillery! The people decided to evacuate. Risky masyado. They might be caught in the crossfire. It was good that the MILF pulled out all their troops para di madamay ang mga tao. So quiet na naman sa Basilan ngayon. People are gradually moving in na naman. Nakakapagod na din pero if you listen to the women, you can't help but appreciate all their efforts to keep the kids alive since all the men have gone elsewhere, to avoid being picked up by the military. Uso kasi damputan sa mga areas. Kaya lahat ng mga binata at matanda na lalaki, pinaalis na muna sa communities. Ang maganda, in those areas not affected by the conflict, social capital has tremendously increased! Umpisa na sila ulit ng mga sari-sariling business. Community life is back. Trust is being built na naman.

I will be going back to Manila this Friday. Puro naman daw baha dun ngayon.Kwento ka if you have time. Nakasingit ako ng konting panahon ngayon at may staff meeting pa sila.

My response

Your news about Mindanao is sad and yet the courage and resilience of the people there is amazing (there is no way to say this without it sounding like I am trivializing this tragedy—my apologies).

I remembered once I was in Mindanao nine years ago and I witnessed one such evacuation (this was during the peace talks negotiations — how ironic that the level of conflict escalates during these negotiations). The whole town was in level three red-alert and the family I was living with told me that they always have one bag ready with the ‘essentials’, ready for times when they have to leave their homes in an emergency. They told me they have done this a couple of times but have been lucky to have their home still standing when they came back.

I tried to imagine how they must feel every time they took a look at the house they were leaving behind, not knowing if it would be still there when they come back. Ah, to live in that constant state of uncertainty and fear.

I heard later on that they came back to their home a month later and did minor repairs to their house, and rebuilt their lives. It was just one family, one small story, yet I can still remember it so clearly as if it happened yesterday.

I also encountered one small yet significant face of war recently. I was on a flight to the east coast and I sat beside this lady. I, as a rule, never talk to strangers, especially in places like airplanes where you can’t escape a boring conversation unless you sky-dive. But I noticed that the few times I break the rule, it is always to respond to a bleeding heart.

She told me she and her husband were flying to visit their son who was going to be deployed to Iraq in a week. She said she was devastated. She wrote her president and begged not to send her son off because he has four children, the youngest was just a month old.

I have certain opinions on the US-Iraq war but until that moment, it came from a far-removed corner of my mind. It was that mother’s lament at 35,000 feet that made it real, even for just that moment. I think we only talked for all of five minutes but as we got off the plane, I gave her a hug and said someone from the Philippines will be praying for her Oscar.

The war in Iraq. The war in Mindanao. I feel most of time so disconnected from these big events but from time to time, these individual stories somehow bring them closer to home.

Speaking of home, I can’t wait to get back-kahit baha. My fantasies these days include spending a whole day holed up in my room on a rainy day, just sleeping and sleeping. Soon, soon.

Have a nice weekend in Manila! See you when I get back.

Horoscope Junky Goes Clubbing

My horoscope said: A friend will help you learn about a foreign culture or subculture you have been curious about.


Funny because that night I found myself at, read this, the EMBASSY at the FORT. Well, actually, my friends went in while I went home. Boring boring me. But I had a very good reason...Dean a.k.a. Marko could not get in with his oversized shorts. Me to him: maybe if you like wear your shorts na pakigol (really short ba) and hike up your shirt to show a little tummy, like all those slim, leggy, girls prancing about, then they would let you in. The sign outside was very specific: No oversized shorts. There, less is more, I guess.


This Embassy thing all started when Des, who is a nurse in London and was in town for a vacation, said she wanted to go to a disco. I was blast-ed to the past-ed.


Disco?!? The last disco I went to must have been at Spacer in Tacloban, beside the bowling-an, when I was 14. No, wait, Jaleux along Qeuzon Avenue in front of Burger Machine. No, the last one was at the GARAGE in Carigara, formerly the town's moviehouse that was converted to a warehouse-type disco where women in knee-high black boots and short shorts belted out LAKLAK.


Ruby to me: You don't go to a disco now, you go clubbing.


Ah, clubbing. So that's what they call it now. And so that night, after dinner at a Spanish restaurant in Shnagri-la, we decided to check out the Embassy, based on the recommendation of another highschool classmate who occasionaly goes there with her expat friends. That's the only reason I go, she insisted. Does not want to be a clubber, this one. hehehe.

What I know about that place and that subculture, I get from my once-a-month showbiz tsismis viewing , where the Embassy would be featured from time to time for brawls involving some hotheaded, egotistic artistas.

So our excursion to the Fort extended my immersion of that foreign culture (kay damo foreigners, hekhekhek), and even if I did not actually go inside the Embassy, watching the people outside was already ah, a new experience.

We sat for a good hour at the Cafeteria, the one beside the Embassy, waiting for the clock to strike 12 so the cinderallas (me, pearl, mike, marko) can go home and they (des, roch and bf homer, cha) can proceed next door. That one hour, in between sips of mai tai, we people-watched. I have never seen so many well-dressed party people in one place (but that's because you don't go anywhere, Tonette would say).


All the people there, they all looked liked they jumped out of the fashion magazines. All the latest fashion featured in last week's People's Magazine, US weekly, OK Magazine that I read in my dentist's clinic were all being cat-walked at the Fort. The in crowd. ( in to what?)

