back to the 80s

it's an absolutely beastly rainy day and i'd rather be in bed. since work's slow today (the flood kept our candidates at home, smart of them), my officemate put on a CD with music from the 80s. so for at least an hour and half, i was back at a time where people went out on weekends to go dancing, where parties were not complete with the ubiquitous mobile, and coffee shops and celfones were non-existent.

this was a time in life when high school boys and girls met each other in underground (read: not sanctioned by the school) soirees at the girl's house (must be the girl's house, if you have it in the boy's house, you're considered cheap) where you'd have all sorts of games to get people to talk and eventually dance with each other. and the ultimate thrill was for one of the cute boys to ask for your home phone number. and you were the envy of all your other classmates when they find out the following schoolday.

this was when people actually talked on the phone for hours at a time. not being hampered by the burden of text messaging, boys would call girls at home and put on the moves then. the braver of the boys would get their close buddies (two at the most) to act as their wing men while they visit the girl they like at her house. and the girl would have an equal number of friends who "happened" to drop by her house at the same time. snack of choice was coke and the red granny goose tortilla chips.

these were Aquanet days -- girls would tease their bangs and spray it in place and come out with the Aquanet look. props for the girl with the best looking bangs. you didn't Aquanet your hair, you were as good as dead.

it was that difficult period of growing up, where all the proverbial changes were hitting you hard and you felt all you had was the music of mike francis, depeche mode, fra lippo lippi, snap, and color me badd to get you through.



this is for april and nadine, two good buds who made that difficult transition of pretending to grow up so much easier.

ateneo's first loss this season

augh ateneo lost today! lost to UE! =( 64-59

first loss this season. please God let it be the last.

bad mood

extremely black mood today.

why did i give my heart away yet again?
one would think after all the crap i've had to put up with the past zillion years, i'd know better by now.

he said "you know i love you still. and i enjoy your company a lot. but right now, i live for the moment."

which is male-speak for "i like the idea that you're at my beck and call and i so enjoy knowing that you're there whenever i need you and i can easily discard you when you cease to amuse me."

and this from a man who once asked me to grow old with him.

kodak moment

i had a kodak moment recently that i should have seen coming but had been laboring under the delusion that time stops after college that the moment caught me off-guard.

one of my close friends from college recently got engaged to be married. and our group, a bunch of four unmarried girls, met up for dinner to catch up and to see her ring.

it was surreal, that moment. one second, we were all giggling and carrying on like a bunch of thirteen year-olds. the next second, we all fell into a reverent hush as the engagement ring on my friend's finger sparkled prettily in our midst. there was a split second where a zillion thoughts zinged through my mind -- this is the girl i had giggled with on the first day of orientation in college. this is the girl i had watched cry when her family fell apart. this is the girl who was reprimanded by our teacher for eating in class. and this is the girl i had always envied for her enchanting use of words and images.

this bunch of girls has been in my life for more than a decade, and having them in my life stops time. it doesn't matter if we were college seniors having lunch in the caf or semi-struggling yuppies having dinner in makati.

time stops.

we are simply angel ines justine lissa, perpetually young, forever laughing, eternally frozen at a time of life where everything is perfect.