I Don't Do Trick or Treat

**I posted this in 2011, and it's still wildly relevant today. 

**Not enough Halloween fun to go around that we have to borrow some other country's crap?

None of the people I knew growing up had to do trick or treat. We were so decidedly quasi-ghetto that my Halloweens were trips to the cemetery where we would make balls out of candle wax drippings. I know its primitive, and it sure as hell hurt, but it kept us entertained until it hurt some more. Then we'd whine our grown ups to take us home. We'd whine with wonderful industry if we happened to be in the cemetery on a Saturday afternoon because we can't afford to miss Noli de Castro hosting the all too creepy Magandang Gabi Bayan Halloween special.

Them 80's were a fucking good time to do Halloween. Halloween's mostly a laid back affair where we'd get high on mostly primitive shit that in no remote way resembled what other countries did on that same day. We're mostly cool with our wax balls and our scary TV shows. But we were largely original with our celebration, basic but original, and we kept to our own like what our parents did. Fast forward to twenty years later, and the whole celebration started getting different. Its not the transgendered kind of different, nor is it the receding hairline kind of different. It's more of the irrelevant kind of different because our kids are doing Trick or Treat now.

Now let me give you the reassuring claim that when I'm wrong, then I'm most definitely certainly wrong, and I think Filipino kids dressing up to do trick or treat is so wrong its borderline stupid. I admit I'm all in for the aesthetics. Cute is cute, no contest, but its the whole idea that bugs me. What kind of rice are we eating these days that gave us the idea its okay for our Filipino kids to go Trick or Treating? Are we becoming so Americanized that we have to dress up our kids for candies like what they're doing? Do we even know why we're doing it? Have we finally run out of third-world things to do on Halloween? Or for the rest of the year for that matter? Because if we are, then there's no reason why we should stop with Halloween. We might as well do Thanksgiving, and we'll do it not for any cultural significance, most definitely not for the Indians, not for shit, but for the poultry. And why shouldn't we? We're already dressing our kids up like little brown devils to ask for candy, we might as well go overtime with all this cultural social climbing and do Thanksgiving. Halloween for the candy, Thanksgiving for the turkey. But we should learn how to stuff that Andok's chicken this early on.

All in all, this trick or treating business among our kids, our Filipino kids, has got to be a singularly conceited affair that makes no sense in this third world country. Truth is, we all probably grew up in the same dark ages where our Halloweens were identified with candle wax balls and ghost stories on TV. But I never grew this unnecessary inclination to dress up my nieces or nephews as ghosts, goblins, hookers, or sperm bank tellers just for treats. I wouldn't know how to make sense of it all. Kids are terribly inquisitive little devils by default, and I know one of them will ask me WHY THE HELL am I wasting good money on cheap-ass costumes that make gay dipshits of them.

I really wouldn't know what to say to that. I'll just teach them how to make the baddest candle wax ball instead.

You Gave Me Flowers This Day Last Year

And you shouldn't have. I remember they were white, and they smelled of the cologne you wear after gym. We went out on two dates after that, and we shouldn't have. I also remember how you held my hand like you were stealing a kiss. This was before the flowers. We were drinking then, and it was after the first bottle of brandy that you asked me if I was seeing someone, and I said I'm no longer interested in that shit because that was true. And you gripped my left hand with your right, ever so quickly, like you were stealing a kiss. And you shouldn't have. This was a year ago, too, before the flowers, and you shouldn't have.

We progressed to calling each other the kind of names shared by drunk texters, and we shouldn't have because I started waiting for your texts. I knew then that something's not right. You don't usually text, though, you call, and I looked forward to those too with a smile in my heart. I shouldn't have. I was confident that I've gotten over wasteful shit like what we were going through then. You shouldn't have given me flowers. You shouldn't have encouraged me.


You shouldn't have. Now I'm a mess. I'm a haggard mess because I'm trying to impress some guy in prison. This isn't easy, you see. There is no way in hell that three visits in a work week is healthy. They aren't. It's not easy to be all friendly and shit towards turd figures of authority who call you names and ask a lot of bullshit and call you sexy while they're moving their hands up and down your waist and ass. It's not easy to be all smiles and cheer because I just got home from a nine hour shift. It's not easy to spend less on myself because I wanted to spend more on his food and his toiletries and his groceries. I had no fucking idea that they charge fifty pesos per visit. Hell yes.

