Nowhere to Run

~

1.
Going to the south is the pits. It always takes too fucking long and you always wonder what the hell you’re doing there. Obviously, someone like me doesn’t belong in Richville, where the expats and the famous cohabitate and breed (sometimes) obnoxious little brats^. Later on, these (sometimes) monsters grow up, demand for good, quality education – the best that money can buy in this third-world country. One wonders why they don’t just fly the fuck out of this hellhole and pursue worthwhile activities overseas like, say, campus sex orgies. Ah, but the answer is this: nothing beats being the class-A socialite among a swarm of poor, we-eat-rice-because-it’s-our-staple-food-and-not-bread kids trying to make it. And, as if it weren’t insulting enough that they have to dress down so they can feel that they’re part of the community, they buy insignificant clothing items with a multi-million-dollar brand names, just so you can still identify them as the rich and famous.

For example: Rubber slippers, like fucking Havaianas, have become the norm choice of footwear for the dainty feet of the fucking elite. They brought this culture to the university when it became a big hit in the country, and all around us, regular, jeepney-commuting people have to wonder what the fuck is so wonderful about it when we’ve been wearing rubber slippers since time immemorial. No offense to those who can afford it, you can buy all the things you want in life if you can. I’m only taking a shot at the kind of civilization it has bred, something that happens every time some kind of fashion has hit the high street. In my totally zen moment, I know I’d be like, whatever floats your boat man. But. Today is not one of them.

2.
So of course I resent this shitty reality. Rubber slippers are one of the few things I can claim for my own as a solid, concrete character of my sodding, ordinary life. The other things are commuting along the EDSA highway, getting held at knife point once in a while when you happen to ride the wrong jeepney, and eating street food that is delicious as it is unhygienic. And now it’s being taken away from me by rich kids who think going out of their secluded village is an immersion. Oh, the horror! They want to take it all away. Like Cubao, one of my favorite places in the entire world, known for its crime rate and shady sidestreets and flea markets and good vintage stores. Today Cubao is so different. Whereas years before you cannot drag a rich executive in this place, now they’re flocking it because an ex-President’s daughter is endorsing the newly-erected mall, ironically named Gateway, right smack in the middle of the whole monstrosity that is Cubao. Thank goodness for artists who try to salvage the old aura of grit, there is still a part of the place that refuses to be under the whole shebang of commercialization.

But that’s just my middle-class angst speaking. It’s maybe why I hate fucking branded rubber slippers. It’s also maybe why I refused to accept a previous PR job just because I learned that one of their clients is fucking Havaianas. My middle-class angst says that it’s bad enough that there’s an established caste system for branded rubber sneakers, bags, and the like – it’s worse that sometimes I do buy fucking branded things because I can’t help but be a consumer, too.

Still, my frequent contact with people from the south while I was still in school have confirmed that the only activities in the campus that they find worthwhile are activities like sex orgies, beer parties, and flashing some random boobage while walking around in short-shorts-cum-are-you-seeing-my-vagina-line-yet skank outfits. And of course this observation is being brought to you by a fucking self-righteous, angst-ridden northener.

3.
Anyway, the point of this whole rant is I am currently drinking bad coffee, and it is eight o’clock in the morning, and I FUCKING GOT THE JOB YESTERDAY! Yep. I purposely made my way through the long, corrupted highways of the south for my final interview yesterday afternoon. A week from now, I’ll be proofreading documents in some cubbyhole for an international bank. I, a single woman trying to survive in the north while everything around her is being truncated into mega shopping malls, will be doing the long commute to the financial capital of the metro (NOT the south, thank fuck, but about a hop and a skip away), five days a week. And although this is not how I envisioned myself to be in, during long intoxication periods of drinking beer and that heady feeling after finally finishing college in time, I’ve taken the plunge.

Clocking In

the clocks in my house do not convey the exact time;
always in one room time is running behind,
in the other room, we are moving faster than everybody else

~

 1.
I supposed I’ve made some errors in judgment along the way. I’ve long ago accepted that I can be idealistic in a very moronic sense, and this is one of those mistakes that I could’ve avoided had I been more accepting of my circumstances.

The facts: I am woman fresh out of college, with no significant job experience to boast of other than a brief summer stint at an insurance company, and a few years’ worth of playing assistant in my father’s accounting firm. I am a young poet struggling to make a name, with no desire to exploit the significant connections and relationships I’ve made with other established writers, and a few works that have appeared in small-time publications. I was born in the year of the Tiger, in a small hospital, one hour and forty-five minutes after noon. I’m a Pisces and a middle child. I have a bank account that recently closed because I squeezed it dry. I hate my government, and I keep my memories in an old shoebox. I am, more importantly, someone still living under her parents’ roof. Some of these are irrelevant, but words like “fresh out of college” definitely scream, GET A JOB RIGHT FUCKING NOW.

