I live in a city, barely. A doubtful title, a title entangled to a lot of excuses such as "component city" or "class B" city, etc. So I guess it's a city by default--a 'why not?' inspired reasoning concocted by the rising aesthetics of beauty pageants borne from the very mouths of todays glutathione inspired muses of the masses. Something to do with politics and business, I guess. Somehow, we are licensed to blame everything to politics and business, the business of politics, the political business, so on and so forth. Anyway, it's same as having a title. It pays more to have a dr. or a bunch of abbreviated ego-boosters next to your name. I guess, welcome to our city attracts more asses to shit investments than you are entering a municipality. Everybody knows that the word town is almost a synonym of boredom. So I'm here in a barely-city town, in a district by the sea, in one of the poorest regions of this poor nation. Talk about poorest of the poor. Where the hell does poor come from anyway, so I can probably invent a word that says "poorer than poor."
From the TV I can hear the news of the day. 6th place in the SEA games. I'm tired of wondering or being surprised. How do I explain this? Indonesia leads because it's a bigger country--a Chinese analogy of epic breadth--more people, more athletes to choose from--I can see this segueing into the joke of every Chinese person jumping at the same time tilting the world. A feasible consolation which may earn nods and likes in inferior sport threads and forums, only here comes Singapore. Sigh. Richer then, more steroids? What?! Better gyms, more muscular guys. I guess our country can better boast in anything but rankings. I saw UP slip down to obscure ranks in the Universities in the world; I heard the caves in Palawan didn't make it to the 7 new wonders of nature; our beauty queens will win only by internet voting. Ofcourse we had lost some, but we also won some--like the internet voting thing. So, okay if that's how it's going to be the start of a chicken or egg debate.
Another daub of salt would be that I write and think in a language three levels down. There's English, there's Tagalog and then my language. Within the language, a sub-contest of dialects, and guess what, the dialect I write and think in is the less popular dialect of the less popular language. What did I ever do to be so--defeated? Loser, you'd agree would be the more precise term.
Maybe I've held on too long to Dylan's prophesy that the loser now will be later to win, or maybe the times aren't changing at all. Yeah, I guess I'm leaving out a lot of happier days, but I guess when you're doing something as unnatural as jogging in place, not to mention stupid, out of the gym context, say in your father's office, where I am now, you don not become optimistic at all. And you use a lot of "I guess", I guess.
So now I jog in place, panting, watching things around me. Excited about the realization. I jog in place thinking about progress, thinking that I guess I should win something--while the horizon of a wall and barbed wire remains as sure as there will be bloody mutilations in New Year's eve. My minutes are almost done. I've done something, I don't really like, but badly needed to be done. Afterall, it happens to be the dawn of the age of health in my little community. You see, more and more people 'happens' to be dying of heart attacks, crippled by stroke, blinded by diabetes--it's the rage; in panic, the survivors walk, run, bike around town, saving themselves with their running shoes and mountain bikes. Maybe I'll jog in place more. That's what it is said in the fitness site: workout some more. The only thing good about losing all the time, and finally accepting it as destiny, birthright, is that victory comes without even trying to win. You learn to keep yourself from giving a damn about those gold stars and 1's and line of nines, like keeping your hands off of that extra helping of that greasy excuse of a meal. I feel for Pacquiao, it must've sucked big time for him that after working his ass off in training just to give Marquez a decent beating, and succeeded, it still wasn't good enough. Fuck, I'm a minute past my target time, and giving all I've got. My lungs are aching, my left calf is on the brink of cramping, I can feel my knee joints crumbling like bread crumbs, and I hate my fugly reflection on the glass windows, but the sweat feels good, it reminds me of a long-winding wild sex in a suffocating room, a vindication, a promise that after all this work, I will feel good. I deserved it, every bit of it.
