There Are Songs About All Of Them* (Part 1)
Another head hangs lowly/ Child is slowly taken/And the violence causes silence/ Who are we mistaking?
The year was 1994. I was a scrawly kid with pudgy cheeks and a shapeless body underneath my black shoes, box-pleated skirts, Catholic School girl white blouse, and the huge navy blue bow on my collar. I sported my unruly hair in a ponytail, put up multi-colored ribbons that cost P2.50/meter in my ponytail and never went to the bathroom unless in groups.
I hanged-out with the popular girls in class, the Glittergirls, who were either rich, smart or athletic. (Yabang ko ba? Highschool pa ito!) As most girls my age, I was emotionally messed up due to the teenage hormones, always seeking the approval of my friends, constantly rebelling against my very supportive parents and thinking that crushing on Bad Boys were cool.
My Bad Boy’s name was TheOriginalRockstar or TOR, for short.
Can’t you see/ It’s not me/ It’s not my family/ In your head/ In your head/ They are fighting
TOR was one of the popular guys. As a member of the last batch of all-male graduates, he ran with a fairly loud and rough crowd, the school rockers, the Bad Boys, the boys who frequently got into trouble for being caught bringing porn to school, peeping the underwear of young female teachers, making them cry, fooling around during school programs and causing general ruckus. He was a non-conformist who wore tight boot-legged jeans, sported punk-like hairdos, painted grungy art, recited poetry and wrote songs about angst, like a local Kurt Cobain in the making.
I was majorly in-crush with him.
With their tanks and their bombs/And their hands and their guns/In your head/In your head/They are crying
Since I wasn’t one of those highschool girls who frequently get noticed, I was contented watching him from afar and gushing about him to my friends who started calling me this mixed up name composed of the first few letters of my name and the last few letters of his (like Mis-OR) while I doodled “I Love You, TOR” on the corners of my notebooks. Until the day a friend and classmate of his tells me that he and his band were looking for a female student to sing “Zombie” with their band.
Now, I have a fairly good singing voice, kind of husky and somewhat bedroom voice-ish. I can’t do a great Celine Dion but I can do a mean Dolores O’ Riordan or Evanescence if I wanted to. So, one time, when TOR and his friends were hanging out a couple of feet away from where my friends and I were sitting, one of them asked me to make them notice me by singing “Zombie.”
And so I did. And I sang that song like my life depended on it.
In your head/ In your head/ Zombie/ Zombie/ What’s in your head/ In your head/ Zombie/ Zombie
Of course, I was noticed. By mid-afternoon, I got an office call which turned out to be his band’s lead vocalist asking me to join them for practice. I was shy, pretended to be uncertain about joining them but I said yes. In reality, I was ecstatic and was making high jumps of success in my mind. I couldn’t wait for the day to end so that I can finally join them for practice. At last, a chance to be with TOR and hopefully get him to notice me.
Like any other highschool girl with a crush, I had a delusion that once I started hanging out with him and his band, he will fall inlove with me and my voice, and he will court me, and I’ll say yes, and he’ll give me my first kiss and we’ll be together, and I’ll support him as he works his way to stardom as a musician while I climb up the corporate ladder as a professional writer for some corporation until finally at the age of 25, he’ll ask me to marry him, and then we’ll have sex and make babies until I finally reach menopause and then we’ll grow old together as we watched over our brood of six children and 12 or more grandchildren.
But of course, that didn’t happen.
What happened is that when I started hanging out with him and his band, he still barely said a word a to me. I ended up being fantastic during practice but botching up my singing debut infront of the whole highschool community by having an unfortunate incident with a non-functioning microphone, causing me to be unaware that my audience couldn’t hear my voice as I sung the first half of “Zombie.” It took the highschool principal flailing around as he waved both of his hands infront of me to signal that he couldn’t hear me over the sound of all the other instruments. They did get me a new microphone by the second half and I managed to perform the whole song again along with “Dreams” during another school-organized event but still, I think it was safe to say that most people had already labeled me as “The Girl Who Sang Zombie With The Band And Was Completely Unaware That Noone Can Hear Her Until Halfway Through The Song” after that.
Despite having had the chance to hang-out with TOR and his band and sharing that unfortunate incident with him, nothing significant happened between him and me. To make things worse, he ended up dating my cousin (who I can’t really blame because she’s great and I love her despite the fact that I’m jealous over her Iya Villania looks). To make things even worse, my parents knew about my obsession with him and they frequently used to tease me about him, considering that he ended up working under my mom’s supervision at her office for some time.
Of course, at that point, I was already sooo over him.
And the only thing that comes across my mind, everytime our paths would cross nowadays was, Why, [mistress], why? What the hell were you thinking back in highschool?
WHY?!!!
Suffice it to say, my tastes have far improved since back then.
Zombie/ Oh/ Oh/ Oh/ Oh/ Oh/ Oh/ Oh/ Eyyyy/ Hay/ Yeah/ Yeah
* Inspired by Charming, but Single’s There Are Songs About All Of Them series
Chronicles of My First Blind Date
I was out with JR, an old classmate of mine from medical school, and some of our classmates for a nice dinner. He quit medical school after his 2nd year and like many others, was currently taking up Nursing. It had been a long time since we’ve seen him so, we definitely had a lot of catching up to do. When I told him I was single, he immediately wanted to set me up with his friend on an impromptu blind date. He believed that we would really hit it off.
