Has it been a week? My room is in crazy clutter. Bits and pieces of the past litter each corner. It needs cleaning, like my brain. My life. This bookshelf. I need to get rid of so many books. My infamous historical romances, my fantasies, my guilty pleasure. I used to take comfort in them before leaving for Australia. Like dark chocolate. Dirty, yummy, easy. I have not read a single one in a year. I found myself browsing Book Sale yesterday, but couldn't conjure enough enthusiasm. That comfort is over. All my photocopies are below. Journal articles, entire books. I need to come up with a 20 minute lecture on the European Union. Teaching demo for the Opus Dei on Tuesday. Gawd help me. I left my lectures and more journal articles in J's room. I would've brought them with me, but they were too heavy. A 20 minute lecture. It isn't all that bad, I've delivered monologues longer. I need to impress. Have I learned anything new in Australia? Yes. Not really.
My Klimt prints hang over my bed, sentinels standing guard while I sleep. I had bought them at one of the bouquinistes in Paris years ago. They are my sole comfort now. And my ciggies. I said Iwould quit on my birthday. Three weeks. Maybe next year. Gawd, I'll be twenty-eight. A year older, not necessarily wiser. I have not fully unpacked. My luggage lay strewn on the floor. Still stuff inside. When I find the will to clean my room, in two, three days, it will mean I've moved from this awful place. A week it has been. In limbo still. I am not fully home yet. All that I have left behind. All that is waiting for me here. I saw my best friend the other day, and her new husband, also an old college friend. They looked happy. And old. And settled. All that isn't me at the moment. I need to earn back the years I shed in Australia. I need to be properly cynical and angry again. About things other than myself.
On the way to Shaw the other day, I took the bus lane below the flyover near Galleria by mistake. Lost again. There was a young man who passed in front of the car, pedalling his trisikad furiously. In pursuit were Greenhills Barangay tanods. They were rough with him. We wondered if he stole the trisikad, still laden with black garbage bags. Two, then three more tanods came. The boy would not let go of his prize. I felt curiously detached, like I was dreaming the thing happening before my eyes. It is easy to avoid the unsavoury images of this city. One only need chase her blues away in our malls gigantesques. I was home. Everything old is new again.
Has it been a week? My room is in crazy clutter. Bits and pieces of the past litter each corner. It needs cleaning, like my brain. My life. This bookshelf. I need to get rid of so many books. My infamous historical romances, my fantasies, my guilty pleasure. I used to take comfort in them before leaving for Australia. Like dark chocolate. Dirty, yummy, easy. I have not read a single one in a year. I found myself browsing Book Sale yesterday, but couldn't conjure enough enthusiasm. That comfort is over. All my photocopies are below. Journal articles, entire books. I need to come up with a 20 minute lecture on the European Union. Teaching demo for the Opus Dei on Tuesday. Gawd help me. I left my lectures and more journal articles in J's room. I would've brought them with me, but they were too heavy. A 20 minute lecture. It isn't all that bad, I've delivered monologues longer. I need to impress. Have I learned anything new in Australia? Yes. Not really.
My Klimt prints hang over my bed, sentinels standing guard while I sleep. I had bought them at one of the bouquinistes in Paris years ago. They are my sole comfort now. And my ciggies. I said Iwould quit on my birthday. Three weeks. Maybe next year. Gawd, I'll be twenty-eight. A year older, not necessarily wiser. I have not fully unpacked. My luggage lay strewn on the floor. Still stuff inside. When I find the will to clean my room, in two, three days, it will mean I've moved from this awful place. A week it has been. In limbo still. I am not fully home yet. All that I have left behind. All that is waiting for me here. I saw my best friend the other day, and her new husband, also an old college friend. They looked happy. And old. And settled. All that isn't me at the moment. I need to earn back the years I shed in Australia. I need to be properly cynical and angry again. About things other than myself.
On the way to Shaw the other day, I took the bus lane below the flyover near Galleria by mistake. Lost again. There was a young man who passed in front of the car, pedalling his trisikad furiously. In pursuit were Greenhills Barangay tanods. They were rough with him. We wondered if he stole the trisikad, still laden with black garbage bags. Two, then three more tanods came. The boy would not let go of his prize. I felt curiously detached, like I was dreaming the thing happening before my eyes. It is easy to avoid the unsavoury images of this city. One only need chase her blues away in our malls gigantesques. I was home. Everything old is new again.
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