Letters

Hey.

I got your e-mail.

They’re more like notices

Getting shorter as they come

Like I am a transaction.

I’m sorry it took me a day

To respond.

Had to go through the letters

You used to send me. I keep them in a

Bundle, Dear, by my pillow.

Tied loosely with the rosepoint sash

Of my lingerie unwashed

Since you left.

How much do stamps cost now?

I knew you better when

Your illegible cursives would

Stroke me gently and lift my skirt

Then I would feel how you went

Through your day as your

Loops and tittles sigh with

The release of your pen.

And I would lean back, weakened

with the pages consumed by your presence.

Before resealing your letters

I’d taste you in the flap.

Letters

Hey.

I got your e-mail.

They’re more like notices

Getting shorter as they come

Like I am a transaction.

I’m sorry it took me a day

To respond.

Had to go through the letters

You used to send me. I keep them in a

Bundle, Dear, by my pillow.

Tied loosely with the rosepoint sash

Of my lingerie unwashed

Since you left.

How much do stamps cost now?

I knew you better when

Your illegible cursives would

Stroke me gently and lift my skirt

Then I would feel how you went

Through your day as your

Loops and tittles sigh with

The release of your pen.

And I would lean back, weakened

with the pages consumed by your presence.

Before resealing your letters

I’d taste you in the flap.

a new woman

it might take a lifetime to improve myself but today i renew my commitment. And this time, i will enjoy the process more. :) there will be a lot of challenging with my mind to transform the pains and struggles that come with the process into pleasure and love working in me. it's exciting how all these will lead to my being a better woman, sister, friend, partner, and citizen. Meanwhile, let me have my nails done.:)

salamat, Mr. Waiter! :)

how strange. it's a tame friday night for me -- no overconsumption, no raucous laughter, no typical start-of-the-weekend lawlessness. by choice, yes, proudly by choice, i am perched in this quaint eating place, and just spilling good, happy vibes. I believe it worked on the waiter who, although forbidden by management, gave me the restaurant's wifi password.
'atin-atin lang 'to, ma'am.'
Here's a big, fat, crisp tip for ya. :)

Moving on together

He has a girlfriend now, I just learned, one he must have met in his close Asian circles. I could tell by her smile and composure that the girl is the safe type, but still, of the gossamer-and-steel material that girlfriends are spun.

I realize that I am either steel or gossamer, and a successful meshing only happens when I feel the man is drifting away. So the spinning, then, is upon the push of an emergency button. I chuckle at the thought of, as he said, and as a good number of them said, “how interestingly unmanageable” I could get.

Somehow I am happy that he has gotten himself a girlfriend he deserves, he with the manager’s hands. But if Eve has to speak up, let me say that I feel lonely and overcome. Not because he is no longer sharing dreams with me. By our personalities and priorities and attraction, I have long resolved that we won’t be good together.

We are two slightly similar, good puzzle pieces that don’t have enough grooves to accommodate each other. I have moved on far, that the most I could imagine myself sharing with him is a cordial high-five.

I feel lonely then, and stupid and selfish and inconsiderate because I still held on to the assurance that we were going to move on at the same pace. How could I ever think that this was possible? He’s a hunter who declares his intention. I, on the other hand, agonizingly wait to be pried open, and that’s where Eve fails me.

Ohwell, this is a lesson in selfishness. Let him have his moment. Meanwhile, let me console myself with a work-related fundraising gala tomorrow, a wine appreciation event with poker friends, dinner with a soul-food-mate, Spanish films with a buddy, dvd marathons in Tan Tiu's new couch, and a hopefully, a chockfull of surprises from some friend.

But really now, I know by tomorrow, I won't be as dark as this. It must be that time of the month, or I just miss home so much.

Dumaguete

The boulevard at past-five or so
is a movie freed out of reels and frames:

A kalesa lithely trundles by
backlit and muscular, piercing through
the sunset that now yolks
the whole stretch of the scene, and seasons
your tapa.

