First Ever Date of a 28-Year-Old-Walking-Definition-of-Awkwardness

Comic Con May 2018

Apologies for an expletive-laden entry

I wanted it to go perfectly well, but unfortunately, that's a notion not even the parallel universes can help me with.

It was my first time, and my frail heart literally hung from the loose ends of my sweater, blood dripping into the pavement of the almighty Excel. It also happened to be the day all my muscles decided to contract persistently, calcium ions perpetually pumping their way into synapses whilst laughing at the turnout. 99.9% of my whole biology wished I should've abandoned my free will to cancel a bank shift.

My heart was pounding at the speed of light I could barely hear the DLR operator instructing where to get off! And when I was about to get off, I wished my arms would stick onto the pole so I wouldn't ever have to leave the carriage! I was that effing nervous.

And then he told me he was in Gate 19. Dear Lord! I've read somewhere we can bend time and space. I wanted it to happen at that point! My path to Gate 19 wasn't easy either. I have drank lots of glasses of water before that meeting, and peed a hundred times in a matter of 30 minutes, but my thoroat was still so dry I had to consciously instruct my brain to make saliva. I can also feel my pupils have dilated beyond what my eyeballs can accommodate. My friends told me the day before to just enjoy it. F*ck F*ck F*ck were only all the words in my head. When I saw him standing there, my life literally flashed before me.

The next events were all a blur. I thought I had a stroke. I was dysphagic, aphasic, submissive, globally weak, unable to decide,  and my perception in terms of spatial dimensions were almost nonexistent.

I started to extend my hand to greet him, but he started to reach over me with both of his arms. I completely forgot. This is the West. So I hugged him as well, but I did not know if it was proper to leave a space between my arms and his back.
 
And then things were sort of uphill downhill, exacerbated by the long entrance line, mutiple entry checks, vigorous processing of things I should ask him, mentally mapping similarities and adopting open-ended questions that turn out to be close-ended after all. Everytime he starts to give me a trivia, it felt like I had to reciprocate it with another. Think! Think! Think! Something about marsupials, or Mars, or anything freaking interesting that comes to mind.  So I will say things, he will reply, vice-versa, and the thinking process begins once more, an endless battle to keep things afloat and not surrender to the mother of all evils that is, awkward silence. One of the laughable humiliating parts was where I made a fool of myself was when I was sharing a Pocket article about whitewashing in the American movie industry in relation to a film about dogs set in Japan (that doesn't need to be there really). I started awkward, at some point I lost my train of thought, at some point thereafter, I tried to salvage what I can remember and weave it into something socially acceptable. But the end result was a discourse that even a kindergarten student can successfully make. That ladies and gentlemen, is what disjointed in every sense means. I am very disappointed with myself for every thought I struggled to articulate, and disappointed that I see he is frustrated as well. I guess I wanted it to be ok, but if the alternative is less than a comfortable margin of a socially acceptable standard, what else can I do?!

There are realities to consider when dating cross-culturally is what my take on it. First on the list, is his perfect English. Now when my English is mixed with debilitating anxiety, the possibility flowchart further branches onto the dark side of the force, with Senator Palpatine rejoicing at the end of it.

I thought I can redeem myself by staying quiet. Then, I realised the more I stayed quiet, the more ideas started popping in my head, all at loose ends.

"Keep it simple. Keep things simple"

F*ck F*ck F*ck

I wish the Lord will forgive me for using that word too many times. 

Took Me Sometime to Travel Alone to London

June 2, 2014

Because I am tired of behaving like a small fry and not having had the guts to move past my own inhibitions. Because the symbolism is so strong, I could not make myself overlook my frailties and what stepping outside the train and looking for the next destination meant. It is my own Catcher in the Rye tale, a sense of growing up that meant not only having had to outgrow my tendencies to remain in limbo, but a modification of a series of idealogies that can only be summed up with: that I am too weak to change years and years of what I know and what I have sworn to believe. It takes guts to argue with yourself. And it took me 8 months to retrieve the tube map of London's Undergound that I have stashed in the farthest regions of my cabinet, before circumstances have ingrained a deliberate understanding on my consciousness that if I dare set out and be what I truly want to be, I should place supreme confidence in my ability to act on calculated risks and defy the crippling notion that always being comfortable is uncomfortable. I have no more degrees to finish, but I do not like to think I am done for good. I am on my own to figure the propensity of what my life can become without the dictations of the established paradigms of success. Freedom is a hazy concept, meant to be directed to what we truly, truly yearn for. It is in my fervent expectation that hopefully one day, I can rightfully rock the chair smoking the Cuban cigar of fulfillment and meaningfulness.

