This 20th of November, Akei and PinoyG4M will visit the Home for the Golden Days.
For more information, you may visit the event page on Facebook or join the conversation in the PG4M forums.
PinoyG4M and the Akei LGBTIQ Working Group is teaming up to aid the Home for the Golden Gays!
Choose one or both ways to help:
I want to sponsor:
You may donate cash by contacting us below or you may opt to give slippers, colorful shirts, fans, combs, handkerchiefs and/or toiletries. Pledges & donations will be publicly listed but you may request to remain anonymous.
Click here for instructions on how to donate via GCash.
Click here for a list of Internation GCash Remit partners.
I want to volunteer:
Join us for a fun afternoon at the Home!
1:00 - 5:00 PM
November 26, 2011 | Saturday
Home for the Golden Gays
#108 David Street corner F.B. Harrison, Pasay City
For more information, visit the event's page on Facebook.
You may also join the conversation in the PG4M forums
The Home for the Golden Gays is "a refuge for the elderly and vulnerable gays of Manila. A home for those, who have nowhere else to go, for those whose families have rejected them, and for those who simply want to be in the company of other elderly gays."
PinoyG4M: Straight Talk for Gay Men
PG4M (Pinoy Guys4Men) is an online message board for Filipino and Philippine-based gay and bisexual men. This site aims to provide a venue for conversation and exchange of ideas among its members, providing a venue for friendship, a sense of community, and a sounding board for opinions and concerns of gay men regarding the current issues and trends facing not just the LGBT people, but the society in general.
Contact:
Lanchie Abanco
+63 917 365 9620
lanchie@gmail.com
The LGBTIQ Working Group of Akei considers the status of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersexual & questioning/queer (LGBTIQ) peoples as one of the last great civil issues of our time. In countries around the world, LGBTIQs face issues on multiple fronts--in justice systems, workplaces and even among their peers. Akei plans to concentrate on improving movement tactics, social networks and cultural capital in the LGBTIQ community through harnessing intellectual resources so as to create systemic changes in how LGBTIQ people are treated in society.
Contact:
PJ Salenda
Akei LGBTIQ Working Group
+63 918 942 8513
prsalenda@gmail.com
Suddenly you were out of my reach
And I was an infant without my rattle
Then I was a baby without a bottle
Suddenly you were out of my sight
And I was a child without my mother
Then I was a kid without a father
Suddenly you were no longer beside me
And I would feel the cold of winter
Then I would sweat in the heat of summer
Suddenly I could no longer feel you
And I am a man with just a memory
Then I am someone living in reverie
Suddenly I will open my eyes
And I will see I am one and alone
Then I will not see why I am alone
In celebration of Manila Pride 2011, PinoyG4M and Akei will hold an Outreach Program to Home for the Golden Gays.
Much like Golden Acres or Home for the Aged, the Home serves as a refuge for the elderly but is targeted towards the elderly gay. What better way to celebrate this Gay Pride season than to give back to help those who were there before us.
This is an open invitation for anyone who wishes to help us help the Home. Anyone who wants to pledge any amount, you may contact Lanchie at (63) 917 365 9620 or send an email to lanchie@gmail.com.
For more information, you may visit the links above.
Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.
~Dr. Seuss
I'm still getting views in this blog although I haven't updated it in such a long time!
Surprise!
You deserve to find happiness and I don't want to be the one who will stop you from doing so. I may not ever be ready for what you are expecting. If you wait for me, you might just be waiting in vain.
You still have a long way ahead of you while I had been damaged a long time ago. Don't let me stop you from being happy. It's difficult for me to let go of something very special to me, but I already am full of cracks. A tighter grip on me might make me break and the pieces may just bleed you. I'm sorry. I really am.
You'll eventually find someone who can love you and treat you better than I can, someone who you can truly be happy with.
It's not easy to let you go, believe me, but I realized I won't be good for you. If you continue holding on to me, I can't promise that you won't get hurt and I don't want to see you get hurt. Especially not by me.
Letting you go might be the biggest mistake I'll ever make but I don't want to be selfish anymore. I've told you before that the reason why I stay with you is because you make me happy. I'm happy when I'm with you, but I realized you won't be truly happy just loving me. You deserve to be loved back.
