Two events in the past two days brought back the memory of my own time in twilight zone, a.k.a. the High School Years.
KEANU-STALGIA
One, the Keanu Reeves thriller-starrer "Constantine". My high school bestfriend (and fellow former Keanu aficionado) Sappho caught it at the neighborhood mall last Friday. The movie sucked (loose ends galore by closing credits, poor excuse for a narrative), but Keanu looked damn good. Which almost compensates for everything else.
Keanu was my one great fictional love in high school. I was the Fan in every sense of the word. At that time, the present was a purgatorial blur, a dull existence. I was stuck in a world that wasn't so friendly to mousy, timid, sensitive girls with bangs. And Keanu--ditsy dude that he was; monotone, gay rumors, bland acting and all--was my savior. My celluloid god. My Muse in flesh-and-blood. And come to think of it, I DID come up with pretty nail-biting stuff at that time. Ha ha ha.
So maybe not everyone would agree with me saying that Keanu looked good in "Constantine". Gone was the supple,creamy love-to-touch-that skin of Kevin Lomax in Devil's Advocate (40 years on earth will do that to ya, man...and not being Brad Pitt-vain), but Keanu is STILL Keanu. For this dudette, at least. He will always be beeyatch-beautiful to me.
ROMY AND MICHELLE'S HIGH SCHOOL REUNION...SANS THE POST-ITS
Went to my High School's Grand Alumni Homecoming last night. (So last week was a High School Retrospect Week!). Got one of the Ten Exemplary Alumni Award (puzzling thingie...must be the Clermont-Ferrand thingie, or ABS-CBN). It was fun to see those familiar faces again, seeing how much (or how little) everyone's changed. Seated in our table were engineers, managers, and a soon-to-be-doctor. And to think that, eight years ago, we were only worrying over passing the practical exams of our terror T.H.E. teacher (Hi Tandoc...)!
After the homecoming we trooped to a nearby watering hole to talk over beers and pulutan. What would have pissed us off/made us cry eight years ago made us laugh last night (Guy 1 to Guy 2, former mortal enemies: "Di ba nagsuntukan tayo non?!"; Former PRankster to Me: "Di ba pinag-sign of the cross ka ni Tandoc ng 100 times?!"). And the green jokes were something that both the boys and girls now enjoy trading, when eight years ago if something green were tossed out in the open the girls would have reacted with a serious "Yuuuck ang bastos!". Haha. There were no boys and girls in that table last night. Only a group of like-minded adults. Nax! Growing up is a beautiful thing.
High school was far from perfect. I wuzn't Prom Queen/Class President/Valedictorian (Heck, at some point even felt like Carrie), but I'm glad for that time in teenage purgatory, somehow. Who knows. If I hadn't gone through that I probably wouldn't have the guts to silently promise everyone on Graduation Day that I was going to come back with a vengeance someday. Haha. With or without the Post-Its!
My Mid-90s Soundtrack:
Freshman Year
1. Fixin' A Broken Heart
2. Toyang
3. I Miss You in a Heartbeat
4. You Were There
Sophomore Year
1. Stay
2. Zombie
3. Magasin
4. Creep
Junior Year
1. Ode to My Family
2. The Speed Soundtrack Album(Yes, there was a soundtrack album)
3. The 2nd Cranberries album (the one with Ode to my Family)
4. Huling El Bimbo
Senior Year
1. Alanis' Jagged Little Pill Album
2. Wannabe by Spice Girls
3. Here I Am Again
4. It Might Be You
Sunday, February 27, 2005
Saturday, February 19, 2005
pet peeve day
today's pet peeves:
1. the nasty old dyipni driver who deliberately denied my pleas for "para" at the anonas-aurora crossing this afternoon. heck, he didn't even completely stop the jeepney as i was trying to get off. god bless you na lang manong.
2. an associate producer from one of the record companies i'm working with, who insisted on me taking the dvd copy of the mtv to makati at 2pm monday. was a bit miffed because i'd told him already that i had another meeting, so i couldn't. yet he insisted. was already quite grumpy at that time, and that was all i really needed to seethe ya know. but i didn't budge. finally he consented. thank god. bless you dude. otherwise i would have hated you til monday.