First Days

Written on the 29th of September, 2013

I am a big fan of Judie Abbot and there was one thing I was hoping to recreate. After the orphaned protagonist found herself a benefactor who enrolled her in the university, she opened the window of her beloved room and smelled in a single breath the beauty of what she cannot fully express but wish to imbibe. Well, I did that too and I froze to death.

It is my 4th night in England as of this writing, and I am so sorry for the rigid hypothalamic tuning of my 23 years of flag-bearing the warm-blooded. I sleep like a shrimp with 3 pairs of cotton socks, a thick shirt, a thick cotton jacket, a pair of thick cotton gloves, heavy duty jogging pants, with a comforter on top and a blanket. I look like a tomato in a sandwich and every second, is a horrendous battle against what the British called the ending days of their summer. God Bless 10 degress. When in the bath, I thanked God I am only 70% water. Everytime I prepare myself to exit the dormitory, in no less than 5 seconds, my legs would go numb and I would go back inside, reinhale all the warmth my 2 nostrils can suck and set out. And as I walk, my mouth would start to shiver dreadfully,  and when you're with the rest, it doesn't really look feminine.

And when I saw Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsay in their flagship cooking series way back in my hometown, I drooled on fish and chips but I never expected that their fish would be larger than my forearm and their chips, way larger than my thumb. I just stared at my plate in all ignorance and economic-disbelief and convinced myself in the end that what is in front of me is not a baby shark.  

The first time I entered my room, I found the heater, and although I am enamored by its practicality, I have no idea how it works. And the same thing goes for the microwave, toaster (yes), laundry dryer. To save a face, I would youtube steps 1 to 10 but I still end up fearing my premature independence could blow up the entire dormitory. So, I would follow the other end of the flowchart that is, to swallow my pride and just ask for help.  

And most of the time, the petty things you never bothered to overthink would slowly start to consume your consciousness and respect its instinct to survive. What will I cook? Am I competent enough to recreate a youtube dish?  Shall I endure the pains of walking aimlessly and be lost in the searing cold eclipsing the awe of finding a light fog parting from my lips as I struggle to make myself heard.  

I am an ignoramus, a shell covered in sand, breathing in my own comforts, trying to exist amidst the chaos and beauty of the sea, and suddenly I got caught and I had to poke my slimy head into the hole to see that perhaps my glasses have only  been filled half of what I know I must fill in full.  But never mind that. One must always endure the beauty of being oblivious. Sometimes, you kick yourself out, only to find yourself lost again in translation, but then you can always defy the temptations of giving up even when newness comes crashing into your life at breakneck speeds.

Film Sort-a Review: Makoto Shinkai's Garden of Words

Makoto Shinkai’s Garden of Words

Evenings when I go to sleep, mornings in the moment I woke up, I realized I was praying for rain

Garden of Words is beautiful. Its just so very beautiful I can just stare at every frame and be mesmerized. Makoto Shinkai and the creative team of Comix Wave doesn’t let you watch, they hypnotize you until their message pierces whatever ice is there left in your heart. And you melt away with the piano, the sadness, the meek replies, the relevant undertones of immortal concepts that strips and tests and reaffirms your worth, of whether your courage is the courage that makes you a man and whether this courage is what makes your life as it is or what it still may become. Nothing pedestrian.

And these are beautiful as well, and if only I could grasp what it meant and how I would want it to change me.

1. When the leaves gracefully sway as the rain dances while the main picture freezes by intention.
2. The glorious greens that blurs the easily distinguishable reality and fantasy.
3. The take of modernity and how its grayness dampens our inner skeletons.
4. The contrast of things you thought contrasted but no.
5. The silent stares that speaks volumes.
6. Just when you would tip your hat off for a commendable detailed rendition of the everyday mundane, you’ll round the corner to tip another off for the thoughtful depth that emanates through the characters’ eyes, the frown, the smiles, and the quick retraction of deep-seated looks.
7.  The piano notes that coincide with their mysteries. So affecting, it literally captivates your heart and lets it feel. 
8. The dew on the knives. The slice of the vegetables. The pasta in simmering broth. And wait, bitter gourd on a ramen?!  The normalcy of middle class living.
9. The room, which you can hypothetically smell even across this virtual medium.
10. And the grandness of nature, which envelopes the central theme powerfully and spontaneously forces our deep seated bitterness into the open.

But deep in my heart, I could have wished Makoto Shinkai made a more courageous introspection of what his genius can still traverse.

