I am closing this blog because I can no longer maintain it. There is much lesser time to read books now. I haven’t read books in months. I can always choose, of course, to write “monologues” in topics that I feel the need to write about but I have a blog which already serve that purpose. I choose to maintain that blog. However, closing Excess Thoughts does not mean that I will stop reading books. I will continue to read books. I will continue to laugh and cry with each pages turned. To read lines over and over again until my eyes tire out.

Excess Thoughts is closing. This is it, for now.

Summer will soon say goodbye, I hope.

And this post should have been written right after the first rain of May.

But, like things that turn late and forgotten, here it is only after a week.

There is still that rush that came with raindrops hitting me on the face and arms after a long while. It is that squeaky feel of hurried footsteps in rain-soaked slippers as F and I grabbed shirts, pants and undies from the clothesline.

So, as we cramped clothes in semi-clutter at a shaded clothesline, we were smiling to the silliness of the rain. Clothes were a little damp from the sudden rain but that didn’t matter. Not with the cool breeze that came with it.

We thought it will never came. April disappointed us with its summer insistence and May surprised us with that rain.

It’s been doing us little favors since. A little rain in some afternoons and some clouds to shade the sun at some days. Just enough to cool it down when it gets too hot. Maybe, that’s all it can ever get this month.

Well, maybe, June will give us far better. Hopefully.

Anyway, I turned to give them a second look discreetly. You know, I find guys wearing scrub suits neat, maybe it has something to do with my perception that those in the medical field are very concerned about cleanliness and hygiene. It must be the reason why I always seem to find myself back in college usually hanging out with students wearing nursing uniform scrubs. But, I found these guys kind of different, their scrubs suits don’t look good on them; they look shabby on those. I had this sudden urge to tell them: “Suit up!” just like how Barney of How I Met Your Mother would say. Ehem.

So, since Internet has this way of influencing my imagination at times, I made a few clicks and found  a site offering loads of scrub suits that would surely fit anyone. And I’ve actually found a collection of men’s scrubs that would nicely fit those three guys. If I’d bump into them again, I might just be tempted to push them to buy scrubs from this site. Haha

And oh, maybe if I get to hang out with my college friends who are in the medical field, I might also just suggest that they consider this site as their next scrubs store.

Besides, the website has its own charms. Those quirky images were great. I found the models quite cute not only because of their scrub suits but more for their cute hats in multicolors.

Maybe, this is the effect of sanity break walks. Hehe.

At first, it was hard to understand where Jean Thompson’s Wide Blue Yonder was going.  Many of its chapters were devoted to Harvey a.k.a Local Forecast as the world is thrown into the phenomenon of Global Warming.  From time to time, chapters would lead to Rolando, a jack of all trades in auto theft and house break-in and about the trio Josie, Elaine and Frank  – a messed up and broken down family who had to look after Harvey.  It was only in the book’s final chapters that things started to clear up.  There was almost an unexpected ending but then, it wasn’t really as unexpected.

Elaine’s personal struggles with motherhood and divorce from a lousy husband, Frank, isn’t pretty and was never in any case, encouraging. Most of the time, she appears know-it-all to her daughter but she was always confused.  She is the perfect flawed mother a Universe can ask for: A human mother for a human daughter.   Josie or to Harvey, The Girl is rebellious and angsty.  She resents the boring Springfield life.  That certain boredom led him to a life obsessing over Mitchell Crook.  Josie claims to the righfulness of being young and beautiful , young and dangerous, young and impulsive, young and unreasonable all at the same time.  And for one so young, apologies were never almost part of the plan.

Frank is an absent father to Josie and always strives to be calm, cool and collected no matter how distressing and upsetting things become.  Like Elaine, he is at lost in building a healthy relationship with his daughter and always resorts to blaming Josie or Elaine for this.  For many reasons, Frank is never likable both as a father or as a person; he is detached, cold and unaffected.

For a long narrative that goes in-depth about human errors and failures, Wide Blue Yonder is both testimonial and an exposé about ordinary people and their personal struggles of making things right in a world where everything seems to go wrong with the weather and with simplest act of buying ice cream and stealing house keys.  Jean Thompson, however did not tell her story in pointless superhuman circumstances; each chapter is a story that tugs close to reality; one can almost taste and smell its bittersweet experience.

In the end, when they all meet at one sensationalized point, they realized that happiness is real. It was not as abrupt for the realizations to come but in an implied way, the book ends with a hope for new lives and new happiness especially for one who might just be too old to enjoy it.

Go there where it’s blue. Where it’s wide and blue.

It was all an accident. I heard about books being sold in Expressions and I went there just to see if there are good stuff. Turn out, I fell for Expressions’ marketing scheme.  My mind went like: “How come you’re not buying a book? It’s only P99 for two books!”.  So, I picked up two books and went home to read and laugh.

I read Inflating a Dog without any knowledge of the Peter Leroy series.  Inflating a Dog, by the way, is part of the 13-part series of Peter Leroy.  I don’t even know Eric Kraft existed before I read it. Forgive the ignorance.

