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Apparently, PMS also makes me a social retard. I experienced a brief flash of social claustrophobia not unlike the one I felt during the Blog Parteeh early this year. The first Taste Asia gathering was small, intimate, and had a chocolate fountain, so I expected this one to turn out the same. But nooo. There were so many people in such a small space, and nobody I could really cling to because it seemed like everyone I knew was hopping from one social circle to another. Suddenly, reading about the rise and fall of civilizations seemed like a more enjoyable way to spend the evening than going through the whole social dance of meeting new people.

Whatta ho

After spending the first half hour smoking and trying to look like I always spend social events being a wallflower by choice, I grew sick of feeling like a total loser. So I started randomly approaching people and asking for their signatures for the human bingo thing. It took a lot of effort, but soon I was getting into the swing of things and smiling and talking like I normally would. Wearing my Wordpress shirt definitely made it easier for other people to start conversations with me. But the social retardation was still there and I couldn’t come up with anything else to say after explaining that my cooler-than-me mom bought me the shirt from the Wordpress shop.

I didn’t drink anything ma, I swear!

It seems as though like-minded people attract each other because soon I was hanging out with passive socializers AJ and Rocky. Nicest people on earth, didn’t pretend to not know me when I drank my beer too quickly, talked a little too loudly, and semi-danced while standing at the buffet line. I don’t know if it was the beer or the company that put me at ease but in any case, I was back to my normal sociable self. Talking to other people took a lot less effort and I was actually having fun. I even offered to beat up the chick that stood Jayvee up, totally free of charge, but I think he believes in a non-violent form of staying away from failed dates. Oh wells.

Why are my parents cooler than me?

I was hoping that my dad would win the trip to Malaysia because if he wins, then I win too! I’m sure my parents would rather have a nice vacation without the kids bugging them to buy me this and buy me that. But I have a feeling that they want to take me and Marielle along because I’ll probably stay out all night if they’re not around, and my younger sister would hate to be stuck at home babysitting me. In any case, my dad won the DVD player which is all good. That only means the parents will be buying a nice HDTV to go along with it. And due to the lack of space, they’ll have no choice but to put the DVD player and the HDTV in my room. I’ll have to go through the trouble of rearranging the furniture and all that but hey, I’ll gladly take one for the family.

Beer face + red shirt = I’m melting into the background!

All in all, it was an awesome evening of beer drinking, hanging out and talking to awesome bloggers, and Cliquebooth camwhoring. Never mind that I spent almost four hours standing up because all the seats were occupied. (Which made me wonder — how many of those in attendance were bloggers and how many were guests of bloggers?) My parents may be cool but unfortunately, they’re not cool enough to let me stay out late on a school work night. Which makes me even more uncool. My mom practically had to drag me away, and during the walk to the parking lot we were both bitching like teenagers because our feet were killing us and the parking lot was so damn far. The radio played hiphop music during the drive home. It was very strange.

Lesson learned from the evening: beer cures all social anxieties if you approach people and talk too much, they don’t really have much of a choice but to stand there and listen to you, making you look like you have lots and lots of friends and therefore, uber-popular and cool.

Where art thou, oh Blogger Crush?

The only disappointment of the evening was that I didn’t get to talk to my Blogger Crush. Tonight was now or never because I don’t know if we’ll ever get a chance to be in the same social event again. I did say hi to him once and smiled like an idiot every time he looked at my direction, but I just couldn’t bring myself to approach him and start a conversation. AJ and Rocky even helped me think of several pick-up lines I could potentially use:

“Hi.” *holds out the human bingo paper* “Would you like to…sign me?”
“Hey. My dad just won a DVD player. Do you wanna come over and…watch DVDs?”
“Hey you. Wanna link-ex? Or would you like to exchange…something else?”

Unfortunately, my hohobagging instincts never kick in during crucial moments like this. No amount of beer could give me the liquid courage to say anything to him other than the initial “Hey!” I totally fail at life.

So this is the part where I say hi to everyone who acknowledged my existence last night so I can look liek, REALLY POPULER. Except I lost the paper where I had everyone’s signatures, so the new people I met aren’t listed here. I know, I suck.

Ade
Adam
Aileen
AJ
Anton
Benj
Chris
Gail
Jayvee
Juned
Karlo
Marc
Mike Abundo
Mike Villar
Rico
Riz
Rocky
Sasha
Shari
Sharms
Sorsi

Before you scroll down to read the rest of this entry, let me give you a backgrounder of myself so that you can understand why my sentiments about Timbuk2’s Blogger Bag are such. I am the kind of person who makes drafts of her blog entries in a notebook. Not a notebook like a portable computer (aka laptop) but the one that you write on with a pen. (Does anyone else still know what a pen is these days?) Any gadget with more than two buttons sends me to fits of panic, not unlike the way natives of aboriginal tribes freaked out when they were first confronted with a camera. The most hip electronic thing I own is a 2-year old iPod nano that’s well on its way to the grave. The only time I will ever get a laptop is when my mom buys a new Macbook and tosses her old one at me, as though she were getting rid of table scraps by feeding them to a starving mutt.

In short, my technologically-impaired nature makes me fail to understand why people would want to blow ridiculous amounts of money on gadgets, and then spend more money swaddling their electronics in the gadget world’s equivalent of designer baby clothes.

