List of memories.

1996. journalism class. Pearl Jam. Therefore, Go. 

(PF asked for Black. If not Alive.)
Sunny opening. Here Comes the Sun.
And an Image of a chair. Because we first met inside the class. In Journalism class. Folding Chair.
And Hey Jealousy because Gin Blossoms was so high school. and 14 years after, on our first trip together they also came to where we were going.
And it was Free Fall (ing) from then on. (I thought there has to be some tom petty song. But I might reconsider. I might take this out.)
And then Handyman. Because, James Taylor was interviewed in BBC during the anniversary of the Beatles this month, December 2010. and because PF said so.
And then. Death of Your Father. 3 am. Strawberry Fields.
Followed by Alcohol which you only took, and never stopped taking from then on, after His death.
Yellow Submarine was the lyrics we dissected during the sessions at Dot’s beautiful house. Where both PF and I vividly recall Sobel and her guitar. She playing under the ficus tree. At 8 at night.
The session was a result of A counseling session where somebody played Danny’s Song. This song will always remind me of our “August and Everything After.”
And you come and you go. I never really understood you. Because you always were joking when you were serious. And it was rather frustrating. So i stopped assuming--but never seemed successful at that. 
You were always coming and going. I guess. We learned to live with that.
When you asked us of our favorite song, in July 2010, the first time PF sat in our writing workshop, this was my answer: The Ride.
I don’t know, but I feel I just have to insert I’ll Follow the Sun here.
Teenage Fanclub also has to be here somewhere. Your Love is the Place Where I come From is good for your kind of weather. You like the rain, right?
After sometime, I let myself believe that I perhaps am close to finally understanding you and, finally, understanding myself. Fade Into You.
All I know of you
is in my memory
All I ask is you
Remember me. Rosemary. 

Happy 40th birthday, Alfredo

. 

Mellow Doubt*

When i had my kid, i thought i'd mellow down.


I thought i'd stay away from things too risky--which i did for some good four years.


So when i was first invited to join a project in Afg, my automatic response was to say "No" because it was the right thing to do. The work was, after all, not just risky, but VERY risky. My kid was too young to lose a mother. The second time i got the same invitation, I again said "No" but informed the invitee that i will be asking around. I wanted to compare the pros and cons. Hearing this, he took the "inviting" a step further--he started showing me half of the real deal. My friend, after learning about it, urged me to accept the offer. She said her colleague who has just gotten back from that place has gotten so highly marketable he easily got a post for a project in colombia (or was it bolivia?). Wow, i so wanted to go to south america. they have very nice architecture there.


I think i will consider.


Now, two months into unemployment i couldn't wait for the deployment notice. i now badly wanted that engagement. And also because in a few more weeks, i'll be broke. The least i'd like to happen is me asking money from my husband. It embarrasses me. I've never really learned to live off from other people's earnings because it seems not fair. I honestly feel that in a family the husband is only responsible for himself and his share of responsibility for the kid(s). The wife should find her own financial security. Therefore she must find a way to contribute to the bills and the things for the kid(s) but certainly her whims is not the husband's responsibility. That way, everything is "equal".


Gad, I really am pathetic.


With so much time in my hands now, I wish i had outrightly said "Yes" at the first invitation and immediately gave my CV. What was i thinking? Why did i let the news on BBC faze me and give me nightmares? After all, if i do get killed on duty, what my kid would be getting would be more than enough to put him through an expensive university. Hell, it might even be enough to support him post-university should he choose to become a starving artist/writer.


I've been reading the Balkan memoirs of Greg Campbell and John Falk and they honestly got me envious. John Falk, especially, since he only got and survived the Bosnia assignment because he wanted to "play" with his existence. He was never really there as a hard-ass frontline journalist. He was there to see if the bombs and the bullets could scare the shit out of him. To test my excitement, I watched Restrepo on Nat Geo last Sunday. Nothing. Not scared. Did I say Diego Bunuel has been there? And Reza--i'm a fan of his work and his advocacy.


Oh, I don't know. Maybe it's just the holidays. I've never been really a fan of Christmas because I've never had good experiences with this season.


Who knows what I'll feel when the papers are really there, in my face. But now i know, when you got the restlessness in your blood, you have it forever. I don't think i'll ever be mellowing down.

FIN.

------


*Mellow Doubt is a title of a very beautiful Teenage Fanclub song from their equally beautiful and amazing album (okay, second to the more beautiful, Bandwagonesque) Grand Prix.

what a Wednesday is.

