defy gravity!

there was a different, frightening tremor in noel’s voice when he called me this morning.

"nalunod si obet sa zambales."

and just like that, mortality slammed into me like a suffocating wave. obet, his best friend and neighbor, was swimming with his officemates when he got caught in the undercurrent. he was found a day later, lifeless at 28.

i first met obet at one of my visits to manila. noel and he were waiting for me at the starbucks at the gloriette cinemas, all smiles and anticipation. apparently, my boy made sure my reputation preceded me and we were off to a good start; it is important for noel for the people in his remarkably varied life to get along.

i thought he was hot. two hot guys around me, and you could feel the girls’ stares bore into my thin layer of tropical clothing. i wasn’t the only one who thought he was scorchin, too…between the two of them, these two could have half the population of women on the planet (depending on taste, yes) down on their knees. and someone in our intimate group, in hindsight, was also in a deep state of like with the adorable boy.

a few months ago, noel called, perplexed because obet’s mom was dying of cancer. she passed a few months ago, quite peacefully, leaving obet, his father, and one brother. the three boys had just lost the first lady of their lives.

how is the brother taking it, i ask noel. "at the shoreline, he says: what is God trying to tell us?"

i would never presume to know; much less assume what can be divined. "at least he’s with his mom now," was the flimsy wrap of comfort i could muster. "yes, mama’s boy pa man din yun," noel agrees.

can one send a hug over the electronic connection? a tight one, to squeeze out the last of those tears from my brave one. his loss i shall pray never to feel in this lifetime; i wish i go ahead of all those that i love. i am the fragile one.

who do i pray for now? the ones obet left behind. those whose empty spaces, left in his wake, will not be filled again in quite the same way.

is life too ridiculously short to keep harboring ill will? even an ocean and degrees of affinity away, God seems to be telling me something, too.

i don’t want to wait til our lives will be over; i want to know right now what will it be. will it be yes or will it be

…sorry.

cattski, tashi and i tried out the "new" bigby’s at ayala the other week. i got in first and, as soon as i plopped into my seat, mouthed off my order to the waiter hovering nearby:

"korean riblets and iced tea please."

he met my hopeful (if somewhat hungry) gaze with a question mark.

"i’m sorry, we phased that out."

horrors! like my father, i am a creature of habit. especially when it comes to restaurants and food. true, i try out the entire menu for the first few visits, but when i find my favorites, i stick to them like, er, i was superglued.

the original staff of the cafe adriatico in ayala knew my favorite dish: spareribs adobo. i discovered this at their original outlet on adriatico in malate, when a craving for souffle brought belay and i on many an afternoon to that part of town; it was the only one on the menu i could afford on my meager student’s allowance.

the staff even knew by heart the accoutrements that came with it: garlic rice, knorr seasoning in original flavor, an extra serving of the pickled papaya (atsara), and a glass of iced tea (at that time, they would refill my glass for free; their new staff don’t anymore, sigh). i would arrive, sit at my table for one with my iPod or a book, and merely wait for my dinner to arrive, i didn’t have to place an order. our only communication were wide smiles and wiggled eyebrows. of course, i uttered my "thank you’s" right after the meal. some things just have to be spoken, eh?

over at tsai, i always begin with the kesong puti crostini…carabao cheese spread over toasted slices of french bread. it lies on the most delicious bed of salad, whose subtly sweet and salty dressing is quite the delicious surprise. do eat it, it’s not just for show. for the main course, it’s the hainanese chicken rice…a dish belay and i drove to the heritage hotel along roxas and EDSA on sundays all the way from los banos for. i love dunking the steamed chunks of succulent poultry into the three sauces, and drinking the broth they were boiled in. dessert would always be the mango panna cotta, naturally. sweetish-sour mango sauce over the most delicately-flavored immaculate panna cotta.

at cafe havana, cherry muntuerto introduced me to the ropa vieja (old woman’s hair), shredded beef that does look like a mound of hair in tomato stew and rice. it is quite the filling meal (and not too intimidating in terms of price and palate familiarity).

but what to do with my bibgy’s korean riblets now? and three weeks ago, another jolt on hindsight: oh georg also discontinued their korean beef stew, the only dish i order there.

is everyone in a conspiracy to see me thin myself down to waifish proportions? sigh, i need my comfort food!!!

i can be very curt over the phone, especially if we have not met. the way i figure, being saccharine does not do anything for efficiency, either way. so i am businesslike whenever i answer a call, no matter what time and wherever i take it (especially with the advent of the mobile phone)

but this afternoon, at the SunStar office, i got a call from what sounded like an 8-year-old. it went this way:

"hello, may i speak to jude bacalso?" (in a singsong colegiala accent, the kind i cannot stand)

"this is jude, what may i do for you?"

