Back in the Tropics.

I keep forgetting that I am in the tropics. Just this morning, I woke up hoping that I could do my 40 minute run. I've been running almost everyday ever since I got back from China since I am close to the park and since the gym memberships here are atrociously priced. And besides running is the only activity that keeps me sane in the Coconut Republic. Well, that's not really true since I have another activity that also keeps me sane but you get my point. 
 

So I got out of my bed and did my usual waking up routine – which consisted of scratching my nuts a little, then bathroom, then scratching my nuts some more, then lighting a cigarette then I opening the door so I could do some stretching as I psych myself on how this day was going to be the day that would change my very existence. As I was doing this routine with my eyes half closed, I was thinking of breaking into song about how morning was going to be one of those a beautiful Coconut Republic mornings and how this day was going to be the bestest day of all because I was going to meet THE (SECOND) GUY OF MY DREAMS. I imagine it like this....

I would be meeting my second prince swarming charming today by a serendipitous event like he would accidentally hit me while I was running with the Italian car that he was driving then I would lay semi-unconscious on the pavement as he frantically gets out of his car and rushes to my side. He sees me. Well he sees my the blood gushing out of my nose first then he SEES me. Music plays in the background (Carpenters' “Solitaire”). My nosebleed stops. He wipes my nose with his designer tie. His cellphone rings to the tune of The Lion King's “Can You Feel the Love Tonight”. He throws it away (but not too far because he'll be getting it later). He asks in a real low husky voice if I was alright. I couldn't speak. I nod then I pass out because I lost too much blood from my nosebleed. He carries me to his car and he brings me to the nearest hospital. He donates his blood (we have the same blood type). I am saved. The doctor tells me to go home. He offers me his place. I cannot speak. I nod. He carries me to his Italian car and drives us home. We live happily ever after for 6 months until he succumbs to some rare illness that affects hair follicles. I am inconsolable for a long time (like two weeks give or take) then my first Prince comes to rescue me from my grief and we leave my late husband's manor with and live happily ever after in our small house in the Maldives, living our lives in bliss as we help rid the world of hunger, disease and tacky shoes. 
 

Where was I? Sorry for the segue. Oh yeah. I was planning to break into song as I opened the door but I didn't. It was raining outside. Fatherf*ck (I'm trying to be non-sexist) it's been raining for 5 days!!!!!!!!! 5 days damnit! I'm asking the Universe if I should already start building an ark and start collecting stray dogs and cats and canned tuna. 
 

Then it hit me. I am in the Coconut Republic and not in the Noodle Kingdom anymore. Sigh. This is depressing me. Not because of the fact that I am in the Coconut Republic (I'll get to that later) but because I'm currently listening to Björk and it's really fucking up my mojo. 
 

(Change music to Jack Johnson's “Staple it Together”)

Ok. Where was I?

Yes. Coconut Republic. Noodle Kingdom. Missing it. 
 

Yeah, I really miss the Noodle Kingdom. It became intense the other week. My box arrived the other week from China. It mostly consisted of books and some of the many trinkets and whatnots that I have come to possess in the Noodle Kingdom. I sent the box to Caloocan over a month ago and addressed it to my mother. My mother called me the other week and told me that she was at the post office and they were trying to “tax” my box. TAX MY BOX?!?!?!?! The bastards at the post office tried to tax the junk that I sent from China? I would've gotten rid of them if I weren't one sentimental fuck. I went online and googled PHILIPPINE POST OFFICE CORRUPT AS FUCK. I got results. They were many. I went to the official website to download the international parcel tax rates in PDF form and lo and behold, it was a bad link. The bastards over at the PHIL POST wont let the people know the actual tax rates for local and international parcels. So,I texted my mother to tell her to let them “tax” it as long as they issue a receipt and she gets the name of the issuing officer. My mother, who comes from a generation of women that fought the invaders, showed the text message to the A-hole issuing officer and she ended up going home with my box “TAX” free. She was the only one among the claimants who was able to bring her box home. Assholes. WELCOME TO THE COCONUT REPUBLIC OMAR!

I realize that I am really back in Kansas now and I left Toto in the Noodle Kingdom. Part of me is sad because this means I have really left The Noodle Kingdom for The Coconut Republic. Mind you, it was by choice and it had been a long time coming. The Cliffnotes version – I've been in China waaaay too long that I need to get out before I wake up one morning regretting for not leaving.

To be fair, I knew what was coming. I am Filipino after all and I have lived here for 24 years. I love my country so don't get me wrong. It's all a nice heap of halo halo for me. I'm adjusting is all. But while we are on the subject of adjustment, lemme just give you a brief rundown of the things that I am adjusting from

• Traffic. I knew traffic was bad in the Metro, but I never remembered traffic being SO BAD.
• Taxi Drivers. Gaaaaah. I think I even have to bring my own meter every time I ride a taxi in Manila.
• Weather. It rains and it shines. When it rains, it really rains. When it shines, I sweat like a pig in heat. I miss air conditioners.
• TV and News. Nothing really interesting. I'm glad I don't have a television in my apartment.
• Telecom companies. Calling anyone is expensive as shit.

 Although there are perks in being in the Coconut Republic. Here are some

• Lugaw (Congee). Yum. I eat it almost everyday. It's one of my comfort foods.
  
• Jollibee. I don't eat it everyday, but when I need my Amazing Aloha burger I just go out of my box apartment and go to the nearest Jollibee outlet which is like a two minute walk from my place.
  
• Family and Friends. Good to have them. Can't live without them.

I live in the tiniest apartment ever. My land lady says it's 20 square meters, but I think it's more like 15. I'm not complaining though, because I fell in love with the place. It's an easy clean (II still wipe my floor 20 times a day) and I like the smallness of it. I feel like JK Rowling pre-Harry Potter. Who knows, I might be able to write my Great American novel one of these rainy Coconut Republic days.

I'm still currently unemployed. If you wanna know the truth, I like the idea of slacking for a bit, like waking up and doing nothing but get into my running gear and run for 40 minutes then go back and sleep eat and shit and eat some more then smoke some then think about life and all its vicissitudes and shit. Although I don't think slacking for one year becomes me. My limit is two months then I need to look for a job. I am looking, but commuting for two hours just to go to some fancy business district to push some pencils and play Farmville on Fakebook doesn't really appeal to me. I'm seriously thinking about working in the Jollibee near my apartment. That way, I don't need to commute plus I get free burgers. I'd be like, WELCOME TO JOLLIBEE BITCHES, WHUDDYA HAVIN? D'YA WANT FRIES WITH THAT? MY SHIFT FINISHES AT 5 AND YOU CAN WAIT FOR ME BY THE CORNER BESIDE THE CIGARETTE VENDOR.

meh.

I miss B. 

deunk

ik'm so deunk riight now.....

Angels in Tianjin

One of my last visions of China. This was located in a roundabout in Tianjin City's Italian section. Reminded me of the play and the film "Angels in America".

This has been a long standing tradition of mine ever since I started this blog.  I dedicate this to the boy who smiled at me by the church yard.   It's September and it's raining today.  Where ever you are, I hope you are happy and I hope somebody is smiling with you. 

September Rain Blues

a story of the remnants of my youth

by Rufus Omar Bartleby

August 2006

I woke up with this morning with the smell of rain. I thought it was from my dream but when I looked outside the window I saw it was pouring. September beckons on my doorstep. I sit on my bed and tried to focus on the many images of Buddha hanging on my living room wall. They all look so peaceful, like Van Gogh’s Sunflowers. In two days it’s going to be September. For us Filipinos, September signals the beginning of the “ber” months, the countdown before Christmas and New Years. In happier days of not so long ago, you could hear Christmas carols being played on the month of September in shops and malls as if trying to hypnotize the listeners to buy Christmas gifts as early as possible so they wont have to bother going through all the rush in purchasing a very late Christmas gift. You’d even see the ominous Santa Claus (I don’t know why but he always scares the hell out of me) holding the bell of doom and a whip heralding the coming apocalypse lest the kids do not repent and turn back from their evil ways. But those were the happier days, when people had the luxury to spend their hard earned cash on a September day. Now these lean days of economic and political crises, September for many Filipinos is just, well, September. But for me, it’s something else. September, ever since that day on the church grounds, held a special place, dare I say it, in my heart. It’s been what, 8 years (?) since I last saw his face. But I can still remember how he looked like, how everything took place, or how it shouldn’t have taken place. I could still remember what I was wearing that day. I could still make out his face and that smile. I could still smell the cold September rain.

