Tipsy

They told me that getting drunk was bad for me.

Ok fine. I'm not drunk. I'm tipsy.

Tang ina. sarap. Shet.

The Oracle

It has been a while since I have returned to Baguio.

Being assigned to accomplish a task in the province by my mother, I was asked to travel on my own, once again, to a city to the far north of Metro Manila. A city where the scent of pines is forced to marry with the billowing clouds of automobile exhaust. A city I would frequent years ago due to the nature of my work; this city could actually stand on its own, without bothering if it would have been compared to the Philippines' NCR itself. It could just simply stand there and operate coldly like it's climate.

The chill was a fantastic yet familiar feeling to my once easily irritated skin.

My trips coming up to Baguio, prior knowing I was positive, saw me being easily growing fungus on my dermis. This trip I recently had saw no complications in my dermis at all. True enough, my immune system has gained ground and it shows beautifully.

Having dispatched the assignments that I was tasked to do, I met a new friend whom, in my sneaky way of leading the conversation about the issue of HIV in the Philippines, without letting them have a hint that I'm one of them, informed me that the virus has already rooted itself in the City of Pines and there have been 19 recently reported cases therein. These citizens of the cold city found out about it not in Baguio itself but at the beach zone that was kissing the mountain's feet: La Union.

Gathering the information, I concluded that the stigma, too, is imminent and that there are probably much more infected people that are not aware and are probably spreading the virus in a way that it would soon be as massive as the fog that sweeps Baguio's hills.

With the conversation being swept here and there afterwards, we touched down on the topic of vivid dreams and right there and then, I remembered one of my closest friend's heads up about someone who does more than just fortune telling. I thought of verbs or adjectives for it: scrying, clairvoyance, future sight but he told me that she presents the most precise possibilities in point blank verbs that are easiest to understand and if not, would be further clarified by discussion. Confidentiality, of course, was part of the bargain as it cost five hundred bukols.

And oh did a lump fall on my head because I remembered this at the last evening of my trip. I was glad the oracle (with all due respect, I'd call her that instead of a fortune teller) for believe she is more than just a mere fortune teller with the way she executes her craft. She responded aptly, probably in both our convenience. Was she THAT clairvoyant?

Initially meeting her, we were interrupted by her younger brother who turned out to be a former ally/nemesis in one of my on line gaming campaigns when we set a record in Philippine Online Gaming History nearly three years ago.

A small world indeed and quite smaller, in a cramped way, when she shut the door of her reading chamber once she began to perform her craft.

She spoke of me in a way I would never have admitted myself. She read through me and put me in insigna that I may finally put my finger on tangible verbs to the storms and rainbows that abound within my viral cytoplasm. Shortly put, she told of things I knew but was never able to say and acknowledge and therefore was never able to process.

She saw how anger was intricately woven into my system and that it has been the drive that keeps me fighting and has also been the culprit that makes me fall-- all these in a case to case basis. Change? Difficult, for it is me. A trait, a characteristic and possibly a large part of my persona that makes me who I am. surprisingly to most, it would not be evident at first for it is subdued by my (as she read) intellect and somehow it has always been my saving grace in drawing the line between me and an angry barbarian who's running after someone who stole his club.

An intriguing prologue, it was. Though, of course, I was after something: answers, definitely. I openly told her about my situation and one of my questions was pinned down at how long I have to live. The answer was ridiculous:

"You'll have lived way much more than you have expected, and probably have enough time to spare..."

A cure is coming perhaps? Or is it the fight in me that would keep me running the extra mile in joining the Energizer Bunny and it's endless drumming.

I was born free, baptized Roman Catholic without my consent (as if I could say no back then) and finally ended up agnostic at the age of reason. And thus, for guidance, I seek it from our Creator's creation, this woman; a product of our Creator. So you can't vex me on that.

Eager? Anxious? What am I feeling now for the things I've learned about myself with her guidance? More of eager. Eager because, ultimately, my anger or wrath will soon be slated with results that will exact not vengeance but justice.

