Organizational Announcement

Please join me in the following congratulatory announcement:

Jairus Jason

From ______ to ______

Here’s to a job where you can expect nothing but the worst. Organizational announcements sound just like obituaries.

I now have a monthly income (in thousand-pesos) that’s more than the number of years I’ve spent on earth. I wouldn’t deny that I was proud and even happy. Until you entertain the idea of how you’ve been swallowed into a cycle. First, you were just pretending at work. You master the subtle practice of being impossibly polite, peppering everyone with empty praises, inserting buzz words into your sentences, patronization, managing perception, and mindless productivity. Sometimes you stand out with a bright idea. And when you begin to earn a little, you pretend, eventually becoming forcefully sincere about answering to life’s questions with clichés and corporate canned responses since you can’t risk de-motivating others. When you realize you’re falling into the traps you’ve avoided all your life, you hope your choices and actions lead you to something more genuine and meaningful. You sought the alternatives but you’re hooked with pride. And as work wears you down, you begin to accept who you are. You fearfully grow comfortable with who you’ve become. Lastly, you still feel a lamentable lack of money, and might end up wanting more.

Congratulations, Jairus. You Drama-King you.

Starting Right

Why was there an enormous scarcity of journal entries last 2006? When our corporations pressure us to put an explanation in position, we do a deep dive, pointless blame-storming, and optimistic strategizing.

And of course, we think in bullets. To return to the original question:

• My life has been embarrassingly humdrum
• I have failed to capture the poise, specify the uniqueness, the silent clarity, and the engaging experiences of everyday.
• I was counting on converting what I thought were remarkably written emails, but they turned out to be too businesslike, witless, if often too utterly senseless to commit to this form of documentation.
• I was busy doing something else, and I didn’t find time to write because I chose not to. Because I thought my life only as interesting and recurring as a blur, and it had a slight chance of being well written and well expressed.
• And because I didn’t live up to myself.

There’s also no effective explanation, no scientifically satisfying reason why I suddenly had a non-specific viral exanthema (probably German Measles) this January 1, 2007. And so we turn to the metaphorical outlook: fate wanted me to isolate myself, my body needed its rest, my mind/spirit required replenishment. After the December 31 revelry with wine, fish fillet, salad and grilled chicken, there was fever, joint pains, tiny red dots and rashes all over my skin.

My body begins the New Year with a big, red bang.

The doctor ordered my isolation and I fell in love with it. I rediscovered how I had it in me – the rare power not to need other people and close up my world. Except that I needed D. to come visit. I got a chance to listen to over 10GB worth of music, finished two or three books and stayed in the room all day.


Starting Right. I started with the Death of Ivan Illyich this morning and should be finished this afternoon. It was perfect with sodium-rich imported corned beef, white bread, strong coffee, and classical music.

The new translation makes it an easy, excellent read. The more adjusted, contemporary language made it easier to relate to being a yuppie in 1880 Petersburg. It just fits the exact profile: the selfish pursuit of money and pleasure, careers, promotions, vices, climbing the social ladder and commingling with the people who are exactly like you, who live like you. Finally, there’s dying a well-deserved, ugly death that is inconvenient. And when you’ve lived like that, the secret source of joy of those closest to you – is that you’re dead.


Dying is practically how I felt when I arrived at the inexorable conclusion - I had to go back to work. Goodbye music (Recently added: WDOUJI’s Zen and the art of Dressmaking – courtesy of D., a lot of Miles Davis and John Coltrane downloads – courtesy of Limewire, the new Dashboard Confessional album – bought from UM, and a Classical Compilation – bought from the Music One in Greenbelt). Listening to the seven angels sounding the trumpets of the apocalypse: that’s how awful work sounds.

Now here’s another so-called metaphorical outlook: I’m no longer physically sick, just lazy.



But I still want to begin this year with a restated absurd hope: maybe it wouldn’t be that bad.



Incidentally, “maybe it wouldn’t be that bad” and the whole business of being unexcited about what to expect in life was along the lines of a thought in Italo Calvino’s If on a Winter’s Night A Traveler:

“You’re the sort of person who, on principle, no longer expects anything of anything. There are plenty, younger than you or less young, who live in the expectation of extraordinary experiences: from books, from people, from journeys, from events, from what tomorrow has in store. But not you. You know that the best you can expect is to avoid the worst.”