Yesterday ended rather late and today started earlier than usual. 


My kid and i left for Antique this morning but not without a stopover. In UPV Miag-ao. 


And it was yesterday night that we were buying his outfit for today's event that i repeatedly told him that we will not be taking the bus to his grandmother's house because a stopover in Miag-ao is necessary. I told him, the kid, that we (he + me) will be visiting my former university and that we will be going around the campus. The latter is apparently a lie, told because the truth will not excite him. because the truth is, while we are there, we will just spend the entire time at the registrar's office.  


We took the ride-from-hell from a jeepney in the city. The driver actually started and went on slow drive -- i dunno, i don't drive, maybe around 40-60 kph? -- from the city until midway to Guimbal. This is in order for him to get more passengers as the jeepneys seldom leave the terminal fully packed with sardines--err, passengers. And then when the driver felt it's too close to the destination to get more passengers, he cranked the speedometer up--maybe close to a 100 kph--not minding the swerving. I swore under my breath. I've almost forgotten how it's like riding jeeps plying southern iloilo. 


Despite this, the kid, who was already fast asleep when we reached Arevalo, remained undisturbed in his sleep, in tulo-laway fashion. He's gonna have a crazy hairdo by the time we get off. 


Anyway, I had to drop by UPV Miag-ao to process my request for diploma and transcript. Miag-ao is really a long way from Jaro and "process my request for transcript" as a reason can really not warrant a visit. I can use my connections anytime. And I won't even need to lift a finger. 


naaah -- actually the UPV Alumni Office already offers that kind of support to the graduates. And i'm certainly lying about them "connections."  

UPV "New" Admin building.
 Left wing is where the Registrar's office is.
Link to Photo

The people of the registrar's office took my request in, even to the last minute, even with their hands full of all other requests, and their attention divided by their Christmas party that was to start by 12:00 noon. Before me, came the 1980 alumnus who couldn't locate her records in Diliman, and was due to leave the country in two weeks. The staff at the registrar's office located it and did everything as the alumnus requested. They were not sugary friendly ("nanghihingi-ng-balatong") but they were very helpful to every one there. (Yes, honor and excellence.)


It was really difficult to keep the kid from going from one table to another inside the Reg's office, especially that they had a pabitin (for their Christmas party) in the middle of their office! The kid actually enjoyed being there and when he left with me, he waved goodbye with a long face to everyone in the office.  


Once out of the registrar's office, I started coaxing the kid to walk the rest of maybe 100 meters (or more) uphill to the CUB. The toddler obediently took my hand and i treated him to stories while we walked. I told him the road we're following used to be my regular running route in the university, and that I used to just walk from my boarding house to my classes. 


"Sang ara pa ako sa tyan ni nanay?" said the kid. (When i was still in mother's belly?)
"Wala pa." (Not yet)
"Sa balay lang ko ya?" (I'm just in the house?)
"Wala. Wala ka pa ya." (Not yet. You're not around yet.)
"Si tatay ya?" (How about father?)
"Iba man iya eskwelahan e." (He goes to a different school.)
"Upod kami?" (We go together?)
"Wala ka pa gani." (I said you are not around yet.)

link to photo

When we reached the clearing near the Diwata ng Dagat he asked to climb the acacia trees. one tree has a beautiful canopy; it's hasn't grown so tall yet and pretty climable. But it's not a public place, so it was no. I lied about the whole place being the nest of snakes. When i maliciously commented that the Diwata does not have any bra he did not even give it a glance. To think that at his very very young age he's already overly conscious about undressing or getting naked in public. 

link to photo

And because he walked without complain i allowed him to go up the UPV Museum of Natural Sciences (but more like a marine museum) at the lobby of the university library. i can;t remember all the questions i had to answer but one question he kept of asking is that why are the animals there all dead? Okay. 






The whole time we were roaming around, he kept telling me that that everything looks "high" (Wow, taas taas hagdan nila ba! Wow! Taas taas saka naton ba!). I remember it's his first time to be in a building located atop of a hill. And he seldom goes to places several stories high. He's thrilled of the "highness" of it all. Ah, how nice it is to be a kid and inexperienced. 

Inside CUB Cafeteria. It just so happen that this is
the only pic available on the net. Link to Photo

Not wanting to leave the campus, he told me he wants to eat lunch of vegetables (makaon laswa). I consented despite the need for us to hurry home (we had biscuits that could sustain his hunger pangs in the bus--and he ate a hearty breakfast!) because i also wanted to visit the CUB. 


