Holy hell, I feel like a new man. Almost as if I was born again. It’s a good feeling to roll the stone of illness away and arise as a healthy man. I’m not saying it’s a miracle, but at least I’m not stuck hanging around the house and feeling cross now. Having my freedom to move about resurrected is a blessing that has lifted my spirits. Praise the healing power of faith in the restoration of good health. Alright, I don’t mean to make it sound like a religious experience or anything. Can I get an Amen to that?

Speaking of resurrection, I just had a weird encounter with a ghost from Easter past. I’ve gotten in the habit of doing a quick search to make sure I’ve not used the title for a post previously. Originally, I was going to call this one “Holy Hell”, but I discovered that last May I did a post with that name. The search results also brought up a post from June 2005 I called “And so begins the task“. This is how it begins:

Some things in life just don’t turn out the way we had imagined or intended. And sometimes the consequences for actions and bad decisions are harsh. Hell, devastating. The past few weeks I’ve felt my life spinning out of control and I have felt powerless to do a thing about it. I’m a dreaming man, and dreams for me die hard.

So I have been incredibly sad. Full of regret and remorse and a fair amount of self-loathing.

But that doesn’t change a thing. I have to take responsibility for my mistakes, just as I also must take responsibility for my life, such as it is. I am powerless to change the past. And I can not live in the past.

I know I can be a bit melodramatic at times, but damn, it seems like I must have been going through some serious shit. Except for the life of me, I can’t remember what the hell was going on back then. I thought maybe it was the end of marriage number three, but the timing doesn’t seem right. I had only been in Korea for six months at that point. Things ended with Carol when she declined to join me in Seoul, as we had agreed, after daughter Hillary returned from deployment in Afghanistan. That would have been well after June 2005. No idea what was going on when I wrote that post.

The other thing that stands out is that I quoted Kevin Kim’s Easter meditation: put it down at length in my post. It remains one of my all-time favorites of his, and the coincidence of me coming across it on Easter Sunday sixteen years later is a little mind-boggling.

Since I and a few people I know are all going through a painful period, each of us for various reasons, I thought it might be good to write about “putting it down.”

In Zen Buddhism, the maxim is “don’t make anything.” Your mind is so often the source of your troubles. You choose to face the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune either negatively or positively. Often, at the beginning of a troublesome period in your life, it is difficult to realize how responsible you are for your own choices. It’s easier to shift blame to your surroundings. But ultimately, the healthiest route out of the forest of troubles is to start by looking in a mirror. Behold what’s actually there; don’t needlessly manufacture problems for yourself and others.

I’m not a scriptural literalist, so I don’t believe Jesus rose from the dead. But the story of the passion and resurrection nevertheless holds power for me, because it’s a story about a man who put everything down, including his own life, for the sake of love. How many of us can claim to be ready and willing to do something like that? Not many, I suspect.

Most of us, like little children, cling desperately to our cherished notions, preconceptions, and delusions, unwilling to countenance truth and change. We face the world with fear, and create clever rationales for our spiritual cowardice. In a crisis period, this instinct intensifies. The ego swells to enormous size– everything is about getting hurt, everything is about me, me, me. The world doesn’t understand my pain, and only I am in pain!

I’ve felt like that before. I’ve looked out at a street full of people and wondered why they didn’t see my agony, which was plain as day to me. The world kept right on turning, resisting my egocentric interpretation of it.

And there’s a lesson in that. Life is change, ceaseless change. All we have is this moment. If we try to keep the past with us, we merely create more suffering for ourselves. If we try to hold on to our anger, or our hurt, or whatever it is we’re feeling, we poison ourselves.

It’s better simply to put it all down.

I must have taken Kevin’s words of wisdom to heart–I’ve put whatever it was that was troubling me back then so far down I don’t even remember what it was!

I did go back and look at some of my other posts from that timeframe looking for a clue and didn’t find one. But I did discover this:

In my personal life I am just filling time these days. Last night, my Air Force buddy, Jeff, called and interrupted a game of CIV so we could meet at Caroline’s for a couple of beers. We wound up playing darts. I can’t remember the last time I’ve tried to hit a dart board, but it has probably been over 20 years ago. I assumed my darts would be worse than my pool, but surprisingly I played pretty well. Not well enough to win (Jeff is really good), but most of the time it came down to who got the last bullseye first. I really enjoyed myself and I’m thinking with some practice I might actually be a decent player.

So, there you have it. I began my darts “career” on June 16, 2005. What a life!

