Tigyawat sa ilong

I have a zit in my right nostril the size of a small child. It’s so bad it looks like I’m about to birth an alien booger baby into the world. I dealt with it the way anyone with an alien problem would: ruthlessly with the help of a sharp instrument—in this case, a nail-cutter. I went and ripped the fucker out. The pain was fantastic and brought tears to my eyes. Sigourney would be proud.

I rooted among my sister’s stash of ointments for benzoyl peroxide. I found countless vials and tubes with arcane descriptions like high performance balancing cleansing oil fresh, crème regenerante contour des yeux, dark spot corrector pen, fraicheur toni-active, ultimate whitening spot eraser, maquiliquide UV perfect forever, but NO benzoyl peroxide. Sweet mother of god, where is acne cream when you need it?!

I was getting desperate. Blood and fluid were dripping out of my zit non-stop. Then I remembered this bit of low-rent homeopathic wisdom. Yes, Colgate! I hurriedly stuffed toothpaste up my nose. Within five seconds I was whimpering for my Mama. What the fuck was I thinking?! I cleaned it up as best as I could, found a bottle of Betadine and shot the contents up my nose.

Well it’s stopped bleeding now and I’m just waiting for the PGH/dental office smell to go away. Tanginang tigyawat!

Kodak moment

I hate looking at people’s photo collection. My idea of hell is looking at someone's family album. And as if staring at celluloid strangers wasn't torture enough, this nightmarish task is almost always accompanied by boring anecdotes and reminiscences that stretch to eternity. Parents are the worst offenders. They’re always shoving snapshots of their progeny in your face. Really parents, if I am ever possessed by a deep desire to go looking at photos of children I would begin by looking at pictures of my cats—not some unknown brat. Actually I wouldn’t mind so much if I was emotionally invested in the kid (i.e. my godchildren, kids of my close friends, kids I like). Generally though, looking at photographs is one chore that I try to avoid at all cost.

The worst thing about it is how you're expected to react to each and every boring photo. Which would have been okay if I could at least be honest. “And who is this ugly little boy? Oh your youngest?” or “It’s uncanny how much your boyfriend resembles Jejomar Binay.” I think it’s only fair. After all, it wasn’t my idea to look at their stupid pictures in the first place.

See, the trouble with most home photos is that they never tell a story. Nor do the subjects do anything remotely interesting. That’s why I think these photo pimps should take a tip from this unsolicited pic I received via email. Now this is a Kodak moment.

The cooking show for people who don't give a fuck

I woke up with a massive hangover and a craving for bacon and eggs. As I pondered on the wisdom of having a cardiac breakfast I suddenly hit upon a brilliant idea. Why not do a cooking show that features nothing but fatty delectables? I shall call it “Cooking With Cholesterol” and every week I will feature cholestilicious dishes like Homemade Chicharon Carcar Style (Carcar is a town in Cebu famous for its chunky chicharon which the locals cook in huge woks by the side of the road), Linguine & Pancetta Chunks in Heavy Cream, Bihod sautéed in Butter, Aligue & Garlic, and for the busy moms, Five-Step Lechon Cebu (Step 1: Slaughter good-sized pig; Step 2: Rub pig with mash of sea salt, garlic, lemon grass and star anise—make sure to get the stuff under the pig’s skin. You can also mix up the mash with water and inject the solution directly into the pig’s flesh; Step 3: Stuff the rest of the mash inside pig’s stomach and sew shut; Step 4: Dissolve atsuete in hot water. Baste mixture all over roasting pig using strips of banana leaves. This will give your pig that nice, rosy lechon glow. There are those who might prefer a blue- or green-hued lechon. I say, go wild! You can even have a rainbow-colored lechon for those “gay” nights with friends. Or if you plan to serve it at a children’s party why not deck your pig out in purple and green like Barney, or the red, yellow and blue of Superman. Just buy the appropriate food coloring and baste away! Step 5: Be creative and junk the tired apple-in-the-mouth garnish. Instead of an apple, why not put queso de bola or roast chicken (a two-in-one delight). Or how about a severed de leche head? You can call it Peek-A-Boo or Reverse Birth. Serve and enjoy!).

I imagine I won’t have a hard time finding sponsors for my show. Minola, Purefoods, Nestle, Magnolia, Monterey Meats, RFM, ScanAsia, Santi’s, Terry Selection and other purveyors of fat-rich food will be begging to be my sponsor. Then there’s Biguerlai, Kankunis and other slimming aids. The multinational drug companies, recently under fire for their greedy licensing tricks, can advertise all their outrageously expensive anti-hypertension drugs on my show. Heck, maybe even Vicky Belo, Marie-France and the Calayan Sisters will want to get in on the action too.