It was lonely. The CUB was one lonely lonely place. I felt miserable eating lunch there. The chairs are broken, the tap not working (so the staff provided jerry cans of potable water), the ceiling fans are also broken, the building looks old, the food was not good, it was so humid. The whole place was just depressing. During my time there as a student, there was a potable water tap that shoot cool, clean, drinkable water. One of my fisheries schoolmate said that it has to be clean because it's what them lab people use for their experiments that required "sterile" water. I dunno what happened. Maybe some students contracted amoeba and they had to shut the line off. Or maybe it's just the way things work. They just stop being good and magical and wonderful one day. 


The kid didn't eat much; I had to throw the untouched cup of rice. I thought I'd be hungry but it turned out i was hungry for a different kind of food, for the ambiance that's is already non-existent. I collected our plate and tray and put them in the collection area while the kid played with his little toy trucks. We hurried outside. 


As we made our way to the stairs leading to the highway, i tell him more stories. For one sentence I say, he tells me a thousand more. 


I made the him wait on the stairs while I watch for the bus. We exchanged questions and answers again about my life as a university student. He kept on asking me what on he was doing while I was at school. Or where he was? Did he wait at home?


"Wala a, wala ka pa ya," I tell him. (Not yet. You were not here yet.)
"Diin ako bay?" (Where was I?)
"Wala pa gid e." (You're VERY not around yet.)
"Diin ko nagkadto haw?" (Where did i go?)
"Wala ka pa to nabuhi." (You're not yet born/alive(?).)
"Napatay na ko?" (I was dead?)
He gave me no choice. I can already see the roof of the bus from the dip in the road ahead. 
"Basta. Huo." (Trust me. Yes.)


And i went to flag for the yellow Ceres bus. 

FIN.

we don't have no place like that anymore.

There was a time (i don't know, in 2008??) that my ninja and I would go to mezzagrille for after office conversations. Most of them included ABD who discovered it first. Following the demise of the Tree House (in General Luna, Iloilo City), this became our favorite place. 

My ninja, ABD and i. 

we don't have no place like that anymore. 

FIN.

The GMOA Experience

Four days into our hibernation keith and i left our comfort zone for the provincial capital for a change of scenery. Also because we didn't have any cash left and only the capital has all the banks, thus the mid-day (ad)venture. Oh, it's the first time we deliberately went to the capital! clap clap clap!


The capital has a new mall, they call it G-MOA, or more completely, Gaisano Mall of Antique. the MOA acronym was already made popular by the SM conglomerate when they built the atrociously huge gas guzzling building called Mall of Asia, MOA for short (but i still couldn't get the hang of it. I haven't been there and if people tell me they went to MOA there would be a blank "huh?" from my end and that storyteller would be forced to drop the more popular name "SM" then my face would light up.)


So Gaisano hitched a ride with MOA and called theirs G-MOA. yea, it's gonna be a hit to the brown skinned white trash.


I am just appalled at how these moneymakers underestimate our intellect. It's almost the same thing with the supposed-to-be-indie movie Sigwa, but that's a different topic (which i might be driven enough to rant about someday, yeah, when it's already stale).


Frankly, I didn't expect much from the building because Gaisano is well-known for their kabaduyan, anyway. However, i did hope they will spare my province from their disease, and apparently they didn't. The noise inside was just unbearable. The music from the cheap speakers were so loud and the PA system so bad it's like being in a nightmarish rock fest. 


Our kid, on the other hand, remained excited despite these little discomforts. Brown skinned and probinsiya as we are, Gaisano decided to cheapen us some more by not putting airconditioning at some parts of the mall. For one, the lobby of the supermarket was so humid. The smell and air was so bad Keith said it's designed to make you sick.


(a really bad segway coming) 
That's the good thing -- probably the best -- about being a kid. you're completely oblivious to the ugliness of the world, or gad, the GMOA, until you learn about good design, art, or cultural sensitivity. Education and knowledge is a double-edged sword that you have to learn to use properly. I think that's what university/college is for, provided of course, that you have educated professors.
(end of the bad segway) 


Unable to arrest the kid's hyperactivity we brought him to Mr. Donuts. I half-expect there would be local food stores other than Mang Inasal, Jollibee and Greenwich because we already have a of surplus of those in the City. Their junk is the last thing i'd like eat while i'm here. But none in GMOA, except for a couple that serve lunch fare, and we were too full for lunch. So coffee and donuts is it.


