Painful to be Private Preoccupations [part I]

I.

I’ve been rushing lately, despite finishing my thesis defense a week ago. I’m overworked, dead half the time and still getting heavier because I’ve been compensating my lack of sleep with eating. I’ve been rushing because three weeks ago, after being in Asturias where I ate a hearty bag of bikang-bikang, Ma’am Gamo told me that we’re organizing the annual Exposure Trip to Bilibid Prisons again. Of course I was surprised because just last semester, our program was halted and released a chain of events too horrible to even menti—

This is tedious work, and even though I have briefed my juniors and sophomores of the activity and their part in it, the stress is becoming unbearable. I can’t take this anymore, not now, not in my last semester as a college student in this university. The only consolation I want to have is that now, I hope, there would be another girl to date, who is worth my time, who would give way for anyone or anything to give me a break on everything that’s happening now.

I take the waivers and letters upstairs, to rm201 of 1jrn1. Ok, ok. Now to the next room, that of 1jrn2, where there seems to be a commotion because they have no professor for the next subject. I talk to someone standing in front of the door.

“Pwede sa president?” I say.

“Uhm, nasa CR po eh. Pakihintay na lang. Ayon, anjan na. Joyce! May naghahanap sa ‘yo!”

The girl walks in, glides in, and looks at us. She squints. Poor eyesight? And that long skirt, why so long? Or is it just me? Lesbians in my high school wear skirts that are too long. I really think it’s too long. She approaches me, we introduce ourselves, I state my purpose, the trip, everything, and I hand her the papers that should be photocopied for the whole class. She says OK. Come to think of it, she’s quite cute, her looking at me with her head nodding and her shoulder hunched. Maybe she’s shy, facing someone with wide shoulders, unshaven, with distended, exhausted eyes below a scarred forehead.

Do I look intimidating? Or just pathetic?

Then I smell something. Cigarettes. From her blouse or hair maybe. This Joyce smokes. I don’t see that there’s a possibility that she has a source of income to subsidize that vice. Oh well, teenagers. I smile and she smiles back before I say goodbye. Then to the stairs.

That girl, that smile. But I’m used to this. The fact that you’re taking 10 or 11 sections to an educational trip leads to things like these because, out of that 400 or so youngsters, there might be someone pretty (and lucky!) enough to consistently get my attention. And so far, as far as my anticipation is concerned, she’s it. Perhaps I’m graduating with a girlfriend anyway. Oh no. No. I must not get my hopes up too soon. Jinx!

But then again, maybe she has a boyfriend already. That secure look, maybe she has someone more masculine that me. Some guy who could lift heavy things for a living, if he wanted to. A boy-next-door type who doesn’t have creative facial hair, who is cleanly shaven. But I remember that she was with her friends and classmates earlier, a reason for that secured look. Maybe she’s single after all.
Days later, I meet up with all the presidents of the 11 sections. I usually show her to my classmates or friends when I see her, in the corridor or after meetings. I see a pattern implicit in their comments about her looks—that she looks pretty “mundane”. Commonplace, natural, ordinary, at least in comparison to my past prospects or dates. A classmate tells me that I’m so phenomenological just like my thesis, very fond of mundane things, even persons. I neither find the joke funny nor offending. It’s too pedantic. Good thing is, I’m gonna be dating with someone again. Consistently that is, if she’s worth my time.

I’m not arrogant or conceited, but after reading a considerable amount of literature on eidetic sociology, on dating, and hearing tons of feedbacks from other people, I always establish the fact that I’m the (or also) the prize. And women (or girls) must also make their way towards me. It’s pretty simple, really. Dating, being also (but not only) a political phenomenon, requires that there must be a healthy alternation of power. In this sense, I’m only lessening the opposite sex’s leverage and leveling it with mine. And while many jerks and narrow-minded skeptics scoff at the idea, many of my friends, particularly girls, like it and are entertained by it. Oh well, might as well review some stuff on the matter.

