9:31 AM Wednesday, June 30, 2004

LIMINAL MOMENTS AND MY MOM

Imagine getting a text message from your cousin, informing you that your Mom is confined in a hospital somewhere, and the one who knows where exactly is currently fighting with the missus at your house (my brother, yes).

Imagine having to locate her, gripped by all horrifying possibilities considering her age and the knowledge of her health concerns... and asking some faceless nurse why your mother is admitted anyway.

Imagine being told your Mom was due for a tonsillectomy... and how you're not sure if it's a good news (it being a minor operation) or a bad news (it having to be finally done because she's now suffering from rheumatic heart... and who knows how many other procedures are to follow).

Imagine walking in the rain and not daring to hope that your Mom is indeed alright, because the worst is yet not confirmed. Imagine texting close friends and telling them that you might have to borrow money from them because of your Mom.

Imagine being close to tears and already being scared and biting your lip as you force yourself to be a little stronger when you face your Mother.

Imagine thinking about your parents' mortality, and concluding, for that moment, that there is no loss greater than the loss of a parent of child... whether you knew them or not... whether you were close or not... even the loss of a sibling or spouse.

Imagine walking into your Mom's room and having her grin like a child who was caught stealing candy... and asking why you're there.

Imagine the effort it took not to bop your Mother one, after getting all the facts (she's been advised to undergo said operation last January and this was a scheduled one... and your father knows about it and has given your Mom money for it).

Imagine the sigh of relief after leaving her, knowing that the worst has not yet come. Imagine smiling to yourself at how innocent she looked in her hospital garments, and how she regaled you with stories of her roommate's kidney stones, and how she plans to go back to work asap... and how she was looking for a cheaper room when she can actually avail of a private room since her Philhealth and other insurance will cover it (plus, the difference would only amount to some P1,000 anyway).

Imagine feeling exhausted and spent and having to reward yourself, with your cousins, a P700-dinner... and a half-gallon of rocky road ice cream.

Imagine one of your bestfriends telling you that your Mother takes after you...

1:39 PM Tuesday, June 29, 2004

Over lunch, colleagues were talking about the dishonor that has visited Filipinas... how, from a view of strong family values, stronger Christian faith, and a general veneration of their beauty, grace and intelligence... they now are deemed women of ill-repute and not-sohonorable vocations... especially when they collectively go out of the country.

I told them that just recently, lining up for Immigration, I was gripped with a great fear that I'd be mistaken for a domestic helper. This gangly guy was asking women who, for him maybe, had this DH-aura to them, if they were domestic helpers, and if they were, to step away from the line and go fall in line in some designated window. I assumed it was generally to facilitate the process... with them probably having other papers to present, other questions to answer. (Of course, they could have easily just placed a sign directing these women to the designated windows for them). And of course, he was asking mostly those who look Malay. And of course, those who turned out to be DHs are pinays. And of course, as I said, I was licking my lips with trepidation, ashamed with my reaction, but more scared of how i'd feel if i'd be mistaken as a DH.

Of course, with my belly button showing, and my shapely ass for all other nations to gawk at... I wasn't singled out to be asked such. Maybe he even thought I should have gone to Japan instead...

Anyway, I digress. My colleagues started teasing me about my story. I confronted them, would they have not minded being mistaken for one? And of course, they said they'd be as embarrassed as I was.

When you think about it, there IS dignity in earning your keep. Ergo, there should be pride for honest labor, no matter what it is. And yet, I cannot be a hypocrite and pretend that i'm not mighty glad that I was blessed with a good-paying job.. that I don't have to throw my degrees and licenses and be away from my family just to earn enough and support my family and children.

I pray, of course, that such a plight will not be visited upon me. And i'm sad at the sacrifices overseas contract workers make... and I really hope, that something can be done to redeem their dignity in the eyes of the pinoys who are left behind.

I'm sorry OCWs... and am working on a healthier perspective.

*~*

Spicy tamarind rocks!!! I sure wish someone within my circle of significant others would go to Thailand soon.

11:16 AM Monday, June 28, 2004

In front of a parking area good for at least 10 jeepneys, just a parcel of the land my Dad actually owns, is a sari-sari store which my aunt and cousin run.

And in this sari-sari store, servicing drivers waiting for the factory workers to finish their shifts, attending to exhausted factory workers buying 5-peso soup, pancit and macaroni... I realized/revisited a childhood dream... to be a tindera.

Of course, it wasn't my greatest dream, but often i've wanted to be in a similar situation. Heck, if only I can throw practicality aside, i'd also want to be a waitress for a time, and to live in the squatters' area... to be among the marginalized sector...

A part of me wonders if I secretly wanted to lord it over them that I wasn't among them. But I know, for all my evil thoughts and motivations, I don't really think am above them. Rather, such encounters leave me thanking God all the more that my parents were industrious and ambitious enough to have worked hard and persevered.

It's just really nice to be reminded sometimes that there are people out there who don't earn as much as I do, and yet live as interesting lives. Gives you a new perspective...

*~*

CURRENT SEXUAL FANTASY:

to have a guy inflict his baser insticnts on me while am handcuffed to the fridge.

3:34 PM Thursday, June 24, 2004

I've just finished re-reading QUEEN OF THE DAMNED by Anne Rice. In it, Akasha started killing all the men, and putting women under a spell to also kill their men... even their male offsprings... even the male infants.

