UP NORTH
If there is but one golden lesson that truly paid off in high school it would have to be those grand pole-swinging showdowns we held during lunch break and dismissal. Beside our tambayan are these slender, steely poles--- cold to the touch and sort of chipping with paint---but perfect for grasping and serving as fulcrum to our bulky masses as we spun around as many times as we can, shrieking with adolescent inanity.
Well, only a couple could pull it off effortlessly. Most of us just slid and dislocated our shoulders. Exactly why we were compelled to hurl ourselves at lunch counter poles in the first place is unclear, but then again we were the sort of kids who pelted each other with iced tea when bored.
I never thought I’d get within (sorry) a ten-foot pole from a pole again after graduating, but I forget: Life is one big tub or recurring themes. Last week I found myself scouring the secret alleyways of Pasay for high heels, innocuous really, were it not for the duty the heels were expected to serve. I was to divaesquely rock them out while hanging from a pole inside a Greenhills studio that evening for an assignment--- wearing short shorts and absolutely no gunk whatsoever on the body, as the text message informed.
(It might be useful for readers to know at this point that this is a woman who’s never set foot inside a heeled apparatus before, and anything over a centimetre could get ugly, and there she was jolly choosing between taxi-cab yellow and My Little Pony turquoise-colored heels, without a thought to what probable horrors this faulty equation may produce).
Yes, yes. Dancing with a stiff pole brings to mind visions of sleaze and smut and loin-clothed women gyrating to “White Lion.” Exactly why it’s so appealing. Climb the pulpits if you must, but I think all women secretly want to be sex sirens, just like all men secretly want to marry a version of their mothers. So to be able to lose vats of fat and look racingly hot doing so, is the sheer, God-given genius of the entire thing.
There were six of us that night. Three tottering first-timers (including me), two in the advanced level, and the gorgeous Ed Aniel, whose body instantly put mine to cringing shame. We did the obligatory warm-up: stretching and reaching for body parts I‘d rather not (as is painful), and orienting ourselves with our shiny steel cohorts (pole). Then Ed taught us the basics, like how to hang up there for hours if you felt like it, how to land on the floor like a phoenix, how to firmly grasp the pole between your legs without needing medical attention--- all of which I more or less pulled off with the grace of a lumbering pachyderm.
Midway between grappling desperately with the pole and watching CD and Judy hang upside down and jabber away like possums who could speak, I knew I had to continue taking the class. Neither of them was sporty nor liked exercise prior---CD’s been at it less than 6 months, and Judy swore she used to own butter arms--- and there they were hoisting their entire body weights up the pole in two seconds flat.
They were so fit I nearly forgot we were wearing ridiculously tall heels, swatches of cloth for shorts and doing something originally intended to indulge the desires of drooling men. It seems the sexual smut of pole dance has evolved into a serious gymnastic workout and yes, dear, dubious reader, a competitive sport at that.
Not entirely though, thankfully. Near 9 pm, Ed turned off the lights, switched on a lone, sensual disco ball and put on Sade. The last thirty minutes were to be devoted entirely to adlibbing---meaning doing whatever the hell you wished to do with a pole, a huge mirror and really sexy music.
CD says it’s normal for the class to do their routines in just their underwear. Something to do with friction, I think. The more skin exposed, the better. Now, if we only knew that in high school.
revolution, baby
I know kids today hate hearing it, cause I did too, back when I was in jumpers and ruffly collar myself, but I couldn’t help concluding my revolution rants this week with the whole change the world shtick.
Verbatim:
“Well, I’m sorry to place such a huge burden upon your 14-year old shoulders, but it’s true. You are the future of this country, and what happens next is up to you.”
I tell them that all the old people screwing up the world today are eventually gonna croak anyway, so they shouldn’t get too depressed, really. We’ve done everything we could do wrong and so blatantly it would take microbe morons not to know how to make things right. What feeling human could afford not to? What surviving animal by instinct would stand inert and allow the hideousness, the idiocy to go on?
It will get better.
The world will get better.
We know what to do. The kids know what to do.
(Yes, the old ones don’t but we’re taking over soon anyway. hell, we already are.)
epilog
In bits,
fits of eloquence
I smooth you out on this
my table wooden, wounded
Bed of firsts;
soiled and chewed by men
whose hearts i pricked with pencil lead
and pretty eyes
were ripped and spilling:
piles of lust
piles of us
tiny blackened piles of was
Piles of black and sawdust red.
February 26
#2
I’m licking off the Dreadful.
Line divided
Line of conquered ,
ruthless beast
Within this breast
And Panting
Wanted
Tongue
Of
His.
2- 18- 08
# 1
To plod along helpless in stringed disability Held vicious
by else and fate matters too big to properly consider and
attempts by self are consistently inept for feet are
marionettes and hands and head; necks
snapping to which fanciful aim
is hoarsefully declared by
tolling bells and dumbly
nodding to somebody
else/ I do I do
I do
I d
o
.
.
.
Hail love and heart and vanquished flesh
Mortared mortal
Pestled self.
2-17-08
to you !
This rare moment of blogged inspiration is brought to me by:
- the watchmen
- renewed faith in our internet connection
- crazed need to do something else besides still undone Foundations of Education I and II report
my sister called up two nights ago, sounding hyperbunnied as usual, with the newsflash that God has revealed her life purpose to her in a dream. She’s been calling me up since, eager for insights and zen-like discourses (of which I currently have depleted quantities of) and insisting I read her blog, where she has posted god’s truths---as revealed to her in slumber. And when finally this evening I managed to navigate her blog, I go under her entry captioned God’s Truths and click on it. Twice. Thrice in mad succession.
Blank, empty whiteness.
Apparently, the Truths do not want to reveal themselves to me. Must call Pau and demand for explanation.
tita rose, on the other hand, is back on a yoga kick. She’s been zenning out in front of her noisy little pond and plans to bring fellow yogis in for a day of calm and veggie grub tomorrow. Slightly disconcerted as coco is still waggling around in pampers and masking tape and obviously not representative at all of zen spirit.
Although!!! I think coco and cancered appendage is getting better. She’s wolfing down her meds (sneakily mixed into her rations) and she’s not attracting whirls of flies wherever she goes anymore. Karen and I decided there was no way we can snuff out her life, despite ridiculously expensive and therefore poorifying chemotherapy bills. Which reminds me, next week is my turn to shell out. (Forthcoming plans of Bangkok revelry dimming by the minute). Diaper supply running low, too.
And thursday was ol' valentine’s, dubbed Single Awareness Day by my bored colleagues. ronald, maoui and I spent the entire morning holed out at Tulyase, hiding from the masses and trying to channel our respective spirit animals. Conveniently returned to school at lunch time to avail of luncheon. Festivities that day weren’t as fun as last year’s, when I was genuinely touched and felt nobility of teacherhood. Now just wanted to disappear and drink wine and hamster with my baby and … well, stargaze under a thick, fuzzy blanket (not drink wine AND hamster, hamster here is used as action word, as in burrow or…dig deep into). Argh.
Today…today I skipped out on our faculty sports fest and watched maricel soriano and randy santiago spread 80’s love through duets and freeze frame dance sequences on the beach.