Inflating a Dog is not one of those big stories and nothing big ever happened to the book.  But it was funny in an honest, new way of telling stories. You will be loaded of what blow, blow up, inflate, blown up and blowjob means. Slang is the name of the game.

What must have really hit me was Ella’s persistence and her I-can-do-this-and never-give-up attitude towards life. Ella, Peter’s mother, was that one character of the book that I kept applauding from start to finish.  Ella did not simply want to be a mother and a wife; she wanted to be a woman of her own.  Peter’s sweet and unaffected ways works like an air freshener in a stiff world as the book suggests.

The book’s ending isn’t even your usual “everyone should be happy” ending. It was an honest, feel-good, learn-from-life kind of ending which is both touching and encouraging.

The book has a lot that makes you laugh. Peter’s silliness and Ella’s impulsive nature brings a lot of laughs into the book.  And for one, Inflating a Dog even teach the science of keeping a boat from sinking.

Inflating a Dog is a light read. It is sensible and reflective. Get inflated too, read it.

So for all the things that I can write here, I’d better put the energies somewhere for a while.

With a new President who promised a lot in his inaugural speech, I hope he does the same – to put more his energies in more important affairs of this country and not just in issues of  power-display in blaring red lights he finds annoying.

I should be writing more. Ah,that will come later.  Things are to be done and that matters more.

The Look

Una kong napagtanto
Habang naliligo ka sa mga aandap-andap na ilaw.
At nakikipagpaligsahan ang mga busina sa iyong tawa.
Hinawakan mo ang aking kamay
At di ko naiwasang
Titigan ka.

Totoo pala.

May ningning sa iyong mga mata.
Bakit ngayon, wala na?

Mother-Daughter Clash

Hubad na naman ang langit,
Kung nagtakbuhan man ang mga tala,
Marahil natakot sa bigat ng iyong boses.
Ang latay ng bawat sigaw mo
Ay lalo pang pinaglalayo
Ang pagitan
Ng mga upuang ito.
Magkaiba nga tayo.
Ang hinahon ng aking pagpupumiglas
Ay hindi man lamang kayang pakalmahin
Ang iyong pagtutol.
Muli’t muli, bumabalik tayo
Dito.

Hindi na ako makapag-antay na
Sumilip ulit ang mga tala.

The challenge to persist more and persuade more. The challenge to reach the greater majority and make them understand what meaningful change means amidst pretence calls of change parroted by traditional politicians and socialist-democrats who seem to be more convincing to the regular masa.

How can Risa Hontiveros with the absurdly-made jingle “Magandang Laban” managed to get more votes than Satur Ocampo and Liza Maza whose platforms carry the very heart and aspirations of the masa and the farmers? How on earth did Akbayan managed to get votes higher than Bayan Muna or Gabriela?

And we simply need to round up to the basics of our theories to get the answer.

Media greatly influence the thinking of the regular masa. All over radio and TV, we saw how Noynoy Aquino was built up clean as a porcelain. No stains please, they tried to convince everyone. And truly, millions were convinced. These same millions were convinced, too, when Noynoy asked that they should also vote for all of his Senators. Risa Hontiveros was one of them. Risa Hontiveros is of course identified with Akbayan so that’s why the votes figured that much.

And it is not only to say that this is the single factor that made it all happen. The black propaganda pushed by Noynoy’s Liberal Party and the social democrats against Liza Maza and Satur Ocampo including progressive partylists that went on a national scale is also one culprit. All combined, it was a hard blow.

We were put in the defensive – a circumstance which up to now we still need to address. With fire and fiery. With dedicated aggressiveness.

And in the heavily contested Senatorial posts where incumbent Senators and sons of former Senators won, our theories are only further re-affirmed. The mainstream politics remain owned by the elites and the popular. And it also means that we still have to persevere in making the regular masa understand the meaning of “politics of change” in place of traditional and patronage politics.

There many are lessons to be learned in this election. In these times where our politics still reeks bad like halitosis, our tasks have only become greater. This election has only proved to us that:  We still have to reach more people – arouse, organize and mobilize them to embrace a change that does not only look and sound good  like commercials on TV but a change that is as meaningful as every vote that went for Liza Maza and Satur Ocampo.

Sadly, he will be the next president of this country and I can only imagine the worst with him taking that Malacañang seat.

He does not deserve to win the presidency. One should not become president because he is the son of two popular figures. One should not become president because people think that being the son of Cory and Ninoy will make him a great leader. One should not become President when he isn’t able to articulate his platforms and in the vaguest terms only talks about fighting corruption to end poverty.

But, somehow, more than 12 million Filipinos think he should be.  A tragedy, indeed. For as much as I hoped that the man with the blood in his hands will lose miserably and put to shame his all-too-assuming TV ads prematurely claiming victory, I have just been crushed. I believed, despite the survey trends that voters will be more critical and that the masa will junk this 9 years Congressman and 3 years Senator who has not passed a single law.

