One for the Music

Listening to Taylor Swift feels like hanging out with an old friend. The super cool kind who just got back in town from her long tour and hasn't changed one bit. Still nice, even after all the glitz and glamour. Then she keeps on talking about the exciting things that happened to her--her dates with John Mayer, the way she turned down Taylor Lautner, the emotional stress of dealing with Kanye West's shit...and she won't stop talking.

I'm telling you this because my sister reserved three tickets for her concert this February. My sister, her boyfriend, and I. Yes, it's probably going to be weird. And yes, I am obviously the third wheel.

But there's something you have to understand about my sister. When I first found out I was beginning to have feelings for a guy a few years back, I told her immediately. She just got back from Baguio, and I sat with her at once to tell her the story. Thereafter I told her about every single boy that mattered. She wasn't necessarily crazy about it and at times even treated the entire thing with distasteful mockery, but that's how we are. That's how we express our twisted love for each other.

There you go. I'm going to my old friend's concert with my sister and her boyfriend, and it's probably going to be awkward, but who the hell cares. I'm fucking excited.

I'm not listening to her album at the moment though. Because like any friend who keeps on talking about her life alone without even asking how I'm doing, she can get overbearing. I'm listening, currently, to this:

I love Brandon Flowers. I love, LOVE Brandon Flowers.

I like the tone of his voice. I like the fact that he's bisexual and yet happily married with two children. I like how he acts in this video and how weirdly inappropriate it is.

His album is great. Promise. I hope he goes solo for a while, because his music sounds better on his own. I still love the Killers though. How can I forget the time when I tracked down the lyrics to every song of Day and Age and tried to understand what each song meant? The little activity got especially hard when it came to the line, "Are we human or are we dancer?"

At this point I want to thank you for being the most consistent friend as of late. You, my blog, don't act like a bitch when I don't talk to you (even though I talk to you more than I should) . I like how I can act all deep and shallow when I want to, shifting from one extreme mood to the other. And you won't judge me for it. You just listen, and I keep on talking. I should probably stop blogging and start living, because there's mutual exclusivity in the two, but where's the fun in that?

Something Close to Memories

I don’t know if I’m the only one who does, but do you ever stop and recall your earliest childhood memories? I don’t mean stopping in purpose and spending time just recalling. I’m talking about remembering, in a somewhat random twist of event, something that you’re sure happened to you at some point in the past. It’s difficult to completely explain, really. I don’t just recall them; they flood into me like a great rush, coming in all at once…I actually live in them—as if I were back in that time when I first slid down the dinosaur slide and thinking that it was the happiest moment of my life. Or when I was around four years old, I looked up in the sky and thought of how I was probably a protagonist of my own story and everyone else was just there to play along in their subordinate roles…and the realization years later that this was not true: I was not the main character of this world and everyone else had their own equally valid primary roles.

These memories will come one after the other, then I get zapped back to the present and I almost wouldn’t believe that I am years older and that so much has passed.

I remember how shit scared I was, watching Calvento Files with everyone in the family engrossed in their seats. The story was about a girl and his family, all of whom were ambushed by the girl’s former lover and his friends. They were sleeping in a hut when the killers came. They all died, except one who was able to hide in a room.

I remember how my yaya used to force me to feed on my sandwich when I was in nursery. She told me she’d have to cut my insides and place the sandwich in. Or that time when we would prepare for our classes, back when my sister and I were in elementary. I couldn’t finish my food, and my dad would watch over us, and I’d secretly give my food to the cat or scatter it all over my plate. Me looking at my then girlfriend from afar, realizing that I just broke her heart and feeling like a complete asshole. We're high school classmates, it was February 14, and I just broke up with her that afternoon.

But the odd thing is, I don’t just remember the memory. I remember everything—the emotions as I felt them during that time, the clear picture, the people involved…

When I try explaining this strange phenomenon to my few closest friends or even my ex's, I look in their eyes and I’m sure that they’re not taking me seriously. They'd shift to an altogether unrelated topic or brush it off, because who wants to talk about memories deeper than what they really were anyway?

But you see, these for me aren’t just memories. Something else separates them from memories, mere figments in my mind that I only vaguely remember. They hold emotions, and a sharp sense of clarity. And the reason why I fuss over them is that I get troubled and as emotionally invested in them as if I were living in that actual time.

It happened again this time. What triggered the sudden rush this time was a book I was reading: The Perks of Being a Wallflower. By reading the book, I’ve come to realize that I’m probably a wallflower, someone who observes too much and makes inferences...some of which are totally false, while most are correct. The greater realization, however, is that like a leech, I attach myself to certain events, movies, and books in my life. When I do, they become a part of me, a parcel of the totality of my emotional quotient. Like learning something new, but it's not even a piece of information or knowledge, but emotion. Raw and crisp.

I've probably bored or lost you at this point already. I'm not even expecting you to take me seriously. But it's always been that way.

Three Things on a Wednesday

Today will officially go down as one of the most embarrassing moments in my life. Let’s just say God finally made me pay for all my sins: I pulled a Charlotte…more or less. Maybe more. If you watched Sex and the City a couple of times to know what happened to each character by heart, then you probably know what I mean.

In hindsight, it’s probably a hilarious experience. But really, when you’re there, you just pray really fast and hard in a way I didn’t think was possible by me. I can’t even bear to talk about the details without fear of causing irreparable damage to my image…if I even have one.

***

I’m a very bad fairy godmother. I gave myself the task to find G, a gay blockmate of mine, a date within the week. G is a perfect example of how unreasonable and often unreachable the standards set by the gay community are. For someone who graduated with honors from one of the top universities and is currently in law school, his ego is…well, let’s just say there’s almost nothing there. When you look at him, he’s really not all that bad looking. He’s articulate and can even speak a few languages. But the homosexual world is just a cruel place to live in.

So anyway, I spent a lot of time trying to find G a date. I put his needs before mine and flirted on his behalf. I even asked referrals from the few gay friends I have. In the end, I got him a date. My ex.

Someone should’ve told me that was a wrong thing to do! Or that I should’ve picked up the signal when G said it would be weird both for me and him. But anyway, I insisted. To cut the long story short, what we have is an ex who didn’t get the date he wanted, G who felt even more insecure and ugly, and me… who doesn’t even care.

Now here I am politely asking for one more chance from anyone in the gay world...ANYONE. Any takers?

***

I’m getting fat. This is an important announcement because I’ve never gotten close to reaching the appropriate weight requirement for my height. I’ve been thin all my life that I’m just not prepared to go the other way. But alas, I am.

This definite realization crept up on me when my extra small sized clothes started betraying me. Wearing them means having to be constantly but discreetly in touch with my lower back in fear that an inappropriate amount of flesh can be seen by the public. Or stopping myself from sleeping in the library, because then an even more sizable portion will be revealed.

Isn’t there supposed to be a rule book for unsuspecting teens who are suddenly gaining weight after a lifetime of malnourishment?