territorial integrity, or, a loner's dilemma: how to preserve one's solitude without becoming a complete asshole

my personal air space was invaded last saturday. you know, that implicitly declared perimeter surrounding our persons, which, when crossed by other parties, causes alarm bells to sound in our heads. THAT space. i was having my coffee in my favorite spot at bo's coffee club sm branch, committing my thoughts to paper, when this lady and her kid comes up to me, violates my borders, and disturbs my peace.

but before i continue, let me explain why that spot is my favorite piece of prime real estate at bo's coffee club sm branch. the spot isn't your usual cafe setup of 2 or 3 hard wood chairs surrounding a small coffee table. it's actually a complete sala set, with the table, a sofa, and 2 chairs, the sofa and the 2 chairs thick with foam and covered in leather. but what makes it really valuable is what makes prime real estate really valuable: location, location, location. it's situated near the entrance, with a cinematic view of the flow of humanity just strolling by the mall, making it an ideal spot for contemplation, and for spotting chicks. can you imagine it now? ok... let's continue...

so there i was having my coffee in my favorite spot, committing my thoughts to paper, when this lady and her kid comes up to me, violates my borders, and disturbs my peace. she looks at me, sees that i'm alone, then promptly plants her butt on the empty chair across me. THEN she asks me if i had companions. i say no. i ask her if she had other companions. she says she's just waiting for something. wrong answer. i look around and see at least 7 other vacant tables visible from my spot, with probably more at the back. but what really got my goat was that she never asked me if it was ok or not, to take that seat across me.

but she seemed like a nice enough lady, so i tried to be cool with it. i breathed in, put my pencil down, and stared at the people walking outside, hoping it would be quick. then her coffee arrives. wonderful.

apparently, she had some business with the coffee shop people, something about a broken fridge. one by one, the coffee shop people come and talk with her. i try glancing at the lady every now and then with a sad (not angry, not annoyed, not VERY sad, just a bit so) look on my face to try and communicate my discomfort as gently as possible. unfortunately, but with an uneasy look on her face, she tries to ignore me. she just sits there and crosses her arms over her chest in between sips of coffee and talks with the coffee shop people, while her little boy sits beside her playing with packets of sugar and creamer.

at last, the 'something' she was waiting for (another one of the coffee shop people) arrives. they talk for about 10 minutes, then they leave. but before doing so, she faces me and says 'thank you'. i nod. ahh finally... peace...

is it so much to ask to be left alone? ok, i admit, i am not a very friendly person. i do try NOT to be an asshole, i'm just NOT FRIENDLY. plus, i don't feel very comfortable around strangers. and i usually prefer to be alone.

and it IS perfectly within my right to demand to be left alone in my spot. i think i bought that right together with my coffee. true, i don't own a title over the place, but i do 'own' it, at least for the duration it takes me to finish my coffee.

on second thought, maybe i AM being an asshole. the lady wasn't really THAT rude. and she DID thank me for sharing my spot with her. some people may find my annoyance funny. you may actually be laughing at me right now. some people may not even find it an issue to share that empty seat in front of them. i am certainly NOT one of them though. maybe i'm just being too selfish, no?

is it really that big a sacrifice to share the untaken seat in front of me? it's not like i'm gloria arroyo allowing china and vietnam to explore philippine territory for oil. dude, for crying out loud, that chair is NOT the spratlys.

is it really possible to preserve one's solitude without becoming a complete asshole? hmmm... i guess it IS possible. but only if i climb on top of some mountain to eschew any human contact, and stay there for the rest of my life.

as i write my thoughts on paper, fate suddenly decides to test the resolve of my new found 'epiphany'. about 30 minutes after the lady with the kid left, 3 oriental looking people approach me, a man, a woman, and a teenage girl, probably father, mother, and daughter. i see that the cafe is almost full. the girl, in halting and thickly accented english (which is not to say it's 'bad' english, she was perfectly understandable), asks me if i had any 'friends'.

i almost burst out laughing. she probably meant 'companions', but it's a good question nonetheless. just when i admit on paper that i am not a friendly person, here goes someone asking me if i had 'friends'. how appropriate.

while assuming that she DID mean to say 'companions', i say no. she asks if it's ok that they take their seats there with me. i say yes. they take their seats. at least, this time, they asked.

five degrees of separation

three thugs on a motorcycle. a girl with a cellphone. a gunshot. a headline.

