MussoLOLen is Always Right! |

Today, I took my first tentative steps towards independence: I sold my financial soul to the gods of Philippine real estate in exchange for a little shoebox I can call my home.

People with a superficial knowledge of my life and who I am would probably think I’m crazy for wanting to live on my own, when I can easily live at my parents’ and enjoy the free food and free board (in a very very comfortable, spacious, well-lit room) for an indefinite period of time. It’s not because my parents are suffocatingly strict; on the contrary, they’re actually pretty cool for Filipino parents. Not only do they let me stay out late on weekends and allow me to go to trips out of town and abroad by myself; they’ve stopped giving me hell about my smoking, and don’t mind when my friends come over to trash the place like rock stars. Hell, they let my (then) boyfriend stay at our place last year. Seriously, how many Filipino parents would say yes to a request like, “So there’s this guy I met on the Internet and we’re together now and I’m madly in love with him and can I keep him in the guest room while he comes here to visit for two weeks?” I think my dad was a little bit relieved when I told him that Ale and I decided to just stay friends. He once caught me and Ale asleep together and damn near had a stroke.

That’s exactly my point, though. No matter how cool my parents are, parents are still parents who’ll still restrict their children in little ways that they can’t stand. I hate having to answer the usual battery of questions of who, what, where, and what-time-will-you-be-home before I head out. It embarrasses me that at 22 years old, my parents still insist on driving me to and picking me up from places even though I’m perfectly able to use public transportation. What finally convinced me to seriously work on Plan Move Out was when my mom snapped at me for putting a little too much patis on my arroz caldo. At this age, I really should be eating my food the way I want to.

More than just the desire to be free in these many little ways, it also bothers me that I have it too easy. I’m too sheltered from the harsh realities and inconveniences of everyday life and as much as I love my parents, I don’t need their protection anymore. What I need is to learn how to live on my own and the drama of grown-up responsibilities that come with it, like paying the bills, coming up with the money to pay the bills, doing the laundry, or making my own meals.

By late 2012, home will be one-bedroom flat I fondly call The Shoebox. You know how the song Little Boxes is pretty much a description of American suburbia? I think condominiums are like shoeboxes stacked neatly into tall towers. The Lauren of six months ago would have found that severely depressing, and in a way I still do, but I really like my Shoebox and I think I’m going to enjoy living there. It’s on the sixth floor and faces the sunrise, the size is just right, the payment terms are amazingly easy, and the brochures didn’t give me any crap about how the development is master-planned to be the urban yuppie’s ultimate escape from the noise and pollution of the city. I hate those pretentiously-named condominium projects designed to be a self-sustaining city, as if the simulacra of landscaped gardens and gleaming shop windows could trick me into thinking life in the Philippines is this easy and pretty. The building I’ll be living in is a little more honest than that: it has its intercoms and security guards, but if I look out the window I can admire the Pasig river in all its murky glory.

Beginning March, I need to put at least 15,000 pesos into my brand new checking account at the 23rd of every month, or I’ll be a criminal for issuing bouncing checks. This means that unless I earn at least 20 thousand upwards per month, I’ll have to cut back on the going out and the shopping. Maybe I am crazy for deciding to buy my own place even though I don’t have a “real job” and have no plans of ever becoming an office monkey again. Maybe I have too much faith in my guerilla money-making skills. But if I don’t learn to do this now, I’ll always be this daydreamy overgrown kid who’s never known a day of serious grown-up responsibilities.

I wonder if I can still call myself a Marxist now that I’m on my way to owning private property.

ALL RIGHT ALL RIGHT I’LL DO THE MEME ALREADY YOU CAN STOP TAGGING ME NOW K?

Last night, I started working on the 25 Things About Myself meme everyone’s been doing on Facebook, but halfway through it I started blathering on about Lacanian psychoalanysis, jouissance, neurosis, and hysterical desire. The whole thing sounded like I was secretly hoping that the Lacanian terminology would disguise the fact that I am a crappy girlfriend for trying to break up with my boyfriend three times this week for no logical reason. Then friends started tagging the crap out of me to do the memories meme, which basically says:

Leave one (or more) memory (-ries) that you and I had together.
It doesn’t matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember!
Don’t send a message, leave a comment here.

So I figured, I’d hit two birds with one blog post and combine the two memes together! In this entry I shall list down 25 favorite memories I have of 25 different people, in no particular order. I will not name names, but feel free to guess which one of these is you! (Hint: If I tagged you on this note, you’re probably here. )

1.) The day after I arrived at San Francisco, I fell asleep on your lap at Golden Gate Park because I was too jetlagged to do anything else.

2.) Greeting 2008 by watching slasher movies in my room!

3.) Two days before you left for New York, you slept over and we talked about how you found out that your father isn’t actually your father. Then we went shopping the next day. Come back, I miss you.

4.) Writing songs with you at school or outside my dorm. Being sad with you in general, because it makes me creative for some reason. Did you know that I haven’t made any music since then? Quit your job and write songs with me again!

5.) I have too many favorite memories with you, so it’s a toss between the time we rode through the coastal towns of Bohol on a motorbike to get to the tarsier farm, or you and me pigging out at random places. Food tastes amazing when we eat together.

