Friday, September 23, 2005
because sisters need each other
I decided to take some time out and write an entry about my sister, Erica. Why? Because I feel that maybe it is time to write one, especially since she has been going through quite a tumultuous stage in her journey to becoming who she is. She's been needing a boost in her morale, and though I try to be there for in silent ways, sometimes it's better to be vocal and express your feelings openly.
First of all, I am very, very proud of my sister. I have seen her many reincarnations, have seen her transform from my worst enemy, a tyrannical older sister who'd bully and take advantage of me; to professional gymnast at age 12 (she was on the Philippine Team, and won a silver medal in the 15th SEA Games); to troubled, tatooed problem-teenager (oh those days were hell); and to many other reincarnations wherein I have either loved her to death or wanted to strangle her, the latest of these being mother and licensed make-up artist.
My sister is a good mother. As soon as she found out she was going to be a mother, overnight, I saw her shed the self-centeredness that dominates our young adulthood. I saw her become the best version of Erica I have ever known: caring, considerate, concerned, selfless, not just to her daughter Ananda but to the people around her. Before she became a mother, I thought that our 4-year age-gap had somehow closed and that we were on the same wavelength. But since she had Ananda, she has left me behind in leaps and bounds.
Overnight, she suddenly found direction in her life, decided to stop dilly-dallying and go for what she wanted. She made her own plans to get to London to study in the make-up school of her choice. She had always loved make-up, even as a young girl, and always had a natural intelligence for it. Who knew that she'd get so good and that it would turn into a serious passion? I always had the best make-up for occasions like weddings, prom night, and the day we had our grad-pic taken.
My sister is a very strong person. It is both her strength and her weakness. In her younger days, her strength manifested itself as stubbornness. Nowadays, it has matured and shows itself in her ability to make tough decisions, in her will to survive, to keep her head above the water, to deal with a problem head on instead of being in denial.
My sister is the true mother of reinvention. She has has fallen and risen so many times, each time emerging wiser. She is all at once beyond her years, and a child at heart. She is at once the prissiest person I know, and yet the most "cowgirl". She can make anyone laugh, and can affect everyone with her natural joy and silliness (her daughter seems to have inherited this trait). Erica has always stood tall and precocious above the rest.
In her own ways, she's helped me weather my own life's hurricanes, has picked me up when I felt I was broken and irrepairable. So Aycs, times are hard, but you're doing a great job. I admire you for being very real and honest with yourself, for managing to maintain a spark of hope within yourself. Life has thrown many storms our way, but you're wise enough to know that this too shall pass.life and living
I think it's highly unfair that we're supposed to know exactly what we want to do with our lives when we hit college. Based on my observations in college, the only people who know were they were going where the biology majors who dreamed of going to med school after, the philosophy and humanities students who wanted to go to law school after; and the ones with course titles that had the word "management" in it who, like many of my contemporaries, dreamed of a business or corporate career.
I always wonder about young people with corporate jobs, the Management Information Systems (MIS) and BS Economics graduates, mainly because it never crossed my mind to go corporate. Was it their life-long dream to work for huge multi-million corporations? Did they, as children, dream of working in an office instead of becoming astronauts and firemen? Or did they just feel like corporate is the only way to go in today's world?
The reason why the corporate world is so alien to me is that I was raised by my singer- musician- writer- photographer father, and my artist mother, who never even planted the idea of a corporate life in my head. I never saw either of my parents come home in office clothes, clutching a brief case in one hand. Hence, I am entirely blameless for the fact that by the time college application rolled around, my 3 course choices were AB Humanities, AB Communications, and Philosophy.
I started out as a Humanities major and eventually shifted to Communications. But in truth, I didn't really know what I wanted or what I planned to do eventually. I loved college and I enjoyed studying, but I never had the feeling of absolute certainty that I was in the right course.
All the management and economics majors seemed to have their lives mapped out for them. They rushed about busily on campus in their stiff collared shirts and ironed slacks, dreaming of their 5-year plan. But if you had asked me then what my plans were after college, I probably would've said "work in advertising" or "make movies" for lack of anything better to say. I was 18, and I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life, and though I never dreamed of an office job, I envied the management students for their stability.
