An Inconvinient Paradox

Last Monday back in my cousin-in-law's wake, I saw one of my nephews, the eldest one among my nephews and nieces. He's the eldest son of my eldest first cousin on my mother's side.

His name is Jason, or "Titong" as we affectionately call him. He's a fragile-looking boy, 12 years of age, going 13 this coming September. His father was cuckolded, hence his parents separated when he was still in kindergarten. So his grandma (my aunt) took care of him while his dad was busy with work.

I once lived with that kid when I was in 6th grade. I was under the care of my aunt (mom's older sister) since my parents left for Japan for their jobs. I think he was still three or four around that time. It seems like it was just yesterday that I saw him trying to complete and piece words together to make up barely coherent sentences, and now he's in first year high school. Right, and I already graduated from college for that matter.

And my he's changed a lot. Well, who doesn't? Especially when you're setting up a leverage in adolescence. Seriously, he's not the baby that I used to think he was. His voice, his attitude. He used to be a brat for crying out loud! I'm really not quite sure if he's still one but he's definitely quieter and well-behaved than the last time I've seen him.

One major change that I've seen in him is well, guess what? HIS HAIR.

First glance and I knew what he was all about. He's EMO! Flabbergasted with my nephew's sissy hair swoop, I tried to corner him and talked to him and I just really wanted to catch up with him for the most part. I now have an adolescent nephew to look out for.

My worst nightmare has been confirmed. He's indeed one of THEM. The "budots" kind at that. Like one of those kids exuding plague-like auras, hanging around most of the time outside everytime we play in our regular hardcore shows. He said he likes being "emo," because he likes skulls, stars, and stripes. He likes "emotional" music too. Oh God. I hope he won't turn any gayer than that. A little bit higher in the "emo-lution" ladder and he's going to be a full-pledged emofag.

I've also been told that he's becoming more and more of a problem child since he's not so into his academic work, he's starting to try out smoking, and all that identity crisis that most adolescents go through. Thanks to my NGO volunteer works catering for children and youth, I managed to get through him. Just minutes of talking to him, I earned his trust and he confided and confirmed all of these tell tales about him. I told him that what he's going through is pretty much what other teens like him go through too. And subliminally I injected ideas to him that would make him less interested in the mall emo pandemonium.

And little did he know that his aunt screams for a hardcore punk band, a completely polar opposite with the ideologies he's dabbling into right now. It's not even called an ideology since the emo fashion/movement doesn't have any to begin with. Just a bunch of patches sewn together, void of originality and imagination. Imagine my mortification. An elitist philo-skramo with an emo kid for a nephew. The irony of it all.
Good thing I brought my lappy with me and I made him listen to some of the legit bands that I have in my stash. Also, he can't believe with his eyes (I made him watch some of our gig videos) that his aunt can scream like crazy on stage and still manage to graduate Cum Laude.

I promised to burn him some CD's of the stuff that I have. I still believe it's still not too late for that kid. The emo cancer cells still haven't infected his entire system yet. He must undergo a persistent chemotherapy with my SKRAMZ.

Children's Crucible

I went to my cousin's husband's wake last night. I didn't feel like looking at the dead body because I still cannot believe he's already gone. But after much milling about, I did anyway. What's really frustrating is that it seemed like he's just fast asleep, as if he can still be roused up from that deep slumber. But of course, of course, he won't wake up. Never more.

And I just can't stand seeing his children wide-eyed and still able to shed some smile on their faces when they saw me. Their innocent heart-warming smiles tear me apart bit by bit. I asked them, particularly the eldest son, about what he thinks about seeing his father's coffin. With a curt nod, he replied, "Pa is no more." Not knowing what to do, I just gave him a genial pat on the back, trying to fight back my tears from falling. I just had to hold it in so as to not confuse the kid with my random emotional outburst. As if their mother isn't enough of an emotional wreck already. I don't want to add everybody's devastation.
Thinking about their reactions; the kids were still smiling even with their father's death. They were still chasing each other, playing tag with other kids, and having fun. Unlike their mother, it didn't seem like their world stopped revolving a bit. Life goes on for the young and innocent.