To love and be loved for all that you are and are not, to grasp the truth that lets you live and die and fight. To withstand the causes of everything that crushes. A life cherished to the brim, its sweetness infallible, its intentions pure, its consequences, inevitable. A painful thing to behold, yet glorious in its reaches. An exploration of the unseen, an introspection of the trivial, a longing for immortality, a sense of being, to be more than existing. But how? How to look for it when your heart longs for it? How to raise the banner, to surrender in the name of your emotions, respecting passion, respecting that one thing that makes you you, yet you who pique at the height of your egotism, you are strangled by self-will that is loosely based on conceit. And when you finally stake that dagger into your consciousness, the plot darkens luring you into a clutch that cannot be saved, into the dungeons where chains become your arms, all too resonant of the mighty tragedies of Shakespeare. No cries can redeem it, no will can reforge the pieces of shards that come crashing into ones history of bleakness. Why am I crawling in pain, why do I kiss the mud when I can step on it, what becomes of the weight I willingly want to throw away. To lighten my being and go back to my innocence when my slate has not been tarnished, when I have not known anything, when knowing if I have really known something is a thing to be guarded. 

Izy's Letter

I thank Iz for her heartfelt letter. After ko yun nabasa, I fell into a trance and I felt numb and weightless. And all of my feelings floated within me, into my consciousness, altogether affirming my own frustrations. After reading it, I lay back thinking in retrospect, until I closed my eyes with a lot of questions unanswered. 

My sort-of depression was necessary, I believe, to even propel me to realize that the life I am living, if continually lived, will be a repetition of lives that have lived it. My mind has to stray at a slighter angle to see what convention has blinded. I am seeking a finer purpose and am still seeking it. And yes, I have also turned my sights to business. But it is dough with the poorest gluten, a fanaticism that must be watered to mature. We need capital, investors, great ideas. But I do not know how to arrange them in the proper order. Childish. I thought at first, that everybody's happy with how things are turning up for their lives, why am I the only one left to be tread upon in the mud, but then hearing that life challenges her as well gave me strength that ultimately, it is what we want, and not the place that roots us, that burns our will, and defines the perspectives we wish to interpret things.  

Bread-Making Day 1

Bread is a prized, glorious thing! It is a palette of an Edward Burne-Jones pre-Raphaelite painting that runs deeper than the colors, and the images, and themes, and its undertones, and moralities in question.  For all its simplicity, it allures the senses, then plays the upper hand, until your soul succumbs to a taste immortal. It is a classic, respectable piece of history with a ferocious character that has fed a history of heroism, cowardice, convention, and innovation.

Two weeks ago, I decided to be that one thing about food that I have truly loved in the course of my life, a bread-maker! With the meager allowance that I have earned from my auxiliary assignment (not to mention my latest resignation), I grappled with saving for the most staple ingredients (that I intended to buy wholesale, but I must be thinking wishfully since I am almost broke) and the gas (to disallow interference from papa from cooking the more important, time-tested and never-ascribed to failing meals). In the unfortunate circumstance that my bread will not turn out to be bread, at least I have paved a course that will still keep my dignity afloat by redeeming myself from too tight economic strings.  My affinity with bread stemmed from my stingy personality. My societal predisposition has defaulted an inability to afford the finer tastes that life has to offer and if given a chance, I am bound to falter and ponder on more sensible practices, and hence, abstain with steadfast resiliency, half-knowing that a great portion of the exchange of commodities goes straight to rental fees or fancy bank loans that unjustly and deceivingly favors ambiance and less of the bread spirit.

An unruly character of an artisan would be sacrificing quality in favor of profit in the name of consumer ignorance. We tend to interpret taste in terms of the overpowering taste and less of the base. 

And so here I am cleaning the recesses of our underground kitchen, scrubbing rusty tile-ends with sodium hypochlorite, damping the conventional oven and finding pieces of dead cockroaches and spiders and their eggs. It is a forest of abandonment from a family that has pledged to desist baking. My hands puckered at the repeated rinsing. My face shone brightly and with all of the oil in it, if I can squeeze it further to maximize its production, and once and for all, give me the liberty to become a presentable woman with no need of a powder, can collect up to 10 mL worth. Since I will not pay for newer airtight containers I saw on Paul Hollywood’s studio kitchen, my Nissin and Rebisco biscuit containers will do.

I reviewed the Bloomer recipe I got from Paul Hollywood’s classic bread episode and obsessively-compulsively trained my senses to never forget a single practice, and which by the way, turned out disastrously. Here are so far my challenges!

