Status: Half-asleep.
Music: Not Ready to Make Nice - Dixie Chicks

Taken at the UP Cinema Yule Ball 2006 held last December 16, somewhere in Mandaluyong. Of course, that pretty Chinese lady with me was my date that night, Maw. She was also my date at last year’s Christmas Ball. Click here to view our photo at the Ball one year ago.

Status: Can’t get enough of Keane!
Music: Somewhere Only We Know - Keane

My entry for today actually has nothing to do with the picture on the left. I just promised Dohna (that crazy-looking woman in the pic) that I would upload it on my blog so here goes her pic. It was taken at the Cinemanila Young Cinema whatever that was held in Glorietta some time last month. Unfortunately, Dohna and Glenn (that i-don’t-know-how-to-describe-him-properly guy in the pic) didn’t win. “One-Man Show,” their college thesis, lost to a lengthy Landbank promotional material…. Oh! That was a FILM?!? Seeeeesh, alright, they lost to a lengthy film.

Dohna is one of the closest friends I got right now. One reason is proximity. We live in the same area… well, not really, but I know you get the point. And it makes sense. I’m geographically close to her. And whenever I feel bored and have nothing to do, I would just text her to meet up with me and she would just appear from a puff of smoke. Yeah, like magic.

As a matter of fact, Dohna, Astrid and I had dinner together last night. Our topic of discussion was pretty interesting: first impressions. It all started when I admitted to Astrid that my first impression of her was not really good. It’s not good at all that I won’t even mention it here. And then we reminisced and thought of the first impressions we had of our college friends. Here are my first impressions of some of my friends:

• Pam - The first time I met her, she was wearing a batik-designed skirt and a brown top. And I think she was also wearing earrings made of wood. So I thought she was a member of UP Kontra-Gapi.
• Jerwin - err… well… gay.
• Nep - one noisy why-can’t-he-keep-his-mouth-shut guy. The day I met him (the first day of our CWTS class) he just kept on talking the whole day.
• Ayn - first day of our Film 104 (Genre) class. She was sitting beside me and Mimay. They were already friends back then and they were singing broadway songs like they were not in a classroom. It was like, “The last time I checked, I enrolled in a Film class.” Later, they decided that they would do a report on musicals.
• Icang - friendly, pretty, and lovable. Very Icang.
• Irene - female version of Nep.
• Joyce - another, and worse, female version of Nep.
• Yosha - girlfriend material.
• KZ - This was running through my head when I met her, “Yikes! I need to get out of this room fast! She’s a BIG Britney Spears fan!” — cos I was (and still am) a HUGE Christina Aguilera fan.
• Tonet - Oh.
• Leo - One funny character. Film 112 days, My seat was just opposite his, and he would do hilarious stuff like speaking in Spanish as if he really knew the language, and singing modern songs the Kundiman way.
• Andre - the quiet, timid type. Obviously, I was wrong. Absolutely wrong. I’d never been that wrong in my entire life.
• Glenn - “Uhm, kuya, doon po ang Fine Arts.”
• Bebs - “Never will he be my friend. He is soooo gay. And he is soooo intellectually and toxically loaded.” Wow, Bebs, libre mo ‘ko pag nabasa mo ‘to.
• Tez - Leo and Irene combined + ka-weirduhan.
• Deane - Ponkan na ponkan!

So there. Some of them turned out to be accurate. Some were just plain wrong. Most changed over time. But I’m sooo glad that once in my life, I met them regardless of my initial impressions of them.

Status: At work
Music: Come to Me - P. Diddy feat Nicole Scherzinger

And yes, I already bid goodbye to my German Pride layout and to my entire blogdrive account as well. From now on, I will be using wordpress and the domain name yoshke.com. But if you still want to see my old blog, all you have to do is click this.

# # #

Anyway, as days go by, it becomes more and more difficult for me to conceal my gender from my family. The more I lie, the more I feel guilty. It would be very easy not to let them know about my sexuality, but lately they are getting suspicious and starting to ask questions that are really tough to answer.

Last week, while having dinner, my mum asked, “Oy, Yoshke, when are you going to bring another girlfriend here?”

And I answered so sweetly, “How can I bring a girlfriend? I don’t have one.”

My sister butted in, “The last time you introduced a girlfriend to us was December last year. Isn’t it time for us to meet a new one.”

“But I don’t have a girlfriend,” I uttered. “I have a boyfriend, though.”

Everybody laughed. It was a joke to them. Although it’s not true that I have a boyfriend right now, I wanted to see what their reactions would be. And they just laughed because they thought I was just joshing them.

But last Wednesday night was a different case. Again, we were having dinner when my mother initiated a talk about having a relative in the workplace. My sister and I share the same opinion, “No way.” And then she demanded for a reason.

I told Mum, “I wouldn’t want to be conscious of everything I do… especially when I know that he/she would tell the entire family of the going-ons in my life.”

My sister got curious, “Such as…?”

“Nothing,” I answered.

“Like something illegal, or something gay or something like it?”

And then my mum got on her feet and asked me with an eyebrow raised, “Are you gay?”

“HELL, NO!” I manly denied.

Oh well, that’s life. The dinner ended with a smug look on my face.

# # #

Let me take this opportunity to actually bash some of my gay friends. It annoys me that I always have to explain about my sexuality. In fact I have already talked about it in detail here. And as I said before, I don’t believe in gender. Gender is just a social construct. It doesn’t matter to me if you’re gay or lesbian or bisexual or whatever you want to call the homosexual/bisexual lot. They are just labels anyway. For me, you’re either male or female. And I don’t care if you’re a man who likes women or other men. I just fuckin’ don’t care. To me, you’re still a man because you have a dick hanging between your legs.

And yes, sometimes I use the term bisexual when talking about myself not because I accept the idea but because I want other people to understand. I may like other men but I LIKE GIRLS, TOO. And if you don’t believe me, then don’t. As if your opinion matters to me anyway.

But for a gay person not to believe that there are people who like BOTH men and women, or those who find it so pretentious, it doesn’t make sense. To think that these are the people who have always wanted open-mindedness so that they be accepted. Why can’t you accept that not all people are like you. Not all people who like men cannot love women just as well. Why can’t you understand this? I don’t know if you just have a pea-sized brain or you have some comprehension problem or you are just plain stupid. Anyway, why am I explaining this now when I know that they will never ever understand.

For the last time, I will tell you this, I love both men and women. And if you don’t want to believe this just because you’re not like me, then what can I say? Try this, just get a dick and never take it out of your mouth if it’s the only way for you to shut up.

And yes, I’m talking to you Bebs and Rex.