Season’s Gratings

My co-slaves in the corporation I work for are a generous bunch, people who can’t celebrate their birthdays without feeding everyone within a 1-mile radius of their office with rudimentary birthday grub. And when the Christmas season comes ’round, their propensity for generosity kicks into high gear, and I spend the two weeks prior to the 25th watching my desk disappear beneath a pile of presents. I literally just sit at my desk and get one gift after another, and while getting lots of free shit may seem awesome to some, it is quite bothersome for me since many of the gifts I get are neither that nice nor useful, and are from people I barely know.

Apart from the four other people I work with in my department, I barely interact with anyone else. Regardless, mere acquaintances still bother to grab some random trinket, wrap it in paper, write my name on a card, and have the whole thing sent to my little cubicle, which is so much more than I am willing to do for any them. I get stuff from people I’ve only spoken to less than five times the entire year. I get stuff from people I don’t even like. And the thing is, I am unwilling to blow my bonus on useless objects for utterly random humans in honor of the birth of someone who very likely never existed. However, the more I refuse to reciprocate, and the higher my gift pile gets, the more I look like an asshole.

I cannot see the cheer and goodwill in this mad rush to give near-strangers stuff they don’t really want, much less need. I can understand giving gifts to loved ones, whose tastes I am far more familiar with, and who, having spent significant chunks of their lives putting up with me, truly are deserving of a token of my gratitude regardless of the fact that Christmas is a hoax to begin with. But just because I work on the same floor as Person X doesn’t warrant my giving her a cheap bracelet she has barely a desire to wear, or a bar of organic soap that’ll petrify by her sink over the next few months.

I really think it’d be the greater gesture to not give anything: no wasting of packaging materials, no extra shit to lug with you on the commute home, no guilt feelings for not liking these people, and, well, no crappy gifts.

(Pic c/o http://neillcameron.blogspot.com)

LGBT Pride March 2010: Putting the ‘Fun’ Back in ‘Fundie’

Partners in crime (fighting).

I had the BEST time at my very first LGBT Pride March. I went as Ladyboy Wonder to my man-slave’s Buttman, and bore the special rainbow version of the Filipino Freethinkers logo for the length of the parade.

I brought along my purple multi-setting vibrator (which I got for free; it’s a long story), and it was put to good use by several FF’ers, most notably Cy the Purple Pimp Excommunicator…

So hawt.

Red the Pedo-Priest (who is with Garrick, our resident Molestee, in the photo below)…

Who's your padre?

…and Bea, our Vicar with a Vag.

"Yes, I have a vag!"

Our token slogan for the march was the mind-numbingly stupid (and therefore strangely intelligent) “Salt is a sin!” We chanted this and other slogans most especially upon meeting the Christian fundamentalists — a.k.a. ‘fundies’ — parked on every other corner with their anti-LGBT gear.

The pun run.

Photo-bombing the fundies, in fact, was the highlight of the march. Never have I been so excited to see an ultra-conservative. We’d hurtle towards them screeching in glee, ready to be photographed with our counter-protest signs, eager to cause a kerfuffle and drown out their hate speech.

We made several awesome photo-bombs, but the photo below is arguably the most awesome of the lot:

Family portrait.

It pains me to note that the streetkids were thrilled at the sight of Buttman and could not give a fig about his Ladyboy Wonder, but that’s okay, because our gaysome twosome made for excellent photo ops regardless:

With Carlos!

With Sailormoon!

And with Wonderwoman!

We even won ‘Best Theme’ at the end of the march, which was very awesome, albeit pretty confusing, since we didn’t really have a theme in mind, unless fundie-spotting is a theme. Or Pedo-Priest. Or Purple Pimp. Or Gay Comic Book Heroes.

I look forward to next year’s march. Apart from the endless hi-jinks, I truly enjoyed showing my support as an Ally of the LGBTs, and not just because I’m part-Babaeng Bakla, part-One-of-the-Boys.

Salt is a sin, brothers and sisters! Salt is a sin!

(Photo 1 by Steve Gelano; other photos by JM Aguilar)

Mandatory Post-Epic Party Blog Entry

That's a lotta talong.

At one point in last Saturday’s Excommunication Party, I had to hand Carlos Celdran a bag full of sex paraphernalia as a prize for trumping two other participants in the Talong-Condom speed-sheathing game. I believe he sheathed 10 talongs in condoms in less than a minute, which is likely the number to beat in today’s vegetable speed-sheathing circles.

By the end of the night, I had a sense that the Filipino Freethinkers had succeeded in showing and drawing further support for the RH Bill and a secular society, and a huge bag of condom-covered eggplants.  It was that kind of party.

Obviously, the start of our modeling careers.

Dirty games aside, we had a photo/graffiti wall; a special confession booth where you could have your rants/lamentations on the RH brouhaha filmed; a special performance from improv group SPIT; a viewing of the now-infamous Satan, Get Out! video; speeches from Celdran, Akbayan Party List Reps Kaka Bag-ao and Walden Bello, Democratic Socialist Women of the Philippines’ National Chair Beth Angsioco, comedienne Juana Change, and fellow FF’er Dr. Sylvia Claudio; the presence of the alarmingly pretty Rep. Risa Hontiveros-Baraquel…

Tonight, we dine in hell.

…the recreation of Da Vinci’s The Last Supper, heathen-style…

I saw the sign.

…and the Manifesto in Support of Choice, the most awesome piece of paper I’ve ever had to sign thus far.

 

Awesomeness.

I throw my panties at my fellow FF’ers! I have never been more proud to be part of a bunch of blasphemous bastards, and I look forward to our future shenanigans in the fight against Bullshit. Yeehaw!

(Photos 1, 3 and 5 by Karlo Espiritu, Photo 2 by JM Aguilar, and Photo 4 by Tania Arpa)