Kung HEY Fat CHOW

KUNG
I just emerged from a little-over-minor depression which has completely nothing to do with Valentine’s Day. Somehow it was a weird thing because I started out sad over something simple, then I just stayed sad, then I ended up worrying about everything, then that’s when I became seriously sad. At times like those I really consider getting myself a shrink—you know, someone who’d listen to my rants. Or better yet, someone who’d recommend an effective anti-depressant that’ll hopefully save me from an abnormal wave of sorrow.

When I am falling in the pit of sadness, heaven knows how I would hate to drag anyone with me. I am not really the type who screams, “help!” even when help is badly needed. Most of the time, I prefer to shut everyone out of my misery for their own good. I mean, if I get anyone involved with my petty sadness, I would just transfer the gloom from me to them by virtue of diffusion—the movement from an area of great concentration to an area of less concentration. By keeping things to myself, I wouldn’t do others any damage. With that my conscience is clear.

Unfortunately I may end up doing me a damage or two. But I assure you, the said damage will never involve any slashing of wrist, drinking plenty of aspirin with Vodka, any form of asphyxiation, and the likes. I would never want to die sad. And suicide is just plain sad.

Thinking this way assures me that I haven’t totally lost it. As long as I can rationalize, I’m OK. Still a shrink may help. My only fear is if I see a shrink, I’d feel depressed because I will be paying someone to listen to me and hopefully shed some light to my darkness. I would be paying someone to listen to me when I can just talk to a friend or family for free. But, as I have said, I choose not to do that. Hence I consider seeing a shrink which when I think about further seems pathetic. What are my friends or family for if I don’t talk to them? But my stand is stubborn, I don’t want to pull any of them out of their happy lives on my behalf, because I feel shitty.

Now you see the loop—my if’s, my kung’s.

HEY
I have two announcements:

First is the staging of the play I wrote back in college. Come next Friday, I WILL BE A PLAYWRIGHT! God, it feels good! It will feel better if my audience will understand and appreciate my play. I really hope they’ll do. I just want to hear them laugh and, if possible, understand the point of my play. Otherwise, I will make myself another mole and assume a new identity.

Second has something to do with the wedding which I know I promised to write about but haven’t. It’s been two months since that wedding has passed and I doubt if I can keep my promise. I haven’t formulated flowery words for the bride and now I have to think of ways to describe her as a future mom because, as it turns out, she is a few weeks pregnant. There I said my second announcement. My sister is going to have a baby and I’m going to be an aunt!

I refuse to be called Tita. It sounds gay. And if you attach my name to it, you’d be producing too much [T] sound. A friend said that Tita Tye sounds ngongo. And it does. Besides, Tita is cursed at least in Like Water for Chocolate. By calling me Tita, the inevitable and the unsaid will be made official. If I’ll think about this further, I’d go back to KUNG—if you get my drift. So allow me to digress.

Aunt and auntie sound old. Both are definitely out of the question.

In my mom’s side, they practice using mama to substitute tita, aunt or auntie. But if we practice mama, I’d end up Mama Tye which doesn’t sound good. It’s like sealing my fate, not that I should be immortal but no one would want to be reminded of one’s mortality that way, don’t you agree?

And so I am on a search for a practical and, at the same time, cool title my future niece or (hopefully) nephew will call me. It has to be original, too, because, hey, that’s what I’m going to be—a practical, cool and original (blank—apt term will be supplied later)!

FAT
I find the Chinese New Year as the perfect time to share the new information I learned about my name. I really have this thing about my name—part of my vanity and Narcissism perhaps. I swear, plate numbers with “TYE” on them make me smile! No, it doesn’t have to be a nice car. It can be an old jeepney and I would smile just the same. For some reason, I feel lucky or blessed whenever I see my name on a plate number of whatever vehicle.

It used to be that I sign “Ty” but it often gets mistaken as TY, short for “Thank You” which is not bad. It’s hitting two birds with one stone. There’s my name and there’s the thank you. Unfortunately, sometimes the one stone misses on the other bird which is my name. Something had to be done with the minor confusion. I remember clearly that it was my high school classmate, Domeng who added the “e” at the end of Ty. I adopted it since it was practical, cool and original. (I’m being consistent.) Tye works for me because if I may say so, practical, cool and original works for me.

Part of my love for my name is finding people with the same name as mine. I found one already and she is now on my Friendster list but she doesn’t go by the name Tyrene on her account so there goes.

And then there’s meaning. I always attribute “Ty” to tyrant—someone who wouldn’t hesitate to abuse power for whatever reasons. Then there’s “-rene” which may have come from “Irene” which in Greek means peace. In a way, my name is an oxymoron. A tyrant, more often than not, is indifferent to peace—real peace, that is. It’s kind of astig but confusing, though.

Thank the Chinese gods for my officemate Benz who can speak, think and talk Chinese! He, too, broke my name into two. According to his Chinese know-how “Tay” stands for “big” while “ren” stands for “person.” Therefore in China, I am a big person which is not untrue being that majority of Chinese women seem slender. Compared to them, I am obviously fat.

So if I affix my Chinese name to my Spanish middle and last names, I will mean: “Big person” (if not fat) “the women” “thin”. Does that mean I can be big and at the same time thin, because as far as I know I am a woman.

I hope “big person” would not be limited to fat. I wish it could stretch to meaning “great.”

Let’s see if next Friday’s play will make me great.

CHOW
I can’t find a witty way of playing with Choi so I’m using chow.

With seemingly a lot of time in my hands, I have chowed on a number of books and movies for the past weeks. Movie marathons, that’s normal but two books in a week, or better yet, more than one book in a month? That’s impressive where I am concerned.

My eyeglasses seem to label me as a bookworm which I’m not. I used to hate, not really books, but reading. The activity lulls me to sleep thus explaining why I hardly finish the books I attempt to read. And in my younger years, I hardly attempted to read.

Perhaps it’s an acquired thing, my newly found initiative to read. It’s not really a great leap to my kind. I’m sticking to light reading otherwise books will scare me. If that happens, I will definitely have to abort my dream of becoming a writer.

I just chowed Luto , Linis, Laba, a play by a Palanca Winner whose name I can’t remember. I cannot check the book because the same day I finished it, I passed it to a friend. I followed up Luto , Linis, Laba with Kwentong Tambay by Nicanor David, Jr. It is a collection of blog entries by the same person. Oh how I wish I can come up with such book! Since Kwentong Tambay is about a balikbayan, I shipped my copy to my sister in Singapore, also the same day I finished reading it. I felt the need to share it to people who can relate to it first hand. Now I am rereading the first part of Neil Gaiman’s Smoke and Mirrors. I hope that this time, I will be able to finish it. Simultaneously, I am reading Jessica Zafra’s Pinoy Elections: A Guide For The Dismayado being that elections is three months away.

Ahh, right after Kwentong Tambay, I devoured the illustrated book, by Joanna Rubin Dranger. It is hilarious yet creepy—hilarious because the book is funny and creepy because the book seems to come out of the pages of my life.

I hope not to get in trouble for posting some parts of Miss Remarkable and Her Career that struck me or, say, entertained me most. With my fingers crossed, I’ll leave you with the “scenes” I’ve selected as I greet you, “Kung hei fat choi!”




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