Saturday, December 24, 2011

Seven ways to say I love you without saying it…

[1] KISS. A kiss is a most intimate gesture of human warmth towards the other that even nature does it on an ethereal and transcendent way: A feline streak of sun light that gently crawls its lips upon a morning glade. Try to kiss that way… Many times it’s the most endearing, lasting sexual bliss there is—better than the hottest sex—because a kiss lasts, conveys, connects longer than a 3-minute orgasm. So kiss that way—kiss like it’s a need than obligation, pleasure than ritual. But be sure to brush your teeth and gurgle first… No human being deserves to kiss another human being with a KFC morsel in between their front teeth.

[2] DOMESTICATE your love and affection. Cook for her—cooking is a profound personal expression of connectedness and compassion. You are feeding the body as well as the spirit—besides the quiet fact that eating dinner together means you are really together. Or wash her clothes, if need be—iron them, as well. Don’t be embarrassed to include her undies, too—that is, if she allows it. Just be sure that you know how to segregate this and that fabric or clothes, and use the right detergent (is she into non-toxic stuff, respect it!) and be extra certain that you are pretty knowledgeable how to operate the washer-dryer. Don't mess up the machine... More importantly, you don’t want to ruin her Gucci, Prada, and Valentino! THAT is a cardinal sin!

[3] SURPRISE her with little, silly, corny gifts: a garden-plucked magnolia with a line from a Lisa Gilbert book, ham sandwich or hummus salad (if she is a vegetarian, respect it!) placed on her car’s companion seat as she goes to work, a red red rose on her pillow (cut off the thorns and briers, dude!)—sometimes, a flea market-scored flower vase or antique nightstand or scarf from a consignment store works good or a Pekingese cat at an animal rescue center. Elicit that smile and hug, these sweet little somethings matter. But don’t surprise her with a baby boa constrictor pet atop the TV set as she goes home: that is pretty much a shock—bigtime shock, get it? (Well, not unless your GF is Lady Gaga… that’d be fine, I guess.)

[4] CLEAN her car or fix her bed. These are some of those tiny tasks or seemingly nonsensical chores that don’t get notice as we feed our insatiable thirst for obligatory toil so we could sustain our hold at life’s physical comforts. We jump out of bed to keep up with the rush and adrenalin of daily grind; we hop in and out of the car and nonchalantly trash the day’s litter all over the car floor and back seat as we drive and text—knowing we could attend to these little things later, and so before we know it, the car has been stuffed with Bojangles chicken bones and Mickey Dees boxes, and the bed looked like a WWF arena. It’d be cool that when she comes home to rest, the bed looks like a Holiday Inn suite that smells like lovin’, and when she drives back to work, her car looks like the inside of a limo to Shangri-la.

[5] Those three words could be articulated better via a POEM, song, artwork—so you don’t need to be such a trying-hard jerk who says I love you in between quick glances at your Blackberry for NFL updates. Everybody texts as they interact so how do you know your man (or woman) is paying attention at all? This is not a 100 percent guarantee of unmitigated attention or focus but at least you could convince her that you spent all night writing her a sonnet, you dig? But don’t you ever commit the stupid mistake of copy-pasting a Neruda or Shakespeare love poem at poemhunter.com and say it's yours– you must know that that everything can be googled anytime. One click and you’re dead!

[6] Criticize her mom’s Dolly Parton hair-do, junk her bestfriend’s love for Burger King dollar meals, lambast her hair stylist’s style—but don’t, DON’T, you ever diss her PET (may it be a babedawg, koolcat, alligator, or pterodactyl). That is a super-huge no-no. Instead, always appreciate the darn animal, okay? If she is a PETA member or anti-animal cruelty advocate, respect it! Bring the pet a treat—and better make it a “healthy” chow (remember, if she's into ethical stuff, respect it!). Sometimes, well—believe it or not, you must pet the babedawg/koolcat first before you go to lady. She will love you double for your sensitivity and sublimity.

