Sum and Substance from the Unknown

Hi, I would like to start afresh. Here I am once again trying to make a new coat of paint. But before I completely let go of my two other blogs, allow me to share with you some of my old random entries I wrote in there. Thank You.

September 25, 2006

I felt all prostration of hope of not being able to defend myself from this dirt they passed around about me. Such an earful deliberately unforgiving of the private life of an individual; with or without malicious intent, it have due damage to this glum content I have. I lead a quiet life, and they have broke in the stillness of my territory. Show the least of respect, if you have some dignity. Please. That is already pushing my patience to the edge. If they could not do better but broadcast falsely against me. I will garnish them a helping. Right, a fart will serve them good. I may find their ways repulsive. Admittedly, they drove me hell hours deprived of sleep. Hey look, the puffy eyes and baggy lids won't reduce me to a serum treatment. I am excited for the attention they're giving me matter of factly. And I would like to thank them for that. Restasis eyedrops, anyone?

September 7, 2006

-to Achi Timtim and hubby in Australia-

En gogue to the much anticipated heir to the Chrysanthemum throne, I beg to gyrate not on this issue. Pardon my phlegmatic-self, it just seems inconsequential to my state of mind. Hail oh-you-herald-prince, welcome to your sleazy world that is Japan. Drink in the grandeur of your perquisites and solace the pleasure of your own harem just as soon. And you will never be unlike anything they're to me.

Seriously I'm in a sordid moment that I feel untoward to this joyful exuberance the country is right now. If they thought most Filipinas they met were too easy a victim or such a loose, I am a victory they could never afford. However, I cannot really muck them in one way, because at the other side of the track, some Filipinas just come wanting it brassily. They're lured to this seduction of touchy-feel, a slight brush of promiscuity, and to accept it invitingly as a casual actuation. Such intimation is not into my footing.

Spare me, oh Prince of Sakuras, I can't help but be rash upon your birth.

The world's shaking while I put an end to this. Till the next tremor I'll stress in faulty lines.

August 13, 2006

It seems funny how weak in the knees our manager was to ask me out again last Friday. He could not say it openly. Whilst I understood a thin wall of communication bound between us, there never occurred a language misinterpretation when we first went out for a movie.

That was two weekends ago. I was called into his office. Paid my obeisance; bowed, stood at the side long enough for him to entertain me. He was still in some discussion with my aunt who is, by the way, one of his supervisors. I didn't have any inkling why I was summoned. I stood waiting in agony thinking what crime have I committed. That I could hear my palpitations drumming loudly fast. Gah, I need a translation helpline in a red-push-button-read-EMERGENCY. What transpired in the exchange of (still) unfamiliar tongue between these two heads pushed my own in a whirl. I could hardly follow their private conversation. Though once in a while I heard my own name being mentioned. I would pop my head to their direction, and they glanced back. All the more I was certain they were talking about me. I tried to take a hint from my aunt's eyes. But I was left clueless.

When my aunt motioned to depart, I spoke to be acknowledged before she even could step out of the office. Instead, she trundled her way without giving me any idea this trouble I was in. First and foremost, she can indicate in Bisaya if she'd like to. No way I can obtain it from her, but a whiff of barely unperceptible blank stare as she passed by me. I felt helpless, and with the pidgin Nihonggo I could muster it wrecked me as I edged toward his table.

There goes the Hello Kitty smile and the absurd rendition on how they pronounce my name here, Maryaru. He laid three movie tickets in the table and I squeled of surprise. He hushed me. Furthermore, he explained to me the time when and where we should meet up, and handed me his calling card (at the back of it, he scribbled the supposed agendum.) Once more, he gestured it's a secret. I jokingly answered him back, Yeah, Top Secret on way to Mission Impossible. No, no, Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest, he corrected me. I told him I know. So I bid to take my leave. Bowed for my exit, and with me- the secret to the dead man's chest.

I assumed my aunt knew it all along, but she asked me when we sat beside each other at the tea room. I was hesitant at first to confide it to her. Too careful of tabby ears. Our mouths were sealed after I revealed it to her. We didn't delve on it much. I had to wait till we got home so I could tell her the details. And I heaved more since I knew the complication of this kind. The employer-employee dating scene and the company policy. Right then and there I should have not accepted, turned my back and walked away.

