Dating. Courtship. I never understood what those words meant because I've never seen a need for these rituals in my life. To date someone involves a certain kind of caution and certainty-seeking that I don't have the patience for; I believe that the only way you can ever be sure of how the other sees you is by jumping in with your eyes closed. My idea of getting into relationships involves talking nonstop until both parties have fallen in love with each other, enough to want to be an item. The dating stage of my three serious relationships were pretty much whirlwind romance types that lasted less than a month; after realizing that, "You like/love me. I like/love you. Let's be together!", we'd officially take ourselves off the market. No dinner dates, no flowers, no dramatic displays of love. (Well okay, the catalyst of the second relationship was the relief I felt over his having survived a physical confrontation with 75 men, but this is a strange story for another time.)



So I wanted to do something different with Marco and try to make the dating period last as long as possible. It wasn't because I was unsure of what I felt for him; in fact, from the moment I first saw him (January 3 at Cantina through the intercession of the Hohobags; I have Kimi and Rica to thank for being particularly insistent that I be there that night), I liked him. The more I got to know him that night and the weekends that followed, the more I realized that a) we are insanely compatible (he likes zombie movies and he actually listens when I talk about Marxism), b) he gets cuter every time I see him, c) I can't imagine a weekend without seeing him, d) shit, I want to be with him but he probably won't feel the same way because I'm creepy and dorky and weird. So I kissed him (and with a "kbye!" I made my way quickly into my house because I couldn't look him in the eye after). I figured that if I never hear from him after that night, my fears would be confirmed and I can just chalk this up to another one of my many failures in dating/relationships.

But I did hear from Marco the next day! And at some point over the next couple of weeks, he actually told me that he was falling in love with me! OMG OMG OMG. The Relationship Talk was inevitable at that point. He admitted that things were going unbelievably fast for him because it usually takes him forever to warm up to people. Not that he wasn't happy being around me though. The problem is that he can't accept happiness until he feels he has earned it. And to that, I showed an unexpected amount of maturity and patience. The old neurotic me would have freaked out, but all I said was, "Okay, take your time. We have all the time in the world. It's not like I'm dying or moving out of the country or anything."

Last night, Marco took me to a fancy restaurant carrying a huge bag and a bouquet of flowers. "No, these are not for you yet," he replied mysteriously when he caught me looking at the bouquet. Throughout our appetizers (snooty French onion soup with lots of cheese), he kept fiddling with something under the table. I wondered if he was setting up a bomb to blow the place up, and if dying together was his idea of romance.

Finally, Marco explained what was going on. He was ready to jump into a relationship with me, but before doing so he wanted to "earn" it by courting me in record time.

"Wait, that's completely unnecessary, you know I don't believe in courtshi-"

"Just play along, it'll be fun!"

And when I nodded dumbly, still confused about what was going on, he procured a checklist and timer from under the table.



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When you and your significant other break up but stay friends, do you continue to call each other by your pet names? Cos I think that's kinda weird.

Whenever I get struck by an idea, I become fixated by it until the idea becomes reality - or until a better idea comes along to distract me from the previous idea. Last weekend, I had the idea to enroll in fashion school and today, I did just that. Ever since I started my ukay-ukay blog, I've been reading up a lot about fashion, trends, and have been paying more to the clothes I wear. And when I stayed in Saturday night, nursing a bad migraine, it occurred to me that dabbling in fashion design might not be such a bad idea. Sewing is a skill that I can always use as a hobby or as a way to augment my income if (IF!) I become part of the department's junior faculty. Never mind that I have absolutely no eye for design whatsoever, or that I damn near sewed my finger onto the fabric the last time I was in front of a sewing machine. I am fairly confident about my taste in style, and I am capable of doing whatever I put my mind into - until I get distracted by something else.


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Luis and I are a duo in a new indie band called The Hip Hip Hoorays. Think She & Him or Mates of State. Please buy our first album. Support the indie-indie-indiestry!

