Most complicated analogy ever

I stumbled upon this track while perusing Tumblr. Fell in love with it almost immediately. I don't know. Maybe it just reminds me of young love... what with the vocalist's clearly pubescent voice and choice of words.

"She Is Love"

I've been beaten down, I've been kicked around,
But she takes it all for me.
And I lost my faith, in my darkest days,
But she makes me want to believe.

They call her love, love, love, love, love.
They call her love, love, love, love, love.
She is love, and she is all I need.

She's all I need.

Well I had my ways, they were all in vain,
But she waited patiently.
It was all the same, all my pride and shame,
And she put me on my feet.

They call her love, love, love, love, love.
They call her love, love, love, love, love.
They call her love, love, love, love, love.
She is love, and she is all I need.

And when that world slows down, dear.
And when those stars burn out, here.
Oh she'll be here, yes she'll be here,
They call her love, love, love, love, love.
They call her love, love, love, love, love.
They call her love, love, love, love. love.

She is love, and she is all I need,
She is love, and she is all I need,
She is love, and she is all I need.

No, you idiot. She is NOT all you need. You need to finish school and get a job that'll let you send your kids to college when they're 18, all while feeding your wife's obsession over designer bags, shoes and the Home Shopping Network. That's what you need. But, okay, I see you're happy and your girl seems nice enough. Carry on.

Anyway, I was eating my very sad avocado dinner next to my mom on the couch just a few minutes ago. I said "very sad avocado dinner" because the avocado itself is sad it's not a big, fat juicy steak with mashed potatoes and buttered vegetables on the side. DAMN IT. Sorry, got distracted. Back to my little kwento about my mom. So she was playing Bejeweled Blitz on her iPad. She's obsessed with that game. She has it linked to her Facebook and everything, so I can see her getting cheap thrills whenever she gets high scores. Ain't that cute? I'm happy for my mother dear and her minute attempts at regression. Thing is, she doesn't really know when to stop. As I sat there, omnoming on my sad avocado, watching her play. She stretches her neck from side to side and says, "Ang sakit na pala ng leeg ko." Naturally, I tell her to quit playing coz she's been at the damn thing for the past hour and a half, but she dismisses me by saying, "Hindi, mali lang position ko." Ayos sa denial ah.

No, I'm not gonna use that anecdote to segue into something predictable and terribly cheesy like, "Kahit masakit na, titiisin ko." Coz that would make you and I vomit blood all over the place. I hate sappy, martyr crap like that. Instead, I'd like to talk about being stuck in a rut... coz that's exactly where I am right now.

You know how you do the same things over and over again for quite some time, with your brain on autopilot, just letting things fall where they may, and going with the flow? You don't even feel it at first, and God bless you if you go on with the rest of your life not ever questioning anything, but for most people, the realization that you've been running around in circles comes unexpectedly. Mine came in the dead of night some time ago.

People go on about how sleeping early is good for your health, mental acuity and your skin, but what they don't tell you is sleeping early helps you get away from the negativity that likes to wrap itself around you late at night. It's when things go quiet that your mind wanders to things you normally don't have time to entertain. After all, who has time to lay in bed, stare at the ceiling and brood? Go ahead and classify these insomniac trains of thought as irrelevant, but you'll be surprised. They're the very things that make you see things differently the morning after.

And now we move on to analyzing the analogy. I have to do this, just in case may kulang sa brain power. We're all in this together, guys.

So, the realization that I've been running around in circles came to me the way my mom realized her endless pursuit of matching colored jewels has strained her neck. And like me telling her to quit it, I actually received a lot of advice from a few friends about my dilemma, telling me to do this and do that.  At this point, it's not so much that I'm in denial of my problem, but I think it's more like I realized there was something I was doing wrong, or not doing at all. No one has it easy in life. In the end, it's all about perspective and attitude. Now to figure out what I have to change. Thanks, late-night brooding, for the insight.