On the day of our college graduation, my college barkada and I were chilling at a friend's place, painting our toenails for the ceremony, when one of us suddenly said, "Today, I now know what I want to do with my life. And it has nothing to do with the course I am graduating from."
After a few seconds silence, another person piped up, "Oh my God, me too."
"Me, too."
"Me, too."
And finally, I too dared to speak up, "You know what? Me too."
And so, we marched down the aisle that day to the beat of "Pomp and Circumstance" and got our diplomas, before we disseminated out into the world to become what we supposedly had been equipped to be. Were we really?
Since then, I've been in many, many places. There's been the steady stream of modeling and hosting jobs, of course. Then there was the year and half of hosting for MYX. There was that brief stint in the Ateneo Art Gallery, a few months of helping create the show Islamusik, and the writing job here and there. Now I have the band.
I'm busy and earning, but sometimes, I do get insecure. Sometimes you can't help but feel that way when people make you feel like you're lesser, just because you don't wear blazers or stay behind a cubicle in an office everyday. And true enough, the management students now have corporate positions, racing to become the company's future boss.
Sometimes I wonder if I should be on the one, chosen path already, just like the corporate kids. But is that really so? Are they really on the straight path to stability and happiness for life?
The other day, I met up with an old college friend, let's call her Gwen. We used to hang out a lot in college until she got too busy. In college, she was the quintessential corporate girl, from a Chinese family, and an MIS student. She was smart, responsible, organized, charming; in other words, fully equipped for the career path we all knew she was heading towards.
After swapping stories, sharing how happy I was that she had a job in one of the biggest telecommunications companies in the country, and sharing how happy she was that I was in a band and doing a show, she all of a sudden looked secretive.
"You know what", she said. "I think I want to quit my job".
"Why?"
"Oh, I don't know."
"Is it because you're not full-filled?", I asked.
"Well, maybe. Yeah."
What followed was an outburst I never expected.
"I'm an employee helping this company rise, but honestly, I don't care about this company. I'm doing it for the money but I wouldn't care if the whole company collapsed by tomorrow. I play the piano, do you know that? Sometimes I ask myself when was the last time I played the piano! And when was the last time I ever wrote anything? I went to my friend's art exhibit the other week and I was so happy for her but I was also jealous! Why can't I do that?"
"But Gwen", I said, "We all thought this was your dream!"
"Me, too. I thought it was", she said. "But I'm seriously considering dropping all of it. I don't have a back-up plan yet, but I like that I don't have a back-up plan. My parents want me to make money, but you know what? It's NOT all about the money. At least not yet. I'm young!"
Then she turned to me and said, "You're so lucky".
Am I? I don't know. All I know is that I'm happy. I'm 22, and I'm doing the thing that earns a living, and the thing that makes me feel alive. I am, in short, living my dream. How many people are lucky enough, or brave enough to live their dream?
Different people have different goals in life. Some will sacrifice their passion to earn. To them, passion is a luxury you must be able to afford.
Others are willing to tighten their belts a little just to be able to do what they love. Passion is a given, something that they will try as hard as they can not to compromise, even if they have to starve.
I don't like it when one side looks down on the other. I don't like it when the earners condemn artists for not having "real jobs", and I don't like it when artists turn up their noses at the earners for "selling their souls". I believe both paths are righteous. Both parties work hard. People have different visions, different roles in society, different necessities. What's important is that you make it your own decision, your own choice. Whatever the consequences, at least it was your own journey.
I know people who have gone corporate, only to ditch it all to happily become artists. I know artists who have ditched it all to happily go somewhere else that makes more money. Then there are the lucky ones who have figured out a way to both live and make money no matter which side they’re on.
It’s obvious which of the three I am. I don't know how long I will be lucky. I can only hope to forever sustain myself by being an artist. But if it doesn't last, at least I can look back at this time in my life and say I lived my dream. I was brave enough to take the risk as early as now. I didn't wait until I was too old, or too afraid to let go of my 9-to-5 job. At the very least, when the time comes for me to get "serious" and earn a living, at least I had the chance to discover what it is I want to live for; and that’s pretty serious stuff to me.
Posted by
at 2:03 PM 40 Comments!