September 1998

It was a rainy Tuesday September morning. Michael and I just got out of the church after attending the morning mass, exasperated by Father Constancio’s (Consti as Michael and I would like to call him) latest homily. This time it was about astral projection. Michael was also crazy about crystals and new age shit, but to hear that every friggen mass was a wee bit too much even for a Wiccan such as Michael. But we gave up on the priest a long time ago. He was one of them 60’s children, flower power chakra crystal shit, but a late bloomer. Meaning he discovered the wisdom of the 60’s during the late 80’s, when he was already in his mid 50’s. And by God, woe to the man who is a late bloomer, or rather have pity on the dude (I think it’s in the Bible somewhere). God help us all if he starts forgiving our sins with his crystals while scooping out the evil from our chakras. Well, another Tuesday morning unwisely and ridiculously spent. But hey, it was our ritual of sort, what we do, Michael and I. Every Tuesday and Thursday mornings, before we start our day in school, we would attend the morning mass for kicks. We’d look at students reviewing for the exams; lovers trying to kiss and make-up (or break-up) at 7 in the morning; and the recognizable John Doe’s trying to ask God to give them a cosmic sign from heaven which winning number combination would be in the next lotto draw. And yeah, we also come there to nourish our spirits of course. For me, I’d like to observe people. It gives me peace to look at someone and not think about myself and all the shit that I had to deal with for a change.

 

Say that old lady in front who prays earnestly and holds on to every word that comes from the Great Reverend Consti’s mouth, which is mostly pure horse turd. She knows it, but still she nods and smiles whenever the great Reverend Consti would glance on her direction as if they both know that they’re playing the same game of pretend-that-you’re-listening-to-me-and-I’ll-look-in-your-direction-and-you-nod-in-total-agreement-of-any-cow-turd-that-comes-out-of-my-filthy-unbrushed-mouth. I’d count how many times she’d nod and smile. It passes the time.

And then there’s this old man who repairs watches outside the university gate. He never fails to come to the seven o’ clock mass. He’d always be standing at the back, in his Sunday best, which always consisted of this 70 ensemble of corduroys or bell bottoms and always a striped semi fitted shirt that hung comfortably on his torso like the shirt found its home. He wears those shiny shoes that never seem to have touched the earth like it just came out of the factory. And don’t forget the pomade. His hair shines during the ‘Our Father’, and I don’t have one iota of a clue as to why. I like to look at him. Once he caught me staring at him and he smiled. I was so embarrassed. The dude must have thought I was perving over him or something.

I don’t know why we do it, Michael and I. We attend the morning mass and listen to the same bald priest saying the same boring topic of politics, crystals, astral projection and salvation and eternal damnation (in that particular order) over and over again. It’s a vicious cycle really. I guess we were just Catholics, like the rest of the 20 or so people who attend Consti’s morning Eucharist. We sit and complain to God asking Him to make Consti shut up, yet the irony is that we still respond to this bald priest as he stands in front holding the crystal like he’s Lex Luthor when he cues us to stand up, sit down, hold hands or go in peace. And after hearing the Gospel according to Consti, which is about an hour or so (Consti likes overtime), we go to our normal saturated lives in a state of constipated bliss, while the Great Reverend goes out to the back door that leads to the priests’ quarters to catch his late breakfast of cold sunny side ups, Australian bacons, French toast and brewed java. I just hope that God Almighty really has a sense of justice and makes Conti choke on his French toast. Catholicism is such a bad habit I tell you. You can try to quit, but it’ll just leave you cold turkey.

August 2006

So that was my life every Tuesday and Thursday mornings in the university. Nothing much, nothing fancy. Boring as it may seem, I was quite happy. I had a boyfriend at that time. He was a junior majoring in Political Science with minors in Music Appreciation and I was a sophomore in Philosophy with a doctorate in Bullshitting. Michael doesn’t like him though. And so does my other best friend, William. They keep saying he’s like Elmer’s Glue, too possessive and clingy. What can I say; I guess that was young love for me. I kind of like being possessed from time to time. Although he may go a bit overboard sometimes especially when he gets jealous of Michael and William, or if I’m wearing tank tops (they’re too revealing, he says) or if I was 2 minutes late. There were even times that he called me “bakla” and “puta” and I got pissed at the “puta” remark. The former I can deal with. Hey, I was a true to the bone closeted gay guy (at that time, I was still in the closet dusting off the cobwebs and trying to see if my granny’s shoes would fit me… NOT); being called a whore however was another (well… I still had principles at that time… I was young damn it). I’d like to say that we didn’t talk for a week because of the remarks he made. We always kiss and make up after about a day or so, then we’d fucked like rabbits.

I was in love. He was the center of my known universe. He was my being. He knew it. But that didn’t stop him from calling me names when he had tantrums. Like me, he was also Catholic, and a very devout one for that matter. Like me, he was also in the closet but with a slight difference. He was in a safe box and in the closet. But he was the reason for my happiness. I was happy. The tantrums, the taunts, the fights plus lukewarm sex we shared from time to time kept us occupied. He loved me. And I loved him, in my own catholic schoolboy kind of way, I did. That was my life back in college - a routine of celebrating the Holy Eucharist with a demented priest, a boyfriend, my two best friends and philosophy. I was happy.

I thought I was, until I saw him.

September 1998

There was a slight drizzle when we went outside the church. It started raining during Consti’s homily but it stopped afterwards. I guess it’s God’s way of letting us know that he does know our plight when we listen to Consti’s dementia in full action. I could still smell the scent of the after shower. I love the rain more than I love anything. I believe that the rain was God’s miracle consummated. For me it was a sign from heaven. I have this theory about the rain. I think you can actually know what God is feeling after a downpour. I play this game after every rainfall. After every downpour, I’d go outside and try to smell the rainwater, and I try to ‘taste’ it in my thoughts. If the smell and the ‘taste’ was too salty then God was pissing down on us because He’s royally pissed. But if its kind of acidic then God is shedding unshed tears for the outcasts of this world, like them fags, dykes, trannies, Goths, geeks or the athletically challenged (you get the picture).

So I took in the humid air and tried to taste the smell of the rain in my thoughts. God was definitely pissing on us today, I thought to myself. Then a weird thing happened. It stopped drizzling. The sun shone so bright like nothing happened. Just that. It was like it never rained at all. God must have a urinary tract infection, I thought.

Then he passed by.

August 2006

The way he looked that day was embedded in my consciousness forever. And like anything that is embedded in your psyche, the thing that has been embedded can never be removed even if someone wishes to remove it. Back in my elementary days they taught us the number pi (π) in math class. Truth be told, I loathed math or anything that involved adding, subtracting, dividing and multiplying. One time, the school decided that I should join a regional math quiz bee without prior consent. I had a real bad case of diarrhea that day. I realized that I hated math because I hated solving equations or rather trying to solve problems that required exact answers. For me that was absurd. At that young age I was already aware that I was never gonna be a CPA or some math whiz with a good paying job. However, there was only one thing that I liked about math - it was the number π. 
 

