My Mother is Making Me Do This

I distinctly remember telling my mother many, many years ago that I wanted to be a writer and her looking at me blankly like I was Will Hunting and just imparted some great mathematical theory to her, ending it with "How do you like them apples?"  She blinked, I think, and I'm pretty sure she told me Cousin So-So just graduated with an M.S. in Math from Ateneo, the best school in the Philippines, and is going to be making a lot money. I suck at math, I remind her. "Well, you could go into Nursing, you know... your other cousins are going into Nursing. Lots of money there," she says. I tell her I suck at math and science. And I have pretty severe OCD, so that really takes me out of the running from the whole touching-people, much less healing them thing. After several minutes of this, my mother threw up her hands in exasperation and said, "Hay, naku, Ebang. Do what you want. You always do, anyway."

Nanay has always accepted that I'm a little bit different from my two younger sisters who had a more Disney Channel childhood than I did. They're both pretty, peppy, and went to high school with rich kids where they were both cheerleaders. They both dated guys who were in the water polo team. One of them married the guy she's been with since high school and they've got two adorable kids. How often does that shit happen in real life? My youngest sister Michelle is the real-life Kelly Ripa, I swear to God. I'd hate her if I didn't love her so much. The middle sister is more the Rachel Ray type, a domestic kitchen goddess who is also currently trying to get her Pilates certification. I didn't get married until I was considered an old maid, had two failed relationships in my twenties, and boomeranged back to my parents' house after both of my relationships went south. Most weekdays, I can be found with my laptop in the hipster coffee shop two blocks from my townhouse in the valley, where I live with my husband, who works for a Big Corporation.

I'm lucky enough that my husband makes enough money for the both of us, so that I'm free to pursue my vocation--drinking six-dollar non-dairy lattes while tap-tap-tapping away on my laptop with a slightly perplexed look on my face and a furrowed brow. There are usually five or six of us here regularly, each with a laptop in front of us. I'm probably the only one not working on a screenplay. This is the Valley, after all. The two guys behind me are talking about story-boarding and blocking. Just last week, another major street by my bike path was blocked by a film crew and I had to find another way to get to the gym. There's always filming and shit going around here. Sometimes, on my way back up to the counter to get a new beverage, I spy on other people's screens and catch glimpses of the familiar format of a screenplay. I feel like I should be writing one just to fit in.

~~~

INT. HIPSTER COFFEE SHOP - NOON

A dark-haired woman with her hair in a ponytail, dressed in gym clothes, is sitting at a table closest to the door, next to the large floor-to-ceiling windows with the view of the sidewalk. She is not sitting properly, her back not touching the chair, and her wrists are wresting on her laptop as she stares blankly at the screen, mindlessly typing and typing, not sure what she's really trying to say...

EBANG

(v.o)

I never thought I would be one of these assholes sitting here with my laptop, pretending I'm doing some serious writing. And yet, here I am... What time did I  buy my Coconut Cold-Brew Coffee? Should I get a new drink, so it doesn't seem like I'm just loafing around here, taking up space meant for paying customers? I think I should get something else. Maybe a nice mint tea. Or a peanut butter cookie.

~~~

This morning, Nanay called me and suggested I start up a personal blog, not like the other blog I have now, which is just about romance novels and stuff. Maybe I can even make it funny, like that Jo Koy guy, or something. THIS IS A BIG DEAL. This is my mother acknowledging that I am a writer and this is what I do. She accepts that I'm never going to be a bank manager or a nurse or a dental assistant. But since she's a Filipino mother, she adds, "Find a way to make money with it, though. I read about this woman who blogs about funny Filipino things and she gets all sorts of endorsements and free stuff..." That's probably not going to happen, Nay, but we'll see.