3. my bad-hair day. the second in a row.
4. my state of broke-ness. paksyet. my labor is so cheap and yet the payment still comes late. so goodbye for the meantime, taxi trips, unless it's 3 in the morning. stay away from coffee shops and restos that don't serve meals under P100.
5. the irritability that the doll-babies bring upon me. it's not worth the internal hysteria. it's not worth depression, or the tendency towards pessimism and nastiness. sigh. i hate myself.
6. myself. i'm too friggin human it's pathetic.
1. the nasty old dyipni driver who deliberately denied my pleas for "para" at the anonas-aurora crossing this afternoon. heck, he didn't even completely stop the jeepney as i was trying to get off. god bless you na lang manong.
2. an associate producer from one of the record companies i'm working with, who insisted on me taking the dvd copy of the mtv to makati at 2pm monday. was a bit miffed because i'd told him already that i had another meeting, so i couldn't. yet he insisted. was already quite grumpy at that time, and that was all i really needed to seethe ya know. but i didn't budge. finally he consented. thank god. bless you dude. otherwise i would have hated you til monday.
3. my bad-hair day. the second in a row.
4. my state of broke-ness. paksyet. my labor is so cheap and yet the payment still comes late. so goodbye for the meantime, taxi trips, unless it's 3 in the morning. stay away from coffee shops and restos that don't serve meals under P100.
5. the irritability that the doll-babies bring upon me. it's not worth the internal hysteria. it's not worth depression, or the tendency towards pessimism and nastiness. sigh. i hate myself.
6. myself. i'm too friggin human it's pathetic.
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
grumpy night
I'm in a BAD, BAD, BAD mood right now. Can't these teenaged boys playing some network game (Ragnarok, is that what it's called?) do so without guddang yelling? It's a very small internet space, you know.
L-O-S-E-R is how you spell my name. Right now, that's how I feel. Feel like a real big one. A pathetic conventional sucker for the mainstream. If I am to make something of myself I should really try to check and reexamine how I think, what my creative sensibilities are. When I say I'm doing something "corny" and "cheesy", am I disengaging myself from the work?
Wait a second...it DID come from me, didn't it? Concept, treatment, and all, right?
I can blame the system all I want. Blame the genre, the politics, the limited funding, heck even the singer himself. I can friggin blame EVERYONE else except
me. But I will always know the truth. I have my name attached to that "corny", "cheesy" thing. That "thing" came from me.
What kind of a mother would disown her own child, anyway? If you brought an ugly child into this world, would you deny him? What kind of a creator would detach herself from the work because she deems it ugly? Tigilan na nga ang paghuhugas ng kamay. Galing yan sa yo. Kahit ano pang sabihin mo. Kahit ano pang idahilan mo. So mag-isip isip ka. Baka naman ganyan ka talaga mag-isip. Baka naman "corny" at "cheesy" talaga ang sensibilidad mo.
There are no victims here. Only suckers and sellouts. Seeing something truly new and innovative tonight made me realize that no, nothing has really limited me from coming up with something new. Nothing really did. Not money or genre or the system. I
have always had enough freedom. If I really wanted to, I could have really pushed it. Enough that it would be somewhat different, somehow.
I feel bad about it. About everything. Next time the work will be different. Next time I will see to it that nothing as cringe-worthy as that will come from me again. I refuse to embrace mediocrity. Ayokong tuluyan nang lamunin ng mundong ginagalawan ko ngayon. Ayokong ma-convert. Kung nagsisimula man na siya ngayon, I will fight it. Because that's not what I want to become.
I feel really horrible right now. Thank God the teenaged boys have shut up.
L-O-S-E-R is how you spell my name. Right now, that's how I feel. Feel like a real big one. A pathetic conventional sucker for the mainstream. If I am to make something of myself I should really try to check and reexamine how I think, what my creative sensibilities are. When I say I'm doing something "corny" and "cheesy", am I disengaging myself from the work?
Wait a second...it DID come from me, didn't it? Concept, treatment, and all, right?
