My half-brother just texted me to follow up on the annual family reunion thing. I said my sister and I couldn’t come, of course under the pretense called work. Never mind it will be held on a Sunday; economic conditions permit the unpalatable thought of violating the concept of Sabbath.

I’ve mentally complained a number of times about our seeming distance from our paternal relatives. I’ve done calculations years ago and decided that most of our supposed cousins are two decades older at an average. That’s eons ago, considering the shift in tastes, experiences, and sensibilities. I’ve always thought of this with a certain sadness and not mere contempt. Defying the laws of probability, I still relish the thought of establishing steady connections with them, being able to inhabit that same space of world-knowingness they occupy. I wish to know them, and I wish more for them to know a part and parcel of what I’m made of.

But perhaps my—our is rather assuming, I don’t exactly know what my sister feels about it—constant hesitation to attend reunions take on a stronger level this time not because of the age (and social status) divide. It’s that nagging thought in my head, telling me no, this can’t be, we can’t be the focus of one of every reunion’s important themes: death, who was taken away lately, how the most recent funeral went. I can’t stand the thought of standing in a roomful of almost-strangers, being labeled one of the recent casualties of the many death cases in the huge clan. The long and short of it is it’s the torture that comes with still not being able to fully acknowledge that there was something that indeed happened.

There’s a form of distorted reality in it as well. It’s the false logic that when you deny it hard enough, it ceases to be real, there’s a homecoming to follow in the many, many days to come. There’s someone who’ll be back after a vacation taken on an impulse.

For most of the time I’m convinced I could deal very well with it. I pass through East Avenue every weekday of my life, taking one look every time at that spot and fighting back the deluge of memories, my determinate helplessness outside the ER while the defibrillator made its last-ditch attempt to reverse the whole situation. But when the daily distractions are put to rest by the time I’m at home, my body resting on that bed that’s now too big for my mother, I realize that it’s an entirely different story.

So many signs we failed/refused to heed. “Failed” and “refused” given equal prominence; maybe I still want to come clean. Others call these signs “premonitions,” a term that encapsulates all the morbidity one could ever get. There was, for instance, the Joan Didion book The Year of Magical Thinking, delivered to our house on Christmas Eve. I put off reading it for some forgotten reason. Only to rediscover it a few days after we said goodbye to him; Didion apparently lost her husband to that thing they call ventricular fibrillation. That bit in the death certificate still whirls in my head.

The best I could do is google, barter for some more information. Perhaps there’s no winning this case: no more putting the pieces together, no more finding the answers lost in the cancelled 2D-echo and abdominal ultrasound tests. One is only left to mourn the absence of the necessary answers.

It would be a nasty disservice to 2008 to call it a so-so—or worse, ugly—year of my life. For one, I kept a job and had been happy with it most of the time. A great guy stuck it out with me despite many, many unhappy facts about me. The family won many bouts against sickness and discontent. I dealt with scathing words, anxiety, physical pains, slight stagnation in the intellectual department, and participation in some unresolved hullabaloos. I didn’t come out of everything unharmed, but there’s comfort knowing there had been events in my life; I had some real action going on(some of B-movie quality) and I’m actually looking forward to some more this 2009.

My yearend read is Malachy McCourt’s A Monk Swimming. The memoir deals with running wild in life, the carefree narrative a far cry from the melodrama of a poor family in Limerick, Ireland who had nothing but deaths, a father with more love for the pint than for his life, cold sores, empty stomachs and pissed-on beddings, as told by Malachy’s brother, Frank McCourt (no matter what they say of his later books, he has already sealed his grandeur in Angela’s Ashes).

Malachy’s adventures in NYC circa the 1950s—drunkenness, divorce and heartbreaks, the world of theater and prison and dark saloons, and smuggling gold in different parts of the world—dwarf every little ugly detail I can call to mind about myself and my life, and there’s something about it that reeks of hopefulness, of wanting to experience how it is to be alive to the last drop of blood and booze. And, of course, one of the strong points of the book (with Malachy a poor Limerick slumboy to a bit of a celebrity in NY to a struggler once again) is if the universe has a weird sense of humor, why can’t you?

