Mancrush: Jesse Tyler Ferguson

Dahil nanonood ang couple dito sa bahay namin ng the Aviator, at narinig ko ang Moonglow sa background, so magpapakacheesy muna ko


Probably, it's something I imbibed from Hollywood movies, but I just get that picture and pleasurable "nostalgic feeling" of myself lounging in a dimly-lit bar smoking cigarettes when I hear this kind of jazz. Baka sa previous life ko pinanganak ako during that era?

When I was in my angsty teenage period, I turned to jazz because I wanted to reign-in all the chaos that my emotions stirred. Kind of my tranquilizer, so I guess, you might call me proper junkie then. Twisted right? While I still indulge in my romanticisms over this genre, fortunately, I am differently motivated now. Props for some personal growth. Though I've still got a long way before I can properly say I enjoy the more intellectual likes of Miles Davis, Thelonius Monk, etc, (maybe it's because I've not been properly schooled in music and so unfamiliar with the heady stuff?). But heck, I can listen all day to big-bands and swing, and someday I'll learn to play standards on trumpet or sax. I confess I too have this all-time fantasy of dancing that someone (my "man", of course) to oldies like Cheek to cheek, or It's been a Long Long Time. Call it: life imitating fiction, yeah, best put it that way so at least it sounds less hilarious. Come on, you cannot not melt when you hear the lines, "So kiss me once, then kiss me twice, then kiss me once again...." Sigh. Then imagine your Man. Isa pa uli, Sigh.

So, meet my man (I seem to be owning up to this hopeless-romantic type well no?)

Oops, that's a not really flattering pic, still cute pa rin naman. Kulit ng antics ng Modern Family but I have to say I have this big crush on this guy (sorry boys, may boyfriend na sya), one more reason why I enjoy the show. It's definitely got something to do with that immaculate beard. For the time being, Jesse holds that ideal image of my type of guy you would want to come home to. Regardless of all the Hideo Muraokas, Daniel Matsunagas, Bernardo Velascos and Marlon Teixeiras. Kahit pa lahat sila may chiseled abs at naka-underwear lang. (Ako na ang mahilig sa brazilian models) Keso, I know!

This guy I could imagine snuggling with in bed. We would be asking each other how the day went for us, and then maybe, not getting to hear the other answer because one of us probably dozed off already. He'll be someone in reading glasses while poring over a newspaper in the morning, and later forgets his keys. I could go on and on. Haha. Me and my domestic fantasies.

Strangers

Kahapon may nakasabay ako sa train! haha, may small crush kasi ako sa kanya nung una ko palang syang nakita sa capoeira trainings, may hawig sya kay Kyuhyun ng super junior (di ako fan ng super junior, pero cool nung dance sa sorry, sorry), promise! Kyuhyun pero mixed-jap na ang ganda ang biceps at magaling gumalaw. You know, that man-boy vibey eye-candy. Pero awkward na sya eh, nahuli nya yata akong tumitingin madalas tapos nung minsan sa isang party, sobrang inasar pa ko sa kanya with matching tulak, kamusta naman yun. Kaso straight sya at kilala pa nya yung college friends ko (di pa nila alam about my um, orientation haha).

Anyway, we both pretended not having noticed each other kahit we were almost face-to-face nung pagpasok ko sa train, kunwari na lang akong busy-busy thumbing through my playlist, at sya naman nakita ko turned on the opposite direction. Hindi naman ako affected (ok, konti lang hehe, sayang di ko nakita yung cute nyang smile).

Blah-blah, bat ko ba shinare yun, wala lang. May binabasa akong poetry book on my home that time (na hindi ko pa rin tapos kahit ididiscuss na ng reading group ko mamaya, lol) tapos BAM! basa ko tong tula na to, nabasa ko na to dati eh, pero nung oras lang na yun ako tinamaan. Ako na ang ang emotero sa loob ng tren. Inspired daw kasi ako that time, char. Basta. Sobrang hands-down talaga ako sa mga poems that speak not just on the level of words BUT also on the level of image.

