Shallow Afternoons

There's three of us
into eternal sunsets
afternoons asleep

Afternoons like this I’m so happy I’m being shallow. I’m being overly self-conscious. A pseudo-profound side of me crusades against this shallowness and retaliates with that haiku that appears eloquent when (and only when) you’re drunk.

Yes, we were drinking. After work in the evening, we had lunch out in a decent-enough Greek restaurant. Lamb gyros with tzatziki sauce in wheat pita. The place had a huge blackboard with the day’s specials and a large “Opa” in Greek letters. The little one was his stroller and I’ve already started with beer. I look at D. and remember all our dates and the countless times I told her I love her and her cooking and her tastes.

We went home and the little one lets us watch movie. I drink some more, maybe three or four. The engaging movie takes us to Genova, an Italian medieval town with charming alleyways. It rode us to nearby ports, beaches, coasts where you scoot along roads with a view of waves crashing against cliffs.

We are in this room and this room is a shoreline. The sun is warm but the sand is cold, powdery cream rubbing wrapping itself on my feet like a velvet towel constantly rinsed by the water. Finally, we are all asleep, hanging on to this sunset.

We've had so many of these afternoons. With so much of this shallow happiness, it goes deep.

Three Books & Aflutter

Real World

Natsuo Kirino

PHP 588 Fully Booked

It feels more comfortable to live in a world where we no longer describe Asian Women Writers as “twice marginalized.” There is a comforting pride in saying, instead, Japanese Feminist author. “Real World,” however, is not exactly set out to restore faith in human dignity or describe a bubbly teenage world. This fiction is about hard truths in compelling stories that reveal, in this diagram how much parents understand their children and why they live in their own world.

(1)    How much adults know
(2)    How much teenagers know
(3)    How much adults understand teenagers

I couldn’t always understand myself back then. But I knew I lived in a terrifically amusing world for first times, of survival. Reading this novel now, I understand that my spirit will probably never be as bright as it was then. Adults live as shadows of themselves.

Interpreter of Maladies

Jhumpa Lahiri

PHP 145 BookSale

The literature on the immersion, mixture and eventual diffusion of cultures create a rich, familiar language. Those stories are spoken in a language of adaptation, like songs sung in the same lyrical voice. It is a voice that longs, and then beautifully, fulfills itself.  As if to say, I am writing about this country while I discover my own.

What impressed me was how the writer says determined things softly and tells us that the embracing of different cultures is a happy marriage of contradiction. The stories speak of sadness, infidelity, of love that has been lost, of love that has not been returned or replaced. There’s not a lot of joy. But as you read how the stories are told, there is reassurance, and eventual realization of hope and fulfilment.

The Marriage Plot

Jeffrey Eugenides

PHP315 (paperback) National Bookstore

(Currently reading, 166 pages read)

An uplifting read that makes you aflutter as in the Novels of Jane Austen, Edith Wharton or Thomas Hardy. Love sows its seeds in a Brown University Semiotics class, when it was agitating the landscape of literary theory in the early 1980s, between discussions of how Culler made Derrida’s work digestible.  I succumb to the temptation of telling a dumb joke by saying that I applied specific knowledge from the stuff I picked up in those elective courses I took in College, even if the only application is to enjoy what you’re reading. More importantly, this book is also about the most favoured time of life: College and the Post-College dilemma that follows immediately after. You enjoy, because your memory jogs around your own coming of age.

We are Suffering

The suffering that has been brought upon us, while it does not necessarily redeem, nor is worshipped, becomes an expressed aesthetic. A loquacious, grouchy teenager, and a middle-aged New Yorker who wears his scarf in the most sensible fashion – these are the protagonists, these are the suffering.

Flesh out the suffering in us, dramatize its complex layers so that we do not just watch passively, compel us to actively perceive, and you’ve got a movie that makes a stain in our minds. And it’s a stain we don’t want to wash away.

