Fuck It Fridays 01: September 2015

No, I will not rehash why life is fucked. There may be no one listening, but I am trying to be less whiny. I can, online at least, shut my trap. Anyway, this project was borne of a request I made of April recently: I asked her to assign me a task, to keep me from thinking of the million things I have to do regarding my thesis.

So we came up with this one. We both list the songs that we have been listening to, and explain why they are the songs of the moment. She designed the album art below. (And put up her own playlist here.) Behold, the songs I have had on repeat for the past few weeks:

art by www.grewlegs.com

Two Words, by Ms. Lea Salonga

Nope, can't relate to this song.

But doesn't the purity of that singing voice make you want to believe that there exists a person to whom you can say: No trace of sadness / Always with gladness / I do?

And since there will never be another venue for me to say it anyway, let me put it out here for the record: Lea Salonga slays at being patolera online. I don't mean this sarcastically, ha. I think it's honest, and whatever she says inevitably makes sense. So why the hell not? I wish she had a YouTube channel.

Maybe I'm Amazed, by Dave Grohl and Norah Jones

Nope, can't relate to this song either. Well, I have been amazed with a certain person all too often, who just won't get amazed in return. Let's not talk about it.

Maybe we can just talk about people who post these videos of singers. Who are they? How come I can find pages and pages of these people posting this song, and Norah and Dave aren't among them?

I Shall Be Released, by Nina Simone

Thank God I can't relate to this song. The chill in this melody is completely at odds with the lyrics, isn't it? But it makes for cathartic listening. Just you wait, you thesis. I shall be released.

Ashitta Ni Mukatte, from the YYH OST

This is a song that plays at particularly tender moments of Yu Yu Hakusho. When I sent my list of songs to April, I kept asking her if the song was not familiar at all (I hadn't told her from where I got it). I just can't imagine any 90s kid in the Philippines not watching Yu Yu Hakusho (or Ghostfighter, which is what the series was called here). When the anime aired in the Philippines, cable TV wasn't a thing yet, so most kids were stuck between two channels. (Hah! I sound old.) So there's just no way this song wouldn't be familiar.

And for the record, she said it wasn't, the filthy liar. Anyway, I kept listening to this song because I would put it on and voila, I'm a kid again. My stress falls away, like an involuntary reflex. I can't explain how it happens, it just does.

I tried looking up the meaning of the song, and the closest I got was, "thinking about the future," Good God, I don't want to relate to that just right now.





Marvin Gaye, by Charlie Puth and Meghan Trainor

Ahahaha, bakit ba, bastos eh. Aaaand still can't relate. Fuck this shit.

Here's My Body. Take Any Part You Will

Something that I dug up and pieced together again:

The soft recesses of our mouths—they will one day wait for someone, and when that someone does not come, desire makes makes the soft recesses feel dry to our own tongues.
The spot between the neck and the bone of the shoulder—it will one day be forever at the ready for the weight of someone else's head.
The arms—they  will seem to grow as long as they do to wrap completely around somebody.  Or at least hope that if they happen to be short, somebody still ends up fitting inside the circle that they make.
The stubborn softness of our bellies and the swell of our own bodies—they will stay to keep hurting those we wrap around and roll with.
Sharp, protuding bones—they resist pads of fat, because there will always be those willing to hurt a bit when skinny people reach out for a hug.

Of all the shapes bodies become, whether through eating, working, or just letting be, isn't it delicious to think that somebody, someday will want and fit with that body of yours?

Notes to Self While Getting Lost on the Way Home (Again)

I dislike long roads in cities, not because I easily get tired, but because I easily get lost.  Who would think it possible to get disoriented along an avenue?  The path is straight; still I lose my way, because of the derelict houses and dark shops that seem to shift and move ominously as I move forward. I am always compelled to pause, turn the inevitably wrong way, and forget what jeep or bus I should be boarding next.  Five nights of wrong buses and lanes, each one a testimony to strengths I lack.

Once, it was dark when I took the wrong bus. I got off and grasped, as an adult, the fear of the dark for the first time.  I think it feels the same as hearing words from that mouth, and not believing that that beloved mouth can mouth words that sharp and strong.  It can't be, I think, feeling like a child pushed into a van hurtling in the dark, with drivers unknown, no parent to hold my hand.

In moments like these, I want a map, to tell me what bus to board, what word to say, which place holds monsters. Or a promise that eventually I would be found, if I keep feeling my way home.