Mina, Milenyo, and Mogadishu in My Mind

So I just found out. Like right this moment... Happy 100 Posts to me! I hope I get in at least a couple more hundred posts before ol' Que Varbs gives up on me.

Now that we got the pleasantries out of the way, allow me to give a little reality check, coz heck knows I haven't been all that in touch with the cold hard truth of life and things for the longest time.

Typhoon Mina (international codename: Mitag) is not just the latest nuisance in the local scene vying with our cruddy "politickians" for our national attention. She's a veritable PMS-ing biatch, wreaking havoc and making a hell of a scene in the backyard of our poor, displaced neighbors in Bicol. If my blasted memory of all things numerical doesn't fail me, an estimated 200,000 people are being forced out of home and hearth and evacuating to safer ground. And apparently, it was just practice; Mina's just getting her freak on. All I can say is, "Dude! Not another Milenyo!"

Last year's superstar typhoon ("super typhoon" in real world terms) Milenyo (international codename: Xangsane) made such an impression, my then housemates (Prima and Jal) and I have since referred to the time as our "Mogadishu" days. Not because we loved Josh Hartnett in Black Hawk Down, the last released big-ass flick depicting the conflict in the Somali capital; neither was it because we were channeling Brangelina and suddenly felt like going the Peace Corps way (although once upon a time, Jal and I had curiously harbored short-lived dreams of doing volunteer work in even poorer places than the PH, like for real--sorry, reality check bitch-slapped us back to wakefulness). It was coz for a few days in our otherwise very ordinary lives, we felt like we were in the movies. Like inside the movies, as opposed to being in the movies like Josh and posse.

Them Mogadishu days were something all right. I remember the uber-extended public holidays, if you can even call them that. The three of us were stuck at home with no lights, no TV, no electric fan, no nothing. Our other housemate was shacking up at one of them motel-like hotels with her paramour for the AC. (Hey, just so we're clear, I'm not saying this in any way. It's true, if you ask her yourself, she'll admit it to you straight away.) Meanwhile, Prima, Jal and I were staging our own Amazing Race all over the neighborhood in a pathetic attempt to find some candles coz Lord knows how the supermalls ran out of them so fast that you'd pay top dollar for any kind of wax you could get your hands on. We finally found a mom-and-pop store that sold some few last ones. Good Lord, it sure was a damn good fight, worthy of a Hollywood adaptation. We couldn't see in the muggy darkness and kept stumbling on fallen tree branches and stepping on puddles of mud everywhere that it was a wonder we got anywhere at all. And the water, my goulash. Ickily we were waiting in vain for the water department guys to work their magic. While we waited, we played cards, stuffed ourselves on desserts we hoarded in preparation for the ordeal, and gossiped about the people we knew. There's never a more fun time to have such simple, low-key pleasures like all that than during blackouts, I always say.

In the morning, when things were supposed to look better (as the saying goes), we lay witness to Mogadishu being played out in our own street. Everything was brown. Like, you know, the color of, you know...soil. (You were thinking maybe something else?) The streets were brown, the sky was brown, the air (normally a light shade of smogged-up black) was brown. Hell, even us brown people never looked more brown. The power lines looked like Tarzan came to town and thought it was all right to be swinging around on those black, stringy thingies as a mode of transportation. It was a friggin' warzone, I tell you. And we were living (still are) in beautiful, dependable Makati City already. I had never been so excited to be going back to the office.

And now this. Maybe that's why, for the past couple of nights, when the cab taking me home turned the corner into my neighborhood, I knew something was "off". The streets leading to my place were freakishly dark. Then came the sudden reruns of "V for Vendetta" in my mind and I felt a little spooked. I mean, this is Makati City. City lights don't go MIA whenever they feel like it. The streets in my neighborhood were so cloaked in darkness, as if someone put the lights out in an attempt to cause widespread panic, usurp power by force, and in the resulting mayhem, destabilize the status quo. Oh, wait--that's what Mina's trying to do, actually. So now I have the answer, I understand. Life makes sense again.

