26 girlfriends I never had
DISCLAIMER: This is purely a work of fiction. Facts were harmed during the writing of this article.
Dance me through the panic ’til I’m gathered safely in… — LEONARD COHEN
What Nick Hornby calls the “Kingdom of the Single” in High Fidelity, I call Paradiso.
Ah, single non-blessedness: an all-day buffet of chips, crackers and beer; Crooked House, Funland and Scandinavian horror movie MKV-AVI marathons; playing guitar and bass (— or Dead Space on the X-box); reading all the Samuel Beckett and Chuck Palahniuk books in existence; and without anyone tapping you on the shoulder and complaining, “You’re not giving me attention!” Without anyone bugging you to see Jennifer Aniston play Jennifer Aniston onscreen. Without anyone asking you whether you like her new dress or whether you like her new dress. So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen to all that.
But, wait, once in a while you hear a lilting song by The Smiths (led by Morrissey the Pope of Mope) — like, say, Last Night I Dreamt Somebody Loved Me or the one with the line that goes, “If you’re so very entertaining then why are you on your own tonight?” — and you lap it all up, take a swig of SMB Light, then punch in Taxidermia or The Human Centipede. Cry me a river? Not happening.
What gets to me, though, is meeting someone who seemed as if she were the Universe’s gift to me: wrapped with shimmering light, tied with a metaphysical bow, and posted with a smile that lights up the entire void. I believe they call her The One. (Or one of The Ones.) Never mind the fact that the universe is nothing but a field of space dust, dead stars and black holes, and hovering there somewhere is the money you lent your drinking buddy — 500 bucks that you can never ever get back — floating there with all the pens and lighters you’ve lost in your life.
The universe doesn’t give a shit, I tell you. It is not a gift-sender, much less a shit-giver.
Don’t trust horoscopes either. One day, I read the monthly prediction for Sagittarians: “I envy you, Sagittarius… During this month, you will meet your true love.” Wow! I read how I was supposed to meet my Destiny during a trip abroad either for work or for a creative project. “Mars, the ruler of your true love sector, will send a beautiful message to Jupiter, your ruler, and good fortune planet.” Sounded magical and astronomical, yet seemed believable. I read on. Wait, the astrologer said not everything is rosy in that particular month. She warned me not to undergo — stay with me on this — “plastic surgery procedures,” but be prepared for a surprise gift from an admirer. “A diamond ring, perhaps.” Oooh, my panties suddenly unloosened.
Never mind the bollocks, here is the list of the girlfriends I never had and probably never will, but for all of five seconds (or five days) they were the bomb!
26. Fang-hee — She is a statuesque Singaporean who works in a museum. A stunner. But her name, her name! Something pungent about it. I imagine introducing her to my editor, Millet Mananquil: “Ma’am, this is Fang-hee.” Ah, “Fang-hee.” Bow! Her name rings like golden showers on the love parade.
25. The Intern — I met her a couple of years back. She’s beautiful, although she was a bit of a square, wearing long pantaloons and baby-blue blouse. She worked for this department headed by a woman who wore micro mini-skirts (dude, you could almost see spider-webs between those ancient legs) and acted like the evil stepmother in Cinderella. “Bring her back by 1 p.m.!” I lost touch with the intern. Three years later, Kenneth, an officemate, told me, “Did you see ______ in the latest issue of Playboy Philippines?” I got a copy and what I saw left me dumbfounded. The intern had become this hot, leggy, bosomy car-show model and condom endorser. A bombshell with the rack of Khan! I could almost hear that Eraserhead song, Magasin. Iba na ang iyong ngiti, iba na ang iyong tingin…
A couple of months later, Centerfold na siya.
24. Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) — A few years ago, I was invited by an electronics firm to use its brand new digital-SLR camera model for a photography exhibition. A beautiful management trainee was the coordinator for the event, and I swear this exchange really happened.
GIRL: Sir, for the ribbon-cutting ceremony, you need someone beside you for the photo-op. Your guest-of-honor, your muse… Do you have someone in mind?
