alfredo b. diaz

You weirdo. Because.

I jumped from the jeepney 500 meters from home. Because you were walking down the street.

Then I grinned from ear to ear. Because it has been a long long time.

(where were you???)

But you dismissed me. I prod on and on.

And one and on.

I pushed you with glee on the curbed before I turned to my street. Because I just wanted to.

You fell off the curb. Thanking me for getting off. Because, MAYBE, you wanted to.

So I walked home grinning and grinning. 

old notes 2

28 march 2005 (yudi may year na siya!!!)

( Written last year. Somewhere I can’t remember.)

 

This notebook smells of old memories and dried flowers and dried tears and things that want to keep on coming back, forcing their way into the “fast recall” box of my brains.

 

This notebook smells of the gaddam grasses in bacolod. Of loneliness and alienation in cebu. Of familiarity in sipalay. And the romanticism, sadness, desperation and nostalgia in miag-ao.

 

I wish I could take them all back because yesterday they all came back on the way home in an ultramegafast jeepney to the city. (my hair flying everywhere.)

 

I was so reluctant for all of this to end.  Because I was always never prepared for the ending. The finale. Grand or not. For the times when we all had to pack…for the nth time…and head home, in early evening, tired, cold and hungry but didn’t want it all to end, arrive late at night crying from nostalgia.

 

Oh.

 

I really don’t want it to end. I do not want to be in front of the computer and listen to sponge and elliot smith and ash and stabbing westward break my heart. (such a lousy selection, but you have to live with it.)

 

I miss you and I miss you more and more the more and more I do it. Repeatedly. Never ending. I miss all the faces. They all now look oh so familiar. Even your voices. Even the smell of sweat and your dirty laundry and the way you puffed your cigarette. The taste of the coffee that you take. The way you hesitantly kissed me that night. And the way I hesitantly kissed back only to realize it’s just too impossible.

 

Packshet.

 

I have to go home. 

old notes.

07 June

(can you believe I don’t put year in my dates? now i can't remember what year this was written.)

 

It’s 3am, I’m on my way to the bus station for a 3-hour trip home. We passed by the 24-hour convenience stop of a gas station…

…I stopped the car and told the driver I’m stopping by the shop – I’m till here. And off the driver goes.

 

24-hour shops are Disneyland to me. Their neon signs are colorful. They always attract my eyes. They have glass walls. I could see through the insides – stalls of potato chips, deli counters, freezer and fridge for cold drinks. They magnetize my senses; make me want to come in and soak in all the nostalgia they offer. 

24-hour shops are queens of the nights. When all the lights have gone out, they’re the only ones that remain standing and vibrant. 

It’s like HOPE in a package. *****(PUTA, kanami sang linya ko nga ni! Genius gid!)***** it’s like the light at the end of the tunnel. It’s like 1am in Malate, I’m out of cigarettes and treading the 300-meter lane to Pick and Pack, passing by the Indian store – where blue seal Marlboro Menthol are sold at not a blue seal price, the Japanese fine dining restaurant, Chinese soup shop, Spanish disco house (but Bogota, I don’t think is Spanish—I learned later it’s the Pegasus of Malate), Pan Pacific hotel and dozens of parked cars. It’s like 1am at Welcome Rotonda, just coming out from a Burger King coffee marathon (8 cups in less than 3 hours, at 12 pesos per cup – fucken beat that!) saying these are the Seinfeld days of our lives. It’s like 5am in Malate, waking up from a bad bad dream and wanting to kill myself but ending at Pick and Pack with potato chips, instant Chinese noodles, beer and cigarettes in my hands. It’s like Saturday nights alone in my room in Malate staring at the big R neon logo of the mall a block from our house. It’s Zoloft. It’s like you.

 

It’s like me making this up because I didn’t actually stop by the convenience store. I went straight to the bus station to catch the 1^st trip home. 

I want to catch the sunrise and the fog in the mountains. 

****** ******* ********

i need to acknowledge the pictures here. they are images of the paintings of my favorite painter, Edward Hopper. the first one is Nighthawks and the second one is Automat. Automat reminds me of Franny, the sister of Zooey. I don't know why. That's how it felt to me the first time i saw it. 

muni muni sa jeep

Somebody yells to the driver of the jeepney I’m riding on that there are lto agents in the next block. They are apprehending erring drivers, especially those who do not follow their simple regulations, ie, wearing of shoes when driving. Quickly, the driver grabs his pair of shoes from under his seat and puts them on. The passenger on the passenger seat next to him helped him reach for them while he carefully puts on the shoes and maneuver the jeepney at the same time.

It’s funny if you come to think of it.

Although it may be a necessary procedure, the wearing of shoes, but the concept is so western and perhaps impractical to our Filipino drivers that they end up with little or no compliance at all.

I think what all these policy makers should do is look into these drivers’ cultural inclinations…or something to that effect then maybe they could then pass a policy that is more attuned and therefore make the drivers more compliant.
I get the jeepney and off and get ready for the battery of work.

Listening to joan wasser and feeling even lonelier.

Now that feels like Sunday morning, heady from the lack of sleep and lack of alcohol but too much smoke. The street half empty or maybe it was half full from last night’s. the hooker is walking along the deserted street with a crumpled paper fluttering gracefully, an inch or two from the gray concrete road leading to the loneliest place you could ever imagine.

Don’t you think joan wasser is such a fucking genius? How could she have captured how it feels to be lonely 12 long years ago?

All I can remember now is roces avenue. And wendy, george, bj, mad, ferdie and that gay column writer from across bj’s table. And yeng and her kids. and Camille. And apat. And their place somewhere in sta. ana if I’m not mistaken where we played uno cards until 5 am. I played and laughed and laughed and enjoyed well. They too played and played and laughed just I did but did some more. They smoked maryjanes and when mad was about to hand me some bj tells him it’s not for 18 year olds and asked me if I was really 18. maybe I was 17 that time. 17 and lonely. So I smile and say papa bj's rules will now prevail. But wait when I’m 18. And donna. I remember donna. How can I forget. She was my housemate.

I couldn’t count the times I cried in my sleep. I have probably written about every single thing that comes to my mind for the lack of confidante or a person to converse with. who could emphatize. and talk for the hell of it. Roces avenue was my weekend treat but weekend treats seldom come to my depressing university life. My parents want me to go to med school. I’m desperately wanting to get away from it all, thinking of killing myself because the 5.0 in math 17 would surely end me up in no med school. i ended up finishing math 34.

Smoking was the answer. Because beer was so fucking expensive in malate.

i rouse from sleep at 1 am. I don’t know what to do. I have studied but can’t remember anything. I run to the nearest 24 hour convenience store to buy 3 packs of cigarette.

What the hell was I thinking.

do you know?

I lingered in the receiving area. Thought of my frozen yogurt. the lizards were crawling on the beige walls of our old spanish house. the shiny floor was cold. 

At 2 am, I was in our receiving area smoking to death and eating frozen yogurt.

And wanting to believe nothing is terribly wrong with me.

At 530am I’ve smoked 10 sticks and felt horrible.

Everyone was just waking up. The garbage truck was ringing its bell.

Gaddamit.

I still can’t remember the pointers. At 6am I forced myself to a cheese, tomato, lettuce wheat sandwich because I’m a fucking vegetarian who wants to die of lung cancer.

I don’t think anybody should ever go through this situation.

Nobody should.

Nobody should.