anyone who'd been following the local cebuano news the first week of march has probably heard of that tragic story, the robbery and murder of ruby jade ruba, a 20 year old nursing student, just 3 weeks shy of her graduation. all for a cellphone.

it was late wednesday afternoon i heard. i was chatting up my friends on the internet when my friend chick broke the news. he said that a batchmate of his brother's girlfriend had just been shot the other night, around capitol site. then came the rest of the story, how the victim was weeks away from graduating, that she was working on her term paper late that evening, that she was returning to her apartment with another friend when the robbers found her, that the robbers grabbed her cellphone, shot her, and then fled on a motorcycle. 'is she alive?', we asked. 'no, she died', he said.

emoticons showing a virtual shaking of our heads filled our chat window one by one. chatmate ryan expressed concern for his own girlfriend, who usually got off from work late in the evening, and whose office was near the scene of the crime.

i was pretty alarmed, too. the place was a quick walk away from my office, and much quicker of you were riding a motorcycle. and i also happen to go home late in the evening. i never knew the victim, but the fact that we were separated by a mere four degrees (she being the batchmate of the girlfriend of the brother of my friend) made it all seem so much closer to home. if it could happen to her, i see no reason why it could not happen to me also.

public shock and outrage followed when the news spread. mayor tomas osmeña announced a P30,000 reward to anyone who could help in solving the crime. several suspects were arrested, one of them claiming that he killed the victim so he could extort P50,000 from a truck driver.

then came the headlines morning of the following monday. police have caught 3 suspects who they could confidently say were involved in the crime, aivan barabat, mark anthony gabriel and karl marx carticiano, the first 2 having confessed to doing it. those 2 were also said to be members of the local chapter of the crips gang. the 3rd, who the first 2 suspects say was the driver of their getaway motorcycle, was arrested when he voluntarily came to the police station to deny any involvement. a 4th person was arrested, to whom the first 2 suspects say they sold the cellphone for P3,000. in a congratulatory pat on their collective backs for the quick resolution, police declared the case closed.

makes it all seem like P3,000 is worth nothing. makes it all seem like a life is worth nothing.

"Trip ra to. Gikan mi nag-inom. (It was just our trip after drinking)," the papers quoted them as saying.

from hongkong, my ofw friend tope had also been following the news that morning. after reading of that story, he told us over the same chat window of his shock over the discovery that he knew one of the accused, aivan barabat. he used to work as the 'boy' or 'alalay' in his old office.

that announcement finally drew the connection from victim to suspect, making the crime all the more tragic. victim - girlfriend of chick's bro - chick's bro - chick - tope - suspect. as far as we know, just five degrees separating them, five measly degrees, before the crime was committed. it may even have been smaller. and in a grim irony, the crime shrunk that separation from five degrees to just one: victim - suspect.

had that suspect known, would he have done it? had that suspect known, would it have mattered to him? had it occured to him that their prospective victim may be their friend's girlfriend or sister or mother or cousin, would he have done it?

makes you think, no? maybe that person sitting across you on the jeepney is a friend of a friend. or maybe the person asking you for directions could be your classmate's cousin. who knows, that person who you just saw drop his wallet is your neighbor's bestfriend. or the old jeepney driver who gave you five pesos more than the change you expected is your officemate's grandfather.

in his 'small world experiments', stanley milgram theorized that everyone in the world is connected to everyone else by an average of 6 degrees. and to think, that was in 1967. technology today has probably shrunk our world even smaller than it was in 1967.

i am sensing that, at least here in cebu, it's much, much smaller than six degrees. the least we can all do is play a bit more nicely with each other.

########################

published in the philippine daily inquirer 4/12/2008
http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view/20080412-129894/Five-degrees-of-separation

announcing...

my multiply page :) http://kennethisonline.multiply.com/

sinulog 2008

it's sort of late... but here are some of my pix during sinulog 2008 :)

sinulog 2008 fluvial parade pix

sinulog 2008 grand parade pix

uc chicks

some pictures of chicks from UC that i took for itzamatch.com's search for the perfect campus couple

apologies are in order

to my 2 loyal readers: i... am... sorry...

i've either been too busy or too depressed to write. there's this particular piece i want to finish, but i sometimes find myself too horrified by my subject. for the meantime, if it's any consolation, here are some pictures of chicks from USJR that i took when itzamatch.com held its perfect campus couple shindig there. thanks to faith for letting me take pictures :)

i'll be posting pics from UC next :)

previously... on prison break

for more photos, please visit my photoblog :)

his wife's a bitch...

