One Summer's Hit

Whew... I finally wrote it.

What makes temper ooze out of one’s nose and splatter up against an unsuspecting face? In summer time, it must be summer’s heat. Or was it an island curse?

April 26, 2006. Home. Giddy. I finally came to write this one.

Few changes have to be made for Holy Week this year. Skip Gallera. Remembrance-of-things-past is an eloquent title for a romantic novel but I could just be bitter with such. Whatever plans would turn out, I have to make sure I would be lounging in the beaches somehow. Two weeks prior to Holy Week, thanks to Ecto the Martian Flashlight, we rediscovered Zambales. It deserves a repeat. This time, I’ll make sure I’ll double the excitement. And things don’t get pretty ordinary when I’m in it.

"Ecto and me... side by siiide." Kanta yan.

So Zambales it was. More precisely on an island geographers call Capones Island, just off the shores of San Narciso in Pundaquit. I’m quite not sure which latitude and longitude it is situated on this part of the globe, but you can ask the natives and they’d never forget the island sands that have gone lucky to have been caressed by the heavenly bodies of Polo Ravales and Andrew Wolff for an episode of Extra Challenge. If only Pinoy Big Brother has those hunks cooking in Kuya’s kitchen, I’d watch the show.

What’s in the island? Nothing. No bars. No loud music. No dingy restaurants. No exuberant cottage rent (there are no cottages to speak of, in the first place). No peddlers. No “Jurassic Park”… oh, well, that’s debatable… No toilet. No fresh water. No nothing. Nothing special with this island but the lack of it all made this vacation special. Call it an escapade worthy of Lonely Planet. But as things turned out, call it a bizarre adventure on the Island of Dr. Moreau.

We left Manila on the eve of Holy Wednesday. I was with Ecto and Ryoichi. We had our seats booked early that morning. The thoughts of having to shove over people – old women and children included – and bludgeoning them to get a ride never affected us. But the unprepared travelers were sweating. They all wear a long face. They’re worried. They’ve all ran out of seats. Nyahahaha… and I just want to wave our tickets up so high and say, “Behlaaaat!”

Bus leaves at 11:05 PM. We arrived at the station thirty minutes earlier. We asked where the bus was parked and we were told it was just about to arrive. So we chatted outside the station where humidity was so high I think we were breathing water. And we chatted, and chatted… that guy is cute… Ecto, that guy in reck-reck shorts is yours… blah, blah, blah… 10:55 PM, I went back to the guard and asked WHEREISTHEBUS! It will be announced, was the reply in rocky tagalog syllabication. So we chatted again… went for C2 Iced Tea… yo, that guy in black sando... nice shoulders… yackity, yackity, yack… and we went for another C2 Iced Tea (I must remind you it’s the height of summer and we were drenched, not that we worried about not getting a ride but we just thought we were these sultry girls from Ipanema).

11:25 PM. As if we don’t care, Ecto and I were copiously drooling over a guy in flip-flops and backpack. No announcement. No bus. Ryo went inside the station to ask WHEREISTHEBUS. Five minutes later Ryo came back to where there was already a pool of drool. Ryo was wearing a long face. He was sweating. He doesn’t appear sultry. I mean, he was sweating real sweat.

Then the statement that sent me back to earth with a loud thud. “The bus already left.”

We’re not in it! Now we’re just like everyone else! We worried. No! We panicked!

I ran to the dispatcher. “When is the next bus!? What do we do with our tickets?! What’s a chance passenger?!” The dispatcher was mumbling answers as he noticeably pretending to busy himself over piles of papers and honking walkie-talkie. He is not answering the walkie-talkie and I don’t think he was answering me either. Then it dawned on me that the dispatcher was originally a grotesque alien from an indifferent universe, on earth he’s just a dispatcher in a revolting interpretation of the human form.

We all ran in different directions. Ryo went for the next available bus. I was torn between strangling a stupid guard and hijacking a bus bound for the south. Ecto went for the guy in flip-flops.

Ten minutes of hyperventilating, I was smoking outside the bus station and was on the verge of accepting the curse of Holy Week – Catholics are not supposed to be happy this time of the year. I was contemplating changing my religion when Ryo came to say that there was a bus leaving for our destination in fifteen minutes and the seats are up for grabs, no reservations necessary.

In the Lenten liturgies, the alleluias are suspended to emphasize the mournful state of the church over the suffering and death of the Christ. As the bus was running up north, alleluia was in the air. I swear.

Olongapo! Olongapo! Alleluia!

Ah, Olongapo… the air here was freer. Our host, Temptress Seamstress (happily single at 42, but can tempt a straight boy with a single hello), was all smiles to welcome us. He was accompanied by Patatim (he’s got the killer legs that can crack coconuts) and Patatim’s amore, Savant (twink, complicated, but quite a fast learner for his age; definitely not an idiot). We made a stop at another friend’s place, Sambo (name resembles nothing). He is engaged to the twin brother of ahm… err… boing… (systems malfunction; reboot). Sambo was extremely nice but his partner was playing the game of I’m-in-my-own-world-and-you’re-not-in-it. He was ignoring me so we cut the courtesies. I was all cranked up to begin my vacation anyway and I was anxious to commune with my ever-loyal friend, confidante, comrade in arms, ever-faithful lover… Red Horse. I will not let Maundy Thursday’s sun shine on a sober head. Back at Seamstress’s place we were joined by Nicka (pa-sweet at 22 when he doesn’t have to, because he is). At 4 AM I was drunk happy. Ryo introduced me to Red Horse’s silent partner, Plasil (spell?). One shut on the arm and a drunkard is ready to cook breakfast.

Patatim in the middle.

For God, Contry, and Red Horse!

Nica, you're such a hound dog!

With Her Majesty, Temptress Seamstress.

Maundy Thursday. On our way to San Narciso, another set of unfortunate events began to unveil: an elusive ice (we need to buy it, but we always drove pass over it), lost in waiting (my group was waiting outside the gates of a friend’s estate-like home, while inside, the rest of the group was feasting on pancit; cellphones were not being answered). Seamstress left his bag of gay things (for a gay guy, that’s everything). Flat tire!

Portents of a landmark event?

Welcome to the Island of Dr. Moreau.

Capones Island is a short boat ride from San Narciso. I hate to describe it. This is not a travelogue. Just think of words used in real estate brochures like respite, sojourn, paradise, sun-drenched pearly white sands… but never the word fine because this place is far from boring (remember, in my blogs, fine is a boring word). Familiar words like Abu Sayaff, Lost, stranded, hunger and thirst also come into mind but the thoughts are quite far from National Lampoon’s horrid vacation (or so I thought). We fear none of those. We had enough self-defense training watching all Charlie’s Angel movie episodes. As for hunger and thirst, Deborah Sun and her cohorts taught us more than enough in Gosiengfiao’s Temptation Island. And since everyone in the group is gay, there is plenty of food for everybody. Before I boarded the boat, I already downed three large bottles of Red Horse. Tipsy and a bit “a crazy” (mocked English courtesy of Ecto’s quips), I road the boat standing in front and yelling as I jump to jerk up the boat every time it shoots against the big waves, all to the consternation of the pilot. I would behave for a while just to do the same once a big wave comes up again.

“Sorry,” in apologetic pretense, “bakla lang po.”

"Bring on the waaaaaves!"

Still tipsy, I lead the group in setting up our enormous tent. Divided into two rooms, it fits eight with an awning for early morning and late afternoon lounging. With that complication of a tent, putting it up without a manual was a feat. At around 9 PM, I was drunk again. Hey, I never intended to buy a case of Red Horse and share them. I’m no longer into open-relationships. As a demonstration of my non-negotiable resolve to have fun, I swam naked in the middle of everyone (and now I’m letting everyone know so it appears that I swam naked just about to everybody) and some ten steps away from a group of cliques of straight guys and their girl dates. Well, I don’t live here so I don’t care. Besides, who does?

Savant challenged me to get out of the water while still naked. Before Ryo could put me back into my wits with another shot of Plasil, I unabashedly obliged Savant but I disappointed him by clowning around with my cocker spaniel tacked between my legs pulled quite painfully all the way to the back the way Rupaul would describe as an old-Chinese-secret. The pain proved one thing. I’m not Chinese.