Akasha said that such a massacre, however cruel, will bring about after a REIGN OF PEACE. After all, she reasoned, the violence she was bringing upon the men will still not equal the atrocities women have suffered centuries upon centuries fro
m men... and it's the men who have always sought wars and strife.

Anyway, it's such a cruel idea, isn't it? To annihilate 90% of the male population and only save some to ensure procreation...

But the idea, tho cruel and most probably not going to happen anytime soon anyway, brings to mind several truths...

First, true, the death of almost all the men this instant, can still not account for nor equal the really horrible things they've done, in whatever ideology's name, to women since the beginning of time.

I'm too lazy to research on how many hundreds of years man has walked the earth. Still, history has been consistent in its depiction of horrors and injustice to women so far.

And it's true, is it not? Only men seem to have the inherent capacities to conceive of war, and they seem to always take the initiative at discrimination and prejudice. And everywhere, the killing machines have been the men.

Others may remind me of the Amazons... and several such groups, a band of aggressive women. Still, in the centuries we've all lived and thrived as a specie, only a handful of such tribes exist or came about. Does it not prove then, that tho both sexes have equal capacities to be kind and cruel, it's really the male specie that seems to have been predestined, by nature, to bring death while the female brings life.

And so, I ponder a world without men. Would it really be a more peaceful world? Am sure women would choose staying home with their kids than going to war. Am sure women would conduct more research on illnesses rather than nuclear warheads. Am also sure that a lot of matters might take time getting resolved in assemblies because of a lot of opinions and differing motivations. Am sure, yes, there will be less fear. It may even be possible that women will have a healthier perspective about their bodies, and about what real beauty is. I can even bet that we'd get to keep our humor, and that we'd be more creative and resourceful as we fend for ourselves in a world where no man is about to do the plumbing and the like for us.

Others will argue that the women will be lonely, to which i'd have to agree. But since every woman and child alike will be in the same plight, I think it's a loneliness women can survive.

But when the time comes that someone decides men can walk with us women again, i fear that the violence will be reinvented anew. And men are sure to avenge the 'wrong' to their ascendants. Something, just as curiously, women as a group have never done.

1:13 PM Tuesday, June 22, 2004

Does anyone here love fresh oysters?

Don't you just love it... getting a whiff of that sea-salty smell when the plate is placed in front of you... getting dirt on your hands... having the oysters immediately melt-crumble in your mouth when you suck it's gooey, watery goodness... isn't its metallic taste just heavenly?

Sigh... i can never blame oysters for the bad stomach i had the whole weekend... esply since i started having tummy cramps a day after i've eaten them...

And so I crave them still...

*~*

Have I told anyone I have pinky, fuzzy handcuffs now?
(insert evil grin here)

10:45 AM Thursday, June 17, 2004

Last year, early June, I was in Boracay when I first saw the violation that was done to my original blog... some person equipped with better faculties to understand html codes and what-have-you's hacked what it was he did to have this big a-hole pic displayed on my blog instead... shocking my blog friends and making a joke out of what was a fun, liberating, personal outlet for me.

Anyway, for what it's worth... I'd like to greet this 2nd blog a Happy Birthday :)

And I would like to thank again all those who have helped me along the way, esply VERA :)

*~*

Last Friday night found me in a minute of sorrow... suddenly and without preamble, I just burst into tears...

racked with sobs and pain for all the things I thought I wanted,
for all the things I can no longer be or have,
for the person that I no longer am...

just one minute was all it took to bless me with relief that i had made it inspite of all the things i've dreamt of being... but couldn't really be...

and two hours later, the night sky found me giggling and laughing and embracing my new tomorrow...

once again, i've found peace for some issue troubling my heart...

and once again, life has given me an opportunity to feel real blessed that I am who I am...

8:24 AM Friday, June 11, 2004

I'm scared of blood, main reason I didn't pursue medicine.

But i've always wanted to donate blood. It's the most life-saving, conscious thing I can do that doesn't involve panic, in-the-heat-of-the-moment decisions... one just does it, and one is all the better for it, physically (your blood replenishes itself and produces new blood and therefore your system gets cleansed) and psychosocially(you've just helped someone).

But alas, the opportunity for such has always evaded me. More often than not, my blood will be called to service just weeks after i've been on antibiotics for an infection (usually, something to do with my respiratory system... or UTI).

Our company holds a Blood Donation Project every year, around its anniversary (July 11). I've been happily looking forward to it since I haven't been sick for months...

And then I got sick last week, and just took the last of my antibiotics last night. I'm also still coughing and sneezing and sniffling as of the moment. And i'm sad... the dream to play 'kind, giving soul' has evaded me yet again...

Sigh...

*~*

Later tonight, I pursue another lifelong dream... may the heavens be kinder to me this time... and may the sense of fulfillment be as rich and humbling as i've always dreamed it would be...

3:55 PM Wednesday, June 09, 2004

Caught the virus my nephew was perpetuating inside the household, and got sick last sunday.

Am still sick as of today, dang erratic weather wreaking havoc and pain and misery for my sinuses.

Woe to all people who share the same allergic rhinitis.

*~*

Meanwhile, my dad named me after her.