Red Flag

I'm of a strange mood tonight. It could be about a number of things. It could be because of this tenacious case of the colds that punctuates my every motion with a disease-ridden sniff. Possibly, it might be because of a debilitatingly embarrassing pimple inconveniently/strategically/comically spawned right beneath my leaky nostrils. It could also be because of the sound beating I got while playing Dissidia a while ago. But I know the real culprit here is a great deal more damning. It's by his merit that my resume sits on-screen on the desktop across the room, and on this document's stark blacks and unforgiving whites is the issue brought forward.

Today, I planned on ditching work. The aforementioned colds wasn't as lonely last night when it was merrily joined by fits of racking coughs. Over warm lomi and burgers at the only local branch of Mushroom Burger, Joms advised me a day to recuperate. I said I'd be alright, in spite of a headache and a spreading blush across my complexion, and sipped my warm lomi gingerly.

"You don't have anything to do tomorrow so you might as well take the time to rest," insisted Joms. I slurped, tissued, and looked at him straight, "That's true, but that's even more reason for me to be at work tomorrow. If there's going to be new work assigned, a new project to join, I'd like to be there to hear it."

I went home early that night, 9pm, which is early by our standards. And I slept at 10, unprecedented, by my standards. I looked forward to whatever this week will bring, seeing as it started off splendidly on a holiday and had only 4 more rewarding work days to go.

And it was a going to be a great start to a week. I finally decided on a name for my pet project and successfully grabbed the appropriate domain and completed a sort-of proof of concept. A great milestone for me and my future and today was pretty much set to be a great day for me. But my premonition held true for that day and it came in the form of our Japanese manager looking to have a short talk with us.

He was a bit hasty, though polite. In a word, he seemed edgy like most Japanese are when beset by a deadline or a major decision. This was the latter, a decision that isn't his to make but ours. We were offered to be sent back to Cebu, which from the previous experience wasn't a bad notion at all. But according to him, if I understood his understandable, though disjointed, english correctly, meant we'd be staying for a much longer period and for a much less tempting incentive.

Extremely minuscule, at about 10% of the previous arrangement, the new salary augmentation was next to spare change compared to our previous compensation. Plus, it's 4 times longer at the projected minimum of 2 years. And, no more free flights back. As the Japanese boss said it before, "Cebu is your final home."

We were a group, the five of us, who came back recently from Cebu and were now asked whether the returning was at the least, worth a second thought. There were more and they shared the consensus, and the consensus wasn't agreeable. Personally, I think it's a workable deal, but because of the time factor, I really can't join this time around.

The thing that broke me down was the casual mentioning, and horrible realization, of a fear of mine that has lurked ever since we booked the flight heading back to Manila: there are no new projects in Manila. Even if we chose to stay, we didn't have anything to do here either. In a business viewpoint, this is the company's way of validating our employment. And if we don't bite, we are, in the extremest and most cynical case I can imagine, expendable.

So tonight, I open my aging resume and tweak, stylize and subtly exaggerate the accomplishments of 2 years. I wonder half-consciously what I should wear to the interviews, if I should shoot for that formal-attired work I lust for, and if I'd settle for a plain-clothes company if that was the only one available. I wondered how much of a salary bump I should say yes to, how much my salary has grown and I project will grow in the next year if I stay, and if I deserve more.

I feel kinda derailed and, though I'm not scared, I am disconcerted. Stability is a fickle commodity in these trying times.

Over the phone, Joms asked me how I can leave the company I purportedly love. "When the office fails to find something for you to work on, that's not a good sign," I said. If they can't justify your employment, you have to make sure you have options. "I know a red flag when I see one," I concluded.

A Schemer with Good Intentions

I've always wondered about the ways of the universe. If she, it always does seem so much grander to imagine nature as daughters of Eve, were a person, I'd think she'd be this beautiful presence that floated far above everyone. She would be distant yet conspicuous, like a glow of a distant star, cloud 9, or the assuring presence of the clear sky. She'd be easily obscured and forgotten when the lights of the city blind us and the heights of civilization suffocate us. But she will always be there, a being of a will, though imperceptible, that stretches and ties together each and every one of us. A schemer with good intentions is how I'd picture a God would be.

