I need...

I need Richard Dacalos to invite me to one of his impromptu sleepovers where all we eat is microwavable chimichangas or take out pizza and all we do is call Krystal Lao, Kristine Chan, Carlos Frogoso, Felix Ganchoki, Judy Antonio, Kathy Taylor or Tess Rivera until their parents come along and make them hang up. I need Gene Bautista to drag me around Metro Manila chasing another one of his girls on a school night hoping that maybe somewhere along the way, I can find someone for me too. I need Carlos Frogoso to call and tell me that he’ll be at the mall and so-and-so are already on the way. I need to dream of going out to buy ice cream with Tess Rivera and then actually go out and do it the next day. I need Krystal Lao not to realize, when she brings me to the roof of her condo building that that look she’s giving me in that dress she’s wearing will stay etched in my mind forever. I need Kristine Chan to talk to me until three or four in the morning on a school night, only hanging up because one of us is nodding off. I need to sing One Sweet Day or Mmm.. Bop at the top of my lungs in the hallways of OB Montessori Greenhils with Ken Sy without knowing half of the meaning of the song and without a care in the world for anything else. I need Felix Ganchoki to know exactly how I feel about Kathy Taylor and we’d sit there both stuck, not knowing what to do about it. I need relationship advice from Judy Antonio and Tess Rivera that will make me fall in love with them. I need Lady Angsico to break my heart over and over for three years until I’ve finally had enough. I need Hugo Rafael to be my coach on life again, to tell me that I’m a trend setter, to force me to dream big and to be the older brother that my older brother never wanted to be until it seemed too late. I need Kevin Yu to ask me how I can climb like that without any training. I need Lawrence Mistades to bring back stupid old stories about how much of a loner I am in the gym. I need Suzane Davies to shout at someone! I need Krissie Coseteng so that Ria Valera and I can share her belly as a pillow for a nap on the crashpads before climbing. I need Ria Valera so I can watch DVD’s at her house while her brothers Igo and Vito Valera try to get in close with our group of friends. I need Det Uy to make me sing the only lyrics I know of Total Eclipse of the Heart (“Turn around!”) while she fills in the rest of the lyrics. I need Gax Ilanan to shout my name as I walk in through the door of Power Up as if they hadn’t seen me in years. I need Cams Venturina to make me buy pasolubong for my mom and sister even if I don’t have any money left. I need Coy Woothritch to booth jokingly and awkwardly call me "boyfriend" when her real boyfrend had mutual understandings (MU's) with both Lady Angsico and Krissie Coseteng, each before they became my girlfriend. I need Maman Salada to jokingly call me "hon" as in "honey" because he missed his girlfriend on the three week trip from Boracay to Iloilo to Cagayan de Oro to Davao that was only supposed to be a weekend in Boracay. I need to have a crush on Trisha Yaokasin again and have those two days back so I could say what I was really thinking, so I could fight for her. I need Cat Ocariz to invite me to her house but not tell me exactly how to get there so that I’m asking for directions on winding empty streets towards the innermost bowels of her subdivision so that I feel like I’d left Metro Manila half an hour ago. I need Mansy Abesamis to wear her heart on her sleeve when she gets tipsy or drunk. I need Owen Sanico to nod at me and continue the conversation when I think that no one understands what I’m trying to say. I need Carmela Causgbu to stutter in English, stop and try again in tagalog. I need EJ Gamboa to kidnap me while I’m studying and drive a bunch of us up to Antipolo for some drinks. I need Royce Cardenas to