Menthol-Guy

Movies
I’ve watched six movies for two days, and another two movies for a night.

• Adventureland
• Alphaville
• The Darjeeling Limited
• Into The Wild
• Serbis
• Teeth
• Tony Takitani
• Zack and Miri Make a Porno

Still downloading Donnie Darko, Eternity for A Day, Y Tu Mama Tambien, A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, Dan In Real Life and Frozen River. I’ll probably post movie reviews all throughout the week (since compressing them into one lengthy post is nothing short of overwhelming, not to mention boring) and if I do, it tells something about blogging being back into my veins.

Books

I don’t know why but I always forget to read books lately. Maybe I’m not in the mood, though it worries me to think that I’ve been acting quite weird lately (I clean the apartment all the time, you know). It’s probably the rearrangement we made with the beds and all to create space.

I’m still tangled between Othello (required in my Lit class) and Murakami’s Hard-Boiled Wonderland at the Edge of the World. I’m about to ditch Lizzie Simon’s Detour in the dustbin since it reeks of something incomprehensible, something I don’t know but the sight of it just repulses me so much I’d like to make a hate review about it. I mean, I respect her being bipolar, fine, but the book just sucks at some point.

Oh, and I can’t even finish a New Yorker article I’ve been reading since last week.

Music

I’m currently listening to post-rock (instrumentals) lately: Explosions in the Sky, Mogwai, 65daysofstatic and the like. I think they’re a bunch of neat music since I could listen to them while reading. They’re as relaxing as a John Mayer yet as rock as any rock band out there.

_{Hey, you can add me as a friend if you have a Last.Fm account. :)}

Academics

I got 89/100 and 126/136 in my Communication Theories and Phonetics exam respectively. I’m on the top three! What the fuck is happening! Nothing beats having a life and getting good grades at the same time, really. I should go fuck myself right now, blow my brains out or something.

You know the scene at Fight Club where Marla kisses Tyler while every building around them crashes down to rubble?

Or that John Green book, Looking for Alaska, where the guy wants to sleep with the girl in the couch not to do sex or anything like the movies, but just to wrap her arms and sleep? I myself don’t believe it at first, but he did meant the phrase in its very innocent sense. The girl has this boyfriend; he said, “he feels so gawky and she gorgeous, he was hopelessly boring and she was endlessly fascinating.”

You know what he did? He quit imagining and went to the bottom of his bunk and you know what he said? What he said was, “if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was hurricane.”

Sometimes I imagine myself with you all the time. The movies I watch, the books I read, the people I meet, I was half-wishing it was you, or that they have this inkling of quality you have–which, really, I have no idea what made me hooked into you.

In Murakami’s After Dark, I wish I were Takahashi and I would sit with you at some diner like Denny’s, and our conversations would range from the deeps to the trivialities of life. What’s your favorite salad? I love Greek salads. You like spaghetti with really sour tomatoes?

I thought of you when I was watching Adventureland. The guy followed the girl all the way to New York just to say his apologies while drenched in rain.

In Elizabethtown, you have made me mixtapes which I would listen to while I’m on the road. I was Orlando Bloom (minus the pretty face and the car) and you were Kirsten Dunst (minus the dimples). We would call each other until we tire our mouths out–heck, the phone calls in the movie even went as far as Kirsten was taking a bath.

I even wished I were James Sullivan (the blue furry monster) at Monster’s Inc and I would just find the right door to your room and–no, I won’t scare you, though I’ll probably think about that when I get there–just talk to you whenever I want. Or maybe Disturbia, with Shia LaBeouf in it, where he had this binoculars to peek around some hot chick in the neighborhood (which would be you) and, excuse me for wanting to intrude your privacy, I think it’s fun.

Okay, fine, it isn’t such a good thing to think of.

But honestly, you are incomparable to those figures. They’re just figures anyway; they’re not real. They’re just mere representations of people, imprints written to tell a story, to pinch people’s hearts and memories. You? You’re alive. You’re with me during the weekends at the park, lying all day at the grass. You’d tell me you wouldn’t kiss me when I smoke, but does it make any difference? I mean, people nowadays, they kiss even if they’ve eaten shawarma smothered with fresh white onions.

I wish I were a Post-It to tell you how much I love you stuck on the front page of your notebook or on your warm mug of coffee, but I’m just a guy who likes books and movies and all I could think of is you at mushy scenes (though I have to say I also imagined you at one scene in The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, though you’d better not ask for it was depressing, really). I tried forgetting you at Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and at Laguna Beach (promiscuity is all around that MTV series).

I hope you think of me as much as I do, not exactly to make things mutual. It’s just a nice feeling when people think of you so dearly. I mean, I don’t really care if you think of me while solving Math problems or anything; it wouldn’t bother me at all.

_{Just trying to make a love letter. Nothing special.}

I’m into Young Adults lately. I’m reading a Will Leitch entitled Catch, with blurbs from Ned Vizzini and John Green (I have yet to find his copy of Looking for Alaska), the canonical Y.A. writers (though I haven’t read any book they’ve written, I’ve been hearing a lot from them). These books are just a light read, yeah, but for teenagers like me who’s such a sucker for confusion, rebellion, alcohol, even drugs–the simple ecstaties of doing things that are legally wrong (and I must admit that)–it’s altogether a different feeling.

So maybe I was taken away by the cover (it’s appeals to me like every other masterfully-covered Y.A. books) but really, the blurbs got me reeling to buy it for PHP140 at Booksale. In Booksale terms, man, it’s expensive (imagine, I recently bought a Toni Morrison hardbound for PHP20).

I’m also reading Shakespeare’s Othello (required for my Lit class) and it’s just neat. I can’t say anything bad about it since it’s supposed to be good, and it’s good, don’t get me wrong. It’s just dragging. Yeah, that’s probably the right term for it. Draaaaagging.

Anyway, here’s a quote from one of John Green’s books. I got this from Tumblr. :)

Gawd, it reminds me of Catcher in the Rye a lot.

We have a single common friend. We were introduced very promptly–heck, I even forgot your name, but it starts with a C (or probably out of fear that our common friend–a reader of this blog–would know all about this, since I kept this a secret). We had beer at the mall and you have these lips that shine without the lip gloss. You told me it was out of a lip-salivating habit, which–while in the process of your narration–turned me on in an instant. It wasn’t because I dream of kissing you. No. In a very innocent sense, I just like your lips a lot. That’s all.

At the taxi I had the most carefree conversation I have ever had with a stranger (for we have only met during lunch, shook hands, laughed a lot, smoked cigarettes and talked about your bitchy boyfriend and my failed relationship). There wasn’t a spark or any other romanticized sign of any ignition; it’s just that I want you so bad. From the stretch of our taxi ride there was writing, which we both like to do for a living, and our plans of going to New York (maybe it was just a dream?) to live a high-class life and all that.

I have to include that you have this deep crush on my friend. Yes, he’s single, I told you. Yes, he probably likes you too, I added. Her lips still shine as the city lights pass transiently through the windows of the taxi. It was a smile I would never forget.

I couldn’t really narrate a blow-by-blow account of our conversation. Maybe the saying is right: “conversations forgotten are conversations made with people you like.”

You kissed me in the cheeks when I said goodbye. I paid the taxi bill; I told you to be safe and just be goddamn safe.

I hope we could see each other again.