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
our brother's keeper
In my high from last Saturday's Muziklaban, I forgot to mention anything about those kids who were trampled to death at the main gate. How inconsiderate and insensitive of me to write about all the fun, the music, and the lights, and completely forget that 4 people died trying to get into the stadium.
See, I have never been any of those people who have had to elbow my way into a concert through the main gate. I always get the privilege of entering through the VIP entrance as a guest, and stay backstage, protected by bouncers and security personnel. I've never had to join the mob. I've never even been in the moshpit. I have never experienced it and don't know what it's like.
All I know is people get injured on a regular basis. Broken bones, bruises, bloody noses are all relatively minor things that happen when bodies start slamming into each other, but every now and then, there'll be that crazy, angry kid in the audience with a knife or an ice pick, itching to stick it into someone. Security in these big rock concerts is no joke.
I don't know who it was who told me first but it was maybe 9:00 in the evening that rumors started going around backstage that two people had died at the gate. There were different reactions from different people: "What?", "No way! Are you sure?", "How old are they? Were they kids?", "What do you mean? Are they just seriously injured or are they already dead?".
Nobody wanted to believe it. It couldn't be true that two people, probably the same age as my teenage brother, had lost their lives... over what? A rock concert? Tickets? Other kids who didn't give a rat's ass about who it is they stepped on, or who it is who stumbles and can't get up, so long as they can guarantee themselves entrance into the Muziklaban?
There were parents waiting for these kids to come home. Who would phone them to tell them that their kids bodies were in the hospital and could they come pick them up please? Those kids who died came with friends. Would their friends have to be the one to call the parents?
The evening wore on, and eventually the toll added up to three. What? Bands backed out to make the program shorter. Sets were cut down to two songs. The Muziklaban ended a couple hours behind schedule, and backstage, the organizers looked like they had the world upon their shoulders while trying to keep their cool. Papers reported the next day that it was not three but four kids who died in that stampede.
My brother told me in the morning that he felt terrible that he went to the event. I told him it wasn't his doing at all, that he wasn't even near the site of the incident. But I knew what he meant. When a party gets out of hand and ends in tragedy, it's always nobody's fault and everyone's fault at the same time. Everybody feels it wasn't their responsibility, and yet everyone feels even just a little bit guilty. Right? It doesn't matter whether the party had 12 guests or 12,000, or whether we knew the guests. We feel guilty because deep down inside, we know that we ARE our brother's keeper.
It's easy to absolve yourself and say it's not your fault, you didn't do it, you had no hand in the incident, and even if you were there, you were powerless, and it was not in your intention for such an unfortunate thing to happen. Sure, ok, acceptable point.
But the fact is, I was there, we were all there at that party. We all went, knowing the audience gets rowdy and violent, knowing people get hurt at these events, knowing there's always the possibility of a stampede breaking loose. We know people have died in rock concert stampedes all over the world. So why do we act shocked when people actually do die? Because we didn't think it would actually ever happen? And it's not our fault? Bullsh*t.
Ok, so maybe it's not my fault, or your fault, or anyone's fault. Or maybe it's everyone's fault. But I hope every single person at that concert, me, the thousands of rowdy kids in the audience, bouncers, musicians, management never allow this to happen again, in our own way. We can all prevent this from happening again. It's everyone's responsibility.got dandruff?
On to other things.
Today I did some mall tours with Cogie Domingo, Matteo Guidicelli, and Katrina Halili (of "Darna" and "Starstruck Avengers" fame) as part of our "Head and Shoulders Strip Test" campaign. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the ad campaign, it's a tie-up with the brand "Penshoppe" (hence us Penshoppe image models) and the anti-dandruff shampoo "Head and Shoulders". In the commercial (which can be viewed here here), me, Cogie, Matteo, and Katrina go around with little strips of cardboard that say "H & S" on it, coated with a mild adhesive, and encourage people to take "The Strip Test".
Let me explain: the Strip Test is a classier way of finding out whether or not you have dandruff, as opposed to the plain, old, typical method of scratching your scalp with a fingernail in front of a mirror. To take the Strip Test, you have to press the sticky side of the cardboard on your scalp. If you have dandruff, your sticky strip will emerge covered in villainous, little white dandruff flakes. Then, as logic goes, you will have to start using an anti-dandruff shampoo which is (tada!) "Head and Shoulders"! That is our campaign.