ME (TRYING TO BE CUTE): I want Frida Kahlo, but I don’t think she’d make it.
GIRL: Ay, sayang naman! Ano raw reason? You want me to call her to convince her — baka pumayag?
ME: Tgoink!
23. The Model — This girl visited my studio to pose for a portrait. I started texting her from then on. Every time I asked her about uh, “us,” she would answer, “TGOINK!” Which I found out was more baffling and way crueler than the Smiley of Doom.
22. The Smiley of Doom Lady — I met this girl. I liked her right away. Started texting her. I adored her “shark story,” and how she’s named after an American beauty queen whose 15 minutes of TV fame involved being eaten by sharks on Baywatch. “Quite a grim end,” I muttered. “A foreshadowing of things to come,” she said with a laugh. I could live with that laugh forever. I finally got what David Pomeranz is babbling on about, or what floats Barry Manilow’s boat. Then, I had the gall to ask her out for a date. She replied with this: “:)” Ah, the Smiley of Doom. The Waka Waka of text messages. The John Cage of replies: I have nothing to say to you and I’m saying it. Not going to Hollywood. Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes… Or in this case, sharks.
21. The Frenchwoman — A really cool girl who hails from a town just outside of Paris and who was doing social work in the Philippines. Met her in the old Penguin in Malate. She’s back in the City of Lights. Like Dora Maar in autumn. Presumably.
20. Joni Mitchell — One of my dream girlfriends. I would’ve joined the ranks of Neil Young, Graham Nash, David Crosby, James Taylor, Jackson Browne… I would’ve written a song for Joni (although it wouldn’t be in the same ballpark as Nash’s sublime Our House or Young’s moving Only Love Can Break Your Heart), and Joni would’ve… nah, dim possibility. I just imagine Joni singing You Turn Me On, I’m a Radio to me.
19. The Girl With a Madcap Laugh — One drunken night with my poet friend Carlomar from UST, we found ourselves at the Pares eatery along España. A pretty girl started talking to me, admiring my long black hair. You should’ve seen how smug I looked. Then the girl laughed, a bloodcurdling horror-movie type of laughter. Carrie-ish. Then she sang. God, how she sang. Until the orderlies whisked her away.
18. Tina Yuzuki (aka Rio) or Ameri Ichinose — Japanese adult video (AV) stars so beautifully wholesome you could take them to Greenbelt.
17. The Would-Be Poet — Pretty, petite, poetic, but a bit unhinged. Threw a mineral water bottle at my head to test whether gravity still works. It did.
16. The Folksinger from Oz — I met this Australian-Filipino girl who was engaged to be married to her bandmate. She came back with me to my apartment after partaking of scandalous amounts of beer and frothy discussions about Fyodor Dostoevsky. She sees my un-tuned Yamaha acoustic in the corner of the room, tuned up and started strumming Paul McCartney’s Another Day. She sang, “Every day she takes a morning bath, she wets her hair…” Better than the original. If that were even possible. Then she wondrously sang, “Blackbird singing in the dead of night.” I nearly flew.
15. Hang the DJ — She flirted with me. I flirted back. Little did I know I was flirting with disaster.
14. Violet — She works in one of those karaoke joints in Malate. So beautifully wholesome you could take her to Greenbelt. Nearly did.
13. Gwendolyn Mati — The Filipina heroine in Tom Robbins’ Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas. Would help her search for the Meaning of Life and her friend’s pet monkey. Whichever comes first.
12. Julia Gulia — She’s an American missionary, a Peace Corps worker who’s helping indigent students in La Union. Went to one of my band’s gigs. A girl who’s fun and quirky. Like Steve Buscemi singing a Spandau Ballet song.
11. Guelcin — Met her in Vienna. We went to see a movie together in one of those old cinemas in the Austrian capital. Walked around in the frigid city: she, dragging her bicycle alongside her, pointing out old Nazi strongholds; I, thinking all of it as a celluloid moment. Big band jazz slithered from a boiler room somewhere. Subtitles almost sprouted underneath our breaths.