The next morning, Good Friday, we all woke up to the sounds of SMS alerts. As if three hours of sleep is enough, we all jumped up to check on our messages. Everyone’s reaction was one for a good anthropological study: how man, in a desolate place, would interrupt a major biological need such as sleep in order to feed on information, no matter how short, coming from the civilized world; but would not do the same for breakfast.

Some of us were smiling. Some were disappointed for receiving forwarded messages, like finding a shiny bicycle instead of a rug doll from Dad and Mom one Christmas morning. As for me I was wearing a blank face. No, I was not reading a Bible quote. There was no cellphone inside the case that was left inside the water-resistant Ziploc that was left inside the bag. I was robbed! And the thief had the luxury to leave what he doesn’t need… inside my bag! It’s not that it was my first time to be robbed of something so dear to me. This is nothing. The last time I was robbed of someone dear to me, I was watching the thief in action. The way the rest of my things were left in place shows the thief was one of us. Wow, another correlation. In the previous robbery, the thief was also a friend.

One suggested searching everyone. I was a little passive about the suggestion. I may find out who stole my phone, gain the phone back, but lost a friend in return. I’m not trying to be benevolent about the situation. I’m not a hypocrite, that’s for sure. Hey, it’s a less-than-two-months old top-of-the-line Motorola, for crying out loud! But I find this vacation even more valuable than that cellphone. To discover a thief among my peers would be the ultimate blow to ruin a supposedly good vacation. Honestly, I can’t bear to confront the culprit. One can only expect to hear lies.

Liers. Thieves. In Filipino proverbs the two are said to be brothers. On the contrary, in my own knowledge, mag-joa sila.

A vacation is said to be a flight from reality. I’d buy that. I would like to believe, therefore, that the island is alive. That it gobbled up my cellphone. And Ryo’s slippers. And Patatim’s jar of bagoong. And Nicka’s two bottles of Emperador.

Island or not, I got even. While swimming behind the rocks, half submerged, I crapped. I spare you the lurid descriptions but it suffices to say that warm fresh crap floating in the waters is garishly unsightly. Even the fishes were afraid to touch it. Nyahahahaha… I am not going to apologize.

Back in the tent Nicka came to me with a freshly opened Frenzy wrapper (kid stuff) and EZ sachet (hmmm, a connoisseur) - Exhibit A and B of last night’s moral carnage. Ecto!

Bad Ecto! Bad!

Come afternoon, attitude took over Patatim. It wasn’t the lost jar of bagoong. Blame it solely on matrimonial trivialities. Patatim expected more attention from Savant. Hello! He’s your lover for over a year now. At this stage, attention is a mere pretension, an affectation instead of affection, and Savant is just a bad actor. So in an attempt to grab the, ahm, attention, Patatim wore itsy-bitsy-tiny-whiny loudly colored bikini. He got everybody’s attention, but still not Savant’s. Come late afternoon, we found Patatim flat drunk on his belly under an alcove of boulders. He wouldn’t budge so we let him be. Nicka later came back to find shit smeared all over him as the place he chose to stage his undying love for Savant is used by visitors as a toilet. He still wouldn’t budge. Come eve, while I was grilling slobs of ribs, the rest of the party went to fetch him. It was a dangerous trek going to that place. One needs both hands to hold on to rocks and stuffs for balance, not to mention carefully choosing which rock to step on to. Either one could be too slippery or razor-spiky. Seamstress had to bring a lamp so he has only one hand to spare for holding on to things. They came back empty handed. The Petromax cracked and the gauze was falling off. Black Mambo (he’s dark and always on the look for a prey; he’s strike,

"Dont get mad, Black Mambo, we all survived the Patatim attitude."

venomous) was furious. Nicka has bruises on his legs and its starting to swell. Worse, Patatim was nowhere to be found. We started to pray. Joke.

Just as frustration was starting to loom over the group, Nicka came to tell everyone he found Patatim having a drink with a group of guys close by. Yep, when he came to us, he was drunk alright. I flipped the ribs over.

Savant was still ignoring him. While gathered around Gilbey’s (I am entitled to some extramarital tryst from Red Horse), in a fit of I-don’t-know-what-came-over-him, Patatim grabbed Savant and dragged him on the sands like a swine crying for mercy. In case of a hitting incident, I asked everyone to go over them before I do as I would not respect a relationship that includes a battered twink. Patatim was squeezing Savant’s fingers too tightly that the hapless kid started to call for help. We all ran over to separate them and I have to literally pry Patatim’s fingers off Savant’s. Savant ran towards one corner with Patatim in chase. I was pushing Patatim; warning him that I will not hesitate to hit him if he does something stupid. They talked. I was standing in a distance watching… waiting… somebody might hurt somebody any moment now. Shit, I need more alcohol! Blood rushing up my head diluted Gilbey’s. And I ran out of cigarettes, too. Nicka went to the other group. They were already asleep so he took their remaining bottle of Grand Matador. Watt’a girl! Ecto handed me a stick of Winston. It’s not menthol but I sucked it anyway. I have to, otherwise, I’d suck the next fisherman that’d come by. I gulped Grand Matador like Coke. Jugog! I was a goner.

Before dawn I felt the tent shaking. Like somebody was doing somebody (later that Black Saturday it was confirmed that somebody was doing somebody). The tent fell on our faces. Ecto?!

Getting drunk outside Sibil.

Sibil in Subic on Black Saturday is a different kind of Holy Week irreverence. Flirting was high and it knows no gender or sexual preference. I just got off the car when a big guy called on me with a smiley HEY thrice. I hey-you back and flipped a hair, my nose hair. People were spilling out the doors and it’s not even Malate. Once inside, one has to be ready to breathe more water as humidity was up the tilt. Bodies converge in a manner which crunches molecules into a density of blackhole proportions. Everywhere one looks, an eye would stare back. Best of all, competition was low as Ecto already left for Manila ahead of us. Once tipsy I started to flirt with the nearest male specie. The victim was a straight guy (at least, that’s what my native friends told me) who let me rubbed my back against his chest. Ah-ah, honey, you gotta try it. A straight guy’s chest is far better than any of the gay guy’s chest I have rubbed with in my entire gay life. And there’s just so many and seems willing of them. I looooove Sibil!

The problem with too many choices is having too little time. Before I could make my choice all I had left was time, but not the boys. Straight people seem to have a curfew at 2 AM. So we moved to whichever bar Olongapo has to offer. Ryoichi was nowhere to be found. He wasn’t in the john the last time he said he would be. He wasn’t in the dance floor. He wasn’t anywhere I thought I could find him. I was pissed. I am no longer his lover and there’s no reason for him to catch my attention. He can wear itsy-bitsy-tiny-whiny multi-colored bikini for all I care but this hide and seek thingy is getting in the way of my plan of getting laid on Easter in this part of Zambales! Then Nicka came to tell me Ryo was at the parking lot talking to somebody. Nicka is a hound dog. He has the knock at looking for things that refuses to be found.

On the way to the next bar, I was still pissed. As temperature was rising, so does our temper (is temperature the etymology of temper). At Gigolo Bar I was ignoring Ryo as his whining was getting into my nerves. When he asked WHATISYOURPROBLEM, I simply replied U. The bar itself was a drab. If somebody in the bar would ask me WASSUP, I could simply say NOTHING since there was really nothing in the bar, just a couple of jologs. So we decided to leave. At the corridor Ryo was yelling at me on top of his voice with the same question, only this time his diction and voice have this certain twang and modulation, respectively, which I am sure I heard from the movies we both watched somewhere. Ryo’s English reminds me of my little niece’s. They seem to have learned their accent from television – once it’s Bugs Bunny, now it’s Will or Grace, but not Pepe Pimentel. But I digress.

Friends forever... blackeye and beyond.

