Through the Negativity

I couldn't say i was surprised. It's just that i was hoping that i was wrong. I suspected it when my cousin was diagnosed with shingles. He was fit and healthy, he was not in any undue amount of stress. There has to be a reason why he became immunocompromised. So i forced him to undergo some tests, just to rule out certain possibilities. When the results came out, i was right.

So yeah. He's HIV positive. And he also has hepatitis B. At first he was just laughing about it as he told me on the phone. He kept making jokes, injecting humor in a very serious situation. So i went along with him. But the next day i received a call from his sister, and she told me that when she visited him he was laughing at first, but the wall that he surrounded himself with suddenly fell down, and all his tears came rushing out all at once. He told her he wanted to kill himself. Maybe he would ask for my help so he can get his hands on a lot of prohibited meds, swallow all those pills in an instant and let it all be over and done with. I didn't know what to say. I would say that we're pretty close, but i never saw that side of him. I've always known him to be that happy go lucky guy, that guy you can always count on if you want to have a great time. He's the guy you can count on if you want to leave your problems behind... albeit temporarily. Come to think of it, that was how we became close. He always gave me some sort of escape whenever i needed to.

I've had several misadventures with him. During my carefree days, back when i didn't give a fuck, he showed me all the perfect spots, where to pick up the hottest girls for the cheapest price, where i can really have a good time. He taught me all there is to know about the trade. You could say that he was my mentor. Maybe it was inevitable, that he would catch something serious. Two years ago he got infected with gonorrhea and we were laughing about it as i was treating him. He got laid very often. There was a time that he got laid almost every night, and each night it's with a different girl. And he never practiced safe sex. Whether it's with prostitutes, with some girl he knew from work, or some random chick he met at a bar, he never wore condoms. I always tell him to wear condoms, but he would just give me that cynical and smug look of his whenever i told him that. The fact that he knew for a fact that i don't always practice what i preach makes me sound like some sort of a hypocrite i guess. He even got laid two weeks before the results came out. And he still had shingles back then. I didn't know what surprised me more. The fact that he could still have sex even when his arm was painful as hell... or the fact that some chick could get horny as fuck that they would screw someone who had a lot of lesions in his arm.

I saw him the other day. I made a medical certificate for him, diagnosing him with some bullshit sickness, the most plausible illness that i could think of just so he can get transferred to the morning shift. Morning shift = less stress. That was how i justified my recommendation without going through the specifics. He wasn't ready to tell people yet, and i understood him. No matter how much people say that they understand HIV and AIDS, discrimination still exists, especially in the workplace. People will avoid him, like that asshole brother of his, who left their apartment the very minute he found out because he believed he will get infected. He could even lose his job if his boss makes up some silly excuse just to get him fired. Stuff like that happens. And he cant afford to lose his job, especially with his many future expenses. If they ever found out that i made some bogus diagnosis, i could get reprimanded... heck, i could get suspended but i didn't really care. All I wanted to at that time was to help him, and i was willing to do everything i could.

