Mang Larry

When Mr. Larry Alcala held an exhibit at SM City Cebu Art Center back in the late 90s, I bought 3 of his comic books and had them autographed one by one. The first time I asked for his signature, he asked me “What’s your name, iha?” I said “It’s Leslie, Sir!”. Then on to the second book, “What’s your name, iha?” “Leslie, Sir!”. Until I handed him the last one for his priceless autograph and again he asked – “What’s your name, iha? Ikaw na naman?!!!”

Happy 85th birthday, Sir!

Lefties

All polar bears are left-handed, and so are Leonardo Da Vinci, Michaelangelo and Raphael. Nope, Donatello isn’t one of them, and he ain’t no polar bear either!

Tears

I wonder if other people do this too – pretend to yawn when they’re actually about to cry. Because it’s what I usually do whenever tears are hard to hold back. And since it’s rather uncomfortable for me to let my tears fall in any one’s view, I have to endure the pain of waiting for my bedtime when I could finally cry to my heart’s and eyes’ content. I shed those damn tears away till they put me to sleep.

a repost from 23 November 2009

Coffee

For the last 4 years, I have been in and out of different offices of then prospective new employers. Since becoming “technically unemployed” in 2007, I must have flipped the classified pages and explored the net more than a million times, eternally searching for that elusive career break. The whole experience was fun, albeit frustrating from time to time. Confusing IQ tests have become a routine (too bad I never got to ask anyone of them what my IQ really was.) Offers too, came in diverse setups – spoon fed, ego boosters, practical haggling, name it, I must have gone through it. Having gone through all these customary process of job-hunting, there is only one thing that I relatively dislike – the steaming coffee that usually comes with the interviews! I am not a coffee-hater but neither am I a coffee-lover, perhaps for caffeine-intolerance reasons, and so it really makes me cringe whenever the future-boss offers “Coffee?” to which most of the time I counter with an artificial yet enthusiastic smile that goes with “Yeah, sure!”. I wonder what is it with coffee that usually, almost takes me to the final stages of negotiations. Does it make me give out sensible answers to their questions or does it give them the impression that I easily take orders from them? I’ll never know.

Last week, I got another unexpected (but much prayed for) offer from a friend and as predicted, the new future-boss invites me over for a cup of coffee. The meeting went quite well that resulted to another meeting, and of course, another cup of coffee. The negotiation was fairly becoming vivid and when asked what my chances were, the future-boss assures me of being already “on-board”, with just one more meeting with the company president for formality purposes. Uh-oh, there goes another cup of coffee! I just hope the 3rd cup seals the deal this time. Wish me luck!

Condolence

We used to call each other “Condolence”.

The story behind this odd endearment took place during a lull in our Speech class at UP Cebu back in the late 80s. Sal (Salvador Malto), then a junior BM student was animatedly chatting with a sophomore classmate about their respective batches’ intrams muses. My friend Leilah and I just silently listened to them until Sal finally turned to us and asked who our Fine Arts muse was going to be. Caught off guard, we shyly told him it was a freshie from Davao whose name I can’t recall by now. “Is she pretty?” he bluntly asked. “Well yeah”, we modestly admitted, “but the thing is, she’s kinda fat, as in FAT (Fine Arts Tambok!)” And without batting an eyelash, he laughed so hard and blurted out “Condolence na lang gyud sa Fine Arts!” We had such a good laugh and have been calling each other “Hoy, Condolence!” whenever we’d cross paths in school since then. And so that was how our amusing endearment came to be.

Years after our UP days and still with our small world, Sal, already a budding fashion designer, became my eldest sister’s barkada (my sister has a bunch of gay friends whom we consider as her honorary sisters and Sal happened to be one of them), designed and created my sister’s and sister in law’s wedding gowns, custom-made my mother’s favorite slacks, made my nephew’s cool Chinese-collared barong, etc. But somehow after school, where my 4-walled friendship with Sal took off, and despite his closeness with my sister, we hardly saw each other anymore and we just sort of grew tired of calling each other “Condolence”. In fact, I have already forgotten it until I heard Sal’s untimely battle with aneurysm last night. I still couldn’t believe our ever bubbly friend has gone way, way ahead of his time. I wonder how my sister is taking it right now. Out of terrible shock from the sudden news, I can’t even shed a tear yet. I don’t know what else to say. The only thing that comes to my mind right now is our weird endearment.

Condolence Sal. We will miss you.


(In photo: Sal, Joey, Richie, my sister Marites and Rudy)

Istik

si leslie namatay
si leslie nabanhaw
siya mobalik
nga gituhog
sa istik

Grrr

The curious nephew asks which phone is better – Cherry Mobile or Blackberry? Trying to be modest on the subject, I tell the boy they’re all just the same – as they’re both fruits. And the household help butts in with “Mas nindot gyud ang Blackberry!”

Porbida!