Enough with the past, the future is now! Since I was feeling better by yesterday afternoon, and noting that my fever had be gone for 36 hours, I deemed it safe for me to venture out of the house for some, um, exercise. I took it easy on myself and did the short walk to Baloy Beach. Then I saw the floating bar and thought “why not?”. I told myself I would make sure to practice social distancing, just in case. And that’s just what I did!

It was late in the afternoon on a Saturday and the floater was in full swing. I secured a seat at the far end of the bar and safely observed the goings-on. The first thing I noticed was the crowd was not the usual locals I’m used to seeing around. Quite a few of them were actually young looking (yeah, that stands out in a community of retired fuckers) and it appeared they had brought their own womenfolk with them, much to the chagrin of the local bargirls present, no doubt.

Turns out the other guests on the floating bar had come up from Angeles City, which is currently on full lockdown. That means no bars or restaurants are open at all. I’m hearing reports from around town that it was a booming weekend for the Barretto bars as those with the means made their escape from AC. Good for them!

I wasn’t going to push my luck (or anyone else’s) so I confined myself to my seat in the open air floater. I don’t think it gets much safer than that. Had myself some beers and did what I do best–watched the sun go down.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I woke up feeling healthy and refreshed. I figured the best way to celebrate was a nice morning walk. Wanna join me?

Thanks for coming along. Its nice to feel normal again. Not like this guy:

…but it’s free.

I’m not sure you could squeeze any more emptiness into a day than I managed to do yesterday. Never left the house. Didn’t drink a beer. Slept for eleven and a half hours, pretty much double my daily dose. As for walking, here’s what my Fitbit had to say:

Comparatively speaking, I feel practically normal today. Whatever in the hell that is, I did the dog walk and was considering a modest morning hike, but then decided to not push myself today. I want this over and done with, once and for all. I think I’m close.

Outside the walls of my comfortable prison, the world appears to be going on as it always has. Or at least the begging requests (hungry and/or sick kids seem to be this week’s theme) continue apace. For the most part, I just ignore them and that seems to get the message across. I got a new one from Rose Ann this week that illustrates the mentality of some of these gals.

Some quick background on Rose, I met her long ago when she was working at Cheap Charlies. I wrote about the time I happened upon her outside of work:

Some long-ago day I was out on one of my walks and passing through one of the poorer sections of town. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a young woman’s backside. As I enjoyed the view she turned around and gave me a big smile. “Hello, John,” she said. I was dumbfounded and had no idea who she was. Seeing my confusion, she told me “I work at Cheap Charlies”. So, it took me a few visits before I could find that ass face again, but ever since I’ve enjoyed sharing a drink with her.

Anyway, I’ve always been a little sweet on her and I still occasionally see her when i pass through the neighborhood on my hikes. She’s not been back to Cheap Charlies since the early days of the pandemic. She used to have an Australian “boyfriend” sending her support, but I guess that’s ended now (her Facebook status says “single” again). I know she has a couple of kids and I’m pretty sure she has a Filipino boyfriend/husband. Of course, none of that is any of my business, but she does occasionally initiate contact out of the blue. Usually when she wants or needs something.

Several months ago she was looking for work–did I need a housekeeper? I told her I have a live-in helper, but my masseuse had recently moved and I was looking for a replacement. She said she didn’t know how to do massage, but I told her that her shoulder rubs in Cheap Charlies were always very nice. She made it clear she wasn’t interested though, and that was that. This week I get a message saying her kids are hungry and she would like me to wire her P2500. I ignored the request. Later she came back asking for P1000, but I still wasn’t budging.

Then she got a little smarter, she actually chatted me up some. Asked about hiking, teased me about bringing her cookies, and the like. I invited her to join me on a hike, but she gave me a “some other time” response. Okay then. “Oh, by the way, can you loan me 500 pesos so I can buy food?” Sure, I told her, you gonna come by the house to pick it up? (we are 15 minutes apart on foot). “Can you wire the money?” No was my response, and I haven’t heard from her since.

That’s the part I don’t get. Why play me for a sucker? If you really need money for your hungry kids, come on over and give me a lousy massage and I’ll give you some cash. If you find the thought of touching me disgusting, then at least act like we are friends–join me on a hike, make me feel special. If that ain’t worth it to you, the bring your pathetic self to my house and pick up the cash in person. I live closer than any of the money exchange places you want me to wire it to. Why should I have to go through that hassle to give you money?

Anyway, that’s the latest example. Things must be tough, there have been several others.