And that's what we had to do today, stand inside Penshoppe boutiques, handing out sticky strips to the hordes of people who had packed themselves into the stores. I spent the whole afternoon and early evening teaching people how to peel the plastic off the adhesive, how to press the strip on to their scalps, and afterwards, assessing their strip which they held out to me, like a teacher reviewing an anxious pupil's art project. Sometimes, I would even have to press the strip down on their scalps myself.
When strips emerged dandruff free, I would "congratulate" them on having a healthy scalp (I didn't know what else to say). But it was a little awkward when strips emerged with little, white flecks on them. Was I supposed to be sympathetic? Comforting? Or get straight to sales talk and tell them to start using H&S?
It was a bizarre afternoon. Never has dandruff been such a pervasive idea in one compressed area and time frame. I helped about 50 complete strangers discover they had dandruff. Strangers parted their hair and bared their naked scalps to me as eagerly as flashers part their trench coats open. Piles of used strips, with sad white flakes adhered to them, piled up on counter tops. I imagined the air to be filled with tiny, floating, mircoscopic dandruff cells. I imagined my fingers to be slippery with scalp oil although it probably really just was my imagination (I hope).
This has got to be one of the strangest things I have ever had to do in my entire modeling career. Well, if you think you've got dandruff, you know right where to go!fighting back
Another interesting incident today at the boutique was the arrival of a man who wanted to take my picture with his phone. There I was, on one of the store's sofas, tired of pointing out people's dandruff, haggard from all the fake smiling I had to do when people wanted my picture (when you're tired, the smile just doesn't come naturally anymore), and feeling miserable because I had had a cough all day. I wanted a moment of rest before jumping back into the dandruff-y mob, and the last thing I wanted at that moment was to smile for another picture. But what the heck, I'm nice about pictures. I try to be gracious like that. I don't mind so long as people ask politely, and I'm not harrassed, or in a hurry, or anything. Besides, he was already pointing his phone camera at me so it wasn't like I had a choice.
Said man was in his 40s, stood at about 5 feet 3 inches, had white hair, and was obviously Middle Eastern. With his camera already pointed at me, he asked "May I have your picture?"
"Er... ok", I answered. Admittedly, I wasn't entirely comfortable with the idea, but what the heck. People had been snapping pictures of us all day and it wouldn't make a difference. I didn't get up from my seat, just smiled with my mouth closed. A tired smile.
All of a sudden, he handed his phone over to his female companion and sat next to me. Not just next to me, but less than an inch away from me, pressing into me. I could smell his overpowering B.O. Oh, God.
"I take you to Dubai!", he said. "My workers there, they kill me when they see this. I have 27 Filipino workers there. I show them I have best Filipina."
"Filipina"- it freaks and grosses me out when foreigners use that word sometimes. To some foreigners, the word "Filipina" is synonymous with mail-order brides, prositutes, and domestic helpers. They don't mean "a female person from the Philippines" when they say "Filipina".
"Okay, take the picture", I said curtly facing the camera. I thought he would just take the picture and leave. But he didn't like the picture. Too blurry. He wanted another one. He didn't like the next one either and told the woman to take another one. God, I thought, does this guy think I have all day to pose so he can get a nice picture of me? Who the hell does he think he is? I could already feel my face contorting into a sneer. One more picture, I told myself, and whether ot not it's blurry I will ask him to leave.
"May I put my arm around you?", he said.
"I'd rather you don't", I said. I meant it. What the heck, he already got his pictures. Now he wants one with his arm around me? Strangers always considerately ask for only 1 or 2 pictures but this guy wanted a godamn photo shoot. Bottomline was, I didn't want this guy's arm around me. I didn't even want him that near me.
He put his arm around me. I could feel his armpit pressing unto my shoulder.
"Oh come on, it's just an arm", he said, "I have 27 Filipino workers in Dubai and they kill me when they see this."
I wish I was more quick to react whenever men violate my personal space (which happens to all women occasionally), but there's always a sort of shocked numbness that comes over me, a feeling of disbelief, that makes me slow to react.
"I said I don't want you to", my voice getting sharp, edging away, not as aggressively as I wish I had.
