Reconstructing my deformed meaning of home

WHEN I WAKE UP, my mother is screaming. The choral sound of plastic objects hitting concrete fills the house. My nephew Coy-Coy must have climbed in somewhere, now sending things flying here and there. Of course he did. It’s daytime. People are supposed to do a routine.

It’s been years since I’ve felt that the meaning of home for me has been deforming in slow-mo. My mother screeching again. My sister screeching in return. My nephew screeching to follow the trend. You might as well throw in our father’s normal speaking voice before, which was louder and more powerful than a scream. My father who used to be the balancing force that put everything to quiet. Except now. He’s locked inside his coffin. Sleeping forever in the past two years. I still find myself screaming at night because in my nightmare his ghost was haunting me. Or smiling because in my dream he was talking to me in a meadow, asking how’s my career. Oh, my father who I thought died never reading the stuff I’ve published on newspapers or in technical journals. Whom I loathed because I assumed he wanted me to become an engineer like him, or a medical professional, and yet he was not that civil engineer who found a fortune for us. The father who resigned from his jobs because he wanted to be his own boss and ventured into an ambitious business that was bankrupt, leaving our family savings depleted. When he passed away on the bitterest April morning eleven days after my twenty-fourth birthday, I realized I was wrong for hating him. During his burial, I saw my aunt who recognized me. She said I was the boy whose achievements my father had often talked about when they were in Tagaytay recently then, building a family vacation house. She said I was the boy whom my father had always been very proud of. Things I was fully unaware of… Well I thought I’d gotten used to this. The noise in our house, I mean. But every time I get a one week off, because I wouldn’t go home to my hometown for a tryst in the city, it’d feel like a whole new environment again when I return. Maybe it’s not a matter of getting used to something, like the noise. Maybe it’s a matter of living with the dramas of your life until the end.

A sunny day with freebies and good memories

 

View of Makati City from the LKG Tower.

THE DAY WAS GLORIOUS, with a blue sky and warm sunlight. With good news, too.

I’d be getting a couple of free movie tickets, on the 19th of November, as reward for this continuous-improvement-initiative kind of thing I’d started in the process I’m responsible for. In my company, this is. The words “a couple of cinema tickets” came bouncing inside my skull after reading the message, so I assumed that would be at least two. And two tickets are worth more than four hundred bucks. Which could fill in the growling stomach of a bachelor, feeding no one but himself, for two days. Like me. Say with that amount I could do with fine bread and coffee for breakfast. Pork rib barbecue for lunch, even with a bowl of hot soup and cup of fresh vegetables. And special ham or chicken stew with an ample amount of rice for dinner. But instead of taking all the blessing for myself, I realized I should share it with my friend Marge, who as far as I remember shared some blessing with me, too, few months ago. Only I couldn’t remember what that exactly was.

The sun and the clouds

THE SUN PEEKS THROUGH the sky curtain of gray fluffy cotton as the clouds persist to repress it. Impossible. It’s a view of a struggle I see each morning. In my seat. Through the window. At my new office. And today is my second Monday here.

They say I suffered from a so-called separation anxiety during my first week of being disconnected from my previous company. Specifically on my first two days. On my second day, I almost got myself into trouble, thanks to my impulsive stupidity or stupid impulsiveness. Whichever is right and more appropriate. Feeling empty and guilty of some nature, as though I have left a mission, an unfulfilled purpose. And an agreement left unspoken. Maybe I should earnestly thank God for the odds have always been in my favor. I was saved from the penalty that my think-about-others-before-yourself-first attitude could have caused me. I’m okay now. I’m right where I want to be. At least that’s what I feel. On my second week. And in the years to come. I’m right where I want to be.

World War C

Girbaud, my half-Persian half-something kitten-turned-cat.

