I’m not anal. I’m Oedipal.

March 5, 2007

B is a bit bothered about her mother’s boyfriend. She thinks the mother has acceptance issues, the whole Oedipal-Complex-Times-Three complex. Whenever she goes to church with them, she hears her boyfriend’s church mates teasing his mother, saying,

Oy, kelan ba ang kasal?

The mother, whom B avoids looking at closely for fear of having an irresistible, unexplainable urge to run, says

Ha? Ano ba kayo? Tagal pa yan. Mga bata pa.

Funny thing about it is, they’re getting married next month.

When does she plan on telling them, she asks me. The day before?

Maybe she’ll just say, Come over, there’s a party at our house. And they’ll say, What for? And she’ll say, Oh because I love the Lord so much. And the whole time, they’ll think that that party was for Jesus.

B blinks. You depress me, sometimes.

Well, what are the odds of it being my day everyday, babe?

 

 

dreaming in sepia

Today, I have had the luxury of sleeping in the afternoon, curled up next to a lion, who has also decided to extend his napping hours. 

I dreamt about my parents. My dreams are usually a mess, hacked up into bits and pieces that are, by turns, terrifying and funny. But this one had continuity to it, a grainy texture to each scene, as if everything was an old silent movie.

This is the dream:

The first scene shows the back portion of a church - the white steeple rising to meet clouds that looked hazy and askew. Then the lens that I am seeing through shows me and the Griffin living in a small, clean room near the church. I know it is clean because there are no books and where there are no books, there can’t really be anything else.

My mother, it seems, lives in a small room near ours. I go visit her. Hers is not a clean room. There are large, multicolored urns with elephant caricatures on them. There are Persian rugs, unscrolled or still wrapped in what seems to be purple plastic. She picks up after herself and does not look at me.

Next scene, The Griffin is driving (Driving!) me and Papa to a restaurant where we have decided to eat. Once there, I notice the table is covered with red and white plaid tablecoths. We sit down, careful to let Papa be in the center of it all. I believe I felt happy.

This scene is gone too soon. I see myself answering the phone, talking to my cousin K, arguing with her about God knows what.

Then in the next scene, there is a ruckus caused by my living relatives. They are angry about something. I think, automatically (in character, as always) that it is my fault, that it had something to do with the conversation I had with my cousin that day. But instead, I find out that they are angry with my mother. It was something she did, something that had to do with their Bingo game. There was someone she offended, they said. Then it was all of them. It is the last thing I remember, this phrase: All of them.

I remember waking up in the middle of this dream, thinking, Wait til I tell Mommy. As if she were still here.

When I actually do wake up, I feel nothing. I stare out a window and my eyes focus on a small leaf, floating listlessly a little above the ground.

+++++++

Three questions regarding this dream. One is:

Are they apart now, where they are?

Second is:

Is the purpose of this dream to warn me about something? Or is it just something that they sent me to let me know how they are doing?

Third, and most relevant question is:

Why are my relatives so fucking meddlesome?

 

 

Sunday Bloody Sunday

This is what I call a lazy Sunday. Hour after hour of splendid nothingness. Of lying down, reading. Standing up and squinting at the sun. Of stretching. Patting the dog and letting myself be licked by the dog. Eating a chocolate bar while listening to a man yap about a blender on the Home TV Shopping Channel. Chatting with The Griffin. Going to town on a tricycle, the wind blowing my hair into a frenzy.

+++++

We go out to buy some black tape for his drumsticks. The weather is unsurprisingly warm and there are a lot of people milling about, looking at street wares, looking at each other.

When we reach the hardware store, I stare at his profile, then at the curve of his back. There is nothing different about him today, unlike other days whe he is neither this nor anything. I imagine taking a photograph of him here, where everything is bustling and busy and he is looking on, as if transfixed on something. I like how still he is during these moments. It touches me; making me see how he is the same as everyone else and yet is not.

I like imagining him as the subject of future photographs that I will take. I see him in market places, in obscure restaurants, reading a book with his back turned to me. I want to believe he belongs to these kinds places; surroundings where I can fit gracefully in, too. Nothing that would involve too much pizzazz, too much proof of expectations.  Not because I don’t believe that he will fit in. It’s because in my heart, I am afraid that he would be swallowed completely by the grandeur, by the effervescent newness of it all. In the end, I will live with the truth I have always known - he will be lost to me. The  photographs,emptied, will bear witness to the places as they really are in daylight – random and sad. Bereft.

