An Orgy of Laziness

Just like Mr. Single Guy, the last days of the departing year when you have to go to work makes me feel like it is SO difficult to move and do the usual religious performance of work.

These are days you feel more like indulging into an orgy of laziness, staring blankly at the surroundings, doing nothing, thinking idly or talk nonstop (with somebody, of course) about events, and people.

The pile of work stares back at you but you feel pigheaded and still choose to stare back, too, and do nothing. The outcome of the year, be it good or bad, does not count as reason to me. I just feel ecstatically lazy during this holiday season. After all, the air still makes my bones feel that it is though Christmas day is over.

I guess the cramming days aren’t over.

Some Like It Hot

Most of my friends like to take a COLD bath in the morning, even if the weather is chilly. I don’t. I like it HOT.

I cannot take a cold bath. Aside from the goose bumps I get just dipping a finger tip into a pail of cold water, I will later have colds. My resistance to colds or to viral infections of the nose, throat and the bronchial tubes is not working to full capacity. In short, I am weak when it comes to colds.

Actually, my bath does not really have to be hot but lukewarm just enough to get rid of that unbearable degree of chill. Just enough to make me enjoy the relaxation one gets when taking a bath.

Some say cold baths are better than warm or hot baths. I prefer the latter. I remember a pretty PE teacher told me that hot baths open the pores of the skin so for the finale, one has to finish it with a splash or two of cold water. When the pores of the skin are open, the body becomes more susceptible to colds, she added. So to close the pores, finish the bath with cold water. I don’t remember doing that anymore.

I read from Encarta that therapeutic baths, which include hot, cold, medicated and mineral, serve as either stimulating or sedative or medicinal media. I think I’d go with stimulating though it is not advised for long duration. That is what I need… for now.

The Art of Gift-Giving

Do you have to expect a gift when you give one? Gifts are things bestowed to give pleasure or to show gratitude. One cannot expect that the ‘donee’ feels the same toward the ‘donor’.

I give gifts because a person holds an important place in my heart. In whatever form, gifts to me are symbols of friendship, fondness, and in some instances necessities to an occasion. I give gifts to tell someone that “I love you”, “I like you”, “I remember you” or “You are important to me” albeit indirectly. I do not expect anything in return.

Gifts are bonds, links or bridges. They should not be belittled nor taken for granted. It is not important if they cost little, or if they are not something I expect. It is the thought that counts. But it is an obvious fact that there are gifts I like very much – those that respond to a need at the moment, or those that resolve want of something. For example, a book given to me in a particular occasion answers my voracious need of something that is worth reading.

An officemate gave me a gift which she left on my table while I was not in my room. I sent a text message of thanks not mentioning that I will reciprocate her deed by giving a gift. I don’t really plan to give her anyway for some reasons. She did not reply but I saw her when I went down to the office where she is and thank her simply for the gift. The reply was a trite, “Haaa?” (Can you guess now why I don’t like to give her a gift?) But being pressured with that remark and a preceding text message from her that goes “Lord, bless this person, bait po ‘yan at feel ko siya ang unang-unang magreregalo sa akin ngayong Pasko”, I gave her a gift.

It is so easy to get a gift for a friend but for me, I don’t want a gift because I asked someone to give me a gift. It is not something given because someone was pressured or was forced. It must be coming from the heart, given with free will.

Then I gave her the gift with the wishy-washy, “O, Merry Christmas!” Not a ‘Thank you” followed. I was not expecting the ‘thank you’ but I was expecting that she would deny me that because of disappointment. Her gift was pricey than what I gave her.

From 'A Christmas Carol' by Charles Dickens

Lingered for a while reading Stave One - Marley’s Ghost, of A Christmas Carol.

Noted some very nice lines well intended for the season and for everybody. They were exchanges between Ebenezer Scrooge and his nephew.

“Christmas a humbug, uncle!” said Scrooge's nephew. “You don't mean that, I am sure?”

“I do,” said Scrooge. “Merry Christmas! What right have you to be merry? What reason have you to be merry? You're poor enough.”

“Come, then,” returned the nephew gaily. “What, right have you to be dismal? What reason have you to be morose? You're rich enough.”

Then here’s Scrooge expletive. Can you identify some people like him?

"Merry Christmas! Out upon merry Christmas! What's Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, and not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and having every item in 'em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you? If I could work my will every idiot who goes about with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!”

His nephew’s joyful thought about Christmas couldn’t be swayed though. Ponder this.

“There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round—apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that—as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!”

Here are some reflections from Jacob Marley’s ghost when he showed up one night.

“It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellowmen, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world—oh, woe is me!—and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness!”

“…Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in its sphere, whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast mean, of usefulness. Not to know that no space of regret can make amends for one life’s opportunities misused! Yet such was I!”

Truly English is a language not very easy to grasp. Very knotty and indirect and flowery but English novels always fascinate me with its plots. The morals play a very important part in an English novel, and they are very applicable.

