Story

questions that i have, which could probably be readily answered by a simple google search, but that i’m going to ask anyway – can humans hibernate? like, hibernate like a bear? like, eat a load of food, huddle into a hole, and not wake up for a few months? if so, is there a deeper state of sleep than REM? when i wake up, will i remember my dreams? will those dreams have been wiiiiiiiild? will i be groggy? will i be jetlagged? will i easily fall asleep the first night of waking life? will people have unfollowed me because i stopped updating my social media accounts? how long will it take for me to sift through my inbox? if everyone else was hibernating too, would we all wake up the same day, or would it be a gradual thing where i could theoretically stay in to catch up on my inbox but pretend that i’m still sleeping so that nobody’s pressuring me to do anything? is there a chance that i just won’t wake up? how will my breath smell? would i have peed in my bed? will i still crave coffee, and other addictions that are supposed to be broken after 21 days clean? will winter, finally, become my favorite season?

who am i to grieve? as i embark on this, i can refer to no insufferable tragedy, no deep loss to situate a personal relationship with this sensation. so have i grieved before? is it something that you’ve either done or not, like a baptism or an acid trip? is it human to have not grieved? is it inhuman to have done so but not recognized it? is a low-level, enduring state of grief why i exhale deeply without cause at points throughout the day and why when i take out the garbage at night the cold can sometimes make me want to weep? without a specific and narrative-driven trauma to be anchored in, am i an imposter, an emotional tourist? am i just lucky? am i just numb?

you don’t know what you don’t know, is meant to be profound, not cryptic. it means to dig deeper because depending on the nature of the session/chapter/curatorial statement – within is a power/trigger/sorrow that will make the stars align. but how many layers must i peel off before i accept that all there is is bone? do i front like i did in fact see novas along the way? do i suck it try of marrow and claim this was what i was looking for all along?

don’t think about it or it’ll happen, is a meant to be cryptic, not profound. growing up in an immigrant family in the bay means that every word is an invitation, a hex, or a manifestation. even as i test how the term grief feels in my gums, i can picture my mom tightening the sides of her mouth and tilting her head. in telepathy, this translates to you’re asking for it. maybe i am. maybe i’m pleading.

maybe, like most things, none of this is about me after all. perhaps a perfectly reasonable takeaway from all of this will be to respond to another’s grief with something more enlightened than i hope you feel better. aside from the flaccid share of hope that is usually dedicated to such a mantra, it immediately subjugates grief as an ailment, something to be cured of. i hope you feel better is far too truthful to be taken to heart, because it admits that i am so ill-prepared for what you are experiencing that all i know how to do is wish for it to end. that my body has no resilience against this contagion. it ignores that grief is already the remedy.

cafe bleu was noticeably empty during the february “azns in entertainment” mixer. this was my first outing in los angeles since lovely and i had moved in earlier that month, and it was quickly recognized that in my efforts to avoid another east coast winter, i had migrated cross-country into a hot zone. each of us who entered the bar was greeted by a similar disclaimer: soooooo apparently a korean airlines flight attendant got the coronavirus and she had spent a couple of days hanging out all over ktown INCLUDING THE SPOT RIGHT NEXT DOOR. the statement was uttered in a tone as closely resembling a casual aside as possible, in a no big deal kind of a way, and met with an ohhh… also in a no big deal kind of a way, followed by everyone looking down at their glasses of freshly-poured overpriced mediocre drinks, then a soft glance at the bartenders, as if we could read further information in their faces as they made screwdrivers in the dark. on the big screen, the lakers were clearly losing a game being broadcast by a network still figuring out how to move on in a kobe-less world. everybody in LA was just trying to be a good sport. i went to the bathroom to wash my hands.

