pasta-centric and crazy days

An early birthday surprise from my penpal in Germany -
a photo she took in  Barcelona and a card she made herself

Life does never seem to fail one who has the right disposition. I'm talking mainly about myself and how I had imagined that this year would be a step back in the celebration of my turning a year older. I thought to start a tradition last year that my birthdays would from then on be celebrated away from where I reside, namely Quezon City. I've lived here for the past 10 years now this coming May, since I started my freshman year in university - the first six years within or near the vicinity of the university and the last four years still a bit nearby, at least two jeepney rides away from school.

Before last year, I often just ate out with friends or siblings to celebrate 3rds of March. And I don't know when turning a year older lost its novelty. Must be one of those times when I had much to do, seeing as March marks the end of the semester, and when my birthday comes, I'd be deep in requirements or exams. There was even one birthday when I had Chemistry exams, even though it was a Sunday. To break off the monotony, I went with my best friend to Tagaytay, I place I've heard so much about but have never set foot on. I had meant to top that off this year with a surf trip to Baler. This time, not only staying overnight but for two nights.

Well... studies did have to strike again. My inability to go was mainly spurred by the fact that I am a chronic procrastinator, and had I actually taken the time that I took off from the supposed teambuilding the other weekend to work on the report, I wouldn't have had to cancel on my surfing plans. So everything is still my fault. So much for going surfing once every month until the end of the surf season. So I put off my surfing photos... And will soon get that digiperm I had wanted to have since last year.

I didn't really mean to celebrate early. But it was the Friday night that I was supposed to be going to Baler, and a good friend just turned a year older that week as well, the 25th of February. So why not celebrate our birthdays together, midway between the two dates? We went to a place I've wanted to try for a long time now, Bellini's in Cubao. I had a creamy seafood pesto, she had their puttanesca, and we shared a salami-topped pizza, capped off by some sweet wine. Lovely meal. We were even able to watch the owner in action - still very Italian after all these years in the Philippines.

The next evening, I schemed with another friend whom I haven't talked to for quite a while now, since we already have different work schedules. We went to another place I've never tried before - Banapple. They have huge servings for the same cost than in other pasta places. We were both so full even if we haven't finished our main courses yet, and we each still had one slice of cake to eat. I tried out their Apple Pie - sehr lecker! They used actual apple slices, and not mashed up ones that you just know would contain something else than apple. Then it was another first for me as I welcomed my birthday with alcohol. I only told my friend I was celebrating my birthday once we entered the grounds of Cubao X. There, I guess in hindsight, I could say that I should be careful about what I wish for for I just might get it. I did have this ongoing theme of what one of my friends could give me for my birthday. Well, when I thought about it later, there it was. And until now, I'm still not decided on it. I had a detached sort of objective view about it, but I've never really fully revisited it to form a definitive reaction and decision.

I decided to actually have some food for my birthday at home, which I never did before. It was all part of a good vibe (which temporarily faltered - another story for another time) I had going and I got to sustain it so I pushed through with it. After having three hours of sleep and some breakfast, I finalized my plan without telling my housemates why I was doing it. Only my siblings knew, and I had already texted my sister who is living in Manila to come by for snacks. I had planned on having pizza, pasta and nachos, not realizing that I've already had pasta for two consecutive days before this. Well, pasta has been a mainstay for birthdays - my mom cooked spaghetti with meat sauce everytime we had birthdays at home. So as the bulk of the foodstuffs, it was inevitable. I bought the ingredients after lunch. My older cousin came with me, and instead of nachos, we just bought a big bag of tortilla chips with lime flavor, and then opted for cake. Now, when the word cake came to me, I immediately thought about Conti's Mango Bravo. I was shocked by the price, but nevertheless went on with it because I had a good feeling about it, even though I last ate this many years ago.