10. The Girl with the Pearl Earring — She’s the Mona Lisa of the North. That pretty vacant stare, the slightly open lips and that dangling pearly participle. She’s as baffling as the painting of — rumor has it — Leonardo in drag. Who was this mysterious chick? No one can say for sure. No matter. Facts are forgotten, mystery is forever.
9. The Artist with a Dragon Tattoo — I found out that this sculptor who came from an all-girl school is inked like a gangster. The Lisbeth Salander of the Philippines. Saw each other recently. She looked as pissed as one who has kicked a hornets’ nest.
8. Tinker Bell — She has this pixie-like beauty and yet she lamented the fact that men are “formalists,” going for good looks instead of what’s inside a woman’s heart. Would she go out with me? “No,” she snapped. “I want someone chiseled.”
7. Japanese Girl in Roppongi — I was drunk on sake and found myself in Japan’s entertainment district. Tried to purchase a Kirin beer in a bar, and out fluttered my yen bills from my wallet. What a mess I was: Bill Murray’s Bob Harris cum Richard E. Grant’s Whitnail without a clue. This Japanese girl came out of nowhere, sat with me, organized my money, managed my spending (not that I had a lot of yen to splurge with), and made sure I had enough taxi fare back to the hotel. We even played darts at the back room of the club. And as my cab left her on the curb, all I could see was a pair of larger-than-normal ears sticking out in the Tokyo cold. I almost heard the wind sing.
6. Malaysian Girl in Denmark — One time, while covering an event in Denmark, I was staying in a hotel in Struer. Nothing to do in that particular piece of geography. A Malaysian journalist told me she’d like to hang out in my hotel room after the group cocktails at the hotel’s dungeon-turned-restaurant. So, the drinking began.
Good wine.
I got back to the room and waited for the girl. Turned on the TV. Ocean’s 11 dubbed in Danish. Closed my eyes for five minutes. By the time I opened my eyes, it was already Ocean’s 13, and it was time to head for the airport. The girl angrily told me on the bus she had been buzzing for an eternity.
Bad wine.
5. The Lawyer — One look at me and this girl said, “Oh, I was expecting someone like Hayden Kho.” Drat! I left my bandanna at home.
4. Miss Fit — I got suckered by my lawyer-friend and his girlfriend into joining a trek to Mount Pinatubo. What the hell was I thinking? The great outdoors and I have never been buddies. A friend joined the climb: a petite woman who’s into sports and fitness. It began like Jurassic Park: everyone marveling at the beauty of rocks and things. It ended with me with hoisting the white flag of wuss-ness: cramping, dehydrated and tuckered-out; our midget-y Aeta guide suggesting to carry me uphill like a sack of potatoes. Miss Fit already uphill; it was all a walk in the park for her.
3. The Accountant — I thought I liked this girl. We went out once and she came in wearing this beige monstrosity of a dress. Then the violet light of the restaurant started clashing with her ensemble. Man, the colors! It was like a purgatorial acid trip. Made myself scarce since then.
2. Beatrice — A really cool girl. She has the words “L’amor che muove il sole e l’altre stele” (The love that moves the sun and other stars) — from Dante’s Inferno — tattooed on her body.
1. Racer G — This is an unfinished story. And I hope it never ends. Good times for a change? (As Morrissey sings in… well, you know the song.) But with the luck I’ve had, I doubt it. She’s my art student and never have I seen anyone so enthusiastic about drawing and painting and expressing herself. When she’s in my studio, I feel like Caravaggio and Bacon combined. Man, my graphite moves like Jagger. I think Chris Cornell wrote Sunshower for the likes of her. And when she’s not around — incommunicado, she hates texting — I feel like one of those dance marathon contestants in They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (Or Eeyore the miserablist donkey: Clouds… every silver lining has ‘em.) My studio misses her. I hope she comes back soon. Maybe the Universe is listening.
Or maybe not. Maybe it’s all just stardust, wormholes and dead matter, and that no one really gives a hoot.
Arrgh, what Nick Hornby calls the “Kingdom of the Single” in High Fidelity, I call... Purgatorio.
