thecosmicmuffinapostle

Reading Men, Defining Women

NOTE  :  This is supposed to be posted on Women’s Day, but come to think of it.  Everyday is Womyn’s Day.  Cheers to all ladies!!!

Bobby is a married guy.  His wife works in London while he stays here in the Philippines with his kids.  He is to leave for London, and while he waits for his papers, he decides to go philandering, not the traditional way (i.e. going to girlie clubs, spas, or resorting to the portfolio of hot women cyberspace offers) but the fatalistic way (meaning, he waits for someone destiny-given to come).

Here comes a woman whom Bobby finds attractive enough to satisfy his libido.  He lays all his cards to this woman—not failing to disclose even a minute detail about his intentions and his marital status, even educating her on the dos and don’ts of having a FuBu.  His intention is merely to have fun, not to get emotionally attached because he is happily married and just wants someone to accompany him while he’s buying his time.  The woman turns him down but Bobby hates being turned down, so he freaked out like a drag queen and cursed all the possible curses at her.

The distasteful fall of the modern-day philanderer.

***

Dominic is single.  His one-year relationship with his girlfriend is getting murky as the girl left for USA to practice her profession.  With this, he decides to philander.

Dominic sees a woman and moves heaven and earth to get her attention—doing almost everything a lover boy is expected to do, and of course, deliberately concealing facts about his love life (i.e. his girlfriend and his philandering side).  The woman he encountered was not born yesterday.  Her senses are in perfect tune for any information or irregularity that comes her way with regard to the men she meets.  Day by day, Dominic showers her with promises and day by day, the she comes across outrageous character sketches of Dominic.

The woman gives a verdict.  Reliable data provided by credible and numerous eyewitnesses deny Dominic this woman’s sweet ‘yes’.

The dishonorable fall of the epic womanizer.

***

For straightforward guys like Bobby, if you have the nerve to be candid, have the bravado to take the blow.  Note the following lines delivered by the woman who turned Bobby down:

“Know what, if you’re really a good person, you won’t go for worldly pleasures.  I asked you if it’s okay to be friends with you.  You said it is okay but you keep on pulling me into your madness and obscenities.  You’ve reached the limits.  You’re a devil.  I want to be a good person.  I don’t need you to be my friend because I only befriend good people.

I was gauging you for the kind of person you really are.  I think I’ve known you enough.  That’s why I’m airing my sentiments now because I am tempted to sway your world in the right direction by sending an email to your wife about your philandering moves.  I’m hoping to see a little light in you, but I don’t see that.  Just a piece of advice, you should be too old for these things, don’t you think so?  Now, I am not in a position to judge you. It’s your life, man… But in this world, there are only a few good men left standing.  If you can’t be one of them, I want to be one of them.

I know your type.  I just hope I don’t get to marry someone like you.  Don’t you worry.  Your secrets are safe with me.  Good luck!”

Modern-day philanderers, can you swallow this?  You can’t?  Fuck off.

For lover boys like Dominic, if you want to have a hanky-panky whatchamacallit with us, state your intentions and do not leave any stone unturned.  Tell us everything (I bet the man who has the balls to be 100% honest to a woman is yet to see the light) because we can take it.  Tell it to us straight, “I want to fuck you, but I will never give my heart to you.”  (Insert sound clip of Hall and Oates’ I Can’t Go For That with gusto.)  Give us women the liberty to know what we ought to know and never ever ever ever underestimate a woman’s capacity to understand and to discern your true intentions.  Cloaking your plans and camouflaging it with words and moves implying “I love you and I cannot live without you” when your penis yells “I don’t care about your god-damned take on things, I just want to fuck you” are jologs ways of bastardizing women’s judgment.

Are you lover boys yet to know what stuff we women are made of?  We are smart and we know when you are wooing us just to get us to bed.  Do not treat us like those Renaissance beauties who would keep your perfumed parchments of poetry in their bosoms unmindful of your throwing of other women’s petticoats in the tavern next door.  We are the women of the new millennium.  We have heard all sorts of stories about all sorts of men.  We have encountered all types of men and are able to classify you according to type.  Sooner or later, we will be able to decipher your intentions because we can read your minds.  We can do this because we are thriving effortlessly in this century’s naked environment—not like those women of the 17^th century who lived in a cloistered world.

For all philandering husbands or boyfriends, women have intuitions, perfected over the ages to arrive at today’s state of 100% guaranteed accuracy.  When we are in doubt, we have the license to do so and in the end, it will surely turn out that our doubts can be supported by hard evidence and we will just say while squeezing your filthy balls, “Oh, well.  I knew it.”

For all men, we know you.  We know who to marry amongst you.  We know whose shin deserves to be bruised with the tip of our stiletto.  We can judge you by the twitch of your hand, the furrow of your eyebrows, or the curling of your lips.  We know you too well we can actually calculate your game plan.  We can even size you up just by looking at you.

