I Can Remember, But It's All Right, A-All Right

I was prepping myself up for yet another generic Saturday night, when Christoff texted me for a night-out. An impromptu Malate trip isn't exactly one of the most pleasant invitations especially for one who's been lacking of nocturnal obligations the past few days, but who could resist an all-expense paid treat? Never mind that one does not dare refuse an invitation of one willing to cancel a previously planned sex trip just for the occasion. Yes, we weren't hunting for sex in Malate. We just wanted to have a good time.

Halloween comes only once a year, after all.

The thought would have stayed that way, if only I didn't recall now that it was exactly five years ago when we first officially enjoyed a Malate party, courtesy of a certain Louie Mar. Exactly five years ago when I felt horribly jealous of the idiot dancing beside and feeling other guys at the club. Exactly five years and a day ago, when I, kind-off, lost my virginity to said idiot.

Not a tinge of nostalgia was there when we showered ourselves over the superbass and the party dust last Saturday night. In fact, I felt Malate has lost all its magic to me, and I was more preoccupied imagining my cancer cells in my lungs growing by the minute from second-hand cigarette smoke, than the actual dance beats or the sight an effeminate twink passionately making-out and frotting with a vampire. It was a good thing we arrived late; I honestly couldn't bear to hang around there for longer.

I was relieved to learn that my companion shared the same sentiment. Whether it's the alcohol speaking or otherwise (he took my share of free drinks I wouldn't use), it was refreshing to hear him berate the pitiful shallowness of the clubbing life. Wearing what passed for a Jared Leto-inspired eyeliner makeup, he looked like a perfect emo who feared seeing himself ending up just as sorry as the stereotypical muscle-shirted crowd in their 30s and 40s, and who mused how badly he needed to pee.

I actually found the breakfast buffet at Katipunan the coming morning the highlight of our escapade. "It's being at the party that mattered," he said. And I couldn't agree more. I'm still very glad that we still hang out after all these years, never mind the hole I cut on his pocket for that day. Never mind he brags the record for "2 guys in 4 hours" the night after.

Gotta love the idiot. <3

"Time is my ally. Everything is just spinning murky at the moment; it would take time for things to settle down and clear itself out. For the mean time I'll explore and get myself used to this world I have gone in to, perhaps discover something new or two each moment. I glee at the thought of bumping at him along the way. Indeed, things will fall in their proper place. All paths we take will lead us to where we're supposed to be.

Until then, I wait. :)"

- 31 Oct 2006, 11:05am via LiveJournal

Exhaust all the gaga titles?

At Likha Diwa (Krus Na Ligas, QC) 3:27pm

It's sembreak I presume in UP, and with All Saints/Souls Day haunting nearby the campus was almost a ghost town. The internet cafe at Philcoa wasn't as crowded as it usually were, and Likha Diwa is just as happily deserted (if it were always deserted, I wouldn't know—it's the first I've been here since a very long time when I was checking out their vegemeat products). I couldn't merrily enjoyed the solitary affair, if only my eyes weren't so heavy. I'm at my caffeine limit, that is certain—Sting energy drink and brewed coffee were powerless to keep me wide-eyed. I fear for my ever bloating love handles.

Without my laptop today, it's double the pain to be writing right now on paper. I hadn't the mood to write when I had my laptop though; instead I was busy drooling over the soft-lesbian context of Madlax, and discovering the joys of Game of Nerds (which sadly doesn't enjoy me back). Had I been more productive I could have finished more Lady Gaga parodies by now. Or perhaps start a new work of fiction I had in mind.

~~~

The story would revolve around seven characters, who are in essence the manifestations of a certain being bent on exacting revenge on existence (hurray for antinatalism!). The seven will bear the names of the Seven Deadly Sins in Latin—Superbia, Avaritia, Luxuria, Invidia, Gula, Ira, Acedia—but that's just because the words sound cool more than anything. There will be violence, lots of it, to draw sympathy against a crule world and make the seven antinatalist protagonists cool antiheroes. Whether they succeed in their plans or not is still conjecture. Perhaps I'll even put an open ending. There's be cameo roles of course from Amores Celestia. It's a related universe after all.

~~~

Meanwhile, I'm still getting used to a Facebook-free routine. I miss it terribly, but I do not regret permanently deleting the account, the same way I deleted Friendster on a whim many years back. If I badly need to keep in touch with anyone, I may as well contact them by phone or meet them personally. I'll be blunt, I only have close personal contact with Christoff and Khaleesi K these days, and what's the point of only keeping two people in my FB list?

