Some little-known curious facts about me (part1): November 26, 2007

1. I’m allergic to chicken meat.
2. I can’t swim.
3. I will never be a doctor because the sight and smell of blood drives me bonkers. Hospitals and huge needles, too.
4. I always sleep on my safe side – that is, whichever side faces the door.
5. I love eating fish. Fried, steamed, curried, sinigang, paksiw, and bathed in sweet and sour sauce. When fried to perfection, I will eat every crispy inch of it, yes even the tail, the head, and the eyeballs.
6. I still get goosebumps everytime I cross a busy highway. Brings me back to that fateful day when a motorcycle threw me to the air, and landed me on my sore butt.
7. I’m a sucker for tall men with washboard abs. Sexy, sexy, sexy.
8. When I cook, I never use MSG or any of those ready-to-use mixes.
9. I can’t live without facial moisturizer.
10. A crazy exhibitionist once showed me his erect manhood inside a Public Utility Jeepney. I honestly thought he had planned to rape me in broad daylight, with oblivious people on board. I was in highschool then.
11. Whippersnappers who smoke in public places deserve to be incarcerated for life.
12. I love writing long love letters. Even when my guy very rarely writes me back.
13. Planned shopping trips make me bored. That’s why I almost always shop on impulse.
14. I bellydance inside my bedroom.
15. If I were to die tommorow, I’d console myself today by eating strawberries dipped in melted Hershey’s.
16. As I’m allergic to chicken meat, I’m also allergic to another type of poultry: eggs. Which is sad, really, because I could actually live on scrambled eggs for breakfast every single day.
17. I used to wish I were a mermaid. Until I realized I cannot wish that and love to eat fish at the same time.
18. I’m a major crybaby. I cry over the “senti” stuffs: watching Wish ko Lang, listening to Clarkson’s Because of You, and anything written and sung about fathers.
19. I even cry over the silly things: sometimes during bedtime prayers, oftentimes on bus rides, and always when I’m alone during a brownout.
20. In highschool, I read all Judith McNaught novels. I have Dennise to blame for this. Thanks to her, I am now an unwilling romantic.
21. I always start a row with my guy whenever I get bored. Like bringing up matters with an ex-girlfriend. Or the fact that he does not answer my love letters. Kisses and make-ups are always a fun thing. Or maybe I’m just plain twisted.
22. I find myself attracted to guys who wear eye glasses. Gives me the impression of intelligence, though I’m oftentimes mistaken.
23. I am not fond of wearing make-up. Blushing cheeks and moisturized lips are enough for me.
24. I do not dip my ripe bananas in peanut butter. I dip them in soy sauce. Seriously.
25. At 25, I’m still terrified of poltergeists and manananggals. I did not sleep until 3 am last night. I was almost certain I heard a great flapping of wings outside my bedroom window.

Rumor has it November 22, 2007

That Wentworth Miller is gay. Gawd. And it has taken me all this time to write about it. Of course I did not believe the reports months before, could not bring myself to make sense of it all. I literally drooled over his Michael Scofield in that highly preposterous suspense-drama series on television, and watched his love scenes in The Human Stain with a thousand “damnits”. I’m no schoolgirl anymore but what the heck, nobody coud have stopped me if I filled my bedroom walls with cheap reproductions of his smoldering gazes, or watched schmaltzy Mariah Carey music videos ad nauseum because he appeared in two of them for all of thirty seconds.

That’s how pathetic I get whenever I’m smitten.

But rumor has it he’s gay. And that he had been openly dating. Openly. I can just puke buckets right now.

And to think that I’ve been seriously planning to buy a black, fitted baby t-shirt and have it emblazoned with “Mrs. Scofield” on the front in red, bold letters. Imagine that. My sister would have rolled on her belly, and laughed like Bella Flores.

Endless Puddles November 19, 2007

-Raining, raining, raining for three straight days-

 

I grew up thinking that the rain is a beautiful thing. And it still is. But when you’re stuck inside the house, alone on a Monday, with a hoarse throat, a running fever, and the winds are singing a depressing tune outside, the rain could be anything, except beautiful.

One of my guilty pleasures as a child, and even as a blundering adolescent, was frolicking under the rain. No, I don’t mean just standing under the leaking gutters, and bathing in murky rainwater and slimy dead leaves (gross!), but waiting until the downpour gets to a slashing degree, then happily hopping unto the green lawn, shrieking and dancing like crazy, completely soaked to my underwear. As if the rain was not enough, I would open the garden faucets, then using a watering hose, or a balde and tabo, rinse myself entirely, the warm faucet water surprisingly delicious against the cold rain. My siblings would almost always join me in these wet excursions, and whether they took pleasure with these things as much as I did, I can never be certain. I was always the last one to dry myself with the towels, looking the other way when my mother begins throwing disapproving glances at me.

