Book Review 2012 #2: The Art of Fielding

[WARNING: LONG REVIEW AHEAD FOR AN EVEN LONGER BOOK, hahaha]

I was a late bloomer when it came to baseball as I’ve only started loving it when I was in college. I was New York Yankees fan, and then I started exploring other teams just in case my Yankees got booted out early during the playoffs (and in the past years, that seemed to happen a bit too early for my liking). A team that I had taken to liking?

The St. Louis Cardinals.

So there wasn’t any doubt in my mind that I was going to pick up The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach. Aside from being hailed as one of the best books of 2011, it tackles one of my favorite sports that I rarely get the chance to read up in books: BASEBALL.

So first off: I’d give it 4 out of 5 (but really, it’s 3.75 out of 5, I’m just being generous with the .25 because it’s a baseball book).

THE GOOD: Characters, style of writing / plot, and the way it makes me feel.

-       CHARACTERS: I like Henry’s innocence, his determination, and his struggle (this last point is actually a middleground—see point #2 in The Bad). I like how Guert struggled with who he is and how he tried to be who he is even is he is a bit older. I like Owen and his humor, and how he has been there for Henry. I like Mike and his drive to change people’s lives even though sometimes it comes at the expense of his own (e.g., passing up on opportunities, not focusing on his own goals), and how he bonded and mentored Henry. I like Pella and how somehow she made all the main characters feel complete. I even like Rick O’Shea and Starblind. The ensemble was perfect, and there are times when I can relate to each and every single one of them.

-       STYLE OF WRITING / PLOT: I liked how things were unraveled and how it pulls the rug from under me at some parts. Frankly, when the synopsis said “…a routine throw that goes disastrously off course…” my first thought was, ‘uh-oh, Henry might have torn something in his arm, gee,’ but it wasn’t that. I also liked how it gave me an inside view of things that happen inside a star athlete’s head.

-       THE WAY IT MAKES ME FEEL: Like I said in Why We Broke Up, I like it when books make you feel. I think books are more effective when they do that, aside from when they leave you with an answer to the question: after I read this book, now what? What have I learned? This book frustrated me (in a couple of ways, really), made me smile and made me cry. It did give me lots of answers to What have I learned which I loved. I liked how the story made you want to champion for the Harpooners, because they were underdogs, they were imperfect creatures trying to prove something, to win something, to prove they are alive and they can make a change.

THE BAD: Length and ending how things led to the ending, particularly for Henry.

-       LENGTH: I think the book’s a hundred pages too long. I don’t know if it was just me or I felt like it sort of lingered in some parts where it shouldn’t, and it kind of left out the parts where it should have focused. There were parts when I was reading it that I was like… who was this guy again? Wait, what are they talking about? What is the Henry Skrimshander day again? I think there was about 100+ pages between the first time they mentioned what was going to happen on that day and the day it was about to happen. While this may be a plot device, I felt that as a reader, I was put into a disadvantage.

-       ENDING HOW THINGS LED TO THE ENDING, PARTICULARLY FOR HENRY: I had to reword this because while I did like the ending, I figured… Why did Henry get an almost-easy pass? I was wrestling with myself if I liked the way Henry struggled, and I found that I am 50/50 on this one. I feel like someone should have given him an extra hard time, pushed him harder than Pella did, and made him see what he had actually missed and what sacrifices were made for him.

FAVORITE PARTS / QUOTES:

-       Locker rooms, in Schwartz’s experience, were always underground, like bunkers and bomb shelters. This was less a structural necessity than a symbolic one. The locker room protected you when you were most vulnerable: just before a game, and just after. (And halfway through, if the game was football.) Before the game, you took off the uniform you wore to face the world and you put on the one you wore to face your opponent. In between, you were naked in every way. After the game ended, you couldn’t carry your game-time emotions out into the word—you’d be put in an asylum if you did—so you went underground and purged them. You yelled and threw things and pounded your locker, in anguish or joy. You hugged your teammate, or bitched him out, or punched him in the face. Whatever happened, the locker room remained a haven. (p. 106-107)

-       But baseball was different. Schwartz thought of it as Homeric—not a scrum but a series of isolated contests. Batter versus pitcher, fielder versus ball. You couldn’t storm around, snorting and slapping people, the way Schwartz did when he was playing football. You stood and waited and tried to still your mind. When your moment came, you had to be ready, because if you fucked up, everyone would know whose fault it was. What other sport not only kept a stat as cruel as the error but posted it on the scoreboard for everyone to see? (p. 259)

-       Like Ishmael said: Being paid—what will compare with it! It was embarrassing, how proud of herself she felt. The check proved that she’d been alive these weeks, that she’d accomplished something, however trivial. This was why people grew attached to earning money, even money they didn’t need. This was how they justified themselves. This was how they kept score. (p. 263)

-       How could you learn something, accomplish anything, build any kind of momentum toward becoming a good person, unless you felt at least a little bit comfortable at first? (p. 290)

–

Next book: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer (still struggling to finish The Happiness Project *sad face*)

My Life in TV Shows: Once Upon a Time S01E10

I am a TV show fanatic, and I keep track of so many TV shows that sometimes I just watch the others when the season has ended. This week has been WAY better than I had expected—despite the lack of The Vampire Diaries, Grey’s Anatomy, and Bones to keep my Friday and the rest of the weekend sane. So I used it to catch up on some episodes, and I did shed some tears here and there.

Let’s kick it off with OUAT, and this week’s episode title is 7:15AM.

First off, can I gush at how adorable Ginnifer Goodwin is and how (aptly enough) charming Josh Dallas is? They’re PERFECT creatures. Let’s take a moment to swoon over these two while they play Snow White/Mary Margarett and Prince Charming/David Nolan. PERFECT.

