of tourists and travelers.

Long weekend.

family obligations.

so.

dragged by mother to help aunt tour some friends around Iloilo.
woke up 530 am so we can be at airport by 6. or 630.

but they arrived 7am.

then we went to decos because they wanted batchoy.
how tourist-y (silent "t"?)
and because i told them ted's doesn't taste as good anymore.
but i didn't finish mine.

then we went for the churches. i had nothing much to say and they had no questions to ask. i might be the lousiest tour guide there is. but really they do not ask much and there seems to be dead end conversations. so i didn't tell much. except describe what the place looked like after the typhoon.

to end the story, it was boring and i was bored. i wish they were more of travelers than just tourists. or i wish they were more observant. i wish they had more social science in them. or humanities. or asked about the building. or the architecture of the church. or the story about the town.

not just shoot and shoot and shoot and shoot endlessly because somebody had to submit something to a photo contest.

now i know the difference between a tourist and a traveler.

drug buddy

by the lemonheads....evan DANDO THE GREAT GREAT GREAT!!!!

again, one of those eternal lyrics posts of mine.



Shes coming over,
Well go out walking,
Make a call on the way.

Shes in the phone booth now,
Im looking in.
There comes a smile on her face.

Theres still some of the same stuff we got yesterday.
Theres still some of the same stuff we got yesterday,
Yeah.

Im too much with myself,
I wanna be someone else.
Im too much with myself,
I wanna be someone else.
Im too much with myself,
I wanna be someone else.

So we take off out fionas door,
Walk until its light outside,
Like before when we were on the phone.

We have to laugh to look at each other.
We have to laugh cause were not alone.

As the cars fly up king st.
Its enough to startle us,
Its enough to startle us

I love my drug buddy.
My drug, my drug buddy.
I love my drug buddy.
My drug, my drug buddy.

LOSER.

It used to be tabby's favorite word in high school.

It remains to be a favorite word.

when she was young tabby would repeatedly hear this word form her father. maybe not the exact words but other forms of word but they all give the same meaning: loser. but they all mean the same.

when tabby took the phil sci exam and did not pass, her father called her a liar for saying that the exam was easy. he said she did not have brains for phil sci. so. maybe really it was easy, too easy since she just guessed all answers to it. she didn't even have to compute.

months passed and she was tried again for another exam in up hi. she thought it was also easy but she knew better. by simple analogy from her phil sci experience, when the exam was easy, it is more likely she didn't pass. before they were let out, the proctor informed all examines that the notices will reach them by April. when she got home her father asked her how the exam was. she knew better so she said it was hard. her father told her that maybe she had brains for birds since he found it hard. the exam was much easier than phil sci's. so again, by simple analogy, it more likely she didn't pass. she sighed.

it was a hot afternoon. and she was tired. her father was lying on the couch. reading. (so he'd grow brains as big as dexter's or those mars atacks martians.) it was even hotter when she got to her bedroom. she changed clothes and went out to play. on the playground she palyed the scene over and over again. she wouldn't really pass because her father said so. and that's what those simple analogies say.

April came and no exam notice arrived. her father asked her when they should be expecting the notice. honestly, she muttered, "in April". but it was already April, her father chuckled. "I told you you wouldn't pass." maybe i really have brains for the birds, tabby thought to herself. bird-brained or not, she went out to play still. it was easy to forget about things then and to let loneliness and depression pass. you just spend the day running around and imagine good things and you'd less likely to get lonely. you just have to deal with nightmares at night though.

she finally got the notice in may. she almost gave up on it and had imagined situation in her mind. the opening of high school might be the most embarrassing because she would go to school where most of her grade school mates would also go to. they would know she didn't pass. she had prepared herself for the moment. but the results said so and she had to wake up early the next day to go to Iloilo with her mother. she had to look for decent clothes. she could hardly find any decent clothes. everything were either 1 size smaller or 5 sizes bigger. so forced herself into a pair of snugly fitting jeans and over sized tshirt which her aunt handed down to her. her father didn't say a thing, except that he almost thought she didn't pass.