"Oh, she's getting nervous", he told his female companion jovially.
God, that was it. I was livid. Did he think this was a joke? Sure, it's just an arm around my shoulder. I've had maybe a hundred men whom I don't know put their arms around my shoulder when they want pictures with me, and I don't mind because I allow them to. But I had told this guy to keep a certain distance and he had oh-so nonchalantly ignored my boundary line. Did he not understand? "No" means "no" and nothing else. I stood up and walked away.
"Goodbye, I have to get to work", I said as politely as I could, although I was clearly on the verge of puking in disgust.
"Wait!", he called after me. "What are you doing in this store today? What this (campaign) all about?"
"Ask someone else", I yelled without even looking over my shoulder.
I stationed myself near the boutique's counter in a huff. What a jerk. He interrupted my rest time, too.
As if that wasn't enough, 2 minutes later there was suddenly a hand pointing a phone camera at me a foot away from my face. It was him snapping photos of me without a shred of remorse. It was clear he was bent on getting what he wanted by hook or by crook. "I said NO!!!", I yelled and turned away with my angriest sneer, teeth clenched. God, did this a**hole have no understanding of what boundaries meant?
Here I am hating him, wishing I had yelled louder, or pushed him away. But the person I really, really, really hate is myself. I hate how I never react quickly enough, or aggressively enough during these situations. It's happened a number of times. There are men I've encountered at certain incidents in my life, who have harrassed or violated me in some way, whom I still wish I could've slapped, punched in the nose, poked in the eyes, kicked in the balls, beaten up with a baseball bat... or I wish I could have at least fought back even vocally, humiliated them in public and let the world know what a**holes they are.
I wish women weren't taught to keep quiet. I wish we had been taught to fight back. It's something I'm still teaching myself. And I intend to learn.
The other week I was at a club and this girl started screaming bloody murder over a guy who supposedly touched her obscenely on the dance floor. She made such a ruckus, telling the club's security to throw the guy out, carrying the issue out into the street so that the whole neighborhood could hear her. She kept screaming and crying in pure, unadulterated rage, and finally the police came and took the suspect away. She made quite a scene and some people say she was over-reacting, but I admired her for making a huge, huge deal out of it. Most women would just stay quiet, and that's what men expect them to do. The felon must've been beyond shocked.
Posted by
Sunday, September 11, 2005
finally, advertising gets it right
To every stylist who has ever told me I should go get my hair straightened because it's "messy", "buhaghag", "ugly", or "doesn't work"... TOUCHE, baby!!! (click on the link)
Now why can't we do that here?ito ang tama!
Hiraya is Marco on bass, me on vox, Pau on drums, and Mark on guitar!
Funny how on my first 3 gigs with Hiraya, I've gotten to play in nice (or relatively nice) places. I've played in Saguijo, guested on Breakfast, and the other night was at Rack's. In a way, it's a little unfair. Band newbies like me are supposed to go through that rite of passage of playing in bad gigs, messy productions, and middle-of-nowhere bars. I'm lucky!... sometimes, a little too lucky.
Lucky enough to be included in the band line-up of the Redhorse Muziklaban '05 at Amoranto Stadium last Saturday, on only my 4th gig. No, we weren't competing. We played because Hiraya was a finalist last year, back when I wasn't even aware the band existed. So through a magical coincidence of last year's events and this year's connections, we opened the competition with Muziklaban winners and finalists past like Fuseboxx (idol!), Comet's Tail, and Jeepney Joyride. Only my 4th gig, and already we were going to perform in one of the biggest yearly rock events.
I initally wanted to die of fright when I found out. Here I was slowly taking baby steps with this singing thing when all of a sudden I was being asked to play in front of 5,000 people (musicians included). Talk about baptism by fire!
But as the day drew closer, I realized that there was no point in being afraid, because: number one, didn't I ask for all of this? Haven't I been dreaming of all this forever? Why be afraid that all of it is coming true? And number two, I realized something very sobering which was: asus, kaya ko naman iyan, eh!!!
And so, we played to a warm, and receptive audience of a good five to seven thousand, right after Fuseboxx, and right as the sun was setting. (Of course, it would've been a different story if we had played at around 12 midnight, to a bloodthirsty audience of 40, 000. But that's why they put the relatively mellow bands like us first.)