Okay, gushing done?

This has got to be one of my most favorite OUAT episode of all time.

Let’s dig in.

MM rushes to school, er, Granny’s, because it’s 7:15AM and she has to get her coffee. No, really, she has to see David. Apparently, that’s the only time of the day she gets to legally see him (but she knows his daily habits too).

Emma, being the sheriff that she is, catches MM.

MM: I just like to… come here to see him

EMMA: So… you’re a stalker?

MM: No, not really. [Emma gives her a seriously? look] Maybe a little bit. It’s not like I’m following him. 

MM: Love’s the worst. I wish there was a magic cure. 

Yes, MM. I wish there was.

In the Fairytale world, Snow wants a cure for her love for James since he’s off to marry Abigail. The solution? We have the lovely Red Riding Hood tell her to go to Rumple* (let’s settle for this spelling since I couldn’t write his name without doing a spell check). Am I the only one who’s scared at how devious and maniacal Rumple is?

Somebody PLEASE provide him with dental care.

RUMPLE: You really are the fairest of them all, aren’t you. What can I do for you?

SNOW: I need a cure.

RUMPLE: What ails you?

SNOW: A broken heart?

RUMPLE: Ah. The most painful of afflictions.

Then again, even if he’s THAT scary, he makes sense. Like what he says below:

RUMPLE: Love makes us sick. Haunts our dreams. Destroys our day. Love has killed more than any disease.

So he gives Snow this vial of liquid that will make her forget–as in literally forget and don’t know who James is–in exchange for a lock of her hair. I wonder if he is going to use that to make voodoo dolls and control Snow sometime in the future.

In Storybrooke, MM goes shopping–and yes, I, too, would get a giant bar of chocolate if I were depressed and heartbroken. And then she bumps into Katherine, David’s wife, and chaos ensued. (Just kidding) Upon picking up their things, she managed to see that part of Katherine’s grocery list is an old-looking pregnancy test kit, and my heart broke for her. Tsk, tsk.

Meanwhile, back in Fairyland, the King (whom I really can’t see as the King but as Nate Archibald’s dad in Gossip Girl), is talking to James, telling him that he wants James’ heart, and that he knows that his heart doesn’t belong to Abigail. He tells him to forget her–honestly, I wouldn’t forget someone as gorgeous as Snow–and James wouldn’t agree. “Do whatever it takes to get that woman out of your head, because nothing is going to stop this wedding.“

Of course Prince Charming does the opposite, and writes this kickass letter to Snow:

In Storybrooke, MM does what every heartbroken person does (not): take a walk in the forest and find an injured pigeon (I like the continuity aspect of this, the bird that Prince Charming has sent and the bird that MM finds in real life). She takes it to the only animal shelter (and vet) in town, where, incidentally, our lovely David Nolan works.

Vet tells MM the bird she found has a monogamous bond to her flock, and if the bird doesn’t find her flock, it’ll be alone and unhappy forever.

Don’t you just love how MM cares for the animal? I’m pretty sure she’d do anything stupid because of the pain, so she goes out and looks for the pigeon’s flock, despite David’s warning of a storm coming in.

Meanwhile, despite my dislike for any plotlines this episode that doesn’t involve Prince Charming and Snow White, we do have Emma, the mystery stranger, and the Evil Queen, er, Mayor to deal with. I do love Emma’s line: If you’re looking to blame me for the storm, I think you’re taking things a bit far now. Mayor is asking her to look into the stranger, both in her capacity as the Sheriff and as Henry’s real mom. The last part was the one that hooked her into doing the job.

In Storybrooke, Snow gets the letter, where James asked her to go to him so they could be together. Of course, our lovely Snow goes, and, sneaky as she is, got past the guards by telling them she is delivering flowers for James from King Midas’s kingdom. She was so close to talking to James, until she was captured.

In the cell, she meets Grumpy, whom I have taken a liking to. But isn’t he a bit too tall for a dwarf? (Sorry if that sounds a bit insulting). Aside from telling her that there isn’t a way out, he ends up telling her his love story, which was equally heartbreaking. He fell in love with someone who was beautiful as a fairy (wanna bet on how she is actually a real fairy?), how he lost her and how he tried to get her back by working at a diamond mine. He was swindled into taking a stolen rock and that’s how he managed in prison.

And then Stealthy, who isn’t stealthy and devious enough but was helpful up to some point, managed to Grumpy out. And with the sweetest good luck to Grumpy that melted his heart, Grumpy let her out too.

In Storybrooke, with her attempts to ‘save’ the pigeon and find her flock, MM falls over the edge of the cliff (literally a cliffhanger), and guess who comes to save her? The Mayor.

Nope, just kidding. Of course, her savior is David, who apparently followed her just to make sure she was safe. Then again, the storm fell, and they conveniently found a house where they could stay and where they could let the storm pass. And that was when they have a moment:

DAVID: What’s going on with you today?

MM: What’s going on? What’s going on is that I still have feelings for you.

DAVID: What?

MM: Why do you think I go to Granny’s every morning at 7:15? It’s to see you. I don’t know why because it just makes me miserable, because every time I see you it just reminds me that you chose Katherine instead of me. And that’s why I didn’t want you to come into the woods with me. Because being around you is too… It’s too painful.

DAVID: [smirks]

MM: You think this is funny?

DAVID: No. It’s just… the reason I go to Granny’s at 7:15… is to see you.

And he does that quirky little smile that I just want to capture in a bottle.

I was already crying at this scene for some strange reason, and while I do admit that I wanted them to kiss, I was one with MM when she pulled away. She broke the news that Katherine thinks she’s pregnant, and boy, oh, boy, I was hoping David would say that if ever she was, it wasn’t his because they haven’t done the deed yet (again).