I can blame the system all I want. Blame the genre, the politics, the limited funding, heck even the singer himself. I can friggin blame EVERYONE else except
me. But I will always know the truth. I have my name attached to that "corny", "cheesy" thing. That "thing" came from me.
What kind of a mother would disown her own child, anyway? If you brought an ugly child into this world, would you deny him? What kind of a creator would detach herself from the work because she deems it ugly? Tigilan na nga ang paghuhugas ng kamay. Galing yan sa yo. Kahit ano pang sabihin mo. Kahit ano pang idahilan mo. So mag-isip isip ka. Baka naman ganyan ka talaga mag-isip. Baka naman "corny" at "cheesy" talaga ang sensibilidad mo.
There are no victims here. Only suckers and sellouts. Seeing something truly new and innovative tonight made me realize that no, nothing has really limited me from coming up with something new. Nothing really did. Not money or genre or the system. I
have always had enough freedom. If I really wanted to, I could have really pushed it. Enough that it would be somewhat different, somehow.
I feel bad about it. About everything. Next time the work will be different. Next time I will see to it that nothing as cringe-worthy as that will come from me again. I refuse to embrace mediocrity. Ayokong tuluyan nang lamunin ng mundong ginagalawan ko ngayon. Ayokong ma-convert. Kung nagsisimula man na siya ngayon, I will fight it. Because that's not what I want to become.
I feel really horrible right now. Thank God the teenaged boys have shut up.
Monday, February 14, 2005
Happy Single Awareness Day
"single awareness day! happy single awareness day, folks!" hahaha. gotta give it to a friendster who has a knack for words. a bit too dour and sourgrapish for me but it's funny, anyhow.
i think i'm entering my jaded years, where relationships are concerned. i'm starting to take the romantic stuff less seriously. not that i've ever been into anything committedly romantic, and that's what's scary. i can easily fall in and out of crushes in the bat of an eyelash, go out on coffee dates without much thought to it, entertain the attention bestowed on me by some hapless lonely souls out there, removed of emotion, disengaged, impersonal. Man, how times change. This used to be the girl who put her adored ones on pedestals. This used to be Miss Prim-and-Proper, Miss Intense-Admirer. Dunno if I'm evolving into maturity or into some kind of decadent jadedness.
Well. Happy Single Awareness Day.
i think i'm entering my jaded years, where relationships are concerned. i'm starting to take the romantic stuff less seriously. not that i've ever been into anything committedly romantic, and that's what's scary. i can easily fall in and out of crushes in the bat of an eyelash, go out on coffee dates without much thought to it, entertain the attention bestowed on me by some hapless lonely souls out there, removed of emotion, disengaged, impersonal. Man, how times change. This used to be the girl who put her adored ones on pedestals. This used to be Miss Prim-and-Proper, Miss Intense-Admirer. Dunno if I'm evolving into maturity or into some kind of decadent jadedness.
Well. Happy Single Awareness Day.
Friday, February 11, 2005
nothing less than somewhat
oh boy would ya look at that. been having really long days this past week and i LUV it. makes me feel somewhat useful. mabuting nang maraming ginagawa kesa nakatunganga. been in that rut august of last year and it wasn't a lovely beach day for me. thank you lord.
doing postprod for the music video. at this point i can't say that it would be something that i can be really, really proud of. nah. my best expectations are that it would be somewhat lovely. have always had that goal from the very start. am i losing the fire?
pick up a lesson or two from every adventure, and i got a handful from this one. never sacrifice quality for speed. always shoot overlaps (always). and the next time i try to do something unconventional, i have to make sure it will work.
oh, and yeah, see to it that all shots are nothing less than somewhat beautiful. nothing less than somewhat, at the very least.
sigh.
doing postprod for the music video. at this point i can't say that it would be something that i can be really, really proud of. nah. my best expectations are that it would be somewhat lovely. have always had that goal from the very start. am i losing the fire?
pick up a lesson or two from every adventure, and i got a handful from this one. never sacrifice quality for speed. always shoot overlaps (always). and the next time i try to do something unconventional, i have to make sure it will work.
oh, and yeah, see to it that all shots are nothing less than somewhat beautiful. nothing less than somewhat, at the very least.
sigh.
