Fringe Living with Dexter Lira

Managing

2010-07-20T11:40:00.000+08:00

One of the more challenging (and vexing) duties of a manager is to balance the needs of the organization vs the needs of its productive workers. The vexing part was always why I avoided leadership roles like the plague. I didn't want to have any kind of responsibility because (and I saw this in a movie once) being "responsible" was "being the guy everyone else blamed" if things went south.

Where I live, things are often expected to go south: traffic laws are routinely broken, socks are mismatched, zippers break at embarrassingly crucial times, someone else has gotten to your food or bonus long before you were supposed to. These Islands are Third World after all. I knew from the get-go that the prospects for failure are often more likely than those for success. It followed that being "responsible" was (to my seven-year-old brain) something thankless and futile and generally not worth trying.

Someone should have told me back then that responsible people got things done in spite of the likelihood of failure, and that not all failures were catastrophic. Maybe I wouldn't have been so afraid to take choice jobs or responsibilities when they were presented to me.

Now, I'm responsible for the well-being of half the teaching staff at my place of work. I've had to make decisions that are neither completely kosher with upper management nor satisfying to the people in my care. I must proceed with tact, with wisdom, with other qualities not traditionally associated with me.

I can appreciate the irony of being in a management position where lots of things can potentially go south.

C'est la vie.

A Belated Goodbye to Camelot

2010-07-14T09:51:00.002+08:00

Actually it's a belated goodbye to "Gwen"-- not that it should matter to her. There were still some things left unsaid when I was, all of a sudden, unreachable. I'll say them now.

You have "Arthur" and I'm no longer the kind of guy who'll put himself in between two people who care very much for each other. Having a wife stolen out from under me does not do wonders for the ego, and I had no desire to put you and Arthur through that ordeal. I have no stomach to dish out the kind of testing-by-fire that God seems to mete so callously and haphazardly.

Perhaps I... should have endeavored to meet you a year ago, but I was obviously preoccupied. I would not have known you for the wondrous, terribly sweet and caring person that you are.

At any rate, having known you now, I would have followed you anywhere, Arthur or no Arthur. And I did, all the way to Camelot, where I served as one of your mercenaries of literacy. For a time, I was probably your best knight.

Here's a tip about myself: it's generally not money that keeps me tethered to someone's employ. I've been known to throw my life away on a fool's quest because I cherished the feeling I got when someone smiled at me. I've been known to spend long hours in the field because someone's kerchief was tied to my shoulder.

It's who I am.

It is also who I'm not appreciated for. Nobody really likes a man whose eyes follow and drink your every movement down to the very dregs. Nobody really adores the people who adore them.

I've gotten much older than I've had to be in this department, Gwen. I no longer have the staying power to remain fool-hardy.You obviously can't give me what I need and it upsets me that I feel you've shut me out before I ever got the chance to ask. I would have been happy with simple talk: you always made a four-letter word fall sweetly on the ears.

There was no more reason for me to stay on in Camelot, was no other logical course of action available but to wish you all well, to pack up my Lance and leave.

If I'd a dollar for all the times I've had to say this I'd be rich:

I wish you every happiness. I wish you and Arthur every joy.

I say it ruefully, but I truly mean it.

In case you throw my letter away, (and you will).

2010-07-14T09:02:00.001+08:00

I've often thought of letters as successful only in two things: expressing sentiment and saying goodbye. This is partly why I've been stymied for pretty much the last two years. Everybody tells me I write eloquently, passionately, powerfully, lovingly. But who am I kidding? Against the weight of my sin against you-- which you can neither forgive nor forget-- any missive of mine, indeed any attempt of mine to reach you is anathema to you and ultimately useless to me.

Letters don't really move people-- how many times have you seen a letter move a government? How many times have you seen a love letter really move people? It hasn't moved you and I have long stopped expecting any future missive to do so.

This isn't my core message. As I write, I'm angry and I'm sad and I don't know how objective I can be despite my best efforts. Stupidity is banging your head on the same wall hoping that the next attempt will not end in bits of broken skull, blood, matted hair and a broken face. When the matter is you, though, I excel at being stupid.

In all my drafts I'd wanted to just say that I loved you, needed you. That I was sorry. And that I do not want to say goodbye. We've seen too much together, done too much together. We've made love forgodssakes, or close enough to it, though I didn't want to call it that before. More than any ache in the loins I feel the loss of you every day.

Concurrent with that feeling of loss, Tin, is an outraged sense of futility, of terrible crippling sadness, the fear that I will never again see your face. Your voice, the smell of your hair, your caresses may belong to someone else now.

I love you.

I do not want to say goodbye.

october-december 2009 -january-february 2010

Laid...

2010-06-26T19:25:00.000+08:00

"Laid" (v.) past tense and past participle of "lay"

Laid Up

Fringe Dex has come down with a bug that took months in development, a month to diagnose and he knows not how long to treat. For today, he's taking things easy (as easy as his fevered brain will allow). If any of his arnis friends are reading this post, this situation is one more reason Dex has been...

Laying Low

It's something that I've had to do frequently because of the weakness and the lassitude, also because I have other things to do. I'm returning to the wonderful world of ESL (pronounced "ee es err") because I need to finance my medication for while I'm laid up, and maybe for months beyond that point. It annoys, it galls, it inconveniences like a boyfriend who just won't stop telling you he loves you. I'll need to lay low some more because I'm conserving what strength I have left for the now old job. Y'know, so I won't be...

Laid Off

It's the general consensus that quitting is a lot better. I promise, dear reader, that I will do nothing to jeopardize my plans of quitting the job after it's served my purposes.

One Step Short

2010-06-24T13:51:00.000+08:00

The position won't be here forever. It could be gone now, for all I know. God knows I need the money, but do I seriously want to go back to the wonderful world of local foreign-run ESL with all its craziness? This is no longer what I want. I would have gladly stayed in this industry to be with Tin, or later on with Gwen, but beside me is not where either woman wants to be.

Add to my headaches this little problem: I may be dealing with something right now that puts me in no position to share myself or a future with anyone. I don't mean that metaphorically. There's a condition that some people have that is cause for annulment of marriage (as per Canon Law): what I may have is about one step short of that.

I'm always seemingly one step short: of greatness, of infamy (though some may argue with that), or getting rich, or what have you. That one time I wasn't one step short of something, I wake up to ...this.

C'est la vie.

Check back with me in a few and maybe I will have become a step short of, thankfully, something else.

In Search of Decent Sticks

2009-09-07T00:28:00.000+08:00

My little “fact-finding” trip south of the Philippines was not martial in nature, but thanks to that, I knew I’d need new sticks in the near future. And yes, a bunch of (wooden) knives to complement and replace the one I already own in case it broke. I resolved to fill part of that need with a quick trip to Quiapo yesterday.

What I should have done was pay more attention to what Jeff was telling me about where exactly he’d previously bought my training gear. Get on a Quiapo-bound jeep, he’d said. Get off a little after you clear the tunnel. The rest of it was a blur. Still, it didn’t faze me: it was a cool late Sunday afternoon and I had time to look around.

Too bad, I didn’t have company. Sunday afternoon shopping excursions— even if for only for anti-riot gear— should really be a shared experience. Seeing how your companion’s eyes light up at your latest mutual discovery (brass knuckles, steel and wooden knives, telescoping batons) takes away the annoyances of aching feet or the heat of the day. Days like this, with companions like that, you’re going to want to part with your money.

Sadly, each shop I wandered into had the wrong kinds of sticks: too thin, too thick, too light, too heavy, sticks that threatened to stick a splinter in your fingers and palm. I’d peered into alleyways full of shops festooned with faux military-grade bags, shirts, shorts, belts, and combat boots. I spoke to seedy-looking men in my search for sticks with the right thickness, length and finish. I’d gone round the area as far as Raon, where I used to buy cheap electronics for my old Practical Arts classes. What galled was that I knew I wasn’t searching the Quiapo area deeply enough, because that place is like any market in a Neil Gaiman novel: if you knew where to look you will find everything you need, even your elusive rattan canes.

I used to know this place at least as well as anyone who studied in the University Belt was reasonably expected to. Yet every scary man in a tank top who stood outside these shrines of macho was pointing to bundles of all the wrong sticks, tied together with plastic twine. Where were my sticks? Times like these, I really missed company: my feet and my head were beginning to hurt.

Finally, at the recommendation of a not-so-scary gay shopkeeper who knew nothing about sticks, I settled on a pair made from lacquered hardwood. I had little choice: none of the rattan canes passed muster and all the other hardwood sticks were cracked or bent. My acquisitions were way too smooth to be handled properly and too heavy for my standard training needs. If I’m not extra careful, they’re as likely to break my wrist or slip out of my sweaty grip and bean someone on the head.

I took out my hardwood cudgels and went through a few of my exercises –slowly— when I arrived home.

Diagonal strikes, horizontals, half strikes: I didn’t trust myself with verticals, not yet. I shuffled, trying to get used to the weight and the increased and potentially more painful mass I was twirling in the air. One stick resting lightly on each shoulder: aim for your opponent’s head now. Lean left, attack with the right-hand stick. Lean right, attack with the left-hand stick. Arms crossed: lean right, strike right. Lean left, follow with left. Arms open now— keep your opponent from moving in!— strike with the right...

Shampoo, rinse, repeat.

I’m rationalizing right now, keeping the buyer’s remorse at bay. And as I tell myself that my find will be useful, I also tell myself that I will consult with Jeff and listen more closely the next time I go hunting for sticks.

Ricardo Montalban, RIP

2009-01-16T02:52:00.000+08:00

Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannn!

Saying that and cracking jokes about the man's cleavage isn't going to be half as

fun anymore. Neither will making those impressions of the original Fantasy Island's Tattoo (De plane! De plane!) be half as satisfying.

He died yesterday, the actor best-known for his role of genetically engineered superman Khan Noonien Singh on Star Trek and for his other, more sedate role of Fantasy Island proprietor Mr. Roarke. The people who spend time surfing the Catholic Channels will find Ricardo Montalban 1) thanking God, 2) advocating the rosary, or 3) hawking rosaries with stones from a cave in Jerusalem encapsulated in their crosses. And he was spokesman for the Chrysler Cordoba in the mid-seventies. ....Not that any of these things ring bells with my four gentle readers.

I guess what should strike them is that the man lived to a ripe old age and somehow didn't piss people off, sully his reputation or figure in a high-profile brouhaha with other celebrities. Considering the climate in Hollywood, that's saying a lot. He was so nice the Pope knighted him, sort of. a role model for many Latinos everywhere-- a Mexican who made it big in the 'States, who never give up his Mexican citizenship up to he day he died.

Ricardo Montalban is dead, reminding us of our own mortality. Reminding some of us yet again of how close we are to it. It's as if the creaky joints, the arrhythmia, the disproportionately increased insulin levels were not enough.

There is so much for us to do-- like yell "Khaaaaaaaaaaan!" into a Starfleet communicator or praise the Chrysler's "soft Corinthian leather" in Montalban's distinct mellifluous voice-- and so very little precious time to do it in.

Singing in the Stairwell

2009-01-13T12:58:00.001+08:00

It looks like I'm frequenting the stairwell in my office building more than the Hotel Sogo these days. And this is a good thing. I've been meaning to find a more or less unobtrusive place to practice my singing voice. I pretty much failed on that score (the office bathroom being unsuitable), so the stairwell's the next best thing.

The stairwell has the ambience I'm looking for: enough reverb to make the voice sound crisp and lively. It's built like the inside of a giant flute so sound carries to the next few floors. If you keep the door open the sound travels along the corridor and insinuates itself into the neighboring offices. As long as you sing well, it's not too distracting. In fact it might be somewhat welcome.

Of course I wouldn't be Dex if I didn't do things like singing in the stairwell for at least three reasons most of the time. So,

Reason 1: My voice is somewhat rusty, so I really do need the practice.
Reason 2: I'm often emotionally constipated, so I need the catharsis.
Reason 3: At any one time between lunch and ten p.m., the room next to the stairwell is occupied by good looking chicks.

To paraphrase myself, as long as I don't sound like I'm strangling the cat, I should be fine. ;)

More Status Reports

2009-01-12T11:11:00.000+08:00

I haven't wished everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year yet. I'd like to, but before that, I need to get some things out of the way.

Had my lungs checked for bugs. I've always had problems with my air-exchangers, you see. I'm waiting for my results with (say it, say it you ham!) bated breath.
Spent new year asleep. Just like Christmas.
Loking forward to some R&R on the Chinese new year. Heard tell it happens at the tail end of this month.
Dex El is working on a writing module for his Language Center.
Dex El has been dog tired most days, more so than usual.
Dex apologizes to the friends he can't see this month or last. Everyone's busy, hard to track down.
Dexter hasn't really felt Christmas since before last year.
Dexter is turning t i y f e.

A belated Merry Christmas, everyone. May you have a decent New Year.

Retired University Janitor Left Holding the Bag, Cuts Album

2009-01-08T00:57:00.000+08:00

Picked up from my random net-wanderings--

Meliton Zamora is a retired University of the Philippines Janitor who was very liberal with his signature when it came to helping out students in a financial bind. He became their guarantor when they applied for student loans. Sadly some of the students he's helped have been very conservative about paying their debts. Consequence: instead of getting his full retirement pay for his 40-plus years of service, he gets enough money for only a measly 171 days worth of meaningful dedicated work.

In a twist worthy of a story made onli in da Pilipins, our generous ex-janitor managed to cut an album. Friends, family and supporters of this gentleman are hoping that

a.) students he's helped remember his kindness and do something about his situation; and

b.) people who'd like to help him out would buy his CD.

