INSIDE A VOID AND I FOUND A SINEGWELAS TREE. QUAECUMQUAE…

I wanna sulk in the corner. I want it to rain. A drizzle will do. Then I could just snug under the sheets and turn into fungus the whole day. Maybe for the rest of my life.

Quaecumquae…

December 15, 2006. Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, People Support, Makati. It’s 11 pm in the evening. Umiskapo ako sa office with the blessing of my boss. So, is it still iskapo?

Bagbag, this morning, flew off to Amsterdam. Then to France. Then to some island in the Bahamas, a little island France hasn’t nuked yet. Echoes from the lifestyle of the rich and famous? Not!

Bagbag is on his way to his next assignment as a UN medical volunteer. His destination would be Haiti. There, coup d’etats have been raised into an art-form. The Philippines’ merely pales to compare. As a UN Volunteer, my hubby will be serving the UN forces as a physician. Why my Bagbag? He’s the only physician in the Philippines who specialized on voodoo. No, he’s not from Surigao. Marikina, rather. But, hey, an international physician nonetheless. That’s my Bagbag.


There I see my Bagbag go somewhere... but not away.

Last night, Bagbag and I were both Lea Salonga immersed in last-night-of-the-world histrionics. But I refused to let go of some tears. The very same countenance I was harboring when my sister died a month ago. Honest. Serious. With unfeigned sincerity. Gods! Why do I feel that nobody believes me? C’mon, throw me the benefit of the doubt here. My hubby is away for six months and I could be depressed anytime soon. I may be your next-door type of bully but I still have a heart. I was born with one, if you may ask.

Quaecumquae…

Apologies aside, I’m actually a softy before I became a toughie. The mushy me ended up in the monastery somewhere in Mendiola. When I began wearing the bully character, I was made to believe that such persona is governed by some rules that have to be played inside out. Ordained under Rule No. 66, a bully should – must! - never show an emotion in the physiological level. The bully is only allowed to keep it inside, but must never let blood rush to his face in times of embarrassment (in fact, must not know the word embarrassment), get rattled when nervous, weaken in the knees in times of adulation, loose footing on solid ground at the sight of a crush, teary-eyed at the sight of Danish black chocolate. A bully has to keep his passion out of people’s sight; hold it with restraint and name it instinct. A gut-feel. Recall your classical studies and you will recognize that a bully is your 20th Century version of a Stoic (it’s time to open your dictionary, honey). Wait, why am I talking about myself?

Quaecumquae…

I don’t even quite sure why I’m writing this entry. Months after I was blogging, I heard somewhere that blogging is the electronic version of a diary, only open to the public. Or simply an upsurge of emotion poured over the keyboard, consequently ending up in the net. A journal.

Is it? I didn’t know that. I thought blogging was a way to show off. Joke (but I can also be serious about that statement).

As theorized, blogging happens when one has to unload bothersome thoughts, ideas, what-have-you’s. However, that idea doesn’t seem to stick with my present predicament. I feel empty. After Bagbag left, there seems to be a deep void existing between me and beings around me, whether animate or inanimate (go get that dictionary again, dearie). I can’t seem to feel my friends’ company, or realize that I was in a café. O, is that a bottle of beer in my hand? If I was having sex, I could be so faking it. At some point, borrowing from Praxedes, I lost my happy feet. No inspiration. But I’m still writing.

When inspiration fails, there’s always talent. Huh!

Quacumquae…

December 25, 2006. Tabang, Guiguinto, Bulacan. Took me some time to finish this entry blamed solely to a line-up of parties. Lat night, Christmas eve, my high school best friend, Anabelrama, and his family adopted me for Christmas eve. Imagine me having a wholesome Christmas in provincial Bulacan complete with a mom (Anabelrama’s mom), a niece (Anabelrama’s daughter), and two sisters (Anabelrama and Anabelrama’s wife). Had so much fun trying to keep Bagbag away from my thoughts by downing anything on the table. Provided it doesn’t move. After gift giving, everyone slept and I was left making some finishing touches on this entry. The cool air, the cool light, and the cool music (ILOVE Limewire) altogether made me realize that I have so much blessing to count this year.


A sumptuous gift from Anabelrama

This morning, I was having coffee at Anabelrama’s backyard overlooking a stretch of rice paddies. At the middle of the yard was a sinegwelas tree. I remembered my childhood in Negros. There was one at my mom’s garden. Unlike this one standing at the backyard, it was enormous. And like the sinegwelas trees I have seen, it looked old, sick, and dying all year round. Or all of the above.

