my favorite part of that ridiculous pudding shirt video is ryan running into frame, trevor somehow knowing what he’s doing, then ryan just tossing a ping pong ball onto trevor’s pudding-covered chest where it just lands and sticks, and just running out of frame, his job done
you may be an accident, you may have rot in your past and nightmares behind your eyelids, but you are not a mistake--you are not goods--you are not game to be hunted for sport
you’ve a right to this earth. life is your birthright.
--it seems i wrote this on a piece of tissue paper long ago, and it survived long enough for me to find it today during one of my low points. sometimes the best person who can save you is yourself.
do you ever miss just writing for the pure enjoyment of creating a story instead of worrying about ten million things you want to get perfect in your writing but won’t perfect right away cause you’re only human
happy birthday my king @disgruntledstirfrynoodles--please send him birthday wishes!!! just please don’t give him too much alcohol for his twentyfirst, hehe.
mahal--thank you for being here. thank you for not giving up and staying. and i don’t just mean our relationship. you’ve been through so much, more than i’ll ever know, but you haven’t given up no matter how crushing it gets. i’m so proud of you. i’m so proud that i’m yours. i love you.
when i turned ten i’d just recently learned the word “decade”, so on my birthday i was running around telling everyone i was a decade old. it made me feel older, the important and smart kinda older.
today i’m another decade older, and it’s not so bad actually.
had to go to work, because i figured a good gift to give myself is some money lol. as i went into work i reminded myself that the customers aren’t gonna know it’s my birthday, and they sure as hell aren’t gonna care. really helped steel myself though i still started freaking out when i ended up fumbling over the very first call i got for the day
i brought some lumpiang shanghai and turon to the office bc i wanted a little bit of a feast, and i wore the dress i’ve been wearing on my birthday for a few years now. i never really told anyone at work when my birthday was exactly, just that it was this month, so when my boss was like “what’s all this food for, you’re dressed up all nice today!” i kind of half-explained lol
i told one of the guys it was my birthday, he immediately told my boss, who immediately yelled “ey, happy birthday!” in that classic loud new jersey/new york voice lol. he also proceeded to announce the event on the intercom and i was deadly afraid he’d start singing at that same volume asldjflsdkfd
but yes the food was a hit; our manager loves lumpia which is part of the reason i got them, and he was out for part of the morning so one of the guys called him up and was like “listen get here asap.” he called me his hero when he came in lol. there’s another filipino in the office and she really liked the food too which made me suuuper happy. there was literally nothing left for me to take home!
and when i did get home my sister and my moms had apparently made me birthday cupcakes ; A ; they were so well done i thought they were from a bakery!! the frosting was so pretty and it tasted soo good, the icing was really thick though so i couldn’t have more than a couple. i’ll post pictures of them tomorrow!!
my kuya miles called me to say happy birthday. plin and sam both messaged me in the morning and reading their greetings made me cry in my cubicle TTnTT and my family greeted me too!! my cousins!!!! i know it was partly obligation but i miss them all so i was really happy seeing their messages.
immigration paperwork has let me look at my birth certificate a lot of times so i actually remember what time i was born, which was 9:50-something pm. so i’m 20 years, two hours old, give or take. it’s really interesting to think about.
there have been. a lot of times when being alive has felt really. i don’t know. stifling, cramped, scarily uncontrollable. but when i try to think about living someone else’s life, or even just my current life ending, i get really resistant to the idea. no matter how uncomfortable or tired or scared i get in this life, i really like it. i like being me, the way i am right now, the amalgamation of all these choices and experiences. i like the way i see things, i like the way i feel things. i like that i met these beautiful people in this life and i like that i can give them this love only i can dream of, that only i can give. not that other people’s love isn’t as good--everyone loves in a different, special way. i like the way i love. i like being alive and holding that love everyday, whether i remember it or not.
so i just got back from watching wonder woman. i’ve cried a lot. my life was changed in the span of a couple hours. i had to write something.
to those who have not seen the movie yet, there will be spoilers, so read on with caution.
gal gadot’s wonder woman and i are not that similar at first glance. diana is a statuesque demigoddess who translates sumerian like it’s no big deal and lifts tons of metal without breaking a sweat. i’m barely bilingual, and after walking a couple blocks i just want to fall into bed and sleep for a year. but diana and i are cut from the same cloth where it matters most.
diana’s innocent conviction, her heedless charging into the “real” world, her indignant reaction when people don’t act the way she expects them to, because she expects them to be better--that’s exactly how i remember being, before that “real” world pushed and folded me into silence and wary resignation. whenever diana demanded of the generals, of her mother, of steve, “how could you say that? how could you let this happen?” she was voicing aloud what i’ve been asking everyone, and myself, all this time, deep down.
people always talk about how heroic characters do what we’ve always wanted to do deep down, but they’ve usually framed it as slaying the dragon, beating the bad guy. i never doubted that sentiment, but somehow i never related to it--until now. diana chafes against dressing conventionally, refuses to be silent in a room full of generals and asserts her opinion, and wants to go immediately to the front where she believes with all her heart she must be. steve can only keep her from causing a debacle by convincing her that by playing along just a little bit, just for now, they can both achieve their goals. and she does play along, just barely.
