Smoke and Mirrors

"Ricky Martin: I'm a fortunate homosexual man."

don't tell me you didn't see that cominG. what, having 2 kids through artificial insemination and surrogacy didn't tip you off?

i knew it the first time he shook his bon boN.

i just find it surprising how most of my girl friends and some straight male friends were in a state of collective shock/disbelief because of this "revelatioN".

to me, it's like Eric Quizon, Piolo Pascual, Uma Khuni (sp?), Paolo Ballesteros, Eric Santos, and a whole slew of other "manly men", holding a press conference on national TV admitting that they are all rainbow colored goddesseS. Hindi nga??! /sarcasm

i remember coming out to my moM. it wasn't as theatrical as i imagined it would bE. it was just me uttering those two words every straight laced parent dread to hear. i've come up with scenarios in my head as to what level of hysteria my mom would be in. i even went as far as planning the blocking. where i would stand mattered, if a projectile came my way, i have room to maneouver.

but all she said was, "i know" and the look in her eyes told me that everything's going to be alrighT. and after that, it was easy.

in hindsight, i didn't really come out to my daD. he just got it from my ever lovable telegraph of a mom. he gave me the silent treatment for a month but he warmed up soon after.

what was surprisingly difficult was inadvertently coming out to my relativeS. i didn't really plan on doing so, but our chismosa household help (who's no longer with us, thank god!), slipped up. spilling the beans to one of my chismosa titas in the process. it's true what they say: walls have ears. mukha kasi syang dingding!

what made it awkward was the fact that most of relatives think i am just in a "phase". they never cease with the "when are you going to get married?", and the "let me hook you up with mare/pare's daughter".

my pet peeve? patronizing me with "sayang ka".

i guess what it taught me was that people who care about you a lot can look past the reflecting pool; those who care less are scandalized by what they see and it serves as fodder for their incessant need for something or someone to judge.

--

no matter how late he did it, i commend Ricky for embracing his truth. in a world of bigots and intolerant fools, all we have is our truth. what we do with it is up to us. let them give me hell, it doesn't matter. i just keep my head held high. in that, i win.

Waxing and Waning

look out your window and say hi to the mooN.

The Farmers' Almanac defined blue moon as an extra full moon that occurred in a season; one season was normally three full moons. If a season had four full moons, then the third full moon was named a blue moon.

Using the Farmers' Almanac definition of blue moon (meaning the third full moon in a season of four full moons), blue moons occur

• November 21, 2010
• August 21, 2013
• May 21, 2016

Recent popular usage defined a blue moon as the second full moon in a calendar month, stemming from an interpretation error made in 1946 that was discovered in 1999. For example, December 31, 2009 was a blue moon according to this usage.

Two full moons in one month:

• 2009: December 2, December 31 (partial lunar eclipse visible in some parts of the world), only in time zones west of UTC+05.
• 2010: January 1 (partial lunar eclipse), January 30, only in time zones east of UTC+04:30.
• 2010: March 1, March 30, only in time zones east of UTC+07.
• 2012: August 2, August 31
• 2015: July 2, July 31

do you consider tonight as a blue moon or noT? i'm team farmer's almanac.

Project: Body

get a female trainer. = good

getting a trainer who's an Alagad* . = even better!

words of wisdom from my friend, MV.

im laying out my plans to once again sign up for a gym membershiP. i have been thinking about it. getting a male trainer would only make me distracted. i've done it before and it was a complete and utter failure. the gym going, that is. as for the instructor, he was an animal in bed. 'twas good while it lasted. ;)

but that was over 5 years agO. to dodge temptation, i'm resolved in doing it differently this timE. day 1 for MV and operation alagad is already doing wonders for him. there were no inhibitions, no uneasy moments, no awkward actions, no facades...

most importantlY: no sex thoughts! (shudders. see *)

the things are set in motioN. my goal: beach worthy body by summer next year.

