oh double 7

flight risk

my photographer friend Mario has been waiting to take this photo since we first met when I was a kid. he knows all about my forever love (first and last), and he promised to send the more risque version of this image to my l'amour.

I've always been comfortable in my skin, and I'm not a prude when it comes to showing a bit of skin. I really believe if we love our bodies for what it is, for what it allows us to do, it would save the world a lot of trouble. I guess it comes from my athletic training.

I'm not the waif I once was and I don't mind. I feel more confident these days, actually. Must be all that experience, and the consequent wisdom behind me.

weekend warrior

had a nice weekend. refreshed and ready to start the new work week. went to the hospital where I used to work Saturday and had fun catching up on people's news. Pity though I didn't see Doc Benette.

Spent a nice hour too this morning in Starbucks with Tatay. Treated him to pastry and soy milk and just had fun shooting the breeze with him.

Finally stopped being a clam, too, and told him about my office crush. "Baka lolokohin mo lang," he jokingly retorted. Told him all the little encounters that have been making me happy since I changed jobs.

So, here's a portrait to remember this weekend by. :)

All in all, becoming all woman!

charlie

had a nice Father's Day with my family. we had lunch at UP Town Center and had postprandial fun at Timezone (shot hoops and raced on a video game with my nephew). I am always grateful for my Tatay, who has been a constant of strength and support in times of turbulence. We were too busy having fun to document the whole thing, so, I took a snapshot of my demeanor just a few hours before the day ended. As always, had fun with styling my hair and doing my makeup. :) tomorrow, it's back to work, which in my view, is more a playground than a salt mine. Meantime, there's jazz on the radio and ruminations with which to end the day.

practicing for disco hours

practising  for my new work hours...whiled away the time by trying a different hairstyle while I'm growing out my short hair, and playing around with make up. had a talk with my soon to be old boss this morning, I teared up when I saw her come into the building.but I'm very happy she's very supportive. I guess it's true, you get what you give. :)

Left of Centre

He was an anachronism in that his solipsism was not borne of the egocentrism of his times. 

It was just that he was brought up to believe the world revolved around him, and that everything that existed in it was relative to his wants and needs, nothing more, nothing less.

And who would blame his family? He was beautiful. He was brilliant. He had the disposition of a saint. He was perfect. Too perfect. Which is why I made it my life's mission to make him hate himself and self annihilate.

Why do I speak of him in the past tense? Because he is no longer in my life, disappeared to God knows where. Even his family's money, rank and privilege could not make him come out of the woodwork. And now I take the blame for his disappearance.

His childhood companion, who always harboured a secret envy for his charmed life, has been tried and will now be executed for the loss of the world's most charming man from its face. An innocent, nay not so innocent, who needed to prove her worth by destroying and desecrating his beauty and goodness. At least, attempting to.

As I look back, I see now how I died a little at a time as I sought to fulfil my life's mission. How the anger, hatred, and jealousy gnawed at my soul until all that was left was an acrimonious remainder incapable of joy and love.

I will burn in hell, I know, for what I tried to do, to erase God's favourite from the face of the Earth. But perhaps it was my fate, as it was Judas Iscariot's to betray Jesus so that he could realise the prophesy of  Salvation.

Funny that I should think that now, a really funny thought for someone who always believed that we are the authors of our lives, that destiny is not determined, that our life is what we make of it. I almost died laughing at the thought.

Sad that I did not expire then. That I will have to face the firing squad, dying a traitor's death after they discovered my plot to extinguish the man who has been an offence to my sensibilities from the day I first set eyes on him all those decades ago.

It was a pity that my cell in solitary confinement did not have a mirror. I'd have loved to see my visage, if only for the last time. My requests for one have been denied. I'd have loved to see the face that once was the object of many a man's desire in my youth now distorted into one of horrendous disfigurement. The object of repulsion of anyone who sees it, as is evidenced by the attendants who try to fudge the duty of bringing me my daily rations because it meant seeing me. I even reek of rotten onions, and there is no respite from the smell. Perhaps my rotten soul is eating up my flesh too, now.