I think I may have finally found the words to describe why I hate you.

I tried, I really tried to just let it go, forgive, and move on. I have moved on, but maybe not entirely. On the rare moments when I do think of you, I try remember you with fondness, but it's impossible. My memories of you are tainted because of the horrible thing that you did to me and kept doing to me for the longest time. You fucking monster.

You knew it was wrong, you told me yourself. You told me you foresaw the consequences and that I did exactly what you feared I would do (it was about time, too!).

So why are you still doing it?

You know who you are. You know where to find me.

So according to Pinback's MySpace tour page, they will be playing in San Francisco three days before I arrive. Am I going to let this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity pass me by? HELL FUCKING NO!

So I checked the stipulations of my e-ticket and according to the rules, the penalty for changing my flight dates is a mere $25. Which is a really small price to pay if it means seeing my favoritest band in the whole wide world perform ***live***.

I'm gonna go ask Dr. Garcia when he plans to hold the final exam and if it's before the 17th (the concert is on the 19th), then I'm changing my flight details. And if it's going to be on the 17th, fuck that I'm gonna ask if I can take my exam before then. LOL I'm not even going to ask Ale if it's okay if I can come there a few days earlier than planned. Bahala sya. If he gives me some lame-ass excuse about me sticking to the flight dates because I might distract him from school or whatever (which I highly doubt, but it could happen), puta I'll find somewhere else to stay. FEELING MO NAMAN AAGAHAN KO ANG PUNTA KO DYAN DAHIL MAHAL KITA??? HINDE GAGO, GUSTO KO LANG MAKITANG LIVE ANG PINBACK!!!!!

omg omg excited. Kk better stop thinking but this and some schoolwork done. Anne, Helga, and Luis are coming over, woot!

"His precarious location between the colonizer/colonized dichotomy makes his motivations difficult to discern" really means "I DON'T KNOW WHAT THIS CHARACTER IS ALL ABOUT, K?"

Hey, I think I'm getting the hang of the language.

* * * * *

In the middle of bitching about grad school, Kristel interrupts me and says, "...dude. We're on a porn site."

Don't bother clicking, the site's slightly NSFW and the photo isn't even that scandalous (or flattering).

* * * * *

Apparently, peppering your blog with new media events makes you an "emerging influential blogger" these days. Whatever that's supposed to mean.

Last week, the blog entry I wrote on iWebmasters (my former workplace) made its rounds to the employees. Though everyone who read it was pretty pissed off, I only got one flamer out of it, and a pretty lame one at that. Now I'm sure I will get shot if I so much as set foot in Tycoon Plaza again.

But that's not the point of the story. That same day, I received the following e-mail from a random person:

"Ho ho - just read your iWebmasters exit interview, nicely placed on Google's first page. I was thinking of using them; I guess I'll be looking a little longer. Cheers --"

I can has influence too?

Summady made a list of the ten most worthless college majors. English Lit ranks higher than Music Therapy, which was described as “the scientific application of the art of music within a therapeutic relationship to meet the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual needs of individuals. Which is a big, fancy way of saying “We’ll teach you how to make a mix tape.”" :(

Next short-term life goal: seduce someone into buying me a beer using my knowledge of lit theory.

I'm still alive. Good to see that everyone else is still alive too. :)

Typing stuff onto this LJ entry box feels so weird. It's like opening a box of really, really old pictures. Everyone's changed, everything's changed, and I'm so different from back when I still used LJ as my cathartic medium that I feel like I shouldn't even be doing this, you know?

And now I have absolutely no clue what else to say next.

Which would you rather be:

a) pretty but constantly depressed (and I'm not talking about the "I'm sad" kind of depression. I mean the sort where you spend hours either crying your eyes out for absolutely no reason at all, or staring into space because you honestly don't care whether you live or die the next minute) and picking stupid fights with your boyfriend for no rational reason at all?

or

b) not-so-pretty, but at least you're capable of being as happy as a mentally unstable 22 year old can get?