The Almighty Internet has a perfect description:

To self: Temper thy impulse to trash this pic, nor this post. Honor thy vomit. Honor thy vomit.

Transmission, Datuvision: 1

Stargate: 2011

Lady Datu has been sent to Earth to infiltrate human culture, one prepubescent boy at a time.

Invoke function ending().

~~~

I discovered Japanese composer Kajiura Yuki through CLAMP's Tsubasa Chronicles. "Ship Of Fools" and "A Song Of Storm And Fire" instantly caught my heart for the anime and for the rest of Kajiura's work, which I discovered included .hack/SIGN's "Obsession". I fancy her soul-possessing choral-classical style to be my inspiration as music for my unwritten fiction Amores Celestia, by the time of the plot's climax. At the very least I'd like to produce personal video interpretations of her music. It's not a sin to dream.

~~~

As reviving Amores Celestia might prove a daunting task to take, I'm thinking about conceptualizing an entirely different fiction altogether, but at least referencing the AC universe. Neil Gaiman's "American Gods" and a trivial observation via my Facebook news feed may have a suggestion. The planned protagonist (preferably female) would have a peculiar ability to "sense" certain "existences" of characters, tentatively men. Said "existences" could possibly be past "clans" or "heritage", and the peculiarity of said protagonist to have a knack of getting associated with such. Perhaps protagonist might be a manifest essence of AC's Deity of Light Assanthael, the "clans" a manifestation of the lost Ishcan royal houses. Or whatever. I still resent the fact that I have to have something to do with guys who I tend to like, and end up being (or being rumored to be) gay. Or rather, I wonder deep down in me what may have been, if I settled being a gay man than a straight t-girl. I think already wrote about this many posts ago.

~~~

I'm seriously considering making a career of my Lady Gaga adaptations and parodies. "Telephone" and "Judas" are done. "Government Hooker" might call for revamping. "Alejandro" is on standby, "Americano" is blossoming, "Born This Way", "Just Dance" and "Scheiße" are starting to be inspired. Then there's recording to be made. I don't deserve my Adam's Apple, I really don't.

~~~

Aling Jandro

May tindera, sa palengke
Na nagtitinda-nagtitinda ng fish
Na sariwa, galing dagat
Murang-mura ang tinda, may tawad pa

Bili ka na ng bangus
Kuha ka na rin tahong
Meron din akong pusit
At galuggong

So call my name, so call my name
Aling Jandro
Tabi ng babuyan ni Mang...Fernando
Huwag lang i-kiss, huwag lang i-touch
Ang aking mga paninda
Magpatulong ka na lang kay...Roberto

Aling Jandro, Aling Jandro
Aling-Aling Jandro
Aling-Aling Jandro...

"Hudas" (parodized from Lady Gaga's "Judas")

Oh oh, oh oh
God knows Hudas not pay
Oh oh, oh oh
God knows Hudas not pay

Hudas, Huda-a-a, Hudas, Huda-a-a
Hudas, Huda-a-a, Hudas not pay!
Hudas, Huda-a-a, Hudas, Huda-a-a
Hudas, Huda-a-a, Hudas not pay!

Oi Miss, sakay ka na, maluwag pa
Oo, dadaan 'to ng MRTeh
Bayad mo kulang pang dalawa
Sampung piso kasi'ng pamasaheh

Wa-a-a, Wa-a-ah
Urong lang dyan, urong dyan-dyan
Wa-a-a, Wa-a-ah
Waluhan yan-yan, waluhan yan

I'm just a poor tsuper, so bayad ka na there
'Coz God knows Hudas not pay
I'm just a poor tsuper, so bayad ka na there
'Coz God knows Hudas not pay

Oh oh, oh oh
God knows Hudas not pay
Oh oh, oh oh
God knows Hudas not pay

Hudas, Huda-a-a, Hudas, Huda-a-a
Hudas, Huda-a-a, Hudas not pay!

Magpupuno pa bago aalis
Tataas naman kasi'ng langis
Biyahe kahit walang panukleh
Kailangan kasing pang-boundareh

Wa-a-ah, Wa-a-ah
Urong lang dyan, urong dyan-dyan
Wa-a-a, Wa-a-ah
Waluhan yan-yan, waluhan yan

I'm just a poor tsuper, so bayad ka na there
'Coz God knows Hudas not pay
I'm just a poor tsuper, so bayad ka na there
'Coz God knows Hudas not pay

Oh oh, oh oh
God knows Hudas not pay
Oh oh, oh oh
God knows Hudas not pay

Hudas, Huda-a-a, Hudas, Huda-a-a
Hudas, Huda-a-a, Hudas not pay!

