My mom and my dad are like, the most mabait people in the whole world. I mean, like, they send me to a super nice school where like, kids are like, decent, and don't have kuto. They give a hefty baon that's more than enough for essentials like food, phones and parties. I have a gimmick wardrobe that can best be described as like, sooo super ganda. Just like me.
But I'm really asar; kasi on the days our only car is off the road because of that silly Bayani Fernando's vehicle reduction scheme, they make me like, take public transportation. I threw a bitch fit when they settled on the idea that it would like, be a good way to give me a wider perspective on the world. Ha! Like my perspective needs expanding. Hello?! Like, I watch Discovery Channel, 'no?!
But being the mabait daughter that I am, I half-heartedly agreed and it's been like, three weeks since I've been a member of the jeepney-riding masa. I'm, like, really inis that my hair gets so gulo and some icky people make dikit their eww, pawis on me. But the most disgusting part of this commuter thing has been the tambay's I'm forced to see once a week.
There is this one mama -- okay, he's not that old -- he's like, my age lang -- who is always at the kanto near my house. He's always wearing a mangutim sando with his nipples popping out the sides. He has a blueish tato on his back of which I could only see the first and the last letters: J and S. I like, made hula na he was probably branded with the name of his kidnap-for-ramson gang when he was a preso or something. Worst of all, he always like, looks at me, like those nasty contrabida's in 80's movies ready to make simsim my bango. The other day, I was super sungit after a particularly bad day in school, so I looked back at him from the tricycle, made-irap at him, and mouthed silently, "Pangit".
The following week, I told the tricycle driver to make like Schumacher and drive really fast kasi the guy might be like, making abang for me at the kanto. But instead of avoiding my potential rapist's post, the gago driver, who was obviously just out of tricycle driving school, cut the corner, bumped into the sari-sari store and turned the tricycle on its side!
I crawled out of the overturned death trap, dazed. Shyeet! My tombstone almost read "Lived. Loved. Died in a tricycle"! I felt my tuhod buckle from under me and a kind stranger's strong arms lift me from the bangketa.
"Miss?" a mellow voice asked, "Okay lang po kayo?"
I like, expected to find some lost tisoy gentleman saving me from this situation; but instead, I looked up to be nearly blinded by a nipple behind a familiar mangutim-ngutim sando.
"Ako po si Jesus." the tambay introduced himself. "Gusto niyo ho bang magpadala sa ospital, Miss?"
I looked at him intently and like, noticed how his nose was perfect, his teeth were Close-Up white and his hair moved like he conditioned it. And strangely, he wasn't amoy-araw. He was, in all honesty, like, really, really pogi. (Fiction)
PERMALINK
|
EMAIL ME
|
7.24.2005
HONESTLY
Honestly, when Mary's lamb followed her to school one day which was against the rule, Mary got expelled.
Frankly, when Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall and had a great fall, the entire baranggay had omelet for breakfast. **
Truthfully, when Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after, Jack and Jill both got CT-scans.
Sa totoo lang, when the wind blew, the bough broke, and the baby fell -- cradle and all, the neighbors called Bantay Bata.
In reality, when Jack, nimble and quick, jumped over the candlestick, he burned his tiny balls off. ***
Honestly, when you told me to forget you, many years ago, and asked me to move on with my life, I didn't.
Jeff watched Marga descend the Palma Hall steps. He could tell it was her from a mile away. The way she hovered over the other girls, the way her hair moved as she walked, the way her face turned upward ever so slightly everytime she walked into the sun -- were little things he had committed to memory since he first fell in love with her.
Marga smiled when she saw him. She quickly said her 'goodbye's' to some friends and dashed down the front steps. "Hi Kuya Jeff! I thought Mama was going to pick me up."
Jeff opened his arms and let her walk into it, like she had done a million times before. "Your mom had to see a client -- emergency. And since you are still too lazy to get a drivers' license, here I am. How was the play?"
"The play was hilarious! And you are too nice -- thanks for not leaving me stranded." Marga looked around. "So where'd you park?"
"Over by the Economics building." Jeff took Marga's hand. "C'mon, we'd better start walking. It looks like it's going to rain."
Jeff walked hand-in-hand with Marga around the University Oval. He knew the moment was right to tell her but could not push himself to make that final jump. He wanted to leap from being 'Kuya Jeff', the ever-dependable constant big brother figure in her life, to being 'Just Jeff', a guy who is very much in love with her.
Cold breeze. Quiet walk. Her hand in mine. Everything is perfect. I should confess everything now. Jeff's thoughts richoceted in his head like a stray bullet. But she's not ready yet. I should wait. Maybe. Or maybe not. No guts, no glory? No, no, no! Not yet. I'll wait.