Anyhow, the kid wanted to order all the colorful donuts but i set the limit to only three and he ate everything like he just ordered 1 sungak-sungak meal, dine in, mind you, not talabunan*. not even to go.


"Why is it so noisy in here?" I said to his father. 


Christ. the store has its own pipe-in music and at that certain moment they were playing the baylehan dance music. The PA outside was gurgling announcements, competing with the stylized versions of christmas songs--the mall's own piped-in music. It's just noisy. noisy. noisy.


Gaisano, not all brown skinned white trash enjoy everything baylehan**. so please. we are all not without taste. 


And because we're just grocery shopping junkies, never department/boutique shopping junkies we capped our small tour by checking out the supermarket section. It lacked airconditioning although Keith said he liked that they are selling big cans of Baguio oil.***


"It's what our favorite supermarket lacks, i think."

"Yeah. But they don't have the Oishi potato chips. And the rest is just bad." 
(That comment can't be trusted because i don't live here anymore. and seriously, i can spend an entire month at home without having the need to go to a supermarket. really.)


"They also don't have tortillos." 


I did notice a lot of goods you'd get from the sari-sari store are missing from the shelf. For one, the junk food section looked like it just survived a season of panic-buying because there were a number of sections without display. 


I paid for the purchases and we decided to just head home. The noise sucked all the energy out of me.


"So that must be the reason for putting these junk food stores near the entrance. It's the only thing that's really "good" here. It's like candy from a pedophile." (Shit, i don;t know why i even thought of that analogy.)


Keith enjoyed it; he never had any of it being a city kid. The kid, too, he enjoyed the shebang, because kids are always happy until we tell them to stop being so. I was disappointed because really, I thought we were more than that.


But hell, this is Gaisano! (insert Gaisano jingle here)




--------


And here is the part that explains all those asterisks. 


*mah friends and i (which one, i can;t remember. Bobong, maybe) had this brilliant idea that instead of naming our combo meals 1-2-3 or merienda or kiddie or some over-used words we'll call it with local terms like "sungak-sungak" (a really big meal good enough to feed a giant), "talabunan" (meaning if you can't finish a meal, you may opt to borrow a "tabon" (cover) and come back for it later -- gross but funny), "2-days nagutman meal" (a meal good for somebody who have not eaten for two days, and you may opt to have it "talabunan", too!)


**not to diss "baylehan" as a culture or history. "baylehan" through times has evolved into something with negative connotation. but i have to do more in-depth research to be able to explain that. i don't have anything against this as i practically grew up going to these, if not watching these from our house second floor window.

***Incidentally, we're, like, fans of buying-things-in-big-packages because it's more economical and environment friendly that way. Oil for one, we usually buy it in 2-liter packages because i for one, believe that we waste a lot of the expensive cooking oil buying it in its iced-candy package. 

FIN.

Night Out Puto

My models happen to not want their faces on facebook. 

fin.

puto post

2010. 11. 28. 

Priming.

Gogol was trying the mobile rice mill. 

2010. 11. 29

This is it.

We are bringing them bamboos and them carpenters to the construction site. 

Tato Alex realized i was snapping pictures so he smiled. 

the bamboos are so long i can see them from the passenger seat. 

5-minute stopover at the plaza for some business. 

and 100 meters from the site the worst thing happened. 

the culvert was too narrow and the ditch too deep; the truck made a wrong turn and we're stuck.

"This way!"

 

But everyone helped so we are happy. 

despite the glaring 10 am sun. 

we got to the site just fine. 

bamboo bridge.  I don't see none of this anymore. 

 on this site will rise. 

Fin.

Why i shouldn't have done that

No, it's not a post about a failed love life.

This, in fact, is just a post about my swollen left foot toe-thumb (is there such a thing?). And why i shouldn't have done what i did.

i accidentally hit this big toe bigtime on our bamboo chair. why i hit it is a long story (it was about the pest control problem in our apartment) but i was trying to tip the chair so i can have a better look at it. Tipped, i did, and it was too heavy but it was also too late and in 1, 2, 3 intuition told me i should hold it steady with my foot and my foot hit something really hard i almost fainted from the pain so unbearable but what the hell, i should let it fall so so fall it did, just let it fall freely the rest of the 4 inches from the floor. it landed with a muffled thump 10 millimeters from my foot.