Well, the celebrations didn't stop there. I had a date with two good friends to watch Silver Linings Playbook. I was intrigued by this movie title last January when that was what I got for charades at a party - which, when my groupmates got correctly really made me ecstatic, since I'm not really good at acting out things for people to guess about. I saw on an ad though, that the film won some awards. And it didn't look like a really serious film, nothing like the likes of Inception or the Departed (pardon the very old films - I'm no longer updated these days). So off did I watch it without any expectations. And I loved it! We were laughing at almost every turn. Of course, if that was happening to me or someone I know, it would be very frustrating indeed. How about if not only one, but your husband and two sons were suffering from some sort of mental illness as well? I can't even begin to imagine... The treatment is just lovely! We laugh at the inanity of it all, but still, we're there rooting for the characters to rise above it all. (And hullo, Bradley Cooper! I didn't know you before but glad to know you now, haha!) So I believe it's now one of my favorite films. Some of the lines that really made me laugh out loud:

  The first time they meet

B. Cooper: You look nice. 
J. Lawrence: Thank you. 
B. Cooper: Oh, I'm not flirting with you. 
J. Lawrence: Oh, I didn't think you were. 
B. Cooper: I just see that you made an effort, and I'm gonna be better with my wife. I'm working on that. I wanna acknowledge her beauty. I never used to do that. I do now. Just practicing. How'd Tommy die? [Lawrence looks shocked and sad] 
--> This after being reminded to not ask her about how her husband died. 

    Lawrence starting to teach Cooper how to dance

J. Lawrence: No walk, no letter. Walk to me like I'm Nikki. Do it, come on, I'm Nikki.
B. Cooper: You're not Nikki.
[does the walk anyway]
J. Lawrence: Yes! Do you feel that? That's emotion.
B. Cooper: I don't feel anything.

Oh, another side note: Julia Stiles is way mature here - with kids and eyebags and a propensity to dismiss the little things. Whereas a few weeks ago, I just saw her on 10 Things I Hate About You at the office's Valentine presentation. Talk about the realization that you're finally old!

Oh yeah, I had pesto a few days afterward as well. Still had some leftover pasta from the big birthday cookout and the pesto sauce that I wasn't able to use then. And the aroma of pesto sauce -- it just gets to me! It's addicting, couldn't get enough of it! One of the reasons why I would so like to live in Italy.

So what was it about disposition that I was talking about? Well, a healthy sense of self and reality enables one to turn disappointments and downtimes into one of the best times or memories of one's life. Think about it.

Christmas this time around

there aren't many images of tropical Christmas love so here

Christmas was pleasanter this time around. Even if it wasn't the same magical thing I've come to expect, a hangover from childhood as most everyone can attest to, in some respects it was more meaningful as I came to expect goodness and time spent with people who matter to you. It wasn't much about the material things. They were just secondary to showing how much you care for your loved ones. It was the first time I've felt this way. Must be some people's penchant for giving gifts rubbing off on me. It's kinda my first time to deliberately think about what to give not just for one or two people. In the beginning, thinking about what to give kinda paralyzed me. Well, once I was at the department store and shopping with a friend, somehow the choice became a bit easier. Indeed, it was fun wrapping them up later that night, discovering ways on how to give those department store wrapping personnel a run for the money. I also managed to watch both Gegen die Wand and Solino, which would be the basis for part of our group report report for my German class. They were very well made.

It was a really good time for me, making the most of wrapping up presents and watching well-developed stories. One about trying to break away from the conservative ways of family while trying to maintain the status quo with the housemate/husband she's come to start loving and how that same love has also changed the ways of a womanizing, troublemaking drunkard who, after his time in prison is now a reformed man. It's their chance to be what they once were, now that they are mature. The other one is about a smart Italian boy who grows up in Germany amidst the family's restaurant boom. He's influenced by a filmmaker who uses their restaurant as a location, and teaches him on some basic but fundamental things. His chance for a breakthrough comes but his Mom is finally diagnosed and, after finding out her husband has been cheating on her, goes back to their old village Solino and he has no choice but to go with her. His jealous older brother then steals the chance he made for himself along with his girlfriend. It is many years later when he's got kids and is about to marry that they reconcile. However, still no hope for the father who chose to stick with his pride.

