Musings and Memoirs Pt. 2

I find myself consumed on the situation I am in right now. I seem to be laying, dead-spread in the intimate sandy shore of this resort called “La Isla Bonita” somewhere in the French Polynesian islands. Brandon Boyd is singing in the background, more like singing directly to my ears through my Ipod. After shuffling and reshuffling my summer playlist I have finally found the perfect song for this wonderful affair, a breathtaking spread right in front of me. “I dig my toes into the sand, the ocean looks like a thousand diamonds strewn across a blue blanket.” Apparently I am, as of the time being, digging my toes unto the sand. The sand is glorious as much as how it feels; it’s as white as the clouds up in the sky. It’s so warm but it’s the kind of warmth you want to feel, it’s the odds are on me now. Sun shining, waves crashing, seems like a dream, huh? I don’t blame you if you don’t believe me. But I do believe this made you think of me even for just a little bit. “I lean against the wind, pretend that I am weightless, and in this moment I am happy.” I am happy… I am so happy that I even wrote this letter for you in my mind. Now, I’m finally letting you go, I am finally setting you free and now, I am finally and permanently erasing you from my memories. Ciao, gago! “I wish you were here…” no, I absolutely do NOT.

Six years ago I was the innocent, know-nothing-about-love girl. Naivety seemed to be my forte. But I was very much unaware of the fact that I was that gullible before. I was twenty and three years old and it was the first time I sat foot in the big city of Manila. Yes, you can call me the quintessential probinsyana, dalagang bukid or the female hillbilly from Bukidnon. I was offered a job in the big city as a features editor in an entertainment magazine. I had no idea in this industry, especially with the people comprising the Philippine show business. But why did I take the job? I took the job because I wanted an adventure, I wanted new experiences in a new place, meet new friends and seek opportunities for my talent. You see, I did have something in me that I was proud of and that was the fact that I was good in writing essays and insights about the worldly phenomenon, about real news and things that mattered to me. I wanted to have investigative work or maybe write the greatest exposé of the year. Being the features editor was a good start for me. Throughout my job I met famous socialites, celebrities, movie directors and all the who’s who of the Philippine show business. Still three months on the job and I was having a tremendous time. But I never foresaw the tragedy that came after. She became my friend. And now, she is nothing to me. But wait, we’re talking about me and you, right? You came, you saw, you conquered. But that was not the end of it--- you broke me and then you killed me, figuratively. Maybe even after that you tried to eat me alive. You were the perfect gentleman, you made me believe that you were actually crazy about me, and without a doubt I quickly fell for your tricks. You treated me like a queen—you took me to some fancy restaurants, sent me bunch of flowers at work and even found the time to text me during your busiest schedules. But I knew from the start that there was something wrong with this, what did you want me for? You were perfectly eligible and there are a lot of women in line for you, but why the hell me? I was too caught up in the thoughts of puppy love that I didn’t have the time to think about this perplexing thought. It was profound how quickly I fell for you; you were not difficult to love from the start. We had good times and even great times, at once I thought we were the happiest couple and I, the luckiest girl in the world. I finally had someone wrapped around my stout fingers. And now I think it was the other way around. Then you said you loved me, and I believed you and I still believe until now that you did… until you met her. I did not notice at that time that you were slowly, gradually changing and our sweet downfall was aggravated by our busy schedules and our contradicting personalities. She and I were the closest in the office and I was even excited to introduce her to you. Okay, I’ll cut the crap and say her name out loud. Sara was a very close friend to me; it was like whenever I was in distress she would be the one to fight for me. After all, isn’t her being palaban the quality that attracted you most to her? After all those weeks of being far from each other due to your business travel to Cebu, you called me up and told me you were arriving in Manila and that you’ll be in the last flight. You wanted to talk to me, so we decided to have dinner together that night. It was the fourteenth of February, Valentine’s Day, and I wondered what surprise you were going to give me. Since you sounded quite serious in the phone earlier, I had the wildest thought that you were actually going to propose to me that night. So I foolishly dressed myself up like a doll to look good for that moment. I made sure I was in my best appearance and in my best condition. We were already dating for eleven months after all, so don’t blame me if I thought things that way. We had dinner at our favorite restaurant and we had our usual. And then suddenly, while I was still chewing the last bits of my maki, you blurted in your most condescending manner that you were breaking up on me. BREAKING UP WITH ME? I lost all my senses, even my gag reflex, for one second and then I gained it back. That was when all of my senses went back to my body; unfortunately my gag reflex came in first. Do you know how humiliating it is to find yourself choking on a half share of maki in front of the posh-iest people in the city? You didn’t even understand why I couldn’t respond to your declaration, you even said “please say something” a few times before you comprehended the idea of me choking to death right in front of you. Lucky for me one of the people seated in the table behind us knew how to do the Heimlich. This is the exact moment where I decided I will never, ever forgive you in my entire life. For weeks after the break-up, I walked around in the city like a zombie from Resident Evil. I was clinically depressed to the point where I cried myself to sleep every night. Sara was there to the rescue, she was the one who took care of me and told me that I had to be strong. I didn’t know that at that moment she was lying to me, that you were already intimate with each other for four months in the making. Then, she mysteriously told me she was moving to a different magazine up north in the city and that she was moving. I was devastated, I lost you and I was about to lose my only close friend in the city. So for another six months at work I carried on like I did before and put all my heart into my writing. I submitted article after article about politics in the Inquirer, Newsweek and even Times but to no avail I was still not offered a job from the best of the best. But you know me, I still carried on and on and on… until I heard the strangest news from a friend of a friend—you were actually getting married. At first I couldn’t believe it but then I knew you, I understood you perfectly:  you were downright impulsive. In fact, your impulsivity just ran in your arteries and veins and it just hit you brain. I wanted to see this intriguing gesture right before my very eyes. I wanted to see the woman you fooled and was too naïve to have been fooled. So gate crashed your wedding but of course without you knowing. I slipped right into the bride’s room and to my greatest, unexpected surprise, your bride was none other than my ex-friend Sara. I was baffled, bewildered, confused and most of all astonished. I wanted clarity at that instant. Sara insincerely apologized and tried to explain why she ended up being your bride. She said that what you had for each other was love, that you were both sorry that I was a casualty in your account, that I was made foolish by both of you and that I did not know. Speechless, tears ran down my cheeks and anger roared inside me. I could not suppress it anymore, so I slapped her real hard. And I thought that wasn’t enough, so I slapped her again.

