Anyway here's not Wonderwall

For about a month and a half, I took a songwriting class from the Berklee College of Music on Coursera. I was actually looking for some media studies / journalism classes I could take as refreshers for work and (possibly) school when I saw that a songwriting class was starting soon.

Why not? I wanted to write but didn't like the idea of my own writing — what little I'd done, what I'd failed to finish, what I felt too inadequate to start. There were some issues I wanted to process into some tidy paragraphs, but diary entries and a dozen drafted posts couldn't help me, for some reason. It got to the point that I looked at my diary and my blog URL with dread. Maybe what I needed was to try writing something else.

I had written lyrics before: the words to my high school class's cheesy graduation song, and two or three just-as-cheesy love songs as a college freshman, before actual schoolwork took over. I think I never tried songwriting again, partly because I didn't know piano or guitar chords, but mostly because college life — and later, post-college life — was just so full of things to do.

So, anyway, here was this class on the Coursera lineup, with the description claiming I wouldn't have to have any great musical background to be able to take it. And here was I, in a rut and casting about for something creative to do. Again, why not?

The songwriting process ended up fixing the emotional leaks I'd been trying to plug. Just in the first week, we were shown how to take a song idea through three stages, making sure that the chorus or refrain gains weight at each stage so that the repetition at the end of the song has the most weight.

I soon found that my tendency to repeat myself in my personal writing has its uses in song. More importantly, though, while taking my own song ideas — all based on issues I'd been carrying around — through those three stages, I ended up resolving stuff that had been bothering me for months:

Idea 1: My life is great, but it doesn't feel secure. It doesn't help that my friends are complaining about how everyone on Facebook is getting married.

Idea 2: I'm no longer mad at this person, but I don't want to be friends. I wish I could stop feeling bad about not wanting to be friends.

Idea 3: There are all these little, ordinary-seeming things about being with Cris that make life awesome. How can I tell him that in a way I haven't already, and without dulling the secret magic of those little things?

Here is the song I wrote for Idea 1. Like all great songs, it was recorded on my phone in the bathroom, with an exhaust fan going in the background. It was the first song I completed, early in the class, and so is the simplest; it doesn't incorporate any of the stuff I learned in the later weeks — phrasing, language shaping, rhyme schemes, the use of bridges, etc. But, it's the one I feel least shy about sharing.



Here's to more projects for happiness. Here's a link to the class, in case anyone's interested. And, here's an old video of the teacher.

Music + one last letter for 2014

Though being with Cris last year had healed me up in a way I hadn’t even imagined possible, this year, I found that there was still more healing to do. As I went on with life and went on enjoying things as they came, it seemed that, out of nowhere, some thought of the recent past would show up and deflate things.

I found myself in these weird mental cycles:

I’m having so much fun; why do I have to think of this thing now and ruin it?

Maybe thinking that this thought is ruining it is actually what is ruining it.

I’m having so much fun; why do I have to think like this and ruin it?

I kept wondering if I was unnecessarily reopening wounds that had just mended or only realizing that they were actually much deeper than I’d thought. I spent a lot of time inside my head — and, eventually, a lot less time blogging and crafting — to work these questions out.

Is processing this again doing more harm to you than good? Is there something about this that you have yet to come to terms with, or are you just rehashing the past and not letting yourself move on? What scars must you allow; how much of this are you willing to acknowledge and embrace as part of who you are now?

I found myself disappearing into music in a way I hadn’t in a long time. Sometime toward the end of the first quarter, I listened to “Fleet Foxes” for the first time, and something about the repetition and macabre implications of “White Winter Hymnal” drew me in. Eventually, the whole album awakened in me a longing for the California of my childhood.

I wanted to feel the heat of the spring sun among the endless rows of peach blossoms along the dusty county back roads. How boring I found those drives then; I couldn’t imagine why my parents wanted to just drive around to look at the same pink and white flowers over and over again, and I can still hear myself whining from the backseat. Now, I just have this memory filtered through a cranky squint. What I’d give today for all those trees.

I wanted all of it back — all those mountains and all that valley and all that coastline viewed from the backseat of a car on the freeway. How magical frost on the lawn in the early winter mornings was. How weird to see Hale-Bopp in the sky. How wet I was surprised to learn snow was, and how cold that side of the Pacific Ocean. How country music sounded on the radio. How public school construction paper and playground wood chips smelled. How tall the redwoods and the sequoias were. How it felt to make and eat my first roasted marshmallow on a twig, one night at that camp just south of Yosemite, and then to walk back to the cabins with the older kids, under the trees in the near dark.

