The Long and Short of It

I have been keeping a journal since I was eight, and even before they were too popular, I was blogging. There was a time I carried on an online conversation with a sort of online friend of mine for over a year, exchanging emails which would now be considered "blogs" almost every day. I kept an electronic copy of the emails, and when I attempted to compile them, I had over a thousand pages, in single space, font size 12.

I love to write. About anything, most especially about my thoughts and feelings - yes, I am my own shrink minus the couch. I used to keep my writing to myself until the advent of the blogging age which emboldened me to do my own sharing. Hey, if narcissistic, self-centered, bad writers can blog, so can I.

I started working in the 21st century, thus, most of my intellectual, professional outputs were thought out from my grey matter down to my ten (sometimes less than ten) working fingertips frantically pressing into the qwerty keyboard. Oh, I quickly learned the art of sending text messages so fast, and I can even do it without looking. Since I was still maintaining a journal (which I painstakingly, though sometimes not successfully, keep up to date), I knew that somehow there is a difference in the way I think when I write straight into my computer and when I write using a pen. I know that if I had a luxury of time, my preferred writing style would be by using a pen. Especially when it comes to personal writings or communications with family and friends, words popping out in stylized fonts seem colder than receiving a piece of paper - a letter, a postcard, or a card, and seeing the effort put in by the writer - the way the first few lines seem to be painstakingly stroked, until the writing doesn't follow the lines, written or imaginary, anymore, or when the slant somehow varies through the letter. If the writing came from a long-time friend, you could even see how his penmanship changed through the years.

To me, writing by hand it is much personal, and given today's technological innovations, surely there is more effort to it. That is probably why I always ask my friends who go abroad to send me a postcard. I keep them in a clear book, and I already have a lot. Perhaps this is the first time that they will know that whatever happened during the day, the moment I lay my hands on the sometimes creased, smeared, postmarked postcard, I feel immense joy.

My sentiments toward writing by hand probably explains my fascination to the Moleskine. When I first saw it in the stores, I found it utterly ridiculous to buy such an expensive notebook. But then, the marketing campaign chased and caught up with me. I read Butch Dalisay's article about the Moleskine in an issue of Metro Magazine and got curious. I read more about it, mostly blogs by people who are Moleskine owners, recounting their love affair with the little black notebook. It is a personal accessory the possession of it cannot be logically explained - much the same way how I explain why I have a mac and not some other laptop. I can go on and on how it supposedly is user-friendly, even if the supposedly difficult to use windows interface I can already work out even with my eyes shut. At some point I will just say, basta!

Recently, I've been experiencing the need to write something down in the middle of the day, in the middle of something, wherever. If it a difference between having mental constipation and cathartically expressing supressed thoughts, the distinct and defined spurting of which is as fleeting as time, then, I need a special notebook I can carry around anywhere, along with a trusted pen. I want a Moleskine.

Friendship in the City

Last Friday night, I watched the movie Sex and the City with my dear girlfriends in Greenbelt 3, my all time favorite cinema and one of my favorite places ever. (To digress a bit, I realize that I really love watching movies in cinemas not just because of the big screen but I like having company when watching a movie so I can have someone, whose attention is undivided - save for the cellphone, to share the experience with.) 

At the end of the film, I just couldn't help but exclaim, "I love it!"

Sex and the City is not just about sex, nor about the city, and even if I couldn't relate much to their quite lavish lifestyles and fixation on all things branded and pricey, I found myself being able to relate to Carrie, Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte. Why? Because I myself have what they have - girlfriends who love me and will fight for me as fiercely as if my fight was theirs too. More than the pricey goodies they splurge on, I saw that like me, the four women value their relationships with people a lot and the depiction of the relationship conflicts in the movie is so real to me, so real that I can relate to it and even draw parallelisms in my own. 

I haven't enjoyed a movie this much for quite a while... the last movie was I found really enjoyable was perhaps Stardust. It was a great evening with my girlfriends, and even if they were texting away their significant others as soon as we stepped out of the cinemas while my phone lay quiet and dim, I didn't mind. I had a spring in my step and my heart is filled with glee, confident that I have friends who love me the way Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte love Carrie. Never mind if I don't have a Mr. Big, or a Steve.  

