Moving

The eclipse has long passed. And I've outgrown this space and this skin...yet again. This blog is now closed.

At this distance you're a mirage, a glossy image fixed in the posture of the last time I saw you

1. Either I've been hormonal all week, or this is homesickness. One time I stayed in bed all day, playing Elliott Smith albums, with "Pretty (Ugly Before)" and "Independence Day" on loop. Another day I sang all the pieces I could remember from the musical Once on This Island. When those ran out, I sang songs I knew from South Pacific, My Fair Lady and West Side Story, and thought of stormy days when Ate Nessa and I would sing in our old shared room with our feet up and a cockroach running around, both of us too chicken or lazy to kill it. As if singing and conscious ignorance could solve anything.

2. Friday the 13th was the best, a day of relief. I didn't have to worry about performing in class and feeling self-consciously non-white for 4 whole days. I spent it doing 2 loads of laundry, grocery shopping, ironing clothes, and reading the 3 (THREE!) postcards that arrived in the mailbox, from Marie, Kit, and Kuya Zivan (THANK YOU!). 3 lovely, well-written postcards. I love holding mail in my hands.

3. My hands are getting older, drying up in this weather. I've decided not to put on nail polish anymore -- too much effort, and there's no one to notice anyway. The temperature has plummetted to around 7 degrees Celsius, and I'm wearing black knit gloves. There's a 2-week-old scar on my knuckle where I scraped it against the doorframe, in a hurry to get in.

4. My housemates are great. It's a pretty international house, with 2 Filipinas, 1 Iranian, 1 Jewish American, 1 German Buddhist, 1 French girl, and 1 Canadian. But while I'm thankful that I have drinking buddies and freshly baked bread and company during attacks of loneliness, I'm also starting to get drained being surrounded by people 24/7. (Even in Manila, the only way I could maintain equilibrium was to go out with friends one day, and to retreat into hermit mode the next.) I smell their cooking, jostle for fridge space, share a bathroom with 3 girls, hear them through the thin wall separating my bedroom from the kitchen, which is the house's only common area. In my dreams I hear doors closing, floorboards creaking, the microwave beeping, footsteps on the stairs, someone snoring, someone else murmuring, and murmuring.

5. My bedroom is dark in the daytime, my window facing the neighbor's brick wall. Light seeps into the room for only 10 minutes a day, at high noon. I miss having private sunlight.

6. There are tables I love on the 13th floor of the library. In each of the apexes where one book stack meets another, there are reading corners with huge windows overlooking the city, with Lake Ontario visible on clear days. Sunlight floods through these windows in the afternoon. (Am I so sun-starved?)

7. The good thing about the 12-hour difference between Toronto and Manila is that there are always people online at night when I'm saddest. My TDP friends have been a great source of comfort, sending me pictures of my puke (which looks strangely like North America) and videos of stolen kisses and drinking "tributes." While I don't miss the hours, or the work I did for 5 months, I do miss the company of down-to-earth friends (none of this arrogant academic bullshit) and all the time I had to read the books I wanted after work.

8. To be honest, I don't feel like I'm learning enough. Except for one class (the "Ethics, Authorship and the Right to Privacy" class on Lillian Hellman and Tennessee Williams) where I'm actually eager to read a book and 2 secondary essays a week, I think I'm just going through the motions. The required Bibliography course is pretty tedious, and it's not even a credited/graded class. The 1930s poetry class is a bit of a bore, and I know I could just read up on the era and the poets on my own if I wanted to. And because of all the work (plus the student papers I'm marking for my teaching assistantship -- and surprise, surprise, some papers are just as atrocious as the ones I used to get in Ateneo), I haven't had time to write anything new for my CW class, anything good, anything complete. It's starting to get frustrating.

9. An old essay (from November 2005) on my favorite Auster novel was published in the Philippine Star last Sunday. Strangely enough, I already feel so far removed from the self who wrote this.

10. A former student sent me a message on Friendster last week. He was part of my first batch of students, from the class that sang for me and gave me a birthday cake. He's a senior now, and afraid of being jobless next year. But he thanked me, and said I was part of the reason he did well in college, after the D I gave him for a proposal paper that made him strive to do better. I wish I could tell him: I was fumbling around too, and I still am. Now that I'm a student again, I remember how uncomfortable I felt in front of the classroom, like I was an impostor of sorts. This also makes me worry: what am I going to do after this MA? I don't want to return to the classroom and get burned out again.

11. Despite the bad stuff I've heard about her as a person, I still love Atwood. I still feel her poems speaking to me. Here's Postcard.

