You Can Read

I never really realized how much a part I already am of the blogging world until I saw Empress Maruja's message on my cbox tonight.

My very-popular-blogger-friend-slash-college-theater-guild-batchmate is starting his own monthly blog awards which he billed as "Pinoy Blog Superstar".

And in its maiden voyage, Can't You Read has been chosen as one of the nominees.

It brings me (walang kiyeme) so much pride to be nominated alongside my blogging idols like Misterhubs and Mandaya Moore-Orlis --- two of the very few bloggers that inspire me to be dedicated to my blog and at the same time, make me feel insecure about it as well. Sometimes lang naman. And it's the positive kind of insecurity --- that which propels one to strive to be better at what he does.

The nomination in itself is an honor. But I'd be happier if I bag the award. So vote for me. I know my fellow contenders are better writers, funnier, and more opiniated than I am. But this is my first time, so please... ipagpaubaya nyo na sa kin ang beginner's luck!

(Dan, ito ba yung tinatawag mong "appeal to pity"?)

Again, thank you, Empresss Maruja for this. And thanks also to my few readers who never get tired of reading the not-so-very-extraordinary life that I have and blog about.

I love you all!

To vote, leave a comment on Empress Maruja's site.

==============

P.S. While you're voting, allow me to dedicate this song to my best kasuy, Dan..

"And it's not just wishful thinking,
or only me who's dreaming
I know what these are symptoms of
We could be in love"

Taking A Break From The Vacance

Tonight, I'm postponing part 4 of the Bonne Vacances Series so I may write about the special evening I just had.

=========

The one thing I don't like about myself is that I'm too lazy to probe discreetly, I often end up asking the most obvious questions.

Call me stubborn. Or impatient. But that's just the way I am most of the time.

Few hours back, I got to see again (after almost two months) that really nice (and sexy and smart) German guy that I have mentioned more than once in my previous entries. I was in the area of his abode to watch the Alvin Ailey show. The previous night, we had agreed to meet up for dinner or drinks after the dance concert. So I called him tonight as soon as I got out of the theater, and was instructed to go and wait for him at Exit B2 of the Wan Chai MTR.

He got there a little over 3 minutes after I did. He had the familiar smile on his face. He was slightly muscular compared to the last time I saw him. And still very, very charming. I felt the same sensation I always did whenever I would see him. He was, and still is, to me, a breath of fresh air. His childish playfulness and zest for life is contagious; and his rational maturity is simply inspiring. Best of all, he is totally drama-free and is very, very honest.

He fondly refers to me as his "stalker", which I find very endearing. That gives me the right to follow him wherever he goes. But of course, with every right, comes great responsibility. In effect, that same title drew the line to a few important things.

He hadn't even said anything more than "hey" when I suddenly hugged him to express the joy that I felt when I saw him tonight. I hope he didn't find it weird. Well, he would've told me if he did. As soon as I let go of him, we started heading to his newly-discovered bar on Star Street. It was cute and cozy. It was conversation-friendly, and smoking was allowed!

After our orders have been placed, I asked the perfunctory question, "How have you been?", which commenced a 2-hour catching up, disrupted occassionally, only by our individual trips to the washroom and the moments when I'd get lost in space just by staring at his blue eyes.

Quarter past midnight, we decided to leave, which was great so that I could catch the last train home. He brought me around Star Street, a fast progressing commercial area, before starting for the train station. Halfway through, he asked me, "Have you been to the haunted house?" I told him I had no idea what he was talking about. Then he brought me there. To that freaky haunted house that he claimed, was the most famous of its kind in HK. I felt quite embarrased that he had to find out that way that I was scared of haunted houses and ghost stories. But he made no judgement. Just a little chuckle, which was cute enough to make me blush.

He brought me back to the train station that was our rendezvous earlier tonight> Before he turned to the other direction, he said, "See you tomorrow!" It made me smile.

========

Somewhere in the middle of our catching up, we started talking about the last time I partied with him and his friends. And I just had the itch to know whether he's read the blog entry I wrote about the night. But since I am stubborn and a little bit impatient, I asked him outright, "When was the last time you read my blog?" He laughed and said that just made him want to check tonight.

So, mien erosticher Deutscher Engel, if you're reading this now, allow me to thank you through this blog --- for tonight, for the many nights and Sundays in the past, and for being my breath of fresh air. You are very special to me.

..

Bonne Vacances (Cebu Part3)

...continued

Wedding Ceremony: Alliance Of Two Hearts
Reception: Chateau de Busay

a dream moment

photo op

the couple's entrance to the Reception Garden

reception na, nag-eedit pa rin

The Dan & Rye Show Season 1, Ep 3

the dancing has started. change outfit.