I can be hopeful, right? But that would make things so much more complicated than it actually is, so I’m fine when David admits that he wasn’t aware that they were ‘trying’ to have a baby. And MM, not wanting to talk about this further, realizes the rain has stopped. She grabs the pigeon and they find the flock, and she sets the bird free.

Okay, my heart broke again at this part: when David took MM’s hand, and she removed her hand, saying… “David, it’s too painful.”

I feel you, MM, I feel you.

And then David tries to convince MM into exploring their feelings for each other. Now, now… this is the part where I don’t love him. You can’t have both, MM said, when David said he has memories of feelings of Katherine and real feelings for MM. MM says, “We’re just going to have to forget each other,” and does the right thing (in my book): walk away.

Somewhere in Storybrooke, Emma goes in to talk to mystery stranger. I loved him at this part:

EMMA: We need to talk.

MYSTERY STRANGER: Why?

EMMA: Because… you’re suspicious.

MYSTERY STRANGER: Sitting here. Out in the open. Drinking coffee. Wonder what kind of hell I could’ve raised had I ordered a donut. 

I am officially declaring my love for him.

Emma did manage to find out what’s in the mysterious box (in exchange for a drink with Mystery Stranger). *drumroll* A TYPEWRITER.

So our Mystery Stranger is a writer, and that Storybrooke is a place that provides inspiration (get me there now, I need inspiration for my stories). And then he leaves, without claiming the drink that Emma agreed to.

I am shipping these two (while I miss Graham).

In the meantime in Fairytale land, Grumpy, Stealthy and Snow part ways, with Grumpy following Stealthy which was a bad decision. They eventually got caught, with Stealthy dying, and Snow, being a good girl that she is, saved Grumpy, in exchange for her freedom. I did like it how Grumpy didn’t give Snow up. That’s some loyalty for someone whom you just met.

Now, giving up her freedom landed her into a conversation with Nate Archibald’s dad, er, the King.

Love is a disease, and like all diseases it can be vanquished in one of two ways: a cure or death. 

Nice words, King. Nice words.

He threatens her that if she doesn’t break his heart and let him go, he would kill James. I get his logic: “Killing you (Snow) will only make him love you more.”

So we’re in for the most heartbreaking scene in the episode (as if we haven’t had many of those in this episode): Snow White tells James that she doesn’t love him.

Let’s take a moment here, as to how good Ginnifer Goodwin was so good in this scene. She was stopping her tears from falling even though we know that her character’s heart is breaking inside.

She hands him back the letter he wrote and leaves.

In the forest she finds herself in the company of Grumpy and the other dwarfs.

GRUMPY: You okay, sister?

SNOW: Not even close.

GRUMPY: You didn’t find him?

SNOW: Worse. I lost him.

GRUMPY: Come on.

SNOW: Where are you taking me?

GRUMPY: Home. We all lost someone today.

RANDOM DWARF: Now we’re seven.

GRUMPY: I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you, so you’re coming with us, Snow, and we’ll protect you.

SNOW: The only thing that needed protecting is destroyed. My heart.

GRUMPY: It will get better.

SNOW: Yes. Yes, it will. [Takes out bottle from Rumple] This will take all of my feelings, all of my pain, and destroy it.

GRUMPY: No.

SNOW: But why? You of all people should understand. You’ve lost love. This pain can be erased.

GRUMPY: I don’t want my pain erased. As wretched as it is, I need my pain. It makes me who I am. It makes me grumpy. Look around, Snow, you’re not alone anymore. I promise you, that’s all the cure that you need. If the pain is too much, you can always drink it, but for today, put it away. 

I want to hug both Grumpy and Snow.

In Storybrooke, David and Katherine have that heart-to-heart talk. She admits that she thought she was pregnant, but she was thankful that she isn’t, because she feels that they aren’t ready yet. She said she wants to fix ‘them,’ and David admits that that‘s what he wants as well. They agreed to see Dr. Hopper. David admits he wants to make this work, while Katherine notices it’s 7:10AM. David, probably remembering what MM said, told her they can have breakfast first before they leave, thus, skipping the 7:15AM morning routine at Granny’s.

On the other side of Storybrooke, MM was watching the time, 7:15AM drawing near. She was at the table, across Emma, eating breakfast. Apparently she made the choice too that she wouldn’t continue with the 7:15AM routine. (I shake my head at this, but it’s the proper thing to do.)

In Fairytale land, which I assumed was the next day, Prince Charming was looking for Snow White and finds Red Riding Hood, who tells him that Snow never came back after she went to the castle. Apparently our Prince ran away from Abigail and the wedding, because he really loves Snow.

[I love it when Prince says he will always find Snow. Damn.]

And then we cue in Grumpy, who was running into the cottage, looking for Snow, about to break the news that James left Abigail and he is probably looking for her already. The innocence with which Snow asked Grumpy: Who? just made me weak. She took the liquid. She probably was hurting so much. :(

AND WE’RE HERE, AT THE BEST ENDING EVER!!!! [Yes, it had to be like that]

It’s 7:45AM and MM’s at Granny’s, getting her coffee. The door chimed, signalling a customer, and ‘lo and behold… David was at the door.

Yes, I’d do what he did. I’d run off. I’d be bewildered.

MM ran after him:

MM: What are you doing?

DAVID: It’s 7:45.

MM: I know.

DAVID: I’m trying not to see you.

MM: Well, I’m trying not to see YOU.

DAVID: Well, how do we stop seeing each other?

MM: Apparently we can’t.

DAVID: This is a problem.

MM: Yes.

DAVID: She’s not pregnant. 

I could feel MM. I have never been this happy to hear the words Not pregnant in my entire life.

And while I do know that this is wrong, I’m shipping MM and David so hard I don’t care.

