Reyster from CYBER

Cybersex. Pretty much an off-topic for me...until I got to have a nice chat with my friend a few days ago. Let's name him Reyster.

He's into cybersex. He goes into these Sim sites/chat rooms, meets some women, most of them older, and fucks them....with words. He gets these ladies off, and gets off himself. He tells me he has regular sex partners now, all of them from other countries. In a way, I don't believe him that much. He's mild-mannered, responsible, good-natured (like me, or else why would I befriend him?). But through the way he tells me about his online "girls", I think there might be some semblance of truth there.

It was always the same thing leading to another. He joins the chat room or sim game. Gets into a good conversation with the rest of the chatters. Exchanges jokes. Then flirtations. Then the invite to go somewhere more private. Then his fun starts. Lucky bastard!

Reyster now has 3 regular...er...playmates. A is married woman (with 2 kids) whom he met one night while in a chat room. He told me she was very coy at first. His first few advances didn't really work so he showed disinterest. That's when A started making her own moves. Pretty soon they were in a private chat room and she was bouncing off him in verbatim. Reyster told me he gave it to her so good that she stalked him in the same chat room the following day. They made chat love again and they've been going at it for months now.

T is also married, and again with two kids ( by this time I already hit Reyster in the head saying, "you have a married-woman-with-two-kids fetish?!!!"). He says he met her in another sim game ( I go "how many sim games do you play you perv?!"). Get this -- it was in a virtual orgy. Again, the cogs in my brain are working non-stop, thinking about the kind of satisfaction that people get in that kind of set-up. From that time, Reyster and T have been ramming each other whenever they catch each other online, and, or so he says, are thinking of having phone sex already. Talk about leveling-up the relationship! I told him to keep safe. I don't think he knows what he's getting into. I would think that exchanging contact numbers is a no-no in a virtual affair...but then again what do I know?


He met P, his number one girl, in a simulation game. They started out joking and laughing....jokes getting greener and hornier....until well, he said he took some courage to make some advances.....it worked...so he reeled her in, brought her "home" and "had sex" with her. Turns out she's married and much much older. That didn't stop the two of them though. He said it got more interesting when P told him that her husband knew about him, and encouraged her to go on. Apparently, he said, he makes P hot enough for her husband's bed. It sounds logical in a very very twisted way to me. And so all logic flew out the window when Reyster told me he got introduced to the husband already, and they do "it" in front of him. My curiousity, as ever, was peaked. That husband is way way way too cool, if not very trusting of his wife. I concluded that Reyster was actually fornicating with a foreign national because no Filipino in his right mind would allow his wife to engaged in that kind of activity online.

Needless to say, I was perspiring when he finished telling his virtual adventures. He mentioned a few more one-time shebangs, but what got my curiousity was he actualy made some friends out of these ladies. I'm not one to judge him of course. Gets his way with his current gf, then gets his way with women online. Lucky bastard. One thing I am certain of is that Reyster and his harem have good imagination for all that cyberstuff to work. Not sure if my imagination can stretch that far. I think I need pointers from Reyster. Woohooo!

Dog, Missing and (probably) Dead

*sigh*. Can't even begin to write about this. But yes, one my dear pets, named Pacman, is missing. We noticed he was already losing appetite last weekend because we had to chase him around the yard to make him eat. When I left for the office last Thursday morning, he was sitting near the house. One could easily see he was not feeling well. Arriving from the office, I checked and he couldn't be found anymore. Looked around in the middle of the night but to no avail. As with usual searches, the possibility and hope to find the missing alive becomes nil. Today, we're now just looking for a corpse to give it a proper burial. Sigh.

Lenten of '09

We don't usually go anywhere else. It's always the house because there's the evening procession of icons/saints on Holy Wednesday and Good Friday. I took a pre-emptive vacation leave today already, to avoid the scenario like last year: the shuttles to our town stopped coming to the city terminal because the procession occupied the entire streets of our town. I came home at about two o'clock in the morning.

