Family Tension

Lately, I've been getting into some conflicts with my mom and brother. My mom got annoyed with me a few days ago when she left a message on my cell phone but I never realized it, until it was too late. She wanted me to pick up her van but I wasn't there to pick up my phone. I usually don't care about my phone. I drop it, scratch, wonder where it is. I really never both to wonder if anyone calls me... because well, no one really does. I just use it when I need to use it. Anyway, she gets on my case when she finds out that I didn't pick up the phone or that I didn't pick up my phone.

"Where were you??"

"Swimming," I said. "With Xab." (In fact, Xab is really the only one that calls my phone and since he was with me, no reason to bother with the phone, right?)

"What?? You know what? You're spending too much time with him." Ouch. That really ticked me off. I've only been home for less than a week. When I spend time with Xab, it's usually because we have the same class or we want to go running in the morning, or because my mom took my car and Xab has no problem with driving me around to get my errands done. And anyway, if Xab's not being my 'lackey', he's being my mom's lackey. I told him not to show up for a few days anyway.

The other side of the conflict is with my brother. He keeps labeling me as some mindless do-gooder. Tonight he called me a "goody fucking two-shoes" when I was trying to explain to him about racism. He's always insulting our Philippine-born cousin for being racist. I told him that the only reason that he (my brother) is not racist is because he's been exposed to different types of people. He grew up here. I also told him that when our cousin comes to live here in the states, he probably won't be 'racist' as he says, since he'll be exposed to different people like he was.

"Whatever," he says. "All Filipinos are racist."

"You know, you're doing the same thing as those 'racists'. When you say "All Filipinos are racist' or 'All Filipinos are stupid' (he likes saying that) you're doing the same thing that racists do. You just label."

"Yeah, yeah, shut up." He says, angrily. "You think you know everything."

"Just because I'm right doesn't mean I know everything." I already bruised his over-inflated ego so no harm in throwing salt onto his deadened nerves.

That's when he called me a "goody fucking two-shoes". This time I didn't pounce and attack like I usually would. I just remained calm with sly, triumphant but small grin on my face. My mom told him to stop yelling, so he flicked her off. I hate that look on his face. He looks so angry and defiant but ignorant and fearful at the same time. That's when I wanted to knock the lights out of him. But I didn't act on it. Getting violent with him only makes things worse. I just walk away.

6/21/2002 09:03:55 PM

Handy Woman

That's what my mom likes to call herself. She prides herself in the fact that she is the household electrician, plumber, and mechanic as well as holding a full-time job and being a full-time mother. My dad is the opposite. It would be mean to say he isn't a full-time dad, but he isn't here a lot because of his overseas job. I know that job is for me and my brother and he makes probably three times as much as my mom so I have to appreciate him for that. What is amusing is my mom. She doesn't fall into the typical wife who cooks, cleans and does the laundry. In fact, she can barely cook. Clean, our house is clean. Messy but clean. And laundry. I don't know how the laundry gets done. We usually just toss stuff into the washing machine and hope that someone else will take care of it.

How things work is that my dad cooks... and breaks things. He makes my mom mad that he has the odd ability to break everything in the house: windows, shower-heads, cars, everything, you name it. This time it was the disposal grinder in the sink. He broke that the day before he left. No one could ever figure out how to fix that one so my mom left it alone.

What is also broken is both of the toilets in our house. My mom had her handy-woman ego on so she began tinkering with it. I think it's in the blood of her family to figure out how things work. Her brothers are like that. I'm like that, except I wouldn't mess with a toilet, just because it smells and floods. Too many bad experiences.

I stepped into the bathroom which was half-flooded due to her experimentations. "Why don't you call a plumber? or uncle?" "No!" she said. She didn't want to spend the money for a plumber or have to ask for help from her in-laws. Then she told me to help her. "Get the screwdriver and hold that screw."

"Where?"

"In there."

"In there??" I hesitantly stuck my hand into the water retainer. It's not gross really. I just prefer not looking into toilets. Anyway, I would rather get grossed out than face my mother's impatience and wrath.

"Hmm." She said, unable to figure out the problem.

"Ahh, going to wash my hands."

...five minutes after washing my hands...

