The Big One

Surely you've seen it in your feeds.

Those dire warnings about "The Big One."

Mmm. The Big One.

Everyone - from the feckless zucchini masquerading as the head of the incompetent government agency that rhymes with MDMA, to your hysterical aunt invoking anti-earthquake immunity by chanting "IN JESUS' NAME GOD WILL NOT LET IT HAPPEN" - has posted about "The Big One."

Seven point something that'll supposedly "rock the planet."

I should be so lucky to have something 7.something rock my body.

But I digress.

I'm sure Philvocs and the MMDA may have the general public's interest in mind by posting these dire warnings "to prepare for The Big One." But curiously, the effect it has on me is the opposite: instead of level-headedness and calm, each and every time I see those blaring words "PREPARE FOR THE BIG ONE" I am filled with expectations of carnage, destruction, and death, instead of competent emergency services, community cooperation, and a general maintenance of law and order.

Arguably, that's just another day in this godforsaken land.

But once more I digress.

I also get the feeling that some sectors seem to have this morbid, almost giddy anticipation of "The Big One." As though this was heaven's long-awaited crushing fist of divine righteousness come to punish us for our wickedness at last. 

Indeed. Rebar and styrofoam do not meet standard building codes.

The poor dense dears. If it's punishment you wanted, you already got it by being born Filipino.

At any rate, the only way this could be poetically-perfect for the huffing just is if "The Big One" were to hit this Good Friday, and crush all the godless heathen who decided to hit the beaches instead of contemplating their wretched lives in church.

Fat chance.

The city will be empty. Given God's wicked sense of humor, it'll probably be the pious who'll be crushed in their unrelenting piety as unreinforced churches crumble around them.

What a ball-buster it'd be to die in righteousness during Holy Week, only to find out you can't quite eyeball Jesus yet because, well, it's his annual Death Commemoration Orgy and he's busy, well, playing dead. 

Shut up, dweeb.

And I digress yet again.

Of all the natural calamities, I'm pretty sure most of us fear earthquakes the most. Typhoons have an infuriating habit of being hyped and then ending up as no-shows. Floods, like periods, are mostly wet, sloppy inconveniences. But there's something about literally having the earth move under your feet that triggers a primal fear. I guess it's because we're flightless creatures who cannot launch ourselves into the skies while Gaia has an orgasm.

But more than I fear earthquakes, I fear the incompetence of my countrymen. Especially those who purport to be in "public service." For all their blather, if and when "The Big One" strikes, I'm pretty sure Manila will descend quickly into lawlessness, chaos, and murder - and probably stay there till Christ returns.

Again, just another day in paradise. But this time with the city literally reduced to rubble. The only bright side is that the government will have more ghost voters to usher in the next plague upon this benighted land.

What's the point of this ramble over rumble?

Ah.

As the government and your sainted aunts keep screeching at us "to prepare for The Big One", I think my dear red-headed hellion Red Sonja said it best  :

"And now, you music-makers from hell - if I'm to die in this temple of abominations, at least I'll go down in SILENCE!!"


A-fuckin-men.

Viernes Santo

Gabriel Garcia-Marquez is dead.

Vaya con Dios, tio.

And Then There Were Demons

The world as we knew it had ended. There was no warning. If there were, I had missed it.

The apocalypse was not one of cleansing fire. From where I was, it was a ringing emptiness.

I remember yelling and screaming that it was all a bad dream, and that I wanted things to go back the way they were. But my mind said that it was not a dream.There was no going back.




And I just yelled some more.




Presently I found myself opening the front door.

People were shuffling aimlessly outside. My heart was beating so fast as my body tensed, fight or flight kicking in.



I ran out.




My feet turned to lead.

I didn't get very far until one of them got me.






Then I was dead.






And then, through a haze of surprising half-consciousness, I saw the other undead, shambling my way.

No threat now. We were one.



I saw mothers. And children.
They were moaning.


Then I realized why they moan.

They do not moan because they want to scare the living.

They moan because they do not want to be undead.

The moaning is a cry for help.

But no one listens.

No one can help.




And then there were demons.






A small one was taunting me. Sitting next to my head.

The other - a bigger, silver-blue one - held onto me as it stabbed tines into my side.

Over and over.

Then it leered, and thought - rather than said - that it was going to stab me for all eternity.




Then I woke up.

Post Script

And now, quite by accident, I stumbled upon the story behind the heartbreaking note.

Matter of Fact

In a previous post, we discussed the power of brevity in six-word short fiction stories.


