I Couldn’t Even Think Of A Title For This One. Any Suggestions?

Recently, I’ve been thinking seriously of ending all this shit about writing. It’s just driving me crackers because nothing’s happening. Should I just remain a simple citizen, just remain floating in the shallowness of the crowd? Or perhaps just train my kids to become writers, the kind that I never became?

I think I’d never be a writer. Well, I’d still be able to continue writing this way, upholding the “morals” of this mine blog. But not in the caliber of top scribblers of my hopeful land such as Eric Gamalinda, Cirilo F. Bautista, Jessica Zafra, etc. Even rocker poet Lourd de Veyra, despite his radioactive mainstream sago status, requires serious literary attention. But me, here I am in this fairly young website, wallowing in my own sty, too shameful to even declare my own name. The e-scribbler? How gay.

“Publish or perish! Publish or perish!” Lest I get published, I’ll remain this way — nothing.

But how can I publish without even having ample time to hone my, uh, craft? I got three playful kids and a hot wife who never fails to entice and tease and titillate the innards of my hot masculine flesh (no offense to ultraconservative feminists). Aside from work, they take up much of my time. I don’t try to blame them as the cause of my lack of time to write. In a way, well, they are, hehe. But fuck it, I don’t even dare imagine them out of my life: I think that if even one of them disappears from my life, I’d go totally nuts.

Now going back, how can I get published, nor to say the least, how can I write if, during my freetime, I’m already mentally exhausted from taking in phone calls during the night? Yep, you guessed it. That’s how I earn money — in a call center taking in both English and Spanish calls. They pay me more than peanuts. But what I earn can never translate into good writing. But I’m tied to it, alas, perhaps for a long time until I find a suitable way for me to earn money for my family without sacrificing my intellectuality (how conceited! but hey, this is my fucking blog, my little cozy world, my twisted playground – you don’t even have the right to argue if I say that Aga Muhlach or Richard Gómez couldn’t hold a candle to me, hyuk-yuk-yuk!).

Is this the curse I get for stealing hundreds upon hundreds of books over the past years? Up to now, I’m still hounded by guilt over stealing tomes of various titles from my friends, libraries, even my relatives. The greatest thievery that I’ve ever done is when I robbed my mentor, my friend, a person whom I consider my “father”, of his rare Filipiniana books. It began when I learned that he’s going to bequeath all of his books to his alma mater. I was alarmed, aghast, disappointed. I was expecting him to bequeath all of his books to me. He could not give them away not even to his very own son because, according to him, his son is not interested in the things that we are interested in, which is history, literature, culture. Besides, his son was a former drug addict.

I was too young back then. I once had the nerve to ask his permission if I could continue his patriotic work. He was elated, said yes. But I’m not even half the intellectual that he is. I needed his books to become like him. I was freakin’ jobless at that time, and he was the one who gave me a job: as his personal assistant and typist. He didn’t pay me big, just a hundred or so pesos per day. But he helped me nonetheless. The most generous person in the world. Yet I robbed him.

My wife became pregnant at that time with our second. It was unplanned. And I was technically jobless. Me, my wife, and our daughter were still living with a relative who was rude to us. We were living in a decrepit former mini-house-turned-bodega. And I was then an atheist-turned-agnostic with a great dream of hitting it big in Philipine literature. It was during these sad, hungry days that I produced some of my best poems. And then suddenly, like I said, my wife became pregnant. An unplanned pregnancy. And I was penniless. I insisted of terminating it. She almost said yes. And then a miracle happened: I got a personal message from God not to do it. It was the start of my transformation. But that’s for another post.

Thus, when I found out that she’s pregnant, I thought to myself, I wouldn’t be able to write anymore. What was it that promising writer Joe Bert told me a few years back? “I was surprised when I learned that you and Jennifer were married. I said to myself, ‘man, getting married is one big headache!’” I knew what he meant. One can never serve two masters at the same time, especially in my situation back then. And since I felt that I was a goner, I started stealing books from my master.

“These books I have represent the true history of our country,” said he, pointing to his shelves while he was lying on his bed. This mentor of mine was then already an old man, yet strong of mind and muscle. I did him a foolish, perhaps an unforgivable sin. I betrayed him everyday during those months that I went to his house to work for him. Each night that I go home from his place in Makati City, I brought with me several of these precious historical books home. I said to myself, I already have much of his intellect, his philosophy, in me. But I will not allow that to fester and spoil. And it would be a great disservice to the nation to have those books stashed in some faraway university in the south.

I did partake of those books fruits. Even my children, I think they’re starting to learn. But it pains me up to now just to think that my intellect and my children’s intellect come from stolen materials. All because of my foolishness. I already confessed this robbery to a priest when I was converted to Catholicism last 2003. The priest told me I was forgiven, but he didn’t advice me to return those stolen books. My close friends, even my wife, suggested that I return the books. But I couldn’t anymore. I thought it best to share its knowledge (but I still refrain from lending it to people who needs them; stupid me).

What good is a book, if it will remain in a school library? That was the perennial mantra running in my head. My defensive line whenever guilt hounds my peace.

Now, going back to the original problem…

How can I get published if I’m a nobody? And why the desire? Why the need to become known? And if already a superstar, what good would it do for me? Will that even make me worthy to kiss God’s feet?

And why keep on asking questions like these if I couldn’t even determine if there’s any answer for them?

And to whom am I addressing these questions? Papansín. What a sore loser. A thief of a fucking loser. Heck, nobody reads this blog but me.

Nobody… yet…