Of Men and (of) Mice

Time off meme.

Apologies to steinbeck, but after the things that happened to me in the past week, I can now only categorize people in two: men and mice.

The kind that I refer to as mice are the ones that have made my week less than appealing to talk about. But I will rant about them anyway. They are the kind people I have tried to help rise from the deep shits of their own making, yet because they are mice and are terribly shortsighted, myopic even, they not only forget those who help them. Worse, they gnaw and sink their razor-like poisoned teeth in you and kill you with their toxins. They appear adorable on the outside but they have innards that a stray can't wont even think of getting near into, lest she wants to die herself. And I abhor them with all that I can muster. Yet I must have to co-exist with them, at work particularly.

Is it me? Or are there are simply too many assholes on earth? Is it human to act up on your defense when you feel you're being slighted and thrown at with crap? It isn't just right. I'd like to pepper these morons with bullets to the very core of their being, so they will not have to bother me with their cheapskate pathetic presence anymore.

And then there are men. They are angels that never found their way back to heaven but they have golden hearts that can make you look at your sinful self in shame. They inspire you to be better and kinder and more considerate. Until you bump into your next mouse again. Sadly, they are beginning to fade to extinction. And there's no saving them.

Even the pied piper cannot do as much. What a crappy day for a crappy blog.

My Bambino

my bambino at 8 months. 

Meme2

21.I have plenty of books. Some of them are rare prints, which I delightedly dug out from the flea markets. They are mostly classics, but I indulge in a few children’s series like Harry Potter and Lemony Snickett.

22. My next goal is to complete my set of Tales of Narnia (CS Lewis) although I’m still a bit heady with the triumph of his friend’s books LOTR(Tolkien)

23. I tend to be self-effacing at all times. I love to disappear in the woodwork if possible.

24. That’s because I’m not comfortable being candidly looked upon or given a lot of attention.

25. Which means I am painfully shy. So much so that it impedes me from being understood by people.

26. I don’t know when I will ever overcome my shyness.

27. I have a morbid fear of rodents especially snakes. Big time.

28. I love jazz music.

29. My favorite singer as a child was Stevie Wonder. . I thought he was a beautiful person in spite of his blindness.

30. The color I am most comfortable with is pale yellow.

31. I think the French are the coolest persons on earth.

32. But I think the blacks are the grooviest.

33. Sometimes I am not proud of my heritage.

34. I wish every Filipino had a stronger sense of history, hindsight and foresight.

35. But I think we are well loved in every corner of the world, except Australia.

36. I used to like Aussies, but now I think some of them are bigots.

37. But saying that I am being bigoted myself.

38. I don’t care.

39. I thought I would never marry. But I did. At age 30. Just about time.

40. I married a man five years my junior.

The So-called Hundred Things

I have belatedly thought about writing the 100 Things About Me meme. Well, anyway, here goes. This will come in installments. Twenty each day for five days. The first twenty so and so things about ME…..

1.I’m 5’1” small, black hair, black eyes, brown skin

2.I know that I’m not what you may call beautiful today. But I’ve always been told I was a pretty child. I don’t know what happened in between the 10th and 30th years.

3.I loved reciting poems in front of the mirror when I was a little girl.

4.I grew up sleeping in my own house and having meals at my grandmother’s house, day in and day out.

5.I love to watch the wet leaves glimmer at night after a rainfall.

6.I always thought Sunday was the saddest day of the week. It felt like the end of the world.

7.I talk in my sleep. Always.

8.I was perpetually haunted with nightmares about witches and gargoyles when I was a kid. That’s because I didn’t pray hard said my grandma. But no matter how many dozen holy names I invoke in my nightly prayers, I always end up being chased by the hideous gargoyles and shrieking witches. They never caught me.

9.I love to read poetry.

10.I love to write poetry.

11.I have an angel kisses birthmark on my nape.

12.I want my guardian angel to show herself before me.

13.I wonder what it’s like being made love to. By an incubus.

14.As a young girl, I always grew my hair waistlong in the rainy season, and cut it short like a boy’s bob in the summer. For no practical or particular reason.

15.I always thought there was something wrong with my old folks. Then I discovered my grandfather had a disturbing character in him. He was an artist. I will not tell what I discovered.

16.My grandmother hated me for being my grandfather’s favorite.

17.I hated my grandfather for my grandmother’s resentment.

18.I hated them both. They’re long dead.

19.I am married with one son.

20.My son is the most important person in the world to me now, next to of course,God.