The good thing about this is: FINALLY THEY KISSED.

The bad thing?

Why kiss outside? Where Regina could see you?

–

So there.

A few thoughts:

• I wonder what would happen to Emma and the writer.
• And what did Red Riding Hood do? Snow White did say she was there for Red Riding Hood when no one else was.
• I am scared as to what Regina is capable of doing to David and MM.

—

There, my folks, is my first attempt at recapping. I’ll try to keep this up (I have a Happiness Project resolution to blog more often). Looking forward to next week! :)

NOTE: No copyright infringement intended. Snapshots from the episode are ‘owned’ by ABC Studios. :)

Artist Watch: Midnight Hour

I first heard of Midnight Hour in Ghost Whisperer (which I miss, why did they take it away, boo!!!). Their song, Running Away, was used in one of the episodes, and I immediately got hooked on it. I was amused at how powerful the lyrics of the song was, and how great the vocals was in this song. You can feel the pain of leaving, the anguish at staying.

And yes, there are some days when I can truly relate to this song.

Below is their live performance of it (though I like the album version better):

I like this part:

And I, I’ll never let you find me, 

I’m leaving you behind with the past

No, I won’t look back

And I, don’t wanna hear your reasons

Don’t wanna hear you tell me why I should stay

And try, try to understand me

And try to understand what I say

when I say I can’t stay

I’m moving on from this place, 

I’m leaving and I won’t wait

I’m running away

Am still waiting for them to come out with an album and listen to the band’s full potential. But for now, I have Running Away on loop on some days, and I’m still enjoying it so far. :)

A dream, a realization, and a rejuvenated love

A DREAM: It was one of the weirdest dreams ever, which featured a lot of rugby players and a lot of blurred faces. I was angry at one point in the dream–and I literally felt that anger bubble inside me when I woke up–but the one thing that stayed with me when I woke up was the feeling of touch–I was hugging someone so tightly because I wanted to make him whole. And the lines: Let it go. Let it go. You need to let it go. I remember the man say that he couldn’t, but I won’t have it, so I hugged him, wanting him to accept me, and swallow me, and consume me, just so he could be fine.

When I woke up, I never figured out who it was–all I know was that he was taller–and the dream still bothered me up to now.

Vivid dreams, for the win.

A REALIZATION: A couple of days ago, I was chatting with this guy, a guy whom I truly loved at one point in my life, a love which I allowed to break me. That last phrase there is actually huge for me, as it took me a LONG time before I realized that it wasn’t him per se that broke me–it was my love for him that broke me. I allowed that love–and subsequently the anger, bitterness, disappointment, and whatnot that came along with it–to break me, to make me burn relationships and friendships, to shape who I was for the succeeding years after that. I was amused at how easy it still was to talk to him, how I felt light every time he and I talk, and how he still manages to make me laugh. He was, after all, what I could call my favorite best friend (and while I do want to expound as to what I mean by this, I won’t, in respect to the other best friends who came before and after him).

I had always thought that I needed to stay away from the men and the guys I had fallen in love with–and he was no exception to this rule–as I always make that mistake of going back and falling in love with them all over again. I was the what-if-and-what-has-been type of person; I have a tendency to be stuck in the past because I love how it was (and I do know that that is a bad thing). But while he and I were talking, I realized I can do it. That after completely moving on and after acceptance and other big life realizations, I can do it. That it is possible to be friends with someone who moved your life and caused tidal waves of changes that rippled into your future and your present.

And then another realization hit me: it isn’t for every previous love that I had. Which is a good and a bad thing.

A REJUVENATED LOVE: Books! I want to party because I have lots of books right now. I don’t want to function anywhere else because I just want to read. I have The Night Circus, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, The Book Thief, Tuesdays with Morrie, The Happiness Project, and tons more books to finish. (I have a goal of 30 books for 2012, btw.)

I’ve got a thing, you know. My passion for writing and reading turn off at the same time, which is BAD. Or worse. Or wait–check that, WORST. I’m at my blank state when I don’t read and write. But this time, my reading mojo is back. Now where’s the writing part? I think somebody kicked the writing version of myself on the ground, pounded it until it’s black and blue, and it still hasn’t recovered yet. Well, I do think we can consider this blog entry as a start.

Can anyone find my writing self and stuff it back inside me, sew it like Wendy did to Peter Pan’s shadow? I NEED it right now.

P.S. I think we should re-title this blog entry as A BLOG ENTRY WITH VERY RANDOM THINGS INSIDE IT.

P.P.S. Please do watch out, I am trying to come up with my book review for The Art of Fielding. So many words for a good great book.

Book Review 2012 #1: Why We Broke Up

First book of 2012 – YEY! :)

Anyway, on to the review— 4 out of 5 stars.

I like books that enable me to feel — anger, irritation, happiness, love, confusion. This book did that for me — I was angry at Ed, I was irritated at Min, I was happy at their relationship (it has its moments).

The good thing about this book: I liked the illustrations (they are by Maira Kalman) and how they help the narration along. I like the run-on sentences, the monologues… overall the ‘voice’ in the story. I liked Min’s weirdness and Ed’s openness to a ‘different’ girlfriend, but in the end he wasn’t able to keep up with it. I liked the things they did while they were together. I liked Al and the mere presence of the best friend (who usually harbors unrequited love, HAHA–every story HAS to have one, huh).

The bad thing about this book: I am not a movie buff. I haven’t watched any classic movies (though I do want to), and sometimes it was tough for me to keep up with all the movie mentions and the description of everything else.

The middle ground: I’m on the fence if I want to know Ed’s side of the story, and how he reacts to all the items in the box. It’ll be nice to have Ed’s POV on why he and Min broke up.

