AT THE STOA

"Mother," I asked one day, "why is my sister's name Allily, and mine, Marie Chris?" "Well," my mother answered, "it's the combination of my and your father's names." "Ah." I won't go into the second half of my question, for fear of your laughter, but thus began a small grudge towards my sister which only evaporated when we were both adults, and graduated from college. Having forgotten the question momentarily, when I was growing up, I was inseparable from her — and though there are three years between us, there was an entire year where we dressed alike and I went to her school like a lost kitten following a mother cat, sitting in on her classes, being fed answers to teachers' questions, and raising my hand like the overall moron I was. I wasn't old enough to go to school then, but when I was, I would always wait for her so we could go home together. My memory of going home with her was hazy — I didn't really

There's an Asian couple that's been walking for more than an hour, with colorful umbrellas, in front of our house. They would go to the end of the block, and then the other end, and then loop back around. They're middle-aged, as far as I can tell, and this might be their daily exercise, though I haven't seen them around before. Maybe I just wasn't looking; or they wait for days like these — overcast, cold — to hoof it. When I was younger, and still made of stronger, leaner, more single-minded stuff, I walked a lot. I remember a friend and I drinking until the wee hours of the morning and thinking of where to sleep when we realized we didn't have any more money, so we decided to walk to their place, around seven kilometers away from where we were drinking. We made it, but the sun came up, so I walked back home immediately after. In heels. Drunk. Damn my feet. "Why," you say, "shouldn't you have sensible shoes, given that you walk a lot and drin

"Pabuhat po." That's what gamers usually new to the game tell other gamers who've been at it for longer. "Pabuhat po," "carry me," meaning, "Help me reach a decent enough level where I can at least make it on my own." Usually said as a joke, or sometimes even meant, and sometimes taken up by those kind or bored or both enough to actually do it. In RAN, the MMORPG I played for quite a while, it translated to "boosting," where you and your fellow-newbies hang around high-level players and form a party, and the XP they get killing mobs get cumulatively but proportionately distributed to everyone.  In life, though, it translated to having substance use disorders, and, weirdly, dependence on depression. Can't get out of bed? No purpose in so doing? Ah, you're depressed, let that be the reason and the remainder of your day. No need for pabuhat — you can lay there and rot and still be justified enough to live. I know this is un

Having spent most of the day in bed with a book about owls and diabetes by Sedaris, I got up to smoke. I looked at my phone and somehow ended up watching a kid no more than four years old applying makeup to her face and immediately wanted to go back to reading. The day started, depressingly enough, with a hangover. We had company and a fire last night, and it was good. But, as always, drinking too much the night before steals tomorrow's happiness, so there I have it. While having coffee, I was making a list of things I dreaded doing, like taking out the garbage and seeing previous garbage bags torn up by the neighborhood stray. I did take out the garbage after washing dishes, figuring that it was a small achievement to actively chase some depression away, and left the strewn garbage where it is. I'll deal with it tomorrow, when the goddamned rains hopefully stop. I took a shower, hoping it'll make me feel a bit better, and, that having failed, put on a giraffe onesie.

A bent old man walking amidst jeepneys roaring by, wearing a surgical mask with hearts on it. An old lady who lives with a man and a cat, no longer caring for life. A crazy derelict drinking rainwater from an eight-ounce Coke bottle, wearing an ivy league sweater. The sound of a spider being killed at 6:38 in the morning, with the cat meowing in the background. The sight of the galvanized iron that serves as the neighbor's wall, rain-wet and streaked with rust. The sight of a prescription filled, but still the sound of complaints filling your everyday. The package of a duvet you just bought, exactly the right size and exactly the wrong color. A stack of books and a Venus de Milo on the corner, waiting for a home that's never going to come. Peeling walls and water stains on a rented space. A pair of shoes in the corner, because he bought his second bottle of gin for the day. A speaker on the table, playing music your ears no longer comprehend nor care for.

