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I was running away from something earlier. I don't know why.
I don't know why I always run away from things, or how I got this habit of running away. I run away from tight situations. I run away from culpability. I run away from the people I love, whatever love means. I remember hiding for shallow reasons, keeping everything in for deeper reasons - it's just that I always don't want it. I always don't want the things that I set out to get.
Regret? I'm not really sure. Disillusionment, perhaps, not knowing that what you want has all these strings attached. So they say you just wait and it'll come. And then, turns out, you'll have to get your ass out of your seat and start really doing things. Initiative and all that stuff. I could've done that. I did, actually, although it's with the more mundane things. The safer things.
Instead, I find myself running away, when it doesn't really mean much, whatever's bound to happen. And find yourself crossing the road at the snap of a finger, and realize that a car is on its way, and for a moment, you wonder whether it'll be close enough to hit you, or far enough to let you through, or barge its way through. And that familiar burning sensation, again.
The problem with being okay is, it won't stay that way.
There's this one thing I forgot to tell both Krizzie and Carlo when they posted a comment to one of my (lately) rage-filled status messages on Facebook.
That status message, by the way, was about being the bad guy. I don't like the feeling. Given, I wrote that status message on a bad day, when almost everybody seemed to want to pin the blame on me for something. Perhaps I was annoying, but am I the only one who doesn't have the right to be annoying? Why is it that everyone else can get away with being annoying?
But that's beside the point. I hate being the bad guy. I hate it more when I didn't really do anything to make me the bad guy.
"If you know you aren't," Carlo said, "then you aren't."
Yeah, so that makes sense. But in these times, it's not what you think of yourself that matters the most. It's what others think of you. Never mind that all that you wanted to do was express yourself. Once one, two, three, four people think you're being annoying because you say too much, then it becomes an indictment on everything that you think is right.
And sure, we can't please everybody, but pleasing more people matters now, else you'll never be able to do anything at all, at least the way you hoped it would turn out. So, Krizzie, sure, it's not everybody, but I think we all learned this in college, that three people make a public, and that's enough to make a dent on something. I have four. And that's just the people I know.
Valerie once told me this thing, something like "these people don't matter" when I made a litany out of every person that I think have made me the bad guy for no particular reason. And there are a lot. Maybe it's just me and my inability to forgive people - I only have either frenemies or people that I envy - but being named an antagonist for no reason at all?
It was four and a half years ago. The day after April Fool's Day. The day after my high school graduation.
I was seated in a relatively lavish living room, although I pin that description because it's pretty big and brightly lit and the sofa's designed with flowers. I was with Gio and Mari, I think, nibbling on something, winding down, while waiting for my ride home to come. Upstairs, my classmates - former classmates, probably, at this point - were either playing video games, or getting drunk, or putting their romantic futures on the line.
Actually, I can't remember what the circumstances were. I might be mixing this up with Gio's birthday the previous year. Besides, his house was pretty near Mari's - we called him MJ then - and it pretty much looked the same. I might be mixing memories of Anton getting frustrated at my apparent video game prowess with memories of Robyn being so red and, arguably, so impulsive. I do remember that it was the second time I met Ana, Robyn's friend from her old high school. By some twist of fate, she was already a year ahead of her, studying at the Ateneo.
That's the only definite, surely, because I only met Ana during the graduation ceremonies the day before. For some reason, Robyn brought her along. For some reason, she was let in. I remember being surprised when she showed up at Mari's party. I think I was angling to impress. I don't know why.
It was past midnight already, I think, which would've made this two days after I got my diploma. Or somewhere before it, I don't remember. But I do remember the question I asked Ana, an impulsive thing on my part, but that's how I'd see it nowadays. Back then, it was sheer curiosity.
"What's your last name?" I said. Maybe in Filipino, I can't really remember. She did speak Filipino but you look at her and it seems she speaks a smattering of English most of the time.
"Marfori," she replied.
"Are you half-something?"
"Half-Italian."
I don't know why this is one of the proudest moments of my life.
The sucky thing with writing a series of blog entries surrounding a certain theme, at least in my case, is this: something always happens.
I mean, talk about putting your mind into something. The presumption is, I can talk about something for a certain period of time with the assumption that it'll, more or less, stay that way. Approach something in eight different ways, and eight different angles each, for the next four weeks or so.
But suddenly, somewhere in the middle, things will change drastically. Somewhat drastically, at the very least. The very point of the theme goes the opposite direction, and suddenly it's no longer current. Unless, of course, I decide to stick with sentimentality and pursue the thought further.