more nightmarish episodes happened and the terrorism became even worse. now because she went to a premier high school and on weekly allowance she had a lot to prove. her father kept on telling her all his salary were being spent on her. so she tries hard to save and hardly spend on "unnecessary" things. she starved herself millions to times to acquire 100++ cassette tapes of the music that help her survive adolescence, away from home and perennially broke. he father said they were useless music because you couldn't eat a cassette. they couldn't even make you any more intelligent that a bird. but she treasured them. and treasured them so much she had a special place for them in her room. she even catalogued each one of them. she read facts about her favorite bands. she learned about their influences, their favorite books. she dug deeper. she dug for those books and those poets and poetess and writers and other musical gods they kept mentioning in their interviews. it grew in her and she knew there was no turning back. she made and kept friends based on their musical tastes. then it grew to literary tastes. then the standards became ideals.

but the worst is yet to come and she made a major decision that forever altered her relationship with her father for the worse, maybe. for her, however, it was the turning point in her life. and from then on she worked hard to earn respect for herself. she learned that the little you talk, the little the critics are so she stopped talking. she stopped talking to her father. she stopped telling her about her running schedule, her subjects, her room assignments, her grades, her boarding house, her whole life. she just stopped talking about her to her father.

years and years later, people tell her her father fears her. but she believe it wasn't her he fears. it was her silence.

now tabby is an adult and married. she thought the terrorism will end but they just never do, don't they? she forgot to remember all things presumed and assumed are bound to be incorrect unless proven otherwise. but it is a good thing she has established respect for herself that no amount of debasing could even tear it down.

at a young age, however, she has concluded that women are always bound to be humiliated by men, whether publicly or privately. and no matter how much or how far women's achievements will take them, they will all come home to emotional battery of degrading and demeaning from their husbands. tabby has witnessed her father do it to her mother countless times and has similarly experienced that first-hand. she abhors marriage and believe it is the worst decision a woman could make for herself. she has seen far enough to believe otherwise. all her friends are products of bad marriages, if not dysfunctional family. their fathers either left them or ceased to function as such.

it was too late for her to make a grand exit like kurt cobain.

so she will keep on fighting. and fighting. until PhD.


hay puta. bahala na si batman.

gogol's playthings.

these is the story about gogol's playthings.
gogol's parents never buy him toys. most of his toys were either given to him or stuffs from the kitchen counters that slowly crept their way into his toy basket. gogol's parents do not patronize toy kingdom and are anti-consumerist.

first off...



The Ball.


This soft, spongy football was given by gogol's "kika" mao's friend myrrh. she loves to think she's gogol's godmother. his mother forgot when this was given to him but it could be during that stage when he was mastering his picking objects skills or maybe his pincer grasp. gogol does not practice picking up skills with this ball anymore. He is so done with it already. This ball is now used for mastering his throwing skills. His parents hope that this ball will inspire him to be a FIFA world cup star by the time he's 18.

Osong Paloy (you wouldn't wanna know what that means. believe me.)

Osong Paloy was a name invented by gogol's tatay when he was told that a write up about gogol's playthings will be made. For header purposes, a name for this gayish bear had to be invented, since most of gogol's toys do not have names. Osong paloy arrived in our apartment sometime in june 2007 from isabela, in northern philippines. it was sent to "kika" mao by a friend. as expected it was turned over to gogol. gogol never played with it until recently, and his parents thought it was too fuzzy for him to play with.

Tarsilo the tartol

Tarsilo was a product of gogol's "kika" mao's christmas party in december of 2007. gogol's mother used tarsilo's neck as bottle propper when gogol was still unable to hold the bottle on his own.Tarsilo used to have a black dot on his plastic eyes. But they were eventually rubbed out. Gogol's parents and his then sitter Manang Inday used to draw the black dot using the permanent marker but the dot would only last for a day. they eventually got tired of it and accepted tarsilo's "blinded" look. Tarsilo the tartol looks like a happy stuffed toy, not considering his gayish color. Gogol loves him.



Spiderman, spiderman

spiderman was a puppet bought by gogol's lola in Davao City. he was not appreciative of it at first, not until his mother used spiderman to sing to him Twinkle Twinkle Little Star at night, after their reading/story telling session on the board book "Squirrel is Hungry" by satoshi kitamura. Now gogol can't live a day without hugging and kissing spiderman. He sometimes even let spiderman sleep beside him. (picture to come)



Kabayoman


Kabayoman was a christmas gift to gogol by his nanay's cousin. before spiderman came to gogol's life, kabayoman was one of his favorite companions. he seems to like kabayoman better that osong paloy perhaps because kabayoman looks so macho, and osong paloy looks so girl. Also, Kabayoman is so flexible he can fit in gogol's small bag now matter how full it is. and he always do things with a big horsey smile on his face.

gogol's shoes.