Being Pinoy

Seems to me being a Filipino is not too bad after all. These past weeks I've seen 3 or 4 Pinoys, a couple of them being half-breeds, that have been basking in the limelight of global scope. I mean it's not that we've not had any big names up there before, there's Leah Salonga for one, but a class act from a so-called third rate country like us, is almost always hard to come by. So, it makes for a fresh source of pride and inspiration when we hear of Pinoys making the leaps and bounds every now and then in the international scene. Anyways...

The two half-breeds are finalists in the American Idol contest, Jasmine Trias and Camile Velasco. Both grew up and are based in Hawaii. For the record, I don't normally ogle into these kinds of voyeur stuff about the blesseds and beautifuls, I just happened to walk past it while channel-surfing one a boring day, the day when I was nursing a horrible flu (still am) and had nothing better to do.

It was a marathon run of all AI episodes, from day one of audition, down to the finals where only 8 hopefuls remained. Well, I didn't regret spending the rest of the afternoon glued to AI, watching these two cute-as-a-button girls with impressive singing prowess. And my, what a following they have.

I particularly liked Camile because of her unique demeanor, there was both a perpetual smile and an impassioned writhing across her face when she sings. From my point of view, and in spite of her american twang, she's all filipino to me. Sadly, she was voted out around April. It was her nerves that got the better of her. But Paula Abdul, one the judges who make critiques of their weekly performances, advised her to move up to the West Coast and try the recording industry. I guess with the talent and face like hers, sans the nerves, every door of opportunity will gladly open at her beckon...

Meanwhile Jasmine is now in the remaining four final contenders (two blacks, one white, one amerasian). Which means she's having a field day. Win or lose, I'm very sure she's going to be a great pretty kickass with a honey voice, in Hollywood.

The other one I'm talking about is Manny Pacquiao. I didn't use to think much of this guy, having seen him fight in a local arena. With the corn-coloured highlight on his hair, an ugly tattoo, that pubescent moustache that seemed out of place, and to top it all a sloppy stance in the boxing ring, I dismissed him as one of the hopeful provincianos who'll be a one-hit wonder and will eventually be lost in obscurity someday. But I was much too wrong.

The Manny I saw fight last Sunday in Las Vegas opposite the hardrock Marquez of Mexico--well, he was just unstoppable. I probably still think he didn't have the class of a Marquez, his hands were all over the place compared to the very controlled movements of his opponent, but he took blows in and out with the bravest of heart. He floored Marquez three times in the first round, I thought that was the end of it, but owing to the technical rules which I don't care to know about, the fight dragged on to the last 12th round.

Cramps, blisters and all, it was only later in an interview that we learned of Manny's torture and heroism while trying in every round to knock his opponent down, and not forgetting to ask for divine intervention. The game ended in a draw, a fate I guess worse than death, it being a consolation for both boxers to at least not have lost. In his broken english, he said it was all for country. And it would be a shame not to give him the respect he long overdue deserves.

Last, is a Major General who authored the analysis report on the alleged abuses of Iraqi detainees in a US-kept prison in Al Gharaib. I saw him only in a CNN live feed of the US senate hearing over the issue, where he was asked to testify and answer queries about his investigations. Well, you guessed it, he's Filipino although by citizenship he's whiter than white. I don't mean that in a derogatory way. His name is Antonio Taguba, second highest ranking Fil-Am officer in the Pentagon.

In that hearing, he was to be seen as sitting upright, relaxed but very attentive, answering all questions thrown at him with candor, great insight, intelligence, direct sentences with no loose ends. It was not only once or twice that he was candidly praised by senators, both democrat and republicans, in spite of their partisan bunglings,for his honesty, bravery---it was almost overwhelming to hear it, but he took everything in stride, and smiled with a half-smile as if to say thank you but let's get on with this...It was just so humbling to know he's Pinoy.

Well, we're not such a sorry lot after all...That satiates my week comfortably until I know who the next president will be. Ta.

From Chubby

The love of human beings was the one value of the world.
I could not believe that it vanished. I could not believe that
suffering and anguish were meaningless. I would have liked
to have journeyed all around the world, and lived for all time,
and heard all the woes and all the loves of every man that lived.
Each tale would be so beautiful...
Each would be so painful....

from my erstwhile friend a j luzon

Sprout Eyes, Each to Each

Today is the day I opened my sprout eyes to the world, each eye to each eye saying, wow we got here. That was three decades and three years ago...

Fast-forward to today.

Well, what else is there to look forward to when one celebrates her 33rd birthday? Not much I suppose, apart from my usual reluctance to earn another fine line on my forehead.