12. Where are you? It's you I want to hear from the most.

Dear October,

Month of my birthday, I used to curse at you under my breath back when each day of you meant five decades of prayers at school. Month of first terms ending, month of ferris wheels and secret codes and languorous nights, I raised my beer bottles in honor of you. You never disappoint. This year you have handed me my first autumn, reacquainted my wrists with sleeves, gotten me running after streetcars, showered me with hail while shopping for pie, cooled my tea every night, and made me smile with icy lips at all these trees on fire. You have made me see color again, beyond the brownness of my skin. You have me constantly looking up.

Titi in Kenya

Adam, my housemate Nilo's boyfriend (who lived in Kenya for 5 years), and I were talking about our pets one night at the kitchen table. He said he had a beautiful Pomeranian dog named T. I said,

"You mean T as in Mister T?"
"'I pity the fool!' No, the dog's a girl. T's short for...Nefertiti."
"Haha. Is she spoiled?"
"Oh, extremely. Like a queen. But our dog trainer said we should shorten Nefertiti's name when giving commands. So we call her T. We would've called her Titi, but Titi means 'breasts' in Kenyan."
"Oh wow! That's funny. In Filipino, Titi means 'penis.'"
"Really? Haha. There you go. It's not a good name for a dog in either language."

Birthday Bits

1. On my way home from class last Tuesday, I followed Jeline's advice and bought myself some flowers. Loud orange lilies to brighten up my mood and my already cheerful yellow room. Only later did I find out what they were called: tiger lilies! Like the audacious American Indian in Peter Pan. Like the lovely Natalie Merchant album. I felt better already.

2. Had a scrumptious brunch last Sunday at the Hothouse Cafe with my cousin Summer, her comedian husband Rich, and Auntie Ging-Ging, who had come to visit from Calgary. The jazz band started to play a cool, smooth version of "Happy Birthday to You." Stuffed and happy, I said, "I wonder whose birthday it is." They all started laughing.

3. I didn't feel the need to tell classmates and U of T people. Only my housemates and family here knew -- I preferred it that way. Birthday greetings from people back home were enough -- from TDP friends' YM messages to my family's emails to Elmo's phone call to blog greetings. Thank you for remembering. It really means a lot (sniff, end of drama).

4. Em's birthday wish for me came true. At the flower shop, there was a fat gray cat lounging on a ledge on top of the lilies. I put out my hand and he lifted his head to receive the maximum benefits of the rub. Near my (new) house, the same fluffy orange cat from weeks ago was waiting outside the convenience store. I petted him too. It's a good day when two cats let you pet them. No cat compares to my beloved Metaphor, though, whom I miss so ridiculously it hurts.

5. While I didn't celebrate my birthday with a beer and shawarma rice, I did eat "something deliciously bayaw like that" (thanks, Marie! haha). Maita, Ben and I went to this Jamaican place that looked like a hole in the wall from the outside (called Roti Palace). Different from Indian flatbreads like naan, Jamaican roti is like a square enchilada, filled with curried meat, potatoes and chickpeas. Sarap! The spiciness made one of us tear up.

6. For those who've asked, no, I didn't put "Nighthawks" on my wall. The tiny Hopper prints in my room are "Automat," "Compartment," "Cape Cod Morning," "New York Pavements" and "Chopsuey." Also on my walls are: the birthday card (Klimt's "Fulfillment") Sigh gave me last year; a photograph of a young Virginia Woolf; a sepia photograph Ian gave me of two brothers holding hands on a sunny Dumaguete road; a calligraphed and signed copy of Marj Evasco's "Origami" with an orange paper crane that Ruey gave me years ago; a large print of Dali's "Persistence of Memory" above my bed; and an Alice in Wonderland card with Alice looking up at the Cheshire Cat, and the following text: "Cheshire Puss!" said Alice. "Would you tell me which way I ought to go from here?"

Foggy

Went to a secondhand bookstore yesterday and, torn between buying Ashbery's Selected Poems and a beautiful illustrated edition of Atwood's The Journals of Susanna Moodie, bought myself a copy of Mark Doty's Sweet Machine instead. If only for "My Tattoo" and this section of a poem called "Fog Suite":


3.

Or else I love fog
because it shows the world

as page, where much
has been written, and much erased.

Clapboards lose their boundaries,
and phantoms of summer's roses

loom like parade floats lost at sea.
Is that what it is,

visible uncertainty?
This evening the thin fact of it

appears a little at a time,
shawling streetlamps,

veiling the heights:
clocktower and steeple gone

in roiling insubstantiality.
I take fog as evidence,

a demonstration of the nothing
(or the nothing much)

that holds the world in place
--rehearsal for our roles

as billow and shroud, drift
and cloud and vanishing act?

