i tried to stay away from AS. but with ash, niña and mao, we sort of, got lost in the wave.

i didn't plan it this time. my conscience's clean. i never intended to be there. i admit having invited several friends over to watch but i never said i'll be in the frontlines with them. i thought i'd just escort them to a nice spot with great view then, be right behind everybody else, away from the commotion, away from the hearty screaming and fake gasps.

but i was--- the frontlines. i was there. right beside the cameras and news reporters and the excited freshies, and the rooting gays, and the gay-looking, overly accessorized, inch-thick cake covered *tooot* (read: +webster makes bookstore) students. i held mao's phone in my hand, set in video mode, on standby because it took the guys pretty long before they came running about naked. i was pushin against the damned freshies who were nudgin me forward closer the path of the run. gee-wheeze. i felt as if i were one of the fratmen, keepin the crowd from actually smothering or touching or harassing my brothers. beside me, a fratman was also keepin the crowd back. he looked real familiar though it took me sometime before i actually realized who he was, where i'd seen him, et cetera. finally, pp17. he became a seatmate once. i wanted to say, "wow! you're in APO? how fab! good for you!" but of course that would be abnormally homo of me to say something like that so i contented myself with the mere knowledge of who he was and what he was now and instead, asked him which way the guys would be coming from, whether from the left odd wing, the AS walk or the right even wing staircases or the right even wing. he said he doesn't know either (though i bet he does) and it was a secret. right. you'd take out the wonderful element of surprise if you'd spill the vectors.

i stood there, perhaps, for almost a full hour. there were false alarms all the time mind you. one moment everybody would just shriek and you'd think they're there, next moment, activist leaders would start chanting nonconformist rhymes. that sort of stuff. UP. oh man, i love UP. def.

long wait over. they came from the right. i pressed the record button and the phone stored whatever or whoever passed before the lens. i caught my eyes in check before they went blundering over the gorgeous naked bodies in parade. i stared at the ceiling. my thoughts were about how very beautiful the ceiling was. i tried to think of other happy things. i was distracting myself from what was actually occuring there, then. hell, i don't want to see those. not anymore. curiosity quenched last year, remember? move on, get on with your life. forget the trauma. just don't look down. and i didn't. i was a success.

see, i'm clean. i'm not being haunted by horrible images. i know no guilt, i never have, not even since last year. i can at least be proud to say that i never went to see the run with unclean motives. i was there to support APO, great APO, and to bear witness to the bravery the guys branded for a worthy cause. happy 80th anniversary to APO!