[7] BE PRESENT. Value moments. In spite of or no matter how busy your respective social and work lives are, always have open-ended moments with her. There will always be workloads and neglected tasks to do or attend to—but there will only one love to nurture… Always think that she’s waiting and you are coming, and vice versa. Talk but make sure you have other subjects to talk about apart from an Occupy issue, GOP debate, or a Kardashian butt; and listen, listen to her no matter how loud and annoying her whinings and mopings are. Words that come out of human mouths are like music and poetry when both listen and talk. The heart listens good…
… and if all these don’t work, well—what the hell, say I LOVE YOU!

Sunday, December 4, 2011

TEN Reasons Why I Unfriend…

MY Facebook is like my living room that is open to public—in all continents, seven seas, and Milky Way. A “living room”—which means, this place isn’t my bathroom or bedroom, so there! Although I am so fond of sharing what I just ate or cooked, or where I spent my last weekend (at least, I offer hints), or what sort of housework I just accomplished (yes, I do stuff apart from dishwashing and laundry), or what's up with my kids—it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s all “reality FB” around here. There’s still a whole lot of details and infos about my little life and shenanigans that I don’t feel a tad comfortable to bare in here. You can still call me painfully reclusive and I will not argue it… And yes, although I have close to 4500 “friends,” I still unfriend people (if they’re actually “people” and not a few of Cyd’s clandestine MIBs).

[1] Bloated, overdrawn discussion that evolves into nasty ARGUMENTS. Although my intensely opinionated girth always gets caught in a quicksand of passionate debates and verbal engagements, it doesn’t mean I enjoy them. I don’t… I am done with those prolonged jousts about politics of the day and blahblah—that I so love to sink my tiny little brain into when I was younger. These days, I’d rather write my thoughts, one way, no arguments whatsoever—than negotiate a curb and preach my madness to the next soul. You see, there are people who simply are experts in acerbic provocations—they will argue why babedawgs bark 7 times a day, why winter is cold, why soda isn’t called pop, and why the hell they are alone and lonely yet their koolcat has a Friday night date… I like discussion with like-minded friends, albeit virtual—but once it gets a bit of a headbutting gig, I’d rather digress and unfriend. If you don’t like my stuff, why sit on my couch, right?

[2] Blurbs and quips that tend to be too PERSONAL… Again, as follow up to Item #1, I do enjoy sharing my virtual mung beans soup and if I agree with what Anderson Cooper just said or why am I the only human being watching Jerry Springer—but I don’t think I’d reveal the color of my underwear or who the beautiful lady that I last dated or why is it I never adjusted my status to Single, Married, In An Relationship, Imprisoned, or Simply Bored. So I am not at all amused with prying screwdrivers who dig in too much like the New Inquisition, and pick up a fight via my Wall… you know what I’m sayin’? Of course, you know what I am saying…

[3] PORNOGRAPHIC minds. I am not saying that I don’t surf a porno site once in a while, because I do. Yes, indeed—I do, but not the perverse type though (if watching ordinary-looking couples with imperfect bodies on intimate moments doesn’t qualify as “perverse,” then I am fine, right?) But I don’t like pornos sent via emails or FBs—apart from the fact that almost all of these nuisances are spam viruses. I mean, I don’t even welcome 4-letter f-words thrown like vodka vomit in here…

[4] As I just said on Item #1, I like discussion of daily matters, stuff and things—from Black Friday shopping madness to China’s domination of the world to a Kardashian frivolity to the Rolling Stones’ next tour… Kafka, Beavis and Butthead, Thai cuisine, sex in Brazil, global warming in Antarctica, Ayn Rand, Calvin and Hobbes. Stuff, you know. What I don’t favor are those who COMPLAIN a humongous lot about anything. They go online yet they complain about the internet, they drive a car yet they whine about traffic, they criticize smokers and meat-eaters yet they guzzle up alcohol like it’s water to a fish, they say they are lonely but they mope about their disgusting neighbors or moms and dad who call on Saturday afternoon, they want to help feed all inhabitants of Sub-Saharan Africa but they rant and rave about antibiotics and all that paranoid toxicity in food, etcetera etcetera. You know, people who always carry a pin to burst your bubble, or always come in handy with a negative retort to your positive wavelength… These are the kind of raincloud earthlings who doesn’t notice a flower standing aloft a phalanx of dead brush or a streak of sun coming through a weeping windowpane. They are so freakin’ morose!

