"I hate trafiiiiiic!!!!" I screamed, as though throwing a tantrum might somehow encourage the universe to part the vehicular congestion much like how Moses parted the Red Sea.
My mum just sat in the cab wordlessly. I instantly felt guilty. The woman had traveled 13 hours to be with me and all I could do was whinge and whine.
"I'm sorry," I exhaled. "Manila brings out the worst in me. But it's not so special coz Chris complains that I get exactly the same way in inefficient airports," I blabbered.
I do love my mum dearly.
"You bloomed in Manila..." my mum said, distractedly digging into her handbag for... oh, I don't fucking know - the Hyperactive baby boy she gave birth to in the 80s? "You became an artist here, a singer, director, writer..."
"I've always been self-assured," I countered. "Manila had nothing to do with it."
I'm struggling to find my place in this city, not least because I feel like there wasn't any, to begin with. Whenever friends ask me about things to do and places to see in the Philippines, I have one standard answer:
"Get out of Manila quickly and make your way to the beautiful islands."
But there we were, my mum and I, and I didn't want to cause her any more grief after having just hammered her with disgustingly detailed anecdotes of my flagrantly homosexual life.
"I like SM," I conceded. "SM makes sense. It's better than any department store in the world."
