The Price of Intimacy: Relatives, Romance, and Roommates

June 4, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Manila sunset from my new bedroom

The thick dust that carpeted the floor felt like hotel grade cotton when I lay on it carelessly. It was the second day of painting our newly rented condo unit, and much like the afternoon before, I was alone tackling the gallons of colors. I stared at the ceiling and the bright lime wall and tried to feel my arms. Two straight days of cleaning up and painting reminded me --- by aching severely --- that I actually had muscles in my arms. The two men whom I share the unit with were out of town by choice, and the two women were stuck at work. I was --- to sugarcoat it --- pissed. Why am I … [Read more...]

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A Sharp Memory

June 24, 2012 by 10 Comments
maskman sentai

It was a weekly event. Every Saturday morning, all the kids in the neighborhood, including myself, gathered at the living room of my grandfather's house to watch Maskman (a Japanese Super Sentai series similar to Bioman and Power Rangers). Just like every other kid there, I grew up in a poor family and my grandfather was the only one in the complex with a television set. I remember that the brand of the TV was Sharp. And that it was black-and-white --- oh I certainly remember that. While many households elsewhere were already using color TV sets, we watched a children's show which … [Read more...]

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The Promil Kid and the Bottled-up Secret

June 4, 2012 by 7 Comments
the_secret

The oil on the pan was barely heated as I was cooking lunch when I heard two voices coming from one corner of the kitchen. It was my now 8-years old nephew with Min-min, a second cousin and his constant playmate, talking about something that he was preparing. “Don’t tell anyone, Min-min,” said my nephew in an ironically loud voice. “This is a secret! No one should know.” “No one should know?” confirmed Min-min. “No one.” … [Read more...]

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The Vanishing Coins

December 1, 2011 by 31 Comments
the vanishing coins

Mystery solved. I intentionally left several P5 coins on the side table in my room, pretended to be asleep, and kept half an eye on them. For months now, I had always found myself looking for missing coins around the house. I entertained the idea that an unseen, paranormal force hiding inside our house's walls was responsible for the coins that seemed to disappear from where I left them. I even considered seeing a doctor because I thought my usually reliable memory was failing me. But that all changed when I decided to set up a trap to catch the culprit. After almost thirty minutes of … [Read more...]

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The Promil Kid and His Bull Story

July 28, 2011 by 8 Comments
promil kid bull story

Here's a video of the Promil Kid, my nephew, narrating what he had just seen on Animal Planet. He found the show compelling and entertaining enough that he was so excited to share with me the whole story. It was about a bull and hmmm... Actually, that's all I understood. All I heard was bull, bull, bull! I can only take so much bulls in a conversation. Somebody transcribe this thing and tell me what actually happened to the bull! Wahaha … [Read more...]

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The Promil Kid’s Love-Hate Affair with iPod

June 24, 2011 by 10 Comments
ipod touch kids

One of the things my nephew, the Promil Kid, loved about me was that I had an iPod Touch. At the time, I would always let him play with it since I have an iPhone and we would only meet every month anyway so I figured, "What the hell? Here, play, go." In fact, he spent more time with the iPod than me. Or even when we were together, he was still playing Angry Birds or Tap Tap Ants or Drop Chicken or whatever new game I had. So it wasn't a surprise that whenever I would come home (every month), the first thing he would say to me was "Tito, iPod." He probably loved it more than me. … [Read more...]

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Sometimes We Burn to Live

April 24, 2011 by 37 Comments
burn-pic yosh

Whenever I meet people for the first time, it always happens. When they start their sentence with "I hope you don't mind me asking but," I know they are going to ask about what happened to my left arm. Most of my online friends are not aware that I have a huge third-degree burn covering my left arm almost entirely. I usually wear a coat but whenever I ditch long-sleeved clothes, this prominent scar is hard to miss. It always steals the spotlight. "I got it when I was four," is what I usually respond with. I was a sheltered kid. When I was little, my mother would never let me step out … [Read more...]

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The Giant Disco Ball

April 14, 2011 by 17 Comments
This is a screen cap from the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still. Horrible remake but these balls look like the ones I saw when I was a child. Except it was smaller and it was green and red.

I've shared this experience with only a few close friends because I was afraid other people would think I was either a liar or a lunatic. But I swear to God this is true and this happened. My mother's eyes were glued to Charito Solis in the original Mula sa Puso teleserye when I left the house. It was around 7pm and I was waiting for my cousin Joj to meet me in front of our house for our nighty jogging. I was 11. It had been our habit to go out and jog along the road, passing three barangays, go back to where we started and then run another lap. We were both in grade school and our … [Read more...]

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Test Mistakes, Angry Birds and the Promil Kids

January 19, 2011 by 27 Comments
angry birds

It's 2011! A lot of things have changed. But I know of one thing that has not changed a bit --- the annoyingly cute antics of my niece and nephew. My nephew is now 7 years old and my niece 4. I was fortunate to have spent the better half of my holidays with them. The Good Cola My niece Natalya came home with her test results. She's currently the second top student despite being the youngest in class. My brother, her dad, was disappointed to see that she made a mistake in one of her exams. What bothered him most was that the item to which she gave the wrong answer was quite easy. The … [Read more...]

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The Promil Kids Hit Hong Kong!

November 16, 2010 by 12 Comments
promil kids hong kong 15

My mother doesn't travel. The farthest my mother had reached was Lucena City in Quezon. She had never boarded a plane or a ship. We used to be extremely poor. We literally experienced "magdildil ng asin." I remember eating just rice and cooking oil with a little bit of soy sauce for our full meal. But because my mother worked hard, our lives began becoming more comfortable. She supported us until my siblings and I finished college. And now that my life had been so good, I promised my mother that I would take her on a trip out of the country every year. Starting with Hong Kong. But this … [Read more...]

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