PROVENCIANA

Guess What?

2010-02-26T23:41:00.002+01:00

More birds, that's what! Toying with the idea of making plush objects that double as decorative throw pillows, I came up with this flock. They're in the shop.

Goodbye

2008-04-29T20:03:00.007+02:00

Today I bumped my head on the kitchen cabinet and remembered that, hey, I still have to close this blog!

I'm sorry not to have kept my promise to blog regularly, but to catch up I'll tell you that one of April's highlights was a trip to Brussels, where I learned that there are four things for a tourist to do: look at the pissing boy, ogle the pissing girl, chance upon the pissing dog, and get pissed on Belgian beer.

Being absolute tourists on a Brussels street.

May promises to be exciting, as I'm doing my very first crafts show! Free Market Montpellier, according to my friend E, is "hyper branché." Meaning very hip, modern, and as close to indie as you can get in these parts, so I'm quite excited. Any one of you who'll be in the area, please drop by. I'm thinking of doing a fairytale setting for my stand. Let's see how that goes.

Provenciana, the book version of this blog, if all goes as planned is coming out in August.

I'm putting together a mailing list for readers of this blog who want to be informed of the book launch details. To be included in the mailing list and receive news of the launching and where the book can be bought, please send an e-mail to apollejano@gmail.com. I swear not to share your details with anyone. You can also send me e-mail there just to say hi :)

And so, what now? I'm still blogging, but not about personal stuff anymore. Strange, but one of the reasons why I feel cannot continue Provenciana is that, while I can go on and on about myself and my husband here, I am very hesitant to write about my friends in a public space. It somehow feels like betraying confidences.

La Pomme is where I write about my crafts, and also where I will be posting updates about my writing. If you ever miss me, visit me there! No more angsting, I'm sorry, but I will try to make up for it by posting nice pictures.

Again, thank you for all the support. It has been an active and very memorable two and a half years!

Asian Stereotypes

2008-04-08T13:50:00.005+02:00

When I speak to them in their language, people here tend to ask me if I am really an Asian from Asia. In the beginning the question perplexed me, until I finally got it. Apparently us Asians from Asia are not supposed be very quick up there where it counts, and are supposed to spend years and years speaking only broken French.

When they see that I am married to a white man, some people tend to think that I am Thai, because if you're Asian married to a white man, then you must be a pute. Why? Because all the travelling these ignorant few have ever done is a cheap hop over to Thailand, staying in the red-light districts, where most of the Thai girls they met were engaged in the world's oldest trade and working the afams (Filipino for "foreigner").

When I'm in an outdoor market or an antiques fair, I often lose my head and spend too much money. Looking at my Asian face and then the euros in my hands, people here tend to ask, "You are Japanese?"

Not Funny, But Good Just The Same

2008-04-02T16:36:00.004+02:00

It's been almost three years since I decided to move here permanently, and it must be said that one of the hardest things for me to deal with was the absence of girl friends of my own. I hung out with some females from my husband's group, but of course it was not the same. I found his people a little bit too serious, a little bit too straight, not able to laugh very easily.

I kept telling my husband that I missed the lightness of spirit of the Filipina. If you want a visual handle, think a gaggle of beautiful brown girls on a night out, in a café or a restaurant, telling stories in loud voices, laughing often, and even occasionally screeching in delight. That you won't find very easily in France. Actually there were times that when I attempted to screech, I was shushed.

"Les Françaises sont lourdes!" I would whine, complaining about Frenchwomen being hard to deal with.

Fast-forward to now, when how it goes in our couple is that my husband goes out mainly when I have organized something within my own circle. I have found my footing, and as is my nature I am again a very social animal with a very short list of real friends but a significantly longer list of great acquaintainces.

Even though this group is rarely rowdy and you would never really use the word "gaggle" to describe them, they do have a lot of other things going for them. You would not think of them as "girls," they're women. That means that they are stoic and stubborn, often opinionated and admirably strong, sometimes too practical for my taste, but at least always able to look at life without blinking and do what is necessary.

That may all sound very boring, but no. I like it. It appeals to the get-over-it-and-get-a-grip side of me.

And, oh, I do still screech in their company whenever the urge takes over me, and while my friends may not be making the same enthusiastic noises, they also do know how to laugh. Just not very very loudly.

Language Theory

2008-04-02T16:26:00.004+02:00

I have a theory that goes that as thefrayles raped our great-grandmothers, they so traumatized the young lasses that the girls' tongues were in some strange way permanently blocked and malformed, a trauma so deep it was encrypted into their genes, and thus was the malformation passed on to the succeeding generations; which is how I explain the many many times people have asked me, hearing the accent in my French, "Hey, are you Spanish?"

My usual wry response: "Yeah, I sure do look like I am, don't I?"

Things Put In Perspective

2008-03-27T16:53:00.003+01:00

I've moaned and groaned about the difficulties of being a thirtysomething career girl from Manila used to a fast-paced city life moving to a sleepy village in the south of France where opportunities for editors in English are almost nonexistent; and then I watched Va, Vis et Deviens and realized I've had it easy.

It's the story of a young Christian boy from Ethiopia who, to escape the misery of a Sudanese refugee camp, had to leave his mother behind, pretend to be some other woman's son, go to Israel, and once there pretend to be Jewish, a black Falasha, the adopted son of a white Leftist family. It's a complex and wonderfully unpredictable film. And one of my favorite things about it is that though the subject matter may be heavy, the treatment of it was not. The film made me smile as many times as it bothered me.

You don't have to have uprooted yourself to enjoy this film, I swear. If you're a little tired of you-so-know-how-it's-going-to-turn-out-just-thirty-minutes-in Hollywood movies, watch this. By director Radu Mihaileanu (how do you pronounce that?). English title, Live and Become.

Random Thought

2008-03-19T21:47:00.002+01:00

I'm so far away, but the Internet always makes me feel so close to home--sometimes that's a good thing, sometimes it's really bad. I read this blog that I shouldn't really be reading because it just makes me feel I want to take a shower. (Think violated girl in a Pinoy film scrubbing herself while sobbing, "Ang dumi ko... ang dumi-dumi...") I feel for the blog author, really I do; and I swear I hardly know the people involved, but let me just say that, Hey, come on now, who Mr. Yap chooses to fornicate with and where he chooses to do it is absolutely none of our business.

Life Happening

2008-03-15T09:43:00.004+01:00

Hi.

I'm here. I'm writing, sewing, gardening, launching a couple of new business ventures. The feelings I hinted at in this post showed to me very clearly that the adjustment pains are over. I am a foreigner in France -- I will always be, and it's a fact I actually relish -- but here I have managed to make for myself the creative and independent, low-impact but high-satisfaction life that I was unable to have in Manila, largely because the city was young and volatile, and so was I.

When I moved here for good in 2005, I was often overwhelmed by new sensations and very strong emotions. And because words have always helped me make sense of the world, language the filter I use to clean up messy sentiments, I began this blog. Provenciana was meant to be a tool to help me regain control, and it has served its purpose very well.

This blog helped me understand the shock of cultural adjustment that I was going through. In the process it helped me win that most coveted of writer's prizes in the Philippines. In the near future, it will also put me where all writers want to be -- on the bookshelves. Provenciana, the blog, will become Provenciana, the book. I will post details here at a later date.

Having the book published will be a wonderful farewell to this piece of cyberspace.

Yes, I am closing the blog down. I was already talking about it in this post from July of last year. Maya told me that I would know when to do it, and I know that it is now. Taking the idea from little birds handmade, it will be a month-long farewell. Beginning this coming week, I will be posting very regularly, talking about the details of my daily life, to find out where exactly all the adjustment angst has taken me. Then sometime in mid-April, I will stop posting.

It has been a wonderfully productive two years and a half. Thank you all for keeping me company!

The Girls

2008-02-25T10:00:00.006+01:00

Last January Tara organized a nice merienda, invited girls I'd known and connected with during the years working in magazines. Not all of whom I'd wished could have come were there, but those present were all dear to me, and all memorable for unique ways. Mia (on my left) because on the surface she seems a sweet, sweet girl, but look just a little bit deeper and find a woman who knows what she wants, and will get it without losing her sense of humor nor making anybody else lose theirs. Stephanie (on my right) because she lives her life her way; and also because on the day EDSA 3 was raging below she arrived at our girls' swim afternoon on the ninth floor of a high-rise facing the highway and its angry mob unruffled, dressed in pink spaghetti straps, pink shirt, and a straw hat with a pink band. Marie (top right) because for a while we worked together on a TV show, slathered with thick pancake makeup, baked under intense lights, and then while profusely sweating had to sound intelligent and credible. Tara (above me) because she's an eternal dreamer. And Irene (in a yellow shirt) because when I was just dating my husband she was the only one who went ahead and asked: "So yung boyfriend mo French, Apol." A pause and then, "So totoo ba na mabaho sila?" ("So your French boyfriend, Apol. So is it true that they stink?")

Books! Books! Books!

2008-02-24T21:14:00.005+01:00

A girl I wish could have been at that merienda I'll tell you about in the succeeding post is Andrea Pasion Flores. She's kick-ass, a writer and a lawyer, who is using her talents in both fields to promote books and publishing in the Philippines, as head of the National Book Development Board. One of their projects at the NBDB is a monthly book club, where they discuss recently published local books. For their March session, they'll be tackling Mga Kuwentong Paspasan and Very Short Stories for Harried Readers, where one of my stories appear. If you want to do something interesting on March 15, here's the announcement from Andrea:
"The NBDB Book Club will be reading two volumes of the country’s best collection of sudden fiction stories. Written by the finest writers of this generation, Mga Kuwentong Paspasan and Very Short Stories for Harried Readers (both volumes published by Milflores Publishing) contain 30 stories in Filipino and 41 short stories in English. Both volumes are edited by Vicente Garcia Groyon.
The book club meeting will be held on March 15, Saturday, 10 a.m. at the Ortigas Foundation Library. Award-winning writer Tara FT Sering will moderate the discussion.
Mga Kuwentong Paspasan and Very Short Stories for Harried Readers are available at National Bookstore branches for P290 each.
For more details about the NDBD Book Club, please call 926-8238 or 631-1231 local 222 and 228."

Punished

2008-02-22T15:21:00.005+01:00

This is my karma for all those years working at Good Housekeeping magazine and, fuelled by at least five eight-ounce bottles of Coca-Cola daily, while copy-editing I would harangue my staff with lines like, "Breadcrumbs! We spell it breadcrumbs! One word, not hyphenated, okay???!!!"

Part of this day's work involves writing two paragraph's worth of information each on four artists. I've been slaving at it for an hour, and I've only finished the articles on two of them. Four paragraphs in one hour. I feel like an idiot. But, really, how are you supposed to say things like "gestural brushstrokes" and "the inherent materiality of medium" in French?

Lea Wynetta, Becky, Veronica I take it all back. You can spell it bread crumbs, bread-crumbs, breadcrumbs. Any way you want. I just cannot take any more of this karma.

One Saturday Last January

2008-02-11T19:21:00.000+01:00

Meeting my publisher. (Thanks to Dean for the photo!)

One of the things I'm happy about was meeting Dean and Nikki Alfar, who edit and publish the Philippine Speculative Fiction anthologies, and the members of their writing group, the LitCritters. Read about Dean's brief account here. Then let me add that the lunch was a pleasant surprise.

Writing--especially writing English fiction in a French-speaking country--is a very lonely job; but I had gotten some comfort reading Dean's blog entries on the craft, so I was really looking forward to meeting him and his friends.

I was prepared to be at my best behavior, expecting to spend the afternoon being serious, exchanging words I can barely pronounce like "verisimilitude" with this bunch, but instead they proved very warm and very funny. A lot of inside jokes were exchanged amongst them, but hey I didn't mind. As long as Vin Simbulan was letting me share his bibingka.

My Quotable Quote

2008-02-08T19:18:00.000+01:00

I suppose I could blame all those years of watching too many Pinoy films of the kind having Cherie accusing Sharon of being a copycat and then Melanie buying someone out.

One night last January, after having endured many other nights of haggling with Metro Manila taxi drivers who always wanted us to add something extra to their meter price, I finally snapped. "P100," the cabbie told us he wanted me to pay extra for taking us from Makati to Alabang. "P100?" I half-screamed. "P100? Ang sabi niyo kanina P50 lang!" (Translation: "P100? You told me earlier just P50!")

"Eh bakit ka galit?" he asked, cockily. ("And why are you angry?")

I answered, "Mama, bakit ako galit? Eh kung kayo ho, pumunta kayo sa palengke at yung tindera hingan kayo ng dagdag na P100 para dun sa isang kilong isda na binibili ninyo sa kanya , hindi ho ba kayo magagalit?" A pause for dramatic effect. "Hindi ho ba kayo magagalit?!!! ("Mister, why am I angry? If you went to the wet market and the vendor demanded you pay an extra P100 for the kilo of fish you wanted to buy from her, wouldn' t you be angry?" A pause. "Wouldn't you be angry?!!!")

Call the FAMAS. I think I deserve an award.

Pierre and Apol's Amazing Race: Zambales Leg

2008-02-06T12:59:00.000+01:00

"Tiring," is really the first thing we say to friends and neighbors who ask us about our trip, one of the reasons being that, in my excitement to see friends, I ended up dragging Pierre almost everywhere.

With my two nieces in tow, we took the Victory Liner bus running from Cubao to San Antonio, Zambales. Before the driver took off, we bought dozens of boiled quail eggs from a fortyish woman with an infectious grin and who wanted to know: Did Pierre have any brothers, because she was looking to go out on dates, preferably with a handsome foreigner. The man selling cold drinks from a red pail squawked, not cruelly, "Nakupo, kahit ako, tatanggihan kita ano!" ("Ohmygosh, even I would say no to you!") Everybody laughed, loudest of all being the woman on the hunt.

After the excitement had died down and the quail eggs had been demolished, we all sat back to enjoy the passing scenery.
Destination: The home of artists Plet Bolipata and Elmer Borlongan, who like me had also quit Mandaluyong (we were neighbors, sort of) and moved to the country. They had made themselves a blue-colored home, built in classic Plet style, which is to say eclectic and vibrant and just on the edge of crazy.
Pierre tripped out at Plet being the oldest yet the most petite:

(Plet, 40+, Drea, 11, Erika, 17, and me, 30+)

The most wonderful hosts in the world took us to the beaches.

