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 daysWikipedia, 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.
Tuesday, September 1
Thursday, August 27
The TIme Traveler's Wife
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.
Thursday, August 20
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.
Thursday, May 14
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}.
Tuesday, May 12
Prop 8 the Musical
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.
Thursday, May 7
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.
Aight. Omar's gotta bounce. I need to put on my deodorant me running duds. Daddy's gotta run.
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.
- Run Barbie Run - Eraserheads {Awesome song! a good way to start my running}
- At Last - Celine Dion Version {I tell you, it's Celine Dioner}
- Anything from Ella Fitzgerald's Cole Porter Songbook Album
- Anything from Mudvayne
- Living on a Prayer - Bon Jovi
- I'm Waiting for My Man - Velvet Underground
- Anything from Jimi Hendrix's Electric Ladyland Album
- Anything from Eels Daisies in the Galaxy Album
- Green Day's St. Jimmy {Saaaaaaaaaint Jimeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!}
- Anything from the Ataris
- Dean Gray's American Edit {mashup}
- The Beastie Boys {Body Movin! is on top of my list}
- Anything from Erykah Badu
- Jump - Pointer Sisters {fuck you I like it}
- Symphony No. 9 - Beethoven the Georg Solti Version {its like I'm running in the Olympics}
- Bat Out of Hell - Meatloaf {nobody sings it better than Meatloaf, and yeah, his titties are nice too}
- Anything from the Foo Fighters
- 100 Years - Five for Fighting {I feel like I'm in a Dawson's Crack set whenever I'm playing this Song}
- Soukura - Ali Farka Toure {this song is always, like always in my playlist}
- Hine Ani Ba - Hadag Nachash
- Anything from Panic at the Disco!
- Red Hot Chilli Peppers' Stadium Arcadium
- Anything from Asher Roth
- Anything from Third Eye Blind
- Lithium - Nirvana
- Anything from Jack Johnson
- Brown Eyed Handsome Man - Nina Simone
- Take Me to the Water - Nina Simone
- Ain't Got No - Nina Simone & Groove Finder Mix
- Anything from the Kaiser Cheifs
- Anything from Want One and Want Two by Rufus Wainright
- Ray of Light - Madonna
- I Like It, I Love It - Tim McGraw {fuck you I love country}
- Bob Dylan's Hey Mr. Tambourine Man and Talking New York
- Five Year's Time - Noah and the Whale
- Recycled Air - Postal Service
- Mr. Blue Sky - The Delgados
Aight. Omar's gotta bounce. I need to put on my deodorant me running duds. Daddy's gotta run.
Sunday, March 29
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.
Saturday, March 21
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.
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.
Monday, February 23
7 days
I'm off topic already.
7 days
It's been 7 days already and as much as I hate to be all Dawson's Creek about this topic, I'm still going to say this, I miss the Coconut Republic. Sure, poverty and squalor live alongside couture malls and shopping centres like the other didn't exist; but it has its charms. The minute my plane landed on the tarmac in Beijing Capital Airport (an awesome airport I tell ya), I already wanted to go back. Beijing greeted me with its first ever snow. The lady cabbie was ecstatic that it finally snowed in Beijing. It was sorta romantic and I wanted to talk to the cabbie but I slept during the ride. I was exhausted.
I so wanted to blog while I was on the road but it was difficult to get Internet access in the Coconut Republic. Not that there aren't any, there are actually many Internet cafe's in the Philippines. I wanted to blog with Consuelo (my laptop) but there weren't any free wireless in the places I went to, even friggen Starbucks (tell you more about that later).
My trip to the Coconut Republic would be described as overwhelmingly sublime that borders on the surreal at times. I had a great time, yep and I actually think I grew up a little. I stayed more with my family this time (about 10 days to be exact). I met up with really good friends. And I traveled with B.
I so wanted to blog while I was on the road but it was difficult to get Internet access in the Coconut Republic. Not that there aren't any, there are actually many Internet cafe's in the Philippines. I wanted to blog with Consuelo (my laptop) but there weren't any free wireless in the places I went to, even friggen Starbucks (tell you more about that later).
My trip to the Coconut Republic would be described as overwhelmingly sublime that borders on the surreal at times. I had a great time, yep and I actually think I grew up a little. I stayed more with my family this time (about 10 days to be exact). I met up with really good friends. And I traveled with B.