We also know ourselves.  We know what we want, when we want it and how to get it.  This is attested by a male, for the record (my college Karate professor Delfin Gayatao Jr.), and as he put it, “Ang babae alam niyan ang gusto niyan.  ‘Pag ayaw niyan sa iyo, kahit lagyan mo ng jack ang hita niyan, hindi iyan bibigay.  ‘Pag gusto ka naman, isang kindat mo lang, areglado na.  Kaya huwag ninyong pipilitin ang kahit na sinong babae sa kahit na ano lalo na sa sex.”  (“A woman knows what she wants.  If a woman does not want you, she will not give in even if you set up a jack between her legs.  If she wants you, one wink closes the deal.  So don’t force a woman into anything, especially into having sex.”)

Last hurrah:  Those females who cannot say what they mean and mean what they say, those who can easily be deceived, who are yet to know what they want, who are yet to know when they want something or how to get what they want are not yet women.  They are still little girls.

Yet let us not dismiss the fact that little girls do not remain little girls forever.

Created August 17, 2007 * 1003H

Senorita Luna, Wannabe-Twotwobee Aj, Lucky Sea Urchin, and Two Poems

I saw this kid in flesh way back in college when she was taking Human Biology. My evil orgmates who belong to the same class as hers made fun of her saying, "Gifted child flunked Physics." Those who mocked her may probably be practicing medicine now, while she did not even finish her studies. As a kid, she wanted to be the Doogie Howser, MD of the Philippines, but she ended up working on lenses and photo paper.

I learned about her story in The Correspondents and shared it to friends. There were different reactions. Some said she wasted her gifts; some played the role of kibitzers.

For those friends who saw Shaira Luna as someone who wasted her talents, allow me defend her. What she did is something to be admired, even applauded. If I were to choose between having a gifted child who finished her studies because the world expects her to and having a gifted child who went out of the way to search for herself, who rebelled inwardly to find her path and ended up being a seamstress because that is what she wants to do when she discovered herself as a seamstress in the process of searching for it, I would choose the latter.

Senorita Shaira Luna, I admire you for having the courage to walk the road less traveled and find your light. I salute you for fulfilling the only task human beings are set to do in their existence: to discover the self and enjoy it.

***

Catching a glimpse of how the gifted kid lived her life made me reflect on my own. Here is a girl, younger than me by almost a decade who took it upon herself to live out of the image the public created for her, and here I am, a twenty-seven year old chicken shit.

(Chicken shit? Am I really a chicken shit? Don’t I have the guts to give those critics a dirty finger and say, ‘This is my life, and it’s none of your business?’ Or am I simply a Neanderthal whose mind and soul is tabula rasa—ignorant of life, not knowing what I want from it and almost ending up wasting it simply because I live as if I am indeed a Neanderthal whose needs comprise only the basic, oblivious to things that nurture the soul? Or, simply put, I am just so unlucky not to know what I want? I’m not chicken shit. I don’t know what I want. Or what I want is too simple, perhaps. No. It’s too complicated.)

I am a twenty-seven year old bum-wannabe, and definitely no chicken shit.

The intellect of man is forced to choose: perfection of life or of work.

This was written by some guy in the 50s whose book I digested in the darkest corners of the DLSU Library with gusto sometime in 1998. (After proofreading: I don’t know why I wrote this paragraph. This must be deleted as this affects prose cohesion, but what it says sounds nice, so I decided, ‘stet.’ After all, I’ve always had an incoherent and inconsistent mindset. Nyuknyuknyuk!)

The life I would like to live is this: the life of a bum who stays at home from dusk until dawn, reading books, watching DVDs, playing records, singing La Donna E Mobile, going out occasionally when friends are wanting to have a good time, occasionally writing or drawing, sleeping during spare time. That, for me, is life to the fullest—to be able to do exactly what I want to do without worrying about responsibilities and other things that need to be prioritized or tasks that are on queue—a life lived randomly based on what I want to do, doing it, then having room to change my mind if I feel that it’s not what I really wanted.

I cannot live that kind of life yet. I was born, and still living, in a middle-class family. If things went right for us, I am now probably sitting on a beanbag devouring popcorns while watching DVD instead of sitting here whining; but things did not—for a reason too enigmatic for the family to comprehend.

I could quit my job and be a bum in an instant, but then who would buy me books, DVDs, records? I’m too old to be acting like a kindergarten child, asking mommy and daddy for some toys. So, for the mean time, I brave, swallow, and embrace my mechanical life. It’s not easy to wake up every morning knowing that the day you are about to have is as bland as any other day—wake up, take a bath, dress up for work, do the company tasks, smoke a little, eat, chat with office mates, pack things, go home, sleep—a day that brings me closer both to my dreams and to my destruction. The happiest days of my office life are those days when our bimonthly salary and personnel benefits are credited to our payroll ATM accounts. With the dough, I get myself some toys (read: books, DVDs, or records) or cleanse my innards with Cerveza Negra (The best!). The only consolation for all the other gloomy days is that I am still aware of what I am doing, that I know the gloomy daily walk on decadence is merely temporary and being in this ‘zombie-like’ Neanderthal stage is necessary to give myself my dream life. It’s all right to swallow my pride as long as I know that this sacrifice is leading me to something greater, as long as I still know what I want to be. I continuously remind myself of Victor Hugo’s famous line, "There’s nothing like a dream to create the future: flesh and blood today, Utopia tomorrow." So, here I am, working in a GOCC, trying to console my subdued pride so that in the nearest future, I can live the life of a bum.

