telenovela

One cannot ignore that I have been neglecting my blog. I have been busy with work, reading fiction and writing essays about them, and necking with SB (the significance of that statement will make itself apparent in a different blog entry). And because I no longer have an outlet, words reserved for narrative telling discovered a new escape route – email correspondence.

Since the invention of boundaries and air travel, the world’s population has been divided into two: 1) those who leave and 2) those who are left behind. Tricia, who’s a good friend of mine from high school, is part of that first group and is now residing in The Big Apple (I’m trying to revive the use of US city monikers. Watch out, Grossy – the Windy City is next.). This is my response to an email she sent me a few months back:

how are things? malamang masaya ka diyan. kwento ka na lang kung Mrs Bare ka na. two minutes na akong nakatitig sa monitor and i can't think of what to write. it's hard to recover the pieces of the lives we once knew - where does one start? we were used to having each other around, just a phone call or text away. now, we're just one ocean away. what do you say to someone who lives beyond your own milieu? whose voice and writing seem unfamiliar, alien to you as a result of chosen paths no longer diverging in a common tract of land called friendship? i can just imagine meeting you in a cafe after years of not seeing each other, and after the surge of excitement subsides we will find ourselves fiddling with the nearest utensil, staring blankly at the bottom of the empty coffee mug thinking why have i ran out of things to say. i don't mean to sound depressing, i'm just trying to address the inevitable.


first of all, who uses "milieu?"

and "second of all," I’m such a girl (and apparently a misogynist, too). Never knew I had a flair for the dramatic. I sound like Camille from Sana Maulit Muli – "Traydor ka, Jasmine! Traydor ka! Bakit mo inahas sa ‘kin si Travis? Bakit?" We know the repetition is for emphasis but I’d rather she translated the reiteration –

Bakit mo inahas sa ‘kin si Travis?

[pause]

Why?


(and to those who are wondering – this is not an embittered attempt to discourage any correspondence between the two groups mentioned. I welcome any queries regarding how I’m doing, etc. “Recovering the pieces of the lives we once knew” is as easy as writing in one’s blog. Wow. Fropound.)