You chug a beer, and chew, swallow, spit
chains of smoke and stories and tapa;

The English you hear is hardened with Bisaya,
coming in as patient subtitles
(with occasional pauses for translation,
transliteration, and grammatical confusion)
marrying German and Dutch with locals –

flirtation and proposals flutter
from bench to bench, bench to bar, table to table;
table to ear, lips to ear, lips to face
face to tongue, tongue to ear, ear to tongue.

Tongue to nape, nape to breath, breath to leg
nape to leg and toe and finger
finger to chest to hair to knee to waist and
hips

Until the unlit night wildly entangles the sequence
and the credits roll.

Jog and Smog

I haven’t jogged in a long time. I used to jog in a gated community on weekends near the dorm I stayed in. But there has been politically driven threats lately (how else would threats be driven?) that it was a bit dangerous to run around there, though it was heavily guarded. Too bad for the senior citizens who used to gather in the community’s little circle to do aerobics.

I also just moved in to a new place along a super highway that spares no lane for walking or smelling the flowers. Crazy motorists abound, and looking up, there is more smog than cloud. Sometimes, even when up in our cozy little unit turned away from the highway, my used astringent-soaked cotton ball would still remind me of the dark cloud that literally hangs above our heads. My cotton ball, an excellent mirroring of the freak of nature that is the metro smog.

The Unofficial Food Code

Some food have to be eaten a certain way.

The protocol on eating animal cookies is to chomp the head off first before the body.

You do Kitkat by letting your thumbnail run through the foil, then snap the candy bar off in the slit you made, and have a break.

Oreo cookies have to come with milk, otherwise you couldn’t do the twist, lick, dunk ritual.

You don’t just bite into the top of a grilled cheese sandwich and then work your way down. You bite from all sides and work towards the middle part. The best a half-eaten grilled cheese sandwich could look like is to have jagged sides as if it were attacked by a mouse.

Pizza is eaten with the fingers so spare the utensils—the spoon and fork is for the pasta, and the knife is for the veal.

The salt before your tequila has to be on that little flat stage you produce between the base of your pointer and your thumb when you clench your fist, with your thumb parallel your chest. Chugas ya.

Pan de sal fails to jumpstart breakfast if there’s no coffee (or milk or Milo) to dip it in.

I remember my brother once saying that when you’ve finished eating one side of a fish, you don’t flip fish over to the other fleshy side, but twist the bone and take it off.

Have a throaty “aaaahh” after gulping down Coke.

When eating pili nuts, don’t toss them in your mouth in batches like you would peanuts. As it takes a hundred years for pili nut trees to bear the nuts, it’s best to nibble into the pili experience, nut by nut.

What else could I think of? I’ll grow this list bebe.

List

It’s downtime. Let me put it to good use by listing things I wish to do. Hopefully, at least five of these would come true before 2011. The trick might work again, who knows. So here I am releasing my control over things, acknowledging that I am nothing, but that I am something in my nothingness, because I’m letting The Force take charge!

My short-term wishlist, dear Lord:

Discover. sing with Sagada natives, live in caves with tagbanuas in Palawan, and / or hang out with T’boli folk in Lake Sebu (and look for that old T’boli woman I met in Grade six). And when I come back to the cultural irreverence of the city, I wish to write them letters.

Revitalize. perfect my prayer-walking, and my meditation.

Sharpen. Re-learn Spanish and French where there are native speakers. French Guiana? Senegal? Togo? Sure, I’d love to go. (I’m nearly fluent in Bisaya already, thanks to Chong Hua and Cebu Doctors and Siomai sa Tisa)

Indulge. Draw, and paint, and walk, and eat pork everyday in Bali.

Earn. Sell recycled whatever with Vietnamese friends in a town two hours away from Ho Chi Min.

Bow down. Go to Brazil and see Christ the King and go to Ciudad de Dieux.

Aspire. Study Masters in Community Development, Social/Intercultu Communications, or Dressmaking.

Warm up. Buy a sandwich maker. (It has to be on the list because I don’t want useless spending otherwise they’d be trash).

Magnify. Contribute something significant at work, something that would help make us reach more people, more communities.

Conquer. Be a licensed Muro Ami. Or ok, for safety, a licensed SCUBA diver.

Invest. Acquire property by the beach (so, property could be a coconut tree, a chip off a rockscape, a rest house).