When he entered the clinic, i no longer saw that smile that he always wore. now he doesn't even make any attempt to hide his true feelings. As I was explaining to him the results of all the exams, as i was discussing his illness and his prognosis, he became teary eyed. And then he started to cry. There was nothing i could do or say to make him feel better. Any word would just seem like horse shit coming out of my mouth. So i just let him cry. After a while i told him that i knew what he was thinking. His sister told me that he was contemplating suicide. It's not the end of the world. He could still live a normal life. He still had so many years ahead of him, he can still do all the things he wanted to do. There's no need to let go of his dreams and ambitions. But we both knew that wasn't exactly true. We both knew that i was just trying to make him feel better. His condition may not change everything, but it changes a lot of things. On many drunken nights he had told me his goals in life. How he wanted to start his own business. How he wanted to earn a lot of money so that his mom no longer had to work. How he wanted to send her niece to school and finance her education until she finishes college... because his good for nothing brother didn't want to have anything to do with his own kid. And how he wanted to have a family of his own someday, once his family didn't depend on him as much as they do now. For someone who seems so frivolous on the outside, this man has such noble goals. His dreams in life prioritizes the needs of other rather than focusing on his. There are so many things that he can no longer do. Several of his dreams can no longer be turned into reality. And i guess that's what hurts the most--- to have your dreams crushed in front of you, just like that. As i look into his eyes, i see myself in him. I knew exactly how he was feeling. We both wear this facade, we want to show the world that we are carefree, that we have no worries, that there's always something to be happy about. We always wear this smile, we try to project this aura of happiness just so we can hide the mess that we are inside. I know what it's like to be filled with dreams, and just like that, because of some bizarre twist of fate, everything is taken away from you.... leaving you with no hope, leaving you with no purpose and no sense of direction, leaving you in such a state of disarray. After our long talk, i've managed to cheer him up a bit. He told me that somehow I've managed to give him a little bit of hope. He's probably lying, i know. He's just trying to make me feel better, as much as i was trying to cheer him up. It would talk more than several inspirational words to lift me out of a state of misery. If nothing can pull me out of this present state i'm in, i doubt if anything can pull him out of his either. I may not be able to make things better for him, but i wanted him to know that i'm here for him. And unlike the many people surrounding him, i understand exactly how he's feeling. I'm pretty sure he's not aware of it, i've never taken off my mask in front of him... but I am a kindred soul. As we continue walking through this joke that we call life, we can't really do much. It's either we give up now, or we keep moving as we laugh along with it. And as long as i'm able to, i would be laughing along with him if he chooses to.

Of Dogs and Men

People seem to assume that I like dogs. That’s not exactly true. Yeah, my username on different websites usually has the word dog attached to my name… but that’s just something a few of my friends called me in high school--- and it stuck. Because dogs are always horny, that's their explanation. I wasn’t really a horndog back then, but you know how high school life is. Once people start branding you with something, it’s gonna stick no matter how far it is from the truth.

Now back to our canine friends. I’m not really fond of dogs. I don’t hate them either. You can say I’m indifferent, but when they start becoming overly playful they become incredibly annoying… especially if I’m not in the mood. Yeah there are times when I like playing with dogs, especially when I’m incredibly bored. But after a few minutes I’ll grow tired of the game. Then they become annoying as again... sometimes they get too annoying, that i have to keep myself from kicking the hell out of them.

It’s not just dogs. I’m not very fond of pets in general. It wasn’t always like this. I remember when I was around 5 or 6, me and my siblings used to collect hamsters. At the peak of our hamster hoarding phase, I think they reached about 30 in number. We couldn’t keep track of all of them, and it wasn’t unusual to find a dead hamster tucked beneath some furniture on any given day. I didn’t really care for them. I viewed them as some sort of commodity, and I never developed any form of attachments to those creatures. When one died, we just bought another one. I guess the only time I got attached to a pet was when I was about 9 years old. Each of us had a rabbit, and I frequently played with mine. But one day we made the mistake of leaving them outside during a storm, and by the time we checked on them they were all dead. When I saw my rabbit, I cried so hard. I was the only one who cried, and I got so embarrassed, yet I couldn’t stop. I kept crying until the next day. I even made a makeshift coffin and grave for my rabbit, it even had a makeshift tombstone. The next week our grandpa bought new rabbits for each of us, but it just wasn’t the same. I never grew fond of my new rabbit. She just wasn’t as affectionate. I left her outside on most days, and after a few months i didn't even bother to see it at all. After two years when I was told that it had died I just shrugged m shoulders. I just didn’t care at all.

We always had dogs inside our house. Even the big and burly ones, we kept them inside our house. My sister is very fond of dogs. When one died, she’s gonna ask for a new one. At first she preferred those toy dogs, but as she grew older, she began to prefer those big dogs… and I found them more annoying. They slobber twice as much, they make more of a mess, and they stink the hell out of our house, especially when it gets really warm.

