7/29/2010 ‒
Problem is, you're freaking awesome and I'm bleeping delusional

"So the only hot celebrity crushes I've had?" I texted Icka. "Munn, Gomes, and maybe Magnus. The rest are adorable to the point of rape."

That eventually turned out to be a little inaccurate. I realized I had another celebrity crush who's freaking hot: Dichen Lachman. If you've seen Dollhouse, you probably know her. But you probably haven't, so I might as well tell you that she's this Australian actress who's part-Nepalese. In the words of a former Seattle colleague who got to interview her, she's "the most stunning creature I've ever seen. She is seriously not human." And then there's the fact that there's nothing sexier than an Australian accent.

Problem is, hot people often have this intimidating air. They're always too awesome to be accessible. I mean, if you fly to Portugal to pose for Sports Illustrated for a living, or get on the American Idol stage and instinctively know what to do, then you must be this really awesome person, and awesome people tend to be hard to reach. I remember feeling the same way towards Eena when we first became classmates in literature class - and no, I did not have a crush on her.

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7/21/2010 ‒
Put a ring on it

Sometimes I'm amazed at how smart Facebook can be. Except, at least, for the part where it tells its users to reconnect to certain friends who they haven't talked to for a while, but only because they're already dead.

One day, it told me to reconnect with a couple of my 380 friends. Quite a subtle way, really: the person didn't appear on my recommendations, but rather on my profile itself, as one of six friends that the site randomly serves up. So, I thought, I'd click on the name and write a quick wall post. Funnier, I've been meaning to do that. Smart, smart Facebook.

Now, I'm not mentioning names for a reason: I don't want to tag anyone when this blog entry makes it to Facebook. Let's just say that the person - a girl, I must add - was one of the many crushes I've had over the past decade or so, and if you've been reading my blog the same way you watched Inception, you'll know who this is soon enough. Anyway, it's been that long - a decade, more or less - so it goes without saying that the feelings are gone. Long gone. I even told Gwen that it's a "silly" thing when it unfolded back then.

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7/12/2010 ‒
Three steps to moving on

Part one: distraction. I met some girl, somewhere, through a common friend, and as we talked I thought to myself, hey, we're actually getting along quite well. I always felt I'm the obnoxious guy that nobody wants to spend time with - completely forgetting, and perhaps completely affirming, the fact that I have friends who, for the most part, forget that I exist. Anyway, we're actually getting along quite well, right. I always make this mistake of confusing this comfortable feeling with love, or at least infatuation, although that could sound quite correct. And, since I always make this mistake, I end up going through the crappy things that come with it.

I believe that we tend to like - as in that kind of like - people who we know we cannot attain. When you're cool, it's nothing. When you're cool but you don't feel that good about that person, you must like her. Thinking about it now, it's just a way for us to hold on to that budding friendship. I mean, if your differences get in the way, you'll break apart soon - and love will keep you together, right? And I know, we have differences. And I know, I cannot attain her, because somebody beat me to it. Cue those involuntary flashes, those moments when you imagine you and her doing things together.

Part two: distance. It could've gotten worse, if not for the fact that we live in two different worlds. I live on the southern end, while she's in the northern end. Considering our busy schedules, there's no chance we'd meet, as much as I'd love to invite her to coffee again, this time somewhere in the middle. Soon enough, I stopped having those flashes, thanks to the distance - oh, and a few text messages to friends, those very friends who tend to, for the most part, forget that I exist. "Am I delusional?" I'd tell one of them. "Why am I thinking that she's also hoping to have a relationship with me?"

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7/07/2010 ‒
This mall is too big for the both of us

They say SM Megamall is, from end to end, a kilometer long. As a kid, I believed that, since whenever we go shopping there - the rare occasion, just before the holiday rush - I get slightly cranky because my feet and tired and there weren't many benches back then. I believed it so much that I used that fact sparingly in conversations, just so I can look like a smartie.

In hindsight, it's a wrong assertion. The mall isn't a kilometer long - those Metro Manila maps that are drawn to scale say so - but I think that the mall's corridors are a kilometer long, if not more. Try walking all six floors from end to end and tell me it doesn't feel like exercise.

I was wrapping up my day yesterday when Gwen sent me a text message. "I'm in SM Megamall," she said. Apparently a friend who had errands to do in the mall dragged her along in exchange for Zagu, and as it turned out, they might watch a movie. To a person like me who's bored and has lots of time to kill, it sounded like an invitation for me to try to find her. Or, as we'd all probably call it, stalk her.

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7/04/2010 ‒
The art of watching football

Watching sports on television is, unsurprisingly, a family affair.

My dad skips work (well, he can afford to) so he can watch the NBA All-Star Game and, a few weeks back, the final game between the Lakers and the Celtics. My mom follows the tennis, and if she's up to it, she can stay up late to watch a Rafael Nadal match.

And then, of course, there's my brother. He's this snobbish sporting kind. He's a member of his high school's basketball team, and it's no surprise he watches a lot of basketball, but he's also up to speed with my mother's tennis and the UFC. But I can't rely on him to explain slightly alien concepts to me. I'd ask him what's going on and he'd sneer silently, probably wondering why I, his brother, am not into sports.

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7/01/2010 ‒
Requiem

This photo is unusually clean and sharp. Maybe it's the subject. But definitely it's the lighting.

It was four o'clock. I was nursing a headache, and silently wishing that people would start leaving the office so I won't feel as scrunched as I already am. I spotted someone retweet someone on Twitter: a woman fell to her death at the Shang.

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