*Alagad ni Aiza a.k.a. Lulus, lesbianesians, leslies...

When It Ends

i know there's little use in crying
its more wide awake and dying
than i'm used to.
i thought we'd walk these streets together
and now i'm hoping that i'll never have to meet you
step aside from all this anger
and somewhere in between i can feel you
ask me should we try again i'm thinking
oh no, its not what i believe in
its not what i believe in.

~Ghost of You,
H. Day



i don't know why i keep doing thiS. i know i'm the one who decided to call it quits after the umpteenth time.

we've hurt each other so many times over the 3 years we were togetheR. i made my resolve to end it.

yet he is still herE. in my bed.

A Moment of Darkness

hindi por que madilim, may mangyayari na.

-Earth Hour

Bonfire of the Vanities pt. 2

'kaliwa po'. i told the cab driver.

he points to the left and says 'ditO?' (no, point your finger upward and then i'll say 'oo').

'sa may grocerY?' he asks again.(the grocery's on the right wing).

'no, that's on the other sidE'. i quipped.

'kaya nga, dito sa grocerY'. then he makes a left.

oh boy. i love banter like thiS. *mimics* blowing my head off with a thumb and index finger gun.

however, seeing it's facade takes my slight annoyance awaY. i love going to the Mall of Asia. i'm it's biggest fanboy. it's by far the best mall we have in the metro. not the prettiest, but still the best. biased much? maybe because i live in the south which makes it easy access for me.

this mall had also been a witness to several trysts i have haD. from theatrical break ups (plural) and un-breaks (plural) with Lumux (love of my life. now an ex-), to the unfaithful escapades with the Prince, to deviant days with Bed boy... but i digress. those are entirely separate entries.

i was there on a single missioN. i'm off to see the wizard (of skincare). i just have that nagging feeling that i need to go.

case in point, in the office, i've gotten unsolicited compliments ranging from 'you're glowing', or 'blooming ka', to the 'wow fresH'. also, i heard from my one of my peers 'may patay na patay na naman sayo sa class ko'. there's this guy in her class who is so seriously crushing on me, he even saved my mugshot from the company database and saved it as his celphone wallpaper.

cutE.

the thing is, i feel i've neglected myself for so lonG. and staring at the mirror, i'm not happy with what i see. hearing those things when i feel pretty beat up makes my paranoid hormones kick in.

--

Dermclinic, MoA brancH. quite attractive lady at the counter.

'para po sa pimpleS?' (no, i'm here for a triple bypass surgery. what's with all these questions today!? and ouch on the pluralization of pimple.)

the receptionist asked me whether i already have a record or noT. i said i don't know if they still have it because it's been months since my last visit.

off she goes into the back, apparently looking for my data sheeT. it took her maybe 5 mins or so.

'sir last visit nyo po, 2007 pA.'

whoA.(this year, Lumux and I would have celebrated our 4th anniversary. i really let it go, didn't i?)

she gave me the range of services they haD. i noticed they have a lot of new ones. too many tech-y sounding names (stem cell photo therapy, anyone?). she was patient enough to explain everything to me though.

so off i go into the clinic's labyrinth of mini roomS. first up is the mandatory facial, which i hate getting. something about a complete stranger rubbing your face doesn't sit right with me.

i just fiddled my with my phones to pass the timE. (i love that MoA has free wifi all througout!)

so that was donE. now comes the hard part. meeting the dermatologist. i feel really insecure being examined by one. i mean it's their job to turn frogs into princes, right? Doctora F came in looking as fresh as a daisy (which made more insecure). to her credit, she has really good rapport building skills which made me feel at ease.

the procedure took almost 2 hourS. she went to places i didn't even know existed. i mean, i came in here thinking my face isn't in bad shape after all. how wrong i was.

after what seemed like eternity, i felt so draineD. but hey, like they say: pain is the price you pay...

but here we accept cold hard cash onlY. lol.

dermclinic doesn't seem to have the word 'cheap' in its vocabularY. but it has 10 entries for 'ostensibly pricy'. i've done my rounds before. you could get rock bottom prices at dermstrata, forever flawless, let's face it, etc...but you get what you pay for. dermatologists > "therapists".

so here i am at tapping away at homE. good thing i took yesterday off and today all i need to set my mind to is to relax and to heal.

