I think one of the keys to being happy is to believe. Believe that you’re significant in this world. Believe that your job is what you want and your action impacts the universe at large. Believe that there’s one benevolent being whose main function is to make sure that your mom, dad, family is safe and that manny pacquiao wins and  your barangay basketball team makes it to the finals and win in this year’s fiesta and that your snooty neighbor will get his just desserts because the pagan filibuster had the audacity to complain about your garbage segregation (or non-segregation) habits. Believe that by virtue of your actions, a special place has been reserved for you in the divine amphitheater, front row and center no less, to listen to the angelic choir.

Buy the press release. Wear it on your sleeve. Rub it into people’s faces.

I am officially fat again.

There. I said it.

Whenever I wear my shirts I resemble the steamed longganisa that I constantly shove in my mouth-red, lumpy, and slicked with oil. Blech. Also, I’ve fully embraced being a drunk–which means my beer belly has occluded my line of vision to my dick and that the vessels in my face have popped and my countenance resembles a road map that has been used as a bib by a slobbering moron.

Le boyfriend professes that I look fine and I am still the light of his life and bleh bleh but that’s because I have bewitched him with an extra-strong dose of gayuma plus constant exposure to my odious presence gave him an aneurysm therefore his opinions do not count.

I am fat fat fat and I hate it.

———-

I had my palm read by an aging lady who smelled like she used garlic as an underarm deodorant. She had little eye contact and the flatness of her chest was barely disturbed by the shy bumps that passed for her nipples.

She announced that I will marry a Miss J-something and that I will be successful in business and that I should avoid loaning money to people and that I’m good-looking to which I internally rolled my eyeballs and internally spat, “Lady, shut up. I know what I look like,” and that I should avoid riding single motorcycles.

She proceeded to anoint me with luya and massaged my back and neck and extolling her MAD SKILLZ at taking away the hangin that got stuck in my muscles and that I should relax and avoid eating pork and beef and while she’s saying these nuggets of wisdom the smell of garlic mixed with sun and armpit wafts through my nostrils and embeds through my memories and I feel sorry for her.

Then she asks php 200.00 for her services.

What the fuck! And I proceed to give her a bitch-slapping so serious that the pedestrians on the street rush over and the execrations to spare the lady fill my ears but my rage was so complete that their screams served only to enrage me more so I kick and curse and okay it’s saturday morning and I’m bored hahaha I got you, oh lone reader.

Anywaaaay, I haggled it to a hundred and a pack of ugoy-ugoy. She walked away a little disappointed that I wasn’t as idiotic as I seem. When she came back my way a wee bit later from searching for more gullible idiots and failing at that she avoided eye contact with me.

Eeesh karma, I say.

The basic formula of dating before fucking failed for me so I tried fucking before dating.

Once the sex was out of the way the “getting to know you” part just breezes through.

Of course it helps if the person you fucked first and dated next is actually interesting and can carry on a conversation with you AND your friends and moans like a caterwauling elephant around cum-time.

Will just see where this, uh, thing goes and try to stop myself from labeling things.

PS: Was about to tag this under “Luuurve”. Stopped myself.

The Choosing

He was cute, of course. And smart. A combination that has become an oxymoron for its sheer rarity. And he was the one who initiated the contact which sent my ego fluttering in demented ecstasy (When I hit puberty I was fat and pimply. That fat and pimply kid is still there despite the weight and acne loss. So. . . we not only take self-validation whenever we can. We wallow in it in the most obscene manner imaginable).

He looks family though but I thought maybe that’s just because we are in the same city and that whole small world thingamajig. Also, certain details about his person points towards a certain person who I was sumkindova interested in the past but, um, didn’t pursue because, um, I wasn’t ready yet. heeeee.

God! I reread my sentences and realized my writing is shit.

Anyhooha, we were supposed to meet earlier but that didn’t fall through. Work thing meeting blergh. I had a back-up plan which I cancelled because, well, I want my TehPershDett to be with him and not some second-rate loser who I don’t even like.

So we rescheduled.

.

.

.

I can’t write this entry–partly due to sentiment and partly due to my inability to articulate.

Suffice it to say that I like him and he seems to share the same feeling. The kicker is we have different goals for whatever this thing will or will not turn out to be.

That is all. Bow.

Yeah.

Fuck indeed.

I’ve bitten off more than I can chew and it’s effing overwhelming.

On the plus side though I’ve realized that a fully functional brain isn’t a barrier. Bitchiness is. And it was intestinal fortitude that I was lacking not social skills (now I’ve had more than the usual “intestinal fortitude” that I was used to and my intestines have gone spastic. Hello stomachache. Hello diarrhea).

Relax. Stop preempting things. Just breathe.

.

.

.

Overall though. . . I feel pretty **cue music**

It’s too early to say that a dumbed down version of myself is more likeable than the current me. So far, both versions seem equally unappealing (You know, I should just wait. Really. Delayed gratification. Marshmallow.).

Or maybe I should just smile back at the person who’s sending vibes that he’s interested in me.

Nice-ness in a dating setting is something that I have not had very much practice in.

And Being Nice is NOT Being Stupid. Just deal with it and do it.

Or maybe I shouldn’t have said that “I was leeching off the parentals while waiting for my board exam results” as a response to “what do u do?”

maybe something more impressive but vague like, um, “i’m currently experiencing a period of transition in my career” or something like dut.

dang.

And I’m off to participate in an experiment.

Details later.

Why do my social skills fly out the window whenever I’m in the presence of my, ahem, crush. I avert my eyes. I stammer. And I can’t wait to run away screaming.