I had no idea that such a short time later, I would be so moved with this - one that, unfortunately, is all too real :

                                             "Patay Na Si Mommy At Daddy."

From here.

Riding In Cars With My Boy

Just look at that guy. It couldn't be more obvious he loved cars as much as I do.


He knew when I was getting ready for a drive and would scramble in a mini-panic to tag along. With no prodding he would climb into his car seat and arrange himself in a proper sitting position. And with heavy panting breaths, he would anticipate the joyride ahead.

He was always remarkably well-behaved; even more so in a moving vehicle. A picture of contentment and happiness as he sat there, taking in the world as it sped by. Oblivious to the delight and stares of everyone who saw him: a happy Chow Chow smiling in a sports car.

I guess that's why it was fitting that he would take his last gasping breaths in my car, lying in the arms of his loving yaya. As I stroked his head after having asked him to hold on as we raced to the hospital in the dwindling traffic of Friday night.


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



I had come home from a gruelling week and was dead-tired.

He lay on the floor like a Sphinx - his usual pose of choice - worshipping the electric fan. My first inkling that something was wrong came when he didn't get up to greet me as he normally would. He just lay there, turned his head, and smiled at me.

It was when I came close to pat him that I heard his heavy, labored breathing. "Matamlay siya buong araw, ser," said my maid. "At hindi po kumain."

"Dalhin sa vet ito bukas," I replied. I was so exhausted I really wanted nothing but to lie down and rest my weary body.

But not ten minutes later, the maid said he was vomiting dark blood. I rushed down and his breath was even more ragged, more laboured than it was scant minutes earlier.

And ten more minutes later, my exhaustion forgotten, we were speeding down EDSA. On what would be our last journey together.




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

It happened quickly. He did not seem to suffer. 

From his huddled position on his yaya's lap, he suddenly reared up with what seemed like a surprised gasp.

And then one more. A softer one.

More like an exhale.

Then he was gone.




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

I never did get a picture of him in the car, happily sitting in the passenger seat, smiling at the journey ahead. I always meant to, but there are many things in life we put off till the morrow, till the morrow never comes.

We'd taken many trips together, my baby boy and I. The last time bringing a buttload of cakes to Mom on Mother's Day, as I fed him colorum pastilles. But the thing with the last time is, you often don't know when the last time will be the last time.

No one will ever ride shotgun with me - opera blaring, the wind in our hair in a convertible with the top down - like you did.

And now, I don't even know if I'll vaccuum the last traces of the fur you kept shedding on the car seat.




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

All dogs go to heaven, they say. So godspeed on your final destination, and say hi to Fritzi and the others for me when you get there. Unlike the time he left, at least, I was there with you at the end.



Daddy loves you. 



And. I. Will. Miss. You. 




My loving, darling, lovely Rufi.

The Last Dance

The Malate of our generation gained fame as a bohemian district dotted by edgy dance clubs, quirky cafés, and novelty restaurants. Its Renaissance in the early 90s was heralded by establishments diverse and colorful: Blue Cafe, Joy, Pepe N' Pilar, Batavia, and Sala, among others. 

Among these, Joy, the gay dance club, had the most meteoric rise, blazing bright and beautiful before it inevitably burned itself out. From the shimmering trail it left behind rose the next wave : Bath*, Acquario, and yes, BED. Red Banana emerged and, for a time, ruled. But when the WPD blundered through its doors one time too many, it self-immolated.

From its ashes, O-Bar took flight, and reigned on the corner of Orosa and Nakpil for seven years until it, too, just very recently abandoned Malate for Greenhills pastures.


And now BED has followed suit.


Last Saturday, BED - the last remaining vestige of the Malate renaissance - played its music one final time.



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

BED stood loud and proud as a Malate landmark for a good decade, a record that surpasses those of its predecessors Joy and Subway, and, to a somewhat lesser extent, Mr. Piggy's. 

The party fever generated by Joy could not be sustained by the short-lived pretender Bath, and BED quickly ascended the throne, eventually ruling the Malate gay club scene with a velvet fist. Anyone who was anyone had to be there, to see and be seen the same way we all did in oh-so-tony Giraffe or Venezia, ABGs and later on, down to Orange and eventually, Emba, Government, and wherever it is nowadays that the half-breed kids and aspiring models pose and preen.

But while these other clubs shared Makati and Taguig airspace, BED was singularly Malate, standing alone, its lofty position unchallenged. Expats, tourists, celebrities, social climbers of all stripes and various hangers-on shared the same smoke-filled air of BED, sipping their cocktails and swigging their beer, the occasional waft of amyl nitrate in the air mixing with the distinctive smell of the fog machine.