Around that time when I had that rabbit, my mom had a dog named Max. Our neighbors were so afraid of that dog. He was big, and any time he saw a stranger, he was ready to attack. I wasn’t really fond of him, because he was big and stinky, and he loved to slobber all over me especially during the mornings when I’m about to go to school so I’d have to clean myself up all over again. But all that changed after one incident. I don’t remember the reason, but my dad was so angry at me that time that he was about to beat the hell out of me. He pushed me once and I fell on the floor, and just when he was about to hit me, along came Max. He barked so loud and was about to bite my dad on his hand. My dad managed to pull his hand away just in time, then Max chased him to his room where he locked himself in. I never saw my dad run so fast. I was crying so hard that time, yet I couldn’t help but laugh at the sight of my dad acting like such a big pussy. After a few minutes of barking and growling at the locked door, Max came back to me and he licked my tears as I hugged him tight. How could I not possibly love that dog. It’s impossible not to feel affection for a dog who’s so loyal. He was on my side, and that meant a lot to me. On that fateful day when someone forgot to close our front door and Max got out, I knew just how sad my mom was feeling back then. For about two weeks, my mom kept preparing his food, just in case he came back on his own. She knew that was next to impossible, yet she kept hoping. I heard her crying for so many nights, and I knew exactly how she felt. That feeling of loss was so great because Max wasn’t just an ordinary dog. To her and to me, that dog was part of the family. In fact, I felt closer to Max than some people in our family.

When I came home a few months back, I was surprised to find a new addition to our kennel--- My brother bought a beagle. Great. Another dog. In addition to the mixed breed we keep outside, and to that huge german sheperd that kept on shedding its fur inside our house. It was kept inside a small cage, so I figured it’s not really going to bother me. But everytime they let it out, it would try to hijack one of my shoes, and it pees and shits all over the house--- so many times in a span of a few minutes, I often wonder where all that shit and pee were coming from. But no matter how annoying that dog is, what annoys me more is my brother. He bought that dog, yet I never saw him take it outside except on Saturdays. During weekdays, after coming home from work, he basically ignores it. On Saturdays after spending an hour or two with it, he’s gonna go someplace else and he’s just gonna leave it in the house for everyone else to take care of it. And now he’s out of the country, guess who’s taking care of his dog. It’s been more than half a year since he bought it and that dog should be potty trained by now, yet it isn’t because no one’s training it. If you buy a dog, then it’s your responsibility. Jesus, he’s not a child who could just buy a dog due to impulse, and expect others to do the real work for him. If you can’t handle the added responsibility, then don’t buy a pet for Christ’s sake. That’s why I don’t buy pets. I just can’t deal with the added responsibility of caring for another living thing. I have enough things to worry about at this point in my life, and I don’t have the patience to deal with the idiosyncrasies of any specific pet. I guess that also explains why i'm content being alone most of the time. I don't want to deal with the excess baggage, i want to be free from any complications that any sort of interaction might bring. On my free time I would prefer to just sit back without worrying about anything at all. I’m not someone who’d buy a pet just for company. And I’m not someone who could easily pass the burden to someone else the minute I find out I just can’t handle it.

Early this morning, after I had my breakfast, I saw it staring at me from its cage. Normally I wouldn’t even let it bother me, but it just looked so sad and lonely. If you’re kept inside that small cage all day, who wouldn’t be. When my sister is here she would let it out and play with it, then clean up the mess afterwards, but it’s been a week since she’s been here so the poor thing has been kept inside its cage all week. I must have been incredibly bored this morning because I let the dog out, got her leash, and took her for a walk. For real. She peed at least twice, but it didn’t matter since we were outside. And for some reason, I didn’t get to see any poop. When i was walking her, she wasn't forcing me to go anywhere i didn't want to go. If I didn't know any better, i would've thought that she was trying to be in her best behavior, because I know for a fact that she's not like that at all. Everyone describes her as being a huge pain in the ass. I carried her and she didn't make a fuss. I let her sit on my lap and she didn't make a big fuss. In fact, she just remained still. She seemed perfectly content as I was. The whole scenario just felt so weird and alien to me. Maybe being kept inside that cage for so long affected her behavior somewhat. Or maybe her doggie sense told her that I'm not that type of person who was willing to play games with her. I'm not the type of person she can mess with. Maybe it was just perfect timing, and maybe the exact scenario may never happen again, but it felt so odd and so good at the same time. That was when i thought that this could work. Something like this can actually work. Like the way we interact with other people, sometimes it's all about the right place, the right time, the right circumstance... even one small alteration in any of those parameters can spell the difference between animosity and harmony. I guess everything was just right on that Friday morning. I guess there's a chance that i can form some sort of attachment with a pet after all. Up until I took that dog for a walk, I've always thought it was impossible. No matter how much I try to deny it, there are times that i find myself letting my wall down. This wall has kept me from being hurt and it has kept me free from additional emotional baggage, but every once in a while, it feels good to let the wall down. No man could thrive in complete isolation after all.

