It dawned on me today that I haven’t been reading much lately. In fact and to be exact, I haven’t read a single book AT ALL since I moved in with my folks last March. Instead of beating myself up over this absolutely unforgivable disservice to my brain or coming up with a handful of excuses as to why I’ve devolved into some airhead who thinks Mitch Albom’s The Five Five People You Meet In Heaven is the apex of literature (for the record: I don’t), I decided to just grab Catherine Liu’s Oriental Girls Desire Romance (which I began reading months ago), curl up in bed, and devote the next couple of hours to reading.
Uh-oh. No coffee. More importantly, no cigarettes. It may seem silly to you— and this is the part of me I’d love to see led out behind the barn one night and shot— but I’ve been conditioned to only be able to work properly when I have a constant supply of caffeine and nicotine coursing through my, uh, veins (alcohol helps a whole lot, too, sometimes). Sure, reading non-fiction doesn’t really count as “work”, especially when there is no book review to be written afterwards; but reading requires brain activity and some level of reflection and rumination. Basically, what I’m trying to say is that I am even more stupid without my socially-accepted drugs.
Book in hand, I left my room and plopped down on the couch beside my mom. That proved to not be the brightest of ideas because as soon as I sat down and folded my legs beneath me, Pinoy Big Brother Teens came on and my mom told me to go online and vote for this dude.
My face, it went like this: -_-
Things that kept me from getting any actual reading done:
2. Pinoy Big Brother Teens and how the more I try to wrap my head around it, the more hopeless the general Filipino public seems to me.
3. Finding a place. Here’s the deal: I live ridiculously far from the city and three months of _this_ is really all I can take. The plan is for my older brother and I to get a place together near his school. I gave my mom our options: a 2-bedroom unit in Cubao, Anonas, Sikatuna Village, or Katipunan/Loyola Heights (I really really want to move back to my comfort zone).
Currently, I am going through the ads on Buy and Sell Philippines and Sulit.Com.Ph and while this isn’t exactly torture (I actually like e-hunting for apartments), I am quite the frustrated kitty. Is it truly possible to not be able to google a place/address? More importantly, do I really want to live in a street, area, or building that cannot be found on Wikimaps?
Sad kitty eats Oreo cookie now:
If by any chance you’re from North Carolina (huhlolz. But at least that‘s on Wikimaps *grumble*), check out NC health insurance.
Bartender, pour me a Helga. Dirty, shaken, and slightly Webered.
And so started my ascent into a Helgaholic addiction with no hope for a cure. Who’d have thunk that deceptive mix of moonshine and honey could knock me off my feet in 300 words or less? It kinda sneaks up on you while you’re trying to figure out what the aftertaste is: Subtly sweet, slightly bitter, and burns the back of your throat a bit before the heady essence kicks in and takes you for the ride of your life.
Somehow that set the tone for our unlikely relationship, one that started with the statement, I’m a fan*. Me attempting to figure out what makes the Helga tick (perhaps in the hopes that knowing my enemy will help me conquer it), and her, effortlessly eluding definition, every step of the way. Before long I’d fallen into the Helga Trap.
How does one even classify such a creature?
The Good:
Helga writes with an unapologetic style that, for lack of a better superlative, can only be called brilliant. Her ability to find lulz in the most mundane things coupled with her wondrous command of the English language (injected with her own patented brand of self deprecating humor) have given a great many of us the kind of hard to suppress, physically manifesting mirth that can embarrass you had you been perusing her blog at Starbucks. Alone. (No, that wasn’t me, really.) It was first that innate sense of literary comedic timing that sucked me in, and because Helga is somehow able to port that perfectly into real life outside of the inurnets, has kept me captivated till now. Every hour spent with her is like a minute reading her entries, at times immersing you in self analysis as her sarcasm bites and takes hold, or just making you laugh out loud at the funnies she can seemingly conjure out of thin air.
The Bad:
What you see on here is the real deal, only I have it better than almost anybody else – I can kiss it. I’ve been trapped since the day she unabashedly held me over the railings of her lifestyle and with an evil grin promptly let me go, to see if I would sink or swim. And swim I did; an awkward dog paddle at first while I acclimated my stomach (and alcohol tolerance) to the questionable fare of her late night carousing with the spirits, to the more confident (yet still shaky) breaststroke that surprised even her closest friends who considered me a lost cause. Just to confess to you now Duckie, I cheated; it was mostly ice and mostly Coke. And I only did that to be sober enough to help you find religion on your bed.
