The Paostian Deal

... I'm gonna pretend to pass out if I don't actually do out of stress.
... I'm gonna throw my mechanically impotent computer chair at a psychologically impotent co-worker.
... I'm gonna cry of a scripted heartbreak.
... I'm gonna laugh at a scripted vengeance.
... I'm gonna frown at a frustrating outcome.
... I'm gonna laugh harder because of a recalled joke about dumb colegialas.
... I'm gonna finish "reading" a friend's website. Then think on how to salvage it even at least for a favor I asked him.
... I'm gonna drink my 7th glass of water for the day. Then pass it on to the toilet.
... I'm gonna check my hair for the umpteenth time today.
... I'm gonna ponder on what I'll have my stylist to do for my hair.
... I'm gonna pretend to give up and forgive people who try to hurt me.
... I'm gonna give up and pretend to forgive people who actually hurt me.
... I'm gonna check updates on another friend's blog before txting him how pathetic he is.
... I'm gonna sigh again for the troubles I got myself into.
... I'm gonna weigh the possible expenses on how to get myself out of them
... I'm gonna play How deep is your love? and do wishful thinking about... about...
... I'm gonna yell my guts out and curse a stray dog into oblivion.
... I'm gonna regret having gone to Alabang right after a killer storm hit the country last year.
... I'm gonna check my list and count the few friends I have left.
... I'm gonna wish I didn't go to the fat barbers back in grade school.
... I'm gonna regret not getting the number of the cute seatmate at the bust from Ortigas last night.
... I'm gonna freak out because I forgot to email something to someone and my pay for this month depends on it.
... I'm gonna take a deep breath and try to return to living.

Better yet, slap me. But first enlighten me: Do drunk, stray dogs have the right to work with homo sapiens and screw up while doing it, and we can NEVER get upset?

You know how to reach me.

The other day I ended up hanging out with this small group of people where each of them was, um, generally out of place -- she's a neutoric control freak while she's like a the sanest person in a mental institution. They're like inseparable and yeah, there were only the three of us that night, but I didn't mind. Better than hanging out with a dismal "friend" who has nothing better to do than rant about her umpteenth break-up on a Saturday night while you wish a meteorite would end everybody's suffering. So I went with the two ladies. At first I hesitated with the idea but, like what one of my co-editor's principles says, it's always good to try something new.

And good it was.

I've only known them for less than a year -- a fairly sane friend introduced them to me some time in August. Several weeks and some scientific magic later, I began hanging out with them -- in groups, of course, as I'm already crazy as it is so I've never chosen to hang out with just the two of them. I was a virgin until last Saturday, so to speak.

As we sat there with our half-empty coffee cups and their nicotine rolls, naturally, we talked. About Lots Of Things. It seemed the night and their cigar packs were not enough for everything. But more than that, I was surprised to discover that they're not so, um, out of place, after all. They were people too -- not as normal as basic anatomy would dictate -- but more or less, human like the rest of us.

They simply didn't have friends. Or a nice, adequate set of them, at least.

While Weng, the smoker, T.A.L.K.E.D., I noticed something new with her. She was excited. Thrilled. Like she came back from a non-Earth dimension and was itching to tell someone all about it. Steph, the heavier smoker who love the term "nicotine rolls", on the other hand was just as jolly that night. As that famous line goes: I've never seen them like that before. For the first time, they were having fun -- at the company of somebody other than each other.

I'm no angel or hero. Heck, I'd sneak out on them had I had a freakoverload. More like, it was a BIT overwhelming to finally see the real people behind the strange, introvert attitudes. For what it's worth, I felt happy for them that night... because I knew they were.

For six years, we're made to understand the different parts of speech. But among them -- literacy and technical know-what aside -- adjective and adverbs are the most annoying.

The modifiers. Because of them, we became selfish brats. They turned us into greedy and insatiably expectant creatures and they forever blocked contentment's way to our doorsteps. Because of them, we can't anymore shut our traps because after six freaking years we now always know better. We learned to never settle. We learned to define.

Which is very... irritating. They sucked us into through this blackhole and now we're living in an ought-to-matic world.
You should go out because they might think you're a loser if you just stay in.
Why aren't you joining us? Don't you like us?
Why aren't you wearing red today? It's World Blood Day!
You know, you didn't have to be upset, even though your friend used your money and lost 60-grand in the casino without telling you. You're friends, anyway!
Don't go for take-outs. You're not a yaya!
Buy a couple more of these icky but fragrant lotion -- celebrities do!
You ought to live according to these gaddamned rules because everyone does and if you don't you're a pathetic excuse for a human being!

See? Everyone expects one another to live according to these "natural" guidelines. Because everyone now knows better. You shouldn't have done that because... because... because you shouldn't have! There goes free will. Today, we can no longer stroll alone or we'll be labeled lepers. We can no longer have simple pleasures because everyone else is living in extravagance and we'll be decapitated if we don't follow. And we can no longer keep quiet for its simplest sake -- we need to at least make a sound so as not to appear autistic.

I'm not shunning our freedom of expression a.k.a. "right to comment". Nor am I rallying for to tolerate baseless, noisy merrymaking that is staging a show for selfish attention. Just that, sometimes neurosis/cynicism/paranoia gets the best of us and drives us to worry/doubt/break down when we absolutely need not to just because someone does something out of the ordinary (i.e. the expected behavior).

Be grateful technology has offered us convenience our circa-Ice Age ancestors could even pronounce. But leave it to the machines to be automatic. Because it's what they do.