A Clean Slate

The nice thing about a new relationship: it’s a clean slate.

Instagram. Sonja’s Cupcakes. Sleeping naked. Para Kay B. Breakfast dates. Search for the best Dinuguan. Jogging in Luneta on Saturdays. Jamba Juice and long walks. T-Ice.  Orange Post-its. Grindr. Sex and the City. Trip to Quiapo. Tokwa’t Lugaw. 2 Broke Girls… Lamb Adobo.

Someone who will win my heart in spite of me. Someone who would go off from work at 3am, buy me a big cup of taho and would drive all the way to where I live, all for the sake of a good morning kiss. That’s how I know it’s finally love again.

He’s everything I thought I’d never have. Witty.  Cute and intelligent. Sings, though off-key most of the time (just like me!).  Never afraid to make fun of himself. Likes some of the things I like, likes some of the things I hate. Appreciate sweet nothings. Looks me in the eyes.  Kisses me all the time.

Getting Ready For SHH…

DOH-RITM and Love Yourself Inc. came together last Sunday to finalize the plan for the second HIV mass testing activity tagged as SHH..

It was a very fun afternoon, seeing familiar faces and getting acquainted with new ones. It’s really heart-warming to see young gay people take actions for the prevention and awareness of HIV-AIDS, there are even fresh college graduates na talagang nagli-lead ng group, saludo ako sa pagiging aktibo nila.

The first part of the meeting was riotous! Speed-dating ang concept ng “introduce yourself” portion, which was hosted by one of my favorite blogger, Migs of ManilaGayGuy. Instead of speed-dating naging speed-Q&A portion ng Miss Universe ang naging peg ng mga participants… Happy lang!

The meeting continued on with the plans and processes for SHH… Bow ako sa mga leaders for this event, everything is set in place. I love how they’ve planned it from getting the participants to making sure they just don’t register but translate all of it to attendees, up to the last process of releasing the results and taking extra measures to ensure the confidentiality of the results. Bow!!

with Batch 2 guys…

This is Jay, I so admire this guy! He’s graduating on Saturday at UP Diliman after that diretso na siya sa event on Sunday. He did all of the planning and proccesses, magaling na bata… For sure, malayo mararating nito.

The meeting was held in Duque Hall right inside the DOH.  Everybody was cordial and super nice that day, bawal ang BV at Negastar sa group.

And lastly, the family photo. Nasa likod ako kasi super chika ako with the others. Ayun, too late to emote for the pic. LOL!

We’re all set for April 29. See you there!!!

Let’s Get Tested!

RITM’s Change Agents’ first ever project this year.

Free Private and Confidential Testing for Syphilis, HIV, and Hepatitis B. April 29, 2012, Sunday, 10 am to 3 pm. Pre-register at http://tinyurl.com/apr29test

Abe’s Lamb Adobo and the ONE

Abe is one of the few restaurant that I have discovered last year. Harry Potter took me here for our first dinner date, he suggested for me to try one of the their best seller which is the Lamb Adobo, I must admit that this dish is remarkably delicious. Well, it’s the usual adobo but it’s done with rustic style. The lamb is super tender and cut into decent sizes, the rugged look of the garlic with their skin still in tact adds to the provincial, rustic effect of the dish. Though, the sauce was too oily for my taste the over all palate effect of the dish reminds you of a good ol’ home cooked dish done with a little flair.

I just got home from yet another first date and this is the same dish (pic above) my date suggested I should have.

Weird right?

Ang tanong ko lang… Ilang Lamb Adobo pa ba ang kelangan kong i-lafang before I meet the ONE?! LOL!

P.S. – The date went well. He’s cute and smart and finally someone taller than me. No sparks yet though for me but 2nd date is already been planned. Let’s hope this night’s Lamb Adobo is the last.

That Red Bag

I just had to buy it. It’s red. It’s the style I had been looking for. It’s on sale. And again, it’s RED. (I’m using my phone’s camera, so forgive the blurry photo.)

I had dinner last Saturday with my college friends, Ice and Maro… We ate at Chef D’ Angelo, they were serving buffet… Yes, buffet again… But this time I sort of controlled myself and only ate salad and fish.

After dinner we decided to roam around the mall and that’s when I stumbled upon the red bag at Memo. The bag that I was using before was also from Memo, they really got nice bags there, stylish and understated. It was love at first sight, I just had to take it even if the sales rep. told me that it was a girl’s bag… Told him that nowadays, everything is unisex. LOL. He might have been amused by my insistence that he gave me a free wallet after I purchased the bag. Great deal for me!

Last Friday Night

Friday night. Lep, Mar, Harot and I met up for coffee, dinner and a few bottles of alcohol… What’s supposed to be a “9pm-ender” becomes an “all-nighter”. We went home at around 3am and still feeling a bit “bitin” from all the fun that happened.

Lep, Mar and I met at Shangri La Mall for some cups of coffee, I had cranberry juice instead. As usual, kaartehan ko lang. We sat down for coffee and conversation at around 6pm, sobrang dami namin pinag-usapan at pinagtsismisan na inabot kami ng 9pm before we felt we needed to have dinner already.

Harot joined us for dinner already and as usual, true to my diet mode drama that night I just had Chicken and Ceasar’s Salad… I know, it seems weird that I don’t have pictures,  I was too busy making tsismis that I forgot to take photos na.

After dinner we decided to go find a bar to have a few drink lang. We ended up at MetroWalk right inside Vogue Bar. Actually, we want to go to O-bar but since it’s way too early for it, we stayed at Vogue to kill time and waited till’ it’s 12midnight.