Joy may have started the party, but BED pumped up the volume and rocked the house. And that house party raged and raved for ten long years.



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

The death knell for BED Malate came as a surprise to many; my only surprise was that the owners were able to keep such open, common Malate knowledge secret for so long.

One of BED's principals stated in his FB page that the crowds simply dwindled over the years. This much is true, although the presence of cheaper alternatives such as O-Bar Malate and Che'lu surely siphoned off a good chunk of BED's clientele.

But there was no denying that times were a-changing. At its zenith, the door policy in BED was a formidable thing, as daunting as the long lines snaking a path to its hallowed portals. A serpentine, testosterone-fueled procession of young men, offering themselves to worship at BED's altar. Even with a steep door charge, people were flocking to BED on the weekends. It was, quite simply, Party Ground Zero.

But after its last (and, as it turns out, final) renovation, the writing revealed itself on the wall. BED never looked so good. From the hottest gay disco in town, BED had transformed itself into a super club comparable to what the best in the region had to offer. The owners seemed to have spared no expense in turning BED from a local clubbing legend to an international phenomenon.

And yet sometimes, if you build it, they will not come.



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

There was a lot of talk and movement in Malate even before BED made the announcement. Malate being Malate, there was advance knowledge of the looming void, and as naturally as the muscled hustlers hanging around the Orosa-Nakpil intersection eye drunken Malate habitués, certain sectors were hungry to fill the black hole BED would leave behind.

But some voids cannot be filled; not because they are unique and irreplaceable, but because they are products of their place and time. 

Now, clearly, inexorably, that time has passed.

And soon, so shall the place.



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

There is talk of a loose consortium formed by at least three of the remaining gay establishments left in the Orosa strip. And that this Trinity was hoping to take over the newly-renovated space where BED used to be, and convert it into a multi-level, multi-establishment venue: shades of the old Streetlife in Glorietta, or the various dance clubs and videoke bars that sit cheek by jowl in Soi 2, Silom Road, Bangkok - otherwise known as the DJ Station alley.

However, there appears to be an unforeseen development: one that the Three perhaps hadn't anticipated. If rumors are true, the owner of the property vacated by BED may not be keen on renting out the place to anyone at this point. Apparently, no matter how grand our schemes are, there's someone whose plans are even bigger.



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

If you've found yourself in the Malate district anytime lately, you'd have noticed the proliferation of mid-level buildings: gray, characterless concrete monoliths reaching for the sky. Along Orosa itself, the beautiful white architectural marvel with graceful, sloping curves that used to be Acquario - as well as the lovely structure that used to be its sister establishment, Raj - have both fallen into a gaping hole in the ground where a mid-rise condo will eventually flip a middle finger to bohemia.

That middle finger is Progress.

And as surely as the backhoes claw empty spaces into the earth, Progress will reduce the Malate we know into Nothing, before rebuilding it into Something Else.

Buildings! Condos! As high as the dubious ground beneath water-logged Manila will allow them to rise. Ave, Ave Avida!

And for this brand-spanking new district of middling condos and multi-purpose, anonymous buildings to rise, something else must first fall.

As all the once-mighty do.



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


The formidable owner of the section of Orosa where BED - and before, Komiks, The Rainbow Project, Pride Xchange, and other establishments once clustered - has been famously known to remark that "It doesn't matter to me whether someone rents out the place or not. My price, take it or leave it."

It is truly marvelous to be so rich that one could simply shrug one's shoulders and let prime property stay idle. But rich men do not become - nor remain - rich by sitting on non-performing assets.

The current conjecture is that the reason the Trinity's plans may yet go up in smoke is because the owner may very well be planning to sell the property to any of the big realtors gobbling up the city, one old neighborhood at a time.

One big cash-out, no more headaches about the turnover of tenants who cannot rekindle the faded magic of Malate.

One simply cannot blame the man.



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

And when one gleaming, cookie-cutter condo rises, like a cancer made of concrete, others shall quickly follow.

It isn't far-fetched to presume that the strip on the other side of the street - the famous line-up once headlined by Café Caribana (then the short-lived lesbian bar Ladida), Pepe N' Pilar, Joy, Café Breton, and Batavia - will also fall to Progress' irresistible march.

Already, one by one the lights are going out. O-Bar has extinguished its presence from the area. And half in its place, Midz rages, rages valiantly against the dying of the light. Che'lu stands impassive, a poker player holding its cards close to its chest. Beside it, the nameless Korean videoke/resto seems to be clueless about the neighborhood's impending demise.