Shame

My favorite scene from the movie covered in a spot-on review by Anthony Lane of the New Yoker: "Take the wordless subway ride, early in the movie, that finds Brandon, impeccably swathed in coat and scarf, sitting diagonally opposite a young woman. To witness the back-and-forth of their flirtation is like watching Nadal versus Federer on clay. Topspin smiles are dinked across the car, lips are slyly moistened, and McQueen even lobs in a late twist, as the woman proves to be wearing not just a kindly smile but a wedding ring—a combination guaranteed to stir our hero’s loins. The entire sequence is perfect, and PG-rated, and if “Shame” had stopped there it would have been a poem." Read more here.

Margaret

On the final scene, the mother and daughter sit on a performance of Offenbach's Tales of Hoffman in the New York Opera House. In catharsis, they both explode in tears. Thomas Caldwell of Cinema Autopsy described this scene in a most interesting review:  "... a strong case that narrative art – like cinema – still has the power to transcend reality and emotionally connect with people when everything else feels muted by cynicism and resignation." The full review is here.

Perhaps the suffering is conquerable. It might have been a feeling of transcendence from narrative art, or contemplating the poetry in the scenes. I couldn't rationalize my sense of optimism after watching both of these movies, but I am relieved that the optimism isn't feigned.

Little Fish

In the heart of a busy avenue in Quezon City normally clogged by cars and jeeps, a corner leads to an exclusive village of uniformily-built, four-story townhouses. The gates are tightly secured, and despite the pollution, this place had the tall, manicured trees you'd typically find in Tagaytay.

It's a Sunday afternoon, not too blazingly hot, and the clubhouse is where our niece J. is celebrating his 4th. We had home-cooked spaghetti, chicken, along with ice cream and pork barbeque while children frolicked in the pool. It was the stuff of our own childhood dreams, their earth-memories in the making.

The little one loves the water and smiles with pure joy. Mommy, especially in a bathing suit, shows her beautiful flesh in the sun. Today, I'm the Daddy who drives the big van, then sits by the poolside reading a back-issue of the New Yorker.

I amuse myself with how the patrons of farm-to-table resturants in New York wait an hour for a table. When the hour is up, they get a text message. They scramble, as though they're about to miss a flight, as the table is held for five minutes.

I read the feature about a face in the crowd in Occupy Wall Street. Inside my head, my thoughts do their own swimming. Corporate greed has such a powerful feorcity that it diffused and drove out the occupiers in Zuccotti Park and dispersed the movement. A line in the article goes: "You worked all your life and you're a good person and it doesn't matter. You're really prone to getting fucked." Months later, the 99% kept getting fucked while economies endure gut-punching recessions. The corporations are unscathed. Despite my awakening as part of the 99% who kept getting fucked, I am still guiltily thankful for the job I love to hate.

I've always thought about what Fathers think as they watch their kids enjoy in swimming parties. I'm glad it's not all feelings of fluff. It's not a self-congratulatory thought, and it's also note one of desolation and desperation that drives the greedy. It is always of hope that these little ones by the pool will do it right. And so we do.

At Twenty-Seven Months

When we have children, we become (more hopeful) children all over again. As though all this time (until now), we only pretend/ed to be adults. 

I didn't learn to draw well enough, but here's what we drew together. (Mommy does it so much better!) I guess re-learning is a much as a treasure as learning.

While reading the other day, you described the pictures in the books: "monkey eating an apple." "Santa holding a present." From the books, you even recognize personalities: Jesus, Van Gogh, Nietzsche. But mostly, you'd rather see animated characters from cartoons or talking animals. We won't take your childhood away from you by teaching you what is Post-Impressionism or Existentialism. You'll find that out on your own. 

Before you sleep and I take off to work, you say "Good night Daddy . Take care, Daddy. I love you, Daddy." When you get naughty and we respond to your naughtiness, you counter with "Hug Mommy. Kiss Mommy." 

Together, we learn and re-learn. From ABCs to counting, the names of things, grasping language, singing nursery rhymes. Together, we do the silliest things and the sweetest things. 

