Thursday, November 20, 2003
Writing is a conversation with self. But I can’t hear myself “talk” when music fills my head—which is the reason why, when I must write, there must be a total silence. The silence of late nights, for example, when everything else grinds to a halt, and there is only the lull of the occasional passing cars and pedicabs to simulate noise, but nevertheless adds only to the rhythm of midnight quiet. Songs assault my senses, even the softest ones—Sarah McLachlan singing “Angel,” for instance, or Karen Carpenter harping on lost loves. So when I feel the urge to do my finger dancing on my computer’s keyboards, all else must bow to an imposition of quiet.
It is quiet now, and almost midnight, too. I am waiting to finally begin my writing, caressing the beginnings of sentences like prospective lovers, aching—somehow—for the coming of the flow. I haven’t written anything for the longest time now. I have been so busy being in love. Poems were easier to produce—all of them sappy and dripping with sophomoric moaning for the flutter in my chest. But there are stories in my head begging to get out. Essays, too. And deadlines beckoning. But what was it that Mom Edith Tiempo once said? “Even when the writer just sits, he is writing.” I wish to believe that, but I know I cannot let it be the rationalization for this laziness.
I must write. My room is a dark glow now: somewhere around here, a lamp casts everything else in yellow softness. Everything’s in perfect order, in their places. The few magazines I have are stacked on the green sofa, categorized by name. My files are in their immaculately labeled purple envelopes, also stacked in order of importance on the low shelves near my apartment door. My books are arranged alphabetically on their shelves. The floor has been swept, and every corner wiped or brushed clean over the last weekend. The only hint of disorder is my desk a few feet away, but I let it be that way—the way the Japanese values the slight imperfection, Zen-like, in any piece of art: the perfection of a teacup, for example, marred intentionally by a “chip,” or a dent in the base.
On my bed, M. drapes his body as he falls deeper into sleep. I am so used to his presence now; it has become what is normal. I cannot sleep well when there is an absence beside me. Yesterday, M. took me to the fiesta
karnabal in the vacant lot beside GSIS. We were two fools oblivious to the grime of the rigged games, and the bored looks of the browned hawkers. The “circus” was ho-hum. The “horror chamber” ridiculous. The “ferris wheel” nauseating. I would not take the “Octopus” ride because the metals were creaking and I was convinced that any minute now, the screws would come loose, crushing all passengers to their deaths. Or that if I sat on one of those contraptions, I’d get gangrene from the rust. But we were happy, like jaybirds in spring. Later, he took me to the new bakery near his house, and made me eat pastries. Has it been more than two months? It might as well be years.
I am getting so bored with life in this ridiculous little city.
The mind, after delirium, takes time to settle from its drugged sleep: everything else is a nauseating brightness, or incandescent colors this shade of puke green.
* * *
The meaning of life is MTV’s “Bangkok Jam.” I’ve been wondering for quite some time now just what is it that has been missing from my life. Mornings, when I wake up, seem empty, bled of color (a bit more melodramatic than I intend it to sound, but you get the point); and today I find out the reason for all these mild melancholy. I haven’t seen “Bangkok Jam” for quite a while. (I’m not even sure it’s still present in today’s MTV programming.) Oh, sure. As if I understood a word of Thai. I don’t. But veejay Utt is such a cute bundle of relentless energy (sort of like me when I was younger—ha!), and I do love Thai pop. Thai is a musical language, full of subtle inflections—something that, when whispered to the ear, seem quite sexual, even if, for all you know, what was being whispered meant “The cat on the hot tin roof is an ice cream freak.” I know the feeling. The last time I was in Bangkok, the experience was virtually an orgy of the senses. Bangkok has a certain animalistic (but cute) character that Manila does not have, and something distinctly Asian, too. Donna, my Tokyo friend, once went to Bangkok and wrote: “Let me put it this way, Japanese [Buddhist] temples are streamlined, minimalist Calvin Klein, and Thai temples are shiny, burst-of-color Gianni Versace.” How true.
* * *
What does priapic mean? And should I even care about it?
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
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