A Positive Christmas

It was Friday, but I took the day off from work. I still woke up early though, to take a trip to the Social Hygiene Clinic to get the results of my Quantitative RPR. Nothing alarming, just part of the monitoring for my syphilis.

From there I headed straight to my favorite barber who gave me my signature semi-kalbo, after which I treated myself to a hairspa. Having not that much hair left and having a hairspa doesn’t make sense, but I mostly do it for the massage that comes with it. It borders between being extremely relaxing and slightly arousing. I don’t even know if he’s really good at it, or if I just find him that hot. It feels so good that I get chills down my spine. And so much chills that I get confused whether I’m truly aroused, or just need to pee. Mmm.

It was just 11:00 am. So did I take a leave just to get my lab results and treat myself to a haircut? No, of course not. That was just the beginning. All in preparation for a big day, my first Christmas Party at the RITM.

I was feeling good today. My face was cooperating, with my breakouts taking a bit of a break. Even my sniffles were in on it, as my runny nose held up for the day. Okay so the haircut was half because I needed it, and half because I wanted to make a good first impression. Good impression, my ass! Was I planning to flirt?! No, not planning. Let’s just say I was open to the possibility. No, no. More like I needed to feel confident. Whatever.

I was able to convince U to go, so we went together, buying some pitchi-pitchi and some bread and dip on the way, for our contribution to the potluck celebration. Coming from all the way north, and going all the way south, it was expected that we’d be late. Let’s just say call time was 10:00 am, and we got there at 1:30 pm. Talk about Filipino time.

Walking in to the tune of Hep-Hep-Hooray being played by some of the pusits, I carefully stayed unnoticed while I looked around, wondering if I’d see someone I wasn’t expecting to see. Someone who I’d made contact with, who I didn’t know had HIV, too. Fortunately, other than the guys and some gals I’d met at the RITM and San Lazaro before, our resident counselor, the Doctor and the Ates, no other familiar faces. A big Whew! from me.

After a run down the buffet, I sat down and faded into my wall flower mode. Quiet, insignificant, observant, hiding behind a huge column in the middle of the hall, away from all the action. I looked the crowd over a second time between bites, checking everyone out. I have been asked by others if there really are a lot of hot guys there. I just tease, saying SECRET! I’m sorry you couldn’t make it! Hehehe.

And, though it was a party, and as much as I’d liked to share the experience, I didn’t expect any pictures to be taken. I myself opted against bringing a camera with me, from fear of the pictures having to look like this...
That aint lookin' so Christmasy, huh? Hahahahaha.

But more importantly, other than a couple of guys I noticed in face masks, everyone looked every bit normal and ordinary as the rest of the world. There were guys, there were girls, even guys who looked like girls... nothing new to me. There were kids running around, some RITM personnel hanging out and some affected friends in the mix, so much so that no one could probably identify correctly who was HIV positive and who wasn’t. I couldn’t tell myself just by looking.

I just had a moment of bother when one guy was introduced to me. It was a guy who I’ve mentioned in one of my posts before, and not in an entirely good way. Let’s just say I gave my honest opinion not expecting to meet him face to face. But he was nice enough to smile and say something to the tune of yeah, I know him already, which left me speechless. I realize I’m treading the waters between fame and notoriety as The Blogger. Good thing I snapped out of the paranoid spell soon enough.

From across the room, I noticed someone looking my way. It was Baby Nathan’s dad. He cradled the Baby who seemed frightened by all the noise, flashing his familiar smile. I was caught off guard by how he recognized me from that far away, but I nodded and smiled back, and understood, they were doing okay.

A young lady walked by, a couple of minutes later, shook my hand, said thank you and walked off. I later realized she was the Baby’s mom, who I was seeing and meeting for the first time. It was surprising how young she looked, but again refreshing how positive her aura was, even belting out more than a handful of songs on the videoke machine.

Daddy walked over to my corner a bit later, updating me that the Baby was doing fine. The Baby was taken off the ARVs that were causing him fevers, and was shifted to my same pills probably, which he apparently melts in his mouth like candy. Yum. I thought to myself, now he’s really getting his childhood back. I couldn’t help but smile.

Several videoke songs, a fabulous production number from a t-back bearing babe, a couple of hours more of food, zero word from work, an exchanging of gifts, some bulge- and finger-related speculations about my penis size – something I’ve come to be comfortable with and proud of, ahem, ahem – and a refill of my ARV supply later, the crowd had thinned and it was time to go.

U and I headed back up north the way we came, had dinner at the mall – like we didn’t get enough nutrition already – and chatted over some hot chocolate into the night, until we went our own ways at about 10:30 pm.

Looking the day over, the Grinch in me has to admit that it was a positive day. And if this, being my first Christmas party of the year, is a sign of things to come, I think I’ll have a happy Christmas this year.

Christmas is supposed to be about family, and be it as small as Baby Nathan’s family, or as big as the community that came out to celebrate, I felt how it was to have a family. It’s only today that I can finally say that I do feel the spirit of Christmas.

A Positively Merry Christmas to us all!