networking events are hard, even in the absence of a pending pandemic and the death of a legend – but one of my great discoveries thus far this year is that i much prefer the kind where i might end up in convowith a writer for she-hulk in LA as opposed to a project manager for inter-department procurement in DC. no judgement, just my cup of tea. at some point, the homie hollis and i ended up talking to a screenwriter (not for she-hulk) but i became fascinated by his stated purpose for writing, just to get better. the conversation went into morning routines. you know, the kind that, when i maintain them, result in regular updates to the very blog you’re reading, the blog which fell silent for all of february, yeah that kind. sooooo apparently, it’s much easier for me to pontificate about how much i idealize the notion of a morning writing routine than it is for me to maintain one. it’s much easier for me to widen my eyes and explain how freeing it feels to begin the day with my first actions being creative, my first decisions being for my own betterment. as everyone around me sips their whiskeys and nods, it’s much easier for me to reflect on how all my other correspondences and interactions throughout the day flow out much easier when i’ve already released the valve for my writerly ways. it’s like stretching! i proclaim. i get to go the rest of my day knowing that i’ve situated myself around my passion for writing, i get to go to bed without the guilt that i didn’t give my creative voice its moment. i guess mixers are not just for us to hear each other but to hear ourselves – to make the elevator pitch for who we like to think ourselves to be, which in my case i’m learning is completely within my control, which is absolutely terrifying. which is why, despite the impressive infomercial for morning writing routines that i gave that night in cafe bleu, i woke up the next morning not to write but instead trolling reddit rumors about korean airlines flight attendants and where they go when they’re on long layovers in los angeles.

ps: no need to trip.

i woke up this morning to lovely weeping. what’s wrong? i asked. kobe died, she said. kobe who? i asked. i racked my brain for all the cats, dogs, rabbits, and babies who my friends may have named after the basketball legend. growing up in california, it’s not so uncommon, to name what you love “kobe.” the syllables slide off the tongue like a finger roll. the name is held close like a charm for a patron saint of victory. kobe is a word so ubiquitous that when it is evoked, it could refer to a plethora of other things in the universe before even landing within the arena of sports. which is why it wasn’t until lovely responded, kobe. like, as in kobe, that i began to feel my heart sink.

for the past couple of hours i’ve scrolled feeds on my phone in a quiet daze, as has become my ritual for mourning our icons. i can’t front like i’ve been avid enough a fan to have watched many of his games with intent, don a jersey or pair of his sneakers, or be keen on what he’d been up to since his retirement. when i read testimonials from his true fans, i’m washed over by various waves of fomo for cultural moments that i simply let pass by – including my unfortunate lack of judgement that led me to spend most of the early 00’s rooting for the sacramento kings just because they were in proximity to uc davis, or my post-college years in oakland which i spent being salty about how terrible the warriors were while the lakers kicked ass down south.

but this is why this moment hurts so much – kobe being alive and out there in the world and doing well for himself was a subtle signal that elements of my adolescence could still be in tact without my meticulous maintenance. i didn’t have to keep up with his stats, or the records he broke, or details about his personal life to be a fan of the concept of kobe, and not have anyone question it. in a time when things have just seemed to be spiraling out there in the world, kobe offered a sense of security, a defense.

here in manila, i’ve been researching the manifestations of american culture on filipino life. when people ask me what i mean by that and i don’t want to immediately say “MILITARY AND COLONIZATION!” i instead crack a smile and say, well for starters, there’s all the kobe jerseys. i’m only half joking. upon my first visit here in 2013, there were so many people rocking purple and gold number 24’s i could’ve thought i’d never left the west coast. whether here, or elsewhere in the world, or even throughout my years living in the east coast, just the mention of being from california could at any point inspire someone’s eyes to light up. like kobe!

this week, lovely and i head out of manila and finally become californians again after almost a decade. it’ll be my first time living in los angeles, and i can’t help but feel like LA life will be less complete without a kobe around. it’s an incredibly selfish thought, while his day ones mourn along with a city that has cherished him for two decades, and even more so the unfathomable loss to a family who he and his daughter will not be returning too, and the families of the others who perished in the crash. in these moments, i’m tempted to ask, who am i to feel anything at all? but whenever a legend dies, i’m reminded that what makes them legendary is the shared sense of pride and loss that we all get to feel. it’s a collective experience that we are all entitled to, each in our own distinct way.

