All in a Day's Work
Principal photography for the indie film was formally finished, but this day was reserved for shooting additional visuals. all morning we shot visuals of the sta. mesa railway area. skeleton crew that we were, somehow i was glad that i was there. bein around him and all, i was glad enough somehow.
in the morning, after a pleasant-enough exchange of greetings, he asked, were you lasing last night?
i'm sorry...? i asked. duh. how bingi of me. it was wrecking the happy momentum of the conversation.
hangover, did you get a hangover last night? he rephrased patiently.
oh, i chuckled. no, i didn't get drunk. did you?
nah. i had four bottles of san mig light and lots of water. i don't have fun when i get drunk.
i have more fun when i'm drunk. i sheepishly confessed. i loosen up. (if that's the case then gawd i wish i had been drunk all day. the stick in my ass was doin a good job at stiffening me up.)
ok, i didn't have a voice recorder at the time of the conversation. remarkably my memory serves me well when it comes to conversations with him. or, well, maybe it was the script continuity training. who knows. haha.
all morning i tiptoed around my dealings with him. awkward, awkward me. couldn't treat him like a normal person. god knows i wanted to. to be normal, for once. but it was just...such a task.
anyway. it doesn't really matter. this whole fascination is just going to be one of those passing things.
one moment we were all waiting for the rain to stop at a sidewalk by the railways. doing nothing. i was seated there and he stood next to me. doing nothing, but watching the people passing by. a braver girl would've tried to make a conversation. so many things to talk about under the shining (albeit invisible) sun. but cat got my tongue. chatting up the crewmen was so easy but when it comes to him i couldn't even think of something to say. frustrating. finally he moved away and walked towards the nearest suking tindahan. sheesh, there goes my wildest dream. haha, dang it.
can i buy tubig? he asked the tindera. haha. i crack up everytime he does that.
and so it goes, torpe girl. i can be a lively talker most of the time, but somehow i find that i can do a good job at playing a bore. a talent that i'd rather do away with, really. hay!
the rest of the day was just...dreary. i couldn't wait for the work to be over with. i realized how non-normal everything about me actually was, and pushed away all thoughts of fulfilling even a scrap of that wildest dream. fairy tales come true only to those meant for it. i wasn't born to be a "love princess" (as how we call 'em during my qpids days). this schoolgirl thingie i'm nurturing won't do me any good. now or in the future.
at 7:30 pm i found myself hitching a ride to philcoa, glum and frustrated. i've since learned that the next best thing to winning the heart of the one you want is winning his friendship at least. i had 24 days to accomplish that, and i had failed miserably. sayang. i had all the time and proximity i needed. but the project was ending with him being no less a stranger to me than he was the first time we met.
oh well. i'm screwed up. just have to live with it.
The Birthday Party
Despite the dreariness of the day, tried to psyche myself up for a night of schmoozing with friends at the birthday party of friend beatlebum. i wasn't in the best disposition to party, but i survived the night, somehow. snoring at 4 am on the couch, but falling asleep smiling.
there was videoke, a fiesta-full of party food (including a happy shining roasted lechon as the dinner-table centerpiece), drinks, boardgames, cardgames, new people to know, even some, ehem, organic stuff from one of the guests later on in the night. in the early part of the evening i had found myself a bit disoriented. for the first time in 24 days, i was partying with people other than the latest group of co-workers. i'd missed this group, but i found myself missing my co-workers, too. torn moment between gladness and sadness. every crowd is different, every crowd you get to love for different reasons. so i had to momentarily adjust my mode from that crowd to this. it took seconds.
grabbed my turn on the microphone and belted out "Who Will Save Your Soul" with as much bravura as i could muster. i remember our videoke sprees way back when, during my qpids days. ah, ted the videoke king! haha. missed that.
went outside to smoke menthols with waterfowl. we took turns telling each other just how depressing our current states were. haha! rose and our 2-woman Depressed Anonymous support group! missed that.
photo grabbed from beatlebum
Everyone was calling out to michiko to come down from her room and join us for beatlebum's momentous candle-blowing event. silence from upstairs. beatlebum candidly told everyone, "Pagpasensyahan nyo na si mitch, anti-social talaga yan e." Weehee! (twist to come later...) And i had thought i was shy. i feel like a social butterfly each time i'm around michiko. in a way, i MISSED THAT!
twenty minutes later, michiko came in through the front door, carrying a big birthday cake. beatlebum was aghast. "akala namin nasa taas ka?!"
"hindi, bumili ako ng cake mo at candles." awww, haha! you could imagine the flush of quirky guilt on the birthday boy's face at that time. ;-) everyone had a gas over that little faux pas.
i've always loved the boardgame TABOO for a number of reasons: 1) reminds me of the company we kept the first time i played the game, 2) i thoroughly enjoy playing, and 3) i thoroughly enjoy winning. heheh! and so we played TABOO all night. in between photo ops, munchies, yosis, and chikahan.
i fell asleep even before the party ended. it was a tiring day, after all.
woke up at 8:30 in the morning (in the same couch i'd fallen asleep in!) to a phone call from friend Dennis. Ocular for our personal project will push through today. Can you be here in an hour?
I was like, Hwaat?! I haven't even gone home. You want me to go straight to a day-long trip outtatown? You're kidding! Hehe. Just-woken-up moments are not exactly my most gracious moments.
Found friend monj already awake, too. I was supposed to be in a hurry but i took the time with monj to pick scraps off the party leftovers and sip on some 3-in-1 coffee. Life's been pushing me on the express lane these days but i needed to steal a still moment every once in a while. and so, over (some semblance of) breakfast, i spilled my beans to monj about the current frustrations of this non-normal fly-on-the-wall's so-called existence.
haha. monjam, the reluctant confidante! i MISSED THAT, TOO!
sigh. a loong day. if there's one kernel of wisdom that i'd picked up from project wrap-up times of the past three years, it would have to be that endings do not come at the moment that you expect them to. and most of the time, "goodbyes" can only mean "see you later".
it's a small world, after all.
i was to figure out soon that this latest ending would turn out to be a long series of goodbyes.
walang katapusang paalaman. so very pinoy.
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