In the blink of an eye, you'll be a whiny teenager sporting an unruly haircut. Maybe you'lld read Nietzsche and Camus, maybe you won't. You might say things like: the hourglass of existence runs quickly. But these days, we live in a realm of discovery and fascination that's inherent to a child. Magical is an honest emotion to describe what we are going through. So we insist to be always with you. In the theory of eternal recurrence, all this magic is happening always.

And all over again. As you sieze the day, you'll understand you don't only live once.

10/01 - Today in History

October 1, 1975 - Thrilla in Manila.  “Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos offered to hold the bout in Metro Manila and sponsor it to divert attention from the social turmoil that the country was experiencing, having declared martial law three years earlier (1972).” ^[1]  

This beautiful distraction, the conclusion of the Ali-Frazier trilogy, became one of greatest fights in 20^th century boxing. No amount of distraction derailed those who fought on. 

We fight many different fights now. There is one against the ignorance of those who think that the RH Bill is against life. There is one against lawmakers (and plagiarists) who created laws to limit our freedom.  We fight against a collective forgetfulness as we watch the wife of a dictator, who squandered the nation’s wealth, shakes hands with a President who pledged to relieve government of corruption. The senator who is believed to be the chief architect of Martial Law looks on, flashing the smile of someone who lived long enough to rewrite history.

The Thrilla in Manila happened over thirty years ago today. Let’s not be distracted. Let’s never forget.

To my kindred spirits, the mediocre lower-middle class folks who do nothing but pay taxes: raise your fists, oppose despondency and fight on.

  

Wikipedia Citation:

^[1]  ^ Thriller in Manila, Oregon sigs, Retrieved on 31 March 2007.

Shoes & Sensibility

"You've been contemplating on buying that for six months now." D. says. I never imagined how selecting a pair of running shoes would be as complex as the conundrums of characters in Jane Austen novels. 

I've utilized the shoe finders, compared and constrated specifications, studying the so-called science. After having determined what suits me best, I window-shopped what's available in local stores. I tested what I selected and took a foot arc and video gait test. As a final, pathetic gesture, I posted in Facebook.

I’m a slight overpronator (still weighs within BMI) who’s looking to switch to a minimalist shoe, along the lines of Saucony Kinvara 2 or Brooks Pure Project (Cadence) line. I’ve been running recreationally for a few years (40-80km a month, 2:10 21km PR) on shoes with a lot of “dynamic support” and cushioning, particularly Nike’s Lunar Glides. I’ve been pretty used to a soft landing.

Did anyone of you folks make this switch to minimalist and come off injury-free? Does it really help in developing a more natural gait and midfoot strike? I’m deciding if I should settle with something safe for my profile, such as the Saucony Guide 5.


My joruney within a jorney, my history in running shoes:

So I bought the first pair that keeps my slightly overpronating, low-arc feet within 4mm from the ground, with considerable support and stability. It would be good transition shoe. The box of the Brooks Pure Project, Pure Cadence line promised that these shoes will be the "megaphone for the roar of your run. A connect- with-the-ground and hug-every-turn joy ride for the senses. These shoes are an ultra-light, anatomically fit tribute to the freedom you feel on the run... put them on and run happy." 

Running is my metpahor made physical, and that's my favorite thing about running.  I didn't even read what I quoted in the box until bought the pair, but I knew I would have felt whatever they said and more, no matter what pair I wore. I've reviewed the supposed science and the literature's an inspiring bonus.

It's pricey, but I also bought at the right time and got the pair on a 10% discount with a 3-month installment. I would have had around 150 km on it before it gets fully paid. Perhaps to compensate for the time I've lost in the choosing.

So I say again, or paraphrase Nietzsche as I've had before, I no longer run on worn soles. 
 

Whistles and Whips

Now, the wind whistles
blades of grass sing, dance along
A while, the wind whips


I took my break early today - almost as soon as I arrive. I'm enjoying the calm before the storm.

While the shift's email is downloading, I'm having the office concessionaire's coffee - freshly brewed robusta with whole milk. I rip open a pack of blueberry pop tarts. A pervasive LSS rings in my head: Zooey Deschanel's voice singing "The Pooh Bear takes care of its tummy." D. and I have been seeing a lot of Winnie the Pooh with the Little One.