I just came back from a sumptous lunch with my officemates from Dencio's. This is our favourite place to go when we're looking for quality Filipino food on a budget purse. The boys had been ribbing me since last week to a lunch blowout on my birthday. And today, there's no escaping it. I have been known in our circle as the miser, and I've always managed to make being married and raising a kid an excuse for my penny-pinching. Somehow they don't always buy it..

So yes, I've turned 33 today. Oliver mentioned something about me being the age of Jesus when He died. I laughed it off as another of his nonsense jokes, but secretly I gave it some thought afterwards. What have I done these past three decades to be the person that I am now? Have I , like the Jesus that we know, been a good child, a thoughtful sister, a supportive wife, and a protective mother? Or am I, in my long-winded soliloquys, ready at last to say I can die for my son? I can only guess. I have at one time or another expressed my apprehension about staying alive long enough to see my son ready to face and endure the rigors of this harsh world, and God knows how terrified I am at the thought of dying an untimely death..

There are times when I get lost in the obscurity of my own very ordinary life. I have no major accomplishments to speak of. My only claim to fame is that I have been a pretty tough person in the face of the many adversities in my so-called life. But come to think of it, others have been in the same boat and worse!

Does my daily acts of courage and tender regard for others then make me an everyday heroine worthy to emulate?

Drat, I don't like to be spending another birthday and making these same godawful guesswork...

N(h)eneng

Ever wonder why some pinoys are fond of putting the in-famous H on their nicks, or sadly even on their formal names?

I'd like to ask my yaya one of these days.

Speaking of our young yaya, Nheneng with the H, can be a character sometimes.

One morning, I found a Pentel pen and asked her to put our name on the 5 gallon container of our drinking water so it wont get mixed up with other customers' jugs again. She eagerly reached out for it and started writing. A few seconds passed...

"Ate, oki na ba ito?"

She wrote "MORINO FAMILY" in her prettiest handwriting, complete with a little heart on the I dot.

"Mali Neng, E dapat, hindi I...."

"Ay! sorry, po."

With a confused look, she quickly got the pen and wrote again.

"MORENO FAMELY".

I was in stitches but did not attempt to open my mouth, lest I embarrass her again.

Tama naman siya di ba?

Hog Day

On my way to work today, a tricycle sped by. Slumped behind it was a wilted lifeless body of a huge hog with its innards already taken out, ready for the butcher to butcher at the marketplace.Oh poor pig, I could only sigh. What have you done to deserve such hideous end?

I will never think of eating an inch of you again....

Angst of the Great Unwashed

It's nearly the end of the income tax season. Like last year, I and my officemates will have to huddle with the sweaty crowd again and endure the whole pathetic process of filing our income tax returns. We submit ourselves to the caprice of the government workers who feel self-important on those days and who seem to find pleasure in sending you back from one beeline and forth to another for no apparent reason, while you had to smile your most tolerant smile to kiss their arses, and at the same time shell out your hard-earned pesos for the piece of scrap which says Community Tax Certificate. We are all weighed down with all these impossible taxes and whatnots, and yet we don't even have the luxury of an airconditioning or a large enough room or even a decent treatment from these municipal gluttons. What a crying shame.

Anyway, apart from Tuesday morning angst, I am quite happy with the turn of events during the weekend. Two days at The Heritage proved to be a great breather for me and my two guys. Gabby must have known we were in some special place because he was acting quite smug and especially thrilled everytime we go out into the lobby. He was popular among the hotel crew. I'm glad he was in his best behaviour during meals except for the last time when he was probably dead-tired after two days of swimming and food-tripping that he almost fell asleep on his high chair in the middle of lunch.

As for Oliver and me, in spite of its being Lenten, we could not pass up the good buffet that at one dinner even, I helped myself to a slice of roast pork...I was terribly guilty afterwards. Otherwise we ate our hearts out until we could take it no longer. I expect another number up the scale. But what the heck, it was free for all you can eat!

There was nothing much to do in the hotel except curl up in the sheets and watch cable movies. Basically, we stayed inside our room all day and headed for the swimming pool when it was getting a tad boring. Not for Gabby though. He was tinkering with all the buttons he could muster on the console, rolling himself silly unto the carpet. He also enjoyed swimming and was not frightened at all of the water, even if Oliver had let him slip off his hands a couple of times.

I observed there were many others who were on a complimentary stay like us. They must be bookers like myself who got this freebie as well. Anyhow, it was one terrific weekend that I'd like Gabby and us to remember.