Sexy, nais kitang makilala nguni't ako
ay abala sa aking manibela
Driver man akong hamak sa tingin nguni't ang
paglilingkod marangal kong ginagawa

Hoy! Bawal sabit!
Sakay lang, basta't driver, sweet lover
Hesus, ilayo mo
Ako sa napakabarat na pa...sahero!

I'm just a poor tsuper, so bayad ka na there
'Coz God knows Hudas not pay
I'm just a poor tsuper, so bayad ka na there
'Coz God knows Hudas not pay

Oh oh, oh oh
God knows Hudas not pay
Oh oh, oh oh
God knows Hudas not pay

Hudas, Huda-a-a, Hudas, Huda-a-a
Hudas, Huda-a-a, Hudas not pay!


(Nods to a certain Genaro Gozo Cruz for compiling online those quotes one gets to read once in a while either painted, stuck, or hanging by the driver's seat. For more of these memorable quotes, visit this link:
http://goo.gl/O5t4c)

I Don't Speak Bisaya, But I Can If You Like

If my uncle's anecdotes were to be believed, I was a late bloomer in speech. Despite my voracious appetite as a 3-year-old kid for the written text, which included Sunday comic pages of whatever newspaper came in handy, I rarely spoke a word other than occasional outbursts of "Caltex" whenever we pass by the star-iconed gas station, and would barely respond to inquiries other than my age, with me only managing to flutter my middle three tiny fingers. While it may seem foreboding of my future introverted demeanor as an adult, in my tender years I was on the contrary a pestering brat. And while I may have started late on pestering grown-ups properly parsed questions about why the sky is blue or why old films were in black and white, Looney Tunes peppered with Disney cartoon shorts made certain that I was to make English, or whatever juvenile semblance of it, my first language.

It was with unanimous blessing from the household though. Growing up during my early childhood in Manila and showing a peculiar gift in science and letters, it was deemed advantageous for me to learn English early on. Tagalog came later, thanks on one hand to Bong Pagong & Kiko Matsing, and on the other to the mostrosity that was Babaylan Ida when s/he commands the "Time-Space Warp" activated. I was never bothered to be taught our indigenous tongue from my hometown in the far south. After all, they reasoned, I'd end up learning it later on. I never did, and for a long time I'd keep my impression of "Muslim" as the language old wrinkled women in ornate malongs and veils spoke to one another.

Our family's participation in the public scene would force us to settle back at our hometown, and from then I would continue assmilating the Filipino tongue, although in a rather odd way. Our town was the only place in the predominantly Visayan-speaking south that has adopted Tagalog as the vernacular. It is however a far cry from a purist's Tagalog, as typical sentences heard in our town would go something as:

"Bright man siya sana, kaso sobrang kahambog. Buti nga gani hindi siya ginatuya na bayot!"

Which in mainstream Tagalog would go as:

"Matalino siya sana, kaso ang yabang niya. Buti nga hindi siya tinutuksong bakla!"

(It's a pity he's cocky for a smart guy. He should be grateful he's not bullied a faggot!)

I would not learn the difference way until high school, when I had by then spent over a year back in Metro Manila since I had left years ago as a kid. By the time I briefly returned to our town for a vacation, I would be aghast of the sudden stream of "Bisaya" spewing from the lips of my peers whom I used to be able to speak normally to in "Tagalog". They on the other hand would listen to me in awe, who now for them speaks "deep" Tagalog. I then understood what that upperclassman might have thought during Freshmen Orientation in high school, when she asked me if I "knew" how to speak Tagalog.

Come college though I would experience an entirely different kind of awkwardness, as this time students hailing from the provinces didn't have qualms speaking at each other in their hometown vernacular. So, as my hometown was very little-known yet bore an exact same name as a larger better-known province that was overwhelmingly Visayan (as you could see, I couldn't even tell whether it's Cebuano, Ilonggo, or any other multitude), I had to turn people down every time they start conversing to me in Bisaya. It also had a subconscious, bordering racist, effect to my ego, for while I never came to fully learn to speak my own ethnic group's indigenous language, there's one thing that certainly stuck: for us, "bisaya", through the queerest of etymology, means "Christian", regardless if one was actually Bisaya or was in fact Tagalog or American. And I was certainly NOT Christian.

I have somehow wished by then that I had learned as a child the language my mother would use to speak to a fisherman at the riverside market at my hometown, the same language a great Sultan once used to unite an island against invading Castilians, the language now used by white-capped and bearded men selling "dibidis" and "M2M". I may have de facto disassociated myself with my forefathers, but I still feel nostalgic of our ethnic culture, and my name, or rather my title, would forever remind me of this heritage. On the other hand, I don't think I'll ever be able to converse with any of my family using it. It just feels different.