Indeed the best New Year greeting I received was sent today at 9:30 a.m., saying “Happy New Year, live life.” Perhaps nothing could be as bad as a 2009 with no misery to anticipate, no emails to be written, no books to be devoured, and no fears to be accounted for. The idea of being alive is an intoxicating thought in itself, meriting fireworks and trumpets and human noise during a rather rainy situation.

Happy New Year and live life.

I’m blogging right here in my humid room, walking myself through this whole thing they call plugin internet. Of course it isn’t rocket science or any recently divulged manmade wonder; I’m just IT-challenged, period. B had long thought of getting me a router, but it didn’t push through out of some vague reason (divine intervention, maybe). So probably the ads and classic WOM are to be blamed when I suddenly mouthed “Globe prepaid Visibility kit” after he initiated the discussion on Christmas presents a few weeks back.

I’ve been using the DSL connection here at home because it rarely fails me, and because I have separation anxiety. There wasn’t any immediate need, too, for wireless internet; I check my mail in the office, and there’s hardly any time and energy left for browsing every weekday night. Most of the field work locations for Writers Edge are also WI-Fi hotspots so I’ll just have to have my laptop in tow to get that bring-it-on vibe.

The challenge, though, came in the form of sloth (say, an article for urgent revision or something and I have to drag myseelf out of bed to get Net access) and the constant pressure to give in to crude consumerism masquerading as the harmless pursuit of convenience. So there, my spanking new life as a plugin internet user.

Operating at an average of 236 kbps (EDGE connection; HSDPA/3G is perhaps nonexistent in a peasant area such as ours), this USB modem’s good enough for checking emails, random voyeurism at Multiply and Facebook, and some new book exchange activity at Bookmooch. Connecting to the Yahoo Messenger and Skype, though, is a pain in the ass, if not an outright alien concept. It’s a monumental FAIL if communicating with the boyfriend is to be considered, but hey, there’s always mobile phones and imagination (wink).

I just have to have the aircon in this room working, because it feels stifling hot in every corner and everyone knows that a bad case for personal computers. Save for the temperature and the worsening backache, this wireless stuff is a blessing so far and I forget about my usual companion more intimately known as Boredom.

(Though I haven’t given up DSL; I’m still a sucker for speed, after all.)

I’d rather not be sentimental. We are moving in a world that has too much sentiments but with a severe lack in the action department. I’d rather not pollute it with further sentimentality, but with the things going on in my head these days I’d like to thank you for your soothing presence last Friday. Thank you for enveloping me with warmth, candid and humanly, distracting me from the negativities of the moment, of the recurring moments. Because of you I read up on what I was supposed to be reading up on, did something with the “blank wall” I was facing. Simply because you hugged me tight all night, I came to know that fear and cold and disquietude are not all there is to being here.

I call this my Yumburger. It looks pretty gross in this photo (taken to show B what I was currently digging in) but surely no one will contest its high gastronomic value once they’ve tasted it. It’s what I had as a mid-afternoon snack. It’s the best, most satisfying (more superlatives please) burger I’ve tasted in a while.

It’s made of mildly toasted French Baker wheat bread (with actual nuts that give a LOT of added texture), homemade burger patty, and mayonnaise. I lied on the “homemade” part. My mother actually bought it at the grocery.

I’m not a huge fan of burger patties. In fact I vomited the last one I had because too much pineapple juice came with it. I had the meal at Jollibee. But anyway, I’m not too crazy about burger patties, both for palaman and viand purposes. But this one made me rave like a fangirl. It’s hefty, it’s unproblematic, and the nuts on the bread make me fucking crave for more.

