yeah, yeah i know it's one of those survey-ish things but what the hey, it's fun.
i ripped this off briant's site. (my friend all the way there in florida--hey you come visit again soon!!!) thanks to him, i now know
the names of my other personalities.
YOUR PORN STAR NAME: (NAME OF FIRST PET + STREET YOU LIVE ON)
Lancer Amorsolo
YOUR MOVIE STAR NAME: (NAME OF YOUR FAVORITE SNACK FOOD + GRANDFATHERS FIRST NAME)
Lays Leon
YOUR FASHION DESIGNER NAME: (FIRST WORD YOU SEE ON YOUR LEFT + FAVORITE RESTAURANT)
Hello Shangri-La
EXOTIC FOREIGNER ALIAS: (FAVORITE SPICE + FOREIGN VACATION SPOT)
Garlic Hamptons
SOCIALITE ALIAS: (SILLIEST CHILDHOOD NICKNAME + TOWN WHERE YOU FIRST PARTIED)
Canuto Makati
"FLY GIRL" ALIAS (a la J. Lo): (FIRST INITIAL + FIRST TWO OR THREE LETTERS OF YOUR LAST NAME)
C Cle
ICON ALIAS: (SOMETHING SWEET WITHIN SIGHT + ANY LIQUID IN KITCH)
Kitkat Savour
DETECTIVE ALIAS: (FAVORITE BABY ANIMAL + WHERE YOU WENT TO HIGH SCHOOL)
Cub Ateneo
BARFLY ALIAS: (LAST SNACK FOOD YOU ATE + YOUR FAVORITE ALCOHOLIC DRINK)
Picnic Bailey
SOAP OPERA ALIAS: (MIDDLE NAME + STREET WHERE YOU FIRST LIVED)
Castelo Castor
ROCK STAR ALIAS: (FAVORITE CANDY + LAST NAME OF FAVORITE MUSICIAN)
Crunch Loeb
blood is thicker than water.
clearly, blood here refers to kin. but i still have trouble relating water to the other varieties of liaisons. water recedes; it seeks its own level and it has surface-tension. it evaporates. It has a defined boiling and freezing point. in cases of extreme squalor, it may cause death through ugly ugly ways. say, cholera. too much water in your system will retain salt in your body, which will cause you to appear bloated. Who would want to look like a sore thumb sticking out in a sea of vibrant looking humans? i may not fully understand everything that i say in this part (if only i foresaw my future career as a blogger, i would have paid more attention to my science classes!), but it is sufficient that these properties do not sound good when thrown into the context of a relationship.
***
blood and
water.
water: there is a party later and i can’t decide which set to wear. although this predicament is a lot better than simply not having anything to wear, i need to distract myself before i fall into a state of style-catatonia.
enter
blood: perhaps now is a good time to think about my family. everybody knows (or so i love to presume) that in my immediate family-a basic unit of this freaky society-i am the only non-dentist. I was the only one who would finish his schooling (as i already have) with out earning a
d and an
r before his name. nor would i be earning anything to decorate my name with (like an
a, a
t, a
t and a
y) except maybe when plugged in bylines. i cannot call myself anything as in the case of accountants and economists do. unless of course i embrace
starving artist. But until then, i am simply charlie. the charlie.
blood. kin. clan.
bigger picture. in my maternal side, the same principle holds true. (with the men, at least) most of my uncles are lawyers, (One even topped the bar; his nephew, meaning me, almost did not graduate high school.) one an accountant (although non-practicing), and one an economist (graduated from the economics-honors program; again-say it with me-his nephew almost did not graduate high school.)
being the erudite bunch that they are, they totally supported my decision to take up further studies, except the fact that what I chose to study further was not law.
and now i shall appear to digress.
for somebody who sprang out of a woman who has this uber-close relationship with her siblings, i do not know my cousins well. after an arduous search, i was able to track down shadow’s site. this is what she had said:
i visited my cousins blog…and it seems very interesting…my cousins don’t know much about me…and i don’t know much about them either...they have no idea what i’ve become within the span of one summer and half a month. we haven’t contacted each other or whatsoever.
i present no counter-affidavit. she said it all.