Manila International Airport
If Beijing Airport is awesome that it makes me want to lick the bathroom tiles, the airport in Manila is not that awesome. It's clean but not well maintained. I thought that the plane would be landing at the new airport but we landed in the old one. I had fun at the baggage claim area though. I was expecting a guy to pop out of the baggage claim carousel (like it did the last time I arrived in Manila International Airport). After I got Tallulah, I headed out to the arrivals section and was looking for my mother. It was my niece that found me, Ynah (pronounced as EEEH-nah not WHY-nah). I almost screamed. She's all grown up. Still small, but she's all ladylike now sorta. Damn it I'm old! My mother, father and my niece and her partner found us. I embraced them, and father dear started to tear up for no reason. I was like "dude, chill". I was secretly happy because my father was never the mushy kind. Age really does mellow hard men like my dad. I looked at Dana, my niece and her partner and their three-month old baby Samantha. Dana's different. She looked more mature, probably because of the baby. Her partner, Rudy, is a bit quiet and timid and kept mostly to himself and gave me monosyllabic answers to the questions that I asked him. Samantha, on the other hand, is curious about the stranger in front of him. She kept on eyeing me with her big round eyes. She seems at home with the airport environment. Samantha is my second grand niece. JEEEEZUS I feel so old.Obamarama
I arrived on the 20th of January, Obama's inauguration. I knew that Obamarama was a world phenomenon but I never expected the massive reception it got in the Philippines. When I arrived at my sister's house that night I realized how serious the reception for the new American President was. My sister was watching the inauguration and it turned out that all major networks were covering it. She owns a sari-sari store (Think of a mom and pop store with a 7-11 twist to it) and the neighbors were drinkin beer and watching history unfold. My sister who's crazy about noontime shows and prime time soaps is watching Obama being sworn in, and so was my whole family. I even heard my mother telling the whole family that we were lucky enough to witness history as the West inaugurates it's first African American president. The rest of my family nodded agreement. That time I thought somebody kidnapped my family and replaced them with politically correct clones. My family was never NEVER politically correct. Even the TV reporters were politically correct. Like whoa. I was like, whoa. She never uses the word African American before. She usually uses the N word in Spanish (its common for Filipinos to use that), but how times have changed. You gotta thank the Internet for this Obama win and for making my parents PC. My parents. PC. Whodathunk. Next thing you know they would be demanding the IMF and World Bank to free the Third World of debt. But that's too much to ask, I guess.
Traffic
I never realized that it was that bad in Metro Manila. And I thought Beijing was bad. You have to go to work at 5 am and go home at 11 pm to avoid the traffic jams.
Starbucks
I love coffee, but I am not a fan of Starbucks. I still prefer Dunkin Donuts over Starbucks. I mean, if I'm gonna pay for a 4 dollar coffee, I would at least expect a free wi-fi and a blowjob (ok, at least a backrub). But nooooooooooooooo. There ain't no free wi-fi in Starbucks. I checked. My sister and one of my nephews and I were waiting for the rest of my family to arrive for some dinner thing and my sister wanted to wait in Starbucks. Reluctant as I was, I acquiesced since they already found a seat. I queued up and waited for my turn to be served. I was carrying Tallulah with me and I was a bit groggy since I barely slept the other night and I seriously needed the caffeine jolt, so I decided to order an espresso machiatto. When it was my turn to be served I ordered a machiatto for me and two frappucino for the rest. I said the whole thing to the waiter (barrista my ass), who happened to go to the same church as I do, in Filipino. Now, I didn't get the memo that when you go to a Starbucks in Manila, you should order in English. The waiter smiled at me and told me in a sort of patronizing Filipino tone that a machiatto was a small coffee. The lady beside me who heard the waiter's comment sorta smiled (no, she fuckin smirked). Oh, did I say, that she was asking her{grand}kids what their orders were in English
(WACHA WANT TOO DREENK? DOO YOOO WANTA PRAFUCHEENO OR HWATEVERRR?).