There's an indecipherable hum of agents' voices in fake American accents collectively answering calls that swam through undersea cables in the Pacific.

I barely take my breaks, or I still work on my breaks so I’m happy for the time I have right now that I'm truly making my own.

I stare at the send/receive progress in the status bar of Outlook but I don't open any email. I turn to some happy thoughts: the bike+run this afternoon, the excellent prepared by D., and playtime with the little one.



Bike+Run

Through the kindness of the Kingdom of Netherlands, a bike parking rack has been installed in CCP’s Harbor Square. It serves the purpose perfectly for my bike+run set-up.

I bike to CCP to beat the traffic-congested roads that are either too dangerous or non-conducive for running. The wind blows against your face when you’re biking. There's pollution of course, but I still prefer this over a spin class or a stationary bike warm up in an air conditioned gym.

Late in the afternoons, the half-kilometer (or so) stretch from the abandoned Film Center to GSIS and the Senate building is almost free of cars. Foot traffic is also low. Along with the nearness of the bay, the trees along the stretch gives it a strong provincial feel. The air smells fresh and moist. Other than the sound of rubber pounding against the asphalt, what's better than hearing nothing else is the occasional noise of an insect. Along the road, lines of Joyce Kilmer's Trees are posted up.

I run farther along the wide, still-under-construction road that lead to a bridge with a view of the bay. The emptiness of the place makes you feel like this is all yours. You hear the water swishing underneath. The bridge leads to the Esplanade and the Mall of Asia.

When construction completes, the scenery of this running path will alter completely. Before the cars and establishments congest this place, I run here as often as I can.

Belated photo by my brother , O. 1.15.2013

Back in Harbor Square, I cool down, hydrate and stretch. CCP is staging the Phantom of the Opera. Some of the guests must have had the brilliant idea of coming early for coffee or a light dinner to beat the Friday traffic or secure a decent parking spot. I see several of the guests parading around, some of the gentlemen in suits and the ladies in fancy dresses. I see a couple holding hands and seeing them so poised to enjoy the evening is in-itself pleasant.

Before heading back, I grab a classic glazed and chocolate cream cake with Oreos from the newly-opened Krispy Kreme. D. and the little one lights up when I arrive, seeing the paper bags. The little one smiles, rummages through the paper and says, "Eat donut."



Hide & Seek and The Cheesy Adobo

D. prepares our dinner, and I watch over the little one. Everyday's a miracle with a little one and what's even more amusing is how picks things up and gains his milestones.

We played Hide and Seek tonight. He cups his hands to the edge of his eyes and turns to a wall. We help him out on the count to 10, reminding him of what number follows and he mimics. He bursts into big laughs when he finds or is found. He was still asking and saying "again" by the time we were eating. So we play some more.

D. puts a twist to an already delicious dish by adding some shredded cheese on an all-drumstick chicken adobo. The sour, salty and sweet sauce went perfect with pink rice. We have conversations on the side and look forward to the weekend. She tells me, "We've got a six-pack of Heineken. I'll take them out of the pack and start chilling them for the weekend."

We clean up and shower and they go to bed. I have time for a short nap before heading off to work. D. indulges me to a soothing massage for legs and back that labored in a lot of running. It sends me off to that nap.

I dress up, and kiss my wife and son goodnight.

I whistled, and the wind blew my way tonight. In a little while the wind will whip up into a storm. But that will be a while, and I'm starting to think that since it already blew my way I'll be resilient enough to not even mind how badly the wind whips.

The Consolations of Margherita Pizza

I might have thought that there was an unconsoling effect in how places that “develop” lose their old-world flair. You return to a place to find your memory of the place completely altered, and not always for the better. Establishments need renovations every now and then, but physical repairs or even so-called development shouldn’t change an already healthy, thriving spirit.