i have only recently discovered the joys of being related to carmina and we’re starting to get considerably close. she and i know some of each other’s deep dark secrets; however, i still cannot say that we were aware of each other as we were growing up. there was no dearth of familial functions and clan shebangs. each and every holy week is spent in nueva ecija. as in all of us. in that ancient bahay-na-bato, which ironically enough, was mostly wooden in the second floor: the floor which mattered. only the dust outnumber the conwebs.
as i have said, having had this constant thing, i still couldn't say that we grew up together. this could be because this growing up for me seemed to have involved certain gender issues. knowing that you are blossoming into a flower was enough burden; nailing yourself on a scenario wherein kin is involved was just unthinkable.
the castelos are the stereotypical old-fashioned, rigid hispanic type. i am expected to act nonchalantly with having a grandmother who spent most of her youth in front of a piano inside a convent school who was married to a man responsible for the death of certain people. (oops, i’m not sure if my cousins know of this. if you are my cousin and you know that you are my cousin and you’ve just read that, then pretend it’s not there. or. pretend that we’re not cousins. whichever works for you.) testosterone is not considered a male hormone but a gene passed on to the castelo males. on the other hand, art should trickle down through the women. i care not to expound which gene i have inherited.
i too much feared the prospects of a surprise revelation concerning an adoption. or a dramatic scene where a boy is being disowned. (whichever would prove to be more convenient for them, although the latter was the more likely choice.) so i simply took a leave of absence. But now that they have discovered the perks of having a sure-fire spinster nephew, i bounce myself back into the scene. still with no titles before or after my name.
***
another story which involves blood:
when i was six, i caught that yucky-sounding ailment (dengue: a truly effective onomatopoeia for death) and i needed blood transfusion. although aids was not yet a hot topic at that time, my parents did not trust the bloodbank so they promptly assembled everyone they knew who had the same bloodtype as i did. (and now you know the story behind my multiple personalities: bloods of various sources copulate within my veins.) damn me should i ever forget: i literally have my father’s, his sister’s and her two children’s blood flowing within my veins. while the doctors toyed on my circulatory system, the rest of my clan religiously recited the rosary. perhaps, they even got those folks who do the extending-of-the-palm-to-the-sick-person-thingie, but i choose not to remember.
meanwhile, at home, my two little sisters mentioned to their respective yayas about seeing me talking to an angel. the yayas broke into hysterical tears, which was actually a good thing. the three of us were only a year apart from each other so our parents decided that we needed a nanny each. when we fought, our nannies would also fight. even when my sisters and i were enjoying a ceasefire, the nannies would find their own justifications for going for each other’s throats.
“i say the flower vase should go on top of the tv!.”
“you’re ruining my style!”
anything that gave our yayas something to agree on was a great contribution to humanity. and my mother, upon hearing the cute story, immediately went into her “lord, if it’s really time, then i offer my son to you” moment. her marriage to my father was almost destroyed because of this abrahamic spell.
i almost died. obviously, i didn’t. i leave it up to you to judge whether this is a good thing or not. before you cast your ballot, i want you to reflect on how screwed up i turned out to be.
"the villainy you teach me, i shall execute, but i shall better the instruction."*
ricci: kamusta na si BeeJay?
rainn: who cares?
ricci: hmm...sino niloko mo?!
rainn: well, that's a tragedy unworthy of audience. next.
ricci: bakit naman?
rainn: huh? obvious. besides (bitter)
i'm sure mahilig sa sex si beejay. ayoko makipagsex. ever.
ricci: yeah, u cant even convince yourself. stop trying to convince me too.
rainn: fuck you.
ricci: eh si absynthe?
rainn: oh my god you're grossing me out. stop it. (takes a swig of beer)
ricci: hindi nga. matalino naman sya.
rainn: inaassume mo kagad na papatulan ako. ano ba. besides, good luck na lang noh. a day would never pass without a skirmish pag kasama mo yun.
ricci: so?
rainn: so ayoko din. wag na natin isipin kung ayaw din nya kasi ayaw ko. it won't work.
ricci: wouldn't you want to have something not work with absynthe kesa not having anything at all?
rainn: well, mamimili ka na rin lang, yung matino na noh. gusto ko yung parang close friends lang.
ricci: parang tayo? (stop it!!!)
rainn: um hindi. i've just realized na binibigyan ko lang ng problema sarili ko noon. i think i was just bored and i wanted to make life more exciting so i rammed the fucking wall. (takes another swig.)
ricci: hmmm... okay. if you say so.
rainn: no, really. tingnan mo, wala na ngayon.
ricci: eh kung ligawan kita?
and the highschool girl kept on grinding beside the table.
rainn: ewan ko.
