The Love Post

A mushy post, from this angst-y guy?! Before you find yourself unable to comprehend why I’m writing this, and before you go hit the back button, hear me:

This is another past-story post.

Yeah, I know, I’ve been overdoing the retrospection. My Feb’s not fab unlike the past few days in New Orleans, but more fab than GMA’s devoid-of-funk speeches. I’m so bored to the point of reading my old blog, rewriting them, and posting them on this blog for the first time. I know, I know, get off me; I wouldn’t be doing this have I a social life. Anyway, this will be bittersweet - that means some bitterness will counteract with the supposed sweetness you get when you hear "love", and that means you’re going to get through this without needing to visit the dentist. I hope.

I’m starting to believe that my disdain for Murakami may be because his protagonists remind me of me. In a fitting homage to his books, why don’t we put a beautiful jazz song before we go?

My Little Brown Book (Duke Ellington and John Coltrane)

Note that I combined my past post with something recent, so this isn’t verbatim of what I wrote 3 years ago.

There’s this girl, who I’ll call Lanie. She ran for student council, and the first image I saw of her was from a campaign tarpaulin. She instantly reminded me of another girl I had been very attracted to. Doesn’t help (hurt?) that they share the same uncommon surname.

I was like “Wow, cute! I wonder how she looks in real life” but that was it. I wasn’t expecting anything else because pictures tend to depict real appearances inaccurately. I even added her in Friendster, for whatever reason. This was 2004 after all when everyone went around adding people they haven’t met, to realize later that they’ve been adding douches. That last word is my bitter touch, yo! It gives this post edge!

I’ll be a little anachronistic here: she’s been appearing on my dreams since I have first seen the tarp, at the most haphazard times. I haven’t seen her for years now but she doesn’t miss the casting call when people audition for my dreams, and I just reckon that I said the gayest phrase. Audition for my dreams? What weed did I smoke when I wrote that? The only thing more peculiar than the dreams with her appearances is my remembering their details. The first one had me on a fictional school, practicing piano while she wasn’t noticing. One month after, this dream had a sequel where I was on a recital on the same fictional school, and she came close and smiled at me. Both of them were strange because I never was a piano virtuoso. Almost a year passed, I dreamed of her jogging at Central Park; with her back turned on me I was trying to chase her all the time while countering the heavy force on my feet. I woke up with blisters on my feet the next morning, at my sister’s apartment in Manhattan which, I imagine, was half a world away from Lanie. And then just a few months ago, I dreamed of being back to school doing campaigns with Lanie, even if I’ve never been a member of any political orgs in my college days. I think I also dreamed of spending a day with Lanie at the Metropolitan Museum of Arts, but that’s hard to remember, which you’ll understand if you’ve ever been to the Met.

Oddly, we only almost knew each other.

It happened in the young hours of the night. I finished my exam and was about to leave on our school’s North gate - which is called that because I heard that it aligns with the north star and I’m not sure if I should take that on face value or if there’s a clue in there somewhere leading to the treasures of Triforce. I saw her standing there in all her resplendence. Forget the tarp: if she looked anything like that, Nightdreamer could’ve been a normal guy instead. Her beauty had such an effect on me that basking in insanity was my most novel idea of the day. But wait, she smiled and waved. My sweet lord, it’s the 1000-watts smile plus a waving, there is not a supermodel posing as a Wii gamer that could compare to that! I looked behind because I thought she was greeting someone behind me, but nobody was behind me, so my conclusion was that she was greeting me. I also took it for granted that she didn’t see apparitions, and at least based on her reactions I think that’s true.

So put yourself in such position then, what would you do? This girl you like is in her lonesome, smiling and waving silly at you. There’s a bench nearby where you can sit and have small chats. People say you’re a deipnosophist. What would you do?

You wouldn’t give her the cold shoulder, would you? Well, that’s what I did, out of being too stunned to do anything logical. I went home cursing myself over and over again for what I did there, folks, because that’s quality incompetence I showed there! College student, and still torpe (closest translation: clueless about how to meet women) what the hell, and this coming from the same guy who effortlessly introduced himself to Sam Oh  few years before and to Shaira Luna few years after this fiasco! Seriously, slitting my wrist wasn’t such a bad idea for me then because I couldn’t live with that shame. I bet you’re laughing at me; I deserve it, for once.

It also didn’t take long for her to be in a relationship after that. I think it’s still them, now.