Ri~ght. It wasn't vengeance that need be sought. It was justice. And it happens to come in the right time and place so long as I keep my end of the bargain which is suffer, work and drama for it. Sounds fair? Actually, surprisngly to me, yes. I've come to the point where I don't really need a one up or more on someone to make myself feel satisfied for the day. Just work it and I'll be working it.

Sigh.

I'm back in Manila now. I'll miss those 10 hour long sleeps that can actually have further 30 to 45 minute snoozes. These slumbers begin and end with the same and non moving position. If sleep is a blessing, sleep in the City of Pines (especially in my house there) is a bona fide miracle! And it's not gonna happen again to me till I get back up there. *GROAN*

I've gained further information about the virus and how it has affected Baguio. I've gained new friends, including the oracle. And ultimately, a blessing in disguise, I'm spiritually and clairvoyantly assured.

Anger going away? Nope, not at all. I wouldn't be stubbornly getting well if not for that drive. Even if she called it a double edged sword, I'd rather have that than nothing.

Should I be expecting something? Oh, not at all. Expectation is the road to ruin, therefore, what I'm going to do is put all of what I've heard at the back of my head, continue what I'm doing and if anything simliar to what I've learned happens, then... I've to see her again.

PRONTO.

For How Long?

238.

That was my very first CD4 count when I found out I was positive.

How could it have been that low when my body was as strong as a horse? Though I recall having minor itches but that's all.

Like it's said about HIV, the virus feeds on your CD4 cells, therefore weakening your immune system. At 238, I was 39 points away to becoming a person with AIDS.

I couldn't ask back then because the shock was already too much. It made me go out to the quadrangle of RITM, look up to the sky and wait for an answer to pop out of the clouds. I was helpless. No sound logic could make me cope at all during those moments.

I just simply had shut up and breathe till I calmed down, back then, because more than 6 months ago, the jargons and terms used by people who have it and the people who deal with them were barely assimilated into my vocabulary.

I calmed down because of what they said: "Don't worry, it's time you took the ARV."

ARV. Anti retro viral drugs. It's not a total cure, but in a nut shell, it works like an anti biotic which you have to take on time, religiously, if you want to keep the viral load in your body down and your CD4 cells to go up. The problem here is, anti biotics kill the virus that makes you sick, ARV cannot penetrate through to your marrow to kill the dormant viri so all it could do is kill the ones that are prancing around like faeiries on Jaeger bombs in your blood, hence it's not a total cure. If you fail to be consistent with the ARV, the virus will develop an immunity to the drug and you will have to go try another cocktail combination again.

Think it's easy adjusting to a very toxic drug?

The trial periods for ARV combinations are not easy; there are chances wherein you could get fevers, burning sensations, rashes and other complications that I didn't want to hear about. I got hit with the fever and I almost passed out in a mall during that time. My sweat was cold, I was clammy all over, it felt like the animus was leaving my body and it was getting dark and grey at the blurry sides of my vision.

Hard enough?

I couldn't take paracetamol anymore. There are medicines that normal people take that you can no longer take when you are on ARV. At that point, I was told by the doctor that I should take fluids, rest, fruits, vitamins and PRAYERS.

Wow, prayers. Indeed, that was hell. But the operating word is now 'was'.

The period's long over now with my body fully adjusted to the Lamivudine/Zidovudine and Nevirapine combination (my ARV cocktail). My CD4 count has risen to 380 and my immune system is up again. The itches on my skin are gone and I just have to continue taking my meds on time as if it were a legally signed contract with the Grim Reaper.

But why 238 righ away? How come so low?

They estimated that I would have had it 4 to 5 years already being that my CD4 count was already that low.

4 to 5 years? That means... How many did I infect without me knowing?

I recall within those 4 to 5 years, my wild side would've made Steve-O and the cast of MTV's Wild Boys and Jack Ass look like a bunch of Carmelite Nuns.