I think California returned to me because I didn’t want to recall more recent memories that I’d already gone through and over-thought already. I didn’t want to process California, either; I just wanted to be there, somewhere faraway but familiar, and not to revisit my childhood but to make sense of my adulthood.

It felt weird to try to write or talk about these memories and these feelings while very much surrounded with stories of things going on today, in this country, where there are only two seasons. So, I just let music take me where I couldn’t physically go.

(Shoutout to Petra Magno, whose postcards from California came right in the middle of this.)

--
Here’s a list of the albums (plus one EP and some sessions) I discovered this year, with some of my favorite songs. The list is arranged in the order I first heard them, and I tried to find links to the same versions I listened to. I’m just sharing, of course; you don’t have to listen to all of them.

1. “Fleet Foxes” by Fleet Foxes
- “White Winter Hymnal”
- “Tiger Mountain Peasant Song”

2. “Through the Deep Dark Valley”, by The Oh Hellos
- “Like the Dawn”
- “Wishing Well”
- “In Memoriam”

3. “Ys”, by Joanna Newsom
- “Emily”
- “Cosmia”
— I love all five songs on “Ys”, really; these are just the first and last on the album.

4. “Helplessness Blues”, by Fleet Foxes
- “Montezuma”
- “Helplessness Blues”

5. “Get Noisey EP”, by Lucius
- “Go Home (Live)"
- “How Loud Your Heart Gets” (Live)

6. “Born to Die”, by Lana Del Rey
- “Blue Jeans”
- “Summertime Sadness”
- “This is What Makes Us Girls”
— Lana Del Rey doesn’t seem to belong on this list, but “Born to Die” was an interesting break. It made me think of how I might have turned out if my family had never left California.

7. “Honey I’m Home”, by Lucius (The Wild Honey Pie recording)
- “Two of Us on the Run”

8. “Buzzsessions”, by Lucius (The Wild Honey Pie recording)
- “It Doesn’t Matter Anymore” (Buddy Holly cover)
--

Eventually, I found my own words to explain to myself what was happening. I feel like new.

I also feel too old for some of my anxieties. When they came to me this year, I felt a mix of exasperation and despair — this problem is so x years ago; have I really progressed only this much in x years? Closure is one thing; recognizing that the door is, in fact, closed is another. That was another reason I didn’t talk about some of these things with anyone, not even Cris. I wanted to show myself that I could work things out on my own and learn, on my own, to let them go.

I finally feel now that I’m able to leave certain things to gather dust in my mental museum, visited only occasionally and — finally — painlessly. Those eras are ended. The mammals have moved in. Whatever pains from the past left still living are isolated on a tropical island somewhere. If I find myself on their shores, if I see them again, I will see them only as shrunken shadows of the species that once threatened to crush me with their great weight.

Just last month, I got my hands on two more albums, I guess to ease the way out of the woods, into the new year, and into whatever life gives me next. “Pure Heroine” took me back to high school and brought back some old insecurities, but Lorde’s own jadedness helped me to put those to rest, too. After that, “Originator” was a nice reminder that I’d managed to get through everything I’ve just written about, and there’s still plenty of and to love.

+ “Pure Heroine”, by Lorde
- “Tennis Court”
- “Still Sane”

+ “Originator”, by Brooke Waggoner
- “Waterlogged”
- “To Love”

Between the day I started working on this blog entry and today, a lot of things happened to make at least 2014 clearer. Cris got a scholarship to grad school abroad. He got the letter just last week; if everything falls into place, he might be gone next month, and I might not get to see him for several months after that.

My brother Mikko, who is not coming home for Christmas, and Camille, his girlfriend of four years, broke up this week after deciding that their lives were going in different directions.

Two acquaintances died of aneurysms this week, roughly within a day of each other. One was a bubbly, well-loved 24-year-old young woman I'd met in college. She died in a foreign country, among friends but away from family.

The other person was my grandmother's best friend. My grandmother doesn't know now if she should come home from the US to say goodbye or stay with her son, who is still fighting cancer.

It doesn't seem like a good time to be far away from anyone you love; suddenly, every day away from anyone who really matters feels like a risk. After this year, though, I find it easier to accept that this risk is a part of the life I've chosen and a part of working toward the future I hope for — the future I have to have at least a little faith in if I want to keep going at all.

To love [th]is life

I played this song three times last night before I went to sleep, and I started crying in the middle of the second round.

Cris turned 30 last week. I'm can't tell you just how happy and grateful I am that he was born.

, And I'm going going going going to get you.