I'm cynical, and more or less, my themes are similarly cynical. But in one way or another, it reflects the very things that I want to be, or want to happen, even though they're definitely not happening at the outset. Pessimistic, sure. It is, perhaps, the very least I could do, especially if you know that doing something about it will get you nowhere. And they did say taking risks is not encouraged in these times.
Ariane came to me again lately, talking about the supposed secret of attracting something to yourself just by thinking about it. You know, the rose story she told me earlier in the year? She told me it worked on her again - I won't tell the details, because I don't want to tag those people on Facebook - and I, as always, wasn't so keen.
" Ako, iniisip ko, hindi nangyayari," I said. "Not a believer."
"Skeptic ka ata kasi eh," she answered.
" Mahirap magtiwala ng bulag sa isang bagay," I answered back.
" Ay sus. It's called faith."
Indeed, there are these things that I think of. I'm not exactly hopeful that it'll happen, but then again, I never believed in magic. It's what they call visualization - something I remembered reading off a golf book - and it occurs naturally. Daydreaming, when we're ashamed of it. But never because we want it to happen. More because we know it won't happen - and we're just living the moment, synthetic as it may be, out in our heads, vicariously.
I don't really want to explain the coincidences, or the mere point, of the past eight entries, but let's just say that everything went off course, and this thing was, at least in the middle of it all, the complete opposite of what it actually suggests. But if Ariane's to be believed, heck, it happened, and just when I thought, oh, sod it.
She stopped, pondered for a minute, and suddenly thrust a finger to her left. Whatever she said, I didn't really know, but the moment took quite a while to develop. More fingers pointed, the hapless subject returning to base for one reason or another. The bosses came along, deliberating, pondering, wondering, but it was quite inevitable.
I was thinking of ice cream.
Well, I was thinking of Dairy Queen. "DQ! DQ!" I said, clearly knowing what else that meant. Although that wasn't what happened - it was actually a one-point penalty that came at the worst moment of all: match point.
"I don't remember anymore," Serena Williams later said. "It was in the moment. It was a really crucial point. I haven't really thought about it to have any regrets."
Back at home, where my mother and I watched, we were discussing whether the foot fault was wrongly called - someone said it was, and I think he's blind - and, most importantly, whether Serena just shot herself in the foot. And Kim Clijsters was going "what the hell?" - pretty evident in her face, that disappointment that it's suddenly all over.
She's calm now, but for the most part, the damage was done. She could've lost gracefully, but instead, well, she shot herself in the foot, and to hell with experts saying the official should've just let it slip.
They call it "going postal". Well, it's worse, actually. Let yourself simmer until you wreck your tennis racket and start stabbing people with the sharp end, if we're to stay on topic, or at the very least, bring a gun and start shooting people. And then in the end it's all over, and we act as if nothing happened, because we've lashed out already and we feel better, but the damage is done.
I suddenly have the urge to sing some cheesy pop song. "And I'm guilty..."
And another (more credible) song. "Don't you ever change..."
My building sits beside a hotel, so it's no surprise when, during my walks towards my office, or away from it, I'd see parked tourist buses and foreigners, mostly Koreans.
One day, I saw the usual crop of foreigners, but they weren't Koreans. I don't really know. Americans? Canadians? English-speaking Europeans? Definitely not Australians, otherwise I could tell who they are through their accents. It was past six, smack in the middle of rush hour, and I was on my way home. Often I cross four roads on the way to the shuttles along EDSA. They were going to cross the road, too.
I had my earphones on, as always, but I oddly heard what one of the tourists said clearly. I think he's a tour guide or something. Maybe someone who's been in Manila for quite a while, judging from what he told his companions.
"Now," he said, "while crossing the road, stretch your arms out to the incoming cars' direction. They'll stop and let you through."
I found myself doing the same thing. Left arm stretched to the road, my palm flashing, the cars stopping.
"Don't forget to make eye contact," the guy said. I didn't. I thought I never had to.
One of the things I learned when I took driving lessons last year was that bit about right of way. " Huwag n'yong pilitin," the instructor told the class. " Pagbigyan ninyo. Ayaw n'yong makadisgrasya."
And in the few times that I drove a car since, I pretty much did that. When someone is crossing the road, I stop. You can't risk anything, really. Maybe the pedestrian would continue walking and not notice that I'm coming. And me presuming that the pedestrian will stop and give way to me could prove fatal.