Love. Treat my mom to lotsa travel and pilgrimages and books and sugar-free chocolate.

Catch up. Find a copy of “Bienvenue Chez le Ch’tis” and all the Just for Laughs and Pinoy Meets World episodes (especially those with comedian hosts), and Travel and Living’s No Reservations, My Greek Kitchen, and Nigella Feasts episodes I missed.

Nurture. Learn how to farm vegetables. Tomatoes, lettuce, carrots, turnips, sigarilyas, sitaw, bataw, patani.

Simplify.Learn to document travels, Saturday walks, and things without a camera, only with writing.

Develop. Find a way to suggest a plan, or make known my vision for my beloved Bacolod City—that is, if my fellow Bacoleños agree with it, too.

Broaden. Search for hole-in-the-walls. Eating places, shops and such. I found the Solidaridad bookshop in Ermita. I found a Halal cafeteria by the Mosque in Quiapo.

Try. Okay, please afford me a little luxury from time to time, but strike lightning upon me if it already gets scandalous: Feast on a buffet of international cuisine at Sofitel’s Spiral. Or on chocolate buffet at the Shangri-La. Of course, not alone, but with my Mom, a brother, a sister-in-law, a niece, a cousin, or a Bacolod friend.

Befriend. Can I be an Erasmus student of communications or sociology?? Pretty pleeeaaase?
Please, whatever is meant for me at the right time, bring it on! My deepest, deepest Thank You.

Chinese foot spa

Do you fancy trying the Chinese foot spa?

In most of Manila’s little beauty parlors (it has an overabundance of them, even the barangays deemed most in need of rice has at least three), the Chinese foot spa is one of the newest offerings heavily advertised on their shop windows. Swedish hot baths, Thai massages and French manicures are classic hits in the parlor scene; thinking that anything foreign defining a service is always going to pick up good, gay parlor owners have introduced the Chinese foot spa.

I don’t know what makes the Chinese foot spa different, and I don’t intend to try. To me, the “Chinese” in the foot spa makes it a little bit icky, even scary. Will they rub my feet with salt and tausi sauce? Will they crush star anise against my soles and soak them in Lee Kum Kee? Horrors, will they further kill the skin that make up my bullions and corns with formalin? Or worse, will they bind my size-ten feet in metal?

Pandolino committed the same mistake. To name its packed pieces of sweet bread, Pandolino just changed the first letter of a school-shoe brand and plastered the new, inventive mark on its food product. Do many buy Pandolino? Certainly not, because even when customers haven’t tried these yet they are sure that the breads would taste like boots.

How to Spot Pinoys in International Airports

I believe nothing can be more interesting than taking the flight back home to Manila. It’s not so hard to identify a Filipino among passengers weaving through Zaventem, Schipol, Heathrow or any other airport abroad. If a Pinoy sees somebody who looks Southeast Asian, he’d flash the latter a smile. If the latter smiles back, the Pinoy would ask, “Pare, saan ka?” Pinoys always find home in other Pinoys.

At the terminals assigned to flights bound to Paris, London, Brussels, Frankfurt, etc., it was usually quiet. Waiting passengers usually read, e-mailed on their mobile phones or laptops, or just sat still. When I reached the terminal for the flight bound to Manila, I felt that there was only sun and dust outside and no snow. Was I home already? (click on link to my travel blog to read more)

http://hapit-trip.blogspot.com/

Camote and the Rice Crisis

I bring packed lunch of sandwiches to work but with the rice crisis, I decided to put the wheat bread on hold. I may not be a heavy rice eater but I’m trying to include rice in all my meals now. At least, when the time comes that rice will already be boxed like breakfast cereals, and no longer a staple but a luxury, I can say, it’s okay, I’m past my rice phase. Marami na akong kinaing (nakaing?) bigas.

Boxed Rice like Kellogs
But really, should boxed rice happen, even the soggiest rice gruel could be at the mercy of a Michelin-rated chef and fed only to the richest of foodies. During this time, while the rich nibble the grains out of the rice husks (milling would also be very expensive), what then would our—the common tao’s—staple be?