And as-yet unconfirmed rumors say that Dados, that refreshingly anachronistic throwback to the old Malate watering holes, has closed its sentimental doors for good.**

There is something sadly poetic about establishments that come alive only at night being swallowed by the darkness one by one.

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

Whatever the ultimate fate of Malate - particularly the "gay nexus" of Orosa and Nakpil - BED will always stand as a glittering disco ball point in time. A time when we were young and beautiful, and our eyes sparkled with all the possibilities of youth. When life was full of fun and laughter, full of music and dancing.

BED was a beacon, summoning the scattered members of the LGTB community from the dark. Beckoning them to come one, come all, to dance in the spotlight and embrace the nightlife. To flirt, to grind, to cruise and be cruised; to live in wild abandon, if only for the night, all cares thrown to the winds as we celebrated to a different drumbeat.

There will come a time - soon, some insiders say - when Malate will no longer be recognizable to those of us who were fortunate to have witnessed the glories of its ever-changing face. The charming cafes and defiant old mansions of the elite that used to reside in the once-exclusive district will soon all give way to the new lords of progress.

When the last café made of antique wood and decorated with memorabilia probably more suited to a Segunda Mano bazaar is demolished under Progress' heel, then the Malate we knew and loved will pass into myth. 

And then, like the fabled Coco Banana, a new generation will only know it as legend.



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

To BED - the last gasp of the Malate renaissance.


Thank you for the music.


And now, a moment of silence for the late, great Malate.


Where the band plays on, not knowing - or caring - that the music has died.







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

*And MINT, of course, how could I forget? Thanks, JM!

**Good news. Reports of Dados' death were exaggerated. They merely shut down for a few days for renovations. Fight the good fight, then.

Fin

Just a day after he penned a "leave of presence" post in his journal, Roger Ebert - possibly the most famous film critic in the world - is dead.

Ironically,

"What in the world is a leave of presence? It means I am not going away. My intent is to continue to write selected reviews but to leave the rest to a talented team of writers handpicked and greatly admired by me. What's more, I'll be able at last to do what I've always fantasized about doing: 

reviewing only the movies I want to review."

Sadly, that entry would serve as his final review.

And while he did not get to do what he had always fantasized about doing, he did make his mark doing something he loved: watching and reviewing movies.

I didn't always agree with his reviews, but I made a point of reading Ebert's column as soon as I watched a film, to see where our viewpoints matched, or diverged. More often than not, he would have a few insights that escaped me, which only amplified my own post-viewing experience.

Ebert had been battling thyroid cancer for the past 12 years, and lost his voice to it in 2006. But his written voice remained strong, and until the cancer recently returned, Ebert provided an elegant, thoughtful, and humorous post-mortem to movies of all sorts. From pop dreck like Freddy Got Fingered to cinematic wonders like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Ebert's was the voice that steered and guided millions along the vast expanses of what the talkies had to offer. 

Ebert was interviewed often about his thoughts on mortality, given his medical condition. One of his most poignant, yet comforting, reviews on the matter comes from one of his journal entries - cleverly titled, Ebert-esque, Go Gently Into That Good Night :

"I know it is coming, and I do not fear it, because I believe 

there is nothing on the other side of death to fear.

I hope to be spared as much pain as possible on the approach path. 

I was perfectly content before I was born, and I think of death as the same state. 

What I am grateful for is the gift of intelligence, and for life, love, wonder, and laughter. 

You can't say it wasn't interesting. My lifetime's memories are what I have brought home from the trip. 

I will require them for eternity no more than that little souvenir 

of the Eiffel Tower I brought home from Paris."

I had just started skimming his journal a couple of months ago. It was a belated discovery, for I normally just went to his site for his legendary, occasionally harsh but never dull reviews. But now I shall relish reading his entries, and his takes not only on films, but on life in general.

And it's only poetic to end this entry with the final sentences in Ebert's last written piece:

"So on this day of reflection I say again, thank you for going on this journey with me. 

I'll see you at the movies."

Friday The Good

"I like things to be story-shaped.

Reality, however, is not story-shaped, and the eruptions of the odd into our lives are not story-shaped, either. They do not end in entirely satisfactory ways. Recounting the strange is like telling one's dreams; one can communicate the events of a dream but not the emotional content, the way that a dream can color one's entire day."