Painful to be Private Preoccupations

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author wishes first and foremost to acknowledge Bathala, if it not because of Him/Her none of this would be possible, ever, and we need no proof of that. He wishes to acknowledge the many people who have extended the meaning of the word generosity for allowing their real names and actions to be included in this work. Further, he also acknowledges the people who, even if they were not mentioned in here, contributed one way or another to the making of this memoir, such as Celest and Angelique, who again gave him the drive to abandon his stalling. The author would also like to acknowledge his penchant to exaggerate, and to fib, for better or for worse, depending on the situation. He would also like to acknowledge that yes, there are perhaps too many memoirs being written by different people so this is not something new, and that yes, writing about REAL people and REAL events as opposed to kind-of-made-up ones is shameless and wrong and vile and evil and corrupt. And maybe the idea of relating stories of stinginess for postponed dates and flirting while inside the bus and looking like a Pip-Guy teen flick is unappealing to everyone but to the author’s college classmates and a few Journalism students in Sampaloc, but there are schemes that are diabolically worse, like cheating in elections or JPEPA and we could all do worse, like, say American government or that lying bitch in Malacañang. Anyway, if you’re bothered by the fact that any of this is real, then he suggests you pretend that it’s FICTION. He also tips his hat to the kind and friendly inmates of the Medium Security Compound of Bilibid Prisons, especially the students of the Modular Class in Sociology. The author also wants to acknowledge his friends in the Thomasian Writers Guild and The Flame, for the endless booze and for giving him a degree of satisfaction for his intellectual vanity. He also wishes to acknowledge your problems with the title, he too doubts if it’s the best.

Now, he would also like to acknowledge the themes of the memoir.

A.) The Haunting Preoccupation of Being Single

More often than not, persons who would get to know the author would eventually ask him why on earth is he still single, and would be surprised—or even appalled—by a number of reasons.

B.) Social Proof as an Edge in Dating

The social value of someone is indispensable as a background to amplify his/her characteristics desirable for dating.

C.) Disclosure as a Result of The Author’s Not-So-Important View on Privacy

We all like disclosure, especially if it pertains to that person’s frustrations and weaknesses. Privacy is cheap, overrated, and many petty fights, quarrels and terrorist attacks would be averted if everyone follows this view.

Also, the following threads:

1.) The Joyce Dialectic I: She being both an inspiration and an impediment to the writing of the memoir.

2.) The Joyce Dialectic II: The Dissonance between her language and her socio-economic status.

3.) The Being Confined to Digital Communication as Being Only Feasible Medium to Keep In Touch Idea.

4.) The Attachment VS. “I’m Fine Without You” Idea.

5.) The Self-Imposed Romance Deadline Idea.

6.) The Nostalgia Disguised as Intellectual Vanity as a Reason for Writing of Memoir Idea.

The author also wishes to acknowledge that for all his ranting elsewhere, this is NOT totally a work of non-fiction. Many parts have been fictionalized, especially the dialogues that reflect the author’s limitations and his imagination’s feedings. Although in the course of the work, he is trying to channel the thoughts that he had during his last days in UST, he has taken certain liberties especially with what he was thinking on certain instances in the narrative. For example, usually, when he is thinking of something in a certain situation in the memoir, its not that he’s actually thinking of that thought that time. More often than not, those thoughts occurred to him after the situations or events happen, and he only inserts such and such for the sake of appearing and sounding articulate because frankly enough, he does not have the skill to write such a work in order for it not to be sooooo boring. The author also acknowledges—and congratulates!—you for noticing the work’s flaws and imperfections. Finally, the author would like to acknowledge the kindness and consideration for letting this work continue that was given by Joyce, and of course for obvious reasons. Here is a picture of a puto bumbong:

the memoir

after much deliberation (was there really one? I hope so...), Joyce decided that she would not have the work published.

But anyway, I'll have it here. Feel free to give comments, enjoy or get pissed reading my posts-as-parts-of-memoir.





THIS IS UNCALLED FOR