Believe me, this is not an easy question to answer.

I've been taking this birth control pill Yasmin for some time now, not so much for the "I'm too young to get knocked up" reasons as the "my skin has been ugly ever since I hit puberty and I've done everything to make my skin stop breaking out and for just once in my life I'd like to be pretty" reasons. My mom wasn't too thrilled about my decision to get on the pill due to our family's history of breast cancer. She was convinced that the estrogen in the pill would transform my breasts into little tumor farms. To appease her I had my gynecologist run some (rather expensive) tests on me and when everything checked out okay, I made my way to the drug store with my prescription of Yasmin.

Little did my mom or I realize that breast cancer is the least of the more serious side effects to get worried about.

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When he finally left, I thought the hardest part would be falling asleep at night. I was wrong. It's waking up in the morning that gets so unbearably lonely.

I've never been a morning person. I love sleeping in, and anyone in my family or anyone I've traveled with can attest to the fact that I'm always last to wake up. I don't know why but during the two weeks we were together I'd wake up an hour before he does and just sit there, watching him sleep. I'd be thinking too much as usual, about random disconnected things, and I'd come up with some minor revelation about life, myself, or us, and I'd want to talk to him about it. But he looks so peaceful sleeping there, like a little boy, so I remain seated and quiet, watching him. When I feel like the thought bubble is about to burst I start waking him up slowly. I'd crawl back to bed and wrap my arms around his waist and start shaking him gently. "Panda, Panda, Panda," I'd whisper into his ear. He'd groan, wrap his arms around my neck, and bury my face into his chest to make me shut up. I'd pull away and repeat, until he finally opens his eyes and smiles (even though I know deep down he wants to kill me for not letting him sleep half an hour longer).

I love the way he looks at me in the morning.

These days all I have when I wake up is a pillow underneath my arm, my other hand clutching on to the t-shirt he'd sleep in, which I keep under my head.

I know that this isn't a gone-forever thing, like death or a break-up. I know I should be happy because the two weeks we had was more than amazing. But then I start remembering all the stuff we did together - hanging out with my friends, riding jeepneys, me playing guitar onstage with him watching from the front row, swimming in the ocean, roaring through the Bohol countryside on a motorcycle, getting lost in Cebu. I remember how excited I was when I went with Anne and Bim to pick him up at the airport very early on Sunday morning, and how Bim wouldn't stop making fun of me for being so excited and how embarrassed that made me feel - but in a very good way. I remember all these things and I get so so sad, because it feels like I'll never be that happy again. There are times when it's okay, when we talk on iChat like how it started, and I feel like I'm not going to shed another tear until I see him later this year. And then there times, such as now, when it occurs to me that there's nobody who'll make silly faces at me to calm me down when I start freaking out or nobody to tell me to eat my vegetables at dinner. And thinking that makes me so sad, the only thing I can do is cry to the songs that remind me of him while inhaling the scent of his aftershave (that he accidentally left). I can't even begin to describe how happy I was when he was here, and how fucking lonely it gets now that he isn't physically around.

I wish there was someone I could talk to about this. I mean I've told my friends how sad I get and although they're probably tired of hearing about it, I don't think they'd tell me to shut up. But I haven't even told them half of how lonely I feel. Nobody's around during the worst part, in the mornings, when my chest gets so heavy that the only thing I can do is smoke myself to death in the bathroom and cry until my eyes are swollen for the rest of the day.

Hooray for LJ and optional emo.

Have you always wanted to see the editors of The Man Blog do something besides be fat, mean, and manly? Did you know that rock music is the evil spawn of Satan? Would you like to get your face melted off by overripe yellow bananas of awesome?

If your answer to all three questions is a YES, then head over to Bela Bar, Greenhills on May 3 where The Man Blog will be holding their first musical production ever - The Banana Gangbang Rock Festival.