Then, in a spate of I-don’t-know-what-came-over-him, he had his palms clasped on my chin, pinning me against the wall. I embraced him tightly, almost strangling him. Seamstress came to us, confounded… no, let’s just settle for dumbfounded… at what everything is starting to turn out. While he was talking to Ryo, I clinched a fist and hit Ryo on the face like I owe it to him; another on the cheek. And, as one waitress, Seamstress and a bouncer, were all pulling at my left arm, I swung my right and gave Ryo another hit on the back as he ran down the stairs. Enraged like the The Bull that I am, I chased Ryo down the street. But the running diluted the adrenaline in my body as it did to alcohol the other night. I realized I just hit my lover of eight years. Ex of two years. Bestfriend of ten years. Confidant for life… on the eve of his birthday. If only I knew I was to punch somebody during this vacation, I should have done it instead to Patatim. I slouched on the gutter while Nicka was pacifying me. Seamstress was on his way to follow Ryo. I sobbed.

My Beeeeestfriend

Easter Sunday. 8 AM. I was sitting at the front row of the bus. Alone. Ryo left for Manila four hours ahead of me in spite of the overwrought acts of contrition back at Seamstress’s place. I could see through the wide windshield some of the beachbod guys who tanned their bulges in Zambales’s numerous beaches. I should be salivating, but I was not. From the stereo I was hearing Wag Mong Sasabihin by Kitchie Nadal. As usual, my mouth should be frothing. But it was not. I was lost deep in oblivious space. That day was supposed to be special. I could have used a more ostentatious word to describe it. Look, it was Ryo’s birthday and it was meant to cap a fabulous summer vacation. Special is special. Nothing could be more descriptive than that. But that day simply went caput. Summer’s heat fizzled into summer’s hit. A blow that never happened all these ten years. But it happened.

Those crap I left in the waters of Capones Island! I knew the island will score back at me, 2 to 1. It’s ok. I’m crapping there again next year.

And as the sun mingles with the ocean, four friends contemplate

adventures that are yet to be configured.

What I Need to Learn I Learned from G4M

Yep, some things could still be learned from that site. And I must admit, the unlikely reality humbles me. Now, visitng that site for "friends lang po" is no longer a lame excuse for being there. Hey, it could still be lame but it's the truth.

So before I post my blog on that summer vacation that ended with a hit (pun intended), let me post here what I got from one of the account profiles I was clicking. And, yes, I have yet to meet the guy. What SEB?

There can never be any relationship that can claim immunity from failure.

People are sometimes torn apart by forces beyond their control.
Many of us make promises that we could not keep.
We vow to love someone forever only to find ourselves falling for someone else.
This attraction can be intense that we become insensitive to the needs of others.
We resist reasons and insist on passion.
Many of us who have been left by a beloved continue to wallow in self-pity, asking what went wrong.
We waste our time searching for answers that may never be revealed to us.
Why can't we just accept that LOVE doesn't give us the license to own a person, that LOVE doesn't guarantee permanence?
There are times when we just have to let go of someone who means the world to us - not because we want to but because we have to, because it's the right thing to do.
Let us remember that we cannot force anyone to love us when they don't want to love us anymore.
We cannot beg someone to stay when he wants to leave and be with someone else.
This is what LOVE is all about: SACRIFICE...
It is about learning.
It is about accepting everything.
The end of LOVE is not the end of LIFE.
It should be the beginning of understanding that love leaves for a reason.

LOVE leaves with a lesson and it is only when we learn from it that we are able to gain the wisdom and the courage to move on and find LOVE again.

Angst Itoh!

I don’t know where it’s coming from. Where it’s exactly located in my desirable body (allow me the luxury to say). The pain I feel for the past two days have rendered me immobile. The bad part of it is that I don’t know what causes it. No, I didn’t bother to seek professional medical help. If I am to write down the causes of this pain, doctors are number two down the list. And I can’t even think of number one, so technically they’re number one. Huh!

February 28, 2006. I’m not in Gateway. I’m not in Makati. I’m home. I’m in pain. No, I am pain.

Tip-tapping on the keyboard, I tried to cart myself out of bed. But what is there to write? 1017. The Edsa I celebration that became a caricature at 20. Nah, this blogging is becoming a responsibility that social significance seem to be the order of the day, I notice. Why can’t I just write about peanut butter; or how I lost my keys, or the day I missed growing my hair longer than a millimeter I almost went depressed? Or the night I craved for bulalo so badly I traveled all the way to Retiro, only to end up eating bland kare-kare.

I know why. Something’s bugging me and writing silly things is a cover up. This is not to say that I wasn’t writing asinine things in my previous blogs. I simply think that I’m having a cover up. Writing about inane topics is trivial enough. Using it for insincerity is worse.

I am in a post-valentine contemplation. If you’re the romantic type, you can now imagine the pain I’m going through… ahm, I mean the pain that I am right now. Add to the fact that I have constantly abhorred dramatic conversations and topics about love and its romanticism. Now it seems that I have surrendered to the musings on how love could turn one’s world upside down, in an enjoyable way. Yes, honestly, I kind of miss it so much. I am not the bully that I so religiously tried to recently characterize myself, after all. My long-time crush (That word is so 70’s, like chancing.), Casanova, was right in saying that the reason he was attracted to me is because in spite of my bully image, he knows that inside I’m a marshmallow. No wonder he keeps coming back for more of ole little sweet me.

Pero may bf ka na, ‘no! Kasi daw hindi na sya makapaghintay.

Can’t blame him. I think I’m going to be like this for the rest of the century.

Last Saturday I met an old acquaintance in Malate. Cute guy. An eye candy. He’s been through some rough relationships, too. And many times I have seen him in Malate wearing a long face longer than Celine Dion’s. But that night, he was in that radiant countenance. I thought I was talking to Mother Teresa. He is now engaged with a theatre actor-director whom he pointed at sitting amused at the distance. His lover’s face reflects the glow that was in his. I kinda miss that sunshiny feeling as well. Everything seems good and perfect… birds chirping as cherry blossoms bloom amidst humid Philippines… France can nuke-test in Palawan for all I care and I’d still be smiling in my bed.

Twenty four hours before meeting Eye Candy, Doc Hieronymus Bosch texted me that he’s also been recently hitched by somebody from Pagsanjan. Darn it! And I thought we were supposed to stay single. Some friends…

Two days ago I met a law student in a bar. He started texting me forward messages. I don’t read forward messages. I hate it. Or maybe I’m just not excited with any texts coming from him at all. I think it’s more of the latter. What was wrong with him? Nothing. Something was wrong with me. Ecto said I was carrying too much baggage. I think so, too. That’s because I don’t travel light.

This baggage had cost heartaches for some hopefuls. There was that boy I once mentioned in one of my blogs who kept on texting, all of which I systematically ignored. He ended the harassment with impact: ITHOUGHTYOULOVEME. Then there was this guy who, upon stepping out of my apartment, said IWANTTOKNOWYOUMORE. I said, ok, then I closed the door. Oh, sorry, sorry… I forgot to give him my cell number.

So I went back to sleep.

Yesterday, another law student. May hung-up. Super. Rollo said I have grown impatient. Yes, I was impatient alright. Dati I was the epitome of patience. I have been patient with a 20-year old when I was 27. We lasted eight years. Now he is still around for comfort and cute moments kahit may joa na sya. Then I was patient enough to keep a live-in partner whose drunkenness landed me in an island police station. That was after I did a Sisa-Basilio scene along the beach. My patience made that relationship last almost seven months, one that could have simply lasted three. Even less, considering his proclivity for no-holds-barred adventures. So much about patience. I’m not about to baby sit again.

A week ago, Ecto was pestering me over text about true love. What I like about Ecto is that he never surrenders in bringing up things I so detest despite the threat of fire and brimstone. And what he likes about me is that I’m not one who would agree so easily. But this time, I tried to be fair; not that I concur to his queries. I just want to shut him up. I did agree with him on the possibility of true love… BUT… I was quick to add that true love is only for those who deserve it. Reminds me of my college theology professor who posited that boys want their girls virgin. But they go about town devirginizing them. Same with our innate craving to be truly loved. But gays, the male sub specie, are innately unfaithful.

I guess, for a time we found true love and been loved truly in return. It’s true relationship that’s elusive. Love. Relationship. Ambiguous topics I’m not prepared to touch upon. Maybe for my Ph.D. thesis. You don’t want me to be overwrought.