And, between these figuring lines,
white space, without which

who could read? Every poem's
half-erased. I'm not afraid;

it feels like home here,
held--like any line of text--

by the white margins
of a ghost's embrace.

Three-Sentence Fragments

1. I've been given good advice to combat feelings of intimidation and inadequacy. "It's precisely because you are who you are that they want to listen to you. Speak from that place."

2. My new room (which used to be the house's dining room) has three doors: one separating it from another bedroom (which used to be the living room), a frosted one leading into the hallway, and one opening out to the kitchen. This last door has been boarded up and covered with a curtain. What would feng shui experts say about having a sealed door in your bedroom?

3. I've heard people speaking in Chinese, Iranian, Korean, Polish, and Spanish on crowded subway trains and streetcars. The feeling's similar to passing by a frosted glass door. You can see people inside but you're shut out and can't decipher the contours and details.

4. I used to dislike Hopper when I was younger, puzzled by his un-pretty people and the way he positioned his subjects to convey a sense of emptiness in space, of loneliness-es overlapping. Now I think I get him, and have posters of his work on my walls. Plus they work with my color sceme: pale yellow, sage green, brown, with blue and orange accents.

5. I've heard of schoolgirls who've been taught Spanish for years. But they can't speak it fluently nor hold entire conversations. To pretend, they recite prayers to each other.

6. In this city, there's a pub called The James Joyce. And another pub called Molly Bloom. And a HOTDOG STAND called Mrs. Dalloway's, with a portly black woman minding it.

7. I woke up at 5 a.m. with a brilliant aha! understanding of Lillian Hellman's second memoir, Pentimento (a painting term which literally means "repentance," to explain how, when some paintings age, it becomes possible to see the original images the artist eventually decided to paint over). It just became clear to me who the real stars of the memoir were: neither Hellman nor her past or present written portraits of other people -- but time, that old artist and exposer, and the writing process itself. Now if only I'd get awakened that forcefully with a poem.

Silly Things Thought and Asked While Awkwardly Assembling a Wardrobe and Desk on my Own

1. Reading a manual is like learning a new, pictographic language. Spatial reasoning and visual interpretation have never been my strong suits. Where are the words to tell me what to do?!

2. Why is the man on the Ikea manual smiling goofily, with a dialogue balloon that contains not words but pictures of a hammer, a screwdriver and nails?

3. "This side is screwed, the other one isn't." ==> where did that idiom "screwed" come from? Because if something is screwed on tightly, it's the opposite of being "screwed", right? Shouldn't the idiom go, "Dude, we're so unscrewed?"

4. [me to M]: How do you know when you've screwed it in properly? Should the head of the nail still be seen? If there's a slight resistance, should you screw it in tighter?
[both of us realizing the implications]: BWAHAHAHA!
[M]: I think someone needs to get laid soon.

Toronto Report #4: Come Dance the Silence Down Through the Morning

1. A fluffy orange cat was lounging in a patch of sunlight on the sidewalk today. When I meowed at it, it padded towards me and rolled over at my feet, wanting a belly rub. I obliged the creature, beside which my cat Meta would have looked malnourished. In her last e-mail my mother said that Meta has stopped waiting by the living room window after almost two weeks of doing so. If cats have nine lives do they have nine hearts too? If you break a cat's heart will it forgive you, or will it have forgotten you two years later?

2. On the way to the airport, my father tuned in to the RJ station, which happened to be airing Beatles songs at 6 in the morning. So the last songs my ears were treated to in Manila were "Penny Lane", "Two of Us", and "In My Life". Part of me scoffed at how contrived it seemed, between tears and sniffling.

3. "Mr. Jones" was playing today, at the Second Cup where I drank brewed coffee at the counter with strangers. And I wanted to shake the sleep off someone's eyes to tell him how this song, to me, will always smell of rainy days at the end of summer, Xavier Grille barbecue, and 2005. If I had a phone I'd have called up one of the Bayaws.

4. Went to a barbecue today at the house of the former CW coordinator, and finally met my 6 classmates. And--surprise, surprise--the South African girl I'd corresponded with turned out to be white. I think I wanted her to be black for my own selfish reasons. One thing about being the third-world, non-white, non-Canadian girl in my peer group is that it gives me license to be the outsider, to observe, to have my anti-social tendencies excused, to hover on the fringes of conversations I don't want to join.

5. My cousin and I were watching a TV special on conjoined twins, who, for some genetic reason, are almost always girls. One of the women interviewed was born with a twin connected to her chest, with whom she shared a liver and other organs. When her twin died soon after, doctors had to separate them. Forty years later, she wonders how much of her body and personality are really her twin's. She describes this visceral missing for the sister she never knew, the pensiveness she feels on birthdays, and the loneliness she's had all her life. (Talk about a conversation-killer: I was born with a twin. She died soon after birth.) This woman saw her twin as the embodiment of all she had lost, all that was missing in her life. Unlike the rest of us bumbling around with this aching emtpiness that wants to be named.