Conversations with Plants

I've been talking to the plants. But I might have sounded a little dreadful in saying, "You smell good, I'll taste you with my spaghetti al pesto soon." I didn't want to whine to your plants.

The traffic was quite heavy and I was lightheaded from sleeplessness. I watered the plants and that's the only thing that made me feel alive today. I've been clinging tightly to the splendid memory the weekend left. And so I survived the usually terrifying Monday.


B. (Basil) and T. (Tarragon) didn't look very good today so I took out the white plastic bag and housed them in prettier vases. I'm wondering if they're really getting enough Sunlight. Today I told them that they can't die on me now. We're too involved. They whispered something back, and we shared a silent joy in this high noon after surviving a tiring, unforgiving night. We dream of making the entire room smell green, and the wind flies in with thoughts of you in its wings.

How to Save a Life

I must have listened to that song twenty-seven times this week. Life has got to have a soundtrack and I have to be embarassingly literal and dramatic. That's what I really think.

Thomas Pynchon proved to be a very difficult read, perhaps twice as difficult especially after you spent the last few days high on Nubane, with needles forked numerous times to your body, living on IV and not having any food or water for around 32 hours for the sake of medical observation. And I’ve just 4ed Philosophy of Science last term and learned from N.R. Hanson that “All observation is theory-laden.” Well, here’s a new life-lesson I can send to hallmark card-makers: forget principles we’ll just have to settle for what helps for now. Then I just had to swear I’m going to have to let Pynchon pass for now even if I’m no longer that drugged up.

“Enjoy the pain, and the novocaine.” H. tells me after a visit. Well, we somehow found a way to squeeze in some joy in between. Considering how we battled all this out, it didn’t have to be all pain after all.

Up until I saw D.’s office laptop itching for my fingertips to touch its keypads and write something, I resumed reading Haruki Murakami’s Sputnik Sweetheart. If you put it in terms of Doctor’s orders, this book has the perfect dosage both for personal enjoyment, and for recovering from any plight in life. It makes the experience start off as a retreat, and as you read some more, your stay in the hospital was a fucking breeze.

Now that I’m name dropping and all, the whole hospital experience has made me Tommy in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go. And of course D. was my Kathy. I missed those sentimental clones, those clones who bared their souls. For a time there I had to ask if I ever I would be willing to accept a donation from any of them. Probably not. That story had just has helped me endure my own, easier.

D. as my personal nurse who was ever-present for all the sponge baths, hold-my-hand-while-I-writhe-in-pain, get-me-a-glass-of-water, settle-something-with-accounting, love-me-some-more, the whole shebang. And yes, I saw her laying a jealous glance over the cutesy (but not charming enough) student nurse who took my blood pressure three times before concluding it’s another 130/100. From my first confinement, the view from the window could pass off as nice: whenever you’re strong enough to stand up and see it, the sunsets and sunrises on the skyline over Manila City Hall’s Clock Tower and dome of the Manila Cathedral is splendid. And even if I didn’t have a mighty appetite, the food was great: mostly Wai-ying noodles and dimsum, as well as some Masuki siopao courtesy of J.K. My brother even brought in pizza and Hungarian sausages. And my parents just kept on sending comforting food from home.


I’m also relieved with how my attending physician, Dr. ___, dealt with me. The medical abstract reads “blunt abdominal trauma – vehicular crash; ***tic hematoma. He had a very good hypothesis of what may have happened (which other doctors had difficulty diagnosing – they thought this was a heart-related problem) and his experience and delivery allows me to just put my trust and confidence in his expertise.
He was the tall, dark, decorated, big-time doctor who seemed to have girlfriends in clubs, flashing that reassuring smile of his, delighting people with an inoffensive sense of humor that doctors should treat their patients with. I asked him, for example, what I can’t eat, “Lahat pwede kainin, wag lang yung hindi masarap.”

Once again this is a rightful time to sing Lord Anthony from Belle and Sebastian, “You may as well take it in the guts, it could get worse, it could get worse than this.”

It could get worse than this. Geez.

With a family behind me, I was never restless. And I’ve got friends who are willing to go through all the clichés of friendship. M&L, who despite their own sleepiness were happy to drive for the requirements I’ve needed from the office. I've got my poker buddies and relatives, who made me manage a few laughs.