Sunday night, we watched a Roman Polanski film The Pianist on cable. It is a real-life story of a talented Polish pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman who lived and survived in the Jewish ghetto of Warsaw during the World War II. Once again I am reminded of the cruelty of the German dictator Hitler, although in the story it was a Nazi officer who saved the life of the pianist after hearing him play a rending piece in the ruins of Warsaw where he was hiding. The german however died in the Soviet prisoner camp later when the Russians took over. And Szpilman, despite his best intentions, came too late to have rescued him from the throes of death.

It was particularly touching to watch the german officer crouched among the prisoners of war, stripped off of his past glory, (and yet knowing that he helped our protagonist hide until the Nazis pulled out from Warsaw), ask succor from a Polish Jew who spat and shouted invictives at him, called him and the others murderers. He only had to mention the pianist Szpilman and he was a breath away from freedom, but the jew who cursed him didn't hear his name. By the way, it was Captain Wilm Hosenfeld. Ah, the ironic reversal of fortunes.

It is the kind of movie that sends you into the depths of introspection about humanity, the bad and the good-hearted in the face of atrocity and war. You can never believe that man himself can cause to destroy---in a carnage that annihilates not only scores of lives--the essence of the spirit in men.

And yet it would be wrong to say that Germans were the most ruthless and evil of all.

Semana Santa Etc.

Five straight days off from work! How good is that? I guess we'll be watching more films starting tonight, aside from the usual helping on cable tv. Tomorrow, or tonight rather, is the start of a long repast, in order to observe the holy days of the Lenten Season. I hope Oliver doesn't forget to rent the much-needed vcds on the way home from work.

Years ago, we would travel to Bacolod for this occasion. It becomes a Lenten cum Family Reunion cum Lolo's birthday affair. It was always a great gathering as we were eager to participate the Pieta in the yearly traditional procession of saints and holies. Grandfather reconstructed the very old wooden statue of Pieta which was handed down from many previous generations of devotees. It was virtually falling to pieces when it came to our family's possession, and for many years it was put away among the junks until he decided to do something about it. He used pulped papier mache for the missing parts, and being the artist that he was, painted it new and lifelike. It was our pride when for the first time we marched Pieta right behind the enormous Christ who was nailed on the cross. The people were awestruck with its solemn beauty. Mary is in a purple gown of gorgeous velvet, and surrounding her and Jesus were pretty mauve and lavender roses of fine satin. I wonder who maintains them now, since I have not gone home for many years. I hope he's doing a good job with it.

In the recent years, the airfare and even the boat fare have shot up to impossible rates that it's simply wise and practical to stay at home and go to church and say some silent atonements for our sins. I'd really to take the two guys to the place where I grew up. Oliver has never been anywhere outside Manila, save perhaps for Baguio and Laguna, which are virtually still in the island of Luzon. But this year, with our very limited means, we have decided to be at home. On Friday, we head to Heritage for an overnight stay. That at least is a welcome change.

I've seen The Passion of the Christ but since almost everybody has written about it and their personal experience when watching it, I'd keep my comments to myself. Nonetheless, we watched Frida last night. It's a story of a mexican painter Frida Kahlo who created most of her masterpieces while bedridden, having suffered from great physical pain all throughout her life as a result of a trolley accident which left a pole pierced from one side of her stomach and out to her pelvis on the other side. She could never have children. I admire her for her passion and rebellion, and like the other great women I've looked up to, she was intelligent and precocious. Most of her paintings were self-portraits that cut straight into human emotions, because they depict the surreal ravages of war, deaths, separations and also the bliss of love, ecstasy and passions that are all inherently and fundamentally human. In other words, she speaks the language of the common man through her works. It was one colorful movie.

My Bambino's First Invite

It is almost the end of the workweek, but I could not think of what to write. I dread the moment when I confront a blank page and purge my mind of ideas and events I came across with in the prior days. Not that I don't enjoy writing, I certainly do, next to reading. But sometimes one goes through episodes of vacuity, when nothing appears to have meaning or purpose. And it is simply hard to start writing about it.

Maybe it's proof that my life is fundamentally lackluster and boring. Where it not for the little guy whose everyday progress is something I look forward to writing about. No matter how commonplace it may sound. Am I going over the hill and experiencing the proverbial midlife crisis? Is thirty-two middle life anyway? And am I doomed to the insufferable monotony of a mother-wife-office worker lot? Maybe I need shrink? Geez...