It's because they still haven't had a grasp of their situation. They still haven't realized yet that they will never see their father ever again until they become parents themselves. Not a chance. But their innocence kept them safe from all of these sad realities. They still haven't reached that level of understanding yet. I don't know if it's actually a good thing. I mean, I guess innocence is necessary to fill in the kids' underdeveloped mentality. But eventually when they grow up, they will still be confronted with these harrowing issues in life. So I guess it would be better that young as they are right now, they should understand their circumstance, or at least have someone to make them understand why they had to go through all of these.

Then again maybe not. I wouldn't want to take part in breaking up the shell of innocence where they've been hidden safely. I don't know anymore. Time can only tell.

It's just sad that my nieces and nephews had to start it out young. With no father to assist their mother in raising them all up, they had to grow up twice as fast to compensate for that loss. They have no other choice but to grow up earlier than they're supposed to. They had to help their mother help them.

I plan to extend my hand out to them should they have financial difficulties. It's the least thing I could do for these kids.

Touched by An Angel...of Death

"No one can confidently say that he will still be living tomorrow."

- Euripides

This morning, I was awakened by our house helper's (who's also my childhood friend) sobs. Thinking there must be something terrible that has happened, I quickly went down stairs, while tracking down the sobs. My heart raced, I couldn't find my parents. They were not there when I woke up. Dammit, I wonder what could've happened. Is God punishing me for being a terrible night owl? I just couldn't wake up earlier than everybody does in the house.

And then I saw our helper, she was outside by the dirty kitchen, clutching her mobile phone. With a puzzled and quite annoyed tone in my voice I asked, "What happened?" She said, "Ate, Kuya Archie just died."

For a moment there I thought my heart just stopped. Asking again for a confirmation of what I just heard I said, "Huh?What?!"

"Kuya Archie, Ate Bing's husband died in his sleep," she weakly replied as she couldn't stop sobbing. (She's also close to the folks in my mother's side.)

"What the hell? And the kids?! What about the kids?! There are SIX of them right?" I blurted out in a surge of panic; my feet started to get numb and cold. I love those kids. They're adorable. Some of them even went to our house for a vacation last summer. I had fun baby sitting them. But now, they had to go on living without a father. What a cruel fate these kids have. It's just so difficult to register everything and make sense of it at the moment.

I just stood there in an awkward, deafening, and irritating silence. I have never felt so irritated with silence my entire life. My gut started to churn and I was feeling nauseous just thinking about what's going to happen to all SIX of the kids. And their mother. Their mother has a heart condition. That cousin of mine has a congenital heart disease, it was said that she had some perforations in her heart. And now with her husband's sudden death those perforations won't get any better literally and figuratively speaking. I just hope she won't have any ideas on following the footsteps of her husband. I wouldn't know what to do anymore should she decide to take that path. But knock on wood, I hope she would think more about her kids and stand firm.

I sent mom a text message, aking her about what happened. And so she confirmed that Kuya Archie was dead on arrival. It was a case of aneurism. He vomitted blood and was beyond help when he arrived at the hospital. He died at a young age of 29.

I just can't believe this is the morning news that I'm going to receive now that I only have less than a month before I leave for Japan. These certainly aren't the memories that I was hoping to take with me. A cousin of mine already died last May. He too left two kids behind and a regretful wife. Regretful because they had a fight and they never reconciled.

But I think it's a lesson learned for all of us. A harsh one at that. I just hope it wouldn't be as harsh the next time when God has something to point out to us. I'm not even blaming God. What I mean to say is that sometimes, we humans just don't really want to learn the lessons of life so we had to experience the touch of death once in a while to remind us we have to live it rightly. Especially giving importance to the ones we love.

Because the touch of death is a vicious one.

Life is uncertain, death is so sure. It never misses an opportunity to take lives. And never mind if the ones left behind are poor little kids and a fragile mother.

Shooting Teh Shizz (pun intended)

"Issho ni arukou yo." (Let's walk together)

Yesterday, with nothing better to do, I grabbed my point and shoot camera (Canon PowerShot S5IS) and went to our backyard and front yard and took some pictures of anything I came across with, i.e. cats, flowers, slippers, etc. I had quite an interesting afternoon sans my rumbling stomach (diarrhea, I think). O_O Good thing I still managed to take some pictures but not without some extra trips in the loo. haha.