There are moments when you miss everyone so fiercely, you feel like stomping across forests, fields, rivers, and mountains just to show up at their kitchen door, see them at the counter fixing themselves an afternoon snack in the afternoon sunshine after a heavy rain, see them look up and smile at you and say, "Hey", and be happy to know that they are okay. To see them whole and healthy and about to eat something good and simple during a commercial break or while a file is downloading or while a game is saving, to know that they are in the middle of resting and enjoying themselves, even if you have not been around -- this is a weird need to have,

but maybe this is what happens when you find yourself with a free afternoon, and you spend the first part of it looking at your dad's maps of where his bike has taken him in the past few months, and you know that this very moment, he and his brother are tearing around another mountain in a 4x4, and your mom tells you that she is gardening after she took a bike ride with your own brother, who is probably in the middle of a game or an anime episode now, if he is not rummaging through a kitchen cupboard for something to eat, and your other brother is probably getting ready to leave the apartment he showed you through Skype (maybe he now has that bike he said he was thinking of getting and is about to see if he and the Barcelona streets like each other), and you wonder whether your grandmother, sitting on her bed with the pink sheets in the lovely corner room with the view of those trees, still feels as fragile as a bird -- and if she'd still rather work on her crossword puzzles than finish her memoirs, because those are pages you'd like to hold one day, since any time you get to hold anyone you love is never enough.

thing-a-week 26, 27: "A Bat Above" (Phase 1)

I was able to fish out my scanner, so for Week 26, you get a scan of a new drawing I made for my Processing project.

I actually like the first drawing a lot more, but I didn't want the drawing I used to be too much like the reference photograph. I might still make another.

For the first time in this series, I'm presenting a digital work. Week 27's craft is the first phase of my Processing project, as submitted. Here also is the project information, just for reference.

The class requires us to either submit two different projects or submit two phases of one project.

DESCRIPTION
This is only the first stage of the project; my final submission will be a simple coin-collecting game.

"A Bat Above" is inspired by Glitch (www.glitch.com), an MMO game that closed late last year. My project imagines what it might be like for the cave-dwelling batterfly, an in-game animal, to emerge from the caves after the game's closing and roam an empty landscape while wondering where all the players have gone.

I want my project to be enjoyed by everyone, though — not just former Glitch players.

At this point, the game doesn't have the coin-collecting mechanics yet. I focused on the design and music — the general look and feel. It's not much, but it's what I've managed to put together so far.

I drew the background by hand, and the background music is a mix I made using sounds from freesound.org. The bat is moved by the mouse pointer.

SCREENCAST

BACKGROUND MUSIC



(The screencast did not capture the music during the demo, so I uploaded the music to SoundCloud.)

REFERENCES
The sound of birds chirping is by hanstimm, who released it on freesound.org under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license.

The piano loop is by Erokia, who released it on freesound.org under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

The batterfly sprite is by Tiny Speck, who released it on glitch.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike license.

The music is played using the Maxim Java API provided by the course instructors.

I referred heavily to the processing.org examples on sprite animation and object-oriented programming.

Last but not least, Will Gallia in the forums helped me figure out how to get the background to scroll.

--
It looks like I forgot to cite Cory Richards, the guy who took the Tsarang temples photo I used as inspiration. I'll have to remember him at the next submission.

The background music and the screencast were firsts for me. Obviously, my sound mixing is kindergarten-level; I just threw hanstimm and Erokia's sounds together in Audacity. The credit really belongs to them.

I hope that by next deadline, I'll have figured out how to capture the in-game sound with the screencast, or how to export the whole thing as a web app, so people actually get to try it.

(I wish I could share some of the projects I made for Python class, but doing so would be considered leakage and might lead future students to violate the honor code.)

Letter No. 23

Started yesterday; finished today.

--
It turns out that the mid shift can be good for a morning person, or at least for people who like to spend their mornings doing nothing.

Maybe my body clock still needs to adjust to my new working hours, but despite the late nights I've had lately, I still wake up at around six AM and have trouble going back to sleep afterward.

My body has been like this since childhood. It's as if it knows that there is so much to do and so little time; whether I've had a full night's sleep or just an hour's, I have no choice but to begin another day conscious.

Now that I'm on the mid shift, this means that I have a couple extra hours every day to do whatever I want (except maybe go back to sleep, haha) instead of rushing to get ready for work. This morning, I finally got to hand-wash some laundry. I sang out loud. I did my last peer evaluations for my Python class (I can't do this during the waiting hours at work because it involves playing five different games of Asteroids). I had eggs with thyme and tortillas instead of just cereal. I played a couple songs on my ocarina and then a couple rounds of Triple Town. And after I finally did get ready for work, I still had time to experiment with a different commuting route and pick up some groceries so I wouldn't have another dinner of rice crackers.

