Bibliophile

I am an amateur book-lover. I've decided to pursue reading books as an educational, recreational and as a self-fulfilling hobby slash duty when I was first year college (I'm only fifteen years old then). With the myriad treasures and literary satisfaction that can be found and extracted by reading, I've made a stand: I'll be collecting and having those books that I've already read and must-read items I've overheard, referred to and browsed through the Internet. But collecting books is not a cinch.

I always cry foul to see exorbitant prices and taxed books in mainstream bookstores. Why do they oppress and limit the reading capacity of people who can't afford books of such price ranges. That's insufferable indeed. Dead authors still posthumously make a killing through their expensive and bestselling literary tour-de-force. Or is it the publishers? Damn lucky dummies. Anyhow, this is not the intention of my blog entry. I'm here to list down my ever-expanding collection of my own books. I've already read the majority of them, the minority is still pushed to the back-burner and hoarded as though books are edible tangibles.

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle – Haruki Murakami

Sabbath’s Theater – Philip Roth

The Rachel Papers – Martin Amis

Atonement – Ian McEwan

Atomised – Michel Houellebecq

The Possibility of an Island – Michel Houllebecq

The Other Side of Midnight – Sidney Sheldon

The Tunnel Rats – Stephen Leather

War of the Worlds – H.G. Wells

The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde

The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Fountainhead – Ayn Rand

Mr. Murder – Dean Koontz

False Memory – Dean Koontz

The Prophet – Kahlil Gibran

The Man Whose Teeth Was Exactly Alike – Philip K. Dick

The Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens

The Lord of the Flies – William Golding

BFG – Roald Dahl

Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway

Gargantua and Pantagruel – Francois Rabelais

The Catcher in the Rye – J. D. Salinger

The forgotten virtue

At the Sermon on the Mount according to the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus laid out the rudimentary precepts of morality that are to become the foundation of the universality of the church and its dogmas. The sermon included the preaching of the beatitudes and some enlightening discourses. Profound and evoking as they are, Jesus' messages centered on spreading the love for the innate tendency of mankind to be perpetually righteous, upright, virtuous and good. We have the commandments and capital virtues to abide by, and I must say it's kind of tough to catch up with this spiritual requirements (though that is just my two cents). In our constant dismay we find many things that have supplanted our values. We tend to pet our vices rather than uphold virtues and scruples. We rather commit a sin than perform a good deed for the benefit of others.

We already forgot certain things that should be inherent to our nature. Case in point is understanding. Understanding is far deeper and complex than knowledge. You can know someone, but you cannot fully understand someone. Understanding is the sinewy agent that binds gaps and rifts. Understanding holds power vast enough to make this world a good deal of a place to live. Without understanding, we will all be left slack-jawed and incapacitated to different negative thoughts and harmful sentiments. We will all go down the drain without it. Understanding is the key to comprehend the complexity and intricacy of our society, but I'm warning you, it will leave you goggle-eyed and perplexed if you want to understand this universe in general.

Erring politicians, philandering husbands, sleazy whores, snotty brats, mentally slow individuals, homosexuals, murderers, cheaters, no-goodniks, dipsomaniacs, gluts, misfits, con artists, Sunday Christians, sexual offenders, substance abusers, promiscuous women, freaks, racists - the list is pretty much endless. We must put ourselves in the position wherein we have to understand them- why they do, act and think things like that, why their being, chemicals and nature are like that, why they are saddled for the continuity of their lives in a rough, bad and universally unaccepted situation, why are they predisposed to commit socially untoward and misbehaved actions, why are they doing things that are generally and ethically against our founded norms. Unfortunately, the concept of understanding is given less importance and is always misunderstood in this society we are all in. Not because you understand someone already means that you tolerate someone. Not because you are fully aware of something doesn't necessarily mean that you completely agree on it. Not because you express a personal understanding to a crime or action committed does not mean you favor it.

Understanding - this is a long-forgotten virtue. Should people from different color, creed and race start adopting understanding as a virtue, then I foresee less bloodshed, genocides, crimes, wars, conflicts, personal rifts, and arguments in its wake. If we know how to understand, then we will find out that the errors and imperfections we encounter in our lives are part and parcel of our human making.

A Taste of the Hinterlands

Living in the city is very stressful, least to say very exhausting. A minute of celestial silence is as improbable and far-fetched as the idea of having an oasis in the midst of a bustling and hectic megalopolis. Urban developments such as condominiums, exclusive posh villages, and residential houses with claim-to-fame mantras such as ‘paradise in the city’ and other phony craps are tending to disseminate blatant and impulsive prevarication. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. For this matter, I find rural places and bucolic locations an honest-to-goodness seclusion, an abandon to the horrors of the city, a total dissociation from the monstrous traffic gridlocks, the noxious pollution and the barbaric acts of the unlettered.