The Baddest:
She’s not without her contradictions. When she frolics with the demon T’Anduay and his erstwhile sidekick, K’ok, (jointly known as the sneaky inebriator duo, Rumcola), no doubt Helga rawks out with the best of them. I’ve also seen her unknowingly becoming the center of attention in a bar full of women trying to be just that; a beautifully giddy, funny, and incredibly indifferent foil to their vain attempts. But what truly sets her apart by a wide margin (besides lips surely drawn from one of Michelangelo’s wet dreams), are the random bursts of brilliance that rival her crappy cam’s pathetic excuse for a flash. The Helga I’ve come to know brings out the best in others, deftly extracting wit out of alcohol hazes and ingeniously infusing a routine night out with memories worth remembering. What’s even crazier is, she doesn’t even try.
And as it goes, she’s brought out the best in me. I’ve come to find that our humor runs along the same twisted path, ranging from the pathetically corny to the sweetest of inside jokes, which I feel truly privileged to be sharing with the likes of one such as Helga. (insert corny music here) I am the greatest when I’m with her; she’s the red and blue glasses that makes my 3-D movie look right. Life just gets more real when viewed through her eyes. I’m still a fan, and always will be. I guess I have it good. =)
It’s a big day for you baby, 23 for 23. Sounds perfect to me.
Happy birthday, Duckie. I love you.
So this is my birthday tribute to Helga – Thegreatest
*I started oddly enough, as a fan. I guess that puts me square in the ranks of the average internet romeo, hoping to write the perfect pickup line in attempts to elicit a response on Myspace or Fezbook, and hoping even harder not to get laughed at in the process.
And now that she’s 23, Helga needs to be serious about her savings accounts. Yes, she has two. Both are in a state of destitution.
As much as I enjoy slitting my wrists, slicking layer upon layer of eyeliner, crying, and emo-ing out to Hawthorne Heights’ Ohio Is For Lovers* when life gets shitty and oh-so-unbearable (like when my bangs aren’t as floppy as they were yesterday, causing only a fourth of my face to be covered or when I run out of things to be angry or sad about), sometimes, happy music is just what I need to get through these trying times. Truly, listening to songs about sunshine and rainbows and Hello Kitty and Miley Cyrus is the best way to cope when one is stricken with the *~emo feeling~*. These songs are called ~feel-good songs~ because they inspire us to be happy and not sad and not emo and generally make us want to be better people, better children, better lovers, better students, and better citizens.
CHACARRON MACARRON BY EL MUDO: NOT A FEEL-GOOD SONG.
Now because I am a simple people with a brain capable only of the simplest thoughts and simplest blog entries, I have here a list made up of my five ~feel-good songs~ that inspire me to be happy and not sad and not emo and generally make me want to be a better people, a better children, a better lovers, a better students, and a better citizens.
I’ve always regarded Natasha Bedingfield as “that Bedingfield girl? That gay dude’s sister? The one who sang that really gay song? Yeah, him. She’s the sister.” You could say I’m about four years late “loving” this song, and it’s all thanks to The Hills. It’s quite silly, actually, how my heart swells and soars everytime this song comes on. It’s also possible that this sort of reaction is actually brought upon by my love for The Hills and LA (loverrrr) and not the song itself.
Well, not really.
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten
Some three years ago, Sam called this the defining song of our generation. I felt bad not having the slightest clue who The Ataris were so I immediately downloaded the song and it has since been of my favoritest tracks of all time. It’s just so…defining of our generation! It brings to mind road trips and meadows and chasing after dragonflies and collapsing on the greenest grass and asking the dude next to you to hand you an ice cold beer while you doodle hearts on your Chucks as someone strums a guitar in the not-so-far distance. While you eat KFC chicken.
Not that I’ve ever done that. Except for the KFC part.
Here in this diary,
I write you visions of my summer.
It was the best I ever had.
There were choruses and sing-alongs,
and that unspoken feeling
of knowing that right now is all that matters.
This is a song I’ve loved since high school (along with the whole Dawson’s Creek vol I OST) and I always dreamed of having someone who’d make me feel like this song. But really, it takes me back to when I was a sad and ~deep~ teen with a superiority complex who thought herself above her peers simply because she listened to ~the good stuff~ as opposed to the cheesy prom music that they all went gaga for (Michael Johnson’s I’ll Always Love You is an example of cheesy prom music).
No, not really. But something like that.
I’m coming home to you
I’m alive I’m a mess
I can’t wait to get home to you
To get warm and undressed
…
So keep me in your bed all day
Nothing heals me like you do
Oh, shut up. You know you loved and played the heck out of this song three years ago (if you’re Filipino). It was and will always be one of my favorites, even though every Friendster Beauty (you know…those people who are only pretty on their Friendster profiles because they brighten the crap out of their pictures to hide all their ugly) out there probably knows the lyrics by heart and have once called themselves a “real, messy, beautiful, twisted sunshine”.
AN EXAMPLE OF A FRIENDSTER BEAUTY…EXCEPT SHE’S STILL UGLY.
THEREFORE, WE CALL THIS: FRIENDSTER FOTOSHOP FAIL.