Out there, somewhere, someone can love you the way you deserve.
Right now, you say you're okay with all that. You say that I should just let you love me and you'll be happy that way, but you're just drunk from what we had. Eventually, when you find another someone special, you'll realize you can be happier than you are with me.
No, I am not in love.
I’m just intoxicated by your kisses, addicted to your embrace, high on having your eyes on me, but no. I’m not in love. Even though people around me say I smile whenever I say your name or that my face lights up whenever I talk about you, I’m just not ready to admit it yet.
I will admit that I want you, long for you, always want to be with you. I admit that I start missing you five minutes after being away and that my mind is always filled with thoughts of you. I know that I wish you’d never be out of my sight, that we’d spend every day together, but does that already mean I’m in love? No. It doesn’t prove anything.
Will it really make a difference if I do or do not love you? Will it change anything for you? Do you even care?
I don’t even know what I am to you if I am anything at all. For all I know we’re just playing a game and the rules are yours to dictate; and the rules you have laid out say I lose if I fall in love. See, I don’t care much about losing so I won’t admit I’m in love. I don’t want to lose this game.
Stubborn pride, you say? Maybe it is. Maybe I’m just too proud to admit defeat or maybe I’m just trying to protect myself because losing a game like this can be very painful and can inflict a wound that may take forever to heal.
Someone just told me: if you’re not brave enough to take the risk with somebody, then you should be strong enough to be alone.
At this point, I can only say I’m gathering my strength. I just can’t say whether I’m using my strength to brave the risk or reserve it to survive loneliness.
The sunset had always had an effect on him, had always been such a dramatic scene for his dementia. It was his refuge, the only one he knew. Sunsets embodied the end, but it wasn't so for him. For him, it was the picture of a new beginning, of rebirth... like spring. The night would come, a time when the day starts to be reborn.
Yet, as he watched the sun slowly being engulfed by the mountains, he didn't feel like a day was being reborn. He felt alone. Instead of feeling bubbly over the sheer beauty of the natural set, he felt devoid, as though he was floating in dark oblivion.
Darkness started to imbibe him so slowly, cold wind slapping his cheeks, stinging him. Still, he remained unmoved, simply standing beside an aged pine tree. He wished it was raining, because he was starting to cry. He wanted nature to grieve with him. He wanted heaven to shed tears for and with him.
He was mournful, too badly. She had left him all alone.
It had been one long year since she abandoned him, for reasons that he could not take in. Ever since, he went to this side of the mountain, hoping that the sunset would give him the wisdom to move on. Always, he wished that the old pine tree beside him would administer him even a bit of courage to continue with his life, as the tree obviously had so much of life to taste.
In the days of that year, he tried to live his normal life, trying to pretend she never existed in his life. He tried all he could to forget, tried every way he knew just to omit her memories from his already nebulous sanity. However, he never succeeded. Not one day passed his in life that he didn't think of her; her lovely wholeness was tattooed on his mind.
She was his life, his love. The only one he ever loved.
He'd had too many women in his life, women of all kinds - flirts, sophisticates. He'd had them all, but they were all just playing, like him. He knew they were players, because he was one of them. Except this one... she had the power to make him fall in love with her, just because her love for him was all too real for him not to notice.
Then why did she go away? Why did she leave him alone?
Oh, he wasn't supposed to ask himself. He knew why. He just didn't want to admit it.
Raindrops started to fall; just what he was waiting for. He longed for the rage of the harsh winds that threw the raindrops into storm. He wished for a typhoon!
"Nice idea!" he murmured, talking to nobody in particular. Just the wind and the rain were his company. And he laughed a low hollow laugh that reverberated, echoed through the same hollow atmosphere. Anyone who heard would have shivered for it was a laugh a lot colder than the wind; the kind of laugh that sounded so very wicked, yet so very lonely. It was the laughter of solitaire.
The rain started to pour stronger, hitting him hard on the face with every drop. Every tiny globule of drenching rain was sting, painful on his skin. Yet none can ever be more painful than how he felt, because he felt like his heart was ripped out fresh from his chest, leaving him null and void inside. So very barren, blank... he couldn't handle the scorching, searing pain.