Camote on Kalalaw?!!!
It would be very sad to stock the kitchen with camote. The kalalaw would have no use anymore but as a tray for more camote. I’m not quite ready yet to eat camote three times a day. Beyond starch, it doesn’t have a wee bit of a resemblance with rice! Not in its shape, size, taste, color, texture, or personality. Rice can be valenciana, paella, pilaf, morisquetta, risotto, jambalaya, yang chao. Even burnt rice tastes good. But camote? The best that camote can be is boiled and then buttered! Not even the camote cue is fun enough to eat. Street food vendors are just too kind, sympathetic and innovative to slice up the sugared bulky root crop julienne so that they’d look daintier, sweeter, more inviting. But please, camote is nothing more but something you go home to for planting when you don’t make any sense!

the world-class piaya is home

Walking around masa Manila, I have never found sugar-coated peanuts anywhere. I asked friends if these are available and peddled in the streets here, too. As far as I have asked, no one has seen anything like these. So only Bacolod has sugar-coated peanuts?

Oh how can I forget? Everything in Bacolod has sugar. Even the chicken inasal has at least a spoonful. =)

Five slurps better
But the best thing that has happened in Bacolod street food is piaya made on the spot along La Salle Avenue. It was clever of this Manong to reintroduce the piaya as a habit after classes, a culture on its own, and not just as ready pasalubong a Bacoleño mindlessly grabs off the shelves. Manong’s piayas too, taste five slurps better than those packed. They are always worth the wait.


The wait, even, is an experience on its own, as it shows you how this Bacoleño delicacy is made: Manong molds the dough mixture into small thick round mounds the size of the Eng Bee Tin hopia. On top of each mound he plops a generous scoop of haleyang ube (candied purple yam paste—churvah!). Then Manong gathers the edges together to enclose the ube, and he’d knead it into a flat disc which he would steam with a little oil.

crepes+pita+creme brulee
The result is a hot treat that marries worlds of mouth-watering epicurean elements. The piaya is thin and round like crepes; it is white and slightly charred light brown on the edges like pita; on its surface are irregular eruptions of craters as in the crème brulee; and biting into a piece, it is flaky and light as croissants. The ube filling, then, is the sweet, slightly chunky paste that drives you back home to sugarcane fields and sing-song tête-à-têtes.

Before, the piaya wasn’t something we, Bacoleños snacked on as much as we sent it to Manila and elsewhere. Thanks to Manong along La Salle Avenue, the piaya is home once more.

the maynila street food philosophy

Fry anything, everybody’s eating it. This is the philosophy behind street food that has been successful since post World War Manila. If they don’t, they perish and evaporate into merely just a memory. Sadly, the tongue has no initiative to recall flavors unaided.

Balut is said to be the King of Pinoy street food. But if you look around, a lot of streets have other snackables enthroned and not the balut. Penoy is arguably the new King of Pinoy street food. It has transformed from being a poor, bland second to an orange ball of deep-fried goodness called “Kwek-kwek.”

Following the success of the Penoy’s new image, every forgettable thing has been dressed and dunked in batter, and deep-fried. Quail’s eggs which used to be packed in tubes of ice candy wrappers are now shelled and made into baby kwek-kweks.

Grilled isaw is passé as these skewered chicken intestines are now also coated in batter and browned in vats of hot, frying oil. Classic pulutan favorites like chicken skin and calamares, too, have invaded the realm outside bars and beer places, this time, cheaper to survive the street food cartel. They are served in plastic cups with vinegar.

There is character in street food that dot pedestrian Manila despite the hazards that deep-frying poses to health. But oh well, who says you’re eating it everyday? If you want these street food to stay, have them fried and they’ll sell like hotcak--no--kwek kweks.

one day in the office at five o' clock, i was planning to finish required reading so i would have lesser to work on the next day.

my boss said, "are you sure you're bringing work at home?"

caught between making an impression as a new employee and risking misinterpretation if i would answer in the negative, i said, "uhhhh..."

discouraging me, my boss then went on telling about her friend. once at their office, the boss of this friend asked to finish her work at home, to which came the friend's winning rebuttal:

"Do you expect me to bring my laundry here?"

