i hate that i need you,
to live, to breathe, to eat,
i hate that i have to beg to get you,
to touch you,
only for you to flit past my grasp into somebody else’s
i hate that whatever i do,
i can’t do anything without you.
you are my crutch, my ever present hang up,
it’s hopeless to think i can live without you
or forget about you,
and i hate you for that
i really really do.
Mukha nanamanang free parking area ang EDSA kaya binalikan ko nalang ang pagmamasid sa sidewalk.
“Ano ba, Batman? Pinagtitripan mo nanaman ako eh,” nasambit ko habang nagsilabasan ng mga payong ang mga tao.
Napasulyap sa ‘kin ang kunduktor. Nginitian ko lang siya. Nakalimutan kong naka-earphones nga pala ako.
Binuksan ng drayber ang wipers, mukhang may naglalabas ng matinding sama ng loob sa itaas.
Ginagamit mo kaya yung payong na binigay ko sa ‘yo?
Ang init. Tumatagaktak na ang pawis ko habang naghihintay ng bus. Sabi nung ale sa ticket booth, mayamaya pa daw ang susunod na byahe.
Inalok nya ako ng mas maagang bus, pero sabi ko, hindi naman ako nagmamadali. Mahaba na din kasi yung pila sa likod ko, malamang, may nagmamadali sa mga yun.
Bawal manigarilyo, sabi nung karatula sa pader. Kungsabagay, may pagasulinahan sa may sulok. Dahil ayaw ko naman mandamay, binuhat ko nalang uli ang mabigat kong bag at lumabas ng terminal. Dun na ako nagsindi at naghintay.
Bakit ko nga ba di kinuha yung mas maagang bus? Natawa ako. “Hindi,” sabi ko sa sarili ko. Hindi lang talaga ako nagmamadali.
Once upon a time when I was still a fledgling writer – I still am I suppose, only older and a little more battered – when my friend Annabs presented me with a project. It was called Promdifiction.
I liked the idea. It was short stories that were to be presented in 5 parts. Half of it is fact, and the other, fiction. It’s up to the readers to figure out which parts are pulled from the writer’s inventory of imagined experiences and which are true events. I wrote a story for it, entitled Ang Pagtakas. The story eventually made its way to another publication – at which point it became a victim of a mix up that retitled it into “Promdification.”
Promdifiction.com is now an experimental site (found here: promdifiction.tumblr.com) and still lovingly maintained by Annabs. The magazine I published the story on is still on shelves, though I won’t to tell you which mag it was to protect my poor pride.
Anyway, to start off this year’s February lovapaloser series I’ll release Ang Pagtakas here again in the form it was originally intended to be read: in parts. I hope you enjoy it and give me feedback, will you?
Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night with a screeching cramp? If you haven’t, it’s a pain much like getting drop kicked in the face by a soccer player with cleats on. Once afflicted, you snap into a state of bewildered wakefulness (like so, “Wha—Ooooww.”). Screaming does not help; the pain sadistically lingers for a few excruciating minutes, and when it finally goes away, it leaves you with one more reason to hate the universe.
This morning, I was walking my usual 1KM to work (the other 1KM from work) when a cramp seized my left leg. This persisted for a few meters, and since I was favoring the other left leg, that started cramping too. I was still at Makati Avenue, about 800 meters away from the office I needed to be at before 9 o’clock. It was 8:49.
Suddenly, the simple commute to work doesn’t feel very safe anymore.
You, the girl who reads, make me want to be everything that I am not. But I am weak and I will fail you, because you have dreamed, properly, of someone who is better than I am. You will not accept the life that I told of at the beginning of this piece. You will accept nothing less than passion, and perfection, and a life worthy of being storied. So out with you, girl who reads. Take the next southbound train and take your Hemingway with you. I hate you. I really, really, really hate you.
I hope when you are 27, just turned in from a meeting at 4AM, tired and damned sleepy, some shrieking kids also run in the halls and wake you up at 8AM.
Para sa mga natanga, natatanga, o matatanga palang (or yung mga medyo sadyang tanga lang talaga), si Sheryl Crow singing If It Makes You Happy.
Every morning, I follow a few morning rituals before going out to another work day. My ritual includes sitting down to breakfast, having my first mug of coffee, lighting my first cigarette, munching on a few pieces of pandesal, staring at nothing and thinking of nothing in particular while waiting for my brain to boot. Twenty minutes later, I kiss my nanay after hurriedly gulping down my second mug of coffee and she calls out things I may have forgotten. This morning, I was halfway out of the house with Larc~en~ciel screaming Ready, Steady, Go into my eardrums when I did a double take.
