currently reading After The Plague by T.C. Boyle
currently bitching about how the 1st training week turned out

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I never wiped somebody else's ass in my 20 years. until today.

mommy was out in the market, purchasing some fruits for our delayed bowels (since we're already on the topic, I'd like to say the curse of constipation runs in the family). I was watching some cable channel and waiting for sleep to visit me, when papa suddenly barged into the room. "hoy hoy, si miggy! si miggy! daliiiiiiiii!" I was stunned; I thought he rolled down the bed or something. before I even mouthed a prayer, it dawned on me that his diaper looked utterly yellowish. I was relieved; it's just piss, you hamster, no need to worry at all. and oh, did I say he was wailing like refugee?

then the roof fell in on my head. "tumae yata, kat." I remembered all the phony babysitting I did for miggy in the past: now's the time for you to prove your worth, my dearest aunt. my father wouldn't move a limb; I was the only one left at the poor boy's disposal.

it's rather uncouth of me to go into the particulars, but at any rate, I enjoyed the experience. I felt I was the baby's messiah, the one who wrought havoc on all the shit monsters bugging him, making him afraid, worried, and uncomfortable. I realized that I love miggy (although talk is cheap) and I would stand by him, see him grow, make sure he gets everything that's supposed to be his. and of course, I must veer away from all these abstractions, too: the ass-wiping and diaper-changing experience is a great breather. it was almost therapeutic to free someone (and a cute baby at that) of stress during your most stressful week.

I spent the next half-hour humming twinkle, twinkle little star, and it didn't help that I was talking over the phone (for work) all week. the output was rather unsatisfactory, but at least it still gave him the impression that somebody at the moment was trying to put him to sleep.

mommy, grocery bags tucked under her arms and all, arrived and found miggy taking his coveted nap (he woke up at around 4, same as I did). let's keep my father out of the picture; he would rather poke fun at my incompetence at child-rearing than consider the facts that I only have a pair of hands and I wouldn't ever be able to wipe miggy's ass, wrap the soiled diaper, and rub oiled cotton balls on the affected area all at the same time.

currently reading thesis interview transcripts
currently listening to a reading of "carnal knowledge" by t.c. boyle

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I'm not used to broadband connection. it is quite uncharacteristic to have fast internet in a household that's characteristically backward. I was fuming during the first night, having to submit a story in 15 minutes while the newly installed dsl's refusing to work. I woke the sleeping household at about 11:50 in the evening to tell everyone that a futile net connection was the lamest plot to kill me. it turned out the next morning that the pldt service guy failed to remind something about the apparatus.

though I am now reaping the fruits of broadband internet--with youtube all-you-can, topped by innumerable bsb music videos and writers' festival readings--I'm still suspicious. my estranged sister, who may have possibly intended to contribute to the eye problem I'm having lately, applied for dsl, and as I've established, I was caught unaware. I was not ready for this free-for-all friendster and youtube madness, much more the requiem for the perpetual waiting to connect to various websites. I have always been mistress to waiting, and it's no easy feat to welcome a new online life of speed without ceremony.

I'm blogging about dsl because it is my first entry in months and I want to highlight the general mess of my life right now with hyperreality. I don't know, everything's going so bad at at home, in my acads, and within the organization; I wish I could exist in a vacuum. so many questions cannot be supplied with, uh, say, pastiche. I think I'm having a quarter-life crisis. which means in my silly estimate, I'll be dead by age 80. which isn't so bad. and isn't so good, too, when you come to think of all the sadness and lousiness and crises that would follow the ones right now. maybe my life needs a dsl, too, whatever that means. I need visions right now.

Currently preoccupied with organizing my book shelf, too
Currently listening to the police classics

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nowadays conscience dictates that I read either sucesos de las islas filipinas for p.i. 100 or 2006 inquirer issues for thesis. but since i've been acting like a flaming hemorrhoid lately, I veer away from anything that falls under the responsibility area. there's plenty of time spent staring at the ceiling (I sleep on the top deck of a double bed), binge eating, and kippy-ing, whatever that may mean to the unaware. the tipping point came last friday when my I felt bad during my first class and decided to spend the rest of the day strolling at the mall. I rediscovered the itch and joy of reading and book-hunting.

