Nevergirl’s

I have so much time for idling on weekdays that by the time weekends arrive, I feel so bored I could cry. This weekend was no different. Itching to do something, anything, I dragged the sister to David’s Salon to give her a makeover. A haircut and a rebonding session later, she took one look at the mirror and sulked. To add insult to the injury, she accused me of playing a joke on her.

Now, normally, I’ve the sentimentality of a teaspoon. I get hurt quickly but you would never know that just by looking at me because the more I hurt, the more I refuse to give anyone (most of all the person who did the hurting) the satisfaction of seeing me cry. But this was different. This was the sister doing the hurting and my eyes welled with tears so quickly I wasn’t able to hold them back before they spilled. It’s the good thing the hairstylist and his assistant didn’t laugh at the little drama taking place or I would have slapped them silly. It wasn’t just that she thought I’d make her look bad on purpose that made me cry; it was the fact that she could think that when I plunked down money for a pricey cut and rebonding. If it really was a bad hair joke I wanted to play on her, it would have been easier (and cheaper, too!) to butcher her hair while she sleeps, yes? And, she didn’t look bad at all! She looked younger, sleeker, unquestionably better.

Feeling really crushed, I texted the other sister and told her the story. I don’t know what happened because the hub whisked me off to the clothes’ section so he could buy dresses for his three girls but by the time we went home, the sister was by the door, looking really remorseful. So yeah, we’re okay now but I am never going to concern myself with her hair again, even if it starts looking like a mop once more. The road to hell is indeed paved with good intentions. That, and hair.

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I was stupefied when a friend told me a person we both know dislikes adjectives and finds people who use them pretentious, even cruel. I can’t give you a verbatim quote because I didn’t come by the information first-hand. I didn’t know if it was written or spoken. Just the same, I felt compelled to write this post and defend adjectives, not just because I use them (and I do – a lot!) or like them but because they are indispensable.

Adjectives are a part of speech for a reason – they are necessary. Try writing a novel without adjectives and you’ll see soon enough how impossible that is. Even Ernest Hemmingway who wrote with no frills used adjectives. But what of the authors who used adjectives frequently and consistently? On the one end of the time spectrum, you have Shakespeare; on the other, you have Nick Joaquin. Were they pretentious? Cruel to their readers? Did they use adjectives to torture their audience or brag of how expansive their vocabulary is? No. They used adjectives as a literary device and to great effect. They used adjectives frequently and beautifully because they have absolute mastery of the language. They used adjectives to place you at the time and place the story was written, to make the tale so real for you you could almost hear the beating of the old man’s heart in Edgar Allan Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart.

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I seldom have peeves because I have a mosquito’s attention span. I hop from one interest to the next and trance out on all things shiny and pretty. So the moment something gets my goat, you can be sure it’s something really worth huffing about because I’m laidback and lazy – people and their doings do not interest me or if they do, then it’s all for five minutes or so. But here’s a peeve I just can’t shuck off because it bothered me then and it still bothers me now.

I don’t like absolutists. They’re worse than elitists. Elitists simply favor a certain group, person, place, or idea. Absolutists, on the other hand, cling to only one of a certain thing, clings to it so vehemently it’s either their way or the highway. Ergo, if you’re not X, then you could only be Y. If you’re not academically intelligent, then you could only be dumb – which pretty much stomps on Howard Gardner’s multiply intelligences, does it not?

My point is, we would all have been stuck in the Middle Ages if the whole human race had been absolutists. There would have been no theory of evolution, no recognition of the sun or the fact that the earth belongs to a solar system. Perhaps we would still now be worshipping totems or tattooing our bodies every time we return from a headhunting expedition.

Sometime back, a person I know sneered at contemporary authors. “I don’t read them,” she said haughtily, “I only read classics.” I was stunned by the stupidity of that remark. Read ONLY classics? Did she really mean that or did she say it merely to impress? Because if it was the latter, then I was not at all bowled over – not at all. She was 30 when she made that remark. If, at 30, you’re a self-proclaimed bookworm who is only discovering the classics and read nothing else because you feel no other book passes muster, that’s pathetic. I read Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn and Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal in 4th grade. That was the year I learned how effective and beautiful satire can be and I carried that love for satire through adulthood, later on delighting in the works of Joseph Heller and Kurt Vonnegut. From then on, from age 8 to present, I learned to appreciate different writing styles, love certain authors, and respect even those whose works I didn’t like. My early exposure to the classics did not turn me into a book snob of sorts. What it made me was a lover of books thick and thin, big or small, famous or obscure, classic or not. I am indebted to all the books I’ve read. They improved my vocabulary and helped me develop a skill I never knew was a skill until much later – speed reading. Most importantly, they taught me to dream. They showed me that in a world as big as ours, anything is possible.

So yes, even to this day, I find absolutism offensive especially where books are concerned. Priceless ancient libraries were burned because of absolutism. Books were banned because of absolutism. The church ex-communicated several writers, philosophers, and scientists because of absolutism. Absolutism is the true mark of a narrow mind. I’m no genius but I do know that the more I learn, the more I realize I still have a lot left to learn – and that definitely includes expanding my reading list to include Banana Yoshimoto, Bob Ong, and anyone else whose work I’ve never read before.

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