sky rockets in flight! afternoon delight!

01. it's called typecasting.

rustom padilla's decision to come in drag at a recent awards night seems to be a significant topic of discussion among followers of local show business (and since this is the 'pines, that means practically everybody).

i found this entry in a local website particularly striking:

Rustom Padilla in drag.

Rustom Padilla showed up in the Gawad Urian Awards all made up and dressed as a girl. Rustom Padilla said he dressed up as a girl to also prepare for a role. Of course, that is only a pretense, Rustom Padilla is out and proud to be gay, so i'm sure he relished his girl outfit!

really now?

i must admit i considered the idea of dressing up an girl. it's more in the spirit of androgyny, of fucking up gender stereotypes and poking fun at conventional ideas on behaviour. it's not because (as jamaica would put it) i'm wanted to have me a vajayjay. i thought about dressing up girl friend in guy wear while dressing up guy friends in girl get-ups, regardless of everyone's bed preference, just to shake things up and laugh ourselves silly over those little rules that we allow to dictate the way we look and out behaviour.

on one hand, i applaud rustom for stirring things up with his latest stunt. getting made up like that probably required hours of work; even if i'm suspecting it's all for publicity, at least he took some effort to pull it off.

on the other hand, i don't know if it helped in anyway on the acceptance of gay people in this country. public perception sees gay men as either the loud, slang-talking tranny or the horny, closeted girly boys as depicted in local media.

then there's the fashionable malate fags who all look alike with their attempts at designer clothes, shemagh and skinny jeans. incidentally, a good number of them would like people to believe they're "straight-acting" (i.e., they look "straight" in public); i guess they are the only people who believe that they look straight. most straight men don't try to make any efforts on appearing "straight".

rustom coming out in drag reinforces the idea that all gay men eventually aspire to be like women. sadly, like the writer for getitfromboy.net, they are some gay men who would perpetuate the idea of polar gender roles: the masculine and the feminine.

i can't say out and proud gay men should act because i can't claim myself to be one. i just let the gay thing be another facet of myself, along with the geek, the bookish, the angry and the pretentious. but i've seen gay men who are out and proud of themselves without putting on a dress -- the gay thing is the least interesting thing about them.



02. afternoon insanity.

a group of women were chatting near my workstation. i want to throw a bomb at them because:

1. they are standing in the middle of an aisle intersection, therefore they are blocking 4 aisles.
   
   
2. they wouldn't bother lowering their voices, like i'd be interested in hearing their boring weekend plans.

glaring at them while i have a book open in my lap had no effect whatsoever. oh yeah, i was reading a book, taking advantage of the otherwise quiet afternoon to catch up on my reading so for sure they're fucking disturbing me.

the companion they're waiting for finally joined them from the wash room. they spent another three minutes of so chatting about nothing in particular before walking behind my station and towards the door. a meter from the door, they stopped and started talking again for five bleeding minutes before finally remembering that they have to get out.

dog, this place is insane during afternoons.



03. don't stand too close to me.

my personal space could extend to an area with a five-meter radius away from me.

it used to be that i disliked going to work because of some teammates that i didn't get along with. well, we're more civil to each other now and i no longer find them disagreeable like i did before. i could actually talk to some of them and share pleasantries -- which is a good thing, i think. but there's a new bane to my corporate existence: women who hang out near the washrooms.

and then there are those people who would inexplicable stand behind me for no apparent reason.

imagine a row of empty workstations, probably 12 to 15 of them on one side, each computer locked after the users leaves in the morning. by midday, there is only one station left occupied: mine.

i sit three chairs away from an aisle intersection, and maybe 6 chairs away from the door leading to the lobby. the fact that behind me is the main aisle people will have to pass through if they're going to the pantry, washroom or lobby is something i've long accepted as part of the particular position we were assigned to use. it's like accepting that if you live in dubai, you can't get away from being in a dessert.

but why would people choose to stand so close to me during the afternoons, if they have other workstations they could stand next to?

earlier, i became aware of this woman who was carrying a stack of papers standing behind me. it's not like she was spying on my screen; at that time, my screen was locked and i was reading a book.

there would be times when a pair of people talking while walking would halt close behind me and talk for a minute before walking again. call me paranoid, but couldn't they stop five stations away, where it's empty and i couldn't be bothered overhearing their conversations?

yesterday, a group of four people stood behind me discussing various work-related complaints and even sharing juicy gossip about some managers and company executives.

after 10 minutes of overhearing the little group, i saw a supervisor i'm friendly with and asked her to join me in the pantry for some snacks. i relayed a skinny of the talk behind my station. "i found their little group discussion depressing," i told her. couldn't they discuss company dirt someplace more private where it won't be heard by everybody?