[5] I don’t get much of these quizzes and game INVITES anymore, so it’s cool. Maybe I am one of those FB rats (or squirrels) who spend a fantastic amount of time on Facebook but don’t do any of the Yoville or Farmville stuff. I am too short-attention span dude to keep glued to an online game for three minutes… Also, I hate TAGGERS who don’t ask permission to tag. It’s pretty much a wild trespass or a random tag on your car or something. That is so unacceptable, man!

[6] Elongated exchange of RELIGIOUS sermons on the mount or IDEOLOGICAL speeches. I am pretty much aware of friends—real, “offline” friends—who use Facebook as an advocacy or propaganda tool. And I agree it is effective—after all, many claim that FB helped launch successful revolutions in the Middle East, as well as to jumpstart the Occupy movement. But my FB is not like that. It’s simply a frenzied cornucopia of this and that, it’s thrift store, a downtown flea market, it’s like a café for one and all. It’s cheap, it’s profound, it’s surreal, it’s intellectual, it’s corny, it’s funny, it’s scornful, it’s romantic, it’s angry, it’s sarcastic, it’s me. But I don’t like a long stream of super-political and “spiritual hallelujahs,” although a bit of these is fine…

[7] Well-meaning but overzealous people who invite you to a BILLION EVENTS, although you never show up at all. And I am not really good at attending events, parties, meetings, gatherings anyways. I’ve always preferred the quiet comfort of my room… I’ve always been this kind of “unsocial” dude who is actually kind of social, by virtue of so many community events and organizational projects/program that I have organized in my life. So to save the ink or whatever, better not include me in your 1 million people to invite list… although I will find it more thoughtful and sweet if you send me a one-liner, individual/exclusive note (I may show up).

[8] Hostile EX’ES. I have a number of former girlfriends in my Friends List—maybe they read me, maybe they don’t. But we are mutually quiet (with each other). I unfriended maybe two or three ex’es but the one ex that really pissed me off was the one who was so gracious in being my “friend” again, yet she made it a point to beat me up, clash with me like sneaky Scud missile, or wickedly criticize whatever I post. It’s the kind of person who comes to your house with a smile and then starts criticizing unwashed dishes on my sink, dust on windowsill, the Dollar Tree painting on the bathroom wall, the sort of magazines on my desk, and Cyd’s unmade litter box… yet still has the gall to say, “I only have compassion for you.” Ex’es who praised you to the heights of Mt Kilimanjaro and called you The Greatest when you were still dating, and then totally made a huge U-turn when you broke up—so any opportunity that’s open to them to lash out at you, they’d take it. UNf------gFRIEND them, pronto!

[9] People that you are certain you’d NEVER MEET in person or in real life. If these people are unnecessary in your life—online or offline—why befriend them, in the first place? There are a number of reasons why I create friends or reconnect with friends or maintain friends in my life: they could be business collaborations, project connects, really cool people with a diversity of interesting takes and insights about life and living, and just plain human beings who could be such gifts in real life. I don’t want to maintain or sustain an online communication with someone that I am sure I’d never meet in the real world at all—I don’t care if the person lives in Bosnia-Herzegovina or Tonga, I want to be sure that I am talking with a real person that I may share a coffee or beer somewhere in the future.

[10] People that are soooooooo IN LOVE with life and the world, that it freakin’ screams like a loud denial. These are the kind of people who doesn’t want to hear anything about people getting hungry, being killed, thrown out of houses etc. They believe that the world is one race, everybody has a full stomach, love is all that they see when they dance with fireflies in the quiet confines of their fancy idylls by the woods… Most often than not, these are the kind of immaculate urchins who’d rather cover their faces with masks of white as they pass by a phalanx of starving souls by an uneasy street. They believe that they will go straight to heaven because they are made to be pure and peaceful, loving and lovely. UNFRIEND them, is all.