Problem is, I have nothing to do. I have actually tried to re-read Rick Warren's A Purpose Driven Life. I got as far as Chapter 5. By the time this is published, I would have answered dozens of Facebook quizzes, confirming several things that sometimes make sense, but sometimes are just plain weird and illogical: I am Dumbledore in the Harry Potter world. If I were a Muppet, I would be Rowlf. I would die drowning. If I were a Starbucks drink, I would be iced coffee. In Cybertron, I would be Ultra Magnus. I am Jafar in Disney. A Toyota Corolla would best suit my personality. Of the four elements I am AIR. Et cetera, et cetera.

Oh well. At least I get to post something.

Facebook, Friendster, Blogger, Other BacklogsAnd A Heart-Warming Anonymous Comment

It has been some time since I last posted something here. It has been some time also since I checked my Facebook and Friendster accounts, and even my inboxes in Yahoo! and Google. So it's really not a surprise that it took me quite a loooooong while to get "updated".

In any case, some updates: My new house is 99.99% done. It's painted in two tones, yellow and beige I think. My room is painted light blue. My mom's room is painted light green. There's considerable space now in the kitchen, and we have a veranda (or in local terms, a terrace) out front. We don't have a fence and a gate due to the funding shortages though. In any case, this would've been a really cool narrative if I had time to take pictures and post it here. I don't. Some relatives planted the idea in my mother's mind that we should be moving in by the New Moon (for what superstitious reason, damn if I knew), so everything's in a hurry now.

We're down to Mama's last two chemo sessions, for her breast cancer. Whew! Hopefully we get in the clear by the time everything's finished.

Work is ....work. What can a newly-promoted chap in middle management expect?

Anyway, I'm almost halfway in cleaning my e-mails now. I found this post in my other blog, and it really warmed my heart, reading:

"Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Complete Remission?":

I was diagnosed with SLE last week, and I've been hard-pressed to find something positive to read lately! You have no idea how much brightness and hope reading your blogs about having a normal life and no major flare-ups has brought to me. I can only hope that I will be as healthy as you fifteen years down the road! Thank you so much. God bless you and I hope your health continues until you are old and grey, when your lupus tales will only be "kuwentong matanda" to your grandkids."

Whoever this person is, I wish him/her well. Hopefully I get to write more in my other blog in the same frequency that I post here. But that's another backlog altogether.

My Passion Type(?!@#$%&*)

Your Passion Type

You're a free spirit
Key Traits: romantic, dreamer, fickle, communicative, eager, fun, sprightly You're a free and creative spirit. Some people might call you a non-conformist, but you'd like to think of yourself as one who sees beauty where others might miss it. You are inspired and feel passionate about the little things -- the way the sun beams through a window, a memorable guitar riff, a sparkle in someone's eye. Face it. You're a romantic, and even a bit on the wild side when it comes to sex. Your friends and family enjoy your company and value the way you view the world through your own kaleidoscope. People love how imaginative and expressive you are. On the flip side, it takes a lot to keep your attention. But when you encounter someone who can pique your interest and complement your creative disposition, it will be rewarding and powerful!

Open Letter To The FX Operators and Drivers Association of Binangonan (FXODAB)

Be client-centric you greedy, abusive, retards!

For so long you have abused your captive audience, me being one of them. Gasoline and diesel prices have long since been lowered, but you still arrogantly persist in your high fares. Talk about unfair. Jeepneys have already lowered their fares, but you still have the gall to collect at rates you imposed during the oil crisis months ago. Kapal ng mukha ninyong lahat . Tubong-lugaw na kayo ah..

Your drivers still continue to make our Monday mornings hell : Some don’t go back to the terminal and instead get passengers from the road. The line becomes longer and longer up to a time that one shuttle returns to the terminal, but will not load passengers immediately. The driver still has to take his coffee or eat breakfast. Meanwhile, some of the passengers have been in line for one and half hours already, resigned to the fact that they’ll be late for work. If your drivers had any empathy at all, they put their passengers first. Hm. In any case, isn’t that supposed to be their profession? Their work? No wonder people look to public utility drivers as money-hungry slobs. You show no work ethic at all.