***

Oh, Mina Mina Mina. Coz of you, we're not doing Animo anymore. I know, I know. Manila is a long way from Bicol, and even from Mindoro, your presumed exit strategy. But I won't go running around this big, bad town soaking wet. I only got Nike dri-fits; they ain't no waterproof threads, you know. Anyway, Bry, one of the running buddies, is stuck somewhere between Naga City (yes, that's in Bicol) and Manila. The other guy, Jer, is of the same mind as moi and not feeling it. Besides, it's quite likely the whole thing will be called off due to the forecast of strong rains.

Anyhoo, there's always Yakult on December 9th. And the AFP Invitational the weekend after. Seriously, I have GOT to get my A-game on. Need to keep running in the meantime. And put in time again in the training gym in Pasig. I'm getting so weak and everything. Not to mention them damn zits are once again making their bulbous presence felt. It's the usual suspects: work, work, and--let me not forget--work.

Well, now I gotta go. Or else I might be tempted to stay and check out some cool (not!) PowerPoint slides I got a hold of today. Tomorrow is the start of what could be a really soggy weekend. But I'm sure it's gonna be much better than the debilitating agony of the last few weekends. Save for the Ateneo Run, that is.

Update (November 26th):

So. There were no Milenyo-esque apparitions in the city last weekend. Maybe later this week, although of course, I'm not crossing my fingers. So yesterday the Animo Run would have pushed through. Too bad. Oh well.

Welcome To The Black Parade (or We'll Carry On)

Guzzling coffee and drowning in pumpkin soup and The Prodigy.
There's no other way, no other way. Not on this Manic Monday.

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Of Glorietta, What Ifs, and The Bittersweet Escape

My good friend Rona texted just now to inform me that our high school classmate, Israel, died just recently. Last I heard about him, he was looking mighty strong, recuperating quite well under intensive care from complications arising from a type 1 diabetes affliction. So to say this came as a shock is a mild understatement.

Even though we didn't run in the same circles in school, I was saddened. Maybe not overwhelmingly so, but upon hearing the news, I felt the loss of the great friend, the great brother, basically the great guy that he must have been to his loved ones. I can only imagine, though, the magnitude of anguish his passing away must be to the people who knew him more closely.


*****

Get rid of the judgment, get rid of the 'I am hurt,' you are rid of the hurt itself. - Marcus Aurelius

A week after news of the Glorietta 2 incident hit me like a ton of bricks (no pun intended), I find myself still floundering in a haze of numbness. At first, I couldn't fathom how it could happen almost right in my backyard. Glorietta was the wealthy next-door neighbor's sandbox; it was the playpen for ultimate squatters like me. If I wasn't kicking away at corporeal doldrums in Pasig or trying to get high on burned Nike rubber in Legaspi Village, I could invariably be found making a nuisance of the mallrat experience at good ol’ Glorietta. I was the Great Loiterer. Glorietta to me was the sweet escape that was my second home.

So to be sure, to say it came as a surprise when I first found out about the unfortunate incident from an officemate is a total understatement. It happened around 1:40pm. People were just coming back from their leisurely lunches and what-have-you. Such normalness, such everydayness, and then some of these people's lives are inordinately changed for good. These things you never see coming, but for the loved ones of those who passed away--and for those who lived to tell the tale--the ravage is the ultimate testament to this natural truth.

In the immediate aftermath, I thought about my friends and my loved ones. Having never personally experienced anything like it, I could not picture the scope of the devastation. Rather, my thoughts mostly revolved around the fleetingness of life. What things we take so easily for granted. I thought about how eenie-meenie-minie-moeish it all seemed, how in the blink of an eye all that you hold dear could so whimsically be snatched away. You play the game of life fair and square, and still you have no say in the hand you are dealt. If you get unlucky, you roll with it. Or rather, as would be more apt in this case, you roll over. If you do get lucky, you're afforded time to think about what it could all possibly mean.

I know it wasn't the right way to think, but it was the way I tried to get my mind around it. I became quite apprehensive of the possible scenarios that sprung up in my head. The Dos, the Don'ts, the Maybes. What did it all mean? Should I? Do I want to? If I do it, will it matter? I'm hopelessly hard-headed, so my parents used to tell me growing up. Better that than being hard-hearted, I guess. Then again, I can't very well say I got the Miss Care Bear Award in the bag.

Lest I be further encumbered with such glum realizations, I had to log off from existentialist mode. I thought I was getting back to warm and toasty ground. My mistake. Proceeding from a deductive frame of mind, I thought about what was really pressing at the core of the current tragedy--my own "What If." Was I not supposed to be there, right in the heart of pandemonium, right smack at the moment of utter finality?