I'm actually struggling more with meals than with sleep. Along with its own alarm clock, my body has a pretty rigid eating schedule and will punish me with hyperacidity if I don't follow. My classmates used to joke that they could tell time by my stomach.

In my new department, things are pretty quiet until the daily story conference at three PM. After that, you can expect to be hard at work until nine if you're lucky (one page, good stories) and 12 if you're not (two pages, not-as-good stories, and give or take an hour if you're Night Editor). There's no time to break for dinner because any breaks longer than the time it takes to refill your tumbler or empty your bladder mean that your pages are that much later.

I've only been here a week, though, so I'm hoping that I'll get faster; I'll know things better and have to double-check things less often, and my layouts will get less embarrassing and need less polishing by the artists.

But even if the long nights are here to stay, it's nice to know that I'll have the mornings to recover my spirit, if not my sleep.

--
Learning to play a four-hole pendant ocarina last year made me see how much I took music lessons for granted. I'd forgotten how much fun it could be to play an instrument, so I asked Cris to get me a 12-hole ocarina when he went back to China last month. It's a good-sized alto C ceramic "sweet potato", though the orange color makes it look more like a carrot. :)

I sometimes wonder how things would have been different if I hadn't stopped piano lessons, so I feel like I'm catching up a little by learning songs and looking for sheet music that doesn't have anything higher than high F or low A.

I hope the neighbors aren't tired of "Danny Boy" yet.

--
As the Python course entered its last week, instead of diving into Python on my own, I signed up for another course that involves a little design, a little music, and a little programming. It sounds perfect for me, but I'm forced to confront something I kept at the back of my mind when Python class was still in session.

I don't know what to build. Or rather, I don't know if I can come up with anything original to build.

This wasn't such a problem in Python class because each project had specific objectives: build Pong, build a Blackjack game, build Asteroids, etc. But as the course went on, I was a little alarmed that I wasn't coming up with any ideas for original games to attempt building when I was done with the class. Not even for simple toys like this elegant pendulum program by Emily Wachtel (press the play button, then mess around with the other stuff in the window that pops up). Maybe that's why I signed up for the digital media course so quickly; maybe a new class would distract me from the fact that my personal drawing board was empty.

The trouble is, this new class requires that we submit a creative project in two weeks, and I can't think of anything. We have the option to extend some of the demo programs in the class, but I find even that I challenge — not a technical challenge, but a personal one. I think I've had enough of building on templates from the Python class; I need to prove to myself that I can build something from scratch. But, what?

If I'm honest with myself, this is something I've been struggling with for a few years now. I haven't had a good fiction idea in ages. The unfinished stuff — either I've abandoned it because I've lost my connection to the story, or I'm stuck in a part of the plot and can't find my way forward.

What this has to do with programming is that I want my projects to have stories. They don't have to be as elaborate as choose-your-own-adventure games; they can be as simple as a Ferry Halim game like Pocketful of Stars or The Crossing (though I know I can't expect my graphics to be as lovely).

I could be overthinking this, of course. I probably just need to step back and scribble.

Leavings 041813

These are just some things I've been thinking about; you can read through the whole thing or just skip to the parts you're interested in.

1. Through the Deep, Dark Valley, by The Oh Hello's

Annoying apostrophe aside, The Oh Hello's show promise on this debut album. I chanced upon it on NoiseTrade, a pay-what-you-what website, but it's also available on the band's own website.

The bible geek in me got a really big kick out of all the references in the lyrics — there's some Psalm 23 and post-Exodus Hebrew frustration, some Adam and Eve angst, and a prodigal son narrative in there, for instance — but it's nothing like any contemporary Christian music I've heard. I haven't seen any interview or post in which the band makes some statement of faith, anyway. The only obvious clue is "I Was Wrong," whose first line is, "I was born at the hands of the potter." But these songs about love, wandering, and forgiveness could apply to any other relationship, not just one's relationship with their God.

The best songs are open to interpretation. For instance, my favorite, "Like the Dawn," could very well be about Adam's discovery of Eve, but it could also be about a relationship that may or may not be doomed. In "In Memoriam", the mention of God, which the band capitalizes on its website, could tell you that the song is addressed to God, but it could also just be a passing mention in a song to a faithful lover or friend.