For the next months I vowed to myself that I must not think about you and Sara ever again. I threw myself into writing article after article, painstakingly submitting it to all the magazines that I know who published political articles. I even wrote an article about what a heartless bastard you were and it was even published in Cosmopolitan just days after. And then one day, salvation came like dust in the wind. It was Oprah in the telly and she was talking about complete reinvention after the hurricane Katrina. She was giving a chance of some of the devastated families to start over again, and maybe enhance what was then and bring it back to what was now. At the end of the episode I did not notice that I was crying so much that my handkerchief was soaked. After days of thinking about what Oprah said, I realized that her words were not only a message to those who were affected by the hurricane; it was also directed to me. I have to reinvent myself and start anew. I just could not continue living like a heartsick loner who’s caught up in the past, I had to be strong for myself and only for myself alone. And so the impossible mission commenced just three months after your marriage. I went into my very own self-improvement mission.  At first I did not know where to start, I knew what I had to do but I was confused on where to start first. My looks?  My brains? My career? Or in a bigger picture, my life? So, I went back to the basics: shopping. I have always loved shopping for new things even though I was not at all that trendy. I always felt good while shopping, it was like an orgasmic experience for me and that all of my good hormones were shooting the hoops like crazy. So I bought new clothes, bags and shoes… what’s next? I wrote new political articles in a personal point of view, that made them a little light-hearted compared to the angst-driven articles I wrote in the past. I did not lose hope, I submitted my articles to any magazine that would want my words to be published in their wonderful, insightful and glossy pages. I read new books and re-ignited the lost romantic in me by reading Shakespeare, Austen, Byron and Keats over again and at the same time feed the inner temples of my cognition by reading Clavell, Crichton and Rushdie. I cut my hair into a sharp bob and walked straight with my head held up high—just like an independent woman. It was hard for me to decide whether I should let go of my job in the entertainment magazine or to retain it. There was no definite future for me in entertainment and in all honesty I have little tolerance with it. I think it was fate that brought me to decide to find a new adventure. So, I quit my job and went back to my parents in Bukidnon. I think at that moment I didn’t know what I was doing, what I only knew was that it felt right, it felt so damn right.