One of these experiences is drinking beer and eating margherita pizza in bars by the beach. Hey Jude! in Boracay tops the list in my head. It's best to have it in the afternoon, watching the sunset and the transforming skyline while listening to chillout music. Charming restaurants like those which were owned and operated by foreigners who settled in the island must be very few nowadays. Industrialization and more competitive businesses have taken over. Starbucks, hotel chains like Shangri-La, even fast food chains like McDonalds, Chowking, and Andok's. That changes the entire milieu of the place. Back then, you walk into a place and you know it’s more for that sprit of fun rather than the profit.

I don’t need to go back to discover how much things have changed. I keep my own experience and take my beer and margherita pizza somewhere else. It's never going to be the same.

This weekend, I find myself in a mall with D. and the little one. It’s a rainy August evening, in a city that just a few days ago was submerged in monsoon floods.

We ordered margherita pizza: brick-oven baked in a thin crust along with beer that underwent that below-zero or frostbite treatment. They put chemicals in the bottle to get it the right kind of cold. It kills some of the alcohol’s flavor, but beer snaking down your throat in that temperature is perfectly thirst-quenching. We have herbed chicken and fries on the side.

The little one picks out the tomatoes in the pizza. He’s a sucker for tomatoes and he often points to and demands for either parmesan cheese or salt we have on the shelves. We often succumb to giving him a pinch or two.



I prefer eating it this way: curled in a shape similar to a parabola. The basil, tomato and parmesan in each side bash against each other, and packs up their flavors as I bite.

I’ve always thought I’d remember the beach when eating margherita pizza with beer. But tonight I say, nevermind. Nevermind tonight’s rain. Nevermind that the guests of the restaurants have to use knives and forks to eat a thin crust pizza. Nevermind that we are in a mall instead of Boracay in 1999. Nevermind that I can never make that experience happen the same way again.

I am here with the both of you and we always live life anew. In the way things change, the spirit feels consoled.

Why We are Alive

we, waves of the sea
basked in anonymity
wearily waving

It was the morning rush hour and I was in trasit from one site to another. Ayala Avenue was my stopover. I felt stressed from working all night and working 12 hours a day. Early in the morning, the workers of Ayala Avenue looked like glassy-eyed zombies who walked the streets in skirts or long sleeves with neckties.

I could have just passed. Instead, I wrote that haiku in my head. I could have been just been dead, dead as everyone in this cold, artificially beautiful place. But the writing, the writing is what separates us and makes one feel alive.

Like a Boss

I picked up Lars Von Trier’s The Boss of it All from a pirated-DVD shopping spree around 4 years ago. That was a time when the pirates seemed to have better taste, because “indie,” art house, or foreign films were also boot-legged. I remember that it was on the “sale” or “bargain” rack, which suggests that it might be damaged. But I remember getting Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai on the very same rack and it worked fine.

The disc played okay, but my mistake was I thought it didn’t have subtitles or audio dubbing. For years, it was just tucked away in the shelf.

In these four years or so, parenting and other good things proved time to be luxurious. Even if we stopped watching Cable TV, we really just didn’t have that much time to spare. D. and I had to give up frequenting the foreign film festivals. I bought a copy of Run Lola Run for posterity because I saw it with her on a German Film Festival. On one of our dates, she kept gushing about her German silent film experience. We were still regularly hanging out with friends when we went to our last Spanish film festival. And we still get excited over the thought of Eiga Sai or French Spring Manila.

Nowadays, we watch an enormous amount of cartoons and Disney movies. Our little one is also a film buff in his own right. He has been very fond of having Toy Story Trilogy marathons. I must have seen the Toy Story trilogy ten times more than the Godfather Trilogy or twenty time more compared to Kieslowski’s Tres Colores.

We still see a fair amount of DVDs, but we miss foreign films and festivals probably not just because we had excellent dates or great company when we saw them. There is also a subliminal relief in going through a communal experience in a theatre, and a worldwide curiosity in cultures and a shared experience. We blur the barriers of language with delight and understanding at least while the reel projects a collective take on human drama. It binds stories, colors, action, imagination and sentiment to liberate us from a totalizing aloneness.

