By using my eyes all the more. We were around 35 in the graduate program and my classmates said the best way to survive grad school was to go to the gym. "Say that again?" I asked, and they spelt it out for me. "G…Y…M, honey," they said, "because when you do so, your body releases all those endorphins. It makes you forget that this week, you have to read the poems of Rumi and the novels of the three Bronte sisters."
The university gyms in the US, of course, are another wonder, but today let me talk about another discovery. When my eyes were bleary from reading about 19th-century England, I would log on to www.gay.com. Yes, I would take off my thick eyeglasses and gray winter coat and assume another persona.
In the Internet you could be anybody you want to be. I would log on to the New Jersey and New York sites, and chat for an hour or two. "No femmes, no fats" seemed to be the battlecry royale of the gay men in the Internet. So everybody would be "butch" and "hunky" and horny as hell. I would be this tall and tan and lean Asian prowling the Net for a chat-mate. I steered clear of the white granddaddies, for reasons I have written about two weeks ago – they always asked for photos of Asian men in jockeys. I usually chatted with men who lived within a radius of 50 miles around – or those who lived in Manila, which was 10,000 miles away.
Yes, I would even wake up at 6 a.m. to chat up the guys in Manila, which would by then be caught in the grip of 6 p.m. traffic. But some guys were already online, chatting and teasing and trying to be witty and all. Many of them were there for the sex, of course. It ain’t nothing but a meat market. But I chatted with some Pinoys, a few of whom became my friends when I returned to Manila. Also, there is something about talking in Taglish even on the Net that, as they would say, warmed the cockles of my heart. After a day of speaking English with an East Coast accent, I assure you there was nothing more exciting than to go to the Net and ask somebody, "Hoy, kumusta ka na?"
I returned to Manila briefly, then left again for Malaysia, to write a book. When I am in Manila I do not chat. There are gazillion – and I mean it – things to do when you are here: Friends and family and just the plain curious don’t let you go. When I lived in Malaysia I had lots of time in my hands and I began to chat again. The Malaysian Chinese liked chatting with me when they discovered I had Chinese blood (one-eighth?). The Malays liked chatting, too, because I knew some Bahasa Malaysia. (Jumpa lagi?)
Curiously enough, it was in Malaysia where I chatted with a Filipino I liked. He turned out to be a schoolmate of mine in Manila. He was cute and funny and sad – all the qualities I liked – but he was in the closet and would leave for the US soon. We met once, we had dinner in that restaurant near ABS-CBN that had since closed shop, and then he drove me home. He said we would see each other again. But I had to return to Kuala Lumpur and when I came back six months later, he had already left for the US.
About that experience, all I have is a wicked poem called "Dawn (For R.)" It goes this way.
"While the crickets/ sing/ their sonata,/ we sit in your car/ in the small hours/ of the morning./ We talk/ about the rollercoaster/ of our lives/ dipping and rising/ before us,/ the present/ like a highway/ stretching/ into the horizon./ And then you reach/ for me in the half-dark,/ your big, strong hand/ warm/ around my hand,/ your lips brushing/ like a butterfly’s wing/ against my lips./ But when you look/ deeply/ into my eyes/ and caress my hair/ with a touch/ lighter than a feather,/ I could not bear it–/ this gesture of now/ and forever–/ that I brought your face/ down/ and let your tongue/ graze instead/ my nipple."
That nasty poem was published in a scholarly journal called Kritika Kultura, if you can believe me. It was later included in my new book, Pulotgata: The Love Poems.