I volunteered as a doctor’s assistant in Doctors without Borders in collaboration with the United Nations. Can you believe it? Me? Volunteering? Just when I was about to become a whole new polished woman, I detoured to being a volunteer. So for three months I was stationed at the jungles of Thailand and trained under the supervision of the head nurse of the unit. It was really a hard life. The living condition was less than the minimum and what’s worse was that there was always a threat to our lives since there was a war going on in the region. We moved from place to place, hours became days, days became weeks and weeks became months. After the training, I was given the ‘go’ signal to be a doctor’s assistant and they were going to fly me to Cambodia. I was to work under Dr. Caleb Desrouleux. At that time, I’ve always imagined him to be in his late forties, possibly balding and sporting a french accent. Little did I know I was going to be his assistant. After six months of working in the rural regions of untamed Cambodia, I discovered that Dr. Desrouleux was not a balding, forty-something year old French man, he was a thirty year old French-Canadian who, in fact, was not balding but has rich, thick chestnut hair. He was very much a great doctor who was as accommodating to his patients as he was to his colleagues. For the six months that the team was together, all six of us: Dr. Caleb, Dan: our statistics head, Lara: my very close friend and my fellow doctor’s assistant, Father Petrucci, Sister Maria and I became really close, almost like a real family. During the days when work wasn’t demanded as much and medical supplies were still awaited to be sent or dropped off, I resorted to writing memories of my experiences in Thailand and Cambodia in a cheap notebook and a pen that I borrowed from Dan. It was very much different from writing in my laptop, the words were raw and very much fresh and every single thought that passed through my mind ended up in the notebook. There was a time when the team was given the opportunity to go to Phnom Penh to reconnect to civilization for three days. We bought everything that we could buy through our allowances and I even had the opportunity to log on to the internet. It took me a couple of hours to type everything that was in my notebook in case I’d lose it and I hit ‘send’ to the magazines that I was vouching for future employment. I was really hoping people would be able to know how much suffering there is in this world, and that I was a part of it. I was hoping that more people would be aware of this project and help us in helping refugees in these devastated parts of several countries to own up to it and stand up again. The last month of our stay in Cambodia was quite heartrending for us since we knew we were each going our separate ways after that. And on our last week, Dr. Caleb and I grew closer through our conversations about our lives before this project and the probable future ahead of us, whether or not we’ll be able to come back and volunteer. I discovered that he was a graduate of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and graduated top of his class. His family was in business for which he vaguely gave description on. He has two older brothers-- one was an architect and the other a business tycoon. He was born in Canada but was raised in New York. Before he volunteered, he was a first year resident at Johns Hopkins Hospital and lived a pretty normal life. He has been with ‘DWB’ for the past two years and has been to Ethiopia, Colombia, Haiti, Nepal and Cambodia on refugee missions. He was nearly shot by a guerilla rebel back in Ethiopia.  Then I asked him what drove him to volunteer for Doctors without Borders, he told me it was because of a break-up. Ironic, huh? His response just made me laugh throughout our conversation. Apparently, he got his heart broken when his girlfriend left him for another man, and that man was a friend of his. His volunteerism was a way for him to start a new life and set the right priorities straight. Double ironic!

At our last day, Dr. Caleb told me he wanted to visit me in the Philippines and that he wanted me to join him and the team in the next project.

While I was still walking towards the little road leading to our house in Bukidnon, I couldn’t shake off the last words Dr. Caleb told me while we were in the international airport in Phnom Penh: “I like you very, very much and would like to court you properly.” Whaaaaaaaat? Ang haba ng hair mo, dai! Throughout my flight from Cambodia to Manila and Manila to Cagayan de Oro and my bus ride from Cagayan de Oro to Bukidnon, I tried to decipher what he meant by his words. Did he really mean it? Maybe I was just having the yips or maybe I was just having one of those auditory hallucinations that women get when their estrogen shoot up. Or maybe, just maybe, there were no hidden meanings, he meant what he said. He told me to email him with my decision. I just can’t wait to arrive home and go online, STAT! Amidst the terrible jetlag I was having, I still had the energy to entertain my parents and my younger brother through my stories and experiences in Thailand and Cambodia. I told them how I loved my work so much that maybe I would come back and volunteer again. I even had the strength to take a bath and freshen up. But by the time I was fully and freshly clothed; I could not resist the temptation of my bed and just snoozed off. By the time I woke up, it was already four in the morning. I was the only one who was awake. I took my laptop in the kitchen counter and turned it on and immediately started writing my reply to Dr. Caleb or Caleb or mutual admirer or future boyfriend or future husband… so yeah my mind trailed off for a while until a second later I regained my status and really started typing down the words that I have practiced reciting in my head for the whole travel from Cambodia to my home. I told him that yes, I really liked him too and that I would permit to court me if that was what he wanted. I even told him that he was welcome to come visit me in Bukidnon whenever he wanted. And if ever I was given the opportunity to renew my contract in the United Nations, I would very much oblige. After hitting the ‘send’ button, I went around our living room and spotted a stack of mail. Just checking, I flicked on each envelope until I saw the envelope I was waiting for my whole life.