I wanted to shove Tallulah's ends up the waiter's and the lady's asses and tell them that I knew what a freaking espresso macchiatto was. Just because I ordered the whole goddamn thing in Filipino and I was wearing non-designer flip flops and anon descript tank top and shorts doesn't mean that they could patronize me. I have rights yo! I summoned up my inner Oprah Winfrey and told him in English that I have been drinking it even before he had pubes {which he probably now shaves considering his eyebrows were a bit sculptured}. Then I told him in plain Filipino to make my fucking macchiatto a double. To his credit, he got embarrassed and then noticed Tallulah on my back with an airport baggage claim stub sticker thing still attached to her, to which he asked where I was from (duh my coffeee!!!!!! he was kinda cute tho). I told him I was from Caloocan {think Brooklyn with extra frills}. I got my orders but I didn't get a double. I prolly should've told it to him in English. Fuckin Starbucks.
(WACHA WANT TOO DREENK? DOO YOOO WANTA PRAFUCHEENO OR HWATEVERRR?).
I wanted to shove Tallulah's ends up the waiter's and the lady's asses and tell them that I knew what a freaking espresso macchiatto was. Just because I ordered the whole goddamn thing in Filipino and I was wearing non-designer flip flops and anon descript tank top and shorts doesn't mean that they could patronize me. I have rights yo! I summoned up my inner Oprah Winfrey and told him in English that I have been drinking it even before he had pubes {which he probably now shaves considering his eyebrows were a bit sculptured}. Then I told him in plain Filipino to make my fucking macchiatto a double. To his credit, he got embarrassed and then noticed Tallulah on my back with an airport baggage claim stub sticker thing still attached to her, to which he asked where I was from (duh my coffeee!!!!!! he was kinda cute tho). I told him I was from Caloocan {think Brooklyn with extra frills}. I got my orders but I didn't get a double. I prolly should've told it to him in English. Fuckin Starbucks.
Malls
There are shitloads. And when I say shitloads, I meant shitloads. It seems that one distinct aspect of Filipino culture in many cities (but most especially in the Metro) is that daily life seem to revolve around malls. You can find Bayad Centers (where people can pay any kind of utility bill), chapels, fitness centers, medical facilities and the like. In the Philippines, the malls have replaced the parks as the universal public space. IT scares me a little truth be told. I mean, they're nice and all but it's like giving the friggen government a whole shitload of slack which they really don't need. I look at the state of the public spaces in the metro and to be honest there aren't enough. Granted that its really good but these tycoons who own them malls shouldn't be doing this. I love malls, don't get me wrong; but aren't we a bit mall crazy here? Back when I was a kid, I looked forward in going to parks because there's grass. Now, even malls have grass and waterfalls and friggen rice paddies. And yes, you can solicit for sex in malls too! Senator Craig would have a field day in SM. Tuyo, Tocino, Sinangag, Bibingka, Julebe
I gained 5 kilos because of these bastards. I ate at Julebe (Hoo leh beh) so many times that I felt for certain that them burgers were not 100% pure beef patties. Whenever I would take out my nieces and nephews they would always ask me to take them to Jollibee or Chowking (a Chinese fast food joint owned by Jollibee). They never get tired of it.
Tuyo rocks. I could never get enough of tuyo. Tuyo with sinangag and fried eggs is da bomb. Maaaaaaaaaaaan I once was served pasta with tuyo, olives and capers by a friend and it blew me away. Ohhhh and the bibingka. When Boo and I were on our roadtrip, we ate bibingka whenever we can. The best bibingka that we had was in Liliw Laguna and it was just 30 cents a piece. 30 cents for a piece of bibingka! You don't even get things as good as that in The Noodle Kingdom.
Thank You
I have to thank some people I met during this trip.
Allan and Auch. No words could describe them.
Oskie and Venus. I'm hoping I'll be in the Coconut Republic when you two exchange wedding vows.
Andrew. Quiapo and Binondo would never be the same again. And cheesy 80's songs for that matter.
Cindy and Bingo. You two are amazing and wonderful people. All the best with the work that you do.
Iza and Celle. My only link to my dreadful highschool past. :)
Bogs and Demo. It was great meeting you two.
Drei. You are so fresh.
Boiet. It was surprising to say the least.
Chris. I still can't believe that you and I have the same camera. I hope next time its a DSLR.
Ate Aida. Thank you for our talk and for helping orgnize my shit.
The welcoming committee
This was the first time that B and I went to the Philippines together. In fact, this we were in the Philippines together. I was excited for all sorts of reasons. As much as I hate admitting this on my blog, I love the fucker and I wanted him to meet the people that mattered to me. I mean not all of them because I honestly think he would be overwhelmed with the demographic. I realized I have to wean him when it comes to my friends. Besides, there wasn't enough time. We decided to go slow. We decided that he should meet my family and some of my friends.