At San Miguel, they told us we couldn't swim, because the spirits guarding the place--one of them a mermaid who made regular appearances in human form in and around the village--drowned strangers who dared swim its waters. Walking on the beach, Pierre attracted a horde of kids, who rarely saw Westerners. We headed home at sunset before the mermaid could come check out what all the fuss was about.

At another beach, one whose spirit guardians were presumably more tolerant of visitors, the girls learned to surf.

(That's Erika on the left and Drea on the right.

They both managed to stand up on their boards on just the second try!)

I was so scared of the mermaid riding a jeepney over to play on us her evil tricks that I played lifeguard and watched my nieces the entire afternoon.

Pierre had been missing Filipino-style barbecue for years, so every sundown he'd walk over to one of the village's two street vendors and buy sticks of pork barbecue, pork ears, and isaw (pig's intestines). We mostly left the isaw for Emong and Pierre. At one point I sniffed the wrinkly innards, detected a faint odor of feces, and warned Emong. He told me, "That is what it's supposed to smell like!"

On the way home, suddenly Pierre began being typically French and complaining. He didn't like riding buses, he whined, his butt was beginning to ache. I silenced him with a curt "Not as much as hers." Then I pointed out the window:

I Went Home. I Am Home.

2008-02-03T17:24:00.000+01:00

It was totally unexpected that after two weeks of being back and surrounded by the sights, sounds, smells, and flavors of everything I had grown up with and known until my early thirties, I was suddenly attacked by pangs of what I can only call homesickness. I wanted to go back to my garden, my sewing room, my writing area; to wake up to the call of wild birds and go to sleep to the sound of nothing at all that you can only find in the deep country; to cook in my tiny kitchen dishes that mix rabbit with soy sauce and call it fusion; to chase my cat all over the property to get her to come home for her before-sundown curfew. I usually hate long-haul flights, but I was content settling into my Cathay Pacific airplane seat last 31 January. Final destination: Paris. Then a TGV ride to where I now type this.

Not that I don't love the Philippines. I do, and deeply; convinced that one day not very far off into the future I will go back and make myself a garden of plants with big, fat leaves and vibrantly colored tropical flowers. It's just that home is where you make your life, and right now that is--though it would have semed improbable just two years ago--here, in this country, where if I don't pay attention I still make embarrassing mistakes like say "fuck" (baiser) when I really mean to say "lower" (baisser).

More stories and photos of the homecoming trip coming this week.

Oh...

2008-01-05T16:54:00.001+01:00

... and I just noticed that I have written nothing about my Christmas nor my New Year's Eve. I have run out of epiphanies, so let me bore you by reciting a grocery list. We bought oysters, shrimps, foie gras, various shellfishes and charcuterie; received boxes of nice chocolates; opened some bottles of wine; had a cake baked. And then we ate and ate and ate.

I did, especially. During the season, I finished two big boxes of chocolates all by myself. Burp.

Anu Ba?!

2008-01-05T16:47:00.000+01:00

I am going back to the Philippines for three weeks on Monday. It's Saturday late afternoon. I haven't even taken out my suitcase yet. Instead of dreaming of miles of sandy beaches and of eating lechon, I sit listening to Tori Amos whining while I bead and I crochet. Sigh. Such is the life of the writing sastre.

Local Humor

2007-12-26T18:47:00.000+01:00

The thing that I love most about my family is our collective sense of humor. We're typically Pinoy that way, I suppose. When things get a little too painful, we don't want to talk about it. We prefer to laugh.

An example of how it goes with us happened a few months ago, when my diabetic mom had a health crisis. They discovered elevated protein levels in her urine, which usually means that the patient's kidneys are failing. The news immediately brought family members living near rushing to her house. My sweet nephew Sam arrived, saw his dear Mama in the garden, ran to embrace her, and soon after began to cry.

My mom tried to make light of it. "Why are you crying, Sam? I don't have a contract to send you to university, only your sister, so if I go it won't make a difference in your life. You shouldn't cry."

That joke admittedly was a little lame. Stepping in to save the moment was my second-eldest sister Bel, who really has the wickedest sense of humor I have ever had the pleasure of encountering.

"Okay, okay," she gathered the children around my mom. Then she delivered her punchline. "Let's all give Mama a hug while she's still a little bit warm."

In Tagalog, it's a thousand times funnier: "Halika, mga bata, yakapin natin si Mama," she said. "Yakapin natin habang mainit-init pa!"

Up to now, when I remember the story it gets me giggling. I'm looking forward to seeing them all very soon.

P.S. No worrries, the protein level descended and the Mama is okay.

Edith!!!

2007-12-26T13:04:00.000+01:00

It's funny that when I am sewing all the fun stuff that goes into my online shop, most times the music I listen to are the heartwrenching songs of Edith Piaf. I love her, and this song is my anthem.

It Snowed, I Took No Pictures

2007-12-15T19:35:00.000+01:00

This is my third December in the South of France, and the first time I've seen it snow where I live. It isn't much, merely a light dusting on the ground, just enough for my friend's two kids to get their mittens sopping wet while making a snowball each, but it is enough to merit my friend and I free glasses of champagne after lunch at the restaurant run by a dark Frenchman who tells us that where he used to live in Norway, they always toasted the year's first snow with some bubbly. Well this is probably the decade's first snow in the region, I pipe up, we should be breaking open a crate of Dom Pérignon!

When all I can talk about in my blog is about it snowing and about finishing a four-hour long lunch with a toast, it means that I have really nothing very interesting to say.

I am right now, for several months now, living a rare period of peace and quiet. There is nothing happening; just watching flakes of white melt and disappear into dark patches on the sandy earth.

A Christmas Story

2007-12-11T20:47:00.000+01:00

"What is Christmas like in the South of France?"

Have you ever asked yourself this question? Nah, I didn't think so. Still, if you're just a little bit curious, you may want to read a story I wrote for The Storque, the e-zine of Etsy. I've always loved local arts and crafts, so it was predictable that I become infatuated with the santons of the South. Read my story here.

Eating Local

2007-12-07T16:32:00.000+01:00

My husband and I are not very good at organized action. It's just not in our nature to march down streets yelling our lungs off and waving placards. But we do believe in the power of the individual, that the choices he makes, good or bad, has an impact on the rest of society. We're not just riding on the environmental bandwagon (although even if that were the case, it would be a good thing); we have always tried to be conscientious about our choices as consumers. Some of the things we do include recycling, not buying things we don't really need (yes, that means I try to limit my clothes shopping--argh!), and eating local food.

I was talking to my friend's boyfriend the other day. Marcos is a scientist (I seem to be surrounded by them at the moment) from Ecuador, working on the transformation of water melted from icebergs into potable H20. Given his occupation, of course he is very concerned about the earth drying up because of man misbehaving. After discussing his work, we had an interesting talk about, of all things, tomatoes.

"You go to the market, see a tomato from France and then a tomato from Morocco," went one of Marcos's quotable quotes. "Automatically, you get the one from Morocco because it is cheap, not pausing to think that the environmental cost of that Moroccan tomato is really a lot higher than the French one because of all the petrol used to transport that vegetable here." (Yes, I hear you, smartypants: The tomato is a fruit. Read on, please.)

I am not very good at proselytizing, so I will let a farmer I saw on television the other day explain why exactly I'm telling you the tomato story: "As consumers, we should realize that our decisions should not just be based on the price per kilo. That thing that you are eating, ask yourself, how did it get there, on your table? And what exactly is in there? What are you putting into your mouth?"

All that said, in our household we're going to move forward in our effort to be conscientious consumers and try out Associations pour le Maintien d'une Agriculture Paysanne or AMAP. Essentially, how it works is you pay a local farmer ahead of time to produce vegetables during the season (list of vegetables approved beforehand by everybody involved in the project), and then you come every week with your basket to pick your share of the harvest. Sounds cool, doesn't it? We'll not only be eating fresh and organic, we'll also be helping local industry.

The website is in French, but the idea came from the States. Click here for US residents, and here if you live in the UK.

Not a funny post, I know. I told you I'll do that one next week.

Thought Running Through My Head This Minute:

2007-12-06T16:56:00.000+01:00

"I so want to update this blog, pero gosh ang dami ko pang tahiin!"

Wholesale and custom orders, folks. The career-driven city girl has transformed into sewing-machine-pedal-pushing country wife. Just call me the writing sastre.

Next week, I promise: I'll write something funny.

Books! Books! Books!

2007-11-27T22:55:00.000+01:00

We're at the end of month 11 and I'm already doing some examining, asking myself if I had achieved what I had set out to do at the beginning of the year. On the writing front, the answer would be a resounding "Yes!" The enthusiasm primarily comes from that I've been wanting to write fiction forever but, as I've said many times before, when you're writing and editing magazine articles the whole day, the last thing you really want to do at night is to look at more words.

December is going to be a specially happy month.

Above is the cover of Philippine Speculative Fiction 3. My short story "Pedro Diyego's Homecoming" is included in this anthology. I love "Pedro Diyego" mainly because the writing of it was such a pleasure. I've heard some writers say that certain stories seem to just write themselves, and this was the case here. The first sentence popped into my head, I typed it out on my laptop, and a day later the story was finished. I had to tweak the ending after having Patricia read it, but the writing involved almost zero stress. The editors and publishers, Nikki and Dean Alfar, are launching the anthology in Manila on December. You're all invited! Click here for the launch details.

Very Short Stories for Harried Readers is an anthology of flash fiction (meaning stories with a word count of 750 words or less) edited by Vince Groyon and published by Milflores. In his last e-mail, Groyon said that they are "hoping" to have the book out in Philippine bookstores by December. My contribution is called "Making a Garden." If she reads it, I think that former English lit professor Patricia would tell me the same as she did of "Pedro Diyego": "It lends itself well to a diasporic reading." Ack! Being an immigrant has given me angst!

Milflores is at the same time launching a collection of flash fiction written in Filipino and called Mga Kuwentong Paspasan.

Help Filipino books make it past the regular 1,000 first-printing copies, please. In my La Pomme blog, I encourage people to buy handmade. Here I want to say: Read Filipino! Go buy our books.

What Does It Say About Me...

2007-11-21T15:59:00.001+01:00

... that last night I bought our tickets for a three-week stay in the Philippines in January, and more than the thought of hanging out with my sisters, laughing at my mom's hilarious one-liners, burrowing my nose in my dad's kili-kili for a quick snuggle, and the beer-and-pot reunion with old friends planned at my sister and brother-in-law's infamous old 115 Anonas Extension address, what is really getting me excited is the thought that once I am at my parents' place, I can very quickly drive off to eat as much of this as I want to.

Ah, I'm going home! My arteries are already beginning to constrict in anticipation.

Must Read

2007-11-19T19:45:00.001+01:00

I am deeply touched by this blog post from Netherlands-based writer RC Loenen-Ruiz. If you are also far away from home, read it and feel the pain.

About Snails: La Pomme's One-Week Sale!

2007-11-13T20:23:00.000+01:00

My new snail pouch.

Don't be a slowpoke snail and be late on your Christmas shopping. Do it now! I'm offering a 20-percent discount to all readers of Provenciana who buy products from my Etsy shop from today until Wednesday, 21 November. Browse and buy by clicking here.

A great big plus is that all my products come packaged in lovely cloth bags that tie close with satin ribbon, so they're ready for giving away as soon as you get them in the mail.

How it works: When you check out at Etsy, you will be given an option where you can send a message to the seller. Here just write, "Hi, Apol! Found you on Provenciana." Don't pay with your Paypal (or check, if you live in France) just yet. Once I get your order form, I will revise the price to show the 20-percent discount and then send you a message that it's ready for you to buy. This sale goes on only until 21 November, and is not cumulative, meaning you can't use this with other sales and promos I have going on in my shop during this time period. See you at La Pomme!

About Crawfish

2007-11-13T19:17:00.000+01:00

Once upon a time, more than 20 years ago, a big truck was passing through the village of Fourques, in the Languedoc-Roussillon region of the south of France, when the driver, for reasons now forgotten, lost control of his vehicle. The giant truck toppled and it rolled. Like a beast in its final moments, it made terrible screeching noises that everybody and his neighbor could hear. With a final metal-scratching-on-concrete wail, it ground to a halt on its side, smack in the middle of one of Fourques's main roads.

The sight was enough to leave the villagers stunned, but they were in for a bigger surprise. From out of the whacked-open belly of the upturned truck came crawling out hundreds and hundred of monstrous little critters. The things had hard brown skins, spidery legs, and two front claws that snapped. The horde made click-clicking noises as it made for the freshwater canals bordering the road. The children and the women of Fourques screamed.

Cooler heads soon enough intervened, and told everybody that they had no cause for worry. The truck's cargo were not hungry alien monsters. The villagers, with the typical French passion for all things tasty, heaved a sigh of relief and started licking their lips.

And that is how Louisiana crawfish came to be living in the waters of a remote village in the south of France.

The American crustaceans liked it so much in their new environs that they started multiplying like crazy, providing business for the young boys of the village, who would trap crawfish in the afternoons and sell them to the village housewives for a steal--about five francs per kilo. One of these young boys, as you can very easily guess, was named Pierre, who grew up to be my husband, who I know loves telling tales but I don't know half the time if I should believe him.

This particular story he told me after I had come back from the market in Arles with a can of bisque d'écrevisses, crawfish bisque, made in Fourques. I opened it, heated the soup, and ate it with croutons on which I had scratched some shallots. It's a softer version of lobster bisque. I'm going to make the detour to Fourques this week to get some more. Trust me: It's delicious! If you like the taste of seafood and you live in France, you can have cans and bottles delivered to your home. Just go to the Lou Chambri website. You can ask them if their goods are actually tombés du camion*. Or maybe not, as we don't want them spitting in your soup.

(Yes, after all that drama, this is just a blog post about food.)

* tombés du camion, literally, "fallen from the truck," an idiom meaning "stolen goods"

Paperwork Pain

2007-11-08T13:42:00.001+01:00

I am renewing my passport at the Philippine Embassy in Paris. Mr. Tornilla, the guy I had been speaking to over the phone since I began the process, has been very helpful, which helps alleviate a lot of the headache involved.