- Neil Gaiman, The Flints of Memory Lane, from Fragile Things

As I spend what's left of Good Friday - a hellish day fraught with sundry miseries, personal fears, and feelings of anger and abandonment - the door to my bedroom has creaked and slowly swung open once again. And yet again, despite my anticipations, there is no head peeking from behind it. No one behind the door in the darkness.

Well. 

No one human, anyway.

It doesn't help that I've been re-reading Gaiman of late, and am clutching his book Fragile Things to my chest astride the laptop I'm now writing this entry on. Not that Gaiman spooks me. I find his stories entertaining and intriguing, more than macabre, although they are most certainly that, as well.

Which is why I wonder why I was just a wee bit...perturbed at this latest trick of the door. There is no draft in the anteroom leading to my bedroom - especially not on this still, sultry night. All the windows are shuttered, and the door to the balcony there is always kept closed. My bedroom door itself tends to get stubbornly stuck when shut, which makes its regular surprise openings even more...quizzical.

And the creaking footsteps I hear upstairs while I am working downstairs in the study have fairly recently evolved into heavy, pounding footsteps just outside my bedroom door. I can actually feel my bed and my floor vibrating to these steps. 


And still, when I look - nothing but darkness.

Oh, yeah. And if my religious aunts are to be believed, God is dead and demons walk the earth freely tonight till He wakes up on Sunday.

Or was that Halloween?

At any rate...just thought it was a curious coincidence to have been reading the following passages from a Gaiman poem, from the same collection of short fictions, shortly before the portal to my personal chambers gingerly opened once again. 

Verses which eerily echo the goings-on in this big empty place, and my usual reactions to them.

The poem's title, fittingly enough, is The Hidden Chambers :

Do not fear the ghosts in this house; they are the least of your worries.

Personally I find the noises they make reassuring,

The creaks and footsteps in the night,

their little tricks of hiding things,

or moving them, I find

endearing, not upsettling.*

It makes the place

feel so much more like home.

Inhabited.

While you are here, of course,

you will hear the ghosts, always a room away,
and you may wake beside me in the night,
knowing that there's a space without a door
knowing that there's a place that's locked
but isn't there.

Hearing them scuffle, echo, thump, and pound.

Boo.



==================

*As per Gaiman, in his introduction:"Upsettling is what Humpty Dumpty called "a portmanteau word," occupying the territory between upsetting and unsettling."

Home Alone

Like the ancient Israelites abandoning Egypt, pretty much everyone's skipped - or will be skipping town for the annual Semana Santa exodus.

D left for Zambales this morning with three of our friends, to rendezvous at Christiane's parents' beach house for three days of sun, sea, sand, and Mojitos.

My boy is leaving for Laguna tomorrow with his high-school chums, coming back Easter.

Andy is, as per his last FB update, smiling in front of mosques in Brunei, after hopscotching around temples in Vientiane, ruins in Phnom Penh, and yet again the Petronas towers in KL.

One of my music arrangers updates us with his London holiday, and the guy who fixes my laptop has been in Singapore since Monday for his birthday/Holy Week escape.

A fellow producer is currently in Bangkok on post-production, which will then be parlayed into a vacation till Easter. Something I did two years back with no small amount of pleasure.

Even Miguel, my redoubtable whipping boy, has hopped on the last bus to Batangas to return to the peace and quiet of the province.

But since Nena has also headed there on a separate journey, luck will dictate if they'll cross paths and Nena will give Miguel our traditional Holy Week flaying.



I, on the other hand, will be home.


Alone.


Again.


Naturally.

Skyfall

So how was your VD?

Meanwhile, over at Russia...

The sky is falling.

More to the point, a meteorite has reportedly been intercepted by Russian air defense forces, who supposedly blew it up while it was still 20 km in the air.

A series of explosions in the skies of Russia’s Urals region, reportedly caused by a meteorite shower, has sparked panic in three major cities. Witnesses said that houses shuddered, windows were blown out and cellphones have stopped working.

According to unconfirmed reports, the meteorite was intercepted by an air defense unit at the Urzhumka settlement near Chelyabinsk. A missile salvo reportedly blew the meteorite to pieces at an altitude of 20 kilometers.

Did we not learn anything from repeated viewings of Armageddon, Deep Impact, or Independence Day, children?

Blowing up a large incoming object runs the risk of shattering it into smaller objects that may hit even more targets. As the ensuing meteor showers below show:

Interestingly, it's tonight that an asteroid is actually scheduled to be doing a near-Earth fly by.

O,hai!