The Pope's red shoes

When the dailies flashed on front page the photo of Pope Benedict XVI's US visit this week, the first I noticed were the reddish-brown papal shoes. These gave a stark contrast to his white/cream habit. It also looked like he was wearing cream thermals instead of pants, so you wouldn't miss the shoes. They were that conspicuous. Seeing the photo that morning made my day at seven thirty a.m. at that.

The Papal Cobbler's business picking up

This morning, I passed by the newsstand and found on page one a closeup of the red papal shoes! It's amusing to hear that there's talk going around about it (well it somehow deserves to , unlike Hillary Clinton's cleavage a year ago, which was nothing much really). Some even speculated that the shoes were a Prada, but they were after all a tradition brought back, custom-made by the Pope's cobbler.

The cobbler, who knows, these days, this cobbler may no longer be an anonymous chap cutting leather. The shoes look like the stuff that frequents GQ recommends, and worn only by the most illustrious businessmen yachting in Monaco. This papal cobbler must be Italian, no doubt.

The shoes redefining the Pope

Donned by the Pope, I thought this was quite a secular sign which is more interesting than eyebrow-raising.

Especially in the early stages of his papacy, Pope Benedict has been regarded with skeptical eyes, being known as a stern cardinal, a German with the hostility of a Nazi threaded into his personal history. Inevitable, too, are the comparisons with his successor Pope John Paul II, amiable, sanguine as he was a thespian, and well-loved in the world over with his humor.

But for the first time, I see Pope Benedict as an endearing old grandpere, arms outstretched to scoop you in, and feet walking towards you excitedly in glistening red shoes.

I have limited resources and even fewer encounters with Pope Benedict's writings, but I am always as interested to read them. My reasons may be far from religious, but I have admiration for the intelligence of this man. From reading his teachings, I find him meek and submitting, as he is stern, and with a mind that's open and embracing, as he is rigidly Catholic.

Religious tradition or a possibly infallible addition to today's wardrobe, the red papal shoes may be a signal that we are on the cusp of redefining, and little by little, accepting Papa Ben.

payatas today

today i went to payatas. it was very surprising to see how even the kids' eyes glimmer at the sight of trash.

they don't look so austere, mind you. low-income, that's all. i'm sorry if i can't be politically correct, but... scavenging seems to be an inseparable part of their system. the very thing that killed their kin a few years back is the same thing that allows them what they could afford of a decent life.

fourth day at work

i work with really interesting people in my new job. my direct superior used to work for a senator as part of his legislative staff, and prior to that she was a reporter on tv. when i first saw her she sure has the looks of one but she is sooo down-to-earth and smart, i could just shrink!

the boss in our unit is also one interesting character: she's a thespian and the director of one critically acclaimed indie film that was heavily accepted in the mainstream movie scene a few years back is her bestfriend (haha, isn't it so filipino? i still managed to ram myself into the six-degrees-of-separation genealogy tree, that hey, my friend [boss, actually], is the bestfriend of my this Direk!). so funny, we had a meeting today which she presided, and i felt like I was at the Gallaga Theatre.

this is really a gift of a job. busy and so many exciting assignments, and i think i'd only be able to blog on weekends or on slow days.

throw in a dirty couch and a clutter of scratch paper, pencil shavings and loose staples, and it would be a surreal Spectrum life all over again, only better!

keeping house and doing the grocery

Living alone has introduced me to some major responsibilities I used to just overlook and not meddle with: keeping house and doing the grocery. From Cebu to Manila, I have had a chockfull of insights, a rather thick collection of realizations to sweep into my undomesticated self.

You see, in terms of practical skills in the kitchen, or even basic knowledge on what needs to be stocked in the medicine cabinet, I am as empty as my grocery cart.

