It's Complicated (TM)

I truly could never understand the complications of love. Like, when are things ever right or wrong when it comes to love? Or, how am I ever going to know what true love is?

I've been asking the world what true love is, and somehow I've had a chance to stare into the eyes of true love. True love is eternal, it surpasses even the most disappointing and heartbreaking moments in one's life. True love is truly neverending -- it persists until the grave. When you come across it, it's truly bittersweet.

I've also discovered that, sometimes, some people don't necessarily love exclusively. That's the one thing that I still cannot fully comprehend. But indeed, I've seen them around me. It even surpasses what society dictates, yet it is not unique or strange. But it's still love, nonetheless.

I've been in love at least once in my life. And I know how I am -- once I love, I never stop loving. Somehow, that's my definition of true love, it simply never ends. So if you ask me if I still love the person(s) I've loved before, I'd say definitely, but probably not exactly in the same way. But if you ask me if I knew if so and so truly loved me, I wouldn't be so sure. Can that single moment of affection be a manifestation of true love? I've forgiven, I've moved on, but haven't exactly come to understand how I can be loved and left by that one person whom I have felt nothing but love for.

This is not a pre-valentine post. It's not a goodbye or hello post for anyone. I just had to let this all out this very moment, because of so many things going on around me that's confusing me about this very complicated thing/feeling/emotion called LOVE.

But I have one wish, a lifelong dream... if only I could find that one eternal love that's meant for me... someday.

Shopping for Love

It took me such a long time to find it. Somehow it was difficult to have a list of qualifications completely set in your mind before you even decide on committing to it.

Oh, and it was a bag I was shopping for.

One fine day, after such a long time of searching, I was able to find the perfect bag, which fit all the qualifications that I was looking for. It was spaceous but not too big, it had enough pockets inside, it was red leather and looked fab and glamorous, the style was right, and all that shebang. I simply fell in love with it. Didn't come cheap though, and it was a big leap for me to commit to purchasing that fabulous bag. But I did, and I shelled out enough to buy me lunch and snacks everyday for a whole month. I loved that bag, and every moment I spent with it.

I thought everything would be alright, that I would be spending quite some time with that bag until it's all worn out... But that wasn't the case. Just a short time after I bought it (a little more than a month maybe?), it got into a crazy little accident. A small bottle of alcohol I kept in my bag spilled (and this is a warning -- don't ever put a BAND-AID brand alcohol in your bag, the cover simply ain't good). This destroyed my wonderful red leather bag...

My time with that bag was so short lived. That has been two years ago, but up until now, I haven't found anything that would measure up to it yet. I've went back to the same store over and over but they simply didn't have anything close to it. I've bought another red leather bag after that, but it just isn't the same. Perhaps I am never to find anything like that ever again.


AND, my last love affair just sound so similar...

(crosspost: http://pulanglangit.multiply.com)

Bad Peanuts

If you were a city bus rider, you'd surely know about the peanut peddlers who jump aboard carrying their goods. They deliberately open their tubs to let the aroma of the roasted peanuts linger in the airconditioned bus, while doing their "mani" chant... "mainit, malutong, bagong luto..."

There was this one evening on my way home, I was so hungry that I decided to buy me 10 pesos worth of their roasted peanuts. It wasn't a great experience though. I was able to go through only 1/3 of it, and didn't finish it because it really was just horrible. Rancid.

Well, thinking about it now, it really is questionable how these peddlers claim their peanuts to be. How in the world do they keep it warm the whole day? Those peanuts probably have been cooked days before... They are kept warm by some means, just to deceive the consumer that it's still freshly cooked. And since it has been cooked and re-cooked for quite some time, it really isn't crunchy anymore.

But still, how in the world do they keep it warm the whole day??? Still makes me wonder.

Those people who had nothing else to do

Imagine decades, or even centuries ago... That time when there were no radios, televisions, videos... no video games, computers, internet, mobile phones, no motorized vehicles. There was actually nothing much to do except do house chores, read books, or walk about.

But what about those people in the Northern hemispheres who had to sit through months of freezing weather every day? How else could they keep busy, especially those who had brains that were far to curious to just sit about and stare into nothingness?

