carbonara, tequila, and swinger couples.

i got an SMS from edel saturday afternoon asking if i was free that night. she's heading over to rye's place and she'd be preparing carbonara. what was not said (but was implied in the message anyways; i mean this was edel and rye, after all) was that there will be drinks. it's been a while since i last joined edel and rye for some drinks, and it seemed like my sunday morning plans are not pushing through anyways, so i figured i might as well go. edel and i agreed to meet past seven, near the jeepney stop just outside pembo.

what we weren't expecting was the rain. edel wasn't too hot when she arrived because she can't find her umbrella before she left, so all she had was a jacket that wasn't even water-proof. still, a little rain would not stop us from drinking so off we went to quezon city to meet up with rye.

the SM north area has changed significantly since last i was there. first, the annex buildings were under construction so buses no longer unload in that area. the train ended some 500 meters from the mall; edel and i decided we'd take a bus for the remaining distance instead of walking under the rain. but the bus did not stop in front of the mall. we ended up getting off at the next stop, which is prolly 2 kilometers beyond SM. we had to take a cab back to north avenue.

we saw rye while edel and i were shopping for ingredients in the supermarket. it turned out sonny and shelly were able to make it too, so that means more people for company later. after we're done shopping, rye called a cab that took us to their place, ignoring the long line of people who had been waiting at the cab stand. we tried to ignore the angry mutter of people behind us when we got in the cab.

rye's place was in the middle of that labyrinthine area of quezon city called project 8. it took us a good many twists and turns before we found their house which was tucked within a small alley. once there, i helped edel with the pretty long preparation of the carbonara (there was only a single-burner stove that we could use). despite edel having to repeatedly wash the pan three times because of burned butter (we found it rather difficult to control the stove's flame) and edel having drank two cans of beer already, she was able to finish the carbonara in the end. and it was a really tasty dish, too.

rye got us tequila (which made me really happy); before that, rye, sonny, shelly and edel were already enjoying the starting-to-freeze beer. rye and i were arguing about the word "mezcal"; i insisted that the "mezcal" of tequila is different from the source of mescaline. (and wikipedia said i was right.)

eventually, were were joined by rye and his girlfriend mayette's college friends. they (well, mostly rye) called themselves "the swinger couples" and they did look like that -- having been friends for more than seven years, they were all comfty with each other (and each other's spouses). sonny was actually expressing his interest to "join their group." actually, seen without their kids, they looked like ordinary young unmarried couples. edel thought it might be because all of them started their families young, so they are now enjoying the single-like life they didn't experience before. i thought that with these people, there wasn't a distinct transition between the unmarried, "un-domestic" life they should have been living and the sudden domesticity they had to learn to adapt to when they were at a young age; hence, those two kinds of lives merged for these people. it's a complex and interesting arrangement.

at one point during the evening, i overheard someone asking in disbelief if i was really gay. i guess somebody mentioned something to somebody else, and (as it is often the case) someone would ask, "is he really gay?"

"do you want to see a photo of my boyfriend?" i answered. apparently, they were fooled by the goatee. or it could be the manly mane, as dean would put it. anyways, reactions like that never fail to amuse me.

actually, there was one guy among the friends whose name was harold (though everybody would refer to him as papa harold) whom everyone (including his wife of seven years) thought was gay. rye and mayette were already hinting about him even before he arrived: his family lived only three houses away, but he will insist on wearing shoes before going to rye's and mayette's. when he arrived, we saw a tall, slender guy who was good-looking in the cosmopolitan fashion. he wore a mostly-un-tucked fashionable designer shirt with the front slightly tucked in to display his belt buckle. his hair was carefully dishevelled and he had stubble that were carefully trimmed to make them look like they were just left growing, but in a good-looking way of course.

so, um, he looked kinda gay. i sneaked into the kitchen and spoke with edel and shelly a few minutes after papa harold came in. "is papa harold straight?" i asked them. they wouldn't believe he is, either. mayette brought the subject up again by morning; everybody among their friends have wondered about the guy's sexuality for a long time now, not the least his wife. i said maybe he is gay. but maybe he also wanted to have a family and kids of his own. to be honest, i envy harold.

while the parents were drinking, their kids were up playing video games in the bedroom. when we finished the tequila, we had a bottle of brandy opened. that went on until three in the morning, when an already-drunk rye scared the kids; there were some quiet argument, while some of the parents took the kids and had them brought to bed.

i guess i passed out around that time, waking up a few hours later. it took me fifteen minutes, a few trips to the toilet, and two cups of tea to clear my head before i was fit to travel back to makati. it's been a while since i got that drunk.

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mezcal is the general term for distilled alcoholic drinks produced from the agave plants, excluding tequila (which, although made from blue agave, is pretty special to the mexican standard authority).

mescaline is extracted from some species of cactii (such as peyote) and some types of beans, like acacia (Acacia berlandieri).

also, it turned out that the drink with the worm is mezcal and not tequila; mexican standards authority prohibits adding insects or larvae to tequila. (back)