sometimes i’m told that i think too much. not sure what that means exactly. who are the people who hold the standard measurements? what is the evidence that they are, in fact, not thinking enough? sometimes, after i do something clumsy, i end up thinking too much about the suspicion that i’m too careless. i think what it comes down to is a sense of imbalance – not that too much or too little thinking is happening, but that it’s not being distributed in the right places. for me, this manifests in feeling drained after completing just a few pressing but ultimately meaningless tasks. not giving myself enough space to do the thinking that i enjoy – writing, daydreaming, wondering, loving. but those kinds of thinking are of a low currency these days. with all the world’s ills, there is a high demand for innovating, problem-solving, criticism, outrage. but i’ve filled my head and my days with so much of that flavor of mental energy that i’m still crawling out of burnout. the problem with overthinking in those kinds of ways is that they deplete me for days or even months from being able to engage in the more regenerative kinds of thinking, the kinds of thinking that i’m actually good at. the ideas economy still runs on a limited resource, even if we haven’t quite sorted out how to measure the energy that goes into ideas, concern. i haven’t done much today but for some reason it has still taken so much for me to even write this blurb today. the weight of the concern that writing here, like this, isn’t actually doing anything for the world, overshadows my writing process on a daily basis, or worse yet, keeps me from writing. i recognize that this is just the soreness that comes from being away from the gym for so long. the painful, embarrassing bullshit that everyone has to write through if they want to come up with a gem. or maybe this is the best that it gets, and it’s more about recognizing the beauty of that.

god bless the taxi drivers of manila. and not only because everyday they usher the good people of the philippines through some of the worst gridlock in the world. yes, even worse than jakarta. definitely worse than la or new york, manila takes the cake for carpeting the most heaps of metal with wheels within any given lane, road, or overpass, hands down. but this blessing isn’t for the traffic the drivers endure daily, or the clouds of exhaust they huff constantly, or the way they can pull those right turns without hitting the scooters and pedestrians that pop up out of nowhere. what makes manila’s taxi drivers the greatest above all else has to be the music selection. step inside a cab or a grab or a jeepney and instantly be transported into a sanctuary for old school. i’ve only taken a handful of trips to manila, but i’ve already lost count of how many times my commute has been soundtracked by whitney houston, phil collins, or journey. it’s like every driver in the city was required to take a mariah carey trivia quiz before getting their license, as if the philippines has recognized these people-moving jukeboxes as a natural resource. that’s why i don’t think self-driving ubers will be making their way to manila anytime soon, because only a human could make me tear up on the way to the mall in 2020. i credit these nostalgia factories for making bearable what would otherwise be harrowing, jarring rides. outside, the soundscape is honking, beeping, gritty madness, but you would never know because “cruising together” was on full blast on your way to robinson’s. but don’t get it twisted. the rock might be soft but the drivers are tough. they are typically dudes who look like they’ve been in their 50’s since the days of cassette tapes. looking at the wrinkles above their brows, hearing the grunts in their voices, and accepting their talent for remaining deadpan in all situations, you would never think that they probably know the lyrics to “eternal flame” by heart. but i guess in this day and age, only a badass manong can bump backstreet boys’ “i want it that way” without irony. its because of these drivers that i moved shazam to my home screen. i thank that one grab driver who drove us from pandacan to makati one midnight and induced my obsession with cinderella in the process. yes, it’s true that not every driver is amazing. sometimes they make me want to strangle bruno mars. i hate how they blast the aircon so frigid that i’ve learned to bring a sweater with me even when it’s sweltering outside. often i get frustrated by whatever blind confidence inspires them to jerry-rig the seatbelts so they won’t click shut, as if potentially flying through the windshield is a reasonable price for not insulting their ability to drive. but it’s because of this fleet of passive dj’s that i actually enjoy rush hour in manila. i just lean back, zip up my hoodie, grab onto something, and take in a love song while the world outside my window goes by in slow-mo.