Hah! I’ll make a killing! (Uhm, so to speak.)

In time, maybe I can go into merchandising. Of course I’ll start off with a mascot, maybe a fat, jolly-looking heart which I shall call Angina. Then later I can expand to cooking apparel emblazoned with bon mots like “I survived my second triple bypass,” “Vegans are Satan’s spawn,” “Non-fat is for pussies” or “I ate three kilos of liempo, 17 chicken legs, a ham and two gallons of ice cream and all I got was a lousy stroke.”

Now if only I can find a network that’ll fund my pilot…

Kamote

I like kamote. That lowly tuber that’s ugly on the outside but sweet on the inside. For many Pinoys, its notoriety as a flatulence-inducing delicacy only adds to its charm. The kamote may be cooked in various ways: roasted over hot coals, boiled, fried like potato chips or boiled and steeped in a sugar and water mixture called minatamis na kamote. Since my family is Visayan, our kamote is boiled then topped with guinamos or fish paste. But the hands-down favorite way of cooking kamote is to fry it with brown sugar then skewer the bits barbeque style.

In the vernacular, kamote also means something other than food. To describe someone as “nangangamote” means that the person is clueless. I don’t exactly know the etymology of this expression but it’s normally used to describe students who cannot answer their exam because they failed to study for it.

Last week, I was nangamote big time. I went to a presentation knowing that I had nothing. I knew that I was going to have my ass handed back to me but I went just the same. Halfway through, I wanted to crawl out of the room in sheer embarrassment. As my friend used to say, “E bakit kaya hindi pa ako lamunin ng lupa?!”

It’s fun to eat kamote. It’s not fun being a kamote.

Single Repeat

A brilliant feature of digital technology is the “single repeat” function. I love to single repeat. In the bad old days before compact discs came along I would play and rewind a favorite track until the cassette was all but demagnetized. With compact discs or mp3s all you need to do is press the single repeat button and your music plays on forever.

But it’s not just songs I like to put on single repeat. I also single repeat movies and books and even food. When I was in college I ate garlic chicken everyday for an entire semester. I single repeat all three Godfather movies, The Great Gatsby (the book, not the movie. Parenthetical question: why do all film adaptations of this book suck? ), The Once And Future King, Somerset Maugham short stories, Tennessee Williams plays, PC Buyer’s Guide and Buy & Sell. Yeah and I single repeat mistakes too but that’s a different entry.

It’s compulsive behavior that’s sometimes triggered by a little innocent stream of consciousness thinking. Last night for instance, while I was chopping up olives for my spaghetti, I thought how fortunate it was that I found green olives instead of black; then the phrase “black and white ball” came to mind, which made me think of Truman Capote, which made me think of Holly Golightly, which reminded me of the line “I have this strange feeling that maybe the blueprints and my knitting instructions got switched. I mean it isn’t impossible that I’m knitting a ranch house.” Next thing I knew I was watching Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Again. For the millionth time.

Oftentimes it comes as a sudden craving. I crave books and music the way one would crave certain delicacies. It’s what compels me to drive to an internet café at one in the morning to download a remembered song. Or turn the house inside out to find a book just so I could re-read a certain passage. It’s fucking neurotic.

This afternoon, single repeat compelled me to drag down a biyahera bag full of books from the bodega-slash-bubong because I wanted to re-read this C.P. Cavafy poem, which I am posting here as an accessible digital copy so that I need never single repeat that stupid thing I just did.

(C. Day Lewis’ introduces the poem: “…And no less magical is this little poem called “The Afternoon Sun” by Constantine Cavafy. He was an Alexandrian Greek poet who lived on into this century. And in this poem he’s simply revisiting a room where he and his lover used to meet. But the poem is absolutely steeped in the deepest human loss and poetic feeling.”)

The Afternoon Sun

This room, how well I know it.

Now they are rented this one and the next

As business offices. The whole house has become

Offices for agents, and merchants, and Companies.

O how familiar it is, this room.

Near the door just here there was the sofa,

And in front of it a Turkish carpet;

Close by the shelf with two yellow vases.

On the right; no, opposite, a wardrobe with a mirror.

In the middle a table where he used to write;

And the three big wicker chairs.

At the side of the window was the bed

Where we made love so many times.

They must still be somewhere the poor old things.

At the side of the window was the bed;

The afternoon sun fell on it half-way up.

…One afternoon at four o’ clock, we parted

Only for a week…Alas,

That week became perpetual.