Quirks

I'm weird. I know I am. I've known it as early as the sixth grade when I first acquired distaste for human interaction. It's when I also discovered I am a loner. I actually liked being by myself, unlike other kids my age who craved for our peers' inclusion. Growing up, I learned to tame this quirk, for the sake of being a well-rounded individual. (Although, I wouldn't really guarantee how that would turn out - I'm no epitome of well-roundedness.)

Sometimes you should give in to the innermost comforts within yourself. I was overwhelmed with the need to be alone tonight and I yielded to a lot of my eccentricities. I didn't wait for any of my friends to logout with me. I would've shared the same elevator with Karl, Ryan, and Tal, but I deliberately hung back so they could go ahead. I also turned down Liz's dinner invitation with the other people who were rendering OT. But just when I thought I had the elevator for myself, my former team leader Miss Eunice came and struck up small talk about the weekly photography competition I was partly organizing. We also both had to drop by the ATM machine, and although I knew she was also heading to Megamall, I politely told her I had to go ahead.

It was raining hard, but I didn't mind the walk. I like rain, I like walking. I also like dusks, but it would be asking too much for me to have logged out at dusk. I don't come in that early to work anymore.

When I reached the final block to Mega, I saw Ryan briskly walking past me without an umbrella. I wanted to call out to him and ask him to share my umbrella, but I didn't. Bottom line is, I simply just wanted to be alone. Although writing that down now, I feel so guilty about letting Ryan get wet. (I'll make it up to him, I promise I will.)

I reached the crowded FX terminal not too dry myself. The queue was long, as usual. The passengers with their zombie-like expressions apparently were not happy with the rain. I wondered if any of them evaded other people's company to rush there. To be alone. How many of them had problematic family lives, complicated personal lives, and uncertain work lives? How many of them were like me, waiting for this time of the day when I could freely wallow in sorrow by myself?

After being stuck in traffic for more than two hours, I finally reached home - soaking wet, but home at least. My mother was not so pleased with my sorry appearance. She was upset that I got rained on. As if the rain was my fault. Or it was the rain's fault that I was in its direct aim, for that matter.

I wonder if Ryan's mom is the same way when he got home this evening.

Catching Up

I am blessed to have a really good relationship with my co-workers. My teammates are also my friends. Some people think that software developers and software test engineers have an antagonistic relationship, but not in our case. I think my testers are some of the coolest people I've ever met.

Friday night - I had dinner with Liz and Paulo. We got to talk about some of the things that have been bothering us lately about work and relationships. We realized how much we haven't talked - I mean, really talked - about things that matter to us. And it was such a relief to find out that we had the same issues and concerns, that we weren't alone in all this mess.

Although we interact everyday, we mostly just end up discussing trivial things like tv shows, our latest LSS (Robbie Williams's Rock DJ - wahaha), and worse, the latest prog comments. But since we all had to get home early that night, we made a date that we'd reschedule the talk Saturday after work - talk longer, no restrictions, direct questions, straight answers. It's somewhat a scary deal. Anything that makes me vulnerable makes me scared. But there was comfort in being a listener and being listened to.

We left work that Saturday as soon as our rendered work hours allowed us to. The first place we headed to was the grocery and buy a pint of ice cream each. Comfort food. If people need weed for their pot sessions, we need sugar for these kinds of conversations.

It didn't start out very comfortable, but once we got the proverbial ball rolling, the talk became more easy. It felt good to be trusted with things you know are very personal and very important to your friends. It also felt good to be listened to. I pride myself for being a good listener, but I forgot how good it felt like to be the recipient of sympathy, of encouragement, of support. Sometimes I feel like I've spread myself too thin; that I've been trying to be everything to everyone. And no one really knows what I feel inside, no one asks, and sometimes I do feel that no one cares.

Sure, I know it's not true (Gosh, I hope it's not. If that's the case, my cheesy and dragging blog entries like this one are the least of my problems). There are just days that when life's toxicity reaches warning levels and it's easy to indulge in self-pity. It's good to have a venue to open up when this happens. And Liz and Paulo were there. We were all there for each other, deriving strength from each other, from the laughters, hugs, and tears. We've willingly broken a part of ourselves and gave it to each other. And I'm honored to be given that chance to be part of lives, and for them to be part of mine.

I'll rip off a line from "To Kill a Mockingbird". You never really know a person until you shared pints of Double Dutch together, followed by glasses of fruit-flavored cold teas.

Highlights

When I got home from work today, I got the chance to talk with my good friend Luz over the phone for almost an hour. Now that we live in different cities and still work long hours, it takes extra effort for us to keep in touch. But every now and then when life becomes overwhelming, we text each other this line: "I need the sanity of our conversations."

Today was one of those days we needed to unload angst, self-reproach, affirmation. Great thing about these conversations - it never gets too serious. We always get to laugh about something. Usually, at ourselves. It is only with real friends you can feel comfortable calling yourself stupid over and over again, knowing that they will always point out and tolerate your stupidity, whenever necessary. And trust me, Luz is not the kind who'd interrupt you while you're realizing not-so-smart decisions in life. She lets you wade through your own mess until you're all dirty and icky and ready to get out of your own will. And THEN, we both laugh about it.

Not everything we talked about bordered on depressing things. We asked each other our day's highlight. Hers was when she did surgery to two dogs and she's happy that she's starting to get the hang of it again. She's a vet, by the way. Gosh, I sure needed to supply that relevant information or else I might've unintentionally led some of you to think she's some kind of canine sadist. Anyway, I'm so happy for her since this was what she really wanted.

