I wish I knew how to quit you.

[A]Beijing's Bird's Nest
[B]Manila's metal rails

August 8, 2008
Just when Beijing was about to wow the world with deceit of extravagance, I was wowed by another reality bite. Define reality.

luigenefyanoria

More than meets the eye

FYI: I just regained my identity one-good night sleep ago.

And for one, I really deserve a good night sleep. Kudos to my new signature! Yes, a signature. Who’s so grateful for a newly acquired sig? (Raises hand, OK, hands)

You may be wondering how shallow I am. Worry no more. READ: I can be forever thankful to you if you give me a paper clip. Yes, I love paper clips. And I’m all for the red ones.

Going back to sigs, I’ve had bugful sleeping nights with my Contract to my new job. It required me to accomplish all the essentials of a good, abiding employee. No thanks to our University and Bureaucracy, fresh-graduate perks always turn to nightmares. I had to register to the Social Security, prepare my transcripts and all. And believe me, none of our University and Bureaucracy were helpful. It seems everyone’s doomed to curse them later for lack of enthusiasm to serve. And so I too cursed them with all my might.

Enough of our God-forsaken government, my dilemma has gone internal. I seriously needed to have one good signature, enough for people to treat me as a good, abiding employee. Welcome to the pro world.

But wait, I’ve never been good and law-abiding! So this may be a call from the Divine Providence. Lui, Son, face it, you need a decent sig, He said.

When the One up above talks to an individual like me from low below, then I should follow.

***

In my rough count, I’ve already had ten signature revisions. I started signing with just my initials: LFY. It bored me, and it seemed all my classmates at intermediate Grade did their signing with their initials, too. I noticed that my mom and dad have cursive sigs and it looked cool so I imitated my dad’s. I never had issue with cursive writing anyway, it’s been my stroke since third Grade. (I figure, just when I’m comfortable with my handwriting, everyone else is not. Some say I’ve got a pretty ugly stroke. Others say it’s rare for the male world. The hell I care.)

But as times pass, and so the revision goes on.

I’ve had bad encounters with signing papers, from signing class attendance to supporting Save the Panda Bears petition paper to placing sig on legal documents. My college sigs sucked big time, they’re just too inconsistent; badly written and unduly executed. I can’t imagine seeing my signed papers now. Sure, I will vomit.

And so the pro world compelled me to produce a pro-like signature. I believe I have now settled for a lesser-complicated and more easily-written sig.

I lied when I said I’m shallow. It’s just a lame excuse. Sure I might still end up revising my sig, but I just hope it’ll be minor.

luigenefyanoria

Ayaw ko na ng malambot na unan.

Dalawang gabi nang 'di mahimbing ang tulog ko. Kanina, mga dalawang oras bago mag-alarm ang phone ko at pwersahan akong gisingin, napadilat ako bigla: hindi dahil sa bangungot at kung anong bed bugs, bigla ako napadilat dahil sa paninigas at pagsakit ng kaliwang braso ko. Kaliwete ako, sabi ko sa sarili ko nun, wala na kong pag-asang mabuhay nang normal.

Oo, paranoia bigla ang naging reaksyon ko nang mga sandaling yun. Kaliwete ako, 'di ko na magagawa ang mga bagay na wiling-wili kong gawin kung paralisado na ang kaliwang braso ko. Mga ilang minuto pa, balik normal na ang function ng katawan ko. Bumalik ako sa pagtulog para lasapin ang nalalabing oras na meron ako.

***

Ngayon nila matitikman ang ganti ko. Tahasan kong isinisisi, at wala kong ikokonsiderang mga damdamin, masaktan na ang masasaktan, magsampa man ng ilang asunto ang industriya ng artipisyal na bulak sa Pilipinas, naniniwala akong kagagawan ng mga malalambot na unan ang ilang minutong pagka-imbalido ng kaliwang braso ko, pagsakit ng batok at ang 'di mahimbing na pagtulog ng dalawang gabi. Oo, sa mga malalambot na unan. Napakamapagkubli ng mga unan sa panlasa ko ngayon. Dati kasi, sa tuwing dumaraan ako sa home needs' section ng department store, para kong minumura ng mga unan: Pu***** ang sarap kong higaan, bilhin mo na ko 'pag nagkapera ka na! At nagtagumpay naman sila, ilang taon ko rin pinagnasahan ang mga malalambot na unan. Isang aspirational product ang tingin ko sa kanila. Isang bagay na mabibili ko lang sa tamang panahon, at 'yun ay 'pag sumweldo na ko.