6. People on bicycles, not to mention Rollerblades and skateboards, are a common sight on the streets of this city. But the other day, a man on a unicycle was waiting calmly, towering over pedestrians at an intersection. (Who still makes and sells unicycles in this day and age? And what sort of man would buy one, and use it on a busy urban street? These are the people I want to meet.) When the light turned green, he stretched his hands out to the world and pedalled. A punk crossing the street from the opposite direction gave him a smile and a high five.

Toronto Report #3: A Room of One's Own

Apartment-hunting with Maita has been a disaster of humorous proportions. Since we arrived on the 29th and the 30th, most of the good places for September 1 had already been taken. Of the 60+ places we'd called/e-mailed, only around 1/4 were still available. We were left with basement rooms (could you live underground with little to no natural light in winter?), expensive apartments in high-rise buildings ($1200 minimum for 2 bedrooms, multiply by 45 to get the equivalent in pesos), and other options that we couldn't stomach:

1. The Stinky -- Maita and I were chipper, hoping to get lucky on our first try. Then our faces fell: the 2-bedroom apartment was right by a noisy intersection, above a Chinese herbs/acupuncture store, in a building whose state left much to be desired. We went up the rotten wood stairs and hallway -- which smelled of piss. Old piss preserved, clinging to the walls. We ran out of there.

2. The Scary -- The 3-bedroom house on a quiet, residential street looked promising from the outside, with quaint bay windows. Then the door opened and out came white-haired Mrs. Walker with HEAVY CONCEALER under her eyes (which looked like caked Caladryl). She gave us a tour of the house that had cracking walls, a showerhead-less bathroom, and 2 dark rooms that could have had crystal meth addicts hiding in the closets. And she started lecturing: against heavy footsteps (she lived in the basement), smoking (an old tenant set fire to half of the back patio), and overnight visitors. We half-ran out of there.

3. The Iffy -- We took the train to the far Roncesvalle area, which looked like the Polish/Eastern European section of the city, with jazz bars and antique shops nearby. The house had an old man, a big dog, and a fat white guy on the porch. Vlad (the fat white guy) showed us the 2 bedrooms for rent, which were pretty big and bright. But: we'd have no common living area, we'd have to share a bathroom with the family, the dog was allowed in the house, and Vlad had a room right next to one of the bedrooms. All this sounded iffy, even after Vlad lowered the price to $425 per room. We walked out of there.

4. The Kookily Strict -- The 2 rooms for rent ad sounded ideal -- or at least the prices did: $420 and $460. So I ignored the detail that these people had a vegetarian kitchen. We went up to the 4-bedroom house (that had 2 beautiful Persian cats) and were asked to take off our shoes by two people I'll call Olive and Mr. Ugly. We were shown the rooms (which were considerably different in terms of size and window light -- one of us would suffer). And Olive said: no meat cooking in the house. And I asked: how about ham in the fridge, and tuna in cans? And Mr. Ugly said curtly: not too enthusiastic about that. Which is when I shut down, even while Maita continued trying to charm them. I'm sorry, when it comes right down to it, I can't live without SOME sort of flesh (the edible, digestible kind -- and fine, the other kind too). And Mr. Ugly was sullen...and ugly.

5. The Maybe -- The 6-bedroom house very near U of T seemed nice enough, but it would be expensive: $3000 for 6 rooms + utilities + Internet/phone. And Maita's friends weren't too hot about it, over e-mail and in person. The picture at the top of this entry is of what would've been my room on the 3rd floor, with a pretty window facing the front. I'd always wanted to live in an attic with slanted walls and a desk by the window -- even after seeing Secret Window, that Stephen King movie where Johnny Depp plays a writer who lives in an attic and goes mad. Too bad we had to give up this place -- or maybe not. It's going to be hard keeping my sanity intact here.

Toronto Report #2: Perfect Stranger

I never thought my childhood fondness for Bronson Pinchot (a.k.a. the wide-eyed Balki Bartakamous from a tiny Greek island come to live with his long-lost cousin Larry in Chicago, in the 80s sitcom Perfect Strangers) would be relived. But then my cousin Summer threatened to hold up a big sign at the airport's arrival gate -- Kozin Yvana Van De Leon -- just to embarrass me. (She didn't; but I rehearsed the Dance of Joy in my head just in case.)