You also don’t respect your customers as well. You show up at the terminal, see the long lines, and OVERLOAD your shuttle. The space that can fit 3, now fits 4 people. You violate not only the applicable terms of your franchise, and basic human rights, but also the recommended seating capacity by the manufacturer of your vehicle. All in the name of MONEY! If anyone wants to see Greed incarnate, they just need to show up at the terminals during rush hour, and see how you drivers make the passengers’ journey cramped, and their day off to a miserable start. You cannot assume that all people are as thin as I am! Actually, I find it insulting that I become the “seat-filler” most of the times. Nowadays I stand my ground. If I’m going to pay an overpriced fare going home, I might as well wait in line and let others board ahead of me until I can get a comfortable seat.

The same problems happen, and more compounded with your association’s condoning of unfranchised shuttles. These “white-plates” overload like mad, and have the gall to refuse to take in passengers on account of police operations against unfranchised vehicles! Not to mention, they do not have Comprehensive Third Party Liability (CTPL) insurance so passengers are not protected from any accidents. Of course, your captive audience does not have a choice in this, as it is these white-plates who frequent the terminal. Paging the Land Transportation Office, there are colorum vans plying the Binangonan-Crossing route. Ask your enforcers not receiving kickbacks from the FXODAB to investigate on this, and you’ll get results.

You people are the main reason why I want to have my own car. Once I do, I’ll be rid of your lot. And you better steer clear of me when on the road, or I’ll ram my brand new Toyota Rav4 into your cheap vans. And I’ll have insurance. You won’t.

Mama’s Progress and Other Stuff

As planned with our oncologist, I accompanied Mama last Tuesday to consult for radiation oncology. As per her doctor, Mama was to have radiation therapy in parallel to her chemotherapy sessions, after her 5th cycle session. The consultation went very quick, but I didn’t see it coming that her CT-Planning ---the actual procedure of CT-scan and other diagnostics before the actual radiation sessions --- would happen the next day. I didn’t file a vacation leave for Wednesday, and so Mama had to go alone. Whatever guilt I may feel , I can’t find a way to work it out. I only asked permission to go on leave on Tuesday and Thursday, the latter for Mama’s 6th chemo session. I’d have asked for emergency leave, but I had already moved a meeting with project leadership from Tuesday to Wednesday. Such is my life nowadays. My vacation leaves revolve around Mama’s medical sessions, but at the same time I try to minimize them. I had missed a lot of crucial management meetings already, plus the fact that my team seems to be needing guidance more than usual. I feel tired, really. I know my mother needs me more than ever, especially since our helper (a cousin twice-removed I think), had no plans of returning after spending New Year’s Eve with her family in the province. Further, I assume the radiation therapy, in tandem with the chemo sessions (we still have 6 more to go), will weaken her further, so I will need to be around her more. While in the office, there’s my work piling up. It’s a bit funny, in a chicken-and-egg kind of argument , that I need my work to fund my Mama’s recovery but Mama’s condition is the one that affects my availability for work. I’m really feeling the stretch, and just thinking about how I can manage all these pulls (my on-going house construction included) makes my head hurt. It’s a good thing that Mama is resilient to the chemo sessions: she started with 4 sessions of Epirubicin and is now on her second session of CMF (Cyclophospamide, Metrotrexate, Flouronracil). I had initially thought that the scenario I am in now would happen during the initial stages, but it didn’t. So I guess I should be thankful I had some months of reprieve.

Sometimes I get to think (and mentally ask), how long and how much is still needed from me, my Mama, my family for her to get really, really better. I can only imagine the total cost of everything so far, from the initial hospitalization to the MRM, to the chemo sessions, to this. I seldom go out now with friends, as I want to be home as early as possible. I prioritize, well, most of the time, the schedule for treatments and check-ups, even if it means delay in some work I do (which I think is not boding well for a newly-promoted manager). My nanay-nanayan and my ninong also help out in managing the house construction and in feeding the dogs there. My mother has been very diligent in following the doctor’s orders (except wearing a facemask), and is now more health-conscious in what she eats: no pork, mostly vegetable and fish. I know I should not be disheartened, because as like everything else that got me to where I am, this is just another test. Another challenge of faith, which then makes me wonder why I seem to be a magnet for life’s tests. Could it be that I didn’t pass most of those I’ve taken? I’m in my thirties, living with my mother who’s ill, no car, house on-going-and-even-if-finished-is-not-that-much, no six-digit-monthly salary, no girlfriend, no kid. To be very honest, that was all I wanted: a family of my own, a wife, 2 kids with my healthy mother doting on them like anything, living in our own nice house, going around in our car. And yet this picture of a life seems to be not meant for me, too, making me wonder what is.