Gabby has changed almost overnight. How time flies!!!Just yesterday, he was an angel with the most adorable smile and helpless stance, you could have nothing but compassion for him. But to date, he has broken a few precious things at home, has caused me to be late to work, for days running, by throwing his new-fangled tantrums precisely before and when I leave for work. My compassion may be slowly turning into exasperation as everyday he gropes for a new trick. But it's my fault, it must be scary for him to be left alone. It breaks my heart to entrust him to a stranger's hands everyday. But for the moment it has to be that way.

Last Saturday we were invited to a birthday party of Bea, the pretty daughter of Oliver's friend Bon. It was a posh residence inside the Ayala-alabang. We got there a bit early, by Pinoy standards, but it turned the guests were a small number, the others having called off, to the disappointment of the hosts, Bon and Ollie. They were by the way a nice and gracious couple.We huddled together with a respectable crowd. It was a pleasant afternoon altogether although we had to throw a few tentative smiles here and there to save our awkwardness. For the record, I didn't know anybody except the hosts.

On the other hand, my son didn't seem to have a care in the world. He was soaking up the afternoon sun and gallantly playing by his lonesome in the Fisher Price playhouse they put up at the outdoor garden, where the party was taking place. When the magic show began, he was seated snugly in a monobloc kiddie chair, all eyes on the conjurer, serious in his intent not to let any thing pass before his eyes. I smiled earnestly from behind where I was watching them.

That is my son with the intrepid little heart, just a one day shy of his fifteenth month on earth, but bursting with life and wonderment!!How enviable the little children who only think of themselves and their own pleasure and do not yet clout on what is and what is not.

The food was great, Oliver had a kick with the magic and balloon-making and talked endlessly about it afterwards to my chagrin, but we managed to beg off and leave at around 6pm, having planned our grocery shopping on the same night. Bon was kind enough to drive us out of the village to Alabang Town Center. We had a small pleasant talk on the way. He's a nice guy, no airs about him, but certainly exudes the confidence well heeled persons like him aptly manifest from the moment they venture out into the world with the precious silver spoons in their mouths. I'm not trying to sound awestruck by the way.

By the time we got home from all that tiring business of commuting, Gabby's flaccid body was dead-tired and in dreamland already. I'm sure he was relishing every second of that party, at least in his own childish comprehension, as I saw that unmistakeable half-grin on his sleeping face, on our way out to the door again.

Song

at last, to meet you
while in my desolation,
where has the truant
little girl gone? i ask
in the silence of
your responsiveness,
where there has never been
a time for it,
a reason to it,
a voice in it.
perhaps there was a dream?
out of our worship
for the stars and
the greater heavens
we have settled into this littleness,
where we can spin
to our delight
and forget that
there has never been
a Life
written
in your name.

welcome, little girl.

A poem I wrote in march 21 1992 for Honey Love de Vera, a girl I never met, but whom I learned died at age 5 after she succumbed to myelogenous leukemia.

Hypergraphia

..is a condition when a person undertakes writing as if it were an autonomic feature of the brain like breathing. It is a sickness in the sense that it overwhelms and replaces other forms of expression available to human beings. Hypergraphics write in toilets papers, table napkins, on their clothes, on their arms, on post-it notes and virtually everywhere, at a pace parallel to the activity of their brain, which means all the time.

So goes the article written by Maria Isabel Garcia in The Philippine Star. She was referring to the research findings of a doctor specializing in compulsive writing disorder. This doctor mentioned the great writer Fyodor Dostoevsky (The Idiot, The Brothers Karamazov-ones I've read), whose literary gift may have been a result of a temporal lobe epilepsy, which means very distinct changes in the activities in the temporal lobes of the brain. He must have been a hypergraphic.

Now, who wouldn't want to have a "sickness" like that??

The way of blogging is fast becoming a contagion, at least amongst those who know about it- and if this predilection is one sign of hypergraphia, if not otherwise a good excuse for indolence--then there must be one dostoevsky in every million bloggers, somewhere in the dark recesses of the blogosphere, ranting and rambling with a genius of wit and insight that will put all our most impassioned philosophic waxings to shame.

Ten years ago I have been more prolific in prose and poetry as though I woke up perpetually from a surfeit of dreams that couldn't wait to be ranted on paper. Depression and deprivation perhaps have been the muses of my musings, and I'm sure many other minds would agree that circumstances like these would have inspired them to put pen unto paper, never settling down until everything from the mind is exhausted and ascribed.