No doleouts are expected, but "...he will be thankful for any assistance you can give." Do visit Mang Mel and buy his CD (P350 only) at No. 16-A, Block 1, Pook Ricarte, U.P. Campus, Diliman, Quezon City (behind UP International House) or contact his daughter Kit V. Zamora at 0916-4058104.

What say we show him some love?

sourced from this multiply entry.

I learned the wrong skills

2009-01-04T16:32:00.000+08:00

This is partly why I mislike reunions of nearly any sort. People start asking the deadly questions, the ones that go... Are you dating anyone? When will you get married? Just what are you doing for a living now? Automatically we start self-checking, comparing, evaluating relative worth in the most haphazard ways. Am I making enough money? Am I working in the field I originally studied for? Just how useless was my college education anyway?

When my friend Nina started asking me (asking herself) similar questions it dawned on me that Kiosaki (Rich Dad, Poor Dad) was right: growing up, we learned all the wrong skills. We never learned to schmooze, we never learned to prioritize money over learning. We fought with our parents, never realizing that our youthful ideals were nothing more than the fever dream of a youngish old man who never graduated from high school puppy love. Why couldn't we have played ball with the folks-- taken the courses they wanted us to, gotten the good grades, joined the right fraternity and whatnot-- and done our own thing after we got our safe jobs?

My friend Burt basically said to me once that people who climbed Everest because it was there were nucking futs. Life was all about-- and I liberally paraphrase here-- getting rich, buying a house and car, attracting a girl with big boobs, marrying her, having lots of sex, popping out kids and settling down. Those who didn't think this way were likely prissy artistes who... well, at least Oscar Wilde (lucky bastard) was comfortable in his artistic uselessness.

I'm not.

Growing up, I learned all the wrong lessons. I'll be honest and state that I may be too old a dog to learn the not-so-new tricks. I'll likely die poor, with nothing to give my life value except the little achievements that parents and people at reunions laugh at. But at least I'll change what I can. I can't be Christian and discount the fact that God loves everyone equally-- but that's what makes it moot. We're all affected equally by gravity--in fact we couldn't live without it-- but that doesn't dilute our admiration for the people who manage to fly.

Ending the Year of the Klutz...

2008-12-31T13:57:00.000+08:00

...by being one.

Slammed my head into a wall while running in the stairwell a week ago. It wasn't as painful as it was funny. I learned first-hand just what the boys at Fight Science talk about when they illustrate just how the energy of an impact to the skull travels through the brain and along the neck and spine and into the muscles in the shoulders and the back as they work to absorb and dissipate it. I was lucky that some of the impact was mitigated by my hands and arms (energy travels through them too, all the way to-- yes-- the shoulders and the back).

And just today, in my rush to get to work I forgot both of my cellphones when I would sorely need either one later... for when the fireworks would start. There won't be a way in hell barring telepathy that my parents would be able to know when to come for me later. They won't even know where to go to pick me up.

Too, I could have sworn that my ATM card was in my wallet yesterday. It was in my wallet yesterday. I've had no reason to take it out at any time except for when I really needed it, which is tonight.

I'll be en route to Cainta to pick up my phones, then to QC to track down my ATM card. (This is assuming of course that people in my QC house have been practicing their brand of silent interventions in my so-called wayward life.) Then I hie off to Alabang to join the folks. All of this to be done tonight.

But my year--in fact the last two-- haven't been exclusively marked by physical klutziness. I was also inexcusably socially inept.

C'est la vie.

I hope this is the last time that I'll be this klutzy-- you know, physically, mentally and what have you.

Happy new year, folks.

Not Nihil, Nihil

2008-12-24T15:24:00.000+08:00

There are two major Christian milestones worth noting, regardless of what denomination of the Christian faith you belong to. One is Christmas. The other is Easter. We celebrate the beginning of Christ's Mission on the former; we celebrate its fulfilment on the latter holdiay.

The Christian is supposed to witness this truth: God bends over backward to reconcile Himself with His wayward Creation. I sometimes wish He'd do a better job of it-- what with all the broken people out there, breaking themselves against the intransigence of other people; those same people being broken in their turn. I wish the Christians would do a better job of witnessing too-- some of those broken people broke themselves on Christian intransigence.

Jesus died so none of us would answer the question of meaning with "Nihil, Nihil." When we leave Christmas morning behind, we are supposed to carry the hope and the joy that knowing this gives us. And Love too, love most importantly: to share-- to witness-- these as far and wide as is humanly possible.

----------------------------------

T: To your "Nihil," I will answer always "Ti amo."

Happy New Year!

2008-12-23T10:05:00.000+08:00

How do you know you're too old for derring-do?

1. When you demand peak performance from your body and get it less and less;

2. When you find yourself risking life and limb for utterly stupid lost causes;

3. When #2 happens too frequently;

4. When the embarrassing and self-injurious consequences of #2 cease to be charming

I didn't save a friend's possessions from the potential ravages of a fire. I didn't interpose myself between some hapless old lady and an out-of-control bus. I didn't recklessly spend all my money to make sure a loved one got medicine. I didn't fight off a bunch of goons intent on robbery.

No. Nothing so heroic. I marked the end of this year by running down a stairwell, slipping, tripping and slamming my head on a wall half a floor below me in the name of workplace punctuality.

I'm okay, for now. I'm just waiting to see if the latest bump on my noggin has any neurological and psycho-motor side effects that I should be worried about. I think my personality's still intact-- not an occasion for cheering if some people are to be asked.

Happy new year. At least for me, the fireworks came early.

Season of Lists

2008-12-21T13:49:00.000+08:00

Stuff I'm keeping out

If only for one day, let me keep out some guests that have been residing in my mind throughout most of the year. Here's the list--

1. Anomie

The feeling of being disconnected from everything has been my default state since 2005. There have been a few occasions where I connected with people, thank God, but these have been few. I'm not looking a gift horse in the mouth, mind, but they have not been quite the connections I needed.

2. Korean ESL Students

I'm sorry. I like them, I do. The women, especially. But I've done nothing but teach them Engrish the past two years. I want to relex und tinks of nothings lelated to koreun schyoodunt. I'll make an exception for my favorite student from my Engrish 11 days, Jenny, but she's busy with her studies in Japan.

3. Women

I have found out that I am pathologically inclined to be generous toward them, and they have consistently given me reasons why indulging in my pathology has been a waste of my time. They make great friends, they do. But only to people who are not the least bit "threatening" to them, like my Tita Dex persona. They will never truly see me as ...me. They will always see either ex-Calauan Mayor Sanchez or Tita Dex.

4. Television Christmas Specials

Most especially the noontime variety show Christmas specials. I don't doubt the intent of the people who watch them, and the intent of some of the people who make them. But I cannot deny the BS and mediocrity that oozes from each of every one of them.

5. Friends

A good number of them anyway. The best time to see them and catch up is waaaay after Christmas. If I were a responsible friend, I would have caught up with them now and again way before Christmas. Saved myself and them the anxiety of rushing to catch up just because everyone else is expected to. Mea culpa, people. And I am sorry.

6. Computers

I have a choice between prayer and non-Engrish related work. But since I plan to greet and engage the Savior in an argument on his traditional birthday, then computers are out. After I argue with God, I will wish him a happy birthday-- moot, considering that he is already happy in himself, if the pastors, priests and shamans are to be believed.

7. Rants and the things that vex me.

If only for one day, I'll endeavor to still the mind, to keep it from overanalyzing everything. To STFU. I realize that I'm an angry man, picking at the scabs of the same old issues. Obviously they're important to me. But at least, just for a day, I have to let them go.

------------------

Stuff I'll be doing

From one grumpy old man to a whole slew of grumpy old men: wine, sandwiches, and a show.

If there's time, reestablishing family ties with Fr. Varela and the rest of my long lost Andalusian-Asian kin. It would be so cool to proudly wear that family's colors. Yeah Dex, feed your delusions of knighthood, why don'tcha?

------------------

Stuff I really want

Aside from a laptop, a car and 42 million bucks?

There must be better ideas than going into torpor after meeting familial obligations on Christmas. But I stopped believing in Christmas reconciliations three years ago. One almost happened, but it soured in February so it doesn't count. Someone please prove me wrong here.

Please.

We finally had "The Talk"

2008-12-17T10:51:00.000+08:00

The preamble was respectably short, but I, well versed in the language of rejection knew where this spiel was leading up to. She sat me down and spoke matter of factly about why this just simply would not have worked. Even if we spaced her gifts over the course of the next two months. Let it last until valentine's my eyes pleaded. Her eyes didn't blink: she was being firm, but I could tell she wanted to be kind. But the word was final: there would be no Christmas bonus.

Status Updates

2008-12-10T00:44:00.000+08:00

Health

Still sick, but I've been constantly drinking water and chugging on vitamins. I try not to miss a meal. The good news is that I am slowly recovering. The bad news is that the lack of sleep I am forced to experience means that recovery will be slow.

I run/pedal two kilometers a day now, just to keep fit. I can't push myself to do the usual five because I'll need my energy to get well.

Work

Everybody keeps talking about the recession so much that I sometimes want to throttle the next guy who mentions the word. Answers are somewhat terse when we talk about the Christmas bonuses and sundry that we need so badly. What frightens me is that people around me are looking to me to break the ice, to wave my magic wand and somehow make it all better.

I'm flattered, but I can't even convince my ex to talk to me. It wouldn't hurt to broach the subject at least. I have no plans of being a damned union leader (damned being very operative here), but I can do that much.

...and I can decide, based on management's response, if it's still worth the trouble to stay.

Life Choices

My ex quit Engrish 11 in August of 08. I got this job, at IELTSherp, a nearby office, in part because I was hoping to see her again. With her gone, there's little to keep me here but the students and the pay. But each month I stay here takes away time I can spend on other things I'd rather be doing.

The people who drink with me know that I have a "grandkid" working my ex's old job who I don't see often. They know I have other friends there who I didn't get to see as often because all this ex business has basically turned my dealings with my former office into an awkward game of "spot the elephant in the room." Someone there who I'd like to consider a friend is the unfortunate object of my totally undeserved ire. I am constantly torn between saying hello and ripping him in half.

I'm sorry, dude, but I had to say it.

I have other friends in other venues who have been somewhat neglected (sins of omission) because of my preoccupation with filling the vacuum left in Tina's wake.

My parents are constantly puzzled by what I've been doing (nothing new there) but I'd appreciate it if they'd preoccupy themselves with something more constructive for once. Like focusing on their own lives.

I know, I know: they care. And if I were in their shoes I'd probably be nagging my kid too. But I'll wait my turn. There's got to be a better way to engage my kids besides.

So now I'm wondering if everything I did was worth all of this. Friends I don't see, long long hours, inadequate pay, continued parental doubt, being constrained to act on the 16th and 30th of every month, love of my life running away from me like I was frigging satan.

Social

The good news is that I have actually gone out on several dates already, and I had a wonderful time on my most recent outing with a colleague. I gave her a tour of my happy places-- Mongolian Grill and Subway-- on the same day. No, we're just friends and we're likely to stay that way. We're both too hung up-- Tina's words, not mine-- on our exes.

The important thing is that I had an opportunity to be chivalrous, to lavish attention on someone without being treated like a leper or drawing the wrong kind of attention. It means a lot to finally be seen for the good in me.

My friends from the 20th floor are moving to the tenth, it seems. I'm cautiously optimistic about this, because it means more shared elevator time. And maybe the rest of the staff at 'Epsis won't consider me an oddity anymore.

Because every time I share floor space with them someone invariably sings something from Arnel Pineda. And invariably they sing "I don't waaaaaaant to remee-mber/ the things we used to do/ all the things/ that remind me of youuu...." Sigh. The exigencies of the long-locked.

Don't worry, I'm used to it.

A Good Yarn

2008-11-17T08:27:00.000+08:00

I was supposed to make my way to Deovir along Recto, the default art store for geezer-artists like myself since the Marcos era. I'd buy what I needed, hop into a cab and rush to the Ortigas area. At about this time, I would be in tmy building, at the elevator, waiting to share a ride with my friend, Kai. I'd get off at the 12th floor and casually walk down two flights of stairs (praying I wouldn't get clumsy, fall and break something) to my office on the 10th.

But that isn't happening today.

Because watching William Shatner on Boston Legal is such a compelling thing. I'm a sucker for a good story, William Shatner and old movie footage near-seamlessly integrated into a show. Get yourselves a copy of the Season 3 episode Son of the Defender. You'll see what I mean.

I just wish coming to work a minute late didn't cost me a crapload of cash, though. But as I'm a teller of yarns, I'm always a sucker for a good one.

A Seven. Finally

2008-11-10T10:34:00.000+08:00

Melanie is a nurse who has had me as an Engrish teacha for a couple of months now. She broke the infamous IELTS glass ceiling recently and garnered for herself the magic score.

This pretty much makes

my waking with a stiff neck and aching shoulder;
my traveling in a semi-stupor today;
not seeing my friends from the 20th floor today

worth it.

Now if I can only stay coherent for the rest of the day, I should be fine.

Quo Vadis, Dex?

2008-11-02T07:36:00.000+08:00

Success

Finally finished that draft I’ve been slaving over on and off the last six or so months. I just hope I don’t wuss out and change it again before I finally have it sent.

Hermit

If you cannot invest in a spiritual refuge, invest in a physical one. Security and complacency will not necessarily follow, but at least you’ll have one contingency covered.

Zombie: Been There, Done That, Ate Brains

I'm way past that point when you wake up and realize that you've been one for the longest time. You realize that you've walked around with a gaping (figurative) chest cavity and infected everyone else with terminal ennui and existential angst.

The question now is what you do about it, when traditionally, there's no real cure for zombie-ism.