American Idol, belatedly

I wasn't following American Idol Season 7 so I never got to watch ANY of the episodes on TV except the final results nights, completed the entire show on a replay. I got into the AI bandwagon only after my friend made me listen to a song which goes "She was more like a beauty queen from a movie scene..." but sounded so strangely, bizarrely different. I listened to David Cook crooning "Always Be My Baby" looped in iPod that entire morning. I was so enchanted by David Cook I totally forgot my friend was rooting for the other David that I was bit puzzled when he told me he got a bit depressed when Cook won (while I, along with a few officemates some other company officers, wildly applauded when Cook was announced the winner. I like Archuleta too, and actually found him really, really charming when he sang "With You."

And so, I have downloaded the entire Season 7 studio recordings and listened to the finalists, some of them for the first time.

I think that:

Amanda Overmayr sounds really scary and angry. Don't like.

Michael Johns was voted out too early.

Ramiele Malubay was inconsistent.

Jason Castro sucks.

Kristy Lee Cook is not that bad. Oh, I love her performance of Martina McBride's "Anyway."

Syesha Mercado really did well and could have gone to the final two if she wasn't up against the two Davids.

David Archuleta's voice is excellent, but he sounds the same every week, except when he sang "With You."

I don't like rockers much, but David Cook is just awesome. Good work, his stylist. The makeover did him wonders. Heard he used to have a receding hairline but the new haircut and the facial hair did wonders!

Life Experience

"You had a life experience."

That was what Ben's bestfriend Miles told him after he finally confessed what he, Ben, had been up to for 17 weekends. Ben, an exceptional MIT student who dreams of going to Harvard Medical School but can't afford it, was lured to join a team of student-blackjack "counters" who plays in Las Vegas to win big, big, bucks.

That was the basic plot of the movie "21" which I saw yesterday afternoon in Greenbelt 3. In this overpopulated world, I found myself alone and nothing else to do after my morning yoga class. I was suppose to lunch out with my yoga friend but the date was reset so I scrambled for company. It is very rare for me to watch a movie alone as it depresses me a bit (saw P.S. I Love You alone, I cried a river).

With my laptop backpack in tow, I went to the ticket counter and picked the movie which I can watch earliest. 21 had a 1:30 pm screening which was perfect for me as I had to meet another friend at 4 pm. I bought lunch at Wrapwich, reliving my favorite after work in Makati ritual of watching a movie, eating a wrapwich and drinking Sola Lemon.

Sitting alone inside the cinema, I thought it was some sort of a preview of my life alone in Sydney where I imagine myself to be going around and carrying with me my laptop backpack which would also contain my yoga clothes and implements (shampoo, soap, Satsuma body butter...). As soon as the trailers were shown, I was instantly reminded the pleasure of seeing a movie on the big screen. I thought that the trailer of The Dark Night focused too much on Heath Ledger (you'd thought he was the Dark Knight... where is Batman anyway?) I almost saw myself, gleefully grinning ear to ear and nearly stomping my feet while watching the trailer of Kung Fu Panda (oh, I will surely watch it - will be shown on the 4th)    

Oh I enjoyed 21 a lot! I have not played Blackjack ever in my life and I thought I will be bored to death if I am unable to follow their technique and how they win. But then again, the movie kept me on the edge of my seat, and it had a lot of brilliant moments. I couldn't place why I get chills down my spine watching the Vegas thug Cole Williams played by Lawrence Fishburne until I realized he was Morpheus in the Matrix Trilogy. I thought Jim Sturgess who played Ben Campbell looked like a young Paul Mc Cartney and it turned out he's a Brit. I haven't seen Across The Universe, but I read that he played the lead role in that movie.

The Rolling Stone's "You Can't Always Get What You Want" played as the credits rolled. Indeed. What is ironic is the more you want to get something, the more desperate your actions get the longer it takes for you to get it. Oh, sometimes you really won't have it, ever. And then even when you finally get what you want, don't be so sure - it could slip through your hands as fast as a cheetah can sprint. Ben gambled everything: his academic standing, his bestfriends, his mother's trust, his old life. He might not have gotten what he wanted so badly but well, he got a life experience, and (though this is kinda unrealistic) the "hottest chick" on campus. He placed his eggs all in one, though kinda big, basket. 

My favorite quote from the movie was from Prof. Micky Rosa, echoed by Ben: 

"Always account for variable change."