2.
But, as my own spectator of my sorry excuse for a life, I knew I’m bound to fuck it up. When I got it into my head that everything will fall into place once I’m done with school, I knew it. I knew I was in for big trouble. Who in their right mind will think that? Nobody gets what they want after college. At least, not until after a few years, if what you’re running after wasn’t just some quick lay. No one gets their life polished after jotting down to-do’s in their planner. (I went over it in my head, looking through the Rolodex in my brain, and I can’t find one person I know who’s got his or her life made after college.)

I was so intent in building up a plan, yeah. I got fascinated about what I wanted to do in the future, when, oops, heads up – I am already in the future, asshat! So much for that. I was rejecting job offers left and right because I had a scenario in my head where the right job will come and I’ll just instantly feel that this has got to be it! Stupid, stupid, stupid fucktard.

3.
On the other hand, I’d like to think that I didn’t make decisions on the fly, either. With every opportunity I’m letting go, I have heartily justified it to myself why I shouldn’t take it. I’d like to think that I did the necessary steps to ensure that I won’t end up in a box and feel absurdly awful for putting myself in deep shit. It’s just that, the longer I go on without a job, the heavier’s the nagging feeling about saying no to those who wanted me to work for them. It’s an abso-fucking-lute battle between regretting a decision and staying put.

My reasons for not accepting a job:

a) I can’t stand the god-awful face of my would-be bosses. Take your pick: a five-foot tranny with humor to die for but with the face of Fabio, a third-world Ellen (minus the charm, multiply with 500,000 times lesbo angst), a Miss Minchin reincarnate – I could go on and on.
b) I do not really appreciate a job that requires me to glue my ass to a desk for eight hours.
c) They won’t pay me commensurate to my skills.
d) In a terribly arrogant moment, I actually realized that I’m smart, and would probably thrive better in an environment where people are as smart as me, if not smarter. At least then, there will be something new to learn every day.

The reasons why I’m sometimes rejected:

a) They can’t stand my god-awful face: forehead that is too wide, nose that is too stunted, flabby cheeks, chapped lips. A monster, I tell you.
b) They are annoyed by my constant look of confusion that I think I try to mask as a look of curiosity.
c) I ask for a salary that, in the real world, is not supposed to be given until I’m forty.
d) In a terribly self-defeating moment, I’m told that I’m overqualified for the job.

Ah, the joys of convincing yourself that you do actually have worth. It’s retarded.

4.
So anyhow, after three months I’ve come to the conclusion that I must stop pissing around. I have to jump eventually. I can’t pick forever. So, whether or not this is a job I actually like, I have an interview scheduled for tomorrow. If things turn out good, I’m going to start working for a bank real soon. Yes, I don’t know what the fuck I’ll be doing there, when I have visions of myself hauling a typewriter in the woods and becoming the next Stephen Dunn. But it’s always a start. Eventually I’ll find my way back to my fucking dreams in life, just because I fucking know I’m that sort of coward.

Moxie

“I want to be everybody, and I want to be everything. One life is not enough.”
- Vladimir Sokoloff

~

1.
They say moxie is slang for street smarts. Something you pick up along the way as you live out the timeline of your life, that ranges from comfortable to completely fucked. You’re lucky if there was someone to guide you as you slowly ease into the nefarious, real world. Such things like, people only care about themselves, or do not mix the colors and the whites in the machine – can help a lot in the transition of being a child and becoming a grown-up. But not all of us are lucky. Learning the hard way is always the first step towards the realization that you’ll be receiving that kind of education for most of your life.

2.
When I first had my menstruation I thought something inside my cunt must have been cut off. That or I’ve sat on my bicycle for much too long. It hurt like a goddamn kick to the groin, but I was scared shitless to shed my panties and see what’s wrong. I sat inside the bathroom for two hours, until I decided that maybe it won’t be as weird when I take a bath. There were no cuts, no bruises, just me, leaking blood. It freaked me out. I had to think hard about what to do about it. After what seemed like an eternity, I got out of the shower, stuffed my underwear with tissues and walked quietly to my room. I learned later on that was just happened was the beginning of the end. I never asked my mother what to do. Today whenever a part of me bleeds I learned never to ask anyone how to stop it. I keep quiet and deal.

3.
When someone I knew from school died, it was my first experience with death. I was in Grade Two then. Nothing stayed the same after that. I was more aware than ever of my own mortality, and how, through some sick twist of fate, that could have been me. We were all the same, at the time, little girls who get into petty fights. I could’ve been the one who got sick, got bloated because of the medicines, then died. The day they buried her, I learned that when people leave, there will always be those who got left behind. And very, very quickly, they will soon forget.

4.
The first time I answered back to my parents, I got slapped in the face. I wasn’t prepared for it. I cried. When people don’t like what they hear, they always get into a state of denial. Today I rarely hold back my tongue, because some people deserve to hear the truth, even if it hurts. And I learned this from a friend: when I do keep mum, it’s either I’m thinking it’s not in my place to or it’s because I don’t care about you enough.