Man, they’re so ugly. Which is good. I have seen so much beautiful things during this season. I, seeing this tree, suddenly contemplated on the essence of ugliness. They bare fruit.

Whatever…

PS. I only have two Christmas greetings: a) Happy birthday, Jesus!; and b) Ang Pasko ay nasa Puso. Merry Christmas, Puso!

Take your pick.

De Questio

I think I should start my own advice column. I don’t know how you call it when it appears in a blog though. But an advice corner nonetheless. Someone asks you a question about life then you write him back with lines so magical they can raise the country’s GNP. Usually, advice column subscribers would write about problems so heavily inane they get thrown off their career path solving them. Before they grab a rope for their necks, they write you asking for a piece of advice as a last resort. You feign concern. You give your 60 cents worth of advice. You write back in an attempt to brighten up somebody’s dark life with a tinged of tender loving care. Then you smile back having thought that you have them constrained from committing suicide using only the power of saccharine words, no matter how trite, yet circumspect. As if.

December 8, 2006. Lunch break at The Patio, PBCOM Tower. I’m not sure where and when I’m finishing this blog. It’s time to rant.

Friends surround me. They color my life. But sometimes they can color your life with the wrong hue. Blue mixed with black. Or menstrual red and puss yellow. Unintentenionally. Lately, some pasaway unknowingly just did so. It’s not like I’m complaining. Understandably, friends, like anything that you have, do not usually come with sunshine as traditionally thought. They can be chili red hot annoyingly spicy (sic, grammar escapes me) or simply diabetically (sic, I said I’m grammatically indisposed) honeyed.

Weeks ago, Rollo was telling me how he has been turned into a conveyor belt of some friends’ emotional baggage. Friends texting him in the middle of the night needing solace from their emotional plight, commonly in terms of relationships (failed or yet to fail), problems involving career (failed or yet to fail), imagined dilemma, or maybe GMA (the president). This happens when he was about to play hide and seek with the lambs in dreamland. He turns them down and he gets emotionally blackmailed. But most of the time friends simply have the good intention to ask for company in hanging out at the bars, movies, malling, cruising, and all other bonding activities. That’s kind of lovely and dear. Well, not most of the time. By the age of thirty, we get to have those moments when we all just want our space and respite in front of a playing DVD or some time to complete a yarn work on the Last Supper. Not to mention times when we don’t want anybody to know our “whereabouts”.

I get my fair share of Rollo’s dilemma. Once, a friend called me for an advice. Nope, not just an advice. Say company. Over beer. Sounds fun but knowing that this is all about some emotional distress, the discussion of which will certainly take the whole stretch of the night, I suddenly felt the aches of old age. I told the friend that I would be at work tonight. Yes, ‘till maybe 1 AM. The next day, my roster of friends came to less one.

For two weeks now, another friend is in the quagmire of relationships. I was solicitous enough to send my sincere comfort via SMS. I know how it felt having a troubled relationship. That's one I can sincerely sympathize. So last weekend, I texted the friend inquiring as to how he was holding on to dear life. He pretended he was his nephew with this response, “Nasa Arlington na po si Tito. Di na nya kayang mabuhay pang wala si…”

I know that wasn’t true. But for a millisecond I believed it to be true. Instead of being alarmed, I felt offended. This gal is such a good friend of mine, but rattling me with such lines just doesn’t seem to slide well with me. I think my readers know what I mean.

So I switched to bully mode. I texted the “nephew” back that it’s a good thing his “uncle’s” dead. None of my friend is a weakling. He texted back that the burial will be on the coming Sunday. I replied, “Drop by Bed in Malate on your way to your grave. Let’s have one bottle for the road.”

A week prior to that, another good friend of mine wanted company. This time I was really at work till late nights. So instead, I kept him company via text. He wanted to talk about his conquest (that was how he put it), which to others could be understood as achievement. I wasn’t so serious about everything he was discussing then and I was, admittedly, off tuned for joking about everything he was raving not knowing that the dame was already drunk. The next time I received a text response, he was threatening to throw me a bottle of beer. Thank the gods; between us did only Globe Telecoms bridge a vast distance.