1.  Paul Hollywood made it look like kneading the dough is easy. He talks and smiles and looks at the camera as if nothing can ever go wrong. But boy, oh boy, I am really in big trouble. When he talked about the activity doubling as way to tone your arms, I wish he’d exaggerate so that I would know the level of difficulty this activity really portrays. My fingers were becoming the webbed limbs of a duck, and too much dough is sticking into the kneading surface. When I grasped for the oil to decrease the surface tension, the bottle went all gooey and I hated the possibility of overturning and messing things up. In the end, my dough was not all smooth and shiny. And I proved it before it can even passed an artisan’s test. I am so impatient and I shall pay for it after it turns out in the oven. For kneading, I might have to use flour next time.

2.  My dough did not rise dramatically! After an hour has passed, it looked like an incompetent lump, still eons from PH’s. But I put in 7 grams of instant dry yeast! I think I must add more next time. It must rise! It must! I believe the temperature is also at fault. The program says proving it in a warm place. Since, Philippines is warm enough, I thought leaving it in the counter is enough. I have entertained the idea of proving my dough outside, but the thought of bird droppings and the relative tensile strength of the generic cling wrap I have bought decided otherwise.

And after everything else is finished:

It tasted like beer, and sourdough-like despite not having had to ferment it for a number of days. It yielded a hollow sound when tapped at the crust but the undersides were burned! It needs more effective kneading prior to initial proving. You can almost smell alcohol and olive oil distinctively. I forgot to coat the proving container and the baking surface, which troubled me a lot. I have to add more flour when kneading and I have to knead forcefully if I am to achieve a shiny, smooth dough. Good Heavens! I proved it for 9 hours, because I think it fell short with the description of rising. I baked my hopeless bread at 220 degrees for 25 minutes, then another 200 degrees at 10 minutes, cheated another 5 minutes before transitioning because I felt the crust is not assuming a fancy color. I added sesame seeds to at least dignify my product, which in the end did not stick and fell into the baking sheet. I scoured my Bloomer, but it did not bloom! Oh well. This is life. When I carried my bloomer upstairs, all the seeds fell into the plate and my heart sank. After pondering long on what I missed, I felt at least redeemed that the upper crust was fine and the dusting was not overboard. The inside was chewy, and had competent gluten formation. Tadashi, it smelled like alcohol. I  failed at an epic unprecedented pace at the base. The Bloomer I made perhaps will never sell. Anyway, I'll just improve next time with a sweeter dough. 

Charge

i am driven by a will that is obscure. never has it plagued my foresight with insurmountable darkness. i want to fight. hard and harder still. nevermind if the chances placed before me seem limited in its breadth to promise redemption. i see my shadow in the vale, charging into the unknown, into a battle i am uncertain of winning. yet with me burns the fire of mortality. who remains with me until that day comes i can no longer raise my sword? who wipes the blood in my wounds after it has been impaled by fate? who cries at my passing, at the moment i can no longer utter the sweetness and bitterness of life, at the moment i can no longer see the beauty of what made everything the I have loved? who raises once more the mighty flag that has stooped by the causes it once stood?

***
once existence is questioned, it cannot be unturned. it haunts the recesses of your consciousness even in the most trifling of moments. wake up! wake up! the power of a few thoughts are potent enough to destroy everything that you have gone for, and grown for, and loved for. do not be a slave to your own prejudices. there are mightier truths waiting to be tapped and these, not ones bickering, will knock your skull open and let you bleed your woes.

***

time is malleable enough to mock ones  thoughts if they idle the keeper for too long. time will wake you in your most vile slumber. it may slow, and it may have to be, for it will pace just right once it acknowledges a real challenge.

Manong Janitor

one of the best lessons i learned came from a simple man, a worker of his own right, with his dignity and masculinity and chivalry and magnanimity intact, his heart unfilled with the evils of attrition, always gaping on hope, on what he gives and hopes to give. it is a sheer slap on our faces for talking and thinking too vainly and losing our hearts in what we thought of as our means of reconciliating with the truth. we find the greater truth when it survives the evils of our small obscure painful worlds. we find it unperturbed, and almost always, hopeful, undeceiving, not expectant of praise, quiet and even time cannot break the ardor of its will.

i pondered long on the nature of his scrubbing, his brooming, his collection, his predisposition to speak in a tone that seeks respect for what he is about to do and i thought no, God, give this man more than what i can ever achieve in my life. good men of good measure that awakes your soul from what you perceived as already dilated but truthfully in stupor, deserve more than any praise i could ever write in this note. the world is so overrated. when you see your kind in perpetual service neither mocking or a even a third of your pinky, shamed from the gross mechanics of his duties, whatever it is you think you deserve more, will be lost along the grains of dust he whiffs like virtuous magic.

and yet, you do not demand a man to work harder any more than you do.