I’m especially thanking the heavens for its high fiber value. My “personal moments” today are a far cry from that of past Sundays. Sorry I just have to say that.

HAZY AT THE MEATSHOP. There is too much smoke in the world.      

Last Oct. 11 JIRD got together, drank bottles of San Mig Light and dished out loads of personal updates at Meatshop Xavierville. My first time to alcoholize myself in a while, and to actually visit this drinking place, which has an actual bouncer ( and I mean a BIG one) and customers with twenty vocal cords each. Incidentally it was Eka’s birthday. We were almost complete. I said “almost” because I’m counting B in; he was absent because he nursed overfatigue, wink wink. There was Al’s beau (1st time) and Eka’s girl (gazillionth time). So you can call it the “Meet the Friends” edition for Al. Raffy looked and acted cool. The tombstone bit still rings in my head.

I’m not one to think of “bigger person” moves, like sweeping dried leaves off the neighbor’s backyard (I hardly get out of the house anyway). But last night I realized that my money in the bank isn’t growing. Worse, it’s been becoming my official lifeline once I ran out of cash. The whole thing defeats the purpose of a “savings account.”

So minutes ago I erased all my shopping contacts on Multiply. Rivalled by my taxi-riding habit, online shopping usually eats up most of what I’m earning. It has gotten a bit out of hand that I enjoy free shipping and loads of freebies most of the time. It has also gotten to a point where I have to sell on Ebay stuff that are spanking new but there’s a fat chance of me ever wearing them. I’m reminded of an officemate’s friend who would go on a shopping binge but would never even care to open the packages once she gets home. I’m nowhere close to that person, let me tell you, but who could ever tell.

And fuck, there isn’t even a Spendthrifts Anonymous in this country (not that there is anywhere else).

Last night I tried on my latest btheratch of acquisitions. Four new clothing items and a thick waistbelt (hot topic for the season; being able to channel the hotness factor an entirely different thing). Total payment exceeded a thousand. I didn’t exactly get that “wow” vibe while I was going through the fitting process so I became stressed.

So now I’m resolving not to shop online anymore. I don’t get the fabric, size, and body fit of my imaginings. I’m definitely blaming hyperreality.

Plus the fact that most of my Multiply contacts were online sellers, and perhaps even the most mundane chapters of every transaction were being chronicled in my inbox.* Tracking numbers, reserved items, even sold items. Time for some cleaning up.

*Not all, though. There’s the decent bunch who give their contacts some peace, led by my favorite IMG.

I have one of this in another side of the world. S, I think, is old enough to be my mother. She’s Australian. She first sent me Graham Swift’s Last Orders via first-class mail. She doesn’t mind paying high postage rates as long as her books would be happy in their new homes. I hope I’m not failing her in this aspect.

Today I went to the MCPO to claim my long-overdue book package. Last Aug. 22 (on my birthday; imagine her timing) she tipped me that she has this Miranda July book up for grabs. I mooched before taking another breath. I got the book today, along with another one in excellent condition, the type you would love to stare at for breakfast. It’s Blood Kin by Ceridwen Dovey, a young Australian writer who’s NY-based. The blurb on the front cover, J.M. Coetzee’s judgment of the novel, got me excited I didn’t even want to work for the rest of the afternoon.

The postcard from S contains the clincher. Here’s her sweet message:

“I’m adding ‘Blood Kin’ to the package– by a young Australian author. I thought you or one of your writer friends might enjoy it!” Cheers, S

I’m pretty fine with the kind of “writer” I am. I get a good-enough income, I buy mouthwash and deodorant and some privilege pass to a middle-class idea of decency. But I really hope she doesn’t have in mind the picture of some bigshot fiction writer. I should have been transparent in my BM profile. “Rank-and-file employee” would have been much better than “copywriter.”