My cousin and he are close. Well, I think he is so fond of my cousin and me. But I remain my distance. We have established, though, a friendship inspite the gap of our work titles. We kid around in an easy familiarity. He's one child-like boss to have. And it matters to him when you map out your brains unobstructedly. Like you can tell him you have bad blood to this person at work because he/she is this and that, he'd listen and listens well… and you can shove failures or proposal to his face that this should be it for the betterment of the company. He'd seriously take that, even if you're just fooling him. Then, maybe, we really are friends?

I phoned my cousin telling her that she got what she wanted. She's been howping for a movie break for weeks already. Since the three of us have been too caught up with work, that our plan of going to Tokyo to meet Tom Cruise in his roadshow of MI:III was set aside. She kept on barging it to him that she wouldn't let another movie pass.

And the date was set.

I left a message in his phone that we might show up a little bit late. We had to walk our way from our house to the tram about five minutes if we didn't dilly-dally. Actually, we were not late. We just wanted to make sure that we didn't have to squeezed ourselves inside the train, because right at the heart of the city held a matsuri (Yamato Festival. And that I had to keep track of time for later that afternoon sensei invited me out for gimmick.) I went inside the station's loo when he called back. I overheard my cousin telling him we're on our way and saying hai, and I pictured her bobbing her head while she said that.

About two-minute ride and a half dozen missed calls from him. We thought we'd wait at the taxi stand. To my cousin's understanding that he'd just take us to Warner Bros. Cinema by flagging a cab. But nuh, he was waving at us and we hurried to his car stuck in between bumpers. The place's being populated by sight-seers; the traffic jammed.

Now, here's another humble lie. This is not my car. Rental. My car is in shop. He wanted us to believe when we settled on our seats. We just teased him not to act defensive. It was actually his new car. And he was tickled pink.

Who took the passenger's seat? No one should take that unless your his wife, a girlfriend, or if you may call it, a prospect. I grabbed the backseat's door and right away my cousin pulled me back. You're the prospect. I strongly protested and willed my way to the backseat and retorted, Don't make him appear his our personal driver. He laughed with us because he understood these words- personal driver.

We made a detour before we headed to Warner Bros. We still have time enough, he noted. He first showed us the way to his apartment and to the building where it situated. 1F, apartment 3, infront of this wide state-of-the-art mall, near the city hall… played our language game what's-your-version-of-this-word, we laughed and being giddy, he drove our way to the cinema.

Inside the moviehouse. I shuffled through my purse searching for my ticket, panicky, when my cousin teased me our seats were arranged accordingly- him, me, my cousin. Argh, I forgot to check on my number. I dreaded coming with them, especially when my cousin started to feed me my own hysteria. I turned sour, and she couldn't help herself grinning at me that I ain't have no choice as she eyetalked me to check our rowseats. She inhabited the seat next to a girl. And I was left to my own mental rage, this is not my day. Even if I chose not to sit in between him and my cousin, I could not last a Mr. Hyde-smelly-feet right next to me. But then again, I chose to persevere. Throughout the movie I savored this offensive atmosphere and confirmed it from him if he smelled it too. He offered to exhange seats. Yet I declined. Fixed myself between him and this unhygienic bloke.

Finally, end of movie, end of torture.

How did he understand the movie? Well, thanks to Kanji subtexts he followed everything and portrayed lines from the movie in English. And we started all over again, playing our language game, lines from the movie. Errr, is that how you translate in Japanese? I ranted at my own faulty speech in Japanese translation.

Next stop was at his mansion. We saw the building where he lived earlier. This time, the fruit of his hard labor, his mansion. It's more like a bachelor's pad. The place is too techy. Everything has sensor. Right at the door. A paper artwork of your astrological birth calendar greets you when you come in. A rack of pair of slippers paraded in colors of your pick. I put on the pink ones. We inspected the place in strict scrutiny. We only turned wow. I didn't say this and that was nice just to be nice. Everything's in orderly place, perfectly planned. It's not all done yet, the make-over and furnishing. But he keeps it neat and simple and organized. The tub, lavatory, kitchen, toilet, washroom, toolroom, his would-be room and he even planned to have a powder room for his wife. Hmmm, are you sure it's not for you? And a lot more questions were hurled at him, why do Japanese house always have the kitchen and toilet adjacent to each other when you first enter the house? Because back home, it's the other way around, we have the living room/tv room or receiving area first. He squinted and disposed to thinking of right answers to give us. We all giggled at his attempt to try harder to explain in English. And we blurted when he puzzled us in Nihonggo context.

Time's up. Time to go home. I was not breezy at all on our way home. I was a bit sleepy. I needed to retire before hooking up with sensei and friends- mostly her old students and colleagues. I had to freshen up. It'll be a long night.

