project Me, day 6

had the Girlfriend Magazine team over for dinner and waaaayyyyy too many drinks last night. hahaha.

Nikki brought pizza and cake. i prepared tinapa pesto with wholewheat pasta, olives marinated in balsamic vinegar, chocolate-cinnamon pudding. i like feeding my friends :)

after the weird barcino-tabu fiasco with Mr Maharlika and Rockstar Photographer tuesday night--Maharlika went off for a booty call and Rockstar wandered away in a drunken haze while muttering something about brazilian models--i decided that i would say yes to every invite extended to me by friends to socialize, talk, eat, party.

wednesday, it was James, my yoga teacher, and Anna G. we got buzzed on hot chocolate, drank it like the Aztecs must've, all spicy and thick and heady, and talked like the Aztecs must've too--about the heavens aligning with our plans, the rhythm and wrath of nature, the whole lot, except human sacrifice.

thursday, it was Mimi, a friend from my childhood, long re-singled, but still as beautiful, brilliant, and feisty as ever. we're cooking something up for re-singled women. very exciting :)

and last night, it was my girls from my old magazine. the craziest, funniest, most creative team an editor could ever have. we missed Jeng, though, our artist, and Diona's soul sister, who's now based in the U.S.

they are so creative and funny, i myself am stumped to describe what fun we had last night. or maybe it's just this hangover. hahahaha. whatever.

check!

when you choose a mate, choose someone curious about who you are, 
what made you be this way, 
yet totally non-judgmental about who you are.


there's a sublime pleasure in seeing the interest in his eyes, 
the unfolding of understanding 
and the delight and compassion in discovering why and how you are.

project Me, day 2

why day 2? because the words felt forced on day 1.

a trial dose of meso, my syringoma cauterized, and two shots of jack.

chatting with my daughter, who's growing more beautiful everyday, and i notice a heightened blush to her cheeks, her smile more luminous than usual, when we talk about E. soon, soon, she'll have her puppy love soon, i balk.

pesto with cheese and dried chili. four more shots of jack while watching four episodes of Modern Family. i started watching this show when i first decided to leave him last november. it got me through a couple of weeks then, it'll get me through another couple of weeks now.

this morning: his espresso machine packed and stacked onto the truck yesterday morning ("hakutin mo lahat! lahat! ura-urada, wag magtira!" were his instructions to those who came and took away his things), i send the maid to 7-11 for brewed coffee. cutting out transformers figures and setting them on cardboard standees with mateo; listening to marco's chatter, fascinated that a 6-year old knows the chinese zodiac and uses the term 'amanita muscaria' instead of the simplistic 'toadstool'.

watch one episode of Modern Family. hold myself back from watching more. must save them to last me two weeks. then maybe i can move on to Marriage Ref.

stay tuned.

the past 16 hours

i post a blog entry post-haste, trill over it with a friend, take it down the next morning, apologize to everyone for deleting it.

i look up old songs, experiment with the 'link' feature. post a song, take it down again.

the hairs on my back stand; i feel hot and creepy crawly all over.

i flirt half-heartedly with a friend from across the globe, skip around his nuances, thinking i'll be alone forever.

i begin to read a book, my second in three days, and doze off.

i awake. i stare at the ceiling. i am paralyzed. i don't know whether to laugh or cry. maybe i should've accepted that invite to the satsang tonight, i tell myself. if a bunch of meditating vegans chanting praises to shiva can't cheer me up, nothing can.

but no. i don't want to go out. a close friend's birthday party tonight is all the socialization i'm willing to go through.

i text two friends, tell them i feel the black dog descending, and one calls. i need jobs, where are the jobs, i cry. i was fine last week with all the deadlines. where are they?!

it's the weekend, chillax, he says.


i've been chillaxing for the past three days, gadamit! i need to work.


well, there are good days and there are not-so good days, he says, and distracts me by telling me the Tale of Two B's. that gets me laughing.

