Van Gogh is Bipolar

It was a long drive to dinner. We were having difficulty looking for Van Gogh is Bipolar, and our meryenda-deprived stomachs were starting to grumble. With the help of a friendly soul, we found the elusive restaurant serenely tucked away in an obscure compound in UP's Maginhawa St. The only telltale sign that one-half of the stark white duplex is a restaurant is the small group of 40-somethings seated around a couple of garden tables, quietly talking over cocktails and tea. The Christmas lights were of no use. This time of year, the streets are filled with houses more extravagantly garbed in tinsel and lights. Nevertheless, we stepped out of the car. The sign at the door said that no shoes were allowed inside. The inside, I soon found out, was enchanting.

As with most quaint restaurants, the owner of the place occasionally slipped out of the kitchen and table-hopped. He did not inquire after our needs-- he was not a waiter. What he did was talk. First, he informed us that as a rule, diners were to make reservations beforehand in order to be accommodated. We were embarrassed, all apologies. I feared that he would send us away, but then he began talking about the place, his way of saying welcome. I have always loved this bit of the dining experience.

"This," he said, his eyes sweeping across the room, "is actually my house. I open it to diners at night." True enough, no restaurant could be more homey. Everywhere we looked, we saw a piece of personal memorabilia. Framed photographs of his family were all over the place. I tried my best not to stare at them; I felt like an intruder. The furniture were all antique-- heirlooms, perhaps. The wooden table by the kitchen window had etchings all over it. The owner later told us that those were the writings of previous visitors. I stared at the table more closely-- it appeared that everyone was eager to leave a mark.

Everything in the place, it seemed to me, had a story to tell. I was eager to find out. I wanted to ask him about the chairs; no two chairs in the place are similar. I longed to know how they came to his possession. Which were gifts and who gave them? Which ones were thrifted and for how much? Which ones were made especially for him (perhaps by a friend or a lover)?

Our own chairs were mismatched Louis XIVs. Lovely, lovely. We were seated at the center of the room, at a small white round table canopied by sheer white curtains that rustled gently with the wind. Tea-light candles cast a romantic glow across the table, making our bottle of water sparkle. Every now and then, the restaurant's resident black cat sashayed to our table, checking if we had a treat to spare. Our little spot was just perfect.

The other guests looked just as comfortable. Behind us, two girls were lazily propped on cozy multicolored floor pillows, eating from an exquisite white-washed coffee table. Behind them was a window with sheer white curtains, and beneath the curtains was a strand of tiny blue Christmas lights, framing the window like a stream breaking into two waterfalls. The scene charmed me; it looked like it belonged to a romantic movie. I longed to take a picture.

College friends were catching up on each other's lives at the table next to ours, if a little too loudly. There were about six of them, and they occupied the biggest table in the place. It was an old rectangular table, dark wood; the kind that belongs in my grandmother's house. Above was a chandelier, with shiny colorful Christmas balls dangling from its tiny loops along with the original crystals.

Paintings and sketches adorned the walls of the tiny space, hanging from thin, almost invisible, nylon strings. They were studies of people, mostly. I asked the owner if he made them, and he told me that they were given by friends. He takes photographs though, he said, gesturing to the wall behind me. They were black and white photos of a nude woman. Somewhere in the middle was a photo of a penis. Ice and I wondered if it belonged to the owner.

Van Gogh is Bipolar had a self-service policy. This made ordering food quite an experience, an adventure. Here is an account of our adventure:

***

The 24th

Happy birthday, my dear Jesus. I wish I knew how to celebrate Your day. I am certain it's not about the lights and the tinsel and the food and the gifts. To be sure, Christmas is not about these worldly things. The first Christmas, after all, was most simple. Your birth was a story of perfect humility; nothing at all like the obscenely ostentatious, over-the-top holiday we have somehow managed to create around it. Christmas isn't supposed to be like this. To be sure.

I wonder how You are feeling right now, seeing the world celebrate Your day the way it does.

Christmas Break To Do List

1. Finish reading The Portable Edith Wharton
2. Watch Coco Avant Chanel, Goodbye, Mr. Chips!, The Swan, and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
3. Watercolor some more

Ah, what bliss! :)

Clarise Learns to Watercolor: Episode 2

So I inked my previous watercolor project. This is how it turned out. :)

Clarise Learns to Watercolor: Episode 1

Learning to watercolor is a lot harder than I expected! I spent all of last night looking through online tutorials, and yet this is what I came up with. I think I need better brushes, among other things.

Notes to self: Softer edges, flawless blending. How exactly does one achieve those? Oh my.

Do not give up, Clarise! :)

Forlorness

"Why am I here? Why was I not consulted?"
--Dostoevsky

I am homeless.

Truth is, I don't have a home, which is just so sad because, well, everyone should have a home.

I am a Scrooge.

So I'm skipping Christmas. No offense, Jesus, but I refuse to let a holiday rub the pitiful state of my existence in my face. I know that already. It's all I can think about, really.

Christmas puts too much pressure on people to be happy. It's only for the loved and successful; to the unloved and poor, it is brutal. What about those of us who do not have a beloved or a family? What of us who do not have money? Do we not deserve Christmas?

Everything- the carols, the decor, the people in the festive mood- reminds us of how unfit we are for the Season of Joy. Christmas is all over the place-- it will not let us forget that we do not belong. For a holiday that aims to commemorate the birth of the Savior of the world, Christmas is quite the snob.

Well, my pathetic life will not be discriminated against! Not again!

I would like to pull a Heidegger.

What I would really like to do is put myself on exile. I would like to live in a forest, all by myself. I am starting to really hate the world.

I am dense and stupid.