And the schemer's schemes came to fruition last night, in another random happenstance, in some form of aleatory serendipity. I came from a fabulous party where it seemed everyone I met were people I should, if life could be grander, have met before. It was a party of a friend of mine, though I still think I don't have it in me to earn in my life such precious things, who celebrated his birthday in one of the many lofty floors of Linden Suites, Ortigas. He, like me, had a different bent when it came to relationships. And like me and him, had stories to tell and adventures to recount, but he had a richer life and such humbling experiences that he banked on these things and made these stories public--online. This availability to the populace made him... popular, and his party was peopled with the famous and the fabulous.

But it wasn't about the glamor at all, it was the fact that I was in a room filled with people who were also... bent, so to speak. It was awkward at first, as most social things go, as strangers repelled each other and moped behind their wine glasses, among acquintances and empty humor. But unlike parties I've been to, the underlying commonness among us won out eventually and I got to meet people wonderful not just because they really are, but because we could talk about our strangeness. And, even for a single night, fully display its fantastic shade not against the prejudiced and unforgiving blacks and whites of society, but among the argent, gules and azure strokes, and vert, sable and sanguine tinctures of our varied personae. We were different, but in being together, we found our uniqueness a quality to celebrate. We brandished our coats of arms and reveled in it. Being stuck in that room, I found out I was special not just because of my predilections and preferences, but simply because I was who I am.

I've always been comfortable about being gay. But last night taught me that that wasn't all there is to know about me. In that wonderful, rare place where gay is the norm, I was still special after all. A swan in a flock of ducks would think himself unique simply because of his separate lineage. But in the sky among fellow swans, only there can one truly see how far he can fly, truly see beyond the feathers and discover the uniqueness tucked away in the heart.

And among these many meetings, a few stood out brighter in the evolving portrait of the party. Star-crossed, much like moons and stars whose orbits and trajectories align once and for a moment share energy, momentum and what other magical things science has yet to discover, I met old strangers again. And in the time between our first meetings, and last night's auspicious circumstances, these amazing strangers became my amazing friends. "Meant to be," I'd say more often now than ever.

Until the next time you pull your invisible strings and send me to another unknown joy, I'll live everyday knowing life has something more to offer, oh lofty universe. As I said out loud last night with all my heart, more towards the cynics of the world than to the people I was talking to, "Life is Good."

Photo: via Mountain Gull Trading Company
BGM: Nakajima Ai - Neko Nikki(Cat's Diary) from Macross Frontier

Sitting Down

He was sitting down as he reached for the phone and dialed my number, breathing in the air thick with office-chatter and the click-clack of work getting done, a nearby xerox spews documents with no end. The meeting was scheduled this Friday, his birthday, a meeting he was meant to supervise, a meeting in Manila, while he was supposed to be in Cebu. He heard the phone ring on the other end, and he caught me in the middle of work that Wednesday afternoon. With no hint of insincerity or wavering, he tells me he won't make it tomorrow night, and if I would, reschedule his flight to the night after. I put the phone down and stared at the work staring back at me from the monitor, planning a short stopover at the ticket office tomorrow afternoon.

He was sitting down as the hidden speakers announced the preparations for take-off, a well-dressed stewardess walks down the aisle inspecting the coloured, though somewhat pale, passengers of tonight's red-eye while a dainty scarf strangled her neck. It was 4:30 in the morning, and the flight taking him to Cebu was also taking him away from the remains of last night's birthday bash. This rescheduled flight didn't make it before last night's festivities, an unavoidable circumstance of the deluge of weekenders making the most of the long weekend and booking every flight in sight. It was either this or risk his job and go at it with the boss for a few rounds. This will do, he thought. I had promised him a weekend getaway at the idyllic island of Bantayan, and an hour's flight away, I was thick into another stare-down with the unblinking monitor.

He was sitting down as youngin's and not-so-youngin's ran around a vacant well-maintained lot of grass in Cebu's greeneried IT park. His eyes drooped a bit but settled back open taking in the sight of tall, yet separated, buildings nestled among easy shrubberies and palm trees tilting along with the gracious wind. He ended up on an empty coffee table in front of the deserted Figaro. The fact that Starbucks was also closed, unsettled him, when he recognizes the economic virtue of keeping a coffee shop open at 6am in the morning. Bothering him more is the rough start to this relaxing weekend. The eat-all-you-can breakfast promised previously was closed for a private affair, and it seems that there wasn't anywhere else to go, even for the simple necessity of a warm cup of joe. I received distressed messages as I gave-up the staring contest at the office and walked out, wondering how much a sleep-deprived man could go for the promise of caffeine.

