Most Amusing People Of The Night
2nd Runners-up
the chinese couple &
the mid-20's caucasian guy in line for the taxi
It must have been 1am. I was smoking, in line for the red taxi (there was a severe scarcity of blue taxi tonight), sandwiched between a couple and a white guy.
As a person who grew up in a tropical country where one only sees in Hollywood movies (lest he was born in a well-off family who can afford travels to snow-laden lands) how [fog? smoke? moist? what's that called? we don't have its direct translation in filipino]
The couple in front of me, neither of them smoking, was busy finding childish joy in blowing out white matter as well. Behind me, the white guy was attempting to make smoke rings out of the white matter.
Nothing profound. It just amused me that even people who probably have lived with winter at least three months of their lives every year find as much fun as I do freezing the molecular bits of their saliva on a cold winter night.
1st runner-up
the girl in the bookshop
I got quite excited seeing that Relay has opened its branch at the Central MTR Station. The huge 50% off on selected items sign lured me into checking out the stall despite the fact that my friends, Law & Steve, were already at Volume waiting for me.
I quickly checked out the fiction section and searched for Murakami. Haruki Murakami. They had four of his works and they were not on sale. They were pretty pricey, in fact. It was a bit disconcerting to realize that I couldn't squeeze in any of his works in my budget for the month. Ok, maybe I could but then I'd have to give up drinks for tonight. That'd have been more disconcerting.
So anyway, I called two of my friends: Kiks and that really nice German guy, to find out whether I could borrow their Murakami books. They answered in the affirmative so I decided not to buy Murakami anymore.
I was starting to look for something else I could walk away with when I noticed this girl--- 29 years old at least, chinese, quite stylish, but with God-forsaken hair --- on the other side of the shelf checking me out. I didn't mind. She probably thought I was a celebrity (HK peeps think I look like Louis Koo, who actually looks more like my dad; and I wouldn't be surprised if she thought I did, given the really nice eyes I have presently.) Eventually, I made up my mind to re-read a high school reading that I don't remember anymore.
I moved on to the magazines section a few minutes later and lo and behold! The chinese girl was beside me, obviously trying to get my attention. I looked at her demeaningly (my sexy eyes can get intimidating too, y'know!) but she didn't budge. I took a copy of
and started heading for the cashier. As I passed by the last shelf before the cash register, I stopped by to browse the magazines on display. She stood right beside me again and said, "Hi." I pretended not to hear her. I grabbed a copy of
She left.
A modern classic, a fitness mag and a gay lifestyle magazine from the UK. She finally got the message:
Most Amusing People Of The Night
Law & Steve
"My friends get a haircut for this"
-Howie (Matt McGrath), "The Broken Hearts Club".
He was talking about how frustrating it was for him to have to see a shrink to help him sort out his insecurities and other personal, social, romantic and what-have-you dramas, while his friends could just talk about them casually to their hairstylist who just always preteneded to listen but never really cared at all.
I'm lucky I have a lot of sensible non-charging, loving people around me. I don't need a shrink, or a hairstylist for that matter. I have people around me who truly care about my well-being; and who care just as much to ask my opinions (oftentimes harsh) on their own life dramas. People with whom I have established well enough a form of emotional (sometimes even material) symbiosis. People I laugh at, laugh for, and laugh with. People whose names never disappear from my Recently Dialled Numbers.
These are my selected friends. Selected. Not everyone, I call a friend. Some people are merely colleagues. Some are merely acquaintances. Some are merely old flames. But these are my friends. And even amongst them, there are certain roles that I have unspokenly assigned each one. There's someone I would turn to when I need a harsh wake-up call; someone I'd turn to when I need to be assured that everything will be alright; someone I would turn to when I need to be told that I am right and everybody else is wrong; someone I would turn to when I just need someone to listen and not make a comment; someone I would turn to when I just need to get drunk and forget about everything; someone I would turn to when I just want to gossip; someone I would turn to when I need tolerance for my unreasonable bitchiness; someone I would turn to when I just wanna listen;
and there are these two people I would turn to when I wanna be drunk for free on a Wednesday night; talk about ourselves, our past mistakes, and how we've learned a lot from them; talk about the men who want to sleep with us and the men we want to sleep with; discuss issues --- both trivial and global --- in the same wavelength but differing points of view; talk about other people's lives and how we can enrich ours by observing them; brag about our own jobs and at the same time, envy each other's jobs; plan the next get-together; reminisce our childhood; laugh at one's current lack of love- and sex-life, predict the downfall of the other's, and squirm at still another's disgustingly overrated sex life; check out gorgeous men and diss those that don't fall in our category of "crushables"; patronize ourselves one minute and then ridicule each other the next; and reveal who wanted to sleep with whom in the not-so-distant future and why, why it never happened, and be thankful that it never did.
These two people are Law & Steve. Together, we are called by the men of Volume, "The Triad". But in reality, minus the label, we are just a troika of gay guys who wanna have fun and, in the process, know ourselves better.
Like tonight.
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P.s. Law & Steve: It's 4:20. Homework done. Tulog na ko. Night!
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