Sad

 

* thank you, Jordan, for your comment.

Sublime Casual

J (Quezon City) and K (New York), former law school blockmates and seatmates, chatting over YM, on the topic of relationships.

K: Haaaaay, I suppose I’ll get married really late, mga 39. Ayoko pa magpakasal eh.

J: But are you dating right now?

K: Well, gusto ko lang these days, sublime casual.

J: What the hell is THAT? (sabay emoticon na roll eyes)

K: Duh. As opposed to jologs casual.

(J, napaisip, long pause, naguguluhan pa din.)

K: Ikaw?

J: Hmmmmm. Ehhrrrrm, ok na sa akin ang……smart casual.

Happy Box

Maybe it’s my inner wanderlust. Or maybe it has to do with that time in my life when so many body parts hurt all at the same time and I did not think I had a chance anymore to experience new things. But there’s something about going away that makes me… happy.

In my room I have a piggy bank that I call the Happy Box. Right now, my Happy Box is gathering coins by the day to save up for a trip to Panglao, Bohol in August. I don’t want to dip into my bank account savings, so the Happy Box is for taxi-rides foregone, expensive meals turned down, impulse purchases successfully walked away from.  The piggy-bank method of saving is one I’ve had since I was a kid.  Because I’m as giddy as a kid about that trip, I’ve been dropping coins and small change in the Happy Box as agressively as I did when I was a kid and wanted something badly.

I’m not a big fan of luxury items or jewelry (I don’t own a watch and I buy clothes from the ukay ukay) and I’m not like those people who upgrade their phones every six months, seeing as how my phone is a hand-me-down from my sister and the space key is busted. But I really have no problem saving for months to take a trip somewhere far, or saying yes to invitations to hie off to various parts of the Philippines that I’ve never been to before (and of course these invitations are usually text messages that go “davao, 2nd weekend of september. magbobook na kami. may promo, sama ka?” — thanks in no small measure to Cebu Pacific’s piso flights ).

This morning,  while I was reaching for some law school books and notes for Monica and her bar review, I accidentally knocked over my Happy Box. It fell to the floor and broke into pieces. I was about to go down on my knees and began the arduous task of gathering the coins and the paper bills, when I saw that in the space in the shelf where the Happy Box was, there was a small envelope tucked in one of the dark crevices gathering cobwebs.  I don’t remember seeing it before or putting it there. Inside the envelope was $100 with a post-it. It had the date March 30, 2006 and the word Congratulations.

That was date I passed the bar. I don’t know how it got there or where it came from, and will  ask my Mom later if one of my Titas gave it to me and she absentmindedly put it on my shelf and forgot to tell me, but for the meantime, let me tell you that me and my Happy Box are mighty happy.

p.s. yippeee. my lawschool friends and i just bought tickets to camiguin. i’m so excited about that too. wow philippines na!!!  

Love, Flowers, Antibiotics and Furniture Exporters from Cebu and How “Everything Changes”

One rainy Friday morning, stricken with Upper Respiratory Tract Infection, I was shaken out of my slumber by Golda’s text message: “Sabi ng Multiply, Gus is your friend Jae’s Boyfriend!!!”

Jae, half-asleep, texted (or thinks she texted): “Kadiri.”

Because, like EVERYBODY except the brilliant lead counsel of Magkaisa Junk JPEPA knows by now, Gus is gay.  Loud and Proud. And if we are to end up together, it would only be after the realization that there are no more good men around and we might as well be little old knitting lesbians together.

Several months ago, on February 14, 2008 to be specific, Arlene and I were drinking beer together in Treehouse.  We bemoaned the fact that we haven’t received flowers in a long, long time from the guys we dated. Oh, we dated wonderful men, but they just didn’t give us flowers. I think it’s entirely possible that they thought that we weren’t the type of girls who wanted to receive flowers, that we were more practical, more level-headed than that. That flowers were for dainty princesses that giggle and faint. I’ve gotten a lot of presents over the last half a decade, most notably a huge marble table that now holds the coffee maker and airpot in our dining room, but not one single rose. Not one santan. Not one limp strand of sampaguita.