In what I think is unrelated news, I learned a new term today: solo polyamory:

It described a person who is romantically involved with many people but is not seeking a committed relationship with anyone. What makes this different from casual dating is that they’re not looking for a partner, and the relationship isn’t expected to escalate to long-term commitments, like marriage or children. More important, the relationship isn’t seen as wasted time or lacking significance because it doesn’t lead to those things.

Hmm, kind of like my “friends with benefits” charity program. Honestly though, I think there are always strings attached. I’m pretty sure Joy wants more than I’m giving, both emotionally and financially, but she’s trying to figure out how to get there from here. You can’t. I’m sure she’ll figure that out soon enough. I’m not totally satisfied either, but it’s the best option available at the moment for a polyamorous bastard like me.

And that’s about all I’ve got for today. Well, other than this:

My calendar promised me that I was going to have a good Friday. It hasn’t turned out that way. I have actually slept more than I’ve been awake today. And even after the naps, I don’t feel refreshed at all. I’ve been complaining about low energy levels for several days now, but I’ve never experienced anything like this before. Even if I wanted to go out tonight, and I don’t–that would be irresponsible, I honestly don’t think I could make the ten-minute walk to the nearest bar. I expect I’ll remain homebound at least until I can start feeling asymptomatic. I really, really hope that will happen sometime over the weekend, but perhaps I’m being overly optimistic. We’ll see.

As I mentioned in the comments to an earlier post, my fever has at least dropped back to the normal range. I’ve checked it several times today, and although it fluctuates some, it has not risen above 37.5 (it’s 37.1 as I write this). Other than the lethargy and some light-headedness, the other warning signs of COVID still don’t seem to be in evidence. Well, I’ve had a cough, albeit a wet one, and that’s pretty normal for me with my damaged lungs. So, I don’t think I have a lot to worry about, but I need to be cautious so as not to spread whatever this is to innocent bystanders.

And for the record, there are places I can go to get a quick and easy COVID-test. My fear remains, however, that a positive test result would create a shit storm of contact tracing and my potential confinement in a quarantine facility. That’s a nightmare I don’t want to endure. I’ll get through this at home.

I already miss the great outdoors!

I’d hate to miss Monday’s Hash and break my consecutive hikes streak. Even in the best case scenario, I just don’t see me climbing Easter mountain though. Hopefully, I can do my own trail out to the On-Home, which would keep my record intact. We’ll see.

Back in the “good ol’ days”, like last night, I’d be looking forward to some beers in one of my favorite venues. I did the newest bar in town yesterday, and this is an actual text message exchange I had:

You out?

Yes.

Where are you?

It doesn’t matter.

Okay, fine. Be that way!

And yes, I did point out to the owner that he’s missing an apostrophe. Heh! A bar with bad punctuation. I should fit right in!

It’s funny and sad I guess. We take our normal routines for granted until something happens and everything changes. Still, I expect this is only gonna be a short term setback. Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got ’till it’s gone… Right, Joni Mitchell?

I woke up feeling so special today. Not sure what’s up with that.

First things first–YES, COMMENTS ARE ALLOWED AND WELCOME HERE! Don’t let WordPress or whatever is responsible for saying otherwise dissuade you. I heard from a regular commenter this week that my platform rejected his comment. As of yesterday, he was able to comment again. I turned off one of my spam filters and added the “s” to my HTTP address, and hoped that would resolve future issues. But today I got this email:

I tried to comment, but there isn’t the verification of reading skills anymore and I got an error saying spam blocked. Anywho, I was going to say that there are probably few that like to pay for sex (even though this is what marriage often is), but that it sounded like you had found a win-win situation. Set boundaries, reinforce them, and be prepared to walk away if she gets crazy. QP1973

Thanks, QP. All I can ask is that you try again. And for anyone else experiencing this problem, please shoot me an email (lngtimegne@aol.com) and let me know. I’ll try and get to the bottom of what is going on.

Not a whole lot else happening around here. Did the group hike yesterday and intentionally asked for a hard climb, just to see how my body would respond. Not well, as it turns out. Just don’t seem to have the lung capacity required to get me to the top without difficulty. That doesn’t bode well for Monday’s Easter mountain hike. We’ll see, I haven’t given up hope quite yet.

I didn’t do darts last night, instead choosing to drink my daily beer ration on the back deck of the Palm Tree resort hotel.

Yeah, I’m funny when you’re drunk.

I apologize for the emptiness of this post. I had good intentions, but they day got away from me before I knew it. Started this morning when once again, I had to take a nap BEFORE my daily walk. Then another nap when I got back. And one more nap before I sat down to write this post. And now I have business in town. So, I’ll do a better job posting tomorrow. Or try to anyway.

