Gaps, patches and in-betweens

Literarily: Don't accept rides from strange men -- and remember that all men are strange as hell. – Robin Morgan After a drink with officemates at Nimmanheimen, we hailed a tuktuk to get me home to the other side of town, Changklan Road. Before I got in, I noticed, even in my beer glazed vision that the tuktuk driver was winking, and I turned to my friends not really sure what the winking was about. We were bargaining for a lower price and how much he will charge me. I said “he’s winking, is that a good sign?” He was short and stocky, a bit paunchy on the face, short haired. I was interviewed on the way home, which is not really unusual for farangs in chiang mai. There were the usual questions: “where are you from”, “how long will you be staying”, and I figured by now, if you’re a woman, “are you married”. But there were also the unusual, or so I thought, question, "what does your husband do". Then the tuktuk driver asked me how old I thought he was. After tiring of the g...

In the middle of the working day, sometimes while walking on my way to work, sometimes in the mornings, as I drink my coffee while trying to focus on the day ahead, “it” hits me. I think about things I wanted to write about, to elaborate. But as such a time as now, I am in bed, with the laptop on, I try to remember what that glimpse of imagined creativity was yesterday, a while ago, last week. It escapes me. The initial idea is gone. It doesn’t even reach the blank pages of the word document. I hope this is not a block. Okay, something is coming to mind… The weather in Thailand. I wonder about the clothes in the night market. The weather here in Chiang Mai seems to be summery hot the whole year round. But I was told differently by people who have been here for years. They say it gets cool during the last quarter of the year, which is just about now. Although the temperature is better than the first two months since I came here, I still find it extremely hot when the sun comes out and s...

I cannot erase Because I feel everything is falling into place. Ok, well, not really everything. Work is up to my neck and there is every little bit of thing interfering when I'm actually trying and almost succeeding to focus and concentrate. But hey, thanks Tins for the documents. Lifted my spirits up yesterday and a load off my shoulders--not to mention my brows.

The wait was not really long. It was even relaxing, or so I thought. I have resigned from work and I had all the time to invest with the kids before I leave, just waiting for the days to go by, patiently and get to Chiang Mai for my new job. Passport, check. Visa, in process. Flight, booked and paid for… until the travel agency asked me if I had an OEC. Huh? Overseas Employment Certificate. What? Where? I asked around and lo and behold, one cannot get away without an OEC if one is going to work abroad, lest one wants to get held up at the immigration shamefully. And so shit started. To get this certificate, you have to spend a minimum three days at the Philippine Oversease Employment Administration (POEA), waste your time to fall in line from one window to another, bearing heat, sweat dripping on your back like rain and the smell of other people’s sweat. The first day you go to the second floor, window 6 for professional/skilled workers and get assed or rather assessed whether you have...

I was walking along the alley of the St. Joseph Church the other day on my way home, (I call it an alley because that's exactly what it is. People use it to get from Aurora Blvd to the back street without going around the corner of Anonas. Kind of like a short cut.) Anyways, so I was on my way home, thinking of the cheese I promised my daughter I'd get because she wanted pasta for dnner. In the middle of choosing whether I go to Ansons or Hi top, right in that alley, I became conscious of organ music sound and a choir singing. All of a sudden, in the midst of that busy alley and seemingly the wrong setting in an awful theatrical scene, extreme emotions welled up inside me like my heart was so full I was going to burst. I was about to sob! I couldn't place what was the top emotion because it seemed everything a person can feel was scrambling to get out, racing each other all at the same time. Without missing a step and part panicking, thinking I was going to have a vision of...