I'm not a shoe person. i only have 2 pairs of shoes which i really consider mine, one is a hiking shoe (which is as historical as it could be, i bought it at rockport in greenbelt while the magdalo soldiers are preparing for their great uprising a block away and myself and my sister knowing about it 2 hours later while inside the cinema watching "Miranda" -- starring christina ricci -- through a text sent by my father who was in Iloilo) and the other one is a running shoe (a 3-year old running shoe that needs replacement). Similarly, gogol isn't raised to be a shoe guy, although that seems to be far from happening as the shoe-rack corner appears to be one of his favorite spots in our 6x10 apartment, next to "under the table". The moment he wakes up he'll usually get hold of any of his shoes, signaling that he wants to get some fresh morning air outside. or maybe have some morning gibberish with his girlfriend from door 4.

He would also be as kuripot as his parents.



The first walking shoes.


when gogol was just learning to walk we never required him to put on shoe when he's in side the house. that way, they said, the child learns how to balance properly since nothing intervenes between his feet and the ground. That's as organic as you could get. Gogol used this pair of shoes when he practiced walking outside, in the driveway of our apartment at 10 months. this time, at 18 months and an expert at walking, he would never even bother to put on shoes when he rushes out (usually to greet the ambulant vendor of puto or baye-baye).I try not to be a stage mom as possible but my siblings and my husband could not help laughing every time gogol takes this out from our improvised shoe rack. Yes, that's (worn-out) 3m bandages you see.

The Aldeguer sandals.

While hunting for a really cheap pair of ecru/beige (no, no not white, and not open toed, as the the guideline saud) graduation shoes in aldeguer street i chanced upon this kiddie open toed sandals. very cheap. a jollibee value meal is even more expensive compared to this. and it looks comfortable for the restless feet of my then 14-month old gogol. i immediately bought one for him. when he tried it, it's half an inch smaller. but he liked it a lot. fearing that bantay bata 163 would punish us for foot-binding gogol, we left the straps unstrapped and off the baby goes to the driveway with his sandal straps flapping like goofy's ears.

all star.

his grandfather said he looks like george harrison if he has this on. we hadn't seen a baby his age (then 11 months) wearing green all star hi-cut sneakers. he looked like a rad boy with this pair on. there isn't much story on this shoes except that it was a gift from his aunt when she went to arizona for a job training. he wasn't as hyper active then.

Spiderman shoes.

gogol was also given a pair spiderman shoes that were so thickly padded he could hardly walk in them. the size was just right though. however, by the looks of it, i don't think they were made for walking babies. the shoes was sent by his lola from the US so i suppose they were intentionally made for big caucasian babies who are certainly not in their walking stage. gogol rarely use them. in fact, we only put this on him when we want to turn him into a clown.

I am Spartan.

his other lola also bought him these greek-like sandals from a trade fair. maybe it's form marikina. i'm not so sure. but it's way cheaper than the first sandals i bought but wearing them instantly turn gogol into a greek god with a big, fat belly. this is the one he always use for walking around the apartment driveway. or spending his hyper-active afternoon with similarly hyper active friends from the other units.













Cars, his latest fave.

in may of this year his lola (the same lola who sent him the spiderman shoes) again sent him character shoes, this time from the movie Cars. this has become so far his well-loved shoes and is a symbol of "lagalag time". this is the one he takes out of the shoe rack and give to anybody available when he wants to go out of the house. when he dons this on, sockless, in his shorts and tee shirt, he looks like "naputo nga intsik".


Gogol is bound to have more shoes than his parents. he also has a white hi-cut osh kosh sent by his grandma (the spiderman shoe grandma) together with the cars shoes. and his other grandma (the spartan sandal grandma) also bought him batman slippers. i bought him cheap rubber slippers in my hometown's market (at a price of mcfloat, sold by a 10 year old kid maybe being subjected to child labor). so.

and for the last words, here is gogol
(with a pillow on his back since he was a ninja turtle that day but he was annoyed and didn't want to be a ninja turtle so all the time the pillow was there he was agitated, irritable and threw tantrums):

A M E N.