you just emailed me: thanks for thinking of me. i'm well. and no, i'm not panicking. you know that i work in britain now and it's always unseemly around here to show anything short of any true emotion.
i'm glad that you are safe. and i don't know why but i just thought immediately of your hard rock cafe' t-shirts. those i derided every contemptible chance i got. you have that one from doha, qatar, the one you and your boyfriend bought on one long weekend furlough you had when both of you still busted your asses in dubai. and that eric clapton signed one you forced me to buy from my hometown franchise. i should have charged you ten times the price of that shirt just for asking me to step foot in that ghastly bar. and of course, the silky one from thailand and the ratty dozen you got from manila when you last went home.
i've been meaninged, long time, actually, to needle you on why you hoard these inane stuff. is it because you believe in their corporate legerdemain of a logo "save the planet?" i don't think so, or you would have stopped using cfc-choked hairspray long time ago. is it because back in provincial manila, the idea of a night out in an american franchise bar smacks (albeit declasse') of finally having arrived, of being there? i don't think so, because you've been everywhere, baby.
you ended your email saying: plus, this doesn't happen in my neck of the woods. for this, i believe, you meant these parlous circumstances that attend to our living in the centers of western hegemony.
i'm sorry, but this time, i can't wait for a long time, the way i did with my t-shirt question, to ask you which neck of the woods is that? isn't your neck of the woods just one block down from my bronx tenement? don't we all live in one planet that needs to be saved? you, you hard rock cafe' t-shirt wearing you, of all people, should know that.