Wanna see kigao dancing? Check this out

Here are late posts of March 2007 Not a good day today. Sunday, March 25, 2007 The day should have gone well. All plans were set. I go to Leyte for work, the kids, on their vacation go to Baguio with Tatay and Ate. Things had to go wrong. First, we got lost. We missed the left turn at C5 to the airport, ended up in Bicutan and had to take the service road back. Then just as we were navigating through unfamiliar roads and unexpected one ways, there were participants already coming in at unplanned times and places as a phone call reported. When we got to Leyte, I texted the Baguio contingent. Apparently, Uling, the car we borrowed from tito mabi for the Baguio trip, overheated. They had to leave it at a shop in Concepcion, Tarlac and take the bus from there to Baguio. I was imagining all the crazy things my movie-based imagination affords me. I could just imagine them hot and perspiring, trying to catch the bus to Baguio. I panic for my family long distance. My only contact with them wa...

Thursday, April 12, 2007 Today I turn 36. Now why was that slow and hard to type? The curves of the numbers should have made it easy but it was not. Yesterday, I was mulling over getting old and I remembered the things I promised myself. A house at 35, but at 36 am still renting, stuff like that. Ten years ago, I was feeling as depressed as I was yesterday but without the Gen X angst anymore. (It's still there but it should be called something else at this age.) I do have two wonderful girls, a nine-year-old and a five-year-old, my sunshine and honey. Yesterday I read an article about the experiment with Joshua Bell that jolted me out of the technical stupor I am in and woke the sleeping vein that would push me to feel and not just be there. Pushing my fingers to type something that is not for work but for myself, as an attempt to save my sanity. Actually write for myself. Thus this blog. Things are not as bad as it seems come to think of it. In the midst of brainstorming for proje...

When it gets crazy, the only way to go is to stay sane. And mumble.

I'm now sitting at a noisy internet cafe having just finished sending an email I need for the training tomorrow. The cafe is populated by students whose parents are probably looking for them by now, at Tacloban City, in front of Hotel Alejandro where we are booked for the week. I'm itching to take a shower. I have a presentation tomorrow. It is 23:48 on my watch. I check if my sister is online but I get no response. March two weeks ago 2007

Joan, an officemate, related her interesting dream of waters frozen at one side, unfrozen yet still on the other. In the midst where she was walking, was an embankment. I turn green with envy. She is one of those lucky people who have an active dream life, or well, according to her, recently activated dream life. I, on the other hand never seem to have dreams. Waking dreams, rather. Those that I can remember. Some people dream wildly, viciously and violently at times. Some sweet and fleeting. Some weird and bothering. Mostly interesting. In certain cultures, dreams are a way of the dead connecting to you, telling you a message. Some say dreams have interpretations and meanings. Some people even argue whether there are colors in dreams. I envy them. I don’t dream. Or rather, have no memory of having had a dream for the longest time. Well, as Magi said, most nights we’re too drunk to remember our dreams. There is another thing that caught my interest and envy again! during the week that...

A couple of weeks ago, we were watching the 400th anniversary of the Black Nazarene on the news. People were shoved, squeezed, some even fainted. People were willing to risk their lives for a miracle, out of desperation. That is the state of the nation. - sorry for the late post. This was supposed to be posted early January. Just had pldt install a phone in the house-- which is another harrowing experience

Everybody now! "I was happy in the haze of a drunken hour, And heaven knows I’m miserable now. I was looking for a job and then I found a job And heaven knows I’m miserable now. In my life, why do I give valuable time To people who don’t care if I live or die." He is psychic.

Last week, my daughter’s classmates were practicing their Holy Communion. Thinking that it was just another school activity, my daughter told my mom, a devout Catholic, who then relayed to me the requirements that they have to buy: white dress, shoes and stockings. I pondered long and hard. How do you not break a mother’s heart while admitting that the religion she is so devoted to has ceased to apply to you, and which you are giving your daughter a choice to decide on. Then I pondered on another difficult thing. How do I tell my daughter that she has no religion. That she is not baptized. And why. So first things first. I had to talk to my daughter. I drew her outside, where we can talk without my mom overhearing us. Conversation went like this: ME: Sweetheart, you cannot join the Holy Communion because it is a ritual for Catholic people. You are not Catholic. ILAW: Why not? ME: Because there are a lot of other religions and we want you to choose what you want when the time comes that...