A Christmas Carol interprets Christmas as a season with that spirit of warmth from the One who gave us salvation and from the One who gave Him to us. It enables us to be kind, forgiving and loving, too. It enables us to feel the woes of the spirits around us and in turn makes better our attitudes towards other spirits.

NEXUS: Ang Pangangaroling

The Good Samaritans

No one would have remembered the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions. He had money as well.

Margaret Thatcher (1925 - )
British prime minister.

Tia Ata had her ‘new’ house blessed and we were invited to come over and join the celebration. We did not have time to buy a gift so we opted to go to a little supermarket along the way to their house. We bought Double Dutch ice cream (my favorite).

The food was superb and prepared without a catering service but by them. I like best the pochero and the morcon. There were many visitors and relatives. Tia Ata seemed she had enjoyed her party. I kept telling her that her house is beautiful and she replied, “Yung bahay lang, ako di maganda?” (Only the house, how about me?). Overwhelmed by the nice observations, she invited us to go upstairs to have a peek at the rooms. The rooms were painted very nice, each color blended with each other.

We went down afterwards to revel with the other relative visitors. In the middle of it all, Papsie suddenly reported that his cell phone is missing. That got everybody alarmed and looking everywhere – under the tables and chairs and in areas where he went. There was no cel phone. Sweating from the experience, Papsie tried to remain calm, and I was silently cursing the incident because it spoiled the fun and brought back the bad memory of my lost digicam and cel phone. A niece tried to call the number but to no avail, the keeper was not answering.

We went home feeling bland. I decided to at least try to communicate with the keeper by calling Papsie’s phone but it kept telling me that the phone is either out of reach or unattended. With one last try, I sent a text message. I was going back and forth checking the cel phone if there is a message though I know I would be hearing the ring tone or the message alert if there is. Thirty minutes past, and the phone beeped. There was a message.

“Kami po ang nakakuha ng cel phone sa tapat ng choice mart. Isasauli po namin ang cel phone. Mabuti po kaming tao.” (We were the ones who got the phone in front of choice mart. We are going to return it. We are good people.) I literally jumped out of joy and dashed outside the house and proceeded to where Papsie is. By that time, he was with friends, probably consoling himself with their company. From not far away where he and his barkada were, I made a gesture for him to approach. Papsie silently (and sadly) approached me and asked why. I showed him the text message and saw the beam in his face, and then he called up and asked the keeper where we would meet.

When we reach Right Choice Mart along MH del Pilar, we immediately saw a couple with a child, and a sales clerk with the guard, my doubt was obliterated. The couple approached us immediately and asked if we are the owner of the cel phone. We later learned that the good Samaritans were Mary Ann and Al. It was the (4 or 5 year-old) kid who saw the phone at the corner of the two-step stair. I invited them to the mart to buy a gallon of ice cream for the son but they refused strongly.

I felt a sense of admiration towards the young couple. Good Samaritan lineage is slowly declining and to encounter them is real inspiration to everybody.

From the looks of it, the couple did not seem to be affluent. Not that I am judgmental but they are really simple people with modest manners that one wouldn’t mistake as grand or sophisticated like the rich. Miss Thatcher might be wrong. Mary Ann and Al did not look like ‘they have money as well”. Or she maybe right, too.

To Mary Ann and Al and their son, Mabuhay!

Related link here.

Hooked

So grateful that there are few people who still visit my blog though I do not update often and give the latest reflections in life (as if somebody cares ha ha). I appreciate it very much. Here’s wishing there are free virtual hugs and kisses for them. Or that they will have the best of the Christmas season.

Must be the season. Oh, yes it is. Wrapping Christmas gifts eats time. Organizing gatherings take time, too. Attending domestic concerns really consumes the bigger part of my time now that the ‘day’ is fast approaching. Going shopping chomps time that goes by unnoticed.

Plus there are two books I got hooked to – Firecracker and Sybil. The prior one I finished already. The latter being the one that I flick through voraciously these past few days. I could never stop. It is a lovely psychoanalysis true story. I was spellbound.

Firecracker is a fiction story about a man who sees the dead. Eerie but funny and sad at the same time. I wonder how I will react seeing someone in ‘black and white’ (how the dead is described in the book). It was written by Sean Stewart.

Sybil is the true story of a woman with a multi personality (16 personalities; women and men). It is mind-boggling but very informative, too. Flora Rheta Screiber is an excellent writer.

Christmas Jitters

Whew! Christmas has not arrived yet and my purse has become a measly temporary money holder everyday since the extra gift was given. This is of course in cash because I learned that the company had long forgotten to distribute gifts in kind during Christmas.

Why does this season brings so much excitement and fun and at the same time anxiousness and uneasiness? We leave the excitement and fun reasons being obvious. We go to the jitters.

1. What if no gift was rustled up for one of the expectant kid visitors?
2. What if someone does not like my gift?
3. What if the Christmas gathering on Christmas Eve turned sour because of some insufferable people, words and instances?
4. What if the food for the gathering did not satisfy the palate?
5. What if we run out of cash on Christmas morning when kids will be arriving?
6. What if I will not give anything to some people, will they take it hard against me?

Oh, crap!

"Hallelujah! I am Single!"