π = 3.141592654……………………………… 
 

They told us that pi was this number that expressed the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle and appears as a constant in many mathematical expressions. I didn’t get any of the shit of what the teacher told us but one thing stuck in my head – that pi continued on to infinity. It didn’t have an end, an exact number to put a stop to it. It was uncertain. That was the only thing certain about pi, that it was never certain. I never forgot about the pi lesson. And I’m sure all of us who listened to our math teachers never forgot about it either. I mean, look, if you do not know about pi, it’s either you didn’t go to school or you’re probably some retard who miraculously passed high school and got teleported to law school or business school or what shit have you right now. The point was, I didn’t forget about pi. At that very young age, it stuck itself to me like glue. Later on in life when I was in my freshman year I learned a word that I could associate with my favorite number – transcendent. I love saying that word. Transcendent. I realized that pi became transcendent to me. And like π, he became transcendent to me. A constant – something that can never be removed even if I wished to.

September 1998

His silver blue umbrella was still open and he was trying to close it. His faded blue jeans clung to his waist and to his lower extremities like there was no tomorrow. His shirt was inexplicably dry even after that glorious downpour. He was two or three inches taller than me. Probably five foot nine or ten. He had this Tommy Page haircut, which was so cool those days, and it suited him very well. And his face…

August 2006

Even after 8 years I still couldn’t forget his face. Sometimes I would forget what he’d look like and his face would be like a vague memory, like he was just some figment of my imagination. A phantasm. Then in my waking moments he would slowly reveal himself to me, and I would remember him again in such clarity. Sometimes his face would look different than before, more refined, and more beautiful. I would forget him for a moment, then he will come back again. He’s always there, inside my head, constantly swimming in my thoughts.

September 1998

He looked like Jay Manalo especially with his lips, but more pleasant (not that Jay Manalo was unpleasant to look at) and gentler. His eyebrows, come to think of it, reminded me of some Japanese actor I saw in some movie in some art house cinema. Takeshi Kaneshiro, yes, his eyebrows was almost an exact copy of the cop who kept eating expired pineapple chunks in Wong Kar Wai’s Chunking Express. His eyes were different though… incomparable to any movie star that I’ve seen in the movies. He looked at me with those eyes. They looked like raindrops. For about five seconds while he was passing by, he looked at me. Five seconds. I forgot about the Rizal exam that I was supposed to review that day. He was going inside the parish grounds. Where was he going? He wasn’t a student, but he was carrying a backpack on his left shoulder. He wasn’t an altar boy either. Having heard the mass every Tuesdays and Thursdays, I would’ve become familiar with his face already if he was. And he certainly wasn’t part of school security either. Why was he going inside the parish grounds… and inside the parish comfort room?(!) Then I had this sudden urge to take a leak.
  
Looking back, I realized that it was so low, I know. But hey, he was after all, my pi. 
 

He was already inside the parish comfort room and I was about to follow when Michael woke me up from my trance,

“Where are you going? Have you been listening to ANY word that I just said!?” said Michael who was obviously annoyed at the fact that I wasn’t really listening to his rant about Consti’s latest homily. Then he added,

“Is Ricky giving you a hard time again?”, he asked the last question placing emphasis on the ‘hard’ part with a wicked shit eating grin on his face. I swear, Michael could really be a witch sometimes. I dismissed is smart assed comment and I told him that I had to pee.

“Okay, fine. Be that way. Don’t take long because you still have to tell me the pages to review in our Rizal exam.”

And as fast as my feet would carry me, I went into the proverbial comfort room to catch a glimpse of my mystery guy with the Tommy Page haircut, Jay Manalo lips, Takeshi Kaneshiro eyebrows and raindrop eyes.

I would be a hypocrite if I did not admit that there was nothing sexual about my actions. But I was more interested in seeing his lips, his face, his eyebrows and those raindrop eyes. I just felt this urgency to be close to him. Sexual or non-sexual, I just felt that I needed to be close to him.

I went inside. Nobody else was there except me, and him without a shirt and he was already in the process of pulling down his pants. He was changing! I tried to be casual (in a friggen comfort room!!!!). I tried to focus on pulling down my zipper to pee. I looked at him for a few seconds. All it took me was a few seconds to register everything about his body. He was slim, but not skinny. His skin reminded me of a cup of Nescafe coffee mixed with six tablespoons of Bear Brand Milk Powder. His back was smooth and was so inviting to touch. When he tried to bend over to slowly pull down his tight pants, his spine and his white Hanford clad buttocks were proudly protruding towards me as if he was trying to do it on purpose. I was thinking that if Boticelli and da Vinci and Michelangelo and all them great DEAD artisans could see me right now, they’d probably have a post humus ejaculation. Yes, he was marvelous. Perfect. Like a transcendental number trying to express itself to the depths of infinity. I wanted to look up to the heavens and tell all them dead artists watching us that I declared SHOTGUN first. 
 

I was still ogling over him and I could just imagine my psychic self wearing this shit eating psychic grin. I was declaring SHOTGUN to the whole cosmology of the men’s room and that he was mine and mine alone. And then I had this feeling. This fear and trembling kind of feeling that he knew that I was watching him with all the peripheral vision I could muster.

Silence. 
 

Small beads of perspiration rally on my forehead. 

My metaphysics professor, a 40-ish man who speaks 10 languages and has a voice like Barry White, used to say that if there was sudden silence in a room it meant that an angel (a seraphim) was passing by to take pictures. 
 

It was indeed a Kodak moment. With him already partially clothed, and me trying my very best to urinate. The whole time I was there I hadn’t even let out a single ounce of urine. I was so embarrassed, to say the least. He must think I’m some kind of perverted Catholic college kid who still confesses to some demented priest every single masturbatory practice he does in his bed. I had to focus. And with all my faculties, I willed myself to pee. I tried to do a little exercise:

Pee…

Pee…

The Peelippines vs. Benigno Aquino, Jr.

Nanny mc Pee…

Pee…

SnooPee and the Peenuts …

Peeace on earth and goodwill to fucking mankind and to the flora and fauna of the universe…

Peeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…

Pleeeeeeease peeeeeeee.

PEE MOTHERFUCKER PEEE@!!!!!!!!!!!!!

God in heaven please let me fucking pee…

(Of course I was Ally Mc Bealing the whole time!)

And I let out a few drops. I quickly zipped up and scurried myself out of the comfort room without ever looking back. I left him in the comfort room. 

Yet he remained in my head.

I was out already when I saw Michael under the tree waiting for me with a more vicious shit-eating grin on his face. Oh my God! He fucking knew! For a split second, I felt that I was really Ricky’s proverbial “puta”, the whore of Babylon, Mr. President’s fluffer, the bitch of Nardong Tarugo in Cell Block B. But I cast them all aside trying to say to myself, “I didn’t do anything wrong! Everybody looks, so why can’t I? Can’t I have my fucking moment?” But who was I kidding? I didn’t just ‘look’, I studied and analyzed him like the way I study my philosophy books – with ardor and fervor. I was about to defend myself to Michael when he said,

“I hope you’ve enjoyed yourself since we are going to be 5 minutes late for English Lit.”

I told him to lighten up since Boobs Mc Phee, as I like to call my English Lit lecturer was probably going to be late anyway for class since she takes her sweet time in brushing up and trying to look sophisticated and booby, in matte and all.

She was beautiful in fact, my English Lit Lecturer. And she did indeed have big boobs, which my best friend William keeps staring at during class. Come to think of it, all the guys, except for Michael and me, kept on staring at her boobs like it was some lab experiment gone mad. But hey, I wasn’t a breeder. I’m friggen bent. It’s like I can will myself to like her breasts and then get an erection, you know. Peeing is one thing, but women and breasts, they’re another are another.

Michael was in his element today (must be the effect of Consti’s crystals) when he said,

“Since we are going to be absolutely late, I think I will brush up and go to the comfort room.”

The bitch!

Without thinking I told him that he couldn’t go there because ‘he’ was changing.

