Escape is on my mind

Every night for the last week, I stretch the night by refusing to sleep. Pulling the blanket over my head, I hold off the new day. I can’t believe that two weeks of my holidays are gone. And all I have left is two more weeks. In March, my exhausted body felt that this break would never come. Now, that it's here, it feels too short. The days are shrinking.

Lately, I find myself in new roles. I had to talk to my female students about positive body image when I over heard a group of girls say, “I feel blotted…You look fat……..We look fat.” I felt that it was my responsibility to interject. I talked to them about being positive, loving their body shape, and that cool girls don’t put each other down. With their eyes, they stamped OLD on my forehead. Old in that sense that I have no clue.

I foresee my nephew attaching this same label on me when I speak to him. Something I’ve been putting off for the last week. My sister asked me to talk to him since I pay for his university tuition. She feels that he would listen to me. Like most teenagers, he slacks off with his household chores. This isn’t a big deal, but to his mother it is huge. Last week, she kept saying that he lives in the Philippines, and there’s no room for error if he wants to survive. I haven’t made the connection between household chores and surviving. But somehow, I’m an adult figure that needs to say, “Smarten up.” A hard role since I’d seen him only twice. Sending cards, letters, and showering him with gifts when I come for a visit is the only relationship we’ve ever had.

This role of being responsible to and for young adults feels foreign. I’ve been responsible and accountable for my own life for as long as I could remember, but being a role figure feels matriarchal. I find my shoulders droop with the weight of responsibilities.

politics in a pitcher

Doolan yells at me each time I ask him to translate a Spanish word.
“You should know that de Leon. It’s a common word, de Leon.”
He likes to repeat my last name. A habit I haven’t figured out. The last time we got drunk he told me that Filipinos are Asian anomaly. And that we are not really Asians. And that we are a strange breed.
“If we are not Asians, what are Filipinos?” I questioned him.
“I don’t know. You should know where you’re people are from. Geez, don’t you know your roots.”
“Well, not really, I thought you could help me.”
“If you don’t know. How am I supposed to know?” He barks at me.
“You say Filipinos are not Asians, is it because my archipelago is run by actors and pop singers?”
“You’re country is run by soap opera stars?”
“Yup, all seven thousand islands. From Luzon to Mindanao: mayors, councilors, senators, governors, and presidente are actors. Wait, except Rocco. He’s the only exception. He’s the minister of education.”
“You mean were actors.”
“Don’t interrupt! For punishment, I will steal your beer. I mean, it will cost you a beer. Stay in the present tense Doolan, they are actors”
“Son-of-a-bitch de Leon. You emptied the pitcher.”
“Well that’ll give you a reason to go up and talk to her again.” Doolan has a crush on the bartender. He refuses to order from the server and gets up to the bar to be close to the curly red hair English major.

what does it mean? pls recommend

Yesterday, I was shopping at a trendy clothing store on Main Street when a sales clerk with Buddy Holly’s glasses used the word humid. The word humid registered in my head and I paused. My impulse was to correct him. I felt like telling him that he misused the word. It wasn’t humid. It was chilly. The wind was fat and cold. It can’t be windy, chilly, and humid at the same time. Or can’t it? Humid implies heat, doesn’t it? I didn’t say a word. I smiled and continued sifting through the sale rack. But, the whole time I was at the store, my mind was on the word humid. For me, it is connected to summer’s heat and the taste of the rain in the air. Yet, Vancouverites with their northern relationship to the ocean gave it a different meaning. They use the word to describe the relatively high level of water vapor in the air. The logical side of me agreed that air saturation varied on temperature. However, the Prairie Brown Equator in me refused to change my word association. Humid will come after the adjective hot. Hot, and humid. Yes, that’s the order it shall remain. It can’t be cold and humid. Hot and humid, in that exact order, anything else is absurd.

Speaking of absurd, I’m reading Catch 22 by Joseph Heller. This is one my favorite parts:
Major Major had been born too late and too mediocre. Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them. With Major Major it had been all three. Even among men lacking all distinction than all the rest, and people who met him were always impressed by how unimpressive he was.

Now, that I have a break before summer session, I want to read books that are hilariously absurd, magical, surreal, and carnivalesque. The more twisted things are the more I find them close to the truth. I want a different reality, so tell me what you’re reading. And, tell me why I should read it.

paolo's visit