A few days ago, my mother attended a seminar at Regency Inn in Davao City, Davao and given her long stay there, she grabbed the chance to revisit her quaint island province of Basilan – one of the many lairs of insurgent ASGs, rebels and commies. The tri-media always project Mindanao as the antithesis of peace and order, a piece of hell extruded upward from below. But when my mother arrived there, it’s not. Or it seems not. Development snowballed around the island; new houses were funded by US aids and sanitation was enjoined to every islander, roads were re-blocked, widened and repaired, coastal lands were reclaimed and nourished with immaculately white sand. PGMA even funded the reconstruction of the local parish church.

But I digress. The contention of this weblog is not to laud PGMA for her fruitful although dogged efforts to sustain development in the remotest islands and places domineered by pseudo politicos. This is just a sidebar. Moving on, my mother recounted that even though development has started to unfold, their traditional way of life is still being observed. The endemic fruit-bearing trees still yield productively. The tranquility of the rural milieu is still extant and indelible.

Having said those, my mother laments how scant the electricity is due to the rotating blackouts in Mindanao, and how her bath time rituals are curbed. Isn’t the absence of electricity a truly distinguishing hallmark of rural life, away from any technological intervention? Drought there is quite incredible, she observes, because the grasses and trees are as verdant as ever, and mind you, it rained there.

When my mother arrived here in Manila, she overwhelmed us with exciting stories back from her precious homeland. She brought pasalubong and some other stuff you can seldom buy in the city. She brought makopa ( Malacca apple) which is called locally as tambis, and purple makopa which tastes like duhat, (Java plum) the fruits just shed off from the branches and disperse profusely on the ground. She also brought agar-agar (seaweed), meat of baboy-ramo (wild boar), dried fishes, squids, small-sized shaddocks, durian macaroons, bukayo, lokot-lokot, and peanut purée. She would have brought home more fruits, had she been not collared in some frivolous air security snarl wherein she was weighed and was required to pay extra. It was totally unfair, she cries foul, because she’s overweight; the hand-carried items and backpacks notwithstanding.

New Year. New Fears.

Egad. It's 2010 already, and I still couldn't come up with a probable solution to end my delusions and illusions that are constantly haunting my consciousness. I haven't end up with a neat new-year's must do and the proverbial new year's resolution as well, but I think I can outlive those things. I am just looking forward to being an organized, proactive, Homo Sapiens who is perfectly exuding the aura of resolute will and unwavering principles. By the way, am planning to buy a New Year planner, though it is almost already a month late, and I am thinking that this might be a very big leap forward for me, a monolith of an imaginary bridge to connect the distant crevices of my present situation and the near-perfect situation I am always concocting in the convolutions of my mind.

Maybe, just maybe, having a planner would put a halt to my grandstanding hallucinations about this freakin' life. I am always pitted in a whirlwind of different reveries only to learn that gradually, I find my self dissociated from the normalcy of this world. And I think, this planner, (ooh, how I badly need you!) would become my lifeline to the two contrasting worlds where I find no difficulty to slip by into. Or would open another portal to another feasible dimension or dimensions, so that I could linger in the choice of turning my back on the world I am already inured with? I dunno. Maybe I'll have the planner first.

Poisoning the Well

It was poison. Yes, it was. That delicate thing preposterously dolled up into an amateurish veneer was nothing but a harmful lump of vomit-inducing crap. It would dizzy your senses and delude you into thinking that you were great, wonderful and awfully brilliant, but the harsh reality was that, you were a sore loser. Your vulnerable stance would just exacerbate it. And all the insensitive people around you would add more bitter insults to the irrevocable injury. You thought of it as a mighty thing worthy of your short-lived attention, and that it was as good as having a vanilla-chocolate sundae all messed up on your hands and mouth, but which was just fine, because the flavor was too deliciously decadent. You would laugh at how shallow the order of some things in life was, and at your back was a horde of uncouth shadows, casting aspersions upon your unwitting and pathetic soul for doing such a thing. The big surprises you had anticipated for so long, oh, they were all but fictitious fragments imbibed on your head.

As you mull these weighty tragedies over, your mortal body would just squirm in unbearable pain brought about by a substance foreign to your being. That substance was a debilitating poison meant to ruin the flawed logistics of your already ruined life. With all these bitterness and desperation, it was just as pointless as having a cessation in your physical motor, but it was just as stupidly moronic as having killed yourself for not getting even to those who wronged you. It was poison, you are pretty sure of that, and you were resolved to take the lion’s share in your own heroic story of defeat. And to make things straight, your foolproof plan of injecting that poison to those who were heavily involved would just do well. And it was too perfect.