FAVORITE PARTS / LINES (in no particular order):

• “It didn’t last, it wasn’t clear for much longer, and that’s why we broke up, but when I close this book to give it to you, I don’t think about that, just us holding the book in our hands to buy it and take it here with us, because damn it, Ed, that’s not why we broke up. I love it, I miss it, I hate to give it back to you, this complicated thing, it’s why we stayed together.” -Min
• “Twenty-six…. One for each day we’ve been together, Min… And I hope that someday I’ll do another something stupid and I’ll have to say it a million times because that’s how long it’ll be, together with you, Min. With you.” -Ed [I freakingtastically loved this part.]
• “I gave you an adventure, Ed, right in front of you but you never saw it until I showed you, and that’s why we broke up.” -Min
• “That night it felt that somehow by flicking them off the roof, the matches would burn down everything, the sparks from the tips of the flames torching the world and all the heartbroken people in it. Up in smoke I wanted everything, up in smoke I wanted you, although in a movie that wouldn’t work, even, too many effects, too showy for how tiny and bad I felt. Cut that fire from the film, no matter how much I watch it in dailies. But I want it anyway, Ed, I want what can’t possibly happen, and that is why we broke up.” -Min
• And oh — that part where Ed tells Min the first time those three words

—

Next book (or books, for that matter): The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin (I’m 3/4 done with this one, Why We Broke Up was just so tempting so I ended up finishing it first) & The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach

Love, Fangirl

Been a while since I did a personal entry, and I’m dedicating it to an object of my fan-girling: Richard Herrera.

Last Thursday, I heard some news from Joanne Samson (via her Twitter account) that Richard Herrera, a.k.a. ‘Rampage’, is now officially the newest MTV Asia VJ. The news made me smile the entire day, and his micro-site on the MTV Asia page was open the entire day at work all because I needed motivation (his smile = instant motivation power-up). Can I be fan-girl happy?

I was waiting for something big to happen for this guy–I do enjoy listening to him on the radio whenever he visits Kat Alano’s radio show (the only time I probably tune in to radio) and I was sad that his and Hardin’s The Price is Right stint was over. I somehow wish that the Amazing Race Asia is back on TV just so I could see his and Hardin’s amazing teamwork (apologies for the lack of other adjectives). I do know he has a streetwear business somewhere in Makati, and that he’s working on (or at?) a production company in the meantime. But this news was definitely the lovely-surprise-you-to-point-of-turning-a-bad-vibes-day-into-a-good-one kind of news (which is actually pretty weird because I don’t even know the guy personally).

Am just really fan-girl happy for Rich. :)

You can check out his Facebook page, follow him on Twitter (he’s being a little bit active right now unlike before on the TheRiches103 account–I am still waiting for a follow back, hahaha), or read through his MTV Asia page.

So while I check out our channel listings for MTV Asia (I do know the one in Manila carries the MTV Asia channel, but here in Tarlac, I couldn’t find it), please do read up on this up and coming cutie on MTV Asia, VJ Rich, and watch out for his gigs on TV. :)

Love,

His fangirl, Kessica

–

P.S. Just a quick update: Lines Crossed is still in the works–Chapter 4 is very Florence-centric (and would focus on how she and Harry started out–bet you’re curious as to how she landed on the choices she made). No One Will Ever Get Hurt, my (ironically) Christmas story last year, which focused on Richard and Casey (yep, remember that story with Richard Herrera on the dedication page? HAHA), will have a sequel (FINALLY). The working title’s The Last Goodbye, and the ending is still in the air (I know, the NaNoWrimo peeps would hate me after all the advice they gave about not writing a story without an ending in mind). For release this Christmas ‘break’ :)

Lines Crossed Chapter 3: Possibilities

The sun is filling up the room

And I can hear you dreaming

Do you feel the way I do, right now?

I wish we would just give up, coz the best part is falling

Call it anything but love

 

And I will make sure to keep my distance

Say I love you when you’re not listening

And how long can we keep this up?  

-Distance, Christina Perri

Emma tried to call Charles but his number was unreachable, the network recording of ‘The subscriber cannot be reached. Please try again later,’ echoing in her head. She was worried, but she had already racked her brain of the places where she might find him, and she looked but he wasn’t there—the sports bar that they frequent to catch football and basketball games, his apartment, even at the sports complex where his team trains. She also called practically everyone she and Charles knew, but no one knew where Charles is.

Tired and weary (and gas-less, driving around the metro, looking for someone who wants help but doesn’t want to be found is not cost-efficient), and still no Charles, she went home to her loft apartment, one she inherited from her older brother, Paolo, just before he moved to an even better (and bigger) house. Saying Emma loves the loft is an understatement—it was everything she had ever wanted in a personal space she would consider as her home. She was partly thankful that she didn’t have to pay rent anymore—Paolo already paid for everything, buying the apartment right before passing it on to her.

Her apartment has two floors. The living room, kitchen, workspace and one of the two bathrooms were at the bottom floor, with virtually no dividers whatsoever (save for the bathrooms, of course). Her brother Paolo, who is a courtside reporter and sometimes analyst for the PBA, used to describe the loft’s size as ‘one halfcourt.’ Emma thinks its size is three-fourths of a full basketball court, but she doesn’t tell that to her brother.

White-washed walls covered most of the unit, and Emma had various ways of designing those walls. One wall was littered with framed covers of favorite books—Wuthering Heights, Harry Potter series, The Hunger Games, The Catcher in the Rye, One Day, the non-fiction The Tipping Point, among others. Another wall was dedicated solely to Florence’s works—her charcoal portrait of Emma, some of her abstract art, and her rare and most beautiful photos during their out-of-town trips. Three floor-to-ceiling windows covered the third wall, which she and Charles had covered with midnight blue blinds just to taper out the sunlight.