Sometimes I do feel like Balki -- naive and unsure in an unfamiliar city. Other times I'm confident I can go anywhere and do anything, having mastered the transportation system (with subway trains, buses, and streetcars interconnected in an efficient system) in days, with the help of my cousin's trusty transit map and my Metropass -- which, at $85 a month, allows me unlimited access to all transit vehicles. So far, I've gone around Kensington Market, Chinatown, two malls, and the row of stores and restaurants down Bloor and Spadina.

One thing I like about taking the subway is getting off at the Spadina station, and walking down the underground red-brick tunnel that connects to the other train line (sort of like Gateway Mall). During a day of apartment-hunting then drinking beer (my first since Monday with the bayaws) with Maita and her friend Paul, I had to pass this tunnel several times, and each time there was a different musician: an old bearded guy who played flamenco-style guitar, a couple of Europeans playing a polka on the violin and accordion, a bald black guy playing something jazzy on his keyboard, and a thin man playing a plaintive version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" -- I had to sit down and listen to this. And I remembered the mixed CD Vlad had made for me -- which had 2 versions of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", followed by another universal tune: "I'm Horny." I've made it a point to always carry coins (1- and 5-cent coins -- grabe, hindi ako sanay na may value uli ang mamera) in my pocket for these subway musicians.

Despite the great transit system, I still miss the luxury of (relatively cheap) taxi rides back home. I know, I'm spoiled. And flabby. My calves are still getting used to at least an hour of walking every day (15 minutes to and from the nearest subway stop, then minutes to hours of exploring). And I can't even wear my skirts anymore. The temperature today is 17 degrees Celsius, and it's been showering since there was a tropical storm from New York over the weekend. It would be familiar monsoon weather to me, if not for the cold. I either have to keep wearing pants, or buy tights. (Brown tights with denim and camouflage-print skirts? I don't know...)

The other day, I met up and had coffee with B, who took me on a tour of the sprawling U of T campus. Grabe. Most departments have their own buildings, which either look like quaint, brick houses, or tiny adobe cathedrals, like the ones in old Manila. I love the English department, which is housed in this Gothic, Victorian-style building with ivy and moss growing on the walls. (I've taken pictures, but haven't figured out how to upload them yet.) The Robarts library has 14 -- fourteen! -- stories, five of them dedicated to humanities-related stuff. The campus also seems to have an unusual number of squirrel residents, some of which we saw humping romantically under trees.

B seems to have lost all traces of being Filipino -- not that he was traditionally Pinoy to begin with. I feel like I'm beginning a friendship again with a stranger.

Next: Toronto report #3:The search for a roof over our heads

Toronto Report #1: White (and multi-colored) Spaces

I couldn't focus on reading fiction or anything with continuous slabs of paragraphs during the plane rides, so I ended up digesting Paul Auster's book of selected poems, Disappearances. Here's something from his prose poem "White Spaces" that struck a chord last week:

In the realm of the naked eye nothing happens that does not have its beginning and its end. And yet nowhere can we find the place or the moment at which we can say, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this is where it begins, or this is where it ends. For some of us, it has begun before the beginning, and for others of us it will go on happening after the end. Where to find it? Don't look. Either it is here or it is not here. And whoever tries to find refuge in any one place, in any one moment, will never be where he thinks he is. In other words, say your good-byes. It is never too late. It is always too late.

* * *

On Race

At the immigration office at the Toronto airport, I couldn't help but stare. It was the first time I'd seen so many people of different colors and shapes and sizes before. In Manila, everyone is brown or brownish yellow, and we gawk at the occasional white guy with an arm wrapped around a Pinay. Here, it's a Benetton ad every day: every time I sweep my eyes across an area I see people who are black, white, yellow, brown, pinkish white, brownish black, and all other variations. My eyes will probably get used to it soon enough, but it's still fun for now.

The lady at the immigration desk had a bottle of Naya mineral water on her desk. I took that as a good sign. She seemed surprised and impressed that I was going to U of T. As was the Indian taxi driver who asked me right away, "Are you from Philippines?" "Yeah. How could you tell?" He smiled slyly and said, "Only from your good looks."

It's funny, I've become acutely aware of other Filipinos in the city. My first night at my cousin's apartment (she's on the first floor, by the elevator/stairs), I heard two people going up, one of them asking, "O, magluluto na ba ako?" On my daily 15-minute walk to the subway, I pass by a Filipino store (that sells Chippy and Sweet Corn chips!) and always see Pinoys in denim jackets nearby. We eye each other and sometimes give a little smile -- I know, it's a fake sense of kinship based purely on being a minority in a multicultural city, but still, it's comforting. On a streetcar on the way to Kensington Market (full of ukay-ukay like thrift stores and fresh produce stalls), a woman beside me mocked her husband, "Naku, lumalabas na naman ang pagka-beho mo!" When I turned and smiled, she added, "O ayan, tinawanan ka tuloy ng ka-lahi mo."