The only highlight I could think of was an email I wrote to our team thread at work today. It was just an email stating the details of our Christmas Kris Kringle, but I tried to keep an amusing tone throughout its few paragraphs. It elicited a lot of response from my teammates. There were wisecracks about needing to open the WordWeb several times and a question if "Inday" - of the text jokes fame - wrote it. People were jabbing me about how funny they found it, but mostly they jabbed my seatmate Liz since I was in busy status all day. I was flattered when our senior dev replied to all saying that I write well and that he approves. What's even more entertaining is that EJ and Jerome translated the mail in Tagalog. Hilarious translations. (email = elektronikong liham; fat chance = matabang pagkakataon; tough luck = matipunong swerte)

To be able to trigger reaction from things you write is a natural high for me. Any reaction. I'd take negative feedback of my writing over any compliment over my programming. Seriously. And Luz, as opinionated as ever, takes this chance to stress to me a point she's been telling me for a long time now: I'm moving in the wrong world and I'll never meet him here.

Of course, "him" refers to the guy in Mars. And since I'm here on Earth, our lives will never cross.

Matipunong swerte.

BFF

I remember a conversation I had with Luz about how interesting it would be to have a "bestfriend" again in our age - the going-through-quarter-life-crisis mid-twenties. Not just any bestfriend, but the kind you used to have in pre-school or grade school, whom you always spent every free moment with, whome you treat with a certain possessiveness that is inherent to kids. "We're bestfriends, you can't take us away from each other." You know, BFF - best friends (freaking) forever.

The thought has sparked our curiosity because I think now that we're trying to be independent, we've forgotten how it was to be reliant and to be relied upon. Although we do have close friends of our own, some we even consider our best friends - I don't think we can ever recapture the innocence of unguarded and vulnerable friendships.

Jenn is my grade school best friend. We became friends in the first grade where we belonged to the same class. Both of us were six years old, a year younger than most of our batch mates. We sat together, ate together, brushed our teeth together, played together, studied together. We were almost inseparable. Her mom was our teacher and she was very nice to me and treated me like a daughter, too. I transferred school just before we started high school but Jenn and I remained friends.

We used to exchange letters. Yes, letters: stamps, envelopes, stationery. Eventually, we progressed to emails, then text messages and occassional phone calls, and just very recently, through Friendster. Through intermittent but continuous communication, we were able to keep in touch and be updated with each others' lives. I was affected when I found out Jenn's dad died when we were in high school, and more devastated when her mom also passed away when we were in college. Now that we're both members of the workforce, we share our sporadic discontent for the routine of our jobs.

From posted pictures in her profile, I got to see how she looks like now. She mostly hasn't changed. She also posted pictures of her parents and I felt like my heart was being wrenched out when I read her caption, "My mother, the greatest woman I've ever met and will ever meet." I miss her with a certain suddenness now. We've been friends for twenty years. And that's something you don't come across with often.

I realize something about friendships. It's not about how often you are together or see each other. It's how much you learn from each other, how you become a better person because of each other. And that sounds cheesy as hell, but it's true. I'm guessing anyone would want to be remembered as a person who made his friends better people.

I think that would be a good epitaph. (I've been thinking of a good epitaph for myself, by the way. Morbid, I know.)

Of cameras and peanut butter

I came across my Papa's old Olympus OM-4 SLR camera this afternoon while I was idly going through some old stuff in the cabinets. It was in a dusty leather bag with the flash and lens in their own velvet pouches and the camera itself secured in a leather case.

The camera was black, which was the only color in which Olympus released it back in 1983. The knobs and levers were unfamiliar to me. It felt hefty in my hand although it has a compact design. Despite the long disuse, it looked functional only in need of a good cleaning. The unattached Zuiko lens and the removable flash unit were also heavy.

There was a sense of nostalgia as I uncovered and handled each item. This camera was off limits when my siblings and I were very young. I was probably a toddler when my Papa acquired it. He had another camera at that time, a sleeker Pentax which was more handy. When I was an older kid, I was allowed to even use this. But the SLR, he only handled himself.

When he came home from years of overseas work, I remember Papa always tinkering with mechanical and electronic objects when we were growing up. Sometimes, he didn't even bother putting them back together again - which was always a source of exasperation for my mother. We always had disemboweled remote controls, spark igniters (the ones used for old stoves), TV antennas, and betamax players (it WAS the 80's). Of course, he tinkered with his cameras, too, but those always ended up securely replaced in their respective containers.

He is generally a quiet man, my father. Even then, he would be content on sitting by himself in the head of the dining table - reading the newspapers, drinking coffee, answering the crossword puzzles, reading chess books, and yes - tinkering with gadgets. He also took pictures of us. Lots and lots of pictures of us.

We have stacks and stacks of photographs when we were kids. Most of them candid shots. When we were playing, watching tv, or eating. He must've taken good measure not to be noticed when he took these shots since we weren't aware of him taking pictures.

My sister and I have a picture sitting side by side with jars of peanut butter on our laps. I remember we ate spoonfuls of it in the afternoons after school. And another one when we all went to the fishpond in our jogging attires with binoculars dangling over our necks.

Papa has grown much older, especially this past year. Complications of his diabetes have made his constitution far weaker than it used to be. His eyesight is failing and he finds it difficult to move around. He is still the quiet man I've always known him to be. Over dinner this evening, I ask him about his camera. I told him I was planning to bring it to the service center to have it checked. He says I didn't have to since it was not broken, to start with. I just needed to have the batteries replaced.

I mumbled that I still have yet to open the battery and film compartments. You still don't know how, so figure it out, he said.

And I felt like I was a toddler again. Getting told off for eating spoonfuls of peanut butter.