The Angel

I skipped working out today.  I wasn't very much in the mood.  I noticed it yesterday when I was in the gym.  I was going through my routine and there was that lackluster feeling, as if I was simply going through everything passively.  I wasn't feeling anything except tiredness, an exhaustion that seems to be deeper than I think it is.  Sure my hamstrings hurt, my legs feel stretched, my shoulders feel like I'm just done carrying the weight of the world, and my chest feels like it just got a boob job; but it's more than that.  I feel restless and exhausted by everything.  And it carried on from yesterday to today and until I don't know when.  That lethargy, of seeming without energy to carry on. In one of my vacant moments, I was wondering whether what kind of life is better for me.  One that I see around here--old men and women going with their lives, trying as much as possible to extend it, crutches and knee replacements notwithstanding, ...

I was quite vacant yesterday, as I am wont to do, while doing that cycling thing at the gym when I heard the first few lines--you're the sky that I fell through.  And almost instantly I was transported back to a few months when I first heard that song. I had just gone out of the gym and I was walking over to where I would wait for a jeepney to take me back to the office.  I was unmindful of what I was hearing on my earphones, I just kept walking, a bit in a hurry, because I slipped out of the office before noon and got out of the gym almost 4PM.  It was one of those things I allowed myself to do, to go out of the office whenever and do other stuff while supposedly still at work. It was mid-October, probably my busiest time at work.  I was clocking in, on an average, 14 hours a day with no overtime pay.  I would arrive in the office around 8:30 in the morning and leave, at the earliest, eleven in the evening.  When I got home, I'd open my ...

I keep forgetting that this is the country of miles and feet, not of kilometers and meters; of kilograms and fahrenheit, not of pounds and celsius. I stepped into the treadmill, pressed quick start, and after a few seconds accelerated the machine until it read 15.  Whoa, was it fast!  Out of breath and almost falling down, I realized that 15mph translates to about 24kph.  Hey, if there's any consolation, I can still compute even in the midst of impending embarrassment. After a solid 20 minutes of running stationary, I went down and started acquainting myself with the place.  It was very similar to the gym I used to go to in the Philippines, although it's about twice the size of the gym in Eastwood and there was still the whole expanse of the 2nd floor.  There were four rooms for racquetball, one basketball court, one swimming pool, two rooms for group exercises, and a cycling studio.  There were a lot more machines though and the increments were not by ...

There are three books on my bedside table: Lords and Ladies (Terry Pratchett), Brooklyn (Colm Toibin), and A Single Man (Christopher Isherwood.)  A fantasy, a literary fiction, a gay novel.  I've been reading them on alternates, depending on my mood, since I got here, which was two weeks ago.  Funny how time crawled in two weeks, I feel like I've been here for a long time with a life that's not exactly called living. In two weeks, I've been to the bookstore thrice.  And always, always, I came out with books bought and purchased.  I've become familiar with the shelves already, how the books are arranged and where things are placed.  I knew where to go the third time I was there.  Although it was still big enough that I could stay for a day without getting bored.  It was a place for books after all; it was enough to get me entertained, a world I could easily get lost into.  And there's Starbucks inside and, unlike the Fullybooked in BHS, ...

My parents would knock at my door around 7am for breakfast.  That's supposed to be the time I wake up.  But I'm up before that.  I wake up an hour before, open the curtains and pull up the blinds.  I do some exercises, some pushups or crunches.  Then I gargle and brush my teeth.  I take a bath after that, go into the walk-in closet, close the door and linger, undecided for a few minutes on what to wear.  It takes time for me to become Chris, son, nephew, niece, and everything that's expected of me.  By the time my mom knocks on the door, I'm somewhat ready to face the day.  All that I am I leave behind the room; all that I must be, I assume. We were having late lunch with my aunt last Sunday and, expectedly, it came up in conversations.  When are you going to get married?  Do you have a girlfriend? I can't exactly remember what I said or what I answered.  But with all eyes on me, I simply wanted to vanish.  There ...