...literally

Man weds dog in bid to break curse

NEW DELHI (AP) -- A man in southern India married a female dog in a traditional Hindu ceremony in a bid to atone for stoning two dogs to death, a newspaper reported Tuesday.

The 33-year-old man married the sari-draped dog at a temple in the southern state of Tamil Nadu on Sunday after an astrologer said it was the only way to cure himself of a disability, the Hindustan Times newspaper reported.

P. Selvakumar told the paper that he had been suffering since he stoned two dogs to death and strung them up in a tree 15 years ago.

"After that my legs and hands got paralyzed and I lost hearing in one ear," the paper quoted him as saying.

Family members chose a stray female dog named Selvi who was then bathed and clothed for the ceremony.

The groom and his family then had a feast, while the dog got a bun, the paper said.

*****

i guess we can all go ahead and say that his wife's a bitch without risking a libel suit no?

i wonder how their honeymoon went...

but all's not well for selvi. it seems her husband's family hasn't accepted her yet. they only gave a her a bun at her wedding feast. they didn't even give her a slice of the wedding cake. how cruel is that! will their marriage last if selvi's in-laws can't even get along with her?

and what if selvi is unfaithful? you know how female dogs can be: once their in heat, they're IN HEAT. and they become a magnet for all the male dogs within a 1 kilometer radius. i can only imagine the quarrel that explodes between mr. selvakumar and selvi.

mr. selvakumar: selvi! where have you been? it's already 3 am!

selvi: woof!

mr. selvakumar: the neighborhood kids tell me that they've seen you and bruno together. what were you two doing? have you been smooching with him?

selvi: woof!

the next morning, mr. selvakumar hears a knock on his door. it's his neighbor kerpal, and he brings bad news. kerpal tells him that he saw selvi last night screwing around with his dog bruno. mr. selvakumar is heartbroken.

in that case, can he file for divorce?

not a cheerful giver

a family friend sent me a text message friday evening. his pregnant wife's blood pressure had shot up to 150/110. the doctors thought it more risky if the delivery was natural, so she had to give birth by caesarian section. the procedure was a success, but they were desperately short on cash, and asked for help. i just had a nice dinner, and was about to enter ayala center cinema 2 when i received the message.

i didn't reply immediately. i finished the movie and went home, mulling it over on the way. i got to bed still without reaching a decision. when i woke up, it was already morning. i thought, if i was going to help, i should do it now. and if i was going to give, it had to be substantial enough to be of real help to them.

so i decided to help anyway, but not without agonizing over it. in his present situation, i couldn't really expect him to repay me. and the amount i had decided on wasn't really that big, but it was big enough to hurt.

i am not writing this to praise myself, but to ask. while mulling it over in the morning, i thought of this passage from the Good Book that says we should not give reluctantly or out of compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. had i been reluctant? oh yes, very much. and i was going to give out of pity, and guilt, both of which i think fall under 'compulsion'. and i don't feel particularly cheerful about it either. so will God not love me for doing it?

am i so bad?

we met up a few hours later. the baby is a boy. and i'm going to be the godfather. which makes me sound like a gangster.

all soul's day haiku

two candles melting
in defiance of darkness--
remembrance

ghost story

my late stepfather was quite fond of cigarettes. sadly, this habit of his soon sent him to the grave. my cousin, knowing this, brought 3 sticks of marlboro with him when he visited my stepfather's (his uncle's) tomb at the cemetery last thursday, all saint's day.

my cousin still had work that day, so he came early. he put flowers on the tomb, lit some candles, then placed the 3 cigarettes on top. he held vigil and waited for the candles to burn out.

the candles burn out, and he turns to leave. a disembodied voice then calls out to him: "psst... posporo..."

when my mom and i arrive later at the cemetery, we find the cigarettes gone. tsk tsk tsk...

i guess you need not worry about high blood pressure or lung cancer or stroke in the afterlife, no?