Dan and I with the bride

...will be continued

Bonne Vacances! (Cebu Part2)

...continued

Few minutes before 10 pm, I got an sms from Aries, The Warrior Princess, an online friend that we met thru our podcast, saying that he was already at East West. The bar was just across the street from the hotel where we were staying. After replying to his text, I put on my shoes, sprayed a little of my cologne and headed there as quickly as I could.





I was just on my first bottle of San Mig Light and Aries and I hadn't really talked about much yet when Dan and John arrived.

with Aries

Later, our group of 5 grew to a whole bunch of noisy bitches gossiping, drinking and taking pictures.





Before midnight, we left East West and headed to Paseo, a gymnasium converted to one big concert hall with numerous bars lining its perimeter, and met up with the groom, Jay R and his brothers and cousins. After a few pitchers of kamikaze, Fritz (the queen of Cebu gay nightlife--- Bow kami sa yo, Fritz!) and (OMG! I can't remember the other guy's name!) arrived. Their arrival marked the beginning of a long, retarded night.

Nick, moi, JayR and Dan

with Fritz and him

A few minutes past 2, Fritz led the way to "Naughty Ka!", a local gay strip club, where I fell in love with a certain Mike. (They all are Mike's, aren't they?) He was about 5'11, had a wonderfully-sculpted torso, mestizo, had really really sexy pits, nice strong arms, a little-above average package, and he barely smiled in his number. My dream boytoy! Did I "table" him? I didn't. First of all, csh was starting to run low when he started dancing. Second of all, even if I did have the money, I doubt our interaction will end at the table after having touched his chest. That would mean thousands of pesos on bar fine and tips. See, I can be rational sometimes.





Two rounds of beer and a few trips to the washroom later, we all decided to leave and go back to Paseo. It was about 4am; and we knew Paseo was closed already. That was the point. Perfect time to have quality time with... (drumroll) the waiters of Insomnia!





Daybreak was fast approaching and we wanted to drink some more. So we invited our new friends to our room to continue the merry-making there. What happened next, I refuse to share.

Her Majesty Fritz with our new-found friends

Dan and I woke up the following day 2 hours behind schedule, with a really big hangover, 900pesos poorer, and with a case of the missing hair wax. But we had fun! Oh yes, we did!

...will be continued

Bonne Vacances! (Cebu Part1)

I have already written in brief about how Dan and I almost missed our flight to Cebu. So I'm not gonna write about it anymore in this post.


Fast Forward to the next morning, October 25.


After a quick breakfast at Shakey's, we headed to the nearest mall, Robinson's Place Cebu, to start searching for leather shoes to wear to the wedding. Wrong place. There was nothing interesting in there. There was something really cute that we found on the connecting overpass though --- something which told us we were, NO DOUBT, in the Philippines.


It was funny. And quite embarassing as well. But hello!, in every culture, there is something that people need to reminded NOT to do, no matter how civilized and sophisticated we already are. Or we are, supposedly.


It's really nothing different from the "no Spitting" signs one would find everywhere in HK.


But, yeah, "NO Urinating In Public Places" is very apt for Filipinos. Hurts to admit it but it's true.


Our group left Robinson's and headed to a more "tried and tested" mall --- the Ayala Center.


The first thing that we saw as we entered the doors of Ayala was the Linea Italia signage. "Ricky told me they have a huge sale," I said excitedly. As soon as I said the word "sale", Dan and I started running towards Linea. Then Dan asked, in a really sitcom-ic manner, "Rye, why are we running?" We cracked up for acting as though the sale would only last 5 minutes. We found nothing interesting.


I suggested Mendrez. I used to buy a lot of leather shoes from Mendrez. To our disappointment, nothing still. Two more shops later, Dan found a pair that he already liked. They didn't have his size. I was beginning to get frustrated. There was nothing I could wear to the wedding if I didn't find anything in Ayala.


We decided to split. Dan would go with our Chinese friends to look for a sim card and I would look into the deepest, darkest corners of Ayala Center to find a decent pair of shoes. Then we would meet up when it's purchase time. A little over half an hour later, I called Dan to say I found two pairs that I really liked. But both were out of the budget. He asked me to show them to him in hopes that his opinion might help. He was always the rational shopper of us two. Well, not always. I retract that.


Option #1: Democrata. Black, pointed, Italian leather. So my style. Php6700. I was willing to pay the amount. But that would affect my Boracay budget. And besides, the reason we decided to buy shoes in the Philippines was to economize. We weren't supposed to go over the equivalent of HK$400.00 or else it would've been pointless that we didn't buy the Zara shoes we both wanted.


Option #2: Hugo Boss. Black, pointed, Italian leather, rounded sides. Very French in design. Very me too. Php23,000.00. Dan's only reaction was, "You must be kidding." And of course, my only reaction was, "Yeah. I must be kidding."


