Bunny-Ears Knot

I find that I talk to myself more often lately. I talk to myself out loud - that's not a new quirk. I've been doing it since I was a child. The frequency of it now is what is I find notable.

You see, I have this notion of the afterlife. When we're done here and we get there - wherever that is for each of us - there's a film showing of your life. For everyone to see. We're in this great big hall with a screen much, much bigger than ten iMaxes put together. It's not going to be length of your lifetime, I'm imagining. Just a montage of important events. You know the videos they play after an American Idol gets voted off? That kind. Or an episode of E! True Hollywood Stories.

Maybe there'd also be video collections of special moments. Some voice-over will be saying, "... In her lifetime, so-and-so is known for her klutziness..." - then rolls a video of slips, skids, knee-scrapings, glass-breaking (very familiar actions to me, I must admit). It'd be just like a rip-off of America's Funniest Videos. I watched too much TV in my lifetime, too. You can always tell from all my references. I'll write a whole book about this notion, I swear. As early as now, I'm accepting advanced reservations.

Anyway. I was thinking that when they play my video, there'd also be a specific section dedicated just for the times I talked out loud to myself and then maybe a glimpse of the reaction of the people around me. The period of the past few months will be a wealthy resource for these clips of my life. Maybe because I'm by myself more often now. Alone by circumstances, and lately, also by choice. It's ironic to think that I'm not talkative when I'm around people, but relatively chatty when I'm by myself.

When I watch television, I applaud, swear, and let out acerbic comments whenever appropriate. Who says it isn't interactive? I draw the line at shadowboxing when watching Pacquiao, though. That was something only my mother did. I also think out loud when I write. I'm murmuring now as I type this. When I walk alone, I think of character monologues, dialogues, multi-logues - those I make up on my own and those that I want to say to people and those that I like from books or movies. I find it tricky to write conversations. I don't want them to seem trite and contrived. People do not talk tritely or contrively. So I'm learning how to do that by saying it out loud before writing them down.

My roommate is used to it by now. But Luz talks to herself a whole lot, too. Especially when she's studying. At least, my loud thinking mostly pop culture. Hers can be too medical to make any sense. So it's fair game at the apartment.

At work, though, I still get ribbed when I talk to my monitor. My loud "What is wrong with you?!" remark has been replied with, "So ano? What is wrong with it daw?" I also have my share of "ffO" moments accompanied with "You've got to be kidding me!" I sometimes get asked if I was still ok. I guess burying your head in your hands, digging the heels of your hands in your eyes, and yes, talking to one's self are not very good indications of wellness.

This afternoon, I got to hear mass at the Antipolo Cathedral. I had to go home to get some stuff from the house. Just two things actually: my sleeping bag and a couple of DVDs. I didn't stay long at our empty house. Couldn't. I get so overwhelmed with the emptiness of the living room, the dining table, my parents' bedroom. Too much that I almost couldn't breathe. And so, I don't stay long.

Yes, I go on talking to myself and to the memories of people in my head. Meanwhile, I try to act normally as I could and do normal things. I think about this during mass as I watch a kid in front of me arduously attempting to tie her shoes. It was during the Prayers of the Faithful. And guilty as charged, I got distracted from listening to the petitions. The mass was in Tagalog which I'm not used to. In any case, the toddler caught my attention. The shoelaces of her high-cut sneakers were loose and with her uncoordinated fingers were trying to tie them together. I hung on to her every failed attempt and her perseverance to not give up, rooting for her to finally pull it off. And when she did, I caught myself saying out loud, "Good job!" I discreetly look around somewhat embarrassed.

For the record, though, I'm not going crazy. I just feel compelled to mention that.

"No, they're not overalls."

It was Monday when I met her. Ok, "meet" might be the wrong verb to use. Let's try that again. It was Monday when she weirded me out.

Typical day. I entered the building through the Pearl Drive entrance. I rushed to the elevators when I saw one of the green lights blinking. I missed it by two seconds and I swore under my breath. I'm a very tense person. Tension and the elevators at my office building do not go well together. And swearing is a natural byproduct of such unfortunate combination.