Foreign critics say that the US is having a folk music revival, so I guess The Oh Hello's hope to be part of that. Listeners might thus be quick to dismiss the band as copycats of the Kings of Leon or Mumford & Sons, especially on the songs with male vocalist Taylor in the lead. However, I hope you stay for the stronger songs, the ones where female vocalist Maggie is the star. It's not just because I'm female myself or because her voice has a lovely drawl, but also because those songs happen to be lyrically stronger.

I think the album could have done without "I Have Made Mistakes" entirely; it seems redundant right after "I Was Wrong." One exception to my Maggie-songs-are-better kick, though, is "The Lament of Eustace Scrubb"; Taylor's subdued voice conveys the plight of this Narnia character very effectively, while the lyrics don't give the whole story away.

2. "The Carrie Diaries" and wish fulfillment

I've never seen "The Sex and the City", but I like its prequel series, "The Carrie Diaries", whose first season just finished. I think many of the characters' actions and reactions in recent episodes are wish fulfillment, but I don't care. If young girls get their ideas about sex and relationships from the culture they consume, then I hope they're consuming this, because the lessons from this show could save teenage girls from a lot of pain.

a. Don't put up with shitty double standards for males and females.
b. If you think a relationship is getting in the way of getting good grades and/or being true to yourself, maybe it's time to revalue that relationship.
c. Great boyfriends don't pressure you into doing anything you don't feel ready for.
d. Overthinking things can ruin friendships and relationships.
e. When you screw up, don't make excuses or create unnecessary drama; just apologize.
f. Sex is not love, but if you're not one of those people who can detach themselves so thoroughly, it's better for you to do it with someone you love.
g. Parents are people, too — but they shouldn't dump their drama on you or use you as a go-between when their relationships are on the rocks.

3. Diverse casting

Another thing I like about "The Carrie Diaries" is its diverse casting: Ellen Wong (Jill "Mouse" Chen) is Chinese, Katie Findlay (Maggie) is part-Chinese, RJ Brown (Thomas West) is African-American, and Freema Agyeman (Larissa Loughlin) has Iranian and Ghanaian parents. Also, Chloe Bridges (Donna LaDonna) may have Hispanic roots; her real surname is Suazo, and she played a lot of Hispanic characters before playing Donna LaDonna. (I read a lot of Wikipedia, okay?) I think they just need to even up the number of POC males/boyfriends; there's only one, and he's with Mouse, the only other teenage character clearly identified as a POC.

Diverse casting and representation is something I've taken an interest in since the racebending debacle that was "The Last Airbender". It's nice when casting directors recognize that POCs don't have to play stereotypical roles, when they don't whitewash POC characters in the source material so they can cast the current hot young white actor, and when writers realize that characters can be changed to accommodate more POCs in a dominantly white cast. For instance, Mouse in the "Carrie Diaries" source novel isn't actually Asian, but casting Ellen Wong shows that you can have POC characters who are just as capable and valuable.

It's also nice when they incorporate a POC/biracial actor's roots into the story. Larissa Loughlin could just have been a fabulous black British lady, but her back story includes escaping an oppressive adolescence in Ghana. Kristin Kreuk, another part-Asian actress, commonly plays white characters, but in her current series, "Beauty in the Beast", her character Catherine is biracial, with an also biracial younger sister (played by part-Filipino Nicole Anderson) and a clearly Asian mother.

Actually, "Beauty and the Beast" also has a laudably diverse cast. Not only is the lead biracial, but the police chief is black, Catherine's partner Tess is Hispanic, and the new assistant district attorney is South Asian. It's nice to see POCs written as complete human beings instead of stereotypes, and it's even nicer to see POCs in positions of authority and power.

It's also nice when American shows recognize that POCs are Americans, too, not outsiders just trying to blend in. So, while movies like the "Red Dawn" remake and "Olympus Has Fallen" show whites as the heroes and POCs as inferior and/or untrustworthy — if not as the antagonists, plain and simple — "Beauty and the Beast" shows that POCs can be good citizens who live to protect the innocent and uphold the law of their [new] homeland. Catherine's mother appears only in a few flashback scenes, but it's important to note that she's portrayed as a good-hearted military scientist who wants to defend her country.

The best part is that nobody's view of the characters is obscured by their racial or ethnic backgrounds; the audience doesn't see an all-caps look-at-this BLACK police chief, but a capable, solid police chief who just happens to be black. The only time someone notices a character's race is when some jerk refers to Tess as "Diversity Barbie", but it never happens again and is clearly taken as offensive.

I'm just sad that "Beauty and the Beast" has pretty mediocre writing; I want the show to succeed if only for what it achieves through its cast.