Might I point out that things were also made the more pleasanter (now that I've started this whole compare/contrast thing) because I've fully healed from whatever heartbreak I was suffering from the past year. Indeed, I was even about to cry before Noche Buena last year. Since none of those thoughts or scenes repeated themselves this year, then I can safely say that that guy did have more than an effect on me (more than healthy in fact) than I would sometimes claim. That's not to say I'm entirely immune to whatever it was that had me going for him for some time. I can't help but be ambivalent about his actions and behavior in the office given that he's not the most popular person there right now. My whole team, even my TL, don't really hold him in good regard. Same goes with some, most(?) other employees... It's like this is him and the very few who stand by him on one side, and the rest of the office is on the other side. It's that bad. And where am I? Right there in the middle. Oh, if only he could be understood and he could understand better as well. All it takes is a little consideration, methinks.

Anyway, when he went to our part of the floor earlier last night to offer the VTO and I was then standing around since I was on offline, he still managed to acknowledge me. Not that I was expecting otherwise. But he also managed to blurt out a 'happy new year' and then looking at the list he was holding, much to the amusement (?) of one of my teammates who heard him. Dare I say that somehow warmed me? That in spite of all the tension and bad blood between my team and him (my teammates jeer on him and cheer on the failures his team is experiencing), he's still recognizing our connection, dare I say it, to even greet me, in front of them. I just want to make clear that there's nothing on my end anymore. It's just the after effects of the before. And this kind of attention from someone you craved attention from before is not so unwelcome, even if there should be no kind of expectation on my part anymore. It's more like a childhood crush that won't go away, moreso because of all the good feelings that person engenders. Really. And my girlfriends have concluded that it does take a certain type of guy to have that effect on you, sometimes no matter what they did or didn't do. Mine's not exactly your usual goodlooking guy, mind you. And until someone, with a stronger effect who can make you forget about all that, comes along, you'll be stuck in this same limbo for sometime. Well, that's it. I'm just airing out my feelings for one part of this whole nasty thing that's been going on for a while, long before I even had this week-long vacation from work, and with no one to share this to... There's the excuse right there in this Christmas-related post.

beautiful Malèna's plight

Since my friend wasn't replying about the exact address of where we were supposed to go earlier this afternoon (net was down so I couldn't check), I had an impromptu movie day. Been watching Italian films lately. This time, I plopped down to Malèna. I first watched this film during my freshman year nine years ago at the then UP Film Center. It was unlike anything I've ever mostly seen at that time. Sure, I had the occasional trips to Video City, but then they consisted mostly of - aside from the mainstream ones - mostly Chinese films, classics, the critically-acclaimed ones which don't really sell in the box office, and an occasional wayward one like Thailand's The Beautiful Boxer. I'm not sure when my sensibilities for non-mainstream, critically-acclaimed foreign language films began, but it was probably around the time I saw this, and some other films in that same all-ratings-allowed cinema.

I had the impression then that this film had a high attendance especially among the hormonal male population of UP because of the high probability of seeing nudity and/or sex, like Y Tu Mamá También, the mention of which is almost often accompanied by a sort of dismissive 'yeah-it's-all-that' tone, or so I imagine. So watch I did, and indeed, it's true there was nothing that the UP Film Center wouldn't show, as my later viewing of Y Tu Mamá También proved (most graphic film I ever saw there). The newness of it all may have not left very distinct impressions on me. I never fully understood it then, except that here was a widow who was fancied by all, as well as this boy who was in love with her and kept tabs on her, until she finally became the whore everyone was proclaiming her to be at the beginning, and then they finally turned on her as a whore and traitor for playing with the German colonizers.

