My Beantown

I used to cringe whenever a Pinoy referred to Boston as Beantown. It's like hearing a Caucasian say "McDo." Only not amusing. Not cute. Been in Boston since August 2004. In these past two years, I've gone through my share of being broken in by the city. It almost feels like I am auditioning for the part of "Bostonian." Everyday is an interresting tug-of-war between remaining and becoming. Just the other day a good buddy of mine was complaining about how I over emphasize my "T's."

"I'm not about to consciously edit the way I speak for you. You understand me anyway."

"Yeah but it takes me longer to do so. No American will understand you when you say 'PARTEE.' Just say 'PARdY'"

Did I say that I have meaningful conversations with my friends out here? I rarely do. My life here is a flux of beer funnels, mandatory, nightly flirting as well as arguing with post pubescent toddlers who sincerely believe they're the smartest asshole on the block (we all know that I'm the smartest and sweetest asshole --- ever). I'd still say I mostly enjoy it though. It certainly beats staying up late to watch Becker on StarTV... twice (after midnight, the channel just repeats its show lineup till sunrise), or waking up in the middle of the afternoon to join the maids watch Wowowee!, or simply waking up for that matter, realizing you're a 26 year old degree-less man, sleeping in a room with pastel polka dot walls.

For the novelty of this stereotypical American college life, I'm fine. But for that remaining 10 percent of the time, I yearn yearn yearn for sitting around with decade old friends, complaining about the same useless things we always bitch about, retrieving memories that never seem to lose its poignancy or humor, being absolutely and comfortably silent in their presence.

Short of uprooting my friends from their own rest-of-their-lives and taking them here, I end up telling them about my own rest-of-my-life. My friends would be utterly shocked to find out how much my Manila friends know about them. I wish it could go both ways, though. But how do you tell the kids here about DWTL (someone once described a mass to me as "something important happening in the big room")? Or have conversations with them about Mendelssohn's motets? How do you translate "Isa lang ang suso mo. Saan mo siya mas gusto ilugar: sa isang tabi o sa gitna?"

I deal with it by having many friends, each one serving as my Jess-talk friend, or my let's-talk-about-life friend, or my let's-eat-till-our-bellies-explode friend (I do have a lot of lets-drink-until-we-skip-a-whole-day-of-our-lives friends). But there is no one friend to be all those friends. All this when I have my friends back home, each being that one friend to me (well I suppose only Katz can handle being my drinking-till-were-shitfaced friend).

It's not really so much that I'm complaining. I'm just adjusting to this new way of living. Eventually (and finally) I will graduate. I will find a job and will have all my weekends planned out for the year. I'll be blocking off Sundays to have lunch with people I don't really care about. I'll start saving up for my future kids' future college tuition while paying off my own student loans. It's just the way it's gonna be, I guess. In the meantime, I will keep on looking to chill, secretly hoping to build friendships that can last beyond a semester or two.