My family took him in like he was a long lost son (then that would mean incest, eeww?). It was not difficult to introduce him since they all have been asking when they were going to meet him and all. Even my father was cool with it (well he is 70 so might as well go with the flow). One of my nieces, Nee Ann, asked him about our relationship when we stopped by at one of my sister's house in Laguna before going to Manila. Nee Ann is a 7-year old who loves writing ghost stories while putting on kid's make up (I can't believe that they already produce make up for kids). She tells me that two of her good friends are gay (at 7) and I asked her how she knew and she said she just knows. A fruitfly at 7. When she saw B and I coming outta B's car, she hugged and kissed me then looked at B and asked.
Nee Ann: Sino siya? (Who the hell is he?)
Uncle Omar: Siya si B (This is B)
While the two of us were eating baked macaroni that my sister prepared, Nee Ann was seated with us and kept on looking at me and B. She prolly couldn't help it so she asked:
Nee Ann: Ankol, siya ba yung ex mo? (Uncle, is he your ex?)
**I mentally choked on my baked mac and mentally gave myself the Heimlick manouver and told her after drinking a glass of coke:
Uncle Omar: Sino nagsabi sayo na ex ko siya (Who the hell told ya that he is my ex?)
Nee Ann: Si Mommy. (Mommy told me)
** my sister was manning her 7-11 while watching primetime soap. B didn't know whether to keep on chewing or run to the car. I'm glad he decided to stick to the former. So I told Nee Ann
Uncle Omar: Hindi ko siya ex. Boyfriend ko siya (He's not my ex. He's my boyfriend).
** she keeps quiet for a second or two and looks up the ceiling while trying to process the relevant piece of information that I just told her. Then when her 7 year old brain seemed to have processed the whole thing, she looks at me and then at B who looked kinda pale at that point but he's still chewing on the baked macaroni then tells us.
Nee Ann: Boypren? Ano yun? Boy na pren? O BOYPREN? (Boyfriend? What do you mean by that? Is he your friend who is a boy or is he your boyfriend)
** I was wondering at that point if B was also mentally administering the Heimlick manouver to his psychic self. I told my neice
Uncle Omar: Boyfriend ko siya. So tawag mo sa kanya Uncle B, ok? (He's my boyfriend. So you can also call him Uncle B, ok?)
** B nods at Nee Ann and tells her that she could call him Uncle B. She looks up the ceiling again and then looks back at the two of us and tells us.
Nee Ann: Boypren!? Double boy?! Pwede ba yun? (Boyfriends?! Double boy? Is that even possible?)
Uncle Omar: Oo naman. Uso yan ngayon. (Yep, its possible. It's a fad thats been around since the mid 90's)
Nee Ann: OK.
* * then she proceeds to eating her chicken while B gets a second helping of my sister's baked mac.
That was my boyfriend's baptism of fire. B got along with my family famously. I mean, if he could survive Nee Ann, he could survive my other nephews and nieces and my siblings and my parents and my neighbors and the baranggay tanods.
B, Allan & Auch
B had to meet the two people that mattered to me most, my best friends - Allan and Auch. Truth be told, I was more nervous of the whole thing than B. I think he was not fazed at all. He was all B the whole time we were with Allan and Auch. Allan and Auch decided to cook Sinampalukang Manok (Chicken Tamarind Soup) for us when we decided to visit them at Auch's apartment. I was expecting it to be bloody and all as it has been known to the three of us that Allan and Auch never liked ANY of my boyfriends. I was nervous as hell to say the least. Miracle of miracles, the two were ok with B, there wasn't any cursing. No blood was shed. B didn't die of food poisoning. My water didn't break. That didn't mean that the three of them were chummy chummy and all. The whole experience was a bit formal, but not tensed. It was a bit surreal because Allan was all fatherly and Auch was all butch all of a sudden that it would've given him a stroke had he continued to be butch for the whole day. As far as I know, this was Auch's longest. I mean his previous record was 45 minutes. He did it for two hours. I wanted to tell them just to be themselves because B was oblivious to the whole thing. I guess they wanted to make a good impression which touched me. Inside, I was elated, but I still felt weird.
At one point during the meal, Allan even said the following in a fatherly tone.
