I think a writer makes sense if he imparts some sort of his personal ideology in his works. Writing short stories in a whim isn’t exactly something pretty, is it? Does a story has to have some Neo-classical thing about it? What is Neo-Classical, anyway? Structuralist? Social Constructivist? Post-Modernism? Feminism? Marxism? Nihilism?

Where in the world can I learn the lingo?

I only speak of life without breathing a certain genre of thought. I only distract the stagnant, but it doesn’t imply any sense other than distraction itself. Farce on a turkey. All ground forcemeat. The grandeur of wordplay without any tinge of philosophy, or of a certain ideology.

One of these days, I might die of literary saturation. I’ve been reading piles of handouts lately: Canon by Guillory, Representation by Mitchell, Ideology by Khavanagh. Their languages are nothing short of academic: you sometimes have to read the same line twice to get the goddamn point. Heck, sometimes I even skip some lines (mostly the kind of sentences that keeps on belaboring a single point)! It’s not really getting on my nerves already, though sometimes I feel like tagging people along for a beer or two, just like the old days.

Oh, c’mon.

So maybe I’m studying harder these days. Yes. The feeling of being responsible somewhat soothes me–I must say it soothes me a lot, though I half-wish I could do the nasty things I did back then. Not that I have my own regrets, no–I want this, I’m perfectly alright with my life now.

_{BTW: Smoking is (almost) out of my system. As I’ve known myself, I’m the guy who could quit smoking anytime I want to–with the right motivation, perhaps. Though I still have these split-second cravings which would make me run to the nearest store and buy a single stick, only to throw it after I’ve puffed twice, thrice, or until half of the stick is consumed.}

Anyway, I hope I could put myself to blog the way I used to (in terms of frequency).

A while ago, though, I came very, very close to it.

7 PM: I’ll start packing.

I’ll fill my duffel bag with clothes and books. I know it’s impossible to pack all of them in one duffel bag–especially the books. I’m thinking of packing just five essential books and I’ll leave a hundred others in the bookshelves, probably weeping, a warden closing the iron grates of their prison.

7:20: I’ll leave the house. Dad’s away for tonight. What I’m thinking, it’s like executing Operation: Valkyrie in the house while Hitler’s sleeping. (Talk about Tom Cruise and shit.) Leaving the house isn’t a problem–I mean, it’s the not the kind of house you need to glance over for two minutes: it doesn’t have the table edges for your hands to touch, hoping some kind of sentimentality to take over, or the family pictures for your fingers to dust. It’s not that kind of house. So I’m guessing it wouldn’t be a problem.

I’ll tell the maid I’m going somewhere, anywhere my feet desires. There might be some arguments (You don’t know what you’re doing, the maid must have murmured) but I’ll insist.

(By the way, before 7 PM I should have written a letter for Dad in a clean sheet of paper, probably coming from the large unused notebooks piling under the bed. I’ll leave it at the heart of the bed, the folded paper bleached and stiff, without any tears or erasures, reflecting the seriousness–the graveness–and the execution of it all planned and made with rock-solid emotion. Dad, it would say.)

I only have 60 pesos in my wallet and it could barely bring me close to Laguna. What I’ll do, I’ll go to the mall and withdraw half of my savings–it could sustain me for two months–and head to the bus station for Laguna.

The bus must have been a torture for me, for I consider buses as a place for me to ruminate, a hollow tube of huge glass panels: a movie theater–yes–with night lights all around the place, as if telling me to conglomerate my abstractions in a rock and stare at it. Buses are depressing like that, especially for an eighteen year-old who ran away from their house.

What I’ll think, I’ll think of the maid and her sobs–we’re close, alright–or maybe not her sobs (she might have not cried at all) but just her eyes fixed somewhere, mentally considering my indecision as nothing but teenage adrenaline, nothing but the excitement to explore, to feel the rush of things.

I’ll think of my friends, of the despedida they planned for a friend this coming Friday and their disappointment as to what I’d tell them, that I can’t attend for I personally vowed to stay away from Bulacan, for it might urge me to come back and reconcile.

But the dominating feeling could have been something heroic, for I did something that would have taken other people of my age tons of motivation–and while thinking of this, Dad would call and I’d reject the call (and the pleasure of pressing the “reject” button creeps in me: what pride! what bravery!)–and courage.

Come what may, I must have been thinking. I would have liked to support myself by becoming a student assistant in the Library. It isn’t that bad.

What I fear the most is when Mom would call me on the phone. Mom would soften my heart, comfort me, tell me to go back to the goddamn house, “do this for me, please, and let’s settle the problems” and I’ll sob, I’ll probably just sob silently, with handkerchief in hand, drying the wet trails.

I don’t really know what would I do afterward, for it needs bravery and persistence, and probably a humungous pride to even denounce the pleas of such a motherly figure. I aborted these plans altogether, though I know one day the idea might cross again.