Pearl to me: If you are young and you belong to this crowd, it must be difficult trying to keep up. Me to her: Well, they are rich socialites. Pearl to me: No, not everyone who comes here are rich. Some just, you know, keep up with the latest trend.

Ruby to me, the day after: Describe them to me. Me to her: Ok, remember the yuppies of Makati who went to Streetlife? The higher-end of that crowd (I know, I am outdated but you know what I mean). Age range- 20-30s. Have disposable income/allowance. Reads Cosmo/GQ. Metrosexuals. Fashionistas. Manila's own Paris Hiltons.

Not that there is anything wrong with that. The only point I am trying to make is, it was interesting to see people very different from my usual crowd (ok, I do not have enough friends to make up a crowd according to standard definitions, but you know what i mean). And I was amazed how much a place could actually homogenize a crowd, or the other way around.

When my friends and I go out, we go to bars where beer sells for under 35 pesos (if we are feeling a little rich we can even shell out 100 for cover charge). And the usual people I go out with give the exact amount, down to the last peso, to their share of the bill. I was definitely out of my turf.

But that does not make us better people, only poorer people. It also does not mean they are better dressed, just more expensively dressed. Balit, all this only means that the Embassy is not my kind of place. I had fun though, the company was great, the conversation even better, the venue did not matter.

This weekend, I will wash off the taste of that place with a little dash of James Taylor at My Bro's mustache. Or drink tanduay at the kanto (ay, may city ordinance pala against that and there are no kanto boys in my neighborhood). Or grab a beer at the News Desk where lonely, old, desk editors hibernate.

Until the next invitation to go clubbing comes.

Waiting

There is nothing worse than waiting for something to happen when you know exactly what and how it is going to happen. I wish I was made of that stuff that allows others to say, I think it is going to be better this time. But I can’t. I am a good student, I learn from experience. That is why I do not eat ampalaya. That is why I do not drink and drive anymore (well, almost but not quite). That is why I am here, right now, almost sick with anxiety. I almost wish that when I wake up, it would be Saturday, and I would go walk Mang Pedring, buy banana cue and mango shake at the UP shopping center, and wonder to myself, where did Friday go?

Beating the Sunday Blues

“This was a good Sunday,” my housemate said as we arrived from a father’s day lunch-dinner at my Uncle Nino’s place. That morning she was lamenting that she had the Sunday blues yet again. What made it better for her was belting out the Queen’s I wanna break free and gulping down five bottles of beer. While I, I buried my blues with a little induced happiness courtesy of a friend’s magic box.

Sunday blues, we concluded a long time ago, is an affliction of the migrants of this city like we are, or anyone who has left the shore of the heart where they have roots (not my phrase, I only borrowed from Pablo Neruda).

(I still consider myself an alien in Manila, even if I literally have roots here —the vines-with-yellow-flowers I had planted when I moved into my apartment three years ago. But figuratively speaking, I still feel my roots are in Tacloban—but then again that’s another story).

Mine started when I left home for college and transplanted myself in Quezon City. Every Sunday, for all of my college years and beyond, I would wake up with a hole in the pit of my stomach and by mid-afternoon, the dread from that pit would have already risen up to constrict my throat. It was the psychological/physiological effect of homesickness that hits me hardest on a Sunday. I come from a conventional extended family that would converge where the Queen Bee was. So in our case, our Queen Bee was my grandma who lived at home so my aunts, uncles, cousins would almost always have lunch or dinner at home after Sunday mass.

So being away from home meant spending what used to be family-Sundays either nursing a bad hangover or going to church alone and having lunch at Rodics. To manage the blues, I used to go to the last mass, because at that time of the day, there were less families in attendance, more singles present, until I stopped going to church altogether (but again, that’s another story).

Another manifestation of this syndrome is the dread of facing another Monday of school or work. We (my fellow Waray migrants) have been lamenting that if we had the comforts of home, manic Mondays won’t faze us at all.

Now, after more than a decade here in Manila, we still have the occasional Sunday blues. It is not as regular as before, but when it hits, it can still be as bad as the first time I spent a Sunday alone in my dormitory at 16.

For a long time, I have always thought that the main reason why 80% of the tight circle of friends I keep are Waray or Bisaya was because my Tagalog is almost hopeless. Well, ok, that too. But then, I realized that this syndrome is the reason why I have built a solid support group of friends who spoke my language and who suffered from the same affliction—my own little family of rootless people to help me manage the Sunday blues.

Later on, as I traveled more and more, I have seen the same Sunday blues that afflict me and my friends along the sidewalks and parks of HongKong where Filipino workers congregate; in the Chinese restaurants in Saipan, where Chinese workers converge on their day-off from the factories; in Catholic churches where Pinoy expats of Indonesia and Cambodia go to be with other Pinoys. All of them trying to beat the blues by recapturing the familiarity of home in the adobo they share for lunch, or in the gossips they exchange in their local language, or by just basking in the collective cloud of homesickness and longing that permeate from the pores of their fellow migrants.

So like the migrant workers based in far, far, away land, my friends and I have already devised ways to beat the Sunday blues—usually coffee at brunch or late afternoon with family we consider our friends or with friends we consider our family would be enough to do the trick. And if we are lucky, we completely forget it as we did last Sunday. We will probably do this until the time comes when we return home or when we stop resisting from making this place our home, whichever comes first.