Hell must have frozen over by now. The cold weather has lately been, well, colder than usual. It feels like we're transported back to the yuletide season. I live three floors above, in a building that looks as though it is waiting to be condemned and, worse, to be demolished. From up here, it feels like the unforgiving coldness of the breeze is exponentially raised. I am even tempted to wear a thick jacket while inside the room, the ones that you see in the polar episodes of National Geographic. I may look like an eskimo—or, as the eternally perverted Joey de Leon puts it, es es ki...never mind—lost in the Pacific but that isn't really an exaggeration. I do not know what's causing this arctic sweep in this tropical country, but I'm quite certain this is a good time to indulge yourself in a nice warm cup of coffee. Those with fecal incontinence should beware though. Too much caffeine and your ass muscles can loosen and blow that other end of yours, the lonely spot where the sun never shines, to smithereens.
Just last night, Los Baños was littered with passersby and bystanders clad in jackets and sweaters and clothes that remind you of winter wonderland. Or something to that effect. The same thing happened weeks before. I presume people will still be wearing the same stuff until the first week of February, assuming the weather forecast is accurate enough.
So there I was in front of a small stall that sold warm food on that cold dinner time. Too busy scanning the display window where a comprehensive list of dishes looked like a festive gathering of meals, it was only a few minutes later when I realized that I was the only one around wearing shirt and shorts. As for everybody else, they had fluffy garments wrapped around their bodies that some of them looked surprisingly huge from where I stood. Perhaps, I thought to myself, I could use a few thick clothing myself. Not only were my knees jerking, my jaws were also trembling like a minor tremor that would register faint signals on the scales. It was the first time in my six years of being an adopted child of this town that I felt such unkind days and nights. It boggles the mind. It's so mystifying it's ridiculous.
As I'm typing this—and perhaps while you're reading what I have thus written—the breeze is still doing its rounds, calling forth the mighty Amihan from the horizon. It's a fine time to sleep, or to cave yourself inside the sheets of your bed and hybernate until summer time like a bear, unless you have work to do of course. Otherwise, you can turn incognito in broad daylight, away from the torment and troubles of the outside world. You can tango with your dreams while lost in the utter silence of sleep except when you snore like a mad lion. You can rest your body—and maybe even your soul, who knows if you have one—and get a good day's worth of nirvana. You can choose to eat and drink before you sleep and replicate the same feat that snuff the life out of Rico Yan and countless others who were never to see the light of day again. But that's the morbid part to it. Other than that, sleep if you can.
I can. I do. I did. Napoleon Bonaparte should envy me.
In frigid countries where snowfall is as normal and ordinary and common as air to lungs, this weather condition isn't something to mull over and fuss about. People living in those regions could only care less. Hell, this may even stand at par with their summer sunshine, notwithstanding to those who dwell in the most desolate corners of Siberia or Tibet. I could barely begin to imagine how it is to live in those icy territories where the warmth of the sun from above and the fiery pits of the earth's core cannot seem to penetrate the glaciers. Maybe they haven't seen a bathing suit for centuries.
Back home, sages say Filipinos have a favorite pastime when the weather is cold and the night is young. That form of amusement, still they say, stands at the very heart of the increasing mortality and fertility rate among couples in the country, legal or otherwise. Those who experience orgasmic catatonia—in bed or otherwise—reach staggering heights, so much so that they could barely come back down from the heavens, or deciding not to come back down from their libidinous skies, which accounts for their early meeting with God. This does not exclude the frequent case of heart attack or stroke among senile and youthful fuckers. That's French for sexually active people. That's the case for mortality.
As for fertility, well, it doesn't take the mind of a Hugh Hefner to fully comprehend this part. It's freezing cold in the dead of the night. You and your legally recognized partner—or otherwise—meet in the eye, recognizing the lack of heat in your crampy room and the need for friction—which is the jurassic way of making fire—and the next thing you know, fireworks are blasting from everywhere in your shack. By the following morning, she's positive. I do not know exactly how many thousands of stories contain more or less the same plot, but you get the idea. There's no need to say it in French.