Then, when I am no longer allowed to dance under the rain because I am already told to please, please grow up, I began to associate the rain with anything romantic, of cool dreamy nights, perhaps the stuff of distant fairytales. Everything romantic, everything dramatic happens when it’s raining. An old couple sharing a tiny umbrella, reunited friends having espresso in a café, and a toddler in a yellow raincoat, holding tight to her mommy’s hand. Or strangers conversing under the same shade, and people finally having the time to pick up that novel, and begin reading because there’s nothing else left to do. And the way those dead, brown leaves fall carelessly to the ground, when the rain is about to start and before the winds get impatient, like little parachutes dancing in mid-air, is always a thing of beauty. Of course, weathers like these could get merciless, and there is nothing dreamy with overflowing rivers, and people getting stuck in traffic because a ten-wheeler has skidded on the slippery highway. Or even that time when I was caught inside a bus for hours because a landslide threatened to throw people, cars, and buses off the ravine. But the rain is still a beautiful thing, because everything is washed with color— the leaves look greener, those red roofs look like shiny carpets, and the earth always smells luscious and heady after the wet spells.

Except that today I have a terrible throat, unwashed hair, and still have to travel to those melancholic mountains for work, in this cold, cold weather. And the house is deserted, so I can hear the sound of the radio, my own breathing, and the rain slapping the ground simultaneously. For once, as much as I worship it, I hope that it stops so I can travel in comfort, and our laundry can dry out in the sun.

 

Cryonics – Death as an option November 16, 2007

This is creepy news, but in the western world there are people who do not bury their dead, but preserve them in chemicals within minutes from the onset of death, so that they can resuscitate them in the future, when nanotechnology and molecular biology are already possible. Or simply put, when science finally allows us to grow back body parts we have lost through disease, or death. This process/scientific breakthrough/futuristic fiction stuff of rising from the dead is called cryonics.

But is cryonics really a viable scientific breakthrough? Can death (clinical, legal, brain, information-theoretic) really be reversed? According to the people at Alcor Life Extension Foundation, death is actually a process, not an event. Members of this foundation or cryonicists (people who are strong advocates of cryonics, or the low temperature preservation of humans and other animals that can no longer be sustained by contemporary medicine until resuscitation may be possible in the future) actually allow clinically dead bodies of their loved ones to be shipped to the Life Extension facility for cryopreservation, wherein the whole body or parts of the body specifically the brain are preserved by cooling it in liquid nitrogen, or vitrification, and treated with cryoprotectants to prevent freezing.

Creepy. creepy. creepy.

If death is actually a process, then when does a person actually die? Advocates of cryonics argue that when a physician declares a patient to be dead, the patient is actually not yet dead, but that the brain has just ran out of oxygen. Which then translates to the premise that a “dead” brain can still be resuscitated through timely and proper intervention, and thus be preserved, until such time that a reversal technology is widely possible.

So is this argument just short of calling our present doctors murderers or advocates of euthanasia? Are there really people who wish to be revived at a later time (no one knows when), knowing that the world they once lived in will not be the same decades or centuries after? Is death just a disease, like cancer or diabetes and one day can be cured permanently? Does cryonics really translate to immortality, or does it merely seek to cure one human body one disease at a time and that eventually, no amount of resuscitation or cell regeneration can obstruct the human body’s death?

Meanwhile, the present day tells us another story. People die of cancer or heart disease everyday. People smoke and drink to excesses everyday, people crave for the fast life, for fast food, for an unhealthy existence. Our waters have become more contaminated, our air have become impure and rarefied. When there are people who deliberately want to kill themselves, then will cryonics be a lost case in the end? If at this point, our earth is slowly deteriorating, where shall these future immortals tread on? And do we really want to live perpetually, to be resurrected a hundred times over? For all we know, cryonics may just be another hype of our times, a scientifically structured ambition to be gods of a lesser heaven.

But then again, it may as well be the future order of things. Science has never failed to astound us, after all. If Hitler were alive today, he’d be above rejoicing.

