i am a bookaholic

It started when I was twelve years old. It was during summer vacation and my best friend then took me to the public library. I was the kind of kid who stayed home so I discovered places only when people took me to them. I was thrilled to find out I could get my own library card without much fuss. I did and that was the beginning.

Being twelve, I started off with the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew. But those quickly ran out because I was a voracious reader. I read two to three books in a day or two and I had to go to the library at least thrice a week during the summer and twice during schooldays.

I began venturing into bookstores and touching the shiny brand new books on the shelves. I began smelling books and loved both new-book-smells and old-book-smells. When I was in high school, I asked that my Christmas and birthday gifts be books. Brand new ones from the bookstore. The librarians in the public library became fond of me, and waved away fines and gave me extensions and most especially, allowed me to take out more books than was permitted.

In college I was fortunate to get into a university with a very impressive library. I became its denizen and the librarians there also gave me the same privileges. I used up three to four library cards in a single semester.

Any extra money I saved up from my allowances I used to buy books.

When I started working, I spent a lot of money on books. At one point I had more than a thousand crammed in the tiny bedroom that I shared with my sister in the small apartment where I lived with my family.

I would buy books almost every week. Not just from bookstores with their brand new volumes but also from second-hand book shops. Then the internet happened and I discovered an online auction site for books and I outbid everyone else on the books I wanted. The owner of that site eventually became a very good friend.

Sometime in 1999 I sold off more than half of my book collection to fund a trip.

Two years later I moved to a higher-paying job and was able to replenish my personal library. It was even more intense that time, the book-buying, for the books took the place of everything else that work did not consume. Books became my lifeline to sanity.

Eight years later I quit the job that had been eating up my life and then I started selling off my books again to raise funds to sustain a freelancer's life. Now I wish I had been more discerning because there were titles I wish I never sold.

Three years later I began the process of recovering the books I had lost and adding new ones that feed my rediscovered passions. My library today has about 500-600 books, including those in my Kindle.

In the past three years I have simplified my lifestyle to the point that I have significantly reduced my monthly spendings and have channeled my retail therapy to just three things: books, writing materials, and art materials.

I particularly enjoy fantasy, fairy tales, mythology, basically anything with magic and supposedly impossible things. I also like a bit of philosophy and psychology. I like books on writing and poetry - Susan Wooldridge, Anne Lamott, Ann Patchett. I like the occasional chick lit and I like inspirational books along the lines of Julia Cameron, Zen, Anna Johnson, Paulo Coelho. I have favorites among the classics : Jane Austen's novels, Sherlock Holmes, the mysteries of Agatha Christie. I like food and travel books : Ruth Reichl, M.F.K. Fisher, Jamie Oliver.

In authors I absolutely love Neil Gaiman. Then there's Nick Bantock, Barbara Hodgson -- writers who are also artists. I love Sarah Addison Allen.  Joseph Campbell is right up there with Neil.

I admire bloggers who have become authors -- Holly Becker and Grace Bonney.

There are many others but I don't want to make this a very long list. I will write about most of them anyway as I read through the days.

My latest book loot is from yesterday, when I stepped out to air myself after being cooped up for two days because I was ill. I wandered into the secondhand bookshop in the supermarket and walked out with these:

The Ethnography book is just a geeky thing for me because it is part of what I do to earn a living. And it is ridiculously cheap at Php50.

The Dante Club is something I have been curious about and the copy was in very good condition for only Php148. I plan to read the original Dante before reading this one to enhance my appreciation.

The School Of Essential Ingredients is hardbound and I have a sample of it in my Kindle and it is on my to-buy list. I paid less than half for what it would cost me to purchase it on Kindle. A great bargain indeed.

This week alone I spent twice on books. But I don't splurge on anything else. No more clothes and shoes I would only wear once. No more wasteful time and money spent with pseudo-friends. No more unnecessary products in the grocery cart. Yes, it is all about books, writing, and art now. But most especially books.

rediscovering our hometown

When I was a child, I have always secretly regretted the fact that my family did not come from a provincial hometown. By that I meant a hometown situated in a farming or fishing village where the long days of summer are spent in idyllic abandon amidst the abundance of nature. Places that are not in the country's capital region. Places that you have to take long bus rides or plane rides to get to. Places near flowing rivers or shining seas or oceans of coconut trees.

