Monday, May 28

the changingman

...Was also a hot mod man. A mod hot man. All kinds of hotness, Paul Weller is. Bought the Stanley Road Deluxe Edition (2 discs plus DVD) over the weekend. Sentimental is understating it.

The 90s. My first stable job. Buy 2+1 beers at Decades beside Makati Cinema Square. An office crush drunkenly saying: Oasis is way better than anything. Oasis will never leave you. Mix tapes. The Golden Age of Britpop. Blowing my savings in CD Warehouse. Oasis, Ocean Colour Scene, and Pulp singles hunting. And much later: Travis, Dubstar, Lush.

Stanley Road could just be the best guitar record of our generation. Wings of Speed could just be the best ballad of our generation, You Do Something to Me the second best. And hands-down the best version of Sexy Sadie, which manages to be sexy and, err, sad.

This is a happy day.

Saturday, May 19

The Burden of Continuity

As children, we never did care about history. Yesterday was as far we could go or we could consider, and only because we wanted to have something better today. I already had this yesterday and now I want something better. But generally, we just didn't care. So it was no problem jumping right smack in the middle of Saturday Fun Machines, of chato or patintero, of comic books. Previously didn't matter. We were sure that it didn't matter.

Met up with Dodo last Friday night, and when he said he had a lot of back issues to unload, I didn't realize what a lot meant until they were in front of me. It was A LOT of comic books. Speed Force. The Spirit (with a Neil Gaiman story). Giffen's Legion of Super-Heroes. ACME Novelty Library. Waid's JLA. A James Robinson Bat-Man arc. A couple of SHOWCASES. And a whole lot more. He told me that these weren't complete arcs, that some pick-up 3 issues later or was issue 2 of a 12-issue mini-series. And I replied, giddily of course, "It doesn't matter."

I picked up my first comic book when I was around 3 years old, and it was X-Men #101. The team had just come back from space but their survival from a previous battle was eclipsed by Marvel Girl's death. Then all of a sudden, Marvel Girl surfaces from the ocean as Phoenix. "I am the Phoenix!" in bold, jagged letters, and she, in green and gold with wild red hair. It was the only comic book we had for a couple of months so my sister and I read it over and over. Again and again. And we never got tired of it. We didn't know anything about the X-Men, and only found out a couple of years later what happened after that issue. But it didn't matter.

Continuity is obssession for the passing of time, the progression of characters, the history of a universe. I am a continuity geek. I go out of my way, I hide from friends, I skip lunches just to search for that missing issue, always trying to understand things. I am cautious with people. I don't take great risks. And I stay awake at night worrying about what will happen next.

Sometimes I just want to be the 5-year old me who isn't burdened with motives, repercussions and probability.

Sometimes, whatever it is, it really doesn't matter. We'll write that panel when we get there.

Tuesday, May 15

Missing

Not being overly dramatic about it but I do miss him, and I am just a teeny weeny bit lonely. Loads of lonely when it's one in the morning. So if you were wondering what all The Weepies, The Tilly and the Wall, and the All Smile are all about, why the heavy rotation of all these bittersweet folk songs, well, I need a little company.

But I was glad to hear that he was able to hang out with Itsy in Singapore, that's a bright spot there.

Still, ten days is much much too long. It's the longest we've ever been apart in 8 years.

And cut to montage: I'm catching up on a year's worth of X-Men comic books. I'm making coffee in the kitchen. Decaf. I'm smoking in the stockroom, arm stretched out the window. I'm buying take-out food. I'm working in front of the computer. I'm rearranging toys, according to height, according to series.

7 days more to go.

Friday, May 4

I'm feeling hungry...


How can you stop what's coming... when you don't know anything about power?

Congratulations, you're Sylar, the artist formerly known as Gabriel Gray! You are a seriously nerdy person with an enormous desire to be different, and to be recognized for it. As long as you don't go eating brains, this doesn't have to be a bad thing at all. You're ambitious, intelligent, tenacious, and unique.

Your best quality: Panache
Your worst quality: An obsessive desire for recognition and power



Link: The Heroes Personality Test written by freedomdegrees on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test