Daylight filtered through the eastern window of my cell, the only light that comes in every day. Today is the day I die. I was told I'd be given a chance to bathe and indulge my ablutions for one last time, in lieu of a last meal as I could not keep my food down anymore, and it would have meant nothing.

But they tied my arms and wrists in hemp ropes as the sun rose full on, and put a ball and chain on my left ankle  and led me to the executioner's field in the middle of the prison. I uttered a prayer but it felt like God answered in mock jest with a small thunderstorm that showed my bald spots where the rain wet my sparse hair.

I faced the firing squad before the execution. To my horror, I saw my nemesis' face in each of the thirteen drummer boys who will give the signal to fire the gun, each of the 26 men in the firing squad, the chief executioner, and the guards. Even the audience, his family members, be they male or female, sported his visage.

I swallowed in quiet horror. I was mistaken. I thought I had erased him from the face of the Earth. He never disappeared. In the battle between love and hate, love won, he did not disappear.

He did not disappear, for everyone became him.

The solipsism, after all, was real. He was love, and nothing existed but love.

-30-

Ordinarily Random

It was a butt fuck to the heart, the way he sneaked in. 

Totally unexpected, an earthquake of magnificent proportions that left nothing the same in its aftermath.

They were in a cafe, late afternoon to early evening, because the fight between light and dark left her nervous, and this anxiety gave her a high she hasn't experienced since high school when she competed in tae kwon do. She never liked bars, the smoke and the noise and the overall horny air of the patrons repulsed her finer sensibilities.

He was there, with his Down syndrome face, a five year old with his foster mother, sitting quietly, peering at a dinosaur book with utmost curiosity, as if it was the most important thing in the world to do.

She was 19, in college, at the top of the world, yet with a gnawing hole in her heart.

His name was Lucas, his foster mother told her. His mother died from ovarian cancer and his father had to work abroad to keep up with the expense of educating him and having him treated. She is actually his second cousin.

"Hi," she smiled at him as she joined their table.

Lucas peered at her with minor curiosity, her beautiful form was no match to the dinosaurs in his book. 

However, he deigned to smile at her shyly and offered her a bite of his macadamia cookie.

"Do you want juice? I have some money left over from my allowance. I could buy you a glass."

"No. No thank you," he said. "But you could tell me their names," the child told her, pointing to the creatures in his book.

They spent half an hour huddled over his book while Minda, his foster mother took the time to enjoy her double shot espresso and banoffee pie.

"Well, this is rare. Wanna do this again?" Minda asked her. She was more than willing. They exchanged numbers and arranged to meet the following week same time, same place.

The weekly meetings became routine for both women and Lucas, with her arranging her school schedule around Lucas and Minda. But there were no home visits. It was strictly a cafe date, with Lucas graduating to more sophisticated books over the years. Her company, and her cultivated taste in books seemed to rub off well on him, as he did not manifest the acute symptoms that usually attended his condition.

On the fourth year after their meeting, one year after her college graduation, she applied for an offshore job to beef up her resume so she can pursue graduate studies. She broke the news to Minda on the weekend after she got news she was qualified for an interview with the company. "Oh," she said, looking crestfallen. "I don't know how Luke would take the news though," she mumbled.

"Hey, Luke. What if I were to go somewhere far? Would that be alright by you?"

"I don't know. Would it make you happy?"

"Maybe. I'll have to find out. Nothing's ever sure, right?"

"Well, we have to find out!" Then he squealed. "Send me picture books where you're from!"

She laughed through her tears and kissed the top of the boy's head. "Very well, we have a deal. Be a good boy while I'm gone, ya hear?"

Then he was all serious. "I promise," he said, hand on heart. "Pinky swear?"

She hooked her smallest finger in his. "Pinky swear."

She got the job and spent all of two weeks in her new workplace. The emptiness she felt from before she met mother and son came creeping  back and she knew, her place was with them.

-30-