For 25 seconds my face looked like that face in edvard munch painting  "The Scream" but I didn't scream, take note, i didn't scream for help because i am a macho girl and i ended up hyperventilating and had to lie myself down on the floor lest i would fall on my head (and what, kill myself?). it was that damn painful. now 4 days after it's still swollen and can't be bent. the gray-bluish bruising is not visible, thanks to my wonderful indio skin color. when i walk it's like there's a lump on the big toe pad. yes, it makes walking uncomfortable but i'm patient and can easily tolerate life's little discomforts.

and when i tell keith i'm worried something must be broken he tells me:
"Toe (pointing at his toe), liver (pointing to where his liver is supposed to be located)."
evil grin.
Gad, i so hate that.
It's the same thing he did when i informed him about the rashes on my arms last night, afraid it must be peanut allergy. (i of course, googled peanut allergy just to be sure because i didn't want to die. in my sleep. last night).
well people die from brain cancer and the brain is certainly not the liver's next door neighbor.
GRRRR.

I should have stayed away from bamboo-chair-tipping.

So i started taking it on the kid. (Who's best to torment but the gullible toddlers!)

Tonight i again tormented my son over wasting water. I can never get the hang of telling my kid wonderful stories, like the one about the dead people (click that for the link). This time, I told him that if he doesn't stop playing with and wasting water, lakes will dry up and elephants will have no more water to drink.

To which he self-assuredly replied: "And they will then die." (Kag mapatay dayun sila.).

I could have laughed my heart out but laughing at toddlers' remarks is a "no-no" if you want to build their self confidence. hell yeah, the kid could conquer the world with all his self-confidence now.

This one is fun. This one i will certainly do again.

evil grin.

Moth ni Gogol: A lesson on death boxes.

Actually it's close to impossible to make a decent a taxidermy of a moth sans the chemicals. A week after its death, the moth starts to disintegrate if not properly treated/preserved. I won't go into the details of that as i am not a taxidermy expert...

But this is how this all happened...

In late October i brought Gogol to the cemetery to familiarize himself with the Pista Minatay tradition. I also wanted him to experience how it's like cleaning tombs as we were there to clean my grandmother's tomb in preparation for the November 1 All Saint's Day. The All Soul's Day is officially set on November 2 but it has been a tradition in our town to collectively visit the cemetery on the first of November.

To prepare his curious brain for the impending information overload (and of course to save myself from having to answer too many questions), on our way to the cemetery, i told him the story of death and of dead people being laid to rest in boxes. Expectedly, my story raised more questions than i could possibly answer so to prevent further confusion (and more tall tales from me), I resorted to this: Dead people died because they drank dirty water and had diarrhea and now they have to sleep in boxes in the cemetery. forever. end. of. story.

Meanwhile the kid got the horror of his life imagining that if he ate with dirty hands or drank dirty water he'd die from diarrhea and had to sleep in one of those boxes. forever. So somehow that cemetery trip did something good to us--he developed the habit of hand washing and drinking only from his own glass.

One morning after that short vacation cum cemetery visit, and some days after we're back to the City, i found an injured moth in our room. I did try to keep it inside the house and away from gogol (because last i heard, he unintentionally mashed a spider and wailed realizing he killed it), hoping it will recuperate on its own (because i didn't know how to provide care for an injured moth, sorry mothy). and it died.

and i found the chance to tell gogol more about death and dying and laying things to rest.

and was confronted by the question: "If i die, i will not fit in that box, nanay." He looked really worried. I can't remember how i survived that moment. maybe i told him, "We'll get you a bigger box."

With the small black box that used to contain japanese pastries, gogol and i carefully laid a piece of tissue for the moth to lay on. He held in his open palms 2 yellow push pins (which i realized were too big to use on the moth) as i carefully spread its wings. carefully, very carefully i fixed the delicate wings on the piece of cork glued to the box (covered by teh tissue) using the two push pins. A pen-type correction fluid was used to label the box while a blue pen with colored metallic ink was used in the label inside the box. 

Gogol bragged it for couple of days to people in the house. "Look at my moth! It's dead."

and then he forgets.

Good for him. 

PF Writing. Me writing on his writing.