There are as it happens zillions of hypergraphics, thinking thoughts this very minute and every waking minute, maybe writing up their sleeves, or up the walls of their minds, or probably sweating over blogger now, happy in their drudgery- although no published work to their credit, but to where terms genius and writer rightfully belong.

As far as I'm concerned, my creative juices in the times of yore have already been wasted by the many years of domestication and fretting over inane little affairs. All that's left is an emaciated brain trying very hard to understand the elegant wisdom behind the blogs of an imperturbable London call girl.

Isabel Garcia capped off her column by quoting Oliver Wendell Holmes:

A mind that is stretched to a new idea never returns to its original dimension.

Touche'.

Detoxifying

For five straight days now, I have not touched nor imbibed an iota of caffeine in my system. Used to be that without my morning fix, I could hardly get through the rest of the day with a sound mind. My knees start to wobble, I'd feel vacuous and irritable, at worst becoming a cantankerous bitch--to myself and to everyone around me. Well, I do not exactly snap, but boy do I have murderous thoughts of anyone who crosses my sacred bubble.

Coffee was like a shot in the arm, I only had to have it to calm my frayed nerves, then I'll be as meek as a warm-blooded platypus again. Like I always am. Except when coffee-thirsty. Not only that, coffee makes think better, move better, my tactile senses ever heightened, therefore making me work more productively. Tudo belississimo!! Can I be blamed?

But I've long ago come into terms with reality--I'm an addict. The fatal palpitations, constricted nerves, and the sudden feeling of emancipation once the caffeine seeps in through the bloodstream, and wanting it again and again--I'm a disaster waiting to happen! So I've resolved to avoid it altogether, and the other sweet happenings adding up to my daily dose of poundage and evil adipose tissues.

Day One of detox attempt was torture....typical dependence-withdrawal symptoms like headache, fatigue and muscle pain from my last dose....So were days two and three....but I cleared out bourbon street in day four and five....and I survived.

La vita e bella, Life is beautiful!

I never discount the possibility, that someday, somewhere, I will somehow bump into my bitter friend again and strike up a friendship anew...

Neighbors

Mondays certainly reek, as Garfield would say. Reek of what, I dunno. I'm supposed to be upbeat and optimistic on the first day of the workweek, but this morning I learned from our househelp that there are people moving in next door, in the middle unit of the three apartment doors on the second floor where we now live.

Well, that should not be so bad considering we have somehow wanted to have a neighbor for an added feeling of security, especially since we've heard from the yayas that the previous occupants of our unit were broken in by thieves at, take note, 7 in the morning. Actually the moment I heard that story I wanted to pack our belongings and scamper off to the next safest place which I could not think of afterwards, but after a few deliberations, I thought that anywhere in Manila, is not safe. Ironic, but true.

I think an ounce of prevention is what is needed to reassure myself that we (Gabby especially) will be out of harm's way. Oliver is getting crazy over my paranoia every night, fastening every window with electric wires and bolting the door with deadlocks, footbolt, barrel bolt, and all the furniture I could muster to put behind the door. I know how frustrated he feels, but you see, it is distressing enough to remind myself that the reason why we moved to this place is because we wanted a better home than the previous one where we had to put up with a pesk of a landlady who badgered us no end, when all we've wanted there was to have some quiet and to be able to forget about the traumatic past when we were broken in by thieves at 6 in the evening. I think I will never get over the shock of having been trespassed by people whose identities to this day remain unknown to me. So I hope Oliver would understand why we're virtually locking us in. I need that to help me sleep through the night.

Anyway, back to the new neighbors. The bad news is that they are Maranaos. Not that I have anything against them as a tribe, or a group, or a culture. With my very limited knowledge about these people from Maguindanao, or Marawi, it would not be fair to pass a general judgement unto them. However, they, the new neighbors, are the relatives of our other present neighbors who are practically occupying 90% of the whole apartment compound, the rest of us being Ilonggo, Bicolano and Visayan.

Now, what I'm grumbling about is the fact that they are terrible SLOBS. They, as I have observed, are a filthy, grubby, messy lot who leave disgusting marks of their spit and piss anywhere they please, not even sparing the 2nd floor stairs. I should have known better than to get bothered by such trivial things. But when you pass by a place that smell like nothing short of excrement everyday, it makes your innards revolt, and HATE the slobs who leave filthy traces of themselves anywhere. As far as I know, we are the only ones I've seen sweeping the dust off our windows and the balcony, which by the way, is a common area for all five units on the second floor. Save for the Visayans who live at the far end of the apartment, the rest of them are just oblivious about their environment. To think they own cars and have kids! We are probably the poorest tenants who live there anyway, but certainly not the inconsiderate ones!