“Oh, so we are using personal pronouns now? When did this happen? I didn’t get the memo.” Michael quipped and then added, “And what’s with the face?!”, he said in mock disgust, “Why in the world are you affected? Forget it, I need to go to the bathroom and you can’t stop me!”

I could not hold Michael with my powers. He was a witch after all, his clan tracing its roots in the mountains of Aklan, and quite a powerful one. And I couldn’t go with him. It’ll be too obvious. What will ‘he’ think of me? All I could do was wait and pray to the God that I have been devoutly praying for every Tuesdays and Thursdays for the past two years that His divine providence would somehow play on my favor. Was I being selfish? I mentally asked myself. I shook the thought away when I saw Michael enter the comfort room. And after four seconds he went out. Jesus! He could be so blunt sometimes! He did not even pretend to urinate! I was about to admonish Michael about his behavior when he said with a look of a disappointment on his face,

“He was already fully dressed in school uniform.”

A surge of relief rushed through my veins, then the last two words of what Michael had just said registered themselves into my central nervous system. School uniform? He was a student!? But why was he changing in the parish comfort room? Where does he live? What’s his major? Why was he changing in the parish comfort room? Which building does he go to on Tuesdays and Thursdays? Why was he changing in the parish comfort room? At seven thirty in the morning?!?! As if reading my thoughts, Michael said,

“He’s a callboy Phil.” 

Insight

August 2006

Looking back now, he was too good, too attractive, and too sleek with his movements when he passed by me after the mass. And that look in his eyes. They were beautiful, but it registered something different. They were tired, his eyes. They were kind of sad. 
 

September 1998

I suddenly felt bad all over. I wanted to throw up. Not because he was a rent boy but because of something else which I couldn’t pinpoint. Come to think of it, I never did get an erection while I was looking over him. I realized that it was not sexual, the incident at the comfort room. It was more of admiration, of praise to a perfect being that was slowly unfolding itself in front of me. I felt like some kid trying to catch the end of the pi number even knowing all along that it was infinite.

I felt bad. I felt bad for him because if what Michael said were true… well, what if it was true? Why was I feeling this way? Why was I feeling at all? 
 

I pretended to dismiss what he said and told Michael that we were late for English Lit already. We passed by the church gate until Michael told me he forgot something at the front desk of the parish office. I told Michael that I’d wait for him in front of the church. 
 

Thoughts of ‘him’ came back, like water from a spring trying to make new rivers and streams by carving itself to unknown territories. This in fact, was unknown territory for me. A terra incognita as one of my philosophy professors try to call it. Ricky was never a terra incognita to me. I knew him well. I knew his quirks and his tantrums well, his sensibilities on conservative fashion and classical music and on Mary, Jesus and the Catholic Church. My friends, like Ricky, were certain to me. I know them like I know my own shadow. My life before ‘him’ was quite predictable. But with ‘him’ it was totally different. He was totally unknown to me. Which made me even more uneasy. Not afraid, but uneasy. Like there was no certainty. 
 

I was lost, still drowning in my thoughts when a girl form my Rizal Class passed by me and greeted me with a smile. And on the same direction, ‘he’ passed by just behind my girl classmate, quietly gazing at me where my girl classmate was walking. Not knowing what to do, I smiled at my girl classmate. And he SMILED BACK. He thought I was smiling at him! His teeth were so baby powder white that it again accentuated his eyes, which again reminded me of raindrops. His face, was how could I describe it… transfigured would be the closest word to describe his face at that time when he thought I was smiling at him.

Then out of nowhere, I heard a song playing in my head. The voice, all too familiar, was Aretha’s:

“The first time………… ever I saw your face………

I thought the sun ……… rose from your………………………………………”

Aretha never got to finish her song number because my moment OUR moment was trashed by the girl, who greeted me with,

“Hi Phil!!!!! Hope you’re ready for our Rizal exam today!”

I wanted to rush to the hardware store (if there was any open at that time) and buy a friggen sledgehammer, to thank her for ruining my OUR moment.

Then out of the corner of my eye, I saw his smile fade. Then his eyes became tired again, perhaps even more tired than before. I couldn’t see his raindrop eyes no longer because he quickly shifted his gaze to the damp ground. He passed by me, casting those raindrop eyes into empty space leaving me sadder than I was a while ago. I wanted to call him, but I didn’t know his name (at least he knew mine now). And even if I called him, what would I say? That the smile was actually meant for him? How more lame a reason could it be?

He was already crossing the street, with the back of his white polo uniform and light gray slacks bidding me farewell. I have never felt guilty in my entire life, until now. I wanted to cry. Not really wail-cry, you know. I was far too butch for that. But I wanted to shed tears, even a single one. I wanted to. But somehow, at that moment, I couldn’t. It seemed like hours, what transpired between us (and that girl) and I was still dazed until Michael came up to me and said,

“Phil, you lucky fag, he smiled at you! And don’t deny it, I saw everything! What the hell did you do? You gotta teach me that technique sometime…” he said excitedly. 
 

Then I told him about the incident between me, him and the girl from Rizal class. I could see the concern in Michael’s face as I told him the story. He knew. Michael always knew. He is after all, my best friend.

“Don’t worry, I saw his uniform. He’s engineering and some of our college algebra subjects would probably be in his building. We could stalk him! It’ll be fun you’ll see,” he said trying to cheer me up. 
 

I tried to smile at his lighthearted comment. Then I finally told him that we were royally late for English Lit and Boobs Mc Phee was probably royally pissed by now. I instantly went back to my known universe, to my certainties, to my life, as I knew it before ‘him’. I was once again, this Catholic college kid who studies philosophy and goes to hear Mass every Tuesdays and Thursdays with his gay best friend for kicks. I was once again this college kid who has a straight best friend who likes to look at their English Lit lecturer’s breasts. I was once again this college kid who dates a conservative Republican boyfriend. I was once again this college kid who loves the rain more than anything else. Life was again certain for me. But who was I fooling? He was already there in my head. Like that number that I learned way back when I was in grade school. He became that number. And like a kid mystified, I was chasing the number just to see if it ever has an end.

It never happened I keep on telling myself. But he was the lone constant in all variables in my head.

Michael and I walked towards the north campus gate. Michael was talking about something, but I could not hear him. Al I could hear was Aretha Franklin singing in my head. 
 

I wanted to cry. I wanted to shed at least a single tear for ‘him’. But it was not my element, crying genuine tears. I can ‘fake’ crying but I can never shed genuine tears. I learned at an early age that I was not one to shed tears outside. I cry within. I wanted to will it but I couldn’t. Peeing was one thing. But shedding tears was another. But as we were walking toward the north campus, something happened. It started to drizzle again, yet the sun was still shining. I inhaled the scent of the light rain and I noticed that something was different. It was odd, the rain. It wasn’t salty or acidic. The rain that I smelled and tasted in my thoughts just now tasted bittersweet. Bittersweet. At that moment as we were crossing the street, I was feeling exactly the same way. 
 

August 2006

Eight years. Looking back at everything, how it happened, and how it didn’t happen, I realized that I was far too young to understand the whole scheme of things. Well, I guess I still haven’t understood most of it. My youth, as I would like to believe it, was my seedbed. I’d like to think that I grew up a little that Tuesday September morning. I’d like to think the ending turned out different. I remember playing all the possible endings in my head. I did for months. Then I got tired and went on living my life in concrete sureness that I was living it the way that I should. But life is not all about certainties, I learned. It’s also about the opposite of anything that is sure and concrete. Like those mornings when I wake up from a dream and then I have this vague memory of his face smiling at me. This phantasm. This dream. 
 

In the dream, I smiled to him, and said the word that I was never able to say eight years ago:

“Hello.”

He’d then tell me his name and his major. We’d have coffee or lunch at the cafeteria. We’d smoke the same brand of cigarettes. We’d meet in the hallways both of us itching to tell our latest rant on life, politics and the boring professor. Then he’d smile and I’d smile back. Then when I am about to say his name…

I wake up from the dream with the song still lingering in my head.