Farewell, Penthouse

Let’s say goodbye, the hundredth time, and tomorrow we’ll do it again

– My Chemical Romance

Penthouse – this is a special place brimful of memories that will hold a special part in the hearts of its occupants lulled to a bottomless ocean of hopes and dreams. Its lofty location is a downside to weak and shaky knees unaccustomed to endure winding stairs, with the innumerable flight of steps to boot. Getting here to feel its magnetic warmth would surely offset the tiresome jaunt. This can be the only place in the campus where only few of the many bright minds meet, where individuals of different idiosyncrasies, ideals and endeavors congregate, where brainiacs gather to postulate senseless and sensible theories, debunk faulty procedures and standards, and raise significant and not-so-significant points for this small world to acknowledge or refute. This is the only place where intense intercourses are an imperative to ejaculate the irrepressible qualms of the curious mind; and masturbation is solace for the world-weary and downtrodden spirits (of course, this is done mentally). If you want to unwind after the school hours, feel free to sing and belt out gibberish to your heart’s content and drown your sorrows with a surplus of general knowledge, anecdotes, criticisms, bloopers, juicy gossips, highbrow words, prejudices, porno reviews and all that jazz. This is the only place where euphemisms are always triple-entendre, where the genderless Christian God can have a phallus, where formalities and politeness are temporarily disregarded for the sake of barbarism, and where appearances are just superficial attributes to the deception each and everyone is capable of doing. Those who have already set foot on this hallowed ground will surely realize that life is a cosmic joke of sorts. The transience and impermanence of life is but an outright contradiction against its essence and purpose.

Should the killer boredom strike unbidden, there’s another world which lay just on the other side of this working room. It is colloquially known as the Veranda. The vistas of the Manila skyscrapers puncturing the sky, the colossal statue of Lapu-Lapu facing west, the LRT carriageway with its three generations of train cars, the massive corroding columns and girders of the former Jai Alai Building, plus a beautiful sundown rendered picturesque by Rayleigh scattering and the polluted Manila air, make it a favorite haunt for those who want to kill time and want to derive inspiration from some elusive and unseen Muses.

This place has already charmed many generations; those who are too smitten by its mystical aura can vouch for that. At this point in time, letting go of an old friend may not become a piece of cake. Packing bags, stripping it of its contents and vacating it for good are equal to saying those unutterable parting words. So long and good-bye.

Star Gazing

I always love to look at the stars, to marvel at their nocturnal beauty, and to admire them wholeheartedly like a teary-eyed child after recovery of his lost cherished playthings. So God really loves all of us, and just by looking at the stars I feel kind of extra-special because of this mystery-laden wonder. He, who flung about lump of rocks and self-illuminating gaseous balls in this ink-black stretch of vastness, is the reason behind the intelligent design of all things seen and still unseen.

And now, we can enjoy romantic candle-lit dinners under the star-seeded heavens, with the faint but cute backdrop of the Milky Way, the ambient light of the full moon, the twinkling constellations and the short-lived pretty shooting stars in a collision course towards the Earth.

It never fails to amaze me that we are all just microscopic carbon-based specks dwarfed by celestial supergiants and humongous spheres of helium and hydrogen. These things, some of which are beyond human scale, do nothing but evoke perplexity and human insignificance.

Nevertheless, we are no ordinary creations; we can think, we can reason out, we can feel, we can fare the oceans, and we can reach the heavens and the outer space. But from an omniscient point of view, we are just wretched bunch of grasping creatures, ever clueless and confounded as to what the Creator’s intentions really are.

I always love to look at the stars and ask myself the absurd, oft-repeated question Why am I here? What if I’m just created to admire the starry skies? What if my sole mortal purpose – my raison d’etre – is to become astonished by the Universe’s inscrutable complexities? I don’t know… I don’t know yet.

Nang Binosohan ko ang Mundo Nila

Ang sarap pala maging bossing, kahit saglitan lang. Kapag binigyan ka na ng oportunidad na umupo sa dakilang office chair (ang pinakamatayog sa lahat), wala ka nang ibang papangarapin pa kung hindi ma-glue ang pwet mo sa kalambutan nito. Gagawin mong tomba-tomba ang leather na upuan, dede-kwatro ka at kukuyakoy, itataas-baba ang lever, at iikot-ikot ito na parang carousel. Sa harap mo naman ay nakatambad ang isang computer monitor na widescreen ang aspect ratio, nakakalula ito, pero sanayan lang. Fit for a king, ika nga.

