Came out to my mom…

I just came out to my mom…

Whew…

It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.

I expected any of the following:

1. Being disowned.

2. A massive melodramatic scene straight out of a soap or teleserye where I would be a. shouted at, b. slapped, c. grabbed by the hair and d. dragged out of the house by said hair, but not before

3. My mom reciting a litany of lines where I would be forced to listen to homosexuality being a. sin, b. a mistake, c. a phase that I would grow out of, ending with me burning in hell

4. My mom wishing never to speak to me ever again.

Instead, of course, my mom does the very adult parent thing and says, a. she suspected all along that I was gay and that b. if that was what would make me happy then it’s fine by her.

I think to myself, what?!?

The next thing I think of is, a. this is too good to be true, and b. I have been watching waaaay too many melodramatic lesbian movies where the lesbian always has a tragic ending.

Either way, I am relieved.

Cat’s out of the bag!

Or in this case, out of the closet!

If GMA were really honest…

This would be what her speech would be like if President GMA were really honest:

Ladies and gentlemen, before I begin, join me for a moment of prayer for this country that I have shamelessly plundered for eight and a half years. I’d like to thank all the politicians who have traded their integrity and principles to back me and my non-existent political mandate to rule the Filipino people.

The past eight and a  half  years have been one for the history books.

Let me enumerate the key achievements I have made as the president of the Republic of the Philippines:

1. I have managed to make the Philippines poorer than when I first took officer as president.

2. Compared to the past, we have more poor people, higher prices, a bigger budget deficit, and a slower economic growth than is imaginable.

3. I have managed to redefine “democracy” to suit my needs and aspirations.

4. I have managed to make anti-GMA activists and journalists magically disappear. I have managed to ignore, quite successfully, allegations of “human rights violations” – the like of which has never been witnessed before in the Philippines since Marcos took power.

5. I have managed to keep the flames of “Cha-cha” and “Con-con” alive throughout my eight and a half years of presidency, despite much opposition from the left and from people who think I want to continue to stay in power.

6. Most of all, I have proven to people that power does corrupt, and absolute power absolutely corrupts.

7. I have managed to stay in power for eight and a half years despite “Hello Garci”, a so-called “EDSA Revolt” and questions of legitimacy towards my presidency.

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas!

(for full actual speech, click here.)

Guerilla Geek recommends: Animation!

Stressed over the SONA?

Watch animation! Great for escapism:

1. Blood + – reluctant vampire hero must uncover her past in order to battle with the forces of evil: an evil corporation and its powerful minions, and an arch-nemesis whose has a mysterious connection with her. She is aided by a chivalrous “chevalier” (a kind of vampire knight), her brothers and government agents who have their own agenda.

2. Aio Hana – New “Yuri” anime from Japan. Yes, Yuri exasperates with its cliched stories always set in all-girl schools. But it seems promising. At least less exasperating than “Strawberry Panic!”.

3. Justice League Unlimited – I swear I cannot get enough of Justice League. Wonderwoman and Hawkgirl are perennial favorites as is Batman. Flash grows on you. And it is well worth the time just watching Wonderwoman come on to Batman, with frustrating results. Check out “Kids Stuff” for full-on flirtation and another episode where Wonderwoman turns into a pig (one of the best episodes ever!).

Monday – GMA’s SONA

SONA!

Has it really been 9 years since the Prez, GMA, became the president?!? As I was listening to her State of the Nation Address today, at the dentist’s office, as I had my new teeth fitted in, I feel like it was only yesterday when Erap was ousted and GMA was installed as president, then elected as president after.

I listen to her SONA and I felt like it was so…insubstantial, insufficient, somehow. She was talking about improving airports and transportation and trying to find a way to make the big mobile service companies provide affordable fees and I think to myself…no wonder people are dissatisfied! A few minutes of her SONA and I realize how alike she and Dubya are. Unlike other administrations, she (and Dubya) do not have concrete plans. You can see it from the lack of structure when it came to her speech, which I think aptly describes her administration in general. I look back at FVR’s administration and I realize, that man had structure. You can say what you will about FVR, how he sold the Philippines out to every greedy corporation imaginable, how he spent so much money on so and so, but  the fact of the matter was, he had “Philippines 2000″ and that at least reflected some semblance of a plan for my country.

If this is her SONA… you can already see what the state of the nation really is.