[Insert how much you miss your ex here. No, still no reconciliation in sight, there will never probably be one. One caveat though: it does get better, even if only in tiny little bits, over time.]

I Saw No Zombies

...but there's always next year. (I've always found them charming in a camp way, you see.) I did see my dead relatives (and those who survived them) when Mom decided to shanghai me on her road trip with Pop to Batangas. Saw granny on my mother's side on the trip back. I must have been on the road for a total of seven or eight hours.

I'll be making a few more road trips as Christmas approaches. Quo vadis, indeed, Dex? I don't know, I've only got the most vague plans. But that's what makes these lifelong road trips fun.

Thank you

2008-10-27T14:31:00.000+08:00

Even if what happened this morning was nothing more than a lying dream. Thank you.

The Gift of Tongues

2008-10-24T22:58:00.000+08:00

On days like this I wish I could drown myself in beer. It's another weekend and there is still far too much to do, three places too many in which to be. And like a dedicated soldier of the old Soviet Union, I'll throw myself at the tasks anyway.

I don't relish the idea of knocking back a few super drys with my old friends. Beer tends to loosen tongues. More often than not, loose tongues let slip sentiments buried in the name of keeping the peer group from splintering. Addled friends then use their unsheathed, sharpened tongues to skewer each other.

It would be great though, if those loose tongues would stay soft and just lightly touch. The arms would follow, then the torsos. The night would pass and all those buried sentiments would rise up safely, usefully, out of our souls and into the great hereafter... where all the hangups, the recriminations, the fouled expectations go after we've come to terms with them.

But we all know that's not gonna happen.

I waste my gift on people who don't appreciate it. I think that's my superpower-- the ability to find and pledge myself to lost causes with pretty words.

Anyway, tomorrow (meaning later today), I will use the old silver tongue again. To explain the intricacies of teaching TOEFL. To ultimately give another batch of dreaming Koreans another shot at a life unfettered by the limits of their native language.

It's the job, I know, and I'm not really complaining much. It's just that there are far better uses for my gift, far better places for my lips, my breath, my tongue to be, now that I've put another work week behind me.

I hhhhhhhaaate weekends.

Travel Light

2008-10-15T01:12:00.000+08:00

A man shouldn't have too many possessions. If he's going to be attached to his things--as men invariably are-- then they'd better be few. Enough, ideally, to fill a tote bag.

When I get back to Cainta I'm throwing out my old clothes-- I've actually begun that already, turning the old rags into, well, rags. But I'm a long way from finishing. I'm doing that with my Quezon City stuff too. When I'm done, everything I can conceivably wear--shoes, suits, ties, shirts, socks-- should fit in a container that I can carry and stuff in a bus at a moment's notice.

There is of course the problem of the rest of my stuff. I am a hopeless pack rat. Everything else I own will not fit in a gunny sack, will not be ...portable.

I'm not going anywhere, not yet anyway. I just want that option to be open to me quickly in case I have a need to exercise it. I honestly don't quite know why I'm obsessing about "traveling light"-- wait, I think I do: another irritatingly human urge.

It probably explains my attachment to the Hotel Sogo.

Part of me does not feel moored to anything, and considering that this condition is likely to persist, I'm subconsciously, metaphorically preparing for life on the road.

Well It's Finally Happened

2008-10-04T19:02:00.000+08:00

I remember telling my Nagusame this once: "When a man leaves, he creates a vacuum and something else almost always rushes in to fill it."

I've come to care about my colleagues at the workplace. Not that that was ever a bad thing. I only felt that it would be a betrayal of sorts to care for them this much so soon when I had other colleagues who I wanted to be there for. But circumstances have almost conspired to keep me away and all my attempts at reconnecting have been comparable to swimming in molasses against a powerful current. I miss them so.

But a man's place in any social group is defined exactly by how useful he can be.

Stray thoughts, but they walk with me every day.

October, November, December

2008-10-03T00:29:00.000+08:00

‘Ber Months

My sister celebrates her birthday today. My father will celebrate his about 10 days later. I know exactly what to get them.

Meanwhile, my former student Jenny is now in Japan, furthering her studies. Contact has been intermittent, but welcome. I’m grateful for Skype—Jen’s is a voice that is welcome as a desert oasis.

My friend Grace is back from her dalliances in Germany and Chile. Her arrival will no doubt be cause for another set of reunions among my friends. I’d love to see them again.

Comic con is coming, and with any luck, I’ll have something to peddle, finally.

The Clavier Music School will soon host its December recital. I’m looking forward to hearing what Minette’s students will be playing. The December recitals don’t have as much pomp as the summer recitals, but this one will be special.

Brr Months

It’s getting cold. I’ve always disliked the cold. Before 2005 it always brought back memories of waking up feeling debilitated and being unable to move. Because someone in his or her most considerate had turned on the electric fan and pointed it at my back. It also brought back good memories: my father would often sleep on his side to shield me from the cold when I was six or seven.

Post-2005, the memories pretty much got worse. December of ‘05: shivering in bed because everything in me missed my Nagusame. February of ’07: shivering at a gas station coffee table as I assembled a special box for a rose I was to give my Shrinemaiden on the following day: the 14^th. September through December of ’07: nights spent sleepless and shivering while my back burned, hating Christmas, shivering because I was envious of the happiness my friends were finding , constantly wondering just what the hell I did wrong, why nothing I did would ever be right in the eyes of the woman I loved and wanted to be with.

It’s getting cold again. People are walking the streets with an arm around another person’s waist. I’m sick of the sight. I’m not eager to have more of these memories.

I am sicker of having to repeat myself. Every year I harp on the same themes the way some women nag the universe in the mistaken notion that it will move for them. Only, in their case, it often isn't a mistaken notion. The universe does move for naggers of the female persuasion. I just wonder if my being male is what prevents the universe from moving in the direction I wish.

Still...

The brr months bring with them some opportunities for things like self-improvement, self-indulgence and some gratuitous charity-- which has the added blessing of going both ways: giver to receiver to giver. They are also the heralds of the new year, and all the potential it portends. Good stuff for Ewic, Minette, Dex B and Anne, and if I'm lucky, good stuff for Dex El and his complicated friends too.

Ticker

2008-09-30T06:58:00.000+08:00

Nothing wrong with my leg; just my heart, apparently.

Last night: unexpected bout with chest pain-- likely stress-related, psychosomatic but definitely debilitating. Not the first time this has happened. Considering that it happened to me again this morning, it won't be the last. I have a better idea of what my mom and my friend go through on a regular basis now.

I'm more angry than scared, though I know that isn't helping me either.

Open Line; Chuseok

2008-09-13T18:41:00.000+08:00

Father, today I had a new phone for all of thirty five minutes. In the space of two, it--and most everything significant it stood for-- was whisked away: another example, seemingly, of how circumstances dangle what you want in front of you and then snatch it away when you're at your weakest. I don't know what possible good can come of this. All I know is what everyone else will infer from the day's events.

Yes, their opinions count insofar as I care about them.

When I look back on what happened, the loss isn't what disappoints me. It is in part the way that loss sneaks up on you like a demon who kills a husband before he can lie with his wife.

Still the day wasn't a total loss. I am at east thankful for that much. I am hopeful that my assessment of humanity will be wrong. This is Chuseok after all-- Koreans take this time to reconnect with family, gaze at the moon and make a wish.

I won't mind losing the phone so much--there's still a chance that I can get it back; I won't even mind losing the sim. In the end, they're just money. I can earn that back and more in fifteen days. I miss my friend-- that loss I'll probably be upset about 'til the day I die.

If there is anything I wish for most fervently, it'll be a reconcilliation. It doesn't have to be tearful-- just permanent.

Father, you know what I mean. This is me praying. I would appreciate it very much if I weren't gypped. In any case, thank you for listening; thank you, most importantly, for what I still have.

tintin

2008-08-04T00:24:00.000+08:00

Dexter's thesis:

Without you there is no meaning, except that which I have to build for myself, one faulty messy crumbly stupid brick at a time.

But there's nothing new to say

2008-08-02T23:50:00.000+08:00

Another night where I get to exhibit my not-so-new superpower: the ability to stave off any real sleep when I need it most. Reasons have been recurring, rehashed to death. Anyone with a pair of good eyes and half a brain will pretty much know why.

Brain's on fire with ideas I'll be hard-pressed to implement, because I'm essentially living out of a suitcase. Still, one can try.

Like another friend, I am finding scant purpose in writing here. But I can't really stop. If I don't write, I'll pop a blood vessel. And then who will annoy the living snot out you with unwanted declarations of affection, tedious essays or useless poetry?

I kid.

I'm really trying to negate the notion that I don't finish what I start. And so here I am, trying to

write two stories
write a letter
fix a couple of videos and video concepts
edit yet another Korean-made essay
plan my day so i get the most stuff really done

It's a weekend. It's a Sunday. I really should be asleep in the normal hours.

Swallowed Up By the Office

2008-08-02T05:31:00.000+08:00

Got the chance to finally appreciate weekends.

When the high point of your month is spending a night in a clean room (where you don't have to deal with other people's needs), then actually going out with the work mates becomes something special.

I guess I have been really, finally swallowed up by my office.

No, there was no eye candy at the comedy bar-- unless you count the gay guy with the uncanny resemblance to someone I courted when I was working for a bank. But there was open mike videoke. And a Visayan girl with a powerful voice, named Rose.

Casper, the Friendly Host

I kid you not, that's his stage name. He was plump, flaming gay and a laugh a minute. His partner (who looked like my bank-ex) wasn't a regular performer there, but he was good too. They poked fun at the audience-- yes, my hair and my clothes too-- but they weren't so shy about poking fun at themselves while they were at it. They had a good time too, even in spite of (a few) moments when drunk male audience members singing and gyrating onstage got a bit grabby. (They were pretty much lost in the duo's illusion of womanity. I guess booze really does work a powerful glamor on those who partake of it.)

As we were the newbies at the comedy bar, they got us to tell them our names and what we do. And, yes, they got us to sing.

And this is what I came away with:

Teacha Angel and Teacha Andie are the office's fun-and-adventure front-liners. They're always the first to reach for the mike and sing the fun songs. [Gloria Gaynor. Avril Lavigne.] They make a good duo because they're a study in surface contrasts. Angel is dark and thin; Andie is a full-figured mestiza. But they're both crazy.

Teacha Dex is the prissy dandy sleeper. He'll be seated, arms resting on his cane, head nodding gravely and slowly to someone else's singing. He's got a stiff back and an attitude that says "Don't touch me; I am not fun." Then he'll drink a light beer. Then he'll sing some ode to an ex and, certes, people will have goosebumps. After that, he lets down his hair and has fun like other normal people.

Teacha Carol is the office innocent because she is the youngest among us, and she is carefully watched over by 'neesan Teacha April-Rolette. But she's got guile. She'll sing only when everyone's onstage dancing to an OPM disco song, and even then she'll be lip-synching.

Teacha April-Rolette is the den mom, so she gets away with sitting out the performances and recording us embarrassing ourselves with her phone-cam!

Salt in the Office Bathroom

2008-08-01T17:27:00.000+08:00

Two bottles of shampoo and three sachets of hair conditioner. And counting. Try as I might I still cannot wash you out of my hair.

2008-07-30T12:08:00.000+08:00

I've let so many things drop form my life because I got swallowed up by some preoccupation or other. That's bad. I feel like my whole life's pretty much been spent metaphorically picking up after myself.

Getting swallowed up in a project or cause may be a good or a bad thing. I could easily lose myself in a project. You'd never be able to speak to me properly for weeks. I've been lucky I haven't lost myself in Scientology or the Aum Shinri Kyo.

I'm Thooper, Thanks for Asth-king

2008-07-29T05:06:00.000+08:00

I don't really sleep. Not anymore.

I'm irrationally, albeit mildly, ticked off at Wentworth Miller.

I've a backlog of stories and stalled projects --Mammon 10, Happy Pasay Feet (working title) among others.

I've a small backlog of post-class work too.

I'm somewhat touchy and irritable because people think that just because I don't sleep I'm fair game for errands and work that shouldn't be assigned to me.

Still I'm not angry. I've been so busy that my standard witch's brew of emotions is being drained away as I workworkworkworkworkworkworkwork. No, it's not good. Just because it looks normal to everyone else doesn't mean it's good. But at least I'm lucid, and at least I'm functioning.

Hey, that's what it's all about, right?

I am Tony Snark... and a crapload of other people too

2008-07-10T21:38:00.000+08:00

I should stop editing, even if only for a week, as I note with growing horror that I am becoming terse and acerbic in my comments and annotations. Yes, some students do deserve the barbs. But most of them shouldn't have to be waterboarded by my inner English Gestapo.

My Inner Grammar Nazi's zeal, I've noticed, waxes proportionate to the levels of frustration felt by the rest of me-- the Knight, the Fool, the Scholar, the Toolbox Poet, the Mad Evolutionary Bio-Psycho-Sociologist, the jilted Thanatologist, the Guy in the Yellow Shirt-- all the varied facets of myself that other people have already seen.

Gentle Surprises

2008-07-08T08:41:00.000+08:00

At the end of the workday I'm often exhausted. You have a limited concept of hell until you have tried your earnest best to search for meaning in the quagmire of a beginning English student's essays. If you're anything like me or my lovely apo, you'll be wide awake and tying yourself in mental knots making sure your students can understand the nuances of the language long after you should have been asleep or tying up the loose ends of your personal life.

You reach a point where you're sick of having more classes, as each one can potentially turn into 30 minute therapy sessions with students who cannot help but bring their troubles with them to class. I was looking forward to the lull in my calendar of activities for each weekday.