So, why am I telling this to you? Well, this is just a way for me to put a closure on our pseudo-relationship in the past. I saw Sara just the other week in Manila and it seems that you have a beautiful daughter. When I saw her, I thought all the rage in the world was going to drop on me, but I was wrong. I was glad to see her and to know that somehow the both of you made the right choice of falling in love with each other. Sara was still apologetic about what happened but I shooed her words away. I was happy knowing that even though you both did excellent in hurting me in the past, at least we were in great places now—you and Sara have a daughter and me, well, still un-married but happy. Very, very happy indeed.

God knows how much I have changed for the past six years. My looks, my stance, my career, my love, my life. It’s like I took reinvention on a whole new level. I am here in an island in French Polynesia having my well-deserved vacation after all the hard work in India facing patients with venereal diseases and nutritional illnesses. It’s a hard life, yes, but I am deeply inspired by it every day. Nothing has affected me this much before. And in addition, my work is also deeply inspired by Dr. Caleb Desrouleux who said that I drove him ‘crazy as hell- in a good way.’ What’s more wonderful than this is the fact that I actually work for Times magazine now. Do you remember my little notebook in Cambodia? Times loved it so much that they’re paying me to travel with the DWB and UN and write insights about politics, healthcare and goodwill volunteerism through my work as a volunteer in depressed areas. It’s like I said, it’s not easy but I can’t live without it. I really just can’t. The view from here, I must say, is just spectacular. I am here with Caleb and we’re having a mini-holiday. Just three weeks from now we will go back to Cambodia to start another project. Oh, did I mention? Caleb finally told me what his family does and it has something to do with… uhm… a lot of things really. But one thing’s for certain: he does not have to work for his whole life with the money that his family’s got. And I already met his family. His parents were quite surprising. When he told me we were meeting his family in their home in the Upper East Side in Manhattan, I instantly thought of them as judgmental and posh socialites with high breeding. But I was wrong. His parents loved road tripping and everywhere in their home were pictures, souvenirs and memorabilia of their travels all over the world. His mother was overly enthusiastic in meeting me that she kept pinching my cheeks most of the time. His father was a stout man who talked nothing but food, fishing and football. When the famous Desrouleux brothers were together, they looked like models from the same agency or actors like the Baldwin brothers but at the same time they were like kids: they talk about who’s bigger than who and who’s got the better car.

This will be a farewell to you and my bitter memories of you. I would just like to think that it was fate that brought us together and broke us up. It was fate that I reinvented myself, volunteered for the UN, met Caleb and became a Times magazine writer. It was fate that I became who I’ve always wanted to be. And yeah, it took a measly six years to do it.

And I have only one thing left to say to you: THANK YOU FOR BREAKING UP WITH ME.

-your ex-girlfriend.

Musings and Memoirs Pt. 1

When I first look at you, I would be astonished. I would think you’re too suave, too confident and too handsome to be as unbelievable as you seem to be even though you’re standing right in front of me. People of all kinds- men, women, teenagers, children, geriatrics and even the schizophrenic-catatonics will gasp upon your sheer elegance. But me, no, I will be as nonchalant as I am now. Your guise will not affect even a nerve in my body. There is only one reason for this kind of reaction—I do not believe you to be real, even though you’re speaking and your words are directed towards me. You ask for my name, I tell you to buzz off. But you insist, you struggle and you even offer to buy me an apple martini. I oblige, of course. Who am I to turn down such a knock-out like you are? You don’t know that at that very moment I was staring at your green eyes and I notice small pecks of gray in your irises, there are freckles in your nose and your lashes are rather long and thick. There is a certain brightness that lights up your eyes when you smile, like headlights on a convertible. Then you offer the martini to me, I take it from your hand and had a sip.

That moment was just a taste of what was ahead for the both of us. I still continued to be the stubborn girl who didn’t believe in men like you and you continued to pursue me. Pursue me? You? As I’m writing this, I could not even believe what you were doing before now. For months you tried persuading me to go out with you but I just couldn’t muster the confidence to go on a date with you. I was a single, lonely, rain-soaked puppy in New York City, the unknown girl from Queens, the girl you would pass by in the street without the slightest notice. You were a different story. You were the man-about-town, the seemingly perfect man in Armani suits and shiny, clean loafers. For God’s sake, you live in the Upper East Side! But we had the same passion, the one thing that kept us bumping into each other-- Art. Even when I was still in my scrubs, fresh from the graveyard shift in the hospital, I went straight to the Guggenheim rather than going home for some shut eye. I was thrilled to be early when there were only a few people. Plus, it was a Saturday and I had two days off after last night. I saw you instantly when I reached the third level via the spiral ramp. You were in a suit with a dark red tie and black loafers. You had coffee in your right hand, and judging from my keen sense of smell I knew you were having coffee with milk and cinnamon. But there was one thing that was out-of-place in your over-all attire, which were your white earphones connected to your Ipod. I smiled at that thought; you really did look kind of funny. And then without noticing, we were both fixated on a piece by Picasso, the title I could not seem to remember. You see, my memory’s worse as yours. You looked at me, I looked at you. Then you removed your earphones from your ears and said ‘Hi’. I said ‘hello’ back. I was smiling so wide I was conscious that I looked a little crazy to you. Then you suddenly mumbled your name, I nodded in response. Then you started to ask what my name was. I don’t know what got into me, but at that moment I was not able to move a single muscle, my head was too busy memorizing your face for it may be the most beautiful face I have ever seen in the city. Before I could even open my big, fat mouth, my phone alarm went ballistic: it was already ten in the morning and I had to go back to Queens fast.