Galing sa Hybrids of Plants and of Ghosts ni Jorie Graham:



Strangers

Indeed the tulips
change tense
too quickly.
They open and fly off.
And, holding absolutes
at bay, the buds

tear through the fruit trees,
steeples into sky.
Faith is where we are
less filled
with ourselves, and are
expected nowhere—

though it's better to hurry.
The starlings keep trying
to thread the eyes
of steeples.
It's hard, you can't
cross over. The skin

of the pear tree is terse
like the pear, and the acorn
knows finally
the road not taken
in the oak.
We have no mind

in a world without objects.
The vigor of our way
is separateness,
the infinite
finding itself strange
among the many. Dusk,

when objects lose their way, you
throw a small
red ball at me
and I return it.
The miracle is this:
the perfect arc

of red we interrupt
over and over
until it is too dark
to see, reaches beyond us
to complete
only itself.


___

About fortuities and a vandalism

__


09194998649


I was here.

I saw you passed by outside and I followed. You saw me enter the cofeeshop, more than twice. I took my time buying a cup because I was stealing glances. I took a nearby seat and counted enough change for the fare home. I was relieved. I noticed you had a calculator and I was stupid to mumble something like I had to know the value of Pi, up to eleven digits after the decimal. But now you know I’m actually smarter than that.

You rang me up the next day. You liked me more and more. Shyly, I admitted feeling the same. We gave each other presents. You hated flowers, moreover, you wouldn’t give me one. I hated your bad days, and told you to pick your fights. You preferred the train because you avoid overreaching for lazy passengers’ fares. And I knew they’re called pushcarts for good reason, thank you, but still I liked to pull on them. But we counted the months. I sang you Your Song. And then you actually sang it better. We had plans. We gave each other morning and parting kisses.

Later, I got so down, when it took longer than expected to find another job, I waxed the floor and bought new rugs. You slipped on one, I was terrified you’ve broken more than a wrist. You did. You laughed it off and said you look more rugged with the cast. I agreed, not just because I was sorry. I drew a crack and from it emerge nuns, priests and trains, and I helped you in for baths, in dressing up for work. I enjoyed it, you didn't have to thank me much. We hoped for marriage. Someday, maybe.

Then came a difficult fight. I gave you a bruise, not before long did it turn from crimson to ugly violet. You were drunk and kicked down chairs.

It got better somehow with a long talk and lots of compromise. We missed each other, you approached me in a manner I knew too well. I pushed in early, you hurt a lot, we had to stop. I did it again and you yelled “Easy, Tiger!” In French. Well in any case, you wouldn’t have called me that if you hadn’t wanted it rough, I knew that too.

Anyway, by the time you're reading this, if you ever happen to read this, hopefully we each still pay half of the month’s rent. And that you never forget again your credit card in case I got too excited buying groceries pulling on carts at the supermarket . Forgive me if sometimes you have to mop the bathroom so often. I’m wasteful, I flood the floor and keep forgetting to close the tap. Don’t worry. I knew all along you burned my favorite dress shirt with the iron. And it’s OK, as long as I get to borrow yours. I secretly envy your good taste.

In the event that one of us had declared it over, I hope we didn’t fight too much on who gets to take care of Marcello. He’s not our kid (weren’t we contemplating on adoption), but our jack russell. You wouldn’t have agreed to naming our child Marcello anyway.

Either way, you must be absent-mindedly scratching your eyebrow now, I’m right, ain’t I? No, don't stop, it's cute. With a few potholes here and there, some uphills, a major quake or two (I hope not literally but who knows), I can’t say for sure if we’d still be standing. But whether I’m waiting for you outside (dinner's on me tomorrow, in that case) or not :-( , I should have told you earlier on when something’s not working pretty well...

It’s the bad plumbing here, you see, you should have taken the other stall.

Tee-hee.


For 09279877854


___

Never

From the collector's notebook of substitutions
by Conchitina Cruz



Say grief: things that wander with the intention to return

Say maybe: things that entertain the possibility of always

Say afterthought: things that haunt rather than invade

Say souvenir: not erasure, but palimpsests

Say disappear: letter, sans serif, white, umlaut

Say collateral: not risk, mere substitution

Say document: proof and signpost

Say never: things that breathe easy elsewhere




***

Look for her poetry collection "Elsewhere held and lingered." One heavy reading. Poem after poem, napa-"shit, grabe ang galing" yata ako. Harrows you with its intense revelations and examinations of a self that survives?/perils?/fragments? itself due to an illicit affair.
The author surely ranks among the best of poets in the country today.

One Thousand and One Nights

It may have been just a dream but I remember I woke up once in the middle of the night so haunted by those first two lines that I cried.


