parted ways with someone whom she thought was “it,” and now drinks almost every
night and is too agreeable to smoke breaks. Last night she had a death grip on
the Magic Sing videoke. I like her; she is sprightly, and smart, and her sarcasm
is tempered by smileys. I don’t think she’ll work out for a regular Filipino
male on the lookout for “sweet, simple and sincere.” She has too many interests
of her own, and I would hate to see those submerged in laundry and demands for
more frequent fawning.
I’ve had my share
of bad breakups. They have almost always involved tears and the trivializing of
edged kitchen utensils, which no doubt contributed to my sister’s opinion of me
as unstable. There are times I wonder if it was all just source material, life
in a deliberately hysterical key, to be replayed in a few lines of poetry, or
perhaps an ink drawing with blood-clot
smudges.
Those men certainly seem
inconsequential now. If women spent less time in pursuit of seersucker love and
white picket fences, and more on cultivating their own intellectual and
emotional genius, then we wouldn’t need such snidely-condescending
classifications as “Women’s Literature.” Romance has its place. Preferably a
small one, well-maintained but not lavish, at the corner of Common Sense and
Self-Esteem.