To get a brand-new version of our precious green-covered booklet, I have to submit my current passport, a birth certificate authenticated by the Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila, my baptismal certificate (thank goodness my mom keeps these things!), my voter's certification record, and two current IDs. I'm giving them copies of my French driver's license and residence card. On top of all that, I'm required to submit a piece of paper with the title "Sworn Statement," in which Item No. 3 states, "I came to France using the following ASSUMED/FALSE/ FAKE birth and personal data:"

Mr. Tornilla said that it has become necessary to be strict about these things because of the number of our countrymen coming into Europe illegally, and that to item no. 3, I should just put "not applicable." Since I detest paperwork, however, right now I'm being really tempted to write that I came here as Fatima Alvir, Misty Blue, or Miss Bella Flores.

La Pomme Promotes

2007-11-04T23:41:00.000+01:00

What is this? Click here to find out!

I Hear You, Noelle

2007-11-01T12:19:00.000+01:00

Reading Noelle's 31 October blog entry was like hearing an echo of the phone conversation I had with Tara last Tuesday, which had me saying, "Marriage is not at all easy, Tars, and if what I have with my husband doesn't end up to be the forever kind, then I'm never going to do this sort of thing ever again."

If you're not yet married, then I'm doing what Noelle says should be done and telling you: My lord this till-death-do-us-part business is not easy!

For each married woman, I suppose the difficulties are different. For me, independent, stubborn, individualistic, slightly egotistic I, what I'm finding particularly hard to get used to is the constant presence of another. Even when he's not physically there, he is there, taking up space in my head, taking possession of a big chunk of my heart.

There is, too, the fact that I got married at 32, when I had had more than a decade of living my adult life my way. There had been boyfriends, of course, but looking back now I never considered them an intrinsic part of my life. Now I am with someone who is exactly that.

My life is tightly tied up with the life of another. And it is supposed to be this way until I die.

I consider marriage to be most of all about sharing, so the thought does bring me contentment. Still, there will always be a part of me--independent, stubborn, individualistic, slightly egotistic I--that will think about this and will find it difficult to breathe.

On Politics, Sort Of

2007-10-24T23:03:00.000+02:00

One thing I've always wanted to be is a little more serious-minded.

At 22 I started working at a national newspaper, The Manila Times, working with some journalism greats, like Malu Mangahas, Pete Lacaba, and Jo-Ann Q. Maglipon. Once I co-hosted a TV show, and one of the other hosts was Risa Hontiveros-Baraquel, who is now an Akbayan congress representative. To be 100-percent honest about it, I felt just a little bit inadequate around these people and others like them (except for Risa, who is just about the most gracious person you'll ever meet and who couldn't make another person feel inadequate even if she tried). I mean, what have I, a very ordinary girl, to say to such people who dealt in only the VERY IMPORTANT things.

Once at a film showing--I think it was Carlitos Siguion Reyna's Ligaya ang Itawag Mo Sa Akin--I found myself face to face and alone for a few minutes with the newspaper columnist Conrado de Quiros. The situation definitely called for somebody to start a scintillating conversation, but instead I sort of just smiled stupidly and eventually slunk away.

One time I did open my mouth. It was some cocktail event in Greenhills, if memory serves me right, just before the 1998 presidential elections, and I was introduced to one of the candidates, the late Raul Roco.

Gushed I, "I watched you on TV with the other candidates, Sir. I liked you a lot. You seemed to speak the least bullshit!" He chuckled good-naturedly, but I was mentally kicking myself as soon as the words were out of my mouth.

I did try to keep all the political goings-on straight in my head, but there never seemed to be any rhyme nor reason to how these things went in the Philippines, and there was always one upheaval after another, so half the time I felt like I was in a fog of only half understanding.

Since moving to France, where government and politics seem to function systematically, I've been promising myself to be more conscientious about keeping up with national events. But you know what, I think there was a reason my boss at The Manila Times kept giving me such assignments as the profile on child actor Vandolph and the interview with beauty queen Ruffa. I've only really begun regularly checking the news sites and buying the national papers like Libération less than two weeks ago, right about the time I heard that newly elected president Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Cécilia were getting a divorce. To put it plainly, all the new activity was triggered by the good old desire for chismis (gossip).

And Now Back to Regular Programming

2007-10-22T16:01:00.001+02:00

Let's sing all together now: "Free again...!"

If you've had it with all the cutesy stuff I've been putting on here to promote my Etsy shop, then you'll be glad to hear that I just set up La Pomme, a new blog where I'll be posting all things to do with my crafting. I also plan to regularly feature artists and craftspeople I admire over there, as well as some DIY tips, for example how to decorate your home in slightly crazy ways, as Gwyn and I did last week with the stickers you see on the wall behind me in the photo above. If you're interested in that kind of stuff, then do bookmark the new blog.

This means that Provenciana will once again be devoted to my favorite subjects, namely, me, myself, I, and, as the photo displays, occasionally a bit of my cleavage. Yehey!

P.S. Do permit me a minor plug: The necklace bandanna in the photo above is an unusual but very charming accessory that will be for sale in my Etsy shop this week.

Dear Gwyn,

2007-10-16T20:36:00.000+02:00

It's been four days since you left and we haven't heard at all from you. Did you get lost on the trains and end up somewhere in Eastern Europe?

Pierre thought you were a wonderfully considerate guest, and Apol had a great time playing tourist again while you were here. We wouldn't want to think that you are now wandering aimlessly about some cold foreign country in your bermuda shorts and flipflops, trying to find your way back to Paris, subsisting mainly on that saucisson we bought for your baon.

Apol has cut a bit off the toile de jouy you bought in Arles and made a little toy. Named him after you. Here he is, Gwynunu, the Scented Bear-Kangaroo:

We're thinking to call your cellphone, but then that'll cost you P400 per minute, and you might just stop talking to us forever. So e-mail us or leave a message to let us know that Gwynunu's tito is okay.

Love,
Apol and Pierre

End of a Weekend

2007-10-14T15:44:00.001+02:00

After a weekend away spent finally rock-climbing after too many weeks of being sedentary, and then dancing like a crazy spinning top to celebrate the birthdays of people I appreciate, I drove home this morning accompanied by this roadside view. Yep, girls and guys, I'm having one of those days when I'm thinking that life is just grand.

P.S. To add to my delight, I just found out that my short story "Pedro Diyego's Homecoming" is appearing in the anthology Philippine Speculative Fiction Volume 3, edited by Dean and Nikki Alfar. I got published in the second volume, and afterwards swore that I'd send in a piece every time they send out a call for submissions because I think that it's an important publication, injecting a rejuvenating dose of excitement to the Philippine publishing scene. For more details, go to Dean's blog.

P.S. Part 2 Oh! I almost forgot: If you want to see some of my favorite sexy and/or sad stuff on Etsy, please click to look at my treasury called, Love, the different ways of it.

Visitor Gwyn

2007-10-12T21:47:00.000+02:00

Ballgown na lang ang kulang.

Gwyn has been here visiting me for the past five days, and a typical conversation between us goes like this:

GWYN: Ay, ati, kunan mo ako ng picture dito, kita ang ancient walls.

ME: Game, pose ka na. Click!

GWYN: Patingin.

ME: (Looking at the picture) Ay kulang. Next year, pagbalik mo, reshoot natin, dapat naka-ballgown ka. Ihihiram kita, kasi kung magdadala ka from the Philippines, baka ka ma-excess baggage.

GWYN: Ballgown talaga ano, hindi lang dress. At saka dapat hapon, para maganda ang lighting. Ganda ng blue ng sky ninyo eh!

ME: Korek ka dyan. (We continue walking.)

I take it back. It's not just food that I miss from home. I'm also missing silly, funny, only-in-the-Philippines bading humor!

P.S. And just to underline the point, when I started writing this, we were listening to the soundtrack of the stage version of ZsaZsa Zaturnnah.

Moment from a Marriage

2007-10-05T14:33:00.001+02:00

One of the things you learn about beng married is that surges of affection for your mate can come at the most mundane moments. Say, for example, at the checkout line at your local supermarket.

There Pierre and I were, waiting patiently for our turn to pay, when I glanced down at the cart and saw that he had tucked away in a corner some of his favorite candies. I badger him about all the useless sugar he's ingesting whenever he starts munching on licorice sticks and gummy bears during movie nights, but I actually find his sweet tooth adorable, making me think of the chubby little boy he was. So, feeling a little bit mushy inside, I glanced up to smile at him, and from my vantage point a couple of inches below his chin, found myself counting the white hairs that have recently begun invading his beard. There was definitely more of them now than the last time I looked.

One of the things you learn about being married is that being with someone day in and day out can make you so comfortable that you risk losing your tact. And so, instead of the "I love you" I had originally meant to say, rushing out from my mouth came the words, "Oh my god, honey, you're really getting old!"

Girl Friends

2007-10-03T11:01:00.000+02:00

The girls will be making their first appearances in my shop this week. Click on daily to welcome them one by one!

I'm Cuteable

2007-09-26T13:28:00.000+02:00

My fabric jewelry is in the 25 September issue of cuteable. (I'm sure "issue" is not the correct term, but what do you call it if it's on a web site?) I'm thrilled! Click on the link and then scroll down to find my label, la pomme. Leave a comment if you want to be nice to me and say how much you like my stuff.

Oh, and please do read the post below because cultural adjustment is more what this blog is all about and my crafts entries are just squatting here until I get another site going for them. Thanks!

"How Come You've Adjusted So Well?"

2007-09-25T14:22:00.000+02:00

Is a question I'm often asked by other Filipinos who move to a foreign land and find themselves having difficulty coping.

Maybe Stephanie answered that when she told me one of the last times I saw her before I left, "You're the kind of girl who'll be fine wherever she is." From my mom I did learn the virtue of resilience and a go-for-it attitude, and I suppose it was reading mountains of books when I was younger that gave me a great hunger for experience.

"The reason I moved back here," a mestiza acquaintance who used to live in the US told me one night in Malate, "is that over there I was just a small fish in a really big pond. Here, I'm somebody, a big fish in a small pond." She was drunk, so I restrained myself from saying that I thought she was being silly. Personally I can be whatever size of guppy and think it's not about the size of the pond, it's how much fun you have exploring it.

Still, given all that, and as I tell anybody who asks, I had a very difficult first few months over here, which was the meat for the essay I wrote for the Palancas. One of the things that helped me through that period was educating myself about why, although I had always thought of myself as a very confident, ultra-capable kind of woman, there I was suddenly feeling insecure, childish, a few times like I was on the verge of some breakdown. Finding the reasons behind the tears helped me get over my own drama.

Aside from Internet research, I was sent some readings by girl friend Kat Olivares, who studied the culture shock phenomenon in graduate school. If you're a Pinoy in a foreign land or you're just curious, I can send you the six PDF files I got from Kat. Just leave me your e-mail address in the comments box. I'll erase the message as soon as I note your address, don't worry.

P.S., a.k.a., HEY, HELENE! You can read the essay and other 2007 Palanca winners over at Literatura 13.

Navel Gazing While Thinking About Words

2007-09-16T12:17:00.000+02:00

It's funny that I had always thought that English was one of my two first languages, since I grew up learning to speak it and Filipino at the same time, but now I'm having to seriously rethink the idea. These days when I'm writing, a short story for example, and I'm searching for another word to replace one I had already typed out, say an alternative to the verb "pluck," instead of coming up with something like "yank," "tug," or any of the other choices a later consulting of an online thesaurus will yield, my brain gives me the French "arracher."

I'm no expert in the science of language acquisition, but I'm supposing that if English had actually been a first language for me, it would have been so firmly hardwired into my brain that French would not have presented any competition. Now I'm having to admit that a daily dose of Sesame Street and The Electric Company during childhood was not enough. English is only a weak second language, so that the third language--which at the moment is getting the most play, since French is what I speak, read, and hear almost 24/7--is trying to take over the no. 2 spot.

Thinking "trapped," "piégé" popped up, for "snack" it was "grignoter." This has happened so many times now that I'm starting to worry that my ability to write English will one day decline.

And on that note: I'm currently reading 99F by Frédéric Beigbeder and not just because the novel is soon going to be a movie starring the adorable Jean Dujardin who with Julien of Nouvelle Star and Grégoire of Koh Lanta currently make up the trinity of French men who make me swoon.

The last line in the first paragraph of Chapter 2 hit me in the gut: "Dans ma profession, personne ne souhaite votre bonheur, parce que les gens heureux ne consomment pas." "In my profession," says the protagonist Octave, "nobody wishes for your happiness, because happy people don't buy anything." (The translation doesn't quite pack as much of a wallop as the original, but you get the drift.)

Octave is an advertising man, but that line made me think of my previous profession as well. I loved working in women's magazines and continue to have friendships with former colleagues, but there were times when I asked myself if the stories we were publishing that were supposed to inspire women to become better versions of themselves were not at the same time eroding their confidence, sending them the message that they are not good enough. The way to become that ideal magazine woman who has great hair, a fashionable wardrobe, well-toned abs, a fantastic husband, a wonderful job, a caring boss, a perfectly balanced checkbook, a winning retirement plan, and the most well-disciplined children in the world? Continue buying issues of the mag.

Non-Animal Lovers, Skip This

2007-09-11T14:00:00.000+02:00

Call me crazy cat lady if you wish, but I'm thoroughly convinced that daughter cat Dolly is growing up to look a lot like me:

P.S.: Don't worry, I don't usually wear the necklaces I sell on Etsy. I was taking pictures for uploading in the shop when the daughter cat kept interrupting, meowing to be included in the activity.

Breathing a Little Heavily

2007-09-10T11:57:00.000+02:00

Girls, we may be in love and we may be happily married, we may even think that our husband is the strongest, most charming, one of the most handsome men in the world, but then comes the day when we are faced with a band of fresh-looking Spanish boys in their early twenties, stripped to the waist and performing all sorts of acrobatic acts--hanging upside down and then gliding sideways, twirling their supple bodies in the air as they hang by the strength of mere fingers. Physical exertion makes it so that their muscles are well cut and on grand display. We try to ignore them, but instead find ourselves enumerating, "Trapezius, deltoid, pectoralis major, triceps brachii, biceps brachii, latissimus dorsi, abs..."

When that day comes, we are rendered helpless, really. They urge each other on, "Venga! Venga!" We take this as personal encouragement. We give in, give ourselves license to stare, even salivate a little. One of them bends over. We realize that our earlier list was incomplete. How could we have forgotten it? Glorious, glorious gluteus maximus!