My mom said, “Wallet, Cellphone.” I patted the pockets containing the things in question and narrowly missed the last reminder as I was closing the door: James. I removed one earphone. “Ano po yun?” “Si James baka nakalimutan mo.”
I gave the heavily sedated telling of the road trip the last time; this time, a few notes.
One. I still live pretty much like a college dude. When it was time to sleep, Rem took out a kikay kit. I took out facial wash and uh, toothpaste. Angel remembers that time when she stayed over at the southern suburbs of Las Pinas: she looked for moisturizer the next morning. According to her, I replied with the “Uhh… Wut?” look. That’s pretty accurate; some skin/hair/body care products may as well have product descriptions written in alien.
So yeah. I’m stuck in the college dork phase in terms of personal hygiene and general vanity.
So yesterday was my first day back at work from vacation. I was fully rested, though I think my brain was still dulled by Vacation that it failed to notice the madness creeping in on my Monday. All was well (I think) until I almost walked into a white wall at Glorietta.
I was on my usual route, Ayala Walkway to Greenbelt, to Landmark, to Glorietta and finally to SM Makati and EDSA Ayala. I’ve been using the route for years, and honestly, I’ve stopped paying attention to where I am going while on the said route. Yesterday, I was texting a couple of friends, commenting about how cold it was. Then I looked up and saw that 2 steps in front of me was a blank wall. I stared at it for a while, puzzled at the sudden development, before doubling back to take another route.
So last Friday I embarked on my first trip for 2011 (which in my mind, had been labeled as a year for adventure) with my friend Rem. Baguio was recently reported to be at frigid tundra temperatures, so when Rem gave me a choice between frigid tundra and new territory, I chose the latter. We were to drive from the northern suburbs (the vicinity where Rem lives, I don’t know what it’s called. I live in the southern suburbs and only have rudimentary essential-to-survival knowledge of Quezon City) to Ilocos Sur.
A few days ago, a brilliant brain fart – wait no. Actually, it was Rica sarcastically telling me a great title for a Star Cinema movie (Joel Lamangan, have your people call my people. We’ll do lunch, preferably with John Lloyd Cruz). “Natanga Lang: A Love Story” has then evolved to a creative exercise challenge. There are no prizes here, no promises of glory and shining, shimmering, splendid phones. We just present you with the opportunity to remember and laugh, to lambast an old love, to imagine, and to be creative. This being a creative exercise, you have freedom to choose whatever media you want to use and in whatever form you want. Here are some suggestions:
Read more: Natanga Lang: A Love Story, further details | Young Underpaid Professionals http://www.yuppieuniverse.com/creative-non-fiction/natanga-lang-a-love-story-further-details/
A couple of weeks back, I chatted up a friend of mine, Angel (hindi nya tunay na pangalan). She told me that a company told her that they are about to make her an offer she can’t refuse. Well, thought I, that may not amount to anything much but that’s bound to be interesting. Later, she chatted me up again to report what the offer was:
Angel: i gots my offer btw
Angel: and it’s measly.
Rio: o_o
Angel: 17K fulltime, nechan.
Rio: that’s it?
Angel: grabe.
Angel: that’s eeeet.
Rio: that’s the offer you can’t refuse?
Angel: apparently.
Angel: ohmigad.
Angel: parang… ang baba naman ng self-esteem ko kung tanggapin ko yun.
Rio: an offer i can’t refuse kasi involves a 6-digit tax free salary, free gourmet lunch and dinner, a porsche, and a daily backrub.
Note to future employers: Yes, my idea of “an offer I can’t refuse” includes the said things. It’s not that I am expensive, or skilled enough to be expensive, it’s that that’s literally an offer a yuppie like me won’t be able to refuse. Not 17 thousand pesetas.
In theory, An Offer You Can’t Refuse shouldn’t be used at all, especially by prospective employers attempting to lure employees. An Offer You Can’t Refuse can be consigned to the Corpo Mythical Creatures, because any offer preceded by the said phrase can fall flat on its face faster than four o’clock. Let’s be realistic, of course you can refuse 17 thousand pesos, especially if your job requires being creative all the time, being at events all the time, making logos, making proposals, rendering 10,000 hours of overtime (nevermind that there are only 168 hours in a week) and producing AVPs, among other (not less shittier) things. If there is a real, honest to goodness unrefusable offer that isn’t limited to one’s imagination, please let this jaded pisante know.