Other things I've noted: 1) Each race has its territory in this city -- there's a Chinatown, a Koreatown, a Little Italy, a Greektown, a Little India, and other unofficially named areas populated by the Polish, Filipinos, etc. 2) Each race has its share of plain and stunning people, though most obese people I've seen are Caucasian. 3) Each race has its share of crazy and shady people -- I've seen a Polish guy having a polite conversation with his dog, a Chinese woman muttering to herself and wringing her hands, and a black guy who kept eyeing me at the subway bench as I was waiting for Maita, and who eventually asked, "Hey there, are you waiting for someone? Or are you waiting for me? Would you like to go up and--?" I said no and walked off to another bench.

Next: Toronto report #2: Getting around the city

pre-departure ka-senti-han (long entry)

So I'm leaving for Toronto at 9:10 a.m. this Tuesday the 29th. And I don't think my mind's fully wrapped itself around that fact yet: I'm moving to another country for two years (and won't be home that entire time, because I'm going to be a poor grad student...no, I mean really poor), and I'll be back in the academe working my back off, studying, and fulfilling teaching assistantship duties, and hopefully writing stuff that'll blow us all away.

All I know is I've been extremely lucky. Things have fallen into place, favors have been given and freely accepted, schedules working out... The universe has been kind, and so have relatives and virtual strangers. (And God, my mom would say, don't forget God.) A year ago, on the verge of breaking down from checking too many pitiful freshman papers, I wished for something grand and wonderful to come into my life. This is it, I know, this is the big adventure I've been wanting for years.

And because someday, I'm going to wonder what I did on my last days in Manila, here's a list to help me remember:

Aug 18, Fri
==> On my way to the 3-day Galleria sale, I got a text from Mama: package from can embassy just arrived. A few minutes later: can i open it? I hesitated only because I'd wanted to be the one to open it -- but since I had a despedida that night, knew I couldn't wait til midnight to find out! (Yes, I'd fail that EQ marshmallow test every time.) I ended up praying, for the first time in months (years?), as if prayer could change the results in the envelope. She texted a minute later: hav visa, wil travel!

==> The good news, just 11 days before my intended departure, made shopping for jeans (a real chore for this big bottom) and the despedida with The Design People friends so much sweeter. Mark and I treated them to beer, sisig, tequila, and (gulp) Matador. Also received 2 mixed CD's, a copper bangle bracelet, chopsticks, and more than my daily dose of hugs. Told some of them that their company has made my 5 1/2 months in the office worthwhile.

Aug 19, Sat
==> Javie's birthday. Had dinner at Kamirori with Larry, Em, Peachy, and an almost unrecognizably slimmed down Arkaye, who wanted me to read poems with Ara Mina. Hahaz! The Monday Club and Javie's other friends feasted on quesadillas and drank themselves silly with torohan and pina coladas. The last time I was at his house, I was unbearably sad and frustrated (with my directionless life, not the party) -- this time, it was quite the opposite. Tangina, mami-miss ko ang Monday club,

Aug 20, Sun
==> Ate Nessa came over with Shakey's Friday Special pizzas and we had a last family meeting, recomputing the expenses and loans and (my) debts for Toronto. This is what I love about my family: we're nonchalant and not at all physically affectionate, but the support is...overwhelming. Kuya Zivan gave me his and Agnes' gift: a black and gray secondhand-but-almost-new Compaq laptop, my very first. I'm naming it Toto in the meantime (kasi minsan may to-paq ang network connections), and have been filling it up with beautiful music, almost rivalling TDP's Roomjuice.

Aug 21, Mon
==> Elmo came over to have sinigang and pochero (I've been having my fill of good Pinoy food all week), then we went to the Podium to have the big Samsonite luggage repaired -- all that was wrong was the zipper, which took all of 10 minutes to fix. Ended up buying socks, brown slacks, rechargeable batteries, sneakers, and this beautiful black and gold "squared circles" journal from Powerbooks, its pages ready to be filled up this year. We shared our last bowl of chicken pho from Pho Hoa, and aztec hot chocolate (thick, with chili! i looove it) from Xocolat.

Aug 22, Tues
==> Mama's plane ticket reservation got canceled -- apparently a reservation's valid for a week only -- and the earliest flight we could get to Toronto was on Sept 4. Which means it'll be harder for me and Maita to find an apartment, since most leases begin on the 1st. Worried about this all day, even during dinner with Tebs and Yol at TOSH, where we noticed how "teacherly" we were all getting. We've come a long way from Tuesday afternoons on Rofel's couch, reading and butchering each other's poems.

