• There's a couple of sex-related quotes swirling in my head right now. "Sex is like air. It's only a big deal when you don't get any," by some witty person who probably never got enough credit for anything he did in his life, and, "Sex either ruins it or makes it official," by, I was told, Janeane Garofalo. No particular reason. Just happened to think of it, in passing. Totally random.
  
• Fine. Last two episodes of late both followed the former route in the latter quote.
  
• Just saw the pilot of Hung. Not as promising as Nurse Jackie or Royal Pains. But promising premise, and plenty of room for good character and plot development. And big penises are never, never a bad thing.
  
• Saw Transformers over the weekend with the BG (Banaue Guys), and couldn't enjoy it fully because American imperialist agenda keeps on ringing in my ear. I wonder if there's a button somewhere to stop similar tendencies, so can just enjoy all those explosions that probably gave historians, paleontologists, similar, coronaries.
  
• This lovely thing courtesy of my homie Mike.
  
  
  
• Globe just informed that I consumed more than a thousand pesos this past two weeks in prepaid load. And that they're giving me P50 as a reward for my unnecessary spending. How generous.
  
• From where I sit, the sun is yellow and bright, literally. Almost like the horizon is crying. I'm such a pussy.

     Somehow, when I go out and find doe-eyed guy smoking by himself in the veranda, the perfunctory small
talk seems more necessary than awkward. As an exhausted pair of eyes looks into another, I smile weakly 
and he nods slightly. The retreating sun casts shadows in his face that finally reveal an inner turmoil 
that is not visible in the height of noon and the company of friends.
     “Where are you from?”
     “Sydney. But I’m originally from Spain.”
     “Ah.”
     “You?”
     “Manila.”
     “Who are you with?”
     “Friends.”
     He puffs, inhales, and blows smoke to his right. I put a cigarette in my mouth, he sluggishly fishes 
a red lighter, and flicks it in front of my face. The ritual of smokers is the same anywhere in the world.
     “You here for vacation?”
     “Well, work initially. But you know how things get in the way.”
     “Things.”
     He chuckles. I do the same. The ensuing silence is not the uncomfortable kind, broken only by the 
occasional vehicle – SUV, tricycle, jeepney – that dares invade our view of our raised feet.
     “What was the song you were playing?”
     “Ray Montagne. Hold You in My Arms.”
     “Why is it so familiar?”
     “Some movie about a guy with a lot of issues.”
     “Baggage.”
     “Uh huh. And he expects this girl to take it all away and make it better.”
     “Did she?”
     “She did, but it was still too heavy a task to assign to anyone.”
     “Anyone other than yourself, you mean.”
     “Wen, manang,” he says, and the hilarity of the local dialect directed to a red-haired Caucasian woman 
strikes us, and we can’t stop laughing.