Yearly Archives: 2006

Family Tied

Over ten years ago, I lived at my aun­t’s house for about four months in the sum­mer. Much of my mater­nal fam­i­ly was vis­it­ing from Hong Kong, so every­one stayed there as a cen­tral loca­tion.

One day my par­ents had a blow-out. It was triv­ial, as always. As a result, from my mom’s side of the sto­ry, he went out with anoth­er woman that night. From his side, my mom tried to kill him with a steak knife. It cut his fin­ger to the bone when he was defend­ing him­self. The next day, with swollen eyes and a weak voice, my mom showed me the yel­low bruis­es down her arm. They had to be pho­tographed by the police as evi­dence before they healed. Two sub­poe­na’s lat­er and they were bet­ter than new, for the next few months at least until the next fight.

This is the last mem­o­ry I have of my aun­t’s house. I haven’t been back since. Not until this week­end.

Now every­one from my mater­nal side is here, all my mom’s sib­lings and their respec­tive fam­i­lies. It start­ed out as an act of com­mis­er­a­tion, to help her out dur­ing the divorce. Aunt, uncle, and son, aunt, uncle, and son, aunt and uncle. And then there’s me, with my mom. Without father. The only bro­ken fam­i­ly.

At first I think it’s just a coin­ci­dence. My aunt and uncle have the same vac­u­um clean­er that we had, the same piano, the same brown cowhide cor­ner sofa. And then it clicks. Since the divorce, my mom sold the house after buy­ing out my father of the con­tents. Everything is stored here until she moves into her new house, from the base­ment to the fam­i­ly room, from the kitchen to the bath­room.

My child­hood is strewn across every floor. The fam­i­ly pho­tos. My old fin­ger-paint­ed, art­work from ele­men­tary school. My dad did­n’t want any of it.

I need to get out of here.

I need to get the fuck out of here.

Carlo The Crook

Edit: Carlo has tak­en down his site. I’ve put up a cached ver­sion. Thanks to every­one for the sup­port — goes to show that a voice can count for some­thing on the inter­net.

Carlo, who lives some­where in Metro Manila and some­times, not most of the time, in Pangasinan, Philippines, has stolen from me. There are oth­ers who steal my work, but this is usu­al­ly the pic­tures I take, which they use as back­grounds for their own sites (most com­mon­ly the star­ry sky at Bancroft). I try not to take offence to this; the file sizes are com­mon­ly small, so it does­n’t make much of a dent in my month­ly band­width. There are also peo­ple like Sophia, who has made her pres­ence known to me, and uses my words every so often in her own writ­ing as a flat­ter­ing ges­ture.

Carlo is dif­fer­ent.

He’s tak­en one of my entries and passed it off as his own.
Word for word.

This entry, which I strug­gled days to write, into which I poured my heart, was post­ed on his blog a day after mine. He did change the title, although I think this hard­ly ame­lio­rates his actions. He also used my Petal Game pic­ture (per­haps with­out notic­ing my water­mark in the low­er right-hand cor­ner), as well as a line from my post inspired by Eternal Sunshine, for a dif­fer­ent entry.

It sad­dens me to think not of how eas­i­ly some­one can steal things on the inter­net, but how will­ing they are to do it. I can only won­der how many oth­er peo­ple have stolen from me. Lorelle, who offers some great points on what to do if some­one steals your con­tent, sug­gests open com­mu­ni­ca­tion, in com­bi­na­tion with as a let­ter of cease and decist. And while I’m in com­plete agree­ment with this, I felt that for the first time I should write about it instead, to make it pub­lic, so that oth­ers may be aware of their own works. There are peo­ple who will quote with­out ref­er­enc­ing. There are peo­ple who will take with­out return­ing.

Because what’s the point of blog­ging, when one’s words aren’t one’s own?

Autumn Recall

Fall approach­es. The trees have yet to shift their colours along the spec­trum, but the tem­per­a­ture has begun to drop. Even when the air is calm it’s a play­ful shiv­er down the spine.