Allan: Alam mo B na kaming dalawa ni Auch ay natutuwa sa inyong relasyon ni Omar. Maligaya kami para sa inyong dalawa (I have to tell you B that Auch and I are happy about the two of you. We are really happy for you)
** Master Sergeant Auch, who was seated opposite to me couldn't help but raise an eyebrow (for two seconds). I couldn't help but smile, because I knew for a fact that it was genuine. But I also couldn't help but feel like some farm girl being offered by her parents to the sugar baron in order to pay off my family's debt. All the scene needed was a cow which Allan and Auch would give to B as my dowry.
B & my parents
B and I decided to take my parents with us on our 3 day trip to the countryside. They were happy enough to oblige. I found out later from my mother that they were both excited about the trip because they haven't had a proper vacation in years.
B drove the whole time. I couldn't drive. He has a car in the Philippines and I couldn't, for the life of me, understand why he has a car in the Philippines when he's based outside the country. He wants me to take up driving lessons. My parents agreed. I told them that I wouldn't be able to handle my road rage. B is such a proper driver. He stops on a red light (I mean who does that these days); even makes way for stray dogs and cats and rats whatever living thing that crosses his path.
We went to visit a monastery that is frequented by a lot of tourists and devotees. It was a real quiet and expansive place with a small chapel in the middle. The four of us got out of the car and my father was complaining to my mother about his bladder and was looking for the men's room so she asked B where the men's room was. I was 20 meters behind them and I could hear my parents talking about bladders and toilets and we were in a friggen monastery! Good thing there were a few visitors that afternoon but I bet my ass that the nuns prolly heard the whole thing. Meh, they prolly prayed for us too. I love my parents.
On the road
The highlight of my vacation was the roadtrip with B. The best times that we had was on the road and in his car. If it were a motorcycle it would've been more romantic and a bit French, but I guess the car was way better than a bike. And besides, the hell would I pedal both of us. The car did have its uses.
It was the little things that appealed to me the most.
Like being able to smell him in close proximity with me for 8 hours straight...
or being able to listen and sing the same song over and over and over again until his ears and tonsils bled...
and playing with his hair and his nape in some lazy rainy afternoon en route to some destination...
or sleeping on the side of the road at 3 am because he was too tired to drive...
and to able to hear him snore.
and stopping by some odd place here and there for some bibingka or some pandesal or for some coffee because we were hungry.
taking photos...
going to churches, old landmarks, lazy towns and actually stopping by the markers to read them then to leave them.
to listen to his stories and talk about the future ahead of us...
to not speak to each other because of an argument that we didn't know how it started...
then to make up in the car afterwards :)
holding his hand.
It was intense to be with him the whole time. So intense that it scared me a little. I dare say it was romantic even. It felt like I was in some early 90's European movie directed by dead filmmaker. It was so good that at the back of my head I was telling myself that this was it. This was it. Nothing more. This was the film's climax and we're not even half way through because of budget constraints. My evil psychic twin was telling me to expect the dreadful peripety to come falling on my head like brimstone and he was also telling me that there would never be a denouement or some form of catharsis in this story. The dread would come to me in moments. Just seconds really. Moments that I found most memorable and endearing. I had to mentally slap myself everytime that feeling crept out of my skin.
I realize that trusting him more was irrelevant now. Nor him trusting me.
I had to trust us.
I realized that somehow, I had to learn how to write this story, our story, with him.
Hong KongThis was the first time that B and I went to the Philippines together. In fact, this we were in the Philippines together. I was excited for all sorts of reasons. As much as I hate admitting this on my blog, I love the fucker and I wanted him to meet the people that mattered to me. I mean not all of them because I honestly think he would be overwhelmed with the demographic. I realized I have to wean him when it comes to my friends. Besides, there wasn't enough time. We decided to go slow. We decided that he should meet my family and some of my friends.
My family took him in like he was a long lost son (then that would mean incest, eeww?). It was not difficult to introduce him since they all have been asking when they were going to meet him and all. Even my father was cool with it (well he is 70 so might as well go with the flow). One of my nieces, Nee Ann, asked him about our relationship when we stopped by at one of my sister's house in Laguna before going to Manila. Nee Ann is a 7-year old who loves writing ghost stories while putting on kid's make up (I can't believe that they already produce make up for kids). She tells me that two of her good friends are gay (at 7) and I asked her how she knew and she said she just knows. A fruitfly at 7. When she saw B and I coming outta B's car, she hugged and kissed me then looked at B and asked.