Wish I had a better camera but yeah, that's us, biyotch! :-p
It was a good performance. Yeah a few mistakes here and there but what the heck, I am way to hard on myself all the time. We put on a good show, and I wasnt glued to my security anchor, the mic stand, for once. And once we were up there, there was nothing but the bright, colored lights, the mist machines, the music, lots and lots of sweat, and the audience shouting (a mix of "Ala!" and "Greyhoundz!"... whut? I guess everyone knows I'm Nino's girlfriend) and having a great time. Wahoo!
If you've been dating a bassist superstar like Nino for awhile, then you'll have a collection of VIP/ backstage passes to rock concerts and events that all say "guest" on them, because you're a guest of the band. So you can imagine the thrill of getting your first VIP pass that says "artist" on it instead of "guest". And you can imagine the thrill Nino and I felt over both our bands playing at the same event for the first time (at the Muziklaban no less!).
Wearing our white Rock Ed wrist bands! Rock Ed Philippines made it's presence very felt at the event. Join the fight to end poverty here.
It was a great evening. Got some hang-time with the bandmates, saw Nino play an awesome set with Kapatid, and Greyhoundz, and got to satisfy my inner fan-girl by making beso-beso with my musician idols back stage. AHAHAHAHA!!!! Once a fan-girl always a fan-girl. More Muziklaban pictures here.
Posted by
Friday, September 09, 2005
hands
My hands are the only part of my body that I have supreme confidence in. When I don't run for a long time, I can't trust my legs to take me where I want to go. When I don't exercise for awhile, my whole body fails me. When I don't sing for a while, my voice is a little out of whack and needs awakening. But even when I don't use my hands for the longest time, it still does exactly what I want it to do when I draw.
Sometimes I entertain the terrifying thought that what if I woke up one day and couldn't keep my hands steady when trying to draw because of lack of use. But so far, it has never happened. My hands move exactly the way I want them to, and put just the right amount of pressure on the paper/ canvas when I want the stroke to be a certain lightness or darkness, or when I want lines to be a certain thickness of thinness. Drawing is the one thing I'm 100% sure of about myself.
I may be the most physically uncoordinated person in the world. I can't dance and I really suck at sports. I'm bad at math. But my hands, I can trust.
The only other part of my body I trust as much are my eyes. It can break down color. It can tell when a color is really just a bunch of other colors mixed together. It can tell that a white surface is never really white but a reflection of the other colors around it, and it can tell that hardly is there ever a pure color anywhere. It can detect little nuances in shade, tint, and hue. It is never deceived.
The other day I made a portrait of my niece, Ananda. It's not finished yet though. Lacks a decent background and some touches here and there. But I know it looks like her because the first time she saw it, she got really excited and started saying "Dada!" which is how she says her name. And I like it because I got her funny, defiant, "sungit" expression.
Posted by
Saturday, September 03, 2005
will you marry me?
Me, Trina, Naz, Manny, and Iea and were watching the most swingin' big jazz band, The Brass Monkeys, in Wasabi last night when a shy-looking, awkward guy went up on the mic and started singing "The Way You Look Tonight". Afterwards, he walked towards his girlfriend, knelt down, and gave her a ring in a red, velvet box. I swear to God, the entire club started screaming and clapping as the newly-engaged couple embraced right in the middle of the room.
Funny we should witness that scene. Manny and Iea are scheduled to walk down the aisle at the end of the month (which is the reason why were there catch the Monkeys, the designated wedding band). My friend Amina was also there with her fiancee Rafa, also to see about getting The Brass Monkeys for their own wedding reception. Aside from that, a good friend of mine had just gotten married. You said it, diamond rings have been a-popping up all over the place.
This led me and Trina to start talking about the inexhaustible topic of our own future weddings. We're girls, and whether or not we plan on getting married tomorrow or in twenty years, we like to talk about what our wedding is going to be like. "When my boyfriend proposes to me", she anounced, "I want it to be big and public. Plus, I refuse to get married until he's capable of affording a diamond and at least a decent honeymoon and a decent house."
"Me, too", I said, because I often blindly agree to anything Trina says and vice-versa. We have that kind of friendship, which is why we have alot of fun together and end up doing stupid things we wouldn't normally do in our sane minds.