One July Sunday night, when the little one was asleep, we jump on the chance to have our own date in our room. We were aching to see anything that wasn’t made in Hollywood, and we were actually willing to watch something we’ve already seen from the DVD shelf.

That’s when I tried Lars Von Trier’s The Boss of it All. It had subtitles, after all. May the Nazareno bless the pirates and peddlers in Quiapo.

It also turned out that The Boss of it All was a comedy. We laughed away even we know that for the life of us we know we’ll probably never speak Dansk. As the Danish quietly language bounced off the room’s walls, there’s a film festival feel that nudged the darkness into life.

Three Series

Homeland

Described by the (the New Yorker or New York Magazine, I forget) as "24 for adults." Clare Danes may have described the Philippines as a country of cockoroaches but she sure does well as a paranoid, looney CIA agent. I forgive her. This one may really show who the real enemies are.

Suits

Don Draper has Doogie Howser as his sidecick. They all work in Ally Mcbeal's office. Another response to all the mud slinging against lawyers, or an attempt to show that not all of them are sharks in suits.

Boardwalk Empire (Season 2)

Shows about prohibition are always perfect with beer. The challenge of writers and producers is that audiences can predict plots. This season makes sacrifices to keep us surprised. It kills its own main characters, or commits transgressions against itself - that in the end seem not only believable, but logical.

Mario O'Hara has the Last Clap

We saw Mario O'Hara in Tanghalang Pilipino's The Whore of Ohio and Orpheus Descending. On front row seats, his voice was booming with cuss words. His saliva rainbowed with the halogen lights. He fleshed out his characters and they became larger than life. That's how I remember him. Mario O'Hara succumbed to complications of lukemia and passed away week ago.

I start to discover who he really was. How grand he is in real life as a film maker, actor and director who evaded fame and wrapped himself in a truly humble mystique. He won awards that he didn't accept himself, and opened the gates for Filipinos to the Cannes Film Festival. More importantly, he was a genuine advocate of social change and uncompromised, uncommercialized art while remaining among the ranks of artists/directors/filmmakers recognized only by a more enlightened, more tasteful few, myself excluded.

In the same way he declined interviews and accepting awards, maybe he would have frowned upon it now. How all the phonies, hipsters, and all the people like me who never really knew him would sympathize and pay him tribute.

But he has to understand, we are bound to give him this honor.

Days after his death, and I've been thirsting for information on what he was like in real life. I searh the net, and the accolades kept on running but never got anything he said himself. It is as though in real life, he is as plain or as unrecognized as all of us.

I wish he was on stage again, and I can be that usher who walks to him to give him flowers after curtain call. How I wish, I could recognize.

Gushing

I've unmounted the Kuya O.'s old bicycle from its rack in the garage. I cleaned it up, sprayed WD40 in the chains and re-inflated the tires. It's not so old anymore. My motivation came from reading David Byrne's Bicycle Diaries. Aside from the bike, and a perspective of a world through a bicycle, I got another golden nugget out of this book.



We've heard it positioned differently in more elaborate philosophies. Coming out of a book about cycling, this is even more beautiful. "The world isn't logical, it's a song."

I look at how the most important things in my world work right now. We are raising a little one. We look at serveral methodical ways of tracking his progress. Many of them are precise, and it drives away the precariousness of not knowing. We feel better about knowing how many words he should be able to say at age 2o months.

There is only so much in knowing. So we listen to this song. Our song now forms its own sentences: "Carry me, daddy" and "Can I dede, mummy?" It hums on to so many things that are bizarre, imprecise and abstract. At the same time, it starts building on so much grace and responds to your love and understanding. He hold your hand while walking, he leands on your shoulder while he reads or watches videos on an iPhone. He can now put his own choice of DVDs in the tray. He's figured out that iPhone from the slide to unlock a few months back, to playing with his own apps. He wouldn't take off his Spiderman costume. The song makes us gush.

He is moving on to Two now. Terrible Two, they call it. We couldn't be more excited. We're about to re-title this song. Terrible or not, I think it's going to be a Terrific Two.




