I've been mistaken for so many things. My English professor in college kept asking me if I were Chinese when I told him time and again, no sir, I'm not. People are shocked whenever I tell them I don't have a boyfriend nor am I dating. When I was 16, I was thought of being older--an FX driver even commented once, "Ma'am, mukhang pagod tayo sa trabaho, ah." Now that I'm 21, they still wouldn't let me in an R-18 movie. When I was a college freshman, another freshman sought my help in finding her way around the campus, since she thought I was already in my junior year. When I was feeling wild, I was labeled conservative and low-profile. When I was feeling polite, I was found deviant, intrusive or aloof. Last week, I came from the main office of Equitable PCI Bank. I rode an FX on the way home and the driver told me, Kumusta bisita natin sa embassy? I said I didn't go there, my business was different. Maybe I don't look like the type who'd have something to do with the embassy, but maybe times are really hard that everyone's needing to go some place else. Life is elsewhere. My good self is elsewhere.
I may have many selves--as we all definitely do--but why is it that I seem to have a problem in using the appropriate self in facing certain situations and people?
24 March 2004
Top Shelf
-
The Vocalist The rest could only imitate what he alone and all alone could do: sustain, vibrate, reach unnamed colors of the soundscape. ...
-
Pulse (A love poem) In the beginning was a pulse that came right before any breath to birth a song or a word. It throbs even as the music...
-
Pictures to Show The article calls for being present. That instead of taking photos of the bee Sucking on sunflower, Lock your eyes ...
-
So I have gotten into the habit of recording my piano practices because reasons (that have got to do with skills development and, admittedl...
-
Everyday view from the kitchen window You read your horoscope and think it can apply to literally anyone in the world. Then you go deeper ...
-
Prelude Let's make work of beginnings. Think prelude, how the masters leave little worlds on their own till one is found by acc...
-
None of the Lights I answered with reluctance when you invited me to a bonfire by the beach with young girls and a local who, despite her ...
-
Superboy! You have a liking for high places Dissecting plain skies Looking down on people Dissolving into borders Because you wish to fly...
-
Appropriate, to the level of cliché, that the first blog of the year features a prelude. In TV-series tradition, a brief recap of 202...
-
Modiano, Patrick. The Black Notebook. Mariner, 2016. My favorite bookstagrammer (is that how you call them?) told me that "[Patrick...