On account of work, I had a personal errand that had been extended for days. The venue of intention? Glorietta 2, no other. Timing? Same damn time as the incident. At the back of my head, the notion that I could have been there churned out little bubbles of queasiness that I couldn't just chase away. If I hadn't gotten all lazy-ass and chucked my errand out the window in favor of getting bum burns from sitting down in front of the PC and pushing keys per usual, I might have just gone ka-blam along with all the others. It was so simple--to go or not to go--that I can't believe it could have been the end of me. I hope this doesn't grab you the wrong way. I hate sounding like it's all about me, me, me. It isn't. Because I don't know what I would do if I was faced with the possibility of never seeing my loved ones again. Of course, it's still selfish. There's just no getting around it.

I had to stop right after that. I let the thoughts go, at least at first. I didn't want to have to keep thinking about the all-consuming possibility of death. Of loss. Of eternal non-recurrence. Doggone it. In times like these, I hate thinking. I hate having to feel more than is socially called for. Times like these, it's far easier to pull a Keanu and be the face of modern-day stoicism, of numbness. Unlike the Stoics of old, I don’t see why I have to abide by what’s right all the time. I hate coming to the right conclusions. I hate having to do the right thing. I hate it.

Duh. Writing this now, what I must do is slowly unraveling, and I might just come to the conclusion that the truth of these realizations is inescapable. Just as with death.

Firestarter

Picking up where I left off, let me clarify that I consider myself no teacher of life. My delusions are limited to presumptuous musings about the mundane. And life, in the grand scheme of things, is anything but.

In fact, I think my experiences to date would more aptly serve as one big lesson to be learned. In CliffNotes, for easier digestion.

Yesterday was interesting. I think I almost burned down the office. By accident, of course. But it wasn't my lucky day (hehe). I almost choked on yellowish opaque smoke that the microwave belched. We had to open the windows to let the sinister smell out. I had to herd my office mates in the conference room to avoid having any one of them pass out in the event that the smoke proved to be too much. Thank goodness, the biggest casualty in this episode was the microwave. Even after Ate Lyn, the office help, scrubbed its insides clean, the poor thing is still stained and stinks of the burnt garlic toast that I tried to make a little more edible by sticking it in the machine for a wee bit longer than I should have. It's a nasty stench, not the mood-inducing aphrodisiacal sort. I had to channel my inner Martha Stewart to appease the natives at the office, else I'll have some serious explaining to do when the head honcho comes back to our shores sometime next week.

All in all, it was funny. I am so glad.

But my arsonist tendencies run much deeper than this. My brother and I, back when we were thick as thieves in Medina, set fire to our living room couch, which naturally spread to the rest of the living room and eventually enveloped the whole apartment in flames within seconds. Of course, it was an accident-but-not-really because we did touch that lit match to the couch. Anyway, rescue was just a few feet away. We weren't alone in the apartment. Good thing Dad was having his lunch in the kitchen, but he was oblivious at first to the commotion in the living room. It was only after the combined effort of my bro and I to contain the blaze proved futile that we resorted to calling Dad in. And boy, was he in for a big surprise.

I still remember Dad heaving the water-filled pail (or was it palanggana? Were there even palangganas in Saudi?) to the living room from the nearby toilet several times in a vain attempt to douse the flames. Neighbors were coming in to help, but we were obviously licked. And what were my brother and I doing? Beats me, probably bawling our eyes out. But get this, I was able to muster a coherent thought in the midst of all the brouhaha. I remember telling my dad, "telephone", like this autistic kid that just learned how to speak. And then he was off to find a working phone to call the fire station. In typical soap opera fashion, the firefighters arrived a little late, but--take note--not too late, to save the day. *Sigh* My dad, the hero.

When my mom found out, I think she went ballistic with worry. Which suited us kids fine since we felt a good spanking could have been the automatic and proper ending to the story. Nothing tragic, thank goodness. At the end of the day, we still had each other. Sure, the apartment was a lot less pretty than when we first moved into it. And we had to keep an eye out for scorpions that would suddenly materialize from thin air at the corners of the apartment, something that rarely happened previously. But hey, it was all good.

Okay, so enough reminiscing. Later.