So a month after that Treehouse night with Arlene, or sometime around March, I was telling all this to Gus. Let me tell you about Gus. There was a period in our friendship when Gus didn’t talk to me for a lengthy period of time because I stopped seeing the guy he wanted for me, but not before screeching “what’s your fucking trip?!?!”. So when he told me that he had the perfect solution to my love life crisis (which wasn’t so much a crisis as it was a funk), I was both doubtful and curious.

And here it goes: According to him, I need to look for (be prepared for this) A FLOWER-GIVING CEBU-BASED FURNITURE DESIGNER/EXPORTER.

The explanation follows shortly:

A furniture exporter would be wealthy enough to support our family and would allow me to continue my alternative lawyering practice. Cebu-based, para daw malayo, para pwede pa daw ako rumampa sa Bondoc Pen and other conflict zones with minimum supervision and censure, but near enough to meet my wanton-female needs at least bi-monthly (again, I’m quoting Gus here). Furniture designer para may creative streak. Thanks to my zealous lobbying, Gus reluctantly agreed to add another criterion: that the furniture business empowers local rural communities. Basta no leftists. And when i timidly suggested that our house in Mandaue could be used for meetings with community organizers, Gus drew the line. No, Jae.

Of course, much to Gus’s disappointment, I have zero intention of traipsing around in the Megatrade Halls or checking in on PICC every so often for their OTOP (one town, one product) events for my hunky Cebu-based furniture exporter. Not only because I’m with someone right now and there’s no room in my life for imaginary cut-out dolls with or without cute Cebuano accents, but because it’s scary to put so much stock in formulas.

This is a really long-winded and meandering post, but really, I’m writing this because right now, I’m particularly scared of how uncertain and nebulous relationships are. One of my closest, closest friends just ended a relationship with her boyfriend of eight years. We were so sure that they’d end up together — the guy had been so much a part of our lives in many ways. That was jarring news, indeed. Earlier this year,  Claudette and her boyfriend of ten years broke up as well. Her boyfriend was with us all time, practically saw us through law school. Drank with us through our shit. If you asked me last year what I thought forever looked like, I would point to their apartment in Bliss. Mori my College best friend broke up with his boyfriend,  the one he called “The One”, the one who called him “The One”. And even though he will always be a catch with his gorgeous smile and buff body, a breakup is still a breakup.

Emman sent me a link to this song recently, he told me I should listen to it. Emman, with whom I have the craziest and most violent of fights, but who is always around whenever I need him and who comforts in a way that is as incoherent and silly as it is genuine.

The song is by Staind. “Everything Changes.” The lyrics, which Emman also sent, are here. Basta my favorite part is: “I am the mess you chose, the closet you cannot close, the devil in you I suppose, ’cause the wounds never heal”.

p.s. thanks for reading up to here. hehe. I know it doesn’t make much sense, top to bottom. If I can blame it on the antibiotics for the upper respiratory tract infection, why can’t you?

For Papa

“I saw your dad na. You look like your mom.”

So goes my friend Gari via text one nondescript afternoon. It’s a no-brainer observation, certainly. My mom and I are spitting images of each other. I grew up getting used to comparisons between me and her by people who meet us, so I guess it comes as little surprise that I can relate more to her than I could to my Dad, and speak about her more often to friends. There’s always a story to tell about my Mom – she, the flamboyant, colorful, witty one with a penchant for drama and a flair for words.

Growing up, my dad was more of a silent and solid presence in my life. I remember when I was in second grade, I failed to make it to the track and field team for inter-school. (That was during a funky part of my life when I genuinely, honestly believed I was sporty) so I went home bawling my eyes out. I flew to the arms of my Mom, who hugged me and kissed me and told me I got a star in English and “honey, isn’t that so much better?”. In the background, my Dad was making a pot of hot chocolate, the thick native kind made with tablea from his home province Samar. Never had the sweet and slightly bitter blend of chocolate and cream and sugar taste so good. It told me I was home and safe – in the arms of people who believed that I could run like the wind.