Typical.

Man, that was one horrible weekend. I need a vacation from that vacation. I was foolish enough to believe that it would turn out otherwise. I mean, it was doomed from the very start.

It was early January when my dad called me, telling me not to make any plans on the last weekend of April because the whole family was going to attend my cousin's wedding. And he told me that he was about to buy plane tickets because air fares are cheaper when you book months in advance. Fast forward to a month later. Yup, he hasn't bought any plane tickets by the time i got home. We finally bought tickets two weeks before the scheduled flight. And he had to use my credit card because he had no cash on hand at that time... and by the way my credit card was blocked because he paid my bill with a check that bounced. And what about our tickets for the flight back home? we bought it a week before, and apparently he never talked about his planned duration for the trip with my siblings who can only afford a few days off from work. And what's so fucked up was the fact that i was coordinating things between all of them. Jesus, why couldn't my dad call them instead? and why the fuck did he not talk to them months before? Well, that's my biological father. The word planning is not in his vocabulary. There's minimal amount of responsibility and initiative in his body. I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't any at all.

The flight to our destination was awkward. He sat beside me and kept on making small talk. The fact that i kept of tinkering with my ipod should have been enough for him to realize that i was in no mood to talk to him. But no, he just kept on blabbering and blabbering. By the time we landed, i asked him about our travel plans. The day after the wedding, we were supposed to rent a van to travel to the beach a hundred miles away. Then we were supposed to stay at some resort. I wasn't surprised to find out that he hasn't made any arrangements. We'll just rent a van when we get there, he says. Find a place to stay when we get there, he says. The two days we were there, he never made any fuckin' calls. He never made any arrangements. Good thing my aunt offered to lend their van when he asked my dad how we were going to the beach. And this happened a few hours before we were supposed to leave. That's my biological father for you. Everything has to be served in a silver platter to him. He can't do anything by himself. For anything to happen, some other person needs to do things for him.

Oh yeah, we got delayed because he just couldn't get up early, even when necessary. And again, he didn't call for any airport transfer service until the last minute. How typical. And we almost missed our flight home because he kept on insisting that we didn't need to leave early because the airport was only an hour drive away. Never mind the fact that we kept on telling him that we should leave early. He just told us to trust him. Jesus fucks, we've known him all these years. Did he actually think that we can trust him? That we can depend on him? And hasn't he heard that there's no way that the time spent traveling by land would be constant. It's either more or less, and when you have to be someplace important it's better to be early because you never know what you'll encounter on the road. But that's my biological dad. He doesn't believe in the saying that it's better to be safe than sorry. His motto in life is just to fix things as you go along. Trouble is, he doesn't really have the capability to fix things. He just has this penchant to consistently fuck things up. And what's worse is the fact that he was shouting at the person driving us to the airport telling him it's his fault that it took so long for us to reach the airport. The same way he shouted at the waitress at the restaurant earlier because the coffee that was served with his breakfast wasn't brewed, even when it says clearly on the menu that the included coffee in his meal was anything but brewed. The same way he shouted at the airport employees, ordering them around as if he ran the place. That's my biological dad for you. He always acts like he's king, like he's such a big deal even though he's not. He's always boastful, he's always bursting with pride even when in truth he has nothing to be proud about. He thinks of himself as everything, always going for the shock and awe approach and he manages to fool a lot of people. But for those people who can look closely, for those people who can see what he really is, they know that he's nothing. A hollow, shallow, empty space filled with nothing but fluff. He's just a huge chamber filled with nothing.

I realize that the main reason i enjoy traveling to different places and why i enjoy going on vacations is because i am far from him. Sure i feel great when i get to explore new and different places, when i get to do different things, when i meet new people... but the location doesn't really matter as long as it's far from him. At home i'm always pissed. At home i'm always sad. It's just either one of those. When i'm far away, i feel content, i feel happy, even when i'm not doing anything at all. A real vacation is something that keeps your mind off the negativity, even for a short while. It's won't be a vacation at all when you bring that negativity with you. In my life, most of the negativity centers on my dad. He's someone that i wish i can always leave behind.