trail run right along side of me when the guides make a run for it while the others get left behind. I need to bivwack with Pappy Tagabay on Mt. Kanlaon of all places. I need Rap Santos to wait outside in the rain in God knows what Pulag temperature because Mads Constantino and Tammy Mendoza are inside the tent changing for an hour. I need Jacky Chua to take over my TL duties on the way to La Union because I’m too hung over to do it myself. I need Mike Lu to get excited over something so seemingly trivial like a font, an insect or a certain shade of yellow. I need Des Llanos-Dee to trip me for no reason on EDSA walk like we’re in grade school or something again. I need Brian Balagot to be so obsessed about guitar, b-boying or weight loss that its freaking inspiring. I need Geric Anonas to be so brutally honest that it’s funny. Or Ace Ramos to give me a very gay tickle from behind and laugh in my face about it. I need Nikkos Santiago to play old school (not Rayan Cabrera) music from his phone while we drink until someone passes out. I need to meet Nikkos Santiago, Cholo de Villa unexpectedly in Boracay when I’d been preparing to be alone on that free trip. I need Earvin Martinez to know the Katipunan street kids and talk to them like equals. I need to sleep on the floor in Herbie Natividad's new and literally empty condo unit where all we have to eat is various flavors of intant noodles all mixed into one giant bowl and all we have to do is drink, listen to music and talk. I need King Echiverri to kiss Gene Bautista on the lips to make girls squirm and guys feign throwing up. I need [Name removed to protect the person's character] to hide his gayness from me while trying to squeeze gossip out of me. I need Martin Villanueva to tell me something I never knew about a writer I’d always thought so distant from myself. I need Martin Villanueva and Lee-Anne Tobias to get me to get lost driving them to Ginny Sonico’s house only to find out that she doesn’t have a doorbell and our phones didn’t work and the maids weren’t answering the door because they thought that we were some kind of delinquents with nowhere else to hang out. I need Cindy Custodio to talk about Tata right in front of Cor and how she hugged us at grad. I need Jerome Chua to tell me that burgers come in cans in Germany and to laugh at and judge famous terror teachers as if they were contestants on America’s Got Talent. I need Paula Peralta to tipsily break her heel and ask me to break the other one so that she can walk properly and on the same night, I need Lee-Anne Tobias to have a crush on a college freshmen who actually turns out to be a high school senior. I need Ria Macasaet to openly cry because she bumped her head on the roof handle of my car. I need Blockdo to play that game that time that we said we'd never tell and leave me with half an hour of sleep the night before I had to run 10k at the King of the Road on the heels of Pappy Tagabay. I need Rico Diaz to be the perfect boyfriend to Ail Ty and I need Ail Ty and Tammy Mendoza to suck all of my secrets from me until the weight of the world is suddenly divided by three. I need Bianca Silva to be my baby and to really act like a baby with all their need for hugs and attention and doting. I need Geline Velayo to shout out loud how fast she saw me run by during the Orienteering test after Mt. Cristobal. I need Nana Enerio to take care of me like how she always takes care of everyone else. I need Julian Suarez to attempt to sing an entire alphabet worth of Karaoke songs in one sitting. I need Raf Reyes to ask me another follow up question. I need Julian Suarez, Nana Enerio and Raf Reyes to be game for anything. I need Kaye, Jako, EJ and Charize Robles to sing our grandma a Harana and sleep over at Kayes, eating junk food, watching foreign asian films and making deep, deep confessions for no reason.