Anyway, I was waiting for the next upward elevator when a girl suddenly addressed me. I probably have ignored her the first few times she spoke. I have a very limited peripheral vision - not really optical in nature, I just don't care much for what's happening around me. So I am apologizing in advance to everyone whom I will unintentionally ignore. I have tapahoho.

So this girl started asking about the jacket which I was carrying over one arm. She actually asked if it was overalls. You know - the work clothes of those who do heavy manual labor. Yes, it's bright orange, but really - I come off as the type who needs to bring overalls to work?

I politely told her that no, it was just my company jacket. And then she started off with a series of questions that made that exchange one of the weirdest I ever had with a total stranger.

---

Where do you work?

I pointed to the embroidery in my jacket.

She pronounced it weirdly.

I spelled it out for her.

What is the nature of your work?

I'm a software developer.

IT company, too?

Yes.

[Elevator door opens and we both get in.]

She rattles on about how she works for an IT company on the 32nd floor. They have offices on other floors of the building, as well. Some other details of her office I don't recall now.

I nod.

Which floor is your office?

28th.

How many years have you been working there?

Almost four.

Pretty long.

Yeah.

What is your name?

Cecil.

Do you have a business card?

No, none on hand right then.

She whips out her phone and hands it to me. If I can just input my number, please.

I was soooo tempted to input a fake number, but I couldn't get myself to lie. So I obligingly typed in my number.

She spelled out my name. Is that correct?

Sure, anything works.

[Elevator stops at my floor and doors open]

I'll text you, she says.

Ahm, ok.

[I step out.]

Nice to meet you, she calls out.

[Elevator door closes behind me]

What the heck was that.

---

I suppose it is expected that some of the people whom I've told this story to thought it was a pretty dumb idea to give out all those personal details. I don't know, I guess I believe in the goodness of every person. Or it was just too early in the morning that I wasn't really sure of what was happening. I plead guilty to gullibility due to sleep deprivation.

The rest of that day passed by without a word from my elevator acquaintance. I thought it was something that I could already just charge to experience. But very late Tuesday night, while I was talking on the phone with my friend Luz, another call beeped in from an unregistered number. I put Luz on hold and answered it.

---

Hi. Cecil?

Hmm, yeah. Who is this?

It's Abigail. We met recently.

[long pause] Who?

Abigail. We work in the same building. We met last Monday.

Oh.

Don't you remember?

I think I remember. From the elevator, right?

Yes, in the elevator. Is this a bad time? Can you talk now?

Actually, I have my friend on hold in the other line.

Oh, I see. Can I call you back? Can you text me so I can call you back?

Ah, sure.

Ok, thanks!

[End call, activate Luz's line]

Luuuuuz! The weird girl from the elevator just called! What does she want from me?!

---

I'm betting it's sales. She's in IT, but she sidelines in sales. Somewhat unlikely, but possible. Or she's in IT, but sidelines in derangement. More plausible.

Abigail, if you're out there in blogosphere: I already have life insurance. I'm not interested in buying or selling. And just to cover all possible bases: I'm not interested in a cult movement. Nor phone pals and textmates. I'm also straight and have no lesbian tendencies.

Stairwell Existentialism

I found myself sitting alone in the office building's 26th floor stairwell this afternoon. Two floors up, I've already logged the required hours of effort. There were still things to do, yes, but I had to breathe. Not that stairwell air is much better. But at least it was quieter. And unoccupied.

Staring at that heavy fire exit door, I pondered on the meaning of life, death, afterlife (and afterdeath?). That morning, I was at the hospital for a followup consultation. I didn't have a tumor, the doctor concluded based from the test results. Although she considered that possibility two Saturdays ago. Honestly, I was ready for however it would turn out. Morbidity comes naturally to me, and I discover that it's something that people do not readily welcome about me. So I'll just leave it at that.

A part of me believes that maybe I'm really ill. I have a resident headache that dials up into a migraine and dials down to a dull throb, depending on where I am and what I'm doing. But it's always there, lurking. And there's also the lethargy I can't seem to shake off.