Expect to be entertained by Gino Carteciano's poster-making skillz, Bim Barbieto's hosting skillz, and music from the bands of self-proclaimed internet celebrities Mike Villar, Ade Magnaye, Marco Palinar, and yours truly. And because I have sneakily snuck my way into Ade's band, I shall be playing with not one but two bands that evening (Zoo and Lose Your Beer Belly). Is that awesome or what?!

Tickets cost a hundred bucks and are consumable in the form of beer, women, or wet t-shirts (tits not included).

Don't know where Bela Bar is? Here's a map to the place.

Still not convinced? Here’s what people are saying about The Banana Gangbang Rock Festival. And by "people" I mean "the blogosphere's elite", so you better damn listen to what they have to say:

“Prepare to hold on to your lugnuts! Be there, or be scared!” – Steel Ventus

“Bring your own vaginas.” – Pau Araos

“Be there for this balls-busting, world-shattering, face-melting, death-defying ROCK… Thingy!” – Baddie

“BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM! You’re bound to eargasm four times right there and right then! Heh.” – Fritz Tentativa

“There will be ass-tons of fucking and blowjobs and tits and balls and shit." - Coco Collantes

"I'm totally going there just to see Baddie in a wet t-shirt." - Ade Magnaye

“BWAKANGINANG PAKSHET KALA MO PUGE KA?” – Mike “Fucking Drunk” Villar

See you all on May 3!

I had been to Anawangin Cove only once and had a great time despite never having gone camping before. Of course the last time I was there, I was also with experienced campers, a car, a cooler, and had answers to questions like, "What's for dinner?" and "How are we going to keep the beer cold?" I was more than excited when I found out that the Hohobags, the Hohofags, plus Anne and Helga would be heading to Anawangin for the weekend. We all needed the beach but more than that, we all needed a vacation.

You'd think that the conflict of a camping story would be the man-vs-nature type but really, the problems we encountered were more like man-vs-man. Dealing with no cellphone signal and no electricity was the easy part. It was dealing with everyone else that was roughing it that took away the vacation-like quality of our vacation.

So maybe none of us have ever really gone camping before. So maybe we were only going to take a bus, and we weren't entirely sure how we were going to make dinner or keep our drinks cold. So maybe we got ditched by the very person who planned the trip. So what? How hard can it be? What kind of trouble can eight girls, two (gay) guys, and one missing mountaineer get themselves into on an isolated in the middle of nowhere?


Summertime, and the livin's easy. NOT.
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Apparently, we charlatan bloggers have made popularize ape-like copy-pasting skills. Or something.

It may not have been the most mature thing I've ever done, but I definitely do not regret starting this thread on the frivolities of a certain Filipino cosplayer.

God, I love the internet. XD

If I were born a boy, I bet I could make any girl fall in love with me by playing her this song on the guitar.



"To Her With Love" is the very song I think any girl would love to hear from a lover/potential lover, especially if she's standing on the brink of adulthood or some other major life change. There's an acknowledgment of the girl's maturity, intelligence, and independent streak. The persona also recognizes that she has the capacity and strength to become whatever she wants. (Tip: some girls fall harder for guys who tell them they're smart than for guys who tell them they're beautiful. So if the object of your desire is that type of girl, then you should definitely sing her this song.) At the same time, the persona points out that you (the girl to whom the song is addressed to) are going to realize that the world is a shitty place sooner rather than later. You are going to experience cruel cruel life firsthand. But don't despair, I'm here for you. Let me be the buffer that will soften the blow of reality because I love you and you are gorgeous.

On that note, never trust a guy who attempts to win you over with love songs.

Last Friday I lost one of my jobs. The US-based owner of one of the websites I wrote for pulled out his funding for the site because his real estate business is plummeting, which means that almost half of my monthly income just went kaput. >_< I spent that afternoon trying to get in touch with all the people I know in the industry who might be able to get me another writing gig. I've had two responses so far, but nothing definite yet.