"hana" (flower)

After which, I did some touch ups and put up some captions. It was a concept I got from my friend Rovie (who's good in photography and post production by the way), only that my captions are in Japanese writings. It did serve me well. I uploaded it in my facebook account and from what I can gather, some people liked the pictures that I took. But I still have a long way to go though. I mean, I don't really intend to be pro but hey, I think it's a hobby that I actually want to cultivate.

I bet by the time I save up enough money in Japan, I can buy myself a DSLR camera and somehow I might be deserving to own one (I'm rooting for a Nikon D90, it has an HD video!)...I'm really going to try whatever I can and have fun along the way with my dabbling in photography.

Feme Fatale's Own Fatality

This animoo image is but a parody. Sensibilities need not be offended, sisters.

If there's one thing that I feel hesitant , albeit incompetent, to do in the estrogen-dominated field, it has to be cooking.

I know it's not nuclear science since all I have to do is move a finger or two and take a little interest in cooking for me to learn the basics. But heck, I think it has something to do with my attitude, rather acquired definition of femininity, that kinda infused a tiny wave of cognitive dissonance within my female brain which in turn demotivates me to learn the basics of the domesticated life.

As a big fan of women empowerment advocacy and through years of exposure to feminist ideologies, I have firmly decided to be tagged among those women who don't want to live down to society's expectations. I just don't want to become a docile plain housewife. I refused to excel in any household endeavor, especially cooking. I keep on telling myself, "I am a woman. So what if I AM? Don't assume I can cook, rather WILL cook for you! The house is not my turf. I'd rather be somewhere else and make a mark in there." And make a mark, I did. All I ever did was engage my self in male-dominated sports like soccer, skateboarding, and Muay Thai. Heck I even joined a hardcore band to scream like a drunk lobotomized ape going amok. That's it, I like it rough.


But with that decision comes a grave price.

I. Will. Starve. And probably die of starvation just like most kids in Africa.

I think I just took it out of context and into the extremes. After graduating from college and my impending teaching gig in Japan with the possibility of living on my own, I realized how much of an extremist I have become. I totally overlooked the aspect of cooking as an essential key for survival, especially when you are on your own to fend for yourself. And it's not going to come off as genuine independence if I were to entrust my survival to another individual. What's the point of holding on to your feminist pride when you have an empty stomach? You can't eat pride for that matter anyway.

So last week, while waiting for mom to come home from shopping groceries, dad prepared some veggies to cook for dinner. Staring at dad mincing the veggies, I suddenly had this weird impulse to get my own chopping board and a knife to help him out. Dad was planning to stir fry the veggies and I unexpectedly volunteered to do it. And that was my jump start in cooking. Actually, I used to know how to cook when I was in grade school because we had a subject that required each of us to cook simple Filipino dishes. When I was cooking the food, I kinda did it instinctively as if I really know what I was doing. I kinda don't but it was a gamble I brought upon my rusty episodic memory. Somehow, I pulled it off. I actually managed to cook veggies just right. It wasn't soggy nor uncooked. It was alright. For someone who has never touched a ladle in for years now, it was kind of a big deal to me 'cause finally, I can cook stir fry veggies. Mom and our housekeeper were shocked that finally I decided to cook and get over it. Oh well.

It's actually a good motivator. The next day I cooked again for my own consumption. Then I found myself yearning to learn more veggie recipes. Visiting to vegetarian websites inflated my growing curiosity for vegetarian meals. I mean, if I were to cook something at all, I'd rather it be healthy and cheap. Again, it's for survival purposes. I did not become interested in cooking to cook for a man. But if push comes to shove I might consider this cook book:

Catch my drift?

So there, cooking wasn't that much harmful to my feminist convictions after all. But still I am not comfortable with the idea of becoming a plain housewife.


Uppity sisters unite!

When Pigs Fly

The recent A(H1N1) epidemic scare sends all of us into irrational surges of panic buying for possible supplements we need in order to shield ourselves from the malevolent virus. We rush to the hospitals near us for flu shots just to make us feel better and appease our anxiety from contracting the disease. We stack up fruits and veggies and do all preventive measures for the sake of our health...Yes, health is wealth and according to the famous tag line fed to us by some vitamin supplement brand,"bawal magkasakit." There's nothing wrong with it really. What's distrubing though is that we get too anxious about something that we sometimes resort to self-fulfilling prophecies. And a greater wave of paranioa ensues.