As trivia, the word my people's language use to refer to non-Christianized mountain tribes is "haylander". I can't help but summon an image of Connor Macleod and his mighty sword (the weapon, not the body part) whenever local politicians mention the word during election campaigns.

Born This Way At All?: An Antinatalist Declaration

It's hard to describe oneself as an antinatalist without the uninitiated mistaking you for a baby murderer. Yes, I hate children, particularly the squealing, shrieking kind, but that's entirely a different matter (and in fairness, I don't exactly dislike babies: who could hate such cute, soft, bouncy little bundles of joy, save when they poop). I myself find the term "antinatalism" particularly inadequate to describe the philosophy it represents, when I discovered the term roughly a year ago which turned out to be the near-sacred personal world view I happen to believe in all this time. It's not so much as simply not wanting children to be born, for whatever reason, be it related to economics or overpopulation. It's about the question of existence itself. It's about questioning if all the possible joys and pleasures of life are really worth all the challenges, the disappointents, the imperfections and suffering that comes with it. If it's even fair at all to be "forced" into "existence", without ever having been given a choice. It's about pointing a blaming finger on the unchangeable, the inevitable.

Religious people would have a simple response: it's all according to "God's" will. "God" created you for a reason. "God" wants you to apreciate his creation, and to realize your true purpose. "God" wants you to worship him and glorify him as your "creator". If I were to honestly look into this kind of thinking, I can find no other conclusion: "God" wants you to be his toy. A toy that, unfortunately, could feel. A toy who could make mistakes, and be done mistakes to. A toy who would writhe in eternal suffering in Hell or be reincarnated as a slimy worm should you happen to annoy your creator by not flattering his ego with "prayers", or should you happen to dislike his "perfect divine plan". You may as well have not been created at all, but of course you can't have a say on that. "God" can do whatever he wants!

I thus find an atheist view of the antinatist philosophy less hateful. For some reason or another, there was the Big Bang, and with it the chain of events that led to atoms, the Universe, to DNA, and to then to life, all governed by their respective natural laws. "Pain" has become an evolutionary-sound means for living things to respond to stimuli and keep "living", and is here to stay. And out of this natural process, you "became". Nothing could have stopped it, just as milk can't be stopped from spilling once the glass is dropped. It's Nature running its own course.

Thinking about it, perhaps antinatalism is indeed the only sound term to legitimize it for public discourse. What's the point, after all, of crafting your thoughts on what no one can do anything about? It's too late for you to be "unborn", but you can keep other people from ever "becoming" at all. Simply by never bringing a child into the world--"anti" and "natalism". Whether it be by celibacy or abortion is an entirely different subject altogether, and debates regarding this are what keeps antinatalism, though relatively unheard of by many, a living philosophy.

What's of those who already live to do then? It's none of anyone's business. "Pain" - or what I would rather call, "Disturbance" - is something only the person himself knows. No one else but oneself knows how one really feels. We may laugh at a lethargic obese lady utterly distressed by an out-of-service escalator, but an antinatalist would say who are we to judge how the lady feels just because the rest of us could "suck it up" and climb the stairs instead? The point is that how we perceive and respond to life, to all its perks and, more importantly, its disturbances, is ours and ours alone, and no one has the right to judge that a child who lives in constant hunger and dread in warn-torn Afghanistan "suffers" more than a well-fed First World kid who whines for not being given a PS3 for his birthday. One could face life's pains head on if one wishes to, but if one were to choose to end it all and take his or her own life for it, after weighing all options one has at hand, then nobody, NOBODY, not even the "loved ones" who'd be left behind in grief, has any right to condemn it.

"Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved."
-Mark Twain

"Telepono" (adapted from Lady Gaga's "Telephone")

(I want to record this song. Badly. :,c)

Hello, Hello, napatawag ka sa phone ko, beh?
Hindi 'ko maka-text, walang signal kase-seh
Hwa-hwa-hwag  ka nga feeling paimportante
Sige, break na tayo, hwag ka lang magse-seh

Hwag kang magse-seh
Hwag kang magse-seh
Sige, break na tayo, hwag ka lang magse-seh

Teka muna, sino kaya diyan ang nang-injan
Buong araw 'kong nakatunganga sa S-M
Kaya ako'y nag-bar na lang kasama'ng aking friends
Ngayo'y di ka makapigil, ika'y magse-seh

Makulit, makulit, tigil na sa kakukulit
Nag-sasaya 'ko dito sa Malate
Makulit, makulit, tigil na sa kakukulit
Nag-sasaya 'ko dito sa Malate

