Cusack's boombox scene in Say Anything kind
of captures the traditional senti Sunday mood
I just got home, and now I'm eating spaghetti and meat sauce. JAM is off the air for a few more hours, so rather than subjecting my ears to noisy pop ditties, I succumbed to listening to songs of yesteryears. Senti Sunday it is.
When I was a kid, Sundays meant the songs of my parents' younger years blasting from the speakers, courtesy of Star FM's Never on Sunday program. Staples were Tennessee Waltz, Sad Movies and that song that goes 'How much is that doggie in the window?' Twenty-something years later, I'm no longer surprised that songs played in programs like MYX Backtrax were by the BSB or Spice Girls. I'm not sure when Till They Take My Heart Away became popular but that song, and others like Take My Breath Away and Crazy for You define this wee-hours-of-the-morning's playlist. Nothing like being by your lonesome accompanied bye these kinds of songs permeating the airwaves, huh?
Incidentally, earlier tonight I found this poem by Alma S. Anonas. I was reading the 2002 Likhaan Book of Poetry and Fiction in between taking calls and somehow found myself going through the poetry section and reading them out loud, something I'm not usually won't to do. It's called Reply and (in the tradition of making song dedications over the radio) this goes out to you who will in the future ignite such curiosity as well.
Reply | Alma S. Anonas You asked me Why I kissed you That scotched Saturday evening. Because I was curious. Because I had drunk three-fourths Of a bottle of scotch. Because you asked me with your eyes. Had I been sober, Had I been sane, Your lips Would never have touched mine. I kept my eyes closed To your exquisitely ugly face. I hadn't gone that far Into the black yet. Nothing personal. I just wanted a period To answer the question mark Of what you tasted like. Now I know.
Earlier last night as well when one of my officemates was talking to me, I somehow came to realize that I'd definitely go for a guy who reads, and not just magazines or the current thriller or fantasy novels. I'd go for someone who reads literature. He'd be extremely sexy in my mind; he'd share to me what lit is about as I have close to nada in understanding the classics, even if I sometimes read them. His thoughts will be of a depth and extent unlike any I have ever encountered. He will explain to me the different themes of different canon in between cuddling or whatnot. He'd quote lines and ignite my imagination while sharing to me his literary world. And it would help if he's got a hot bod and is not a wimp. Oh I am so drooling right now!
No matter how many things I need to do (not only now but also in the near future) with the little time I have and will end up having, I always end up telling myself that 'I wanna do this, oh, this is interesting as well, I wanna do this too!' Yeah, a few more hours in the interwebs today and I came across two really interesting things, that I may just dip my toes in. Uh-huh.
First up, litreactor.com has its science fiction writing challenge known as Teleport Us. This follows the success of their previous challenge on horror writing last year. It's open to both amateurs and professionals, and anywhere from 1,500 to 4,000 words will get you in, as long as you adhere to three guidelines: explore a utopian/dystopian theme, feature a technology that's scientifically plausible and feature a non-human character. It's good to be starting now as submissions will end the 28th of February. There. That should provide me impetus to finally make good on all my resolutions to write years ago. Hmm... Esep esep...
Second, I didn't think there were many offshoots of the NaNoWriMo. I came across the NaBloPoMo and then later on ScriptFrenzy which occurs in April. Now, it seems there's LetterMo and it's for February. What's this about? You write anything - a letter, a postcard, send a picture, swatch of cloth, pages of magazines or newspapers, or write back to someone who wrote to you - every day of February and send them through the postal system. I'm a sucker for the ways of the old, and there's nothing like seeing a surprise brought by the postman from a faraway or even nearby place in the world. I'm sure it'll be a worthwhile exercise in creativity. Now, if I can sustain this I still have to see. Although I have this twisted hope that I can. :)
So yeah, this is good, putting writing at the forefront of my activities to finally do/accomplish this 2013. My sister, who's currently taking up Medicine, and I have had this idea that's been sitting on the back burner for a while now of a graphic novel/illustrated book collaboration. We initially had an idea to make a children's book. And then all our fascination with Philippine myth (sparked by the Trese and Skyworld series) gave us the idea to make an alternative mythology graphic novel, similar to Paolo Chikiamco's Alternative Alamat issue over at Rocketkapre.com. We still have no idea which story to do up to this day, but hopefully all this writing (on my side) and creativity will spur us to make time and finally do it.
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.
Finally had the time to just sit by the Sunken Garden and do nothing yesterday - after coming in late to my Italian class and just generally disappointing myself all over again with the way I've been handling it, and then followed by a particularly entertaining "Was bin ich von Beruf?" (What am I as a Job?) game in our German class (Herr Lehrer was in his element as Quizmeister, even providing the needed sound effects woot!) where my teammates BJ, Jam and I came out tied for 2nd, this after being comfortably nestled on top for a while during the earlier part of the game.