Pwede kang manood ng hardcore porn na life-size dito, pero sa bahay mo gagawin yun, dahil ikaw nga ang bossing, disente ka dapat. Kapag trip mo naman, puede mong utusan yung mga subordinate mo na ipagtimpla ka ng kapeng walang asukal, o ibili ka ng Coke Zero sa Mini-Stop. Mag-a-abot ka lang ng malutong na paper bill habang sumisipol at tatapik-tapikin mo ang armrest ng iyong 'seat of authority.' Maangas di ba? Pero may mas maangas pa dyan. Ikaw, bilang bossing, ang kinatawan ng kampanya mo at ikaw ang haharap at mambo-bola sa mga kliyente. Ang mga tauhan mo naman ang sasagot ng telepono at magbu-bukas ng pintuan kapag may bisita. Sila ang magko-compute kung magkano ang total expenditure ng inyong kumpanya sa mga nagdaang buwan; ikaw naman ay hihikab lang ng malaki habang pupungay-pungay ang mga mata. Ikaw ang utak, sila naman ang kamay. Kung baga sa pelikula, ikaw ang bida, at mga sidekick lang sila.

Hindi lang masarap maging bossing, masaya din pala. Bilang bossing madiskarte ka dapat, madaling mag-isip, may presence of mind at may katangian ng isang competent na pinuno. Hindi ka magiging bossing kung pagtunganga lang ang skill mo, ang pagba-browse ng mga sexy picture ni Ariani Nogueira ang inaatupag mo, at pagfe-Facebook at sumagot ng quiz ang agenda mo sa office hours. Kung ganito ka, wala kang karapatang umapak sa hallowed grounds ng isang opisina; mas bagay kang mamitas ng mga talbos sa kangkungan.

Ang sarap pala maging bossing. Dahil narating mo ang isang tuktok na sinimulan mong akyatin galing sa baba. Bossing ka, hindi dahil pinalad ka, kung hindi dahil naunahan mo ang mga subordinates mo sa isang uphill climb, dahil mapangahas ka at malakas ang stamina mo na lampasan ang mga pagsubok. Pustahan, wala ka sa posisyon mong yan ngayon kung wala kang direksyon sa buhay, magulo man ito pero hawak mo pa rin ang manibela. Dahil hindi ka nakaupo sa napakalambot na office chair kung wala kang commitment sa trabaho mo. At dahil hindi ka ngayon naka-titig sa nakakaliyong monitor kung hindi ka nag-pursige, nag-tiyaga at minsan ay nag-ilusyon na magiging bossing ka rin.

Inspiration

It is a gut instinct to stoop down at the sight of a beautiful object or a formidable piece of art that triggers and evokes chaste emotional admiration. But to weep at them is more sublime than to kneel in astonishment. To appreciate aesthetics in its raw and final form is nothing compared to dissecting the materialization of a form starting from random whims and concepts up to its making. Creating an art out of nothing is the climax. Having a productive input is the anticlimax. From an outright vacuum sprouts horror vacui, a chaos blooms into order and unity, and a vast array of beautiful form and shape pandering to man’s every senses is admittedly the corollary. We see magnum opuses of all sorts every day, we pass across them, step on them, touch them, but some people’s appreciation is threateningly low. Those who overlook have little or no sense of harmony at all. The minority who appreciate are those who build, improve and keep each and every type, kind and form of art. Those who destroy have no sense of harmony; they have incongruent minds that signify disorder. Nature, the mother of all art, must be revered and respected. Being the highest form of art and the unanimous apotheosis of beauty, it lends form to many facets of man’s way of life and way of thinking. So the next time you see a marvellous creation, it is not necessary for you to kneel and fake a baby cry, just breathe deeply, relax, and let the Muses do take control.

Kingpin

If I were a kingpin, then you were a cog. Guilt of insignificance may attack anyone unawares, but it still can be remedied. If you find yourself a waste of space, a particle of dust that always end up stuck on allergic nostrils, then your days are now numbered. Finding your niche in this world is not that easy, but learning to adapt to every situation will surely make a big difference.

In Between Sex and Scandal

WITH PURITY AND WITH HOLINESS I will pass my life and practice my Art. I will not cut persons laboring under the stone, but will leave this to be done by men who are practitioners of this work. Into whatever houses I enter, I will go into them for the benefit of the sick, and will abstain from every voluntary act of mischief and corruption; and, further from the seduction of females or males, of freemen and slaves.

-Excerpts from the Hippocratic Oath.


*************

If I were to record a video of myself having a kinky coitus with a voluptuous, submissive and oversexed woman on a king-size bed, I would make sure that that precious video would last more than eleven minutes full of erupting passion. I would position the handy video cam in a well-hidden vantage point without her knowing it. I would perform sadomasochistic rituals worthy of videoing, and then perfect both the introductory and closing rites with a brain-freezing, mind-blowing you-know-what. I would make sure the audio is fine-tuned and the LCD allows for ultra light sensitivity to record superbly the melodic moans and the fast-paced drama. After the fussy preparations for this act of love would come the fruition – a sex video that would make illicit movie pirates earn easy bucks and the old conservative fogies of the Optical Media Board gloat with disgust, or horniness, for all I know. But that would only happen if I was a person who was out of his mind, a person whose sanity was hanging by a thread. If I recorded one, or yet another one, I would meticulously stash it into a personalized compartment at home, and it was my duty not to leak them in the cyber space and garner the monitors of sex-starved netizens jerking off their way onto the pearly gates of heaven.