In first year high school, I got kicked out of the Honors class for getting a line of 7 in Science. Again, I went home crying, my ego bruised and my heart broken. I knew it was my fault, I never really applied myself in school, but I had gotten so used to being in the honors class during my grade school years and was scared to death at the prospect of having to meet new friends from the other sections. Again, my mom was the one who fussed over me, and my dad was in the background, a hot mug of native chocolate in hand.

And it was like that, over and over. In third year high school when we lost the finals of the debate championship to Assumption, the hot chocolate was there too, in the same mug now chipped at the edges. It was there when we lost our beloved dog, Sparky, to old age; it was there when our family went through a financial crisis and we had to enroll in school on the strength of one promissory note after the other.

In first year college, when a musician with long hair and too many tattoos chased me with passion and then broke up with me because “you’re sixteen, you’re just a kid”, I wanted to ask for that cup of chocolate, but was too scared to have to explain why. At sixteen, I wasn’t supposed to have boyfriends, after all. I went to the kitchen and made myself my own cup. The result was a watery concoction that was too sweet and had brown lumps all over.

It’s four days since Father’s Day and this is a very delayed post. Nonetheless, here’s a shout-out to my beloved and wonderful Papa – silent, solid and steady; a comforting cup of chocolate on a rainy day. A thick, sweet, cholesterol-laden brew of fuzzy and unconditional love.

Hacienda Living At Its Finest

“It is a definite mix of high living and downhome charm. On one side, there are simple bamboo huts lining the riverside and carabaos lazily plodding  and through sleepy roads, but on the other, there is a genteel pink Commonwealth period mansion xxx, a perfect marriage of heritage and natural charm. ____ is a place that is decadent in its simplicity, a place where adherence to past traditions gives me firm footing in the present. A place where I can be proud to be Filipino.”

I like reading copies for subdivision developments. Lalo na those that go by fancy-schmancy names like Hampton Estates, Cottonwood Heights, Southern Peak. Nakakaloka di ba? Nasa Canlubang, Laguna, may ‘ivory pillars reminiscent of old Greece”; sa Guagua, Pampanga, pwede ka pala mag”walk hand in hand through verdant hills and then have candlelit dinners at Italian gazebos”, at sa San Jose, Batangas, e may “board walk with the hip beat of artsy San Francisco”. Medyo masaya din naman mag-imagine. Lalo na kung nakatira ka sa Quezon City at sumasakay ng Project 2-3 jeep, umiinom sa Teachers’ Village, at nakikipagdate sa Trinoma.

Pero nung nabasa ko talaga yung description ng subdivision na ginagawa sa Quezon na tinype ko sa taas, napataaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaambling talaga ako. Lumabas ito sa Inquirer ngayong araw lang. Di ko na sasabihin kung sino ang developer.

“Nipa huts on one side, Commonwealth mansion on the other???” 

Ituloy na kaya natin –

And as I sip my buco juice — precious nectar from the tree of life, fruits of the labor of my tenants – I idly watch a row of peasants, backs bent and brows furrowed, tilling the land of my ancestors. I decide to go down my pink mansion and go around my estate. Children swarm around me, the children of my tenants. Soon, they will be my tenants too. Satisfied, I retire back to the comfort of my enclave, lie down in a hammock, and doze off to the quaint and charming sounds of rural living. As I wake up to the golden hues of the setting sun, I realize that though the world may spin and churn and change, my piece of it will remain the same….

…Or else.

Mamatay na ang dapat mamatay. Mga hampaslupa, agawlupa, AMOYLUPA. Down with Agrarian Reform! No to CARP extension!

Haha. So, who wants to hire me to write for your real estate company?