It is explicable why the number of single individual increases as time goes by. The many concerns of a married life which revolve mainly to keep up with the demands of one’s own family inhibit the desire to marry. But what is wrong, anyway, being single? Being single does not mean unhappiness, being single does not mean one is unfulfilled.

I would be married, but I’d have no wife,
I would be married to a single life.

Richard Crashaw (1613? – 1649)
English poet.

They say it is better that one gets married. It is not an argument of which is better. Both positions have their pros and cons. The question is how one lives as single or married. And to be specific, one of the points at issue is how one celebrates sexuality being single or being married. Being single does not mean abstinence nor does it mean promiscuity.

Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.

Samuel Johnson (1709 – 1784)
British lexicographer and writer.

Some say that women cannot be happy staying single while men will forever be happy being single. I doubt if it holds true with successful or fulfilled single women screaming their presence in the male-dominant ‘world’. I doubt if the suicide rates would mean that men are happy being alone or living alone.

The only real happy people are married women and single men.

Attributed to H. L. Mencken (1880 – 1956)
U.S. journalist, critic, and editor.

As seasons come and go, being single will be a state where one would think not only twice before getting married. It will mean times unnoticed that the hair is turning grey and the afternoon of life looms. The times immemorial scorned a spinster and hail a bachelor which was a discriminating truth that lingered for a while. Today, men and women enjoy the grace of single blessedness without disdain but with admiration sometimes.

No times to marry, no time to settle down,
I’m a young woman, and I ain’t done runnin’ aroun’.

Bessie Smith (1894 – 1937)
U.S. blues singer.

Long Forgotten Email

Just wanted to share an email from someone. He once made sense.

Once upon a time, there were four people; Their names wereEverybody, Somebody, Nobody and Anybody.

Whenever there was an important job to be done, Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it.

When Nobody did it, Everybody got angry because it was Everybody's job.

Everybody thought that Somebody would do it, but Nobody realized that Nobody would do it.

So consequently Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done in the first place.

Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus

It felt like hot beads trailing along her face, scorched cheeks wrath yet dampened with those hot beads. She never thought she would still feel this way – so hurt with jealousy.

Why do men deny? Even with certainty, why do they deny?

“Don’t give me that shit!” she exclaimed blinded with burning anger and refusing to allow his conceived reasons.

Why do men deny and make women feel that it is their fault when it is their fault?

She was revolting. And crying again. And feeling hurt again. While he seemed decided to bring an end to any discussion earlier than the confrontation. No words ensued after the painful clash.

Why deny instead of sincerely asking pardon?

She could not forget the scene and be comforted with his words. “I always think of you when I gaze at other women.” But the scene does not speak of his love.

Why deny when actions speak louder than words?

Earlier, she promised she will not spill a tear. But tears kept coming… while he sleeps.

------------------------------------------------------------

Men argue for the right to be free while women argue for the right to be upset. Men want space while women want understanding.

- John Gray, MEN ARE FROM MARS, WOMEN ARE FROM VENUS

Christmas

Christmas, annual Christian holiday commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ
(1993-2003 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.)

Yesterday, experiencing traffic and commutation after a long time, I played the role of an audience watching a live performance or an onlooker silently watching without participating.

Cubao is a place where I grew up. Nothing much had changed except that additional structures and infrastructures were added making it look more crammed than orderly. It was not hard finding my way in it because I practically went to the place often to shop, to watch movies, to eat at fast food centers, or to plainly pass by to go to school and other destinations before I got married. It is one of the strategic places in the metro.

Yesterday, I noticed that nothing really had changed. Cubao, as always, whenever there is a holiday season, is adorned and elaborated with Christmas ornamentation that sends a yuletide feeling which is often nauseating. The common malls and department stores seem to compete with each other with their lavish get-ups even without a pageant. It was as if the country is not in bedlam. It was as if its people are prosperous and content.

On some parts of Cubao are the nomads, stretching out, probably sleeping, on the pavements of a timeworn building. One can see a cluster eating with their dirty, bare hands at the other end of the building. It was like they had made the dilapidated building’s wall and pavement an asylum.

Returning from my destination, I had to go back to Cubao. The PUJs had to stop at an intersection across Alimall. And while the jeeps are immobile, a grimy and barefooted boy of probably eight to ten years old suddenly climbed up and wiped the passengers’ (including me) shoes then begged for money. It was only seconds after that a teen girl boarded the jeep and distributed envelopes. After that, she played a Christmas song with her flute which reminded me of the TV series Cedi.

It seemed to me like the objects in a village prototype were arranged in juxtaposition. It was like truth and lies laid before my eyes. It was a combination of bounty and scarcity. It was like the degree of lightness and darkness. It was like tuyo and ham set on the table for Christmas Eve.

Christmas is always a reminder of the big difference between the Christmas of the affluent and of the poverty-stricken. And will forever be a symbol of commercialism. Not of commemorating the birth of Jesus. Could it be because the Christ’s birthday is not really on December 25? That is why the spirit is more of commercialism than the celebration of his birth? I have always wondered about the truth of that claim.