I gave a boy a paper heart once.

It was the night of December 14, 2011 when I wrote something for a boy. I posted it on my Tumblr, and immediately Googled "how to origami heart" right after. On a piece of colored paper I absolutely thanked the universe for letting me find in my little sister's drawers, I wrote the post's link. I remember spending a considerable amount of time deciding which color among my collection of metallic pens to use.

Yes, that's me, having a smitten mental breakdown that's probably borderline gross to most people. Didn't care though. On pure whim, I was determined to execute a small-scale surprise for this person who was once, and very briefly, so special to me. The obsessive compulsive neurotic mess in me perfected the origami heart. I remember giving it a little kiss good luck before going to bed that night. I didn't need to tell you that, but what the hell, right? I'm sharing anyway. Might as well bare all.

The critical part of the plan was to slip the origami heart in his pocket without him knowing, so he would discover it by the time he got home. I distinctly remember over analyzing everything about this step. I couldn't put it in his front pocket, because, first, it'd be too difficult to be sneaky from the front, and second, he might reach into his front pockets for his phone or whatever else and the heart would be prematurely discovered! FAIL. Clearly, the backpockets were the way to go, but I knew I had to make sure not to put it in the wallet pocket, or the heart might fall if he ends up pulling his wallet out. Gaaaahhh, I was a panicky mess.

Throughout the night, I kept waiting for the perfect ninja moment to slip the paper heart in his empty back pocket. Towards the end of the night, just when I was about to give up, I saw him drop a P20 bill. My heart shot up to my throat. "Hey, you dropped a twenty." Because he was carrying our picnic basket (You'll understand in a bit), I had every reason to put the bill back in his pocket for him... paper heart included. Mission accomplished! I felt so espionage! Suave like an infatuated James Bond girl.

The boy brought me home. In nervous anticipation, I waited for him to let me know he got home alright. I told him to check his pockets. He texted me, "You sneaky woman." I remember throwing myself onto my bed and digging my face into my pillows in utter kilig and holy shit he's reading it kill me now. He read this:

It’s the night before the outdoor movie you invited me to, and I don’t know exactly why I’m overly preparing for it. It’s a public picnic. What the hell am I supposed to be fussing over when half the people there will be sitting on newspaper and snacking on food packed in styrofoam. But, whatever, I let myself fuss anyway. I rummaged through my family’s junk to unearth a mat and a woven basket, stole one of the softer blankets from the linen closet, and tied red twine around spoons and forks. The twine was totally unnecessary, I know, but tying little ribbons helped me calm down a little bit.

As I’m writing this, I’m not entirely sure the food I have lined up in my head and on tomorrow’s grocery list will work out. All I know is it involves cake. Cake is sweet. Just like you are to me. Okay, that was lame, but screw it, it’s the truth. I also have no idea what to wear yet. I’m always torn between dressing up nice for you, or dressing like I’m not out to impress anyone. I do wanna impress you though. I just haven’t quite figured out how yet.

Hell, I’m not even sure about the weather tomorrow. If it rains, then I guess it’s a sign picnics aren’t for me. See, I’ve never been on a picnic. I’m hoping tomorrow night would be my first, and I’m giddy at the thought of sharing a mat with you under the stars. If it rains right in the middle of everything though, I’m hoping it’d happen just like in movies, with my hand in yours as we run for cover. Those are the kind of scenes Taylor Swift writes songs about.

I don’t even know how you’re reacting while reading this. You could be creeped out, or you could be laughing. There are so many things I’m not sure of, really.
Except you.

I’m pretty sure meeting you was one of the best things that happened to me this year, and the more time I get to spend with you, the more I know for sure you’re good for me. We could be infatuated today, and strangers tomorrow, but right now I want to revel in the certainty I feel around you.

I’m thanking you ahead for a wonderful night. That’s something else I’m sure of. Picnic or no picnic. :)

There you have it - my small-scale surprise for someone who was once special. We were infatuated then. Strangers today.