I’m not known to conceal the characters in my blog but a clue is always available. They’re both Chinese. There.

Based on the foregoing instances, one can simply picture how I would empathize with my advice column subscribers. If you could call mine empathy. But definitely an advice column. Prepare for heart wrenching insults, unbridled bad jokes, uncalled-for laughter. As reaction to my taunging reply, you may A), B) go violent (at a distance), or C) you can finish off your cuticle between you teeth. But don't tell me I didn't warn you.

Question! (I just have to raise one in order to synch this entry with my title)

Have you watched Casino Royale? Did you see James Bond rise from that beach like a ripped Aquaman? Did you see him being licked by Ms. Shusmita Sen? How bout that morning after bed scene with that tramp? And yes! How do you like him screaming “Yes! Yes! To the right! To the right!” Did we have the same feeling? Did you like what you saw? Huh? Huh?

Now that’s a plenty of questions to justify my title.


Will somebody hand me a rope and a chair?! Quick!


I hate that girl.


I’m supposed to end. But while finishing this entry at Starbucks, Greenhills, Bagbag’s pesky camera phone caught this sight:





Youth itself is beauty said Oscar Wilde. And delectable, I must add.

Domus Amicorum

That bitching spirit has been dormant for quite some time now. I'm still that bullying friend everyone thought about. But somehow, these past days, I have been in so much pleasantries I could not get myself into that bullying mode. Yes, it is a mode rather than a mood. How could I be so mean when, at a short notice, friends would converge to honor you or those who are close to you. Say for instance, last weekend.

Bet your ass, Ninghao?

Bagbag is due for his UN Volunteer assignment in Haiti in fifteen days. My sister-in-law wanted to throw him a farewell party. But my brother offered Shell refinery’s staff house in Pililia, Rizal, provided all of Bagbag’s friends would be there. My brother wanted to fill up the whole place with so many of our friends. He thought the pool is too big for my three nieces. The lawn is too big for that half-poodle-half-oyster of a dog. The staff house is too big for only the eight of us if no friends would come. Or maybe sis-in-law just wanted to worry about how many disposable plates are available for the next meal. As they say, the many-er, the merrier.

If not for Gab, we could have starved.

No more beer... pero maraming kalat.

Plenty of food but no plates.

Too big for the nieces.

This is how the guys gyrated last night.

With a butt like that we definitely need more room.

I’m still having a hang-over from that dispedida. The longest I ever attended. I’m short of words to describe it. Bagbag was teary eyed when he saw the slide show presentation of the photos I made in Baby Macy (that’s my MacBook). So here’s something, an attempt on poetry, to subtly express what I and Babag felt.


Domus Amicorum

You would fill your hearts with joyful sentiments
And wish they’d be free from the spoils of sorrows.

You would spread your tables with fabulous recipes
And wish nothing but only the gourmande’s choice.

Around your garden you sprinkle seeds of blooming colors
And hope that no winter shall welt them away.

In your album of memories you only long to see smiles.
Happily they stare back at you with shiny teeth and ever arching lips.

You keep the good, you cherish the true,
You keep things proceeding in as much the pleasant way.
The things you hold shiny and new.

But nothing lasts.
Nothing is always you .
The surest of all occurrence is end.

And in the midst of these frustrations
A good heart can always find
A room full of laughter.
A roof raised by warmth.
A kitchen churning a pot of good counsel.
A living room laid with tender care.
A bedroom of benevolence.

You find yourself in a house full of friends.

Friends? Family.

Thank you guys. Thanks for Ryoichi, Praxedes, and Cyclopes for taking in my durian burps all the way back to Manila. That’s what you get for not telling me which road and corners I should take. And Nympha for driving all the girls off that night to a gaybar. Bagbag and I had a break from all the aching laughter whenever the group are together. Ang kukulit! But I had my laughs for sending them off to a gaybar that’s waaaay off the distance I estimated. Ninghao was ever fun and loud. Good thing there was no neighborhood to disturb.

Bel Ami productions presents...

Just about to clear the table for that foursome.

"So, nag-enjoy ka ba, Pare?"

Mga pare, trip trip lang ito.

Ayaw pa namin umuwi and we're blocking the cars!

Ah, yes… to my sis-in-law and brother for organizing this trip. You made us all understand what family is all about.

We look forward to Bagiou rhis Feb.

Salamat, Inay at Itay!

Bon voyage, Bagbag!