Lo and behold, management slaps a new class on my schedule. What surprises is that I must really have been doing something right-- this student was formerly enrolled in our "coupon class" program, for students whose schedules are as frayed as Britney's domestic life. She normally bounces from one teacher to another in the course of her training until she finishes a month's worth of classes. That she decided--even if tentatively-- to stay with me on a fixed schedule is ...flattering.

I'm not looking forward to the inconvenience of hand-holding another novice as she makes the pilgrimage from Engrish to English. But she already speaks well; has the markings of a sharp mind. It would be a shame if a damned band score slaps her in the face with the word "inadequate."

To be told by your exes, your bosses, to be told by a stupid test that you're just not good enough-- It's happened to me a lot over the last three years and I am far more tired of that.

Let this never have to happen to the people who matter.

Updates

2008-07-07T23:39:00.000+08:00

Tell Us a Story

Those of us who still want to write about dismembered feet in Pasay City are still welcome to do so. Make note, this whole rigmarole is for fun-- a damned good way to prove to ourselves that were still human enough to tell stories. Though I might sweeten the deal by giving a prize beyond a promise to purchase your book and pimp it to anyone who'll listen.

My own story is still percolating in some stages so you don't have to worry about deadlines. But be assured it's being outlined and written. Looking forward to hearing about how your stories are coming along.

I am Engrish Teacha!

Writing classes are coming along nicely-- my student's improving. And that's always god news. My vet student had a great weekend, which boosted his capacity to make decent conversation. Would that the "great weekend" happen every day.

I'm still behind in my post class work. Fixing that now.

E.D. Phone Home

My job has swallowed me up. The logistics of being a damned good Engrish teacha, being a "good" kuya and ...son, as well as pushing my sisyphean boulder up the stupid hill are eating up my time. I haven't been to Cainta in a month. My "girlfriend" Maya and my PC Mylene have been needing my attention for some time now and I don't know when I can get to them.

I could drop the boulder. I'm often close to doing that these days. Just let it roll down the f_cken hill and let it flatten me one last time. I don't want to look at my desktop; I don't want to look at the pictures in my album and the ones in my phone. Every time I find myself patiently wrapping something in my trademark brown paper I ask myself "What's the point?"

But I can't quite bring myself to end this. I've lost too much; I don't sleep anymore; I hobble around like someone's grandpa when the doctors say that by all rights I should be high-kicking like a cheerleader on crack. I can't enjoy local music and I miss my friends, even the ones who think my other name is Joe Satan. And did I tell you I utterly hate weekends now?

At least I've been lucky I've gotten my older friends back.

Patient X

...is doing well. Thank God. If there was anything else I've helped do right, let her road be one that leads to Bethlehem, and not to Calvary. Anak ng patola naman, inako ko na 'yan. Pag 'yang therapy ni X, naudlot pa, ibig sabihin tama si Nora: wala na ngang himala. Mantsu-tsugi na ako ng taoh! Pramis.

Mwissing

Wis n'yo lang alam na nababading na ang lolo n'yo dahil nangungulila na me sa grand mudra ni Tish.

I'm reactivating Project Transcendence 2.0. I can't live like this. Got to set those contingency plans in motion. Tell you more about it soon.

Saturday

2008-07-06T13:59:00.000+08:00

On the drive home that Saturday, the cabbie said he thought we were a couple. Close, I responded, but no cigar. We could have been, considering our shared history and how closely related our fields of expertise were: I wasn't always a teacher for the English-impaired. There's a reason after all why I put journeyman on my career profiles-- it's the only respectable word substitute for freelancer, bum and dilletante.

But she had been very vocal about what kind of man would share her bed and her life and I didn't fit the bill. Even if the past year had finally done its magic and put the months of that aborted courtship in the proper perspective, nothing would change between us until that checklist of what she wanted in a man did. Or if I suddenly stopped being me.

Then again that little revelation would not have stopped him from giving me advice cloaked in the metaphor of a mango tree.

Strange, strange day.

In all the months that I languished, missing her, her words of scorn burned in my memory, what I wanted so badly was to just be able to share jokes and an occasional cab ride with her. To hold a door open for her. And yesterday, on our mutual quest for a box of pasalubong, I got my wish.

Coelho is right when he said the universe conspires to give you what you want. The catch is the universe seemingly has a problem with the concept of when. That was a wasted year that could have been spent sharing food and DVDs, comparing projects.

Still, beggars and burned romantics can't be choosers. And I am ...happy.

Divesting Myself of Gabby

2008-07-06T13:24:00.000+08:00

The problem with lazy weekend afternoons, when you are nursing what may be the ghost of a bum leg, is that the channel-changer on the teevee is almost always pointed at nothing good on the tube.

I'm as much concerned with the lives of Sharon Cuneta and Gabby Concepcion as anyone on these Islands. Gabby Concepcion especially, considering that his journey to a semblance of peace and a renewed career in the Philippines was marked by instances of very public and very sordid interpersonal screwups. In this, I feel a certain cringe-worthy kinship with the man.

But one gets sick of it, the constant peering into the minutiae of a celebrity's life. Especially when you're a man who wishes he could spend a Sunday like everyone else-- at a mall, watching a movie with someone he cares about.

Lucky for me, I have work left over from Friday. It's necessary drudgery that I'm eager to finish and loath to begin, but at least I get to divest myself of Gabby Concepcion and everyone else in local showbiz.

Infirm

2008-07-05T00:45:00.000+08:00

There is absolutely nothing wrong with my leg. Yet I still walk with a limp; I wince when extra pressure is placed on the bum leg. My cane is still a comforting tool that taptaptaps and raprapraps on the pavement underneath me. And idiot artist that I am, I'm actually seeing an aptness to the image of this erstwhile minor rock god hobbling to work.

The Mighty Thor, after all, was hiding in the body of one Donald Blake, lame physician.

At a moment's notice I could probably stand on my bum leg, collapse my cane, use it as a rather clumsy blunt weapon. In recent days, I've kind of been spoiling internally for a confrontation that would require me to do just that, to force my leg to do what it's supposed to. But I know better than to truly ask for it. I was already robbed at knife-point once.

I am missing something, something important. I have been for the longest time. That I am hobbling with a cane is just another manifestation of that loss. There are some disadvantages to feeling things in stereo.

The Giant Cockroach

2008-07-03T23:31:00.000+08:00

Every time he walks into that place it makes itself felt. It's there in the room and everyone strives mightily not to call everyone else's attention to the fact that it exists, even if it's there staring us all in the face, waving its antennae in quick arrhythmic circles, gesticulating with its spiny legs, moving its greasy mandibles up and down and inward toward the mouth.

Aww, look, it's even wearing a pink I (heart) Bora t-shirt. Now that's my kind of ungeheueren Ungeziefer!

It's all too easy to blame uh, Gregor, for carrying this monstrosity. After all, it's only there when he's there: two separate events happen immediately, one after the other, and automatically a correlation is assumed. Causation is established. And, ah, Gregor, gets a world of bad press.

What people forget is that it always takes two. That giant cockroach is reborn when two people stay in close proximity. That vermin, meine guten Freunde, has parents.

No, most of you don't get it and I don't expect you to. But the point has always been that the giant cockroach-- let's call him Aidan-- isn't. And you'd see that if you bothered to really look him in the face.

"Theya ees gord in dem dar heels"

2008-06-27T08:31:00.000+08:00

Education-- that long term investment into human potential-- is a big thing, if the number of names in the Nursing-, Computer- and English/Engrish (and otha Ranguage)- specialist schools and programs that have been showing up on the radar is anything to go by.

Even truants, and frauds like myself, can see it.

The question now becomes "Why aren't we getting rich off of it?"

It's keeping us fed, yes. But we need more than this...

Essay Question for my writing class

2008-06-23T16:53:00.000+08:00

We spend a lot of money preparing for tests like IELTS, TOEFL, TOEIC. Considering that each test seems to be difficult and considering that we spend a lot of money for studying English, should we continue our study of that language?

I don't want you to quit. I don't want you to waste your money either. Think about it and write your essay. Email it to me. We'll discuss this tomorrow.

I think I may need a haircut because I'm vulnerable to tushie-grabbing

2008-06-23T11:48:00.000+08:00

Before you ask, yes, I gave him a good front snap kick in his own ass. His reasons?

I looked like a hot chick from behind;
I apparently have great legs; and
I was wearing shorts that showcased that part of my... pulchritude... well.

I bullsh!t you not. That's what was said.

I'm thanking God that my grabby friend --who I will not name to protect his privacy and his ego-- was ...drunk. I remember that there were only two people previous who've done that to me and both were women, exes who are very welcome to try that with me again. That ass-grabber number three was a man and not an ex leave a slightly sour taste in the mouth.

Had we not been close friends, had I not known the effects of my own androgyny on service crew and men on trains, had I not known the drunken circumstances behind the deed, that kick would have been a solid heel landing on his knee coupled with a backhand to the mouth.

Still, no harm, no blood, no foul.

Hey, if I can make a friend happy by being grabbed, and make myself happy by kicking his bum, then great. But I'm inclined to let that happen only once. My next kick might not be a kind one.

Just another story to tell the grandkids when they ask me if I was a woman in my past life. More on similar topics later.

Getting Around...

2008-06-20T22:53:00.000+08:00

...is tough when you're carrying a lot of stuff and leaning on a cane. I've been using it on and off now, in part on account of what looks like a bad right leg. Of course I'm almost sure that if push ever came to shove I'd be able to stand on it enough for a two minute fight.

I think. Well, you could say I took this infirmity upon myself when I bought the cane. Some inner wisdom, some inner childlike desire perhaps?

I'm may have to get my leg looked at. I bought the cane on ToyCon Saturday, same day I got my new pair of glasses. Office colleagues are already calling me Lolo Dex. Lucky me.

Vedic Parable

There didn't use to be infirm people-- the halt, the blind, the deaf, the disfigured. But the gods decided to see how far they could push the envelope of human design. They fashioned people with polio; people with cataracts; people with short tongues; mismatched limbs.

Those selfsame gods would also (on a whim) descend to earth and clothe themselves in human guise complete with some form of infirmity. It was a role they loved playing; a mask they enjoyed wearing.

The gods still walk the earth clothed in familiar infirmity. They struggle (all in good fun) to look beneath the masks and recognize each other.

-------

Would that we both didn't have to struggle so hard...

Vacation

2008-06-17T02:55:00.000+08:00

"No pining for idealized women, no absurdist sisyphean striving against a God and Devil who love watching sitcoms starring you. No cosmic jokes or accidents involving Eros messing with your life and your friends, indirectly causing self-imposed exile and hours upon hours of crying prostrate on floors of holy places...."

Escape me there any day.

Math Metaphor

2008-06-13T14:16:00.000+08:00

Asymptotic

There is precious little in imagery that quite sums up the human condition than a point slaloming down a curve asymptotic to the zero line. No matter what value you plug into the stupid function, you always come up Okay, blank looks.

I'll save you the mental energy needed to make sense of the metaphor.

The distance between you and what you want keeps decreasing, but you never... quite.... get there. And I can't help but feel that in my universe, where the score is always for myself, all or nothing, asymptotic is not enough.

The pertinent question becomes how one deals with conceptually interesting exercises in sisyphean futility.

"Be the Bigger Person, Dex"

2008-06-12T00:50:00.000+08:00

I'm not sure if I can pull it off anymore.

I was at the chapel again, kneeling before the Host when it hit me like a punch in the face. The way things are going I'm going to be kneeling here, every goddamned night jumping through a novena writer's hoops for the next twenty years. Meanwhile the world would turn without me.

Through it all I'd have to smile and bear this crap like a good little boy. Watch the world dangle what I want in front of me and then take it away as soon as I reach for it. Then listen to it tell me over and over again in smug tones that (heeheehee) I'm not ready yet, or (hohoho) I don't have enough faith or that (guffaw guffaw) I must be deficient in some fundamental way because I'm not manifesting or channeling or visualizing or whatever recycled new age bullshit the pop psych gurus are spouting.

You can't ask me to "let it go, be the bigger person, because it won't matter in 20 years" after you've just robbed me, raped my wife and sold my children and beaten me to within an inch of my life while you were at it.

Okay, that's an extreme case, but it does illustrate my point. This is the kind of horse puckey that turns people into me.

Yes, the world is what you perceive it to be. Yes, you can only blame yourself for your woes. Yes you have to take responsibility for your life. That's all well, good and true ...to a point.

Sometimes taking responsibility for the course of your life means looking what vexes you--yes, something outside yourself-- in the face and telling it to get bent. To shout. To break things, until someone listens and does something. Anything.

My problem is I've forgotten how. I can no longer take risks. I can no longer shout for fear of upsetting everyone else's peace. The best I can do in times like this is to turn the anger inward and vainly try to keep myself from imploding.

I can only write.

toy-con, toy-con, TOY CON!

2008-06-11T17:33:00.000+08:00

Looking forward to Saturday. I tell you, immediately after our monthly meeting I am bolting to the Megatrade Hall. This is when I can let out my inner child. With any luck he will not be carrying his chainsaw and his hockey mask.

Yes young man, I promise to discreetly ogle the very pretty cosplayers and pay some polite attention to those who aren't. Yes young man I will not think of Tina... Yes young man, I am lying the way grownups do to shut you up. What? Look, at least I'm being honest with you now. Um, no, we're probably not going to buy that model kit you've been pestering me to get. Er, you don't want to know where that money went.

But there will be comics. I can promise you comics. And little friends to play with.

It's all good for Eigokyoushi Dex El

2008-06-11T05:57:00.000+08:00

The new teacher evaluations have come in and my students are "velly velly happy." I can only come to the conclusion that I'm doing something right. Now, if only the wrinkles in my personal life were as easy to deal with and write off.