It's actually been a couple of months since we became strangers, but for some reason, today I remembered him and realized how much of a waste a failed attempt at romance turned our friendship into. Is it so wrong that I wanna reach out and tell him I wanna be friends again? I'm not after anything. I just want us to stop being strangers. No, I'm not heart-broken. I'm just in a state of panghihinayang.

I made a paper heart. Those things aren't built to last, and I should've known, but I still made that paper heart. It'd be a shame to see it go to waste. I hope one day I'll find the courage to fish it out of the past. It'll probably be tattered and torn around the edges. It might not even look like a heart at all anymore, but I'll always remember what it was. I'd dust it off and tell him, "Hey, remember this? What do you say we turn it into something different?" I don't think figuring out an origami friendship would be too hard.

Thanks for the good vibes! #1

(This is gonna be a series of blog posts! Every week, I'm going to compile a list of things that made me happy, and hopefully some of the good vibes I got would rub off on you guys. Here goes the first entry in this series, and in no particular order. Enjoy!)


1. Sbtrkt's "Hold On" - This has been on loop on my iTunes for three days now. I've always been a fan of all of Sbtrkt's music, but this track in particular from their self-titled album just soothes me on so many levels. I love the vocals, the arrangement - everything. Although I can't seem to understand the music video. A little help from you intelligent people would be great. ;)

SBTRKT - Hold On

2. Banana + Nutella = ASDLFKJASHDFJK. I've been on a calorie-reduced diet since March. Yes, it's torturous discipline and sacrifice, but I always make room for a small treat everyday just to reward myself. 1 tbsp of Nutella is 100 calories, and a medium-sized (approx. 7 in long) banana is 95-100 calories. If Zac Efron had a flavor, I imagine it'd be this. Warning: If you don't have self-control, do not attempt to prepare this snack. NUTELLA WILL BE THE END OF YOU.

3. PicMix for Blackberry. I've always been a frustrated Instagram user. I mean, I love my BlackBerry, but I hate how all the fun photo apps are tailored for Apple or Android. Molome doesn't have the collage templates, and even though PicStory had those templates, it doesn't have the cool photo filters. PicMix has everything! Yay for an Instagram-like app for BlackBerry users! Go get it from App World for free!

4. Street food merienda with the family! We live just about 10 minutes away from UP Diliman, my mom's alma mater. On random, fair weather and lazy afternoons, my parents would take me and my sister to one of the street food stalls by Vinzon's Hall for a round or two of kwek-kwek, fish balls, kikiam, and pancit canton. We'd take our food, cross the street to the UP Sunken Garden and just hang out on the benches while watching soccer and frisbee teams practice. The mangtataho and dirty icecream man would always come around our spot in time for dessert. Total diet sabotage, but I love quality time with my family.

Fishballs and kwek-kwek for me!
My favorite sauce combo is maanghang + vinegar!

My dirty dessert! I really wanted taho that afternoon,
but oh well, there was no mangtataho nearby :(

5. My unbelievably sweet parents. I had another agonizingly long taping day for CGE TV In Da Loop the other day. Our usual call time is 6am, and it's only 12-13 hours later that we hear the director say "That's a wrap!" By the time I got home, I was wiped out and had a migraine. My mom, knowing I wasn't well, fixed me a comfort snack. My dad brought it up to my room. It was a mug of warm milk and a star-shaped butter cookie. When I opened the door, he said, "A star for the CGE Star." I'm not exaggerating when I say I cried from the sweetness. Then again, it could've just as well been from exhaustion, but the point is, I feel so blessed to have such loving parents.

So much love :)

I'll stop at just five GV sources this week. I just wanted to make a quick blog update before I turned in for the night. Something semi-crucial is happening tomorrow afternoon. I've got an audition! If all goes well, and the universe decides to back me up on this, I'll get a call-back and I can release a hint as to what I'm trying to get myself neck-deep in to. Adieu!