I need these moments in life that make me feel like I’m alive and these people who make them possible. I kinda need them now.

My Brother Left for Canada

My brother left for Canada today. He really left. He said he would do it and then he did. I feel like the whole thing was decided overnight. I’ve been in Baguio and Novaliches for the past two weeks and I wasn’t really around for any of it except for today: the last day. The fact that I even went on those trips might hint to you that he and I weren’t at all close. I love him as much as one could love a brother who he doesn’t drink with, he doesn’t go to for help or even talk to outside of calling through the bathroom door asking, “are you done yet?” I originally wrote “loved” in that last sentence and went back and erased the “ed” I guess that’s telling as well. He’s gone. Last night he was driving me home from dinner with our grandparents (my parents had brought a separate car because they’d planned to go to Heckle and Jeckle again). It turned out we had a lot more in common than I thought. He wanted to stay in the Philippines but his major concern was financial, he wanted to live in different places all over the world and other more personal things as well. Today, I wasn’t even sure I was going to the airport to say goodbye to him (I hadn’t really gotten a decent night’s sleep since Tuesday) but I’m glad I did. Despite the insightful evening and all 30 or so minutes of what was quite possibly the longest conversation I’ve had with him since we were boys, I still caught myself exasperated at some of the things that went on in the car ride to NAIA. He hadn’t distributed his cash into different places which was traveling 101 for me, when I told him that liquids weren’t allowed in his hand carry, I would have expected him to move his facial products into his suitcase even if my mom said that the limit was 100ml but she wasn’t sure if it was in total or per container, but he didn’t, little thing like that that made it hard for us to share much more than a bathroom. Some part of me was even annoyed that I couldn’t talk about the writing workshop that I had just come back from and was still excited about because I didn’t want to make everything about me. And so, we unloaded his luggage, he hugged my dad and then my mom and kind of awkwardly put his arm around my shoulder. He let go and looked at us and his face became pink, and scrunched up. His shoulders began to jerk and not so suddenly, we were brothers and we cried. My parents were surprisingly calm. My dad told him to think of it as a vacation, if he didn’t like it, he could always come back. On the ride home, I was quiet.

Unsent e-mail

Don’t laugh

I finally got around to reading Harry Potter (don’t worry, no spoilers) and I feel like I’ve lost a dozen friends. It’s not because of what happens in the plot or anything but just because it’s the last time that Harry and his friends will ever be written about (Although part of me wishes that JK Rowling will do some kind of prequel about James, Lily and Snape). The seventh book was my last party with them, my last three day/one year journey and I feel like it came and went. Having lost all those fictional friends, I thought I’d write to my friends in the flesh.

It’s just that, its not only sad in itself but - and I’m not sure how much sense this will make but – its sad that its not so sad anymore. And that goes for all of life. Its sad that its not so sad that we’ll never go through LM induction again. Its sad that its not so sad anymore that we five never get to see each other anymore. Its sad that its not so sad that Tammy, Nana and I are graduating and will soon be leaving behind the biggest chunk of what we have come to understand as our lives as we know them.

I used to get really obsessed with these things as a kid. Final Fantasy 8, A Knight’s Tale, Harry Potter, I’d really let myself go, let myself believe and to be taken into these impossible worlds in words or on screen, embarrassed of the indirect relationship between my age and my level at which I’d been smitten. I took suspension of disbelief to a different level. I’m sure I’m not the first one but I wanted to go to Hogwarts, I wanted to joust on horses and win a princess and, I wanted to fight monsters with my gang of friends. It’s sad that its not that sad anymore that I can’t see myself doing those things ever again. Maybe I’m having an early quarter-life crisis but I used to believe that the word “Idealistic” was a complement. Now its fast becoming a synonym for “Naïve”.

I guess it’s really the same thing I was saying before about relationships. I was afraid that I’d been damaged or numbed. I think it’s the thought of having lost potency. The thought of being less than what I was, weaker, deficient and somewhat calloused.

I - thank - you. Hahaha.

dru

Know thy Characters or Become a Body Builder

Damn, it’s been a while. Two months! I’m not going to get into the reason why. It’s time to just get right back on the horse.

In Abola’s class, all my works were character driven. I’d know the character I wanted to write and I simply wrote about that character, found out where he’d bring me and what he’d do. He’d take on a life of his own and I was simply the stenographer of my own creation, a writer of biographical (although fictional) slices of life. The problem was that I didn’t care which details were really merited and which should be left implied.

In Suchen’s class, I’ve tended to start with big ideas and work from there. A man finds himself in a cloud of grasshoppers with little kids picking off the oblivious creatures one by one. How does he get there? A woman masseuse finds herself smitten by her client’s daughter. How do I show the novelty in the event? When exactly does the attraction come about? How do I contrast this to her usual mechanical sessions with other clients? Suchen described it as “adding salt here and adding pepper there,” and to build off of her analogy, without first knowing whether I’m cooking chicken or beef, noodles or soup. I don’t know my characters.