I don't see how people can not care about other people. Excuse me, they are people, just like you. Do you not understand the gravity of that statement? I mean seriously.

I am determined.

I have but one new year's resolution: stop being nice. I think I'll start today.

Snippets

Teacher Clarise comes to school one day wearing a tube dress.
Cute little girl: "Teacher, why are you so pa-sexy?!"
Teacher suddenly feels obscene.


Cute little boy abruptly stops in the middle of a session and whispers to me his evil plan.
Cute little boy: "I have a secret."
Teacher Clarise: "Oh, can you tell Teacher Clarise?"
I rub my hands in anticipation.
Cute little boy: "I want to leave my mom and dad behind and go on a vacation all by myself because they annoy me."
Teacher Clarise: "Really? Where would you like to go?"
Cute little boy: "Bulacan!"
Teacher Clarise: "Are you going to take your little sister with you?"
Cute little boy looks at the 2-year-old girl and considers. He shrugs.
Cute little boy: "Okay."
Teacher Clarise: "Wow! But how will you get to Bulacan? You'll drive?"
Cute little boy: "Of course not, silly! I don't know how to drive. I will bring Julio."
But, of course.

Teacher Clarise admires cute little boy 2's drawing.
Teacher Clarise: "Wow, that is so cool! Is that a helicopter?"
Cute little boy 2 sighs. I could almost see a thought bubble over his head: Why is teacher so stupid?
Cute little boy 2: "No! It's a Mitsubishi logo!"


Teacher Clarise introduces the letter 'F' to cute little boy 3.
Teacher Clarise: "This is the letter F! Can you repeat after me? F!"
Cute little boy 3: "Eppp..f!"
Teacher Clarise: "The sound of letter F is fff-fff-fff. Can you say it?"
Cute little boy 3: "Pp-pp-pp!"
Teacher Clarise: "Now these are objects that begin with the letter F. Feather! Can you say it for teacher? Feather!"
Cute little boy 3: "Peather!"

Like lightning

It happened this afternoon. I was preparing my students' worksheets and art projects for the day when it suddenly dawned on me. For the first time since I dared embark upon this strange new career, I felt like a teacher.

Wow, I am a teacher. Who would have thought? I actually have little kids calling me Teacher Clarise. And parents and yayas too. I teach kids how to read jam, sam, dam, and ram. We read The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Last week, we made paper snowmen.

Woohoo! :)

***

I was reading Blaise Pascal's pensees to my younger brother this evening. Nico, who is naturally extremely inquisitive, got very curious about the renowned philosopher/mathematician. I soon found him in front of the computer, doing research. His eyebrows were knitted. He looked very serious.

Here is what we found out: Apparently, Mr. Pascal's computing machine was not a commercial success-- only 50 units of it were sold, and most were used not for arithmetic but as conversation pieces for the living room. I imagine they looked very complicated (and, well, therefore esoteric), kind of like our era's "modern art installations." :)

Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)

Clarise is in the presence of a genius. She is in awe.

The Aspirator

I have been slave to the sniffles for several days now. In the car on my way to work this afternoon, I blew my nose for the thousandth time, and blood started pouring out copiously. Ice the hypochondriac dragged me to the doctor.

At first, I was very reluctant because, well, who goes to the doctor for a sniffle-induced nose bleed? The doctor, busy with real patients with their real concerns, might just send me away, I feared. Nonetheless, the check-up turned out to be quite useful. I learned something new about myself. Apparently, I, Clarise Ng, 25 years old, do not know how to blow my nose. The kind doctor took a peek inside my nostrils and found my poor blood vessels either utterly destroyed or in a fragile state caused by too many years of improper nose-blowing. The doctor's prescription? An aspirator-- that small plastic pump used to relieve babies of a stuffy nose. Somewhat apologetically, she referred me to the department store's infant section.

I guess, like dancing and math (and getting some sleep before the sun rises this morning), blowing my nose is just one of those things I can never do no matter how hard I try. :p

To Serendipity!

Two nights ago, Ice surprised me with a copy of Love in the Time of Cholera-- that all-important book from my beloved film Serendipity, which we watched together over the weekend. He even found it at a used-books stall like Sarah (Kate Beckinsale). How serendipitous! :P

When I tore the wrapper open and discovered what was inside, I could not help but feel like John Cusack's character, Jonathan, when he opened the wedding gift given him by his soon-to-be-ex fiancee-- like I finally found that thing I have been long looking for, like I finally have in my hands that thing that will lead me to the love of my life. Like Jonathan, I even right away inspected the first page for Sarah Thomas' elusive name and number, which of course weren't there. It was all very silly, I tell you.

The whole experience seemed to me straight out of a movie. It was surreal. And, given my lifelong obsession with cinema, you can only imagine how I felt then. I felt like how I have always imagined movie characters would feel when they finally get their happy endings.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, was my life's first movie moment. :)

Pagdadalaga

"Not all who wander are lost."-- J.R.R. Tolkein

Every time I find myself in an unfamiliar place, I am always overwhelmed with fear, and so, if I can help it, I stay at home-- my comfortable, familiar home. But for once I would like to experience the feeling of discovery. Home has become constricting- too comfortable, too familiar- that I feel imprisoned. It's time I set myself free.

Here is something I would like to do sometime: Take a cab to somewhere and let myself get absolutely lost. When I get lost, I would like to not the least worry about how in the world I will get back as that will only limit the scope of my expedition. Going home is not a problem, anyway, cabs are all over. For the meantime, I would like to have a little adventure. I would like to relish the newness of the place, soak up everything it has to offer. I don't want to assign myself a specific destination, I would like to let my instincts be my guide. I would like to wander. Take me anywhere, feet!