bAcK of tHe reStAurAnt

I am apparently not the only one obsessing about this. I am happy to know that. Jev and Sandi have shed some wonderfully scathing insights about the present displacement of our wretched, writer souls.

Bah.

I could go on and on and on about how freaking cheated I feel, how claustrophobic, surly and generally just childishly pissed. I could list them, could probably even come up with a term paper without a little push but since I have class in twenty minutes, next time na lang. But here's something I've been thinking about for the past few days, ever since The Invasion.

I admit that we Creative Writing sophomores have this chasm, that, thankfully, is gently blurring. During freshman year, we'd avoid each other like tawas and BO and I, for one, usually hung out sa libe or sa Art Gallery when I (sob) had no friends. Haha. Later on, we shared more classes and talked more, blah blah blah, but The Great Divide was still there. And also, within those subgroups, there'd occasionally be an awkward silence, a darting of the eyes, the wish-she-won't-talk-to-me-cuz-I-have-nothing-smart-to-say thangs.

But the Painting Room, as mushy and smooshy as it might sound, did something to us that made it less awkward. Maybe it's the wide windows, that shock of sunlight. The bare walls, the industrial light fixtures. The rusty blue chairs and the wide lechon tables. Something, something, something. That was where we stayed, where we hid from the world and let a little loose because in there, we're not artsy-fartsy. We're highly hormonal teenagers looking for that perfect word or phrase, thinking of an enjambment or the validity of a truncated ending. Or talking about Fabio Cana-whatsis, ANTM and the evils our professors put us through.

How many times have I felt a little giddy that the tough guy over there teases the bespectacled poet over here? That the Philippine Borat laughs, not unkindly, at the antics of the socially-inept daydreamer? And, hello, Miss Not-So-Goth, hugging Miss Fashionista.

I'm afraid, really, that with the advent of this dreadful Invention, all that would waver and disappear once more.

"The fuck I care," some of you leather-hearted people might say.

Fine. We all have our reasons. This is one of mine. And I'm sure many in our mental lists coincide.

I just feel so bad cuz I know that the next time I would want to lie down spread-eagled on the wide tables, with an athlete studying Math near the curve of my hips, and a minor celebrity crossing out a cliche from her nonfiction inches from my hair, it won't happen. Ever.