I wasn't supposed to be out in town today - it wasn't my window hours. It was ignorance of the law that did it, although, as the truism goes, that is in itself not an excuse. Having found out that I wasn't supposed to be out when I was already out, I stayed out and went to several places. I went to the construction site where our house is being built. One workman got really long hair now, far longer than when I last saw him. I smoked with the foreman, tasting one of his bitter cigarettes and appreciating it all the same, about developments and upcoming tasks. The house is far from complete, although that didn't stop me from imagining where things - and the cat - will end up. I went to the school my nephew was enrolled at to pay some dues. They made me sign a non-sick form before entering the empty school, and on the way back from there I took a picture of a massive empty parking lot. In the mall I found a Venus de Milo statuette, which I promptly bought. I was sor

                I have always been a humanist, or so I thought, until in one of our alcohol-fueled nights, Tim was complaining about the incompetence of some people, in the abstract. I immediately perked up and said, "But you are an American. You are used to having things convenient for you, more or less. You have the privilege of a white cis-het middle class male, and thus your language includes deficiencies in services that you were so used to. I am colonized. We make do with what we have, we are that way." My ears listened to what my mouth said, and realized something wrong with my first principles. I have always been one for context, or so I thought, until in one of our (sigh, yes) alcohol-fueled nights, my leftist friend was buying candy from and got into an argument with a lady who short-changed her. Afterwards, she said, "Those are the masses we fight for. Masasapak, masasampal, masisipa  mo.  ( You might thrash, slap, or kick them. )" I immediately per

"Was Daedalus really stricken with grief when Icarus fell into the sea? Or just disappointed by the design failure?" Alison Bechdel, Fun Home  (2007) Jacob Peter Gowy   'The Fall Of Icarus',  1636-1637, Oil On Canvas, 195 X 180 cm The story of Icarus, I submit, is not about Icarus; it is about Daedalus. Being a man of genius, it was Daedalus that set both himself and his son forth to freedom. He is still, however, a man. The labyrinth is the perfect symbol for his connection to the earth. He has mastered and created an earthly prison so intricate only he knows how to get out of it, and get out of it, he did. The way out is not further inside; it is to the skies. And that is the way both he and his son took. Daedalus, before flight, did warn Icarus of two things: complacency, and hubris. Too complacent, and the wings will be too clogged with dampness; too much hubris, and the wax holding the wings together will melt. Imagine Icarus hearing those wor

This is Yuri. She was born on September 14 last year, and is a Blue British shorthair from Russia (hence the name. "Yuri" also means "lily" in Japanese, which we also chose in memory of my late mother. And also it means "girl on girl," but we knew about that later).  My brother-in-law, who was originally a fighting cock breeder but is now a breeder of two parrots, one Burmese python, four American bullies, and countless bonsai, (but also fighting cocks) bought her. She came to the Philippines several days ago, bearing a passport. Yes, a passport. Dude, I didn't have a passport 'til I was 35. This kitten had a passport at 5 months old. It's been three days since I transported her from my sister's at San Fernando, La Union, to here. I waited a total of three days for her arrival, alternating between feeling excited and feeling anxious as I do about any new person that comes into my myopic worldview. I was so anxious the day I w

The announcement came from my friend, who was lonely and under all kinds of stress from school, who came over last night: "It's 10.9 degrees Celsius today." He came over with a bottle of wine. He was wearing, in all sensibility, a scarf, and in all insensibility, a pair of shorts. We finished the bottle of wine, and then another one, and went to bed shortly after he left. Today I woke up with the depression only binge-drinking can give, and had coffee while looking at my social media and files I can do for the day. I showered, bemoaning the fact that ours never seem to get quite the right temperature, and ended up having a cold one. I selected several files for the day, one of which was of a man and a woman talking about their lives and how it went downhill after a court case, ending with a plaintive, yet sad and final "Bye" from both ends. The file gave me an  unpleasant taste in my mouth, so I then set about to cook for my nephew, his guest, myself, and Ti

It's the first day of the new year, and I just finished reading one of David Sedaris' essays in his new book Calypso, Stepping Out. It was about him and his obsession with getting his FitBit to acknowledge how many steps he has made in a day, until it took over his life, making him want to do 65,000 steps per day, or something like 25 miles. It was his way of keeping fit, plus other things besides. The universe has a very funny way of making me encounter things I need just when I need them. I was thinking I was getting fat from all the holiday festivities and the months leading before them, and this fear was confirmed when I changed clothes this morning only to find that two of my jeans don't fit right anymore. "That's it," I thought. "I'm not going out today." I am absolutely aware that this fear of getting fat stems from my vanity, fed perhaps by almost limitless exposure to Western standards of beauty, which in turn was fed by my colonized b