Well, sometimes they do sit through nothingness and end up figuring out an explanation to a lot of things that have not been explained before their time. Gravity by Isaac Newton. The mathematical relationship of the sides of a right triangle by Pythagoras. Theory of Special Relativity by Albert Einstein. Just look through your higher mathematics books and your Science books now and you'll see so many names there, and equally, so many things to study and understand.

I remember a funny line from a high school teacher of mine, "blame all those scientists and mathematicians who had nothing else to do but discover theorems, and physical laws that we now have to suffer through to study".

So many centuries after human beings start speaking, communicating, and pondering explanations to every single thing in the world, now there is so many things to re-discover and to understand, as explained earlier by those geniuses who came before us. Yes truly, they are the geniuses of their time, savants even.

Now, there are so many other things to do, so many distractions, sometimes there is not much time to ponder those things anymore. But then again, there are a number of people who are still so passionate about discovering the undiscovered, or rediscovering things in different ways. And now, there are powerful mainframes and supercomputers to help with the quest for solutions and explanations.

Emotional Limbo

Limbo - a state of waiting or uncertainty, in which final judgement concerning the outcome of a decision is postponed, perhaps indefinitely.

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Emotional limbo is that state when you've gotten out of one relationship and have somehow gotten over it, but you've not quite completely moved on to a new one yet. Sometimes there is that emotional gap in-between.

Luckily a lot of people does not have to go through that. The luckiest people just try once, and they immediately find a love for keeps -- no more time needed to move from one to the other. There are others who just can't live without having a "someone" in their lives -- those who sashay from one relationship to the other, leaving virtually no time in-between.

I am not a stranger to emotional limbo. Most probably, I'm in one right now. And I've been there possibly a few times before. Let me describe how it goes.

The time after the dissolution of an actual relationship. It doesn't matter how short or long the relationship lasted, but what matters is how emotionally involved you were during the relationship. The more intense the emotions in the relationship, the harder it is to let go. But after the letting go, what comes next?

Sometimes you end up asking that a million times to yourself, not noticing that months, or even years, have passed. Somehow at the back of your mind, you know the answer. Somehow you know that the real question is "who comes next?"

But you can't answer that just yet, because your last relationship probably taught you that there was something wrong with the choices you made before, and you need to somehow re-think your criteria. You can't answer that yet, because part of you is afraid of the possibility of being emotionally involved and being abandoned in the end. Maybe you're just too emotionally exhausted to move on to a new relationship right away. Or maybe, you actually don't want to answer that yet, because you've found the extraordinarily wonderful satisfaction of being on your own, sans the complications of a commitment.

I, me , mine. There is no other person involved in the equation to complicate any decision that needs to be done. All that is critical is your happiness or your despair. You can spend all the time and money on yourself, pursue the things you've been wanting to do for the longest time.

There will still be times you'd miss the old times, that feeling when someone would call you everyday just to know how your day has been; when there's someone to snuggle up to during weekends that you share doing nothing at all. All that emotional residue will always be there.

Sometimes you look forward and wonder where the real love of your life could be, if you have already met him/her, or how and when you'll meet him/her and how you would know that the time has come. Anticipation for what is to come.

It's not at all bad. It's how you deal with it that can make it worthwhile. A period of waiting could be the best opportunity to do productive things or just absolutely random things. Travel. Learn a new skill. Shift careers. Meet new people. The opportunities are endless.

One nice thing to do is to write "100 things I want to do while I'm in emotional limbo," or something like that. You don't have to write all 100 in just one sitting. You can start with 10 and add to it as time goes by. I did that once before, and it turned out to be really interesting. But I didn't finish doing the 100 things, then a "someone" came along. Maybe I should do a new 100 list now?

But don't mind me, I'm just making all of this up. The emotional limbo is an abstraction I chose to create.

The Common-people's Limo

With the continually rising gas prices and the increase in fare for most public transportation, a lot of people are turning to the common-people's stretch limo, a.k.a. the MRT/LRT.

I myself travel almost the entire stretch of EDSA everyday to get to and from work, and I may say it's still quite a blessing to have MRT as a means of travel besides the regular four-wheeled public transports. I ride from Quezon Avenue station (which is 2nd from the QC end of MRT), all the way to Ayala Station (which is 3rd from the Manila side of MRT) - a total of eight (8) stations in between. I just figure out how to get to and from those MRT stations from my home and from my work. Also, the current fare for MRT is still lower than if you take the bus or the FX -- plus, you get to skip the usual EDSA traffic.