PF is talking me into writing about the radio station that became so popular when we were still in high school. So good that it became our favorite. And everyone else’s, too. Much of our reunion conversations would have a piece on that, and the dj’s; some of them we actually interviewed for our fanzine. The local one closed in 1999. I have left Iloilo already and when I went back I was very surprised to hear my schoolmates, who never had any rock and roll nerve, gushing about the whole NU 107.9 Iloilo's last day event. I heard they even lit candles. Cheese overload.

Not a week ago PF actually mentioned writing about the station. It was when he was eye-ball deep with commitments (okay, I’m just exaggerating—make that armpit-deep) and I never took him seriously on that. I knew he’d never have the time for it. He’s even way behind schedule for his DAtE works. And since NU Main station reprogramming is also not so hot topic for me, I had little to no drive to feel nostalgic about it. 

I don’t listen to them anymore.

While Halloween vacationing at my parent’s place we sat with our backs to each other, absorbed by our own little world in cyberspace. I'd glanced and his his eyes are fixed on Form (uninteresting, he said), or an E-book (no El Croquis this time, I think). Or at pirate bay downloading porn for all I know. But this is how I came to know he was actually researching on his write up apart from ogling on architecture books and magazines--their total subscription cost more than our monthly rent.

PF: are you familiar with the band Anathema?

Me: No. what are they?

PF: and the Belly album in 1993.

Me: what? What the hell are you reading there?

(I thought he was asking me about a belly album in 1993 called anathema but before I could google it he said--)

PF: I’m making a list of albums released in 1993.

Me: Wow. You’ve really gone that far now. I’m still stuck to “Why Architects Drink” and you’re way beyond there, you’ve gone to music.

PF: and shakira already had an album released in 1993.

Me: meaning, she’s already old?

PF: because I thought we were of the same age

(who knows she was already bankable at 13?)

Me: is that for the NU thing?

PF: yeah. Why?

Me: wow extensive research you got there.

PF: well, you should write something, too. Then we post them together.

Me: Christ, is that serious?

PF: and you can tell BCG to do the same and we post together.

Me: How do you think we’re gonna proceed with that? We’re going home tomorrow.

(Back to our no-internet-therefore-no-wi-fi home, in these days of google-replacing-the-libraries)

PF: NU is changing programming on the 8^th, we still got about a week.

(No comment. Then I opened MS word and started typing, after sending BCG a message. PF turned to me to say something but he instead exclaimed --)

PF: what?! You’re already writing?

Me: well, of course. It’s not like it’s a term paper. And I’m just drafting. Unlike you I don’t abide by the FLW motto.

PF: (Laughs. Snickers. Chuckles. Or something like that.)

(amazed that I remembered that FLW comment. And he’s silent for a while then--)

PF: Help me remember Buffalo Tom.

Me: Summer. Taillights Fade. (as i tapped on my keyboards for youtube search)

PF: Nothing.

Me: Oh, Red Letter Day. That was popular.

PF: God. Still nothing.

(then silence. The dog outside howled. The baby in the room 2 meters away is sleeping like a log, I bet snoring. Then he asked me if I have--)

PF: Violent Femmes.

Me: what about?

PF: do you have violent femmes?

(because I almost played the buffalo tom only to find out that the mp3 is in our OTHER computer, which we left at home)

Me: no. except on mixed tape

(meaning cassette tapes. Where you use a cassette player to listen to it.)

(30 minutes after he asked me to call it a night. i played Buffalo Tom's i'm allowed for him to see, said he remembers now. Sad song, i say to him. Yea, that sounds really like something they'd play in NU in those days. Yea, i said. 

and gave my shoulder an assuring squeezed then off he went to sleep.)

More of it laterzzzz. God knows what he’s going to ask me tomorrow.

Mobile Reading

I don’t have a kindle. I haven’t seen a kindle and I can't see myself having a kindle in the near future. For some like me who can’t even afford a decent pair of running shoes, mobile books like kindle is the last thing in my mind.

But in the last 3 years of constant public transport commuting (read: jeepney/PUJs) from Jaro to Iloilo City downtown has proved stressful because, of the worsening traffic congested. It used to be a lot easier when the flyovers were non-existent and when LTFRB did not “sell” jeepney franchises like hot pandesal. (Those who say otherwise, raise your hand!)

I've recently knew that traffic congestion is one of the many stressors to a city resident, leading eventually to heart diseases and, well yes, premature death due to road rages.


My solution: read.

Read a book.

I have recently rekindled (no pun intended) my love for writing and reading, and I've amassed quite a number of books in the past few months. Most of them I bought because I wanted to write better.

