Like a fool, I'm clapping: A Christmas Story

Dear [Put your name here],

When Charles Dickens wrote, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness," ad infinitum, he must have just had a day like mine.

It started out Thursday night. I had just finished a new poem, and having been in a drought for a long time, I was quite happy with what I had. Incidentally, that new poem was an apology, and admission-of-envy of sorts--a reply, really--to two previous poems I had written which reeked of feminism. I am quite at a loss how to explain this about-face, except that I must be older than I really am. Who has ever heard of someone "mellowing" at 26, 27 even?

(So in short, you won't be seeing that poem anytime soon, as I am still ambivalent about what it wants to say, and if it says what I wanted it to say, or if, like a traitor, it took me into a totally different direction than when I set out to write it, and now... I am confused. In shorter: I won't be showing it to you, or anyone else, anytime soon.)

Anyway, I felt good, and on my way home from the cafe, I decided to write in my blog. Upon getting home, however, I was pissed to realize that I had left my trusty laptop/sidekick Charlie at the office, my usual laziness getting in the way of any productivity whatsoever. And as if that wasn't enough, I got into an inane argument with my sister regarding my old, not-quite-that-memorable calculus book. Suffice it to say, my skippy-happy mood evaporated like rubbing alcohol.

The next day, I woke up early to a replay of that argument inside my head. I went about my early morning errands irate, not in the least looking forward to going to work in the afternoon. But as I was smoking on the way to the office, guess who I would meet, begging for a cigarette, but the Angel Gabriel disguised as a friend? The angel began his "Behold! I bring good tidings of great joy!" spiel, and I sat dumbfounded for a second, jaws limp with disbelief--as I imagine Joseph, and no, not Mary, might have looked.

Okay, enough with the Christmas metaphor. Here's the "tidings of great joy" as it would have appeared in a mangled telegram:

Two poems published stop How to be Cold & Turnabout stop Next to Krip Yuson's Rejection stop Seriously stop Laughing

And so it was, that I was walking around campus with my feet a few feet above the ground.

Until of course, my floating foot snagged on an uncooperative, unchivalrous step on the stairs on the way to my apartment, and brought me back--quite unglamourously--to earth. Still, some scars I find awfully difficult to mind.


iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiKwek-kwek and other mysteries,
iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii[Put anyone else's name here]

If you're happy and you know it...

Go away.

Maybe it's the weather, maybe it's PMS (Laugh, and you're dead), who knows? And really, who cares? But I'm in one of those moods.

We had Galera plans for the long weekend. She needed to get away, I just wanted to hear the ocean again. The whole two weeks before this super typhoon was perfect beach weather--blue skies, hot sun, zero humidity. Even the stars were surprisingly visible at night, even if I woke up to smog hovering at the distance every morning. I refused to go for a dip in the pool. Seemed like settling for second best.

Now, it's just clouds roiling and winds trying to lock me in the apartment. It's not raining yet, but everywhere the smell of it, the signs, the threat, threat, threat.

Oh, fuck it. I'm in a bad mood and the skies, biology, even the absence of saltwater and surf have nothing to do with it. And I've nothing but time on my hands.

Who needs a drink?

*****

Pat yourself in the back.

Despite all the drama, everything seems to be moving along well. I'm currently enrolled in two very interesting classes, a Poetry writing seminar, and a Medieval Lit class. I've just realized that I would be happy to spend my whole life reading other people's poetry, but then again, that might be the coward me talking.

I've been running, too. In the mornings, for 20 to 40 minutes 3 - 5 times a week. Isn't that great? This is my 5th week at it, I think, and boy does it feel good. Sure there are mishaps: Runner Nearly Run Over By Crazy Woman Driver. Side Stitch and Blisters Almost Cause Death. Dead iPod Cost Teran Race. Et cetera, et cetera.

(I plan to quit smoking by the New Year, too. But, shh. I'm not sure I can do it yet. So, no promises. Yet.)

Oh, and headlines caused by reading The Shipping News. Woman Dies of Envy at 26 (or 27).

*****

Ask again.