Maybe it's the lack of caffeine in my system talking, but I've been spending the past half hour playing around with the idea of getting an office job again. It's not even about the money, because the pay's pretty shitty. But I kind of miss being in an office. Okay, ask me how I like working five months into the job and I'll probably say something like, "I am suffocating in my cubicle, get me the fuck out of here!" But I dunno... doing this freelance thing might pay more, but it's unreliable as hell. It's also lonely as hell too. Bugging people on YM is hardly social interaction.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm going freelance because I'm just too lazy/sensitive/whatever to slave away in an office like everybody else. Ok yeah, there's the grad school thing, but I have classmates in the MA program who do office work too.

So I'm going to make a list of pros and cons that I can look back or add to once I come back to my senses. Despite the crazy urge to walk into the HR Department of MBSTek and hand them my resume, the cons seem to be winning the battle. Though the fourth pro makes being an office whore very very tempting:

PROS:
1) Friends.
2) Steady source of income.
3) The company's going to take care of my taxes. So dreading having to go to the BIR myself and handing over a chunk of my money to our assfucking government.
4) I could slowly spread Marxist ideas among my coworkers and start a revolution.

CONS:
1) Work will eat up all my time.
2) Work might eat up all my brain power, leaving me none for school. (Although the opposite could also work true; work could kill my brain, leaving me desperate to revive it by doing something smart, like school work.)
3) Work will definitely eat up all my sanity. Stuff me in a cubicle longer than five hours and watch me explode like a tomato in a microwave.
4) Shitty pay as compared to freelance writing.

...I can look at it this way. He loves me, he wants a future with me, a life that isn't motivated by obligation, a love that neither of us will take for granted after making a promise to stay together forever and ever amen. If he wanted to walk away from me he could have do so, very easily. But he is still there, sometimes when I wake up, sometimes before I go to bed. Everyday he is there, for every neurotic episode he is there, for every small victory is there, I tell him the most trivial things about my day and he drinks it in like water, his cellphone runs out of money when I'm out for the night. Everyday he leaves to go to work, everyday I leave to go to university or to a gig or to go out to drink with friends. But everyday he comes back, and I come back.

I am sad because I may never get to wear a white wedding dress and walk down on an aisle strewn with pink rose petals, placed there by little girls in cupcake white dresses. But what is marriage anyway? To me it is the ultimate commitment, to him it is the worst thing you can do to the woman you love. I am trying to understand him. Objectively I can see where he is coming from. Sometimes, I think I just want to wear the white dress.

Why get married? I want to promise that I will go through the hellfires of domestic life and back for him. I think that, if he loves me, he will make that same promise. But isn't that what we are doing now? Making promises through our vocal chords with the wind. I want security, every woman does. But even if we make that same promise in front of a judge, he can still walk away if he really wanted to. And I can easily do the same to him.

I can't tell the future and neither can he. All I have to go on is the now and the reality I see. Everything's been consistent so far. When I get afraid, he dispels my fear of abandonment by showing up or calling me long distance to remind me that he loves me. I am not sorry for my fears but I am sorry they made him think that he's not doing enough. I am sorry that sometimes, I get too caught up in my worries to see what he does for me now, what he will do for me in a few months' time. I am sorry I made him sad tonight.

He loves me. Everything he does, he does out of his own free will. Not because some contract told him to. I need to remember that.

Puta I'm totally gayed out by the contents of my blog and my Twitter and my Eljay but I don't care, I'm happy. :D

Those were the most beautiful two minutes of my life.

Oh I do believe
In all the things you say
What comes is better than what came before

And youd better come come, come come to me
Better come come, come come to me
Better run, run run, run run to me
Better come

Oh I do believe
In all the things you say
What comes is better that what came before

And youd better run run, run run to me
Better run, run run, run run to me
Better come, come come, come come to me

Ok nothing more to see here, move along nao kids.