My love for mobile reading, I discovered while reading J.R. Moehringer’s The Tender Bar. Mine is a hardbound copy with about 370 pages and I finished reading it in about a month, I guess.

It’s slow read, when you come to think of it, but I did it during my 20-minute jeepney rides from Jaro to my office in downtown Iloilo City. I realized that if I kept myself busy with the book I would not take notice of the clumsiness and the road butchery of the public transport drivers. And yes it helped, most of the time.

Prior to Moehringer’s, I’ve already started trying, first with Tom Wolfe’s From Bauhaus to Our House. 

Keith bought it about 8 years ago, along with Albert Camus’ The Stranger, which, thanks to the termites, has been wiped out from my collection. Bauhaus to our House was a difficult read for me because I was practically unfamiliar with the names of all modern architecture gods mentioned in the book. I also didn't understand Wolfe’s point—did he actually like the transformation to modernism of his beloved America or did he hate it? Sarcastic? Funny? So I had to read it again. And again—the third time I started highlighting the architects' names and the name of the buildings mentioned. Incidentally, I’ve started my love affair with pushpullbar and some other architecture readings so Wolfe’s became easier to understand. I got his point. Or so I think.

With Booksale conveniently located at the mall across where I work, I was practically hooked. Next I bought was Over the Moat: Love Among the Ruins of Imperial Vietnam, written by James Sullivan. 

I was never a fan of love stories. In fact, the last love story book I recall reading was that of Sweet dreams, back in my elementary days. It was also because my father banned these kinds of books at home. I bought James Sullivan's book because at that time, I did't have a husband-writing-about-his-wife book and because it’s about Vietnam. My roster also lacked a memoir about Asia. I have nothing on travelling, more so about travelling in Asia. I thought finding this book was timely. I finished the book in 3 weeks. Again, slow read because I was still adjusting to the art of reading inside a full-packed, overspeeding jeepney.

Then there came Candyfreak which I totally enjoyed. It was written by Steve Almond, a candy-loving Jew, and proud to be one. I think I bought it together with that Sullivan book. Because it was so funny and because I enjoyed every page of it, plus the fact that I have virtually mastered the reading the seemingly rollercoaster-ride that is the jeepney, I was able to finished it in a much shorter time. And also because, it was an easy read. Tender Bar was also beautiful, but it required a more detailed reading. When I was almost done with the book, I found my 3 year-old son one night, running his beloved scissor on its cover, so silent, like a ninja. Three slits. The next day, I brought it with me, unrepaired—three slits on the cover and all. I’ve almost forgotten how weird the book looked until I saw a handful of people staring at the book I was reading. 

Two of the most emotional books I read on the jeepney were Change me into Zeus Daughter by Barbara Robinette Moss, and Shot in the Heart by Mikal Gilmore. I bought Moss’ book because it's a memoir about a family. 

Plus, it was written by a woman. I still didn’t have that kind of book in my collection. Gilmore’s, I bought because it was a memoir written by a brother about an older brother in death row. Again, I still didn’t have that kind of book with me. Of all the books I read, these two were perhaps the most engaging because even when I was home, I read them before going to sleep and right after I wake up. It came to a point where I asked my kid to sleep on his own minus our reading of baby books routine because I couldn't wait to read my own books.
These two are hardbound, wider than the average size of the books and therefore, heavier. The stories were as heavy as the books.

These days, my jeepney companion is Daniel Treiber’s Frank Lloyd Wright. Again, it’s a difficult read because as much as i hated to admit it, I’m pretty low on the visual and spatial intelligence. 

Descriptions about the roof, the house lay-out, the panelings and glazings and all that stuff are hard for me to imagine. I would spend more time staring at the pictures of the houses than their descriptions. But even if that is so, there's no denying that this books has clearly showed how advanced FLW is for his time. Frankly, even if i'm a fan of modern architecture, Taliesin (East) remains to be a dream house. So there, that’s Wright education for me, courtesy of Keith.

The National Geographic Magazine is also a constant companion and every time a subscription arrives, I leave my book behind and bring this along. It takes me about a week to finish a magazine. By the time I’m done, the cover is wrinkled in faded from wrestling with all the knick knacks in my bag.


Reading is really fun. Cliché as it may, it’s my number 1 stress reliever. And maybe you should try it too. Especially when you’re in the middle of a terrible traffic congestion. But of course, not when you are the one driving.

Fin.