Are you sure we're not at the beach? Listen.

Morning Sea

Let me stop here. Let me, too, look at nature awhile.
The brilliant blue of the morning sea, of the cloudless sky,
the shore yellow; all lovely,
all bathed in light

Let me stand here. And let me pretend I see all this
(I actually did see it for a minute when I first stopped)
and not my usual day-dreams here too,
my memories, those sensual images.

Constantine P. Cavafy

*****

Clap your hands, you fool.

One year forward, two steps back.

The first few months after I turned 25, I kept forgetting that I had grown a year older. Whenever I was asked my age, I would answer 24 and never correct myself. Twenty-five seemed like a bad age, a scary age. I had just come home from Japan then, supposedly after a specialization in Environmental Chemistry, but instead I came home lost, more unsure of what I really wanted to do, and farther from where I had pictured myself at 24, more so at 25. After a few months I switched from forgetting to avoidance. I was no longer 24, I had decided not to like being 25, and so I skipped a year ahead. I promoted myself to 26 without the benefit of another birthday. Ten years from now, I will probably think the opposite the better idea, then maybe I can take a year off that age and that, too, will seem true.

This year, I am really 26 and not much better off. Although I have a new job that I like, getting into another Master's program that I am in love with, and meeting new people, I feel that 26 was last-year-me. And maybe I'm afraid I'll get stuck again, not move forward. When asked my age now, I am confused, torn between staying 26 and moving on to 27. Besides, I like 27--it is three times nine, three cubed, it is the cube of nine divided by three. (Twenty-six, on the other hand, is simply twice thirteen, which can only mean bad luck twice over.) And I like the idea of threes, it hints at generosity, forgiveness, patience. But at the same time, it is organization, and thoroughness: Ready, set, go. Problem, experimentation, conclusion. Hook, line, sinker. Beginning, middle, end.

*****
I have been obsessed with painting my nails lately--both toes and fingers. It seems like a disguise that I assume, a pretence at an older me, a distraction, a defense, a mimicry: like bird's eyes on butterfly wings. And as much as I relish spending hours cleaning and buffing and painting, I am impatient for the two to three coats of polish to dry. As soon as I think they're set, I like to get on to other things--I arrange my stuff, read a book, set the time on a watch, or smoke a cigarette. And so always, always, I end up ruining at least two fingers. Which means I have to do them all over again and ruin the others, or apply extra coats to cover them up. Even my disguises need disguises.

But maybe there is no need to over-analyze this new hobby. The reason for it could be as simple as liking how they look, or a left-over rebellion from my years and years in the chemistry lab.

*****
Now, a progress report:

Remember my reading list over my two-month-now-over vacation? Here they are, and the crossed out ones are what I've read so far:

1. The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne
2. The Longings of Women, Marge Piercy
3. Lord Jim, Conrad
4. Kinkakuji, Mishima
5. Our Father, Bernice Rubins
6. The Shipping News, Proulx
7. Doctor Fischer of Geneva or The Bomb Party, Greene
8. Pere Goriot, Balzac
9. The Art of the Novel, Kundera
10. Love in the Time of Cholera, Garcia Marquez
11. In the Name of The Rose, Umberto Eco
12. In Cold Blood, Capote
13. The Silmarillion, Tolkien
14. The Robber Bride, Margaret Atwood
15. The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck
16. King Lear, Shakespeare
17. In the Skin of a Lion, Michael Ondaatje
18. Accordion Crimes, Proulx
19. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, McCullers
20. Leaves of Grass, Whitman
21. The Stone Diaries, Carol Shields

Plus other stuff I read that are not on the list:

1. Thousand Cranes, Yasunari Kawabata
2. The Izu Dancer, Kawabata
3. The Counterfeiter and Other Stories, Yasushi Inoue
4. Running for Women: A Complete Guide, Janet Heinonen

Haha. I feel good. 12 out of 25, not bad. Not bad at all.