Last on the Palancas (Pramis)

2007-09-03T13:24:00.000+02:00

"Thank you very much to my parents, my sisters, my dear husband, and of course (with matching eyes up and index finger pointing heavenward) sa nasa itaas..."

So goes my imaginary speech at the 2007 Palanca Awards ceremonies held at The Manila Peninsula last 1 September. After a few days really really thinking about it, I decided not to fly over. Because it's too far, because it's too expensive, because I have to finish my stories for the Montpellier writer's group, because I want to go to Belgium, because I have to start autumn gardening, because I just opened my online shop and will have to help my mother-in-law set up hers, because because because... So my parents went for me. And because mom and dad are deep into their business and are the hardest people to get on the phone these days, I had to rely on Dean's blog for the chismis.

In his entry, I again stumbled on Ian Casocot. I don't really know Ian, but from his blog and the few e-mails we've exchanged, I already like him. He seems feisty and funny, plus he looks cute in his photos (yep, shallow, is my middle name). You've also got to give the guy a thumbs-up for his efforts getting Filipino-authored works out there. He runs the online literary magazine Literatura, and issue no. 13 will be devoted to this year's Palanca winners. Click here to read the back issues and wait for the new one. (P.S. Be prepared to read my full name--why, oh why, did my parents have to name me like a character from a telenovela?!)

This just in! My mom's comments about the country's most awaited annual writers' event:
1. "Ang daming pagkain, Apol. At masarap naman."
2. "Nakita ko si Korina Sanchez, kasi nandun si Mar Roxas, eh di ba mag-boyfriend sila?"
3. "Hindi naman boring."
4. "Hindi na ako bumili ng bagong damit, sinuot ko na lang yung suot ko nung wedding mo. Feeling ko ang ganda ko."
3. "Siyempre binasa ko naman yung essay mo para kung may magtanong sa akin makukuwentuhan ko. May mga nagtanong nga. Sabi ko nagsulat-sulat ka tungkol diyan sa buhay mo sa France. Sabi ko din, siyempre talented ka, eh anak kaya kita!"

Now you get an idea where I get my slight sayad from. I love my mom :).

Gifts, Gifts, Gifts!

2007-08-31T14:07:00.000+02:00

It's September tomorrow, where did the year go? I'm already dreaming of Christmas presents, and think that all my holiday shopping is going to be done online.

I promise to be back to my regular Provenciana mode very soon, but at the moment I am really hung up on Etsy. I made a list of my favorite things over there. If like me you're already thinking of buying something for friends and family, click here to see my Etsy Treasury: Soft, Begging to be touched! It's only up till dawn of Monday, September 3, so go now if you can.

Good Morning!

2007-08-23T07:31:00.000+02:00

I don't know what got into me but it's 7:30 in the a.m., and I've been up for an hour and a half. To commemorate this rare occasion, I'm posting a photo of this very early morning light, for all those other days when I only roll out of bed after 9:00. Here I am, enjoying the sunrise and a cup of coffee.

Why I Go Slow

2007-08-22T10:05:00.000+02:00

"You've lost the Manila driver in you," Pierre kids me a lot these days, because I'm paying attention to all the road rules. I put on the warning a good few moments before I turn, never honk my horn, will only overtake if it's all clear, yield at all the broken white lines, and when I see the red sign, I make a full stop. It's the gendarmes, I tell him, there are too many of them on the road, I don't want to be paying any fines or losing my points. He chuckles, but perfectly gets it; these days, he refuses to touch the wheel if he's had a drink.

I lie though.

Driving in this country, I always see them. Pinks roses, white lilies, yellow chrysanthemums, bouquets of flowers on the roadsides. One time, on a bridge near Saint Bauzille de Putois, the blooms were accompanied by a plaque, "Pour Maman." I think of them, those to whom these offerings are left, lost sisters, lovers, fathers, and friends. I see Maman, studying her lilies because after the terrible accident she has nothing else to do, looking forward to when they are replaced every two weeks or so, until the day comes when they forget. The last of the lilies turn brown around the edges and wither away. She is left staring into eternal nothingness.

I see them, and I remember to slow down to 90.

He's a Sweetheart

2007-08-14T10:39:00.001+02:00

To celebrate the great news of the last entry, last night my husband took me out to our favorite restaurant. I had the foie gras and the lamb curry. He had the same entrée, but after went for le tournedos de boeuf. Being the very social people that we are, by dessert we were happily chatting away with the couple at the next table.

At a certain point in the conversation, Pierre just had to tell them: "We are here tonight because of my wife," he paused to smile at me. "She just won at the Academy Awards for the Best Writers in the Philippines."

Roll out the red carpet and bring me my Monique Lhuillier gown, mga ate. This guy makes me feel like a star! :)

P.S. Congratulations to the two other people I know who won! Dean Alfar places second in the Short Story for Children in English category, and Jerome Gomez wins second for Short Story in Filipino.

Good News Come in Twos

2007-08-13T14:41:00.000+02:00

2007 is only half over, and I'm loving it already!

Lots of good things have happened, and the latest of these had me screaming at the top of my lungs barely an hour ago, sending the cat scampering to hide under the bed and my husband come running to see what heinous crime was being committed. Instead of his wife all bloody, he found me with a grin slicing my face in half, dancing a weird kind of jig to a strange kind of chant. When he'd finally managed to make me coherent, he understood that I was repeating over and over, "I won a Palanca! I won a Palanca!"

That he replied, "Congratulations, honey, I'm so proud of you... but, uhm, what's a Palanca?" is the subject of a different blog entry altogether, but if you're asking yourself the same question, you can read about the awards here and here.

I placed second in the English Essay category for my piece, Culture Shocked: A Story of Recovery, which, it's easy enough from the title to guess, is a lot about you've been reading about in this blog for the last two years.

Oh, and the second piece of good news is that the shortest short story I have ever written in my not-so-short life, Making a Garden, has been accepted for publication in the flash fiction anthology being edited by Vince Groyon for Milflores Publishing. Groyon writes me that the tentative title of the book is Mga Kuwentong Paspasan: Very Short Stories for Harried Readers, and that it is due out before the end of the year. And, yes, I also danced a jig when I found out about this one.

P.S. (a.k.a., Let Me Plug): Remember Sawi, the Milflores anthology I told you guys was being launched in December 2006? Well, it finally did come out, but a couple of months ago. If you're interested, you can buy it through National Bookstore Online.

Etsy Shop Update

2007-08-07T11:10:00.000+02:00

During the weekend, I kept getting calls from family and friends on their way to a vacation somewhere, ending up stuck in one of the South's infernal summer traffic jams. (Yep! Another summer indicator aside from bare peripatetic feet!) I felt bad for them, really, I did, but I sure was glad that I chose to stay home quiet, with just my fabric scraps and beads for company.

The result of my own little weekend away in my head somewhere: I just updated my Etsy shop. It's at www.lapomme.etsy.com, or click here to go. Lots of fun products in there, so why not visit? Have a good week ahead, and stay away from the highways if you can.

When Love Sucks

2007-08-05T11:16:00.001+02:00

I always get asked, "Don't you miss the Philippines?" And the honest answer is No. After the initial period of adjustment, I'm finding that what my sister Bel once said is true: "Pareho-pareho lang yan kahit saan ka magpunta." I'm living exactly the kind of life I had wanted for myself in Manila after quitting my old job, except that here I'm not eating as much rice. My family? They're a YM Buzz or a phone call away. Pinoy food? I can cook it up whenever I want to.

Pressed about it, I would have to admit that there is one thing I occasionally look for, something I can't recreate over here. "Gutom" is what I call it. Hunger. It's this fierce energy you find amongst artists' circles back home. In a country where most everybody has to fight just to survive, every time you create something, you're proclaiming, Hey, I'm still here, taking up space, breathing in as much oxygen as I can, hanging on even if it's just by the soggy threads of Lucky Me Instant Noodles. I suppose you can't have that attitude if you know that even if you don't sell a painting, at the end of the month, you still get your RMI*.

So as a way of again tasting that energy, and because we really should be paying more attention to talent, every now and then in this blog I'll be telling you about the works of Filipino artists.

Today it's Wasted, a graphic novel by Gerry Alanguilan that delighted me when I first read it in the 1990s. It's angry, violent, insane, bloody, and some parts are hilariously funny. It's all about love. Go see for yourself. Wasted is being serialized online.

And I'm going to do the same as Budjette (from whose blog I also stole the image above) and say that if you haven't ever read Wasted before, then you should click here for your introduction. Afterwards, for your daily dose, it's here you want to go.

By the way, speaking of Filipino komiks, I was a big fan when I was a kid and one of my favorites was Mantisa, about this gorgeous woman who would seduce a man to her bed and then turn into a giant praying mantis to eat the hapless stud. I have absolutely no memory who the artist was. Do you?

* financial aid from the government given to unemployed French citizens

Signs of Summer

2007-07-26T15:35:00.000+02:00

How do you know that summer in the South of France is in full swing?

Some will tell you it is by the unique sound made by the singing of cicadas.

Others will say it is all about the sweet scent of the lavender ready for harvest that perfumes the air.

There are those who will identify summer in the South with the fierce midday sun that scorches the skin; relief is found under the shade of a tree, a majestic olivier or a gorgeous platane.

For my husband summer begins when flocks of les hirondelles begin to fly over the ancient walls of Aigues Mortes. They make him remember the joy he felt at childhood, when the coming of the birds signalled the beginning of freedom, no more school and playing in the streets until nine in the evening because the sun did not set until an hour later.

I have lived here only two years, but already I have my own way of marking the season.

How do I know that summer in the South of France is in full swing?

Feet. Yes, bare French feet hanging out of car windows, they come in all shapes and all sizes, and in different degrees of cleanliness. June, July, and August come, and these naked extremities begin to wave at me on the roads, happily at never less than 30 kilometers an hour so that I never have to sniff this strange flower, for I am sure that the odor has nothing in common with that of lavender. I suppose that it is supposed to be a happy sight, the owners' declaration of freedom -- "Look! No shoes! Yes, I'm not in the office/school/metro!" -- but I cannot help it: Bare feet hanging out of car windows never fail to make me think of construction workers.

Hi, There!

2007-07-20T18:37:00.000+02:00

Okay, I'm still here. Whenever a funny thought runs through my head, I find that I haven't stopped telling myself at the same time, "Hey, I can blog that!" I suppose that means I don't really want to delete all this just yet. Still, I need a break, so I won't be blogging as often as usual until summer starts easing up, which happens end of August.

Meanwhile, I'd love it if you could drop by my Etsy shop. Etsy.com is a delightful website devoted to all things handmade. Crafts-crazy person that I am, I've been telling myself since late last year that I need to be in there. And, now, I am. I just have six items posted today--one of them the funny little lavender-filled bird in the photo--but I'll be adding some more tomorrow. Go! Now!

Fade Out

2007-07-10T02:17:00.000+02:00

"... [A]fter a while, my brain seemed clearer. I was writing a lot more... ideas I had never thought of before....it took me a while to figure out why it felt, you know, so different. And then, one day, …, I realized that I had spent the last two weeks away from most of my habits. TV was in a language I didn't understand... So, all I've been doing was... walk around, think, and write. My brain felt like it was at rest, free from the consuming frenzy. And I have to say, it was almost like a natural high. I felt so peaceful inside, no... strange urge to be somewhere else, to shop... Maybe it could have seemed like boredom at first, but it quickly became very, very soulful. It's interesting, you know?"

That was Céline, telling Jesse about a visit to Warsaw when she was a teenager, in that sequel that made us all swoon, Before Sunset. I don’t generally like using movie quotes when I write, but this particular passage was irresistible. Céline describes almost perfectly my experience after having just moved to France.

It was a strangely beautiful time. Without the distraction of all things familiar, I was able to step back, to cast a critical eye on all my so-called accomplishments and also to take a deep breath to face all that I had failed to do. I recognized clearly who I had permitted myself to be. After the not-always-pleasant self-examination, I received my gift: The radical change of address was the perfect opportunity to reshape my life into what I wanted it to be--creative and healthy, full of integrity and empty of bullshit.

Now I have a barrage of new habits to replace all the old abandoned ones, and although sometimes I do miss the quiet period, I also know that my mercurial nature can only take so much soulful peacefulness!

The point of this blog entry being: Provenciana, the blog, was meant to be fuelled by the energies of a Manila girl experiencing adjustment difficulties after moving to provincial France. When Provenciana, the person, has no more real adjustment difficulties, the blog becomes moot, doesn't it.

This is not yet a goodbye, but soon, I think…

Social Creatures

2007-07-01T14:19:00.000+02:00

Pierre and I used to think that we were solitary sorts, a rather picky couple who preferred being surrounded only by people we knew very very well. I don't know why we were so deluded.

For Pierre's birthday celebration (a barbecue, what else?) from an original guest list of eight, by the time Saturday came around we were a party of 14. At around two p.m. the doorbell rung. The voice at the other end of the white box announced: "J'ai un recommandé pour Monsieur Massebieau." ("I have registered mail for Mister Massebieau.")

We were both busy attending to the food, so it was great that some of the guests were nice enough to introduce the latecomer around. An example of how it went: "Charlie, I would like you to meet my friend, Isa, and Pierre and Apol's postman."

We really are very friendly, you see. The postier, whom we kept handing beers to but whose name we never did manage to ask, he ended up staying for a good part of the rest of the afternoon.

Mystery guest no. 15

Getting to Know Me

2007-06-28T15:02:00.000+02:00

Showing off my balls, my paintballs.

"The thing about this game," intoned burly Bernard, the boss of the place, "is that it will reveal the kind of person you really are."

Whatever, I thought as I put on my helmet and unlocked the safety on my rifle. We're just here to have a bit of fun, and whoever thought of searching for deeper meaning in paintball anyway?

But as the game progressed I started thinking that what Bernard said was true. There I was, jumping flat on my stomach into a ditch because I'm game for anything, thinking first before making a move because I'm only a moderate risk-taker, and covering my teammates' backs because I'm very loyal. Paintball psychology, who would have thought it true?