Eh-eh-eh...Hwag ka nang makulet
Eh-eh-eh...Kase-seh
Eh-eh-eh...Hwag ka nang makulet

Bahala ka diyan, tumawag ka lang
Dededmahin ko'ng telepono
Tatagay ako, sayang lang ang load mo
Dededmahin ko'ng telepono

Bahala ka diyan, tumawag ka lang
Dededmahin ko'ng telepono
Tatagay ako, sayang lang ang load mo
Dededmahin ko'ng telepono

Pambihira ka, daig pa'ng pokpok
Sino kang istorbo
Akalang sinong gwapo
Talaga ngang bobo

Nadukutan na lang sana
ako ng 'sang isnatyer
Kesa magpakamarter
Sorry, pero tayo'y over

Minahal naman kita, kahit papaano
Nagsasawa nga lang 'ko sa 'yong panloloko
That's why ako'y nag-LRT pa-Recto Station
At nag-taxi ng pa-Orosa't magpaparty!

At magpaparty (tonight)! At magpaparty (tonight)!
At nag-taxi ng pa-Orosa't magpaparty!

Makulit, makulit, tigil na sa kakukulit
Nag-sasaya 'ko dito sa Malate
Makulit, makulit, tigil na sa kakukulit
Nag-sasaya 'ko dito sa Malate

Makulit, makulit, tigil na sa kakukulit
Nag-sasaya 'ko dito sa Malate
Makulit, makulit, tigil na sa kakukulit
Nag-sasaya 'ko dito sa Malate

Eh-eh-eh...Hwag ka nang makulet
Eh-eh-eh...Kase-seh
Eh-eh-eh...Hwag ka nang makulet

Bahala ka diyan, tumawag ka lang
Dededmahin ko'ng telepono
Tatagay ako, sayang lang ang load mo
Dededmahin ko'ng telepono

Bahala ka diyan, tumawag ka lang
Dededmahin ko'ng telepono
Tatagay ako, sayang lang ang load mo
Dededmahin ko'ng telepono

Telepono! Te-te-telepono!
Tatagay ako
Sayang lang ang load mo
Dededmahin ko'ng telepono!

Telepono! Te-te-telepono!
Tatagay ako
Sayang lang ang load mo
Dededmahin ko'ng telepono!

Ay, ¡Mi Baklito!

"Things would have been so much easier if I were gay."

A law student friend of mine quotes this from her straight friend who has been mistaken a lot for being gay, due to his effeminacy. The guy I've been told is in a happy relationship with his girlfriend.

It brings to mind one TV show I remember watching when I was a kid. The story involved a flamboyant effeminate boy (played by Vandolph, and then by Dominic Ochoa as an adult), who end up impregnating and marrying his long-time female childhood friend. It also brings to mind famous "bakla" celebrities such as Jun Encarnacion and Ogie Diaz who each end up raising a family. I sense the Philippine society's reaction to this as a mixture of both disgust and approval: disgust, with the thought of how a  stereotypical gay man and a stereotypical straight woman could endure having sexual intercourse with each other and enjoy it, and approval, for having gone beyond "sinful" carnal desire to fulfill a man's "God-bound duty" to be head and provider of a God-fearing family. They're looked upon as heroes, for despite being effeminate they're thought off as being more responsible  fathers than they're more masculine beer-guzzling peers, proving that they're more worthy to be called a "man".

I still however resent that either way, effeminacy is still looked upon as something "wrong", as something that needs to be "redeemed", regardless of the guy's sexual orientation. Now I'd like to distinguish this sentiment from sheer personal taste: I would NOT, in my most desperate sexual fetishes, have sex with Jun Encarnacion (bless his soul). But if you're a straight guy who just so happened to have snappier fingers than usual, it must have been terrible to be branded gay right away. First, because you're seen as having something "wrong", and second because you're seen as what you're really not, the same way a transgender woman would cringe if she were called "sir". It would then have been much easier indeed if you were gay, as you'd save the trouble of having to explain every time that while you can sway your hips better than beauty queen contestants, you just happen to like licking pussies more than cocks.

Ironically as a transgender woman, I'm often inclined to fall into believing that things would have been so much easier if I were a gay man too. It would save me the trouble of having to explain to people the difference between sexual orientation and gender identity. I wouldn't have to be bothered every time I see my name prefixed in official documents with "Mister". I wouldn't have to take expensive self-medicated hormones to look more feminine and risk cancer and liver failure in the next few years. I wouldn't have to be worried being caught "cross-dressing" by my family. I could've signed up without discrimination on PR and have SEB's, provided I buffed up my abs a little and evaded posers. I could've had a chance to share my heart with the gay men I once fell in love with.