*****

in memory of boboy, may he rest in peace

the fable of the lost shoe

9 pm and a shoe
lays on the street
bathing in that sickly light of the night
forgotten and friendless
it must have fallen
from a passing car
or from someone's bag
but one thing's for sure
none have come back
to find it
the search not deemed worth the time

9 pm and a shoe
rests on the street
and it dreams
that the days before it was lost
still are:
that a foot still filled it with purpose
and another shoe just like it beside
to walk the waking world with

9 pm and a shoe
stirs on the street
as a man with a sack on his back
comes to find the shoe
and says, 'finally!
a pair for my other shoe'
he puts the shoe
into his sack
and takes it home
where the shoe awakes
to find its dream
come true in ways
it did not even dream of

*****

photo taken on my way home, at the cebu business park, cebu city

is my cat bulimic?

help! my cat miming has a problem. she's been vomiting the past 3 days. i caught her almost do it in my room 3 days ago, so i promptly threw her out. she then went ahead and threw up right outside the door. my mother also saw her do it in the kitchen the next day. she did it again yesterday, after we fed her dinner. clean up has been such a pain.

but i look at miming, and her appetite seems quite normal. she actually keeps meowing at me every time she sees me, to probably try and wheedle some food from me. then my internal hypochondriac suddenly gave me his diagnosis: miming is bulimic.

she seems to have lost weight the past few weeks, and looks rather thin. is miming depressed? is she insecure w/ her looks? does she think she has weight problems? does she think her perceived weight problems are driving away perspective boyfriends, i mean, tomcats? are the lady cats in the neighborhood teasing her that she's fat? has she been watching too much TV when the humans of the house are away, which has somehow influenced her definition of what it is to be beautiful? does she need to see a shrink? do i need to see a shrink?

i've been meaning to ask her all that, but all she says is 'meow'.

a quarter of a century, or, my attempts at spaceflight

i am now a quarter of a century old. aside from wondering where all the days have gone, i haven't quite decided yet if i should be happy or sad, or if i should give a fart about it. i'm not even sure if it's something worth remembering.

to mark the event, i bought a tub of ice cream, to add something a little fancy for dinner at home. but just family, no guests. no party, no pizza for the officemates, no night out drinking w/ buddies. a quarter century of existence has turned me into a grinch.

the morning of my birthday, curiosity struck me with a question: had there ever been anything important that occurred on my birthday? so while i struggled against insignificance, i did some research; i logged on to wikipedia.

from what i read, it seems i share the splendid company of movie stars on my birthday: charlton heston in 1924, buster keaton in 1895, susan sarandon in 1946, alicia silverstone in 1976, and rachael leigh cook in 1979. some writers too: anne rice in 1941 and alvin toffler in 1928. even an american president (rutherford hayes, 1822), a cartoon dog (snoopy, 1950), and a comic strip detective (dick tracy, 1931). not bad.

and on the 4th of october, 50 years ago, a 184 pound aluminum sphere called sputnik (russian for traveller) blasted into the skies on a soviet R-7 ballistic missile, becoming the first man-made satellite to orbit the earth. and so the space age began. nice.

then on the 4th of october, 25 years ago, a 6.13 pound baby boy came crashing into earth, me. but unlike sputnik, i've never really gotten off the ground. for all my dreaming and scheming, i, the eternal underachiever, haven't taken off yet. i'm still on earth, stuck in the same old life, the same old job, same old me. it's kinda tough, to be in the shadow of a satellite.

i look at everyone else, and their rocket launches into space all seem to be going quite well. and i'm still grounded, plagued with a lot of technical problems.

october 4, 1918 seems to be a more appropriate metaphor than october 4, 1957. on that day, according to wikipedia, "An explosion occurred killing more than 100 and destroying the T.A. Gillespie Company Shell Loading Plant in Sayreville, New Jersey. Fires and explosions continued for three days forcing massive evacuations and spreading ordnance over a wide area, pieces of which are still being found in 2007." explosions. exactly.

plane crashes prove to be another fitting metaphor. my birthday seems to have an affinity for them. on october 4, 1960, "Eastern Air Lines Flight 375, a Lockheed L-188 Electra, crashes on takeoff from Boston's Logan International Airport, killing 62 of 72 on board after a bird strike." on october 4, 1975, "A Cessna 310Q airplane crashes over Wilmington, North Carolina, killing the pilot and severely injuring several pro wrestlers affiliated with the NWA's Mid-Atlantic promotion." on october 4, 1992, "An El Al Boeing 747-200F crashes into two apartment buildings in Amsterdam, killing 43 including 38 on the ground." on october 4, 2001, "A Sibir Airlines Tupolev TU-154 crashes into the Black Sea after being struck by an errant Ukrainian S-200 missile. 78 people are killed." this is too much.

