Scene Le Officine

Ok, now that's really bad french. But, needless to say, at work there are different characters that make up a nasty bungle of neuroses you have to struggle with everyday...but then again, it might be you alone who is neurotic....pun it

The clown, that him. He always has a fresh set of jokes to crack at work, on lunch breaks, or virtually everywhere we go as a group, and yes he never fails to make us laugh and guffaw. How he packs a punch. But talk to him about books and politics, and he's gone into thin air faster than he could throw a bad wind to cap his gag. No wonder everyone indulges him, even if he squeezes a teeny bit of idiocy in his work sometimes. I envy him for his laidback attitude in life, a stark comparison to my uptight self.

The geek? Probably none....

I'll attribute 95% of my company's workforce (a hefty number 6!) who deliberately ignore the bundy clock's droning of fur elise to signal lunch break, because they are busy at yahoo chatrooms, and then get up to have lunch at a mall 5 mins drive from work, only to come back at past 3pm because they had to play billiards or buy a blank cd for a broken cd-w. that's everyday. the 5% is me and me. and yet the 95% had the gall to complain about leniency.

Spice girls, we're not. The only two girls are her and me, and eventhough things are not spicy between us, she isn't almost a kindred that i can share girly stuff with. I find myself quite withdrawn especially when i sense it's her "we" want to talk about that i know the true nature of her intention. isn't it ironic and emotionally debilitating to be thrown into a place where you don't exactly like the person next to you and yet you're compelled to, for the sake of world peace? i'm sure she finds me a quintessential bore, but would she be mad if i thought she were a fake?

Celebrities? Yes, we have our share of the celebrity, the know-all if you allow me. they are the ones who think have the best opinions, who try so hard to be cool in what they do or say. oddly enough, i can always feel the rickety interior, trembling in its ineptness and insecurity, and i always fear the moment they might disintegrate and i get buried in the rubbles.

The world record holder....and sheesh, he's always the cause of my exasperation, a virtual pain in the ass who tortures me by asking questions 1000 times before he gets my answer.

The leather guy? Oh, now this one is a classic, and thank you, we have one around. he'll be here forever and ever, doing his stuff, giving the lowdown to everyone he meets, eking out his bread and butter out of what he can squeeze from the company. by hook or by crook. fortunately, i've learned to work my way with him. scruples and all. i'm not alone in saying that i'm sure.

WEIRDOS, that's probably me. Me, me, me, and my corporate gripes.

The Masseuse

Have you ever tried one of these things? A chair massager? I just did today, on my lunch break. It's located a discreetly in one of those little corners next to the tykes gym at the exit of Rustan's in Alabang Town Center, which is a breezy 5-minute walk in the sunshine from my office.For a measly P19.99, you get to snugly sit there for three minutes and have your head to lower back rudimentary massage, just like the one done by a professional masseuse. And how! For three minutes, I was enjoying a back rub that seemed like forever, and relishing being rubbed the right way with the right pressure. I could not complain one bit, it's almost like human hands. To tell you honestly, I've been bothered by a case of scoliosis for years running, but never really tried going to a therapist. Well, I actually did, a couple of times, but I wasn't quite satisfied with the service. Well, dear me, I'd make a killing for this chair if it's gonna cost me my lunch money,everyday. That's the cheapskate in me. Well, so what??

I'm definitely going back.

Seven Habits

These last few nights I’ve been reading my husband’s book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. It’s almost a tattered copy now, frayed in the edges, thanks to my once careless handling. It’s basically one of those coaching books that I hope don’t make me run into tiresome platitudes, but just straight to the point, useful insights. I’m just on my second "habit" anyway so it's early to tell. Oliver is an aficionado of this kind of literature, and obviously I’m not. I’m more of a jd salinger kind of thinker who finds bliss in the neuroses of oneself and of the world. But, before I stray off into any further mental torment, it’s best to exercise prudence when working on the book’s objectives, singular of which is to know one’s Character. The key to being an effective person, it suggests, is to work the issues from the inside out (meaning the character), to have better control of the outside-in (personality) circumstances of your life. More or less. But I’m quite doing this thing on my terms. First because I have never bothered to sum up my character before. Sure I have the 100 Things about me Meme going on, but it’s only as cheesy as it can get. So who am I? I’ll probably attempt to look at it in two parts:

Strengths:
1.Empathy (which could otherwise be a weakness unless used with forethought)
2.Resourcefulness
3.Resilience
4.Insightfulness
5.Imagination (??? - the walter mitty syndrome)

Weaknesses:
1.Lack of ambition, focus or direction
2.Procrastination
3.Temper, or lack thereof
4.Shyness
5.Fear of confronting reality

Right about now, I realize that it’s healthy to be just in between, and not to drive oneself to impossible lengths to be a Perfect Person. I mean heck if you ask me, what matters most to me is personal happiness, never about money or artificial success. But rarely do I care to add that being happy entails having a full stomach, a roof to shelter one’s head, clothes, good education, respect of one’s peers, or owning things that satiates one’s physiological needs. Neither am I inclined to be a bum, get wasted, and live on other people’s compassion. But are those all to it? How about surreal things like song and poetry that we cannot rationalize and yet can restore the dankness of our spirits? Is our existence any better if we have everything of the former and nothing of the latter? How about the tibetan monks who lived in seclusion, fed in poetry and prayers and yet were undoubtedly elevated to kingdom come by doing away with all their worldly cares? What is the more important hunger?