Never would I share them to everyone, even to my closest friends, and never would I let my partner know it. But the lecherous pervert that I was, and if necessity of thrill arose, I would upload the carnal video sans the incriminating faces of mine and my partner to protect our ‘dignity’ and save my sorry ass from the curbed humiliation. Oh, paradoxes really go hand in hand. And if I were a public-servant professional, a practicing physician with the well-chiseled body, the good looks and a bountiful libido, with the hots for groin-paining chinita TV commercial models, and actresses who splurge money on habitual rhinoplasty and breast augmentation, and Amazon models, I should duly find a way not to spill the beans of my dirty deeds. I should play safe because if and only if I were an ethical person; and I should not if I were a brash, attention-seeking, perverted prick. Not to mention that I have had violated human rights, so to speak.

*************

If you want the link/s for the video sites, find them yourself in the Internet. Just be resourceful. Take my word for it.

Haiku: Rain

It's not that I'm feeling emo because of typhoon Emong, it's just that I'm running out of decent things to do.


_________


Rain, rain, go away,

Why early in summer days?

Ashore, let me play.


________

So instead of going out, I am cooping up myself in the house, thanks to the intermittent rain showers and a signal-number-one storm unusual for the sunny season. Earlier this day, I took a bath under the rain, and the raindrops were piercing and pelting my skin. Acid rain, probably.

Olats

Mamula-mula na ang mukha mo, mukhang may amats ka na naman. Kagagaling mo lang siguro ng inuman kasama ang mga barkada mong paniguradong may amats na rin at gumagapang na pauwi ng bahay.

Alam ko, mas malala ka pa sa mga iyon, sa mga basag-ulong utak-biya at sunog-baga na mga kaibigan mo, na walang ginawa kung hindi turuan ka ng samu’t saring kabulastugan ngunit tinutulungan ka naman sa harap ng mga katakut-takot na problema. Maganda ‘yun, pero ang mga ginagawa mo, hindi talaga maganda.

Alam kong rinding-rindi ka na at bad-trip na bad-trip na sa mga sigaw at utos ni ermat at ni erpat, sa mga sermon at take-home assignment ng mga prof na mga nagmamagaling sa buhay, sa mga utang sa kamag-aral na hindi pa nababayaran, sa pagiging busted mo ng ika-limang beses in a row at sa na-hack mong Friendster account.

Ngayon, sumusuray-suray ka na, nahihirapang bumalanse dahil sa labis-labis na alak, naghahanap ng makakapitan, at naghahanap ng makikisalo sa iyong pasanin. Maswerte kang nilalang at nandito ako, lasing lamang sa pangarap, ngunit ang tuhod naman ay matatag, hindi basta-basta bumibigay.

Habang inaalalayan kita, nakita ko ang nangingilid na luha sa mga mata mo. Akala ko matapang ka, malakas ang loob, at hindi basta-basta nagpapatalo. Ngayon, para ka nang isang lampayatot na nadapa, isang uhuging batang inagawan ng Stick-O, isang uugod-ugod na gurang na sabay inatake ng rayuma at depresyon dulot ng pakikinig ng emo na tugtugin.

Oo na, isa na akong malaking talunan, biglang sambit mo.

Napahagalpak na lang akong bigla sa mga sinabi mong yun, pero hindi na ako nagulat, dahil alam ko naman ‘yun simula’t sapul pa nang nakilala kita.

Alam mo, hindi ka lang isang malaking talunan, isa ka ring malaking hangal, magiliw kong sinabi sa ‘yo.

Hangal, dahil sa pag-aakala mong ikaw lang ang pumapasan sa nakamamatay na bigat ng daigdig, na ikaw lang ang tangi at kalunus-lunos na biktima ng iyong kunwa-kunwariang tadhana. At hangal dahil masyado ka nang nalalayo sa reyalidad.

Tinapik-tapik ko ang likod mo, at pagdaka’y ngumalngal ka na lang bigla sa gitna ng malungkot na dis-oras ng gabi.

Ayos lang yan, sabi ko sa ‘yo, ilabas mo lang lahat ng sama ng loob mo sa pag-iyak at bubuti rin naman ang lahat. Yun nga lang, mukhang matatagalan pa.