And when he’s not around I keep pining like a pathetic teenager–our great love affair flashing before my eyes in high definition video, surround sound, and with such astounding vividness that jeepney drivers, my review seatmates, and random pedestrians stop in their tracks, entranced by the sheer magnitude of my telepathic broadcasting (Translation: I sometimes “act out” my fantasies in public. Unconsciously, of course. “Acting out” one’s fantasy by oneself in public is visually similar to an insane person mumbling by his lonesome. Hence, people stare.). If I’m not pining for him, I’m plotting the painful demise of his feeling pretty, tweety-bird looking  girlfriend. What a total whore! Like, hellooooo! Just because your skanky fat ass wears glasses doesn’t mean that anyone’s convinced that you’re anything more than a bottom licking skank bag.  

And I am so totally waaaaaay prettier than her. according to my friends. hahaha. 

—–

I did ask him out. Several weeks ago. It wasn’t a “Let’s go out on a date and have sex after” ask out but more of a “hey, let me show you around” ask out. He said no. Because he has something as trivial as a review the next day. **eye roll**

Being the hystrionic that I am, I interpreted it as a snub and planned to ignore him the next day because, well, um, he needs to work for my forgiveness.

And I did ignore him. For a day.

And now, a few weeks later, we barely say hi to each other anymore and the former ease and comfort that we had is gone and is replaced by this overwhelming embarassment that rises from my stomach and fills my whole being.

Bummer.

And so I received a text message from a friend extolling the virtues of love and that it’s all worth it to drop your guard, throw caution to the winds, make froufrou with reckless abandon, or words to that effect. I normally scoff at forwarded text messages and delete them with vehemence just for the sheer cliche-ness they contain but somehow this particular annoying text hit a chord inside me and kept on plucking at it that I can no longer ignore said chord-plucking text message.

So I’m risking it.

Because I’m too old and had been using cynicism as a mask for my idealism for far too long and it’s tiring and I don’t want to die alone with my hypothetical cat (Percival, who, by the way, is a total bitch) who’ll eat half my face before the stench of my decomposing body overwhelms my neighbors’ hatred for me and, en masse, they break down the door to jeer at my corpse.

And, well, because I’m thin again. Somewhat. Yesh. Self-esteem is inversely proportional to weight.

Plus, he’s cute. And I like him. And I haven’t seen him in a month. And I missed him. And I kept imagining us meeting at an airport to say goodbye and I run up to him and kissed him and blahblahblah love is a many splendored thing. And my friends’ eyebrows go on orbit whenever I lament his leaving. And when I saw him again last week I kept grinning like an idiot.

Sorry. I haven’t had a crush for the longest time. There.

But I’m not sure if he’s gay though. But Ron told me that he asked him if he’s hairy and he said yes and Ron asked him to show Ron his hairiness and he did by raising his shirt and he was hairy not that that’s of importance and whenever I joke at my table he laughs at my joke even if he’s on the other table and he seems to like me and I don’t know if maybe I’m just imagining his laughter or he liking me. That scares me. Unilateral delusion is scary but only upon confirmation.

It’s two days until confirmation review on Monday.

Two days.

I’m not going to declare my undying love for him. I’m only going to ask him out. But still. . . heee

I’ll be frank. I hardly was ever fond of religious people. My early pubescent life careened through the crowded hallways of guilt and self-loathing because I believed that I was a sinner and would need to be exorcised to be worthy of God’s love.

Phooey.

The aforementioned guilt and self-loathing I compensated for by being extra loud therefore making me the easiest target among my gay posse for stupid boys who also had self-esteem issues. For a while, this set-up made my life interesting.

We grew up, eventually–me, my posse, and the stupid boys. The teasing ceased. One of the stupid boys even asked for a fuck–he was the instigator of most teasings and therefore was number 1 in my People To Die Horribly List. And incidentally, because god has a sense of humor, he was also the hottest one and the one that I pined for the most. My inner slut was still, well, deep deep deep down inside. I refused him, of course. And to this day I wanted to bang my head on the wall for being a prude.

Tangential ang lola. Anyway. . .

And so saturday’s class was a disappointment. I should’ve had heeded the signs early on and just high-tailed my ass out of there. But, no. I didn’t. I just had to be fair and just because that’s what decent people do.

The morning session was interesting and illuminating. The topic was “Sexuality Across the Ages” and the speaker was this engaging woman in her early fifties who remained humorous and unperturbed despite the constant idiotic questioning of the stupidest guy in class (they were classmates in college so maybe she knows what he’s like and was used to it).

The afternoon topic was supposed to be “Men as Partners of Change in Reproductive Health”. I elected to stay because, well, I’m a man (despite the objections of other people) and the topic seemed promising.

The speaker was a member of Couples for Christ. The speaker’s powerpoint was titled “Natural Family Planning”. My internal alarm sounded off but I ignored it. Fairness and Openness to Views Different from Mine pressed on my shoulders and ordered me to stay seated. So I did. For three hours. In those precious three hours I learned that:

1. Women should be judged solely by the state of their hymens.

2. Women with non-intact hymens are sluts and are unfit for marriage. Boys will not be attracted to her and the ones that are are only interested in having sex with her.

3. The Hymen Integrity Belief System must be perpetuated or else society will decay.

4. The Will of God is a book that you can read anytime. But only if you’re Christian. And it’s easy to understand too.

The speaker, Dr. Earthworm, was such a wonderful speaker that in every seminar that he had given people always came up to him and had praised him profusely and had expressed how his talks will change their lives.

At the end of class, Dr. E dawdled and kept asking for, “Any Questions?” One classmate took pity on him and gave him what he asked for. Hmmmmph

Serves him right, I guess. A class is a class. It’s not a platform in which you trumpet your completely unrelated and near-sighted religious propaganda.