Later on in the afternoon, and game no. 4 was about to end. Only three of us were left, all girls. Caroline and I were attacking for the Orange team, and Elodie was defending the Blue team base. Though she was outnumbered, Elodie had a great position, and Caroline and I couldn't advance. I had an idea. Finding a gap in the bushes where I hid, I fired shot after shot, quickly painting the Blue team's plywood tower with splashes of green.

"Go, Caroline, go!" I told my teammate, hiding behind a tree five meters away.

"Go where?" came her girlish voice.

"I've got you covered, run to the base," I said.

Silence on Caroline's part.

I waited 30 seconds and realized that she hadn't understood the strategy. After a slightly longer pause I heard a loud, harsh voice, and it wasn't until I had closed my mouth again that I realized that the voice had been mine.

I was screaming: "Go to Elodie, Caroline! Kill her! KILL HER!!!"

From his observation post to my right, I heard Bernard laugh.

Winner!

2007-06-28T14:26:00.000+02:00

I love action films. Watching something with Vin Diesel or some other hunk in it is one of my favorite ways to relax. Stunned by the gun fights, the car crashes, and the exploding buildings, my brain goes on blissful pause. I don't have to think.

Lately though, quite out of character I've found myself developing a taste for French films, specially love stories, like Michel Leclerc's J'Invente Rien, Eric Lartigau's Prête-Moi Ta Main, and Pierre Salvadori's Hors de Prix. You've got to hand it to French filmmakers, even when they're tackling love they don't go all sappy on you. Instead, their films are sophisticated and smart, full of quiet humor and the occasional dash of whimsy.

Then yesterday I clicked on to Editrixia's latest entry and I made another 180-degree turn. French films may have the smarts and the sophistication. They may have the careless elegance of Charlotte Gainsbourg and the charming vulnerability of Audrey Tautou, but they will never have Azenith Briones. Watch the video clip. She's better than car crashes and exploding buildings; probably equal in power to ten train wrecks. I love Azenith.

Dum-Dee-Dum

2007-06-22T15:11:00.000+02:00

When a girl friend of mine procrastinates, she organizes. When I do, I blog. And badly at that. Instead of telling you all about the burning car I saw on what was supposed to be a friendly night out drinking wine and listening to music while Montpellier celebrated the annual Fête de la Musique, I tooled around with flickr and did this:

My daylilies are blooming, even if I planted them just a month ago!

Amazing plants. Clockwise, that would be the second and fourth photos.
The first is an abutilon, the third sauge bleue.

No Water, No Problem

2007-06-19T18:49:00.000+02:00

(Clockwise) The micocoulier on the terrace. A wildflower keeping
the Helichrysum italicum company. Helichrysum microphyllum
'Lefka Ori.' One of my potted gazanias.

They say the apple never falls far from the tree, and while I'm sure there are exceptions, this particular Apol has landed right at the entwined roots of the trees Gerry and Priscilla. Just like my parents, I've turned out addicted to gardening. Not a very easy thing to be, given the very special environmental conditions found in the Camargue--very hot summers, strong winds beginning autumn, the air salty, the earth poor and sandy. After a lot of experimentation, I've had some success with succulents, ornamental grasses, and hardy herbs, my favorite being santolina.

Then just when everybody was saying the garden looks jolie, this spring I began some serious digging, for four days turning the earth on the rectangular piece of land facing the marsh. Inspired by the work and research of Olivier Filippi, I am going to try to make un jardin sans arrosage, a garden that doesn't require watering. The experts say that water is going to be a big problem in the very near future, but I'm not the hardheaded creature that I am if I'm going to let that stop me from enjoying my plants.

If you live in Europe, Pépinière Filippi can deliver their drought-tolerant plants to you by mail. If you read French, and you'd like to try making a dry garden yourself, I suggest you buy the book (you can get it through the website). Good luck digging!

Now, time for a Before shot of my project. As one of the things you have to learn about gardening is that it requires patience, the After photos will come in a year.

Anniversary P.S.

2007-06-14T11:23:00.000+02:00

I love my husband, really, I do, even if sometimes I feel like kicking him for yet another jaw-dropping show of tactlessness, a trait which he seems to have a knack for displaying in front of my girl friends. Two lines I recently heard him saying:

To E: "You look like the fiancée of Popeye! What's her name again? Olive Oyl! Yes, you look like Olive Oyl!"

To K: "You have a Ph.D. from Harvard? But you don't look like it!"

Girls, you've been warned. A thing you also have to know is that he is impervious to smart come-backs; he'll just laugh. So if you ever see him, I suppose the best thing you can do is duck.

Yesterday's Feast

2007-06-12T12:58:00.000+02:00

Pigging out on charcuterie before the wedding, with my dad.

Despite what my mom Priscilla will tell you ("Ang kinakain lang nila sa France, tinapay na matigas!"), where we live the eating is always good. We're starting to harvest some lettuce and radishes, and just the other day I opened my door and found outside a crate of potatoes left by a generous and gifted-gardener neighbor. Whatever else we lack, there's the twice-a-week market. The vegetables from les petits producteurs are fresh and largely chemical-free. We know the butcher and once gave him an earful when we weren't satisfied with the beef steaks.

Aigues Mortes, being year-round a host for tourists, is home to several good restaurants. Our favorite is Bouzigues, and we almost always get the fixed-price menu, three courses for 22 euros. I start either with oysters or foie gras, move on to a nice cut of meat, and finish with dessert, often something chocolate, but can't resist stealing some of Pierre's cheese, usually Pelardon with honey. When we're in the mood for exotic, we go to Timgad. Karim's mother makes the most excellent meat-and-prunes tajine.

Even with an open-air picnic, you can still have a feast. At the main-street boucherie, get a few slices of chorizo or other charcuterie, a few grams of rillettes, a slice of terrine. Don't forget your bread and your wine. At the cave cooperative, a decent bottle goes for just two euros and fifty.

However, human beings are funny; we always want what we don't have.

Yesterday was our second-year wedding anniversary, and Pierre asked, "So you want to go to a restaurant, honey?" I shook my head no, and instead took out a blue flyer I had been handed the last time I went to the city. Pierre chuckled; it was publicity for Domino's. For some time now, we'd both been craving for a greasy, ingredients-straight-from-a-factory, nothing-in-it-must-be-good-
for-you, hard-to-find-over-here, fast-food pan pizza. It had been at least two years since I'd last had one, three years for him.

So we drove 40 minutes to find the place, drove another 40 minutes back, heated stuff in the oven, and installed ourselves in bed with a film to enjoy our anniversary feast: two pan pizzas, an order of buffalo wings, a big bottle of Diet Coke, and a tub of Ben&Jerry's. For lunch today I'm relishing the leftovers. There's time enough for the rest of the week to go back to good eating.

Why I Think I'm Still in the Philippines #6 (a.ka., I'm so showbiz!)

2007-06-11T15:21:00.000+02:00

Can you hear the carabao English?

13. We all know who said, "Long-legged legs" (and if you don't you should go back to whatever other galaxy you came from).

I have a friend who after all these years still has a fondness for copying Ate Vi, in moments of gratitude saying, "It's a blessing from the skies."

Then there's my own personal experience with a sexy starlet I found myself sharing a ride back to Makati with one evening in the late '90s. There was this huge billboard on EDSA from the anti-gun movement, featuring a pistol with the barrel blocked into a knot and the slogan, "Let Buy Guns be Bygones." An obvious play on words that was totally lost on the starlet. "Ah, ganyan pala yung saying," she pointed it out to me.

I moved and thought that I had left the world of linguistic mishaps amongst showbiz idols behind, when weeks ago I began watching Nouvelle Star, and came upon contestant Julien. I think he's the best of the lot and I'm hoping he'll win the prize, however I can't help but chuckle at his rendition (scroll down to find it) of "Strangers in the Night." He is French and you have to know that the French thinks their language is the best, but this boy takes it to the extreme, applying the rules governing le français even when speaking another tongue. He decided to omit the final "s" in "strangers."

There he was going, "Stranger in the night, exchanging glances, we are stranger in the night," transforming the popular standard into a schizoprenic's personal love song. In the middle of the performance, letting it all out, he decided to make things even creepier. "Stranger than the night," he mangled it on national TV. I don't think anyone else in this non-English speaking country noticed, but tell Ate Vi that I have found her spiritual son.

[CLICK HERE! Why I Think I'm Still in the Philippines #1, #2, #3, #4, #5.]

My Buzz

2007-06-02T12:42:00.000+02:00

I think that it's a testament to how I relish extremes that I spent part of my old publishing career taking midnight taxis from Mandaluyong to Quezon Avenue to sit at a restaurant and take notes while an insider, "our mole," told me who in show business was sleeping with whom, who was fighting with whom, and who said what juicy bit of backbite and when for the gossipy Prattle pages of The Sunday Times Magazine, whose editor and my former boss Jo-ann Q. Maglipon has since gone on to establish the wildly popular Yes! magazine, a monthly serving of everything Philippine show business; and now I live with someone who can't even tell Jennifer Aniston from Angelina Jolie, an absolute uninitiate who, when I announced horrified that Britney Spears had shaved her head, asked, "Why did your friend do that?" (I think he thought I was talking about Lille or Tara, both of whom he thinks are very nice but slightly mad.)

Extremes are addicting though, and so like an ex-smoker who every now and then must have his nicotine fix, this morning I felt an urge to light up my Mozilla. I smoked up the links, getting high on the goings-on thousands of miles away. Some tsismis gathered from this morning's giving in to weakness: Marjorie Barretto and Dennis Padilla are on a cool-off, Ogie Alcasid and Regine Velasquez are a couple, and Yoyoy Villame is dead.

The news that most affects me is that Ruffa Gutierrez and the Turkish Yilmaz Bektas are filing for divorce. Ruffa cites cultural differences as the root of their troubles, and I feel deep empathy for her. I remember my own difficulties with Pierre, like that one time I was trying to have a conversation with him about unforgettable '80s pop idols. I was attempting to illustrate the spectacle that was Leni Santos in The Punks delivering her classic line, "Hindi mo kami maiintindihan, Ma, punks kami"; and for some strange reason that got him reminiscing about how absolutely lovely Sophie Marceau was in her first film, La Boum. I fumbled through an explanation of how, despite the rhyming names, Leni and Sophie do not inhabit the same planet and how, if they ever met, it would generate such intense energy their meeting place would instantly transform into a blackhole. He failed to get it.

As I said, I feel deeply for Ruffa. Cultural differences are tough.

Survival Tip from the Diaspora

2007-05-28T15:01:00.000+02:00

Maybe it's because I grew up with three sisters, but I find it essential to every now and then be surrounded by my girl friends. Even though no one can make me laugh as hard as my husband, I find that the thing about men is that when you start telling them of your troubles, they'll instantly start offering you solutions, failing to get that we're not really looking for any advise, because we're all grown up and know exactly what to do, all we're really looking for is an ear where to spill our worries.

And because I'm really a girl's kind of girl, the thing that I'm finding wonderful is that regardless of nationality and regardless of language, women everywhere are the same: gifted with the ability to find deep release in what to the unperceptive observer looks like nothing but banal chichat. Today's survival tip for the Filipina moving at least an ocean away from home: Instead of staying cooped up being homesick, go out and make friends.

Plugging: Salinawit

2007-05-23T10:02:00.000+02:00

After reading Hazel's blog, I have to make a confession: My tastes are really very base; I love reality TV shows! So the other day I was watching Nouvelle Star, a rip-off of American Idol, and I happened upon Julie, this young contestant with a slightly jologs vibe, singing Jacques Brel's "Ne Me Quitte Pas" in a kinda cool, slightly raw, very modern way and--why is this happening all the time now?--I was so touched I got all teary eyed! (Claudine Barretto, isthatchu?)

Which led to me sending an e-mail to the poet Pete Lacaba, asking him to make a salinawit of the Brel classic. Now, you have to understand that this act of e-mailing Pete shows very clearly my desire for the translation. Years ago, when he was our copy editor at The Sunday Times Magazine and I had to remind him of stuff that needed doing, I was so petrified by the idea of him catching me at a grammatical error that I'd proofread even the notes I'd leave him on Post-Its. "Hi Pete! We need the story on the kung-fu champions today. Thanks!" I'd go over that, clap a palm over my forehead, then slip the neglected comma in between the "Hi" and the "Pete!" OC, that's me.

So anyway, I was lucky. Pete had already worked on "Ne Me Quitte Pas" and sent it along with the 58 other salinawit he'd done. I fully intend on memorizing the lyrics and singing it for Pierre one of these days, in the hopes of weaning him away from his all-time favorite Tagalog song that is a good song, there's no denying it, but I've been hearing "Anak" since I was little listening to the radio with Yaya Maura as she did laundry in the afternoons so I think I deserve a change.

Pete might just do a Julie and sing "Huwag Mo Akong Iwan" on 29 May, when the Singing Writers (Pete, Charlson Ong, Marne Kilates, and Michael Coroza) belt it out at a gig at the Conspiracy Garden Cafe in Quezon City. Bien Lumbera and Becky Anonuevo will have their salinawit sung by Susan Fernandez.

And now I come to the point of this post. I'd love it if one of you can go, make a video, and post it on YouTube. Sige na, plis?

"Accident-Prone, but Great!"

2007-05-22T17:50:00.001+02:00

Is how I just responded to Kala's "How are you?" on Yahoo.

It's that time of the year when the south transforms into a truly beautiful place. Pierre has also discovered the joys of rock-climbing, so we go together on most Sundays. To get to the site, we take the highway, the prickly-looking cystisus on the islands and borders for the moment made cheery by its early-summer yellow flowers. Whenever we turn on the minor roads, no matter how many times we've seen it, we still go "Wow!" over the spectacle of fields luminous with the red of poppies. (I like the French name better: coquelicot, the sound of a tease, or somebody tipsy, maybe even a little mad.)

Before we finally get to don those always too-tight climbing shoes, we must hike through mountain paths. I can never resist playing explorer/botanist. I identify some wildflowers, recently sweet peas and Alysse odorata. A length of sedum and an ear of cactus I pick up for replanting in my garden. Sniffing at some wispy pale green leaves, I establish that, no, this one's not a curry plant. A classic scene had the group in the parking lot, shouting my name and that of Karine's, wondering if we had gotten lost, only to see us make an appearance a few minutes later holding bouquets of wild rosemary and thyme. "Tonight I make bolognaise," I declare, waving my leaves of Thymus.

