cathartic exhibitionism

mood: determined music: FrancisM - Superproxy 2006

"My favorite thing is to go where I’ve never been." -Diane Arbus

Mrs. Verzosa, the FSN (Foreign Service National), and I had a long overdue talk. It was not about the birds and the bees or perhaps, the key to finding Vikram Seth’s suitable boy. Neither was it about handing down baubles and heirlooms or jealously guarded family recipes. Our talk was something like Yoda training the young Jedi knight, or the Bride under the tutelage of Pai Mei, or Mulan seeking instruction from the Captain of the Guards. I was being trained for battle. I was being mentored in one of the most comprehensive disciplines in social transformation. I, after years of integrating an androgenous sense of self, received a crash course in Gender and Development Studies from an expert in the field of Ka-Womenan as a last resort to budgeting the last five days ticking out my manuscript’s deadline. this is the finest battle I must wage in the next few hours — the fight to overcome my nemesis, my low-EQ self.

The one thing I got from my father (the meandering style of elucidating a theoretical point — something in the manner of a maddening Möbius strip) turned out to be the one thing that is causing my work to resemble the hairballs that I get from not combing my hair for seven days straight… Oh, i just remembered, by a short process of trial and error, I discovered that the o with an umlaut is produced through Alt+0246. watch this: ö. hehe. Ok, as I was saying, my mother, as she was reading my first three chapters, exclaimed, "my daughter is a poet. too literary. not a technical writer. I am a technical writer. straighttothepoint. you are like your dad, so roundabout in your phrasing!" she pushed her reading glasses down to the edge of her nose and said, "your topic is for a masteral student. all your teacher wants you to learn is the discipline of writing a research paper."

I laughed, jumped up and said, "oops, gotta make myself a pot of milk tea!" dashing to the kitchen and down to the basement to mess with the kids. when i came back, my mother had a red Sharpie marker in her hand, "is it ok if I write on this?" I nodded in assent and proceeded to busy myself with dollops of honey and whipping up froth and passing out spoonfuls to gauge how sweet my siblings want their tea. Sharon Cuneta was caterwauling on ABS CBN for her birthday special and so Mama pointed to the power button to shut her up.

Finally, when I burned off some of my hyperactivity from running up and down the stairs, from the kitchen to the dining room then the basement and in between stops, tickling Ninay’s scar (her belly has 36 stitches after she was hit by a train in 2001) and hollering on Yasmin’s cellphone, i sat down on the carpet and paid attention to my mother, the gender specialist. I was still literally bouncing up and down and she had to periodically remind me to listen, when she stood up and walked down to her mini-library. lo and behold, amidst the dustclods and the plastic animals stuck in the crannies were all the gender books I had been coveting from the UP Press Bookstore, the Center for Women’s Studies and the online bibliographies! it’s the Mt. Diwalwal of feminist readings! she gingerly plucked out compilations, anthologies, journals, manuals, and muttered about the authors, "oh, this one’s by my professor, maka-burukrasya yun, huwag na… ayan, mas activist ang paradigm nito, si Longwe, taga-Zambia, i want to meet her in person…" Then as she plopped down the materials into my waiting arms, she said, "had I finished my other masteral thesis, it would have been this topic. you can tell your teacher if she asks, ‘where did you get your topic?’ you can say, ‘from my mother’," then she laughed out loud like a college coed sneaking out of the dorm after curfew hours. "No, I’ll say, ‘this is my mother’s masteral thesis. i am doing it for her!" and we laughed together as conspirators sharing a secret plot.

so, with around 96 hours to go, i will fight my biggest fight in the nastiest of arenas: the human mind.