I’m still going to read the rest of the book, and maybe change a few things about me, but I’m not going to be any preachier than this already is. As the gritty French would always remark, take me or leave me. It’s between the devil and the deep, blue sea.

 

Paradigm Shift

Donkey of the Shrek fame had always looked up to his master-cum-bestfriend with a certain amount of awe and trepidation. And yet he had the audacity to tell him in his face how fat he stands a chance to be liked by the in-laws he was about to meet, because he was a sullen, cantakerous, dour face of an ogre.

Sometimes we need a friend as honest as Donkey to gently budge us out of our undesirable state of mind and look at the brighter side of life.

Unfortunately for me, there is no donkey for a friend to watch my ass and tell me how it's sticking out...I had to figure all things out for myself.

Just a few days ago, I was ranting about shortsighted co-workers. I even went to the extent of calling them mice. Boy was I really boiling that day! I snapped at my officemate Paul, who by the way, had nothing to do with my crossness that day but was snapped at just the same if only to validate my righteous anger with J and make my point. Poor paul..

And then I upset another officemate Rex by mincing uncalled-for words which weren't meant to sound sharp or harsh but because I was feeling rotten, had sounded like slur anyhow....

Meaning, in one afternoon, it seemed to everyone that I was freaked out, all ready spoiling for a fight. I wasn't. I was just terribly angry at myself for not being able to express my feeling of anger and resentment in the right way to the right person without sacrificing my self-dignity.

The rage comes first, and blindly I fight through the rest of the day moping around but never getting my message across, even when I'm dead sure my subject of contention has noticed the v-e-r-y sour face looking straight into space.

That very moment I wished the quintessential Dr. Phil was around to give me invaluable lessons on anger management. Oh pleeeease, as if..

But once all the steam had gone off and I had cooled down to my senses, I begin to take stock of things that happened.

Paradigm shift. Shift from one value to another, from ideal to the bestest. Evil to goodness. Black to white. Sumthin like that...

I found myself in the early morning of the second day of my self-imposed War against the World, texting Paul and making my apologies. It took only that and I was replied with a forgiving "it's okay, no problem" text. Such a relief, that I have actually forgotten how I managed to be angry with J for vague reasons.

I appreciated the feeling of emancipation from my rut, so I wasted no time saying sorry to Rex too, who met my apologies with some doubt but with acceptance. Mission accomplished. Everything is well that ends well.

Well, not really. I'm slowly trying to forgive J. Although he hasn't an iota of what I went through these past few days...isn't it ironic?

If only people don't give me shit.

Then I won't have to making any rubbish of a blog like this.

And I hope my husband reads this.

More of Moi

Today’s 20 things about me meme (doesn’t that sound funny) will consist of loves and hates:

41. I hate my eggs over-easy. I prefer to have everything well done.

42. I love the way rains make tiny puddles on potholes on the road.

43. I hate discussing religion. I guess it’s like stepping on one’s sacred grounds without spiritual consent.

44. I love England, and its woods and its coldness, and its people who seem to wear parkas all year long, and make intellectual intercourses with their characteristic drawl, beside the hearth, with their great English tea, which makes me all wish I was born there.

45. I hate noontime game shows.

46. I love period movies.

47. I hate, I hate, I hate Britney Spears! and all her pathetic gyrations and ugly costumes.

48. I love the scintillating scent of peach.

49. I hate boy bands. Are Boyz II Men and Shai boy bands? Becoz they are the exceptions.

50. I love the aroma of freshly ground coffee. It takes me to unspeakable cerebral heights.

51. I hate people who are smug and assume they own the place they walk into. I think that an excessive amount of self-confidence should be better left to the narcissists. The world is overcrowded with bloated egos that are threatening to blow up any time; so more people should get down from their high horses and walk the ground.

52. I love the way my child blows tiny kisses on my face in the morning when we awake.

53. I hate it when he whines and screams and gets frustrated that I don’t understand what he wants.

54. I love Nina Simone and her deep mysterious baritone voice; Astrud Gilberto for her cool bossa nova flair.

55. I love to sing, although I tend to be uneasy doing it in front of two or more people.

56. I hate anything concerning math. My head begins to get in a confused daze when I look at numbers. It must be a voluntary reflex.

57. I love to hear about my mother writing poetry and short stories. I’d like to keep a memory of her that way; it inspires me to be like one.

58. I hate my father’s chain-smoking.

59. I love to travel.

60. I hate fat obnoxious greedy sexist chauvinist pigs.

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...