I'm not the one to break down all the good things about diverse casting, though; a lot of this stuff I came to appreciate by reading Racebending.com. I can only add that while casting in American media doesn't seem relevant to Filipino pop culture, I'd still like to see the day when teleseryes don't use blackface, when brown or dark actors and actresses can play leads (who are not oppressed yayas or ignorant indigenous people), when Chinese Filipinos on the screen don't all have thick accents and care only about who will inherit the family business, when characters from Visayas and Mindanao don't just serve as comic relief with "funny" accents, and when casting in general favors other Filipino actors as much it does half-white actors. Throw in some good, original writing, and hey, maybe I'll start watching local TV, too.

Letter No. 2

Call them signs, an emerging theme, God talking, or coincidence. Within a week of my birthday, life was showing/telling me, I'm bad at being with other people; better to get better at connecting while I'm still young.

I don't know if this is normal, but I have problems with episodic memory. This was embarrassingly clear to me when my high school barkada was complete for the first time in months, maybe years, for just one night last weekend. And I could not detail an anecdote from our shared adolescence to save my life.

"I remember when there was a luau. They let us decorate. And Kat pushed Lei into the pool."

Really? I found myself thinking. Then, Oh, yeah. But, I couldn't remember any of the details, just the dim fact that I had indeed pushed Lei into the pool.

The remorse, on the other hand, was pretty fresh; how bad I felt immediately after I'd picked on my water-hating friend, that I can definitely remember.

There are other memories of memories I don't recall. Once, when I was in high school, my senior homeroom teacher told me that she remembered when I was 10 or 11 and threw a tantrum over a lower-than-expected science grade. I kicked like a little kid, she said. I have no memory of this at all and refused to believe it had happened, though I did have a reputation for tantrums back then.

More recently, my lola recalled how my lolo spent his last Christmas in the hospital, and I was horrified that I could not remember this, either. I was there that Christmas, but I don't remember the hospital at all.

I thank whatever seized me at nine years old to start keeping diaries, and I go cold at the thought that I was thinking of shredding them earlier this year. The first thing I'm going to do when I go home is dig them up and take them back with me.

What's wrong with me? I'd like to know. Cris marvels at my ability to learn songs in a snap, but I'd much rather be able to remember scenes from my own life, shared with my nearest and dearest, no less.

Now that I look back and try to pull out specific memories, I'm frustrated to see how wrapped up inside myself I've been. I can remember how I felt and the thoughts I liked to think, fancying myself special. But specific events I do remember can be separated into two main categories: the times I was by myself and felt mostly awesome, and the times I was with other people and felt different shades of bad. A third category, happy memories with other people, is pitifully sparse in comparison.

It's not to say that nobody cared about me; I think it's that I haven't cared much for other people. My memories feature mostly me because I focused on mostly me. I chose friends, crushes, and people to date for mostly selfish reasons: they made me feel good about myself. I probably felt horrible around other people because I was always wishing they'd treat me the way I wanted, instead of simply enjoying their company, much less making them feel special also.

How cold I must have been.

Somehow, I have friends like my friends and family members who are still interested in spending time with me. I would have ditched someone like me a long time ago — and I don't blame the old friends who did. Realizing just how wonderful some people can be is why, in the middle of the sensory overload that was Cafe Juanita on my birthday, I felt so unworthy I wanted to cry.

There's something else that makes me panicky about my lack of connection. Between my mom in physical therapy for some mysterious back pain and my grama recently admitted for appendicitis, plus how bird-like my lola feels whenever I get to hug her and how more defined my dad's face is every time I see him, I can't help seeing how old my family is getting. Dad has more hobbies now. It's my turn now, to — what?

Grama was admitted Monday. I visited her Tuesday, and she told me that it was the first time she'd been hospitalized for anything other than the births of her children. She also told me that with her children grown and scattered, she was thankful for her friends. It wasn't a slight against my dad, my aunt, and my uncles; I think she was just stating a fact. Her friends constantly checked on her. One of them spent the first night with her there in that little ward, before the surgery.

I immediately thought of my own friends, the girls I'd had a slumber party with the weekend before, as well as the few friends I've [barely] kept in touch with since college. Perhaps selfishly, I wondered if, with all of them scattered as well, I'd have anyone like them the way Grama had her friends that Monday night. Again, I cringed at how bad I've been at keeping friends.

And of course, it wasn't until later that I thought about being there for them myself.

I guess the saving grace is that I'm still young, and it can't be too late to be better.

