One Week Forward

I can’t wait until school starts next week.

I’ve been spending so much time alone the past few weeks, and it’s so fucking miserable. It’s the same thing every single weekday – I wake up early in the morning, drive myself to work, spend nine requisite hours in a mind-numbing desk job where my bosses think I’m a worthless dilettante, spend two or three hours overtime to prove them wrong, drive home, eat dinner, and flop on my bed exhausted. Wash. Rinse. Dry. Repeat cycle.

And because I suck so much at my job, I’ve extended my internship to Friday this week just to meet all my deadlines. Yup, I’ve no free time before school starts; no rest for the wicked, eh? Wish me luck. I sure need it. I haven’t had Lady Luck on my side for practically the whole year.

Weekends are practically the same. Sure, I’ve had my share of parties and drinking sessions during the early part of the summer, but now all my weekends are reduced to are: working on spreadsheets (yes, I’ve been forced to bring my work home now), reading books in bed, smoking while stargazing from my bedroom window, and writing alone in Starbucks over a cup of steaming tea.

It’s depressing, when I think about it. My social life, which is practically nothing to be proud of when I’m in Katipunan (being composed mostly of getting drunk or smoking up alone in my apartment, with the occasional impromptu drinking session thrown in twice or thrice a week), is virtually non-existent when I’m in Alabang. Sure, you can argue that it’s healthy to have some time alone to reflect and wind down – but fuck, this is just ridiculous. In the span of a year, I’ve been reduced from a satisfied guy with his whole life ahead of him, and who couldn’t ask for anything more, to an obese, insecure, solitary failure – who, despite his ever-quickening descent into melancholy, just can’t let go of the notion of something better happening to him. I don’t know if it’s still hope I’m feeling, though; all I know is that I want something better. I fucking deserve something better than what I’m going through now.

That’s why I just can’t wait until school starts next week.

At least in school I don’t have to be alone. I have friends – if you can call them that – who I can drink with, or more importantly, rant incoherently to when I’m drunk. I have work – which is nothing compared to real work in the corporate jungle, believe me – which makes me feel like I’m worth something. And well, while in school I have hours and hours of free time to read books in bed, to smoke while looking out of the apartment window, and to write stuff like this over steaming cups of tea.

* * *

Having finished two of Gregory Maguire’s books recently (Wicked and Mirror Mirror, if you have to know), I then turned my attention to the big screen.

I watched X-Men: The Last Stand last night with my two youngest siblings. It was okay. I then watched the Lost season two finale with a bowl of microwave popcorn and two Pop Tarts. That, on the other hand, was simply mind-provoking; I can’t wait for the next season. I couldn’t sit still after that, so I then watched the pilot episode of the first season of Grey’s Anatomy. And I just couldn’t stop watching until I had to force myself to my room after finishing the first two discs.

Now I’m thinking – I should’ve become a doctor instead. I mean, come on, I’ve been reading medical texts since I was four years old (my dad’s a physician), I’m extremely good at memorizing obscure facts, terms, and procedures, and I’ve always been fascinated with the natural sciences. And yes, I do thrive on adrenaline rushes like doctors in Grey’s Anatomy go through (but yeah, it’s just a TV series, I know, and it’s set in the States, we don’t have stuff like that here in the boondocks). And it sure helps that I’m extremely attracted to Meredith Grey’s character in the series too.

[EDIT 06.13.06: I just finished all nine episodes of Season 1 today. I need Season 2 or else I'm going to go insane. Really. It's all I'm living for now. I actually left work early just to rush home and watch G.A. What's next after I finish Season 2? I don't know. Probably Prison Break or The O.C. Yes, I need to get a life, I know. And can I just say, Ellen Pompeo's voice is so hot. God, I want a doctor for a girlfriend if she looks and talks like she does.]

I’m pathetic, I know, getting crushes on fictional personas. I’ve got the biggest crush on Kitty Pryde’s character (Shadowcat) in X-3 too. God, how sad can I get. Sometimes I think I watch too many films and read too many books. I guess I never really grew out of being the fat, nerdy kid I used to be back in Elementary, eh?

Then again, I hate my life (as if you haven’t noticed that already, right?) I can’t count how many times I’ve woken up in the morning wishing that my life as I knew it was just some big nightmare I had as some poor obese Filipino guy with nothing right going on for him, and wishing that it was now time to get up and go to school (as if it were my first day of college and hadn’t screwed everything up yet, isn’t that grand?) and work for my bright, bright future.

But no, I’m stuck in this body, in this life. Fiction, films – they help me escape from the reality I’m in; they help me imagine that I’m someone else or somewhere else.

And yet, there are only so many books I can read, so many pirated DVDs I can watch, and sooner or later I have to face up to the real world again. I’m so tired of running away.

I’m just so tired. I'm too old for angst.