5.
It’s almost five in the morning. What inspired this post was an old journal entry dated back in September, almost five years ago. I wrote about things I learned so far from my fucked-up life, things that still hold true today:

“I know this now: always, there will be several circumstances that will get in between my life and my carefully-planned goals, and these will remind me that my dream and my reality might not always go together.”

“There are people whom I trust but are using me to their advantage. For some reason I let them see my weaknesses and I do nothing to stop them from exploiting these. I will never understand why I let myself arrive at such situations, but the closest I’ve come to it was that maybe there are people who are worth giving up everything. I’m working on becoming selfish. Maybe that will help me one day.”

“I believe that the future will not be easy. It’s going to take me a long time before I become the person I want to be.”

Ah, my younger self. What would I be without my laborious, exceptionally distressing past?

Barren

the floor and my bed + Travis, my laptop

~

1.
Here is a view of my barren bed, in an otherwise sparse bedroom. This room hasn’t been slept in since I graduated from college, which was almost three months ago. In fact, I haven’t slept that much in the last three months. At least in the normal hours. Always awake at night, asleep during the day – that has been my routine since March.

I thought I’d finally get to do regular things, after I was done with my thesis. Turns out I’ve lived the life of an owl for so long, I don’t know how to become a person anymore. Most of the time. Maybe the closest I’ve come to being an unsuspecting, normal female was sleeping in my parents’ bedroom in the past month.

Then again, no unsuspecting, normal female at age twenty-one would be caught dead sleeping in her parents’ bedroom.

2.
So yeah. Welcome to my life again, post-graduation, pre-first job experience. This is a long time coming. But I’ve always been a fucktard when it comes to noticing things, so hello, here I am again. I’ve erased all my crumbs from a previous life. This is an illusion I provide for myself so I’ll feel renewed, refreshed, or what other suckers call after coming from a fucking retreat.

I felt the need for disappearing because I wasn’t happy anymore. Granted I wasn’t happy before, and I am in no way happy now, but I’m not that bogged down so much by too many people either, so I’ll give myself that. I had to extract myself from the crowd. It’s funny how I thought I can surround myself with a lot of faces. I can’t. I just can’t.

If anything, it’s not anybody’s fault. At least, not all of it. It’s just that I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m really not sociable, and I’m snarky. My brand of smarminess is an acquired taste, I’m really, really lucky to have friends (and they’re so few). And I can’t fucking be myself lately. Going with the flow is just so tiring. And hell yes, most of the time I’m only in it for face value. I sit within a circle of people, try not to feel alone, and further push myself as to how much shit I can still take in.  And this happens every time with different sets of people.

But I always end up feeling exhausted, like I have put up with everything, when all I really want to do is run away.

3.
So I did. I got out at the right time. I’m glad I did what needed to be done: disappear. That was the right thing to do. In the future, when I’m old and gray and down to thermal underwear, I’ll be glad I made that move. That rarely happens in my haphazard life. I’m glad. Too many right choices and too many right paths make me unmistakably pretentious. I’m glad for mistakes, because then I can always have the guts to pull the rod sticking out my ass.

The benefits of having to extract myself out from everything else is learning a few things about me that I haven’t realized until I was in front of a big window one night, in a hotel overlooking the city, watching the city lights, and the moon looking so faraway:

a) I can’t do socialization. I just fucking can’t. I don’t know if I’ll ever change. I like people in general, but from a safe distance. I think strangers are interesting, but I’ll accept them in careful doses, please. I don’t know if it’s possible to OD on human contact alone, but it’s a thought. Anyway, for the past two years I’ve tried going out of the ”comfort zone” and being friendly, but I just can’t. Two years of having my back up against the wall is all about I can take. I want to regret at the time I’ve wasted, but as I’m going to file it under “Research”, I’ll comfort myself with the thought that at least I had the guts to explore the “what ifs” of my life.

b) It makes me sound like an ass, but I do select people whom I can allow to invade my “personal space.” In relation to having to conform to society and my attempt at socialization, I realized that I’ve let too many people get close to me, therefore compromising my usual judgment and lifestyle. I’m slowly trying to fix this.

c) I’ve confused myself as to who are important to me. In light of the previous two items, I know who they are now. I’m trying to get them back in my life.

d) It looks like I’ve given up entirely on who I’ve become by suddenly up and running, not telling people what’s going on and shit like that. I realize that I will do this time and again because I can smell self-destruction from miles away, and I’ve long ago programmed myself to run when I need to. But if you hear from me, even just the tiniest peep, while I’m on this selective stage, then that’s probably good, right?

e) I think damn too much and put out too much drama. It’s shit, but I have to accept it.

How’s that for some existentialist farting? I could go on and on. And how.