However, riding the MRT is still not a walk in the park, unless of course you are speaking about a ballpark overflowing with football fans just waiting to explode into a riot. Especially lately, it is apparent that there are now a lot more people taking the MRT to their destinations. For example, there was this one evening that I was stunned to see the entire Ayala MRT station full of people just waiting to get into the actual station itself (past the turnstiles, that is). There were far more passengers than I have ever seen Ayala station during rush hour. I heard, there have been an increase of around 500,000 passengers of the MRT station a day, since the gas prices and fares have started going up.

Nonetheless, I still choose to take the MRT. You just have to get used to the mob of people, and find little ways to make the commute a little more bearable. Here are some adaptations I have discovered so far:

- Buy a G-pass. I still believe its better than the stored-value card. It is a proximity pass (prox-card, like in Singapore!), and it is reloadable. The reloading window is separate from the actual MRT ticket counters, and there is hardly any queue for it. Another secret is that in some turnstiles, you can still get through it even if it has the red X mark, as long as it has the prox-card reader.

- The first coach. Thank God for it. I know how it was when there was not a dedicated coach for the women (and children, and elders). Now there's that coach, where you wouldn't really mind being stuck sardine-type inside, because I don't need to be wary about men who could try to take advantage (or be wary of men who stink - cause some of them really do).

- Stand on the side. While waiting to ride the MRT, it's a better idea to stand on the side of the crowd than at the back -- there's a better chance of you getting in from the sides. Also, it gives you the leeway to shift to the other door if it seems easier to get through that.

- Get in the middle. Once you get into the coach, proceed to the middle if at all possible, especially if you're going to ride all the way to the last three stations. This way, you wouldn't need to be bothered much by people getting on and off the train. But if you're only riding the MRT through 2 to 4 stations, it's best to stand near the doors so that you wouldn't have too much trouble getting out.

But, irregardless of whatever precautions or adaptations you make, always bear in mind that MRT is and will always be a battlefield. You always have to be ready for any inconvenience you can encounter. You will always have to wait, one way or another. There may be times you may be implored to be nice to some people (I gave a tissue once to this little girl who was all sticky, eating a piece of watermelon while waiting for the train. There was another time I had to keep myself from getting mad at another passenger who almost fell during the ride but ended up stepping (quite painfully) on my foot). But most times you will need to be as selfish as possible (like during times you need to know the difference between a real queue from that which you can skip, ignoring the dismay of the people around you). At the end of the day, the MRT ride will always be each man for himself (or each woman for herself).

Avenue Q - The Farewell Run

Friday night at RCBC plaza. The auditorium was filled with young professionals and theatre aficionados. It was the night I was watching Avenue Q. I've been listening to the soundtrack for the past few months, and that alone was something I really enjoyed. I wanted to be able to experience it in its entirety. And truely, it did not disappoint.

Avenue Q is a parody of Sesame Street. It is a play featuring human puppets, monster puppets, and humans. The story revolves around Princeton, a young man straight out of college, starting to explore the real world. He moves in to Avenue Q (a fictional street in the outskirts of New York) as he was starting to deal with the challenges of jobs, relationships, and the search for purpose. There are characters who are recognizably parodies of some Sesame Street characters, like the roommates Rod and Nicky who are like Bert and Ernie, and Trekkie Monster who has the similarity to Cookie Monster. The characters are already in their 20s and 30s struggling through their own challenges in life. It also has its own share of profanities, as well as a lot of reference to porn, sex, and homosexuality.

It was really dedicated to the generation who grew up on Sesame Street and Batibot. After all, that generation (myself included) are the ones who are now in their 20s and 30s probably going through the same struggles as these characters. The younger generation would probably not be able to catch the other subtle references of the play to Sesame Street and Batibot. For example, during the start, there was a video intro that looked so similar to the Batibot opening sequence.

My favorite characters were the "bad-idea bear", who always had their way at getting the main characters into trouble, but making it seem like their trying to help them out. They show how cute and adorable temptation always seem to be (haha!).

I also adore Carla Guevara, the one who played Kate Monster and Lucy the Slut for this season. I'm sure it's a real challenge to play the two extremely different characters (in terms of voice and attitude), and she did it really well.

Their next run will be in Singapore. I'm greatly recommending this, it's really a great show!