*****

A slag is the remains of a rock after metal or other precious minerals have been removed from it. My dictionary actually qualifies these remains as "waste" material, but my environmental science training forces me to put the quotation marks, or to rephrase the definition entirely, as I have done here. Slag actually looks like broken pieces of a cinder block, so maybe waste is an appropriate term. Still, I remember a crumbling, hollowed-out mountain face in Marinduque on a tour of an abandoned copper mine. They considered that waste, too. But I thought at the time it was the closest I could come to the reality of the Grand Canyon. There was a river, too: Or two rivers that joined up. Both were contaminated with metal wastes where iron made one river orange and copper made the other a mint-greenish color, hot and cool. And when they joined the new river was half orange and half mint for miles. There were potholes,too, full of steaming acid of a deep golden green and enormous backhoes left near hills of unwanted slag. They were all beautiful. Sad and lonely and beautiful. Like magnificent sunsets caused by abandoned, unwanted particles in the atmosphere.

Ba, I am danger!

You'd think 3 years with this allergy and I'd have this thing down to a science. And I have, I have: I can enumerate the foods I'm supposed to be allergic to: cheese, chocolates, alcohol-- especially beer, strawberries, tropical fruits including mangoes, seafood--the list does go on. And I've done enough experimentation to know which of these I am specifically allergic to, and in what amounts:

1. Cheese - Anything over the tiniest slice gives me a vicious vertigo attack. Attacks occur one to three days after intake, and lasts three days, too. No pizza, no cheeseburgers, no fondue, gratins, grilled cheese sandwiches, Cheezwhiz, cream cheese on bagels... you get the picture.
   
2. Chocolate - I can have a little bit, like one Snickers bar divvied up over three days, or so. (Sad, but true.) So unless I pig out with a whole can of Lindt mini assorteds, I'm fine. Chocolate ice cream seems okay, though.
3. Alcohol - Beer, I can stand one to three bottles in one night, although I rather wouldn't. (Seems I've lost my taste for it.) This one gives me an attack definitely, so I prefer another malt product. Whiskey is fine, fine, fine. Or any other hard liquor for that matter. I try to avoid wines and brandy because I'm supposed to be allergic to grapes, too. But I do like an occasional red now and again. Suddenly, I miss Japan where beer and whiskey prices are almost the same.
4. Fruits - Strawberry is a culprit, but I don't get a lot of chances to enjoy fresh ones anyway. Tropical fruits don't seem to have any adverse effects.
5. Seafood - Having lived 2/3 of my life near the sea, and loving Japanese food as I do, I am so grateful I turned out not to be allergic to seafood.

How do I know all this? I told you: I have this vertigo thing down to a science. And three years of experimentation, well, let's just say I could publish a paper on it. Sure, I miss out on a lot of foods-- just Italian mostly. Oh and mexican, too. And pizza. And most desserts. But, as you've probably heard me say more than once (all together now): as long as I'm not allergic to hard liquor and cigarettes... You could say three years has helped me deal with it, too.

So somebody please, tell me why, why, why I jumped at my mom's idea of lunch at Yellow Cab yesterday, clapping my hands in excitement like an idiot (instead of my usual sarcastic remark). Worse, when they remembered and tried to suggest someplace else, I bulldozed over the protests (They were half-hearted, true, but well-meant.) and even walked--no, marched--right into the pizza parlor first, myself. Ate two and a half slices of their meatlovers pizza and guzzled raspberry ice tea, giddy like I was doing something never attempted before, or something petty, but illegal.

And you know what else? I had the gall to be surprised when I woke up a little woozy, my head like a water-filled balloon--early this morning. When I weaved my way out of my room--holding my head in case it fell off and crashed like an aquarium around my feet-- to get my anti-vertigo drugs, my mom simply glanced at me and hmmmmed. I whimpered like an orphaned puppy.

Good thing, I remembered to up my dose of betahistines. But that's all I can really be proud of.