The last wall was everybody’s favorite—Paolo, Charles, Emma, Larissa, and Florence (okay, even Harry). It was the biggest and widest wall in the room, and it was close to where Emma had set up her workstation. Emma, Larissa and Florence spent one whole day painting that wall with black matte paint, immediately transforming it into a giant blackboard. They bought boxes of colored chalk and placed them in a basket just above one of the bookshelves Emma had next to her workstation. Anyone who comes in Emma’s home writes something on the wall, and sometimes they stand there, marveling at the inner workings of Emma’s mind, the product of her sleepless nights and Muses—poems, plotlines, article ideas—all written in various colors and sizes on her wall.

A steel staircase leads the way up to the second floor, a strong concrete structure reinforced by steel that seemed to be protruding at the space somewhere between the floor and the roof. It was closer to the roof though, with only about ten feet separating the second floor from the roof. The entire second floor was about a quarter of the size of the first floor, and it housed Emma’s bedroom. Five-foot steel grills rose from the concrete floor to avoid someone from falling down the first floor, and Emma placed a couple of small cabinets there to avoid accidents from happening. Like the setup downstairs, the second floor also has a wall covered with matte paint, one where Emma could write on when she couldn’t sleep.

Other than the set of grills, the loft was very open—you can stand at the middle of the first floor and see everything in the house.

Emma sighed heavily, tossing her keys atop her marble tabletop in the kitchen side of her loft. She tinkered with her phone on the way to her bed, checking her BBM, tweets or any other indications that Charles is still alive after the phone call. And then—

Emma found herself face first on the linoleum floor, tripping on something—check that, someone—who was lying on it. She inadvertently hit her head on the floor—not too hard, she hoped, but she was sure that it would leave a nasty bump or bruise—but the party who was lying on the floor had absorbed the brunt of her body’s weight. She also hit her right elbow on the floor, sending tiny electric shockwaves up her body.

She winced, struggling to gain her bearings. She felt very gentle hands wrap around her waist, and someone inhaling her scent, and she wanted to move away but black spots still dominated her eyesight. She waited for her eyesight to go back to normal and—

“You know, you actually feel good. You feel so… nice, Emmie. And you smell nice too! Like citrus… I think you smell like a melon… Or orange.”

Shit.

The voice and the very familiar chuckle jolted Emma back to reality. She rolled off Charles and lay on the floor next to him, cussing in her head over and over. When she recovered, she turned to Charles, trying to control her anger. “Did you know where I have been, looking for you?” she said through gritted teeth.

Charles gave her a misty smile, looking at her, his eyes red, a combination of both alcohol and crying. “Emmie, you know when I’m lost I always go where you are. You’re like—” Charles was about to finish, but a hiccup interrupted his monologue. He chuckled and then continued where he left off. “You’re like home. Or a compass. Like that song you made me listen to ages ago, Em—” He turned to her and reached out, touching Emma’s face, his fingers light on her cheek. She stopped herself from flinching—surprise getting the best of her.

“If my heart was a compass you’d be north… If my heart was a house you’d be home.”

Charles was a decent singer on a normal day, but since he was drunk, Emma relied on her memory of the song to figure out his lyrics to that Owl City song.

Emma rolled her eyes, knowing he probably doesn’t mean a single word he’s saying because of his alcohol-addled brain. She swerved before standing up—she might have hit her head harder than she thinks as the black spots are still dancing in front of her eyes. “Please tell me you have a very good reason why you’re on the floor instead of the bed—or the couch,” she said, correcting herself as a drunk Charles would have had difficulty going up the stairs. The couch is definitely the safer choice for a drunk man—not the floor. She was trying very hard not to sound cold or angry—she couldn’t really blame him for drinking.

Charles chuckled again, opening his eyes. “I couldn’t find the bed. Or the couch. And your floor is nice. Do you polish this every day?”

Emma smiled despite her rising irritation. She wasn’t sure if she liked the drunken version of Charles over his normal self. He’s being adorable, and unjustifiably sweet… when drunk.

“Either you pick yourself up from the floor or I’d let you stay there for the duration of the evening,” Emma warned, stepping over Charles. Charles groaned, mumbling something about Emma being a ‘killjoy.’

Lines Crossed Chapter 2: Battle of Morals

And so this lonely, lonely hull

Has no use left for living

After finding her love

In a heart so unpermitting

 

And I will die and never ever hold your hand

And I will die and never ever hold your hand

 

But I’ll kiss my lips and blow it out to you

It’ll be the last thing that I ever do

And wherever you go and whatever you do

There’s a man underground that will always love you

-Second Lover, Noah and the Whale

I am so much better than this.

Florence couldn’t recall how many times she told herself that. She knew, however, it comes to mind whenever she meets Harry, but she couldn’t imagine life without Harry, no matter how much he complicates everything.

Harry was already in her studio when she got there, examining her latest charcoal piece, a couple lying on the grass their hands next to each other, fingers barely touching. The woman has tears in her eyes, and she was looking away from the man next to her, while the man has his eyes on the back of her head, a slight frown on his face. In some ways, he looked torn—maybe heartbroken too. Her other hand was on her chest, just above her heart, as if holding onto it will stop it from breaking.

Florence walked on her tiptoes as she approached Harry, whose six-foot-three figure was making her studio look smaller than it actually is. Her studio is wide, able to fit about ten office cubicles in it, and she had requested her landlady to remove the ceiling as she needed some room for her big canvases (which she only uses once in a blue moon for her big acrylic creations) and wire installations. One wooden cabinet was filled with paints she rarely use, and three tables—two metal, one wooden—has here charcoal pencils and other art materials strewn all over it. Wires of various malleability, sizes, materials and shapes were stacked in one corner of the room—Harry had showed her 3D art made of wire and she was thinking of dabbling into it one of these days. It was a messy place, Harry had always told her, a place that always reminded him of Florence’s organized chaos.