I really need to get my shit together, that’s for sure.

Hopefully, that’s all I’ve been spreading lately. I was surprised when a vehicle and driver I didn’t recognize pulled up in front of the house to take me grocery shopping yesterday. I found out later that my regular driver, Danny, isn’t feeling well. With Linda’s recently reported illness, that means everyone in the car on the trip to Angeles City has been under the weather. I can’t speak for the others, but I still don’t believe my ailment is COVID-related. Perhaps I’m being willfully ignorant in that regard, but I don’t think so based on what I’ve read. And I’m not even tempted to get a test, the accuracy of which is at best suspect.

So then, my big news from yesterday was the second physical meeting with Joy, my new friend with benefits. We’ve been chatting on a daily basis and that’s gone reasonably well. Joy has hinted around at some things I’m not comfortable with, but backs down right away when I reject her overtures. For example, she asked a few days ago if she could spend the night with me. I told her no, I was not interested in that kind of relationship. She played it off like she was teasing, and that’s fine. She seems to have got the message that whatever this is, it is never going to be more than this.

Anyway, Joy arrived at the appointed hour. I had promised her some lunch, so I asked her if she would like to eat my balls? She said she would later, but now could she have lunch please? Yeah, that really happened. She laughed when I put a bowl of meatballs in front of her. I have noticed, generally speaking, that for a purported “English-speaking” country, the level and quality of spoken English can be disappointing. I’ve noted that Joy and I often don’t understand each other, which can be a little frustrating. Says the man who speaks almost no Tagalog.

After lunch, we went upstairs. Joy offered me a massage and I, of course, accepted. She did a decent job for someone without training. When the massage was completed, she removed her clothes and laid down next to my naked body. And then nature took its course, and I must say, we synched very nicely and had a mutually enjoyable session of lovemaking. Well, it wasn’t about “love”, but you know what I mean.

Once the deed was done, we got dressed and came back downstairs and had a beer. I gave her the standard fee of 3000 pesos, then gave her an additional 2000 so she could have a nice birthday party for her daughter later this week. She seemed genuinely moved and gave me a big hug. We finished our beers and then she left to go home.

So, what is my assessment of our most recent encounter? As I mentioned, the sex was good. Better than good, actually, and I think part of that is because it wasn’t strictly a “pay for play” proposition. Also, after a month or so of low-intensity chats, we at least have a nice comfort level with one another. In that sense at least, my friend with benefits strategy paid off. I got some sexual satisfaction and Joy got the rent paid and money for her daughter. Win-win, right? Well, honestly, not quite. I mean, I have no complaints and it felt good to know that I’ve brought some, er, joy into Joy’s life. Still, truth be told it still feels a little hollow and meaningless. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but my almost perfectly executed strategy still leaves me unfulfilled. On the other hand, I’m not dealing with all the baggage that comes with having a girlfriend, so maybe I should just count my blessings and move on. It is what it is.

*Hat tip to commenter Bob for suggesting the title for today’s post.

I honestly have no idea what ails me, but I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired. Yeah, whatever it was, or is, is back. The worst aspect of my condition is that I just don’t have any energy. This morning I had to do an abbreviated dog walk, came back home, then took a nap. I was up for an hour or so, then went upstairs and slept some more. Woke up, checked the computer, then decided to watch some TV. I fell asleep on the couch. That’s not like me at all and I hope I get over this lethargy soon. I need to walk!

Speaking of which, I did manage to get my Friday group hike in yesterday. Only four of us altogether, and Troy took the lead. He’s the Hare on Monday so we did part of his trail in reverse. I think we did around 7K, but by the time we got back to Alta Vista, I was whupped. I didn’t even have the energy to hoof it over to Cheap Charlies, so I invited the group to my place for beers and chicken nuggets. It was a good finish to the hike.

Last night I headed over to Alley Cats to play in the dart tourney. Once I arrived, I just wasn’t feeling it somehow. Not sure if that is a manifestation of my illness or something else. Finished my beer and left. I don’t think I’m going to play tonight either. Just not motivated.

I did, of course, enjoy me some Friday night beverages. Cheap Charlies to start, then over to Palm Tree, Went next door to Mango’s, and brought home some roast chicken for dinner. In bed before 9:00 as usual, but I slept poorly–a 59 sleep score on my Fitbit. I’m usually in the high 70s.

Anyway, it’s bound to get better one day soon.