I believe in the scientific method: question, observe, experiment, conclude. Three years I've watched the food I take in. Three years I've experimented with what I can or cannot eat. Three years I've suffered: There was a year in Japan I had three-day attacks monthly. Oh, and my last attack was Christmas. Yep. December 24, 25, and 26, 2005 I was either asleep or trying to sleep. I've made conclusions, such as on the specifics of kinds and amounts of foods I should avoid. I've concluded, too, that sleep is my only escape (Oh, there's the Van Gogh experiment I have on reserve for unbearable situations.), and that most of the time, I can lessen the effects, enough to keep me functional, anyway, if I "overdose" on my Serc.

I have three years' worth of information. Tried and tested, conclusive information at that, where the scientist happens to be the test subject, too. So again I ask, why, why, why? I'm afraid there might not be any answer but brain damage. All that whiskey I enjoyed to make up for pizza must have finally caught up with me.

And you know what hurts the most? While I was eating that pizza and feeling giddy? I think I was giddy more for breaking my rules than any longing for pizza--it didn't taste as great as it does in my head when I imagined it. So now I'm suffering and I can't even say it was worth it. I told you: Brain damage. How pathetic.

Curiosity has not only killed the cat, it has won some lucky sons-of-bitches the Nobel prize. Seems like I don't belong to that category. That thin line between genius and crackpot isn't so thin after all.

Because three is a crowd, and a crowd is good.

Like I always say: when in doubt, waste time. And because I've been tagged. La-di-dah!

THREE NAMES THAT YOU GO BY:

1. Drey/Drea
2. Andrea (when the parents are mad; and in Japan, actually. Did you know that Dorei in Japanese means slave? Dorei-mon is actually the Japanese-Engrish for Slave Mon-ster! Ha! And you thought he was a cute robot cat.)
3. Inday (Haha!)

THREE SCREEN NAMES YOU'VE HAD, INCLUDING THE ONE YOU USE NOW:

1. Dreyers. Yes, the ice cream.
2. sevenfloors. Why? That's when and where it all started, I think.
3. Dreydlocks. Because I've always wanted them.

THREE THINGS YOU LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF:

1. My face.
   
2. I try to be more honest, everyday. Especially with myself.
   
3. I jump and ask questions later more often than not.
   

THREE THINGS YOU DISLIKE ABOUT YOURSELF:

1. My hips.
   
2. I look much nicer than I really am. I'm too polite.
   
3. I jump and ask questions later more often than not.

THREE PARTS OF YOUR HERITAGE:

1. The "Indian" look that comes from being three quarters Filipino and one quarter Spanish.
2. My Filipino grampa is a small-town farmer who, through sheer hard work (and a cold and hard heart), sent all his seven kids to college.
3. My Spanish grandfather was an alcoholic and unbelievably promiscuous. It was rumored that he beat my Lola. He was a good-looking SOB, though.
   

THREE THINGS THAT SCARE YOU:

1. Spiders.
2. Breaking bones.
3. I can swim, but I get panic attacks when my feet can't touch the bottom. Leftover trauma from when I fell off a moving pump boat in Guimaras when I was 12. It felt like I sank 20 feet without touching the bottom: It was dark and the sun a pale yellow overhead like a scene from Baywatch. I had to kick to the surface and swim to shore by myself (no Hasselhoff!). I had Jaws nightmares for a week after, complete with the ominous score.
   

THREE OF YOUR EVERYDAY ESSENTIALS:

1. Glasses/Contacts.
2. Coffee and cigarettes. Sad but true.
   
3. Food.

THREE THINGS YOU ARE WEARING RIGHT NOW:

1. A tanktop.
2. Shorts.
3. Glasses.
   

THREE NEW THINGS YOU WANT TO TRY IN THE NEXT 12 MONTHS:

1. Running. Seriously, and for good. Again.
2. Learn Spanish and improve on my Japanese.
3. Oh! Start my MA in Literature! Yey!

THREE EQUALS TWO LIES PLUS A TRUTH:

1. I've been mistaken for a prostitute.
2. I've been a prostitute.
3. I've been with a prostitute.

THREE THINGS YOU JUST CAN'T DO:

1. Wiggle my ears.
2. Be inexcusably rude and magnificently angry in public.
3. Kill myself.

THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE HOBBIES:

1. Reading.
2. Drinking coffee, smoking, doing nothing and people-watching, or having great conversations with friends.
   
3. I really like to wrap presents. Pretty good at it, too.

THREE THINGS YOU WANT TO DO REALLY BADLY RIGHT NOW:

1. Get a massage.
2. Write, write, write. I haven't written nor re-written anything since I went back home. Grrr.
3. Get laid. Seriously.