Mamá and myself at the Blogger bag launch

Despite these thoughts, I tried to attend the Timbuk2’s launch of the Blogger bag at Outback Restaurant with an open mind. I remember someone telling me about the existence of a Blogger bag sometime April and I think I might have responded with an impolite WTF? It’s not like bloggers have needs that are entirely different from that of a non-blogger. Seriously - all we do is sit on our asses and work those fingers. What the hell would we need a specialized bag for?

It was later explained that the Blogger bag was designed by a blogger for bloggers. The exterior of the thing is made out of ballistic nylon - you know, the self-regenerative material used on flak jackets in World War 2 - and its interior is lined with corduroy. Yes, we are a generation so enslaved to our gadgets that we need to coat them in corduroy despite the fact that they (the gadgets) are not programmed to give you a kiss for placing them in new, scratch-proof environments. Okay, maybe the corduroy lining I can understand - nothing makes electronics look so 1999 than scratch marks. But ballistic nylon? I was so torn between thinking, “That’s so awesome!” and “What the hell for?”

Let’s admit it. We bloggers are a bunch of spoiled wussies. I mean, my companions and I couldn’t even finish the Kiko Caravan trip last summer - and even that involved us sitting on our asses while we got driven from province to province. We don’t need shrapnel-proof, cut-proof containers because a blogger would never find himself or herself in a war zone, giving minute-to-minute updates whilst his surroundings explode in a clouds of smoke and dust. Even with shrapnel-proof, tear-resistant bags, I bet bloggers wouldn’t so much as think about approaching a war-torn country with electronics in tow. Hell, if I had a 80k-peso Macbook, I’d be more concerned about making sure it doesn’t get so much as nicked than saving my life.

Free food, yayz!

The point is, giving talks and attending PR events are the only other blog-related things that bloggers do aside from blogging. And unless there is a knife-wielding maniac invited to these events for the purpose of giving expensive laptop bags a purpose, I don’t see why any blogger would need to carry their laptops in atomic-bomb-proof bags.

I’m not saying that the Blogger Bag is a sucky product. I know I’d have bought one right then and there if I were a gadgets person, but I’m not. I don’t even own a friggin’ laptop. However, if it came in pink-and-purple girly designs and with that incredibly cute guy from Timbuk2 in “just add water” form somewhere in its pockets, hell yes I’d shell out the cash for it - laptop or no. Plus, I bet I’d get ten thousand cool points if I had a bag with an exterior that regenerates itself when slashed open. I’d bring it with me to parties and pester all the guests with, “HAHA! My bag is more awesomer than yours. Look what it can do!” *slash* *regenerate* *applause* Hmmm, come to think of it, I could actually use this thing to sucker guys into dating me. “Oh yeah? You don’t believe that my bag can repair itself when I rip it open? I’ll bet you a night out with me that it can!”

Blogger bag: potential guy magnet? *alerts Cosmopolitan magazine*

Like a lot of things being pimped out to the Gadget Generation (e.g. Colorware customized iPhones) I think the Blogger Bag is utterly expensive (five thousand pesos, Jesus!) and completely unnecessary. Not to mention incorrectly named, seeing as journalists might be able to benefit more from its durability and gadget-safety features than bloggers. Unless it does something really unusual, like cure cancer or churn out ideas for blog entries, I wouldn’t buy a Blogger bag. Nope, definitely not for me.

*long pause*

I’m still invited to the Mrs. Fields event, right? Right???

I am a firm believer that Sunday mornings are only good for sleeping in and regenerating the energy lost from Saturday night’s social activities. It most certainly is not the time to be scrambling madly about for something decent to wear for a breakfast date at Portico 1771 in Serendra.

Come to think of it, I don’t believe I’ve ever had a breakfast date before. At least, not since my last relationship went kablooey. In the first place, I’m not a morning person; on non-working days, I’m normally dead to the world til way past noon. Breakfast is usually a meal I have to force down my throat because my stomach is too sleepy to appreciate anything but coffee.

And then there’s the concept of a date, the intricate social dance where two people put on their prettiest masks in order to…well, I’m not really sure. When I’m trying to make an impression, I’d much rather be cloaked in the safety of the dark, where my blemishes and flaws are given a softer edge by the neon lights of a crowded club. I think the dance has already reached that point where my best foot is getting cramps from all that effort. It’s about time the makeup came off and for the crass, less sophisticated, and not-so-charming other foot to step forward.

Photo by Dine
because I forgot to bring my camera

What my afternoon-nap-muddled mind can remember of breakfast is not the food per se, but how much I enjoyed the morning I spent at Serendra with my breakfast companion. I didn’t care that it took something like twenty minutes for our food to reach our table. In fact, I was grateful for the leisurely pace, which gave us more time to talk about everything and anything that bubbled up on the surface of our minds. Not that the arrival of my french toast and his chicken tocino stopped me from making jabs at his masculinity–which he retaliated with wisecracks about my closet girly-girliness. We were the noisiest people there, or maybe that was just me talking a little too enthusiastically and laughing a little too loudly at his jokes. If people were giving me dirty looks for not behaving like a Dalagang Filipina, I didn’t notice nor would I have cared. I was having a lot of fun.

Serendra is prettier on a Sunday morning. Perhaps it was the absence of the snooty socialites or maybe it was the seratonin high, but walking past the sleepy shutters of the shop windows felt like a lazy stroll in a Victorian park. We waited for Fully Booked to open its money-black hole doors at a coffee shop, and resisted the temptation to spend ridiculous amounts on books and CDs. As what happens when you’re with someone whose company you truly enjoy, the hours flew by quickly and it was time to head back.

If waking up early means spending my mornings like this, maybe I could be a morning person after all.