My family, especially from my mother's side whom I am closest to, are natives of Pasig. It has been , in fact, a prominent family in the old days and it even boasted of the first and only photography studio in the early 1900s.

But the town of Pasig grew and developed fast and eventually became a city. Despite this though, the heart of the city somehow retains that old-world feel. The old church, now leveled up as a cathedral, remains at the key center, right across the town plaza, and along the same street that leads straight to the municipal hall and public market (where my sister and I get our hoard of crafting materials). There are a few commercial buildings but instead of transforming the place, the place transformed them into acquiring that vintage-y patina that made them look older than they actually are.

I have long come to terms with not having a field of gold or a sparkling sea to call my hometown. Now I savor the quaintness of my hometown and enjoy regular visits. A few days ago I went with my sister to visit my grandma and to meet up with my aunt to have a couple of dresses to be repaired.

Those two dresses are for some fixing. One needs a longer inner lining and the other needs to be fit for my size -- it's too large.

My grandma, as always, has her house primed for summer, complete with sunflower-trimmed windows with sunny curtains.

And my grandma, as always, insisted on cooking lunch for us even if it means opening a can of corned beef and saute-ing it in her own special way with garlic, onions, tomatoes, and potatoes.

When it was time for grandma's afternoon nap, my sister and I said our goodbyes and went with our cousin and her daughter to a nearby cafe. It's called Ingen Cafe and it's actually an internet shop with a cafe. But unlike other local internet cafes, this one is the real deal when it comes to being true to its name. There's a cake display and a whole range of hot and cold coffee concoctions.

Outside the window you can just make out the structure of the old houses from the 70s era. Many of those kinds of houses are still standing and in use, with shops on the first floor and homes on the second floor. The cafe itself is small but very cozy and relatively quiet.

A cold caramel drink sans coffee for my niece. 

A cup of freshly brewed for myself, my sister, and my cousin 

My lovely niece and her lovely cupcake

We had a good hour or two of happy conversation and I was particularly glad to have our cousin with us to relax and break away from the usual daily routine of home.

From the cafe we braved the scorching summer heat and walked to the town plaza, beside which the town museum was open to the public. It used to be the public library but we found out on that day that the library has long been moved to another part of town. We went inside and took a tour of historical Pasig.

We passed by the church and went inside the garden where we used to pick out the tiny santan flowers and suck the nectar while our parents heard Sunday mass.

The santan flower shrubs are gone and instead there is this ancient bell display, a mini park with benches, and lots of stray cats being fed by a nice lady.

We found the new library and it has been much improved with airconditioning, bigger desks, better lighting, cleaner shelves, and better organization. However I noted that it could use a lot more books. Especially new books. Many of those in the shelves go way back to the 70s but not much beyond 2000. But I did find a lot of interesting titles no longer in print or available in bookstores that could be useful sources for my various (personal) researches. I could already see myself spending some days there with a notebook, a pen, and a laptop.

My sister and I requested for library ID applications and when we return we'll definitely be staying longer.

From the library we found ourselves still reluctant to go home so we ended up eating halo-halo in a nearby Chowking to battle the summer heat.

Halo-halo is a local dessert made of crushed ice, lots of milk, some sugar and a medley mix of sweetened fruits, jelly, tapioca pearls, ube jam, custard, and a scoop of cream

We finally headed for home at around 4PM. I stayed in my parents' house until dinner and went home after the traffic rush hour. As I was leaving the old balut vendor was passing by and I bought everyone in the house a balut (and two for me). That old man has been making the rounds of the village every night and he is bent and old and clearly should be retired but is probably going to starve if he stops working. So every time he passes by my sister and I buy when we can and we always give him a little extra change to keep. He is almost deaf but his voice is big and strong when he calls out "Baluuuuuut!" and he is ready to smile at everyone. That night we are happy to have helped him out.

Balut : a local delicacy of duck eggs cooked a special way. It is a challenge to eat because when opened you see a tiny duck embryo surrounded by the yellow yolk (you eat both, dipped lightly in salt). The trick is not to look and not to think. Just chew and swallow. This food is believed to be full of vitamins and can help improve strength and stamina. Newly-weds, especially the males,  are often teased to eat as much balut as they can before they go off on their honeymoon.

Thus concludes a very happy day (which was last Thursday) full of little surprises and lots of joys and adventures.

:)