With the said paranoia and disillusionment going on, it is also a perfect opportunity for our politicians to make their personal agendas more elusive if not completely concealed from the public eye. Since most of us Filipinos have an attention span of a fruit fly, with this dreadful swine flu hangin' just around the corner, and in fact has already infiltrated Metro Manila (I do hope Davao would not be infected just as much), most of our energies have been focused on our paranoia over these preventive measures and whatnot.

Not to mention we keep ourselves on track with the latest senate hearings over a worthless piece of sex scandal video(as if it's a new story to tell...just so the senate would have something to do) involving a hosto-potential-sorry-excuse for a doctor with a filthy rich sugar mommy (who looks like she needs plastic surgeries more than she could perform) and an ugly starlet whose fame is totally questionable for sheer lack of talent. Seriously. And apparently, they have nothing else better to do, they sensationalize these things so they would have more "valid" reasons to implement copy right laws. (Screw copy right. The only people that would benefit these policies aren't really the artists, just these corporate owned labels and other magnanimous corporations, desiring to earn more than they could spend in their lifetimes.


Ah but I digress.


With our manic divided attention, we gave the government, specifically the congress, ample time to plot their scheme on effectuating their long-standing proposal for Charter Change, which is of course through the Con-Ass. The people needed some distraction. Hence these controversies sprouted here and there from the depths of hell just to keep the people distracted. And we, a nation of gossip mongers will always want to hear the latest chika, "now na," (read: Kris Aquino). While we shoot the shizz and entertain ourselves with our own stupidity, they've always been behind our backs, surreptitiously conniving, waiting for the right timing to publicly announce it. And by that time we can only do little about it. Just like what is happening right now.


At the height of these swine-flu scare and sex scandal hoopla, this Con-Ass proposal faded into the background which is what the government wanted to happen so they could get away with it unscathed from the criticisms of the civil society. The PGMA's State of the Nation Adress is only a fews weeks to go from now, along with the dreaded Con-Ass. We ask ourselves, "how the hell did Con-Ass come up into the picture?"

Ask yourself again. Did you even care about our nation's situation when you were spending hours in front of a static box full of talking idots while waiting for the latest Dr. Hayden Kho's "Careless Whisper" update? Do you even care about the system that we're in? I don't want to be pessimistic about it. But with this kind of mentality we have as a nation, I don't think I can keep up my hopes high...not even when pigs fly. :(

(con ass image taken from: http://midfield.wordpress.com/2009/06/05/twin-evils-resolution-1109-and-the-9-11-terror-attack/)

On writing with writer's block.

I've been having doubts about my capacity on writing lyrics with noteworthy content. Since I don't really want to write about cliches in a preachy mode, I've been waiting for an inspiration to come. For the entire summer, nothing really motivated me enough to lift up a finger and write even a single word. Our recording has been delayed (not really too delayed) because of my reluctance in picking up pen and paper and write down my thoughts. This is the worst writer's block I've ever had.

But I had to summon all the energy I could muster to get this over with. I hate to admit it but it's tormenting me. Don't get me wrong, I love my band. Maybe it's because I'm not really in the condition to organize my thoughts after graduating and having to deal with drastic changes. I'm, after all, in the middle of a transition to adulthood. Hence, I got too focused on the problem without contemplating about the possible solutions that could cure the parched part of my creative brain.

What I failed to realize though is that what I'm going through and my experiences this summer in general are some no-nonsense conceptual frame works that I could actually write about. I have every reason to write. From losing three of my loved ones, my frustration with the Philippine judiciary system, to my personal existential crisis, things that actually matters most that other people can actually relate with one way or another.

I think I just needed some people to talk me out of it. God bless my agnostic band mates, they finally shook the sense out of me last night and the Yellowcab pizza helped too.

I've been writing today, since I got sick and I gotta stay home. At least I'm still being productive. I hope to get well soon though so I could start my work in Tambara (research publication of Ateneo).