The Angel

The world is in chaos down below.  Too many buildings rising, too many cars passing by, too many people walking.  The humidity almost makes me want to add a bimpo  as a fashion accessory.  I had conditioned myself before to expect that it would be crowded, but it's more crowded than I imagined it would be.  A couple of days ago, I met up with a high school friend and she asked me, "For good na ba ang uwi mo?"  And I said, "For better or worse."  Till death do you part?  Well, that's the goal.

When I read about a TV actor who came out recently, I was gladdened--especially when I learned that he has a long-term partner and adopted children. I thought, that's promising. I've read of others, stories of another era, of guys being in long-term relationships, but eventually, in the later years of their lives, opting to open the relationship to others. I've always felt discouraged and disheartened by that. The way people seem to take so lightly their commitments and relationships. I know that some subscribe to that. As an acquaintance had told me not long ago, cheating and third or even fourth parties are the most common causes of breakups in gay relationships--so why not just have an open relationship? And I thought: what if you have an open relationship and you fell hard on your side dish and he wants to be exclusive? Well, that has never happened, he said. In the long run, you'll get bored with each other. Oh. You don't have to be gay to have that r...

I was reading something last night when a short story popped into my head. The memory--and the story--came out of nowhere, like remembering something I didn't know I've forgotten. The story itself was like a long soliloquy. One man, at the beginning of fall, ruminating about the crowd that has fled the summer haven in New York to go back to their respective, somewhat dreary lives. He observes a couple who lives on the beach, the same way he has observed them for years. A little bit far and distant, but longing, sometimes plotting, to be part of their lives. One rainy night, he decided he needed some spice, something he didn't have so he'd be forced to ask them, strike a conversation and, perhaps, get invited inside--it was raining hard, after all. He had imagined what the inside of their house looked like, how the conversation would go; perhaps some drinks and an introduction, but nevertheless a gateway, into the life of the couple that, for so long, he had admired. ...

Whenever someone would ask me, I used to say I'll never do it, in a low growl that said, how can you even ask me that question? I used to think it was unnecessary, completely symbolic, and it makes a mockery of the real thing. I used to think I never needed it. Until the world, in a way, opened my eyes. It was last year, I remember. I read a news article about a man denied of seeing his life partner of more than 40 years in his last moments because they're not, in any way, related. Only family and bloodlines were allowed. He who spent all his waking and sleeping moments with the dying was barred because nothing in the law said they were related, not by blood nor by ring. There were several other stories I've read through the months. Of health benefits not being extended to a partner simply because they weren't married; of partners being denied lodging simply because both of them happened to be males; of the killings in African nations simply because of who they are....

This much I know about myself.  I’ll never be able to get around the kitchen without a recipe book.  The most that I can cook is rice and anything fried.  Even frying something gives the possibility of getting it burnt (well done, to be nice about it.)  I’ll never have the aesthetic and the capability to keep a house looking clean, interior-designed and decorated.  On that note, I know I can never maintain a house clean for more than a week.  Things will be messy before the week ends.  I’ll never be able to iron clothes properly. They always come out like they’ve never been ironed at all.  I’ll never be able to do my own laundry.  I’ve tried before but it’s exhausting and back-breaking.  I’d rather wash the dishes.  It’s probably the only thing I can do around the house.  Aside from fixing defective light bulbs or leaky faucets.  I have two left feet when it comes to household chores.  I’ll never have the patience to shop for clothes.  It will always irritate me.  And I’ll never care m...

I have to write this down, because the opposite tends to happen after I’ve said or written it.  Everything else had come true, except for the last one. There were many things she said about me, how I am not of the journalistic kind.  I’m not the one to write down facts, but make up stories.  That I could spend hours lost in space, because my imagination always runs amuck. You seem to be in the middle of a big decision in your career.  You’re one foot in, one foot out.  I see travels within six months, out of the country.  Any relationship you have now or will have within the next two years will be trial relationships.  It will never last.  When you’re 30 or 31, you will meet someone and that will be the one.  The in-laws will not be welcoming to you, but you won’t care and it won’t matter to you. That was the end of October last year.  The seasons have ended by January.  I did quit work and did go out of the country last Decem...

The closet is empty, except for what I will have to wear this week.  It took me two hours, two small boxes, and one luggage bag to pack up my life.  I don't have a lot of things and I don't need a lot of things.  I can always get by with the minimum. July has always been a month of transition, at least for the last four years. Whether it's a new job, a new position,  a new account, or a new house, the first month of the second half of the year has always been marked with change, a move to something different.  Of course, there have been changes in other months, but last Saturday I realized I have been working for four years already.  It's nothing to crow about really since most people my age would have been working 6 or 7 years already.  Most people my age have done something greater or better, moved up the corporate ladder or traveled the world.  I never dreamed of climbing ladders. Maybe traveling the world, but that's a different story. ...

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...

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 ...