Nee Ann: Sino siya? (Who the hell is he?)
Uncle Omar: Siya si B (This is B)
While the two of us were eating baked macaroni that my sister prepared, Nee Ann was seated with us and kept on looking at me and B. She prolly couldn't help it so she asked:
Nee Ann: Ankol, siya ba yung ex mo? (Uncle, is he your ex?)
**I mentally choked on my baked mac and mentally gave myself the Heimlick manouver and told her after drinking a glass of coke:
Uncle Omar: Sino nagsabi sayo na ex ko siya (Who the hell told ya that he is my ex?)
Nee Ann: Si Mommy. (Mommy told me)
** my sister was manning her 7-11 while watching primetime soap. B didn't know whether to keep on chewing or run to the car. I'm glad he decided to stick to the former. So I told Nee Ann
Uncle Omar: Hindi ko siya ex. Boyfriend ko siya (He's not my ex. He's my boyfriend).
** she keeps quiet for a second or two and looks up the ceiling while trying to process the relevant piece of information that I just told her. Then when her 7 year old brain seemed to have processed the whole thing, she looks at me and then at B who looked kinda pale at that point but he's still chewing on the baked macaroni then tells us.
Nee Ann: Boypren? Ano yun? Boy na pren? O BOYPREN? (Boyfriend? What do you mean by that? Is he your friend who is a boy or is he your boyfriend)
** I was wondering at that point if B was also mentally administering the Heimlick manouver to his psychic self. I told my neice
Uncle Omar: Boyfriend ko siya. So tawag mo sa kanya Uncle B, ok? (He's my boyfriend. So you can also call him Uncle B, ok?)
** B nods at Nee Ann and tells her that she could call him Uncle B. She looks up the ceiling again and then looks back at the two of us and tells us.
Nee Ann: Boypren!? Double boy?! Pwede ba yun? (Boyfriends?! Double boy? Is that even possible?)
Uncle Omar: Oo naman. Uso yan ngayon. (Yep, its possible. It's a fad thats been around since the mid 90's)
Nee Ann: OK.
* * then she proceeds to eating her chicken while B gets a second helping of my sister's baked mac.
That was my boyfriend's baptism of fire. B got along with my family famously. I mean, if he could survive Nee Ann, he could survive my other nephews and nieces and my siblings and my parents and my neighbors and the baranggay tanods.
B, Allan & Auch
B had to meet the two people that mattered to me most, my best friends - Allan and Auch. Truth be told, I was more nervous of the whole thing than B. I think he was not fazed at all. He was all B the whole time we were with Allan and Auch. Allan and Auch decided to cook Sinampalukang Manok (Chicken Tamarind Soup) for us when we decided to visit them at Auch's apartment. I was expecting it to be bloody and all as it has been known to the three of us that Allan and Auch never liked ANY of my boyfriends. I was nervous as hell to say the least. Miracle of miracles, the two were ok with B, there wasn't any cursing. No blood was shed. B didn't die of food poisoning. My water didn't break. That didn't mean that the three of them were chummy chummy and all. The whole experience was a bit formal, but not tensed. It was a bit surreal because Allan was all fatherly and Auch was all butch all of a sudden that it would've given him a stroke had he continued to be butch for the whole day. As far as I know, this was Auch's longest. I mean his previous record was 45 minutes. He did it for two hours. I wanted to tell them just to be themselves because B was oblivious to the whole thing. I guess they wanted to make a good impression which touched me. Inside, I was elated, but I still felt weird.
At one point during the meal, Allan even said the following in a fatherly tone.
Allan: Alam mo B na kaming dalawa ni Auch ay natutuwa sa inyong relasyon ni Omar. Maligaya kami para sa inyong dalawa (I have to tell you B that Auch and I are happy about the two of you. We are really happy for you)
** Master Sergeant Auch, who was seated opposite to me couldn't help but raise an eyebrow (for two seconds). I couldn't help but smile, because I knew for a fact that it was genuine. But I also couldn't help but feel like some farm girl being offered by her parents to the sugar baron in order to pay off my family's debt. All the scene needed was a cow which Allan and Auch would give to B as my dowry.
B & my parents
B and I decided to take my parents with us on our 3 day trip to the countryside. They were happy enough to oblige. I found out later from my mother that they were both excited about the trip because they haven't had a proper vacation in years.
