The Saccharine in September

When I was driving on the way here, I heard this familiar song you seem to fancy. You always dance this charming little dance when you hear it. So I imagined you, dancing your little dance. My eyes lit up brighter than sunshine even if rain as falls one everyone’s rooftops. Goodnight my tiny dancer. Hold me closer.

...

A line from a poem really hits the mark:

Through separate evenings, when
only you can take the stars
or give me the moon, while I assemble
all the reasons why I love
you, this way, still.

(From Rita B. Gadi’s Kidapawan in my Heart)

I love you this way, my D. On our separate evenings, only you can take the stars, or give me the moon.

...

I’m having lunch alone again: shrimp with cheese, bell peppers and mushrooms. I enjoy the idea that I can remain anonymous around all these people. I’m imagining we’re both laughing again.

While waiting in line to pay my tuition fee. Undergrads in DLSU pay 35k – 50k per term. I used to just pay around 15-20k. Now it's between a hundred to a hundred fifty grand a year. Our kid has to pass UP.

...

Off I go. Thank you for that brief worthwhile chat. Sorry I made you late. You truly are the reliever of my woes. I am sunk in your loving arms now, and I should be asleep in a bit. Café del mar Aria is playing on shuffle. I will be dreaming of you in your white top, while we are alone in a happy island, a pristine beach, a shared area of memory, an amusement park of the heart. Goodnight my fantasy chic. You make my dreams feel real.

We All Fall

We went out to see D.'s brother's exhibit at CCP, only to miss it because we weren't early enough for gallery hours. We walked around and I pictured myself standing in those hallways during my Usher days. Tonight, ballet was on the Main Theater. One of the advantages of being an ex-usher is that you can, once in a while, be a 'guest' to these performances.

D. and I ended up watching the Philippine Ballet Theater on orchestra-center seats. They danced three separate sets: locally-inspired, classical, and contemporary. It's been a while since I've seen pivots, pirouettes and arabesques. It was always beautiful from this close. The musical score on the contemporary set sounded like chillout or ambient and it just leaves you awed. Although you never completely understand it, all these graceful turns pose an efficacy. In that moment of aesthetic contemplation, you forget all the other awkward events that happen in the real world you belong to, that world of pressures and pretensions.

I remembered what we did last Sunday. We just hung out, listened to chillout and read the 2002 Likhaan Book of Poetry and Fiction. One of the poems, called 'A Dance Lesson' (by Naya Valdellon) clung to our minds as we watched ballet tonight. A line from the poem goes:

For you are a dancer,
and though your movements
mimic grace in flight
you must always return
to touch this earth
that dances under your feet.

We all fall down. Eventually, we all will. But right now, thinking of this rainless September evening with D., it still feels like we will never fall from grace.

...

After ballet, and thereby accumulating a thousand or two culture points, we had to reward ourselves with dinner. We had imported beer, baby back ribs, mashed potatoes and sausages at the Grappa's near the Trellis. They had 100 different paintings of sunsets on the restaurant walls. All these sunsets, the good food, beer, and the proximity of the sea reminded us of Boracay last summer. And since this is still CCP: those happy usher duties after Philosophy classes in college. Now I'm out here as a guest, and a PhD student. In Process Philosophy class, they tell us how differentiation is sophistication, detail is enrichment. After tonight with D., and looking on all the time we've been together, life feels like it's been enriched.

I've Used Up my Happy Days

Now the pendulum is slowly swinging back to the other end.

The call center industry has probably evolved, or it’s probably just my general sketch of people who work in call centers that has changed. Before, my officemates were usually fresh grads who went to the same school. Now everyone’s getting older and has some sort of call center experience. And call centers are fast-becoming bereft of those cute CSRs. Too many idiots got promoted, everyone’s not too friendly anymore and everyone’s hardened with the job. People learned how to endure the night. It looks like they could, and are here to survive more of these restless, restless nights.

...

