Arctic Beetle

The past fourteen days ended quite too rapidly and I don’t know if I’m accounting them in such manner because I have mostly caught my Zs way ahead of my usual 1-2 am sleeping time or it’s just that when faced with an ill situation that leaves me agape and surprised as Dora and Boots when Swiper is, for crying out loud, finally in the range of their sight, everything seems to have been hit by VLC’s speed up option. To say that those two weeks was a roller coaster ride is yards away from the appropriate description I want achieve and not to mention, being inept in using metaphors and unfair to roller coasters that fancy me. Had I written a version of this post on every day of last week, this would have several variation in its concluding paragraph and the primary emotion it would want to suffuse. My fingers are crossed that what happened today is a definite ending to my potential Maalaala Mo Kaya entry.  What took place will be condensed as much as possible and narrated hereinafter.

So it is no longer a hypothesis and is a proven theorem that my sisters are luckless in the love department. Maybe not entirely but if they happen to be lucky, there is something in that luck that is also being unlucky. If you cannot pin the idea down, then how is “a guy whom you love so much, complete with the falling royal red hearts, revealing to you that he’s been divorced twice and has four spawns” to explain that? Guess what, I’m revealing you’s antecedent in the wrong sequence: my sister who’s desperate to get married. Flame me not ’cause how else would you describe someone who officially affirms that she and her suitor are together after two weeks of chasing and who forcefully wants the wedding on May, even getting to the point that she had us believe that it was the guy’s idea originally?

To sum up the incident from two weeks ago, with her narrow mindset that’s good enough to be considered close working at its best, she eloped.. not with Dagoberto but with her notion that until the time he steps on the Philippine shore, he would support her with his 150 dollars whose frequency at which they would come God knows what. Either she is too fed up with her self-deprecating thoughts or too brilliant to tell her friends that we beat her just to sway their sympathy and win the comfort of their homes. As narrated by my mother herself, she went forth with a smile and a hint of scorn on her face.

She wasn’t home for quite some time and so was my mother’s usual self after being upbraided by my sister for not gifting her a laptop, for entering her room when she doesn’t want her to, for scolding her back when she was still tameable and simply for being her mother — okay, I just made the last one up but all of them allude to that, don’t they? No wonder her eyes were turgid from all the crying. And to be honest, as much as I wanted to show my sister that my life does not overlap with hers, I did shed some tears too after witnessing our mother’s self-worth decrease like the coordinates of a half-life graph.

Last week, for the most part it, was persuading her to come back home, to my displeasure. Hours ago, she finally went back with traces of hunger on her shrinking belly and her bullheadedness still present. But that’s okay because there is nothing more comforting than seeing my mother’s relief upon getting the household semi-tidy before my father’s arrival on the 28th and heart-warming than the thought of gathering everyone’s physical presence (except my eldest sister’s) on the first day of 2010. Also, I am happy that I no longer have to pat my stomach and have it suffer small servings of food intended to be my breakfast, lunch and dinner because apparently, there is no more reason for my mother to trim down the production of quality food in quality amount.

Just now, for the lack of something interesting or amusing to write about for the past two weeks and for the need to brush up my writing for it to be creative enough for that Creative Writing class, I’ve decided to chronicle my sister’s journey to the Ring of Fire — no not yet, to the Island of Love at least. She should thank me for doing this series of posts as this will serve as her own time capsule of the digital age, something she can look back on in the years to come. (I read that freaking line a lot from freaking blog introductions and it’s freaking jading just like how jading it is to see three freakings in one sentence.) The only thing I am maintaining from the second sentence before this is “She should thank me” and that’s because I am giving her a glittery spotlight in my blog. Blame hormonal imbalance for my cockiness and irritability.

Anyway, my sister and her boyfriend have decided to get married in May next year — the same month they first get to meet each other. Very crazy, I don’t deny it, but the mother of the fellow argues that with his son’s age approaching 44, he has already wasted a lot of time.. so yes, shotgun wedding is the way to go. A brief overview of what the situation will be like in May: my dad is in Saudi Arabia, my eldest sister is in Japan spending the last two months of her one-year contract there and I, on a completely unrelated note, have a longer hair by then. Two family members missing and under 28 days, he has to meet all of our relatives in Quezon and Bulacan, get to know my sister personally, go out on a date with her, fix my sister’s Visa and passport, make the necessary preparations for their wedding and finally, the wedding itself. Let me repeat, 28 days. Maybe he knows how to time-bend.