B drove the whole time. I couldn't drive. He has a car in the Philippines and I couldn't, for the life of me, understand why he has a car in the Philippines when he's based outside the country. He wants me to take up driving lessons. My parents agreed. I told them that I wouldn't be able to handle my road rage. B is such a proper driver. He stops on a red light (I mean who does that these days); even makes way for stray dogs and cats and rats whatever living thing that crosses his path.
We went to visit a monastery that is frequented by a lot of tourists and devotees. It was a real quiet and expansive place with a small chapel in the middle. The four of us got out of the car and my father was complaining to my mother about his bladder and was looking for the men's room so she asked B where the men's room was. I was 20 meters behind them and I could hear my parents talking about bladders and toilets and we were in a friggen monastery! Good thing there were a few visitors that afternoon but I bet my ass that the nuns prolly heard the whole thing. Meh, they prolly prayed for us too. I love my parents.
On the road
It was the little things that appealed to me the most.
Like being able to smell him in close proximity with me for 8 hours straight...
or being able to listen and sing the same song over and over and over again until his ears and tonsils bled...
and playing with his hair and his nape in some lazy rainy afternoon en route to some destination...
or sleeping on the side of the road at 3 am because he was too tired to drive...
and to able to hear him snore.
and stopping by some odd place here and there for some bibingka or some pandesal or for some coffee because we were hungry.
taking photos...
going to churches, old landmarks, lazy towns and actually stopping by the markers to read them then to leave them.
to listen to his stories and talk about the future ahead of us...
to not speak to each other because of an argument that we didn't know how it started...
then to make up in the car afterwards :)
holding his hand.
It was intense to be with him the whole time. So intense that it scared me a little. I dare say it was romantic even. It felt like I was in some early 90's European movie directed by dead filmmaker. It was so good that at the back of my head I was telling myself that this was it. This was it. Nothing more. This was the film's climax and we're not even half way through because of budget constraints. My evil psychic twin was telling me to expect the dreadful peripety to come falling on my head like brimstone and he was also telling me that there would never be a denouement or some form of catharsis in this story. The dread would come to me in moments. Just seconds really. Moments that I found most memorable and endearing. I had to mentally slap myself everytime that feeling crept out of my skin.
I realize that trusting him more was irrelevant now. Nor him trusting me.
I had to trust us.
I realized that somehow, I had to learn how to write this story, our story, with him.
We parted in Hong Kong. We stayed there for a night in some decrepit building that hosted a lot of tourists and people who were just passing through. It was cheap. It was small space on the 15th floor and it looked like a holding cell. I think his car was even bigger. It was nice. We walked the streets of Kowloon trying to find Mixian (rice noodles) and ended up with instant noodles served with Chinese Spam. It was expensive. We walked and walked till our feet got tired. He held my hand the whole time. It surprised me. In the Philippines I had to stop myself from holding his hand or putting my arm around his waist when we were in public. I slipped most of the times. He would sorta flinch (he did it a coupla times). In Hong Kong he was a bit different. He was more forward.
We parted in the airport. He was gate 64 and I was gate 28.
My plane landed in Beijing. It was snowing that day. I told you that already.
Its been almost a week and I could still smell him. I guess I have it bad then.
Tuesday, January 20
I can feel the sun orredy.
Waiting for my flight. Been a long while since I posted somethin here. Beijing Capital Airport is makin me so hard right now that I couldn't sit still on my swivel chair.
I can't wait to go to the Coconut Republic. Like feel the sun on me and get a wiff of that Manila Carbon Emissions. Yum.
Too bad I won't be able to see Obama's inauguration. It's supposed to be a big thing. Well, it is a BIG THING. History in the fucking making. The first ever Hawaiian President, I mean, who could beat that. I wonder if there would be Hawaiians present there. I hope Obama doesn't fart during his swearing in ceremony. Well, I actually hope he does; that way people would actually realize he is human after all and not some Christ/Krishna/Simba figure head. Still sucks that I don't get to watch the inauguration.
I suddenly have the urtge to take a huge dump now. I love airport Johns. They're so clean and pristine and holy. No wonder some senators can't help but cruise in them.
I can't wait to go to the Coconut Republic. Like feel the sun on me and get a wiff of that Manila Carbon Emissions. Yum.