As per this Slate article:

On Friday, Feb. 15, the Earth is going to get a veryclose shave by an asteroid^*. Called 2012 DA14, this 50 meter (160 foot) rock will pass just over 27,000 kilometers (17,000 miles) from the Earth’s surface. This is closer than our geosynchronous satellites, so this really is a close pass!

But, to be very clear: This asteroid poses no threat to us right now, nor in the foreseeable future. Friday’s miss is just that: a miss. And, in fact, this is a good thing, since any time an asteroid gets close (but misses), we learn a lot, including how to find them, how to track them, and even how to talk about them to the public.

Oh, a miss, eh?


Well, it's not like government agencies never lie to us or anything.

And from what I've read:

At its closest point, 2012 DA14 will be above Sumatra, Indonesia at 2:24 PM EST (19:24 GMT).

Well, howdy, neighbor.

And one more for the road:

Smile!

Interesting how that flash at 0:13 could be the last thing you'll ever see.


Dun dun dun dunnnnnn!

Transitions

I bumped into Lu, quite by chance, while doing chores this morning at Greenbelt. And learned first-hand that her move to Canada is definite. As of next Tuesday, she will be shivering in Ontario/Vancouver/Edmonton, clad in her Muji winterwear.

Her departure was merely coincidental - or so she says - with D's decision to pack up their Makati office. He spent the better part of the previous holiday season moving his stuff (and God forbid, his staff) here.

Coupled with all the equipment I schlepped when we shut down my own little bar early last year, this two-storey house is getting pret-ty crowded.

In the midst of all this moving and chaos, I wonder how our resident ghosts are taking everything. I hope the good ones stay.


And as of this afternoon, this text:

"It's official...O-bar Malate closes 

on Jan. 31, fyi."

The sinister Chinese Saruman of Malate strikes again.

Scrooge

Yeah, so this is Christmas.

And where there's Christmas, there's namamasko.


I know it's been said that Christmas has become commercialized. Well, color me red and call me Rudolph's nose.

I'm not here to discuss how Santa has upstaged Jesus in this year-end celebration. Nor how Christmas has become less a religious holiday celebrating the birth of the Christian savior, and more of a secular bacchanal: an excuse for merriment and gift-giving.

And before we speak of gifts and the merriment they bring, watch the video below:

Coming off from the video's basic premise, I ask you now: can money - and the material goods it can bring - spread happiness, then?

On one of the message boards I frequent, I got called an asshole for posting that the reason I never gave my multi-millionaire business colleague/frenemy anything for the holidays - ever - is because I came up with my First Equation of Holiday Gift-Giving, as follows:


What do you give the man who has everything?

Give him the one thing he doesn't have.

Which is: nothing.


The berater's point was that gift-giving was not a matter of things; rather, it was the thought behind those things.

I countered with my Second Equation of Holiday Gift-Giving:



They say it's the thought that counts.

So I thought of giving you a present.

That's what counts, right?


Of course, things quickly went south from there, but my innate orneriness aside, the social chastisement I got gave me room for pause.



Am I really a Scrooge?


But no, said the Gollum to my Smeagol. We's helps so many peoples every year, precious. We's gives them loans they never pay back, yesss. They's always asssksss uss for help, precious, allllwaysssss usssss. And they always says the same things, always the same problems, even if it isn't Christmas, all-year round they askssss, precious, they asksss and askssss and askkksssss ussssss.

Aherm. Aherm.


So what really counts? I give even if it's against my good will. Is that worse than not giving at all?


I also don't like to think I'm Smaug hoarding gold, but I've definitely put the kibosh on the many subtle and not-so-subtle requests for Yuletide "assistance" thus far.



Maybe I am a Scrooge.


Or just bah, humbugging.

Happy holigays, anyway.

Silence

"I have 

no mouth,

and I

must 

scream."

-Harlan Ellison

And Just Like That

...we spiral once again into the dumps. Getting to be a holiday tradition, this.


Clear triggers :  Lu's departure for the cold climes of Canada is confirmed, and irrevocable. We greet the New Year with her absence - a yawning void which I doubt very much will be filled.


My sadness aside, her leave creates new and unpleasant repercussions for my home life.

Not to go into too much detail, but let's say my days of more or less peaceful solitude may soon be over.

And in my dotage, I'm not one who greets change enthusiastically nor kindly.


It also doesn't help that I've once again become a cast member of Contagion. I'm looking at you, Mara, who valiantly suppressed your hacking cough during Rama, Hari redux, but barked like Bonnie Tyler's dog all throughout intermission.


Sigh.