Buhay Pandemya: Nang Namulaklak ang BL

Disclaimer - I am a late comer. (Though I was into ‘Addicted’, the Chinese BL series years ago before it was called BL). Never got into Jap or Thai BL. But I have always been on the lookout for nice LGBT stories.

So this is just me expressing my views on the Pinoy BLs I have watched over the pandemya.  

C3 had been hooked on to Gameboys early on. And it was only at Ep 4 when I started watching and catching up. Got interested because of Kokoy (and because I was able to watch that indie movie he made with Royce as lead). 

Liked the way the story was progressing. Liked the writing and the acting.  And it just got better and better all the way to the iconic plastic lang ang pagitan. I wondered how they could top that.  But they managed to pick it up and even put in a serious conflict that was a major cliffhanger.  

And the leads just got better and better, too. And Pearl was just perfect. 

Then Hello Stranger started promoting big time. And the perfect tease that is Tony L was doing his part of making sure that his fans were in for a surprise. You could tell the impact of an ABS CBN backing made the production glossy. 

But, I wasn’t that into it. I felt that the leads were not comfortable in their skin. The repartees lacked authenticity. The story itself, somehow, didn’t feel as credulous to me. Or maybe I was just put off by the contrived pa-charming ni Tony L. Then it ended with a hug. Ganern? 

Youtube started recommending other series. I skipped Sacristan upon the recomm of c3. But Inbetween got me curious. Firstly, I like how the leads looked. And Ep 1 started with heavy drama. Break-up agad! Ouch. Then the party scene came. The actors didn’t feel relaxed with each other yet. Couldn’t convince me they were a barkada. But I gave it a shot.

So this one became different with its propensity for flashbacks.  As the series progressed, I liked the big reveal behind the break-up. That picked some heartstrings. But after that gets resolved, it felt like it wanted to extend its life with new characters, new backstories. That made this quite convoluted.

Honestly, I was losing interest especially with the way the selos factor was played out for too long. But I have to admit that finale made me tear up a bit. Again, the flashbacks played a big part (maybe too big?) but when viewed in the context of that exchange of vows, the flashbacks worked. So I ended up loving it again till the end.

So on my playlist now - Gaya Sa Pelikula which has lots of promise but it aint perfect. And Quaranthings which has been excruciating to watch lately. I like how one lead is not typically gorgeous and straight-acting. But what is happening to that story? It feels like it is jumping all over the place. Royce’s hotness is the saving factor. 

I dropped My Day midway Ep 2. It felt like one glossy afternoon telenovela that would resort to cheap laughs. I tuned out after that scene with the waiter AND the manager tinkering with the order. That is just gross. 

I also tried to watch Amore but couldn’t sustain the interest.

On the horizon, Boys Lockdown.  And I’m curious about the Boyband Lockdown. Talaga naman sakyan natin ang initials na‘B.L.’ To death. LOL.

But seriously, I consider all of these as LGBT stories. And the more of these that get produced, the better. Because we all have our stories to tell. Even me. Hehehe 

Buhay Pandemya: Back to the Office!

Tomorrow I report back to the office!  After more than 6 months, we have been required to return to work, with the usual medical clearances. 

Mixed feelings. I will have to change my routine again. I am thinking of waking up 5am to do my home workout. I should be in the office by 9am. I hope to be out of the office by 5pm thereabouts.

Well, I do miss working in an office. The whole day A/C. The quiet surroundings. (No tricycles, ambulant vendors, dogs barking) I’m eager to check on my office plants, assuming these are still alive. I am able to focus on work at hand. And yeah, I miss dressing up to go to work. 

I will miss my big monitor. I have gotten used to this 42” 2nd monitor at home. I only have a 21” 2nd monitor in the office. 

I will miss multitasking - fixing home stuff, cleaning up even as I listen in on meetings.

I will miss the flexibility to do work while on the bed, couch, roofdeck.

I will miss hot, newly cooked lunch as I willl go back to eating my baon, usually served cold as I am lazy when it comes to reheating at the pantry.

I am not without apprehensions. I don’t know if I could be ‘safe’ enough when out there. I actually am still figuring out my own protocols - mask+shield all throughout? Not entertaining people within my office? Disinfecting before and after? Etc etc I don’t want to overwhelm myself. Let’s just see how it goes tomorrow.

It was good while it lasted. Working from home experience finally answered a lot of previous what-ifs. I remember my previous boss not wanting to consider the idea AT ALL, even for a day in a week. 

I remained productive.  I was still motivated to work the whole 8 hours, sometimes even more. 

But it was also very stressful. Meetings one after the other. Or sometimes double booking meetings. That is on top of emails, SMS, Viber, that everyone seems to assume that you would answer immediately. Now na. As in.

For me, well, work belongs in the office (at least my kind of work) and relaxing and chilling belongs outside the office. The geographic delineation allows for easy mental and emotional separation. And we need that moreso now.

If I had a choice, it would be a 4-day workweek. A 3-day weekend would be divine.

Buhay Pandemya: Thanks for the add

It must be this quarantine/lockdown. In a span of month, I have had 3 friend requests from strangers. And after the ‘thanks for the add’ pleasantries, it’s straight to “are you single?” Whoa. It didn’t even bother to establish some kind of ‘friendship’. The first one abruptly ended the convo after I told him that I did, and the FB friendship, when I said I was in a relationship. 2nd one hasn’t messaged me since. 3rd one is still maintaining some contact.