We wanted to make friends with these Maranaos, occasionally trying to flash a shy smile at them , just so to break some cold, hard ice--but they (the men particularly) just shot back an angry, if not hostile, look at us. The women are either shy or they share the same belligerent attitude towards everyone outside their creed, I don't know. But I swear that their kids go up to our unit everyday, sharing food with my son Gabby, playing with his toys, reading his books---and I don't have an inch of hatred for them.

Bigots!

Well, as I was trying to get a sneak of our new neighbors, I saw one woman was dressed in malong and didn't seem to have bothered to comb her hair and wash her face. I felt an instant aversion. I don't know, I think it's wrong to think it, but I feel maybe we deserve better neighbors. I don't care if they all have big cars or millions of pesos. I'm not scheming to discourse about their religion either.

Remembering the short story of hemingway, I feel that what all we middle-class great unwashed want is just a tidy, clean-smelling---well-lighted place. It isn't much to ask for, is it?

Anyway, speaking of bigotry, last night Oliver and I watched Monster's Ball at HBO. At first I was bored with the movie---I suppose I wasn't in a suitable condition to appreciate it while I was trying to put Gabby to sleep, wrestling him to the mattress half of the time. But when I finally had Gabby snoozing, I sat upright and thought, wow, this is one gripping movie. I was mesmerized by Billy Bob Thornton's character, Hank, whose bitterness and racial hatred for colored people was altered when his son (Heath Ledger, who had only a brief but compelling role) took his life away, for reasons that Hank and everything unspoken that had shrouded them in their fallen relationship as father and son had caused. Hally Berry as Leticia, the widow of the last convict that Billy Bob and Heath saw to his deathwalk, was brilliant.

The movie kept me thinking all through the night, about human bondage, the deafening silences of unspoken feelings, and the why and wherefores of it. Monster's Ball was a movie of symbolisms although we were terribly disappointed that we didn't see the sex scene (damn chauvinists!), between Halle and Billy Bob-which reportedly turned in 1 million more dollars for Halle Berry by baring her great bod.

Sayang!

anyone lived in a pretty how town

from one of my favorite poets
E. E. Cummings

anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn't he danced his did

Women and men(both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn't they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain

children guessed(but only a few
and down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more by more

when by now and tree by leaf
she laughed his joy she cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by still
anyone's any was all to her

someones married their everyones
laughed their cryings and did their dance
(sleep wake hope and then)they
said their nevers they slept their dream

stars rain sun moon
(and only the snow can begin to explain
how children are apt to forget to remember
with up so floating many bells down)

one day anyone died i guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by was

all by all and deep by deep
and more by more they dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth by april
wish by spirit and if by yes.

Women and men(both dong and ding)
summer autumn winter spring
reaped their sowing and went their came
sun moon stars rain

Minor Interruptions

Wow, it feels good to be back to my little not-so-secret cranny again. I wasn't in a hiatus from blogging you see, I've just been mercilessly busy slogging in the domestic front like erma bombeck. Gabby had his vaccine today, a long overdue shot really, since he was supposed to get it at the most proper time which is 9 months. For that, I got some friendly scolding from the doctor with the spanking white frock and handsome face. Why are most male doctors gorgeous and goodlooking, anyway? Is it always destiny that make these fine creatures go into a profession where they come into the most contact with lesser, sicker maybe more repulsive mortals who are supposed to be enlivened by their hale and hearty presence? Does it have to do with the handsome face that signal the pink of health and an antidote to everything unwell in a sick man?

Well, I dunno. It's just an impetuous observation, I suppose. Maybe I oversimplify. Like saying that most artist and writers are slobs. They probably are. But that's a sweeping accusation again, which proves me wrong when I see a great work of art which only bespeaks of the precision of hand and clarity of mind of the artist who made it. But, I always digress.

Work has been heavy these days. And I've missed my readings. I'm trying to pick up again on the book that my aunt lent me, How to Teach Your Baby to Read (The Gentle Revolution), by Glenn Doman. It's an interesting read. In a nutshell, its a product of more than twenty years of research on attacking the basic problem of a brain-injured child, and how one is able to help her become a well child, the technique being is to teach a very small (brain-injured) child to read.

The same ability to raise a neurological organization can be done to teach a well- BABY to read. Notice the word baby. It says in the book that the younger a child is when he learns to read, the easier it will be for him to read, and the better he will read. I will quote a paragraph in the book to summarize what it is all about, "Children can read words when they are one year old, sentences when they are two, and whole boks when they are three years old--and they love it."