Between the lengths of this blog let me drop some quotes that picture what lovers, true or false, depending on how much we feel for them, appear before our longings:

“I guess we all have our first true love. I guess we all have the

magical person forever etched in our mind, the place where dreams and reality converge, allowing a lover to walk through our door… Peter was the lover for me. He was a hand that held my sorrow and hugged me in my sleep… And finally I face the truth. The Peter of my dreams and the Peter of real life are two different beings. I am sad that they must at long last become one in my mind.” (Michael Lane, Pink Highways)

Or, as Rollo, my poet housemate, sent me via text during my troubled times:

“We fall in love not with the real person but with an ideal of that person as we want them to be.” (Fenton Johnson, Scissors, Paper, Rock)

Perhaps I began to brood for the feeling of being in-loved again when, for the past two weekends, I was watching movies one after another. First was Brokeback Mountain. Ok, ok, I won’t talk about it. Everyone is talking about it and I think I had enough. Then there was Memoirs of a Geisha. I must say, in my previous life I must be a geisha, now I’m just gay. And since I’ve been a bad gay guy lately, in my next life I would reincarnate as a gecko.

Last was Aeon Flux. It was a comic strip as a movie, or was it a movie as comics, vice versa, I can’t figure it out. The producers could have saved millions using cardboards as actors and nobody would see the difference. As a movie, it was a picture in search of a motion. Towards the ending, Ryoichi and I had a good laugh. There was this flying data center resembling a giant female contraceptive. In it was a 400-year old guardian who used to be an acquaintance of Aeon way back, ahm, 400 years ago. While everyone’s being cloned out of old age, he was harvesting signs of old age (in his case very-very old), deprived of even an ounce of collagen. Worse, everyone was wearing sleek Versace while he was damned to wear haute Gaultier. So he gave Aeon the license to bomb the flying diaphragm while he’s in it, saying he was tired anyway. Oh, grandpa, with that costume, you should be.

MTV should keep to making mtv’s.

One commonality between these three movies is the concept of undying love. Damn it! I hate the idea. In these movies, love lives on. Fuck! In reality, in my case, my exes’ love for me has already died. Mine still lives on. Fuck! Now I feel such a sucker for openly admitting that. Fuck! (In this blog I resolved to speak French thrice)

You mean, Aeon, even if I get cloned I would still pine for the twerp?! Nitta Sayuri, honey, you are one lucky girl. That guy knows what he wants. You. As for my exes, they’re still trying to figure out who they want. Me? Maybe not. And yes, Ennis, I wish I know how to quit them.

Oh well, this turned out to be an insignificant blog, after all. I should have commented on 1017 instead. Or I could have stayed in bed and begin reading a good book. But that would be running into Catch 22 since I can’t say a good book is a good book until I finish it. (I wish my student read this since he’s been asking what Catch 22 is. I’m showing off.)

As for the pain…er, what pain?

Simple Thoughts: now that you're gone...

Simple Thoughts: now that you're gone... I can relate. I just don't want to go through that again.

Ascent to Mount Hyperventilate

Tap… tap… tap… So goes the keyboard. Words. Lots of them. Then at the end of the sentence, I highlight the whole thing. And hit delete.

February 13, 2006. Oriental Gardens, Makati. Overlooking Buendia traffic. And bored.

Boredom is a lurking slow death. Its harbinger is quiet pain. It’s the kind of pain that’s devoid of excruciation and molar gnashing but creeps in one’s sleep to give one a hard time to catch the much needed z’s. I don’t know with you, but for me catching z’s is always a hurdle. All kinds of hurdles, imposed by an outside tormentor or self-inflicted, possess a certain kind of pain. Well, it’s still pain nonetheless. Personally, I’m not a pseudo-masochist, but in a certain given sexual tryst I had, I could remember slapping my bed partner once and having the same in return. That was one exceptional pain I enjoyed. Oh, it was good.

Writing is a pain. If brains have legs, I’m having a crunch right now. I was suppose to revise my CV, which I do every six months. Or revise an essay for this anthology something Rollo and I are writing. Doing either is like ascending Mount Hyperion, having to deal with obstacles such as the general prevailing resume lay-out, or how to make a failed love appear funny in print. So I dropped both and started to do my blog instead. My hordes of four fans have been complaining that my blog entries have been absent for quite some three weeks now. These fans! Who do they think they are? Pain in the ass? But then, as an upcoming celebrity, I should start practicing the art of not ignoring the fans.

So halfway to writing my blog, my mind was still wandering the dark passages of nothingness looking for something to write about instead of one that plays over and over in front of me. Yes, there is something I wanted to write about but I refuse to do so for the following reasons, a) it’s about relationships and loves, b) and stuffs… about relationships and loves, and c) it’s freaking cliché to talk about relationships and stuff on the vesper of Valentine’s Day! Grrroooowll…

There. Now that I have vented it out, please allow me to talk about Valentine cards instead. Thank you.

Way back grade school, around my third grade, when Valentines Day comes, I would buy the fanciest of cards. No, not Hallmark. I mean fancy. Hallmark is mush. And their cable shows are cheesy. Having said that let me illustrate what’s fancy. The visuals are felt, I think asbestos. On the cover, the bigger the heart, the better. Not necessarily a red heart. Once I bought a card with a green heart. I am not kidding. At the center of the heart a hole is punched out to reveal what’s pasted inside, a dried twig resembling a rose. Yes, fancy also means tacky.

With my sweet grade school countenance, I would gladly give these cards to my mother, my sister, and my favorite friend, Jane. And why, of course, to my teacher too, Ms. Capiral. All of them would laugh, except Jane. Jane would have her eyes twinkle. Her eyelids fluttering... like the wings of a drosophila.

But no, Jane, it’s just a card. A friendly card.

Eh, kung friendly card lang bakit yung best friend mong si Carlo di mo binigyan?

Hmmmm… I’ll take that as a suggestion. But I’ll have to wait ‘till Carlo and I are eighteen para mas may impact.

Year in, year out, it has been a practice till Grade 6. I stopped giving Jane these cards. I’ve gotten tired of elaborating the limitations of a friendly card. I’d give her a Christmas card and her eyes would still flutter like fruit flies. But without fail the elders would always laugh. Once they argued if it was right to receive Valentine cards from somebody not-a-lover. Innocently, as this anecdote would picture ignorance when I come to age, I butted in the conversation by referring to the pre-printed dedication at the cover.

Pwede po yun. Ayan po, oh, Happy Valentines, Mother!

Mind you, without doubt there is, accordingly, such a thing as a Valentine card for bro, sis, and miss… teacher. Call it marketing.

So, is a Valentine card appropriate for somebody not your boyfriend or girlfriend?

Categorically, my answer is a bittersweet NO. More like a bitter NO.

The Greeks categorized love in three ways. There is filia, or filial love, for a brother, a mother, a sister, a father, a friend, including bothersome relatives. Agape is love for the community, like the love of Christ to God’s people or the kind of love that gave Ninoy Aquino the illusion that Filipinos are worth dying for. Then there is eros, erotic love, love towards a boyfriend or girlfriend. Its difference to filia is that one who is possessed by erotic love is prompted to copulate with the object of one’s affection, or erection for that matter. Otherwise, it’s just Platonic love, which is not even Greek, except the name.

Now, etymology and hermeneutics aside, Valentines Day is a celebration of erotic love. That’s just it. That explains the traffic in Sta. Mesa and the shortage of gift wraps in pink and red rose prints. Ah, the floral carnage – hapless flowers slaughtered in the name of love. Those classic cartolina cupid cutouts! Eeeek…

Any reason to celebrate Valentines with somebody other than the object of your erection is just plain naivety towards some adroit marketing scheme. Well, it’s not really a clever scheme from some printing house, but your gullibility made it so. Making Buddhists celebrate Christmas without the Holy Child, now that’s smart marketing. Go send your mom a card on mother’s day, your brother on his birthday, your sister a spring festival card (whatever that means), and your friend, ahm, well, a get-well-soon card. But not a Valentines card. Do send them a Valentines card at your age, and you’re either a marketing victim or just plain gullible. Or in your misery as loveless you are starting to believe that your love to your parents is reason enough to celebrate Valentines. Twerp!