I got myself a 1950s short story collection, beautiful girls and other stories by alice adams. I got to know her from my thick anthology of short fiction, both including the classical and the contemporary. I was instantly hooked; the todds saga--three stories arranged in chronological fashion--introduced me to the changing sensibility in the american south from the great depression to the 1960s. women in adams' stories live in a world governed by the obsession with physical beauty, patriarchy, and discrimination against black individuals. there is the power struggle within families, between husband and wife, between siblings, and between parent and child caught in the inevitability of changing moral tides. I definitely miss reading fiction, and i'm bound to make up for the time i've been wasting all alone.

my book backlog has reached 30+ by now. I have six unread books from the american dream guru t.c. boyle and about four from nadine gordimer, while the rest come from a hodegpodge of local and american greats. as part of bidding goodbye to my studying years, i'm planning to abuse my library card and prioritize rare finds from up.

forgive the sexist undertone, but it's such a pity that reading serves as a mere mistress in our lives. almost always, it begins where gratification from everything else ends.

Currently reading Rape, Love and Sexuality: The Construction of Women in Discourse by Sylvia Estrada-Claudio
Currently dreaming of a certain kippy

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I like melting cookies and cream ice cream. this, along with dyan banda marathons on channel 23, is my most vivid memory of the past christmas season.

there are several things distinct about my christmas celebration this year. i was able to gave out gifts. I, too, celebrated with the family without saying a single word to my sister. incidentally, she announced on new year's eve that she's having a baby.

today she and my mom went to the ob-gyne for her first consultation. the doctor said she's five months on the way. she's having a baby boy. I showed no reaction--not even the slightest trace of a forced smile--and that suited me just fine. after all, I wanted to be calculating with my reactions toward her, her baby, and this guy now living with us. i have no intentions of appearing excited, basically because I am not. for those close to me, i've always complained about my personal space in this house and now... this. that may very well explain my position or lack thereof.

I, too, am not a very staunch advocate of marriage for a child's sake (for argument's sake, let's just say that my sister is younger than 27). I would even endorse abortion to friends if they ask and I think their not ready for anything big. by big, I mean a squalling baby nine months after. especially in my sister's case, there would be a huge consensus that she does not know a single thing about babies. her experience with them is limited to parties, while they're innocently dancing to the tune of crazy frog or something.

but for one, i'm glad my old father and mother are in a celebratory mood. I guess the latter's more excited about shopping maternity dresses and child-rearing. the former is perhaps more concerned about a new boy in the family, especially that his first grandson (to my half-brother) is bent on entering the priesthood.

I don't even want to think of myself as being called "tita." i'd rather hear it from mela's baby. although I'm trying really hard to uphold feminist values, I remain a nightmare in my daughter-sister roles.

plus I would have liked the baby to be a girl.

Currently listening to "Black Cow" by Steely Dan
Currently rethinking the grand walkout!

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the quezon hall barricade, the massive anti-TOFI rally, the whole picture last friday when emerlinda roman and her fellow bastards railroaded the UP tuition increase: we students are clearly disgusted, outraged, shook out of our normal consciousness. not everyone clearly saw the deception and pagtataraydor made against present and future UP students, but the student regent hit it right when he spoke outside vinzons hall: the tactic was pitting the progressive against the rest, mainly manifested in the cancellation of the lantern parade.

I saw how my fellow students at the college of engineering taunted the whole march toward the college of law (where the BoR meeting was moved). i saw the angry, unaffected, or sarcastic expressions on their faces while paolo alfonso urged them to join the mass action. a huge spectacle was made out of the rally that fought for education as a right, not a mere privilege concentrated in the hands of those who could afford the P1,000 per unit. i cannot afford to taunt them in return, practically because we are all victims of the UP admin, the malacañang movers behind TOFI, and the whole rotten system of education and public accountability in this country.

the battle has not yet been won. but the first step was witnessed by the nation last friday through the lens of massive media coverage. reeking with sweat, afternoon heat and welling anger, I was part of it.

