ramblings

My brain is shutting down again. I don’t know what’s with late afternoons that always deadens my brain cells and pulls my eyelids shut. Or maybe it’s those boring articles that I have to edit and rewrite. Just read one of them and you’ll surely be on your way to dreamland—if you’re lucky, that is. There are days when reading them makes my dendrites throb wildly. And then I end up with a headache.

So before I develop migraine or before I fall asleep and gross my officemates out with a pool of drool on my desk, I’d try to take a breather, and just ramble on in here.

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While I was concentrating on my bicep curls at the gym last week, a friend called my cell. I need you to cover up for me, she frantically said. I knew what she wanted at once. Her boyfriend’s wife was calling her cell. She needed to divert the call to my phone to mislead the wife.

“Just intimidate the bitch. Tell her it’s your number. Talk to her in English or something. She’s dumb; she’d easily get turned off. Do it for me, please?” she said. So she’s at it again—dating that married guy who is held by the balls by his psychotic wife.

Soap opera material. If I were writing for any of those stupid telenovelas, I’d have a wealth of real-life stories to draw inspiration from.

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Real life is much more interesting than fiction. If you’re in for some surreal, fantastic, macabre, or simply amusing stories, then go check out your neighborhood and you’ll easily find a story or two to your liking. Chances are, you’d find plots flightier than Kafka’s or more magically realistic than Garcia-Marquez’s.

Whenever I’m into my dreamy mode, I imagine that I could fly all over town. I’d choose a particular house, pry open its rooftop, and then observe what goes on inside. There goes the wife, talking on the phone to her boss who happens to fancy her. The husband tinkers with his toolbox, fixing stuff in the garage, secretly wishing that he could screw his friend’s young wife. There goes Junior, carefully arranging thumbtacks on his little sister’s bed because she refused to give him some caramel candy this morning. Oh, and the little sister, she’s down by the laundry room, peeping through a hole in the wall, curiously watching her yaya making out with the driver. And the driver, while in the peak of wild sex, is plotting to rob the husband’s cash, kill the whole family including the maid, and run off with the car.

Morbid thoughts. Morbid days. Life is morbid.

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If we could read minds, would we still trust each other? If we knew about those withheld thoughts, can we still smile and say hello to each other every morning? I don’t believe so.

That’s why I don’t trust people that easily. I know something else goes on in their minds. I know people won’t tell me exactly what they think about me.

I only trust people who are strong enough to tell me what they think even if it means trampling on my ego. I trust only those who can boldly tell me that I suck. I trust friends who don’t beat around the bush. I trust only those who are not afraid to hurt me if I needed to be hurt.

That leaves me with only a handful of people to trust. I don’t care. I’d rather have one sincere and honest friend than a million liars.

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There’s this little group exercise on trust that I saw on TV. The participants, who don’t know each other, would have to walk up to a fellow participant, look at him or her straight in the eyes and say “I trust you,” or “I don’t trust you,” depending on what his or her heart dictates. Such a hard thing to do. Even Oprah, a host who just won’t let up, refused to go through it, even if the exercise was facilitated by her fave bald shrink with a funny accent, Dr. Phil.

If I would go through the same exercise, I’d probably say “Fuck off, man, I don’t trust you!” to more than half of the group. To hell with those who would say they trust me. They’re just probably lying. I’d take an interest in the people who would tell me that they don’t trust me. I’ll try to befriend them and EARN their trust. And I will treasure them forever.