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?