I waste:

5 hours each day talking to blighted blimey blippity blip citizens and having conversations like these:

Me: Maam, our address is Filinvest corp. city, block 44, Northgate Cyberzone…

Whoever the hell it was: Ano maam? 444 Northkiss Cyberzone?

Or

Me: Could you kindly desribe yourself.

Grade-A Idiot: I am 5’6 , 120 pounds and I like foreigners. (which, of course, she pronounced as Porengers)

1 hour flipping though TV channels that host shows which are and will never be relevant to me.

Say, for example, the Big Brother show that we mistakenly watched one uneventful evening.

In comes Contestant Number One who claims that he is a War Craft addict. I forget where he was from but he sure did think with an accent. Inspite of the sweat streaming ( I am not exaggerating) down his face, he still had the audacity to leer at the hostess’ boobies which were, of course, unsubtly pushing through her rather skimpy top. This guy is in his boxers and in a thin, nondescript blue sando shirt and he looks like he is shivering. I hold my breath for an embarrassing boner that will defeat all his hopes of reappearing on TV. Ever again.

Hostess asks: So if you were to pick a celebrity to stay in the house with you, who would it be.

Guy who thinks with an accent: I-cow (which may have meant several things, really.)

Next comes Contestant Number Two, who is sporting a tiny, white number with one of those fashionable belts tied fetchingly at one side of her waist. She removes her blindfold and smiles gamely into the camera. Then, the shot is cut and they begin rolling a shortie about her life. It is, as usual, an unbelievably sad life. One that will make you want to tear your heart out and give it to the needy.

She lays down the works: wrong side of town, father up and gone; mother barely making ends meet. And inspite of all this, she says she tries her best to present a happy front to the world.

She says, “Ano naman ako, kenkoy. Medyo bakla.” And you see tiny, almost inconspicuous beads of tears working their way down the corner of her eyes.

Why is she so thin, though? asks my officemate the next day.

Probably because all she eats is talahib and little bugs. I retort.

Ano ka ba naman? She laughs.

She’s supposed to be poor, remember? Were you expecting that she give dieting tips?

Ah, poor, malnourished, wretched girls. You will always be among us.

Contestant Number Five is, simply put, a nutjob. Here are the reasons why I think so:

1. She joined the contest even though she seems filthy rich. She’s a cheerleader at some hotshot private U. There were sickening shots that showed her doing regular, normal things like studying, laughing (wine glass in hand, no doubt) with her perky friends, her doing cartwheels. She is under the delusion that she is doing this as a service to mankind. I do strongly doubt, though, that this is the kind of, erm, service that men would like to receive from her.

2.There is a part when she was shown laughing with their ‘workers’, as she called them. She’s a regular Joe, this girl. She says she enjoys nothing more than hanging out with ‘em locals. Then she enjoys getting banged up by them after drinking sessions. But her upbringing still shows through – the rule still is one at a time, folks!

She looks like your typical snotty, up-your-ass socialite but really she fixes tires  

in her spare time. Without gloves. Wow, that must be something. Really.

3. The Big Brother hostess introduced her as a girl of 21 but has 8 kids. But wait, there’s more to this monstrosity – the eldest kid is supposed to be 15 years old already. Then after this astounding announcement, they cleverly paused for a break, the rats.

Of course, we surmised about it. How can that be possible? Maybe they’re dogs, or aliens. I shout Offsprings of the workers! My fellow watchers split their eyes at me. We racked our brains, we pulled our hair out, we prayed to the Gods of TV Hell to put the show back on. Then, after a few moments, there she was again, smiling that calculated smile of hers.

Then, the hosts say, So, tell us about your 8 kids.

Actually, she says, without batting a perfectly primped eyelash, they’re dolls.

Out come her relatives, all holding smelly, gnarly toys.

The hostess reads a letter aloud. It’s from Big Brother. The letter says that he is graciously giving our poor little rich girl (who probably has more money than Channel 2 does) the opportunity to bring one of her dolls along. She gives a little dance and says, “Pamela.”

We, the astounded watchers silently mouthed, Who the hell is Pamela?

And she stretches her arms out to the rattiest, smelliest-looking, bald reproduction of Prince William and holds it to her tiny tits. She smiles.

Bakit siya ang napili mo? the hostess asked.

Siya kasi ang panganay, she says. The girl smiles to herself, allowing herself to be transported into yet another world.

