twosday

where the heart is, where the limbs rest, etc

my parents care for their new house in a way i’ve never seen in the home where i grew up. they purchase furniture very carefully, scanning magazines for inspiration. the pops sweeps away cobwebs from the uppermost corners of the ceilings; the crevices of the bathroom and kitchen tiles are kept void of any dark smudges. the beds in the rooms are always made, covered in what feels like egyptian cotton. they’ve even given the new house a name – Shifting Breeze – after the street that it’s on.

staying here is like staying at a hotel, a model home, or with a distant relative.

there was one afternoon over the 10-day trip when i had space and time to myself, which is unusual since i live alone. i sprawled my books, computer cords, and legs across the coffee table in the upstairs loft, and took advantage of the surround sound stereo system. the house is perched on a hill, 15 miles from the strip, 15 miles from noise. from this perch, sitting with myself, i started to grasp what i think is the point of this new home: it’s like my parents are cultivating a new energy and identity.

if our nameless old house is an artifact of dad’s experiments in furniture-making, pock-marked by physical traces (the dishwasher that leans out when opened, the uneven sealing of former baseboard heat, taped-over cracks in windows) of the time my parents were getting by, then Shifting Breeze is a monument to a certain kind of perfection (making it, not just getting by), practiced and paved for over the course of 30 years. the gate around their new community like an antidote to 30 years of living two blocks from the freeway and a liquor store, on a busy arterial that i once ran into without looking as a 7-year-old and got spanked for it. the furniture sets reflect a more precise bourgeois aesthetic. see: the wine cellar/fridge gracing the corner of the dining room.

i’m with them on the new house because despite the pretense to perfection, i still see what makes it not so, or i see the work, effort, and error that goes into it. the inspiration for the new home comes from two-year-old magazines. dad props wood under the sofa bed to keep it from falling. and that wine cellar in the corner is apparently too cold, my french in-laws tell me, set by me at a frigid 55 degrees.

i like the way you merge

the lovely people of makipag make me want to write, make me want to write better.

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LA by number: 5, 134, 210, 2, 110, 10, 105, 405

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this will sound regionalist, but i mean it when i say that LA has the most competent drivers.

exhibit #1: the ratio of immaculate (non-dinged) cars to number of scary maneuvers attempted on the road. in other words, during my travels to other big cities like boston, nyc, and chicago, i’ve seen my share of dented and scratched cars. drivers in these cities either don’t care about their cars and/or don’t have enough know-how to drive them. maybe by dint of that socal car obsession, even the oldest cars in LA are cosmetically spotless.

exhibit #2: one of the most frightening aspects of driving is merging into traffic, especially in LA where the average speed on the freeway in the exit lane alone is probably 60 mph, the speed limit on the I-5 through seattle. in seattle, drivers seem to take ‘yield’ to mean ‘enter timidly, at a crawl; stop if you see car approaching; puttputtputt onto freeway when free.’

in los angeles, the freeway is a sight to behold. aside from criss-crossing highways and soaring, stacked interchanges, there’s this: on-ramps that feed into lanes that feed straight into the highway after a few hundred feet, leaving no time for hesitation. the unwritten rule is to floor it when entering the freeway, leaving it to cars already on the freeway to make their choice — floor it with equal vigor to beat you, or do the courteous (ungame?) thing and slow down for merging traffic. i’ve never seen cars in LA do what east coast drivers do, and what i’ve started doing — switch lanes to allow mergers time and space, clearly in fear of collision. call it an initiation to LA driving or a dare to recklessness: LA drivers move as if to say, ‘merge like an angeleno — fast, headlong, at near-risk — or don’t bring yourself on the freeway in the first place.’

when it works, it’s beautiful: cars in the left lane spaced a vehicle’s length apart from each other, matched to their right with a lane of alternately spaced cars. at the opportune moment — in the .25 mile stretch where the on-ramp becomes freeway — the cars in the right find their rhythm, their interval, their spaces, and in a delicate dance they nestle themselves into the nooks that open up just for them at just the right time. no puttering, no hesitation, no awkward pauses.

by the cut of your jeans

[imagine this was posted in january, because that’s when it was written]

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because i think one’s consumption habits (of culture, food, everyday necessities) are shaped and solidified in one’s 20s, and because these habits are our social faces, i’m trying to be more attentive to what i and others consume and where it places us. these two acts — what we buy and what we wear/use — are tethered to and are public iterations of our politics, class, geographic locations, and social affiliations. [for the record, i’d say i’m pretty firmly LA suburbanite; someone who wants to be politically left of center, but probably with more centrist tendencies than i think.]

when academics ‘read’ whatever it is they read — literature, history, cultures, the law, policy, music — isn’t this what they’re doing, at least in part? they map out synchronic and diachronic affiliations [’this is ____’s social class, they descend from ___, this is how they lean politically’], asserting their implications, making narratives about them, etc.

