Durga (aka Joffin) adapted the name 'Jane' while on the throes of the crap of 2008. Now that that episode is long put behind her, the name Jane, methinks, has become some sort of battle cry. That she has emerged not entirely unscathed but whole and, sometimes, unrecognizable. Unrecognizable in a good way.

When I spent some time with her back in June, she drove me to the nearest White Castle to fulfill this little joke we have (like Harold and Kumar). She is Jane and I am Pilar. Therefore, Jane and Pilar go to White Castle.

Why am I fixated on the name 'Pilar'? To begin with, I know two Pilars in my life. One is my deceased aunt Pilar Basas, sister of Nanay. She lived in what remained of my maternal grandparents' block house in Bacood, Sta. Mesa. I still remember the night I spent at the apartment, watching over her in a coffin. Well, more of sleeping near the coffin. It wasn't a creepy affair; I have been several times to that apartment, one time after the burial of her husband, Tito Leon (surnamed Certeza). Nanay spent the night with her, as is the custom of providing company to the one who was left behind.

The other Pilar I know vaguely was Pilar Santos. She was a student in UPLB back in the day when I was an undergrad economics major. When I still had GE classes at the Old Humanities building, she was a fixture. You could say she was a campus figure, but not in the beauty queen/sorority girl kind of way. She just had this aura. Her constant wardrobe was a reminder of the time - the early 90's. Doc Martens. Wide skirt. Baby tee. Unkempt hair reined in by a pony tail. She made pregnancy look cool and unharassed way before Angelina Jolie. When she was (I would guess) her second trimester, she continued to climb up and down the Old Hum stairs as she would not-pregnant. She still had her saunter; it just so happened she had a bump in front of her. Seeing her gave me hope about pregnant women everywhere - they don't have to wear frumpy clothes or be manas and continue with it. The only two other pregnant women who were not losyang were Beng and Pooching. It's as if they just happened to have a big stomach, like they had a nine-month old big fat pimple on their nose, from the way they went on with their lives.

Anyways, since Pilar Santos, I liked the name 'Pilar.' The other Pilar I knew was a kind soul. Two points for the name Pilar. It also has this quiet solitude about it, like it can stand on its own. It doesn't have a need for a second name, it can get along fine with the surname.

And so since I have liked the name 'Pilar' like I adored the name 'Stella' because it was such a strong name to give to a child, I have come to adopt the nom de guerre Pilar Basas. Sort of like bell hooks, minus the lower caps. In the postgraduate application forms I had to fill out last year, there was a space close to 'Name of Applicant' that asked if you went by other names, probably for those who had pen names or stage names. In my mind, Pilar Basas would be the closest thing, except there was nothing out there with the byline 'Pilar Basas' to claim ownership of. At least, not yet.

So, notwithstanding legal impediments to appropriating a deceased person's name, I am Pilar Basas. Rockin' it since '76.