Somewhere in the middle of Ayala, while Dan and I were discussing what options we had left, we heard a familiar female voice screaming our names. We were surprised to see it was our good friend, Anna Fegi, who was also in Cebu for the same wedding (the bride, Jing and Anna are sisters). Dan and I shrieked in excitement, which she topped with a higher pitched shriek. It drew attention from other shoppers. When we looked around, everybody was looking at us. Quite embarassing!

get-together photo after the scadalous shriek

With a little bit more patience, we finally found some ok shoes in Rusty Lopez. "Ok", because they were nice but not really fab. Dan found a pair that fit him perfectly. The style that I liked didn't come in size 44. I settled for a 42. They pinch my feet but they were the only ones I really liked. Beauty over comfort.


We later met up with a friend of ours who now lives in Cebu, John who brought us to the salon and drove us later in the evening to Kan-anan ni Kuya Jay, a local restaurant that served really sumptuous grilled food and fresh seafood (our first empacho for the trip); then to the spa.

lutong Cebu! woohoo!

the spa ladies who never stopped laughing at our jokes

After our relaxing pedicure, manicure and foot massage, John went home while we went back to our room to freshen up and get ready for our first Cebu night-out!

...will be continued

The Problem With My Friendship With Dan

...is that we're too close. We're literally like soul mates; we share a lot in common. Too much, even. To a fault. We are so similar in so many ways that there has been countless times when we both felt unqualified to call on each other's attention when one of us is going overboard.

Case In Point #1: About 3 Thursdays ago, Dan and I were both on our day off. We decided to go to the Philippine Consulate in Admiralty to apply for an OEC (OEC: noun, acronym for Overseas Employment Certificate; a tiny piece of paper that exempts OFW's from paying the preposterous Terminal Fee when leaving the Philippines).

While he was in the shower, I checked my horoscope on Friendster and it warned me of impulse buying especially when out with a close friend. I told him that as soon as he got out of the bathroom.

When our main objective for the day has been accomplished, we decided to pass by Pacific Place (a mall right across the street from the Consulate Bldg., that houses stores that anyone who had decided to be careful with his finances should avoid) to have lunch. On the way there, he said he should get himself a stunner, which he will use to zap me everytime I feel the urge to purchase anything. He thought that would eventually kill my shopaholic tendecies.

Well, we went home with really big shopping bags from Sports House, Zara and some other stores. Did he say he was gonna stop me from shopping? Yes, he did say so. But he ended up bringing home with him receipts that amounted to about thrice of purchases for the day.

Case In Point #2: Wednesday, HK International Airport, about 12:25 midnight.

We paid a visit to the smoking area near Boarding Gate 15. He was there, sitting behind me, examining the group of corporate men smoking right in front of me. He was probably deciding which one of them was straight. None of them looked straight, that's why. I was smoking with a MacBook on my lap, chatting with Steve on-cam on YM.

His phone rang. It was our friend Lawlaw. He called to inform us --- no, to alarm us ---that everybody has boarded the plane. We were the only ones missing. We ran to the boarding gate with all our might and presented our boarding passes to the groud staff with the cutest smile we could ever muster. Our charm didn't work. We didn't really stress over it. Ground staff, hello! Care ko?! So anyway, we got on the plane laughing at ourselves, and everyone was seated already. Seated and staring at us like we were the bastards who plotted the 9-11 terrorist attack. That was the longest walk we've ever done so far from a plane's front door to its row 15.

We haven't even begun fastening our seatbelts when the head of the cabin crew locked the door and announced that we were ready to leave.

Case In Point #3: Wednesday night, Cebu City...

...will be continued IF Dan grants me the permission to share the incident.

-----

Quote For The Day:

Remi to Rye: "hanggang boracay, internet pa rin ang kinabi-busy mo?!?!"

Donde Esta La Ryeness?

I won't be blogging as often over the next 6 days. I might not be blogging at all.

The reason being ----

I'm flying to the Philippines tonight to parteeeh like a son of a bitch!

Zeitgeist 8

I chanced upon this the other night from a blog I don't remember anymore.

Whatever your political opinion is, or even if you don't have one, watch this video. It's worth knowing the truth, if in case it really IS the truth. And if it's not, at least you know that things could be worse.

And The Nominees

...for The Most Recurring Lines Directed To Rye, Of The Night are...

1) Ikaw lang? Nasan si Dan?

2) What are you drinking?

3) Are you with Jesse tonight?!?!?!

4) Nice pants, Rye!

5) You need a drink?

6) Hey! How are you?

And the winner is.... Oh my God, it's a tie! The winners are:

(drum roll)

"Hey! How are you?" and "Are you with Jesse tonight?!?!?!"

That was waaaaaaaaaaay predictable, people! I was hoping you'd come up with something more imaginative than "Are you with Jesse tonight?!?!?!"

And The WInner

...for the best Ate Marya Moment is...

(drum roll)

Rye for:

"I didn't come here to make friends. I'm here to collect. Kaya magbayad ka na ng utang mo coz I have something more important to do."