Maybe all this is brought about by the fact that I've not been having real meals. Sandwich bites taken in between keystrokes and mouse clicks do not seem to pass off as lunch. Nor do instant noodles pass off as breakfast.

I used to come home to dinner of real food. I'm crazy for starting with this line of thought and I know I'd just regret it later when I'm reduced to a lump of sad excuse for a human being. But I used to come home to a home. True, I used to commute for hours. But when I arrive, there will be a place setting for me at the dining table. My mother would reheat my dinner, slice me a piece of fruit, sit with me at the table and ask me about my day. A few years back when I was part of one of those high-pressured projects, I started to cry halfway through my dinner out of sheer exhaustion. My mother got so worried over me and started crying with me. She said that if she could take my burden for herself, she would. I was just so guilt-ridden for making her cry that I didn't remember what I said or if I even said anything in reply.

When I get "home" now and if I feel like eating, I bring takeout which I eat on my bed. And of course, because I am me, I spill ice tea and hot sauce on my bedsheets every now and then. Lately though, I just eat Knick Knacks or Pretzels. Or lychee-flavored nata de coco jelly. Sometimes, I just skip all the attempts and try to sleep. And of course, sleep is a luxury that my messed up mind cannot afford so easily.

Going back to that stairwell this afternoon, I was going over all these past experiences in my head and going totally existential. The fact is, I don't want to invite everyone to my sadness. It's bad enough that I'm lousy company and I reek of depression poorly camouflaged in an air of fake indifference. I don't expect people to understand - that's just asking for too much, I think. I don't even get the situation myself.

But one's thoughts can only go too far sitting on a stairwell. At some point, there are real-life things to address two floors up.

September 25, 1974

I went to Pampanga last Wednesday - to the same house my grandparents lived in, the same house I grew up as a kid, and the same house that my aunt still lives in. While there, I got to browse through stacks of old photographs. My grandmother was a schoolteacher and there were class pictures from as far back as 1950. I realize that her grade school pupils are now senior citizens.

There was also my father's copy of "Cardinal & Gold", Mapua's official college yearbook. He earned his engineering degree from there, staying longer that the usual five years. Lola said that there was a time when he wouldn't attend classes because he'd just play chess the whole day at the bleachers. My grandparents pulled him out until he promised them to take his studies more seriously. But chess, you know? What a way to slack of on your studies. Not drugs, not alcohol. Chess. In a way, that was so characteristic of Papa.

The hairstyles and the horn-rimmed glasses of the students are so 1960s. And of course, there weren't any IT courses then yet. And it was the former President Marcos who wrote the congratulatory message. Anyway, I browsed through the pages until I reached the Mechanical Engineering department. And right near the end part of it (alphabetical, naturally) was my father's picture and below it - very austere - was his name, hometown, and a membership of his course's org. Nothing else. But I would've been more surprised if he joined other extra-curricular activities. He was a very reserved person. Kept a low-profile and never cared much for other people's company. Which explains the fascination for quiet and analytical games like chess.

An important find of that day were my parents' wedding pictures. They had their civil wedding in Surigao in 1974. My mother's side of the family were from Aglipayan Church, my father's - Roman Catholic. Thus, the civil ceremony. But they had the other trimmings of a traditional wedding in the reception.

Looking through those pictures were difficult, yes, but I wanted to keep that happy memory of my parents with me. So I slid a picture off the album and inserted it into the book I carry around in my backpack. Aptly, the book is "Migrations to Solitude" given to me by Jayjay. He gave it to me because I seriously considered resigning to a quiet life in service. I like being alone and I find being around a lot of people very uncomfortable. I guess I take after my dad in that way.

Sadly though, I never really got very proficient in chess.

One Art by Elizabeth Bishop

One Art
by Elizabeth Bishop


The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster,

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three beloved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

-- Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) a disaster.

Sectioning

Do you still remember your section names in school?

My friends and I were having dinner at Shakey's when we started testing the pens I just bought by writing down our names in the paper place mats. I buy pens needlessly, by the way. Just for the heck of having them. Just those that write well, not necessarily expensive ones.