Actually, being a teacher in any field isn't as easy as it looks. You need extraordinary levels of patience and often you have to take the work home with you. I dislike taking work home with me. I want to leave the work as far behind me as possible.

I'd like to think that beyond--

indulging in the puerile desire to prove that my computer-generated penis-car can move faster than someone else's computer-generated penis-car playing Need for Speed in Cainta;
proving that I can too have a team of battle-worthy Zoids who can kick major ass (also in Cainta);
being the Oscar the Underpaid Copywriting Blogging Paralegal Grouch (in Quezon City);
occasionally checking on my granddaughter, practicing psychiatry without a license with Patient X
and pining for Tina

--I have a life.
I do; I just don't know what to call it.

New Stuff in the Pipeline for Dex El

We're making new modules for off-line students here at IELTSHerp. It promises to make rearning Engrishee less painful. Work will begin for the new DVD for the latest Clavier recital. I am itching to get reacquainted with my old girlfriend Maya, as well as to resume my truncated education in ...Education. I just need to get my hands on six thousand more bucks worth of disposable income.

Now to find the time...

And I can't wait to get into another Starbucks. (Tell you about that later).

Raye's Song

2008-06-09T22:50:00.000+08:00

I'm doing a little housekeeping on my hard drive. I've accumulated years of junk and I've been feeling the need to purge. Besides, a new project's coming in so the computer will really need the space.

Then in between the music of Elton John and the Petshop Boys-- Raye's less-than-polished, hesitant recital piece, a rendition of Join the Club's Nobela. I drop what I'm doing and listen, replaying the song maybe three or four times. (A surprise, because I don't particularly like Join the Club.) I've been keeping the audio file in my player since '06. A keepsake of sorts from when I was first bitten by the Clavier bug.

I'm grinning like an idiot because I remember what she told me that afternoon at the recital. She told me she felt hesitant about showing up at 2574 (Clavier HQ) because among the older piano students, she's the one who doesn't get to really improve. I told her the notion was nonsense; she was always welcome. 2574 is not a halfway house for nothing.

She doesn't know it, and neither do the rest of the Clavier kids, but their piano pieces, as flawed as they were, were instrumental in keeping me sane. '06 was not a kind year to me
and the kids' broken piano playing was probably what kept me from leaping off the side of a damned building. Not to say that Hyperdex and Minette didn't do their part.

But it was always the kids: Kristian, Gelo, Jerik, Karlo and Keisha. Denise, Maan, Joy and Raye and my quasi-son Josh.

The secret that the students do not know: the teaching and production staff need you as much as you need us. When we see you guys grow in skill, when we see you reaching past your social, academic, athletic or musical limits, we feel proud, blessed. We feel that we've done something good.

Raye says she doesn't improve and maybe she's right. But she's already kept me from popping a cyanide pill. And any music that does that, no matter how broken or hesitant or lame, is good music in my book.

Sunday Reflections on a Monday (Part 1, maybe)

2008-06-08T21:53:00.000+08:00

The Fate of Snowy; the Mark of Cain

Considering just how I was received last week, I'm tempted to think of Snowy as, well, dead. I know, I'm shocked and I'm shaking my head over a stuffed toy. I normally think that gifts, once given, are generally no longer the giver's concern. But it does tell: the way gifts are treated are sometimes an indication of just what the giver means to the recipient.

I'm drawing sick parallels (I'm very good at that) between sacrificing an innocent to appease an angry or indifferent deity and what I did in the last two weeks of May. If Snowy is dead or has been given away what do I do?

Should I do a Cain and metaphorically murder another innocent? I've a brother in the office where God works and I don't want to kill him just because She accepts his little sacrifices. I do not want to be a Lurker, waiting in the shadows; from Her silence I can only conclude that God still sees me this way.

Windows name names

It's a line from a Neruda love poem: I like it and it's apt for today's little entry. There was a time when I alluded to events and people out of some respect for things like privacy. Putting something in writing for everyone to look at is making a very public statement: people's reputations could be negatively affected if I wrote about them in a fit of pique.

After years of writing around a problem or person, after going through a crapload of contortions and inventing code words for all the people who significantly appear in the story of my life, I am two things. Tired and dissatisfied.

I cannot write around a person for fear of possible legal wrinkles forever. One cannot write something and not intend to have it read by an audience in any way. My writing already feels cumbersome at times, and the extra restrictions I place on myself when I write make my writing unintelligible to the audience I want to keep.

Windows name names the way I do these days. 'Cause I'm just too tired to write around people, that is, to not point directly to the people who vex, the people who give joy, the people who matter. I am still dedicated, in my way, to doing this with grace.

The people who vex vex only at the time of writing. The people who give joy , the people who matter, are assumed to do these things forever.

It's biased, but I think everyone will find it agreeable.

Weekends

I used to hate Mondays so badly that I would try to set it up so I wouldn't have to work on them. The rationale was that you spent Saturday recovering from Friday (or you wound up spending Saturday at work) and you spent Sunday on the obligatory --and often dreaded-- chat or outing with the family. By the time Monday came rolling in you still weren't up to working.

These days I am uncomfortable with Fridays; Saturdays and Sundays have been unfairly maligned too. If they didn't take so much out of the soul-- teaching and prepping for your students' needs-- I'd probably be working at the office on weekends, even on Sundays.

I don't want to have to leave the office at the end of my shift and walk that short stretch of road to the bus stop alone. I'm being woman-y, being sparse with context, expecting you all to read my mind and my raised eyebrow (got that from my granddaughter), and I'm sorry about that. But there are nights--too often-- after work when I feel terribly alone.

Clavieritis Summer 2008

2008-06-08T15:35:00.000+08:00

Yesterday's recital (The Clavier Music School holds one twice a year) was, as all recitals are, a happy success. Yes, there were snafus-- I didn't like it when our nervous and eager first recitalist started playing before the announcement to turn off mobile phones and pagers was finished. We didn't have a five-minute intermission because most everyone was late.

But who am I to argue against the smile everyone was wearing after the recital was over? One cannot abandon duty, and when duty involves these kids--well, some of them ain't gonna be kids for much longer-- who am I to be disappointed?

In my lifetime I can only count maybe six things I've done right. Done right in the sense that good came out of doing them, and that the good persisted long after the deed was done. My involvement with Clavier is definitely on that list. Clavier teaches piano, we make it look good with slick recitals and other add-ons, and the kids and their parents take away from the Clavier experience something good, something memorable.

No matter what some people may feel about me, they're wrong: I'm not a monster who should be shunned.

And it was good to feel reminded of that when I ran into Raye, Jean, Joy, Maan and Tish (not my granddaughter, another post-Clavier student, one of the best: she pulled off Flight of the Bumblebee and that's saying a lot).

And the post-recital ribbing and the tequila (thanks, Eric, Minette) helped too. I don't smile in my photos because I look stupid in them most of the time. But I think I can forgive myself for the smiles in the few good photos people took for this latest Clavier event.

The joke for the day was that I was surrounded by women I cared for and I wasn't in any kind of pain.

14

2008-06-06T12:34:00.000+08:00

It was easy when I was in high school-- throw everything out the window for the sake of repairing the broken interpersonal stuff between you and the people you care for. You had cliches like "hormonal imbalance" and "folly of youth" and "growing pains" on which to lay blame. You were young, and therefore still resilient. If life and your own bonehead decisions threw you a curve ball you could reasonably bounce back and people would still be lenient with you.

It's not so easy today. There are no more cliches. The stakes are higher. And you cannot abandon duty.

Tomorrow I'll be tending to the needs of the Clavier kids, who have not seen their Kuya Dex since he implemented his mad scheme to return to work teaching Koreans English, so that he could earn again, and maybe bring back a semblance of balance into his life. The balance and self assuredness he lost when he lost his ex.

14
I love Tina. Everyone looking in my general direction will see it. She sees it too, but she no doubt has pat answers to that. Amazingly those answers parallel those served up by my other exes. They question the authenticity of my feelings, the purity of my intentions, the worth of my affection and ultimately pass judgment on my character and my intrinsic worth.

I'm crazy. I'm delusional. I'm evil. What I'm experiencing is a male fever dream, not the real, valid commitment that comes with cliches like "mature, authentic love." I'm "too weak" for them.

I hear variations of them so many times, there are days I believe them. I question myself (no surprise there, I always question myself) yet again.

But really, reduce everything they say to their core statement and what's left is that I'm inconvenient.

I'm not important enough to plan anything with, for or around... except when the plan calls for a rapid evacuation from wherever I am.

I've questioned myself long enough to find out that regardless of what my exes may have said, thought or felt in the throes of their fear, their anger, their temporary irrationality, I am important.

And it saddens me that somewhere between, what mistakes I committed and what blunders they made, amidst the babel of voices from our greek choruses of well-meaning friends, who I am has been lost from view. And more than this, that which is most significant has been lost from sight.

I never lost sight of it: all my exes were important enough, beautiful enough, intelligent and creative enough, wise enough--worthy--of the affection I had to give them. Worthy of my gift of self, broken toy that it is.

If you've ever wondered why I find it so hard to let any of them go it is because of that singular fact.

I love Tina. Among them all it is her laughter and the hours of talk, bus rides, her kisses that I miss the most. And if I write shamelessly about her now or in my Mammon stories it is because I miss her terribly and I can only uselessly write and write and write until Godot comes to bring her back.

Tina, I don't want anyone else. And if I can't even see your face then I'm screwed. I really will have nothing left to live for but myself ...and Mammon.

Again, Hotels

2008-06-06T09:43:00.000+08:00

abandon all propriety, all ye who sleep here

I am probably the only man I know who goes to these places without someone on his arm. (Don't worry I don't do this often).

Still, it could be worse: I could be going to these places arm in arm with a big burly bald man with more than a passing resemblance to Wentworth Miller. The staff at the SOGO would start to wonder which of us was supposed to be the, er, woman.

Now that would be a real tragedy.

What drove me to this place the other night were the twin exigencies of being

spurned yet again (don't worry, she never stops by this space); and
the need to be close enough to the malls when I woke up, so that I could get something done before I had to run to work.

temples of commerce

The majority of my daytime-nighttime activity revolves around these temples of commerce (Worship of Mammon, indeed). I'm cutting through a mall, running like the Flash, on the way to work, or walking around one on the way home from work, or wishing I'd stay awake after my work hours long enough to go to one and buy the things I need or maybe catch a movie alone.

I've been unable to really see and enjoy movies in general since Ratatouille (no, I didn't see that one either; I was supposed to, though, with my then-girlfriend) and Ataul for Rent and Iron Man. There's a whole slew of movies out that I won't be seeing for the same reason I didn't get to see Ratatouille and why I occasionally sleep alone in motels.

And it's not about watching Letterman in between surfing the Asian and European adult channels.

the wood of suicides

The staff at the two drive-in motels I visited prior to the SOGO didn't want to let me in unless I was with someone. "Well, tough." I'd wanted to say. "I wouldn't be here if I was with someone in the first place, moron. We'd be talking on a bench somewhere overlooking parked cars and trees."

I miss those trees.

But I kept my mouth shut and just directed the cab driver to take me somewhere else.

The staffs of the two motels were likely afraid that I was going to pay for space in which to die.

...

2008-06-03T22:16:00.000+08:00

I realize that the time will come when I will grow incredibly weary of this interminable hoping. I have been trying with the requisite gentility to stave this off. But the heart cannot feed on itself forever, even now when it cannot find the strength to face up to one more act of dismissal.

I have only to breathe and I know where she is. I will feel a tug, and sure enough she'll be where I am. But it is seemingly never enough, when all one seemingly elicits is fear. I can't bridge those final few meters that keep me from her doorstep, from that space I used to occupy in the hollow of her arms.

I cannot proceed, I don't know how to, not without a sign. And one day soon I'll do it anyway because I cannot keep this vigil. Not like this.

And then I'll fall and break and burn the way I always have, the way I always will.

And then I won't stop myself, I'll damn all of you. Because when you look at me you see only a cage.

Remembering

2008-06-03T06:45:00.000+08:00

I've forgotten how much I love pop-jazz. And Cake. And Everything But the Girl.

I've forgotten that I have clothes that aren't ratty, black or handed up from my younger siblings.

I love the scent of brand spanking new electronics, new clothes, new art supplies: I especially love the earthy sweet smell of linseed oil. I love the feel of paint, especially when they build up, like plaque, on your work clothes, and under your nails.

I love churches and their history. The way your footfalls echo in their wide halls; the candles; the smells of wax and ardent prayer. The wood-varnish smells of absolution.

I love the sight of the sky-- I hardly look at it these days. I love the feel of grass underneath my feet. I love rainy days: I've forgotten how much I love getting rained on in a new place.

I love strawberries: the sight of them, the idea of them, the taste of them. I love strawberry ice cream.

I love humanity-- stupid, corrupt, mistrustful, greedy, vexing, disappointing humanity. And the women too--in spite of their judgments, their presumptions, their power.

I love the smell of books.

And though the heart yearns for the familiar smells of her perfume and her shampoo, the sound of her laughter, these other things rush to fill this void. And for today they're enough.

My heart swells with something it hasn't truly felt in months-- a sublime gratitude for little graces.

Sleep as an Alien Concept

2008-05-31T22:34:00.000+08:00

It's not so alien, really. I do sleep.

I just don't share the usual hours. And I don't spend as much time asleep as I need. A lot of my downtime is spent thinking and writing when other productive activities would have served me better.

Stupid Questions

2008-05-29T09:34:00.000+08:00

I honestly thought this would never happen again considering the grief we've put each other through at one time or another over the last few years.