O-bar was super fun as usual, I think it got extra fun because of the people I’m with. I also noticed that I wasn’t the shy boy that I was once anymore, back in the days, the old Simon would just stay in the corner, ask someone to order his drink, have someone accompany him to the comfort room and wouldn’t even look at anyone he doesn’t know… I guess, it comes with age and independence… Well, it took me a long time to get to be this person and I’m enjoying every bit of it.

Went home with Harot and got into the most weirdly funny conversation with him. Lasing na rin kasi ako and I was trying so hard to pretend that I wasn’t coz he told me earlier na ayaw niyang may kasamang lasing. I got home at around 4 or 5am, I’m not sure anymore but it was the most fun that I’ve had after a very long time.

Picture below is O-bar Metrowalk. I love the crowd, everybody’s super friendly! (This is the only picture that we took that night! waah!)

Summer Books!

It’s been a while since I last finished a book, If I remember it clearly the last book I’ve read was The Carrie Diaries which took me months before turning to the last page. With work, social life and the internet, I find it hard to find precious time to read but I really miss the adventure of reading so much, I actually have a mental list of books that I’ve been wanting to read and re-read and hopefully the free time I’ll be getting this summer would let me finish a book or two. *cross fingers*

Ms. A and I went for a quick lunch at the nearest mall the other day and passed by a bookstore. In a streak of impulsion, I bought two books, the first one is The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, I’ve been seeing the book for quiet sometime now every time I visit a bookstore, I was sort of intrigued by the title as well as its format. The book is what they call an epistolary novel, it’s actually a narration of a boy’s teen life through a series of letters to an anonymous person. I have read a few pages but decided to read it after I’m finished with the other book that I bought, the theme of this book is a bit depressing, well not really depressing but a bit dark since it tackles teen issues such as drugs, suicide and other teen “angst-y” things and I’m craving for some positiveness at the moment. So, I’ll save it for later.

The second book that I bought which I’m currently reading now is The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. This is bought solely by impulse, I’ve never heard of this book before but the cover writings and reviews seems all very positive. At first I thought that it is a novel but instead it is an account on how the author dedicated a year of her life to a happiness project, a sort of Eat, Pray, Love-ish concept minus all the drama and the big budgeted scheme for happiness. I love how the author does research for her happiness project, went from Aristotle to Dalai Lama to Oprah to clearly define what happiness really is. Like what I said, I’m in the currently between pages of this lovely book. I’ll try to come up with a separate entry for a review of it.

Here’s to hoping I get to read more besides these two books this summer!

To The One Who Took These Photos

Thanks for the movie, dinner and coffee the other night. To be honest, I was sad that very moment but you and your “Star Cinema-tic” lines made me smile. I just hope the friendship we’re building right now won’t be ruined by expectations we both know we can’t live up to. As per our last conversation, we came to a realization that we aren’t compatible based on what we’re looking for in a relationship. So, I guess this is really is just friendship for now. Let’s enjoy this. Again. Thanks.

A New Look

As they say, when something new comes in one’s life everything changes. You can divide your life into two parts, your life before he came and your life after he came.

Everything seems fresh and young. Rediscovering the thrills of holding hands, video calling over Skype, saying sweet good nights before sleeping, conversations over dinner and coffee, sweet smiles and sweet stares never been more exciting.

Since we are on the topic of changes, I’d like to share one of the few that came about the month of February. Yung ibang changes siguro I’ll share it when I’m really ready na, It’s way too much to be written down e, medyo lunod pa ko sa emotion na dala nun….. Well, the change i’d like to tell is something that  I’ve been wanting to do a long time ago but people around me were hesitant about it’s outcome and advised me not to go for it….  But in the spirit of being daring and because I’m getting way too bored with the usual and the fact that I needed a new look for an event I’m hosting…. I decided to finally… shave it all again!

It helps a lot that the most special person in my life right now gave me the go signal. Apparently, he hates my hair, I think he hates hair perse. He’s sporting the same hair-do… that’s why…

Here’s me with Ms. A, she thinks it’s a cool change for me. Lakas maka-bata!

I got some make-up on here… I was about to step on stage already to host the Mr. and Ms. SIHM Pageant.

with some of the candidates that night.. They’re all shocked by the new look. Syempre kelangan sabayan ang pasabog nila.

This was taken a few hours ago. Ms. A, Chef and I went out for dinner and a bit of shopping.

So, I guess I’ll be rocking this new look for a few months! Whhoah! I love change!

2nd Phase…

The 2nd week of training for volunteers for Love Yourself Campaign was even more fun compared to the last one. Though we missed a few people from our original batch, we were then joined by another batch for the 2nd phase of training. It got a lot more interesting since more interesting and fun people were added to the group.

The 2nd phase was dedicated to Counselling Skills, our trainer, Dra. Bantigue was very effective as usual. The training was filled with funny punchlines and comebacks, what you would really expect in a room full of gay guys!

Here’s some of the guys having dinner.

on the left side is Jam, One of the few people that I got really close to instantly. Co-pasimuno ko ng Truth or Dare. Right side is Jurex, my roomie.

here’s the new batch that joined us. Got two crushes on their group. I got to kiss one on the cheek, thanks to Truth or Dare. LOL!

News about Whitney Houston’s untimely death broke out while we were inside the training room. Everyone was so devastated, like I said, it was a roomful of gay guys, Whitney being a gay icon and her loss was something personal to all of us. I promise to have a separate entry about Whitney Houston and how she touched my life soon!

The Counselling Skills training was really outrageously fun, we even had to counsel each other as an activity. Some were even tasked to do demo counseling…

Lastly, I want to give Dr. Bantigue, a loud thank you and the biggest hug for being patient and game in training such a challenging group of people hehehe! An inspiration to all us, she’s a VP in Meralco and teaches Psychology in La Salle but still finds time to do volunteer work like this. May God bless you more Doctora! Till next week!!