6.) That time you chased me around Ortigas in your socks and pajamas because I got mad at you and kept walking away. I’m still a little embarrassed at how childishly I reacted. :\

7.) Two words: Sunday school. Okay, I have tons of way better memories with you, but you have to admit – this one is funny in retrospect.

8.) That small party you threw by the swimming pool of your condo!

9.) Being the legal witness to your marriage. I didn’t want to show it, but I was actually tearing up when you guys exchanged vows.

10.) Pigging out with you at Something Fishy after a long night of drinking! (I know, I know, I suck for never making the time to hang out with you guys again.)

11.) The time you left me Sartre on my bed.

12.) Shisha and beer at your balcony while we made plans to go to the Hong Kong film festival. It doesn’t matter that we never made it to Hong Kong, it was great hanging out with you again after all those years.

13.) Those times we kept going to the Market! Market! food court after school with our respective then-boyfriends, whom we now kind of respectively hate.

14.) Taking turns puking in the bathroom the morning after the Hohobag Valentine’s Day party! You tried to teach me how I could induce vomiting, but I couldn’t bring myself to stick my fingers down my throat.

15.) The night before Ale arrived, you slept over and drove me to the airport at 4 am because I couldn’t do it myself. That was really, really sweet of you.

16.) You calling me up when I was in San Francisco to make sure that I was okay.

17.) That time when we were newly friends, and I was depressed, and you sent me that song from Explosions in the Sky to make me feel better. A confession: I actually ended up crying more cos I was *touched*. Yeah. Never mention this to me, k?

18.) Exploring Singapore like total cheapskates: hopping on random buses and trains with no plan in mind, and amusing ourselves by watching the city zip by.

19-21.) Two words: Jef’s condo.

22.) Sitting on the steps across Macy’s while we read through your Livejournal archives. Good times.

23.) That time you broke up with your boyfriend, because it’s when you and I started talking way more.

24.) Smoking with you at the soccer field after the worst gig ever.

25.)The night you randomly came over and made amaretto’s in my room!

Whenever I get struck by an idea, I become fixated by it until the idea becomes reality – or until a better idea comes along to distract me from the previous idea. Last weekend, I had the idea to enroll in fashion school and today, I did just that. Ever since I started my ukay-ukay blog, I’ve been reading up a lot about fashion, trends, and have been paying more to the clothes I wear. And when I stayed in Saturday night, nursing a bad migraine, it occurred to me that dabbling in fashion design might not be such a bad idea. Sewing is a skill that I can always use as a hobby or as a way to augment my income if (IF!) I become part of the department’s junior faculty. Never mind that I have absolutely no eye for design whatsoever, or that I damn near sewed my finger onto the fabric the last time I was in front of a sewing machine. I am fairly confident about my taste in style, and I am capable of doing whatever I put my mind into – until I get distracted by something else.

Today, I dropped by the Fashion Institute of the Philippines at San Miguel and Shaw and signed up for the basic sewing course for ladies’ wear. What I like about this class, apart from the fact that seems designed for sewing noobs like myself, is that I can set my own schedule and drop by the Institute whenever I feel like it, as long as I complete the six projects within six months.

My first mistake was showing up in a loud red dress and patent leather booties. Thinking that everyone else in a fashun institute would be dressed in more fashunable clothes, I figured I would just kind of blend in the background in my thrift store dress. Unfortunately, the students at the Institute were wearing more muted colors and classic cuts, and my polka dots stuck like a diseased sore thumb (I did, however, get two compliments on my dress, so yay). But there was also a practical reason why I regretted my outfit of choice. A sewing machine is apparently run by a pedal called a treadle (if I remember correctly), and a treadle is incredibly difficult to control when your heel is two inches off the floor.

Because I have to provide myself with my own materials and fabric, I didn’t get to do any actual sewing today. What I did, however, were these needle exercises so I could get used to handling the machine and making neat stitches. The objective was simple: trace the lines on a sheet of paper with my needle, but like many simple things in life, doing it is a lot harder than it looks.

My first attempt made me feel like a fashion school reject but John, the instructor, was incredibly nice and patient. Very much unlike my last sewing instructors, the Home Economics teachers at high school who decided I would die a spinster because no man will ever want to marry a woman who can’t sew. Okay, I exaggerate, but I did always get the lowest grades in Home Economics, mostly because I refused to turn in my projects. My angry teenage self’s reaction to society’s attempt to feminize and domesticate me? Probably.

The exercises got harder and harder, and pretty soon I had to contend with this:

But after two hours of needle exercises, I kind of got the hang of using a sewing machine. It’ll probably feel a lot different when I’m actually sewing fabric for real, but it shouldn’t take me too long to get used to that.

I honestly don’t know where my brief stint at Fashion Institute will take me, if my dreams of mastering churning out dress after dress will indeed come true, or fizzle out like so many dreams I have of myself. Right now, there are so many things I want to do with my life, but because I insist on doing everything all at the same time, I end up spreading myself thin, distracted, confused, and unable to focus on mastering just one thing. Kristel tells me that this sort of distracted behavior is very typical of impatient Arians, but I don’t want to blame this on my zodaic sign. So this is me attempting to organize my life. Tonight and tomorrow, I work on a paper proposal and finish it before class on Thursday. Thursday, I’ve got class until 7. Friday and Saturday, I go back to fashun skoolz and master the sewing machine.