“Come on, [mistress]. He’s a classmate of mine from Nursing.”
“How old is he?” I asked. I didn’t want to be dating someone who’s still in his first few years of college.
“About my age. He’s a graduate of BS Biology and teaches a few courses at the College of Arts and Sciences.”
Hmmm… Interesting. “He must be really smart then.”
“Yes. That’s why I know you too are just going to be perfect for each other!”
I was still feeling a bit skeptical. “So, what is he into, aside from Nursing and teaching?”
“Well, he loves James Blunt and can sing really well, if my memory from our last Videoke session serves me right. You’ll like him.”
I wasn’t such a big James Blunt fan except for the song “Goodbye, My Lover” which basically has the same tune as all the other songs in his album, no offense to James Blunt fans who are reading this. But I do love Videoke and guys who can carry a tune. Still, I had my second doubts about being set up.
“I don’t know, JR…” I’ve never been set up on a blind date before. I’ve always preferred meeting a guy the traditional way and finding out myself first-hand if he was worthy enough for a first date or not.
“Come on, he just lives around here. I can just text him and he’ll be here in less than a minute.”
I still had doubts and I certainly looked it.
“And he’s quite good-looking too,” he added, winking at me.
I was sold. “Okay,” I told him.
A couple minutes later, JR’s friend, Chinito, arrived. He was casually wearing a loose polo shirt, denim jeans and sandals. Very casual, as if he just took the closest thing he could get from his closet and dressed up in a hurry. For some reason, I didn’t feel any sparks between the two of us. Could it be because he wasn’t that cute? On the contrary, he was. Very cute chinky eyes, curly hair, nice teeth, well-toned physique. An 8.5 in a scale of 1-10. Could it be because he was smarter than me? Nahhh… I enjoy making conversation with smart guys. They’re very stimulating. I can spend hours with a guy who has a lot to say and not be bored than with someone whose best literary reads are limited to FHM. Could it be because he was cynical about love? Hmmm… maybe. A little. But then, I think I am just as cynical about love as he is.
Yes, I too believe that sometimes love shits you in the face.
Actually, when I thought about it, I think the reason why there were no sparks is because he seemed too good for me. Not that I was into bad boys – okay, fine, who am I kidding? I AM into bad boys. They give me a panty a puddle just by looking at me – but although he does drink socially and all, like me, I don’t think he’s the type who will be compatible with someone as complicated as me. He’s like Rockstar without the temper, the ego and the emotional hang-ups. I can already see a lifetime of forbiddens if ever I ended up with him. I will be too much of an emotional baggage for someone like him. Eventually, he’ll end up being the kind of guy who will try to set my life straight when in fact, as of the moment, I don’t see myself as someone whose life needs straightening.
Some might think that I’m just backing out from something that might be good for me. Or that maybe I still have commitment issues that I have to work out… Whoah! Commitment issues! I’m sounding like I’m 30 already… But seriously, I’m not that picky when it comes to guys. If a guy is into me, even if he’s not my ideal kind of guy, as long as the chemistry is there, why not? Getting to know a person is a lifelong process anyway so why bother with hang-ups as to a guy’s height, his built, his looks, his personality, his attitude, his vices or his quirks? Those are the things that make him unique as an individual. Personally, I find those character flaws the things that make a person more deviant from the norm and thus, make him more desirable.
But chemistry, that’s a totally different thing. You can’t work with something that’s just not there in the first place. You can change everything else, the looks, the personality, the quirks but once the sparks aren’t there, what’s the point of trying to work things out?
TheRock once told me that maybe I’m always confusing chemistry with lust or simple physical attraction. But on the contrary, I can be incredibly into someone even if he’s not that physically attractive. Or I can also not like a guy even if he’s the school heartthrob or the most good-looking person in the whole world. Chemistry isn’t equatable to physical attraction. It’s an inkling of a possibility of mutually-shared romantic interest between two people. It certainly isn’t something you can just force to develop between a man and a woman.
If it’s not there, then, it really wouldn’t be there.
Actually, when I think about it, I’m kind of disappointed that I don’t like him that much. I mean, my blind date was really really cute and really really smart. He’s a good catch! But if we would end up together I’d be this little devil who will spin his world upside down and I will always feel guilty when I’m with him because I would always be unable to keep my hands off all things forbidden.
Tsk, tsk, tsk… too bad. Why didn’t I feel any sparks in the first place? Why, Lord, why?
There wasn’t any chemistry at all that we didn’t even act on any pretenses that we were supposed to be flirting with each other. I exude flirtatious vibes when I’m interested in someone, albeit subtle, and a guy usually picks it up easily if I liked them back. I don’t think he felt it too. No numbers were exchanged that night. I did thank JR for introducing me to Chinito. I told him Chinito was a good catch but I don’t think there were sparks between us. But he wasn’t that bad. I’ll probably be seeing him at the hospital next year when he starts his hospital duties. I told him to tell Chinito that if he ever needs to walk on the dark side and wants someone to spin his world upside down, just text me.
Of course, I was only half-kidding.
*** UPDATE – I bumped into Chinito a few months later during a night-out with friends. It took two of my closest girlfriends for me to realize that he wasn’t really all that. In fairness, he did slim down a lot and he looked pretty stressed-out… Arghhh!! Who am I kidding? He does have an effeminate air around him! I like my boys very masculine and naughty. Must be why we didn’t click in the first place. LOL.