About the only time I ever talked to Lanie was when she re-elected and I wished her good luck. Her “thanks” resounded so much I still hear it now. That’s what happens when you hear a sincere gratitude from the person you’re infatuated with.

The last time I saw her was year 2005, so why am I still dreaming of her now when every trace of her in my memory is so bittersweet?

Right now I want to eat halo-halo.

Connection? Confectioneries. I’m craving sugar, which explains why this post is so cloying. I’m so fired up to play Apollo Justice (it’s a lawyer game) that I’m now cross examining my own words. Durrr. 

(Image courtesy of ourawesomeplanet, which is just the place to go if you want more info about halo-halo)

Story of the Past part 2

So I was planning to sleep early today, but that did not go so well. It’s 2 AM by now yet drowse eludes me. And want to know what fantastic decision I made? Well, you’ll probably get it by the fact alone that you’re reading this blog.

I’ve been a bit of a retrospective mood since last month, but retro can grow stale when overdone. But, I do see the point - pinings of the good times of the past and all. Anyway, I’ve been reminiscing too much that I did get to ruminate about the state of my blog. I’ve blogged for 3 years now (no, not here), nightdreamer has been my new beginning from last year, and things have been pretty good for me when it comes to being an i.ph blogger because people do bother reading this stuff, unlike my earlier friendster blog. And speaking of friendster blog, I always dread revisiting it because everytime I do that, I realize how much I sucked. I still suck now, but perhaps not that much.

I’ve even been bugging some of my friends from ym about how bad my writing used to be. It always make me feel better when I tell others my moments of embarrasments. I don’t know why. 

Anyhow, about the only Friendster blog post that I couldn’t find anything to complain about is something I wrote 3 years ago. This is it:

The Last Day of 2005

Posted December 31, 2005

Today, I went out with a group of Chinese friends - genuine ones, as in immigrants. I was glad to see them again since I hadn’t done so for a long time. There was quite a reconnection but sadly, I was a little let down.

Everyone is older than I am. This meant they talked about different topics to the ones I center my conversations with. Now, that’s not entirely bad, because variety is what I seek in my life, but when people talk about things that I’m not prepared to talk about in depth, I find myself very distant.

Not everything was bad. I was pretty entertained that none of them knew how to go to Makati, and that I had to be their tour guide when we arrived at Glorietta, Greenbelt, and Landmark. We window shopped. When they asked for directions to different stores, 95% of the time I was able to give answers. When we ate at California Pizza Kitchen, it was I who recommended the best pizza for them (which, in my opinion, is "Wild Mushrooms"). But when they started talking about the things they were interested in, my problem started. They liked furniture. Ok, so I also liked furniture, but seeing that I wasn’t even going to move out, what was I supposed to do with them? Aside from that, they kept shunning the stores I was really very interested in. They didn’t even take notice of any music stores and art shops (I was hoping to buy some new painting/coloring materials, seeing as how I want to now try color sketching). Their visit to PowerBooks was brief. What do they like, then, was the question that lurked in my mind for the longest time since I went out with them.

I dunno. I just don’t like it too much when people don’t appreciate arts, movies, literatures, and music (good ones, of course). I find them very pitifully dull. But that’s not all. I rolled my eyes on so many occasions when they brought up topics about marriage. Some of these people were about to be married next year, and they kept talking about how they’re going to handle this occasion, i.e. whether or not they’re going to treat everyone to a trite dinner (with accompanying awful KTV music, of course), have commencement at the church, etc. Um, excuse me, where did I fit in during such discussions? It’s understandable had they brought this up occasionally, but man, if they weren’t talking about furniture, they were talking about marriage. How was I supposed to relate to all of these? Okay, so what they’re saying was that they’re really happy they’re going to get married but were dismayed that they couldn’t find the proper way to arrange their marriage? They’re unhappy from complaining that their parents and their SO’s parents may have conflicting ideologies and beliefs? Gee, I think that’s very thoughful considering that I didn’t even have a friggin’ girlfriend! They even labelled me as a kid just because! (Authors note: I still don’t have a girlfriend; nor have I found one in the 3-year interval between reposting)

Anyway, that was the last of memorable event that happened in 2005. Have a Happy New Year.

Okay, so everything’s not so bad. I didn’t have to edit it as much as I would to my other Friendster posts. And, uh, yeah, no girlfriends still. And about these Chinese? They’re all married now. Actually, I didn’t confess then that I had a crush on one of them. Naturally, she’s married now. This is starting to sound like the short story I wrote, huh.