U

not so long ago, i discovered a new drug
it's called u
much unlike any other drug
such high potency.
one night, under dim light
it actually consumed me.
Inhaling and exhaling me
it is much to my pleasure
such the great high
i constantly find myself lost in u.
find myself desiring
to be one with u
much the picture of perfection
such the eternal.
make no mistake
it is neither availible to you or your friend
u was created for me
and i,
created for u.
u has made me a fiending bastard
i soar on u across the void
and i become much like the invalid
such the numbness to bullshit
yet everyone can see our value is high
and i am much sure i am in love with the drug
in fact such the addiction major addiction
yes indeed
i love u

Which one are you?

Last night I realized there’s a possibility that I don’t understand the phenomenon of dating. I’ve spent the majority of my 20s in a LTR with a GAM from LA until the LDR moved to NYC after living in SF to become whatever you become when you move there. It's been my experience that after being with someone for 9 years, I expected a stigma attached to myself amongst the Scene which yields one of two things: Rumors and Infidelity.

Listening to: Fiona Apple - Get Gone | When the Pawn Hits the Conflicts He Thinks Like a King...

As weird as it is to be single again, a friend told me I should try being single for now; this, coming from someone whose past 3 relationships was a result of an affair with the previous relationship. By taking his advice, it wasn't but a few months after until someone interesting came along who, unfortunately, made it a point to constantly remind me there was always someone more attractive than myself (yeah, yah know… after typing out that last sentence, WTF was I thinking then?). Needless to say, that “relationship” was in the Fastrak lane to nowhere.

Refusing to admit that my friend was right about being single for the time being, I ended up dating my first Filipino at age 29 in hopes of being with someone that understands me. Without putting too much of someone else’s business out there, it was like yelling at the TV while a Telenovela was on full blast and you’re only experience in Spanish was the 2 years you took in high school and that trip you took to TJ back in 2003. Yeah… it felt like that… and as ironic as it was, I never felt so misunderstood.

So here I am, 3 failed quasi-relationships in a year and a half, which is the status quo in the Scene, apparently.

SIDE NOTE: The Scene is an intrinsically remarkable phenomenon. One’s OG status is not measured by ones age, but measured by what era one came into the Scene. For example, a 28 y/o who has been clubbing since JRs and Faith is more of an OG than a 38 y/o who started clubbing when Trigger opened earlier this year (yes, believe me…there are 38 y/o clubbers out there, but that’s another blog entry).

With that being said, my OG status goes back to when City Nights was The Box and the new Trigger was known as Detour.

So what now? What is it that single people do? With the number of years in the Scene under my belt, I have observed the following patterns with my fellow singles.

WARNING: By no means is this list meant to be exhaustive or exclusive, but illustrative and comprehensive for comedic purposes.

Party & Bullshit
It’s very common for newly single individuals, not limiting to the Scene, to become party activists overnight. This type of individual wants to drink up every night and bring a buddy/wingman for their support. Their choice of environment/battleground is usually whichever venue is playing hip hop that night; subsequently, the night of aggressive/professional drinking usually ends in a fight or throwing up in the wingman’s car. I suggest if the individual has a large circle of friends, is to play round robin with your wingmen, as to not seem desperate. Also, this act usually goes on until they finally get one of their one-night stands preggo or until they start showing symptoms of their newly attributed STD.

The Serial Dater
There are those individuals that we all come to know and love who have made dating an art form. The Serial Dater, not to be confused by The Speed Dater, will date an obscene amount of partners in such a short period of time and may come across as a player or a hoe (whichever makes more comfortable). Usually this person would take the initiative to get to know someone and will genuinely be interested until they find something about that person that falls under their list of “DO NOT DATE PEOPLE WITH¬…” —like webbed feet… not that there’s anything wrong with that.

However so equivocal in the types of people they date, when The Serial Dater finds the perfect match they become a Brigadoon Fag only because their new partner passed many levels of scrutiny… and who would want to lose that?

ANOTHER SIDE NOTE: When I looked up “Serial Dater” on UrbanDictionary.com I also came across “Serial Butt Friend”. I can’t believe there’s a term for that.

YesterGay | Hasbian
Not to discredit the validity of their relationship, but YesterGays and Hasbians, though uncommon, do exist. It’s like finding close parking at the mall during Christmas time.

I’ve seen different levels of significance with YesterGays and Hasbians, whether they marry for papers only or for tax purposes, but a friendship between a YesterGay and a Hasbian is very genuine.

So where does this leave me?

As much as I hate to write about my inner psyche, I guess I can leave you with a quote a wise man once told me in hopes of a coup d’état of consternation when you see me next.