I’ve been on FB for more than 10 years; And only now am I getting this strange, extremely direct messages. Have they grown tired of Grindr or Tinder? They didn’t even bother to with the FB dating app (whatever happened to that?). Might as well do this right on FB.

Ok. Ok. I am quite flattered. But should I be? Or is this just desperation thinking that COVID might strike them down? Or a quarantine jowa is a thing now? 

I would have wanted to flirt, honestly. But I guess they’re not going to have any of that. Oh well.

Alcohol and me 2

Boracay’s Juice Bar

Boracay was another excuse to get drunk (and hopefully, get laid). And that old Juice Bar was THE best place. It felt like a community bar, small yet brimming with people on weekends. The bartenders were fun and engaging. Two memories stand out.

During that swinging single phase of my life, I was in Boracay part work, part leisure. Friday night, I was at Juice Bar, chatting with different people at the bar. I was so drunk I had to lie down on the beach not far from Juice bar. 

I was dozing off when this guy, one of those I had pleasant chats with, came to my ‘rescue’. He woke me up and told me he was going to accompany me back to my room. He said he couldn’t leave me there when he saw me, as he saw my cellphone and wallet just lying beside me.

He helped me to my room. And at that point, I was sort of expecting something to happen. But he didn’t make any moves. We ended up talking a bit and realizing that he was the person I was going to meet up with the following day for work. Thank Heavens nothing happened. It would have been so awkward. 

And maybe, I just wasn’t his type. He was just a good Samaritan. Hehe

The other memory involved c3, at the time we were still dating. That night was sooo much fun as we were drinking, no holds barred. I was so drunk I kept on tripping and falling going back to the room. And that was a looonng walk. c3 claimed I was taking off my clothes, too. I honestly could not remember. C3 never fails to remind me of how drunk I have gotten.  

Ang hirap talaga pag sinasaniban ng espiritu ng alak. 

Buhay Pandemya:

cc: I have started exercising my cursive writing skills. I got this Augmented Paper system from Montblanc that allows me to write freehand, upload to my iPad and ‘translate’ into text. It is far from perfect, as you will see in the post below. But rather than edit the text, I am leaving it as is. And letting you figure out what I am actually trying to say. LOL Reading it now makes me wonder if you’ll actually get what I mean. The editing is hilarious at times. The writing is also saved as jpg so you can refer to that... if you can read my handwriting. 

They have now required face shields over face marks. Maybe in the future, this may even extend to fuel-body PPE, all of us looking like astronauts. Is this another of nature's way of showing cis implications of our obsessions with physical beauty as Hallow and truly tumeaningless?

Our fruity has deified all these blessed with physical beauty, symmetrical facial features, etc. We truly worship beauty, and uneld gladly throw money just so we can keep on staring and admiring. Yee nature has always reminded as of the fleeting nature of beauty in the passing of time. all of that passes. Yet we have remained deaf. Beauty, and its anpaxeim Youth, you enshrined. Old and ageing. crudeness, being plain and ordinary take me place or blue. Sidi gene. wit. wisdom are reduced to price-to-haves, maybe.

Suddenly, as much as 60-702 of the face are covered in our day-to-day physical transactions (or peal-wired). Suddenly there is no way, except magle & exceptionally beautiful eyes, that one can judge face value. We are forced to have to listen to each other as we talk. In the physical world, we could we finger judge fared on fist 'physical 'ingressions. I'm que our basis comed force as to still lurk for physical beauty, like in the way I described the eyes earlier, u find other proxies for it like hair, body, clothes, etc. and we would still miss the point of going beyond the physical. But from, we are reduced to a shires of face. Perhaps for some of us, we will start & devalue holes and physical attractiveness and start to aggravate what is "invisible t the eye."

 

Buhay Pandemya: Is this the end of hookups and casual sex?

It is back to MECQ, back to liquor ban. Another weekend of staying put. Just when I was getting used to Saturdays with c3. And an occasional one at the beach house. 

So it is home improvement time. Having those screens at windows and doors fixed. This would have been so unworthy of a post had it not been for that trabahador from the aluminum maker. Not tall yet had a nice body, shoulders and chest. And what I deduce to be a nice face behind that mask. 

Ugh. I am that deprived. And as I ‘supervise’ him and his companion, I am fantasizing of how the situation would turn sexual. (And how to get rid of that companion LOL)

No, I did not act on it, for so many reasons piled up, one on top of the other. And that brings me to the point of this post - how could one even consider hookups or casual sex when each potential might be carrying COVID?

A friend revealed recently that he managed to hook up anyway. “A Calculated Risk” he says. Risk managed by: having established thru a long history of chatting on G to include his safety protocols, and testing he has been through; being on the receiving end of a blow job; keeping a mask on (no kissing, not even with a plastic sheet in between! Except, of course, during the blow job); immediately washing off with soap and water, etc.  

My praning mind would still consider so many other things.. what if he picked it up on the way to the hookup? And just thinking of all that salivary juice teeming with virus slobbered on the hapless penis. I could go on and on.

Is this nature’s way of championing sex within the confines of a living-together arrangement only?  Yes, in the era of HIV, we have been taught about safe sex. But is there such a thing as safe sex in the era of COVID19? Arms-length (or more) mutual jerk-offs? Or bodies wrapped in plastic? (It seems that the virus has been found in semen, even of recovering patients https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2765654 ) 

I’d love to hear your thoughts about this. Or how you have coped with the situation, sexually.

Painting by Cyndi Belleza, currently hanging on a wall in the beach house.