Yet he was nicely packaged.  A media outfit fanatically rallied behind him, making a spectacle of everything to project him as the cleanest, the most fit to lead while his biggest rival was painted in all colors of deceit and corruption. Never mind the clearer than day records of his inability and incapacity. Never mind that he refused to acknowledge and even take responsibility for the massacre in and for the farmers of the Hacienda Luisita. Never mind that he, too, is clothed in corruption with the SCTex deal.  All these were drowned in an almost fanatic mantra of him as the only hope because he is the son of Cory. He wears the yellow ribbon, therefore, he carries democracy and the people’s hope.

And for people who hunger for change, for people who have gone tired and sick of the Arroyo’s, they saw Aquino as the best alternative. That was the danger. Ang taong gipit kahit sa patalim kumakapit. A blinded hope, indeed.

And it is now certain that he won this elections.

Which reminds us all the more that elections can never be alone a venue for change. The elites own it and by all means, they will do everything to remain in control. Traditional politics is still the name of the game and people remain tolerant. Which only means that the tasks for politics of change and social change have only become greater.

Tonight, if not tomorrow, there will already be proclamations. And I know I am not alone in my disappointments. But, it is not here where it ends. The challenge has only become greater. For when the next president is the son of revered heroes and who by mistake thought of as a saint, it is a great challenge to go against the flow. It is a challenge to make known of the deception.

By all means, there will not be silence.

For if what elected the new president is the hunger for change, it is also with this standard that he will be measured by the people. The people can always take it from him anytime he doesn’t live up to the highest position of the land.  That’s for sure.

You are all communists.

You’ve been hammering anyone connected with the Left with these, again and again. So that listening to all of it has started to become like soap operas remake:  painfully annoying.

They are all communists.They should be wiped out.

You’ve loaded your trucks and your guns and your mole-faced President made sure the biggest chunk of the nation’s budget goes to the military and you’ve already had Oplan Bantay Laya I and II and yet, you still say the same thing: these are communists and they should be wiped out.  What’s taking you so long to wipe them out?

If these people you are calling as communists are so bad, why do they abound? Why is that you’ve already killed more than a thousand of them and forcibly disappeared hundreds, yet they’re still a number to boot when they decide to flood the streets? Why do they continue despite being haunted on all corners by armed men who are more than ready to arrest anyone at gunpoint for crimes my 14-year old cousin can easily figure out to be quack.

Still haven’t figured out that one, huh? You are unforgivably slow.

Liza Maza and Satur Ocampo whom your prime Butcher has repeatedly labeled as communists  and high ranking NPAs in HARAPAN last night, have and are taking part in the cause of many ordinary Filipinos. They have joined rallies under the heat of the sun and just like them have been physically hurt,one way or the other by shield-and baton-clad law enforcers. They, too, have suffered under a crooked justice system just like many other too-poor-to-pay-for-a-lawyer citizens.  They have supported student calls against tuition fee increases. They have joined the workers demands for decent wages and job security. They took part in the farmers’ call for genuine land reforms. They do not simply sympathize, these people you are labeling as communists have taken the Filipinos’ hearts by championing their issues inside the House and in the streets.

And what do the Filipinos think of you? Kotong kings. Corrupt military officials. Thieves dressed in suits and barong tagalogs. And this whole time, while you’ve been throwing accusations at them, your mole-faced and Star-Margarine-deprived President has become so far the most unpopular president this country ever had. While you’ve been chanting anti-communist sentiments, harping about them anytime you get the chance for a media interview, you remain corrupt and mercenary in the eyes of the public.

As you hammer accusations at them, you only prove that communists are pro-poor. You only make it clear that to champion the rights of the poor means to earn your ire and your crazy communist labeling. You are mercenaries and butchers, you hear no reason. So it is pointless because whether they are really communists or not, you will hunt them. You will continue to arrest and torture them including women and children.  That is why, you only help prove the point that maybe, in this society run by mercenaries and butchers who have complete disregard for the law, the revolution being waged by the communists and the NPA is only right.

You coldly justify extrajudicial killings like mercenaries that you truly are. You tell outright lies. You claim that victims are communists anyway, and therefore,deserve to be tortured, burned alive and riddled with bullets like chickens running for dear life and when you are lambasted for these, you cry foul: Why only us? Why not the NPA?

Why not the NPA? Regretfully, we still have the stomach to claim this government as our own. A government which should be implementing the laws and protecting our rights. Besides, you are accountable and if you’re being criticized for horrible things you did, you do not point the blame to another because you are pat of the State. You are in the government. You are supposed to protect your people. Torture is illegal. More than a thousand have been killed without any proven guilt.  You have decided for their lives as if their being tagged as communists deserve the brazenness of the killings. But what are expected of butchers and mercenaries?

You only convince more and more people that being labeled as communist is far better than being nicknamed Butcher. You make being a communist so right.