"Caaaaaal! Come here! Try again, turn it the other way!"

"But I just washed my hands..."

"You can wash it again."

She tried more of her tinkering on the toilet while I held a flashlight for her and try tightening screws. Then I step into a puddle of toilet water. "Ugh, dang."

"Okay," she says. I run off eagerly again to wash my hands.

...five minutes later...

"Caaal! Come here!"

"I just washed my hands."

"I told you not to wash your hands."

"Ugh, no you didn't."

This time when I helped her, I cut myself with something in that evil porcelain contraption.

Anyway, not much of a story here. Instead of calling a plumber or my handyman uncle, she decided on buying a new toilet and installing it herself. It's interesting. I don't know if she does these things to save money or to boost her handy skill pride. Probably just to save money, especially with the likes of my dad hanging around the house.

In a related topic, my mom bought me a new bed today. We took out the remains of the old bed and set up the new bed. As we were unloading the mattress from the van, my hypocritical, righteous neighbor speed into his driveway.

"Wow," I said to my mom. "He's driving pretty fast." Once, he yelled at me for "speeding" into my garage and that my parents would kill me if I rammed into the wall or if I killed my brother and that if I wanted to kill someone, makes sure that my brother was in the car so I wouldn't have to kill anyone else. He always gets on my case like that. It annoys me. What annoys him though is my passive, agreeable yet blatantly deceptive attitude. I only entertain his threats, demands and advice by agreeing with him just to agree even though I probably won't listen. It ticks him off. This one time when I was little, I playing a card game with my neighbor playmates. I did some weird but legal thing with the card and he called me a cheater. All the kids knew the card rules but I guess he didn't know the game. I tried to explain to him the rules but he wouldn't here it. He just kept calling me a cheater. So I said, "Ok, I'm a cheater." He said, "You're just saying that to appease me. Acknowledge that you're cheating." "I'm cheating." He tried to make me see that I was cheater and that since he was 30 and I was 8, he's right. He got annoyed with me but I thought for an 8-year old I was pretty clever.

Ten years later it's the same thing. Anyway, he sees us and says "You need any help?"

"No, we're fine."

"Good, I like seeing women work." He says with a grin. I roll my eyes while my mom laughs politely as we haul the mattress into the garage.

I hate it when he makes remarks like that. I think he's old-fashioned. It's an unequal, man's world to him. He's allowed to come home from 8 hours of work to lounging on the couch with a beer while his wife is busy raising three children, holding down a house and being a cub scout mother, soccer mom, etc for about 14 hours a day.

Eh, I dunno. I just can't stand it when women are seen as just objects, even in the mildest form.

Same drill today. Got up at 6:30 to run around the park. Wait around between 8 and 10 for something to happen. Actually, I had a massive stomach ache his morning. I think I'm allergic to any sort of rich food before 10 in the morning. If I eat anything too tasty, like eggs, I get a stomach ache. I felt like I was pregnant with a crab or something, whatever that may feel like.

My mom wanted me to come with her to drop off the van so she would have a ride back. She drives so slow. I was trying to squeeze into the lane so I would be behind her but she wasn't driving fast enough and the guy behind her was too close. I tried racing her because we were blocking two lanes of traffic. I wanted her to go faster but she ended up going slower thinking that I wanted to get in front of her. I just ended up cutting off the guy behind her. At the repair garage, I was handing my mom the keys to the car and this guy was surprised that I knew how to drive. I wonder if I'll ever get stopped by cops for underage driving... even though I'm a liscenced driver. Maybe I should try looking more like my age. But it's too much of hassle. I don't like fixing myself. I think it's a waste of time. I have no one to impress.