Strong winds blew harder, so strong yet he remained very still. The tall grasses around him swayed, dancing in blessed mirth. He watched as pine needles snapped out of their nodes thinking that it must be painful.
Yes, it was how he felt -- like his heart being snapped out from his arteries, and he whispered to himself a question: "Why did I never tell her I loved her..."
He howled, but not in physical pain. His shout would have deafened the whole world, deafened not their ears, but their hearts. He shouted, just before blankness ruled over.
She was there; he could see her. She must have followed him to the cliff. She must know; this place had always been memorable for both of them. They met here, how could they forget?
With easy grace, she slowly walked towards him, taking every step gingerly. She hadn't changed. She was still beautiful.
He waited for her to reach him, a smile creasing his lips. Blithe, that was how he felt, so heavenly. She returned to him, she came back. It took him every ounce of self-control not to jump for joy. He was just so overwhelmed with indescribable rapture.
As soon as she reached him, he took her in his arms. He could see the regret in her eyes, pleading to him to take her back. Her heart was in her hands, offering it back to him. And she took it with care although greedily. He took it back to make him whole again, took it with staggering joy that he hugged her so tight. One that never told her he'd never let her go. Never.
With a kiss, he told her of his love... for the first time. Although he knew she didn't need his words, he spoke it over and over...
Again and again...
Echoing...
He woke to the shadows of the still early morning; he was still alive, still breathing, still at the edge of the cliff, still alone. It had been a dream.
The storm had passed. Everything was silent. Sunrise was three hours away, he realized as he looked at his watch.
He got up from the hard grassy ground, barely noticing the aches of his body. For the first time, tears trickled down from his eyes to his cheeks. He looked pathetic, a man in pain. He didn't mind wiping his tears away, he knew they wouldn't stop flowing. He didn't bother about how dirty he was. He simply didn't care. He didn't even bother to stand, he just advanced kneeling...
Kneeling towards the edge...
Kneeling...
Slowly advancing...
Advancing...
Until he fell off the cliff...
Once and for all, to end his miserable life.
Sunset at last!
She left him alone though he didn't want her to go away. There was nothing else he could do. He wanted to be with her, his only love. For him, the taste of death was better than the taste of life without her. He could never imagine living without his only love...
So he followed her to the afterlife.
Ah! The cool, cool winds of the North have come. That means Yule season is here.
I've always said that I love the cold better than the heat because when you're cold you could easily warm yourself up by wrapping layers and layers of cloth around you; but when it's hot... it's still hot even if you take all your clothes off. On warm days you can't spend all day bathing just to cool off.
Still, that's just one of the reasons why I love a cold weather.
I remember someone once told me that the cold weather allows me to dress up without being inappropriate and that is just so true! I can put on layers of clothes, play around with my style, mixing and matching shirts, sweaters, jackets, and overcoats and nobody would think that I'm a fashion faux pas. Well, at least not many people would...
Being in a tropical country means, most of the time, dressing up means putting on a button-up shirt and slacks. One shirt, a pair of pants, and a pair of leather shoes are about all you need to wear to make people start thinking you're either going to a party or a date.
That is just unfair!
Anyway... moving on...
The cool winds are here and now so that means I can play dress up. Although I dress up everyday, the cold winds give me more flexibility. It gives me reason to wear a jacket and an overcoat, or a sweater over a jacket, or something like that.
Anyway, last week, since it was really cold, I really had to put on multiple layers of clothing: I had on my T-shirt under a brown knit cardigan and a black denim jacket. Of course, I couldn't possibly survive walking down Session Road without my black cut-off gloves and red muffler. One day, I had to wear a sweater, a really warm jacket (our old team jacket) that had a snood, and, of course, a muffler and my gloves.
Last Sunday morning, I wore a gray suit over a blue-white-and-yellow striped shirt with a navy blue tie, and a blue-white argyle knit vest. That's my church outfit.
Oh! And, yeah, my gold shoes (yes, my shoes were gold... well, a gold and black meld, actually... it may seem totally off from the gray suit but, believe me, the ensemble went perfectly well).