And I could still taste the smell of the bittersweet rain.

I always look back on that Tuesday September morning eight years ago, especially when it is raining. And most especially when it’s raining on a September day. I have become less innocent of the world and more of a romantic cynic (if there is such). I would wear a face that says “who gives a fuck” but my psychic self will always smile at the rain. Sometimes I’d even play my game just for kicks. I’d smell the rain and taste it in my thoughts, hoping that the taste would be the same taste of rain eight years ago and then… well, it never tasted that way again. So I will never know. (One thing I do know is that God is definitely royally pissed at humanity for the past couple of years or so. Well good luck to mankind)

That Tuesday September morning, God wasn’t pissed at humanity…nor was he crying for fags, dykes, trannies and the outcasts of the world. That day was meant for two people, and two people alone. He was crying for these two people, for he knew that neither could cry to himself nor to each other.

Nine Days

I've always had this fondness for religious rituals. I don't love them but I am fond of them. I have this keen capacity to observe baptisms, weddings, blessings, the Mass and rites of passage of whatever faith culture. I know that its a very intrusive activity on my part that almost borders voyeurism. It is probably the closeted romantic in me that makes me fond of these ceremonies. Its not the religiosity of the ritual that appeals to me but its the significance. I have not practiced Catholicism in many years and I haven't truly participated in a Eucharistic celebration (aka the Mass), yet I am always at awe when I witness people gather to pray to celebrate life, death and the divine.



About two Saturdays ago, I had to go to another city to attend the ninth day novena for my sister's death. Filipino's call it Pasiyam which literally means “nine”. It was the novena for the dead. The Catholic Christian Tradition holds the novena as a devotion that consists of prayer said on nine successive days^Wikipedia, asking to obtain special graces and favors.  In the case of the novena for the dead, the congregation prays for the departed's soul for nine consecutive days in order for the soul to safely pass through the afterlife.



I arrived late because of the traffic. If truth be told, I could have gone earlier but I really wasn't keen on meeting distant relatives and neighbors. I could've missed the whole thing, but I had to do it for my family and my sister. So I arrived late and they already praying (in Filipino). They were all in the living room facing the makeshift altar that my mother made for my sister which was beside the door. They all saw me come in in my tank top and shorts and flip flops. I paid the necessary respects to the elders present by slightly bowing and then placing my forehead to the back of their hands. We call the act pagmamano in Filipino. I started with my parents, my uncles and aunts and the old neighbors who were attending the novena.



I never liked the custom because that meant one has to do it even if one doesn't like the person. I was told it was a sign of humility and of respect to elders. I've always held that humility had to be genuine and that respect must always be earned. The Bible says that Pride is a sin and perhaps it is. Then again, the Bible was edited and rewritten so many times by so many old men with nothing to do but intellectually masturbate everything that I would beg to differ. I think if there ever is a God, that God would tell us to value pride because pride and humility are both one and the same in smell and taste. Its like drinking milk – no matter what the carton is, its still white and it still tastes like milk.



I did it anyway. It was part of the ritual after all. And after I did my part, I placed myself in the farthest corner of the room where I can be nondescript and anonymous and I watched them. I watched each person facing the altar and I observed. All of them were intently focused on the prayer mouthing the litanies like it was their last day on earth. Even the two year olds were praying. Even my brother was praying. I looked at each of their faces and saw a certain sense of calmness as they mouthed the words. Most of them knew my sister but they never really knew her. I could actually count the people in the room who knew Carmen. Yet all of them were intently praying for her like she was their very daughter, sister and friend. I guess this is a very Filipino way of dealing with death. When somebody dies, it is not just the immediate family who grieves, but a community. I've always held that death is something really personal, that you alone will experience your own death and you can never share that experience with others. Dying, for me, is the most selfish and sacred human experience a person can ever have. For Filipinos however (and perhaps for the rest of humanity), the loss needs to be shared by the ones left behind. I've never understood the concept, but somehow it works for the many of us.



I am not a religious person and I make no apologies for being such.  However, seeing the people all huddled up in one corner of our living room in our house in Caloocan, I was moved. I wasn't moved to pray like they did. I was moved to reflect about the moment. I realized how much I appreciated these people. My family needed consolation, some sort of don't-worry-everything-will-be-alright-she's-in-a-better-place-now kind of consolation. It wasn't the fact that they were praying for her, my sister that moved me but it was the fact that they were praying with my family who was grieving for a daughter, a sister, an aunt and a mother. It's comforting to know that you are not grieving alone. Granted that some of them were there for the free lunch buffet but still, it moves me to see that my family share their grief with people. There was no crying in the room. After the novena, everybody was served with lunch. The food was great. My aunt volunteered to cook. And to think that she and my mother were mortal enemies not so many eons ago. I was catching up with my cousins and telling them how beautiful their children were. Children were playing outside. People were laughing at silly sex jokes. Everybody was catching up with each other exchanging phone numbers. The whole scene in our house in Caloocan was warm and comforting. I looked around and it was so different from the scene a few minutes before. Then I placed my vision at the corner by the door where my mother made a makeshift altar for my departed sister. My mother placed flowers by her portrait. The picture was really beautiful. She was all bitchy and all sultry in the photo.  A fitting honor for my sister.



One thing I realized is that my family's experience of the death of my sister really wasn't about her dying. It was about my family being left behind and trying to move forward. Grief is the only way for the ones left behind to manifest the phenomenon of death. For my sister, it was about dying and leaving and passing away. She died. We didn't. We can only grieve. I shall never know her experience of death and dying because it was hers and hers alone. Someday I will, hopefully not soon, but I look forward to the experience. I just hope I have a pen and paper when that happens.

The TIme Traveler's Wife

Novels mounted into films tend to disappoint me because they always seem to miss the point. Robert Schwentke's latest film, The Time Traveler's Wife is another example of that disappointment. I have read the novel two years ago and I was really impressed by the way Audrey Niffenegger told the story of how love can survive time.

The novel is set in Chicago and jumps from different time periods from the mid-seventies to the turn of the century and on to the not so distant future. The whole story revolves around two main lovers – Henry and Clare, who are desperately trying to build a normal life as time literally steals it away from them. Henry suffers from a fictional genetic disorder called chrono-displacement which causes him to time travel within his lifespan (and sometimes even beyond) under extreme stress. He met Clare, who was then a little girl, in one of his time travels. Henry and Clare's relationship blossomed from friendship to a love that would be best defined by St. Paul's words in his letter to the Corinthians - “Love is patient and kind...”

To be fair, Schwentke didn't do a bad job mounting it to celluloid. Its always a struggle for a film maker to direct a film adaptation. Call it a curse, but film adaptations were not meant to outshine the original written work. Given the plot and the ethos of the narrative, it would seem quite difficult to put everything on to film. My main criticism about the adaptation was that it slightly lost its focus for two reasons – the character development and the ending.

Both Henry and Clare's characters were not fully exhausted in the film. The young Henry only appeared in one scene but his character was also quite pivotal in the book. Clare's character was rather poorly portrayed also in the sense that the film focused way too much on Henry and his disorder. Although the book was about a husband time traveling, it was also about the wife being left behind. Clare was the Time Traveler's Wife after all and the film failed to establish that. I could forgive that bit in the film but I what I could not accept was the ending.