How did we even get married? It feels like a long time ago. After the entire incidental ‘bumping-on-each-other’ and the renegade-style dates we decided to have a truce—we had to officially date! And it was in those years of dating together that I realized you were not as prim and proper as I expected you to be. You have Spongebob boxer shorts and apparently you love them to bits. You have a soft spot for “The Carpenters” and “Abba”. You make my ears pop when you sing in the bathroom like a madman. You don’t know how to use a washing machine. When I asked you what was the latest book you’ve read and when did you last read it, you said with all confidence, “For whom the bell tolls by Ernest Hemingway when I was in high school”. The more I discover random things about your life, the more I understand why you want to experience a life with someone as normal as me. You were basically bathed in luxury, spoiled by your incandescent mother and father who were so good to you that until now they still can’t let you go. You had formal summer camps, holidays in Martha’s Vineyard, Southampton and Nantucket and every training in the world that contributes to someone with breeding. You were linked to women in the same circle as you were in. That must have been quite boring, huh? It’s like having the same dinner every single boring day. Every day when we were together, I understood that my life was indefinitely changing. There were social events where I had to be there with you side by side and there were summers in posh locations in the country when we had to put up appearances for other people. It was new to me and I had to come into terms of getting used to it. And at the same time you had to endure my not being there at all times due to my demanding schedule at the hospital. We had quarrels and even big fights but we remained together through it all. After four years of being together, I realized you were the only man for me; you were the only one who could catch my eye even when you were in the middle of a crowd or even a mosh pit. I realized you were the only one who understood me, who told me I was beautiful even when I just woke up with my haystack hair and a significant trail of a drool in the side of my face. You were the only one who saw wonderful things in me, things that I was not even aware of possessing, things that I have took for granted. You are the only man who vindicates me on being strong. You were the only man I would live for even if it would take heaven and earth to pull its strings for me. You were the only man whom I would fight for with my last breath. You make my heart flutter and go off into irregular beats. You make me happy even if it’s just a silly note in my e-mail. You make days of being apart from you seem like years. You continue to surprise me every day. I realized that I love you in the most absolute way that nothing can hinder me from feeling it.

Do you remember how you proposed to me? You looked so nervous and pale that I even thought you had a slight touch of hypotension and I even insisted on examining you. But you were shaking your head vigorously. We were at central park, walking around the pond and talking about where to spend our three-week sabbatical. And then suddenly, out of the blue, you were down on your left knee and presenting me a beautifully set diamond ring in a red velvet box. I just went blank. I was listening to you, everything that you were saying but my mind was wandering elsewhere. Part of me wanted to burst out of tears, another part of me just wanted to squeal out of happiness. But I have done neither; instead I cried and said ‘Yes’. We were married just nine months later in the Guggenheim by special request. The next year of being married to each other was such bliss. We were inseparable like Siamese twins and we couldn’t get our hands off each other. I even remember one evening when we were in Nantucket; you played for me “The Swan” by Saint-Saens in the piano and told me that piece was just like me. I was your swan, your muse; that I was your only inspiration and the one thing that’s most important to you from that moment on. I couldn’t imagine anything else that’s remotely beautiful as your words. Do you still know me? Do you still remember me? Those memories of you are the only things that I truly treasure. Five years in this marriage and we’re still rocking the house like how we did back when we were still dating. But even though five years just went flying by, those five years were undeniably the best years of my life filled with the best memories and the best man in the world. Do you see this ring on my finger? Do you still remember our promise to each other? We promised that we would love each other despite every obstacle that may leave us stumbling, but at least we’re stumbling together. We promised that we would hold each other’s hands until we die. Before that big eraser in your head succeeds in its task in removing every bit of memory left of you and me, I just want to tell you I loved you then and I still love now. I will remember us for you. I want to reassure you that even though everything about you is different, you will still be the same man who captivated my soul with those grey-specked green eyes. You will always be the same man who made my heart beat like raindrops against concrete. When that time comes when you forget how to breathe, I ask you this: let your first and last breath in your life be in memory of us.

