Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Letters to Marge (Introduction)


Dear Margaret…

As I write this, your mother is nagging me about a lot of things (again…)…

Anyway, how do I put this without the whole thing sounding morbid or macabre…? I got inspired to get this little thing started when I saw Sidney Poitier’s sequel to his best-selling memoir in a bookstore, “Measure of a Man.” The sequel’s title on the other hand, is “Letters to My Great Granddaughter,” and it struck a chord. I do not pretend that this is entirely original in its concept, but I promise you that everything I have to say are things that I feel very strongly about.

Apart from that rather intriguing title of Mr. Poitier, I must admit that part of my motivation for what I hope will be this series of pieces about me, our family, and things I wish to teach you is that I am a bit of a hypochondriac. A hypochondriac, (assuming you do not know the word’s definition by the time you read this) is a person who believes that he suffers from various illnesses. I have exhibited different symptoms throughout this rather odd life that I honestly believe are harbingers of my pending doom… (the morbidity is starting…)

Assuming I have passed away by the time you read this, then my hunches on the true state of my health were correct. But in the event that I am still alive, then I win again, since… well, I’m still alive… in any case, I hope you will keep reading since I will be telling you about a lot of the things that have kept my spirit strong through every stage of my life, and point you to a few road signs that may guide you in a more interesting life of your own…

Love,
Dad

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Riding Back Home...

I had maybe five to ten minutes of battery life on this stupid machine, so I have to make this count…

Now check this out! Not even a week’s worth of reruns of Russell Peters’ racist stand-up gigs were going to prepare me for this bus ride tonight… I mean, this trip back to Manila was like a fucking United Nations convoy… I was already half-horrified by very traditional-looking (and probably traditional-smelling) Indian family sitting a row behind me, so I directed the airconditioning ventilator go full blast on my head to chill out any potential smell. Then lo and behold, I got me four sushi eaters chattering their way down the aisle.

So there I was, already marveling at the racial diversity (there were the Pinoys, naturally, and there was little old biologically Chinese me), then this Backstreet Boy church choir whitebread reject hops in with some fellow Pinoy exchange students. And I’m sure there’s a Korean somewhere… probably the trunk… those guys turn up anywhere… Wow… the only things missing from this ride were the complimentary curry rice and wasabi…

Oops… power giving out…!

Catch you later…!