but they get to the front. she still doesn’t understand the war completely, but she sees its toll. and for her that’s all that matters. she refuses to resign herself to the “world of man” and its resignation, its complacency, its overcomplication, its dithering and its excuses--the world we’ve been told, and have had to accept, as the "real” one that we have to “grow up” and face. right and wrong isn’t always murky water; we’ve just made it that way. diana could see what was right, clear as day, and she made her choice.
the moment she turned around, her hair loose, antiope’s crown on her brow, armor bared, and stepped into no man’s land because she wanted to stop people from being killed, i cried. so many times i wanted to do that, say no and stand up for myself and other people. so many times i was humiliated for trying, or convinced by grownup logic. so this is what you mean when you say heroes do what we always want to do.
we know the whole time that diana’s notion of the war and its cause is inaccurate, her view of the world too black and white, but her brazen confidence that she knows what has to be done incites pity more than scorn, and what drives her is pure altruism, portrayed more convincingly than almost anything else i’ve seen in a long time. to quote dickens, her good intentions were “bent and broken,” but “into a better shape.” the broad strokes of her story are not dissimilar to most others about heroes and coming of age, but what makes it so remarkable is how real it is. most people now, when they hear “realistic,” they think of gritty tales along the lines of homo homini lupus, waxing poetic about how cruel mankind is but glamorizing that cruelty anyway. wonder woman refuses to do the latter.
it’s like the saying goes, you didn’t know you needed it till you got it. this movie was it for me. i laugh in the face of people who don’t like it, or are reluctant to, because it’s female-led, female-oriented, because diana says men are essential to procreation, but unnecessary for pleasure. the movie was almost entirely devoid of the male gaze, critical of the ways sexist men make themselves dominant--when a group of soldiers holler at diana she’s unperturbed, but steve quickly steers her away from them. diana clearly comes to love and care about steve at a level that’s painfully relatable, but he only touches her when she lets him. ludendorff caressing isabel maru’s cheek and taking diana into a dance, forcing them into close proximity with him, are actions portrayed as discomforting and disgusting, as they should be. diana and the rest of the amazons are all tall, beautiful, dressed in amazing fantasy armor--easy on the eye, sure, but the focus isn’t completely on their bodies. when diana fights she makes faces--unattractive ones, because those are the kinds of faces one makes when one fights! twice she takes off normal clothes to expose her armor, and neither instance is treated as an eye candy shot. diana more than holds her own in battle and is highly intelligent, but she can be unsure and insecure. that’s a familiar premise, but this time those faults are believable, not just a way in for the hero to be her emotional crutch, and for the male audience in turn to fantasize that she’ll be vulnerable to them.
and any excuses that the men aren’t treated fairly in the film don’t hold water. steve trevor is not just as a foil to diana but an interesting character his own right. the film reverses several cliche scenarios with him--he’s the one caught naked, the one who makes a sacrifice that aggrieves the hero(ine) but reaffirms her convictions--without sacrificing his character. chief is not just a stereotypical native american, sameer gives diana some perspective on people’s complexities, and charlie--oh charlie, how i loved him over the course of the movie--was not as tough as initially claimed, but it wasn’t portrayed as cause for ridicule. i loved that he sang. they were introduced as an almost typical ensemble, but they had moments of vulnerability, and you understood why they did what they did, chief especially. and when they decide to be better as well, to keep going with steve and diana even though steve couldn’t pay them, you can’t help but feel pride and relief. they remind me of the men i do know, complicated and nothing like the ideal masculine i see everywhere else, hurting in ways they can’t always express in the open, but who deserve chances to be happy, to sing, and who do their best to be good people when push comes to shove.
these are hard times. people always say it, no matter what the time is, but i guess it’s because it’s always true. it’s so easy to slip into grimdark pessimism and just stay there. saying you believe in love sounds cheesy now, something a storybook hero says. but love--selfless, boundless love; the kind you feel when you see a puppy or a sunset; the kind you feel when your best friend laughs or a stranger thanks you in earnest for helping them; the kind that compels people to assemble in the streets to demand justice for themselves and others; the kind that makes you swallow your pride and apologize, and change; the kind that helps you forgive. that kind of love. how can you go wrong by believing in that?
when the movie ended and the lights came on, i went to the bathroom and wiped my face. as i washed my hands i looked in the mirror, at my thick dark hair, falling in curls. diana, i thought. i kinda look like wonder woman. it was a funny thought, but it made me giddy. i’m kinda like wonder woman. i can be like wonder woman. i might be too old to idolize fictional characters, but seeing someone like diana--unapologetically feminine, loving, honest, the way i always wanted to be deep down--well, it’s hard not to hope i can still be all of that. and what a relief, that girls now and in the future know they can be like that.
