Spending time with me may, at some point, entail me taking a moment from a current conversation, and point out something that had just occurred. Of course, this is peculiar because of the mere fact that I just *had* to interrupt a conversation that I myself am most likely involved in just to point something out. A second reason is that whatever I point out is highly peculiar to begin with. This has reached a point that has caused many a friend to exasperate: Where do you observe these things, Pammu? Simple. It just happened around the corner. ADD must be settling in.
Observing things have always been a compulsion and it’s a compulsion that seems to have begun when I first arrived here from Adak. There was a lack of side walks and white children. Gates seem to cover houses like they all had proverbial dirty laundry. These gates seem to keep neighbors from being seen or indicate that they don't ever want to be seen or share the lawn. Green currency was no longer coming out of my mother’s wallet. There were more jeeps in Angeles, more so than there were cars. Trash lie indiscreetly on the ground. Day light looks like an overexposed photograph.
Never mind the absence of snow. The obvious is so overrated.
Tonight was no different. On my commute home, I wondered about the woman who sat next to me: her hair smelled like she had finished her shower some 30 minutes ago judging from how it looks lightly damp from the way it securely rests on her back and how she smells like Palmolive. Why did she take a shower and why is she going out at 10 pm, Laguna-bound most likely? I felt like my evening walk through Alabang was awry because the vendors weren’t there. Was there a new regulation? Are they extending side walk renovations all the way there? Are the people I buy my socks from okay?
At the same time, I am often aware that people observe me. A few years ago back when I was skinnier than I would currently surmise myself to be, a woman gave me a double take at the frozen food section at the super market. I was made up and dressed typically bohemian, complete with paiselys and blue over a black peasant skirt. One afternoon almost a year ago, two women gave me the same kind of double take as if recognizing me as someone very unlikely to take public transportation. They didn't say anything. Walking by establishments, I can recognize the different tones in the greetings of security guards: if they were happy to see a distraction on a hot afternoon, or if they were being genuinely hospitable. The latter involves a tone that resembles a friendly and welcoming “Happy New Year, ma’am” greeting. I know that because I walked down the National Road from Soldier’s Hills some 5 hours before New Year’s Eve. No one wants to be randomly obscene on New Year's. Starbucks baristas on the other hand are just energized from their provisional caffeine. But this fact can be overlooked anyway.
I imagine how Brother Armin would have been so bored to shake the hands of 3000 graduates (a spur of the moment estimate). He survived this boredom by observing his graduates, not just congratulating them. I guess my red paisley-like and intricately beaded earrings helped some. Congratulations, Pamela! Lovely earrings! Curiously, a similar compliment on someone else’s earrings earned me those same complimented earrings. Really? You think they’re nice? Try them on…Oh they great on you…You may have them, Pammu. Bunny claims that she was powerless to my enthusiasm over her sense of style so much that she felt compelled to give them to me. I plead no contest. (Shout out to Bunny: BUNNY!)
Noticing things can’t be helped. Like how one would notice a kid shouting out a strange variation of “tag, you’re it”: The castrator will catch you!
There are some observations that make me feel like my brain notices things chronically. Like how someone candidly came to be nicknamed as “Uterus.” Like how a fat kid is exasperated about how the complimentary breakfast looks inadequate to which his slenderer brother confronts with a demeaning okay lang, ano! Like how someone embeds “hahahahaha” into a text message when his general countenance, instead, seems to say “I am too stressed to take a shower; I feel a mighty desire to sleep with my backpack still strapped onto me.”
Observing things then stems to supposed stories. Like when I thought a bus conductor seemed to have used mascara when in fact his eye lashes are so enviously thick and pretty; the notion that he was gay was reinforced by the floral loose shirt he had on plus thick curly hair that one would suspect was curled. Or the time when I was so freaked out by this woman whom I thought was talking to herself about paying for an imaginary person’s bus fair. I thought that she seriously had Multiple Personality Disorder and was stupid enough to pay a whole Lawton fair for her other personality when in fact, her companion was sitting right behind me. Her companion must really hate her. She didn’t seem likeable, in spite of the fact that she was offering to pay for someone’s bus fare.
My best friend and I do this extensively especially whenever we sit and enjoy live music. And yes, we talk during performances. Or we whisper to one another like aunts discreetly talking about a nephew’s questionable choice for a girlfriend. It’s become a standard thing to do for the both of us. Things to watch out for include who is calling the shots within the whole band dynamic; how bass and drummer connect (my own thing to spot); arrangement variations; and if the occasion arises, a missed note and whoever it was that was guilty of it. There was I time that I wondered whether or not the Bond cellist was genuinely flirting with the accompanying bassist (I seriously pondered that and enjoyed pondering that). And then there is me, asking Rod what bizarre time measure a certain track is using.
These things can be really absurd. Like noticing someone wearing flip flops in spite of a leather coat and feeling slightly irked. My most recent bizarre spotting is the queers (used fondly here) who we were with in Tam-Awan village in Baguio. A traditional Igorot performance was happening. I can’t say I wasn’t totally undistracted by them, but as I was watching these g-stringed performers dance, these two brightly dressed and petite queers were smiling ridiculously. My mind must have bookmarked them within plain view. And whenever the Igorot dance comes any given part that these g-stringed boys had to bend forward, these two queers, immediately snapped pictures in a way that Pavlov would have used in a text book. One even took a camwhore shot of himself which I was sure had a butt cheek within plain view. Meanwhile, a foreigner who was watching the whole thing looked like a young Richard Gere, only plumper. He was wearing Sanuks and for some reason, I thought that that was cool. His Filipina girlfriend, thankfully, isn’t a skank. There was another foreigner, and he was sitting on a bench wearing a maroon turtle neck and enjoying the afternoon with a hot cup of coffee. I thought he looked like Gandalf, these Igorots being his own personal Hobbits.
There is an off-the-wall observation and nothing has topped it since. I was catching up on my Linguistics reading at Starbucks Vito Cruz when I suddenly noticed that behind my Xerox-copied reading, the light seemed brighter. I looked up at the ceiling and all the light bulbs were lit in spite of this added brightness. Lo and behold. When I put my reading down, it was startling to see this law student studying for the bar with a desk lamp propped up next to his book stand. A desk lamp. In Starbucks. Plugged in. He must be a Saturday regular or he was just oblivious to everyone. Everyone except a friend I suspect hasn’t seen him in quite a while. She sat next to the desk lamp guy, they kissed likely on the cheek, no malice; he stands to get her something. Nothing special, just water. As he walks away, she follows him with a stare that hardly meant anything, then looks at his weird but quaint set up. She ponders for a while but keeps staring. I think she was on the same boat of shock as I was.
now i'll be so conscious when you're around. =-D 