A ghost of a smile lit up Florence’s dark mood. Philip Harry Cochin—the person who has made her heart beating and fluttering in the past year—both in good and bad ways. He is a professional basketball player suiting up for the three-conference, grand slam champions Highland Boosters, and is a two-time Most Valuable Player (MVP) in his young four-year career in the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA). They met through Emma, who interviewed Harry for one of her articles, and who has probably regretted introducing them to each other since.

Florence cleared her throat. “You called?” she asked, interrupting Harry’s brooding, and Harry turned towards her, his smile barely reaching his deep set brown eyes. She walked over to him and ran her hands over his semi-bald head, his tiny hairs tickling her fingers, a habit she was used to doing whenever she sees him, which was nearly every day. He has dimples on either cheek that made his face very amiable, especially when he smiles. He gathered her medium-built body in his muscular, ripped arms, wrapping them around her waist, pulling her close to him. He kissed her on the temple, on the forehead, on the nose, but avoiding her lips.

“I’m sorry to pull you away from your friends,” Harry, a tall, lean guard-forward, whispered against her skin, and Florence buried her nose in Harry’s chest, a faint smell of sweat, soap and fabric conditioner wafting through her nose. She sensed he was only a bit sorry—there was something urgent in his voice when he called her so she knew something was up.

But if he only missed her—judging by the way he was holding her close to his body—Florence was thinking he could have just waited a little bit more.

Harry released her a bit, and his hand moved to cradle her face. He gazed into Florence’s jet black almond eyes, half-covered by her bangs, which he blew gently away from her face. She leaned her face into his hand, closing her eyes, treasuring this moment—as she treasured every moment with Harry before this. In this kind of relationship, you’d never know when it will end.

It’s like walking on landmines, with every touch, every kiss, every meeting, every step—one wrong move, and an explosion occurs, a chain reaction that neither of them wanted to happen.

Lines Crossed Chapter 1: Tell

I’m sorry if this hurts you

But I tried to keep what we had once, I was wrong

It wasn’t keeping me awake

 

You didn’t listen, you didn’t hear me

When I said I want more, I got no more

You weren’t stealing me away

 

It’s not enough, not enough

To give me what it is I want

It’s not enough, not enough

To get me everything I need

And I, I wish it was

I think it’s time to give this up

-Not Enough, Avril Lavigne

“Girls, I have something to tell you. I broke up with Charles.”

Larissa had just arrived at her barkada’s bi-weekly dinner dates—Thursdays, for the freaking win—with that kind of announcement. She had worked through several phrasings of the announcement before coming up with that one. Her long straight hair that usually just flowed over her shoulders and stopping above her waist was up in a tight ponytail, swishing and swaying as she moved. She was in a beige jumpsuit, wide-legged and silky soft, and she paired it with nude Louboutin pumps, making her taller than her five-foot-five frame. There wasn’t any trace of sadness in her sweet, heart-shaped face or in her sharp, piercing eyes as she announced the demise of her five-year-and-ten-month-old relationship with one of the country’s hottest athletes (and one of the most sought-after bachelors) ever, Charles Alec Reyes, the team captain of the now popular Azkals.

Larissa pulled a chair, gazed at the shocked looks on her girlfriend’s faces, and grinned. The shock didn’t fade even as Larissa was already settled on her seat, having ordered a banana walnut muffing along with a hot green tea latte.

“But what about the wedding?” Florence asked, recovering first. She rubbed some paint off her hands, having come directly to the Calm Times coffeeshop for their girls’ night out straight from her studio. She was the artist in their little gang of three, the one who can visualize sceneries, drawings, and images almost instantaneously. She works with charcoal best, but can also do acrylic on canvas, and she had already put up five exhibits at a tender age of twenty-five. She was almost always mistaken for the Filipina actress Kaye Abad, having an uncanny resemblance to the actress from the hair to the eyes to the nose, and even down to the stature. She could pass as Abad’s doppelganger, so much so that sometimes she has fun whenever fans of the actress mistake her for Abad, asking for her autograph and having their pictures taken with her.

“Charles hasn’t proposed. We just assumed he would but I knew he wouldn’t. Or if he would, I knew I wouldn’t accept,” Larissa pressed, waiting for Emma, one of Charles’s best (and probably the only) advocate in their group, to snap out of it.

If Larissa was good with putting clothes together (and making them, as she is starting her career as a fashion designer) and if Florence was excellent at making art imitate life, Emma was the wordsmith, able to tie words and make them into the best stories and poems ever. She is a yet-to-be published book author (she needs a push to finally submit a manuscript—or manuscripts for that matter, as she has finished three already), but she already making waves in the print and online blogging industries as having written some of the best and most entertaining pieces on basketball and football players. Her blog, EmmaEmmeEmma.com, also showcases her book reviews as she reads about a hundred books in a year (well, that is the goal, and she takes a week off quarterly from all her gigs to catch up on her book pile), as well as video blogs of her interviews with the said players.

“And what did Charles say?” was all Emma could come up with, lifting her hand to tug her hair, only to find it gone as she did this split decision of cutting her long, wavy hair into a pixie cut, making her look like a gorgeous tomboy. You can now see her face, her round brown eyes framed with the longest lashes ever, something that Charles loved to pick on whenever he sees her. She was now more open rather than her previous mysterious, more readable but still not quite, more… not Emma.

Larissa sighed heavily, once more and again. Her order arrived and she stared at the muffin wearily. It didn’t look delectable as it did the previous times she ordered it. “What did you think he said? Of course he told me not to do this, and that we can still make it work—” She looked up, cutting herself in midsentence when she saw Emma glaring at her.

