Posts tagged friends

Sometimes, it can’t hurt to let loose of your inner child and just be the playful, mischievous little devil you used to be. I just came from a children’s party which was attended by full-grown working professionals: us. Every man, woman and inner child from our department who RSVPed affirmative to the invitations sent out a week before was present. The party was essentially a joint birthday and sendoff celebration. Five of us turned a year older this month while one member was assigned to work at an overseas affiliate company for a year. The party was held at McDonald’s. It was a welcome change of environment as we came to the venue right after another long, routine-filled eight hours in the office. As expected from a kiddie party, there were balloons floating above the room like neon sentries, party hats featuring colorful cartoon characters and loot bags waiting on a table to be given out as parlor game prizes. Yes, there were parlor games, of course. Although they were of the cheap thrills and fast rides variety, the consensus among us kids at heart was that, quite simply, they were loads of fun. But, decidedly, not nearly as fun as when a special guest showed up right after we finished eating our Chicken McDo and McSpaghetti meals. We wreaked havoc while eagerly waiting for the guest’s arrival. One of us had a chair above his head. Another grabbed the yellow Caution: Wet Floor sign and waved it around carelessly. We were hoping, wishing that it would be him. The suspense was killing us. It was a riot. Then, the collective excitement soared to a climax as, finally, he appeared. It really was him. In the flesh, purple fur and all, he was the one, the only, Grimace. And we went absolutely gaga over him. Whatever he was supposed to be, whoever was underneath that costume, no matter how repulsive the smell of his fur was, we didn’t care. We were having the time of our lives with this most lovable of all fast-food chain mascots. We were letting the inner child in each of us break free, letting it go crazy and take pictures with him. We didn’t care. We were smiling and laughing. We were smiling and laughing with no less than Grimace himself. And that’s all that mattered tonight. That is, until we realized that upon waking up tomorrow, we’d all be our usual grown-up and serious-minded selves again. Now ain’t that just something to grimace about?

Sometimes, it can’t hurt to let loose of your inner child and just be the playful, mischievous little devil you used to be.

I just came from a children’s party which was attended by full-grown working professionals: us. Every man, woman and inner child from our department who RSVPed affirmative to the invitations sent out a week before was present. The party was essentially a joint birthday and sendoff celebration. Five of us turned a year older this month while one member was assigned to work at an overseas affiliate company for a year. The party was held at McDonald’s.

It was a welcome change of environment as we came to the venue right after another long, routine-filled eight hours in the office. As expected from a kiddie party, there were balloons floating above the room like neon sentries, party hats featuring colorful cartoon characters and loot bags waiting on a table to be given out as parlor game prizes. Yes, there were parlor games, of course. Although they were of the cheap thrills and fast rides variety, the consensus among us kids at heart was that, quite simply, they were loads of fun. But, decidedly, not nearly as fun as when a special guest showed up right after we finished eating our Chicken McDo and McSpaghetti meals.

We wreaked havoc while eagerly waiting for the guest’s arrival. One of us had a chair above his head. Another grabbed the yellow Caution: Wet Floor sign and waved it around carelessly. We were hoping, wishing that it would be him. The suspense was killing us. It was a riot. Then, the collective excitement soared to a climax as, finally, he appeared. It really was him. In the flesh, purple fur and all, he was the one, the only, Grimace. And we went absolutely gaga over him.

Whatever he was supposed to be, whoever was underneath that costume, no matter how repulsive the smell of his fur was, we didn’t care. We were having the time of our lives with this most lovable of all fast-food chain mascots. We were letting the inner child in each of us break free, letting it go crazy and take pictures with him. We didn’t care. We were smiling and laughing. We were smiling and laughing with no less than Grimace himself. And that’s all that mattered tonight. That is, until we realized that upon waking up tomorrow, we’d all be our usual grown-up and serious-minded selves again. Now ain’t that just something to grimace about?

Bulaga!

Twelve hours of sleep was just what I needed. Normally when I’d sleep that long I’d wake up with a terrible throbbing headache. But last night I was trying to get rid of something exactly like it, another seriously bad episode of migraine, so twelve hours was what I was gunning for as I lay in bed and tried to back-read posts on my Tumblr dashboard on Hedwig (yep, that’s the name of my iPhone). Thankfully, half-a-day’s worth was what I got.

Yesterday I only had four hours of sleep. I was chatting via email with Zandra so I didn’t go to bed until three in the morning. (Or was I chatting with her because I couldn’t get to sleep?) Then I had to wake up really early to get ready for another one of those excursions I and my friends decided on pure impulse. One of us was recently hired to work behind the longest-running noontime show on Philippine television and one of us came up a couple of weeks ago with the inspired idea of a number of us watching the show live.

