The Catcher in the Rye

IF YOU REALLY want to here about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was standing (or maybe sitting), and what my lousy clothes were like, and how my friends were not there and were doing other things and all, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. Besides, I'm not going to tell you my whole goddam auto-imera-graphy or anything. I'll just tell you about this madman stuff that happened to me around last week or sometime just before I got pretty run-down and had to come out here now and had to take it easy on my keyboard.

Seems familiar?

OKAY I'm sorry, really. The paragraph above, I confess, is my adulterated version of J.D. Salinger's opening paragraph in his novel "The Catcher in the Rye", that I actually am in the middle of reading right now. I thought it would be a helluva fun act to mess around with and all, but no. Apparently. I want to sincerely apologize, Mr. Salinger.

Anyway, it was the Monday of my monthly report to my college scholarship. I was supposed to go to their office by my scheduled week of visit, which was the week before that week, but I had not managed to. I went there in the afternoon.

I travel by public transport when I go there. Most of the time, I take the train from my place then go down the last station which is in Recto. Then I'd ride another one from the nearby station (of a different transit already) going to Libertad, go down there, and ride a jeepney or a cab to the scholarship's office.

I wish there were also trains in Iloilo City. There are no buses even that go around the city. Yet. Back there, the means of public transport are only by jeepneys or cabs.  

[Trivia:] The jeepneys in Iloilo City are "pasad" jeepneys unlike the "sarao" jeepneys here in Manila. Also, cabs back there have wi-fi connections.

Source:
http://tinyurl.com/cx9svk3
Inside the LRT 2 train in Manila

Going back, commuting here by train is actually one of the many things I love to do in Manila. Most especially not during the rush hours, when I can freely choose to sit on the seats or to just stand by the center pole of the train, depends on the mood; when the view of the metro outside the oversized train windows are clear and uncrowded by passengers and you can see busy pedestrians below and the smoggy Makati skyline from afar. And just like that Monday afternoon I was talking to you about, when I was just in my plain white v-neck shirt and rugged jeans, with a RayBan sunglasses and a novel book in my hand, and there was no sense of rush from the train-goers, it was a very good feel. While I was riding the train, a funky idea, one that is quite a peculiar thing to do when someone like me is bored for example, even sprang out-of-the-blue from my mind that no one has ever thought about!

I was seated beside this old guy who, I was quite sure, was a professor on foreign studies or something in a university. He seemed really foreign to me, his skin was pale and his nose bridge was clearly too high to be Filipino. Anyway, at that time when I was I think already on the third chapter of the novel I brought with me, I noticed and I think I saw him, through my keen peripheral vision, glancing at what book I was reading, and maybe at why I was reading it inside the train. I think that old guy found me odd and quite interesting for a young boy my age. That is in Manila, in a train. I pretended not to notice. Then there, the funky idea came to mind: I definitely should try riding the train, terminal to terminal, sit intentionally beside some old professor-looking guy, open a classic book that he'll surely notice, maybe give him one whatcha-lookin'-at-look or something like that, and go start creeping the hell out of him! Or maybe I, for my own selfish fun, could some time just go try and read a nice novel inside the train without going off the train until I finish the whole thing. Whoever the hell I'll creep out or something when I do that doesn't really matter much.

I must do this.

So anyway, after I got my report and my papers done at the office, I took the bus home, which is by the way also one of the things I love to do in Manila. I sat by the window, as I most usually do, and continued reading the novel I brought with me. Some passengers still, I felt and I can say, were also a little bit crept out about what I was reading and why I was reading it in the bus, but I could care less.

Oh I nearly forgot about the madman stuff that happened to me that I told you I'll tell y'all about! That afternoon, I realized how fascinating it actually is to commute by train in Manila, how fascinated I was and how it was a special kind of feeling to be fascinated by the most ordinary traffic of passengers and vehicles in Manila at that certain time. Also, that afternoon, I met this pretty girl who also went to the office. Her name was Monique and she definitely was the one who approached me. Brave soul.    

Source:
http://tinyurl.com/blp36en

I dropped by the bookstore first to buy Esquire's latest issue then claimed the money my boss remitted to me for the month before I reached home and finally got this entry for you to read. Hope you had a fun read.

Post Script
   The "David Copperfield", I am quite sure, J.D. Salinger was talking about in the opening paragraph was the David Copperfield by the author Charles Dickens, and not the magician. I actually thought of also replacing it, as I did with the phrases before it, by "Benjamin Button", who grew old to young, but eventually just did not. It was neither a good nor a bad choice nor a sensible one or something.
   Also, let me just explain "auto-imera-graphy": "imera" is Greek for "day" as "bio" is Greek for "life". I'll leave you at that to figure the whole thing out and the reason why that is that.
   Lastly, I was at the moment inspired of how J.D. Salinger artistically wrote his "The Catcher in the Rye" that's why, if you've noticed, I kinduv tried imitating his writing style (even his whole opening paragraph) at the start, and as well as the use of his terms "helluva" and "sonuvabitch" which I both find really odd and interesting.