No doubt about it, I could have infected someone already. So what do I do? I didn't mean it back then. Really.

Right now, what I'm focusing on is fortifying myself from within and working my way outward. Seriously, theatrics aside, this is just me. I'm not the hottest piece of gay meat in Metro Manila (but I'm not the ugliest for sure!) so it made me think (as the competitive sports enhusiast that I am): someone out there could be planting more than I am without them knowing it.

They could just be out there screwing someone silly and planting doom. Jeez, why the sudden sprite of concern going on?

Closing my eyes before I wrote this, I thought to myself: that middle aged man from Ayala Heights wasn't joking-- we are destroying ourselves without us knowing it. And true enough or possibly, knock on wood, even worse, mysterious deaths will come sweeping the country within 5 to 10 years.

I think he was pertaining to those who have it, are spreading it around, and won't check at all and will only find out when it's too late. The pattern could be the same with those whom they have infected. It'll just be like a domino of a grand necrological scale.

And cmon, you don't have to be hot or cute to get laid. You just need to be horny! It's that simple! Just turn out the lights and you can let your dreams and fantasies get of!

Speaking of dreams, I've dreamt of this, I think my dreams had somethign to do with this. I can't really put it vividly here because some of my friends know my dreams as I've shared it with them because I have had dreams that are so vivid and I actually remember them still. It just involved a lot of people dying around me.

All this thinking plus the multiplication table that they have in figures about infectoids infecting others and so on and so forth. We're talking auto genocide like they said.

5 years: that's how long I've had it at most.

5 years: that's how long it'll take for those who do not know to die.

So for how long?

How long before the entire country realizes that it's really here in front of our faces? And by realizing, how long before they accept? And by accepting, how long will it take before they act upon it?

Healing myself, I sit here in front of the screen, with but pieces of a bleak future for a lot of people, in my head.

I am lucky that I know and I am able to buy myself time with this drug.

What about the others who don't know?

For how long?

First Thing's First!!!

An emotional review and a reminder of direction.

A few days ago I was reminded by a very close confidant of the fall that happened more than five years ago.

This fall resulted into making me a total oposite of who I was back then.

It began when our eyes met June 10, 2004 at NUVO Greenbelt 2. I was wearing a red shirt, 3/4 pants and Addidas sneakers while he was wearing his black collared shirt, slacks and leather shoes. From that point on, I can still remember every detail at the back of my head and masochistically savor every nightmare it gave me after he broke up with me months after.

I did things that I was shocked to do because I knew I'd never do them. I did it for him. For us. I would give him the world and more. For us.

But that's what I thought.

Fast forward 2 years after, it was a long battle within. It was epic as I thought I had given a ghostly close to it 2 years after but then it came that reality would intervene once more to reveal that his decision to leave me was not just because he couldn't go on with the distance, it was someone else and it was all summing up into the flames in my eyes as we were on a car chase in Roxas boulevard. A car chase that meant 'STOP!' when all that my already dying heart screamed 'GO!'

I remembered vividly. Like a dying animal being skinned for commerce, I lay there defeated, with my eyes open to see and remember my predators, and promising myself that the world I wanted to give him was less than the amount my heart needed for it to be whole once more.

Something about me didn't let me close my eyes. It made me stare and look at every detail that brought me the pain. Even the person who introduced the new guy to him is a target in my thoughts: someday, I'm going to drive something blunt and jagged, drenched in my own venomous blood, down his chest and let him feel a tiny fraction of the pain that has taken a life of its own in me. I see this person, still old, desperate, honeysuckled for his money and his drugs and incredibly still facially challenged. He'll die soon, and it'd be an utter disappointment if not by my hand.

All these are but tiny droplets of a cosmic molotov cocktail that is carefully sealed and saved for some special individuals. But as for now, I am recovering very well . Where my wrath knows no bounds, my body does not. I have incurred the virus as prize for dragging down countless hopefuls to the level of being bitter and jaded simply because the world was not enough for my pain.