Last Friday night's realizations

After our ASAP Chillout interview with Megan Young.
L-R: CGE Jocks Edu, Jessica, Anna, and Chacha

For some reason, the universe and the little demons that inhabit it never fail to conspire against me having an evenly spaced out week of events. The days that I have my 6AM-6PM taping for CGE TV In Da Loop are the same days my friends decide to invite me to a night out, and it's always all the way in Taguig or Makati, no less.

Before I go any further, let me just share a fairly recent observation of mine about this damned weekly exodus to these two far away places: Most of the people who go to Makati and The Fort area live no where near there. I'm gonna go against my grammatical by-laws by saying I am literally at a loss as to why everyone absolutely insists on journeying all the way to Makati or The Fort area, when it'd be more convenient to go some place nearer to where everyone lives. Most of the people I know and most of the people they know live in Quezon City, Marikina, San Juan or Pasig, and yet, come the weekend, this entire populace will end up braving traffic and gas prices just to end up in the "happening" places in Makati and Taguig. Not being a hater! I do love my nights out over there, but I sometimes wonder why there aren't any more convenient "places to be".

During taping last Friday, we had YouTube sensation Petra Mahalimuyak as a guest in one of our episodes. We've partied together once before, during her birthday at 7th High (which is in Bonifacio High Street), so she was sweet enough to invite me to meet up with her at Scarlet Lounge in, you guessed it, The Fort. Which I actually found coincidental since Jeremy (I wrote about him in my last entry here.) invited me to Jill's in... the same damn area. I swear, we all need to expand our horizons.

Right after taping, I went home to shower, primp, don an outfit with equal parts provocative and conservative, and have the usual "I need this to stave off the night's alcohol" dinner. First stop at around 10:30pm was Jill's, which was an okay place. They were playing hits from the 80s and early 90s, which I actually really enjoyed since I grew up listening to my parents' music, so I knew all the songs pretty much by heart. As I sat there talking to (more like yelling at) Jeremy, I watched the people on the dance floor: mostly men and women in their late 30s and early 40s, living it up on a Friday night. Watching them dance made me realize just how different my generation's dancing is.

Ever since hiphop and RnB started dominating just about every music platform, all girls ever do now on dance floors is thrust ass, rock hips, get low (dirty-dancing girl friend optional), and maybe make the slutty mistake of letting a guy grind on her. Well, if you think about it, how else would anyone dance to songs that are mostly about sex, money, and random mentions of long designer brands just for the sake of filling in a few more beats? Dance, dubstep and house music are steadily starting to dominate as well. To these, people mostly just jump around, fist pump, air tap, and dramatically close their eyes and sway as the chorus comes on. Lucky you if the track has vocals you can sing to. Although even without the vocals, a lot of people will insist on singing the melody of the chorus with "Tenenen-teneneneeeen tenenen! Tenenenenen tenetenenen!" Fascinating, really.

And let's not forget about "Teach Me How To Dougie". No, scratch that. LET'S FORGET ABOUT IT. PLEASE. It's become one of the most overplayed songs ever. Even worse than "Like a G6", because ya'll react to it like it's the friggin' YMCA or Achy Breaky Heart of our generation. Which, by the way, is a depressing thing to let come true. We're nearly halfway through 2012, people, and ya'll still wanna learn how to Dougie. Get over it. Speaking of YMCA though, I absolutely hate it when a club's DJ puts YMCA on. Everyone starts doing the YMCA steps, then the drunk ones manage to hit random people around them, and I just pretty much scowl at the tackiness of everything.

This might just replace all my other Friday night haunts.
Good crowd, good drinks, good music!

