almost blissful
(I almost began this entry with the dateline “MANILA, Philippines.” Hahaha. Proof of how I’ve been so attuned to work lately, inspired by The Beloved Mentor who left recently.)
Can I just say how much I love this weekend? Mamsi cooked tuna penne using real tomatoes, not packaged tomato sauce, and I love it. My sister baked chocoloate chip muffins. Papsi is well, Papsi, and my youngest sister Jaz is getting funnier everyday. Also, I slept ’til 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, then had two afternoon naps today (Sunday).
But what really lifted my spirits is that I finally got to watch two movies I’ve been itching to see for months: “Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist,” and “Across the Universe.”
“Nick and Norah” was cute, in an indie-movie-for-cool-teens kind of way. Like “Juno,” except “Juno” was better-written. Still, there were a lot of things I appreciated in this movie, including but not limited to:
1. The uber-supportive gay members of Nick’s band.
2. The fact that Nick and Norah met at a gig. It wasn’t exactly how the boyfriend and I met, but still.
3. The reference to Electric Lady Studios (Norah’s dad supposedly owns it).
As for “Across the Universe,” the opening scene with Jim Sturgess singing a few lines from The Beatles’ “Girl” alone got me hooked.
There’s still a lot of room for character development, and I think the characters sang so much that necessary dialogue was compromised, but it’s hard to complain when The Beatles songs were covered so beautifully.
I didn’t know Evan Rachel Wood–you might know her as Marilyn Manson’s ex who starred in the music video “Heart-Shaped Glasses”–had such a beautiful voice.
Even non-fans of The Beatles will be able to appreciate the good music. I downloaded the soundtrack immediately after seeing the movie.
One of my favorite scenes is Joe Cocker singing “Come Together.”
There were also a lot of references to the hippie era, among them The Merry Pranksters with Bono as a sort of Ken Kesey. They rode in a bus with psychedelic design; the scenes themselves were psychedelic. Bono’s last line? “You’re either on the bus or off the bus.” Love it.
in sum
I skipped work for five days because I had to help my parents arrange the wake and funeral of my maternal grandpa, who passed away Friday after a stroke. He was buried this afternoon.
While we’re all deeply saddened–mom is devastated, actually–by his death, I think most of us are just, well, glad that his suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease has ended. And I’m pretty sure he’s happy Up There.
I stayed awake at the wake mostly by playing tong-its (I won several times) and scrabble (I never won) with my cousins, or reading T.C. Boyle’s “The Inner Circle” from Karl. That reminds me, I must share this quote from the book which really, really struck me:
To give up your history was to give up your soul, and to possess it was the ultimate aggrandizement, like the cannibal growing ever greater with the subsumed spirit of each of his successive victims.
Family problems aside (because there’s more, although I can’t divulge those here), I’m pretty happy these days. My family and two of my best friends have met my boyfriend, Mico. Brief backgrounder: He’s a friend of a friend, he plays bass in a rock band, and we met at a gig in this place in Kamuning.
He dropped me off at the wake Saturday before going to another gig, then stayed at the wake for hours on Sunday. Aside from him, Meru and Sophie from the office dropped by Wednesday, bringing life (no pun intended) to an otherwise dreary, sleepless day.
In other news, UP Fair next week! Let’s =D