Now, I understand and empathize with Malèna Scordia better. Her beauty and body are legendary, as evidenced by the scores of men and women who would watch her as she walked the streets on one of her sojourns to her Dad's abode. She dressed differently, more beautifully than all the other women. The first time she was shown walking to her Dad's place, I marveled at the distance she covered, the fact that she's in heels and that she broke not one sweat. Talk about almost perfect haha. Do they not sweat in Italy when they walk through their coastal abodes, through the city, in the dress norm of years ago of full length dress or blouse and skirt, stockings and heels?

Her story is told through the eyes of Renato, who was finding out about her and becoming his own man as he grew up under Mussolini, and then later on, the German occupation of Italy, and their little island of Sicily. Unlike everyone who sees her as just some ass to fuck, Renato, despite his fantasies about her, feels genuinely for her - her loneliness, how the townspeople say bad things about her, everyone who used her body when she realized it was one of the tools she had to survive, her eventual departure after she was publicly tortured and defamed. It did not help Malèna's case that she was not from there, and not nine months after she was married, her husband had to be called away for the war. Then news of her husband's death came, and here she was a young widow, available for anyone who came calling. The talks about her became nastier and nastier as everyone's husband, boyfriend, father and son were entranced by her. Less than honorable men took advantage of her, one at a time. Then a change of government came, and she jumped into pleasuring men wholeheartedly. There was another local whore of course and less beautiful, but it was only Malèna who, when Sicily was liberated, bore the ire of the townswomen as they dragged her to the plaza by her hair, kicked, punched and stomped on her. Clothes ripped and bloodied, that was the only time she ever showed any emotion to the general public. Then she left her house and was never seen again, until her husband, who actually only lost one arm and was not dead, came back. It was the anonymously watching Renato who told Signor Scordia about everything that happened since he left. And one day, everyone was surprised by Signor and Signora Scordia walking together arm in arm back to their home. Later, the very same women who initiated the public defamation of Malèna were the first ones to greet her in the market, testing her.

Renato watching her as she makes this change in her life

Her plight is a very sad one. Only Renato knew how much she loved and longed for her husband while she was away. And because she was not from their town, she had no friends. Her beauty was the cause of much envy, and stories evolved into something malignant, that she had to face court, only to be betrayed by someone whom she thought reciprocated her feelings as well. She was having a hard time getting even food since it was wartime, and so had to resort to using her body. It saddens me that men and women see the woman's body as something to use for pleasure. If she was beautiful and her husband was away, for sure she's getting it on with some man. Oh, she only had to look and she'd seduce one's husband. During her father's funeral, the men lined up to express their condolence while taking the chance to touch her. Nobody had a clue to her thoughts and feelings. Weighed down by convention and the restrictions of that period, she couldn't make a living for herself, relying instead on her pension, which was eventually cut off. And then, that's when she accepted what she had to do to live.

It reminded me a bit about Easy A someways into the film. Both had heroines who were ostracized because of the illusion of their being sex symbols, and the stories that defined and destroyed their lives. Malèna had to conform to the traditional image so that she would be accepted by the community. It was only when she walked arm in arm with her husband did the townspeople form a different opinion of her. In the market later on, it was only then that someone, the very same person who hurt her, greeted her in public. When she responded, it seemed she passed a test. The vendors then started talking to her, offering their cheaper produce, one even giving her a coat she was looking at for free.

I'm glad I didn't have to live during those times. The vicious nature of women, the lack of open-mindedness, the need to know and gossip about everyone in your community - it would be so horrible once you're the object and you have no one to turn to. Even though Renato started following her as part of his fantasies, his resourcefulness to see more of her allowed him a glimpse into a private life no one knew, which shaped much of his sensibilities as he changed from a boy to a young man, though not without exasperating his parents, especially his dad.

I did feel strongly for Bellucci's character. Even though beauty can get you somehwere, it still is only skin-deep and can lead to one's downfall. I'm glad her husband still wanted her back after everything that happened.