It got me thinking what if, what if I was crazy enough to get married right now, at this time in my life? Right now, neither of us have boyfriends who can afford a wedding, a (decent) honyemoon, or a house. The boyfriend and I are both "jobless"- he is a rockstar bassist and I am part-time model, a part-time host, and a vocalist... well we don't earn money by sitting on our asses in an office cubicle from 9-5 and to people who do that kind of thing, that makes us "jobless".
Since I have an over-active imagination, I busied myself with making a wild fantasy scenario- my wedding on a budget:
Since he knows I'd want some big, public proposal, he'll propose to me on stage at some big stadium concert like the "Pulp Summer Slam" after a Greyhoundz performance. After the vocalist closes their set with "Apoy", the band will launch into some cheesy love song like "Forever's Not Enough" or "Endless Love". The headbangers in the moshpit will fall silent, stunned, which is when the band's roadies will carry me onstage like a queen and boyfriend will drop his bass, kneel, and present me with the ring.
The wedding dress will be recycled- the same gown I'm set to wear as cord bearer for Manny and Iea's wedding. He'll borrow one his dad's colored barongs. Or maybe there won't even be a wedding, just a civil ceremony at city hall. Reception will be at *shudder* Mayric's (okay, I think this was Trina's idea) or Saguijo if we can afford a little more, and the wedding buffet will be composed of Redhorse beer, sisig, and opened bags of chips. The cake will be one of those ready-made ones from Goldilocks. The wedding band will be Cheese, or Chicosci, or whichever one of his musician friends willing to play for free.
Honeymoon will be a week-long trip to Puerto Gallera, or a trip to Baguio. Afterwards, we'll pawn the engagement ring to buy a small apartment along some congested area like *cringe* Santolan . Oh, the horror. (No offense to Santolan dwellers, but the traffic just gets to me).
Nope, wedding plans are definitely not on the menu yet. I don't think Trina is any luckier than I am at this point. :-pstrictly ballroom
As for Manny and Iea's big day, all of us in the entourage are scheduled for three free ballroom dancing lessons. The theme of the event is "Roaring Twenties" and it occured to them awhile back that none of the guests will know how to dance to the Brass Monkeys. We are, after all, a generation weaned on anything from 80s New Wave, to grunge, to Gangsta' Rap. No use hiring a big jazz band and dressing everyone up in 20s outfits if we can't swing to the 20's groove, right?
So today we all went to Manny's house where we were met by 3 D.I.s ("dance instructors") who spent the afternoon teaching us how to do the Swing and how to line dance.
I hated ballroom dancing when we had to learn it in P.E. class in high school. I went to an all-girls school and I was always forced to learn the guy's steps, since I was one of the tallest people in class. I sucked and I hated it.
Today was my first time be the girl, and oh my God, I loved it! As my teacher twirled me around to "Dancing Queen" and "I Love the Nightlife", I found everything came quite naturally. I used to think I sucked and that I was a hopeless case. But today, I think I was kinda good. Even when in heels! I even learned how to do the Swing in "double time", which involves slightly fancier footwork. Wheee! I love it!
I'm really excited to learn how to Boogie, do the Tango, and the Mambo. I am going to tear up the floor at that wedding!
p.s. No, I'm not getting married. No lectures, no questions please. I'm just saying this because anytime I mention the word "wedding" in any entry, I get comments like "when are you getting married?" or "bata ka pa, you're too young to get married". Oo na, oo na, oo na. ;-)and we guested on Breakfast yesterday
How nice to be the person being interviewed for once! How nice to be the featured artist for once! How nice to not be the host! Even if it's a b*tch to have to sing at 6 in the morning.
Pau our drummer and Marco our bassist- bright and happy at 5:30 AM
Here I am making Mark talk just because I wanted to take advantage of the fact that I didn't have to talk for once.
But I still ended up doing most of the talking anyway :-p
And to answer persistent questions once and for all: NO it's NOT ME singing on the EP, and it's not me you hear singing on radio because I'm new and they recorded those songs with the old vocalist, way before I even knew they existed. NO, we have no recording with me on it yet. Ayon.
Posted by