Discretion

a blogger friend asked me: what's your slant on your new bloG? at first i didn't really catch his drift. he explained, what persona are you gonna have?

got me thinkinG. i've always known that people blog as an escape. a hedonistic break away from sordid reality. i used to see it that way.

notice how tons of blog out there on the web try be the next big kahuna by having this or that gimmicK?

if it was the old me, i'd say something along these lineS:
i just want to fuck you. a mind fuck, that is. one so satisfying, it leaves us both spent. each entry would be a different position, disparate and climactic. afterwhich, we can both go our separate ways. no strings attached.

how's that for a slanT? nah. too much effort. and besides, it would be a monumental task to keep that up. eventually, it fizzles out because it's not inherent.

i won't try as hard as i did when i was little boy bloggeR. in fact, i just want to let my hair down for a change. all i want is safe cove for my thoughts and my creations.

one of my realizations after a lengthy affair with blogging is that we come up with little voices in our head as we writE. sometimes, this is one "voice" you do not really use in your real life. it may be fascinating at first. but then it gets stale.

i'll use the real onE. the one most people seldom get to hear.

Walls

Redesigning

i still haven't forgotten how to read/edit html codinG.

perfecT.

a tweak here and therE. finally this blog is open for business.

Advent who?

i've had so many profiles over the years that I seem to lost counT. it's funny how we leave our virtual footprint all over the web thinking/shouting "this is me!" "watch me!" or "look at me, look at me!" and inevitably forget about it either by choice or by circumstance. social archeologists of distant future times would need to sift through server data to unearth this era's "modern man".

do you remember how many accounts you've had on the world wide weB? let me see if i can recall mine.

back in the days when Facebook was non-existent (*shudders*), i had an account with friendsteR. the young 'uns nowadays would go 'huh?' when you say friendster, but back then it was the "in" thing. i've recently visited that account just to check. i still got my tons of pictures there as well as the hordes of unknown "friends". nowadays, kids consider it uncool to not have an FB account. friendster was so 1999.

for blogs, i tried blurty.com, tabulas.com, livejournal.com, multiply.com, wordpress, and i even had an account here in blogspot (which i opted not to resurrecT). in each of those sites i've spawned more personas than madonna had "reinventions". i was sooo dramatic.

then there were the ahem, "dating" siteS. i've spread my seeds (pun?) on such sites as guysformen.com, downelink.com, manjam.com, pinoyg4m.com, justusboys.com...some so embarassing i'd prefer not to name them anymore. you get the drift. i still have some of those active. *winks*

something these sites in common though would be this little write up i post on every profile pagE.

--

My Credo
I'm the product of the universal machinations, ethereal and effervescent. You think you know me...you've just skimmed the surface.

I believe in a greater power that dictates the outcome of my life.
I believe that this power emanates to the small things, things that are usually taken for granted, because as we go about our daily existence, they become mundane and perfunctory;
I believe in the power of words, how they can evince raw emotions out of a string of symbols; emotions that define the moment you are in;
I believe that with the ability to wield words, you have the power to make a nation break down into tears or to rise up in armed revolt;
I believe that with words, you could weave a veil of imagery, enough to make someone fall in love, enough to crush someones heart;
I believe that books are the time machines that man had been searching for in vain; that opening the cover, leafing thru page to page is a journey unto itself.
I believe in Karma, that with which the universe resonates with; that which echoes in the halls of our psyche.
I believe in the eternal sunshine of the spotless mind. I believe in mad poetics and the little drops of vagrant moods.
And most of all, I believe in the penultimate need of the soul to reach out and assimilate other souls. I believe that there was a time when all souls came from a single core and that by stroke of hand of the greater power it was divided and strewn to the wind, fated to seek each other once again. ~adventchild 01/27/05


Some shorties about me:
I've been called a lot of things in this lifetime but I've somehow managed to sway them all away... At 10 years old, I felt and thought like I was 20. At 20, I felt and thought like I was 30...I know what I have, and I know my limits...I'm as flawed as can be...I can say things to your face that your mother won't allow me to...I don't apologize for what I am and what I've done...