Damn, I noticed froth dripping out of my mouth while writing this.

You might ask why the agitation for something as simple as a card? Besides, it was me who did send those tawdry cards in my grade school days, not you. I am not known to apologize so let me play up the excuse:

Because of all the occasions in the calendar – thank God it’s not a holiday – Valentine is the most chauvinist. I can’t celebrate Valentine because I’m loveless? Oh, yeah, I can’t. I could just imagine being chastised for being out alone in the street on Valentines Day. The love police interrogating me: Who gave you the right?

Pardon me, Sir, but being single is not my fault. All the men who are available are simply, er… ah, blind. Honest!

And those cards talk like love is forever! It amazes me to think as to where these writers are getting their idea about love and relationships. Hello! Reading them makes me ask, WHO ARE YOU?! The question refers to the one who gives me the card. Translated as: I can’t believe you said that; or I can’t believe this; or, half-sarcastic-half-disgusted, you’re kidding meh!

Does anyone know anyone, or anyone who knows anyone who knows anyone, who proudly announces that he writes poetry for Valentine cards? Either he’s too ashamed to admit it or he’s been hiding now for the lies he’s been feeding us. He can do better in the boiler room operations.

(As I progress on this writing, a text just came in. It’s 11:59 PM of February 13 and the message reads:

Hapi valentine!... baaybag…

This came from a friend. Why can’t he just kill me?! Oh, this guy is not just a friend. He is the lover of my ex. Yeees… I know… I know… I have moved on. I’m ok.)

So, what do we do on Valentines Day? Sit in the corner and wait for the Second Coming. Go to the corner of the street and eat isaw. Ever heard of Singles for Christ? I am curious as to what the group would be doing on Valentines Day. The Sacrifice of the Taken?

But don’t you dare show up at your friend’s date. That would be the death blow to your dignity as a lonely creature.

I leave you to your misery. As for me, I’m staying home. Victor Krum might call. I heard he’s still single.

Odd Infinitum!

I told you not to do it! You still did it? Why did you do it? Tell me! Why did you do it?! Ha?!

I smirked. I pouted. Then I blurted out, "Because you suck!"

Saturday, 19Th of January. The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, Gateway.

My head was still reeling from drunkenness the other night as I wake up with my conscience banging my inner ear as to why I have to go out last night. Conscience. That annoying holier-than-thou voice lurking inside all of us. Whether it does its job for the sake of discipline or just to spite, I think for once I believe it has a point. I've been partying every weekend for the past three weeks that if one have to account for the mullahs (or is it moolahs?) I spent, I could have bought a new television far better than the Akira I once owned. Predictably, as I was confronted by the indecision on whether I should go out or not, I went out anyway. And, man, did I say going towards the opposite of your conscience always turn up for the good? I am such a sucker when it comes to partying but conscience sucks big time.

So here I am smiling. I did better in sucking up to my whims. Last Friday was the best as far as I could remember. And it could have not been possible if not for the friends that surround my constantly colourful world.

It began with movies at Robinsons Place. BBT as usual but it mutated to BBTR with Rollo cow-towed with us complicated couples to drool over a hybrid mutant from Underworld. I find the movie kinda short but, well, action packed. Or maybe I was just used to the kilometric movies shown these past three or four years, namely, Lord of the Rings and, most recently, Narnia. The last one was a disappointment in terms of cinematography. The camera was almost kissing the actors on close-up, one could see their pores lip-synching the lines.

Now, going back to Underworld... no, let's just zero in on the characters. First, the male protagonist. The guy is possessed with excellent bone structure, I must say. Yeah. Yeah. There's also the excellent special effects but since this is my blog I'm in for the bone structure. Nya, ha, ha, ha...

Does bone structure equal to excellent boner? Sorry, my imagination is once again pregnant. (A girl at the other table here in the cafe kept on throwing glances at me. She better stop or I'll be forced to dash her hopes by shamelessly applying lipstick.) Then every time this mutant turns back from vampy-wolf-man to yummy-human, he has to grab a shirt to cover himself. Man, you don't have to. I vehemently protest.

Selene, the female protagonist, has excellent bone structure to throw in as well. Do women also get boners? I don't wanna know. Gives me the creeps. Women. The thoughts of boobs caressing my back gives me Chocolate Hills goose bumps. I detest the thought.

The best lines came not from the movie but from those sitting beside me. When Alexander Corvinus made Selene drink his blood in preparation for battle with a demented batman, Markus, she asked, "What will I become?" Rollo and Porto were both quick to quip in unison. The former said GODDESS, the latter, COCKROACH. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm in the company of mutant minds.

In this movie, everyone is a mutant. Anyone outside the gene pool will not live long. Juxtaposed to real life, we find everyone complicated. Anyone who's not complicated is a hypocrite. As if.

Next stop: Maria Orosa Street. It's Friday. What else is there to do but to party.

Around a table outside Chelu, over whiff of alcohol and simmering sisig, were some of the most interesting characters in this side of the planet. Joining us was Rollo's ex, Shinanigan. I call him such as he was always seem to be pondering about something - a good lay, a concept, the meaning of life... - enough for sarcasm to ooze out of my ears and ask, "What's all this shenanigans about?"

Also joining the party was Ecto with his Korean date. So there were all seven of us. An odd number. I never understood why seven and such were classified as odd numbers until tonight when, as everyone sits side-by-side with their date, I held the distinction as number seven. Dateless. An odd man out. That's me. So before everyone noticed, I put on my entertainer's hat, throwing everyone into some laughs, not to mention catalyst of intellectual discussion. And I was so good at it everyone forgot the oddity of the evening. I realized, no one, and I mean no one, date and the like, can match what I can do in an intelligent lot that no date deserves me. Am I sour graping or what. That's not a question so don't answer that. Even as a question, I would have to kill you for answering that.

I may have been becoming tipsy but I never forgot my demeanor. I have to introduce everyone to Ecto's Korean date. First their name, then our age. Upon knowing mine, which I dramatically revealed in fortissimo, he gawked. Surprised at how my looks hid my age, English adjectives escaped him. He could have said it in Korean and I wouldn't mind. If not for his short English, I could have explicated to him the non-secret in looking young. Unlike Rollo who has to cement his face with collagen. I wouldn't be surprised if one of these inevitable days he starts stapling his skin against his mandible to keep it from sagging. Mine was an accident. More like serendipity. I half suspect that during one of my sexcapades I swallowed a random number of sperm - between enough and too much - to stunt apoptosis.

In the middle of so varied discussions, Rollo brought the issue of idiots having to be at harm's way every time we are together. One bully, one bitch. Bad combination. I threw in some bovine information: bull is male cow, bitch is female cow. Ryoichi interjected, "Being a Benedictine that you were, that makes you a holy cow!" Ok, now cut the canned laughter.

Good thing Ryo didn't know that the nomenclature also applies to pigs. Otherwise, I could have screamed a'la Nora Aunor, "Your ex-lover is not a pig! Ako ay hindi aso!"

At one corner, here at Coffee Bean and whatelse, about ten young gays were converging. Man, they are so unattractive and dull they might as well be straight.

Just as I was beginning to loudly announce to everyone in the street my undying love for Red Horse, Doc Hieronymus Bosch appeared. But first, let me focus on my unrelenting affection for Red Horse. It's the only thing that has been faithful with me all my decadent life. And with more than one bottle a night, you can be openly polygamous and still come out faithful, take them all in one sitting and you still won't be accused of being an orgiast. Whenever I hear my name being called by a clinking freezy voice, I know there's a Red Horse within three-meter radius. Our love for each other is so intense it is summed up in the following scenario: as I suck these cute voluptuous bottles dry, I go nuts (pun intended)!

Every time Doc Hieronymus and I meet, we paint the town like his namesake painter's copiously carnal The Garden of Earthly Delights. It's not that he's into orgy and such. It's rather that Doc Hieronymous and I know what's an unadulterated fun when we see one. Know when to create it when there's none. Not that we perpetually revel in it. We just know when to have it or not to have it. And contrary to what everyone wants to believe, we're not eyeing for each other. That's a rumour.