***
i have never been to racks el pueblo before. if you haven't been there yet, then just imagine an incubator pumped up with evil hiphop music, and you have imagined racks el pueblo. i felt like a martian in my clothes (i just saw a play, and thus had dressed up appropriately for the said engagement) while strutting in the steakhouse-cum-hiphopden. i wanted to tear my shirt open. actually, now that i think about it, why didn't i since everyone i knew who saw me there seemed to have wanted me to. they would introduce me to their friends as the person who never cared much about buttons.
i still don't, actually.
to all the kangaroos out there: if you are missing a kid, the there's a ninety-nine point nine percent chance that it is in racks el pueblo dancing to beyonce knowles.
***
as i have said, i just saw a play. last friday, g, silver, cokelover, cathy and sofia and i watched the merchant of venice in greenbelt. it was beautifully rendered by repertory philippines and was directed by zenaida amador. it made me happy that they did not do a modern interpretation, minimalist or whatso. you know, the funky stuff people like doing to shakespeare nowadays. repertory stuck to the classical rendition with the costumes and all. it was such fun.
we only had silver tickets (which meant we could not sit on the center seats, as opposed to gold tickets) but thanks to the fact that cathy abhores her current occupation, she dashed to greenbelt hours too early for the show. i found her standing in front of the line and when the cordon was lifted, we glamorously strutted as fast as we can to grab the nearest seats with decent vantage. because of some complicated details, cathy and i became the advance party--the explorers, those who will claim the colony--and we had to sit four seats apart whilst saying "taken" over and over again.
the programme said (in ms. amador's message) that they have taken out some parts that may indicate anti-semiticism. she said that this time around, shylock would receive such bad a fate not because he was a jew but simply because he was a bad man.
right.
of course shylock's justification for revenge got me excited. in reality, it is largely this particular part that got me so excited to go see the play. when i was in freshman year high, it was this that i chose to deliver in class. i didn't bother to recite bassanio or antonio or even lorenzo. i was shylock, the ultimate villain, and to me, the real merchant of venice.
"to bait fish withal. if it shall feed nothing else, it shall feed my revenge..."
i will never forget how i had pounded the blackboard with my closed fist after these lines and suddenly proceeded to intensely burp out the rest of the solliloquy.
"he hath disgraced me..."
a classmate commented that i looked like a real man. wait...is this good or bad? in the context of an all-boys school, i guess he was trying to give me a compliment. another said he swallowed his gum out of shock when i pounded the board. hah! eight years have passed and i still remember vividly. (eight years?! argh!)
cokelover and i agreed that we had rendered better interpretations of shylock when we were in freshman high than this particular staging. we both kinda expected the soliloquy to be a bit reflexive. i thought he would face the audience and would have that monospotlight. but no.
then again, the play was so surprisingly funny. when i was reading it for high school english, i don't remember laughing. at all. i can't believe i only appreciate the cleverness now that i have seen the thing staged.
***
yesterday, as in tuesday, i watched skycaptain and the world of tomorrow with carmina, my cousin. we had such great fun. we totally paid attention to what was happening on the silverscreen. however, don't ask us if the movie was good; don't ask us something we could not answer.
perhaps when people enjoy too much, they mystically progress to that stage of existence when they could converse with the least words as possible and understand each other perfectly well. if i were to sum up the conversation my cousin and i had inside the theatre, it would eloquently be such:
charlie: delicious.
carmina: yummy.
no, we were not talking bout the beard papa cream puffs we were eating. my cousin and i also profusely agreed that perhaps we would have understood the story if only skycaptain smiled less.
dear god: if you give me jude law, i promise i will stop making fun of other people. like the ones who are not beautiful. okay fine. and the ugly ones too. and the ones who can't carry themselves well. and the ones who can't use their brains well too. so that the world will be a lot better. i know it's already a miracle that i was not brought out of the theatre in a stretcher, but i push my luck further. consider this as an ultimatum. amen.