" Palagi ninyong pagbibigyan yung tumatawid," the instructor said.
Having a car, or driving one, gives this powerful feeling. You're handing an expensive piece of kit, and are trusted to navigate it throughout perhaps one of the most frustrating road networks in the world. You can't walk the distances you can drive, at least ideally. But, of course, they'll tell you that there are responsibilities attached to it, from not being inebriated to following the rules. At the very least, knowing where the road markings are, and keeping the whole thing straight.
So it's quite funny to think that here, the drivers are king. Whether it's a jeepney or a lorry or a measly car, they own the road, never mind where the lines are, whether someone gets in the way, whether it's a bicycle or someone less equipped. Never mind the road blocks and the markings and common sense. They're inebriated, it seems, by the very things they were granted as a privilege.
This guy. This guy. I don't like this guy. I don't like the way he always butts into conversations, the way he presumes you don't know what you're talking about, as if you're talking about some strange concept, when ideally you should be talking about stuff that interests you, or something that you know about, more or less. I don't like the way he insults you with what he knows, because you don't need what he knows, because you know more than what he knows.
And it always seems that everything he does is to impress everyone. "Look," he might say, "I can do this! Are you amazed at me now? Do you like me now?" He gets something and he's part of the big league, never realizing how superficial things can be, that the ability to take photos with nifty lens won't make you cooler. Perhaps I should've told him that.
But this guy, I shouldn't be hating this guy. It's much like hating myself, and with a passion at that.
This guy, we are so similar. There's this eagerness in him. Misplaced eagerness, perhaps. He's enthusiastic about something, so enthusiastic, in fact, that it has a tendency to annoy anybody who doesn't give a damn about it. But you can tell that amidst his complaints about technology failing him and his constant flooding on Twitter that he's passionate towards this thing, something, anything, everything. He won't let go until he gets what he wants. And he's quite apologetic, too.
And to boot, we like the same things. There's jargon that we understand, and only we understand, and only a few of us understand, and when those conversations happen, people around us would give this weird look, accusing look, perhaps, one of simultaneous derision and wonder. "Why the heck are these guys here? Can't anyone kick them out? They do not fit!"
This guy. This guy. This guy, I don't like this guy, at all. And people around me like me, or so I choose to think, or so he probably chooses to think. And I'd like to think they have quirks, and I don't, and I'm tolerable, but we are just the same. But I don't like this guy.
On a lark, on the way back from the dentist over the weekend, I craved for something from Conti's. I ended up buying cashew brownies, and it somehow reminds me of Milo. It's the latest observation I've made lately. The rest, well, I can't remember. It's definitely a downside to having another long weekend - you get less alert on the first two days, and then lose everything else when the third kicks in. It's partly why I don't like holidays, although I appreciate them when they come by. But not in this case. We've had four holidays in the past six weeks. Two are long scheduled, and with all due respect, two were declared as a reaction to prominent deaths. (Whether the intention is political, I'll never bother knowing.) My line of work means I feel a bit humiliated at the amount of holidays we're getting, to the point that an email of mine had sounded slightly apologetic: "we have another holiday, unfortunately." I shouldn't have, you might say. And to complicate things, this holiday was somehow taken back. Ahh, rash decisions. But I'm still here, blogging rather than catching up on Lost. The funny thing is, once the holiday is over, we return to the same old things. A part of me will be happy that I'll be fairly productive again - and this week, more so - but a part of me will be frustrated that all this preparation for the working week will go nowhere, somehow. Same old, same old. We're still stressed, still burnt, still going nowhere, still wondering why we're being punished for pushing pencils with all we've got. Gone is the allure of the long wait, the knowledge that on the other end is something that you'll surely relish, or the complete opposite - pretty much like the week between graduation and my first day at work. Nothing left to anticipate. As for the rest, well, life's gone somewhere. Strobe lights at night, on the runway, taking off for further opportunities, becoming so much better, so much better than those who don't deserve an inch, two years to count, whatever. Must be the cocky nature of the world's most successful backstabbers.