I FREED GIRBAUD OUT of his cage today. He’s my sweet-looking little cat who used to be a kitten until this June, his first adoption month anniversary, which for me is his birth month. I have always looked forward to freeing him because he’s a cat. He should be free to stroll and sprint and play. And mate. To my delight, the moment I freed him, he was so calm and quiet. Simply lurching around in our backyard, sometimes moving to our terrace, taking naps, and that was it. Gone are the days when he would dash from one place to another, which made me anxious that he’d try to escape and find his mother cat and his siblings and then, instead, end up finding another home.

Moments later he crept across the lawn, chasing after a white cat. I am certain that it was not about mating because that white cat, as far as I know, is male. And Girbaud, I believe, is not gay. There’s no homosexuality in the cat kingdom, I suppose, unless I am mistaken. Then they pounced, stumbled, scared themselves, and flashed lightning-quick into another yard. In the neighborhood―which happened to be a den of dogs.

Top 10 skills I have acquired and done best in my 24 years of existence

I turned 24 last April 1st and this is my birthday entry for my 24 years of existence …

… and still counting!

BEFORE TURNING 24, I have joined various organizations and tried numerous activities, including Taekwondo, publication writing, and weightlifting, and even theater acting and singing. In all these, though, I suppose I’ve never been the “best”—a word that I associate with being outstanding in every aspect. Hence, I’ve enumerated the skills I’ve done preeminently, those that I may have learned to master, or at least to get the hang of, from all the things I tried and organizations I joined… or even from experiences, painful and blissful, I encountered.

They bring out the animal in you

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Misguided first choices

TECHNICALLY SPEAKING, THIS IS the 16th pay-slip I’ve ever received from the time I graduated; yet with peculiar contemplations, I reckon this as the first one…

I received it more than a couple of weeks ago. This means I already had the succeeding pay-slips after that—which, analytically, further means this article is too much delayed! Conversely, I should not feel excited in receiving and opening this pay-slip because I have been doing the same thing multiple months now. The rationale, perhaps, for my excitement is that this is the first pay-slip I received from the employer, which gives me the chance to practice want I wanted in life ever since I have been enlightened from my actual first-job experience.

That first job in the Telecommunications industry (in Customer service specifically), candidly, should have not been predestined as my first job. From the very moment I passed the exam and attended the interview, my human instinct just didn’t feel affirmative about it. I just ended up signing the employment contract because I was an ignorant fresh graduate who got tantalized by the first job served in front of me like a chicken on silver platters—something absolutely misguided by insidious, competitive salaries.

Blank, give me a good night-kiss

LOOKING AT NOWHERE, I see nothing; yet, I hear everything. My sleep has been disturbed!

The storm is ripping over the city, gushing torrents of wind that turn tree branches like frothy feathers. Few but stretched drops of rain strike the rooftops, producing canon roar of metals, slammed by artillery fire that spats to the ground—typhoon Basyang raised a storm signal in Metro Manila; it is certainly damaging the area.

Here in Makati, psychologically speaking, the sound of the wind is startling me. This is actually the very first instance in my life that I am experiencing such trepidation because, perhaps, I am away from my hometown and my biological relations.

Conversely, I would like to know if Neil, my roommate, is already home. However, I can't. It's very dark in the room, and even the dim light, which I and my roommate never turn off, is not lighted. From this, I gather now that the electric current is down. I wouldn't want to wake him by asking from nowhere, "Hey, are you there?" (Of course, I presume he is sleeping. Posing such a question might mean intrusion to his presumed sleep on his bed at the upper deck.)

The paparazzi and his pursuit for bad romance

(I wrote this article as my informal, pointless, ambitious, but realistically factual autobiography on facebook.com – the “about me-portion”.)

I WAS SHIRTLESS WALKING in a beach and then, abruptly, I realized most people were staring at me. Then, a Mr. Bikini-talent handler approached me and asked, "Would you like to join a bikini contest? I could be your manager!"

From his offer, I conjectured if it would be decent for a managing editor of a campus paper, a part-time associate editor of a local paper and a freelance columnist writing for several other publications to join a bikini contest. So the only feedback I gave was my boyish grin. Then, he just left his calling card...

Nah! Those days are gone. (Sigh!)