Caffeine Sparks, who is in my Favourite People in Cyberspace list, has given me the mission to reveal 8 random facts about myself. So, to celebrate the new landline in our new flat (meaning dial-up is now possible, and adsl is on its way), I’ll bore you all.
FACT 1. When I was in Kindergarten, the nun in charge of our class, Sister Maria Mercedes, suggested that I be transferred to a “special school.”
She gently suggested this to my mother when, after a week of classes, I was still crying nonstop during the entire 3-hour class. When I say nonstop, I mean nonstop. According to my mother, there was not even a period of sniffling in my crying marathons – just pure, 100% wailing and bawling. I have already revealed in a previous post that a doctor had given me baby sedatives in the past, so this shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone.
My mother, who was a Barbarian one of her past lives, was royally insulted at Sister MM’s suggestion. “ARE YOU CALLING MY CHILD ABNORMAL???!!!” she had hollered, her face inches away from the terrified nun. Sister MM tried to explain that she wasn’t calling me abnormal, but that she was concerned that my crying could be a sign that I wasn’t ready to mix socially with other girls my age. It resulted to an exchange of insults (“If you can’t control your child, then I suggest, Mrs. B, that she be examined by a doctor, because a child who cries that much…” and “You call yourself a soldier of God???!!!”) that ended up in the Principal’s office, where both parties grudgingly shook hands on it.
Anyway, eventually I stopped crying, which made normal, and peace reigned in the section “Kinder Dama de Noche” for the rest of the year.
FACT 2. I used to eat chalk, erasers and air fresheners.
But I was really young then.
I was around 6 or 7.
It was the 80′s.
But I don’t mean that everyone in the 80′s ate chalk.
And in my defense, I only ate the red or pink ones.
FACT 3. I paid a jeepney driver 100php to bring my bike home.
We had been smoking pot that afternoon and well into the evening, which led to the bizarre purchase of my friend’s “Japanese bike”, one of those big bikes with a basket by the handlebars (it is not actually a Japanese bike, but a Holland-style bike manufactured in Japan). I happily forked over my money to my friend, said goodbye, then started home in a hazy cloud in my new bike. Five minutes later I realised that the wheels didn’t have any air in them, and that the rubber interior was beyond repair. After laughing hysterically about the problem, I then bribed the driver of a passing jeepney to take me and my bike home.
FACT 4. A dwarf reduced me to tears by calling me “pandak” (shorty)
He was the neighborhood kanto-dwarf, and a homeless one at that. The Church and the neighborhood sari-sari stores were his tambayan. He was also a raging alcoholic who grew into a monster of frightening proportions when he had had several bottles of San Miguel in him.
I was making a call from a sari-sari store since my sister had been on the phone for hours. It was purely bad luck that the Neighborhood Kanto-Dwarf was seated in one of the store benches, well into a drinking session with himself. Naturally I became his target, and he started hooting at me. “Hoy, pandak! Hahahah! Ang liit-liit mo, umuwi ka na! Ang tagal mo sa telephono! Umuwi ka na!” (Hey, Shorty! You’re so small, why don’t you go home? You’ve been using the phone for quite some time now, go home, shorty!)
You would think that a man whose growth had been stunted would have more insight or compassion. I tried to ignore him, thinking, “You’re the Shorty, so shut up! It’s perfectly normal to be five feet tall at nineteen. So what if I’m not that tall?” But soon afterwards the sari-sari store scene started to get rowdy (the owner of the store trying to shoo Kanto-Dwarf away, passers-by stopping to watch, Kanto-Dwarf threatening to throw bottles, etc) so I ended my phone call and hurried home, tears threatening to fall.
Ah, the irony of it all. It kills me to this day.
FACT 5. I avoided my dog for days because he scared the beejeezus out of me!
I was sitting in the living room one evening doing my homework. There’s not too much light that comes in our living room, thanks to the brilliance of the architects who built the house, so at dusk it’s a creepy place. Zorro, our dog, walked up to me and then sat facing the couch I was sprawled on, and then started barking at the empty space next to me. Being a total scaredy-cat, I kicked Zorro away and ran to open lamps. Zorro came back and started barking again. I avoided him like the plague for the next couple of days. Do you think dogs can see ghosts?
FACT 6. I’m interested in anything World War 2.
iThis is something that has been passed on to me by my father, who has tons of books about the Second World War – everything from autobiographies, war plane books, war tactic books, anything from Japan to Palestine to Poland, from the madness of the National Socialists to the heroes of the Resistance. He used to tell amazing stories about the WW2 whenever he would pick me up from school and while stuck in traffic.
FACT 7. I bite my nails.
When I was younger my mother used to put drops of Tabasco on my fingertips to stop the habit, but it never really deterred me.
A few years ago I used to nail polish to discourage nailbiting, but somehow my fingernails get itchy when sporting polish, so the plan doesn’t really last for more than a few days, a week at most.
FACT 8. I animate inanimate objects.
Proven by my affection for my robot Mahmud or my plant Bruno, both having personalities courtesy of my imagination.
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I’ve just reread this. Jesus, I sound like a psycho.
Currently listening to:
The Flaming Lips
Transmissions from the Satellite Heart