Bigla mo na lang pinilit tumahan sa abot ng iyong makakaya, at sinundan ito ng katahimikan. Bakit, anong problema? Tinanong kita.

Siguro, pag makita ako ng mga kaibigan ko nang ganito, baka bigla nila akong gulpihin.

Bakit naman?

Dahil hindi naman sila ganito tulad ko kahit mas talunan pa sila kesa sa akin. At kahit na mas patapon ang mga buhay nila kesa sa akin.

Bigla na lang akong napa-buntong-hininga, at pagkatapos ay napangiti dahil napag-tanto mo na rin sa wakas ang ganyang bagay, at mukhang nahimasmasan ka na.

Ano, tara, inom ulit tayo, anyaya ko sayo.

At bigla ka nalang bumitaw sa pagkakakapit sa akin.

Out of Order

On your way to school or work, you suddenly sense that your bladder has distended, perhaps from surfeit of liquid waste, and then you feel the urgency to extract the juices out of your urinary viscera to ease the discomfort. You will look for the nearest public establishment, say, Mcdonald’s, to have a precious pee-pee, and to feel afterwards that you belong again to the world. But much to your disappointment, all the urinals and cubicles, if not occupied, are out of order.

Yes, as the Murphy’s Law states it, anything that can go wrong will go wrong. And all things that go wrong are hands down irritating. But some things that come crashing are not all the time sources of further dismay and grievances. Sometimes, they have a bright side— a silver lining. They have subliminal messages of fulfilment and satisfaction.

Back to the subject of the out of order urinals and cubicles, well, that kind of situation is one of those rare moments of implicit affliction where you can derive empathy and develop a brimming love for the meaning of existence. Do not let a full bladder miff you so much; instead, take pleasure in an annoying situation for it will never last long. You may either leave the place to look for another john or let yourself be petrified on the spot by a full bladder. You shall relish the indignity being offered by the moment, and in this way, you will never feel offended by any circumstantial ineptitude.

Take for example the omorashi fetishists who enjoy a full bladder. Now, do you get the picture?

In a manner of speaking, a feeling of joyous supremacy and domination can be derived from a mishap, a failure, a contretemps, a defeat. And from our proverbial out-of-order-urinals-and-cubicles example, you can attain a Nirvana-ish sentience and indulge in a fit of self-actualization just by enshrining an untoward moment. Just like a sexually-starved masochist who will willingly transform blows of torturous pain into an orgiastic and gratifying pleasure of the senses. It is turning a negative force to a positive one. It is countering a negative mood with a positive aura.

Simply put, you must bask into moments of inadequacy, of wrong twists of fate and of bungled circumstances, and enjoy them like hell. Yeah, enjoy them like hell. And laugh at them if you want to, with a matching sinister laugh undertoned by sarcasm. Laugh at your bloody mistakes, and laugh at the universe’s inevitable glitches and lapses as well. Life is fleeting, and so are the innumerable negativity and flop appended to it.

One Muggy Summer Morning…

I was in the midst of a maelstrom of dreams when a thunderous bellowing had abruptly made me half-awake. The booming voice was very familiar. My sense of hearing identified the coarse tone, the high-pitched voice, and the reckless litany of foul words- it was my mother’s.

‘This house was never been a house! Everything was messed up! I was away for only two days, and no one cared to fix things here! ’

My eyes were still closed and I decided to continue my sleep hoping to catch up with the unfinished dream. But the words were persistently penetrating my eardrums.

‘And you Alex, (my big brother, not his real name) you are not always here! You lazy ass!!! If you’re here at this friggin’ house, you’re busy, and you’re with your cohorts while minding insignificant matters. You frequently bring friends here as if this bedeviled house is a party house! Look at the heap of dried clothes in the sofa, they weren’t even friggin’ touched! Who'll gonna do them for you? The socks, the hankies! Get up from the bed! Son of a sloth!!!’

Perhaps this is only a terrible adjunct to my formerly-dulcet dream. Or could it be a nightmare?

‘And you Ellen (my little sister, not her real name of course), you’re a girl but you don’t have a sense of order. Look everywhere!!! Whore! You don’t even know how to sweep the rooms, or arrange what has been disorganized! Bummer!!! Now get up from bed too or I’ll hit you with the friggin’ broom!’

Broom. The word reverberated. Ah, it perfectly rhymes with room. Holy Guacamole! My room! MY ROOM!!!

‘And you ____(my name withheld), while I’m away, you’re away too! You’ve been friggin’ gone for whole two days. You are of no help in this house! Look at your friggin’ room! It’s an annex to some stinking dump site! You choose, make a magic to clean it or I’ll throw your things away? I’ll give you an ultimatum, and if you don’t do anything, you'll see what you're looking for! Now unlock your room, I'll get the hangers! You're getting on my nerves!!!’