The film ended with the Henry and Clare's daughter, Alba, playing in the meadow with her friends and seeing a forty something year old Henry. She then asks her friends to call out her mother while she and her father talk. Henry, by this time, knows he is already gone in their lives. He has traveled to the not so distant future. Clare runs out to the meadow and Henry meets Clare and they kiss until Henry disappears and all that is left are the clothes and the pair of shoes which Clare still prepares. The camera pans out to the meadow with Clare and her daughter walking back to their house. It's a nice ending for a date movie, which what became of The Time Traveler's Wife. However, it did not do justice to Niffenegger's novel. Niffenegger's ending to her love story was one of the best that I've read. I rarely read love stories because I never liked their endings. Niffenegger, however, wrote a very moving ending that was fit for a love story with a time travel element in it. The book ended with forty something Henry visiting an older Clare in the not so distant future. Henry is narrating the whole time. He describes how he appears in the same meadow where he and the young Clare met the first time and how he came to love the little girl that gave him her dad's clothes and pair of shoes. He also describes how his love for Clare still grows and deepens and how he is still in love with the same woman. The page ends with Henry describing Clare as beautiful woman, even though she has clearly advanced in years, sitting by the meadow, waiting to catch a glimpse of her beloved time traveler.

Though disappointing, the film tried its best to live up to the standards of every film adaptation, which was to be inferior to the original. Bana and McAdams' portrayals were quite moving and their tender moments were both heart wrenching and genuine. For people who haven't read the book and will see the film, they will probably like and even love the film and would probably rave about it for a day or two. For those who have read the novel however, be prepared to be slightly disappointed.

for Carmen.

photo courtesy of Fernando Panoso

BEAUTIFUL.

She died at five fifteen Friday morning. I came to know about it four hours later.

Her body, ridden with cancer, finally gave out and expired in some government hospital in Japan. A friend called my mother about her passing.

How should one feel when a person close to him dies? I honestly do not know the answer. If I had known the answer I wouldn't be writing this. Am I sad? Probably. But I am not sure. The thing with me is that I am never sure of these things. Emotions are very tricky. You can't reason with emotions. You cannot quantify them or dissect them into little compartments so that you can analyze and utilize them to suit your every need. I was never good with emotions. I do think I possess them, but I can't seem to summon them like other people do. I guess I'm wired differently. I am more like her in that sense. She was also wired differently, like me.

She had a gutter mouth. She can be arrogant when she wants to be and she was never apologetic of her actions. She'd do everything that was contrary to other people's expectations. My sister, Carmen. Carrie as we called her.

I learned my first lessons in life through her. She was one of the first to get married in the family out of the desire to escape my father. Back then, my father ruled our household with an iron fist. With two parents and seven siblings and a nephew, our household in one of roughest places in the city was like a banana republic and my father was the dictator. We were raised Catholic but he was Bible-trained by the Seventh Day Adventist through my grandfather. We were all afraid of him, even my elder brother and come to think of it, even my mother. All except my sister Carmen.

I still remember when I visited their home when I was seven. She just gave birth to my niece a month before and I decided to drop by their house out of curiosity. She was so happy to see me. Her husband had just woken up from siesta and he gave me a nod as he passed by me to go to the makeshift kitchen to make a cup of coffee. They lived in a small space, like a box apartment. The wedding gifts were placed in one corner of the room, some still have remnants of wrappings. I looked at them intently and examined each one. Most of them were all the same traditional Filipino wedding gifts consisting of cheap china and crystal, electric fans, picture frames and an assortment of Tupperware products. They all looked like they were bought in the same store.

She offered me lunch and I accepted even though I already ate lunch before going to her box home. It was adobo made of water spinach. Like any other kid I didn't like eating vegetables back then and she knew that. She was a bit embarrassed when she offered me the food. I could tell. I could also tell that it was also their dinner the other night. I couldn't picture her living in that space. At a very young age, I could tell that she didn't like living in a box apartment with a husband and a kid. And somehow, I could also tell that she knew that I knew. I ate the adobo, and I even lied that I liked it and told her that I would ask our mother to make it for me. I left an hour later. I went back home with the knowledge that my sister wasn't happy. I was sad that she and my niece had to eat like that and sad that she had to live in a place like that. She told me to come and visit her and my niece whenever I like. I said yes like I said yes to lunch. But she knew. I learned my first life lesson – don't get married for the wrong reasons.

Two months later she was back at our house. I woke up one morning and found her with my niece and with all her wedding gifts of cheap china and crystal and a plethora of picture frames and Tupperware products in our living room.

She left for Japan later that year. I've never seen her look so happy. The last time I remember seeing her close to this being happy was when she was with her friends. She had a lot of friends, my sister. She always loved going out. She laughed so hard when she was with her friends. Probably because of the fact that my father wasn't present when in those occasions. She loved anything that involved being out of the house and out of my father's gaze. Ever since the wedding and then the divorce which prompted her to go back to our house, my father has been constantly breathing on her neck about failing to sustain a marriage for even a year. It seemed that her plan to get married so she could get out of his dominion didn't work out so well. Being married to a man with good looks wasn't enough to sustain a family. She only realized later that a backbone was more important than facial features. Albeit late, she packed my niece and her things and all her wedding gifts except the electric fan back to our house that morning. I've never seen my father gloat so much. It was like the Marcoses were back in town and the Filipino people were trying make amends for booting them out of the islands. My sister, true to her being wired the way she was wired didn't take it lightly. She enrolled herself to dancing and singing lessons and had managed to get herself a ticket to Japan. When my father found out, it was all too late for him to do anything. It was a sucker punch that me, my mother and my other siblings never dared to do. She won the battle that day. And somehow, she won that battle on behalf of my mom and my sisters and perhaps even my brother and me.

I never knew what she did in Japan. I never asked. When my mother and my sisters did, she would always give sketchy answers so I figured that she probably wanted it that we know little about her life in Japan. What I did know was that her life in Japan was hard. She got married to a Japanese guy that she met in the pub where she worked. He was a pencil pusher. He was handsome like her ex husband was handsome, but like with the first, the marriage didn't last. He gave her a son though. She formed a greater bond with her son than with her daughter that she left in the Philippines which was to be expected.

She did not communicate with us for almost three years. The letters and the phone calls just stopped. We all thought she was left for dead by the yakuzas in some gutter. At fifteen, I could hear my parents talking about her in the other room. Even my father was worried. I was worried. I heard stories about Filipina women in Japan working as entertainers, I already figured that she was one years before.

Then she called us. She said she was going home. I was already in college by then.

She once told me told me that if there was ever a song that absolutely defines her, it would be “Never Been to Me” by Charlene. One night that song came up on the radio and I told her about “Priscilla: Queen of the Desert” and it turned out that she had already seen it. She turned all serious and quiet and just listened intently to the song. She was never usually serious about anything when she talked to us. My conversations with her usually included a sex joke and a cop a feel (she did it to everybody, including my parents). We were smoking that night. When that song came up, she just let the cigarette burn while she quietly hummed along in her head. I didn't know what to say because it was the first time that she was like this to anyone of us. I came to realize that the woman in front of me. The woman I was smoking with that night as we were listening to a cheesy song was not my sister. I've always thought that my sister was this beautiful woman who walked the earth with an arrogance of a bullfighter waving her red flag with such bravado telling the world to bring it on and give her some more. The person in front of me was totally different. It was like being seven again, only this time there were no more allusions or second guesses. This time, truth revealed itself plainly to me like sunrise. This person was not my sister. She was just Carmen, revealing her naked loneliness behind the misty fumes of the fag that she was smoking. And when the cigarette slowly died out and the song started to fade, I saw her face and realized that she was the song. And as much as I didn't want to learn another one of life's important truths that night, the universe decided to reveal itself again through my sister. The sad part was, I was already grown up enough to realize that there was no more “home” to go to to escape this truth.