But maybe it’s just classic kindness at work; you want to live up to the person’s idea of you (if I’m assuming right), whatever it may be, how far-reaching it may be. Then there are morsels of distress/guilt/self-reproach starting to creep into your chest once your realize you’re failing to hit the mark.

S mentioned in an e-mail that she’s planning to visit the Philippines someday. Her postcard shows a large cupboard containing fresh produce and books. It has a Philippines travel guide on it, too. I hope to meet her when she comes here.

“Any injury you sustain up to the age of 21, give or take a year, is better the next day,” says a character in one of T. C. Boyle’s stories, a middle-aged doctor examining his brother-in-law’s aching back. “After 21, any injury you sustain will haunt you to the grave.”

I turned 22 a month ago, and I’m worried. A day after my birthday–amid an intense, mindwhacking motorshow coverage at WTC that I wish I didn’t agree to cover at all–I got the cold virus. I abused myself, after all: sweating like a pig on Friday, hurtling myself inside the cramped MRT trains, a humungous thing called a laptop bag (with an actual laptop inside) clinging on my bag; staying in my parents’ airconditioned room when I got home, unmindful of the awful change in temperature; spending my birthday (the day after) with the same God-forsaken routine at WTC; B and I spending the night of my birthday awake, in short not getting any considerable sleep at all; returning to the coverage with a failing back and beginnings of a headache, oblivious still, even rushing to MOA after work to get some refreshments; and the day after, a holy-Molly Sunday, in front of the computer for 8 relentless hours to finish the stories.

I nursed the common cold for a full week, even as I shoved the Shakey’s lunch under my officemates’ noses as a birthday libre, and it was indeed wonder of wonders why nobody got the virus except B.

The sickness could have sat well with me; I last had the virus in senior college year. Then the roof fell in again, the virus returning after two or so weeks. My supervisor even inquired, “You still have it?” I didn’t have the gall to correct her and say it’s a fucking comeback, so I just nodded. So I officially had it twice this September, and I’m complaining because I was already taking in vitamin C tablets (I finally resolved to have 1000 mg a day).

Then there’s the symptom I’d rather be oblivious to: the occasional backache, which gives a handy clue to the state my spinal cord is in, given my tendency to stay hunched for 23 hours, 59 minutes of the day (hence the ‘Beyonce Hunch’ name-calling from B). I’ve heard of scoliosis, your shoulders and back hurting so badly you’d rather be dead, and I’ve envisioned myself in those eery steel chorvalyns (for lack of a better term), but as I’ve said I’d rather ignore the images most of the time.

The prospect of mortality presented itself differently in those two occasions (the common cold and the recurring mysterious backache): I had the virus and felt like the world was turning into smithereens, while I had the backache and I felt zilch. In its scale of threat the backache obviously lords over the common cold (unless I’ve got the big bad HIV), but I gave it the “this-too-shall-pass” attitude. I can only arrive at a reckless guess: the backache apparently frightened me more, and my human defense came to the rescue and simply decided to ignore it. And I haven’t exactly unearthed this civilization’s greatest secret when I say that if I finger through a possible cyst, I wouldn’t go to the doctor and would postpone a trip to the hospital until I’m sober and I’ve decided that I can face the adversity of an unnamed illness. The thought of mortality knocking in and reminding me of its existence intoxicates the shit out of me, thus I think I’d have to be in a state of denial (or something; give me clarity, please).

Now my health issues definitely go beyond the random cold virus caught from a MOA-bound bus. I’m no longer a defiant 20 or 21, and even the prospect of every fatty food clogging my arteries looms in my mind. I’m slim and I don’t put on weight easily, surely that’s a plus point, but in this age and social context I sure am eligible for  a long string of illnesses if I don’t watch out. I’ve had primary complex, whooping cough and feverish nights as a child, but of course now whatever sickness would come my way is no longer a phase, a rite of passage. 

Now that famous John Lloyd TVC line echoes in my head, and let me tell you the same thing no matter how old you are because it could hit you anytime: Ingat.