Worrying about work will get me nowhere from here. I may have screwed that promotion, but I’ll damage control for that later on. Or maybe screw it some more, what the fuck. Somewhere along the line, I described that promotion as an inconvenience. And life comes at me whipping up a little storm in the normal course of how I live, in order to explain to me what a real inconvenience is.

Oh, and hello again, solitude. Here you are. We have met again on rather strange circumstances, but you’re always a pleasure.

Let the Healing Begin

I was reading Haruki Murakami at that time and this was the last line I barely understood before my parents rushed me to the hospital for the third time this week: "The Earth, after all, doesn't creak and groan its way around the sun just so human beings can have a good time and chuckle." And so God created pain. And even if I had the ability to make the world spin in another orbit, I certainly couldn't just laugh the pain off. But now I say enough now. Enough of this that I didn't see coming, enough of the pounding in my back, the stabbing feeling near my liver, and the heavy throbbing in my lower left chest. The most meaningless thing in the world right now is to dwell on that twinge of sorrow. As if shoveling steaming white rice to your mouth with quick deep breaths, shifting gears in careful calculation, brave and instinctive as a baby's first step, we move on.

Now that I that I'm back to this drawing board, I'm going to map out what's remarkable enough to look back to and what I should be grateful for: the euphoria of Orudis (a strong sedative), the warmth of having a family behind you, people who willingly made an effort for you, a God out there whom in your most desperate gave heed and gave mercy, and having D., who is the most effective medicine without whom none of this pain can ever be assuaged. True healing is not within the confines of the hospital and the efficacy of medicine.

There is everything to be thankful for, and this is when the real healing should begin.

As Is

I started my Friday morning off with some well-deserved sleep. When I woke up, I tidied up the room so I pass off some physical activity. Then I read the assigned articles from school that counts mental exercise. After a long shower, I drive to Ortigas to pick-up D. The traffic wasn’t an expected rainy Friday night bumper-to-bumper. It’s easily endured when you’re listening to Kaskade’s Chillout Sessions.

Since I’m inclined to eat healthier we order the Bangus Belly and a side dish of laing at Oyster Boy. We had a drink with S. and F. I manage to limit myself to three bottles. D. and I go home and Friday night turns out to be something like a perfectly blended fruit shake after a swim on a hot day.

Despite less than four hours of sleep, my mind felt at its sharpest during the Saturday mornig Philosophy of Science class. And when you’re in a hung-over train of thought during recitation, it becomes unstoppable nothing can just ram into it. And just when you think you’ve made an acceptable, or a fine analysis, someone just might have been less amused or even annoyed. But what the fuck anyway, that’s what we’re in class for. If you’re too intellectually indolent to let any nincompoop thought pass in class, then that nincompoop idea stands. And just like how it is in the world, nincompoop ideas that pass, prevail as truths. Geez. Wherever the hell did that come from?

I met D. for lunch and with a lot of nostalgia we stop by UM to see if there are pirated CDs. The bets I bought are: Chicane’s “Far From the Maddening Crowds,” Chicane’s 2006 sessions, Snow Patrol’s “Eye’s Open.”

We also went to CCP to renew our subscription for this year’s season of plays by Tanghalang Pilipino. We caught the Virgin Lab Fest that same night. The teaser reads:
“See how Dory, a call center agent, can go to have a crack at the country’s premier literary competition. Up to the challenge, albeit mentally challenged herself, one can catch a glimpse of what goes on in the minds of aspiring winners, even the most delusional of them.”

It was very entertaining and promising for a lab fest play. But the protagonist’s Ruffa Mae Quinto antics are just too unoriginal, and some of the punch lines have been too overused.

Before the play, we shared a seafood hot pot and a tuna and shrimp bento at Rai Rai Ken. It's still fatty but it’s in a smaller quantity, and I’ve managed to deceive myself that I’ve made a smarter food choice since I was able to abstain from beef and pork. If ever this is a delusion, it made me feel better anyway. Besides, weekends are the only time I get to eat something relatively yummy.

After the dinner and the play, we play some poker at home, treat ourselves to a few glasses of wine, and turn in before dawn breaks.

And then it’s Sunday. There will be work again later but we let love blossom in a mid-July afternoon. There is some time left, and as if devouring a delicious dessert, I read a back-issue of the New Yorker.

Then I wrote, this is how I’d like my life to be.