I agree with what the above says, and that's why I'm putting much effort to delve deeper into the method of teaching Gabby to read, obsessive as it may sound. Of course, I know that it is not at all that HARD to follow what the book suggests a parent should do. I think what more importantly matters is one's commitment--to give my son the time, the sacrifice, the attention and the focus needed to make the thrust of the book a realization. Wow, that's mommy speaking. Do I make sense anyway?

So, on to the book. I'm just about finished, but my next project would be to make the charts that will aid his learning everyday. With Gabby's early fondness for books, I don't think this is going to be a Herculean task. I'm having fun while thinking about it already. So don't blame me if my blogging would be sparse in the next few days...it's for a great cause.

PInoy Blogging

I guess boredom antes up the ones who welcome it with open arms. And for a jaded, old slacker like me who spends a lot of time googling everything from aswang to zeitgeist, I have my found my home in the words Pinoy Blog. It was out of curiosity and indefatigable thirst for something kindred that I began clicking away the spots supposedly occupied by filipino diarists, and what they have to say and how they say what they have to say.

Not that I'm settling a score with who writes better, and who has a more interesting story to tell. It is simply intriguing to read of thoughts and vague innuendoes of real-life drama in the local stage. I wish I have half the wit to think and write as they do.

These pinoy bloggers I've come across with have a way with words. They refresh me as only a sultry afternoon zephyr from Lake Sebu can. I have become weary of bloggers whose lives and experiences are seemingly confined in picket fences and boring platitudes, talking only about the latest perfume they shopped and the last trendy club they've gone to the previous night meanwhile grumbling about the failed tryst with the prospective ONS (one-night stand).

There's a sassy lawyer blog that I particularly liked so much, she makes me proud to be filipino. I'm not big with words like her, but in my best effort, I can say she's a classic and deserves my approbation. Another blogspot I walked into was that of a twenty-something woman who seems to be in a endless quandary with her partner. Notwithstanding her pathetic lovelife, I find her funny, intelligent--that endless supply of wit, humor, and insight all crammed into that elegant, if not overrated, brain of hers. She surprises me no end...

The downside of nosing too much into other's lives however makes me lose focus on my personal circumstances. Honestly, there are simply too many stories I'd like to recall of from my childhood, and even the recent past, try to reconstruct them in my mind, and attempt my darned best to put them into writing. But these other delectables on the blogosphere are presently too sweet to ignore.

I resolve therefore to not google Pinoy blogs from hereon....

Or next week wouldn't hurt.

Remembrance to my Mother

Mother

Your secret glare makes me mournfully walk
Around you like a blind bluejay

and never hold on.
As if your color is awkward
As if the foliage of your white cloth

is a cold gleam of briar roses.

And yet,
Since you have promised me
A wet temperament in life
I will not suffocate in dizzy tears.
I will not mourn for you any more. ( I know
You died a long time ago ).

Sharon Ignes (c.1988)


If mother was alive, she could have been fifty-six years old today. She could have been a doting grandmother to my little son Gabby. She could be the office worker happy and content with her day job, and lugging me at my childish insistence to her workplace on Saturday mornings where I would make a mess of her table and typewriter. She could be the shy teen writing poetry in her unruffled world of dreamers and young loves. She could be that little kid bowling over her first red balloon outside the cathedral after a sunday mass....

I never really knew my mother well except in the last few months of her life. My impression of her was that she was a shy but good-natured person. She kept going in her silent ways in spite of the debilitating effects of her cancer, never as much complaining as only trying to put up a brave front to keep us from worrying and feeling her pain, both physical and emotional.

I remember once sleeping beside her in her sickbed and waking up to the soft touch of her hand on my fingers. I felt like a little baby for the first time, and realized that must be how she felt when I first met her in the hospital room after the endless anticipation and pain in trying to ease me out into the world. There was only boundless love in her eyes. But there were tears welling up, too, and a weak smile. I somehow feel responsible for her demise. I know that she would have wanted to live and see all her children grow. Were it not for me and my brothers, could she have met a more providential destiny?

Life is an ephemeral glimpse of what can be had if we made choices, but sadly the day of our departing is not something we can choose nor plan. Twenty years is a long time for me to get over the pain of losing a person closest to my heart, but the regret of not knowing her thoughts, her fears, her dreams---cuts the deepest.

I miss her today more than ever.