My Juday

I never thought I would ever do something like it, but thanks (or no thanks) to B, I did. I went in line, in Gateway, just so I could watch a Judy Ann Santos movie.

I know, I know. I sound like one of those insufferably cono kids in UP who says things like "Let's make tusok tusok those fishballs" or "Manong driver, pa-pull over na lang po sa tabi." Ang sarap batukan. However, pretentious though I can also sometimes be, my dislike for Judy Ann's films has nothing to do with putting on airs. Or even with Judy Ann herself. I just can't stand soppy, corny films.

But what could I do? When I signed up for this relationship with B, I knew it meant learning to live with those aspects of his life that didn't exactly ring my bell, like his pig-about-to-be-slaughtered snores or his addiction to beauty pageants. I mean, it has to be tit for tat, doesn't it? He accepts my laziness; I accept his Juday worship.

I do understand why he adores Juday. Like Clara -- or is it Mara? -- he endured a lot as a child. His parents split up when he was still very young. And because his father had no job, his mother went to Italy to work as a nanny, leaving all four children with their grandparents, in a house that was already crawling with bawling, runty cousins, plus a few wicked aunts and uncles thrown in for good measure. You can imagine how that can be a recipe for disaster -- or, at least, a real-life soap opera. With no parents to defend them, they were treated no better then the househelp, the money sent home by their mother used to buy toys and clothes for their cousins.

His Juday worship, in other words, is a form of identification. He sees himself in her. And as silly and melodramatic as her movies are, he finds in them some degree of comfort, as though they symbolize the promise of a much longed-for happy ending. (Even now, when, arguably, he's reached a happy ending of his own --two cars, a managerial position in one of the country's top corporations, and, of course, a dashing prince charming with a big...sword. :))

It doesn't stop with Juday either. He also roots for all the reality TV underdogs you can name. Carrie Underwood (a guileless farm girl before she became a bestselling artist and Grammy winner), Elliot Yamin (the unprepossessing, sickly boy with the golden voice who happens to be deaf in one ear), Heather (the incredibly photogenic America's Next Top Model contestant who suffers from a form of autism), and so on and so forth, a whole slew of men and women who, like his favorite lunchtime soap heroine, found a way to rise above their sad and humble beginnings.

In this, though I'm no fan of Juday, we're the same. After all, I, too, cheer wildly every time I watch my favorite Cuban volleyball player, Taimarys Aguero, spike over veritable giants. For at 5'10, she's nowhere close in the height department to her Russian and Brazilian opponents. The tallest among these, the Russian Ekaterina Gamova, wouldn't even fit inside a telephone booth.

Now that I think about it, it occurs to me that maybe he fell for me because the time we met, three years ago, I was every inch (no pun intended) a wet bird. I don't want to go into details, but the truth is, that first meeting in, uh, Starbucks, I cut one very sorry figure, having been recently dumped by my lover for some straight dude.

Well, maybe that and my irresistible good looks. :) In any case, I have to thank Juday for being a good role model because, all the difficulties he's had to face in life notwithstanding, B turned out to be one incredibly kind, if overdramatic, soul, the sort who buys sampaguita garlands from streetkids even while lecturing them to tell their parents to go get some work. And obviously he's been more than kind to me -- the biggest baby of all. Except for that one time when he nearly hit me with a chair (don't ask why), he has loved me, for more than three years now, despite my constant transformations from prince to warty toad.

I just hope, sometime soon, I'll be Ryan enough for him. For now though, I'll square my shoulders, take a deep breath, and brace myself for the next Judy Ann film. If this isn't love, baby I don't know what is.