Hmmm… a nice office chant/motivator. For every worksheet I prepare or every accounting equation I solve, I shall chant Flesh and blood today, Utopia tomorrow! Spartaans… Ahwrhoooh!!! (Hardy-har-har!)

***

Meanwhile, I have a very dear friend, Lucky Sea Urchin. (He used to be known as Plant for us members of The Circles Barkada, but he wanted to be addressed as Sea Urchin. It was wise of him not to choose Starfish because starfish do not have brains. Though the moniker Starfish sounds nice and adorable as compared to Sea Urchin, I must say.)

Lucky Sea Urchin is currently living the life I want to live. I don’t know if he has plans to live any other kind of life, but should he decide to lead a different kind of life, I shall call him Starfish then. Believe me, my dear Sea Urchin when I say that your life is Life. I know because I have put myself in your shoes countless times and I said to myself, in an Al Pacino-Lt. Col. Frank Slade tone, ‘Whoa!’

***

Lo and behold, two poems by Pablo Neruda as translated by Ben Belitt from Neruda’s collections Book of Vagaries and Residence on Earth, respectively.

PARTHENOGENESIS

Day by day, all those who gave/

me advice get crazier and crazier./

Luckily, I paid no attention/

and they took off for some other city/

where they all live together/

swapping hats with each other.//

They were praiseworthy types,/

politically astute,/

so that all my ineptitudes/

caused them great suffering:/

They got gray-haired and wrinkled,/

couldn’t stomach their chestnuts,/

and finally an autumnal depression/

left them delirious.//

Now I don’t know which way to be—/

absent-minded or respectful;/

shall I yield to advice/

or tell them outright they’re hysterical?/

Independence as such gets me nowhere,/

I get lost in the underbrush,/

I don’t know if I’m coming or going./

Shall I move on or stand pat,/

buy tom-cats or tomatoes?//

I’ll figure out as best I can/

what I ought not to do—and then do it:/

that way, I can make a good case/

for the times I got lost on the way;/

if I don’t make mistakes/

who’ll have faith in my errors?/

If I live like a savant/

no one will be greatly impressed.//

Well, I’ll try to change for the better:/

greet them all circumspectly,/

watch out for appearances,/

be dedicated, enthusiastic—/

till I’m just what they ordered,/

being and un-being at will/

till I’m totally otherwise.//

Then if they let me alone,/

I’ll change my whole person,/

disagree with my skin,/

get a new mouth,/

change my shoes and my eyes—/

then when I’m different/

and nobody can recognize me/

—since anything else is unthinkable—/

I’ll go on as I was in the beginning.//

WALKING AROUND

It so happens I’m tired of just being a man./

I go to a movie, drop in at the tailor’s—it so happens—/

feeling wizened and numbed, like a big, wooly swan,/

awash on an ocean of clinkers and causes.//

A whiff from a barbershop does it: I yell bloody murder./

All I ask is a little vacation from things: from boulders and woolens,/

from gardens, institutional projects, merchandise,/

eyeglasses, elevators—I’d rather not look at them.//

It so happens I’m fed—with my feet and my fingernails/

and my hair and my shadow./

Being a man leaves me cold: that’s how it is.//

Still—it would be lovely/

to wave a cut lily and panic a notary,/

or finish a nun with a jab to the ear./

It would be nice/

just to walk down the street with a green switchblade handy,/

whooping it up till I die of the shivers.//

I won’t live like this—like a root in a shadow,/

wide-open and wondering, teeth chattering sleepily,/

going down to the dripping entrails of the universe/

absorbing things, taking things in, eating three squares a day.//

I’ve had all I’ll take from catastrophe./

I won’t have it this way, muddling through like a root or a grave,/

all alone underground, in a morgue of cadavers,/

cold as a stiff, dying of misery.//

That’s why Monday flares up like an oil-slick,/

when it sees me up close, with the face of a jailbird,/

or squeaks like a broken-down wheel as it goes,/

stepping hot-blooded into the night.//

Something shoves me toward certain damp houses, into certain dark corners,/

into hospitals, with bones flying out of the windows;/

into shoe stores smelling of vinegar,/

streets frightful as fissures laid open.//

There, trussed to the doors of the houses I loathe/

are the sulphurous birds, in a horror of tripes,/

dental plates lost in a coffeepot,/

mirrors/

that must surely have wept with the nightmare and shame of it all;/

and everywhere, poisons, umbrellas, and belly buttons.//

I stroll and keep cool, in my eyes and my shoes/

and my rage and oblivion./

I go on, crossing offices, retail orthopedics,/

courtyards with laundry hung out on a wire:/

the blouses and towels and the drawers newly washed,/

slowly dribbling a slovenly tear.//

Created in the Last Week of July, 2007