Second tagalog class tonight. We learned about basic grammar and articles. I'm going to have to work really hard at tagalog to become proficient in it so I can pass the exemption test at my university. I don't think the class is hard yet but a lot of the older people are having a lot of trouble because they can't hear the different sounds. Like "na" and "nga". If you were exposed to those sounds at a young age then you can hear the difference. If not, it's harder. (I learned that in psychology). I get annoyed that the teacher is constantly sputtering things in Tagalog. I guess she's getting us used to it but sometimes we just stare at her because we really don't know what she's saying. After all, it's a beginner's class. There's this annoying guy in the class that's probably real proficient in the language and he's just taking it for the credits but he's always talking. He has side conversations with the teacher during class, wasting our time, the students who need to know the language. Then he sometimes tries to teach the class. The way the teacher explains things is fine. People aren't stupid. But when he tries to explain it people just get confused. Maybe he'll get the hint to just shut up. I'm pretty sure it helps the teacher out to have a proficient tagalog speaker in the class but the guy needs to understand that the class is really for people to start learning the language. It's not just for him to yak away with the teacher during our class time. Maybe he'll get a hint. Or maybe someone will tell him to let the teacher do the teaching.

I think I'm going to have a problem learning Tagalog. I understand Ilocano pretty well. When I try to 'think' in Tagalog, I start throwing in Ilocano words. I think to learn Tagalog, I'm going to unlearn Ilocano or at least put my comprehension of it aside. It kinda sucks. I like Ilocano more for some reason. Maybe just because I know it more or because my parents consider it their language more than Tagalog.

Xab was asking me if I was dorm-sick as opposed to home-sick (since I am home). Strangely, I'm not. I was expecting to be so. The loss of freedom and carefreeness, I thought, would drive me crazy. But I think my mom is giving me enough of a tether. My brother is an ass but he has always been so. I guess I just have to get used to him. I tried helping him changing his ways but he just gives me the finger, then I have the urge to cut that finger off. But that would be bad. He'll be going to summer school soon so maybe he'll divert some of his stupidity to school and perhaps transform it to something better.. like consideration.

I need a job. I can't find a job. No one is hiring. This totally sucks.

I figured that my vacation won't be so bad if I keep myself busy and if I stay away from my brother. Today, I got up at 6:30 in the morning to go jogging with Xab around the neighborhood park. I want to lose weight as well as get my metabolism up so I don't feel tired all the time. I've been telling myself that for the past for summers. I want to accomplish something finally during this summer. I want to learn how to swim. I want to get in shape. I want to learn Tagalog.

The Tagalog classes are going pretty well. Well, I only went to the first class so far but the teacher seems pretty understand to our needs. She also wants us (Filipinos and non-Filipinos) to learn about the Filipino culture but especially the young Filipinos it seems because she believes that a lot of us have an identity crisis and that we should know the language. I don't know if that motivates other people but I'm pretty sure that it shows that she's pretty sensitive to our needs.

I've also been trying to haggle some furniture off my neighbor who has been desperate to get rid of it. It turns out that I didn't need to do much haggling. She basically giving me stuff. She gave me the price of $300 for one long sofa, one short sofa, an end table and a coffee table. She's also throwing in a bookcase, a phone and gave me some drinking glasses today for free. She's really that desperate to get rid of things but it's good. Makes shopping for the apartment next year less of a burden.

Home Again

I've been home for two days only and my vacations already having it's ups and downs. I have to start getting used to being responsible for other people and being considerate to my brother's sickly needs. That and remembering that I live in my mom's house and everything that comes into the house has to have her approval. Like a rabbit. Xab and I were window shopping and went into a pet shop and instantly fell in love with these two rabbits. We were determined to get them. They're quiet, usually not a mess, and darn cute. But my mom wouldn't let me because my brother is an asthmatic. I would have kept the rabbit outside. But my mom said even though there are a whole bunch more allergens outside. Adding a rabbit wouldn't make any difference I think.

I also need a new bed in my 'bedroom' because the current one is falling apart. I asked my mom if she could just get me a futon and I would use that next year. It's easy to move and stuff. But she still wants to get me a full size bed. I think it's a waste of space and money. I only use 1/4 of the bed. The rest of the space could be used for other things. But whatever. It's her house. I guess I just have to wait to become financially independent to do what trivial things I want. It's okay. Three more months and I'll be back in school.

My brother is an ass. He tried swinging his fists at me this morning, thinking that would solve our argument. It's kind of scary because he's almost bigger than me and it took a lot of energy to hold him down until my mom could come and calm him down. He makes me want to give up on him.

Xab tried to teach me how to swim. That didn't work out. Only thing I figured out was that semi-drowning doesn't feel good.