THREE CAREERS YOU'RE CONSIDERING:

1. Poetry.
2. Teaching. This is my calling, I think.
   
3. Triathlon. No kidding. Couple of years back I used to train. Before laziness took over.

THREE PLACES YOU WANT TO GO ON VACATION:

1. Alicante; visit my Great Aunt Ito who's really old and alone in a nursing home with Alzheimer's and a broken hip.
2. New York and live it up, ala Sex and the City.
3. Palawan or Batanes. Because I've never been.

THREE TRUE LOVES:

1. Banana splits.
2. Thunderstorms.
3. The smell of brown paper bags, especially if they hold hot bread. Or the smell of books.

THREE FAVORITE ANIMALS:

1. Reptiles. Don't ask me why.
2. Our ugly but adorable mutt, Pudjot.
3. Lions, tigers and bears. Oh my!

THREE REASONS WHY YOU'RE DOING THIS SURVEY:

1. Because there are more important things to do.
2. Every blog needs a good survey, now and again.
3. Because I love Bazooka and I'm disappointed to find that, not only is it 3/5 the orginal size, but the comics (and fortune!) has been removed from its current packaging! Oh, the things that happen in the world today!

THREE PEOPLE WHO MUST TAKE THIS QUIZ:

1. Anybody who feels like it.
2. Anybody who's as bored as me.
   
3. Anybody who's got more important stuff to do.

THREE WORDS:

1. Isn't
   
2. this
   
3. fun?

This shit is almost a palindrome.

Whenever I start complaining that my life is boring, please, please! somebody slap me.

In the last 4 or 5 years, I've noticed that whenever I curse my nothing-is-happening life (which happens about once a year), shit starts to happen. Drama, complications, problems, or just about any one of the your garden-variety psycho stuff(break-ups, hell-at-work, scholarships-to-Japan (haha!), non-scholarship-to-Japan, stalkers, asshole boyfirends, other people's asshole boyfriends, stereo-receivers-being-fried... you know, the usual shit) start to happen to me.

Well, this time around, the shit hasn't exactly hit the fan yet. And since I'm not planning on getting shit-faced, I'm ducking, big time:

My life is great! My life is happ'ning! I feel rrrreeeeevvvved! Yeeehaaw!

Okay, that should do me for now. Cross your fingers.

Imagine me and you

I'm happy. Kind of.

I am, really. But I don't know why, exactly. So I'm suspicious. Ha!

*****

I learned a new word, a couple of weeks ago that I really like: Frangible (frăn'gə-bəl) adj. It means breakable, capable of being broken, given to breakage. I don't know why I fell in love with this word. It seems a marriage between fragile and tangible, which somehow makes the breaking all the more painful, somehow.

Like seeing JC Intal breaking down after Game 3, and being hugged up from the floor by his parents. Frangible. Inconsolable. Heartbreaking.

*****

Ateneo was the number one team and held the best record. UST barely made it to the Final Four. We were on top and they were the underdog, both hungry to prove themselves. But fate had to have its way.

"If this were the NBA, it wouldn't have happened!" my best friend insisted over the phone. I know, I know. But this is college basketball, and the drama, the momentum, and the kind of fate that is in charge of epics and hero-making and idealism had to have its way.

If I were from UST, I would be sure, now, of why exactly I am happy. But I am not, and all I can say is, it had to end that way.

Which makes me think there might be different kinds of fate.

*****

Milenyo, on the other hand, is another story. Not fate. No, not exactly.

It just gets me thinking how fragile we are, how given to break, at any given moment. How frangible.

*****

But, I'm supposed to be happy. Or at least it started out that way. And again, I don't know why, exactly. Me and you and you and me, no matter how they roll the dice and all that.

*****

So happy together. How's the weather?