i eat a late lunch. after, i stare at the table and realize i didn't eat any rice. i think of my body, gone to flab. will any man ever think me desirable again? i wonder to myself. i think of bringing a date to the party tonight, but already the idea bears me down with fatigue. stress. effort. stress. effort. futility.

i sit and stare at my newly-painted nails. cherry red.

i write this and stare out the window, and again feel the paralysis of loss whisper up my toes, my ankles, my calves. my eyes swelter and i am reminded of an earlier me, almost seven years ago, pregnant with the twins and waiting for my ex-husband to come home.

if he comes home, then everything would be all right, i remember thinking as i stared out a curtain-less window, willing him to come home, his name a mantra on my lips. turn on your phone and just come home.

how strong i was then. i'm not as strong now, i think. then, i held the grenade to my chest and let it explode, allowing the shrapnel to become part of me over the years. no one knew how deeply they were lodged, or how many pieces there were.

or maybe it's not about strength. i don't know.

....

i am in the sun's direct glare as i write this. my thighs and neck turn hot and sticky and my irritation at the sound of a message popping up on facebook is turning into a roaring rage i try to swallow. i should move out of the heat.

i don't.

mar 6
5.20 pm

normalcy, overdue

I open the ref we brought from his apartment, way over a year ago.

The stickers he stuck on the door are still there—Fujitake mineral water delivery, Dial 1898 Singtel to call overseas, OCBC Rewards. The Elvis magnets, I moved to the bigger ref downstairs, thinking he’d get a kick out of seeing them holding up drawings my kids made in school.

Inside, his pepperoncinis—almost gone—are still marinating in their brine. There’s the chorizo he promised he would cook someday; bottled herring from Finland; tabletas from Christmas gift baskets long past. I remember the first Christmas I actually got to know him. I wanted to buy him a jar of Tita Muning’s famous pudding. I texted him if he liked those things. “No,” he replied. “Not into sweets.”

A week or two later, after Christmas, he texted me the lyrics to A Hard Day’s Night. When I asked him about it, he answered, “because life is easier lived when one’s eyes are closed.” Never got to ask him what he meant by that.

I kept the ref and its contents in this state, this stasis, hoping – knowing – that he would come home someday and would want to touch base with the past. A past where midnight snacks, after several rounds of drinks at The Oar, would consist of Nissins Ramen and egg. He hated it when I broke the yolk. He would get so angry he would storm out of the room. Another fight we had about food was when I was so hungry, I didn’t wait for the adobo sauce to reduce; he said he was experimenting with rum as a base. He didn’t talk to me for a day. I spent the day in the garage, furtively chain smoking and gulping down San Mig Lite. Sometimes, after The Oar, we would stop by that greasy spoon before the alley that turns into Mabini, and I would order an ultra el cheapo tocilog. On better nights, no fights would break out between us. I would wash the smoke out of my hair so he could smell only Kerastase as he buried his face in my nape as we slept.

That was so long ago.

I remember the time we had no money, and we had to take Gizzard to the vet. I paid for his check up, and later treated him and Jimmy to lunch. But it was ok. “Are we still ok?” he would ask, beating himself up because he knew we weren’t, financially.  “Yes, we’re ok,” I would answer. “Don’t worry.”

And really, I never did.

There was this summer when we didn’t know where to take the kids for holiday. He suggested we bring them to the Greenpeace hangout in Batangas, because we could get a credit on the accommodations, and we could buy food from the market and cook it ourselves. It wasn’t much of a vacation, and we hightailed it out of there before the karaoke crowd came blasting through, but he tried. He really did. I could see all he wanted was a sense of normalcy.

This is what I think about when I look at that ref. At the cigar boxes he likes to collect, and which I display. I used to keep his diving and darkroom equipment out in the open, too, as if expecting him to come home any moment, and asking where they were; he might need them.

He won't, of course. Making money can negate the importance of time and touch. The memories I wanted to preserve seem more like fossils than foundations.

“Normal” is over a year overdue.

I should pack things up now. Really, I should.

March 1

6.19pm