“Em, please don’t make me the bad guy here,” she said in frustration. “I am not asking you to take sides because I know you’d take Charles, but… it isn’t working for me anymore. Our relationship has run its course, and I am not into forcing it for another five years or so before I put an end to it.”

“But Charles—” Emma began to say, but Florence cut her off.

“But Charles is a mature man, who can pretty much cope with the harsh realities of a failed relationship,” Florence interjected, getting tired of the Emma-loves-Charles-but-Charles-loves-Larissa drama. She shook her head at one of her best girl buds, who seem to be putting the welfare of the guy she loves over her best friend whom she has known for her entire life. “Give Larissa a break, Em—you knew she hasn’t been happy in a very long time but she’s been hanging around just coz Charles is a great guy—”

“A great guy that she’s letting go.”

Florence groaned—she knew Emma was a lost and hopeless cause when it concerns Charles.

Larissa, on the other hand, reached out and touched Emma’s hand, her finger grazing Emma’s scrabble tile ring. Larissa couldn’t blame Emma for being smitten over her (ex)boyfriend—Emma met Charles first, but the spark wasn’t there—or at least it wasn’t in Charles’s case. But Charles has always been sweet and thoughtful with Emma, even considering Emma his best friend. Emma settled for that—she would settle for anything Charles would give her. The ring, bronze with a scrabble tile ‘E,’ was from Charles, who had it custom-made for her on her birthday.

“Em, he’ll get over it. He’s smart, handsome, attractive, and he’s got you to get him through this,” Larissa said, trying to be patient. Emma scoffed. Did she just break up with him because she knew Charles would run to her for comfort? “I just don’t want to be in this anymore. It’s not fun anymore. I’m not happy. I don’t see it lasting much longer. The fire’s gone. The love is snuffed out.”

Emma lowered her head and started to tinker with her phone, reading her tweets, blocking out Larissa and her words. She scrolled through her Twitter timeline—Twitter handle @EmmaEmme—finally spotting a couple of Charles’s tweets (Twitter handle @charliereyes11). One tweet—an uncharacteristic, un-Charles, very emo tweet—was sent a couple of hours ago: Sometimes, love just ain’t enough to make someone stay. And she saw Charles sent her a direct message with only one word: Emmie.

Only Charles calls her that, and she felt coldness run through her body, urgency flowing along with it.

“Em,” Larissa called her, and she repeated Emma’s name thrice before her best friend finally looked up again. She saw the worried look on Emma’s face, and some sort of intuition—the years of knowing Emma ever since they were babies—flooded inside Larissa’s being. She knew just by looking at Emma’s face.

“Charles?” she guessed quietly, and Emma nodded, still not speaking, stashing her phone inside her bag.

Charles could wait, Emma decided, a bit uncertain.

Emma tried to keep a poker face when she faced Larissa. “Em, Charles is a great guy, and I can see that. I know that—otherwise, I wouldn’t be with him for that long,” she added, rolling her eyes, having her fair share of bad boys. “But I don’t love him anymore. And I don’t want to trap him in this nonsense when he can be with someone better. Someone who sees him. Someone who knows him better than I do. Someone who loves him.”

Emma stopped herself from lashing out at Larissa. She knew her best friend was talking about her, but did she breakup with Charles because she knew Charles can find comfort—and possibly a rebound—in Emma? She didn’t want to think of Larissa that way, but her phrasing just sucks. She couldn’t tell her she didn’t want to play second fiddle to Larissa, who had always been the most beautiful of the three. Larissa, whom Charles had loved more than anyone and anything.

She didn’t want to pick up the pieces that Larissa was throwing away—not that this was the first time it would happen—but this was Charles.

Emma wanted to be with Charles but not in this way.

Emma took a deep breath, shaking those angry, evil thoughts away from her head, trying to find another course of action, to divert the topic away from Charles. Larissa looks okay—someone always leaves a breakup unscathed—so Emma knew it was Charles who needed saving.

But she couldn’t talk about Charles. Not now, when her best friend has just broken up with him. Not now, when she found someone who wouldn’t stick her in the dreaded ‘friends zone’ for so long.

“Gideon asked me out,” was the first thing that came out of Emma’s mouth.

Both of her best friend’s reactions were priceless—Larissa’s mouth dropped open while Florence squealed.

Stay

Holding on to you--
the one thing that's true,
the one thing that's real
and not some random fantasy.
Not some bullshit pseudo-relationship
formed in my head,
not a fling that's over in a jiffy
and not some fangirl hopelessness.

You are the truth--
with holding hands
and fleeting kisses
and sweet whispers
and I love you's
and walks in the park
and sunrise and sunset
and moon and stars
and mysterious smiles
and happy and sad tears
and stuffed bears and bracelets
and necklaces
and secrets
and petnames that don't mean
anything to anyone but us.

Slipping away--
You and not me--
a thousand times over.
Excuses and reasons
all blur into one mess
in my head
but they all screamed the same thing:
you are slowly leaving
each and every time,
and taking a piece of me,
each bigger than the last.
And I would just let you
until there's nothing left of me. 

Tired.
I am tired of you
leaving me over and over.
Tired of waiting for you
to come back
and take me once again.
The last time
hurt way more than
the others.
I want you. I need you.
I love you
with a love that's there
and a love that isn't.
But I need to know
if you're staying for good
or if you're leaving for real.
Are you staying
or going?
Are you leaving
and never coming back?

The door's shut,
deadbolt locked in.
I threw the keys away.
Either you're in this with me
or nothing at all.
Because I'm tired
of waiting
and loving
and waiting
and loving,
and waiting,
and loving,
and waiting
and loving
a ghost of a man
who I used to believe
truly loved me too.

Kessica Tanglao, 24Aug2011
Written on Memo on Blackberry