***
the secret to my secret alter-ego lies hidden behind the reason why i change the lay-out of my web-journal so scandalously often. it is probably connected to the fact that it takes me soooooo long to decide where to go and what to order.
*taken from Shylock's justification for revenge. Merchant of Venice. William Shakespeare.
good mourning
jacques derrida, celebrated french philosopher and internationally misunderstood author (in the cool sense of the word misunderstood) died while we were having wine and cheese in his honor, halfway across the globe.
the humble
community of mourners (the class' official fun name as stated in the course syllabus of CL 230-european literature, first semester, academic year 2004-2005, university of the philippines), has mourned alongside derrida by doing close readings on the funeral orations he had given to his friends compiled in
the work of mourning as well his lucid thoughts on death,
the gift of death. we did not know the man personally, and i am very sure that he did not know us at all.
i chuck this snippet of information to my box labeled "ironic" which i hide under my bed.
***
miracles happen.
thank god it does. in a span of less than twelve hours, i was able to compile sixteen pages worth of thought. (also: thank god for courier new pt. 11) with trembling hands, i slid the stapled bunch of papers into the plastic folder hanging on dr. schriever's office door. sixteen pages of deep-seated reflection on death and mourning, at first, was an unlikely feat for somebody who had just received his baccalaureate degree six months ago. starting my post-graduate life by understanding death was simply foreboding. and at the tender age of **, i could not believe that i was able to examine the topic with such dettached faux intelligence.
to quote myself:
In truth, we will never fully understand what death is for as long as we live. Certainly, understanding its unadulterated nature will require an experience of it, in which event, we would be stripped of the chance to communicate, let alone evaluate, what we have discovered unless we haunt the living. Since this haunting is least likely to voluntarily come from the one who has already crossed (unless the occult is dabbled into), the ones who survive bring it upon themselves. For us who have not died, the most we can do is to make meaning of death as we live through experiences of loss. We somehow rationalize death through this. Death is a concept hard to grasp for as long as one does not come face-to-face with it. This is, in a rough summation, mourning.
dying is different from death. wanting to die is different from understanding death and mourning. i still want to die young but i still don't understand death. i mourn for myself.
***
if i was able to tame the beast that is the course requirement for CL 230, my battle with my science fiction and fantasy writing workshop class is still ongoing. my first semester in grad school is marvelously decorated by my very first
incomplete. i am giving myself the semestral break to claim the grade i deserve. or plainly, a grade, for that matter.
around three hours before the deadline (which i have set by begging for an extension), i sent my professor a text message asking for a grade of inc. by this time, reality had just slapped the daylights out of me as it whispered: you aint gonna make it bro.
it pained me (and it still does) that i was not able to finish what i had started. in ateneo, i never allowed myself to withdraw from a class or to get dropped from one. ever. sure, i dropped to my knees, worked up my charm and smiled my way to completions. once, i even promised a life of celibacy to my theology teacher. i got a final grade of c+, which to me was a lot better that an fa. (failure due to absences. and i still have not broken that promise, unintentionally.) i failed math12 and had to retake it but it did not impede me from finishing on time. and then i decided to obtain a minor. i was able to finish everything in four years. the inc is a new thing to me and i hope to god that i do not get too comfortable with it.
i shut the computer down and proceeded to get my much-needed sleep as the sun happily hovered above the gi-sheets.
good morning, charlie. sweet dreams. and good mourning. the rhythm of my life...
i have finally come to a junction in this game i'm playing:
let's try to take up masters in the state university and see if things get as fucked up as predicted. my first semester is about to end. instead of accomplishing my requirements (15 pages of crit and 30 pages of stories due on tuesday and on wednesday respectively), i choose to stagnate and to ruminate.
i choose to count my scores.
