Day 204 Daddy Day

Out of my immediate family, I'd like to say that I'm the most...expressive. In my sister's words, "When she's sad, she wants to kill herself. When she's happy, she wants to get married."

I'm not going to counter that because, well, it's pretty true. I would, however, like to attribute that little trait to my daddy. Now, I've said before that I'm the most affectionate of my family, but whereas I can sometime rein in my urge to slit my wrists or sprint down an aisle...Daddykins...eh, not so much.

My dad smiles a lot. Like, an unecessary amount. I don't believe that there's a single picture in existence that we have of him wherein he's awake and alert and not smiling...except the ones we took in London three years ago but that's a whole 'nother story for some other time. Dad grew up in the country. Think: rice-field country wherein they believed in light-fairies and honored woodland spirits by not damaging "sacred" trees. As such, his religious beliefs aren't so dead-set like my mother's (but I think he's slightly scared of her so he doesn't really stop her from yelling at us to go to church).

My dad was the youngest son out of six (my aunt would be the youngest in the entire generation). Coincidentally, he's also the only one to make it to the US. He is fluent in Ilonggo, not so much in Tagalog or English, though he gets by both with a heavy accent. Daddy was an engineer when he first left the country, which means two things: he writes in block letters and he's very good in math; both of which have left impressions on me.

He attempted to pass down his math prowess to me and my sister at very young ages. It would take me several years later to realize that my father tried to teach me the quadratic equation when I was 8, but it was my sister who took on more of that talent than me... even if she didn't look it while she was strutting around with gel-ed up hair and pencil-thin eyebrows. Mom writes in ineligible script, Dad makes big block letters when drawing up lesson plans, so I write all my important notes with tiny, capitalized letters because it's the most I can mix both styles.

Dad likes to complicate things. I can't simply ask for a bookshelf; if he's going to make it for me, it needs to be special, with a million and one knick-knacks because that's just how he rolls. Our garage is a testament to this, with literally not one single space on the walls unoccupied. He refuses to give up on our old cars, which cost more money to insure and fix and tow than a new car likely does.

He enjoys karaoke. My sister once lamented during a post-hurricane phase that I was (thankfully) not present to witness that the cable went out, and our father decided to fill the silence with his singing...for three days. Daddy does not sing well, but he likes doing it anyway. I suspect he's rather shy because he doesn't do it often when we're at parties.

A few years ago at a debut practice, one of my kuyas (I wanna blame Elliot) called our attention to my dad, strutting around in short shorts as he worked in the yard. That infamous day would be the start of an unecessarily long joke about my dad being able to leg-press more than Superman. It's a stupid joke, but my sister and I can't seem to shake it off. As such, any reference to my dad in public is usually followed or heralded by a quip about "the Greatest Man Alive" or a poorly-ripped-off Chuck Norris joke.

You wouldn't like the Bruce Banner when he's angry.

And Bruce Banner wouldn't like Daddy when he gets pissed. His face gets gaunt and his eyes turn murderous and I truly believe that, had my sister and I been born boys, we would've had our asses whooped fifty times over growing up. His accent gets thicker and he lectures and lectures and lectures even after we've left the room. Whereas Mom likes to bring in God and say phrases like "what will people think of you" when she's scolding us, Dad likes to hit where it really hurts: he has a very acute way of locking on to every insecurity a prepubescent girl might have and exploiting it dry until you hurt as much as he's been insulted. When he's bad, he's worse than mom on a religious rant to the point that it borders on being verbally abusive without even saying a single curse word.

It's apparently a gift I've inherited. Yay?

But for all the anger he's got in his stout, balding little body, he can be surprisingly soft. Truth be told, Daddy can make me cry every time with a story from his childhood. It doesn't even have to be a sad story, but the cadence of his voice (whenever he's calm and not out to singe my soul) can lull me like any other thunderstorm.

So that's my Daddy. Short, balding, and the man almost responsible for burning down our house at least twice in the last six months.