I've used up my happy days. Now the pendulum is slowly swinging back to the other end. My blood pressure is probably shooting up sharply again and I always feel this tightness in my chest. I’m wishing I had a good reason to resign. Having this feeling is exactly the reason why I wanted to leave my previous call center.

Or maybe I’ve softened up after months of not working, and call centers are always stressful if you take it too seriously. The Quality team had a "Team Building" I was obligated to attend, and I can’t help but get the impression that although my teammates are very hard-working and helpful, even kind to me, we are often victims of the tendency to see themselves as infallible know-it-alls. Or they were probably toughened by the disputes they’ve had, and probably because they have genuine expertise on the subject matter. After this outing, I just felt totally unmotivated.

But I’ll stop whining. I’ve used up my happy days. Belle and Sebastian sings, “You may as well take it in the guts, it could get worse. Just take it in the guts, it could get worse.”

Taxi Drivers Should Write Blogs

On the way to the office today/tonight, the taxi driver told me how the cab (an old Kia that desperately needed new bushings or shock absorbers) made two of his kids finish college. One of them work for a call center in Makati.

And he told me about his flirtations with women: Pinays in Saudi, returning Japayukis in Manila. He told me the secret that makes him a myth and gives him pride: bolitas.

And another cab driver must have another story in another loaded taxi. How life jumps from cliché to another.

The Invisible, Unpredictable Logic

Soon enough, it will be time to plan another pivotal event in life. For now, I’ll sink into life’s invisible, unpredictable logic.

Just when I declared, “I’d let this month pass before looking for a job again,” the most lucrative job offer arrived. In this crunch time for preparing for my presentations for Kristeva and Derrida, I squeezed in a job interview.
I might end up working near that church by the sea.

And I did. Two days after, just before delivering my Derrida presentation, the company notified me that I start Monday. It’s a decent QA position. With all its open spaces, wide roads, and with barely any traffic, I get to drive a pleasant drive along Macapagal Road every time I go to work. Soon enough, I will be complaining about the workload and on how difficult this job is.
I jumped on the offer that was least expected, a salary and a location that seemed unlikely. Now it feels like a missing umbrella magically re-appeared, right when you decided to go out despite the rain.
Soon enough, it will be time to plan another pivotal event in life. For now, I’ll sink into life’s invisible, unpredictable logic.

So it’s roughly been a 3-4 month vacation with nearly a hundred-grand tab. What a life it has been. With the time I gained to do a few things I wanted to do, it felt like I won the lottery. I look at the past few pages of my journal. It was difficult to arrest life’s dynamism, or brew a blend of new thoughts. But one of my best rewards, for example, is that I’m almost done with my first 6 units of MA. And I’ve had my happy days. I’ve been the kind of bum I always wanted to be.

The workload hasn’t really encumbered me yet since I’m still on product and QA training. Despite being on graveyard, I still have the weekends off. There is time to pick up D. at her place and have a relaxed Sunday evening at Rockwell with dinner, a movie, and driving empty streets on the way home. There is time to dine at an inexpensive grill with excellent prime rib and porterhouse steaks.

But since I’m back at the graveyard shift, once again it’s beginning to feel like we belong to completely different time zones.

After the Play

I remember how, after watching the play, D. and I were reciting lines we snatched from it and just laughed some more. We had a terrific bento at the Rai Rai Ken by the Trellis.
It’s been raining the past few days, but tonight was a clear evening escorted by a cool breeze. The wind whispered a thousand I-love-yous to the sea. We took walks, holding each other’s hand and a cigarette on the other. As the night grew quiet, we drove the silent streets home.

The trellis is officially among the top five of my all-time-favorite places in the world. During afternoons, the sun’s white reflection on the bay makes it sparkle more than diamonds in a jewelry store. It gave me so many peaceful afternoons watching little boats while biking, glorious mornings while running, even a number of post-play, post-filmfest gimmicks, dates-with-D. (we’ve been to almost all of the restaurants in that part of CCP) and even lunch with my family. I hope it doesn’t lose its solemnity by become to commercialized, or too crowded like bay walk.