Upon knowing that Doc Hieronymus wants to remain single - forever! - I readily found my long lost sister from Mount Olympus. We were separated from birth when I was given charge of Hades. His apotheosis signaled the end of my misery. The planets have converged to save their favorite son from being tonight's dating oddity. Now I know why eight is a lucky number.

Again let's segue to my present environment. A guy passed by. I'm not into hairy guys but those side burns spectacularly define that jawline. That shirt somehow is contrary to the idea of charm. But then, he might be straight. So it's ok. Gayness is a fashion liability.

The magic of alcohol set in, melting sisig fat in an instance. In times of drunkenness, unlike people of our kind, the heteros hit their beds. Gays get to populate the dance floor when drunk. This we do in Bed. At 1 am, party was just beginning.

What a night! If I have to choose one instance in my life that I have to live over and over again, this would be it. Friends. Intelligent conversation. Witty cracks here and there. Red Horse. Put them all together, who needs a lover. One odd night I could play all my life.

Blog You All! (Part 1)

In the parklanes of your thoughts deep slumbering memories are at rest. There they are saddled on grounds of unknowing waiting for a drive down memory lane.

Sunday afternoon. Coffee and chocolate cake at Libreria, Morato.

A muscled guy in black tank top passes by, groceries in tow. Across the street, in Grappas, a usually attractive skinhead chats with an unusually attractive fatso. Probably EB. Cars in all shapes, colors, sizes and types dart along the sleepy street. The taxi drivers are all seem friendly. A next-door 7-11 attendant took the day's garbage out. He's cute. My girl friend was tinkering with her laptop inside the coffee shop. Outside, under the sky, I sucked on cigarette and coffee alternately, between pencil and paper activity.

Lovely day, I should say. Too lovely to give a hoot about my sebderm raging under my left ear. A lovely day to look beyond what eyes can see and wonder where my friends now and what could they be doing. Friends, people I love regardless of bloodline. People I loved, filial or erotic, in any which way I could not classify.

Rollo, my housemate, is at home still sleeping. Sleep is his only way to deal with drunken stupor. Or maybe he's depressed again. Sleep is his first resort on such times. Second is poetry. Third, and the last, is Bed. The one in Malate.

In posh Oriental Gardens, Makati, Nympha is enclosed in his ivory tower. He could be click-clacking in the net ogling over headless torsos at G4M. Or just to give his wit some good stretching, comment on some profile's ridiculous grammar. Nympha is not my friend. He's my sistah! We have shared heartaches deep enough to make us bond in the molecular level. We have lifted each other from an assortment of quagmires enough for us to be suspected of being lovers. Sometimes, we've just gotten tired of fending off the rumour. It suffice that, amidst what friends and lovers thought us of having, we never had sex. Such event would cause the downfall of civilization in a scale that Gore Vidal have yet to write. Nympha is into... ahm, let's just say men of complicated distinction. Physical distinction. Why I call him Nympha, you can ask his men. I wanted to call her Lord of the Cockrings. But he doesn't have one. I mean, the cockring.

Praxedes (a name reminiscent of a Kaluskos Musmos character. If you're not 35 and above, don't bother to know) might still be wrestling with home arrangement ideas. Redecorating is too much of a word to describe what he has to go through after TLF moved out of his apartment. The task of redecorating is next to impossibility that an earthquake would do a better job. Stepping into his living room is like stepping into Portabello Road. Trinkets, curious, prick-a-pracks strewn everywhere. A shelf that rivals Book Sale.

Praxedes, Dearie, after putting things in their relative proper places, hopefully this century, you need to map out the whereabouts of these accumulations. Then hire a librarian to index the coming ones. Keep their existence a secret as you would keep masturbating in front of the mirror a secret. Otherwise, the Smithsonian and Believe It Or Not will swoop down to your place for hard-to-find artifacts.

Praxedes and I are proud achievers. We have achieved what others could only wish -- a longer than long term relationship. Mine was eight years, his is five and counting. Nympha has just recently reunited with an old love. That makes him the top achiever for having ten years (games and pauses in between). Whatta goddess!

When it comes to long term relationships, never compete with divinity.

Since we're on this subject, I'd like to point out that i don't prefer calling a long term relationship a long TERM relationship. It makes me think that a relationship is just a term. A relationship is a trip to the carnival. Sometimes a merry-go-round, but most of the time a roller coaster ride. Maybe that explains why my last relatioship was so difficult. The guy loves the roller coaster.

Oo na. A relationship is also a process. Cliche but, mind you, the concept is metaphysical.

O, here's a new one. A relationship is, uhm, doom.

I wouldn't wonder what's keeping my pseudo-boyfriends, Ryoichi and Porto. These two I love so much. Pure love turns me into a psychic. I know Ryoichi and Porto are having the grandest time in Boracai for Aklan's Ati-Atihan. In fact, an SMS just came in as I write:

"Street dancing's coming to a stop at the moment, umulan kse. Iniwan namin ni Beb sina Mommy pauwi sila na ng barrio. Date muna kami ni Beb d2 sa 3rd class town of Kalibo, in, the famous Jolibee! Hehehe... :-)

These two angels... beyond description.

Some friends worth mentioning:

Anabelle Rama who's happily married in Brunei. Like the infamous stage mother he speaks a lot about his daughter. When he does, either over cellphone or YM, I can picture him smiling. How couldn't he? The little girl is talented (mana sa tatay), sexy (mana sa mommy), maganda (mana sa ninong), may alam sa pera (mana sa lolo).

And then there is Ecto, the Martian Flashlight. Why flashlight, go ask the guys he caroused with. He is a friend I met nine years ago pa but never saw him again until recently, when his carousing led our paths to cross. Like a ghost he materializes from nowhere in ectoplasmic proportion (ask the Ghostbusters what ectoplasma means). Ryoichi loves to hate him. He dates everybody; an EB connoisseur.

Hey, Ecto, be careful where you poke that... that thing of yours. Size kills. And, yes, I think you're a stalker!

A commercial is in order...

By the street, in front of me, a guy is waiting for his ride. Skinhead. Tight white T. It defines his back, biceps, shoulders, oooh... I likey! Huh, he just spit like a straight guy that knows no social etiquette. That's a plus.

Pare, do it again.

To continue...

Porto Finish

Dear Porto,

In an irrational world, an anapestic meter should not stand alone. It must with other meter combine, whether dactyl or trochae, to make musicality out of a simple line. It becomes the only beautiful thing that makes the irrational rational. When it stands alone, it merely says empty. Square. The end result, understanding in futility.

Heavyyy! Ain't it?

Hey, literature is my minor. Philosophy is my major. I ended up as a writer. As such, I see things that weren't there for the ordinary eye to see. I see a crooked line in what suppose to be the shortest distance between two points. I hear meaning higher that the one said, like a dog that catches even the most inaudible. I am cursed to be abnormal. Fortunately, there's just so many of us in this planet. Yes, tell Mulder I am not alone.

Tonight, far from the coffee places of Makati City, where I previously blogged about names being reduced to absurdity, we once more BBTed at a coffee place nestled in front of SM City (no pun intended). With me around the table were Ryoichi, Chocnut, Doc Cryo, and you to whom I am blogging this, ahm... blog (sorry, some of my brain cells are already fast asleep; it's 5:30 am and we had one too many of beer).

Chocnut is so named because of his dark complexion. As you may have noticed, many times have people have been asking if somebody was sitting on his seat. He was that dark. And tall. And oo-na-sya-sya-handsome. As Ryoichi, your hubby and my ex, have foretold, Chocnut was Ryoichi's comrade-at-arms during the trying days of our breakup. He also happened to be a student of my housemate, Rollo Dolphino. See, he wasn't that stealthy, after all.

Would you agree that Doc Cryo looked two years younger than his age? I suspect he was in a cyogenic suspension for the same number of years. I met Doc Cryo in the internet in the early days of my breakup with Tamburong. He was also then mending a broken heart. With our help Doc Cryo and Chocnut are now dating.

These two guys should get hitched so we can move on!

