My Name’s On The Naughty List

I may have not spent Christmas like a normal person would his year. I bet everybody who celebrated the holidays wore their yuletide cheer on their gleeful faces, as they exchanged presents and drank their warm cups of coffee while spending quality time with their families. Not me.

Christmas for me was more of waking up in a dark room at 10 in the morning, with blindfolds closed, drinking from an unwashed glass which I wasn’t able to clean last night. Unopened envelopes laid on the kitchen table for days already, as I was expected hapless messages that read “Merry Christmas” on each and every one of them from my co-worker and relatives. I was right.

My job has been strangling me since last week, forcing me to spend my vacation on my apartment here at D.C., whereas everybody from the building has gone to their homes. If the isolation wasn’t bad enough, Verona, the girl whom I met at Fling.com, hasn’t called the past few days like she said she would since spending time at her parent’s house. Having all those things happen to me in a blink of an eye has made my coffee even more bitter.

What’s even more depressing was that Henry wasn’t around with me to spend this glorious season. He usually spends his holidays just around the area, so it isn’t a stretch for both of us to meet at the nearby coffee shop, just like old times. However, this time, he opted to go to his parent’s home as well. I was able to know this by reaching him at his number. And to think that he’s already gotten over the fact of what I did to him before, his answering machines sounds off, “I’m not home; I went to my parent’s place. And if you’re Josh, fuck your Christmas.”

Okay, I may have deserved that. Hell, I may have deserved the fact that I’m having probably the worst Christmas in my life. However, it’s not like I didn’t expect this shit to happen. I may have done stupid things the past couple of months, and yeah, I’ve been suffering from the consequences of what I’ve done. But I think it’s just part of being who I am, I guess. If people want to be somebody, then they have to take everything like a man, damnit!

As a consolation, or so I thought, Verona gave me a phone call that afternoon, while I was grinding my teeth on some paperwork. She informed me that she’ll have to cancel our New Year’s party here at D.C., as she was planning to extend the vacation at her parent’s place. Not being a pain in the ass, I just said okay.

Merry Christmas, everybody.

My Newfound Love For Necessary Conflict (Stop The Cliché!)

Do unto others what you want others to do unto you. You are what you eat. Love is blind. These are some of the many sayings that we have heard from people of various orientations, ranging from the faithfuls, the gluttons, and to the hopeless, among countless others. Some of these proverbs can be accused for being asinine, but no matter how inane clichés can be, we cannot deny how they actually help us deal with life.

The way a person act is dictated by what is widely accepted. But in order to figure out what these are, we have to refer to our experiences which would help us determine what we should do in these specific cases. Once it has been agreed upon by people that a particular action proves effective toward the given situation, we begin to customarily perform the same act repeatedly. Then, if every action that is done again and again yields a constant result, we are then able to form a reliable conclusion, such as if x is performed, y occurs. Thus, clichés are born.

But as much we can give praise to clichés, I just fucking hate the way people have become restricted in their approach to life because of following it like a religion. They live life with a pattern, a life where clichés and cheap quotes are necessary. Sure, Newton's law and Occam's razor ain't such a bad thing to follow every now and then. However, these don't really matter unless we make it matter. Suffice to say, they are never absolute.

So when I told all these things to Henry, whom I summoned yesterday to the coffee house where we hold our camaraderies, these words thoroughly resonated in my ears, “You got to be fucking kidding me! Don't shove that intellectual shit down my throat, asshole! Have you no sense of modesty? I'm your friend, for Chrissake!”

Before, I would have conceded arguing with Henry because I'm not the one to make people uncomfortable. Hell, I wouldn't have even allowed something to reach a point that there would be confrontation because I would have given up even before everything would have began. I'd do anything to make everybody be in on the same page, even if I would have to sacrifice certain things in order to get this done. It was noble of me to do this, but it also made me feel sorry for myself.

Not that I want to become an asshole, but my actions could easily be interpreted as such. I've finally revealed to Henry that I've been the reason why Verona, also known as Tonga from Fling.com, had stopped seeing him, and that our friendship would not prevent me from seeing her as well. Henry was fuming. This was only the second time I've seen him angry after six years, when his pet Labrador got ran over by a Hummer across the street. I was waiting for him to splash the iced mocha that he ordered on my face. He grabbed the espresso shot at the table and threw it on my face instead.

To be honest, I had it coming. It was shitty for me to rat out on my friend of 20 years, and choosing Verona over my friendship with Henry was like spitting at everything we've shared. But as much as our friendship has meant so much to me, I didn't regret admitting the truth to him. In fact, I liked the feeling of my heart pumping and my adrenalin rushing with every word I had to force out of my mouth. I've never felt so alive! During the times when I was so afraid of conflict, I deprived myself of a spine I could've used before. But now, even I felt my balls have grown bigger.

And as I remained seated in the coffee place where Henry and I always met since graduating from college, I felt all those years slowly slip away from me after he finally walked out from the place. I felt my life took a momentary nosedive, like everything that I believed in before was all wrong. But then, a grin emerges on my face. Live life, fuck others. Now that's your new cliché.