Strike A Pose, There's Nothing To It...Vogue!

 

"To be awake at two-ish in the morning with only three regular hours of sleep is the nearest I could get to being drunk (or stoned). I have already surrendered to the fact that drinking beer is an acquired taste, something I'd rather reserve for bitter chocolate (85% cacao to be exact). It's now five-ish in the afternoon and the sky looks just as dark and ominous as an oversized incontinent prune slapped with the cruel reality of an out-of-order toilet."

- hug me. =), 10th September 2008

One ought to be disturbed, when one comes across a three-year-old piece of prose, drool at its awesome (sic), and one realizes (or pretends to realize) it's her very own spawn. It's like getting trolled by a smartass kid for being smartass, only the smartass kid fondled the very same genitals you're fondling now, and both of you called it masturbation (and that this bratty kid didn't have to rely on overt sexual rhetoric, internet meme references, redundancy, or excessive parenthetic statements to state her case).

The ironic thing was that said smartass kid considered herself a failed geriatric, which would then make me a glorified mummy at present. Heaven forbid what ancient anomaly I'd end up into three years on.

"...I've been killing my time going over several blog entries, job posts, and broadband/DSL forums. October 4 is not very far away. Soon I'd be residing over my very own flat and experience how it is to pay my very own utility bills and ride the sweaty crowded MRT train with a stored-value ticket. I'm hoping later today Globelines would confirm its service availability in my area, as I'm becoming less and less encouraged to pimp myself out with documents to PLDT just to prove I'm a good paying customer. I'm less worried about a 10-page Rizal paper due this Saturday which I never bothered starting as I am at claiming my updated TIN ID later at the BIR district office, a tricycle and jeepney ride away. October 1 will mark the end of my daytime starvation and nightly food binge, and is exclusively reserved for a friend date with a werewolf. October 8 will mark the end of my unfinished college life and a start of a year or so of money hoarding and soul searching."

- beware of the lurking sappy pun, 25th September 2008

As internet connection is still elusive back at my residence in Winterfell, I'm currently leeching wi-fi connection here at Katipunan, Riverrun, hoping the 102-peso meal would satisfactorily cover for six hours I would have similarly spent on a DOTA-noisy internet cafe. The recent weeks had not been very kind for money hoarding and soul searching. But while my financial future may now be shrouded in a cloud of uncertainty thicker than the early-morning smog I have to endure everyday along the Killer Highway, I'm somehow more confident that what my soul has been looking for wouldn't be so far off.

I better start writing like a geriatric again.

The Attack of the Double-Headed Poker Face (Ma-ma-ma-maaw!)

I used to find playing face cards rather creepy when I was a kid. I imagined them lurking in the shadows with their grim expressions, and as they have no feet I imagine them hopping alternately on their double heads toward me. It didn't help that our home's security men I often visited played those cards in the dark of night, somehow tickling my juvenile subconscious that the "barahas" are indeed immoral spawns of Satan.

I could still remember the vague musk I smell each time I pestered the men. Sometimes a red or blue underwear would be hanging on a nail along with the jeans. While I find the face cards unnerving, I found the underwear fascinating. On days the men's hut is deserted, I would steal a pair and wear it. And feel good wearing it down there. At a tender age of 5, I wouldn't know it was perverted to do so. I just found it fun.

Perhaps my fascination with male underwear caught the twisted mind of one of those men. We'd start to get close, telling me the story of a "magic milk" which if I drank would give me supermagical powers, like the genie in Disney's Aladdin. The only thing was I cannot tell anybody about it, otherwise the "magic" of the "milk" will disappear.

He would lay down on the folding nylon bed, then take out a piece of flesh inside his pants which I was told to lick and suck. It was how I could drink the "magic milk". I would find the exercise particularly silly, but the promise of having supermagic powers would keep me doing the ritual. Alas, I would never get to taste the "magic milk" he so talked about. He'd often tell me that the "magic milk" wasn't there that time, or it was shy, and he'd tell me to come back some other time. Which I always did.

One afternoon I came back would be the turning point of the ruckus. I saw him, completely naked while hurrying to wear his clothes. It was the first time I'd seen a completely naked adult man. And it disturbed me. So much that I would tell my family about it over lunch. And then tell them about the story of the "magic milk" on the side, since I was a rather talkative English-mumbling brat, which my family would nod along in amazement and wonder. That was the last day I would ever see that man in the hut.

