One more day

until home.

i am swamped with leftover work, and chores, and last-minute shopping, and goodbyes to friends. But oh, by this time tomorrow i swear not to swear at how difficult it is to get a cab, the traffic, the lines at the airport, how much longer the wait.

i talked to my dad yesterday and he said he had cleaned our old room for us, my sisters and me. he was tired but happy he said. i know i said. i know exactly.

l. was worried about how weird the cats were acting a few days ago. a sign of an earthquake we were wondering. but he is home now. so are d. and w. i am just doing every to-do left in my list, checking the boxes, counting the hours.

Facts versus Romance, v.2

It was my first writers workshop. I had just come back from Japan six months back, putting an end to things yet unfinished, this another fit and start, another island. Everyone knew everyone else, either from school, or a previous workshop. And they quoted poetry to make their point, they chorused at all the famous lines by the famous poets. I knew them by name, the poets and the fellows. I didn't know the rules. It was like being the new girl at school again I thought.

I was arrogant of course. That's survival. If this didn't work out, it would be just another start: tried on for size but did not fit, one of many. I was beginning to think myself a quitter--or forever the scientist. This another experiment to find out yes or no.

***

"Yes, it is," the light seemed to say on the balcony seven floors up the building where I used to live. It was white now, that single CFL bulb. It was yellow seven years ago and incandescent; I had begun to write in my journal again, all the while thinking about being seven floors up and how quick the fall.

I stood across the street staring at that balcony for some time. I had been walking home, it was midnight. I could see it, midnight in another time: The little black table, its surface pocked with rust, the grey pages of the journal, the green cloth of the folding chair that cupped my butt like a chute but was hell on my back. My left hand cramping trying to write as fast as I could think, my right hand holding a cigarette. The smoke rising then curling and curling unto itself. Funny but whenever I'd look down from that balcony then, (a morbid anticipation of the possible out-of-body experience sure to follow,) I would always see shards of red clay and soil held together by thin yellow roots like hair, the green plant. Why is it still green I had always wondered. Where's the body?

I crossed the street and looked down on that spot now and, though I felt foolish, swept my foot over nothing on the floor. A quick swipe like trying to look for something in the sand.

***

"Because there are so many things I want to say but can't. Or won't," this my nervous answer to the question why I write.

He was a fellow of the same workshop some nine years ago, and has been coming back to the island every year since. I imagine him throwing the question at a newbie every year and every time, catching her by surprise. He had the look of a professor despite being my age. It was the eyeglasses, magnifying patience more than his curiosity. At my reply he nods a meaningless nod, teacher-speak for That's not the right answer.

It was the first Friday of three, our first real night off where we could pretend to be on vacation, a week of the work over. We--fellows, facilitators, visitors--were at a bar a block from the hotel. It was dingy under the murky sky, incandescent bulbs hung like Christmas lights overhead, like fake stars. I look at them trying to think.

"What is your problematic," he tried again, and ruins my concentration. I try to spell the word in my head, still looking up. Is it with a -c or –que if it’s a noun?

*****

To be continued...

Four reasons: Mine but not mine.

1. From Caye, from The Descent of Man, by T.C. Boyle

Orlando sets and checks lobster traps. All the men on the island set and check lobster traps. The traps are made of wooden strips, shaped like Quonset huts, a conical entranceway at one end. Bait is unnecessary. The lobster, scouting the margins of the reef, the sea chanting over him, will prowl around this trap until he finds the conical entranceway. He will scrabble into the trap, delighted, secure from attack. The lobster psyche takes solace in holes. When the traps are hauled the law requires fishermen to release any lobster whose tails is smaller than three inches, a seeding measure. The fishermen do not release the lobsters whose tails are smaller than three inches--nor do they take them to the market. Instead they twist off the heads, make a welter of the sweet curled tails, black against the frayed and blanched floorboards of their boats, carry the bloodless white meat home to their pots. Orlando tells me that the lobster catch is smaller this season than it was a year ago, and that a year ago it was smaller than the preceding season. I nod my head. Like the point of a cone I say.


2. From Hurricane, by Bob Dylan

Rubin could take a man out with just one punch
But he never did like to talk about it all that much
It's my work, he'd say, and I do it for pay
And when it's over I'd just as soon go on my way
Up to some paradise
Where the trout streams flow and the air is nice
And ride a horse along a trail
But then they took him to the jailhouse
Where they try to turn a man into a mouse

All of Rubin's cards were marked in advance
The trial was a pig-circus, he never had a chance
The judge made Rubin's witnesses drunkards from the slums
To the white folks who watched he was a revolutionary bum
And to the black folks he was just a crazy nigger
No one doubted that he pulled the trigger
And though they could not produce the gun
The D.A. said he was the one who did the deed
And the all-white jury agreed

Rubin Carter was falsely tried
The crime was murder one, guess who testified?
Bello and Bradley and they both baldly lied
And the newspapers, they all went along for the ride
How can the life of such a man
Be in the palm of some fools hand?
To see him obviously framed
Couldn't help but make me feel ashamed to live in a land
Where justice is a game

Now all the criminals in their coats and their ties
Are free to drink martinis and watch the sun rise
While Rubin sits like Buddha in a ten-foot cell
An innocent man in a living hell
That's the story of the Hurricane,
But it wont be over till they clear his name
And give him back the time he's done
Put in a prison cell, but one time he could-a been
The champion of the world


3. Pacemaker by W.D. Snodgrass

aaaaaaaaaaI
"One Snodgrass, two Snodgrass, three Snodgrass, four . . .
aaaaaaI took my own rollcall when I counted the seconds;
"One two three, Two two three, Three . . .," the drum score
aaaaaaShowed only long rests to the tympani's entrance.