‘Ackkk!!! I’m friggin’ late! This is all your fault.! I’m the one who lives nearest to our office, but I always arrive late. You know why, because I commit all my mornings cleaning this fucked-up place!!! Really fucked-up! You’re supposed to be helping me out to maintain cleanliness, but look! All your junks, your rubbish, I’m gonna burn this house soon! You friggin’ children of whores!!! Oh, the bitches! The scabies-infested pups! Who let them on the loose? The neighbors are griping!’

If the discordant voice and the pernicious accusations were an earthquake, then my ears were a Richter scale. The seismic magnitude is so prodigious that mitigating the damages would be unnecessary.

Mother’s last words faded like an echo of a plinking campanile, deafening yet remaining. When the decibels of pure, concentrated silence sallied forth from out of nowhere, I gratefully snuggled my pillows to find reprieve. Ah! The sounds of the chirruping birds and the cockadoodledooing roosters outside the window are so endearing to hear. It is going to be a fine, sunny day ahead for sure.

The Tales of The Irked

The charisma and economic appeal of the LRT is still unfaltering and indomitable for the commuting hoi polloi. But I, for one, reckon that the LRT operations should be suspended or canceled once in a while just to save a great deal of money, time, effort, morality and yes, virtue.

Every LRT train car has their own violent vortex to unmercifully suck gullible commuters inside, and pucker them like dried sardines in a tin can. If you are uninterested to wait for the next crowded train, you might as well squeeze your flesh and bones in the midst of the thick passenger plethora in the train car. If and only if you are one of God’s lucky children, nothing bad will happen to you. Then if you are an inborn jinx, you might end up with a broken finger, leg or wrist, or a face slammed smack on the automatic door’s tempered-glass panels. The scenario in almost all equally-populated stations is a pathetic scene to behold, let alone the jam-packed concourse and ungodly queue lengths.

Inside the train cars, it is an impossible actuation to strain any bodily muscles, only your eyeballs are allowed to spontaneously move. The motley crew of passengers also means motley of ineffable and indistinguishable aromas emanating from dysfunctional sebaceous glands. The homogenous mixture is a putrid combination, rivaling that of Payatas’ mélange of malodorous vapor. You are spared from such a lurid snarl if you have nostrils clogged with thick, hardened calculus or you instantly acquired anosmia just in the nick of time.

Another complication that could follow is the presence of lechers and maniacs. Women will be perverted as long as there is a chance, and men are not exempted from that. If there were lascivious asinine old-timers, there would also be the equine cross-dressing faggots. These LRT stock characters will leverage the insufferable horde of unsuspecting people in their own sexual behooves. Pickpockets, however, will never be left out of the scene, they are but infuriatingly passé.

If you steeled yourself to muscle in on the train car successfully, the effort you exerted in your initial venture must be quadrupled to get out past the intransigent standing passengers. You need not to mind kneeing frail legs or stepping on newly-pedicured toes because your co-passengers also would not mind blocking your way. Now, that’s what you call an efficient human barrier.

After alighting from such horror, the turnstile within sight is the consoling prize for you. Your ride is just like finishing an arduous marathon, only less than the stretch of the Baclaran-Monumento route. For occasional commuters, this is a stinking dung heap to hurdle. For the inured habitués, this is the inexorable way of life.

Mama Don't Preach

If there’s something I want to change in my life, it is my not being serious towards everything I do. You may find me a family rebel slash occasional family yes-man or even a sleazy boy slash seldom dutiful boy who knows a lot about cooking but pigs out all food in the refrigirator by his self, the heaven I care. I’m into anything under the hot, scorching sun. I am a maestro specializing in the art of sleeping, but I dunno how to smoothen out the gazillion convolutions and creases my bed cover has. I let my room become a Petri dish for multifaceted organisms and lifeforms to breed. I’m appreciative to the aesthetic effect the drooping gossamers have done to the cornice of my room’s ceiling. I half open the windows in my room to orchestrate the moisture so that mildews, molds and extraterrestrial toadstools would sprout healthily on every nook and cranny in my room. (Now God will be proud of me for sharing my sacrosanct pigsty to some of his other creations.) Am I really that eccentric, eh? On weekday mornings, I swear to God that I really don’t know what a comb is. Or what in the whole wide world a mirror is. I only know hair wax- which I use it to dishevel more my very disheveled hair, and perfume, you know, to add sweet, saccharine smell to my not-so-sweet aura. Call me unwell-groomed, and I’ll take it as a million-dollar compliment.