Next stop at around 11:30 PM was Scarlet Lounge to meet up with Petra Mahalimuyak (Real name: Ashley Rivera), but since the pictures from the club's photographers aren't all up yet, I'll reserve my ramblings about whatever craziness (I'm pretty crazy, but there are crazier people in these places) went down in that big, red room for another entry. But to end this, I basically woke up last Saturday morning with a realization that partying really is one of the more extravagant activities a person can end up doing on a weekly basis. I know because I spend my own money on whatever nights I go out on. It's not the best way to meet people and build your social networks because really, what kind of relationship can you establish in a loud, dark room where everyone's inebriated? And it's not the healthiest lifestyle either. More on that next time though. Congratulations on surviving my rambling! Ciao!

Self-pity is the second best medicine.

The best being laughter, I suppose, but I've never heard of a good laugh curing anything more than a mild case of bad vibes, or possibly aiding the authorities in spotting a space cadet. And by space cadet, I mean someone who's on the green. And by green, I mean Mary. And by Mary, I mean - enough of this. You get it.

Me and one of the men I cannot
imagine life without - Jeremy!

Yesterday, one of my absolute best guy friends dropped by the house. His name is Jeremy, and he's tall, dark and interesting. I really do want to guest him in one of my vlogs soon because he's a lot like me only he looks slightly African American and has a penis.  That being said, I know he'll be a joy to watch. Yes, that's him wearing the John Lennon sunglasses on the left. Now, I say he's a lot like me because we both like to talk (a lot), and we're both politely evil. See, that's something I'd like to coin right now. Politely evil.

Jeremy and I, more than anything else, like talking about people. No, we don't gossip. That's terribly juvenile and unsubstantial. Rather, we like analyzing people in general, how different kinds of people fit into certain social situations, and how we tend to play our cards in the same situations. The cards he and I value the most are politeness and grace. Jeremy and I have both come to terms with the fact that shit does in fact happen to the best of people, at the most inconvenient of times, and on a fairly regular basis. We're also very much aware of the fact that the only forgivable unfortunate turns of events are those that are organic and subject to the laws of physics. Those are few and rare. The ones that are a bit more relentless come from people, so if there are things anyone has to master, it's a convincing smile, a polite laugh, small-talk on autopilot, anger management, and conserving your energy for necessary interactions with people who matter. In short, put on a happy face, and keep your real sentiments to yourself. Be politely evil.

(Jeremy, my darling, if you are reading this, know that I love you and people will only slightly think less of you after this entry is done.)

OM NOM NOM NOM

I don't really know why I decided to go into a significant amount of detail about Jeremy and I, because I was only really supposed to talk about the upset stomach I got right after we snacked on a plate of my mom's nachos. Thing is, I can't really pinpoint the nachos as the culprit because I was the only person who got hit. There you have it, me writing a hypochondriac blog post. I spent all night nursing what I think is a mild case of stomach flu, thinking I'd feel better the morning after. Nope, day two feels worse.

You probably don't know this about me yet, but I consider myself to be pretty bionic. I hardly ever get sick, thanks to good genetics and the additional immunity I've acquired from my years as a student nurse. Thing is, when I do get sick, it's a tough bug to beat. And because it so rarely happens, I like to indulge in a little self-pity whenever I'm down with something. There we go! Finally, the title of this entry has come into play. Whenever I'm sick, I wear my tired, frowny face along with the most unflattering and mismatched house clothes I have in my closet and either sprawl myself on a couch where household members can see me and my sad state, or lay in my bed for hours and enjoy having my mother bring me good stuff from the kitchen. (Oh wow, that was probably one of the longest sentences I have ever composed ever, ever, ever.)

I'm a very effective wallower in self-pity and moping around, I'll have you know, so if anything, I think it's the extra TLC I get from my family and best friends that makes me get well sooner. If I play my sick card right (and I know I do), there's a change of gears in the house and I feed off of all the love and care that I can squeeze out of their little hearts. Oh, I wouldn't call it manipulation. Wouldn't call it regression either, even though I'm sure manipulation and regression fit well. I think it's more of knowing what you truly need, and remembering that nothing shining, shimmering and splendid can ever compare to feeling taken care of.