Anyway, Luz was saying that if I wrote down my full name when I was a kid in school, it wouldn't fit in the width of the grade-one blue-red-blue-lined pad paper. Because we had nothing much else to do while waiting for our food, we tried to write my long name, repeating it again and again until we were satisfied that we got the right blue-to-blue height.

So the conclusion was: my name can fit in the grade one paper. But only barely. If I had to place the date or my section on the right portion, I'd be writing on the armchair. Thus began the spontaneous recalling of our section names since preschool. Here are mine:

Prep:
Senior Casa - Beige
Grade school:
I - Blue
II - Blue
III - Red
IV - Red
V - Green
VI - St. Paul
High School:
I - Archimedes
II - Darwin
III - Avogadro
IV - Einstein

You can tell from the sections the times when I switched schools. Luz didn't recall much of her elementary. Her high school sections are:

I - Opal
II - Sampaguita
III - Strontium
IV - Gluon

She did better in remembering her advisers' names, though. I could only recall three or four. If I have any classmates out there reading this, drop me a line if you still remember their names.

Try to recall your section names and class advisers to see if you did better than us. I'm starting to believe that we are just getting too old to retain these memories. And I'm blogging about it because the harder I try to fall asleep, the more awake I become.

So insomnia, you win.

Palabok

There was a pair of ambulant merienda vendors at the office today. Two women stationed just outside the hallway where they hawked camote, saging, nilagang mais, and palabok. Ah, palabok. For those of you who do not know (and probably don't want to), palabok is my favorite kind of pancit. I associate it with the warmth of my childhood.

When we were growing up, we bought homemade palabok from a maglalako who passed by our house almost every afternoon. Her name was Dang Maring - "dang" being the Kapampangan form of "ale". She was a middle-aged woman and her hair was always tied up in a bun. The sight of her walking down the street with a basket full of merienda was a source of pleasure in those slow afternoons after school.

She also sold ukoy - the crispy, deep-fried patty made from grated papaya/squash and shrimps - which we dipped in spicy vinegar with lots of black pepper. And sampelot - a very thick version of guinataan.

But the bestseller in our household was Dang Maring's palabok. I haven't had it since I was a kid and I could be remembering it a little differently from how it actually was. But I recall the palabok's perfectly cooked noodles, the sauce with just the right consistency, just the right color, and just the right amount. I remember that it also had a few chopped kamias on it, which added zest.

My parents would buy us each our own portion and would get a few extra in case one of us wanted another serving. We'd all sit around in the dining room, our afternoon merienda transferred to plates and we downed them with glasses of Eight o' Clock instant orange juice.

I was already in college when Mama tried to make her own palabok recipe, and after several trials, she finally got it together. During Christmases, we'd assemble bilaos of our own palabok to give to relatives. What I loved about Mama's palabok is that she let us assemble our own plates. As much shrimps as I'd like and as little green onions. From her, I also took the habit of always trying out the palabok of a new restaurant or fastfood or foodstall when it is in the menu. Some would be good, but some would turn out to be too soggy, too runny, too orange-y. Once, we also went on an early morning palabok hunt which I wrote about .

Today's palabok at the office was passable - at least for the P25 standard. It had tofu instead of the shrimps that I am used to and its color was a tiny tad too orange. I'm thinking of what the hex value of my ideal palabok color is, but that would be taking it a bit too far.

At the very least, it provided me a trip to memory lane - the happier side(walk) of it.

Sell Me Sleep

Wouldn't it be so great if you could buy sleep?

Think about it. Two hours' worth of sleep at your nearest convenience store. Or if you really pulled out an all-nighter - a full eight hours.

Sleep is something that caffeine can only hope to imitate as a replacement. Nothing beats uninterrupted hours on a comfortable bed, subdued lights, eyes closed, mind drifting off to somewhere where there's no worry or pain. (Or Java Exceptions and unupdated tasklists.)

Oh, I'd be a fan of bottled sleep. Or capsuled sleep - whatever. I'd have them handy all the time. I've been struggling with sleep. You have no idea how hard I have to try to silence my mind just long enough to let rest settle in.

The Sandman is slacking off with me. He'd better shape up. Or else he'd be facing the financial crisis unemployed.