As for my terrible memory for good things, I'll have to be more conscious of the present and my present company. Remember this good thing happening to you and these good people you get to share it with, Kat. Then maybe, when they ask you about something great you did together, you have something real to say.

--
This letter features a soundtrack: two songs that came to mind while I was writing, and one that followed after I fed the first two songs into Grooveshark. Call it a sign, God talking, or coincidence.

1. Only if for a Night, by Florence + the Machine
The grass was so green against my new clothes / And I did cartwheels in your honor / Dancing on tiptoes, my own secret ceremonials / Before the service began / In the graveyard / Doing handstands // And I heard your voice / As clear as day / And you told me I / Should concentrate / It was all so strange / And so surreal / That a ghost should be / So practical / Only if for a night // And the only solution was the stand and fight / And my body was bruised, and I was set alight / But you came over me like some holy rite / And although I was burning, you're the only light / Only if for a night

2. A Better Son/Daughter, by Rilo Kiley
Then you hang up the phone and feel badly for upsetting things / And crawl back into bed to dream of a time / When your heart was open wide and you loved things just because
...
And you'll be better, and you'll be smarter / And more grown-up and a better daughter / Or son and a real good friend / You'll be awake, and you'll be alert / You'll be positive though it hurts / And you'll laugh and embrace all your friends / You'll be a real good listener / You'll be honest; you'll be brave

3. It's Cool to Love Your Family, by Feist
And someone loved them once / And someone loves them still / And someone misses them / And someone always will // It's cool, it's cool to love your family

Opening

1

I've learned different words for "happy" in Mandarin, but the one that gets me right now is 开心 (kāixīn). It's made of the words 开 (kāi), which means "open," and 心 (xīn), which means "heart."

我真开心 (Wǒ zhēn kāixīn)。I am truly happy.

2

When he moves, it's as if he simply reaches into his pockets and finds whatever it is waiting there, to be extended on an open palm. All these things he says or does, like little treasures — a pebble, a coin, a sweet — are offered to me like it's the easiest, most natural thing to do.

When I move, I reach into my pocket and pull out rings of keys, which open a building, which houses a vault, which houses other vaults and safes, which house little boxes, which contain things I didn't know I still had. And it takes all my courage to get through all these heavy doors and walls I don't remember building, just to give him the tiniest peek at the thing I want him most to see.

The thing is, I knew from the beginning that I had nothing to fear. I knew — I know I can believe him. I know I can believe in him. I know I shouldn't be afraid.

So, I'm not, or I won't be from now on. I'm leaving that house and taking my treasure with me in my pockets. Life has never felt so light.

3

Heaven for the Devil in Me

I don't talk often about music because there isn't a lot that I like. During my pre-Internet childhood, the music that found its way to local radio stations was not as varied and, shall we say, "cool" as the music my capital-based peers have in their libraries. Let's just say that Nine Days and Enya were about as far out of the mainstream as you could get, and nobody had a clue how great Bjork really was (But, could you blame us? The "Hunter" video had us all scratching our heads).

So whenever I heard something that I liked, cool or uncool, I latched onto it and, given my music landscape, only it—as an angry teenager, "The Madding Crowd" was the only album I ever played at full blast behind my locked door. The music I loved, I loved fiercely, perhaps because it felt like it had made such a long journey to present itself to me.

I don't know whether it's just the way I am, just my age (the other day, some high schooler on the radio didn't know the words to "Don't Speak"), or actually the way many people really are, but this is still how I acquire music today. Having access now to the immense volume of music out in the world actually makes it even harder for me to find a musician or band that strikes that magic chord inside my tiny little body.

The good music, I've found, tells me a story, and the better music makes me feel like the hero, whether that story's happy or sad. I guess that's kind of escapist, but whose daydreams aren't?

The best music, however, makes me feel capable of anything, right here, right now.

And all that's just to say that I can't get enough of "Ceremonials" by Florence + the Machine.

Sometime last year, I heard "What the Water Gave Me." I had just wrapped myself around Flo's first album, "Lungs," and I was a little afraid of what she was going to do next. The new song took me back to all the afternoons I spent holding my breath under the water, training myself to dive 15 feet without a tank. It felt like my dreams of flying—and when I dream of flying, I feel and move like I'm swimming.

Then, the day before I went home for the All Souls holiday, about two months after my breakup, I heard "Shake It Out," and I just knew that this whole album would be everything I needed to hear.

I finally bought it—bought it!—on Monday, and I haven't been able to stop listening to it. Every damn song makes me feel like I could win a war, even if that war's just with myself.