Thursday, February 03, 2005
cliche queen of the night (matulog ka na nga...)
shoot is on saturday. despite the pathetically small budget and the pop nature of the project, i know this should come out well-made. oh mehn. lord, help. may daylight be our ally.
everything we do, whatever it is, reflects on us (oh she-et. that makes me feel bad. but that's straying from the topic). for the moment, until this thing is done, one thing will be my first and foremost concern. to make this video work. to make this video beautiful, somewhat. whether i succeed or fail, at least i can say i did my best.
heck. parang narinig ko na yan a. was it whitney houston or mariah carey? cliche queen of the night, ain't we, bluey?
basta. let's give it our best shot. go for the gold. reach for the stars. climb every mountain. blahblahblah.
i felt helpless tonight. what can you do to make an eternally sad friend happier? how do you convince someone that, despite the sour&dour stuff, life is actually somewhat beautiful?
sigh. wish i could cheer you up, mehn. breaks my heart to see you that way. i have a bad day and i sleep it off/binge it off/cry it out of me, and tomorrow's a new day again (cliche queen! blech). i was the dourest of the dour, mehn. the most depressed in D-ward. i even had a bad head-banging experience with my bedroom wall before. if i can get off it every once in a while then you can, too. and i'd give a toenail to know what it would take to get you out of that habitual rut. cause it bothers me mehn. it depresses me, seeing you looking so damn soul-deep sad.
so maria likes juan and juan likes petra. petra likes jose and jose likes pedro. it's gladdening to hear na nagtutugma every once in a while. so good luck to you, li'l bro (wink, wink). despite my whining and griping (buti ka pa, buti ka pa!!!!), i'm happy that somethin's happ'nin to one of us, at least. cross fingers.
someone gave me a refrigerator magnet today. he had no time to pick flowers so he brought me a magnet instead. aww. how sweet. shucks i'm so baaaad...
let's be friends, ayt. but that's all there will be to it. juan likes maria but maria likes the artshy fartshy tambay who probably likes some 19-year-old maria clara out there. oh well. life ain't interesting without those little heartbreaks every once in a while.
everything we do, whatever it is, reflects on us (oh she-et. that makes me feel bad. but that's straying from the topic). for the moment, until this thing is done, one thing will be my first and foremost concern. to make this video work. to make this video beautiful, somewhat. whether i succeed or fail, at least i can say i did my best.
heck. parang narinig ko na yan a. was it whitney houston or mariah carey? cliche queen of the night, ain't we, bluey?
basta. let's give it our best shot. go for the gold. reach for the stars. climb every mountain. blahblahblah.
i felt helpless tonight. what can you do to make an eternally sad friend happier? how do you convince someone that, despite the sour&dour stuff, life is actually somewhat beautiful?
sigh. wish i could cheer you up, mehn. breaks my heart to see you that way. i have a bad day and i sleep it off/binge it off/cry it out of me, and tomorrow's a new day again (cliche queen! blech). i was the dourest of the dour, mehn. the most depressed in D-ward. i even had a bad head-banging experience with my bedroom wall before. if i can get off it every once in a while then you can, too. and i'd give a toenail to know what it would take to get you out of that habitual rut. cause it bothers me mehn. it depresses me, seeing you looking so damn soul-deep sad.
so maria likes juan and juan likes petra. petra likes jose and jose likes pedro. it's gladdening to hear na nagtutugma every once in a while. so good luck to you, li'l bro (wink, wink). despite my whining and griping (buti ka pa, buti ka pa!!!!), i'm happy that somethin's happ'nin to one of us, at least. cross fingers.
someone gave me a refrigerator magnet today. he had no time to pick flowers so he brought me a magnet instead. aww. how sweet. shucks i'm so baaaad...
let's be friends, ayt. but that's all there will be to it. juan likes maria but maria likes the artshy fartshy tambay who probably likes some 19-year-old maria clara out there. oh well. life ain't interesting without those little heartbreaks every once in a while.
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