Our relationship became more profound when I was in China. She never mentioned about that night at our house in the Philippines and that song. We often talk on the phone. She would call me in odd hours from Japan and we would talk about guys and their dicks, blowjobs, anal sex, her skin regimen and more guys and dicks. Call it superficial, but that was how I related to my sister. That was how we talked. The serious issues we never discussed in depth because she reasoned that they would still be there after the discussion – that they would still be unresolved issues. She avoids them like a plague. Perhaps, I do too. I never called her ate (elder sister in Filipino) after that night. I always called her Carrie or Ayrak. She liked it and I liked it too. It was a silent agreement between us that we wanted to be both in equal footing. She would always say that she was the most beautiful child in our family. I'd play along and tell her that t it was usually the youngest who had the best qualities since the genes that were passed on the child were already fine tuned. We'd go on for minutes just outdoing each other. I'd tell her that her breast needed augmenting and then she'd tell me that even sex change wouldn't solve half of my problems. Good times. I never realized that my sister who was miles and miles away from me would actually turn out to be my first fruit fly.

She can be impossible at times. No, she was impossible most of the times. She made so many wrong decisions that affected her life and her children's as well. I didn't speak to her for a time because of that. I wanted her to get her act together and be a mother for once. We didn't talk for a 6 months. I was angry and apparently so was she.

It didn't last though. It only took a phone call at an odd hour. Although we both knew that we still hated each other's guts, we both still wanted the engagement that we have established for it was genuine. And like us, it was beautiful.

The last time I saw her was about five months ago. I had to ask a five day leave from work just five days after I came back from my summer holiday in the Philippines. My bosses understood. I packed like lightning and flew back to Manila. I went two days ahead of them. My sister who was in California went to Japan to bring her to the Philippines. It was a one way ticket for Carrie. I saw her at the airport. She lost a considerable amount of weight and one could tell that she was sick. She walked in very small steps like she had her feet bound with those Chinese shoes. I could hardly hear her voice. When I hugged her she started coughing and didn't stop. My sisters and my mother and even my father who has aged and mellowed through the years were shedding tears. I wasn't.  I was counting the people in the airport. Counting airplanes arriving and departing. Focusing on certain colors like blue, red or green. I wanted to be seven again. Life was too simple when you're seven. You could always go home. But when you're thirty, you're old enough to realize that a home isn't always a safe haven. A home can be intruded by hatred and violence and madness and by sadness. By cancer. When a home is intruded, one asks himself where to go. At thirty in a balmy afternoon in an airport in Manila, I was trying very hard to be seven again.

She managed to get herself a ticket back to Japan. She said that she would return and she would want to go back and spend more time with her daughter and her granddaughter. Yes, she was already a grandmother. The look on her face when she saw her grandchild. It was pure energy.

She refused to believe it was cancer. She refused chemotherapy. She said knew what to do, she would get well and that she would work again. For the first time, the family really talked. All of us. It was a first time that I've seen my brother teary eyed. I finally did cry, over the phone talking with my boyfriend. I didn't want her to see me like that. I knew her well. She didn't want a pity party. She didn't want people crying when they see her state. She wanted a sugar coated reality. And I provided it for her. I told her to make herself well before I left. I told her that she would need to live 25 more years so she could watch her grandchild grow up and get married. I told her she needed to beat whatever it was that was afflicting her. She was a bullfighter and she needed to vanquish the bull in front of her. She liked my version. Somehow, she knew that I understood.

The song came up again on my last night in Manila. I think she may have forgotten that we had this conversation years before. I didn't tell her though. I just listened. This time, she wasn't smoking a cigarette. This time it was all her. No masks. Just her. Carmen.

How does one feel when a person he loves dies? Does he cry? Or wail? Or lament at the life, precious as it was, that was stolen. I honestly don't know.

But I am happy.

Because my sister can be beautiful again.

Anita Bryant isdachu?

Nooooo, don't go blaming Donald Trump for this hoopla {he is corporate evil by default}, nor the that right wing coalition for the preservation of the species, nope. Not even that Prejean girl who can smell her 15 minutes from a mile away. Thank PEREZ, people. Yep. He just successfully helped catapult this woman and her so called cause to greater heights. I'm pretty sure that Carrie will be sending Perez a Hallmark card {with a man and a woman on the cover}.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Prop 8 the Musical

"Prop 8 - The Musical" starring Jack Black, John C. Reilly, and many more... from Jack Black

Not really a fan of marriages of ANY kind. Personally, I think civil unions or domestic partnerships - gay or straight  - are the way to go when it comes to government involving itself in private affairs.  Let  the churches and their relevant religions have their marriage AND keep it.

Protect Marriage, Protect Children, Prohibit Divorce - watch more funny videos

Summa has cometh! Forrest Gumping my Ass. Running Tunes.

Ahhhhh yes it has cummeth, and jizzeth it has a plenty. Warm days in Beijing make me all tingly in me boxers. I'm finally wearing shorts and flipflops at work. Gawd I love my flip flops. I just feel so liberated baring my dirty toenails for all the world to see {which reminds me - clean thy toenails}. Summer in Beijing became official in my book when the hotel maid gave me back the remote control for my air conditioner. I came back from work and there she was, the housekeeping attendant in all her housekeeping glory, holding the air conditioner remote control with a smile on her face. It's like I was receiving an award or something. I almost cried mind you. Not that I am crazy about air conditioning {although Its turned right now}, its just that I love summer. I adore it. The sun. The heat. The flip flops. Cold drinks. The beach. Scantily clad men. Speedos. Pina Coladas. Thinking about it just makes me want to jizz tenfold. Summer makes me wanna wear flipflops and it makes me want to listen to summery tunes and shit. I could go to work skipping like a bunny rabbit. Which I did this morning. Truly. Well, nobody was looking. And besides I was listening to a Mudvayne song and I felt like skipping.

I've been running a lot lately. Like 5 times a week on average. I wanted to join a marathon but it required a joining fee {like hell no!}. Like, so what if I can't join the Great Wall Kiddie Marathon. I can run by myself, thank you. I mean, Forrest Gump didn't join a friggen marathon and yet he achieved god-like status in the runners' world, huh! So yeah, I like running. Its sorta like becoming my zen. I never knew what ''second wind'' meant until I took up running. It feels so good. Its not like having sex. Well, its somewhat close to having sex but the thrill is a bit different. There's this rush, this adrenaline that you feel coursing through your veins that pushes you to take one more step even if you know that your body is almost about to give up.Its like yer balls are on fire in a good way. And it feels so good. There is no other way to put it. It just feels good for me.

I'm not saying that I've reached Nirvana or anything for that matter. I'm too shallow for that, I think; or rather I am not yet prepared for something like that. For some people however, running is a spiritual experience. The horizon, the point where the sky and the earth meet, is the juice that drives the runner to be kinetic. Its like a drug for some. She is like this expensive whore that you cannot have because you're short of a few hundred bucks. The runner is the John. She teases the John. The John keeps advancing towards the her, hoping she would give in. But she doesn't. She's unmoved. She doesn't ignore the John and she doesn't give in either. She is unattainable. She's Communism. She's Nirvana and Heaven. She's the Eternal Supermodel and the Porn Goddess Fantastic. She exists solely for the magnanimity of the earth and the sky. And yes, she is beautiful. Although the runner knows that he shall never have her, he persists still and moves forward for he is completely enamored by the idea of having her, this unattainable whore. And that very idea is his salvation. His Rapture. So he moves forward.

Whoa.
Dude that was kinda deep.
And I wasn't even smoking.
I think its the noodles I ate this lunchtime.

Bleh! Like I told you, I am not THAT spiritual yet. Yeah, sometimes I do get the tingly feeling I'm-one-with-nature-shit whenever I run, but only when I put on my nature-sport deodorant I-dunno-whatsitsname. It smells good. In fact it doesn't even smell like ''mother nature''. I like the smell though. Every so often whenever I'm running, I am tempted to get a wiff of my pits especially around the time when I'm starting to pick up my pace and I'm already breaking sweat. The smell of sweat and that deodorant just makes me want to jizz the pavement something awful. DON'T WORRY, I don't smell my pits in public - only when no one's looking. I'm sure there are laws against smelling yer pits in public and I seriously don't want to go to prison not unless I am inmates with Johnny Longbow, Mario Cojones, Bone St. James and the dude from Power Rangers.

