Yesterday, I watched the play Skin Deep with Jaja and Kizia. It is a school requirement, above all, but nevertheless I thought I'd be in a most uncomfortable situation if I watched it alone, or at least in a lone seat somewhere in the theater. I actually texted Jaja the night before, asking about how they would go to the venue, and I was referred to Kizia. I did send her a text message, and I didn't receive a reply.

It was a long commute to Cubao from Alabang, one made more painstaking by my being unfamiliar with public transport along EDSA. Thanks to that, the traffic along SLEX, and the wait for more passengers, I arrived at the theater at half past three, pretty wary that the worst case scenario would happen. I was running down the road, after getting down an empty jeepney, with my Rockports on. I bought my tickets and signed the attendance sheet, and after seeing the long line snaking across the lobby, I saw a pair of hands waving at me. Jaja and Kizia, thankfully, haven't gone inside yet.

During the intermission break, Kizia had to leave. She's headed for, of all places, Embassy - thankfully it was a hosting gig - and Jaja and I, left behind to finish a play about the perils of cosmetic surgery, discussed the night before. Kizia didn't reply, I said, and apparently she has two phone numbers. The one I had was her prepaid line, and most probably didn't have any credit when I asked about their plans. Then it struck me: once I had Kizia's phone number memorized.

Two years after that revolution, it comes as no surprise. There's always the question of shifting priorities, of new interests, and (of course) fresh apples. And regardless of what one claims to feel, it's bound to change sometime, either for the better or for the worse. Of course it doesn't come as easy as surgery; although surgery itself is never easy, it can seem instantaneous. Emotions aren't.

Juxtapose that with another idea - that one can get over another in a pretty short span of time. We've all seen it in movies: after a horrible but generic breakup, we see one go out with another, but eventually the cover breaks down, and you can predict a flurry of dramatics that end in a theme music-backed reunion. I guess my, err, fascination comes with the fact that things like this never really go as public as the movies want us to believe. More often than not, if you're in a position to be aware of it, it just happens.

Oh, the supposed mysteries of love. One thing that contributes to it being unexplainable is its having its own sense of time. For one, forgetting may take a long time. For another, it's merely a snap of a finger while singing Irreplaceable. Obviously I find myself being surprised by these nuances, even if they have happened more than occasionally. I remember writing about Jino and Ale, that "as I've seen it, it's going to last," but I guess I was wrong. It simply goes down to this: some things may be predictable, but that's just some of them.

Not that I should've memorized Kizia's number, but I do remember she did change numbers some time during our second year, or something to that effect. But even I can't remember that, because I remember swooning at that time. How swoony I was remains another question.

Your memory will fail you at some point, indeed.