Context: a common friend died ten years ago on 26 May. The foggy pink lenses of nostalgia may have colored my assessment of him, but I'll go ahead and say he was the best of us. 25 May 2008 had me sharing a ride with two people who swore on separate occasions that they would never speak to me again.

Yet here we were on the occasion of a friend's tenth death anniversary, speaking.

I am humbled and thankful by the grace that brought us back together even as I am mightily pissed off that it had to take two deaths for this to come to pass. Rey's, ten years ago (the excuse that brought us all to the same place), and mine (a symbolic death), last year.

No one really wants to sacrifice friends on the altars of their own fear or their own self-righteousness. No one truly wants to be the lamb, or goat-- the sin eater who has to die (exile himself). But it happens. It happens all the time.

I'm just one of the losers who perpetually seeks to understand, and perhaps one day, coopt and subvert the dynamics of this. Someone who bothers to talk about it outside the permitted occasions (beer with friends, funerals and bedside death watches) and put the findings on paper. Because seriously, it doesn't have to happen.

[Digression: I should have studied to be a thanatologist.]

From where I sit and type, all of this pain was needless. None of us had to go through our separate calvaries, swearing that our paths would never again cross, just to find each other after a year or two.

No need for the self-righteous posturing. No need to make public declarations that the other person is dirt when you know he isn't. No need for the greek choruses repeating and reinforcing your own bullshit. No need to form your defensive barriers against friendships that need to be repaired. No need to take those courses of action to their logical conclusion-- another useless goodbye and good riddance.

People who love should not be made to eat of this pile of hot steaming horse puckey.

Look, guys, I know I should be happy, and I am.

But this theme is simply too important to me. Without the meaning I seek I simply can't let this go.

It's that X-Men metaphor again

2008-05-27T03:53:00.000+08:00

The ride with happy Ron and Mylene had this question popping out of Happy Ron's mouth-- Dex, do you hate yourself? And the only truthful answer I could come up with at the time was "Yes." When who you are is not what the world wants and you want so much to fit in, how can you not hate yourself?

Tatagalugin ko na ha?

'Pag nagmahal ka, nakakatakot ka. 'Pag nagiisip ka, nakakatakot ka. 'Pag nagsulat ka, ang nagbabasa ng sinulat mo ay--

natatakot sa 'yo
natatakot para sa 'yo
panandaliang nasisiraan ng bait

Ang skillset mo, hindi ginagalang. Sarili mong kasama sa industriya walang bilib sa 'yo.

Pero magaling ka daw. Mabait ka daw. Hindi lang ikaw 'yung kailangan nila.

I can't change who I am and damning the rest of the world because it doesn't like or understand me isn't the solution I need. Though it's tempting, sometimes.

Which brings me to my point: at the time, in the Ron-mobile, with Happy Ron and Mylene, I'd truthfully said the answer was "yes." Having had the time to think on this now, I realize that the true answer is "No."

I don't truly hate myself. I know enough about myself to know my worth, my place, in spite of the niche my friends want me to occupy (which is some place that won't inconvenience them). On my good days I don't hate myself. I'm just more disappointed in most everyone else.

I got my friend back

2008-05-26T12:23:00.000+08:00

And I'm thankful to God and Rey for it. I'm not likely to be sharing a beer with her alone yet, but this is a start. There were unwelcome words between us: mostly hers. There are still some choice things to tell her, but it's enough for now to have this.

I do give a damn about her even now.

But my heart's firmly where it is: beating--perhaps uselessly-- in Tina's denim jacket.

Requiem for Rey Reyes

2008-05-24T19:38:00.000+08:00

Attending a mass to celebrate the death of a friend ten years ago.

It'll be a cleansing experience. Another venue in which I can let go of more baggage. I've carried the "Kick Me, I was a Monster to My Ex" placard long enough, and God knows it's been a millstone 'round my neck.

I don't know what kind of miracle is supposed to happen, but I'm expecting one. Rey was a good friend to me. He was actually successful straddling the line between coolness and geekdom. He introduced us to the Sandman, the rest of the DC Comics Vertigo line, and Mobile Suit Gundam long before they became popular on the Islands. When he died he brought a bunch of us closer together.

Not holding my breath but I'm hoping for something similar this year.

I'll have to warn everyone, by the by, that my next few posts will be Dexterian in their emo content. I've a lot to say and precious little in the way of methods to say them in.

Yes, Mom, I'm really gay...

2008-05-22T14:32:00.000+08:00

...and I'm living in sin with my married best friend. Oh yeah, I'm also his sister's boy toy. And while we're at it, I am also secretly snogging her yummy boyfriend. Yes, I engage in all sorts of sexual impropriety with all sorts of unsavory people every time I go out of town. I've got a long list of one night stands in my black book, which for some reason you haven't yet found despite your amazing ability to read off my blogs and my cel phone. I'm a closet satanist too. I stopped praying to Jesus a long time ago. That's why I've been out at all hours of the night. Why I don't sleep. Why I keep writing weird sh!t.

Smell the sarcasm?

I was really hoping that this was already behind me. In high school it was "Come out of the closet Dex so we can talk/beat the manhood back into you." In college it was "Stop doing your drugs Dex I know you're on something that's why you think weird."

Sigh. Makes me wish I did half of what they think I've done just so there'd be some justification for all the grief they're laying on me.

Another day in the interesting life of Ed Kafka. The Delicate Matter of the Truth About Dex: his life is as good as crazy fiction, and he just wants to be with his ex.

Celebrating Patient X

2008-05-20T13:01:00.000+08:00

If you're seeing a shrink, chances are he's nuts. If you are seeing a shrink who is practcing psychiatry without a license (i.e. a friend) expect him to be nuts too.

Still, we work with the tools we have, no matter how poor. We can only pray for better ones we don't have to pay for.

So today I celebrate my friend and co-patient Patient X. Congratulations for staying on the wagon!

Help.Me.I'm.Manic

2008-05-20T01:07:00.000+08:00

Sh!tsh!tsh!t Stupid full moon.

It's five in the bloody morning and I'm awake and feverish and my brain simply will not stop receiving messages from the Muse.

I just singlehandedly finished a slew of designs for some stickers commissioned by my sister. I flirted and networked with the crew at the bleeding McDonald's while I was at it. when I come back at the end of the week my office will have possible new recruits. My studio will likely have new clients.

Holycrap I just spent the goddamned night at McDonald's Philcoa because I don't want to work at home.

I just sang along to the whole Toto album, the assorted Jazz and soft rock stuff they were playing to keep myself awake and god knows the whole fast food joint was listening to the odd long haired guy who must have been high on something at least he had a decent voice and at least he looked like a forlorn rockstar god knows he swayed like Jack Sparrow.

stupid stupid full moon

stupid stupid missing my ex and my friends from the old goddamned workplace especiallyonfreakingfridasyswhenthey're out somewhere and I'm walkingwalking walkingwalkin g San Miguel avenue in the goddamned dead of the night alone

If I stop and I go home now I lose momentum and I'll never get this back goddamnit...

doing the draft of Mammon 7 then skipping to calling card designs and my curriculum for my police photography workshop tomorrow

sh!tsh!tsh!t

revising my idiot love letters writing this multiply entry while chatting with a freind and talking about her love life and working on my student's new curriculum at this virus-ridden i-net cafe that doesn't serve coffee...

god this is worse than meth and I've never even tried it

stupid amorous full moon

Almost don't care if my ex spots me in her damned bailiwick god knows I got better things to do than stalk her regardless of what her friends and roommates think been spending thelast three weeks avoiding her and everyone associated with her so she doesn't freak out at the goddamned sight of me brithday excepted of course and even then I left strict instructions to her officemates to not mention my idiot name regarding the birthday card.

I'm high on coffee and her memory. light headed. lungs feeling like they've got hot knives dipped in acid and anaesthesia piercing them. hard to breathe

the girls at the counter were cute. really

I'm goddamned dangerous on a full moon

godpleasedon'tletmecrashcsrashcrashcrash godthere'sa sun up

okay i've put all the ideas in my head on this page one way or another gotta sign out go home rest

surprised i'm still lucid but this is manageable now, enougfh for me to poke fun at myself by posting these stupid pictures and finally revealing to my friends just who that Kafkaed dude is.

almost glad i didn't have a paint brush.

would painted mcdonald's pink

first yaaaaaaaaaaawn. need to get outta here now...

Yesterday I...

2008-05-18T04:03:00.000+08:00

...found out my colleagues are generally good people, if possessed of the Filipino, nay, Asian caution when taking a stand. I've found out that I can more or less trust my bosses.
...found out I was right about the interconnectedness of everything. The bosses of my company and the bosses of my grandkid's company have met, pledged cooperation.
...my bosses just found out just what kind of knife my old workplace handed them when it would not take me back. They know enough to wield me wisely, I hope.
the jury's still out on yesterday's item 4.
...found out I could still swim
...found out I have a real reason to be working were I am. I'm just looking for a better one.

Today is...

2008-05-17T03:37:00.000+08:00

...when I find out what kind of stuff my colleagues are made of.
...when I find out if my hunches about where we're all going (in the broad philosophical and physical location senses) are true.
...when I find out what kind of stuff I'm made of.
...when I find out just what kind of person I've pledged myself to.
...when I find out if I can still swim
...when I find out if I still have a real reason to be working were I am.

Eline won!

2008-05-16T22:04:00.000+08:00

Her story, Doll Eyes, was an entry for the 2008 Romeo Forbes Children's Storywriting Competition.

Let's grab a quote from these guys:

"We ended up with a very strong set of entries in the final round, but in the end the judges (singer/actress Lea Salonga, Tin-Aw Art Gallery owner Dawn Atienza, and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Head of the Graduate Studies Office of UP's College of Arts and Letters Wendell Capili) were unanimous.

"Congratulations to Ms. Eline Santos and to all the other finalists!"

Read the story, check out the other entries.

Chronology

2008-05-16T00:38:00.000+08:00

I remember walking into a holy place carrying my usual burdens-- among them the rent in the core of me that is at once the source of my writing and the filter through which I see the world.

I remember the many times I played in this scene: once in 1989, many more times in 1990. A few times in 1991 and 1992. I seriously thought that I would stop-- and I did, for four years. I would sporadically return when problems with the wife would threaten to overwhelm me, or when I would wake up to find that I had been overtaken by my own stupidity.

When the wife walked away in '05 the Almighty had been generous enough to let this happen when I was trying to run--and later try to save-- a company. It kept me busy. Kept me focused on something other than myself. I thought I'd found some respite after I returned from my first and only trip to Japan. I would still visit those same holy places with the usual vain hope. By the time I returned from my first and only conscious trip to Cebu, I was back in those places, seasoning my jasmine petal offerings with bile and snivel.

Flash forward to '07 and I'm in Baclaran: the same baggage wearing a different face. Like the people I studied in my anthorpology and sociology classes, I too, knocked on the plexiglass case. I, too, appealed to the Nazarene and dared to hope that my pig would fly.

I was back in those holy places throughout September, October, November, December of that year. I wept without shame until one day the glands simply quit.

In the time I spent walking from shop to shrine, I had retooled and rewritten the Novena of Confidence to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. I simplified it, struck out the statements that insulted the intelligence of the reader (the ones that said "This Novena has never been known to fail") and replaced the requirements (make 81 copies and leave 9 at the shrine for each day you pray this novena) with something less ritualistic, less taxing and more reasonable for someone who wanted to level with God, and who expected God to level with him.

It worked, amazingly. I got my friend back sometime late December or early January. And for a short while I was as close to happy as when--

I realized I could truly care about another person regardless of what she was or what she did;
I realized that I truly loved and needed my friend in spite of myself;
I won first prize in that Talecraft competition in November

These days I don't go to those holy places as frequently as I did last year. This is partly out of disappointment. And partly out of an acceptance that I don't need to be there all the time, that He can hear me well enough regardless of where I am. I still feel the tug, though. The need to go there when the sunlight is slightly off in the mornings; when you feel a change you don't like or can't understand--manifested in the weird weather, or in how your body parts give out when they're not supposed to-- is happening even as you're helpless to do something about it.

When I finally went to the confessional I was able to resolve a few outstanding issues I had with my Maker. I somehow know that this latest snag is being handled by a higher power that means all of us well. I'm only asking that this time, once and for all, I be told that I can reasonably expect to end this labor when I push this rock up that hill once again.

Happy birthday, Tin.

Fringe Lifer’s Report

2008-05-13T10:29:00.000+08:00

In the eight or so months since August of '07 I've written a sh!tload of stuff. The items below were supposed to come out tail end of last year. REPEAT: TAIL END OF LAST YEAR. I'm putting up a watered down version of this entry today.

--------------------------------

Lord, let me not begin my days with “If she is lost to me—“
My nights end that way, and I already spend my days with two dead men
Who whisper...

"All that goes around…"

I don’t really need the space I’m using if I can’t overtly work there. I lost signage, was harassed. I also feel that my control over the space has been compromised. Someone had to do something despicable, and I’ve had to eat crow about my situation every time that someone crows about the business. I do not like it and I do not like being nagged.

Granted, all of this grief was a product of my decision, which was sound— at least I felt that way at the time. I could have made a bundle if I didn’t channel more funds back into the business (But not to do that was idiocy).

Of course, I am bolstering my position with arguments that are founded on mostly BS. (I’ve learned to recognize it over the years. I’m mildly surprised to see it in myself). Fact is I can still work in that area; it’ll just be more difficult, slightly more inconvenient. And yes, I’ll still have to deal with the presence of pushy, if well-meaning, people.

(Rueful admission: Mom was right. Signage in an area like that is important. It can do more work than marketing with flyers will; cause less grief for me. Okay digression ends).