Ever thine, ever mine, ever ours.

                                                                                       The Alzheimer's Wife

You’re the one that I DON’T want

Just minutes ago I watched something in Lifestyle television that distracted me for a whole five minutes. The program was entitled “Biggest Hollywood Break-ups” and it was BIG, I tell you. What really intrigued me was the love life of notorious, drug-sniffing, bamboo stick-skinny model Kate Moss. Don’t get me wrong, I love her, her face and her style but her love life is what I would like to call a train wreck. The men she was in love, GAWD, were a far cry from what she deserves. One guy who was so BAD and I mean REALLY BAD for her was her rockstar ex whose name I could not remember. He was downright dysfunctional, had a chemical romance with all sorts of drugs and was stupid. I really do not know what Kate sees in him, but I really do think that she has gone blind.
The real crazy phenomenon exhibited in Kate Moss’ love life is the phenomenon I would like to call, “Bad Guy Love.”
This phenomenon, scientifically, is unexplainable. But I, a girl, can and will be able to explain it sans the hormones and the endorphins blah blah blah. Why do most girls get attracted to bad guys? Why do they have this strange fascination with guys who break all the rules? Is there a benefit in dating guys like Chuck Bass or Johnny Depp? There are many answers to this question, and I might as well enumerate them.

1. Sense of adventure. Bad boys do bad things. Correct. Good girls do good things. Correct again. When this good girl goes into a “I-am-sick-of-being-good” crisis, this good girl would try to find something to do that is beyond her limits. With this coming-of-age turnover comes a tour guide who knows everything that is BAD. These girls would love to experience new things and it can only happen with a bad guy. And the bad guy would be happy to oblige.

2. A Walk to Remember. Do you know the movie “A Walk to Remember”? Do you remember how girls in the cinema just swooned over the lead character Landon Carter? How they quickly fell in love with him? I still can remember how I loved that movie so much that I was determined to read all the novels written by Nicholas Sparks. Anyhow, if you haven’t seen it, the story is quite similar to the koreanovelas and other –novellas today about this bad guy who turned into a good guy after falling in love with a good girl. Every girl has this fantasy of changing a man’s life, like how Jamie Sullivan changed Landon Carter’s life in a subtle manner. I, too, have that kind of fantasy even though it’s quite absurd. Why do girls want to be Jamie Sullivan? Because it gives them a sense of supreme importance to man’s life, then she would or would not brag about it in the future. To change a bad guy is to tame a lion, nearly impossible but really possible.

3. The Chase. Do you know feeling when you are really attracted to this person but this person does not reciprocate to your feelings? You know, being ignored? No matter how harsh it is, girls usually love the chase. Today’s dating rules tell us that guys love to chase but can’t girls do the chasing too? Girls, nowadays, are more straightforward than those girls in the, say, 15th century. Now, everyone has to make a move despite the one’s inhibitions and the awkwardness of the situation.

4. The Label. Bad boys are usually labeled as “cool” or “in”, maybe even “hot” especially in the fashion industry. Their stance, their dress code, their stair… bad guys are just plain SEXY and sex usually sells. Girls have this weird notion of getting what is hot in the market, their latest accessory of some sort. Apparently, bad guys are selling like hotcakes.
No matter how you would turn the world upside-down, bad guys always sell. But don’t get me wrong; at the end of the day, it’s the good guys who get all the love. Bad guys don’t last forever or even a lifetime. It’s like eating Ferreros, you might want to eat it every day but you won’t, because you know it’s going to be bad for you, you might get hyperglycemia and diabetes which would eventually kill you. Bad guys may be the ideal of the century but good guys are the keeper, they’re the ones who are worthy of any girl’s love. After the adventure, the chase, the fantasies… nothing remains and you might end up broke, and life for a good girl would then be, again, boring. In the end, the troupe of Shia LaBeouf and Michael Cera wins the hearts of girls around the world. They may be good, but girl, you haven’t gone to their deepest thoughts yet. Who knows what’s in their heads? Good guys are not all too good, they can be lions sometimes. They’re just men after all.

Don’t want to do it AGAIN.

I felt worse. But this was different.
So far, I think I have felt every single emotion every human being is allotted to feel-- fear, anger, anxiety, happiness, exuberance... name it, and I am sure I could give you a concrete experience.