Not really a very exciting prospect.

Thursday….

Getting better now…

Tired, sleepy, but adjusting, inch by inch, even though adjusting is a bitch.

I’m getting stressed over the job search…

No answers yet from prospective employers…

Sigh…

Four days in the P.I.

Teeth aching from having to have tooth fixed for impending dental enhancement surgery (for lack of a better term). Lately I have developed an admireable obsession for my teeth – which suddenly does not extend to flossing and eating the right food to make my teeth healthy.

My hair feels light from all the hair cut from it. It feels exposed.

My nose has been steadily protesting the pollution that has been assaulting it since I got to Baguio. My ears have been constantly assailed by the noise pollution from the malls, shops, etc. My eyes cannot take in the disappointing look the city has had since I left it.

I am trying not to lose my temper since I got here – the service is slow, the people are slow, everything is slow. I feel like fastforwarding everybody and everything.

I sometimes am hit with a mild frustration and depression.

I am told this is natural. My nice friend who had been out of the country as well says this is natural.

I suspect this is reverse culture shock.

If it is, it is horrible.

I have been warned about it.

I never knew it was going to be this hard.

I feel sorry for those who have been away from home longer.

In my hometown, on a rainy Tuesday afternoon

6:15pm, local time

Here in my hometown, Baguio City, now. It is raining (as the weather is wont to do in this part of the world). I just had my haircut, my hair is shorter now (it feels weird somehow – it feels like one year’s worth of hair I grew when I was in London – all down the drain). I bought a new watch, bought a new SIM for my mobile and some toiletries. I arrived in Manila, Sunday 4pm. Travelled to Baguio for 6 hours, stayed up late chatting with mom, self-quarantined myself for 48 hours and excitedly went downtown to check out my old city.

Wow.

It feels weird somehow. I do not know…but Baguio feels different. Like it feels old and wilted and dirty and tired. I had not noticed this before. I, of course, loved the vibrancy, the streets and roads teeming with life, but there was this sinking feeling at the pit of my stomach – like I wanted to get out of here fast. I do not know why.

Is this reverse culture shock? I do not miss London like I expected I would – but there are times, when I went into shops when I could not help but compare the service, or the products or look at the people and compare them to the ones I’ve met while I was abroad.

I am tired now. More ruminations later.

Saturday, At Heathrow: 8:34am

Waiting for flight.

Went through the whole process of checking in. Slept on the way to airport. Excited. Sleepy. Tired. Couldn’t find arline, was about to panic, but found it. Checked in bag, went through security, dropped laptop on way to toilet (stomach gets really weird when have to do stuff like this), went through duty-free (ah, the fine art of buying pasalubong!), checked if laptop is working…went through horrific terror where thought laptop was not working, as screen was doing a “Cloverfield” type of thing – screen unclear, not showing anything, sinking feeling in pit of stomach, face heating up, panic, panic, panic,  how can I live without laptop? More importantly, how can I leave without having fully-paid expensive laptop. Think to myself, this is just f**king craptastic. But laptop becomes alright, and all is right in the world again (yay!).

Waiting for flight. Swear next time to reduce baggage. Too much luggage can kill you!

What I like about flights: the flight itself. Not really the destination.

More when I get to Kuwait.

Anatomy of a sleepless night

11:00 pm – Feeling sleepy.

12:00 pm – Trying to sleep.

1:00 am – Try to listen to soothing music to make self sleepy.

1:30 am – Not working.Try to turn music down.

1:45 am – Still awake.

2:00 am – Wilfing.

2:30 am – Still can’t sleep.

3:49 am – First hint of daylight – indigo sky – on the horizon. F*ck. This is just craptastic.

4:35 am – Daylight. Still cannot sleep. I think I am, inspite of myself, really excited to go home. Who’d have thunk it?

5:00 am – Gave up trying to sleep now. It is hopeless now.

5:33 am – Got up to shower, get dressed and generally wait for a cab. I have been awake since 7am yesterday. I am tired and sleepy, but I cannot sleep. This is sad.

Friday: Last night in London – central London one more time

It is hard to describe what I am feeling right now.

I should be excited to go back home. I should be excited to see family, friends, acquaintances, co-workers. I should be excited to see familiar sights and smells, familiar haunts and tambayans (hang-outs), familiar anything.  But all I can feel now is a mix of indescribable emotions ranging from sadness, to nostalgia, to depression to anxiety, to apprehension, to belligerence, to something akin to, or verging on, regret.