Tamburong was Ryoichi's date before I met him. As the story goes, Ryoichi bragged about me in front of Tamburong during their clandestine dates. The cherubic slut did an impressive story of me that Tamburong, intrigued, hunted me down in the internet. There he found me at Faceparty.com as his sya-na-nga. Then Tamburong and I became The Item. The dream-team, once the epitome of gay-is-the-way, me and Ryoichi, ended our eight years.

Thus, begun your luck, Kiddo. Keep wearing that ring. Wag mo sayangin ang sacrifices ko.

Tamburong is now allegedly happy in the lap of Duffy D. Short, Duffy D walks with his butt three inches behind his back. Duffy D is the ex of my best friend, Ninghao. Ninghao, unlike Ningning who is purportedly-Taiwanese-nationalistically-Main-Land, is simply Filipino-Chinese-mistakenly-Korean-mistakenly-Japanese-but-not-Vietnamese. Ninghao met Duffy D in an orgy. As Duffy D's story repeats itself, Duffy D met Tamburong in an orgy. And so did Tamburong's story repeated itsel - intrigued: Duffy D made a good impression of himself to Tamburong as the elusive sya-na-nga.

Coincidentally tonight, at a distant table was Ryoichi's ex, Nameless. Nameless was your hubby's hubby after me, before you. So there you have, at one time in one place, was my ex's past (Nameless), present (you), and past perfect (me:-). Remind me to commend Ningning for this quip.

Now, nothing could be more Melrose Place than that. Only that this convulusion of characters are for real.

"Really now?! Really now?!" you may ask in your characteristic Portuguese twang with rhythmic intonation. Of which Ryoichi was fond to giggly ridicule tonight. Of which I, tonight, fondly decipher whether it carried an anapestic, dactyllic, or trochaic meter. But only you can rhyme it the way you say NO the-way-you-say-NO. The pronunciation. The diction. The intonation. I don't NO. To whichever ryhme it would be, I accept. It was beautifully said, anyway... especially your way. Just like how I now accept that in this irrational world, things happen, after all, rationally.

Tonight I was in great company. How, in this irrational world, could have I met such a stealthy but jolly person in Chocnut; a truly humble person in Doc Cryo; love endlessly a dedicated Ryoichi; recall the misadventures of Ninghao and the wit of Ningning; or find my Ryoichi somebody to deservely love, you, dear Porto... if I was still with Tamburong?

That one so surprised, like you, would ask musically REALLY NOW?

I simply reply REALLY... beautifully.

(hug. kiss. hug)

Pianini di Tuscanini

Finally I saw Under the Tuscan Sun. Whoever recommended it lacks foresight. The film is far above its story, cinematography, hollywood histrionics, bruckheimer-ish spectacle, what have you... It's beyond maganda-yang-movie-na-yan. Yeah, go see Phantom of the Opera.

It came to me as a mystical message from a being that lives in a kinder planet. I just can't explain it. Film criticism jargon escaped me. It was pregnant with lessons in life that people like me, including those who liked the film so dearly, should have learned long ago before they messed their's and somebody else's life.

It's a simple story really. Girl mends a broken heart; buys a house in picturesque Tuscany; gets acquainted with all sorts of characters; finds love; loses it; finds it again and the writer ends there before she loses it again. Otherwise, the cycle goes on until she grows old and the film gets confused as the prequel to My House in Urbino starring Maggi Smith. Or Tea With Mussolini starring, ahm, Maggi Smith.

Typical of a feel-good movie. It felt so good I had the urge to climb our neighbor's duhat and pretend I was picking olives. Or dance drunk under a fountain and shower in its spouts. O wait, I already did that.

In spite of the film's endearing and sweet scenes, almost 80% - sending my blood sugar level into space - I still find myself fixated by the storm scene. It very well picture my present predicament. I would sit on that washing machine left in the open and stay on it just until the lightining strikes. It's better than spending the rest of our old age pointlessly placing flowers before the Virgin's bas relief along the road.

Ah, someday I would ride a motorbike, not necessarily in white dress, to find my Marcelo waiting for me in a town by the sea... Stop! Didn't he just dump the main character? Scum bag! I know your kind! You've been with me before! Die, you two-timing paramecium... half dog, half oyster! Go lay on a bed of salt!

Hey, let's still go to Tuscany. I wanna lick one of those fiorgelatto thingy. But first, let's detour to Bulgaria and hunt down Victor Krum.

Reducete Ad Absurdum, Nomena!

Last night, sitting around a table under an umbrella in lush Greenbelt were my unmistakably Chinese friend Ningning, my ex Ryoichi and his lovable amore, Porto (as in Portugeso). Every time the latter two and I would go out – for coffee, dinner, or for them to hunt me somebody to bully all the way to bed – we call the session as BBT. It stands for Beb (Porto), Baybag (me), and Tsunkre (Ryoichi). No, we never had a threesome. We all wish.

Last night, in respect to Ningning who has been lost in the circulation for quite sometime, we dashed our conversation with things past. Recent pasts that make me chill violently, turn green, my head rotating 360 degrees, and froth in the mouth. Ningning said I’m still bitter. I insist I’m only human... in a very Linda-Blair-way. In fact, I reiterate, as I had in my previous blogs, that the word to describe my countenance every time I come in contact with the past has not yet been invented. Perhaps, when the day comes that I have already put my malevolent vindication into motion, then that word would have been born.

Greggiesm? Ningning retorted.

It sent shots of coffee out of my nose. Old Chinese deft has just honoured me in stark nomenclature.

Yes, perhaps. Just as the word maverick was born out of somebody’s expertise, or onanism out of Biblical Ona’s sexual proclivity, so shall my name be immortalized by women scorned.

There’s just so much in names than the dictionary can define. Or why would you let Webster define your name or somebody else’s when you yourself very well know the person more than by their name. Though that would make the meaning of names subjective, who would protest the fact that language is subject to relativity.

Once in my circle of friends we have come to coin a word to describe an action latent among gays who would go around the city hunting for lovers, keep them for a week or so. And then drop them. As a result, one gets to have 2 to 3 lovers in a month or so... just do the weird math. You suspect an admirer to do such thing with you and you warn him, "Don’t you dare do a Mark on me..."

Love you, Pat!

So as we decipher the characters that have recently passed our way this year, some old some new, we get to coin some words to describe certain characters, vice versa, out of familiarity. So excuse the bred contempt.

How do you call such a malicious intent when a fake friend, upon seeing your lover and finding him at his liking, is possessed by a diabolical motivation to make peace with you after all these years of not talking to you? Think. Think. Think. Got no word? Teng! There goes an idea.

Sorry... inside joke.

But some names can be used to describe something by virtue of similitude. As in Gregg means gregarious; but let’s just leave that name standing for crimes committed by women scorned. It explains why Gene Harlot had to stress her last name’s silent T, as in Bridget Bardot. People named Dick and Nympha are cursed to ridicule for the rest of their serious life. Poor guys. Such suffering though not of their own fault. But some people, by their own action, deserve the dreadful reputation. And their name agrees. Because of personal experience winning over exegesis, I find the name Charlton denotative of charlatan. Excuse me.

What?! These people don't read, so we're safe. One of them can't even play scrabble, so we'll just have our grand time doing this.

And not even the most professional of degrees, say MD, can cover up the stench attacked to one’s name even if it has the most beautiful of origin picked from the most traditional of calendars. Can you say Kevorkian?

Now, now... here I am getting started with doctors again. Hey, mind you but there, too, are surprising resemblance between doctors and their specialties.

For the past six months that I have been single, there have been about four doctors who courted me. And every time they would approach I shoo them away saying:

I keep away from doctors. It’s their job. It makes them heartless.

But I was quick to add, "Except for anaesthesiologists, though. They cause no pain."

And paediatricians? I admire them. Really. They are so dedicated to their work to the point of developing such a close affinity to their patients. Then they forgot to grow up.

Ahh, bitterness is a writer’s workshop.

