durr...

summer's here. time to bring out the chicane CDs.

you can tell cuz you need to peel your ass off your leatherette chair before taking a bath for the third time before sunset (and you know it won't be the last).

but summer brings about a certain giddiness, which i think is unique, because everyone gets excited in the summer for different reasons, but ultimately, we're all lackadaisically happy.

pre-adolescent kids get excited because it's time to bike and play XBox the whole day, and nights of sleeping really late.

adolescent to college kids will leave for whatever beach jaunts their budgets can take them. it's nights of libidos running free (well, mostly free), trying out new things (aaiiiight!!!), and just basically exemplifying the adage 'you only live once.'

twenty- and thirtysomethings (please, can we not use the term yuppies... ugh) look forward to the lighter rush hours and the chance to shun college kids at the beach (it's funny- it just goes like this on and on, year after year...)

and for those older than that, you must either be enjoying the company of your young relatives to wherever you're taking them, or looking forward to that trip to Europe before summer's over.

in a subtle, sneakily evil way, summer to me is a bit like christmas, or the new year. because i know that a lot of people are either lazing around, what with school being done, or taking their leaves (so that you can go out with the kids), so i think it's a chance for people to keep abreast (wooh! janet jackson references!) of what's happening with everyone else, and not in the harried need-to-go-there're-still-people-on-my-list way, but of really conversing, like meeting up on a weeknight (and you can afford to take leave the next day) and just... catching up (which happens to be a term between me and someone i had a thing with once- more on that later.)

when summer's over, it's just like that train station scene in "Fisher King" where Robin Williams imagines he and Amanda Plummer are waltzing with everyone else, and then it just melts (the perfect word) back into reality. We sometimes just find a lot of things to pine for as soon as summer ends, but maybe by finding time to see and meet up with others, finding out how things are doing, and seeing how much we've changed, then i think that maybe we can end summer not just with better tans and random hedonistic experiences (both of which peel off with time), but with a bit of having looked back and pulled the past forward to the present, in the hopes that the people you've shared them with will still be those we share our joys, sorrows, and triumphs with in the future.


speaking of having had things once... or more

i was in a messaging conversation with an old friend who i happened to go for, and this person ended one of the exchanges with, 'hey, let's meet up sometime, if it's okay with *insert current significant other's name*'

i mean, what is it with people and current significant others? the reason i ask is because i have heard that line from the only other person whom i tried to go for (just for the record, my significant other is actually the only person among the these people who didn't turn me down. hmmm...) and it makes me wonder if it's supposed to say something about me, or my significant other, or is it about the experiences these other peeps have had? what is especially perplexing to me is that it seems they haven't considered that nothing happened, anyway. the fact that they turned me down says enough about the way we all look at each other, especially now, years after the fact. and isn't it supposed to be okay with my significant other? (for the record, again, it is. i don't see why not, like i said.) i do hope to get in touch with these people again soon. i think there'd be a lot of 'catching up' to do.

it is summer, after all.


by the way,

don't i use 'but' a lot? i wonder why...

really

My assertion: That the upper- and middle-class society in this country is not actually male-oriented, but female-oriented.

When this occurred to me: While reading (nay, looking) through FHM's 2nd annual Girls of FHM.

It may be a bit strange to have realized it then, but, thinking about it, i still feel it makes sense.

I think that the general perception here is that, as a whole, women are the submissive sex. of course, this is a result of generations upon generations of a global idea that women were meant to serve men. unfortunately, here, we have not caught on to the other global wave that has eradicated the concept of women as second-class citizens. but, in our own fashion, we have started to make a change, albeit clandestinely.

where does FHM come in? our local FHM makes it seem that any woman willing to show tits and ass will gain notoriety. and if she happens to be, in any way, facially attractive to the majority, she becomes a 'goddess' (a favorite term, apparently). now, how does that make women more empowered, when it reduces them to objects of flesh?

because it is a manifestation (not to mention a stimulus itself) of the change in the way women here think. women now have more liberal views on what they wear, how they carry themselves, etc, which has increased the general confidence and swagger of the female sex. if they're comfortable wearing this, then to hell with what others think. fat soft-porn star wears a lot less and gets away with it, so why not?

here is when the social dynamics come in. men, in their lifelong quest to lay as many girls as possible, with the only faculties they use in this regard, mistakenly misinterpret this swagger as 'being sexually willing.' now, in some cases, this is the case- i'm not saying all women are angels- but a lot girls aren't into that. heck, some FHM girls might not actually be into that. they just like being themselves. if men get the wrong impression, that's not the girl's problem- the men won't get any, anyway, thinking THAT way.

so men, STILL thinking with their hanging apparatus, feel that EVENTUALLY women'll give in, but there must be a come-on before they do. they can't play hard-to-get forever. so, the men figure, they'd best do what women of our age also do- dress and act suggestively- i mean, if i'm turned on by seeing skin, i have to show skin myself... but wait! i can't just show my waif-like arms and bald head! i have to be PUMPED! i need horse-hair shampoo!

... and here comes the metrosexual revolution. our country should lay claim to metrosexuality- because men here made it hip before 'Queer Eye'. they made it cool even before F4. heck, they've made it NORMAL. men have become more vain than women just to attract them (or other men), enslaving themselves to personal appearance and physical fitness just to make sure they get to score in Centro on a Saturday night. A man cannot walk into a bar anymore without Fitness First abs and expect the same attention that a girl with a plunging v-neck and a short denim skirt would. (by the way, i'm no fashion guru, but aren't short denim skirts a bit 2001? well, the men like it anyway...)

and what about women then? well, do you choose to be ready for a long, hot night with a stud? go ahead. or choose to just pretend to be willing? ditto. it doesn't matter what you want for the night, or who you really are, be it conservative, naughty, anything in between, or a chameleon. just forget whatever insecurities you have with yourself, and exude an aura of confidence- that you know what you want. men will be lapping up your stilettos (Pradas not required) and making marionettes of themselves to try to get you. the best part of it is that after you select, you STILL run the show- you take the game as far as YOU want to go, not he (because even before the night has begun, you already know what he wants.)

so ladies, this is your time. don't get hyped by what the testosterone-laden FHM crowd of men want to believe. the balls (figuratively AND figuratively) are in your court. take them where you want them to.

and go have fun.