Like I have pondered earlier, this virus is a double edged blade which I can use to protect and destroy. In the new chapter of my life, I have already thought of a lighter side wherein I will find those who need help and somehow give them the courage to face the truth and live with the virus-- to experience, first hand, the glory of survival. That's not far from now. However I've unfinished business. I have to give in return, to him and to those who are deserving, a slice of the abyssal endeavor that has reminded me of the necessity of wrath and the alternative use for fire. Him, five years ago and that God damned old faggot bastard who introduced the other.

And now, I stand somewhat on the road to recovery and I am reminded by a friend's dramatic, syrup laden slag of a heart ache and another friend's amusing plight into a choking tunnel of love, that's gotten him all wishy washy; these remind me of the principal root of all this Hell fire. Him. Them. They will all pay.

But while I'm fessing up for the creme de la creme a la coup de grace: kudos as my CD 4 count has gone up by 142 points from a scary 238 to a luscious 380! I'll have to put on this sweet little venetian mask that says: "I'm a peaceful little sheep of Little Bo Peep and I couldn't even hurt a fly if I try~".

I lo~ve working inconspicuously. It's so double o sevenly sexy!!!

*giggle*

Calling me deranged?

It's a hobby.

And the good news?

I'm recovering.

And the better news?

I'm going to deliver.

And the best news?

Soon!

*giggle even more*

*SNAPS FOR EVERYONE* (except for those two dog shit pricks)~

Ryan and The Lesson

Nearly 4 months ago, there was a guy I met online who had a brilliant mind and could easily communicate with me by just simply being himself with me. There came a point that we were getting somewhere just by conversation and somehow, he started phasing in and out like a phantom.

Months have passed, I've met new people in my new life and each one is somehow intrinsically unique in any which way I try to look at it.

While I was getting on with my life and learning to slowly digest people for the person that they are, the person mentioned above, Ryan, glides in again with a "How are you?" over text. He knows about me, somehow it just came naturally that I thought he should know, but that wasn't even before he started phasing out randomly.

The conversation came to a point where I slightly chided at his intellect, that even such a brilliant mind can be subdued by fear of knowing something one cannot fathom. He replied with a simple answer that should have been one of my speculations from the start:

"That's true... the truth is, guilt is also fear. I have a boyfriend, already... I had him even before we met... and I couldn't tell you."

No anger nor negative feeling of the like tapped me at all. I felt warm. I texted him and told him in a very meek way that I knew from the very start that he could never be perfect and that somehow he makes mistakes too. Though his personality was strong and was the type to loathe error, I could just simply sense the seeping guilt he had whenever we spoke.

Why? Why bother knowing. I'm just glad I met him and that's that.

For every person I've met so far, I didn't tell any of them. Just less than a handfull. But I enjoyed sitting back and knowing them for who they really are. Not rushing into anything and being less reckless wtih the ideas of infatuation.

I had to do this. Initially, it was torture. It wasn't my mode of operation but somehow, with dedicated curiosity and the thirst for changes, I saw that it felt very new.

I learned to appreciate them for the person that they are. I saw their strengths and their weaknesses. How they struggle with their obstacles and how they bask in joy with their simple pleasures. I became temperemental with how I reacted with their every deed. I just simply enoyed myself knowing them for who they are. Most of them new people, some of them, I decided to take with me from my old life into my new one. I felt that some were still applicable in my new chapters.

Time well spent. It was time well spent knowing them. Slow indeed, not the penchant of young and blood-boiling youths for their style is to rush into it for experience.

I stood there watching them get hurt, happy, funny, dramatic, lousy, heroic, martyr like, cunning, dastardly, altruistic, loud, solemn and every other possible adjective. I saw them and their humanity and I can still relate.

For this I am glad. I am even more thankful that there are times I could be there for them to cry on my shoulder. Even if I am single and I harbor something that others cannot understand, I knew there and then that I was needed and I could help.