but come to think of it, why on earth am i moping? when the americans learned that the soviets successfully sent sputnik into space, what did they do? well, yeah, they did get paranoid for a while, imagining that the soviets would soon be dropping bombs on them from space. but they eventually got back their composure and went to work. they kicked off their own space program. they created NASA. they guided the whole country in the moon's direction and said to themselves, that's where we're going. and off they went.

it wasn't without hitches of course. it started pretty badly. when the US tried to launch their first satellite on december 6, 1957, the vanguard rocket carrying it flew for a total of 2 seconds, traveled 4 feet into the air, and then boom. it became one of the most expensive fireworks displays in history. it also took rangers 1 to 6 before ranger 7 became the first unmanned american ship to land on the moon. the soviets must have had a great time laughing at the americans' expense.

and even more tragic, during a training exercise at the kennedy space center on january 27, 1967, a spark somewhere in the apollo 1 space capsule's 50 km of wiring caused a fire to break out inside. killed were the 3 astronauts on board: virgil grissom, ed white and roger chaffee. on the memorial plaque for the three men was written, 'ad astra per aspera'. a rough road leads to the stars.

yet like anyone who has ever fallen down, you have no other choice really, but to get up off your butt, dust your self off, and carry on. and on july 20, 1969, the eagle landed, and the apollo 11 astronauts neil armstrong and buzz aldrin set foot on the moon.

who knows, one day, i might go to the moon. or mars. or even the stars. but first, i have to find a way to get off the ground.

and i hope i don't crash.

another reason why i will never be a doctor or nurse

i eavesdrop on the neighboring tables while having my cappuccino. don't blame me, i can't help it. a sharpened sense of hearing is one of caffeine's side effects, and i can't just turn it off. so while having my caffeine fix last friday, i found myself listening to an interesting conversation.

seated on the table next to me were 3 nursing students. apparently, one of them was a senior, and he was dishing out advice to the other 2, on how to get scholarships, getting through nursing school, surviving their hospital training, and landing a job in the states. the topic of conversation then shifted to their patients.

they had one patient who discovered he had bladder cancer because he was peeing blood. there was another patient, a young girl, who got burned all over due to an unfortunate kitchen accident. they talked about body fluids coming out, IV fluids coming in, pain medication, all the gory details.

'so how's mr. X in room Y?', asked one about another patient. 'oh... he just died', answered the other. they pause for a few seconds, 'so how's the coffee?'

it's curious how numb those 3 nurses have become. i can imagine them looking at their patients like grease monkeys trying to fix a busted car engine. true, desensitizing your own feelings should be a requirement in any medical career, since not doing so would leave you too paralyzed with sadness over the rising body count, too crippled w/ despair over the pain and suffering you witness firsthand. it's tough, but someone's got to do it. which is another reason i can never be a doctor or a nurse: you have to kill off a certain part of your humanity to function properly.

a case in point (though rather extreme): the senior nurse in the conversation talked about a fellow nurse he worked with. they had this patient, an old man, who was too frail to even put on his medical gown. but the nurse, who never paid attention to the old man in his struggle with his gown, just went on with her measurements of the IV drip rate. this came to the attention of their supervising nurse, who chastised the robot nurse. the robot nurse then shrugged and answered, 'sige sir', then went on her way.

why is the cow smiling?

does it know it's about to become 'classic sirloin steak'? or is it happy that it's about to become 'classic sirloin steak'?

the grass withers and the flowers fall...

i was reminded of a passage from isaiah when i took this picture:
"All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall because the breath of the LORD blows on them. Surely the people are grass."

taken in fort san pedro, cebu city. for more photos, please visit my photoblog :)

yes, there is life outside your computer

and i thought i didn't have a life (pun sort of intended). in the news:

China web-user dies after three-day online binge

BEIJING -- A man in southern China collapsed and died after a three-day marathon online session at a cybercafe, state media reported on Monday.

The web-user, estimated to be 30 years old, suddenly collapsed in front of his computer terminal in Guangdong province, and emergency personnel were unable to revive him, the Beijing News reported.


i now have a new mantra to recite. ok, everyone, repeat after me:
yes, [your name here], there is life outside your computer.

aids in cebu

graffiti found in one of the restrooms of BTC, banilad, cebu city

a question of belief

sorry for the delay on my latest post, here's a new photo essay out on my photoblog. please check it out :) comments are still highly appreciated.