I've been burning my cell phone's text credits these past couple of weeks, but I don't mind very much. I've kept company with new people along the way and I'm glad my phone isn't just for emergencies anymore.

I know it's a risk exposing my identity and personality to practical strangers, but somehow I haven't been struck by the misfortune of blending in bad company. The whole experience has made me a little more adventurous and sociable, even only through electronic means. Even though Panjee Tapales-Lopez wrote in last week's Philippine Star that the only tangible relationships are those founded on trust and personal acquaintance (and consequently not those founded in the one-dimensional field of e-mail or text), I've been lucky enough to meet people online and off --- and somehow make a good friendship, or at least a functional acquaintance.

A Cynthia Alexander song somehow came to mind while I was thinking about this:
I have seen/ I have been to places far and deep/ in my mind/ Only to find/ Comfort in your strangeness...
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I've been talking to friends and blockmates (they shall remain anonymous -- I respect their privacy) who've had philandering fathers that can't quite keep their commitment to their original families. Some of these fathers are staying with other women; others have another family to tend, not leaving the original family what is due them; still others even have many families with which they have sired children with. Listening to their stories makes my own problems with my dad feel miniscule and mundane.

People say that there are more women than men in this world. My dad used to tell me it was two girls to one guy (that was back in his day, thirty years ago). In college alone, there are only 6 of us guys in my block of 42. Maybe it's denying the doctrine of nature for us males (I hear it's to have as much sex and sire as many children as possible), but I don't see the point of leaving families, children, spouses and other such commitments behind.

Maybe it's the effect of all these women's lib/feminism movements and "girl power" statements, but sometimes I don't see the point of being male at all. We're lazy, lethargic, lying creatures. Most of us don't know how to swallow our own pride, myself included. Most of all, it seems the sole biological purpose of our existence is to impregnate women. Hearing all these stories about philandering fathers and incestuous uncles makes me wonder so. We don't even do a good job of rearing children -- almost universally it's the moms who get that credit, unless the dads are single parents.

Don't even get me started on how humans are supposed to perpetuate without men -- human cloning's almost around the corner. I watched the anime VanDread a couple of months ago, and it explored the idea of men and women living in separate worlds in the future. Baby boys were essentially cloned and mixed up in machines, while women had families consisting of parents ('Homme,' the egg donor, and 'Femme,' the pregnant mom). After watching the scenario, I would say the women were better off.

I know my line of thinking right now's rather sexist (actually, it's sexist in reverse -- Webster's says sexism favors men), but this is just what I've been thinking. You guys don't even have to agree with me.
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Thanks so much Pam. Good luck on your gig tomorrow.