Of course, my parents and I disagree with this. They have seen what my sister was like to his first boyfriend Emil and just a caveat, it was utterly disastrous. The first time they met, everything ended and from what I observed, it was all due to the long and pointed chin the guy has and the comfort it provides when he doesn’t have anything to reply to my sister’s blabbing. What are the chances it wouldn’t happen again with his Dominican? Not that I have anything against men with black complexion and polygenic inheritance itself, but I know my sister, she likes men who are doing pretty good in the looks department. Let’s see.. I probably got it from her.

Since they are more than sure that in the next seven months nothing, no one and no deity will stop them from “loving each other so much” (she said this herself), she finally made up her mind to lay out the details to my dad — the final gavel. My dad told her to have the guy e-mail him himself but the message got lost in translation from the English to the Deaf English; hence, she gave my dad the guy’s email. C’mon, who ever heard of a father getting on the good side of his daughter’s suitor? After the haggling between my parents and my sister that lasted for a day and a half, it has been settled that May should be mostly spent on them trying to know more of each other and the wedding being jostled to December of next year. Much much better, I say.

As they used to remark in Filipino soap operas, abangan ang susunod na kabanata.

PS: True story.

Three years agone, just when I hast germinated a deathless ardor for online games, my sister likewise exhibited fancy for chatting — the kind which involves web cams, chat rooms and equally lonesome people. And those with a lot of time to dispense either because they don’t have a job or they are not allowed to go out of their homes except when it is a Sunday, or both. My sister belongs to the last, possibly since she’s a deaf-mute but believe me, I decline to take it that way. The million dollar consequence of such set-up: the usual dispute about when someone should use and more importantly, who should use the PC, only to be terminated by my eldest sister’s claim of her throne. With the arrival of the laptop, things were worse the year after particularly due to the lack of a pacifier and my mom’s forthcoming menopause which tends to ramble on why we should sleep by 12 midnight on the dot. For information’s sake, I never complied.

I’d like to believe that the newest usage schedule we have developed for my semestral break caters us both the maximum utility. Zilch afternoon usage for Photoshop, for streaming videos related to Korean boy bands and whatnots, but with unparalleled assurance incurred from the fact that I won’t be taken out of my comfort zone from evening to morn. All these fell into place due to my sister’s newest boyfriend named Dagoberto. I know the name is completely unnecessary and should have been withheld, but really, I find it rare and.. funny. They just met a month ago and by now, it should have been rather obvious that this fateful meeting under the beaming sun (I’m trying to make it sound very fairytale-esque despite the prince charming’s impenetrable-sounding name), was all due to video chat rooms and the software called Camfrog. Is it me or IRL relationships don’t work for both of my older sisters? Anyway, more on that next week.

While on the threshold of dying of boredom brought forth by our family’s strict abidance to Sabbath that calls for a 24-hour no-PC no-outings break from Friday to Saturday, my sister resolved to be in good terms with me, at least for an hour. Frankly, it’s getting tiring to get into arguments with her just because I look stressed out and mad at something, which she immediately takes to be her. As the first step to reconciliation, we had a candid and casual talk. Fine, a heart-to-heart one. She told me she wanted a boyfriend and mind you, this happened before I saw her typing some lines like “I love you.” and “Dream of me.” and before she was forced to admit that she’s in a relationship because I told my mom what occurred before my two eyes. I’m a sumbungera, yes.

As an added insight to what kind of conversation ensued the next minutes, she also stated that Filipino men are dumb and stupid. She doesn’t want to fall for one anymore for they are like what she said… dumb, stupid and last but not the least, they suck at relationships. As much as I’d like to agree and uphold the superiority of the women race, I also beg to differ with that hasty generalization. I am lacking in sign language skills so I wasn’t able to say this to her: Foreigners are no different; they can be worse — much, much worse. In an international online game I used to play, a random chap asked for my nationality. I said “I am a Filipina”, and he immediately retorted, “A domestic helper?”. My ego received a 1000-hit combo and I am stopping now because I might fill this post with profanities. I hope my sister’s Dominican is not among the bad species of foreigners. As for me, I think I will be happy with a local man and a great deal happier with a Korean idol.

I wish you all the best, dearest sister.