Happy Second Birthday, I. Love from Mum and Dad.

The Sanitized Farm Experience

Listing the reasons of why and how we love her is an infinite enumeration. So among the list of an endless many, we dwell on some specificity. For one, the little one and I love D. for coming up with ideas for our weekend trips. We all love staying at home too, but she must have known that the little one needs to smell the grass, stare at open spaces, hear the sounds the world makes.

This weekend, we found ourselves at the "Balik Bukid" Country Fair at the Sta. Elena Fun Farm in Cabuyao. Sta. Elena is a gated community which is more of an estate, golf and country club over a farm. It also houses the Acacia school. We still dream about enrolling our little one in the that Waldorf school.

D. writes, We had a terrific time and I can tell from the face of the little one he found the whole place A.W.E.S.O.M.E. He laughed really loudly when we took him near the carabao resting beneath the tree but was really quiet when we rode the carabao-driven cart that took us around the farm. We decided to hang around the Kids' Playground where he enjoyed sitting on the swing, jumping on the trampoline, and balancing on the bamboo bars.

We chased chickens and geese, heard the cows moo out loud, and heard good music from the guest world/folk group who played. We were with M & L and their little one P. We all had time to lie in the grass. The farm folks let you use abaca mats for free. M. had a few cold cans of San Miguel Premium. I knew I can always count on him. Out there in the grass, thirsty from chasing little ones, it's a sweet quench.

We all had a genuine, wholesome-is-awesome time.


And you notice so many beautiful contrasts in the place, beginning with a farm within an golf and country club estate. We were trying to coin the term for it, and it gave the upper-class hippie feel. The folks who welcomed you at the registration site had the local bourgeoisie accent, or something that sounds like it. It's still summer, so some of the ladies who bought and sold products still had beach tans on mestiza skin. A foreigner who reeked of alcohol was drinking the organic beer they sold. This farm crowd and the owners/sellers at the fair had their own soapy-clean smell blended with the pervading smell of horse manure and cow dung. The wash areas will have flower or tea-scented soaps as well as newly-opened bars of white Safeguard.

The watermelon ice-drops we tried must've had a hint of mint and herbs and if that parch in your throat were a bull's eye, the ice drop hits it right on the spot.

Ultimately, the farm couldn't hold without a Starbucks. So there was a little Starbucks booth and people lined up. A real farm would barely have a real toilet, but this one had cleanest, nicest-smelling portalets we've ever used. We called it a sanitized farm experience. Except for the reasonably-priced food, we didn't even have to pay for anything.

It was also a quick, pleasurable drive and with no traffic. Playlists on queue, we cruised the Sky Way between 80-100 km/h and while driving requires concentration I thought a lot about how the little would remember how we drove as a family. We were home in a little over half-an hour. A 12km per liter fuel-efficient car like ours probably got us back and forth in less than 500 pesos. The toll fees would cost more than the gas.

With all the running around all day, the little one was already asleep in the car. D. & I have a dinner of soup and chicken wings with a few beers when we arrive home. We were tired. We describe "tired" uniquely, how this tired didn't make us distressed, but delighted. It left us eager, eager to live, as though we held the key to unscrew all these ironies.

Granular

Mactan, Cebu 2012

"Whoever designed this resort must have been obsessive-compulsive." D. says. It's as though they clean the sand to the last granule. Everywhere you looked, it was manicured and landscaped to perfection. It was as if all that you thought of doing or needing was thought-of for you. You can golfcar your way from the lobby to your villa. There are scheduled rides going to the city. There's a playground and day-care center for children. There's a fully-equipped gym. We kept asking if the tasteful furningshings were by Kenneth Cobunpue. You can have a massage by the beachfront, or at the quiet-zone zen-inspired spa. You can have them call a cab, or fetch you the paper. There are four restaurants within the resort. Like most of the places here, it had it's own private beach. The staff greeted you at every opportunity. The long infinity pool got our little I. to a repeated chant, pleading in his tiny voice: swim, swim, swim!