***
it was rather awkward for us friends to continue our own christmas party plans after joining the mass action. but everything had already been set up, and it would be unfair for birthday celebrator alanah to cancel the gathering. so we went on first to eat at mcdonalds katipunan. we headed on to the main event, our perpetual tambayan and comfort zone JIRD. the exchange of gifts cum testimonial proper was made before we eventually abused the videoke machine with our 5-peso coins and sang with our usual repertoire. ralfh arrived with his workplace buddy, followed minutes after by the birthday girl herself.

as usual, what occurred afterwards reminded us that that night will go down the annals of JIRD history as an assertion of alanah's drinking trademark :)

i came home at around 2 p.m. with an armload of memorable christmas gifts, colt 45 and sisig in my stomach, and a burning right shoulder. but it sure was one of the happiest days of my life. I marched against TOFI, attended a crazy christmas party, ended up tired to the bone. the events are the sweet certainties of being alive.

p.s. the fellow book lover that he is, jake recognized my unwavering love for t.c. boyle and gave me, as a christmas gift, budding prospects (the one i was supposed to buy from him) plus a brand-new copy of virginia woolf's to the lighthouse. i almost cartwheeled.

Currently listening to Chris Brown
Currently watching Hataw Na on CinemaOne

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I usually take sides, but i'm kind of neutral about Mo Twister. he manipulates words as if the world is one big verbal playground (and i cannot agree more). he starred in one of my favorite jolina magdangal-marvin agustin flicks, hey babe, and was bordering on cuteness with his awful performance. he's neither the typical fil-am who towers over you, nor the everyday DJ who sugarcoats and gives the listeners general crap about life, love and what-have-you. and he's got a lot of beautiful young stars in his track record: 90s young star bunny paras (he fathered her child), teleserye star kristine hermosa (rumored to be his tweety bird, exposed by paras in her startalk guesting years ago, "sorry ha, si hello kitty kasi ako eh."), and now the pretty, next-door girl appeal of janet mcbride. not sure about the "dirty finger" incident at the airport when mcbride ran away from the philippines, but they sure stuck together since.

okay, i'm not neutral; i'm doing press agentry. hah.

but anyway, i never imagined showbiz reporters listening to 89.9 to sustain their entertainment columns. though it's not difficult to imagine rey pumaloy texting his fellow chikadoras, "hoy beykla, itrez na ang show ni atashi sa 89, listening galore na si akembang." or manay lolit asking her girl friday, "start na ba yung programa ni DJ-monyo?" bottomline is: mo twister is the hottest item now, and there's no stopping him. not cristy fermin's uncontrolled tagalog metaphors, at the very least.

for one, mo twister's uninhibited radio show format strips the glitzy showbiz world off its usual hypocrisy, with stars dishing out "we're just friends" by the millisecond or making beso in public with those whom they verbally fenced with. so it didn't come out as a huge shocker for me when rachel alejandro picked kris aquino as the worst actress. i mean, come on, it's time somebody tells her she's no rennaisance man. (but no offense meant, i love kris aquino, i even bought her bench scent. she just can't act, period.)

a funny angle, though, is how mo twister's show supports the celebrities' austerity measures. by merely appearing in the show and lambasting everybody else, one gets instant publicity. absolutely for free, kumarz. no need to contact one's PR person, "koya, pakisulat nga na hindi kami break ni chova," or talent managers begging, "manay, paki-clear naman na walang putok yung alaga ko." hey, the invited Forbidden Questions guest even gets a professional fee, no matter how measly it may seem.

the downside: caveat emptor. no return, no exchange. you can't take it back, honey! the revelations spoil even casual relationships, and as showbiz's favorite catch phrase goes, "the damage has been done." the issue now enters the moral sphere, much like this is taboo topic, or i owe this celebrity a great deal, or i'll invite flak over this pronouncement. and truth be told, this is very Pinoy; we have a very polite society. a really rude guy shoves you in this long ticket line and you even say, "manong, excuse lang po." people who expose the raping of the Constitution, for instance, even get a cold bath in press conferences of public officials with public accountability. we are that polite. it's hardest to deal ruffled feelings in this country, isn't it?

i'm still undecided about mo twister, though. maybe if he returns to acting, opposite kim chiu and gerald anderson, maybe as gerald's jersey-wearing uncle or something. or if he and dayanara torres make a grand comeback in ASAP. yahoo, ragga muffin girl na naman 'to!

