The Journey. It’s Mine.

This was supposed to be posted yesterday. But “the thing”: took two overnights. Now my head feels light, my eyes puffy for the lack of sleep and for crying and laughing at the same time. I’m supposed to feel better (must be hormones), instead i feel like I partied all night on a school day, didn’t do my homework and have to cut classes or call in sick at work. 

Except for this one post, I didn’t blog a thing in the last 36 hours. I still cannot blog today because in a couple of hours, I’m taking my son to a kiddie birthday party- his first since we got here last year.

What if it was an all-night date? I don’t want to feel this horrible afterwards, even if I had fun. I guess I’m turning pathetic if not already…

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My Dream TV’s decoder box isn’t fixed yet so yesterday I gave in to buying a pirated DVD. I didn’t know what to look for in particular, and bumped to 2 seasons of Grey’s Anatomy (Yes, Jun you gave me the idea!) and bought them.

Call me crazy but instead of hanging out with Raine yesterday afternoon when I got back from “work”, I allowed him to “camp out” in my grandmother’s house across the road until he himself asked to be taken home sometime in the evening.

Instead of doing entries for my problogs, I was still on Grey’s Anatomy until it was morning, completely ignoring everything else around me. And because I do not have a DVD player (just CD player), I watched the DVDs on my PC with the headphones on.

Watching a Grey’s episode after another, getting up only to eat, to drink, to pee, to stretch out a bit and break for a puff and to compose this entry (as the memories went rushing back) — I went totally “autistic” and sure had fun but only can think of one word: pathetic.

Why? Let me explain…

When I was still on the verge of graduating and later when in between jobs, I used to hang out in a friend’s house composed of people of various statures: the mainstays (mostly young university instructors), the transients (friends of the mainstays who are either students close to graduating, or those who have graduated but were still out of jobs) and the “ampons” (mostly students hanging out for free bed or food and a place for ‘group study’). I never was the mainstay in that house, but I was mostly a regular transient and ampon, alternately and both, for a long time.

Not that I didn’t have my own place back then (I moved out of the dorm when I just had only thesis units left) but my roommate was always out with her boyfriend anyway and so had her own dinner and after-dinner plans (and weekend plans too!). Thus, I was drawn to that house, not only because they had TV and cable, but because I didn’t have a boyfriend to have after-dinner and weekend plans with and because the one person who mostly ampon-ed me even after college was one of the house mainstays.

Anyway, on week days I remember going home in that house after work where we’d all pitch-in for dinner. (Well, those who had money would pitch-in. Those who didn’t still got to eat anyway, no problem). Somebody would cook and somebody would clean up. No real assignments but everyone would do their share somehow even if that was just putting that wide dark blue stretched-out sleeping bag on the floor in front of the TV set or taking out the trash.

Sometimes we’d play bridge after dinner (or while dinner was being prepared), losers did the dishes. Most times we’d just camp on the floor for The Days of Our Lives, Baywatch or Sunset Beach (whichever was on at Studio 23) or Ally McBeal (on RPN 9) and talk about or cry about our love lifes (or the lack of it) over bottles of beer or vodka or just plain water, depending on which we can afford.

On better days we’d have take-out from Wendy’s. On broke days it would just be argentina corned beef or century tuna or even pancakes with sliced cheese on top or Lucky Me pancit canton with eggs.

Then somebody came along with VHS tapes of X-files (recorded I think by a relative in the US and sent to the Phils.). Those were the days most of us were sort-of-bums, feeding on X-files episodes and Wendy’s take out until we cultured some kind-of growth (green amags) under the sleeping bag.

We would not take baths until it is dark outside and we didn’t mind the time. We watched so much movies until our eyelids were too heavy to stay open and there are occasions we drunk so much alcohol until we just pass out on that floor. That sleeping bag, the sheets and pillow covers didn’t get changed for weeks, sometimes months, which explains that green culture, but we all didn’t mind.

However, it was all clean fun, no drugs, no sex. Just a bunch of cool young males and females - crazy about X-files and Sunset Beach, crazy about beer and vodka, crazy about going out to gimmicks as much as they were crazy about staying indoors for a movie marathon or heart-to-heart talks – who didn’t mind sleeping beside each other like a bunch of kids on an extended slumber party while their parents are gone.

And then later, when most of us were getting salaries from our jobs, somebody paid to have cable TV installed. Then came a time when we can already afford a Jollibee delivery or a Pizza-Hut take out. The marathons got better: HBO, Cinemax, Hallmark, etc. I brought home my very first IRRI rice ration to that house. Where will we put a sack of rice? Somebody had to buy a rice dispenser.

Then I got bitten by the same dog twice: one time when I was coming in late in the night and one time getting out of the compound too early in the morning (so I could still go to my place to take a bath and change before I go to work). Remember, I was just a transient and so to the landlady’s dog(s): I was an outsider. Good thing, nok-nok the dog had anti-rabies shot, so I was told. Well he must have, otherwise I won’t be here to blog about it, I suppose. Bad thing was, on both occasions I was wearing shorts…so nok-nok’s fangs were buried into my legs. (I still carry the scars, and I remain not too fond of dogs.)

Friday nights were my favorite because I’d have to bring my toothbrush, my deodorant and just extra under wears, everything else would be on the house (even extra shirt and shorts and shampoos and stuff) and I get to go home to my place either Sunday late night or Monday early morning.

Then we all parted ways at some point: we got enslaved by our jobs and worked long hours and weekends, Ph Ds needed to be pursued abroad, jobs needed relocation, hearts and selves needed to be found – each of us went with our separate lives…goodbye slumber parties, goodbye movie marathons, welcome responsible adulthood.

So I used to watch VHS tapes of X-files and laugh-and-cry over Ally McBeal with a bunch of my friends until we all fall asleep on the floor…and I remember it to be SOOO MUCH fun…my heart smiles just thinking about it now.

Now I am watching Grey’s Anatomy, on a pirated DVD, in front of my PC with the headphones on while my mother is raising her eyebrows, wondering why I am cracking loud laughs on my own and my son would have spent the night in my grandmother’s house if I allowed him to. (I guess for the first time Raine saw me hooked up on something besides him and well, blogging.)

Mind you, I had fun with that DVD marathon. But you see, compared to those days, this was pathetic really - because I was watching it alone, among other things. It would have been more fun if there was a bunch of us, all laughing out loud, passing the chips and moaning over Patrick Dempsey and agreeing that he could do better with less hair on his head or discussing how sexy Ellen Pompeo’s eyes are and figuring out her little “speech defect” that comes out really rather cute.

Still I can’t put my hand into it: whether if it’s the technology or the lack of present (not cyber) friends or maybe a combination of both that made all this what it is now.

There are nights these days when I can still get a bit of an HBO marathon (before the decoder box went kaput) when I am not too sleepy or on nights I want to eat junk food I’ve hidden from Raine’s eyes – and it is still fun but in a totally different way.

Well, I can’t shriek like we shrieked at Keannu Reeves in the movie Speed, otherwise I’d wake my boy and the whole neighborhood here, don’t I? Besides, I don’t shriek at anything anymore (not out loud anyway!). Like swallowing my tears, I got the hang of taking-in the kilig when it springs up. Well, those days are gone now.

Sure I miss all of it but I know we can’t stay there forever and I sure can’t do all those now (not on a regular basis anyway). Only, I am just very happy I had them all to look back to.

Like sands in the hourglass…and so are the days of our lives… (sounds familiar?)