As I go out school-bound to ride a jeep, I’ll have to trudge about 359 paces going to the main road to remember that I forget something. It’s perfunctory that I’ll journey back homeward to get either my allowance, my hanky, my school ID, my water tumbler, or my hair wax, which I use to dishevel more my very disheveled hair. Nonetheless, I’m a tad boy with not-so-tad ambitions. I can perfect quizzes (please insert a round of applause or a hook punch swoop cue here) and flunk the morrow quizzes. I am your average student who yawns widely in front of the lecturing professor as he kindles more of the collective tedium in the classroom; I impulsively pick my nose as mad as a hatter while jotting down stenographic notes, and sleep while simulating how fishes doze off without their having to close their eyes.

So, I said I have not-so-tad ambitions. Yep, just like anyone else. Those ambitions, I must say, were formulated without being mulled over seriously. Now they are stashed in some uncharted stead inside my gray matter, waiting to be dispatched or to be rehashed for future references. For now, I am a sitting duck. My stance is vulnerable to extraneous influences and a helluva deviltry, perhaps because I did not give ample seriousness to the minutiae of my existential being, or to the discombobulating enigma of life. Oh life. Or it is just an upshot of my being an ungrateful brat who never says grace before and after meals?

I am just a curious creature with much obscure questions to ask. I know you smart-Aleck kid would precociously reply that it is natural for we, as humans, are rational beings. But sometimes I am irrational, kiddo. At times, I easily believe in things that I read, hear and see. Tell me that Richard Dawkins will apologetically recant his blasphemous creator-smashing philosophies, and I will cheerfully spread the loving news to my little sister, to my little sister’s friends, to the friends of my little sister’s friends, and to the friends of the friends of my little sister’s friends with vim and vigor. Persuade me more to read and reread and overdose myself with Conrado de Quiros’ almost-Machiavellian rants, and in no time, I’ll become a die-hard and true-blue PGMA destructive critic.

I once questioned my purpose, my life, and all those itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny things that happen here and there. What if the Creation Theory is just a figment of someone’s imagination and fart combined? What if reincarnation is true, and then you find yourself reincarnated on an inanimate object, say, a toilet paper? Then holy baloney, the unsolicited law of karma will take center stage. All the shit you heaped upon everyone in your mundane days will backfire, and you know next that you’re a dead meat. Thence, the literal shit will be literally wiped on your literally whole fibrous fabric, it’s your just punishment, and all you can do is curse and ululate “you asShole, ya’ll pay for this!!!’ sans the vocal cords, to that rotten, befouled fundament who tainted you.

Honestly, I want to have a normal outlook and mindset in life. I’m tired of intrusive thoughts, soul-searching, contemplation and incessant whining about Pluto’s miserable eviction as a planet in the Solar System. I just want to do unique things, experience new things, and efface some of my unpleasant behaviors. I want to be kind all the time, like trying to flash my pearly-white smile to everyone I will come across, even if I don’t know anyone of them. In due respect to my moral principles I edified some years ago, I will never scribble again phallic symbols drawn side by side a stylized, diamond-shaped linear vulva on the school’s drafting tables as I brim with overweening machismo assertion (you fool, it is not vandalism, it is art.) I will never shout again muted expletives and invectives against my professors, my parents, my friends and to the priests back home who say mass for two hours. I will never ever surf the net again at home at ungodly hours just to find some softcore, dulcet-moaning Ozawa vid clips just to end up waking my nosy mother in the adjacent room. I will never blow my nose again in front of or near a church even if it can’t be helped (blame the god-damned polluted air) and et cetera.

As I cogitate for a fitting closing salvo, I became a doubting Thomas; I doubted my self, my one and only ally in times of doubled trouble, “what if I only play a minor role in the significance of the universe?” My spastic fingers and strained eyes, too, questioned my consciousness and my enervated synapses, “Hey, are you on illegal drugs? Why are you typing this kind of bosh and sappy things? ” “Nah ah,” I said. “So, you are really going to take life seriously? It’s quite a big leap.” “Not really,” I retorted, “I’ll just do it as some teenybopper named Jordin Sparks sings it— one step a time. Oh, I almost forget, there’s no need to rush.”

Parallel Universe

What if there really is a parallel universe out there, a macrocosm wherein a version of you and me exists? If that is probable, they might be more intimate than bosom friends, treading any path together only centimeters apart, more affectionate than eager lovers, with hands glued together. There could be a vast field where they always frolic under the sun, carefree all the time, because of a sinewy emotional bond that ties them together. They could also think of nothing else but each other, doing nothing but kill time and banter while saying sweet nothings, telling each other how much love has engulfed them. In that parallel universe, they will never run out of time, there will be no roadblocks, no hassles, and no impasse. But all of that are big ifs. What if that parallel world is a coincidental one? It will only conclude that the idea of us being together is preposterous. We will still remain the same immobile acquaintances, used to exchanging his and hellos under a cloudy and somber day.