I didn't want to stay at the shop where I used to work at and where I'm still welcome, since it's another air-conditioned environment with computers - which is where I am for forty-something hours a week, all the while dedicating some more hours to the laptop when I'm at home. So when I'm at the PC shop, I can't help but be drawn to the net-connected PC so I decided to just stay by the Sunken to do some review of notes and/or the finals I just received. I did start out by noticing the hurried way I answered my and then later on went over my answers to the exam. It was evident in the lack of needed verbs and misspelling a certain pronoun because I've confused it with another noun. And then I read through a list of Italian verbs that require certain prepositions. This still didn't help me with my predicament though. All the while, I was listening to Jam since it's Friday Slide (my favorite radio program) and learned that a woman has successfully ended her life in the LRT Line 1 EDSA Station. She is the 24th attemptee I believe and, I was surprised to find out, the 10th who successfully did. I was immediately reminded by the remade Wall Street where Shia LeBouf's mentor does exactly that - reading the papers in a cafe on a seemingly ordinary day and then setting off for the subway, meandering through the throng of people and stepping into the train's path as soon as he got there - when everything he worked for suddenly failed. This happened at 5:50 AM the other day. All I'm left is wonder at would drive someone to end her life in such a manner. Last snippet I heard from the radio is that she hasn't been identified yet.
The Sunken Garden was actually a bit to my right. I was sitting in one of the benches in front of PHAN (Palma Hall Annex) so my view was actually that of the huge tree obstructing one's view of the Bulwagan ng Dangal, which was in front of (or depending on one's perspective, to the side of) the Main Library. And I just let myself look at that tree - some of its leaves on its left side, and some a bit more in front, illuminated by the fading sun. You know all the leaves are the same color, but with the vantage point and light direction you're given, it's like some of it is more alive, and some are duller. Joyce (who arrived a bit later on) was right in pointing out that it looked like a forest. I agreed, I've been thinking the same thing, like it was a tree in the forest in the Lord of the Rings. That's how majestic the whole scene came to me then. I wanted to take a picture of it, but I knew the gadget I use for a camera wouldn't capture the interplay of light and colors, so I just let myself gaze at it, somehow committing it to memory.
I just sat there all through the rest of the afternoon, until the sun finally faded and all I'm seeing is the dark green of the trees. And somehow, a sense of my younger years in the university was coming over me.
There was a time when I was still somehow fresh out of UP (as late as last year in fact) that the image that comes to my mind when I think back to my college days is of wide open verdant spaces. In all my years in and out of buildings, classrooms and laboratories, the impressions that seem to have stuck to me are the times I was out of my classes. And of these, the, let's say, memorable ones were those I spent under the hot sun, rainy skies and the newly-cut, though many times unkempt, grasses of the Sunken Garden, with people I somehow considered as family, doing the thing we all love, staying together until after everything's done with and coming together to do that three or four times a week. Yes, we did and we were all somehow addicted, coming and yearning for it all throughout those times when we had exams and what-nots which hindered us from going.
Yesterday, as the day wound down and people were jogging around the Oval (like what I had planned on doing), the impressions were a bit different. For one, it was only then that I was able to witness once again the turning of day into night. These days, I'm inside the four walls of the production floor when the sun finally gives way to the moon. The fact that I was in UP while I was witnessing this brought me back to my first undergrad days (yes m'dears, I'm on my so-called second undergrad/college days at the moment). At first, it seemed like the times back in my first year when I'd go to my then, only, org's tambayan after classes and we'd just sit and talk, and later on, we'd go somewhere to drink or watch gigs - cramming all of these in time for curfew (which I had for five years!). I guess it was about that as well, since when I get home, there's nothing to do since I wasn't overly friendly with my landlady's family, only had my space in the room, didn't have a computer at that time, and it was either I read, talk to my roommates or sleep. My college days were in fact, the only time that I've stayed out of my sleeping space long after the sun has set for in our house back home, I didn't grow up doing that. Even when I was in highschool, I was usually making my way home immediately when there were no org or practices or meetings that needed to be done when classes ended. And my stepping into UP gave me that one big dose of freedom. One helluva huge dose indeed. Then I realized later on that this whole feeling was also probably connected to the days spent in that space called the Sunken Garden, once my most favorite spot in the whole of UP. I've recounted what we used to do then; it may be connected to what I was feeling.
But before I could fully bring back the impressions from the past, I had to move. With that, the fleeting sense that it's about to reveal itself was gone. I could've held on to the feeling a bit more, and subsequently basked in its full memory, if I stayed still a bit longer, but somehow, everything is not in sync. So I'm writing this to commemorate that afternoon when I somehow went back to the nostalgic feeling of my youth.
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Joyce told me yesterday as well about Sir MonRa and RA Rivera's Tales from the Friend Zone project. Friend zone is a term I've been reading almost everywhere just recently. Is it because of this project and a few others like it? Anyhow, the second video was what I could relate to the most.
Takeaways which ring true:
- why one becomes expectant, i.e. bakit umaasa (girl's POV): girl may not be used to having kind, sweet and/or handsome boys who befriend her so that the first one who comes along and is just that, she starts to think there's something. So yes, as girls have observed, when he doesn't say anything, it's nothing. Don't overthink.
- lower one's expectations because as MonRa explains, that "0.0001 na pag-asa na yan, or otherwise known as malisya, ay nagiging germ at lumalaki nang lumalaki dahil sa imahinasyon natin at sa pagnanasa na maging tunay na pag-ibig yan..." WELL SAID.
So...
Happy -ber months! Potted Potter is on in a little while. Tschuß!
