"I'm completely unfit to be an organizer and activist"

This weekend is a monumental one for two different organizations in two different countries. In Vancouver, BC, Canada, the Philippine Women Centre of B.C. will be celebrating its 20th anniversary gala, "Onwards and Upwards!" at W2 Storyeum (please check out the facebook event and GO if you're in town). In Los Angeles, CA, the United States of America, the historical launch of AF3IRM: Association of Filipinas, Feminists, Fighting Imperialism, Re-feudalization, and Marginalization will take place. They're on the SAME day. Two garguantuan events organized and featuring the FIERCEST Filipinas in North America. On the SAME day. And yes, I will be at both events.

(Flying out Wednesday night, speaking in L.A. Saturday morning, tearing ass through L.A. traffic to make the 3:00pm flight to Vancouver, arriving at at YVR at 6:00pm, going through immigration, slipping into a wrinkle-free dress at the bathroom airport and hustling it to Gastown sometime after the 7pm start time)

I'm currently writing my presentation for the AF3IRM conference which is about the historical and current situation of second generation of Filipino-Canadian women within the context of transnational migration, re-feudalization and transnational feminization. I have feminist theory, political analysis, metaphors and literary allusions tearing my brain to a bloody mess demanding my attention. I have two friends who understand this state of mind (one is a writer, the other a PhD candidate)--for the most part, I've been able to keep this Jeckyll/Hyde complex away from the public, for society's safety and for my own.

But for the sake of levelling off and making sure we're all on the same page, I'm offering all of you a ditty from the enigmatic and brilliant Ninotchka Rosca from a rather private letter she wrote to me a decade ago. It's fitting for my current state of mind.

"At this moment, because I'm deep into my new novel, all my daemons are awake and roused. This means I'm anti-social, inclined to be curt and abrupt, and often very rude. I'm very tense and subject to fits, moods and all kinds of psychic disorders...In other words, I'm completely unfit to be an organizer and activist.


This is completely beyond the understanding of people who do not operate at this strange state of mind...if there are 20 characters in my novel, I feel every shred of emotion they go through with each and every scene...If there are 20 characters, then there are 20 processes I'm going through at the same instant.


...this explanation cannot give the full dimension of the artist's problem. It is a solitary one--which clashes with the very social nature of political work. There is no balance; one simply moves from one extreme to the other."

I can't articulate myself any other way.

I'll be back to myself by October 3.

Pinky swear.