I have had the pleasure of going on road trips with friends, but some of these trips have been marred by unfortunate soundtracks.
Next weekend, I shall be embarking on another road trip with Rem and Mabie (if she doesn’t pull another Jerico – which is to say, confirming but ultimately not showing up). If you have just tuned in to this writer, our previous excursion in a vehicle involved a little VW bug named Mo, a giant swervy bus, and a failure to reverse.
I also went on a road trip with Rem a few months back when we popped my Baguio virginity. Long story short, it involved a thick fog (it was my first time and it was terrifying for me), ACW-236 (we owe our lives to the driver of that van who we followed through the Silent Hill fog and thus we didn’t come rolling down the mountain screaming and flailing), and ABBA.
This can also be called: For Whom the Cat Wails Toll.
So last night the Universe conspired against me by way of feline mating rituals. Apparently, there’s a superstition from the Visayan provinces that if cats… uhm, do the act in the vicinity of a house (trust me, everybody knows when and where cats are getting it on, they’re noisier than a pair of overacting porn stars), somebody in that house is pregnant. *cue lightning flash and thunder claps*
Well, a cat couple has been using our porch as a hovel (read: sex den) for the past couple of days. The only people in the house are my nanay (menopausal) and myself (two words: el nino) and the neighbors have started getting curious. Nanay gave me the speculations over dinner last night: “I heard somebody say, ‘Baka si Ate Ester yung buntis.’ I said, ‘Asan yung bubuntis?’” She said further that it can’t be me who’s pregnant because I don’t have a boyfriend (thanks for the reminder, mom).
I replied in the words of my eloquent friend Karl: “When has the lack of a significant other stopped babies from being made?” But well, I have to admit that my mother is right; she knows me well enough to know of my serial monogamy and sex philosophy. (I have a whole set of stringent rules about relationships that therefore translates to my current state of celibate singlehood. One of the rules state: Thou shalt not share.)
All things considered, what does the cat omen mean, Universe? Are you just toying with me like Globe, you heartless bastard? Or are you trying to be biblical on me and Nanay? (For those who did not grow up with Religion as a subject for ALL of your student years, here’s a briefer: Hundred-year old Abraham’s wife Sara was menopausal but Batman gave them menopause baby Isaac. The other biblical miracle baby is of course immaculate-conception-by-product Jesus.)
So yeah. Pakyudobol, Universe.
Friends, Trolls, and Tumblrbots,
I personally challenge you to a creative exercise involving this theme:
No, I am not kidding. The challenge is for you to write a soulful poem/bleeding love story/angry song/bitter letter/bordering on pathetic ode – you get the idea – or use any conceivable media (remember, somebody photographed Christ in piss) to produce a crime scene photo/documentary/emo music video circling around the theme above. (By the way, wag nyo pong nakawin yung banner, kasi ako lang gumawa nyan nakakahiya naman. I don’t want anybody embarrassing themselves on my behalf.)
If anybody is curious, here is an excerpt of Natanga Lang: A Telenovela:
I’m in love with her. Sure, for the first few days of our acquaintance, we hated each other’s innards, and we traded insults about each other’s mother. She called me a leery bastard and I called her an impetuous bitch.
Then we had an ordeal. We had to emergency land on a deserted island – long story, who knew pure manliness and shrieking MAYDAY MAYDAY like a highschool girl wasn’t enough to keep a plane aloft? – and we had to subsist on coconuts and tiny crustaceans. After a few hours with each other, after a talk by our magic bonfire (made without the help of matches and visible dry foliage) and sharing clothing for heat, we were saved. After that excruciating ordeal, we started giving each other meaningful looks and secret smiles.
So yeah, creative exercise. If you want to share your pieces (for this year’s Yuppie “Have Yourself A Merry Little Barfintimes Day”), don’t hesitate to tell me about it. Friends, you know my email address so you probably know where to send yours if you do plan to submit anything.
PS. Previous experience tells me not to expect anything from you useless bums. So nope, not getting my hopes up. :P
If you want previous YuppieUniverse Valentine’s Specials, you can check out Yuppie Replay: Rom-Coms and the Classics, Love According to Disney, and Willingly suspending disbelief.