Boom. Like exploding confetti, there we were at 10 am yesterday, seven calm, cool and collected young professionals, settled into the third row, among a sea of mostly feverishly excited and fanatic spectators watching song and dance rehearsals and absorbing each and every word of the flamboyant floor directors like sponges. Then, at around 2:30 pm, a bunch of laughs, close to a million pesos worth of prizes and countless lip-syncing stars later, bulaga! Migraine struck.

So at the end of yesterday, I was almost totally incapacitated by headache. But I was hopeful. I was hopeful that with twelve hours of sleep on the way the neuropathic pain would soon be gone. And I was even glad. Glad that even though I didn’t get the chance to win P10,000 by answering an extremely, criminally easy question, at least I got to learn the steps to Wonder Girls’ Nobody. Clap, clap!

At half past ten this morning, I was nudged to waking life by Willson, my roommate and one of my college best friends. (No, he’s not a volleyball, although I wouldn’t mind if he were.) Already hungry, he asked if I wanted to join him for brunch. I grunted in agreement. Ok, I thought, let me just wrap up the dream I was having before I was rudely interrupted by somebody’s prodding. It was of my feet stepping on a birthday cake. Or a wedding cake. I forgot. We both had galunggong and tortang talong. Then we trekked back home. He had plans for the day. I, on the other hand, did not. No doubt, today would turn out to be another one of those exceptionally lazy, slow Saturdays, when I would just lie in bed, staring at the ceiling and not even bothering to tweet (Imagine that!) about my inspired act of staring at the cobwebbed, hospital-white ceiling. Unless I think of something. I could read. I let go of my notebook and my HSDPA modem last Sunday and agreed to let the girlfriend have them for a month or so while I content myself with emailing and uploading my posts to Tumblr using only my iPhone exactly for that reason. That I might be free from the many distractions of the Internet on a full-size browser and I could finally focus on my long queue of books to read. So far, I had finished a couple of books. Then at a quarter past twelve today, I finished my first Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. After that I decided to put off my reading until tonight and thought of watching a movie or something on Willson’s laptop. I finally got to watch S05 E01 of Lost last night (yup, just last night) and I thought it was a bit weak and unusually unsatisfying for a season opener, so I was not really keen on watching another episode. I opted instead for a movie a downloaded copy of which was given to me yesterday by Wilson. Not Willson the roommate but Wilson the officemate. You could tell they’re two different persons ‘cause their names are spelled differently. The movie’s called The Hangover. The taskbar clock said 2:37 PM when Flo Rida started going Right Round and the end credits began rolling. Then I passed out. Or I might have just drifted off. Whatever. When I woke up an hour ago I could hear Coheed And Cambria’s Live At Starland Ballroom record booming through my earphones. And then I remembered watching what was easily the best, greatest and funniest display of surrealism I had ever seen. I want a Kit Kat.

At half past ten this morning, I was nudged to waking life by Willson, my roommate and one of my college best friends. (No, he’s not a volleyball, although I wouldn’t mind if he were.) Already hungry, he asked if I wanted to join him for brunch. I grunted in agreement. Ok, I thought, let me just wrap up the dream I was having before I was rudely interrupted by somebody’s prodding. It was of my feet stepping on a birthday cake. Or a wedding cake. I forgot.

We both had galunggong and tortang talong. Then we trekked back home. He had plans for the day. I, on the other hand, did not. No doubt, today would turn out to be another one of those exceptionally lazy, slow Saturdays, when I would just lie in bed, staring at the ceiling and not even bothering to tweet (Imagine that!) about my inspired act of staring at the cobwebbed, hospital-white ceiling. Unless I think of something.

I could read. I let go of my notebook and my HSDPA modem last Sunday and agreed to let the girlfriend have them for a month or so while I content myself with emailing and uploading my posts to Tumblr using only my iPhone exactly for that reason. That I might be free from the many distractions of the Internet on a full-size browser and I could finally focus on my long queue of books to read. So far, I had finished a couple of books. Then at a quarter past twelve today, I finished my first Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.

After that I decided to put off my reading until tonight and thought of watching a movie or something on Willson’s laptop. I finally got to watch S05 E01 of Lost last night (yup, just last night) and I thought it was a bit weak and unusually unsatisfying for a season opener, so I was not really keen on watching another episode. I opted instead for a movie a downloaded copy of which was given to me yesterday by Wilson. Not Willson the roommate but Wilson the officemate. You could tell they’re two different persons ‘cause their names are spelled differently. The movie’s called The Hangover. The taskbar clock said 2:37 PM when Flo Rida started going Right Round and the end credits began rolling.

Then I passed out. Or I might have just drifted off. Whatever. When I woke up an hour ago I could hear Coheed And Cambria’s Live At Starland Ballroom record booming through my earphones. And then I remembered watching what was easily the best, greatest and funniest display of surrealism I had ever seen.

I want a Kit Kat.