It's true - and I should be embarrassed to admit it - the only place I get to see outside of home and work these days is the gym (I call it that but it makes me feel more dignified to call it a 'health club' when I think of the monthly membership fees).

I should feel sorry for myself but the gym isn't so bad, really... there's the occasional celebrity sighting, the occasional girl to observe through one's trusty peripheral vision (albeit sometimes deceitful), the occasional males who have the dubious ability to gracefully prance about like spring lambs during group exercise... and don't even get me started on the locker room (there's a lot of material there for a another update). I like to observe people and I just say that because I'm socially inept - looking at people is just something I've grown to like because it's really all I can do sometimes.

There weren't any celebrities at the gym - ehh health club - this morning, nor were there any interesting members of the fair sex, and thankfully, no expertly trained male belly dancers (fairy sex?). There was this one person who caught my undue attention though, and he was very manly, mainly because he sported very manly facial hair. It wasn't merely a 70s porn 'stache because I think it almost qualified as a handlebar, with curled tips and everything. His hair was thinning, not unusual for someone who's easily past the mid-thirties, and he wore circular wire-rimmed glasses. Watching him do his shoulder presses, I started hearing the national anthem inside my head - God bless the Philippine islands... I was looking at a national hero.

It made me painfully insecure to look at his macho 'stache. The few attempts I tried growing a mustache, you see, only resulted in spotty growths of uneven bristles that made it almost seem that I had a rare skin disease on my snout (even worse, it made it appear that I had a snout). I found out that the longest I could go without shaving was three days... not shaving beyond that was already risking a trip to the leprosarium.

Moustaches do make men look more manly (women too, I discovered). However, it also make them look funny (women too, I discovered). One is often tempted to laugh at mustachioed men except one rarely dares doing so in fear of the mustache's manly emanations. I found myself in that situation earlier - to laugh or not to laugh. I thought about it very hard and noted that: 1.) he was lifting heavier dumbbells than those I usually did, 2.) he was gritting his teeth and was sporting a visible vein in his forehead from overly concentrating on his reps, and 3.) God bless the Philippine islands, he really looked like a national hero. Laughing at him would have amounted to high treason and could have seen me deported to a Chinese port.

That encounter made me feel proud to be a Filipino citizen, albeit one from the lower Chinese classes. It made me think of how far we have gotten as a people, and it also made me think that under their overcoats, our forefathers must really have well developed deltoids. Truly, not only was it enough for them travel the world and be educated in letters, arts, and sciences, they also had to culturally engage themselves in the fine art of bodybuilding, all to instill pride in our people and to help rid us of unwelcome Spanish involvements (I hear they're evil).

I was tempted to introduce myself to the guy because he probably saw me observing him after all that time, except I didn't know what to say. He was probably just a stage actor who takes part in historical reenactments or a model who poses for Bangko Sentral bank notes. He was also probably used to getting stared at, because who wouldn't, after all, get consistently stared at when wearing a handlebar moustache in this age (Freddie Mercury doesn't count because: 1.) he's a rock star, and 2.) he's dead). I left the area after my workout and hit the showers, thankful for the encounter. It was just like a field trip to Fort Santiago only with dreadful techno music and a juice bar. History is really everywhere. Like they say, the Filipino is worth developing firm pectorals for.

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