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This is the blog of Ian Rosales Casocot. Filipino writer. Sometime academic. Former backpacker. Twink bait. Hamster lover.

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Tuesday, June 28, 2005

entry arrow10:18 AM | Calmness

On a pink CR door on the second floor of Scooby's Silliman Avenue, a graffiti in ballpen ink reads: "Si Mr. Casocot Bayot." The first time I saw that a few months ago, I was struck by my remarkable sense of blah. I just shrugged my shoulder and went on urinating. Because I figured, that's true naman. Why should I get affected by other people's misplaced sense of impropriety? Still, I had to wonder: Was it a disgruntled former student I've given a failing mark? Or an unknown enemy with too much free time and ballpen allowance? Or somebody who takes pleasure in advertising other people's private lives because their own lives have fallen flat with utter ordinariness? But I'm not sure they got to me, though, because I am definitely "out" and I make no bones about it. And calling anybody names, I figure, is always the last resort of a desperate troglodyte. But perhaps my utter calmness springs from the memory of watching this character in Don Roos's The Opposite of Sex played by the always under-appreciated Martin Donovan, who plays a very level-headed gay English teacher. When the film opens, he catches a couple of delinquent boys writing graffiti on the CR mirror. I don't remember what it was exactly that they wrote, but I think it was something like: "Mr. Bill Truitt is a fagot." Of course, Mr. Truitt told the redfaced boys to get to their classroom pronto. And taking the marker they left behind, he proceeded to correct their misspelling: "Mr. Bill Truitt is a faggot" -- like any reliable English teacher would. Then he calmly walked out of the CR. I strive to live under that example of calmness despite the sometime intolerance that surrounds me.

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