He stopped in our driveway, and realised our house's not too far from his. We invited him inside, but he should be get going. We bade him sayonara and bowed.

And yes, I was waving with that same Hello Kitty smile, for you can't differ me from them anymore. It's sad though when they're surprise if I told them I'm born and bred Filipino. Just don't let me speak Japanese. More often in a crowd, I am always quiet and you can't spot me from them. It's what they say.

Hello Kitty since they have this penchant fondness for this Sanrio character. And this particularly fancy serves a suggestion in my mind that they can't be far connected to this brightly pink crazed character. Why in the world would they create a kitty with big round eyes? Must it not be their desire that they too have? So every time I see a Japanese face smiling at me, I associate them with-you-now-know-who.

Last Friday when he came to speak to me of another movie schedule, I beguiled him that I didn't understand what he was saying and told him if we'd just talk about it later because I was busy. So I did keep myself busy to refrain him away.

I think he got the message. I don't want him to call every morning or after work through my mobile phone just to speak to my aunt. It's not a good excuse enough to cover his intentions whatsoever. He has our house phonelines and my aunt's mobile as well. And if he thought I didn't save his number/s in mine, that gives him a reason to just say hello over and again feeling that I didn't know who's at the other line. I can take the hello and the sprightly air if he would just like to listen to my voice. But please, stop pretending that you're not stalking. I knew it was you all along.

June 12, 2006

It was Saturday, a call for a date. Oh not really that. It's not what you think of boy meets girl. Mother and son had taken a party of ten to an elaborately abundant Chinese cuisine treat, that we famished of a guest sumptuously devoured every bit of oriental dishes indulged infront of us. A ceremonial lunch to celebrate Aunty Lisa and Kuya Sherwin's birthday.

I elked on with my chopsticks, which I believe I have already perfected holding this pair of yews of a painstaking pidgin-invention. A deceiving art form to break loose from your diet. Well, if you are. Because the whole truth to these tapered bamboos is for you to eat quick and the next thing you knew you had wolfed a large amount… in haste unnoticibly. I then sipped my oolong. Brewing hot.

After two hours of mouth feeding, there was a need to fart out the biological processes going on inside our swollen bellies. In between burps, we raved our hearts out at the karaoke bar. Thus Idol came into picture. My cousin and I gave a song rendition, Celine Dion's It's All Coming Back To Me Now. When we hit the last note, our sensei stood up to cheer and delightedly came towards me saying Should you both join American Idol I bet you both gonna make it. I turned beet red. Why not Japan Idol, and I abashedly replied.

Sensei is an ultimate boost. She'd compliment you in a lot of ways unexpectedly. Even the smallest things not salient to you. The powerpuff-inspired goggles you put on because of the bulging dark lines you tried to hide away is so kawaii, you're still kirei donning that haggard look and the broken Japanese you twang in her presence is good. Oh, you're so thin and I like you that way. That's her and her good, good, good (in fact in almost everything) remarks.

Me an Idol? Yes, I would live up to your expectations. I will do more what I can and settle by thirty. I will find a man who would entertain me, maintain and doll me up. A rich man who'll pamper me like a princess and spoil me with all my whims and wants. Then I will make true what you prophesied. A proclaimed Idol and forever I will be, for it is my birthright as you matter factly had it. I won't be a professional mercenary slave to a present horror of nth time divorced marriage as you have. I will be what you want me to become. An heiress to the throne.

Wishful thinking. Let's wake up, sensei. It's just sake poisoned our creative minds. Now I wonder if fantasy do come true?

June 9, 2006

I hear a pitter-patter outside. It reminds me of my childhood. How we used to fool around and rush across street freely, because there'd be no traffic that might hit us in our sudden misfit. We were always like that every time there's a downpour. It felt absolute freedom that we hooted to celebrate this nature event. Instead of rhyming Rain, rain go away come again another day, we all wanted to play in the rain. And this would effect to our imaginary personality summoned the superheroes in us. Storm! Yet we had to agree who'd be perfect for the role. I can never be Storm they all said. Anonymous should be the name. When all these heads together were right, every face turned sour when a screaming terror was heard Boyeng, get back inside if you don't want to get sick. Grandpa would stick out his belt and wave it to my playmates. Bad, I don't even deserve a role in our play. In the long run I put an end to it because pao yii had to drag home.

