Doing Holy Week Solo

There’s a church nearby, just a couple blocks off from the apartment and I can still hear its bells. When I was younger we used to live just a few doors away from the church. On that street there were supposedly a lot of kids who died, hit by cars rushing to and from the church. And on that same street I’d have to walk by wakes regularly because it was that side of the church where those were held.

Our church gets pretty popular this time of year. Bisita Iglesia (did I spell that right?) and other rituals drive people to it. I remember as a high schooler (still devout then) joining the processions every year. 

Despite Sacred Heart’s popularity, the rest of the neighborhood is like a ghost town. Walking with good friend Karl de Mesa and his girlfriend Tanya yesterday down Morato, I tried to describe the desertion and could only come up with, “Dude, it’s like I AM LEGEND.”

The other night, before taking Kash home to Antipolo, she too noted how quiet things had become. It was something she isn’t accustomed to, and I was about to witness why. Getting to Antipolo I was witness, for my first time, to the Alay-Lakad, of all these people climbing up the mountain. Once atop the mountain, I went weird, shaken and fazed by this mass of people. I don’t like being in a crowd, unless it’s a concert (one of those things I’m still adjusting to where I work; the publishing house itself is small and quiet, but the campus is just so densely populated), and this sheer mass of devotees left me wanting to teleport back to the safety and quiet of my room.

And now I’ve got the rest of the weekend generally to myself. My sister’s gone out on a swimming trip with friends. Kash won’t be back ’til tomorrow night. And I’ve got the house to myself. A perfect time to catch up on my reading, get back to writing, and other productive things.

With all that in mind, what do I wind up doing? Answering psych tests online. That is really where things go isn’t it?

My first excuse for not writing is that the novel I’ve been working on is in my Mac, and that wonderful, grand machine is still in the shop. Thanks to a rumored blockade by NTC/Customs, replacement parts for Macs and anything related to wifi are having a hard time getting into the country. And as this rumor suggests, this means that no parts means no repairs. So the novel will have to wait.

And my next essay. Well I hammered one out last night. I told myself earlier this week that I would write two this weekend. But aren’t we all too familiar with the idea of setting up writing targets and kind of letting them slip because it’s vacation time? And then during work time, saying you’ll get the writing done when it’s vacation time? I believe I got an INC in a number of subjects because of this tendency. In any case, one essay down, and meh, the other one can wait.

I also planned to plow through some more George RR Martin, finish Portnoy’s Complaint (finished!) and get through maybe one or two other nonfic books before weekend’s end. nothing doing. The quiet here today is just too conducive to doing nothing.

I imagine things would probably be more interesting if I were going out, hanging out with people. I know that this is a time for families to gather. But this quiet allows for one to sit and think.

That or to answer quizzes and tests online. Isn’t that truly the mark of someone not doing anything, when he starts answering memes and filling out personality tests? and one leads to another and I start finding out what my (insert language here) name would be, or which character I would be (hmm now I’d like to search if there’s a Game of Thrones character app) and well, which of the five big personality traits I am dominant in.