I. on the outdoor playground in front of the day care

Where our feet were at their best

On the redundance of listening to Urbandub while on a treadmill in Cebu.

Some of it came sincerely, and all of it of course, for the fee. There is a certain unnatural element in tailored places. It is not what it really is, but what it wants to become, or how it imagines itself. Well, we were no longer backpacking on unhinhabited islands. Once in a while we didn't want to worry about chores or have any cares for the day except to immerse into more of the pleasure.

Beer was at a golden 120 per bottle. Wine and cocktails ranged from 300-400 per glass. So we got drunk during happy hour, when you buy one and get one. It was right on time for the sunet. The outdoor bar called Azure played the classic chillout music that warped me into exactly what I needed to hear. I figured someone else still has a copy of the Salinas Sessions. We lounged under huge white sunbrellas, our three bodies splayed and spread out on plush daybeds that fit two 2 or more. The baybeds came with a view of the changing colors of sunset transforming into a skyful of stars. The side table had our beers, and his sippy cup.




Pizza always tastes better by the beach. We had vegetables and feta cheese with more beer. Tipsy enough before the prices go back up to regular hours, we head back to the garden villa. The little one swims some more in the bath tub. There's a already a 40-inch TV in the room, and another flat TV in the bathroom.




Lights out at 8pm. We talk a little bit about our adevntures in tents, sleeping bags, or the time we actually slept in the sand, by the beach from a few summers before. Tonight, the three of us sleep on what feels like 1,000-thread fabric against our burnt skin.

Bourdain Says So

It was happy hour, and we were having mojitos with a serving of sunset. The little one was busy playing with the sand. We've only been eating resort food, and the angus beef burgers and vegetarian pizzas we've ordered had their flair. But we were in Cebu, and it would be a sin not to eat lechon.



We take a cab out of the resort, to the Zubuchon in Mactan.

It triggers an association of a first discovery, like the first time you tasted candy. The pleasure of eating lechon skin is like that, except that it's not just sweet. It's steamy, crunchy, salty, and seeped in roasted fat.

We only went out of the resort once, and it was to eat lechon. Zubuchon distinguishes itself as a healthy lechon, or organic lechon and I have another oxymoron. The pig is fed only with organic food, was probably free to roam, with no MSG used in the preparations.

Organic or not, gobblig a half-kilo along with a few bottles of Pale Pilsen made the back of my neck stiffen a little bit. I felt my eyes chink, suggesting a cholesterol high. The taste consumes you completely, and you know you are somewhere else, but you belong. That's how, and where, lechon Cebu takes you.

Salty Spectacular

Mactan, Cebu 2012

I watched my wife and my almost-two-year-old walking at the edge of the beach, staring at the sea. I can hear the little one laughing at the sound of waves crashing. It was the most charming peal of laughter. It must have been the bright glare that bounced off my sunglasses. It must have been this humid, salty air that embraced us, that elevated us. Something deep in the chasms of my subconscious awoke. It's a familiar feeling of lightness, of resolutely floating aimlessly.

She is on her royal blue bathing suit. I'm on a white, buttoned down polo, our little one on blue trunks and a white shirt. It was searingly hot and we were all wearing spectacles. It was all spectacular. I know we glowed from inside.

I couldn't wipe off the grin on my face.

The Last Infant-Without-Seat Booking

Mactan Island, Cebu 2012

A few months before he turns two, he's already formed a contemplative look. They say he has a snobbish appeal. Here, he shows the airplane that contemplative look. It'll be our little one's last infant-without-seat booking. As he was during his first plane ride, he also kept the habits of a good passenger.

I'm flying on miles that I converted from credit card points. We didn't have to scurry for cheap fares or be compelled to choose budget airlines since we're practically just paying for 1 in this trip. With due diligence, and a knack for picking out resorts that suit our tastes and purposes, D. found an excellent deal for our accomodations.

I remember how much we wrote about Cebu the first time we were here. We thought we were on high scale of bliss then, and we told ourselves we'll come back.

We discover not just places, but so much of ourselves whenever we go away.