Heartlines


[image source]

I wish I could go on, but I have to dash off now to meet my dad and brother; we're hiking around Taal Volcano tomorrow. \m/

Life feels awesome right now.

--

Like the new layout? I do. The old one was a little painful to look at. Have a good weekend, everybody.

Failing and Flying

1. Landslide - Fleetwood Mac
2. The Show Must Go On - Queen
3. What the Water Gave Me - Florence + The Machine
4. Shoot the Moon - Norah Jones
5. Piazza, New York Catcher - Belle & Sebastian
6. Aquarius - Regina Spektor
7. If You Could Read My Mind - Scala + Kolacny Brothers
8. Suzanne - Leonard Cohen & Judy Collins

named for

Here's my wish list, Travie.

Someone finally claimed the P741 million lottery prize (about $17 million at today's exchange rate) the other day, but that hasn't stopped me from fantasizing about what I'd do with the money.

1. Hire a financial adviser. You don't stay at this job a year and learn nothing, and while I still have a lot to learn about investing, if I had the money now, I'd go first to someone who knew how to grow it. I'd ask for short-term investments to give me some kind of regular income and long-term stuff for security. If they do their job right, I should be able to afford everything else on this list in time.

2. Anonymously pay off the debts of people I care about. In my fantasy, it plays out like this: they're at their house or place of work when someone from the investment bank shows up to have a talk with them. The rep explains that someone knows how much trouble they're going through and would like to offer them a fresh start. The moment they say yes, they will be debt-free. They will also be given a choice between among a business franchise to keep them financially independent, a retirement fund to which they can look forward, or a lump sum with which they can do anything they want. From then on, of course, they're on their own.

3. Fulfill a few wishes for my immediate family. You know, things like pay for my brother's wedding, take my grandmother on a trip around the world while she's still young, and buy my dad his Pinzgauer.

4. A scholarship foundation for deserving kids from my home region.

5. Funding for marine science schools and research bases.

6. Investments in eco-tourism programs for my home region.

7. Investments in Metro Manila's public trains and a real bus rapid transit system.

8. A foundation for indigent families in need of healthcare.

9. Martin's master's degree.

10. A nice house and a new computer.

That's all--for now.

Think About Death and Get Sad and Stuff

(Scott Pilgrim is an unemployed 20-something who plays bass for the band Sex Bob-Omb. Its members, his friends, are also 20-somethings in dead-end jobs and with varying degrees of maturity. Scott himself thinks dating a high schooler will distract him from the baggage of his last breakup. He then finds his dream girl in Ramona but soon trips over her own baggage; he must duel to the death with her seven evil exes for their budding romance to survive.)

You don't have to be a fan of the original comics to enjoy "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World." And I've discovered today that you don't have to know anything about indie music to enjoy the soundtrack.

That sounds kind of stupid and maybe even pretentious, but when it comes to music, I live under a rock. I don't watch TV or listen to the radio; if I do, it's usually whatever station the jeepney driver prefers (kailangan pa bang i-memorize iyan?). My boyfriend is more up-to-date, but he prefers hip-hop to the guitar-y, synth-y, whingy stuff on this record.

However,the currency of the Scott Pilgrim OST, its age-appropriateness in more ways than one, is precisely why I like it. Sure, I know that this hot indie stuff is what my peers are listening to, more or less, but that's only part of it. At the same time, the whole record is nostalgic. Some of the tracks--particularly both songs by Crash and the Boys--sound like something I would've enjoyed in high school. Some of them sound like they were written in any of the previous five or six decades. (In the case of "Under My Thumb" by the Rolling Stones and "Teenage Dream" by T. Rex, some of them were.) Then there's that 8-bit bonus track that definitely brings back memories of the classic Nintendo (or in my case, Family Computer Game) of my childhood.

Other things I can hear in there: it thinks it's mature but is really just smug, it's really frantic and in a hurry, it still clings to unrealistic ideals for relationships, and overall, it drags its feet about coming to terms with reality.

Maybe I'm reading too much into the soundtrack, especially considering that I steeped in the comics for months before the movie came out. But all in all, the whole Scott Pilgrim experience--comic, movie, and soundtrack--has been about being fully aware of how old/young I am while wishing for another time: my years of teenage ignorance, some defining previous decade I hadn't been born into, or the mellow, "real" adulthood that is to come but can't simply be skipped to. And while I don't know music, I do know that many of my friends out there feel the same way about their lives. The critics were on to something when they said that "Scott Pilgrim" was the story of a generation.

You guys. We are Sex Bob-Omb.