Noting my liking for plants, on more than one occasion another climber has warned, "Apol, don't touch the rue, okay." Then the concerned one would go on to say that the herb contains a chemical that can hurt me.

So it was last Sunday and we are up on some rocks again. The view at Narbonne--grape vines in the foreground, the sea beyond--is great. However, a moment comes when I can't appreciate it. I'm stuck on a wall, having difficulty finishing the last few meters of a climb. I know I'm going to fall, realize that I'm going to swing a bit. It's fine, I'm not scared, I tell myself and let go.

Deep scrapes are nasty. Epidermis gone, you're hit right at the nerve endings, making you bite your lips, stomp your feet, claw at the arms of the nearest available person, anything to keep from screaming in pain so loud they might just come, the firemen who are France's version of 911. I have various injuries running from the fingers to the elbow of my left arm to show that I know what I'm talking about. I thought I'd end up shaken, hanging in empty air but unharmed. Instead, my fall was interrupted by a rather violent grating against a protruberance.

Don't touch the rue, they keep telling me, it can hurt you. Now why did nobody warn me not to touch the rock?

P.S. Okay, we all know I'm vain, so it's no surprise that 20 minutes after the accident I was demanding that somebody take a picture of my arm. Take my word for it, close-up the limb looks like a chewed-up saucisson:

Baby Turns Two

2007-05-21T19:20:00.000+02:00

I know blogs featuring cat pictures are awfully sappy, but what can I do. I love our Dolly. She's two years old this month. In cat years, that means she's a full-grown dalaga. She's sterilized though, so no going out with the many young garçons purring in the area. This photo makes it obvious; her birthday wish is that she needs a new basket. (And, yes, in case you're wondering, that white puffy thing peeking out next to her belly is her favorite stuffed toy.)

Why I Must Be In France, Barbecue Edition

2007-05-16T11:55:00.000+02:00

What you get when your blogger is too busy eating she forgets to take a picture...

I must be in France because the word "barbecue" doesn't mean an old manang or a pouting bading standing in a street corner, indifferently waving anahaw fan over red-black coals smoldering inside a rusty box with a grill on top, cooking five-peso sticks of fatty pork and chicken innards marinated in Jufran ketchup, for the office worker going home and too tired to cook anything, so this is dinner, or for the kanto boys who for once have decided to not spend all their money on the gin and the beer, so this is pulutan.

Instead "barbecue" is a celebration, the beginning of warm days spent outdoors sunning on the terrace and taking quick dips in the pool when one gets too hot. Today the women are all together on the giant hammock talking about their men, who are there, gathered around the grill.

The loudest (yes, that would be Pierre) is declaring that here, in the Camargue, barbecue is a religion, prepared for as early as October, when the locals gather the twigs fallen off after the grapes have been harvested. Dried, these go in with the secret mix of other wood, to give what's cooking a special flavor. ("We never use charcoal," he declares to the visiting Parisian and the guy from Annecy. "That would be sacrilege.") There is also the seasoning with oil and herbes de Provence--rosemary, thyme, marjoram, oregano, basil, and summer savory. Think of it as an aromatic benediction.

Lunch begins with Cindy's green salad. The sauce is simple yet sublime. Olive oil, vinegar, mustard, and shallots are mixed, the strong flavors then tempered with two fresh eggs. When the meat arrives, we agree that the making of it must indeed involve something out of this world. How else can spare ribs, chicken, lamb, and various sausages induce in their diners such ecstasy? We worship with a lot of lip-smacking, the sign of our conversion the grease running down our chins.

Afterwards, everybody wants to take a nap, and not just because we all ate too much: Before lunch we have our beers and pastis, during the eating there is wine, and after there is sweet wine, some whiskey, and even a bottle of champagne. If we paid 30 euros for the meat, then double that must have gone to the beverages. Despite all the ceremony, when you think about it, we really aren't that much different from kanto boys.

Nakaka-Miss

2007-05-10T11:38:00.000+02:00

Kakatapos ko lang basahin ang blog/blag ni Patricia, at doon nakita ko ang salinawit ni Pete Lacaba. Yung kanta ni Edith Piaf na "La Vie En Rose" isinalin ni Pete sa wikang Filipino at naging "Kulay-Rosas." Eniwey. Dahil hindi naman ako poet (malaki lang ang aking puwet--uy! rhyme!), hindi nagbunga ng makabagbag-damdaming tula ang pagbasa ko sa trabahong ito. Insteyd, bigla kong naisip ang mga salitang Tagalog na miss na miss na ng dila kong sambitin. Pruweba ay habang nagta-type ako ay sabay kong ninanamnam ang pagbuo ng mga salita at pangugusap na ito:

1. Korek! (Hindi posibleng bigyang hustisya ang salitang "korek" kung hindi ito susundan ng "!")

2. tsubibo (Puwede rin namang feyris wheel.)

3. pampa-byuti (Tamang nostalgiya ito: Madalas ko itong marinig nung nasa UP pa ako, galing sa mga kaibigang madalas ding magtanong, "Meron ba tayong wala tayo diyan?")

4. chos (Madalas ko itong marinig sa pianist/showbiz writer na si Blaiseblaiseblaise Gacoscos.)

5. salamat (Kasi, kapag nagsasabi ako ng "Merci," pakiramdam ko humihingi ako ng tawad.)

6. manong/manang (... pabili nang kendi.)

7. liempo (Puwedeng palitan ng salitang "baboy" o, kung on a diet, ng "lechong manok.")

8. Ang baho. (Kung nakatira ka sa Manila, halos araw-araw mong sasabihin ito.)

9. Ganda mo! (Huwag kalimutan ang sarcasm dito.)

10. Wala akong paki. (Hindi lang pangungusap, attitude din, na sa mundong ito, kakailanganin mo kung ayaw mong maloka na lang at maglaslas ng pulso.)

11. Sige na, plis. (Sabayan ng matamis na ngiti at flutter of the eyelashes.)

12. damdamin (Dahil OA ako.)

13. Bakit? (Kahit na kadalasan, wala talagang sagot; nangyayari na lang talaga.)

14. Putangina mo! (Malutong na malutong; salitang nung nasa Pilipinas ako ay hindi ko nasabi masyado, dahil sa tatay ko na hanggang bente anyos ako ay sinasabihan akong ibibitin niya raw akong nang patiwarik kung marinig niyang magmura ako.)

15. Hindi ba? (Sasabihin kapag naghahanap ng kakampi.)

16. chika (Expert ako dito.)

17. gimik (Kapag naririnig ko ang "soirée" nila dito, mga nakakainis na naglalandiang high school boys and girls ang naiisip ko.)

18. Aray! (Hindi kailanman kayang i-express ng "ouch" o ng "ça fait mal" ang sakit na nararamdaman!)

19. guinataan (Bilo-bilo kung puwede, pero mahilig din ako sa monggo.)

20. mahal (Ang dalawang kahulugan nito ay nagtagpo sa isang ex-boypren na walang trabaho.)

21. bukol (Dalawa din ang ibig sabihin nito...)

22. Ang galing ano? (Isa ito sa paborito ko, kasi hindi ako sophisticated eh, madali akong ma-impress.)

23. rosas (Ang dami kasi niyan dito ngayon.)

24. bumbero (Bakit slightly nababastusan ako sa salitang ito?)

Strange, But True

2007-05-04T12:14:00.000+02:00

I adore my mother-in-law. Really, I do. And, although I think she occasionally finds me strange, I would like to think that she feels likewise. She does seem to relish my company. For example, a few weeks ago she called me into her house, and we had a one-hour chat about nothing much really. Just before I had to go, she dropped the bomb: "I'm getting a boob job."

A firm believer in everyone's right to self-improvement, I told her, "Go for it!" But as someone with a very low tolerance for pain, I had to warn her that I had read in Asia Carrerra's website that silicone implants hurt. She didn't know Asia (Me? I swear I was at the website for the makeup tips!), but told me, "Don't worry about it, I'm not getting implants. I'm just going to get them lifted, because they're sagging, you see." And then she lifted her shirt to show me the sad state of her mammaries.

Later that day, to my husband I announced, "Your mom showed me her boobies!"

"No, that can't be," he began. "She's always been a prude. Not me, not even my sister, maybe my dad. No one has ever seen her naked." It was obvious that he was only half-believing me.

We forgot all about it, until after the operation, when to my terrace mother-in-law came to show me her bandaged babies.

"Wow!" I exclaimed, genuinely impressed. "They're proud and perky."

"Touch them," she told me. "No!" Now I was feeling more than uneasy.

This time she commanded me: "Touch!" So what could I do. They were as firm as a sixteen-year-old's, I tell you.

Meanwhile, my husband still couldn't believe all this exhibitionism was happening. Then yesterday, as we were driving past his mom's, he quietly announced: "She did it to me too."

"What," I asked, looking out the window, a bit absent-mindedly.

"She showed her boobs to me."

I fumbled for my cellphone. "Should I call a psychiatrist? You're going to need therapy now, aren't you, honey." Then I began to laugh, but he only sighed and shook his head, trying to empty it of the traumatizing memory.

Suddenly, A Movie Review (well, sort of)

2007-05-01T20:01:00.000+02:00

Yesterday, after finally finishing a project that I'd been procrastinating on, I decided that as reward I would park myself in front of the television and watch the first Filipino movie I would see in two years. Five shirts and a pair of pants have been waiting crumpled in the clean laundry pile forever, so I decided to attack those too. So there I was at six p.m., watching Milan, ironing clothes, crying during Claudine Barretto's breakdown scene, feeling absolutely OFW!

P.S. If he reads this, Raymond Lee might well give me a boink on the head while saying, "Ano ba, Apol, Milan is so old. I'm in my Maximo Olivares era na, ano!" But I do have a quibble with the script: Why is it that, a quarter of the time, the Pinoy characters speak Italian to each other?

Whenever I find myself in the company of Filipinos, I immediately switch to Tagalog, and as pure as I can manage it while still being conversational. The long periods of not being able to speak my mother tongue and the hunger to express myself in it whenever the opportunity arrives have even reduced my tendency to speak Taglish. I can't imagine myself conversing in French with Makis and Hazel, except maybe to joke around or when we're with French people, so when the Milan characters start going, "Amore" and "Pronto" to each other, it strikes me as very odd. This is terribly corny, but as a Filipino living somewhere far from home, I find incredible comfort, and sometimes even strength, in speaking the language of my heart.

Out Gardening

2007-04-25T15:38:00.000+02:00

While all of France is caught up in the presidential elections, all I'm really concerned about are the goings-on in my garden.

I gathered wild garlic from a field in Salvetat and replanted them in a deep pot, hoping they'll thrive here in the Midi. For a good quarter-hour yesterday, I hand-picked the snails infesting my iris, then drowned the pests in vinegar, their punishment for daring harm the bearded beauties that are blooming so well this season. After much research, I've figured out what plants can survive the poor soil and the heat of where we live, so I've brought in ornamental grasses--Festuca glauca and Carex buchanani--as well as sempervivums and various sedums--acre, spectabile, monregalense, and reflexum. The Pampas grass we dug out of a nearby field and replanted here last autumn is currently testing its new home with a few tentative blades. Roses like sandy soil and lots of sun; they grow well here. So I've taken cuttings from Jeanette's profuse peach variety and pray that it's not too late for them to root. To give them a boost, I soaked the eight-inch long tips in weak tea made from split-open willow twigs. The oleander cuttings have received the same treat.

When I do wash my hands of soil and brush up on current events, I find myself drawn to the colorful first-round losing candidate José Bové, high-school kick-out, defender of sheep farmers, Roquefort cheese-maker, marijuana decriminalization adherent, one-time Rainbow Warrior passenger, organic farming proponent, genetically modified organisms enemy, and, in connection to this last and most famously, a McDonald's dismantler.

On top of all that, I have to admit, I am awfully attracted to his posters decorated with a giant coquelicot, my favorite spring flower.

Unsettling Moment

2007-04-25T15:11:00.000+02:00

There I was, watching a documentary on a Palawan tribe, lost as to what the tribespeople were saying except for the occasional word shared with Tagalog--"babae," "lalaki," "oo"--reading the subtitles meant for the citizens of this foreign land to understand one of the languages of my own country.

Photograph, In Words

2007-04-23T16:52:00.000+02:00

Strangely beautiful sight seen today: A half-naked young man--blue jeans holding on to a strip of brown leather belt, pale winter skin teased by spring sunshine--standing in the middle of a wide field, accompanied only by rows of grape vines just beginning to leaf, blowing on a golden trumpet, offering his music to the wind somewhere on that long, quiet road to Arles.

Scene from a Marriage

2007-04-20T14:37:00.000+02:00

I was nagging my husband: "I've decided that I want a child. Now, I know you're not so hot on the idea of having one, but you better think about it again, because I know I want to have a baby, and I'm not going to stay with a guy who doesn't want to have one with me."

For a few days, he was being wishy-washy, trying to get me convinced that we should only consider having a child if we could be back in the Philippines the first few years of the baby's life, because then we could afford yayas, and having help really makes things easier during those difficult infant years. Then one evening he comes home, and goes all emotional on me.

"I have something to say," he began, his eyes tearing up. "Life is going well for us, and we're in love. In fact, we're the happiest couple I know. So I realized that this is really the best time for it. Yes, let's have a child. Let's have a child right now."

"Huh," went I. "Right now?"

"Yes," he affirmed.

"Uhm, you know, I didn't mean rrrrr-right now," I stuttered. "I just wanted to know that the option of having a child was open."

He only stared.

"Like, if I felt that I was ready to have one, we could. But I didn't mean right now. Maybe, in two years or four. Or maybe even later. Just so I know that the option is there, you get it?"

I know, I am an impossible wife.

Lovely Weekend

2007-04-16T12:13:00.000+02:00

I find that the best way to recover from an injury is to pretend that it's not there. So off we went to Salvetat, to stay at a house beside the lake. (That's me, limping but up and about!)

We brought along some wine, a bottle of pastis, and food enough to see us through a night and a day spent with really cool people.

I also packed my pearls and a bias-cut skirt. It was Karine's birthday, we were having a party in the evening, and the invitation said to come all sexy and glamorous. Now familiar with the quirky sense of humor of people in these parts, I really should have known better...

Sexy was interpreted by artist Emeline as giant boobs with the perkiest nipples made out of foam and resin for the girls.