They said it was "love". I said it was "love", well, when I was so drunk that I could not even stand for a minimum of a second. I don't regret getting drunk and exposing my little secret to whoever was there at the secret hideout but I must say, the the juice was not worth the squeeze. What I bargained for, was far less than what I "supposedly" expected.

It has already been nearly nine months since the first confession, and I did it over again twice after that. Of course I got drunk again. But i could not deny how excruciating the pain was... waiting and waiting...

It hurts my pride when I spill out that I cried, a lot. Silent tears were never my favorite thing in the world, but at that time it seemed like the only thing to do to keep me sane. Now, I can’t call it love, love isn't supposed to be like this, it shouldn't be a one way street, a faulty telephone connection, a gloomy afternoon. I simply don't want to do it again.

The sad part is, it has been more than a year, those days of being "happy" and "inspired"-- I would like to experience them again. But please, with another one. He is simply a memory and he'll always stay there buried and forgotten.
I wish I had the license to kill, but sadly, I am no James Bond. He's too harsh and I am too patient. An unlikely pair.

Goodbye to him.

Who’s that Girl?

These past few weeks I’ve been reading pocketbooks to ward off my eternal boredom. And then I noticed that the stories I’ve read—Deveraux’s “The Summerhouse”, Potter’s “Be Careful What You Wish For” and “Who’s that Girl?”—all have one thing in common, TIME. At first, I thought it was CHANCE, but then I realized, CHANCE always involves TIME right? Anyways, I’m completely missing the point right here. What if… I would see myself, ten years younger than what I am now… what advice would I give her?
Way back when I was still nine years old, I think I was still in fourth grade, trying to be “popular” with the other popular girls. Of course, I was already a tad overweight at that time and really messy. Oh my God… I even had a strawler that time! You know, those trolley-like bags, that instead of carrying them on your back, you just have to drag it with you all over the place. No, seriously, as pathetic as it sounds, I did have one of those things. And to top it off, it was PINK! Sometimes I would look over the west window of our classroom and just admire the view of my crush from downstairs. He was the conductor of our school’s drum and bugles. He was gorgeous! And as far as I was concerned, he was the most popular guy in our school. Now, I sound so pathetic. I never felt like I ruled that school, I never felt so powerless than me way back in grade school. It’s ironic, really, in most of the teen-oriented movies produced in the U. S.; ordinary people would regard their high school years as the worst years of their lives. Well, for me, it was grade school. You can’t imagine how many silly kids with smelly sweat all over their bodies would make fun of you. It’s annoying! And definitely disgusting! Argh!
So, going back to the question, what advice would I give to my nine-year-old self? Just imagine me talking to myself in a not-so-schizophrenic way, alright?

1. Keep away from those large bags of Mr. Chips and Piatos!
As a grade schooler, junk foods woul d be considered as “food for the soul”, or what is usually called in bayous of Louisiana as “Soul Food”. But girl… come one! Those extra sodium and potassium in your body could get you hypertension in the future, then stroke, then stupor, then coma, then DEATH! But really, and seriously, stay away from those, they’re nothing but MSG! And they will kill your brain cells, then you might get Alzheimer’s disease, then…

2. Wear sunscreen at least at an SPF of 50
Nyma, I know how much you love the beach, but please slather on some Nivea before splashing yourself on some salty beach water! The Philippines is quite impartial to girls with your complexion, they might mistake you as some indigent from a faraway mountain, which, you are not.

3. Don’t play too much under the sun
Do you know how much you hate smelly and sweaty grade schoolers in the year 2010? Especially if they would sit beside you in the jeepney, you then get those disturbing shivers down your spine that would signal your brain and your hands to cover your nose. Yes, dear, it’s THAT bad.

4. Wear a deodorant already!
You have to force your mother to buy a deodorant for yourself and then tell her “tawas” is an old visayan myth.

5. Don’t even think about wearing those tomboy-ish baggy pants
Admit it, you are fat, and those baggy pants won’t help you even a tiny bit. If you want to make a statement, then wear a statement shirt, just don’t touch those baggy pants, you’ll regret that in the future.

6. Don’t buy those ultra cute cup-A’s from Avon…
… because in less than a year your hooters are going to get a wee bigger. Trust me, puberty is a lot to handle. Don’t worry if your nipples would sometimes stick out behind that white uniform, grade school boys haven’t discovered testosterone and porn yet at that time.

7. Just keep drawing… Just keep drawing… Just keep drawing
Don’t let anyone stop you from keeping your eyes on the prize. Let your artistic skills reach its peak. Maybe one day you’ll be good enough to audition for a spot at UP Fine Arts and then next stop… School of Visual Arts! And don’t even think about slacking off, it’s a waste of your precious grade school time. EYES ON THE PRIZE!