A year later as a Grade 1 kid, I would remember how he would jiggle his male flesh up and down, wondering why he would do that. Even then, I still couldn't picture that flesh to be his "bird". That didn't stop me though from trying it out on mine.

That day, I'd have a supermagical power.

Yes, He Ate My Heart And Then He Ate My Brain

I still blush whenever I remember that night. The last quarterly exams of the school year were over, and we only had a week or two to finish our school clearance before the dormitory closes for the year. Without the feminizing and taming powers of artificial estrogen back then, I was as mustached and horny as a good 15-year-old adolescent should. It didn't help that a roommate was an affirmed deep sleeper, which often got him in trouble when he doesn't wake up for class. (He also happened to be a somniloquist--he raised himself one random night to deliver an impassioned rendition of the English alphabet before slumping back to bed, and never had even a vague memory of it the next day.)

And I liked him.

Or at least since he started pairing clean plain white shirt with his similarly clean plain white shorts. Or was it the haircut? Or the fact that I got to caress him every time he cuts classes to play Pokémon Gold & Silver on my computer (which was ingeniously hidden inside a cabinet to escape inspection from the dorm manager). I hated him though for getting crabby over petty things. I still hold a grudge on him to this day for snapping at me when I asked for a few sheets of intermediate pad paper.

But he lay there for the taking that night, face up without a blanket covering him, wearing tight, pinkish shorts with a strategically-located zipper. And there might not be another chance. He failed his removal exam that would have kept him a scholar in school for the next year. He'd be gone for good.

"I love him."

Or so I thought I felt when I texted that to my aloe vera-loving confidant when I could no longer contain how much I missed him. I missed him, so much that by the following school year I headed with a half-Japanese friend to Malolos to visit his home, with only anecdotal clues to guide us. But for then I was back at the province for the summer, with only the warmth of his soft, unconscious cheek on my lips to reminisce (and of course, something else, but I don't want to ruin the romantic narrative yet--oh wait, I already have >_<').

Then the idiot comes out gay many years later, revealing he had been conscious all along back then that I molested him, mocking me for my feigned repentance, and brags of his own mischievous exploits with men. If there's any consolation, he's become damn hotter if his pictures were to be believed. Unlike another guy I had a crush on (NOT Paul, mind you) who's now married to a masked V-lookalike and is now a professional drag queen.

What the HELL is with me falling for gay men?!?!?!

The Khaleesi's Mighty Horse (Or Pseudo-horse)

*dedicated to puppydog ;p

This is MC, my beloved steed. :)

This is MC, carrying my backpack under forced labor. >:)

I Am Khaleesi*...Khaleesiii-siii-siiiii....

I feel like a fraud roaming around UP right now on a backpack. That, or the UP atmosphere has changed dramatically since I left without official leave some three years ago. With the tuition fee swollen up to magnanimous proportions (3x? 4x?) it's no wonder I mostly see rich (or rich-sounding) kids in the campus. It's like the Autonomous Department of EEE™ committed treason to the central UP government and took over the Iron Throne. Only, Esteros still reeks.

Meanwhile, life hasn't been as peaceful as I expected it to be in my new castle in Winterfell, East Fairview. The white walkers seemed to have followed me from my previous abode in the South, so while the obvious door slamming no longer bothers me much, I now have random unidentified loud banging to deal with. Immediate neighbors I came across with deny to be causing the ruckus, but they do hear some noise themselves they claim to be coming from my room. I'm seriously considering getting a paranormal investigator in the chance a sex-deprived lesbian succubus might be lusting for me for this long. The horrors.

For the meantime I'm living a lifestyle of mobility. Daenerys wasn't exactly who I had in mind when I embodied a nomad-pastoralist barbarian histories ago, but I find the "khaleesi" title too appealing to my ego. Now I just have to find something to plunder. Or to rape. Or whatever the Dothrakis love to do.


*The "khaleesi" in the Game of Thrones mythos is the queen of the horse-mounting Dothraki nomads east of Westeros. I shall leave to the hardcore Lady Gaga fan which song I'm parodying for this post's title.

I'm A Bad Kid, And I Will Survive, Oh I'm A Bad Kid...

The plan was something only Your Lady of Purse-Pinching Cheapness can concoct: hog 5-ish hours of Starbucks space with only 60-pesos worth of butter/cream cheese bagel while browsing/blogging away in cyberspace on SuperSurf50 Globe connection in all her posh-hipster glory. Having only slept 6 hours for the night though (my ideal is 13), I was forced to shell out 95 pesos more on bitter brewed coffee to keep me awake after the bagel hit me with a punch of drowsiness. I might as well have done away with the trolling bagel and ordered just the coffee in the beginning. It was yet another affair with false economy.

