Kama

The fag Joven and I went to Bed last night. By Bed standards, the place was not packed. But of course there were still the handful of Manila's fags (like us) having fun in the now cavernous dance floor. Go-go boys were perched on ledges, gyrating to the music like their lives actually depended on it.

I had fun. Went home at around 4am

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Summer has been hellish for my sister and I. Our appartment faces west and by 11 in the morning it can really get hot... as in nasty hot. We figured we need heavier curtains to minimize sun seepage (if there's such a thing). So my sister and I scoured the ukay-ukay shops around our area. We ended up buying this heavy table cloth that could serve as a curtain. We have yet to put on (duh, we need to send it to laundry first) but hopefully this would ultimately end our summer woes.

Tutay, by the way, went back to Davao last Thursday. She was our roommate for about a couple of months. But when UP Mindanao called her to teach in the Social Science department, the next thing we know she's flying back to Davao already. Well, we are happy for her of course and wish her nothing but the best.

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Photo above courtesy of www.travelandleisure.com

My Evangelista

I slept for about four hours after my shift today. When I was sure that I don't have enough willpower to sleep anymore, I doned the largest among my sunglasses collection and headed out to Evangelista St. (Well I live along one of Evangelista's tributaries.)

When my sister and I moved to our new apartment a few months back we immediately fell in love with the location of our new abode. For one, it is very accessible to Mercury Drug, Jollibee, McDonalds, 7-11, and a slew of other establishments that are practically right outside our doorstep. Conveniently, Edsa is just a few streets away.

But the one thing that really makes Evangelista very endearing to me is the fact that Bangkal's famed thrift shops is just a few blocks from our apartment. It has become a habit that when I have nothing to do at home and is in the mood for some window shopping I head to the thrift shops to look around.

The thrift shops actually sell EVERYTHING (except food). There are antique furnitures, bicycles, paintings, baskets, magazines, clothes, pans, books, magazines, toys, lamps, washing machines, old casette tapes. You name it, they have it. It's a mix of vintage shops, antique stores, ukay-ukay, and book sale. The stores are actually the store-owners' garage. Some of the merchandise even slip way into the street.

The Evangelista thrift shops is like a repository of other people's unwandted things but would be a treasure for people like me who like old, cheap stuff. Not that I could buy any of the antique or old furnitures, but looking at them could already give me a sensation equal to a good orgasm.

Lately, I've been purchasing discarded books left and right. They are sold from P10 to P50. Just today, I found a copy of Catch 22 and Tuesdays with Morrie sold for about P15 each. I also regularly buy issues of Time Magazine, Vogue and other fashion magazines from five years back. I have this basketfull of magazines already as well as a shelf full of books (some of which I brought from Davao).

To my surprise, Carlos Celdran (http://celdrantours.blogspot.com), the famous tour guide, holds tours in Evangelista's thrift shops.

Now I hardly go to the mall these days. I find it more satisfying to scour the goods in Evangelista and actually can buy some of them.

A Gay Holiday

I found my self in Puerto Galera last Thursday, Friday, and Saturday for what is to be my first trip since I moved to Manila a few months ago. Everybody must've been in Puerto that time coz the beach was fully packed with pulsating bodies trying to get a spot on the hot sand.

With me on this "Holy WeeK" trip were Joven, Candice, and Archie. Joven was a classmate in college and the other two I had the pleasure of meeting for the first time during that trip.

The legend is true afterall that fags of all shapes and sizes converge in Puerto during the Holy Week break (which makes the whole affair far from "Holy"). I remarked to Joven that if and when a bomb or tsunami hit the beach during that time the entire gay population of Manila would be decimated.

With the rest of the entire fag populace, our time at the beach was spent eating and basking in the sun. I even had a massage right on the beach. The old lady lathered coconut oil all over my body. So I asked her to apply sand on my skin for added exfoliation.

Evening was spent for hedonism. Well not exactly extreme hedonism but more of drinking in the sand and gyrating in house music which every bar was blasting with. I've never been squashed by yummy, half-naked bodies that way. But it stops right there (uy defensive!). The loser that I am, I kept to my self all the time. Good boy daw oh!

After lunch last Saturday, we headed back to Batangas for the bus ride back to Manila. We arrived in Manila at about 8pm and two hours later I was at work.

Standing on My Head

Ever since moving to Manila, Sarah and I have been doing yoga almost every weeked in UP in the middle of the UP lagoon no less. We have been practicing ashtanga since we learned it in Davao a couple of years ago.

We went to a hatha yoga session at the ELJ Building last Saturday morning where Lisa was teaching. Hatha yoga is certainly different from ashtanga coz the former is more fluid and the breathing was shorter.

It was a lovely class of about ten ladies. Shiela Coronel of PCIJ was even there (or so I thought it was Shiela). We had Indian music and incense wafting in the air; with a view of QC from the 13th floor meditation room.

The most surprising thing about that session was how I actually managed to do the headstand, although I was still leaning on the wall. Lisa coaxed me to do it even if I was dead sure that I couldn't. The next thing I know I was standing on my head. It was strange... because everything looked upside down. Hehehe.

Sarah, I believe, could have easily done the head stand if only she did not have her damn period that day (and I actually thought she had her menopause already!).

The session was a pricey P300 per class. And commuting to QC every week can be hassle as well. So the kind Lisa gave me a couple of contact numbers for iyenggar yoga classes in Makati. They both still cost the same price as Lisa's class.

I have stopped smoking since that weekend as I'm planning to take yoga more seriously. Thank god for the head stand, I'm seeing possibilities in front of me lately.

Summer

It's freaking hot these days.

Having a job that leaves me no choice but to sleep in daytime is making the summer season like summer in hell. Even with two electric fans facing my direction when I sleep, I still wake up with a thin film of sweat all over my body. I always wake up with a throbbing headache as well.

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Oh well, what else is there to do in summer than go to the beach.

As the Holy Week approaches, my fag friend and I are planning to do that most cliched thing any self-respecting fag is bound to do... go to Puerto Gallera. I'm not even a beach lover.

It's my first time there. I've heard of the most hedonistic experiences in Puerto. Who said the Holy Week is for fasting and abstinence anyway? Thank God I'm not a Catholic anymore.

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I just finished reading "A Home at the End of the World" by Micheal Cunningham. He is the same author of "The Hours". "A Home at the End of the World" is one of the most satisfying book I've read lately... it is a mix of coming of age story, a dash of homosexuality, liberal politics, and really really catchy lines that I found my self underlining some of the text.

Right now I'm reading "Shampoo Planet", which is touted as the "Catcher In the Rye" for twenty-somethings.