Peanut Butter Chunky Chips Ahoy! and the Holiday of Obligation

Looking back at how the holiday season of 2008 went for me, I can safely say that it was different. I can safely say I missed out on the “spirit” of things. And I don’t think my mother being sick has that big an impact on why it went that way. It just became a realization during the holiday rush.

Up ‘til December 22, I was in the malls in Makati, looking for, well, Peanut Butter Chunky Chips Ahoy!. Why? Because based on what my mother and I thought, it would be a gift that Jonathan would really like. Jonathan was the son of my godmother, and is one of the kids we usually give gifts to during Christmas. He visited the house once, and like the Chips Ahoy! biscuits that my mother served. After searching three supermarkets, I couldn’t find any, so I settled for the other 3 variants of Chips! Ahoy. That probably best illustrates how the Christmas rush went for me: looking for good gifts, gifts that we know the other person wants and would appreciate as a gift (exceeding expectations if we can), and sometimes settling for the next best thing.

I have been involved in at least four kris kringle events in the office, and so I really felt like a genie most of the weekends I spent looking for those items on that wish list: computer speakers, Josh Groban’s NOEL album, pink and green jackets with hoods, an Eight-ball, and a branded office bag. These items were aside from the gifts to selected officemates, which range from nice gifts to trinkets: a FINO luggage tag; a tiger stuffed toy; gift certificates from Powerbooks; Pizza Hut discount cards, and; chocolates. One can never go wrong with chocolates, so that was basically the vanilla gift for some of my office friends, when I’ve already given up on going up and down SM Megamall and EDSA Shangri-la to find stuff for this specific person. Still OTHER gifts aside from these were my gifts to the kids we usually give holiday gifts to. And that meant another day or two of walking around Toy Kingdom, looking for cheap but “this-would-do” gifts for the little ones. Then there’s the cash gifts still to people we usually give gifts to. These, aside from my own gifts to my mother: several hats, Marks&Spencer biscuits, shopping money. You can probably already imagine the contents of my wallet—mostly credit card charge slips.

Aside from the gift-giving, there was the holiday grocery shopping. For ham, for salad, for pasta, for fruits, etc. , etc. At the very least, I kinda had my arm muscles stretched from carrying that much load. The irony is that, most of the dishes my mother prepared are to be subsequently given out in containers to family friends and relatives. That was actually the main event on Christmas day, accounting for who has not yet been sent what.

And so you see, all these stuff, plus the fact that I was at work up to the 24th of December, arriving at 11PM to a house where the people (my mother, our help, and my aunt’s family who visited for Christmas) are already asleep and had no intention of having Christmas Eve dinner, really dampened the mood for me. For one, I felt that with everything that happened (and is still happening)—my mother’s illness and the house construction I started – I had thought that it would be a more practical holiday season, spending only on the essential things. But no…. the obligation to give gifts was still there, staunchly supported by my mother. There were people we always gave gifts to, and that’s that. My godchildren always got gifts from me, and that’s that. So despite my anxiety on how to fund her medical expenses for next year, I couldn’t really say “No” to her passive-aggressive methods. Make no mistake about it, I do not mind giving gifts, but only to the people who I would really like to gifts to, and considering the precarious situation of my personal finances, it would have been limited only to inexpensive gifts to very few people.
And so, as I mentioned to an office friend before the break for the holidays, this season is lost to me. It has turned into a holiday of obligation. Obligations to think of the best gift for that specific person who you have given gifts to for many years now, as if you were the only one who will give a gift to that person (and so it should be very special). As if you were competing in a gift-giving contest to that person and your entire future depends on giving that person something that he or she will like. Obligations to serve up a feast during Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve dinners. The joy of gift-giving. The excitement of the holidays. It’s not there anymore with me.

My office friend advised me against being a Scrooge. I told her I couldn’t be. Ebenezer Scrooge was rich. Plus, I feel more like The Grinch, especially in that part of the movie where he mentioned how Christmas became more about gifts and spending. Hm. I’m thinking if I should change my blog title now from “Mr. Brightside” to ‘The Underpaid Grinch”. Hm.