Spending big all at once hurts, so by spending piecewise one hopes to save and fulfill a need for a lesser price. Screw it up however and one ends up paying much more than one would have had.

~~~

Many years ago I wouldn't even dare think about stepping in on a fast food store. Even eating meat on a karenderya was a luxury for me. I had to survive on just a pack of 5-peso chicken skin and two cups of rice for a meal to survive on a 500-peso-a-month budget. My ideal was just to spend 300 pesos a month for food. The government scholarship I was in just wouldn't believe I deserved more than the almost non-existent stipend I'm getting from them, which was all I depended on during the first years of my college life--as far as they were concerned, I was a Forbes-worthy billionaire.

It took a few years before I got a part-time job to feed me, but I had then have to let go of finishing my Engineering degree. I've never returned to college, nor to my family since.

Even After Three Hours It Betrays Me

"We're sorry, but something went wrong.
We've been notified about this issue and we'll take a look at it shortly."


I shuffle between two jobs at the moment. One is for an American academic tutorial company, where I mostly teach school kids how to multiply two binomials or find the final velocity of a ball thrown at an angle of 45 degrees. The other is for a multinational text answering service where I'm obliged to answer any question out of the sun, from train times to the proper etiquette of cucumber sex.

The error above was for the latter. I was happily answering texts when at about 5pm today the work platform went haywire. As I'm supposed to be working until 8:45 tonight, I have no choice but to stand by for updates, which is costing me internet cafe fees by the minute. It wouldn't be an issue if I were working right now at home--alas the new neighbors who just moved in this week has added to the already disruptive chorus of banging doors.

I'm yet to hear the reply from a prospective landlord offering a condo unit for lease in uptown QC for "flexible terms". Never mind I'll have to brave a killer highway to get to the actual location--with my peace of mind to work at home at stake, I need to move to a new place very, very soon. Here's only the hope that I'm not to be required postdated checks, yet again. The cost of opening a checking account can already pay a month's rent.

~~~

It's been three hours since the work platform went down, and I'm yet to hear any updates. I hope a proper compensation comes along with them when they come.

My Personal Space Is Sanctuary; My Blood is Red (Duh-duh-duh....)

I would have just wanted to spend a quiet Sunday at home. A wave of new neighbors in the apartment building however has made my once peaceful abode less than hospitable. Slamming doors are my worst peeves. Sadly I seem to be the only one complaining, otherwise the landlord wouldn't make any delays in installing door stoppers and paddings on every unit. It's probably the cost of urban culture to be insensitive to these "trivial" concerns.

I rode a half-filled jeepney, and the first thing that reached my nostrils is the second-hand stench of tobacco from the driver. It's ironic that there was a big "Bawal Ang Manigarilyo (No Smoking)" sign posted on the jeepney--I guess drivers have their privileges. It wasn't long before the jeepney got filled up to the delight of the driver. I'm close to the stop where I get off, but the cigarette smoke and the warm moist touch of female skin was too much for my personal space to bear any further. I hurried out of the jeepney and as usual managed to hit a leg and step on a foot. I sent unglad tidings to the departing jeepney.

The "trivial" incident would have lingered with me throughout the day, were it not for a text message:

"Love the design! At nakuha m ung album cover font nya (And you matched the album cover font)! Not too sure bout the text font though."

It looks like I'll be tweaking my text font for the next couple of days.

(Posted with a Medion laptop at a barely-filled Starbucks Waltermart Makati on a rainy day with a choppy Globe Visibility connection, feeling pretentiously hipster.)

The Manifesto of Mother Datu

To be born is not exactly a wonderful thing. It's not something you've ever had a choice. You one day wake up and realize you're in a world where joy and pain dance perpetually in a cosmic pendulum. However, one is given a choice to be reborn, and this birth, unlike the first, is infinite.

The theme of change and rebirth I believe has been constant throughout my history of blogging. I started out as a love-struck teenager, and I've since become a number of persona: a powerful goddess, a nomad-pastoralist, an S&M dominatrix, a disillusioned college student, a demented prune. And the evolution goes on.

This Lady Gaga-themed blog would then be timely. The Mother Monster has since been famous as a maverick of metamorphosis, never wearing the same costume twice. She's inspired a legion of Little Monsters to be creative and be reborn endlessly as they see fit. In this light, I vow with my latest incarnation to write as I feel it, to tell stories as one deserves to hear it, and should the time come that I cease to "honor my vomit", to evolve into yet another monstrosity.

This is the Manifesto of Mother Datu. Amen.