I’m heartbroken because November 14, 2007

Lola Cuning finally left. Just a day after we were kidding around by her sickbed. Jimmy, the vermin, did not even drop by with the roses. And I can’t even see her for the last time because I’m away for work. I’m just consoled by the fact that she’s now with Papa, and all her siblings. May the angels give her wings, and may the stars lead her home.

And I hope she’d tell Papa I said hello.

no “jingle bells” November 14, 2007

We have not even put up the Christmas tree yet. And to think that it’s almost the third week of November. As of this time last year, the tree had already been adorned and lighted, the mistletoes hung on the door, the belen set up on the console, and the curtains and throw pillows dressed in whimsical holiday themes. This year, however, those huge storage boxes do not seem too inviting at all. The lethargy around the house is awfully thick these days, and no one has taken any enterprise in outfitting the house in time for Santa Claus’ holiday stopover.

Are we playing it cool, or are we just plain lazy? Or is dressing the house up just some kind of annual, perfunctory act predestined to peter out in time?

(Sigh.) Guess we are just being lazy.

Tragic Comedy November 14, 2007

-This account may seem heartrending, but read on. It’s a perfect example of how Pinoys always make a joke out of an otherwise sore situation. Or maybe, my family is just one demented bunch.-

 

Last weekend, my family went to visit a very ailing Lola Cuning, bedridden from the complications of diabetes, her feeble condition rendering her unable to utter long, straight sentences or to even make out our faces. When she woke up from her sleep, and realizing that we, her apos were already inside her house, she called my mother’s name, and promptly, my sister and I followed her into the bedroom. Lola was a heartbreaking sight to behold. Her body had shrunk to almost half her usual size. She had always been fond of taking trips to the hairdressers, but now her tresses looked as flimsy as paper and cropped too short like a little boy’s. Keeping the authority of a grade-school teacher even after her retirement many years ago, she was a steely character all her life, and always had very loud opinions on everything. But there was nothing loud about her that afternoon. She could not even speak a simple hello.

Much as she hated scenes, mother started to weep like a child. Seeing her aunt swathed in diapers and shrunken like a raisin, perhaps, tore at her insides. And the fact that the old woman was twisting around the bed and staring at walls did not help at all. Whether she was in pain, or that she wanted to say something but was powerless to do so, was never clear to us. Mother wept and wept, talking to her like a child, while Lola tried to stare at her with bulging, gray eyes, and then closing them again, as if in agony or lament.

I was never much for scenes too, but my eyes soon began to water when the sick woman also failed to recognize me. How I hated it when she kept glaring at me for a full three seconds, as if her very eyes wanted to grow tongues, only to shut them in complete resignation, perchance telling herself the effort was to no use. My sister, the spineless one, stayed outside the bedroom, not even wanting to smell the antiseptics, occupying herself with the cats and the old wall pictures.

Mother stopped wailing eventually, and went out to talk with my other titas. Two cousins came, including Ton-ton, the favorite apo. For some reason, five cousins including my spineless sister and myself, found ourselves together at Lola’s bedroom. While we were cheerfully bantering at each other on something, Lola Cuning suddenly made an audible sound. This prompted Ton-ton, who slept beside her on her sickbed every night, to make a joke on the situation.

“Who’s going to bet with me that if I mention Jimmy’s name, Lola Cuning will open her eyes?” he addressed all of us suddenly.

Jimmy was the only boyfriend Lola ever had, at least as far as we knew. They have had one lovechild, Ton-ton’s father. I am not certain who left who but they had never been a married couple. I think it was Jimmy who left Lola Cuning when she was already with child.

True enough, the favorite apo executed his dare.

“Lola, Jimmy is here. Shall we open the door for him? He has some red roses too, Jimmy. Uuuuuyyy.”

Startlingly, the ailing grandma opened her eyes, raised her hand as if to say hush, and moved her head sideward as if to say no. She was also suppressing a smile, and whether we just imagined it, I am in doubt.

Our group roared with laughter. She knew we were just joking, and in her labored-breathing condition, she gamely played along.

“La, do you want some lipstick?” I playfully suggested. “I know you love red lipstick.”

“If she could speak, she’d tell you to shut up.” My spineless sister replied. Then imitating our grandmother’s curt voice, she said, “You animal, I didn’t ask for your suggestion right?”

The group doubled over with amusement. Then addressing my sister I said, “Well, if she could speak, she’d tell you how much you’ve gained weight since the last time.”

And faking Lola’s brusque, straightforward manner of speech, I said. “Hoy bruha, how did you become so fat all of a sudden? What ever happened to you? Dios mio! Have you been left too long in the kitchen?”