I was born October, which is reason enough to suspect that it must have been utterly cold one January evening in 1986 and my father and mother must have had all the time in their hands. My two younger siblings—I'm the eldest among our band of brothers—were born in August, which is also reason enough to suspect that it must have been cold and rainy one November evening or morning in 1990 and 2000, respectively, and my father and mother must have had all the time in their hands. Perhaps, everything was wet those days. The ground, the leaves, the twigs, name it.
It's still a cold season here, there and everywhere maybe. Protect yourself. Wear a jacket, whichever way you think of it.
Just last night, Los Baños was littered with passersby and bystanders clad in jackets and sweaters and clothes that remind you of winter wonderland. Or something to that effect. The same thing happened weeks before. I presume people will still be wearing the same stuff until the first week of February, assuming the weather forecast is accurate enough.
So there I was in front of a small stall that sold warm food on that cold dinner time. Too busy scanning the display window where a comprehensive list of dishes looked like a festive gathering of meals, it was only a few minutes later when I realized that I was the only one around wearing shirt and shorts. As for everybody else, they had fluffy garments wrapped around their bodies that some of them looked surprisingly huge from where I stood. Perhaps, I thought to myself, I could use a few thick clothing myself. Not only were my knees jerking, my jaws were also trembling like a minor tremor that would register faint signals on the scales. It was the first time in my six years of being an adopted child of this town that I felt such unkind days and nights. It boggles the mind. It's so mystifying it's ridiculous.
As I'm typing this—and perhaps while you're reading what I have thus written—the breeze is still doing its rounds, calling forth the mighty Amihan from the horizon. It's a fine time to sleep, or to cave yourself inside the sheets of your bed and hybernate until summer time like a bear, unless you have work to do of course. Otherwise, you can turn incognito in broad daylight, away from the torment and troubles of the outside world. You can tango with your dreams while lost in the utter silence of sleep except when you snore like a mad lion. You can rest your body—and maybe even your soul, who knows if you have one—and get a good day's worth of nirvana. You can choose to eat and drink before you sleep and replicate the same feat that snuff the life out of Rico Yan and countless others who were never to see the light of day again. But that's the morbid part to it. Other than that, sleep if you can.
I can. I do. I did. Napoleon Bonaparte should envy me.
In frigid countries where snowfall is as normal and ordinary and common as air to lungs, this weather condition isn't something to mull over and fuss about. People living in those regions could only care less. Hell, this may even stand at par with their summer sunshine, notwithstanding to those who dwell in the most desolate corners of Siberia or Tibet. I could barely begin to imagine how it is to live in those icy territories where the warmth of the sun from above and the fiery pits of the earth's core cannot seem to penetrate the glaciers. Maybe they haven't seen a bathing suit for centuries.
Back home, sages say Filipinos have a favorite pastime when the weather is cold and the night is young. That form of amusement, still they say, stands at the very heart of the increasing mortality and fertility rate among couples in the country, legal or otherwise. Those who experience orgasmic catatonia—in bed or otherwise—reach staggering heights, so much so that they could barely come back down from the heavens, or deciding not to come back down from their libidinous skies, which accounts for their early meeting with God. This does not exclude the frequent case of heart attack or stroke among senile and youthful fuckers. That's French for sexually active people. That's the case for mortality.
As for fertility, well, it doesn't take the mind of a Hugh Hefner to fully comprehend this part. It's freezing cold in the dead of the night. You and your legally recognized partner—or otherwise—meet in the eye, recognizing the lack of heat in your crampy room and the need for friction—which is the jurassic way of making fire—and the next thing you know, fireworks are blasting from everywhere in your shack. By the following morning, she's positive. I do not know exactly how many thousands of stories contain more or less the same plot, but you get the idea. There's no need to say it in French.
I was born October, which is reason enough to suspect that it must have been utterly cold one January evening in 1986 and my father and mother must have had all the time in their hands. My two younger siblings—I'm the eldest among our band of brothers—were born in August, which is also reason enough to suspect that it must have been cold and rainy one November evening or morning in 1990 and 2000, respectively, and my father and mother must have had all the time in their hands. Perhaps, everything was wet those days. The ground, the leaves, the twigs, name it.
It's still a cold season here, there and everywhere maybe. Protect yourself. Wear a jacket, whichever way you think of it.
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