The Angel

For tonight I can sit back and relax; the week is over, I've drank a bottle of wine and I've just uncorked another. I've finished a movie and poured another glass. There was something in it that struck me, a recollection of places and things, of people and circumstances. It made real what felt like a shadow already, because it's so far away and it felt so long ago. There was always something in the moment that distracted me. Or maybe I have adjusted, not with life, but with the convenience this has afforded me. There's something missing, however; this feels like a pause towards something I'm colliding into. I know I will have to go back, maybe not now, but in due time. Because there's nothing here for me, but a kind of happiness that seems superficial and popular. If I had wanted something to happen, it would've happened already.  When dogs were chasing me and guys were disrobing in front of me. I knew what I was here for and it was not for those. Th...

I woke up early with a song looped in the background and in my head.  It was too early, the day has not yet fully broken. I went down and brewed some coffee, sat on the sofa and waited in a state of semi-darkness and half-wakefulness.  I went back to my room holding a mug, warming my hands and my heart, waking my senses from a slumber deep and unprovoked by dreams or nightmares.  There was a longing, a wistfulness of having remembered a life. There had been many seasons and they had come and gone, along with strangers and their picture frames, phantoms wearing masks of bliss, subtle yet sure of what they had all asked of me. I had stood resolute, quietly and determinedly, to maintain a certain distance. There were other ties to consider and options to weigh. There were expectations and experiences that others wanted me to have, or at least try.  I had thought about them, many times and long enough; I felt it too early to stop dreaming for myself and start dreaming ...

Inasmuch as I want to do away with computers, I can't.  It's my bread and butter.  Without it, I'd be a pornstar.  But I've been trying to limit myself, or at least be conscious of, how much time I spend online.  It seems I am always online or I can always be online.  I sleep and wake up with a cellphone beside me, the first and last thing I check when I wake up and before I sleep.  That is if I don't fall asleep holding a book. I see it, now, as a necessity to stay connected to the life I used to live; but I'm still censuring myself.  There are times I feel like I go overboard, saying a hundred million spontaneous things that's like opening a floodgate of consciousness than a stream.  I want to take a step back and just observe, for the meantime.  Stay in the background and just read, occasionally posting random things in blogs, commenting on certain tweets or Facebook statuses.  There are a lot of excesses I can live without. It wa...

Before I enrolled in a gym and started working out, which was more than a year ago, I've always had this idea of the kind of body I'd like to achieve.  Broad shoulders that slim down to sexy pelvic cuts.  That has always been my kind of sexy, something that resembles the letter V.  On the other hand, Johnny Bravo much? I was intent on having that so initially my routine for the nine months I had regularly gone to the gym was to follow the cutie.  Kidding.  Most of the workouts I had done were targeted for my shoulders and cuts on my back.  Now I realize I have disproportionately small arms, like a snowman with twigs for arms.  I've never really focused on triceps and biceps exercises, doing them only if I had time to spare before exhaustion drove me to narcolepsy or hot legs distract me. There was a long interval between the last time I had gone to the gym and when I started again after moving from one country to another.  I didn't know what t...

It's been five days since I had last gone to the gym.  There were things that got in the way.  I was supposed to go yesterday, Tuesday, but instead I was out fixing a family friend's computer that has been plagued with an undetected malware.  Another time, I had to pry open a laminating machine because a paper got stuck.  There was always something that kept me from going to the gym.  Time sure has a way of adding up when you don't notice it. Today, I made sure I can go to the gym.  I knew that the day, before it even began, would be stressful enough that I need to have some form of release from things that were bugging me.  I took a swim first; I don't know how long that went, but it felt good being underwater.  Not unlike Percy Jackson who relishes the moment being underwater, able to think and block out the noise of the world above.  I did an hour of cardio after that.  I ran on the treadmill for about thirty minutes and then switch...

A few weeks ago, a former officemate who was here on vacation called me up with all the urgency of a woman in labor.  Hoy, sino yung latino? Huh? I could not place who he was referring to. Yung sa facebook mo na comment ng comment. Oh.  Wala, neighbor ko. He went on and on, asking about the details, and being so disappointed that there weren't so many, at least none of the salacious ones he wanted me to dish. He's not alone.  Over the course of days, a few others would buzz me in YM or wherever and ask me about the latino.  I wondered, if maybe I should get a recorder for my standard reply.  I was jogging, his dog ran after me, he ran after his dog, I kept shouting, "My balls, my balls," which until now I don't know why those were the words that came out of my mouth.  That was the only time I've ever seen him, although he added me up in Facebook.  But that was it. Although it seems many find it hard to believe, that me with my raging and op...

I hardly get excited over clothes and I rarely shop for them except when necessary.  The last time I had gone out purposedly to buy clothes was last December.  My friend had to drag me out because it was already the weekend before I was to leave for Europe and I haven't bought any winter clothes yet.  Off we went, but not before we had lunch.  We went from one shop to another checking out sweaters and jackets and scarves and gloves.  My friend tried more clothes than I did.  And by the end of the shopping day, I had bought a scarf and a pair of gloves and he had bought three t-shirts. You still have no jacket! He exclaimed. So on the day before I left, instead of meeting up with my closest friends, I shopped.  The not-so-good thing about me shopping alone is that I don't go to department stores.  It's not an elitist preference, but department stores have so many options and so many racks to go through that they just give me headache and sore f...