There are also times when meaning throws words into ambiguity to the point of hilarity and absurdity. Consider this story... and oh, it's not for the faint hearted:

Somebody... ahem... and I mean somebody, went to a sex club where everyone is required to wear nothing but a teeny-weeny towel around the waist. You stand in a corner until somebody catches your attention and flirts with you until you-know-what-happens. So this...ahem... somebody we’re talking about did just that. And along came a boy and flirted with him. Then came another guy in his forty’s. The boy introduced the fortyish guy as his Papa. Contextually our subject thought Papa meant lover, boyfriend, jowa... flavour of the Christmas season. And in they went to a much darker corner to begin the moral carnage. As our subject reaches high heavens with moans of pleasures beyond lurid descriptions (somebody hand me a thesaurus) everything plunged back to the sands of Sahara upon hearing the fortyish guy coaching the boy:

" That’s right... good... he’s making noise. You’re doing great... SON."

Kafkaesque maybe but, still, this is based on a true story. Yeeees. And don't tell me I didn't warn you.

DRAG ME AWAY FROM SUNDAY

When a stack of papers is dropped on your desk with a big thump, you can't simply move. Then you see the word deadline in big bold letters. Half of you is numb, half of you is contemplating murder.

When a big crush approaches you from across the dance floor, looks at you in the eye, says hello, you simply drop your cigarette and your jaw. Not necessarily in that order.

When someone in drag tells you in baritone that you are such a cutie, you squirm. You squirm in a bad way.

When somebody you've so waited to text you finally texts you, your eyes crosses staring in disbelief at the appearing name. The cellphone grits along the edges. So do your molars. You're squeezing the phone. You slur invectives.

When you begin to suspect your partner is having an affair, you just want to stuff his nose while he sleeps. But then, considering all other partners, doing so would be a preamble to a bizarre career as a serial killer.

When somebody tells you I LOVE YOU after a series of failed loves, your head blacks out. You want to reach for something to use in bludgeoning a cretin. But that, again, would be the beginning of a grotesque career of the same genus as the above.

24 hours before Monday, you go through the same excruciating predicaments. You picture traffic jam. A multitude of pedestrians. An endlessly discontented boss. Mustering bravery to walk a thickening smog on a summer day, wade on dark syrupy flood waters on a rainy day. Hours of agony to impress a client...

You sit. You grab coffee. You light a cigarette. You might even plan to masturbate. But your mind is beginning to have a mind of its own. Then your thoughts are thrown backwards. You reluctantly recall the past series of unfortunate events that brings the same toment as the above.

You remember a friend who tells you to MOVE ON but couldn't do the same when when it's his turn. You want to gag him.

You remember an admirer who could not have you because he met you in a sex club. You want to bathe him in Lysol.

You remember another admirer whom you could not have as he only wants your body. You want to bathe in Lysol.

You remember the indifference of a friend towards your lovelorn dilemma. You wish him the same.

You thought of a dubious friend who, after disagreeing with another dubious friend for running off with your lover, goes out with them on a drinking spree. You just want to feed her with the pages from a book entitled DELICADEZA.

You stare your clients in the eye. Clients who failed to pay you. You touch shoulders with people who ran off with your money. Bad investments and all. Lost in translation, you just want to run out of the street screaming, "Conflagration! Conflagration!"

You remember never questioning the motives of a fake friend for making peace with you after three years of not talking to you. It took a snake's bite for you to figure it out. You want to pull his spine out of his mouth. But he probably doesn't have one and you'd rather not take a hold of anything that's coming out of his inside.

You see your ex and his new love wearing the same outfit on the way to a bar. And now they are wearing a ring. You want to wring their necks. But you just love them both. Ooh... you just love them both.

You shoot out maledictions upon brushing with the memory of one who sold his promises to shamelessness. In spite of the million ways you thresh out your vindication, the number of which is directly proportional to the million ways you wanted to die during the early days of your break-up, you rather save yourself from choking in your own vomit. Thinking of him makes you throw up. More Lysol!

Instead of biting your own head off for being such a sucker for anything that's adverse to being skin deep, you'd rather take a big sigh and wish it's already Monday.

Biatch Beneath a Cantilever

Last night, I renewed my ties with fellow servants of the arts, people of the letters, by attending my housemate's book launching at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. The last time I was hobnobbing with the culterati, from Irma Potenciano to Dennis Marasigan, was July of 2004. My ex of 8 years, let’s call him Ryoichi, and I were invited to attend a concert. We were sitting two seats apart. We weren’t talking to each other. Go figure.

I've been going to CCP at least once a month but not for its cultural values but rather for its socio-gastronomico-anthropological attraction: the Filipinos' penchant for lutong-pampabata whether served in posh Glorieta food court or the lowly carinderia, no matter where, in this case nestled right next to the Philippine International Convention Center. Talk about showcasing authentic Filipino heritage - goto, adobong atay, barbekyung pusit, mangga’t bagoong... salty… greasy.

Way back last January, a childhood activity brought me to CCP. My recent ex as of this writing, let’s call him Tamburong, would drag me there to jog around the complex. Hmmmm, so matrimonial... There seems to be a correlation between jogging at CCP during my childhood and that of so recently as January. Well, the former is my childhood. The latter is my ex’s. Ahm…go find somebody from Iloilo who works in the sewer. Ask him what's Tamburong.

Perks of being single -- the unchallenged gut feel that some people favorably sight you across the room. In a gathering of writers, more than half of the male literati see themselves as not only bitten by the muses but are rather muses themselves. Now, they want to bite each other. As a copywriter, I dared to be different by being the damned muse of the bastardized linguistic arts, all in the name of money. A sophist? No. A biatch.

If you're engaged, you wont notice your adoring admirers. You're more preoccupied admiring your, ahm, lover. That's just because at the back of your mind you know he will leave you the moment you take your eyes off him. And he surely will.

While I and my housemate, let’s call him Rollo Dolphino, were burning lung cells outside the lobby underneath Locsin’s Hukosaic cantilevers, one of the featured writers, a boy from Dumaguete approached us. I don’t know, he looks like a boy. Anyway, he merely wanted Rollo to sign his book. When Rollo took the book and went aside, the boy turned his attention on naive me.

Aha, a muse amused with moi! He said, you look familiar.

I flicked my stick. I smiled theatrically. And said, “If you’ve been watching porn… It’s probably not me.”

Damn, he’s such a cute boy. But I just gotta’ do my number.

PHANTASMATA

I feel so sick. I am depressed. I am struggling to wash that man right off of my hair. O, I’m bald. So I simply lay down on my divan and wrestled with demons to catch some Z's. I summon a company of sheep to dance me off to sleep.

I opened my eyes and i see Zaphira chasing the moon beneath the sky turgid with tears after Zeus and Hera had issues over Minerva while Ahab flaunts the milky sweat cascading down her breasts shaped like pomegranate, a profusion of seduction, pregnant with temptation, plucked by naive Ona who lives in far-flung Patagonia haunted by baseless fears of ogres that never exist in the mind of Tom Cruise at a burdened age of seventy two whose hands are stricken with ringworms, beloved by Demi Moore in a Catholic girl uniform with Pippy Longstocking braid that points up to the redwood trees towering high above Woodstock flooded with men in leather skirts studded with Swarovski stones, worshipping a drunken endomorph who wets his bed as lavatories stink with vomit, a bowl of shame, a legion of missing links, a protrusion that oozes out of every orifice of an army hauled up from the steppes of Russia before they were devoured by a swarm of arachnids cavorting on top of a bishop's mitre devoid of sanctity, far from divinity, refuge of the damned in a world that ends anytime today though a thousand candles are lit on Baclaran day as children eating corn smile out their teeth with unwashed Colgate peddled by a male shyster in tight white sleeveless collard blouse lent by the twins of Duffy Duck's semblance revelling in the company of embarrassment as though newly freed from the company of Rowena Cantuva who preys on the lonely and drown them in despair pushing them to take refuge in self-manipulation till they reach ejaculation and hum high notes like the fat lady in horned head gear belching a dirge to the sun god in the person of Descartes robed in Aristotle's toga drenched in Plantinga's urine after a drunken spree with Lilly Tomlin and Grace Jones in a bacchanalia of sour grapes and fried green tomatoes held in a choo-choo train that goes in a circle of ten when Pythagoras declared the perfect numeral during a solstice of the unfaithful hounded by the Emperor of Tonga who abdicated the Chrysanthemum Throne on the month he married Glen Close after Merryl Streep had lypo from tongue to cheek for days without end.