Too bad I won't be able to see Obama's inauguration. It's supposed to be a big thing. Well, it is a BIG THING. History in the fucking making. The first ever Hawaiian President, I mean, who could beat that. I wonder if there would be Hawaiians present there. I hope Obama doesn't fart during his swearing in ceremony. Well, I actually hope he does; that way people would actually realize he is human after all and not some Christ/Krishna/Simba figure head. Still sucks that I don't get to watch the inauguration.
I suddenly have the urtge to take a huge dump now. I love airport Johns. They're so clean and pristine and holy. No wonder some senators can't help but cruise in them.
Friday, January 9
Tuesday, December 9
You gotta love the 50's {No Margie! Yer cake didn't turn out so well}
I know I wasn't born back then, {but I know a few people who were and they turned out pretty ok}, but I wish I was born or was already alive during the fifties. During the fifties, you could actually fantasize about Marlon Brando or Paul Newman or Cary Grant or Gary Cooper because they were still alive and they possessed the youth and the masculinity that made that generation cum in their drawstrings! Nyargh! Damn, I wish I was born during the fifties. I mean, dudes, Hollywood men had spunk back then and most of them actually studied acting. Now all you get is Zac Efron. I mean he's cute as a toilet paper roll and all but I don't think America's National Twink Zac would be starring on a play or a film adaptation that would require him to shout "STELLLLLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" on top of his lungs.
Gary Cooper. Yum.
Another thing that I like about the fifties are those propaganda films that disguise themselves as instructional films on almost any kind of topic. They're downright idiotic but they are insanely funny. I love the narrator dude who acts like he's The Voice of God {he prolly was} and tries to tell them characters to do this and do that and be careful of this and be careful of that. Maaaaaaaan, I miss the fifties {minus the Cold War, the segregation, the fact that being gay means yer crazy, the mandatory fire and brimstone sermon from the Sunday pulpit in suburbia yadi yadi yadi}. Then again, I am thankful for not being a baby boomer because that would mean I'd be in my 60's now or prolly dead. Meh.
Gary Cooper. Yum.
Watch the propaganda/instructional film on cooking for first time housewives. Margie, here doesn't know how to cook but the omnipotent god of the 50's helps her by humiliating the hell outta her then teaching her the ropes of basic housewifery. After a few more jabs at Margie's female psyche and a little bit of instructing and tweaking and consulting the Book of Shadows, Margie transforms into Julianne Moore housewife extraordinaire and bakes the motherfucking cake. Notice in the video that when Margie's husband comes back home fromthe pictures work, he doesn't hear The Voice of God and just wolfs down Margie's Cold War Surprise. Now that's a 50's happy ending.
Gary Cooper. Yum.
Gary Cooper. Yum.
Another thing that I like about the fifties are those propaganda films that disguise themselves as instructional films on almost any kind of topic. They're downright idiotic but they are insanely funny. I love the narrator dude who acts like he's The Voice of God {he prolly was} and tries to tell them characters to do this and do that and be careful of this and be careful of that. Maaaaaaaan, I miss the fifties {minus the Cold War, the segregation, the fact that being gay means yer crazy, the mandatory fire and brimstone sermon from the Sunday pulpit in suburbia yadi yadi yadi}. Then again, I am thankful for not being a baby boomer because that would mean I'd be in my 60's now or prolly dead. Meh.
Gary Cooper. Yum.
Watch the propaganda/instructional film on cooking for first time housewives. Margie, here doesn't know how to cook but the omnipotent god of the 50's helps her by humiliating the hell outta her then teaching her the ropes of basic housewifery. After a few more jabs at Margie's female psyche and a little bit of instructing and tweaking and consulting the Book of Shadows, Margie transforms into Julianne Moore housewife extraordinaire and bakes the motherfucking cake. Notice in the video that when Margie's husband comes back home from
Gary Cooper. Yum.
Sunday, December 7
These things make me dizzy
Many taxi's in Beijing have these interactive screens for passengers to play with. Kinda like those kiddie puzzles that you have in restaurants to keep kids from getting bored while waiting for the food. I happen to ride one of these taxis with my boss while going to one hospital in the business district (my boss had some sort of aneurism in his ovaries or something) and I happened to sit on the side of the cab with the interacttive tv. Curious me started playing with it, and sincethe screen was all in Chinese, I kept on asking my boss what this was and what that was, which caused him to nosebleed. It wasn't fun (not the nosebleeding, that was fun), the screen made me dizzy as hell. I felt like puking. These things are dangerous, yo.
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