So I stayed anonymous whilst I crept at the bars to feel the fun outside. Laughed at what they laughed about, jumped to their victory, sad at their defeat and talked to my own self if they argued on something. Oh no, I'm a bit schizophrenic back then.

But when I was already grown up somebody explained to me why it felt more merrier when it rained. He said, it signifies every moment. This he gently rained on me and left spats of insignificant event I wish had washed away with him.

June 4, 2006

I was still groggy when I answered my cousin's call awhile ago. For a minute I was held back figuring out who I was talking with on the phone. Rowena who? Slap me for this insult. But really, I'm not that close to my father's distant kin, except to his direct relation. I know that I have two uncles and two aunts. If he had other siblings out of my granpa's libidinal urges, I could not manifest their existence. I can't even name how big my paternal side is. I have only met two of my grandfather's brothers once, and it was a short meeting. Now ask me whose grandchild Rowena is. Slap me again. I only knew we're related through my father.

Well I have two or three memories with her though. When my mother brought us for a vacation to their place, and how young was I then? And the last was when she came to visit us after her college graduation. Just for a night, went for a swim, pictures taken at the pool, said our goodnights and she parted with a friend. Just that. I can't even recall if we met in the morning because I'm sure I straggled my way to school that day.

Rowena who? And I was bobbing my head to that image of a chubby girl in braided hair flashed in the remote access of my brain. She looked like one of those kokeshi dolls then. Plump and porty. Warm cheeks and lips red. Very Japanese. Now that I'm here she wanted to know if I already metamorphosed like one. I chortled in hysterics. The fact that I'm doe-eyed though a slight slit on the edge, I carry a French name and speak foreign-ly against their own chirping sound. I'm a big NO.

Much to her surprise, I don't even possess my own cellphone. What's the use of getting one? I have my own line inside my room. Even the going and back route, the house-work-house, is being taken cared of. I wonder if they want me to grow up or not. I seldom ride on tram. The oldfolks could not be overruled. Give a ring and they're coming. Life in a cage still.

We spoke to each other for about a half and one. And expected to keep in touch. The promise of a get-together soon bid us back to our isolated lives once again.

June 2, 2006

"I bleed for you but you don't see me. One day I'll die for you and you won't even notice."
Don't make me hate myself, Brandon Boyd. I'll get over you. iTunes. Please I've had enough. Music is giving me the headache, or was it heartache? I don't even want to hear my own voice sing. It would just be another sad love song.

Argh. I want a bite.

May 21, 2006

I told myself a week ago that I should start what I really love doing. And that is to rekindle my passion. I used to write. Love to write actually. But my uncle says you can't have extreme feelings such as "love" for an object. The argument was all about his "liking" a breakfast meal of corned-beef. Pointed out to me in a smorgasbord of Filipino menu that you can never show affection nonetheless to a person. I quit to differ in the recluse of my thoughts.

Well, I love my food because I just don't eat them. It's a form of ritual for me, when you take that food in hand, lusciously put it in your mouth and savor its yum. Uh, I'm already full but I think I can still manage a mouthful of bagels. Be right back…

(Phew, it took me a new day to continue what I wrote yesterday. I went to sleep right after my share of bagels. I badly needed the rest. Work is driving this camel-ass to push harder, and it is trying to linger in a drag.)

My first love is reading. The rays of sun will never reach me, because I am already driven away from reality state the minute I opened my eyes. My companion has taken me to never land and immersed myself to the whims of its creative author. That you could hear my mom strained her voice to get me bolt up from my bunk. She thought all the while I was still sleeping until she discovered my little secret, and threatened to put the book on fire. I then welcomed my morning in a grumpy mood. I snout around, and getting late for school.

Well, that was then. I was young and rebellious. Young, but rebellious? I admit I'm still bullheaded at times. You can count the days when my mother's bickering's hushed. Yes, I would switch off the lights early. Around midnight. And my mother would retire in her nook in deep slumber. If she had known how I get through the dim just to finish my reading. Oh my, I prayed earnestly at the altar. Glad that those batteries were ever ready at my grasp.

Reading sedates me; my antidote for insomnia. My mother thinks it treats my malaise progressively, makes me preoccupied till the wee hours. I guess she's right. I'm so engrossed in reading that I patterned almost of my ideas and actions from the characters I met in books.

When everybody had this thing for Todd Wilkins or Bruce Pattman, I mourned Hamlet's tragic death. I allowed it to affect me. I was in glum. I let on my grief through words. It prodded me to write. Thus, the birth of poetry in my grade school days.