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LA A and i set out late for our thrift store shopping excursion, deciding only an hour or two ahead of time to go ahead with it [a big deal, since she lives an hour away]. we started local, and wended our way west toward LA proper, eventually ending up on melrose.

my inner surly shopper emerged by store #3, the salvation army. unlike the clean, well lit goodwill five minutes from my parents’ house, the SA store crawled with folks (it was 1/2 off day), was not as well organized (goodwill arranges clothes by type, spreads garments by color gradient!), and gave off slight whiffs of urine.

i can’t place the shoppers at SA that evening. there was a couple in their late 30s walking away from the fancy dress section; a woman who seemed to be searching for work clothes; a few old men perusing the bookcases. they could be folks in relative financial straits or cheap browsers like us.

in the narrow clothing racks, we chatted and flipped through hangers, made way for oncoming shoppers with polite smiles. in the middle of our ambling and rambling, i spied a speedy woman, making beehives through the racks even as she flipped through and grabbed clothing. she was very unlike the rest of the shoppers, she being dressed like an olsen twin with a waifish frame — boots, tight jeans maybe, a cowlneck top, sunglasses perched on her head like a headband. she’s one of those women you read about in fashion magazines who put their outfits together on a $15 budget at a place like SA, and you ask how. this is how: with shrewd eyes, quick hands, and a stylish man at her call.

—

while on vacation in sf, i swung by MLA, just because. this is the big nerdfest for literature and language scholars, and also where soon-to-be phds interview for jobs. i was hoping for glimpses of academic superstars, young faculty looking for an audience, and nervous ABDs pre- and post- job interview. i wanted to see my possible fate.

i didn’t see any academic superstars except in print, but i did get a lesson in academic/political affiliation and fashion/aesthetics. at the panel presented by the americanist section the audience was littered with what i imagine was the typical northeast small college english department in the 1950s: men in ill-fitting shirts and sweaters, sensible loafers on their feet. balding. women in sensible pantsuits. at the literature by people of color panel: dramatic coats, pops of color, pencil skirts, high-heeled oxfords.

one lesson: if i’m going to make it in this field, the wardrobe’s going to need an overhaul.

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i try not to — but do — judge people by the cut of their jeans, the length of their bangs, the distribution of their dollars.

i know enough to understand when aesthetic and consumer acts are choices versus when they’re what you do because of your location. we’re always in the latter, groomed in the path of whoever raised us [my parents: climbing [LA] suburban middle class], always participants whether we choose to or not, always enmeshed in the politics of our class locations and social circles. but at some point [especially, i posit, now in my 20s] we can consciously control affiliations and spending habits.

studies in devotion, home edition

st. therese is bright: sunlight, when seattle gets it, streams through the windowed wall on the short side of the building, better to reach families at the fountain during baptisms, of which there were three on the day i attended. three times, children were dunked head-first into the holy water fountain, emitting the most horrendous screams that make you wonder at the nature of that holy water.

the baptisms help explain the camaraderie at this church that day. so much hand-shaking, back-slapping, baby head-petting during all parts of the mass. the peace-doling portion lasted five minutes longer than usual, with people traversing across the church to give and receive peace, creating a din i’m unaccustomed to hearing in a catholic church. even without the baptisms, it’s clear that this parish is a social hub. me, i sat between two friends [of each other’s, not of mine], and spent a good part of the mass moving forward and back in my seat to accommodate exchanges of glances and words. it was warm and isolating at the same time.

—

this winter break, i came home to two of three parishes my family frequents.

we returned to st. phillips [cf this other post], not the usual parish but host to some of the most important events for the extended family, this time for my uncle/ninong’s funeral. our 7-family clan occupied less than 1/5 of the church, but it never felt so intimate, even at K’s wedding. i was seemingly exiled to the wing of the church that held the piano so that i could accompany the initially ornery singer for ‘ave maria’ and ‘amazing grace.’ [she let up once she saw me bawling in between songs.] but i knew everyone in the pews, i knew who was missing that morning because of work/distance and what details to remember so i could pass them on [cousin M cried. cousin R’s eulogy was unknowingly witty.], and i caught a reference to my family in the eulogy. afterwards, we hugged, gave peace and condolences, and caravaned in heavy rain to a military cemetery an hour away.