8. Read pocketbooks, STAT!
As underrated as pocketbooks are, you can actually learn things from the writers you’ll love in your teen years. Inspire yourself now and apply what you’ve learned from these books in your real life. Just don’t overdo it, okay?

9. Don’t let the most popular girl at school bully you
Don’t be mistaken by her power, she’s just as vulnerable as you are. Maybe, she would turn out as the most pathetic person you’d know as soon as you graduate in high school. It’s true that popularity at that age would have the wrong reasons. Who would’ve believed that I was a wallflower once? Looking at my nine-year-old self, all I could say is, “Girl, you are definitely helpless! But definitely not hopeless”. Trust me, you would turn out to be a whole lot better a person in the future.

10. Be as academically smart as you can
If you only graduated as smart as you are in 2010, you could’ve landed that scholarship in your high school! Don’t ever settle for less, don’t ever settle for a half scholarship at some bogus university and never let your grade school teachers fool you on suggesting that you stay behind for your high school years to come. SPOILER ALERT: By the way, even without a scholarship in high school, you still made it! The first and second years of high school would be a shock to you, but the third and fourth would be the best years of your life.

If only I could hitch a ride in a time machine, I would definitely go back ten years earlier to tell myself THAT I COULD DO BETTER. But… and yes there’s a large BUT in here… if I try hard to muse over every advice and if ever I did actually do it when I was nine years old, I wouldn’t be who I am today. As unbelievable as it may seem, I do love myself-- flaws and all.
For example, if I had followed my mother’s instructions of applying sunscreen all over me, I wouldn’t be as tan as I am today. My friends and I know being fair in complexion JUST AIN’T ME. I just can’t easily deny that I like being under the heat of the sun and I wouldn’t mind having a tan. I know it’s gonna get ugly in about ten to twenty years from now, but, what the heck, I’ll compensate, just trust me.

If I hadn’t allowed my nine-year-old self to play under the sun, slack off and just enjoy being me without the books and the academic pressure, I wouldn’t have a childhood. I remember in one episode of Sex and the City that one thing Samantha was proud about herself was the fact that she actually had a childhood, compared to the teenagers nowadays who want to grow up fast without even stopping and taking a look at what this would do to them wholly. I definitely don’t want to miss a second of my childhood. A career can wait, I promise.

Even if I read Deveraux, McNaught, Steele, Potter and Austen at that early time of my life, I wouldn’t have understood what they were trying to tell me. Even if I tried my hardest, my nine-year-old brain couldn’t even take it, even my brain cells would surrender! Then, I would just end up re-reading them in my teenage years which is such a waste of time. Also, I line to the previous statement, if I haven’t been slacking off, I wouldn’t have been able to read books and write stuff. It’s a shame since these are two of my most favorite hobbies. And if I wouldn’t permit myself to slack off for a while, I know in the future when I turn 30-ish, I would feel the pang of realizing that I WAS SO STRESSED OUT. Maybe I’d even throw a huge fit and realize things when it is already too late.

If I did have a career in visual arts, I wouldn’t have been able to meet the wonderful people who became my friends from high school to college. I wouldn’t have been able to study nursing and I wouldn’t have been able to graduate from Xavier. Even Pol Medina, Jr. who I admire so much, was an engineer before going on to full-time cartoonist.
If I hadn’t let the most popular girl at school bully me, I wouldn’t have the foundation, the grounds and the right reason of being as mean as I am today. The fact is I realized in high school how you could stand up for yourself without even trampling all over your friends. I learned how to defend and to protect myself and my friends from those people who are trying to bring us down. I swore to myself I wouldn’t let that happen to me anymore. As Beyonce said, “Some call it arrogant, I call it confident”. Sometimes I do live by with the saying that it is better to be feared. But also, I believe that the secret to life is to keep your closest friends at a hugging distance.

Lastly, if wouldn’t have eaten the extra salty chips, I wouldn’t have been a fatty right now and also I wouldn’t have THE hooters I have, hence, I wouldn’t be ME. I just couldn’t imagine myself looking straight into a mirror, seeing a slim figure right in front of me. I know I should shed a couple of pounds but I don’t expect so much as to turn into Kim Chiu one of these days. I even wonder when my mother would accept that I would always be as I am now—a little fat. But, for me, I am satisfied.
I know I have always written about myself since… ever. What can I say? I haven’t seen the world yet. Maybe next time I would be

 

writing my musings while I’m riding a camel across the Moroccan dessert or maybe while I’m chilling out and sunbathing at the Cathedral Cove in New Zealand. Who knows?