I realized, though, that no matter how many layers of clothing I put on, the layers could not deny the fact that it was really cold all around me. My ears still hurt from all the cool air. I still could not feel my nose whenever I go out to walk along Session Road and my finger tips still feel frozen stiff and feel like they'd fall off any moment.
No matter how many protective clothing I wrap around myself, the coldness is never gone...
Well... here's one of things I've been busy with lately...
This is an event poster I did for a friend. It's really uninspired and not one of my best works, but I think this works just fine.
The idea was this:
The music should be a derivative of ska, reggae and samba such as these genres--Rocksteady, Dancehall, Dub, Ska, Calypso, Mento, Early Jazz, Early R&B, Raggamuffin as opposed to mainstream Dance and R&B music. This event thus uses images that relate to the world view of that particular period of time and the cultures of the Caribbean.
.... and the deal:
I'm not so sure I got the deal or the idea in the poster but I think it looks better than the first version:
For the umpteenth time! I have failed to update this blog... and even this template that I was working on hasn't progressed since August.
I've really got only one excuse... I've been very, very, very busy! Really!
So I finally decided to upload the template.
It's still a little buggy and not quite complete yet. There's more work to be done.
I haven't been able to fully dedicate myself to developing the new template so there are still a lot of touching-up to do. The sidebars' backgrounds aren't set yet and I still need to fix the CSS codes for the widgets.
The background images also load with delay, so there's just text and black background at first before all the images load. I'll either have to optimize the images or find a better place to host the images.
Give me another month or so and I should be able to finish the temple... though, by then, I probably would have another design in mind...
Windmills of the Mind version 4.2 is almost finished... almost...
This is roughly how it should look like. Of course, it isn't complete without the text and all, but that's how the layout's gonna be.
I wanted something uncomplicated at first, seeing that version 4.0 was a little too grungy, dark and a little bit crowded. I ended up creating something a lot brighter, a little less grungy, but still quite complicated. Although it felt pretty okay so I decided to go on with this version.
I'm doing the design section by section and widget by widget, simultaneously editing the images while coding the CSS template then testing it in seven - yes, seven - different browsers (IE6, IE7, IE8, Opera 9, Google Chrome, FF2.5 and FF3). I'm still not sure how it would work out once I upload the template to blogger, though.
Like a lonely child lost in the wilderness, I wandered wary, ever watchful. This world, though I have walked for years, felt new and raw to my senses. The air I drew into my lungs, the sights that fed my eyes, the constant shifting of cold and heat on my skin, and the bittersweet taste in my tongue were not the same as the ones I had been used to. It all felt so new because for the first time I walked this earth and I was complete, my feet on the ground feeling its coldness against mine, my ghost at last in my shell.
Gingerly, I took my first step. The earth felt cold beneath my feet and the coldness swept to my spine making me shiver.
Shivering from the cold? I asked myself wryly, how could a soul as cold as mine shiver from the measly cool of the earth?
Yet, in all truth, I knew what the answer was even before the question was asked. The answer was something I have always tried to deny, a fact that I tried to escape. The answer was the reason why I built my sanctuary and stayed in that limbo. The answer was something more than I was able to admit to myself because it meant opening up a world of possible pain and suffering, of sadness and hurt... a world of reality.
Still I continued to ignore the ever-whispering truth, denied the nagging fact and dismissed the answer I had always known as foolery.
I took my second step, more gingerly this time. One toe landed first, testing to see if another shiver will run down my spine. The ground was still cold and the chill still had the undesirable effect. Still I went on...
Feet flat on the ground, the cold travelling from my heels to my spine, reaching my head, I felt nauseated. I never realized there were too many sensations a simple walk on this earth could bring. I felt the tingle of dust between my toes, the roughness of the earth beneath my feet, the silky caressing of the breeze on my skin. There was a plethora of intruding sensations and I felt them all and then some.
The sudden surge on my senses was astonishing, it made me want to withdraw... run back to my sanctuary. Only there was no sanctuary left for me to return to. I had no choice but to face the new world I have braved to enter.
I'm exchanging my Marlboro's for Chupa Chups... gawd! I still can't believe I'm doing this.