I now live without a refrigetrator and i realize that this is not just a vain appliance, an updated version of the Post-Spanish status symbol that is the dripping nievera, that makes water and everything cold. God, how expensive it can get to not have a fridge! its absence force-feeds me to Jollibee, McDonalds, Chowking, canned food and fake food that guarantee me real fat. its absence has made me forget how vegetables taste like, and makes me buy fruit and milk in quantities good only for a day. Imagine how much money i waste because of my refrigerator-less existence.

the grocery is another playground so confusing for the non-housewife.

just like free brainstorming, it's always fun to come up with a grocery list. i always start with the long, delicious list of a Stepford wife, but as the ghosts of rent, fare, utilities, and taxes (ooh taxes!) come haunting, the list becomes a sad, short stanza, even a couplet, on a post-it.

now which should go into the grocery cart?

as i didn't have a can opener yet (i benchmarked on the one we have had back home for as long as i can remember-- a knobless lever made at the sugar mill), i looked for easy-open cans. i was happy to see sausages in EOCs, and they come in exciting flavors, too. for a few weeks, that's what i stocked my psuedo pantry with, but for a time, no matter how they came in dollops of honey mustard or chicken stock, they tasted like pity. i started to curse every tinned food that relied on the teet of the dashing can opener that when at a distance i saw a row of gold EOCs on the grocery floor, a new brand i hadn't discoveredyet, and finally a new alternative to my sausages, i was ready to kneel in thanksgiving until i realized it was Alpo.

so i delayed the purchase of a can opener no further. i grabbed the first that i found not anymore considering my standards of an ideal can opener.

then i was welcomed to the aisle of canned everything. tuna, meat loaf, corned beef, sardines, even squid, each of them coming in an army of brands. Which do i choose? the safest of course would be those brands which my Mom buys. hmm. moms are such strong influencers and opinion leaders that no matter how defiant kids grow up to be, when they start living away from home and drive grocery carts on their own, all choices would be those brands their moms crammed the cupboards with.

but what brands does my Mom buy? the only thing i remember is that for meat loaf, she buys Victorias. :S

Dizzied by these tin soldiers on an overwhelming stand of shelves and not at all excited with opening cans with my new can opener, i dropped the simple machine, grabbed a pound of cheese, a loaf of wheat bread and went home.

very raw thoughts on quitting my job

How would you know if it's time to quit your job?

I quit mine two weeks ago because there were days when I felt guilty snatching work hours to go to Makati for job interviews. it may have been a lame reason, so impractical even, to resign when I had seen no light of a new job accepting me yet. But rather than shortchanging the company, i went penniless but fair.

For a time I had projected an image if affluence like how the company expects of its employees. i had saved much in fact, as galant dinner discussions with clients were all on the company. for this generosity we lovingly personify the company as "Papa G." It was never easy to let go of a piece of the wealth that Papa G *imposed on our lifestyles. who wouldn't want to be rich?

but i wasn't happy. i just din't have any significant fiber in me that would weave nicely and effectively into the world and culture of sales. for five months of being a "field worker" in legal parlance, i was so alone that to cope up with this loneliness, i detached cmpletely from myself and talked their talk. but ever so stubborn, my usual self would slip out and i would be misunderstood and unappreciated. so most of the time i resorted to shushing myself so as to be safe; i ended up being a loner, silently fornicating about my aspirations that were far from what sales offered me.

before the awful fornication continued, i decided to quit, they say, the training i went through to get in this multinational was a month and a half of going through the eye of a needle and it's crazy to let go of what you worked hard for, just like that. well i enjoyed training, but i found out didn't like the job; before i becme a liability to the company due to a lack of passion and drive for work, i left.

however my leaving was one thats thankful to GSK and my amazing boss for an experience full of insight, impressed with the company's highly ethical work culture and (blush, blush) very good looking colleagues.

after my last GSK day, i've been throwing all my cares to the wind, living by faith. that week, i had been going through interviews with a corporate NGO, which was the first i ever applied to after coming back from a project abroad in June last year.

the NGO had already sent me to medical and psychological exams, but i wasn't sure if I would be hired. I was only 75% sure, but the 25% could still have been a significant force of rejection. but hey, my faith in God was, and is, 100%.

i still don't know if my decision of leaving GSK was the right path to follow; not until after three years. but i'm just all praises to a miracle-working Force because after two weeks of calm recollection, rest and reading, I'll be working again. On Monday, I will start doing communications work for this corporate-led NGO...work i've always known, work that i love. :)