And the guys decided that glamourous meant walking around half-naked all night wearing neckties and body hair.

Or maybe the nudity we can attribute to the twenty empty bottles of various types of alcohol we were throwing into the garbage by Sunday's end?

Skiing Lesson

2007-04-11T09:45:00.000+02:00

Before the fall...

I am ready for anything, will try everything at least once, and if I really, really want something, I won't give up until I get it. My friends will tell you that my middle name is "Game!"

For the Easter weekend we decided to go skiing. A sport I had decided I adored, despite two factors that would have made anyone else think otherwise: I come from the tropics, where if it snowed it meant that the end of the world was nigh, and I'd only done it once before, and then just for two hours. This time I had three entire days! By day number three, gung-ho creature that I am, I felt I was ready to go up the steep red slopes. I glided down nice and easy. Once on the easier blue, however, I fell badly, hit my chin with a ski and got up feeling a throbbing in my right knee. I was determined, so despite that I felt my jaw going numb and my ears ringing, I pushed off. It took my husband noticing that my chin was dripping blood to make me stop.

Trips to the first-aid station for a band-aid and to the café for a Coke Light later, I was insisting that I was okay. Convincing myself that my knee was only mildly uncomfortable, I got on the lifts again. Bad move. Doing an easy turn, I felt the knee do a double clack and fold up on me. No amount of stubborn pushing myself could do anything--the knee had had enough of skiing.

These days I'm looking like the bride of Frankenstein, with a stitch on my chin and a hideous contraption on my right leg. I’m told that if I hadn’t forced it that second time, my knee would have been okay after a good night’s sleep. Instead the doctor has forbidden me sports for ten days. Quite an unnecessary reminder, really, as right now all I can manage to do is hobble from bedroom to kitchen with much difficulty.

Eastertime lesson: While “Game!” is good, one should also have the wisdom to know when to call a Time Out.

Beefcake of the Month

2007-03-30T16:57:00.000+02:00

Because, after many visits to the mechanic's, the secondhand motorcycle that he bought for himself last Christmas is finally in good working condition.

Because never mind that the mechanic called the Honda a "grandmother," this motorcycle is exactly of the same type he used when he was in his teens and twenties driving all around Europe being young and absolutely crazy.

Because extra insurance money let him buy a spanking new leather jacket.

Because even if he was a hardcore biker, he never did buy a motorcycle jacket ever before, the last one he was using was a hand-me-down from friend Babs, and even that was already 10 years old when he was given it.

And really just because I think he's hot.

Tsismosa, Ako

2007-03-30T14:51:00.000+02:00

May ilan akong kakilala na ang buong akala ay sumkinda wild child ako. Sumkinda true naman. Aaminin ko, may pagka-lukaret ako. Pero dito, sa bagong bansang ito, naipamukha sa akin na meron din akong aspetong konserbatibo. Hindi ko alam kung bakit (nasa alignment kaya ng planets?) pero sa kasalukuyan ay napapaligiran ako ng mga babaeng may asawa o nobyo, pero mayroon ding pangalawang pag-ibig. Pramis, hindi makitid ang utak ko. Naniniwala ako na kailangan nating hayaan ang bawat isa na buhayin ang buhay na magpapaligaya sa kanya. Pero pag kuwentong kalaguyo na, napapanganga ako. Kapag nagsasalaysay ang mga girl friends ko tungkol sa kani-kanilang pamamangka sa dalawang ilog, sa loob-loob ay napapa-ohmygod ako. Tapos, natatawa ako sa sarili ko. Kasi kahit saanman ako dalhin, hindi ko yata talaga makakalimutan ang mga turo ng loka-loka-pero-relihiyosang nanay ko.

They're Back!

2007-03-27T14:32:00.000+02:00

I blogged about them last March, and here they are again: a family of five flamingos (one is camera-shy) has, for the last two weeks, been coming every few days to feed in our marsh. Last Friday there I was, eating the best oysters in the world that Tonton Dedou gathers from where they grow wild in the Salins du Midi, squeezing on them drops from the lemons freshly picked from Tante Jackie's garden, in between slurping down mollusks looking out the window to admire my occasional neighbors, thinking that life rarely gets better than this.

Sigh...

2007-03-21T20:50:00.000+01:00

Maybe because it's the first day of spring, but I really can't get any work done. Instead I'm sipping a glass of California zinfandel (Ssshhhhhh.... Don't tell my vine-growing neighbors!), looking at all the new pictures sent by a best friend in the cusp of a romance, wishing Pierre and I were back on that island in the middle of nowhere, not thinking of grownup responsibilities, instead playing footsie on the beach and watching sunsets, falling in love all over again. What can I say, today I'm 34 going on 16.

Everybody Has An Accent

2007-03-21T12:37:00.000+01:00

My friend Garch is impossibly adorable, so every time he would nag me about how I pronounced certain English words, I would humor him. I say "chocolate" as regular Filipinos would, "cho-ko-leyt," but I think he found this insufferably pedestrian. He insisted that I say it brisk. So "choc-lit." Same with "Jesus." I say it "jee-soos," with the lips rounded off at the end; but Garch always corrected me. "It's 'jee-saz.'" He would make me say it with the lips stretched out. As I said, he's adorable otherwise, so I'd say the words like he wanted to hear them whenever he was around.

If you grew up in the Philippines, you'd be conscious of a certain snobbery--let's admit it now--a feeling of superiority amongst people who said those English words perfectly correct. There is a wrong way and a right way to pronunciation: Very wrong would be how the Visayan nanny stereotypically spoke, pronouncing pink as "penk" and tricycle as "tray-si-kol." So right would be, for example, the articulation of former ABS-CBN TV show host Cher Calvin, who grew up in the States. We try oh-so-hard to do it how it's supposed to be done, that is to say, with an American twang.

I land here and in the very beginning speak French like I'd hear in their movies, with the curt, Parisian accent. My husband and his family would have none of it; they always corrected me. It didn't take long for me to be using the deliciously robust word endings of the South. Last December, I go to language school in the nearby city of Montpellier. One of the teachers think I'm almost a real bilingual (she only knew I spoke English aside from French, as there was never any occasion to communicate with her in Filipino), another tells me to tone the accent down, try to sound like they do in Paris.

Fast forward to a few weeks later, when I introduce my southern-French husband to a couple of Swiss friends. "The Swiss really speaks French funny," Pierre said after they had left. Later on he meets my Belgian climbing buddy, who speaks French, Flemish, and English. "You're not French, right?" Pierre asked her. "You have an accent." The Belgian replied, "No, I'm not, but it's only now that I'm here in France that I find out I speak the language with an accent." Spunky girl that she is, she adds, "Hey, you're French, but you also have an accent."

The brouhaha is not limited to the Philippines, France, Switzerland, and Belgium, I tell you. In the climbing club there are three Spaniards and one Ecuadorian who always hang out together. "So it's the same kind of Spanish in both your countries?" I ask Marcos, the scientist from Ecuador. "Pretty much," he replies, "just certain words are not the same, and also the pronunciation." A pause and he adds, "The Spaniards, you know, they don't speak Spanish correctly. They don't have the right accent!"

So Garch, I know you speak Spanish and you do it like your insulares ancestors did, but I'm not going to go all Ecuadorian on you. After that long blog post all I really want to know is this: Can I just keep on saying "cho-ko-leyt"?

Love at 64

2007-03-14T12:08:00.000+01:00

A table for two, photo by Nicky Sering.

They met at a New Year's Eve ball. She was feeling lonely, and he asked her to dance. At the end of the night, he also asked for her phone number, and while usually she doesn't do such things, this time she scribbled it down. Maybe it was his friendly blue eyes (definitely it was not the mustache that reminded her of a rat's whiskers). Soon they were dating regularly. Once they went for a wintertime walk on the beach. Often, they would have dinner at his place. He made her feel special, how he would insist that she do nothing, just sit down and listen to some music or watch TV. He, meanwhile, took care of everything else, cooked the meal and even insisted on washing the dishes. He paid attention to what she had to say, did things to please her (yes, even trimming his whiskers!). This was so different from what she had been used to, when she had first been in love many years ago.

But, no, she would tell family and friends, this was not love. She was not in love, she insisted. She just enjoyed his company, that was all. Yet given the chance she could talk about him for an hour. Also, she maintained, she had no intention of ever living with him. She was perfectly fine being a single girl, treasured the fact that she could do what she wanted when she wanted and how she wanted. She had every intention of keeping her independence, she declared. Despite the speech, in the mornings when they look out their window, her neighbors have gotten used to seeing the car of the man who is not supposed to live there still in the spot where he had parked it the night before.

My girl friends, take heart! I have recently discovered that romance can be available to women all their lives. The lead character in this story--the one who smiles all the time now, who these days is always well-coiffed and well-dressed, and who talks about her dates as effusive as if she were a teenager--the woman is my mother-in-law Jeanette who, after nine years of widowhood and at the age of 64 has, without expecting it, found Alain. Believe me when I tell you: Sexagerians still bloom!

Performance Anxiety

2007-03-09T15:54:00.000+01:00

I knew that this blog was going to be featured as some kind of must-read in Mabuhay magazine, but the writer is someone I know and love, so when she told me, I was thinking quite foolishly that it was going to be just a little piece passed between girl friends, no biggie at all. And then I read Katrina's comment in the last post, and I looked up the blog where she found out about the writeup, and because I am admittedly tsismosa, I went to the comments box of that blog and found people I do not know at all talking about "the provenciana." I was a magazine writer for a decade, so I was surprised to find myself going inside my head, "Oh my god!" But there it was. I was nervous and, I have to admit, a little bit afraid. These readers may well find my accounts of gendarme visits and fighting with ignorant barmen banal and self-absorbed. Nyarks! went I. Must I now start talking about Sarkozy's immigration policy and the traitorous nature of a dual citizenship? All that important stuff, you know.

Carnavaling in Nice

2007-03-04T11:30:00.000+01:00

I swear I try my best. I go somewhere and start out acting all cool and proper and my age,

BEFORE: around 7 in the evening,
at a café in the old part of Nice, having
delicate glases of kir with friends.

but as my mom will tell you, I was born hyperactive. And I haven't been cured of the malady. Give me any reason to have fun and make a party, I'll be grabbing it.

AFTER: At the Promenade des Anglais, at the height of the
Carnaval , bombarded with silly string and confetti, some of which
I'm sure I swallowed, given how big my open mouth was.

I imagine I'll be one of those grandmothers wearing feathered purple hats and dancing the mambo into their eighties...

(Maya took the pictures. For deeper insights on the merits of silly string, go to her blog through my links.)

Back from Nice

2007-02-27T17:15:00.000+01:00

Utah, the monster dog.

I am barefoot on my terrace, swinging on a hammock, the unseasonably warm weather making me think of Camembert left to melt on the grill at the end of a summer barbecue. The husband is working just a few meters away, the cat is in her basket napping, and the dog who is visiting for a week is slobbering copiously. Five seagulls are making a racket as they dive for the old bread I had left for them on the marsh. I don't think dogs eat live bird, but it does make me wonder. Does the labrador hear their cries as a dinner bell's clanging?

The weekend in Nice with old friends was very, very interesting, but it feels good to be home.

People in My Neighborhood

2007-02-22T20:26:00.000+01:00

Her name is Gudrun, and she runs a bed and breakfast some two kilometers from where I live. Born East German, she has called France home for the last thirty years.

"I came before the Wall came down," she told me over coffee and biscuits.

Looking at the cane she held in her right hand and remembering how earlier she had had me run up to the second floor to fetch a forgotten key because she managed the stairs but with difficulty, I went for the obvious; I asked, "So you jumped over from the other side?"

"Ah," the reply came with the appropriate enigmatic smile, "it was much more complicated than that." Gudrun paused for a beat, and after would give me nothing more to satisfy the curiosity. She changed the subject.

Impossible to resist whispers of intrigue and mystery! I have turned village tsismosa, and am determined to get invited another time for coffee.

Ranting and Raving

2007-02-14T12:56:00.000+01:00

Art shot that has nothing at all to do
with the contents of this blog entry.

Every Filipino immigrant will have tales of little indignities and humilations to tell, injurious encounters with stereotypes and prejudices. Each one will tell you his own way of dealing with being a stranger in a land where the locals are occasionally assholes. I'm betting that majority will say that the best defense is no defense. Either get away from the situation or, if that's not possible, swallow your hurt and smile if you can. Unfortunately, I'm no Gandhi. What suits my temperament best, I find, is to look the monster in the eye and tell it to go back to the dark uneducated hole it came from.

The monster this last time was a small-village barman in his sixties, and the eyes, as is often the case with people of his profession, were rheumy. If that weren't enough to tell you who he was, just look at the popped blood vessels of an old alcoholic all abloom on his nose. We were there for hot chocolate, but he decided he'd also serve us with conversation. The group being multicultural, naturally he began by asking from where we came.

"Ah, the Philippines," his eyes lit up when he heard it. He proceeded to say he had friends over there--presumably as ancient and as potbellied as he--prolonging the life of their retirement euros where everything costs three times less. "It's a poor country," he said. "For you to be studying here, your parents must be capitalist businessmen. Are your parents rich?" I just looked at him, mildly appalled at the tactlessness.

The Belgian girl beside me corrected the assumption, saying I was here married to someone French. "Ah," he was at it again. You knew from the tone of his voice and how he smiled that he actually thought he was being friendly. "You got lucky. You found a way out."

Stunned, I was silent for a beat, during which the Belgian chick tried to come to my rescue by saying, "But no, it was her husband who got lucky!" But I never needed any saving.

"Monsieur," I finally found my voice, icy-cold though it was this time, "I did not get married to my husband to escape my country. Rest assured that I had a very good job and a very good life over there." I looked at him with what I tried very hard to be a withering stare. "I am not some poor, ignorant country girl, do you get that?"

At least he got that he wasn't welcome near our table, so he muttered something unintelligible before lumbering away. One of the French guys with us tried to calm me: "I don't think he meant it." And that is exactly my point. Very few of them mean it. They open their mouths to display how their thinking has been malformed by stereotypes and prejudices, and when confronted with how they had been offensive, they'll say they didn't mean it. They just didn't know any better. Are we to let them continue using ignorance as an excuse to do harm?