What is it about darkness that's so exquisite? Sometimes I feel it's partly conceit. That we're special and the universe somehow makes an effort, no matter how little, to make sure we suffer beautifully and to our satisfaction.


Maybe it's related to what Carl Sagan said in Contact that we feel so alone. Our solitude makes us aware of this imbalance, the improbability of our existence. It's either we invent a companion god (was it Nietzsche who said something like: there isn't enough love in this world to assign it to other beings), or we humble ourselves with the thought that it would be an awful waste of space if it were just us. And then there's this, we take small hidden pleasures in hardship. We anticipate. Like every civilization must have come up with its own version of apocalypse. Not for that light at the end of the tunnel, not for the lessons to be learned, just that basic reassurance that our position in the cosmos is that of frailty.


In the book One Thousand and One Nights (popularly, Arabian Nights), the primary story is that of a Persian king who weds a wife every day and beheads the one from the night before. That is before Scheherazade. She would tell him stories each night that would be cut short by dawn and this way the King was forced to spare her life. In the book, after one thousand and one nights, there are no more stories to be told, but the King has fallen in love with his storyteller and thus it ends happily.


Yet, I suspect,"one thousand and one" refers at the same time to infinity.


____

Dahil Maulan (tama sisihin ang ulan!)

Sabi nga nila kung ayaw, maraming dahilan.
Kung tinatamad, mas maraming paraan.

Teka mali yata yun. Mga procrastination tactics ko talaga, I surprise even myself.
Anyway, pag maulan nga naman at may makakasalubong kang pogi sa daan. Haha. Joke lang. Sana lang may nakasalubong talaga akong pogi.


***

Sa Aawitan

Ilang beses bang bumagsak ang ulan nitong huling mga gabi
na nahuli ko ang aking sarili na nilalakad
ang daan mo pauwing bahay sa aking pagkakatanda?
At gaano ba katagal bago mawala o maging mali ang mga salita
sa kantang narinig natin sa inayos na lumang radyo?
Maiiwasan pa ba ito, nahihinto ako sa gitna
paakyat ng matatarik na kalsada dahil darating ang sandali
ng minsang nagtagpo ang mga labi, mabilis na saglit
at agad mawawala, mapapatanong bigla sa sarili
dahil inakalang ligtas ang panlasa sa guni-guni.
Kung naroon pa ang poste ng ilaw sa kalye bago ang huli
mong liko pa-inyo na pupundi-pundi sa ating pagdaan
at nasabi ko noon nabigyan ko ito ng kahulugan,
pwede ba akong maging hindi makakatotohanan at gaano,
maari bang nananatili pa ang awit para sa iyo.


___

Date A Guy Who Reads

Saw this cute post Date A Girl Who Reads by Rosemarie Urquico on tumblr.

There are some stuff here and there that's gonna sound arrogant but the original author intended it as a reply to another article: You Should Date an Illiterate Girl.

Her original post is here.

If you feel lazy going through the post and actively substituting the word "girl" and related words as you read along, below's the edited version for us gays, hehe.

***

Date a guy who reads. Date a guy who spends his money on books instead of clothes. He has problems with closet space because he has too many books. Date a guy who has a list of books he wants to read, who has had a library card since he was twelve.

Find a guy who reads. You’ll know that he does because he will always have an unread book in his bag. He’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when he finds the book he wants. You see the weird guy sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.

He’s the guy reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at his mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because he’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. He might give you a glare, as most guys who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask him if he likes the book.

Buy him another cup of coffee.

Let him know what you really think of Murakami. See if he got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if he says he understood James Joyce’s Ulysses he’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask him if he loves Alice or he would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a guy who reads. Give him books for his birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give him the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give him Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let him know that you understand that words are love. Understand that he knows the difference between books and reality but by god, he’s going to try to make his life a little like his favorite book. It will never be your fault if he does.

He has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to him. If he understands syntax, he will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail him. Because a guy who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because guys who read understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Guys who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.

If you find a guy who reads, keep him close. When you find him up at 2 AM clutching a book to his chest and weeping, make him a cup of tea and hold him. You may lose him for a couple of hours but he will always come back to you. He’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time he’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. He will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and he will recite Keats under his breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a guy who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a guy who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give him monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a guy who reads.

Or better yet, date a guy who writes.


____