Derailed Thoughts where the train is going

Sometimes a joke can ring too much truth, it can make you laugh but the best ones are those that make you think and keep you laughing.

for the second year now, the company I work with volunteered to do community service painting poublic school classrooms. The project was put together by the Ateneo Center for Educational Development (ACED), I commend them on their work and the obvious passion they pour into helping less fortunate but deserving students to afford top rank education. That is no joke.

Having been in the presence of Ateneans, the university joke couldn’t help but crack. There was one of AMA, St. Paul etc. What got me was “how do you know if a person is from Ateneo or La Salle? I dialed my memory of ateneans and lasallites I’ve known– apart from they hate each other, A likes blue, L likes green, they’re indoctrinated and the like, none seemed to sound like a good come back for a joke.

The answer was simple and all kinds of true: How do you know when a person is from Ateneo or LaSalle?
Answer: They tell it to you…

Now, looking back at all the lasallites and

Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

Being immersed in different kinds of work environments has allowed me be around different kinds of people, from different backgrounds, gifted with different capacities, armed with different views and insights.

I have had the privilege to work side by side with dudes and dudettes from the ivy, great communicators, eccentric and moody creative minds,cool geeks, charming bitches, freaks on a leash, occasional assholes w bloated egos,know-nothing know-it-alls and what not; having had the opportunity to gel with all of them as colleagues and friends will forever be a cherished experience.

I’ve always said you gotta love the people you work with, and surviving a full decade around these types would mean I have parts of all that in me, manifesting either on my best or worst days.

Yet, in this plain I am in, is a totally different territory that I would sometimes feel either alienated or just an alien sitting on a different planet. Sometimes I find myself watching them and be in absolute awe of how different these people are from everyone I’ve had the pleasure of working with.

The barriers of language and experience throw me off the grid sometimes and get my stomach rolling. Under normal circumstances, I’d be cursing the hell out. It may be age or stature, but I observed myself to be patient and forgiving to certain shortcomings, I know now that it’s not a fault of nature or society’s misgivings, it’s just the fact that people are wired in many different ways.

They aren’t think tanks or wordsmiths, but they are dedicated hardworkers with a good heart who’d rise above themselves at every turn, every road block; just being around them is humbling and an experience to behold. Screw jackasses! I’ve had enough of their shit.

Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

I prayed for peaceful work-free weekends for years, now I have been getting weekend rest and it feels so strange. I hope this is not the calm before the storm, I’m just getting used to being out and about on gimmick days and spending sundays as sundays should be spent. Please let this abnormality go on for a little bit more

Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

It appears double standards do not only apply to males and females but also among males caught in between–transvestites and cross-dressers.

As I stood in line waiting for the train, a security personnel politely asked a typical cross-dressing gay parlorista to fall in line for the 2nd train car as the first car is strictly for females n elderly passengers. I can see the awkwardness on the guard’s face as he walked the shemale towards the next car “pambabae at matanda lang po sa 1st car”.

I have lots of gay friends and I appreciate the way he approached the shemale, with respect and maybe a little charm. The shemale did not have violent reactions, she just followed. I bet he knew who the first train was for, he was just consumed by the fantasy or the false reality that he’s a she. Things would have been really interesting if he indeed was a she who just looked like a tranny, tough luck on the guard.

This here is one fine example of why I can’t get my finger on completely embracing cross-dressing gays. I have shared powder rooms w gays,that’s okay because our male counterparts would probably freak out to share urinals w guys in pretty little dresses. Yet in the arena of transportation, do shemales have equal privilege as that of a real woman? Probably not, they are still men that women in the first car will condemn albeit silently. There goes double standards.

.My gay friends would never dare to hitch a ride on the first car. They know what they are and they know their place, shemales should too.

Something about the coming days is filling me with excitement. I look forward to living a little, spending time at home w the family, attending to the little things that makes me, me!

Lord knows how many moons ago it has been since I held a paint brush and created images, the dust my guitar has collected tells I haven’t strummed a chord for as long as pop music has been nothing but trash. The books on my bedside and on the shelves have piled up as fast as my work files, I’ll finally get to finish some of it, knowing it’s totally ambitious to read all of it given my low attention span and the weapons of mass distraction I have at home. I look forward to sitting by the beach thinking of nothing but to enjoy the scenery, to visit museums I have so long been wanting to see, to be a child and play in the mud, kick some balls, hit someone’s head and run like mad.

I wanna be resurrected in the underground scene, watch some gigs and get lost in the music, to go slam dancing like nobody cares, to drown in alcohol and jusyt let loose. Oh to be free, unguarded and me!

I accept the dare…I’m moving, I’m gonna miss you–the old you.

There really does come a time when the need to move on

We sure hope 2012 is not the end but the beginning. I started the year on the different note, outside the tradition of spending the eve with family around a feast of good food. A tradition that is supposed to be foretelling of the year ahead. But who are we kidding. Straight off the crack of new year, when the smoke from the firecrackers that were lit are coming down, my brother and I are all too eager to get our asses out of the house, to be back in the city where our true lives are.

This year, I opted to be realistic, I welcomed the new year with friends, danced till the sun was almost out. I thought I’ve been missing on the freedom of a single woman cuz I’m always too busy being the good sister. The one whose energy is exerted in grocery shopping, spending countless hours in the kitchen so that we could share a beautifully prepared table. That’s all there is to it. In the end, our other brother is in the dumps, our sister is at work and we are not together. Not to say that we’re not family, we’ll always be. If anything, shouldn’t we be where our tortured brother is? Ideally, we should. Truthfully, I could have been but I have my reservations and I’m not too proud of that.

I suggested that we all spend NYE in Manila but my dear brother is worried about leaving the house and driving the family back. I can’t wait for the time when my nephews and nanay are back to live in the city, to live as we used to, and travel short distances to be together and possibly spend holiday as a family