"Oh-oh-oh leff; leff; lef-toh-righ-toh-leff,"
aaaaaaThe sergeant cadenced us footsore recruits;
The heart, poor drummer, gone lame, deaf,
aaaaaaThen AWOL, gets frogmarched to the noose.

aaaaaaaaaaII
Old coots, at the Veterans', might catch breath
aaaaaaIf their cheeks got slapped by a nurse's aide,
Then come back to life; just so, at their birth,
aaaaaaYoung rumps had been tendered warm accolades.

This kick-ass rude attitude, smart-assed insult,
aaaaaaThe acid-fueled book review just might shock
Us back to the brawl like smelling salts
aaaaaaMight sting the lulled heart up off its blocks.

aaaaaaaaaIII
I thought I'd always favor rubato
aaaOr syncopation, scorning fixed rhythms;
aaaaaaThought my old heartthrobs could stand up to stress;
Believed one's bloodpump should skip a few beats
aaaIf it fell into company with sleek young women;
aaaaaaBelieved my own bruit could beat with the best.

Wrong again, Snodgrass! This new gold gadget,
aaaSnug as the watch on my wife's warm wrist,
aaaaaaDrives my pulsetempo near twice its old pace--
Go, nonstop watch! Go, clockwork rabbit,
aaaKeeping this lame old dog synchronized,
aaaaaaSteady, sparked up, still in the race.


4. Epigraph I saw on the last chapter of a romance novel, which was really an epitaph on the monument of some Italian invalid:

I was well; I would be better; I am here.

Moon over you.

Now showing in the Philippine night sky: A smiling face formed by the rare alignment of planets Venus and Jupiter and directly below it, the crescent moon. -- From the Inquirer, 03/12/08


Look at that waning moon
Smiling in her demise
Stars in her eyes
The little loon.

Has she always been
A woman, that lunatic?
Is that look automatic--
Eyes too bright and not too keen?

Faced with a great smile
Or a shiny bauble
Her brain starts to wobble,
Then collapses. Without guile

Then, without a single thought?
Tomorrow with the sun
The face is barren and dun
And with many disasters, pocked.

Then again the sun is always he
who tells the tale, and never she.

Yesterday

Fall and break yourself
Walk away and leave the shards
But do not forget



(Apologies to Larry, for trying to copy)

When in doubt, waste time.

1. If I were a doll, the accessories packaged with me would be:
A library and rec room with a big stereo. No ice cream maker and ice cream parlor for this Barbie! Wait...

2. I have a fear of:
Big, hairy... spiders.

3. What type of food do you eat at your grandparents house:
Uga or dried fish, lots and lots of fruits, tubo!

4. What did you weigh when you were born?
Less than what I'd like to lose now, probably.

5. What would you do if you were stranded on an island with the person you hate most?
How big is the island? I'll vote him off the island. Rape, murder, it's just a shot away, it's just a shot away...

6. What would you do if you found out you had been cheated on?
Cheat on him too, with someone better-looking, and better in bed.

7. Do you stalk anyone on myspace?
Nope, I like to google google. I like to... Google!

8. I find the thought of childbirth:
Painful.

9. Next door to my house was:
Pen Medina. Seriously. I almost fell down the little canal leading to the house once, becase he was staring at me and I didn't want to look away first. He smiled.

10. My feet are:
Sooo ugly. Especially with the Polish/Indonesian-flag toenail. I really have to go to the salon.

11. My preferred style of jeans are:
Comfortable.

12. Why is your #1 your #1?
Because I always look out for it.

13. Know how to cook?
If I feel like it.

14. I am annoyed by:
Stupidity and insincerity and impoliteness.

15. What is the worst way you were dumped?
Over the phone. Because I cheated on him. According to him.

16. What sea creature scares you?
Jelly fish. Yes, from experience.

17. What color hair do most of the people you are around have?
Black. I would have said so when I was in Japan, too. But apparently, the Japanese are born with blond hair, that turn blue, or green, or purple (yes! purple) when they (especially the women) grow old.

18. What object have you broken most recently?
Hmmm. I sat on my glasses recently, but I guess they're unbreakable.

19 . Name one of the Spice Girls.
Britney Spears.

20. What was the last thing to make you cry?
The remaining balance in my bank account.

21. What are the stems on wine glasses for?
To hold with three fingers while your pinky is in the air.

22. My favorite shoes are:
Chucks.

23. Can you use chopsticks?
For anything other than eating? Nope.

24. Do you prefer beaches or forests?
Water trumps earth everyday.

25. What serial killer do you find most disturbing?
What serial killer won't you find disturbing? Okay... I'm getting bored na.

26. Who knows a secret or two about you?
Anybody who's willing to buy me drinks and keep them coming.

27. Have you ever burned yourself?
Who hasn't?

28. Who is probably talking a load of crap about you right now?
The me who's so bored she's doing this survey.

29. Where is your sister right now?
Which one? But probably both in school.

30. Do you believe that love lasts forever?
Not as long as this survey. Has it been a thousand years, darling?

31. What are you listening to?
Fiona Apple. Paper bag.

32 . What do you smell like?
What the fuck? Like freshly laundered linens. A meadow. The reddest rose. Vanilla ice cream. What the fuck?

34. Does anyone regularly tell you they love you?
God.

35. What's the most confusing thing for you?
That people think I look Indian. Would you stop it already?

36. Do you have any bad habits?
Why? What have you heard?

37. Did you ever wanted to be a teacher?
I have been a teacher.

38. What is your favorite color?
Okay. I quit.

39. Is there something that you're waiting for?
This.


I tag anyone who has the time.