Aug 23, Wed
==> Called up Elmo's travel agent, a curt Chinese woman named Fanny, who promised to find me a flight to Toronto earlier than Sept 4. Had dinner at Cafe Bola in Gateway (oh adobo flakes with kesong puti, I'm going to miss you) with the Ateneo teacher friends: Larry, Vince, Elmo, Allan, Maita and EJ. Larry greets me with: "O, I hear you're delayed." Haha. And over beers at Istanbul Express (which opened just for us!) we were treated to 2 people's verbal sparring and ideological/attitudinal differences. Hard to tell who won the battle, though we were all (well, maybe not all) amused.

Aug 24, Thurs
==> Fanny the anonymous travel agent found me a flight on the 29th, from Manila-Tokyo-Toronto in 17 hours. And which was slightly cheaper than the original flight my mom had reserved. Bless Fanny's fanny! To celebrate, I had a haircut, my eyebrows threaded, and had shawarma rice meals at Ababu with 3 of my favorite people in the world, all of whom I love. Listened to the mixed CD's friends gave me. Some definite tearjerkers: Edie Brickell's "Me By the Sea," K.D. Lang's version of Cohen's "Hallelujah," Innocence Mission's "Follow Me," and Wilco's "What's the World Got in Store For You," and especially The Gathering Field's "Blue Sky Song." This is also the first night I've cried over leaving those I love behind.

Aug 25, Fri
==> Saw my recent crush online, and we ended up chatting and admitting that we liked each other. Woohoo! It was sweet and clean and uncomplicated -- totally unlike me, pero nakakatuwa pa rin. So our moment under the umbrella was not all in my head.

==> Despite the sudden downpour and my leaky umbrella, I met up with Robin at Kalye Juan, and talked about her 3 kittens, the condo unit she's saving up for, and, inevitably, B -- who's had an undeniable influence in our lives. She gave me chimes, soap, and a pretty Starry Night print for my room-to-be -- because she once had a dream that my real name was Star.

==> Had dinner at Dencio's with the Manila-based members of college barkada Totaleclipsers, some of whom I haven't seen since December 2004! Biday proudly gave me her gift of "thermal underwear" -- comic-print undies certain to "generate heat." Bwahaha. Over coffee (no beer for this group) at Wheatberry's, we called up Rabbi, who was slumped on his couch in Hong Kong, and bugged him over speaker phone. A true Globe moment. It's wonderful to remember one has a history with a set of friends. Though it boggles the mind how one of our favorite stories/memories involves someone's dad, a santol fruit, a salbabida, and a trip to the emergency room. Haha.

Aug 26, Sat
==> My first day alone in over a week. The daily despedidas, while fun and heartwarming, were starting to wreak havoc on my equilibrium. Began packing, then got overwhelmed by the amount of stuff I had to throw out. I'm a packrat, unlike Mama and Ate Nessa, who came over to watch me find a bra strap on my desk, of a bra I'd thrown out six months ago. She was so horrified she left. Read old journals, old letters, and sealed them in boxes. Hopefully Mama won't paw through them when I go.

Aug 27, Sun
==> Last complete family lunch at Sangkalan. But not before we all attended Mass (Mass! Haven't been to Mass in...years), at Mama's request. The gospel and homily were about the tail end of the Bread of Life discourse, and how Jesus' disciples are asked to believe the unbelievable, and how those who stayed true despite the limitless difficulties were the ones blessed. Be steadfast, I'm being told. Lunch was a feast: kilawing tanigue, Bicol express, and a bilao-ful of inihaw na liempo, bangus, squid, shrimp, and veggies.

==> After lunch, I met up with Elmo, and shopped for last-minute things in Megamall and Shangri-La. Felt nauseous after buying CD spindles -- could have been the amount I'd eaten, or the fact that the first thing I'd eaten was sour kilawin. While walking to the bathroom, I felt like throwing up -- and did! Buti na lang I trapped the vomit in my mouth, and there was time to empty a plastic bag of its contents and transform it into a barf bag. So my memory of my second-to-the-last day in Manila will forever include a blue SM plastic bag 1/4 filled with my vomit, and me nonchalantly carrying it into the bathroom. Haha. I'm glad Elmo was there. I'm going to miss my mall/movie/supermarket buddy.

Aug 28, Mon
==> And in a few minutes, after having lunch with family and finishing my packing, I intend to have a massage and a pedicure (oo na, kakikayan na!), early dinner with Egay, and early inuman with the Monday Club until 9:30 or so -- because Mondays are, and always will/should be, for abandon.