a week later i was up early again for simbang gabi at our usual parish, where my personal catholic milestones were marked. more dolor: the filipino priest gave a shoutout to his mother who had died the week before, embedded in a reminder of how pasko should be celebrated — “we sit together at christmas enjoying those with us, not knowing who may not be with us the next time.” some wet eyes, even if it was too early in the morning for tears. during the last ten minutes of the mass, pops and i rushed to the social hall to set the buffet and to prep the honey baked ham, realizing that it required some warming up before being served. oops. i love lucy-like hijinks ensued. the ham was eviscerated anyway, half-cold, 15 minutes later. folks were hungry.

i hear of simbang gabi’s around LA with dozens-strong choirs, a parole parade, tagalog mass, networked with other parishes. assumption’s stands on its own, and is cobbled together — with great love and as much care as they can give — maybe a month beforehand. the planning committee is populated with retirees, who also comprise the choir, who also cater the social, who also put the program together and photocopy, collate, and staple it the day before. i imagine this mass is anemic compared to the LA cathedral’s. i imagine an army of folks, mostly young people, in charge of the cathedral’s production. there’s charm, though, in the spirit of this simbang gabi put on by my parents and their catholic posse.

—

how i want to remember this winter break:

summer comes loudly

some summer notes, because i’m too lazy and all over the place to post thoughtfully, and because the summer’s running away from me already.

- whoever is in charge of the fleet foxes’ myspacage is the crazy. and i like it. [the page. the music - eh.]

- holy crap. why didn’t i ever think to mix watermelon juice with the spirits?

- a tale of two choices: the neighborhood block party vs. a jaunt to pdx?

- oddly felt some initial madison nostalgia during the first week of summer. and then i got over it, because i must.

- seattle makes good on its promise of temperate weather and gentle sun.

- this was LA during my visit: people of color; fatburger at 2am - complete with mariah carey sing-along and a 15-minute wait behind a shiny black bentley; hipsters of every stripe in silverlake; a tour of filipinotown; doctoral celebrations; appreciations of where i came from; a city in mourning for its home team; a close call.

a post soon, when i can organize my thoughts, on the textures of knowledge and why i can never do proper service to the philippines.

a lot of catching up to do

the engine on my ability to be social has reached its end, i think. charm, the grease of this engine and in low supply to begin with, has run dry.

at a party thrown by my cousin and her bf, i managed to avoid speaking to two childhood friends (among other guests) i hadn’t seen since middle school. when i voiced some concern over my lack of charm or social grace, especially with folks i hadn’t seen in so long, said my cousin, ‘well i guess you have a lot of catching up to do.’

i suppose. where does one start?

i didn’t start. i ended the night flipping through a family album on the host’s coffee table. it was easier to passively consume other people’s memories — with captions! — than solicit them 20-questions style and have to piece them together myself.

down at eagle rock

the latest family outing took us to eagle rock (which i used to confuse with fraggle rock) for lunch at goldilocks and grocery shopping at seafood city. little did i know that the westfield mall that hosts both is now a kind of unofficial hub for filipino happenins in the glendale-pasadena-burbank area. the goldilocks itself is a fil-am community center of sorts. our lunch stretched to almost two hours, with my mom connecting with the folks in both booths adjacent to ours. they exchanged the obligatory inquiries into hometowns, last names and maiden names, possible common friends and schools. these conversations weren’t too out of the ordinary, except that it’s been a while since i’ve been surrounded by filipinos only (well, filipinos who still have a vivid sense of and connection to the motherland) and i actually understood a good portion of what was being said. so, a different sense of familiarity, refracted by my time in madison i think. madison has had that effect on me in general since getting back to the west coast — refracting my experiences of formerly familiar and mundane places and interactions with old friends and family.

my attempts to speak to our server failed when i realized that it would probably take me five minutes to put together the sentences necessary to place an order or to even ask for more water. i can’t fossilize this hesitance to speak…

going to seafood city, though, was the crowning moment of the afternoon. the store is a full-sized supermarket, its shelves stocked with all sorts of filipino vittles. the seafood section is magical indeed: an array of fish, shrimp, shell fish, and squid laid out buffet-style in 4 or 5 aisles. still, we could have been in any american or even asian american market, but for these distinctively filipino touches:

along the walls of the market, where you might see giant posters of your average blonde or brunette american consumer being greeted by the checker who stands a few feet away, there is instead a giant poster of an elderly filpino man mid-pagmamano (a gesture of respect). the “salamat po” written above the exit of the store is a final jarring reminder of the intended patrons of the store. it’s validating, maybe even empowering in a strange way, to walk into such a vast space that is technically meant for all kinds of consumers but whose products and marketing collateral targets one’s own culture.

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the double bonus for the day: this evening the mom prepared sinigang and camaron rebosado. seafood city seemed to have inspired her.