And the songs playing on my laptop!…all depressing and somber: Lionel Richie, Karen Carpenter, Fleetwood Mac (their song, “Hold Me” sounds like a milder version of Metallica’s “Hero of the Day”), Sarah McLachlan’s “Angel”. And it was cloudy all day today. It rained in the afternoon. Sigh. Even more depressing. Even Mylene Jampanoi’s lovely face is not making me feel any better (but god, ain’t she pretty! ).

Well, maybe Mylene Jampanoi modeling Dior is making me feel a bit better...

I went to central London today, just to see it one more time. I took the overground, then the central line, but there were signal failures, so I went back to the overground, got off at Liverpool Street, took the central line, got off at Gloucester Road, took the Picadilly to Leicester Square and from Leicester, had some lunch, wandered around Trocadero, said goodbye to Monet and Renoir at the Gallery, took one last look at Trafalgar Square, walked up to the Parliament Square, heard Big Ben toll one more time, went to the bridge, to see the London Eye, and to see the River Thames one more time, took the bus back to Trafalgar and then the bus to Liverpool Street, then saw Stratford one more time, then took the overground. I lingered a bit at Trafalgar, but I stayed more at the Thames. Oddly enough, for a simple looking river, it still seems so grand – full of history and memories.  I do not know, maybe it is just me.

I got home and cleaned up the room. It is very bare now. There seems no evidence that I stayed here. I have vacuumed, cleaned the windows, got rid of my rubbish, put everything that can fit into my luggage.  I say goodbye to my landlord – he will not be able to see me off tomorrow. As a bit of comic relief, he says he will miss me just being locked in my room, something that he says worries him to no end. He wonders what I do all the time in my room – he thinks maybe I have already committed suicide or something. I laugh half-heartedly.

I am going home. For a moment I feel the onslaught of panic. I feel like staying. I feel like I have made a mistake. I feel like I should have stayed longer, I should have at least stayed til the visa expired.  Have I given up too easily? Is this what I really am? I do not know.  I would like to say that maybe this is destiny, that if I was meant to stay then there would have been signs, things would have been easier. But I think that is the fatalistic in me rationalizing things. The reason I had decided to go home was precisely because I had wanted to take destiny into my own little brown hands. I was sick and tired of letting life just happen to me. I wanted to take life by the horn and make it lead me where I want to go, not the other way around. I am sure that will be hard – life is pretty much like wrestling a wild bull to the ground – but to take that bull by the horn says a lot: that you refuse to just let life string you along, that you want some measure of control over your life. Some argue that you cannot control destiny – that everything has already been predestined, that no matter how hard you try, life already has a script for you, a script you must follow, and if you refuse to follow it, then you lose, you die. Eventually life will reveal what it really is, but for now, I like to think that maybe in some little form, I can do something about it.

When Indian-born Canadian director Deepa Mehta was interviewed by rediffonthenet.com for the controversial homosexuality-themed “Fire”, she defended the movie by saying,

“Fire is about choices, the choices we make in life which may lead to alienation. By the bisexuality theme in the film, I have just shown an extreme choice. But the end result is that you cannot have everything in your life. Happiness does not fall into your lap; in fact, happiness is too ephemeral a word.

You have to choose in life. Ultimately, you have to take a risk. You may hate your job — you have the choice of doing it or leaving it. You will risk alienation and a lot of hardships by sitting at home doing what you like, like painting or writing for yourself. But one has to make a choice because, before you know, it’s death.”

This is probably why I am going through all these. Life back home will not be any less harder than my life had been here in London. Life back home will not be any less alienating, any less risky, any less sadder. I know I cannot stay here and dream about what I really want for myself, in these circumstances. I cannot have that and want to be back home. If I wanted a fulfilling, happy life, I have to work for it, but at the same time, it is true, happiness is ephemeral. I can choose to be happy anywhere. I took a risk leaving the Philippines, I am taking a risk going back, only because I have had to make the hard choice of choosing life over slow death here. Maybe yes, it is the alienation and hardship that I am afraid of, for what I had discovered here was the longing to do something, finally for myself, to do something that mattered, to want to matter.

I have had to make a choice now, because tomorrow death may come knocking.

But god, I shall miss London.