Tomorrow on the Runway

Thanks to friends who've made and sent me mixed CD's for Toronto: Jeline, Elmo, Mikael, Joel, Vlad, Brian, Ike, Twinkle. I'm still expecting those from Peachy, EJ, Romy, Jose, and Jordan. One of these days, when I've listened to them all, I'll say whose is my favorite. But tonight, I'm listening to something I compiled for myself (bakit hindi, e gusto ko?):

1. Innocence Mission - Tomorrow on the Runway
2. Tegan & Sara - Monday Monday Monday
3. Counting Crows - Hanginaround
4. Badly Drawn Boy - 4-Leaf Clover
5. Heatmiser - See You Later
6. Tori Amos - Martha's Foolish Giner
7. The Delays - Long Time Coming
8. R.E.M. - The Great Beyond
9. U2 - I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
10. Sufjan Stevens - Chicago
11. Innocence Mission - Moon River
12. Postal Service - Such Great Heights
13. Elliott Smith - Independence Day
14. Stars - Look Up
15. Morcheeba - God Bless and Goodbye
16. Tori Amos - Gold Dust

SALE! (additional items in red)

Leave a comment after the entry, email me at nayav@yahoo.com, or text me (this method is best) if you'd like to buy items on this list. These things need to be sold ASAP. I can meet you on the ff days:
- Fri, Aug 25, 5-6pm, Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, Tomas Morato
- Sat, Aug 26, 2-3pm, Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, Gateway Mall, Cubao

* CD's:
1. Uniberso: New Pinoy Poets Calling -- 100
2. Belle & Sebastian, Dear Catastrophe Waitress -- 120
3. The Very Best of Sheryl Crow -- 150
4. Sarah McLachlan, Afterglow -- 150
5. The Gentle Side of John Coltrane -- 200
6. Beth Orton, Comfort of Strangers -- 250
7. Counting Crows, Films about Ghosts -- 250
8. K.D. Lang, Hymns of the 49th Parallel -- 300
9. Glenn Gould on piano, Bach's Preludes, Fughettas and Fugues -- 300
10. Ustinig: Thomasian Writers Read -- 100
11. Cynthia Alexander, Rippingyarns -- 150
12. Masters of Jazz Play Gershwin -- 300 (in a nice red metal case; masters include Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Johnny Mercer, Sidney Bechet)

* BOOKS:
1. Art of Nonfiction, Ayn Rand -- 250
2. Writing to Learn, William Zinsser -- 250
3. Love Gathers All: The Philippines-Singapore Anthology of Love Poetry -- 150
4. Lady Polyester, Ophelia Dimalanta -- 120
5. Passional, Ophelia Dimalanta -- 120
6. Crossing the Snow Bridge, Fatima Lim-Wilson -- 100
7. Oranges are Not the Only Fruit, Jeanette Winterson -- 100
8. The Other Side: Poems, Julia Alvarez -- 100
9. A Geography of Poets: New American Poetry, ed. Edward Field, 1979 -- 100
10. Museum of Absences: Poems, Luis H. Francia -- 100
11. Collected Poems, Randall Jarell -- 200
12. The Poet's Notebook: Excerpts from the Notebooks of 26 American Poets (including Stephen Dunn, Mary Oliver, Charles Simic, Donald Justice, Carolyn Forche, Yusef Komunyakaa, etc) -- 500 (HB)
13. The Train, Dacia Maraini -- 50
14. Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing, May Sarton -- 50
15. Byrne, Anthony Burgess -- 50
16. Future Imperfect, Anthony Burgess -- 100
17. A Natural History of the Senses, DIane Ackerman -- 200
18. Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury -- 200
19. John Hedgecoe's Basic Photography -- 250 (HB)
20. Lit Biz 101: How to Get Happily and Successfully Published -- 75
21. How You Can Make $25,000 A Year Writing -- 75
22. Chinese Filipinos (HB, large coffee table book) -- 600
23. Cartography: Poems on Baguio, Ma. Luisa Aguilar-Carino -- 100
24. The Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston -- 120

* DVD's: 50 pesos each, but only if you buy a book or a CD along with it
1. The Lover (based on Marguerite Duras' novel) -- a Jean-Jacques Annaud film starring Jane March
2. Henry & June (main characters are supposedly Henry Miller, June Miller and Anais Nin) -- a Philip Kaufman film starring Fred Ward, Maria de Medeiros and Uma Thurman
3. Head in the Clouds (a romantic and political drama set in 1930's Europe) -- a John Duigan film starring Charlize Theron, Penelope Cruz and Stuart Townsend
4. The Complete 1st Season of (HBO series) Carnivale (6 CD's)-- 550

* OTHER:
1. Nike foam-covered gray 3 lb. dumbells bought for 675 -- 350
2. Aiwa headphones -- 200