I hate these rich bitches. They get me every time.

Now I am rooting for Contestant Number 6. He is a hulking mass of flesh who can’t speak one iota of English, nevermind Filipino. It was perfectly clear to everyone that he could not understand particular English words because his face kept contorting to a moue of confusion. And when the hostess says Sana naman naiintindihan mo ang sinasabi ko, you know who the real idiot is.

When he goes into the House, no one speaks to him. We just hear a chorus of dumb voices, repeating Ano daw? Ano daw?

He was such a sorry sight – holding his hands out to gesture that someone should help him get the stupid handcuffs off his wrists – that I could not help but sympathize. And since I almost always want any story to end in a hilarious note, I guess having him win is the most laughable way to go.

As you may have noticed I skipped giving detailed accounts for Contestant Number Three and Contestant Number Four. This is because they were downright ugly and that’s all I have to say about the matter.

 

20 minutes doing one thing I even enjoy doing – Eating.

I spend the shortest time possible on eating because I now eat:

Breakfast:

1 oatmeal (35 grams)

1 banana (if I’m lucky)

Lunch:

1 sandwich

1 cup Century Tuna

Dinner:

Anything I want because I get dastardly hungry by this time and no conscience of mine is going to stop me.

 

30 minutes blog-surfing

More on these series of unfortunate events in future post because it would involve some in-depth, true to form proof that will surely, surely convince you that the end of days is nigh.

60 minutes of daydreaming/soul searching

If  character X will be accompanied by J, I will be able to find Q and H.

So what?

For I

It’s a funny word: estrangement. Until today, I associate it with the word ‘string’, which is truly peculiar since a string is meant to connect things, to pull things together, while being estranged is to set apart, to stretch out an unexplicable void between two entities.

Some of its synonyms are: rift, separation, rupture, division, drifting apart.

But no matter how my mind perceives this word and no matter how many synonyms I can attach to it, the unavoidable fact is that this is what we are now: estranged. And even if I have turned the events of the past weeks over and over in my mind until I finally cave in to exhaustion, there is not a single thing that I remember doing wrong.

But forgive my vanity. Maybe this is just me - being my own savior again. Making excuses for myself so that I can find living in this body, under this particular sun, bearable.

When I lose people I love, I try my damndest to never beg, to never ask them to come back. I see that you know this about me. This knowledge is in your smile, in your quick gestures as you prepare to go home, your back always turned to me now. I have never pictured you as relentless, or unforgiving. But seeing that you are makes it easier for me to imagine that someone else is now inhabiting your body, someone else stirring the spoon in your cup of coffee, someone else who fits in your swivel chair.

The saddest thing about all this is the fact that I have realized that inspite of all my brave declarations; the belief that I have built around myself to establish that I am distinct from all other survivors that have been left in various places, in uncountable ways, I am still a very, very young soul. I am still not used to goodbyes.

But to you, my nether-sister, I am saying it. Let it bring you peace.

Goodbye.

if you aren’t here, where am I?

Lately, I have noticed that there seconds in my life which are devoid of music. Seconds when I can hear nothing else but the common sounds of everyday. When I am looking at a stranger, when I smell my aunt’s cooking, when something particularly melodramatic happens to me, there is nothing – no lilting backdrop, nothing that makes me associate the moment with something that is tangible; no harbinger that will make the memory repeat itself in my mind.

This void is something that I realize I have consciously accepted and have not given much thought to ‘til today.

+++++++

I remember, though, a story my mother told when I was a child. It was an ordinary afternoon and she was folding clothes in her room. I rush in, my eyes wide open, my hands clamped on my ears. Ma, I can’t hear a thing! I can’t hear a thing! Can you still see me?

Ma was alarmed, of course. She was a woman who was charmingly susceptible to urban legends and medical mishaps (which was one and the same, she told me) so always, the solution for any kind of sickness or pain was a friendly visit to the provincial hospital. So she took me there, asking all the while what was happening to me. What was I feeling?

Then I said, with all the innocence that a five year old can muster, I always used to hear the song More (a favorite of Papa’s) in my head and now it’s gone. And I thought I was gone with it.

My mother used to love telling this story to other mothers she knew. They gave appropriate comments like Isn’t she a bright girl? or How sweet!

But after that day, my father, in moments, looked at me rather peculiarly, as if he were checking if I was still really there.

++++++

I think I still disappear sometimes. Now, more than ever.