I've already thought to myself that love and romance will come. It would be selfish and stalemate if I continued to think of it and hope of it's arrival.

Learning all this, and not being able to update in such a long time, I could just compare the thoughts I had before. I've finally found peace within myself. Real peace.

It's not over at all. Surely, obstacles will come and I will be tried time and again. But for sure, there is one sentiment that will be present when such trials come:

Gladness.

*Snaps for Everyone*

Move

Summing it all up, I've probably spent too much time and effort assisting my mother in her ventures. I was the only one who could say yes and do it. I was the only one who was probably brought up to say yes and do it. And currently, I am the only one who says yes, does it and doesn't really mind if it hits the fan.

Fact, yes. Complaint, no.

Why complain if it's a wake up call screaming at me? I've probably done enough that it has spoiled her rotten to make her work sloppy. I spoiled my own mother. I don't want that. Not speaking antagonistically, it's just that it's not good anymore. Too much isn't good.

I'm done thinking. It's time to move.

My sister's leaving for San Francisco this August and with that, I'll probably have less holding me back from doing what I must and doing what I want.

I want a life that is mine.

And it's about to begin, with but a thought, I've already created.

A very special friend of mine told me earlier that I should stop being so nice. I guess he didn't mean it the way I read it over my mobile, via SMS. Right, I was so nice that I was aching to help clean other peoples' back yards forgetting about mine in the equation.

I'm not being selfish here, but I've a gut feeling this isn't how it's supposed to work. My mother had parents too. She had to elope with my dad to get a life of her own. Maybe her parents had their tentacles everywhere that it choked like virgin ass. For a time, she probably hated their guts and for the moment she's somewhat exactly like them. Ironies of ironies, eh?

I will do this. But why? Ok, there has to be an answer. Why will I do this? For myself? Yes, probably but that's not the entire answer to it. I have to become better and stronger I guess. I've to do this because I do not have enough power and influence to make the changes I want as of yet, so I guess I'll start moving slowly but surely, with this goal in mind.

I wanna make changes. For myself because this is going to hit others. This is going to wake fatso, downstairs, in his room, up in a way that he's going to really want to wake up and do things. This is going to make mom realize that nobody should be, be it your kids or your employees, expendable and it is a terrible mistake to run away from your errors and let others fix it for you.

To that friend of mine who texted that sagaciously received SMS, I know he'll be the first one reading this now.

I see him as a towering inferno searing with passion for what he does and he is not the type to let things easy on anyone when he does his craft. No, actually that's what others and most would probably see him. To me, he is one of those few good men left on earth who know the very essence of honor and respect, though he may not be the type to admit it. He likes acting tough. It's peculiar. And I respect that.

Ah, why respect? He knows the truth about me. He dubs this virus in me 'the shrimp'. Watta Tempura, huh? He is the first in his premise to know it and amazingly embrace it. Though he noted that he has always been looking for a friend like me.

I called myself one of the 'forsaken'. He believes me to be one of the 'chosen'.

With mere words anyone of us can create something.

This is the true fibre of 'God created man in His/Her own image and likeness.'-- He created us. We create things.

'Chosen'.

I choose to move. I've done too much and it has got them nowhere because they're supposed to do something too.

Easy? No, honestly, no. Everytime I feel the toll racing down my spine, I know I'll be closing my eyes and asking for help within. And I know I won't be closing my eyes just once or twice about this.

I must do this. I must move.

*Snaps for Everyone*

Another Survival

Why did it take so long for me to update again?

Well, see here, I've mentioned about being the middle child and coming from a broken home. In this broken home set up, we have already reached the pre empty nest stage wherein we, the kids, should be taking off, however, the broken home per se as one of the factors, our eldest brother has a combination of the failure to launch syndrome and the Prince of Wales syndrome. If my mother made a miscalculation by treating me like crap, she made a bigger miscalculation by treating our eldest first born as a buddha. Thus the buoyant, bouncy and corpulent shape with the matching sluggish and sloth like lifestyle married with the illusions of grandeur that everything is as feasible as a fairytale (especially if he cries and dramatizes)-- mama would simply melt and give him his candy. Awww (fuck it.)