One of my favourite things to do around this time of year, before I quit, would be some wake and bake to start the day. After smok­ing a joint, I’d open the win­dows, turn up the music, and let the breeze drift inside. Sometimes I would go for a walk with my iPod before the sun ful­ly showed itself. When the beat was right, the hard­est thing to do was not to move my body to the music, to groove embar­ras­ing­ly, and grind and sing and twirl.

With enough weed in the lungs, any­one will dance.

I won’t say that I don’t miss that lifestyle, because it was a way I could view things from a dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive. My thoughts would run freely on those ear­ly autumn walks. Music would sound bet­ter. Girls, cov­er­ing up in sweaters and long sleeves, would look nicer. It was a pre­scrip­tion I would need every week.

The expe­ri­ence isn’t the same until it’s this time of the year. Smothering sum­mer heat dulls the sens­es. Winter over­stim­u­lates them into sobri­ety, and even after a full bowl, all one can feel is cold. It’s only in the fall, in the per­fect weath­er, that brings one to ones’ sens­es. The green air, full of that cold con­crete smell, gives a rush to the head.

Until I walked out­side this morn­ing, with !!! pound­ing in my ears, I nev­er thought I could feel this way again.

The approach of fall has brought this back to me.

To Steep

Thumbnail: Bacon grease

Thumbnail: Breakfast

Thumbnail: Dolly's milk treat

All true tea lovers not only like their tea strong, but like it a lit­tle stronger with each year that pass­es.

—George Orwell

On Saturday morn­ings I wake up a lit­tle past sev­en, no mat­ter how late I was up on Friday. Get dressed, check the mail, read the news, go upstairs to cook break­fast in a pan of grease. Everything is timed per­fect­ly. The toast is start­ed two min­utes before the eggs are bro­ken into the pan, but only after the bacon is done. The tea starts steep­ing two min­utes before that. Everything is ready and warm with­in 25 min­utes.

Dolly gets a treat on the week­end morn­ings: a bit of Fancy Feast, or half-and-half mixed with water. Cats are lac­tose intol­er­ant, so they can’t drink straight milk, but they’re drawn the fat that their noses can smell.

Bacon, bread, egg, bacon, bread, egg. I eat my break­fast in order, going clock­wise around the plate, but I always save a few sips of tea for the end. Even though I’ve giv­en up the Hong Kong style milk tea, Orange Pekeoe is an appro­pri­ate black leaf sub­sti­tute, round­ing out the meal.

It’s a lit­tle rit­u­al that keeps me sane. At the end of break­fast, sat­is­fied and full, I can reflect and recharge, down to the dregs.

Every year, as I grow old­er, I find that I let my tea steep a lit­tle longer. Maybe life has got­ten a lit­tle too com­pli­cat­ed, and I need the tea as a dis­trac­tion, or per­haps life has become too sim­ple, and I need the com­pan­ion­ship of a rich mug to stim­u­late me.

Strange how a teapot can rep­re­sent at the same time the com­forts of soli­tude and the plea­sures of com­pa­ny.

And I’ve nev­er need­ed this more than I do now.

The Beginning To The End

This was the week­end we first met.

The first time we kissed. The first time we held each oth­er. The first time we slept with arms entwined, bod­ies bare and buried under the cov­ers.

It was before the snow melt­ed on the verge of spring, when I would open the win­dows to dry the sweat from our skin.

I put on a song that made me cry, because she said that it turned her on, and with the tears welling up in my lids, we stared into each oth­ers’ eyes.

From the moment we touched, there was nev­er any awk­ward­ness. Only a com­plete trust, a com­fort­ing famil­iar­i­ty, as if we’d known each oth­er for years, a gen­tle nuz­zle of the nose from my baby-faced doll.

And now it’s over.

Someone who saw this video sent me this very touch­ing let­ter about her sto­ry of rape and recov­ery.