It's nothing spiritual for me, running. It's more primal, I guess. I love the fact that I am sweating and forrest gumping my ass all over town and smelling like ''mother nature'' minus the cow manure and decaying flesh of dead animals. And the music. Duuuuuude the music is awesome when yer running. Its like it becomes better. Like any music becomes better when yer running. Even Celine Dion with all her screeching belts and nyaaaaahs and oooohs and waaaaaaahs becomes Celine Dioner. Truly. Music and running are like peanut butter and jelly.


Here are some of the music that I listen to right now whenever I run.

1. Run Barbie Run - Eraserheads {Awesome song! a good way to start my running}
2. At Last - Celine Dion Version {I tell you, it's Celine Dioner}
3. Anything from Ella Fitzgerald's Cole Porter Songbook Album
4. Anything from Mudvayne
5. Living on a Prayer - Bon Jovi
6. I'm Waiting for My Man - Velvet Underground
7. Anything from Jimi Hendrix's Electric Ladyland Album
8. Anything from Eels Daisies in the Galaxy Album
9. Green Day's St. Jimmy {Saaaaaaaaaint Jimeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!}
10. Anything from the Ataris
11. Dean Gray's American Edit {mashup}
12. The Beastie Boys {Body Movin! is on top of my list}
13. Anything from Erykah Badu
14. Jump - Pointer Sisters {fuck you I like it}
15. Symphony No. 9 - Beethoven the Georg Solti Version {its like I'm running in the Olympics}
16. Bat Out of Hell - Meatloaf {nobody sings it better than Meatloaf, and yeah, his titties are nice too}
17. Anything from the Foo Fighters
18. 100 Years - Five for Fighting {I feel like I'm in a Dawson's Crack set whenever I'm playing this Song}
19. Soukura - Ali Farka Toure {this song is always, like always in my playlist}
20. Hine Ani Ba - Hadag Nachash
21. Anything from Panic at the Disco!
22. Red Hot Chilli Peppers' Stadium Arcadium
23. Anything from Asher Roth
24. Anything from Third Eye Blind
25. Lithium - Nirvana
26. Anything from Jack Johnson
27. Brown Eyed Handsome Man - Nina Simone
28. Take Me to the Water - Nina Simone
29. Ain't Got No - Nina Simone & Groove Finder Mix
30. Anything from the Kaiser Cheifs
31. Anything from Want One and Want Two by Rufus Wainright
32. Ray of Light - Madonna
33. I Like It, I Love It - Tim McGraw {fuck you I love country}
34. Bob Dylan's Hey Mr. Tambourine Man and Talking New York
35. Five Year's Time - Noah and the Whale
36. Recycled Air - Postal Service
37. Mr. Blue Sky - The Delgados
    

Aight. Omar's gotta bounce. I need to put on my deodorant me running duds. Daddy's gotta run.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

I only give to charity when I feel pretty.  

A friend of mine whom I call Sweatshirt. The dude cracked me up. 

Fridays and Mondays

I hate Mondays.  Okay, that's too much of a word, 'hate'. Let me rephrase that, I dislike Mondays.  Not that I find anything distasteful in Mondays or anything, in fact Mondays for most people in this world are okay-ish if not near awesomess.  A good number of the world's population would love waking up on Mondays {like for most people who work in banks}. Some people are even perky on Mondays.  I have a coworker who is a perky Monday person {then again, she is perky in all days... I wonder what drug she's taking?}.  I dislike Mondays.  Most of all, I dislike MONDAYS that fall on the 13th day of the month.  Monday the 13th are the worst Mondays of them all.  It's like the whole universe is conspiring against me on Monday the 13th.  The stars and the planets are all in a mysterious astrological alignment that any form of physical or mental or emotional endeavor would surely come to complete failure. Pursuing any form of endeavor on such a day {and I have proven this} would simply be begging the cosmos to smite me from behind with so much wrath that lubrication is a no option. I don't go out on Monday the 13th.  I stay indoors.  I don't clean my floor on Monday the 13th.  I let the dust settle as much as I hate it.  I don't cook on Monday the 13th. Well, I don't cook period.  Lets just say that I'm kosher on Monday the 13th. 

Mondays don't do anything for me. Mondays are just bleh.  I guess its just in my constitution, like I was built to not function well on Mondays.  I'm just not a Monday person.  Even the word 'Monday' is a bit off.  There's just something wrong with the word 'Monday'.  It's the word I think. I mean it's the beginning of the work week and the people who invented the modern calendar weren't even creative enough to think of a better word to start the friggen week.  I don't really care about the etymology of the friggen word but dudes, if you were gonna invent a calendar and pick a name for the beginning of the work week why the hell pick a boring name. The word 'Monday' doesn't have a lotta panache, I think.  'Wednesday' has more spunk even.  In fact, they should've put 'Wednesday' at the beginning of the work week and put friggen 'Monday' on the third day.  If that were the case {in a perfect world where there are no recessions and bills to pay and AIDS and cancer and hunger and wars and political commentaries and no tv commercials}, I think I would wake up every beginning of the work week with so much positivity and energy if it happened to be named 'Wednesday'. I honestly think that I would be a perky Wednesday-beginning-of-the-work-week person.  I'd wake up with a smile on my face while I'm scratching my left nut.  Then I'd be doing a thousand sit ups.  Then I'd do yoga.  Then I'd be singing songs in the shower.  Hell I'd prolly even eat breakfast.  Imagine this my friend,  if the week started on a Wednesday.  You might be doing the same thing. We would all be perky and happy and twiddledee twiddle dum cheery humming a Buddy Holly song while we go to work thinking that our work life isn't much of a grind after all.  All because we woke up on a WEDNESDAY. I honestly think that we could even be one step closer to world peace if the week started on a Wednesday. Damnit,  I'd even wear a pin if the week started on a Wednesday. 

Why the hell am I talking about Mondays on a FRIDAY night?!?!

Well, I do not know if it is age or if its because of my spiked up MSG levels but lately I have been feeling that Fridays are just like Mondays. I got two invites today, one for a post birthday party leftover dinner thing and one for a lets get pissed drunk and paint the town jizz red thing.  I both turned it down.  Three reasons.  One, I'm dead tired. Two, I'm kinda broke. Three, it feels like a Monday.
 
My inner Omar is telling me that its a combination of my advancing years and MSG intake.  I just can't party like I used to.  I really don't party that much to begin with.  I'm very domesticated yo {*wipes the counter top table and fixes his apron}. But really, I don't party that much to begin with.  But I do go out and get pissed drunk.

Note to self.
1. Moisturize
2. Eat less instant noodles

Being truthful now, there are times when the I find myself thinking on a Sunday evening that the highlight of my week was getting 8 hours of sleep.  I mean, how lame is that?

It dawned on me that I needed to be more productive.  Not with work but with my personal time.  It also dawned on me that I really don't have much that personal time. My only personal time is when I am out running and/or when I am in the gym.  I could hardly call that personal.  I think I need to do things.  Like actually get outta my apartment and do something, like go to museums or take crappy pictures or write crappy stuff or make up stories in my head or eat ice cream in the park or poison pigeons in the park. ANYTHING, just do something for myself.  I NEED TIME DAMNIT. 

It is so true though, the saying that time is a luxury these days.  In many cases you need a credit card to have some personal quality time. { I don't have a credit card. My debit card doesn't even have a hundred dollars in it }.  In this time and age, there is so little time which you could honestly call FREE.  I think people who are incarcerated have more free time and quality time for that matter. 

It's a fact in my life now, that my Fridays are just like my Mondays and I have to live with it. Sad but true. My only consolation in this realization is that at least the fifth day of the week is not called a 'Monday'.  Gawd, imagine if there were two days in the week named MONDAYS.  Monday the first and Monday the fifth.  I think I would slit my wrists.

nuff said.