Jeff's thoughts were shattered by a distant scream. A scream that was becoming louder. He looked into Marga's eyes and read the same wonder. But everything soon turned black. The next thing Jeff knew, he was on his back. He turned to Marga only to find her unconscious under a big, heavy, yellow thing that fell from the sky. A old, wrinkled, barefooted woman in a yellow dress, dazed from her long fall, sat up and started to ramble weakly in Spanish, "Mi llamo Sra. Montano. Está en mi clase. Prepara para aprender. Mi llamo Sra. Montano. Está en mi ..."
Jeff rolled the incoherent woman over. All two hundred pounds of her fell on Marga with such force, Jeff knew his darkest fears were about to come true. (Fiction)
(This entry is dedicated to Jeff -- one of the few true blue gentlemen left on this earth. May this bring you to realize na hindi na uso ang torpe. It's time to bring out your inner Tom Cruise, little bro. Now na. Before it's too late.)PERMALINK
|
EMAIL ME
|
7.12.2005
THAT TIME OF THE MONTH
"Don't you think a week of this silent treatment is enough?" Martin said, as they turned into Ayala Avenue. He and his wife had not exchanged a word in days.
Stella uttered in a monotone, "I want you to apologize for being an insensitive jackass."
"What do I have to say 'sorry' for?" he sounded genuinely perplexed.
"The day the yaya's were on their day off, I had a bad case of dysmenorrhea. I was crying from the pain -- you saw it! Still, I got up, cooked breakfast, bathed the children and washed the dishes. I asked you very kindly if you could watch the baby for a few minutes while I lay down. Do you remember what you did? More importantly what you didn't do?"
He nervously stepped on the gas pedal, making the car jerk as the car entered the parking structure. "Stella, the championships were on and I didn't know you were feeling THAT bad."
"You can be such a jerk sometimes."
"And you are being selective feminist. You hate it when people treat you different because you are a woman. Yet you still use your uterus to lay guilt trips on me." Martin was not known to yield easily.
Stella fumed even more. "My uterus has nothing to do with why I'm mad. I'm mad because you chose to mock my pain when I needed your help. Would you have done different if I was having a heart attack?" She stormed out of the car just as it stopped in Martin's space.
Martin jumped out after her, nudging her to her limit, "You have that dysmenorrhea thing every month, shouldn't you be like ... used to it by now?"
Stella froze in her tracks. She turned around and marched back ten meters to where Martin was standing. Without missing her cadence, she kicked her husband forcefully between the legs.
Martin fell to the floor, writhing in pain. Stella could see he was crying.
Stella bowed and asked derisively, "Honey, now you know what it feels like to bleed from your crotch. You think you could get used to that?" (Kinda Fiction)
PERMALINK
|
EMAIL ME
|
7.06.2005
INFANTICIPATION DISORDER
Our family had not yet fully fathomed my ultra-gorgeous cousin Rowena's decision to marry that hideously obnoxious TV comedian when the news of her pregnancy reached our disbelieving ears.
My cousin Sofie immediately emailed us a novena to St. Gerard, patron saint of pregnant women to keep Rowena's pregnancy safe and to keep her baby healthy and preferably, looking like her. I emailed back that we may have to pray to St. Jude, saint of the impossible, for that last bit.
The day Rowena delivered, the entire family flocked to her hospital suite. The room was filled with her parents, uncles, aunts, cousins of assorted shapes, sizes and states of anticipation.
Tita buzzed the nurse's station, "Is my daughter out of recovery yet, Nurse?"
"No, Ma'm," the voice replied. "But your granddaughter has been brought to the nursery. You can view her now, if you wish."
Only stampeding wildebeasts could duplicate the collective sound of our footsteps as we raced to the nursery. Tita wrote her daughter's married name on a piece of paper and pressed it against the glass for the on-duty nurse to read. The woman nodded her masked head, picked up a tiny pink bundle from the far side of the room and walked toward the viewing glass.
"Ay. She's so ... a little dark."
"And she's so ... kinda wrinkly."
"And medyo she's so ... doesn't look like Rowena."
No one had the right words.
"Let me see." Auntie Lina pushed everyone aside.
Auntie Lina was not really my aunt. She's my father's aunt; but everyone in family -- young and old -- called her "Auntie". Being a seventy-five year old unmarried woman deprived of alternative titles like "mommy" or "grandma", my cool Auntie Lina did not mind being misnamed.
Auntie looked closely at the baby, her breath leaving moisture on the glass. She turned around to face us and announced in a clear, crisp voice, "Looks like the gene pool needs more chlorine." (Fiction)
PERMALINK
|
EMAIL ME
|