The issue I face becomes— Slow income due to hobbled marketing plus increased effort to offset this vs. Really slow income based on word of mouth plus increased effort to offset that vs. Income Uncertainty Elsewhere.

I am therefore copping out. And now I have to decide where and with whom I will throw my lot.

How About the Culture Club?

It’s still gossamer. Assuming they let me back in, I am not going to grasp that slender thread until I know there’s a chance of it even partially supporting my undead weight.

I left for reasons that likely still exist, as lost as they are to five years of limbo. The word is still Let’s Wait & See. (Meaning I can’t depend on this any time soon)

Eleptember Seleven?

When last I checked I still had co-workers and students who missed me. Though it’s very likely that they’ve outgrown me.

I have two main concerns.

One—

I will be asked to take one for the team again. Many ones for the team, And I’ll do it with a smile on my face and a song in my heart—which means, gentle readers, that I will be doing these things with little or no complaint, even if the voice begins to crack or the eyes begin to water and go cross-eyed. What made it easy the last time I worked there are my natural desire to help, as well as the subject of...

Concern Item Two—

Corollarily, the most important reason for coming back— well, she doesn’t want to share the same space with me much less breathe the same air. I did half the taking for the team because it made her work easier, because it made her happy.

Assuming they let me back in on the wings of my old performance record, my students' loyalty and my aggregate friendships… do I really want to go back when it seems as if nothing I do except perhaps for a sudden and untimely demise will make her happy?

"If You Build It They Will Come?"

I left a job, and inevitably--because I can point to this event as the beginning of the end for us-- a girlfriend, on the strength of the faith a friend had in me. His dream seemed like a good dream to work with, something that promised a modest profit...

Mindanao, East Timor, Hell Bee?

I could of course set up shop somewhere else. It sounds ridiculous: I am running away from a challenge into a bigger challenge. Whatever happened to the Marcosian dictum of picking the fights you can win?

We should have more transport strikes

2008-05-12T11:49:00.000+08:00

...if only because travel along Quezon Avenue, even for commuters like myself, was fast and relatively stress-free.

More I Statements

2008-05-11T21:03:00.000+08:00

I really need flash functionality. Screw that, I really need web space and more than my current working knowledge of flash, java and html. There's so much I want to do, and so little time to even begin.

I need my friends; I miss them so much. But to paraphrase a fat money god: "That's not forthcoming, M'boy. Everyone hates a beggar."

I need to find a way-- barring the use of a choker, stiletto heels, push-up bras and a low cut black dress-- to get those stiff British Council people to give my student AJ that elusive 7.0 IELTS test score. AJ has been consistently receiving a 6.5. The dress and the generous show of cleavage won't work because AJ is a man.

The "Quickening"

2008-05-09T12:04:00.000+08:00

Run Lola, Run

Jessica Zafra didn't like this movie. Lola (Franka Potente) predictably does a lot of running here. She has to run to save her life, to meet her boyfriend Manni's deadlines when the whole world is seemingly stacked against her. I liked it when I watched it on cable but I totally hated the local live version.

In the local adaptation, Lola feels compelled to run seemingly to save her psyche from the man who wrecked it. It's an intricate choreographed ballet where she hides behind her friends, changes bus routes and pounds the pavement. The result is always a stalemate between Lola and Manni: she flees to the safety of her apartment and a contrite Manni lamely wishes her good night at the gate. He does not tell her he loves her because it is the last thing she wants to hear.

Run Lolo Run

I've noticed that my own endurance has increased of late. I can run faster and farther than I used to, even when I was in martial arts training. Granted that my training did not involve running faster, but I did build some endurance, flexibility and muscle mass back then. I've ruined several pairs of shoes running to work the way I have, from the MRT station at Shaw Boulevard, up eleven flights of stairs everyday.

I've had to run for reasons less urgent than Lola's. I simply don't want to be late. And running up the stairwell is a good way for me to build wind.

I'm not training to run people down with a spear in a fit of blind frustration. But it's good to know I can conceivably better chase if I truly wanted to.

The Importance of Being Earnest...and Ready

2008-05-08T14:22:00.000+08:00

Her Other Name is Earnest

I was at my friend Carlo's place when they showed her in. She was a coy one, fresh out of community college and a bus from Albay. She was carrying several months of assembly line work in factories under her belt. She wanted to earn more and I was already uncaring of the reason: I'd heard variations of this story so many times I could rattle it off myself in my sleep. The gist of it was that Frances (not her real name) wanted to gain entry into a call center. Any call center.

I was somewhat a call center vet, and Carlo was once a team leader-- couldn't we help?

Yes we could, and yes we did. I'm biased towards women, and I just happen to have a pathological need to be a good samaritan.

Her Other Name isn't Ready

We looked at her sparse resume, concurred that the best way to make it better was to push her education and her willingness and ability to learn on the job. When we finished with it, that pristine single page was full of marker tracks. Put this section up here. Omit this. No need to give them your eye color and the color of your hair.

And then I had to interview her in English, backtrack, and give the same interview in Filipino.

...No, she wasn't ready.

I wound up giving her tips about putting up a brave front, putting her best foot forward and rolling with the crazy questions.

It made me think about my students: university graduates who couldn't get what they needed because of a damned language requirement. I thought of myself, too, and the people I share this work with. Long hours, crazy scheds, neural system meltdowns. Hearts too: broken, bleeding, listing-- lost and chasing pavement in the seemingly eternal night. (okay, cheesy, but it happens).

There must be something more that can be done to improve our collective lot.

And this is how I know there is a God

2008-05-07T13:05:00.000+08:00

...and that he has a sense of humor.

I put this thought experiment to a friend:

I'm going to lop off your arms and legs. I'll stick hot pokers in both your eyes. I'll soak you in napalm and then I'll set you on fire. I'll bribe some neurosurgeon fiddle with your brain so that you cannot turn off your pain receptors and neither can you take refuge in blacking out.

Now, tell me honestly if you can still claim that the happiness in your life depends solely on how sunny you choose it to be.

Then my mom sends me this video: http://www.wretch.cc/video/ritahsia&func=single&vid=2282608&o=time_d&p

And I am laughing and shaking my head.

Allahu Akbar.

Announcements

2008-05-05T08:11:00.000+08:00

1. Wishing the Clavier Music School a happy birthday. I was supposed to be on-hand last Saturday to celebrate with Minette and the Clavier Alums. (I'll be around this week though, and I'll be bringing mudshakes or sommat similar). But I had to play superhero again. The stupid reflexes kicked in and I helped someone stave off insanity at the cost of more abdominal cramps and a possible developing ulcer for me.

God should stop making conflicted people with built-in messiah complexes. They're great fun to watch, but it's not fun when you're the conflicted person with the built-in messiah complex.

2. Wishing Arjayne a happy birthday, and congratulations too. Arjayne's been a little-sister figure to me since our time at our Japanese classes. We haven't seen each other since '05, but we've kept in touch. She's also finished high school, so warm congratulations are in order too.

Writers Suck

2008-05-04T03:52:00.000+08:00

Because that's all they do.

When warm bodies are needed to stop the tanks, don't count on writers to be there with you. They'll be in their hotel rooms with their laptops and their notepads, writing. When you're busy making money the tried and tested way, yon writer will be busy wasting his time writing stories and filling his blogs: you're still saddled with the rent.

When someone is patently stealing your woman, writer, don't count on yourself showing up at their door and cracking skulls. You'll be at home, writing, adding one more neurosis to the ones you already have.

Cue the sound clip from American Sweethearts. Hank Azaria's Spanish character turns to a really barely-holding-in-his-psychotic-temper John Cusack and refers to him, derisively, as--

"You puth-thy."

You'll also have the bonus of showing your unwary reader friend that the bedrock upon which he rests his sanity doesn't really exist. And then there'll be two of you f_cking up the world by making everyone uncomfortable with life as they know it. She was right who said it best:

Keep only cheerful friends; the grouches pull you down.

The world doesn't belong to contemplatives, besides. Writers in general never see the fruits of their labor. For every Stephen King and Neil Gaiman there are thousands of frustrated writers married to their own misery and (in my Mammon stories) at least one who is dating his misogyny.

You may be the next Nietzsche, the next Kafka, the next Rizal-- but look what happened to them.

Nietzsche: nuthouse, couple of strokes, death by tuberculosis.
Kafka: nuthouse, tuberculosis, death by starvation
Rizal: exile, death by firing squad

And if you luck out and do a Thoreau ... well, okay, he didn't suck. He lived a full life, though he was felled by tuberculosis at age 44.

The point is very few writers ever live to see their legacy; fewer writers ever get to have one.

What's greatness if you never get to see nor taste it? I'm altruistic enough to care about my fellow man, but I've read all the books and seen all the movies: writers end up with the girl and the happy ending only in the stories they write. And I'm sick of watching everyone else's happys ever after.

They're Likely Giving Me a Raise.

2008-05-01T23:51:00.000+08:00

...so I celebrated it by sending some very special people something from Shakey's last night. Might as well, since it was labor day and all of us were working. I hope they enjoyed the meal.

Hangggggggggggggggg

2008-04-30T21:41:00.000+08:00

Rast night, my mothel deed not ...deed not ...let me sreep. I wanteed to... to herp hel.

So, I editud her Powelpoint Plesentation so daaht eet would look good.

But, however, furthelmore, my brain expe- expe- expelienced system clash. I wus beejee murtitask. Trying to write novella and plan curricurum fol my Englishee classeis, not to mention think about head teacha.

So, I talk rike thees for half my crasses.

Eet was a good thing my schoo-dunt find eet funny. They think I am voice acta, have sclew roose.

But, I don't want to do thees agen.

Sisyphus is happy

2008-04-30T09:40:00.000+08:00

...because he knows why he has to roll that stone up the bleeding hill. He can take comfort in the fact that he gave the Gods the dirty finger.

That is Either the Coolest Thing...

2008-04-28T13:37:00.000+08:00

...or the best let-down I've heard this year.

My conference class-- yes, we have those, where I lead an on-line group chat and gorup voice call discussion with at least 3 students at a time-- was pulled out from under me today.

My head teacher pulled me aside when I came in, said that there had been a request to increase the class time from the original 30 minutes to 50 minutes. As that would have adversely affected my break (and it is still at least an hour long), the class was handed over to someone else.

I will choose to trust my head teacher on this.

So wonderful.

Dragons of Summer Pain

2008-04-26T11:16:00.000+08:00

There's yet another fire in my QC neighborhood as I type. On one of my old blogs I noted that there has to be a damned fire here every three months usually because someone somewhere leaves a cigarette in the wrong place. Or maybe because someone thinks that the jury-rigged electrical system in the makeshift wooden structures can handle just one more electrical appliance.

On a Malthusian level, it makes sense that people take themselves out of the gene pool. (Insert sweeping economist jabber here). "That effectively decongests the neighborhood and allows for the reclamation of idle real estate that could propel growth and expansion in key areas of the barangay." Have you ever heard such BS?

ANyway it looks like they've done with the fire. I'm almost certain the volunteer fire brigade already has all the routes to this place mapped out. Reminds me, we should give 'em something for Christmas.

Hey Harvard

2008-04-23T19:45:00.000+08:00

Nice try.

The next time you send your spooks to impersonate a colleague, get 'em to do it right. I only let him talk to me because I don't have much to hide that you don't already know. Sheesh.

On Poetry

2008-04-18T10:05:00.000+08:00

Did anybody ever tell you that I dislike poetry?

I do. I hate it with all my heart. Because people turn to words, to satire, to reams of inutile academic discourse when they cannot act. Poetry, dear friends, is yet another manifestation of this kind of impotence: the writer feels so strongly about something that he cannot act, except to commit something to verse.

Maybe he gets lucky. Maybe the poem affects people who feel the same way but cannot articulate their feelings. Maybe the song becomes a hit and the writer becomes another Morrissey. Or maybe the writing is so potent that it helps kick-start the Civil Rights Movement. More often than not, the writer cannot taste any success beyond the personal "Hey, I got something written!"

Unfortunately, "Hey I got something written!" cannot by itself get you fed, clothed, housed, and (especially) laid. Your needs still drive you, and if you're as much a poet as I am, your automatic response is to write reams upon reams of (say it with me) useless poetry. I could have spent that writing time by actually getting me fed, clothed, housed and, yes, laid (Getting a better paying day job is often a step in that direction).

The awful truth is that nobody really reads, much less appreciates, poetry. Okay, some people do, but often, they're neither numerous nor rich enough to matter. The perception is that poetry is either--

nothing special as any five-year-old can break a long coherent sentence into lines and call it poetry or
it's so specialized that most people who have "jobs" and "real social lives" cannot relate to it.

Besides, it does not make us better people. Bin Laden is a poet. So was Hitler. A sensitive thug with literary leanings is still a thug, albeit a more sophisticated one. If you ask my ex, being a poet only makes people think of you as a smooth-talking snake oil salesman. Or a smooth-talking snake oil peddling thug.

(So before you run off with someone because he is an artiste do try to remember that the insensitive clod who's forgotten how to say "I love you" probably got that way acting --and not writing poetry-- to meet the needs of your belly and those of your kids.)

The point is, poetry sucks. When it isn't trumpeting your triumph to the world after the fact, poetry's like opium. It keeps you distracted writing when you could be taking action instead. When there is a venue for action, when one is empowered to realize his desires, there is much less poetry. I fear that there are quite a few of us who are lock-stepped into being nothing more than poets, forever writing about actions we will likely never take.

Still it's a beautiful activity, and one of the reasons why I write is that I am plugged into a higher power when I write my best poems, even when these are the most useless kind-- the interminable whining about aborted romantic liaisons.

The price I pay for loving poetry is that I hate it with a passion.