“There are 3 types of people in this world;
• those who make things happen,
• those who saw what happened, and
• those who ask “Wah happened?”
Which one are you?”

(taken from my adam 4 adam page)

Have you forgiven?

It's unfortunate for myself (and the 5 people that follow this blog) that American Pilipino Pedagogy has kicked the "proverbial bucket" (if you will) for the last few months. I'm not sure if it was the dawn of Twitter that took the final "blow" or me being a Brigadoon Fag; however, in both cases I've been neglecting to express my inner thoughts and emotions for all to see… and no one to care.

With that said, I dust off the old defibrillator hoping to jump-start my muse. I need something to get the "creative juices" flowing again; and since none of my juices are flowing as of yet, like a topical comic, I turn to the news.

There seems to be an underlying question of the day, which is covered by the countless numbers of news sites and blogs I follow (yes, I read blogs… don't judge).

"Do you remember?"

Unfortunately, yes… I do.

I flew back to SFO Monday afternoon, Sept 10, 2001 from a long weekend in L.A. I was a super senior on the 5-year plan and needed to meet up with my counselor Tuesday morning. My alarm wakes me up so I grabbed my phone and see 8 miss calls; 1 from my professor and 7 from my ex. I checked my voicemail and my professor says that we have to reschedule because it's "hectic on campus". (bah, I could've had extra sleep). I stumble out of my 7-ft loft bed to get ready for class. I had the intension of calling my ex when I'm fully awake after I hit the shower.
With my eyes sealed shut from rheum I make my way past my brothers room as he says, "We're under attack!" Naturally, I dismiss all dialogue that precedes my morning enema.

As I'm in the middle of my 30-minute shower, I grab my procephalic lufah and continue to punas my nether regions. Like an SF MUNI train… it hit me –"We're under attack?!?" (This would make a good Major's Moded Story (MMS) of the day.)

I finish up the shower and put some clothes on to better situate myself with what happened. By the time I sat and watched the tube, both towers have already fallen. The ticker at the bottom of the screen read "America Under Attack!" For a second, I thought my brother was watching a Steven Seagal movie (who, in my opinion by far, ran out of fame well before 9-11). Even though I slept right through the attacks, there were plenty of replays and fraudulent images from the media to keep me up to speed.

I called my ex and he explains to me that he's been trying to call a dear friend of ours in NYC. He said our friend called early in the morning to tell/warn him that we're being attacked. Still halfway drunk from the night before, my ex hangs up the phone and hasn't heard from him since. Having just returned from LA, I remembered saying to my ex that I should drive down to LA so that we could be together through all this. Dependency was my foible. I spent pretty much the next few days watching the news until it was time to go to bed.

At the time I was a coordinator for one of the Filipino organizations on campus. I get a text the next day saying we have to caucus about what we're going to do as an organization in response to yesterday's events. As most organizations do, we met with our advisor to seek his advice.

He said something I'll never forget, "We must forgive; forgive the victims, forgive the terrorist, even forgive the families of the terrorists."

I must say I really wanted to punch a baby when I heard that. "Shame on you" I thought to myself after hearing what he had to say. "how can you say that given the circumstances?"
However, he articulated further and posed the questions, "What would it take for you to commit such an act?"

"If your family was suffering, wouldn't you do the same?"

"How much suffering would you put up with until you were driven to such extremes?"

To be honest, this made sense. As unpopular of a response as it may be, yes... I started to agree. For whatever reason terrorist do what they do, aside from pulling a jihad to meet x number of virgins in heaven, their actions are understandable... to a certain degree.

This may contradict one of my earlier entries from this year --God forgives; not me!-- however, I guess what we should be asking ourselves is not if we have "forgotten"; but after 8 years, have we "forgiven"?

Only at Walmart

About a month ago I decided I'm in the market for a new mattress; more specifically, the 8" memory foam mattress at Walmart I've been eying for the past year. Never have I been so committed to something so meaningless in my life... but I want it.

It was the day I left work early and did my STD screening. After the screening I decided to call Rayo and see if he wanted to meet up for a bottle of shit's and giggles. Subsequently, we agreed to meet up at Union Landing; there's a Walmart there. As I arrived, I parked next to the tire center to avoid having to deal with parking-lot traffic. I get out my car, closed the door, and armed the alarm. As I was commenting in my head how I need fix the AC in my car because a V-shaped sweat mark is SO attractive... an Impala turns the corner and screeches to a halt in front of me. The guy in car, who I can only describe as a husky Lil' Wayne, says something to me. Still stunned by the Lil’ Wayne’s gold chains and matching grill, I replied with a consternating look, "WHAT?!? Huh?!?" (a most appropriate response, don't you think?)