I used to only hear her name from, I don't know, somewhere. Everywhere. The name on the ballot - which I didn't have something to do with - became the name that's half-constantly passed around on the second floor, a standard of excellence of sorts. I think I only heard that bit from Les, much later. I can't remember. Anyway, when I finally saw the person who owned that name, I was a bit intimidated. It didn't help that she was carrying this huge video camera, the type that you'd see news cameramen use. Professionals use it. That must mean something. As a communication arts student, getting your hands on that means something - that you know what you're doing, and that you deserve to be doing what you're doing. And then I saw the name, and looked at the rest of the identification card, and started to wonder whether what she's doing is really official business, or connections personified. I prefer the latter, but that's moot now. " De La Salle Philippines. Ma. Kristina L. Syfu. Student intern." Right, just what Les told me when I was still at work. I had my own business, so I didn't really mind. It was, of course, the day I took a leave from work to, among other things, cover a campaign that I didn't have any stakes on. But apart from the slight familiarity (and the surreal feeling that comes with it), there was something in her that got stuck in my head for pretty much the next few months: the checkered shirt she was wearing. I mean, Krizzie wasn't the first to do that, which makes this an odd circumstance indeed. Odd, because an association was created, one between checkered shirts and being, uhh, cosmopolitan? Is that it? It might be my insecurity goggles, but for some reason people who wear checkered tops - the ones that attract attention without being too screamy, although that happens too, and always coupled with either a pair of denim jeans or really short shorts - are people who seem to have fun with things. Maybe it's because I often see that sort in malls, with friends, wearing almost the same stuff. Don't trust me on this one. I don't really know why. I just started wondering why so many people are wearing those tops that seem like plaid (with my limited knowledge of fashion honed by watching The Fashion Show) but not really. And then I started thinking all these things. This is not an easy way out - "your tweets tell me you think too much," Zet just said - and, well, it must be my insecurity goggles working again. While I get many things wrong, I get many things right, too. And while there are many things that's meant to make sense, some things just don't. I must be really hard on myself, deadpan bespectacled stares and all.
Maybe I should've gone to the bank first. But I wouldn't have remembered it anyway. I'll end up pacing straight to lunch, check my wallet, realize I only have three hundred bucks left - thankfully it's enough for lunch - and end up going to the ATM before returning to work.
But I wouldn't realize that I need to go to the bank first. After all, I went down the building slightly distracted. I had a question in my head and I was writing it down on my mobile phone, taking care not to write the wrong thing or bump into someone. I was done but I told myself I wasn't. I could've noticed that it's too early for me to go down and have lunch. I could've waited and organized my thoughts, maybe write them down on the back of a receipt, and not be thrown the possibility of a bias, which was definitely not what I had in mind.
Thank heavens for empty elevators. And thank heavens for mobile phones. Because in the end, they're the only ones you can count on: the phones, to tell everyone about your ordeal; the elevators, for a more physical means of release. I forced it out of my head, nicely, and I'm not rattled anymore. Fortunately.
It's just another one of those awkward moments where you don't know what to do, where you know you can't really get away from it, where you know that even if you know there's nothing left, you realize that there is something. Anything. Negative or otherwise. Which should explain for the smile that was kept away and the smile that wasn't so lucky...
Issa is outwriting me lately.
And no, I'm not suggesting that it shouldn't be this way. She writes very well, although I'm somehow still not used to imagining her do poetry. Maybe it's because I always saw her as this fun, crazy girl with deep interests. Her blog entries are often very random, but not as random as some of mine are.
Well, that's exactly my point. Lately I've been writing very random stuff, cobbling together awkward concepts and presenting them as metaphors. On the other hand, she's been on an inspired streak lately, doing this and this and this, leaving me wondering: why have I not been inspired lately?
It's been a while since I had that sort of streak, that feeling when everything just comes together the moment you start working your fingers. It always happens in May, I said, but this time around it didn't. July? I thought so. There's this and this and this. But as much as I appreciate the purpose of frustration, of not being happy where you are, sometimes it just gets, well, frustrating, the fact that you can't put them into words anymore like you used to. It no longer occurs to you over lunch, as a mental outline, as a series of points that connect to each other for some reason. Left off forgotten, mostly.
Lately what Lizette told me (almost) exactly a couple of years ago has been echoing in my head. "How many times do I have to tell you that I like how you write? If only you would rant less, I would like your writing better." Exactly. I always shove my life down people's throats and nobody appreciates it, as much as I try to paint it pink and call it as proper city discipline. On the other hand, my best entries don't come from whether I've decided to use an expletive against back row citizen number three, but from whether it's an observation that comes from a genuinely happy moment, pretty much what Issa's been doing at the moment. Oh, how much I miss those days, when there's always a silver lining in your troubles, which are shallow to begin with. And now, it's all the same, only intensified, somewhere along the lines of insignificance.
And there it goes, me ranting again.
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