this morning was the last session in european literature. this is a 9am-12 sat class, so naturally i always get up at...9 to be able to arrive at dr. schriever's office before 10. and just as in excellent work of fiction, the chosen framework of the course for this semester serves as the perfect foreshadowing in the story of my life.
politics of mourning. the reading list partially consists of
gift of death,
work of mourning,
the stranger,
a very easy death, illiad,
antigone,
this way to the gas ladies and gentlemen and other novels dealing with the subject of death.
i must admit that talking about death and mouring session after session after session was kinda fun and interesting. fun in a cryptic way. (when i say cryptic, i mean borderline rio diaz-cryptic.) but the knot that tied the noose around my neck was the attempt at understanding jacques derida's ouvre. that really hit me and i was staggering with my literary skills (the little that i have) by the end of the third session. dabbling into post-structuralism left ME deconstructed.
and dr. schriever. dr. schriever is a dear dear proffessor. she would correct us whenever we mispronounce french words (half the discussion in total was a crash course in french diction). she would send the class text messages if she was going to be late (as in everyone. then again we were only like a dozen) or if she wouldn't make it to class.
but as i have said, today was the final meeting. in addition to the brewed coffee we would have in her office every morning, there was...wine and cheese. she brought two bottles of spanish chauvignon and a classmate (whom i surmised to be allergic to alcohol) brought a bottle of california red. everyone but me, lisa and dr. schriever stopped after their first glass.
after my tenth glass, derida was starting to be clear, and driving home seemed to be something that would require effort. the cheese was superb, we all could not stop munching on it.
(to be continued. i think i should be going back to my papers.)
yours in the name of Style
i was warned vehemently. germaine even said that she had friends who bothered themselves with going to the parlor before having their id picture taken. in some tribes, they believe that whenever pictures are taken of them, a part of them is robbed--that their spirits are captured. i believe this as well. when a picture is taken of you, you during that moment is forever captured. it is a way of cheating on the fleeting nature of life. you will never be the same person that was captured on that particular frame.
back in ateneo, i always changed my id picture. usually when i change my haircut. (yes, i still feel as though i'm
haired.) all i had to do was declare my id lost and pay the cashier. Once, i even brought my favourite picture. the good manong in the id room scanned it and changed the background to white. voila! an id with a really nice picture of me on it. (yeah, in that particular picture, i still had a lot of hair.) so this was where i was coming from that faithful friday morning.
having said all this, i neglected the warnings of my friends--those of them who know the state university way of life. i rolled out of bed, crawled all the way to the car and clawed the remnants of my hair to similate some order. there was no flashing light or whatso.
it was just a sad faint click that captured my soul and preserved one of my countless nows. i am the happy ghost, literally and figuratively. the best part is that i have to use this picture for the rest of my stay in up. kill me.
* * *
last tuesday, i attended the mtv style awards. i postponed writing about it because:
i got drunk during the after event party. (my mantra for that night: since i am not an important figure in this event, i'm here for the free booze.)
i got a nefarious hangover when i woke up the following day. somehow, midway through the party, i was tricked into gulping down pure vodka. i was a willing victim.
i was trying to give myself time to get over sarah myer's terrycloth bathrobe which she wore as a coat for the party. no, this wasn't a pyjama party. the party was held under the stars, on a rooftop. with mobile and all. i just realized now that i would not get over this unless i exorcise myself by hitting the mall with just a towel around my waiste.
hence.
i would be the first one to tell anyone that i am a dits when it comes to the ultimate superficial human representation--that is, fashion. not that i painstakingly study catalogues of the latest collections or anything near that. i see clothing as an art everybody practices. after all, the best way to showcase your own version of your best self is through what you wear. (yeah, i too think that the last sentence is vague.)
the style awards was held in the nbc tent in fort bonifacio. although i missed the red carpet and the cocktails, as well as the first few major awards (because i was too busy laughing in the moviehouse--kris aquino should win best comic actress in a horror film), i was at least in time for orange and lemons's performance. they were absolutely smashing.