That's a big No for me. I take their education as my own personal responsibility. I open my mouth in turn and tell them off so that next time they see an Asian girl, they'll think twice about labeling her a spoiled brat, a poor island girl, or--let's not forget the great big scarlet brand--a whore.

Of course, my goals are not all lofty. "I don't think he meant it," Thomas said. "No, I'm sure he didn't," I replied. Then in a voice I made sure was loud enough to carry to where the monster was wiping glasses behind a counter, I continued, "He's just an idiot!"

Meeting

2007-02-09T11:15:00.000+01:00

I met a girl who just recently moved here. She was peppy, which is refreshing for a European chick, and with clever layering managed the feat of being fashionable while engaged in the very unglamorous task of rock-climbing. Like regular girls, we started talking about the soldes, happening right now, with most shops selling their wares at a discount. Think Midnight Madness, only nation-wide. She really had to go visit the boutiques this Saturday, she said, it was her only day free. You can rush it a bit after work, too, I suggested. No, she replied, she works almost every day well into the evening, until 8:30 or nine. I hope they pay you overtime, I sympathized. Whereupon she gushed, No, it's my choice really, I like staying late at work. I really really love my job. Really love it. Given a statement like that, of course you have to ask, What's your job?

Her response was not quite what I expected: "I do research on evolutionary biology. We're studying the asexual reproduction of these multicellular creatures that have existed on earth since life began--how they have managed to survive the environmental changes, how they have done that solely with females, by cloning, and what, in the evolutionary sense, their existence means to humans." A pause which I used to search for the signs that scream Nerd! that I must have missed, but, no, there really weren't any thick glasses. Then she thrilled with the same enthusiasm I've heard former colleagues use when talking about fashion styling and beauty reportage, "There is just so much to do and to know!"

And so now let me display my awe of humanity by saying, it really takes all kinds to keep the world moving and shaking. Ang galing, ano?

Cure for Boredom

2007-02-04T12:46:00.000+01:00

This is what I feel:

i.e., exhilarated, exuberant, excited

Because this is where we went:

village of Collias, near Nimes

This is who we were:

Sebastien, Emeline, Apol, Sebastien (yep, there are two of them),
Stephane, Sarah, Rui, and Karin taking the picture

And this is what we did:

Climbing rocks! (Excuse the pun.)

Pulis!

2007-01-30T18:05:00.000+01:00

Dolly disrupts critical state matters.

There was a gendarme at the gate this afternoon, catching me with a shovel in hand and digging a man-sized hole.

He told me that he was there on an investigation, and that he had to enter the premises.

"Do you have a warrant?" I've learned from watching American films to say on these occasions, but I don't know the French word for "warrant," so all I could manage was a lame, "What investigation?"

"It concerns Monsieur Pierre Massebieau," he said, "and Madame Rosalinda Massebieau." Uh-oh, I thought, looking at the mud on my clothes, what did we do now?

No worries, no murder was committed. We just got married. Gendarme Pecheur (the fishing policeman, if you translate) was there to check that this wasn't un mariage blanc, a marriage contrived for one of the two parties to get citizenship papers.

"Oh," I said, finally getting it, "you just want to see if I actually live here with Pierre!"

So I started by showing him where he had interrupted me while I was digging to build a pond in the garden, and then I asked his advice about what plants grow best in our sunny, salty climes. Would you send me to prison if this were a fake marriage, out of curiosity I asked. Do you catch a lot of people at it? I continued. Do you like your job? I couldn't stop.

He finally managed to sit us down so that it was him who could ask the questions and fill out some papers, but by the time I was screeching, chasing our cat Dolly who had managed to trap a bird half its size and was dragging it all around the living room, I think he had no doubt in his mind where I lived.

Still, he tried to be thorough. He asked to see where I kept my clothes. You're going to see my bras, I warned him. Then he looked in the bathroom, to check that I had perfumes and lotions there. The obedient immigrant, I handed him my bottle of green tea lotion from L'Occitane, while with the other hand, I pushed a dirty panty further down the hamper.

If you ask me, I think Gendarme Pecheur, fishing for illegal immigrants, has a very unfortunate job.

Ennui

2007-01-28T13:18:00.000+01:00

I think it was Lille who told me, after she had moved to the US, that whether what was happening to her in her adopted country was good or bad, it was all new, therefore always interesting, often even exciting. I had just moved here, too, and could relate. I found the food deliciously rich, the people quaint, all the cobblestoned streets and restored castles charming. Even the sense of alienation I studied like a rare jewel. I've never been part of the minority before, never have had to struggle to belong, so I figured I'd milk the experience for all it was worth. Don't they say adversity builds character?

But this last week, I was suddenly overcome with a feeling that I'd almost forgotten. It was that antsy, can't-stay-put, gotta-go-somewhere-anywhere feeling that drove me all the time I was in Manila. It was bearable when I was at work, but made it so that I couldn't stay too long at home and pushed me either to party or to shop. So I was on my way to Montpellier to buy clothes I really didn't need when I realized what it was: boredom, that traitorous devil that posseses us to do things sometimes useless, and often stupid.

Am I adapting too well that after a mere 20 months here, nothing seems fresh anymore?

And While We're on the Subject of Transportation... (and because this is the first time I'm seeing this photo again after one year)

2007-01-17T10:17:00.000+01:00

Pierre and I were on a pre-wedding road trip of Luzon in 2005 and wanted to get ourselves from Manila to Bicol. Looking at the map, we decided to take the coastal route. It should be more scenic. So we turned left.

A few kilometers in, we were struck by the isolation. No other vehicle shared the road with us. There was a lone jeepney, but it was going the other way. Disrupting the calm would be the children of the occasional roadside community, shouting something as we'd pass. Figuring this to be the usual "Hey, Joe!" screamed at every male foreigner, regardless of nationality and actual name, we paid no attention. We were actually a little sick of it already. Stupid us, they were only trying to help. Two-thirds in, just when we thought we'd reach Legaspi in no time, our car ran into this:

Rock and earth piled at a minimum of four meters, and maybe quadruple that at its highest. A young man who had just clambered over from the other side told us that there was another landslide some kilometers forward. So of course we turned back, passing several of the children as we went. This time they kept silent.

Why I Know I'm Getting Old, Part 3

2007-01-17T09:54:00.000+01:00

Not an Ikot jeep, I know, but you've got to love the Hello Kitty door.

Now don't get me wrong, I actually like being in my thirties, and even if the devil offered it to me, I will never ever agree to becoming a teenager again (such an angry phase). It's just sometimes I come across little things that make me go What?! as they remind me too brutally of how fast time runs.

My latest discovery: To ride the Ikot jeep that gets you around the University of the Philippines in QC, you now have to pay P6.50. You read that right, six pesos and fifty cents. In my day (student number 89-09717, now how come I remember that more than a decade after graduating?), we paid P1.25.

A pause here to point out that another way I know I'm getting old is that I've started to write sentences that begin with, "In my day."

Now that I think about it, my real question is this: Where does the driver put all those coins? A plastic Orocan I think could do the job, but how do you drive with that between your knees?

Marseille Day Trip

2007-01-13T19:23:00.000+01:00

10 Jan 2007

We start our day in Marseille at the fish market at the Quai des Belges. We should have been looking to buy fishes, but it's the dried starfishes and these round orange shells they call l'oeil de Sainte Lucia that attract us. The first are happiness charms, the second are for good luck. An old woman--a Marseillaise from her accent--tells us that she's bought some of the trinkets. With the vendor right there in front of us, the dissatisfied shopper announces that she doesn't think they work.

Emptyhanded, we go up the Canèbiere. After asking a fashionable Asian lady if this is indeed the city's most ancient street, we march ahead, only to spend our time zigzagging people and construction work. The city is building a tram system. We turn left into Belsunce. This, we've read, is the Algerian district. Maybe we can find a restaurant that serves good couscous. There is road work here as well. Sandra and I will eat anything, Sarah is a vegetarian, and not one of us feel like lunching to a view of big machines and hunks of broken concrete.

We give the city map to Sarah because she is Swiss, and they're supposed to be good at these things. A wrong turn brings us to a streetcorner where North Africans have spread blankets on the road and are selling belts, leather bags, and plastic toys. We look, but nothing takes our fancy.

Our Swiss guide finally leads us through a warren of streets into Le Panier, Marseille's oldest district. The many dwellings are separated only by walls, and run a few storeys up. There are clothes hanging to dry on lines strung over the streets. I smell dog shit and cat piss, and under that something else. There is a heaviness to the air, as if here the hydrogen and oxygen molecules have added weight from being breathed in and out for so long by so many people.

Artistic types have invaded the quartier. We find a pottery workshop/boutique. I buy myself a souvenir, a pendant that reminds me of an oyster shell. I even get to meet the potter. Photos are taken at Vieille Charité, a chapel and a building so pristine you have to read the commemorative plaque to realize that in the 17th century this housed the unwashed multitude, the city's orphans and paupers.

We lunch on bouillabaise at Chez Fonfon in our dreams. We're not spending 100 euros per person today or any other day. Finding a sunny courtyard overtaken by restaurants, we choose the waiter with the warmest smile and order salads.

On a lark, we get on Le Petit Train de la Bonne Mère. We ride the funny vehicle all the way up to the city's highest point, the Notre Dame de la Garde. Making like real tourists pays off: The view is almost overwhelming. Down in the streets, you feel a certain energy, something old and layered and alive. Up on the basilica's viewing deck, you see it, looking at the sprawl of buildings (and buildings and buildings) and roads moving all the way from the Mediterranean sea to the nearby mountains. Marseille is breathing.

Back at the Vieux Port to walk beside the sea, we find street performers. We are amused by a group of teenaged Christian evangelists who decide to take the cute route to spreading the word and do one pop dance number after another. Sundown is hidden by grey clouds. We sit down at a café to drink hot chocolates.

(A travelogue without photos sucks, I know. I forgot my camera, but will filch pictures from the girl friends and post them here soon.)

Story Telling

2007-01-06T10:54:00.000+01:00

Hey, the year's starting out great already! I got an e-mail from literary editor Sarge Lacuesta saying that my short story "Knowledge" is in the current issue of The Philippine Free Press. Since they're not selling the magazine alongside Figaro and Midi-Libre at my neighborhood presse, if you live in Manila, buy a copy and tell me what you think. C'mon, do it, today's my birthday after all. (Yes, I'm fishing... I love birthday greetings so send me some, please.) And, yes, HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Loud Mouths

2006-12-31T03:19:00.000+01:00

Can you hear Angie begging, "Save me..."

I've never been able to relate to other foreigners who say that they find the French distant, reserved, very polite. Most of the French I know, they're exuberant people of the south. Take, for example, Pierre's family. Christmas-eve dinner and Christmas-day lunch were, as expected, a riot, with everyone talking all at the same time and doing it throughout the meal, too.

At one point during dinner, the very beautiful but perennial malcontent Cindy, our niece, turned, rolled her eyeballs, and told me, "We're all going to end up deaf, with the noise they're making." I raised my eyebrows. "They? Cindy, you're shouting right into my ear!" I guess it runs in the family.

The volume was upped considerably by Pierre and his mom Jeanette. I always say that in a past life, they must have been married because, in this life, put them together in one room and in no time they're at it, bickering like children. No subject is too innocuous, they'll find something about it to disagree on. To such success that sometimes one ends up in tears, or the other walks out.

On the night before Christmas it was, aptly enough, firewood they got hot about about. (Of course, they had tried numerous other subjects before that, electric heating and children's party food among them. All in keeping with the spirit of the season, you understand.)

Jeanette said, pointing to the unused chimney, "Well, I was sick, so I couldn't cut firewood this winter." Pierre took the bait and responded, "You should have asked me to do it for you." Jeanette had the perfect reply: "And then I'd have had to wait a loooong time before you got it done. You're alwaaays busy." To which Pierre tried to retaliate: "But if you never tell me, it will never get done." And on and on and progressively louder for the next ten minutes.

Now, normally, I would've have just stared at my plate and folded in my toes, waiting for one or the other to give up. But I had had enough. It was Christmas. A time for peace, was it not? Summoning my newly polished language skills (I tell you, I managed to throw a couple of subjunctives in there.), I opened my mouth and uttered half a dozen carefully chosen sentences. Essentially, I practiced my French by screaming at my husband and my mother-in-law, "Shut the hell up!!!"

I felt immediate remorse, but to my surprise everyone carried on as usual, only a tad calmer. Jeanette gave me a warm hug and kisses before the night was out. When I asked him later if it was all right, Pierre told me, "Honey, don't worry about it." Then he went on to reassure me, "You're just turning into one of us." I smiled, but in my head I was still screaming: Oh! My! God!

Oh, And To Really Shock My Manila Friends...

2006-12-31T03:07:00.000+01:00

Here is what your hot momma was up to on the afternoon of the 24th. Oh yes, I was baking peanut butter-and-chocolate cookies with Coco, Kaluna, and Angie. For Santa Claus, of course. (Are you guys dying yet?)

Why I Know I'm Getting Old, Part 2

2006-12-25T11:29:00.000+01:00

I've started making my own holiday decoration!

2006's theme is kids' stuff, with felt stars and Angie's toys decked out in Santa hats, scarves, neckties, and edible necklaces. All this reminds me of when I was young and my family made it so that Christmases were all about arts and crafts. I like it.

Now a photo of the tree should be here, but, I've not gotten a very good picture. So let's use our imagination: It's all red glass balls and silver ribbons.

Merry Christmas to us all!

Why I Know I'm Getting Old

2006-12-20T23:38:00.000+01:00

I went to a party last Saturday, had three glasses of wine and three glasses of champagne, which back in the sturdier days of my youth would have gotten me quite happily drunk but would not have led to what happened in this, my feeble thirties. Sunday, I was so hung over that I had to spend the entire day in bed, too weak to do anything but whine to my husband that I will never, I repeat, NEVER, drink again. He'd get a break only when he'd have to help me up to go to the bathroom where I'd retch my guts out, eliminating all that wonderfully expensive bubbly as yucky gastric juices. (Sorry for oversharing.) A day later, at another party with friends, traumatised by the weekend, in this country where you go to any supermarket and there would be an entire aisle devoted to wine and another entire one devoted to all sorts of other alcohol, I was Mrs. Scrooge, abstaining save for a teeny little bottle of brown beer.

Happy Holidays to you, too.