He reaches for the passenger seat and pulls out a jewelry box, "You wanna buy a Movado watch or a diamond tennis bracelet?"

Oh hell... I just parked and not 10 feet from my car, someone is trying to sell me something that fell off the truck.

“Nah, Brah. I’m straight.”

Unfortunately, after excusing myself from the situation, I find that the mattress was not there. However, the next day I decided to buy the mattress on Walmart.com using their "Site-to-Store" feature and had it shipped to the Walmart in Oakland off of Hegenberger. I figured I'd stay clear of any parking lot entrepreneurs in Union City.

Fast forward to yesterday afternoon:

It takes Walmart.com 3 weeks to complete their 7 to 10-day delivery. Nonetheless, I get the email saying it finally arrived. I printed out my email, checked to see if I have my ID, and was off to Oakland. As I'm humming along Taylor Swift's You Belong With Me, I pull up to the parking lot. I got out my car, closed the door, and armed the alarm. I was feeling a little good about the drive since there was relatively no traffic on 880, possibly due to a holiday weekend. As I turned the corner around my car and head towards the entrance, a lady is standing there with her makeshift cart...she asked me if I wanted to buy tamales. 'Twas apparent to me she made these at home and individually wrapped these in foil. I didn't have any, but I'm sure the tamales were good. She probably would have made a killing at the EatReal Fest at Jack London Square this past weekend.

I believe this warrants a twitter update.

As I'm updating my twitter about running into the Tamale Lady at the Walmart parking lot, I see a sign that reads "Site-to-Store in rear". From the moment I started walking towards the rear, I see every possible Homies character --the one with the wife beater, cut off Dickies, and Cortez’s to the one in the wheel chair-- it was amazing. I'm pretty sure the maker gets his inspiration standing at his/her local Walmart.

I get to the back of the store and the woman working the cash register in the Electronics section notices me. She points me in the right direction towards a blatant sign that reads “Site-to-Store here”. I’m still not sure how I missed the sign; maybe I was drawn back because she reminds me of Whoopi Goldberg from Jumpin Jack Flash (man, I miss that movie).

A few moments pass before someone acknowledges me standing there.

“Sweetie, have you been helped?”

Oh… Emm…. Gee… I couldn’t believe it. What are my chances that Madea was help’n me out at the counter?

I don’t know what it is (and I’ve mentioned this on my twitter), but I’m convinced living in Oakland is like being in a Tyler Perry movie.

Message to a stranger

I must say...

I'm a little ambivalent on how I feel now that I've reached the end of "Call Me Chief." I meant to write you a few nights ago but I've been occupied with the new mattress.

One of my first jobs right out of high school was working at a bookstore at a mall in Daly City. Just like any bookstore or library, all the books were stored together by genre --sci fi with sci fi, fantasy with fantasy, new age with new age. The one section I just h8ted to put away (yes, I used the symbolic "8" to emphasized how much h8te is involved) and 'til this day wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy... was romance series.

A kid out of high school can take only so much of another Fabio's topless picture, embracing a younger woman on a red paperback-bound copy of the new edition to the romance series. Suburban housewives coming into the store every Tuesday evening to pick up a copy.

"Harlequin Star! This is just Harlequin; I'm looking for Harlequin Star!"

Is that right, Ms.? Is Fabio giving it to you better in a book than your husband is in the bedroom?

Danielle Steele needs to stop writing for that matter (give it a 2 month break at least, please!)...but I digress...

In some ways, and I'd hate to admit it, I "almost" understand the psyche of these Daly City suburban housewives. They use Fabio to distract them from the monotony of their every day lives. Not comparing you to Fabio or anything ('cuz you'll always be Billy Zane), but your facetiae has been keeping me in good company; albeit, I'm by myself.

Whether you're ranting about the dynamics of gay and lesbian couples, or analyzing the ambiguity of a street sign, or something simple as expressing how the word "ooooooh" makes you feel; translating what's in your head down on paper is easier said than done... literally.

I'm not even sure where I'm going with this and I'm a little apprehensive to tell you what my initial thoughts were when I first started reading. To be honest after I read you majored in Poli Sci, I was convinced you were a Republican; only because one of my friends turned out to be Republican after we finished our undergrad. Mea Culpa

So even though we're both "coincidentally" not into books, I wanted to pass along an African Proverb my professor quoted a long time ago.

"Everyone in the journey of life is like a book waiting to be read and shared. And at the end of your journey, your quality of life is not measured by monetary or material possessions, but by the size of your library."

~patiently waiting for the next entry... no pressure