Currently listening to "Roxanne" by The Police
Currently feeling almost jumpy. well yes, jumpy.

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I initially planned to keep this blog secret. no. my writing does not really merit staunch attention (except if you're my mother or the creditor pained with one of my long-overdue loans. hehe). what i'm trying to say is that this time around, i'm kind of shying away from attention.

one friend of mine from los baños once wrote in his friendster account that blogging is mainly for loners, those who want to maintain a better (and maybe more prone to termination once things get ugly) version of themselves in the electronic grapevine. i can't say i don't exactly agree; for precision's sake, however, i'd like to present a revision. maybe blogging is for lonely but hopeful individuals, those who still want to make sense of the world and put this sense-making into words despite the world's general lousiness and oblivion. you don't have to agree with me, but hey, maybe the opinion counts because it's my own sense-making.

one of my favorite books is jonathan franzen's how to be alone. it is a collection of essays on mass culture and the alienation it often generates. until yesterday, i didn't know he notes in his website that the book itself is a "celebration of being a reader and writer," a certain hope fed to the individual bomabarded with today's shallow and consumerist images.

i'm glad i'm back to blogging. hopes rise, dear friend.

currently listening to "What we do here" by Brian McKnight
currently reading Strong Motion by Jonathan Franzen

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now that's another good way to end the year and greet a new one.

i'm not really in good terms with my mother right now, but i admire the fact that she's setting free all the clothes and bags and materials things we amassed over the years. she's putting up a garage sale. it's one big shocker, to begin with; my mother is the type who would firmly keep things out of mere sentimentality or twisted hopes that old things may still be of good use. to give you an idea, they are situated in various corners of the house, either in big heaps or huge grocery cartons. my most favorite are the sacks of outgrown clothing articles, lifeless in their own chaos at the top deck of a double bed. no joke: our problem with domestic junk is that serious.

but it's a glaring half-truth to only mention outgrown. most of the things we abandoned over the years are already out of style, and i don't think impulse buying has very little contribution in this junk problem. you see, shop displays and advertisements are our family's Achilles heel; and forgive me but i don't think we have a monopoly of this. it's a reality that impulse buying is largely out of the latest fad slapped to our bourgeois faces, and the effects of massive mall promos, bargain ads and other marketing techniques (which are both borderline insane and shameless) are already subliminal, meaning you never knew what got you after purchasing that bolero jacket  that won't even survive the looming El Niño period (or is it already happening?).

fashion being cyclical is an almost foolproof excuse for ruthless shopping. i don't think, however, that our junk problem could be put off until elephant jeans make a grand comeback. ours is a small house which floor space isn't really generous to a family of six (including my aunt and cousin). for years we have endured having our unused clothes parked beside our latest acquisitions, and we would definitely appreciate additional breathing room. besides there is a looming wood fixture problem (termites! termites!) that would probably be heightened by the mountains of material junk we have.

to refer to those things as junk, by the way, brings out a certain shame in me, regardless of how relative the term may be. we are Third world republic; we are the Payatas of China's garments, Japan's technologies, and overall US bombardment of entertainment and PX goods. i'm already endorsing the different kinds of violence (labor, above all) behind these goods through my ruthless shopping, and now i'm adopting the position of these global biggies by calling junk all these things that for all i know are god-forbidden treasures to those with less or no buying power.

my mom is inexperienced in the sales department, so i'm expecting the garage sale to be quite disastrous. she has the slightest idea of how pricing should be done, and thankfully, there's my sister to take the place of the ever-reliable shopping expert in the house (read: me; believe it or not). and although i'm not really looking forward to having a share in the total sales, i'm still flushed with the general opinion in the family that i have the best and most decent items in the sale rack. which isn't far from saying that my track record in shopping is something not to be proud about while one is trying hard to uphold feminist and anti-consumerist values.

inexperienced in the "dutiful daughter" department, too, i made several trips to where my mom is supposed to ply her trade and left my own old things. hallelujah, at least we're not speaking, i'm spared from the needed tindera duty. i don't think i'm a sales person myself.

p.s. i came from the greenhills night market and robinson's galleria the night before. i did my pre-christmas shopping.