It wasn't really that well-formed, or had shape… till I met him. He was the most colorful prose I came across with. I wrote in pastels when days were full of bliss, and of bold colors when sour and ugly. Yet I had to learn how ashes came to be. Words withered with him.

Everything were lapsing out. There seemed to be no hope. My passion waned out. I stopped writing. I doomed myself depriving of catharsis. It was the end of journals for me.

But I should never contain, never confine myself to that lost chronicle of life. I now have a sketchy surrounding. And it does not reside in the nimble of my fingers. It's right through my heart.

I can't wait for year 2007. Till then…

(dated...)

I knew when I first set foot here there would be changes. The first thing that bothered me was my name. I could very well adapt to its culture with peace and morphed into their robes of fashion; eat their food, and oh well, learn to speak nihonggo, scribble those kanji and respect their practice. I have no misgivings about all these. But my name.

Every time my name is asked I had to go all over my phonetics again in the most bizarre, strong accent. "R" should sound like you're grating, rrr… And the worst thing is, you could never find "L" in their alphabet. I mean, in their diphthong, you have to replace it with "R" instead. Now I think I have proffered to you an idea of how they call me here.

Some, though, had tried twisted their tongues to get the right pronunciation, "Mahr-yal" with the "u" at the end, making it "Mahr-ya-lu". Right, they're making fun of my French name. But that sounds better than "Mahr-ya-ru". I would slash their tongues with samurai. *Hush, winks.*

Since they go by diphthongs or moras here, in kanji my name is spelled out "Ma-ra-ya". They suggested I cut it short to give light to the matter. Well, it's their problem, not mine. So I gave in, bobbing my head in fast paces, thinking in advance of another horrible suggestion they would lay on the table. I don't want to laugh at my own name because it was skewed to "Ma-ra-ya-ru". If that happens, I would pack up my paternal heritage and forget what's inside the green passbook denote. To the slopes of Philippine's little HongKong is where my heart is. I missed the place so much. Sigh…

It may be futile a complain for you. For me, it's one big deal. I am my own name; it's my identity. I affect, gain ground and segue through this closed rounded trajectory a "Mariale" specified 24/7. It's territorial; the present locus of my being.

(dated...)

Papa asked me a week ago of a copy of the address of the Philippine Embassy in Tokyo. I drove to take the print out to his place this afternoon, alone. The meeting was short since he was groggy to even utter a word of welcome, or knowing who I was. He must be too tired from overwork. I only heard him muttered "OK".

It's usual that we take a squat for a tete-a-tete and he'd motion us to eat either banana or peanuts (two goods he'd stock inside his fridge), coupled with v-8 juice drink. Not this time though. So I took my exit to the nippy cold outside.

I didn't dart myself home. Instead I went to trail blaze this new territory and rummaged through every street corner until some petulant clamor in my brain verbalized to screech a halt at one department store. I just glided through the glass doors and lugged myself inside, merely making more holes to my isolated self. An indistinct slur within, I heard my own sigh. Was it bereft of the company of others?

Nuh, memory was a dirty trick played upon me. A whole shadow-play I wished could have gone forever into the depths of the abyss. I wanted none of them; any recollection of not to have toiled out of the Augean of my childhood, of my blemished past life. All sordid, almost. How could one bear what ever had been?

I knew myself once belonged only to the seat of thought and its homogeneity that bowled over profound yet sincerest notes echoed by the heart of reality. In this actuality of the past, I knew myself true, embracing life with full passion among the rendezvous of good and bad forces, and the arrow which pierced lives to believe the most beautiful thing in this world is, indeed, itself.
Round this powerful cold, against the upper world of silvery skies, I had just come to life. I badly want to write. Then I rise free, not turning back but to skim on my dream of becoming a literary chanteuse.

(dated... for my wannabe cousin)

If you thought you sure have a refined taste in fashion and people notice that.

Let me think of ways…

It is not enough that you wear the trendiest clothes. You should carry it well. Not because you can afford to splurge on what's fad you absorb on Fashion tube or grab inside those glossy mags, then you can wear it. Think or better yet, ask for opinions whether a certain style suits you. You are helping yourself from the laughing-stock-drill. Because if you believe you're being fab, look again in the mirror and define your statement. Please don't be the fabbity drab.

You can do the catwalk donning a fashionable outfit. But do not forget to give yourself the proper hair and feed that brain, skin and body care, so that it's not only your clothes get the compliments, but also and more importantly… your radiant beauty.

Go ahead, flash those dazzling whites and saunter off the runways.