But after all this, I know what I can offer that nobody else can.

Who I'd like to meet:
I'd like to meet someone who can make me ponder, make me fall in awe, make me laugh, inspire a change in me, make me drop my pride, teach me how to catch a fox, make me watch a sunrise, teach me another language, fly with me to the moon...or Rome or Frankfurt or Brussels or Seoul...

Not necessarily in one package... And if you've got something else I haven't listed above, I'd sure love to get to know you.

There are several roads that lead to me. Which one will you choose?



--

theatrical, nO?

this was me a little over 5 years ago, yet somehow it still strikes some right chordS. people are dynamic, fluid, and perpetually evolving. yet at the same time having a part that is incorrigible and static. have you ever felt like no matter how much things remain the same, the more they paradoxically change?

enter 2010 and i see myself in front of my (newly and proudly purchased) laptop, tapping awaY. allow me to encapsulate this period in my life, my so called iBud era. i call it such because i feel i'm on the verge of something. the sapling is now a nubile sequoia. a lot of things are changing (for the better or likewise). like what Sam Cooke said: a change is going to come. and i say keep it coming.


here i go again strumming madly at my written stringS. and this...is my new manifesto.

:)

Advent Next

i write because i exisT.


i've been here beforE. back then i was a fawn. a sapling with Napoleon complex. think purple prose-i-am-an-existential-writer type. i've tried reading my earlier blogs. how naive/pretentious i was. but people grow up.


i come back wiser, better...oldeR. at least i hope so.


am i really that olD? well, it depends. in 3 years i'll hit the big three-oh. is that considered old? we've been hearing so and so age is the new 20. every decade or so, it goes up incrementally. soon you'd hear 60 is the new 20. ha!


nostalgia and renewed hope - reasons why i've come bacK. i could never stay away from writing. not now when i've got a boatload of material. i've always held this belief that a moment - no matter how glorious - would soon be lost to time unless you put it to paper (albeit, an electronic one). the mind is unreliable when it comes to keeping things for posterity. sometimes it throws away even the good ones.


during the extended hiatus i had from writing, i've found- and subsequently lost- love; i've gotten into trouble more times than i can recall; i've gotten in and out of messy hook ups, flings and irresposible pseudo-relationships; i won 5oo battles but i've fucked up a thousand;


on the positive sidE: career wise, i've been promoted a couple of times; i'm definitely moving up but i'm not there yet; i've scrapped 500 dreams but i've created a thousand new ones.


but this new blog is not going to be a recount of all of thaT. this is all about the new life i have. this is going to be all about my new conquests. this is going to be about what makes me jittery; what makes me smile like a buffoon; what titillates me, what horns me up; what would well up tears in me, what would break me down and pick me up again -it's all about NOW. although, i would have to say, what good is a show without a flashback or two every now and then?


i would like to move in a different directioN. my audience is primarily you (not you-you, but you-me). Mad Hatter confusing? i guess it would be. the you i'm referring to is the me i will be in 30, 40, -or heaven allow- 50 years time. but you (this time really you, my not-me reader) are definitely welcome. I'd love some company. Neil Patrick Harris sang in this ditty at the Oscars this year..."no one wants to do it alone...".


so here goeS. . i write because it's like breathing. i write because it's innate.


i write because i exisT.



-Advent Child
madstringsmanifesto.blogspot.com

(and here i was thinking that i would be having a writer's block after not having written anything for so long)