Significant Others

The worst part is the othering; wherein the cute story you used to tell together–that you created together–turns into the dreary conclusion you’re telling alone.
Not a lot of people know what I went through with Mikey, the same way that not a lot of people know what Mikey went through with me. Even fewer people know about what happened with Baki, but I won’t get into that. The same way that things change, things happen; and in the glimpse of a lifetime we can come up with different narratives from the same plot. Either way, I’m not too surprised at the mixed reactions when Mikey and I got back together.

For some time, we were just characters in each other’s stories. Everything that happened was just a device. And as with all plot devices, there are some that make your hair stand on end and give you trouble catching your breath, whereas there are others that just make you go “uh, right. and then?”
I don’t know what kind of story he told or how I was portrayed, so I don’t know how to feel about it unless I manage to zap myself back to the time when it was still unfolding and listen to him while he was telling it. And even then, there are no guarantees that he’d tell it the same way. Until now I don’t know what Mikey went through, and he can always tell me about it but all the same it’s his story, not mine. I’m just a character in it, and as with all stories you have to read or listen to, there are twists and an ending beyond your control; an ending that you may or may not like, but you are in no position to change.

We all have our own stories to tell because in telling them–in listening to ourselves tell them– we have an easier time making sense of what happened to us.

The Beauty of No

My sister wanted me to read the Youngblood article that came out today entitled “The Beauty of ‘No'” by some Psych professor from UPDil, which basically brought the whole notion of infidelity to a new level. Apparently, every time I turn away from sights such as this…


…I am reaffirming the commitment I made to love and cherish my boyfriend. Every time I say “NO! THAT IS NOT A BEAUTIFUL NAKED MAN BATHING IN A LAKE! DUDE! DO NOT FUCK THIS MAN! Not even in your head!” I am dignifying the agreement we made to be together.
And that is bullshit.

I’ve never been one for open relationships, saying that true love exists in the absence of commitment. I can’t fathom it but I don’t question the possibility of it working out. However, the whole notion of relinquishing the reality of desire is at par with denying your self of the body you inhabit.
No two relationships are the same. Even a second shot between the same people isn’t going to be the same as it was the first time around simply because people change.
But needs and desires don’t because we all have bodies. They’re the common thread between relationships, between stories, and within humanity. They’re the given; regardless of context, the body will be there with the hunger, the itch, the thirst, and the unshakeable picture of making monkey love with beautiful naked men washing themselves in streams.
At the end of the day, it’s just a thought. It’s controllable, and it’s different when you act on it. Oh, and here’s a picture of Mussolini.

So yeah. No doesn’t mean Yes.
Only yes means yes.
And Mussolini was a pug-ugly fascist.

Business Proposals for the Long Haul

I’m preparing theoretical financial statements for a theoretical company, and because I suck at accounting, I’ve been at it since yesterday and made next to no progress.
There’s something terribly romantic about making plans, especially plans at the level of working out how much money you’ll make, how much you’ll lose, and what you’ll lose them to in the next five years. I can’t even work out what I’m having for breakfast or what I’ll wear tomorrow, yet here I am, figuring out how I’m going to make my first million (making a million sucks by the way, almost half of it goes to taxes. PFT.)
This is the most romance I’ve had in my life since Mikey and I got back together. It’s a different kind of relationship now: it’s gone from being a chain of heartstopping, heat-filled, breathless kapow moments to…nice. It’s nice. We talk and we don’t get all broken up about not seeing each other. It’s just…nice. But somehow that adds to the reality of it. The kind of security that can be expressed in profit margins, e.g.

niceness / 10,000 breathless kapow moments – long term plans that we will not admit are out of our control * 100%

From a business perspective, we can assign a number for everything but this is something that just is. And after everything, I think we’ve earned the license to just rest easy on it, secure in the knowledge that it’s there, it’ll still be there tomorrow, with or without the 5 to 50-year plan. It’s ironic when you consider how a concrete plan of action adds so much more excitement and volatility to the whole context. Suddenly there’s something at stake, there’s reason to beat yourself up over loss. I got a postcard from Cat today telling me to stick with it because the ratios looked good. I can actually factor the postcard into the numbers. like:

10,000 bkm + you stayed friends after the break-up + you’re back together + awesome postcard = likelihood * 100%

or something like that. It’s not like we can make sense of it after solving everything, after assigning values. There isn’t anything to solve at this point, nothing to quantify. When it’s good it’s good. All I know is that it’s as it should be.

Accounting makes everything better

Tonight, Mikey dozed off beside me for a grand total of 20 minutes while I lay beside him working out theoretical financial statements for the next five years of my theoretical business.
Sucking at math when I entered college has served me well at this point, because by having to repeat it, I’ve developed some semblance of math skills (i.e. I can divide and multiply numbers larger than a hundred). So it’s not the number crunching that gets to me when it comes to accounting: It’s the optimism that comes with having to forecast sales and losses for the next five years.
I don’t even know what’s going to happen in my life for the next five months, heck, I don’t even know what I’m having for lunch tomorrow, and I’m supposed to forecast what’s going to happen to my money for the next five years, how i’m going to make it grow and every little component that figures into that plan.
And as tedious as it all looks, there’s this unshakable element of romance to the whole endeavor: the plans you make, the emotions you invest when you devote yourself to something, even in theory; that whole act of folding and letting yourself cave in the face of something you want.

Tangent: I remember sitting in class with the CT girls and talking circumstances, and then Yas asked me “Why didn’t you wait?” which caught me off guard. Specifically because I had no answer, save for the one I could conveniently pull out of my ass, which was “I don’t know how to.”

So, yeah…Mikey, bed, 20-minute nap. I’m not saying the romance is gone because that whole element of planning and investing that we had 4- years ago is beyond us now, battered down by the reality of all those things we have no control over: work, time, even money. But watching him lying there reminded me too much of that same place we had in mind when we started making plans 4 years ago.