He was sitting down as a movie of leaves, landmarks and locals played on a mistakably unending loop outside the bus windows of our prolonged and bumpy ride to Hagnaya. This magical bus will benevolently take our persons and our accompanying baggage across the northern wilderness of Cebu and drop us off just before the land ends and the sea begins. But it punished us also, mostly our asses, by finding each sharp crevice and jarring hole on the beaten road and communicating through savage movements its delight in travel and tenderizing our rumps in the process. I was fast asleep beside him and didn't notice a large oaf-of-a-man steal an undeserved share of our bus seat, squeezing the life out of my companion as well. A white lady, a cement-made tube and blinks of buses appeared outside, witnessed the transgression, and stood/whooshed-away unaffected. They've seen worse, perhaps.

He was sitting down next to me, on a rickety bench on our rickety ferry ride across the blue sea towards Bantayan. A certain restlessness has started to spring from him and neither the whimpers of the shimmering sea below or the stolen-kisses of the lofty winds above could quell this quaking within. He was anxious and tired, travelling for too long for a weekend that's too short. He put on some shades and slunk into dejected silence wondering how far we've gone astray from the normal and humane implications of a "restful weekend". I noticed his unusual stillness and knew from his declamatory statements previously that he was quite unhappy. I looked at the shadow of distant Bantayan and hoped.

He was sitting down, beer in hand and, having most of tonight's Nilaga safely consumed, was eerily thoughtful. Even with sobriety aside, there was still a pallor settling between us that neither the quaint surroundings of bamboo or the warm laughs of locals could color. He was quite disappointed. The room I booked was exactly what the advert said: the cheapest air-conditioned beach-front room on the isle. I had assumed you can't go wrong with that but obviously the place glossed over the slight details about the room's "bodega" motif and an alarming proximity to the tinkering of plates and diners at the neighboring/conjoined restaurant. Miffed though he was, he put off his frustration jovially but with deadly precision and each joke felt like gaily colored sea urchins jumping merrily in my soul, prickling all in its wake.

I was devastated. This was meant to be a reprieve and though things were far from stellar, they were still bearable. I thought, "Hey! We're roughin' it!" But he glibly asked me if a "restful weekend" entailed "roughin' it". It was due to poor planning. True that, since I only had the week to plan and only managed to steal a phone-call or two while placating the alarms of our delayed project schedule. But, I didn't settle on making an excuse I knew hardly justified this bad a weekend. Instead, I wondered how a person can be so set to not liking something. How can a person hold on to such prejudice and dislike so fervently. I thought these pernicious thoughts and interpreted his quiet demeanor as manifestations of my predictions: quietly heading in and out of the room, or sitting up in bed on the laptop minding his own business. "He's shunning me," I thought and just as quietly licked the bruises and welts that thought left inside me as I curled up on the bed beside him.

I confronted him a little after, telling him what else could I do to salvage "the weekend that will forever live in the annals of worst weekends ever, exclamation point." He said, "Let go." "Whut?" my head thought. Is this you washing your hands of the whole thing? Escaping from the chance to save all this? Giving up, are we?

I napped a bit and some of the self-loathing must've been swallowed by the sea or one of the diners outside because when I woke up, I knew differently. I told him how I felt and he looked at me strangely and explained himself.

He had gone out to check the beach and took a short swim, noticing that the water, though refreshing, was too shallow and not really meant for swimming. He instead read a book and read the passages of "Wicked" to the tune of kids playing along the shoreline. Where have I been this whole morning? Wasn't it I who was letting go of the consolations this placed offered?, locked up in this cold, shadowy "bodega"?

Shocked, I stammered to say something but instead just became very still. I finally listened to him; finally let go. Everyone is entitled to their innocent irreverences and glacial potencies. The key to understanding them is not to judge their emotions but to believe in their intentions. I was trying so hard to please him, that I've forgotten that he was here not just for a weekend, but also for me. And as he said, "That's enough for me." Behind all the sarcasm and half-meant chides, there was still in him the hope to spend a weekend with me, and he's been making the most of it. I lost sight of that, but I know now.

I slept on the way back, somehow the bus wasn't as sadistic and I managed to doze off quickly, settling my head and sinking into the shallow dreams and warmth
of his lap. He later said this was his favorite part of the weekend, my mess-of-a-hair around his arms, dreaming.

He was sitting down for that final time and I was sitting with him, together on another nameless road across the savagely beautiful landscapes of Cebu.