Granted, I’ve stopped writing “Starbucks Fiction” about shallow college kids with their idealism and their principles that they’d die for and their insistence that somehow their opinions would matter to a reader (not much unlike this blog), but in doing so, I find myself writing about characters that I know nothing about; those whose worldviews are unfathomable to me making it impossible to suspend the reader’s disbelief within the context of realistic fiction as opposed to tale telling like in A Sand Story.

I’ve lost the intimacy I’d once had with my characters. A guest speaker at one of my workshops (I don’t remember who, sorry ma’am) said that my story had the backbone of an award winning piece and that it was the language that needed improving. Like a dolt, I wrote my next piece with high school cry of “more description, more figures of speech, more details, show don’t tell!” I only now realize what she really meant by language. The language itself, the diction, the grammar and the syntax does not have to be impressive (and sometimes even gets annoying when it’s overdone). Rather, the language (and not necessarily the speech) has to suit the character.

The same teacher told me that language is a wonderful problem to have. I think she meant that an out of shape, yet experienced, ballerina is always a ballerina. She can always work out, strengthen her muscles, and regain her flexibility but a female body builder, no mater how strong, flexible or agile, would need much more work to become a ballerina. That’s what I think.

At this point I don't really care if this is well written, I just want to get it out. I just want closure.

Tuesday two weeks ago, Fr. David, my theology professor, assigned 500+ pages of reading for the next day. I had already been cramming all of my studies to make room for The Republic so I'd forgotten to write an essay assigned for another class that day. When I went home to work on the essay during my hour and a half class because I'd left the questions at home, I discovered that MS Word was bugging out. This happened once before and after deleting some big files, it worked again, so that's what I did. When that didn't work, I turned the laptop off and when I tried to turn it on again, it just didn't do anything at all. I ended up writing my essay on lined paper and not submitting my design homework that was saved on the laptop.

The next night, my mom totally surprised me when she said I might be able to get the mac I was supposed to get the year before. Soon after, I was brought down to earth when I saw her again and she said it would be better to get a cheap laptop and wait until I'm working to get a better one. That was our game plan. I would have to wait another three years at least for my mac.

On Sunday, coming from my grandma's house, we stopped by gateway to canvass on laptops. To my surprise and delight, my dad was ready to buy a laptop that they had for sale only they didn't have stock. My brother, being my brother, hit me while I was down in asking my dad if I really even needed a laptop. Of course I didn't, of course I don't. I don't really need anything but oxygen if you really think about it. But having a laptop did make my life a hell of a lot easier especially since MS office on the Desktop was a trial version that had expired months ago and there I was required to submit a type written essay without a proper word processor.

The next Monday while I was minding my own business trying to catch up for David's class my mom says, "Lets buy it!" I wanted to study but my dad had called and told my mom to get it as soon as possible so that I could use it for school. Long story short, we called half a dozen shops and finally at 5pm we decided on a good deal at PCcorner on Gilmore ave. We weren't sure if we would make it before closing at 730 but I didn't want to have wasted all that study time and have nothing to show for it, so we went. And as luck would have it, there was absolutely no traffic on the way. It felt meant to be. We bought an even better laptop than the one we wanted and I went home more than satisfied.

On the same night, as I was closing the gate after my brother had parked his car in the garage, I told him the good news. He told me the bad news. He gotten, that day, a discount for a P83K laptop, he would only have to pay P45K for it. My heart sank in my chest. We told my dad, we pointed fingers and I thought that was that. Sure I would like to have had a better laptop but with how fast I got it and the fact that I got one better than the one I had set my lowered expectations on made me feel satisfied at getting a good deal.

Yesterday, coming home from Mt. Sembrano, my sister asked me if the laptop had a webcam. Then and there I realized that the flier said it did but I hadn't actually seen the webcam. I thought this might be grounds for returning the laptop so that I could get the more expensive one or at the very least I would get a free webcam so I told my parents about it and I went to the store today with my mom. I went in alone because she couldn't find parking.