***

May malalim na pinanghuhugutan ang pangarap kong magkaroon ng malalambot na unan. May scarcity ng mga unan sa bahay mula pa noon, tig-iisa lang kami ng unan at ang unan mo ngayon ay walang kasiguraduhan na unan mo pa rin kinabukasan. Nagpapasa-pasa ang mga unan namin sa bahay. Panigurado na-weiweirdohan ka, huwag ka mag-alala, ako rin ‘di ko alam kung bakit at paano nangyayari yun.

Ancient na ang mga unan sa bahay, karamihan kundi mas matanda sa’kin eh mas matanda lang ako ng ilang taon. Karamihan kasi ay mga unan 'yun na minana pa namin kay Inana nang kunin na sya ni Lord. Si Inana ang ina ng ama ng ama ko. Pumanaw sya sa edad na 94 noong 1994.

May common denominator ang mga unan sa bahay: lahat sila matitigas, siksik sa bulak na hinabi pa mula sa mga pinakahitik na bunga ng puno ng bulak. Oo, may puno ang bulak kung maaalala mo. Pero may charm ang mga matitigas na unang yun, fit to use pa sa susunod na dalawpung-taon.

***

Nang mag-dorm ako nung ikatlong taon ko sa kolehiyo, nagkaroon ako ng long-time unan. Naiiwas ko sya sa tradisyon ng ‘pagpapasa-pasa’. Minahal ko ang unan ko na yun. Bagama’t matigas, sya ang naging kasama ko sa struggle ko sa pagiging independent.

Dumating ang temptation. Naaliw ang mata ko sa mga masasarap sa matang unan tuwing napapadaan ako sa department store. Nakakabulag sila. Naging pangarap ko talagang magkaroon ng malalambot na unan, gusto ko nang mapalitan ang stone-age na unan ko.

Tatlong araw na ngayon, bumibisita sila tita sa Quezon, doon na kasi namamalagi sina mama’t papa (lola’t lolo ko). Ako ang tao ngayon nila sa bahay. Sinamantala ko ang pagkakataon na subukan ang malalambot na unan nila tita sa kwarto. Nang una kong mayakap ang unan, iba ang sensasyon, ang sarap sa pakiramdam, sabi ko. Sumakit ang batok ko pagkagising. Siguro naninibago lang ako. Dumating ang sumunod na gabi. At nangyari na ang ‘di ko inaasahan.

Seventeen days mula ngayon ay matitikman ko na ang tamis ng una kong sweldo, marami akong gustong paglaanan ng perang yun, kasama na ang malalambot na unan.

Pero hindi pala sa lahat ng pagkakataon eh masarap sa pakiramdam ang masarap sa paningin.

Nagkamali ako, 'di pala sila masarap higaan, 'di ko na uli ipagkakatiwala ang ulo ko sa mga malalambot na unan. Binigo 'nyo ako.

Ayaw ko na ng malambot na unan. Wala na silang karisma sa’kin.

luigenefyanoria

Give me a rest.

You know what, I've been practically tired all my life, and no one is to be blamed but me. I won't even dare to enumerate reasons of such, trust me, it's tiring.

And to further boost my List of Tiring Things to Do, I decided to sit down, face my soon-partner for life and take blogging seriously.

I'm not a big fan of the trendy and the hot. Well in fact, I'm not a follower of pop culture, not at all. I'm just stalking it. Jokes. Our generation has a great patronage for the latest, the coolest and the trendiest in the comforts of our home, thanks be to Web. (And oh, my active fingers almost slipped to my qwerty and type in Lord Web, but please NO, Web is not a new god, please don't even mention it, Lui. Well , of course I'm just kidding. Oh yes, I'm not good at joking.)

But undeniably though, we have a lot of thanking to do in this invention. And weblogging is one of them.

I've been itching to blog for two years now, but I was busy filling in my tiring list and blogging then is not in the priority. I even created a Wordpress account 13 months ago but it ended up half-done and zero posts as of today. And now, after I got fired up by lots of influence, and you included, I'm now officially starting this link. I hope I am welcome.

I was thinking of a lighter, more feel-good post to work on in my first ever blog. And yet I ended up creating a negative title! And to top it all, I built in a rather deviating blog name, literally deviating.

Why you count me out?

I can't think of a better reason than to say that I believe that we all have our time to say NO. We are at frequent times can't utter that letter lacked-word to the world we live in; we always go and drift in with other logs in the river, and ending up one average furniture.

Here in my blog I would love to uphold the alternative and the less-taken, embrace independence and share a piece of the globe unexplored yet. Come with me, let's travel the world, the other world. But of course you can say no.

luigenefyanoria