Reprint from Last Year

2008-04-16T13:52:00.000+08:00

Amazing how you can recycle old blog entries, especially if they're apt. This is an old Words for the Week entry I dug up from my archives dated sometime February.

karoushi
(Japanese) occupational sudden death; death from exhaustion, stress or overwork.

I swear my friends will keel over from this, and will likely take me with them. I've also lately put myself under karoushi-inducing conditions. At least I'm getting paid.

satori
(Japanese) in Buddhism, literally "to understand."; a deep state of enlightenment.

It is something I so severely want to impart. Because I really want my students to understand that the "th" and "sh" sound in English is different from the "s" sound. More importantly I want them to understand that the means of producing the "s" sound is in keeping the tongue behind both sets of teeth, with the tip touching the bottom set. Because if they can get that down pat, they are guaranteed to beat that odious IELTS test.

I also want someone to understand that yes-I-meant-every-word-it-is-no-fluke I am genuinely fond of her.

Satori is something that I definitely do not have. If I did, I would quit this little dalliance and sign up for life in a monastery. After getting ordained, I'll get myself attached to an orphanage somewhere. I love kids, you see, and for some reason kids are the only people I know who do not find me creepy.

B.S.
(noun) contraction of the expletive "Bull sh!t!";

an incredible statement; an outright lie or exaggeration;
a ludicrous idea
an unacceptable situation or circumstance
something horribly unpalatable that I've had to eat in spades last year and the year before that. I am not eager to partake of this delicacy since I am at the same age someone else was when he decided accept a hot heaping plate of the stuff in Roman times.

synonyms: cow dung. caltrops. horse puckey. (see: spin, advertising)

satiety (sa-TIE-e-tee)
(noun) The state of being full or gratified to or beyond the point of satisfaction.

I can count with the fingers of two hands the number of times I actually felt this on multiple levels. Twice this month is a world-shaking record, and I'm still thankful.

I still owe God a date.

Market Day

2008-04-14T16:44:00.000+08:00

I went to market this morning, bought a hundred pesos worth of chicken and two hundred worth of (really thin) steak-grade beef. It was at once scary and refreshing to have to walk to the wet market and look red meat in the proverbial eye in the elusive search for "quality."

I'm trying hard not to relate this experience with women, just so you know.

Bottom line: I want to do this again. Going to the wet market is a good thing, even if you no longer do it with a partner.

------------

*Giving poem a day a rest for a bit. I'll make up for them in a few days.

I am Engrish Teacha!

2008-04-11T10:43:00.000+08:00

Teaching Englishee velee haard
It does to dlive-us away the baard
Especiary when styoo-dunt says eet best
that "praying sportsu relieves my stless"

You cannot-- cannot-- make to laugh
As teacha, must to do not make them cry
You must leally help your styoo-dunt learn
Even dough you feel like die

(Oh so solly Teacha, "Die-ying";
"Feel like dying")

The onry thingus keep you sane
When listuning Engrish cause you pain
are fact daht styoo-dunts are your fliends
and, daht "soon" is when bad rhyming ends

ESL is a priestly vocation and
you ain't alone in thinking this--
Us ESL teachers need a long vacation.

----------------------------

Poking fun at the job, okay? not my students.

Many of them are dedicated, disciplined professionals who want a better life in places where English is spoken as a language of power and commerce. And I do want to help them, with most of my heart.

Written for Poem a Day.

Zinger

2008-04-10T13:44:00.000+08:00

I swear if I didn't need my friends to keep me anchored to the world of the normal, I would have left many of them years ago.

As much as they believe that what I think and write (therefore what I am) vexes them, they do not realize that what they do incenses me. I am always the basket case to them, always the weak one, always the wrong one. And what is their claim to their morality? Their success. Their money. The fact that they simply (stupidly) cannot imagine a world where people like me exist.

Leaving is often how they relate with the world. "You are of no use to me, therefore I will leave you. So f_ck off!"

I'm not them. I'm better. If they need my help I'll be there as much as my time will allow.

There is, of course, a limit to how much of their crap I will swallow. That I'm here at all means they're lucky: I still have a deep well.

Sisyphus

2008-04-01T14:58:00.000+08:00

Remeber that rock I picked up last year in August?

It just grew to the size of a goddamned boulder and is now rolling down the bloody hill. I have to run down the fricking hill and push it back up again.

Jeeeeeeeeezzaaaaaas.

news to me (3)

2008-03-30T08:52:00.000+08:00

I was going to post this last Wednesday. I never quite got to. Was too exhausted juggling wall-to-wall classes and my get-rich-slowly schemes. The messages will be dated. But I'm sure one message will stay relevant for many people over the next few years.

To see it, right-click the image and save it somewhere for your consumption.

Okay, back to work now. Greatness --and hopefully some decent wealth-- awaits.

High

2008-03-26T15:48:00.000+08:00

My apologies to Ritchie Kotzen for hijacking his song. This isn't an anthem I want looped in my player. But it's pure oil-on-fire slow rock n' roll in the best of traditions. And sometimes, a little tweaked, it's apt. There are better songs from this guy playing in my head.

I am so innocent I swear to God...
Oh, but you pressure me
And I cant help but unwind.
By now you know I'm not the stable kind
But you keep on testing me
Until you make me cry

How long can... I take you?
You should know that... the only way I can deal--

--is to get high, so high
until everything is gone
And I can't say a word

I get high so high
Just to shut you out
so I can keep on working

I know you're lookin' for an end to love
But this thing ain't what you think.
I signed up for endless work

You think I'm crazy and my mind is thick
And that I'm blind to trust
But I can see right through you

How long can ...I take you?
You should know that the only way I can feel--

Is to get high, so high
until everything is gone
And I can't say a word

I get high so high
Just to shut you out
so I don't hear you laughing

Bridge:
When I am away from you my head is strong
When I am near you make sure my mind is gone

The only way to deal with you
is to get high......

I don't want I don't want I don't want to hear a word

Out of Sight, Out of Mind

2008-03-16T07:58:00.000+08:00

If you ignore a problem, it'll go away.
You can keep running away from your problems forever.

Why people keep saying that these strategies don't work when they obviously do somehow-- else why would people keep implementing them? There must be some merit in keeping your problems at a polearm's length...

Jeezas H. Jones hijo de gorram patola. ima mada henji-shinai? Nan to iu no ka!?

When will you bleeding realize that I'm your problem? I'm also your friend. Stop hiding behind your Greek Chorus and confront me.

I ...won't go away.

Friends ...aren't supposed to do that.

To-Do To-Day

2008-03-15T06:56:00.000+08:00

~~Meet with co-workers.~~
Meet Strahdeus.
Pick up my granddaughter's print.
Get intel on shirt printing.
Fete my Mader and my Brother.
Pay portion of rent.
Polish drawings for scanning and send relevant info to contact in Laguna.
Have gifts for granddaughter and currently blooming friend framed/set.

Full day.

"I was kidnapped by cops and driven to Laguna!"

2008-03-14T12:05:00.000+08:00

Er. Well...

That was an exaggeration. Unlike Jun Lozada, I went willingly. My life was nowhere near being threatened. And their careers were on the line if they couldn't pass an English test. (Cue strident brass).

Another day on the job for your friendly neighborhood eigokyoushi.

There was no way we could cram two semesters of English Ed or one full reading of Strunk & White's The Elements of Style in the couple of hours they gave me to unlock the mysteries of English. I've been at it most of my life and I still can't say that book's closed.

So we did the next best thing. I gave em a crash course in "How to Beat a Written English Proficiency Test Without Frying Your Non-Native-English-Speaking Brain." Look for key words and phrases and make the proper associations without thinking too much about grammar.

They were appreciative. But I was dumb. I hadda open my mouth and say "These shortcuts can only be properly used if you practice. Our problem is time..." (music swells in the background) "Tell you what, let's schedule another class and I can come back with mock tests and handouts so you can have that practice you need before your big test day."

I'm a glutton for punishment.

English and Filipino (or, Why We're Screwed)

2008-03-13T03:31:00.000+08:00

...The Filipino's unwillingness to learn something perceived as "difficult" or "unpopular" is what's going to doom us.

The average Filipino laughs at his countrymen who speak English well. He says we're too uppity. We uppity folk learned our English because we had the opportunity and because we found that the language is a good one.

Well, the Filipino is now scrambling to learn English only because it'll potentially earn him big money.

But why we learn something is as important as how. I love English, and that's why I'm damned good at speaking, reading, writing and thinking in it. It's why my Korean students keep asking for my classes.

Trust me, the only time the average Filipino displays his English proficiency is when--

he is watching Baywatch, Friends or porn; or
she is chatting with her Australian/American/Japanese/Dutch online boyfriend while planning how to stab her husband in the back

The average Filipino cannot hide under Rizal's overcoat and accuse us uppity folk of being traitors to nationalism either. If the Filipino really loved his own language he'd actually enjoy reading the Noli, or Mga Ibong Mandaragit. Hell, I have. But he can't even muster enough willpower to do that-- ask any high school kid.

He can't even write proper sentences in Filipino: "Nag-enjoy kmi, sobra!" does not make sense. Kung sobra ang enjoyment mo, hindi ka talaga nag enjoy.

But dangle enough cash in front of him and he will be motivated to learn Filipino too.

Visiting Kenneth Yu's site is becoming a bad habit. His whole site is the epitome of "writing-meta." (He writes about writing.) Most every entry is an invitation to a refreshing exchange of views about stories and how and why we come up with them. The sort-of rant above is an excerpt from a reply --all of them threaten to balloon into full-blown blog entries-- to one of his posts. For the full context, look it up here.

Who's Your Daddy?

2008-03-13T01:57:00.000+08:00

Incidentally, this is what happens when your most effective knight returns from exile and you tell him in so many words that his sword's not needed, when oh sweet holy God, it is. You effectively hand him to another liege lord who'll likely pay him better. Consider that your knight would have worked for you for peanuts and the simple pleasure of your collective company.

As ESL Teachers we're usually evaluated towards the end of our teaching contracts with our students. In my current place of employment, we're evaluated with the following criteria:

teaching skill
whether or not we call our students on time
our attendance
kindness and empathy
the level of background noise we prevent from seeping into our mikes

The second of my evaluations from my students just came in.

Full marks in all relevant areas. And I've never seen that happen before. I don't think it has. And Management knows it. Management hangs our evaluations on the walls so we can die of envy. I'm not dying yet, but management will want to watch me closely.

Because I'm a maverick. Because I can throw the rulebook out the window in the name of helping a student really learn. And because they know it's love that keeps me working here. Love of teaching, love of my students... Management would soooooo love to get their hands on the one person that keeps me tethered here, if they knew who she was.

I'd Like to Get a Print of This

2008-03-08T03:30:00.000+08:00

And I think I will.

I took this shot with the cam I won from the Talecraft contest last November. The thing sucks taking pictures in low light conditions, and it has a built in motivation to thwart your attempts at making artsy shots.

Well, nothing a little Photoshop work can't fix. But even then there's only so much you can do...

Context. You're all gonna want context to explain the shot.

That's my grandkid at Art's art exhibit at the Assumption College (Yay!). She looks as if she belongs there. If you think so, you'd be right. My grandkid's an artist too.

My Lockbox Cubicle

2008-03-05T05:53:00.000+08:00

The Stand

2008-03-02T06:03:00.000+08:00

I meant what I said: I could quit all of this-- walk away and not come back. But it's just not the same without your friendship. At least that. Six months of being away from you proved it. I can't force myself on you if you're so determined to be afraid of me.　And as I said, in that sense, it's not my problem any more.

I do not have to sit still and take the platitudes and the palliatives being sent my way. The sources mean well, but they watch too much Oprah; read too much Cosmo. They didn't spend half a lifetime really watching people. I did.

I just wish you could look beyond the fear and remember.

My usual analysis of events like this doesn't paint a pretty picture of my hopes of some form of reconciliation. It tells me that you won't. But no matter how jaundiced (or likely, accurate) my view of humanity is, I can't help but keep to the view that someday you might.

I'm not the monster you think I am.

No matter how odious you may find this to be, I will always be your friend.

notitlrcan;trly thuinknofonerightnpow

2008-03-01T22:01:00.000+08:00

my brain's on fire. i'm slated to do work that i haven't properly finished because i can't get this body to do what needs doing. feeling shamed. i got a grandkid who juggles more classes than i ever didand all i can think about is

at least i'm drnkkkkkkkkk
drinking water

at least i've touched the work

looking forward to going
see a friend

maybe stay in the water

hoping
see you againmissyounot choerentwill porbly regrget edit later clickpubnlish

Itinerant Mendicant

2008-02-28T13:07:00.000+08:00

I had a wonderfully written post that the wondrous magic of cookies and internet security basically removed from existence.

The gist of it was that I had to refuse a young lady's request for the last of my money. She wanted to use it to get wherever she needed to go: home, presumably. Shutters slammed down on whatever it was that showed her humanity and allowed her to acknowledge mine. I remember feeling hurt by this, as I did want to help.

Of course there were valid arguments against it. I'd had enough money to only get me partially home. I'd still have to walk the rest of the way. And considering everything I'm juggling these days, I was going to need every calorie I was bound to lose by walking.

I wrote -- before the website hiccuped and removed everything-- that I felt the odious feeling of being... tested.

I wrote before that I didn't like character tests, because you walked into them blindly, not knowing the rules that someone (a woman, an authority figure, God) has often arbitrarily [and cruelly] set. These tests are usually stacked against you: they are engineered so that you'd have to defy your own nature to beat them. Ultimately you almost invariably fail.

Of course, I also thought about how God must likely be feeling: being presented with our needs day in and day out with each request being a pass-fail test of His character.

I'm surprised he hasn't tired of the lot of us.