Right off the bat, they offered me an external webcam. I also noticed that the old fliers had been replaced. My motivations being secretly beyond the issue of webcam, I asked if I could just return it. What they offered instead was an inferior model with a built in webcam plus P2000 credit a their store. I didn't bite. I SMS'd both my dad and my brother for advice and (after calling her cellphone) I discovered that my mom had parked too far away for her to join me at the shop and to help me argue my point. Basically my dad told me to ask my brother and my brother told me to take the free laptop. I made my last feeble attempt at a refund before calling my mom to come pick me up. While waiting for her outside, my dad SMS'd me telling me not to give in but just then, my mom arrived honking at me to get in the car already because of the traffic she was causing. From the car, I called my dad to tell him what happened and I told him that the 7day replacement policy would expire after today and that he should get there before 730pm if he wanted to try to argue himself. He said that he wouldn't be able to make it. Again, I left thinking that everything was finally over and that that was that.

Again I was wrong. My dad was pissed. He told me that I shouldn't have given in. He told me that the webcam wasn't enough and he told me that he would go back himself tomorrow and try himself. When he asked me for the flier that with the claimed webcam, I told him that I didn't have it, that I'd left it behind. He stormed out.

Later that night (this night), he told me it was like buying an Altis and being given a Vios. He was still bothered by it. He still planned to go to PCcorner the next day an to get everything straightened out. I told him that it might be better to get it replaced with the P83K laptop that my brother had a discount on and then have the discount reimbursed. With his regular employee discount, that's how it worked. But this was a special discount, my dad told me that, for this discount, we would have to pay by cash or by check. I did not know this. Had I known this, I wouldn't have been disappointed all week about a false prospect. I wouldn't have been stressing at all because I really don't care about the webcam that I'm never going to use anyway. I could have been happy from the beginning.

The thing I got from my father was that it was the principle of the matter.

If we're talking principles, is it better to fight an uphill battle for something that you don't really need, just to prove a point even if you already got a free webcam out of it? Is it really better to stress yourself out and to stress out everyone around you and to hassle the salespeople who are just doing their jobs just because you feel like you've been cheated out of something you never really had? If the original issue was to get me a laptop as fast as possible so that I could use it for school, where are your principles in delaying the whole thing just to appease your ego?

Try This!

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Created by Eugene Villar.

Why I Write

After having gone through some essays of famous writers about why they write, I would like to say that it is my passion to write. I would like to say that writing is in the very core of who or what I am, animating my body and that writing is as much a necessity in my life as the food in my stomach or the roof over my head. I would like to say that I cannot stand not to write or that my writing serves some abstract higher purpose, far beyond the gratification of my own ego; that I’m on some kind of quest into the frontlines of the human mystery. I would like to. But as they say, I would like to but I cannot.

I can say that I have a strong affinity to writing but I also hate writing every now and then. I think all writers do sometimes. We write to our master pieces in the security of our bedrooms under the disguise of “just a little something I’m working on” and we pour ourselves into them until they begin to reject us and they we hand them over to our friends to critic and we say about our master piece “Please read, it’s nothing much.”

I can say that every time I spot a new irony or discover an idiosyncrasy or even when I realize see something infinitely familiar in a completely different light, my first instinct is to mull over it in written words. But even these words sometimes have a tendency to mutate for the worse when the prospect comes along of having an audience. For some reason, the snot from my nose becomes the perfect color of avocado or the gum under my desk at school is fondled by a virgin lover.

I can say try to be profound and say that why I write is exactly to discover why I write. And then I can turn around and write a piece of short fiction with no other compulsion than that which comes from requirement as an assignment in FA 111.4 Writing Workshop 4: Fiction under the Fine Arts Department in the Ateneo de Manila University.

I can say that stuff, I can probably think of more stuff to say or I can just write!