PAU

Eating the chip on my shoulder.

[pauisanoun]

What’s far more corrosive and insidious, the thing that lingers in the back of my mind the most, is the framework of plausible deniability built up around racism, and how insane that plausible deniability can make a person feel.

Cord Jefferson, Kanye West Knows You Think He Sounded Nuts on Kimmel

[pauisanoun]

"I’m really trying to see if I can disrupt subliminal messaging about who should be valued.”

[pauisanoun]

Nobody tells you how long marriage is. When you fall in love, when you have fun with somebody, when you enjoy the way they see the world, nobody ever says, “This person will change. And so you will be married to two, three, four, five or 10 people throughout the course of your life, as you live out your vows.” Nobody warns you. But you, my dear. There is something deep and hard and lasting inside of you. And I wish I had known, when I was searching again for my bedrock, that all I had to do was reach out my hand.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/20/well/family/nobody-tells-you-how-long-a-marriage-is.html

[pauisanoun]

7 months

One thing I haven’t journaled about, even on paper, is my loving relationship with Ferchil. I processed it so little, even though it was one of the best things that have ever happened in my life. Things ended abruptly a couple of days ago, and now I wish I had a log of all the beautiful, mundane, hilarious, and many other good things that have happened over the last seven months. 

[pauisanoun]

"The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation." — Marx

— dev (@HalfAtlanta)

March 11, 2018

(ref.)

[pauisanoun]

Colonialism is not a thinking machine, nor a body endowed with reasoning faculties. It is violence in its natural state, and it will only yield when confronted with greater violence.

Frantz Fanon

[pauisanoun]

Just enough not to kill us

benevolent assimilation benevolent assimilation benevolent assimilation benevolent assimilation benevolent assimilation benevolent assimilation benevolent assimilation benevolent assimilation benevolent assimilation benevolent assimilation benevolent assimilation benevolent assimilation benevolent assimilation benevolent assimilation benevolent assimilation benevolent assimilation benevolent assimilation benevolent assimilation benevolent assimilation benevolent assimilation

I spend a lot of time thinking of my emotionally closed off, high-blood-pressured, abused mom, and my abusive, gambling-addicted stepfather.

benevolent assimilation benevolent assimilation benevolent assimilation benevolent assimilation benevolent assimilation benevolent assimilation benevolent assimilation benevolent assimilation benevolent assimilation benevolent assimilation benevolent assimilation benevolent assimilation benevolent assimilation benevolent assimilation benevolent assimilation benevolent assimilation benevolent assimilation benevolent assimilation benevolent assimilation benevolent assimilation

[pauisanoun]

Balance

Today, I:

Bought bread and cheese from Cheeseboard

Confirmed that I finished the debt mgt program I was in 🎉

Did work-work (slow-ish day)

Did online trainings about criminal record expungements for Prop 47 legal clinics I’m volunteering in-- learned how to read a RAP sheet

Watched Berkeley police drive around, in and out of campus, with helicopters overhead as a small-ish group of people protested

Emailed my doctor and ended up scheduling my Hep A vaccine in prep for my next visit to San Diego

Watched the Oakland Hills 4-alarm fire on TV while eating a Libertarian hot link

Sometimes, it just helps to write these things out.

[pauisanoun]

Colloquium with Professor Francis Alvarez Gealogo, Department of History, Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines.

“Miranda” is the surname of the people who adopted my father. “Abibas” and “Dalaguit” are the surnames on my mom’s side. “Paula Jean” is a name that my mom’s American boss at the time gave me. Sometimes, I can feel pretty rootless. 

[pauisanoun]

There’s still a part of me that has to know what you have to say.

On some nights, I can listen to this song for hours and feel like I’ve time and space travelled, hopping between dimensions of relationships that never ended.

[pauisanoun]

People over process

I attended a training about the Agile method for project management today. It was really interesting and the facilitator was doing a great job humanizing what can be a kind of dense, jargon-heavy methodology. 

One of the core values in the Agile Manifesto is:

Individuals and Interactions Over Processes and Tools

In the afternoon, we played an Agile Game where we got into a teams and the objective was to pass rubber balls around without touching. Whichever team collected the most balls at the end of the timer, won. There were a lot of cooks in the kitchen and everyone was working to figure out the best strategy.

We were doing a practice round and I was confused about whether we were supposed to be sitting or standing, so I did the latter. One guy (white, male, prob in their 20s-30s) yelled at me: “Would you SIT down because you’re going to make it harder for everyone else!” I looked at him, sat down, and he said “THANK you” while rolling his eyes. I finished two rounds of the game, and then left because I felt myself getting angrier and angrier at this person.

I’m so mad I can spit. What is wrong with people?

[pauisanoun]

I was helping clean out my Tita Lina’s (my ex-stepdad’s ex-wife) garage and found a box of my mom’s and ex-stepdad’s stuff. 

My mom had a manila folder full of letters that me and my brother wrote to her when we were kids. This one reads:

"Ma, how are you? Hopefully you're always healthy and happy. Ma, I would like if you would buy a Barbie and watch. I'm fat now. Ma, when are we going to America? Regards and I love you."

My ex-stepdad kept all his cash advance receipts in trail mix jars. He used this to gamble. A decade’s worth of money down the drain. The bane of my life and my family’s life in these jars.

[pauisanoun]

The Nebulous Passage Into Womanhood

Charmaine Poh explores the almost-unnoticed passage from childhood to adulthood, looking at the expectations placed upon women.

The poem:

This is how you walk in heels. This is how you dress up for a date. This is how you laugh to not show your teeth if you can help it. This is how you sit: up straight, back strong, an anchor to yourself. This is how you smile when he says he wants someone more beautiful. This is how you look at yourself in the mirror: up front, then left and right. This is how you weigh yourself: in kilograms, in educational certificates, in achievements. This is how you give up. This is how you stay, as you have seen your mother stay. This is how you accept a flower. This is how you secretly think flowers are underwhelming. This is how you shed four tears. This is how you dab them away — delicately, so as not to ruin your makeup — and open the door.

[pauisanoun]

This makes me feel.. tings.

[pauisanoun]

Just write something

There’s a blog post / journal entry that I keep wanting to write about how effectively colonized the Philippines is/was, how we are like fish and whiteness is our water, and how I’m trying to breathe now. I see it in pieces throughout the day, but like with other things, I have a hard time pulling it all together. Shit, I can’t even put a title on this post.

[pauisanoun]

Vines forever

Relationship goals

Be at rest

Hizzzaaa

Don’t ya girl??

Do it for the Vine

Waaaowww

[pauisanoun]

Brain dump, lukewarm takes

Homeless white men running around Berkeley screaming racial slurs directed at POC shouldn’t be allowed to hide behind their poverty or mental illness. 

Urban Shield and police support pro-Trump protesters (financially and with equipment) not just because they’re pro-Trump, too, but also because the more ruckus they cause, the more they can try to justify to the public that their para-military approach to policing is necessary.

I fully support President Obama getting paid *all* the money.

Millennials aren’t having as much sex because they didn’t grow up on Jodeci.

What would happen if every time there was a right-wing rally, people who opposed them didn’t show up and went to volunteer in their community somewhere and ignored them completely, instead?

“Resistance” feels too defensive. I need a more proactive motto.