but the real treat that evening was seing lotte again after a looooooong time. lotte is 1/3 of my thesis group, and god knows how thesis could make life-long friends out of those you get to gripe with while painstakingly completing it. we didn't get a very high grade, actually, but the consolation is that at least we learned. we opted to do a heavily academic piece, a digression from the usual creativity ab communication is known for. and the moment i wrapped my fingers around the spine of our bound work, i swear to god that i gained respect for myself three times more than all the instances that i got a's combined.
it was that nefarious.
anyhow, so i got to see lotte again. in fact, she was the one who invited me to come. lotte's life would be a glaring contrast to mine. hers is one of progress and direction. she had me sit with her in the press cordon area where i had a spectacular view of richard gutierrez's nape. i thank the lord that i was convent-bred because i would have been able to reach out and caress it if i wanted to.
but the thing that bothers me up to this very minute is this:
which literally outshone which: the mini mirrorballs (lots of it) suspended above our heads occasionally beamed with green laserlights, or tessa prieto-valdes?
the fat complex
i am fat. i know i am fat. i am okay with that. is there an unwritten rule that says that fat people should feel bad about being fat? if there is, i am really resenting the fact that each and every friend that i have failed to tell me about it.
i just had a nice conversation with bamboozle. bamboozle misled me to think that he was sensible. he was able to carry an enjoyable conversation, alright. i actually had fun. but everything melted when he refused to believe that i was comfortable with myself.
bamboozle: sorry, i was thinking with my other head. the one down there.
me: it's ok. all men think with that head. i understand.
bamboozle: hah! you're one of the 6,000,000 who thinks that i'm a man.
me: why? are you a woman? (i was getting ready to leave.)
bamboozle: trapped in a man's body.
me: oh sorry. i don't go with that school of thought. i'm a man. i'm a man who happens to go for other men.
bamboozle: ooh sorry ateneo boytoy (he's not from ateneo and he loves to tease me simply because i am).
im not that sophisticated. earth to venus. that's where you vain people are from.
me: i don't impose that on other people. that's how i see myself you dumdum. well, i am vain, alright. and im okay with that cos that keeps me looking gorgeous.
bamboozle: how much do you weigh again?
me: 190 lbs, give or take.
bamboozle: fat.
me: yes. i am fat.
bamboozle: i'm sorry, really. am i making you talk about something you don't want to talk about?
me: no, it's okay. i'm comfortable with myself. if i could only frame myself and hang it on a gallery wall, i would have already done so a long time ago. oops, i may have already, wait lemme check. (to those who know me, i'm sure you know that i was serious about this.)
bamboozle: it's just that i can't reconcile how you could be fat and vain at the same time.
me: it's easy. i've encountered zero difficulties so far.
bamboozle: i have a friend who's also from ateneo. he's just like your height and built. he used to be 240 lbs but he's now down to 160 lbs! he's so hot, but he's my friend.
me: 240?! (did i not just say that im 190? is 190 and 240 lbs considered to be similar nowadays? 240 lbs. is like barney!)
bamboozle: oh sorry if i gave the unneeded info just to make you feel bad about yourself. i really am.
me: why should that make me feel bad?
bamboozle: i'm really sorry.
me: i also know people who lost weight y'know. can we stop dwelling on my weight issue? i have friends to bother me with that.
bamboozle: i'm really sorry.
me: i'm sorry too. (i'm sorry for you. die.)
while i am aware that i have an eating disorder of some sort, it doesn't mean that i have issues with how i look. i believe that i have made enough friends--real ones, close ones--for me to be actually be bothered with such a confidence issue.
just the other night, my friends dragged me to a chinese restaurant (it was 2am) and we wolfed up everything we craved for. while we did so, i complained about having put on weight. it was fun. but i digress.
what really irks me is that bamboozle (he doesn't deserve his real name so i took the liberty of giving him one that perfectly suits him) is not an isolated case. i know that fat people are categorized as fat because they are expected to lose the "excess" baggage. (i am all for that. the few time i lose some weight--i seem to do so every summer, for reasons obscure to me-- i find it easier to move.) fat people are categorized as fat because they could look better.
a lot of fat people out there are ashamed for being fat. have you ever considered the possibility that perhaps they are ashamed because you expect them to be?