I had no idea that I'll be going all out for someone now this time last year. What makes it worse, though, is that I'm doing this under the pretense that I'm trying to get to know him better. What I know so far is that he tested negative, and that he seems nice, and that I'm still a hundred percent doubtful. I do know for a God Damned fact that this will not work out. I don't doubt the familiar hurt that's just waiting to pounce on me and grip my heart between its saber teeth. I'm losing sleep now, and I'm losing weight too, and I'm always tired, and this never happened before you encouraged those hijo de la gran puta feelings.

I'm sorry but I sort of hate you now for giving me flowers this day last year. I was happier before you did that. For real.

My Last Break Up Was in February 2014

**And I remember every written detail of it like it was copy pasted in this week's update. I'm still waiting for the next break up though. But I need to have something to break for that to happen. I'm not in anything like that as of this writing, so I guess I'll have to wait.  





"No, I'm good. I'm okay with my Roman Catholic thing." 

I was stunned at how easy and casual those words slipped my lips. I have been through similar break ups, but there wasn't enough of them. I was cool, which was uncommon for I am letting go of a happy love. I was direct, which was unnatural for I'm sure I could argue my way back in if I wanted to. It was a happy kind of love after all. But I said No with the finality of a summary execution. And I said it twice in case he missed it the first time. One can never be too sure, my beloved Sweet Nuts.  

It was the casual kind of No, the everyday No, the dismissive kind of No you'd use when the high school graduate behind the counter offers to upsize your fries. 

"Would you like to upgrade your fries, sir?" 

"No, I'm good. I'm okay with my Roman Catholic thing." 

And he tried that again, and his voice was broken now. It was just the two of us in that dark room. We were lying in bed, smelling of our poisons: I, cigarettes, he, cheap brandy. It was humid, in spite of the reassuring noise of the creaky electric fan, because we chose to huddle with the sheets below our necks. It was his idea. My head rested on left arm, his right leg over both my thighs. We were clothed inside the cocoon that was smothered with the smell of dried sweat and saliva. It would have been the sweetest thing on most days. But we were breaking up on the dead hour of that Wednesday morning. 

The smell of alcohol could have been downright criminal if he had plenty, but he was drinking for only two hours, for I timed it, and his breath was only slightly offensive. My nose was a few inches below his lips, and his mouth was troublesome with the nearly drunken rhetoric. Everything he said had this faint smell of cheap brandy, but anyway. 

"You know I love you, By." And he kissed me below the left ear. It smelled. It tickled. "But this is what I'm used to. I grew up loving the (insert his Religion here), and I know I can save you. I want to save you, By." He kissed me on the left cheek, and then on the jawline, while his right hand played with the ruffled hair on my forehead. We are still cocooned in that smelly blanket. My arm pits are beginning to shed tears of their own. 

"You remember that time you joked about not wanting to join us because you don't even have time to go to your church? I know you're a good person, but you can't be without Jesus." He hugged me tighter, and his cheeks hugged mine, and I can feel my face moisten with his breaking voice. Which is odd because my face never gets damp when we are this close. It is usually my southern regions, my physical Mindanao, my Puerto Princesa that gets rather worked up and excited when we are left to our own devices, but enough of that. My Baby's voice has broken, and he proceeds with the admirable courage he borrowed from his cheap brandy. 

"By, please. I know you are a good person, and I love you for that. But I know I can save you if you let me. So what's it going to be? It's either you join my religion, or we'll call it quits." 

"Would you like to add a sundae to your meal, sir?" Because that's what it sounded like to me. 

Again, dearly beloved Sweet Nuts, remember that my nose was a few inches below his lips. And I got to thinking. If this is what redemption smelled like, then I'd far rather sign up for the other place. I'm kidding. 

I knew, for some reason, that he will pop that question, by and by. But I never imagined that it will involve these consequences. Ours were the happy kind of love that was protected by our family and friends. It wasn't gossip-proof, but it rallied on. And it pushed through, and it sprinted, and it jumped, and it conquered (vomit) the two-year mark. We are looking forward to our third year together when he had to ask that infernal question. Goddamnit. 


It is during charged times like this that I miss my cat the most. That jerk Prince hasn't been peeing for three days before he finally died in 2013. We thought it was just gas, or some boy cat broke his gay-ass heart, or some bad leaves he ate. The vet said it was normal for cats to nibble on potted plants. But there was nothing, absolutely nothing normal with how Prince lay sprawled below the sofa the day he died. 

Shit Break Four of Four

Oh yesss, My Dearly Beloved Sweet Nuts, yesss, I think I am doing consistently well with my Friday updates. Which is why I deserve this last shit break for the year.