It gets on our mom's nerves but hey, she spoiled him before and she never will stop spoiling him. I told her that, but noooo-- like the complex equation above just said: she treats me like crap.

And yes she does and it shows as a warrant of arrest with my name on it was presented by a policeman outside our house nearly two weeks ago. I'm not at fault, but let's just say since my signature is on a check for a business of ours and my mother, bright and devious as she is in balancing and upping the ante to her favor, with me expendable of course, deffered payment to a supplying company.

It's not her name. It's mine. So yeah, she'd probably do a gung ho accounting stunt since it wasn't her goose that was gonna get cooked. I had to run and hide at my dad's subdivision in Laguna where the long arm of the law won't be able to reach my poor waning CD4 cells, who were just dying to find out that I was being charged by the Republic of the Philippines.

Surprised, I was solid that day it happened. I just kept quiet and smug about everything. Hey, she treats me like shit anyway, so what's new? It's just a degree higher (or should I say lower?). Am I this numb already? My younger sister was definitely pissed, probably because she saw everything from neutral ground, seeing that I'm doing what I can too help out with the businessess, as our Happy Buddha of an older brother stays happy as the buddha he is, chomping on the pie in the sky that's his girlfriend, who, by the way, will probably never make it to my christmas Card list or anyone in our family's at all for quite sometime.

We can spot a user a mile away, Fatso! Use your head!

Well, after hiding, I posted bail with the help of my mum's attorney. Well at least she thought of HELPING the dirt beneath her feet.

Thank goodness I'm still alive, OK, and amazingly not questioning why these are happening. Honestly, I don't wanna mind them too much. It's not good for me. I'm focusing on my closer friends who I play sports with regularly.

Some of them know, some of them don't, but they're real people. They're not the Ladida Society that go out clubbing and acting so nuveau and pleasing people, who don't care about the new stuff that they bought, or the expensive adventures and latest drugs that they shoved up their noses. Nope, they ain't that. They're people I can talk to when I'm feeling odd and they really listen and help out. They won't stab you on the back because they're not the Gossip Girl type shit that everyone's trying to be nowadays.

All this angst and I'm still ok and smiling coz I know that with the company I'm keeping, the sun is shining on this side of Manila for me.

It helps me survive. It's just that as life will always continue to pour the sweetness and the bitterness and all other kinds of bruhaha, as I have passion for my friends, their problems also affect me and just today a bitter ordeal has struck one of my close friends.

A break up. A gay break up. Usually, for most, they're as common as the jeepneys that add a silvery shade of bull shit to our Metro traffic, gay relationships come and go fast, hard and you wouldn't even know it happened if you don't update regularly.

Here's the sad part: in our team, we all love both of them. Of course, both probably made a mistake, but one had to cheat, and it was the younger one (as usual). They're age gap's kinda big, so I wasn't surprised, it's a technical you-ought-to-know, but it's still different when it really happens to people close to you. This is the part I really don't like: I don't mind if I'm the one getting rained on, but if it's someone I care about, it really affects me (eg Michael Jackson, I cried for him already, he will always be the King of Pop and media treated him worse than how my mum treated me, so I'm really sorry for it, MJ. We love you).

I survived. I'm gonna get through this. We're in this together. It's not game over for me. It won't be game over for you. There's tomorrow. Life goes on. Love goes on. Everything changes and movesin fidgets or leaps and bounds. Everything.

This is supposed to really bother me, but it's not anymore. Maybe because the worst has happened. Or maybe I'm as numb as the corns on my feet. Hah!

Survival. It's a jungle everywhere nowadays.

*Snaps for Everyone*