"this is (i mentally erased her name, already quite turned off by her voice and tone), we’re the PR agency of Revicon, we’d like to invite you to…" and then my mind automatically shut down, unable to process the data. the long-distance connection, you see, was terrible (she was calling from Manila), and what made it worse, she sounded like a mentally-challenged child (with apologies to the specially-abled…but she really did). so i cut in:

"i’m sorry, could you speak clearly, i can hardly understand you."

"oh, ok. (still singsongy) this is…(here, she repeats the same spiel. unfortunately, it was also the same delivery)

"this an official call then? you actually work there?" ( i was half expecting it to be a prank call)

"yes, i’m from the PR agency of…"

"then you are not 8 years old?" i deadpanned.

"(hesitates a bit) um, no…"

"and you’re not mentally-challenged?" i asked without a trace of malice.

"(long pause) ummmmm…(tentatively)…no"

"then will you please stop speaking like either? it is not cute, and i cannot understand a word you are saying" i swear, i really could not.

i mouth my email address and tell her that it might be better if she sent the invitation in written form (at least, there, even if her written english was terrible, it wouldn’t be in singsong). she says she would (or so, i think…difficult to be sure over the din of the connection, her pinched voice, and the "di gyud cuuuuute daaaaayyyyy!!!" screaming in my head)

"ok, great," i say and drop the receiver.

oh dear, looks like my true colors are showing. or are they? am i really a bitch? slap me if i have become one, please.

and i thought Revicon made you more alert, eh? darn

for someone who gets paid to talk, not a lot of people know that i live in silence.

slashed, broken, and bruised…i cocoon into a quiet world, immersing myself in a liquid silence. the primary purpose is to heal, lick the wounds inflicted by a curiosity that went too far…the reckless chance that was taken. i opened my books again, and finally finished one that has been on my bedside for months. "angels and demons" (the prequel to the "da vinci code") is indeed riveting, and closed nicely with a tongue-in-cheek requisite sex scene that reminded the reader that this was meant to be a work of fiction, after all. never take anything too seriously, especially when you fall deep into it. otherwise, a little salt will not be enough.

i re-read arundhati roy’s "god of small things" and lusted after velutha once more and wondered again if i was indian in a past life; i understood everything about it. the universality of a regional perspective, as josua would put it.

and then i whipped out abi aquino’s "drama queen", a contemporary tale of "super kilig" proportions. i fell in love with jorge again, and decided that i must be kach, his best friend. i wanted to "embrace a man without thinking what to do next." they ended up with each other, if you must know.

i can’t find "catfish arriving in little schools", then remembered that larry ypil has my copy. larry recently won the Palanca, so i guess he won’t have time to scrounge up my book i keep looking for a single paragraph in the clinton palanca story in that compilation, one that stands out because of its frightening truth. to paraphrase: "the best way to leave someone is to leave in anger. that way, there are no loose ends left to tie, cut everything abruptly. no explanations, no tears, no words. because if you do not do so, there will still be some wondering left…what ifs and whatnots. let him hate you so he will forget you." of course, clinton put it more eloquently than i. i have got to get that copy again and do this point justice with a repost of the original

have you stopped reading? shame on you. laziness is not an excuse. i was a sloth in 2nd grade when i discovered that little corner of the library where i became a Greek deity, or a copenhagen siren, or little jo march. decades later, i am a little of everything i have read.

my producer called me one sultry afternoon to ask what advocacy i wanted to put the weight of my television show behind. "let’s get people to read again," i pleaded. so we’re starting a donate-a-book campaign. but it should not stop there; some school in pinamungajan will have a library filled with secondhand tomes by december of this year…but will the children pick them up? will they read again?

perhaps we need a bout of varied silences to make us remember the guiltless pleasure of reading: a brownout in the afternoon light to keep you away from the computer games, a quiet in the earnings, but a yearning for faraway places; a broken heart, healed by the escape into words.

i knew i needed this. the books told me.