MAIKLING KUWENTO
An E-mail from the Suburban Sardine Queen
By Christine A. Ongpin

DEAREST FERN,

The neurons in my brain have been working like a maniac for weeks already. I haven't had a really good sleep for nights, even on days when other people would somehow find themselves ensconced between two fluffy pillows or under a cool comforter. Ganahan na jud kog matulog, bai. I miss the sultry afternoons when I would take my naps there in Dumaguete—the very naps that would compel me to miss Prof. Van Peel's literature classes. I'm back here in the city, been here for months after I have fully decided that I would leave Dumaguete. I'm in the State University in Diliman and again, I am asking myself if I'm in the right program. But anyway, my mind is designed to change its course about 27 times in a span of a day.

I'm starting to hate the word busy like rotten milk in the fridge. But I am, to say the least. School makes me feel like a purebred collegiate bum, hobnobbing with writers and wannabes. I'm doing freelance writing for one major daily and for a web-based lifestyle magazine, and copywriting for some ad firms. I'll be teaching English in a Korean school soon. Maybe my would-be students could teach me how to make Kim chi. Tit for tat.

All these are not to keep me productive and self-enriched, but to keep me guiltless from being the prodigal literature daughter that I delude myself to be; and more so to keep me alive—literally.

I'm not living with my family in Manila. I'm here in a suburb in Quezon City where I'm practically the only one (aside from the maids, pardon me) who WALKS from the house to the village guardhouse to take a tricycle. And so, Ford F150s and BMWs would sporadically pass me by while I scorch under the city's tormenting sun, or drench like a mushroom in monsoon rains at night.

I am sharing the house with three other people all in their early-thirties. My roommate is the personnel manager of a department store, her sister is an architect and their kuya is a project director of a cable firm. Professionals they all are. And I am the all-time, on-call writer, saved by the politically correct term "freelancer", who worries about what's for lunch day after day after day.
And how I wish I could go to your place this weekend, except that a plane fare could very well pay for an entire month's rent.

I miss Silliman Avenue as dearly as I miss hot tempura along the Boulevard. That part I am well compensated: fish balls that cost 50¢ each are staple in the university. Sorely, I miss taking long walks around Dumaguete --the walk home after dinner at Sinugba while we have talks on sex and the city for dessert; what I have here is a stretch of EDSA that I would not dare cross.

Everything is different now, bai. Or maybe, it's better to say that everything has come back to normal: this is my life in this convoluted city and it will always be.

This is what I want, I've been telling myself like a mantra. I am one of the many who subsist on instant, monosodium glutamate-enhanced gustatory delights, far from what I would have had at home. No regrets. At least I can tell my friends who dine in fancy joints along Ortigas and Makati that I know my way in the kitchen (ahem!) and that I have developed this extraordinary way of avoiding the "tilamsik" of cooking oil through constant practice. I had sautéed tuna yesterday and now I'll have gourmet 555 sardines. Come to think of it, I am living like that gastronomically trusted canned lunch. Except that I am soaked in an extra helping of tomato sauce.

I'm sure I wouldn't be able to find the small chopping board again. I still don't know how to slice onions right. Normally, Loopy is our resident chef but since they are all off at work for the day, I am left with my imbecile kitchen skills. There's not much of a choice, really. I opened the cupboard a while ago, and all I saw were a can of sardines, a carton of baking soda, a cup of instant yakisoba and a pack of instant pancit canton. I'll save the pancit canton for merienda, just in case.

So this is it. Write me again when you're done contemplating the meaning of writing and of living. That could be "someday" again? Oh well, until you could get Cynthia Ozick's "The Puttermesser Papers" there at the San Francisco Bookstore downtown, I'd think about returning to that bewitching city I had once called home.

—Toska

PS. Mingaw na kaayo ko sa ginamos nimo, bai!

For comments and reactions to this article, please visit Tinig.com Forums.