Nothing compares to the good times
Feels like we’re floating, when the rest have to climb
You made me believe in love, and not the perfect kind
A real messy beautiful twisted sunshine
I hope these songs bring joy and laughter to your life the way they have brought joy and laughter to mine.
Other ~feel-good songs~ I am not ashamed to admit I love: Wake Up – Hilary Duff, L.O.V.E. – Ashlee Simpson, Stars Are Blind – Paris Hilton, Stickwitu – The Pussycat Dolls, and I Want You – Savage Garden.
“Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst” with generators.
*Yes, I totally googled “most emo songs”. I’ve never really heard of that song until a few minutes ago
Lover, on my last entry and how a bunch of you commented on how hot my dad is/was: one day, i would just like half the compliments from our daughter’s friends that your dad gets. Sheesh.
Judging by how hot my boyfriend is and how well he’s aged, I told him he’s likely to receive such comments. I doubt, though, that I’d take nicely to our daughter’s friends calling him a DILF (because I am possessive like that). This is, of course, assuming that our daughter would be a blogger at age 12 (god knows what she has to blog about, though, at that age) and I’d be the cool mom who reads her blog but isn’t cool enough to approve of 12-year olds knowing what DILF stands for.
Several times in the past, lover and I have talked about what our daughters would be like, going as far as mapping out their lives. We’d have two: one would be named Asia (after a certain feature of mine) and the other would be named Tonette (a name I do not approve of and she will, therefore, lead a very tragic life).
Our sample babies (Tonette is obviously the ugly one):
Asia will grow up to be an exotic dancer while Tonette will most likely end up living the high life (in dark alleyways, no less). Both will have— to quote their father— “nice lips, gorgeous eyes, nice eyebrows, and eating disorders” and will be “asking for non-fat milk” because “their mother will be singing lullabies about staying thin.” Playtime would consist of me teaching them to hop, meow, and quack.
(I hope none of you are taking this seriously.)
I always joke about how I’d probably end up married (or not even) with 3 kids all belonging to different fathers, but really, that’s just a defense mechanism of mine because most of the time, I fear that I’m going to end up like one of my mom’s sisters— she’s single, in her late 30s, and childless. That‘s a scary thought, especially for someone who sees motherhood (and the things that come with it in a perfect, domesticated world: a pet dog, a newspaper subscription, making breakfast for your family, apples in brown paper bags, ironing your husband’s work shirts, long afternoon’s doing the laundry, weekend tennis games etc etc) as normalcy. A scarier thought, though, is knowing that I could end up just like that and I’d be okay with it. It makes me wonder how I have come to want such a life. *insert HUHLOLZ here*
Anyway, I’m pretty sure that when lover and I have actual non-catbunny/bunnycat daughters, we’d make sure to either keep them out of, or in drug rehab.
I’ve been in a bit of a funky mood lately and as much as I’d like to blame it on the dreary weather, I’d rather say it’s the lack of nicotine and human contact that’s got me feeling all Lindsay Lohan-ish after Wilmer dumped her. It doesn’t help that not smoking has got me orally-fixating; coupled with PMS cravings, it would be apt to say that my body is in biiiiiig twouble! I mean, look at my latest picture, taken two minutes ago:
=(
So I’ve decided it’s about time I do something and de-jelly my very rotund belly. The old me would’ve ran to the nearest drugstore or supermarket to stock up on laxatives, slimming tea, diet pills, and green tea (or if I was feeling lazy, run to my dealer for a few grams of somethin’-somethin’ in exchange of a blowjob), as the old me is all about quick fixes (and cheap thrills, like, smacking kids hard in the head). But no, the new me is past all that. The new me will strive hard to drop the pounds the healthy and legal way.
Or maybe I could just starve myself and hope to drop 5-10 pounds in water weight in two days. It’s tempting, really.
Today is Day 1 of my diet. I am happy to report that my dad has eaten all of my chocolate cupcakes, so that’s one less temptation. My plan is to eat healthy and perhaps, some exercise. I could take walks around our village but I get self-conscious when I’m on my own and my dad’s epic jogs are a bit too much for me to handle. So this has to make do:
Fitness magazine tips!
Wish me luck, please.
___ 23 for 23 is turning out to be an epic fail. It’ll be back and I’ll make up for the skipped parts.
Hi, I'm Helga Weber and welcome to my personal site. I'm 25 and in the process of learning how to make adventurous life choices. I dislike old people but I love grandma clothes. My goal in life is to build a ball pit right next to my bed. Currently searching for the perfect house coat. My lover is the greatest. Follow my blog with bloglovin. Email me at helga@helgaweber.com. More?
Hi, I'm Helga Weber and welcome to my personal site. I'm 25 and in the process of learning how to make adventurous life choices. I dislike old people but I love grandma clothes. My goal in life is to build a ball pit right next to my bed. Currently searching for the perfect house coat. My lover is the greatest. 