Everybody laughed. My sister laughed too, but looked at me with dagger eyes.

Suddenly, Lola Cuning raised both of her hands to caress the favorite apo’s face. It was an emotional, tender moment, but it lasted all of five seconds. My sister, apparently in need of vendetta, abruptly cut the drama.

“Hoy Ton-ton, don’t think that she was trying to do drama with you. If she could speak, she would have told you to please have your hair cut, because it’s beginning to resemble a thick weed bush!!!”

And then continuing in a doting grandma’s mushy tone, “My dear apo, please, cut you hair na, ha? It’s so thick na. You’re gwapo pa naman. Sayang.”

We all could have died laughing.

Things I’ll definitely miss in these melancholic mountains: November 13, 2007

• Lush, lush foliage
• Bukidnon Brew Cafe’s cappuccino and tuna sandwiches
• the crisp air
• green provincial parks
• window shopping at Treats and Treasures
• Le Cafe’s lasagna and hot tsokolate
• The Benedictine Monastery
• Bukidnon Brew Cafe’s two-shelf library
• Eating takeouts on my bed
• Luzonian’s ham and mushroom pizza
• My cozy pinewood paneled bedroom
• cheap roses, calla lilies, mums by the cathedral (and did i say they’re pretty, too?)
• Horseback riding at Kaamulan
• The annual Kaamulan Festival
• Cafe Maria Luz’s fettuccine carbonara
• Eating lanzones and durian almost every week
• watching DVD movies without interruption
• gorgeous sinamay handbags, clutch bags, and summer bags
• Luncheon meetings at Pine Hills Hotel
• fresh lettuce and strawberries
• senseless laughter with senseless people
• luxuriant strawberry wine
• dinners with Chad every night

Food for the Soul November 2, 2007

I did bake the perfect lasagna on my birthday. Layers of beef and mushroom in tomato sauce, firm whole-wheat lasagna pasta, and heavenly, butter-fragrant béchamel sauce. If my day wasn’t as spectacular as I had initially hoped it would be, the lasagna saved me from my depressive habit of staying in bed all day, hidden under the covers. Chopping the onions and the garlic was therapeutic, grating the cheese and slicing the whole mushrooms was curative. I found myself staring at the raw lasagna pasta for several minutes, admiring their classical, wavy edges. And when I started sautéing the spices in melted butter, my mood abruptly skyrocketed to Valhalla, and I didn’t mind that I was in fact standing for two straight hours- simultaneously checking the pasta, tasting the sauce, and adding the dried herbs.

Due to financial constraints, I chose not to throw a party for my friends, and since it fell on a week long vacation owing to the three non-working holidays, I surmised they might be out of town, happily taking advantage of the long, indolent days of Halloween. A number of thoughtful people greeted me, and a few forgot to do so, although those who did greeted me after a day or two, plus some lengthy apologies on their temporary bouts of amnesia. No, I did not get drunk that night, the only stuff I drank were water and cola, and judging with the way the cosmos has been joking with me lately, getting drunk would be one of the desperate acts I can be accused of. And no, I did not get to do anything that I have not done yet in my quarter of a century existence that day, or something that I can be proud of, at least not intentionally. But I can’t help thinking that my birthday this year had been relatively absurd; the night before I was too happy to even sleep (the reason of which I never understood), and the following day, I had to alternate between being happy, shocked, disappointed, indifferent, depressed, upset, and then ultimately at peace. But the fact that I lost no sleep over the twisted turn of events on my birthday is something else, and looking back, I think I may be allowed a bit of gratification with the knowledge that I have become less captive to the futile anxieties that have made up a huge part of my existence.

So as I have mentioned, the lasagna was a blast. Mom ate her plateful without saying much, except, “We should have this on the Christmas menu”. Chad kept nudging me for the recipe, and as a reply I’d keep silent, hoping to prolong his impatience. My brother wanted me to cook another layer for the Halloween, to which I declined because honestly, I was almost intoxicated with the aroma of boiling sauces and bubbling buttermilk after slaving in the kitchen for more than a couple of hours. Everybody went to bed happy and full, even when the lights temporarily went out in the course of dinner, and even when I didn’t blow any candles on the creamy mango cake my sister brought later in the evening. Of course, there shall be more blackouts in the future, but there will also be many candles to be lighted and many more to be put out on many birthday nights to come. And in the meantime, I’m so looking forward to them.